"Intellectual and spiritual affection being all which he had to give, Mrs.Carlyle naturally looked on these at least as exclusively her own.

She had once been his idol, she was now a household drudge, and the imaginative homage which had been once hers was given to another." Froude's posthumous championship of Mrs.Carlyle may have led him to magnify unduly the importance of domestic disagreements.

But however that may be, the opinions which he formed, and which Carlyle gave him the means of forming, did not increase the attractions of the duty he had undertaken to discharge.
Froude's own admiration of Carlyle was, it must always be remembered, not in the least diminished by what he read.

He still thought him the greatest man of his age, and believed that his good influence would expand with time.

That there should be spots on the sun did not disturb him, especially as moral perfection was the last thing he had ever attributed to Carlyle.