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And what else had he to expect when he would not, in a happy phrase of Carlyle's, "nestle down into it"? Truly, so it will be always if you only stroll in upon your friends as you might stroll in to see a cricket match; and even then not simply for the pleasure of the thing, but with some afterthought of self-improvement, as though you had come to the cricket match to bet.
And thus there is a perpetual genesis, or new creation, of the world. Let any one read Carlyle's vivid description of the badness of the eighteenth century, 'bad in that bad way as never century before was, till the French Revolution came and put an end to it, and he will understand something of this question of revolutions.
As Froude says, and it is the final word, Carlyle's "extraordinary talents were devoted, with an equally extraordinary purity of purpose, to his Maker's service, so far as he could see and understand that Maker's will." He led "a life of single-minded effort to do right and only that of constant truthfulness in word and deed."
Carlyle's God is not a mere "tendency that makes for righteousness"; He is a guardian and a guide, to be addressed in the words of Pope's Universal Prayer, which he adopted as his own. He never entered into controversies about the efficacy of prayer; but, far from deriding, he recommended it as "a turning of one's soul to the Highest." In 1869 he writes:
Carlyle's Sartor Resartus , his only creative work, is a mixture of philosophy and romance, of wisdom and nonsense, a chaotic jumble of the author's thoughts, feelings, and experiences during the first thirty-five years of his life. The title, which means "The Tailor Patched-up," is taken from an old Scotch song.
Our minister offered to instruct the young people of his parish in ethics, and my sister Emilie and myself were among his pupils. Carlyle's "Hero-Worship" brought us a startling and keen enjoyment. It was lent me by a Dartmouth College student, the brother of one of my room-mates, soon after it was first published in this country.
Grey, I leave the details of what ensued, my guardian's remorseful grief, my lawyer's wonder and expostulation, Mr. Carlyle's confusion, chagrin, and rage. He pleaded, argued, threatened; but he might as well have attempted to catch and restrain in the hollow of his hand the steady sweep of Niagara, as hope to change my purpose.
What are the chief characteristics of Carlyle's style? Ruskin. In Vol. I., Part II., of Modern Painters, read the first part of Chap. I. of Sec. III., Chap. I. of Sec. IV., and Chap. I. of Sec. V., and note Ruskin's surprising accuracy of knowledge in dealing with aspects of the natural world. The Stones of Venice, Vol. III., Chap.
We all remember how Macaulay made a long winter journey to see the Pass of Killiecrankie before he sat down to write upon it; and Carlyle's magnificent battle-pieces are not all imagination; even that wonderful writer had to see Frederick's battlefields with his own eyes before he could trust himself to describe them.
He spoke especially of Carlyle's treatment of his main historical authorities, many of them admirable and excellent men, and dwelt on the fact that Carlyle, having used the results of the life-work of these scholars, then enjoyed pouring contempt and ridicule over them; he also referred to Carlyle's address to the Scotch students, in which he told them to study the patents of nobility for the deeds which made the nobility of England great, but did not reveal to them the fact that the expressions in these patents were stereotyped, and the same, during many years, for men of the most different qualities and services.
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