k of oddity which
seems at first mere wilful wantonness, and which we only afterwards find
to be the discriminating stamp of original and strong feeling. This--
this feeling, rooted in profound susceptibility and matured into a
central vivifying power--is, we should say, the author's most
extraordinary distinction. For it is not the ostentatious, impetuous
sentiment, which calls, a sufficient audience being by, on heaven and
earth for sympathy, and would wish for that of Tartarus too, as an
additional acknowledgment of its sublime sincerity. Here, on the
contrary, the feeling is not that which the man is proud of, and would
fain exhibit. He shrinks from the profession, nay from the sense of it;
even painfully labours to trifle, and be at ease, that he may hide from
others, and may for himself forget, the thorny fagot load of his own
emotions. Yet make them known he must; for they are not those of some
private personal grief or passion, from which he may escape into
literature or science, and leave his pains and longings behind him; but
his sensibilities are burning with a slow, immense fire, kindled by the
very theme on which he writes, and compelling him to write. The
greatness and weakness, the infinite hopes and unquenchable reality of
human life; the aching pressure of the body and its wants on the myriads
of millions in whom celestial force sleeps and dreams of hell; the sight
of follies, frauds, cruelties, and lascivious luxury in the midst of a
race then endowed and thus suffering; and the unconquerable will and
thought with which the few work out the highest calling of all men;
these it is, and not self-indulging distresses and theatrical
aspirations of his own, which boil and storm within. Therefore does he
speak with the solid strength and energy, which gives so serious and
rugged an aspect to his sentences; while, perpetually checking himself,
from a wise man's shame at excessive emotion, and from the knowledge
that others will but half sympathise with him, he adds to his most
weighty utterances a turn of irony which relieves the excessive
strain.... Add to this, that Mr. Carlyle's resolution to convey his
meaning at all hazards, makes him seize the most effectual and sudden
words in spite of usage and fashionable taste; and that, therefore, when
he can get a brighter tint, a more expressive form, by means of some
strange--we must call it--Carlylism; English, Scotch, German, Greek,
Latin, French, Technical, Sl