Mr Carlyle--an astute and trenchant critic might, with show of justice,
remark--assumes to be the reformer and castigator of his age--a reformer
in philosophy, in politics, in religion--denouncing its _mechanical_
method of thinking, deploring its utter want of _faith_, and threatening
political society, obstinately deaf to the voice of wisdom, with the
retributive horrors of repeated revolutions; and yet neither in
philosophy, in religion, nor in politics, has Mr Carlyle any distinct
dogma, creed, or constitution to promulgate. The age is irreligious, he
exclaims, and the vague feeling of the impenetrable mystery which
encompasses us, is all the theology we can gather from him; civil
society, with its laws and government, is in a false and perilous
position, and for all relief and reformation, he launches forth an
indisputable morality--precepts of charity, and self-denial, and
strenuous effort--precepts most excellent, and only _too_ applicable;
applicable, unfortunately, after an _à priori_ fashion--for if men would
but obey them, there had been need of few laws, and of no remedial
measures.
This man of faith--our critic might continue--has but one everlasting
note; and it is really the most sceptical and melancholy that has ever
been heard, or heard with toleration, in our literature. He repeats it
from his favourite apostle Goethe; "all doubt is to be cured only--by
action." Certainly, if _forgetting_ the doubt, and the subject of doubt,
be the sole cure for it. But that other advice which Mr Carlyle tells us
was given, and in vain, to George Fox, the Quaker, at a time when he was
agitated by doubts and perplexities, namely, "to drink beer and dance
with the girls," was of the very same stamp, and would have operated in
the very same manner, to the removing of the pious Quaker's doubts.
Faith! ye lack faith! cries this prophet in our streets; and when
reproved and distressed scepticism enquires where truth is to be found,
he bids it back to the loom or the forge, to its tools and its workshop,
of whatever kind these may be--there to forget the enquiry.
The religion, or, if he pleases, the formula of religion, which helps to
keep men sober and orderly, Mr Carlyle despises, ridicules; "old
clothes!" he cries, empty and ragged. It is not till a man has risen
into frenzy, or some hot fanaticism, that he deserves his respect. An
Irving, when his noble spirit, kindled to fever heat, is seized with
delirium, becomes worthy of some admiration. A Cromwell is pronounced
emphatically to have believed in a God, and _therefore_ to have been "by
far the remarkablest governor we have had here for the last five
centuries or so." Meanwhile, is it the faith of an Irving, or the God of
a Cromwell, that our subtle-minded author would have us adopt, or would
adopt himself? If he scorn the easy, methodical citizen, who plods along
the beaten tracks of life, looking occasionally, in his demure,
self-satisfied manner, upwards to the heavens, but with no other result
than to plod more perseveringly along his very earthy track, it follows
not that there is any one order of fanatic spirits with whom he would
associate, to whose theology he would yield assent. Verily, no. He
demands faith--he gives no creed. What is it _you_ teach? a
plain-speaking man would exclaim; where is your church? have you also
your thirty-nine articles? have you nine? have you _one_ stout article
of creed that will bear the rubs of fortune--bear the temptations of
prosperity or a dietary system--stand both sunshine and the wind--which
will keep virtue steady when disposed to reel, and drive back crime to
her penal caverns of remorse? What would you answer, O philosopher! if a
simple body should ask you, quite in confidence, where wicked people go
to?
Were it not better for those to whom philosophy has brought the sad
necessity of doubt, to endure this also patiently and silently, as one
of the inevitable conditions of human existence? Were not this better
than to rail incessantly against the world, for a want of that sentiment
which _they_ have no means to excite or to authorize?
The same inconsequence in politics. We have _Chartism_ preached by one
not a Chartist--by one who has no more his _five points_ of Radicalism
than his five points of Calvinistic divinity--who has no trust in
democracy, who swears by no theory of representative government--who
will never believe that a multitude of men, foolish and selfish, will
elect the disinterested and the wise. Your constitution, your laws, your
"horse-haired justice" that sits in Westminster Hall, he likes them not;
but he propounds himself no scheme of polity. Reform yourselves, one and
all, ye individual men! and the nation will be reformed; practise
justice, charity, self-denial, and then all mortals may work and eat.
This is the most distinct advice he bestows. Alas! it is advice such as
this that the Christian preacher, century after century, utters from his
pulpit, which he makes the staple of his eloquence, and which he and his
listeners are contented to applaud; and the more contented probably to
applaud, as, on all hands, it is tacitly understood to be far _too good_
to be practised.
In fine, turn which way you will, to philosophy, to politics, to
religion, you find Mr Carlyle objecting, denouncing, scoffing, rending
all to pieces in his bold, reckless, ironical, manner--but _teaching_
nothing. The most docile pupil, when he opens his tablets to put down
the precious sum of wisdom he has learned, pauses--finds his pencil
motionless, and leaves his tablet still a blank.
Now all this, and more of the same kind, which our astute and trenchant
critic might urge, may be true, or very like the truth, but it is not
the whole truth.
"To speak a little pedantically," says our author himself, in a paper
called _Signs of the Times_, "there is a science of _Dynamics_ in man's
fortune and nature, as well as of _Mechanics_. There is a science which
treats of, and practically addresses, the primary, unmodified, forces
and energies of man, the mysterious springs of love, and fear, and
wonder, of enthusiasm, poetry--religion, all which have a truly vital
and _infinite_ character; as well as a science which practically
addresses the finite, modified developments of these, when they take the
shape of immediate 'motives,' as hope of reward, or as fear of
punishment. Now it is certain, that in former times the wise men, the
enlightened lovers of their kind, who appeared generally as moralists,
poets, or priests, did, without neglecting the mechanical province, deal
chiefly with the dynamical; applying, themselves chiefly to regulate,
increase, and purify, the inward primary powers of man; and fancying
that herein lay the main difficulty, and the best service they could
undertake."--_Misc_. vol. ii. p. 277.
In such _Dynamics_ it is that Mr Carlyle deals. To speak in our own
plain common-place diction, it is to the elements of all religious
feeling, to the broad unalterable principles of morality, that he
addresses himself; stirring up in the minds of his readers those
sentiments of reverence to the Highest, and of justice to all, even to
the lowest, which can never utterly die out in any man, but which
slumber in the greater number of us. It is by no means necessary to
teach any peculiar or positive doctrine in order to exert an influence
on society. After all, there is a moral heart beating at the very centre
of this world. Touch _it_, and there is a responsive movement through
the whole system of the world. Undoubtedly external circumstances rule
in their turn over this same central pulsation: alter, arrange, and
modify, these external circumstances as best you can, but he who, by the
_word_ he speaks or writes, can reach this central pulse immediately--is
he idle, is he profitless?
Or put it thus: there is a justice between man and man--older, and more
stable, and more lofty in its requisitions, than that which sits in
ermine, or, if our author pleases, in "horse-hair," at Westminster Hall;
there is a morality recognized by the intellect and the heart of all
reflective men, higher and purer than what the present forms of society
exact or render feasible--or rather say, a morality of more exalted
character than that which has hitherto determined those forms of
society. No man who believes that the teaching of Christ was authorized
of heaven--no man who believes this only, that his doctrine has obtained
and preserved its heavenly character from the successful, unanswerable,
appeal which it makes to the human heart--can dispute this fact. Is he
an idler, then, or a dreamer in the land, who comes forth, and on the
high-road of our popular literature, insists on it that men should
assume their full _moral strength_, and declares that herein lies the
salvation of the world? But what can he do if the external circumstances
of life are against him?--if they crush this moral energy?--if they
discountenance this elevation of character? Alone--perhaps nothing. He
with both hands is raising one end of the beam; go you with your tackle,
with rope and pulley, and all mechanical appliances, to the other end,
and who knows but something may be effected?
