CARLYLE By Emery Neff
Mr. Neff's attitude towards Carlyle is not that of the ortho- doxly faithful. He has, to begin with, the merit, denied to the majority of Carlyle's previous critics and commentators, of being able to examine his subject with objectivity ; without himself plunging into the waves of dispute through which Carlyle fought his way. He has, secondly, the power of eliminating what is irrelevant in the flesh, without leaving himself nothing but the skeleton to examine. His short book, Carlyle (Allen and Unwin, 10s. 6d.), has little truck with the sound and fury of his subject's private life, but is a sane attempt to assess the position of Carlyle, both as man and as prophet, in his relation to his period, and therefore to comment on the period itself. His estimate of Carlyle's influence to-day, that " in the crisis he foresaw, Carlyle is being remembered " has the sanction of recent events in Germany, in Italy, and in this country.
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