THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
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 BY 
 
 EDWIN PAXTON HOOD. 
 
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 1 AND WHEN THIS COMETH TO PASS, (LO, IT WILL COME,) THEN SHALL THEY 
 KNOW THAT A PROPHET HATH J^EEN AMONG THEM." 
 
 Ezekiel xxxin. 33. 
 
 JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13, FLEET STREET. 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTOX, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1875. 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 I. SOMETHING ABOUT THE MAN TO BEGIN WITH . . i 
 
 II. CARLYLE A HIGH PRIEST OF LETTERS i> 
 
 _ III. His STYLE 39 
 
 ^ IV. WHAT OF " SARTOR RESARTUS " ? 50 
 
 , V. " SARTOR RESARTUS " CONTINUED CARLYLE A 
 
 TRANSCENDENTALIST 61 
 
 , VI. " SARTOR RESARTUS " STILL CARLYLE AND 
 
 GERMAN LITERATURE GOETHE AND HEGEL . . 87 
 VII. Is CARLYLE CONSERVATIVE OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH ? 1 10 
 VIII. CARLYLE'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY; AND HIS 
 DOCTRINE THAT HISTORY is A GREAT WORLD- 
 BIBLE, OR REVELATION OF GOD 145 
 
 IX. His STORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 175 
 
 X. THE STORMING AND CAPTURE OF THE BASTILLE 209 
 
 XI. CARLYLE THE PROTESTANT 227 
 
 XII. CARLYLE'S INTENSE LOVE OF HUMANITY 239 
 
 ^ XIII. CARLYLE'S PRINCIPLES OF HERO-WORSHIP AND 
 
 LOVE OF HEROES 270 
 
 XIV. CARLYLE THE PROVERB UTTERER 307 
 
 XV. CARLYLE'S ARTIST FACULTY AND SCENE PAINT- 
 INGSIMAGINATION AND HUMOUR 318 
 
 XVI. Is HE A PROPHET ? 351 
 
 XVII. CONDITION OF ENGLAND QUESTION 387 
 
 XVIII. THE HAPPINESS THEORY 409 
 
 XIX. CARLYLE AND SOME OF HIS CRITICS 419 
 
 XX. NEW ERAS . 47 
 
T f t/* li 
 A A X J/ 
 
 - 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT THE MAN, TO BEGIN WITH. 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE, Thinker, Poet, Historian, and 
 Prophet, in every sense the most remarkable man of 
 letters of the England of our time, is yet a writer of 
 whom many readers desire some compact and distinct 
 information. The impressions concerning him, and 
 the influence of his writings, are very various, very pre- 
 judiced, and for the most part entirely incorrect. His 
 writings are not to be summed up in the space of a 
 brief review ; -and if this little volume shall serve as a 
 kind of index, pointing modest and not too-well-in- 
 formed readers to the leading characteristics which 
 may be expected in that long row of closely-printed 
 volumes, and thus prove an incentive to their closer 
 and more continuous study, its chief end will be 
 answered. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle has reached the patriarchal age of 
 seventy-nine ; it is so many years since he was born 
 in the parish of Ecclefechan, a little village of Scot- 
 
 i 
 
2 Ecclefechan. 
 
 land, only a few miles across the borders, not far from 
 Carlisle. There his father was a small farmer, and 
 his family probably such as is so distinctly impressed 
 upon the memory of the reader from the old farm- 
 house scenes in Burns' " Cotter's Saturday Night." 
 Carlyle's father was an elder of the Kirk, and it is not 
 wonderful that it was his earnest wish to see his son 
 a minister. It was to this end he went to study at the 
 University of Edinburgh, but there he brought disap- 
 pointment to his parents' hearts. A friend of mine 
 tells me that his father, also a small farmer near Eccle- 
 fechan, was wont to mention how one day passing 
 through Ecclefechan Kirkyard, he saw the father of 
 Carlyle in great grief there, sitting on a grave or a 
 stone ; a letter had just been received from young 
 Thomas containing his final determination not to 
 / enter the ministry. In what terms the decision was 
 couched the present writer has no knowledge ; but 
 so far as distinct impression goes, it seems that the 
 young man could not see his way clearly to take upon 
 himself the work of the ministry, and it was entirely 
 of a piece with that loyal and truthful magnanimity 
 of character which has characterised him through life. 
 It will be remembered that his severe condemnation 
 of John Sterling very greatly arises from his having 
 taken upon himself to preach and minister before he 
 could believe. There was a fine cluster of young 
 men in the University at that time ; especially notice- 
 
Carlyle and Edward Irving. 3 
 
 ' able it is that Thomas Carlyle and Edward Irving 
 appear to have been fellow students and closest 
 friends. 
 
 It was just as Irving was about to leave his Univer- 
 sity, and to step forth on his wonderful career, that 
 he writes the letter in which he hints strongly the 
 character of Carlyle in relation to himself " Carlyle 
 goes away to-morrow, and Brown the next day. So 
 here I am once more on my own resources, except 
 Dixon, who is (better) fitted to swell the enjoyment 
 of a joyous than to cheer the solitude of a lonely 
 hour. For this Carlyle is better fitted than any one I 
 know. It is very odd, indeed, that he should be sent 
 for want of employment, to the country ; of course, 
 like every man of talent, he has gathered around this 
 Patmos many a splendid purpose to be fulfilled, and 
 much improvement to be wrought out. ' I have the 
 ends of my thoughts to bring together, which no one 
 can do in this thoughtless scene. I have my views of 
 life to reform, and the whole plan of my conduct to 
 remodel ; and with all I have my health to recover. 
 And then once more I shall venture my bark upon 
 the waters of this wide realm, and if she cannot 
 weather it I shall steer west, and try the waters of 
 another world.' So he reasons and resolves ; but 
 surely a worthier destiny awaits him than voluntary 
 exile. And for myself, here I am to remain until 
 further orders if from the east I am ready, if from 
 
 12 
 
4 Carlyle on Irving. 
 
 the west I am ready, and if from the folk of Fife I 
 am not the less ready. I do not think I shall go for 
 the few weeks with Kinloch, and I believe, after all, 
 they are rather making their use of me than anything 
 else, but I know not ; and it is myself, not them, I 
 have to fend for, both temporally and spiritually. God 
 knows how ill I do it ; but perhaps in His grace He 
 may defend me till the arrival of a day more pregnant 
 to me with hours of religious improvement." 
 
 Quite in keeping with Irving's estimate of his 
 friend are Carlyle's tender words of appreciation of 
 Irving " But for Irving I had never known what the 
 communion of man with man means. His was the 
 freest, brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever came 
 in contact with. I call him, on the whole, the best 
 man I have ever, after trial enough, found in this 
 world, or now hope to find. The first time I saw- 
 Irving was six-and-twenty years ago, in his native 
 town, Annan. He was fresh from Edinburgh, with 
 college prizes, high character, and promise. He had 
 come to see our schoolmaster, who had also been his. 
 We heard of famed professors, of high matters classi- 
 cal, mathematical, a whole wonderland of knowledge ; 
 nothing but joy, health, hopefulness without end, 
 looked out from the blooming young man. The last 
 time I saw him was three months ago in London. 
 Friendliness still beamed in his eyes, but now from 
 amid unquiet fire ; his face was flaccid, wasted, un- 
 
Young Carlyle, a Mathematician. 5 
 
 sound ; hoary as with extreme age ; he was trembling 
 over the brink of the grave. Adieu, thou first Friend ; 
 adieu, while this confused Twilight of Existence 
 lasts ! Might we meet where Twilight has become 
 Day!" 
 
 y Leaving the University, he appears to have acted 
 for some time as tutor, and he very soon girt himself 
 to the work of a writer, contributing between 1820 
 and 1823 many papers to Brewster's "Edinburgh 
 Encyclopaedia ; " but it is especially remarkable that 
 he who is only known to us by his works, so radiant 
 in imagination and daring speculation, gave early 
 promise of high attainments in mathematics. De 
 Morgan, in his " Budget of Paradoxes," refers to Dr., 
 afterwards Sir David, Brewster's English edition of 
 Legendre's Geometry, translated by some one who is 
 not named. De Morgan says : " I picked up a notion, 
 which others had at Cambridge in 1825, that the 
 translator was the late Mr. Galbraith, then known at 
 Edinburgh as a writer and teacher, but it turns out 
 that it was by a very different person, and one des- 
 tined to shine in quite another walk. It was a young 
 man named Thomas Carlyle. He prefixed from his 
 own pen a thoughtful and ingenious essay on ' Pro- 
 portion/ as good a substitute for the fifth book of 
 Euclid as could have been given in the space, and 
 quite enough to show that he would have been a dis- 
 tinguished teacher and thinker on First Principles ; 
 
6 His Marriage. 
 
 but he left the field immediately." This essay on 
 " Proportion," however, which the present writer has 
 never seen, is said by those whose judgment is suffi- 
 cient on such matters, to be the most lucid and suc- 
 cinct exposition on the subject ever published. But 
 relinquishing mathematics, he betook himself with 
 intensest earnestness to the study and exposition of 
 German literature. In 1824 appeared his translation 
 of "Wilhelm Meister." His Life of Schiller was favour- 
 ably reviewed by Goethe, and the young pupil appears 
 to have completely intoxicated the old master ; and no 
 wonder, for he doubtless recognised the man who was 
 to be his most lucid and affectionate expositor. 
 Goethe is said to have had a bust executed of his 
 young disciple, that he might always have the image 
 and the likeness before him of the living face so far 
 separated. Carlyle was happy in his marriage ; he is 
 understood to have married a young lady drawn to 
 him by affectionate and revering homage for his 
 genius and character Miss Welsh, the only child of 
 Dr. John Welsh, of Haddington, a descendant, too, of 
 the great John Welsh. After his marriage he resided 
 some time at Edinburgh, and then at Craigenputtoch. 
 It was a solitary farm-house on a small estate in his 
 native district. 
 
 The following interesting letter, in reply to one 
 from the illustrious Goethe, inquiring after his occupa- 
 tions, &c., and which appears in the collected edition 
 
Letter from Carlyle to Goethe. 7 
 
 of Goethe's works, gives to us a pleasant picture of 
 Carlyle's life at this time : 
 
 " Craigenputtoch, 
 
 "2$tk September, 1828. 
 
 " You inquire with such warm interest respecting 
 our present abode and occupations, that I am obliged 
 to say a few words about both, while there is still room 
 left. Dumfries is a pleasant town, containing about 
 15,000 inhabitants, and to be considered the centre of 
 the trade and judicial system of a district which pos- 
 sesses some importance in the sphere of Scottish 
 activity. Our residence is not in the town itself, but 
 fifteen miles to the north-west of it, among the granite 
 hills and the black morasses which stretch westward 
 through Galloway, almost to the Irish Sea. In this 
 wilderness of heath and rock, our estate stands forth 
 a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly enclosed, and 
 planted ground, where corn ripens and trees afford a 
 shade, although surrounded by sea-mews and rough 
 woolled sheep. Here, with no small effort, had we 
 built and furnished a neat, substantial mansion ; here, 
 in the absence of a professorial or other office, we live 
 to cultivate literature with diligence, and in our own 
 peculiar way. We wish a joyful growth to the roses 
 and flowers of our garden ; we hope for health and 
 peaceful thoughts to further our aims. The roses, 
 indeed, are still in part to be planted, but they bios- 
 
8 Description of Early 
 
 som already in anticipation. Two ponies, which 
 carry us everywhere, and the mountain air, are the 
 best medicines for weak nerves. This daily exercise, 
 to which I am much devoted, is my only dissipation ; 
 for this nook of ours is the loneliest in Britain six 
 miles removed from every one who in any case might 
 visit me. Here Rousseau would have been as happy 
 as on his island of St. Pierre. My town friends, 
 indeed, ascribe my sojourn here to a similar disposi- 
 tion, and forbode me no good result. But I came 
 hither solely with the design to simplify my way of 
 life, and to secure the independence through which 
 I could be enabled to remain true to myself. This 
 bit of earth is our own ; here we can live, write, and 
 think, as best pleases ourselves, even though Zoilus 
 himself were to be crowned the monarch of literature. 
 Nor is the solitude of such great importance ; for a 
 stage-coach takes us speedily to Edinburgh, which we 
 look upon as our British Weimar. And have I not 
 too, at this moment, piled upon the table of my little 
 library, a whole cartload of French, German, Ameri- 
 can, and English journals and periodicals whatever 
 may be their worth ? Of antiquarian studies, too, 
 there is no lack. From some of our heights, I can 
 descry, about a day's journey to the west, the hill where 
 Agricola and his Romans left a camp behind them. 
 At the foot of it I was born, and there both father 
 and mother still live to love me. Anct so one must 
 
Married Days in Scotland. 9 
 
 let time work. Yet whither am I tending ? Let me 
 confess to you, I am uncertain about my future 
 literary activity, and would gladly learn your opinion 
 respecting it ; at least pray write to me again and 
 speedily, that I may ever feel myself united to you. 
 The only piece of any importance that I have written 
 since I came here is an essay on Burns. Perhaps 
 you never heard of him, and yet he is a man of the 
 most decided genius ; but born in the lowest ranks of 
 peasant life, and through the entanglements of his 
 peculiar position, was at length mournfully wrecked, 
 so that what he effected is comparatively unimportant. 
 He died in the middle of his career, in the year 1796. 
 We English, especially we Scotch, love Burns more 
 than any that lived for centuries. I have often been 
 struck with the fact that he was born a few months 
 before Schiller, in the year 1759, and that neither of 
 them ever heard the other's name. They shone like 
 stars in opposite hemispheres, or, if you will, the thick 
 mist of earth intercepted their reciprocal light." 
 
 Carlyle's works at this period of his course are very 
 noticeable ; he was indeed laying the foundation of 
 that mighty prophetic character which by-and-by 
 swelled into " inspiration gathered from distress." But 
 those works are principally found in the volumes of 
 his Miscellanies, and they are characterised indeed by 
 all the deep insight, the wide-glancing luminous 
 
io His Apparition as Author. 
 
 genius of his later pieces ; but they breathe quietly ; 
 they even seem like the productions of a self-contained 
 and quiet spirit living in some secluded happy home : 
 take his ineffably beautiful paper on Burns for instance. 
 To the same period, also, we have, no doubt, to assign 
 the creation of that wonderful pillar of fire and cloud, 
 " Sartor Resartus/' although published afterwards, and 
 I first in Fraser's Magazine ; and scarcely could the 
 veritable fire or cloud pillar have created more asto- 
 nishment than did this most singular phenomenon 
 create among minds equal to feel the astonishment of 
 it. It opened up a new universe of thought ; it was 
 written in altogether a new language ; it was the birth 
 of Jean Paul Richter and Fichte, but in one book, and 
 that book with a wild individuality altogether its own. 
 Shortly after this Carlyle appears to have come to 
 reside in London, and in London he has held one 
 residence ever since, No. 5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea. 
 Here, it is said by residents in the neighbourhood, his 
 gaunt figure, attired in a brown coat, with dark horn 
 buttons, large slouched felt hat, and enormous walking- 
 stick, is well known. From the period of his residence 
 in London, Carlyle appears to have forsaken the 
 calmer walks of philosophic meditation and exposi- 
 tion, and his histories and all his other books have 
 been as flames of fire kindled for the purpose if pos- 
 sible of lighting society forth from its fearful condition 
 of anarchy, revolution, and bewildering sophisms. For 
 
Margaret Fuller on Carlyle. II 
 
 many years he has been simply the most noticeable 
 man of letters in our empire, and the sacramental 
 manner in which he has devoted himself to his own 
 work has commanded uniform reverence even from 
 those who have been unable either to approve his 
 teachings, or, which is perhaps the same thing, com- 
 prehend his meaning. When his life shall be written 
 it will be an interesting one, for he fills out life on 
 many sides ; any stray letter he happens to write, 
 however short it may be, is sure to contain some 
 pithy thing worth noting. In conversation he appears 
 to have received the mantle of Coleridge, and to pos- 
 sess an infinite and inexhaustible power of many- 
 coloured talk, very remarkable this, when it is remem- 
 bered how he shrinks from any appearance in public ; 
 such appearances, however much they have been 
 desired, have been very rare indeed. Margaret Fuller, 
 afterwards the Marchesa Ossoli, has almost satirised 
 in her description the conversation of Carlyle, as he 
 has also satirised the conversation of Coleridge. It 
 strikes us, however, that graphic as is her description, 
 it must in some points be somewhat unjust. 
 
 " Of the people I saw in London, you will wish me 
 to speak of the Carlyles. Mr. C. came to see me at 
 once, and appointed an evening to be passed at their 
 house. The first time I was delighted with him. 
 He was in a very sweet humour full of wit and 
 
12 Margaret Fidler on 
 
 pathos, without being overbearing or oppressive. I 
 was quite carried away with the rich flow of his dis- 
 course ; and the hearty, noble earnestness of his 
 personal being brought back the charm which once 
 was upon his writing, before I w r earied of it. I ad- 
 mired his Scotch his way of singing his great full 
 sentences, so that each one was like the stanza of a 
 narrative ballad. He let me talk, now and then, 
 enough to free my lungs and change my position, so 
 that I did not get tired. That evening, he talked of 
 the present state of things in England, giving light- 
 witty sketches of the men of the day, fanatics and 
 others, and some sweet homely stories he told of 
 things he had known of the Scotch peasantry. Of 
 you (Emerson) he spoke with hearty kindness ; and 
 told, with beautiful feeling, a story of some poor 
 farmer, or artisan, in the country, who on Sunday lays 
 aside the cark and care of that dirty English world, 
 and sits reading the essays, and looking upon the sea. 
 " I left him that night, intending to go out very 
 often to their house. I assure you there never was 
 
 anything so witty as Carlyle's description of . 
 
 It was enough to kill me with laughing. I, on my 
 side, contributed a story to his fund of anecdote on 
 this subject, and it was fully appreciated. Carlyle is 
 worth a thousand of you for that ; he is not ashamed 
 to laugh when he is amused, but goes on in a cordial 
 human fashion. 
 
Carlyle in Conversation. 13 
 
 " The second time, Mr. C. had a dinner-party, at 
 which was a witty, French, flippant sort of man, 
 author of a * History of Philosophy/ and now writing 
 a life of Goethe, a task for which he must be as unfit 
 as irreligion and sparkling shallowness can make him. 
 But he told stories admirably, and was allowed some- 
 times to interrupt Carlyle a little, of which one was 
 glad, for that night he was in his more acrid mood, 
 and though much more brilliant than on the former 
 evening, grew wearisome to me, who disclaimed and 
 rejected almost everything he said. 
 
 " For a couple of hours he was talking about poetry, 
 and the whole harangue was one eloquent proclama- 
 tion of the defects in his own mind. Tennyson wrote 
 in verse because the schoolmaster had taught him 
 that it was great to do so, and had thus, unfortu- 
 nately, been turned from the true path for a man. 
 Burns had, in like manner, been turned from his 
 vocation. Shakespeare had not had the good sense to 
 see that it would have been better to write straight 
 on in prose, and such nonsense, which, though amusing 
 enough at first, he ran to death after awhile. The 
 most amusing part is always when he comes back to 
 some refrain, as in the French Revolution of the sea- 
 green. In this instance it was Petrarch and Laura, the 
 last word pronounced with his ineffable sarcasm of 
 drawl. Although he said this over fifty times, I could 
 not ever help laughing when Laura w r ould come ; 
 
14 Margaret Fuller on 
 
 Carlyle running his chin out when he spoke it, and 
 his eyes glancing till they looked like the eyes and 
 beak of a bird of prey. Poor Laura ! Lucky for her 
 that her poet had already got her safely canonised 
 beyond the reach of the Teufelsdrockh vulture. 
 
 " The worst of hearing Carlyle is that you cannot 
 interrupt him ; I understand the habit and power of 
 haranguing have increased very much upon him, so 
 that you are a perfect prisoner when he has once got 
 hold of you. To interrupt him is a physical impos- 
 sibility. If you get a chance to remonstrate a 
 moment, he raises his voice and bears you down. 
 True, he does you no injustice, and, with his admir- 
 able penetration, sees the disclaimer in your mind, so 
 that you are not morally delinquent ; but it is not 
 pleasant to be unable to utter it. The latter part of 
 the evening, however, he paid us for this, by a series 
 of sketches, in his finest style and raillery, of modern 
 French literature, not one of them, perhaps, perfectly 
 just, but all drawn with the finest, boldest strokes, 
 and, from his point of view, masterly. All were de- 
 preciating, except that of Beranger. Of him he spoke 
 with perfect justice, because with hearty sympathy. 
 
 " I had, afterward, some talk with Mrs. C. 
 whom hitherto I had only seen, for who can speak 
 while her husband is there ? I like her very much ; 
 she is full of grace, and sweetness, and talent. Her 
 eyes are sad and charming. After this they went to 
 
Carlyle on Conversation. 15 
 
 stay at Lord Ashburton's, and I only saw them once 
 
 more, when they came to pass an evening with us. 
 
 Unluckily Mazzini was with us, whose society, when 
 
 - he was there alone, I enjoyed more than any one. 
 
 He is a beauteous and pure music : also, he is a dear 
 
 friend of Mrs. C, but his being there gave the 
 
 ^conversation a turn to * progress ' and ideal subjects, 
 
 land C. was fluent in invectives on all our 'rose- 
 
 \ water imbecilities.' We all felt distant from him ; 
 
 1 and Mazzini, after some vain efforts to remonstrate, 
 
 became very sad. Mrs. C. said to me, ' These 
 
 are but opinions to Carlyle ; but to Mazzini, who has 
 
 given his all, and helped bring his friends to the 
 
 scaffold, in pursuit of such subjects, it is a matter of 
 
 life and death.' 
 
 " All Carlyle's talk that evening was a defence of 
 mere force, success the test of right ; if people 
 would not behave well, put collars round their necks ; 
 find a hero, and let them be his slaves, &c. It was 
 very Titanic, and anti-celestial. I wish the last evening 
 had been more melodious. However, I bid Carlyle 
 farewell with feelings of the warmest friendship and 
 admiration. We cannot feel otherwise to a great and 
 noble nature, whether it harmonise with our own or 
 not. I never appreciated the work he has done for 
 his age till I saw England. I could not. You must 
 stand in the shadow of that mountain of shams, to 
 know how hard it is to cast light across it. Honour 
 
1 6 Margaret Fuller on 
 
 to Carlyle ! Hoch ! Although, in the wine with which 
 we drink his health, I, for one, must mingle the 
 despised 'rose-water.' 
 
 "Paris, December, 1846. Accustomed to the infinite 
 wit and exuberant richness of his writings, his talk is 
 still an amazement and a splendour scarcely to be faced 
 with steady eyes. He does not converse ; only 
 harangues. It is the usual misfortune of such marked 
 men, happily not one invariable or inevitable, that 
 they cannot allow other minds room to breathe, and 
 show themselves in their atmosphere, and thus miss 
 the refreshment and instruction which the greatest 
 never cease to need from the experience of the 
 humblest. Carlyle allows no one a chance, but bears 
 down all opposition, not only by his wit and onset of 
 words, resistless in their sharpness as so many 
 bayonets, but by actual physical superiority, raising 
 his voice, and rushing on his opponent with a torrent 
 of sounds. This is not in the least from unwillingness 
 to allow freedom to others. On the contrary, no man 
 would more enjoy a manly resistance to his thought. 
 But it is the nature of a mind accustomed to follow 
 out its own impulse, as the hawk its prey, and which 
 knows not how to stop in the chase. Carlyle, indeed, 
 is arrogant and overbearing ; but in his arrogance 
 there is no littleness, no self-love. It is the heroic 
 arrogance of some old Scandinavian conqueror ; it is 
 his nature, and the untamable impulse that has given 
 
Carlyle in Conversation. 17 
 
 him power to crush the dragons. You do not love 
 him, perhaps, nor revere ; and perhaps, also, he would 
 only laugh at you if you did ; but you like him heartily, 
 and like to see him the powerful smith, the Siegfried, 
 melting all the old iron in his furnace till it glows to 
 a sunset red, and burns you, if you senselessly go too 
 near. He seems, to me, quite isolated, lonely as the 
 desert, yet never was a man more fitted to prize a 
 man, could he find one to match his mood. He 
 finds them, but only in the past. He sings, rather 
 than talks. He pours upon you a kind of satirical, 
 heroical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and 
 generally catching up, near the beginning, some 
 singular epithet, which serves as a refrain when his 
 song is full, or with which, as with a knitting needle, 
 he catches up the stitches, if he has chanced, now and 
 then, to let fall- a row. For the higher kind of poetry 
 he has no sense, and his talk on that subject is 
 delightfully and gorgeously absurd. He sometimes 
 stops a minute to laugh at himself, then begins anew 
 with fresh vigour ; for all the spirits he is driving 
 before him seem to him as Fata Morganas, ugly 
 masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about ; 
 but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty 
 Ariels. His talk, like his books, is full of pictures ; 
 his critical strokes masterly. Allow for his point of 
 view, and his survey is admirable. He is a large 
 subject. I cannot speak more or wiselier of him now, 
 
 2 
 
1 8 An Anecdote. 
 
 nor needs it ; his works are true, to blame and praise 
 him, the Siegfried of England great and powerful, 
 if not quite invulnerable, and of a might rather to 
 destroy evil, than legislate for good." 
 
 This is all very well, but instances are not unknown 
 to us in which in society a grim kind of humour per- 
 vades his mind. A friend of ours, an eminent man 
 of letters, was invited to a solitary sort of tea with 
 Carlyle, and an eminent publisher, we need not men- 
 tion his name, let us say Macpherson. Said Carlyle, 
 " I heerd, Mr. Macpherson, tha't yeer a famous hand 
 for a good old Scotch song; suppose you give us 
 ane." Macpherson was not at all indisposed ; he 
 proceeded with a most radiant self-sufficiency, Carlyle 
 sitting all the time as still as the Fates, not an 
 expression in the whole body of him. At its close 
 he said, " I varry truly say, Mr. Macpherson, that 
 I've heerd every word of it." It was certainly 
 a grimly humorous way of disposing of the 
 matter without any fulsome adulation. Shall we 
 say that this also was a voice out of the Eternal 
 Verities ? 
 
 The most notably public event of Carlyle's life was 
 his election to the Lord Rectorship of his University 
 of Edinburgh in 1865 ; in 1866 he was installed. It 
 must have been a wonderfully painful effort to him, 
 so nervously diffident and indisposed for all public 
 
Lord Rector of Edinburgh. 19 
 
 speaking, to have to stand before the concourse in the 
 Music Hall in Edinburgh thronged in an especial 
 manner by the representative intelligence of his own 
 country. He acquitted himself like himself. The 
 man who may be said to have cast a glance into 
 everything and to have sounded the principles of most 
 things, and many of whose miscellaneous papers are 
 fine scholarly elucidations of the most difficult path- 
 ways of human thought, when presented by the old 
 friend of his earliest manhood, Sir David Brewster, 
 to the audience, tumultuous with its passionate excite- 
 ment of admiration, slipped off his Lord Rector's gown 
 of black and gold, and talked only to the young men, 
 the students, and talked in the tenderest, homeliest, 
 and most fatherly affectionate manner; leaving all 
 problems of philosophy and all the difficulties of the 
 age behind, he spoke only to the great consideration 
 that every one had his own way to make in the world 
 and in life. It was a most instructive piece, but its 
 great charm was in its unmatched simplicity. The 
 address was far more holy than many a sermon, and 
 with all its humour it might have been preached as a 
 sermon in any church. 
 
 It is a very fine thing to realise the grand old 
 Titanic intelligence, with all its mighty multiplicity of 
 gifts, its keen worldly shrewdness and mighty insight, 
 saying to the young men, " And don't suppose that 
 people are hostile to you in the world ; you will rarely 
 
 2 2 
 
20 The Death of His Wife. 
 
 find any any one designedly doing you ill ; you may 
 feel often as if the whole world is obstructing you 
 more or less, but you will find that to be because the 
 world is travelling in a different way to you and 
 rushing on in its own path. Each man has only an 
 extreme good will to himself, which he has a right to 
 have, and is moving on towards his object." And 
 what a fine suggestive word that is, " I find that you 
 could not get any better definition of what holy really 
 is than healthy, completely healthy, mens sana in cor- 
 pore sano" And just as noble, " Don't be ambitious ; 
 don't be at all too desirous to succeed ; be loyal and 
 modest. Cut down the proud towering thoughts that 
 you get into you, or see that they be pure as well as 
 high. There is a nobler ambition than the gaining 
 of all California would be, or the getting of all the 
 suffrages that are on the planet just now." 
 
 But it was while receiving the ovations consequent 
 upon his position in Edinburgh, while drinking, as we 
 may suppose, a little drop of real joy in the gratitude 
 offered him for a life-work, not, so far as we have been 
 able to see, in any way too well rewarded, that the 
 great sorrow of his life and his age fell upon him. His 
 beloved wife had been unable to accompany him to 
 share his triumphs in Scotland, but she was taking 
 her drive in Hyde Park, when her little dog, running 
 by the side of her brougham, was run over. The dog 
 was not seriously hurt, but Mrs. Carlyle was excited ; 
 
His Epitaph on Her Tombstone. 21 
 
 she took the dog into the carriage, the coachman 
 drove on, and when the carriage door was opened, it 
 was found she was dead. Here was dreadful news 
 for the great, tender-spirited, and solitary old man. 
 What a return from Scotland and the scenes of his 
 triumph, and then what a return back to Scotland 
 again, accompanied by his brother, Dr. Carlyle, Mr. 
 John Forster, and the Honourable Mr. Twissleton. 
 The body of the dear companion of so many years 
 was conveyed to Haddington Cathedral ; there the 
 daughter sleeps in the same grave with her father in 
 the ruined choir ; and there Carlyle has placed the 
 following inscription on her tombstone : 
 
 " Here likewise now rests Jan'e Welsh Carlyle, 
 spouse of Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London. She 
 was born at Haddington, i/j-th July, 1801 ; only child 
 of the above John Welsh and of Grace Welsh, Cap- 
 legell, Dumfriesshire, his wife. In her bright existence 
 she had more sorrows than are common, but also a 
 soft invincibility, a capacity of discernment, and a 
 noble loyalty of heart which are rare. For forty 
 years she was the true and loving helpmate of her 
 husband, and by act and word unweariedly forwarded 
 him as none else could in all of worthy that he did 
 or attempted. She died at London, 2ist April, 
 1866, suddenly snatched away from him, and the 
 light of his life as if gone out." 
 
22 Letter to a Young Man 
 
 This is sufficient as an introduction to this volume ; 
 he who may not hitherto have been aware, now 
 knows who and what manner of man this Carlyle 
 is. But the object of the writer is not to detail the 
 circumstances of Mr. Carlyle's life, of which, indeed, 
 he knows nothing more than what every one else so 
 minded may be acquainted with. Its object is quite 
 other ; it is to be as a friendly guide and intro- 
 duction to the books he has written : these the writer 
 thinks he does know ; and then he does revere the 
 man, the writer of them, as the chief of our later 
 English poets, the most earnest and prophetic of our 
 great English preachers, the mightiest of all his- 
 torians, and the last of the Puritans. To make 
 these verdicts good will be in some sort the object 
 of this present volume. 
 
 Everything about Thomas Carlyle is interesting, 
 and if it were the business of this book to draw out 
 any account of the man, this might be done 'from 
 many sources authentic anecdotes are not wanting ; 
 but the simple object of this introduction is only to 
 say a few sufficient words to create in the reader's 
 mind a pleasant confidence in the man. Such, for 
 instance, as the following letter may produce : it is 
 addressed to a young man desirous of hints towards 
 self-improvement. 
 
 " Chelsea, March I3///, 1843. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, Some time ago your letter was 
 
On Self Improvement. 23 
 
 delivered to me ; I take literally the first free half- 
 hour I have had since to write you a word of answer. 
 It would give me true satisfaction could any advice 
 of mine contribute to forward you in your honourable 
 course of self-improvement, but a long experience has 
 taught me that advice can profit but little ; that there 
 is a good reason why advice is so seldom followed ; 
 this reason, namely, that it so seldom, and can almost 
 never be, rightly given. No man knows the state of 
 another ; it is always to some more or less imaginary 
 man that the wisest and most honest adviser is 
 speaking. As to the books which you whom I 
 know so little of should read, there is hardly any- 
 thing definite that can be said. For one thing, you 
 may be strenuously advised to keep reading. Any 
 good book,i,any book that is wiser than yourself, will 
 teach you something a great many things indirectly 
 or directly, if your mind be open to learn. This old 
 counsel of Johnson's is also good, and universally 
 applicable : ' Read the book you do honestly feel a 
 curiosity, to read.' The very wish and curiosity indi- 
 cate that you, then and there, are the person likely 
 to get good of it. ' Our wishes are presentiments ol 
 our capabilities :' that is a noble saying, of deep 
 encouragement to all true men ; applicable to our 
 wishes and efforts in regard to reading as to other 
 things. Among all the objects that look wonderful 
 or beautiful to you, follow with fresh hope the one 
 
24 Letter to a Young Man 
 
 which looks wonderfullest, beautifullest. You will 
 gradually find, by various trials (which trials see that 
 you make honest, manful ones, not silly, short, fitful 
 ones), what is for you the wonderfullest, beautifullest 
 what is your true element and province, and be 
 able to profit by that. True desire, the monition of 
 nature, is much to be attended to. But here, also, 
 you are to discriminate carefully between the true 
 desire and false. The medical man tells us we should 
 eat what we truly have an appetite for ; but what we 
 only falsely have an appetite for we should resolutely 
 avoid. It is very true ; and flimsy, desultory readers, 
 who fly from foolish book to foolish book, and get 
 good of none, and mischief of all are not these as 
 foolish, unhealthy eaters, who mistake their super- 
 ficial false desire after spiceries and confectioneries 
 for their real appetite, of which even they are not 
 destitute, though it lies far deeper, far quieter, after 
 solid nutritive food ? With these illustrations, I will 
 recommend Johnson's advice to you. 
 
 "Another thing, and only one other, I will say. 
 All books are properly the record of the history of 
 past men what thoughts past men have had in them 
 what actions past men did : the summary of all 
 books whatsoever is there. It is on this ground that 
 the class of books specifically named History can be 
 safely recommended as the basis of all study of books 
 the preliminary to all right and full understanding 
 
On Self Improvement. 25 
 
 of anything we can expect to find in books. Past 
 History, and especially the past history of one's own 
 native country, everybody may be advised to begin 
 with that. Let him study that faithfully ; innume- 
 rable inquiries will branch out from it ; he has a 
 broad, beaten highway, from which all the country is 
 more or less visible ; there travelling, let him choose 
 where he will dwell. Neither let mistakes and wrong 
 directions of which every man, in his studies and 
 elsewhere, falls into many discourage you. There 
 is precious instruction to be got by finding that we 
 are wrong. Let a man try faithfully, manfully, to 
 be right ; he will grow daily more and more right. 
 It is, at bottom, the condition on which all men have 
 to cultivate themselves. Our very walking is an 
 incessant falling, a falling and a catching of our- 
 selves before we come actually to the pavement ! it 
 is emblematic of all things a man does. In conclu- 
 sion, I will remind you that it is not by books alone, 
 or books chiefly, that a man becomes in all points a 
 man. Study to do faithfully whatsoever thing in 
 your actual situation, then and now, you find either 
 expressly or tacitly to your charge ; that is your 
 post ; stand in it like a true soldier. Silently devour 
 the many chagrins of it, as all human situations have 
 many ; and see you aim not to quit it without doing 
 all that it, at least, required of you. A man perfects 
 himself by work much more than by reading. They 
 
26 An American 
 
 are a growing kind of men that can wisely combine 
 the two things wisely, valiantly, can do what is laid 
 to their hand in their present sphere, and prepare 
 themselves withal for doing other wider things, if 
 such lie before them. With many good wishes and 
 
 encouragements, 
 
 " I remain yours sincerely, 
 
 "THOMAS CARLYLE." 
 
 Carlyle has been often "interviewed," and those who 
 have interviewed him have sometimes, in the most 
 gross and indecent way, hurried off to put into print 
 their description of the man, and their reports of the 
 fragments of conversation and opinions they had eli- 
 cited from him. The following is not one of the very 
 best, but it is descriptive. It appeared some time 
 since, when he was in the more thorough vigour of 
 his physical powers, and will, perhaps, convey some 
 idea of the man. We extract it from a well- 
 written sketch of "A Walk about London," in a 
 very remote number of the " Lady's Book." The 
 glimpse it gives of Carlyle's personal appearance 
 is vivid : 
 
 "A word about Thomas Carlyle, who is probably an 
 object of greater interest to Americans than any other 
 living author. I received a very characteristic note 
 one evening from this great literary nondescript, in- 
 
Interview. 27 
 
 forming me that I ' would be very welcome to him 
 the next day at two, the hour at which he became ac- 
 cessible in his garret.' His home was more than two 
 miles from my lodgings in Trafalgar Square, and I 
 took an omnibus nearly to the place. He resides in a 
 neat little two-story brick house in Chelsea, one of the 
 environs of London on the banks of the Thames. 
 His housekeeper showed me at once to his ' garret/ 
 and a very respectable garret it was, too ; the 
 ragged poets of the Johnsonian age would have 
 danced to get in such an airy, well-furnished apart- 
 ment. 
 
 " He received me very cordially, and I sat down and 
 began shall I say it ? to stare at him ; for I assure 
 you Carlyle is a man to be stared at such another is 
 not to be seen every day. Just imagine a large, 
 robust, broad-shouldered Scotchman, with grey eyes, 
 dark hair, attired in a long black coat, such as is 
 generally worn by the Methodist clergy, and poring 
 over a German tome, and you have a considerable 
 idea of our ' great brother man.' If you had not 
 heard his name you would know him as soon as he 
 opened his lips, for he talks just as he writes. He 
 gives you the same assortment of obsolete terms, 
 picturesque phrases, outlandish epithets, and long 
 German compounds, all mingled in a singularly un- 
 couth, but, at the same time, singularly impressive 
 style. I have been frequently asked if Mr. Carlyle's 
 
28 An American 
 
 style appeared to be natural or all acted. I am dis- 
 posed to think it was at first an affectation, but he 
 has used it so long that the mannerism has now 
 become natural. 
 
 " After enjoying a delightful conversation with him, 
 he took up his hat and cane, and we walked up to 
 London. All the way he talked in his own peculiar 
 style, with a humour and a broadness of Scotch ac- 
 cent that kept me laughing in spite of myself. He 
 frankly confessed himself entirely ignorant of Ame- 
 rica, although his miscellaneous works were first col- 
 lected here, and he has now five readers on this side 
 of the Atlantic to one in England. In fact, I found 
 him but little read there, and, on mentioning his 
 name once at an English table, my neighbour turned 
 and asked me who he was. Another man present 
 replied, with a sneer, ' That Chartist he means.' 
 
 " About the time when I saw Mr. Carlyle, the out- 
 breaks in the manufacturing districts were exciting 
 great alarm ; and after he had descanted at some 
 length on the Manchester operatives, whom he styled 
 ' great dumb Saxons, full of old Norse ferocity/ I 
 spoke of the happy condition of the labouring classes 
 in our own democratic country. ' Oh, yes/ said he 
 ' you may talk about your de-mo-cracy, or ony other 
 cracy, or ony kind o' political rubbish ; the true secret 
 of happiness in America is, that you have a good deal 
 of land with very few people.' His remark was, in 
 
Interview with Carlyle. x^/ 
 
 ^^=*-- . ' 
 
 the main, true ; and the great mass of evils in Eng- 
 land, with her bread taxes and sliding scales, and 
 parish workhouses, and trades unions, are directly 
 traceable to her enormous population. I was espe ! 
 cially struck, during Mr. Carlyle's conversation, with 
 a short reminiscence of his early admiration of Robert 
 Burns how he used to creep over into the church- 
 yard of Dumfries, when a little boy, and find the 
 torrrb of the poet, and sit and read the simple in- 
 scription by the hour. ' There it was,' said he, * in 
 the midst of poor fellow-labourers and artisans, and 
 the name Robert Burns ! ' At morn, at noon, and 
 at eventide, he loved to go and read that name, so 
 dear to every lover of nature, and so especially dear 
 to a peasant boy of Scotland like himself. 
 
 " I endeavoured to protract our conversation by 
 walking as slow as possible ; but when we had arrived 
 at the Green Park, he was called in another direction 
 by an engagement, and I bade him a cordial farewell. 
 As he walked away, I looked after him with deep 
 admiration, not unmingled with sorrow of admiration 
 for his heroic independence of thought and action ; for 
 his keen insight into the workings of the human soul ; 
 and, more than all, for the stern, unbending resistance 
 to the oppression of his fellow man." 
 
 To this the present writer may add that he has 
 never seen him, has only venerated him at a distance ; 
 to his own mind, without a question, that Thomas 
 
3O Our Literary Chieftain. 
 
 Carlyle is the chief prophet and man of letters of 
 this day ; an edifice to which all the Stuart Mills, Sir 
 William Hamiltons, Tyndalls, Huxleys, and Tenny- 
 sons, and even the Brownings, his nearest compeers, 
 are as separate stones, or they are like to be found as 
 statues in the various niches of the great Valhalla of 
 his mind and writings. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CARLYLE A HIGH PRIEST OF LETTERS. 
 
 IT is said of Europe's greatest Emperor Charle- 
 magne that when he lost his beloved bride, Frastrada, 
 by death, for some time he would not allow her remains 
 to be interred ; and when, swathed in purple, gold, and 
 jewels, she was borne to her tomb at Ingelheim, then 
 the King continued inconsolable, till an Archbishop 
 Turpin suggested that the wedding-ring the ring of 
 his bride which fascinated the King, should be taken 
 from his ringer, and he cast it into the rushing Rhine. 
 But when the poor old King went and sat disconsolate 
 on the banks of the river, and watched the place 
 where the ring sank into the stream, wave after wave 
 flowing over it, his Queen was not restored to him, 
 and, to his grief for her loss, he now added grief for 
 the loss of the ring by which he was wedded to her. 
 From the affairs of state, from all occupations of 
 pleasure, of business, he hurried to the banks of the 
 stream, silently to watch the roll of the waters over 
 the place where he lost the ring. And so, like a 
 solemn, stricken, silent monarch, Carlyle sits watching 
 
32 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 and looking into the great stream of Time, like a 
 weary-hearted king, who has lost his heart's world, as 
 in a mute haze of wonder. He is like a man who 
 may have lost his bride, too, his faith in circumstances 
 and things, but to whom the past and all its suggestive 
 meditations are laden with the burden of a deep con- 
 sciousness of the possibility of faith and trust ; albeit 
 all is turned into a consciousness of isolation and 
 bereavement and woe : so he sits and sings, and sighs 
 
 over the 
 
 " Tender grace of a day that is dead." 
 
 Separated from other men by the greater intensity 
 of his moral sufferings, he is the Hamlet of the age ; 
 it is his power to feel more, which provokes the in- 
 dignation of men. We have read most notices of him 
 and his writings, and the adverse scornings read to us 
 like the laughter which might rise from merriment at 
 the spectacle of almost infinite wonder and despair. 
 For here, in this man, whatever amusement his style 
 of thought or expression may afford to others, we have 
 one whose business in life is no amusement ; to him 
 his task is one of real, deep seriousness. He is no 
 amusing novelist no caterer for an evening's light 
 entertainment. He is one of the few men who have in 
 our day attained to a high position, but who, receiving 
 their position like a Providence, perform its duties in 
 the spirit in which we break our sacramental bread. 
 Mr. Carlyle leaves to many men who shall be nameless 
 
The True Priesthood of Letters. 33 
 
 the mere money-making religion of literature. Those 
 
 gentlemen, indeed, are at no distant remove from Mr. 
 
 Barnum in their ideas of the great duty of making a 
 
 name a marketable commodity. To turn our wares to 
 
 good account, and make them yield the highest rate 
 
 of interest, is a doctrine most sound for the merchant; 
 
 but our moral conscience sets a higher standard than 
 
 that of mere money value on the productions of the 
 
 literary man. Mr. Carlyle has never possessed the 
 
 power of turning all he touched with his pen into 
 
 gold, but he, with a name which might easily make 
 
 liim the possessor of thousands, has preserved his 
 
 dignified literary obscurity, holding his place as one 
 
 .-set apart to impress the age with his thoughts, not to 
 
 cover the walls with his name. Leaving to others to 
 
 be the showmen of the age, brave Diogenes Carlyle 
 
 sits in his den, in Chelsea, like a literary anchorite as 
 
 he is, with an eloquence, passion, and invective keen 
 
 as the livid lightnings which shot round the chained 
 
 Prometheus he will not sell himself, body and soul, 
 
 to the gaping vulgar. He, like Helps, and Tennyson, 
 
 and Browning, reminds us that the priesthood of 
 
 letters has its sacred seclusions as well -as its public 
 
 duties ; and so he nurses his great soul in silence. 
 
 And this we call the true priesthood of letters. " I 
 say," says Carlyle, " of all priesthoods, aristocracies, 
 governing classes at present extant in the world, there 
 is no class comparable for importance to that Priest- 
 
 ~^-L 3 
 
34 The Priesthood of Book- Writers. 
 
 hood of the Writers of Books." It is consecration to 
 the spiritual work of the world, it is the chivalry, the 
 knighthood of letters. There are those who, in their 
 devotion to literature, are like the Templars in the 
 days of old, and they unite in themselves the character 
 at once of priest and soldier. To be such it is neces- 
 sary that a man should be not merely a lover of 
 letters, a writer of books, a noted man in the republic 
 of scholarship ; he must follow his vocation as that to 
 which he is called ; he must take it up either for. 
 triumph or for martyrdom, like a true soldier, conse- 
 crated and set apart to do battle with the hosts of 
 evil. There are very humble men in the priesthood 
 of letters, and there are very lofty captains. It is not 
 merely the following of a literary profession which 
 can entitle to a place in it it is the spirit in which it 
 is followed. It is a devotion to Divine ideas. It is 
 not so much the possessing an idea, it is the being 
 possessed by an idea, and that idea one of the great 
 \vorld forces and lights. It is devotion to the service 
 of human souls, to rouse and animate human hearts, 
 to increase the number of true believers, and to put to 
 flight the rabble rout, the paynim host of darkness 
 and of falsehood this is the consecrated work ; to 
 obtain some true knowledge of the world, the universe, 
 God and man. In truth, we fear there are those in this 
 host who sometimes will not very closely bear look- 
 ing at editors, scribblers, tale writers, song writers, 
 
The A rmy of Black Seraphs. 3 5 
 
 fictionists; but the venerable majesty of law is sus- 
 tained by a staff in whose ranks we notice some very 
 questionable men, and the ministry of Divine truth 
 sometimes devolves on men whom we can by no means 
 admire. But, in the main, we do recognise a company 
 of men who are sworn to stand by the cause of God's 
 truth, who will use their pens faithfully, not servilely, 
 divinely, not infernally ; who will stoutly stand to it 
 that God is in the world,' has not left it, and will not 
 leave it ; who never give up humanity for lost ; who 
 do battle for purity ; who feel their infirmity and their 
 feebleness, but still resolutely stand to it that they are 
 the men through whom God's will is proclaimed to 
 and known to the universe ; and by them His inex- 
 tinguishable lustre may be known to the world 
 Divine thought consciously or unconsciously speaking 
 through them. Who will estimate what such men keep 
 alive in the world what faith, what imagination ? 
 
 In primeval ages all men are believers. In the 
 later ages, when faith and imagination die out from 
 the multitude, what would be the condition of 
 society without a lettered class without a race of 
 teachers ? We do not know that we can dare to call 
 the host of writers an army of black seraphs, as it has 
 been called, but certainly the priests of letters are the 
 untonsured monks of the age. Black friars flitting to 
 and fro over che land, in the old time, were a small 
 company compared to them ; and to their power, how 
 
 32 
 
36 Literary Men. 
 
 can we compare the poor ignorant hosts of the middle 
 and dark ages ? A faithful man of letters may be 
 almost ubiquitous for good in our time. Wealth, 
 position, rank who would not gladly relinquish all 
 these to be a conscious ray of light to " minister to 
 a mind diseased," or a conscious flash of lightning 
 to scatter the mists, or to strike down a hoary wrong ? 
 This is then to be a priest of letters one of those 
 . spirits whose existence is the surest promise to the 
 world that as God has raised one man, so He will, by- 
 and-by, raise the race. His words are often mysteri- 
 ous, yet how powerful, like the text of the Koran, the 
 mysterious words on the Turk's sharp scimitar ; and 
 yet how swift flies the scimitar and executes the deed 
 of death. So is it with literary power of the highest 
 order. You cannot account for it, but it is. How 
 sacred the pursuit to sway the minds of mankind by 
 knowledge of their Divine intentions and perceptions. 
 To the priesthood of letters, at night, the sacred genius 
 of wisdom comes, when the world is asleep ; lays the 
 aching head in her lap, and cools and kisses the burning 
 brow, and inspires to fight off sleep, even though it be 
 at the purchase of death. Consecrated at once to 
 love and knowledge, such men are not to be despised, 
 but loved and venerated for their works' sake. Some- 
 times they "stoop in the dark tremendous sea of 
 cloud," but if they are faithful, " God's lamp pressed 
 close to the breast " pierces the gloom. The splen- 
 
Ministers of Ideas. 37 
 
 dour which was always visible to their own souls by- 
 and-by makes them visible to the souls of others. A 
 nation without its priesthood of letters may have 
 wealth, and power, and stately buildings, and vast 
 colonies, but it is a Nineveh, a Babylon, an Egypt, or 
 a Yucatan ; after all it is an anthill in , its curious 
 contrivances a beaver's hut, a bee's cell. Priests of 
 letters, ministers of ideas, imagination, and religion, 
 these raise a nation ; this is the prophetic fire ; this is 
 the true ever-burning vestal flame, Without it a 
 nation is a crypt. Let us guard sacredly the rights 
 of letters. 
 
 We set before ourselves the task of elucidating the 
 character of the writings of the man we believe to be 
 one of the greatest of these priests in this country or 
 in our age. George Stephenson was not more surely 
 one of the greatest material, than Thomas Carlyle is 
 one of the greatest moral, forces in the England of 
 our times. No name has provoked so much sneering, 
 laughter, scorn ; but no name has provoked so much 
 dissertation, argument, and criticism. We believe that 
 all persons who know this great man, this Titan, feel 
 for him, even when dissenting most from his premises 
 and conclusions, affectionate awe. Even in those who 
 most decidedly object to his teaching, the teacher is 
 regarded as one who is made venerable by what he 
 has seen, and sacred by what he has suffered. He 
 is no mere literary man ; he has influenced the pulpit, 
 
38 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 the newspaper, the platform, the press. The words 
 of his strange Scandinavian, his Scaldic letters, have 
 flamed through all students' hearts. Almost all our 
 greatest writers admit their indebtedness to him. He 
 is the highest embodiment of literary power we have 
 in this country. He has within him the strength of a 
 century of writers ; it would be difficult to say what 
 he does not know ; he has marshalled around him 
 the scholarships and the questionings of all ages. 
 From his small and unpretending house in Cheyne 
 Row, Chelsea, he has shaken the thought of England 
 and America, and stirred in all readers the deep foun- 
 dations of mind. For a competent soul to read his 
 works for the first time, is to awake to a new exist- 
 ence ; it is like first love ; Venus crossing the disc of 
 the sun warm, delicious, inspiring, anxious. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HIS STYLE. 
 
 THE writings of Carlyle we will call Babylonic bricks 
 the ideas and the words are huge and shapeless, and 
 cyclopean ; indeed, we may call his books the cyclo- 
 / pean order of literary architecture. What else could 
 we do but this ? Genuine productions these of this 
 wild age this age in which the feats of Iprence rival 
 the grand antediluvian ages of nature, and in which 
 man, by following nature and imitating nature, has 
 subdued nature. A literature in ancient Babylon was 
 impossible ; so of 'ancient Egypt, where they published 
 their periodical literature on mummy papyri, and on 
 sarcophagi and Rosetta stones. We never, until the 
 age in which we live, emulated the ancient vagaries 
 and grotesque magnificences of the world's patriarchal 
 times. True, in those old days the Temple sprang up 
 on the lofty rock, and the mighty bull struggled at 
 Nineveh from the stone. But if any man contem- 
 plates this age keenly and intently, with the certainty 
 that while the human mind has made the age, the age 
 not less certainly acts on the mind, what must be his 
 impressions ? It has been said the nation, the world, 
 
4O A nti-Macassar v. Bearskin. 
 
 is shod with iron. Have not human achievements 
 touched the confines of miracle miracles beheld no- 
 where so amazingly as in the truly wonderful agglo- 
 merations of a great city? Carlyle's writings are to us 
 the literature of an age of great cities an age of great 
 cities where, in addition to the stupendous shapes of 
 science, Titanic speculations flit to and fro like vast 
 ghosts, worthy of the vast regions they populate and 
 overcrowd. Or, as in Etruria, you find the cyclopean 
 temple and tomb, while forms of wonderful life, three 
 thousand years old, startle you by the pathos and 
 tenderness of nature in the marvellously preserved 
 pictures of those times ; so in the huge books of our 
 author, shapes of beauty start up, like Olympia be- 
 witching the knights in the wilderness. 
 
 In an age of anti-macassars, if we may say this in- 
 offensively, we are surely not astonished that Carlyle 
 should be unpopular with some. When we have not only 
 anti-macassars in our drawing rooms, but when we have 
 a whole Anti-Macassar style of literature, just as useless, 
 and just as ingeniously ridiculous, we do not wonder 
 that the Bearskin style of writing the strange com- 
 ' minglement of softness and strength does not take. 
 Still, every strong mind makes its own language, for 
 language is the robe of thought. Characters marked 
 by strong originality and force have an invincible 
 mannerism not always pleasant to ears accustomed 
 only to the smooth flowings of polished imitators. 
 
Carlylese. 41 
 
 Certainly, of all men who have innovated upon what 
 are regarded as the legitimacies and proprieties of 
 language, Carlyle is the most daring. With other 
 men it was the bending of the branch or the twig, 
 frequently for the purpose of lending additional grace 
 to the clustering foliage. But gracefulness and 
 Carlyle parted company years since, if, indeed, they 
 ever met. He breaks through the established usages 
 and mannerisms of composition ; he does not bend 
 language to his will, he breaks it as we break' a crystal, 
 a petrifaction, or a spar, and ten thousand undreamt 
 of combinations of wondrous beauty and strength flash 
 upon the astonished senses. Carlyle's style may be 
 well compared, not to the polished marble, where every 
 vein is exhibited in smooth and exquisite beauty say 
 rather to the rough granite, full of sharp and salient 
 points, brightening with many a micaceous fragment. 
 He very often makes a dash a note of interrogation 
 to subserve the purpose of words. He is not satis- 
 fied with mere language ; he makes his syllables leap 
 up into vivid life before the eye ; language writhes, 
 gesticulates ; it is frequently dramatic graphic is far 
 too weak a word to express its power. Never was 
 there a man so determined, at all hazards, to express 
 his meaning ; he never hesitates. Carlylese is the 
 appropriate name to give to his style. It is perfectly 
 individual and idiosyncratic; and it is compounded 
 of " English, Scotch, German, Greek, Latin, French, 
 
42 Innovations of his Style. 
 
 Technical, Slang, American, Lunar, or altogether Su- 
 perlunar, Transcendental, and drawn from the eternal 
 nowhere. He uses it with a courage which might blast 
 an academy of lexicographers in a Hades void of voc- 
 ables." You quarrel with it. Well, but you may 
 tighten your style till you strangle your meaning. 
 Yet Home, in his " Spirit of the Age," has described 
 this as "gaunt, ghastly, grotesque, and graphic." Very 
 alliterative this, but not untrue. 
 
 And this is everywhere the great ground of quarrel 
 with Carlyle. People say they cannot read him ; and 
 certainly his language is not to be mastered in a day 
 by those who have been unaccustomed to the foun- 
 tains from whence he has drawn his inspiration. It 
 is the language evidently of a mind labouring and 
 struggling beneath the idea conceived in one lan- 
 guage, and to be altered in another. Yet in almost 
 every great thinker and writer, has not this innovation 
 characterised the pen ? Is there a name of the first- 
 class of men in our literature that is not the index of 
 innovation ? This was the charge so haughtily hurled 
 at Wordsworth, and still repeated with octogenarian 
 wisdom and sagacity by those who are unable to 
 apprehend his glory. Was not Shakespeare an inno- 
 vator ? Has he been forgiven yet for his violation of 
 the unities ? Was not Voltaire's criticism upon 
 " Hamlet " even this that "it was the production of 
 a drunken savage"? and Hume was not more compli- 
 
Is he Classical ? 43 
 
 mentary. Was not Milton an innovator in the struc- 
 ture of his verse and in the management of his epic ? 
 Was not Johnson an innovator, and an innovator 
 such as we are by no means inclined to tolerate ? Is 
 not the style of Thomas Carlyle a reaction from 
 Johnsonian rotundity and Addisonian smoothness ? 
 And who does not perceive that no literature can be 
 classical while it is in the course of composition ? We 
 have no desire that Carlyle should ever be regarded 
 as classical. " The voice of one crying in the wilder- 
 ness " can never be classical. Even Sir Thomas 
 Browne is not, nor ever can be, classical. Thomas 
 Fuller is not classical, nor Spenser, nor Quarles, nor 
 George Herbert. The truth is, if we stand by the 
 mere elegancies of literature, we shall lose some of 
 the noblest types of English composition. And, 
 indeed, whatever other ages may have thought, and 
 whatever may be thought by eminent authorities now, 
 it is surely time to declare there is no reason why the 
 models of ancient composition should be eternal. No 
 model should be slavishly followed ; the living spirit 
 should breathe through the reverent uplooking ; the 
 expression of the writer's soul clearly, forcibly, should 
 be a far more important matter .than the approxima- 
 tion to any copy whatever, however faultless and 
 pleasing. 
 
 Further, has it not been said, times beyond number, 
 that the highest literature of any age mirrors the age 
 
 TTXTT-v V H 
 
44 Expresses the Mind of the Age. 
 
 itself; not merely in the graphic description, not 
 merely in the character moving before the eye, but in 
 the diction employed? Carlyle's mind has well 
 expressed in the kind of language employed, the 
 general spirit of our age an age of excitement and 
 variety, an age almost ubiquitous in its knowledge 
 all strange things coming forth, and demanding that 
 they shall be named things scientific and shammish 
 things Pagan, and Christian, and nondescript 
 things from all kingdoms, and from every conceivable 
 world. Carlyle's language is encyclopaedical ; and 
 he expresses a meaning and, we will dare to say, a 
 meaning legible and plain about all things. He 
 speculates far, indeed, into all realms never made 
 popular before. He traverses oceans previously sailed 
 over only by an occasional Madoc. Like a Columbus, 
 he describes the headlands, and the soundings, and 
 the outlying islands, and makes the way clear for a 
 thousand little barks to put out upon the same rough 
 sea. Let it be granted that he is sometimes wanting 
 in perspicuity ; first let it be inquired how far this is 
 traceable to ourselves, or to him. As well compare 
 the map of Columbus with one of Wyld's, and say 
 see, the thing is imperfect. And, again, are other 
 metaphysical writers, not of Germany, but even of 
 England, so lucid and transparent ? Is it not a fact, 
 that when Sir William Hamilton published, thirty-five 
 years since, his " Essay on the Unconditioned," it 
 
His Style its Vehemence. 45 
 
 opened so new a field for thought, that even many 
 philosophers and thinkers were unable to read it from 
 the nomenclature ? But nowhere shall we find the 
 great battles between the reason and the under- 
 standing so clearly arbitrated, and the phenomenal 
 philosophy so lucidly explained, as in Carlyle's 
 "Miscellanies." And let it be remembered, too, 
 that he is the first great writer who has ever stepped 
 forth in a spirit of kindly and noble criticism, to make 
 the speculations of the great schoolmen upon a vast 
 variety of themes plain in a few papers to the uni- 
 versal reading world. 
 
 No writer so reminds us as Carlyle does of what we 
 read of Wolfdietrich in the Heldenbuch,' that when in 
 a passion or angry, his breath grew flame red-hot, and 
 would take the temper out of swords. If we cite any 
 illustrations of this, which we will call his flame and 
 wrath power, it shall be especially with reference to 
 the matters immediately in hand : thus he says : 
 
 " National suffering is, if thou wilt understand the 
 words, verily a judgment of God has ever been pre- 
 ceded by national crime. General suffering is always 
 the fruit of general misbehaviour general dishonesty. 
 Consider it well. Had all men stood faithfully to 
 their posts, the evil when it first rose had been man 
 fully fronted and abolished, not lazily blinked and 
 left to grow, with the foul sluggard's comfort, ' It will 
 
46 Its Vehemence. 
 
 last my time.' Thou foul sluggard, and even thief ! 
 for art thou not a thief, to pocket thy day's wages, 
 for this, if it be for anything, for watching on thy 
 special watch-tower that the good city suffer no 
 damage, and all the while to watch only that thine 
 own ease be not invaded, let otherwise hard come to 
 hard, as it will or can ? Unhappy ! It will last thy 
 time thy worthless sham of an existence, wherein 
 nothing but the digestion was real, will have eva- 
 porated in the interim. It will last thy time, but will 
 it last thine eternity ? Or what if it should not last 
 thy time (mark that also, for that also will be the fate 
 of some such lying sluggard), but take fire, and ex- 
 plode, and consume thee like a moth." 
 
 The mightiest illustration of Mr. Carlyle's power in 
 this direction we find in those strange wild Pythonic 
 utterances which have moved all men almost to anger 
 the Latter-day Pamphlets. Our language has 
 nothing like them. Almost all political pamphlets 
 have been written, through the ages since the press 
 has been a power, to serve a party or to procure a 
 place. These are the indignant and usually most just 
 warnings of a prophet from his cell. It is strange 
 too, that Mr. Carlyle reverses all other men's methods 
 in this. Most men begin with passion and end with 
 calm. Calm and Carlyle never could have been found 
 together. Even in all his productions purely literary 
 
Its Impatient Invective. 47 
 
 his essays on Schiller and Goethe, and on German 
 literature in general there were the evidences of a 
 stormy nature, that would not be contented with the 
 mere literary side of things ; and when he came 
 to regard the tendencies and characteristics of the 
 age, then all the pent-up power of his being evidenced 
 itself. After all, Carlyle's writings illustrate what 
 is, we suppose, a very common feeling, only existing in 
 him to an amazing degree, namely, the mighty unrest 
 in the mind, arising from the feeling that we could cure 
 prevailing evils if we possessed the proper position 
 if we only stood where the cure could be applied. To 
 walk through Bedlam, or Hanwell, and to feel as we 
 walk from ward to ward " I could restore all these 
 disordered minds," and to be prohibited from making 
 the attempt. To walk through workhouses and 
 deserted villages, and to feel, "Yes, I, too, could, 
 would they but trust me I could be the captain and 
 commander here ; I could marshal all this into place 
 and instead of its lying here putrifying and staining 
 the soil, I could give efficiency and purpose to all 
 this." Oh, the thought has come to us, to all, to all 
 thoughtful men we do not mean mere quacksalvers, 
 cagliostros, demagogues, democrats but to prayerful, 
 thoughtful men, the thought has come : " Ah, me ! if 
 they would but try this, this would restore the balance 
 of things." We all need to remember again and 
 again Luther's advice to Melancthon, when he was 
 
48 Queer Compound Epithets. 
 
 too solicitous about church affairs in his age, " Philip 
 Melancthon would do well not to attempt the govern- 
 ment of this world any longer." And that passing 
 meditation which we have on record of the Emperor 
 Maximilian was very good : " Oh, eternal Lord God, 
 if Thou Thyself shouldst not be watchful, how ill 
 would it be with Thy world, which is now governed 
 by me, a miserable hunter, and by this drunken and 
 wicked Pope Julius." 
 
 Into this estimate of style also falls that most 
 singular method he has of compounding epithets.' 
 They have often been grouped in some measure such, 
 for instance, as "gig-respectability," "able-Editors," 
 " Gospel- of -Mc'-Crowdy," " Phantasm -Captains," 
 " Godfrey's-cordial-constitutions," " Apotheosis of 
 Attorneyism," " Strumpet-ocracy," an epithet applied 
 to the reigns of Charles II. and Louis XIV. and XV. ; 
 "National-palaver," " Supreme Scoundrel," "Phallus- 
 Worship," Criminals belonging to the " Devil's 
 Regiments of the Line." Political economists are 
 " Professors of the Dismal Science," "prevenient Grace 
 and superprevenient Moonshine," " Heavyside, my 
 solid friend," " Crabbe the Editor of the Intermittent 
 Radiator," " The Smelfungus Gazette," " Stump- 
 orator," "Attorney-logic," "Pig-philosophy," "shams," 
 " cants," " flunkeyisms," " fugle-motions," " make-be- 
 lieves." Such are specimens of the altogether multi- 
 tudinous compounds which meet us in these singular 
 
The Style is the Man. 49 
 
 writings ; and one writer applies to Thomas Carlyle 
 with much more justice the language Thomas Moore 
 used of the late John Gait, 
 
 "With a rabble of words at his command, 
 
 Scotch, English, and slang in promiscuous alliance, 
 He at length against syntax has taken his stand, 
 And sets all the nine points of speech at defiance." I 
 
 And George Gilfillan in his " Gallery, of Literary 
 Portraits," adopts the Carlylese dialect to describe it, 
 speaking of it as " fuliginous flaming prose-poetry, 
 mock-heroic-earnest, a satiric-serious, luminous-ob- 
 scure." Indeed whatever may be said of it there is 
 no mistake here, no prettiness, no beautiful selection 
 of tropes and figures selected upon the most approved 
 principles of Belles Lettres. The message he has to 
 give is given, every syllable of it, in the most down- 
 right unmistakable language ; as when he says, " No 
 lie you can speak and act but it will come after longer 
 or shorter circulation, like a bill drawn on Nature's 
 reality, and be presented there for payment, with the 
 answer, No effects ; pity only that it had been so long 
 in circulation, that the original forger were so seldom 
 -he who bore the final smart of it." Thus much of Mr. 
 Carlyle's style, unquestionably, like all true styles, the 
 very idiosyncrasy of the man. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WHAT OF " SARTOR RESARTUS ') ? 
 
 THERE are still some persons (and those by no 
 means wanting in intelligence) who say, What does he 
 mean by " Sartor Resartus," or the Tailor Re-fitted ? 
 What sort of fantastic allegory or parable is this ? or 
 has it any congruity, or coherence ? is it more than 
 the wildest series of Ephrem Syrus-like rhapsodies ? 
 is there any unity in it at all ? The reader may be 
 sure that there is unity in it. In- many a way genius 
 has been fond of spelling out the life of the soul in 
 allegoric pictures, such as that of the Shepherd of 
 Hermas, Pilgrim's Progress, and their like; "The Tale" 
 of Goethe, " the deepest poem of its/sort in exist- 
 ence, the only true prophecy emitted for who knows 
 how many centuries ?" says Carlyle in his notes to 
 his translation of it, is also of this order; and when we 
 get an inkling of its meaning, it carries us along after 
 it, hovering along on wonder wings ; an amazingly 
 suggestive piece, and carrying our conception of 
 Goethe's prescience and far-reaching faith and know- 
 ledge higher, one almost dares to say, than anything 
 else he has said to us higher even than Faust 
 
" The Story of One Spacious in Possessing Dirt'' 5 1 
 
 although one's human interest is not a little daunted 
 fry talking snakes and chattering will-o'-the-wisps ; 
 a profound piece of work. Perhaps the finest thing 
 our literature has done in this allegorical way for 
 a long time, is George Macdonald's " Phantastes," 
 a book whose title gives no idea at all of the deep 
 human but allegorical wisdom running along through 
 its pages, until near the close, where surely the 
 dreamer fell fast asleep. To the order of " Sartor 
 Resartus" belong many of Jean Paul's pieces, and 
 especially those broken, spasmodic, symbolic hints, the 
 foot-notes to the chapters of Walt und Vult. 
 
 But " Sartor Resartus," the story of Diogenes 
 / Teufelsdrockh (Devil's Dirt), what of it ? Surely 
 the hero's name is not a promising one for any 
 mortal, yet, has it not been said of man, with 
 alliterative truth, that he is a compound of dirt 
 or dust and deity ? And this is the story to show 
 how the poor soul, environed in, and begrimed 
 
 by devil's dirt, foul, deadly sensualisms and mate- 
 
 rialisms, acquires altogether a new suit of clothes, 
 and passing through its everlasting No, .and its 
 centre of indifference, becomes invested by an 
 entirely new suit of noblest clothing, and in natural 
 supernaturalism wears the' very garment of God, 
 and finds life to be an affirmation not a denial or a 
 doubt ; and from the birth in the little village of 
 EntcpfnJil, or the Duck Pond, which very narrow ' 
 
 42 
 
52 "A Real Pilgrim's Progress." 
 
 hamlet may stand as typical of the little region in 
 which every man begins his experiences, becomes at 
 last heir to and inheritor of the Universe. 
 
 So that it is a real Pilgrim's Progress this of" Sartor 
 Resartus," a story of a pilgrim who through many 
 scenes, and every variety of all but unutterable 
 sorrows, through which the child of painful thought 
 and wild passion passes, claims at last his birthright 
 as a living immortal soul. For years, it is said, 
 " Sartor Resartus " wandered up and down England in 
 search of an expositor, and for the greater number 
 of readers, perhaps, it is not in a much better plight 
 now ; but take it up at any time, turn to any page, 
 and you shall find the light which searches and the 
 wisdom which informs. But there are depths and 
 heights in it ; there are relations to wide fields of Ger- 
 man thought and every kind of speculation in it ; 
 and there are crowds of passing allusions, for w r hich 
 assuredly an ordinary reader would be thankful to 
 find an expositor. Would not a reader like to 
 know in what direction to look for the city of 
 Weissnichtwo (nobody knows where), or possibly to 
 call upon, and have transactions with, StUlschweigen 
 and Co. (the respectable firm of Messrs. Silence and Co.)? 
 And what, perhaps a reader says, does the man mean 
 by that crucial moment in the history of the hero of 
 which he records " It is from this hour that I incline 
 to date my spiritual new birth or Baphometic fire- 
 
Teufelsdrockh. 5 3 
 
 baptism perhaps I directly thereupon began to be 
 a man " ? And what does he mean by " having an 
 altercation with the devil instead of beginning 
 honestly to fight him " ? And again, that tenderly 
 told moment of which he writes, " Thus was Teufels- 
 drockh made immortal by a kiss." Surely it is as he 
 j writes, " this strange mystic Teufelsdrockh gives us 
 ; a diagram of the universe, not altogether dark to us." 
 So sits he " as in a boundless phantasmagoria and 
 dream grotto ; boundless, for the faintest star and 
 remotest century lie not even nearer the verge there- 
 of sounds and many coloured visions flit round 
 our sense ; but Him, the unslumbering, whose work 
 both dream and dreamer are, we see not ; except in 
 rare waiting moments suspect not ; creation lies 
 before us like a glorious rainbow, but the sun that 
 made it lies behind us, hidden from us ; then in that 
 strange dream we clutch at shadows as if they were 
 s substances, and sleep deepest while fancying ourselves 
 most awake-^this dreaming, this somnambulism, is 
 what we call life." 
 
 We do not know how to speak of "Sartor Resartus." 
 Our literature has not a more extraordinary book. It 
 is full of barbaric and wild incantations ; it is a 
 mosaic, fashioned from the rocks of a wizard's cave ; 
 it is full of such wild, distorted visions as might 
 throng through the brain of a blind giant in a dream. 
 We are willing to believe that the key-note to this 
 
54 The Book-Seminal of all his Books. 
 
 book was struck by the genius of Richter. While 
 we read it, we seem to thread the intricacies of an en- 
 chanted forest, where the black boughs make a per- 
 petual night, and the winds sink down to a low, 
 creeping, ghostly music, and Walpurgis witches hold 
 their Sabbath. 
 
 There is nothing in Carlyle's other works which 
 has not its seed in this its words fly hurtling 
 through the air like the darts of Apollyon and Chris- 
 tian in fiery conflict ; it is foot to foot the fierce com- 
 bat of scepticism and belief, or rather of which to be- 
 lieve. -The words of the book sound like the ring of 
 the hammer on Vulcan's forges. The light of the 
 book is often lurid like the wild light from a Vulcan's 
 cave. Its words flow in the strangest style ; hymns 
 of devotion alternate with screams as of a stormy } 
 Marseillaise ; and the wail as of some holy nun in the 
 world's most solitary glen or cloister is succeeded by 
 the wild war of fiery cities. 
 
 Unlike any other book of genius, it finds, in the 
 perfect want of unity, its highest unity. It is an en- * 
 chanted isle, where shaggy Calibans and musical 
 Ariels move round us, and cool, and charm, and terrify 
 us. In it we listen to the " pipe of Pan to shep- 
 herds," and to the disdainful scorn of the cynic, and 
 the hallowing love of the Christian. Gleams of 
 ethereal tenderness, and spasms of madness, go float- 
 ing up and down ; and scenery the most wonderful lies 
 
Imagination. 55 
 
 side by side with passions the most woeful. It seems 
 a revelry of all strange and incoherent things ; but even 
 when we master the thought, it is by no means the 
 chart of a little pond or inland river. It has been to 
 ourselves, to thousands besides, like some great 
 mountain chain forming the watershed, it may be, of 
 two continents, holding within itself mighty river 
 i systems, vast lakes of doubt and gloom, and irrigating 
 rivers of cheerfulness and faith. This book this 
 " Sartor Resartus " deals with the whole wide, vast 
 universe of men and things. One of the most marvel- 
 lous of books. " Mysterious and audacious nonsense," 
 says one critic. Very well, leave it alone, ' then ; 
 plainly it is not for you. 
 
 Meantime should its gorgeous robing of mystery be 
 the foundation of your contempt or your reverence ? 
 Have not all greatest books (and all works of the 
 highest order of Imagination are the greatest, as the 
 Imagination is the greatest faculty) that which most 
 confirms to us our destiny of immortality, and our kin- 
 dred with spiritual being and existence ? Such books 
 must have a meaning deeper than appears at the first 
 reading. Poets especially are "greater than they 
 know ; " for, as their fingers moved over the paper, 
 there was a power acting through the pen they could 
 scarcely control, there was a wind which blew along 
 the charmed lines. How clearly the truth seemed to 
 reveal itself ! How rapidly it used the human forms 
 
56 TJte Clothes Philosophy. 
 
 for the various purposes to which it was delegated ; 
 but all greatest books need expositors Homer, 
 Dante, Shakespeare however little the exposition 
 effects. It is quite true that not one in five thousand 
 can well tell what to make of this book, which it is 
 an era in our literature to have produced. We read 
 it still again and again with renewed feelings of 
 wonder ; nay, the awe of the book seems to grow 
 upon us. It begins mysteriously enough : " Con- 
 sidering our present advanced state of culture, it 
 might strike the reflective mind w r ith some surprise, 
 that hitherto little or nothing of a fundamental cha- 
 racter, whether in the way of philosophy or history, 
 has been written on the subject of clothes." 
 
 What are these clothes ? Through the strangest, 
 wildest night visions we have soon to pass ; truly we 
 are entering upon the history of clothes ; but what 
 
 clothing ? Man, the tailor indeed. . j. It is in fact the 
 
 "i 
 
 most effective deliverance upon transcendentalism, 
 and he who is not disposed to risk the breaking of' 
 his teeth in the cracking of the nut, had better leave 
 it untouched. This book, it has been said, is 
 mammoth milk, and to read it is like dining on the 
 flesh of unicorns. It is the story of the act distin- 
 guished from the thought, when we read that time 
 and space are the garment of God. The great tailor 
 is only the Earth-Spirit in "Faust" weaving in 
 creation the living visible garment of God. 
 
Existence Separated from Phenomena. 57 
 
 " In Being's flood, in Action's storm, 
 I walk and work above, beneath ; 
 Work and weave, in endless motion 
 
 Birth and death, 
 
 An infinite ocean ; 
 
 A seizing and giving, 
 
 The fire of the living, 
 Tis thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply, 
 And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by." 
 
 Existence separated from phenomena that oldV/ 
 riddle. " Sartor Resartus" is another effort to solve it. ** 
 Shall we ever succeed ? To George III. the question 
 presented itself as startling, How did the apples get 
 into the dumpling ? and truly that is very suggestive ; 
 but this is the question, How did I get here ? How 
 did I and the like of me get into this earth ? this 
 bodily environment. The body is only an organic 
 filament, gathered round the me! like the paste 
 round the apple, to speak still from the figure of 
 George III. ; but if so, is it not also true of all the 
 forms and so-called substances around us ? The 
 great thing is the underlying fact : clothes, deco- / 
 rations, and ornaments ; social ways and institutions ; 
 manners and customs ; morals, languages, sym- 
 bolisms these are all only the forms of thought, the 
 clothing of thought. All visible things are emblems.' 
 Of what are they emblems ? where is the power 
 that uses the emblem ? Matter exists only spiri- 
 tually, and is dependent on spiritual conditions, and 
 to represent some idea and body it forth. The whole 
 
58 Transcendentalism. 
 
 external universe is only a clothing : " The heavens 
 and the earth shall fade away like a vesture." In this 
 remarkable book names are the most important of 
 all appearances ; hence, too, action is the true vesture 
 of the soul " Not what I have, but what I do ; that 
 is my kingdom." Thus, too, we rise from the king- 
 doms of sense to the kingdoms of fancy, for which 
 planets and solar systems will not suffice ; " the man 
 really is the spirit he worked in," " not what he did 
 but what he became ;" thus infinite is the width of 
 the subject. All symbols are properly clothes all 
 forms whereby spirit manifests itself outwardly to the 
 sense or inwardly to the imagination are clothes : 
 le Magna Charta, the pomp and the authority of 
 law, the very Thirty-nine Articles, are only the 
 rearing apparel of a religious idea; and from all 
 lis the outcome is, that only the time-shadows of 
 things have ever perished the real being of whatever 
 was, and whatever is, and whatever will be, is even 
 now and for ever. 
 
 This is transcendentalism this is that curious 
 
 ^ 
 
 is now so often upon our lips, sounding like a new 
 nomenclature in philosophy ; and these terms rightly 
 understood do undoubtedly open the most important 
 windows in metaphysical science and thought ; but 
 we must distinguish and discriminate the two. 
 Think, for instance, of the sense of sight ; light or 
 
Anselmo Imprisoned in the Phial. 59 
 
 colour is the proper object of this perception ; that 
 which is called the objective is the light, the sub- 
 jective is the seeing. 
 
 The reader will remember how, in the fairy tale of 
 Tieck, the wizard Archivarius imprisoned the unfor- 
 tunate student Anselmo in the glass phial ; how 
 great was his astonishment when in an instant he 
 found himself on the mantleshelf of the wizard, one 
 of an unfortunate row of imprisoned spirits in a 
 similar condition ; the difference between the student 
 and his comrades was simply in this : that they 
 thought they were diligently walking about the city 
 streets and walls ; he knew that he was imprisoned. 
 Nor was he the less imprisoned because his prison 
 was transparent ; it was only glass, but he could not 
 escape. He beheld a wide, vast objective ; but his 
 subjective was rimmed and ringed in by that transpa- 
 rent and glassy bondage of care. Thus, is it not true 
 that we are all the student ? And all the phenomena 
 about us, what are they but a glass phial in which we 
 are imprisoned ? Hence, in proportion to the thick- \ / 
 ness or thinness of our prison is our environment. /\ 
 Say rather, that we who are here, exist in the world "" 
 as in a diving-bell, in a deep atmosphere. "Our 
 birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." What are 
 time and space ? We say they rim us round they 
 are but a glass phial ; but they are conditions from 
 whence we cannot escape. What are all the vestures 
 
 ;**. 
 
60 The Dreams of Hamlet. 
 
 which colour and form, and all the properties of 
 matter, spread round us ? a glass phial. " The 
 curtains of yesterday" says our writer "drop 
 down ; the curtains of to-morrow roll up ; but yes- 
 terday and to-morrow are both one." The great 
 discussion of the objective and subjective is only 
 the dispute between the glass bottle and that which 
 is imprisoned within it, and was first made plain 
 to us years ago when we read the simple, wonderful 
 word in " Hamlet," which, perhaps, will be as well 
 remembered by each of our readers as by ourselves. 
 It is when Hamlet welcomes Rosencrantz and 
 Guildenstern to Denmark, and says : 
 
 " What have you deserved of the hands of Fortune, that 
 she sends you to prison hither ? 
 
 " Guil. Prison, my lord ! 
 
 " Ham. Denmark 's a prison. 
 
 " Ros. Then is the world one. 
 
 " Ham. A goodly one ; in which there are many confines, 
 wards, and dungeons Denmark being one of the worst. 
 
 "Ros. We think not so, my lord. 
 
 " Ham. Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing 
 good or bad, but thinking makes it so : to me Denmark is a 
 prison. 
 
 " Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it so ; 'tis too 
 narrow for your mind. 
 
 "Ham. O God! I could dwell in a nutshell, and count 
 myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad 
 dreams." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 " SARTOR RESARTUS " CONTINUED CARLYLE A 
 TRANSCENDENTALIST. 
 
 Now these dreams are " the stuff we are made of," 
 and are the very proof of a being beyond the Nutshell 
 or beyond the phial. This, which is the clothes philo- 
 sophy of " Sartor Resartus," is the very doctrine of 
 Transcendentalism, so much abused and condemned 
 especially by poor puzzled folk who are afraid to get 
 out of the nutshell. But, indeed, we are all Transcen- 
 dentalists when we believe that we are a real, self- 
 existent, independent, immortal soul ; a v pure being, 
 separated from the mere phenomena around us. Here 
 is the voice of the higher consciousness the con- 
 sciousness which not only looks down to the under- 
 standing, but hearkens to the Divine intuitions of the 
 pure reason ; for it is most true that while man has 
 a faculty by which he stands on the firmest earth, he 
 has another faculty by which he looks up to the nof 
 less firmset, although mysterious heavens. - 
 
 Man is in prison ; the understanding bolts, locks, 
 and turns the key upon his prison-house, until the 
 reason rises to open the windows, and to look with- 
 
 
62 The Legend of Phosphorus, 
 
 out. Thus, as in Wieland's Legend of Phosphorus, 
 Phosphorus was an angel, but, marvellous to say, the \ 
 angel became proud, and so he became for his pride ! 
 a true sphinx, half beast, half angel ; and the Lord 
 cast Phosphorus into a prison called Life, and gave to 
 him a garment called Earth and Water, and bound 
 him with four azure chains, and poured out for him a 
 bitter cup called Fire ; and he was originally doomed 
 to have no recollection of his birth-place, or the name 
 of his Father ; and Thought was given to him to be 
 to him a whip, and Weakness was given to him to be 
 a bit and bridle ; then with the elements rising all 
 round him, there he was to remain until a Saviour 
 should rise out of the waters. Many means, says the 
 legend, did the Lord take to speak to the poor 
 Phosphorus imprisoned in the cell called Life. He 
 sent His messenger Disease, and she touched the 
 prison of Life, and straightway it became thin, and 
 lucid, and crystalline ; and He sent by His messenger 
 the Oil of Purity, to cleanse the head and bosom ; 
 and He sent the Pillow called Patience ; and at last 
 poor Phosphorus looked out from his sad home, and 
 he saw, written on the Azure of Infinity, the long- 
 forgotten name of his Father, and his birth-place, 
 gleaming like light of gold. 
 
 Yes, we are, indeed, imprisoned in the mechanism 
 of our being, as in some glass-bell encircling us. The 
 soul looks forth, however, on a fair country outside, 
 
A Flat World for Flatheads. 63 
 
 and pines and yearns, and in its scanty atmosphere is 
 ready to perish. But courage, the bell is but glass ; \ 
 and the bell is not 'eve or /. A bold stroke from the r 
 hand of Death, and thou and I are delivered. We know 
 there are those to whom all this is unintelligible ; but 
 let us not be charged with vanity if we say it is in- 
 telligible to some of us ; while for their benefit the 
 incredulous sceptics may remember the story of 
 Anson's sailor, when Lord Anson published his 
 voyage round the world, who said, " What a liar that 
 captain of ours is ! I went with him all the way, and 
 I declare all the way it was as flat as this bit of earth 
 here." To the race of flatheads the world will always , 
 be flat ; it is only the Transcendentalist who believesN^ 
 it to be round. 
 
 And thus, indeed, God is constantly seeking to 
 liberate man from the prison of death, or life, in 
 which he is confined. But the especial means, no 
 doubt, is by Revelation and by Sacrifice. These are 
 His own especial plan. In saying this we do not ignore 
 the mysterious intuitions of men great lofty souls in 
 all/ ages, heaven-endowed ; Jthe faculty of pure reason 
 was opened so within them that they were able to per- 
 ceive truth. And let no man suppose that we thus 
 junible together all religions. We believe in Transcen- 
 dentalism with Carlyle ; that is, we believe that the 
 senses, and that which they reveal, certainly are not 
 the whole of man. We are Eclectic, too ; for we be- 
 
64 The Javelin of Pythagoras. 
 
 lieve that the pure reason is as much the inner sense 
 of the Hindoo, or the North American Indian, or the 
 b, as it is ours ; but it is only an organ. And as, 
 in order that man may know the truth, he needs more 
 \ than the senses can teach, so for higher truth he needs 
 [more than the pure reason can unfold by its power 
 Ipf inner light. He needs a revelation and an awaken- 
 \ng from God. 
 
 And in Carlyle, as we have already said, and we 
 have seen, there has been the clear perception of the 
 awakened reason in many races, but by no means the 
 identity of all religions. 
 
 Some of our readers must have heard of the Javelin 
 of Pythagoras ; that dart of wondrous virtue, by means 
 of which he passed in a moment over wide rivers, and 
 through inaccessible mountains, and calmed the 
 tempest, and drove away the plague, and appeased the 
 scourges of heaven. This javelin made its possessor 
 ubiquitous, for by means of it he was seen on the 
 same day in cities hundreds of miles apart. This was 
 ever considered only the wild dream of tradition ; but 
 in truth is it not so with the discoveries of genius ? 
 
