On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in HistoryCarlyle, Thomas
Philosophy
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
Carlyle, Thomas
Hero worship; Heroes
Whoever looks intelligently at this Shakspeare may recognize that he too
was a _Prophet_, in his way; of an insight analogous to the Prophetic,
though he took it up in another strain. Nature seemed to this man also
divine; unspeakable, deep as Tophet, high as Heaven; "We are such stuff
as Dreams are made of!" That scroll in Westminster Abbey, which few read
with understanding, is of the depth of any seer. But the man sang; did
not preach, except musically. We called Dante the melodious Priest
of Middle-Age Catholicism. May we not call Shakspeare the still more
melodious Priest of a _true_ Catholicism, the "Universal Church" of
the Future and of all times? No narrow superstition, harsh asceticism,
intolerance, fanatical fierceness or perversion: a Revelation, so far as
it goes, that such a thousand-fold hidden beauty and divineness dwells
in all Nature; which let all men worship as they can! We may say
without offence, that there rises a kind of universal Psalm out of this
Shakspeare too; not unfit to make itself heard among the still more
sacred Psalms. Not in disharmony with these, if we understood them, but
in harmony!--I cannot call this Shakspeare a "Sceptic," as some do;
his indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels of his time
misleading them. No: neither unpatriotic, though he says little about
his Patriotism; nor sceptic, though he says little about his Faith. Such
"indifference" was the fruit of his greatness withal: his whole heart
was in his own grand sphere of worship (we may call it such); these
other controversies, vitally important to other men, were not vital to
him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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