aber ries pees Soeen rer OT Ld eaaeprectes ie oer ton me anode bees ei Partie t tales Sse ¢ ieee? iret i q see i ‘hy +) A Th . ape alti entra toe idee aeared te we oeares oes shor hore yp peeren ret st ee oy pase rene CORNELL. UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 By HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE OLIN LIBRARY — CIRCULATION DATE DUE . i mii / 3 1924 THE ATHENAZEUM PRESS SERIES G. L. KITTREDGE and C. T. WINCHESTER GENERAL EDITORS The Atbenxum Press Series. This series is intended to furnish a library of the best English literature from Chaucer to the present time in a form adapted to the needs of both the student and the general reader. The works selected are carefully edited, with biographical and critical introductions, full explanatory notes, and other neces- Sary apparatus. Atbenxum Press Series 193. CARLYLE SARTOR RESARTUS EDITED BY ARCHIBALD MACMECHAN » George Munro Professor of English Language and Literature in Dathousie College Boston, U.S.A., AND LONDON GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS The Athenwum Press 1896 at ra C CoryricHt, 1896, BY GINN & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON AS A MARK OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS CHARACTER AS A MAN OF LETTERS AND HIS DEFENSE OF CARLYLE’S MEMORY nN Mein Bermiadtnif, wie herrlid) weit und breit! Die Zeit ift mein Vermadinig, mein Uder ift die Zeit. @oethe. PREFACE, America’s part in Carlyle is not small. When he was still, in his own country and among his own people, a prophet without honor and sometimes almost without-bread, he received from New England the three things he needed most, -— money, literary recognition, and a friend. It is not too much to say that the chance visit of an American proved to be the turning-point in Carlyle’s career. To Emerson’s memorable voyage of discovery to Craigenput- toch in 1832, the beginnings of Carlyle’s worldly prosperity and of his influence on this side of the Atlantic, are directly traceable. But for Emerson’s generous admiration of them, Carlyle’s earliest works would certainly not have been pub- lished in Boston before they had made head in London; and but for the unselfishness and business talent of Con- cord’s philosophical dreamer, the proceeds of the sales might never have reached the rightful owner in Cheyne Row. Not in vain did he “summon all the Yankee” in him, and “multiply and divide like a lion.” But money and fame were as dust in the balance, weighed against the treasure of a true friendship. What value Carlyle set upon it is to be seen in almost every page of the Emerson correspond- ence. Again, in criticism no earlier praise is so just or so ample as Thoreau’s. Carlyle’s very insult to the Republic in the hour of its extremity, followed as it was at once by vili PREFACE. his earnest desire for reparation, bound him closer to that new world he never saw. When the time came for him to set his house in order, he left to an American university as well as to his own Edinburgh, a token of affectionate regard, an appropriate peace-offering of his books. Since his death, an American man of letters has proved the truest friend of his reputation by putting in the way of every one who cares to make the trial, those personal documents which correct the inadvertent errors, and downright distortions of Carlyle’s great biographer and literary executor. It was from an American city, sixty years ago, that the first edition of Sartor Resartus issued in book form; and it is not unfit- ting that from the same city should now come, this, the first attempt to deal systematically with the difficulties the book presents. The aim of the present edition is threefold: to make a book which is admitted to be worthy of study, and has the name of being dark, easier of comprehension to the average undergraduate and general reader; to show clearly and in detail the relations between this spiritual autobiography and the actual life of Carlyle, which have hitherto been either vaguely stated or only suspected to exist; and to demon- strate the process by which the book gréw. The first inten- tion includes the other two, and is the most important of all. The study of the writings necessary for these two lesser purposes has brought about this desirable result, — the editor has been kept in the background, and the great man has himself furnished the commentary to his own text. Incidentally, the close scrutiny of Sartor has brought to light a number of curious errors, such as may befall even a man of genius, when he leans too hard upon the best of PREFACE. ig memories, and writes at a distance from his works of refer- ence. These have been noted in no spirit of vainglory, but with the natural hesitation of the novice on whom it is laid to change places for the moment with his master. The task of preparing this work, though thoroughly con- genial, and taken up lightheartedly enough, proved heavier as it neared completion. Carlyle’s course through the world of books is as incalculable as a bee’s in a clover-field. He is besides a giant —in seven-league boots; and Hop o’ my Thumb’s chances of keeping him in sight are not brilliant. Though I have striven to avoid the usual jeers at commenta- tors and their farthing candles, I cannot hope that all readers will find “each dark passage ” sufficiently illuminated. There are still a few holes in Sartor’s coat which remain to be neatly darned, and some regrettable gaps in my information. These are indicated in the hope that more learned critics may fillthem up. As I have been forced to work without the aid of a modern, adequate library, my references are not always made to the best or most accessible editions; though they are, I trust, clear and in every. case to be relied on. To break a road through new country is rough work, and much may be forgiven the pioneer, if the way he opens up is found to be merely passable. That the imperfections of this work are not more numer- ous than they are, is largely due to the kindness of many friends who supplied information or transcribed extracts, or verified references which were inaccessible to me. To my colleagues at Dalhousie my thanks are first due, to Profs. C. MacDonald, J. Johnson, J. Liechti, J. G. MacGregor, W. C. Murray, and H. Murray, also to Prof. W. M. Tweedie of Mt. Allison University, the Rev, Wm. King of Christ x PREFACE. Church, Cambridge, W. C. Desbrisay, Esq., of Ottawa, T. Heath Haviland, Esq., of Charlottetown, P. E. I., and chiefly to Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, who lent me his pre- cious manuscript copy of Carlyle’s Journals, and in other ways encouraged this present work; to Prof. G. L. Kittredge whose editorial zeal enabled him to endure the whole corpus of notes at one memorable sitting ; to my old friend Dr. F. H. Sykes of the Western University, whose affection has survived the ordeal of reading many proof-sheets;,and to one other friend I need not name, who aided in the tedious task of collating texts. The list is too long for any claim of independence, but not for gratitude. The Glass House, Dutch Village, HA.iFax, July 26, 1895. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION I. THE PRODUCTION OF SARTOR . II. THE Sources III. RELATION TO CARLYLE’s LIFE. IV. THE PROBLEM OF BLUMINE. V. STRUCTURE VI. STYLE VII. SIGNIFICANCE AND INFLUENCE. SARTOR RESARTUS. CHAPTER BOOK I. 1. PRELIMINARY II. EpirortaAL DIFFICULTIES , III. REMINISCENCES IV. CHARACTERISTICS V. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES VI. APRONS VII. MIscELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL VIII. THE WorxLpD our oF CLOTHES . IX. ADAMITISM X. Pure REASON XI. PROSPECTIVE . ‘ BOOK II. I. GENESIS - II. Ipybuic PAGE xiii xix xxiii xxvii XXXvi xlii II 23 30 37 40 44 51 56 62 72 80 xi CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. IV. Vv. VI. Vil. VIII. IX. X. Il. III. IV. VI. VII. “NII. IX. X. XI. XII. PEDAGOGY GETTING UNDER Way ROMANCE . SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH THE EVERLASTING No CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE THE EVERLASTING YEA PAUSE BOOK III. INCIDENT IN MODERN HIsTORY CHURCH-CLOTHES SYMBOLS HELOTAGE THE PHOENIX OLD CLOTHES ORGANIC FILAMENTS NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM CIRCUMSPECTIVE THE DANDIACAL Bopy TAILORS FAREWELL Notes APPENDIX, TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS CARLYLE’s INDEX INDEX To NOTES AND INTRODUCTION PAGE go 107 120 > 134 145 154 166 - 179 188 194 | + 205 210 . 216 221 INTRODUCTION. I. In the year 1830,' Carlyle was living with his wife in the lonely moorland farm-house of Craigenputtoch, which is by interpretation, “ Hill of the Hawks,” on the western border of his native shire, Dumfries. He was no longer young, and neither a successful nor a happy man. The eldest son of a stone-mason, he had followed the usual career of the ambitious Scots peasant, by preparing for the ministry. His father gave him the best education in his power, paying his expenses first at a good academy near home and afterwards at the university of Edinburgh. Though Carlyle acquiesced in the choice of profession made for him by his parents so far as to preach two formal sermons at Divinity Hall, he found at the close of his university career that he was unfitted for the pulpit, and chose the usual alternative, the schoolmaster’s desk. He disliked the profession of teaching and soon abandoned it, but his short apprentice- ship to the distasteful calling gave him an influential and life- long friend, the only human being he ever saw face to face, 1 The biographies of Carlyle are so many and so easy to ebtain, that I have not thought it well to load my introduction with any biographical facts but those which directly explain the origin of Sartor. After Froude’s classical work, the-best is Dr. Garnett’s “ Life” in the Great Writers Series (Walter Scott, London). This contains Anderson’s invaluable bibliography. Prof. Nichol’s memoir (English Men of Letters Series), though meritorious, is not so pleasant in tone, nor so admirably compressed. sie INTRODUCTION. whose superiority to himself he in any way recognized. This was the handsome, genial, brilliant Edward Irving. Although they had met before, they grew intimate only when fate threw them together as village dominies in the quaint little town of Kirkcaldy. Irving was at this time Carlyle’s intel- lectual peer, and the two young men of genius read and studied together, or walked and talked endlessly along the pleasant sands beside the sea. Their ways soon parted. Irving, who was rising rapidly into notice, went to Glasgow to be assistant to Dr. Chalmers. His translation to London in 1821,’ marked an epoch in the life of his obscure friend, as well as in his own. Irving became the fashionable preacher of the metropolis ; and it was at his instance that Carlyle first visited the city which was to be his home for half his life. A Mrs. Buller, who had been attracted to the Caledonian Chapel by Irving’s preaching, asked him to recommend a tutor for her sons. Like a true Scot, he remembered his countryman; and the young Bullers had the good fortune to have for tutor perhaps the most remark- able man of his age in Great Britain. This was the second position of the kind Carlyle had undertaken and by far the more agreeable. The English boys were not only clever but well-mannered and affectionate. Charles, the elder, was destined to assist in giving England’s greatest colony responsible government and to die on the threshold of a wider fame. Tutor and pupil became friends to the benefit of both. To a man of Carlyle’s simple habits, £200 a year was riches. The first use he made of his wealth was to pay for his brother John’s education and to assist the rest of the family in every possible way. Contact with the refinement of the Bullers and their friends was good for the raw peasant scholar; but for several reasons he resigned his position after a tenure of two years. 1 Rem., Il, 99 and n. INTRODUCTION. xvii furnished house, with a certain amount of society; and then from motives of economy, they removed to Craigenputtoch, a property of Mrs. Carlyle’s in the wilds of Dumfries. Carlyle had hoped that marriage would work some sweeping change in his health and spirits; but in this he was disappointed, as he was in the hope of various university chairs at St. Andrews, Edinburgh, and London. In a mood almost of despair, he settled down in his ‘“‘ Dunscore Patmos” to read and meditate and write and make a way for himself in literature. At Comely Bank, his Edinburgh residence, he. had begun a novel which he threw aside at the seventh } chapter. The acceptance of an occasional article kept the wolf from the door; and from time to time, their friends : supplied them with various necessaries of life. Carlyle spent his day in his study, or wandered solitary over the moors afoot or on horseback. His young wife slaved at the housekeeping, lonelier than he. An occasional visitor broke the gray monotony of their lives; but no two people in Britain lived more retired. Crusoe, on the Island of Deso- lation, was hardly more completely shut out from his kind. In the journal, that refuge of the lonely and impulsive, Carlyle found a vent for his surcharged heart; and in 1829 resumed irregular entries in a book he had already used for the same purpose. The death of his sister Margaret in June, 1830, doubtless set his mind powerfully at work. ‘“ Often I think of many solemn and sad things which, indeed, I do not wish to forget,’’? he writes'his mother in this year. The month of September was particularly rich in the harvest \ of thought. About the 12th, he notes: “I am going to \ write Nonsense. It is on ‘Clothes.’ Heaven be my ' comforter.” On October roth, he writes to his brother: “For myself here I am leading the stillest life; musing amid the pale sunshine, or rude winds of October Tirl-the- 1 Lett., 172. xviii INTRODUCTION trees, when I go walking in this almost ghastly solitude; and for the rest writing with impetuosity. .. . What I am writing is the strangest of all things; begun as an article for fraser; then found to be too long (except it were divided in two); now sometimes looking as if it would swell into a Book. A very singular piece I assure you! It glances from Heaven to Earth and back again in a strange, satirical frenzy ; whether fine or not remains to be seen... . “ Teufelsdreck (that is the name of my present Sch7i/f) will be done (so far — fifty pages) to-morrow.”? Ten days later he is able to record its completion. The article in this form was sent soon after to Fraser, but not accepted, perhaps not even read; for by February, 1831, Carlyle has his “long paper entitled Zhoughts on Clothes”” back and is busy recasting and expanding it into book form. ‘I can devise,” he writes his brother John, “some more biography for Teufelsdreck; give a second deeper part in the same vein, leading through Religion and the nature of Society, and Lord knows what. Nay, the very ‘Thoughts,’ slightly altered would make a little volume first.”? This would seem to show that Book I of Sartor is the original “long paper,” that the devising of “more biography” resulted in Book II, and the “ second deeper part in the same vein” is Book III. From February till the end of July ® he is busy with the book, and by August 4th he is able to start for London with the completed manuscript. But the booksellers would have none of it, and after hawking it about among the leading publishers for some six weeks, Carlyle went home and laid the book aside for two years. Probably no changes were made in the text, in the interval, for Carlyle was now very busy with his great essays. Then, in November, 1833, the first four chapters 1 Lett, 1736. 2 Lbid., 183. 8 Tbid., 191, 212, 213, 221. INTRODUCTION. xix were printed in /vaser. The last instalment came out in August, 1834. In January and June it did not appear. For it, the author records, he received £82, 1s., and fifty- eight ‘really readable copies of 107 pages”! struck off from the magazine types, which he distributed among friends north of the Tweed. Few of them were even courteous enough to acknowledge the receipt of it; and on the general reading public it made no impression, except repulsion and disgust. Mrs. Carlyle pronounced it ‘A work of genius, dear.” But she was almost alone in her opinion. Father O’Shea in Cork, and Emerson in Concord, were apparently the only other persons in the world who saw anything in the book. To the American admirer belongs the honor of bring- ing out the real editio princepbs anonymously in 1836 with a laudatory preface by Everett. Though Emerson shore Sartor of the capitals wherein his heart delighted, he made a good bargain with the publishers, and saw that Carlyle received every dollar of his dues.? The first English edition did not appear till two years later, and a third was not needed for more than another decade. Before Carlyle’s death, a popular edition of 30,000 copies had been printed and sold. The text was very correctly printed in Fraser; and between the first form of the book and the last, only the fewest changes have been made. The present edition reproduces the text of 1874, with a few corrections which are indicated in the notes. II. “The first genesis of Sartor I remember well enough and the very spot (at Templand) where the notion of astonish- ment at Clothes first struck me,’ is Carlyle’s own account [ 1 Lett., 442. 2 See Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, 1, 86, 98, 122, 131. Boston, 1886. 3 Rem., II, 190. a INTRODUCTION. of how the book originated ; but this moment of illumination is plainly a case of unconscious memory. The germ idea, as has been often pointed out, is contained in the Zale of a Tub. That Carlyle knew Swift familiarly is indisputable. To his college friends he was known as “ Jonathan” and “the Dean,” as much from his known liking for Swift's writings as his natural satiric bent; and he recommends the Tale of a Tub, by name, to his brother John. To put the matter beyond the shadow of a doubt, Carlyle himself refers, in Sartor, to Swift and the passage quoted below.’ “ The worshippers of this deity had also a system of their belief which seemed to turn upon the following fundamental. They held the universe to be a large suit of clothes which invests everything; that the earth is invested by the air; the air is invested by the stars: and the stars are invested by the Primum Mobile. Look on this globe of earth, and you will find it to be a very complete and fashion- able dress. What is that which some call land but a fine coat faced with green, or the sea but a waistcoat of water- tabby? Proceed to the various works of the creation, you will find how curious journeyman Nature hath been to trim up the vegetable beaux; observe how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of a beech, and what a fine doublet of white satin is worn by the birch. To conclude from all, what is man himself but a microcoat, or rather a complete suit of clothes with all the trimmings? As to the body there can be no dispute, but examine even the acquirements of his mind, you will find them all contribute in their order towards furnishing out an exact dress. To instance no more, is not religion a cloak, honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, self-love a surtout, vanity a shirt, and conscience a pair of breeches?”