It is not by teaching this or that dogma, political, philosophical, or
religious, that Mr Carlyle is doing his _work_, and exerting an
influence, by no means despicable, on his generation. It is by producing
a certain moral tone of thought, of a stern, manly, energetic,
self-denying character, that his best influence consists. Accordingly we
are accustomed to view his works, even when they especially regard
communities of men, and take the name of histories, as, in effect,
appeals to the individual heart, and to the moral will of the reader.
His mind is not legislative; his mode of thinking is not systematic; a
state economy he has not the skill, perhaps not the pretension, to
devise. When he treats of nations, and governments, and revolutions of
states, he views them all as a wondrous picture, which he, the observer,
standing apart, watches and apostrophizes, still revealing _himself_ in
his reflections upon them. The picture _to the eye_, he gives with
marvellous vividness; and he puts forth, with equal power, that sort of
world-wide reflection which a thinking being might be supposed to make
on his first visit to our planet; but the space between--those
intermediate generalizations which make the pride of the philosophical
historian--he neglects, has no taste for. Such a writer as Montesquieu
he holds in manifest antipathy. His _History of the French Revolution_,
like his _Chartism_, like the work now before us, his _Past and
Present_, is still an appeal to the consciousness of each man, and to
the high and eternal laws of justice and of charity--lo, ye are
brethren!
And although it be true, as our critic has suggested, that to enlarge
upon the misery which lies low and wide over the whole ground-plot of
civilized society, without at the same time devising an effectual
remedy, is a most unsatisfactory business; nevertheless, this also must
be added, that to forget the existence of this misery would not be to
cure it--would, on the contrary, be a certain method of perpetuating and
aggravating it; that to _try_ to forget it, is as little wise as it is
humane, and that indeed such act of oblivion is altogether impossible.
If crowds of artizans, coming forth from homes where there is neither
food nor work, shall say, in the words that our author puts into their
mouths, "Behold us here--we ask if you mean to lead us towards work; to
try to lead us? Or if you declare that you cannot lead us? And expect
that we are to remain quietly unled, and in a composed manner perish of
starvation? What is it that you expect of us? What is it that you mean
to do with us?"--if, we say, such a question is asked, we may not be
able to answer, but we cannot stifle it. Surely it is well that every
class in the community should know how indissolubly its interest is
connected with the well-being of other classes. However remote the man
of wealth may sit from scenes like this--however reluctant he may be to
hear of them--nothing can be more true than that this distress is _his
calamity_, and that _on him_ also lies the inevitable alternative to
remedy or to suffer.
It accords with the view we have here taken of the writings of Mr
Carlyle, that of all his works that which pleased us most was the one
most completely _personal_ in its character, which most constantly kept
the reader in a state of self-reflection. In spite of all its oddities
and vagaries, and the chaotic shape into which its materials have been
thrown, the _Sartor Resartus_ is a prime favourite of ours--a sort of
volcanic work; and the reader stands by, with folded arms, resolved at
all events to secure peace within his own bosom. But no sluggard's
peace; his arms are folded, not for idleness, only to repress certain
vain tremors and vainer sighs. He feels the calm of self-renunciation,
but united with no monkish indolence. Here is a fragment of it. How it
rebukes the spirit of strife and contention!
"To me, in this our life," says the Professor, "which is an
internecine warfare with the time-spirit, other warfare seems
questionable. Hast thou in any way a contention with thy
brother, I advise thee, think well what the meaning thereof is.
If thou gauge it to the bottom, it is simply this--'Fellow,
see! thou art taking more than thy share of happiness in the
world, something from _my_ share; which, by the heavens, thou
shalt not; nay, I will fight thee rather.' Alas! and the whole
lot to be divided is such a beggarly matter, truly a 'feast of
shells,' for the substance has been spilled out: not enough to
quench one appetite; and the collective human species clutching
at them! Can we not, in all such cases, rather say--'Take it,
thou too ravenous individual; take that pitiful additional
fraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but which thou so
wanted; take it with a blessing: would to heaven I had enough
for thee!'"--P. 200.
Truisms! Preachments repeated from Solomon downwards! some quick,
impatient reader, all animal irritability, will exclaim--Good, but it is
the very prerogative of genius, in every age, to revive truisms such as
these, and make them burn in our hearts. Many a man in his hour of
depression, when resolution is sicklied over by the pale cast of
thought, will find, in the writings of Carlyle, a freshening stimulant,
better than the wine-cup, or even the laughter of a friend, can give. In
some of his biographical sketches, with what force has he brought out
the moral resolution which animated, or ought to have animated, the man
of whom he is writing! We shall have occasion, by and by, to notice
what, to our mind, appears a mere perversion of thought, and a
mischievous exaggeration in our author, who, in his love of a certain
_energy_ of character, has often made this energy (apart from a moral
purpose) the test and rule of his admiration. But at present turn to his
admirable estimation of Dr Samuel Johnson, and the noble regret which he
throws over the memory of Burns. A portion of the first we cannot resist
extracting. What a keen mountain air, bracing to the nerves, mortal to
languor and complaint, blows over us from passages such as these:--
"The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die
decently, but to live manfully. Johnson, in the eighteenth
century, all as a man of letters, was, in good truth, 'the
bravest of the brave.' What mortal could have more to war with?
Yet, as we saw, he yielded not, faltered not; he fought, and
even, such was his blessedness, prevailed. Whoso will
understand what it is to have a man's heart, may find that,
since the time of John Milton, no braver heart had beat in any
English bosom than Samuel Johnson now bore. Observe, too, that
he never called himself brave, never felt himself to be so; the
more completely _was_ he so. No Giant Despair, no Golgotha
Death-Dance, or Sorcerer's Sabbath of 'Literary Life in
London,' appals this pilgrim; he works resolutely for
deliverance; in still defiance steps stoutly along. The thing
that is given him to do he can make himself do; what is to be
endured he can endure in silence.
"How the great soul of old Samuel, consuming daily his own
bitter, unalleviable allotment of misery and toil, shows beside
the poor, flimsy, little soul of young Boswell; one day
flaunting in the ring of vanity, tarrying by the wine-cup, and
crying, Aha, the wine is red; the next day deploring his
down-pressed, night-shaded, quite poor estate; and thinking it
unkind that the whole movement of the universe should go on,
while _his_ digestive apparatus had stopped! We reckon
Johnson's 'talent of silence' to be among his great and rare
gifts. Where there is nothing further to be done, there shall
nothing further be said; like his own poor, blind Welshwoman,
he accomplished somewhat, and also 'endured fifty years of
wretchedness with unshaken fortitude.' How grim was life to
him; a sick prison-house and doubting-castle! 'His great
business,' he would profess, 'was to escape from himself.' Yet
towards all this he has taken his position and resolution; can
dismiss it all 'with frigid indifference, having little to hope
or to fear.' Friends are stupid, and pusillanimous, and
parsimonious; 'wearied of his stay, yet offended at his
departure;' it is the manner of the world. 'By popular
delusion,' remarks he, with a gigantic calmness, 'illiterate
writers will rise into renown:' it is a portion of the history
of English literature; a perennial thing, this same popular
delusion; and will--alter the character of the language....
"The life of this man has been, as it were, turned inside out,
and examined with microscopes by friend and foe; yet was there
no lie found in him. His doings and writings are not _shows_,
but _performances_: you may weigh them in the balance, and they
will stand weight. Not a line, not a sentence is dishonestly
done, is other than it pretends to be. Alas! and he wrote not
out of inward inspiration, but to earn his wages; and with that
grand perennial tide flowing by, in whose waters he
nevertheless refused to fish, to whose rich oyster-beds the
dive was too muddy for him. Observe, again, with what innate
hatred of cant he takes to himself, and offers to others, the
lowest possible view of his business, which he followed with
such nobleness. Motive for writing he had none, as he often
said, but money; and yet he wrote _so_. Into the region of
poetic art he indeed never rose; there was no _ideal_ without
him, avowing itself in his work; the nobler was that unavowed
_ideal_ which lay within him, and commanded, saying, Work out
thy artisanship in the spirit of an artist! They who talk
loudest about the dignity of art, and fancy that they too are
artistic guild-brethren, and of the celestials, let them
consider well what manner of man this was, who felt himself to
be only a hired day-labourer."--_Misc_. vol. iv. p. 19.
