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The mothers who loved us, whom we love, are snatched away; friendships die, and we survive them. The phantom of death watches by the pillow of those dear to us: the liveliest and purest love would be a bitter irony, were it not a promise for the future; and this promise itself is not felt strongly enough by us, such as we are at the present day. The intellectual adoration of truth, without hope of realization, is sterile: there is a larger void in our souls, more room for the truth than we can fill during our short terrestrial existence. Break the bond of continuity between ourselves and the generations which have preceded and shall follow us upon the earth, and what is the devotion to ideas but a sublime folly? Annihilate the connection of all human lives, efface the infallibility which lies in the progression of collective mankind, and what becomes martyrdom but a suicide without an object? Who would sacrifice-not his life, for that is little-but all the days of his life, his affections, the peace of those he loves, for country, for human liberty, for the evolution of a great moral thought, when a few years, perhaps a few days, will suffice to destroy it? Sadness, exhaustless sadness, discordance between the will and the power, disenchantment, discouragement, such constitute life, when looked at only from the individual point of view. A few rare intellects escape the common law and attain calmness; but it is the calm of inaction, of contemplation; and contemplation here on earth is the selfishness of genius.

We repeat, that Mr. Carlyle has instinctively all the presentiments of the period; but not understanding, not admitting throughout, where he labors with the intellect rather than with the heart, the collective life, it is absolutely impossible for him to find the means of realization. A perpetual antagonism prevails throughout all that he does; his instincts drive him to action, his theory to contemplation. Faith and discouragement alternate in his works, as they must in his soul. He weaves and unweaves his web, like Penelope: he preaches by turns life and nothingness: he destroys the powers of his readers, by continually carrying them from heaven to hell, from hell to heaven. Ardent, and almost menacing, upon the ground of idea, he becomes timid and skeptical as soon as he is engaged on that of its application. We may agree with him with respect to the aim-we cannot respecting the means; he rejects them all, but he proposes no others. He desires progress, but dislikes progressives he foresees, he announces as inevitable, great changes or revolutions in the

religious, social, political order; but it is on condition that the revolutionists take no part in them: he has written many admirable pages on Knox and Cromwell; but the chances are that he would have written as admirably, although less truly, against them, had he lived at the commencement of their struggles. Give him the past-give him a power, an idea, something which has triumphed and borne its fruits-so that, placed thus at a distance, he can examine and comprehend it under all its points of view, calmly, at his ease, without fear of being troubled by it, or drawn into the sphere of its action and he will see in it all that there is to see, more than others are able to see. Bring the object near to him, and as with Dante's souls in the 'Inferno,' his vision, his faculty of penetration, is clouded. If his judgment respecting the French revolution be in our opinion very incomplete, the reason is that the event is still continued, and that it appears to him living and disturbing. The past has every thing to expect from him-the present, nothing not even common justice. Have patience, he says, to those who complain; all will come to pass, but not in your way: God will provide the means. By whom then will God provide means upon earth unless by us? are we not his agents here below? Our destinies are within us to understand them, we need intellect—to accomplish them, power. And why does he design us the first, without the second? Wherefore does he speak to us, at times, in such beautiful passages, of hope and faith, of the divine principle that is within us, of the duty which calls us to act, and the next instant smile with pity upon all that we attempt,—and point to us the night, the vast night of extinction, swallowing up all our efforts?

There is, in our opinion, something very incomplete, very narrow, in this kind of contempt which Mr. Carlyle exhibits, whenever he meets in his path with any thing that men have agreed to call political reform. The forms of government appear to him almost without meaning: such objects as the extension of suffrage, the guarantee of any kind of political right, are evidently in his eyes pitiful things, materialism more or less disguised. What he requires is, that men should grow better, that the number of just men should increase: one wise man more in the world would be to him a fact of more importance than ten political revolutions. It would be so to us also, were we able to create him, as Wagner does his Homunculus, by blowing on the furnaces,-if the changes in the political order of things did not precisely constitute those very manifestations which

appear to us indispensable to the life of the just and wise man. When a creed is the professed object, we must not capriciously destroy the instruments which may enable us fully to attain it.

