Paint Hope nursing men brutish at heart (7)
I believe the answer is:
portray
'paint' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'hope nursing men brutish at heart' is the wordplay.
'hope' becomes 'pray'.
'nursing' is an insertion indicator.
'men' becomes 'or' (I've seen this in other clues).
'at heart' means to look at the middle letters.
The centre of 'brutish' is 't'.
'or'+'t'='ort'
'pray' going around 'ort' is 'PORTRAY'.
(Other definitions for portray that I've seen before include "Depict, present" , "Paint a picture" , "Play" , "Show" , "Describe in words or make a picture" .)