Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

114 WOTTON EEINTREDto peace. But positively, cousin, you do me wrong;I have my lucid intervals as well as another ; only ina life of storm and battle our philosophy will sometimesstep aside, and many things must be left asthey can be, not as they should.'Dorothy, with a faint smile, shook her head.the whole it seemed to be an object with the soldierto stand well with her ; an object which, under ashow of candour and indifference, he was not imperceptiblypursuing with unusual eagerness, and in whichwith all his mastery in such arts, he appeared by nomeans completely prospering. In the piercing eye ofsuch a woman, the craftiest dissimulation brings noperfect concealment ; in pure souls there is an instinctVr'hich, in the absence of vision, warns them away fromthe bad, and as if in obscure beckonings declares :'There cannot be communion between us.' Muchmore when this instinct, the product of the heart,has been allied to quickness of intellectual perception,and its dim intimations become clearOnin the light oflong observation and experience of men and theirways. Walter's secret might be hidden, but thebiding of it was not hidden ; mider this smoothsmiling expanse his fak cousin felt that there wererocks and cruel abysses ; that whoso trusted to itscalmness might find it a treacherous element, and inits strength make shipwreck.But in a little while the Lady Isabella flitted in,new and glittering like a pheasant after moulting-