"You shall, Walter.  His exploits just consisted in this, that he imposed a great duty on himself as the one object of his life, and never let anything turn him from it, though obstacles met him in every direction such as nothing but the highest sense of duty could have nerved him to break through.  In the first place, he was of a weakly constitution, and might therefore well have excused himself from any unnecessary labours, and might have indulged in luxuries which might almost have been considered as necessaries to one whose appetite was not strong.  He could well have afforded such innocent indulgence, for he was a man of good fortune.  He was, however, remarkable for his abstemious habits; and having been led, when high sheriff of his county, to look into the state of Bedford jail, he was so shocked with the miserable condition of the prisoners and their being crowded together in a place filthy, damp, and ill-ventilated, that he set himself to make a tour of inspection of all the county jails in England, and soon completed it, and was examined before the House of Commons on the state of our prisons.  And here he had to suffer from that misrepresentation and misunderstanding which are too often the lot of those who have set themselves to some great and noble work.  It seemed so extraordinary to some members of Parliament that a gentleman, out of pure benevolence, should devote himself to such a painful work, and run the risk of contagion, that they could hardly understand it; and one gentleman asked `at whose expense he travelled,'--a question which Howard could scarcely answer without some indignant emotion.  You see, they could not appreciate such exalted heroism; and surely it required no little moral courage to persevere.  But he did persevere, and his work grew upon him.