The _History of the French Revolution_ deserves, no doubt,
notwithstanding the sort of partiality we have intimated for its wild
predecessor, to be considered as the greatest work of Mr Carlyle; but it
is the work of which criticism, if she ventures to speak at all, must
speak with the loudest and most frequent protests. There are certain
grave objections which cannot be got over. As to the _style_, indeed, Mr
Carlyle is, on this head, (except, occasionally, when writing for some
_Review_ in which a very violent departure from the English language
would not be advisable,) far above all criticism. The attempt to censure
the oddities with which it abounds--the frequent repetition--the
metaphor and allusion used again and again till the page is covered with
a sort of slang--would only subject the critic himself to the same kind
of ridicule that would fall upon the hapless wight who should bethink
him of taking some Shandean work gravely to task for its scandalous
irregularities, and utter want of methodical arrangement. Such is
_Carlylism_; and this is all that can be said upon the matter. But the
style which seemed not altogether unnatural, and far from intolerable,
in Herr Teufelsdrockh, becomes a strangely inconvenient medium of
communication where a whole history is to be told in it. The mischief
is, that it admits of no safe middle path: it must arrest attention for
its novelty, its graphic power, its bold originality; or it must offend
by its newfangled phrase, its jerking movement, and its metaphor and
allusion reduced into a slang. Meanwhile, there is so much in a history
which needs only to be told--so much, which even this author, _skip_ how
he may, must relate, for the sake merely of preserving a continuous
narrative--and where the perfection of style would be, as all the world
knows, that it should draw no attention whatever to itself. A style like
this of our author's, once assumed, cannot be laid down for a moment;
and the least important incident is related with the same curiosity of
diction, and the same startling manner, that delighted us in the _Siege
of the Bastile_. To convey mere _information_, it seems quite
unserviceable. "How inferior," says our author somewhere himself,--"how
inferior for _seeing by_ is the brightest train of fireworks to the
humblest farthing candle!"
The basis of a history is surely, after all, the narrative, and whatever
may be the estimate of others, the _historian_ proceeds on the
supposition that the facts he has to relate are, for their own sake,
deserving to be had in remembrance. If not, why is he there recording
and verifying them? But Mr Carlyle proceeds throughout on quite the
contrary supposition, that the fact for itself is worth nothing--that it
is valuable only as it presents some peculiar picture to the
imagination, or kindles some noteworthy reflection. He maintains
throughout the attitude of one who stands apart, looking _at_ the
history; rarely does he assume the patient office of that scribe whom we
remember to have seen in the frontispiece of our school histories,
recording faithfully what the bald headed Time, sitting between his
scythe and his hour-glass, was dictating.
Never, indeed, was history written in so mad a vein--and that not only
as regards style, but the prevailing mood of mind in which the facts and
characters are scanned. That mood is for the most part ironical. There
is philanthropy, doubtless, at the bottom of it all; but a mocking
spirit, a profound and pungent irony, are the manifest and prevailing
characteristics. It is a philanthropy which has borrowed the manner of
Mephistopheles. It is a modern Diogenes--in fact it is Diogenes
Teufelsdrockh himself, surveying the Revolution from his solitary
watch-tower, where he sits so near the eternal skies, that a whole
generation of men, _whirling off in wild Sahara waltz into infinite
space_, is but a spectacle, and a very brief and confused one. This
lofty irony, pungent as it is, grows wearisome. By throwing a littleness
on all things, it even destroys the very aliment it feeds on; nothing,
at last, is worth the mocking. But the weariness it occasions is not its
greatest fault. It leads to a most unjust and capricious estimate of the
characters and actions of men. Capricious it must, of necessity, become.
To be ironical always were insufferable; even for the sake of artistical
effect, some personages; and some events, must be treated with a natural
feeling of respect or abhorrence; yet if one murder is to be recorded
with levity, why not another;--if one criminal is to be dismissed with a
jest, levelled perhaps at some personal oddity, why is an earnest
indignation to be bestowed on the next criminal that comes under notice?
The distinctions that will be made will be not fair judgments, but mere
favouritism. Situated thus--plain moral distinctions having been
disparaged--Mr Carlyle has given way to his admiration of a certain
_energy_ of character, and makes the possession of this sole excellence
the condition of his favour, the title to his respect, or perhaps, we
should say, to an immunity from his contempt. The man who has an
_eye_--that is, who glares on you like a tiger--he who, in an age of
revolution, is most thoroughly revolutionary, and _swallows all
formulas_--he is made a hero, and honourable mention is decreed to him;
whilst all who acted with an ill-starred moderation, who strove, with
ineffectual but conscientious effort, to stay the wild movement of the
revolution, are treated with derision, are dismissed with contempt, or
at best with pity for their _weakness_.
His first hero is Mirabeau, a man of energy enough doubtless, and who
had, in a most remarkable degree, that force of character which gives
not only influence over, but a sort of _possession_ of, other men's
minds, though they may claim far higher intellectual endowments. For
this one quality he is forgiven every thing. The selfish ambition of
which he must be more than suspected, is not glanced at. Even the
ridicule due to his inordinate vanity, is spared him. "Yes support that
head," says this dying gladiator to his friend; "would I could bequeath
it to thee!" And our caustic Diogenes withholds the lash. As the history
proceeds, Danton is elevated to the place of hero. He is put in strong
contrast with Robespierre. The one is raised into simple admiration, the
other sunk into mere contempt; both are spared the just execration which
their crimes have merited. The one good quality of Danton is, that, like
Mirabeau, he had an _eye_--did not see through _logic spectacles_--had
_swallowed all formulas_. So that, when question is made of certain
massacres in which he was implicated, we are calmly told "that some men
have tasks frightfuller than ours." The one great vice of Robespierre
is, that he lacked courage; for the rest, he is "sea-green and
incorruptible"--"thin and acrid." His incorruptibility is always
mentioned contemptuously, and generally in connexion with his bilious
temperament, as if they related as cause and effect, or were both alike
matters of pathology. Mr Carlyle has a habit of stringing together
certain moral with certain physical peculiarities, till the two present
themselves as of quite equal importance, and things of the same
category.
Yet this Robespierre, had our author been in want of another hero,
possessed one quality, which, in his estimate, would have entitled him
to occupy the pedestal. He had _faith_. "Of incorruptible Robespierre,
it was long ago predicted that he might go far--mean, meagre mortal
though he was--for _doubt_ dwelt not in him." And this prediction was
uttered by no less a man than Mirabeau. "Men of insight discern that the
sea-green may by chance go far: 'this man,' observes Mirabeau, 'will do
somewhat; _he believes every word he says_.'" The audacity of Danton the
'sea-green' certainly did not possess, but of that sort of courage which
can use the extremest means for the desired end, he surely had
sufficient. He shrunk from no crime, however exorbitant. His _faith_
carried him through all, and nearer to the goal than any of his
compeers. He walked as firm as others round the crater of this volcano,
and walked there the longest. It is impossible not to feel that _here_,
by the side of Dauton, a great injustice has been done to the
incorruptible and _faithful_ Robespierre.
Well may _energy_ or _will_ stand in the place of goodness with Mr
Carlyle, since we find him making in another place this strange
paradoxical statement: "_Bad_ is by its nature negative, and can do
_nothing_; whatsoever enables us to _do_ any thing is by its very nature
_good_." So that such a thing as a _bad deed_ cannot exist, and such an
expression is without meaning. Accordingly, not only is energy
applauded, but that energy applauded most that _does most_. Those who
exercised their power, and the utmost resolution of mind, in the attempt
to restrain the Revolution, are not to be put in comparison with those
who _did something_--who carried forward the revolutionary movement.
