272 A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW. 



tired from business, or that he was merely a sleeping 

 partner in the concern. " Original sin," he says, 

 " and such like are bad enough, I doubt not; but dis- 

 tilled siii, dark ignorance, stupidity, dark corn-law, 

 bastile and company, what are they ? " For creeds, 

 theories, philosophies, plans for reforming the world, 

 etc., he cared nothing, he would not invest one mo- 

 ment in them ; but the hero, the worker, the doer, 

 justice, veracity, courage, these drew him, in these 

 he put his faith. What to other people were mere 

 obstructions were urgent, pressing realities to Carlyle. 

 Every truth or fact with him has a personal inclina- 

 tion, points to conduct, points to duty. He could not 

 invest himself in creeds and formulas, but in that 

 which yielded an instant return in force, justice, char- 

 acter. He has no philosophical impartiality. He 

 has been broken up ; there have been moral convul- 

 sions ; the rock stands on end. Hence the vehement 

 and precipitous character of his speech its wonder- 

 ful picturesqueness and power. The spirit of gloom 

 and dejection that possesses him, united to such an 

 indomitable spirit of work and helpfulness, is very 

 noteworthy. Such courage, such faith, such unsha- 

 ken adamantine belief in the essential soundness and 

 healthfuluess that lay beneath all this weltering and 

 chaotic world of folly and evil about him, in conjunc- 

 tion with such pessimism and despondency, was never 

 before seen in a man of letters. I am reminded that 

 in this respect he was more like a root of the tree of 

 Igdrasil than like a branch ; one of the central and 



