On the Choice of Books

"Mr. Buller was in his forty-third year, and had sat in Parliament some twenty of those. A man long kept under by the peculiarities of his endowment and position, but rising rapidly into importance of late years; beginning to reap the fruits of long patience, and to see an ever wider field open round him. He was what in party language is called a 'Reformer,' from his earliest youth; and never swerved from that faith, nor could swerve. His luminous sincere intellect laid bare to him in all its abject incoherency the thing that was untrue, which thenceforth became for him a thing that was not tenable, that it was perilous and scandalous to attempt maintaining. Twenty years in the dreary, weltering lake of parliamentary confusion, with its disappointments and bewilderments, had not quenched this tendency, in which, as we say, he persevered as by a law of nature itself, for the essence of his mind was clearness, healthy purity, incompatibility with fraud in any of its forms. What he accomplished, therefore, whether great or little, was all to be added to the sum of good; none of it to be deducted. There shone mildly in his whole conduct a beautiful veracity, as if it were unconscious of itself; a perfect spontaneous absence of all cant, hypocrisy, and hollow pretence, not in word and act only, but in thought and instinct. To a singular extent it can be said of him that he was a spontaneous clear man. Very gentle, too, though full of fire; simple, brave, graceful. What he did, and what he said, came from him as light from a luminous body, and had thus always in it a high and rare merit, which any of the more discerning could appreciate fully.

"To many, for a long while, Mr. Buller passed merely for a man of wit, and certainly his beautiful natural gaiety of character, which by no means meant levity, was commonly thought to mean it, and did for many years, hinder the recognition of his intrinsic higher qualities. Slowly it began to be discovered that, under all this many-coloured radiancy and coruscation, there burnt a most steady light; a sound, penetrating intellect, full of adroit resources, and loyal by nature itself to all that was methodic, manful, true;—in brief, a mildly resolute, chivalrous, and gallant character, capable of doing much serious service.

"A man of wit he indisputably was, whatever more amongst the wittiest of men. His speech, and manner of being, played everywhere like soft brilliancy of lambent fire round the common objects of the hour, and was, beyond all others that English society could show, entitled to the name of excellent, for it was spontaneous, like all else in him, genuine, humane,—the glittering play of the soul of a real man. To hear him, the most serious of men might think within himself, 'How beautiful is human gaiety too!' Alone of wits, Buller never made wit; he could be silent, or grave enough, where better was going; often rather liked to be silent if permissible, and always was so where needful. His wit, moreover, was ever the ally of wisdom, not of folly, or unkindness, or injustice; no soul was ever hurt by it; never, we believe, never, did his wit offend justly any man, and often have we seen his ready resource relieve one ready to be offended, and light up a pausing circle all into harmony again. In truth, it was beautiful to see such clear, almost childlike simplicity of heart coexisting with the finished dexterities, and long experiences, of a man of the world. Honour to human worth, in whatever form we find it! This man was true to his friends, true to his convictions,—and true without effort, as the magnet is to the north. He was ever found on the right side; helpful to it, not obstructive of it, in all he attempted or performed.

"Weak health; a faculty indeed brilliant, clear, prompt, not deficient in depth either, or in any kind of active valour, but wanting the stern energy that could long endure to continue in the deep, in the chaotic, new, and painfully incondite—this marked out for him his limits; which, perhaps with regrets enough, his natural veracity and practicality would lead him quietly to admit and stand by. He was not the man to grapple, in its dark and deadly dens, with the Lernæan coil of social Hydras; perhaps not under any circumstances: but he did, unassisted, what he could; faithfully himself did something—nay, something truly considerable;—and in his patience with the much that by him and his strength could not be done let us grant there was something of beautiful too!

"Properly, indeed, his career as a public man was but beginning. In the office he last held, much was silently expected of him; he himself, too, recognised well what a fearful and immense question this of Pauperism is; with what ominous rapidity the demand for solution of it is pressing on; and how little the world generally is yet aware what methods and principles, new, strange, and altogether contradictory to the shallow maxims and idle philosophies current at present, would be needed for dealing with it! This task he perhaps contemplated with apprehension; but he is not now to be tried with this, or with any task more. He has fallen, at this point of the march, an honourable soldier; and has left us here to fight along without him. Be his memory dear and honourable to us, as that of one so worthy ought. What in him was true and valiant endures for evermore—beyond all memory or record. His light, airy brilliancy has suddenly become solemn, fixed in the earnest stillness of Eternity. There shall we also, and our little works, all shortly be."

