CARLYLE. 131 



too commonplace and cowardly, too anarchical. No; 

 he would have us sit down beside him in the slough, and 

 shout lustily for Hercules. If that indispensable demi^ 

 god will not or cannot come, we can find a useful and 

 instructive solace, during the intervals of shouting, in a 

 hearty abuse of human natui'e, which, at the long last, 

 is always to blame. 



Since "Sartor Resartus" Mr. Carlyle has done little 

 but repeat himself with increasing emphasis and height- 

 ened shrillness. Warning has steadily heated toward 

 denunciation, and remonstrance sovired toward scolding. 

 The image of the Tartar prayer-mill, which he borrowed 

 from Richter and turned to such humorous purpose, 

 might be applied to himself. The same phrase comes 

 round and round, only the machine, being a little crank- 

 ier, rattles more, and the performer is called on for a 

 more visible exertion. If there be not something very 

 like cant in Mr. Carlyle's later writings, then cant is not 

 the repetition of a creed after it has become a phrase by 

 the cooling of that white-hot conviction which once made 

 ■ it both the light and warmth of the soul. We do not 

 mean intentional and deliberate cant, but neither is that 

 which Mr. Carlyle denounces so energetically in his fel- 

 low-men of that conscious kind. W^e do not mean to 

 blame him for it, but mention it rather as an interesting 

 phenomenon of human nature. The stock of ideas 

 which mankind has to work with is very limited, like the 

 alphabet, and can at best have an air of freshness given 

 it by new arrangements and combinations, or by applica- 

 tion to new times and circumstances. Montaigne is but 

 Ecclesiastes writing in the sixteenth century, Voltaire 

 but Lucian in the eighteenth. Yet both are original, 

 and so certainly is Mr. Carlyle, whose borrowing is 

 mainly from his own former works. But he does this so 

 often and so openly, that we may at least be sui-e that 



