The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-04-19
Thomas Carlyle at Edinburgh.
From The WOrld.

Thomas Carlyle at Edinburgh.
From The World
The Scotch universities have practice of
electing annually, by majority vote of all the
members, an honorary officer called the Lord
Rector. The Office, like that of Chancellor in
the great universities of England, requires no
duties either of supervision or instruction. All
that is expected of the Lord Rector is that he
will acknowledge the compliment by the delivery
of a public address, The students of Edinburgh
elected, this year, as their Lord Rector, Thomas
Carlyle-a choice which might have seemed
about as hopeful as the attempt by small
American college to dub Henry Ward Beecher
Doctor of Divinity One would naturally have
supposed that this great pnarled writer, who
with the strength of the oak has all its nodos
ties, would have contemptuouslY declined to
accept an empty office, and make show Grafton.
This huge denouncer OF shams, whose pet
amusement is to pour forth grotesque scorn
against stump oratory and all forms of speech
that are kindred to il, whose favorite inculca-
tion is the supreme value OF silence-who could
have exdeeted that this huge rhinoceros of lite
rature could be tickled by compliment, and
would eonsentt to desecrate 1.-THE Eternal Silence"
by making speech OF mere form? But nobody
familiar with CaTlye's writings could ever have
doubted that this colossal old growler had
heart susceptible of all amlable human emo
tions; and am ong others, vanity We have found
even his prodigious talent tor scolding amiable,
for the grinning oddity OF its method shows that
it is rather an appeal to admiration for thing
well executed, than the ouipouring OF mis-
anthropic heart. Malignant contempt of men
does not solicit their applause by such a
studied mingling of the artistic and the gro
tesque. The amable wish to stand well with
his kind, which has prompted Carlyle to
set quantity constructed admiratl lon.traps
everywhere in his writings, made II morally inn
possible for him to decline the invitation of the
ingenious Edinburgh students. Considering
L. oil
the supreme importance of Doing, and the in
eilable Stiffness of Saying, he felt compelled to
affect reluctance, and to invent tor himself an
excuse for accepting the protfered honor.
Although he had known, for at least fifty years,
that the Lord Rectorship required nothing
to be done; that it was mere FORM one of
the detested Shams or 'Simuacrums" he has
been cudgellng with MS Hercules club, all
| his lite, he pretends, or makes a semblance
| of pretending, in the beginning of his ad-
dress, that he thought it an office weighted
| with duties. He says:-"When this office was
| first proposed to me, some of you knew that
was not very ambitious to accept it at first. was
taught to believe that there were certain more or
less important duties which would lie in my
] power. This, j confess, was my chief motive
/ IN going into it-at least in reconciing the OBJ
| jections felt for such things; for if / can do
| anything 10 honor you and my dear old Alma
Mater why should not do SOL cloud cheers. }
Well, but on practically looking into the mat
ter, when the office actually came into my
hands, find it grows more and more uncertain
and abstruse to me whether there is much real
duty that can 90 at ALL"
One needs to be somewhat conversant with
the writings of Carlyle to appreciate. the
amiably awkward hypocrisy of this apology for
| acceptance. 1t is pleasant satire on the whole
body of Carlyle's writings, The great thing he
never tires OF insisting on is fact as opposed to
shams, sincerity as opposed to pretense; and
| here he affects TO have believed, previous to
| acceptance, that the Lord Rectorship had duties,
| and TO have discovered only, since acceptance,
- 1N,, al .tInkI hng anu.
justifying his entering on a thing whose sole
function is palaver by the teigned supposiuon
l of work. tt.... I. - ih.. .ul .4 H}
Carlyle felt that it would be a satire on him
! self 10 compose an elaborate Grafton for such a
show occasion. Finding, as he says, when he
began TO write, that he was mot accustomed to
write speeches, and that he did not get on very
well y he "dung that away" and concluded to
trust to the inspiration OF the occasion and speak
what came uppermost. BY more elaborate pre-
paration he would have given an abler address;
| but all who feel an interest in the man will be
better suited with 1t as il is. We have other ma
terials enough for appreciating his great capa-
city as a writer, ano 1t is interesting to see in
what direction his mind turns when acting on
IFS impromptu imRulses. There is very little in
the address which is not contained in, or dedu-
chile from, his writings. He reeurs TO his favor
ite topics-the superiority OF action to speech,
OF tact to sham, OF heroes to the rabble, and es
pecially OF past ages to the present IN all the
deeper elements of character. 3.-
| What so great a writer as Carlyle has insisted
on for lifetime with vehement peTtinacity
challenges the profound examination of the age
he addresses. The man, OF course, has some
meaning; and though his view may be one
sided, his unremitted protests against the shal
lowness, the hollowness, the superficial babblc
ment and empty arti6ciality of a period which
has added more to our knowledge of external
nature and TO the physical convepiences of life
than all the ages which have preceded IL, may
be conceived to rest upon some great and ne
|, | elected truth. : "r fl N ll
: l far aa we haua haan abla IN safety otip
selves respecting the truth which underiel
. CaIlyle's very obiurgstory writings. the evil O
which he complains isthe natural effect of tn,
: | mental dissipation winch attends the multiph
city Of our knowledge. We do not recollect tha
> Carlyle anywhere gives it this pedigree; but no
thing can be truer than that endless fitting from
object TO object, under the stimulus of curiosity
or love of variety, is the worst possible reqmeI
r either for the intellect or for the heart. Their
) can be no depth of conviction nor earnestAess Oi
e feeling, nor much strength of purpose, and con