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CARLYLE, THOMAS (1795-1881)
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See also:CARLYLE, See also: A few lads in positions similar to his own began to look up to him as an intellectual See also:leader, and their See also:correspondence with him shows remarkable See also:interest in See also:literary matters. In 1814 Carlyle, still looking forward to the career of a See also:minister, obtained the mathematical mastership at Annan. The See also:salary of £6o or £70 a See also:year enabled him to See also:save a little See also:money. He went to Edinburgh once or twice, to deliver the discourses required from students of divinity. He does not seem, however, to have taken to his profession very earnestly. He was too shy and proud to see many of the Annan See also:people, and found his See also:chief solace in See also:reading such books as he could get. In 1816 he was appointed, through the recommendation of Leslie, to a school at See also:Kirkcaldy, where See also:Edward See also:Irving, Carlyle's See also:senior by three years, was also See also:master of a school. Irving's severity as a teacher had offended some of the parents, who set up Carlyle to be his See also:rival. A previous See also:meeting with Irving, also a native of Annan, had led to a little passage of arms, but Irving now welcomed Carlyle with a generosity which entirely won his See also:heart, and the rivals soon became the closest of See also:friends. The intimacy, affectionately commemorated in the Reminiscences, was of See also:great importance to Carlyle's whole career. " But for Irving," he says, " I had never known what the communion of See also:man with man means." Irving had a library, in which Carlyle devoured See also:Gibbon and much See also:French literature, and they made various excursions together. Carlyle did his duties as a schoolmaster punctiliously, but found the See also:life thoroughly uncongenial. No man was less fitted by temperament for the necessary drudgery and worry. A passing admiration for a See also:Miss See also:Gordon is supposed to have suggested the " Blumine " of Sartor Resartus; but he made no new friendships, and when Irving See also:left at the end of 1818 Carlyle also resigned his See also:post.
He had by this See also:time resolved to give up the ministry. He has given no details of the intellectual See also:change which alienated him from the See also: At last, one See also:day in See also:June 1821, after three See also:weeks' See also:total sleeplessness, he went through the crisis afterwards described quite " literally " in Sartor Resartus. He See also:cast out the spirit of negation, and henceforth the See also:temper of his misery was changed to one, not of " whining," but of " indignation and grim See also:fire-eyed See also:defiance." That, he says, was his spiritual new-See also:birth, though certainly not into a life of serenity. The See also:conversion was coincident with Carlyle's submission to a new and very potent influence. In 1819 he had begun to study See also:German, with which he soon acquired a very remarkable familiarity. Many of his contemporaries were awakening to the importance of German thought, and Carlyle's knowledge enabled him before See also:long to take a conspicuous See also:part in diffusing the new intellectual See also:light. The chief See also:object of his reverence was See also:Goethe. In many most important respects no two men could be more unlike; but, for the See also:present, Carlyle seems to have seen in Goethe a See also:proof that it was possible to reject outworn dogmas without sinking into See also:materialism. Goethe, by singularly different methods, had emerged from a merely negative position into a lofty and coherent conception of the universe. Meanwhile, Carlyle's various anxieties were beginning to be complicated by See also:physical derangement. A See also:rat, he declared, was gnawing at the See also:pit of his See also:stomach. He was already suffering from the ailments, whatever their precise nature, from which he never escaped. He gave vent to his irritability by See also:lamentations so grotesquely exaggerated as to make it difficult to estimate the real extent of the evil. Irving's friendship now became serviceable. Carlyle's See also:confession of the See also:radical difference of religious See also:opinion had not alienated his friend, who was settling in See also:London, and used his oppottunities for promoting Carlyle's interest. In See also:January 1822 Carlyle, through Irving's recommendation, became See also:tutor to See also: Carlyle, conscious of great abilities, and impressed by such instances of the deleterious effects of the social See also:atmosphere of London, resolved to See also:settle in his native See also:district. There he could live frugally and achieve some real work. He could, for one thing, be the interpreter of See also:Germany to See also:England. A friendly See also:letter from Goethe, acknowledging the translation of Wilhelm Meister, reached him at the end of 1824 and greatly encouraged him. Goethe afterwards spoke warmly of the life of Schiller, and desired it to be translated into German. Letters occasionally passed between them in later years, which were edited by See also:Professor Charles See also:Eliot See also:Norton in 1887. Goethe received Carlyle's See also:homage