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.
His greatest book is perhaps the Frederick, the biography of a hero
reduced more than once to such extremities that apparently nothing but
some miraculous intervention could save him, and who did not yield, but
struggled on and finally emerged victorious. When we consider
Frederick's position during the last part of the Seven Years' War, we
must admit that no man was ever in such desperate circumstances or
showed such uncrushable determination. It was as if the Destinies, in
order to teach us what human nature can do, had ordained that he who had
the most fortitude should also encounter the severest trial of it.
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