With what contempt he always mentions Lafayette--a man of limited views,
it is true; and whose views at the time were wide enough? or to whom
would the widest views have afforded a practical guidance?--but a man of
honour and of patriotic intentions! It is "Lafayette--thin,
constitutional pedant; clear, thin, inflexible, as water turned to thin
ice." And how are the whole party of the Gironde treated with slight and
derision, because, at a period of what proved to be irremediable
confusion--when nothing but the whirlwind was to be reaped--they were
incessantly striving to realize for their country some definite and
permanent institutions! But though their attempt we see was futile,
could they do other than make the attempt? Mr Carlyle describes the
position of affairs very ably in the following passage:--
"This huge insurrectionary movement, which we liken to a
breaking out of Tophet and the abyss, has swept away royalty,
aristocracy, and a king's life. The question is, what will it
next do? how will it henceforth shape itself? Settle down into
a reign of law and liberty, according as the habits,
persuasions, and endeavours of the educated, monied,
respectable class prescribe? That is to say, the volcanic
lava-flood, bursting up in the manner described, will explode,
and flow according to Girondine formula and pre-established
rule of philosophy? If so, for our Girondine friends it will be
well.
"Meanwhile, were not the prophecy rather, that as no external
force, royal or other, now remains which could control this
movement, the movement will follow a course of its
own--probably a very original one. Further, that whatsoever man
or men can best interpret the inward tendencies it has, and
give them voice and activity, will obtain the lead of it. For
the rest, that, as a thing _without_ order--a thing proceeding
from beyond and beneath the region of order--it must work and
wither, not as a regularity, but as a chaos--destructive and
self-destructive always; till something that _has_ order arise,
strong enough to bind it into subjection again; which
something, we may further conjecture, will not be a formula,
with philosophical propositions and forensic eloquence, but a
reality, probably with a sword in its hand!"
But, true as all this may be, Mr Carlyle would be the last man to
commend the Girondists had they allowed themselves to be borne along
_passively_ by this violent movement: is it fair dealing, then, that
their efforts--the only efforts they _could_ make--efforts which cost
them life, should be treated as little better than idle pedantries?
But what criticism has to say in _praise_ of this extraordinary work,
let it not be said with stint or timidity. The bold glance _at_ the
Revolution, taken from his Diogenes' station, and the vivid descriptions
of its chief scenes, are unrivalled.
That many a page sorely tries the reader's patience is acknowledged, and
we might easily fill column after column with extracts, to show that the
style of Mr Carlyle, especially when it is necessary for him to descend
to the common track of history, can degenerate into a mannerism scarce
tolerable, for which no term of literary censure, would be too severe.
We have, however, no disposition to make any such extracts; and our
readers, we are sure, would have little delight in perusing them. On the
other hand, when he does succeed, great is the glory thereof; and we
cannot forego the pleasure of making one quotation, however well known
the remarkable passages of this work may be, to illustrate the
triumphant power which he not unfrequently displays. Here is a portion
of his account of the _Taking of the Bastile_. It will be borne in mind,
that there is throughout a mixture of the ironical and mock-heroic:
"All morning since nine there has been a cry every where: To
the Bastile! Repeated 'deputations of citizens' have been here,
passionate for arms; whom De Launay has got dismissed by soft
speeches through port-holes. Towards noon elector Thuriot de la
Rosière gains admittance; finds De Launay indisposed for
surrender; nay, disposed for blowing up the place rather.
Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps of paving
stones, old iron, and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly
levelled; in every embrasure a cannon--only drawn back a
little! But _outwards_, behold how the multitude flows on,
swelling through every street: tocsin furiously pealing, all
drums beating the _générale_: the suburb Saint Antoine rolling
hitherward wholly as one man!
"Woe to thee De Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not,
taking some one firm decision, _rule_ circumstances! Soft
speeches will not serve, hard grape-shot is questionable; but
hovering between the two is _un_questionable. Ever wilder
swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing even louder
into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray
musketry--which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do
execution. The outer drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot;
new _deputation of citizens_ (it is the third and noisiest of
all) penetrates that way into the outer court: soft speeches
producing no clearance of these, De Launay gives fire; pulls up
his drawbridge; a slight sputter--which has _kindled_ the too
combustible chaos; made it a roaring fire-chaos. Bursts forth
insurrection at sight of its own blood, (for there were deaths
by that sputter of fire,) into endless rolling explosion of
musketry, distraction, execration. The Bastile is besieged!
"On, then, all Frenchmen that have hearts in their bodies! Roar
with all your throats, of cartilage and metal, ye sons of
liberty; stir spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in
you, soul, body, or spirit; for it is the hour! Smite thou,
Louis Tournay, cart-wright of the Marais, old soldier of the
regiment Dauphiné: smite at that outer drawbridge chain, though
the fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over nave or felloe,
did thy axe (_q._ hammer?) strike such a stroke. Down with it,
man: down with it to Orcus: let the whole accursed edifice sink
thither, and tyranny be swallowed up for ever! Mounted, some
say, on the roof of the guard-room, some 'on bayonets stuck
into the joints of the wall,' Louis Tournay smites brave Aubin
Bonnemère (also an old soldier) seconding him: the chain
yields, breaks; the huge drawbridge slams down thundering,
(_avec fracas_.) Glorious: and yet, alas, it is still but the
outworks! The eight grim towers, with their Invalides'
musketry, their paving stones and cannon-mouths, still roar
aloft intact; ditch yawning impassable, stone-faced; the inner
drawbridge with its _back_ towards us; the Bastile is still to
take!
"To describe this siege of the Bastile (thought to be one of
the most important in history) perhaps transcends the talent of
mortals. Could one but, after infinite leading, get to
understand so much as the plan of the building! But there is
open esplanade at the end of the Rue Saint-Antoine; there are
such Fore-courts, _Cour avancé, Cour de l'Orme_, arched
gateway, (where Louis Tournay now fights,) then new
drawbridges, dormant bridges rampart-bastions, and the grim
Eight Towers: a labyrinthic mass, high-frowning there, of all
ages, from twenty years to four hundred and twenty;
beleaguered, in this its last hour, as we said, by mere chaos
come again! Ordnance of all calibres; throats of all
capacities; men of all plans, every man his own engineer;
seldom, since the war of pigmies and cranes, was there seen so
anomalous a thing. Half-pay Elie is home for a suit of
regimentals; no one would heed him in coloured clothes:
half-pay Hulin is haranguing Gardes Françaises in the Place de
Grève. Frantic patriots pick up the grape-shots; bear them,
still hot, (or seemingly so,) to the Hôtel de Ville:--Paris,
you perceive, is to be burnt!--Paris wholly has got to the acme
of its frenzy; whirled, all ways, by panic madness.
"Let conflagration rage of whatsoever is combustible!
Guard-rooms are burnt, Invalides' mess-rooms. A distracted
'peruke-maker with two fiery torches' is for burning 'the
saltpetres of the arsenal;' had not a woman run screaming--had
not a patriot, with some tincture of natural philosophy,
instantly struck the wind out of him, (butt of musket on pit of
stomach,) overturned barrels, and stayed the devouring element.
"Blood flows; the aliment of new madness. The wounded are
carried into the houses of the Rue Cerisuie; the dying leave
their last mandate not to yield till the accursed stronghold
fall. And yet, alas, how fall? The walls are so thick!
Deputations, three in number, arrive from the Hôtel de Ville.
These wave their town-flag in the gateway, and stand rolling
their drum; but to no purpose. In such crack of doom De Launay
cannot hear them, dare not believe them; they return with
justified rage, the whew of lead still singing in their ears.
What to do? The firemen are here, squirting with their
fire-pumps on the Invalides' cannon, to wet the touch-holes;
they unfortunately cannot squirt so high, but produce only
clouds of spray. Individuals of classical knowledge propose
_catapults_. Santerre, the sonorous brewer of the suburb Saint
Antoine, advises rather that the place be fired, by a 'mixture
of phosphorus and oil of turpentine, spouted up through forcing
pumps.' O Spinola Santerre, hast thou the mixture _ready_?
