The weekly standard. (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1865-1867, 1866-05-12
Carlyle.
HIS RECENT EDINBURGH SPEECH.

The speech of Mr. Carlyle, on being
inducted into his office of rector OF the
university of Edinburgh, was aremark-
able affair altogether. Fifty-six years
ago, aE the age of IA, he was 8 student
of the same university, and now, as its
head he stood to give students, two
generations later, the benefit OF his e45
perience. Having been literary man,
he advised them to avoid literature
Having written many volumes, be adj
vised them to read but few. Living in
a progressive age, he held up to them
as their examples the ancient kings and
aristocracy of England, and especially .
John Knox and Oliver Cromwell. No
democracy, he told them, was possible.
and no republic without every now and
then a dictator. The great qualities
they should all aspire to were "strict
obedience, humility, and correct moral
conduct" but more especially, as above
all, "silence!" On this point he was
truly eloquent.
"Oh," he said, ''it is dismal chap
ter, all that, if one went into it! What
has been done by rushing after fine
speech? I have written down very
fierce things about that, perhaps con-
siderably more emphatic than would
wish them to be now; but they are
deeply my conviction. Hear, hear.l
There is a very great necessity indeed
of getting little more silent than we
are. 1t seems to me the finest nations
in the world-the English and Ameri-
can-are going all away into wind and
tongue. Applause and laughter =.
But it will appear sufficiently traglcai
by-and-by, long after | am away out OF
it. Silence is the eternal duty OF q
man. He won't get to any real under
standing of what is complex, and what
is more than any other pertinent to his
interests, without maintaining silence.
This may be commended to congress-
men and politicians generally. Then
he has a word for lawyers, respecting
whom he asks: eff good speaker-an
eloquent speakers not speaking the
truth is there more horrid kind of
object in creation?" And his rule for
the rest Of mankind, and possibly wo-
mankind, and general idea OF educa-
ton and government, is that rarely
should men speak at all unless it is to
say that thing is to be done; and let
him 90 and do his part in it, and say
no more about it. I should say there
is nothing in the world you can con-
ceive so difficult prina facie, as that OF
getting a set of men gathered together
, rough, rude and ignorant people,
Gather them together, promise them
shilling day, rank them up, give them
very severe and sharp drill, and by
bullying and drill-for the word drill
,, seems as if it meant the treatment
that would force them to learn-they
learn what is necessary to learn; and
there Is the man, piece of an anima-
ted machine, wonder of wonders to
: look at He will go and obey one
man, and walk into the cannon's mouth
for him, and do anything, whatever,
that is commanded of him by his
. general officer. And I believe all
manner of things in this way could
be done if there were anything like the
same attention bestowed"
And SO for an hour and a half this
homeliest of Scotchmen, whose face
looks like heap of stones grown over
with brambles, talked on the futility of
: talking, and reasoned on the usefulness
: Of reasoning.
(. The Press is as unanimous as usual
on Mr. Carlyles Grafton. Let us take
: two criticisms. The Star says: eve
J feel disappointed, that Carlyle has no.
! thing to tell us beyond the old story
that the rule of despotic strength is
! mankind's sole order; that everything
! new is contemplate; that only by the
4 dictatorship of great domineering
Cromwellian minds can humanity be
driven to any goal worth reaching. p
OF course, the Star, which believes on
. ly III the force of number and the des-
potic strength of majorities, with or
9 without guns, doesn't like it, while the
y Standard, from the opposite pole of
d politics, says: "It is good to have the
. superlative worth and power of really
/ great and strongmen proclaim in these
'0 days when the dullness of average and
n commonplace people is declared to be
I the surest and best guide of national
II policy. Mr. Carlyle does not believe
~ in democracy-no man of real thought
does-and he speaks out plainly what
er he thinks. x Democracy with
= II 4