The ancients accepted in good faith the sway of Fate, or Temperament,
in their doctrine of Destinies, hereby signifying that duplicity or
polarity of forces operative in man's Will by which his personal
freedom is abridged, if not overridden. Nor does it appear that they
conceived deliverance possible from this dread Nemesis of existence; it
was wrought into the substance of their tragedies, binding matter and
mind alike in chains. If the modern thought professes to be freed from
this Old Fatalism, it practically admits it, nevertheless; man's will
being still bound in fetters by inexorable powers, which his Choice
can neither propitiate nor overcome. If Goethe treats the matter more
forcibly, sharply, his dealing differs but in form from the Pagan; man
is the spoil of the demons still. Satan is suppressed for the moment to
be victorious in the end. Carlyle only renders it the more inexorable
and dismaying by all his wealth of thought, force of illustration, his
formidable historical figures, dramatic genius. It is force pitted
against force that he celebrates throughout his embattled pages; a
victim himself with his heroes, yet like them never the victor; all
irritants, but not quellers of the demon; fixed forces in transition
times.
Only seen from this, his habitual standpoint and outlook, is he
justified as the consistent realist, holding fast his faith in the
actual facts of the world, their rigorous following to the remotest
issues,--the most heroic of thinkers. What if, with these dread
convictions and insights of his, he paint out of all keeping with
the actual facts; he is following logically his persuasions of the
destinies that sway human concerns, abating not an iota of the letter
of the text of the dread decalogue, whether for the wicked or the weak;
defending his view of the right at all costs whatsoever. Justice first,
mercy afterwards. His books opened anywhere show him berating the wrong
he sees, but seldom the means of removing. There is ever the same
melancholy advocacy of work to be done under the dread master: force of
strokes, the right to rule and be ruled, the dismal burden. He rides
his Leviathan as fiercely as did his countryman, Hobbes; can be as
truculent and abusive. Were he not thus fatally in earnest, we should
take him for the harlequin he often seems, not seeing the sorrowing
sadness thus playing off its load in this grotesque mirth, this
scornful irony of his; he painting in spite of himself his portraits in
the warmth of admiration, the blaze of wrath, giving us mythology for
history mostly.
Yet with what breadth of perspective he paints these! strength of
outline, the realism appalling, the egotism enormous,--all history
showing in the background of his one figure, Carlyle,--Burns, Goethe,
Richter, Mirabeau, Luther, Cromwell, Frederick,--all dashed from his
flashing pen,--heads of himself alike in their unlikeness, prodigiously
individual, wilful, some of them monstrous; all Englishmen, too, with
their egregious prejudices, prides; no patience, no repose in any. He
brandishes his truncheon through his pages with an adroitness that
renders it unsafe for any, save the few wielding weapons of celestial
temper, to do battle against Abaddon.
Nor will he be silenced; talking terribly against all talking but his
own; agreeing, disagreeing, all the same, he the Jove permitting none,
none, to mount Olympus till the god deign silence and invite. Curious
to see him monologizing, his chin aloft, the pent thunders rolling,
lightnings darting from under his bold brows, words that tell of the
wail within, accents not meant for music, yet made lyrical in the
cadences of his Caledonian refrain, his mirth mad as Lear's, his humor
wilful as the winds. Not himself then is approachable by himself even.
A lovable man, nevertheless, with a great heart in his breast,
sympathies the kindliest, deepest, nor indifferent to the ills the
flesh is heir to. Why, oh ye powers, this wretchedness amidst the means
superabounding for relieving and preventing it? Why this taking up
reform forever from the beggar and felon side, as if these were sole
credentials to sympathy, essential elements of the social state? Rather
let force, persistent yet beneficent, be brought to bear upon mankind,
giving alike to prince and people the dutiful drill that alone equips
for the tasks of life,--this were the State's duty, the province of
rulers; a thing to set about at once with the vigor of righteousness
that justice demands for the rule of the world.
The way of Imperialism this, and playing Providence harshly. He
mistakes in commending absolutism to republicans, especially in times
like ours. England, even, imperial as she is, is too intelligent and
free to accept it. America certainly cannot. If he would but believe in
the people, divide his faith in hero-worship with masses, also. But it
is not easy for a Briton to comprehend properly republican institutions
like ours. Nothing short of success against large odds can convince him
of the feasibility, the safety of a popular government.
"Success, success; to thee, to thee,
As to a god, he bends the knee."
Not one of his heroes would serve our turn. Frederick were perhaps a
fit captain to dominate over a brute multitude; Cromwell might serve
in a state of revolution, but must fail altogether at reconstruction.
Even Milton, the republican, would hardly avail with republicans freed
from the old British love of sway.
It is not safe for any to dwell long on Sinai, leaving the multitudes
meanwhile to their idolatries below. In rigors thus austere the
humanities perish. Justice and mercy must alike conspire in the
fulfilment of the decalogue, lest vengeance break the tables and
shatter the divine image also.
"When heaven would save a man, it encircles him with compassion."
[Illustration]