I am sure that he remained so for over twenty minutes.

Then he slowly turned round to me and said, with an accent indescribable in its intensity and poignancy: "I have been looking at the North, at my own country--" "Why do you not always remain there ?" I exclaimed almost involuntarily, so painfully did the words strike me.
"Because they will not let me," he replied.
"They?
Who ?" I asked again.

"Surely you can do what you like ?" "You think so," he said, "but you do not know; there are so many things; so many things.

And they want me here too, and there is this place ..." He stopped, then relapsed once more into his deep meditation, leaving me wondering what was holding back this man who was reputed to do only what he chose.

Surely there would have been a far better, far nobler work for him to do there in that distant North which, after all, in spite of the beauties of Groote Schuur, was the only place for which he really cared.
There he could lead that absolutely free and untrammelled life which he loved; there his marvellous gifts could expand with the freedom necessary for them to shine in their best light for the good of others as well as for his own advantage.