There is little harmony of opinion concerning Carlyle, criticism of the man
being divided between praise and disparagement. If you are to read only one
of his works, it is perhaps advisable to avoid all biographies at first and
to let the Essay on Burns or Heroes and Hero Worship make its
own impression. But if you intend to read more widely, some knowledge of
Carlyle's personal history is essential in order to furnish the grain of
salt with which most of his opinions must be taken.
Life
In the village of Ecclefechan Carlyle was born in 1795, the
year before Burns's death. His father was a stone-mason, an honest
man of caustic tongue; his mother, judged by her son's account, was
one of nature's noblewomen. The love of his mother and a proud
respect for his father were the two sentiments in Carlyle that went
with him unchanged through a troubled and oft-complaining life.
His Wrestlings
Of his tearful school days in Annandale and of his wretched years
at Edinburgh University we have glimpses in Sartor Resartus.
In the chapters of the same book entitled "The Everlasting Nay" and
"The Everlasting Yea" is a picture of the conflict between doubt
and faith in the stormy years when Carlyle was finding himself. He
taught school, and hated it; he abandoned the ministry, for which
his parents had intended him; he resolved on a literary life, and
did hack work to earn his bread. All the while he wrestled with his
gloomy temper or with the petty demons of dyspepsia, which he was
wont to magnify into giant doubts and despairs.
Carlyle and Emerson
In 1826 he married Jane Welsh, and went to live in a house she had
inherited at Craigenputtock, or Hill of the Hawks. There on a
lonely moorland farm he spent six or seven years, writing books
which few cared to read; and there Emerson appeared one day ("He
came and went like an angel," said the Carlyles) with the
heartening news that the neglected writings were winning a great
audience in America. The letters of Carlyle and Emerson, as edited
by Charles Eliot Norton, are among the pleasantest results of
Carlyle's whole career.
Mrs. Carlyle
Carlyle's wife was a brilliant but nervous woman with literary
gifts of her own. She had always received attention; she expected
and probably deserved admiration; but so did Carlyle, who expected
also to be made the center of all solicitude when he called heaven
and earth to witness against democracy, crowing roosters, weak tea
and other grievous afflictions. After her death (in London, 1866)
he was plunged into deepest grief. In his Reminiscences and
Letters he fairly deifies his wife, calling her his queen,
his star, his light and joy of life, and portrays a companionship
as of two mortals in a Paradise without a serpent. All that is
doubtless as it should be, in a romance; but the unfortunate
publication of Mrs. Carlyle's letters and journals introduced a
jarring note of reality. A jungle of controversial writings has
since grown up around the domestic relations of the
Carlyles,--impertinent, deplorable writings, which serve no purpose
but to make us cry, "Enough, let them rest in peace!" Both had
sharp tongues, and probably both were often sorry.
Work in London
From the moors the Carlyles went to London and settled for the
remainder of their lives in a house in Cheyne Row, in the suburb of
Chelsea. There Carlyle slowly won recognition, his success being
founded on his French Revolution. Invitations began to pour
in upon him; great men visited and praised him, and his fame spread
as "the sage of Chelsea." Then followed his Cromwell and
Frederick the Great, the latter completed after years of
complaining labor which made wreck of home happiness. And then came
a period of unusual irritation, to which we owe, in part at least,
Carlyle's railings against progress and his deplorable criticism of
England's great men and women,--poor little Browning, animalcular
De Quincey, rabbit-brained Newman, sawdustish Mill, chattering
George Eliot, ghastly-shrieky Shelley, once-enough Lamb,
stinted-scanty Wordsworth, poor thin fool Darwin and his book
(The Origin of Species, of which Carlyle confessed he never
read a page) which was wonderful as an example of the stupidity of
mankind.
Such criticisms were reserved for Carlyle's private memoirs. The
world knew him only by his books, and revered him as a great and
good man. He died in 1881, and of the thousand notices which
appeared in English or American periodicals of that year there is
hardly one that does not overflow with praise.
In the home at Chelsea were numerous letters and journals which
Carlyle committed to his friend Froude the historian. The
publication of these private papers raised a storm of protest.
Admirers of Carlyle, shocked at the revelation of another side to
their hero, denounced Froude for his disloyalty and malice;
whereupon the literary world divided into two camps, the Jane
Carlyleists and the Thomas Carlyleists, as they are still called.
That Froude showed poor taste is evident; but we must acquit him of
all malice. Private papers had been given him with the charge to
publish them if he saw fit; and from them he attempted to draw not
a flattering but a truthful portrait of Carlyle, who had always
preached the doctrine that a man must speak truth as he sees it.
Nor will Carlyle suffer in the long run from being deprived of a
halo which he never deserved. Already the crustiness of the man
begins to grow dim in the distance; it is his rugged earnestness
that will be longest remembered.
Works of Carlyle
The beginner will do well to make acquaintance with
Carlyle in some of the minor essays, which are less original but more
pleasing than his labored works. Among the best essays are those on Goethe
(who was Carlyle's first master), Signs of the Times, Novalis, and
especially Scott and Burns. With Scott he was not in sympathy, and though
he tried as a Scotsman to be "loyal to kith and clan," a strong touch of
prejudice mars his work. With Burns he succeeded better, and his picture of
the plowboy genius in misfortune is one of the best we have on the subject.
This Essay on Burns is also notable as the best example of Carlyle's
early style, before he compounded the strange mixture which appeared in his
later books.
Heroes and Hero Worship
The most readable of Carlyle's longer works is Heroes and Hero
Worship (1840), which deals with certain leaders in the fields of
religion, poetry, war and politics. It is an interesting study to compare
this work with the Representative Men of Emerson. The latter looks
upon the world as governed by ideals, which belong not to individuals but
to humanity. When some man appears in whom the common ideal is written
large, other men follow him because they see in him a truth which they
revere in their own souls. So the leader is always in the highest sense a
representative of his race. But Carlyle will have nothing of such
democracy; to him common men are stupid or helpless and must be governed
from without. Occasionally, when humanity is in the Slough of Despond,
appears a hero, a superman, and proceeds by his own force to drag or drive
his subjects to a higher level. When the hero dies, humanity must halt and
pray heaven to send another master.
It is evident before one has read much of Heroes that Carlyle is at
heart a force-worshiper. To him history means the biography of a few
heroes, and heroism is a matter of power, not of physical or moral courage.
The hero may have the rugged courage of a Cromwell, or he may be an
easy-living poet like Shakespeare, or a ruthless despot like Napoleon, or
an epitome of all meanness like Rousseau; but if he shows superior force of
any kind, that is the hallmark of his heroism, and before such an one
humanity should bow down. Of real history, therefore, you will learn
nothing from Heroes; neither will you get any trustworthy
information concerning Odin, Mahomet and the rest of Carlyle's oddly
consorted characters. One does not read the book for facts but for a new
view of old matters. With hero-worshipers especially it ranks very high
among the thought-provoking books of the past century.
The French Revolution
Of the historical works [Footnote: These include Oliver Cromwell's
Letters and Speeches (1850) and History of Frederick the Great
(1858).] of Carlyle the most famous is The French Revolution (1837).
On this work Carlyle spent much heart-breaking labor, and the story of the
first volume shows that the author, who made himself miserable over petty
matters, could be patient in face of a real misfortune. [Footnote: The
manuscript of the first volume was submitted to Carlyle's friend Mill (him
of the "sawdustish" mind) for criticism. Mill lent it to a lady, who lost
it. When he appeared "white as a ghost" to confess his carelessness, the
Carlyles did their best to make light of it. Yet it was a terrible blow to
them; for aside from the wearisome labor of doing the work over again, they
were counting on the sale of the book to pay for their daily bread.]
Moreover, it furnishes a striking example of Carlyle's method, which was
not historical in the modern sense, but essentially pictorial or dramatic.
He selected a few dramatic scenes, such as the storming of the Bastille,
and painted them in flaming colors. Also he was strong in drawing
portraits, and his portrayal of Robespierre, Danton and other actors in the
terrible drama is astonishingly vigorous, though seldom accurate. His chief
purpose in drawing all these pictures and portraits was to prove that order
can never come out of chaos save by the iron grip of a governing hand.
Hence, if you want to learn the real history of the French Revolution, you
must seek elsewhere; but if you want an impression of it, an impression
that burns its way into the mind, you will hardly find the equal of
Carlyle's book in any language.
Of Carlyle's miscellaneous works one must speak with some hesitation. As an
expression of what some call his prophetic mood, and others his ranting,
one who has patience might try Shooting Niagara or the Latter Day
Pamphlets. A reflection of his doctrine of honest work as the cure for
social ills is found in Past and Present; and for a summary of his
philosophy there is nothing quite so good as his early Sartor
Resartus (1834).
Sartor Resartus
The last-named work is called philosophy only by courtesy. The title means
"the tailor retailored," or "the patcher repatched," and the book professed
to be "a complete Resartus philosophy of clothes." Since everything wears
clothes of some kind (the soul wears a body, and the body garments; earth
puts forth grass, and the firmament stars; ideas clothe themselves in
words; society puts on fashions and habits), it can be seen that Carlyle
felt free to bring in any subject he pleased; and so he did. Moreover, in
order to have liberty of style, he represented himself to be the editor not
the author of Sartor. The alleged author was a German professor,
Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh, an odd stick, half genius, half madman, whose
chaotic notes Carlyle professed to arrange with a running commentary of his
own.
In consequence of this overlabored plan Sartor has no plan at all.
It is a jumble of thoughts, notions, attacks on shams, scraps of German
philosophy,--everything that Carlyle wrote about during his seven-years
sojourn on his moorland farm. The only valuable things in Sartor are
a few autobiographical chapters, such as "The Everlasting Yea," and certain
passages dealing with night, the stars, the yearnings of humanity, the
splendors of earth and heaven. Note this picture of Teufelsdroeckh standing
alone at the North Cape, "looking like a little belfry":
"Silence as of death, for Midnight, even in the Arctic latitudes,
has its character: nothing but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged, the
peaceable gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean, over which in
the utmost North the great Sun hangs low and lazy, as if he too
were slumbering. Yet is his cloud-couch wrought of crimson and
cloth-of-gold; yet does his light stream over the mirror of waters,
like a tremulous fire-pillar shooting downwards to the abyss, and
hide itself under my feet. In such moments Solitude also is
invaluable; for who would speak, or be looked on, when behind him
lies all Europe and Africa, fast asleep, except the watchmen; and
before him the silent Immensity and Palace of the Eternal, whereof
our Sun is but a porch-lamp?"
The book has several such passages, written in a psalmodic style, appealing
to elemental feeling, to our sense of wonder or reverence before the
mystery of life and death. It is a pity that we have no edition of
Sartor which does justice to its golden nuggets by the simple
expedient of sifting out the mass of rubbish in which the gold is hidden.
The central doctrines of the book are the suppression of self, or
selfishness, and the value of honest work in contrast with the evil of
mammon-worship.
A Criticism of Carlyle
Except in his literary essays Carlyle's
"rumfustianish growlery of style," as he called it, is so uneven that no
description will apply to it. In moments of emotion he uses a chanting
prose that is like primitive poetry. Sometimes he forgets Thomas Carlyle,
keeps his eye on his subject, and describes it in vivid, picturesque words;
then, when he has nothing to say, he thinks of himself and tries to hold
you by his manner, by his ranting or dogmatism. In one mood he is a poet,
in another a painter, in a third a stump speaker. In all moods he must have
your ear, but he succeeds better in getting than in holding it. It has been
said that his prose is on a level with Browning's verse, but a better
comparison may be drawn between Carlyle and Walt Whitman. Of each of these
writers the best that can be said is that his style was his own, that it
served his purpose, and that it is not to be imitated.
His Two Sides
In formulating any summary of Carlyle the critic must remember that he is
dealing with a man of two sides, one prejudiced, dogmatic, jealous of
rivals, the other roughly sincere. On either side Carlyle is a man of
contradictions. For an odious dead despot like Frederick, who happens to
please him, he turns criticism into eulogy; and for a living poet like
Wordsworth he tempers praise by spiteful criticism. [Footnote: Carlyle's
praise of Wordsworth's "fine, wholesome rusticity" is often quoted, but
only in part. If you read the whole passage (in Reminiscences) you
will find the effect of Carlyle's praise wholly spoiled by a heartless
dissection of a poet, with whom, as Carlyle confessed, he had very slight
acquaintance.] He writes a score of letters to show that his grief is too
deep for words. He is voluble on "the infinite virtue of silence." He
proclaims to-day that he "will write no word on any subject till he has
studied it to the bottom," and to-morrow will pronounce judgment on America
or science or some other matter of which he knows nothing. In all this
Carlyle sees no inconsistency; he is sincere in either role, of prophet or
stump speaker, and even thinks that humor is one of his prime qualities.
Another matter to remember is Carlyle's constant motive rather than his
constant mistakes. He had the gloomy conviction that he was ordained to cry
out against the shams of society; and as most modern things appeared to him
as shams, he had to be very busy. Moreover, he had an eye like a hawk for
the small failings of men, especially of living men, but was almost blind
to their large virtues. This hawklike vision, which ignores all large
matters in a swoop on some petty object, accounts for two things: for the
marvelous detail of Carlyle's portraits, and for his merciless criticism of
the faults of society in general, and of the Victorian age in particular.
Such a writer invites both applause and opposition, and in Carlyle's case
the one is as hearty as the other. The only point on which critics are
fairly well agreed is that his rugged independence of mind and his
picturesque style appealed powerfully to a small circle of readers in
England and to a large circle in America. It is doubtful whether any other
essayist, with the possible exception of the serene and hopeful Emerson,
had a more stimulating influence on the thought of the latter half of the
nineteenth century.
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