MEMOIR. xxxiii 
in its fulfilment ; and such was the elasticity of his 
temperament that he would turn from one subject 
to another, each as a mere refreshment from the 
last. To this was added, in no common measure, a 
certain freshness and buoyancy of the spirit, which 
enabled him in a moment to throw off the spell 
which bound him, and join on occasion in the frolic 
of the hour. A peculiar brightness characterized 
his being, and rendered the common incidents of 
life attractive to him ; and should any be found who 
regard as incongruous the lightness of spirit which 
occasionally manifests itself even in the ensuing 
pages, in connexion with more serious subjects, such 
ones may read with interest the following extract 
from the writings of the late Charles Kingsley, with 
reference to this very tendency, as manifested in 
another posthumous author, whose book was edited 
by a friend. "With a reverence for the dead," he 
says, " which will at once be understood and 
honoured, he [the editor] has refrained, perhaps 
here and there too scrupulously, from altering a 
single word of the documents as he found them, 
respecting even certain scraps of Cambridge and 
Winchester slang, which may possibly offend that 
class of readers who fancy that the sign of 
magnanimity is to take everything au grand sdrieux, 
and that the world's work must needs be done upon 
stilts ; but which will be, perhaps, to the more 
d 