 I Do not science, and thought, and imagination confer 
 Divine powers on man ? Do they not, as we have 
 often said, annihilate time and space ? If the steam- 
 engine be as Chamisso, the German poet, has defined 
 it a warm-blooded animal without eyes when we 
 meditate upon man, the creator of this warm-blooded 
 
The Four Great Hopes of J$%n. 
 
 ^Q 
 animal, what must we think of him ? and ls~no 
 
 the power marvellous by which such creations are 
 possible ? 
 
 To all men to the meanest human intelligence 
 not less than to the mightiest life has given four 
 great hopes ; to overstep the limits of the real, the 
 actual, the ordinary ; to achieve happiness on earth 
 to live beyond the tomb ; and to understand the 
 marvellous creation in the midst of which God has 
 placed us. The first of these great desires proves 
 itself by the universal hunger and thirst in all minds 
 even the minds of savages to claim an alliance 
 with ghosts and departed spirits ; but if we think for 
 a moment, it will then appear that this desire is united 
 to the last, and that to overstep the limits of the real, 
 and to comprehend the mysteries of this marvellous 
 creation by which we are surrounded, are very greatly 
 one. Consider how the whole world is peopled by 
 elves and fairies and strange supernatural beings. 
 You may regard the whole world itself as a haunted 
 chamber a great ghost room. 
 
 ' " Superstition, superstition," says the sceptic well, 
 call it so if you will does that explain the mystery ? 
 Are we any nearer to the why and the wherefore of 
 this strange phenomenon because a sceptic gibbers and 
 calls the instincts of the world's primeval races by 
 ugly names ? Or, suppose we say that if ghosts are 
 the superstitions of children, and of the childlike, 
 
 5 
 
66 Man's Higher Consciousness 
 
 then as frequently philosophies are the superstitions 
 of men, the great fact being that both superstitions 
 and scepticisms are subjective, and within the man 
 himself, depending altogether upon the eyes of the 
 man imprisoned in the bottle ; and, further, the great 
 fact which we behold in the beliefs and the disbeliefs 
 of man being that he will not let the invisible alone. 
 He argues against what he instinctively feels and 
 * knows, or he bows to the awful forms which beckon 
 him, not the less surely because shapeless and un- 
 defined. The popular imagination has placed man 
 in the centre of an invisible world, which alternately 
 aids and menaces him ; the philosopher places man 
 in the centre of invariably-operating laws. Alike in 
 either, the fact is that man the peasant or man the 
 savant does transcend the limits imposed upon him 
 by time and space. The great truth is, that man does 
 create his own conditions, or, at any rate, there is that 
 within him which does so. We speak of the poetry 
 of science ; we speak, too, of the poetry of motion ; 
 and what do we not ally with poetry ? Well this, 
 | on many tongues, is, no doubt, mere verbiage and 
 sentiment ; but, translated, it means this, that there 
 \J is an ideaLaspect and archetypal form to all fact. In 
 y\^his we behold the effort for the liberation of spirit 
 from the hard pressure of the merely phenomenal. 
 We call this the spirituality of the universe, and there 
 would be great danger that this might only be, in 
 
The Souths Luminous Sphere. 67 
 
 the end, a tinted pantheism if we did not constantly 
 feel that this spirituality is not in the object, but in 
 the subject ; not in the dead phenomena, but in our 
 
 '"living and immortal selves. It is thus, while we do 
 not transcend the sphere of our own consciousness, 
 our consciousness does transcend the sphere of visible 
 and mortal being. The child shivers at the ghost story 
 and the haunted room ; we do not see any grea 
 difference between the emotion of the child and th< 
 tingling thrill of man, the dweller by the threshold o 
 futurity, haunted and stricken by the furies of horror 
 and fear. This is lamblichus's principle of the sou 
 
 . superior to all nature, through which we are capable 
 of surpassing the systems and orders of the world 
 this is the \oyoefies of Marcus Antoninus and the 
 Quietists " the luminous sphere of the soul wher 
 nothing is in contact with the soul itself, but when, 
 by its own light, it sees the truth centred in itself ; y / 
 this is the pure reason of Kant ; this is the idealisfli 
 of Berkeley ; tn!s is the V new simple idea" of Jonathan 
 Edwards, different, as he says, from anything to 
 
 - which their minds had been subject before ; nay, this 
 is the common sense of Reid, which transcends the 
 limits of the actual, and, in the consenting voice and 
 will of all mankind, finds a living testimony of unity. 
 It is this homage paid to the intuitions of mankind ; 
 it is the ascent above the hard realities of life into the 
 kingdom of pure truth, that invests the writings of 
 
 52 
 
68 Carlyle a Believer. 
 
 Carlyle with the charm of mystery, and, at the same 
 time, of majesty. 
 
 (Thoughts and questions like these compel some 
 attention to the question often proposed. . Is he a 
 heretic ? the reader asks ; and if so, in what is he 
 heretical ? Reader, what is a heretic ? The Apostle 
 Paul declared that for his part he was one. " After the 
 way ye call heresy, so worship I the God of my 
 fathers." The question whether he be a heretic de- 
 pends on the previous question, What is our "doxy"? 
 Or we may ask, was Locke a heretic ? One thing 
 is clear to us, that Carlyle stands by the side of 
 \ / faith in the great battle between the understanding 
 j\^and faith. The course of philosophical tendency 
 from Locke to the present age has been a downward 
 tendency. We said that Carlyle must be tried and 
 tested by his mission as reacting against sensational- 
 ism. Especially every word, idea, and movement is 
 to be tested by its tendency, its great development, 
 its ultimate consequences. Sometimes, indeed, this 
 seems dishonest and unfair, and a writer may stand 
 indignantly up from his shrouding pages and say, 
 " Prove me ; I never intended that. You have 
 wrested my words and have given to them a bias 
 never contemplated by me." But, in fact, we cannot 
 save ourselves from tendencies. Teachings and doc- 
 trines will develop themselves, and the questions of 
 an apparently noble thought in the kingdom of meta- 
 
Locke and his Followers. 69 
 
 physical abstraction have been most dangerous. The 
 influence of the seventeenth century was, we believe, 
 disastrous enough. " Following Locke's footsteps," 
 says Carlyle, "the French had discovered that as 
 the stomach secretes chyle so does the brain secrete 
 thought." The celebrated pamphlet, "Christianity 
 not Mysterious," expressed, indeed, the very measure 
 of the faith of the age. There was neither dispo- 
 sition nor power to ascend beyond the reasonings of 
 Locke in philosophy, or Paley in theology ; and we 
 believe the results of both of those teachers' lessons 
 have not been wanting in disastrous consequences. 
 Bishop Berkeley has never been fairly dealt with, and 
 by Dr. Reid, in his Common Sense, he has been 
 grievously misrepresented. He, in fact, saw the con- 
 sequences of sensationalism clearly, and he has made 
 in our English metaphysics the one distinguished 
 stand against the consequences of a popular, plausible 
 metaphysics. Hume, it is said, replied to Berkeley by 
 his " Treatise on Human Nature," and carried forward 
 his principles. Persons who say so do not know Berke- 
 ley. Say, rather, Hume fell into the trap Berkeley 
 laid for men of his cast of mind. The consequences 
 of Locke's doctrines were anticipated, and protested 
 against by the celebrated John Norris, of Bemer- 
 ton, as soon as the " Essay on Human Understanding " 
 appeared. And the same reservation with which we 
 commend the doctrines of Locke, in that work of 
 
70 Is he a Pantheist ? 
 
 amazing clearness and acuteness, must also attend 
 us while we commend that genuine and most legiti- 
 mate child of Locke, Paley's "Natural Theology;" 
 that admirable, and interesting, and instructive book 
 is also to be tried by its development. Natural 
 theology is eminently a delightful study ; in itself it 
 can never be a satisfactory study. For if all our 
 knowledge is only obtained by sensation and reflec- 
 tion, how from nature shall we obtain our idea of 
 God ? And how from nature do we obtain our idea 
 of the unity and personality of God ? And now, 
 indeed, it is felt by many thinkers, that the ground 
 occupied by Locke and Paley must be given up as 
 they intended it should be occupied. 
 
 But, surely Carlyle is a Pantheist. Well, we believe 
 it is usual to call him one ; but, in brief, who and 
 what is a Pantheist ? One who denies the existence 
 of a personal God as an infinite personal will, cha- 
 racter, and consciousness, one " high over all, blessed 
 for evermore, doing according to His will" in all the 
 universe. The Pantheist also denies the existence of 
 the real individuality of man. No ; there is no proof 
 of this in the writings of our author ; on the contrary, 
 the absolute righteousness, justice, and goodness of 
 God is stated with extraordinary strength and clear- 
 ness ; and the individuality of man is stated with not 
 less strength. We know that once, in conversation 
 with John Sterling, poor John exclaimed, " That's 
 
A Definition of Pantheism. 71 
 
 flat Pantheism/' and Carlyle replies, " Well ! if it's 
 /^/-Theism, what then, if it's true ? " And such 
 speeches cause a man to be suspected ; but a Pan- 
 theist never, that we are aware, claimed him, and we 
 fancy it not very possible to make out such a creed 
 from the study of his writings. What is Pantheism ? 
 The god of the Pantheist is an immense ocean, in 
 which are many phials full of water moving to and 
 fro. These phials, wherever they go, are always in 
 the same ocean, in the same water, and if they break 
 the water contained in them is united to the whole 
 of that ocean of which they are portions. We believe 
 we have stated the Pantheist's creed correctly, but 
 every soul sees that the individuality of man is not 
 in the phial that environs him, but in himself. We 
 see no traces of such doctrines in Carlyle. True, we 
 believe that to him the material creation is an appear- 
 ance, but then it is also a typical shadow by which 
 God, a dread personality, manifests Himself to man, 
 and Carlyle himself declares in the very words that 
 he believes himself encompassed by the Godhead, 
 and that " in Him he lives and moves, and has his 
 being." Listen to him. 
 
 " In this God's world, with its wild whirling eddies 
 and mad foam-oceans, where men and nations perish 
 as if without law, and judgment for an unjust thing 
 is sternly delayed, dost thou think that there is there- 
 fore no justice ? It is what ' the fool hath said in his 
 
72 A Terra Incognita. 
 
 heart.' It is what the wise, in all times were wise 
 because they denied and knew for ever not to be. 
 I tell thee again that there is nothing else but justice. 
 One strong thing I find here below ; the just thing, 
 the true thing. My friend, if thou hadst all the 
 artillery of Woolwich trundling at thy back in the 
 support of an unjust thing ; and infinite bonfires 
 visibly waiting a-head of thee, to blaze centuries 
 long for thy victory on behalf of it, I would advise 
 thee to call halt, to fling down thy baton, and 
 say, ' In God's name, No ! ' Thy success ? Poor 
 devil, what will thy success amount to ? If the thing 
 is unjust, thou hast not succeeded ; no, not though 
 bonfires blazed from North to South, and bells rang, 
 and editors wrote leading articles, and the just thing 
 lay trampled out of sight, to all mortal eyes an 
 abolished and annihilated thing. Success ? In a 
 few years thou wilt be dead and dark, all cold, and 
 deaf; no blaze of bonfires, ding-dong of bells, or 
 leading articles visible or audible to thee again, to all 
 for ever. What kind of success is that ? " 
 
 We have heard of an island a forbidden land. The 
 access to it is, indeed, difficult. It is an island 
 like some solitary stranded vessel ; around it chafing 
 and foaming black billows, and roaring breakers ; and 
 crags, wild and fearful, looming up all around. None, 
 it is said, ever reaching it come back in safety to the 
 fair firm earth. It is a land of spectres and enchant- 
 
The Territory of the Transcendental. 73 
 
 ments, and is covered with wild forests, and 
 marshes, and black mountains ; but lit up, too, with 
 many a graceful glen and fair scene of beauty. The 
 worst of the place is, that it gives a drowsy, sleepy, 
 hazy unreality to all life ; and that while on the 
 island, and beneath the opiate, it destroys all life 
 for the future. None ever escaped from it to the real 
 world again. It is the very picture of the study of 
 metaphysics, from which scarce one from a thousand 
 who ventures ever returns safe and sane to the world 
 of real life. The sense of the practical seems to 
 be lost in the wild study of the occult and forbidden. 
 But some men have reached the island and returned 
 in safety. Bishop Berkeley did : has Thomas Carlyle 
 done so ? And yet their voyagings have alike been 
 in the most occult places of the island to the region 
 of transcendentalism. This word is everywhere spoken 
 against. Why should it be so ? It is as innocent aj 
 word as metaphysics; the two words are really,' 
 etymologically and actually, synonynious ; and the 
 instant man becomes thoughtful above, beyond the 
 objects of the sense, he becomes a / metaphysician ; / 
 and it is not possible to be a true metaphysician 
 without being a transcendentalist ; we are this the 
 instant we ask ourselves such questions as those which 
 occupy the front rank in all metaphysical systems, 
 those questions which refer to the certainty of human 
 knowledge ; and how do we know that things are what 
 
74 The Province of the Understanding. 
 
 they appear ? Here the excursions of philosophers 
 and metaphysicians have been most amusing. Without 
 doubt Thomas Carlyle reads things from the trans- 
 cendental development. As we remarked, we are 
 quite unable to perceive that this militates at all 
 against the Christian view of things ; certainly not as 
 Carlyle renders it. He does, indeed, open up the 
 question of Reason and Faith, as the whole of this 
 discussion naturally does. But we may remind our 
 readers, that throughout metaphysical science now, 
 the term reason is reclaimed to its most ancient and 
 original signification, and by it we usually understand 
 the exercise of that faculty which is indeed faith. 
 Some writers have affected to perceive no distinction 
 between these two, reason and understanding. At 
 any rate they do represent faculties in us which we 
 perceive to be distinct. The tmderstanding, as the 
 very term implies, is simply that faculty which opens 
 the doors of sensational demonstrations. The under- 
 standing is, properly, what Locke has described the 
 I nature of man to be the province of the senses and 
 the reflections which come to us through the senses. 
 But is this the whole of man ? Will sensation, and 
 1 the reflections . of mere sensation, give to us the 
 " thoughts which wander through eternity " ? Clear 
 views of the Divine Being, and all efforts which con- 
 duce to them are most desirable ; the science of 
 Natural Theology is a most delightful and necessary 
 
The Reason v. the Understanding. 75 
 
 study ; it is full of beautiful lessons, and may 
 awaken feelings truly religious and Divine ; but is 
 this, which limits itself necessarily to what I am able 
 to see, the whole of religion ? Is this the mode in 
 which Christian truth speaks to me, and is presented 
 to me ? Am I not (to drop the more dignified 
 pronoun) conscious of something within me that 
 transcends sensation, and is not produced by reflec- 
 tion that is, by what reacts upon me from some 
 previous impression ? Yes, I am certainly conscious 
 of much that has not come to me through mere sen- 
 sation and reflection, and I believe that which is best j 
 in me transcends their sphere. I have the sense of 
 freedom, I have the sense of the Infinite, I have^the/ 
 sense of moral affinity and relationship. And call it 
 scepticism, call it Pantheism, call it heresy, call it 
 by whatever ugly names you please, it cannot be 
 guilty of worse crimes than the boasted orthodox 
 sensationalistic belief which makes God an engine, 
 and impels souls by steam. The reason and the 
 understanding are two great powers in man. The 
 understanding assures me of the existence of the real 
 and the visible ; I touch it by my hand, I behold it 
 with my eye. The reason assures me of the existence 
 of the dread ///visible, and affirms for me the existence 
 of underlying law and fact. The understanding com- 
 pels and coerces my conduct by the obvious routine 
 of events and consequences. The reason determines 
 
 x 
 
76 Reason and Understanding. 
 
 me by the still more imperial voices and demands of 
 conscience. The understanding tells me of God as the 
 great Architect, and Designer, and Fabricator of this 
 great round of things ; by Him, indeed, " all things 
 subsist." I see what the rolling star and lily's leaf 
 proclaim His power, and order, and beauty. The 
 reason finds Him higher and deeper, beholds Him 
 not merely moving an engine, but feels Him as a 
 presence in the depths of the souM While beholding a 
 shadow of Him, invisible to the life of sense, He 
 folds all things as in a robe or beneath a wing. The 
 understanding says, " See Him!" TJie reason says, 
 " He is very nigh thee, even in thy heart." The 
 understanding, therefore, is in danger of losing sight 
 of God ; the reason ever hears the word behind it. 
 
 A The understanding has less conception of Immor- 
 \ tality than of Deity, and finds itself posed ever in the 
 attempt to comprehend it. The reason feels that it 
 is existence, and, therefore, duration. Finally, the 
 understanding must be limited to time, and measure- 
 ment, and space ; but the reason will step beyond its 
 
 f prison in time and space, and live in the conscious- 
 ness of pure being and loving. This is a faint, very 
 faint, and feeble shadow of what, did space allow, we 
 might more truly illustrate. And thus we see that 
 the understanding is related to the arithmetic of 
 nature ; but the reason, to the geometry of things. 
 The understanding is synonymous with perception, 
 
 
Reason the Medium of Revelation. 77 
 
 and walks by "the light of things seen and tem- 
 poral." The reason is the intuition of things, and 
 walks by the light of the " unseen and eternal." 
 
 This is the domain of what is called the pure 
 reason, and now we have what is, in fact, the fountain 
 and spring of the systems of modern philosophy 
 which has been esteemed so dangerous, Eclecticism, 
 which affirms not merely the unity of truth for of 
 that there can be no doubt but ignores revelation, 
 by creating a number of revelations, and stamping 
 them all with an equal credit ; the danger here arises 
 from the not perceiving or holding as Christians hold 
 that the reason, like the understanding, can only be 
 an organ ; and Cousin in France, and his followers, 
 and Hegel and Schelling in Germany, and their fol- 
 lowers, have equally with the sensationalist, shown 
 what man becomes when he " forsakes the fountain 
 of living waters." The sensationalist looks on the 
 earth, and the things of the earth, until he sees no- 
 thing else, and from the Deist becomes, as was 
 natural, an Atheist ; while the transcendentalist and 
 the eclectic, lifting up the life to mere abstractions, and 
 living on emotions and volitions, at last bestride a 
 gossamer, and dissipate themselves in the thin air of 
 empty space. To man, everywhere, revelation is 
 necessary, indispensable ; and while in the ancient 
 day the miracle spoke to the understanding of man, 
 and the prophecies and parables to the reason of 
 
78 Carlyle on the Relations of 
 
 man ; and while it is quite true that the voice of 
 God is now more especially addressed to the reason, 
 and the understanding is constantly fighting against 
 the word so spoken to the conscience and the heart, 
 it must never be forgotten that man needs now 
 everywhere what God has given, not merely a sub- 
 jective word for one faculty, but an objective one for 
 the other. 
 
 The following passage is a very noble and compre- 
 hensive summary of Carlyle's principles of meta- 
 physical science. He says, referring to many of the 
 matters in dispute which have passed in review before 
 us in his exposition upon Hume and Kant : 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CLAIMS 
 OF REASON AND UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 " The Germans take up the matter differently, and 
 would assail Hume, not in -his outworks, but in the 
 centre of his citadel. They deny his first principle, 
 that Sense is the only inlet of Knowledge, that Expe- 
 rience is the primary ground of Belief. Their Primi- 
 tive Truth, however, they seek, not historically and by 
 experiment, in the universal persuasions of men, but 
 by intuition, in the deepest and purest nature of man. 
 Instead of attempting, which they consider vain, to 
 prove the existence of God, Virtue, an immaterial Soul, 
 by inferences drawn, as the conclusion of all Philo- 
 sophy, from the world of Sense, they find these 
 
Reason and Understanding. 79 
 
 things written as the beginning of all Philosophy, 
 in obscured but ineffaceable characters, within our 
 inmost being ; and themselves first affording any 
 certainty and clear meaning to that very world of 
 Sense, by which we endeavour to demonstrate them. 
 God is, nay, alone is, for with like emphasis we cannot 
 say that anything else is. This is the Absolute, the 
 Primitively True, which the philosopher seeks. En- 
 deavouring, by logical argument, to prove the exist- 
 ence of God, a Kantist might say, would be like 
 taking out a candle to look for the sun ; nay, gaze 
 steadily into your candle-light, and the sun himself 
 may be invisible. To open the inward eye to the 
 sight of this Primitively True ; or rather, we might call 
 it, to clear off the Obscurations of Sense, which eclipse 
 this truth within us, so that we may see it, and believe 
 it not only to be true, but the foundation and essence 
 of all other truth, may, in such language as we are 
 here using, be said to be the problem of Critical 
 Philosophy. 
 
 " In this point of view Kant's system may be 
 thought to have a remote affinity to those of Male- 
 branche and Descartes. But if they in some measure 
 agree as to their aim, there is the widest difference as 
 to the means. We state what to ourselves has long 
 appeared the grand characteristic of Kant's Philo- 
 sophy, when we mention his distinction, seldom, 
 perhaps, expressed so broadly, but uniformly implied, 
 
 ' 
 
 V Wf 
 
8o Carlyle on the Relative Claims of 
 
 between Understanding and Reason ( Verstand and 
 Vernunff). To most of our readers this may seem a 
 distinction without a difference ; nevertheless, to the 
 Kantists it is by no means such. They believe that 
 both Understanding and Reason are organs, or rather, 
 we should say, modes of operation, by which the mind 
 discovers truth ; but they think that their manner of 
 proceeding is essentially different ; that their pro- 
 vinces are separable and distinguishable, nay, that it 
 is of the last importance to separate and distinguish 
 them. Reason, the Kantists say, is of a higher nature 
 than Understanding ; it works by more subtle methods, 
 on higher objects, and requires a far finer culture for its 
 development; indeed, in many men it is never de- 
 veloped at all ; but its results are no less certain, nay, 
 rather, they are much more so; for Reason discerns 
 Truth itself, the absolutely and primitively True; while 
 Understanding discerns many relations, and cannot 
 decide without if. The proper province of Under- 
 standing is all, strictly speaking, real, practical, and 
 material knowledge, mathematics, physics, political 
 economy, the adaptation of means to ends in the 
 whole business of life. In this province it is the 
 strength and universal implement of the mind ; an in- 
 dispensable servant, without which, indeed, existence 
 itself would be impossible. Let it not step beyond this 
 province, however ; not usurp the province of reason, 
 which it is appointed to obey, and cannot rule over 
 
Reason and Understanding. 81 
 
 without ruin to the whole spiritual man. Should Un- \ 
 derstanding attempt to prove the existence of God, 1 
 it ends, if thorough-going and consistent with itself, |\ 
 in Atheism, or a faint possible Theism, which scarcely I \ 
 differs from this ; should it speculate of Virtue, it ends / 
 in Utility, making Prudence and a sufficiently cunning 1 
 love of Self the highest good. Consult Understanding * 
 about the Beauty of Poetry, and it asks, Where is this 
 Beauty ? or discovers it at length in rhythms and fit- 
 nesses, and male and female rhymes. Witness, also, 
 its everlasting paradoxes on Necessity and the Free- 
 dom of the Will ; its ominous silence on the end 
 and meaning of man ; and the enigma which, under 
 such inspection, the whole purport of existence be- 
 comes. 
 
 " Nevertheless, say the Kantists, there is a truth in 
 these things. Virtue is Virtue, and not Prudence ; 
 not less surely than the angle in a semicircle is a right 
 angle, and no trapezium. Shakespeare is a Poet and 
 Boileau none, think of it as you may : neither is it 
 more certain that I myself exist, than that God exists 
 infinite, eternal, invisible, the same yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever. To discern these truths is the province 
 of Reason, which therefore is to be cultivated as the 
 highest faculty in man. Not by logic and argument 
 "dde5 it wuik \ yd surely and clearly may it be taught 
 to work ; and its domain lies in that higher region 
 whither logic and argument cannot reach ; in that 
 
 6 
 
82 Sartor Resartus : 
 
 holier region where Poetry, and Virtue, and Divinity 
 abide, in whose presence Understanding wavers and 
 recoils, dazzled into utter darkness by that ' sea of 
 light,' at once the fountain and the termination of all 
 true knowledge. 
 
 "Will the Kantists forgive us for the loose and 
 popular manner in which we must here speak of these 
 things, to bring them in any measure to the eyes of 
 our readers ? It may illustrate the distinction still 
 further if we say that, in the opinion of a Kantist, the 
 French are, of all European nations, the most gifted 
 with Understanding, and the most destitute of Reason; 
 that David Hume had no forecast of this latter, and 
 that Shakespeare and Luther dwelt perennially in its 
 purest sphere." 
 
 " Sartor Resartus " suggests another point of ob- 
 servation ; Dr. Hutchison Stirling has said, " The 
 essential secret of Hegel, and to him of the universe, 
 is, ' Omne trimtm perfection rotundum-} all good things 
 are three three is the sacred number, the funda- 
 mental figure, the foot that scans the rhythmus of the 
 universe, the ultimate cell, the multiplication and 
 accumulation, of which was built the All." It would 
 seem so. Hegel's language confessedly, upon the 
 admission of all his most initiated disciples, is bar- 
 barous, paradoxical, unwieldable speech ; the three 
 words which make up the trinity of Hegel's system, 
 
Its Three Divisions. 83 
 
 and like three weird sisters start up in all the dry and 
 dreary places of his logic with a 
 
 " Double, double, 
 Toil and trouble," 
 
 are " Being, Nothing, and Becoming." These are 
 God's three thoughts in making the universe ; for 
 Nothing involves Being, or Nothing can be thought 
 without the thought of being. Being absolutely 
 abstract is an absolutely necessary thought, but it is 
 characterless, it is nothing think, Being, it introduces 
 Nothing think, abstract Nothing, it introduces Being; 
 but Nothing passing into Being is origination. Being 
 passing into Nothing is decease, and both are Becom- 
 ing. Now we do not see really that more is implied 
 in all this than that pure Being and pure Nothing are 
 therefore identical than when we say that pure 
 Being is not conceived in sense, which is only a philo- 
 sophic form of saying God is a spirit. Dr. Stirling 
 will have it that the system of Hegel is like the three 
 legs of the Isle of Man ; throw as you will it keeps its 
 feet ; turn it, toss it, it is ever the same and triune. 
 More humanly and more approximately to Carlyle, 
 Fichte, in his "Destination of Man," divides the life 
 into three chapters, Doubt, Knowledge, and Faith ; 
 these do exactly answer to Carlyle's Everlasting No ; 
 the state of Doubt in which that which is holiest in us 
 becomes a prey to scorn : Knowledge, the Centre of 
 Indifference, in which we find the loosening the bonds 
 
 62 
 
84 Wordsworth and 
 
 of necessity by annihilating all existence : Faith, the 
 Everlasting Yea, in which we find that the organ by 
 which we apprehend reality is not knowledge, because 
 knowledge can only demonstrate itself; it is Faith 
 which assures us that as there is no killing principle 
 in nature; death and birth are but the struggle of life 
 with itself to attain a higher form, and thus Death is 
 the ladder by which spiritual vision ascends to a 
 new heavenly life. Thus " Sartor Resartus " can 
 never be regarded in any other way than as a 
 handbook to faith, excepting by those who are 
 alike unversed in the documents of Conscience or 
 Revelation. 
 f] One writer, whom we can scarcely call wise, insti- 
 
 /tutes a comparison between Wordsworth's " Prelude " 
 ind " Sartor Resartus," and speaks of them as the 
 
 V two most interesting and faithful records of the ex- 
 perience of men of genius which exist. The com- 
 parison is suggestive not because of its justice, but 
 because it so eminently suggests a striking contrasts 
 The Parthenon of Greece and York Minster are not 
 more unlike ; not more unlike are the Psalms of 
 King David and the First Epistle of John. Truly to 
 " Sartor " nature is a Divine tormentor,; although he 
 speaks with passionate love of her mountains and infi- 
 nite scenes, they agonise him. Wordsworth lives with 
 nature, as has been said, in a perpetual honeymoon. 
 Both are intensely self-conscious, both have an in- 
 
Sartor Resartus. 85 
 
 dwelling demon ; Sartor's is exceeding fierce^ Words- 
 worth's exceeding lovable ; Sartor's experience has 
 been frightfully unhappy, Wordsworth eminently feli- 
 x x citous ; both have passed in their Pilgrim's Progress 
 through the Valley of Humiliation, Sartor having a 
 > foot-to-foot battle with Apollyon there, Wordsworth 
 listening to the happy shepherd-boy singing his plea- 
 sant songs ; both have gone through their Valley of 
 the Shadow of Death, Wordsworth apparently fearing 
 no evil, Sartor haunted by all the horrible shapes 
 which could throng all the dreary and. desolate way. 
 The story of Sartor, again, it has been said, is like a 
 reminiscence of Prometheus bound oh his rock, that 
 of Wordsworth is like " the pipe of Pan to shepherds ;" 
 both of them are sworn pilgrims o'f Faith, but to 
 Wordsworth it seems so easy to believe, so hard to 
 doubt, to him " the world is full of blessing ;" to 
 Sartor, on the contrary, it is harder to believe although 
 by no means easy to doubt ; and the world to him, 
 and the universe, and the human soul, are all thronged 
 by terrible miseries and arch enigmas.* It is often 
 the case that by thus putting a pair of eminent 
 teachers together, we find how one illustrates the 
 other. Wordsworth's works are eminently the story 
 of the experiences and introspections of a great soul, 
 
 * In some of the points of this contrasted analogy, the author 
 is indebted to a paper published upwards of twenty years 
 since, "Wordsworth, Carlyle, Milton." Author unknown. 
 
86 Wordsworth and the "Sartor." 
 
 our English Job, but without Job's sorrows, reading 
 the moral significance of all natural things ; Sartor is 
 like Job, perplexed indeed by the great mystery of 
 natural things and human life, but yet with an Elihu 
 voice, a rich soprano of consolation, singing above, 
 and overbearing the discords of the storm by a har- 
 monising music. 
 ' 
 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "SARTOR RESARTUS STILL CARLYLE AND GERMAN 
 LITERATURE GOETHE AND HEGEL. 
 
 To some critics the one great crime Carlyle has com- 
 ^mitted in literature is this he has carried the 
 j genius of Germany and its literature, like the old man 
 of the sea, upon his single back, and set it down in 
 this country. Some even think that this German 
 genius, like the old man of the sea, has strangled his 
 own natural life. In doing this he has wrought a 
 work of wonder ; he has not confined himself to the 
 translating any author ; he has translated, but he has 
 transferred, and in such a spirit of free and imperial 
 genius, that when you take down his works you may ! 
 say, " There that is Germany /" 
 
 But whence, we may ask, this hostility to German 
 literature ? It is a literature to us the most rich and 
 noble we have ever received from any land. It is the 
 parent and the fosterer of all the wealth of our own 
 language, and those who are the most ungratefiflkto it 
 are yet constantly beneath the influence of obligations 
 derived from it. The German literature which is 
 spoken of as the very fountain of scepticism, is also 
 
88 Injustice to German Literature. 
 
 the very fountain of faith it is the language of 
 Luther. Ages even before Luther, in this language 
 was penned the noble poem which takes a place with 
 the " Iliad "the " Nibelungen Lied." It is the lan- 
 guage of the " Heldenbach ;" what wealth of Euro- 
 pean genius lies in it. We talk of the Infidel litera- 
 ture of Germany ; what right have we to talk so, when 
 we would not wish to be measured by the character 
 of our own ? Germany has produced no writers so 
 dangerous'as Hume, or so scurrilous as Paine, or so 
 licentious as Reynolds, or so despotic as Hobbes. 
 Should we feel that justice had been done to us if we 
 were measured by the heartless and elegant dilet- 
 tantism of Shaftesbury, by the ribaldry of Chubb or 
 Tom Brown, or the flippant wit of Gibbon ; by the 
 atheistic pandects of Buckle or Baden Powell, or the 
 scientific vagaries of the authors of the simiatic 
 school of literature ? The scepticism which we meet 
 in Germany is of a piece with that which has given 
 to the system of Berkeley its wondrous fame ; it has 
 upon it everywhere the stamp of the hand of faith, 
 and in its highest literature we find only the unbelief 
 in falsehoods that it may believe in truth. We believe 
 there is no mischief in the writings of Hegel, or Von 
 Bohlen, or Paulus, or Strauss, equal to the flippancies 
 of Bayle, or to countless authors of the French school ; 
 but, indeed, the blackest nightshade of scepticism to 
 the world is Hume, he kills belief in its spring. As 
 
German Literature. 89 
 
 has been remarked, his is a crusade not against a 
 belief, but against the belief in any belief. 
 
 And that Germany is it not a fascinating region ? 
 Can we have the heart to speak ungratefully of the 
 kingdoms in which the greatest battles of Europe, 
 of the world, of all ages, have been fought ; the 
 lands of the Rhine ; the lands of feudalism and 
 chivalry ; the lands from whence came the seeds of 
 the noblest revolutions in Europe our fatherland ; 
 the lands of the Press, of the Reformation ;[ the lands 
 of Lessing, and Herder, and Hoffman, ancj Schiller, 
 and Richter, and a thousand illustrious names ? And 
 its literature rises like a sublime, unfinished Cologne 
 Cathedral ; growing through generations infinite 
 without a plan ; like a brooding, shadowy myth ; its 
 architect and its plan lost in oblivion ! Yet, we would 
 be rather content to receive any inspiration from its 
 mysterious, and shapeless, and infinite images, than 
 from the cold proprieties of Horace, the elegant 
 circumlocutions of Cicero, or the flowing stream of 
 Virgil, or even the strength of Tacitus. 
 
 The mind, apparently, which has exercised most ^j 
 influence over Carlyle, is Goethe's. Singular, for at v 
 first sight there are few points of likeness between { ^ 
 them ; in mind, and character, and writings, they 
 seem to be altogether mi-like. Concerning Goethe, 
 we are not to say much ; that he stands at the head 
 of the literature of his day, we do not doubt ; but it 
 
90 Goethe. 
 
 is a bad eminence ; and we can express no other 
 opinion than that it is won by the possession of a 
 
 ore iron will, and a colder heart, than was ever 
 vouchsafed before to the lot of mortal, in company 
 with a genius so signally fertile, an eye so gifted, and 
 a tongue so eloquent. Calm ! we are told ; and we 
 can readily believe that it is that very calm which 
 awes the heart of our fervent and passionate Carlyle ; 
 a spirit that preserves itself, albeit not in a godlike 
 repose ; and repose is much, but not all ; it is not the 
 absence of emotion that exalts the martyr above the 
 stoic or the stone. 
 
 The great Goethe ! even so ; we do not doubt his 
 greatness for a moment ; while \ve confess " we had 
 rather be a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn " than 
 make that greatness ours. We confess that Carlyle's ' 
 admiration for Goethe once in our lives somewhat 
 interfered with our admiration for him. We can 
 account for his admiration ; we can even for a 
 moment sympathise with it ; for we do regard Goethe 
 as the highest embodiment in a human form of the 
 evil principle the world has known. He was a terrible 
 being ; some of his works seem to us the true hell- 
 broth of literature ; his " Elective Affinities " has been 
 described, and well described, as the physiology and 
 psychology of lust ; this, and other of his works, 
 have this great crime burnt in on them, that they 
 deprave the instincts at their very spring. The 
 
Goethe. 91 
 
 reader must permit us to give our own definition of \ 
 him as the wisest old fool the world has known. 
 " Old Humbug " and " Old Heathen " were the terms 
 by which the sensual old gentleman came to be 
 designated in Germany, and we need not be as 
 savage and unsparing in criticism as Menzel, to 
 perceive that he really was an old Pagan. What an 
 instance of this is that recited by Eckerman. Goethe 
 had received from a young artist a present of a piece 
 of statuary, a model of Myron's cow, with the sucking 
 calf. " Now, here, said he, we have a subject of the 
 highest sort ; the nourishing principle that upholds the 
 world and pervades all nature is brought before our 
 eyes by this beautiful symbol. This and others of a 
 like nature I esteem the true symbol of the omni- 
 presence of God." Truly an old Pagan like those 
 described in Ezekiel's vision, " Men with their backs 
 towards the temple of the Lord, and tJieir faces towards 
 the East'' True, he was as wise as a serpent ; but 
 he was cursed with a loveless, lampless, lustful heart, 
 incapable of heroism, or sympathy with it. But he 
 saw all things, and saw all things by their own light. 
 Never in any man was fulfilled more actually the 
 grand condition and doom of the fall, "Ye shall be 
 as gods ! " 
 
 Why then, it will be said, do you pitch your admi- 
 ration so high for Carlyle, if he so admiringly lingers 
 round the works of Goethe ? It is a fair question. 
 
92 Carlyle and Goethe. 
 
 But we will not confound the disciple with the master. 
 The Paganism of Plato was certainly as deeply 
 marked as the Paganism of Goethe ; but we will not 
 involve all who have derived light from that arch, and 
 most subtle, and most majestic intelligence, and who 
 are fathers in the Church, and masters of sacred 
 erudition, with the paganisms and sensualisms of 
 Plato. Moreover, our admiration for Carlyle is 
 almost in proportion to his possession of qualities the 
 opposite of those possessed by his master Goethe'. 
 Carlyle is in earnest Goethe was eminently the arch- 
 priest and apostle of the ^indifference of our age. 
 Carlyle is objective, and he brings his words to bear 
 eminently on the business of life, and the fears, and 
 hopes, and sins of society. Goethe was a vast subjec- 
 tive spider, sitting in his chamber at Weimar, spinning 
 his sophisms and falsehoods, and acutenesses, from 
 his own nature careless of all beside his web, careless 
 of the fly to be caught, or not to be caught, in the 
 meshes of it, careless of his nation's bleeding wounds 
 and sorrows ; a mere cold-blooded aristocrat. Car- 
 lyle is intensely interested in man as man the sorrows 
 of man, the being of man, the woes, the wails of man ; 
 he has a nature of passionate tenderness ; there is not 
 the slightest life that lives, but he could say, how awful 
 this is to me ! Goethe is exceedingly interested in 
 men and women as pieces of machinery, and wonder- 
 ful combinations of art. If a woman loves him, 
 
Carlyle and Goethe. 93 
 
 admires him, worships him, he would encourage the 
 passion, that he may watch the curiosity of it, and 
 when the curiosity is over, fling the broken toy no 
 matter where into a suicide's grave. The most im- 
 measurable human joy or woe would, we believe, only 
 elicit a " Dear me, this is very interesting " " truly 
 extraordinary ! " Carlyle is a prophet ; his words are 
 as broken, and wild, and vehement as the lightnings 
 which might have shivered on the harp of Isaiah ; and 
 when men say, .Where is his plan ? what his method, 
 his system ? we say, what, and where is the plan of 
 any prophet ? His soul storms out its grief, its 
 wonder, and its dismay, in a wild discord, and the 
 mystery of time and the age sits on him like " the 
 burden of the Word of the Lord." Goethe was a seer 
 most true, he was a seer but the wondrous gift of 
 second sight awoke within him no pity. Men praise 
 the transpicuousness of his style ; but we may notice, 
 that almost always what is called a pure and trans- 
 lucent style is the associate of a cold heart. Hence 
 the style of Hume the style, we must say, of Southey. 
 It is much easier to express ourselves clearly when 
 we feel coldly. Spiders, and prisons, and flowers, and 
 lovers, and impassioned patriots, and villanous kings, 
 and the past and the future, and woman's heart, and 
 man's, and nature's, were all clear to the measure of 
 his seeing, to the eye of Goethe. His capacity of 
 
94 Carlyle and Goethe. 
 
 passion expended itself in " The Sorrows of Werter '' 
 he saw the deep of the heart without diving, but 
 his translucent Mephistophilean style is only like the 
 tropical seas revealing to us beneath their calm and 
 clarity the many deep sea monsters and the 
 sea-snake. Finally, as we have already gathered, 
 Goethe's conception of the Divine in the universe is 
 limited by the mere necessities and conditions of 
 things ; he beholds only in God, fate ; and his religion 
 is but submission, and his sorrow despair. But 
 Carlyle not only perceives a Divine force in the 
 universe, but a Divine will, and a benevolent and 
 loving will ; he does pay homage to Christ and to 
 Christianity he does not patronise Christianity ; to 
 him it is a Divine word ; the Divinest that ever has 
 been uttered, and, as he has most distinctly stated, 
 the imperishable word and will of the Supreme. 
 Goethe, therefore, as all such men do, passed his time 
 in the round of elegant luxuries ; he was the child of 
 a palace true, of a German palace ; still, a luxurious 
 Sybarite, consistent every way with his philosophy. 
 To him, apparently, all the woe in the the world 
 was not. Am I not comfortable? why do you 
 annoy me by talking to me of sorrow ? You speak 
 to him of the world's struggles of life, of grief, 
 of pain. He gives you his reply ; the words are 
 his own : 
 
Goethe : the Comfortable Side of Life. 95 
 
 " All this is neither my coat nor my cake, 
 
 Why vex myself with other men's charges ? 
 The fishes swim at ease in the lake, 
 And take no thought of the barges. '* 
 
 " Fie on the foolish excuse ! Was the rice soup burned ? 
 
 Was the wine not 
 Good and strong- ? Were the pease not young and fresh, 
 
 and, like sugar, 
 Sweet the carrots ? The goose and the herring, in what 
 
 could you blame them ? 
 Better lamb could you find, and with bright bird-pepper 
 
 besprinkled ? 
 
 Surely the salad was good ; the vinegar, was it not pungent? 
 Sweet as balsam the oil, and sweet the cherries ; the butter 
 Sweeter than kernels ? And say, O were not the radishes 
 
 tender ? 
 What ! and the nurturing bread, so white and so light ! It 
 
 is shameful, 
 God's good gifts to reject, and to call the rejection good 
 
 breeding." * 
 
 Here, in short, is the faith of Goethe, and this is all 
 he beholds in life and time. 
 
 Carlyle, on the contrary, practises the heroic les- 
 sons of self-denial and self-reliance ; he will not put 
 his genius out to market or harlequinade tfiough 
 the world in a Court dress ; to him we see that it is 
 a problem most strange and mysterious that a man 
 knowing all that Goethe knows can yet be contented 
 in the round of luxurious and comfortable appoint- 
 ments, and so he flouts to scorn the idea of happiness 
 as the end and aim of life ; he will feel for the world, 
 * Carlyle's Translations. 
 
96 An Anecdote. 
 
 but with " a melting heart, not previously borrowed 
 from the circulating library ; " he does not call that a 
 well-governed state, where, because the wolf eats the 
 lamb, the kite the dove, and the fox the cock, there- 
 fore all things are said to be in order. This artless 
 constitution, it seems to us, was the very ideal of 
 Goethe. But while he can feel he does yet regard 
 misery as the very essential condition of our being. 
 The whole world to him is indeed a grave, dark dis- 
 pensation of sorrow, not even cheered by heaven's 
 stars. You remember Carlyle's exclamations, " There 
 are tears due to kings, and all men ; it is deep 
 misery, sin and misery." 
 
 We believe it is usual to speak of Carlyle as a man 
 without hope ; to us, on the contrary, he is eminently 
 restful and cheerful ; still we do not wonder that 
 Goethe exercised more fascination over his nature 
 than Scott. Mr. Peter Bayne thinks that he under- 
 rates Scott, but surely the boundless insight and 
 knowledge of Goethe, and Scott's entire unrelated- 
 ness to his age, may account for all. 
 
 A friend of ours some years since, a friend of Mrs. 
 Carlyle's, called upon her in the old house at Chelsea; 
 there was a portmanteau in the hall, and it was 
 addressed "Thomas Carlyle, passenger to - 
 Our friend said to Mrs. Carlyle, " Mr. Carlyle is 
 leaving home." " He is," said his wife ; " he is going 
 away for some days, but he can't make up his mind 
 
A Passenger to Weissnichtwo. 97 
 
 where to go to." The friend was greatly struck by 
 that portmanteau, it seemed very much like Thomas 
 Carlyle, passenger to the Infinite No-body knows 
 where ; that is, perhaps, the impression which many not 
 very well-informed readers have arrived at about his 
 mental travels. The impressions of such readers are 
 erroneous. In his expositions of the great masters of 
 German literature, Carlyle makes no reference to 
 perhaps the most astonishing phenomenon of all, 
 Hegel. Hegel, it may be said, he has not expounded; 
 the truth is, Carlyle's " Sartor Resartus " is, so far as 
 our poor thought is able to understand it, Hegel hi 
 self. |(It is the universe conceived as thought// QuiteJ> 
 suggestive of this are the terms in which Mr. Car-' 
 lyle speaks to Dr. Hutchison Stirling in 1868, when 
 one of the candidates for the chair of Moral Philo- 
 sophy in the University of Edinburgh. The letter is 
 written in the warmest terms of friendship, and, 
 among other things to his friend, Carlyle says, " To 
 whatever I have said of you already, therefore, I now 
 volunteer to add that I think you not only the one I 
 man in Britain capable of bringing metaphysical / 
 philosophy, in the ultimate, German or European, | 
 and highest actual form of it, distinctly home to the 
 understanding of British men who wish to understand 
 it, but that I notice in you farther, on the moral side,! 
 a sound strength of intellectual discernment, a noble/ 
 valour and reverence of mind which seem to me td 
 
98 " The Secret of Hegel? 
 
 mark you out as the man capable of doing us the 
 highest service in ethical science too ; that of re- 
 storing, or decisively beginning to restore, the doc- 
 trine of morals to what I must ever reckon its one 
 true and everlasting basis (namely, the Divine or 
 supersensual one), and thus of victoriously reconciling 
 and rendering identical the latest dictates of modern 
 science with the earliest dawnings of wisdom among 
 the race of men." 
 
 Now this is a very significant extract. Hutchison 
 Stirling has a name perhaps not very extensively 
 known beyond the circle of readers of the most un- 
 popular metaphysics, and among them he is best 
 known by his two bulky volumes, "The Secret of 
 Hegel," the most deliberate, faithful, and painstaking 
 attempt to make Hegel accessible to English thought 
 and common sense ever made. Stirling is a devout 
 Hegelian ; he regards Hegel as the Aristotle of our 
 age ; and this is the man Carlyle thinks the one man 
 fitted for the chair of moral philosophy. Indeed, 
 what Stirling has said of Hegel is true of the author 
 of "Sartor Resartus." "Thought, to this author, is 
 the real contents of the universe ; its writer has 
 wrested himself from mere mortal place he be- 
 holds himself like a planet circling round a centre ; 
 in his own nature he mirrors that centre, and 
 then he forcibly places himself in the centre, 
 taking, as it were, the position of God, the Maker, 
 
The Universe Conceived as Thought. 99 
 
 the Infinite Thought, and sees himself as circling round 
 himself." 
 
 To those who are able to comprehend the inner se- 
 cret of " Sartor Resartus," it will, perhaps, appear that 
 it is also with the author as with Hegel that, like a 
 very Vulcan, he has gone down into a dreadful stithy 
 of thought, there to forge and fashion a shield for the 
 Venus of Faith. The book with the odd title, like one 
 of Jean Paul's, is like some vast palace of an Oriental 
 dream, an endless succession, court upon court, 
 chamber upon chamber ; the altogether grotesque 
 beginning conducts us to the end of the universe ; we 
 are as in the presence of some huge fantastic dream- 
 palace, marble and gold, jasper, amethyst, and ruby, 
 and the old prophets are asleep with their signet 
 rings, and they murmur in their sleep as he touches 
 the ring ; and there are monsters of many shapes and 
 proportions, winged and unwinged ; and winds sigh 
 along the ghostly, barren, and incoherent courts ; and, 
 at the end of all, is the Vulcan's forge and cave. And 
 now he comes back from this den, this centre of a 
 ,$7^terranean or 7/^ter-terranean world ; comes forth 
 from that secret chamber of his, begrimed with 
 smoke, smelling of sulphur and no wonder, for he 
 has had a real hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot conflict 
 with the very Devil of non-existence ; the heavens 
 have been darkened by the arrows poured from the 
 quiver and the bow of the sooty old Apollyon. 
 
 72 
 
ioo "Canst Thou by Understanding find out God?" 
 
 " Sartor Resartus " is, perhaps, not quite the text- 
 book for the infant classes of Sabbath schools, nor is 
 it exactly the thing we would put in the hands of 
 young curates as a model for village sermons ; but the 
 substance of all the best things these persons can say 
 is in it it is a shield for Faith. Has not Carlyle, too, 
 fathomed the universe ? It is to the Understanding the 
 universe is unfathomable. " I have swept the heavens 
 with my telescope," says Lalande, "and have found no 
 God." And our readers know M. Comte's pleasant 
 deliverance to the same effect. What would Carlyle say 
 to either one or the other ? " Fools ! Did you expect 
 God to be an optical object ? did you expect, my 
 altogether-pleasant and entirely-too-comical friends* 
 did you expect that you could discover Him by 
 glasses ? Understand me, my pleasant boobikins, 
 your eye and your telescope are both finite instru- 
 ments. God, you are to understand, even according 
 to your conception of such to you all impossible 
 Being, must be infinite. How, then, ye ninnyham- 
 merish ones, can the Infinite God be seen by your eye 
 or glass, and, more especially, when the very eyes of 
 you are only spectacles, behind which there is no eye ? 
 But will you, oh, my stupid brethren ! try another 
 process, not by the sensuous eye of the body, nor the 
 imaginative eye of the mind. Let us set up the 
 scaling ladders of thought. God we cannot compre- 
 hend, but we are able to apprehend thought, and as 
 
" Time and Space only Thought Forms''' 101 
 
 spirit to know spirit, and as thought to know thought." 
 And so, like the Prince in Andersen's fairy tale, who, 
 in sleep, fell on the back of the winged creature, and 
 was borne so through the universe to see the world 
 from which he had been snatched, we are borne 
 along, to see the finished form, the First of Things, 
 and the-at-once-into-existence of this whole world of 
 thought. 
 
 For time and space have ever been, as all readers 
 must know, the puzzle-boxes of philosophers and 
 metaphysicians. A single ray of light upon these, 
 and what mysteries, apparently unfathomable, would 
 clear up. Yet time and space are simple quantities ; 
 or is time itself real being ? Is it only in our 
 thought ? Perhaps the reader will remember and 
 feel that there is truth in the genuine Arabic senti- 
 ment : 
 
 " Where is space ? In the eye. Where is time ? In the ear. 
 Light bringeth that one there, sound bringeth this one here. 
 Close eye and ear, and you are out of space and time, 
 In contemplation, rapture, prayer, and dream sublime. ' 
 You build the world according to your pleasure all : 
 It rests on time and space : through you these stand and fall." 
 
 Have they an objective and external existence ? Time 
 and space were called by Leibnitz the idols of modern 
 Englishmen. Is there Divinity in time and , space/ 
 To many minds they have been eminently suggestive, 
 of Deity, and demonstrations of the existence of God 
 
IO2 Existence Separated from Phenomena. 
 
 have been founded on hypotheses regarding their 
 nature. Why ? Not because of what they are in 
 themselves perhaps, but because of their infinite 
 suggestiveness. Does not Carlyle say, " That which 
 I see but cannot see over, is as good as infinite 
 to me " ? 
 
 As we said before, the problem of " Sartor Resartus" 
 is the problem of Hegel, even the old, old problem, 
 ' existence separated from phenomena ; " the hidden 
 secret of the universe is powerless to resist the might 
 of thought ;" it uncloses itself before it, as a pool of 
 water reflects the world above ; or, let there be no 
 above, but let the pool still reflect as before, the pool 
 then becomes in itself reflection and reflector, subject 
 and object man. Restore again the above which 
 we withdrew, the above which was reflected in the 
 pool, the mighty blue gulf of the universe, and call 
 that the reflection of a mightier, to us invisible, pool, 
 which is thus also reflector and reflection, subject and 
 object, but as pool of all pools God. This is the 
 pleasant way in which the Hegelians would talk ; and 
 thus, through long processes which cannot be followed 
 here, they think they discover the pass-key, the happy 
 secret by which they rise to the Infinite Eternal Reason, 
 and find especially how this Eternal Reason is God, how 
 ': '..God sublatie's: Hfrnself, parts with a portion of Himself 
 for the sake x)f. His; creatures, so awakening within us 
 ' our" Sensations of objects through an action which 
 
The Infinite in relation to Time and Space. 103 
 
 has nothing sensuous in it. So that again we may 
 take an Eastern couplet and say : 
 
 " Nothing is the mirror and the World the image in it ; 
 God the shower is, who shows the vision every minute." 
 
 It has been said that in time and space we have indeed 
 ample receptacles ready to admit a being who cannot 
 be defined by the rules of the logical reasoner. Thus 
 Hegel and Stirling have said a great deal on time 
 and space as the becoming of being, that is, quality 
 translated into quantity ; but time and space are 
 given as infinite ; we know them as infinite, we perceive 
 them as infinite, since, put us anywhere, we know no 
 limit to either, although they are pure quantities ; the 
 one is when, the other is where, and each is every and 
 any, that is, each is infinite ; they are universals ; 
 infinite space has many finite spaces, and infinite time 
 has many finite times. Thus, then, the often quoted 
 sublimities of time and space need the qualitative 
 infinite to make then divinely sublime ; in a word, 
 not eternity but consciousness* not quantity but 
 quality, must be our thought of Infinite Being ; that 
 is even a shallow astonishment which builds sublimity 
 upon the immeasurable number of the stars, and the 
 immeasurable spaces, and times, and distances, and 
 periods ; the infinite in quality transcends the infinite 
 
 * And here Thomas Carlyle, " Sartor Resartus," and 
 Hegel, too, present an invincible armour of proof against 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold's " Literature and Dogma." 
 
IO4 Size no Mode of Measuring Thought. 
 
 in quantity. There is evidently progress in this 
 world, but progress is a thought, and cannot exist in 
 outward matters ; this alone is a guarantee of the 
 ideal fundamental of the intellectual, the spiritual 
 nature of the absolute of the world. Robert Hall, 
 who was a keen metaphysician as well as an imperial 
 orator, once so the circumstance is recorded by Mr- 
 Morris, one of his biographers in reply to a question 
 whether in a future state the powers of the human 
 mind would not expand and be enlarged to an inde- 
 finite extent, started with amazement ; he had been 
 sitting quite reserved and silent, suddenly he cried 
 out, "What is that, sir, what is that?" The question 
 being carefully worded and deliberately repeated, Mr. 
 Hall quickly replied, "Why so, sir, why so? Why 
 suppose the human mind indefinitely enlarged more 
 than the human body ? And if the body is to under- 
 go this frightful increase, then we should have a man 
 whose nose would perforate the sun, his chin stretch- 
 ing across the Atlantic, and battles fought in the 
 wrinkles of his face. He must be a fool, sir, that can 
 believe that." The question was settled much after 
 Dr. Johnson's dogmatic fashion. We do not see very 
 clearly the necessity of Mr. Hall's conclusions, but it 
 has often seemed to us that time and space, and the 
 thoughts of marvel they suggest, have often been 
 made almost ludicrous in their qualitiless and in- 
 determinate iteration of immensity. Possibly to some 
 
A very Notable Extract. 105 
 
 readers such words as we are now indulging in may 
 seem a mere superstition of abstraction, to others 
 they will seem to present the earnest wrestling ground 
 of the human spirit, an argument for the absolute 
 existence of the almighty and infinite thought, and 
 for the immortality of the soul. We are reminded of 
 one of the most sublime passages in Mr. Carlyle's 
 " Sartor Resartus," the burden of which surely is, that 
 there is no death in the concrete; what passes away 
 passes into its own self, the consciousness abides, 
 the essential being is ; as Hegel or Hutchison Stir- 
 ling would say, the Isness is. Again we say, how 
 clearly and finely is this stated in the following 
 notably splendid passage : 
 
 EVERY MAN A REAL GHOST, TIME AND SPACE 
 ONLY THOUGHT FORMS. 
 
 " Sweep away the Illusion of Time ; glance, if thou 
 have eyes, from the near moving cause to its far-dis- 
 tant Mover. The stroke that came transmitted 
 through a whole galaxy of elastic balls, was it less a 
 stroke than if the last ball only had been struck, and 
 sent flying? O, could I (with the Time-annihilating 
 hat) transport thee direct from the Beginnings to the 
 Endings, how were thy eyesight unsealed, and thy 
 heart set flaming in the Light-sea of celestial wonder! 
 Then sawest thou this fair Universe, were it in the 
 meanest province thereof, is in very deed the star- 
 
io6 We are all Apparitions. 
 
 domed City of God ; that through every star, 
 through every grass-blade, and most through every 
 Living Soul, the glory of a present God still beams. 
 But Nature, which is the Time-vesture of God, and 
 reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish. 
 
 " Again, could anything be more miraculous than 
 an actual authentic ghost ? The English Johnson 
 longed, all his life, to see one ; but could not, though 
 he went to Cock-lane, and thence to the church 
 vaults, and tapped on coffins. Foolish doctor ! Did 
 he never, with the mind's eye, as well as with the 
 body's, look round him into that full tide of human 
 Life he so loved ; did he never so much as look into 
 'himself? The good doctor was a Ghost, as actual 
 and authentic as heart could wish ; well nigh a million 
 of ghosts were travelling the streets by his side. 
 Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time ; 
 compress the threescore years into three minutes : 
 what else was he, what else are we ? Are we not 
 Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an Appear- 
 ance ; and that fade away again into air and invisi- 
 bility ? This is no metaphor, it is a simple scientific 
 fact; we start out of Nothingness, take figure, and 
 are Apparitions ; round us, as round the veriest 
 spectre, is Eternity ; and to Eternity, minutes are as 
 years and seons. Come there not tones of Love and 
 Faith, as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song of 
 beatified Souls ? And again, do we not squeak and 
 
Ghosts ! 107 
 
 gibber (in our discordant, screech-owlish debatings 
 and recriminatings) ; and glide bodeful, and feeble, 
 and fearful ; or uproar (pattern), and revel in our mad 
 Dance of the Dead, till the scent of the morning air 
 summons us to our still Home ; and dreamy Night 
 becomes awake and Day ? Where now is Alexander 
 of Macedon : does the steel Host, that yelled in fierce 
 battle-shouts at Issus and Arbela, remain behind 
 him ; or have they all vanished utterly, even as 
 perturbed Goblins must? Napoleon, too, and his 
 Moscow retreats and Austerlitz campaigns ! Was it 
 all other than the veriest Spectre-hunt ; which has 
 now, with its howling tumult that made Night 
 hideous, flitted away ? Ghosts ! There are nigh a 
 thousand million walking the Earth openly at noon- 
 tide ; some half-hundred have vanished from it, some 
 half-hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch ticks 
 once. 
 
 " O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful, to consider 
 that we not only carry each a future Ghost within 
 him ; but are, in very deed, Ghosts ! These Limbs, 
 whence had we them ; this stormy Force ; this life- 
 blood, with its burning Passion ? They are dust and 
 shadow ; a shadow-system gathered round . our ME ; 
 wherein, through some moments or years, the Divine 
 Essence is to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior 
 on his strong war-horse, fire flashes through his eyes ; 
 force dwells in his arm and heart : but warrior and 
 
io8 A Procession of Apparitions. 
 
 war-horse are a visiort ; a revealed Force, nothing 
 more. Stately they tread the Earth, as if it were a 
 firm substance : fool ! the Earth is but a film ; it 
 cracks in twain, and warrior and w T ar-horse sink 
 beyond plummet's sounding. Plummet's ? Fantasy 
 herself will not follow them. A little while ago, they 
 were not ; a little while, and they are not their very 
 ashes are not. 
 
 " So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to 
 the end. Generation after generation takes to itself 
 the Form of a Body ; and forth-issuing from Cimme- 
 rian night on heaven's mission APPEARS. What 
 Force and Fire is in each he expends : one grinding 
 in the mill of Industry ; one, hunter like, climbing 
 the giddy Alpine heights of Science ; one madly 
 dashed in pieces on the rocks of Strife, in war with 
 his fellow : and then the Heaven-sent is recalled ; 
 his earthly vesture falls away, and soon even to Sense 
 becomes a vanished shadow. Thus, like some wild- 
 flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's Artillery, 
 does this mysterious MANKIND thunder and flame, 
 in long-drawn, quick-succeeding grandeur, through 
 the unknown deep. Thus, like a God-created, fire- 
 breathing Spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane ; 
 haste scornfully across the astonished Earth ; then 
 plunge again into the Inane. Earth's mountains are 
 levelled, and her seas filled up, in our passage : can 
 the Earth, which is but dead and a vision, resist 
 
" We are such Stuff as Dreams are Made of" 109 
 
 Spirits which have reality and are alive ? On the 
 hardest adamant some foot-print of us is stamped in ; 
 the last rear of the host will read traces of the 
 earliest van. But whence ? O Heaven, whither ? 
 Sense knows not ; Faith knows not ; only that it is 
 through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to God. 
 
 "'Wz are such stuff 
 As dreams are made of, and our little Life 
 Is rounded with a sleep !' "* 
 
 * Or as Jeremy Taylor somewhere beautifully phrases it, 
 " His light burns awhile, and then it burns blue and faint, 
 and Man goes to converse with Spirits ; and then he hands 
 the taper to another." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IS CARLYLE CONSERVATIVE OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH ? 
 
 BUT what is the Christian aspect of these wonderful 
 writings ? Are they conservative of any .great truths ? 
 Are they indulgent to any great errors ? If they are 
 dangerous, where lurks the danger ? As they are 
 unquestionable in power, what is the character of 
 that power ? What does he inspire us to do ? 
 What does he invoke us to leave undone ? It is 
 true that all literatures, all age tendencies, all 
 heroisms and philosophies, are to be tried in the 
 long run by their relation to Christianity. Chris- 
 tianity is the true conservative power of literature ; 
 it is the leaven of life. In all books, especially 
 ethical, where it is not, the mass turns to putre- 
 faction and decay. Are these books Christian, or 
 are they not ? We unhesitatingly now declare our 
 conviction that on the whole they are. Still we 
 know how serious are the charges preferred against 
 them. But let us not be partial, let us inquire. 
 Very distinctly, indeed, has Mr. Carlyle himself 
 said that Christianity is indestructible ; to be an 
 everlasting fact for all ages. He has said, " The 
 
Carlyle on the Bible. in 
 
 Christian Religion, under every theoiy of it, is the 
 crowning glory ; the life and soul of our whole modern 
 culture." He repudiates with scorn the likeness 
 of the Christian Religion to the Greek Philo- 
 sophy, or to any other philosophy, " being," says he, 
 "of a totally different nature." " He," says Car- 
 lyle, " who compares the Christian Religion with such 
 standards, may lament that, beyond the mere letter, 
 the purport of this Divine humility has never been 
 disclosed to him ; that the loftiest feeling hitherto 
 vouchsafed to mankind is as yet hidden from his eyes." 
 We do not know what Mr. Bayne means by 
 " Carlyle's asking us to obliterate all the stars of 
 the Christian heaven by a word from his lip."* 
 Mr. Bayne, indeed, tells us that " never sceptic 
 saw so far into the meaning of Christianity," 
 "that never, in whispered insinuation or sidelong 
 sneer, has he done the slightest irreverence to the 
 Divine One whom Christians worship." What 
 does Mr. Bayne mean ? We are sure he would 
 not willingly misrepresent a writer for whom he 
 has always entertained profound esteem and af- 
 fection. Mr. Carlyle says, "The Hebrew Bible, 
 is it not before all things true as no other book 
 ever was or will be ? " Is this perhaps one step 
 towards "blotting out all the stars of the Chris- 
 tian firmament " ? And when does he represent his 
 * " The Christian Life," by Peter Bayne, M.A., p. 18. 
 
1 1 2 Carlyle on Christ. 
 
 poor Diogenes Teufelsdrockh as finding peace in I his 
 Pilgrim's Progress ? Even exactly at the point where 
 the dreamer Bunyan represented his as attaining to 
 rest. When is it he attains to the Everlasting Yea, 
 and what is it he says ? " For this a greater than 
 Zeno was needed, and He too was sent. Knowest 
 thou that Worship of Sorrow ? The Temple thereof 
 founded some eighteen centuries ago now lies in 
 ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habitation of dole- 
 ful creatures ; nevertheless venture forward in a 
 low crypt, arched out of fallen fragments, thou 
 findest the altar still there, and its sacred lamp 
 perennially burning." This, in his earliest great 
 work, reiterated in all his subsequent works, is cer- 
 tainly a singular Way of " blotting out all the stars 
 of the Christian firmament." jThus, we must ven- 
 ture to remind Mr. Bayne that Carlyle's quarrel 
 has never been with Christianity in any form, but 
 with the vulgar orthodox sensationalism which has 
 
 Xjf usurped its throne, and dares to assume its name. 
 
 X/'Nor must it be forgotten that those who are most 
 bitter against him measure out the evidences of 
 their faith by -the pound, count them out by num- 
 ber, and laugh to scorn the idea of their being 
 among " the things not seen." 
 
 Always let us remember -what Carlyle has so well 
 and truly said " A man's religion consists not of 
 the many things he is in doubt of and tries to 
 
Opposes the Old French Encyclopedists. 113 
 
 believe, but of the few he is assured of and has no 
 need of effort for believing." 
 
 Again, we say, let us not be partial, but inquire. 
 And before all, remember that his work has been 
 reaction reaction especially against the Gallomaniac 
 tendencies of the last age. His work has been reaction 
 
 ^against Voltairism, and Encyclopcedism, and Rous- 
 seauism, or, which is the same thing in our times, 
 against Tyndalism, Alexander Bainism, and Matthew 
 Arnoldism. Look back a little to the last ages, 
 and even to the present, in circles and fields where 
 the thought has not been educated, and where 
 moral culture has not been permitted to develop 
 a different state of inner life. The transparent 
 ubiquitousness of the French school did unques- 
 tionably produce a disposition to ignore the won- 
 derful, and even the adorable. Our forefathers be- 
 lieved the regions of nature to be everywhere 
 haunted by spiritual existences. We, on the con- 
 trary, were taught to believe in a world and a 
 universe carried on by machinery. The French 
 school of philosophy "changed the infinite, creative 
 
 ' music of the universe, into the monotonous clatter of a 
 boundless mill, which, turned by the stream of chance 
 and swimming thereon, was a mill of itself, with- 
 out architect or miller ; properly a genuine self-grind- 
 ing mill." You may call this theory of the universe, 
 Atheism, Chance, Fate, Pantheism. In any way 
 
 8 
 
H4 Singular Misconceptions 
 
 our writer has waged war with it, seeking to 
 rout it to the death ; doing his best to extin- 
 guish that "old mode of obtaining a great repu- 
 tation by demonstrating how the globe was con- 
 structed, or by discovering a new species of bug." 
 From its spirit came the extinction of reverence, the 
 assertion of self, the proud and flippant disposition 
 cynically to sneer at every incomprehensible thought, 
 or object, or subject ; and the natural consequence 
 was the subversion of authority in families and in king- 
 doms. This has been the result of that Gallomania ; 
 we are the subjects of it ourselves ; unfortunately the 
 system of Locke, as a philosophy, prepared our minds j 
 for it. The writings of Carlyle are a reaction against / 
 that, and against the worst forms of rationalism. A 
 Strange things are said of Carlyle. At one table, an 
 eminent author mentions that his name transpired, 
 whereupon some sprightly intelligence said, " Oh, 
 ah, yes ; you mean the Chartist." Chartist, indeed ! 
 We were ourselves at a meeting the other evening, 
 when the conversation turned upon his writings, and 
 this charge was preferred against him, that he was an 
 old Chartist! Truly, he has written a book called 
 " Chartism," and few books in our language have a 
 more despotic tone and Conservative influence. 
 Small faith has he in government by the greatest 
 multitude of heads, or in vote by cowardice, or even 
 vote by ballot. At any rate, a strong Conservative 
 
of the Intention of His Writings. 115 
 
 is he, and certainly not inclined to aid the battle 
 cries of democracy, although much inclined to guide 
 its stream. So, also, have we both seen and heard 
 him described as an apologist for the French scep- 
 tical school. He has written on Voltaire, he has 
 written on Diderot, the father of the celebrated 
 French Encyclopaedists ; and he has written to warn, 
 to analyse, and to condemn. But we must not 
 waste our readers' time with refuting the follies of 
 dunces. A Romish priest wrote a book to prove that 
 Mahomet was not a Romish cardinal ; we need not 
 imitate such wisdom. Few works, few writers have 
 suffered more from false and wicked reviewers than 
 Mr. Carlyle. His words have been most ingeniously 
 perverted. Some years since there appeared in one 
 of the most eminent of our reviews* a very ex- 
 haustive attempt to estimate his place and his power. 
 It laboured to show the Pantheistic character of his 
 entire works ; yet it said, j" Mr. Carlyle does not deny 
 a God. Far from it. His whole system is reli- 
 gious ;" and it continued, " He lays the foundation of 
 belief, not in evidences and logic, but in an inspira- 
 tion of the heart; "I and then it continues again, 
 " Such is Mr. Carlyle :s Pantheistic scheme. What is 
 the ground of it ? Faith, mere faith, not reason. 
 Again and again Mr. Carlyle enjoins his system upon 
 faith." We thought we had read that " we walk by 
 * Quarterly Review, vol. 66, pp. 446 503. 
 
 82 
 
1 1 6 What a Quarterly Reviewer said. 
 
 faith, and not by sight," and that " the victory that 
 overcomes the world is faith." Then the writer goes 
 on : " Mr. Carlyle has his saints and martyrs, his reli- 
 gion and priests, his worship, his temples ; but they 
 are chosen by himself, and whom has he chosen ? 
 The Romanist leaves our Lord, and chooses his tute- 
 lary saint, and his tutelary saint becomes at last a 
 stock or a stone, a morsel of rag or a bit of bone. 
 The Puritan leaves his parish priest and Catholic 
 Church, and follows his own chosen preachers, and 
 in a short time tinkers and cobblers, madmen and 
 fools, seize on the pulpit, and still they are followed 
 and obeyed. Mr. Carlyle, too, has chosen his idols, 
 and of all the objects of worship to which a great 
 and good man might be inclined, he has chosen the 
 strangest. It is a painful but instructive spectacle." 
 It is indeed, and this eminently wicked review of Mr. * 
 Carlyle justifies the tone it adopts by innumerable 
 absolute falsehoods or misstatements strewn along 
 the pages of this estimate of his writings. 
 
 Thus it must seem amazing that we maintain Carlyle's 
 healthful activity against the prevalent infidelity of 
 the age. But it is against that French mind his 
 writings most immediately tell ; against that vile school 
 whose principles demanded " An Act of Parliament 
 to have ' not ' taken out of all the Commandments 
 and clapped on to the Creed." It is true he has, 
 wherever he can, a vvord of exculpation to utter even 
 
Voltaire. 117 
 
 for the errors of those who have followed the priest- 
 hood of letters ; and far be it from us to say that we 
 can go with him in all his admirations and heroisms. 
 We shall take occasion to remark upon some of his 
 dangerous peculiarities in this direction. His power 
 of incensing and embalming a memory at all grateful 
 to him is more marvellous than that possessed by any 
 other English writer. We take grave exception to 
 many of his eulogies ; but we do see also with what 
 scorn and pitying indignation he reacts against men 
 who have been, in their age, the masters of diseased 
 opinion and thought. Compare his estimates of Vol- 
 taire, of Scott, and of Fichte, how true they are, and 
 how they aid us to realise his own position in letters. 
 We love to see a man faithful to his idea; and in the de- 
 gree in which he is so, is he a priest of letters. A priest 
 of letters we do not see that we can regard Voltaire as 
 being in anysense whatever. No! an harlequin of letters 
 was he ; if a priest, then a priest in denying and in 
 sneering. To that man the universe presented no 
 Divine ideas; he had an infinite capacity for ^believ- 
 ing and for sneering qualities which have never com- 
 mended themselves to our mind as worthy of hom- 
 age, either in him or any other mortal ; qualities 
 that, in the degree in which they are possessed by 
 any man, relate him to the devil, the father of all un- 
 belief and of all sneers. It is against the creed- 
 less, artistic, flippant sensualism of the Frenchman 
 
1 1 8 " We can do Nothing against the Truth" 
 
 that all Carlyle's writings aim. His view of Vol- 
 taire, however, and of his influence, is most sound 
 and wise. He overwhelms, indeed, the whole of 
 those miserable books with scorn, yet he will see 
 the genius, the adroitness of them, and in them. 
 That Voltaire "gave the death-stab to superstition, 
 he thinks most true ;" but that with superstition 
 religion is passing away, he thinks " a most ground- 
 less fear." The burning of a little straw may hide 
 the stars, but the stars are there, and they will 
 reappear. We sympathise with him when he says, 
 "It is unworthy in a religious man to view an 
 irreligious one with alarm, or aversion, or any other 
 feeling than regret, or hope, and brotherly commise- 
 ration. If he seek truth, he is our brother, and to be 
 pitied ; if he does not seek truth, he is still our 
 brother, and to be pitied still more. There is a story 
 of an old clown who killed his ass, because the ass 
 drank up the moon ; and the old clown thought the 
 world could not spare the luminary, so he killed his 
 ass. The clown was well intentioned, but unwise ; 
 let us not imitate him. Men who extinguish religion 
 cannot drink the moon only the reflection of the 
 moon in their own pail of water." Sir Walter Scott 
 had great powers, as our author has said ; the one 
 thing which strikes us in him is health, vigour, 
 teeming fecundity, flowing forth from a soul and 
 body remarkable for health ; yet, we believe, few 
 
Character of Fichte. 119 
 
 would call that life pre-eminently great it was scarcely 
 a priesthood of letters ; there is something pitiable to 
 our thought in his dogged determination to found a 
 fortune and a family. On the contrary, Fichte 
 arrests us : grand, tall, tender, stately ; the vast, wide 
 thought ; the profound interrogation of deepest 
 questions in the heart of nature ; a life for thought, 
 and thought alone ; a life for knowledge, and not for 
 fame, or for laurel, or for luxury, or even for beef and 
 mutton : but a life for growth ; a life independent of 
 censure ; a life almost independent of praise ; a life 
 for conscience ; brave, silent, believing, earnest such 
 was the noble life of Fichte ; and such, on the whole, 
 seems to us to be the life of Thomas Carlyle a life 
 not to be measured so much by the quantity of things 
 done, though that is considerable, but by their 
 quality ; a life to which it is of more import to tend 
 one seed than to make millions of wax or paper 
 flowers. 
 
 But is he a heretic ? painfully, anxiously, the reader 
 has already iijquired. And here beyond a doubt our 
 friend Riccabocca has got himself into the stocks ; 
 literatist, hero-worshipper, nay, even politician, tole- 
 rated in all these, surely there is no escape, he is in 
 the stocks ; he has voluntarily put himself into the 
 place of penalty and punishment. Indeed, ever the 
 heretic-stocks are a bad discipline to go through, and 
 scarcely in any instance does a man who is called 
 
1 20 The Opinion of Dr. Platitude. 
 
 to sit tfiere rise to the place of a sound good 
 citizen again. Society will forgive much, but society 
 never forgives that. A man may, like Lord Mac- 
 aulay, give religion the go by altogether, as a thing 
 not fit for gentlemen and courtiers to meddle with. 
 A man may u^ter doctrines in which a dangerous 
 leaven lurks for the present unfelt and 'unseen ; a 
 man may be as irreligious as Sir William Hamilton 
 and yet not be charged with irreligion. The great 
 crime frequently is that religion is really felt and 
 must be talked about, and' is spoken of in such a way 
 that Dr. Platitude cannot comprehend, and hence the 
 speaker is a. Heretic. Why, what have we heard in 
 Exeter Hall ? A lecturer, in one of the lectures to thib 
 young men, daring to c^lr the hoary Wordsworth, 
 whose life and whose works illustrated his celebrated 
 
 lines 
 
 "By grace Divine, 
 Not otherwise, oh, Nature, we are thine,' t * 
 
 a Deist ! Wordsworth a Deist ! An ignorant, impu- 
 dent, heartless, vulgar libel ! But it .illustrates the 
 ease with which vulgar ignorance will and may assail 
 the crowned and influential living, or the coffined 
 and illustrious dead. 
 
 Is Carlyle a heretic, or is he conservative of Christian 
 truth ? No doubt in this distracted age the question 
 involves another, What is your idea of Christian 
 truth? Some things which assume to be this are 
 
Plymouth Brethrenism ! &c. 121 
 
 strange enough among Puseyisms, Plymouth Breth- 
 renisms, Mormonisms, Saturday Reviewerisms, and 
 other the like dismal, black-winged, spectral birds of 
 night, hovermg hither and thither in the gloaming, 
 and each in its own conventicle screaming most dis- 
 cordantly after its own fashion, in the pleasant faith 
 that it is discoursing most excellent music. Most 
 ominous of all, perhaps, that grim night-bird of Ply- 
 mouth Brethrenism, every member of its community 
 with a Pope in the belly of him, preaching its narrow 
 Gospel of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitable- 
 ness ; no cheerful view of God or Christ there ; a new 
 form of Papistical exclusiveness growing up even in 
 the very heart of Protestantism, and preaching and 
 fulminating an ungracious Decalogue of laziness and 
 lovelessness. To any form of so-called Christian truth 
 approximating to this curious Palingenesia of self- 
 ishness, worship of paralysis, Carlyle's teaching will 
 not be found, it may well be believed, very conser- 
 vative. And the disciples of such and the like 
 dismal and trembling deliriums of faith, have nothing 
 for it but to hand him over to the tormentors. 
 
 Yet we live in an age of heresies. In our age all 
 monstrous things are believed in, and all sacred things 
 are disbelieved in. Survey the history of ancient 
 philosophy, and add to it all the wild, wonderful 
 hallucinations of the dark ages, and you will find 
 scarcely a dream, or a system, or teacher, or thought 
 
1 22 The A lisa Craig of L iterature. 
 
 which does not find its representative somewhere in 
 our own day. In the midst of all, yet united to none, 
 Carlyle rises out of the wild, heaving ocean of doubt 
 and speculation like a towering mount, nigh to land, 
 yet rising absolutely out of the sea. There are not 
 wanting flowers of exquisite beauty to shed their 
 loveliness and their fragrance in the little clefts of the 
 stern hill ; but as a sea-crag rises amidst the scream 
 of the waves beneath, and the sea-birds above and 
 around, to reflect the sunbeams, to receive the touch 
 of the lightning, and to echo back the thunder, and 
 upon the topmost peak, perhaps, to hold the kindled 
 fuel to speak to the headlands beyond, and pour the 
 ruddy flame of warning over the waters, thus rises Car- 
 lyle out of the literature of his times, bold, shapeless, 
 even awful ; the Ailsa Craig or Bass Rock of Letters. 
 But the splendours of his extraordinary genius, the 
 amazing profusion of gifts showered upon the man, 
 the invariable intoxication which attends the perusal 
 of his works, the moral magnetism which holds the 
 notice long as by the spell of unexpected enchant- 
 ment, the robust energy of that thought, the imagi- 
 native gorgeousness in which the whole language and 
 conceptions are cast, the mould of that extraordinary 
 diction, itself a heresy, the strong and bold pulses of 
 human sympathy, the acquaintance with all men 
 and things, and movements and ages these make it 
 the more incumbent on a teacher to guide aright 
 
Infidelity " He don't serve us at all'' 123 
 
 those thoughts which hover for the first time over 
 these pages. Is there anything to reprehend here ? 
 Is there anything to desiderate here ? Is there no- 
 thing here against which the kind caution is needed ? 
 On the other hand, we must not, dare not, be unjust to 
 Carlyle. He is called by many persons an infidel ; such 
 persons " know not what manner of spirit they are 
 of." Infidels in general disclaim him more than 
 Christians ; you do not find him in alliance with the 
 infidel prophets of the age they do not know very 
 well what to make of him, but they cannot make him 
 out to be theirs. They might say of Carlyle's works 
 what the Popish Bishop said of the New Testament 
 in the time of the Reformation, " I can't .make any- 
 thing out of it, but I see it don't serve us at all." You 
 have an illustration of that in the way in which he 
 has been usually spoken of in the Westminster 
 Review. Extreme orthodoxy and extreme hetero- 
 doxy don't know what to make of him ; only, he 
 don't serve us at all. 
 
 The greater teachers, too, like Mansel, who have to 
 point to the most dangerous and heretical doctrines, 
 do not, you perceive, refer to him or to his teaching. 
 It is deficient, but it is not false ; exaggerated, but not 
 without foundation. As we have before said, words 
 of homage on Christ, Christianity, and the Sacred 
 Writings are scattered plentifully over his volumes. 
 You say it is a difficult matter to prove him a Chris- 
 
1 24 What is Heresy ? 
 
 tian from his writings. We may defy any one from 
 his writings to prove that he is not one. We need 
 not to be afraid of words and names, for they have 
 no power to make the things they call ; but still there 
 is abroad a dread of the spirit of heresy. We speak in 
 no narrowness or bigotry when we say so. No! vener- 
 able shades of martyrs. No ! ashes of confessors and 
 seers. We know how possible it is to suffer beneath the 
 brand of the name when the spirit is far from the 
 thing. Heresy and blasphemy are words we do not 
 like to apply to any man; we had rather find the truth 
 in the heretic than the heresy in the truth-teller. 
 But if we understand what heresy is, it is the spirit of 
 lawless and irreverent thought ; it is the spirit which 
 follows with blind persistency its own will, reinless 
 and curbless; it is the spirit which disclaims the 
 standard of authority ; it is the proud, independent 
 Pelagian nature. We must draw the line somewhere. 
 \We draw the line of heresy there, when all supernatural 
 y^j influence exercised lor the world is disclaimed. Provi- 
 dence, Scripture, Holy Spirit the denial of all these 
 involves heresy. The character given of these books 
 by many persons is that of unmeasured condemna- 
 tion. According to such persons, whoever reads these 
 passes instantly beneath a fatal eclipse of faith ; to 
 be a Christian and read Thomas Carlyle is impossible ; 
 the mind of the reader becomes instantly entangled 
 in a hopeless vortex, a coil of questions as fatal as the 
 
Words ; What is Conversion ? 125 
 
 coil of a serpent. He is regarded as the most dan- 
 gerous writer living in our country at this time, he 
 unsettles all convictions and settles none. He is, says 
 one writer, "a blatant beast ; he is the cursing Balaam 
 of the age. His language," says the same writer, 
 forcibly, but not elegantly, is " the foul spittle of an 
 angry God." 
 
 Some readers will no doubt say, "Ah, but he uses 
 his words in a different sense to that in which I use 
 words." That is very likely, for words are very certain 
 also to acquire their lesser or larger dimensions ; words 
 are very finite things, and we make them carry too 
 much when we crib, cabin, and confine within them 
 our infinite wants. What little words are GOD, LOVE, 
 LIFE, but they are suggestive of infinite oceans, 
 infinite passions, infinite capabilities. Carlyle talks 
 of conversion, and the salvation of the soul ; be sure 
 that these things have infinite meanings to him, 
 although not quite according to the square and rule 
 of Plymouth Brethrenism, and other such forms of 
 modern atheism and unbelief. Perhaps even in turn 
 he would say to such persons as he has written, " My 
 brother, thou must pray for a soul ! Struggle with life 
 and death energy to get back thy soul ! Know that 
 religion is no Morrison's Pill from without, but a re- 
 awakening of thyself from within." And again, in 
 not very civil language, he satirises conceited re- 
 ligionists " sitting for ever with their eyes turned on 
 
126 John Sterling. 
 
 their own navel, asking with torturing anxiety, ' Am 
 I right ? Am I wrong ? Shall I be saved ? Shall I 
 not be damned ?' It is all egotism," he says, and very 
 comfortably he ministers to such, saying, " Brother, 
 as soon as possible endeavour to get out of that, rise 
 above that ; thou art wrong ; thou art like to be 
 damned!" And in other words, addressed to all 
 miserable little religion-makers : 
 
 " The Builder of the Universe was wise, 
 
 He planned all souls, all systems, planets, particles ; 
 The Plan He shaped all worlds and aeons by, 
 
 Was heavens ! was thy small Nine-and-thirty Articles !" 
 
 The greatest sin Carlyle has committed in the 
 estimation of saintly persons is the writing of the "Life 
 of John Sterling." Perhaps you never even heard of 
 John Sterling. Such is fame, and it is a consolation 
 that such is fame the proof that that which gives 
 fame exists for purposes beyond itself. But Sterling, 
 in spite of his receiving immortality on earth at the 
 hands of Carlyle, in the beautiful biography he has 
 presented of him, does really deserve to be better 
 known ; for his mind was the happy workshop of 
 many mental craftsmen, where, indeed, he at- 
 tempted and performed many things, and most things 
 except the highest. 
 
 Carlyle likens him and his genius well to sheet 
 lightning, and expresses grief that he would not con- 
 centrate himself into a bolt, and rive the mountain 
 
An Artist in Search of Convictions. 127 
 
 chains, instead of merely playing with the light- 
 nings to irradiate the mountains. To us John Ster- 
 ling is noticeable because he was really a type 
 man, not a model man. He is representative of 
 a large class of our modern men, even of those 
 who are thinkers, readers, and teachers. If we were 
 to describe him, we think we should call him an 
 Artist in search of Convictions. He was a man of 
 many faculties ; intellectually he had much of the 
 subtlety and axiomatic wisdom and insight of Emer- 
 son, with more, much more, human clothing ; and 
 with more, much more reverence and homage to 
 Christian truth. He was a lustrous and ardent 
 spirit whose intuitions and feelings almost became 
 convictions, but they stopped short of that and be- 
 came merely perceptions. What gives to Sterling's 
 character and biography touching interest is that like 
 thousands in our land with no belief, no absolute con- 
 victions, he nevertheless entered the Church, and be- 
 came the teacher of convictions he had not felt, the 
 publisher of a religion which is eminently the religion, 
 not merely of assent, but of conviction. And it is 
 this which rouses all Carlyle's irony and intensity, 
 that while he himself had nothing which to him was 
 absolutely belief, he nevertheless presumed to attempt 
 to become a teacher of Belief. Hence Carlyle says of 
 him that, " Artist, not saint, was the real bent of his 
 being." It is certain that Carlyle has been very much 
 
128 John Sterling and George Fox. 
 
 misconceived in this. The great thing he saw con- 
 demnable in Sterling was, not, as so many have 
 foolishly alleged, that he became a clergyman, but 
 that he determined to be a clergyman without any 
 sense of a mission, and sought in due course to 
 qualify himself by compelling the convictions in his 
 own nature, and coercing them to the service he in- 
 tended to impose on them. 
 
