220 FRESH FIELDS 



he never relaxed for a moment. He had his way 

 with mankind at all times; or rather conscience 

 had its way with him at all times in his relations 

 with mankind. He made no selfish demands, but 

 ideal demands. Jeffries, seeing his attitude and 

 his earnestness in it, despaired of him; he looked 

 upon him as a man butting his head against a stone 

 wall; he never dreamed that the wall would give 

 way before the head did. It was not mere obsti- 

 nacy ; it was not the pride of opinion : it was the 

 thunders of conscience, the awful voice of Sinai, 

 within him; he dared not do otherwise. 



A selfish or self-seeking man Carlyle in no sense 

 was, though it has so often been charged upon him. 

 He was the victim of his own genius; and he made 

 others its victims, not of his selfishness. This 

 genius, no doubt, came nearer the demon of Socrates 

 than that of any modern man. He is under its 

 lash and tyranny from first to last. But the watch- 

 word of his life was ^^ Entsagen,^^ renunciation, self- 

 denial, which he learned from Goethe. His demon 

 did not possess him lightly, but dominated and 

 drove him. 



One would as soon accuse St. Simeon Stylites, 

 thirty years at the top of his penitential pillar, of 

 selfishness. Seeking his own ends, following his 

 own demon, St. Simeon certainly was; but seeking 

 his ease or pleasure, or animated by any unworthy, 

 ignoble purpose, he certainly was not. No more 

 was Carlyle, each one of whose books was a sort of 

 pillar of penitence or martydom atop of which he 