Every man his own engineer! And still the fire-deluge abates
not: even women are firing, and Turks; at least one woman (with
her sweetheart) and one Turk. Gardes Françaises have come; real
cannon, real cannoniers. Usher Maillard is busy; half-pay Elie,
half-pay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands.
"How the great Bastile clock ticks (inaudible) in its inner
court there, at its ease, hour after hour, as if nothing
special, for it or the world, were passing! It tolled one when
the firing began; and is now pointing towards five, and still
the firing slakes not. Far down in their vaults the seven
prisoners hear muffled din as of earthquakes; their turnkeys
answer vaguely....
"For four long hours now has the world-bedlam roared: call it
the world-chimera, blowing fire! The poor Invalides have sunk
under their battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets;
they have made a white flag of napkins; go beating the
_chamade_, or seeming to beat, for one can hear nothing. The
very Swiss at the portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened
in the fire-deluge, a port-hole at the drawbridge is opened, as
by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man!
On his plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone
ditch--plank resting on parapet, balanced by weight of
patriots--he hovers perilous. _Such a dove towards such an
ark!_ Deftly thou shifty usher; one man already fell, and lies
smashed, far down there, against the masonry. Usher Maillard
falls not; deftly, unerring he walks, with outspread palm. The
Swiss holds a paper through his port-hole; the shifty usher
snatches it, and returns. Terms of surrender--pardon, immunity
to all. Are they accepted? "_Foi d'officier_--on the word of an
officer," answers half-pay Hulin, or half-pay Elie, for men do
not agree on it, "they are!" Sinks the drawbridge, Usher
Maillard bolting it when down--rushes in the living deluge--the
Bastile is fallen! '_Victoire! La Bastile est prise!_'"--Vol.
i. p. 233.
Such descriptions, we need hardly say, are not the sport of fancy, nor
constructed by the agglomeration of eloquent phrases; they are formed by
collecting together (and this constitutes their value) facts and
intimations scattered through a number of authorities. It would be a
great mistake, however, to suppose that there is no imagination, or
little artistic talent, displayed in collecting the materials for such a
description. There may be genius in _reading well_ quite as certainly as
in _writing well_; nor is it any common or inferior ability that detects
at a glance, amongst a multitude of facts, the one which has real
significance, and which gives its character to the scene to be reviewed.
If any one wishes to convince himself how much a man of genius may _see_
in the page which can hardly obtain the attention of an ordinary reader,
the last work of Mr Carlyle, _Past and Present_, will afford him an
opportunity of making the experiment. He has but to turn, after reading
in that work the account of Abbot Samson, to the Chronicle of _Jocelin_,
from which it has been all faithfully extracted, and he will be
surprised that our author could find so much life and truth in the
antiquarian record. Or the experiment would be still more perfect if he
should read the chronicle first, and then turn to the extracted account
in _Past and Present_.
It is time, indeed, that we ourselves turned to this work, the perusal
of which has led us to these remarks upon Mr Carlyle. We were desirous,
however, of forming something like a general estimate of his merits and
demerits before we entered upon any account of his last production. What
space we have remaining shall be devoted to this work.
_Past and Present_, if it does not enhance, ought not, we think, to
diminish from the reputation of its author; but as a _mannerism_ becomes
increasingly disagreeable by repetition, we suspect that, without having
less merit, this work will have less popularity than its predecessors.
The style is the same "motley wear," and has the same jerking
movement--seems at times a thing of shreds and patches hung on
wires--and is so full of brief allusions to his own previous writings,
that to a reader unacquainted with these it would be scarce
intelligible. With all this it has the same vigour, and produces the
same vivid impression that always attends upon his writings. Here, as
elsewhere, he pursues his author-craft with a right noble and
independent spirit, striking manifestly for truth, and for no other
cause; and here also, as elsewhere, he leaves his side unguarded, open
to unavoidable attack, so that the most blundering critic cannot fail to
hit right, and the most friendly cannot spare.
The _past_ is represented by a certain Abbot Samson, and his abbey of St
Edmunds, whose life and conversation are drawn from the chronicle
already alluded to, and which has been lately published by the Camden
Society.[68] Our author will look, he tells us, face to face on this
remote period, "in hope of perhaps illustrating our own poor century
thereby." Very good. To get a station in the past, and therefrom view
the present, is no ill-devised scheme. But Abbot Samson and his monks
form a very limited, almost a domestic picture, which supplies but few
points of contrast or similitude with our "own poor century," which, at
all events, is very rich in point of view. When, therefore, he proceeds
to discuss the world-wide topics of our own times, we soon lose all
memory of the Abbot and his monastery, who seems indeed to have as
little connexion with the difficulties of our position, as the statues
of Gog and Magog in Guildhall with the decision of some election contest
which is made to take place in their venerable presence. On one point
only can any palpable contrast be exhibited, namely, between the
religious spirit of his times and our own.
[Footnote 68: Chronica JOCELINI DE BRAKELONDA, de rebus gestis Samsonis
Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi: nunc primum typis mandata, curante
JOHANNE GOGE ROKEWOOD. (Camden Society, London, 1840.)]
Now, here, as on every topic where a comparison is attempted, what must
strike every one is, the manifest partiality Mr Carlyle shows to the
past, and the unfair preference he gives it over the present. Nothing
but respect and indulgence when he revisits the monastery of St Edmunds;
nothing but censure and suspicion when he enters, say, for instance, the
precincts of Exeter Hall. Well do we know, that if Mr Carlyle could meet
such a monk alive, as he here treats with so much deference, encounter
him face to face, talk to him, and hear him talk; he and the monk would
be intolerable to each other. Fortunately for him, the monks are dead
and buried whom he lauds so much when contrasted with our modern
pietists. Could these tenants of the stately monastery preach to him
about their purgatory and their prayers--lecture him, as assuredly they
would, with that same earnest, uncomfortable, too anxious exhortation,
which all saints must address to sinners--he would close his ears
hermetically--he would fly for it--he would escape with as desperate
haste as from the saddest whine that ever issued from some
lath-and-plaster conventicle.
Mr Carlyle censures our poor century for its lack of faith; yet the kind
of faith it possesses, which has grown up in it, which is _here_ at this
present, he has no respect for, treats with no manner of tenderness.
What _other_ would he have? He deals out to it no measure of
philosophical justice. He accepts the faith of every age but his own. He
will accept, as the best thing possible, the trustful and hopeful spirit
of dark and superstitious periods; but if the more enlightened piety of
his own age be at variance even with the most subtle and difficult
tenets of his own philosophy, he will make no compromise with it, he
casts it away for contemptuous infidelity to trample on as it pleases.
When visiting the past, how indulgent, kind, and considerate he is! When
Abbot Samson (as the greatest event of his life) resolves to see and to
touch the remains of St Edmund, and "taking the head between his hands,
speaks groaning," and prays to the "Glorious Martyr that it may not be
turned to his perdition that he, miserable and sinful, has dared to
touch his sacred person," and thereupon proceeds to touch the eyes and
the nose, and the breast and the toes, which last he religiously counts;
our complacent author sees here, "a noble awe surrounding the memory of
the dead saint, symbol, and promoter of many other right noble things."
