From a drawing by E. J. SullivanTHOMAS CARLYLE(Reproduced from the illustrated “Sartor Resartus,” by kind permission of Messrs. George Bell & Sons)
From a drawing by E. J. SullivanTHOMAS CARLYLE(Reproduced from the illustrated “Sartor Resartus,” by kind permission of Messrs. George Bell & Sons)
From a drawing by E. J. SullivanTHOMAS CARLYLE(Reproduced from the illustrated “Sartor Resartus,” by kind permission of Messrs. George Bell & Sons)
From a drawing by E. J. Sullivan
THOMAS CARLYLE
(Reproduced from the illustrated “Sartor Resartus,” by kind permission of Messrs. George Bell & Sons)
From a photo in possession of W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D.MRS. CARLYLE ABOUT 1864
From a photo in possession of W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D.MRS. CARLYLE ABOUT 1864
From a photo in possession of W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D.
MRS. CARLYLE ABOUT 1864
And this spiritual impatience of Carlyle has left its peculiar mark in the only defect which can really be found in his historical works. Of the astonishing power and humour and poignancy of those historical works I think it scarcely necessary to speak. A man must have a very poor literary sense who can read one of Carlyle’s slighter sketches, such as “The Diamond Necklace,” and not feel that he has at the same time to deal with one of the greatest satirists, one of the greatest mystics, and incomparably one of the finest story-tellers in the world. No historian ever realised so strongly the recondite and ill-digested fact that history has consisted of human beings, each isolated, each vacillating, each living in an eternal present; or, in other words, that history has not consisted of crowds, or kings, or Acts of Parliament, or systems of government, or articles of belief. And Carlyle has, moreover, introduced into the philosophy of history one element which had been absent from it since the writing of the Old Testament—the element of something which can only be called humour in the just government of the universe. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn, the Lord shall have them in derision,” is a note that is struck again in Carlyle for the first time after two thousand years. It is the note of the sarcasm of Providence. Any one who will read those admirable chapters of Carlyle on Chartism will realise that, while all other humanitarians were insisting upon the cruelty or the inconsistency or the barbarism of neglecting theproblem of labour, Carlyle is rather filled with a kind of almost celestial astonishment at the absurdity of neglecting it.
From a photo by G. G. Napier M.A.CARLYLE’S GRAVE AT ECCLEFECHANThomas Carlyle died on February 5th, 1881
From a photo by G. G. Napier M.A.CARLYLE’S GRAVE AT ECCLEFECHANThomas Carlyle died on February 5th, 1881
From a photo by G. G. Napier M.A.
CARLYLE’S GRAVE AT ECCLEFECHAN
Thomas Carlyle died on February 5th, 1881
From a photo by J. F. Gordon, HaddingtonMRS. CARLYLE’S GRAVE IN HADDINGTON CHURCHMrs. Carlyle died on April 21st, 1866
From a photo by J. F. Gordon, HaddingtonMRS. CARLYLE’S GRAVE IN HADDINGTON CHURCHMrs. Carlyle died on April 21st, 1866
From a photo by J. F. Gordon, Haddington
MRS. CARLYLE’S GRAVE IN HADDINGTON CHURCH
Mrs. Carlyle died on April 21st, 1866
But a definite defect there is, as I have suggested, in Carlyle, considered as an historian, and it flows directly from that real moral defect in his nature, an impatience with other men’s ideas. In judging of men as men, he was not only quick and graphic and correct, but in the main essentially genial and magnanimous. Only a very superficial critic will think that Carlyle was misanthropic because he was surly. There is very much more real sympathy with human problems and temptations in a page of this shaggy old malcontent than in whole libraries of constitutional history by dapper and polite rationalists, who treat men as automata, and put their virtues and vices into separate pigeonholes. If I had made a mistake or committed a sin that had any sort of human character about it, I would very much rather fall into the hands of Carlyle than into the hands of Mr. Hallam or Mr. James Mill. But whileCarlyle did realise the fact that every man carries about with him his own life and atmosphere, he did not realise that other truth, that every man carries about with him his own theory of the world. Each one of us is living in a separate Cosmos. The theory of life held by one man never corresponds exactly to that held by another. The whole of a man’s opinions, morals, tastes, manners, hobbies, work back eventually to some picture of existence itself which, whether it be a paradise or a battle-field, or a school or a chaos, is not precisely the same picture of existence which lies at the back of any other brain. Carlyle had not fully realised that it was a case of one man, one Cosmos. Consequently, he devoted himself to asking what place any man, say Robespierre or Shelley, occupied in Carlyle’s Cosmos. It never occurred to him sufficiently clearly to ask what place Shelleyoccupied in Shelley’s Cosmos, or Robespierre in Robespierre’s Cosmos. Not feeling the need of this, he never studied, he never really listened to, Shelley’s philosophy or Robespierre’s philosophy. Here, after a somewhat long circuit, we have arrived at the one serious deficiency in Carlyle’s histories, a neglect to realise the importance of theory and of alternative theories in human affairs.
From the portrait painted by Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A., for Mr. J. A. Froude in 1877THOMAS CARLYLEIn the National Portrait Gallery. Rischgitz Collection.
From the portrait painted by Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A., for Mr. J. A. Froude in 1877THOMAS CARLYLEIn the National Portrait Gallery. Rischgitz Collection.
From the portrait painted by Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A., for Mr. J. A. Froude in 1877
THOMAS CARLYLE
In the National Portrait Gallery. Rischgitz Collection.
THE GROUND-FLOOR ROOMS AT 5, CHEYNE ROW (1900)(Reproduced from Reginald Blunt’s “Historical Handbook to Chelsea,” by kind permission of the author)
THE GROUND-FLOOR ROOMS AT 5, CHEYNE ROW (1900)(Reproduced from Reginald Blunt’s “Historical Handbook to Chelsea,” by kind permission of the author)
THE GROUND-FLOOR ROOMS AT 5, CHEYNE ROW (1900)
(Reproduced from Reginald Blunt’s “Historical Handbook to Chelsea,” by kind permission of the author)