 And let us now compare Carlyle's estimate of John 
 Sterling, his friend, with his estimate of George Fox. 
 In point of real genius, how far was Fox beneath 
 Sterling ; in point of character, influence, might, and 
 purpose in his history, how far was he above him. In 
 the wild way in which things float up to you from 
 our writer, he alludes to the fact mentioned in the life 
 of George Fox, who, when he became savingly con- 
 verted to God, foreseeing that he would be much 
 persecuted, that he would certainly be imprisoned, 
 moreover, that he had upon him henceforth a care for 
 souls, made himself a leather suit of clothes, that it 
 might abide through all rough usage. He was by 
 trade a shoemaker, and hence the lines of the poet 
 Whittier 
 
 " England's priestcraft shakes to hear 
 Of Fox's leathern breeches." 
 
 You can only translate Carlyle aright by comparing 
 passage with passage. To write consecutive, serial, 
 dialectical essays on any subject, is not his work, 
 
Carlyle on George Fox. 129 
 
 and it must be admitted that we sometimes lack that 
 explicitness and clearness of statement which might 
 save his name from much misconception. But we may 
 see here the reason of his slight estimate of his friend 
 John Sterling, a widely different character to George 
 Fox. He has no sympathy with efforts to cure the 
 soul by flying for shelter to books. We go along with 
 him altogether when he expresses gladness that for 
 Sterling a time came when " Tholuck and Schleier- 
 macher and the war of articles were left in the far 
 distance. Nature's blue skies and the awful eterni- 
 ties, and the still small voices admonitory of many 
 things, could in the beautiful solitudes freely reach the 
 heart. Theologies, rubrics, surplices, Church articles, 
 and this enormous, ever-repeated thrashing of the 
 straw ? A world of rotten straw ; thrashed all into 
 powder ; filling the Universe, and blotting out the 
 stars and worlds Heaven pity you with such a 
 thrashing-floor for world, and its draggled, dirty far- 
 thing candle for sun ! There is surely other worship 
 possible for the heart of man ; there should be other 
 work, or none at all, for the intellect and creative 
 faculty of man." 
 
 GEORGE FOX AND HIS LEATHERN 
 
 BREECHES. 
 
 " Perhaps the most remarkable incident in modern 
 history is not the Diet of Worms, still less the Battle 
 
 9 
 
1 30 George Fox, 
 
 of Austerlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other battle ; 
 but an incident passed carelessly over by most 
 historians, and treated with some degree of ridicule 
 by others ; namely, George Fox's making himself a 
 suit of leather. This man, the first of Quakers, was 
 one of those to whom, under ruder or purer form, 
 the Divine Idea of the Universe is pleased to mani- 
 fest itself ; and, across all the hulls of Ignorance and 
 earthly Degradation, shine through in unspeakable 
 Awfulness, unspeakable Beauty, on their souls ; who 
 therefore are rightly accounted Prophets, God-pos- 
 sessed ; or even Gods, as in some periods it has 
 chanced. Sitting in his stall ; working on tanned 
 hides, amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, 
 and a nameless flood of rubbish, this youth had, 
 nevertheless, a Living Spirit belonging to him ; 
 also an antique Inspired Volume, through which, as 
 through a window, it could look upwards, and dis- 
 cern its celestial Home. The task of a daily pair 
 of shoes, coupled even with some prospect of victuals, 
 and an honourable Mastership in Cordwainery, and 
 perhaps the post of Threadborough in his hundred, 
 as the crown of long faithful serving, was nowise 
 satisfaction enough to such a mind, but ever amid 
 the boring and hammering came tones from that 
 far country, came Splendours and Terrors ; for this 
 poor cordwainer, as we said, was a man ; and the 
 Temple of Immensity, wherein as man he had been 
 
The Inspired Shoemaker. 131 
 
 sent to minister, was full of holy mystery to 
 him. 
 
 "The Clergy of the neighbourhood, the ordained 
 Watchers and Interpreters of that same holy mystery, 
 listened with unaffected tedium to his consultations, 
 and advised him, as the solution of such doubts, to 
 ' drink beer and dance with the girls/ Blind leaders 
 of the blind ! For what end were their tithes levied 
 and eaten ; for what were their shovel-hats scooped 
 out, and their surplices and cassock-aprons girt on ; 
 and such a church repairing, and chaffering, and 
 organing, and other racketing, held over that spot of 
 God's Earth, if Man were but a Patent Digester, and 
 the Belly, with its adjuncts, the grand Reality ? Fox 
 turned from them, with tears and a sacred scorn, back 
 to his leather-parings and his Bible. Mountains of 
 encumbrance, higher than Etna, had been heaped 
 over that Spirit; but it was a Spirit, and would not lie 
 buried there. Through long days and nights of 
 silent agony it struggled and wrestled, with a man's 
 force, to be free ; how its prison mountains heaved 
 and swayed tumultuously, as the giant spirit shook 
 them to this hand and that, and emerged into the 
 light of heaven ! That Leicester shoe-shop, had men 
 known it, was a holier place than any Vatican or 
 Loretto-shrine. 'So bandaged, and ^ hampered, and 
 hemmed in,' groaned he, 'with thousand requisitions, 
 obligations, straps, tatters, and tagrags, I can neither 
 
 92 
 
132 George Fox 
 
 see nor move ; not my own am I, but the world's ; 
 and Time flies fast, and Heaven is high, and Hell is 
 deep. Man ! bethink thee, if thou hast power of 
 Thought. Why not ? What binds me here ? Want, 
 want ! Ha ! of what ? Will all the shoe- wages 
 under the moon ferry me'across into that far Land of 
 Light ? Only Meditation can, and devout Prayer to 
 God. I will to the Woods ; the hollow of a tree will 
 lodge me, wild berries feed me ; and for Clothes 
 cannot I stitch myself one perennial suit of 
 Leather ? ' 
 
 "Historical oil-painting, continues Teufelsdrockh, is 
 one of the arts I never practised ; therefore, shall I 
 not decide whether this subject were easy of execution 
 on the canvas. Yet often has it seemed to me as if 
 such first outflashing of man's Freewill, to lighten 
 more and more into day the Chaotic Night that 
 threatened to engulph him in its hindrances and its 
 horrors, were properly the only grandeur there is in 
 History. Let some living Angelo or. Rosa, with seeing 
 eye and understanding heart, picture George Fox on 
 that morning, when he spreads out his cutting-board 
 for the last time, and cuts cowhides by unwonted 
 patterns, and stitches them together into one con- 
 tinuous all-including Case, the farewell service of his 
 awl ! Stitch away, thou noble Fox ; every prick of 
 that little instrument is pricking into the heart of 
 Slavery, and World-worship, and the Mammon-God. 
 
And His Leathern Suit. 133 
 
 Thy elbows jerk, as in strong swimmer-strokes, and 
 every stroke is bearing thee across the Prison-ditch, 
 within which Vanity holds her Workhouse and Rag- 
 fair, into lands of true Liberty ; were the work done, 
 there is in broad Europe one Free man, and thou 
 art he. 
 
 " Thus from the lowest depth there is a path to the 
 loftiest height ; and for the Poor also a Gospel has 
 been published. Surely if, as D'Alembert asserts, 
 my illustrious namesake, Diogenes, was the greatest 
 man of Antiquity, only that he wanted Decency, then 
 by stronger reason is George Fox the greatest of the 
 Moderns, and greater than Diogenes himself ; for he, 
 too, stands on the adamantine basis of his Manhood, 
 casting aside all props and shoars, yet not, in half- 
 savage Pride, undervaluing the Earth, valuing it rather 
 as a place to yield him warmth and food, he looks 
 Heavenward from his Earth, and dwells in an element 
 of Mercy and Worship, with' a still strength, such as 
 the Cynic's Tub did nowise witness. Great, truly, was 
 that tub a temple from which man's dignity and 
 divinity was scornfully preached abroad ; but greater 
 is the Leather Hull, for the same sermon was 
 preached there, and not in scorn, but in love." 
 
 And thus we may understand Mr. Carlyle's 
 meaning in his life of John Sterling ; he was a type 
 of many thousands of young men in our age to whom 
 
134 The Dilettantic School of Belief. 
 
 the receipt for doubt seems to be in feeding their 
 doubts, courteous homage to scepticisms and doubts, 
 by ransacking the libraries of evidences. Why this 
 fattens and makes lusty the very devil you desire to 
 kill ; we know that character well, the Sterling type, 
 one in whom the brain has consumed alike the heart 
 and lungs pale, melancholy, brooding, except when 
 the light and playful flames of conversation glance 
 round the room, or when sitting alone with some be- 
 loved and cherished friend ; why, the Harrington of 
 " The Eclipse of Faith " is just such an one the 
 Marsham of William Mountford's most lovely 
 Euthanasy is just such an one ; but for his especial 
 training Robert Alfred Vaughan would have been 
 just such an one : we know them, with their dark 
 silken hair, and dark blue eye, and face so sadly 
 serious, like a lake among the deep hills. Such as 
 these are the martyr students. They long to believe* 
 but take every means to feed the fires of their doubts. 
 As we talk with them we are astonished frequently at 
 the wise shape their words take, astonished at the 
 depth of passion suddenly revealed as by a lightning 
 stroke of speech. Well, what is the mistake they 
 make ? It is even this, that they seek resolution of 
 doubts rather than the conversion of the soul. Yet 
 what says Mr. Carlyle ? f Distinctly enough he tells 
 us that a philosophy of denial and a world illu- 
 minated by the flames of destruction can never be 
 
The Everlasting No! again. 135 
 
 the lot of such a nature. Nay, what in this life of 
 Sterling does he tell us ? " A man is like a fated 
 Orestes, whipt by the furies and madly driven hither 
 and thither, even that he may seek some other 
 spring, and there make expiation and find deliver- 
 ance." Carlyk before he knew Sterling many years 
 had described his life in that mystic life of Teufels- I. 
 drockh, who passed through the three great hiero- \ 
 glyphic stages, the Everlasting No ! the Centre of j 
 Indifference ! and the Everlasting Yea ! States 
 which correspond to the three states in Fichte's J 
 "Destination of Man" Doubt, Knowledge, and J 
 Faith. The sorrows of the soul spring ever from the.' 
 knowledge of evil, and man seeks to resolve its 
 origin. And here we conceive, however it may be with 
 Goethe, from whom the axiom is derived, we feel 
 certain that it is not in the heretical sense that Car- 
 lyle teaches us thatl>efore we can solve the origin of 
 evil we must spring from our own shadow. ] Evil is a 
 necessity to us and to our state, but it is not, there- 
 fore, a necessity to the universe or to the Divine 
 Being. Thus, in a religious nature does the shadow 
 of doubt darken into Disbelief, and "shade after 
 shade goes grimly over the soul till we are fixed in 
 the starless black ! " What ! is there no God, then ? 
 or only an absentee God sitting on the outside of the 
 Universe, and seeing it go ? " What do you mean 
 by talking to me of an approving conscience ? " 
 
1 36 Beware of Morbid Notions in Religion. 
 
 exclaims our writer. " Did not Saul of Tarsus, 
 whom admiring men have named a saint, feel that 
 he was a chief of sinners ? and did not Nero mean- 
 time spend his soul and jocund spirit in fiddling ? " 
 It won't do, your motive grinding, your profit-and- 
 loss philosophy, your word-mongering and your 
 logic mills, your earthly mechanical for even the God- 
 like itself ! What ! you would grind me virtue out 
 of the husks of pleasure ! " Oh," says Carlyle, " I 
 have been where it would have been some comfort to 
 have fancied myself tempted and tormented of the 
 Devil ; but in our age of down-pulling and disbelief, 
 the very Devil has been pulled down, you cannot so 
 much as believe in a Devil. Yes, if what thou namest 
 Happiness be our true aim, then are we all astray 
 with stupidity and sound Digestion a man may front 
 much. But what in these dull, unimaginative days 
 are the terrors of conscience to the diseases of the 
 liver ! Not on morality but on cookery let us build 
 our stronghold ; then brandishing our frying-pan as 
 a censer, let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and 
 live at ease on the fat things he has provided for his 
 elect/ 
 
 Here is the Everlasting No ! Here unquestionably 
 is the evil state. We cannot go through all the par- 
 ticulars of the moral history to which Carlyle gives 
 the index. But we must say that if he has indicated 
 the curse and the cause of the curse, he has also indi- 
 
Scepticism Weighed in the Balances. 137 
 
 cated the cure. There are few of those awful moods 
 of real sceptic grief into which he has not looked, 
 and which he has not solved. He evidently himself 
 looks over the highest forms of Scepticism the world 
 has known. He has weighed Hume's, and found it 
 wanting. He has weighed Voltaire's, and found it 
 wanting. The whole of this noble man's writings 
 are for the purpose of shielding the future ages and 
 students from the miseries of the Everlasting No I 
 "The day will come," said Lichtenberg, in bitter 
 irony, " when the belief in God will be like the belief 
 in. nursery-spectres" or, as Jean Paul has it, "of the 
 world will be made a world-machine, of the aether a 
 gas, of God a Force, and of the second world a 
 coffin ! " "I rather think," says Carlyle, " such a day 
 will not come ; at any rate, while the battle is still 
 waging, and the coffin and gas philosophy has not 
 yet secured itself by penal statutes, let there be free 
 scope for mysticism or whatever else honestly 
 opposes it." But, as we said, he carries his own 
 Hero Teufelsdrockh through the Everlasting No! 
 through the Centre of Indifference. Carlyle has 
 been rebuked for his doctrine, that in self-renuncia- 
 tion the question of the soul is answered. He 
 ought not to be so rebuked, * for it is not self- 
 renunciation alone, although in this lies much 
 blessedness. But further, what says he ? " On the 
 waning billows of Time thou art not engulfed, but 
 
138 Where is His Standpoint? ^ 
 
 borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not 
 Pleasure, Love God, this is the Everlasting Yea 
 wherein all contradiction is solved, wherein whoso 
 walks and works it is well with him." ) 
 
 But you will say, Has he any standpoint, and if so, 
 where is it ? We think what we have already said 
 will be sufficient to warrant me in affirming that he 
 has a standpoint. But here we shall find the cause 
 of the more than ambiguity with which his name has 
 been mentioned. We need not say that there are 
 two standpoints from whence men reach out to the 
 truth, an Inner and an Outer it is not possible for 
 the outer very firmly to be reached without digging 
 also down to the inner. We take Luther and George 
 Fox to be illustrations of these two modes, but it is 
 clear that a man cannot proceed far in building his 
 inner being without laying himself open to the 
 charge of mysticism ; and it will be frequently the 
 case that if my inner convictions are very individual, so 
 that you are not all able to realise them yourself, they 
 will probably lay me open to the charge of scepticism 
 too. The Church has exhibited always great in- 
 tolerance of the men who internalised their faith too 
 deeply, it is evident that mysticism can never appeal 
 to a sect on its own account ; a Charles Wesley, the 
 mystic, must always have a John Wesley, the states- 
 man ; a Francis Xavier must always have an Ignatius, 
 related to a plainer and more practical order of 
 
Carlyle on the Church. 139 
 
 intellect ; and you see it is ever the plainer and more 
 practical order of intellect which joins the architecture 
 and shapes the edifice. /The mystic usually dispenses 
 with symbols ; he is above them, he may use them, 
 but they are not to him what they are to the 
 externalist. Yet how beautiful is the following: 
 " The Church : what a word was there ; richer than 
 Golconda, and the treasures of the world ! In the 
 heart of the remotest mountains rises the little kirk ; 
 the dead all slumbering round it under their white 
 memorial stones, in hope of a happy Resurrection. 
 Dull wert thou, O Reader, if never in any hour (say 
 of moaning midnight, when such kirk hung spectral in 
 the sky, and Being was as if swallowed up of 
 Darkness) it spoke to thee things unspeakable 
 that went to thy soul's soul. Strong was he that had 
 a Church, what we can call a Church : he stood 
 thereby though in the Centre of Immensities, in the 
 Conflux of Eternities, yet manlike towards God and 
 man ; the vague, shoreless universe had become a firm 
 city for him and dwelling which he knew. Such 
 virtue was in Belief; in these words well spoken, 
 / believe. Well might men prize their Credo and 
 raise stateliest temples for it, and reverend Hierar- 
 chies, and give it the tithe . of their substance ; it was 
 worth living for and dying for." 
 
 For ever and ever is renewed the battle in all ages 
 between Dogma and Doctrine Dogma was Doctrine 
 
140 Dogma and Doctrine. 
 
 once, but it is now petrified doctrine, it is a fossil not 
 a life. It must ever be that the heart warm and alive 
 beneath the teachings of a living spirit must be an 
 object of hatred to one whose life is only inscribed 
 on a parchment. Dogma always rushes too amidst 
 the bushes of Scepticism, while Doctrine is nearer to 
 the marshland of mysticism. Dogma is ever driven 
 to look round about it for its support. Dogma never 
 lives in a lighthouse ; it is too high, the air too close, 
 the outlook too extensive, and extensive outlooks are 
 very embarrassing to Dogma. Dogma never uses 
 telescopes, it disregards the intelligence they would 
 bring, and it does not need such remote information. 
 So again it must be admitted that Dogma is usually 
 quite right, but this is not to the credit of Dogma ; it 
 is simply as a lame man might be right, who could 
 not move, and therefore always sat in his chair at 
 home. 
 
 Carlyle is, we believe, conservative of Christian 
 belief. Indeed the conservation of Christian truth is 
 not only the conservative element of all political and 
 social truth, but of every highest form of truth ; the 
 truth of all art, of all poetry, of all that is noblest in 
 music or in song. True, he is a Puritan, he is 
 descended of a race of Puritans, all his writings have 
 more or less the heat of the old Puritan in them, the 
 glow of the old Puritan about them. His constant 
 references to and quotations of Scripture, the strong 
 
Carlyle a Puritan. 141 
 
 Calvinism which so frequently breaks forth in his 
 writings ; and Calvinism, rightly understood, is the 
 exposition of the conservative element in theology, 
 the perception that the universe is a vertebral 
 structure, that it has a back bone to it, that, as we 
 have said already, God has a will of His own, that 
 that Eternal will reigns and rules. He has read 
 Carlyle to very little purpose, and very slightly, who 
 does not perceive that these are the governing ideas 
 of all his writings. He maintains these really, 
 heartily, earnestly, he does not speak as from a 
 theological chair, he has not written to compile a 
 body of Scientific Theology, but the great broad 
 outlines of Truth, God, the Almighty Maker and 
 Governor, the Bible as a wonderful, altogether match- 
 less revelation of that will, and Christ as man's 
 highest object of Faith and rest. All these are 
 things which are very legible, although as he says, 
 " Christianity, the worship of Sorrow, has been 
 recognised as Divine on far other grounds than 
 ' Essays on Miracles/ and by considerations in- 
 finitely deeper than would avail in any mere trial by 
 jury." 
 
 But as a summary of Carlyle's reverence for 
 Christian truth, and as hinting with some degree 
 of distinctness his ideas of the best methods for 
 making it a power in the hearts of men, let us 
 close by reading the following passage, very per- 
 
142 How Christianity Grew 
 
 tinent to many of the movements of the present 
 day, describing to us 
 
 HOW CHRISTIANITY GREW IN* THE WORLD. 
 
 " Or, to take an infinitely higher instance, that of 
 the Christian Religion, which, under every theory of 
 it, in the believing or unbelieving mind, must ever 
 be regarded as the crowning glory, or rather the 
 life and soul, of our whole modern culture : How 
 did Christianity arise and spread abroad among 
 men ? Was it by Institutions and Establishments, 
 and well-arranged systems of mechanism ? Not so ; 
 on the contrary, in all past and existing institutions 
 for those ends, its Divine spirit has invariably 
 been found to languish and decay. It arose in 
 the mystic depths of man's soul ; and was spread 
 abroad by the ' preaching of the Word,' by simple, 
 altogether natural and individual efforts ; and flew 
 like hallowed fire, from heart to heart, till all 
 were purified and illuminated by it ; and its 
 heavenly light shone, as it still shines, and (as 
 sun or star) will ever shine, through the whole 
 dark destinies of man. Here again was no 
 Mechanism ; man's highest attainment was accom- 
 plished dynamically, not mechanically. Nay, we 
 will venture to say, that no high attainment, not 
 even any far-extending movement among men 
 was ever accomplished otherwise. Strange as it 
 
To be a Religion in the World. 143 
 
 may seem, if we read History with any degree of 
 thoughtfulness, we shall, find that the checks 
 and balances of Profit and Loss have never been 
 the grand agents with men ; that they have never 
 been roused into deep, thorough, all-pervading efforts 
 by any computable prospect of Profit and Loss 
 for any visible, finite object ; but always for 
 some invisible and infinite one. The Crusades 
 took their rise in Religion ; their visible object was, 
 commercially speaking, worth nothing. It was the 
 boundless Invisible world that was laid bare in 
 the imaginations of those men ; and in its burn- 
 ing light the visible shrunk as a scroll. Not 
 mechanical, not produced by mechanical means, 
 was this vast movement. No dining at Free- 
 masons' Tavern, with the other long train of 
 modern machinery; no. cunning reconciliation of 
 " vested interests," was required here ; only the 
 passionate voice of one man, the rapt soul look- 
 ing through the eyes of one man ; and rugged, 
 steel-clad Europe trembled beneath his words, and 
 followed him whither he listed. In later ages it 
 was still the same. The Reformation had an in- 
 visible, mystic, and ideal aim ; the result was indeed 
 to be embodied in external things ; but its spirit, 
 its worth, was internal, invisible, infinite. Our 
 English Revolution too originated in. Religion. 
 Men did battle in those old days, not for Purse- 
 
 
 
144 Not Mechanic \ but Dynamic. 
 
 sake, but for Conscience sake. Nay, in our own 
 days it is no way different. The French Revolu- 
 tion itself had something higher in it than cheap 
 bread and a Habeas Corpus Act. Here too was 
 an Idea ; a Dynamic, not a mechanic force. It 
 was a struggle, though a blind and at last an 
 insane one, for the infinite, Divine nature of 
 Right, of Freedom, of Country." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CARLYLE'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY ; AND HIS 
 
 DOCTRINE THAT HISTORY IS A GREAT WORLD- 
 BIBLE, OR REVELATION OF GOD. 
 
 HISTORIANS like Thomas Carlyle remind us of the 
 judicial power of the Pen ; in their hands it becomes 
 the true sceptre, mightier than the sword, mightier 
 than the globe grasped by the monarch, the sym- 
 bol of dominion and rule ; it is the true arbiter. 
 The pen confers immortality on princes when the 
 hand is paralysed, and the ploughshare has passed 
 over the place where once stood the throne of an 
 illustrious dynasty. The pen will preserve the 
 name of the prince in the literary and historic 
 archives. The pen writes down the deeds of the 
 great captain, whose sword swept like lightning 
 round the nations of his day ; he is not only con- 
 quered by death, he is conquered by the pen ; his 
 place in history waits on its award. Is it not very 
 strange to think how we little men sit in judgment 
 on the crimes and the careers of those who would 
 have made us tremble, who made the whole world 
 tremble while they lived ? Why, nothing can make 
 
 10 
 
146 The Historical 
 
 us think of the great Marlborough but as a mean, 
 pitiful, dastardly miser, a treason-hatching traitor, 
 who bought a place of power by the sale of his 
 sister's honour, and maintained it by involving his 
 country in debt that he might pocket the gains ; 
 who sold one sovereign, and' was preparing to sell 
 another ; yes, the pen enables us to say that. Then 
 the pen, the awful pen, sits like an avenging fate 
 upon the memories of men, or stamps them with its 
 irreversible seal. Is it not powerful ? Is it not as 
 wonderful as powerful ? You see a prince like 
 Henry VIII., with the intellectuality of a man and 
 the will of a beast. You see a man like James II., 
 who, in the menagerie of kings, may safely pass for 
 our English hyena. You see creatures like Jefferies 
 or Bonner ; these men could make, did make, gloried 
 in making, poor, weak women tremble. You figure 
 them, with bloodshot eye and white-lipped or lipless 
 mouths, and cruel tusks and teeth, glaring and 
 gnashing, and champing over their thwarted will, 
 or standing, gloating over a bleeding corpse. How 
 indignant you feel. Be quiet, be quiet, history has 
 them all right ; they are safely bound in the chains 
 of the pen ; they cannot, they shall not get free ; they 
 are fast. In the day of their power how they would 
 have sneered at the poor Grub-street crew ! Who so 
 contemptible as the poet, the historiographer, the 
 chronicler ? Him, neither gartered, nor starred, nor 
 
And Judicial Power of the Pen. 147 
 
 titled. Him ! conciliate him ! No, away with him ! 
 Put him in the pillory, in the stocks, in prison. 
 Away with him to the quartering knife of the hang- 
 man. See Defoe standing, in fact, in the pillory, and 
 composing a song in honour of it. See old Samuel 
 Johnson scourged at the cart's tail through the streets 
 of London. See Alice Lisle, venerable and glorious 
 matron, led to the block. See Elizabeth Gaunt, 
 sweet-hearted woman, led to the stake for daring 
 only to give bread to the hungry. See Bunyan in 
 prison for twelve years, and George Fox in nearly all 
 the prisons in England. See Russell and Sydney on 
 the block. Be quiet, be quiet, suppress your indig- 
 nation, the memory of the victim and the tyrant are 
 both in the keeping of the pen. Your pen is the true 
 lord keeper of the consciences of all ages. It is the 
 pen that haunts and dogs the steps of tyrants, with the 
 everlasting Cassandra scream of execration. The 
 pen raises against them the avenging hiss. The pen, 
 in the hands of one they would have treated with 
 contempt, is their judge, jury, sentence, and execu- 
 tioner. 
 
 Carlyle is a historian, and one, it would seem, of a 
 very new and singular mark, quite unlike any other 
 with whom we have any acquaintance. His history 
 may be most truly described as philosophy of his- 
 tory ; to set down a simple fact, to narrate a circum- 
 stance or an anecdote, or even elaborately to sketch 
 
 102 
 
148 History Regarded as a Science. 
 
 a character, these are riot the chief things you will 
 notice in these pages, rather to trace great events to 
 their springs and fountains, and to follow even obscure 
 actions to their consequences and results. This, we 
 suppose, is what is meant by the Philosophy of His- 
 tory. Although Mr. John Stuart Mill has told us that 
 " the Science of History has only become possible in 
 our own time," assuredly it is difficult to see exactly 
 why this should be the case. But it has been said by 
 some of Mr. Carlyle's critics that he comprehends 
 only the individual, that the sense of the unity of the 
 race entirely escapes him.* It has been said that he 
 sympathises with all men, but still it is with the 
 individual life of each ; the great religious thought, 
 the continual development of humanity by collective 
 labour, according to an educational plan assigned by 
 Providence this great truth, it is said, he does not 
 feel or see. The human race he regards rather as an 
 aggregate of similar individuals, distinct powers in 
 juxtaposition, rather than an association of 
 labourers ; with him, it has been said, the nation, 
 the country, and even the very times drop out 
 of sight : the nationality of 'Italy, it is in Dante, 
 Michael Angelo, or Columbus ; the nationality of 
 Germany, it is in Luther or Goethe ; the nationality 
 of England, it is in Cromwell and Shakespeare. But 
 
 * We refer to an interesting, able, appreciative, but greatly 
 dissenting paper, in the British and Foreign Review, 1844. 
 
History Regarded as a Life. 149 
 
 history is not the biography of great men, the history 
 of mankind is the history of mankind, of the race, 
 of its progress, its ideas. 
 
 It is because there is much apparent truth in this 
 objection that we mention it, but in truth every great 
 writer is exposed to great exceptions. Herder and 
 Hegel, the first in his " History of Man," the last in 
 his " Science of History," do unindividualise the 
 study of the great world story, and they have been 
 charged with Pantheism. Carlyle sees and feels for- 
 cibly the relationship of the separate individualities. 
 And it is remarkable how the objection can be urged 
 with such a book as the French Revolution for refer- 
 ence ; no doubt every nation has its mission and its 
 centre, but who doubts also that it has its great men, 
 great statesmen, great priests of letters, great leaders 
 of commerce, and we see these as the long fingers 
 of light along our highways ; there are lamps, candle 
 and gaslight in our parlour and sitting-room, but 
 these are individual, the highway is representative 
 and for all ; the road were lost sight of but for the 
 light; blaze beyond blaze; we only know the road by 
 its light, we only know the nation by its great men ; 
 for the mind of the master spirit mortices the 
 various parts of a nation into one, and through him is 
 expressed the national unity. The writer to whom 
 we have referred before implies, indeed says, that our 
 author does not perceive the indissoluble co-partnery 
 
150 The Solidarity of the Race. 
 
 of all generations and all individuals, as a human 
 race, a solidarity, and that we " being many, are one 
 body in Christ, and every body member one of 
 another." And that in the beautiful words of the 
 apostle, the " whole creation groaneth and travaileth 
 in pain together." These are curious things to say of 
 him ; such we take to be the very doctrines of his his- 
 toric faith. If he cites the individual and throws 
 round him the 'incense of his imagination and affec- 
 tion, it is to show if nature has anywhere attained 
 her end she has attained it everywhere, or will attain. 
 How noble that passage with which he closes his 
 essay entitled " Characteristics." That very passage 
 we have heard cited as an illustration of his Panthe- 
 istic creed, and his ////individualising temper and 
 faith : 
 
 FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH. 
 
 "He that has an eye and a heart can even now say 
 Why should I falter ? Light has come into the 
 world ; to such as love Light, so as Light must be 
 loved, with a boundless all-doing, all-enduring love. 
 For the rest, let that vain struggle to read the 
 mystery of the Infinite cease to harass us. It is a 
 mystery which, through all ages, we shall only 
 read here a line of, there another line of. Do we 
 not already know that the name of the Infinite 
 is Good, is God ? Here on Earth we are as Soldiers, 
 
History the Autobiography of Mankind. 151 
 
 fighting in a foreign land ; that understand not the 
 plan of the campaign, and have no need to under- 
 stand it, seeing well what is at our hand to be 
 done. Let us do it like Soldiers, with submis- 
 sion, with courage, with heroic joy. 'Whatever thy 
 hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.' Behind 
 us, behind each one of us, lie six thousand years of 
 human effort, human conquest. Before us is the 
 boundless time, with its yet uncreated and uncon- 
 quered Continents and Eldorados, which we, even we, 
 have to conquer, to create, and from the bosom of 
 Eternity there shine for us celestial guiding stars. 
 
 " ' My inheritance how wide and fair ! 
 
 Time is my fair seed-field, of Time I'm heir.' " 
 
 Therefore, he teaches us that " universal history is \* 
 the autobiography of mankind." Concerning history 
 he says : " Is it not a mighty drama, enacted on 
 the theatre of Infinitude, with Suns for lamps and 
 Eternity as a background, whose author is God, and 
 whose purport and thousandfold moral lead us up to 
 the 'dark with excessive light' of the Throne of God?" 
 But, " History needs to be compressed. Were there 
 no epitomising of history, one could not remember 
 beyond a week, for Time, like Space, is infinitely divi- 
 sible, and an hour, with its events, with its sensations 
 and emotions, might be diffused to such expansion 
 as should cover the whole field of memory, and push 
 
152 The Impersonal in History. 
 
 all else over the limits, like some foolish Mahometan 
 Caliph ducking his head in a bucket of enchanted 
 water, and so beating out one wet minute into seven 
 long years of servitude and hardship." 
 
 This is Carlyle's ideal of the impersonal in history; 
 But, again, he teaches us that history is the real Bible 
 of the world " the grand sacred epos or Bible of 
 world history, infinite in meaning as the Divine mind 
 it emblems ; wherein he is wise that can read here a 
 line, there a line." And hence he says and we beg 
 our readers to notice the reverence with which he 
 treats the sacred histories of the Bible he says 
 " Here, also, I will observe that the manner in which 
 men read the same Bible is, like all else, proportionate 
 to their stage of culture, to the circumstances of their 
 environment. First, and among the earnest Oriental 
 nations, it was read wholly like a sacred book ; most 
 clearly by the most earnest those wondrous Hebrew 
 readers, whose reading accordingly was itself sacred, 
 has meaning for all tribes of mortal men, since ever, 
 to the latest generation of the world, a true utterance 
 from the innermost of man's being will speak signifi- 
 cantly to man." 
 
 In this spirit was it not said of old, " Whoso is 
 wise, and will observe these things, even he shall 
 understand " ? A law of righteousness, a Divine pre- 
 vision, provision, and predisposition runs through the 
 
History God's Ever-Renewed Revelation. 1 5 3 
 
 whole of human history ; there is the operation of 
 absolute and infallible law, righteous law ; this is 
 obvious to those who are patient to note and shrewd 
 to observe, and wise to generalise. Therefore, says 
 our writer, " Even the biography of an utter scoundrel 
 like Cagliostro is worth reading. If we cannot have 
 a speaker and doer of truth, let us have the pleasure 
 of beholding a decided liar." 
 
 History is considered by him as God's ever-renewed 
 revelation to man, English history among others. 
 " History," says he, " was of old an epic and Bible, the 
 clouded struggling image of a God's presence, the 
 action of heroes and God-inspired men. These are 
 the Bibles of nations to each its believed history is 
 its Bible, not in Judah alone, or Hellas and Latium 
 alone, but in all lands and nations. Beyond doubt 
 the Almighty Maker made this England too, and has 
 been and for ever is miraculously present here, the 
 more is the pity for us if our eyes have grown owlish 
 and cannot see this fact of facts when it is before us ! 
 Once it was known that the Highest did of a surety 
 dwell in this nation, divinejy avenging, and divinely 
 saving and awarding, leading by steps and flaming 
 paths, by heroisms, pieties, and noble acts and 
 thoughts, this nation heavenward if it would or dared. 
 Known or not/ this is for evermore the fact. Ask 
 yourselves, what are the eternal covenants which you 
 can believe, and dare not for your life but go and 
 
\ 
 
 154 Instances in our National Story. 
 
 observe; these are your Bible; your God's Word such 
 as it may be ; these you will continually struggle to 
 obey ; other than these not continually or authenti- 
 cally at all. Did the Maker of the universe reveal 
 Himself to your believing intellect in scrip mainly, 
 in cotton trades and profitable industries and gam- 
 blings, &c., &c.?" "All History, know the factor not, 
 is an articulate Bible, and in a dim intricate manner 
 reveals the Divine appearances in this lower world ; 
 for God did make this world, and does for ever govern 
 it ; the loud roaring loom of Time, with all its French 
 Revolutions or Jewish Revelations, weaves the vesture 
 thou seest Him by. There is no biography of a man, 
 much less any history or biography of a nation, but 
 wraps in it a message out of heaven addressed to the 
 hearing ear, or the not hearing ; what this universe is, 
 what the laws of God are, the life of every man will a 
 little teach it you, the life of all men and of all things, 
 only this could wholly teach it you, and you are to be 
 open to learn." Such is Carlyle's estimate of History 
 as God's ever-renewed Bible. 
 
 Thus, for instance, again to individualise in history 
 and to select instances from our own national story, 
 how would Carlyle or the great Hebrew historians and 
 prophets read some such circumstances as we know, 
 the great crucial instance, for example, of the appal- 
 ling probability of the invasion of our nation by the 
 most populous nation of Europe in that day, Spain, 
 
The Spanish Armada. 155 
 
 a country of thirty-six millions of people, the 
 wealthiest and the best equipped it seemed for 
 all its diabolical purpose of exaction and persecu- 
 tion. 
 
 There is very much in that projected invasion 
 which reminds us of the invasion of Isiael by Sisera, 
 and many of the words of that glorious song of 
 Deborah might well befit our case. It is quite 
 wonderful what a propensity there has been 'in 
 tyrants from time immemorial to reckon their 
 chickens before they were hatched ; as the mother 
 of Sisera sang, " Have they not sped ? have they not 
 divided the prey, to every man a damsel or two, to 
 Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers 
 colours of needle-work, of divers colours of needle- 
 work on both sides, meet for the necks of them that 
 take the spoil ? " We wonder how a Hebrew would 
 have chanted the story of those much-misguided 
 asses, the captains and chief governors of that most 
 imperial ass that ever was, Philip II., who had pre- 
 pared his Armada as a gorgeous flotilla, for a very 
 festival of conquest ; fitting out his large fleet with 
 soldiers and inquisitors, who were to murder and to 
 havoc the streets of London, and make the sack of 
 Antwerp pale. Alas ! they calculated badly. Lon- 
 don was all before their anxious eyes. There was 
 velvet, and gold, and baggage for the triumph, lights 
 and torches for the illumination, when London should 
 
156 Napoleon's Projected 
 
 be sacked. Every captain had received some gift 
 from the prince to make him brave, and lances so 
 gorgeous 'twas a preparation for a triumph, not for 
 a war. And then came that night, and the sob of the 
 storm, and the drip of the mysterious oars, and the 
 devil-ships of Gianibelli, and the flame, and the mist> 
 and the tempest, and so but we know the rest ; only, 
 what would an Israelite have said over such a vic- 
 tory ? " Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an 
 east wind." 
 
 These are the things in a nation's history which 
 make a people look up. These are the foundations 
 of national pride and exultation. 
 
 A like event to that of the Armada happened 
 during the administration of Pitt. To his adminis- 
 tration we owe the defeat, under God, of the designs 
 of Napoleon. Our history has incidents as glowing 
 and marvellous, but have we the heart of the ancient 
 Hebrew to recite the story? Why, it is in the 
 memory of men living now, and here, how Napo- 
 leon I. spread his mighty camp along the heights of 
 Boulogne, where 100,000 men waited for the moment 
 when, beneath the leadership of the First Consul, 
 they were to spring on England. Those prepara- 
 tions were vast, and 50,000 men spread along the 
 coast from Brest to Antwerp. " Let us be lasters of 
 the Channel," said Napoleon, " for six hours, and we 
 are masters of the world." Also the master of the 
 
Invasion of England. 157 
 
 French Mint received orders to strike a medal com- 
 memorating the conquest, and although the die had 
 to be broken, there were three copies taken. Two are 
 in France and one in England the Emperor crowned 
 with laurel, and the inscription in French, " London 
 taken, 1804." But there was one " sitting in the 
 heavens who laughed " the Lord had them in deri- 
 sion. " He spoke unto them in His wrath, and vexed 
 them in His sore displeasure," for, alas! alas! Admiral 
 La Touche Treville, having received orders to put to 
 sea, he alone knowing the destiny of the Fleet, fell 
 sick, poor man, and died just then ; and there was no 
 head to direct, and no hand to strike, and the thing 
 had to be postponed. But Napoleon, Emperor 
 Napoleon, did not give up. In 1805 ne was waiting 
 still in Boulogne ! London was not taken, to be sure, 
 in 1804, but it might be in 1805. He climbed the 
 heights again and again, and waited for the junction 
 of the fleets ; but he strained his eyes in vain. His 
 admirals blundered, and so that fleet which was to 
 have taken London, while Napoleon supposed it 
 hastening to Brest, was flying to Cadiz, there to 
 meet with Nelson at Trafalgar ; and so, in fact, 
 London was not taken. But what would an ancient 
 Hebrew have said ? He would have said, " As we 
 have heard, so have we seen!' " God is known in 
 her palaces for a refuge. For, lo, the kings were 
 assembled, they passed by together. They saw it, 
 
158 History the Reign of Law ; 
 
 and so they marvelled ; they were troubled, and 
 hasted away." "We have thought of Thy loving- 
 kindness, O God, in the midst of Thy Temple." He 
 would have sung as Deborah sang, " So let all Thy 
 enemies perish, O Lord ; but let them that love 
 Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his 
 might." 
 
 Such instances can scarcely be deemed irrelevant 
 as tending to illustrate the truth of our author's 
 doctrine that there is a law running through national 
 story, and that if righteousness exalteth a nation, a 
 fearful and avenging Nemesis follows wrong-doing 
 and injustice, and an inevitable and infallible judg- 
 ment-day. It has been said indeed that Carlyle never 
 loses sight of the individual, and this is true ; but on 
 the other hand, he never loses sight of the universal, 
 the stream of tendency. He contradicts entirely the 
 charge that he is forgetful of the race ; some may 
 indeed urge it against him, that he too thoroughly 
 seems to bestride the Hegelian begriff, or idea. 
 But again the thoughtful reader will perceive how 
 incalculably important to him is the personal, 
 the individual ; even the slightest and most in- 
 significant circumstance has its weight, and is not 
 lost like a grain of sand in the desert, like a wave 
 in the vast sea ; although at times there seems to 
 rise from his lips, his soul overawed by the vastness 
 and immensity around him, the cry of the Breton 
 
Not Therefore Impersonal. 159 
 
 mariner, " My God, protect me ! my bark is so small, 
 and the ocean is so vast !" 
 
 Carlyle's doctrine being true then, that History is 
 the Bible of Humanity, God's revelation perpetually 
 renewed from age to age, the most sacred and 
 sacramental work in literature may be said to be that 
 of the historian ; if the historian has power to see 
 extensively, and to set down what he is able to see, 
 he becomes the vindicator of the Divine idea in the 
 course of events, and the Divine presence in the 
 government of them and of the globe. This makes 
 Carlyle's " History of the French Revolution," and 
 his "Cromwell," to read more like the stories of 
 Genesis, of Joshua and the Judges, of the Kings and 
 the Chronicles of the Bible, than any other Histories 
 we know ; are not most other Histories dilettantic, 
 elegant narratives, which we read, charmed by a 
 certain flexibility of style rather than awed by the 
 march of law ? Of course there will be multitudes to 
 say he ought not to have written like this : that is a 
 question which has to be decided by the measure of 
 belief in the principle we have just laid down that 
 History is the Bible of man. Compare Carlyle with 
 Gibbon, or with Hume. 
 
 Never did historian spread so magnificent a canvas 
 as Gibbon. He chose, not merely the greatest 
 moment he chose the greatest hours of the whole 
 world's drama ; he chose to paint the ancient civili- 
 
160 The Defect of Gibbons "Decline and Fall'' 
 
 sation in its last gasp, in its expiring struggles. He 
 chose to paint that strong and hoary despotism of 
 the ancient world, with all its Oriental splendours 
 and its European barbarisms around it. He called 
 to his canvas, with more or less distinctness, the 
 awful shades of the Caesars. Obedient to his call, 
 the forest hordes came thronging on their desolating 
 way. He heard the crash of that astounding Empire, 
 which bound in one all the crimes and all the glories 
 of the ancient world. As in a great dissolving view, 
 he beheld the Coliseum of Rome pass, and yield to 
 the spectacle of a Cross, and one on it like to 
 the Son of God. He saw the ancient peoples expire, 
 and yield to the new races. He saw the new race, as 
 it rushed across the canvas, the apostle of a new 
 faith ; and he saw no law in all this. We may 
 venture to speak of that gpeat performance of 
 Gibbon's which is, for composition, for grouping, 
 foi^ era and event, perhaps the finest history our 
 world's literature has known as like the great image 
 in the Apocalypse of Daniel, where the gold, and the 
 iron, and the brass, and the clay are mingled in the 
 strange confusion of great meanness, and great 
 magnificence. 
 
 Hence, we have no patience with Gibbon. We 
 have always felt that the peculiar kind of poison, 
 which is his great literary ware, may be conveyed 
 with peculiar stealth in historical composition. An 
 
The Heartlessness of Gibbon. 161 
 
 inuendo may be made to look so like a fact. The 
 poison of Gibbon is conveyed in homoeopathic quan- 
 tities, perpetually repeated ; and, as has been re- 
 marked, reminds us of those Italian proficients in the 
 art of toxicology, who conveyed death, in minutest 
 portions, in a gorgeous ring or a glowing rose. It was 
 a severe, but a just criticism of Professor Person's 
 on this great writer, that " His humanity never 
 slumbers unless when women are to be ravished, 
 or Christians to be persecuted." It is sad to see 
 Christian clergymen, like Dr. Robertson and Joseph 
 Warton, patting Gibbon on the back, thanking 
 him for his volumes, and never taking exception to 
 the pages in which "he saps a sacred truth with 
 solemn sneer " in which he seeks to cast a shadow 
 over the martyr's crown, and to apologise for the 
 barbarities of the Roman Emperor. His account of 
 the death of Cyprian extorts from us a grim kind of 
 laughter, so kindly does he linger over the mercies* 
 of the executioner, and forget the agonies of the-, 
 martyr. True, the Bishop was banished ; " but "- 
 says Gibbon "to a very pleasant and fertile coun- 
 try." He was sentenced to death, " but he was not 
 conveyed to prison, but to a private house, and an 
 elegant supper prepared for him." Sentence was 
 pronounced ; " but it was a mild death, only behead- 
 ing, and he was most graciously spared the torture." 
 Isaak Walton exhorts the angler, when fishing with 
 
 ii 
 
1 62 Gibbon and Hume 
 
 a frog, to put his hook through the mouth, and out at 
 the gills, and then, with a fine needle and silk, to sew 
 on the upper part of his leg with only one stitch to 
 the arming wire of the hook ; and, in so doing, to use 
 him as though he loved him. Such was the humanity 
 and such the charity of Gibbon.* 
 
 Whenever we think of Gibbon and his pertinacious 
 hatred to Christianity, and his incessant sparrow-shot 
 of inuendo and sarcasm, we think of the happy 
 appropriation to him, by some writer, we forget 
 whom, of a famous passage in Peter Plymley, intended 
 to annoy George Canning " Pompey was killed by 
 a slave, Goliath smitten by a stripling, Pyrrhus died 
 by the hand of a woman ; tremble, thou great Gaul, 
 from whose head an armed Minerva leaps forth in 
 the hour of danger ; tremble, thou scourge of God ; 
 a pleasant man is come out against thee ; and thou 
 shall be laid low by a joker of jokes, and he shall talk 
 his pleasant talk against thee, and thou shall be no 
 more." 
 
 We are compelled to say we have as little patience 
 with Hume as with Gibbon. If we did not know 
 that, in reading a book, we can only see what our 
 moral nature permits us to see, we should charge 
 Hume with deliberate perversions and falsifications. 
 Professor Smyth, of Cambridge, has distinctly made 
 
 * See an admirable article on Gibbon in the Quarterly 
 Review, vol. Ixii. p. 378. 
 
As Historians 163 
 
 out such cases against him ; and we must further 
 direct the reader to a very elaborate article in the 
 Quarterly Review* Hume is our national historian, 
 but he is the Belial advocate of infidelity. All 
 religion, with him, is superstition and fanaticism. 
 He constantly aims to suppress all belief in belief as 
 a motive to action. It has been truly and wittily 
 said " He bombards St. Peter's, but his shells 
 always glance off on St. Paul's. His spear pierces 
 through Archbishop Anselm, but it pins Archbishop 
 Sumner to the wall ; and the filth with which he 
 bespatters the Lateran Council, defiles the General 
 Assembly."! Belief in special Providence is, with 
 Hume, a gross absurdity. And he estimates merit 
 or demerit, in any institution, or individual, exactly 
 in proportion to the presence or absence of so 
 deleterious an influence as Christianity. 
 
 But we detain our readers with these remarks, 
 briefly to say, that the grand defect of these writers 
 is this, they did not perceive Christianity to be an 
 element in the history of the world. Now, Christi- 
 anity to us, on the contrary, gives the law of history. 
 It is the unicising element of the drama of the globe. 
 All is confusion without it ; whether we walk with 
 Gibbon through the streets of ancient cities, and mark 
 the plague of which they died ; or whether, with 
 Hume, through the cities of Britain, through the 
 * Quarterly Review, vol. Ixvii. t Ibid. 
 
 II 2 
 
164 In Contrast with Carlyle. 
 
 middle ages, and mark how they rose to power, to order, 
 and to grace. It is Christianity which unriddles the 
 mystery of the earth, and explains its enigma. And 
 we must hold him to be a defective historian who does 
 not perceive this working element of power. And is 
 it not remarkable that Gibbon bursts into enthusiasm 
 for Julian who attempted to restore Paganism, but 
 has no word of homage for Jesus " the Galilean," 
 whom Julian bitterly acknowledged his conqueror ? 
 
 Contrast, then, with such historians as these, Carlyle. 
 The prophetic character of the man comes vividly out ; 
 nothing sets him more apart from and above, either 
 the greater number of past or of contemporary histo- 
 rians, than his solemn sense of the mystery and wonder 
 of human life, and his insight into human character ; 
 the mystery of the universe is ever present to him, 
 and with it, as the infinitely great, his sense of the 
 power often even of the most insignificant individual ; 
 he has always been faithful to the spirit of certain 
 noble words he utters in one of his Essays, showing 
 the innocence of ignorance to be relative. 
 
 " The simple husbandman can till his field, and by 
 knowledge he has gained of its soil, sow it with fit 
 grain, though the deep rocks and central 'fires are 
 unknown to him ; his little crop hangs under and 
 over the firmament of stars, and sails through whole 
 untracked celestial spaces between Aries and Lybra ; 
 nevertheless it ripens for him in due season, and he 
 
Disturbing Forces of Society. 165 
 
 gathers it safe into his barn. As a husbandman he 
 is blameless in disregarding those higher wonders, 
 but as a thinker, and faithful inquirer into nature, he 
 were wrong ; " so likewise is it with the historian. 
 And here in Society, as well as in the vast zodiac 
 of the heavens, there operates the Divine Law, and 
 the Law of History is the Holiness of God, faith- 
 fulness to it is prosperity, and unfaithfulness 
 surely is misery. History is the record of the 
 disturbing forces which break up the monotony 
 and commonplace of human affairs ; the disturb- 
 ing forces of genius, of folly, of enterprise. Very 
 wonderful is it that man possesses the power to 
 disturb the arrangements of Society ; the rise ot 
 a Hildebrand, a Luther, a Napoleon who can 
 calculate or forecast the horoscope of those strange 
 births of time ? Who can forecast the horoscope 
 of the hordes of the North, whose wondrous path- 
 way is described with so epic a pen by Thierry? 
 Charles Kingsley delivered a lecture before hi?, 
 class as Professor of History, in Cambridge, " On 
 the Limits of Exact Science as Applied to His- 
 tory." Without a doubt, a reader will see in 
 History the plain operation of certain laws, but 
 he will certainly see how the Invisible rules all, 
 how obviously all the hinges and springs of 
 moral movement have their relation to " things not 
 seen " as yet nor intended to be seen ; and Mr. 
 
1 66 Moral and Material Forces Contrasted. 
 
 Kingsley says, "History obeys, and always has 
 obeyed, in the long run certain laws, but those 
 laws assert themselves and are to be discovered, not 
 in things, but in persons, in the action of human 
 beings" How then can we adapt to this field of 
 observation and research the terms of the inferior 
 worlds of natural philosophy and science ? His- 
 tory is greater than mechanics, greater than mathe- 
 matics ; the forces of human souls are mightier 
 in their energies than the dynamics of matter, 
 the hydraulics or the hydrologies of the universe ; 
 the ^progress of human souls cannot be submitted 
 to the arithmetical formulary as the pathway of 
 a planet or the pulsation of a tide. We know the 
 kind of force which might disturb a planet in 
 its progress, and we know the kind of force which 
 might disturb the moral balance of a nation, or a 
 world, and we speak of both as acting beneath 
 the operation of certain laws ; but there is a 
 remarkable difference, just the difference there is 
 between the madness, or the sublimity of love, 
 and the force of a projectile. 
 
 Historic writing is one of the most difficult, as it 
 is one of the most dignified occupations of the 
 human mind. It needs all the qualities of genius, 
 yet nothing is more certain than that more than 
 genius is needed for the historian. The love of 
 books ; the patience of plodding research ; the reso- 
 
The Attributes of tlie Historian. 167 
 
 lute burrowing among the driest earths and most 
 worthless accumulation of rubbish and chaff ; the 
 acquaintance, as a matter of course, with many 
 languages ; the power to strike through, and seize 
 the weakest and strongest points of an event, 
 an incident, a character ; the power to grasp the 
 outlines of many facts, to see as well their hid- 
 den meaning, and to group them so that there 
 they lose their prosaic character, and are bodied 
 forth in the light of graphic description, until it 
 is difficult to discriminate the historian from the 
 poet, and yet, in the midst of all, to preserve 
 the historian essentially and entirely distinct from 
 the poet ; to know precisely the relation the in- 
 finitely small in human affairs should bear to the 
 almost infinitely large, and to keep the eye con- 
 stantly fixed not only on the throne, and the 
 throne-room, but on the back-stairs leading to the 
 throne-room ; to trace in human manners and 
 customs the shifting web-work of human thought, 
 and thus to be, not only " little less than a poet 
 of the highest wing, but little less than a meta- 
 physician of the deepest and shrewdest compre- 
 hension ; making the pages, not only to flame 
 with the hues of reality, but bringing into clear 
 and unmistaken light the secret sophistries as 
 well as the open sins of the human heart. 
 
 Hard, indeed, is the task of the historian ; and few, 
 
1 68 The Historian. 
 
 very few, are the books we can truly call histories. 
 The truth is, we have been in the habit of honouring 
 many of the materials of history with that more 
 general and honoured name. An antiquary is not 
 a historian ; a fact-collector is not a historian ; nor 
 is the poetic dreamer over facts or dates a historian. 
 Colours and canvas will not make an artist A 
 grouping of dead materials in the most proper, but 
 dead nomenclature this is not history. History is 
 that humanising power, which, like a camera obscura, 
 takes up, and causes to pass before the eye, the 
 things, the events, with all their colours, all their 
 hues, with all things cohering together in their proper 
 proportions ; it is the drama on a large scale. 
 History is the drama of ages ; it ought to contain 
 all that the drama contains. The historian should 
 use all men, and all things, from the song of the 
 ballad-singer in the street to the whisper of the 
 minister of state in the council chamber. An old 
 coin, or an old sabre, or an old coat in the room of 
 an antiquary, or the faded portrait in the old 
 ancestral gallery, obsolete customs and usages in 
 retired villages, or the tariff and the scale of custom 
 rates and charges, the architecture of the nobleman's 
 palace, the worshipper's temple, or the peasant's hut, 
 all are the materials of history. To the historian, 
 the roar of the mob, to whom the mayor is about to 
 read the Riot Act, is as important as the roll of 
 
The Historian. 169 
 
 cannon, and the blasts of trumpets on the distant 
 field of battle. Attentively he notes the costumes of 
 the times of old as interesting to him as the 
 autograph despatch of the sovereign of the times. 
 He will not lose sight of the story of the population 
 in such terms as Feudalism and Chivalry, but will 
 determine to know how the people, as well as their 
 masters, lived, what they did, what they refused to 
 do ; the colour and quality of their bread, and the 
 state of the highway, will be to him matters of grave 
 and momentous concern. 
 
 But these may be denominated the outer vesture 
 and material of history. It is clear that a historian 
 is not a mere dealer in the marine stores of nations. 
 There is in all a moral purpose controlling the 
 material aids. Dr. Arnold has defined one of the, 
 chief qualities of the historian to be, activity for truth 
 and impatience of error. To present an age or a 
 people as they were, this is the object of the historian. 
 One would almost go the length of saying, that the 
 historian should have no favourites no heroes. He 
 should be like the dramatist, in the distance he 
 maintains towards personages and events. He is not 
 to be the apologist, or he ceases to be the historian. 
 He is not to be the partisan, or he ceases to be the 
 historian. If he too prominently leads a hero on the 
 field or on the page, he sinks his character, and from 
 the historian becomes only the epic poet. In the world 
 
170 Carlyle' s Reply to Strauss 
 
 of actual life, it may be doubted if there be at any 
 one time, any man who overrides and eclipses all 
 other men. It is the historian's duty to show us how 
 events linked themselves together, and grew out of 
 each other. How the evil deed contained the evil 
 seed. How the evil seed contained the evil fruit. 
 How crime and fashion used its black crape and 
 varnish, and vice its rouge. How the principles of 
 public happiness were planted ; how they matured 
 and grew. How books were columns of light, or of 
 cloud. How men were boons and blessings, or 
 festering curses on the nation's heart. He must 
 show all this, not by philosophising or expounding, 
 but by narrating ; he must place the stream of events 
 in their own light, and make deeds, events, and men 
 their own expositors. 
 
 We cannot but feel that Mr. Carlyle realises and 
 fulfils these attributes of the historic character 
 eminently in his story of the French Revolution. 
 
 And here we may remark that Carlyle, who has 
 in his works said something of most things, has 
 given a very concise little reply to the Herr Strauss 
 and his myth theories of history. " To get beautiful 
 allegories, a perfect poetic symbol, was not the want 
 of men ; but to know what they were to believe 
 about this universe, what course they were to steer 
 in it ; what in this mysterious life of theirs they had 
 to hope and fear, to do and forbear doing. The 
 
A nd the Myth Theory. 1 7 1 
 
 1 Pilgrim's Progress ' is an allegory and a beautiful, 
 just, and serious one : but consider whether Bunyan's 
 allegory could have preceded the Faith it symbolises ! 
 the Faith had to be already there standing believed 
 by everybody ; of which the Allegory could then 
 become a shadow ; and with all its seriousness we 
 may say a sportful shadow, a mere play of the Fancy, 
 in comparison with that awful Fact and scientific 
 certainty which it poetically strives to emblem. The 
 Allegory is the product of the certainty, not the 
 producer of it. Not in Bunyan's, nor in any other 
 case." 
 
 Nor is it quite out of place to cite here his fine and 
 free version of the myth of Thor as an illustration 
 of the genuine myth allegory in contrast with real 
 history : 
 
 THE STORY OF THE EXPEDITION OF THOR. 
 
 " One of Thor's expeditions to Utgard (the outer 
 garden, central seat of Jotun-land) is remarkable in 
 this respect. Thialfi was with him and Loke. After 
 various adventures, they entered upon Giant-land ; 
 wandered over plains, wide uncultivated places, 
 among stones and trees. At nightfall they noticed a 
 house ; and as the door, which, indeed, formed one 
 whole side of the house, was open, they entered. It 
 was a simple habitation one large hall, altogether 
 empty. They stayed there. Suddenly in the dead of 
 
 " 
 
 
i/ 2 The Expedition of Thor 
 
 the night loud noises alarmed them. Thor grasped 
 his hammer, stood in the door, prepared for fight 
 His companions within ran hither and thither in their 
 terror, seeking some outlet in that rude hall. They 
 found a little closet at last, and took refuge there. 
 Neither had Thor any battle ; for, lo, in the morning 
 it turned out that the noise had been only the 
 snoring of a certain enormous but peaceable Giant, 
 the Giant Skrymir, who lay peaceably sleeping near 
 by ; and this that they took for a house was merely 
 his glove, thrown aside there. The door was the 
 glove-wrist ; the little closet they had fled into was 
 the thumb ! Such a glove ! I remark, too, that it 
 had no fingers as ours have, but only a thumb, and 
 the rest undivided a most ancient, rustic glove ! 
 
 " Skrymir now carried their portmanteau all day ; 
 Thor, however, had his own suspicions, did not like 
 the ways of Skrymir ; determined at night to put an 
 end to him as he slept. Raising his hammer, he 
 struck down into the Giant's face a right thunderbolt 
 blow, of force to rend rocks. The Giant merely 
 awoke, rubbed his cheek, and said, ' Did a leaf fall ? ' 
 Again Thor struck, so soon as Skrymir again slept ; a 
 better blow than before ; but the Giant only mur- 
 mured, ' Was that a grain of sand ? ' Thor's third 
 stroke was with both his hands (the ' knuckles white,' 
 I suppose), and seemed to dint deep into Skrymir's 
 visage ; but he merely checked his snore, and re- 
 
 
An Illustration of the Myth. 173 
 
 marked, 'There must be sparrows roosting in this 
 tree, I think ; what is it they have dropt ? ' At the 
 gate of Utgard, a place so high that you had to 
 ' strain your neck, bending back to see the top of it,' 
 Skrymir went his ways. Thor and his companions 
 were admitted ; invited to share in the games going 
 on. To Thor, for his part, they handed a Drinking- 
 horn. It was a common feat, they told him, to 
 drink this dry at one draught. Long and fiercely, 
 three times over, Thor drank, but made hardly any 
 impression. He was a weak child, they told him. 
 Could he lift that Cat he saw there ? Small as the 
 feat seemed, Thor with his whole godlike strength 
 could not ; he bent up the creature's back, could not 
 raise its feet off the ground, could at the utmost 
 raise one foot. * Why, you are no man,' said the 
 Utgard people. ' There is an Old Woman that will 
 wrestle you ! ' Thor, heartily ashamed, seized this 
 haggard old woman, but could not throw her. 
 
 "And now on their quitting Utgard, the chief 
 Jotun, escorting them politely a little way, said to 
 Thor, ' You are beaten, then ? yet be not so much 
 ashamed there was deception of appearance in it 
 That Horn you tried to drink was the Sea ; you did 
 make it ebb ; but who can drink that, the bottomless! 
 The Cat you would have lifted, why that is the Mid- 
 gard-snake, the Great World-serpent, which, tail in 
 mouth, girds and keeps up the whole created world ; 
 
174 The Myth of Thor. 
 
 had you torn that up, the world must have rushed 
 to ruin. As for the Old Woman, she was Time, Old 
 Age, Duration with her what can wrestle ? No 
 man nor no god with her ; gods or men, she prevails 
 over all ! And then those three strokes you struck 
 look at these three valleys ; your three strokes made 
 these ! ' Thor looked at his attendant Jotun : it was 
 Skrymir ; it was, say Norse critics, the old chaotic 
 rocky Earth in person, and that glove-house was 
 some earth-cavern ! But Skrymir had vanished. 
 Utgard, with its sky-high gates, when Thor grasped 
 his hammer to smite them, had gone to air ; only the 
 Giant's voice was heard mocking, ' Better come no 
 more to Jotunheim ! ' " * 
 
 * Carlyle has in this Expedition of Thor and in other illus- 
 trations of the Myth, quite freely, and yet almost literally, ren- 
 dered from the wonderful pages and pictures of the Edda. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HIS STORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 WE have often thought of a remarkable conversation 
 of Bishop Butler, the immortal author of the " Ana- 
 logy," with his eminent chaplain, Dr. Tucker, who has 
 also recorded it for us in his life. Tucker says : " The 
 Bishop had a very singular notion respecting large 
 communities and public bodies. His custom was to 
 walk, when in Bristol, for hours in the garden in the 
 darkest night which the time of the year could afford ; 
 and I," says the Dean, " had frequently the honour to 
 attend him. Thus once and again, after walking for 
 some time, he would suddenly stop and ask the ques- 
 tion, 'What security is there against insanity of 
 individuals ? The physicians know of none, and as 
 to divines, we have no data either from Scripture or 
 from reason to go upon relative to this affair.' ' True, 
 my lord, no man has a lease of his understanding any 
 more than of his life ; they are both in the hands of 
 the sovereign disposer of all things.' He would then 
 take another turn and again stop short. ' Why might 
 not whole communities and public bodies be seized 
 with fits of insanity as well as individuals ? ' ' My 
 
176 A Suggestive Remark of Bishop Butler. 
 
 lord, I have never considered the case, and can give 
 no opinion concerning it.' ' Nothing but this principle, 
 that they are liable to insanity equally at least with 
 private persons, can account for the major part of 
 those transactions of which we read in history.' I 
 thought little," adds the Dean, " of this odd conceit of 
 the Bishop at that juncture ; but I own I could not 
 avoid thinking of it a great deal since, and applying 
 it to many cases." 
 
 This conversation took place in 1748, upwards of a 
 century since. What if the Dean and Bishop had 
 been walking through Bristol in 1831, or when the 
 French Revolution was at its highest ? Truly mad- 
 ness : and Carlyle would at once coincide with the 
 Bishop and his idea of epidemic insanity the mad- 
 ness of the multitude ; but Carlyle, through all his 
 works, maintains that our only salvation from this is 
 the grace of God. " Oh, it is frightful ! " he exclaims, 
 " when a whole nation, as our forefathers used to say, 
 has forgotten God." " Then," continues he, " you 
 advance incessantly to\vards the land's end ; you are 
 literally ' consuming the way,' step after step, you 
 twenty-seven millions of unconscious men, till you are 
 at the land's end ; till there is not faithfulness enough 
 among you any more ; and the next step now is lifted 
 not over land, but into air : over ocean deeps and 
 roaring abysses, unless, perhaps, the law of gravitation 
 have forgotten to act ? Not one false man but does 
 
How Revolutions Grow. 177 
 
 uncountable mischief; how much in a generation or 
 two will twenty-seven millions, mostly false, manage 
 to accumulate ? The sum of it visible in every street, 
 market-place, senate-house, circulating library, cathe- 
 dral, cotton-mill, and union workhouse, fills one not 
 with a comic feeling." 
 
 But referring to the words of several regarded as 
 able Editors and Reviewers, this would seem to be pre- 
 cisely the impression conveyed to their sensibilities. 
 Certainly in the minds of some writers 'in the Times, 
 the Quarterly, Blackwood, &c., &c., the words of 
 Carlyle appear to have produced only a comic feeling. 
 
 For the present age it seems that it is one great 
 duty of its teachers and thinkers and statesmen 
 attentively to study the writings of Thomas Carlyle. 
 It is true that he discusses with a vigour, and 
 clearness, and breadth, beyond any other writer, 
 the social and individual problems of his times. 
 We would endorse the general opinion of him 
 as a poetic thinker expressed by Peter Bayne : 
 " The rhythmic cadence in many passages of 
 Mr. Carlyle's works, and still more the original 
 melody and pure gleams of colour in his few early 
 poems, sufficed to prove that he possessed this natural 
 gift. Had he duly cultivated it, he would have been 
 the greatest poet since Milton. With a faculty of 
 expression on a level with that of Shelley or Tenny- 
 son, a more vigorous intellectual structure than the 
 
 12 
 
178 An Homeric History. 
 
 former, and a broader and more active sympathy with 
 life than the latter, he would have done things in the 
 poetry of real life, in the epic or dramatic province, 
 of a kind which has not been exampled since the 
 historical dramas of Shakespeare. The false philo- 
 sophy (?) and the false theology (?) which have spread 
 contagion throughout his prose, would thus have been 
 deprived of half their perilous influence. As it is, 
 it will not be thought extravagant to define his 
 ' History of the French Revolution ' as the greatest 
 imaginative work of a narrative kind produced in the 
 present century. So Homer would have written, 
 had Homer written prose. Carlyle's language is 
 uniformly that of the poetic inventor ; not gleaned 
 from classic authors or standard dictionaries, but 
 elaborated as the great painter mixes colours to bring 
 out his peculiar tints ; and no writers, except Homer 
 and Shakespeare, have been able to put so much into 
 a single stroke as Carlyle." 
 
 Another critic, of quite another order a Mr. 
 McNicholl denies indeed to our writer the faculty of 
 imagination, and thinks more highly of Washington 
 Irving, and his " History of New York," than of 
 either "Sartor Resartus," or the "French Revolution," 
 a delectable imagination, which we leave all to profit 
 by who are able. All Mr. Carlyle's social lessons 
 have a relation to the " History." It has been re- 
 marked, that as in " Sartor Resartus," our writer ex- 
 
Our Only Historic Epic. 179 
 
 pounded the errors and anomalies of individual life, 
 so in the " French Revolution " he has expounded 
 the errors of the social ; he has done this not less in \/ 
 those volumes than in the " Latter Day Pamphlets ;" 
 the sins which great nations have committed, are 
 the sins which a great nation may commit. And 
 while multitudes of the thoughtless of society only 
 mention that book to deride it, the writer evidently 
 thought not of France and its past alone, but of 
 another nation still nearer home : " This, then, is the 
 abomination of desolation, come suddenly, though 
 long foreshadowed as inevitable ! For to the blind 
 all things are sudden'' It is in this way the unhappy 
 and troublesome prophet says to us " Beware." 
 
 And how have you read that wondrous book, the 
 " French Revolution," the most Homeric book since 
 Homer ? the only Historic Epic of our own or any 
 literature. If not, then which is, and what age pro- 
 duced it ? If our world should last another thousand 
 years, then, too, may this assuredly be regarded as the 
 Iliad of our time, even as that " French Revolution " 
 is our Siege of Troy, in the interest it has created 
 among the nations. And what was the Siege of 
 Troy compared with that greatest fact of modern 
 history ; what more than the story of the wreck of a 
 poor fishing boat recited with the pomp of the story of 
 Salamis or of the Battle of Trafalgar ? We cannot well 
 help laughing at our much esteemed and very dull 
 
 12 2 
 
i8o The Vesuvius of Democracy. 
 
 brothers, who object to us that the book is by no means 
 a proper history ! It is the best history a man in earnest 
 was able to write. Unfortunately for the artistic fame 
 of our friend, he had not the cold, severe, nonchalent 
 elegance of Gibbon, or of Robertson, or of Hume. 
 Unfortunately, he was obliged to feel all the scenery 
 as he described it. It was not merely the clever, and 
 exact, and very beautiful arrangement of a note-book. 
 No ! it so happened, that nearly in his day the 
 Vesuvius of Democracy that strange birth of 
 modern days burst forth in overwhelming fire. 
 He saw, attentively noting, the spouting columns 
 of hissing lava pouring over one devoted nation, 
 and he saw in it a Divine judgment and wrath, 
 and human doom for human sin, and he tells the 
 tale like a man inspired to tell it ; and he tells 
 the tale so that in the mere reading there is such 
 a drain upon our nervous energy, that we even feel 
 ourselves weaker, perceptibly, after those appalling 
 realisations. That you are comparatively unable to 
 read it is little to the purpose. Are you able to 
 read with pleasure the " Iliad," the " Paradise Lost," 
 nay, even the " Heimskringla," for this book is to be 
 compared and tried by the side of these ? Criticism 
 upon it is like criticism upon Homer or Shakespeare ; 
 criticism, but criticism as unnecessary as upon some 
 magnificent and overflowing forces of nature. Say 
 what you will, the forces are there. It is like the 
 
77/6' Death of Louis the Unf or gotten. 181 
 
 carving a name upon an Andes ; the little chipping 
 deforms, or lacerates, it may be an inch, but leaves 
 the whole pile colossal and majestic. Do we not even 
 thrill and shiver at that weird Prolegomena the 
 deathbed of Louis XV., " the unforgotten," while the 
 chapel organs keep going, and the shrine of St. Gene- 
 vieve is let down and pulled up again without effect' 
 and heaving bellows blow, and the heaven blackens, 
 and the battering rain-torrents dash with thunder, and 
 the electric fire-flashes make the very flambeaux on 
 the altar turn pale, and the false sorceress, Du Barry, 
 vanishes an unclean thing, a bird of night for- 
 ward " through lowest subterranean depths and over 
 highest sunlit heights of harlotdom ancl rascaldom 
 to the guillotine-axe, which shears away thy vainly- 
 whimpering head ! Rest there uncursed ; only buried 
 and abolished ; what else befitted thee ? How the 
 shadows of the coming Revolution are defined in 
 the early pages of this weird book, like the shadows 
 of still trees, which are frequently seen more distinct 
 and still as the night and the storm approach. The 
 age of gold, when vice loses all its deformity, becom- 
 ing decent, a sweet kind of virtue, and men get rid 
 of the idea of death by victorious analysis, as they 
 had already got rid of the idea of the devil, so that 
 we shall be happy in spite of death and the devil. 
 And the wretched, wretched people, amidst dearth 
 and scarcity, and starvation, presenting their petition 
 
1 82 The Prophetic Teaching 
 
 to the King at his palace gates, and receiving for 
 answer, " two of their number hanged on a gallows 
 forty feet high," and the rest driven back to their den 
 for a time. And so the whole nation, with its amuse- 
 ments and philosophies, is beneath a cloud vapour 
 with rainbows painted on it beautiful to see, and to 
 sail towards ; which also hovers over Niagara Falls. 
 There is then constantly illustrated in this book, that 
 wherever huge physical evil is, there, as the parent 
 and origin of it, has moral evil to a proportionate 
 extent been, and so, " dance on, ye foolish ones ; ye 
 and your fathers have sown the wind, ye shall reap 
 the whirlwind ; was it not from of old written, ' The 
 wages of sin is death ' ? Yes, the revolution will 
 come. How ? Through what crevice will the 
 main explosion carry itself? through which of the 
 old craters or chimneys ; or must it at once form a 
 new crater for itself?" "Singular indeed how long 
 the rotten will hold together, provided you do not 
 handle it too roughly." "With a Fortunatus purse 
 in its pocket, through what length of time might 
 not almost any falsehood last ? " " But all honour 
 to Bankruptcy ; ever righteous on the great scale, 
 though in detail it is so cruel ; under all false- 
 hoods it works, unweariedly, undermining. No 
 falsehood, did it rise heaven high and cover the 
 world, but bankruptcy will one day sweep it down, 
 and make us free of it." "Yes, for in the dens of 
 
Of the Story of the French Revolution. 183 
 
 France lurk the twin brothers Oppression and 
 Revenge. Poor Lackalls, betoiled, besoiled, en- 
 crusted in dim defacement, to whom, nevertheless 
 the breath of the Almighty has given a living 
 soul, and beneath whose hungry manhood sin has 
 created a power of mad manhood, as indeed the 
 capacity of madness lurks in the darker shell of 
 every human soul." 
 
 Vain, quite vain, and needless to attempt to recite 
 the story of that awful revolution as he has told it 
 a fearful book written, if ever a book was written, 
 to show that God always pays His debts ; that He 
 " comes with leaden feet, but strikes with iron 
 hands." We know we must bear the scoffing of 
 many Christian folk, but we must bear it, while 
 we say, to us it is inconceivable how the man who 
 has written this book can be charged with irreligious 
 tendencies, with infidelity, and the teachings of false- 
 hood. Who wrote the books of Samuel arid of the 
 Kings ? Let us know, that we may charge on those 
 authors the teachings of infidelity too. What then, 
 is it infidelity to proclaim that " the Lord God is 
 one Lord " ? That the " righteous Lord loveth 
 righteousness"? "That if the fathers eat sour grapes 
 the children's teeth will be set on edge"? We do not 
 know in our language so truly Hebrew a book, and it 
 reads lessons from the Hebrew side of religion to 
 which it sesms very desirable to refer in these days. 
 
1 84 Prophetic Teaching. 
 
 It makes the soul sad to hear this book denounced, 
 for to denounce it surely is to show sympathy with 
 the very sins it denounces. But the prophet is not 
 only without honour in his own country, he is without 
 honour in his own age. Does the reader think that 
 Ezekiel, or Nahum, or Isaiah received compliments 
 while they hurled their woes in thunder over the 
 idolatrous kingdom, and in an age like ours, when 
 hollowness, and scheming, and cant, and British 
 Bank directors, &c., &c., go wandering and prowling 
 like ghosts and unclean night-birds to and fro through 
 society, how is it likely that the book of warning 
 prophecy will be received which points to the other 
 " Astrea redux" and to its awful close ? But how shall 
 we describe, if the reader has not read, or perhaps 
 awaken within him, if, uncomprehending, he has 
 read this wondrous book, where profoundest truth, 
 where the very gospel of society, where the only 
 truth which makes society possible are taught, but, as 
 in that instance, they only could be taught, by the 
 flashing light of the hell fires ; with prorerbs, and 
 learning, and such eloquence as rarely stirs the soul ; 
 such graphic strength seamed with the lines of vehe- 
 ment earnestness and passion ? 
 
 What a study of men for those who wifl read the 
 book ! How graphic the terrible reality of these 
 actors "Dog-leech Marat;" "the sea-green incor- 
 ruptible Robespierre;" " Mirabeau, the man who 
 
Silhouettes of the Revolution. 185 
 
 tramples on formulas ; " " No weakness Danton ; " 
 " Sir Charles Grandison Cromwell Lafayette ; " 
 " Orleans, pert, scald-headed crow," how they move ( 
 before us. The French Revolution of Carlyle is a 
 fine study of what the human heart is capable ; one 
 sees it all, long even before the tocsin of revolution 
 sounds. How admirable that character of its 
 government ; that it is " government by blind man's 
 buff!" beautiful kingdom of /^Y&^hood, that shall 
 soon develop itself into r^/hood, and in due time to 
 tigerhovd, for, alas, the tiger lives in every one of us, 
 tame or untame ; and in this' book the men who 
 move to and fro so adroitly, deftly, gracefully, 
 gliding, easy forms, soon, before our eyes, transform 
 themselves into bloodthirsty beasts, springing from 
 their lair and bursting their cage, and ramping to 
 and fro among mankind in sentimental courtesy and 
 wild savagery. For now, as in John Bunyan's man- 
 ner, the family of Mr. Wet Eyes is related to Giant 
 Bloodyman. Read you ever, for instance, anything 
 like that of the storming of the Bastille, at which how 
 wildly all Europe hurrahed and clapped its hands ? 
 Alas, for the nation where there is a Bastille to de- 
 stroy, and alas for the people, too, to whom it is 
 given to be able to destroy it ; be sure if they are 
 able to do that they will not be content with doing 
 tJiat, for the taking of the Bastille is not merely the 
 taking of a Newgate, or a Tower of London, even. 
 
1 86 Paris gone Mad. 
 
 It is the taking the hereditary towers, and archives, 
 and depositaries of the tyrannies, and cruelties, 
 and frauds of ages ; there is more than a Star 
 Chamber there ; there is more there than we 
 ever knew of in England. By what happy mys- 
 terious Providence is it that we never in Eng- 
 land knew the wrong which burnt its deep damna- 
 tion into the soil of France throne, city, field, 
 and prison? It is in such scenes as the storming 
 of the Bastille that all the wizardry and the magic of 
 Carlyle's style, so graphic, so dramatic in its grandeur, 
 appears. What a Paris was that he has taken upon 
 him to describe to us, and in what images when he 
 tells us that " insurrectionary chaos lies slumbering at 
 night all round the palace, like ocean round a diving- 
 bell, no crevice yet disclosing itself " or that other 
 night when, before the storming of the Bastille, the 
 whole streets were illuminated by order, " like some 
 naphtha-lighted city of the dead, with here and there 
 a flight of perturbed ghosts." What pictures are these ! 
 Yes, in all things the French Revolution was the 
 breaking forth of madness, from the day of- the pro- 
 cession of Versailles, through all the dreary horrors of 
 it, the baptism day of Democracy. " The Sabbath 
 shall cease, and instead of a Christian Sabbath and 
 feast of Guinguette tabernacles, shall come a sorcerer's 
 Sabbath ; and all Paris, gone rabid, shall dance with 
 the fiend for piper." 
 
Society not a Machine but a Soul. 1 87 
 
 Thus the history is written ; and if history be, as 
 we believe it is, the science of human nature, then is 
 the " French Revolution " a true history, and Mr. 
 Carlyle a true historian. M. Comte, indeed, would 
 disown him, for to him bricks and mortar furnish 
 better documents for the history of mankind ; and 
 Mr. Buckle might disown him, for to him history is 
 but the story of a steam engine, and not of a soul. 
 Ezekiel, in his wondrous vision, saw the wheels and 
 the cherubs ; Mr. Buckle, in the whole history of the 
 world, reads the story of the revolving wheels with- 
 out the cherub's wing and this is just the difference 
 between the history of a man and an engine. But 
 this, then, is the artistic defect of it, that it has a pur- 
 pose. But, indeed, cause and consequence were so 
 very near to each other, that the purpose does not need 
 to be especially magnified ; indeed it will be always 
 true, increase the number and the force of the simul- 
 taneously operating causes, and your consequences 
 will the sooner follow. So, then, if there be not only 
 a forgetting of God very much, but a public national 
 sacramental denial of Him ; if we shut up our 
 churches and cathedrals, and right solemnly proclaim 
 that nox and cJiaos alone rule that there is in fact 
 no God, we shall fully expect to see some conse- 
 quences follow that. For instance, in the National 
 Hall, we behold Bishop Torne, a constitutional pre- 
 late, not of severe morals, demanding that religious 
 
1 88 The Statesmanship of 
 
 costumes and such caricatures be abolished. Bishop 
 Torne warms, catches fire ; finishes by untying and 
 indignantly flinging on the table his own pontifical 
 cross, and the cross is instantly covered by other 
 crosses and insignia, till all are stripped. The spirit 
 in which a man takes off his cross is much, and 
 here it was not merely renouncing the symbol, it 
 was renunciation of the faith of God, of Christ, of 
 Christianity. 
 
 We believe, speaking after the manner of man, God 
 has not forgiven France that revolution yet. We 
 believe God will not forgive it yet. September 
 massacres, Meudon tanneries, where skins of men 
 and women were tanned for human gloves, &c. ; the 
 slaughter of the Swiss, the public casting of God and 
 all religion forth from the nation a people capable 
 of this, as it seems to us, must repent in sackcloth and 
 ashes, ere the time of reconciliation can come from 
 God or for man. 
 
 We may pause here for a moment to remark how 
 the strength of a great nation grows by the develop- 
 ment, side by side* of the two apparently opposite 
 principles of Permanence and Progress principles 
 apparently opposite, but really united. And we may 
 regard great statesmen from this centre as they 
 have aided permanence or progress. In every step an 
 equipoise of these two ought for a nation's health to 
 be maintained. Progress is the law of permanence ; 
 
Permanence and Progress. 189 
 
 'ermanence is the law of progress ; or, rather both 
 
 re the modifications of one law even as the root 
 )f the oak is related to the wide-spreading branches, 
 
 he development of all things till they have reached 
 maturity. The welfare of a State depends upon both 
 
 f these. Beneath these two denominations lie the 
 
 reat parties of our country parties which must 
 exist in all States where the people rise to majesty 
 ind to power ; thus, the so-called Whig and the 
 Tory. The ideal Tory is the Conservative statesman 
 
 if Permanence ; the ideal Liberal is the expanding 
 statesman of Progress. The one is as necessary to 
 the welfare of a State as the other. All the greatest 
 movements of English statesmanship have been cha- 
 
 acterised by these two permanence and progress in 
 combination. It was the curse of the age of Mary 
 
 hat she required permanence without progress 
 lizabeth aided both. Burleigh was a great states- 
 man cautious, wary, slow, but how safe. These 
 prudent statesmen are not enthusiasts ; and the 
 
 ast place in which we could wish to see 
 an enthusiast is in the Cabinet. We should 
 mourn the necessity which placed him there, and 
 feel that his presence was most hazardous, and 
 that in his work there he might either plunge the 
 nation down the steep gulf of ruin, or adopt the 
 happy expedient by which she might be advanced 
 from lethargy to freedom and happiness. But 
 
Despotisms and Democracies. 
 
 nations need tonics, and a great statesman is not 
 unfrequently a bitter draught. Of course both 
 become the tools of corruption. Despotism is the 
 statesmanship of permanence in a state of disease. 
 There is a story told of a gentleman who returned 
 from India. In company some person mentioned to 
 him the House of Commons. "Ah!" said he, " is 
 that thing going on still ? " Despotisms cannot imagine 
 what we want with House of Commons ; they do 
 not know how to manage them ; they cannot com- 
 prehend how they can give any vitality to a State. 
 Despotisms are, consequently, in a state of fear, 
 anxiously agonising, and dreading change, and re- 
 coiling from the growing branch among the emascu- 
 lating leaves of the wide and the crumbling wall. 
 But Democracy is the statesmanship of progress in 
 state of disease. It is power unharnessed and un- 
 guided, revolting against incompetency of rule, and 
 wildly and hurriedly rushing forth to the foggy un- 
 certainties and mad plunges of anarchy. They both 
 demand our pity, and they both are neighbours 
 The collapse of either, by overstraining, produces its 
 opposite, and produces all the evils against which it 
 is a protest. 
 
 Hence we have seen the shuddering people huddled 
 beneath the ancient towers of a feudal cruelty 
 crushed by the falling walls ; enfeebled by the thick 
 horrid breath of the black hole of despotism. Then 
 
National Splendour and Bankruptcy. 191 
 
 comes inevitably the reaction from all this ; and we 
 have seen the infuriated people, torch in hand, kindling 
 the rotting pile, the crumbling structure, and darting 
 forth on their way, wild and mad, foaming and 
 frensied, through all the fiery passes of black seething 
 despair ; till the strong armed soldier, born in their 
 own' ranks, fronts them with his individual will ; deci- 
 mates their hosts ; harasses, handcuffs, chains, shoots, 
 and Cayennes them ; while pitying peoples sorrow to 
 behold the work of ages thrown away, and all to 
 begin again. Different indeed is the result where 
 strength is not afraid of growth ; where stability 
 asserts itself by a fearless homage to enlightened 
 opinion, and where the genius of the constitution be- 
 comes venerable by the graces of ancestral wisdom, 
 and beautiful by the majesty of youthful vigour. 
 
 Such seem to be the principles illustrated by our 
 writer in his story of the French Revolution his 
 volumes are a code of national principles, as in the 
 following ominous notes which usher in the tragedy. 
 
 NATIONAL SPLENDOUR MAY BE NATIONAL 
 BANKRUPTCY. 
 
 " But with a Fortunatus' purse in its pocket, through 
 what length of time might not almost any Falsehood 
 last ! Your Society, your Household, practical or 
 spiritual Arrangement, is untrue, unjust, offensive to 
 the eye of God and man. Nevertheless its hearth is 
 
1 92 Society Without God. 
 
 warm, its larder well replenished : the innumerable 
 Swiss of Heaven, with a kind of natural loyalty, 
 gather round it ; will prove, by pamphleteering, mus- 
 keteering, that it is a truth ; or if not an unmixed 
 (unearthly, impossible) Truth, then better, a whole- 
 somely attempered one (as wind is to the shorn lamb), 
 and works well. Changed outlook, however, when 
 purse and larder grow empty ! Was your Arrange- 
 ment so true, so accordant to Nature's ways, then 
 how, in the name of wonder, has Nature, with her in- 
 finite bounty, come to leave it famishing there ? To 
 all men, to all women and all children, it is now in- 
 dubitable that your Arrangement wasfa/se. Honour 
 to Bankruptcy ; ever righteous on the great scale, 
 though in detail it is so cruel ! Under all Falsehoods 
 it works, unweariedly mining. No Falsehood, did it 
 rise heaven-high and cover the world, but Bank- 
 ruptcy, one day, will sweep it down, and make us free 
 of it." 
 
 SOCIETY \YITHOUT VIRTUE OR GOD. 
 
