and fear"; virtue "some bubble of the blood," absence of vitality
perhaps.

What in these days are terrors of conscience to diseases of the liver?
Not on morality but on cookery let us build our stronghold.... Thus has
the bewildered wanderer to stand, shouting question after question into
the Sibyl cave, and receiving for answer an echo.

From this scepticism, deeper than that of _Queen Mab,_ fiercer than that
of _Candide,_ Carlyle was dramatically rescued by the sense that he was a
servant of God, even when doubting His existence.

After all the nameless woe that inquiry had wrought me,
I nevertheless still loved truth, and would hate no jot of my
allegiance....Truth I cried, though the heavens crush me
for following her; no falsehood! though a whole celestial lubberland
were the price of apostacy.

With a grasp on this rock, Carlyle springs from the slough of despond and
asserts himself:

Denn ich bin ein Mensch gewesen
Und das heisst ein Kaempfer seyn.

He finds in persistent action, energy, and courage a present strength,
and a lamp of at least such partial victory as he lived to achieve.

He would not make his judgment blind;
He faced the spectres of the mind,--