HYol. XVI. «NOVEMBER, 1899. = ss ‘Library, Univ. of “North Carohna ig i“ A) \\\ { ZA \\ Ce < i he Sal ; TE Neg ooh PUBLISHED BY THE : % Balan SOCIETIES © PRICE 2B ‘CENTS. e. Dress Suits, Shits ‘Shoes, Underwear. Se a Oe, ne i Be er te at ae Sherwood Higgs & Co. o Uri ee ues A, H.C. ‘Eye Specialist. a i _ Examination Free. DR. i. T. JOHNSON, Office Hours: me The Chora 3 Oe 8 a.m. to 12.30 pm. 2106 p.m, Ww. e “TANKERSLEY, DEALER LNs ia mete Fin ine Candies, ke Foreign and Domestic Fruits, AND oe -- FANCY SooDs. ee ? Collars 3 Cuffs, Cravats, Nobby Hats, A, a————Poputlar Prices. 4 ‘ ais Mee Sone 21 __ ** No, I cannot leave you yet.” ‘Ts sweet to love,” she said musingly. _ “And to be loved, he added, ‘‘ where the ocean breezes j plow,” A SONG. , BY x———_.. Come, drink to the dying year, And drink to the dying day, And drink to all that is past, And all that is passing away. For what is life but a song, To sing what way you will? Come, choose us a merry tune then; Tell hastening time ‘be still.’ So hush the voice of your heart and mine, _ For their speech brings only pain, Shut your ears to misery’s call _ And let the hag knock in vain. DG he ay ; For one short hour be merry, Forget there’s more of life; To-morrow brings the struggle, The care and the ceaseless strife. Then crown the beaker with garlands, And put your lips to the brim, _And drink to undying beauty, _ And eyes that never grow dim; fi And drink to the happy-go-lucky ; Ny Hurrah for the end of strife! . , _ _Here’s to all that’s merry and happy; Forget there is more of life. SCOTCH TRAITS IN THOMAS CARLYLE.* BY L. R. WILSON. something more than a mere superficial study of the exterior page is required. His character and pur-— poses must be viewed in the light of his hereditary ten- dencies and environment. The man and his time interact upon each other and must be examined in their mutual relations. Just as in Art the most harmonious, pleasing effect of a picture is secured only when the bright, attrac- tive central figures are toned down and blended with the hazy side lights and the dark shadowy back ground, so in Literature, which is an art, complete harmony can be ob- tained only when all the minor, hidden details are taken into consideration. The picture we have before us is that of the life of the grim, rugged, massive Carlyle, the Hebraic prophet, who stands out giving utterance to his praise of that which is true and noble and boldly denouncing that which is untrue and ignoble. Let us turn to it and investigate, in the Scotch youth, the small beginnings of the stern seer who forged, later, his ponderous thoughts in the silent seclu- sion of Chelsea. Carlyle began life in the unpretentious Scotch village of Kcclefechan, a place of no other special uote, whatever. It was simply the home of a few Scotch land-owners and their peasant renters,—not the place seemingly, to produce the spiritual prophet of the English nation, but rather, the earnest, persistent, religious tiller of the soil. His father was of the strong, self-made class of men. Born of poor peasant parents, his boyhood was hard and trying. At an early age he became the apprentice of a first class mason under whose direction he carefully trained *This essay won for Mr. Wilson the Hume Medal,—Ed. ls thoroughly appreciate the great work of an author ¢«~ Scotch Traits in Thomas Carlyle 23 himself to be a master workman. Reserved, dignified, at times impetuous, persevering, and intensely religious, he worked and built bridges and walls that continued to en- dure even when his strong, busy hand had entered upon its eternal rest. His formal education, lasting only for three months, was very poor. He was, however, a man of much good sense and possessed a mind, which although not carefully train- ed, was deep of insight, quick of action, and accurately logical. His great teacher was Nature, and the lesson taught him by her was to work—to work honestly and continually for that which was elevating and praiseworthy. The lesson once learned, he gave his entire strength to that which his hands found to do, His religious views were firmly based on Calvinistic doc- trine. ‘They were unshaken and real. ‘‘ Religion was the polar star of his being, and without it he would have been nothing. Although rude and uncultivated in many other respects, it made him and kept him ‘in all points a man’.” The deep faith in God as ruler and director of all things, which finds itself most firmly rooted in the Scotch heart, was preeminently his, For him God’s will was supreme. God did all things for the good of those who put their trust in Him. Carlyle’s mother was a tender, gentle, loving Scotch Presbyterian, in whom the religious teachings of her country were naturally deep seated. Hers was the unques- tioning, instinctive faith of a woman who knew that her Redeemer liveth, and who never doubted that God’s all- wise care directed all things. In her was to be found that sensitive conscience which is especially characteristic of the Scotch people, and which, perhaps, can be said to exist in the true New England girl whom Hawthorne pictures in the ‘‘Marble Faun,”—a conscience which cannot brook evil in others and which is constantly picking itself to pieces and setting itself aright in the sight of God. Such were the parents of Carlyle. Such the father and 24 University Magazine mother from whom