Note 79 — Chapter I

Thus Taine says of Carlyle: "He cannot stick to simple expression; at every step he drops into figures, gives body to every idea, must touch forms. We see that he is possessed and haunted by glittering or saddening visions; in him every thought is an explosion; a flood of seething passion reaches the boiling-point in his brain, which overflows, and the torrent of images runs over the banks and rushes with all its mud and all its splendor. He cannot reason, he must paint." Despite the vigor of this sketch, the perusal of ten pages of Sartor Resartus or of the French Revolution teaches more in regard to the nature of this imagination than all the commentaries.