From a photo, by Mr. Thomas Clark, Edinburgh21, COMELY BANK, EDINBURGHCarlyle and his wife lived at Comely Bank for eighteen months after their marriage
From a photo, by Mr. Thomas Clark, Edinburgh21, COMELY BANK, EDINBURGHCarlyle and his wife lived at Comely Bank for eighteen months after their marriage
From a photo, by Mr. Thomas Clark, Edinburgh21, COMELY BANK, EDINBURGHCarlyle and his wife lived at Comely Bank for eighteen months after their marriage
From a photo, by Mr. Thomas Clark, Edinburgh
21, COMELY BANK, EDINBURGH
Carlyle and his wife lived at Comely Bank for eighteen months after their marriage
From a wood engraving by Pearson of Sir J. E. Boehm’s gold medallionTHOMAS CARLYLE(Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall)
From a wood engraving by Pearson of Sir J. E. Boehm’s gold medallionTHOMAS CARLYLE(Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall)
From a wood engraving by Pearson of Sir J. E. Boehm’s gold medallion
THOMAS CARLYLE
(Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall)
Now, it must definitely be set to the credit of men like Cromwell and Mirabeau, that they were undoubtedly opposed to and embarrassed by men whose projects, even in their own eyes, were scarcely a part of practical politics. These men exist in every country and in every age. They are wilfully and eternally in opposition. They do not agree sufficiently with the active powers even to argue with them with any profit. Their ideal is so far away that they do not even desireit with any immediate hunger. They count it a pleasant and natural thing to live and die in revolt. They are ready to be critics, they are ready to be martyrs, they are emphatically not ready to be rulers. In this way Cromwell, considering how he might make some English polity out of a chaos of English parties, had to argue for hours together with Fifth Monarchy men, to whom the vital question was whether the children of malignants should not be slain, and whether a man who was caught swearing should not be stoned to death. In this way Mirabeau, striving to keep the tradition of French civilisation intact amid a hundred essential reforms, found his way blocked by men who insisted on discussing whether in the ideal commonwealth men would believe in immortality, or go througha rite of marriage. Now, while fully granting that both types have an eternal value, it is certainly not just that precisely the same ethical test should be applied to Cromwell and the Fifth Monarchy men, to Mirabeau and the worshipper of pure reason. It is not just that we should judge in precisely the same way the pace of a butcher’s cart which is obliged to get to Pimlico, and the pace of a butcher’s cart which is designed at some time or other to reach the site of the Garden of Eden. It is not just that we should judge in the same way the man who is simply anxious to erect a parish pump, andthe opponent of the pump, who looks forward to a day when there shall not only be no pump, but no parish. The man of action, then, really has in this sane and limited sense a claim to a peculiar kind of allowance, in that it is of vital necessity to him that a certain limited grievance should be removed. It is easy enough to be the man who lives in a contented impotence; the man who luxuriates in an endless and satisfied defeat. He does not desire to be effective; he only desires to be right. He does not desire passionately that something should be done; he only desires that it should be triumphantly proved to be necessary.
From a photo by the London Stereoscopic Co.THOMAS CARLYLE, ABOUT 1860
From a photo by the London Stereoscopic Co.THOMAS CARLYLE, ABOUT 1860
From a photo by the London Stereoscopic Co.
THOMAS CARLYLE, ABOUT 1860
From a photo by Elliott & FryTHOMAS CARLYLE, 1865
From a photo by Elliott & FryTHOMAS CARLYLE, 1865
From a photo by Elliott & Fry
THOMAS CARLYLE, 1865
This is the real contribution of Carlyle to the philosophy of the man of action. He revealed, entirely justly, and entirely to the profit of us all, the pathos of the practical man. He made us feel, what is profoundly true, that the tragedy of the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, is nothing to the tragedy of the death of Elizabeth; that the tragedy of the death of Charles I. is nothing to the tragedy of the death of Cromwell. A man like Charles I. died triumphantly; he did not indeed die as a martyr, but he diedas something which is much more awful and exceptional—a consistent man. He was worse than a tyrant, he was a logician. But a man like Cromwell is in a much harder case, for he does not wish to die and be a spectacle, but to live and be a force. He has to break altogether with the splendid logic of martyrdom. He has to eat his own words for breakfast, dinner, and supper. He has to outlive a hundred incarnations, and always reject the last; his progress is like that unnerving initiation in the wild tale of Tom Moore’s, in which the disciple had to climb up a stone stairway into the sky, every step of which fell away the moment his foot had left it. This is the only genuine truth that Carlyle brought from his study of strong men. If ever he said that we must blindly obey the strong man, he was merely angry and personal, and untrue to his essentially generous and humane spirit. When he said that we must reverence the strong man he sometimes expressed himself with a certain heated confusion, and left it doubtful whether he meant that we should reverence the strong man as we respect Christ, or merely as we respect Sandow. But we should all agree with him in hisessential and eternal contribution—that we should pity the strong man more than an idiot or a cripple.
