of defiance, and half-amused, half-earnest contradiction, which made him
feared by loose reasoners and pretentious talkers, and even by quiet
easy-going friends, who unexpectedly found themselves led on blindfold,
with the utmost gravity, into traps and absurdities by the wiles of his
mischievous dialectic. This was the outside look of his relentless
earnestness. People who did not like him, or his views, and who,
perhaps, had winced under his irony, naturally put down his strong
language, which on occasion could certainly be unceremonious, to
flippancy and arrogance. But within the circle of those whom he trusted,
or of those who needed at anytime his help, another side disclosed
itself--a side of the most genuine warmth of affection, an awful reality
of devoutness, which it was his great and habitual effort to keep
hidden, a high simplicity of unworldliness and generosity, and in spite
of his daring mockeries of what was commonplace or showy, the most
sincere and deeply felt humility with himself. Dangerous as he was often
thought to be in conversation, one of the features of his character
which has impressed itself on the memory of one who knew him well, was
his "patient, winning considerateness in discussion, which, with other
qualities, endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart."[22] "It
is impossible," writes James Mozley in 1833, with a mixture of
amusement, speaking of the views about celibacy which were beginning to
be current, "to talk with Froude without committing one's self on such
subjects as these, so that by and by I expect the tergiversants will be
a considerable party." His letters, with their affectionately playful
addresses, δαιμόνιε, αἰνότατε, πέπον, _Carissime, "Sir, my dear friend"_
or "Ἀργείων ὄχ' ἄριστε, have you not been a spoon?" are full of the most
delightful ease and _verve_ and sympathy.

With a keen sense of English faults he was, as Cardinal Newman has said,
"an Englishman to the backbone"; and he was, further, a fastidious,