to laugh, when he is amused, but goes
on in a cordial human fashion.

The second time, Mr. C. had a dinner-party, at which was a witty,
French, flippant sort of man, author of a History of Philosophy, and
now writing a Life of Goethe, a task for which he must be as unfit as
irreligion and sparkling shallowness can make him. But he told stories
admirably, and was allowed sometimes to interrupt Carlyle a little,
of which one was glad, for, that night, he was in his more acrid
mood; and, though much more brilliant than on the former evening,
grew wearisome to me, who disclaimed and rejected almost everything he
said.

For a couple of hours, he was talking about poetry, and the whole
harangue was one eloquent proclamation of the defects in his own mind.
Tennyson wrote in verse because the schoolmasters had taught him that
it was great to do so, and had thus, unfortunately, been turned from
the true path for a man. Burns had, in like manner, been turned from
his vocation. Shakspeare had not had the good sense to see that
it would have been better to write straight on in prose;--and such
nonsense, which, though amusing enough at first, he ran to death after
a while. The most amusing part is always when he comes back to some
refrain, as in the French Revolution of the _sea-green_. In this
instance, it was Petrarch and _Laura_, the last word pronounced with
his ineffable sarcasm of drawl. Although he said this over
fifty times, I could not ever help laughing when _Laura_ would
come,--Carlyle running his chin out, when he spoke it, and his eyes
glancing till they looked like the eyes and beak of a bird of prey.
Poor Laura! Lucky for her that her poet had already got her safely
canonized beyond the reach of this Teufelsdrockh vulture.

The worst of hearing Carlyle is that you cannot interrupt him. I
understand the habit and power of haranguing have increased very much
upon him, so that you are a perfect prisoner when he has once got hold
of you. To interrupt him is a physical impossibility. If you get a
chance to remonstrate for a moment, he raises his voice and bears
you down. True, he does you no injustice, and, with his admirable
penetration, sees the disclaimer in your mind, so that you are not
morally delinquent; but it is not pleasant to be unable to utter it.
The latter part of the evening, however, he paid us for this, by a
series of sketches, in his finest style of railing and raillery, of
modern French literature,