" It is thus that the heroic Heart, the seeing Eye of the
first times, still feels and sees in us of the latest ; that the
Wise Man stands ever encompassed, and spiritually embraced,
by a cloud of witnesses and brothers ; and there is a living,
literal Communion of Saints, wide as the World itself, and
the History of the World ! . . . Thus all things wax, and roll
onwards; Arts, Establishments, Opinions, nothing is com-
pleted, but ever completing. . . . The Phoenix soars aloft,
hovers with outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music ;
or, as now, she sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates
herself in flame, that she may soar the higher and sing the
clearer."

This deep faith in an actual World-crisis, amid all the
disappointments and contradictions of his time, Carlyle
never lost ; but declared it, now in sunshine, and now in
fierce thunderstorm, to the very end of his teaching.
50 CARLYLE, AND TEE

Among the ' organic filaments ' indicated as already
* mysteriously spinning themselves/ are the perennial
nature of Kingship, or guidance by the Wisest ; and of
Hero-worship, or heartfelt reverence for the Wisest. " A
Preaching Friar also," he says, *' settles himseK in every
village; and builds a pulpit, which he calls Newspaper : "
and even the " immeasurable froth-ocean we name Litera-
ture " contains fragments of a genuine OYiuvth-Homiletic ;
nay, even of a Liturgy, But, he exclaims, —

" Be of comfort ! Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith.