with See also:kind complacency. The See also:gift of a See also:seal to Goethe on his birthday in 1831 " from fifteen See also:English friends," including See also:Scott and See also:Wordsworth, was suggested and carried out by Carlyle. The interest in German, which Carlyle did so much to promote, suggested to him other See also:translations and reviews during the next few years, and he made some preparations for a See also:history of German literature. British curiosity, however, about such matters seems to have been soon satisfied, and the demand for such work slackened. Carlyle was meanwhile passing through the most important crisis of his See also:personal history. Jane See also:Baillie Welsh, born 1801, was the only See also:child of Dr Welsh of See also:Haddington. She had shown precocious See also:talent, and was sent to the school at Haddington where Edward Irving (q.v.) was a master. After her father's See also:death in 1819 she lived with her mother, and her wit and beauty attracted many admirers. Her old tutor, Irving, was now at Kirkcaldy, where he became engaged to a Miss See also: The publication of the letters certainly seems to justify Norton's view.] Miss Welsh's previous affair with Irving had far less importance than Fronde ascribes to it; and she soon came to regard her past love as a childish See also:fancy. She recognized Carlyle's vast intellectual superiority, and the respect gradually deepened into genuine love. The process, however, took some time. Her father had bequeathed to her his whole See also:property (£200 to £300 a year). In 1823 she made it over to her mother, but left the whole to Carlyle in the event of her own and her mother's death. She still declared that she did not love him well enough to become his wife. In 1824 she gradually relented so far as to say that she would marry if he could achieve independence. She had been brought up in a station See also:superior to that of the Carlyles, and could not accept the life of hardship which would be necessary in his present circumstances. Carlyle, accustomed to his father's See also:household, was less frightened by the prospect of poverty. He was determined not to abandon his vocation as a man of genius by following the See also:lower though more profitable paths to literary success, and expected that his wife should partake the necessary See also:sacrifice of comfort. The natural result of such discussions followed. The attraction became stronger on both sides, in spite of occasional spasms of doubt. An See also:odd incident precipitated the result. A friend of Irving's, Mrs See also:Basil Montague, wrote to Miss Welsh, to exhort her to sup-See also:press her love for Irving, who had married Miss Martin in 1823. Miss Welsh replied by announcing her intention to marry Carlyle; and then told him the whole See also:story, of which he had previously been ignorant. He properly begged her not to yield to the impulse without due See also:consideration. She answered by coming at once to his father's See also:house, where he was staying; and the marriage was finally settled. It took See also:place on the 17th of See also:October 1826. Carlyle had now to arrange the mode of life which should enable him to fulfil his aspiration. His wife had made over her income to her mother, but he had saved a small sum upon which to begin housekeeping. A passing See also:suggestion from Mrs Carlyle that they might live with her mother was judiciously abandoned. Carlyle had thought of occupying Craigenputtock, a remote and dreary farm belonging to Mrs Welsh. His wife objected his utter incapacity as a farmer; and they finally took a small house at Comely See also:Bank, Edinburgh, where they could live on a humble See also:scale. The brilliant conversation of both attracted some See also:notice in the literary society of Edinburgh. The most important connexion was with See also:Francis, See also:Lord See also:Jeffrey, still editor of the Edinburgh See also:Review. Though Jeffrey had no intellectual sympathy with Carlyle, he accepted some articles for the Review and became warmly attached to Mrs Carlyle. Carlyle began to be known as leader of a new " mystic " school, and his earnings enabled him to send his brother John to study in Germany. The public appetite, however, for " See also:mysticism " was not keen. In spite of support from Jeffrey and other friends, Carlyle failed in a candidature for a professorship at St See also:Andrews. His brother, Alexander, had now taken the farm at Craigenputtock, and the Carlyles decided to settle at the See also:separate dwelling-house there, which would bring them nearer to Mrs Welsh. They went there in 1828, and began a hard struggle. Carlyle, indomitably determined to make no concessions for immediate profit, wrote slowly and carefully, and turned out some of his most finished work. He laboured " passionately " at Sartor Resartus, and made articles out of fragments originally intended for the history of German literature. The money difficulty soon became more pressing. John, whom he was still helping, was trying unsuccessfully to set up as a See also:doctor in London; and Alexander's farming failed. In spite of such drawbacks, Carlyle in later years looked back upon the life at Craigenputtock as on the whole a comparatively healthy and even happy period, as it was certainly one of most strenuous and courageous endeavour. Though