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Excerpt from The Life of William Carleton, Vol. 1: Being His Autobiography and Letters
It is unfortunate that the store of reminiscence con cerning Carleton is so limited. He was not great enough to his contemporaries, notwithstanding all his genius to lead them to invent or to preserve stories about him. Some of those who remember him most vividly, did not know him in his best period,and accordingly do not speak with enthusiasm of his manner or presence. Dr. Kells Ingram, a keen admirer Of his works, expresses the View of others as well as his own when he admits that Carleton did not come up to his expectations I cannot recall anything particularly interesting or characteristic that he said. I cannot say that I felt drawn towards him personally. In his conversation I was struck by his vigorous good sense, but not by any evidence of imaginative force.
Sympathy in a biographer is an important point, an essential one indeed, but that sympathy should be dis criminative. Complete sympathy with Carleton is im possible; the present writer claims only that he has related the incidents of his life without prejudice, and with such palliation Of his tergiversation as he could find. Carleton's life would have to remain unwritten if unvarying and unstinted praise of its subject were to be its essential feature. The criticism passed in this book upon Carleton's less estimable writings is based upon a long acquaintance with them. Almost every thing he published has been read and re-read for the purposes of this biography. Wherever praise could be honestly given it has been most freely expressed.
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