What he feared was derision, and the
good-natured indifferent stolidity that is worse than any derision, and
the knowledge that, with all his powers and perceptions, his
common-sense, which was great, and his sense of responsibility, he was
treated by the world like a spoilt child, charming even in his wrath,
who had full license to be as vehement as he liked, with the
understanding that no one would act on his advice.

I often go to Brantwood, which is a sacred place indeed, and see with
deep emotion the little rooms, with all their beautiful treasures, and
all the great accumulations of that fierce industry of mind, and
remember that in that peaceful background a man of exquisite genius
fought with sinister shadows, and was worsted in the fight, for a time;
because the last ten years of that long life were a time of serene
waiting for death, a beguiling by little childish and homely
occupations the heavy hours: he could uplift his voice no more, often
could hardly frame an intelligible thought. But meanwhile his great
message went on rippling out to the world, touching heart after heart
into light and hope, and doing, insensibly and graciously, by the
spirit, the very thing he had failed to do by might and power.

And then we come to Carlyle, and here we are on somewhat different
ground. Carlyle had a colossal quarrel with the age, but he thought
very little of the message of beauty and peace. His idea of the world
was that of a stern combative place, with the one hope a strenuous and
grim righteousness; Carlyle thought of the world as a place where
cheats and liars cozened and beguiled men, for their own advantage,
with all sorts of shams and pretences: but he did not really know the
world; he put down to individual action and deliberate policy much that
was due simply to the prevalence of tradition and system, and to the
complexity of civilisation. He was so fierce an individualist himself
that he credited everyone else with purpose and prejudice. He did not
realise the vast preponderance of helpless good-nature and muddled
kindliness. The mistake of much of Carlyle's work is that it is too
poignantly dramatic, and bristles with intention and significance; and
he did not allow sufficiently for the crowd of vague supers who throng
the background of the stage. Neither did he ever go about the world
with his eyes open for general facts. Wherever he was, he was intensely
observant, but he spent his days either in a fi