38/39 He never even seemed so much as to contemplate that sundering of substance and form, that rending away of outward garments, that unclothing of the soul, in order that it might be more effectually clothed upon, which is at the heart of anything that may be called spiritual irony. The constant abiding of his mind within the well-defined forms of some one or other of the conditions of outward life and manners, among the scores of different spheres of human habit, was, no doubt, one of the secrets of his genius; but it was also its greatest limitation. 171-3.] [Footnote 33: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, iv. 175-6.] [Footnote 34: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, iv. 46.] [Footnote 35: Carlyle's _Miscellaneous Essays_, iv. |