There was
abundance of lawyer-like ability,--but of genius, and its accompanying
divine afflatus, little. Carlyle is full of genius; and this is
evidenced not only by the fine aroma of his language, but by the
depths of his insight, his wondrous historical pictures,--living
cartoons of persons, events, and epochs, which he paints often in
single sentences,--and the rich mosaic of truths with which every page
of his writings is inlaid.
That German literature, with which at this time Carlyle had been more
or less acquainted for ten years, had done much to foster and develop
his genius there can be no doubt; although the book which first
created a storm in his mind, and awoke him to the consciousness of his
own abundant faculty, was the "Confessions" of Rousseau,--a fact which
is well worthy of record and remembrance. He speaks subsequently of
poor Jean Jacques with much sympathy and sorrow; not as the greatest
man of his time and country, but as the sincerest,--a smitten,
struggling spirit,--
"An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.
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