And when he has occasion to call to mind the preaching of Peter the
Hermit, who threw the fanaticism of the west on the fanaticism of the
east, and in order that there should be no disparity between them in the
sanguinary conflict, assimilated the faith of Christ to that of
Mahommed, and taught that the baptized believer who fell by the Saracen
would die in the arms of angels, and at the very gates of heaven; here,
too, he bestows a hearty respect on the enthusiastic missionary, and all
his fellow crusaders: it seems that he also would willingly have gone
with such an army of the faithful. But when he turns from the past to
the present, all this charity and indulgence are at an end. He finds in
his own mechanico-philosophical age a faith in accordance with its
prevailing modes of thought--faith lying at the foundation of whatever
else of doctrinal theology it possesses--a faith diffused over all
society, and taught not only in churches and chapels to pious
auditories, but in every lecture-room, and by scientific as well as
theological instructors--a faith in God, as creator of the universe, as
the demonstrated author, architect, originator, of this wondrous world;
and lo! this same philosopher who looked with encouraging complacency on
Abbot Samson bending in adoration over the exhumed remains of a fellow
mortal, and who listens without a protest to the cries of sanguinary
enthusiasm, rising from a throng of embattled Christians, steps
disdainfully aside from this faith of a peaceful and scientific age; he
has some subtle, metaphysical speculations that will not countenance it;
he demands that a faith in God should he put on some other foundation,
which foundation, unhappily, his countrymen, as yet unskilled in
transcendental metaphysics; cannot apprehend; he withdraws his sympathy
from the so trite and sober-minded belief of an industrious,
experimental, ratiocinating generation, and cares not if they have a God
at all, if they can only make his existence evident to themselves from
some commonplace notion of design and prearrangement visible in the
world. Accordingly, we have passages like the following, which it is not
our fault if the reader finds to be not very intelligible, or written
in, what our author occasionally perpetrates, a sad jargon.
"For out of this that we call Atheism, come so many other
_isms_ and falsities, each falsity with its misery at its
heels!--A SOUL is not, like wind, (_spiritus_ or breath,)
contained within a capsule; the ALMIGHTY MAKER is not like a
clockmaker that once, in old immemorial ages, having _made_ his
horologe of a universe, sits ever since and sees it go! Not at
all. Hence comes Atheism; come, as we say, many other _isms_;
and as the sum of all comes _vatetism_, the _reverse_ of
heroism--sad root of all woes whatsoever. For indeed, as no man
ever saw the above said wind element inclosed within its
capsule, and finds it at bottom more deniable than conceivable;
so too, he finds, in spite of Bridgewater bequests, your
clockmaker Almighty an entirely questionable affair, a deniable
affair; and accordingly denies it, and along with it so much
else."--(P. 199.)
Do we ask Mr Carlyle to falsify his own transendental philosophy for the
sake of his weaker brethren? By no means. Let him proceed on the "high
_à priori_ road," if he finds it--as not many do--practicable. Let men,
at all times, when they write as philosophers, speak out simply what
they hold to be truth. It is his _partiality_ only that we here take
notice of, and the different measure that he deals out to the past and
the present. Out of compliment to a bygone century he can sink
philosophy, and common sense too; when it might be something more than a
compliment to the existing age to appear in harmony with its creed, he
will not bate a jot from the subtlest of his metaphysical convictions.
Mr Carlyle not being _en rapport_ with the religious spirit of his age,
finds therein no religious spirit whatever; on the other hand, he has a
great deal of religion of his own, not very clear to any but himself;
and thus, between these two, we have pages, very many, of such raving as
the following:--
"It is even so. To speak in the ancient dialect, we 'have
forgotten God;'--in the most modern dialect, and very truth of
the matter, we have taken up the fact of the universe as it _is
not_. We have quietly closed our eyes to the eternal substance
of things, and opened them only to the shows and shams of
things. We quietly believe this universe to be intrinsically a
great unintelligible PERHAPS; extrinsically, clear enough, it
is a great, most extensive cattle-fold and workhouse, with most
extensive kitchen-ranges, dining-tables--whereat he is wise who
can find a place! All the truth of this universe is uncertain;
only the profit and the loss of it, the pudding and praise of
it, are and remain very visible to the practical man.
"There is no longer any God for us! God's laws are become a
greatest-happiness principle, a parliamentary expediency; the
heavens overarch us only as an astronomical timekeeper: a butt
for Herschel telescopes to shoot science at, to shoot
sentimentalities at:--in our and old Jonson's dialect, man has
lost the _soul_ out of him; and now, after the due period,
begins to find the want of it! This is verily the
plague-spot--centre of the universal social gangrene,
threatening all modern things with frightful death. To him that
will consider it, here is the stem, with its roots and
top-root, with its world-wide upas boughs and accursed poison
exudations, under which the world lies writhing in atrophy and
agony. You touch the focal centre of all our disease, of our
frightful nosology of diseases, when you lay your hand on this.
There is no religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul,
and vainly seeks antiseptic salt. Vainly: in killing Kings, in
passing Reform Bills, in French Revolutions, Manchester
Insurrections, is found no remedy. The foul elephantine
leprosy, alleviated for an hour, re-appears in new force and
desperateness next hour.
"For actually this is _not_ the real fact of the world; the
world is not made so, but otherwise! Truly, any society setting
out from this no-God hypothesis will arrive at a result or two.
The _un_veracities, escorted each unveracity of them by its
corresponding misery and penalty; the phantasms and fatuities,
and ten-years' corn-law debatings, that shall walk the earth at
noonday, must needs be numerous! The universe being
intrinsically a perhaps, being too probably an 'infinite
humbug,' why should any minor humbug astonish us? It is all
according to the order of nature; and phantasms riding with
huge clatter along the streets, from end to end of our
existence, astonish nobody. Enchanted St Ives' workhouses and
Joe Manton aristocracies; giant-working mammonism near
strangled in the partridge nets of giant-looking Idle
Dilettantism--this, in all its branches, in its thousand
thousand modes and figures, is a sight familiar to us."--P.
185.
What is to be said of writing such as this! For ourselves, we hurry on
with a sort of incredulity, scarce believing that it is set down there
for our steady perusal; we tread lightly over these "Phantasms" and
"Unveracities," and "Double-barrelled Dilettantism," (another favourite
phrase of his--pity it is not more euphonious--but none of his coinage
_rings_ well,) we step on, we say, briskly, in the confident hope of
soon meeting something--if only a stroke of humour--which shall be worth
pausing for. Accordingly in the very page where our extract stopped, in
the very next paragraph, comes a description of a certain pope most
delectable to read. As it is but fair that our readers should enjoy the
same compensation as ourselves, we insert it in a note.[69]
[Footnote 69: "The Popish religion, we are told, flourishes extremely in
these years, and is the most vivacious-looking religion to be met with
at present. '_Elle a trois cents ans dans le ventre_,' counts M.
Jouffroy; '_c'est pourquoi je la respecte!_' The old Pope of Rome,
finding it laborious to kneel so long while they cart him through the
streets to bless the people on _Corpus-Christi_ day, complains of
rheumatism; whereupon his cardinals consult--construct him, after some
study, a stuffed, cloaked figure, of iron and wood, with wool or baked
hair, and place it in a kneeling posture. Stuffed figure, or rump of a
figure; to this stuffed rump he, sitting at his ease on a lower level,
joins, by the aid of cloaks and drapery, his living head and outspread
hands: the rump, with its cloaks, kneels; the Pope looks, and holds his
hands spread; and so the two in concert bless the Roman population on
_Corpus-Christi_ day, as well as they can.
"I have considered this amphibious Pope, with the wool-and-iron back,
with the flesh head and hands, and endeavoured to calculate his
horoscope. I reckon him the remarkablest Pontiff that has darkened God's
daylight, or painted himself in the human retina, for these several
thousand years. Nay, since Chaos first shivered, and 'sneezed,' as the
Arabs say, with the first shaft of sunlight shot through it, what
stranger product was there of nature and art working together? Here is a
supreme priest who believes God to be--what, in the name of God, _does_
he believe God to be?--and discerns that all worship of God is a scenic
phantasmagory of wax candles, organ blasts, Gregorian chants,
mass-brayings, purple monsignori, wool-and-iron rumps, artistically
spread out, to save the ignorant from worse....
"There is in this poor Pope, and his practice of the scenic theory of
worship, a frankness which I rather honour. Not half and half, but with
undivided heart, does _he_ set about worshipping by stage machinery; as
if there were now, and could again be, in nature no other. He will ask
you, What other? Under this my Gregorian chant, and beautiful wax-light
phantasmagory, kindly hidden from you is an abyss of black doubts,
scepticism, nay, sans-culottic Jacobinism, an orcus that has no bottom.
