We wrote things, he inspiring, I setting down, and by and by I exclaimed:
'Why, I am getting, to be quite a depository of your memories and ideas.'
At that he smiled, 'And who, do you fancy, would thank you for them?'
Thus a portrait of Sir George grew with me, and I was for stroking it
down somehow. 'Oh well,' quoth he, 'let's try and gather together what
may be fresh, or suggestive, in my experiences, and yours be the blame.
Whatever you do must have a certain spirit of action--you know what I
mean!--or nobody will look at it. You'll need to whisk along.'

In Froude's phrase, the life of Sir George Grey had been a romance, and
that was the road which caught me. No wonder, for it was a broad road, in
the sense that his whole being was a romance. He saw things beneath a
radiant light, and he saw many which to others would have been invisible.
Nor, was his grasp of them less accurate, because he strained his eye
most earnestly for what was most beautiful. The romantic element in his
outlook gave colour, vividness, meaning to the unconsidered trifles--in
fine, you had a chronicle and a seer.

On the one hand, then, I sought for the texts with a likely stir in them;
on the other for those of personality, streaked by affairs. The
references were consulted, or Sir George's own words of old delved among;
and from his discourse there sprang a regular series of notes. 'It's a
kind of task,' he remarked once, 'that might easily enough lend itself to
vain-glory. We must avoid that.'

If there is anything that could so be read, I alone am the sinner; for
with his memories there go my interpretation and appreciation of him.
What should I do but write of Sir George Grey as I beheld him, of his
career as one captured by it? His nature, like every rich nature, had