ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

who will have it, "qu'il se considère comme un grand homme méconnu, de l'espèce des héros; qu'à son avis le genre humain devrait se remettre entre ses mains, lui confier ses affaires.”

Let us beware, however, of doing injustice to Carlyle or surrendering aught that is precious in his writings. That his whole system of thought has been injured by its pantheistic associations; that, more and more, in his identification of God with the forces of nature, he has been driven back upon a Pagan consecration of strength and an obliteration of the lines which eternally discriminate between material success and moral triumph; I must hold to be true. But he has never called himself a pantheist, and I shall not call him one. An immense number of expressions might be gathered from his works which are logically irreconcilable with pantheism. His final deliverance on the subject of God would, I am convinced, be that no system can adequately name Him, and that, in referring either to the universe or its Maker, it is legitimate to use the language of various systems, in order to make partly intelligible what no man can perfectly understand. Shrinking from atheism as inhuman and incredible, he has shrunk also, perhaps with too spasmodic a recoil, from that conception of the universe as a piece of ingenious mechanism, and of God as a mechanical contriver of transcendent skill, which was in vogue in the time of his youth. "Atheism," we may say of him as he says of Frederick of Prussia, "he never could abide: to him, as to all of us, it was flatly inconceivable that intellect, moral emotion, could have been put into him by an Entity that had none of its own." Often his references to the universe and its Maker are those of devout and simple theism. "We speak," he says, "of the volume of Nature and truly a volume it is,-whose author and writer is God. To read it! Dost thou, does man, so much as well know the alphabet thereof? With its words,

Not necessarily a Pantheist.

127

sentences, and grand descriptive pages, poetical and philosophical, spread out through solar systems and thousands of years, we shall not try thee. It is a volume written in celestial hieroglyphs, in the true sacred writing; of which even prophets are happy that they can read here a line and there a line." He once very beautifully compares the universe to a rainbow which we see before us on the cloud, while the Sun that has painted it is invisible. We have no right to tie him down to a pantheistic theory of the universe, any more than to allege that, in those expressions which are strictly accordant with orthodoxy, he states an exclusive opinion. He would probably adopt, with some modification, Goethe's declaration that, to express a sentiment which, in its comprehensiveness, is inexpressible, he uses a variety of forms of speech, but that, as a moral being, he is simply a theist, acknowledging his responsibility to God.

This last is the essential point. Our moral nature, our conscience, is the direct link associating us, as moral beings, with God. "The one end, essence, and use of all religion," says Carlyle, "past, present, and to come, is this only to keep this same moral conscience or inner light of ours alive and shining." It is because of its proclamation of man's responsibility to God that Carlyle finds in the religion of Mahomet, as compared with the idolatries it displaced, a true message from heaven. "Allah akbar, God is great.' Understand that His will is the best for you; that howsoever sore to flesh and blood, you will find it the wisest, best; you are bound to take it so; in this world and in the next, you have no other thing that you can do!

[ocr errors]

Man does hereby become the high-priest of this temple of a world. He is in harmony with the decrees of the Author of this world, co-operating with them, not vainly withstanding them. I know, to this day, no better definition of duty than that same." This is pure theism, implying, if any words can imply, belief in the personality of God.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LIFE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. THE RISE OF THE HOHENZOLLERNS.

TH

HE last work of great importance executed by Carlyle was the Life of Frederick of Prussia. In 1856, when he was about sixty, the first chapters of this voluminous biography "got to paper." The pen-portrait of Frederick with which the book opens shows that Carlyle's hand has lost nothing of its vivid and graphic power.

OLD FREDERICK.

About fourscore years ago there used to be seen sauntering on the terraces of Sans Souci for a short time in the afternoon, or you might have met him at an earlier hour, riding or driving in a rapid business manner on the open roads or through the scraggy woods and avenues of that intricate amphibious Potsdam region, a highly interesting lean little old man, of alert, though slightly-stooping figure; whose name among strangers was King Friedrich the Second, or Frederick the Great, of Prussia, and at home, among the common people, who much loved and esteemed him, was Vater Fritz,-Father Fred,- -a name of familiarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is a king every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king. Presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture: no crown but an old military cocked-hat, -generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absolute softness, if new; -no sceptre but one like Agamemnon's, a walking-stick cut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick (with which he hits the horse "between the ears," say authors);-and for royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in colour or cut, ending in high over-knee military boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft with an underhand suspicion of

Frederick the Great.

129

oil), but are not permitted to be blackened or varnished; Day and Martin with their soot-pots forbidden to approach.

66

The man is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of imposing stature or costume: close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a beautiful man; nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are termed, of much hard labour done in this world; and seems to anticipate nothing but more still coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of what joy there were, but not expecting any worth mention; great unconscious and some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of humour,- -are written on that old face; which carries its chin well forward, in spite of the slight stoop about the neck; snuffy nose, rather flung into the air,—like an old snuffy lion on the watch; and such a pair of eyes as no man, or lion, or lynx of that century bore elsewhere, according to all the testimony we have. Those eyes," says Mirabeau, "which, at the bidding of his great soul, fascinated you with seduction or with terror!" Most excellent, potent, brilliant eyes, swift-darting as the stars, steadfast as the sun; gray, we said, of the azure-gray colour: large enough, not of glaring size; the habitual expression of them vigilance, and penetrating sense, rapidity resting on depth. Which is an excellent combination; and gives us the notion of a lambent outer radiance springing from some great inner sea of light and fire in the man. The voice, if he spoke to you, is of similar physiognomy: clear, melodious, and sonorous; all tones are in it, from that of ingenuous inquiry, graceful sociality, light-flowing banter (rather prickly for most part), up to definite word of command, up to desolating word of rebuke and reprobation; a voice "the clearest and most agreeable in conversation I ever heard," says witty Dr. Moore. "He speaks a great deal," continues the Doctor; "yet those who hear him regret that he does not speak a good deal more. His observations are always lively, very often just; and few men possess the talent of repartee in greater perfection."

In the Life of Frederick the first thing that strikes me as calling for remark is the astonishing display it presents of literary skill, dexterity, and adroitness. Carlyle was now a veteran, several years older than Scott, when his frame and brain gave way under a pressure of mental toil that seemed at the time to be rather a pleasure than a labour. Scott, no doubt, had the calamity of his bankruptcy to weigh him down, but his literary work never seemed to cost him an effort. Carlyle, on the other hand,

has always avowed that, like Goethe, he got nothing in his sleep; his literary work was never a recreation or relief to him; he stood to his tasks with such intensity of application that-so he told the Edinburgh students in his address as their Lord Rector-every book cost him an illness. But the vivacity of the ten volumes on Frederick is as notable as their thoroughness, their elaborate finish, their idiomatic expressiveness and inventive brilliancy of language, and their attestation of enormous research.

The plan of the book, like that of the battle of Marengo, and of many other feats of genius, could have been justified only by success. Arresting the attention of the reader by placing before him, on the first pages, so bold, picturesque, and interesting a portrait of Frederick at three score, that it cannot be forgotten, the biographer turns speedily to the cradle of the infant, shows us his father nearly stifling him with caresses, alludes to the "cannon-volleyings, kettledrummings, metal crown, heavy cloth-of-silver," and other pompous tomfooleries of the christening, and then, with an occasional glance back at "the little boy now sleeping in his cradle at Berlin," puts in two, or almost three, volumes of information not only about his father and mother, but about the origin of the Prussian Monarchy, and even about the general course of German and European history, in so far as this was connected with the rise, progress, and culmination of the Hohenzollerns. From the time, more than three hundred years before the birth of Christ, when "Pytheas, the Marseilles travelling commissioner, looking out for new channels of trade," sailed along the Baltic coasts, and looked upon the marshy jungles, shaggy bisons, and large-limbed barbarians of "the now Prussian kingdom," to the day of Frederick's birth, nothing of essential importance in the history of Germany, or even of Europe, escapes Carlyle. It is hardly too much to say that he brings modern history to a for of Frederick.

[graphic]
« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »