" But his grandest modern man is the calm and plastic Goethe,
and the homage he renders him is worthy of a better and a holier
idol. Goethe's "Autobiography," in so far as it relates to his early
days, is a bad book; and Wordsworth might well say of the "Wilhelm
Meister," that "it was full of all manner of fornication, like the
crossing of flies in the air." Goethe, however, is not to be judged by
any fragmentary estimate of him, but as an intellectual whole; for he
represented the intellect, and grasped with his selfish and cosmical
mind all the provinces of thought, learning, art, science, and
government, for purely intellectual purposes. This entrance into, and
breaking up of, the minds of these distinguished persons was, however,
a fine discipline for Carlyle, who is fully aware of its value; and
whilst holding communion with these great men, who by their genius and
insight seemed to apprehend the essential truth of things at a glance,
it is not wonderful that he should have been so merciless in his
denunciations of the mere logic-ability of English writers, as he
shows himself in the essays of that period.
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