2. Carlyle was unquestionably disappointed and hurt by the failure of Scott to acknowledge his earlier letter. What had appeared
to be a highly auspicious opportunity not only to meet Scott but also to have delectable conversation about Goethe with him
had come to naught. Froude (Carlyle, II, 310–11) quotes the following passage from Carlyle's Journal in an entry made soon after Scott's death in 1832: “Sir Walter Scott died nine days ago. Goethe at the spring equinox, Scott at the autumn one. A gifted spirit then is wanting
from among men. Perhaps he died in good time, so far as his own reputation is concerned. He understood what history meant; this was his chief intellectual merit. As a thinker, not feeble—strong, rather, and healthy, yet limited, almost mean
and kleinstädtisch. I never spoke with Scott (had once some small epistolary intercourse with him on the part of Goethe, in which he behaved
not very courteously, I thought), have a hundred times seen him, from of old, writing in the Courts, or hobbling with stout
speed along the streets of Edinburgh a large man, pale, shaggy face, fine, deep-browed grey eyes, and expression of strong
homely intelligence, of humour and good humour, and, perhaps (in later years among the wrinkles), of sadness or weariness.
A solid, well-built, effectual mind; the merits of which, after all this delirious exaggeration is done, and the reaction
thereof is also done, will not be forgotten. He has played his part, and left none like or second to him. Plaudite!”
