l writing contained in it: but of the remaining fourth I
contributed during those years a much larger share than anyone else. I
wrote nearly all the articles on French subjects, including a weekly
summary of French politics, often extending to considerable length;
together with many leading articles on general politics, commercial and
financial legislation, and any miscellaneous subjects in which I felt
interested, and which were suitable to the paper, including occasional
reviews of books. Mere newspaper articles on the occurrences or
questions of the moment, gave no opportunity for the development of any
general mode of thought; but I attempted, in the beginning of 1831, to
embody in a series of articles, headed "The Spirit of the Age," some of
my new opinions, and especially to point out in the character of the
present age, the anomalies and evils characteristic of the transition
from a system of opinions which had worn out, to another only in process
of being formed. These articles, were, I fancy, lumbering in style, and
not lively or striking enough to be, at any time, acceptable to
newspaper readers; but had they been far more attractive, still, at that
particular moment, when great political changes were impending, and
engrossing all minds, these discussions were ill-timed, and missed fire
altogether. The only effect which I know to have been produced by them,
was that Carlyle, then living in a secluded part of Scotland, read them
in his solitude, and, saying to himself (as he afterwards told me) "Here
is a new Mystic," inquired on coming to London that autumn respecting
their authorship; an inquiry which was the immediate cause of our
becoming personally acquainted.

I have already mentioned Carlyle's earlier writings as one of the
channels through which I received the influences which enlarged my early
narrow creed; but I do not think that those writings, by themselves,
would ever have had any effect on my opinions. What truths they
contained, though of the very kind which I was already receiving from
other quarters, were presented in a form and vesture less suited than
any other to give them access to a mind trained as mine had been. They
seemed a haze of poetry and German metaphysics, in which almost the only
clear thing was a strong animosity to most of the opinions which were
the basis of my mode of thought; religious scepticism, utilitarianism,
the doctrine of circumstances, and the attaching any importance