Vexed as he was by sickness and constant pain, his temper took no touch of asceticism.

His rare geniality, a peculiar elasticity and mobility of nature, gave colour and charm to his life.

A sunny frankness and openness of spirit breathes in the pleasant chat of his books, and what he was in his books he showed himself in his daily converse.

AElfred was in truth an artist, and both the lights and shadows of his life were those of the artistic temperament.

His love of books, his love of strangers, his questionings of travellers and scholars, betray an imaginative restlessness that longs to break out of the narrow world of experience which hemmed him in.