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