He wrote with a peculiar detachment, never obtruding his own personality; viewing events in their larger meaning, as well as in careful completeness of minor detail; yet with no throb of human sentiment, no personal touch of intimate feeling.
Later on, he went in a similar capacity to India, and wrote one of the finest descriptions on record of the royal Durbar.
He moved amid scenes of varied interest; he made many acquaintances, but no close friends.
His distant travels accomplished, he would return to his comfortless rooms, and work in solitude.
That within him which might have responded to love, and leapt into intimacy, seemed shut away behind prison bars. When Love drew near, he could but look forth with haunted eyes, watching while Love, rebuffed, moved sadly away.
He was a lonely man.
When he allowed himself a holiday, he packed a small knapsack, went by the fastest route possible to Scotland, Cornwall, Devon or Norfolk—anywhere where he could find a rugged coast; long stretches of gorse and heather; villages, which he could reach by nightfall.
Each morning he would be on the shore at sunrise, swimming, with strong, eager strokes, up the golden path toward the dazzling glory of the rising sun. Or, if he chanced, at close of day, to find himself where the coast faced westward, he would slip into the water at sunset and glide, with slow, dreamy motion and folded arms, up the crimson way toward the setting sun.
No day seemed complete to him unless it began and ended in the sea.
So, on this 12th of September, though the sun was sinking behind distant moors, when the waters called, he made his way down the cliff, walked half a mile or so along the shore until he found cover among rocks; then swam swiftly out to sea, recapturing the crimson ball as it disappeared behind the pine woods.