the notion of life, of sacred life, to him who knows it only by the material labor that crushes him, and by the wages that abase him? Alas! this man's name is Million; he is met with on every side; he constitutes nearly three-fourths of the population of Europe. How will you give him more time and more energy to develope his faculties, except by lessening the number of his hours of labor, and increasing his profits? How can you render his contact with the enlightened classes serviceable to him, except by altering the nature of his relations toward them? How, above all, will you raise this fallen soul, except by saying to him,-by telling him in acts, not reasonings which he does not understand,-" Thou, too, art man; the breath of God is in thee: thou art here below to develope thy being under all its aspects: thy body is a temple; thy immortal soul is the priest, which ought to sacrifice there for all "? And what is this act, this token destined to raise him in his own eyes, to show to him that he has a mission upon earth, to give him the consciousness of his duties and his rights, except his initiation into citizenship, the suffrage? What is meant by "re-organizing labor," but bringing back the dignity of labor? What is a new form, but the case of a new idea? We perhaps have had a glimpse of the ideal in all its purity, we feel ourselves capable of soaring into the invisible regions of the spirit. But are we, on this account, to isolate ourselves from the movement which is going on among our brethren beneath us? Must we hear ourselves addressed thus,

We know well enough, that there are too many men who lose the remembrance of God in the symbol, who do not go beyond questions of form, contract a love for them, and end in a kind of liberalism for liberalism's sake. We do not need to enter our protest against this caprice, if the reader has paid attention to what we have already said. In our view the real problem, which rules all political agitation, is one of education. We believe in the progressive moral amelioration of man, as the sole important object of all labor, as the sole strict duty which ought to direct us: the rest is only means. But where the liberty of means does not exist, is not its attainment the first thing needful? Take an enslaved country,-Italy for example, there we find no education, no press, no public meetings; but censors, who, after having mutilated a literary journal for years, seeing that it still survives, suppress it altogether; archbishops, who preach against all kinds of popular instruction, and declare the establishment of infant schools to be immoral ;t-princes, who stamp all the books belonging to their subjects. What can be done to ameliorate in such a country the moral and intellectual condition of the people? Take a country of serfs,-Poland or Russia, for example,-how can we set about the attempt to annihilate the really existing distinction? Could the education of these na- You profane the sanctity of the idea," betions be commenced otherwise than by a re- cause the men into whom we seek to instil it volution? Take a man, for instance, who la- are flesh and blood, and we are obliged to bors hard from fourteen to sixteen hours a speak to their senses? Condemn all action, day to obtain the bare necessaries of exist- then; for action is only a form of thought, ence; he eats his bacon and potatoes (when-its application, practice. "The end of indeed he can get them) in a place which man is an action, and not a thought." Mr. might rather be called a den than a house; and then, worn out, lies down and sleeps: he is brutalized in a moral and physical point of view; he has not ideas, but propensities, -not belief, but instinct; he does not read, -he cannot read; he has not within his reach the least means of self-enlightenment, and his contact with the upper class is only the relation of a servant to a master, of a machine to the director of the machine. Of what use are books to such a being? How can you come at him, how kindle the divine spark which is torpid in his soul, how give

*The Subalpino,' the Letture Popolari, in Piedmont; the Antologia' at Florence, etc.

+ The Archbishop of Turin, Franzoni, in a pastoral letter.

The Duke of Modena.

Carlyle himself repeats this in his 'Sartor Resartus' (Book 2. ch. vi.), and yet the spirit which pervades his works seems to us too often of a nature to make his readers forget it.

It has been asked, what is at the present day the duty of which we have spoken so much? A complete reply would require a volume, but we can point it out in a few words. Duty consists of that which the life of the individual represents in all possible acts, for the love of God and of man, all that he believes to be the truth, absolute or relative. Duty is progressive, as the evolution of the truth; it is modified and enlarges with ages; it changes its manifestations according

* Mr. Horne, in his Preface to Gregory VII.

stances.

