defend it;――threw him into an habitual attitude 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 any time 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.”[302] “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.