to reform the world was a much-needed,, Yet, feeling as he does the intensity, the but he also knew that it was a most diffi- immeasurableness of the thing which he cult, task. He knew that to reform the repudiates, he cannot be content without world, you must not take the rest of the something infinite and immeasurable on world to be fools and yourself the only the other side to set over against it, and wise man; on the contrary, as Mr. Carlyle by which to overcome it-an infinite and himself has said elsewhere, that the best sure peace to set over against the infinite way of reforming the world was to be con- but uncertain happiness which is what NaAs long as he was continually reforming yourself. There is, as ture gives us. Mr. Ruskin has shown, an undercurrent of sciously in search of this first principle of sorrow and self-introspection in Scott's emotion and action, so long were his utterwritings which it is touching to trace. No ances guarded and moderate. But at last doubt, Scott was not a speculative or log- he believed himself to have found what he ical thinker; but this is not the ground sought. The passage in which he imparts of Mr. Carlyle's attack. In the same way this discovery is contained in the chapter Mr. Cariyle disparages Byron; and, for- in "Sartor Resartus," entitled "The Evergetful of his great superiority in intellectual lasting Yea." It is necessary to quote grasp and breadth of view, sets him down it: as inferior to Burns. He is offended by the wild chaotic element in Byron; but such an element is the necessary seed-piness: he can do without Happiness, and inground of genius, which must mould its own forms, and cannot accept them traditionally in the lump, however much we may lament that so powerful a mind should have remained to the end in these dark solitudes of spirit.

We have dwelt much on the sympathetic element in Mr. Carlyle's early writings, because we think it is not in general sufficiently noticed as belonging to him. It did indeed, from the first, cover, and at last has been entirely overborne by, a deeper characteristic a sarcastic and censorious indignation. And it is of this deepest quality of his nature that we now wish to trace the growth.

Mr. Carlyle's censoriousness was at first comparatively latent, because it was directed mainly upon himself. His moralizings turned inwards, and not outwards. Through all his earlier essays are scattered hints, involuntarily uttered, respecting the limits which necessity sets against the desires of man, and the resignation with which it is fit that we should acquiesce in these limits. Doubtless, he had met with sorrow; yet he never affects to despise the things, whatever they were, of which he had been disappointed. He is neither a cold-blooded moralist, nor is he a mere Stoic. He has been called, and not altogether untruly, the typical antagonist of Byron; but he is so typical an antagonist, precisely because he is so similar to Byron. He feels the immeasurable longing for happiness which Byron felt; like Byron, he rejoices in the beauty and delight of external things- a delight which is so often wasted and missed by us. But Mr. Carlyle feels this longing, this delight, only to repudiate it; to repudiate it as a principle of life.

LIVING AGE.

VOL. XXV.

1189

"There is in man a higher than Love of Hapstead thereof find Blessedness! . . Love not

Pleasure; love God. This is the Everlasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved; where in whoso walks and works, it is well with him.

"Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by Action.' On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: Do the Duty which lies nearest thee,' which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer.

May we not say, however, that the love of Spiritual Enfranchisement is even this: when your Ideal World, wherein the whole man has been dimly struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes revealed, and thrown The Situation that has not its Duty, open. its Ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal: work it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free. Nature: the beginning of Creation is Light." Sartor Resartus. ("Works," vol. i. p. 184 seqq.)

"But it is with man's Soul as it was with

This is the central passage in Mr. Carlyle's writings, as indeed " Sartor Resartus" is the central work: to it everything which precedes converges; from it everything which succeeds diverges. After writing this, he felt himself enabled to criticize men and events freely.

The impressiveness of the passage will be felt, we think, by all; but at any rate by those who study it in connection with what has gone before. We have, however, two remarks to make on it; one with reference to what it contains, another with

reference to what it does not contain. Mr. | them; no willingness to believe that what Carlyle says here, "Love God." Has he is not seen may be excellent, that actions ever said this a second time? Our be- and dispositions at first sight questionable lief is that he has not; however often he may be susceptible of explanation, or at has since bidden men worship, or fall down any rate of palliation. He is Rhadamanin wonder before, the Unnameable, the tine — inexorable: as soon as a thing apEternities, the Immensities. The change pears, it is stamped by him with black or is noticeable: it is, to say the least, singu- white; and the white marks are very rare lar that a principle should be laid down indeed. with such emphasis and never referred to afterwards.

