The Irish standard., 1897-01-16

I
land nlystagogue he certainly is--a maj,
who interprets mysteries. II the average
reader urge that his interpretation is too
oft an obscurum per obscurius he might
Ireply in the language Of that other wo-
fully s'undignifed" and shockingly i'm
polite human being, DR.. johnson: Il am
bound to find you in reasons, Sir, but not
in brains" Carlyle was regarded by
those writers OF his day who chung to and
revered the time-worn ruts, as chief OF
the "Spasmodc School," the members
whereof were supposed to be distin-
guished by "a strained and unnatural
style" This School, which was satir-
lied by Aytoun while editor of Black
woods Magazine, was thought to include
Tennyson, Gilhllan and other popular
authors of the time. incline to the
view that no writer OF whom we have any
knowledge exhibits less affectation in the
matter of style than does the subject of
this essay. It is rugged and massive:
but so is his mind. 1t. were impossible
to imagine the author of "Sartor Resar-
tus" and "The French Revolution" ex-
pressing himself in the carefully rounded
periods OF Macauley, whose prose is half
poetry, and whose poetry is all prose.
| Carlyle seems to care. precious little
what kind OF vehicle he uses for the con-
veyance of ideas SO long as it does not
break down. All OF his labor "s1nells of
the lamp" but the midnight oil'-of
which our modern "ready-writers' evil
IDENTIFY use so little-was consumed in
considering what to say rather than how
to say it. Not even Shakespeare pos
sesses so extensive. vocabulary. The
technical terms of every profession and
subdivision of science came trippingly to
| his tongue. But even the dictionary is
not large enough for him, and he ex-
! tends it this way and that, his daring ne
| ology creating CONSERVATION among the
critic flies and other ephemera. He wrote
as he thought, hence his style could not
! be other than natural. That OF Aytouu
! was formed in the schools, principally
| modelled by masters,-made to fit pro-
crustean bed-and was, therefore, emil
nently artificial If we apply the term
unnatural to the matter instead OF the
manner of Carlyle and Tennyson, then
away with genius, for intellectual origin
ality is tabooed!-no man is privileged
to think his own thoughts. That is the
law nowadays nowhere except in the
sanctum OF the Gal-Dal News, where Col.
Jenkins takes the editorial eyas and
teaches it to soar in exact imitation of
! himself
Whether by the "Spasmodic" method
or otherwise, Carlyle dragged more true
orients out OF the depths than did any
of his contemporaries; and that is saying
much, for there were giants i'll those
days." and they were neither few nor far
between. The intellectual glory Of the
| first half of the present century was
scarce eclipsed by the Elizabethan: era. 1t
| was in very truth "a feast Of reason and
a flow of soul" Goethe and Jean
Paul were putting the finishing touches
! to the work while Carlyle, then a young
! man, was striving to interpret these SO
strange appearances to the English
| speaking world, to hammer some small
appreciation of German literature into
the autotheistic British head. Tom
Moore, sweetest of mere singers, and
Lord Byron, prince OF poets, were but
| five and seven years respectively his
seniors. He saw the beginning and the
end OF their literary labors, as of those
OF Macaulay and Mill, Darwin, Disraei
and Dickens. Much of his best work
was done ere the deatl, OF Walter Scott,
and he might have played as schoo1boy
with the Inflated Shelly. He had just
begun his long life labor when Longfel-
low and Tennyson, Hugo and Wagner
came upon the scene, and together they
wrought wisely and we'll in that mighty
seed-Aeld which is the world! What a
galaxy of intellectual gods!- now all
gone, returned home to High Olympus
the weary land left to the Alfred Aus
tins, the William Dean Howells and the
Ian McLarens! Gone, but not forgot
ten: yet the world will in time forget
even the amaranthine flowers must fade.
Of them all we see but one star that
b1azes the brighter as the years run on,
and that one long mistaken for a mere
cratic comet sans substance, or I'm
formed nebulae hanging like a splotct
OF sen1i-luminous vapor in great void.
Year by year the voice of Carlyle rings
clearer and clearer from the Eternal
Silence And as we listen with rapt at
tention to the music Of the spheres be-
coming audible, Ineligible to Our dull
ear-the Waterloos and Lisbon earth
ouakes, the Revolutions and Warning
Religions, all the glory and shame, the
wild loves and bitter hatreds Of humanity
even Birth and Deatf--but minor notes
in the Grand Symphony, the Harmony
of Infnitude, the little man who has TIN
dertaken the management Of the micro
phone, without suspccting it's. signif-
canoe, distracts us with the unwished for
and utterly useless information that the
Voice coming from beyond Time and
Space, out Of the Everlasting Deep, once
| "growled like collie dog!' - - %.