I have also to express my deep obligations to Mr John Morley, who, in the midst of pressing engagements, kindly found time to read the proof sheets. In a private note Mr Morley has been good enough to express his general sympathy and concurrence with my estimate of Carlyle. _EDINBURGH, October 1897._ CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I EARLY LIFE 9 CHAPTER II CRAIGENPUTTOCK--LITERARY EFFORTS 29 CHAPTER III CARLYLE'S MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 42 CHAPTER IV LIFE IN LONDON 65 CHAPTER V HOLIDAY JOURNEYINGS--LITERARY WORK 79 CHAPTER VI RECTORIAL ADDRESS--DEATH OF MRS CARLYLE 112 CHAPTER VII LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF CARLYLE 129 CHAPTER VIII CARLYLE AS A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THINKER 138 CHAPTER IX CARLYLE AS AN INSPIRATIONAL FORCE 152 THOMAS CARLYLE CHAPTER I EARLY LIFE 'A great man,' says Hegel, 'condemns the world to the task of explaining him.' Emphatically does the remark apply to Thomas Carlyle. When he began to leave his impress in literature, he was treated as a confusing and inexplicable element. Opinion oscillated between the view of James Mill, that Carlyle was an insane rhapsodist, and that of Jeffrey, that he was afflicted with a chronic craze for singularity. Jeffrey's verdict sums up pretty effectively the attitude of the critics of the time to the new writer:--'I suppose that you will treat me as something worse than an ass, when I say that I am firmly persuaded the great source of your extravagance, and all that makes your writings intolerable to many and ridiculous to not a few, is not so much any real peculiarity of opinion, as an unlucky ambition to appear more original than you are.' The blunder made by Jeffrey in regard both to Carlyle and Wordsworth emphasises the truth which critics seem reluctant to bear in mind, that, before the great man can be explained, he must be appreciated. Emphatically true of Carlyle it is that he creates the standard by which he is judged. Carlyle resembles those products of the natural world which biologists call 'sports'--products which, springing up in a spontaneous and apparently erratic way, for a time defy classification. The time is appropriate for an attempt to classify the great thinker, whose birth took place one hundred years ago.