On leaving Carlyle shook hands with us both and said he was glad to have seen us. “It was pleasant to have friends coming out of the dark in this way.” Perhaps a reflection or two which occurred to me after this interview may not be out of place. Carlyle was perfectly frank, even to us of whom he knew but little. He did not stand off or refuse to talk on any but commonplace subjects. What was offered to us was his best. And yet there is to be found in him a singular reserve, and those shallow persons who taunt him with inconsistency because he makes so much of silence, and yet talks so much, understand little or nothing of him. In half a dozen pages one man may be guilty of shameless garrulity, and another may be nobly reticent throughout a dozen volumes. Carlyle feels the contradictions of the universe as keenly as any man can feel them. He knows how easy it is to appear profound by putting anew the riddles which nobody can answer; he knows how strong is the temptation towards the insoluble. But upon these subjects he also knows how to hold his tongue; he does not shriek in the streets, but he bows his head. He has found no answer—he no more than the feeblest of us, and yet in his inmost soul there is a shrine, and he worships. Carlyle is the champion of morals, ethics, law—call it what you like—of that which says we must not always do a thing because it is pleasant. There are two great ethical parties in the world, and, in the main, but two. One of them asserts the claims of the senses. Its doctrine is seductive because it is so right. It is necessary that we should in a measure believe it, in order that life may be sweet. But nature has heavily weighted the scale in its favour; its acceptance requires no effort. It is easily perverted and becomes a snare. In our day nearly all genius has gone over to it, and preaching it is rather superfluous. The other party affirms what has been the soul of all religions worth having, that it is by repression and self-negation that men and States live. It has been said that Carlyle is great because he is graphic, and he is supposed to be summed up in “mere picturesqueness,” the silliest of verdicts. A man may be graphic in two ways. He may deal with his subject from the outside, and by dint of using strong language may “graphically” describe an execution or a drunken row in the streets. But he may be graphic by ability to penetrate into essence, and to express it in words which are worthy of it. What higher virtue than this can we imagine in poet, artist, or prophet? Like all great men, Carlyle is infinitely tender. That was what struck me as I sat and looked in his eyes, and the best portraits in some degree confirm me. It is not worth while here to produce passages from his books to prove my point, but I could easily do so, specially from the _Life of Sterling_ and the _Cromwell_. {10} Much of his fierceness is an inverted tenderness.