The Press Saturday, September 5, 1925. Carlyle-Continued.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18479, 5 September 1925, Page 12

The Press Saturday, September 5, 1925. Carlyle-Continued.

We have now the third volume of Mr David Alec Wilson's great biography of Carlvle, which is planned for five volumes" The first was reviewed m these columns about a year and a half ago. Since then Mr Wilson has pursued his huge task with unflagging energy, and with the same amazing zeal and capacity for hunting down every scrap of evidence that could throw the least gleam of light on the work, life, and character of his liero. And the cumulative effect is to sweep into limbo most of the rhetoric .and sentimentality with which Carlyle s memory has been deluged during the past forty years. Froude's glowing periods shrivel up at the touch of naked truth; and we see the features of the same old Froude, who scorned the rigid rules of evidence, and who never could be trusted to present a true picture of any great figure or movement. But Froude was not the only sinner. Many others have seen and presented Carlyle through the mists of their own preconceptions. Mr Wilson is not troubled with mists. He wants facts. He is endowed with indefatigable industry, and has an almost uncanny "flair" for tracking down bits of elusive and out-of-the-way testimony. And, as a result of this mode of treatment, there is gradually emerging through these volumes a Carlyle far more human and attractive than the bilious and dyspeptic ogre of popular conception: a Carlyle of a tender heart too often lacerated by the woes of mankind, of a delicate courtesy too often buried under an external crust of barbarism, of a deep, religious awe in presence of the Inscrutable, and of a towering and titanic indignation against all forms of falsehood and wrong-doing. Many of us have lately made partial acquaintance with this Carlyle through his own letters, especially those to J. S. Mill, John Sterling, and Robert Browning. The scene of this present volume is the modest, old-fashioned house on Cheyne Row, Chelsea, which was Carlyle's home for nearly half-a-century, and is now a Carlyle Museum. There were many breaks, in the fortn of tours, expeditions, visits to countryhouses, and the like; but the real life was lived in this little home. The activities of the period were manifold. " Sartor " was published in book form in 1838. In 1843 came " Past and " Present"; in 1845, " Cromwellin 1850, "Latter Day Pamphlets"; and in 1851 the "Life of Sterling." Then there were courses of public lectures, spread over four years, which made Carlyle a literary lion, the main fruits of whiehto us now are summed up in " Heroes and Hcro-Worship." For in front loomed what Mrs Carlyle called " the valley of the shadow of "Frederick." But in this middle period we have Carlyle in his full strength,' with his powers at their highest pitch. We have, too, his qualities fully developed: his intensity, his uncompromisihg veracity, his scorching irony, his deep unexpected human sympathies. The " Cromwell " is the central achievement, and is symbolic of his mental attitude to history and the evolution of the human soul. To him the extinction of Puritanism is "the last glimpse of the Godlike " vanishing from this England; conviction and veracity giving place to "hollow cant and formulism —antique "'Reign of God,' which all true men " in their dialects and modes have al"ways striven for, giving place to " modern Reign of No-God, whom men "name Devil: this, in its multi- " tudinous meanings and results, is a " sight to create reflections in the ; " earnest man." English Puritanism is to him " the last of all our Heyoisms." The Life of Sterling is, of course, the "human document" which opens up to us the depths of Carlyle's sympathies, and reveals, as well, his penetrating insight and dry Scottish humour. Perhaps, next to this, the most attractive piece of work he.ever did is the first half of "Past and "Present."

• But it is not anything new or striking; in the way "of literary criticism that forms the main interest of Mr Wilson's new volume. It is chiefly on the domesticities of the Cheyne Row household • that he has opened up to us a truer perspective. That " menage "k deux" has always had a curiouk and morbid interest for myth-mongers, with the result that it has become crusted over with legend. A romantic sympathy with Mrs Carlyle, fortified by a good deal that she and her husband have written, has gradually elaborated a picture of a suffering woman, enduring daily martyrdom from a sardonic, soured, unsympathetic bear of a husband. But firs Carlyle was neither saint nor martyr; she was a brilliant woman, with an independence of spirit, a keen intelligence, and a caustic tongue, not always nourished on the milk of human kindness. We know quite well that their daily intercourse was not overloaded with endearments and effusive demonstrations of affection. Each was a bundle of nerves; and his wrestling with his work and her craving for an adequate outlet for her powers kept each on the borderland, at least, of chronic irritability. But Mr Wilson, in his abrupt, fragmentary way, has built up, on unimpeachable evidence, little bits of pictures, which show how very unlike to the legendary situation was the real one. We see vividly the touch of gallantry in Carlyle's demeanour towards his wife, and the charming courtesy with which he received every casual guest; and hardly an evening passed without a guest. They ranged over all sorts and conditions; from a German Grand Duke to' a •whippersnapper of an Edinburgh solicitor, and from an Emerson or a to a poor, struggling student If the guest was congenial, there followed a memorable evening round the little tea-table.

The great Apostle of Silence absorbed more His share o£ the talk- A dam' seemed to burst within him, and the pent-up floods of humour and eloquence came surging forth, all in broad Annandale, which London or fashionable society had to obliterate. Occasionally the guest was startled by an explosion'of big Homeric laughter, which seemed to shake half Chelsea. Nor did the good dame sit silent. She had plenty of scope for her own spicy, ironic humour. For the benefit of the guest she expatiated on " Car-r-rlyle's " pathetic and hopeless incapacity in domestic management; and the victim sat with a halfsmile of humorous appreciation of his wife's superior discernment. Many good stories have survived from these evenings; perhaps one of the best is the truly Carlylean reproof administered to Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton, and father of the present Lord Crewe) for not having used his influence with the Government to get Alfred Tennyson placed on the Civil List.