Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle
page 6 of 398 (01%)
page 6 of 398 (01%)
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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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