often absorbed in his work and made both gloomy and irritable by his anxieties, he found See also:relief in rides with his wife, and occasionally visiting their relations. Their letters during temporary separations are most affectionate. The See also:bleak See also:climate, however, the solitude, and the See also:necessity of managing a household with a single servant, were excessively trying .to a delicate woman, though Mrs Carlyle concealed from her See also:husband the extent of her sacrifices. The position was gradually becoming untenable. In the autumn of 183'1 Carlyle was forced to accept a See also:loan of £5o from Jeffrey, and went in See also:search of work to London, whither his wife followed him. He made some engagements with publishers, though no one would take Sartor Resartus, and returned to Craigenputtock in the See also:spring of 1832. Jeffrey, stimulated perhaps by his sympathy for Mrs Carlyle, was characteristically generous. Besides pressing loans upon both Thomas and John Carlyle, he offered to settle an See also:annuity of boo upon Thomas, and finally enabled John to support himself by recommending him to a medical position.' Carlyle's proud spirit of independence made him reject Jeffrey's help as long as possible; and even his See also:acknowledgment of the generosity (in the Reminiscences) is tinged with something disagreeably like resentment. In 1834 he applied to Jeffrey for a post at the Edinburgh See also:Observatory. John Aitken Carlyle (1801-1879) finally settled near the Carlyles in See also:Chelsea. He began an English See also:prose version of See also:Dante's Divine Comedy—which has earned him the name of " Dante Carlyle "—but only completed the translation of the Inferno (1849). The work included a See also:critical edition of the See also:text and a valuable introduction and notes. Jeffrey naturally declined to appoint a man who, in spite of some mathematical knowledge, had no See also:special qualification, and administered a See also:general lecture upon Carlyle's arrogance and eccentricity which left a permanent sense of injury.
In the beginning of 1833 the Carlyles made another trial of Edinburgh. There Carlyle. found materials in the See also:Advocates' Library for the See also:article on the See also:Diamond Necklace, one of his most perfect writings, which led him to study the history of the French Revolution. Sartor Resartus was at last appearing in See also:Fraser's See also:Magazine, though the See also:rate of See also:payment was cut down, and the publisher reported that it was received with " unqualified dissatisfaction." Edinburgh society did not attract him, and he retreated once more to Craigenputtock. After another See also:winter the necessity of some change became obvious. The Carlyles resolved to " See also:burn their See also:ships." They went to London in the summer of 1834, and took a house at 5 (now 24) See also:Cheyne See also:Row; Chelsea, which Carlyle inhabited till his death; the house has since been bought for the public. Irving, who had welcomed him on former occasions, was just dying,—a victim, as Carlyle thought, to fashionable cajoleries. A few young men were beginning to show appreciation. J. S. See also: Carlyle was charmed with Emerson, and their letters published by Professor Norton show that his regard never cooled. Emerson's interest showed that Carlyle's fame was already spreading in See also:America. Carlyle's connexion with Charles Buller, a zealous utilitarian, introduced him to the circle of " philosophical radicals." Carlyle called himself in some sense a radical; and J. S. Mill, though not an intellectual See also:disciple, was a very warm admirer of his friend's genius. Carlyle had some expectation of the editorship of the London Review, started by Sir W. See also:Molesworth at this time as an See also:organ of philosophical radicalism. The See also:combination would clearly have been explosive. Meanwhile Mill, who had collected many books upon the French Revolution, was eager to help Carlyle in the history which he was now beginning. He set to work at once and finished the first See also:volume in five months. The See also:manuscript, while entrusted to Mill for annotation, was burnt by an See also:accident. Mill induced Carlyle to accept in See also:compensation £zoo, which was urgently needed. Carlyle took up the task again and finished the whole on the 12th of January 1837. " I can tell the See also:world," he said to his wife, " you have not had for a See also:hundred years any See also:book that comes more See also:direct and flamingly from the heart of a living man. Do what you like with it, you —" The publication, six months later, of the French Revolution marks the turning-point of Carlyle's career. Many readers hold it to be the best, as it is certainly the most characteristic, of Carlyle's books. The failure of Sartor Resartus to attract See also:average readers is quite intelligible. It contains, indeed, some of the most impressive expositions of his philosophical position, and some of his most beautiful and perfectly written passages. But there is something forced and clumsy, in spite of the flashes of grim See also:humour, in the machinery of the Clothes See also:Philosophy. The mannerism, which has been attributed to an See also:imitation of See also:Jean See also:Paul, appeared to Carlyle himself to be derived rather from