Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

faith-with such firmness in holding on to the things that they believed; in saying and doing only what they thought was right; in seeing and hating the thing they felt to be wrong-I should have far more hope for this British nation, and indeed for the world at large."

It was natural that such a father and such a pastor should desire young Thomas Carlyle to become a minister of the Kirk of Scotland. Indeed from a child the former had "destined" his son for this office. As a youth, he seems not to have been averse to his father's choice for him. But then already his rugged mind refused to run in paths others had trod, or work in grooves that others made. Speaking of this, when old, he said: "Now that I had gained the years of man's estate, I was not sure that I believed the doctrines of my father's kirk; and it was needful that I should now settle it. And so I entered into my chamber and closed the door." Here he seems to have fasted, meditated, and wrestled for days. Indeed he says for weeks. "Whether I ate I know not; whether I drank I know not; whether I slept I know not. But I only know that when I came forth again beneath the glimpses of the moon, it was with the direful persuasion that I was the miserable owner of a diabolical apparatus called a stomach. And I never have been free from that knowledge from that hour to this, and I suppose that I never shall be until I am laid away in the grave." And all this happened to the vigorous, hardy son of a hard working healthy Scotch farmer, who was the descendant of a long line of such men that had tilled their paternal acres, and gained their seventy or eighty years, and had gone to their graves blissfully ignorant of a dyspeptic stomach.

During his whole adult life he fought a legion of foes, among others the dyspepsia. All his abstemiousness in eating and drinking; his daily walks, regardless of cold and rain, and spending much in feeing physicians could not remove his bodily infirmities. He rarely traveled, but rode a-horseback, "in the teeth of the wind, within this smoky London." What a prodigious worker he was-wading through what piles of documents confused and dull, to find the wherewith to write his works. What a mawler of sham he was, hating dissemblance, hypocrisy and trickery with almost the bit

terness of a maniac. A more fearless and unselfish man one rarely finds.

Much of the good and the evil in Carlyle's writings is directly or remotely derived from Germany. No Briton has ever mastered German thought as he. In early life he became an enthusiastic student of German literature and philosophy. He wrought this mass of good and evil over in his strong active mind, assimilating, reproducing and making it his own. He left the beaten paths of literature, and cut out a highway for himself. He corresponded with some of the first German writers, among others, with Goethe. Whether he ever set foot on German soil is uncertain-albeit, in his Life of Frederick the Great, he shows an accuracy and extent of information concerning the life, habits and localities of Germany which, without a personal visit and intercourse with the people, would seem like a marvel in authorship. There is a saying that he once set out to visit Prussia, in order to collect material for this great work; but that on the first night he spent on the continent he was half-suffocated under the high-piled feathers of a German bed, which so disgusted him that he returned to London the next day.

Besides his pastor, another ministerial friend of his early years greatly impressed Carlyle. Already, at school, Thomas Carlyle and Edward Irving became bosom friends. The former was then fourteen, the latter sixteen years of age. After their university course they taught a school at Kirkaldy, where, "by virtue of birch and book," they wrought together for a season. Then Irving entered the ministry; for a few years became one of the most gifted preachers in England; "he blew such a blast that men started in strange surprise and said that the like had not been heard since the days of the Covenant itself." Carlyle says: "But for Irving, I had never known what the communion of man with man means. His was the freest, brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever came in contact with; I call him on the whole the best man I have ever found in this world, or now hope to find." This testimony of a grateful, friendly heart, was given at a time when Irving was by many looked upon as a wild fanatic, if not a religious impostor, by reason of

[ocr errors]

his singular notions, which resulted in the sect called the Irvingites.

had few external attractions. To him it was a quiet, home-like home. All day long was his time to work, when he had no leisure for visitors. He used to tell how a certain "blatherskite American traveler" once came at ten in the morning with a letter of introduction, and stayed for hours, "robbing me of a whole working-day, which I shall never get back again to all eternity." And yet, at the proper hour, he was pleased with the society of such people as he might select. The time for such little social gatherings was at tea, at six o'clock. This was literally what its name im

Carlyle, like Thomas Benton, Mommeen and other noted writers, had one of his volumes burnt in manuscript, just as it was ready for the press. A friend borrowed it to read. Greatly pleased, he loaned it to another friend. In the morning, the housemaid found what she took to be a confused heap of useless old papers on the table. In need of kindlingpaper, she threw the whole into the grate, held a lighted match to it, and the French Revolution went up the chimney with a roar in a column of smoke. How did this affect the growl-plied, consisting of bread and butter and a ing dyspeptic?