 " Then how ' sweet ' are the manners ; vice ' losing 
 all its deformity;' becoming decent (as established 
 things, making regulations for themselves, do) ; be- 
 coming almost a kind of ' sweet ' virtue ! Intelligence 
 so abounds ; irradiated by wit and the art of conver- 
 sation. Philosophism sits joyful in her glittering 
 saloons, the dinner-guest of Opulence grows ingenuous, 
 
Society Without God. 193 
 
 the very Nobles proud to sit by her ; and preaches, 
 lifted up over all Bastilles, a coming millennium. 
 From far Fern ay, Patriarch Voltaire gives sign : 
 veterans Diderot, D'Alembert have lived to see this 
 day ; these with their younger Marmontels, Morellets, 
 Chamforts, Raynals, make glad the spicy board of 
 rich ministering Dowager, of philosophic Farmer- 
 General O nights and suppers of the gods ! Of a 
 truth, the long-demonstrated will now be done : ' the 
 Age of Revolutions approaches ' (as Jean Jacques 
 wrote), but then of happy blessed ones. Man awakens 
 from his long somnambulism ; chases the Fantasms 
 that beleaguered and bewitched him. Behold the 
 new morning glittering down the eastern steeps ; fly, 
 false Fantasms, from its shafts of light ; let the 
 Absurd fly utterly, forsaking this lower Earth for ever. 
 It is Truth and Astrcea Redux that (in the shape of 
 Philosophism) henceforth reign. For what imaginable 
 purpose was man made, if not to be 'happy'? By 
 victorious Analysis, and Progress of the species, hap- 
 piness enough now awaits him. Kings can become 
 philosophers ; or else philosophers kings. Let but 
 Society be once rightly constituted, by victorious 
 Analysis. The stomach that is empty shall be filled ; 
 the throat that is dry shall be wetted with wine. 
 Labour itself shall be all one as rest ; not grievous, 
 but joyous. Wheat-fields, one would think, cannot 
 come to grow untilled ; no man made clayey, or made 
 
 13 
 
1 94 The Flight of L onis 
 
 weary thereby ; unless indeed machinery will do it ? 
 Gratuitous Tailors and Restaurateurs may start up, at 
 fit intervals, one as yet sees not how. But if each 
 will, according to rule of Benevolence, have a care for 
 all, then surely no one will be uncared for. Nay, 
 who knows but, by sufficiently victorious Analysis, 
 ' human life may be indefinitely lengthened,' and men 
 get rid of Death, as they have already done of the 
 Devil ? We shall then be happy in spite of Death 
 and the Devil." 
 
 Of course, in his graphic delineations the writer 
 brings out strongly the destiny of a nation incapable 
 to right itself, and a sovereign incapability in the 
 very highest place. The charge most frequently urged 
 against this History is, that it is a piece of Irony ; 
 and indeed it is a long, grave piece of serious Irony : 
 but not unfeeling ; pitying Irony, like that of Elijah 
 before the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel. Few 
 are the instances in which the literary man so iden- 
 tifies himself with his work, so pityingly, so lovingly; 
 and yet mingled with such a bitterness of sorrow for 
 the punishment, so much wise painting of the sin, so 
 much earnest denunciation of the sin. 
 
 How that flight of King Louis to Varennes is told 
 the flight to Varennes ! And had he succeeded 
 then too, what a different phase had been given to all 
 the results of the Revolution. Was there ever so 
 
To Varcnncs. 195 
 
 pertinent an illustration of the consequences waiting 
 'on ^capacity ? Louis would escape from Paris, 
 would fly from France, and there are those who will 
 aid him to fly. True, the eyes of the haters of 
 Royalty are on Louis ; but there is a Count Fersen 
 who is busy Is he making love to a certain false 
 chambermaid in the Palace? who can say? and on 
 a certain Monday night, 2Oth June, 1791, there waits 
 a glass coach, into which get a thick-set individual in 
 hat and peruke, arm-in-arm with some servant ; and 
 then follows a lady in gipsy hat, and two children. 
 Yes ! at last, after innumerable wrong turnings and 
 waitings, they have reached the Count Fersen, who 
 drives hurriedly outside sleeping Paris. . And now 
 Louis now king, now man ! this is thy time. Queen, 
 wife, children are by thee. But what of that ? there 
 is a nation all round thee ; thou art its king : and if 
 thou art a king thou canst save thy kingdom. So, 
 on ! Hark ! midnight is clanging from all the city 
 steeples ; time has been lost. But at length the new 
 Berline provided is reached the Baroness de Korff's 
 Berline ! And now they are in the Berline the 
 Baroness de Korff, the Dame Tourzelle, governess of 
 the royal children, and the two hooded little ones, and 
 the Queen in gipsy hat ; Baroness de Korff's waiting- 
 maid, and the individual in round hat and peruke, 
 valet for the time being, and beautiful sister Eliza- 
 beth, hooded too, the travelling companion and so 
 
 132 
 
1 96 The Flight of L outs 
 
 they go through the wood of Boncly through the 
 night, on ! But why not quicker ? Do they not 
 know that suspicions already are afloat in Paris, and 
 at six in the morning the alarm-cannons will fire, 
 Lavayette be examined, and in fact Paris be without 
 a king? But the king is on his way across the 
 borders ; or will he reach the borders ? He is flying 
 for life, for Royalty Ah ! why could he not go in 
 some old Berline similar to other men ; why stickle 
 about a vehicle, a huge heavy leathern vehicle, heavy 
 as a ship, and its mounted body-guard couriers, lum- 
 bering along at a snail's pace, noted of all the world ? 
 And the body-guard, with yellow liveries, prancing 
 and clattering ; and so stoppages, and breakages ; 
 and King Louis will dismount, will walk up hills and 
 enjoy the morning, with eleven horses and double 
 drink-money. See Royalty flying for life, accom- 
 plishes sixty-nine miles in twenty-two important 
 hours ! Oh, Louis ! oh, foolish king ! And in what 
 humour was the Duke of Choiseul, waiting yonder 
 in the village of Pont-de-Sommevelle, some leagues 
 beyond Chalons? There is a chain of military escorts, 
 there ; they have been there ten hours before the 
 time appointed by your Majesty on, on ! those 
 escorts are holding to the end of a thunder-chain ; 
 reach them, and you are safe. But even those escorts 
 appointed by your Majesty were all a grim mistake; 
 but certainly if you appointed them to be there it 
 
To Varennes. 197 
 
 had been better you also had been there even before 
 them, for every patriot in every village is inquiring, 
 what means this clattering and prancing of soldiery, 
 this lounging of troops, what means it ? And time 
 goes on, and the captains are near distraction, and it 
 is equally difficult to keep the soldiers from the dram- 
 shop, or to compel them to parade the streets in ex- 
 pectant duty. Oh, Louis, man! king! proceed! 
 
 But look at the figure in the last house of the vil- 
 lage of St. Menehould a choleric, dangerous man ; 
 he too shall live a little space in history, although 
 only Jean Baptiste Drouet, master of the post here ; 
 but an acrid patriot too, for Drouet has been wondering 
 what all these soldiers mean in our village ; and 
 Captain Dandoins saunters too and fro with a face of 
 indifference and a heart of black care. And see, it is 
 at this particular moment, in the ruddy evening light, 
 that lumbering along beneath mountains of band- 
 boxes comes the Berline ; and Drouet, who has been 
 to Paris and seen much there, sees that lady in the 
 slouched gipsy-hat ; and have I not seen her else- 
 where ? says he and this heavy man in round hat 
 and peruke, as he pokes his head out of the window 
 of the Berline from time to time, have I not seen 
 him ? Quick, William, bring a new assignat. Yes, 
 it is he ! yes, yes, I see it. Ah ! slow as Louis might 
 be, there is no sloth in postmaster Drouet ; an adroit 
 old dragoon, he saddles two of the fleetest horses, 
 
1 98 The Flight of Louis 
 
 slips over to the Town Hall while they are saddling, 
 and soon he and clerk William mount in pursuit to 
 see what can be done. And the soldiers ! why, they 
 find themselves to be surrounded by National volun- 
 teers ; and the discovery takes wind, and the Berline 
 rolls on, and after it Drouet the postmaster. All 
 this comes of mysterious escorts and new Berline 
 with eleven horses. Is it not true, " he that lias a 
 secret sJiould not only hide it, but liide that he has it to 
 hide"? 
 
 And so the end is that the little village of Varennes 
 is reached at eleven o'clock at night, and all the towns 
 lie behind. And they halt at the hill-top at the 
 south end of the village, expecting the relay, and the 
 relay is all the time waiting, has been waiting for 
 hours, belonging to the Duke of Choiseul, horses 
 standing at hay in the upper village over the bridge. 
 And the horses sleep, and the yellow couriers go 
 sauntering through the sleeping village, and the 
 Berline stands still, and the round hat argues. 
 And now see two horsemen come with jaded trot 
 into the village: it is Drouet and his man William. 
 The moment has come, Louis; what wilt thoit 
 do ? Drouet goes before the Berline to the principal 
 inn, and speaks to Boniface. "Art thou a good 
 
 Patriot ? " " I am !" " Then in that case " and now 
 
 rumbles up the Korff Berline, and two national 
 muskets level themselves through the doors 
 
To Varennes. 199 
 
 " Mesdames, your Passports." Alas, the Mayor of the 
 town is there, Procureur Sausse, Tallow-chandler and 
 Grocer. " The travelling party will perhaps rest at 
 the Mayor's to-night, be it the Baroness Korff, or be 
 it nobler persons. And now ! Louis ! this might 
 have been the moment. King ! Man ! Go on ! " "/ 
 am the King ! A nd who shall dare resist me ? What y 
 have I not the right of my subject to travel when I 
 will and where I will ? Who will dare be a Regicide 
 and stay me ? Stay my dead body you may, me 
 you shall not stay. I am the King ! en avant ! To 
 me Postilions, Bodyguards." Yes, in that case one 
 sees Drouet's under-jaw dropping, the tallow-chandler 
 melting obsequiously away, the relays, the escort's 
 triumphal entry, and the whole course of French 
 History different. But alas ! it was not in the poor 
 man to do it ! French History would not then have 
 come to have herself decided beneath the little village 
 archway at Varennes. So they walk coolly back to 
 Mayor Sausse's, and mount his upper story. Straight- 
 way his Majesty demands refreshments, gets bread and 
 cheese, with a bottle of Burgundy, and remarks that 
 it is the best he ever drank. And the village is in- 
 deed all alive, the little adroit municipal rattle-snakes 
 for the storm-bell rattles and rings and the eyes 
 glisten as in rattle-snak ire And the King will go 
 on to Paris to-morrow, taking National Guard with 
 him ; which he enters in slow torture procession, say- 
 
2OO King Nominal and 
 
 ing to sundry officials who crowd around " Eh, well, 
 here you have me ! " It is only his future sufferings 
 that can save such a man from our contempt ; this it 
 is not to be a King, this it is not to be a hero. 
 
 We mention this here, because it well illustrates 
 how a man in the wrong place becomes the great 
 Fatality of a nation, and how if Louis the wwheroic 
 man, by his imbecility, assisted his kingdom to its 
 proclivity, what shall we say of Cromwell, but that he 
 arrested his kingdom when falling, and bore England 
 back and put her on the rock again, and gave her 
 future possibilities in History ? As Louis was one of 
 the weakest men France ever produced, so perhaps 
 Cromwell w r as the strongest England ever knew. 
 And what was represented by his strength, how 
 much that great, slovenly, unconscious man ? This 
 is, in the main, we think, Carlyle's central Hero ! 
 fulfilling indeed the conditions of many others in 
 the rapt enthusiasm of his vehement moments a Poet, 
 preaching and praying a Priest ; but on the battle- 
 field and in the Senate, whom shall we name a King, 
 if not he ? And you, my friend, are very angry with 
 him because he killed the Republic, even as our other 
 neighbour is very angry because he killed a king. 
 We will not say he did right to kill the king " it is 
 a fearful work that at any time of killing a king" ; in 
 this case we may believe the king would not have 
 himself saved. Certain it is he was unfit to be a 
 
King Real. 201 
 
 king. But a Republic ! No king ! what then ? No, 
 Cromwell knew better than that ; he knew not only 
 that there never had been a Republic, but could not 
 be one. Why should he help to spin cobwebs or 
 hatch rattle-snakes ? And he looked through all the 
 shallow sophistry of the classical dreamers who 
 would only found a Republic on the models of Greece, 
 or Italy, or Rome. 
 
 And as you have seen how the man not a Hero 
 acquits himself at Varennes, let us see how the man 
 who is a Hero will acquit himself at Dunbar. That 
 the Scots sought to impose the Presbytery and young 
 Charles Stuart upon us must be Cromwell's apology 
 for going thither, even as it is Carlyle's for giving 
 the history. In Louis' case the incapable man had 
 all that could minister to his success, while in 
 Cromwell's case the capable man had nothing that 
 could minister to success. And, ah ! what was the 
 poor leathern Berline rolling along its way of 
 dusty, dusky destiny, compared with the grand 
 issue there on that peninsula of Dunbar jutting 
 out to the sea ? Yes, Cromwell is there ; Pres- 
 bytery and Independency are here then, face to 
 face. 
 
 Charles I., like Louis XVI., was a man who could 
 not know the temper of times, or events, or men. 
 At Naseby, as the defeat became certain, he rode 
 forward " One charge more, gentlemen, in the name 
 
2O2 Canyie on Cromwell 
 
 of God ! " And very purely you feel there was nothing 
 light, or trifling, or irreverent in the oath. " One 
 charge more." A Cavalier stepped forward, laid 
 hands on the Monarch's bridle-rein, and led his 
 horse from the field. " Oh," says Elliot Warburton, 
 " Oh, had some hand smote the traitor to the earth." 
 Alas ! if the King could not do it, who could ? Who 
 would have touched Cromwell's bridle-rein at 
 D unbar ? 
 
 This miserable piece of ground is all that Cromwell 
 holds in Scotland ; behind him lie the tents in the 
 offing the ships. But yonder, see how T they hang 
 along the horizon, and the edge of the hill Leslie's 
 army of 23,000 ; well may w r e say, what,.is to become 
 of Oliver. As for him, he is indeed " not cast down," 
 still less is he to be spoken of as " destroyed." " No," 
 says he in his letter, "our spirits are comfortable, 
 though our condition be as it is, we have much 
 hope in the Lord, of whose mercy we have had 
 large experience." Yes, he is there, hemmed in 
 in what Carlyle calls a Dunbar Penfold and 
 there is a burn or brook it springs from the 
 Lammermoor yonder, and so runs along to the 
 sea. Ah ! how keenly the eye of the Lord Pro- 
 tector watched every movement, and when the 
 hosts of Leslie yonder "shogged," as they call 
 it, to the right, descending gradually, " Ah ! " said 
 Oliver, "does not that give us the advantage then? 
 
A t Dunbar. 203 
 
 Now we will not wait for him to begin the attack, we 
 will begin." And so during the night of the 2nd of 
 September, the soldiers stand to their arms a wild, 
 wet night 2nd of September, the harvest moon 
 wading over head in sleet and hail, through the 
 massive clouds that night how the hearts of the 
 soldiers were on the tip-toe of expectancy by their 
 camp-fires. It is grand to conceive it "The 
 English have some tents, the Scots have none. The 
 hoarse sea moans bodeful, swinging low and heavy 
 against the Whinstone ClifF, the tempests are abroad, 
 and there is one who rides on the wings of the wind." 
 And now the moon gleams out, hard and blue* 
 riding among hail clouds, and over St. Abb's Head 
 the dawn is rising. And now the hour is come, and 
 the attack should be, and Oliver is impatient, and 
 the Scots are awake thinking to surprise us. The 
 trumpets peal, breaking night's silence, the cannons 
 thunder along the lines " The Lord of Hosts, the 
 Lord of Hosts! On, my brave ones, on! " Ah ! terrible 
 awakening, ah ! terrible charge, what a breaking of 
 the ranks of the horse, of the foot three thousand 
 killed on the place. The General was heard to say 
 " They run ! I declare they run ! " And high over 
 St. Abb's Head and the German Ocean just then 
 burst the first gleams of the level sun upon us, and 
 Olive* exclaimed in the words of the Psalmist, " Let 
 God arise, and let His enemies be scattered." Still 
 
2O4 Carlyle on the Divine ONE. 
 
 on, to the foot of Boon Hill, and then Oliver halted 
 and raised the Psalm, standing there on the battle- 
 field with all his braves singing about him " Oh, 
 give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His 
 mercy endureth for ever ! " 
 
 Which of these two was king ? Now comparing 
 Dunbar with Varennes, can we not understand what 
 it is to have a hero in a nation in a time of large 
 extremity ? 
 
 Reflections like these bring us to that other subject 
 so famous in the hands of Mr. Carlyle Heroes and 
 Hero Worship. We shall speak of this by-and-bye, 
 only here we may note, as Mr. Carlyle teaches us, that 
 as Christians we may feel thankful that we have 
 no need to be at a loss for a standard of heroism, 
 and to that standard our writer would bow his head 
 as highest. " The greatest of all heroes is One," says 
 he in his Lectures on Hero Worship, " whom we do 
 not name here ! let sacred silence meditate that 
 sacred matter." In such a sacred silence as we 
 believe Mr. Carlyle feels when our Lord is named, 
 we meditate and blend together all the forms of 
 heroism and magnanimity which can crown our 
 nature, Prophet, Priest, King. As we in some awful 
 old palace walk through the aisles where the marble 
 figures repose in their stony and sepulchral stillness, 
 some leaning on their swords, some sitting on their 
 thrones, some bearing the scroll, some the torch, some 
 
Marie Antoinette. 205 
 
 arrayed in the vestments of the judge and legislator, 
 others bearing the crown of the prince, till we reach 
 the throne-room, when the present majesty awes us 
 more than the dead marble ; so also is it with us 
 here ; we are not left alone to the stories and hatch- 
 ments and deeds of the dead, but we know it that we 
 have the Almighty presence of what once condescended 
 to fold itself in human strength, and we test by Him 
 not only our own approach to the noble, but by Him 
 too the standard of the heroic forms we admire. 
 
 And as illustrating the same spirit of that infinitely 
 holy life of our Lord, and showing the worship of 
 .His infinite sorrow, the most sustaining fact in the 
 moral and spiritual history of mankind, we may refer 
 to the fine pathetic picture of 
 
 MARIE ANTOINETTE ON HER WAY TO EXECUTION. 
 
 " Oh, is there a man's heart that thinks, without 
 pity, of those long months and years of slow-wasting 
 ignominy of thy birth, soft-cradled in Imperial 
 Schonbrunn, the winds of heaven not to visit thy 
 face too roughly, thy foot to light on softness, thy 
 eye on splendour ; and then of thy death, or hundred 
 deaths, to which the guillotine and Fouquier Tinville's 
 judgment-bar was but the merciful end ? Look, 
 there, O man born of woman ! The bloom of that 
 fair face is wasted, the hair is grey with care ; the 
 brightness of those eyes is quenched, their lids hang 
 
2o6 The WorsJiip of Infinite Sorrow. 
 
 drooping, the face is stony pale as of one living in 
 death. Mean weeds, which her own hand has 
 mended, attire the Queen of the world. The death- 
 hurdle, where thou sittest pale, motionless, which only 
 curses environ, was to stop ; a people, drunk with 
 vengeance, will drink it again in full draught, looking 
 at thee there. Far as the eye reaches, a multitudinous 
 sea of maniac heads, the air deaf with their trumpet- 
 yell ! The living-dead must shudder with yet one 
 other pang ; her startled blood yet again suffuses with 
 the hue of agony that pale face, which she hides with 
 her hands. There is, then, no heart to say, God 
 pity thee ? Oh, think not of these ; think of HIM 
 whom thou worshippest, the Crucified who also 
 treading the wine-press alone, fronted sorrow still 
 deeper, and triumphed over it, and made it holy, and 
 built of it a ' Sanctuary of Sorrow,' for thee and all 
 the wretched ! Thy path of thorns is nigh ended. 
 One long last look at the Tuileries, where thy step 
 was once so light where thy children shall not dwell. 
 The head is on the block, the axe rushes Dumb lies 
 the World, the wild-yelling World, and all its madness 
 is behind thee. 
 
 " Beautiful Highborn that wert so foully hurled low ! 
 Rest yet in thy innocent gracefully heedless seclusion, 
 unintruded on by me, while rude hands have not yet 
 desecrated it. Be the curtains that shroud in (if for 
 the last time on this earth) a Royal Life, still sacred to 
 
Death Bed of Lords X V. 207 
 
 me. Thy fault in the French Revolution was that 
 thou wert the Symbol of the sin and misery of a 
 thousand years ; that with St. Bartholomews and 
 Jacqueries, with Gabelles and Dragonades, and Parcs- 
 aux-cerfs, the heart of mankind was filled full, and 
 foamed over into all-involving .madness. To no 
 Napoleon, to no Cromwell wert thou wedded : such 
 sit not in the highest rank of themselves, are raised 
 on high by the shaking and confounding of all the 
 ranks ! As poor peasants, how happy, worthy had 
 ye two been ! But by evil destiny ye were made a 
 King and Queen of ; and so both once more are be- 
 come an astonishment and a by-word to all times." 
 
 And contrast with this the contemptuous notice of 
 the 
 
 DEATH-BED OF LOUIS XV. 
 
 "Meanwhile Louis the Well-beloved has left for 
 ever his Parc-aux-cerfs, and, amid the scarce-sup- 
 pressed hootings of the world, taken up his last lodging 
 at St. Denis. Feeling that it was all over (for the 
 small-pox has the victory, and even Du Barry is off) 
 he, as the Abbe Georgel records, ' made the amende 
 honorable to God ' (these are his . Reverence's own 
 words) ; had a true repentance of three days stand- 
 ing ; and so, continues the Abbe, ' fell asleep in the 
 Lord.' Asleep in the Lord, Monsieur 1'Abbe ! If 
 such a mass of laziness and lust fell asleep in the 
 
208 Death of Louis XV. 
 
 Lord, who, fanciest thou, is it that falls asleep else- 
 where ? Enough that he did fall asleep ; that thick- 
 wrapt in the Blanket of the Night, under what keep- 
 ing we ask not, he never through endless Time can 
 for his own or our sins, insult the face of the Sun any 
 more ; and so now we go onward, if not to less de- 
 grees of beastliness, yet at least and worst, to cheering 
 varieties of it." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE STORMING AND CAPTURE OF THE BASTILLE. 
 
 THE following chapter is entirely from the pen of 
 Carlyle, every word of it, but not in the order in 
 which he put it down, the whole condensed into one 
 scene as furnishing an illustration of that stormful 
 grandeur, rapid dramatic transition, personal graphic 
 portrayal, pathos, didactic epigram, all vividly illus- 
 trating the style he so well knows how to employ. 
 
 What a Paris when the darkness fell ! A European 
 metropolitan city hurled suddenly from its old com- 
 binations and arrangements, to crash tumultuously 
 together, seeking new. Use and wont will now no 
 longer direct man ; each man, with what of originality 
 he has, must begin thinking, or following those that 
 think. Seven hundred thousand individuals, on the 
 sudden, find all their old paths, old ways of acting 
 and deciding, vanish from under their feet. On 
 Monday the huge City was awoke, not to its week-day 
 industry ; to what a different one ! The working- 
 man has become a fighting man, has one want only, 
 that of arms. The industry of crafts has paused, 
 
2io The Origin of the Tri-colonr. 
 
 except it be the smith's, fiercely hammering pikes ; 
 and, in a faint degree, the kitchener's, cooking off-hand 
 victuals, for bouche va toujours. Women, too, are 
 sewing cockades of red and blue, our old Paris colours : 
 these, once based on a ground of constitutional white, 
 are the famed TRI-COLOUR, which (if prophecy err 
 not) will go round the world. All shops, unless it 
 be the Bakers' and Vintners', are shut : Paris is in the 
 streets rushing, foaming like some Venice wine-glass 
 into which you had dropped poison. The tocsin, by 
 order, is pealing madly from all steeples. Arms, 
 ye Elector Municipals ; thou Flesselles with thy 
 Echevins, give us arms ! Flesselles gives what he 
 can : fallacious, perhaps insidious, promises of arms 
 from Charleville ; order to seek arms here, order to 
 seek them there. The new Municipals give what 
 they can ; some three hundred and sixty indifferent 
 firelocks, the equipment of the City-watch : " A man 
 in wooden-shoes, and without coat, directly clutches 
 one of them, and mounts guard." Also, as hinted, 
 an order to all smiths to make pikes with their whole 
 soul. 
 
 Meanwhile, the faster, O ye black-aproned smiths, 
 smite ; with strong arm and willing heart. This 
 man and that, all stroke from head to heel, shall 
 thunder alternating, and ply the great forge-hammer, 
 till stithy reel and ring again ; while ever and anon 
 overhead booms the alarm-cannon, for the city has 
 
Fabricating Pikes. 2 1 1 
 
 now got gunpowder. Pikes are fabricated ; fifty 
 thousand of them, in six-and-thirty hours : judge 
 whether the black-aproned men have been idle. Dig 
 trenches, unpave the streets, ye others, assiduous, 
 man and maid ; cram the earth in barrel-barricades, 
 at each of them a volunteer sentry ; pile the whin- 
 stones in window-sills and upper rooms. Have 
 scalding pitch, at least boiling water, ready, ye weak 
 old women, to pour it and dash it on Royal-Alle- 
 mand, with your old skinny arms : your shrill curses 
 along with it will not be wanting ! Patrols of the 
 new-born National Guard, bearing torches, scour the 
 streets all that night ; which otherwise are vacant, 
 yet illuminated in every window by order. Strange- 
 looking ; like some naphtha-lighted City of the 
 Dead, with here and there a flight of perturbed 
 Ghosts. 
 
 O poor mortals, how ye make this Earth bitter for 
 each other ; this fearful and wonderful Life fearful 
 and horrible ; and Satan has his place in all hearts ! 
 Such agonies and ragings and wailings ye have, and 
 have had, in all times : to be buried all, in so deep 
 silence ; and the salt sea is not swoln with your 
 tears. 
 
 Great meanwhile is the moment, when tidings of 
 Freedom reach us ; when the long-enthralled soul, 
 from amid its chains and squalid stagnancy, arises, 
 were it still only in blindness and bewilderment, and 
 
 142 
 
212 To be Free ! 
 
 swears by Him that made it, that it will be free! 
 Free ? Understand that well ; it is the deep com- 
 mandment, dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to 
 be free. Freedom is the one purport, wisely aimed 
 at, or unwisely, of all men's struggles, toilings, and 
 sufferings, in this Earth. Yes, supreme is such a 
 moment (if thou have known it) : first vision of a 
 flame-girt Sinai, in this our waste pilgrimage, which 
 thenceforth wants not its pillar of cloud by day and 
 pillar of fire by night ! Something it is even nay, 
 something considerable, when the chains have grown 
 corrosive, poisonous to be free " from oppression 
 from our fellow-man." Forward, ye maddened sons 
 of France ; be it towards this destiny or towards 
 that ! Around you is but starvation, falsehood, cor- 
 ruption, and the clam of death. Where ye are is no 
 abiding. 
 
 Truly, in the Chateau of Versailles all seems 
 mystery ; in the town of Versailles, were w r e there, all 
 is rumour, alarm, and indignation. So at Versailles. 
 But at Paris, agitated Besenval, before retiring for 
 the night, has stept over to old M. de Sombreuil, of 
 the Hotel des Invalides, hard by. M. de Sombreuil 
 has, what is a great secret, some eight-and-twenty 
 thousand stands of muskets deposited in his cellars 
 there ; but no trust in the temper of his Invalides. 
 This day, for example, he sent twenty of the fellows 
 down to unscrew those muskets, lest Sedition might 
 
De Launay of the Bastille. 2 \ 3 
 
 snatch at them ; but scarcely, in six hours, had the 
 twenty unscrewed twenty gun-locks, or dogsheads 
 (c/iiens) of locks, each Invalide his dogshead ! If 
 ordered to fire they would, he imagines, turn their can- 
 non against himself. Unfortunate old military gentle- 
 men, it is your hour, not of glory ! Old Marquis de 
 Launay, too, of the Bastille, has pulled up his draw- 
 bridges long since, " and retired into his interior," 
 with sentries walking on his battlements, under the 
 midnight sky, aloft over the glare of illuminated 
 Paris, whom a National Patrol, passing that way, 
 takes the liberty of firing at ; " seven shots towards 
 twelve at night," which do not take effect. This was 
 -the 1 3th day of July, 1789, a worse day, many said, 
 than the last I3th was, when only hail fell out of 
 Heaven, not madness rose out of Tophet, ruining 
 worse than crops. 
 
 In these same days, as Chronology will teach us, 
 hot old Marquis Mirabeau lies stricken down, at 
 Argenteuil, not within sound of these alarm-guns ; 
 for he properly is not there, and only the body of 
 him now lies deaf and cold for ever. It was on 
 Saturday night that he, drawing his last life-breaths, 
 gave up the ghost there, leaving a world which would 
 never go to his mind, now broken out, seemingly, 
 into deliration and the culbnte generalle. What is it 
 to him, departing elsewhither on his long journey ? 
 The old Chateau Mirabeau stands silent, far off, 
 
214 To the Bastille. 
 
 on its scarped rock, in that "gorge of two windy 
 valleys," the pale fading spectre now of a Chateau ; 
 this huge World-riot, and France, and the World 
 itself, fades also, like a shadow on the great still 
 mirror-sea, and all shall be as God wills. 
 
 And now, to the Bastille, ye intrepid Parisians ! 
 There grape shot still threatens, thither all men's 
 thoughts and steps are now tending. Old De 
 Launay, as we hinted, withdrew " into his interior " 
 soon after midnight on Sunday. He remains there 
 ever since, hampered, as all military gentlemen now 
 are, in the saddest conflict of uncertainties. The 
 Hotel de Ville " invites " . him to admit National 
 Soldiers, which is a soft name for surrendering. On 
 the other hand, His Majesty's orders were precise. 
 His garrison is but eighty-two old Invalides, rein- 
 forced by thirty-two young Swiss ; his \valls, indeed, 
 are nine feet thick, he has cannon and powder, but, 
 alas ! only one day's provision of victuals. The City, 
 too, is French, the poor garrison mostly French. 
 Rigorous old De Launay, think what thou wilt do ! 
 
 All morning, since nine, there has been a cry 
 everywhere : To the Bastille ! Repeated " deputa- 
 tions of citizens " have been here passionate for arms; 
 whom De Launay has got dismissed by soft speeches 
 through port-holes. Towards noon, Elector Thuriot 
 de la Rosiere gains admittance ; finds De Launay 
 indisposed to surrender ; nay, disposed for blowing 
 
A Vision from the Bastille Tower. 215 
 
 up the place rather. Thuriot mounts with him to 
 the battlements : heaps of paving-stones, old iron 
 and missiles lie piled ; cannon all duly levelled ; in 
 every embrasure a cannon, only drawn back a 
 little ! But outwards, behold, O Thuriot, how the 
 multitude flows on, welling through every street ; 
 tocsin furiously pealing, all drums beating the 
 generale ; the Suburb Saint- Antoine rolling hither- 
 ward wholly, as one man ! Such vision (spectral, 
 yet real) thou, O Thuriot, as from the Mount of 
 Vision, beholdest in this moment ; prophetic of what 
 other Phantasm agories, and loud-gibbering Spectral 
 realities, which thou yet beholdest not, but shalt ! 
 " Que voulez-votis ? " said De Launay, turning pale at 
 the sight, with an air of reproach, almost of menace. 
 " Monsieur," said Thuriot, rising into the moral- 
 sublime, " what mean you ? Consider if I could not 
 precipitate both of us from this height," say only a 
 hundred feet, exclusive of the walled ditch ! Where- 
 upon De Launay fell silent. Thuriot shows himself 
 from some pinnacle, to comfort the multitude becoming 
 suspicious, fremescent, then descends ; departs with 
 protest ; with warning addressed also to the Invalides, 
 on whom, however, it produces but a mixed indistinct 
 impression. The old heads are none of the clearest ; 
 besides, it is said, De Launay had been profuse of 
 beverages (prodigua des buissons). They think they 
 will not fire, if not fired on, if they can help it ; but 
 
216 The Bastille Besieged. 
 
 must, on the whole, ,be ruled considerably by cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Woe to thee, De Launay, in such an hour, if thou 
 canst not, taking some one firm decision, ride circum- 
 stances ! Soft speeches will not serve ; hard grape- 
 shot is questionable ; but hovering between the two 
 is //^questionable. Ever wilder swells the tide of 
 men ; their infinite hum waxing ever louder, into 
 imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry, 
 which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do 
 execution. The Outer Drawbridge has been lowered, 
 for Thuriot's new deputation of citizens (it is the third, 
 and noisiest of all) penetrate that way into the Outer 
 Court ; soft speeches producing no clearance of these, 
 De Launay gives fire ; pulls up his Drawbridge. A 
 slight sputter ; which has kindled the too combustible 
 chaos ; made it a roaring fire-chaos ! Bursts forth 
 Insurrection, at sight of its own blood (for there were 
 deaths by that sputter of fire), into endless rolling 
 explosion of musketry, distraction, execration ; and 
 over head, from the Fortress, let one great gun, with 
 its grapeshot, go booming, to show what we could do. 
 The Bastille is besieged ! 
 
 On, then, all Frenchmen, that have hearts in your 
 bodies ! Roar with all your throats of cartilage and 
 metal, ye sons of liberty ; stir spasmodically what- 
 soever of utmost faculty is in you, soul, body, or 
 spirit ; for it is the hour ! Smite, thou Louis 
 
The Outer Drawbridge Taken. 217 
 
 Tournay, cartwright of the Marais, old soldier of the 
 regiment Dauphine ; smite at that Outer Drawbridge 
 chain, though the fiery hail whistles round thee ! 
 Never, over nave or felloe, did thy axe strike such a 
 stroke. Down with it, man ; down with it to Orcus ; 
 let the whole accursed Edifice sink thither, and 
 Tyranny be swallowed up for ever ! Mounted, some 
 say, on the roof of the guard-room, some "on bayonets 
 stuck into joints in the wall," Louis Tournay smites, 
 brave Aubin Bonnemere (also an old soldier) second- 
 ing him ; the chain yields, breaks ; the huge 
 Drawbridge slams down, thundering (avec fracas). 
 Glorious ! and yet, alas, it is still but the outworks. 
 The Eight grim Towers, with their Invalide. musketry, 
 their paving-stones and cannon-mouths, still soar 
 aloft intact ; Ditch yawning impalpable, stone-faced ; 
 the inner Drawbridge with its back towards us : 
 the Bastille is still to take ! 
 
 To describe the siege of the Bastille (thought to be 
 one of the most important in history) perhaps trans- 
 cends the talent of mortals. Could one but, after 
 infinite reading, get to understand so much as the 
 plan of the building ! But there is open esplanade at 
 the end of the Rue Saint-Antoine ; there are such 
 forecourts, Cour A vance, Cour de Forme, arched Gate- 
 way (where Louis Tournay now fights) ; then new 
 drawbridges, rampart bastions, and the grim eight 
 towers a labyrinthic mass, high frowning there, of 
 
218 Let Conflagration Rage. 
 
 all ages, from twenty, years to four hundred and 
 twenty, beleaguered, in this its last hour, as we said, 
 by mere chaos come again. Ordnance of all calibres ; 
 throats of all capacities ; men of all plans, every man 
 his own engineer. Seldom since the war of Pygmies 
 and Cranes was there seen so anomalous a thing. 
 Half-pay Elie is home for a suit of regimentals 
 no one would heed him in coloured clothes. Half- 
 pay Hulin is haranguing Gardes Frangaises in the 
 Place de Greve. Frantic patriots pick up the grape- 
 shots, bear them, still hot (or seemingly so), to the 
 Hotel de Ville. Paris, you perceive, is to be burnt ! 
 Flesselles is "pale to the very lips," for the roar of the 
 multitude grows deep. Paris wholly has got to the 
 acme of its frenzy ; whirled, all ways, by panic mad- 
 ness. At every street barricade there whirls simmer- 
 ing a minor whirlpool, strengthening the barricade, 
 since God knows .what is coming ; and all minor 
 whirlpools play distractedly into that grand fire-mahl- 
 strom which is lashing round the Bastille. 
 
 Let conflagration rage ; of whatsoever is com- 
 bustible. Guard-rooms are burnt, Invalides' mess- 
 rooms. A distracted " peruke-maker, with two fiery 
 torches," is for burning "the saltpetres of the Arsenal," 
 had not a woman run screaming ; had not a patriot, 
 with some tincture of natural philosophy, instantly 
 struck the wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of 
 stomach), overturned barrels, and stayed the devour- 
 
The Bastille Clock Ticks on. 219 
 
 ing element. A young, beautiful lacty, seized escaping 
 in these outer courts, and thought falsely to be De 
 Launay's daughter, shall be burnt in De Launay's 
 sight ; she lies swooned on a palliasse ; but again a 
 patriot it is brave Aubin Bonnemere, the old soldier 
 dashes in and rescues her. Straw is burnt ; three 
 cart loads of it, hauled thither, go up in white smoke, 
 almost to the choking of patriotism itself ; so that 
 Elie had, with singed brows, to drag back one cart, 
 and Reole, the "gigantic haberdasher," another. 
 Smoke as of Tophet, confusion as of Babel, noise as 
 of the Crack of Doom ! 
 
 How the great Bastille clock ticks (inaudible) in its 
 Inner Court there, at its ease hour after hour, as if 
 nothing special for it or the world were passing ! It 
 tolled One when the firing begun, and is now pointing 
 towards five, and still the firing slakes not. Far down 
 in their vaults the seven Prisoners hear muffled din 
 as of earthquakes ; their Turnkeys answer vaguely. 
 Woe to thee, De Launay, with thy poor hundred 
 Invalides ! Broglie is distant, and -his ears heavy ; 
 Besenval hears, but can send no help. One poor 
 troop of Hussars has crept, reconnoitring, cautiously 
 along the Quais, as far as the Pont Neuf. " We are 
 come to join you," said the Captain ; for the crowd 
 seems shoreless. A large-headed, dwarfish individual, 
 of smoke-bleared aspect, shambles forward, open- 
 ing his blue lips, for there is sense in him, and 
 
22O The Abater of Dog-leech Marat. 
 
 croaks : " Alight, then, and give up your arms ! " 
 The Hussar-Captain is too happy to be escorted to 
 the Barriers, and dismissed on parole. Who the 
 squat individual was ? Men answer, it is M. Marat, 
 author of the excellent pacific A vis an Pctiple ! Great, 
 truly, O thou remarkable Dog-leech, in this day of 
 emergence and new birth ; and yet this same day 
 
 come four years! But let the curtains of the 
 
 future hang. 
 
 What shall De Launay do ? One thing only De 
 Launay could have done ; what he said he would do. 
 Fancy him sitting, from the first, with lighted taper, 
 within arm's length of the Powder Magazine, motion- 
 less, like old Roman Senator, or Bronze Lamp- 
 Holder, coldly apprising Thuriot and all men, by a 
 slight motion of his eye, what his resolution was. 
 Harmless he sat there, while unharmed ; but the 
 King's Fortress, meanwhile, could, might, would, or 
 should, in no wise be surrendered, save to the King's 
 Messenger ; one old man's life is worthless, so it be 
 lost with honour ; but think, ye brawling canaille, 
 how will it be when a whole Bastille springs sky- 
 ward! In such statuesque, taper-holding attitude, one 
 fancies De Launay might have left Thuriot, the red 
 Clerks of the Baroche, Cure of Saint-Stephen, and 
 all the tag-rag and bobtail of the world, to work 
 their will. 
 
 And yet, withal, he could not do it. Hast thou 
 
The Tumult of the People. 221 
 
 considered how each man's heart is so tremulously 
 responsive to the hearts of all men ? hast thou noted 
 how omnipotent is the very sound of many men ? 
 How their shriek of indignation palsies the strong 
 soul, their howl of contumely withers with unfelt 
 pangs ? The Ritter Gluck confessed that the ground 
 tone of the noblest passage, in one of his noblest 
 operas, was the voice of the Populace he had heard 
 at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser, Bread 7 Bread ! 
 Great is the combined voice of men ; the utterance of 
 their instincts, which are truer than their thoughts ; it 
 is the greatest a man encounters, among the sounds 
 and shadows which make up this world of Time. 
 He who can resist that has his footing somewhere 
 beyond Time. De Launay could not do it. Dis- 
 tracted, he hovers between two, hopes in the middle 
 of despair, surrenders not his Fortress, declares that 
 he will blow it up, seizes torches to blow it up, and 
 does not blow it. Unhappy old De Launay, it is the 
 death agony of thy Bastille and thee ! Jail, Jailoring, 
 and Jailor, all three, such as they may have been, 
 must finish. 
 
 For four hours now has the World-Bedlam roared ; 
 call it the World- Chi maera, blowing fire ! The poor 
 Invalides have sunk under their battlements, or rise 
 only with reversed muskets ; they have made a white 
 flag of napkins, go beating the chamade, or seeming 
 to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss 
 
 - 
 
 . . v *w <*< n 
 
222 " Victoire! La Bastille est Prise" 
 
 at the Portcullis look weary of firing ; disheartened 
 in the fire deluge ; a porthole at the drawbridge is 
 opened, as by one that would speak. See Huissier 
 Maillard, the shifty man ! On his plank, swinging 
 over the abyss of that stone Ditch ; plank resting on 
 parapet, balanced by weight of Patriots, he hovers 
 perilous : such a Dove towards such an Ark ! Deftly, 
 thou shifty Usher ; one man already fell, and lies 
 smashed, far down there, against the masonry ! 
 Usher Maillard falls not ; deftly, unerring he walks, 
 with outspread palm. The Swiss holds a paper 
 through his porthole ; the shifty Usher snatches it, and 
 returns. Terms of surrender : Pardon, immunity to 
 all ! Are they accepted ? " Foi cTofficier, on the word 
 of an officer," answers half-pay Hulin, or half-pay 
 Elie, for men do not agree on it " they are ! " Sinks 
 the drawbridge, Usher Maillard bolting it when 
 down ; rushes in the living deluge, the Bastille is 
 fallen ! Victoire ! La Bastille est prise ! 
 
 And so it goes plunging, plunging through court 
 and corridor ; billowing uncontrollable, firing from 
 windows on itself ; in hot frenzy of triumph, of grief 
 and vengeance for its slain. The poor Invalides will 
 fare ill ; one Swiss, running off in his white smock, is 
 driven back with a death thrust. Let all Prisoners 
 be marched to the Town Hall to be judged ! Alas, 
 already one poor Invalide has his right hand slashed 
 off him ; his maimed body dragged to the Place de 
 

 Death of De L aunay. 223 
 
 Greve, and hanged there. This same right hand, it 
 is said, turned back De Launay from the Powder- 
 'magazine, and saved Paris. 
 
 De Launay, " discovered in gray frock with poppy 
 coloured riband," is for killing himself with the sword 
 of his cane. He shall to the H6tel-de-Ville ; Hulin, 
 Maillard and others escorting him ; Elie marching 
 foremost, " with the capitulating-paper on his sword's 
 point." Through roarings and cursings ; through 
 hustlings, clutchings, and at last through strokes ! 
 your escort is hustled aside, felled down ; Hulin sinks 
 exhausted on a heap of stones. Miserable De 
 Launay ! He shall never enter the H6tel-de-Ville ; 
 only his "bloody hair-queue, held up in a bloody 
 hand ; " that shall enter, for a sign. The bleeding 
 trunk lies on the steps there ; the h,ead is off through 
 the streets ; ghastly, aloft on a pike. Rigorous De 
 Launay has died ; crying out, " O friends, kill me 
 fast ! " Merciful De Losme must die ; though 
 Gratitude embraces him, in this fearful hour, and will 
 die for him ; it avails not. Brothers, your wrath is 
 cruel ! Your Place de Greve is become a Throat of 
 the Tiger ; full of mere fierce bellowings and thirst of 
 blood. 
 
 O evening sun of July, how, at this hour, thy beams 
 fall slant on reapers amid peaceful woody fields; on old 
 women spinning in cottages ; on ships far out in the 
 silent main ; on Balls at the Orangerie of Versailles, 
 
224 A Grim Procession. 
 
 where high-rouged Dames of the Palace are even 
 now dancing with double-jacketed Hussar-Officers ; 
 and also on this roaring Hell-porch of a H6tel-de- 
 Ville ! Babel Tower, with the confusion of tongues, 
 were not Bedlam added with the conflagration of 
 thoughts, was no type. One forest of distracted steel 
 bristles, endless, in front of an Electoral Committee ; 
 points itself, in horrid radii, against this and the 
 other accused breast It was the Titans warring 
 with Olympus ; and they, scarcely crediting it, have 
 conquered ! prodigy of prodigies ; delirious, as it 
 could not but be. Denunciation, vengeance ; blaze 
 of triumph on a dark ground of terror ; all outward, 
 all inward things fallen into one general wreck of 
 madness ! 
 
 Along the streets of Paris circulate Seven Bastille 
 Prisoners, borne shoulder-high ; seven Heads on 
 pikes ; the keys of the Bastille ; and much else. 
 Likewise ashlar stones of the Bastille continue 
 thundering through the dusk ; its paper archives shall 
 fly white. Old secrets come to view ; and long buried 
 Despair finds voice. Read this portion of an old 
 letter : " If for my consolation Monseigneur would 
 grant me, for the sake of God and the Most Blessed 
 Trinity, that I could have news of my dear wife ; 
 were it only her name on a card, to show that she is 
 alive ! It were the greatest consolation I could 
 receive ; and I should for ever bless the greatness of 
 
" Not a Revolt a Revolution" 225 
 
 Monseigneur." Poor Prisoner, who namest thyself 
 Qneret-D emery, and hast no other history, she is 
 dead, that dear wife of thine, and thou art dead ! 
 Tis fifty years since thy breaking heart put this 
 question ; to be heard now first, and long heard, in 
 the hearts of men. 
 
 The Versailles Ball and lemonade is done ; the 
 Orangerie is silent except for nightbirds. Over in 
 the Salle des Menus, Vice-president Lafayette, with 
 unsnuffed lights, " with some Hundred or so of 
 Members, stretched on tables round him," sits erect ; 
 outwatching the Bear. This day, a second solemn 
 Deputation went to His Majesty ; a second and then 
 a third : with no effect. What will the end of these 
 things be ? In the Court, all is mystery, not without 
 whisperings of terror ; though ye dream of lemonade 
 and epaulettes, ye foolish women ! His Majesty, kept 
 in happy ignorance, perhaps dreams of double-barrels 
 and the Woods of Meudon. Late at night, the 
 Duke de Liancourt, having official right of entrance, 
 gains access to the Royal Apartments ; unfolds, with 
 earnest clearness, in his constitutional way, the Job's- 
 news. "Mais" said poor Louis, "cest line revolte ; 
 why, that is a revolt ! " " Sire," answered Liancourt, 
 " it is not a revolt, it is a revolution." 
 
 Thus, in any case, with what rubs soever, shall the 
 Bastille be abolished from our Earth ; and with it, 
 Feudalism, Despotism, and, one hopes, Scoundrelism 
 
 IS 
 
226 Relics of the Bastille. 
 
 generally, and all hard' usage of man by his brother 
 man. Alas, the Scoundrelism and hard usage are 
 not so easy of abolition ! But as for the Bastille, it 
 sinks day after day, and month after month ; its ash- 
 lars and boulders tumbling down continually by ex- 
 press order of our municipals. Crowds of the curious 
 roam through its caverns : gaze on skeletons found 
 walled-up, on the oubliettes, iron cages, monstrous 
 stone-blocks with padlock chains. One day we dis- 
 cern Mirabeau there, along with the Genevese Du- 
 mont. Workers and onlookers make reverent way 
 for him, fling verses, flowers on his path, Bastille 
 papers and curiosities into his carriage with vivats. 
 
 Able Editors compile Books from the Bastille Ar- 
 chives from what of them remain unburnt. The 
 key of that Robber-Den shall cross the Atlantic, shall 
 lie on Washington's Hall-table. The great Clock ticks 
 now in a private patriotic Clockmaker's apartment, no 
 longer measuring hours of mere heaviness. Vanished 
 is the Bastille, what we call vanished ; the body, or 
 sandstones, of it hanging, in benign metamorphosis, 
 for centuries to come, over the Seine waters, as Pont 
 Louis Seize, the soul of it living, perhaps, still longer 
 in the memories of men. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CARLYLE THE PROTESTANT. 
 
 ONE thing we must beg our readers to notice, how- 
 ever, in every attempt to estimate the social views of 
 Carlyle his resolute and most dauntless Protestant- 
 ism ; indeed, in an age of what he calls " Puseyisms, 
 and other such ghosts and apparitions in winding- 
 sheets," this will be one great reason of the hos- 
 tility to him. Clearly, he stands by faith, simple 
 and noble, but has no sympathy with Ultramontan- 
 ism. On the contrary, he evidently believes that the 
 place of value and of worth in the van of civilisation 
 depends on a nation's reception and retention of the 
 great principle of the Reformation ; he evidently be- 
 lieves that those nations who did allow the Reforma- 
 tion to go by, lost their great national opportunity of 
 progress and salvation an opportunity which, once 
 lost, never returns again. Withering is the scorn of 
 Mr. Carlyle for that nondescript piece of imbecile 
 mischief, the Papacy. 
 
 Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
 In the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side. 
 Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the 
 bloom or blight : 
 
 152 
 
228 The Prophet with the Cup 
 
 Pass the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the 
 
 right, 
 And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and that 
 
 light. 
 
 There is a terrible picture in the prophet Jere- 
 miah, where the prophet is commanded to go with 
 the cup of the wine of the wrath of God, and to 
 cause all the nations to whom he is sent to drink of 
 it. "To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and 
 the kings thereof, to make them a desolation, an as- 
 tonishment, and a hissing, and a curse, as it is to this 
 day " to all of them. The prophet was commanded 
 to go " to Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and to all the min- 
 gled people, and the kings of the land of Uz, and the 
 kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, 
 and Azzah, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, 
 Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon, the 
 kings of Tyre and Sidon, and the kings of the isles 
 beyond the sea, Dedan and Tema, and all the kings 
 of Arabia, and the mingled people that dwell in the 
 desert, and all the kings of Zimri, and the kings of 
 Elam and the Medes, and say unto them, Thus 
 saith the Lord, Ye shall certainly drink." And im- 
 mediately after, to the same kings, the same prophet 
 was commanded to say, " Thus saith the Lord, Make 
 thee bonds and yokes, and send them to the kings. 
 I have given all these lands into the hands of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, the King of Babylon ; the nations that 
 
Of the Wine of the Wrath of God. 229 
 
 bring their necks under the yoke of the King of 
 Babylon, those will I let remain in My own land, and 
 they shall till it and dwell therein." And thus more 
 than three hundred years since the angel of the Re- 
 formation went round to all the kings of Europe with 
 the two cups the cup of the Reformation and the 
 cup of the wrath of God. Every nation was called 
 upon to drink, and wherever the cup of the Reforma- 
 tion was refused, there the cup of the wrath of God 
 was presented. " Thus saith the Lord, Say unto 
 them, Ye shall drink of it."' More to all those 
 nations who refused the cup of the Reformation fol- 
 lowed speedily the Angel with the Yokes ; and they 
 have been " the servants to the King of Babylon unto 
 this day." Is it not so ? And those nearest to 
 Rome are pressed most heavily by the yoke. 
 The Gallican Church and France welter in hope- 
 less misery; but the Ultramontane Church and 
 Spain lie crushed in utter black, dungeon-grated 
 despair. 
 
 Abundant evidence have we that Carlyle regards 
 Romanism, the Papacy, as the great nuisance and 
 pest of Europe in these later ages, with " its ortho- 
 doxies and sovereign croziers." And we may be 
 very sure that he will never tell us any tale with- 
 out the intention to teach by it several lessons. 
 And one of the most powerful and effective stories 
 he has told is that singular "Salzburg Emigration." 
 
230 The Salzburg Emigration. 
 
 And let us say to sundry Reviewers and other such 
 leathern-spectacle editors who found it convenient 
 to pass entire those pages which must have com- 
 manded their commendation, that such an incident 
 so memorialised as that famous " Emigration " ought 
 at once to have lightened the memory of old Frede- 
 rick William, and to have shed a religious halo 
 round the writings of Carlyle. Indeed we have, we 
 believe, read every line of stricture on Carlyle, and we 
 do not remember one " orthodox writer " who has re- 
 ferred to his sound and powerful hostility to Romanism. 
 The story, in brief, is this : Salzburg is an arch- 
 bishop's city metropolis on the north-east slope of 
 the Tyrol, a romantic spot, among beautiful moun- 
 tains, shadowing itself on the Salza river. Salza had 
 been, before the Thirty Years' War, eminently Pro- 
 testant. Before that war, probability was that 
 Austria herself would become Protestant ; but 
 Wallenstein, in the chain mail, trampled all that 
 out ; only there was left behind a large amount 
 among those mountains, and in Salzburg, of 
 concealed Protestantism, there being nobody seek- 
 ing to convert the people. There it was making 
 clocks wooden clocks grazing and husbanding. 
 Harmless sons of Adam, their existence had 
 been known of from generation to generation by 
 successive archbishops. At last came Firmian, 
 " genuine, right reverend Firmian," and he sent his 
 
A Story of one of the Crimes of Rome. 23 1 
 
 law terriers to scour through the valleys, scenting 
 out German Bibles, and fining and confiscating. 
 But the Salzburgers would not give up the Bibles, 
 and would not quit their Protestantism. They 
 placed themselves beneath the Treaty of Westphalia, 
 they demanded to be allowed to leave Salzburg, 
 and by Austrian troops they were marched over the 
 frontiers. 
 
 Rome, in the person of the Archbishop, taking 
 possession of their properties and detaining their 
 families, they complained to the Emperor. The 
 Emperor could not afford to lose the goodwill of 
 Rome, but he made a feint of intercession with the 
 Archbishop. And at last they appealed to Frede- 
 rick William by a deputation. He ascertained that 
 they were genuine Protestants, and he said, " Return, 
 there shall be help." And he moved Europe for 
 these unhappy outlaws, or threatened to do so. He 
 demanded that they should be permitted to emi- 
 grate. " Emigrate," said the Archbishop ; "emigrate, 
 says your Majesty, they shall emigrate;" and the 
 Archbishop marched 900 of them in the dead of 
 winter, across the snowy mountains over the 
 
 mountains. "Go about your business. Go to 
 
 " And our property, goods, and chattels ? " " Pro- 
 perty ! be thankful that you have your skins, and go 
 emigrate, I say, now ! " A most orthodox Arch- 
 bishop. And there were among them hoary men, 
 
232 Story of a Protestant Exodus. 
 
 and " women laden with child, sick persons, and young 
 children " a most Christian, Apostolic, and Papal 
 Archbishop. And when Frederick, who had got 
 thus far with the matter, found the thing was so, 
 what think you he did ? Make a diplomatic busi- 
 ness of it ? Not at all ; he did a most ^righteous 
 thing ! or shall we call it unrighteous ? He actually 
 pounced upon the property of a number of wealthy 
 merchants Romanists in his kingdom, seizing 
 their property, and commanding them to suspend 
 their incomings. "As to the matter," said he, 
 " you can settle the account with your Archbishop 
 Firmian." It brought an arrangement very speedily. 
 The emigration went on, on human terms, and the 
 poor Salzburgers cowered in Bavarian cities which 
 the King had prepared for them in his own kingdom. 
 Twenty years before this transaction pestilence had 
 strangely depopulated Prussian Lithuania. It had 
 been, since his accession to the throne, the King's 
 great desire to re-people this territory fifty-two 
 towns as good as depopulated. During as many 
 years he had obtained, from many districts, as many 
 as 20,000 colonists, and now he thought how well he 
 might provide a home for the exiled Protestants of 
 Salzburg. " Two afflictions ivell put together shall 
 become a consolation." And so the proclamation, the 
 news flew abroad. Come, Salzburgers, homes are 
 appointed for you ; commissaries are appointed for 
 
233 
 
 you. Be kind to them on their route, all Christian 
 German Princes. Wonderful it is to read of that 
 Exodus. A journey of eleven hundred miles ; but 
 the children of Israel accomplished it. They 
 marched out of Egypt staff in hand dear native 
 valleys, too, they were compelled to leave behind, 
 never, ah ! never, to see more, they or their chil^ 
 dren. The first company of 1731 numbered about 
 7,000. What shall we think of the mad folly, the 
 imbecile infatuation of the State which could part 
 with its brave, industrious, honest, thrifty, and holy 
 children? The next year 10,000 came. They did 
 not march altogether, but appear to have gone in 
 bands of 300 and 400. And very beautiful are the 
 glimpses given to us of the pilgrims on their journey. 
 Thus we have the entrance of 331 into the charitable 
 town of Nordlingen, where they had been expected. 
 The King _of Prussia had provided all the expenses 
 of the journey, moderately, economically. But as 
 they approached the old town two chief clergymen, 
 schoolmasters, and scholars, hundreds of citizens and 
 young people, went out to meet them. They were 
 in their baggage gear, approaching the town, or 
 waiting ; to them went the pastor and said, 
 " Come in, ye blessed of the Lord ; why stand ye 
 without ? " Then they ranked, two and two, and 
 marched into the town straight to the church, the 
 
234 Story of a Protestant Exodus. 
 
 whole town going out to greet them, and there the 
 two clergymen successively addressed them. First 
 text " And every one that hath forsaken houses, or 
 brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or 
 children, or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive 
 an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life." 
 Second text was " Now, the Lord had said unto 
 Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from 
 thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a 
 land that I will show thee." "Excellent texts," 
 says Carlyle, " well handled, let us hope, especially 
 with brevity." After which the strangers were dis- 
 tributed, some in public-houses, others taken home 
 by the citizens to lodge. On the following Sabbath 
 they went to church, headed by their respective 
 landlords, occupying the centre of the church. Col- 
 lections were made for them, and meat and beer dis- 
 tributed. It was a time of sweet, true Christian 
 festivity ; visits were interchanged ; the various per- 
 sonages of the town inviting parties of fives and 
 fours to their houses, and at last they went on their 
 way. So at Baireuth they arrived on Good Friday. 
 They had been lodged, indeed, in villages, but came 
 into the church in bodies ; and there was a scramble 
 among the citizens to procure the pilgrims to dine 
 with them. At Gera a commercial gentleman 
 dined the whole party at his own expense. There 
 
Story of a Protestant Exodus. 235 
 
 was no end to kindness, and many exclaimed, " Is 
 this all we can do ? " To which the commissary 
 replied, " More will come shortly." So they marched 
 on their way, reaching Berlin. The King came out 
 to receive them. He provided for them regulation, 
 guidance, a stepping-stone from place to place, 
 regularity, and punctuality. The first lot he caused 
 to be catechised in the church, that all the world 
 might hear their pertinent answers. On Sunday, 
 after the sermon, during their stay in Berlin, they 
 were all well entertained. Then, on again, five 
 hundred miles further ; and then, at the end of the 
 journey, they found all ready. Cottages, all furnished 
 with implements. The King contrived that old 
 neighbours should be put together, and so old trades 
 revived in their localities. And a useful population 
 has sprung up from that emigration, increasing, who 
 shall say how many fold ? 
 
 It cost the King 1 50,000, that emigration. But 
 he lived to see it repaid. " He was," says Carlyle, 
 "a man skilled in investments to a high degree." 
 "Fancy," he continues, in remarks which will 
 seem audacious to many, "fancy 150,000 in- 
 vested there in the bank of nature herself; and a 
 hundred millions invested, say at Balaclava, in 
 the bank of newspaper rumour : and the respec- 
 tive rates of interest they will yield, a million years 
 hence." 
 
236 Popery Really Dead. 
 
 Assuredly, Carlyle has little sympathy with those 
 who fancy that Popery is once more to assert its 
 sway over the human mind and faith. He is, indeed, 
 very unbelieving about all this ; " at bottom," he says, 
 " what else is alive but Protestantism ? The life of 
 most else that one meets is a galvanic life merely, 
 not a pleasant, not a lasting sort of life." He avows 
 his entire contempt "of all mere Machiavellic pre- 
 tence of belief in the dough-wafers and the godhead 
 of a poor old Italian man." Again : " Popery can 
 build new chapels, welcome to do so at all lengths ; 
 Popery cannot come back any more than Paganism 
 can, which also still lingers in some countries. Alas ! 
 would there were no more danger to our Europe than 
 the poor old Pope's revival ; Thor may as soon try to 
 revive ; " and with wise appreciation he continues : 
 " While a good work remains capable of being done 
 by the Romish power, or, what is inclusive of all, 
 while a pious life remains capable of being led by it, 
 just so long, if we consider, will this or the other 
 human soul adopt it, go about as a living witness of 
 it ; so long it will obtrude itself upon the life of us 
 who reject it, till we in our practice too have appro- 
 priated whatsoever of truth was in it then, but also not 
 till then, it will have no charm more for any man : 
 it lasts here for a purpose ; let it last as long as it 
 can." 
 
 Very wise words ; indeed, everything in Popery 
 
The Poor Old Pope. 237 
 
 or Romanism, we may be very sure, is not a lie ; no 
 lie has in itself any power of life or conscience, and 
 if we are wise we had better see what there is in 
 this mischievous Catholicism of real truth ; appro- 
 priate that, give to that a more divine and human 
 habitation amongst us. It will be all over with the 
 poor old Pope then, and not till then. Some of 
 Carlyle's words are not so tender and gentle as 
 these, especially when he deals with the political 
 relations of the Papacy : thus he says : " More than 
 three hundred years ago, the throne of St. Peter 
 received peremptory judicial notice to quit; authentic, 
 registered in Heaven's Chancery and since legible in 
 the hearts of all brave men, to take itself away, to 
 begone, and let us have no more to do with it and 
 its delusions and impious deliriums ; and it has 
 been sitting every day since, it may depend upon 
 it, at its own peril withal, and will have to pay 
 exact damages yet for every day it has so sat. Law 
 of veracity ? What this Popedom had to do by the 
 law of veracity, was to give up its foul galvanic 
 life, an offence to gods and men ; honestly to die, 
 and get itself buried. Reform a Popedom, hardly. 
 A wretched old kettle, ruined from top to bottom, 
 and consisting mainly now of foul grime and rust ; 
 stop the holes of it, as your ancestors have been 
 doing, with temporary putty, it may hang together 
 
238 Poor Old Pope. 
 
 yet awhile ; begin to' hammer at it, solder at it, to 
 what you call mend and rectify it, it will fall to 
 shreds, as sure as rust is rust ; go all into nameless 
 dissolution and the fat in the fire will be a thing 
 worth looking at, poor Pope ! " 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CARLYLE'S INTENSE LOVE OF HUMANITY. 
 
 OUR readers will expect to find in this volume illus- 
 trations of that " endless appetite for men of merit," 
 so characteristic of the author ; that admiration of 
 great men in his own words, hero-worshipping as 
 to him we owe especially the many resurrections of 
 illustrious names, and gibbeted and crucified heroes. 
 Other writers Macaulay, for instance have been 
 interested in the doctrines of men, but for Carlyle 
 the great interest has been the lives of men, and 
 he has aimed to interpret what they thought by 
 what they did, and he has turned away our eyes from 
 beholding men as abstractions of humanity. He has 
 compelled us to regard the various forms and degrees 
 of spiritual force. He has made the words of men 
 especially interesting by their actions. The dream- 
 born speculations of men are to him only the seal 
 of that strong, superfluous, dynamical energy which 
 bubbled forth thus, a fountain and spring of fire ; 
 and the old and beautiful characteristic by which 
 some little circumstance is made to transfer the 
 reader immediately to the scene, is here. To him, 
 
240 Nature and Man. 
 
 evidently, every human soul that lives, or has lived, is 
 a profoundly touching mystery ; and the mystic hosts 
 that flit across the pages of biography and history 
 draw from him tenderness that is near akin to tears. 
 
 Thus he says of 
 
 THE VATICAN AND A MOUNTAIN-CHAIN 
 CONTRASTED. 
 
 "The Vatican is great, yet poor to Chimborazo 
 or the Peak of Teneriffe ; its dome is but a foolish 
 Big-endian or a Little-endian chip of an egg-shell, 
 compared with that star-fretted Dome where Arcturus 
 and Orion glance for ever ; which latter, notwith- 
 standing, who looks at, save perhaps some necessitous 
 star-gazer bent to make Almanacs ; some thick- 
 quilted watchman, to see what weather it will prove. 
 The Biographic interest is wanting ; no Michael 
 Angelo was He who built that 'Temple of Immensity;' 
 therefore do we, pitiful Littlenesses as we are, turn ratJicr 
 to wonder and to worship in the little toybox of a Temple 
 built by our like." 
 
 As on the field of Naseby we presume when 
 wandering there with Dr. Arnold* when he turns 
 up the skull and looks at " teeth that breakfasted 
 that last stem morning;" or "the poor nameless cotter 
 who sheltered Charles when he left the oak of 
 * See Memoirs of Dr. Arnold. 
 
An Incident in the March on Glogau. 241 
 
 Boscobel ;" or " the poor shivering girl that spoke to 
 Johnson and Boswell that night in Fleet-street;" 
 strange, wondering interest, investing them all to 
 him ! And with a touch of his pen he moves our 
 souls, too, to wonder where now their dread habita- 
 tion may be ; and we see that he does this not by the 
 glamours of fiction, but by the might of a strong and 
 loving heart. Thus, in the story of the Prussian march 
 on Glogau, amidst the swelling floods and rains, the 
 deepest human interest is perhaps kindled by the 
 last touch, which gives such affecting completeness to 
 the picture : 
 
 THE MARCH ON GLOGAU. 
 
 " Rain still heavier, rain as of Noah, continued 
 
 through this Tuesday, and for days afterwards ; 
 
 but the Prussian hosts, hastening towards Glogau, 
 
 marched on still. This Tuesday's march, for the 
 
 rearward of the army, 10,000 foot and 2,000 horse, 
 
 march of ten hours long, from Weichau to the hamlet 
 
 VHlkau (where his Majesty sits busy and affable), is 
 
 nought t ^~ the wettest on record. Waters all out, 
 
 )ridges d' n, the Country one wild lake of eddying 
 
 mud. U . to the knee for many miles together ; up 
 
 o the middle r or long spaces ; sometimes even up to 
 
 he chin or deeper, where your bridge was washed 
 
 away. The Prussians marched through it, as if they 
 
 lad been s >r iron. Rank and file, nobody quitted 
 
 16 
 
242 A 11 Incident. 
 
 his rank, nobody looked sour in the face ; they took 
 the pouring of the skies, and the red seas of terrestrial 
 liquid, as matters that must be ; cheered one another 
 with jocosities, with choral snatches (tobacco, I con- 
 sider, would not burn), and swashed unweariedly 
 forward. Ten hours some of them were out, their 
 march being twenty or twenty-five miles ; ten to 
 fifteen was the average distance come. Nor, singular 
 to say, did any loss occur, except of almost one poor 
 Army-Chaplain, and altogether of one poor Soldier's 
 Wife sank dangerously both of them ; beyond re- 
 demption she, taking the wrong side of some bridge 
 parapet. Poor Soldier's Wife, she is not named to me at 
 all ; and has no history save this, and that ' she was of 
 the regiment Bredow.' But I perceive she washed 
 herself away in a World-Transaction, and there was one 
 rough Bredower, who probably sat sad that night on 
 getting to quarters." 
 
 And the Life of Frederick contains abundant evi- 
 dence that Carlyle abides by his old faith, that the 
 most significant fact in the world's history is its 
 possession of great men. Paltry work is all meta- 
 physical writing or study compared with biography, 
 or the record of the way in which thoughts became 
 deeds ; the process, say, by which the /ra;/.ycendental; 
 became dfocendental. So most men believe. How 4 
 greedy w r e are of biographical records, even when 
 
The Possibility of Great Men. 243 
 
 little better than waste paper. Man can in no way 
 make himself a little more conspicuous than his 
 fellows, but we behold the avidity with which every 
 little anecdote of him is caught up and thrown from 
 paper to paper, and lip to lip. For man makes 
 himself dear to us, not by his speculations, not by 
 what he thinks, but by what he says and does. We 
 feel that his speech is force, but his deeds are a yet 
 higher force; and hence the recorded life of the 
 speaker and doer is power. Whether it is certain 
 that ever the belief in great men has been the 
 counterpart of the belief in God ; and not to believe 
 in great men has ever been, and is, to disbelieve in 
 God, who speaks to the world through and can only 
 speak to the world through great men, many will 
 question, though our writer so stoutly affirms it. The 
 next thing, no doubt, to the being great ourselves, is 
 the power, the ability to recognise greatness in 
 others ; to believe, as we often say, in the possibility 
 of great men. Not, as many do, set to work to 
 account for them ; to feel that if not they then some 
 other would have done the work for us which they 
 did ; but gratefully, with believing homage, to receive 
 them, and, differing and dissenting from them, to do 
 so as men who feel that colossal spirits, God-moved 
 and God-sent, may see many reasons all unintelligible 
 and imperceptible to us. 
 
 It is for this reason, from his swift and ready 
 
 16 2 
 
244 Various Shapes into which 
 
 entrance into a state of tender, reverent, pitying- 
 sympathy with all human lots and lives, that even 
 any casual meeting or congregation affects him. 
 Thus we have it in the following, which we may 
 almost call Carlyle's reflections at church, when 
 perhaps the preacher was not so impressive to the 
 soul as the congregation itself. 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON A GREAT CONGREGATION. 
 
 " It strikes me dumb to look over the long series of 
 faces, such as any full Church, Court-house, London- 
 Tavern-meeting, or miscellany of men will show 
 them. Some score or two of years ago all these were 
 little red-coloured pulpy infants, each of them capable 
 of being kneaded, baked into any social form you 
 chose ; yet see now how they are fixed and hardened 
 into artisans, artists, clergy, gentry, learned sergeants, 
 unlearned dandies, and can and shall now be nothing- 
 else henceforth ! 
 
 " Mark on that nose the colour left by too copious 
 port and viands ; to which the profuse cravat with 
 exorbitant breastpin, and the fixed, fonvard, and as it 
 were menacing glance of the eyes correspond. That 
 is a 'Man of Business;' prosperous manufacturer, 
 house-contractor, engineer, law-manager ; his eye, 
 nose, cravat have, in such work and fortune, got such 
 a character ; deny him not thy praise, thy pity. Pity 
 /";;/, too the Hard-handed, with bony brow, rudely 
 
Red Pulpy Infants Get Baked. 245 
 
 combed hair, eyes looking out as in labour, in 
 difficulty and uncertainty ; rude mouth, the lips 
 coarse, loose, as in hard toil and life-long fatigue they 
 have got the habit of hanging ; hast thou seen aught 
 more touching than the rude intelligence, so cramped, 
 yet energetic, unsubduable, true, which looks out of 
 that marred visage ? Alas, and his poor wife, with 
 her own hands, washed that cotton neckcloth for 
 him, buttoned that coarse shirt, sent him forth 
 creditably trimmed as she could. In such im- 
 prisonment lives he, for his part ; man cannot now 
 deliver him : the red pulpy infant has been baked 
 and fashioned so. 
 
 " Or, what kind of baking was it that this other 
 brother-mortal got, which has baked him into the 
 genus Dandy ? Elegant Vacuum ; serenely looking 
 down upon all Plenums and Entities, as low and poor 
 to his serene Chimeraship and .Mwentity laboriously 
 attained ! Heroic Vacuum ; inexpungable, while purse 
 and present condition of society hold out ; curable by 
 no hellebore. The doom of Fate was, Be thou a 
 Dandy! Have thy eye-glasses, opera-glasses, thy 
 Long-acre cabs with white-breeched tiger, thy 
 yawning impassivities, pococurantisms ; fix thyself in 
 Dandyhood, undeliverable it is thy doom. 
 
 " And all these, we say, were red-coloured infants ; 
 of the same pulp and stuff a few years ago, now 
 irretrievably shaped and kneaded, as we see ! 
 
246 Carlyle on the Book of Job. 
 
 Formulas ? There is no mortal extant, out of the 
 depths of Bedlam, tiut lives all skinned, thatched, 
 covered over with Formulas ; and is, as it were, held 
 in from delirium and the inane by his Formulas ! 
 They are withal the most beneficent, indispensable 
 of human equipments ; blessed he who has a skin 
 and tissues, so it be a living one, and the heart pulse 
 everywhere discernible through it. Monachism, 
 Feudalism, with a real king Plantagenet, with real 
 Abbots Samon, and their other living realities !" 
 
 Another illustration, and of another kind, is that 
 sympathy with profound moral wants, and the mental 
 sufferings and perturbations of soul. Sympathy with 
 ^Sdipus or Hamlet is but the expression of the 
 same nature in ourselves, moved to the very deeps, 
 and this gives the reason for Carlyle's profound 
 apprehension of the mystery and the meaning of 
 
 THE BOOK OF JOB. 
 
 " I call that, apart from all theories about it, one of 
 the grandest things ever written with pen. One 
 feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew ; such a noble 
 universality, different from noble patriotism or sec- 
 tarianism, reigns in it. A noble Book, all men's Book! 
 It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending 
 Problem man's destiny and God's ways with him 
 here in this earth. And all in such free flowing out- 
 
" Lahore est Or are" 247 
 
 lines ; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity, in its 
 epic melody, and repose of reconcilement. There is 
 the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So 
 true every way, true eyesight and vision for all things 
 material things no less than spiritual ; the horse 
 ' hast thou clothed his neck with thunder T he 'laughs 
 at the shaking of the spear ! ' Such living likenesses 
 were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime 
 reconciliation ; oldest choral melody as of the heart 
 of mankind ; so soft and great, as the summer mid 
 night, as the world with its seas and stars ! There is 
 nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of 
 equal literary merit." 
 
 Dear to the heart of our author is that motto of 
 the old monks, " Labour is worship." We have met 
 with some few men, and with women too, who could 
 not comprehend it, and to whom it was a dim, occult, 
 mystical saying ; they wanted an explanation of it. 
 Poor things ! and we had no explanation to give, for 
 this is one of those sayings for which no explanation 
 will suffice ; it must be felt to be true, no amount of 
 commentary can else make it appear reasonable. 
 To work is the Human Mission; he who shrinks from 
 Labour shrinks from the purpose of his existence. 
 It is sad that to so many thousands of persons now-a- 
 days it should be necessary to say this. Labour is 
 everlastingly noble and holy ; it is the source of all 
 
248 The Holy Nobleness of True Work. 
 
 perfection ; no man can accomplish, or become 
 accomplished, without work ; it is the purifying fire, 
 burning up the poisoning and corrupting influences 
 emasculating the manhood of the soul. " Doubt, 
 Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, 
 all these like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul of 
 the poor day worker, as of every man : but he bends 
 himself with free valour to his task, and all these are 
 stilled, all these shrink murmuring far off into their 
 caves." Labour is the sword, cutting the Gordian 
 knot of life it is the true answer to the Sphinx 
 riddle. " Doubt of any kind," says our teacher, " can 
 be ended by action alone." The greatest monster in 
 the world is the idle man : where there is no labour 
 there is no progress, no growth ; there is indeed no 
 life, for labour is life, and inaction death, stagnation. 
 How much of the misery of man results from his 
 inaction ; festering waters flow over his soul, breeding 
 monstrous shapes 
 
 " Gorgon and Hydra and Chimera dire." 
 
 Doubt, Scepticism, Fear, what are they but stagnant 
 waves ? but the brave spirit looks on all these without 
 dismay, perhaps has escaped, has prevented them 
 from overwhelming him by resolutely bracing his 
 spirit to determined action. A blessing rests on all 
 true labour ; it is of a religious nature, it is of a brave 
 nature, it is a miraculous Gideon's Fleece ; if spread 
 
TJic Nobility of Work. 249 
 
 out beneath the arch of Heaven, Heaven will not 
 fail to visit it with moisture. For all true work has 
 this faculty of Divineness in it, the foundation of the 
 building is on the earth, but it has pinnacles reaching 
 high into the Heaven, all is Sacred. Look at the 
 sweat of the Brain in Newton meditations, in Kepler 
 calculations, sweat of the Brow, the life of toil, the 
 Plough, the Hammer, or the Loom ; sweat of the 
 Heart. Ah ! from the lowest form of all acted 
 heroism, all martyrdoms up to that "Agony of 
 Bloody sweat," all is labour, no great work without 
 strong labour. The world is monumental with this 
 great fact of existence, God worketh ; the unborn ages, 
 silences of deep Eternities speak of Him, and old 
 graves, and deep death kingdoms, tears that have 
 fallen and are now dry, all Space, all Time speak to 
 man and pro'clain the sanctity of work. Hence, says 
 Carlyle, concerning 
 
 THE UNSPEAKABLE HOLINESS OF WORK, 
 
 "Two men I honour, and no third. First the 
 toilworn Craftsman, that with earth-made implement 
 laboriously conquers the earth, and makes her man's. 
 Venerable to me is the hard Hand ; crooked, coarse ; 
 wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, 
 indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet. 
 Venerable too, is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, 
 bespoiled, with its rude intelligence ; for it is the face 
 
250 Noble Toil for the Bread of Life. 
 
 of a man living manlike. Oh, but the more venerable 
 for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as 
 well as love thee ! Hardly-entreated Brother ! For 
 us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight 
 limbs and fingers so deformed ; thou wert our 
 Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our 
 battles wert so marred. For in thee, too, lay a God- 
 created Form, but it was not to be unfolded ; encrusted 
 it must stand with the thick adhesion and defacement 
 of Labour ; and thy body like thy soul was not to 
 know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on ; thou art in thy 
 duty, be out of it who may ; thou toilest for the 
 altogether indispensible, for daily bread. 
 
 " A second man I honour, and still more highly : 
 him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispens- 
 able ; not daily Bread, but the Bread of Life. Is not 
 he too in his duty, endeavouring towards inward 
 harmony, revealing this by act or by word, through all 
 his outward endeavours, be they high or low ? High- 
 est of all, when his outward and inward endeavour 
 are one ; when we can name him Artist ; not earthly 
 Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, that with Heaven- 
 made Implement conquers Heaven for us? If the poor 
 and humble toil that we have food, must not the high 
 and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, 
 have Guidance, F reedom, Immortality ? These two in 
 all their degrees I honour ; all else is chaff and dust, 
 which let the wind blow whither it listeth. 
 
A Tragedy, that any Die Ignorant. 251 
 
 " Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find 
 both dignities united ; and he that must toil out- 
 wardly for the lowest of man's wants is also toiling 
 inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world 
 know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such now 
 anywhere be met with. Such a one will take thee 
 back to Nazareth itself ; thou wilt see the splendour 
 of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of 
 the Earth, like a light shining in great darkness. 
 
 "And, again: it is not because of his toils that 
 I lament for the poor ; we must all toil or steal (how- 
 soever we name our stealing), which is worse ; no 
 faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor 
 is hungry and athirst, but for him also there is food 
 and drink ; he is heavy laden and weary, but for him 
 also the Heaven sends a sleep, and of the deepest ; in 
 his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelops 
 him, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted dreams. 
 But what I do mourn over is that the lamp of his 
 soul should go out, and no ray of heavenly or even 
 earthly knowledge should visit him ; but only in the 
 haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and Indigna- 
 tion. Alas! while the body stands so broad and 
 brawny must the soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, 
 almost annihilated ! Alas ! was this too a Breath of 
 God, bestowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be 
 unfolded ! That there should one man die ignorant 
 who had capacity for knowledge this I call a tragedy, 
 
252 " The Heavens do Rule!' 
 
 were it to happen more than twenty times in a 
 minute, as by some computations it does. The miser- 
 able fraction of Science which united mankind in a 
 wide Universe of Nescience has acquired, why is not 
 this, with all diligence, imparted to all?" 
 
 Strong is his faith in the final justice overruling 
 all things ; there is a principle of adjustment in the 
 universe, all things struggle to some kind of order ; 
 Anarchy and Unreason are not the end of things, they 
 do not inherently belong to things, they have obtruded 
 themselves into the world of being; how, it boots not 
 to inquire they are here ; Injustice is here, but 
 because it is here let no man suppose that Law, Order, 
 Justice, are banished from the universe. Surely not ; 
 man's justice is not God's, is not nature's justice. 
 " Parchments ! Parchments are venerable ; but they 
 ought at all times to represent, as near as they by 
 possibility can, the writing of the adamant tablets, 
 otherwise they are not so venerable ;" but all confusion 
 whatever verges ever towards an eternal centre of 
 justice and truth ; the heaviest must fall ; very foolish 
 is it when men cry Lo! your heaviest ascends! It 
 has to arrive at the centre, and will despise all the 
 efforts made to prevent it. It is only in virtue of the 
 amount of justice in anything, or institution, or 
 nation, that it is preserved from ruin. " Properly as 
 many men as there are in a nation who can withal see 
 
"A Fair Day's Wages for a Fair Day's Work." 253 
 
 Heaven's invisible justice, and know it to be on earth 
 also omnipotent, so many are there who stand 
 between a nation and perdition so many and no 
 more." But man is blind and impatient ; he does 
 not believe because he does not see ; and he does not 
 see because he will not rather look into the whole of 
 things than into their mutilated and disjointed parts. 
 He cries loudly for a fair day's wages for a fair day's 
 work. It is a reasonable and sensible cry enough, 
 and it is what, in the long run, all men and all things 
 have ; but then it is what no man ever yet had meted 
 out to him on earth. Yet some men are wonderfully 
 overpaid. No one man, it seems, has his precise 
 wages. Sidney, for writing the Discourse on Govern- 
 ment, receives his earthly wages in the loss of his 
 head. Milton, for the " Paradise Lost," receives 5, 
 and, by-and-by, 5 more. A do-nothing lord receives 
 as the wages of his idleness permission to sport over 
 the kingdom, and to lounge at ease in his coach and 
 four ; poor peasant receives his wages for hedging for 
 us, ditching, sowing corn, or building for us a house 
 permission to starve, limited allowance of bread, and 
 to find his way into the workhouse, to pauper's death- 
 bed and coffin. The Bishop rustles in silk and shovel- 
 hat, and six or twelve thousand a year ; the curate 
 labours hardly on from day to day, and still passing 
 rich with forty pounds. Justice does seem to hold 
 her scales very unequally ; yet, spite of all these illus- 
 
254 Every Human Life Morally Significant. 
 
 trations of injustice, there does appear over the whole 
 earth a prevalent reign 'of equity, its peaks lifting up 
 their heads like the mountain chains after the 
 Flood. 
 
 All Carlyle's works are marked by this intense 
 sympathy with many-vestured, many-experienced 
 humanity; all men and women alike, the evil and 
 the good, a grave sad interest attaches to all, few 
 are so bad as to be utterly banned and barred away 
 from any human sympathy he would say perhaps 
 with the beautiful young singer of Scotland : 
 
 " The darkest night that shrouds the sky 
 
 Of beauty hath a share ; 
 The blackest heart hath signs to tell 
 
 That God still lingers there. 
 I pity all that evil are, 
 
 I pity and I mourn, 
 But the Supreme hath fashioned all, 
 
 Therefore I dare not scorn." 
 
 And this reverent homage before the mystery of our 
 humanity makes our writer admirable and wonderful 
 alike in his biographical sketches and his great His- 
 tories, leads him to say indeed, " Is not the primary 
 use of speech itself this same, to litter memoirs, that is 
 memorable experiences, to our fellow creatures ?" 
 Also this makes his " Life of Frederick the Great" 
 to be teemingly alive with episodical pictures, show- 
 ing his deep human interest in the most obscure of 
 our fellow-men, as, for instance, that of 
 
The Episode of Dominie L insenbartk. 255 
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND THE POOR DOMINIE 
 LINSENBARTH, 
 
 a kind^of Thuringian Dominie Sampson, whose inter- 
 view with such a brother-mortal as Frederick King 
 of Prussia, Mr. Carlyle thinks worth looking at, " if," 
 says he, " I can abridge it properly." He certainly 
 has so abridged it, while still retaining all the clear 
 light of fact in it, as to give to us one of those romantic 
 little stories which made Frederick quite a favourite 
 or a fear with schoolboys half a century since. Poor 
 Linsenbarth came two hundred and fifty miles seeking 
 to benefit himself in Berlin, and brought along with 
 him four hundred thalers, about 60, all in Nurnberg 
 Batzen a sack of them, about, Mr. Carlyle thinks ; 
 there were " nine thousand in all, about the size of 
 herring-scales, illustrating the scandalous coinage 
 that had existed, and which, about six years before, 
 the King had utterly put down so at the Custom 
 House they pounced upon the poor schoolmaster's 
 batzen, and left him literally batsenless" After hover- 
 ing about Berlin, trying to find justice, " without one 
 farthing in my pocket," says he, " in God's name I 
 went to Potsdam." 
 
 " And at Potsdam I was lucky enough to see the 
 King ; my first sight of him. He was on the Palace Es- 
 planade there, drilling his troops " (fine trim sanded Ex- 
 panse with the Palace to rear, and Garden-walks and 
 
256 The Episode of Dominie L insenbarth. 
 
 river to front ; where Friedrich Wilhelm sat, the last 
 day he was out, and ordered Jockey Philip's house to 
 be actually set about ; where the troops do evolutions 
 every morning ; there is Friedrich with cocked hat 
 and blue coat ; say about 1 1 a.m.). 
 
 u When the drill was over, his Majesty went into 
 the Garden, and the soldiers dispersed ; only four 
 officers remained lounging upon the Esplanade, and 
 walked up and down. For fright I knew not what 
 to do ; I pulled the Papers out of my pocket, these 
 were my Memorial, two Certificates of character, and 
 a Thiiringen Pass " (poor soul). " The Officers noticed 
 this ; came straight to me and said, ' What Letters 
 has He there, then ?' I thankfully and gladly im- 
 parted the whole ; and when the Officers had read 
 them, they said, ' We will give you ' (Him, not even 
 Thee) ' a good advice. The King is extra -gracious to- 
 day, and is gone alone into the Garden. Follow him 
 straight. Thou wilt have luck.' 
 
