252 FRESH FIELDS 



other people were mere obstructions were urgent, 

 pressing realities to Carlyle. Every truth or fact 

 with him has a personal inclination, points to con- 

 duct, points to duty. He could not invest himself 

 in creeds and formulas, but in that which yielded 

 an instant return in force, justice, character. He 

 has no philosophical impartiality. He has been 

 broken up; there have been moral convulsions; the 

 rock stands on end. Hence the vehement and pre- 

 cipitous character of his speech, its wonderful 

 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 un- 

 shaken adamantine belief in the essential soundness 

 and healthfulness that lay beneath all this weltering 

 and chaotic world of folly and evil about him, in 

 conjunction 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 master roots, with all that 

 implies, toiling and grappling in the gloom, but 

 full of the spirit of light. How he delves and 

 searches; how much he made live and bloom again; 

 how he sifted the soil for the last drop of heroic 

 blood ! The Fates are there, too, with water from 

 the sacred well. He is quick, sensitive, full of 

 tenderness and pity; yet he is savage and brutal 

 when you oppose him, or seek to wrench him from 

 his holdings. His stormy outbursts always leave 



