Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/411

JOHN WILSON 395 the 'prison called life,' as if its bolts were broken, and the Russian ice-palace were changed into an open sunny Tempe, and man might love his brother without fraud or fear ! A few such hours are scattered over our existence, otherwise it were too hard, and would make us too hard." Further on he says : " My wife sends you her kindest regards, and still hopes against hope that she shall wear her Goethe brooch this Christmas, a thing only done when there is a man of genius in the company." So much for the lonely scholar nourishing his mighty heart in soli- tude, and already brooding over "Sartor Resartus" and the " History of the French Revolution." The letter ends with a few words touching Wilson : " I must break off, for there is an Oxonian gigman coming to visit me in an hour, and I have many things to do. I heard him say the other night that in literary Scotland there was not one such other man as ! — a thing in which, if would do himself any justice, I cordially agree." We cannot but think that Carlyle was then mistaken in his estimate of Wilson, who in our opinion did himself full justice — that is, all the justice of which his nature was capable. There are men forced by circumstances to hurry their work, or to labour on uncongenial subjects, who could undoubtedly write much better if they had ample time and subjects of their own choice. But the case of Wilson was not as theirs. He always wrote on whatever subjects he preferred, and he had plenty of leisure for writing, rewriting, correcting, condens- ing ; but he was lacking in the artistic impulse and instinct to elaborate and study and perfect. His poems and tales, to which he gave more care, are