[Sidenote: Influence of Carlyle upon Ruskin.]

[Sidenote: The unity of Ruskin's style.]

There can be little doubt that this later manner in which Ruskin
allowed his Puritan instincts to defeat his aestheticism, and indulged
to an alarming degree his gift of vituperation, was profoundly
influenced by his "master," Carlyle, who had long since passed into
his later and raucous manner. Carlyle's delight in the disciple's
diatribes probably encouraged the younger man in a vehemence of
invective to which his love of dogmatic assertion already rendered
him too prone. At his best, Ruskin, like Carlyle, reminds us of a
major prophet; at his worst he shrieks and heats the air. His high
indignations lead him into all manner of absurdity and self-contradiction.
An amusing instance of this may be given from _Sesame and Lilies_. In
the first lecture, which, it will be recalled, was given in aid of a
library fund, we find[21] the remark, "We are filthy and foolish enough
to thumb one another's books out of circulating libraries." His friends
and his enemies, the clergy (who "teach a false gospel for hire") and
the scientists, the merchants and the universities, Darwin and Dante,
all had their share in the indignant lecturer's indiscriminate abuse.
And yet in all the tropical luxuriance of his inconsistency, one can
never doubt the man's sincerity. He never wrote for effect. He may
dazzle us, but his fire is never pyrotechnical; it always springs from
the deep volcanic heart of him. His was a fervor too easily stirred and
often ill-directed, but its wild brilliance cannot long be mistaken for
the sky-rocket's; it flares madly in all directions, now beautifying,
now appalling, the night, the fine ardor of the painter passing into
the fierce invective of the prophet. But in the end it is seen that
Ruskin's style, like his subject-matter, is a unity,--an emanation from