to the acquirement of times and circum- so far as, taken literally, and falling into the There are times in which we must hands of men whose tendencies to self-sacribe able to die like Socrates; there are others, fice are feeble, it may lead to the revival of in which we must be able to struggle like selfishness, and cause that which at bottom Washington: one period claims the pen of should only be regarded as the wages of duty the sage, another requires the sword of the to be mistaken for duty itself. It is well hero. But ever, and every where, its source known what use Goethe, the high-priest of is God and his law,-its object, Humanity, the doctrine, made of this maxim, shrouding -its guarantee, the mutual responsibility of himself in what he called 'Art;' and amidst men, its measure, the intellect of the in- a world in misery, putting away the question dividual and the demands of the pericd,-its of Religion and politics," a troubled elelimit, power. Study the universal tradition ment for Art," though a vital one for man, of humanity, with all the faculties, with all-and giving himself up to the contemplation the disinterestedness, with all the compre-of forms and the admiration of self. There hensiveness of which God has made you are at the present day but too many who capable; where you find the general per- imagine they have perfectly done their duty, manent voice of humanity agreeing with the because they are kind toward their friends, voice of your conscience, be sure that you affectionate in their families, inoffensive tohold in your grasp something of absolute ward the rest of the world. The maxim of truth, gained, and for ever yours. Study Goethe and of Mr. Carlyle will always suit also with interest, attention, and comprehen- and serve such men, by transforming into. siveness, the tradition of your epoch and of duties the individual, domestic, or other af your nation, the idea, the want, which fer-fections,-in other words, the consolations ments within them where you find that of life. Mr. Carlyle probably does not carry your conscience sympathizes with the gen-out his maxim in practice; but his principle eral aspiration, you are sure of possessing leads to this result, and cannot theoretically the relative truth. Your life must embody have any other. "Here on earth we are as both these truths, must represent and com- soldiers," he says:-true, but we undermunicate them, according to your intelli- stand nothing, nor do we require to undergence and your means; you must be not stand any thing, of the plan of the camonly MAN, but a man of your age; you must paign." What law, what sure object can we act as well as speak; you must be able to then have for action, excepting those to die without being compelled to acknow- which our individual instincts lead us? Reledge, "I have known such a fraction of the ligion is the first of our wants, he will go on truth, I could have done such a thing for its to say: but whilst to us religion is a belief triumph, and I have not done it." Such is, and a worship in common, an ideal, the in our opinion, duty, in its most general ex-realization of which mankind collectively pression. As to its special application to must seek,-a heaven, the visible symbol of our times, we have said enough on this point which the earth must be rendered by our in the commencement of the part of our arti-efforts,-to him it is only a simple relation cle which establishes our difference from the of the individual to God. It ought therefore, views of Mr. Carlyle, to render its deduction according to our view, to preside over the easy. The question at the present day is a development of collective life; according to perfecting the principle of association, a his view, its only office is to pacify the trouchange of the medium in which mankind bled soul. moves duty therefore lies in a collective labor,-every one to measure his powers, and to see what part of this labor falls to him The greater the intellect and influence a man enjoys, the greater his responsibility; but assuredly contemplation cannot satisfy duty in any degree.

Mr. Carlyle's expression of duty is naturally different. Thinking only of individuality, calculating only the powers of the individual, he would rather restrict than enlarge its sphere. The rule which he adopts is that laid down by Goethe,-" Do the duty which lies nearest thee." And this rule is good, inasfar as it is, like all other moral rules, susceptible of a wide interpretation,-bad,

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Does it at least lead to this conclusion? Is he (we speak of the writer, of whom alone we have a right to speak) calm? No, he is not in this continual alternation between aspirations as of a Titan and powers necessarily very limited, between the feeling of life and that of nothingness, his powers are paralyzed as well as those of his readers. At times there escape from his lips accents of distress, which, whatever he may do, he cannot remove from the minds of those who listen to him with attention and sympathy. What else is that incessant and discouraged yearning after rest, which, although he has formally renounced the happiness of life, pervades all his works,- Sartor Resartus' espe

