English Literature
in which _Frederick the Great_ was finished. In the midst of his triumph,
and while he was in Scotland to deliver his inaugural address, his
happiness was suddenly destroyed by the death of his wife,--a terrible
blow, from which he never recovered. He lived on for fifteen years, shorn
of his strength and interest in life; and his closing hours were like the
dull sunset of a November day. Only as we remember his grief and remorse at
the death of the companion who had shared his toil but not his triumph, can
we understand the sorrow that pervades the pages of his _Reminiscences_. He
died in 1881, and at his own wish was buried, not in Westminster Abbey, but
among his humble kinsfolk in Ecclefechan. However much we may differ from
his philosophy or regret the harshness of his minor works, we shall
probably all agree in this sentiment from one of his own letters,--that the
object of all his struggle and writing was "that men should find out and
believe the truth, and match their lives to it."
WORKS OF CARLYLE. There are two widely different judgments of Carlyle as a
man and a writer. The first, which is founded largely on his minor
writings, like _Chartism, Latter-Day Pamphlets_, and _Shooting Niagara_,
declares that he is a misanthrope and dyspeptic with a barbarous style of
writing; that he denounces progress, democracy, science, America, Darwin,
--everybody and everything that he does not understand; that his literary
opinions are largely prejudices; that he began as a prophet and ended as a
scold; and that in denouncing shams of every sort he was something of a
sham himself, since his practice was not in accord with his own preaching.
The second judgment, which is founded upon _Heroes and Hero Worship,
Cromwell_, and _Sartor Resartus_, declares that these works are the supreme
manifestation of genius; that their rugged, picturesque style makes others
look feeble or colorless by comparison; and that the author is the greatest
teacher, leader, and prophet of the nineteenth century.
Somewhere between these two extremes will be found the truth about Carlyle.
We only note here that, while there are some grounds for the first
unfavorable criticism, we are to judge an author by his best rather than by
his worst work; and that a man's aims as well as his accomplishments must
be taken into consideration. As it is written, "Whereas it was in thine
heart to build an house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thine
heart." Whatever the defects of Carlyle and his work, in his heart he was
always planning a house or temple to the God of truth and justice.
Carlyle's important works may be divided into three general classes,--
critical and literary essays, historical works, and _Sartor Resartus_, the
last being in a class by itself, since there is nothing like it in
literature. To these should be added a biography, the admirable _Life of
John Sterling_, and Carlyle's _Letters_ and _Reminiscences_, which are more
interesting and suggestive than some of his better known works. We omit
here all consideration of translations, and his intemperate denunciations
of men and institutions in _Chartism, Latter-Day Pamphlets_, and other
essays, which add nothing to the author's fame or influence.
Of the essays, which are all characterized by Carlyle's zeal to get at the
heart of things, and to reveal the soul rather than the works of a writer,
the best are those on "Burns," "Scott," "Novalis," "Goethe,"
"Characteristics," "Signs of the Times," and "Boswell's Life of
Johnson."[244] In the famous _Essay on Burns_, which is generally selected
for special study, we note four significant things: (1) Carlyle is
peculiarly well fitted for his task, having many points in common with his
hero. (2) In most of his work Carlyle, by his style and mannerisms and
positive opinions, generally attracts our attention away from his subject;
but in this essay he shows himself capable of forgetting himself for a
moment. To an unusual extent he sticks to his subject, and makes us think
of Burns rather than of Carlyle. The style, though unpolished, is fairly
simple and readable, and is free from the breaks, crudities, ejaculations,
and general "nodulosities" which disfigure much of his work. (3) Carlyle
has an original and interesting theory of biography and criticism. The
object of criticism is to show the man himself, his aims, ideals, and
outlook on the universe; the object of biography is "to show what and how
produced was the effect of society upon him; what and how produced was his
effect on society." (4) Carlyle is often severe, even harsh, in his
estimates of other men, but in this case the tragedy of Burns's "life of
fragments" attracts and softens him. He grows enthusiastic and--a rare
thing for Carlyle--apologizes for his enthusiasm in the striking sentence,
"We love Burns, and we pity him; and love and pity are prone to magnify."
So he gives us the most tender and appreciative of his essays, and one of
the most illuminating criticisms of Burns that has appeared in our
language.
The central idea of Carlyle's historical works is found in his _Heroes and
Hero Worship_ (1841), his most widely read book. "Universal history," he
says, "is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here." To
get at the truth of history we must study not movements but men, and read
not state papers but the biographies of heroes. His summary of history as
presented in this work has six divisions: (1) The Hero as Divinity, having
for its general subject Odin, the "type Norseman," who, Carlyle thinks, was
some old heroic chief, afterwards deified by his countrymen; (2) The Hero
as Prophet, treating of Mahomet and the rise of Islam; (3) The Hero as
Poet, in which Dante and Shakespeare are taken as types; (4) The Hero as
Priest, or religious leader, in which Luther appears as the hero of the
Reformation, and Knox as the hero of Puritanism; (5) The Hero as Man of
Letters, in which we have the curious choice of Johnson, Rousseau, and
Burns; (6) The Hero as King, in which Cromwell and Napoleon appear as the
heroes of reform by revolution.