 " This I would not do ; my awe was too great. 
 They thereupon laid hands upon me " (the mis- 
 chievous dogs, not ill-humoured either) : " one took 
 me by the right arm, another by the left, 'Off, off; 
 to the Garden !' Having got me thither, they looked 
 out for the King. He was among the gardeners, 
 examining some rare plant ; stooping over it, and 
 had his back to us. Here I had to halt ; and the 
 Officers began, in underhand tone " (the dogs !) " to 
 
The Episode of Dominie L inscnbarth. 257 
 
 put me through my drill : ' Hat under left arm ! 
 Right foot foremost ! Breast well forward ! Head 
 up ! Papers from Pouch ! Papers aloft in right 
 hand ! Steady ! Steady !' And went their ways, 
 looking always round, to see if I kept my posture. 
 I perceived well enough they were pleased to make 
 game of me ; but I stood, all the same like a wall,, 
 being full of fear. The Officers were hardly out of 
 the Garden, when the King turned round, and saw 
 this extraordinary machine," telegraph figure or 
 whatever we may call it, with papers pointing to the 
 sky. " He gave such a look at me, like a flash of 
 sunbeams glancing through you, and sent one of the 
 gardeners to bring my papers. Which having got, 
 he struck into another walk then, and was out of 
 sight. In a few minutes he appeared again at the 
 place where the rare plant was, with my papers open 
 in his left hand, and gave me a wave with them Ta 
 come nearer. I plucked up a heart, and went 
 straight towards him. Oh, how thrice and four- 
 times graciously this great Monarch deigned to speak 
 to me ! 
 
 " King. ' My good Thuringer (heber Thuringer\ 
 you came to Berlin, seeking to earn you bread by indus- 
 trious teaching of children ; and here, at the Pakhof 
 in searching your things, they have taken your Thurin- 
 gen hoard from you. True the Batzen are not legal 
 here ; but the people should have said to you : You 
 
258 The Episode of Dominie L insenbarth. 
 
 are a stranger, and don't know the prohibition ; 
 well, then, we will seal up the Bag of Batzen ; you 
 send it back to Thuringen, get it changed for other 
 sorts ; we will not take it from you ! 
 
 " ' Be of heart, however, you shall have your money 
 again, and interest too. But, my poor man, Berlin 
 pavement is bare, they don't give anything gratis : 
 you are a stranger ; before you are known and 
 get teaching, your bit of money is done ; what 
 then ?' 
 
 " I understood the speech quite well ; but my awe 
 was too great to say : ' Your Majesty will have the 
 all-highest grace to allow me something !' But as I 
 was so simple and asked for nothing, he did not 
 offer anything. And so he turned away ; but had 
 scarcely gone six or eight steps, when he looked 
 round, and gave me a sign I was to walk by him ; and 
 then began catechising : 
 
 " King. ' Where did you (Er) study ? ' 
 
 "Linsenbarth. ' Your Majesty, in Jena.' 
 
 "King. 'What years?' 
 
 "Linsenbarth. 'From 1716 to 1720.' * 
 
 " King. ' Under what Pro-rector were you in- 
 scribed ? ' 
 
 "Linsenbarth. ' Under the Professor Theologies Dr. 
 Fortsch.' 
 
 " Kin%. 'Who were your other Professors in the 
 Theological Faculty ? ' 
 
The Episode of Dominie L insenbarth. 259 
 
 "Linsenbarth names famed men; sunk now, mostly 
 in the bottomless waste basket ; ' Buddaus ' (who did 
 a Dictionary of the Bayle sort, weighing four stone 
 troy, out of which I have learned many a thing), 
 'Buddseus,' ' Danz/ ' Weissenborn,' 'Wolf (now 
 back at Halle after his tribulations poor man, his 
 immortal System of Philosophy, where is it !). 
 
 " King. ' Did you study Biblica diligently ? ' 
 
 "Linsenbarth. 'With Buddaeus (beym Buddao}! 
 
 " King. ' That is he who had such quarrelling with 
 Wolf? ' 
 
 "Linsenbarth. ' Yea, your Majesty ! He was ' 
 
 " King (does not want to know what he was). 
 ' What other useful Course of Lectures (Collegia) did 
 you attend ? ' 
 
 "Linsenbarth. 'Thetics and Exegetics with Fortsch.' 
 (How the deuce did Fortsch teach these things ?) 
 * Hermeneutics and Polemics with Walch ' (Editor 
 of Luther's Works, I suppose) ; * Hebraics with Dr. 
 Danz ; Homiletics with Dr. Weissenborn ; Pastorale 
 (not Pastoral Poetry, but the art of Pastorship) and 
 Morale with Dr. Buddseus.' (There, your Majesty ! 
 what a glimpse, as into infinite extinct Continents, 
 filled with ponderous thorny inanities, invincible 
 nasal drawling of didactic Titans, and the awful 
 attempt to spin, on all manner of wheels, road- 
 harness out of split cobwebs ; Hoom ! Hoom-m-m ! 
 Harness not to be had on those terms. Let the 
 
 172 
 
260 The Episode of Dominic Linsenbarth. 
 
 dreary Limbus close again, till the general Day of 
 Judgment for all this.) 
 
 "King (glad to get out of the Limbus). 'Were 
 things as wild then at Jena, in your time, as of old, 
 when the Students were for ever scuffling and ruffling, 
 and the couplet went : 
 
 * Wer kommt von Jena ungeschlagen, 
 Der hat vom grossen Gluck zu sagen. 
 
 ' He that comes from Jena sine bello, 
 He may think himself a lucky fellow ' ? 
 
 "Linsenbarth. ' That sort of folly is gone quite out 
 of fashion ; and a man can lead a silent and quiet 
 life there, just as at other Universities, if he will 
 attend to the Die, cur, hie ? ' (or know what his real 
 errand is). ' In my time their Serene Highnesses, the 
 Nursing-fathers of the University (Nutritores Aca- 
 demics) of the Ernestine Line ' (Weimar-Gotha 
 Highnesses, that is), 'were in the habit of having 
 the Rufflers (Renmoisten), Renowners as they are 
 called, who made so much disturbance, sent to 
 Eisenach to lie in the Wartburg a while ; there they 
 learned to be quiet.' (Clock strikes twelve dinner- 
 time of Majesty.) 
 
 "King. 'Now I must go: they are waiting for 
 their soup ' (and so ends dialogue for the present). 
 Did the King bid me wait ? 
 
 " ' When we got out of the Garden,' says Linsen- 
 
The Episode of Dominie L insenbarth. 26 1 
 
 barth, silent on this point, ' the four Officers 
 were still there upon the Esplanade' (Captains 
 of Guard belike) ; 'they went into the palace with 
 the King' clearly meaning to dine with his Ma- 
 jesty. 
 
 " ' I remained standing on the Esplanade. For 
 twenty-seven hours I had not tasted food : not a 
 farthing in bonis* (of principal or interest) 'to get 
 bread with ; I had waded twenty miles hither, in a 
 sultry morning, through the sand. Not a difficult 
 thing to keep down laughter in such circumstances ! ' 
 Poor soul ; but the Royal mind is human too. 
 ' In this tremor of my heart, there came a Kammer- 
 hussar' (Soldier-Valet, Valet reduced to his simplest 
 expression) ' out of the Palace, and asked, " Where is 
 the man that was with my King " (meinem Kb'nigthy 
 King particularly ?) " in the Garden ? " I answered 
 " Here ! " And he led me into the Schloss, to a large 
 Room, where pages, lackeys, and Kammer-hussars 
 were about. My Kammer-hussar took me to a little 
 table, excellently furnished ; with soup, beef ; likewise 
 carp dressed with garden-salad, likewise game with 
 cucumber-salad ; bread, knife, fork, spoon, and salt 
 were all there ' (and I with an appetite of twenty- 
 seven hours ; I too was there). ' My hussar set me 
 in a chair, said : " This that is on the table, the King 
 has ordered to be served for you (Ihm) : you are to 
 eat your fill and mind nobody ; and I am to serve. 
 
262 The Episode of Dominie Linseubarth. 
 
 Sharp, then, fall to ! " I was greatly astonished, and 
 knew not what to do : least of all could it come into 
 my head that the King's Kammer-hussar, who waited 
 on his Majesty, should wait on me. I pressed him to 
 sit by me ; but as he refused, I did as bidden ; sat 
 down, took my spoon, and went at it with a will 
 (frisck) ! 
 
 " ' The hussar took the beef from the table, set it on 
 the charcoal dish (to keep it hot till wanted) ; he did 
 the like with the fish and roast game ; and poured 
 me out wine and beer ' (was ever such a lucky Bar- 
 mecide ?). ' I ate and drank till I had abundantly 
 enough. Dessert, confectionery, what I could a 
 plateful of big black cherries, and a plateful of pears, 
 my waiting man wrapped in paper, and stuffed them 
 into my pockets, to be a refreshment on the way 
 home. And so I rose from the Royal table ; and 
 thanked God and the King in my heart, that I had 
 so gloriously dined,' herrlich ' gloriously ' at last." 
 Poor excellent down-trodden Linsenbarth, one's 
 heart opens to him, not one's larder only. 
 
 " ' The hussar took away. At that moment a 
 Secretary came ; brought me a sealed Order 
 (Rescript) to the Pakhof at Berlin, with my Certificates 
 ( Testimonia), and the Pass ; told down on the table 
 five Tailducats (Schwanz-dukateri), and a Gold Fried- 
 rich under them ' (about $ ios., I think ; better than 
 of our day to a common man, and better than 
 
The Episode of Dominie Linsenbarth. 263 
 
 ;ioo to a Linsenbarth), 'saying, The King sent me 
 this to take me home to Berlin again. 
 
 "' And if the hussar took me into the Palace, it was 
 now the Secretary that took me out again. And 
 there, yoked with six horses, stood a Royal Proviant- 
 wagon ; which having led me to, the Secretary said : 
 " You people, the King has given order you are to 
 take this stranger to Berlin, and also to accept no 
 drink-money from him." I again, through the Herrn 
 Secretarium, testified my most submissive thankful- 
 ness for all Royal graciousness ; took my place, and 
 rolled away. 
 
 " 'On reaching Berlin, I went at once to the Pakhof 
 straight to the office-room,' standing more erect this 
 time, ' and handed them my Royal Rescript. The 
 Head man opened the seal ; in reading, he changed 
 colour, went from pale to red ; said nothing, and gave 
 , it to the second man to read. The second put on his 
 spectacles, read, and gave it the third. However, 
 he ' (the Head man) ' rallied himself at last : I was 
 to come forward, and be so good as to write a quit- 
 tance (receipt), "That I had received, for my 400 thalers 
 all in batzen, the same sum in Brandenburg coin, ready 
 down, without the least deduction." My cash was 
 at once accurately paid. And thereupon the Steward 
 was ordered, To go with me to the White Swan in 
 the Jiidenstrasse, and pay what I owed there, what- 
 ever my score was. For which end they gave him 
 
264 The Episode of Dominie Linsenbarth. 
 
 twenty-four thalers ; and if that were not enough, he 
 was to come and get more.' On these high terms 
 Linsenbarth marched out of the Pakhof for the 
 second time ; the sublime head of him (not turned 
 either) sweeping the very stars. 
 
 " 'That was what the King had meant when he said, 
 " You shall have your money back and interest too ;" 
 videlicet, that the Pakhof was to pay my expenses at 
 the White ' Swan. The score, however, was only 10 
 thaler, 4 groschen, 6 pfennigs ' (30 shillings, 5 pence, 
 and 2 or perhaps 3 quarter-farthings), ' for what I 
 had run up in eight weeks ' an uncommonly frugal 
 rate of board, for a man skilled in Hermeneutics, 
 Hebraics, Polemics, Thetics, Exegetics, Pastorale, 
 Morale (and Practical Christianity and the Philosophy 
 of Zeno, carried to perfection, or nearly so) ! ' And 
 herewith this troubled History had its desired finish.' 
 And our gray-whiskered, raw-boned, great-hearted 
 Candidatus lay down to sleep, at the White Swan ; 
 probably the happiest man in all Berlin, for the time 
 being." 
 
 And this story of the poor Linsenbarth is truly a 
 most pleasant story and shapes into a complete little 
 romance ; the poor honest old pedagogue finished his 
 days in that kind of work, but thought it worth while 
 before he died to relate the story of his interview with 
 the great King. This story illustrates in a very 
 
Of 
 
 Frederick the Great on his Travels. 26$ 
 
 pretty manner the disposition there was in Frederick 
 to see all men for himself; he placed himself in the 
 way of men and looked right through them. 
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT TRAVELLING INCOGNITO. 
 Another of these pleasant illustrations occurs in 
 the King's short incognito run to Holland in 1/55- 
 He gave himself out as a musician of the King of 
 Poland, and travelling on the way to Utrecht he fell in 
 with Henry de Catt, whom he afterwards appointed 
 as lecteur du Roi. De Catt was a poor Swiss, aged 
 twenty-seven, born near Geneva, sick in body and 
 sick in purse and out upon a holiday low-spirited 
 enough, rather cross because although in infirm health 
 he could not get into the cabin as it was all engaged. 
 The weather was fine, and after some time there 
 stepped upon the deck out of the cabin, a man in 
 cinnamon coloured coat with gold button holes in 
 black wig, with face and coat considerably dusted with 
 Spanish snuff. " He looked fixedly at me," says de 
 Catt, " for some time, then said without further pre- 
 face, ' Who are you ?' " The manner of the little 
 cinnamon coated man did not please de Catt, so he 
 adopted a more courteous tone and said but as the 
 interview really furnishes a good side-light upon 
 Frederick's character, and illustrates his incessant dis- 
 position to secretiveness and affability, de Catt shall 
 tell the story for himself. 
 
266 Frederick on his Travels. 
 
 " ' Come in here to me, Monsieur ! You will be 
 better here than in the steerage, amid the tobacco- 
 smoke.' This polite address put an end to all anger ; 
 and as the singular manner of the man excited my 
 curiosity, I took advantage of his invitation. We 
 sat down, and began to speak confidentially with one 
 another. 
 
 " 'Do you see the man in the garden yonder, sitting 
 smoking his pipe ? ' said he to me : ' That man, you 
 may depend upon it, is not happy.' ' I know not,' 
 answered I : ' but it seems to me, until one knows a 
 man, and is completely acquainted with his situation 
 and his way of thought, one cannot possibly deter- 
 mine whether he is happy or unhappy.' 
 
 " My gentleman admitted this " (very good- 
 natured !) ; " and led the conversation on the Dutch 
 Government. He criticised it probably to bring 
 me to speak. I did speak ; and gave him frankly to 
 know that he was not perfectly instructed in the 
 thing he was criticising. ' You are right,' answered 
 he ; ' one can only criticise what one is thoroughly 
 acquainted with.' He now began to speak of 
 Religion ; and with eloquent tongue to recount what 
 mischiefs Scholastic Philosophy had brought upon 
 the world ; then tried to prove that Creation was 
 impossible. At this last point I stood out in 
 opposition. ' But how can one create Something out 
 of Nothing ? ' said he. ' That is not the question,' 
 
Frederick on his Travels. 267 
 
 answered I ; ' the question is, Whether such a Being 
 as God can or cannot give existence to what has yet 
 none.' He seemed embarrassed, and added, 'But the 
 Universe is eternal.' ' You are in a circle,' said I ; 
 ' how will you get out of it ? ' 'I skip over it,' said 
 he, laughing, and then began to speak of other things; 
 " ' What form of Government do you reckon the 
 best ? ' inquired he, among other things. ' The 
 monarchic, if the King is just and enlightened/ 
 * Very well,' answered he ; ' but where will you find 
 Kings of that sort ? ' And thereupon went into such 
 a sally upon Kings, as could not in the least lead me 
 to the supposition that he was one. In the end he 
 expressed pity for them, that they could not know 
 the sweets of friendship ; and cited on the occasion 
 these verses (his own, I suppose) : 
 
 " ' Amitie, filaisir des grandes dmes ; 
 
 Amitie, que les Rots, ces illustres ingrats, 
 Sont assez malheureux de ne connaitre as ! ' 
 
 "' I have not the honour to be acquainted with Kings/ 
 said I ; ' but to judge by what one has read in 
 History of several of them, I should believe, Monsieur, 
 that you, on the whole, are right.' 'Aft, out, oui; I am 
 right ; I know the gentlemen ! ' 
 
 " We now got to speak of Literature. The stranger 
 expressed himself with enthusiastic admiration of 
 Racine. A droll incident happened during our 
 dialogue. My gentleman wanted to let down a little 
 
268 Frederick on his Travels. 
 
 sash window and couldn't manage it ' You don't 
 understand that/ said I ; ' let me do that' I tried to 
 get it down, but succeeded no better than he. 
 ' Monsieur,' said he, ' allow me to remark, on my side, 
 that you, upon my honour, understand as little of it 
 as I ! ' ' That is true, and I beg your pardon ; I was 
 too rash in accusing you of want of expertness.' 
 ' Were you ever in Germany ? ' he now asked me. 
 ' No ; but I should like to make that journey : I am 
 very curious to see the Prussian States, and their 
 King, of whom one hears so much.' And now I 
 began to launch out on Friedrich's actions ; but he 
 interrupted me rapidly, with the words : ' Nothing 
 more of Kings, Monsieur ! What have we to do with 
 them ? We will spend the rest of our voyage on 
 more agreeable and cheering objects.' And now he 
 spoke of the best of all possible worlds ; and maintained 
 that in our Planet Earth, there was more Evil than 
 Good. I maintained the contrary, and this dispute 
 brought us to the end of our voyage. 
 
 " On quitting me, he said, ' I hope, Monsieur, you 
 will leave me your name : I am very glad to have 
 made your acquaintance ; perhaps we shall see one 
 another again.' I replied, as was fitting, to the com- 
 pliment ; and begged him to excuse me for con- 
 tradicting him a little. ' Ascribe this,' I concluded, 
 ' to the ill-humour which various little journeys I had 
 to make in these days have given me.' I then told 
 
The Instinct of Humanity. 269 
 
 him my name, and we parted. Parted to meet again ; 
 and live together for about twenty years." 
 
 Such melo-dramatic touches complete the portrait 
 of the man. We might know him as the con- 
 queror at Hohen Friedberg, and as the strong 
 governor of his nation ; but does not this method of 
 placing himself where he could talk with, and know, 
 humble men, give one also a conception of the reality 
 there was in the man himself ? To which we must 
 add that such instances thus recited by our writer 
 illustrate his hearty avidity to know and to put him- 
 self into relation with every form of life ; in a word, 
 his possession of the instinct of Humanity. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CARLYLE'S PRINCIPLES OF HERO-WORSHIP AND 
 LOVE OF HEROES. 
 
 TRULY in Carlyle we understand that man is dear to 
 man, man is dear to him ; we owe him much that so 
 many years ago he gave, as in his " Past and Present," 
 right ideas to the world concerning the chivalry of 
 labour, the knighthood of industry ; it may be hoped 
 we are gradually passing beyond the dominion of 
 certain old ideas, and may wonder how ever the 
 pleasant notion came to take such firm possession of 
 the world, that anything is really noble beside good- 
 ness, usefulness, and truth ; how we ever came to the 
 pleasant idea that it is greater to follow the profes- 
 sion of shooting human beings than feeding them. 
 Carlyle is certainly not indisposed to pay homage 
 to the strength of the sword, but he, if any man, 
 teaches that the Knighthood of Industry is not less 
 noble than the Knighthood of the Banner, the Parch- 
 ment, and the Robe. There is nothing really great 
 in man but Soul, although we are also amazed often 
 when we become aware of the strange human things 
 
TJie Delia Scalas or Ladder Climbers. 271 
 
 which emerge in the scheme of providence, and 
 how the most unlikely things have their place, 
 and have been used up even as those who loosed 
 the ass, when the question was put, "Why loose 
 ye him?" could only reply "The Master hath 
 need of him " a reply we have often been com- 
 pelled to give, when we have seen creatures just 
 as unlikely employed in even a Divine kind of 
 work. But Carlyle loves to loiter by old tombs 
 and incense, and glorify by his imagination and 
 eloquence others whose names shine to him like 
 ever-burning Rosicrucian lamps over their graves, 
 some of them comparatively lowly and unknown. 
 How greatly he believes in the Delia Scalas, the 
 men who planted their own ladder. When you have 
 visited the old city of Verona, you have turned aside 
 to look at the tomb of the Delia Scalas covered with 
 their heraldic achievement, the scala, or ladder ; not 
 a very noble family, but a very typical heraldry of the 
 true Scalaigers, the ladder climbers, who from lowly 
 obscurity have obtained a place of bloodless, beauti r 
 ful, triumphant power ; men who were masters over 
 the elements because they were masters over them- 
 selves ; men with no prestige perhaps of external 
 royalty about them, but who ruled and permeated 
 men's thoughts after their own death. How beauti- 
 fully it is of such men our writer's friend John Ster- 
 ling says 
 
272 Varieties of Heroic Life. 
 
 " Ever their phantoms rise before us, 
 
 Our loftier brothers, but one in blood ; 
 By bed and table they lord it o'er us 
 With thoughts of beauty and words of good. 
 
 " Calmly they show us man victorious 
 
 O'er all that's aimless, blind, and base ; 
 Their presence has made our nature glorious, 
 Unveiling our night's illumined face. 
 
 " Their toil has won them a god-like quiet, 
 
 They have wrought their path to a lovely sphere ; 
 Their eyes to peace rebuke our riot, 
 And shape us a home of refuge there." 
 
 And very various are the men whom Mr. Carlyle 
 has thus glorified as heroes ; and not merely in his 
 Lectures on Hero Worship, but throughout his works. 
 And some of his verdicts have been regarded as very 
 questionable, few more so than his magnificent 
 apotheosis of Mahomet, whom he will not believe to 
 be " a miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain," " no 
 inanity and simulacrum, a fiery mass of life cast up 
 from the great bosom of Nature herself." With 
 many his rehabilitation of Cromwell is almost as 
 questionable a deed ; " the Huntingdon Farmer, the 
 acknowledged strongest man in England." "Napo- 
 leon does by no means seem to me so great a man as 
 Cromwell." " The Great Captain in the war of Belief 
 against Unbelief." " Dante with his three kingdoms, 
 Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradisio, looking out on one 
 another like compartments of a great edifice, a great 
 
Varieties of Heroic Life. 273 
 
 supernatural world-cathedral, piled up there, stern, 
 solemn, awful ! Dante's world of souls. Each answers 
 to the o*hc.i ; each fits in its place like a marble stone 
 accurately hewn and polished ; it is the soul of Dante, 
 and in this the soul of the Middle Ages rendered for 
 ever rhythmically visible there." Burns " You would 
 think it strange if I called Burns the most gifted 
 British soul in all that century of his, and yet I be- 
 lieve the day is coming when there will be little danger 
 in saying so." He has a tender appreciation of Sir 
 Walter Scott, but pitches his admiration by no means 
 very high " When he departed he took a man's life 
 along with him, no sounder piece of British manhood 
 was put together in that eighteenth century of time, 
 albeit winged words were not his vocation, nothing 
 urged him that way ; the great mystery of existence was 
 not great to him, did not drive him into rocky solitudes 
 to wrestle with it for an answer, to be answered with 
 it or perish." Amongst the number even Ebenezer 
 Elliott comes in for his share of homage, " as a man 
 of that singular class who have something to say." 
 He' seeks to do justice to all, and you will find some 
 very questionable characters receiving a fair meed of 
 commendation. " Voltaire, who indeed gave the 
 death-stab to superstition, albeit his best idea of the 
 world was of a miserable, aimless ship of fools sailing 
 through space, and he himself a fool among the rest, 
 and only a very little wiser than they." " Mirabeau, 
 
 18 
 
274 Varieties of Heroic Life. 
 
 member of a race totally exempt from blockheads, 
 but a little liable to produce blackguards." Even 
 Denis Diderot comes in for his word as " the chief 
 one who built, not the Holy Temple of Jerusalem, 
 but the unholy one in Paris ; where he, like Ezra, 
 wrought trowel in one hand and sword in the other, 
 that so the work might go on, and the top-stone of 
 that building be brought forth with shoutings." 
 Brave old Samuel Johnson has his very heartiest 
 word as " one who was in no wise a clothes-horse, or 
 patent digester, but a genuine man." Dr. Francia, 
 with his reign of Terror in South America, " uncer- 
 tain exactly what to do with the people he had 
 to govern, but on the whole, as a preliminary, to lay 
 good horse-whips lustily upon you, so to cast out the 
 seven devils of idleness, brutality, darkness, falseness," 
 &c., &c. And as we have seen, marvellous is his 
 constantly renewed admiration for Goethe: "a com- 
 plete man ; the trembling sensibility, the wild enthu- 
 siasm of a Mignon, asserting itself with the scornful 
 world-mockery of a Mephistopheles, and each side 
 of many-sided life receiving its due from him." Such, 
 and so various are the characters which are made to 
 pass in review before you through these works. But 
 Mr. Carlyle's portrait gallery would indeed be a very 
 large one were we to attempt an enumeration of all 
 the names he either glorifies or glooms. 
 
 But the varied admirations of Carlyle must, by no 
 
Carlyle no Optimist. 275 
 
 means, iinpJy that they are indiscriminating and 
 unprincipled ; this is one of the ridiculous charges 
 which flippant speakers have urged against him, * 
 that his admiration goes with strength irrespective of 
 higher, holier qualities ; it is a very false charge. One 
 of the duties imposed upon us now-a-days, it seems, 
 by a wide-minded catholic Optimism is charity for 
 persecutors. Carlyle is no Optimist. We are sorry 
 to say we have not learnt it yet, have not made out 
 the optimist's view of the universal plan. Christi- 
 anity is our only Optimism. William Smith, in his 
 " Gravenhurst," says, selecting an object upon whom 
 to exercise his toleration and amiable affection, the 
 toughest subject of all History for such a means of 
 grace, Philip II. : 
 
 " I was lately reading the History of Philip II. and 
 the grand revolt of the Netherlands. What indig- 
 nation I felt against the Spanish tyrant ! And, 
 indeed, we Protestants must hate this despot. And 
 yet, I ask myself, is it reasonable to lay upon one 
 man, as his crime, the fanaticism of a whole people 
 and the tradition of ages ? A great idea prevailed, 
 it predominated entirely in Spain, it had prevailed 
 generally through European society. It was the idea 
 of an Universal Church, out of which salvation for 
 the souls of men was impossible. Kings, as well as 
 priests, and mobs as well as kings, were possessed 
 
 1 8 2 
 
276 The Zealot King and the Dutch. 
 
 with this idea. Scholars, soldiers, magistrates, all 
 held themselves charged to maintain it, to write, to 
 fight, and adjudicate for its support. The error of all 
 is the reproach of none. This Philip II. is pre- 
 eminently th^ great and pious King of pious Catho- 
 lics. Possessed of highest power, on him devolves 
 the severest task. The sword is in his hand, and he 
 must strike. This morose and superstitious King is 
 before all others the slave to one great idea. 
 
 " But in one part of his dominions this great idea 
 is disputed and dethroned. I see the enlightened 
 and wealthy cities of Holland suffering every 
 calamity that war and famine can inflict, rather than 
 deny the new truth that has sprung up in them. 
 They will not surrender their convictions. Rather 
 let the sea take back their land, rather let the fires of 
 martyrdom consume their bodies. Return stroke for 
 stroke, you brave Dutch men ! Bear all, inflict all, 
 rather than surrender ! Would that you could bind 
 this monarch and fling him over your Dykes, and be 
 free to worship how you will ! 
 
 " But now, when the fight is over and the com- 
 batants numbered with the dead, on whom are we to 
 pass judgment ? Not on the zealot King, not on the 
 zealot citizens. They are gone from before our 
 judgment seat, with all their antagonistic energies 
 and repugnant duties. They have left only for our 
 contemplation a contest between two great ideas. 
 
Execration for the Zealot. 277 
 
 All that remains for us is to congratulate ourselves 
 on the new views that have become prevalent as to 
 the duty of the State in the matter of religion." 
 
 But we are narrow-minded, and bigoted, and in- 
 tolerant ; we have not learnt to clasp in the arms of 
 our affections these pleasant men Marats, Dantons, 
 Robespierres, Philips II., Dukes D'Alva, Bonners, 
 Jefferys, and such entertaining and delightful crea- 
 tures. On the contrary, there is that in us which 
 does utterly execrate them. They are, and ever will 
 be to us, until the whole texture of our moral being 
 and relations are altered, utterly and wholly hateful 
 and abominable. Truly, what little measure of tole- 
 ration we have to spare shall not be wasted on these 
 or the like of these. If we treat ourselves to a bottle 
 of lavender or eau de Cologne, it shall not be to 
 waste it on hyenas and jackals. A very small bene- 
 volence we think that would be, and scarcely likely 
 to be appreciated by the beasts themselves. This is, 
 no doubt, meeting the theory of Mr. Smith at the 
 root of it. It rights against our first instincts. Good 
 and evil are not mere ideas. Philip II. and the 
 brave Hollanders were fighting for more than 
 ideas, pictures, painted eidola. Philip embodied 
 that damnable self -hood and selfishness, that 
 idiotic and maniac, air-beating impotency, cruel, 
 remorseless, conscienceless, curse of nature, which 
 
278 Principles of Hero Worship. 
 
 has ever been the point of resistance against the 
 Divine Providence. And Holland, on the contrary, 
 represented all that constitutes conduct, and cha- 
 racter, and effort in man. And are we to treat both 
 as now on the same platform and level ? That be 
 far from us, as far as the present dwellings of the 
 combatants. Damnation, if not to Philip, to his 
 cause ; and glory, and honour, and immortality to his 
 noble foes. There is, no doubt, that in us which 
 looks forward to the time when we may contemplate 
 the collisions and antagonisms of evil and good with 
 purified eyes ; but we are far enough from that com- 
 placent glance at present, and we do not think it 
 would be for the good of society that we should thus 
 mix and mingle the dust of scoundrels and martyrs, 
 paying the same amount of homage to the illustrious 
 heroes of the "Newgate Calendar" as to the heroes 
 who fell in the battles of reformation, and whose dust 
 is mingled with common clay, or is tossed to every 
 wind of Heaven, but whose souls all live to God, we 
 now only regarding scoundrel and martyr as " repre- 
 senting two great ideas ! " 
 
 The principles of his Hero Worship are not 
 founded on admiration of mere strength ; even his 
 admiration of the father of Frederick the Great, per- 
 haps the most questionable of his admirations, is 
 founded on the possession of something more than 
 
The Wartburg. 279 
 
 mere strength; a certain amount of solid good sense 
 and sagacity which served his people well ; a wor- 
 shipping reverence, a clear sagacious eye, what he 
 calls a kenning power ; this, united to the strong 
 arm, the canning, the power swiftly and adroitly to 
 perform that which the eye gives to the hand to do ; 
 the sense of responsibility to infinite law, and to the 
 orderly marshalling of the things of life beneath 
 Divine law ; surely these are the principles upon 
 which Carlyle founds his Hero Worship. Many cha- 
 racters become his text for preaching these doctrines, 
 remarkably so in Cromwell, especially so in his, even 
 passionate, love of Luther. He does not aim to prove 
 his heroes perfect ; the house that is building, he 
 says, is not like the house that is built. He honours 
 the men who did their best as " God's able-bodied 
 labourers," working according to their lights, humbly, 
 but heartily, and therefore highly. Notice his admir- 
 ation for Luther ; how finely this comes out in his 
 affectionate little picture of 
 
 \ THE WARTBURG, THE REFUGE OF LUTHER. 
 
 " Wartburg; one of the most distinguished Strong 
 Houses any Duke could live in, if he were "of frugal 
 and heroic turn ; Wartburg, built by fabulous Ludwig 
 the Springer, which grandly overhangs the town of 
 Eisenach, grandly the general Thuringian forest; it is 
 now, Magician Klingsohr having sang there, St. 
 
280 The Refuge of LutJier. 
 
 Elizabeth having lived there and done conscious 
 miracles, Martin Luther having lived there and done 
 unconscious ditto, the most interesting Residenz, or 
 old grim shell of a mountain castle turned into a 
 tavern, now to be found in Germany, or perhaps 
 readily in the world. One feels, standing in Luther's 
 room, with Luther's poor old oaken table, oaken ink- 
 holder still there, and his mark on the wall which the 
 devil has not yet forgotten, as if here once more, with 
 mere Heaven and the silent Thuringian Hills look- 
 ing on, a grand and grandest battle of ' one man 
 versus the Devil and all men ' was fought, and the 
 latest Prophecy of the Eternal was made to these sad 
 ages that yet run ; as if here, in fact, of all places that 
 the sun now looks upon, were the holiest for a modern 
 man. To me, at least, in my poor thoughts, there 
 seemed something of authentically Divine in this 
 locality, as if immortal remembrances and sacred in- 
 fluences and monitions were hovering over it, speak- 
 ing sad, and grand, and valiant things to the hearts 
 of men. A distinguished person whom I had the 
 honour of attending on that occasion actually stooped 
 down, when he thought my eye was off him, kissed the 
 old oaken table, though one of the grimmest men 
 now living, and looked like lightning and rain all the 
 morning after, with a visible moisture in those sun- 
 eyes of his, and not a word to be drawn from 
 him." 
 
The Birth of L uther. 28 1 
 
 And again in the following passage on 
 
 THE BIRTH OF LUTHER. 
 
 " Luther's birthplace was Eisleben, in Saxony. He 
 came into the world there on the loth of November, 
 1483. It was an accident that gave this honour to 
 Eisleben. His parents, poor mine-labourers in a vil- 
 lage of that region, named Mohra, had gone to the 
 Eisleben Winter-Fair. In the tumult of this scene 
 Frau Luther was taken with travail, found refuge in 
 some poor house there, and the boy she bore was 
 named Martin Luther. Strange enough to reflect upon 
 it. This poor Frau Luther, she had gone with her 
 husband to make her small merchandisings, perhaps 
 to sell the lock of yarn she had been spinning, to buy 
 the small winter necessaries for her narrow hut or 
 household ; in the whole world, that day, there was 
 not a more entirely unimportant-looking pair of 
 people than this miner and his wife ; and yet what 
 were all Emperors, Popes, and Potentates in compari- 
 son ? There was born here once more, a Mighty Man ; 
 whose light was to flame as the beacon over long cen- 
 turies and epochs of the world ; the whole world and 
 its history was waiting for this man. It is strange, it 
 is great. It leads us back to another Birth-hour, in a 
 still meaner environment, Eighteen Hundred years 
 ago, of which it is fit that we say nothing, that we 
 think only in silence ; for what words are there ? 
 
282 David. 
 
 The Age of Miracles past ? The Age of Miracles is 
 for ever here ! " 
 
 He is by no means insensible to the fact that the 
 most heroic natures have their infirmities ; but if the 
 soul is right in the main, if it wrestles against the evil, 
 and repents, and prays ; if it be able to believe and 
 love, this soul has claims on his affections, he gives it 
 his homage, receives it to his arms. Is not the fol- 
 lowing very true and pitying, tender and noble, and 
 a light to many of the judgments he forms upon 
 other characters we are not wont to regard very 
 highly ? 
 
 DAVID, HIS SINS AND HIS PSALMS. 
 
 " On the whole we make too much of faults ; the 
 details of the business hide the real centre of it. 
 Faults ? The greatest of all faults, I should say^ 
 is to be conscious of none. Readers of the Bible 
 above all, one would think, might know better. Who 
 is called there 'the man according to God's own 
 heart ' ? David, the Hebrew King, had fallen into 
 sins enough ; blackest crimes ; there was no want of 
 sins. And thereupon the unbelievers sneer and ask, 
 Is this your man according to God's heart? The 
 sneer, I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. 
 What are faults, what are the outward details of a 
 life ; if the inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, 
 
His Sins and His Psalms. 283 
 
 true, often-baffled, never-ended struggle of it, be 
 forgotten ? ' It is not in man that walketh to direct 
 his steps.' Of all acts, is not, for man, repentance the 
 most Divine ? The deadliest sin, I say, were that 
 same supercilious consciousness of no sin ; that is 
 death ; the heart so conscious is divorced from sin- 
 cerity, humility, and fact; is dead: it is 'pure' as 
 dead dry sand is pure. David's life and history, as 
 written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be 
 the truest emblem ever given of a man's moral 
 progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls 
 will ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an 
 earnest human soul towards what is good and best. 
 Struggle, often baffled, sore baffled, down as into 
 entire wreck ; yet a struggle never ended ; ever, 
 with tears, repentance, true unconquerable purpose, 
 begun anew. Poor human nature ! Is not a man's 
 walking, in truth, always that: * a succession of falls'? 
 Man can do no other. In this wild element of a 
 Life, he has to struggle onwards ; now fallen, deep- 
 abased ; and ever, with tears, repentance, with 
 bleeding heart, he has to rise again, struggle again 
 still onwards. That his struggle be a faithful uncon- 
 querable one : that is the question of questions. We 
 will put up with many sad details, if the soul of it 
 were true." 
 
 Thus he will apologise for the infirmities, and even 
 
284 The Refreshing Power 
 
 sins, of the men he loves, the heroes he adores, even 
 for their inconsistency, saying, as he says of Werner, 
 when he steps into the Roman Catholic Church, 
 " Perhaps callous soul-consistency is no such brilliant 
 virtue ; we pardon genial weather for its changes, 
 but the steadiest of all climates is that of Green- 
 land." 
 
 The story of the life of Frederick is brilliantly 
 told ; and it is well that it should be told, for he was 
 the central man of his age. But hitherto he does 
 not look like one of the author's old heroes ; of the 
 mighty whom the ages watch over, and whom even 
 time will not allow to die ; one of the men who keep 
 the times fresh and pure as they stream along ; men 
 who could live unselfishly ; men who were a tongue* 
 a word of life and flame ; apostles who suffered the 
 loss of all things ; the true kings of the world ; the 
 true world sailors and soldiers ; the men who formed 
 the true hierarchy, the sacred band, the elect race. 
 And how exhilarating it is to talk of such heroes. 
 What talk can be like it so inspiring? The way 
 they looked at things ; their fine, clear, intelligent 
 comprehension of all things ; their way of doing 
 things, as well as looking at things so simple, and 
 yet so strong ; so fearless and dauntless, and yet so 
 tender ; so resistless and perennial through all future 
 time, albeit so despised and scouted in their own. 
 It will always do us good to talk of such heroes. 
 
Of Great Names. 285 
 
 These are names which stir us like the sound of a 
 trumpet ; names which, even to mention, is as if we 
 inhaled the fragrance of a flower, or walked in 
 strength and health over a wide, wild heath or 
 mountain. These are names which freshen life, and 
 add fragrance to it ; names which come over us with 
 a sweeping sound like a full peal of bells, or deep 
 and solemn as organ tones in minsters ; names that 
 cool us like a walk by a river bank near the cities 
 of old Spain, shaded by orange-trees ; names that 
 stir within us all venerable thoughts, as when we tread 
 our way through crypt and cloister, through forests 
 of pillars, and deep vaults, when we whisper to each 
 other as we tread. Let us move softly, for ghosts are 
 here ; and names that are like those of the Fairy 
 Queen, or the Broad Stone of Honour to us. It is 
 good to talk of such heroes. They are the salt of 
 the earth ; they are the pillars of fire to wandering 
 men in the wilderness. What shall we say, but that 
 God gives not His Spirit by measure unto these ? 
 they are the prophets in the wilderness, who prepare 
 the way of the Lord, and make straight in the 
 desert a way for God. Sometimes as kings, like 
 Louis, St. Louis ; sometimes Apostolic men, like St. 
 Augustine or St. Bernard ; sometimes martyrs and 
 teachers, like Pallissy, the potter ; sometimes Poets like 
 Dante. It is good to talk of heroes. And had not 
 God intended we should regard them from all points 
 
286 Hero Worship. 
 
 in their weakness and their strength, He would not 
 have given to us the life of Moses, and the Judges, 
 and Samuel, and Kings. 
 
 That statesman was an acute observer of human 
 character who, when he was compelled to receive a 
 charge of conspiracy against a nobleman living in 
 tranquillity and retirement, in whose innocence he 
 believed, took him into his gallery of paintings to 
 watch and listen to his passing criticisms ; and when 
 he heard the bold and striking scenery of Salvator 
 awaking up a gentle agitation of imagination in the 
 heart, said " Go back, then, with perfect ease to 
 your retirement. Had you entered into these treason- 
 able conspiracies, your heart and mind in storm 
 would have sighed for peace. As it is, it is the gentle 
 tranquillity within that looks out upon the slight 
 excitement to its own still nature." We shall never 
 judge far wrong if we suppose a man's heroes to be 
 opposite to his own being, although in conformity 
 with his own sympathies. Homer could not be 
 Achilles, but he paints him. The still, solitary 
 Carlyle his heroes move before us like tempests. 
 And we are reminded of Jacobi's definition : " To em- 
 brace an object so as to see nothing beyond it, there 
 is no other way to be an hero." Hence we are all 
 heroes when we are in love, and the grandeur of what 
 we love measures the grandeur of our heroism. 
 Hence it is impossible to be a hero in anything 
 
A t tributes of the Heroic. 287 
 
 unless one is first a hero in faith ; and Carlyle is 
 quite right in testing all his heroes thus : What did 
 they believe in, and to what extent did they believe ? 
 If a man has not faith, nothing can be made of him, 
 as it is everlastingly true that this is the victory that 
 overcometh all things: self devil world difficulty: 
 even your faith translated thus. Heroism is not only 
 faith, it is love. Can faith exist without love ? We 
 may believe not. Intellectual persuasion may, but that 
 cold spectre is not even the shadow of faith. Heroism 
 is not only faith and love, but strength, for love is 
 strength ; and who does not know what boundless 
 resources are opened within us by the revelations and 
 intuitions of love ? Heroism thus includes all that 
 crowns and completes humanity ; only the condition 
 ever remains, Show me the object of your faith is 
 it an abstraction ? Is it self ? Is it Christ ? Is it 
 God ? and by its relation to infinite powers' and 
 beings I shall also know the extent to which it will 
 awaken the infinite resources of faith, love, foresight, 
 and tenderness in you. 
 
 But we are frequently unjust to the ////successful. 
 Yet, honour to the ////successful ! From them what 
 power has gone forth to the world ! Nay, the most 
 successful man is frequently only a man standing 
 upon and using the experience of the unsuccessful. 
 We should like to find in Mr. Carlyle's gallery of 
 heroes more homage to the host of martyrs ; but it is 
 
288 Unsuccessful Great Men. 
 
 the step of sturdy strength ; it is the robust and 
 rugged man who is prepared to lay his hand on the 
 throat of an age, and rend and tear the hollowness 
 and falseness from it. Ah, unsuccessful heroes ! 
 When will your laureate arise ; when will your 
 historian appear? Trampled bones, ashes dishonoured, 
 scattered into the wilderness, lying in the cave's 
 mouth ; venerable spirits floating over the seas of 
 oblivion; undefined aurora shapes: noj: yet for most of 
 them has the hour of coronation arrived. Yet, 
 unsuccessful great men, we will not pass your 
 scaffolds without a tear no, not of pity, but of 
 veneration, and awe, and love. Perhaps even within 
 us they stir these feelings more than those forms that 
 bend in solemn state from the chosen sculptured 
 niches of history. Arnold of Brescia, Giordano Bruno, 
 Campanella, Savonarola, Sir Harry Vane, these we 
 fear Mr. Carlyle would call very thin and unsubstan- 
 tial men ; but they are not less heroes to us because 
 they failed. They dared to stand and place their 
 breast as a target for the spears of their age ; they 
 were not to be intimidated, although they knew the 
 flames in the great broadway awaited them at the 
 end of their journey ; in that, perhaps, not unlike 
 their more illustrious brethren, for what does it 
 matter how we die so that we die well ? And there 
 is never, as has been proverbially said, a great 
 interval of time between the glory of a great man 
 
Opportunity the Platform of Success. 289 
 
 and his tomb. But it is not his mission or his 
 purpose to be the biographer in general to noble 
 souls ; but rather to point to the vast men as the 
 creators of great Heaven-sent epochs. He records the 
 memory and the deeds of men who have seized Op- 
 portunities and made the most of them ; as, indeed, 
 he says of Frederick : 
 
 OPPORTUNITY ESSENTIAL TO THE HERO. 
 
 " On a sudden, from the opposite side of the 
 horizon, see, miraculous Opportunity, rushing hither- 
 ward swift, terrible, clothed with lightning like a 
 courser of the gods ! dare you clutch him by the 
 thunder-mane, and fling yourself upon him, and 
 make for the Empyrean by that course rather ? Be 
 immediate about it, then ; the time is now or else 
 never! No fair judge can blame the young man 
 that he laid hold of the flaming Opportunity in 
 this manner, and obeyed the new omen. To seize 
 such an Opportunity, and perilously mount upon it, 
 was the part of a young magnanimous King, less 
 sensible to the perils, and more to the other con- 
 siderations, than one older would have been." 
 
 And, indeed, it is the difficult part of an able, 
 philosophical Historian rightly to distinguish between 
 what the opportunity did for the man and what the 
 man was in himself without the opportunity. When, 
 
290 The Great Man the Child of Providence. 
 
 on the birth of the young King of Rome, one said to \ 
 Napoleon: "Sire, you must watch attentively over! 
 the education of your son : he must be brought up 
 with care the utmost care, in order that he may be 
 able to replace you." " Replace me ! " he exclaimed, j 
 " Replace me ! I cannot replace myself : I am the 
 child of circumstances." This exactly expresses 
 Carlyle's faith about great men, only instead of the 
 word circumstances, use the word Providence. Every 
 event has its own Divine providence. History is not 
 a mere happening : on the contrary, all things march 
 beneath a Commander. The Calvinistic side of 
 Carlyle's creed is clear enough ; the very reverse of 
 "low in sentiment," as a certain religious jargon has 
 it. While Carlyle notes all circumstances, he does 
 not believe in them as the grand directors and rulers 
 of affairs. No ; the greatest men have been fatalists ; 
 they have felt themselves to be Divinely possessed 
 instruments of destiny, with a fatal irresistibleness 
 about them. There have been men whom God has used 
 as He uses the blind, crushing, overwhelming forces of 
 a thunder-bolt, to hurry along the fiery heavens and 
 smite down some wrong too dreadful to be tolerated 
 longer ; and there are some men who come as the 
 fiery avengers of evil, perhaps, but the no less con- 
 secrated heralds of good. But the proper character- 
 istic and sign of the great man artist, philosopher, 
 legislator, pontiff even, or warrior is that he 
 
The Man in the Belfry of the Ages. 291 
 
 succeeds ; although we have to say of much success 
 and fame, too, that " it grows after death like human 
 hair ;" and in that case it seems to him of as little use 
 the laurel on a dead man's bust as the beard on a dead 
 man's chin ; still we know that marble lips can speak. 
 What, we have said already, is history? What, 
 indeed, is history without men ? and especially, what 
 is history without the MAN ? History ? History, as 
 we have seen and said, is the record of the marriage 
 of the man and the moment, the man and his oppor- 
 tunity. The Atlantic lies a long time without 
 Columbus, but when Columbus comes, that which 
 was a watery barrier becomes a great highway ; for 
 the man is the masculine of history, and the moment 
 is the feminine of history. So these two, who have 
 been long waiting for each other, do meet and plight 
 their troth in the antique church of the ages ; and 
 that which we call history is only the child of the 
 marriage, the child born of these two. You name 
 him the father, the hero ; he it is who goes into the 
 belfry of time, and the bell sounds to all the sleepers 
 around, Awake ; he it is who rings the bells, and 
 then their peals go tolling, not alone across the 
 nations, but come up booming over and down the 
 centuries too. The great Luther goes into the belfry 
 of the Ages, and the bats and ravens, and the un- 
 sightly creatures, fly out from the ivied old towers as the 
 bell tolls. What great bell-ringers the great Martyrs of 
 
 19 2 
 
292 Good Men the only Hope of Nations. 
 
 Science! See in some instances how a great soul has a j 
 tug with the devil which shall pull the rope; for, j 
 although the same bell, so much depends on the hand 1 
 that wakes the first peal. And note how, as the bell- 
 ringers drift away, and drop down into the night, ever 
 and again history records how the new year is rung in 
 by sacred, Heaven-commissioned hands, and the chimes 
 which usher in the new aeon toll out the old. Thus 
 connected always with Carlyle's estimate of great 
 men must stand his estimate of historic life ; that is, 
 the life of nations. Well has he said, " For, properly, 
 as many men as there are in a nation who can withal 
 see Heaven's invisible justice, and know it to be on 
 Earth also omnipotent, so many men are there who 
 stand between a nation and perdition. So many, and 
 no more." This is a dreadful thought, and not to be 
 regarded as a very irreligious one ; or even, when we 
 think of the national stories of the Bible, as very 
 unscriptural ; nay, perhaps absolutely true ! and if 
 true, most frightful. No writer, no teacher of our day 
 more absolutely believes that there is a righteous God ; 
 and that He doeth righteously, than Carlyle. Preachers 
 say it, we read it in the Bible, but he with ter- 
 rible energy declares it ; and while we read we 
 tremble. 
 
 And much of all this is seen and described in his 
 story of the first years of Frederick's life. Here is a 
 touch in the well-known Carlyle manner: 
 
An Age of Unbelief. 293 
 
 AN AGE WITHOUT STRONG MEN. 
 
 " Somewhat of a rotten Epoch, this into which 
 Frederick has been born, to shape himself and his 
 activities royal and other ! " exclaims Smelfungus 
 once : " In an older earnest Time, when the eternally 
 awful meanings of this Universe had not yet sunk into 
 dubieties to any one, much less into levities or into 
 mendacities, into huge hypocrisies carefully regulated 
 so luminous, vivid, and ingenuous, a young creature 
 had not wanted Divine manna in his Pilgrimage 
 through Life. Nor, in that case, had he come out of 
 it in so lean a condition. But the highest man of us 
 is born brother to his Contemporaries ; struggle as he 
 may, there is no escaping the family likeness. By 
 spasmodic indignant contradiction of them, by rapid 
 compliance with them, you will inversely resemble 
 if you do not directly ; like the starling you can't get 
 out ! Most surely if there do fall manna from 
 Heaven, in the given generation, and nourish in us 
 reverence and genial nobleness day by day, it is 
 blessed and well. Failing that, in regard to our poor 
 spiritual interests, there is sure to be one of two 
 results : mockery, contempt, disbelief, what we may 
 call short-diet to the length of very famine (which 
 was Frederick's case) ; or else slow poison, carefully 
 elaborated and provided by way of daily nourishment 
 Unhappy souls, these same ! The slow poison has 
 
294 -An Age of Unbelief. 
 
 gone deep into them. Instead of manna, this long] 
 while back, they have been living on mouldy corrupt j 
 meats sweetened by sugar-of-lead ; or, perhaps, like 
 Voltaire, a few individuals prefer hunger as the 
 cleaner alternative, and in contemptuous, barren, 
 mocking humour, not yet got the length of geniality 
 or indignation, snuff the east wind by way of spiritual 
 diet. Pilgriming along on such nourishment, the best 
 human soul fails to become very ruddy! Tidings 
 about Heaven are fallen so uncertain ; but the Earth 
 and her joys are still interesting. Take to the Earth 
 and her joys ; let your soul go out, since it must ; let 
 your five senses and their appetites be well alive. 
 That is a dreadful Sham-Christian-Dispensation to be 
 born under ! You wonder at the want of heroism in 
 the Eighteenth century. Wonder rather at the degree 
 of heroism it had ; wonder how many souls there still 
 are to be met with in it of some effective capability, 
 though dieting in that way nothing else to be had in 
 the shops about. Carterets, Belleisles, Friedrichs, 
 Voltaires, Chathams, Franklins, Choiseuls ; there is 
 an effective stroke of work, a fine fire of heroic pride, 
 in this man and the other, not yet extinguished by 
 spiritual famine or slow poison ; so robust is Nature, 
 the mighty Mother ! 
 
 "But in general, that sad Gospel, souls extinct, 
 stomachs well alive ! is the credible one, not articu- 
 lately preached, but practically believed by the abject 
 
To be Weak is Sinful. 295 
 
 generations, and acted on as it never was before. 
 What immense sensualities there were, is known ; 
 and also (as some small offset, though that was not 
 yet begun in 1740) what immense quantities of 
 Physical Labour and contrivance were got out of man- 
 kind in that Epoch and down to this day. As if, 
 having lost its Heaven, it had struck desperately 
 down into the Earth ; as if it were a beaver-kmd, and 
 not a mankind any more. We had once a Barbarossa, 
 and a world all grandly true. But from that to 
 Karl VI., and his Holy Romish Reich in such a 
 state of ' Holiness !' I here cut short my abstruse 
 Friend." 
 
 No doubt, as we have already said, one of the fore- 
 most characteristics venerated by Carlyle is strength. 
 But strength represents to him foresight, wisdom, and 
 universal capability. He would right heartily unite 
 in saying 
 
 " To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering." 
 
 And not merely so ; we fancy that he would not the 
 less say 
 
 " To be weak is sinful." 
 
 And rightly translated, is he not right ? To be strong 
 is not only the highest human, but in the degree 
 in which man possesses it, he assimilates his hu- 
 man to the Divine. Moral weakness is vice. And is 
 
296 Vice is Weakness. 
 
 he not right ? Such weakness is failure, because it is 
 feebleness. Such weakness is disease and death. Such 
 weakness is thus something more than absence of hero- 
 ism; it is degradation of all that is spiritual in man to 
 the service of the sensual. And hence, as fundamental 
 to this idea, we will beg our readers to notice how his 
 wrath pours itself over vice ; as the most genuine 
 sign, as we all know it is, of human weakness, that a 
 man cannot command his own passions, cannot rein 
 them, cannot act the despot over them. Our readers 
 will remember the words, with reference to the disso- 
 lute early years of Frederick the Great : 
 
 " Poor young man, with companions who lead him 
 on in ways not conformable to the laws of the Uni- 
 verse ; the bright young soul, with its fine strength 
 and gifts, wallowing like a young rhinoceros in the 
 mud bath. Some say it is wholesome for a human 
 soul ; not we." 
 
 And it appears doubtful whether this bright young 
 human soul, comparable for the present to a rhinoceros 
 wallowing in the mud bath, with nothing but "its 
 snout visible, and a dirty gurgle all the sound it 
 makes, will ever get out again or not. The rhinoceros- 
 soul got out, but not uninjured. Alas, no ; bitterly 
 injured ; tragically dimmed of its finest radiances for 
 the remainder of life." He goes on to say 
 
Holiness is Strength. 297 
 
 " To burn away in mad waste the divine aromas 
 and plainly celestial elements from our existence ; to 
 change our holy of holies into a place of riot ; to 
 make the soul itself hard, impious, barren ! Surely a 
 day is coming when it will be known again what 
 virtue is in purity and continence of life. How di- 
 vine is the blush of young human cheeks ; how high, 
 beneficent, sternly inexorable if forgotten, is the duty 
 laid not on woman only, but on every creature, in 
 regard to these particulars ! Well, if such a day never 
 come again, then I perceive much else will never 
 come. Magnanimity and depth of insight will never 
 come ; heroic purity of heart and of eye ; noble pious 
 valour, to amend us and the age of bronze and lacquer, 
 how can they ever come ? The scandalous bronze- 
 lacquer age of mighty animalisms, spiritual impoten- 
 cies and mendacities, will have to run its course till 
 the pit swallow it." 
 
 This kind of strength, victory over sensualism and 
 animalism, is ever kept before the reader by Carlyle 
 as of the highest type of heroism ; and you will re- 
 member how his hatred for the shameless indulgences 
 of some men Voltaire's, and Mirabeau's,and Diderot's 
 storms forth in indignation, or pity, or contempt. 
 Everywhere he demands, as the grand and indispen- 
 sable condition to conquest of other men, the obtain- 
 ing a manful and heroic conquest over self. 
 
298 The Morning Toilet 
 
 And with all his admiration for Frederick, there 
 is in his story some modification of the ancient 
 sin and foundation for the charge preferred against 
 him, which Archdeacon Hare has called his titan- 
 olatry his homage to mere strength his belief 
 in the divinity of the strong. Hence with what con- 
 tempt, with what supreme and withering contempt, 
 can he hold up some piece of unworthy littleness in 
 great place. Among such we select the following 
 morning toilet of Louis XV. 
 
 THE MORNING TOILET OF LOUIS XV. ; CHIEF 
 MAGISTRATE OF STRUMPET-OCRACY. 
 
 " ' Till Majesty please to awaken, you saunter in 
 the Salle des Ambassadeurs ; whole crowds jostling 
 one another there ; gossiping together in a diligent, 
 insipid manner ;' gossip all reported, snatches of which 
 have acquired a certain flavour by long keeping 
 which the reader shall imagine. ' Meanwhile you keep 
 your eye on the grate of the Inner Court, which as yet 
 is only ajar, Majesty inaccessible as yet. Behold, at 
 last, grate opens itself wide ; sign that Majesty is out 
 of bed ; that privileged of mankind may approach, 
 and see the miracles.' Geusau continues, abridged by 
 Biisching and us : 
 
 " The whole assemblage passed now into the King's 
 Ante-room ; had to wait there about half an hour more, 
 before the King's bed-room was opened. But then 
 
Of a Royal Simulacrum. 299 
 
 at last, to you, there is the King, visible to Geusau 
 and everybody, 'washing his hands,' which effected 
 itself in this way, ' The King was seated ; a gentle- 
 man-in-waiting knelt before him, and held the Ewer, 
 a square vessel, silver-gilt, firm upon the King's breast ; 
 and another gentleman-in-waiting poured water on 
 the King's hands.' Merely an official washing, we 
 perceive ; the real, it is to be hoped, had, in a much 
 more effectual way, been going on during the half- 
 hour just elapsed. After washing, the King rose for 
 an instant ; had his dressing-gown, a grand, yellow 
 silky article with silver flowerings, pulled off, and flung 
 round his loins ; upon which he sat down again, and, 
 observe it, ye privileged of mankind, the change 
 of shirt took place ! ' They put the clean shirt down 
 over his head,' says Anton, 'and plucked up the 
 dirty one from within, so that of the naked skin you 
 saw little or nothing.' Here is a miracle worth getting 
 out of bed to look at ! 
 
 " * His Majesty now quitted his chair and dressing- 
 gown, stood up before the fire, and, after getting on 
 the rest of his clothing, which, on account of Czarina 
 Anne's death' (readers remember that), 'was of a violet 
 or mourning colour, he had the powder-mantle 
 thrown round him, and sat down at the Toilette 
 to have his hair frizzed. The Toilette, a table with 
 white colour shoved into the middle of the room, 
 had on it a mirror, a powder-knife, and ' no mortal 
 
3OO Man the Reservoir of Divine Forces. 
 
 cares what. * The King,' what all mortals note as 
 they do the heavenly omens, ' is somewhat talky ; 
 speaks sometimes with the Dutch Ambassador, 
 sometimes with the Pope's Nuncio, who seems a 
 jocose kind of gentleman, sometimes with different 
 French Lords, and at last with the Cardinal 
 Fleury also, to \vhom, however, he does not look 
 particularly gracious,' not particularly, this time. 
 These are the omens ; happy who can read them ! 
 ' Majesty then did his morning-prayer, assisted only 
 by the common Almoners-in-waiting (Cardinal took 
 no hand, much less any other) ; Majesty knelt before 
 his bed, and finished the business in less than six 
 seconds.' After which mankind can ebb out to the 
 ante-room again, pay their devoir to the Queen's 
 Majesty, which all do ; or wait for the Transit to 
 Morning Chapel, and see Mesdames of France 
 and the others flitting past in their sedans." 
 
 The measure of all that can be gathered from 
 Carlyle is this : That man is, indeed, the reservoir 
 of Divine forces, which may become, and truly 
 do become, infernal forces. But, unquestionably, 
 what is profoundly interesting to Carlyle is, 
 that while all the forces of nature are tamed 
 and tuned, there frequently starts up into being 
 some man with force in him by which he cun- 
 ningly arrests the ways and works of nature, 
 
Genius Sanctified by Conscience. 30 1 
 
 and while with subtle, Pan-like fingers he tames 
 and tunes nature even to his ear, he with huge 
 colossal step strides over the wild realm of king- 
 doms, and by some strong sympathy attracts and 
 chains the affections of men. The worshipper of 
 strength in this view Carlyle has usually been re- 
 garded ; and it is an authentication of the estimate 
 in which Archdeacon Hare regarded him, that he 
 has devoted twelve pages to the analysis of the 
 influence of Carlyle's teaching in that very pleasant 
 book, " The Mission of the Comforter." The love of 
 strength is the attribute of Carlyle, but surely, if his 
 writings are taken as a whole, that love of strength 
 does not stand, as has been said, divorced from 
 the informing spirit which used that strength. 
 Truly, he seems to start admiringly at the mighty 
 beings that rise before him ; and is it possible that 
 an intense humanity can survey the powerful and 
 tremendous passions of men, without a fascination 
 amounting to admiration, burnt in by horror or by 
 awe ? But surely it is for genius, sanctified by con- 
 science, and crowned by highest wisdom, that he 
 expresses ever the highest admiration. We have 
 said, and may repeat again, that we do not think, 
 in Mr. Carlyle's table of heroes, the peacemakers 
 occupy a sufficiently prominent place ; the humble, 
 the holy, the lowly; these do not rise sufficiently to 
 the eye. All these as elements do lie in his writings; 
 
3O2 Blessed are the Strong ! 
 
 but strength, strength, strength. Blessed are the] 
 Strong ! A vehement character, pouring a passionate! 
 tide of strength over the whole of life, and compel- 1 
 ling, by the force and power of its will and individu- 
 ality, times, and seasons, and laws, and nations to 
 wait upon it, this is wonderful. But, after all, it is not 
 most wonderful ; and perhaps Mr. Carlyle would 
 himself confess that it is not most wonderful. 
 The strength of a holy energy is yet more 
 sublime ; and the majesty of suffering, sitting un- 
 subdued in the ashes, and waiting beneath the 
 invisible wings of the angels of faith and patience, 
 is yet more royal. 
 
 On the whole, too, we have to remember in all his 
 works a favourite old canon of Mr. Carlyle ; for to 
 him principally we are indebted for popularising that 
 characterisation of true greatness, which recognises this 
 as its essential canon, that the unconscious is alone the 
 great, the perfect, and the complete. And by the 
 light of this it is interesting to throw together the 
 portraits of Frederick and Voltaire ; Voltaire using 
 every thing and person as a mirror to contemplate 
 his own wizened, most bilious and simiatic beauties ; 
 and Frederick, it must be owned, apparently stepping 
 on with sublime indifference and unconcern. We 
 receive, still with some amount of reservation, Mr. 
 Carlyle's definition of a noble soul, that absence of 
 self-consciousness and presence of individuality are its 
 
Individuality Self -Consciousness. 303 
 
 chief marks ; but we believe the degree in which one 
 is possessed will usually be the proof of the absence 
 of the other. Individuality concerns itself with the 
 mission and work ; Consciousness wonders what will 
 be thought of the work. Individuality sets the 
 work up in the gallery ; Consciousness places itself 
 behind the curtain, to listen to the criticisms, and 
 winces if they are not encomiums. Individuality 
 is related most nearly to Pride ; Consciousness 
 is related most nearly to Vanity. Individuality is 
 bold, impelled by the sense of its own inner 
 perceptions and revealings ; Consciousness is timid, 
 because it waits on the approval and opinion 
 of others. When we look at great men, we find them 
 all characterised by marked Individuality, all inferior 
 men by Consciousness. The one is genius, the other 
 is talent. Individuality will allow of no hesitation, 
 and yet its instincts are so prudent and so safe ; 
 Consciousness hesitates, misses the moment, and fails. 
 In a word, men of intense Individuality feel their 
 greatness, and assert it by deeds, and by what they 
 do ; men of Consciousness know their greatness, they 
 do not feel it ; and .they assert it by words. 
 
 THE YOUNG FREDERICK. 
 
 " Here," exclaims our author, in drawing to a close 
 his first sketch of Frederick "here is a successful young 
 King ; is not he ? Has plunged into the maelstrom for 
 
304 The Young Frederick. 
 
 his jewelled cap, and comes up with it, alive, unharmed. 
 Will he, like that Diver of Schiller's, have to try the 
 feat a second time ? Perhaps a second time, and 
 even a third ! " This is our author's reflection after 
 the battle of Chotusitz and the peace of Breslau. 
 The author's reflections so far at the close, meet those 
 of a kind of hearty and human sympathy expressed 
 at the beginning. 
 
 " Readers see there is radiance enough, perhaps 
 slightly in excess, but of intrinsically good quality, in 
 the Aurora of this new Reign. A brilliant, valiant 
 young King ; much splendour of what we could call 
 a golden, or soft nature (visible in those ' New-era ' 
 doings of his, in those strong affections for his 
 friends) ; and, also, what we like almost better in 
 him, something of a steel-bright or stellar splendour 
 (meaning clearness of eyesight, intrepidity, severe 
 loyalty to fact), which is a fine addition to the softer 
 element, and will keep it and its philanthropies and 
 magnanimities well under rule. Such a man is rare 
 in this world ; how extremely rare such a man born 
 King ! He is swift, and he is persistent ; sharply 
 discerning, fearless to resolve and perform ; carries 
 his great endowments lightly, as if they were not 
 heavy to him. He has known hard misery, been 
 taught by stripes ; a light stoicism sits gracefully 
 on him. 
 
 " ' What will he grow to ? ' Probably to something 
 
Every Noble Crown a Crown of Thorns. 305 
 
 considerable. Very certainly far short of his aspi- 
 rations ; far different from his own hopes, and the 
 world's, concerning him. It is not we, it is Father 
 Time that does the controlling and fulfilling of our 
 hopes ; and strange work he makes of them and us." 
 
 Not to linger longer, but to close this generali- 
 sation of our author's works, the following extract 
 will very much sum up his conception of what consti- 
 tutes the truly noble and heroic : 
 
 IN WHAT IS TRUE NOBLENESS ? 
 
 " What is the meaning of nobleness, if this be 
 'noble' ? In a valiant suffering for others, not in a 
 slothful making others suffer for us, did nobleness 
 ever lie. The chief of men is he who stands in the 
 van of men ; fronting the peril which frightens back 
 all others ; which, if it be not vanquished, will devour 
 the others. Every noble crown is, and on Earth will 
 for ever be, a crown of thorns. The Pagan Hercules, 
 why was he accounted a Hero ? Because he had 
 slain Nemean Lions, cleaned Augean Stables, under- 
 gone Twelve Labours only not too heavy for a god. 
 In modern, as in ancient and all societies, the 
 Aristocracy they that assume the functions of an 
 Aristocracy, doing them or not have taken the post 
 of honour ; which is the post of difficulty, the post of 
 danger, of death, if the difficulty be not overcome. 
 
 20 
 
306 Nobleness Pays with its Life. 
 
 II faut payer de sa vie. Why was our life given us, if 
 not that we should manfully give it ? Descend, O 
 Do-nothing Pomp ; quit thy down cushions ; expose 
 thyself to learn what w r retches feel, and how to 
 cure it ! The Czar of Russia became a dusty, 
 toiling shipwright ; worked with his axe in the 
 Docks of Saardam ; and his aim was small to thine. 
 Descend thou : undertake this horrid ' living chaos 
 of Ignorance and Hunger ' weltering round thy feet ; 
 say, ' I will heal it, or behold I will die foremost in 
 it' Such is verily the law. Everywhere and every- 
 when a man has to * pay with his life ;' to do his 
 work, as a soldier does, at the expense of life. In no 
 Piepowder earthly Court can you sue an Aristocracy 
 to do its work, at this moment ; but in the Higher 
 Court, which even it calls ' Court of Honour,' and 
 which is the Court of Necessity withal, and the 
 eternal Court of the Universe, in which all Fact 
 comes to plead, and every Human Soul is an 
 apparitor the Aristocracy is answerable, and even 
 now answering, there'' 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CARLYLE THE PROVERB UTTERER. 
 
 FEW writings so abound in axiomatic expressions ; 
 they are volumes of proverbs ; with a single dash of 
 the crayon, he portrays the experience of a life ; in 
 the very heart of so graphic description, or passionate 
 rhapsody, there streams through some small chink- 
 like saying, a universe of light it prints upon the 
 understanding the results of much reading, much 
 speculation, much discussion. The proverb is the 
 property almost exclusively of those minds which 
 have been accustomed to independent thought and 
 self-reliant reflection ; perhaps a proverb may be 
 defined to be the utterance of a deeply-bought 
 experience, winged by imagination. Lord John (Earl) 
 Russell's definition of a proverb is as good as most 
 " the wit of one, the wisdom of many." Prolix speech 
 is the property mostly of those gregarious minds 
 who keep the lowlands and well-trodden paths of life, 
 never adventuring among the clefts of the high rocks, 
 or the unploughed fields. Yet some have said that 
 the use of proverbs, the binding of ideas within the 
 tight rivets of strong and stirring words, rather 
 
 20 2 
 
308 The Power of the Proverb. 
 
 indicates an inferior than an advanced order of mind. 
 Proverb utterers have been regarded as only repre- 
 senting the worlds of prudence, not the heavens of 
 genius ; the aptitude for sententious sayings, it is said, 
 does not indicate the broad and most expansive 
 power, the power to look far over the most extended 
 prospect. No, but it rather realises the vision of a 
 soul living in a hut, stretched upon a bed of rushes, 
 and heroically defying the ills of life upon its meal 
 and water. Proverbs, it has been said, sound bravely 
 from the lips of hermits and beggars, but are mean 
 when uttered by princes ; they are ornaments to the 
 pilgrim's scallop-shell, but not to the monarch's 
 crown. And sometimes we have heard this sort of 
 reasoning alleged as proof positive against the exist- 
 ence of genius of any broad or comprehensive 
 character in Carlyle. Strange, then, it must be, if this 
 should be true, that the greatest minds have always 
 delivered themselves in proverbs. What a bright 
 milky-way flashes upon us from the writings of 
 Shakespeare ! Who more axiomatic at his pleasure 
 than Goethe ? And if Cervantes may not be adduced, 
 as all the utterances of our friend Sancho are in 
 character, and merely the proverbs of prudence, yet, 
 let Socrates among the ancients, and Wordsworth 
 and Jean Paul be mentioned amongst the moderns ; 
 in truth, usually deep and strong feelings will express 
 themselves very tersely ; it is only the depth of 
 
Moral Force of the Proverb. 309 
 
 experience which can thus speak ; the superficial 
 thinker and the superficial sufferer cannot thus con- 
 dense language. Thus, souls that have been 
 kindled to incandescent heat in the furnace of 
 affliction, fuse down words from pages of agony, 
 into cold rifle balls, which ring, however, red-hot 
 through the souls of others. Heat not only expands ; 
 it expands in order that it may condense. And so 
 of the fiery axioms, the battle words of Carlyle. 
 We fancy them all to be the confessions of a spirit 
 on the rack cries audible and oracular from a 
 martyr upon whom the burning oils have been 
 poured, and the red-hot pincers applied they 
 are not the cleverly veneered and gilded cornices of 
 speech, the Corinthian architecture of style not 
 they ! Say, rather, they are the grim carvings upon 
 the corbel stone, small and quaint, but revealing at 
 once the depth of the artist's execution and skill, 
 and giving a character to the whole edifice. We 
 will also take this opportunity to say, that it is in 
 this proverbial power that we mark so especially Car- 
 lyle's mighty mastery of humour. His humour does 
 certainly come tolerably frequently from the bitter 
 satire. But his satire and his humour seem so to 
 constantly play into each other's hands ; he never 
 diffuses his humour ; he never brandishes long to- 
 gether the arrows of satire. He cannot help 
 employing his power, and it is usually employed only 
 
3IO Laughter also a Gift of God. 
 
 for smiting the evil. With such powers, he seems to 
 us to stand like the Angel of the Lord in the path- 
 way of the obstinate asses, and the cursing Balaams 
 of mammonism and infidelity. His love is too 
 great, too broad, too strong, and human, and hearty* 
 to perpetuate, as Thackeray will do, satire through 
 whole pages of description ; so also his heart and 
 work are too serious ; he is too much the philosopher 
 of life ever to spend long time in laughter, and 
 laughter - provoking pictures. Carlyle always uses 
 laughter as an old Puritan might use it as a gift of 
 God not to be cast lightly away. There is an 
 unhealthy disposition, now-a-days, to turn everything 
 into laughter. We have everything burlesqued. We 
 have a " Comic History of England," a " Comic 
 Blackstone ; " nothing is sheltered from the ribaldry 
 ,of Punch, and its school. We believe it was Carlyle> 
 who once in this " age of infidelity," as he calls it, in 
 a bookseller's shop, lighted with grim contempt on a 
 comic travesty of some time-honoured thing, and it 
 was like him to say, sternly, "And when, sir, do 
 you bring out the Comic Bible ? " The reproof was 
 daring and not too severe. Thus, indeed, it is, that 
 proverb, satire, and humour, all lie in his style very 
 near to each other. We are afraid the preachers 
 will never forgive him for telling them that " he 
 would build a wood and leather man to reason as 
 well as most country parsons." But then we ought 
 
Proverbs. 311 
 
 not to forget how we are told, on the birth of the 
 French Scepticism, " That the great Frederick 
 and the great Catherine are the nursing father and 
 the nursing mother to this new Church of Anti- 
 christ." Sometimes his greatest humour is seen 
 in his irony, as when he gravely says : " Man is 
 never, let me assure thee, altogether a clothes-horse; 
 under the clothes-horse there is always a body and 
 soul." So also he allows his impressions of the 
 Game Laws to appear, when he says, " If a Rome 
 was once saved by geese, need we wonder that an 
 England is lost by partridges ? We are sons of 
 Eve, who bartered Paradise for an apple." 
 
 Perhaps our readers may not deem unacceptable 
 some words selected from the various works of our 
 author : 
 
 " There is no connection between poverty and dis- 
 courtesy, which latter originates in dulness alone. 
 Courtesy is the due of man to man, not of suit of 
 clothes to suit of clothes." 
 
 " God said, Let the iron missionaries be, and they 
 were." 
 
 " Given a world of knaves to produce an honesty 
 from their united action ! It is a distillation, once for 
 all not possible." 
 
 " The leaders of industry if industry is ever to be 
 led are virtually the captains of the world." 
 
312 Proverbs. 
 
 " Clothes give us individuality, distinctions, social 
 polity ; clothes have made men of us ; they are 
 threatening to make clothes' screens of us. Has not 
 your red-hanging individual a horse-hair wig, squirrel 
 skins, and a plush gown, whereby all mortals know 
 that he is a JUDGE ? Society, which, the more I 
 think of it, astonishes me the more, is founded upon 
 cloth." 
 
 "The man who cannot wonder is but a pair of 
 spectacles, behind which there is no eye." 
 
 " What you see, yet cannot see over, is as good as 
 infinite." 
 
 "With (the opinion that man is the creature of 
 circumstances) I should as soon agree as with this 
 other, that an acorn might, by favourable or unfavour- 
 able influences of soil or climate, be nursed into a 
 cabbage, or the cabbage seed into an oak." 
 
 " Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a 
 mushroom ; that idle crag thou sittest on is six 
 thousand years of age." 
 
 " Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom." 
 
 " Sense can support herself handsomely, in most 
 countries, for some eighteen pence a-day ; but for 
 fantasy, planets and solar systems will not suffice." 
 
 " Bees will not work except in darkness ; thought 
 will not work except in silence ; neither will virtue 
 work except in silence. Let not thy right hand know 
 what thy left hand doeth ! " 
 
P^-overbs. 313 
 
 " Meantime, however, mock me not with the name 
 of Free, when you have but knit up my chains into 
 ornamental festoons." 
 
 " Generations are as the days of toilsome mankind ; 
 death and birth are the vespers, and the matin bells, 
 that summon mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed 
 for new advancement." 
 
 " Which was the greatest innovator ? Which was 
 the more important personage in man's history, he 
 who first led armies over the Alps, and gained the 
 victories of Cannae and Thrassemenae, or the nameless 
 boor who first hammered out for himself an iron 
 spade ? " 
 
 " Narrative is linear, action is solid" 
 
 " Great men are the fire pillars in this dark pilgrim- 
 age of mankind ; they stand as heavenly signs, ever 
 living witnesses of what has been, prophetic tokens of 
 what may still be, the revealed embodied possibilities 
 of human nature." 
 
 " In a word, while so many Benthamisms, Social- 
 isms, Fourrierisms, professing to have no souls, go 
 staggering and lowing like monstrous moon-calves, 
 the product of a heavy-laden, moon-struck age, and 
 in this same baleful ' twelfth hour of the night,' even 
 galvanic Puseyisms, as we say, are visible, and 
 dancings of the sheeted dead, shall not any voice of 
 a living man be welcome to us, even because it is 
 alive ? " 
 
3 14 Proverbs 
 
 " The mechanical system of thought is in its essence 
 atheistical." 
 
 "Stealing is properly the north-west passage to 
 enjoyment." 
 
 " To Newton, and to Newton's dog Diamond, what 
 a different pair of universes, while the painting on the 
 optical retina of both was most likely the same." 
 
 " Said I not, before the old skin was shed, the new 
 had formed itself beneath it ?" 
 
 " Sarcasm, I now see to be in general the language 
 of the Devil." 
 
 " The old world knew nothing of conversion ; 
 instead of Ecce Homo, they had the choice of 
 Hercules." 
 
 " The soul gives unity to whatever it looks on with 
 love." 
 
 "Any road will lead you to the end of the world." 
 _ " Man is a tool-using animal." 
 
 " The first spiritual want of the savage is a decora- 
 tion." 
 
 " There is a living literal communion of saints 
 wide as the world itself, and as the history of the 
 world." 
 
 " Follow the Devil faithfully, and you are sure 
 enough to go to the Devil ; whither else can you 
 go?" 
 
 " Every noble crown on earth is, and will be for 
 ever, a crown of thorns." 
 
A nd Parables. 3 1 5 
 
 " Light is grander than fire, it is the same in a state 
 of purity." 
 
 " The word Soul in some dialects is synonymous 
 with Stomach." 
 
 And such as these might be multiplied almost to 
 any extent by selections from these writings ; for, 
 indeed, the speech of the man is wonderfully compact 
 it is like whip-cord, and he rather uses it in the 
 same manner. 
 
 The parable utterer is in very close relationship to 
 the proverb utterer. Carlyle's writings are full of 
 parables; but there are some he has hung together. 
 Here is a quaint little deliverance : 
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE MAN WHO STOOD UPON 
 HIS HEAD AND SAID THE WORLD WAS TURNED 
 TOPSY-TURVY. 
 
 " Once upon a time a man, somewhat in drink 
 belike, raised a dreadful cry at the corner of the 
 market-place, * That the world was all turned topsy- 
 turvy ; that the men and cattle were all walking with 
 their feet uppermost ; that the houses and earth at 
 large (if they did not mind it) would fall into the 
 sky ; in short, that unless prompt means were taken, 
 things in general were on the high road to the Devil.' 
 As the people only laughed at him, he cried the 
 louder and more vehemently ; nay, at last began 
 
316 Carlyle a Verse Maker. 
 
 objuring, foaming, imprecating ; when a good- 
 natured auditor, going up, took the orator by the 
 haunches, and softly inverting his position, set him 
 down on his feet. The which upon perceiving, his 
 mind was staggered not a little. ' Ha ! deuce take 
 it!' cried he, rubbing his eyes, 'so it was not the 
 world that was hanging by its feet then, but I that 
 was standing on my head!' Censor, castigator 
 morum, Radical Reformer, by whatever name thou 
 art called ! have a care especially if thou art getting 
 loud!" 
 
 Carlyle, in a memorable letter addressed to a very 
 pleasant little rhymster living amongst us, Mr. W. 
 C. Bennett, expressed himself as decidedly inimical 
 to the verse - writing form of poetry, expressing 
 wonder that any sensible man in this day should do 
 it. At that time Carlyle must have been astride of 
 his own peculiar Begriff, for in that case how 
 then would he have possessed his beloved Goethe, 
 and his Werner, both of whose verses he has 
 translated very charmingly ? His translation also 
 of Luther's great Psalm is our grandest ; and he 
 has also rhymed himself; verses most free, and 
 natural, and beautiful, exciting wonder that they 
 have never found their way into music ; some of 
 them would sing deliciously well the following, for 
 instance : 
 
Carlyle a Verse Maker. 3 1 7 
 
 FORTUNA. 
 
 " The wind blows east, the wind blows west, 
 And the frost falls and the rain : 
 A weary heart went thankful to rest, 
 And must rise to toil again, 'gain, 
 And must rise to toil again. 
 
 " The wind blows east, the wind blows west, 
 And there comes good luck and bad ; 
 The thriftiest man is the cheerfullest ; 
 'Tis a thriftless thing to be sad, sad, 
 'Tis a thriftless thing to be sad. 
 
 " The wind blows east, the wind blows west, 
 We shall know a tree by its fruit : 
 This world, they say, is worst to the best ; 
 But a dastard has evil to boot, boot, 
 But a dastard has evil to boot. 
 
 " The wind blows east, the wind blows west ; 
 What skills it to mourn or to talk ? 
 A journey I have, and far ere I rest ; 
 I must bundle my wallets and walk, walk, 
 I must bundle my wallets and walk. 
 
 " The wind does blow as it lists alway ; 
 Canst thou change this world to thy mind ? 
 The world will wander its own wise way, 
 I also will wander mine, mine, 
 I also will wander mine." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CARLYLE'S ARTIST FACULTY AND SCENE PAINTINGS 
 
 IMAGINATION AND HUMOUR. 
 
 WE admit, if it were merely an affair of metaphy- 
 sical or transcendental dreaming, our writer would 
 not have won the right to hold our attention so long. 
 But we cannot part with the Priest of Letters 
 without reviewing slightly some items of the social 
 wealth with which these works abound. We have 
 already spoken of his imagination. This is always 
 the unicising faculty. Carlyle's is most extraordi- 
 nary. We have repeatedly expressed our conviction 
 that " The French Revolution " will be spoken of by 
 the side of the " Iliad " and " Heimskringla." Espe- 
 cially is it like the last as a narrative wild, adven- 
 turous, and wonderful, related as by one who has 
 been there, and seen it all. But we dwelt on this 
 at greater length already, and, therefore, now only say 
 that this imagination is like the blue lights, which in 
 the storm kindle up the whole scenery of rocks and 
 waste of waves. Imagination is the exercise in 
 union of the thinking and moral faculty ; the com- 
 mand over moral emotion guides the perception, and 
 
A Great City by Night. 319 
 
 controls the expression. Mr. Carlyle has most 
 graphic power in social painting here, for instance, 
 in this, which the reader may translate as a true 
 Carlylesque engraving of say London by night : 
 
 THE SOLEMNITY OF A GREAT CITY BY NIGHT. 
 
 "Ac/i, mein Lieber ! it is a true sublimity to dwell 
 here. These fringes of lamplight, struggling up 
 through smoke and thousand-fold exhalation some 
 fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks 
 Bootes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over 
 the Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire ? That 
 stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic has lain down 
 to rest ; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still 
 rolling here and there through distant streets, are 
 bearing her to Halls roofed-in, and lighted to the due 
 pitch for her ; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl 
 and to moan like nightbirds, are abroad : that hum, I 
 say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick life, 
 is heard in Heaven ! Oh, under that hideous coverlet 
 of vapours, and putrefactions, and unimaginable 
 gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and 
 hid ! The joyful and the sorrowful are there ; men 
 are dying there, men are being born ; men are 
 praying, on the other side of a brick partition men 
 are cursing ; and around them all is the vast, void 
 Night The proud Grandee still lingers in his per- 
 fumed saloons, or reposes within damask curtains ; 
 
320 A Great City by Night. 
 
 Wretchedness cowers in truckle-beds, or shivers 
 hunger-stricken into its lair of straw : in obscure 
 cellars, Rouge-et-Noir languidly emits its voice-of- 
 destiny to haggard hungry Villains ; while Coun- 
 cillors of State sit plotting, and playing their high 
 chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The 
 Lover whispers his mistress that the coach is ready ; 
 and she, full of hope and fear, glides down, to fly 
 with him over the borders : the Thief, still more 
 silently, sets-to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks 
 in wait till the watchmen first snore in their boxes. 
 Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and dancing- 
 rooms, are full of light, and music, and high swelling 
 hearts ; but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life 
 beats tremulous and faint, and blood-shot eyes 
 look out through the darkness, w r hich is around and 
 within, for the light of a stern last morning. Six 
 men are to be hanged on the morrow : comes no 
 hammering from the Rabenstein ? their gallows must 
 even now be o' building. Upwards of five hundred 
 thousand two-legged animals without feathers lie 
 round us, in horizontal positions ; their heads all in 
 night-caps, and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot 
 cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his rank 
 dens of shame ; and the mother, with streaming hair, 
 kneels over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked 
 lips only her tears now moisten. All these heaped 
 and huddled together, with nothing but a little car- 
 
Carlyle as a Scene Painter. 321 
 
 pentry and masonry between them ; crammed in, like 
 salted fish in their barrel ; or weltering, shall I say, 
 like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each strug- 
 gling to get his head above the others ; such work goes 
 on under that smoked counterpane ! But I, mein 
 Werther, sit above it all ; I am alone with the stars." 
 
 A good many elements go to the creation of a 
 great painting, a great picture, what we may call the 
 artist faculty, in spreading the canvas, the conception, 
 the harmonising power of the colourist, the human 
 intuition or what we call humour the imagination, 
 the atmosphere which pervades all, and lifts all into a 
 glow of sublimity. You would say Carlyle belongs to 
 the Flemish school of Artists, and like some of the 
 great masters of that school he can do anything ; 
 much of his power is very Rembrandt-like, a deep, 
 dark, golden, shadowy shadowiness ; and then he 
 paints landscapes and character-scenes like aRuysdael 
 or Teniers. He is none the less effective because he 
 seems so vehemently natural, and it would be possible 
 from his pages to gather every illustration of artist 
 splendour ; nay, we suppose this volume contains 
 such, the most realising lines ; the painful individu- 
 ality of a Denner; imagination on the highest wing of 
 inspiration ; humour soft, tender, and pathetic, or 
 even uproarious ; what a power of landscape painting 
 and what strokes of pathos ; how tender and tear- 
 
 21 
 
322 As a Painter of Battle Scenes. 
 
 compelling ; all these are illustrations of what v 
 may call the Artist-faculty in these works. 
 