In 1850 appeared the "Latter-Day Pamphlets," essays suggested by the convulsions of 1848, in which, more than in any previous publication, the author spoke out in the character of a social and political censor of his own age. "He seemed to be the worshipper of mere brute force, the advocate of all harsh, coercive measures. Model prisons and schools for the reform of criminals, poor-laws, churches as at present constituted, the aristocracy, parliament, and other institutions, were assailed and ridiculed in unmeasured terms, and generally, the English public was set down as composed of sham heroes, and a valet or 'flunkey' world." From their very nature as stern denunciations of what the author considered contemporary fallacies, wrongs, and hypocrisies, these pamphlets produced a storm of critical indignation against him.

The life of John Sterling was published in the following year; and Carlyle then began that long spell of work—the "History of Frederick the Great"—which extended over thirteen years, the last, and perhaps the greatest, monument of his genius.

In 1856, when we may suppose his mind to be full of the details of battles, and overflowing with military tactics, he received from Sir W. Napier his "History of the Administration of Scinde," and wrote the following letter to the author:—

"THOMAS CARLYLE TO SIR WILLIAM NAPIER.

"Chelsea, May 12, 1856.

"DEAR SIR,

"I have read with attention, and with many feelings and reflections, your record of Sir C. Napier's Administration of Scinde. You must permit me to thank you, in the name of Britain at large, for writing such a book; and in my own poor name to acknowledge the great compliment and kindness implied in sending me a copy for myself.

"It is a book which every living Englishman would be the better for reading—for studying diligently till he saw into it, till he recognised and believed the high and tragic phenomenon set forth there! A book which may be called 'profitable' in the old Scripture sense; profitable for reproof, for correction and admonition, for great sorrow, yet for 'building up in righteousness' too—in heroic, manful endeavour to do well, and not ill, in one's time and place. One feels it a kind of possession to know that one has had such a fellow-citizen and contemporary in these evil days.

"The fine and noble qualities of the man are very recognisable to me; his subtle, piercing intellect turned all to the practical, giving him just insight into men and into things; his inexhaustible adroit contrivances; his fiery valour; sharp promptitude to seize the good moment that will not return. A lynx-eyed, fiery man, with the spirit of an old knight in him; more of a hero than any modern I have seen for a long time.

"A singular veracity one finds in him; not in his words alone—which, however, I like much for their fine rough naïveté—but in his actions, judgments, aims; in all that he thinks, and does, and says—which, indeed, I have observed is the root of all greatness or real worth in human creatures, and properly the first (and also the rarest) attribute of what we call genius among men.

"The path of such a man through the foul jungle of this world—the struggle of Heaven's inspiration against the terrestrial fooleries, cupidities, and cowardices—cannot be other than tragical: but the man does tear out a bit of way for himself too; strives towards the good goal, inflexibly persistent till his long rest come: the man does leave his mark behind him, ineffaceable, beneficent to all good men, maleficent to none: and we must not complain. The British nation of this time, in India or elsewhere—God knows no nation ever had more need of such men, in every region of its affairs! But also perhaps no nation ever had a much worse chance to get hold of them, to recognise and loyally second them, even when they are there.

"Anarchic stupidity is wide as the night; victorious wisdom is but as a lamp in it shining here and there. Contrast a Napier even in Scinde with, for example, a Lally at Pondicherry or on the Place de Grève; one has to admit that it is the common lot, that it might have been far worse!

"There is great talent in this book apart from its subject. The narrative moves on with strong, weighty step, like a marching phalanx, with the gleam of clear steel in it—sheers down the opponent objects and tramples them out of sight in a very potent manner. The writer, it is evident, had in him a lively, glowing image, complete in all its parts, of the transaction to be told; and that is his grand secret of giving the reader so lively a conception of it. I was surprised to find how much I had carried away with me, even of the Hill campaign and of Trukkee itself; though without a map the attempt to understand such a thing seemed to me desperate at first.

