But unfortunately Carlyle was too romantic an artist, too
persuaded in his hero-worship to discover for us Cromwell's faults and
failings. In his book we find nothing of the fanatic who ordered the
Irish massacres, nothing of the neuropath who lived in hourly dread of
assassination. Carlyle has painted his subject all in lights, so to
speak; the shadows are not even indicated, and yet he ought to have
known that in proportion to the brilliancy of the light the shadows must
of necessity be dark. It is not for me to point out that this romantic
painting of great men, like all other make-believes and hypocrisies, has
its drawbacks and shortcomings: it is enough that it has had its day and
produced its pictures of giant-heroes and their worshippers for those
who love such childish toys.
The wonderful age in which we live--this twentieth century with its
X-rays that enable us to see through the skin and flesh of men, and to
study the working of their organs and muscles and nerves--has brought a
new spirit into the world, a spirit of fidelity to fact, and with it a
new and higher ideal of life and of art, which must of necessity change
and transform all the conditions of existence, and in time modify the
almost immutable nature of man.
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