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Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle
page 6 of 398 (01%)
the eyes of the universe every wound it inflicts. Worst of all
for the party attacked, it bereaves them beforehand of all
sympathy, by anticipating the plea of poetic and humane
conservatism, and impressing the reader with the conviction that
the satirist himself has the truest love for everything old and
excellent in English land and institutions, and a genuine respect
for the basis of truth in those whom he exposes.

We are at some loss how to state what strikes us as the fault of
this remarkable book, for the variety and excellence of the
talent displayed in it is pretty sure to leave all special
criticism in the wrong. And we may easily fail in expressing the
general objection which we feel. It appears to us as a certain
disproportion in the picture, caused by the obtrusion of the
whims of the painter. In this work, as in his former labours,
Mr. Carlyle reminds us of a sick giant. His humours are
expressed with so much force of constitution that his
fancies are more attractive and more credible than the sanity of
duller men. But the habitual exaggeration of the tone wearies
whilst it stimulated.

It is felt to be so much deduction from the universality of the
picture. It is not serene sunshine, but everything is seen in
lurid storm lights. Every object attitudinises, to the very
mountains and stars almost, under the refraction of this
wonderful humorist; and instead of the common earth and sky, we
have a Martin's Creation or Judgment Day. A crisis has always
arrived which requires a _deus ex machina._ One can hardly
credit, whilst under the spell of this magician, that the world
always had the same bankrupt look, to foregoing ages as to us--as
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