But secondly, a first principle ought not merely to be true, but complete. Now Mr. Carlyle has frequently asserted, and with the strongest emphasis, that the Eternal Powers reward and punish men. He has likewise asserted that they hate. Do they then, also love? He leaves us in the dark on this point. We, therefore, think it expedient to inquire this of him. If they do not love, what reason can he assign for this inhumanity in the deepest depths of nature? If they do love, do they love all, or only some? And what is the proof, sign, or trace of their love? Does it lie in the material success of those whom they love? If not, in what?

These questions, which Mr. Carlyle has omitted to consider in his works, we now propose to him, and invite his notice of them. Our own answers we do not, at present, give; nevertheless, if required, we have them.

He also bade men "act;" and, for the third thing, he bade them "seek light;" that is, clearness of knowledge. How then has he carried out these maxims? He has certainly gained a good deal of clear knowledge in the historical line; and he has exhibited as much vigour of action as any one man can exhibit in the way of writing. Nor is there anything to be said against his conduct in these respects, though something against his consistency, considering the opposition which he has continually affirmed to exist between talk and action. But the real mischief lies here:- for all knowledge, for all action, experience is required; principles, however sound, will do nothing by themselves. Now the field of experience to which Mr. Carlyle's faculty led him was one; the field of experience to which his desires led him was another, and a very different one. His faculty lay in the treatment of all which is deep in feeling, and vivid in external presentation. He might have been We now come to Mr. Carlyle's later an unrivalled historian. But his desire writings; and we must own that there was to exert a strong practical influence seem to us in them many and great de-on mankind; and his defect in the cool fects. In saying this, we are not unmind-patient understanding, in appreciation of ful of the power manifested in them, which the material mechanism of society, was a is not unworthy of the promise of his early fatal barrier against his exerting such an days; nor do we fail to see many deep and influence. Of the qualities of a statespiercing truths. But that they can satisfy man he has none. There is not, we will the mind which seeks for secure scientific confidently affirm, one single political protruth, or for a secure basis of action, posal of his own, in the whole compass of this, indeed, we cannot believe. We know his writings, that is even intelligible, let well what allowance has always to be alone its being feasible or good; scarcely made for the possibility of misunderstand- is there an instance of his supporting an ing in criticizing the works of a man of intelligible political proposal framed by genius. If we regarded Mr. Carlyle as un-another. His writings are full of gener intelligible, we should never venture to ous political feeling, and contain many say that he was defective. It is because considerations that may be made use of he seems to us entirely intelligible, that we venture to declare him faulty.

It is worth considering how far he has carried out his own principles, which, after all are worth nothing unless acted on. He said "Love God;" and we presume he would not exclude from the meaning of this maxim that other maxim, "Love men." Now nothing is more marked in his later writings than the absence of tenderness admiration there is, but not love. There is no spontaneous trust in

by a statesman; but of practical proposals there is an absolute void. That he should have thought himself capable at all of entering on this field was a mistake and a mistake not without pernicious consequences.

The error, however, was unavoidable. The desire, yet the incapacity, for action was too powerful in Mr. Carlyle to be restrained; what he could not effect himself he was compelled to inculcate upon others. This vehement urgency chafes and mutters beneath the surface even of his earlier

to humility, but the humility of a haughty and self-confident spirit.

writings. He chides the temper, he rebukes it, he represses it; but it is there. In vain does he say that "no wise man Further, this spirit of rebuke and will endeavour to reform a world; the prophecy was in part inherited by him only sure reformation is that which each from others. To begin with, it is national: begins and perfects upon himself." Mr. the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum has Carlyle, in spite of all disclaimers, was long been celebrated; and the mantle of bent upon reforming a world. In vain the Covenanters has fallen upon Mr. Cardoes he take Goethe for his model - the lyle. His tone and principles, his loves creative, impersonal, tranquil, universal poet. These qualities did not by nature belong to Mr. Carlyle; and he could not assume them. The volcanic fires burst out at length through all the green smoothness of their covering.