the phrases current in his father's house, and in any See also:case gave an appropriate See also:dialect for the expression of his See also:peculiar See also:idiosyncrasy. But it could not be appreciated by readers who would not take the trouble to learn a new See also:language. In the French Revolution Carlyle had discovered his real strength. He was always at his best when his See also:imagination was set to work upon a solid See also:frame-work of fact. The book shows a unique combination: on the one See also:hand is the singularly shrewd insight into character and the vivid realization of the picturesque; on the other is the "mysticism" or poetical philosophy which relieves the events against a background of See also:mystery. The contrast is marked by the humour which seems to combine a cynical view of human folly with a deeply pathetic sense of the sadness and suffering of life. The convictions, whatever their value, came, as he said, " flamingly from the heart." It was, of course, impossible for Carlyle to satisfy See also:modern requirements of See also:matter-of-fact accuracy. He could not in the time have assimilated all the materials even then extant, and later accumulations would necessitate a See also:complete revision. Considered as a " prose epic," or a vivid utterance of the thought of the period, it has a permanent and unique value. The book was speedily successful. It was reviewed by Mill in the See also:Westminster and by See also:Thackeray in The Times, and Carlyle, after a heroic struggle, was at last touching See also:land. In each of the years 1837 to 1840 he gave a course of lectures, of which the last only (upon " See also:Hero See also:Worship ") was published; they materially helped his finances. By. Emerson's management he also received something during the same period from See also:American publishers. At the See also:age of See also:forty-five he had thus become See also:independent. He had also established a position among the chief writers of the day. Young disciples, among whom John Sterling was the most accepted, were gathering See also:round him, and he became an object of social curiosity. Monckton Milnes (Lord See also:Houghton), who won universal popularity by the most genuine kindliness of nature, became a cordial friend. Another important intimacy was with the Barings, afterwards Lord and Lady See also:Ashburton. Carlyle's conversational See also:powers were extraordinary; though, as he won greater recognition as a See also:prophet, he indulged too freely in didactic See also:monologue. In his prophetic capacity he published two remarkable books: See also:Chartism (1829), enlarged from an article which See also:Lockhart, though personally approving, was afraid to take for the Quarterly; and Past and Present (1843), in which the recently published Mediaeval See also:Chronicle was taken as a text for the exposure of modern evils. They may be regarded as expositions of the See also:doctrine implicitly set forth in the French Revolution. Carlyle was a " radical " as sharing the sentiments of the class in which he was born. He had been profoundly moved by the widely-spread distresses in his earlier years. When the See also:yeomanry were called out to suppress riots after the See also:Peace, his sympathies were with the people rather than with the authorities. So far he was in See also:harmony with Mill and the " philosophical radicals." A fundamental divergence of principle, however, existed and was soon indicated by his speedy separation from the party and See also:alienation from Mill himself. The Revolution, according to him, meant the sweeping away of effete beliefs and institutions, but implied also the necessity of a reconstructive process. Chartism begins with a fierce attack upon the laissez faire theory, which showed See also:blindness to this necessity. The prevalent See also:political See also:economy, in which that theory was embodied, made a principle of neglecting the very evils which it should be the great See also:function of See also:government to remedy. Carlyle's doctrines, entirely opposed to the See also:ordinary opinions of Whigs and Radicals, found afterwards an expositor in his ardent disciple See also:Ruskin, and have obvious See also:affinities with more See also:recent See also:socialism. At the time he was as one crying in the See also:wilderness to little See also:practical purpose. Liberals were scandalized by his apparent See also:identification of " right " with " might," implied in the demand for a strong government; and though he often declared the true See also:interpretation to be that the right would ultimately become might, his See also:desire for strong government seemed too often to See also:sanction the inverse view. He came into collision with philanthropists, and was supposed to approve of despotism for its own See also:sake. His religious position was equally unintelligible to the average mind. While unequivocally rejecting the accepted See also:creeds, and so scandalizing even liberal theologians, he was still more hostile to simply sceptical and materialist tendencies. He was, as he called himself, a " mystic "; and his creed was too vague to be put into any See also:formula beyond a condemnation of atheism. One corollary was the famous doctrine of " hero worship " first ex-pounded in his lectures. Any philosophy of history which emphasized the