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cially, and which so constantly calls to our re-attaching life to heaven,-in raising it minds the expression of Arnaud to Nicolle, again, in restoring to it the consciousness of -"N'avons-nous pas toute l'éternité pour its power and sanctity. The means consist nous reposer?”—“Let me rest here, for I am in tempering the individual life in the comway-weary, and life-weary; I will rest here, mon elements, in the universal life: they conwere it but to die; to die or to live is alike sist in restoring to the individual that which to me, alike insignificant. . . . . Here, then, we have from the outset called the feeling of as I lay in that CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE the collective, in pointing out to him his place the heavy dreams rolled gradually in the tradition of the species, in bringing Alas! no, poor Teufelsdröck! him into communion, by love and by works, there is no repose here on earth. It matters with all his fellow-men. By isolating ourlittle if the limbs be bruised, the faculties selves, we have begun to feel ourselves feeble exhausted. Life is a conflict and a march; and little; we have begun to despise our ef the "heavy dreams" will return; we are still forts and those of our brethren toward the attoo low; the air is still too heavy around us tainment of the ideal; and we have in despair for them to "roll away." Strength consists set ourselves to repeat and comment upon in advancing in the midst and in spite of the "Carpe diem" of the heathen poet: we them, not in causing them to vanish. must make ourselves great and strong again They will vanish higher, when, after mount- by association; we must not dishonor life, ing a step upon the ladder, life shall expand but make it holy. By persisting to search in a purer medium: the flower, too, springs out the secret, the law of individuality in the and unfolds in the earth, to expand only in individuality itself, man ends only in egoism, another element, in the air and sun of God. if he is evil-minded-in skepticism, in fatalMeanwhile suffer and act; suffer for thyself, ism, or in contemplation, if he is virtuous. act for thy brethren, and with them. Speak Mr. Carlyle, whatever he may himself think, not ill of science, of philosophy, of the spirit fluctuates between these last three tendof inquiry; these are the implements which encies. God has given us for our labor,-good or bad, according as they are employed for good or for evil. Tell us no longer that "life itself is a disease,-knowledge, the symptom of derangement;" talk no more of a "first state of freedom and paradisiacal unconscious-ject which we have pointed out than that ness." There is more Byronism in these few words than in the whole of Byron. Freedom and paradise are not behind, but before us. Not life itself, but the deviation from life, is disease: life is sacred; life is our aspiration toward the ideal,-our affections, engagements, which will one day be fulfilled, our virtues, advanced toward greatIt is blasphemy to pronounce a word of disrespect against it.

er.

The function which Mr. Carlyle at present fulfils in England appears to us therefore important, but incomplete. Its level is perhaps not high enough for the demands of the age; nevertheless it is noble, and nearer to the ob

perhaps of any other living writer. All that he combats is indeed really false, and has never been combated more energetically: that which he teaches is not always true. His longings belong to the future, the temper and habits of his intelligence attach him to the past. Our sympathies may claim the one half of the man,-the other half escapes us. All that we regard as important, he considers so also all that we foresee, he foresees likeThe evil at the present day is, not that wise. We only differ respecting the road to men assign too much value to life, but the re-follow, the means to be adopted: we serve verse. Life has fallen in estimation, because, the same God, we separate only in the woras at all periods of crisis and disorganization, ship. Whilst we dive into the midst of presthe chain is broken which in all forms of be- ent things, in order to draw inspiration from lief attaches it through humanity to heaven. them, while we mingle with men in order to It has fallen, because the consciousness of draw strength from them, he retires to a dismutual human responsibility, which alone tance and contemplates. We appeal perhaps constitutes its dignity and strength, being more than he to tradition; he appeals more lost together with the community of belief, than we to individual conscience. We perits sphere of activity has become restricted, haps run the risk of sacrificing something of and it has been compelled to fall back upon the purity of the idea, in the pursuit of the material interests, little objects, minor pas-means; he runs the risk, without intending sions. It has fallen, because it has been too much individualized; and the remedy lies in

* Sartor Resartus, Book ii. ch. 9.

t Essays- Characteristics.'

it, of deserting his brother-laborers.

Nevertheless, let each follow his own path. There will always be a field for the fraternity of noble spirits, even if they differ in their notion of the present life. Their outward

manifestations may vary, but only like the| radiations of light upon the earth. The ray assumes different colors, according to the different media through which it passes, according to the surface of the objects upon which it falls; but wherever it falls, it warms and vivifies more or less visibly, and all the beams proceed from the same source. Like the sun, the fountain of terrestrial light, there is a common element in heaven for all human spirits which possess strong, firm, and disinterested convictions. In this sanctuary Mr. Carlyle will assuredly meet, in a spirit of esteem and sympathy, all the chosen spirits that adore God and truth, who have learned to suffer without cursing, and to sacrifice themselves without despair.

