uch more than to
us, to most of them at least, is reasonably cheerful. At
least they are young and vigorous, and have pluck to face
the battle of years to come. We have little to do now
but watch and sympathise, and give what little help we
can.

Greg's own departure was not much longer deferred. He died in November
1881.

He was not one of the fortunate beings who can draw on a spontaneous and
inexhaustible fund of geniality and high spirits. He had a craving both
for stimulation and for sympathy. Hence he belonged to those who are
always happier in the society of women than of men. In his case this
choice was not due, as it so often is, to a love of procuring deference
cheaply. It was not deference that he sought, but a sympathy that he
could make sure of, and that put him at his ease. Nobody that ever lived
was less of a pedant, academic don, or loud Sir Oracle. He was easy to
live with, a gay and appreciative companion, and the most amiable of
friends, but nothing was further from his thoughts than to pose as guide
and philosopher. His conversation was particularly neat and pointed. He
had a lucidity of phrase such as is more common in French society than
among ourselves. The vice of small talk and the sin of prosing he was
equally free from; and if he did not happen to be interested, he had a
great gift of silence.

The grace of humility is one of the supreme moral attractions in a man.
Its outward signs are not always directly discernible; and it may exist
underneath marked intrepidity, confidence in one's own judgment, and
even a strenuous push for the honours of the world. But without
humility, no veracity. There is a genuine touch of it in a letter which
Greg wrote to a friend who had consented to be the guardian of his
children:--

I have no directions as to their education to give.
I have too strong a sense of the value of religion myself,
not to wish that my children should have so much of it
(I speak of feeling, not of creed) as is compatible with
reason. I have no ambition for them, and can only
further say in the dying words of Julie, 'N'en faites point
des savans--faites-en des hommes bienfaisans et justes.'
If they are this, they will be more than their father ever
was, and all he ever desired to be.

This sentiment of the unprofitable servant was deep in his nature--as it
may well be in all who are not either blinded by inborn fatuity, or
condemned by natural povert