John Lord
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13: Great Writers
The next noticeable article which Carlyle published was on Voltaire, and appeared in the Quarterly Review in 1829. It would appear that he hoped to find in this great oracle and guide of the eighteenth century something to admire and praise commensurate with his great fame. But vainly. Voltaire, though fortunate beyond example in literary history, versatile, laborious, brilliant in style,–poet, satirist, historian, and essayist,–seemed to Carlyle to be superficial, irreligious, and egotistical. The critic ascribes his power to ridicule,–a Lucian, who destroyed but did not reconstruct; worldly, material, sceptical, defiant, utterly lacking that earnestness without which nothing permanently great can be effected. Carlyle says:–
"Voltaire read history, not with the eye of a devout seer, or even critic, but through a pair of mere anti-Catholic spectacles. It is not a mighty drama, enacted on the theatre of infinitude, with suns for lamps and eternity as a background, whose author is God and whose purport leads to the throne of God, but a poor, wearisome debating-club dispute, spun through ten centuries, between the Encyclopédie and the Sorbonne."
Carlyle's essays for the next two years, chiefly on German literature, which he admired and sought to introduce to his countrymen, were published in various Reviews. I can only allude to one on Richter, whose whimsicality of style he unconsciously copied, and whose original ideas he made his own. In this essay Carlyle introduced to the English people a great German, but a grotesque, whose writings will probably never be read much out of Germany, excellent as they are, on account of the "jarring combination of parentheses, dashes, hyphens, figures without limit, one tissue of metaphors and similes, interlaced with epigrammatic bursts and sardonic turns,–a heterogeneous, unparalleled imbroglio of perplexity and extravagance." There was another, on Schiller, not an idol to Carlyle as Goethe was, yet a great poet and a true man, with deep insight and intense earnestness. "His works," said Carlyle, "and the memory of what he was, will arise afar off, like a towering landmark in the solitude of the past, when distance shall have dwarfed into invisibility many lesser people that once encompassed him, and hid them forever from the near beholder."
Thus far Carlyle had confined himself to biography and essays on German literature, in which his extraordinary insight is seen; but now he enters another field, and writes a strictly original essay, called "Characteristics," published in the Edinburgh Review in the prolific year of 1831, in which essay we see the germs of his philosophy. The article is hard to read, and is disfigured by obscurities which leave a doubt on the mind of the reader as to whether the author understood the subject about which he was writing,–for Carlyle was not a philosopher, but a painter and prose-poet. There is no stream of logic running consistently through his writings. In "Characteristics" he seems to have had merely glimpses of great truths which he could not clearly express, and which won him the reputation of being a German transcendentalist. Its leading idea is the commonplace one of the progress of society, which no sane and Christian man has ever seriously questioned,–not an uninterrupted progress, but a general advance, brought about by Christian ideas. Any other view of progress is dreary and discouraging; nor is this inconsistent with great catastrophes and national backslidings, with the fall of empires, and French Revolutions.
We note at this time in Carlyle's writings, on the whole, a cheerful view of human life in spite of sorrows, hardships, and disappointments, which are made by Divine Providence to act as healthy discipline. We see nothing of the angry pessimism of his later writings. Those years at Craigenputtock were healthy and wholesome; he labored in hope, and had great intellectual and artistic enjoyment, which reconciled him to solitude,–the chief evil with which he had to contend, after dyspepsia. His habits were frugal, but poverty did not stare him in the face, since he had the income of the farm. It does not appear that the deep gloom which subsequently came over his soul oppressed him in his moorland retreat. He did not sympathize with any religion of denials, but felt that out of the jargon of false and pretentious philosophies would come at last a positive belief which would once more enthrone God in the world.
