" To those
who contest that these gospels are for the most part negative, we may
reply that to be taught what not to do is to be far advanced on the way
to do.
In nothing is the generation after him so prone to be unjust to a fresh
thinker as with regard to his originality. A physical discovery, as
Newton's, remains to ninety-nine out of a hundred a mental miracle; but a
great moral teacher "labours to make himself forgotten." When he begins
to speak he is suspected of insanity; when he has won his way he receives
a Royal Commission to appoint the judges; as a veteran he is shelved for
platitude. So Horace is regarded as a mere jewelry store of the Latin,
Bacon in his _Essays_, of the English, wisdom, which they each in
fact helped to create. Carlyle's paradoxes have been exaggerated, his
partialities intensified, in his followers; his critical readers, not his
disciples, have learnt most from him; he has helped across the Slough of
Despond only those who have also helped themselves. When all is said of
his dogmatism, his petulance, his "evil behaviour," he remains the master
spirit of his time, its Censor, as Macaulay is its Panegyrist, and
Tennyson its Mirror. He has saturated his nation with a wholesome tonic,
and the practice of any one of his precepts for the conduct of life is
ennobling. More intense than Wordsworth, more intelligible than Browning,
more fervid than Mill, he has indicated the pitfalls in our civilisation.
Pages:
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327