Carlyle was never a hopeful prophet. He called himself a radical
of the quiet order, but he had none of the hopefulness of
radicalism, nor was it in him to be quiet on any subject that
interested him. There is a good deal of truth in the ironical
remark of Maurice, that Carlyle believed in a God who left off
governing the world at the death of Oliver Cromwell. He saw
nothing in modern progress that justified its boasts, and it
must be owned that his social forecasts have been all too amply
fulfilled. The hopefulness of Emerson positively angered him.
He took him round London, showing him the worst of its many
abominations, asking after each had been duly objurgated, “Do
you believe in the devil now?”--W. J. DAWSON, “Makers
of English Prose.”
(2362)