he received the broad, sound founda- tion upon which he built so grandly. In such a home his life was moulded and set into a form: which it never wholly lost. Its teaching with regard to obedience, to work, to truth and partly to religion, was lasting. Its atmosphere, though possibly a little unpleas- ant toa boy of will, was, at all events, ‘‘ wholesome and Safe.” ; As to his early training we are not left to mere conject- ure as he himself has given us a terse, graphic picture of one of his old teachers. Adam Hope, the dreaded, stern, English master, stands out in bold relief, and in him we find Scotch qualities that are characteristic of Carlyle him- self. Carlyle says: ‘‘He was a man humanly contem- ptuous of the world, and valued ‘suffrages’ at a most low figure in comparison. I should judge him an extremely proud man; for the rest, an inexorable logician, a Calvinist at all points, and Burgher Scotch Seceder to the back-bone. He did not know very much, but still a good something. But what he did profess or imagine himself to know, he knew in every fibre, and to the very bottom. A more rig- orously solid teacher of the young: idea, so far as he could carry it, you might have searched for throughout the world in vain. Self-delusion, half-knowledge, sham, instead of teality, could not get existence in his presence. He was a praise and a glory to the well-doing boys, a beneficent terror to the ill-doing or dishonest, block-head sort; and did what was in his power to educe and maize available the net amount of faculty discernible in each, and separate . firmly the known from the unknown or misknown, in those young heads.” This is the teacher who found in Thomas Carlyle an apt scholar, and who left with him impressions which sank into his life and made their appearance in bold, unmistakable signs in later yeats. From Annan Academy he went to Edinburgh University and there entered upon a secluded, laborious life of which we have but a scant rec- ord. Shy and timid, he kept himself from the eyes of the Scotch Traits in Thomas Carlyle 25 public and toiled steadily on at his own work, the forma- tive influences of home and school Shaping him all the while for his future destiny. At an early age, and with a somewhat silent, contempla- tive disposition, he found himself setting out into the sea of life which fairly teemed with Scotch influences. Around him moved men in secular pursuits ‘“who were argumenta- tive, clear-headed, sound-hearted, rather conceited and contentious, shrewd, humorous; who possessed, to a re- markable degree, a great deal of human sense and polite- ness, who, of all men, were filled with a most ardent longing for all things spiritual.” Men who, like Sir Wal- ter Scott, would not take tefuge behind some plausible deceit, but who had the moral courage to see their property swept forever away from them in meeting their obligations, and then to work doggedly until every requirement was met; who, like Knox, could endure the galley slave’s bench, or boldly refute queens for their conscience’s sake ; who, with passionate, imaginative hearts, could sing like the immortal Burns or utter denunciations more flerce against that which was false than those which the Hebrew prophet Elijah uttered against the untruthful priests of Baal; who, perhaps of all men, recognized most clearly the hand of God working in all things. In speaking of their religious life, and especially of their places of wor- ship, Carlyle says: ‘‘In their lowly, rude, rustic, bare meeting-houses were sacred lambencies, tongues of authen- tic fire, which kindled all that was best in man and fanned it into a living flame.” Out of college, study for the ministry and teaching Claimed his attention. . Neither of these occupations pleased him, however, and after a two-years’ trial he decided to give them up. At this same time another power was brought to bear ' upon his life which we cannot overlook. That was the lasting friendship formed with the afterwards famous di- vine, Kdward Irving. To him Carlyle owes much of his 26 University Magazine sticcess, as it was at that period of his early manhood, when he was by no means ‘‘sanguine and diffusive, but rather biliary, sarcastic, and intense,” that the fine, manly, so- cial, good, natured, young teacher and minister drew him into his own heart and there fostered him on the best that he could afford. His conversation was helpful, and his li- brary was stored with books which suited the peculiar tem- perament of Carlyle’s mind and furnished it with a vast store of food, quickly digested and assimilated and in later years called into active, telling service. These were the influences which shaped the man whose oracular utterances were, for several long years, awaited with eager expectation throughoutall England. They acted upon the shy, meditative, dyspeptic youth, who “‘ felt out of place even in his own house,” and formed the basis of a life which was wonderfully productive of great works. Upon this foundation he built his massive, towering superstruct- ure to which we will briefly refer. We now look to the Carlyle of mature years to see in what respect he bears the stamp of a true Scotchman—we look to Carlyle the worker. Work claimed him as her own child. ‘T‘he brief, clear ring of his father’s trowel taught him that idleness was not for him, but rather, hard, unre- lenting