 Mr. Carlyle has a most evident fondness for pain' 
 ing battle scenes. We scarcely like to confess ho 
 much we enjoy these immense and distinct painting 
 of his. We are not sufficiently learned in militai 
 science, in the art of strategy and attack, to sa 
 whether they are the chief paintings of this kind v 
 possess ; probably a military man would give the pall 
 of preference to the extraordinary descriptions c 
 General Napier. What we notice in them is the 
 quiet, pathetic, human power. You see so much c 
 the canvas beside the immediate combatants ; tt 
 landscape, the ordinary human dwellers ther 
 although in the background, are as distinct as th 
 soldiers and the fray. They read like- the descrij: 
 tions of battle in the Book of Joshua, or Judges, c 
 Samuel. He picks up every little scrap of informs 
 tion that can help to realise a spot on which the battl 
 was fought. Before the battle of Torgau, we hav 
 the following : what a sweet charm of quiet and re 
 flection, what vivid distinctness of painting, what a 
 illustration of Mr. Carlyle's every style in some c 
 these words ! 
 
 TORGAU ONE OF FREDERICK'S BATTLE FIELDS. 
 
 " Torgau is a fine solid old Town ; Prussian militar 
 now abundant in it. In ancient Heathen times, 
 
T organ, Schilda. 323 
 
 suppose, it meant the Gau, or District of T/wr; Capital 
 of that Gau, part of which, now under Christian or 
 quasi-Christian circumstances, you have just been 
 traversing, with Elbe on your right hand. Innocent 
 rural aspects of humanity, Boor's life, Gentry's life, 
 all the way, not in any holiday equipment ; on the 
 contrary, somewhat unkempt and scraggy, but all the 
 more honest and inoffensive. There is sky, earth, air, 
 and freedom for your own reflections ; a really agree- 
 able kind of Gau ; pleasant though in part ugly. 
 Large tracts of it are pine-wood, with pleasant villages 
 and fine arable expanses interspersed. Schilda and 
 many villages you leave to right and left. Old- 
 fashioned villages, with their village industries visible 
 around ; labouring each in its kind, not too fast ; 
 probably with extinct tobacco-pipe hanging over its 
 chin (kalt-rauchend, ( smoking cold} as they phrase 
 
 it). 
 
 " Schilda has an absurd celebrity among the Ger- 
 mans ; it is the Gotham of Teutschland ; a fountain 
 of old broad-grins, and homely and hearty rustic 
 banter, welling up from the serious extinct Ages 
 to our own day ; ' ScMtt-burger ' (Inhabitants of 
 Schilda) meaning still, among all the Teutsch popu- 
 lations, a man of calmly obstinate whims and delu- 
 sions, of notions altogether contrary to fact, and 
 agreeable to himself only ; resolutely pushing his way 
 through life on these terms, amid horse laughter 
 
 21 2 
 
324 Schilda. 
 
 natural, and general wagging of beards from sur- 
 rounding mankind. Extinct mirth, not to be growled 
 at, or despised, in Ages running to the shallow, which 
 have lost their mirth, and become all one snigger of 
 mock mirths. For it is observable, the more solemn 
 is your background of dark, the brighter is the play 
 of all human genialities and coruscations on it of 
 genial mirth especially, in the hour for mirth. Who 
 the Doctor Bordel of Schilda was, I do not know ; 
 but they have had their Bordel, as Gotham had 
 probably various Bordels industrious to pick up 
 those Spiritual fruits of the Earth. For the re- 
 cords are still abundant and current ; fully more 
 alive than those of Gotham here are. And yonder, 
 then, is actually Schilda of the absurd fame. A 
 small, cheerful-looking, human village, in its Island 
 among the Woods ; you see it lying to the left 
 a clean, brick-slate congeries, with faint smoke 
 canopy hanging over it, indicating frugal dinner 
 kettles on the simmer ; and you remember kindly 
 those good old grinnings over good Schilt-biirger, 
 good, Wise Men of Gotham, and their learned 
 Chroniclers, and unlearned Peasant Producers, who 
 have contributed a wrinkle of human Fun to the 
 earnest face of Life. 
 
 "After Schilda, and before, you traverse long 
 tracts of Pine Forest, all under forest management, 
 with long, straight stretches of sandy road (one of 
 
Through the Pine Forest. 325 
 
 which is your own), straight like red tape strings, 
 intersecting the wild solitudes ; dangerous to your 
 topographers, for the finger-posts are not always 
 there, and human advice you can get none. Nothing 
 but the stripe of blue sky overhead, and the brown 
 one of tape -(or sand) under your feet ; the trees poor 
 and mean for most part, but so innumerable, and all 
 so silent, watching you all like mute witnesses, mutely 
 whispering together ; no voice but their combined 
 whisper, or big forest sough, audible to you in the 
 world. On the whole, your solitary ride there proves, 
 unexpectedly, a singular deliverance from the mad- 
 railway, and its iron bedlamisms, and shrieking dis- 
 cords, and precipitances ; and is soothing, and pen- 
 sively welcome, though sad enough, and in outward 
 features ugly enough. No wild boars are now in 
 these woods ; no chance of a wolf. What concerns 
 us more is, that Friedrich's Columns, on the 3rd of 
 November, had to march up through these long 
 lanes, or tape-strikes, of the Torgau Forest, and that 
 one important column one or more took the wrong 
 turn at some point, and was dangerously wanting at 
 the expected moment ! " 
 
 Landscapes like these are enjoyable by peaceable 
 people more than the war and tempest of the cannon, 
 and the shock of the fight ; but in the same way all 
 the scenes are introduced, and over Mr. Carlyle's 
 
326 Battle Pieces. 
 
 canvas is a presence of pensive peace and retiring 
 smoke before the clear, bright face of open nature 
 prevails over the picture. Perhaps our readers are 
 not unacquainted with those huge and horrible, but 
 clever, glaring, and brilliant canvases of Horace 
 Vernet in the Louvre, in which the mgdern battle 
 scenes of France have been depicted ; and if they 
 have been in the habit of frequenting galleries, they 
 have, perhaps, compared them with some battle scene 
 of the elder Wouvermans, or Ruysdael, or Salvator 
 Rosa, in which the storm of the battle is only used in 
 the picture for the purpose of setting off the repose of 
 nature. This is exactly the impression which Mr. 
 Carlyle's battle-pieces produce upon our minds, and 
 this is the reason why we doubt whether, with their 
 evident elaborate study and care, they would satisfy 
 a soldier. Mr. Carlyle has evidently, among other 
 things, mastered, so far as a civilian can, the disposi- 
 tions of military science. We could dwell at length 
 upon many of these " The Battle of Prague," for 
 instance, " one of the furious battles of the world, 
 loud as Doomsday, the very emblem of which, done 
 on the piano by females of energy, scatters mankind 
 to flight who love their ears;" the Battle of Rossbach, 
 in very truth one of the most amazing battles of all 
 history, in which Frederick, with 22,000 men, utterly 
 routed and scattered 60,000, with a loss of only 500 
 men on the side of the conquerors. This was the 
 
Frederick's Queer Ode at Rossbach. 327 
 
 occasion on which, at the close of the battle, Frederick 
 poured out that strange flash of cynical contempt, 
 his ode, on his flying foes, the French. It was 
 eminently characteristic of the man, and as eminently 
 unquotable. Mr. Carlyle washes it out as clean as 
 can well be to give English readers some idea of 
 it; and certainly no life of Frederick would be 
 complete which did not, in some sort, contain it. 
 Lacking Voltaire's melody, it has all Voltaire's cynical 
 wit, and his saturnine and unmistakable trans- 
 parency of expression ; it was, in fact, a king with all 
 these qualities who was taking leave of his foes with a 
 contemptuous kick, where, by tradition, it is supposed 
 kicks are pre-eminently disgraceful to be received, 
 and by no persons more than the French. " Fare- 
 well, messieurs ; good-bye to the back of you, if I 
 ever see you again, which is not very likely (and 
 which, in fact, never happened ; at Rossbach the 
 French bade farewell to Frederick and interference 
 with his affairs), yet, messieurs, if ever you present 
 yourselves to me again, by all means present your- 
 selves as you have done to-day. Though a king, 
 and rather exacting in courtliness, rely upon it you 
 cannot present yourselves in a more agreeable fashion 
 to me ; and you, reckon upon a like agreeable recep- 
 tion farewell, oh, mes amis, and take with you the 
 gratification that you have been kicked." In fact, 
 this is the spirit of his ode on the battle-field, very 
 
328 The Battle of Leuthen. 
 
 different to Cromwell's letter after a like success 
 at Dunbar. Having written it, however, and thus 
 satisfied his cynical wrath, we must not fail to re- 
 member that he sat down and wrote a very different 
 thing lines of passionate and overflowing tender- 
 ness to " My dear Sister, my good, my divine, and 
 affectionate sister, who deigns to interest yourself in 
 the fate of a brother who adores you, deign also to 
 share my joy." Such very different things there were 
 in this man ; and his love to her whom he calls so 
 often his "adorable sister." Wilhelmina, the Mar- 
 gravine of Baireuth, is one of the few bits of humanity 
 in him which almost lead us to suspect that he was 
 a man after all. 
 
 Following the battle of Rossbach, next month 
 both battles were fought in 1757 came the great 
 battle of Leuthen in fact, this was a greater victory 
 than Rossbach ; the panic at Rossbach must have 
 been greater, but it was a routing, skirmishing, scat- 
 tering, cutting into ignominious pieces the immense 
 army by Frederick's regiments, not quite one- third in 
 number. At Leuthen the fight was more like that of 
 a pitched battle. Napoleon an eminent judge, of 
 course thought this Frederick's masterpiece, mani- 
 festing every quality, military and moral, of the com- 
 manding general. And what a beautiful little inci- 
 dent is that of which Mr. Carlyle has availed himself, 
 as four columns of Frederick's army were rustling 
 
A Noble Battle Chaunt. 329 
 
 themselves into two, flowing before the King as if in 
 review. They came up, says Mr. Carlyle, on 
 
 THE FIELD OF LEUTHEN. 
 
 " I know not at what point of their course, or for 
 how long, but it was from the column nearest him, 
 which is to be first line, that the King heard, borne on 
 the winds amid their field music, as they marched 
 there, the sound of psalms many-voiced melody of a 
 Church Hymn, well known to him, which had broken 
 out, band accompanying, among those otherwise 
 silent men. The fact is very certain, very strange to 
 me; details not very precise, except that here, as 
 specimen, is a verse of their Hymn : 
 
 " ' Grant that with zeal and skill this day I do 
 
 What me to do behoves, what Thou command'st me to ; 
 Grant that I do it sharp, at point of moment fit, 
 And when I do it, grant me good success in it.' 
 
 " ' Gieb dass ich thu' mit Fleiss was mir zu thun gebiihret, 
 Wozu mich dein Befehl in meinem Stande fiihret, 
 Gieb dass ich's thue bald, zu der Zeit da ich's soil ; 
 Und wenn ich's thu', so gieb dass es gerathe wohl.' 
 
 One has heard the voice of waters, one has paused 
 in the mountains at the voice of far-off Covenanter 
 psalms ; but a voice like this, breaking the com- 
 manded silences, one has not heard. ' Shall we order 
 that to cease, your Majesty ?' ' By no means,' said 
 the King, whose hard heart seems to have been 
 
330 Little Side Lights. 
 
 touched by it, as might well be. Indeed, there is in 
 him, in those grim days, a tone as of trust in the 
 Eternal, as of real religious piety and faith, scarcely 
 noticeable elsewhere in his History; his religion, and 
 he had in withered forms a good deal of it, if we 
 look well, being almost always in a strictly voiceless 
 state nay, ultra-voiceless, or voiced the wrong way, 
 as is too well known. ' By no means,' answered he ; 
 and a moment after said to some one, Ziethen pro- 
 bably : ' With men like these, don't you think I shall 
 have victory this day ?' " 
 
 Commend us to Mr. Carlyle, above all historians, 
 for the power of availing himself of every little touch 
 that sheds gentlest, most pathetic, and realising light 
 over the whole scene. The battle of Leuthen must 
 have convinced Austria and Europe that Silesia was 
 fairly gone to Prussia. The victory was indeed com- 
 plete ; ten thousand Austrians were strewn on the 
 field, between three and four thousand slain, twelve 
 thousand at the close of the battle were taken pri- 
 soners before the fight was over, twenty-one thou- 
 sand ; they lost fifty-one flags, and one hundred and 
 sixteen cannon. In contrast with this, eighty-five 
 Prussians had been taken prisoners, about eleven 
 hundred killed, five thousand wounded. Exploring 
 in all directions, our historian finds those little melo- 
 dramatic lights which give such reality to his pic- 
 
An Episode. 331 
 
 tures. Here we must quote a very striking scene, at 
 the close of the day, in the dusk of the twilight, as 
 the King was determining to push on further : 
 
 AN EPISODE IN FREDERICK'S LIFE FREDERICK 
 AND HIS LANDLORD. 
 
 " Riding up the line, all now grown dusky, Fred- 
 erick asks, ' Any battalion a mind to follow me to 
 Lissa ? ' Three battalions volunteering, follow him ; 
 three are plenty. At Saara, on the Great Road, 
 things are fallen utterly dark ; * Landlord, bring a 
 lantern and escort.' Landlord of the poor tavern at 
 Saara escorts obediently ; lantern in his right hand, 
 left hand holding by the King's stirrup-leather, King 
 (Excellency, or General, as the landlord thinks him) 
 wishing to speak with the man. Will the reader 
 consent to their dialogue, which is dullish, but 
 singular to have in an authentic form, with Nicolai 
 as voucher ? Like some poor old horse-shoe, 
 ploughed up on the field. Two farthings' worth of 
 rusty old iron ; now little other than a curve of brown 
 rust ; but it galloped at the battle of Leuthen ; that 
 is something : 
 
 "King. 'Come near; catch me by the stirrup- 
 leather. (Landlord with lantern does so.) We are 
 on the Breslau Great Road, that goes through Lissa, 
 aren't we ? ' 
 
 " Landlord. ' Yea, Excellenz.' 
 
33 2 Frederick 
 
 "King. 1 Who are you?' 
 
 "Landlord. 'Your Excellenz, I am the Kratschmer 
 (Silesian for Landlord) at Saara.' 
 
 "King. 'You have had a great deal to suffer, I 
 suppose ? ' 
 
 "Landlord. ( Ach, your Excellenz, had I not? For 
 the last eight-and-forty hours, since the Austrians 
 came across Schweidnitz Water, my poor house has 
 been crammed to the door with them, so many 
 servants they have ; and such a bullying and 
 tumbling ; they have driven me half mad ; and I am 
 clean plundered out.' 
 
 "King. ' I am sorry to hear that ; were there 
 Generals too in your house ? What said they ? Tell 
 me, then.' 
 
 "Landlord. 'With pleasure, your Excellenz. Well ; 
 yesterday noon, I had Prince Karl in my parlour, 
 and his Adjutants and people all crowding about. 
 Such a questioning and bothering ! Hundreds came 
 dashing in, and other hundreds were sent out : in and 
 out they went all night ; no sooner was one gone, 
 than ten came. I had to keep a roaring fire in the 
 kitchen all night ; so many officers came crowding 
 to it to warm themselves. And they talked and 
 babbled this and that. One would say, that our 
 King was coming on them, "with his Potsdam Guard 
 Parade." Another answers, " Oach, he daren't come ! 
 He will run for it ; we will let him run." But now 
 
and the L andlord. 333 
 
 my delight is, our King has paid them their fooleries 
 so prettily this afternoon ! ' 
 
 "King. ' When got you rid of your high 
 guests ? ' 
 
 "Landlord. 'About nine this morning the Prince 
 got to horse ; and not long after three, he came past 
 again, with a swarm of officers ; all going full speed 
 for Lissa. So full of bragging when they came ; and 
 now they were off, wrong side foremost ! I saw how 
 it was. And ever after him, the flood of them ran, 
 High-road not broad enough, an hour and more 
 before it ended. Such a pell-mell, such a welter, 
 cavalry and musketry all jumbled ; our King must 
 have given them a dreadful lathering. That is what 
 they have got by their bragging and their lying, 
 for, your Excellenz, these people said, too, "Our King 
 was forsaken by his own Generals, all his first people 
 had gone and left him ; " what I never in this world 
 will believe.' 
 
 "King (not even liking rumour of that kind). 
 ' There you are right ; never can such a thing be 
 believed of my Army.' 
 
 "Landlord (whom this 'my' has transfixed). ' Mein 
 Gott, you are our gnadigster Konig (most gracious 
 King) yourself ! Pardon, pardon, if in my stupidity, 
 I have ' 
 
 " King. ' No, you are an honest man ! probably a 
 Protestant ? ' 
 
334 Episode. 
 
 "Landlord. l joa,joa, Ihr Majestdt, I am of your 
 Majesty's creed ! ' 
 
 " Crack-crack ! At this point the Dialogue is cut 
 short by sudden musket shots from the woody fields 
 to the right ; crackle of about twelve shots in all ; 
 which hurt nothing but some horses' feet, had been 
 aimed at the light, and too low. Instantly the light 
 is blown out, and there is a hunting out of Croats ; 
 Lissa or environs not evacuated yet, it seems ; and the 
 King's entrance takes place under volleyings and 
 cannonadings. 
 
 " King rides directly to the Schloss, which is still 
 a fine handsome house, off the one street of that poor 
 Village, north side of the street ! well railed off, and 
 its old fences now trimmed into flower-pots. The 
 Schloss is full of Austrian officers, bustling about, 
 intending to quarter, when the King enters. They, 
 and the force they still had in Lissa, could easily have 
 taken him : but how could they know ? Frederick 
 was surprised ; but had to put the best face on it. 
 * Bon soir, Messieurs ! ' said he, with a gay tone, step- 
 ping in ; 'Is there still room left, think you ? ' The 
 Austrians bowing to the dust, make way reverently 
 to the divinity that hedges a King of this sort ; mutely 
 escort him to the best room (such the popular 
 account) ; and for certain, make off, they and theirs, 
 towards the Bridge, which lies a little farther east, at 
 the end of the village." 
 
Evening Battle Chaunt after Victory. 335 
 
 Following the King to Lissa, comes after him, 
 through the thick darkness, breaking the silence, a 
 cheerful Prussian host of twenty-five thousand men. 
 We heard them singing their fine Lutheran hymn, as 
 they moved slowly down to battle in the morning ; 
 now through the dark night they march, all the voices 
 of the twenty-five thousand swelling into a kind of 
 Lutheran Te Deum. Some grenadier had raised his 
 voice that way, and the whole of the regimental bands 
 struck into the strain : 
 
 " Nun danket alle Gott, 
 Mit Herzen, Mund und Handen , 
 Der grosse Dinge thut 
 An uns und alien Enden" 
 
 " Now thank God, one and all, 
 With heart, with voice, with hands-a, 
 Who wonders great hath done 
 To us and to all lands-a." 
 
 So they advanced, following their King, their voices 
 far-sounding and melodious through the hollow night, 
 a pious people with pious ways, in which we believe 
 lay the great secret of Frederick's success. The sol- 
 diers of all Christendom besides, at that time, were 
 the.sweepings of the shoddy-floors and dust-bins of 
 creation. These pious men, marching on to Lissa, 
 illustrated their nation and their victories. Straight 
 across the fields to their bivouac, we join with their 
 historian in hoping they had at least tobacco to 
 
336 Frederick. 
 
 depend upon, and healthy, joyful hearts, and so 
 passed the night in a thankful, comfortable manner. 
 
 We have not noticed the stories of Frederick's 
 battles with much reference to order ; we have been 
 rather desirous of setting before our readers some new 
 illustrations of the vigour of the painter. Many dark 
 days followed for Frederick after Rossbach and Leu- 
 then ; finally he settled down in what Mr. Carlyle 
 calls "the afternoon and evening of his life" to 
 twenty-three years of peace, to which, it seems to us, 
 our author devotes an amazingly inconsiderable 
 space. We could have been well content to have 
 received two volumes more for which Mr. Carlyle 
 must have abundance of material for those twenty- 
 three years seem to us to have been the real period 
 of the creation of that amazing system of successful 
 state craft, centralisation , and bureaucracy the 
 Prussian constitution and government. We should 
 like to say to Mr. Carlyle, Is the soldier, then, only 
 interesting ? Are battle-fields the only points of 
 observation ? Emerging into this period, he says, 
 " Frederick's history being henceforth that of a 
 Prussian King, is interesting to Prussia chiefly, and 
 to us little otherwise than as the biography of a dis- 
 tinguished fellow-man." We are truly amazed that 
 Mr. Carlyle should say so, for, indeed, those twenty- 
 three years most really raised Prussia to its place in 
 the system of nations. It does not accord with our 
 
Frederick. 337 
 
 belief that even the conquest of Silesia by arms was 
 perhaps the cheapest, most humane, and best method 
 of extending the Prussian monarchy. However that 
 may be, Frederick is to us, perhaps, even more in- 
 teresting as the monarch than as the warrior. The 
 tactics of the royal old spider stretching out his web 
 over the cornices of his kingdom are sometimes 
 horribly entertaining to us. But then, as surely as 
 much of his despotism enrages and disgusts, so also 
 much of it seems to indicate the exceedingly capable 
 statesman. We greatly regret that we have not more 
 copious unfoldings of the last years of his reign, in 
 which he set to work and never did man work 
 harder to restore a ruined Prussia. Some and 
 many of his expedients for this purpose were un- 
 scrupulous enough. We almost wonder that Mr. 
 Carlyle has not devoted more pages to the glorifica- 
 tion of such an ideal statesman. Not Mr. Ruskin nor 
 Mr. Carlyle could more abominate all the lessons of 
 political economy "the Dismal Science," as our 
 author any time for the last twenty-five years has 
 loved to call it than did Frederick. Mr. Carlyle 
 believes that by its lessons Frederick would not have 
 developed his country from sand and quagmire. 
 " God is great, and Plugson of Undershot is His 
 prophet. Thus saith the Lord, Buy in the cheapest 
 market, and sell in the dearest ; to which the afflicted 
 mind listens what it can ; have the goodness to ter- 
 
 22 
 
338 The Humour of Carlyle. 
 
 minate that litany and take up another." All this, and 
 a great deal more like it, is eminently Carlylese, nor 
 are we about to debate with him, assuredly. Prussia, 
 perhaps, was only fit to be dealt with in that despotic 
 fashion. The nations of Europe were not on very 
 good terms with each other, with Frederick especially; 
 yet, however, he developed the resources of his own 
 people. Perhaps the method is not to be thought of 
 as normal and desirable. Frederick was a man equal 
 to strong expedients equal, on one memorable occa- 
 sion, to the debasement of the coin of his realm 
 becoming a royal fountain of bad coin to his people, 
 employing Ephraim the Jew to be illegal coiner in 
 general to his state. We shall not pronounce a harsh 
 and ignorant verdict on the transaction, for the King's 
 necessities were imminent and great, and he could do 
 this thing in the same despotic spirit in which he set 
 all the alphabet of political economy and free trade at 
 defiance. But it must remain to us doubtful whether, 
 on the contrary, faith in constitutional lessons and 
 principles would not have yielded even higher and 
 purer results. But Mr. Carlyle never misses his 
 opportunity for a castigation or a sneer at the general 
 " Anti-penalty-or-Life-Made-Soft-Association, with 
 cause of civil and religious liberty all the world over, 
 and such like." 
 
 A very essential element in the mental structure of 
 Carlyle is Humour. His own humour is of a most 
 
Lord Lytton on Carlyle's Verdict. 339 
 
 singular order ; it would be difficult, perhaps, to say 
 to whose it bears any resemblance. He himself has 
 said, " Humour has justly been regarded as the finest 
 perfection of poetic genius. He who wants it, be his 
 other gifts what they may, has only half a mind." 
 And he goes on to say, " Among all writers of any 
 real poetic genius, we cannot recollect one who 
 exhibits in this respect such total deficiency as 
 Schiller." Lord Lytton has, with a great deal of 
 force, disputed this verdict of our writer. Lord 
 Lytton says, " The great weight attached so 
 deservedly to the opinion of Mr. Carlyle constrains 
 us also, though with profound deference, to dispute 
 an opinion which, while it seems rashly hazarded, 
 tends in our judgment seriously to lower the standard 
 to which our critic has himself so nobly sought to 
 exalt the popular judgment on works of Art." 
 Carlyle was certainly wrong in making Schiller the 
 solitary exception to the possession of humour 
 among men, or writers of the highest order of genius. 
 There are surely many such illustrations Words- 
 worth, for instance ; and, as Lord Lytton has shown, 
 Homer, Dante, and Milton, and in our own times 
 Mrs. Browning, and, in spite of some apparent pieces 
 to the contrary, her illustrious husband, Robert 
 Browning. Lord Lytton says, " In brief, we should 
 go almost even to the opposite extreme, and say, 
 with some few exceptions, the greatest poets of every 
 
 22 2 
 
34O Lord Lytlon and Carlyle on Humour. 
 
 land have shown in no faculty a more marked 
 deficiency than in that of Humour." It is too large a 
 question to attempt to discuss here ; but if, a sen- 
 tence or two since, we said assuredly Mr. Carlyle is 
 wrong, here again with much respect we have to say 
 so of Lord Lytton. What would Shakespeare be 
 without his humour, or Ben Jonson, or Cervantes ? 
 Thus, if perhaps the Schillers, Wordsworths, and 
 Dantes appear to be the most farseeing men, 
 assuredly the humourists are the most circular and 
 inclusive men. Carlyle's verdict on the whole we 
 must hold to be the right one ; that which we call 
 humour completes the man. Sometimes it seems to 
 impair the ideal, but it is the true plastic energy of 
 genius. These men without humour are linear in 
 their writings, they are exalted, they pierce into and 
 traverse the depths of the empyrean, they continue 
 long upon the wing ; the humourists survey life and 
 truth not from ideal observatories, but from actual 
 knowledge, and observation, and sympathy with real 
 life ; nor does it follow that the arch humourist must in 
 painting be as Lord Lytton seems to imply a Teniers 
 or Hogarth. Humour can idealise too, can extend its 
 round of observation, and take in the many sides of 
 things. In Mr. Carlyle's writings, humour of every 
 sort abounds ; he is a great idealist and a great 
 humourist ; true, his laughter is never low, coarse, or 
 vulgar, nay, perhaps there is no laughter at all, the 
 
Humour and Pathos Related. 341 
 
 spectacle of the startling contradictions, the grotesque 
 exaggerations, are presented side by side in too grim 
 a form for laughter, and yet there is a dreadful 
 Rabelaisian merriment. What would Rabelais have 
 thought of the French Revolution had he read it ? 
 Why it is conceived very much in the spirit of his 
 own queer performances, there is a grave and solemn 
 irony running through the book ; many readers have 
 not seen the irony, that, shall we say, highest and 
 most subtle form of humour, and so the whole thing 
 has been missed by them. As the fit seizes the 
 writer, he indulges in this power of arch humorous 
 painting, hence his " Life and Times of Frederick 
 the Great " seems simply the most entertaining his- 
 tory ever written, it is full of little humorous 
 dramatic episodes ; every incident which crosses his 
 knowledge becomes instantly clothed in flesh and 
 blood, with all the appropriate environments of it ; 
 and it is altogether a mistake to suppose that humour 
 implies merely the laughable or the funny faculty in 
 man ; some natures lean over on this side and some 
 on the other, but the true great humourist is the man 
 able to enter into all states and to interpret them. 
 Humour is the fine artist faculty, humour can be as 
 intensely serious, as it can be mirthfully jocular ; 
 terribly tragic is Carlyle's picture of the Death bed 
 of Louis XV., of the Storming of the Bastille innu- 
 merable such things are in the history of Cromwell and 
 
342 Pathetic Pictures. 
 
 the story of Frederick, but only the humourist could 
 have hit them off, the man at home in depicting the 
 passions of every variety of character and mankind. 
 Carlyle is a great humourist in the same sense in 
 which Shakespeare was a great humourist ; the sparks 
 of humour fly from him as he works, but not the 
 less does his work become symmetrical by the same 
 plastic spirit. 
 
 How closely related are humour and pathos ; he 
 who laughs best has the capacity for weeping most ; 
 he who moves us most to the first, will stir us most 
 deeply to the last Shakespeare, Dickens, Charles 
 Lamb, and Jean Paul assure us of this ; so also 
 our present writer ; how pathetic the following little 
 scene : 
 
 THE DEATH OF ANDREAS. 
 
 " The dark bottomless Abyss, that lies under our 
 feet, had yawned open ; the pale Kingdoms of Death, 
 with all their innumerable silent nations and genera- 
 tions, stood before him ; the inexorable word NEVER ! 
 now first showed its meaning. My mother wept, and 
 her sorrow got vent ; but in my heart there lay a 
 whole lake of tears, pent up in silent desolation. 
 Nevertheless, the unworn Spirit is strong ; Life is so 
 healthful that it even finds nourishment in Death ; 
 these stern experiences, planted down by Memory in 
 my Imagination, rose then to a whole cypress forest, 
 
The Death of A ndreas. 343 
 
 sad but beautiful ; waving, with not unmelodious 
 sighs, in the dark luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine 
 through long years of youth ; as in manhood also it 
 does, and will do ; for I have now pitched my tent 
 under a Cypress-tree ; the Tomb is now my inexpug- 
 nable Fortress, ever close by the gate of which I look 
 upon the hostile armaments, and pains and penalties, 
 of tyrannous Life placidly enough, and listen to its 
 loudest threatenings with a still smile. O ye loved 
 ones, that already sleep in the noiseless Bed of Rest, 
 whom in life I could only weep for and never help : 
 and ye, who wide-scattered still toil lonely in the 
 monster-bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground with 
 your blood, yet a little while, and we shall all meet 
 THERE, and our mother's bosom will screen us all ; 
 and Oppression's harness, and Sorrow's fire-whip 
 and all the Gehenna Bailiffs that patrol and inhabit 
 ever-vexed Time, cannot thenceforth harm us any 
 
 And pitched in a higher key, but of the same order, 
 take the whole scene of 
 
 THE DEATH-BED OF OLIVER CROMWELL. 
 
 "On Monday, August 3Oth, there roared and 
 howled all day a mighty storm of wind. Ludlow, 
 coming up to town from Essex, could not start in the 
 morning for wind ; tried it in the afternoon, still 
 
344 Cromwell* s Death Bed. 
 
 could not get along in his coach for head-wind ; had 
 to stop at Epping. On the morrow, Fleetwood came 
 to him in the Protector's name, to ask, What he 
 wanted here ? Nothing of public concernment, only 
 to see my Mother-in-law ! answered the solid man. 
 For indeed he did not know that Oliver was dying ; 
 that the glorious hour of Disenthralment and im- 
 mortal ' Liberty ' to plunge over precipices with one's 
 self and one's Cause was so nigh ! It came ; and he 
 took the precipices, like a strong-boned, resolute, 
 blind gin-horse, rejoicing in the breakage of its 
 halter, in a very gallant constitutional manner. 
 Adieu, my solid friend ; if I go to Vevay, I will read 
 thy monument there, perhaps not without emotion, 
 after all ! 
 
 "It was on this stormy Monday, while rocking 
 winds, heard in the sick-room and everywhere, were 
 piping aloud, that Thurloe and an Official person 
 entered to inquire, Who, in case of the worst, was to 
 be his Highness's Successor ? The Successor is 
 named in a sealed Paper already drawn-up, above a 
 year ago, at Hampton Court, now lying in such and 
 such a place. The Paper was sent for, searched 
 for ; it could never be found. Richard's, is the name 
 understood to have been written in that Paper ; not 
 a good name ; but in fact one does not know. In 
 ten years' time, had ten years more been granted, 
 Richard might have become a fitter man, might have 
 
Cromwell's L ast Prayer. 345 
 
 been cancelled if palpably unfit. Or perhaps it was 
 Fleetwood's name, and the paper, by certain Parties, 
 was stolen ? None knows. On the Thursday night 
 following, ' and not till then,' his Highness is under- 
 stood to* have formally named 'Richard;' or perhaps 
 it might only be some heavy-laden ' Yes, yes 1* 
 spoken out of the thick death-slumbers, in answer to 
 Thurloe's question f Richard ?' The thing is a little 
 uncertain. It was, once more, a matter of much 
 moment ; giving colour probably to all the subse- 
 quent Centuries of England, this answer ! 
 
 " On or near the night of the same stormy Mon- 
 day, two or three days before he died, we are to place 
 that Prayer his Highness was heard uttering ; which, 
 as taken down by his attendants, exists in many old 
 Note Books. In the tumult of the winds the dying 
 Oliver was heard uttering this 
 PRAYER. 
 
 "'Lord, though I am a miserable and wretched 
 creature, I am in Covenant with Thee through grace. 
 And I may, I will, come to Thee, for Thy People. 
 Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean 
 instrument to do them some good, and Thee service ; 
 and many of them have set too high a value upon 
 me, though others wish and would be glad of my 
 death ; Lord, however Thou do dispose of me, con- 
 tinue and go on to do good for them. Give them 
 consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual 
 
346 Cromwell's Death Bed. 
 
 love ; and go on to deliver them, and with the work 
 of reformation, and make the Name of Christ 
 glorious in the world. Teach those who look too 
 much on Thy instruments to depend more upon 
 Thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample upon the 
 dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy People too. 
 And pardon the folly of this short Prayer : Even 
 for Jesus Christ's sake. And give us a good night if 
 it be Thy pleasure. Amen.' 
 
 " ' Some variation there is,' says Hervey, ' of this 
 Prayer, as to the account divers give of it; and 
 something is here omitted. But so much is certain, 
 that these were his requests. Wherein his heart was 
 so carried out for God and His People, yea, indeed, 
 for some who had added no little sorrow to him,' 
 the Anabaptist Republicans and others, 'that at 
 this time he seems to forget his own Family and 
 nearest relations.' Which, indeed, is to be remarked. 
 
 " Thursday night the Writer of an old Pamphlet 
 was himself in attendance on his Highness, and has 
 preserved a trait or two ; with which let us hasten to 
 conclude. To-morrow is September Third, always 
 kept as a Thanksgiving day since the Victories of 
 Dunbar and Worcester. That weaned one, * that 
 very night before the Lord took him to his ever- 
 lasting rest,' was heard thus, with oppressed voice, 
 speaking : 
 
 " 'Truly God is good, indeed He is ; He will not 
 
Cromwell's Death Bed. 347 
 
 Then his speech failed him, but as I apprehend 
 it was, ' He will not leave me.' This saying, ' God 
 is good,' he frequently used all along, and would 
 speak it with much cheerfulness and fervour of 
 spirit, in the midst of his pains. Again he said, * I 
 would be willing to live to be farther serviceable to 
 God and His People : but my work is done. Yet 
 God will be with His People.' 
 
 "He was very restless most part of the night, 
 speaking often to himself. And there being some- 
 thing to drink offered him he was desired to take 
 the same, and endeavour to sleep ; unto which he 
 answered, 'It is not my design to drink or sleep, 
 but my design is to make what haste I can to be 
 gone.' 
 
 " Afterwards, towards morning, he used divers holy 
 expressions, implying much inward consolation and 
 peace. Among the rest he spake some exceeding 
 self-debasing words, annihilating and judging himself. 
 And truly it was observed, that 'a public spirit to 
 God's Cause did breathe in him, as in his lifetime, 
 so now to his very last.' 
 
 " When the morrow's sun rose, Oliver was speech- 
 less ; between three and four in the afternoon, he lay 
 dead, Friday, 3rd September, 1658. 'The con- 
 sternation and astonishment of all people,' writes 
 Falconberg, ' are inexpressible ; their hearts seem as 
 if sunk within them. My poor Wife, I know not 
 
348 The Death of Cromwell 
 
 what on earth to do with her. When seemingly 
 quieted, she bursts out again into a passion that tears 
 her very heart in pieces.' Hush ; poor weeping 
 Mary ! Here is a Life-battle right nobly done. 
 Seest thou not, 
 
 " 'The storm is changed into a calm, 
 At His command and will ; 
 So that the waves which raged before 
 Now quiet are and still ! 
 
 " 'Then are they glad, because at rest 
 And quiet now they be ; 
 So to the haven He them brings 
 Which they desired to see/ 
 
 " ' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord ; 
 blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord. 
 ' Amen, saith the Spirit,' Amen. ' They do rest 
 from their labours, and their works follow them.' 
 
 "'Their works follow them.' As, I think, this 
 Oliver Cromwell's works have done and are still 
 doing ! We have had our Revolutions of Eighty- 
 eight, officially called ' glorious ' ; and other Revolu- 
 tions not yet called glorious ; and somewhat has been 
 gained for poor Mankind. Men's ears are not now 
 slit off by rash Officiality ; Officially will, for long 
 henceforth, be more cautious about men's ears. The 
 tyrannous Star-Chambers, branding-irons, Chimerical 
 Kings and Surplices at All-hallowtide, they are gone, 
 or with immense velocity going. Oliver's works do 
 

 
350 Reflections on tJie Death of Oliver. 
 
 tippets, King's-cloaks, or what other ' sheltering 
 Fallacy ' there may be, and so awaits the issue. The 
 issue has been slow ; but it is now seen to have been 
 inevitable. No Ostrich, intent on gross terrene 
 provender, and sticking its head into Fallacies, but 
 will be awakened one day, in a terrible a-posterion 
 manner, if not otherwise ! Awake before it comes to 
 that ; gods and men bid us awake ! The voices oi 
 our Fathers, with thousandfold stern monition to one 
 and all, bid us awake." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 IS HE A PROPHET ? 
 
 WHAT is a prophet ? Is he one who announces and 
 foretells things to come ? Perhaps we ought rather 
 to think not ; he is one who announces and foretells 
 the consequences of Eternal Truths ; for the thing 
 which happens is only the vesture of the thing which 
 eternally is. The true distinction between the man 
 who utters truths in innocent little sermons, and nice 
 little essays, even as boys may write down the same 
 kind of things in a copy-book, and the prophet, is, 
 that he, the latter one, is a Seer. To him it is no 
 repetition of truths at second hand and hearsay; he 
 sees ; and he announces Eternal Truths with the 
 authority of one to whom it is no mere hypothesis, 
 but an infinite verity and reality. It is often in- 
 quired what then this man, Carlyle, has discovered 
 or said of new or strange ; it is implied that, suppos- 
 ing him to be a prophet, he ought to have announced 
 a new Decalogue, or to have spread out in his pages 
 some new Apocalypse. Yet this was perhaps not the 
 case with Samuel, " whom all men from Dan unto 
 Beersheba believed to be a prophet of the Lord, and 
 
352 Carlyle a Pttritan. 
 
 who judged in all Israel." And those old prophets, 
 Isaiah and Ezekiel, Hosea and Habakkuk, you will 
 notice that they did not announce anythingveryparticu- 
 larly new, but they illuminated old truths and Divine 
 laws in a remarkably fresh manner, and poured around 
 them the magnificent vehemencies of their indigna- 
 tion over the broken and insulted laws of righteous- 
 ness and truth. Very much in this way has Thomas 
 Carlyle acted as a prophet in our times, and if it be 
 said that he therefore is in no way separated and set 
 apart from other teachers of truths, it may be admit- 
 ted that he is only set apart from them in the same 
 way in which a whole orchestral Schubert-Mendels- 
 sohn melody is set apart from a child's penny tin 
 trumpet ; they are both the creators and creatures of 
 sound, but there is a difference. It has been said that 
 the mind and the whole material of the work of 
 Carlyle are the result of an early drilling in, and a faith- 
 ful believing in old Puritan dogmas ; these are the 
 really vertebrated skeleton underlying all Carlyle's 
 teachings, rhapsodies, dissonancies, and denunciations, 
 or whatever you like to call them ; how far he would 
 pass muster with the manufacturers of Creeds and 
 Confessions of Faith, Augsberg or other Articles, or 
 Westminster Assembly Catechisms, the present writer 
 does not know or very much care. Perhaps also those 
 other old Hebrew Prophets would be, in the same 
 manner, either rapped on the knuckles or cast into 
 
The Burden of Carlyle. 353 
 
 outer darkness. The great thing legible throughout 
 Carlyle's writings seems to be that grand old creed of 
 Calvinism, that this universe is not a mere happening, 
 that it is a theatre of moral transactions, that there is 
 really a Lord God Almighty, and that God really has 
 a Will of His own ; that in this universe the righteous 
 thing in the long run is the strongest thing, and that 
 in the end the evil thing, the bad thing, as being the 
 weakest thing, will get the worst of it. Such it seems 
 is the burden of the Word of the Lord, which the 
 Prophet Carlyle has carried in these days, and 
 strangely indeed have we misread him, if his works 
 do not flame all through with these things ; things it 
 seems most essential to be taught and announced, in 
 a time when the prophets of 5," light and sweetness " 
 are standing in the chief places of the synagogues, 
 and there seems to be a universal playing at fast and 
 loose with righteousness ; when men think nothing^ 
 evil in being set apart to preach one thing while 
 they preach quite another, and when, in how many 
 instances, a man may deliver the Apostles' Creed from 
 the reading desk, and then, ascendfng the pulpit, put 
 on an aspect of philosophic virtue, while exclaiming,, 
 " Is there not a lie in my right hand ? " 
 
 It may be said that the chief attribute of a Prophet 
 should be profound faith in the reality and absolute- 
 ness of moral law. Is this faith becoming fainter and 
 feebler in the age in which we live ? It would seem so. 
 
 23 
 
354 f s there Any absolute Moral Law ? 
 
 So much the worse then for this age and the ages 
 immediately following. Are the only real things Laws 
 of Nature ? these indeed it is believed are inviolable ; 
 but moral law, what of this ? Does it announce no 
 distinctions, and affirm no principles which are at the 
 root of all well-being and happiness, both of indivi- 
 duals and nations ? The French Revolution is thus an 
 immense prophecy ; all that tremendous reign of 
 terror, all those wild actors, " sea-green, incorruptible 
 Robespierres," Philippe Egalites, " pert, scald-headed 
 crows," and the rest, these were all a result from a long 
 wild reign of unrighteousness. " Follow the Devil," 
 says our altogether too forcible prophet, " and you 
 will infallibly go to the Devil." And again : " Given, 
 a world of knaves to produce honesty from their 
 united action, it is a distillation once for all not possi- 
 ble." We have already quoted elsewhere those great 
 words, " Properly, as many men as there are in a 
 nation who can withal see Heaven's invisible justice, 
 and know it to be on earth also omnipotent, so many 
 men are there who stand between a nation and per- 
 dition, so many an8 no more." Hence with true pro- 
 phet-like contempt, he hurls about his sarcasm and 
 his scorn upon those to whom, as he says, " The uni- 
 verse is a great unintelligible PERHAPS, an extensive 
 cattle-fold and workhouse, with extensive kitchen- 
 ranges and dining-tables, whereat he is wise who can 
 find a place ; all the truth of the universe uncertain, 
 
Curious Parable of Moses and the Monkeys. 355 
 
 only the pudding and the praise of it remaining 
 visible to the practical man ; the heavens a butt for 
 Herschel telescopes to shoot science at, to shoot sen- 
 timentalities at." Which is also still most literally 
 true although written in " Past and Present," now be- 
 yond thirty years since. Has not the great Professor 
 Tyndall told us that the human blue-eye is only a 
 turbid medium like soap and water, and that as for 
 the heavens of this firmament, the matter composing 
 that which excites an infinite thought within us might 
 all be packed away in a portmanteau or a snuff-box ; 
 and all this said without one word of awe or wonder 
 at the infinite mystery, or that infinite regulative 
 power which has so marshalled into order the forces, 
 and which directs and gives number to the whole ? 
 
 Very appropriate to such Atheistic thought seems 
 to be the following 
 
 CURIOUS PARABLE OF MOSES AND THE DWELLERS 
 BY THE DEAD SEA. 
 
 " Perhaps few narratives in History or Mythology 
 are more significant than that Moslem one, of Moses 
 and the Dwellers by the Dead Sea. A tribe of men 
 dwelt on the shores of that Asphaltic Lake ; and 
 having forgotten, as we are all to prone to do, the 
 inner facts of Nature, and taken up with the falsities 
 and outer semblances of it, were fallen into sad 
 conditions, verging indeed towards a certain far 
 
 232 
 
356 Moses and the Monkeys. 
 
 deeper Lake. Whereupon it pleased kind Heaven 
 to send them the Prophet Moses, with an instructive 
 word of warning, out of which might have sprung 
 'remedial measures ' not a few. But no ; the men of 
 the Dead Sea discovered, as the valet-species always 
 does in heroes or prophets, no comeliness in Moses ; 
 listened with real tedium to Moses, with light 
 grinning, or with splenetic sniffs and sneers, affecting 
 even to yawn ; and signified, in short, that they found 
 him a humbug and even a bore. Such was the candid 
 theory these men of the Asphaltic Lake formed to 
 themselves of Moses, that probably he was a humbug,, 
 that certainly he was a bore. 
 
 " Moses withdrew ; but Nature and her rigorous 
 veracities did not withdraw. The men of the Dead 
 Sea, when we next went to visit them, were all 
 * changed into Apes ; ' sitting on the trees there, 
 grinning now in the most z/;/affected manner ; gibber- 
 ing and chattering very genuine nonsense ; rinding 
 the whole Universe now a most indisputable Humbug 1 
 ITThe Universe has become a Humbug to these Apes 
 who thought it one. There they sit and chatter, to 
 this hour ; only, I believe, every Sabbath there returns 
 to them a bewildered half-consciousness, half remini- 
 scence ; and they sit, with their wizzened smoke-dried 
 visages, and such an air of supreme tragicality as 
 Apes may ; looking out through those blinking smoke- 
 bleared eyes of theirs, into the wonderfullest universal 
 
A Prophet announces Truths. 357 
 
 smoky Twilight and undecipherable disordered Dusk 
 of Things ; wholly an Uncertainty, Unintelligibility, 
 they and it ; and for commentary thereon, here 
 and there an unmusical chatter or mew ; truest, 
 tragicallest Humbug conceivable by the mind of man 
 or ape ! They made no use of their souls ; and so 
 have lost them. Their worship on the Sabbath 
 now is to roost there, with unmusical screeches, and 
 half remember that they had souls. 
 
 " Didst thou never, O Traveller, fall in with parties 
 of this Tribe ? Me-seems they have grown somewhat 
 numerous in our day." 
 
 The prophet perceives and announces the Eternal 
 Truths of Righteousness and Justice ; but still the 
 loud cry against Carlyle is, What has he done ? 
 What has he said which has taken effect ? It is very 
 true that still over his works there are strewn the 
 great principles, aphorisms, and illustrations which 
 must be realised if there is to be any national salva-^ 
 tion ; but let the reader farther remember that he 
 has been preaching now distinctly in the ears of 
 men for the last thirty years, and many of the 
 things which he prescribed have really been acted 
 upon and have taken some effect amongst us. The 
 vast retinue of admirable appliances and attempts to 
 heal and help society a little from the terrible em- 
 broglia caused by unrighteousness and laziness all 
 
358 Carlyle on the Rights of Industry. 
 
 around, were, when he began to preach, very much 
 unknown ; for instance, he was one of the first who 
 lifted up a loud voice in favour of baths and wash- 
 houses for the poor. So also in the same work, 
 written so long since, the questions occur of the 
 righteous remuneration of labour, and the giving to 
 the labourer a more real and personal interest in his 
 own industry, as he says, "A question arises here 
 whether in some ulterior, perhaps some not far 
 distant stage of this chivalry of labour, your master 
 worker may not find it possible and needful to grant 
 his workers permanent interest in his enterprise and 
 theirs." This prophecy has now taken effect, and 
 the following letter from Carlyle is addressed to Sir 
 J. Whitworth, regarding the announcement made of 
 the latter's intention to supplement the savings of his 
 workpeople by a bonus upon them, and was read by 
 the Hon. and Rev. W. H. Lyttleton, at a meeting of 
 the Stourbridge School of Art : 
 
 " I have heard of your offer on behalf of the thrifty 
 workpeople of Darley, and of the thankful acceptance 
 of it by the district authorities of the place. I can- 
 not resist the highly unwonted desire that has risen 
 in me to say that I highly approve and applaud the 
 ideas you have on the subject, and to declare in 
 words that in my opinion nothing wiser, more bene- 
 ficent, or worthy of your distinguished place as 
 
A Voice to the Captains of Industry. 359 
 
 a master of workers has come before me for many a 
 year. Would to heaven that all, or many of the 
 Captains of Industry in England had a soul in them 
 such as yours, and could do as you have done, or 
 could still further co-operate with you in works and 
 plans to the like effect. The look of England is to 
 me at this moment abundantly ominous. The 
 question of capital and labour growing ever more 
 anarchic, insoluble altogether by the notions hitherto 
 applied to it, is pretty certain to issue in petroleum 
 one day, unless some other gospel than that of the 
 ' Dismal Science ' come to illuminate it. Two things 
 are pretty sure to me. The first is, that capital and 
 labour never can and will agree together till they 
 both first of all decide on doing their work faithfully 
 throughout, and like men of conscience and honour, 
 whose highest aim is to behave like faithful citizens 
 of this universe, and obey the eternal commandment 
 of Almighty God, who made them. The second 
 thing is, that a sadder object than either that of the 
 coal strike, or any conceivable strike, is the fact that, 
 loosely speaking, all England has decided that the 
 profitablest way is to do its work ill, slimly, swiftly, 
 and mendaciously. What a contrast between now 
 and, say, only a hundred years ago ! At that latter 
 day, or still more conspicuously for ages before that, 
 all England awoke to its work with an invocation to 
 the Eternal Maker to bless them in their day's 
 
360 A significant Lord's Prayer. 
 
 labour, and help them to do it well. Now all 
 England, shopkeepers, workmen, all manner of com- 
 peting labourers awaken, as if with an unspoken, but 
 heartfelt prayer to Beelzebub, ' Oh, help us, thou 
 great lord of Shoddy, adulteration, and malfeasance, 
 to do our work with a maximum of slimness, swift- 
 ness, profit, and mendacity, for the Devil's sake. 
 Amen ! ' " 
 
 But this great principle, so eulogised by Car- 
 lyle, is now in some, it is to be feared we may 
 not say in many instances, greatly acted upon- 
 Carlyle in his " Past and Present " satirised Plugson of 
 Undershot going forth like a buccaneer into the 
 realms of commerce, or like a Red Indian hanging 
 fortunes like scalps at his girdle. The noble master 
 workers, the Crossleys of Halifax, are not the 
 only ones who have with their own eyes seen the 
 righteousness of that which our writer announced 
 in his prophecy, as one of the assured means 
 of conferring dignity and respectability on the la- 
 bourer, and so refreshing the whole atmosphere of 
 Society. 
 
 To lift up a warning voice is surely the great busi- 
 ness of the Prophet ; from of old he has been 
 quarrelled with by his auditors because he has not 
 41 prophesied smooth things ;" and of Mr. Carlyle it 
 has been said, that like the Scotchman in Dean 
 
Reading the New Testament. 361 
 
 Ramsay's Reminiscences, " He goes out into the 
 middle of the road, and swears at things in 
 general." We shall grant that there is very little 
 savoir faire about him, or his style of addressing 
 himself to the wrong-doers amongst us ; as when he 
 
 EXPOSTULATES WITH MERE RELIGIOUS 
 
 PROFESSORS. 
 
 " Man of Genius ? Thou hast small notion, me- 
 seems, O Mecsenas Twiddledee, of what a Man of 
 Genius is. Read in thy New Testament and else- 
 where if with floods of mealy-mouthed inanity, with 
 miserable froth-vortices of cant, now several centuries 
 old, thy New Testament is not all bedimmed for thee. 
 Canst thou read in thy New Testament at all ? The 
 Highest Man of Genius, knowest thou Him; Godlike 
 and a God to this hour ? His crown a Crown 
 of Thorns ? Thou fool, with thy empty godhoods, 
 Apotheosis edge-gilt ; the Crown of Thorns made into 
 a poor jewel-room crown, fit for the head of block- 
 heads ; the bearing of the Cross changed to a riding 
 in Long-Acre Gig ! Pause in thy mass-chantings, in 
 thy litanyings, and Calmuck prayings by machinery; 
 and pray, if noisily, at least in a more human manner. 
 How with thy rubrics and dalmatics, and clothwebs 
 and cobwebs, and with thy stupidities and grovelling 
 base-heartedness, hast thou hidden the Holiest into 
 all but invisibility." 
 
362 A Singular Hebrew Melody. 
 
 Again, the following is a very curious reading 
 to a certain wild Hebrew melody, often heard in our 
 streets, chanted by the children of Jacob, Caiaphus, 
 Ananias, and Levi : 
 
 " NOT THIS MAN BUT BARABBAS," " OU' CLO." 
 
 "Did you ever hear, with the mind's ear as well, that 
 fateful Hebrew Prophecy, I think the fatefullest of 
 all, which sounds daily through the streets, * Ou' clo ! 
 Ou' clo ! ' A certain People, once upon a time, 
 clamorously voted by overwhelming majority, ' Not 
 He ; Barabbas, not He ! Him, and what He is, and 
 what He deserves, we know well enough ; a reviler of 
 the Chief Priests and sacred Chancery Wigs ; a 
 seditious Heretic, physical-force Chartist, and enemy 
 of His country and mankind ; to the gallows and the 
 cross with Him ! Barabbas is our man ; Barabbas, we 
 are for Barabbas ! ' They got Barabbas ; have you 
 well considered what a fund of purblind obduracy, 
 of opaque flunkeyism grown truculent and transcen- 
 dent ; what an eye for the phylacteries, and want 
 of eye for the eternal noblenesses ; sordid loyalty to 
 the prosperous Semblances, and high-treason against 
 the Supreme Fact, such a vote betokens in these 
 natures ? For it was the consummation of a long 
 series of such ; they and their fathers had long k^pt 
 voting so. A singular People ; who could both pro- 
 duce such divine men, and then could so stone and 
 
Carlyle on Emigration. 363 
 
 crucify them ; a People terrible from the beginning 1 
 Well, they got Barabbas ; and they got, of course, 
 such guidance as Barabbas and the like of him could 
 give them ; and, of course, they stumbled ever down- 
 wards ancTdevilwards, in their truculent stiff-necked 
 way ; and and, at this hour, after eighteen centuries 
 of sad fortune, they prophetically sing ' Ou' clo ! ' in 
 all the cities of the world. Might the world, at this 
 late hour, but take note of them, and understand their 
 song a little ! " 
 
 Not to dwell at any great length vindicating Mr. 
 Carlyle's claim to the prophetic character in its 
 attribute of seership, briefly it may be said, he many 
 long years since foresaw the consequences of the 
 drift and force of the stream of pressure upon 
 Society ; one notable prophecy in which he indulged 
 in " Chartism," was treated with remarkable contempt 
 by the Quarterly Review in the exhaustive paper to 
 which we have already referred. He said : " Is it not 
 as if this swelling, simmering, never resting Europe 
 of ours stood once more upon the verge of an expan- 
 sion without parallel, struggling, struggling like a 
 mighty tree, again about to burst into the embrace 
 of summer, and shoot forth broad frondent boughs 
 which would fill the whole earth ; a disease, but the 
 noblest of all, as of her who is in pain and sore 
 travail, but travails that she may be a mother, and 
 
364 The " Quarterly Review's" Idea of a " Wen" 
 
 say, ' Behold ! there is a new man born ! " " No, 
 Mr. Carlyle," exclaims the Quarterly Review, " it is 
 no such travail, it is the bursting of a went" And 
 then it proceeds to ridicule the idea that we should 
 dare to think that they can generate a nation, the 
 people who go to America or Australia without 
 control or bond of union, or stern moral sanction, or 
 political obedience, and nothing but the animal 
 craving for food and money. But which of these two 
 was the prophet, let New Zealand, and Australia, our 
 reconstructed power in India, and our settlement in 
 China, reply. 
 
 We are still desirous to attempt to present Carlyle's 
 estimate of some of those great, vexed, social 
 questions, upon which he is thought usually to be 
 heretical. Among all questions, that of Society at 
 present is the most perplexing to us, as, we may 
 suppose, it ever has been ; but in this day especially 
 perplexing from its far greater complexity. Society 
 has ever been a great mystery, but usually it has 
 been united, simultaneous, and one. Past ages, we 
 doubt not, are much more mysterious and perplexing 
 to us than to those who had to live in them. But 
 we are now a mystery to ourselves. Good and evil 
 seem to be brought into a closer strife together. It 
 would seem that the greater tendencies to darkness 
 and mental despair, of which we are conscious, really 
 do arise from the more favourable circumstances in 
 
Carlyle on Ragged Schools. 365 
 
 jvyhich our age is placed. But whatever may be the 
 cause, beyond all question we are smitten with a dumb 
 wonder. There is not a question which, to thought- 
 ful minds, does not terminate in a mountain chain, 
 and we cannot see our way out. There is no path- 
 way among the black hills, and the night is coming 
 on nay, is here. And, certainly, Mr. Carlyle is 
 especially among the number of those who have 
 impressed us with the difficulty of the way and the 
 solemnity of the night. Many persons have strangely 
 misconceived that Mr. Carlyle is opposed to, and 
 has not aided any of the great remedial measures of 
 the age ; in fact, there is scarcely one of our more 
 excellent modern movements of which we might not 
 find an anticipation, and commendation, in his pages. 
 And have our readers noticed the following eulogistic 
 letter on Ragged Schools ? 
 
 The Secretary of the Ragged School at Dumfries, 
 the native district of Mr. Carlyle, received this truly 
 characteristic epistle : 
 
 " Chelsea. 
 
 " DEAR Sir, I readily contribute my mite to your 
 Samaritan project, and wish it good speed with my 
 whole heart. In your locality, I believe, it is much 
 called for, as, indeed, in most other localities in these 
 miserable times. Ragged-schools are not known to 
 me, expect by public rumour, nor that scheme of 
 visiting which you propose ; but the very definition is 
 
366 Carlyle on Ragged Schools. 
 
 a recommendation for such attempts, and awakens in 
 every bystander the wish to see them everywhere 
 faithfully tried. For it is very certain man can teach 
 and guide another; men possessed of some knowledge 
 and virtue can impart thereof to others possessing 
 little or none. And if they never come in contact 
 in practical, constant communication with another 
 they cannot even have a chance to accomplish this, 
 which is the summary of all social duties, everlastingly 
 binding, whether it be done or not ; and the greatest 
 benefit, properly the one benefit, that .man can do to 
 man in our world. Ragged-schools, with good, 
 effectual schoolmaster, who did not stand by his horn- 
 books, and slates, and copy-books alone, but could 
 frankly lay open a wise, hearty, healthy human soul 
 to ignorant, dirty, encumbered little human soul such 
 an arrangement I could fancy to be the most excellent 
 of devices for your object. And as to that of visiting, 
 I well remember reading Dr. Chalmers's develop- 
 ment of that scheme, as practised by him in Edin- 
 burgh, and feeling that it was full of really practical 
 sense that if there was any plan of getting the work 
 done, this, beyond all others, was it. May you 
 prosper well ; attract whatever is modest, and wil- 
 ling, and effective, round you to co-operate ; and see 
 if slowly, yet certainly, good fruit attend your hus- 
 bandry. One other wish I will utter that you may 
 have virtue given you to follow that invaluable pre- 
 
Blessed are the Lazy ! 367 
 
 cept, 'Let not thy right hand know what thy left 
 hand doeth ! ' a precept very difficult to follow in 
 your peculiar circumstances, but one which all men, 
 in all circumstances, can in some manner follow, and 
 which no man departs from without fatal danger to 
 his enterprise, as many low-spouting ' Mechanics' 
 Institutes,' and even Bible Societies, and Exeter Hall 
 * labours of love/ may, in their present ruinous state, 
 after such assiduous beating the drum, well testify to 
 
 us. 
 
 " Believe me, dear Sir, yours very sincerely, 
 
 "THOMAS CARLYLE." 
 
 To many people who think at all, the problem of 
 the age the great social problem, especially, of our 
 society is only beset with shadows. They are ready 
 to exclaim with Abas Musa, in the sedition of Mecca 
 " It is a bad business, and he that meddles least with 
 it has least chance of doing wrong. For what saith 
 the prophet in an affair t)f the kind ? ' He that 
 sleepeth in it is better in it than he that waketh ; 
 he that lieth than he that sitteth ; he that sitteth than 
 he that standeth ; he that standeth than he that 
 walketh ; he that walketh than he that rideth ! '" But 
 this fine encomium upon sloth would find no favour 
 in the eyes of Mr. Carlyle. He, at any rate, would 
 do his utmost to rouse a sleeping people to a sense of 
 the duty and the danger of the age. Perhaps, to 
 
368 Language questionably forcible. 
 
 every age is sent a prophet, to reprove, to rebuke, and 
 to exhort ; and if the age will not hear, then ! 
 Well, listen to Mr. Carlyle and his Parable of the 
 Dead Sea Apes. 
 
 It is very true that many inconsiderates have said 
 that Mr. Carlyle ought to be taken as the Moses 
 of England in the nineteenth century. Practical, 
 sagacious one of the most profoundly religious men 
 of our time he is also our political teacher. True, 
 we admit it, he has not published a political system 
 of practical benevolence ; but he has scattered abroad 
 over the nation truths reminding us that, as he says, 
 " If we follow the devil, we shall assuredly go to the 
 devil," and that " Given a whole word of knaves, to 
 produce an honesty from their united action is a dis- 
 tillation once for all not possible ! " This is very 
 wrong in our friend, his language is so decidedly for- 
 cible too forcible, thinks our friend, the Rev. Lively 
 Turtle. Just now he cites to us such a passage as 
 that in which he deprecates " the loud, long-eared 
 ^allelujahs of laudatory psalmody from the friends of 
 freedom everywhere ; " and this other passage is 
 worse still : " Certainly by any ballot-box Jesus 
 Christ goes just as far as Judas Iscariot, and with 
 reason, according to the new Gospels, Talmuds, and 
 Dismal Sciences of these days, Judas looks Him in 
 the face ; ' Am I not as good as Thou ? Better, per- 
 haps,' slapping his breeches pocket, in which is 
 
Nature offers the True Sphinx Riddle. 369 
 
 audible the cheerful jingle of thirty pieces of silver. 
 ' Thirty pieces of them here, thou cowering pauper ! ' 
 My philanthropic friends, if there be a state of 
 matters under the stars which deserves the name of 
 damnable and damned, this, I perceive, is it." This 
 forcible style of writing is very shocking. " For idle- 
 ness does in all cases inevitably rot and become 
 putrescent, and, I say, deliberately, the very devil is 
 in it " far too forcible. 
 
 Mr. Carlyle, indeed, has not hesitated to say, in his 
 " Past and Present," that Nature, that terrible, beau- 
 tiful Sphinx, is standing by our highways, as she did 
 in Thebes of old, proposing her riddles to us, 
 which, if not solved, she will tear us to pieces. It 
 was so in those wonderful old myths that the 
 Sphinx was represented there, in the clefts of the 
 high mountains, she'made her abode ; a creature with 
 the face of a very beautiful woman, the wings of a 
 bird, and the talons of a griffin. But she came to the 
 highways and lay in ambush, springing out upon 
 travellers passing by ; and when she had them in 
 her power, she put to them dark and perplexing 
 questions, which, if not answered, she tore in pieces 
 the wretched traveller ; but, answer but one, and you 
 became victor over the Sphinx. And at last, when 
 her cruelties became very atrocious, ^Edipus, for his 
 city's sake, placed himself before her, answered her 
 riddle, killed her, laid her on his ass, and bore her, 
 
 24 
 
3/o The Sphinx Riddle of Modern Society. 
 
 amidst shoutings, into Thebes, of which he became 
 the king. The whole of our land nay, the whole 
 of the world now is the same awful mystery. Is not 
 the riddle of existence too much for us ? Have we 
 not come to speak of " the burden of the mystery " ? 
 We shall not say that Carlyle is our ^Edipus ; but we 
 will say that if we can only strike a chord of solem- 
 nity in the reader's soul as he gazes on the great 
 marvels all unsolved in our time, and which are drift- 
 ing us on and whither ? if we only speak as to win 
 from the reader the regard of a more serious glance 
 at life's wonders and duties, our end will, indeed, 
 greatly be answered. 
 
 The great circumstance which irritates in many 
 minds, in connection with our writer, is his wrath 
 the storm and pressure with which he pours out his 
 vials upon the abuses of the age. But here, again, 
 may we not remind you that he has had as we all 
 have had sufficient provocation ? True, at one time 
 we were intermeddling in all things. Now, what is 
 th,e great doctrine taught, especially by the political 
 economists ? Why, is it not even in the very words, 
 Let things alone ? And what things are let alone ? 
 Will any one, disinterested, and endowed with com- 
 mon sense, for instance, stand champion for the New 
 Poor-law Act ? We do not doubt the necessity for 
 many of its enactments, we do not doubt the prac- 
 tical efficiency of much of its detail ; but when we 
 
The " Let A lone " Philosophy. 371 
 
 are told that this is the crowning glory of a Reform 
 ministry, simply doing nothing for the rotting gan- 
 grene of pauperism, one would say the glory is some- 
 what dim. Yet, on the other hand, much is simply 
 monstrous. Let things alone ! We know that nations 
 may be governed too much ; we know that the one 
 great thing to be aimed at is the development of the 
 individual resources of a great people ; but in this 
 country the active energies of our governments seem 
 only, for the most part, to plunge us into deeper evil. 
 They are passive when there is need of aid ; all that 
 is done is done by the volitions of the people them- 
 selves. Nearly twenty years have elapsed since Car- 
 lyle published his book entitled " Chartism," written 
 for the express purpose of showing that while what 
 we call Chartism Democracy may be possible in 
 America, it is impossible in this country, and can 
 only be with us as a swift transition to something 
 else ; and during those years something has been 
 done to amend, and in the especial way in which his 
 work points namely, education anpl emigration. 
 But the evils lie all around us, and there they will lie ; 
 for to this hour is it not true that the let-alone 
 philosophy still rules ? 
 
 Perhaps the one great lesson of nearly all Carlyle's 
 writing is ne quid nimis not too much of anything. 
 He would seem to be so constituted as to detect in 
 all things the_danger the weakness. Hence, every- 
 
 242 
 
372 Prophetic Utterances. 
 
 where you will notice his horror of mere formulary, 
 of mechanism, of routine ; he shudders at the con- 
 sequences of mere soulless deeds. " My brother, 
 thou must pray," says he, "for a soul; struggle as 
 with life and death energy to get back thy soul! 
 Know that ' religion ' is no Morrison's pill from 
 without, but a reawakening of thy own self from 
 within." Long years before our Downing Street 
 proved itself to be the arrant imbecility that it 
 was and, we believe, as a mere Government 
 pensionary is he had written his Latter-day 
 Pamphlets ; and' what did they mean ? This was 
 what they meant : " I know that Downing Street 
 routine ; if you ever want that engine to work, you 
 will find it a mere rusted immovable machine a 
 machine clogged and tied with red tape ; red-tape 
 binding, hand and foot, all things there." The very 
 term, the Red-Tapist, is his own. Look over his 
 Latter-day Pamphlets, and say have not all his 
 prophecies proved true ? Who can tell the extent to 
 which his books have tended to rectify the evils they 
 denounce ? " Past and Present," for instance ; when 
 that book was published, how many things were not 
 that are now ? Baths and washhouses, for instance, 
 were not in existence twenty-five years since. Then, 
 before Liebig even had said, as we know he has said, 
 "that the civilisation of a nation depends on its 
 soap," Carlyle had said : 
 
Carlyle on Baths and Washhouses. 373 
 
 CONCERNING BATHS AND WASHHOUSES. 
 
 " What worship, for example, is there not in mere 
 washing ? Perhaps one of the most moral things a 
 man has it in his power to do, in common cases. 
 Strip thyself, go into the bath, wash and be clean, 
 and thou wilt step out a purer and a better man. It 
 remains a religious duty. Lo ! that dingy, fuliginous 
 operative emerging from his soot. Well, what is the 
 first duty I will prescribe, and offer help towards ? 
 That he clean the skin of him. Can he pray by any 
 ascertained method ? One knows not entirely ; but 
 with soap and water he can wash. The dull English 
 have a saying, ' Cleanliness is akin to godliness ;' 
 yet never saw I operative men worse washed, and in 
 a climate drenched with softest cloud water, such a 
 scarcity of baths ! " 
 
 What do we say social problems Sphinx riddles ? 
 And are they not vital ? We blink them. We refuse 
 to see society in any other than a poetical light. 
 Carlyle insists upon our looking upon it as it is. All 
 things may be coloured with rose tints if we .look at 
 them through a rose-tint glass. Even the tragic history 
 of Blue Beard, that much abused and much maligned 
 individual ah ! think, he staked his all upon the 
 fidelity of his wife, whose fatal curiosity he foresaw ? 
 He did but beseech her not to violate the sanctity of 
 
374 Contempt for Sentimentalism. 
 
 the blue parlour. Doubtless, for the first Mrs. Blue 
 Beard, his affections long slept in the blue chamber 
 with her ; but, impelled by destiny, he loved again, 
 and was again undone. Six times had the fatal 
 sacrifice been exacted from him. At last he gave up 
 all hope, and he found it to be his destiny to go on 
 marrying and murdering to the end. Evidently a 
 man of the finest sensibilities a noble heart, loving 
 not wisely but too well ; this is the way in which 
 some, and many, deal with all the facts of the age 
 and of history. But there is, indeed, no dealing with 
 them all thus. No ! Blue Beard will be Blue Beard, 
 and the stern facts of society will remain, whatever 
 may be said to evaporate them away beneath the 
 sentimental hues of the self-conceit of the great 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 But thus people will insist on calling weeds flowers ; 
 and how can we decide that they are not, but by 
 the fruits they bear ? Our readers remember 
 
 A PARABLE IN AN ANECDOTE OF SIR ARTHUR HELPS. 
 
 " My little daughter came running to me one fine 
 winter day with a very pretty weed. Then, with great 
 earnestness, as if fresh from some controversy on the 
 subject, she exclaimed, ' Is this a weed, Papa is this 
 a weed ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, a weed,' I replied. 
 
 " With a look of disappointment, she moved off to 
 
Weeds petted like Flowers. 375 
 
 the one she loved best among us ; she asked the same 
 question, and received the same answer. 
 
 " ' But it has flowers/ the child replied. 
 
 " ' That does not signify ; it is a weed/ was the in- 
 exorable answer. 
 
 "Presently, after a moment's consideration, the 
 child ran off again, and, meeting the gardener just 
 near my nook though out of sight from where I sat 
 she coaxingly addressed him. 
 
 " ' Nicholas, dear, is this a weed ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, Miss ; they call it Shepherd's purse.' 
 
 " A pause ensued ; I thought the child was now 
 fairly convinced by authority, when all at once the 
 little voice began again. 
 
 " ' Will you plant it in my garden, Nicholas, dear ? 
 Do plant it in my garden.' " 
 
 And thus, indeed, is it not that, spite of any amount 
 of warning or authority, society rigidly insists on 
 planting things demonstrated to be weeds in the 
 social garden ? This is one grave source of thought 
 in all our minds. And the vexed questions thus re- 
 presented to us, they are the same perpetually recur- 
 ring ones which meet us in all ages. Truly, but we 
 are in the moral tropics, and so swift the mighty 
 forests of evil have sprung up, they have appalled the 
 hearts of all who have thought upon and rightly con 
 templated the growing mischief. 
 
376 Or is there any Evil at all ? 
 
 The evils of the age are none the fewer because a 
 race of teachers has sprung up who insist upon it that 
 evil is not. No ! only some dread, beautiful necessity 
 the windrush doctrine. In Mr. Carlyle you will meet 
 with no sympathy with this opinion. Society is evil 
 because society is sinful. Man is Avretched because 
 he is unholy. The ignorance of those who identify 
 the teaching of Carlyle with Emerson, is ridiculous. 
 On the contrary, you remember the saying of Sandy 
 Mackaye, in "Alton Locke." It is almost a literal 
 translation from Carlyle : " An' sae the devil's 
 dead," said Sandy, as he sat crooning and smoking 
 that night over the fire ; " gone at last, and he 
 sae little appreciated. Puir fellow, too every gowk 
 laying his sins on Nickie's back ! puir Nickie ! " 
 Very much like that much misunderstood poli- 
 tician, Mr. John Cade, as Charles Buller called 
 him in the House of Commons. "An' he to be 
 dead at last ! The world seems quite unco without 
 his auld farrant phizog on the streets. Aweel I 
 aweel ! aiblins he's but shamming ! 
 
 " 'When pleasant spring came on apace, 
 
 And showers began to fall, 
 John Barleycorn got up again, 
 An' sore surprised them all.' 
 
 At ony rate, I'd not bury him till he began to smell a 
 wee strong, like. It's a grewsome thing that prema- 
 ture interment, Alton laddie." 
 
The need for Surgery in Society. 377 
 
 The reader has not forgotten the anecdote of the 
 sick man who, while explaining his symptoms to his 
 medical man, was amazed by his exclaiming, '' Charm- 
 ing ! Ah! Yes! yes! Delightful! Yes! Pray go 
 on pray go on ; " and when he had finished, said, 
 with the utmost delight, " My dear sir, do you know 
 that you have a complaint that has been for some 
 time supposed to be extinct ? " We often think " the 
 rose-water school of philanthropists " does, in its 
 enthusiastic notation of symptoms of moral disease, 
 altogether forget the circumstances of affliction and 
 pain. There is about many of them a perfect heart- 
 lessness as to the whole matter, most harrowing and 
 distressing to the heart. And yet, moral surgery 
 needs the cold and daring hand not less than the 
 medical. 
 
 The lovers of Carlyle are anxious to vindicate him 
 from the charge that he has written much, said much, 
 and done nothing. A clever writer has said that he 
 keeps a "school in which scolding goes on from 
 morning to night, but certainly no teaching ; if his 
 boys move they are lashed, if they sit still they are 
 lashed they can do nothing right; and what is 
 worse, they never have an inkling of what their 
 cruelly exacting pedagogue thinks right or necessary 
 to be done." Very drolly said, and as false as droll. 
 Such was not quite the estimate of him, expressed 
 in the well-known epigram of Walter Savage Landor : 
 
378 Epigrams on Carlyle. 
 
 " Strike with Thor's hammer ; strike again 
 The skulking heads of half-formed men, 
 And every Northern God shall smile 
 Upon thy well-aimed blow, Carlyle ! " 
 
 " Strike away," says one writer, " and welcome ; when 
 you have got hold of a real sin or flagrant sinner, 
 pound him, contuse him, take the daylight and 
 breath out of him, as fast and freely as you will or 
 can ; but don't growl and show fight at all the world 
 and his wife ; have some respect of persons 
 
 " ' Pray, Thomas, learn to moderate 
 The fury of your tongue ! ' ' 
 
 Before Mr. Carlyle had attained to be what he 
 unquestionably is, a force in public opinion, this was 
 the sort of charge urged against him, especially in 
 ably written papers in the Times, and in Blackwood's 
 Magazine. He is anything, such writers were fond 
 of asserting, but a man of practical ability. Even in 
 reviewing his Latter-day Pamphlets, it was said that 
 he had never in the course of his life thrown out a 
 single hint which might be useful to his own gene- 
 ration or profitable to the generations to come ; he 
 never stirs an inch beyond vague generalities. It 
 was said that, if he were a doctor, and you came to 
 him with a cut finger, he would regale you with a 
 dythrambic on the heroical qualities of Avcenna, or 
 commence by proving that Abernethy was a phan- 
 taism leech, instead of whipping L out his pocket- 
 
 
The Flippancies of I gnaro. 379 
 
 book and applying a plaster to the wound ; or, that 
 if you sent him into the House of Commons which 
 we believe was at one time seriously contemplated 
 not by himself and he rose to make a speech on the 
 Budget, he would go on maundering about Teufels- 
 drockh, Sauerteig, Dryasdust, Sir Jabesh Windbag, 
 Fire Horses, Marsh Jotuns, and Choctaw Indians, 
 until he was well coughed down. It was said, that 
 he has never brought out of his treasures things new 
 or old, but only re-cooked crambo, served up in 
 piquant, biting sauce, the last dish always a little 
 stronger than the preceding, however strong that might 
 have been ; he has nothing to tell the world but to 
 be in earnest, to hate shams, and not to be a flunkey, 
 and to worship heroes. The world, says the Times, 
 in the essay we refer to, will be very grateful to Mr. 
 Carlyle if he will just put his shoulder to the wheel, 
 and help it to repair a crying evil ; but putting a 
 shoulder, or even a finger to the wheel, is just what 
 this writer will not do ; it suits him better to make 
 mouths at a machine temporarily embedded in the 
 mud, and to swear that it is dropping to pieces, while 
 others are bravely attempting to lift it out of the 
 rut. This is all very funnily put, and no doubt sets 
 our old prophet in a very satisfactorily laughable 
 light to the race of the Podsnaps ; but as an expo- 
 sition of Carlyle's social philosophy, it is as false as 
 such flippant summaries usually are. One earnest 
 
380 Carlyle freely Paraphrased. 
 
 voice Mr. Carlyle has consistently lifted up through- 
 out all his great social sermons, his " Past and Present," 
 " Chartism," and Latter-day Pamphlets, against the 
 laissezfaire philosophy, which when he began to write 
 was even more intolerably popular than it is now. I 
 will advise you, good people, he said, or seemed to 
 say, not to adopt that philosophy ; I would advise you 
 not to let bad things alone. There is a huge muck- 
 midden right underneath your window, by your very 
 door ; it is pestilence, and stench, and disease, if your 
 nostrils are pleasantly regaled by the flavour of it. 
 So ! I cannot compel you to remove it, I cannot 
 remove it myself, I am not the overseer of your own 
 property ; but I tell you, it is a Social Vampire, there 
 is Death in it, the very Devil is in it ! And you 
 you preach that it be let alone that is your Gospel ! 
 I advise quite another kind of Gospel, I advise spade 
 and pitchfork, and that it be carted away, and turned 
 into a social utility rather than a curse and a defor-. 
 mity ! Oh, my incapable, and altogether too thought- 
 less brethren, your behaviour concerning this thing is 
 by no means comic to me, it is even fragic, and I see 
 what will be the end of it ! 
 
 This is the kind of word which Cflrlyle has applied 
 to innumerable eyyrfuite ominous in activity about 
 us ; our growing^' iBperism, our festering crime, our 
 huge coiling redfllBe system of government. The 
 sermons / he has f leached have had very practical 
 
The Fatal A ntagonisms of Society. 381 
 
 applications; that they have not produced conversions 
 is not the fault of the preacher surely ; he has assailed 
 builders of houses, and makers of bricks, and with 
 what amount of truth dwellers in London streets do 
 certainly very well know. Yet does it seem to us 
 that his sermons have been altogether preached in 
 vain. 
 
 This is the doctrine through innumerable pages of 
 our author's writings, that there are some in all our 
 great cities, and over the whole land, who need to be 
 treated as children, and not for their own sakes only, 
 for the sake of society. Singular in how many par- 
 ticulars the let-alone theory has been given up ; 
 houses, footpaths, gas lamps, are all now subjects of 
 police, affairs of square and rule ; but just as singular 
 Is it what things are still let alone, or even if not let 
 alone they are dealt with in such a manner that the 
 principal thing which becomes obvious is our own 
 inefficiency, and especially Pauperism and Crime are 
 two tremendous Cancers threatening to eat out the 
 heart of the nation ; tremendous evils come of letting 
 things alone ; no idea seems to unite us ; suggest it, 
 and it shivers upon some rocky crotchet, we lose 
 sight of the main thought, and the good remains 
 undone, because we are seized upon by some hys- 
 terical notion of our own, to which we expect perfect 
 and universal conformity, while we have not the 
 slightest concession to make to the notion of any 
 
382 How to Move a Mountain of Misery. 
 
 one else. Nothing unites us ; so squalor and crime 
 stride terrific or sprawl headlong in our midst, and 
 fill the air with the fetid breath, as of some corpse- 
 house. What we want is no more books to prove the 
 fact, calculations, or statistics, but some doing on a 
 gigantic scale ; nothing short of a gigantic scale can 
 touch the immense manure heap of wretchedness. 
 And therefore the image employed just now ; look at 
 the immense manure heap, the huge accumulating 
 dung-heap of the neighbourhood. You do not admire 
 the image, still, let us use it. See what comes about if 
 it is permitted to every house, to every stable, to add to 
 the pestilential accumulation ; the hot steams spread 
 contagion all around, it is a loathsome spectacle, the 
 fruitful parent of fevers which, like hybernating snakes 
 or vipers, are ready to spring forth and strike, and 
 sting, and slay. If ten thousand hands have contributed 
 to its growth, and if it has accumulated through ages 
 of neglect, one hand cannot remove it ; but suppose 
 a thousand hands attack the mountain, and scatter 
 abroad the unsightly and pestilential reeking abomi- 
 nation over a thousand fields ; why, that which was 
 death turns into life, and that which fostered disease 
 ministers to health and vigour. We may behold the 
 parable in every great city, find it, for instance, in the 
 East End of London, find it on that spot which has 
 been called Tiger Island ; no rose-w r ater benevolence, 
 no sentimental philanthropy can deal with such a 
 
Remedies for Social Miseries. 383 
 
 growth ; Devilish is the accumulation ; Celestial, 
 strong seraphic light, sword-bearing, but beautiful 
 no less than strong, must be the remedy ; by palaver- 
 ing Parliaments the abomination is not to be 
 touched. Despair says, Good Heavens ! how is the 
 thing to be touched ? With the generous achieve- 
 ments of a competitive commercial life in an im- 
 mensely crowded population, buying in the cheapest 
 market and selling in the dearest, fulfilling its Divine 
 and fruitful errand on every hand ; tens of thousands 
 of little children from three years old and upwards, 
 tied to their chairs, toiling by night and day ; 
 women working through twenty-four hours, and un- 
 able still to win what may keep poor body and 
 soul together, until it is discovered that sin seems 
 to pay better than honest labour! Beset with diffi- 
 culties the matter is ; and he who, like Carlyle, dares 
 to tell the truth upon such matters, may expect as 
 his reward the clamour and the scorn of all the 
 money markets against him. Carlyle has continued 
 to repeat his warnings, offering his Sybil leaves 
 through many long years ; thirty years since he must 
 have had his eye on the East End of London when 
 satirising the mighty millionaire, Bobus, of Hounds- 
 ditch, the sausage maker. So he illustrates his 
 principle, " national suffering has ever had its begin- 
 ning in national crime ; " so of civil suffering, " the 
 rotten will hold together a long time if you do not 
 
384 In the East End of London. 
 
 handle it too roughly, but at last the moment of 
 dissolution comes." 
 
 For instance, we are in London; take London near 
 the Minories, or, if you like, near Shoreditch, either 
 will read us the same lesson. Here is a splendid 
 Tailor's establishment, it is a palace, what a magni- 
 ficent array of brass ! always plenty of brass ! it 
 blazes with magic lustres and lights ; what an illu- 
 mination, it is as if some great festivity in which the 
 world was interested was going on. Let us enter! 
 Things are marvellously cheap, and are we not in 
 the establishment of a most honest tradesman ? He 
 can afford to sell it to us at this amazing reduction ! 
 Honest man, he has not stolen the cloth ! Does he 
 not pay his rent ? Be sure his landlord looks after 
 him there ! not a penny beneath the real value of 
 rents. Does he not pay his taxes ? Be sure Govern- 
 ment will look after him there ; he may contrive to 
 dodge a little bit, but Income-tax Collectors are sharp, 
 and always contrive to put on rather more than be satis- 
 fied with the tale of rather less than his apparent in- 
 come. Does he not pay twenty shillings in the pound ? 
 Honest man, of course he does ; be sure that his 
 tradespeople look after him ! What is the secret of it 
 all ? How does he contrive to maintain this monster, 
 establishment ? How is all this glitter and glare paid 
 for ? Does he not pay his workmen ? Of course he 
 does ! Come along with me, and we shall see. Come 
 
In the East End of London. 385 
 
 down this dirty court, let us mount these creaking 
 stairs, come into this horrid garret. Ah, look here ! 
 Here are men, or women, perhaps, who know nothing 
 of labour but its curse, and nothing of life but its 
 misery ; here are haggard faces, faces upon which 
 already you see stamped the imprint of death ! Here 
 in this polluted atmosphere men work for two shil- 
 lings a day, and women for, oh ! how much less 
 than that ! They have no golden air, no sunshine, 
 no Sabbath ! And you must believe the present 
 writer when he tells you that he has talked with men 
 in Whitechapel and Spitalfields who never saw a blade 
 of grass grow, never saw a field or a wild flower in 
 their lives ! And out of these and such as these, out 
 of their sweat and sinew, their blood, their dead and 
 cavernous and almost idiotic brain, the profit is made. 
 Oh, the miserable chambers of honest, hardworking 
 poverty, without fire, without food, without furniture, 
 without clothes, "stitching in poverty, hunger, and 
 dirt," only to prolong life and misery! Now go 
 back to your splendid shop, dazzling window, 
 and gorgeous pile. It is a Golgotha, a place of 
 skulls. But often the fever of that wretched 
 garret infiltrates all the attire and strikes right 
 and left, and slays. Meantime, be it remembered 
 that even for such splendid and costly buildings, 
 and the fortunes they represent, you at last have 
 to pay ; it all comes back at last into the dread- 
 
 25 
 
386 The Immorality of Cheapness. 
 
 ful Poor Law and its inequitability of taxation. 
 " Oh," says Carlyle, in a passage already quoted ; 
 " oh, it is frightful when a nation has forgotten God, 
 and remembers only Mammon and what Mammon 
 leads to." And there is no more universal illustration 
 that the nation has forgotten God than in the lesson 
 to be read on every hand of the immorality of 
 cheapness the insult offered to justice in the wor- 
 ship of Mammon. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CONDITION OF ENGLAND QUESTION. 
 
