more inspired than another?

Examine by logic the import of thy life, and of all lives. What is
it? A making of meal into manure, and of manure into meal. To the
cui bono there is no answer from logic.

In many ways Jane Welsh found the difference of range between
Carlyle and Irving. At one time, she asked Irving about some
German works, and he was obliged to send her to Carlyle to solve
her difficulties. Carlyle knew German almost as well as if he had
been born in Dresden; and the full and almost overflowing way in
which he answered her gave her another impression of his potency.
Thus she weighed the two men who might become her lovers, and
little by little she came to think of Irving as partly shallow and
partly narrow-minded, while Carlyle loomed up more of a giant than
before.

It is not probable that she was a woman who could love profoundly.
She thought too much about herself. She was too critical. She had
too intense an ambition for "showing off." I can imagine that in
the end she made her choice quite coolly. She was flattered by
Carlyle's strong preference for her. She was perhaps repelled by
Irving's engagement to another woman; yet at the time few persons
thought that she had chosen well.

Irving had now gone to London, and had become the pastor of the
Caledonian chapel in Hatton Garden. Within a year, by the
extraordinary power of his eloquence, which, was in a style
peculiar to himself, he had transformed an obscure little chapel
into one which was crowded by the rich and fashionable. His