A PORTRAIT OF CARLYLE TAKEN IN 1879Rischgitz Collection
A PORTRAIT OF CARLYLE TAKEN IN 1879Rischgitz Collection
A PORTRAIT OF CARLYLE TAKEN IN 1879
Rischgitz Collection
FACSIMILES OF CARLYLE’S SIGNATURE(Reproduced by kindpermission of Messrs.Chapman & Hall)
FACSIMILES OF CARLYLE’S SIGNATURE(Reproduced by kindpermission of Messrs.Chapman & Hall)
FACSIMILES OF CARLYLE’S SIGNATURE
(Reproduced by kindpermission of Messrs.Chapman & Hall)
It may be said that there is a certain inconsistency between these two justifications of Carlyle’s hero-worship: that we cannot at the same time respect a man because he is above us in a definite spiritual order, and because he is in what is popularly called a hole; that we cannot at once reverence Mirabeau because he was strong and because he was weak. This kind of inconsistency does exist in Carlyle; it is, I may say with all reverence and with all certainty, the eternal and inevitable inconsistency which characterises those who receive divine revelations. The larger world, which our systems attempt to explain and chiefly succeed in hiding, must, when it breaks through upon us, take forms which appear to be conflicting. The spiritual world is so rich that it is varied;so varied that it is inconsistent. That is why so many saints and great doctors of religion have pinned their faith to paradoxes like the “Credo Quia Impossibile,” the great theological paradoxes which are so much more dazzling and daring than the paradoxes of the modernflâneur. The supreme glory of Carlyle was that he heard the veritable voices of the Cosmos. He left it to others to attune them into an orchestra. Sometimes the truth he heard was this truth, that some men are to be commanded and some obeyed; sometimes that deeper and more democratic truth that all men are above all things to be pitied.
From a photo by J. Patrick, EdinburghCRAIGENPUTTOCKCarlyle’s residence from 1828 to 1834
From a photo by J. Patrick, EdinburghCRAIGENPUTTOCKCarlyle’s residence from 1828 to 1834
From a photo by J. Patrick, Edinburgh
CRAIGENPUTTOCK
Carlyle’s residence from 1828 to 1834
From a photo by J. Patrick, EdinburghPORTRAIT GROUP TAKEN AT KIRKCALDYThomas Carlyle, his niece, his brother, and Provost Swan
From a photo by J. Patrick, EdinburghPORTRAIT GROUP TAKEN AT KIRKCALDYThomas Carlyle, his niece, his brother, and Provost Swan
From a photo by J. Patrick, Edinburgh
PORTRAIT GROUP TAKEN AT KIRKCALDY
Thomas Carlyle, his niece, his brother, and Provost Swan
From a terra-cotta bust in the National Portrait Gallery, by Sir J. E. Boehm, R.A.THOMAS CARLYLE(Reproduced from “Past and Present.” by kind permission of Messrs. J. M. Dent & Co.)
From a terra-cotta bust in the National Portrait Gallery, by Sir J. E. Boehm, R.A.THOMAS CARLYLE(Reproduced from “Past and Present.” by kind permission of Messrs. J. M. Dent & Co.)
From a terra-cotta bust in the National Portrait Gallery, by Sir J. E. Boehm, R.A.
THOMAS CARLYLE
(Reproduced from “Past and Present.” by kind permission of Messrs. J. M. Dent & Co.)
It will be found relevant to what I have to say hereafter to remark at this point that I do not myself accept Carlyle’s conception of the spiritual world as exhaustive. I believe in the essence of the old doctrine of equality, because it appears to me to result from all conceptions of the divinity of man. Of course there are inequalities, and obviousones, but though they are not insignificant positively, they are insignificant comparatively. If men are all really the images of God, to talk about their differences has its significance, but only about the same significance which may be found in talking about the respective heights of twenty men, all of whom have received the Victoria Cross, or the respective length of the moustaches of twenty men, all of whom have died to save their fellow-creatures. In comparison with the point in which they are equal, the point in which they are unequal is not merely decidedly, but almost infinitely, insignificant. But my reason for indicating my own opinion on the matter, at this point, is a definite one. Carlyle’s view of equality does not happen to be mine; but it has an absolute right to be stated justly, and to be stated from Carlyle’s point of view. It was not a brutal fear or a mean worship of force; it was a serious belief that some found blessedness in commanding, and some in obeying. Now this kind of intellectual justice was the one great quality which was lacking in Carlyle himself. He would not consent to listen to Rousseau’s gospel, as I have suggested that we should listen to Carlyle’s gospel. He would not put Rousseau’s gospel from Rousseau’s point of view. And consequently to the end of his days he neverunderstood any gospel except Carlyle’s gospel.
From a photo by J. Patrick, EdinburghCARLYLE’S HOUSE AT 5 (now 24), CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA
From a photo by J. Patrick, EdinburghCARLYLE’S HOUSE AT 5 (now 24), CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA
From a photo by J. Patrick, Edinburgh
CARLYLE’S HOUSE AT 5 (now 24), CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA
JANE WELSH CARLYLE(Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall)
JANE WELSH CARLYLE(Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall)
JANE WELSH CARLYLE
(Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall)