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THE CHINA MAIL, SEPTEMBER 20, 1937.
HISTORY WITH A MORAL
com moral
Thomas
מר
hat no wrongdoing goes the first work and a mere fes HUNDRED years ago, in the ed the manuscript
late summer of 1837, Thomas volume, put it overnight in his parison with Gibbon. Carlyle in unpunished in the history of a na- Carlyle's "French Revolution was room and found next day that it earlier writings had insisted that tion. Carlyle, unlike published in London. The book was had been destroyed. Mill wanted historians should tell the truth Hardy, found this law satisfying. not an immediate public success, but Carlyle to take £200, as the price about the common people, not mere He did not ask how a law can be enough copies were sold in Great of so many months' work Carlyle ly about kings and courtiers. Yet "moral" if it punishes with indif- to refused, but in the end was sen- there is far too much about kings ference the innocent and the guilty. Britain and the United States give Carlyle money which he badly sible enough to allow Mill to give and courtiers in his own book and At all events, the facts were needed and to establish his reputa- him 100. Then he sat down to far too little about the French peo his side, the Princesse de Lamballe the up Carlyle's view the history of tion as a great, and not merely an rewrite the lost volume. He found ple other than the submerged and paid for the sins of Louis XV. On
burden, brutalised wretches who made own this rewriting a terrible
evades Revolution can be told as though it eccentric writer. From his
were the Bible story of the writ point of view the book was a final and the book was not finished until a Parisian mob. Carlyle
ing on the wall. Carlyle lived by gamble. He had settled in London
the Old Testament and wrote for in 1884. He was 39, married, and
a people which accepted the righte- in possession of $200.
ousness of Jehovah. The moment had come to remind this people that they too might feel the v wrath of God. They were complacent, satis fed with their new reform bill. He
with their increasing wealth, their national power.
He knew
his own powers; he also knew that been hitherto the public had not much-impressed by them. "Sartor"
By E. L. Woodward
The last chapters tough and difficult problems, where had not been much of a success, January, 1837.
the truth can be found only after though good judges thought highly were hurriedly done.
These facts are of first import- painful and laborious study. of it. Carlyle decided to make one
Carlyle did not approach his does not explain how France was last attempt to break through this ance. indifference of the reading public subject; as a professional historian governed; he ignores the economic
Thus Criyle's "French Revolu- He looked round for a subject; he of to-day would approach it. He history of the Revolution and as considered John Knox, and, wisely, was not supported by endowments; sumes that nothing outside Paris tion" had exactly the purpose
his was of much importance. He pays Kipling's "Recessional," written at gave up the Scottish Church in he could not afford to take
He could not postpone little attention to the constructive the other end of the Victorian age; favour of the French Revolution. own time. He had already written round the writing until he had mastered all work of the assemblies and to their it taught the same lesson, under- He stood and failed to understand the subject; he thought that he could the literature of the period. He experiments in organisation. produce a book within two years. was not trained in historical re- has vast prejudices; he never even same things, though in scale and Catholic depth and intensity Carlyle is im- He decided that if the book "failed" search. The canons of modern his- tried to understand the
He did not know France: measurably the greater man. He he would emigrate to the United torical criticism were, only taking Church. States. It is more than likely that, shape; even if he had been in closer he was not a very good French did not write, even for his own if he had been offered a post which contact with the pioneers of "his- scholar. While he was writing his time, a complete history of the he could accept without violence to tory as a science," Carlyle could not, book he asked Mill to fell him the French Revolution, but his “wild, savage book will outlast most his- his opinions, he would have taken have spent years in the patient best dictionary of colloquial French.
tories written since 1837. it, and left the "French Revolution" elaboration, of detail. In any case he did not attempt to write, pro unfinished.
perly speaking, a history of
Carlyle called his own work “a the wild, savage book, itself a kind of is. a French revolution." He might have As things turned out his work French Revolution; his book was nearly wrecked by an extraor- series of dramatic episodes, light added that he disdained to give his dinary accident. J. S. Mill borrow weight by the side of Macaulay's readers information. He apostro
THE
WORLD GOES BY By "ULYSSES"
phises, upbraids, pities, exalts his characters without telling the reader who and what they are; a great
SYRIA AND SAADABAD
Cairo, Saturday.
as
many of the notes in C. R. L. Flet- Adhesion of Syria to the pact of cher's edition (published in 1902. mutual non-aggression known and a little out of date, but other-the Treaty of Saadabad, concluded wise excellent) are mereby plain on July 8 this
Fear between Iran, statements which Carlyle ought to Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan, have given in the text. The style has, according to a Cairo newspa-
I remember being in the witness he spent on the island, whatever for? of the book imitated less per, been recommended by the
composer a
こ
in
Indigestion And Nerves.
box and in sore trouble once. You cannot calculate happiness or ous men; Wordsworth said that no Iraqi Foreign Minister in a letter A lawyer was examining and try-work joy into simple proportions. Scotsman could write good Eng-addressed to the Syrian Premier.