* (I omit the drastic “ Swiftian conclusion which must have found favor in the 1 Bk. III, cap. xi. ° Tale of a Tub, Sect. III. INTRODUCTION. xxi eyes of the man who wrote Count Zaehdarm’s epitaph.) Here undoubtedly is the seed thought which lay chance- sown so long in Carlyle’s mind that he had forgotten its existence and when it sprang up and bore fruit a hundred- fold, imagined it to be some spontaneous, self-derived tilth. While this is admitted, there is between the passage in Swift and the completed Sartor all the difference between the bushel of seed-corn and the bursting garner. The seed fell in rich soil and it was most assiduously cultivated. A very large part of the book owes nothing at all to Swift. In the second portion, the story of Teufelsdréckh’s life, his clothes- philosophy sinks out of sight altogether; and such chapters as the fifth and e eighth of the third book are too weighty and earnest to be really part and parcel of what was in the first instance a jest. The influence of Swift’s thought is strongest in the first or original portion. The rest is really made up of Carlyle’s own experience of life, and his brood- ing over all problems that can engage the active brain, from the reality of the universe and the existence of God to the condition of the poor and the phenomenon of the man of fashion. The book is to be regarded as the epitome of all that Carlyle thought and felt in the course of the first thirty- five years of his residence on this planet. Many things which he wishes to say that cannot be ranged under any rubric of the philosophy of clothes, such as his criticism of duelling, are, notwithstanding, given room. This position I hope to make good. Such an explanation of Sartor as Mr. Larkin’s* must be regarded as an exercise of pure fancy, in a line with the old-fashioned allegorical expositions of Scripture, like Dr. Alabaster’s sermon on Adam, Sheth, Enosh. If, instead of assuming the book to be an enigma, we simply examine the 1 Henry Larkin, Carlyle and the Open Secret of his Life, caps. i-iv. Lond., 1886. xxii INTRODUCTION. process by which it grew, light breaks upon us, and its significance becomes unmistakable. The sources of it can be demonstrated to be fourfold. The first in importance is the journal which Carlyle kept at Craigenputtoch from 1828 to 1830. Extracts from this have been printed with grotesque inaccuracy by Mr. Froude in his Cardyle’s Early Life, and can be consulted there. A much safer authority is a MS. copy in the possession of Professor Norton, which he kindly allowed me to use. The second source is (Carlyle’s novel Wotton Reinfred, which never got beyond the seventh chapter. From this not only were many long passages transferred bodily to Sartor, but also the main ‘outlines of the love-story in Book Second. His essays form the third source, notably the Szgns of the Times. Character- istecs,? also contains much of Sartor’s thought. The fourth source is his translations from the German; and this is not a scanty stream. It is, however, of less importance than those mentioned. From Goethe he gets fundamental thought, it is true, but from Richter, Schiller, Musaeus Tieck and Hoffmann, he takes chiefly ornamental phrases, and illustrations. All those I have discovered are indicated in the Notes. In many cases the thought is found moulded into two or three different shapes before it takes the final impress of Carlyle’s signet in Sartor? His use of his mate- rial is characteristically “canny.” No good thing is allowed to pass unused, nothing is wasted, and many places show the labor of the file. Often his borrowings were simply held in his wonderful memory and set down unwittingly; but again, the process was distinctly conscious. Long extracts ' are copied word for word from Wotton Reinfred, — notably the account of Teufelsdréckh’s meeting with Blumine and 1 Edinburgh Review, No. 98 (1829), and Essays, II, 135~162. 2 Tbid., No. 108 (1831), and Essays, III, 5-49. 3 See I, 19, u. and passim. INTRODUCTION. XXlil Towgood on their wedding-journey. In this case the: patching is clumsy. Teufelsdréckh cannot ride up the! mountain-road which is still practicable for a barouche-and- four. And why should the wedding-party be bound south for England? The passage fits into its context in Wotton einfred, but torn from it only shows the author’s haste and that the end forgot the beginning. Carlyle’s task from February to August in 1831 was drawing into the compass of a single volume all the.best that he had thought in his past life. ITI. The statement made by Carlyle that nothing in Sartor s\ true, “symbolical myth all,” has been repeated by Mr. Froude’ and other biographers, in spite of the fact that Carlyle contradicts himself. The only fact he admits as biographical is the famous episode in the Rue St. Thomas de l’Enfer, otherwise Leith Walk; but in the same work Carlyle confesses to various other facts which are more a “symbolical,’’ such as his first day at school.? Indeed; even brief and limited research makes it clear that a very large meaning must be attached to the term, “symbolical myth,” and I do not hesitate to say that the title “ Life and _ Opinions of Diogenes Teufelsdrockh” is simply the usual innocent device of authors to avoid taking the public openly | into their confidence, when their books are of an intimate and personal character, like Mrs. Browning’s “ Sonnets from : the Portuguese.” This has, heretofore, been generally sus- pected; it can now be clearly proven. Sartor is not a the epitome of all that Carlyle had thought; it contains the fine essence of all that he had felt. The first draft of Sartor was the novel Wotton Reinfred. This was begun in January, 1827, in the first months = 1C. £. L., I, 103. 