418
THOMAS CARLYLE.
(4th December.)
29
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND..
[December 4, 1895. clusions; he refused to believe "that enriched our language with the best series f God so loved the world as to damn of essays and biographies it contains. In nine-teuths of his creatures." In his these he suppressed his "commmation This day one hundred years ago in Eccle- transit to a nobler faith, he passed through service" and wrote the noblest prose to be fechan, Dumfries, was horn the most strik- the depths, where he was greatly helped by found in an age of great masters; they are ing personality in modern English letters. GOETHE, though he never reached the severe still unsurpassed for insight, for portraiture, The graceful institution of centenary festi- calm of that great intellect. His adult for virility of thought, or for exquisite vals gives us a just pretext for retaking theology, whatever it was, lacked backbone beauty of expression. Lastly, he created literary stock, for viewing and reviewing a and his teaching when positive consisted TEUFELSOROCH. But enough man's work and for most justly determining chiefly in thunderous generalities of theism.. his proper niche in the temple of fame. To Still a devout and reverent spirit pervades day throughout the English-speaking world all his works; he loathed the gross ma men's thoughts will be of THOMAS CARLYLE, terialising of his time and fervently preached "writer of hooks as he once modestly that mind and conscience dominated the called himself in a personal memorial to the universe. He made himself a denouncer of House of Commons. We feel sure our
woes to his generation, and like all who as readers will not resent our sharing in the sume the prophetic role found it difficult criticism and acclamation of Europe and
to lay aside. In God's later providence America. We say Europe deliberately, for prophets are a failure unless they die CARLYLE, although the most insular and in-young. CARLYLE as a seer ran to seed tensely English author of his age, has by the and weed; as CLoven wittily said of him, sheer force of genius joined France and Ger-
he took his countrymen into the desert many to his car. Perhaps his very greatest
"and left them there." Beginning as a services to his own countrymen were that denouncer of shams and conventionalisms in a series of brilliant essays, biographies, he ended by railing at everything but and translations he revealed to them the tyranny, and by fighting against his own German mind and intellect, and that he
"eternal verities" stripped religious cant and prejudice from our view of the French giants of the seven- teenth century.
For each of these nations, too, he wrote a history as unique in char acter and form as it was startling in results, With the exceptions of SHAKESPEARE and (possibly of) DARWIN and SPENCER. English author has exercised so wide an in-¦ fluence on European thought.
come
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If we had to summarize CARLYLE, We should say both as a teacher and a writer he is a stimulus rather than a food, and as such quite the greatest in our tongue. Young folk should not hurry to read him, unless it be the essays. He is too vehement and swamps the mind unballasted by judgment and by the solid information necessary to refute his prognostic. Then he is so in- fectious, unless the system has been hardened by maturity. He has that peculiar want of - high sanity and calm repose want which has marked and marred much of the finest Victorian literature and which RUSKIN, BROWSING, and MEREDITH exemplify. CARLYLE has not the self restraint of the supremely great, like SHAKESPEARE and Miros, but for all this we hold him to be the greatest name and power in modern English literature, and we hope the cen- tenary of his birth will both enlarge the circle of his readers and the sphere of his He best influence.
He
HONGKONG AND SHANGHAI AS MANUFACTURING CENTRES.
