 By the time of his death The Times 's estimation of Walpole was no higher than , " he had a versatile imagination ; he could tell a workmanlike story in good workmanlike English ; and he was a man of immense industry , conscientious and painstaking " . The belittling tone of the obituary brought forth strong rebuttals from T S Eliot , Kenneth Clark and Priestley , among others . Within a few years of his death , Walpole was seen as old @-@ fashioned , and his works were largely neglected . In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Elizabeth Steele summed up : " His psychology was not deep enough for the polemicist , his diction not free enough for those returning from war , and his zest disastrous to a public wary of personal commitment " . In 2011 , Peter Hitchens , an admirer of Walpole , though not an uncritical one , wrote : 
