ridiculous. This is the language of the heart, not of the head. It is
no more criticism than is the trumpeting of a wounded elephant
zoology.

Happy is the man who at such a time holds both peace and pen; but
unhappiest of all is he who, having dipped his sorrow into ink,
entrusts the manuscript to a romantic historian.

The two volumes of the 'Life,' and the three volumes of Mrs. Carlyle's
'Correspondence,' unfortunately did not pour oil upon the troubled
waters. The partizanship they evoked was positively indecent. Mrs.
Carlyle had her troubles and her sorrows, as have most women who live
under the same roof with a man of creative genius; but of one thing we
may be quite sure, that she would have been the first, to use her own
expressive language, to require God 'particularly to damn' her
impertinent sympathizers. As for Mr. Froude, he may yet discover his
Nemesis in the spirit of an angry woman whose privacy he has invaded,
and whose diary he has most wantonly published.

These dark clouds are ephemeral. They will roll away, and we shall
once more gladly recognise the lineaments of an essentially lofty
character, of one who, though a man of genius and of letters, neither
outraged society nor stooped to it; was neither a rebel nor a slave;
who in poverty scorned wealth; who never mistook popularity for fame;
but from the first assumed, and throughout maintained, the proud
attitude of one whose duty it was to teach and not to tickle mankind.

Brother-dunces, lend me your ears! not to crop, but that I may whisper
into their furry depths: 'Do not quarrel with genius. We have none
ourselves, and yet are so constituted that we cannot live without it.'