“And be not surprised that ‘people have no sympathy with you’; that is an accompaniment that will attend you all your days if you mean to lead an earnest life. The ‘people’ could not save you with their ‘sympathy’ if they had never so much of it to give; a man can and must save himself, with or without their sympathy, as it may chance. “And may all good be with you, my kind young friend, and a heart stout enough for this adventure you are upon; that is the best ‘good’ of all. “I remain, yours very sincerely, “T. CARLYLE.” Carlyle had forgotten this letter, but said, “It is undoubtedly mine. It is what I have always believed . . . it has been so ever since I was at college. I do not mean to say I was not loved there as warmly by noble friends as ever man could be, but the world tumbled on me, and has ever since then been tumbling on me rubbish, huge wagon-loads of rubbish, thinking to smother me, and was surprised it did not smother me—turned round with amazement and said, ‘What, you alive yet?’ . . . While I was writing my _Frederick_ my best friends, out of delicacy, did not call. Those who came were those I did not want to come, and I saw very few of them. I shook off everything to right and left. At last the work would have killed me, and I was obliged to take to riding, chiefly in the dark, about fourteen miles most days, plunging and floundering on. I ought to have been younger to have undertaken such a task. If they were to offer me all Prussia, all the solar system, I would not write _Frederick_ again. No bribe from God or man would tempt me to do it.”