"I was as a man beside myself, for there was scarcely a page of the manuscript left. I sat down at the table, and strove to commence my work again. I filled page after page, but ran the pen over every line after the page was finished. Thus was it, for many a weary day, until at length, as I sat by the window, halfhearted and dejected, my eye wandering along over acres of roofs, I saw a man standing on a scaffold, engaged in building a wall-the wall of a house. With his trowel he'd lay a great splash of mortar upon the last layer, and then brick after brick would he deposit, upon this, striking each with the butt of his trowel, as if to give it his benediction and farewell, and all the while singing or whistling as blithe as a lark. And in my spleen I said within myself: Poor fool! how canst thou be so merry under such a hell-spotted atmosphere as this, and everything rushing into the regions of the inane?' And then I bethought me, and I said to myself: Poor fool thou, rather, that sittest here by the window whining and complaining! Up then at thy work and be cheerful!' So I arose and washed my face, and felt that my head was anointed, and gave myself to relaxation to what they call 'Light Literature.' I read nothing but novels for weeks. I was surrounded with heaps of rubbish and chaff; and thus refreshed, I took heart of grace again, applied me to my work, and in course of time The French Revolution' got finished, as all things

must sooner or later."

cup of tea. If in summer time he invited his guests into the garden, a narrow plot of ground, the breadth of the house, one hundred feet deep, with a grass-plot in the center, having a tree at each of the four corners. An awning was suspended from the trees, under which was a pine table and a few chairs. Upon the table was a canister of Virginia tobacco and several clay pipes, with their long stems tipped with sealing-wax. Then he would entertain his guests with his marvellous conversations,-his broad Scotch brogue adding interest to his unique sayings. Now his face would frown with wrath at some becudgelled wrong,

then an odd conceit would provoke him to boisterous laughter. Glad, too, he was, in attentive silence, to listen to others, provided they had something to say worth listening to. He lived very plainly, indeed had to, for his celebrated writings yielded him comparatively but a small income. He wrote nearly fifty volumes. With his interest in these, his estate is said to be worth about $25,000.

A Scottish newspaper described him as he looked twenty-five years ago:"The long, tall, spare figure is before The first years of his married life Car-me-wiry, though and elastic, stretched lyle spent in a dreary country home in Scotland, chiefly supported by the means of his wife-"in a wilderness of heather and rock," with his little library-table groaning under "a whole cartload of French, German, American and English periodicals, whatever they may be worth."

Nearly fifty years of his later life, he lived at Chelsea, London. On a quiet street, among the plain brick houses of the town, stood the small old brick dwelling of the great man, which, like himself,

at careless, homely ease in his elbowchair, yet ever with strong, natural motions and starts as the inward spirit stirs. The face is long and thin, with a certain tinge of paleness, but no sickness or attenuation; pensive, almost solemn, yet open and cordial, and tender-very tender. The eye, not easy to describe, but felt ever after one has looked thereon and therein. It is dark and full, shadowed over by a compact and prominent forehead. The expression is, so to speak, heavy-laden, as if betokening

untold burdens of thought, and long, fiery struggles, resolutely endured-endured until they had been in some practical manner overcome." Another one describes him in his old age as a tall, gaunt man, with stooping shoulders, as though he had spent much time bending over his desk." "His face was rugged and sombre, set in a bush of gray-white hair and beard. Beneath the heavy brows, within deep hollows, livid and worn, shone dull the bluish-gray eyes. His nose was a handsome Scotch nose, straight, fine and bold." Dr. Cuyler says, forty years ago Carlyle looked like a sturdy country deacon dressed up for church, with his stiff irongray hair brushed up from his large forehead. Thirty years later, a long blue flannel gown hung around his stooping figure, and his gray hair was unkempt.

For more than half a century this man has scourged the insincerities and shams of British diplomacy-indeed, of the whole civilized world. A sharp thorn in the flesh of many an English statesman has he been. No matter whether it was popular or not to say certain things; if they needed saying, Carlyle was not afraid to speak out. He aspired not to a peerage, the woolsack, or to a grave in Westminster Abbey. Although it has been reported that the Dean of Westminster, despite the literary cowhidings he had given the British government, offered his dust a place in this venerable mausoleum of the great.

He seemed to delight in defending a weak and unpopular side, if it was in the right. He was a great friend of sincere heathens and of heretics. A hater of cant and of flatulent verbose oratory, a lover of truth and goodness, which he loved all the more tenderly and defended the more valiantly for being found in dark and unexpected places. A great friend of the German land and character, whose "Alte Fritz" he hung up in his history as a hero to be looked at and admired in all coming time.

