Sartor Resartus (Oxford World's Classics)

by Carlyle, Thomas

  Come, come, some reader will impatiently exclaim,—quite enough of this! A whole page of imitative Carlylese would be as bad as the influenza. In human English, then, Thomas Carlyle,—like Dionysius, of Syracuse, among the ancients, and Milton and Johnson among the moderns,—formerly instilled the prima stamina of knowledge into the minds of ingenuous youth; but for some years past has retired from what Oppian calls, or is supposed to call (see Bayle in voce)* feeding the sheep of the muses, to the rural occupations of a Dumfriesshire laird, in a place rejoicing in the melodious title of Craigenputtock, an appellation which must have delighted his ear, from its similarity in harmonious sound to the poetical effusions of the bards he loves. Here he occupies his leisure hours in translating Goethe, or in corresponding with the Edinburgh Review, or Fraser’s Magazine, the Morning Post, or the Examiner,—in all, donner-und-blitzenizing* it like a north-wester. To his credit be it spoken, he gave a Christian and an honourable tone to the articles of the Edinburgh; but he came too late. The concern was worn out and gone, and not even Carlyle could keep it from destruction, particularly when he was associated with Thomas Babbletongue Macaulay, whose articles would swamp a seventy-four.* He has a more congenial soil in Regina* where he expounds, in the most approved fashion of the Cimbri and the Teutones, his opinions on men and things, greatly to the edification of our readers. Of his contributions to the forty-eight feet of diurnal or septimanal literature which are set before the industrious eyes of the readers of newspapers, we know nothing.

  He is an honourable and worthy man, and talks the most unquestionable High Fifeshire. Of our German scholars, he is clearly the first; and it is generally suspected that he has an idea that he understands the meaning of the books which he is continually reading, which really is a merit of no small magnitude, particularly when we consider that nobody ever thinks of publishing a translation from the German without prefixing thereto a preface, proving in general in the most satisfactory manner that his predecessors in the work of translation made as many blunders as there were lines in the book, and that of the spirit of the original they were perfectly ignorant. Even-handed justice is sure to bring back the chalice to his own lips, and he receives the same compliment from his successor.

  APPENDIX III

  CARLYLE’S ACCOUNT OF SARTOR RESARTUS TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 12 AUGUST 1834

  EMERSON (1803–82) first wrote to Carlyle in May 1834, having read the first four instalments of Sartor Resartus in Fraser’s Magazine. Carlyle’s reply, of which a long paragraph on Sartor Resartus is printed here, begins his side of a correspondence that lasted for almost forty years. Because of Emerson’s advocacy, Sartor Resartus was published in book form first in America and subsequently in England; his preface to the first American edition concludes the ‘Testimonies of Authors’ in Appendix V below. With his letter, Carlyle sent Emerson four copies of the privately issued volume of Sartor Resartus (1834); see Note on the Text, above.

