"This is the best Carlyle." If Carlyle had always been at his best
he would have counted among the supreme geniuses of the world.
But he was a mixture. His style is the expression of the mixture.
The faults are only in the style because they are in the matter.


You will find that, in classical literature, the style always follows
the mood of the matter. Thus, Charles Lamb's essay on *Dream Children*
begins quite simply, in a calm, narrative manner, enlivened by
a certain quippishness concerning the children. The style is grave
when great-grandmother Field is the subject, and when the author passes
to a rather elaborate impression of the picturesque old mansion
it becomes as it were consciously beautiful. This beauty is intensified
in the description of the still more beautiful garden.
But the real dividing point of the essay occurs when Lamb approaches
his elder brother. He unmistakably marks the point with the phrase:
"*Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone*, I told how," etc.
Henceforward the style increases in fervour and in solemnity
until the culmination of the essay is reached: "And while I stood gazing,
both the children gradually grew fainter to my view,
receding and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features
were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech,
strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech...."
Throughout, the style is governed by the matter. "Well," you say,
"of course it is. It couldn't be otherwise. If it were otherwise
it would be ridiculous. A man who made love as though he were preaching
a sermon, or a man who preached a sermon as though he were
teasing schoolboys, or a man who described a death as though
he were describing a practical joke, must necessarily be either an ass
or a lunatic." Just so. You have put it in a nutshell. You have