Moreover, there is in him a spirit of self-antagonism, of revulsion from his own nature, and, above all, from those parts of his own nature which might seem to be derived from habit or externally imposed argument or principle, that had no little to do with his rejection of his earlier temper of sympathy, and his assumption of the very reverse. To be natural and sincere has ever been the maxim that he has most earnestly inculcated; yet there is some danger in such a maxim, for all goodness is, in a certain sense, not natural to man. In his own case, the result has been, that his writings are full of extraordinary anomalies.

and his hatreds, even down to minute instances, bear no small affinity to those which marked that most stubborn and most intense of religious sects. And through the Convenanters he is not ambiguously connected with the old Hebrews. With these he feels himself at one. Rarely does he refer to the New Testament; rarely does he think of saints and martyrs, the souls that died in patience, without anger, without honour, without even the effort for an outward victory. But the old prophets and judges, who assumed the rule, and led armies, and denounced the evil-doer, and punished the enemies of God, are ever in his thoughts. Consider the following passages, whether as regards their reference or their character:

"There is one valid reason, and only one, for either punishing a man or rewarding him in this world; one reason, which ancient piety could well define: That you may do the will and commandment of God with regard to him; that you may do justice to him. This is your one true aim in respect of him; aim thitherward, with all your heart and all your strength and all your soul; thitherward, and not elsewhither at all!"

Nothing does he reprobate more than self-consciousness; yet he is most self-conscious. Rarely can he write five pages without reference to himself. "Sauerteig," Teufelsdröckh," "Gathercoal," " Crabbe," "Smelfungus," these, and many more, are all so many aliases of Mr. Carlyle. The reader could well dispense with some of these masquerading shapes, whose varying garbs ever give vent to one well-known hollow yet bitter voice, a compound of Heraclitus and Democritus, the weeping and mocking philosophers in one. He preaches loudly and imperatively; yet his favourite maxim is, "Speech is silver, silence is golden." Poetic himself, and the panegyrist of numerous poets, he ends, like Plato, with condemning poets utterly. "Volcanic" is one of his best known epithets of dislike; is it not just to apply it to himself? He declares that the French Revolution was a divine revelation; yet he is the avowed opponent of democracy With the reverse intention of Balaam, he went up the mountains to bless the progress of advancing civilization, and, lo! he was compelled to curse it altogether. These are some of his most remarkable inconsistencies; and the root of it is a some- "Like the valley of Jehoshaphat, it lies thing in his character, not without kinship round us, one nightmare wilderness, and wreck

"God Himself, we have always understood, hates sin, with a most authentic, celestial, and ble, unappeasable, which blasts the scoundrel, eternal hatred. A hatred, a hostility inexoraand all scoundrels ultimately, into black annihilation and disappearance from the sum of things. The path of it as the path of a flaming sword: he that has eyes may see it, walking inexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible, through the chaotic gulf of Human History, and everywhere burning, as with unquenchable fire, the false and deathworthy from the true and lifeworthy; making all human history, and the biography of every man, a God's Cosmos, in place of a Devil's Chaos. So is it, in the end; even so, to every man who is a man, and not a mutinous beast, and has eyes to see. what ancient prophets denounced as 'the Throne of Iniquity,' where men decree injustice by a law: all this, with its thousandfold outer miseries, is still but a symptom; all this points to a far sadder disease which lies invisible within."

"The saddest condition of human affairs,

reference to what it does not contain. Mr. | them; no willingness to believe that what Carlyle says here, "Love God." Has he is not seen may be excellent, that actions ever said this a second time? Our be- and dispositions at first sight questionable lief is that he has not; however often he may be susceptible of explanation, or at has since bidden men worship, or fall down any rate of palliation. He is Rhadamanin wonder before, the Unnameable, the tine-inexorable: as soon as a thing apEternities, the Immensities. The change pears, it is stamped by him with black or is noticeable: it is, to say the least, singu- white; and the white marks are very rare lar that a principle should be laid down indeed. with such emphasis and never referred to afterwards.

