presenting it to Walter when the creatures came in. This unexpected
_Himmelsendung_ finished turning the man's head; he wrung my hand over
and over, leaving his mark for some hours after, and ended his grateful
speeches with, "Oh, Miss! Oh, Liddy! may ye hae mair comfort and
pleasure in your life than ever you have had yet!" which might easily
be.'

Carlyle was full of wrath at what he considered the cant about the
condition of the wage-earners in Manchester and elsewhere, and his
indignation found vent in the _Latter-day Pamphlets_. Froude once asked
him if he had ever thought of going into Parliament, for the former knew
that the opportunity must have been offered him. 'Well,' he said, 'I did
think of it at the time of the "Latter-day Pamphlets." I felt that
nothing could prevent me from getting up in the House and saying all
that.' 'He was powerful,' adds Froude, 'but he was not powerful _enough_
to have discharged with his single voice the vast volume of conventional
electricity with which the collective wisdom of the nation was, and
remains charged. It is better that his thoughts should have been
committed to enduring print, where they remain to be reviewed hereafter
by the light of fact.'[25]

The printing of the _Pamphlets_ commenced at the beginning of 1850, and
went on month after month, each separately published, no magazine daring
to become responsible for them. When the _Pamphlets_ appeared, they were
received with 'astonished indignation.' 'Carlyle taken to whisky,' was
the popular impression--or perhaps he had gone mad. '_Punch_,' says
Froude, 'the most friendly to him of all the London periodicals,
protested affectionately. The delinquent was brought up for trial before
him, I think for injuring his reputation. He was admonished, but stood
impenitent, and even "called the worthy magistrate a windbag and a
sham." I suppose it was Thackeray who wrote this; or some other kind
friend, who feared, like Emerson, "that the world would turn its back on
him." He was under no illusion himself as to the effect which he was
producing.'[26]

Amid the general storm, Carlyle was 'agreeably surprised' to receive an
invitation to dine with Peel at Whitehall Gardens, where he met a select
company. 'After all the servants but the butler were gone,' narrates
Carlyle, 'we began to hear a little of Peel's quiet talk across the
table, unimportant, distinguished by its sense of the ludicrous shining
through a strong official