Thomas Carlyle's passionate intensity placed him at the heart of Victorian radicalism. . . . His work was studied by the middle classes and by labourers aspiring, with uniquely Victorian ambition, for a better education. Among the most resourceful and determinedly intellectual of working men, Carlyle acquired a seam of followers who would not give him up. . . . He showed to readers that politics, in the broadest sense, was a matter for ardent feeling and thought; he imbued radicalism with intellectual weight and detatched it from the values of the mob; his personal fervour, frugality and commitment to improving the modern world imparted to his ideas integrity it was impossioble to fake. . . None of this, however, made him any easier to like. — Francis Gorman, "Trouble and Strife,"Times Literary Supplement (5 January 2007): 22.




Last modified 19 October 2016