In
silence, of a fine night, such questions are answer'd to the soul, the
best answers that can be given. With me, too, when depress'd by some
specially sad event, or tearing problem, I wait till I go out under
the stars for the last voiceless satisfaction.
CARLYLE FROM AMERICAN POINTS OF VIEW
_Later Thoughts and Jottings_
There is surely at present an inexplicable _rapport_ (all the more
piquant from its contradictoriness) between that deceas'd author and
our United States of America--no matter whether it lasts or not[13]
As we Westerners assume definite shape, and result in formations and
fruitage unknown before, it is curious with what a new sense our eyes
turn to representative outgrowths of crises and personages in the Old
World. Beyond question, since Carlyle's death, and the publication
of Froude's memoirs, not only the interest in his books, but every
personal bit regarding the famous Scotchman--his dyspepsia, his
buffetings, his parentage, his paragon of a wife, his career in
Edinburgh, in the lonesome nest on Craigenputtock moor, and then so
many years in London--is probably wider and livelier to-day in this
country than in his own land. Whether I succeed or no, I, too,
reaching across the Atlantic and taking the man's dark fortune-telling
of humanity and politics, would offset it all, (such is the fancy
that comes to me,) by a far more profound horoscope-casting of those
themes--G. F. Hegel's.[14]
First, about a chance, a never-fulfill'd vacuity of this pale cast of
thought--this British Hamlet from Cheyne row, more puzzling than the
Danish one, with his contrivances for settling the broken and
spavin'd joints of the world's government, especially its democratic
dislocation.
Pages:
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292