CARLYLE. 165 



way. Passages are good when they lead to something, when 

 they are necessary parts of the building, but they are not 

 good to dwell in. This taste for the startling reminds us of 

 something which happened once at the burning of a country 

 meeting-house. The building stood on a hill, and, apart 

 from any other considerations, the fire was as picturesque 

 as could be desired. When all was a black heap, licking 

 itcelf here and there with tongues of fire, there rushed up a 

 farmer, gasping anxiously, &quot; Hez the bell fell yit ^ &quot; An 

 ordinary fire was no more to him than that on his hearth 

 stone; even the burning of a meeting-house, in itself a 

 vulcanic rarity (so long as he was of another parish), could 

 not tickle his out-worn palate ; but he had hoped for a 

 certain tang in the downcome of the bell that might recall 

 the boyish flavour of conflagration. There was something 

 dramatic, no doubt, in this surprise of the brazen sentinel 

 at his post, but the breathless rustic has always seemed to 

 us a type of the prevailing delusion in aesthetics. Alas ! if 

 the bell must fall in every stanza or every monthly number, 

 how shall an author contrive to stir us at last, unless with 

 whole Moscows, crowned with the tintinnabulary crash of 

 the Kremlin 1 ? For ourselves, we are glad to feel that we 

 are still able to find contentment in the more conversational 

 and domestic tone of our old-fashioned wood-fire. No doubt 

 a great part of our pleasure in reading is unexpectedness, 

 whether in turn of thought or of phrase ; but an emphasis 

 out of place, an intensity of expression not founded on 

 sincerity of moral or intellectual conviction, reminds one of 

 the underscorings in young ladies letters, a wonder even to 

 themselves under the colder north-light of matronage. It 

 is the part of the critic, however, to keep cool under what 

 ever circumstances, and to reckon that the excesses of an 

 author will be at first more attractive to the many than that 

 average power which shall win him attention with a new 

 generation of men. It is seldom found out by the majority, 

 till after a considerable interval, that he was the original 

 man who contrived to be simply natural the hardest lesson 

 in the school of art, and the latest learned, if, indeed, it be 