 BUT the things we cannot do surely are not to stand 
 as interdicts upon the things we can do ; and, more- 
 ever, if we can do few good things, this is no reason 
 why we should do manifold evil things. We have 
 already said that like to these Latter-day 
 Pamphlets we have nothing in our literature. The 
 whole race and family of the Barnacles have gone 
 rabid upon them ; and almost all leaders of all 
 parties have taken a retainer against them. And, 
 even as we might conceive some five hundred little 
 cockle-boats setting sail from Weymouth, or from 
 Edinburgh, with trim, genteelly dressed, little captains 
 or lieutenants, saying, " Go to ! Let us pull up 
 Portland Island, or the Bass Rock ; let us fire our 
 guns upon it, and show the sinfulness of it, and destroy 
 it;" even so, five hundred little reviewers have sent 
 off their twopenny-halfpenny craft. " Go to ! Let us 
 utterly expurgate and destroy from the face of the 
 earth these Latter-day Pamphlets, and with them the 
 heretic Carlyle." And there still is the Portland 
 Rock ; and there still, rooted, we believe, and 
 
 25 2 
 
388 The Condition of England Question. 
 
 grounded in the same veracities on which the 
 Portland Rocks and Bass Rocks are founded, there 
 are the Latter-day Pamphlets, true as the Gospel of 
 nature, and terrible as true. Terrible as true. For 
 these Pamphlets seem to us only the amplification of 
 the words of the Prophet : " Because thou hast 
 forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been 
 mindful of the rock of thy strength ; therefore shalt 
 thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with 
 strange slips. In the day shalt thou make thy plant 
 to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed 
 to flourish ; but the harvest shall be a heap in the day 
 of grief and of desperate sorrow." 
 
 And, therefore, all honour to Mr. Carlyle, that he 
 has consecrated his powers to this vast Condition-of- 
 England question. Compare his writings with those 
 of most other great men in this particular with 
 Lord Macaulay, for instance and the fact is this : 
 here is a man, the grandeur of whose gifts and at- 
 tainments is something truly immeasurable. Not 
 contenting himself with mere literary dignities, but 
 really taking up and handling practically all the 
 great questions of the age. Practically he sees, 
 depend upon it, he sees and knows well all that you 
 can allege upon the theory, whatever that may be ; is 
 learned in all your Blue-Book literature, whatever 
 that may be worth, and puts his finger on the beating 
 heart, the real mainspring of every question he 
 
What is a Communist? 389 
 
 touches or determines to express an opinion on. He 
 see its relation to every form of humanity. Strange, 
 the misconception of these Pamphlets, arising from 
 the simple, trivial circumstance that people will talk 
 about and pass opinions on what they will not read. 
 Hence, they have been called Socialistic ! Yes ; then 
 was old Rhadamanthus a Socialist. No ! nonsense of 
 that kind, believe us, is far removed from the mind of 
 Carlyle. No Communist is he ! He would join 
 heartily in the Chant of Ebenezer Elliot : 
 
 " What is a Communist ? One who has yearnings 
 For an equal division of unequal earnings ; 
 Idler or bungler ! He is one who is willing 
 To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling." 
 
 No ! to be well governed, this is the grand business 
 to which these Latter-day Pamphlets and Pro- 
 phecies address themselves. Albeit they do ring 
 and re-echo again and again with things not palat- 
 able to many ears. 
 
 No pamphlet has been more misconceived than 
 that on " Model Prisons." For poor unhappy ignor- 
 ance our writer has expressed abundant sympathy ; 
 for British Bankism, for Robsonism, Redpathism, and 
 Dean Paulism, he has none. For all these magnificent 
 Cagliostros, simply playing a high game, and doing 
 their best to destroy all confidence in man, and to 
 loosen the very hinges of society, our writer has 
 nothing to say; by ragged schools, ( baths, emigrations, 
 
3QO The Devil's Regiments of the Line. 
 
 save the ignorant and the poor. But for these, he 
 says : 
 
 MR. CARLYLE ON THE DEVIL'S REGIMENTS OF THE 
 LINE. 
 
 " If I had a commonwealth to reform or to govern, 
 certainly it should not be the Devil's regiments of the 
 line that I should first of all concentrate my atten- 
 tion on ! With them I should be apt to make rather 
 brief work ; to them one would apply the besom, try 
 to sweep them with some rapidity into the dust-bin, 
 as well out of one's road, I should rather say. . . . 
 Away, you ; begone swiftly, ye regiments of the line. 
 In the name of God and of His poor struggling 
 servants, sore put to it to live in these bad days ; I 
 mean to rid myself of you with some degree of 
 brevity. To feed you in palaces, to hire captains and 
 schoolmasters, and the choicest spiritual and material 
 artificers to expend their industries on you ! I have 
 quite other work for that class of artists. Seven-and- 
 twenty millions of neglected mortals who have not 
 yet declared for the Devil. Mark it, my diabolic 
 friends, I mean to lay leather on the backs of you y 
 collars round the necks of you ; and will teach you y 
 after the example of the gods, that this world is not 
 your inheritance, or glad to see you in it. You, ye 
 diabolic canaille, what has a governor much to do- 
 with you ? You, I think, he will rather swiftly dismiss 
 
Modern Cagliostros. 391 
 
 from his thoughts, which have the whole celestial 
 and terrestrial for their scope, and not the subterranean 
 of scoundreldom alone. You, I consider, he will sweep 
 pretty rapidly into some Norfolk Island, into some 
 special convict colony or remote domestic moorland ; 
 in some stone-walled silent-system, under hard drill 
 sergeants, just as Rhadamanthus, and inflexible as he, 
 and there leave you to reap what you have sown ; he 
 meanwhile turning his endeavours to the thousand- 
 fold immeasurable interests of men and gods, dis- 
 missing the one extremely contemptible interest of 
 scoundrels ; sweeping that into the cesspool, tumbling 
 that over London-bridge, in a very brief manner if 
 needful." 
 
 It is nearly thirty years since those two mysterious 
 papers, "Count Cagliostro," and the "Diamond 
 Necklace," appeared from the pen of our author. 
 Slight has been the reference to them, but surely they 
 are the foreshadowings of a new era in the history of 
 Crime. Who has not heard of the immortal Cagli- 
 ostro ? the first illustrious He who reduced the 
 floating elements of scoundrelism to a science dis- 
 tinguished individual ! Arch Cophte, Quacksalver 
 and Great High Priest of the Order of Black Sheep. 
 But, surely, in a very eminent degree he has had 
 followers. Always the world has had the " children of 
 the wicked one " in it. But in our day, surely, if the 
 
392 Cultivated Criminals. 
 
 seeds of good have developed themselves, have not 
 the seeds of evil ? nay, has not evil become scientific ? 
 and, in London, are there not schools of vice, at which, 
 indeed, one must graduate before he can play for a 
 high game ? Nay, not only so, does not society at - 
 large tempt its children to become vicious, with its re- 
 spectabilities, and gigs, and appearances ? Thus, at any 
 rate, is it not true that there has indeed been de- 
 veloped a new order of criminals in our day, most 
 painful to consider ? Men, even of rank, of educa- 
 tion, members of all the learned professions, men who 
 played a high game and lost, and now lie there useless 
 lumber, with thousands besides. Stuff, that society 
 has thrown into its iron safe, worthless, useless ; stuff, 
 that society cannot in any way use, and is glad to get 
 rid of on any terms is only too glad to emancipate 
 from prison, if it will only go and not try to work 
 the desperate problem again of making the way of 
 transgressors not hard. It is beyond a doubt one of 
 the most important questions of the age, What shall 
 we do with the criminals ? Society is posed and 
 stunned with that Sphinx riddle. While here, without 
 a doubt, is a matter on which a Government competent 
 to do something, might employ some measure of its 
 powers. But Government, so far from seeking to solve 
 that question, simply builds model prisons for them, 
 expends upon them its reckless thousands, mindless of 
 others who are fast pressing into those places of torment- 
 
Cosmos versus Chaos. 393 
 
 To Mr. Carlyle certainly, at present, society pre- 
 sents the grand death-struggle of cosmos against chaos ; 
 and he evidently thinks that for the present chaos is 
 likely to get the best of it. Not that he does not be- 
 lieve in God, but that he fears the perversity and self- 
 will of man. If chaos got the best of it in Paris, in 
 France, in Rome, in Naples, it may here. We dare 
 to say the reader has noticed that there is a side to 
 Calvinism which looks out to Pantheism ; and it is 
 this which has given currency to the thought that 
 Carlyle is a Pantheist. These extremes meet. Cal- 
 vinism looks out to Pantheism, as Arminianism, 
 legitimately carried forward, looks on to Socinian- 
 ism, Deism, Atheism, and meets Pantheism by 
 a more circuitous route. Without doubt Mr. 
 Carlyle believes there is a God, and always that 
 in forgetfulness of God lies all misery. The world 
 now is regarded as " a great extensive cattle-fold 
 and workhouse, with most extensive kitchen-ranges 
 and dining-tables. There is no longer any God for 
 us ! God's laws are become only a greatest-happiness 
 principle ; a Parliamentary expediency. The heavens 
 overarch us only as an astronomical time-keeper, a 
 butt for Herschel telescopes to shoot science at, to 
 shoot sentimentalities at. Man has lost his soul, and 
 now in due time, begins to find out the want of it." 
 Here is the misery of the world. There is no religion, 
 there is no God. " Man has lost his soul, and vainly 
 
394 Shooting Niagara. 
 
 seeks instead of it an anti-septic salt ;" vainly, for in 
 killing kings, in passing reform bills, in French revo- 
 lutions, Manchester insurrections, is found no remedy ; 
 for actually this is not the real fact of the world ; the 
 world, is not made so, but otherwise. " Truly, any 
 society setting out from this no-God hypothesis will 
 arrive at a result or two." This is Mr. Carlyle's abso- 
 lute conviction. The only possibility of cosmos is in 
 obedience to God. And if we are near to chaos, it 
 is because we forget God. 
 
 Thus in his paper " Shooting Niagara." It is, in 
 truth, another Latter-day Pamphlet ; wrung out of Mr. 
 Carlyle, it would seem, by the last feats of saltimban- 
 dic democracy in our Commons and Lords ; upon this 
 text Mr. Carlyle proceeds to deliver himself, after his 
 accustomed fashion and in his well-known notes, upon 
 our social sins in general ; he is a poet of the highest 
 order, we believe, made out of the same stuff as that 
 which has produced Homers and Dantes. It was to 
 be expected, therefore, that much of his language 
 would soar away through strong trope and figure, 
 not always most comprehensible to blockheads 
 and ordinary mortals ; but that any man preach- 
 ing with intense earnestness to his age, reproving, 
 rebuking, and exhorting, should receive the polite 
 bows, and grimacing gratitude of the men whose 
 vices he lashes, was not to be expected ; this has 
 not ordinarily been the case. Ahab got up no 
 
Martyr Testimonials. 395 
 
 testimonial for Elijah, except the threat of his 
 life ; nor Manasseh for Isaiah, except, so tradition 
 tells us, that altogether unpleasant testimonial of saw- 
 ing him in sunder ; the Master told some terrible 
 truths to the chief priests, and scribes, and Pharisees, 
 and they called Him Beelzebub, and did something also 
 with nails, and scourge, and crown of thorns to show 
 their sense of His value. Stones and imprisonment 
 greeted Paul. And John Tetzel,we are sure, did not feel 
 grateful to Martin Luther for putting a stop to the 
 sale of indulgences "So persecuted they the prophets 
 which were before you," and so Thomas Carlyle comes 
 off pretty well ; newspaper leaders break no bones ; 
 we, however, are desirous of expressing our sense that 
 this sermon, by our venerable and veteran preacher, 
 is equal to any he has addressed to us, and that sub- 
 stantially it is as true as the words of inspired pro- 
 phets, for it grows out of their truth ; to speak after 
 Mr. Carlyle's language " It is a genuine voice out of 
 the eternal verities." The prophecy, certainly con- 
 tains no smooth things, it is pretty much one strong, 
 withering, and unbroken curse from beginning to 
 end ; the mischief of the matter is, that common- 
 sense and righteousness cannot make out the curse to 
 be causeless. That every reader, and thoughtful and 
 reverencing lover of Mr. Carlyle will go along with 
 him through all the particulars of his denunciation is 
 not to be expected, but it is not merely in the main 
 
396 The Vehemencies of Carlyle. 
 
 but for the most part, one feels amidst the swing and 
 toll of these tremendous anathemas, that they wake 
 up in the soul a response of their common-sense and 
 justice. Being an original man, what we call a poet, 
 or creator, Mr. Carlyle can, and will, only express 
 his sense in his own way, after the fashion of his own 
 most marvellously elliptical and electrical speech ; we 
 are not aware that he needs any allowance, as it is 
 called, to be made for him, passion and infinite 
 earnestness and vehemence are the characteristics of 
 his mind and style, they are well known ; the fact is, 
 there is nothing at all new in the paper ; it is old 
 eternal truth ; you value your preacher as he possesses 
 that conscience-searching power, that way of using his 
 words like nimble lightnings, darting into the con- 
 sciousness, and setting forth all the sins, and saying 
 "here we are," as the lightnings say, in their reveal- 
 ing terror. The Saturday Review, in one of its sneers 
 upon the paper, inquires " if Mr. Carlyle expects the 
 State to be saved by politeness ! " We apprehend that 
 that is exactly what he does not expect, and assuredly 
 it is a condiment he does not keep in his cruet ; he is 
 not one to approach swindlers or rascals with elegant 
 expressions, such as, " Now let me beg you to con- 
 sider ;" "Now, really don't you think;" "My dear 
 friend, let us look quietly at this matter ;" this is not 
 quite Mr. Carlyle's style, nor do we ourselves quite 
 perceive that it is likely to be very effective with 
 
"Lying to Steep in the Devil's Pickle" 397 
 
 those who, perhaps, have moral natures as hard and 
 insensible as a garotter's, or, if not so bad as this,, 
 intelligences as obtuse and perverted as a long course 
 of sad-doing and wrong-doing could render them. 
 
 " For," exclaims he, " we are a people drowned in 
 Hypocrisy ; saturated with it to the bone : alas, it is 
 even so, in spite of far other intentions at one time y 
 and of a languid, dumb, but ineradicable inward pro- 
 test against it still ; and we are beginning to be 
 universally conscious of that horrible condition, and 
 by no means disposed to die in behalf of continuing 
 it ! It has lasted long, that unblessed process ; pro- 
 cess of ' lying to steep in the Devil's Pickle/ for above 
 two hundred years (I date the formal beginning of it 
 from the year 1660, and desperate return of Sacred 
 Majesty after such an ousting as it had got) ; process 
 which appears to be now about complete. Who could 
 regret the finis of such a thing; finis on any terms 
 whatever! Possibly it will not be death eternal, 
 possibly only death temporal, death temporary. 
 
 "My neighbours, by the million against one, all 
 expect that it will almost certainly be New-birth, a 
 Saturnian time, with gold nuggets themselves more 
 plentiful than ever. As for us we will say, Rejoice 
 in the awakening of poor England even on these 
 terms. To lie torpid, sluttishly gurgling and 
 mumbling, spiritually in soak 'in the Devil's 
 
 
398 The Age of Varnish and Veneer. 
 
 Pickle' (choicest elixir the Devil brews, is not un- 
 conscious or half-conscious Hypocrisy, and quiet 
 Make-believe of yourself and others, strictly that?) 
 for above two hundred years : that was the infinitely 
 dismal condition, all others are but finitely so." 
 
 Running through a tolerable length, the writer 
 recapitulates the items of national turpitude, men- 
 dacity, and folly, which assuredly are not particularly 
 new to any of our knowledges, and assuredly are not 
 to be disbelieved. Nay, are we not so happy as to 
 possess in our midst very many good men, who are 
 the salt of the earth, the ten righteous in Sodom, who 
 have long, in a certain mild, weak way recited, 
 deplored, and attempted to-, expose, exactly the same 
 thing. Who doubts, for instance, the amazing hollow- 
 ness of society in the attempt everywhere made to 
 colour over deformities, sins, and shames, to hold 
 together things which have no cohesion, to make 
 rottenness beautiful and insolvency respectable ; but 
 Mr. Carlyle speaks of it in the following vehement 
 manner, and who will say, as he reads, " I have 
 looked through society and the testimony is not 
 true " ? 
 
 " And to such length have we at last brought it, by 
 our wilful, conscious, and now long-continued method 
 of using varnish, instead of actual repair by honest 
 
The Age of Varnish. 399 
 
 carpentry, of what we all knew and saw to have gone 
 undeniably wrong in our procedures and affairs ! 
 Method deliberately, steadily, and even solemnly 
 continued, with much admiration of it from ourselves 
 and others, as the best and only good one, for above 
 two hundred years. Ever since that annus mirabilis 
 of 1660, when Oliver Cromwell's dead clay was hung 
 on the gibbet, and a much easier ' reign of Christ ' 
 under the divine gentleman called Charles II. was 
 thought the fit thing, this has been our steady 
 method; varnish; varnish; if a thing have grown 
 so rotten that it yawns palpable, and is so in- 
 expressibly ugly that the eyes of the very populace 
 discern it and detest it, bring out a new pot of 
 varnish, with the requisite supply of putty ; and lay 
 it on handsomely. Don't spare varnish ; how well it 
 will all look in a few days, if laid on handsomely. 
 Varnish alone is cheap and is safe ; avoid car- 
 pentering, chiselling, sawing, and hammering on the 
 old quiet House ; dry-rot is in it, who knows how 
 deep ; don't disturb the old beams and junctures : 
 varnish, varnish, if you will be blessed by gods and 
 men ! This is called the Constitutional System, 
 Conservative System, and other fine names ; and 
 this at last has its fruits, such as we see. Mendacity 
 hanging in the very air we breathe ; all men become 
 unconsciously or half or wholly-consciously, liars to 
 their own souls and to other men's ; grimacing, 
 
4oo The Glorious Liberty , 
 
 finessing, periphrasing, in continual hypocrisy of 
 word, by way of varnish to continual past, present, 
 future misperformance of thing: clearly sincere 
 about nothing whatever, except in silence, about 
 the appetites of their own huge belly, and the 
 readiest method of assuaging these. From a popula- 
 tion of that sunk kind, ardent only in pursuits that are 
 low and in industries that are sensuous and beaverisk, 
 there is little peril of human enthusiasms, or revo- 
 lutionary transports, such as occurred in 1789, for 
 instance. A low-minded pecus is safe from all that ; 
 essentially torpid and ignavum, on all that is high or 
 nobly human in revolutions." 
 
 And the curing of national shortcomings in the 
 doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with 
 God, by what are called Reform Bills, manhood 
 suffrages, and so on, seems to Mr. Carlyle of all 
 receipts the most absurd, and the proclamation of a 
 glorious liberty to the sons of the devil. This he 
 ridicules in his usual manner of utter scorn, "the 
 equality of man, all men alike equal, Quashee 
 Nigger to Socrates or Shakespeare, Judas Iscariot to 
 Jesus Christ, and Bedlam and Gehenna equal to the 
 New Jerusalem " 
 
 " Ask yourself about ' Liberty,' for example ; what 
 do you really mean by it, what in any just and 
 
Of the Children of the Devil. 401 
 
 rational soul is that Divine quality of Liberty ? That 
 a good man be ' free,' as we call it, be permitted to 
 unfold himself in works of goodness and nobleness, is 
 surely a blessing to him, immense and indispensable ; 
 to him and to those about him. But that a bad 
 man be ' free,' permitted to unfold himself in his 
 particular way, is contrariwise, the fatallest curse you 
 could inflict on him ; curse and nothing else, to him 
 and all his neighbours. Him the very Heavens call 
 upon you to persuade, to urge, induce, compel, into 
 something of well-doing ; if you absolutely cannot, 
 if he will continue in ill-doing, then for him (I can 
 assure you, though you will be shocked to hear it), 
 the one 'blessing ' left is the speediest gallows you can 
 lead him to. Speediest, that at least his ill-doing may 
 cease quam primum. Oh, my friends, whither are you 
 buzzing and swarming, in this extremely absurd 
 manner? Expecting a Millennium from < extension 
 of the suffrage,' laterally, vertically, or in whatever 
 way ? 
 
 " All the Millenniums I ever heard of heretofore 
 were to be preceded by a ' chaining of the Devil for 
 a thousand years,' laying him up, tied neck and 
 heels, and put beyond stirring, as the preliminary. 
 You, too, have been taking preliminary steps, with 
 more and more ardour, for a thirty years back ; but 
 they seem to be all in the opposite direction : a 
 cutting asunder of straps and ties, wherever you 
 
 26 
 
4O2 An Emancipated Devil. 
 
 might find them ; pretty indiscriminate of choice in 
 the matter: a general repeal of old regulations, 
 fetters, and restrictions (restrictions on the Devil 
 originally, I believe, for the most part, but now 
 fallen slack and ineffectual), which had become un- 
 pleasant to many of you, with loud shouting from 
 the multitude, as strap after strap was cut, ' Glory, 
 glory, another strap is gone ! ' this, I think, has 
 mainly been the sublime legislative industry of Par- 
 liament since it became ' Reform Parliament ;' 
 victoriously successful, and thought sublime and 
 beneficent by some. So that now hardly any limb 
 of the Devil has a thrum, or tatter of rope or leather 
 left upon it : there needs almost superhuman heroism 
 in you to ' whip ' a Garotter ; no Fenian taken with 
 the reddest hand is to be meddled with, under penal- 
 ties ; hardly a murderer, never so detestable and 
 hideous, but you find him ' insane,' and ' board him 
 at the public expense/ a very peculiar British 
 Prytaneum of these days ! And in fact, the Devil (he, 
 verily, if you will consider the sense of words) is 
 likewise become an Emancipated Gentleman; lithe 
 of limb, as in Adam and Eve's time, and scarcely a 
 toe or finger of him tied any more. And you, my 
 astonishing friends, you are certainly getting into a 
 Millennium, such as never was before, hardly even in 
 the dreams of Bedlam. Better luck to you by the 
 way, my poor friends ; a little less of buzzing, hum- 
 
The Philosophy of a Brick. 403 
 
 ming, swarming (i.e., tumbling in infinite noise and 
 darkness), that you might try to look a little, each for 
 himself, what kind of ' way 'it is ! But indeed your 
 ' Reform ' movement, from of old, has been wonderful 
 to me ; everybody meaning by it, not ' Reformation/ 
 practical amendment of his own foul courses, or even 
 of his neighbour's, no thought of that whatever, 
 though that, you would say, is the one thing to be 
 thought of and aimed at ; but meaning simply Ex- 
 tension of the Suffrage ! Bring in more voting ; that 
 will clear away the universal rottenness, and puddle 
 of mendacities, in which poor England is drowning ; 
 let England only vote sufficiently, and all is clean and 
 sweet again. A very singular swannery this of the 
 Reform movement, I must say." 
 
 For evidently the writer has no faith in high recti- 
 tude presiding over trade transactions ; it seems to him 
 a free racing with unlimited velocity in the career of 
 " cheap and nasty, universal shoddy, and devil's dust 
 cunningly varnished over, and presented in all places 
 invitingly cheap, free trade with the devil in the belly 
 of it." And he takes this instance : 
 
 "One small example only! London bricks are 
 reduced to dry clay again in the course of sixty years, 
 or sooner. Bricks, burn them rightly, build them 
 faithfully, with mortar faithfully tempered, they will 
 
 262 
 
404 London Houses. 
 
 stand, I believe, barring earthquakes and cannons, for 
 6,000 years if you like ! Etruscan Pottery (baked clay, 
 but rightly baked) is some 3,000 years of age, and 
 still fresh as an infant. Nothing I know of is more 
 . lasting than a well-made brick, we have them here, 
 at the head of this garden (wall once of a Manor 
 Park), which are in their third or fourth century 
 (Henry Eighth's time, I was told), and still perfect in 
 every particular. 
 
 " Truly the state of London houses and London 
 house-building, at this time, who shall express how 
 detestable it is, how frightful ! For there lies in it 
 not the Physical mischief only, but the Moral too, 
 which is far more. I have often sadly thought of 
 this. That a fresh human soul should be born in 
 such a place ; born in the midst of a concrete men- 
 dacity ; taught at every moment not to abhor a lie, 
 but to think a lie all proper, the fixed custom and 
 general law of man, and to twine its young affections 
 round that sort of thing ! England needs to be 
 rebuilt once every seventy years. Build it once 
 rightly, the expense will be say fifty per cent, more ; 
 but it will stand till the day of judgment. Every 
 seventy years we shall save the expense of building 
 all England over again ! Say nine-tenths of the 
 expense, say three-fourths of it (allowing for the 
 changes necessary or permissible in the change of 
 things) : and in rigorous arithmetic, such is the 
 
"Dead in Trespasses and Sins? 405 
 
 saving possible to you ; lying under your nose there ; 
 soliciting you to pick it up, by the mere act of 
 behaving like sons of Adam, not like scandalous 
 esurient Phantasms and sons of Bel and the Dragon. 
 
 " Here is a thrift of money, if you want money ! 
 The money-saving would (you can compute in what 
 short time) pay your National Debt for you, bridge 
 the ocean for you ; wipe away your smoky nuisances, 
 your muddy ditto, your miscellaneous ditto, and 
 make the face of England clean again ; and all this 
 I reckon as mere zero in comparison with the accom- 
 panying improvement to your poor souls, now dead 
 in trespasses and sins, drowned in beer-butts, wine- 
 butts, in gluttonies, slaveries, quackeries, but recalled 
 then to blessed life again, and the sight of Heaven 
 and Earth instead of Pay-day and Meux and Co.'s 
 Entire. Oh, my bewildered Brothers, what foul 
 infernal Circe has come over you, and changed you 
 from men once really rather noble of their kind, into 
 beavers, into hogs and asses, and beasts of the field 
 or the slum ! I declare I had rather die. 
 
 "One hears sometimes of religious controversies 
 running very high, about faith, works, grace, preve- 
 nient grace, the Arches Court and ' Essays and 
 Reviews ; ' into none of which do I enter, or con- 
 cern myself with your entering. One thing I will 
 remind you of, That the essence and outcome of all 
 religions, creeds, and liturgies whatsoever is, to do 
 
406 The Bet of the Irish Carpenter. 
 
 one's work in a faithful manner. Unhappy caitiff, 
 what to you is the use of orthodoxy, if with every 
 stroke of your hammer you are breaking all the Ten 
 Commandments, operating upon Devil's dust, and 
 endeavouring to reap where you have not sown ?" 
 
 Such is the temper and spirit of this extraordinary 
 piece. We are not surprised that it has not pleased 
 its readers in general. As to our Reform Bill, it 
 seems to Carlyle only a truly ominous affair somewhat 
 resembling that bet of the Irish carpenter, astride of 
 his plank firmly stuck out of window in the sixth 
 story, " Two to one I can saw this plank in so many 
 minutes " and sawing accordingly, fiercely im- 
 petuous, wins success. Government, by blindman's- 
 bufif, was never a faith with our writer. Satire upon 
 this meets us in some of the first pages of his " French 
 Revolution," and it is reiterated here. Nay, this seems 
 to him only the calling in of new supplies of " block- 
 headism, gullibility, bribeability, amenability to beer 
 and balderdash by way of amending the woes we 
 have had already from our previous supplies of that 
 bad article," and he thinks, in a limited time, " say 
 fifty years hence, likely to bring about such a 
 pleasant end, as that the Church, all churches, and 
 so-called religions, Christian religion itself, shall have 
 deliquesced into liberty of conscience, progress of 
 opinion, progress of intellect, philanthropic move- 
 
Society needs Drill. 407 
 
 ment, and other aqueous residues, of a vapid, badly- 
 scented character, and shall, like water spilt upon 
 the ground, trouble nobody considerably hence- 
 forth, but evaporate at its leisure." Upon some 
 points, severe as is Mr. Carlyle's language, we yet 
 suppose there are multitudes who will, in the main, 
 perhaps, agree with him, and yet, perhaps, these are 
 the matters upon which we should be most likely to 
 venture to have an independent opinion. The nigger 
 seems to us far away from being so irremediable a 
 beast as to Mr. Carlyle " a poor blockhead with 
 good dispositions, with a turn for nigger melodies, 
 and the like " and without any disposition to enter 
 into, especially to espouse, extreme opinions just 
 now, we assuredly cannot twine a laurel wreath for 
 Ex-Governor Eyre, although we should not like to 
 pass muster as merely "rabid nigger philanthropists," 
 nor can we sum up the question of the American 
 War exactly in the same rapid way in which Mr. 
 Carlyle has disposed of it ; no, his generalisations 
 are sometimes very rapid, vehement, and bold, yet 
 we think he says nothing which has not a strong 
 force at the back of it. The chief feature, however, 
 noticeable, is this, that while throughout his paper, and 
 especially at its close, he proclaims the absolute and 
 indispensable necessity of drill or organisation as the 
 one want of society in this day a want, on account 
 of which all our colonies are weltering and likely to 
 
408 Noble Merchants. 
 
 welter still more in hopeless chaos, and which 
 through the action of the new Reform Bill seems 
 still more likely than ever to embarrass the move- 
 ments of our modern society it will not therefore 
 follow that Mr. Carlyle is really indisposed to do 
 honour to truest and highest spiritual influences. 
 His homage to the aristocracy, we fear, cannot be 
 deserved nearly to the extent to which he gives it. 
 Common-sense asks, What have we to thank it for 
 in our day in comparison with the great merchant 
 princes of our time, in whose ranks we have still to 
 look for the nobles of the Fugger, De Medici, and the 
 Artaveldt order. On the other hand, if he seeks to 
 limit political power to the deserving, it is no answer 
 to inquire with a sneer, as one of his critics does, 
 "Was it then an aristocracy which established the 
 Christian faith, or purified it when it had rotted, 
 and believes it now ? " The Christian religion has 
 been established and purified instrumentally by poor 
 men, perhaps it does not therefore follow that we 
 should look with much complacency upon the sur- 
 render of political privileges and responsibilities to 
 men who would have no objection to join the 
 "Sheffield Assassination Company (Limited)," or to 
 look, possibly, upon Broadhead and his very eminent 
 compeers as the worthy representatives and holders 
 of political principles and rights. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE HAPPINESS THEORY. 
 
 ONE of the grand social canons of Carlyle's writings 
 is even one we should all be expected to recoil from 
 with most timidity. And although it is so true in 
 the way in which he has put it, and it strikes us as so 
 new, and seems so questionable, it speaks instantly 
 to the experience and knowledge we have of our own 
 life. Evil and good men alike calculate on something 
 higher than happiness, or rather they do not calcu- 
 late at all. On the mere pleasure-seekers of life 
 therefore, Mr. Carlyle looks with scornful pity very 
 edifying, and also very silencing. Did you -ever read 
 his reflections upon the Opera, or Haymarket Theatre, 
 to which place once upon a time he permitted himself 
 to be beguiled? The extract is almost too lengthy, 
 but we will find a place for it : 
 
 CARLYLE AT THE OPERA ! 
 
 " JEschylus, Sophocles, all noble poets were priests 
 as well ; and sang the truest (which was also the 
 divinest) they had been privileged to discover here 
 
4IO Meditations 
 
 below. To ' sing the praise of God,' that, you will 
 find, if you can interpret old words, and see what 
 new things they mean, was always, and will always 
 be, the business of the singer. He who forsakes 
 that business, and, wasting our divinest gifts, sings the 
 praise of Chaos, what shall we say of him ? 
 
 " David, King of Judah, a soul inspired by 
 Divine music and much other heroism, was wont to 
 pour himself in song ; he, with seer's eye and heart, 
 discerned the Godlike amid the Human ; struck 
 tones that were an echo of the sphere-harmonies, 
 and are still felt to be such. Reader, art thou one of 
 a thousand, able still to read a Psalm of David, and 
 catch some echo of it through the old dim centuries ; 
 feeling far off, in thy own heart, what it once was to 
 other hearts made as thine ? To sing it attempt not, 
 for it is impossible in this late time ; only know that 
 it was once sung. Then go to the Opera, and hear 
 with unspeakable reflections what things men now 
 sing. 
 
 '* Of the Haymarket Opera my account, in fine, is 
 this : Lustres, candelabras, painting; gilding at dis- 
 cretion ; a hall as of the Caliph Alraschid, or him 
 that commanded the slaves of the Lamp ; a hall, as 
 if fitted-up by the genii, regardless of expense. 
 Upholstery, and the outlay of human capital, could 
 do no more. Artists, too, as they are called, have 
 been got together from the ends of the world, regard- 
 
In an Opera House. 411 
 
 less likewise of expense, to do dancing and singing, 
 some of them even geniuses in their craft. One 
 singer in particular, called Coletti, or some such 
 name, seemed to me, by the cast of his face, by the 
 tones of his voice, by his general bearing, so far as I 
 could read it, to be a man of deep and ardent sen- 
 sibilities, of delicate intuitions, just sympathies ; 
 originally an almost poetic soul, or man of genius, as 
 we term it ; stamped by nature as far capable of other 
 work than squalling here, like a blind Samson, to 
 make the Philistines sport. 
 
 "The very ballet-girls, with their muslin saucers 
 round them, were, perhaps, little short of miraculous; 
 whirling and spinning there in strange mad vortexes, 
 and then suddenly fixing themselves motionless, each 
 upon her left or right great toe, with the other leg 
 stretched out at an angle of ninety degrees, as if 
 you had suddenly pricked into the floor, by one of 
 their points, a pair, or rather a multitudinous cohort, 
 of mad, restlessly jumping and clipping scissors, and 
 so bidden them rest with open blades, and stand 
 still, in the Devil's name ! A truly notable motion ; 
 marvellous, almost miraculous, were not the people 
 there so used to it. Motion peculiar to the Opera ; 
 perhaps the ugliest, and surely one of the most diffi- 
 cult, ever taught a female creature in this world. 
 Nature abhors it ; but art does at least admit it to 
 border on the impossible. One little Cerito, or 
 
412 Meditations 
 
 Taglioni the second, that night when I was there, 
 went bounding from the floor as if she had been 
 made of India-rubber, or filled with hydrogen gas, 
 and inclined by positive levity to bolt through the 
 ceiling; perhaps neither Semiramis nor Catherine 
 the Second had bred herself so carefully. . . . 
 
 " Nay, certain old improper females (of quality), in 
 their rouge and jewels, even these looked some reminis- 
 cence of enchantment ; and I saw this and the other 
 lean domestic Dandy, with icy smile on his old worn 
 face ; this and the other Marquis Chatabagues, Prince 
 Mahogany, or the little foreign Dignitary, tripping 
 into the boxes of said females, grinning there awhile, 
 with dyed moustachios and Macassar oil graciosity, 
 and then tripping out again ; and, in fact, I perceived 
 that Coletti and Cerito and the Rhythmic Arts were 
 a mere accompaniment here. 
 
 " But here had the Modern Aristocracy of men 
 brought the divinest of its Arts, heavenly Music 
 itself ; and, piling all the upholsteries and ingenuities 
 that other human art could do, had lighted them into 
 a bonfire to illuminate an hour's flirtation of Chata- 
 bagues, Mahogany, and these improper persons ! 
 Never in Nature had I seen such waste before ! O 
 Coletti, you whose inborn melody, once of kindred, 
 as I judged, to ' the Melodies Eternal,' might have 
 valiantly weeded-out this and the other false thing 
 from the ways of men, and made a bit of God's crea- 
 
In an Opera House. 413 
 
 tion more melodious they have purchased you away 
 from that ; chained you to the wheel of Prince Maho- 
 gany's chariot, and here you make sport for a Ma- 
 cassar Chatabagues and his improper females past 
 the prime of life ! Wretched spiritual Nigger ! oh, 
 if you had some genius, and were not a born Nigger 
 with mere appetite for pumpkin, should you have 
 endured such a lot ? I lament for you beyond all 
 other expenses. Other expenses are light; you are the 
 Cleopatra's pearl that should not have been flung into 
 Mahogany's claret cup. And Rossini, too, and 
 Mozart, and Bellini oh, Heavens ! when I think 
 that Music, too, is condemned to be mad, and to 
 burn herself, to this end, on such a funeral pile 
 your celestial Opera-house grows dark and infernal to 
 me ! Behind its glitter stalks the shadow of Eter- 
 nal Death ; through it, too, I look not ' up into the 
 Divine eye,' as Richter has it, 'but down into the bot- 
 tomless eye-socket ' not up towards God, Heaven, 
 and the Throne of Truth, but too truly down towards 
 Falsity, Vacuity, and the dwelling-place of Everlast- 
 ing Despair. . . . 
 
 " Good sirs, surely I by no means expect the Opera 
 will abolish itself this year or the next. But if you 
 ask me, Why heroes are not born now, why heroisms 
 are not done now ? I will answer you : It is a world 
 all calculated for strangling of heroisms. At every 
 ingress into life, the genius of the world lies in wait 
 
414 Meditations on 
 
 for heroisms, and by seduction or compulsion un- 
 weariedly does its utmost to pervert them or extin- 
 guish them. Yes ; to its Hells of sweating tailors, 
 distressed needlewomen, and the like, the Opera of 
 yours is the appropriate Heaven ! Of a truth, if you 
 will read a Psalm of Asaph till you understand it 
 and then come hither and hear the Rossini-and- 
 Coletti Psalm, you will find the ages have altered a 
 good deal. . . . 
 
 " Nor do I wish all men to become Psalmist Asaphs 
 and fanatic Hebrews. Far other is my wish ; far 
 other, and wider, is now my notion of this Universe. 
 Populations of stern faces, stern as any Hebrew, but 
 capable withal of bursting into inextinguishable 
 laughter on occasion : do you understand that new 
 and better form of character ? Laughter, also, if it 
 come from the heart, is a heavenly thing. But, as 
 least and lowest, I would have you a population ab- 
 horring phantasms abhorring ^inveracity in all 
 things ; and in your ' amusements/ which are volun- 
 tary and not compulsory things, abhorring it most 
 impatiently of all." . . 
 
 A doctrine which surely a thoughtful and tender 
 experience makes tolerably legible, and which, if 
 not always apprehended in experience, is yet now 
 very frequently preached, is that which underlies all 
 we have just said and cited from the writings of our 
 
The Blessed Life. 415 
 
 author. Even the very Scriptural doctrine, as our 
 author puts 'it, " there is in man a higher than love of 
 happiness ; he can do without happiness, and instead 
 thereof find blessedness." It is, indeed, a very great 
 finding, perhaps. more frequently spoken of by all of 
 us than found, yet surely it is the highest life of Reve- 
 lation and Scripture, it is the Divine Life, the Blessed 
 Life, an ineffable Life. Surely the life of great 
 saints, martyrs, of all highest ideal men, the earthly 
 environment has been very poor, uncomfortable, un- 
 happy, but it was sustained by ineffable principles, 
 and expressed itself in actions, melodies, and hero- 
 isms of ineffable sweetness. It is a great canon with 
 Carlyle Love not pleasure, love God ; this is the 
 Everlasting Yea, here all contradiction is solved. To 
 know the Blessed Life is to walk in the Light. It is 
 nothing to the purpose to say that very few even of 
 those who are really Christians have attained to it. 
 It is an infinitely beautiful and ineffably glorious 
 possibility ; and to those of us who know it not the 
 sweetest utterances of the Divine Book must be 
 darkness. It is the spirit of all the Gospels, and he 
 who knows it has no occasion for stumbling. What 
 a difference between living for this and living to accu- 
 mulate a fortune or a fame. Were this not the faith, 
 truly, says Carlyle, " if happiness be our end we are 
 all astray ; not on morality, but on cookery, let us 
 build our stronghold." 
 
Happiness NOT Our Being's End and Aim. 
 
 Slight, then, is the extent to which happiness is, as 
 the poet calls it, " our being's end and aim." Truly it 
 is one of those matters in which we need to be care- 
 ful as to the language we employ. But is happiness, 
 in our ordinary comprehension of that term, our 
 being's end and aim ? Of the millions conscious 
 millions alive now, how many follow happiness as 
 the grand impulse, the guiding angel of their being- 
 Carlyle resolutely and cynically laughs to scorn the 
 desire for happiness as the grand incentive of life, or 
 the sentiment of misery as the great source of our 
 elegy, and our sorrow. We ought to deal justly, 
 however, with the storm of sorrow in which some 
 unhappy souls rush out ; at the same time feeling 
 that the secret of all unhappiness is, that the heart has 
 not found its true, real, proper home. The thought 
 itself is enough to fill one with profound feeling, that 
 man, even here, is capable of the ecstasy of happiness, 
 and the ecstasy of despair. The noblest grief unques- 
 tionably, is the stern, deep sorrow of a man like 
 Carlyle where, uncomplainingly, the soul a mys- 
 terious tenant goes wandering and wondering up 
 and down its cage. The next affecting spectacle to 
 this is that of the poor suicide, or the lunatic, in whom 
 all the walls of the soul seem to have broken down, 
 and the spirit, determined to get out, bursts, in its 
 surplus energy of life, through the frail bars that 
 would confine it. But characters like Byron do seem 
 
A Mysterious Voice. 417 
 
 to awaken our writer's strongest contempt. For the 
 harp hung everlastingly on the willows, because of 
 some dark shadow resting on the boughs of our 
 own linden tree, he has only a kind of wild elf 
 laughter. Misery! Misery! Yes; but what right hast 
 thou to be happy ? Or, art thou like that iron- 
 hearted misanthrope in Scotland ? 
 
 A SINGULAR TRANSLATION OF ' A MYSTERIOUS 
 VOICE. 
 
 " The inmates of some town mansion were thrown 
 into the most fearful alarm by indubitable symp- 
 toms of a ghost inhabiting the next house, or perhaps 
 even the partition wall. Ever at a certain hour, with 
 preternatural gnarling, growling, and screeching, 
 which attended as a kind of running bass, there 
 began in a horrid, semi-articulate, unearthly voice, 
 this song ' Once I was hap-hap-happy, but now I'm 
 meeserable I Clack, clack, clack, guar 'r 'r, whuz 'z. 
 Once I was hap-hap-happy, but now I am mees&c- 
 able,' and so on. The perturbed spirit would not 
 rest. The neighbours became quite bored, fretted, 
 and affrighted by him, and had- to go and ex- 
 amine the haunted chamber. In this haunted 
 chamber they found the perturbed spirit to be 
 an unfortunate imitator of Byron ; but in the 
 shape of a rusty meat-jack, gnarling and creaking 
 with rust and work. And thus in its Byronian 
 
 27 
 
41 8 A Byronic Melody. 
 
 musical life philosophy, sung according to its 
 ability." 
 
 And truly this is a very fair commentary upon the 
 measures and metres, and sentiment, and philosophy 
 of Byron. " And why should a living man complain 
 a man for the punishment of his sins ?" The secret, 
 surely, of all moral misery should be consolatory, 
 since it proves that we are in an ill-adjusted world ; 
 there is no misery which does not assure us of onr 
 absence from our true home. The philanthropic 
 school, as all other schools, has its simulators and 
 imitators, and the simulation of philanthropy is the 
 most detestable of all simulations. Philanthropy has 
 now become in many cases simply the expression of 
 utilitarianism the greatest happiness to the greatest 
 number. Then let the smallest number go and hang 
 comfortable creed to the aristocracy, and the intelli- 
 gence of a country ! 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CARLYLE AND SOME OF HIS CRITICS. 
 
 WE had at first thought of closing this volume with 
 a catena of critical opinion on our author ; it would 
 exhibit a curious variety of blessing and cursing. 
 Thomas Carlyle has not been fortunate in his critics ; 
 there has been much talking and writing about him, 
 but it may with truth be said that most of those who 
 have set themselves to the exposition of his tenets 
 have possessed neither the moral nor mental breadth 
 or culture requisite to the formation of an estimate of 
 his mind or its intentions. A lengthy review of his 
 writings, their style, teaching, and influence, appeared 
 in the Wesley an Methodist Magazine in 1853 ; ft was 
 thought so admirable that it was subsequently pub- 
 lished in the Travellers' Series.* This miserable little 
 thing would not be worth a notice were it not for 
 its representative character. Like so many of Mr. 
 Carlyle's critics, the jaunty author pleasantly disports 
 himself, talking of Mr. Carlyle's style as " discon- 
 nected, light, and irreverent," and of "Sartor Resartus" 
 * Thomas Carlyle : a Critical Essay. Whitaker and Co. 
 
 272 
 
420 Small Moralities and Great Crimes. 
 
 as " a compound of profanity and jargon," " giving, 
 however, a fair specimen of his ethical and literary 
 merits." The writer then goes on pleasantly to 
 remark that the " two great principles of his audacious 
 system will be found to be an idolatry essentially 
 Pagan, and a pantheism virtually godless." This 
 writer never supposes that his own ignorance and 
 dogmatic narrowness may be the real defects ; or if 
 it were possible to believe that such a writer had read 
 the works of our author, then might he add to 
 all that goes before as his peroration also, " And is 
 there not a lie in my right hand ? " It is not to be 
 doubted there are critics who have essayed to handle 
 Mr. Carlyle who are altogether unequal to the task : 
 very good people too good, in a fixed idea sort of 
 fashion men wedded to some pretty little morality 
 unequal to the apprehension of great moral ideas or 
 actions or passions. It is often the misery of the 
 worlds of letters and of men to be guided by such : 
 the men of little sects ; the men who are bred in the 
 vice of some fixed idea or form of thought, from 
 which they proceed to argue as if it were a fact, 
 although only some tyrant fancy dealing with an 
 hypothesis as if it were a demonstration, although 
 having no real or absolute existence whatever. Many 
 of Mr. Carlyle's critics remind us of his portrait of 
 Robespierre : " The sea-green incorruptible ; " "A 
 poor atrabiliar/<?r;;/?//tf of a man ; meant by nature 
 
Edward Irving. 421 
 
 for a Methodist of the stricter sort, to devour men 
 who departed from the written profession ; " "A 
 strict-minded, strait-laced man, of a small soul, trans- 
 parent looking as small ale." But people do not take 
 the trouble to think ; they are perhaps unable to 
 think, unable to feel. Their opinions are the product 
 of the atmosphere of the latitude or society in which 
 they live ; they compress eternal meanings into the 
 most insignificant words ; and woe be to the writer 
 who looks beyond the bars of the iron cage of expres- 
 sion, the rigid environment they set up and build, not 
 as a home, but as a prison for the soul. In this 
 manner, however, our writer has been judged. 
 
 There was one whom he knew and loved in his 
 college days, and who knew and loved him, who 
 might have been best able to estimate and understand, 
 and to give some happy presentation of his friend's 
 genius and character ; but he was removed before our 
 writer had with any distinctness spoken to the 
 world. Edward Irving began his career of fame early, 
 and early it closed. He had a fine philosophic mind 
 and intelligence, not only large enough to hold great 
 generalisations, but keen enough to enter upon fine 
 analysis ; the radiant exuberance of his imagination it 
 is almost idle to indicate. How all these qualities 
 come out in that most noble although too unregarded 
 piece, his great work on the Incarnation. He who 
 could do high honour to Coleridge, when Coleridge 
 
422 The Doctor's Little Daughter. 
 
 was comparatively unregarded, would have been well 
 able to estimate the work of his illustrious fellow 
 student and friend. It was not to be. Their lives 
 opened together in a singularly pleasant manner. 
 Probably most of our readers will remember the ac- 
 count of the Haddington Doctor's little daughter given 
 in Mrs. Oliphant's pleasant Life of Irving. Dr. 
 Welsh, of Haddington, had a charming little girl ; 
 indeed, she appears to have been a perfectly unique 
 little creature. She was an only child, her father a 
 great and famous man, the medical man of his district ; 
 but it was a sore grief to the worthy Doctor that this 
 girl was not a boy ; and so a great ambition came 
 over the young creature's mind that she would be 
 educated like a boy, and first she kept her secret to 
 herself, and divining that Latin was an essential point 
 of distinction between the sexes, she silently and 
 secretly set to work upon the rudiments ; in due time 
 she prepared herself for a dramatic revelation, and 
 one evening when dinner had softened all the harsh 
 aspects of the day, and the Doctor sat in luxurious 
 leisure in his dressing-gown and slippers, and all the 
 cheerful accessories of the fireside picture complete, 
 the little heroine had arranged herself under the table, 
 under the crimson folds of the cover w r hich concealed 
 her small person ; all was still, the moment arrived 
 *' Penna, penna, pennam" burst forth from the little 
 voice in breathless steadiness. It scarcely need be 
 
The Doctor's Little Daughter. 423 
 
 said that the astonished Doctor covered his little one 
 with kisses ; and now it was necessary to procure a 
 tutor, and Sir John Leslie recommended his friend, 
 the Doctor, to secure the services of Edward Irving. 
 Their times of study were from six to eight in the 
 morning, winter and summer. But we may quote 
 Mrs. Oliphant's words : " When the young tutor 
 arrived in the dark of the winter mornings, and found 
 his little pupil scarcely dressed, peeping out of her 
 room, he used to snatch her up in his arms, and carry 
 her to the door, to name to her the stars shining in 
 the cold firmament, hours before dawn ; and when the 
 lessons were over, he set the child up on the table at 
 which they had been pursuing their studies, and 
 taught her logic, to the great tribulation of the house- 
 hold, in which the little philosopher pushed her in- 
 quiries into the puzzling metaphysics of life. The 
 greatest affection sprang up, as was natural, between 
 the child and her young teacher, whose heart at all 
 times of his life was always open to children. After 
 the lapse of these years their companionship looks 
 pathetic and amusing. A life-long friendship sprang 
 out of that early connection." By-and-by, as the years 
 passed along, into this attractive little circle came 
 Thomas Carlyle, and the little woman, the subject 
 of this beautiful little idyllic picture, became that 
 honoured and worthy wife in whose company he 
 spent the early romantic student days he describes so 
 
424 The First Criticism. 
 
 vividly to Goethe, at Craigenputtock, who was in such 
 an affecting manner snatched from him, and whom, as 
 we have seen, he took to repose in the old vault by 
 the side of her father, the Doctor of Haddington. 
 The items of the story are a little mingled, but putting 
 these by the side of those circumstances mentioned in 
 the earlier pages of this volume it is easy . to perceive 
 that there were many circumstances which would have 
 especially qualified Irving to be the loving expounder 
 of the doctrines of his early friend.* 
 
 America first called distinct attention to our writer 
 with that open-hearted generosity of opinion for 
 which the United States are so remarkable in almost 
 all estimates of English writers. In October, 1835 
 the year following the appearance of " Sartor 
 Resartus " there appeared in the North American 
 Review a paper on Thomas Carlyle. We have 
 already referred to it in the earlier pages of this 
 volume. This Review was the first which really 
 attempted to pierce the design of the author. It 
 analysed the etymology of the queer names em- 
 ployed in some particulars it presented not only 
 the first but the most interesting clue to the purpose 
 of the book. It says, " Though professing in general a 
 great deal of respect for his author, he at times deals 
 pretty freely with him. ' Thou foolish Teufelsdrockh/ 
 and even, ' thou Rogue,' are among the titles occa- 
 * See Life of Edward Irving, by Mrs. Oliphant. 
 
" The North American ;" and John Sterling. 425 
 
 sionally bestowed on him. For ourselves, we incline 
 to the opinion that the only rogue in the company is 
 ' the present Editor.' We have said that the volume 
 came before the public under rather suspicious cir- 
 cumstances, and, after a careful survey of the whole 
 ground, our belief is that no such persons as Professor 
 Teufelsdrockh or Counsellor Heuschreckhe ever 
 existed," &c., &c. ; " in short, that the whole account 
 of the origin of the book before us, which the sup- 
 posed Editor relates with so much gravity, and of 
 which we have given a brief abstract, is, in plain 
 English, a //;;/." The Review then proceeds with 
 its grave opening-up of reasons for suspecting the 
 veracity of the alleged authorship of the book ; but, 
 in closing, uttered its prophecy that it was intro- 
 ducing to the American public a writer who, although 
 unknown, " is destined, we think, to occupy a large 
 space in the literary world." It invited him to take 
 up his abode in the Far West. " We have little 
 doubt that he may find in some one of the hundred 
 universities of our country a Weissnichtwo, at which 
 he may profess his favourite science of Things in 
 General with even more satisfaction and advantage 
 than in the Edinburgh Review or Eraser's Magazine"* 
 A much more noble and exhaustive estimate 
 appeared in the Westminster Review for 1839, 
 from the pen of John Sterling. It was very lengthy, 
 and written in a strain and tone of high appreciation. 
 * North American Review. Vol. iv., 454 482. 
 
426 Emerson and Carlyle. 
 
 It is not necessary to quote ; but it is remarkable 
 that while on the whole a faithful and able exposition 
 of the central principles of Mr. Carlyle's teachings on 
 their literary and aesthetic side, the writer appears to 
 have failed to see the great intention of the " His- 
 tory of the French Revolution," and in some cases 
 sadly misrendered and misread it. As with most 
 readers, Sterling does not seem to have comprehended 
 its subtle and awful irony.* 
 
 The critic sometimes cunningly contrasts or com- 
 pares one name with another. It is sometimes a 
 luminous method, more frequently it is perhaps a 
 game at Literary See-saw. It has thus been the 
 fashion to speak of Emerson as the American Car- 
 lyle of Carlyle as the English Emerson. But then, 
 says one writer, " I predict that Emerson will be read 
 when Carlyle is comparatively forgotten. That energy 
 which Carlyle lets off in stormy passion, Emerson 
 carefully husbands, and puts into the very substance 
 of his thinking. He never raves like his friend, but 
 is always self-contained, measured in his statements, 
 well poised, and calm."f The two are often men- 
 tioned together, but in fact their names only suggest 
 entire contrast. Lowell puts the matter very happily 
 
 * This essay is reprinted in the Essays and Tales of John 
 Sterling, edited, with a memoir, by Julius Charles Hare. We 
 may be permitted to express surprise that the poems and 
 many other good things of Sterling have never, in England, 
 been collected from Blackwood and other quarters. 
 
 f Manning : " Half-Truths and the Truth." 
 
Lowell on Emerson and Carlyle. 427 
 
 when he speaks of Emerson as " A Greek head on 
 right Yankee shoulders," and proceeds : 
 
 " There are persons mole blind to the soul's make and style, 
 Who insist on a likeness 'twixt him and Carlyle ; 
 To compare him with Plato would be vastly fairer, 
 Carlyle's the more burly, but E. is the rarer. 
 He sees fewer objects, but clearlier, trulier. 
 If C.'s an original, E.'s more peculiar; 
 That he's more of the man you might say of the one, 
 Of the other he's more of an Emerson. 
 C.'s the Titan, as shaggy of mind as of limb, 
 E.'s the clear-eyed Olympian, rapid and slim ; . 
 The one's two-thirds Norseman, the other's half Greek, 
 When the one's most abounding the other's to seek. 
 C.'s generals require to be seen in the mass, 
 E.'s specialities gain if enlarged by the glass. 
 C. gives Nature and God his own fits of the blues, 
 And rims common-sense things round with mystical hues. 
 E. sits in a mystery calm and intense 
 And looks coolly around him with sharp common sense. 
 C. shows you how every- day matters unite 
 With the dim transdiurnal recesses of night ; 
 While E., in a plain, preternatural way, 
 Makes mysteries matter of plain every-day. 
 C. draws all his characters quite a la Fuseli; 
 He don't sketch their bundles of muscles and thews illy, 
 But he paints with a brush so untamed and profuse, 
 They seem nothing but bundles of muscles and thews. 
 E. is rather like Flaxman, lines straight and severe, 
 And a colourless outline, but full, round, and clear ; 
 To the men he thinks worthy he frankly accords 
 The design of a white marble statue in words. 
 C. labours to get at the centre, and then 
 Take a reckoning from these of his actions and men. 
 E. calmly assumes the said centre as granted, 
 And given himself has whatever is wanted." 
 
428 Emerson and Carlyle 
 
 There is, indeed, no more resemblance between 
 Carlyle and Emerson than between Homer and 
 Plato, Shakespeare and David Hume, or between 
 a Hindoo and a Christian. The writings of Emerson 
 are conceived as from the faith of Brahminism ; those 
 of Carlyle from our own Holy Scriptures. Emerson 
 is therefore a Pagan, Carlyle a Puritan. Emerson is 
 wholly inobjective ; his writings are really like the 
 clear vision of one who dreams and talks in sleep 
 of things seen. Carlyle is a man ; awake he sees 
 and enters into a world of action, and his writings 
 are as intensely objective and realistic, while yet 
 they are projected from the chamber of his own 
 intense nature. Emerson's essays are wholly un- 
 related to order or plan ; you may as well begin 
 to read one of them at the end or the middle as at 
 the beginning, and you might almost as well put the 
 title of one essay as the heading of another. Carlyle's 
 essays or pieces are full of rivets ; all the parts are 
 related to each other, they are bony and vertebral ; 
 while Emerson's are altogether invertebrate and 
 detached. Emerson's page is often like a colourless 
 disc ; Carlyle's is full of colour and form. Emerson 
 is indifferent ; he is on good terms with everything ; 
 he hates nothing. Carlyle is earnest ; he is on bad 
 terms with all evil things, and hates evil-doing like 
 Hebrew prophet ; he seems to dash like anoth ,r 
 Moses the tables of the law against the transgressors. 
 
Compared and Contrasted. 429 
 
 Emerson, therefore, is no reformer ; he does not seek 
 to change ; transmutation goes on by a necessity 
 without his intervention. Carlyle, on the contrary, 
 believes and asserts the power of the individual, and 
 all his words are battle-cries for freedom, truth, and 
 holiness : thus Emerson is a Quietist, but Carlyle is 
 a Realist. Why pursue the points of contrast ? True, 
 they are both mystics, transcendentalists, but that 
 says little for their resemblance, for Emerson's is a 
 mysticism pervaded by no wonder, no awe, no terror ; 
 it folds him round like light ; it flows through him 
 like the quiet air. Carlyle's is as when the prophet 
 stood with his mantle wrapt round him by the cave, 
 and saw the fire and the earthquake, and heard the 
 voices, and he seeks to translate and understand, that 
 he may bear them to the crowded cities and kingdoms 
 to rouse the hearts of men. 
 
 Emerson is his own Brahma as he sings in words, 
 happily descriptive of his Hindoo creed. 
 
 " If the red slayer thinks he slays, 
 
 Or if the slain think he is slain, 
 They know well the subtle ways 
 I keep, and pass, and turn again. 
 
 " Far or forgot to me is near, 
 
 Shadow and sunlight are the same ; 
 The vanquished gods to me appear. 
 And one to me are shame and fame. 
 
 " They reckon ill who leave me out, 
 
 When me they fly, I am the wings ; 
 I am the doubter, and the doubt, 
 And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. 
 
430 -A Goose 
 
 " The strong gods pine for my abode, 
 
 And pine in vain the sacred Seven ; 
 But thou, meek lover of the good, 
 Find me, and turn thy back on heaven." 
 
 Who could fetch a creed from the words or works 
 of Emerson ? On the other hand, as we have shown 
 throughout, the works of Carlyle are full of the words 
 of Faith ; as in Schiller, again and again we have 
 uttered and taught the freedom of man ; and virtue, 
 difficult perhaps as a science, but easy of comprehen- 
 sion as a practice ; and especially God, as will, 
 thought, and purpose, the changeless and immutable 
 Soul. On the whole, we may say, frequently as the 
 names are mentioned together, no two can be more 
 unlike in the characteristics of their mental labour. 
 
 Among the Essays with which a certain Mr. 
 McNicholl favoured the wondering reader was one 
 on Thomas Carlyle. One might suppose that 
 this author fancied himself ordained and set apart 
 to obliterate Mr. Carlyle. The little thing was 
 published as a review, then published as a shil- 
 ling pamphlet, and then it makes its appearance in a 
 volume of Essays, so various are the ways in which it 
 solicited our love. Alas, for us ! we were blind to 
 the merits of the performance. As with the rest of 
 the papers in this dainty volume, it contained nothing 
 new. A critic who expresses his belief that " Rogers 
 and Campbell have, of all modern poets, made surest 
 work for immortality," and that, " excepting some of 
 
/ 
 
 V. ' 
 
 Among the Critics. 431 
 
 his sonnets and odes, there is nothing in the volumes 
 of Wordsworth the world could not well spare,"- 
 such a critic need not detain us long, and such 
 verdicts at once pronounce his own inability 
 even to comprehend the work of Carlyle. Those 
 works are to Mr. McNicholl "a pitiable exhibi- 
 tion of weakness ; " " his thoughts are successfully 
 disguised and mummified ; " " they are pyramids of 
 hard words, the inexplicable monument of their 
 builder's folly;" "effrontery and inconsistency are 
 stamped in brazen characters on every page of the 
 grossly libellous Latter-day Pamphlets ; " these 
 writings are " a mad, prophetic rant," &c., &c. Some 
 idea of Mr. McNicholl's fitness for forming any opinion 
 at all may be gathered from the fact that he has un- 
 numbered expletives of praise in reserve for Hume. 
 We might not, perhaps, demur to the eulogy upon his 
 " infinite persuasiveness of style ; " but to be told of 
 his history, " that so apt, consistent, and harmonious 
 are the conditions of his great work, and so lucid, 
 pure, and varied the expression, that it may hence- 
 forth defy the multiplied competition of ages ; that 
 no fruitful research will suffice to discredit it, and no 
 novelty of thought avail to supersede it ; that it is 
 immortal by the conditions of its birth, for it. assumed 
 the body of truth when it received the soul of 
 genius ;" it is impossible to read this without feeling 
 that it is one of those fine pieces of writing which 
 
432 Aids to Fait /i. 
 
 must not be spoiled by the insertion in any of its 
 sentences of some awkward angularity of truth. 
 Immediately after this, Mr. Carlyle has to take his 
 place among " slovenly and eccentric writers." Mr. 
 McNicholl was an eminently undiscriminating critic ; 
 he insisted perpetually upon trying a writer rather by 
 what he is not than by what he is ; but he need not 
 detain any mortal long, and will not. 
 
 Learned editors not gifted, so far as our poor per- 
 ceptions go, with any superfluity of faith, find fault 
 with this teacher because his teaching is negative. 
 Well, be it so. Let us give honour to such a man, 
 who, in such a day as this, has distinctly and audibly, 
 and most articulately said, / will not ofobelieve. And 
 we fancy, if these words are read with eyes, it will be 
 seen that the things asserted by far in number out- 
 weigh the things denied. He helps men to Believe ; 
 he aids the heart in the great Life and Walk and 
 Battle and Triumph of Faith ; and some critics quarrel 
 with him because they miss in his writings the 
 technicalities of theology, because his writings are not 
 a body of scientific opinion. The charge would be 
 as just urged against Sir William Hamilton, or 
 Tennyson, or Browning. 
 
 There is a custom, we are told, in Abyssinia, when 
 factions are ready to tear each other in pieces, to make 
 a camel the representative of their mutual animosi- 
 ties. It is agreed on all hands that nobody has been 
 
The Scape-Camel of Chelsea. 433 
 
 to blame on either side, but the whole mischief is the 
 work of the camel. The camel set the town on fire ; 
 the camel threatened to burn the Aga's house and 
 cattle ; the camel cursed the Grand Seignior and 
 Sheriff of Mecca; in short, whatever evil was done, 
 was done by the camel. Some such a scape-camel 
 as this is usually needed in our society, and the scape- 
 camel now has for some time been Mr. Carlyle. He 
 is the author of all the infidelity of the age : all the 
 looseness of thought, all the wildness of political 
 dreaming, dates from him. The mode of settling the 
 poor camel is for every man to transfix him with a 
 javelin, while the murderer of the camel goes his way 
 in peace. So it is with the maligners of Mr. Carlyle, 
 while not one of his accusers has the honesty, per- 
 haps, to inquire whether, for all his infidelity, loose- 
 ness and wildness, he is not more responsible than 
 Mr. Carlyle ; and whether the poor Camel of Chelsea, 
 on the contrary, has not rather attempted his best to 
 stay the wild influences which are the fault of the age 
 and the philosophy of preceding ages.* 
 
 It is quite interesting to notice the extent to which 
 many minds, of no ordinary calibre, have received 
 
 * In a course of lectures entitled, "Half Truths and the 
 Truth," by Rev. J. R. Manning, D.D., of Boston, we have a 
 lengthy article on Carlyle, in which the writer speaks of " the 
 political ravings of Carlyle, who knows no God and no 
 government, human or Divine, save what he finds in great 
 men." 
 
 28 
 
434 Carlyle s Influence on 
 
 incentive and strength from the works of Carlyle. 
 Charles Dickens confesses that his "Tale of Two 
 Cities " grew out of the hope to add something to the 
 popular and picturesque means of understanding the 
 terrible times of the French Revolution, though, he 
 says, No one can hope to add anything to the 
 philosophy of Mr. Carlyle's wonderful book. Our 
 recently departed and lamented Charles Kingsley 
 sprang first before the world as the exponent of 
 Carlyle in Fiction ; " Yeast," which also appeared in 
 Fraser, is a translation of that "Sartor Resartus" which 
 had appeared in the same magazine many years 
 before. Of " Yeast " it may be said that those who 
 profess to admire it while they depreciate Carlyle 
 really understand neither. In "Yeast" Lancelot is the 
 embodiment of the " Everlasting No," Tregarva the 
 " Everlasting Yea," Luke the " Centre of Indiffer- 
 ence ; " while the central idea of the book is, that all 
 things are in a transition state, nothing is perfect, 
 nothing formed, a Yeast. But still more remarkably 
 exemplifying the power of Carlyle's teaching is the 
 "Alton Locke" of the same writer ; strongly impressed 
 he must have been by the utterances of Carlyle. 
 This fiction is a vigorous sermon on the condition of 
 England question ; quotations from Carlyle abound 
 throughout the book, although in the Scotch dialect, 
 from the lips of that grand old reformer, Sandy 
 Mackay, who has completely fastened his faith on 
 
General Literature. 435 
 
 "Master Thomas." Indeed, Sandy Mackay is in some 
 sense Carlyle dramatised, and no unworthy represent- 
 ative of the social philosophy which abounds through- 
 out Mr. Carlyle's writings. Something of the same 
 remarks we have made are also true of " Hypatia," 
 another, and perhaps the most admirable, work by 
 the same author. Thus it is very singularly the case 
 that few writers have felt the power of Mr. Carlyle's 
 mind without exhibiting it very visibly in their 
 writings. It would be not uninteresting to gather 
 up the various instances of the many strong 
 men of letters to whom he has been a singular 
 incentive and strength. One of the most curious 
 illustrations of this is in a paper by Patrick Proctor 
 Alexander, M.A., " On Mill and Carlyle," in which 
 we have what he calls " an Occasional Discourse on 
 Sauerteig, by Smelfungus." He says : " In the little 
 extravaganza I need not formally disclaim an offensive 
 intention to Mr. Carlyle, a man whom I entirely 
 honour, and, though with only a modified belief in him 
 as a prophet, consider him simply our greatest man 
 of letters now living." Upon which we should remark, 
 Beautiful way to show honour, to pillory a man, or to 
 make him dance in a Jack-o'-the-Green ! 
 
 One of the most singular of recent criticisms upon 
 the mind and writings of Mr. Carlyle is in the follow- 
 ing little excerpt, from the pen of Mr. John Morley. 
 It needs no comment, it shows such an entire inability 
 
 282 
 
436 Mr. John Morley 
 
 to appreciate the foundations of moral sympathy, that 
 it derives from this a certain interest sufficient to 
 shake our faith in any verdict on any subject Mr. 
 Morley may venture to give us. Let the reader 
 remember Rousseau, his " Confessions," a debased 
 compound of beastliness and blasphemy ; his charac- 
 ter weak, puling, hysterical, incapable of honour, 
 incapable of gratitude ; whose chief attribute is that 
 he was able to utter in profusion pretty sentiments, 
 noble sentiments from a nasty nature. Let this be 
 remembered. Let it be remembered that he had no 
 foundation of education, and very little of reverence 
 in his character at all, and then we may read 
 Mr. Morley's comparison between Rousseau and 
 Carlyle, with such respect as we may. Emotions ! 
 Yes, no doubt, but there is some difference between 
 the emotions of a wild, self-torturing sophist, and 
 those of a large-hearted, reverent-souled believer. 
 On the whole, the estimate of Mr. Morley may take 
 its place by the side of that we quoted first, from the 
 Methodist Magazine ; both alike exhibiting the shal- 
 low estimates of narrow natures, and interesting as 
 showing how Atheism and Low Church may shake 
 hands in an evangelical alliance of narrowness. 
 
 " Rousseau was the great type of this triumphant 
 and dangerous sophistry of the emotions. The 
 Rousseau of these times for English-speaking nations 
 
On Carlyle and Rousseau. 437 
 
 is Thomas Carlyle. An apology is perhaps needed 
 for mentioning one of such simple, veracious, disin- 
 terested, and wholly high-minded life in the same 
 breath with one of the least sane men that ever lived. 
 Community of method, like misery, makes men 
 acquainted with strange bedfellows. Two men of 
 very different degrees of moral worth may notori- 
 ously both preach the same faith, and both pursue 
 the same method ; and the method of Rousseau is 
 the method of Mr. Carlyle. With each of them 
 thought is an aspiration, and justice a sentiment, and 
 society a retrogression. Each bids us look within 
 our own bosoms for truth and right, postpones reason 
 for feeling, and refers to introspection and a factitious 
 something called Nature questions only to be truly 
 solved by external observation and history. In con- 
 nection with each of them has been exemplified the 
 cruelty inherent in sentimentalism, when circum- 
 stance draws away the mask. Not the least con- 
 spicuous of the disciples of Rousseau was Robes- 
 pierre. His works lay on the table of the Committee 
 of Public Safety. The theory of the Reign of 
 Terror was invented and mercilessly reduced to 
 practice by men whom the visions of Rousseau had 
 fired, and who were not afraid nor ashamed to wade 
 through oceans of blood to the promised land of 
 humanity and fine feeling. We in our days have 
 seen the same result of sentimental doctrine in the 
 
43 8 Carlyle and Rousseau. 
 
 barbarous love of the battle-field, the retrograde 
 passion for methods of repression, the contempt for 
 human life, the impatience of orderly and peaceful 
 solution. We begin with introspection and the 
 eternities, and end in blood and iron. Again, 
 Rousseau's first piece was an anathema upon the 
 science and art of his time, and a denunciation of 
 books and speech. Mr. Carlyle, in exactly the same 
 spirit, has denounced logic-mills, warned us all away 
 from literature, and habitually subordinated disci- 
 pline of the intelligence to the passionate assertion of 
 the will. There are passages in which he speaks re- 
 spectfully of intellect, but he is always careful to 
 show that he is using the term in a special sense of 
 his own, and confounding it with the exact sum- 
 mary of human worth, as in one place he defines it. 
 Thus, instead of co-ordinating moral worthiness with 
 intellectual energy, virtue with intelligence, right 
 action of the will with scientific processes of the 
 understanding, he has either placed one immeasur- 
 ably below the other, or else has mischievously in- 
 sisted upon treating them as identical. The dictates 
 of a kind heart are of superior force to the maxims 
 of political economy ; swift and peremptory resolu- 
 tion is a safer guide than a balancing judgment. If 
 the will works easily and surely, we may assume the 
 rectitude of the moving impulse. All this is no cari- 
 cature of a system which sets sentiment, sometimes 
 
Criticism through Horn Spectacles. 439 
 
 hard sentiment and sometimes soft sentiment, above 
 reason and method." 
 
 But Carlyle, like Shakespeare or Dante, is not to 
 be exhausted in a review so called, but which is in 
 reality a review from only one point of view, which is 
 merely a contradiction in terms. Tieck, the great 
 German humourist, is said to have greatly admired 
 the writings of Carlyle, only they are so " ganz 
 Englisch ;" and most critics in England have objected 
 to them that they are so ganz Deutsch. He is like 
 Shakespeare in this every order of political and re- 
 ligious faith has condemned him and his writings ; and 
 yet it is true that every order of thoughtful, political, 
 and religious faith has found not merely some inter- 
 est in his opinions, but something from his pages 
 to quote to confirm its own. Quite reversing an 
 opinion of a critic just quoted, we might ask with 
 some confidence the name of the great English 
 writer who, since Shakespeare, has made such sure 
 work for immortality as Thomas Carlyle ? 
 
 Nor is it unworthy of notice that the most emi- 
 nent reviewers, like those of the Quarterly and Black- 
 wood, revise their impressions of these writings. 
 Take as an instance the estimate of his powers as a 
 military historian. " A man who can in a science so 
 eminently practical, and which has, for the most part, 
 been so pedantically treated as the science of war, 
 
440 Carlyle as a Military Historian. 
 
 discard the pedantry, arrive at common-sense conclu- 
 sions, and describe military operations with unusual 
 spirit and lucidity, must possess faculties of whose 
 existence there was little sign in his former works. 
 Exuberance of imagination, fertility of allusion, occa- 
 sional passages of vigorous eloquence in painting a 
 scene or a character, these we should expect from 
 the author of ' Sartor Resartus ' and ' Hero Wor- 
 ship,' but not a plain account of the manoeuvres of 
 hostile armies ; " * but this surprise surely only results 
 from a superficial acquaintance with the mind and 
 writings of our author, and it is now confessed that 
 Napier is the only military historian who can be 
 mentioned in comparison with him. 
 
 Thus then, bearing his prodigious burden, our 
 wondrous Sindbad comes up to us from the Valley 
 of Diamonds, into which it may truly be said no one 
 had ventured before although, indeed, a stray bird 
 or two brought a precious stone in the beak to 
 show to us the wonders of that gorgeous pavement 
 below. It is, indeed, a style huge and unwieldy, for 
 it is like a mountain chain, as we have said, and many 
 styles abound in it. The finest pieces of condensed 
 biography are here, the noblest and most lucid ex- 
 cursions in Philosophy. Here the genius of History 
 hovers like a Nemesis over the whole stage of Human 
 affairs, and shows how order and justice, in the 
 
 * Blackwood. Vol. xcviii., p. 39. Review of Frederick. 
 
The Sindbad of Letters. 441 
 
 midst of all disorders, rule the globe. It is no mere 
 pretty exercise of the Antiquarian faculty, but it 
 reads like the very penmanship of the Prophet of 
 the Lord. Certainly, you may take exception to 
 some things in Carlyle's teaching, yet not doubt him ; 
 you need not miss your own way with him, yet his 
 books, it must be confessed, are frequently strangely 
 phantasmal, not less than real. While we read them, 
 we seem to be surrounded by ghosts, the books 
 are haunted, the shapes go flitting up and down, 
 but we are prone to say to the weird apparition, 
 "Appear!" 
 
 After a humorous fashion one of these empirical 
 critics writes : " When he sits down to write, his 
 peaceful study is thronged by spectres of the most 
 terrific description, invoked by the flourish of his 
 pen. While he is with due incantation casting the 
 magic bullets that are to hit and slay the Un- 
 veracities" and Ineptitudes, the charmed circle in 
 which he works is surrounded by a horrible panor- 
 amic phantasmagory, where all ages and nations are 
 jumbled as in a Christmas pantomime, or rather, 
 where all the tinsel monstrosities of many old panto- 
 mimes are brought up all battered and defaced with 
 the wear and tear of the former season, and whacks 
 of the facetious clown and irreverent harlequin, and 
 play over again their time-worn parts in a manner 
 suggestive rather of managerial thrift than panoramic 
 
44 2 Humorous Burlesque of Style. 
 
 art. The difficulties and obstructions of life appear 
 to him as Frost Giants, some familiar evils figure in 
 the singular disguise of Mud Demons, others gibber 
 as Dead Sea Apeisms, while the background is 
 made up of Foam Oceans and Stygian Quagmires, 
 and the whole scene is surrounded by an atmosphere 
 of Silences and Sphere Harmonies. What you 
 thought was a simple folly, the Magician tells you is 
 an Ineptitude, and a weak, ordinary, official person- 
 age turns out to be a Phantasm Captain." This 
 is all this intelligent writer sees in Thomas Carlyle. 
 His writing appears to be, as Sir Hugh Evans says, 
 " pribbles and prabbles. It is affectations." * 
 
 We may sympathise with those who call his teach- 
 ing negative, so far that it is the habit of Mr. Carlyle 
 to speak in hints and dashes of speech. Why, say 
 some, why does he not prescribe a plan ? why does 
 he so incessantly pour upon us the torrent and the 
 storm, and yet not tell us the great mysterious How ? 
 We suspect that Mr. Carlyle might answer that the 
 learning to do well becomes tolerably easy to those 
 who cease to do evil. Still, we believe this negativeness 
 is not so real as it appears to be ; for eminently true 
 is it of these books that we not only have to bring 
 them to us, but especially to take ourselves to them. 
 Plain ! you say. Easy ! Negative ! Remember John- 
 son's reply in such a case " Sir, it is my business to 
 * Blackwood. Vol. Ixxxv., p. 140. 
 
Carlyle's Night Thoughts. 443 
 
 find you in arguments, not to find you in brains." 
 Still, there is over these books the majesty of night. 
 We read everything in them by the light of the stars. 
 They are all night views ; but it is surely a " night that 
 showeth the knowledge." Night Thoughts you may call 
 " Sartor Resartus " and " Past and Present," although 
 of quite another order to those of Dr. Young's " Night 
 Thoughts." For is it not a night ag'e ? All of these 
 books we read as a History from twilight to twilight, 
 from the closing eve to the opening dawn ! The 
 clear, dark Night ! Night ! the time of solitude and 
 self-communion, that reveals so much. Night! the 
 whole earth lying still beneath the dark ; save yonder, 
 see the crimson heavens ! the flames of the French 
 Revolution, also beheld beneath the Night ! We have 
 figured this man Carlyle to ourselves sitting on the 
 craggy Hill, with keen eyes looking out upon the 
 darkening West, and surveying with bodeful eyes the 
 phantom shapes stealing along the landscape the 
 night dreams that go wandering up and down. How 
 keenly and bodingly his eye rests on the spot where 
 the sun shone yesterday ! and there as he sits, to 
 him, through the dreamy, wizard hours, what spectres 
 appear ! what noises, mysterious and yet oracular ! 
 Yet does it seem that he, because he sits through the 
 night, he also beholds what some do not yet see the 
 gleam of light in the awakening East. 
 
 And how especially religious critics have assailed 
 
The " Christian Remembrancer? 
 
 his teaching. The Christian Remembrancer was one 
 of the most able of Quarterly Reviews. It dared to 
 write of Mr. Carlyle that " his assumption is that no 
 man of sense or honesty believes the Christian 
 Religion. It is on this lying assumption that he is 
 now writing. Mr. Carlyle talks much of lies. He has 
 not told us in so many words what he ventures to 
 disbelieve. Voltaire attacked religion, not by con- 
 tradicting it (?), but by mocking it. Mr. Carlyle does 
 not contradict in words, he only browbeats. It has 
 outlived Voltaire. In a score of years Mr. Carlyle 
 will not be thought as formidable as Voltaire."* A 
 score of years have passed, and more, since these words 
 were penned ; Voltaire's star is not in the ascendant ; 
 the Christian Remembrancer is dead, and its pages 
 safely entombed in the dust-bin and the butter-tub ; 
 but the books of Carlyle are more potent than ever. 
 
 Other broader and nobler Christian critics and 
 spirits have estimated these works more wisely. We 
 have already referred to Archdeacon Hare.f This 
 amiable and very admirable writer adopts indeed the 
 common notion and reproves Mr. Carlyle's Idolatry 
 of Power his Titanolatry ; while he speaks of him as 
 'one of the chief writers through whom living truth has 
 been revealed, and of his works as most noble in the 
 
 * Christian Remembrancer. Vol. xxiii. 1852. 
 t " The Mission of the Comforter." Note Ton the Excessive 
 Admiration of Power. 
 
Archdeacon Hare. 445 
 
 good they have effected and may effect." To most of 
 the words in the Archdeacon's exceptions, replies 
 might be found in the works of Carlyle ; and the sum 
 of this objection simply appears chiefly to be that 
 Carlyle, really in opposition to the fatalistic school of 
 historians, deals with all the actors, however vile or 
 however holy, as souls not mere dynamical material 
 forces ; as would probably seem to be the conclusion 
 from such a historian as Thiers. Men are living souls, 
 with force, and will, and character. Truly, says one 
 writer, there is no such thing as accident in Mr. Carlyle's 
 phraseology. A worthy English officer, desirous of 
 introducing English usages into a Mussulman Society 
 in Ceylon, empannelled a jury of twelve honest 
 Mahommedaris to inquire into the cause of the death 
 of one of their countrymen found drowned. He 
 naturally, according to proper English precedent, 
 suggested the verdict "Accidental Death." Not a 
 bit of it ! the jury returned their verdict " that the time 
 of the deceased was come, and his fate accomplished." 
 Truly, it is exceedingly like the manner in which our 
 writer sums up the story, not merely of the most 
 illustrious, but even the most inconsiderable of man- 
 kind. 
 
 But the political reviewers have had yet more to 
 say upon these works, perhaps, than the religious ; and 
 yet here again look attentively into this man's sayings 
 and things, and you will find how true they are. 
 
446 Political Reviewers. 
 
 Hence his wrath and maledictions upon the repre- 
 sentative system, government by mechanism, govern- 
 ment by " lumber-log governors, and Godfrey's cordial 
 constitutions." We are certain that a wise suffrage 
 Mr. Carlyle would advocate as heartily as any man ; 
 but let it be remembered that this is the day for 
 speaking, and Mr. Carlyle's is a mission to speak 
 words, not for the democratic, but the conservative 
 side of things. Always he may be considered an 
 honest man, and his words will well deserve ponder- 
 ing by those who wisely reason with the prevailing ten- 
 dencies of public opinion. One thing is certain to Mr. 
 Carlyle, as the lesson taught by the whole of universal 
 history, that the " few wise will have, by one method 
 or other, to take command of the innumerable 
 foolish." He thinks that we need quite a reformed 
 Downing Street even more than a reformed Parlia- 
 ment. And, referring to the representative theory of 
 government, he exclaims : 
 
 NAVIGATION BY UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. 
 
 " Your ship cannot double Cape Horn by its ex- 
 cellent plans of voting. The ship may vote this way 
 and that, above decks and below, in the most har- 
 monious, exquisitively constitutional manner : the ship 
 to get round Cape Horn will find a set of conditions 
 already voted for, and fixed with adamantine rigour, 
 by the ancient elemental powers, who are entirely 
 
Navigation by Universal Suffrage. 447 
 
 careless how you vote. If you can, by voting, 
 or without voting, ascertain these conditions, and 
 valiantly conform to them, you will get round the 
 Cape ; if you cannot, the ruffian winds will blow you 
 ever back again ; the inexorable icebergs, dumb privy- 
 councillors from chaos, will nudge you with most 
 chaotic ' admonition ; ' you will be flung half-frozen 
 on the Patagonian cliffs, or admonished' into shivers 
 by your iceberg councillors, and sent sheer down to 
 Davy Jones, and will never get round Cape Horn at 
 all. . . . Ships, accordingly, do not use the 
 ballot-box at all ; and they reject the phantasm 
 species of captains ; one wishes much some other 
 entities since all entities lie under the same rigorous 
 set of laws could be brought to show as much 
 wisdom, and sense at least of self-preservation, the 
 first command of Nature." 
 
 Unfortunately, there is little government at all 
 anywhere. Red tape, red tape, red tape, winds its 
 huge reel over the whole land ; the spirit of the 
 Government offices animates, or, say rather, paralyses, 
 almost all our public offices. Here and there we meet 
 a noble exception, because an individual has com- 
 pelled the exception ; but to the greater extent this red 
 tape has cramped the energies of all men and things. 
 Let them alone. Look at pauperism, for instance. Is 
 there no refuge at all from the grievous affliction of 
 
448 " Where there is a Pauper there is a Sin! 1 
 
 pauperism to which we are exposed everywhere ? 
 " We may depend upon it" says Mr. Carlyle : 
 
 " Where there is a pauper there is a sin ; to make 
 one pauper there go many sins. Pauperism is our 
 social sin grown manifest. Pauperism is the poisonous 
 dripping from all our sins, and putrid unveracities 
 and God-forgetting greedinesses, and devil-serving 
 cants and Jesuitisms that exist amongst us. Not one 
 idle sham, lounging about creation upon false 
 pretences, upon means which he has not earned, upon 
 theories which he does not practise, but yields his 
 share of pauperism somewhere or other. His sham 
 work oozes down, finds, at last, its issue as human 
 pauperism. Pauperism is the general leakage through 
 every joint of the ship that is rotten. Were all men 
 doing their duty, or even trying to do it, there would 
 be no paupers." 
 
 He illustrates by the two Chelsea Cobblers : 
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE TWO COBBLERS. 
 
 " Incompetent Duncan M'Pastehorn, the hapless, 
 incompetent mortal to whom I give the cobblings of 
 my boots, and cannot find in my heart to refuse it, 
 the poor drunken wretch having a wife and ten chil- 
 dren ; he, withdraws the job from sober, plainly 
 competent, and meritorious Mr. Sparrowbill, generally 
 
The Two Cobblers. 449 
 
 short of work, too ; discourages Sparrowbill ; teaches 
 him that he too may as well drink, and loiter, and 
 bungle : that this is not a scene for merit and demerit 
 at all, but for dupery, and whining flattery, and 
 incompetent cobbling of every description ; clearly 
 tending to the ruin of poor Sparrowbill ! What harm 
 had Sparrowbill done me that I should so help to 
 ruin him ? And I couldn't save the insalvable 
 MTastehorn : I merely yielded him, for insufficient 
 work, here and there a half-crown, which he 
 oftenest drank. And now Sparrowbill is also 
 drinking." 
 
 Very singularly, honest reviewers have again found 
 the poor Chelsea Camel in the wrong, because he has 
 estimated the well-being of a State by the contented 
 condition of the stomach of the multitude. " He 
 seems," says the Edinburgh Review* " to believe in 
 the power of Government to raise the poor classes by 
 legislation. Had Louis the Well-beloved been as 
 pious as Louis the Saint, as popular as the Good, as 
 chaste as the thirteenth of his name, would the con- 
 dition of the rye-bread and chestnut-consuming 
 multitudes of central France have been much better ?" 
 Well, perhaps not ; but this is poor reasoning, it 
 should be carried farther back. What would have 
 been the condition of France in the reign of Louis 
 * Edinburgh Review. Vol. Ixxi. 1840. 
 
