Nineteenth Century Questions

by James Freeman Clarke

II. We now come to treat of Carlyle in his present aspect,—a much less agreeable task. We leave Carlyle the generous and gentle, for Carlyle the hard cynic. We leave him, the friend of man, lover of his race, for another Carlyle, advocate of negro slavery, worshiper of mere force, sneering at philanthropy, and admiring only tyrants, despots, and slaveholders. The change, and the steps which led to it, chronologically and logically, it is our business to scrutinize,—not a grateful occupation indeed, but possibly instructive and useful.

Thomas Carlyle, after spending his previous life in Scotland, and from 1827 to 1834 in his solitude at Craigenputtoch, removed to London in the latter year, when thirty-eight years old. Since then he has permanently resided in London, in a house situated on one of the quiet streets running at right angles with the Thames. He came to London almost an unknown man; he has there become a great name and power in literature. He has had for friends such men as John Stuart Mill, Sterling, Maurice, Leigh Hunt, Browning, Thackeray, and Emerson. His "French Revolution" was published in 1837; "Sartor Resartus" (published in Frazer in 1833, and in Boston in a volume in 1836) was put forth collectively in 1838; and in the same year his "Miscellanies" (also collected and issued in Boston in 1838) were published in London, in four volumes. "Chartism" was issued in 1839. He gave four courses of Lectures in Willis's rooms "to a select but crowded audience," in 1837, 1838, 1839, and 1840. Only the last of these—"Heroes and Hero-Worship"—was published. "Past and Present" followed in 1843, "Oliver Cromwell" in 1845. In 1850 he printed "Latter-Day Pamphlets," and subsequently his "Life of Sterling" (1851), and the four volumes, now issued, of "Frederick the Great."

The first evidence of an altered tendency is perhaps to be traced in the "French Revolution." It is a noble and glorious book; but, as one of his friendly critics has said, "its philosophy is contemptuous and mocking, and it depicts the varied and gigantic characters which stalk across the scene, not so much as responsible and living mortals, as the mere mechanical implements of some tremendous and irresistible destiny." In "Heroes and Hero-Worship" the habit has grown of revering mere will, rather than calm intellectual and moral power. The same thing is shown in "Past and Present," in "Cromwell," and in "Latter-Day Pamphlets," which the critic quoted above says is "only remarkable as a violent imitation of himself, and not of his better self." For the works of this later period, indeed, the best motto would be that verse from Daniel: "He shall exalt himself, and magnify himself, and speak marvelous things; neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, but in his stead shall he honor the God of Forces, a god whom his fathers knew not."

Probably this apostasy from his better faith had begun, before this, to show itself in conversation. At least Margaret Fuller, in a letter dated 1846, finds herself in his presence admiring his brilliancy, but "disclaiming and rejecting almost everything he said." "For a couple of hours," says she, "he was talking about poetry, and the whole harangue was one eloquent proclamation of the defects in his own mind." "All Carlyle's talk, another evening," says she, "was a defence of mere force,—success the test of right; if people would not behave well, put collars round their necks; find a hero, and let them be his slaves." "Mazzini was there, and, after some vain attempts to remonstrate, became very sad. Mrs. Carlyle said to me, 'These are but opinions to Carlyle; but to Mazzini, who has given his all, and helped bring his friends to the scaffold, in pursuit of such subjects, it is a matter of life and death.'"

As this mood of Mr. Carlyle comes out so strongly in the "Latter-Day Pamphlets," it is perhaps best to dwell on them at greater leisure.

The first is "The Present Time." In this he describes Democracy as inevitable, but as utterly evil; calls for a government; finds most European governments, that of England included, to be shams and falsities,—no-government, or drifting, to be a yet greater evil. The object, he states, is to find the noblest and best men to govern. Democracy fails to do this; for universal balloting is not adequate to the task. Democracy answered in the old republics, when the mass were slaves, but will not answer now. The United States are no proof of its success, for (1st) anarchy is avoided merely by the quantity of cheap land, and (2d) the United States have produced no spiritual results, but only material. Democracy in America is no-government, and "its only feat is to have produced eighteen millions of the greatest bores ever seen in the world." Mr. Carlyle's plan, therefore, is to find, somehow, the best man for a ruler, to make him a despot, to make the mass of the English and Irish slaves, to beat them if they will not work, to shoot them if they still refuse. The only method of finding this best man, which he suggests, is to call for him. Accordingly, Mr. Thomas Carlyle calls, saying, "Best man, come forward, and govern."

The sum, therefore, of his recipe for the diseases of the times is Slavery.

The second pamphlet is called "Model Prisons," and the main object of this is to ridicule all attempts at helping men by philanthropy or humanity. The talk of "Fraternity" is nonsense, and must be drummed out of the world. Beginning with model prisons, he finds them much too good for the "scoundrels" who are shut up there. He would have them whipped and hung (seventy thousand in a year, we suppose, as in bluff King Harry's time, with no great benefit therefrom). "Revenge," he says, "is a right feeling against bad men,—only the excess of it wrong." The proper thing to say to a bad man is, "Caitiff, I hate thee." "A collar round the neck, and a cart-whip over the back," is what he thinks would be more just to criminals than a model prison. The whole effort of humanity should be to help the industrious and virtuous poor; the criminals should be swept out of the way, whipt, enslaved, or hung. As for human brotherhood, he does not admit brotherhood with "scoundrels." Particularly disgusting to him is it to hear this philanthropy to bad men called Christianity. Christianity, he thinks, does not tell us to love the bad, but to hate them as God hates them. According, probably, to his private expurgated version of the Gospel, "that ye may be the children of your Father in heaven, whose sun rises only on the good, and whose rain falls only on the just."

"Downing Street" and "New Downing Street" are fiery tirades against the governing classes in England. Mr. Carlyle says (according to his inevitable refrain), that England does not want a reformed Parliament, a body of talkers, but a reformed Downing Street, a body of workers. He describes the utter imbecility of the English government, and calls loudly for some able man to take its place. Two passages are worth quoting; the first as to England's aspect in her foreign relations, which is quite as true for 1864 as for 1854.

"How it stands with the Foreign Office, again, one still less knows. Seizures of Sapienza, and the like sudden appearances of Britain in the character of Hercules-Harlequin, waving, with big bully-voice, her sword of sharpness over field-mice, and in the air making horrid circles (horrid Catherine-wheels and death-disks of metallic terror from said huge sword) to see how they will like it. Hercules-Harlequin, the Attorney Triumphant, the World's Busybody!"