In the true literary man there is thus ever, acknowledged or
not by the world, a sacredness; he is the light of the world; the world's
priest - guiding it, like a sacred pillar of fire, in its dark pilgrimage
through the waste of time. - Carlyle
From Emerson, the Noble Sage of
Concord, let’s now move on to Carlyle, the Able Sage of Chelsea!
Apropos our
deliberations on Thomas Carlyle vis-à-vis the importance of the year 1836, a defining
year in the annals of literary history that saw a literary torrent of sorts, me
thought it meet - to mince and to munch - more on this Sage of Chelsea, who
also tripled up as a historian, an essayist and a biographer of his times!
Carlyle’s annual
lectures were later published under the title, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History in 1841. In this
series of six profound lectures, Carlyle brings out the uniqueness that
underlies the personalities of heroic men replete with heroic vitalism.
To Carlyle, history is
all about the making of heroic men or women, who are bestowed with the most
excellent gifts and powers of vision and of action! Since his age lacked a
person of a heroic mould, he only wishes that people of a true heroic vitalism
and temperament should step forward, in the interests of society, to lead the
people, who are like sheep without a shepherd. (We should also remember that,
the 19th century was an age when belief in the Divine was at its
lowest ebb ever!)
Only a person of a
heroic mould - he quite feels - could shake the masses out of their stupor and
lead society to its acme of dynamism!
Some of the immortal
quotes that have taken the minds and the hearts of his avid readers by storm, are
reproduced below –
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of
none.
Men of letters are a perpetual Priesthood, from age to age,
teaching all men that a God is still present in their life; that all
"appearance," whatsoever we see in the world, is but as a vesture for
the "divine idea of the world," for "that which lies at the
bottom of appearance." In the true literary man there is thus ever,
acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness; he is the light of the world;
the world's priest - guiding it, like a sacred pillar of fire, in its dark
pilgrimage through the waste of time.
Thought once awakened does not again slumber.
Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of
all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world?
Do not Books still accomplish miracles, as Runes were fabled
to do? They persuade men. Not the wretchedest circulating library novel, which
foolish girls thumb and con in remote villages!
All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been: it is
lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.
From 1834 onwards,
Carlyle was working on his monumental work,
The French Revolution. This period enabled him to meet up with great literary
minds of all hues, including Wordsworth, Southey, and Sterling, with Sterling
or John Sterling topping his list of hot favourites!
His Sartor Resartus published in 1836, is
one of his most enigmatic works ever! It’s really impossible to pigeon-hole a
book of this complexity, into any one particular genre as such! It deals with
the life of a fictional German philosopher and academic.
to be continued…
image: amazondotcom
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