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THOMAS CARLYLE
BY
JOHN NICHOL, LL. D, M.A., BALLIOL, OXON
1904
PREFATORY NOTE
The following record of the leading events of Carlyle's life and attempt
to estimate his genius rely on frequently renewed study of his work, on
slight personal impressions--"vidi tantum"--and on information supplied
by previous narrators. Of these the great author's chosen literary
legatee is the most eminent and, in the main, the most reliable. Every
critic of Carlyle must admit as constant obligations to Mr. Froude as
every critic of Byron to Moore or of Scott to Lockhart. The works of
these masters in biography remain the ample storehouses from which every
student will continue to draw. Each has, in a sense, made his subject his
own, and each has been similarly arraigned.
I must here be allowed to express a feeling akin to indignation at the
persistent, often virulent, attacks directed against a loyal friend,
betrayed, it may be, by excess of faith and the defective reticence that
often belongs to genius, to publish too much about his hero. But Mr.
Froude's quotation, in defence, from the essay on _Sir Walter Scott_
requires no supplement: it should be remembered that he acted with
explicit authority; that the restrictions under which he was at first
entrusted with the MSS. of the _Reminiscences_ and the _Letters and
Memorials_ (annotated by Carlyle himself, as if for publication) were
withdrawn; and that the initial permission to select finally approached a
practical injunction to communicate the whole. The worst that can be said
is that, in the last years of Carlyle's career, his own judgment as to
what should be made public of the details of his domestic life may have
been somewhat obscured; but, if so, it was a weakness easily hidden from
a devotee.
My acknowledgments are due to several of the Press comments which
appeared shortly after Carlyle's death, more especially that of the _St.
James's Gazette_, giving the most philosophical brief summary of his
religious views which I have seen; and to the kindness of Dr. Eugene
Oswald, President of the Carlyle Society, in supplying me with valuable
hints on matters relating to German History and Literature. I have also
to thank the Editor of the _Manchester Guardian_ for permitting me to
reproduce the substance of my article in its columns of February 1881.
That article was largely based on a contribution on the same subject, in
1859, to Mackenzie's _Imperial Dictionary of Biography_.
I may add that in the distribution of material over the comparatively
short space at my command, I have endeavoured to give prominence to facts
less generally known, and passed over slightly the details of events
previously enlarged on, as the terrible accident to Mrs. Carlyle and the
incidents of her death. To her inner history I have only referred in so
far as it had a direct bearing on her husband's life. As regards the
itinerary of Carlyle's foreign journeys, it has seemed to me that it
might be of interest to those travelling in Germany to have a short
record of the places where the author sought his "studies" for his
greatest work.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY