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 truly a 'Splendour of God,' as in William Conqueror's rough oath,
did dwell in those old rude veracious ages; did inform, more and more,
with a heavenly nobleness, all departments of their work and life.
Phantasms could not yet walk abroad in mere Cloth Tailorage; they were
at least Phantasms 'on the rim of the horizon,' pencilled there by an
eternal Light-beam from within. A most 'practical' Hero-worship went
on, unconsciously or half-consciously, everywhere. A Monk Samson, with
a maximum of two shillings in his pocket, could, without ballot-box,
be made a Viceking of, being seen to be worthy. The difference between
a good man and a bad man was as yet felt to be, what it forever is, an
immeasurable one. Who _durst_ have elected a Pandarus Dogdraught, in
those days, to any office, Carlton Club, Senatorship, or place
whatsoever? It was felt that the arch Satanas and no other had a clear
right of property in Pandarus; that it were better for you to have no
hand in Pandarus, to keep out of Pandarus his neighbourhood! Which is,
to this hour, the mere fact; though for the present, alas, the
forgotten fact. I think they were comparatively blessed times those,
in their way! 'Violence,' 'war,' 'disorder:' well, what is war, and
death itself, to such a perpetual life-in-death, and 'peace, peace,
where there is no peace'! Unless some Hero-worship, in its new
appropriate form, can return, this world does not promise to be very
habitable long.
Old Anselm, exiled Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the purest-minded
'men of genius,' was travelling to make his appeal to Rome against
King Rufus,--a man of rough ways, in whom the 'inner Lightbeam' shone
very fitfully. It is beautiful to read, in Monk Eadmer, how the
Continental populations welcomed and venerated this Anselm, as no
French population now venerates Jean-Jacques or giant-killing
Voltaire; as not even an American population now venerates a Schnuespel
the distinguished Novelist! They had, by phantasy and true insight,
the intensest conviction that a God's-Blessing dwelt in this
Anselm,--as is my conviction too. They crowded round, with bent knees
and enkindled hearts, to receive his blessing, to hear his voice, to
see the light of his face. My blessings on them and on him!--But the
notablest was a certain necessitous or covetous Duke of Burgundy, in
straitened circumstances we shall hope,--who reflected that in all
likelihood this English Archbishop, going towards Rome to appeal, must
have taken store of cash with him to bribe the Cardinals. Wherefore he
of Burgundy, for his part, decided to lie in wait and rob him. 'In an
open space of a wood,' some 'wood' then green and growing, eight
centuries ago, in Burgundian Land,--this fierce Duke, with fierce
steel followers, shaggy, savage, as the Russian bear, dashes out on
the weak old Anselm; who is riding along there, on his small
quiet-going pony; escorted only by Eadmer and another poor Monk on
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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