Autograph letter signed : London, to John Ruskin, [1886] May 29.

Defending his biography of Carlyle; saying "I considered Carlyle to be the most important personality which has appeared or is likely to appear for centuries. The biographies of all the great spiritual leaders of mankind... have been made useless to me, have been essentially a mere heap of incredibilities because the biographers have made idols of them, have dressed them up in fine clothes and concealed the whole under or human side of them.....A true & complete estimate of Carlyle I did not believe that I could give, or that any could at present give--but I could insure that the human side, that all sides of him could be preserved[.]--I described him as I knew him howls & yowls and all. They did not in the least affect my reverence for him, though they did very materially add to my knowledge of him...The world hereafter will not love him the less or honour him the less, while they will be sure that they have no 'ideal' or painted doll, before them, but a real man[.] We should either have no 'life' at all of a great man, or we should have a true life, --and a life in which an essential part is left out is as bad as a false one.