After writing another characteristic article, on Biography, he furnished for Fraser's Magazine one of the finest biographical portraits ever painted,–that of Dr. Johnson, in which that cyclopean worker stands out, with even more distinctness than in Boswell's "Life," as one of the most honest, earnest, patient laborers in the whole field of literature. Carlyle makes us almost love this man, in spite of his awkwardness, dogmatism, and petulance. Johnson in his day was an acknowledged dictator on all literary questions, surrounded by admirers of the highest gifts, who did homage to his learning,–a man of more striking individuality than any other celebrity in England, and a man of intense religious convictions in an age of religious indifference. We now wonder why this struggling, poorly paid, and disagreeable man of letters should have had such an ascendency over men superior to himself in learning, genius, and culture, as Burke and Gibbon doubtless were. Even Goldsmith, whom he snubbed and loved, is now more popular than he. It was the heroism of his character which Carlyle so much admired and so vividly described,–contending with so many difficulties, yet surmounting them all by his persistent industry and noble aspirations; never losing faith in himself or his Maker, never servilely bowing down to rank and wealth, as others did, and maintaining his self-respect in whatever condition he was placed. In this delightful biography we are made to see the superiority of character to genius, and the dignity of labor when idleness was the coveted desire of most fortunate men, as well as the almost universal vice of the magnates of the land. Labor, to the mind of Johnson as well as to that of Carlyle, is not only honorable, but is a necessity which Nature imposes as the condition of happiness and usefulness. Nor does Carlyle sneer at the wedded life of Johnson, made up of "drizzle and dry weather," but reverences his fidelity to his best friend, uninteresting as she was to the world, and his plaintive and touching grief when she passed away.
Carlyle in this essay exalts a life of letters, however poorly paid (which Pope in his "Dunciad" did so much to depreciate), showing how it contributes to the elevation of a nation, and to those lofty pleasures which no wealth can purchase. But it is the moral dignity of Johnson which the essay makes to shine most conspicuously in his character, supported as he was by the truths of religion, in which under all circumstances he proudly glories, and without which he must have made shipwreck of himself amid so many discouragements, maladies, and embarrassments,–for his greatest labors were made with poverty, distress, and obscurity for his companions,–until at last, victorious over every external evil and vile temptation, he emerged into the realm of peace and light, and became an oracle and a sage wherever he chose to go.
Johnson was the greatest master of conversation in his day, whose detached sayings are still quoted more often than his most elaborate periods. I apprehend that there was a great contrast between Johnson's writings and his conversation. While the former are Ciceronian, his talk was epigrammatic, terse, and direct; and its charm and power were in his pointed and vehement Saxon style. Had he talked as he wrote, he would have been wearisome and pedantic. Still, like Coleridge and Robert Hall, he preached rather than conversed, thinking what he himself should say rather than paying attention to what others said, except to combat and rebuke them,–a discourser, as Macaulay was; not one to suggest interchange of ideas, as Addison did. But neither power of conversation nor learning would have made Johnson a literary dictator. His power was in the force of his character, his earnestness, and sincerity, even more than in his genius.
I will not dwell on the other Review articles which Carlyle wrote in his isolated retreat, since published as "Miscellanies," on which his fame in no small degree rests,–even as the essays of Macaulay may be read when his more elaborate History will lie neglected on the shelves of libraries. Carlyle put his soul into these miscellanies, and the labor and enjoyment of writing made him partially forget his ailments. I look upon those years at Craigenputtock as the brightest and healthiest of his life, removed as he was from the sight of levities and follies which tormented his soul and irritated his temper.
Carlyle contrived to save about £200 from his literary earnings, so frugal was his life and so free from temptations. His recreation was in wandering on foot or horseback over the silent moors and unending hills, watered by nameless rills and shadowed by mists and vapors. His life was solitary, but not more so than that of Moses amid the deserts of Midian,–isolation, indeed, but in which the highest wisdom is matured. Into this retreat Emerson penetrated, a young man, with boundless enthusiasm for his teacher,–for Carlyle was a teacher to him as to hundreds of others in this country. Carlyle never had a truer and better friend than Emerson, who opened to him the great reward of recognition in distant America while yet his own land refused to take knowledge of him; and this friendship continued to the end, an honor to both,–for Carlyle never saw in Emerson's writings the genius and wisdom which his American friend admired in the Scottish sage. Nor were their opinions so harmonious as some suppose. Emerson despised Calvinism, and had no definite opinions on any theological subject; Carlyle was a Calvinist without the theology of Calvinism, if that be possible. He did not, indeed, believe in historical Christianity, but he had the profoundest convictions of an overruling God, reigning in justice, and making the wrath of man to praise Him. Carlyle, too, despised everything visionary and indefinite, and had more respect for what is brought about by revolution than by evolution. But of all things he held in profoundest abhorrence the dreary theories of materialists and political economists. It was the spirit and not the body which stood out in his eyes as of most importance; it was the manly virtues which he reverenced in man, not his clothes and surroundings. And it was on this lofty spiritual plane that Carlyle and Emerson stood in complete harmony together.