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We can but briefly refer to Mr. Carlyle's last work, recently published, entitled 'Past and Present.' We have read it with attention, and with a desire to find cause to alter our opinions. We however find nothing to retract: on the contrary the present work appears to us to confirm those opinions. Past and Present' is a work of power, and will do incalculable good. No one will close its pages without having felt awakened in him thoughts and feelings which would perhaps have still slept long in his heart: yet should the reader desire to open it again, with a view to study how he may realize these sentiments and thoughts in the world, he will often, in the midst of eloquent pages, of fruitful truths expressed with an astonishing energy, meet with disappointment. Past and Present' is, in our opinion, remarkable rather for the tendencies and aptitudes which it presents than for the paths which it points out. It is a step toward the future, not a step in the future. Will Mr. Carlyle take this step? We know not, but we have every thing to hope for.

TO A CHILD.

From Fraser's Magazine.

My happy child! I smile to see
How wisdom I have sought so long,
Hath come to thee spontaneously

In thine unconsciousness of wrong;
How, wheresoe'er thine eyes may stray,
Their pure, unclouded sight can find
A something beautiful or gay,-
A joy, to which mine eyes are blind.

The red leaves dancing in the breeze,
The falling of the autumn rain,
The solemn waving of the trees,
For us are beautiful in vain ;
But thou, with better wisdom far,

Canst find new joy in every change; Contented with the things that are, Thy wishes ask no farther range.

And if they're sent to thee alone,
Or if they come alike to all,
Thou carest not; but mak'st thine own
The blessings that around thee fall.
The sunshine and the breath of heaven,
The beauty of the field and wood,
To thee these blessed gifts are given,-
Enough for thee, thou know'st them good.
I love to cast all cares aside,

And, calming down each hope and fear,
To watch the smiles of light that glide
Across thy face when none are near,
And think that glories hid from eyes
Long dimmed with mists of grief and ill
Before thy holier vision rise,

Clad in their vernal beauty still.

Young stranger in a world of care,
Keep, keep thy keen unclouded sight;
No thoughts of ours are half so fair
As those which give thy soul delight.
Our laughter is an empty sound

To that clear, silvery tone of thine,Our very hopes are check'd and bound, Our thoughts in vain for freedom pine. In thee so lovely life doth seem,

So rich in stores of happy thought, So calm, so sweet, that I could deem All joys men feel must needs be brought From far-off shores of infancy;

Borne onward o'er the wastes of life Like bursts of music o'er the sea,

Dull'd, but still heard amid the strife.

My child! I blessed thee at thy birth,
Yet knew not then how much had come
Of happiness, and love, and mirth,

With thee, to haunt my heart and home.
I dream'd not thy young life could shed
Such joy and beauty upon mine,
Nor I, by watching thee, be led

To better thoughts of things divine.

THE AFFINITY OF VEGETABLES FOR MOISTURE, is one of the most striking phenomena in natural history. "There is nothing more unaccountable," says a correspondent of the Gardener's Chronicle, "than the fact that of certain plants teeming with moisture, and growing to a large size, in places where no other vegetable can withstand the burning temperature. In the deserts of the East, in Arabia, and those extensive plains where nothing save sand is seen on the ground; where the heat reflected from the earth dissipates the passing cloud, which hastens, as it were, to shed its refreshing moisture on a more grateful spot; where no water ever rises from a spring, or falls from on high, and where the burning soil is intolerable to the foot even of the camel, the water-melon attains the size of a foot and more in diameter, and while all around is parched, offers in its cold and copious juice a draught to the traveller, which has often saved him from a lingering and painful death. In a similar, though less efficient manner, the melon cactus refreshes the wild herds of the Pampas; and the formidable prickles are not a sure guard against the powerful kick of the wild horse, who has no other mode of getting at its interior, but who is often permanently lamed in this extraordinary contest." -Chambers's Ed. Jour.

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