importance of general causes seemed to him to imply a simply See also:mechanical doctrine and to deny the efficacy of the great spiritual forces. He met it by making See also:biography the essence of history, or attributing all great events to the " heroes," who are the successive embodiments of divine revelations. This belief was implied in his next great work, the Life and Letters of See also:Oliver See also:Cromwell, published in 1845. The great Puritan hero was a man after his own heart, and the portraitdrawn by so sympathetic a writer is not only intensely vivid, but a very effective rehabilitation of misrepresented character. The " See also:biographical " view of history, however, implies the weakness, not only of unqualified approval of all Cromwell's actions, but of omitting any See also:attempt to estimate the See also:Protector's real relation to the social and political development of the time. The question, what was Cromwell's real and permanent achievement, is not answered nor distinctly considered. The effect maybe partly due to the peculiar See also:form of the book as a detached See also:series of documents and comments. The See also:composition introduced Carlyle to the " Dryasdust " rubbish heaps of which he here and ever after-wards bitterly complained. A conscientious desire to unearth the facts, and the effort of extracting from the dullest records the materials for graphic pictures, made the process of See also:production excessively painful. For some years after Cromwell Carlyle wrote little. His growing See also:acceptance by publishers, and the See also:inheritance of her property by Mrs Carlyle on her mother's death in 1842, finally removed the stimulus of money pressure. He visited See also:Ireland in 1846 and again in 1849, when he made a long tour in See also:company with Sir C. Gavan See also:Duffy, then a young member of the Nationalist party (see Sir C. G. Duffy's Conversations with Carlyle, 1892, for an interesting narrative). Carlyle's strong convictions as to the misery and misgovernment of Ireland re-commended him to men who had taken part in the rising of 1848. Although the remedies acceptable to a eulogist of Cromwell could not be to their See also:taste, they admired his moral teaching; and he received their attentions, as Sir C. G. Duffy testifies, with conspicuous See also:courtesy. His aversion from the ordinary radical-ism led to an article upon See also:slavery in 1849, to which Mill replied, and which caused their final alienation. It was followed in 185o by the Latterday See also:Pamphlets, containing "sulphurous" denunciations of the do-nothing principle. They gave general offence, and the disapproval, according to Froude, stopped the See also:sale for years. The Life of Sterling (d. 1844), which appeared in 1851, was intended to correct the life by See also:Julius See also:Hare, which had given too much prominence to theological questions. The subject roused Carlyle's tenderest See also:mood, and the Life is one of the most perfect in the language. Carlyle meanwhile was suffering domestic troubles, unfortunately not exceptional in their nature, though the exceptional See also:intellect and characters of the persons concerned have given them unusual prominence. Carlyle's constitutional irritability made him intensely sensitive to See also:petty annoyances. He suffered the torments of See also:dyspepsia; he was often sleepless, and the crowing of " demon-fowls " in neighbours' yards drove him See also:wild. Composition meant for him intense absorption in his work; solitude and quiet were essential; and he resented interruptions by See also:grotesque explosions of humorously exaggerated wrath. Mrs Carlyle had to pass many See also:hours alone, and the management of the household and of devices intended to See also:shield him from annoyances was left entirely to her. House-cleanings and struggles with builders during the construction of a " See also:sound-proof See also:room " taxed her See also:energy, while Carlyle was hiding himself with his family in See also:Scotland or staying at English See also:country houses. Nothing could be more affectionate than his behaviour to his wife on serious occasions, such as the death of her mother, and he could be considerate when his See also:attention was called to the facts. But he was often oblivious to the See also:strain upon her energies, and had little command of his temper. An unfortunate See also:aggravation of the difficulty arose from his intimacy with the Ashburtons. Lady Ashburton, a woman of singular social See also:charm and great ability, appreciated the author, but apparently accepted the company of the author's wife rather as a necessity than as an additional charm. Mrs Carlyle was hurt by the See also:fine lady's condescension and her husband's accessibility to aristocratic blandishments. Carlyle, as a See also:wise man, should have yielded to his wife's wishes; unluckily, he was content to point out that her See also:jealousy was unreasonable, and, upon that very insufficient ground, to disregard it and to continue his intimacy with the Ashburtons on the old terms. Mrs Carlyle bitterly resented his conduct. She had been willing to renounce any aspirations of her own and to sink herself in his See also:glory, but she naturally expected him to recognize her devotion and to value her society beyond all others. She had just