Carlyle is the first domestication of the
modern system with its infinity of details into style. We have been
civilizing very fast, building London and Paris, and now planting New
England and India, New Holland and Oregon, -- and it has not appeared
in literature, -- there has been no analogous expansion and
recomposition in books. Carlyle's style is the first emergence of
all this wealth and labor, with which the world has gone with child
so long. London and Europe tunnelled, graded, corn-lawed, with
trade-nobility, and east and west Indies for dependencies, and
America, with the Rocky Hills in the horizon, have never before been
conquered in literature. This is the first invasion and conquest.
How like an air-balloon or bird of Jove does he seem to float over
the continent, and stooping here and there pounce on a fact as a
symbol which was never a symbol before. This is the first
experiment; and something of rudeness and haste must be pardoned to
so great an achievement. It will be done again and again, sharper,
simpler, but fortunate is he who did it first, though never so
giant-like and fabulous.
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