"Bacon" ("Critical and Miscellaneous Essays").—Macaulay.
"Account of the Life and Times of Lord Bacon."—Spedding.
THOMAS CARLYLE
(1795–1881)
Carlyle was the son of a stone mason. He entered the University of Edinburgh at the age of thirteen and remained there five years, proving himself an omnivorous reader but impractical in many respects, so that he took no degree. After several years of hardship in Scotland as a teacher and a hack writer he married Jane Welsh, whose intellect was almost the equal of his own and whose eccentricity of temper was also similar to his, with the result that much of their life was marred by bickering; yet there is no question of their mutual affection. After a long fight against poverty in London, he eventually won the esteem of Europe for his bold personality and titanic literary power and died full of years and honors, but sensitive and harsh to the last. It is only fair to mention that he was the victim of lifelong dyspeptic trouble and the depression resultant therefrom.
His writings all make a study of life, seeking the answer in the lives of the great men, the Heroes, whether of literature or of history. His early studies in German literature, especially the work of Goethe, influenced him not only in his outlook on the universe but in his literary style. Sacrificing everything to force, he adopts every expedient to drive home each point in the lesson he wishes to convey. This intense earnestness and unprecedented unconventionality, although united with phenomenal descriptive powers, resulted in an ungainly style, yet so filled with sincerity and the hatred of shams and falsity as to hold and inspire not merely a select circle of readers but a whole nation. His influence was that of a living personality, a prophet to all English-speaking peoples.
"Sartor Resartus" expresses the doubts and hesitancies of youth, when confronted with the materialism and apparent relentlessness of nature, together with the bold, sturdy defiance which youth's courage creates for its protection. In "Heroes and Hero-Worship," the "Essay on Burns," "The French Revolution," and the "History of Frederick the Great" he holds up examples of heroism as he sees them, searchingly and vividly. So in the "Life of John Sterling," he studies the character of one of his dearest friends, recently dead, and there finds the same qualities of manly nobility. His work becomes not only biographical but historical, obviously, and such volumes as "Past and Present" and "Latter-Day Pamphlets" attack flagrant weaknesses of his day. Work that is so daring and furious in tone could not be utterly free from error; his conclusions are not always justified. Yet he will always remain the prophet and seer of his century.
THE MAN
1. Of what extraction was Carlyle?