'And Bennett had now become a man of influence, largely through his "New Age" pieces. These articles, which he had begun in 1908, were widely read and admired . . . Ford Madox Ford, writing in 1918, described the readers of the "New Age" as "very numerous and from widely different classes . . . army officers . . . colonial governors . . . higher Civil Service officials, solicitors and members of the Bar. On the other hand, I have known it read regularly by board-school teachers, shop assistants, servants, artisans, and members of the poor generally. . . "'