From: The Dial, Vol. II, No. I (July 1841).
Author:
Published: E. P. Peabody 1841 Boston
ALTHOUGH the name of Thomas Carlyle is rarely mentioned in the critical journals of this country, there is no living writer who is more sure of immediate attention from a large circle of readers, or who exercises a greater influence than he in these United States. Since the publication of his article on the characteristics of our time in the Edinburgh Review, and afterwards of the Sartor, this influence has been deepening and extending year by year, till now thousands turn an eager ear to the most distant note of his clarion. To be and not to seem; to know that nothing can become a man which is not manlike; that no silken trappings can dignify measures of mere expediency; and no hootings of a mob, albeit of critics and courtiers, can shame the truth, or keep Heaven’s dews from falling in the right place; that all conventions not founded on eternal law are valueless, and that the life of man, will he or no, must tally with the life of nature;—this creed indeed is none of the newest! No! but as old and as new as truth itself, and ever needing to be reënforced. It is so by Carlyle with that depth of “truthful earnestness” he appreciates so fully in his chosen heroes, as also with a sarcastic keenness, an overflow of genial wit, and a picturesque skill in the delineation of examples, rarely equalled in any age of English literature.
How many among ourselves are his debtors for the first assurance that the native disdain of a youthful breast for the shams and charlatanries that so easily overgrow even our free society was not without an echo. They listened for the voice of the soul and heard on every wind only words, words. But when this man spoke every word stood for a thing. They had been taught that man belonged to society, the body to the clothes. They thought the reverse, and this was the man to give distinct expression to this thought, which alone made life desirable.
Already he has done so much, that he becomes of less importance to us. The rising generation can scarcely conceive how important Wordsworth, Coleridge, and afterwards Carlyle were to those whose culture dates farther back. A numerous band of pupils already, each in his degree, dispense bread of their leaven to the children, instead of the stones which careful guardians had sent to the mill for their repast.
But, if the substance of his thought be now known to us, where shall we find another who appeals so forcibly, so variously to the common heart of his contemporaries. Even his Miscellanies, though the thoughts contained in them have now been often reproduced, are still read on every side. The French Revolution stands alone as a specimen of the modern Epic. And the present volume will probably prove quite as attractive to most readers.
Though full of his faults of endless repetition, hammering on a thought till every sense of the reader aches, and an arrogant bitterness of tone which seems growing upon him (as alas! it is too apt to grow upon Reformers; the odious fungus that deforms the richest soil), though, as we have heard it expressed, he shows as usual “too little respect for respectable people,” and like all character-hunters, attaches an undue value to his own discoveries in opposition to the verdict of the Ages, the large residuum of truth we find after making every possible deduction, the eloquence, the wit, the pathos, and dramatic power of representation, leave the faults to be regarded as dust on the balance.
Among the sketches, Odin is much admired, and is certainly of great picturesque beauty. The passages taken from the Scandinavian Mythology are admirably told. Mahomet is altogether fine. Dante not inaccurate, but of little depth. Apparently Mr. Carlyle speaks in his instance from a slighter acquaintance than is his wont. With his view of Johnson and Burns we were already familiar; both are excellent, as is that of Rousseau, though less impressive than are the few touches given him somewhere in the Miscellanies. Cromwell is not one of his best, though apparently much labored. He does not adequately sustain his positions by the facts he brings forward.
This book is somewhat less objectionable than the French Revolution to those not absolutely unjust critics, who said they would sooner “dine for a week on pepper, than read through the two volumes.” Yet it is too highly seasoned, tediously emphatic, and the mind as well as the style is obviously in want of the verdure of repose. An acute observer said that the best criticism on his works would be his own remark, that a man in convulsions is not proved to be strong because six healthy men cannot hold him. We are not consoled by his brilliancy and the room he has obtained for an infinity of quips and cranks and witty turns for the corruption of his style, and the more important loss of chasteness, temperance, and harmony in his mind observable since he first was made known to the public.
Yet let thanks, manifold thanks, close this and all chapters that begin with his name.
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