Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1881-05-20
Carlyle and Mill.

It was lately asked whether Carlyle
or Mill were the more powerful infiu-
ence with this generation. At one
time they were warm friends, and it
WAS while in Mills possession that the
Ms. of Carlyle's History of the
French Revolution" was carelessly
burned. Oh two such men it is hard to
tell which to pity most for such mis-
hap. Carlyle re. wrote his history, but
Mil could never quite have forgiven
himself. In the later years Of Mills life
they were not intimate. Carlyle la
mented the decadence Of the tine; Mill
| tried to stem it. We do not uean, of
course, that Carlyle was only n Jere-
miah, but he WAS essentially u poet, a
man Of Imagination, Of melancholy
! temperament, and of conscience
almost morbid. lie had the wrath and
the humor, the burning passion ami the
Rrotesque exaggeration, OK a poet.
But Mill was pre.eminently philos-
opher, with wonderful insight, ample
knowledge, aud severe mental training,
mingled swith taste for affairs, -"
which made him great theoretical
stntesman. CarIyle's History of the
French Revelation " is vast and splend-
ii tasmagoria, in which, however,
the Characterization Is marvellOusly
vivid and incisive. Mirabeau and
Robespierre, for instance, are nowhere
else SO ricturesqueiy or probably SO
truly Drawn. The reader who has
mastered that work has prodigious
picture burned into his memory, and q
singularly clear and accurate conception
of the character, the movement, and
the scope of that great event. On the
other hand, Mills reply to Lord
Brougham's structures upon the RevOlu-
ton of lS4S is u states man 8 Overwhelem-
ing vindication Of specific political
action. 1t is without color Of style,
without imaginative grasp of events,
except ss adequate comprehension Of
historic and contemporary events is nee
cesssrily imaginative, but it is de-
nolishing and conclusive plea. In
another way, his /" Political Economy"
his Logic" his Representative
Government" his " Essay on Liberty"
treated topics at which Carlyle poured
out floods of sarcastic humor, topics of
imme diate and profouud human intrest,
discussed with extra JdinaIy ability, but
of which Carlyle would have said, AS he
said of Parliment, "Palavering, pa
lavering and nothing to show for it for
the most part but chewed air.
Carlyle blew trump of moral awak.
ening. His gospel Of the eternal
veriiies was simply gospel Of " anti.
humbug." 1T is u world of shams, "
he said, land our first business is to
perceive it, and to know that we our.
selves are the worst slAms of all, and
to try to get upon u footing Of simple
truth and justice. Happiness is not
our affair, but honesty and toll ana
sufferirg and duty" This WAS his ser
mon, and lie WAS preacher OF such
genius, his tones were at once so tender
and 50 tremendous, that the world
stopped to listen. 1t was not new
message. The old familiar exhortation
is that now is the accepted time. Philip
Sydney babe the poet look into his
own heart and write. SO Carlyle
thunier that everybody ought to be a
man here and now. He .roclai med,
in stentorian tones and in twenty large
volumes, that silence is better than
speech. He said. sadly. that Ameri-
cans, with their eternal gabble about
liberty, where thirty millions of people,
mostly bores, and that England had
gone away to mere talk, with Sir Jabesh
Windbag at the head.
There is no doubt OF Carlyle's great
influence in arousing the young mind
of England and Anne RIGA to a high moral
earnestness of purpose. and as little Of
Mills direction of that mind into prac-
tical channels toward results. Mills
expositions of the proper objects, func-
tons, and limitations of government;
the clearly demonstrated justice and
reason of specific policies of admins
tration; the immense historic fortitiea-
tons of his conclusions supplied by his
extrao rdinary knowledges his elucida-
ton of the true process of reas oning as
applied to the management of public
affairs, with his calm and beautiful in
terpretations of historic episodes and
characters him certainly the
great auxiliary of Carlyle in the intel
lectual leadership of this generation of
the English-speaking race. Neither
could have spared the other. One
quickened the soil, the other sowed the
Seed Editors Easy Chair, in Har-
per'S Magazine,
Men and Women In the United
States.
The United States have been called
the paradise Of women. Probably one
reason why women are better off here
than in older and more densely popu-
lated countries is that there are fewer
of them in this country in proportion
to men. In the European nations the
female population is in excess of the
male population, while with us the
males are more numerous.
OF the total population of the United
States % ,52O ,5S2 are males and a Co.,
PSI are females. The males therefore
exceed the females by SSS, 29S.
During the Inst ten years the male
population has increased more than the
female, and the explanation Of the gain
is to be found in The enormous iAmi-
gtation of the decade, which amounted
TO about thrse millions. TIA. this Is