THOMAS CARLYLEFrom a photo by the London Stereoscopic Co.
From a photo by G. G. Napier, M.A.MRS. CARLYLE’S BIRTHPLACEDr. Welsh’s House at Haddington.
From a photo by G. G. Napier, M.A.MRS. CARLYLE’S BIRTHPLACEDr. Welsh’s House at Haddington.
From a photo by G. G. Napier, M.A.
MRS. CARLYLE’S BIRTHPLACE
Dr. Welsh’s House at Haddington.
From a photo by R. Milliken, Kirkcaldy.THE HOUSE IN WHICH CARLYLE LIVED WHILST TEACHING AT KIRKCALDY SCHOOL
From a photo by R. Milliken, Kirkcaldy.THE HOUSE IN WHICH CARLYLE LIVED WHILST TEACHING AT KIRKCALDY SCHOOL
From a photo by R. Milliken, Kirkcaldy.
THE HOUSE IN WHICH CARLYLE LIVED WHILST TEACHING AT KIRKCALDY SCHOOL
Moreover, the real practical truth that underlay Carlyle’s gospel of the hero has in other ways been misunderstood. The general idea is that Carlyle thought that, if a man were only able, everything was to be excused to him. If Carlyle, even at any moment, thought this, it can only be said that for that moment Carlyle was a fool, as many able men may happen to be. But, as a matter of fact, what Carlyle meant was something much sounder. To say that any man may tyrannise so long as he is able, is as ridiculous as saying that any man may knock people down so long as he is six feet high. But in urging this very obvious fact the opponents ofCarlyle too often forget a simpler truth at the back of the Carlyle gospel. It is that, while in one sense the same moral test is to be applied to all men, there does remain in ordinary charitable practice a very great difference between the people who consider it necessary to see some definite thing done before they die, and the people who cheerfully admit that two hundred years will scarcely bring what they require, and that meanwhile they desire to do nothing. A Tolstoian anarchist who thinks that men should be morally persuaded for the next two or three centuries to give up every kind of physical compulsion may, it is quite conceivable, be more right than the English Home Secretary who finds himself responsible for the suppression of a riot in Manchester; but surely it is patently ridiculous to say that it is just as much to the anarchist’s credit that he avoids shooting Manchesterworkmen as it would be to the Home Secretary’s credit if he avoided shooting them. It would be equally ridiculous to say that, if the Home Secretary conceived it necessary to shoot them, from a sense of responsibility, that his action, even if wrong, was really as wrong as the conduct of a Tolstoian who should shoot them without any reason at all. In this sense, therefore, there is really a different test, and a perfectly fair one, for men of action and for men of abstract theories and remote hopes.
From a photo by G. G. Napier, M.A.SCOTSBRIGA farm in the neighbourhood of Ecclefechan to which the Carlyles removed from Mainhill in 1826
From a photo by G. G. Napier, M.A.SCOTSBRIGA farm in the neighbourhood of Ecclefechan to which the Carlyles removed from Mainhill in 1826
From a photo by G. G. Napier, M.A.
SCOTSBRIG
A farm in the neighbourhood of Ecclefechan to which the Carlyles removed from Mainhill in 1826
From a photo by J. Patrick, EdinburghTEMPLAND, NEAR THORNHILL, DUMFRIESSHIREThomas Carlyle married Jane Baillie Welsh on October 17th, 1826, at Templand, Mrs. Welsh’s residence
From a photo by J. Patrick, EdinburghTEMPLAND, NEAR THORNHILL, DUMFRIESSHIREThomas Carlyle married Jane Baillie Welsh on October 17th, 1826, at Templand, Mrs. Welsh’s residence
From a photo by J. Patrick, Edinburgh
TEMPLAND, NEAR THORNHILL, DUMFRIESSHIRE
Thomas Carlyle married Jane Baillie Welsh on October 17th, 1826, at Templand, Mrs. Welsh’s residence