Think of that. 'Groby Pool _is_ thatched with pancakes,' as Jeannie
Deans's innkeeper defined it to be! The bottomless of scepticism,
atheism, Jacobinism, behold it is thatched over, hidden from your
despair, by stage-properties judiciously arranged. This stuffed rump of
mine saves not me only from rheumatism, but you also from what other
_isms_!"--P. 187.]
The whole parallel which he runs between past and present is
false--whimsically false. At one time we hear it uttered as an
impeachment against our age, that every thing is done by committees and
companies, shares and joint effort, and that no one man, or hero, can
any longer move the world as in the blessed days of Peter the Hermit.
Were we disposed to treat Mr Carlye as members of Parliament, by the
help of their _Hansard_, controvert each other, we should have no
difficulty in finding amongst his works some passage--whether eloquent
or not, or how far intelligible, would be just a mere chance--in which
he would tell us that this capacity for joint effort, this habit of
co-operation, was the greatest boast our times could make, and gave the
fairest promise for the future. In Ireland, by the way, _one man_ can
still effect something, and work after the fashion, if not with so pure
a fanaticism, as Peter the Hermit. The spectacle does not appear very
edifying. Pray--the question just occurs to us--pray has Mr O'Connell
got an _eye_? Would Mr Carlyle acknowledge that this man has _swallowed
all formulas_? Having been bred a lawyer, we are afraid, or, in common
Christian speech, we hope, that he has not.
But we are not about to proceed through a volume such as this in a
carping spirit, though food enough for such a spirit may be found; there
is too much genuine merit, too much genuine humour, in the work. What,
indeed, is the use of selecting from an author who _will_ indulge in all
manner of vagaries, whether of thought or expression, passages to prove
that he can be whimsical and absurd, can deal abundantly in obscurities
and contradictions, and can withal write the most motley, confused
English of any man living? Better take, with thanks, from so irregular a
genius, what seems to us good, or affords us gratification, and leave
the rest alone.
We will not enter into the account of Abbot Samson; it is a little
historical sketch, perfect in its kind, in which no part is redundant,
and which, being gathered itself from very scanty sources, will not bear
further mutilation. We turn, therefore, from the _Past_, although, in a
literary point of view, a very attractive portion of the work, and will
draw our extracts (they cannot now be numerous) from his lucubrations
upon the _Present_.
Perhaps the most characteristic passage in the volume is that where, in
the manner of a philosopher who suddenly finds himself awake in this
"half-realized" world, he scans the institution of an _army_--looks out
upon the _soldier_.
"Who can despair of Government that passes a soldier's
guard-house, or meets a red-coated man on the streets! That a
body of men could be got together to kill other men when you
bade them; this, _à priori_, does it not seem one of the
impossiblest things? Yet look--behold it; in the stolidest of
do-nothing Governments, that impossibility is a thing done. See
it there, with buff-belts, red coats on its back; walking
sentry at guard-houses, brushing white breeches in barracks; an
indisputable, palpable fact. Out of grey antiquity, amid all
finance-difficulties, _scaccarium_-tallies, ship-monies,
coat-and-conduct monies, and vicissitudes of chance and time,
there, down to the present blessed hour, it is.
"Often, in these painfully decadent, and painfully nascent
times, with their distresses, inarticulate gaspings, and
'impossibilities;' meeting a tall lifeguardsman in his
snow-white trousers, or seeing those two statuesque
lifeguardsmen, in their frowning bearskins, pipe-clayed
buckskins, on their coal-black, sleek, fiery quadrupeds, riding
sentry at the Horse-Guards--it strikes one with a kind of
mournful interest, how, in such universal down-rushing and
wrecked impotence of almost all old institutions, this oldest
fighting institution is still so young! Fresh complexioned,
firm-limbed, six feet by the standard, this fighting man has
verily been got up, and can fight. While so much has not yet
got into being, while so much has gone gradually out of it, and
become an empty semblance, a clothes'-suit, and highest
king's-cloaks, mere chimeras parading under them so long, are
getting unsightly to the earnest eye, unsightly, almost
offensive, like a costlier kind of scarecrow's blanket--here
still is a reality!
"The man in horse-hair wig advances, promising that he will get
me 'justice;' he takes me into Chancery law-courts, into
decades, half-centuries of hubbub, of distracted jargon; and
_does get_ me--disappointment, almost desperation; and one
refuge--that of dismissing him and his 'justice' altogether out
of my head. For I have work to do; I cannot spend my decades in
mere arguing with other men about the exact wages of my work: I
will work cheerfully with no wages, sooner than with a ten
years' gangrene or Chancery lawsuit in my heart. He of the
horse-hair wig is a sort of failure; no substance, but a fond
imagination of the mind. He of the shovel-hat, again, who comes
forward professing that he will save my soul. O ye eternities,
of him in this place be absolute silence! But he of the red
coat, I say, is a success and no failure! He will veritably, if
he gets orders, draw out a long sword and kill me. No mistake
there. He is a fact, and not a shadow. Alive in this year
Forty-three, able and willing to do _his_ work. In dim old
centuries, with William Rufus, William of Ipres, or far
earlier, he began; and has come down safe so far. Catapult has
given place to cannon, pike has given place to musket, iron
mail-shirt to coat of red cloth, saltpetre ropematch to
percussion-cap; equipments, circumstances, have all changed and
again changed; but the human battle-engine, in the inside of
any or of each of these, ready still to do battle, stands
there, six feet in standard size.
"Strange, interesting, and yet most mournful to reflect on. Was
this, then, of all the things mankind had some talent for, the
one thing important to learn well, and bring to
perfection--this of successfully killing one another? Truly you
have learned it well, and carried the business to a high
perfection. It is incalculable what, by arranging, commanding,
and regimenting, you can make of men. These thousand
straight-standing, firm-set individuals, who shoulder arms, who
march, wheel, advance, retreat, and are, for your behoof, a
magazine charged with fiery death, in the most perfect
condition of potential activity; few months ago, till the
persuasive sergeant came, what were they? Multiform ragged
losels, runaway apprentices, starved weavers, thievish
valets--an entirely broken population, fast tending towards the
treadmill. But the persuasive sergeant came; by tap of drum
enlisted, or formed lists of them, took heartily to drilling
them; and he and you have made them this! Most potent,
effectual for all work whatsoever, is wise planning, firm
combining, and commanding among men. Let no man despair of
Governments who look on these two sentries at the Horse
Guards!"--P. 349.
Passages there are in the work which a political agitator might be glad
enough to seize on; but, upon the whole, it is very little that
Radicalism or Chartism obtain from Mr Carlyle. No political party would
choose him for its champion, or find in him a serviceable ally. Observe
how he demolishes the hope of those who expect, by new systems of
election, to secure some incomparably pure and wise body of
legislators--some aristocracy of talent!
"We must have more wisdom to govern us, we must be governed by
the wisest, we must have an aristocracy of talent! cry many.
True, most true; but how to get it? The following extract from
our young friend of the _Houndsditch Indicator_ is worth
perusing--'At this time,' says he, 'while there is a cry every
where, articulate or inarticulate, for an aristocracy of
talent, a governing class, namely, what did govern, not merely
which took the wages of governing, and could not with all our
industry be kept from misgoverning, corn-lawing, and playing
the very deuce, with us--it may not be altogether useless to
remind some of the greener-headed sort what a dreadfully
difficult affair the getting of such an aristocracy is! Do you
expect, my friends, that your indispensable aristocracy of
talent is to be enlisted straightway, by some sort of
recruitment aforethought, out of the general population;
arranged in supreme regimental order; and set to rule over us?
That it will be got sifted, like wheat out of chaff, from the
twenty-seven million British subjects; that any ballot-box,
reform-bill, or other political machine, with force of public
opinion ever so active on it, is likely to perform said process
of sifting? Would to heaven that we had a sieve; that we could
so much as fancy any kind of sieve, wind-fanners, or _ne plus
ultra_ of machinery, devisable by man that would do it!
