He has a thin voice, rather husky, and a recent accent.
In his most vigorous moments, when he is bubbling over with epigrams and
paradoxes, ridiculing the dull people who do not agree with him, and
laughing to scorn those who think they can maintain the Christian spirit
outside the mysterious traditions of the Catholic Church, or when he is
describing a recent church as a Blancmange Cathedral, and paraphrasing
an account, given I think by Mr. James Douglas, of the building of a
certain tabernacle in London--first it started out to be a Jam Factory,
then a happy idea occurred to the builder that he should turn it into a
Waterworks, then the foreman suggested that it would make an ideal
swimming-bath, but finally the architect came on the scene and said,
"Here, half a minute; there's an alteration wanted here; we're going to
make it into a church"--at such moments, Dr. Orchard might be likened to
a duo-decimo Chesterton--but a Chesterton of nonconformity. For he is a
little crude, a little recent; a mind without mellowness, a spirit
without beauty, a soul which feeds upon aggression.
He makes an amusing figure with a black cloak wrapped round his little
body in Byronic folds, and a soft hat of black plush on his head, a
Vesta Tilley quickness informing both his movements and his speech, as
he nips forward in conversation with a friend, the arms, invisible
beneath their cloak, pressed down in front of him, his body leaning
forward, his peering eyes dancing behind their spectacles.
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