toil. Nothing, he says, was ever accomplished without work, and only that could last which was the pro- duct of earnest, concentrated effort. The bridges which rose under his father’s hand stood for a definite amount of muscle, tissue and sweat. Work, moreover, in order to be lasting and beneficial, must also be true. The same loathing for sham, which caused his father to abandon the mason’s trade, made Car- lyle cry out in thunderous tones against untruth and incon- sistency. The French Revolution and the great political upheavals in England furnished him undeniable proofs that that which was false had to be eradicated in order that truth might spring up in its place, He held that relations between the governing and governed had to be sound, otle- Scotch Traits in Thomas Carlyle 27 erwise strife and arms were inevitable. Luther, thoroughly manned with a truth, marched against the stronghold of Popery—of sham—and with it brought destruction to cant and hollow show. Cromwell, true to himself and the peo- ple of his native England, rose in arms against his king— the embodiment of weakness and insincerity, and forced hint to the execution block. Napoleon, as long as he was true to his principles, brought empires to his feet; when he became false to them and allowed ambition to dominate his life, saw his kingdoms fall’ forever from his powerless grasp. It was this element of his nature which, coupled with a remarkable depth of insight, fitted Carlyle for the duties of literary critic. He never stopped short of the bottom of a subject in his investigations, and then never failed to give the approval or disapproval which he thought it deserved. Truth could not be sacrificed by him, no matter what the consequences. ‘‘Uncompromising to himself,” says Pan- coast, “he was always uncompromising towards others,” and, like some stern judge, looked upon the thing itself and did not allow himself to be blinded by outward appearances. For that reason the veneered, insincere Byron met with his bitter scorn, while the passionate, firey-hearted, sincere, though misguided, Burns met with his richest praise. To be most beneficial, Carlyle said work had to be car- ried out according to some definite, unifying plan. It was for the lack of such a purpose that Burns failed to make the most of life and that his end was one of deep sorrow. He vainly ‘attempted to mingle, in friendly union, the common spirit of the world with the spirit of poetry, which is of a far different nature. No man formed as he was can be anything by halves.” Thus he defeated his own ends and set limits to his effectiveness which were perhaps not nearly so extended as they they could have been. Profiting by this example, and by that of Milton who devoted the best of his manhood to literary preparation, Carlyle set himself to work in one field, and then labored D3) Oniversity Magazine doggedly and untiringly. It was this singleness of purpose that held him in the seclusion of Craigenput- toc and Chelsea and caused him to look with disdain upon that which attempted to lure him from his true, laud- able work. ‘The mere fact, that men in general spent their forces in different ways, did not influence him in his course. He heeded not the voice of the public, but with an active will and the strength of a giant applied himself to his task. ‘This voice was incapable of furthering his un- | dertakings. ‘‘He who had the approval of his own con- . science and the favor of God, need not concern himself with what his unthinking fellows tnhought.” The estimate he placed upon man generally was ex- tremely low, and can possibly be stated in the words which he puts into the mouth of his old teacher as he sums up the worth of his scholars: ‘‘ Nothing good is to be expected from you or from those you come of, but we must get the best you have and not complain.” Only the few had any- thing worth striving after. Many whom the world called great, and to whom it yielded its greatest praise, were val- ued but at little by him. In one sentence, to which we may justly take exception, he gives his opinion of the great religious teacher, Henry Drummond: ‘‘I have heard him; I learned neither good nor evil from'him.” Note his humor- ous description of a city by midnight: ‘‘Five hundred thousand two-legged anmiails are lying there in a horizon- tal position with night caps on and their heads filled with all kinds of fanciful dreams!” ‘The voice of sucha throng was nothing more to him than the passing of an empty cloud—soon gone forever. Butone in a million gave a message worth receiving, As a natural consequence the social life of London was utterly insipid to him. Nothing was to be learned from the whimsical, shallow, superficial ‘‘ flunkies” who nightly. gave their elegant soirees and spread out their elaborate, empty feasts of vanities. Time spent in such ‘‘idiocy” was time lost. An evening at home with his wife anda Scotch Traits in Thomas Carlyle 29 home friend, such as Leigh Hunt or Tennyson, was worth infinitely more and did not require nearly so great a sacri- fice of interest and pleasure. However, despite his sternness and seeming misanthropy towards the world at large, there is-to be found in him a marked vein of sympathy and love. His father and mother, although unlearned and poor, never once failed to receive from him the respect and affection which was