"'Done, nevertheless, sure enough, it must be; it shall, and
will be. We are rushing swiftly on the road to destruction;
every hour bringing us nearer, until it be, in some measure,
done. The doing of it is not doubtful; only the method or the
costs! Nay, I will even mention to you an infallible
sifting-process, whereby he that has ability will be sifted out
to rule amongst us, and that same blessed aristocracy of talent
be verily, in an approximate degree, vouchsafed us by-and-by;
an infallible sifting-process; to which, however, no soul can
help his neighbour, but each must, with devout prayer to
heaven, help himself. It is, O friends! that all of us, that
many of us, should acquire the true _eye_ for talent, which is
dreadfully wanting at present.
"'For example, you, Bobus Higgins, sausage-maker on the great
scale, who are raising such a clamour for this aristocracy of
talent, what is it that you do, in that big heart of yours,
chiefly in very fact pay reverence to? Is it to talent,
intrinsic manly worth of any kind, you unfortunate Bobus? The
manliest man that you saw going in a ragged coat, did you ever
reverence him; did you so much as know that he was a manly man
at all, till his coat grew better? Talent! I understand you to
be able to worship the fame of talent, the power, cash,
celebrity, or other success of talent; but the talent itself is
a thing you never saw with eyes. Nay, what is it in yourself
that you are proudest of, that you take most pleasure in
surveying, meditatively, in thoughtful moments? Speak now, is
it the bare Bobus, stript of his very name and shirt, and
turned loose upon society, that you admire and thank heaven
for; or Bobus, with his cash-accounts, and larders dropping
fatness, with his respectabilities, warm garnitures, and pony
chaise, admirable in some measure to certain of the flunkey
species? Your own degree of worth and talent, is it of
_infinite_ value to you; or only of finite--measurable by the
degree of currency, and conquest of praise or pudding, it has
brought you to? Bobus, you are in a vicious circle, rounder
than one of your own sausages; and will never vote for or
promote any talent, except what talent or sham-talent has
already _got_ itself voted for!'--We here cut short the
_Indicator_; all readers perceiving whither he now tends."--P.
39.
In the chapter, also, on Democracy, we have notions expressed upon
_liberty_ which would make little impression--would be very distasteful
to any audience assembled for the usual excitement of political oratory.
"Liberty! the true liberty of a man, you would say, consisted
in his finding out, or being forced to find out, the right
path, and to walk thereon--to learn or to be taught what work
he actually was able for, and then, by permission, persuasion,
and even compulsion, to set about doing the same! That is his
true blessedness, honour, 'liberty,' and maximum of
well-being,--if liberty be not that, I for one have small care
about liberty. You do not allow a palpable madman to leap over
precipices; you violate his liberty, you that are wise, and
keep him, were it in strait waist-coat, away from the
precipices! Every stupid, every cowardly and foolish man, is
but a less palpable madman; his true liberty were that a wiser
man, that any and every wiser man, could, by brass collars, or
in whatever milder or sharper way, lay hold of him when he is
going wrong, and order and compel him to go a little righter.
O! if thou really art my _senior_--seigneur, my
_elder_--Presbyter or priest,--if thou art in very deed my
_wiser_, may a beneficent instinct lead and impel thee to
'conquer' me, to command me! If thou do know better than I what
is good and right, I conjure thee, in the name of God, force me
to do it; were it by never such brass collars, whips, and
handcuffs, leave me not to walk over precipices! That I have
been called by all the newspapers a 'free man,' will avail me
little, if my pilgrimage have ended in death and wreck. O that
the newspapers had called me slave, coward, fool, or what it
pleased their sweet voices to name me, and I had attained not
death but life! Liberty requires new definitions."--P. 285.
"But truly, as I had to remark in the meanwhile, the 'liberty
of not being oppressed by your fellow-man,' is an
indispensable, yet one of the most insignificant fractional
parts of human liberty. No man oppresses thee--can bid thee
fetch or carry, come or go, without reason shown. True; from
all men thou art emancipated, but from thyself and from the
devil! No man, wiser, unwiser, can make thee come or go; but
thy own futilities, bewilderments, thy false appetites for
money--Windsor Georges and such like! No man oppresses thee, O
free and independent Franchiser! but does not this stupid
porter-pot oppress thee? no son of Adam can bid thee come and
go; but this absurd pot of heavy-wet, this can and does! Thou
art the thrall, not of Cedric the Saxon, but of thy own brutal
appetites, and this scoured dish of liquor; and thou protest of
thy 'liberty,' thou entire blockhead!"--P. 292.
We should hardly think of entering with Mr Carlyle into a controversy
upon the corn-laws, or on schemes of emigration, or any disputed point
of political economy. He brings to bear upon these certain primitive
_moral_ views and feelings which are but very remotely applicable in the
resolution of these knotty problems. We should almost as soon think of
inviting the veritable Diogenes himself, should he roll up in his tub to
our door, to a discussion upon our commercial system. Our Diogenes
Teufelsdrockh looks upon these matters in a quite peculiar manner;
observe, for example, the glance he takes at our present mercantile
difficulties, which, doubtless, is not without its own value, nor
undeserving of all consideration.
"The continental people, it would seem, are 'exporting our
machinery, beginning to spin cotton, and manufacture for
themselves, to cut us out of this market and then out of that!'
Sad news, indeed, but irremediable--by no means the saddest
news. The saddest news is, that we should find our national
existence, as I sometimes hear it said, depend on selling
manufactured cotton at a farthing an ell cheaper than any other
people--a most narrow stand for a great nation to base itself
on; a stand which, with all the corn-law abrogations
conceivable, I do not think will be capable of enduring.
"My friends, suppose we quitted that stand; suppose we came
honestly down from it, and said--'This is our minimum of cotton
prices; we care not, for the present, to make cotton any
cheaper. Do you, if it seems so blessed to you, make cotton
cheaper. Fill your lungs with cotton fug, your hearts with
copperas fumes, with rage and mutiny; become ye the general
gnomes of Europe, slaves of the lamp!' I admire a nation which
fancies it will die if it do not undersell all other nations to
the end of the world. Brothers, we will cease to _under_sell
them; we will be content to _equal_sell them: to be happy
selling equally with them. I do not see the use of underselling
them; cotton cloth is already twopence a yard or lower, and yet
bare backs were never more numerous amongst us. Let inventive
men cease to spend their existence incessantly contriving how
cotton can be made cheaper; and try to invent, a little, how
cotton, at its present cheapness, could be somewhat juster
divided amongst us! Let inventive men consider whether the
secret of this universe, and of man's life there, does after
all, as we rashly fancy it, consist in making money? There is
one God--just, supreme, almighty: but is Mammon the name of
him?
"But what is to be done with our manufacturing population, with
our agricultural, with our ever-increasing population?--cry
many.--Ay, what? Many things can be done with them, a hundred
things, a thousand things--had we once got a soul and begun to
try. This one thing of doing for them by 'underselling all
people,' and filling our own bursten pockets by the road; and
turning over all care for any 'population,' or human or divine
consideration, except cash only, to the winds, with a
'Laissez-faire' and the rest of it; this is evidently not the
thing. 'Farthing cheaper per yard;' no great nation can stand
on the apex of such a pyramid; screwing itself higher and
higher: balancing itself on its great toe! Can England not
subsist without being _above_ all people in working? England
never deliberately proposed such a thing. If England work
better than all people, it shall be well. England, like an
honest worker, will work as well as she can; and hope the gods
may allow her to live on that basis. _Laissez-faire_ and much
else being once dead, how many 'impossibles' will become
possible! They are 'impossible' as cotton-cloth at twopence an
ell was--till men set about making it. The inventive genius of
great England will not for ever sit patient with mere wheels
and pinions, bobbins, straps, and billy-rollers whirring in the
head of it. The inventive genius of England is not a beaver's,
or a spinner's, or a spider's genius: it is a _man's_ genius, I
hope, with a God over him!"--P. 246.