 Rathbone remained committed to diversity of inspiration rather than the formulaic approach to which concentration on a single character can lead.Rathbone never shared the cultural aridity of Leavis but he was a long-term presence in the novelist's background as a man who insisted on the power and importance of imaginative literature.In "A Last Resort", written around the time of Leavis's death and giving a brilliant portrayal of a Britain making itself ripe for Thatcherism, the ferocious Cambridge don makes a brief appearance in the intellectual life of a gifted English student, at a school not unlike the one Rathbone had taught in until a few years previously.