For the Napoleons he had great contempt. The first one he calls "the great highwayman of history, whose habit was to clutch king and kaiser by the throat and swear: If you don't stand and deliver, I'll blow your brains out."

Of Louis Napoleon he had no better

opinion. When a young exile in London, he used to call on Carlyle, and talk about "The Spirit of the Age, the Democratic Spirit, and the Progress of the Species; but for my own part, it seemed that the only progress the species was making was backward. We discovered that we didn't understand each other's language; that we had no key in common for our dialects. And we parted asunder as mayhap did Abraham and Lot before, each going his own way, It looked very much as if his way led him to London. Afterwards I used to see him in this neighborhood, (I think he had lodgings somewhere in this part of the town,) with his hands folded across his breast, and his eyes fixed with a melancholy stare upon the ground; and he looked to me all the world like a poor opera-singer in search of an engagement. God knows he has succeeded in finding an engagement upon a stage sufficiently vast, before an audience ample enough for any man, and the whole thing got up regardless of expense. But I certainly expect that the day will come when the blue sulphureous flames will dart from behind the scenes and consume the pile, with all that are in it; or that the edifice will give way in a crash of ruin, and the whole-singers, audience and all-will sink into nethermost depth of abysmal perdition, where it seems to me they certainly belong."

This prophecy, uttered when Louis Napoleon was in his prime as Emperor of France, now reads almost like a historic description of the fall of the French Emperor. Thus, with his hard Scotch sense, he saw the vapory emptiness of things, and with grim delight thrust his pen through the pretentious bubbles that were evermore deceiving his fellows. Blustering oratory, whether on the stump or elsewhere, was to him one of the great curses of the century. Men who hoped to save the world with their volubility and eloquent speech, he scourged without mercy. And the British nation, he held, was sadly pre-eminent in demagogy, blustering, vain-glorious, hollow, far-sounding, unmeaning talk, only equalled by our own oratorical nation. He is convinced that the verdict of the jury that shall sit upon the corpse of American civilization will be, "Suicide by an overdose of oratory."

With the results of his work Carlyle felt not very sanguine. Doubtless, his peevish stomach had much to do with bis unsatisfied frame of mind. He saw how much ought to be remedied, and kept tearing down popular altars like an ancient iconoclast, without putting a diviner altar in their place. He tore down falsehood and unreality, perhaps often more than he built up truth. Perhaps he felt this. His early pastor first taught him Latin, of whom he says: "I am not sure that he laid a great curse on me by so doing. Ah, sir, this learning of reading and writing! What trouble and suffering it entails upon us poor human creatures! He that increaseth in knowledge increaseth sorrow; and much study is a weariness to the flesh! I am not sure but that we should all be the happier and the better too without what is called the Improvements of the Modern Ages! For mine own part I think it likely that I should have been a wiser man, and certainly a godlier, if I had followed in my father's steps, and left Latin and Greek to the fools that wanted them."

Certainly, Thomas Carlyle might have been a happier, if a less noted, man as elder in the kirk of Ecclesfechan than as a great power in English literature. In the closing years of his life his longing, home-sick heart turns to the faith and piety of his childhood. Writing to a friend, he said:

"Our Father which art in Heaven, hal

pure

lowed be Thy name; Thy will be done. What else can we say? The other night, in my sleepless tossings which were growing more and more miserable, these words, that brief and grand prayer, came strangely into my mind with an altogether new emphasis; as if written and shining for me in mild, splendor on the black bosom of the night there, when I, as it were, read them word by word, with a sudden check to my imperfect wanderings, with a sudden softness of composure which was most unexpected. Not perhaps for thirty or forty years had I once for mally repeated that prayer-nay, I never felt before how intensely the voice of man's soul it is, the utmost aspiration of all that is high and pious in poor human nature, right worthy to be recommended with an 'after this manner pray ye.""

CHRIST is the centre of perfection, the source of blessedness, and the circumference of excellency: do you really love Him?

Easter Observances

BY GODFREY A. HUDSON.

Easter is the name given in English to the festival which the Christian Church in nearly all its branches celebrates in commemoration of the Resurrection of our Saviour on the third morning after His crucifixion.

