" By H. Bellyse
Baildon. Chatto & Windus.
THOMAS CARLYLE
There are two main moral necessities for the work of a great man: the
first is that he should believe in the truth of his message; the second
is that he should believe in the acceptability of his message. It was
the whole tragedy of Carlyle that he had the first and not the second.
The ordinary capital, however, which is made out of Carlyle's alleged
gloom is a very paltry matter. Carlyle had his faults, both as a man and
as a writer, but the attempt to explain his gospel in terms of his
"liver" is merely pitiful. If indigestion invariably resulted in a
"Sartor Resartus," it would be a vastly more tolerable thing than it is.
Diseases do not turn into poems; even the decadent really writes with
the healthy part of his organism. If Carlyle's private faults and
literary virtues ran somewhat in the same line, he is only in the
situation of every man; for every one of us it is surely very difficult
to say precisely where our honest opinions end and our personal
predilections begin. But to attempt to denounce Carlyle as a mere savage
egotist cannot arise from anything but a pure inability to grasp
Carlyle's gospel. "Ruskin," says a critic, "did, all the same, verily
believe in God; Carlyle believed only in himself." This is certainly a
distinction between the author he has understood and the author he has
not understood. Carlyle believed in himself, but he could not have
believed in himself more than Ruskin did; they both believed in God,
because they felt that if everything else fell into wrack and ruin,
themselves were permanent witnesses to God.
Pages:
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71