This brings us to his social and political philosophy, undoubtedly his weakest point. He began lifewith noble impulses: his carliest political tracts have a wild but coherent cloquence denouncing social wrong. stood nobly forth to champion the deluded poor who trusted to Chartism as the panacea of all their ills. He called for education in trumpet tones, and he bewailed the terrible CARLYLE has not vet
into exclusion of the great mass of his country- proper perspective; the storms of con- men from the kingdom of knowledge in In his speech at the opening of the flicting opinions which raged round language which has never been excelled for Legislative Council Sir WILLIAM RO- his teaching while he lived now rage pathos and sympathy. When he saw BINSON made a reference to the pro- more fiercely round his personality and discontent seething to ebullition he felt aspects of Hongkong as a manufacturing character whien dead, for JAMES ANTHONY "grim satisfaction;" but he pointed to no centre. His Excellency says he had hoped FROUDE'S untimely disclosures have con- remedy and showed no way. As life that, before this the evils of a depreciated fused the issues instead of giving more light, advanced he hardened his heart and then dollar would have been compensated for in so difficult do we find it to dissociate the prescribed but one treatment--a saviour of some degree by an influx of English capital work from the man. The great apostle of society like the infamous FRANCIA or the into the colouy, but the stability of exchange" silence is by his literary executor--we had colossal rascal named FREDERICK THE appears to be beyond all control, and so almost written executioner-shown up as a
GREAT. He went on steadily from bad to long as that is the case, English capitalists sour and serid critic, a sarcastic friend, a worse, showing little insight but no foresight will probably prefer to assist the apparently termagout, and a domestic tyrant; and one
as a social scientist. He lost all faith in his failing industries of Lancashire rather than contracts the horrid suspicion that indiges fellow man auf became quite unable to run any risk in industrial ventures abroad. tion rather than inspiration was at the bot-distinguish between the philanthropic sen- We do not think the exchange difficulty tom of much of his declamatory prophecy.timentalism which he abborred and the has much influence on the matter at pre- It is a curious, destiny that the great hero-humanity which he had once loved. sent, for there is now a very general feeling worshipper's biography should' point the held the devil's brief against Qunshee on the that no further material fall in silver is to moral of here-worship-beware of disillusion, Nigger question and made a savage attack be anticipated. As His Excellency remarks, Reading from the discovery that the hero is on the American democracy in its death capital is being readily subscribed for the not as great as they thought, they swing struggle with shivery. At the age of three establishment of cotton mills and other in- over to a greater injustice and deny that he score and ten he was totally unable to see dustries at Shanghai, and we think it would is great at all. Now Carlyle was truly the essential greatness of the American be found if the matter were inquired into great, though not all round; he had a heroic people, and mistook the flotsam and jetsam that the bulk of that capital comes through soul and heroe virtues; the orbits of his on the surface of their society for those various channels from Europe. At all events mind and morals alike were large and plane-deeper springs which animated them to a Shanghai and Hongkong are on the same tary and his deflections accordingly were
basis as regards the exchange question. His big; but they are not to be reckoned up in
Excellendy further says he could wish to see inches and compared to those of a four-mill
aspirit of enterprise abroad here similar to that ass without any reference to the planet's
in Shanghai; but here again we do not think sweep through space. A wise man will not
there is any radical difference between the contemplate his failings too steadfastly, but
two places, for several of the firms interested will reflect that "whatever this man was,
in the promotion of the Shanghai Cotton God gave him the genius to write these
Companies are represented also in Hong- books; my duty is to read them, to enjoy
kong and would have been as willing to "them and to be thankful." Two adequate
start their industries here as in Shanghai physical explanations can be given for all
had the conditions been considered as his personal and literary shortcomings
favourable. The selection of Shanghai in heredity and dyspepsia. He came of a dour
preference to Hongkong must therefore be truculent stock and early in life became a
sought in the local advantages enjoyed victim to that "rat gnawing at the pit of his
by the former. Sir WILLIAM ROBINSON stomach," which not only ruined his own
mentions joue of these, namely, the unceasing and his wife's happiness, but which ulti-
water supply of the model settlement. mately invaded the kingdoms of his mind
That, however, is perhaps one of the smallest and conscience, and poisoned both.
considerations entering into the calculation, for the present scarcity of water here is quite exceptional and measures are already in train for preventing its recurrence. Is it the case then, as the Governor says, that
41
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As a religious teacher his position is non- descript. He is the Hebrew prophet of his age. Nurtured on hard crude Calvinism his powerful intellect soon rejected its con-
righteous policy and a superb effort. "God has put into every white man's hand a whip to flag the black wrote CARLYLE, of course metaphorically, but he belied both God and man in saying so. In his later life we fear he was never on the side of the angels..
But enough of condemnation. We came to praise CARLYLE and not to blame him. Even in his faults, his honesty and love of truth were inexpugnable. He did noble battle with dant and sham all his life and routed them' all over the field of literature and politics. Like a thunderstorm he cleared the air of English public life. He followed high ideals; both his pen, his noble poverty, and his whole life protested against setting up money as the Ark of the Covenant. He was for thought and the Mosaic ten against machinery and conventional morality. He restored OLIVER CROMWELL and the Puritan to their places in the national Wahallah. He consummated criticism as a fine art and
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