  You thank me for Teufelsdröckh: how much more ought I to thank you for your hearty, genuine tho’ extravagant acknowledgement of it! Blessed is the voice that amid dispiritment stupidity and contradiction proclaims to us: Euge [well done]! Nothing ever was more ungenial than the soil that poor Teufelsdröckhish seedcorn has been thrown on here; none cries, Good speed to it; the sorriest nettle or hemlock seed, one would think, had been more welcome. For indeed our British periodical critics, and especially the public of Fraser’s Magazine (which I believe I have now done with) exceed all speech; require not even contempt, only oblivion. Poor Teufelsdröckh! Creature of mischance, miscalculation, and thousandfold obstruction! Here nevertheless he is, as you see; has struggled across the Stygian marshes, and now, as a stitched Pamphlet “for Friends,” cannot be burnt, or lost—before his time. I send you one copy for your own behoof; three others you yourself can perhaps find fit readers for: as you spoke in the plural number, I thought there might be three; more would rather surprise me. From the British side of the water, I have met simply one intelligent response; clear, true, tho’ almost enthusiastic as your own: my British Friend too is utterly a stranger, whose very name I know not, who did not print, but only write and to an unknown third party.* Shall I say then: “In the mouth of two witnesses”? In any case, God be thanked, I am done with it; can wash my hands of it, and send it forth; sure that the Devil will get his full share of it, and not a whit more, clutch as he may. But as for you, my Transoceanic Brothers, read this earnestly, for it was earnestly meant and written, and contains no voluntary falsehood of mine. For the rest if you dislike it, say that I wrote it four years ago, and could not now so write it, and on the whole (as Fritz the Only* said) “will do better another time.”—With regard to style and so forth, what you call your “saucy” objections are not only most intelligible to me, but welcome and instructive. You say well that I take up that attitude because I have no known public, am alone under the Heavens, speaking into friendly or unfriendly Space; add only that I will not defend such attitude, that I call it questionable, tentative, and only the best that I in these mad times could conveniently hit upon. For you are to know, my view is that now at last we have lived to see all manner of Poetics and Rhetorics and Sermonics, and one may say generally all manner of Pulpits for addressing mankind from, as good as broken and abolished: alas, yes; if you have any earnest meaning, which demands to be not only listened to, but believed and done, you cannot (at least I cannot) utter it there, but the sound sticks in my throat, as when a Solemnity were felt to have become a Mummery; and so one leaves the pasteboard coulisses, and three Unities, and Blair[’]s Lectures,* quite behind; and feels only that there is nothing sacred, then, but the Speech of Man to believing Men! This, come what will, was, is and forever must be sacred: and will one day doubtless anew environ itself with fit Modes, with Solemnities that are not Mummeries. Meanwhile, however, is it not pitiable? For tho’ Teufelsdröckh exclaims: “Pulpit! Canst thou not make a pulpit, by simply inverting the nearest tub”; yet alas he does not sufficiently reflect that it is still only a tub, that the most inspired utterance will come from it, inconceivable, misconceivable to the million; questionable (not of ascertained significance) even to the few. Pity us therefore; and with your just shake of the head join a sympathetic even a hopeful smile. Since I saw you, I have been trying, am still trying, other methods, and shall surely get nearer the truth, as I honestly strive for it. Meanwhile I know no method of much consequence, except that of believing, of being sincere: from Homer and the Bible down to the poorest Burns’s Song I find no other Art that promises to be perennial.

  APPENDIX IV

  CARLYLE’S DEFENCE OF SARTOR RESARTUS TO JOHN STERLING, 4 JUNE 1835

  JOHN STERLING (1806–44) was a member of the Apostles during his undergraduate years at Cambridge and subsequently came under the spell of Coleridge, who influenced his decision to become an Anglican clergyman. At the time he first met Carlyle in February 1835, Sterling was in the process of withdrawing from his clerical commitment as a curate because of ill health and religious misgivings. His intimate friendship with Carlyle was cut short by his premature death. In his Life of John Sterling, published in 1851, Carlyle argued that his friend’s religious beliefs had been less orthodox and less certain than others had claimed.

  On 29 May 1835 Sterling wrote Carlyle a voluminous letter criticising Sartor Resartus; this was subsequently printed, with omissions, in Carlyle’s Life. The letter printed here, with the omission of a concluding paragraph on other matters, is Carlyle’s defence against two of Sterling’s charges: that the style of Sartor is inaccurate, and that the work does not uphold the Christian faith. Several days before receiving Carlyle’s reply Sterling renewed his criticisms of the style of Sartor, in a letter which Carlyle ‘made into matches’ (Collected Letters, viii. 134 n. 1).

  I said to Mill* the other day that your Name was HOPEFUL; of which truth surely this copious refreshing shower of really kind and genial criticism you have bestowed on the hardened, kiln-burnt, altogether contra
dictory Professor Teufelsdröckh, is new proof. Greater faith I have not found in Israel! Neither here shall faith and hope wholly fail: know, my Friend that your shower does not fall as on mere barren bricks, like water spilt on the ground; that I take it hopefully in, with great desire (knowing what spirit it is of) to assimilate such portion of it as the nature of things will allow. So much, on this sheet, I must announce to you, were it at full gallop, and in the most imperfect words.