"With many thanks, and gratified to have made this reflex acquaintance, which, if it should ever chance to become a direct one, might gratify me still more,

"I remain always yours sincerely,

"T. CARLYLE."28

In June, 1861, a few days after the great fire in which Inspector Braidwood perished in the discharge of his duty, Carlyle broke a long silence with the following letter:—

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'TIMES.'

"SIR,—

"There is a great deal of public sympathy, and of deeper sort than usual, awake at present on the subject of Inspector Braidwood. It is a beautiful emotion, and apparently a perfectly just one, and well bestowed. Judging by whatever light one gets, Braidwood seems to have been a man of singular worth in his department, and otherwise; such a servant as the public seldom has. Thoroughly skilled in his function, nobly valiant in it, and faithful to it—faithful to the death. In rude, modest form, actually a kind of hero, who has perished in serving us!

"Probably his sorrowing family is not left in wealthy circumstances. Most certainly it is pity when a generous emotion, in many men, or in any man, has to die out futile, and leave no action behind it. The question, therefore, suggests itself—Should not there be a 'Braidwood Testimonial,' the proper parties undertaking it, in a modest, serious manner, the public silently testifying (to such extent, at least) what worth its emotion has?

"I venture to throw out this hint, and, if it be acted on, will, with great satisfaction, give my mite among other people; but must, for good reasons, say further, that this [is] all I can do in the matter (of which, indeed, I know nothing but what everybody knows, and a great deal less than every reader of the newspapers knows); and that, in particular, I cannot answer any letters on the subject, should such happen to be sent me.

"In haste, I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

"T. CARLYLE.29

"5, Cheyne-row, Chelsea, June 30."

The "History of Frederick the Great" was completed early in 1865. Later in the same year the students of Edinburgh University elected Carlyle as Lord Rector. We cannot do better than describe the proceedings and the subsequent address in the words of the late Alexander Smith:—

"Mr. Gladstone demitted office, and then it behoved the students of the University to cast about for a worthy successor. Two candidates were proposed, Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Disraeli; and on the election day Mr. Carlyle was returned by a large and enthusiastic majority. This was all very well, but a doubt lingered in the minds of many whether Mr. Carlyle would accept the office, or if accepting it, whether he would deliver an address—said address being the sole apple which the Rectorial tree is capable of bearing. The hare was indeed caught, but it was doubtful somewhat whether the hare would allow itself to be cooked after the approved academical fashion. It was tolerably well known that Mr. Carlyle had emerged from his long spell of work on "Frederick," in a condition of health the reverse of robust; that he had once or twice before declined similar honours from Scottish Universities—from Glasgow some twelve or fourteen years ago, and from Aberdeen some seven or eight; and that he was constitutionally opposed to all varieties of popular displays, more especially those of the oratorical sort.

"But all dispute was ended when it was officially announced that Mr. Carlyle had accepted the office of Lord Rector, that he would conform to all its requirements, and that the Rectorial address would be delivered late in spring. And so when the days began to lengthen in these northern latitudes, and crocuses to show their yellow and purple heads, people began to talk about the visit of the great writer, and to speculate on what manner and fashion of speech he would deliver.

"Edinburgh has no University Hall, and accordingly when speech-day approached, the largest public room in the city was chartered by the University authorities. This public room—the Music Hall in George Street—will contain, under severe pressure, from eighteen hundred to nineteen hundred persons, and tickets to that extent were secured by the students and members of the General Council. Curious stories are told of the eagerness on every side manifested to hear Mr. Carlyle. Country clergymen from beyond Aberdeen came into Edinburgh for the sole purpose of hearing and seeing. Gentlemen came down from London by train the night before, and returned to London by train the night after.

