Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13: Great Writers

In this extract we see the optimism which runs through Carlyle's earlier writings,–the faith in creation which is to succeed destruction, the immortal hopes which sustain the soul. He believed in the God of Abraham, and was as far from being a scoffer as the heavens are higher than the earth. He had renounced historical Christianity, but he adhered to its essential spirit.

The next article which Carlyle published seems to have been on Werner, followed the same year, 1828, by one on Goethe's "Helena,"–a continuation of his "Faust." This transcendent work of German art, which should be studied rather than read, is commented on by the reviewer with boundless admiration. If there was one human being whom Carlyle worshipped it was the dictator of German literature, who reigned at Weimar as Voltaire had reigned at Ferney. If he was not the first to introduce the writings of Goethe into England, he was the great German's warmest admirer. If Goethe had faults, they were to Carlyle the faults of a god, and he exalted him as the greatest light of modern times,–a new force in the world, a new fire in the soul, who inaugurated a new era in literature which went to the heart of cultivated Europe, weary of the doubts and denials that Voltaire had made fashionable. It seemed to Carlyle that Goethe entered into the sorrows, the solemn questionings and affirmations of the soul, seeking emancipation from dogmas and denials alike, and, in the spirit of Plato, resting on the certitudes of a higher life,–calm, self-poised, many-sided, having subdued passion as he had outgrown cant; full of benignity, free from sarcasm; a man of mighty and deep experiences, with knowledge of himself, of the world, and the whole realm of literature; a great artist as well as a great genius, seated on the throne of letters, not to scatter thunderbolts, but to instruct the present and future generations.

The next great essay which Carlyle published, this time in the Edinburgh Review, was on Burns,–a hackneyed subject, yet treated with masterly ability. This article, in some respects his best, entirely free from mannerisms and affectation of style, is just in its criticism, glowing with eloquence, and full of sympathy with the infirmities of a great poet, showing a remarkable insight into what is noblest and truest. This essay is likely to live for style alone, aside from its various other merits. It is complete, exhaustive, brilliant, such as only a Scotchman could have written who was familiar with the laborious lives of the peasantry, living in the realm of art and truth, careless of outward circumstances and trappings, and exalting only what is immortal and lofty. While Carlyle sees in Goethe the impersonation of human wisdom,–in every aspect a success, outwardly and inwardly, serene and potent as an Olympian deity,–he sees in Burns a highly gifted genius also, but yet a wreck and a failure; a man broken down by the force of that degrading habit which unfortunately and peculiarly and even mysteriously robs a man of all dignity, all honor, and all sense of shame. Amid the misfortunes, the mistakes, and the degradations of the born poet, whom he alike admires and pities and mildly blames, he sees also the noble elements of the poet's gifted soul, and loves him, especially for his sincerity, which next to labor he uniformly praises. It was the truthfulness he saw in Burns which constrained Carlyle's affection,–the poet's sympathy and humanity, speaking out of his heart in unconscious earnestness and plaintive melody; sad and sorrowful, of course, since his life was an unsuccessful battle with himself, but free from egotism, and full of a love which no misery could crush,–so unlike that other greatest poet of our century, "whose exemplar was Satan, the hero of his poetry and the model of his life." In this most beautiful and finished essay Carlyle paints the man in his true colors,–sinning and sinned against, courageous while yielding, poor but proud, scornful yet affectionate; singing in matchless lyrics the sentiments of the people from whom he sprung and among whom he died, which lyrics, though but fragments indeed, are precious and imperishable.

In the same year appeared the Life of Heyne,–the great German scholar, pushing his way from the depths of poverty and obscurity, by force of patient industry and genius, to a proud position and a national fame. "Let no unfriended son of genius despair," exclaims Carlyle. "If he have the will, the power will not be denied him. Like the acorn, carelessly cast abroad in the wilderness, yet it rises to be an oak; on the wild soil it nourishes itself; it defies the tempest, and lives for a thousand years." The whole outward life of Carlyle himself, like that of Heyne, was an example of heroism amid difficulties, and hope amid the storms.

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."