Of the men of genius who have produced a great effect on their own time, there is no one concerning whom such fluctuating opinions have prevailed within forty years as in regard to Carlyle. His old admirers became his detractors, and those who first disliked him became his friends. When his earlier works appeared they attracted but little general notice, though there were many who saw in him a new light, or a new power to brush away cobwebs and shams, and to exalt the spiritual and eternal in man over all materialistic theories and worldly conventionalities.
Carlyle's "Miscellanies"--essays published first in the leading Reviews, when he lived in his moorland retreat--created enthusiasm among young students and genuine thinkers of every creed. Lord Jeffrey detected the new genius and gave him a lift. Carlyle's "French Revolution" took the world by surprise, and established his fame. His "Oliver Cromwell" modified and perhaps changed the opinions of English and American people respecting the Great Protector. It was then that his popularity was greatest, and that the eccentric genius of Cheyne Row, so long struggling with poverty, was assured of a competence, and was received in some of the proudest families of the kingdom as a teacher and a sage. Thus far he was an optimist, taking cheerful views of human life, and encouraging those who had noble aspirations.
But for some unaccountable reason, whether from discontent or dyspepsia or disappointment, or disgust with this world, Carlyle gradually became a pessimist, and attacked all forms of philanthropy, thus alienating those who had been his warmest supporters. He grew more bitter and morose, until at last he howled almost like a madman, and was steeped in cynicism and gloom. He put forth the doctrine that might was right, and that thrones belong to the strongest. He saw no reliance in governments save upon physical force, and expressed the most boundless contempt for all institutions established by the people. Then he wrote his "Frederic the Great,"--his most ambitious and elaborate production, received as an authority from its marvellous historical accuracy, but not so generally read as his "French Revolution," and not, like his "Cromwell," changing the opinions of mankind.
Soon after this the death of his wife plunged him into renewed gloom, from which he never emerged; and he virtually retired from the world, and was lost sight of by the younger generation, until his "Reminiscences" appeared, injudiciously published at his request by his friend and pupil Froude, in which his scorn and contempt for everybody and everything turned the current of public opinion strongly against him. This was still further increased when the Letters of his wife appeared.
Carlyle's bitterest assailants were now agnostics of every shade and degree, especially of the humanitarian school,--that to which Mill and George Eliot belonged. It was seen that this reviler of hypocrisy and shams, this disbeliever in miracles and in mechanisms to save society, was after all a believer in God Almighty and in immortality; a stern advocate of justice and duty, appealing to the conscience of mankind; a man who detested Comte the positivist as much as he despised Mill the agnostic, and who exalted the old religion of his fathers, stripped of supernaturalism, as the only hope of the world. The biography by Froude, while it does not conceal the atrabilious temperament of Carlyle, his bad temper, his intense egotism, his irritability, his overweening pride, his scorn, his profound loneliness and sorrow, and the deep gloom into which he finally settled, made clear at the same time his honest and tender nature, his noble independence, his heroic struggles with poverty of which he never complained, his generous charities, his conscientiousness and allegiance to duty, his constant labors amid disease and excessive nervousness, and his profound and unvarying love for his wife, although he was deficient in those small attentions and demonstrations of affection which are so much prized by women. If it be asked whether he was happy in his domestic relations, I would say that he was as much so as such a man could be. But it was a physical and moral impossibility that with his ailments and temper he could be happy. He was not sent into this world to be happy, but to do a work which only such a man as he could do.
So displeasing, however, were the personal peculiarities of Carlyle that the man can never be popular. This hyperborean literary giant, speaking a Babylonian dialect, smiting remorselessly all pretenders and quacks, and even honest fools, was himself personally a bundle of contradictions, fierce and sad by turns. He was a compound of Diogenes, Jeremiah, and Dr. Johnson: like the Grecian cynic in his contempt and scorn, like the Jewish prophet in his melancholy lamentations, like the English moralist in his grim humor and overbearing dogmatism.
It is unfortunate that we know so much of the man. Better would it be for his fame if we knew nothing at all of his habits and peculiarities. In our blended admiration and contempt, our minds are diverted from the lasting literary legacy he has left, which, after all, is the chief thing that concerns us. The mortal man is dead, but his works live. The biography of a great man is interesting, but his thoughts go coursing round the world, penetrating even the distant ages, modifying systems and institutions. What a mighty power is law! Yet how little do we know or care, comparatively, for lawgivers!
Thomas Carlyle was born in the year 1795, of humble parentage, in an obscure Scotch village. His father was a stone-mason, much respected for doing good work, and for his virtue and intelligence,--a rough, rugged man who appreciated the value of education. Although kind-hearted and religious, it would seem that he was as hard and undemonstrative as an old-fashioned Puritan farmer,--one of those men who never kiss their children, or even their wives, before people. His mother also was sagacious and religious, and marked by great individuality of character. For these stern parents Carlyle ever cherished the profoundest respect and affection, regularly visiting them once a year wherever he might be, writing to them frequently, and yielding as much to their influence as to that of anybody.
At the age of fourteen the boy was sent to the University of Edinburgh, with but little money in his pocket, and forced to practise the most rigid economy. He did not make a distinguished mark at college, nor did he cultivate many friendships. He was reserved, shy, awkward, and proud. After leaving college he became a school-teacher, with no aptness and much disdain for his calling. It was then that he formed the acquaintance of Edward Irving, which ripened into the warmest friendship of his life. He was much indebted to this celebrated preacher for the intellectual impulse received from him. Irving was at the head of a school at Kirkcaldy, and Carlyle became his assistant. Both these young men were ambitious, and aspired to pre-eminence. Like Napoleon at the military school of Brienne, they would not have been contented with anything less, because they were conscious of their gifts; and both attained their end. Irving became the greatest preacher of his day, and Carlyle the greatest writer; but Carlyle had the most self-sustained greatness. Irving was led by the demon of popularity into extravagances of utterance which destroyed his influence. Carlyle, on the other hand, never courted popularity; but becoming bitter and cynical in the rugged road he climbed to fame, he too lost many of his admirers.
In ceasing to be a country schoolmaster, Carlyle did not abandon teaching. He removed to Edinburgh for the study of divinity, and supported himself by giving lessons. He had been destined by his parents to be a minister of the Kirk of Scotland; but at the age of twenty-three he entered upon a severe self-examination to decide whether he honestly believed and could preach its doctrines. Weeks of intense struggle freed him from the intellectual bonds of the kirk, but fastened upon him the chronic disorder of his stomach which embittered his life, and in later years distorted his vision of the world about him. At the recommendation of his friend Irving, then preacher at Hatton Gardens, Carlyle now became private tutor to the son of Mr. Charles Buller, an Anglo-Indian merchant, on a salary of £200; and the tutor had the satisfaction of seeing his pupil's political advancement as a member of the House of Commons and one of the most promising men in England.