2 Rem., 1, 46. XX1V INTRODUCTION. Carlyle’s wedded life, and finally thrown aside about June 4th of the same year. His letters! of this time show how hard he worked at it, and what an interest Mrs. Carlyle took in it. The statement that it was given wholly to the flames cannot be correct, for it has been since published. While it is not interesting in itself, it is of the utmost importance for the student of Sartor and of Carlyle’s literary methods. This will be plain from a glance at its contents. The book con- sists of seven chapters, which are carefully finished and ready for the press. The hero is a young man of morose temperament who has been crossed in love. The object of his devotion, Jane Montagu, has been carried off by a “ tiger-ape ” of an Indian officer; and the unhappy lover is plunged into the deepest despair. In the first chapter his friend is trying to bring him to reason, and prescribes a visit to a certain physician of souls, called Moseley. The second chapter gives Wotton’s history to the time of his unfortunate love-affair. He has been brought up in a’ secluded part of the country by his mother, a truly religious woman. At school he is bullied by the other boys and ' nicknamed “weeping Wotton,” till he thrashes one of his ‘tormentors. The death of a little sister makes a deep impression upon his shy, sensitive nature, and increases his natural tendency to sadness. In due course, he attends the university in a distant city, where he reads much, especially mathematics. He finds his fellow-collegians uncongenial, and repels all advances by his reserved and_ sarcastic manner. There is also little in the university system of discipline and instruction for him to admire. Thrown back thus upon himself, he thinks much on the fundamental problems of life, studies the skeptical writers of modern France, and begins to doubt the creed in which he has been brought up. He ends in blank unbelief, and something 1 Lett., 20, 23, 32) 458. INTRODUCTION. XXV very like despair. In this mood he quits the university and for a short time studies law. Disgusted with the technicali- ties of the subject, he abandons it and retires to the country. Near him lives the single friend he made at college, , Bernard Swane, the “ perfect opposite’ of himself. Famil- iar intercourse with a man of Bernard’s frank, hopeful nature keeps Wotton back from madness and utter despair. On a visit to Bernard, one morning, he meets a young beauty, called Jane Montagu: and the occasion is described at some length. One notable detail is the suppression of a “Philistine”? by means of Wotton’s adroit questionings. The youth and maiden fall in love with each other, and all goes well till an ancient maiden aunt interferes. There is a tearful final interview and they separate. Report says that Jane is to marry Edmund Waller, a young, well-connected, wealthy officer, whom Wotton holds to be a mere libertine. For some unexplained reason, this marriage does not take place; but his disappointment makes Wotton ten times more gloomy than before. He looks forward to death as the relief from all evils. Chapter Three is short. Bernard and Wotton set out upon their rather ill-defined journey to Moseley. The scenery they pass through is distinctly Scottish. At their first inn, the waiters bring Wotton a locket containing a miniature which has been found in the mountains. The portrait shows an unmistakable likeness to himself. Though he knows that he has never sat for his picture, he takes the locket with him, leaving a few guineas as a guarantee, and his address in case any one with a better right should lay claim to it. His half-untold fancy is that it may have belonged to his lost love. On the next day, the two friends proceed on their journey, and meet a mysterious stranger. His name is Maurice Herbert, and he conducts the travellers to his mansion, the XXVi INTRODUCTION. House of the Wold, such a convenient, emblematic castle as Wilhelm Meister strays into during his strange appren- ticeship. Here is met a company of scholars and philos- ophers, who reason after dinner, like Milton’s fiends, on the eternal riddles of life. The chief significance of the discus- sion lies in the importation into it of Kantian philosophy, which the rest regard as they might a rabid dog. { After this symposium, the only other events worth noting are an encounter between the rivals, Reinfred and Waller, and, later a meeting between Reinfred and Jane Montagu. With a long-winded explanation of the latter’s mysterious conduct, the seventh chapter ends. The rest is silence. Now, the points of resemblance between these three personages, Carlyle, Reinfred and Teufelsdrockh, both in character and career, are too close to ‘be the result of mere chance. As boys, all three are shy, sensitive, easily reduced to tears and have been trained to religion by a pious mother. At school they are bullied, at the university they are illtaught. Among a crowd of uncongenial mates they each find only one true friend: Carlyle has his Irving; Reinfred, Swane; and Teufelsdréckh, Towgood. As they reach manhood, all three part company with the creed of their childhood; and in each case the loss increases the natural tendency to sarcasm and misanthropic gloom. After leaving the university all three study law for a time and give it up in disgust. The two heroes of fiction have unhappy love-affairs which darken tenfold their former gloom. Whether this is true or not of Carlyle is a question still to be settled. Carlyle and Teufelsdrockh wrestle through the storm into calm; and though Wotton Reinfred is not com- pleted, even there it is clear that the way is being paved for the happiness of the star-crossed lovers. In some points, the resemblance between the hero of the Reminiscences and Wotton is closer than between Carlyle and Teufelsdréckh. INTRODUCTION. xxvii The first little Janet Carlyle,! died at the age of three; from Wotton, “death had snatched away” “a little elder sister” “before he k.ew what the King of Terrors was.”? A beau- tiful girl, in whem Carlyle undoubtedly was interested, did marry an Indian officer. Throughout Wotton Reinfred, the scenery, atmosphere and circumstances are those with which Carlyle was familiar, that is to say, Scottish. On the other hand, though Reinfred does not, both Carlyle and Teufelsdro6ckh teach private pupils and “subsist by the faculty of translation” after leaving college. These are the broad outlines of resemblance between the personal history of the writer and the careers of his two puppets or literary doubles. Other minute resemblances are traced carefully in the notes to Book Two. When this detailed evidence is considered in its mass, and taken with Carlyle’s zeal for truth and his hatred of fiction, as well as the fact that a writer’s personal experience generally forms the basis of his first novel, it will, I think, be hard to resist the conclu | sion that Wotton Reinfred and Diogenes Teufelsdrockh are simple aliases of Thomas Carlyle. | IV. Sunny is not the adjective one would select as most aptly : describing the temper of any of Carlyle’s works; and yet there is in Sartor a certain grace which the mind recognizes ~ and rejoices in as the senses recognize and rejoice in the return of light and warmth in spring. In virtue of this peculiar charm, found nowhere else so frequent or so strong 1Two of Carlyle’s sisters were christened Janet. C. 2. Lexy, Ty 93 £. Leth, 12, 22 WW, Cy 25: 3 Carlyle calls him an “idle Ex-Captain of Sepoys,” Rem., II, 125. Mr. Strachey says he belonged to the 7th Hussars, Lord Anglesea’s crack regiment. Vineteenth Century, Sept., 1892. A 4a xxviii INTRODUCTION. / in all his writings, the book constitutes a class by itself. Nor is it hard to account for the difference. ff Sartor was Carlyle’s first and only entirely creative work, In fashion- ing it he felt the joy of the artist in seeing’ “the thought of his brain taking shape under his hands, the joy of the artist as the face of the Madonna grows out of the blank canvas, the joy of the sculptor as the sun-god emerges from the marble. The speed at which he worked attests this, as well as the significant absence of those unutterable groanings which waited on the building of his great histories. Again, Carlyle had not at this time parted with his mother’s faith. True, he told Irving that he did not think of the Christian religion as his friend did; that is, as befitted a professed minister of that religion; but, on the other hand, a Scotch- man of Carlyle’s sincerity who takes sittings in the kirk and holds family worship’ cannot be considered as in a state of violent revolt against his inherited creed. Again, he had at this time, love. He had but lately married a beautiful and brilliant woman, without whom, in spite of all the unhappi- ness he caused and suffered, his life would not have been complete. The composition of Sartor marks the beginning of that time of which he was to write as a lonely gray- haired man the saddest words that surely ever blotted - paper: “I was rich once, had I known it, very rich; and now, Iam become poor unto the end.” Again, he had at this time hope. He had not yet lost all expectation of human virtue and courage and wisdom. He had not yet conceived the world as a ship of fools, driving without a helm, in a black night of storm to certain wreck. There is gloom in Sartor, but it is pierced by lightnings and flooded with bursts of the upper glory ; and there are serene, sunlit spaces into which the clouds do not intrude. For in spite of disappointment and poverty and suffering in body and mind, 1 Lett, 5. INTRODUCTION. Xx1x Carlyle still possessed in large measure the things which go to make life full and sweet, joy of his task, faith, love, hope ; and all these influences find voice in his book— There is one more element in the undeniable charm of Sartor yet to be considered. Let us for a moment imagine a Sartor consisting of the first and third books only. We should have “Opinions of Herr Diogenes Teufelsdréckh” in plenty, and a very great deal of his clothes-philosophy ; but could we spare his “Life”? In other words, if mi heart of the book were torn out, the story of the " snow-and- rose-bloom maiden” Blumine, would the “ Sorrows of Teu} felsdréckh” ever have aroused that widespread sympathy, which Emerson assures us the world gives freely to the! lover? It may well be doubted. Here Carlyle touches the universal heart. Teufelsdréckh, the solitary philosopher, the gloomy, misanthropical skeptic excites but moderate in- terest, and is indeed hardly intelligible. But Teufelsdrockh in love appeals to the experience or premonitions of all. Carlyle is not usually ranked with those who have spoken eloquently of the great passion, but where in our literature can we find another tale of pure devotion to a woman told so simply and so well? That he was competent to speak on this topic, his published letters to his wife are sufficient evidence. No small part of Savtor’s charm depends upon the Blumine episode. It is important for another reason. It is strange to think that it should be the duty of Carlyle’s editor to discuss his Lilis and Frederikas. But in this case it is unavoidable. Sartor is autgbiographical. The dea resemblance between the career of Teufelsdrockh and that of his creator has been already pointed out. The question naturally arises, “Is this central incident in Carlyle’s spir- itual biography without its parallel in his actual life?” It has, in fact, been already asked, and it might be lightly dismissed, if so many contradictory answers had not been { 4 XXX INTRODUCTION. given. As the question has been put and various answers have been given, it aaa to review them all with due care. i Who was Blumine? Froude says positively “Margaret Gordon was the original, so far as there was an original, of Blumine, in Sartor Resartus.”’ Carlyle met her in Kirk- caldy in 1817, when he was a young man of twenty-two who knew his own mind. Miss Gordon was born in Prince Edward Island,’ now a province of Canada, and was con- nected with a well-known local. family, the Hydes of East River. Her mother was married first to a Dr. Gordon, Margaret’s father, and after his death to Dr. Guthrie. It is said that both were army surgeons, and that the latter was stationed at Halifax. In Froude’s opinion, the two young people had been drawn to éach other. “ Two letters from her. . . show that on both sides their regard for each other had found expression.’ He states further that “circum- stances ...forbade an engagement between them.” The let- ter which he prints in support, though stiff and formal, certainly implies intimacy ; and the significant little postscript is confirmation strong : “I give you not my address, because I dare not promise to see you,’ Many years afterwards, Carlyle, an old grief-stricken man, alludes to the incident with a certain mournful tenderness. Miss Gordon was “by far the cleverest and brightest” of the “young ladies” of Kirkcaldy. She was “a kind of alien,’ “ poorish, proud and well-bred.”” With her Carlyle had “ some acquaintance, and it might easily have been more, had she and her Aunt and our-economic and other circumstances liked.” This admission is of course the basis of Froude’s statement just given, “She continued,” Carlyle proceeds, “for perhaps LC. £. £5, 1, §2. 2 Carlyle says vaguely, ‘born, I think, in New Brunswick,’ Rezz., II, 58. INTRODUCTION. xXxxi some three years a figure hanging more or less in my fancy, [ on the usual romantic,’ or latterly quite elegiac and silent \ terms.”