Conscious of regarding Carlyle as the greatest moral and intellectual force of his time, he could not have been more astonished if he had been charged with picking a pocket.

For criticism of his own judgment he was prepared.

He knew well that acute differences of opinion might arise.

The dishonesty and malignity imputed to him were outside the habits of his life and the range of his ideas.

He lived in a society where such things were not done, and where nobody was suspected of doing them.