Thomas Carlyle

Some one writes about 'notes for a biography' in some beggarly Spirit of the Age' or other rubbish basket-rejected nem. con. What have I to do with their 'Spirits of the Age'? To have my 'life' surveyed and commented on by all men even wisely is no object with me, but rather the opposite; how much less to have it done unwisely! The world has no business with my life; the world will never know my life, if it should write and read a hundred biographies of me. The main facts of it even are known, and are likely to be known, to myself alone of created men. The 'goose goddess' which they call Fame'! Ach Gott!

And again, December 29, 1848:

Darwin said to Jane the other day, in his quizzing serious manner, 'Who will write Carlyle's life?' The word reported to me set me thinking how impossible it was, and would for ever remain, for any creature to write my life.' The chief elements of my little destiny have all along lain deep below view or surmise, and never will or can be known to any son of Adam. I would say to my biographer, if any fool undertook such a task, Forbear, poor fool! Let no life of me be

written; let me and my bewildered wrestlings lie buried here and be forgotten swiftly of all the world. If thou write, it will be mere delusion and hallucination. The confused world never understood nor will understand me and my poor affairs. Not even the persons nearest to me could guess at them; nor was it found indispensable; nor is it now (for any but an idle purpose) profitable, were it even possible. Silence, and go thy ways elsewhither.'

Reluctantly, and only when he found that his wishes would not and could not be respected, Carlyle requested me to undertake the task which he had thus described as hopeless; and placed materials in my hands which would make the creation of a true likeness of him, if still difficult, yet no longer as impossible as he had declared it to be. Higher confidence was never placed by any man in another. I had not sought it, but I did not refuse to accept it. I felt myself only more strictly bound than men in such circumstances usually are, to discharge the duty which I was undertaking with the fidelity which I knew to be expected from me. Had I considered my own comfort or my own interest, I should have sifted out or passed lightly over the delicate features in the story. It would have been as easy as it would have been agreeable for me to construct a picture, with every detail strictly accurate, of an almost perfect character. An account so written would have been read with immediate pleasure. Carlyle would have been admired and applauded, and the biographer, if he had not shared in the praise, would at least have escaped censure. He would have followed in the track marked out for him by a custom which is all but universal. When a popular statesman dies, or a popular soldier

DUTY OF HIS BIOGRAPHER.

or clergyman, his faults are forgotten, his virtues only are remembered in his epitaph. Everyone has some frailties, but the merits and not the frailties are what interest the world; and with great men of the ordinary kind whose names and influence will not survive their own generation, to leave out the shadow, and record solely what is bright and attractive, is not only permissible, but is a right and honourable instinct. The good should be frankly acknowledged with no churlish qualifications. But the pleasure which we feel, and the honour which we seek to confer, are avenged, wherever truth is concealed, in the case of the exceptional few who are to become historical and belong to the immortals. The sharpest scrutiny is the condition of enduring fame. Every circumstance which can be ascertained about them is eventually dragged into light. If blank spaces are left, they are filled by rumour or conjecture. When the generation which knew them is gone, there is no more tenderness in dealing with them; and if their friends have been indiscreetly reserved, idle tales which survive in tradition become stereotyped into facts. Thus the characters of many of our greatest men, as they stand in history, are left blackened by groundless calumnies, or credited with imaginary excellences, a prey to be torn in pieces by rival critics, with clear evidence wanting, and prepossessions fixed on one side or the other by dislike or sympathy.

Had I taken the course which the natural man' would have recommended, I should have given no faithful account of Carlyle. I should have created a 'delusion and a hallucination' of the precise kind which he who was the truest of men most deprecated

« Previous Continue »

Books

Thomas Carlyle: A History of His Life in London, 1834-1881, Issue 25, Volume 1