The Wisdom of Thomas Carlyle (Paperback)

Profound moral earnestness, the spiritual vision of a poet, and a magnificent gift of literary expression are the qualities by which Carlyle lives in the world's history. The measure of his greatness as ethical teacher and preacher is the depth of his impress, not only on his own time, but on all succeeding time. To a democratic age he cried the doctrine of moral and intellectual aristocracy; in a day when materialism promised to sweep everything before it he proclaimed the rights of the spirit. His influence is not grounded on a transient popularity; it is profound and lasting. It has permeated the English-speaking people. Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish peasant who became one of the great names of English literature. The story of that transformation and achievement has been told and retold by many a brilliant writer during the generation which has elapsed since Carlyle's death. No record of personal development and literary accomplishment is more fascinating. Yet it is not the aim of this book to present one more biography of Carlyle. It is rather to exhibit, as far as possible in Carlyle's own words, the working of his mind. His books are intensely, supremely personal. They review his own struggles, his slowly-won mastery over himself and his circumstances, his entire theory of human life and conduct. With a vividness almost if not quite unrivaled in the whole history of literature, they describe his ancestry and early environment, his unsystematic education, his painful quest of a career, and the spiritual conflicts by which he came to an ultimate command of himself. This main battle once won, he perfected, between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, his theory of biography and history. It remained essentially unchanged throughout the rest of his long life.