A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW 255 



ture, will make a mess of it. But Carlyle is saved 

 by his tremendous gripe upon reality. Do I say 

 the ideal and the real were one with him? He 

 made the ideal the real, and the only real. What- 

 ever he touched he made tangible, actual, and vivid. 

 Ideas are hurled like rocks, a word blisters like a 

 branding- iron, a metaphor transfixes like a javelin. 

 There is something in his sentences that lays hold 

 of things, as the acids bite metals. His subtle 

 thoughts, his marvelous wit, like the viewless gases 

 of the chemist, combine with a force that startles 

 the reader. 



Carlyle differs from the ordinary religious enthu- 

 siast in the way he bares his bosom to the storm. 

 His attitude is rather one of gladiatorial resignation 

 than supplication. He makes peace with nothing, 

 takes refuge in nothing. He flouts at happiness, 

 at repose, at joy. "There is in man a higher than 

 love of happiness; he can do without happiness, 

 and instead thereof find blessedness." "The life 

 of all gods figures itself to us as a sublime sadness, 

 — earnestness of infinite battle against infinite labor. 

 Our highest religion is named the ' Worship of 

 Sorrow. ' For the Son of Man there is no noble 

 crown, well worn or even ill worn, but is a crown 

 of thorns." His own worship is a kind of defiant 

 admiration of Eternal Justice. He asks no quar- 

 ter, and will give none. He turns upon the grim 

 destinies a look as undismayed and as uncompromis- 

 ing as their own. Despair cannot crush him; he 

 will crush it. The more it bears on, the harder he 



