Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1855-04-26
Carlyle and Aristocracy.

of good taste and good English are so lagrant
that he deserves to be made to wade through
the Dismal Swamp ON July night. There
is real intellectual food in his works; but, it
has always seemed to lis, that his readers, in
order actually to relish it, should have appe-
tites like those of the Esquimaux, who eat
flesh, blood and entrails, all together.
more serious fault..than that of his style,
is the cynical tone which pervadc his wri-
tings. He is always snarling. Nothing is
good enough for him; at least, nothing in
these degenerate days; while he would fain
persuade us that OLIVER CROMWELL, and the
imaginary ABBOT SAMPSON were better men
than any the world can now produce. His
contempt of every living thing, and his lau-
past, are both errors. lie is, we think, an
illustration Of the truth that "a scOmer seek
eth wisdom and findeth it not"
He sometimes lashes the follies ofsociety
with a whip of scorpions; and so far does
good service.
A recent correspondent of the Tribune has
been re-publishing some of his severties on
aaistooratic nothingness which we subioin:
"The State, left to shape itself by dim pc
dantries and traditions, without distinctness
of conviction, or purpose beyond that ofhelp-
ing itself over the difficulty of the hour has
become, instead of luminous vitality per-
meating with its light all provinces of our
affairs, most monstrous agglomerate of imam
tiles as little adapted for the actual wants of a
modern community as the worst citizen need
wish. The thing it is doing is by no meansthe
thing we want to have done. What we want
Let the dullest British man endeavor to raise in
his mind this question, and ask himself in
sincerity what the British nations want at this
time. Is it to have, with endless jargoning,
debating, motioning, and counter-motioning,
a settlement affected between the Honorable
Mr.. This and the Honorable Mr.. That. as to
their respective pretentions to ride the high
horse Really it is uni Important which of
them ride it. If our Government is to he
no-Govemment, what does it matter who ad-
ministers it F.? Fling an orange-skin into St
James ST.. letthe man it hits be your man."
In the following, the horse is the English
People, and Felicissimus may sit for Aristocra-
cy.
al wish Felicissimus were saddle sick for
ever and a day =. He is dreadful object
however much we may be used to him. If
the horse had not been bred and broken i'm,
| for thousand years, by real riders and horse
subduers, perhaps the best and bravest the
world ever saw, what would have become of
him and Felicissimus long since This horse,
by second nature, respects all Princes gall
lops, if never so madly, on the highways
alone seems to me, of late, like desperate
Sleswick thunder-horse, who has lost his way
galloping in the labyrinthic lanes of a woody,
fiat country; passionate to reach his goal !;
unable to reach it, because in the fiat, lcafy
lanes there is no..out-look whatever and in the
bridel there is no guidance whatever. So he
gallops stormfully along, thinking it is for
ward and forward and alas, it is only round
and round-out of one lane into another
Nay, (accoriing to some,) he mistakes his
oicn footprints, which, of course, grow ever
more numerous for the sign of n more and
more frequented road and his dispair is
hourly increasing. Ny impression is, he is
certain soon, such is the growth of his neces-
sity and his dspair, to plunge across the fence,
into an open survey of the country, and to
sweep Felicissimus off his back and comb him
away very tragically in the process /: Poor
Sleswicker, wish you were better ridden"
"If you cannot get real pilot on
board the ship of State, and put the helm
into his hands, yorr ship is as good as wreck.
One real pilot on boarl may save You; all the
believing from the banks that ever was will
not, by the nature of things it cannot. Nay,
your pilot will have To succeed, if he dosuc-
ceed, very much in spite of said believing,
he will hear all that and regard very little Of
it. Oh for one such, even one ? = = =
" 1t is Wisdom alone that can recognize wis
dom. Folly or Imbecility never can; and
that is the fatalest ban it labors under, DOOM
ing it to perpetual failure in all things-fail-
ure which, in Downing ST., and places of COM
mand, is especially accursed cursing not one,
but hundreds of millionsl" "Re-
verence for Human Worth earnest, devout
search for it, and encouragement of it loyal
furtherance and obedience to it-this, | say,
is the outcome and essence of all true "Reli-
gions," and may, and ever will be. We have
not known this. No; loud rs om tongues
sometimes 90 in that direction, we have no
true reverence for Human Intelligence, for
Human Worth and Wisdom. And pray for
restoration of such reverence, as for the
change from Stygian darkness to Heavenly
light, as for the return of life to poor, sick,
moribund Society and all its interests. HUI
man Intelligence means little, for most of us,
but Beaver Contrivance which produces spin
ming mules, cheap cotton, and large fortunes.
Wisdom, unless it give MS Railway Scrip, is
not wise."
Adler men in Downing-stl cries Carlyle,
that Is the only way to govern us. Onr dis
ease is want of wisdom. There is no vision
in the head, therefore ali the members are
dark, and see not whittier to go. We have
not eyes, but spectacles, which seem to see,
and to look wise. Again he asks
"How is your ship to be steered by pilot
with no eyes but pair of glass ones got from
the constitutional optician He must steer
by the ear, | think, rather than by the eye;
by the shoutings he catches from the shore,
or from the Parliamentary benches nearer
hand-one of the frightfullest objects to see
steering in such sea-, Oh
Peter, what q scandalOus, torpid element of
yellow London fog, favorable to owls only
and their mousing operations, has blotted ont
the stars Of heaven for us these several gene
ra.ions back-which, | rejoice to see, is now
visibly about to take itself away again, or,
perhaps, to he dispellei in very tremendous
nlanner,"
"Who are available 10 your officers in
Downing-st.? All the gifted souls of every
rank, who are born to you in this generation.
These are appointed by the tnle eternal 'D-
vine Right which will never become obsolete,
to he your Governors and Administrators;
and precisely as you employ them. or neglect
to employ them, will your state he favored of
Heaven or disfavorcd. These noble young
souls you can have them on either of two
conditions; and on one of them, since they
are here in the world, you must have them.
As your allies and coadjutors, or falling that,
as your natural enemies which shall ii be?
This is the question Of questions. What tai
ent is born TO you? How do you employ
that? The crop of spiritual talent that is
born to you, of human nobleness, and intellect
and heroic faculty, that is infinitely more inn
portant than your crops of cotton and corn, or