I cannot quit this part of Carlyle's life without mention of what I conceive to be his most original and remarkable production,–"Sartor Resartus,"–The Stitcher Restitched: or, The Tailor Done Over,–the title of an old Scotch song. It is a quaintly conceived reproduction of the work of an imaginary German professor on "The Philosophy of Clothes,"–under which external figure he includes all institutions, customs, beliefs, in which humanity has draped itself, as distinguished from the inner reality of man himself. "The beginning of all Wisdom," he says, "is to look fixedly on Clothes, or even with armed eyesight, till they become transparent." And thus, in grotesque fashion, with amazing vigor he ranges the universe in search of the Real. In one of his letters to Emerson, Carlyle, discussing a project of lecturing in America, takes on his sartorial professor's name, and writes: "Could any one but appoint me Lecturing Professor of Teufelsdröckh's Science,–'Things in General'!" This work was written in his remote solitude, yet not published for years after it was finished,–and for the best of reasons, because with all his literary repute Carlyle could not find a publisher. The "Sartor" was not appreciated; and Carlyle, knowing its value, locked it up in his drawer, and waited for his time.
The "Sartor Resartus" is a sort of prose poem, written with the heart's blood, vivid as fire in a dark night; a Dantean production; a revelation probably of the author's own struggles and experiences from the dark gulf of the "Everlasting Nay" to the clear and serene heights of the "Everlasting Yea." To me the book is full of consolation and encouragement,–a battle of the spirit with infernal doubts, a victory over despair, over all external evils and all spiritual foes. It is also a bold and grotesque but scorching sarcasm of the conventionalities and hypocrisies of society, and a savage thrust at those quackeries which seem to reign in this world in spite of their falsity and shallowness. It is not, I grant, easy to read. It is full of conceits and affectations of style,–a puzzle to some, a rebuke to others. "Every page of this unique collection of confessions and meditations, of passionate invective and solemn reflection," is stamped with the seal of genius, and yet was the last of Carlyle's writings to be appreciated. I believe that this is the ordinary fate of truly original works, those that are destined to live the longest, especially if they burn no incense to the idols of prevailing worship, and be characterized by a style which, to say the least, is extraordinary. Flashy, brilliant, witty, yet superficial pictures of external life which everybody has seen and knows, are the soonest to find admirers; but a revelation of what is not seen, this is the work of seers and prophets whose ordinary destiny has been anything other than to wear soft raiment and sit in king's palaces. The "Sartor" was at last, in 1833-1834, printed in Fraser's Magazine, meeting no appreciation in England, but very enthusiastically received by Emerson, Channing, Ripley, and a group of advanced thinkers in New England, through whose efforts it was published here in book form. And so, in spite of timid London publishers, it drifted back to London and a slow-growing fame. In our time, sixty years later, it sells by scores of thousands annually, in cheap and in luxurious editions, throughout the English-speaking world.
In respect of early recognition and popularity, Carlyle differs from his great contemporary Macaulay, who was so immediately and so magnificently rewarded, and yet received no more than his due as the finest prose writer of his day. Macaulay's Essays are generally word-pictures of remarkable men and remarkable events, but of men of action rather than of quiet meditation. His heroes are such men as Clive and Hastings and Pitt, not such men as Pascal or Augustine or Leibnitz or Goethe. But Carlyle in his heroes paints the struggling soul in its deepest aspirations, and the truths evolved by profound meditations. These are not such as gain instant popular acceptance; yet they are the longer-lived.
