Arnold's view of bmeeson and caelyle 143 



of his wonderful merits as a talker. He was in the 

 first instance a talker, and he came finally to write 

 as he talked, so that the page, to retain all its charm 

 and effectiveness, needs the Carlyle voice and man- 

 ner, and the Carlyle laugh superadded. These would 

 give it smoothness and completion. One rather likes 

 a certain roughness in a man's style, but it must be 

 a smooth roughness; the roughness of a muscular 

 arm, and not of a malformed or an ill-shapen one. 



Of course all these considerations tell against Car- 

 lyle' s claim to be considered a great writer; yet one 

 may freely admit them and still call him a great 

 writer. Style alone does not make the great writer, 

 any more than faultless tactics make the great gen- 

 eral; and the upshot of Carlyle's literary life is an 

 array of volumes, not without serious blemishes, it 

 is true, like the campaigns of Frederick or Welling- 

 ton or Grant, but which, nevertheless, represent a 

 solidity and splendor of achievement such as the 

 world calls great. 



Arnold criticised what he called Carlyle's "per- 

 verse attitude towards happiness," but it was only 

 a cheap, easy happiness that Carlyle railed against. 

 He taught that there was a higher happiness, 

 namely, blessedness — the spiritual fruition that 

 comes through renunciation of self, the happiness 

 of heroes that comes from putting thoughts of happi- 

 ness out of sight ; and that the direct and persistent 

 wooing of fortune for her good gifts was selfish and 

 unmanly, — a timely lesson at all seasons. 



Emerson, too, is a great figure in modern literary 



