It was splendid how he refus'd any compromise to the last. He
was curiously antique. In that harsh, picturesque, most potent voice
and figure, one seems to be carried back from the present of the
British islands more than two thousand years, to the range between
Jerusalem and Tarsus. His fullest best biographer justly says of him:
He was a teacher and a prophet, in the Jewish sense of the word. The
prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah have become a part of the permanent
spiritual inheritance of mankind, because events proved that they
had interpreted correctly the sign of their own times, and their
prophecies were fulfill'd. Carlyle, like them, believ'd that he had a
special message to deliver to the present age. Whether he was correct
in that belief, and whether his message was a true message, remains
to be seen. He has told us that our most cherish'd ideas of political
liberty, with their kindred corollaries, are mere illusions, and that
the progress which has seem'd to go along with them is a progress
towards anarchy and social dissolution. If he was wrong, he has
misused his powers. The principles of his teachings are false. He has
offer'd himself as a guide upon a road of which he had no knowledge;
and his own desire for himself would be the speediest oblivion both of
his person and his works. If, on the other hand, he has been right;
if, like his great predecessors, he has read truly the tendencies of
this modern age of ours, and his teaching is authenticated by facts,
then Carlyle, too, will take his place among the inspired seers.
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