? The portraits of Margaret and her aunt are | sketched here in much the same colors as in Sartor. He ' alludes to their leave-taking at Kirkcaldy in 1819. The very words used, “ good-bye, then,” have their place in his memory, and suggest the parting of Teufelsdrockh and his “ flower- goddess.” All this seems clear enough and points to one conclusion. The heroine’s after history is stated vaguely in the Reminiscences. The two met some twenty years later on horseback at the gate in Hyde Park, “when her eyes (but that was all) said to me almost touchingly, “ Yes, yes, that is you.” She married Mr. (afterwards Sir) Ronald Bannerman, and accompanied him to Prince Edward Island,’ when he came out as Governor in 1850. Lady Bannerman was long» remembered in the island, and it is stated that before the | appearance of either the Reminiscences or Froude’s Life, she was known in the province as the original of Blumine. | “Islanders ’’ were interested in reading Sartor, because the 7 heroine was connected with local history. If this is true, the only source of the information would be Lady Banner- man herself, for previous to 1881, there was no printed statement to connect the famous man of letters and the wife of an obscure colonial governor. So far, then, Carlyle’s testimony, documentary evidence and local tradition agree. But of late a counter claim has been put forward. When Carlyle went to London, as tutor to the young Bullers in 1822, he met a friend of the family, to whom he often alludes by the pet name “dear Kitty.” Catherine Aurora Fitzpatrick was the daughter of a famous Irish sol- dier, and an Indian princess who traced her descent from the blood royal of Persia. She was an heiress and a 1 Italics mine. — A.M. 2 Rem, IL, 57. 3 Not Nova Scotia as usually stated. XXXii INTRODUCTION. beauty. ‘A strangely-complexioned young lady, with soft, brown eyes, and floods of dronze-red hair, really a pretty- looking, smiling and amiable, though most foreign bit of magnificence and kindly splendour,”? is Carlyle’s word- picture of her as he saw her first. Her character is sketched by the same master hand. “She had one of the prettiest smiles, a visible sense of humour (the slight merry curve of her upper lip, r¢ght side of it only, the carriage of her head and eyes, on such occasions, the quiet little things she said in that kind, and her low-toned hearty laugh were noticeable) ; this was perhaps her most spiritual qual- ity ; of developed intellect she had not much, though not wanting in discernment. Amiable, affectionate, graceful, might be called attractive (not s/m enough for the title ‘pretty,’ not ¢a/7 enough for ‘ beautiful’) ; had something low-voiced, languidly harmonious, placid, sensuous, loved perfumes, etc.; a Half-Zegum, in short ; interesting speci- men of the Semi-oriental Englishwoman.”? It is a pleasant picture. To all the rest, she adds the two chief charms of Lalage. Carlyle is not the only witness to her loveliness and amiable character. As to the relationship between them, he says without any hesitation, “It strikes me now, more than it did then,” that Mrs. Strachey “could have liked to see ‘dear Kitty’ and myself come together and so continue near her, both of us, through life ; the good, kind soul... and Kitty too, ... might perhaps have been charmed. None knows.”* It seems plain, that before they met, the interest of the two young people had bea excited in each other. Why else should Miss Wirkpagik have twitched the label off his trunk as she ran up stairs that night of their first meeting? and why should Carlyle 1 Rem. WW, 117. ? Lbid., 125. 8 Westminster, Aug., 1894 ; Nineteenth Century, Sept., 1892. 4 Rem., II, 125. 3 ee Mas XXxxiii ft 4 i have noticed the gitlish prank and recorded the trivial inci- dent years afterwards? To match the rough man of genius with the beautiful, amiable heiress might well have seemed good to the friends of both. Though Carlyle was poor, and by no means a man of the world, all the women divined his power and foresaw his fame. It is clear that the young people had every opportunity for coming to an understand- ing. On one occasion they travelled with a party to Paris, They certainly were on no unfriendly footing. : Was Miss Kirkpatrick, then, Blumine? Her friends thought so. When: Sartor appeared, Mrs. Strachey told her son, as stated in his article, “Carlyle and the Rose- goddess,” ? that “the story of the book is plain as a pike-staff. Teufelsdréckh is Thomas himself. The Zahdarms? are your uncle and aunt Buller. Toughgut? is young Charles Buller. Philistine is Irving. The rose-garden is our garden with roses at Shooter’s Hill, and the rose-goddess is Kitty.” Mr. Strachey makes several minor points, such as the coin- cidence that Blumine is called “ Aurora,” “ Heaven’s Mes- senger,” and that Miss Kirkpatrick was christened Catherine Aurora. He says that he has taken pains to verify and establish his facts; and that he considers Froude’s hypothe- sis, as given above, untenable. Such strong statements made by those in such a good position to know, must carry great weight. But more direct testimony is forthcoming. No later than August, 1894, a Mrs. Mercer states that she knew Miss Kirkpatrick as Mrs. Phillips, the wife of a retired ‘afficér.. On a visit to her at Torquay, in 1847, Mrs. Phillips vet herto read Sartor Resartus by Carlyle. Her words as quoted by Mrs. Mercer are remarkable. “Get it (Sartor) and read the “Romance.” I am the heroine and every 1 Nineteenth Century, Sept., 1892, p. 474- 2 These coinages are the admiring tribute of a dyspeptic to people blessed with normal digestion. ‘“O dura messorum ilia!” eee Bale “s XXXIV INTRODUCTION. word of it is true. He was then tutor to my cousin, Charles Buller, and had made no name for himself, so of course I was told that such an idea could not be thought of for a moment. What could I do with everyone against it? Now anyone might be proud to be his wife, and he has married a woman quite beneath him.” ! The entire article is open to criticism of different kinds and must be received with caution. But after making all deductions, it seems clear’ that Miss Kirkpatrick looked upon herself as the original of Blumine. It is also clear that her friends so regarded her. What becomes then of Froude’s theory ? Now, if it be true that Lady Bannerman was known long. ago in Prince Edward Island as the heroine of Sartor, and if the Reminiscences and the letter printed by Froude mean what they say, it is plain that Carlyle was strongly drawn to Miss Gordon. On the other hand, the testimony of Mrs. Strachey and Mrs. Mercer, again confirmed by Carlyle’s own words, cannot be set aside. From them it appears that a marriage between Carlyle and Miss Kirkpatrick had been thought possible, by at least one of those most interested in the matter. Again, it is undeniable that both Margaret Gordon and Catherine Fitzpatrick resemble