cause of complaint, and a remarkable See also:power, as her letters prove, of seeing things plainly and despising sentimental consolations. She was child-less, and had time to brood over her wrongs. She formed a little circle of friends, attached to her rather than to her husband; and to one of them, Giuseppe Mazzini, she confided her troubles in 1846. He gave her admirable See also:advice; and the alienation from her husband, though it continued still to smoulder, led to no further results. A See also:journal written at the same time gives a painful See also:record of her sufferings, and after her death made Carlyle conscious for the first time of their full extent. The death of Lady Ashburton in 1857 removed this cause of jealousy; and Lord Ashburton married a second wife in 1858, who became a warm friend of both Carlyles. The See also:cloud which had separated them was thus at last dispersed. Meanwhile Carlyle had become absorbed in his best and most laborious work. Soon after the completion of the Cromwell he had thought of See also:Frederick for his next hero, and had in 1845 contemplated a visit to Germany to collect materials. He did not, however, settle down finally to the work till 1851. He shut himself up in his study to wrestle with the Prussian Dryasdusts, whom he discovered to be as wearisome as their Puritan predecessors and more voluminous. He went to Scotland to see his mother, to whom he had always shown the tenderest See also:affection, on her deathbed at the end of 1853. He returned to shut himself up in the " sound-proof room." He twice visited Germany (1852 and 1858) to see Frederick's battlefields and obtain materials; and he occasion-ally went to the Ashburtons and his relations in Scotland. The first two volumes of Frederick the Great appeared in 1858, and succeeding volumes in 1862, 1864 and 1865. The success was great from the first, though it did little to clear up Carlyle's gloom. The book is in some respects his masterpiece, and its merits are beyond question. Carlyle had spared no pains in See also:research. The descriptions of the See also:campaigns are admirably vivid, and show his singular See also:eye for scenery. These narratives are said to be used by military students in Germany, and at least convince the non-military student that he can understand the story. The book was declared by Emerson to be the wittiest ever written. Many episodes, describing the society at the Prussian See also:court and the relations of Frederick to See also:Voltaire, are unsurpassable as humorous See also:portraiture. The effort to fuse the masses of raw material into a well-proportioned whole is perhaps not quite successful; and Carlyle had not the full sympathy with Frederick which had given interest to the Cromwell. A hero-worshipper with See also:half-concealed doubts as to his hero is in an awkward position. Carlyle's general conception of history made him comparatively See also:blind to aspects of the subject which would, to writers of other See also:schools, have a great importance. The extraordinary power of the book is undeniable, though it does not show the fire which animated the French Revolution. A certain depression and weariness of spirit darken the general See also:tone. . During the later labours Mrs Carlyle's See also:health had been breaking. Carlyle, now that happier relations had been restored, did his best to give her the needed comforts; and in spite of his See also:immersion in Frederick, showed her all possible attention in later years. She had apparently recovered from an almost hopeless illness, when at the end of 1865 he was elected to the rectorship of the university of Edinburgh. He delivered an address there on the 2nd of See also:April 1866, unusually mild in tone, and received with general See also:applause. He was still detained in Scotland when Mrs Carlyle died suddenly while See also:driving in her See also:carriage. The immediate cause was the See also:shock of an accident to her See also:dog. She had once hurt her mother's feelings by refusing to use some See also:wax candles. She had preserved them ever since, and by her direction they were now lighted in the chamber of death. Carlyle was overpowered by her loss. His life thenceforward became more and more secluded, and he gradually became incapable of work. He went to See also:Mentone in the winter of 1866 and began the Reminiscences. He afterwards annotated the letters from his wife, published (1883) as Letters and Memorials. He was, as Fronde
V. I2says, impressed by the story of See also: His views of the future were gloomy. The world seemed to be going from See also:bad to worse, with little heed to his warnings. He would sometimes regret that it was no longer permissible to leave it in the old See also:Roman See also:fashion. He sank gradually, and died on the 4th of See also:February 1881. A place in Westminster See also:Abbey was offered, but he was buried, according to his own desire, by the See also:side of his parents at Ecclefechan. He left Craigenputtock, which had become his own property, to found bursaries at the university of Edinburgh. He gave his books to Harvard See also:College. Carlyle's See also:appearance has been made See also:familiar by many portraits, none of them, according to Fronde, satisfactory. The statue by See also:Boehm on the Chelsea See also:Embankment, however, is characteristic; and there