 29 
 
450 Progression by Antagonism. 
 
 XV, or the XVI., had not her nobles been deci- 
 mated by Richelieu, had she not been drained of all 
 her industrial life by the enormous mendacity of 
 Mazarin, by the taxations of Louis XIV., by the 
 expatriation of almost all nobility and truth, and 
 industry and piety, in the Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes ? Governments may not, perhaps, be called 
 upon to provide bread for the people ; but certainly it 
 is the policy of a wise government to be careful that 
 it does not become the evil genius of a Nation. The 
 governments of France for ages were this ; wherefore, 
 upon the age of Louis XVI., came the consequences 
 of all the righteous blood shed between the throne and 
 altar through ages of misrule. 
 
 One of the great grounds of complaint Carlyle 
 would allege against us is, that socially we do indeed 
 " that which we ought not to have done ; " that we 
 spend our time in attempting to kill " extinct devils," 
 while we leave on every hand real, living devils 
 untouched ; and truly the way in which, in this world, 
 men will spend their time, is right sorrowful ; to think 
 of men spending heart and soul, and life and enter- 
 prise, for instance, in Parliamentary reform. Why, 
 the truth for all of us is, that we have more freedom 
 than we can use ; and far more than we can use well. 
 On every hand we find that the questions the Sphinx 
 proposes to men, are of much more interest than 
 " whether I shall speak my little speech in a House of 
 
Uniformity the Hobby of the Age. 45 1 
 
 Commons or not ? " And why desire uniformity? Why 
 not, instead of a uniformity, a imiverse which is quite 
 the opposite of uniform ? Is it not by antagonism 
 that the world has advanced ? In one age antagonism 
 of nations, and, if we may cherish such a dream, with 
 a new race rising in the heart of Europe to terrify the 
 future, then let us hope that the antagonism of 
 nations may expire, and the progress be by the 
 peaceful antagonism of opinion. May not this be, 
 too, one of our great social problems ? 
 
 But, as we have said already, it is a complex age, it 
 is an age that will have uniformity. We must all 
 keep Greenwich time in Edinburgh or in Truro, 
 Folkestone or Milford Haven we must keep Green- 
 wich time. It is most extraordinary when we think 
 of it quite remarkable ; Uniformity is the hobby of 
 the age. It may be well for us who live at Greenwich ; 
 but, under other circumstances, not so well. Is it not 
 an illustration of the torpid, creeping power of be- 
 numbing centralisation over the whole system of 
 things ? And is it not an illustration of the manner 
 in which a great convenience may become a great 
 social wrong or nuisance ? The poor clocks are plainly 
 not to blame. The sun gives to us a right time. And 
 if, like ourselves, you have been at Plymouth, spectator 
 to the quarrel of the clocks, and victimised by the uni- 
 formity of Greenwich centralisation, we think you may 
 have a hint as to the way in which moral collisions grow. 
 
 29 2 
 
452 Society Full of Unsolved Problems. 
 
 Again, the sternness with which he has looked at 
 things repels ; even as almost all persons give him 
 up to the hardness of his own heart when they read 
 his exposition of the September massacres. And 
 there we would join issue even with his great apolo- 
 gist, John Sterling, and adopt Carlyle's reading of the 
 whole tragedy. Grieve as we may, pain and death 
 are the undoubted facts of life. Horror ! we exclaim ; 
 yet, while we shriek, they are here ; and those who 
 expect a sentimental expositor of life, or history, or 
 society, had better never begin to read Carlyle. 
 
 Again, no person will dare to tell us that we have 
 discovered the true law of society yet. If we have 
 discovered it, let us apply it, and cure the ills of 
 society. Do we know the law of population ? Is 
 Malthus right ? Are vice and misery the necessary 
 consequences of the Divine Government ? We need 
 not keep our readers with any speculation on this 
 question. Yet we may, perhaps, find that the social 
 truth will be found in a theory exactly the reverse of 
 that of Malthus. Again, the law of the currency will . 
 any one say we have ascertained that, suspensions 
 of the Bank Charter having occurred in the course of a 
 few years ? Vain to discuss these ; but they will dis- 
 cuss themselves, and fearful will be the discussion. I 
 Meantime, what shall we say of Plugson, the master 
 manufacturer of Undershot, the modern buccaneer ? 
 The ancient buccaneer struck down his man, a hundred 
 
Political Economy the Dismal Science. 45 3 
 
 men ; and the Choctaw Indian will strike down his 
 man, and scalping him, will suspend his scalp at his 
 girdle. What, then, is Plugson better than either, if 
 his hundred thousand pounds are only as the scalps 
 adorning a Choctaw wigwam ? What if the cotton 
 fibre be conquered, only that those who conquered 
 be privileged to wend their way into workhouses with 
 bare backs ? And what if Plugson, with his neigh- 
 bour, Sir Jabesh Windbag, are doing their best to push 
 unfortunate Choctaw manufacturers into townships 
 more populated, so that they may escape the con- 
 sequences which their poverty and the criminality of 
 Plugson's carelessness may create, and this interest- 
 ing question we must also leave. Meantime, listen 
 to the 
 
 EXPOSTULATION WITH POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. 
 
 "Respectable Professors of the Dismal Science, 
 soft you a little. Alas, I know what you would say. 
 For my sins, I have read much in those inimitable 
 volumes of yours, really, I should think, some bar- 
 rowfuls of them in my time, and, in these last forty 
 years of theory and practice, have pretty well seized 
 what of Divine Message you were sent with to me. 
 Perhaps as small a message, give me leave to say, as 
 ever there was such a noise made about before. 
 Trust me, I have not forgotten it ; shall never for- 
 get it. Those laws of the Shop-till are indisputable 
 
454 Expostulation with Political Economists. 
 
 to me; and practically iiseful in certain departments 
 of the Universe, as the multiplication-table itself. 
 Once I even tried to sail through the immensities 
 with them, and to front the big coming Eternities with 
 them ; but I found it would not do. As the Supreme 
 Rule of Statesmanship, or Government of Men, since 
 this Universe is not wholly a Shop, No! You 
 rejoice in my improved tariffs, free-trade movements, 
 and the like, on every hand ; for which be thankful, 
 and even sing litanies if you choose. But here at 
 last, in the Idle-Workhouse movement, unexampled 
 yet on Earth, or in the waters under the Earth, I am 
 fairly brought to a stand, and have had to make 
 reflections, of the most alarming, and indeed awful, 
 and, as it were, religious nature ! Professors of the 
 Dismal Science, I perceive that the length of your 
 tether is now pretty well run, and that I must request 
 you to talk a little lower in future. By the side of 
 the shop-till, see, your small ' Law of God ' is hung 
 up, along with the multiplication-table itself. But 
 beyond and above the shop-till, allow me to say, you 
 shall as good as hold your peace. Respectable Pro- 
 fessors, I perceive it is not now the Gigantic Huck- 
 sters, but it is the Immortal Gods, yes, they, in their 
 terror and their beauty, in their wrath and their 
 beneficence, that are coming into play in the affairs of 
 this world ! Soft you a little. Do not you interrupt 
 me, but try to understand and help me ! 
 
Expostulation with Political Economists. 45 5 
 
 " Work, was I saying ? My indigent unguided 
 friends, I should think some work might be discover- 
 able for you. Enlist, stand drill ; become, from a 
 nomadic Banditti of Idleness, Soldiers of Industry ! 
 I will lead you to the Irish Bogs, to the vacant deso- 
 lations of Connaught now falling into Cannibalism ; 
 to mistilled Connaught, to ditto Munster, Leinster, 
 Ulster, I will lead you : to the English Fox-covers, 
 furze-grown Commons, New Forests, Salisbury 
 Plains : likewise to the Scotch Hill-sides, and bare, 
 rushy slopes, which as yet feed only sheep, moist 
 uplands, thousands of square miles in extent, which 
 are destined yet to grow green crops, and fresh 
 butter and milk and beef without limit (wherein no 
 ' Foreigner can compete with us '), were the Glasgow 
 sewers once opened on them, and you with your 
 Colonels carried thither. In the Three Kingdoms, 
 or in the Forty Colonies, depend upon it, you shall 
 be led to your work ! 
 
 " To each of you I will then say : Here is work 
 for you ; strike into it with manlike, soldier-like 
 obedience and heartiness, according to the methods 
 here prescribed, wages follow for you without diffi- 
 culty ; all manner of just remuneration, and at 
 length emancipation itself follows. Refuse to strike 
 into it ; shirk the heavy labour, disobey the rules, I 
 will admonish and endeavour to incite you ; if in 
 vain, I will flog you ; if still in vain, I will at last 
 
456 Time Rests on Eternity. 
 
 shoot you, and make God's Earth, and the forlorn 
 hope in God's Battle, free of you. Understand it, I 
 
 advise you ! The Organisation of Labour (left 
 
 speaking, says our reporter)." 
 
 Again, in his own remarkable manner Mr. Carlyle 
 proclaims the 
 
 PERPETUAL OBLIGATION OF DIVINE LAWS. 
 
 " Here are two excerpts from the celebrated 
 Gathercoal, a Yankee friend of mine ; which flash 
 strangely a kind of torch-gleam into the hidden 
 depths ; and indicate to us the grave and womb of 
 Jesuitism, and several other things : 
 
 " ' Moses and the Jews did not make God's Laws,' 
 exclaims he ; ' no, by no means ; they did not even 
 read them in a way that has been final, or is satis- 
 factory to me ! In several important respects I find 
 said reading decidedly bad, and will not in any wise 
 think of adopting it. How dare I, think you ? And 
 yet, alas, if we forget to read these Laws at all ! if 
 we go along as if they were not there ! 
 
 " * My enlightened friends of this present supreme 
 age, what shall I say to you ? That Time does rest 
 on Eternity ; that he who has no vision of Eternity 
 will never get a true hold of Time, or its affairs. 
 Time is so constructed ; that is the fact of the con- 
 struction of this world. And no class of mortals 
 who have not, through Nazareth or otherwise, 
 
Society held by Eternal Relations. 457 
 
 come to get heartily acquainted with such fact, per- 
 petually familiar with it in all the outs and ins of 
 their existence, have ever found this universe habit- 
 able long. Alas, no ; their fraternities, equalities, 
 free-trade philosophies, greatest-happiness principles, 
 soon came to a conclusion, and the poor creatures 
 had to go, to the Devil, I fear! Generations such 
 as ours play a curious part in World-History. 
 
 " ' They sit as Apes do round a fire in the woods, 
 but know not how to feed it with fresh sticks. 
 They have to quit it soon, and march into chaos, as 
 I conjecture ; into that land of which Bedlam is 
 the Mount Zion. The world turns out not to be 
 made of mere eatables and drinkables, of newspaper 
 puffs, gilt carriages, conspicuous flunkeys ; no, but 
 of something other than these ! Old Suetonius 
 Romans, corrupt babbling Greeks of the Lower 
 Empire, examples more than one : consider them ; be 
 taught by them, add not to the number of them. 
 Heroism, not the apery and traditions of Heroism ; 
 the feeling, spoken or silent, that in man's life there 
 did lie a Godlike, and that his Time-History was 
 verily but an emblem of some Eternal ; without this 
 there had been no Rome either; it was that had 
 made old Rome, old Greece, and old Judea. Apes, 
 with their wretched blinking eyes, squatted round a 
 fire which they cannot feed with new wood ; which 
 they say will last for ever without new wood, or, 
 
458 The L essons of BethleJiem. 
 
 alas, which they say is going out for ever : it is a sad 
 sight!' 
 
 " Elsewhere, my eccentric friend, as some call him, 
 whose centre, however, I think I have got into, 
 has this passage : 
 
 " ' Church, do you say ? Look eighteen hundred 
 years ago, in the stable at Bethlehem : an infant laid 
 in a manger ! Look, thou ass, and behold it ; it is a 
 fact, the most indubitable of facts : thou wilt 
 thereby learn innumerable things. Jesus of Nazareth 
 and the life He led, and the death He died, does it 
 teach thee nothing? Through this as through a 
 miraculous window, the Heaven of Martyr Heroism, 
 the " divine depths of Sorrow," of noble Labour, and 
 the unspeakable silent expanses of Eternity, first in 
 man's history disclose themselves. The admiration 
 of all nobleness, divine worship of godlike nobleness, 
 how universal it is in the history of man ! 
 
 " ' But mankind, that singular entity mankind, is 
 like the fertilest, fluidest, most wondrous element, an 
 element in which the strangest things crystallise 
 themselves, and spread out in the most astounding 
 growths. The event of Bethlehem was of the Year " 
 One ; but all years since that, eighteen hundred of 
 them now, have been contributing new growth to 
 it,< and see, there it stands : the Church ! Touching 
 the earth with one small point ; springing out of one 
 small seed-grain, rising out therefrom, ever higher, 
 
His Faith in Legislation. 459 
 
 X 
 ever broader, high as the Heaven itself, broad till it 
 
 overshadow the whole visible Heaven and Earth, and 
 no star can be seen through it. From such a seed- 
 grain so has it grown ; planted in the reverences and 
 sacred opulences of the souls of mankind ; fed con- 
 tinually by all the noblenesses of some forty 
 generations of men. The world-tree of the Nations 
 for so long ! 
 
 " ' Alas, if its roots are now dead, and it have lost 
 hold of the firm earth, or clear belief of mankind, 
 what, great as it is, can by possibility become of it ? 
 Shaken to and fro, in Jesuitisms, Gorham Con- 
 troversies, and the storms of inevitable Fate, it must 
 sway hither and thither; nod ever farther from the 
 perpendicular ; nod at last too far ; and, sweeping 
 the Eternal Heavens clear of its old brown foliage 
 and multitudinous rooks'-nests, come to the ground 
 with much confused crashing, and disclose the diurnal 
 and nocturnal Upper Lights again ! The dead world- 
 tree will have declared itself dead. It will lie there an 
 imbroglio of torn boughs and ruined fragments, of 
 bewildered splittings and wide-spread shivers ; out 
 of which the poor inhabitants must make what they 
 can ! ' Enough now of Gathercoal and his torch- 
 gleams." 
 
 But, as we have already intimated, one of the 
 strong exceptions taken to Mr. Carlyle is founded on 
 
460 His Faith in Legislation. 
 
 this great Heresy. He seems to believe in legislation, 
 in the power of governments ; and there are those in 
 our day who seem on the other hand to believe that 
 governments are powerless to effect any real good for 
 a people. It is none the less true that they have 
 effected apparently real harm ; few are they which 
 have saved, many are they, on the contrary, who 
 have destroyed. Mr. Carlyle lifts up his voice in 
 warning. Is there no cause, no foundation for fear 
 in the story of states whose opulence has passed 
 away like a dream ; and is it a less ominous sign that 
 Patriotism is no longer a passion among us, that most 
 people are now not especially desirous of the welfare 
 of their country but their own, and that may be as 
 well secured in some other country, nay, better 
 there than here ? 
 
 It would be worth while to attempt to understand 
 and get a clear insight of Mr. Carlyle's idea of 
 legislation, for it has been variously interpreted, and 
 perhaps usually misinterpreted ; hence, to some un- 
 friendly critics it seems the Palingenesia of de- 
 spotism, to others, the coronation of communism. 
 In the Spectator some years since appeared a paper, 
 entitled, "Mr. Carlyle's Singing Peers;"* it really 
 was not wanting in a tolerably clear insight as to 
 our great writer's meaning ; and the writer well 
 points out that his admiration has never been, as 
 * Spectator, October 12, 1867. 
 
History made Rhythmic. 461 
 
 has been so often and so ignorantly asserted, an 
 admiration of mere force ; what he has admired, 
 eulogised, and even invoked, has been that rhythmic 
 drill, that organisation of society, resulting from 
 " some one strong, organising, ordering mind, 
 whether soldier, priest, peer, or king ; some one 
 who strikes a moral and social tuning-fork with 
 such effect that the whole inferior body politic should 
 be more or less drawn into the hymn of social duty." 
 Hence, Mr. Carlyle called upon the young Aristoi to 
 leave reformed Parliaments, and such like babblements, 
 to go their own way, chattering and palavering, but to 
 betake themselves to the nobler course of drilling and 
 organising, bringing even into a rhythmic and melo- 
 dious concord their own department. Mr. Carlyle 
 encourages such persons, " whose lips God has 
 touched with His own hallowed fire, to write the 
 history of England as a kind of Bible, or in parts 
 and snatches to sing it, if you could, this were work 
 for the highest Aristos or series of Aristoi in sacred 
 literature ; really a sacred kind this." His ima- 
 ginative and elliptical modes of expression often 
 lead to a misconception of his meaning ; yet we 
 might suppose that no great difficulty presents itself 
 here ; it is his way of saying, reduce your own 
 household into order, to the measure of your in- 
 fluence ; whether you be the husband of a house- 
 hold, great master manufacturer, large landholder, 
 
462 TJie Ages of English Statesmanship. 
 
 or duke, let your life, your thought, your will, 
 penetrate and govern all like a tone, like a 
 chord ; give the key-note in your own brave, noble, 
 and beautiful self-denying thought, and act so that 
 all shall follow it, and thus your subjects and de- 
 pendants be as a beautifully harmonious choir ; and, 
 indeed, is not this in many instances very pleasantly 
 realised ? there are such masters and such landlords, 
 the nation needs more of them, and as the number 
 of noble masters increase it may be hoped noble 
 labourers will increase also. This assuredly is 
 Mr. Carlyle's idea of the organisation of Society, 
 which thus seems to partake of the nature of rhythm 
 and melody. 
 
 The history of English statesmanship reminds us 
 of the several epochs through which it has passed. 
 There was the age of Pennon-Feudalism, the states- 
 manship of the Banner, the ages of the war knights ; 
 to this soon succeeded the Silken Feudalism, the ages 
 of the Pleasure Lords ; to these again succeeded the 
 Parchment Feudalism ; " and now we live in a day 
 when Trade is rapidly pushing aside the parch- 
 ments and establishing a new system in our 
 chambers of Legislation. Such and so various are 
 the schemes by which the populations of nations 
 have been held and ruled war rulers, pleasure 
 rulers, and policy rulers with their crotchets of 
 balance of power, and integrity of Empire, and 
 
The Mutability of Empire. 463 
 
 balance of trade, and protection to trade and agri- 
 culture. We may not dwell upon all these methods, 
 we must only notice how power, how freedom have 
 grown in our midst, how in a word we have 
 become 
 
 " A land of settled government ; 
 A land of just and old renown, 
 Where freedom broadens slowly down 
 From precedent to precedent." 
 
 But surely it is not beside the mark to notice that 
 it is by statesmanship that nations rise and nations 
 fall. Look along the borders of the Persian Gulf, 
 and the shores of the Baltic Sea ; survey Babylon, 
 and Palmyra, and Egypt, and Greece, and Italy, and , 
 Spain, and Portugal the circle once filled by the 
 Hanseatic League and see the peoples, where once 
 wealth accumulated and commerce flourished, now 
 all degraded and desolated. Poverty, indolence, and 
 ignorance proclaim the mutability of nations ; they 
 are like halls where was spread a sumptuous 
 banquet ; but the banquet is over, and beggars and 
 banditti prowl around the fragments and remains. 
 It is of more importance to any nation to preserve 
 than to extend, and nations have perished because 
 they bent all their energies to the increasing the 
 circumference, and weakened the centre in order 
 to do it. "We have seen," says Mr. Burke, "how 
 some States have spent their vigour at their com- 
 
464 The Fall of States. 
 
 mencement, some have blazed out in their glory 
 a little before their extinction ; the meridian of 
 others has been more splendid, others have fluctuated 
 and have experienced at different periods of their 
 existence a great variety of fortune. The death of 
 a man at a critical juncture, his disgust, his retreat, 
 his disgrace have brought innumerable calamities on 
 a whole nation ; a common soldier, a child, a girl 
 at the door of an inn have changed the face of 
 fortune, almost the face of nature." But these are 
 the accidental causes, and we ought to separate the 
 accidental from the permanent laws. " There is no 
 physical cause for the decline of nations, nature 
 remains the same."* Discoveries, the single and un- 
 foreseen causes which overwhelm a man and a family 
 in the midst of prosperity, never ruin a nation unless 
 it be ripe for ruin ; accident only appears to accom- 
 plish what in reality was nearly accomplished. There 
 is no hypothesis here ; wealth has left the Euphrates, 
 the Nile, and the Tiber, for the Thames and the 
 Irwell. But does not the sun rise as of old, and the 
 seasons do they not return as of old to the plains of 
 Egypt and the deserts of Syria, the same as three thou- 
 sand years ago ? Inanimate nature is the same ; the 
 
 * See that most important and entertaining discussion, 
 " An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and 
 Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations." By William 
 Playfair. 1807. 
 
Venice. 465 
 
 principles of legislation, are they altered ? No, nature 
 is not less beautiful, and man has more knowledge 
 and more power than at any former period ; but 
 the man of Syria and of Egypt has not more know- 
 ledge or more power ; there the race has decayed, 
 and his works have degenerated. When those 
 countries were peopled with men who were wise, 
 prudent, industrious, and brave, their fields were 
 fertile, their cities magnificent ; and wherever man- 
 kind have carried the same vigour, the same virtues, 
 and the same character, nature has been found 
 bountiful and obedient. We have thought over 
 these things as we have wandered through the 
 streets of Venice, glad to think we noticed the signs 
 of regeneration and revival. We thought of the 
 time when she was Mistress of the Seas, when 
 she held Empires within the reins of her domi- 
 nion, when the Barbarossa crouched before her, 
 when the very Papacy obeyed her, when her 
 trade was her royalty and that extended through 
 the far Indies and touched every European coast, 
 and she fell because her manhood fell. Venice fell, 
 not because of the New Era in navigation, born of 
 the discovery of the passage to Asia by the Cape 
 of Good Hope, and to America by sailing straight 
 out into the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 " Twere long to tell and sad to trace 
 Each step from splendour to disgrace. 
 
 .30 
 
466 Lessons from Norse Heroes. 
 
 Enough no foreign foe could quell 
 The soul till from itself it fell. 
 'Twas self-abasement paved the way 
 To villain bonds and despot sway." 
 
 And even while these sheets are passing through 
 the press, the venerable old prophet attempts to turn 
 the legends of the old Norsemen to account for the 
 warning and instruction of modern society, and the 
 following paragraph, extracted in several newspapers, 
 may perhaps be not unacceptably quoted here, as 
 very appropriately following on those remarks we 
 have just made as to the causes of national decay 
 and ruin being principally traceable to the decline 
 of national manhood ; as Mr. Carlyle would say, the 
 pre-eminence of the worst man, rather than the best, 
 in the social scale : * 
 
 " The history of these Haarfagrs has awakened in 
 me many thoughts of despotism and democracy, 
 arbitrary government by one, and self-government 
 (which means no government, or anarchy) by all ; of 
 dictatorship, with many faults, and universal suffrage, 
 with little possibility of any virtue. For the contrast 
 between Olaf Tryggveson and a universal suffrage 
 parliament or an Imperial copper captain has in 
 these nine centuries grown to be very great ; and 
 the eternal Providence that guides all this, and pro- 
 duces alike these entities with their epochs, is not its 
 * Fraser's Magazine, March, 1875. 
 
The One Saving Element. 467 
 
 course still through the great deep ? Does not it 
 still speak to us if we have ears ? Here, clothed in 
 stormy enough passions and instincts, unconscious of 
 any aim but their own satisfaction, is the blessed 
 beginning of human order, regulation, and real 
 government ; there, clothed in a highly different but 
 again suitable garniture of passions, instincts, and 
 equally unconscious as to real aim, is the accursed- 
 looking ending (temporary ending) of order, regu- 
 lation, and government very dismal to the same 
 on-looker for the time being, not dismal to him 
 otherwise, his hope, too, being steadfast. But here, 
 at any rate, in this poor Norse theatre one looks with 
 interest on the first transformations, so mysterious 
 and abstruse, of human chaos into something of arti- 
 culate cosmos ; witnesses the wild and strange birth- 
 pangs of human society, and reflects that without 
 something similar (little as men expect such now) no 
 cosmos of human society ever was got into existence 
 nor can ever again be. 
 
 "The violences, fightings, crimes ah, yes, these 
 seldom fail, and they are very lamentable. But 
 always, too, among those old populations there was 
 one saving element, the now want of which, espe- 
 cially the unlamented want, transcends all lamenta- 
 tion. Here is one of these strange piercing words of 
 Ruskin, which has in it a terrible truth for us in these 
 epochs now come. 
 
468 WJw is Best Man ? 
 
 "'My friends, the follies of modern Liberalism, 
 many and great though they be, are practically 
 summed up in this denial or neglect of the quality 
 and intrinsic value of things. Its rectangular beati- 
 tudes and spherical benevolences theology of uni- 
 versal indulgence and jurisprudence which will hang 
 no rogues mean one and all of them in the root 
 incapacity of discerning or refusal to discern worth 
 and unworth in anything, and least of all in man ; 
 whereas nature and heaven command you at your 
 peril to discern worth from unworth in everything, 
 and most of all in man. Your main problem is that 
 ancient and trite one, " Who is best man," and the 
 fates forgive much forgive the mildest, fiercest, 
 cruellest experiments if fairly made for the deter- 
 mination of that. Theft and blood-guiltiness are not 
 pleasing in their sight, yet the favouring powers of 
 the spiritual and material world will confirm to you 
 your stolen goods, and their noblest voices applaud 
 the lifting of your spear and rehearse the sculpture 
 of your shield, if only your robbing and slaving have 
 been in fair arbitrament of that question. " Who is 
 best man ? " But if you refuse such inquiry, and 
 maintain every man for his neighbour's match if 
 you give vote to the simple and liberty to the vile 
 the powers of those spiritual and material worlds in 
 due time present you inevitably with the same pro- 
 blem, soluble now only wrong side upwards ; and 
 
Who is Worst Man ? 469 
 
 your robbing and slaying must be done then to find 
 out " Who is worst man ? " which in so wide an order 
 of merit is indeed not easy; but a complete Tam- 
 many ring and lowest circle in the Inferno of Worst 
 you are sure to find and to be governed by.' " 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 NEW ERAS. 
 
 THE wonder at Carlyle's alienation from much of 
 the exciting, showy, and sensational turbulence of 
 our times, ceases when we become aware of the ex- 
 ceeding simplicity of his own character and habitual 
 tastes and habits ; and these seem to be well illus- 
 trated in the following letter to Sir George Sinclair, 
 and which appears in the published memoirs of that 
 admirable and interesting man : 
 
 " Chelsea, July 24, 1860. 
 
 "There is something so truly hospitable in the 
 tone of your letter, something so human-looking and 
 salutary in the adventure proposed me, that I decide 
 on attempting it ; and mean actually to embark in 
 the Aberdeen steamer on Wednesday, August I (that 
 is to-morrow week), sea voyaging being much more 
 supportable at all times than the horrors of rail- 
 waying, vainly attempting to sleep in inns, &c., &c. ; 
 and shall hope to be at Wick, and thence under your 
 roof, at some time on the Saturday following, if all 
 
In all Things Simplex Munditiis. 471 
 
 prosper. There ! Most likely I shall write again 
 before sailing ; in the meantime, I have only to bid 
 you thank the beneficent Lady in my name, and say 
 that I have good hope her angelic intentions will 
 succeed upon me in some measure, and thus it will 
 be a welcome help indeed. That, for the rest, my 
 domestic habits are all for simplicity and composure 
 (simplex munditiis the motto in all things), that 
 I live, with clear preference where possible, on rustic 
 farm produce ' milk and meal/ eggs, chickens, moor- 
 mutton ; white fish (salmon, veal, lamb, three things 
 tabooed to me) ; reckon an innocent bread-pudding 
 the very acme of culinary art ; am accustomed to say, 
 * Can all the tides in Nature, with all the King's trea- 
 suries to back them, make anything so good as good 
 cream ? ' and likewise that f the Cow is the friend of 
 man, and the French cook his enemy/ and not one 
 day in ten drink beyond a single glass of wine. 
 Sufficient on that head. For company I want none 
 but yours and hers. The great song of the ever- 
 lasting sea, and the silences of earth and sky, will 
 be better ' conversation ' to me than the kind I 
 have long had. On the whole, I am quite gay, 
 with the hope of becoming a ' Kb'nig in Thule' 
 (though without the misfortunes and bibacities of 
 that old gentleman). There in my Schloss am Meer, 
 for awhile, I promise to become a much more human 
 animal, were sleep restored to me, in that grand lullaby, 
 
472 Sphinx Riddles of Past Ages. 
 
 and the rough hair smoothed down again a little. 
 Adieu, in the hope of soon meeting." 
 
 But it has been well said, and our writer has said, 
 that we have come, in our day, to a New Era ; we 
 have so, but not for the first time in the history of 
 the world, for a new era is always a change of 
 intrinsic conditions, and every new era brings with 
 it new difficulties to adjust, as it brings or finds new 
 circumstances ; and, as we look over the past eras of 
 our country, we find very much to remind us that our 
 fathers, too, had their times of severe difficulty and 
 trial, not less than we have ourselves. But they 
 answered their questions, and killed the Sphinx. If 
 the time should ever come when we, as a nation, are 
 unable to answer the riddle and there are those 
 who prophesy that time will come when we shall 
 cease to be a true, simple, religious people then we, 
 in our turn, shall be rent in pieces by the Sphinx. 
 True, in our history all things have aided us. We 
 have in ancient times been rent by the Sphinx. 
 Was it not so in the day of the Saxon invasion ? 
 in the day of the Norman invasion ? Then how 
 often, as era on era has crowded along, the Sphinx 
 stood in the highway and proposed her riddle ! The 
 individual, indeed, was often rent, but the social 
 remained. Behold ! how incessantly again, and 
 yet again the question was answered, and the 
 
Difficulty of our Era. 473 
 
 people saved. The riddle was proposed to France, 
 as we saw ; and we have seen that France has never 
 been well able to answer and to solve the parable. 
 She could not, as we have recently seen, and she was 
 rent in pieces. See, in our land, in the rise of the 
 constitution, by the concession of power to the 
 Barons ; in the rise of the people, in the first Civil 
 Wars of the Roses ; in the rise of the Reformation ; 
 in the battles of the people and priest ; in the rise of 
 political power, when the monarchy was driven to the 
 wilderness ; in the reassertion of its political power, 
 when the constitution became consolidated ; through 
 the years of foreign war, from age to age, destroying 
 the aristocracy of the feudal pennon, of the silken 
 doublet, of the sheepskin titles, down to this moment 
 which beholds the rise of the trader among us to the 
 same post and place of influence once held by lords 
 and courtiers through all, England has so answered 
 the questions of every age and era that the difficulty 
 has only asserted her strength, and from the prostra- 
 tion she has sprung up to power. 
 
 But, surely, every age has increased the difficulty. 
 It was a much more difficult thing the work of 
 Cromwell than that of De Montfort ; and to win 
 Marston was more fearful than to win Runnymede, 
 All that has gone before our age is light and trivial 
 in comparison with ours, when, instead of Barons and 
 their villeins, we have to manage men and editors, 
 
474 Democracy. 
 
 and mighty and unwieldy masses, and a mighty 
 public opinion, which, if it is not always enlightened, 
 certainly always thinks it is. Thus, the question 
 truly of to-day is, What shall we do with democracy ? 
 It is here. Terrible as a mad beast we know it can 
 be. Beautiful and bright it has never presented itself 
 to us as being yet. It may be that ; but in order 
 that it may be that, let us know how to receive it, 
 and how to treat it. It seems we have reached the 
 pleasant Era when the Government of the best, 
 whatever that best may be an Aristocracy, is no 
 longer to be thought of as desirable, but instead 
 thereof a government by Democracy, or of the most ! 
 What a delicious ideal army, navy, war ship, mer- 
 chant ship, factory, and family conducted upon a 
 principle of Democracy and universal suffrage! what 
 a beautiful Idyllic dream worthy of opium or 
 absynthe. We should say, beyond all things, let this 
 demos be well fed, also let it be well guided. Above 
 all things, it will be terrible for us, and for demos 
 too, if it should ever suspect itself to be the only 
 strength in the world. Even horses, from time im- 
 memorial, to the days of Mr. Rarey, have been best 
 managed by concealing from them your own weak- 
 ness. Ah ! the horse that finds his own strength, 
 behold how he kicks and plunges and throws his 
 rider, and breaks his own legs as in the French 
 Revolution, for instance. And it behoves us well to 
 
Carlyles Love of the Old Ages. 47 5 
 
 inquire whether our opinions and our actions, poli- 
 tical and social, are likely to tell for the conservation of 
 the great social state. We may take it for granted 
 that all citizens care for power, only as a means 
 to good. But we dare not think so ; power is valued 
 for its own sake, for the sake of its distinction. The 
 great questions of our age, so far as we behold them, 
 have they tended to our national strength or weak- 
 ness ? There is no decay yet, the Sphinx may be 
 answered. Only let us take care of crime, red tape, 
 and pauperism, and scout as a lie, whole and entire, 
 that the duty of man can ever be in doing nothing ; 
 and so may we pass safely over the new era. 
 
 We have before alluded to the surprise frequently 
 expressed, that such a man as Carlyle should find so 
 much to admire in such a man as Goethe. Akin 
 to that surprise is this other, the wonder at his 
 paradoxical faith in the old ages, his constant re- 
 verence for the past. He is what in Germany is 
 called a "romancist" one, the texture of whose 
 ideas is woven entirely from the past. But why 
 should there be surprise at this ? The same reason 
 meets us here, in his admiration of the ages, which 
 met us before in his admiration of the individual ; it 
 is the calm, the unbroken calm, of that great grave- 
 yard, the past. This is what makes the whole of that 
 scenery so beautiful and so dear it is a great " court 
 of peace." And, in truth, is it not so with all of us ? 
 
476 The Old Saxon Ages. 
 
 Do not the graves affect us even as the stars do 
 by unbroken calm and silent grandeur, so deep and 
 so near to eternity ? Nor do we for a moment doubt 
 that those ancient old world ages had this about 
 them, that their peoples lived a long way from those 
 keen cross-questionings which cause such strife in 
 our hearts and days. The spirit of speculation is 
 not, indeed, we know, of modern birth ; and it has 
 raised its questions alike beneath the skies of 
 Palestine and in the groves of Greece, and, no doubt, 
 amidst the monastic seclusions of the England of the 
 Middle Ages ; but it seems impossible that to the 
 same extent perplexing questions could have agitated 
 the bosoms of men in those ages as in ours. 
 
 Political science in those ages was despotism, dashed 
 occasionally by the red flame of democracy, soon to 
 be extinguished in blood. The political economy of 
 those ages seems to us easy; there were no vexed 
 questions touching population and over production ; 
 the questions of currency and of trade lay in a very 
 small compass. Occasionally, famine and fever 
 stalked through the land, but superstition solved the 
 question of their appearance very summarily. We 
 can sympathise with Carlyle's veneration for the 
 past. We all have loved to step from the crowded 
 city, and its fevered population, into the cemetery 
 with its still graves. "There," says Carlyle as we 
 can conceive him, although the words do not come 
 
T/ie Ages of Faith. 477 
 
 " there," pointing over the centuries, " there are the 
 still people who did what I cannot do ; they be- 
 lieved, and asked no questions ; their instincts of 
 love, and faith, and awe, and wonder had not been 
 crushed, and beaten, and trampled." He looks out 
 to those times when religion lay over the people 
 like an all-embracing heavenly canopy, like an 
 atmosphere and life element. Wonderfully has he 
 brought, with singular clearness, before the eye, 
 "those singular two-legged animals, monks, with 
 their rosaries, and breviaries, and shaven crowns, 
 \and hair cilices, and vows of poverty," masquerading 
 strangely through the fancy ; strange that extinct 
 species of the human family ; how grandly solemn 
 is that " Past and Present " of his, in which he 
 narrates the story of Jocelyn of Edmundsbury, or 
 Brakelond ; and we, to whom nights and days in 
 ruins and cathedrals are among precious and trea- 
 sured memories, know of no book which so pours 
 over us the spirit of the past as that book ; " the 
 antique heart" beats more audibly in this than in 
 any book we know of. If we attempted to describe 
 this book we would speak of it as Tintern Abbey 
 restored. We pace the mighty aisles, and as we read 
 become clairvoyant ; and while the night breezes 
 sweep by, and rustle amidst the ivy boughs, we 
 become conscious of a change, and that to us the 
 past has stepped out of the tomb, and is restored an 
 
478 The Old Monastery. 
 
 Eve-embodied spirit. We behold the ancient shrine, 
 glittering with diamond flowerages, and with wrought 
 gold. " Ah ! this is it," we say ; " these stately 
 masonries, these long-drawn arches, these cloisters 
 and resounding aisles. A living monastery is around 
 us. Not a dream, surely, but a reality ;" and human 
 beings moving to and fro, over the waste ; and 
 through the engirdling forest, the shrine shines, ever 
 burning, illuminating the night ; and matins, and 
 nones, and vespers, we can hear, if we hearken ; 
 that is the great bell, sounding through the horn-gate 
 of dreams, and we see the processions and preach- 
 ings, festivals and Christmas plays, and mysteries, 
 in the churchyard. As we linger still there, for the 
 first time, we see clearly the election of an abbot, 
 and the order of it in " that old osseous fragment 
 that blackened bone of the dead ages." We see the 
 generations sweep by ; all looked at by earth, by 
 heaven, and by hell, working out there their life afresh ; 
 there is the old Abbot Hugo ; the field husbandry ; 
 the looms dimly going ; the women around the mo- 
 nastery, in their grey woollen attire, spinning yarn. 
 By no means, merely as in a dream, but with all 
 the actualities of life about it, with its river and 
 hills, and the winding ways through the surrounding 
 forests, and the tenantry flying for shelter to its doors. 
 How graphic are those touches by which, as is 
 ever his wont, he gives in one word or two a scene 
 
England in the Old Centuries. 479 
 
 of old England. But we are not surprised that he 
 loves to turn thither. If it be true that love is the 
 best painter, sympathy, deep-heartedness, which is 
 ever also clear eyesightedness, then how deep must 
 that heart and vision be which reveals the picture 
 to us so life-like and real, of the monachism of those 
 days fruitful then, before as now, it had all rolled 
 into peat a feeble bog-grass of dilettanteism ; " those 
 monastic cloisters, before loose four-footed cattle and 
 Henry the Eighths had been turned into them ; those 
 days when the country was still dark with woods, 
 shaggy and leafy, like an American forest, with 
 cleared spots and spaces here and there." Feudalism 
 is all alive as yet, " and Robin Hood and William 
 Scarlet living in some universal-suffrage manner 
 under the green-wood tree ;" "when the wild fowl 
 screamed among the ancient silences, and the wild 
 cattle roamed the ancient solitudes, and the iron 
 and the coal slept side by side, and the Ribble, 
 and the Aire, and the Irwell, rolled down all un- 
 stained by dyers' chemistry, and over the moors, 
 and the hills only traversed by the sunbeam, and 
 the wind ; and the iron-horse, and the steam demon 
 had not risen into being, and James Watt and 
 George Stephenson were yet in the deep, far-off 
 ages ; and Manchester spun no cotton ; and the 
 creek of the Mersey only was clamorous with sea- 
 fowl a lither pool that is, a lazy or sullen pool." 
 
480 Sectary Squabbles and Geese Cacklings. 
 
 Oh, do but think of all the calm that broods now 
 to our hearts along that old world ; and yet from 
 that most unpromising, bleak soil, all that our 
 England is, has come, and then forgive our writer 
 if he turns wonderingly back to the silent past. 
 But let no reader foolishly suppose, therefore, that 
 our writer would return to that past ; surely, no ! 
 
 But to mend this present ; how Society may hope 
 to escape from the miserable entanglement of evils 
 and falsehoods which encompass us, which embarrass 
 all movement ; how to escape from the pressure of 
 the grim nightmare which weighs so heavily upon us 
 here is the fearful difficulty ; and while, no doubt, 
 there are crowds of faithful labourers who are 
 seeking to rectify the wrong-doings, the labourers 
 are few, and their influence is as nothing in an 
 over-crowded population like ours, where Giant Com- 
 petition strides along preaching his beneficent gospel 
 of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the 
 dearest! a little observation shows what that pre- 
 cious doctrine is bringing us to. And then the easier 
 thing is for us all to quarrel with each other ; the 
 Plymouth Brother curses the Puseyite, and tells us all 
 to leave off working, and to sit with folded arms 
 watching with fish-like sleepy eyes the approach of 
 the devouring tide ; and the Puseyite curses the 
 Plymouth Brother, and all workers except the Priest 
 and the woman in black ; and the Papist curses all 
 
The Story of a Clock. 481 
 
 alike ; the ciy of how many conflicting sects is, " We 
 saw one casting out devils, and he followed not with 
 us, and we forbade him, and called down fire from 
 heaven because he followed not with us ;" and so the 
 mischief grows. Good doing must be all of one 
 pattern or order, or it is bad doing, and there had 
 better be no doing at all. Amidst these sectary 
 squabbles, these geese cacklings, in which the story 
 of Ancient Rome is reversed, and the city perishes 
 and is not saved while the geese cackle the evil 
 things go on. We have often applied to our Society 
 and civilisation a droll story, told by Mr. Drummond 
 Hay in his entertaining book on Morocco. 
 
 " The clock of the ' Jamaa Kebeer] the great 
 mosque at Tangier, being much out of order, needed 
 some skilful craftsman to repair it. None, however, 
 of the ' Faithful ' were competent to the task, nor 
 could they even discover what part of the machinery 
 was deranged, though many put forth their opinions 
 with great pomp and authority ; among the rest, one 
 man gravely declared that a gin, or evil genius, had 
 in all probability taken up its abode within the 
 clock. Various exorcisms were accordingly essayed, 
 sufficient, as every true believer supposed, to have 
 expelled a legion of devils yet all in vain, the 
 clock continued dumb. A Christian clockmaker 
 ' a cursed Nazarene/ was now their sole resource 
 
 31 
 
482 TJie Clock and the Christian. 
 
 and such a one fortunately was sojourning in 
 Tangier ' the city protected of the Lord.' He was 
 from Genoa, and of course a most pious Christian ; 
 how then were they, the faithful followers of the 
 Prophet, to manage to employ him ? The clock 
 was fixed in the wall of the tower, and it was, of 
 course, a thing impossible to allow the Kaffer to 
 defile God's house of prayer by his sacrilegious 
 steps. The time-keeper Moakkeed reported the 
 difficulty to the Kady, and so perplexed the grey- 
 bearded dealer in law and justice by the intricacy of 
 the case, that, after several hours of deep thought, 
 the judge confessed that he could not come to a 
 decision, and proposed to report upon the subject 
 to the Kaid, advising that a meeting of the local 
 authorities should be called. ' For, in truth,' said the 
 Kady, ' I perceive that the urgency of this matter is 
 great Yes ! I myself will expound our dilemma to 
 the Kaid.' 
 
 " The Kaid entered feelingly into all the difficulty 
 of the case, and forthwith summoned the other 
 authorities to his porch, where various propositions 
 were put forward by the learned members of the 
 Council. One proposed to abandon the clock 
 altogether ; another would lay down boards over 
 which the infidel might pass without touching the 
 sacred floor ; but this was held not to be a sufficient 
 safeguard, and it was finally decided to pull up that 
 
The Clock and the Christian. 483 
 
 part of the pavement on which the Kaffer trod, and 
 whitewash the walls near which he passed. 
 
 " The Christian was now sent for, and told what was 
 required of him, and he was expressly commanded 
 to take off his shoes and stockings on entering the 
 Jamaa. ' That I won't,' said the stout little watch- 
 maker ; ' I never took them off when I entered the 
 Chapel of the most Holy Virgin,' and here he 
 crossed himself devoutly ' and I won't take them 
 off in the House of your Prophet.' They cursed 
 in their hearts the watchmaker and all his race, 
 and were in a state of vast perplexity. The 
 wise Oolama had met early in the morning ; it 
 was already noon, and yet, so far from having got over 
 their difficulty, they were, in fact, exactly where 
 they had been before breakfast ; when a grey-bearded 
 Mueddin, who had hitherto been silent, craved per- 
 mission to speak. The Kaid and the Kady nodded 
 their assent. 
 
 " ' If,' said the venerable priest, ' the mosque be out 
 of repair, and lime and bricks have to be conveyed 
 into the interior for the use of the masons, do not asses 
 carry those loads, and do they not enter with their 
 shoes on ? ' 
 
 " ' You speak truly,' was the general reply. 
 
 " ' And does the donkey,' resumed the Mueddin, 
 * believe in the one God or in Mahomed, the Prophet 
 of God?' 
 
 312 
 
484 Past and Present. 
 
 " ' No, in truth/ all replied. 
 
 " ' Then,' said the Mueddin, ' let the Christian go 
 in shod as a donkey would do, and come out like a 
 donkey.' 
 
 " The argument of Mueddin was unanimously ap- 
 plauded. In the character of a donkey, therefore, 
 did the Christian enter the Mahomedan temple, 
 mended the clock not, indeed, at all like a donkey, 
 but as such, in the opinion of ' the Faithful,' came 
 out again ; and the great mosque of Tangier has 
 never since needed another visit of the donkey to its 
 clock." 
 
 Now we know those who have all the intolerance 
 and not the practical wisdom revealed in this little 
 anecdote ; for they would have the very clock of 
 Society stand still rather than they would have 
 its works touched by what they would consider 
 unhallowed hands. 
 
 Perhaps we need not charge Mr. Carlyle, in his 
 perpetual homage paid to the Past, " Say not in thy 
 heart the former times were better than these." It 
 is Mr. Carlyle's necessity, that he sees clearly all that 
 he sees, and feels strongly all that he feels ; more- 
 over, it is no doubt true, that it is possible to look on 
 certain aspects of the Past and to feel them to be 
 greatly superior to the Present. For we have advanced, 
 and our Teacher does firmly believe in Progression, in 
 
Past and Present. 48 5 
 
 the development of man and it is not possible that 
 man can advance in any direction without losing 
 something from the ground he has traversed we 
 cannot be that which we were, and that which we are 
 " the cliild and the man cannot zvell put their heads 
 tnto one hat'' We have forfeited something in the 
 Past which we could have wished to keep. But then 
 we have gained, and we have gained that which we 
 have lost too we have lost its individuality and we 
 have gained its essence. The Past is indeed with 
 us no more. The quaint old gables have gone, the 
 weird large old chambers have gone ; cities new and 
 strange have sprung up ; villages have almost died 
 out, in that old form of perfect isolation in which the 
 village stood in the old Time. Monasteries have 
 gone ; they served the country, and were no doubt a 
 step in the advancement of our nation ; when there 
 were ^et no large capitalists, no large farmers, then 
 they were the grand centres of the civilisation of that 
 remote age. And the Feudal Baron has gone a 
 tough, rude monster He but the men around him 
 were rough and rude too. All that looks senti- 
 mental to our eyes has gone, and belongs to Artists 
 and Poets by exclusive right. The Past shrouds 
 and covers up all the old nooks, and History but 
 poorly tells how men worked and suffered in those 
 days. 
 
 Well, it seems an intoxicating thing to stand here, 
 
486 Past and Present. 
 
 from this Headland, and glance over to the valley 
 yonder to the life of the days of Henry 1 1. But it 
 is profoundly interesting to us because it was human. 
 Or to look over the valley on the other side to the 
 days of Queen Bess ; or yet nearer to the times of 
 the Civil Wars ; or yet nearer to the days of the 
 First Georges. Sentiment says, let me get there ; I 
 should like to know the old squire ; I should like to 
 walk through the old village fair ; I should like to 
 stand on the village Green, and see the innocent 
 country dance on the summer eve, in those old 
 Times ; I should like to walk through the old Halls, 
 and see how they lived and fared, and know what 
 they thought and felt ; I should like to sit with them 
 on the village Heath, by the farmer's ingle in the 
 village Hostel real old days ; I wish I could step 
 back but once and see them. Be sure of this you 
 would soon wish yourself back again to the nine- 
 teenth century. But, on the other hand, we need 
 not suppose that our dead old ancestors would espe- 
 cially desire to keep us company here. No ! they 
 had their ways and we have ours ; let us not libel 
 them, nor let us be unfaithful to ourselves. As 
 happy as we can be, we may be sure they were ; and 
 so far we go with Carlyle, inasmuch as their life 
 was more simple, less exacting, more self-contained ; 
 it was happier than ours, most likely. That life 
 can never be a very happy one where the brain is 
 
Past and Present. 487 
 
 so severely taxed that it does not leave time for 
 the heart to grow. But every state in this world has 
 its own means of comfort, and some means of hap- 
 piness. If we visit the Past we certainly will not visit 
 merely with pragmatical conceit to boast ourselves so 
 much wiser and better. True, the means of our 
 happiness have multiplied ; but who does not know 
 that happiness decays with a multitude of means ? , 
 Meantime we will stand by our Age. We cannot 
 see the Past ; we see one magnanimity, we cannot 
 see the innumerable meannesses. In this age we see 
 the innumerable meannesses ; we are too much dis- 
 posed to shut our eyes to the one even to the 
 many magnanimities. When time shall have done for 
 the Victorian Age what it has done for the Eliza- 
 bethan, our own will shine brighter on the whole, 
 even by comparison with that. The Age of great 
 Cities will not be without its painful aspects. But 
 are there no shades to the Age of the Virgin Queen ? 
 If that Age beheld the mighty sea kings Drake, and 
 Frobisher, and Hawkins, go forth roaming and deso- 
 lating along the seas, what will the children of the fu- 
 ture think as they see in History as we have seen in 
 Fact, the Sea Horse ploughing the paths of the deep, 
 or the great iron ship like a very bridge of boats, 
 binding nations into one the one to its Prow the 
 other to its Keel ? What will be the emotions of that 
 future as it shall behold, at the Prospero hand of 
 
488 Our Own Age. 
 
 Science, the whole material world subdued to 
 Human purposes and Human progress, while the 
 Telegraphic wires seem to touch the last possible 
 extremes of material agencies, and to throw their 
 mysterious wires as if inviting the lowest reach of 
 spiritual being to carry its secrets to us ? Will the 
 Empire of Literature in that distant age pale before 
 the Age of Elizabeth ? Will it not be admitted that 
 new worlds of thought have been opened, new re- 
 gions of emotion touched ; and in the prose of De 
 Quincey, and in the vague wild shadowy half-tones 
 of Browning, and in the melody of 'Tennyson, in 
 the art of Macaulay, and in the everything of 
 Carlyle, in the sublime reach of Wordsworth, will 
 it not be admitted that Prophets have been 
 among us? Will it be possible to review the Age 
 and not be amazed at the Statesmanship ; even if in 
 that epoch there should be a pleasant surprise to 
 find the people had no statesman, and that ap- 
 parently for all purposes of good government they 
 scarcely needed what are ordinarily called statesmen ; 
 when it will be noticed that in every town there 
 were men who carried into their business relations 
 the sagacity and policy of a Burleigh, or a Walpole ; 
 when it shall be noticed how simultaneously over the 
 whole land the genius of Education diffused itself, 
 using its instrumentality like a sacred web-work of 
 voluntary and self-denying Piety; when it shall be 
 
Hope for our Age. 489 
 
 seen what exchequers of wealth have been lavished 
 on the consecrating works of benevolence, and that 
 Hospitals and Houses of Hopeful Labour for 
 Christian Faith and Enterprise are everywhere rising 
 even in every town ? Thus this Age will stand forth 
 among the ages, Royal and Beautiful. What does 
 Mr. Carlyle himself say ? " You take wheat to cast 
 into the Earth's bosom ; your wheat may be mixed 
 with chaff, chopt straw, barn sweepings, dust, and 
 all imaginable rubbish ; no matter, you cast it into 
 the kind just Earth ; she grows the wheat ; the 
 whole rubbish she silently absorbs, throwing it 
 in, and says nothing of the rubbish ; the yellow 
 ..wheat is growing there ; the good Earth is silent 
 ^about all the rest, has silently turned all the rest 
 to some benefit too, and makes no complaint about 
 it." Folly, and Sin, and Shame ; of course, these 
 are the Bitumen, alas, which will adhere to all ages, 
 and it is only a lapse of ages and generations which 
 can give to these the brilliancy as of silver, and this 
 is only the effect of peculiar vision. But when we 
 behold how amazingly Power everywhere develops 
 itself, and Piety by the side of Power ; then when we 
 take down Thucydides, or Gibbon, and try to dis- 
 cover the weakening and mortifying spot of cor- 
 ruption in our nation by the dissecting knife of 
 history, we are unable to find it. Much we may see 
 over which we grieve our Great Cities, the practical 
 
49/O T?ie Fable of tfie Fisherman. 
 
 operation of our Poor Laws, the state of our 
 Government offices. But when we look abroad, 
 everywhere flames up the grandeur and presence 
 of the people. Nor do we doubt that three hundred 
 years hence the writings of Mr. Carlyle, which then 
 shall be read as illustrations of the grandeur and 
 genius of our Day, may provoke the rhapsodies of 
 some similar prophet, who shall in that advanced 
 age contrast his degenerate times with ours. 
 
 It is chiefly, almost only, in our false meta- 
 physics we are able to discover a shame and a folly 
 in our New Era. 
 
 Many of our readers who have read those wise 
 little stories of Grimm will remember the tale of the 
 Fisherman and his wife. The Fisherman, engaged 
 one day in his work, drew out a flounder from the 
 water a magic flounder, a fairy flounder, who could 
 speak, and therefore possessed wonderful potency. 
 So he asked the fish to give to his wife a happy 
 Cottage instead of a Hovel, and the request was 
 granted, and as it rose before their eyes, beautiful, 
 well-furnished, and surrounded with garden and fruit- 
 trees, the Fisherman's wife said, " Is not this 
 charming?" "Yes," said he, "if you can only be 
 content with it" But she could not be content with 
 it, and soon wanted to live in a Palace. So the 
 Fisherman went again, and cried over the waves 
 clouded, and thick, and black, 
 
Blessedness of Faith and A ction. 49 r 
 
 " Flounder, Flounder, in the sea, 
 Hither quickly come to me ; 
 For my wife, Dame Isabel, 
 Wishes what I scarce dare tell." 
 
 However, they got the Palace. But the Palace did 
 not long satisfy, and then the Fairy fish was hooked 
 again, for the Fisherman's wife wanted to be Queen of 
 the whole country, and she became Queen. Again the 
 spirit of discontent came over her, and she would be 
 Pope ! and even now her husband did not seek in 
 vain. But when the spirit of dissatisfaction came 
 again and she demanded to be able to make the 
 sun rise, to interrupt the course of Nature itself, in 
 fact to be ruler of the Universe, the reply was, 
 "Return, and find her back in her hovel." This 
 is precisely the course of modern' metaphysics. 
 Standing by the infinite deeps of the Human Soul, 
 man has made that strange Fairy Fish, his own 
 intuitional nature, do strange things with him and for 
 him ; but the end of modern metaphysics has been to 
 desire to arrest the very order of Nature, to prescribe 
 \ Laws and Conditions to the Infinite ; and how can 
 Nyhe amazing madness end but in shame and confu- 
 >iion of face ? Man would rule the Universe, but he is 
 compelled to feel that he resides in a Hovel. 
 
 Finally, as a matter of justice, the author of whom 
 we have been saying so much ought to have the 
 last word ; and what more truly representative 
 words can we quote than those which so nobly 
 
49 2 Doubt is Conquered by Action. 
 
 represent the mind and the spirit of almost all his 
 writings ? 
 
 ALL BLESSEDNESS HAS ITS SPRING IN HEALTHFUL 
 WORK. 
 
 " Blessed is he who has found his work ; let him 
 ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life- 
 purpose ; he has found it, and will follow it ! How, 
 as a free-flowing channel, dug and torn by noble 
 force through the sour mud-swamp of one's ex- 
 istence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs 
 and flows ; draining off the sour festering water 
 gradually from the root of the remotest grass-blade ; 
 making, instead of pestilential swamp, a green 
 fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. How 
 blessed for the meadow itself; let the stream and 
 its value be great or small ! Labour is Life. From 
 the inmost heart of the Worker rises his God-given 
 Force, the sacred celestial Life-essence breathed into 
 him by Almighty God, from his inmost awakens 
 him to all nobleness to all knowledge, ' self-know- 
 ledge,' and much else, so soon as work fitly begins. 
 Knowledge ? The knowledge that will hold good 
 in working, cleave thou to that ; for Nature itself 
 accredits that says Yea to that. Properly thou 
 hast no other knowledge but what thou hast got by 
 working ; the rest is yet all a hypothesis of know- 
 ledge ; a thing to be argued of in schools ; a thing 
 
Genius Ever Young. 493 
 
 floating in the clouds, in endless logic vortices, till 
 we try it and fix it. ' Doubt, of whatever kind, can 
 be ended by Action alone' " 
 
 But we must close ; and now, as the writer runs his 
 eye along the goodly range of volumes which have 
 emanated from this heroic mind and pen, of course, 
 the chief impression is of the entire inadequacy of 
 this little volume to its great subject ; so many other 
 things seem to demand allusion and exposition 
 which yet have found, and can find, no place here. 
 What then ? the end will be answered if the reader 
 shall be induced to gird himself for a right earnest 
 and hearty study of the noble works themselves. 
 Every expositor who has essayed his fainter or more 
 forcible word on Shakespeare has only shown the 
 inexhaustibleness of that deep well, but perhaps has 
 done something to show the freshness and depth of 
 the ever-flowing fountain ; we have before expressed 
 the conviction that no mind since Shakespeare has 
 exhibited our language in such marvellous fertility 
 and variety, or presented incident and character in 
 such an affluence of deep human suggestiveness. As 
 for the man, he appears to realise in a truly wonderful 
 manner Coleridge's great definition of genius, the 
 carrying into latest life the freshness, the wonder, 
 the awe and reverence of childhood ; all that we can 
 hear of him seems to represent only the picture of 
 
494 Future Rewards and Punishments. 
 
 the Apostolic description, an outward man perish- 
 ing, an inner man renewed day by day. The sense 
 of mystery, the reverence for truth, and virtue, and 
 goodness, the wrath and anger over all evil doing, 
 the pity for all evil doers, seem to be as fresh in him 
 as when the wondrous faculties of his mind chimed 
 and tolled out their first astonishing peals of ineffable 
 melody. He appears to stand by his ancient faiths, 
 and to live in his most youthful hopes ; perhaps his 
 future looks to him too beautiful, too benign and 
 divine to please, if nicely analysed, our straiter ortho- 
 doxy, even as when he speaks concerning the 
 great doctrine of future rewards and punishments, 
 while he announces his sense of the tremendous con- 
 sequences of right and wrong in man ; and at this 
 moment it cannot be uninteresting, whatever the 
 reader's opinion, to quote Carlyle's solemnly ex- 
 pressed conviction here : 
 
 CONCERNING THE INFINITE CONSEQUENCES OF 
 FINITE ACTS. 
 
 " ' There are two things,' says the German Philo- 
 sopher, ' that strike me dumb : the starry firmament 
 (palpably infinite), and the sense of right and wrong 
 in man.' Whoever follows out that * dumb ' thought 
 will come upon the origin of our conceptions of 
 heaven or hell of an infinitude of merited happiness, 
 and an infinitude of merited woe and have much to 
 
Good Actions Eternal. 495 
 
 reflect upon under an aspect considerably changed. 
 Consequences, good and evil, blessed and accursed, 
 it is very clear, do follow from all our actions here 
 below, and prolong, and propagate, and spread them- 
 selves into the infinite, or beyond our calculation and 
 conception ; but whether the notion of reward and 
 penalty be not, on the whole, rather a human one, 
 transferred to that immense divine fact, has been 
 doubtful to many. Add this consideration, which 
 the best philosophy teaches us, ' that the. very con- 
 sequences (not to speak of the penalties at all) of evil 
 actions die away and become abolished long before 
 eternity ends ; and it is only the consequences of 
 good actions that are eternal for these are in har- 
 mony with the laws of this universe, and add them- 
 selves to it, and co-operate with it for ever ; while all 
 that is in disharmony with it must necessarily be 
 without continuance, and soon fall dead ' as per- 
 haps you have heard in the sound of a Scottish 
 psalm amid the mountains, the true notes alone 
 support one another, and the psalm which was dis- 
 cordant enough near at hand, is a perfect melody 
 when heard from afar." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abyssinian Custom, An 
 Actions Eternal, Good 
 Age, Hope for our 
 " Alton Locke," quo 
 Ambitious, Be not too 
 
 PAGE 
 
 432 
 
 495 
 489 
 376 
 20 
 
 America, Secret of its Happiness 28 
 
 American's Visit to Carlyle, An ... 27 
 ANECDOTES 
 
 A Passenger to ? 96 
 
 Anson's Sailor 63 
 
 Bishop Butler 175 
 
 Charlemagne 30 
 
 Charles I. at Naseby 201 
 
 Child and the Weed, The 374 
 
 Comic Bible, The 310 
 
 Is that Thing Going on Still ? ... IQO 
 
 Johnson 442 
 
 On the Divine One 204 
 
 Popish Bishop and the Testa- 
 ment 123 
 
 Robert Hall 104 
 
 Singing Publisher, A 18 
 
 The Clock of Tangiers 481 
 
 That Chartist ! 28 
 
 Anselmo in the Phial 59 
 
 Anti- Macassi v. Bearskin 40 
 
 Apparitions, A Procession of 108 
 
 ,, We are all 106 
 
 Arab Saying, An 367 
 
 Armada, The Spanish 155 
 
 Artist Faculty of Carlyle 322 
 
 Bass-Rock of Letters 122 
 
 Bastille Besieged 216 
 
 ,, Clock of the 219 
 
 Is Fallen, The 222 
 
 ,, Prisoners 224 
 
 ,, Relics 226 
 
 ,, Storming and Capture of 
 
 the ... .. 2oq 
 
 ,, Tower, Vision from the .. 
 Baths and Washhouses 
 
 Battle Chaunt after Victory ......... 335 
 
 A Noble ............... 329 
 
 Pieces .............................. 325 
 
 Scenes, Carlyle's ............... 322 
 
 PAGE 
 
 (Peter), quo in, 177 
 
 Bethlehem, The Lessons of 458 
 
 Bible, Carlyle on the Hebrew in 
 
 " Blackwood's Magazine," quo.... 439 
 
 Blessed Life, Meditation on the ... 415 
 Blue- Beard's Tragic History . 
 
 Books to Read, What 23 
 
 Book- Writers, the Priesthood of 33 
 
 Brick, The Philosophy of a 403 
 
 Browning, quo 36 
 
 Burns, Carlyle's 273 
 
 ,, Early Love for ... 29 
 
 Byronic Melody, A 417 
 
 Cagliostros, Modern 
 
 Carlyle, Father of. 
 
 Irving's Estimate of 
 
 A Mathematician 
 
 Marriage 
 
 Letter to Goethe 
 
 Removal to London 
 
 In Conversation 12 
 
 Mrs 
 
 As Lord Rector 
 
 Talk to Students 
 
 Death of his Wife 
 
 Wife's Epitaph 
 
 Letter to a Young Man... 
 
 Interviewed 
 
 Isolation 
 
 Style 
 
 Transcendentalist 
 
 Is he a Heretic ? 
 
 A Pantheist ... 
 
 and Goethe 
 
 Letter to Dr. Stirling 
 
 a Chartist 
 
 a Puritan 
 
 Contrasted with Hume 
 
 and Gibbon 
 
 the Protestant 
 
 Love of Humanity 
 
 no Optimist 
 
 a Verse Maker 
 
 Humour 
 
 a Prophet 
 
 30* 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 6 
 7 
 
 10 
 -18 
 
 3 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 21 
 22 
 26 
 
 32 
 
 39 
 6 1 
 68 
 70 
 92 
 97 
 114 
 140 
 
 164 
 227 
 239 
 275 
 317 
 338 
 351 
 
498 
 
 Index. 
 
 Carlyle a Puritan 35 2 
 
 Burden of 353 
 
 Epigrams on 378 
 
 Freely Paraphrased 380 
 
 Vehemencies 396 
 
 atthe Opera 
 
 ,, Influence on Literature... 434 
 
 Letter to Sir G. Sinclair 470 
 
 Love of the Old Ages 475 
 
 Carlylese 4 1 
 
 Charity, Have 19 
 
 Charlemagne and Frastrada 31 
 
 Charles I. at Naseby 201 
 
 Chartism, Carlyle charged with ... 114 
 
 " Chartism," Objects of 371 
 
 Cheapness, The Immorality of. 385 
 
 Chelsea, The Scape-camel of 433 
 
 Children of the Devil, Liberty of 
 
 the 400 
 
 Christ, Carlyle on 112 
 
 " Christian Remembrancer," quo. 444 
 
 Christian Truth, Carlyle and no 
 
 Christianity and History 163 
 
 How it Grew in the 
 
 World 142 
 
 Church, Carlyle on the 139 
 
 Classical ? Is Carlyle 43 
 
 Clock, The Story of a 481 
 
 Clothes-Philosophy, Secret of. 56 
 
 PAGE 
 
 De Launay, Death of 223 
 
 De Morgan, quo 
 
 Democracy 
 
 ,, The Vesuvius of 
 
 Desire, True and False 
 
 5 
 
 474 
 180 
 
 24 
 190 
 
 Devil, An Emancipated 402 
 
 ,, Disbelief in the 136 
 
 Devil's Pickle, Lying in the 397 
 
 409 Despotism and Democracies 
 
 590 
 134 
 
 ,, Regiments of the Line ... 
 
 Dilettantic School of Belief 
 
 Diogenes Teufelsdrockh 51 
 
 Dismal Science, The 
 
 Divine One, Carole on the 
 
 Doctor's Little Daughter, The 
 
 Dogma and Doctrine 
 
 Doubt Conquered by Action .. 
 Dunbar, Cromwell at 
 
 453 
 204 
 422 
 159 
 492 
 
 202 
 
 Dynamic, not Mechanic 144 
 
 Ecclefechan 
 
 Duty, Study to do Your. 
 
 " Edinburgh Review," quo 449 
 
 University, Lord Rec- 
 tor of 18 
 
 Elliot (Ebenezer), quo 389 
 
 rlyl 
 
 Emerson and Carlyle 
 
 quo. 
 Emigration, Carlyle on 
 
 Encyclopredism, Opposition to ... 
 
 Engine, Definition of a Steam 
 
 England in the Old Centuries 
 
 England, Projected Invasion of ... 
 
 7 
 
 3" 
 450 
 
 Cobblers, The Two 
 
 Communist ? What is a 389 j E 
 
 Congregation, Reflections on a ... 244 
 
 Consciousness, Man's Higher 66 
 
 ,, ^.Individuality... 302 
 
 Conversation, Carlyle's 12 18 
 
 Conversion ? What is 125 Epigrams on Carlyle 
 
 Convictions, In Search of. 
 
 Cosmos v. Chaos 
 
 Craigenputtoch, Residence at 
 
 Criminals, Cultivated 
 
 Critic, A Goose of a 
 
 Critics, Carlyle's 4ic 
 
 Criticism through Horn - spec- 
 tacles 439 
 
 Cromwell and Charles I zoi 
 
 and Louis XVI. Con- 
 trasted 200 
 
 ,, at Dunbar 202 
 
 Death-bed 343 Goethe's 
 
 Last Prayer 345 The Ages of 
 
 Reflections on 349 " 
 
 Cup, The Prophet with the 228 
 
 Cyprian, Deathof. 161 
 
 Dante, Carlyle on 272 
 
 Dead in Trespasses and Sins .. .. 405 
 
 Death of Louis XV 181, 207 
 
 "Decline and Fall," Defects of 
 
 Gibbon's 159 
 
 Deist ! Wordsworth a . 120 
 
 Delia Scalas, The 271 
 
 ..426 428 
 429 
 363 
 
 "3 
 
 64 
 
 479 
 
 Question, Condition of . 387 
 Epic, anHistoric 179 
 
 127 | Episode, An 331 
 
 393 I Epitaph, An 21 
 
 Epithets, Queer Compound 48 
 
 Era, Difficulty of our 473 
 
 Eras, New 470 
 
 Existence apart from Pheno- 
 mena 57, 102 
 
 Exodus, a Protestant 232 
 
 Ezekiel, quo 91 
 
 Faith, Aids to 
 
 432 
 
 and Action, Blessedness of 491 
 
 95 
 
 477 
 
 ,, ji.ua -ngea ui 
 
 Father, A Disappointed 
 
 " Faust," quo 57 
 
 Fichte, Noble Character of 119 
 
 Fichte's "Destination of Man," 
 
 quo 83 
 
 Fichte's Three States 135 
 
 Fight the Good Fight of Faith ... 150 
 
 Fisherman, Grimm's 490 
 
 Force, Carlyle a Moral 37 
 
 Forces, Moral and Material, Con- 
 trasted ... .166 
 
Index. 
 
 499 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fox and his Leathern Breeches ... 129 
 
 " Fraser's Magazine," quo 466 
 
 Frederick and his Landlord 331 
 
 the Great 337 
 
 the Young 303 
 
 Travelling Incognito ... 265 
 
 Frederick's Ode at Rossbach 327 
 
 French Revolution an Epic. 
 
 Carlyle's 179 
 
 French Revolution, Character of 
 
 Carlyle's 183 
 
 French Revolution, Irony of Car- 
 lyle's 194 
 
 French Revolution, Prophetic 
 
 Teaching of Carlyle's 182 
 
 Fuller (Margaret) on Carlyle n 
 
 Gallomania 113 
 
 Gathercoal, Two Excerpts from ... 456 
 
 Genius ever Young 493 
 
 German Literature, Carlyle's Re- 
 lation to 87 
 
 German Literature, Character- 
 istics of. 88 
 
 Germany, What we Owe to 89 
 
 Ghost, Every Man a Real 105 
 
 Ghosts 107 
 
 Gibbon, Heartlessness of 161 
 
 Gibbon's History, Defects of 159 
 
 Gilfillan (George), quo 49 
 
 Glogau, An Incident in the March 
 on .. 
 
 God, Results of a Nation Forget- 
 
 tiru 
 
 God, Society without Virtue or ... 
 , Wine of the Wrath of ... 
 
 241 
 176 
 
 102 
 229 
 
 not Comprehended by the 
 
 Understanding 100 
 
 Goethe and Carlyle Compared 92 
 
 Carlyle on 274 
 
 Characteristics of 90 
 
 ,, Letter to 
 
 ,, Quotation from 
 
 Goethe's Philosophy of Life 94 
 
 ,, "The Tale" 50 
 
 " Gravenhurst," quo 275 
 
 Greenwich Time 471 
 
 Grimm, quo 490 
 
 Hamilton (Sir W.), quo 44 
 
 Hamlet, Dreams of 60 
 
 ,, Voltaire's Criticism on... 42 
 
 Happiness not our Being's End ... 416 
 
 Theory, The 16 
 
 Hare (Archdeacon), quo 44* 
 
 Hebrew Book, A 18; 
 
 Hebrew Melody, A singular 36: 
 
 Hegel, The Secret of. 82, 9! 
 
 Helps (Sir A.), quo., 374 
 
 Heresy ? What is 12, 
 
 Heretic? Is Carlyle a 68 
 
 lero and the Opportunity, The 
 lero Worship, Principles of ., 
 
 leroic, Attributes of the 
 
 Heroic Life, Varieties of the 
 
 PAGE 
 
 289 
 278 
 287 
 
 272 
 
 listorian, Carlyle the 147 
 
 Arnold's Definition of 
 
 an 169 
 
 Attributes of an 167 
 
 historic Writing, Character of ... 166 
 
 listory, Buckle's Idea of 187 
 
 Carlyle's Estimate of 154 
 
 God's ever-renewed Reve- 
 lation 153 
 
 Homeric 179 
 
 made Rythmic 461 
 
 not Impersonal 158 
 
 regarded as a Life 149 
 
 regarded as a Science 148 
 
 Study of 24 
 
 the Autobiography of 
 
 Mankind 151 
 
 The Impersonal in 152 
 
 the Real Bible of the 
 
 World 152 
 
 Hone's " Spirit of the Age," quo. 42 
 
 Hopes, Man's Four Great 65 
 
 Houses, London 404 
 
 Humanity, Carlyle's Love of... 239, 254 
 
 Hume and Berkley 69 
 
 Humour and Pathos Related 341 
 
 Carlyle's 309,338 
 
 Hypocrisy, Drowned in 397 
 
 Ideas, Ministers of 37 
 
 Ignaro, the Flippancies of 379 
 
 Ignorance, Innocence of Relative 164 
 ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTS 
 
 All Blessedness has its Spring 
 
 in Healthful Work 492 
 
 An Age without Strong Men ... 293 
 
 Birth of Luther 281 
 
 Bookof Job 246 
 
 Carlyle at the Opera 408 
 
 Infinite Consequences ot Finite 
 
 Acts 494 
 
 David his Sins and his Psalms 282 
 
 Death -bed ot Louis XV 207 
 
 ,, Oliver Cromwell 343 
 
 Death of Andreas 342 
 
 Devil's Regiments of the Line... 390 
 
 Every Man a real Ghost 105 
 
 Expostulates with mere Reli- 
 gious Professors 361 
 
 Expostulation with Political 
 
 Economists 453 
 
 Field of Leuthen 329 
 
 Fight the Good Fight of Faith. . . 150 
 
 Fortuna 317 
 
 Frederick and his Landlord 331 
 
 and the Poor Dominie 255 
 
 Travelling Incognito . 265 
 
5oo 
 
 Index. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 George Fox and his Leathern 
 
 Breeches 129 
 
 How Christianity grew in the 
 
 World 142 
 
 In What is True Nobleness 305 
 
 March on Glogau 241 
 
 Marie Antoinette on her Way to 
 
 Execution 205 
 
 Morning Toilet of Louis XV. ... 298 
 Moses and the Dwellers by the 
 
 Dead Sea 355 
 
 National Splendour may be Na- 
 tional Bankruptcy 191 
 
 Navigation by Universal Suf- 
 frage 446 
 
 Not this Man but Barabbas 362 
 
 Opportunity Essential to the 
 
 Hero 289 
 
 Parable of the Man who stood 
 
 upon his Head 315 
 
 Parable of the Two Cobblers ... 448 
 Perpetual Obligations to Divine 
 
 Laws 456 
 
 Reflections on a great Congre- 
 gation 244 
 
 Singular Translation of a Mys- 
 terious Voice , "417 
 
 Society without Virtue or God... 192 
 Solemnity of a Great City by 
 
 Night 319 
 
 Summary of Conflict between 
 
 Reason and Understanding ... 78 
 
 Story of the Expedition of Thor 171 
 Time and Space only Thought 
 
 Forms >. 105 
 
 Torgau one of Frederick's 
 
 Battle-fields 322 
 
 Unspeakable Holiness of Work 249 
 
 Wartburg the Refuge of Luther 279 
 
 Young Frederick 303 
 
 Imagination 55 
 
 ,, and Humour 318 
 
 Individuality v. Consciousness ... 302 
 
 Industry, Carlyle on the Rights of 358 
 
 Industry, Knighthood of 270 
 
 Infants Baked in Various Shapes . 244 
 
 Infidelity 123 
 
 Interviewed, Carlyle 26 
 
 Irish Carpenter's Bet, The 406 
 
 Irving (Edward) 421 
 
 Carlyle's Appreciation of 4 
 
 Irving's Estimate of Carlyle 3 
 
 .... 64 
 
 .... 228 
 
 .... 246 
 
 .... 252 
 
 .... 71 
 
 .... 200 
 
 . 1 66 
 
 Javelin of Pythagoras, The . 
 
 Jeremiah, quo 
 
 Job, Carlyle on the Book of. 
 Justice, Faith in Final 
 
 i in tVio tVsirlfl 
 
 :, r aim in rmai... 
 is in the World 
 
 King Nominal and Real .... 
 Kingsley (Charles), quo 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Labour is Worship 247 
 
 Lalande, quo 100 
 
 Landor, quo 378 
 
 Language, Forcible 368 
 
 " Latter-day Pamphlets " 46, 387 
 
 Laughter a Gift of God 310 
 
 Laws, Obligation to Divine 456 
 
 Lazy, Blessed are the 367 
 
 Legislation, Faith in 459 
 
 Leibnitz, quo 101 
 
 Letter, Portion of an Old 224 
 
 to a Young Man 22 
 
 Letters, A High Priest of 31 
 
 TheSindbadof 441 
 
 Lewis (G. H.), An Estimate of ... 13 
 
 Lichtenberg. quo 137 
 
 Life, Comfortable Side of 95 
 
 ,, History regarded as 149 
 
 Literature, Carlyle's influence on 434 
 ,, Expresses the Mind of 
 
 an Age 44 
 
 German 88 
 
 of an Age of Great 
 
 Cities 40 
 
 Literary Men 36 
 
 Locke and His Followers 69 
 
 London.'theEast End of 384 
 
 Lord's Prayer, A significant 360 
 
 Louis's Flight to Varennes 194 
 
 Louis XV.'s Morning Toilet 298 
 
 ,, the Unforgotten, Death of... 181 
 
 Lowell on Emerson anl Carlyle 427 
 
 Luther's Advice to Melancthon ... 47 
 
 Lytton (Lord), on Humour 339 
 
 Macdonald's " Phantastes," quo. 51 
 
 Man is in Prison 61 
 
 Something about the i 
 
 Style is the 49 
 
 The Four Great Hopes of ... 65 
 
 ,, -v. History 291 
 
 Man ? Who is the Best and Worst 468 
 Manning's "Half Truths," &c., 
 
 quo 426 
 
 Marat, The Avatar of. 220 
 
 Marriage, Carlyle's 6 
 
 Martyr Testimonials 395 
 
 Mathematician, Carlyle a 5 
 
 Maximilian's (Emp.) Meditation 48 
 
 Mazzini and Carlyle 15 
 
 McNicholl, quo 178 
 
 Men, an Age without Strong 293 
 
 ,, Possibility of Great 242 
 
 Unsuccessful Great 288 
 
 Merchants, Noble 408 
 
 Mirabeau, The Old Marquis of ... 213 
 
 Model Prisons 389 
 
 Modern Society, Sphinx Riddle of 370 
 
 Monastery, The Old 478, 484 
 
 Moore (Tom), quo 49 
 
 Moral Law ? Is there any Absolute 354 
 
Index. 
 
 501 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Morley (John) on Carlyle 435 
 
 Moses and the Monkeys 355 
 
 Myth-Theory, An Illustration of 
 
 the 171 
 
 Names, Power of Great 284 
 
 Napoleon's Projected Invasion ... 156 
 
 Naseby, Carlyle on the Field of ... 240 
 
 National Story, Instances of 
 
 ,, Suffering, God's Judg 
 
 ment 
 
 Theology 
 
 Nations, Mutability of 
 
 Subject to Fits of In- 
 
 155 
 
 45 
 70 
 
 463 
 
 sanity .".... 175 
 
 ,, The only Hope of 292 
 
 Nature the true Sphinx Riddle ... 369 
 
 New Testament, Readings of the 361 
 
 Niagara, Shooting 394 
 
 Night Thoughts 443 
 
 Nobleness? What is true 305 
 
 No! The Everlasting 136 
 
 Norse Heroes, Lessons from 466 
 
 " North American Review " on 
 
 Carlyle 424 
 
 Oliphant (Mrs.), quo 423 
 
 Optimism 275 
 
 "Ou'Clo"' 362 
 
 Pantheism, A Definition of 71 
 
 Pantheist? Is Carlyle a 70 
 
 Pantheistic Scheme, Carlyle's 115 
 
 Parable, A 315 
 
 ,, A Curious 355 
 
 ,, in an Anecdote 374 
 
 Paris gone Mad 186 
 
 Past and Present 477 
 
 Pathetic Pictures 342 
 
 Pauperism and Sin 448 
 
 Pen, Historical and Judicial Power 
 
 of the 145 
 
 People, Tumult of the 221 
 
 Permanence'and Progress 188 
 
 Petrarch's Laura 13 
 
 Philip II., William Smith on 275 
 
 Philosophy of the Let Alone ... . 371 
 
 Secret of Clothes 56 
 
 Phosphorus, Legend of 62 
 
 Pike Fabricating 211 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress, A Real 52 
 
 Pine Forest, Through the 324 
 
 Platitude (Dr.), Opinion of 120 
 
 Plymley (Peter), quo 162 
 
 Plymouth Brethrenism 121 
 
 Poetry, Carlyle's 317 
 
 Political Reviewers 445 
 
 Popedom, Carlyle and the 236 
 
 Prelude and " Sartor Resartus," 
 
 The .. 84 
 
 Priest of Letters, What makes a 34 
 
 PACK 
 
 Prison, Man in 6t 
 
 Problems, Society's Unsolved 452 
 
 Procession, A Grim 224 
 
 Progression by Antagonism 450 
 
 Prophet ? What is a 351 
 
 Prophetic Utterances 372 
 
 Protestant, Carlyle the 227 
 
 Proverb, Definition of the 307 
 
 Power and Force of the 308 
 
 Utterer, Carlyle the 307 
 
 Proverbs 311 
 
 Providence in Great Men 290 
 
 Puritan, Carlyle a 140, 352 
 
 Pythagoras Javelin, The 64 
 
 " Quarterly Review," quo 115, 263 
 
 Race, True Solidarity of the 150 
 
 Ragged Schools, Carlyle on 365 
 
 Ramsey's (Dean) Scotchman 360 
 
 Reason, Carlyle on the Relations 
 
 ofthe 78 
 
 Medium of Revelation ... 77 
 
 ,, v. the Understanding...... 75 
 
 Reform Bill, Carlyle on our 406 
 
 Religion, Carlyle and the Chris- 
 tian.: no 
 
 Religious Critics on Carlyle 444 
 
 Revelation, Man needs a 64 
 
 Revolutions Grow, How 177 
 
 Rewards and Punishments, Future 494 
 
 Richter, quo. 137 
 
 Richter's " Walt und Vult " 51 
 
 Rome, One of the Crimes of 230 
 
 Rossbach, Frederick's Ode at 327 
 
 Rousseau and Carlyle 436 
 
 Salzburg Emigration, The 230 
 
 Sandy Mackaye and the Devil ... 376 
 
 " Sartor Resartus," Character of... 52 
 
 ,, ,, Publication of 10 
 ,, Seminal of all 
 
 Carlyle's Books 54 
 The Three Di- 
 visions of 82 
 
 ,, v. the Prelude 84 
 
 What of 50 
 
 " Saturday Review," quo 396 
 
 Saxon Ages, The Old 476 
 
 Scepticism in the Balances 137 
 
 Schilda 323 
 
 Science, History as a 148 
 
 Scotland, Early Married Days in 8 
 
 Scott (Sir Walter) 118, 272 
 
 Sectary Squabbles and Geese 
 
 Cacklings 480 
 
 Self-Improvement, A Letter on ... 22 
 
 Seraphs, The Army of Black 35 
 
 Shakspeare, quo 60, 109 
 
 Shoemaker, the Inspired 131 
 
 Silhouetess ofthe Revolution 184 
 
502 
 
 Index. 
 
 Simplex Munditiis in all Things ... 471 
 
 Social Miseries, Remedies for , 382 
 
 Society, Disturbing Forces of 165 
 
 Fatal Antagonisms of. 381 
 
 Needs Drill 47 
 
 not a Machine 187 
 
 Saving Element of 467 
 
 Unsolved Problems of ... 452. 
 
 without Virtue or God ... 192 
 
 Soul, Source of the Sorrows of the 135 
 
 Soul's Luminous Sphere, The 67 
 
 " Spectator," quo 460 
 
 Sphinx Riddle, Nature the True... 369 
 
 Riddles of Past Ages 472 
 
 Spiritual Birth, The Moment of ... 52 
 
 Standpoints, Two 138 
 
 State Saved by Politeness, The ... 396 
 
 States, Fall of 464 
 
 Statesmanship, Ages of English ... 462 
 
 Sterling (John) a Typical Man ... 133 
 
 and George Fox 128 
 
 Character of 126 
 
 ,, on Carlyle 425 
 
 quo 272 
 
 Stirling (Dr. H.), Letter to 97 
 
 fl ,, quo 82 
 
 Strauss, Carlyle's Reply to 170 
 
 Strength, Carlyle's Love of 301 
 
 Holiness in 297 
 
 Students, Carlyle's Address to ... 19 
 
 Style, a Burlesque of 442 
 
 Carlyle's 39 
 
 ,, is the Man 49 
 
 Innovations of 42 
 
 Vehemence of. 45 
 
 Taylor (Jeremy), quo 109 
 
 Tennyson, quo 32, 463 
 
 Terra Incognita, A 72 
 
 Testament, The Popish Bishop 
 
 and the 123 
 
 Theory, The Myth 171 
 
 Thor, The Expedition of 171 
 
 Thought, No Mode of Measuring 104 
 
 , PAGE 
 
 Thought, The Universe Conceived 
 
 as 98 
 
 Tieck's Imprisoned Anselmo 59 
 
 Time & Space, Thought Forms.. .101, 105 
 ,, The Infinite in 
 
 Relation to ... 103 
 
 Torne (Bishop) and the Crucifix ... 188 
 
 Transcendental, Territory of the. . . 73 
 
 Transcendentalism 58 
 
 Transcendentalist, Carlyle a 61 
 
 Tricolour, Origin of the" 210 
 
 Truths, A Prophet announces 357 
 
 Tutor and Pupil 423 
 
 Understanding, Province of the ... 74 
 
 Uniformity the Hobby of the Age 451 
 Universe Conceived as Thought, 
 
 The 98 
 
 Universe, French Idea of the 113 
 
 Varnish, The Age of 398 
 
 Vatican and a Mountain Chain ... 240 
 
 Venice, Ancient 465 
 
 Victorian Age, The 487 
 
 Voltaire, Carlyle's Estimate of..ii7, 273 
 
 Voltaire's Criticism of Hamlet ... 42 
 
 Weakness, Sin of 295 
 
 Weissnichtwo, A Passenger to ... 97 
 
 Wen, Ideas of a 364 
 
 " Wesleyan Methodist Magazine," 
 
 quo 419 
 
 Whittier, quo 128 
 
 Wieland's Legend of Phosphorus 62 
 
 Wife, Death of Carlyle's 20 
 
 Wolfdietrich, Carlyle compared to 45 
 
 Words 125 
 
 Wordsworth, quo 120 
 
 Work and Wages 253 
 
 Holiness of. 249 
 
 "Object of this i 
 
 World, A Flat 63 
 
 Is Justice in the 71 
 
 Worship, Hero 286 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY