Alfred J. Drake

307 Pages·2002·0.94 MB·English

by  Alfred James Drake

PAST AND PRESENT.
THOMAS CARLYLE, 1843.
E-Texts for Victorianists
E-text Editor: Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D.
Electronic Version 1.0 / Date 7-27-02

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Text upon which this Online Edition is Based:
Boston: Little, Brown, 1843. First American edition,
with brief foreword by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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This electronic edition is in the public domain.
PAST AND PRESENT

BY
THOMAS CARLYLE.
Ernst ist das Leben.
SCHILLER.

MDCCCXLIII.
AMERICAN EDITOR’S NOTICE.
THIS book is printed from a private copy, partly in
manuscript, sent by the author to his friends in this
country, and is published for his benefit. I hope this
notice that the profits of the sale of this edition are
secured to Mr. Carlyle, will persuade every well dis-
posed publisher to respect his property in his own
book.
R. W. EMERSON.
CONCORD, MASS.

MAY 1, 1843.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.—PROEM.

PAGE

CHAP. I. Midas 1

II. The Sphinx 7

III. Manchester Insurrection 14

IV. Morrison’s Pill 22

V. Aristocracy of Talent 26

VI. Hero-Worship 32
BOOK II.—THE ANCIENT MONK.

CHAP. I. Jocelin of Brakelond 39

II. St. Edmundsbury 46

III. Landlord Edmund 50

IV. Abbot Hugo 57

V. Twelfth Century 62
VI. Monk Samson 66
VII. The Canvassing 73

VIII. The Election 76

IX. Abbot Samson 83

X. Government 89

XI. The Abbot’s Ways 93

XII. The Abbot’s Troubles 99

XIII. In Parliament 104

XIV. Henry of Essex 106

XV. Practical-Devotional 110

XVI. St. Edmund 117

XVII. The Beginnings 125
CONTENTS.
BOOK III.—THE MODERN WORKER.

CHAP. I. Phenomena 137

II. Gospel of Mammonism 145

III. Gospel of Dilettantism 151

IV. Happy 154

V. The English 159
VI. Two Centuries 167
VII. Over-Production 171

VIII. Unworking Aristocracy 175

IX. Working Aristocracy 183

X. Plugson of Undershot 188

XI. Labour 196

XII. Reward 201

XIII. Democracy 209

XIV. Sir Jabesh Windbag 221

XV. Morrison Again 225

BOOK IV.—HOROSCOPE.

CHAP. I. Aristocracies 239

II. Bribery Committee 251

III. The One Institution 256

IV. Captains of Industry 268

V. Permanence 275
VI. The Landed 281
VII. The Gifted 287

VIII. The Didactic 292
BOOK I.

PROEM.
[BLANK PAGE]
CHAPTER I.

MIDAS.
THE condition of England, on which many pamphlets are now
in the course of publication, and many thoughts unpublished are
going on in every reflective head, is justly regarded as one of the
most ominous, and withal one of the strangest, ever seen in this
world. England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, sup-
ply for human want in every kind, yet England is dying of inani-
tion. With unabated bounty the land of England blooms and
grows; waving with yellow harvests; thick-studded with work-
shops, industrial implements, with fifteen millions of workers,
understood to be the strongest, the cunningest and the willingest
our Earth ever had; these men are here; the work they have
done, the fruit they have realised is here, abundant, exuberant on
every hand of us: and behold, some baleful fiat as of Enchant-
ment has gone forth, saying, “Touch it not, ye workers, ye
master-workers, ye master-idlers, none of you can touch it, no
man of you shall be the better for it; this is enchanted fruit!”
On the poor workers such fiat falls first, in its rudest shape; but
on the rich master-workers too it falls; neither can the rich
master-idlers, nor any richest or highest man escape, but all are
like to be brought low with it, and made ‘poor’ enough, in the
money-sense or a far fataller one.
Of these successful skilful workers some two millions, it is
now counted, sit in Workhouses, Poor-law Prisons; or have ‘out-
door relief’ flung over the wall to them,—the workhouse Bastille
being filled to bursting, and the strong Poor-law broken asunder
by a stronger.* They sit there, these many months now; their
hope of deliverance as yet small. In workhouses, pleasantly so
*The Return of Paupers for England and Wales, at Ladyday, 1842, is,
‘In-door 221,687, Out-door 1,207,402, Total 1,429,089’ (Official Report.)
2 PROEM.
named, because work cannot be done in them. Twelve hundred
thousand workers in England alone; their cunning right-hand
lamed, lying idle in their sorrowful bosom; their hopes, outlooks,
share of this fair world, shut in by narrow walls. They sit there,
pent up, as in a kind of horrid enchantment; glad to be impris-
oned and enchanted, that they may not perish starved. The
picturesque Tourist, in a sunny autumn day, through this boun-
teous realm of England, descries the Union Workhouse on his
path. ‘Passing by the Workhouse of St. Ives in Huntingdon-
‘shire, on a bright day last autumn,’ says the picturesque Tour-
ist, ‘I saw sitting on wooden benches, in front of their Bastille
‘and within their ring-wall and its railings, some half-hundred
‘or more of these men. Tall robust figures, young mostly or of
‘middle age; of honest countenance, many of them thoughtful
‘and even intelligent-looking men. They sat there, near by one
‘another; but in a kind of torpor, especially in a silence, which
‘was very striking. In silence: for, alas, what word was to be
‘said? An Earth all lying round, crying, Come and till me,
‘come and reap me,—yet we here sit enchanted! In the eyes
‘and brows of these men hung the gloomiest expression, not of
‘anger, but of grief and shame and manifold inarticulate distress
‘and weariness; they returned my glance with a glance that
‘seemed to say, “Do not look at us. We sit enchanted here, we
‘know not why. The Sun shines and the Earth calls; and, by the
‘governing Powers and Impotences of this England, we are for-
‘bidden to obey. It is impossible, they tell us!” There was
‘something that reminded me of Dante’s Hell in the look of all
‘this; and I rode swiftly away.’
So many hundred thousands sit in workhouses: and other hun-
dred thousands have not yet got even workhouses; and in thrifty
Scotland itself, in Glasgow or Edinburgh City, in their dark lanes,
hidden from all but the eye of God, and of rare Benevolence the
minister of God, there are scenes of woe and destitution and deso-
lation, such as, one may hope, the Sun never saw before in the
most barbarous regions where men dwelt. Competent witnesses,
the brave and humane Dr. Alison, who speaks what he knows,
whose noble Healing Art in his charitable hands becomes once
more a truly sacred one, report these things for us: these things