There is some question as to the origin of our word "Easter." Some will have it that it comes from the old Northern Eostre, the goddess of Love, in whose honor a festival was celebrated in the month of April, which was thence styled Eostremonath, "Eostre's month," and some fanciful writers have tried to identify this goddess with the Phoenician Astarte, and the Cyprian Venus. But in the judgment of the soundest authorities our Easter, and the corresponding German Ostern, are simply the old Saxon Oster, from the verb osten, "to rise," meaning simply the "rising," that is, of our Saviour from the tomb.

has

This sacred festival, called by old writers, "the queen of festivals,' been observed from a very early period

indeed, we cannot go back to a time in Christian history, when its observance was not general among believers. There were, however, many long and bitter controversies as to the proper day. One party, holding that like the Passover, it should be observed on the 14th day of the first Jewish month, that is, of that lunar month, the 14th day of which either falls on or next after the vernal equinox. The adherents of this doctrine were styled Quartodecimans or "fourteenth-day men," or sometimes "Judaizing Christians." The great majority came in time to hold that the "Christian Passover" was in commemoration of the Resurrection of the Saviour, and should therefore be celebrated on the Sunday next following the Hebrew Passover. The controversy was long and bitter. Councils were held; but the matter remained an open question until 325 A. D., when the Council of Nice formally decided it by directing that the observance should be on the Sunday following the full moon which happens upon or next after March 21st; but if the full moon happened on Sun

day, then the next Sunday was to be observed. Thus Easter Day may fall upon any Sunday between March 22d, and April 25th, both inclusive. There are rules, somewhat complicated, by which Easter Day for any year may be ascertained; but we imagine that most persons do not take the trouble to make the calculation for themselves, but are content year by year to find out by the Almanac, or by the tables in the PrayerBook, on what day Easter falls, and consequently all the other movable feasts and fasts, whose time is regulated by that of Easter. It should be borne in mind that after an interval of thirtyeight years, or two full Metonic cycles of the moon, the day comes back to what it was at the beginning of the period, except as it is modified by omitting to insert an additional day into certain years, which would be leap years according to the general law that every year the number of which is divisible by 4, without a remainder, is a leapyear. This is done in order that the entire accumulation of errors in the common calendar shall never exceed an entire day.

In nearly all the countries of Christendom the recurrence of Easter has been from time immemorial celebrated by religious ceremonies and popular sports and observances. It is not necessary here to describe the strictly religious observances of the day as practiced among us by those which, by way of distinction, we may denominate "ritualistic" denominations, and measurably, and we think increasingly by others. "Easter flowers," and "Easter eggs," are familiar to us all. But there are numerous curious popular observances and customs, which have in various countries sprung up in relation to this day.

Among the most general of these popular observances is that of making presents of eggs, colored and otherwise ornamented, on this day. In a royal roll of the time of Edward I. of England (about 1300) is an entry of eighteen pence for the purchase of four hundred eggs to be used for that purpose. This entry is of no little historical value, as giving some clear indication of the relative value of money in that and the present time. Long ago, as now, a sort

of Easter game was practiced by children, consisting in testing the strength of the shells of their respective eggs by striking them together. In some parts of Ireland there is a superstition that the sun dances in the sky on Easter morning. This belief was once prevalent in England; so much so that Sir Thomas Browne, in his famous "Inquiry into Vulgar Errors" (about 1650) thought it worth while to say gravely that this belief rested on no valid grounds. In some of the northern counties of England a custom still exists, in virtue of which the men parade the streets on Easter morning, and claim the right of lifting every woman three times from the ground, and receiving in guerdon a kiss or a silver sixpence. On the next day the same privilege is claimed by the women from the men. We imagine that in either. case the alternative money fine is rarely paid. A few out of-the-way Easter observances deserve special mention, on account of their oddity.

[ocr errors]

The

At Noble, a considerable town in Southern Africa, sometimes styled "the African Rome, ceremonies are performed, in which Christian ideas are strangely commingled with vestiges of the old heathen superstitions. Here on Easter morning is celebrated the Festa del Senor de los Temblores, the "Festival of the Lord of Earthquakes." public plaza before the cathedral is hung with garlands and festoons, and all the bells ring out their loudest peals. The images of the saints, freshly robed and decorated, are brought from their shrines. Those of the Madonna, of San Christoval, and of San Jose are especially honored by all the Marias, Christophers and Josephs, who are named after them. But on this occasion all others are cast into the shade by the miraculous crucifix of "the Lord of Earthquakes," which is supposed to have the power of protecting the town from this fearful disaster. This miraculous image is borne in long procession through all the main streets; and after it has thus been duly honored, the particolored devotees rest assured that they are for the rest of the year tolerably safe from having their houses tumbled about their ears. And as even in that shaky region earthquakes are not of

« AnteriorContinuar »