His Humours.

His humour was genuine, free, and unforced, answering like a flash to all demands on it. As Liszt said of Chopin, "his caustic spirit caught the ridiculous rapidly and far below the surface at which it usually strikes the eye." He was no great laugher and seldom laughed heartily.

page 221

Sometimes, when a pointed retort made him realise the tragedy of his situation, his laugh was almost gruesome. His smile was various, often delightful, always charming. It was fashioned less by the mouth than by the eyes, which would stream over with merriment, and by the whole mobile face. Few faces were capable of lighting up as his was at some stroke of wit or some humorous situation. It then grew beaming, luminous, and radiant. But whether of amusement or appreciation, of scorn or anger, his expression was total and organic. He was all smiles or all frowns, all allurement or all menace. His anger, especially, was formidable. His voice, ordinarily feeble, suddenly grew powerful and harsh or threatening. The complete transformation of his countenance when he saw a hated political opponent showed how much anger is a devil's passion. In him it was not the righteous indignation of the just man. The mood grew upon him. After his return to New Zealand in 1869 he would often, in his solitude, sink into black rages at the remembrance of some bitter injustice or some abominable outrage. He could at times be seen in the Parliamentary Library sitting absorbed in melancholy thought or on fire with some internal consuming passion. At such times he seemed to respire flame and wrath, as Saul breathed forth slaughter and threatenings. He was then almost unapproachable. Was he in his house? His niece would send one or more of her children into his room, and their caresses or innocent guileless ways would lay healing balm on the wounded spirit. But for them, and but for the few honours he received in England, he might have passed his last years as Swift spent his, and the world might have witnessed such another spectacle as Johnson and Taine have so vividly painted.