There is an absurdity of The letter states that Iraq is ing to get a date out of me. The If, on the other hand, he was un-lish!
Soon becomes prepared to play the part of date no doubt seemed important to happy, where was the sense of re-declamation which his legal mind, and he thought Ijcording and multiplying unhappy tiresome, and the method of shock mediator.
The paper opines that Turkey was wilfully evading his question, days 2 As an old friend of Robin-tactics is outside the best tradition
Carlyle was is particularly interested for he began to bully me. Finally, son Crusoe, one of the best pals a of English prose. I turned and harangued the judge. man ever had, I like to hear him curiously insensitive to rhythm; Syria's adhesion to the Pact, since the wrong sentence after-sentence reads like it would permit questions arising I said I could not supply the date praised, but not for asked, as I was a journalist, writer, things. It is like praising Nelson a-hexameter gone wrong; paragraph between the two countries to be author,
of airy for being a Free Lover, or Napo lafter paragraph ends with a half-settled directly by the latter with- "nothings, and not a business man, leon for having a paunch, or John line, or even a whole line, of blank out foreign intervention--Trans-
and that I never bothered my head Bunyan for having a wart, or -verse. And yet the book lives. Cer-Ocean. with dates. I said my head was or me for writing nonsense, as Itaim of its descriptive passages are constantly full of such long vistas do sometimes. But I prefer to call magnificent; the main characters at least are revealed as they were and of time, going back to the first ap-lit burble.
drawn in firm, large letters. Thomas pearance of life on earth, and beyond that to the nutterable si- I dreamed that I was summoned, Hardy's "The Dynasts" is a greater lence in which the world existed, if in the name of the King, for hav-work of art, and, incidentally, a bet-
Iter history, but Carlyle has some-Woman on Verge of Breakdown. it did exist, that ordinary, calendaring a license without a dog.
"About last Christmas I began to figures seemed unutterably trivial dreamed that I did not go to Court thing of Hardy's sublime compassion
I asked his Lordship to that time, because I was Ulysses, and range of view. He is also a suffer from severe indigestion," states London, "I had terrible chest pains and protect me from the hectoring law-and above Courts. I dreamed that master of dramatic contrast the Mrs. J. Ward, of 73, The Vista, Eltham, yer, seeing that I was willing to I was summoned again, and this smoke and murder and at the could not eat; I grew very depressed ex-taking of the Bastille and, sud-and irritable; I always felt tired, yet tell all I knew, and only refused to surprised me, because I had tell what I didn't. He was t
a nice, pected to be haled to Court and denly, the evening sun of July 14, could not sleep. I lost weight, and
down He punished for contempt. I dreamed 1789: "How thy beams fall slant was on the verge of a nervous break- kind judge, and he did
"Then, on the advice of my sister, I asked the lawyer what his point that I sent my Boy, and that the on reapers amid peaceful, woody was. The lawyer said it was magistrate said unto him, “Lo. Be-fields, on old women spinning in started taking. Dr. Williams' Pink Pills. the dreadful pains in my chest and I whether in the correspondence re-cause your master is Ulysses, I will cottages; on ships far out on the In a few days I obtained relied from Or the un-was able to eat and enjoy my food. ferred to, the witness first wrote fine him treble, once for the offence, silent. mam to the defendant or the defendant once for disregarding the summons, speakable murder of the Princesse The tired feeling left me, my nerves. short grew steady, and I was able to sleep first addressed the witness. The and once for sending you.” I dream- de Lamballe, and then one
I have never felt better in my life" Judge said I could no doubt an-led then that, being Ulysses, I was sentence: "She was beautiful, she soundly. Now my health is splendid
Pink Pills often say that the benefit swer that, and I hastened to as-very wroth, and that I went and was good, she had known no hap-1 Those who have tried Dr. Wil
I dreamed piness.”,
following their use is almost too, won sure them that I could. I said that told the magistrate so.
dezful to be believed. Actually the. we both wrote simultaneously and that he fined me again for contempt
Carlyle's French Revolution was reason is quite simple. It is, this; these that our letters crossed. So you of court, and sternly reprimanded
banishes strengthens the nerves, see why I think,dates are a nuis-me for my arrogance and my com- not merely a chronicle of events; it pills create new, rich blood, which anaemia, and improves the appetite ance, and why Robinson Crusoe was tempt of the King's justice. Then was a warning to the English peo- foolish to bother with them. As I awoke, and knew 'twas but a ple. He saw in the Revolution anand digestion. Try them now, but ask example of the working of the for Dr. Williams, Sold by all chemists: counting the number of days dream.
to me.