But secondly, a first principle ought not merely to be true, but complete. Now Mr. Carlyle has frequently asserted, and with the strongest emphasis, that the Eternal Powers reward and punish men. He has likewise asserted that they hate. Do they then, also love? He leaves us in the dark on this point. We, therefore, think it expedient to inquire this of him. If they do not love, what reason can he assign for this inhumanity in the deepest depths of nature? If they do love, do they love all, or only some? And what is the proof, sign, or trace of their love? Does it lie in the material success of those whom they love? If not, in what?

These questions, which Mr. Carlyle has omitted to consider in his works, we now propose to him, and invite his notice of them. Our own answers we do not, at present, give; nevertheless, if required, we have them.

He also bade men “act;" and, for the third thing, he bade them "seek light;" that is, clearness of knowledge. How then has he carried out these maxims? He has certainly gained a good deal of clear knowledge in the historical line; and he has exhibited as much vigour of action as any one man can exhibit in the way of writing. Nor is there anything to be said against his conduct in these respects, though something against his consistency, considering the opposition which he has continually affirmed to exist between talk and action. But the real mischief lies here: - for all knowledge, for all action, experience is required; principles, however sound, will do nothing by themselves. Now the field of experience to which Mr. Carlyle's faculty led him was one; the field of experience to which his desires led him was another, and a very different one. His faculty lay in the treatment of all which is deep in feeling, and vivid in external presentation. He might have been We now come to Mr. Carlyle's later an unrivalled historian. But his desire writings; and we must own that there was to exert a strong practical influence seem to us in them many and great de- on mankind; and his defect in the cool fects. In saying this, we are not unmind- patient understanding, in appreciation of ful of the power manifested in them, which the material mechanism of society, was a is not unworthy of the promise of his early fatal barrier against his exerting such an days; nor do we fail to see many deep and influence. Of the qualities of a statespiercing truths. But that they can satisfy man he has none. There is not, we will the mind which seeks for secure scientific confidently affirm, one single political protruth, or for a secure basis of action,posal of his own, in the whole compass of this, indeed, we cannot believe. We know his writings, that is even intelligible, let well what allowance has always to be alone its being feasible or good; scarcely made for the possibility of misunderstand- is there an instance of his supporting an ing in criticizing the works of a man of intelligible political proposal framed by genius. If we regarded Mr. Carlyle as un- another. His writings are full of generintelligible, we should never venture to ous political feeling, and contain many say that he was defective. It is because considerations that may be made use of he seems to us entirely intelligible, that by a statesman; but of practical proposals we venture to declare him faulty. there is an absolute void. That he should have thought himself capable at all of entering on this field was a mistake and a mistake not without pernicious consequences.

It is worth considering how far he has carried out his own principles, which, after all are worth nothing unless acted on. He said "Love God;" and we presume he would not exclude from the meaning of this maxim that other maxim, "Love men." Now nothing is more marked in his later writings than the absence of tenderness admiration there is, but not love. There is no spontaneous trust in

:

The error, however, was unavoidable. The desire, yet the incapacity, for action was too powerful in Mr. Carlyle to be restrained; what he could not effect himself he was compelled to inculcate upon others. This vehement urgency chafes and mutters beneath the surface even of his earlier

writings. He chides the temper, he rebukes it, he represses it; but it is there. In vain does he say that "no wise man Further, this spirit of rebuke and will endeavour to reform a world; the prophecy was in part inherited by him only sure reformation is that which each from others. To begin with, it is national: begins and perfects upon himself." Mr. the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum has Carlyle, in spite of all disclaimers, was long been celebrated; and the mantle of bent upon reforming a world. In vain the Covenanters has fallen upon Mr. Cardoes he take Goethe for his model - the creative, impersonal, tranquil, universal poet. These qualities did not by nature belong to Mr. Carlyle; and he could not assume them. The volcanic fires burst out at length through all the green smoothness of their covering.