was just dying,--a victim, as
Carlyle thought, to fashionable cajoleries. A few young men were
beginning to show appreciation. J.S. Mill had made Carlyle's
acquaintance in the previous visit to London, and had corresponded with
him. Mill had introduced Ralph Waldo Emerson, who visited Craigenputtock
in 1833. Carlyle was charmed with Emerson, and their letters published
by Professor Norton show that his regard never cooled. Emerson's
interest showed that Carlyle's fame was already spreading in America.
Carlyle's connexion with Charles Buller, a zealous utilitarian,
introduced him to the circle of "philosophical radicals."

Carlyle called himself in some sense a radical; and J.S. Mill, though
not an intellectual disciple, was a very warm admirer of his friend's
genius. Carlyle had some expectation of the editorship of the _London
Review_, started by Sir W. Molesworth at this time as an organ of
philosophical radicalism. The combination would clearly have been
explosive. Meanwhile Mill, who had collected many books upon the French
Revolution, was eager to help Carlyle in the history which he was now
beginning. He set to work at once and finished the first volume in five
months. The manuscript, while entrusted to Mill for annotation, was
burnt by an accident. Mill induced Carlyle to accept in compensation
L100, which was urgently needed. Carlyle took up the task again and
finished the whole on the 12th of January 1837. "I can tell the world,"
he said to his wife, "you have not had for a hundred years any book that
comes more direct and flamingly from the heart of a living man. Do what
you like with it, you--"

The publication, six months later, of the _French Revolution_ marks the
turning-point of Carlyle's career. Many readers hold it to be the best,
as it is certainly the most characteristic, of Carlyle's books. The
failure of _Sartor Resartus_ to attract average readers is quite
intelligible. It contains, indeed, some of the most impressive
expositions of his philosophical position, and some of his most
beautiful and perfectly written passages. But there is something forced
and clumsy, in spite of the flashes of grim humour, in the machinery of
the _Clothes Philosophy_. The mannerism, which has been attributed to an
imitation of Jean Paul, appeared to Carlyle himself to be derived rather
from the phrases current in his father's house, and in any case gave an
appropriate dialect for the expression of his peculiar idiosyn