His long residence in London had not touched his Annandale look,
nor had it--as we soon learned--touched his Annandale accent. His
countenance was striking, homely, sincere, truthful--the countenance
of a man on whom 'the burden of the unintelligible world' had weighed
more heavily than on most. His hair was yet almost dark; his moustache
and short beard were iron grey. His eyes were wide, melancholy,
sorrowful; and seemed as if they had been at times a-weary of the
sun. Altogether in his aspect there was something aboriginal, as of
a piece, of unhewn granite, which had never been polished to any
approved pattern, whose natural and original vitality had never
been tampered with. In a word, there seemed no passivity about Mr.
Carlyle--he was the diamond, and the world was his pane of glass; he
was a graving tool rather than a thing graven upon--a man to set his
mark on the world--a man on whom the world could not set _its_ mark.
And just as, glancing towards Fife a few minutes before, one could not
help thinking of his early connection with Edward Irving, so seeing
him sit beside the venerable Principal of the University, one could
not help thinking of his earliest connection with literature.
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