Past and Present: Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.Carlyle, Thomas
Philosophy
Past and Present: Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.
Carlyle, Thomas
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
But have not we now advanced to strange new stages of Hero-worship,
now in the little Church of Hampden, with our penknives out, and
twelve grave-diggers with pulleys? The manner of men's Hero-worship,
verily it is the innermost fact of their existence, and determines all
the rest,--at public hustings, in private drawing-rooms, in church,
in market, and wherever else. Have true reverence, and what indeed is
inseparable therefrom, reverence the right man, all is well; have
sham-reverence, and what also follows, greet with it the wrong man,
then all is ill, and there is nothing well. Alas, if Hero-worship
become Dilettantism, and all except Mammonism be a vain grimace, how
much, in this most earnest Earth, has gone and is evermore going to
fatal destruction, and lies wasting in quiet lazy ruin, no man
regarding it! Till at length no heavenly _Ism_ any longer coming down
upon us, _Isms_ from the other quarter have to mount up. For the
Earth, I say, is an earnest place; Life is no grimace, but a most
serious fact. And so, under universal Dilettantism much having been
stript bare, not the souls of men only, but their very bodies and
bread-cupboards having been stript bare, and life now no longer
possible,--all is reduced to desperation, to the iron law of Necessity
and very Fact again; and to temper Dilettantism, and astonish it, and
burn it up with infernal fire, arises Chartism, _Bare-back-ism_,
Sansculottism so-called! May the gods, and what of unworshipped heroes
still remain among us, avert the omen!--
* * * * *
But however this may be, St. Edmund's Loculus, we find, has the veils
of silk and linen reverently replaced, the lid fastened down again
with its sixteen ancient nails; is wrapt in a new costly covering of
silk, the gift of Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury: and through the
sky-window John of Dice sees it lifted to its place in the Shrine, the
pannels of this latter duly refixed, fit parchment documents being
introduced withal;--and now John and his vestrymen can slide down from
the roof, for all is over, and the Convent wholly awakens to matins.
'When we assembled to sing matins,' says Jocelin, 'and understood
what had been done, grief took hold of all that had not seen these
things, each saying to himself, "Alas, I was deceived." Matins over,
the Abbot called the Convent to the great Altar; and briefly
recounting the matter, alleged that it had not been in his power, nor
was it permissible or fit, to invite us all to the sight of such
things. At hearing of which, we all wept, and with tears sang _Te Deum
laudamus_; and hastened to toll the bells in the Choir.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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