The time came at last for Carlyle to leave his retirement among moors and hills, and in 1831 he directed his steps to London, spending the winter with his wife in the great centre of English life and thought, and being well received; so that in 1834 he removed permanently to the metropolis. But he was scarcely less buried at his modest house in Chelsea than he had been on his farm, for he came to London with only £200, and was obliged to practise the most rigid economy. For two years he labored in his London workshop without earning a shilling, and with a limited acquaintance. Not yet was his society sought by the great world which he mocked and despised. He fortunately had the genial and agreeable Leigh Hunt for a neighbor, and Edward Irving for his friend. He was known to the critics by his writings, but his circle of personal friends was small. He was more or less intimate with John Stuart Mill, Charles Austin, Sir William Molesworth, and the advanced section of the philosophical radicals,–the very class of men from whom he afterwards was most estranged. None of these men forwarded his fortunes; but they lent him books, and helped him at the libraries, for no carpenter can work without tools.
The work to which Carlyle now devoted himself was a history of the French Revolution, the principal characters of which he had already studied and written about. It was a subject adapted to his genius for dramatic writing, and for the presentation of his views as to retribution. His whole theology, according to Froude, was underlaid by the belief in punishment for sin, which was impressed upon his mind by his God-fearing parents, and was one of his firmest convictions. The French were to his mind the greatest sinners among Christian nations, and therefore were to reap a fearful penalty. To paint in a new and impressive form the inevitable calamities attendant on violated law and justice, was the aspiration of Carlyle. He had money enough to last him with economy for two years. In this time he hoped to complete his work. The possibility was due to the intelligent thrift of his wife. Commenting on one of her letters describing their snug little house, he writes:–
"From birth upwards she had lived in opulence; and now, for my sake, had become poor,–so nobly poor. Truly, her pretty little brag [in this letter] was well founded. No such house, for beautiful thrift, quiet, spontaneous, nay, as it were, unconscious–minimum of money reconciled to human comfort and human dignity–have I anywhere looked upon."
He devoted himself to his task with intense interest, and was completely preoccupied.
In the winter of 1835, after a year of general study, collection of material and writing, and at last "by dint of continual endeavor for many weary weeks," the first volume was completed and submitted to his friend Mill. The valuable manuscript was accidentally and ignorantly destroyed by a servant, and Mill was in despair. Carlyle bore the loss like a hero. He did not chide or repine. If his spirit sunk within him, it was when he was alone in his library or in the society of his sympathizing wife. He generously writes to Emerson,–
"I could not complain, or the poor man would have shot himself: we had to gather ourselves together, and show a smooth front to it,–which happily, though difficult, was not impossible to do. I began again at the beginning, to such a wretched, paralyzing torpedo of a task as my hand never found to do."
Mill made all the reparation possible. He gave his friend £200, but Carlyle would accept only £100. Few men could have rewritten with any heart that first volume: it would be almost impossible to revive sufficient interest; the precious inspiration would have been wanting. Yet Carlyle manfully accomplished his task, and I am inclined to think that the second writing was better than the first; that he probably left out what was unessential, and made a more condensed narrative,–a more complete picture, for his memory was singularly retentive. I do not believe that any man can do his best at the first heat. See how the great poets revise and rewrite. Brougham rewrote his celebrated peroration on the trial of Queen Caroline seventeen times. Carlyle had to rewrite his book, but his materials remained; his great pictures were all in his mind. In this second writing there may have been less emotion,–less fire in his descriptions; but there was fire enough, for his vivacity was excessive. Even his work could be pruned, not by others, but by himself. "The household at Chelsea was never closer drawn together than in those times of trial." Carlyle lost time and spirits, but he could afford the loss. The entire work was delayed, but was done at last. The final sentence of Vol. III. was written at ten o'clock on a damp evening, January 14, 1837.
