IN carlyle's country 73 



Some men are like nails, easily drawn; others 

 are 'like rivets, not drawable at all. Carlyle is a 

 rivet, well headed in. He is not going to give 

 way, and be forgotten soon. People who differed 

 from him in opinion have stigmatized him as an 

 actor, a mountebank, a rhetorician ; but he was com- 

 mitted to his purpose and to the part he played 

 with the force of gravity. Behold how he toiled ! 

 He says, " One monster there is in the world, — the 

 idle man." He did not merely preach the gospel 

 of work ; he was it, — an indomitable worker from 

 first to last. How he delved! How he searched 

 for a sure foundation, like a master builder, fighting 

 his way through rubbish and quicksands till he 

 reached the rock ! Each of his review articles cost 

 him a month or more of serious work. "Sartor 

 E-esartus" cost him nine months, the "French 

 devolution" three years, "Cromwell" four years, 

 "Frederick" thirteen years. No surer does the 

 Auldgarth bridge, that his father helped build, carry 

 the traveler over the turbulent water beneath it, 

 than these books convey the reader over chasms and 

 confusions, where before there was no way, or only 

 an inadequate one. Carlyle never wrote a book 

 except to clear some gulf or quagmire, to span and 

 conquer some chaos. No architect or engineer ever 

 had purpose more tangible and definite. To further 

 the reader on his way, not to beguile or amuse him, 

 was always his purpose. He had that contempt 

 for all dallying and toying and lightness and frivo- 

 lousness that hard, serious workers always have. 



