a reverence which governed Froude's whole nature. In the wild and rough
heyday of reform, he was a Tory of the Tories. But when authority failed
him, from cowardice or stupidity or self-interest, he could not easily
pardon it; and he was ready to startle his friends by proclaiming
himself a Radical, prepared for the sake of the highest and greatest
interests to sacrifice all second-rate and subordinate ones.

When his friends, after his death, published selections from his
journals and letters, the world was shocked by what seemed his amazing
audacity both of thought and expression about a number of things and
persons which it was customary to regard as almost beyond the reach of
criticism. The _Remains_ lent themselves admirably to the controversial
process of culling choice phrases and sentences and epithets
surprisingly at variance with conventional and popular estimates.
Friends were pained and disturbed; foes naturally enough could not hold
in their overflowing exultation at such a disclosure of the spirit of
the movement. Sermons and newspapers drew attention to Froude's
extravagances with horror and disgust. The truth is that if the off-hand
sayings in conversation or letters of any man of force and wit and
strong convictions about the things and persons that he condemns, were
made known to the world, they would by themselves have much the same
look of flippancy, injustice, impertinence to those who disagreed in
opinion with the speaker or writer they are allowed for, or they are not
allowed for by others, according to what is known of his general
character. The friends who published Froude's _Remains_ knew what he
was; they knew the place and proportion of the fierce and scornful
passages; they knew that they really did not go beyond the liberty and
the frank speaking which most people give themselves in the _abandon_
and understood exaggeration of intimate correspondence and talk. But
they miscalculated the effect on those who did not know him, or whose