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
It is with the hope of awakening here and there a British man to know
himself for a man and divine soul, that a few words of parting
admonition, to all persons to whom the Heavenly Powers have lent power
of any kind in this land, may now be addressed. And first to those
same Master-Workers, Leaders of Industry; who stand nearest and in
fact powerfulest, though not most prominent, being as yet in too many
senses a Virtuality rather than an Actuality.
* * * * *
The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is ever to be led, are virtually
the Captains of the World; if there be no nobleness in them, there
will never be an Aristocracy more. But let the Captains of Industry
consider: once again, are they born of other clay than the old
Captains of Slaughter; doomed forever to be no Chivalry, but a mere
gold-plated _Doggery_,--what the French well name _Canaille_,
'Doggery' with more or less gold carrion at its disposal? Captains of
Industry are the true Fighters, henceforth recognisable as the only
true ones: Fighters against Chaos, Necessity and the Devils and
Joetuns; and lead on Mankind in that great, and alone true, and
universal warfare; the stars in their courses fighting for them, and
all Heaven and all Earth saying audibly, Well done! Let the Captains
of Industry retire into their own hearts, and ask solemnly, If there
is nothing but vulturous hunger, for fine wines, valet reputation and
gilt carriages, discoverable there? Of hearts made by the Almighty God
I will not believe such a thing. Deep-hidden under wretchedest
god-forgetting Cants, Epicurisms, Dead-Sea Apisms; forgotten as under
foulest fat Lethe mud and weeds, there is yet, in all hearts born into
this God's-World, a spark of the Godlike slumbering. Awake, O
nightmare sleepers; awake, arise, or be forever fallen! This is not
playhouse poetry; it is sober fact. Our England, our world cannot live
as it is. It will connect itself with a God again, or go down with
nameless throes and fire-consummation to the Devils. Thou who feelest
aught of such a Godlike stirring in thee, any faintest intimation of
it as through heavy-laden dreams, follow _it_, I conjure thee. Arise,
save thyself, be one of those that save thy country.
Bucaniers, Chactaw Indians, whose supreme aim in fighting is that
they may get the scalps, the money, that they may amass scalps and
money: out of such came no Chivalry, and never will! Out of such came
only gore and wreck, infernal rage and misery; desperation quenched in
annihilation. Behold it, I bid thee, behold there, and consider! What
is it that thou have a hundred thousand-pound bills laid-up in thy
strong-room, a hundred scalps hung-up in thy wigwam? I value not them
or thee. Thy scalps and thy thousand-pound bills are as yet nothing,
if no nobleness from within irradiate them; if no Chivalry, in action,
or in embryo ever struggling towards birth and action, be there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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