This great work, the most ambitious and famous of all Carlyle's writings, and in many respects his best, was not received by the public with the enthusiam it ought to have awakened. It was not appreciated by the people at large. "Ordinary readers were not enraptured by the Iliad swiftness and vividness of the narrative, its sustained passion, the flow of poetry, the touches of grandeur and tenderness, and the masterly touches by which he made the great actors stand out in their individuality." It seemed to many to be extravagant, exaggerated, at war with all the "feudalities of literature." Partisans of all kinds were offended. The style was startlingly broken, almost savage in strength, vivid and distinct as lightning. Doubtless the man himself had grown away from the quieter moods of his earlier essays. Froude quotes this from Carlyle's journal: "The poor people seem to think a style can be put off or on, not like a skin but like a coat. Is not a skin verily a product and close kinsfellow of all that lies under it, exact type of the nature of the beast, not to be plucked off without flaying and death? The Public is an old woman. Let her maunder and mumble."
But the extraordinary merits of the book made a great impression on the cultivated intellects of England,–such men as Jeffrey, Macaulay, Southey, Hallam, Brougham, Thackeray, Dickens,–who saw and admitted that a great genius had arisen, whether they agreed with his views or not. In America, we may be proud to say, the work created general enthusiasm, and its republication through Emerson's efforts brought some money as well as larger fame to its author. Of the first moneys that Emerson sent Carlyle as fruits of this adventure, the dyspeptic Scotchman wrote that he was "half-resolved to buy myself a sharp little nag with twenty of these trans-Atlantic pounds, and ride him till the other thirty be eaten. I will call the creature 'Yankee.' … My kind friends!" And Yankee was duly bought and ridden.
Carlyle still remained in straitened circumstances, although his reputation was now established. In order to assist him in his great necessities his friends got up lectures for him, which were attended by the élite of London. He gave several courses in successive years during the London season, which brought him more money than his writings at that time, gave him personal éclat, and added largely to his circle of admirers. His second course of twelve lectures brought him £300,–a year's harvest, and a large sum for lectures in England, where the literary institutions rarely paid over £5 for a single lecture. Even in later times the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, which commanded the finest talent, paid only £10 to such men as Froude and the archbishop of York.
But lecturing, to many men an agreeable excitement, seems to have been very unpleasant to Carlyle,–even repulsive. Though the lectures brought both money and fame, he abominated the delivery of them. They broke his rest, destroyed his peace of mind, and depressed his spirits. Nothing but direst necessity reconciled him to the disagreeable task. He never took any satisfaction or pride in his success in this field; nor was his success probably legitimate. People went to see him as a new literary lion,–to hear him roar, not to be edified. He had no peculiar qualification for public speaking, and he affected to despise it. Very few English men of letters have had this gift. Indeed, popular eloquence is at a discount among the cultivated classes in England. They prefer to read at their leisure. Popular eloquence best thrives in democracies, as in that of ancient Athens; aristocrats disdain it, and fear it. In their contempt for it they even affect hesitation and stammering, not only when called upon to speak in public, but also in social converse, until the halting style has come to be known among Americans as "very English." In absolute monarchies eloquence is rare except in the pulpit or at the bar. Cicero would have had no field, and would not probably have been endured, in the reign of Nero; yet Bossuet and Bourdaloue were the delight of Louis XIV. What would that monarch have said to the speeches of Mirabeau?
After the publication in 1837 of the "French Revolution,"–that "roaring conflagration of anarchies," that series of graphic pictures rather than a history or even a criticism,–it was some time before Carlyle could settle down upon another great work. He delivered lectures, wrote tracts and essays, gave vent to his humors, and nursed his ailments. He was now famous,–a man whom everybody wished to see and know, especially Americans when they came to London, but whom he generally snubbed (as he did me) and pronounced them bores. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Monckton Milnes, afterward Lord Houghton, who invited him to breakfast, where he met other notabilities,–among them Bunsen the Prussian Ambassador at London; Lord Mahon the historian; and Mr. Baring, afterward Lord Ashburton, the warmest and the truest of his friends, who extended to him the most generous hospitalities.
Carlyle was now in what is called "high society," and was "taking life easy,"–writing but little, yet reading much, especially about Oliver Cromwell, whose Life he thought of writing. His lectures at this period were more successful than ever, attended by great and fashionable people; and from them his chief income was derived.
