Authors, Scottish -- 19th century -- Biography; Carlyle, Thomas, 1795-1881; Historians -- Great Britain -- Biography
Don't disparage the work that gains your bread. What is all
work but a drudgery? no labour for the present joyous, but
grievous. A man who has nothing to admire except himself is
in the minimum state. The question is, Does a man really
love Truth, or only the market price of it? Even literary
men should have something else to do. Katnes was a lawyer,
Roscoe a merchant, Hans Sachs a cobbler, Burns a gauger,
etc.
The following singular passage, the style of which suggests an imitation
of Sterne, is the acme of unconscious self-satire:--
You are infinitely unjust to Blockheads, as they are called.
Ask yourself seriously within your own heart--what right
have you to live wisely in God's world, and they not to live
a little less wisely? Is there a man more to be condoled
with, nay, I will say to be cherished and tenderly treated,
than a man that has no brain? My Purse is empty, it can be
filled again; the Jew Rothschild could fill it; or I can
even live with it very far from full. But, gracious heavens!
What is to be done with my _empty Head_?
Three of the visits of this period are memorable. Two from the Jeffreys
(in 1828 and 1830) leave us with the same uncomfortable impression of
kindness ungrudgingly bestowed and grudgingly received. Jeffrey had a
double interest in the household at Craigenputtock--an almost brotherly
regard for the wife, and a belief, restrained by the range of a keen
though limited appreciation, in the powers of the husband, to whom he
wrote: "Take care of the fair creature who has entrusted herself so
entirely to you," and with a half truth, "You have no mission upon earth,
whatever you may fancy, half so important as to be innocently happy." And
again: "Bring your blooming Eve out of your blasted Paradise, and seek
shelter in the lower world." But Carlyle held to the "banner with a
strange device," and was either deaf or indignant. The visits passed,
with satirical references from both host and hostess; for Mrs. Carlyle,
who could herself abundantly scoff and scold, would allow the liberty to
no one else. Jeffrey meanwhile was never weary of well-doing. Previous to
his promotion as Lord Advocate and consequent transference to London,
he tried to negotiate for Carlyle's appointment as his successor in the
editorship of the _Review,_ but failed to make him accept the necessary
conditions. The paper entitled _Signs of the Times_ was the last
production that he had to revise for his eccentric friend. Those
following on Taylor's _German Literature_ and the _Characteristics_ were
brought out in 1831 under the auspices of Macvey Napier. The other visit
was from the most illustrious of Carlyle's English-speaking friends,
in many respects a fellow-worker, yet "a spirit of another sort," and
destined, though a transcendental mystic, to be the most practical of his
benefactors. Twenty-four hours of Ralph Waldo Emerson (often referred to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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