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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Carlyle, by John Nichol
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1904
The following record of the leading events of Carlyle's life and attemptto estimate his genius rely on frequently renewed study of his work, onslight personal impressions—"vidi tantum"—and on information suppliedby previous narrators. Of these the great author's chosen literarylegatee is the most eminent and, in the main, the most reliable. Everycritic of Carlyle must admit as constant obligations to Mr. Froude asevery critic of Byron to Moore or of Scott to Lockhart. The works ofthese masters in biography remain the ample storehouses from which everystudent will continue to draw. Each has, in a sense, made his subject hisown, and each has been similarly arraigned.
I must here be allowed to express a feeling akin to indignation at thepersistent, often virulent, attacks directed against a loyal friend,betrayed, it may be, by excess of faith and the defective reticence thatoften belongs to genius, to publish too much about his hero. But Mr.Froude's quotation, in defence, from the essay on Sir Walter Scottrequires no supplement: it should be remembered that he acted withexplicit authority; that the restrictions under which he was at firstentrusted with the MSS. of the Reminiscences and the Letters andMemorials (annotated by Carlyle himself, as if for publication) werewithdrawn; and that the initial permission to select finally approached apractical injunction to communicate the whole. The worst that can be saidis that, in the last years of Carlyle's career, his own judgment as towhat should be made public of the details of his domestic life may havebeen somewhat obscured; but, if so, it was a weakness easily hidden froma devotee.
My acknowledgments are due to several of the Press comments whichappeared shortly after Carlyle's death, more especially that of the St.James's Gazette, giving the most philosophical brief summary of hisreligious views which I have seen; and to the kindness of Dr. EugeneOswald, President of the Carlyle Society, in supplying me with valuablehints on matters relating to German History and Literature. I have alsoto thank the Editor of the Manchester Guardian for permitting me toreproduce the substance of my article in its columns of February 1881.That article was largely based on a contribution on the same subject, in1859, to Mackenzie's Imperial Dictionary of Biography.
I may add that in the distribution of material over the comparativelyshort space at my command, I have endeavoured to give prominence to factsless generally known, and passed over slightly the details of eventspreviously enlarged on, a