men an agreeable excitement, seems to have been
very unpleasant to Carlyle,--even repulsive. Though the lectures brought
both money and fame, he abominated the delivery of them. They broke his
rest, destroyed his peace of mind, and depressed his spirits. Nothing
but direst necessity reconciled him to the disagreeable task. He never
took any satisfaction or pride in his success in this field; nor was his
success probably legitimate. People went to see him as a new literary
lion,--to hear him roar, not to be edified. He had no peculiar
qualification for public speaking, and he affected to despise it. Very
few English men of letters have had this gift. Indeed, popular eloquence
is at a discount among the cultivated classes in England. They prefer to
read at their leisure. Popular eloquence best thrives in democracies, as
in that of ancient Athens; aristocrats disdain it, and fear it. In their
contempt for it they even affect hesitation and stammering, not only
when called upon to speak in public, but also in social converse, until
the halting style has come to be known among Americans as "very
English." In absolute monarchies eloquence is rare except in the pulpit
or at the bar. Cicero would have had no field, and would not probably
have been endured, in the reign of Nero; yet Bossuet and Bourdaloue were
the delight of Louis XIV. What would that monarch have said to the
speeches of Mirabeau?

After the publication in 1837 of the "French Revolution,"--that "roaring
conflagration of anarchies," that series of graphic pictures rather than
a history or even a criticism,--it was some time before Carlyle could
settle down upon another great work. He delivered lectures, wrote tracts
and essays, gave vent to his humors, and nursed his ailments. He was now
famous,--a man whom everybody wished to see and know, especially
Americans when they came to London, but whom he generally snubbed (as he
did me) and pronounced them bores. It was at this time that he made the
acquaintance of Monckton Milnes, afterward Lord Houghton, who invited
him to breakfast, where he met other notabilities,--among them Bunsen
the Prussian Ambassador at London; Lord Mahon the historian; and Mr.
Baring, afterward Lord Ashburton, the warmest and the truest of his
friends, who extended to him the most generous hospitalities.

Carlyle was now in what is called "high society," and was "taking life
easy,"--writing but little, yet reading much, especially about Oliv