Thomas Carlyle.
Thomas Carlyle was born at Ecclefechan, Annandale. His parents were “good farmer people,” his father an elder in the Secession church there, and a man of strong native sense, whose words were said to “nail a subject to the wall.” His excellent mother still lives, and we had the pleasure of meeting her lately in the company of her illustrious son; and beautiful it was to see his profound and tender regard, and her motherly and yearning reverence—to hear her fine old covenanting accents, concerting with his transcendental tones. He studied in Edinburgh. Previous to this, he had become intimate with Edward Irving, an intimacy which continued unimpaired to the close of the latter's eccentric career. Like most Scottish students, he had many struggles to encounter in the course of his education; and had, we believe, to support himself by private tuition, translations for the booksellers, &c. The day star of German literature arose early in his soul, and has been his guide and genius ever since. He entered into a correspondence with Goethe, which lasted, at intervals, till the latter's death. Yet he has never, we understand, visited Germany. He was, originally, destined for the church. At one period he taught an academy in Dysart, at the same time that Irving was teaching in Kirkaldy. After his marriage, he resided partly at Comely Bank, Edinburgh; and, for a year or two in Craigenputtock, a wild and solitary farm-house in the upper part of Dumfriesshire. Here, however, far from society, save that, of the “great dumb monsters of mountains,” he wearied out his very heart. A ludicrous story is told of Lord Jeffrey visiting him in this out-of-the-way region, when they were unapprized of his coming—had nothing in the house fit for the palate of the critic, and had, in dire haste and pother, to send off for the wherewithal to a market town about fifteen miles off. Here, [pg 587] too, as we may see hereafter, Emerson, on his way home from Italy, dropped in like a spirit, spent precisely twenty-four hours, and then “forth uprose that lone, wayfaring man,” to return to his native woods. He has, for several years of late, resided in Chelsea, London, where he lives in a plain, simple fashion; occasionally, but seldom, appearing at the splendid soirées of Lady Blessington, but listened to, when he goes, as an oracle; receiving, at his tea-table, visitors from every part of the world; forming an amicable centre for men of the most opposite opinions and professions, Poets and Preachers, Pantheists and Puritans, Tennysons and Scotts, Cavanaighs and Erskines, Sterlings and Robertsons, smoking his perpetual pipe, and pouring out, in copious stream, his rich and quaint philosophy. His appearance is fine, without being ostentatiously singular—his hair dark—his brow marked, though neither very broad nor very lofty—his cheek tinged with a healthy red—his eye, the truest index of his genius, flashing out, at times, a wild and mystic fire from its dark and quiet surface. He is above the middle size, stoops slightly, dresses carefully, but without any approach to foppery. His address, somewhat high and distant at first, softens into simplicity and cordial kindness. His conversation is abundant, inartificial, flowing on, and warbling as it flows, more practical than you would expect from the cast of his writings—picturesque and graphic in a high measure—full of the results of extensive and minute observation—often terribly direct and strong, garnished with French and German phrase, rendered racy by the accompaniment of the purest Annandale accent, and coming to its climaxes, ever and anon, in long, deep, chest-shaking bursts of laughter.
Altogether, in an age of singularities, Thomas Carlyle stands peculiarly alone. Generally known, and warmly appreciated, he has of late become—popular, in the strict sense, he is not, and may never be. His works may never climb the family library, nor his name become a household word; but while the Thomsons and the Campbells shed their gentle genius, like light, into the hall and the hovel—the shop of the artisan and the sheiling of the shepherd, Carlyle, like the Landors and Lambs of this age, and the Brownes and Burtons of a past, will exert a more limited but profounder power—cast a dimmer but more gorgeous radiance—attract fewer but more devoted admirers, and obtain an equal, and perhaps more enviable immortality.
To the foregoing sketch of Carlyle, which is from the eloquent critical description of Gilfillan, we append the following, which is from a letter recently published in the Dumfries and Galloway Courier. The writer, after remarking at some length upon the “Latter Day Pamphlets,” which are Carlyle's latest productions, proceeds to give this graphic and interesting sketch of his personal appearance and conversation:
“Passing from the political phase of these productions (the ‘Latter Day Pamphlets’), which is not my vocation to discuss, I found for myself one very peculiar charm in the perusal of them—they seemed such perfect transcripts of the conversation of Thomas Carlyle. With something more of set continuity—of composition—but essentially the same thing, the Latter Day Pamphlets' are in their own way a ‘Boswell's Life’ of Carlyle. As I read and read, I was gradually transported from my club-room, with its newspaper-clad tables, and my dozing fellow-loungers, only kept half awake by periodical titillations of snuff, and carried in spirit to the grave and quiet sanctum in Chelsea, where Carlyle dispenses wisdom and hospitality with equally unstinted hand. The long, tall, spare figure is before me—wiry, though, and elastic, and quite capable of taking a long, tough spell through the moors of Ecclefechan, or elsewhere—stretched at careless, homely ease in his elbow-chair, yet ever with strong natural motions and starts, as the inward spirit stirs. The face, too, is before me—long and thin, with a certain tinge of paleness, but no sickness or attenuation, form muscular and vigorously marked, and not wanting some glow of former rustic color—pensive, almost solemn, yet open, and cordial, and tender, very tender. The eye, as generally happens, is the chief outward index of the soul—an eye is not easy to describe, but felt ever after one has looked thereon and therein. It is dark and full, shadowed over by a compact, prominent forehead. But the depth, the expression, the far inner play of it—who could transfer that even to the eloquent canvas, far less to this very in-eloquent paper? It is not brightness, it is not flash, it is not power even—something beyond all these. The expression is, so to speak, heavy laden—as if be-tokening untold burdens of thought, and