Blumine in character and circumstances. It does not follow that either is the original of Blumine to the exclusion of the other. Let us consider once more the genesis of Sartor. The first draft is Wotton Reinfred, a novel begun four months after Carlyle’s marriage, with the knowledge, encourage- ment and cooperation of his wife. Now, such a man as Carlyle does not sit down, in his honeymoon almost, to cele- brate any woman other than his wife, with her knowledge and consent. Again, it has been pointed out, that many traits of Blumine are common to Jane Montague, the heroine of | ' 1 Carlyle and the“ Blumine” of Sartor Resartus, Westminster Review, Aug., 1894, pp. 164 f. INTRODUCTION. XXXV } Wotjon Reinfred, and to Jane Welsh. Her portrait shows a : _ vivacious beauty, the index of her wit and spirit. Indeed, it i is very easy for a special pleader to make out a strong case in her favor. The truth seems to be that while certain circumstances point to each of the three, no one can be considered as the original of Blumine to the exclusion of the other two. Carlyle was an artist in words. He needed a portrait of a heroine. He took as models the three women: he knew best, as fair and amiable influences as ever came: into the life of genius, and painted from them with master, strokes, and in unfading colors, a picture of ideal loveli- ness. It was a true instinct which led Carlyle to “devise more biography.” The brightest pages of Sartor are those irradi- ated by the presence of Blumine, the “light-ray incarnate.” Without this episode, so tender, so pathetic, the book would have little more coherence than Colton’s Zacon, and would remain a splendid chaos of weighty thoughts. Teu- felsdrockh as a person would be as vague as Sordello, and the human interest in the book utterly lacking. Blumine is fit to take her place among the Shining Ones of our litera- ture by the side of the Juliets and the Di Vernons, not only for her own sake, but for the new-old ideal of love which she inspires in the hero. It needed to be restated. Pe/ham and Sartor were nearly contemporaries. The first was a popular success; the other a failure. But contrast the two in their treatment of the most important relationship pos- sible between men and women. /é/ham conceives of nothing higher than the conventional clubman’s notion of love. In its course, a seduction is a creditable incident, and its natural conclusion is: a fashionable marriage, with settle- ments. Carlyle, on the other hand, can only depict the thing he knows, the intense chivalrous affection of the unworldly man who has retained the man’s natural rev- XXXVI INTRODUCTION. erence for the woman. Which ideal was needed most in thes age of dandies cannot be doubted. Vv. When Carlyle, in the first six months of 1831, recast Sartor into its final shape, he was known to the world, so far as he was known at all, only as a student of German literature. He had translated Goethe’s most important novel, he had published a life of Schiller. He had made Richter, Tieck, Musaeus, Hoffmann more than mere names to the English public. He was capable of appreciating the Nibelungenlied and of attempting to interpret the second part of Zaust. He had even a history of German literature in hand, and a life of Luther in contemplation, No man in Great Britain possessed such accurate historical knowledge of German literature, or was so deeply imbued with its spirit. His admiration for the great writers of Germany was well grounded, and, in one case at least, reached the point of enthusiasm. For him Goethe had a new gospel. That his first original work, then, should bear many traces of German influence was the natural result of his long continued efforts to transplant German thought into English soil. In forming a literary judgment of Sartor, one thought must always be kept in mind, — it pretended to be German. In the very first chapter, the reader encounters a German professor and his book. The name of the book is given in full with a translation appended. Even such details as the name of the publishers, the place and date of publication are added, but they are discreetly allowed to remain undis- turbed in the original. The title, Dre Aveider, travesties that of an actual German pamphlet presented by Goethe to Carlyle; but it does not give its name to the book. The \ quaint Latin rubric which Carlyle pitched upon implies that — INTRODUCTION. XXXVI his book is secondary, derivative and based upon the German treatise. It is hardly a stretch of language to call the dis- coverer of the clothes-philosophy “tailor,” or the rehabilita- tion of his theories by the “English editor,” “ patching.” But the title is not quite accurate. The first and third books do indeed consist ostensibly of extracts from Dze Kleider, with introductions, comments, and explanations ; but in the second book, as has been already noted, the clothes-philosophy gives place altogether to the life of the clothes-philosopher. Teufeldréckh’s epoch-making work cannot be understood without more information regarding Teufelsdréckh the man. The friend who gives the informa- tion, in the famous paper-bags, is Heuschrecke, a German Rath. The guardian of Teufelsdrockh is one of the great Frederick’s sergeants and lives in the village of Entepfuhl. This name is undoubtedly German, as, in its elements, is Hinterschlag, the ominous designation of the academy where the boy is educated. He passes through the “nameless” university, and after various efforts to make a way for himself in the world, falls in love with a high-born maiden bearing the German name of Blumine. It is upon the invitation, which is given in full, of a Frau Grafin that the meeting is brought about. When the lovers part, Teufelsdrockh takes up his Pilgerstab and wanders up and down the earth like the noble Moringer or Rosegger’s Waldschulmeister in his stormy youth. But besides all this mere veneer of German, Carlyle goes deeper. The scenes in the Green Goose Tavern and in the littered study of the watch-tower, the portrait of Lieschen, the idyls of the hero’s childhood recall the vanished Germany of“little states and the quaint homely poetry of the life it fostered. Again, German books, with all their undoubted excel- lences, are popularly supposed to fail not seldom in lucid arrangement. Carlyle, who should give no countenance to XXXVIii INTRODUCTION. such an idea, goes over shamelessly to the enemy. In Sartor, he produces ostensibly a double confusion. In most vivid phrases, he compares the original