A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW. 269 



silent under my feet in this world, and escorts and 

 attends me and supports and keeps me alive, where- 

 soever I walk or stand, whatsoever I think or do, 

 gives rise to reflections ! " In our own politics, has 

 our first President ever ceased to be President ? Does 

 he not still sit there, the stern and blameless patriot, 

 uttering counsel ? 



Carlyle had no faith in the inherent tendency of 

 things to right themselves, to adjust themselves to 

 their own proper standards ; the conservative force 

 of nature, the checks and balances by which her own 

 order and succession is maintained ; the Darwinian 

 principle, according to which the organic life of the 

 globe has been evolved, the higher and more complex 

 forms mounting from the lower, the true palingenesia, 

 the principle or power, name it Fate, name it Neces- 

 sity, name it God, or what you will, which finally lifts 

 a people, a race, an age, and even a community above 

 the reach of choice, of accident, of individual will, 

 into the region of general law. So little is life what 

 we make it, after all ; so little is the course of history, 

 the destiny of nations, the result of any man's pur- 

 pose, or direction, or will, so great is Fate, so insig- 

 nificant is man ! The human body is made up of a 

 vast congeries or association of minute cells, each 

 with its own proper work and function, at which it 

 toils incessantly night and day, and thinks of nothing 

 beyond. The shape, the size, the color of the body, 

 its degree of health and strength, etc., no cell or 

 series of cells decides these points ; a law above and 



