“Father Saurteig,—Thanks to thee for thy new work—a real piece of work such as even thou hadst not before given us the like of—not even in ‘Sartor Resartus.’ I could wish thou hadst not put forth more of this at once than the two or three first books, and that the first had been placed last of these. Thou shouldst have begun assuredly with thy true revivification of the men of St. Edmundsburg.
| LOCKHART TO CARLYLE | 239 |
“Neither can I agree with my teacher in what he more than once proclaimeth as his judgment general, touching Olivier of Tyburn; nor, indeed, am I very sure that I leap as yet contentedly to any of thy distinct conclusions, save one—namely, that we are all wrong and all like to be damned (p. 158). But I thank thee for having made me conscious of life and feeling for sundry hours by thy pages, whether figurative, or narrative, or didactic Thou hast done a book such as no other living man could do or dream of doing.
“Give us more of thy pictures of the past. Bad is the present, and black exceedingly the future, and even thou canst do little for either of them, except truly that thou canst enable thy fellows now breathing to breathe more nimbly whenever it so pleaseth thee to indite a page of Carlylism.—So resteth ever thine,
