a show--a phenomenon or appearance, no real thing. All
deep souls see into that.'[12] Yes; but deep souls dealing with the
practical questions of society, do well to thrust the vision as far from
them as they can, and to suppose that this world is no show, and
happiness and misery not mere appearances, but the keenest realities
that we can know. The difference between virtue and vice, between wisdom
and folly, is only phenomenal, yet there is difference enough. 'What
_shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!_' Burke cried in the
presence of an affecting incident. Yet the consciousness of this made
him none the less careful, minute, patient, systematic, in examining a
policy, or criticising a tax. Mr. Carlyle, on the contrary, falls back
on the same reflection for comfort in the face of political confusions
and difficulties and details, which he has not the moral patience to
encounter scientifically. Unable to dream of swift renovation and wisdom
among men, he ponders on the unreality of life, and hardens his heart
against generations that will not know the things that pertain unto
their peace. He answers to one lifting up some moderate voice of protest
in favour of the masses of mankind, as his Prussian hero did: '_Ah, you
do not know that damned race!_'[13]

[12] _Hero-Worship_, p. 43.

[13] Carlyle's _Frederick_, vi. 363.

* * * * *

There is no passage which Mr. Carlyle so often quotes as the sublime--

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

If the ever present impression of this awful, most moving, yet most
soothing thought, be a law of spiritual breadth and height, there is
still a peril in it. Such an impression may inform the soul with a
devout mingled sense of grandeur and nothingness, or it may blacken into
cynicism and antinomian living for self and the day. It may be a solemn
and holy refrain, sounding far off but clear in the dusty course of work
and duty; or it may be the comforting chorus of a diabolic drama of
selfishness and violence. As a reaction against religious theories which
make humanity over-abound in self-consequence, and fill individuals with
the strutting importance of creatures with private souls to save or
lose, even such cynicism as Byron's was wholesome and nearly
forgivable. Nevertheless, the most important question that we can ask of
any great teacher, as of the walk and conver