IN CAELYLE'S COUNTRY 75 



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 inarticulate 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 persons. 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 

 principalities 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 

 solitudes, 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 solitude, in the uttermost parts of Crea- 

 tion. In green oases by the palm-tree wells, he 

 rests a space; but anon he has to journey forward, 

 escorted by the Terrors and the Splendors, the 

 Archdemons and Archangels. All heaven, all pan- 

 demonium, are his escort." Part of the world will 

 doubtless persist in thinking that pandemonium fur- 

 nished his chief counsel and guide; but there are 

 enough who think otherwise, and their numbers are 

 bound to increase in the future. 



