Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

WOTTON REINFRED 13some promise of enjoyment roae faintly over hismind ; for the plastic vigour of young fancies whichshapes such landscapes in the clouds, though sorelymarred inhim was not extinct, and where good andevil are both possible, there is no such perversealchemy as will exclusively select the latter. Hecould not deny that he felt some curiosity to knowMosely and his circle, so enigmatic as it seemed, fromall that he had learned ; it may be even that unconsciouslysome low whisper of his lost Jane Montagumingled in his fantasies, some unavowed hope of againbeing cast into her neighbourhood, of seeing andhearing her once more, and though not of recoveringher affection, for that he could not even wish, atleast of understanding how it had been for ever lost.Wotton was one of those natures which it is ofmost importance to educate rightly, but also of greatestdifficulty, and which accordingly with a capriciouscontradiction we often find worse educated than anyother. In early boyhood he had lost his father, aman of an equal but stern and indignant temper,soured also by disappointments and treacheries, whichhad driven him atmiddle age from the commerce ofthe world, to hide his shattered fortunes, his greattalents, and too fiery but honest and resolute sph'it,in the solitude of his little rustic patrimony. Herein this barren seclusion he had lived, repelling fromhim by a certain calm but iron cynicism all advanceseither of courtesy or provocation, an isolated man,