Then Carlyle--his big
books, his great tawdry, smoky pictures of scenes, his loud and
clumsy moralisations, his perpetual thrusting of himself into the
foreground, like some obstreperous showman; he wearies and dizzies
my brain with his raucous clamour, his uncouth convolutions. I saw
the other day a little Japanese picture of a boat in a stormy sea,
the waves beating over it; three warriors in the boat lie prostrate
and rigid with terror and misery. Above, through a rent in the
clouds, is visible an ugly grotesque figure, with a demoniacal leer
on his face, beating upon a number of drums. The picture is
entitled "The Thunder-God beats his drums." Well, Carlyle seems to
me like that; he has no pity for humanity, he only likes to add to
its terrors and its bewilderment. He preached silence and seclusion
to men of activity, energy to men of contemplation. He was furious,
whatever humanity did, whether it slept or waked. His message is
the message of the booming gale, and the swollen cataract. Yet in
his diaries and letters, what splendid perception, what inimitable
humour, what rugged emotion! I declare that Carlyle's thumbnail
portraits of people and scenes are some of the most admirable
things ever set down on paper.
Pages:
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105