is a fine See also:painting by See also:Watts in the See also:National Portrait See also:Gallery. J. McNeill See also:Whistler's portrait of him is in the See also:possession of the See also:Glasgow See also:corporation. During Carlyle's later years the antagonism roused by his attacks upon popular opinions had subsided; and upon his death general expression was given to the emotions natural upon the loss of a remarkable man of genius. The rapid publication of the Reminiscences by Fronde produced a sudden revulsion of feeling. Carlyle became the object of general condemnation. Froude's biography, and the Memorials of Mrs Carlyle, published soon afterwards, strengthened the hostile feeling. Carlyle had appended to the Reminiscences an See also:injunction to his friends not to publish them as they stood, and added that no part could ever be published without the strictest editing. Afterwards, when he had almost forgotten what he had written, he verbally em-powered Froude to use his own See also:judgment: Froude accordingly published the book at once, without any editing, and with many inaccuracies. Omissions of a few passages written from memory at a time of profound See also:nervous depression would have altered the whole character of the book. Froude in this and the later publications held that he was giving effect to Carlyle's wish to imitate Johnson's " penance." No one, said See also:Boswell, should persuade him to make his See also:lion into a See also:cat. Fronde intended, in the same spirit, to give the shades as well as the See also:lights in the portrait of his hero. His admiration for Carlyle probably led him to assume too early that his readers would approach the story from the same point of view, that is, with an admiration too warm to be repelled by the admissions. Moreover, Froude's characteristic desire for picturesque effect, unchecked by any painstaking accuracy, led to his reading preconceived impressions into his documents. The result was that Carlyle was too often judged by his defects, and regarded as a selfish and See also:eccentric misanthrope with flashes of genius, rather than as a man with many of the highest qualities of mind and character clouded by constitutional infirmities. Yet it would be difficult to speak too strongly of the great qualities which underlay the superficial defects. Through long years of poverty and obscurity Carlyle showed unsurpassed fidelity to his vocation and superiority to the lower temptations which have ruined so many literary careers, His ambition might be interpreted as selfishness, but certainly IT showed no coldness of heart. His unstinted generosity to his brothers during his worst times is only one proof of the singular strength of his family affections. No one was more devoted to such congenial friends as Irving and Sterling. He is not the only man whom absorption in work and infirmity of temper have made into a provoking husband, though few wives have had Mrs Carlyle's capacity for expressing the sense of injustice. The knowledge that the deepest devotion underlies misunderstandings is often a very imperfect See also:consolation; but such devotion clearly existed all through, and proves the defect to have been relatively superficial. The harsh judgments of individuals in the Reminiscences had no parallel in his own writings. He scarcely ever mentions a contemporary, and was never involved in a personal controversy. But the harshness certainly reflects a characteristic attitude of mind. Carlyle was throughout a pessimist or a prophet denouncing a backsliding world. His most popular contemporaries seemed to him to be false guides, and charlatans had ousted the heroes. The general condemnation of " shams " and cant had, of course, particular applications, though he left them to be inferred by his readers. Carlyle was the exponent of many of the deepest convictions of his time. Nobody could be more in sympathy with aspirations for a spiritual See also:religion and for a lofty See also:idealism in political and social life. To most minds, however, which cherish such aspirations the gentler optimism of men like Emerson was more congenial. They believed in the progress of the See also:race and the See also:triumph of the nobler elements. Though Carlyle, especially in his earlier years, could deliver an invigorating and encouraging, if not a sanguine doctrine, his utterances were more generally couched in the See also: A. Carlyle), and the four volumes of J A. Froude's biography; Froude was Carlyle's literary executor. Prof. C. E. Norton's edition of the Reminiscences and his collection of Carlyle's Early Letters correct some of Froude's inaccuracies. A See also:list of many articles upon Carlyle is given by Mr Ireland in Notes and Queries, See also:sixth series, vol. iv. Among other authors may be noticed See also: A good deal of controversy has arisen See also:relating to Froude's treatment of the relations between Carlyle and his wife, and during 1903–1904 this was pushed to a somewhat unsavoury extent. Those who are curious to pry into the question of Carlyle's marital capacity, and the issues between Froude's assailants and his defenders, may consult New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, with introduction by Sir James See also:Crichton-See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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