had often a metallic sound,
and that it suffered from excess of epithet and addiction to
antithetical phrases. In pithiness of style, sureness of touch and
dispassionate judgment, he contrasted Acton as an historical writer
with Macaulay, to the latter's disadvantage. He found every page of
Acton packed with thought, every essay richly freighted with ideas.
Moreover, Acton was sternly impartial and impersonal in his judgment
of persons and in his estimate of influences. Paul wrote:

There has never been in historical writing such inexorable logic,
such compact phraseology, so much pith and point, as are to be
found in Acton's Essays.

His view of Carlyle was thus expressed: "Take away his style and half
his greatness vanishes. Carlyle's works are not English in spirit, nor
have they any point of resemblance to those of any other English
writer." As for his views: "he has, alas! no love for democracy."
Carlyle's habit of apotheosising heroes and his worship of the Strong
Man made Paul pose the familiar problem: "Is the great man the
fashioner of his age, or its product?" He thought something was to be
said on both sides, and that it was impossible to lay down a positive
proposition on what he called "this terribly difficult question." But
he agreed with Guizot that "great events and great men are fixed
points and summits of historical survey." He emphasises the fact that
in his "French Revolution" Carlyle, in spite of his hero-worship,
accepts the evolutionary view of history.

Among essayists he had a special liking for Froude, Matthew Arnold and
Edmund Gosse. He often turned for refreshment to Froude's "Short
Studies," and felt the fascination of his "Erasmus." In his essay on
the Book of Job, Froude writes: "Happiness is not what we are to look
for; our place is to be true to the best which we know; to seek that
and do that." On this my son comments: "I don't hold with this idea;
for, while happiness is not the end, yet it always in its purest and
brightest form comes to the really good or great man in the
consciousness of the work he has done." Froude in his essay on
"Representative Men" enlarges on the importance of educating boys by
holding up before them the pattern of noble lives. By picturing the
career of a noble man rising above temptation and "following life
victoriously and beautifully forward," Froude thinks you will kindle a
boy's heart as no threat of punishment here or hereafter will ki