n Froude more and more, requiring
his company in walks, and even in omnibuses, until Froude almost
ceased to be his own master. The lecturing tour in the United States
and the political visits to South Africa were permitted, because
they were thought right. But Fraser's Magazine had to be given up,
partly that employment might be found for a young man in whom
Carlyle was interested, and the project for a new history of Charles
V. was perforce abandoned. It has been said, though not by any one
who knew the facts, that Froude profited in a pecuniary sense by
exchanging history for biography. The exact opposite is the truth.
From 1866 to 1869, the last years of his great book, Froude received
from Messrs. Longman about fourteen hundred pounds a year, including
his salary as editor of Fraser, which he relinquished at Carlyle's
bidding. From 1877 to 1884 he did not receive more than seven
hundred. Two volumes of history brought in about as much as three of
biography, and there is no reason to suppose that Charles V. would
have proved less popular than Henry VIII. or Elizabeth. Froude was
unusually prosperous and successful as a man of letters, though it
is of course impossible for the highest literary work to be
adequately paid. He had to deal with liberal publishers, and after
1856 his position as a writer was assured. The idea that necessity
drove him to fill his pockets at the expense of a dead friend's
reputation is as preposterous in his case as it would have been in
Lockhart's or Stanley's.

Had Froude been the cynic he is often called, he would have borne
with callous indifference, as he did bear in dignified silence, the
attacks made upon him for his revelations of Carlyle. But Froude was
not what he seemed. Behind his stately presence, and lofty manner,
and calmly audacious speech, there was a singularly sensitive
nature. He would do what he thought right with perfect fearlessness,
and without a moment's hesitation. When the consequences followed he
was not always prepared for them, and people who were not worth
thinking about could give him pain. Human beings are composite
creatures, and the feminine element in man is more obvious than the
masculine element in woman. Froude had a feminine disposition to be
guided by feeling, and to remember old grievances as vividly as if
they had happened the day before. He was also a typical west
countryman in habit of mind, as well as in face, figure, and speech.
His beautiful