"In a very few minutes after the doors were opened the large hall was filled in every part, and when up the central passage the Principal, the Lord Rector, the Members of the Senate, and other gentlemen advanced towards the platform, the cheering was vociferous and hearty. The Principal occupied the chair of course, the Lord Rector on his right, the Lord Provost on his left. Every eye was fixed on the Rector. To all appearance, as he sat, time and labour had dealt tenderly with him. His face had not yet lost the country bronze which he brought up with him from Dumfriesshire as a student fifty-six years ago. His long residence in London had not touched his Annandale look, nor had it—as we soon learned—touched his Annandale accent. His countenance was striking, homely, sincere, truthful—the countenance of a man on whom 'the burden of the unintelligible world' had weighed more heavily than on most. His hair was yet almost dark; his moustache and short beard were iron grey. His eyes were wide, melancholy, sorrowful; and seemed as if they had been at times a-weary of the sun. Altogether in his aspect there was something aboriginal, as of a piece, of unhewn granite, which had never been polished to any approved pattern, whose natural and original vitality had never been tampered with. In a word, there seemed no passivity about Mr. Carlyle—he was the diamond, and the world was his pane of glass; he was a graving tool rather than a thing graven upon—a man to set his mark on the world—a man on whom the world could not set its mark. And just as, glancing towards Fife a few minutes before, one could not help thinking of his early connection with Edward Irving, so seeing him sit beside the venerable Principal of the University, one could not help thinking of his earliest connection with literature.

"Time brings men into the most unexpected relationships. When the Principal was plain Mr. Brewster, editor of the Edinburgh Cyclopædia, little dreaming that he should ever be Knight of Hanover and head of the Northern Metropolitan University, Mr. Carlyle—just as little dreaming that he should be the foremost man of letters of his day and Lord Rector of the same University—was his contributor, writing for said Cyclopædia biographies of Montesquieu and other notables. And so it came about that after years of separation and of honourable labour, the old editor and contributor were brought together again—in new aspects.

"The proceedings began by the conferring of the degree of LL.D. on Mr. Erskine of Linlathen—an old friend of Mr. Carlyle's—on Professors Huxley, Tyndall, and Ramsay, and on Dr. Rae, the Arctic explorer. That done, amid a tempest of cheering and hats enthusiastically waved, Mr. Carlyle, slipping off his Rectorial robe—which must have been a very shirt of Nessus to him—advanced to the table and began to speak in low, wavering, melancholy tones, which were in accordance with the melancholy eyes, and in the Annandale accent, with which his playfellows must have been familiar long ago. So self-contained was he, so impregnable to outward influences, that all his years of Edinburgh and London life could not impair even in the slightest degree, that.

"The opening sentences were lost in the applause. What need of quoting a speech which by this time has been read by everybody? Appraise it as you please, it was a thing per se. Just as, if you wish a purple dye you must fish up the Murex; if you wish ivory you must go to the east; so if you desire an address such as Edinburgh listened to the other day, you must go to Chelsea for it. It may not be quite to your taste, but, in any case, there is no other intellectual warehouse in which that kind of article is kept in stock.

"The gratitude I owe to him is—or should be—equal to that of most. He has been to me only a voice, sometimes sad, sometimes wrathful, sometimes scornful; and when I saw him for the first time with the eye of flesh stand up amongst us the other day, and heard him speak kindly, brotherly, affectionate words—his first appearance of that kind, I suppose, since he discoursed of Heroes and Hero Worship to the London people—I am not ashamed to confess that I felt moved towards him, as I do not think in any possible combination of circumstances I could have felt moved towards any other living man."30

The Edinburgh correspondent to a London paper thus describes what took place:—

"A vast interest among the intelligent public has been excited by the prospect of Mr. Thomas Carlyle's appearance to be installed as Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh. With the exception of the delivery of his lectures on Heroes and Hero-worship, he has avoided oratory; and to many of his admirers the present occasion seemed likely to afford their only chance of ever seeing him in the flesh, and hearing his living voice. The result has been, that the University authorities have been beset by applications in number altogether unprecedented—to nearly all of which they could only give the reluctant answer, that admission for strangers was impossible. The students who elect Mr. Carlyle received tickets, if they applied within the specified time, and the members of the University council, or graduates, obtained the residue according to priority of application. Ladies' tickets to the number of one hundred and fifty were issued, each professor obtaining four, and the remaining thirty being placed at the disposal of Sir David Brewster, the Principal. And the one hundred and fifty lucky ladies were conspicuous in the front of the gallery to-day, having been admitted before the doors for students and other males were open.

