262 A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW. 



duced to stand for Parliament. " Who would gov- 

 ern," he says, " that can get along without govern- 

 ing ? He that is fittest for it is of all men the un- 

 willingest unless constrained." But constrained he 

 cannot be, yet he is our only hope. What shall we 

 do? A government by the fittest can alone save 

 mankind, yet the fittest is not forthcoming. We do 

 not know him ; he does not know himself. The case 

 is desperate. Hence the despair of Carlyle in his 

 view of modern politics. 



Who that has read his history of Frederick has not 

 at times felt that he would gladly be the subject of a 

 real king like the great Prussian, a king who was in- 

 deed the father of his people, a sovereign man at the 

 head of affairs with the reins of government all in 

 his own hands, an imperial husbandman devoted to 

 improving, extending, and building up his nation as 

 the farmer his farm, and toiling as no husbandman 

 ever toiled, a man to reverence, to love, to fear, who 

 called all the women his daughters, and all the men 

 his sons, and whom to see and to speak with was the 

 event of a life-time ; a shepherd to his people, a lion 

 to his enemies. Such a man gives head and character 

 to a nation ; he is the head and the people are the 

 body ; currents of influence and of power stream 

 down from such a hero to the life of the humblest 

 peasant ; his spirit diffuses itself through the nation. 

 It is the ideal State ; it is captivating to the imag- 

 ination ; there is an artistic completeness about it. 

 Probably this is why it so captivated Carlyle, inevi- 



