CARLYLE. 145 



history. Mr. Carlyle's passion for truth is intense, 

 as befits his temper, but it is that of a lover for his 

 mistress. He would have her all to himself, and has 

 a lover's conviction that no one is able, or even fit, to 

 appreciate her but himself. He does well to despise the 

 tittle-tattle of vulgar minds, but surely should not ig- 

 nore all testimony on the other side; For ourselves, we 

 think it not unimportant that Goethe's friend Knebel, a 

 man not incapable of admiration, and who had served a 

 dozen years or so as an officer of Friedrich's guard, 

 should have bluntly called him " the tyrant." 



Mr. Carlyle's history traces the family of his hero 

 down from its beginnings in the picturesque chiaro-scuro 

 of the Middle Ages. It was an able and above all a 

 canny house, a Scotch version of the word able, which 

 implies thrift and an eye to the main chance, the said 

 main chance or chief end of man being altogether of 

 this world. Friedrich, inheriting this family faculty in 

 full measure, was driven, partly by ambition, partly by 

 necessity, to apply it to war. He did so, with the 

 success to be expected where a man of many expedients 

 has the good luck to be opposed by men with few. He 

 adds another to the many proofs that it is possible to be 

 a great general without a spark of that divine fire which 

 we call genius, and that good fortune in war results from 

 the same prompt talent and unbending temper which 

 lead to the same result in the peaceful professions. 

 Friedrich had certainly more of the temperament of 

 genius than Marlborough or Wellington ; but not to go 

 beyond modern instances, he does not impress us with 

 the massive breadth of Napoleon, nor attract us with 

 the climbing ardor of Turenne. To compare him with 

 Alexander or Caesar were absurd. The kingship that 

 was in him, and which won Mr. Carlyle to be his biogra- 

 pher, is that of will merely, of rapid and relentless 

 7 j 