While collecting materials for his Life of Cromwell, Carlyle became deeply interested in the movements of the Chartists, composed chiefly of working-men with socialistic tendencies. He was called a "radical,"–and he did believe in a radical reform of men's lives, especially of the upper classes who showed but little sympathy for the poor. He was not satisfied with the Whigs, who believed that the Reform Bill would usher in a political millennium. He had more sympathy with the "conservative" Tories than the "liberal" Whigs; but his opinions were not acceptable to either of the great political parties. They alike distrusted him. Even Mill had a year before declined an article on the working classes for his Review, the Westminster. Carlyle took it to Lockhart of the Quarterly, but Lockhart was afraid to publish it. Mill, then about to leave the Westminster, wished to insert it as a final shout; but Carlyle declined, and in 1839 expanded his article into a book called "Chartism," which was rapidly sold and loudly noticed. It gave but little satisfaction, however. It offended the conservatives by exposing sores that could not be healed, while on the other hand the radicals did not wish to be told that men were far from being equal,–that in fact they were very unequal; and that society could not be advanced by debating clubs or economical theories, but only by gifted individuals as instruments of Divine Providence, guiding mankind by their superior wisdom.
These views were expanded in a new course of lectures, on "Heroes and Hero Worship," and subsequently printed,–the most able and suggestive of all Carlyle's lectures, delivered in the spring of 1840 with great éclat. He never appeared on the platform again. Lecturing, as we have said, was not to his taste; he preferred to earn his living by his pen, and his writings had now begun to yield a comfortable support. He received on account of them £400 from America alone, thanks to the influence of his friend Emerson.
Carlyle now began to weary of the distraction of London life, and pined for the country. But his wife would not hear a word about it; she had had enough of the country, at Craigenputtock. Meanwhile preparations for the Life of Cromwell went on slowly, varied by visits to his relatives in Scotland, travels on the Continent, and interviews with distinguished men. His mind at this period (1842) was most occupied with the sad condition of the English people,–everywhere riots, disturbances, physical suffering and abject poverty among the masses, for the Corn Laws had not then been repealed; and to Carlyle's vision there was a most melancholy prospect ahead,–not revolution, but universal degradation, and the reign of injustice. This sad condition of the people was contrasted in his mind with what it had been centuries before, as it appeared from an old book which he happened to read, Jocelin's Chronicles, which painted English life in the twelfth century. He fancied that the world was going on from bad to worse; and in this gloomy state of mind he wrote his "Past and Present," which appeared in 1843, and created a storm of anger as well as admiration. It was a sort of protest against the political systems of economy then so popular. Lockhart said of it that he could accept none of his friend's inferences except one,–"that we were all wrong, and were all like to be damned."
Gloomy and satirical as the book was, it made a great impression on the thinkers of the day, while it did not add to the author's popularity. It seemed as if he were a prophet of wrath,–an Ishmaelite whose hand was against everybody. He offended all political parties,–"the Tories by his radicalism, and the Radicals by his scorn of their formulas; the High Churchman by his Protestantism, and the Low Churchman by evident unorthodoxy." Yet all parties and sects admitted that much that he said was true, while at the same time they had no sympathy with his fierce ravings.
For ten years after the publication of the "French Revolution" Carlyle assumed the functions of a prophet, hurling anathemas and pronouncing woes. To his mind everything was alike disjointed or false or pretentious, in view of which he uttered groans and hisses and maledictions. The very name of a society designed to ameliorate evils seemed to put him into a passion. Every reformer appeared to him to be a blind teacher of the blind. Exeter Hall, then the scene of every variety of social and religious and political discussion, was to him a veritable pandemonium. Everybody at that period of agitation and reform was giving lectures, and everybody went to hear them; and Carlyle ridiculed them all alike as pedlers of nostrums to heal diseases which were incurable. He lived in an atmosphere of disdain. "The English people," said he, "number some thirty millions,–mostly fools." His friends expostulated with him for giving utterance to such bitter expressions, and for holding such gloomy views. John Mill was mortally offended, and walked no more with him. De Quincey said, "You have made a new hole in your society kettle: how do you propose to mend it?"
