IN CARLYLE'S COUNTRY. 81 



not the effort of composition, lie was a rapid and 

 copious writer and speaker, but the pressure of 

 purpose, the friction of power and velocity, the sense 

 of overcoming the demons and mud-gods and frozen 

 torpidity, he so often refers to. Hence no writing 

 extant is so little like writing, and gives so vividly 

 the sense of something done. He may praise silence 

 and glorify work. The unspeakable is ever present . 

 with him ; it is the core of every sentence ; the in- 

 articulate is round about him; a solitude like that 

 of space encompasseth him. His books are not easy 

 reading ; they are a kind of wrestling to most per- 

 sons. His style is like a road made of rocks : when 

 it is good, there is nothing like it; and when it is 

 bad, there is nothing like it ! 



In " Past and Present," Carlyle has unconsciously 

 painted his own life and character in truer colors than 

 has any one else : " Not a May-game is this man's 

 life, but a battle and a march, a warfare with prin- 

 cipalities and powers; no idle promenade through 

 fragrant orange groves and green, flowery spaces, 

 waited on by the choral Muses and the rosy Hours : 

 it is a stern pilgrimage through burning, sandy soli- 

 tudes, through regions of thick-ribbed ice. He walks 

 among men ; loves men with inexpressible soft pity, 

 as they cannot love him ; but his soul dwells in soli- 

 tude, in the uttermost parts of Creation. In green 

 oases by the palm-tree wells, he rests a space ; but 

 anon he has to journey forward, escorted by the Ter- 

 rors and the Splendors, the Archdemons and Arch- 



