In this matter he is to be noted in
connection with national developments much later; for he thus became the
first prophet of the Socialists. _Sartor Resartus_ is an admirable
fantasia; _The French Revolution_ is, with all its faults, a really
fine piece of history; the lectures on Heroes contain some masterly
sketches of personalities. But I think it is in _Past and Present_, and
the essay on _Chartism_, that Carlyle achieves the work he was chosen by
gods and men to achieve; which possibly might not have been achieved by
a happier or more healthy-minded man. He never rose to more deadly irony
than in such _macabre_ descriptions as that of the poor woman proving
her sisterhood with the rich by giving them all typhoid fever; or that
perfect piece of _badinage_ about "Overproduction of Shirts"; in which
he imagines the aristocrats claiming to be quite clear of this offence.
"Will you bandy accusations, will you accuse _us_ of overproduction? We
take the Heavens and the Earth to witness that we have produced nothing
at all.... He that accuses us of producing, let him show himself. Let
him say what and when.
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