But he had not gone deeper into philosophy than his examinations and his pupils required.

He liked positive results, and metaphysicians always suggested to him the movements of a squirrel in a cage.
The alternative to business was literature.

Biographies of literary men, said Carlyle, are the most wretched documents in human history, except the Newgate Calendar.

But Carlyle said many things he did not believe, and this was probably one of them.

The truth is, that the literary profession, like the commercial, requires some little capital with which to set out, and Froude received this with his wife.