But when Carlyle got there, there fell upon him a sort of spell which is his tragedy and the English tragedy, and, in no small degree, the German tragedy too.

The real romance of the Teutons was largely a romance of the Southern Teutons, with their castles, which are almost literally castles in the air, and their river which is walled with vineyards and rhymes so naturally to wine.

But as Carlyle's was rootedly a romance of conquest, he had to prove that the thing which conquered in Germany was really more poetical than anything else in Germany.

Now the thing that conquered in Germany was about the most prosaic thing of which the world ever grew weary.
There is a great deal more poetry in Brixton than in Berlin.

Stella said that Swift could write charmingly about a broom-stick; and poor Carlyle had to write romantically about a ramrod.