That man, be he prince or peasant, is not to be envied who can read Froude's account of Carlyle's early life without feeling the better for it.

It is by no means a cheerful story.

The first forty years of Carlyle's existence, when the French Revolution had not been published, were an apparently hopeless struggle against poverty and obscurity.

Sartor Resartus was scarcely understood by any one, and though his wife saw that it was a work of genius, it seemed to most people unintelligible mysticism.

With the splendid exception of Goethe, hardly any one saw at that time what Carlyle was.