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He carries on the tradition of Hero Worship: but carries far beyond Carlyle the practice of worshipping people who cannot rationally be called heroes. In this matter that eccentric eye of the seer certainly helped Carlyle: in Cromwell and Frederick the Great there was at least something self-begotten, original or mystical; if they were not heroes they were at least demigods or perhaps demons.
Soon after the "Queen of the Air" was published Carlyle wrote: "Last week I got y'r 'Queen of the Air, and read it. Euge, Ettge.
Some other word surely ought to apply here, for their relationship was largely a matter of the head, with a weather-eye on Barabbas, and three thousand miles of very salt brine between them. Carlyle never came to America: Emerson made three trips to England; and often a year or more passed without a single letter on either side.
Whistler's "Carlyle" hangs in the Corporation Galleries, and it was the stylist, Lavery, who secured the tedious commission to commemorate Her Majesty's opening of the Glasgow Exhibition by the usual plethora of portraits. It would have made a more interesting picture had Mr.
Carlyle's letters should be published, not alone, but with the memoir composed by himself. Carlyle had originally intended that this memoir, or sketch, as it rather is, should be preserved, but not printed. Afterwards, however, he gave it to Froude, and added an express permission to do as he liked with it. Froude was not content with his own opinion.
"You do not know this gentleman, William. It is Mr. Carlyle, and he has been very kind to me." The little lord had turned his thoughtful eyes on Mr. Carlyle, apparently studying his countenance. "I shall like you, sir, if you are kind to Isabel. Are you kind to her?" "Very, very kind," murmured Lady Isabel, leaving William, and turning to Mr. Carlyle, but not looking at him.
Old Carlyle had no shame in standing with his hat off as his landlord passed; he had no truckling spirit either of paying court to those whose lot in life it was to be his superiors. Those manners of the past were studied; they had, no doubt, much about them which we should now call stiff, formal, and affected, but they were a great help to the awkward and the shy.
The mass of readers require precisely what has been contemptuously referred to as the "Romance of History," provided it leaves with them an accurate impression, as well as an inspiring interest. Save in his over-hasty acceptance of the French blague version of "The Sinking of the Vengeur," Carlyle has never laid himself open to the reproach of essential inaccuracy.
Fairfax's face reddened, and he must have felt the sting of these words, uttered as they were by the lips of his bondman. I thought he would turn abruptly away, leaving them unanswered, but he was too much of a gentleman. "Carlyle," he said brusquely, "you have touched the exact point I do not know. I thought I did, of course, but what has occurred on the voyage over has led me to doubt.
"Surely," says Mr. Carlyle, "a day is coming when it will be known again what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable is the duty laid on every creature in regard to these particulars. Well, if such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come.
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