Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 01.djvu/24

xvi still to deplore the form of their expression, and sometimes to declare roundly that all their interested and approving study of his works had not even yet reconciled them to his 'jargon.' The young men of the period, or those of them who were growing up into Carlyle's public, were not of course partakers with their seniors in this holy horror, but they could not help being to some extent impressed by it. The fascination which he exercised over them was extraordinary; one despairs of ever making it intelligible to the youth of a generation for whom Carlyle's proportions though imposing are no longer heroic: but there was always a guilty after-feeling about their enthusiasm for him, and they indulged it privily, like a secret vice. Their consciousness of absolute surrender to this 'corrupter of pure English' cost them frequent searchings of heart. Many a time and oft did they ask themselves, whether it might not be the novelty and originality of Carlyle's matter which made them not merely tolerate, but fancy that they delighted in, the 'jargon' in which it was written, and whether, therefore, when the attraction of the matter ceased for them, the 'jargon' might not become detestable? Time has answerered their question for them; and the doubts which disturbed the youth of twenty no longer trouble him who has 'come to fifty year.' The novelty of Carlyle's writings has long since disappeared; all of their supposedly didactic, and much even of their hortatory, influence is extinct; but their charm is imperishable, and the belief once so confidently declared that no prose literature which did not conform to correct and classic models could hope to stand the test of time has thus far derived no confirmation from the case of Carlyle.

We can still see and admit that there was an element of reason in the fears of our parents, and an element of truth in their contention; but we can now also discern the due limits both of the one and of the other. There was ground for the apprehension that the literary example of Carlyle would be mischievous, and, in so far as he has found imitators, it has so proved. But such imitators