  Your objections as to phraseology and style have good grounds to stand on; many of them indeed are considerations to which I myself was not blind; which there (unluckily) were no means of doing more than nodding to as one passed. A man has but a certain strength; imperfections cling to him, which if he wait till he have brushed off entirely, he will spin forever on his axis, advancing nowhither. Know thy thought, believe it; front Heaven and Earth with it,—in whatsoever words Nature and Art have made readiest for thee! If one has thoughts not hitherto uttered in English Books, I see nothing for it but that you must use words not found there, must make words,—with moderation and discretion, of course. That I have not always done it so, proves only that I was not strong enough; an accusation to which I for one will never plead not guilty. For the rest, pray that I may have more and more strength! Surely too, as I said, all these coal-marks* of yours shall be duly considered, for the first and even for the second time, and help me on my way. With unspeakable cheerfulness I give up “Talented”:* indeed, but for the plain statement you make, I could have sworn such word had never, excepted for parodistic ironical purposes, risen from my inkhorn, or passed my lips. Too much evil can hardly be said of it: while speech of it at all is necessary.—But finally do you reckon this really a time for Purism of Style; or that Style (mere dictionary style) has much to do with the worth or unworth of a Book? I do not: with whole ragged battallions of Scott’s-Novel Scotch, with Irish, German, French and even Newspaper Cockney (when “Literature” is little other than a Newspaper) storming in on us, and the whole structure of our Johnsonian English breaking up from its foundations,—revolution there as visible as anywhere else!

  You ask, How it comes that none of the “leading minds” of this country (if one knew where to find them) have given the Clothes-Philosophy any response? Why, my good friend, not one of them has had the happiness of seeing it! It issued thro’ one of the main cloacas of Periodical Literature, where no leading mind, I fancy, looks, if he can help it: the poor Book cannot be destroyed by fire or other violence now, but solely by the general law of Destiny; and I have nothing more to do with it henceforth. How it chanced that no Bookseller would print it (in an epoch when Satan Montgomery runs or seems to run thro’ thirteen editions),* and the Morning Papers (on its issuing thro’ the cloaca) sang together in mere discord over such a Creation: this truly is a question, but a different one. Meanwhile, do not suppose the poor Book has not been responded to; for the historical fact is, I could show very curious response to it here; not ungratifying, and fully three times as much as I counted on, as the wretched farrago itself deserved.

  You say finally, as the Key to the whole mystery, that Teufelsdröckh does not believe in a “personal God.” It is frankly said, with a friendly honesty for which I love you. A grave charge nevertheless, an awful charge: to which, if I mistake not, the Professor laying his hand on his heart will reply with some gesture expressing the solemnest denial. In gesture, rather than in speech; for “the Highest cannot be spoken of in words.” “Personal,” “impersonal.” One, Three, what meaning can any mortal (after all) attach to them in reference to such an object? Wer darf ihn NENNEN [Who dares name him]? I dare not, and do not. That you dare and do (to some greater extent) is a matter I am far from taking offence at: nay, with all sincerity, I can rejoice that you have a creed of that kind, which gives you happy thoughts, nerves you for good actions, brings you into readier communion with many good men; my true wish is that such creed may long hold compactly together in you, and be “a covert from the heat, a shelter from the storm, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Well is it if we have a printed Litany to pray from; and yet not ill if we can pray even in Silence, for Silence too is audible there. Finally assure yourself I am neither Pagan nor Turk, nor circumcised Jew, but an unfortunate Christian individual resident at Chelsea in this year of Grace; neither Pantheist nor Pottheist, nor any Theist or ist whatsoever; having the most decided contem[pt] for all manner of System-builders and Sectfounders—as far as contempt may be com[patible] with so mild a nature; feeling well beforehand (taught by long experience) that all such are and even must be wrong. By God’s blessing, one has got two eyes to look with; also a mind capable of knowing, of believing: that is all the creed I will at this time insist on. And now may I beg one thing: that wherever in my thoughts or your own you fall on any dogma that tends to estrange you from me, pray believe that to be false;—false as Beelzebub, till you get clearer evidence.

