Carlyle has little help for these and no message save the disconcerting one of their own futility.

His message is at once larger and simpler, for though his form was prose, his soul was a poet's soul, and what he has to say is a poet's word.

In a way, it is partly Wordsworth's own.

The chief end of life, his message is, is the performance of duty, chiefly the duty of work.

"Do thy little stroke of work; this is Nature's voice, and the sum of all the commandments, to each man." All true work is religion, all true work is worship; to labour is to pray.