pointed in him, or repelled by and embittered against
him, were not always wrong. Some of his eulogists have been silly. But
the student of his peculiar nature must be an odd analyst who does
not in the end conclude that Grey was on the whole more akin to the
Christian hero painted by Froude and Olive Schreiner than to
the malevolent political chess-player of innumerable colonial
leader-writers.

Grey had the knightly virtues--courage, courtesy, and self-command.
His early possession of official power in remote, difficult,
thinly-peopled outposts gave him self-reliance as well as dignity.
Naturally fond of devious ways and unexpected moves, he learned to
keep his own counsel and to mask his intentions; he never even seemed
frank. Though wilful and quarrelsome, he kept guard over his tongue,
but, pen in hand, became an evasive, obstinate controversialist with
a coldly-used power of exasperation. He learned to work apart, and
practised it so long that he became unable to co-operate, on equal
terms, with any fellow-labourer. He would lead, or would go alone.
Moreover, so far as persons went, his antipathies were stronger than
his affections, and led him to play with principles and allies. Those
who considered themselves his natural friends were never astonished to
find him operating against their flank to the delight of the common
enemy. Fastidiously indifferent to money, he was greedy of credit;
could be generous to inferiors, but not to rivals; could be grateful
to God, but hardly to man.

When he landed in New Zealand, he was a pleasant-looking, blue-eyed,
energetic young officer, with a square jaw, a firm but mobile mouth,
and a queer trick of half closing one eye when he looked at you. For
all his activity he suffered from a spear-wound received from an
Australian blackfellow. He was married to a young and handsome wife;
and, though this was not his first Governorship, was but thirty-three.
The colonists around him were quite shrewd enough to see that this was
no ordinary official, and that beneath the silken surcoat of courtesy
and the plate-armour of self-confidence lay concealed a curious and
interesting man. The less narrow of them detected that something more
was here than a strong administrator, and that they had among them an
original man of action, with something of the aloofness and mystery
that belong to

"a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone."