_Paris, Dec, 1846._--Accustomed to the infinite wit and exuberant
richness of his writings, his talk is still an amazement and
a splendor scarcely to be faced with steady eyes. He does not
converse;--only harangues. It is the usual misfortune of such marked
men,--happily not one invariable or inevitable,--that they cannot
allow other minds room to breathe, and show themselves in their
atmosphere, and thus miss the refreshment and instruction which the
greatest never cease to need from the experience of the humblest.
Carlyle allows no one a chance, but bears down all opposition, not
only by his wit and onset of words, resistless in their sharpness as
so many bayonets, but by actual physical superiority,--raising his
voice, and rushing on his opponent with a torrent of sound. This is
not in the least from unwillingness to allow freedom to others. On the
contrary, no man would more enjoy a manly resistance to his thought.
But it is the habit of a mind accustomed to follow out its own
impulse, as the hawk its prey, and which knows not how to stop in
the chase. Carlyle, indeed, is arrogant and overbearing; but in his
arrogance there is no littleness,--no self-love. It is the heroic
arrogance of some old Scandinavian conqueror;--it is his nature, and
the untamable energy that has given him power to crush the dragons.
You do not love him, perhaps, nor revere; and perhaps, also, he would
only laugh at you if you did; but you like him heartily, and like to
see him the powerful smith, the Siegfried, melting all the old iron
in his furnace till it glows to a sunset red, and burns you, if you
senselessly go too near. He seems, to me, quite isolated,--lonely as
the desert,--yet never was a man more fitted to prize a man, could he
find one to match his mood. He finds them, but only in the past.
He sings, rather than talks. He pours upon you a kind of satirical,
heroical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and generally, near
the beginning, hits upon some singular epithet, which serves as a
_refrain_ when his song is full, or with which, as with a knitting
needle, he catches up the stitches, if he has chanced, now and then,
to let fall a row. For the higher kinds of poetry he has no sense,
and his talk on that subject is delightfully and gorgeously absurd. He
sometimes stops a minute to laugh at it himself, then begins anew with
fresh vigor; for all the spirits he is driving before him seem to him
as Fata Morgana, ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn
about; but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty Ariels.
His talk, like his books, is full of pictures; his critical strokes
masterly. Allow for his point of view, and his survey is admirable.
He is a large subject. I cannot speak more or wiselier of him now, nor
needs it;--his works are true, to blame and praise him,--the Siegfried
of England,--great and powerful, if not quite invulnerable, and of a
might rather to destroy evil, than legislate for good.
Of Dr. Wilkinson I saw a good deal, and found him a substantial
person,--a sane, strong, and well-exercised mind,--but in the last
degree unpoetical in its structure. He is very simple, natural, and
good; excellent to see, though one cannot go far with him; and he
would be worth more in writing, if he could get time to write, than in
personal intercourse. He may yet find time;--he is scarcely more than
thirty. Dr. W. wished to introduce me to Mr. Clissold, but I had not
time; shall find it, if in London again. Tennyson was not in town.
Browning has just married Miss Barrett, and gone to Italy. I may meet
them there. Bailey is helping his father with a newspaper! His wife
and child (Philip Festus by name) came to see me. I am to make them a
visit on my return. Marston I saw several times, and found him full
of talent. That is all I want to say at present;--he is a delicate
nature, that can only be known in its own way and time. I went to see
his "Patrician's Daughter." It is an admirable play for the stage. At
the house of W.J. Fox, I saw first himself, an eloquent man, of great
practical ability, then Cooper, (of the "Purgatory of Suicides,") and
others.
My poor selection of miscellanies has been courteously greeted in
the London journals. Openings were made for me to write, had I but
leisure; it is for that I look to a second stay in London, since
several topics came before me on which I wished to write and publish
_there_.
* * * * *
I became acquainted with a gentleman who is intimate with all the
English artists, especially Stanfield and Turner, but was only able to
go to his house once, at this time. Pictures I found but little time
for, yet enough to feel what they are now to be to me. I was only at
the Dulwich and National Galleries and Hampton Court. Also, have seen
the Vandykes, at Warwick; but all the precious private collections
I was obliged to leave untouched, except one of Turner's, to which I
gave a day. For the British Museum, I had only one day, which I spent
in the Greek and Egyptian Rooms, unable even to look at the vast
collections of drawings, &c. But if I live there a few months, I shall
go often. O, were life but longer, and my strength greater! Ever I am
bewildered by the riches of existence, had I but more time to open
the oysters, and get out the pearls. Yet some are mine, if only for a
necklace or rosary.