Produced by Jake Jaqua
PAST AND PRESENT
By Thomas Carlyle
Appreciation by Ralph Waldo Emerson
First published 1843
THOMAS CARLYLE, born in 1795 at Ecclefechan, the son of astonemason. Educated at Edinburgh University. Schoolmaster fora short time, but decided on a literary career, visiting Parisand London. Retired in 1828 to Dumfriesshire to write. In 1834moved to Cheyne Row, Chelsea, and died there in 1881.
INTRODUCTION
Being an appreciation from "The Dial" (July 1843)
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Here is Carlyle's new poem, his Iliad of English woes, tofollow his poem on France, entitled the History of the FrenchRevolution. In its first aspect it is a political tract, andsince Burke, since Milton, we have had nothing to compare withit. It grapples honestly with the facts lying before all men,groups and disposes them with a master's mind, and, with a heartfull of manly tenderness, offers his best counsel to hisbrothers. Obviously it is the book of a powerful andaccomplished thinker, who has looked with naked eyes at thedreadful political signs in England for the last few years, hasconversed much on these topics with such wisemen of all ranks andparties as are drawn to a scholar's house, until, such daily andnightly meditation has grown into a great connection, if not asystem of thoughts; and the topic of English politics becomesthe best vehicle for the expression of his recent thinking,recommended to him by the desire to give some timely counsels,and to strip the worst mischiefs of their plausibility. It is abrave and just book, and not a semblance. "No new truth," saythe critics on all sides. Is it so? Truth is very old, but themerit of seers is not to invent but to dispose objects in theirright places, and he is the commander who is always in the mount,whose eye not only sees details, but throws crowds of detailsinto their right arrangement and a larger and juster totalitythan any other. The book makes great approaches to truecontemporary history, a very rare success, and firmly holds up todaylight the absurdities still tolerated in the English andEuropean system. It is such an appeal to the conscience andhonour of England as cannot be forgotten, or be feigned to beforgotten. It has the merit which belongs to every honest book,that it was self-examining before it was eloquent, and so hitsall other men, and, as the country people say of good preaching,"comes bounce down into every pew." Every reader shall carryaway something. The scholar shall read and write, the farmer andmechanic shall toil, with new resolution, nor forget the bookwhen they resume their labour.
Though no theocrat, and more than most philosophers, a believerin political systems, Mr. Carlyle very fairly finds the calamityof the times, not in bad bills of Parliament, nor the remedy ingood bills, but the vice in false and superficial aims of thepeople, and the remedy in honesty and insight. Like every workof genius, its great value is in telling such simple truths. Aswe recall the topics, we are struck with force given to the plaintruths; the picture of the English nation all sitting enchanted,the poor, enchanted so that they cannot work, the rich, enchantedso that they cannot enjoy, and are rich in vain; the exposure ofthe progress of fraud into all arts and social activities; theproposition that the labourer must have a greater share in hisearnings; that the principle of permanence shall be admittedinto all contracts of mutual service; that the state shallprovide at least s