It is needless to say that _Heroes_ is not a book of history; neither is it
scientifically written in the manner of Gibbon. With science in any form
Carlyle had no patience; and he miscalculated the value of that patient
search for facts and evidence which science undertakes before building any
theories, either of kings or cabbages. The book, therefore, abounds in
errors; but they are the errors of carelessness and are perhaps of small
consequence. His misconception of history, however, is more serious. With
the modern idea of history, as the growth of freedom among all classes, he
has no sympathy. The progress of democracy was to him an evil thing, a
"turning of the face towards darkness and anarchy." At certain periods,
according to Carlyle, God sends us geniuses, sometimes as priests or poets,
sometimes as soldiers or statesmen; but in whatever guise they appear,
these are our real rulers. He shows, moreover, that whenever such men
appear, multitudes follow them, and that a man's following is a sure index
of his heroism and kingship.
Whether we agree with Carlyle or not, we must accept for the moment his
peculiar view of history, else _Heroes_ can never open its treasures to us.
The book abounds in startling ideas, expressed with originality and power,
and is pervaded throughout by an atmosphere of intense moral earnestness.
The more we read it, the more we find to admire and to remember.
Carlyle's _French Revolution_ (1837) is to be taken more seriously as a
historical work; but here again his hero worship comes to the front, and
his book is a series of flashlights thrown upon men in dramatic situations,
rather than a tracing of causes to their consequences. The very titles of
his chapters--"Astraea Redux," "Windbags," "Broglie the War God"--do
violence to our conception of history, and are more suggestive of Carlyle's
individualism than of French history. He is here the preacher rather than
the historian; his text is the eternal justice; and his message is that all
wrongdoing is inevitably followed by vengeance. His method is intensely
dramatic. From a mass of historical details he selects a few picturesque
incidents and striking figures, and his vivid pictures of the storming of
the Bastille, the rush of the mob to Versailles, the death of Louis XVI,
and the Reign of Terror, seem like the work of an eyewitness describing
some terrible catastrophe. At times, as it portrays Danton, Robespierre,
and the great characters of the tragedy, Carlyle's work is suggestive of an
historical play of Shakespeare; and again, as it describes the rush and
riot of men led by elemental passion, it is more like a great prose epic.
Though not a reliable history in any sense, it is one of the most dramatic
and stirring narratives in our language.
Two other historical works deserve at least a passing notice. The _History
of Frederick the Great_ (1858-1865), in six volumes, is a colossal picture
of the life and times of the hero of the Prussian Empire. _Oliver
Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_ is, in our personal judgment, Carlyle's
best historical work. His idea is to present the very soul of the great
Puritan leader. He gives us, as of first importance, Cromwell's own words,
and connects them by a commentary in which other men and events are
described with vigor and vividness. Cromwell was one of Carlyle's greatest
heroes, and in this case he is most careful to present the facts which
occasion his own enthusiasm. The result is, on the whole, the most lifelike
picture of a great historical character that we possess. Other historians
had heaped calumny upon Cromwell till the English public regarded him with
prejudice and horror; and it is an indication of Carlyle's power that by a
single book he revolutionized England's opinion of one of her greatest men.
Carlyle's _Sartor Resartus_ (1834), his only creative work, is a mixture of
philosophy and romance, of wisdom and nonsense,--a chaotic jumble of the
author's thoughts, feelings, and experiences during the first thirty-five
years of his life. The title, which means "The Tailor Patched-up," is taken
from an old Scotch song. The hero is Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh, a German
professor at the University of Weissnichtwo (don't know where); the
narrative concerns this queer professor's life and opinions; and the
central thought of the book is the philosophy of clothes, which are
considered symbolically as the outward expression of spirit. Thus, man's
body is the outward garment of his soul, and the universe is the visible
garment of the invisible God. The arrangement of _Sartor_ is clumsy and
hard to follow. In order to leave himself free to bring in everything he
thought about, Carlyle assumed the position of one who was translating and
editing the old professor's manuscripts, which are supposed to consist of
numerous sheets stuffed into twelve paper bags, each labeled with a sign of
the zodiac. The editor pretends to make order out of this chaos; but he is
free to jump from one subject to another and to state the most startling
opinion by simply using quotation marks and adding a note that he is not
responsible for Teufelsdroeckh's crazy notions,--which are in reality
Carlyle's own dreams and ideals. Partly because of the matter, which is
sometimes incoherent, partly because of the style, which, though
picturesque, is sometimes confused and ungrammatical, _Sartor_ is not easy
reading; but it amply repays whatever time and study we give to it. Many of
its passages are more like poetry than prose; and one cannot read such
chapters as "The Everlasting No," "The Everlasting Yea," "Reminiscences,"
and "Natural Supernaturalism," and be quite the same man afterwards; for