"For the higher kinds of poetry he has no sense, and his talk on that subject is delightfully and gorgeously absurd.... He puts out his chin sometimes till it looks like the beak of a bird; and his eyes flash bright, instinctive meanings, like Jove's bird. Yet he is not calm and grand enough for the eagle: he is more like the falcon, and yet not of gentle blood enough for that either.... I cannot speak more nor wiselier of him now; nor needs it. His works are true to blame and praise him,--the Siegfried of England, great and powerful, if not quite invulnerable, and of a might rather to destroy evil than to legislate for good."
In a letter to Mr. Emerson, Margaret gives some account of her visits at the Carlyle mansion. The second of these was on the occasion of a dinner-party, at which she met "a witty, French, flippant sort of a man, author of a History of Philosophy, and now writing a life of Goethe," presumably George Lewes. Margaret acknowledges that he told stories admirably, and that his occasional interruptions of Carlyle's persistent monologue were welcome. Of this, her summary is too interesting to be omitted here:--
"For a couple of hours he was talking about poetry, and the whole harangue was one eloquent proclamation of the defects in his own mind. Tennyson wrote in verse because the schoolmasters had taught him that it was great to do so; and had thus, unfortunately, been turned from the true path for a man. Burns had, in like manner, been turned from his vocation. Shakespeare had not had the good sense to see that it would have been better to write straight on in prose; and such nonsense which, though amusing enough at first, he ran to death after a while.... The latter part of the evening, however, he paid us for this by a series of sketches, in his finest style of railing and raillery, of modern French literature. All were depreciating except that of Béranger. Of him he spoke with perfect justice, because with hearty sympathy."
The retirement of the ladies to the drawing-room afforded Margaret an opportunity which she had not yet enjoyed.
"I had afterward some talk with Mrs. Carlyle, whom hitherto I had only seen,--for who can speak while her husband is there? I like her very much; she is full of grace, sweetness, and talent. Her eyes are sad and charming."