CARLYLE AND HIS TEACHING
With Newman, Carlyle had little sympathy. “John Henry Newman,” he said, “has not the intellect of an average-sized rabbit.” Carlyle’s own life〖For a full account see H. C., xxv, 315.〗 was spent in writing the histories of great movements such as the French Revolution, and of great men such as Cromwell and Frederick the Great. He thundered forth denunciations of the evils of society. The gospel he preached was of Books, Silence, Work, and Heroes. “In Books lie the soul of the whole Past Time.” “Silence is the eternal Duty of a man.” “Work while it is called To-day.” “Universal history is at bottom the history of the Great Men who have worked here.” These doctrines you will find summed up in the Inaugural Address at Edinburgh.〖H. C., xxv, 359.〗 “Carlyle,” wrote George Meredith in one of the most luminous estimates〖See “The Letters of George Meredith,” Vol. II, 332.〗 of the Sage of Chelsea, “Carlyle was one who stood constantly in the presence of those ‘Eternal verities’ of which he speaks.... The spirit of the prophet was in him.... He was the greatest of the Britons of his time—and after the British fashion of not coming near perfection: Titanic, not Olympian: a heaver of rocks, not a shaper. But if he did no perfect work, he had lightning’s power to strike out marvelous pictures and reach to the inmost of men with a phrase.”