It was the age of English prose, reformist activism and a great intellectual ferment.

There are honourable exceptions, but this is hardly a time of intellectual ferment on the left.

It was the period of reformist activism and a great intellectual ferment.

Certainly Hunt's career owed a debt to Boston's intellectual ferment.

Bathurst was active in the intellectual ferment of the time, and very well connected.

This was a time of general intellectual ferment.

But the founders were also children of the great intellectual ferment known as the Enlightenment.

"There's great intellectual ferment and excitement in China about opening what was for so long a closed society," he said.

He lived in a moment of prosperity, relative political stability and intellectual ferment.

There is considerable intellectual ferment and excitement going on, they say, but sales are another story.