When Thomas Carlyle was writing his famous history of the French
Revolution, and when he had the first volume ready for the
printer’s hands, he one day loaned the manuscript to John Stuart
Mill, his intimate and admiring friend. This friend’s servant
girl, seeing the pile on the library floor one day, and wanting
some kindling, unceremoniously put the whole of it into the
stove and kindled the fire with it. Thus the priceless labor of
many years was in a few moments swept away.
Mill came himself, pale and trembling, to break the news to the
author. When he heard it, his spirit fairly broke down under the
terrible disaster.
If the loss of a book is such a calamity, how unspeakably terrible will
it be to have the works of one’s lifetime burned? There are men of whom
the divine word says, “They shall be saved, but their works shall be
burned.”
(3510)
=Works, Immortality in One’s=--See IMMORTALITY OF INFLUENCE.