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THOMAS CARLYLE

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FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES


_The following Volumes are now ready_:--

THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson.
ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton.
HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask.
JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes.
ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun.
THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie.
RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless.
SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson.
THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie.
JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask.
TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By Oliphant Smeaton.
FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. Omond.
THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir George Douglas.
NORMAN MACLEOD. By John Wellwood.
SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor Saintsbury.
KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By Louis A. Barbe.
ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. Grosart.
JAMES THOMSON. By William Bayne.
MUNGO PARK. By T. Banks Maclachlan.
DAVID HUME. By Professor Calderwood.

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THOMAS CARLYLE

by

HECTOR C MACPHERSON

Famous Scots Series







Published by Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier
Edinburgh and London

The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr Joseph Brown, and the
printing from the press of Messrs Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh.

Second Edition completing Seventh Thousand.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION


Of the writing of books on Carlyle there is no end. Why, then, it may
pertinently be asked, add another stone to the Carlylean cairn? The
reply is obvious. In a series dealing with famous Scotsmen, Carlyle has
a rightful claim to a niche in the temple of Fame. While prominence has
been given in the book to the Scottish side of Carlyle's life, the fact
has not been lost sight of that Carlyle owed much to Germany; indeed, if
we could imagine the spirit of a German philosopher inhabiting the body
of a Covenanter of dyspeptic and sceptical tendencies, a good idea would
be had of Thomas Carlyle. Needless to say, I have been largely indebted
to the biography by Mr Froude, and to Carlyle's _Reminiscences_. After
all has been said, the fact remains that Froude's portrait, though
truthful in the main, is somewhat deficient in light and
shade--qualities which the student will find admirably supplied in
Professor Masson's charming little book, "Carlyle Personally, and in his
Writings." To the Professor I am under deep obligation for the interest
he has shown in the book. In the course of his perusal of the proofs,
Professor Masson made valuable corrections and suggestions, which
deserve more than a formal acknowledgment. To Mr Haldane, M.P., my
thanks are also due for his suggestive criticism of the chapter on
German thought, upon which he is an acknowledged authority.

I have also to express my deep obligations to Mr John Morley, who, in
the midst of pressing engagements, kindly found time to read the proof
sheets. In a private note Mr Morley has been good enough to express his
general sympathy and concurrence with my estimate of Carlyle.

_EDINBURGH, October 1897._




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE
CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE                                                             9


CHAPTER II

CRAIGENPUTTOCK--LITERARY EFFORTS                                      29


CHAPTER III

CARLYLE'S MENTAL DEVELOPMENT                                          42


CHAPTER IV

LIFE IN LONDON                                                        65


CHAPTER V

HOLIDAY JOURNEYINGS--LITERARY WORK                                    79


CHAPTER VI

RECTORIAL ADDRESS--DEATH OF MRS CARLYLE                              112


CHAPTER VII

LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF CARLYLE                                      129


CHAPTER VIII

CARLYLE AS A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THINKER                            138


CHAPTER IX

CARLYLE AS AN INSPIRATIONAL FORCE                                    152





THOMAS CARLYLE




CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE


'A great man,' says Hegel, 'condemns the world to the task of explaining
him.' Emphatically does the remark apply to Thomas Carlyle. When he
began to leave his impress in literature, he was treated as a confusing
and inexplicable element. Opinion oscillated between the view of James
Mill, that Carlyle was an insane rhapsodist, and that of Jeffrey, that
he was afflicted with a chronic craze for singularity. Jeffrey's verdict
sums up pretty effectively the attitude of the critics of the time to
the new writer:--'I suppose that you will treat me as something worse
than an ass, when I say that I am firmly persuaded the great source of
your extravagance, and all that makes your writings intolerable to many
and ridiculous to not a few, is not so much any real peculiarity of
opinion, as an unlucky ambition to appear more original than you are.'
The blunder made by Jeffrey in regard both to Carlyle and Wordsworth
emphasises the truth which critics seem reluctant to bear in mind, that,
before the great man can be explained, he must be appreciated.
Emphatically true of Carlyle it is that he creates the standard by which
he is judged. Carlyle resembles those products of the natural world
which biologists call'sports'--products which, springing up in a
spontaneous and apparently erratic way, for a time defy classification.
The time is appropriate for an attempt to classify the great thinker,
whose birth took place one hundred years ago.

Towards the close of the last century a stone-mason, named James
Carlyle, started business on his own account in the village of
Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire. He was an excellent tradesman, and frugal
withal; and in the year 1791 he married a distant kinswoman of his own,
Janet Carlyle, who died after giving birth to a son. In the beginning of
1795 he married one Margaret Aitken, a worthy, intelligent woman; and on
the 4th of December following a son was born, whom they called Thomas,
after his paternal grandfather. This child was destined to be the most
original writer of his time.

Little Thomas was early taught to read by his mother, and at the age of
five he learnt to 'count' from his father. He was then sent to the
village school; and in his seventh year he was reported to be 'complete'
in English. As the schoolmaster was weak in the classics, Tom was
taught the rudiments of Latin by the burgher minister, of which strict
sect James Carlyle was a zealous member. One summer morning, in 1806,
his father took him to Annan Academy. 'It was a bright morning,' he
wrote long years thereafter, 'and to me full of moment, of fluttering
boundless Hopes, saddened by parting with Mother, with Home, and which
afterwards were cruelly disappointed.' At that 'doleful and hateful
Academy,' to use his own words, Thomas Carlyle spent three years,
learning to read French and Latin, and the Greek alphabet, as well as
acquiring a smattering of geometry and algebra.

It was in the Academy that he got his first glimpse of Edward
Irving--probably in April or May 1808--who had called to pay his
respects to his old teacher, Mr Hope. Thomas's impression of him