long, long fiery struggles, resolutely endured—endured until they had been in some practical manner overcome; to adopt his own fond epithet, and it comes nearest to the thing, his is the heroic eye, but of a hero who has done hard battle against Paynim hosts. This is no dream of mine—I have often heard this peculiarity remarked. The whole form and expression of the face remind me of Dante—it wants the classic element, and the mature and matchless harmony which distinguish the countenance of the great Florentine; but something in the cast and in the look, especially the heavy laden, but dauntless eye, is very much alike. But he speaks to me. The tongue has the sough of Annandale—an echo of the Solway, with its compliments to old Father Thames. A keen, sharp, ringing voice, in the genuine Border key, but tranquil and sedate withal—neighborly and frank, and always in unison with what is uttered. Thus does the presence of Thomas Carlyle rise before me—a ‘true man’ in all his bearings and in all his sayings. And in this same guise do I seem to hear from him all those ‘Latter Day Pamphlets.’ Even such in his conversation—he sees the very thing he speaks of; it breathes and moves palpable to him, and hence his words form a picture. When you [pg 588] come from him, the impression is like having seen a great brilliant panorama; every thing had been made visible and naked to your sight. But more and better far than that; you bear home with you an indelible feeling of love for the man—deep at the heart, long as life. No man has ever inspired more of this personal affection. Not to love Carlyle when you know him is something unnatural, as if one should say they did not love the breeze that fans their cheek, or the vine-tree which has refreshed them both with its leafy shade and its exuberant juices. He abounds, himself, in love and in good works. His life, not only as a ‘writer of books,’ but as a man among his fellows, has been a continued shower of benefits. The young men, more especially, to whom he has been the good Samaritan, pouring oil upon their wounds, and binding up their bruised limbs, and putting them on the way of recovery of health and useful energy—the number of such can scarcely be told, and will never be known till the great day of accounts. One of these, who in his orisons will ever remember him, has just read to me, with tears of grateful attachment in his eyes, portions of a letter of counsel and encouragement which he received from him in the hour of darkness, and which was but the prelude to a thousand acts of substantial kindness and of graceful attention. As the letter contains no secret, and may fall as a fructifying seed into some youthful bosom that may be entering upon its trials and struggles, a quotation from it will form an appropriate finale at this time. He thus writes: ‘It will be good news, in all times coming, to learn that such a life as yours unfolds itself according to its promise, and becomes in some tolerable degree what it is capable of being. The problem is your own, to make or to mar—a great problem for you, as the like is for every man born into this world. You have my entire sympathy in your denunciation of the “explosive” character. It is frequent in these times, and deplorable wherever met with. Explosions are ever wasteful, woeful; central fire should not explode itself, but lie silent, far down at the centre; and make all good fruits grow! We can not too often repeat to ourselves, “Strength is seen, not in spasms, but in stout bearing of burdens.” You can take comfort in the meanwhile, if you need it, by the experience of all wise men, that a right heavy burden is precisely the thing wanted for a young strong man. Grievous to be borne; but bear it well, you will find it one day to have been verily blessed. “I would not, for any money,” says the brave Jean Paul, in his quaint way. “I would not, for any money, have had money in my youth!” He speaks a truth there, singular as it may seem to many. These young obscure years ought to be incessantly employed in gaining knowledge of things worth knowing, especially of heroic human souls worth knowing. And you may believe me, the obscurer such years are, it is apt to be the better. Books are needful; but yet not many books; a few well read. An open, true, patient, and valiant soul is needed; that is the one thing needful.’ ”
The Gentleman Beggar. An Attorney's Story. (From Dickens's Household Words.)
One morning, about five years ago, I called by appointment on Mr. John Balance, the fashionable pawnbroker, to accompany him to Liverpool, in pursuit for a Levanting customer—for Balance, in addition to pawning, does a little business in the sixty per cent. line. It rained in torrents when the cab stopped at the passage which leads past the pawning boxes to his private door. The cabman rang twice, and at length Balance appeared, looming through the mist and rain in the entry, illuminated by his perpetual cigar. As I eyed him rather impatiently, remembering that trains wait for no man, something like a hairy dog, or a bundle of rags, rose up at his feet, and barred his passage for a moment. Then Balance cried out with an exclamation, in answer apparently to a something I could not hear, “What, man alive!—slept in the passage!—there, take that, and get some breakfast, for Heaven's sake!” So saying, he jumped into the “Hansom,” and we bowled away at ten miles an hour, just catching the Express as the doors of the station were closing. My curiosity was full set—for although Balance can be free with his money, it is not exactly to beggars that his generosity is usually displayed; so when comfortably ensconced in a coupé, I finished with—
“You are liberal with your money this morning: pray, how often do you give silver to street cadgers?—because I shall know now what walk to take when flats and sharps leave off buying law.”
Balance, who would have made an excellent parson if he had not been bred to a case-hardening trade, and has still a soft bit left in his heart that is always fighting with his hard head, did not smile at all, but looked as grim as if squeezing a lemon into his Saturday night's punch. He answered slowly, “A cadger—yes; a beggar—a miserable wretch, he is now; but let me tell you, Master David, that that miserable bundle of rags was born and bred a gentleman; the son of a nobleman, the husband of an heiress, and has sat and dined at tables where you and I, Master David, are only allowed to view the plate by favor of the butler. I have lent him thousands, and been well paid. The last thing I had from him was his court suit; and I hold now his bill for one hundred pounds that will be paid, I expect, when he dies.”