"The hour appointed for letting them in was kept precisely—it was half-past one P.M., but an hour before it, despite occasional showers of rain, a crowd had begun to gather at the front door of the music-hall, and at the opening of the door it had gathered to proportions sufficient to half fill the building, its capacity under severe crushing being about two thousand.

"When the door was opened, they rushed in as crowds of young men only can and dare rush, and up the double stairs they streamed like a torrent; which torrent, however, policemen and check-gates soon moderated. I chanced to fall into a lucky current of the crowd, and got in amongst the first two or three hundred, and got forward to the fourth seat from the platform, as good a place for seeing and hearing as any.

"The proceedings of the day were fixed to commence at two P.M., and the half-hour of waiting was filled up by the students in throwing occasional volleys of peas, whistling en masse various lively tunes, and in clambering, like small escalading parties, on to and over the platform to take advantage of the seats in the organ gallery behind. For Edinburgh students, however, let me say that these proceedings were singularly decorous. They did indulge in a little fun when nothing else was doing, but they did not come for that alone. Any student who wanted fun could have sold his ticket at a handsome profit, for which better fun could be had elsewhere. I heard among the crowd that some students had got so high a price as a guinea each for their tickets, and I heard of others who had been offered no less but had refused it. And I must say further, that they listened to Mr. Carlyle's address with as much attention and reverence as they could have bestowed on a prophet—only I daresay most prophets would have elicited less applause and laughter.

"Shortly before two, the city magistrates and a few other personages mounted the platform, and, with as much quietness as the fancy of the students directed, took the seats which had been marked out for them by large red pasteboard tickets. At two precisely the students in the organ gallery started to the tops of the seats and began to cheer vociferously, and almost instantly all the audience followed their example. The procession was on its way through the hall, and in half a minute Lord Provost Chambers, in his official robes, mounted the platform stair; then Principal Sir David Brewster and Lord Rector Carlyle, both in their gold-laced robes of office; then the Rev. Dr. Lee, and the other professors, in their gowns; also the LL.D.'s to be, in black gowns. Lord Neaves and Dr. Guthrie were there in an LL.D.'s black gown and blue ribbons; Mr. Harvey, the President of the Royal Academy, and Sir D. Baxter, Bart.—men conspicuous in their plain clothes.

"Dr. Lee offered up a prayer of a minute and a half, at the 'Amen' of which I could see Mr. Carlyle bow very low. Then the business of the occasion commenced. Mr. Gibson—a tall, thin, pale-faced, beardless, acute, composed-looking young gentleman, in an M.A.'s gown—introduced Mr. Carlyle, 'the most distinguished son of the University,' to the Principal, Sir David Brewster, as the Lord Rector elected by the students. Sir David saluted him as such, thinking, perhaps, of the time when, an unknown young man, Thomas Carlyle wrote articles for Brewster's 'Cyclopædia,' and got Brewster's name to introduce to public notice his translation of Legendre's 'Geometry.' Next Professor Muirhead, for the time being the Dean of the Faculty of Laws in the University, introduced various gentlemen to the Principal in order, as persons whom the senate had thought worthy of the degree of LL.D., giving a dignified, but not always very happy, account of the merits of each. There was Mr. Erskine, of Linlathen, Mr. Carlyle's host for the time being, and often previously, an old friend of Irving and Chalmers, himself the writer of various elegant and sincere religious books, and one of the best and most amiable of men. If intelligent goodness ever entitled any one to the degree of LL.D., he certainly deserves it; and when I say this, I do not insinuate that on grounds of pure intellect he is not well entitled to the honour. He is now, I should think, nearer eighty than seventy years of age—a mild-looking, full-eyed old man, with a face somewhat of the type of Lord Derby's. There was Professor Huxley, young in years, dark, heavy-browed, alert and resolute, but not moulded after any high ideal; and there was Professor Tyndall, also young, lithe of limb, and nonchalant in manner. When his name was called he sat as if he had no concern in what was going on, and then rose with an easy smile, partly of modesty, but in great measure of indifference.