  However, descending from the Empyrean to London pavements, let me tell you that I am actually bestirring myself to try whether the people will give me any employment in this matter of National Education. Mill and some others undertake to help me, but have not reported yet. It is a confused business; out of which darkness is rayed forth on me hitherto. If we fail in it, there is some likelihood I may cross the Atlantic soon.* The Book-Trade seems to me done here: a man must go where his work lies, where they will keep him in existence for his work.

  APPENDIX V

  CARLYLE’S SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL TO THE 1869 EDITION OF SARTOR RESARTUS

  FOUR items were appended to the 1869 edition of Sartor Resartus, volume one of the collected Library Edition of Carlyle’s works, of which three are printed here. The first, an ‘Author’s Note’, points out that the second item, ‘Testimonies of Authors’, had previously been included in the first English edition of 1838. They provide, Carlyle wrote to his brother John on 14 July 1838, ‘covertly a history of the poor Manuscript & publication’, embracing ‘the wisest and stupidest, the worst and best, that can be said of it’ (Collected Letters, x. 122). The ‘Bookseller’s Taster’, whose note to the publisher John Murray is given verbatim, is the Rev. Henry Hart Milman. ‘Bookseller to Editor’ is a revised version of a letter from Murray to Carlyle, dated by Carlyle 17 September 1831 but apparently written on 6 October (see Collected Letters, vi. 6 n. 1). The excerpts from reviews in the Sun, a London newspaper, and the North American Review, a Boston magazine, are correctly dated; both were published anonymously, but the latter has been attributed to the review’s editor, Alexander H. Everett. The last, and much the most important, of the four ‘Testimonies’ is by Emerson, the ‘New-England Editor’, originally prefaced to the first and second American editions of Sartor Resartus, 1836 and 1837.

  The third item added by Carlyle to the 1869 edition is a ‘Summary’ of Sartor Resartus. Many later editions insert these abstracts at the head of each chapter, making the work less of a prose fiction and more of an argumentative treatise. Carlyle’s index, not included here, is also designed to present Sartor as prose of thought and to conceal its fictitiousness.

  This questionable little Book was undoubtedly written among the mountain solitudes, in 1831; but, owing to impediments natural and accidental, could not, for seven years more, appear as a Volume in England;—and had at last to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit by bit, in some courageous Magazine that offered. Whereby now, to certain idly curious readers, and even to myself till I make study, the insignificant but at last irritating question, What its real history and chronology are, is, if not insoluble, considerably involved in haze.

  To the first English Edition, 1838, which an American, or two American had now opened the way for, there was slightingly prefixed, under the title ‘Testimonies of Authors,’ some straggle of real documents, which, now that I find it again, sets the matter into clear light and sequence;—and shall here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks and nugatory guessings from the path of every reader, be reprinted a
s it stood. (Author’s Note, of 1868.)

  TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS

  1. HIGHEST CLASS, BOOKSELLER’S TASTER

  Taster to Bookseller.—“The Author of Teufelsdröckh is a person of talent; his work displays here and there some felicity of thought and expression, considerable fancy and knowledge: but whether or not it would take with the public seems doubtful. For a jeu d’esprit of that kind it is too long; it would have suited better as an essay or article than as a volume. The Author has no great tact; his wit is frequently heavy; and reminds one of the German Baron who took to leaping on tables, and answered that he was learning to be lively. Is the work a translation?”

  Bookseller to Editor.—“Allow me to say that such a writer requires only a little more tact to produce a popular as well as an able work. Directly on receiving your permission, I sent your Ms. to a gentleman in the highest class of men of letters, and an accomplished German scholar: I now enclose you his opinion, which, you may rely upon it, is a just one; and I have too high an opinion of your good sense to” &c. &c.—Ms. (penes nos)* London, 17th September 1831.