but phantasy is thy eye, with its colour-giving retina, healthy or
diseased.' It would be easy to multiply instances of this, the most
obvious and interesting trait of Mr. Carlyle's writing; but I must
bring my remarks upon it to a close by reminding you of his two
favourite quotations, which have both significance. One from
Shakespeare's _Tempest_:

'We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep;'

the other, the exclamation of the Earth-spirit, in Goethe's
_Faust_:

''Tis thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply,
And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.'

But this is but one side of Carlyle. There is another as strongly
marked, which is his second note; and that is what he somewhere calls
'his stubborn realism.' The combination of the two is as charming as
it is rare. No one at all acquainted with his writings can fail to
remember his almost excessive love of detail; his lively taste for
facts, simply as facts. Imaginary joys and sorrows may extort from him
nothing but grunts and snorts; but let him only worry out for himself,
from that great dust-heap called 'history,' some undoubted fact of
human and tender interest, and, however small it may be, relating
possibly to some one hardly known, and playing but a small part in the
events he is recording, and he will wax amazingly sentimental, and
perhaps shed as many real tears as Sterne or Dickens do sham ones over
their figments. This realism of Carlyle's gives a great charm to his