full of metaphors (though he knew not what a metaphor was), with all
manner of potent words.... Nothing did I ever hear him undertake to
render visible which did not become almost ocularly so. Emphatic I have
heard him beyond all men. In anger he had no need of oaths: his words
were like sharp arrows that smote into the very heart. The fault was that
he exaggerated (which tendency I also inherit), yet in description, and
for the sake chiefly of humorous effect. He was a man of rigid, even
scrupulous veracity.... He was never visited with doubt. The old Theorem
of the Universe was sufficient for him ... he stood a true man, while
his son stands here on the verge of the new.... A virtue he had which
I should learn to imitate: he never spoke of what was disagreeable and
past. His was a healthy mind. He had the most open contempt for all
"clatter."... He was irascible, choleric, and we all dreaded his wrath,
but passion never mastered him.... Man's face he did not fear: God he
always feared. His reverence was, I think, considerably mixed with
fear--rather awe, as of unutterable depths of silence through which
flickered a trembling hope.... Let me learn of him. Let me write my books
as he built his houses, and walk as blamelessly through this shadow
world.... Though genuine and coherent, living and life-giving, he was
nevertheless but half developed. We had all to complain that we durst not
freely love him. His heart seemed as if walled in: he had not the free
means to unbosom himself.... It seemed as if an atmosphere of fear
repelled us from him. To me it was especially so. Till late years I was
ever more or less awed and chilled by him.

James Carlyle has been compared to the father of Burns. The failings of
both leant to virtue's side, in different ways. They were at one in their
integrity, independence, fighting force at stress, and their command of
winged words; but the elder had a softer heart, more love of letters, a
broader spirit; the younger more power to stem adverse tides, he was a