1840 INFLUENCE OF CARLYLE 13 



The translations from the German, the constant refer- 

 ences to German literature and philosophy, fired him 

 to try the vast original from which these specimens 

 were quarried, for the sake partly of the literature, 

 but still more of the philosophy. The translation 

 of Wilhelm Meister, and some of the Miscellaneous 

 Essays, together with The French Revolution, were 

 certainly among works of Carlyle with which he first 

 made acquaintance, to be followed later by Sartor 

 Resartus, which for many years afterwards was his 

 Enchiridion, as he puts it in an unpublished auto- 

 biographical fragment. 



By great good fortune, a singularly interesting 

 glimpse of my father's life from the age of fifteen on- 

 wards has been preserved in the shape of a frag- 

 mentary journal which he entitled, German fashion, 

 Thoughts and Doings. Begun on September 29, 1840, 

 it is continued for a couple of years, and concludes 

 with some vigorous annotations in 1845, when the 

 little booklet emerged from a three years' oblivion at 

 the bottom of an old desk. Early as this journal is, in 

 it the boy displays three habits afterwards character- 

 istic of the man : the habit of noting down any strik- 

 ing thought or saying he came across in the course of 

 his reading ; of speculating on the causes of things 

 and discussing the right and wrong of existing 

 institutions ; and of making scientific experiments, 

 using them to correct his theories. 



The first entry, the heading, as it were, and key- 

 note of all the rest, is a quotation from Novalis : 



