"Figgis was fundamentally an unhappy man with a sad history. By nature large, greedy, desperately untidy, kind, lively, gregarious, spontaneous, he suffered through life from a heavy sense of sin and inadequacy. He was manifestly an unconscious homosexual, surrounded by young friends and pupils, uneasy with women unless they were much older and could be met on the intellectual level only. He entered the communal life in a search for the discipline which he believed he needed and could not find within himself. Like many a good College man before and since, he was shamelessly overworked and exploited by colleagues who were only too willing to leave the hard work to the willing horse... From his father to his superior, he was always attaching himself to simpler, stronger men who knew what was good for him; uncoordinated and diffuse in himself, he humbly accepted their guidance, and between them they destroyed him."