their due. To Edward Irving, the friend of his young manhood, he never proved false, but stood nobly by him when London had turned her cruel back upon him. ‘The strong, stern man of suffering frequenty left ‘“‘Sham” and the ‘‘ Gos- pel of Dirt” to themselves and turned with a deep feeling of compassion to those who were struggling to accomplish ‘Something in the hard, bitter world. As he viewed the life of Burns, with its holy ambitions, its pitfalls, and doubts, he grieved that it had not been in his power to lend him ahelpinghand. Again, as he followed the doubt-tossed Teufelsdréckh through his strong progress from the ‘*Hiver- lasting No” to the ‘Everlasting Yea,” he could not but speak through the ideal image of himself, words of pro- found sympathy to all inquirers after truth - ‘*Poor, wan- dering, wayward man! Art not thou tired and beaten with stripeseven asl am? Even whether thou bear the Royal mantie or the Beggar’s gaberdine—art thou not so weary, so heavy laden: and thy bed of Rest is but a grave. Oh my _ Brother, my Brother, why cannot I shield thee in my bosom and wipe away all tears from thy eyes!” One word more. In Carlyle the Hero Worshipper and Calvinistic Sceptic we discover the resultant of Several pri- _ mary, orelementary forces. His idea of the Hero and of God would not seem to spring from his early teaching. In trying to be practical, and in endeavoring to have but one purpose, he overlooks another important teaching, namely, that every individual has an immortal, priceless soul, In trying to think freely and still hold to the Calvanistic doctrines, his spiritual ideas become rather entangled and en 30 University Magazine are not what we might wish them to be. In his eyes the great mass of men counted for too little. Only the few strong men were worthy of respect and capable of leader-. ship. Such men were to be the rulers, the heroes; the worthless, unthinking throng was to be despotically ruled by them. After one long, agonizing fight with doubt, a conflict in which modern Rationalism opposed Calvinistic teaching, his belief assumed one, definite, unchanging form. To him God was the great, all powerful spirit who pervades the universe and rules all things. Christ was but a great hero — whose life represented the spiritual ideal for man. He was not sent to save the world,—God did not care so much for mankind as to make such a stipreme sacrifice. In rough outline, Carlyle,the Annandale youth,surround- ed by Scotch influences, and Carlyle, the great rugged, seer of the English nation, stand> before us. On one side is the youth of Knox’s Presbyterian, free-thinking Scot- land, with its deep religious life; on the other the strange sceptic, who, though savoring of modern Rationalism, has settled for all time his doubts and firmly believes in an all- wise God and a ruling Providence. The shy meditative youth of Ecclefechan emerges as the great, bold thinker, or rather, the oracle of London. He who taught himself to turn a deaf ear to the voice of the multitude and to heed only those who could teach, dismisses with a sentence those whom the unthinking world calls great, and in soli- tude seeks and finds knowledge. Yonder in the Edinburgh library of Irving, poring over the works of Geothe and the winged and piercing sarcasm of Gibbon, sat the young student who was to sit as a true, impartial, far-seeing critic of literature and men, who was to paint, with wonderfully graphic, scrutinizing pen, portraits of Cromwell and Luther, which fairly burnt their way into the minds of men. The heart which revolted at sham and pretence, and which poured bitter scorn and fierce, scathing denunciation upon those who wotked deceit, goes out in tender yearning for Lest 31 the down-trodden, despairing soul which struggles and battles honestly through the harsh, grinding world. The boy who was taught to esteem truth, whose birthright was to work, devotes himself body and soul to a literary career and despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles sticks, with Scottish persistence, to his task, and ever working as in the sight of his maker, rears for himself a glorious, precious monument which shall endure even when the mor- tar and granite of his father’s art shall have fallen into forgotten decay. REST. A TRANSLATION. Rest is not quitting this busy career, Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere ; "Tis the brook’s motion, clear without strife, Fleeing to ocean after its life; Tis loving and serving the Highest and Best; *Tis onward, unswerving,—that is true rest. AN ETCHING. BY MINNA CURTIS BYNUM. ing slowly along the narrow path with her hands full of brilliant leaves, looking in the autumn radiance like some white lily with crimson leaves all around. The red au- tumn sun shot one last lingering ray straight through the glory of trees about her, lighting up her face with a strange, transcendent light, like the golden halo of some mediaeval saint. He wondered, as he stood aside to let her pass, whether there would be any hesitation and coyness, any shy half dropping of the eyelids, any covert side glances from the erey eyes as she passed by. The handsome, silent profes- sor was accustomed to such recognitions of his presence from his adorers. But he grew ashamed of the thought as she let her gray eyes meet his calmly, steadily and with a sweet, grave recognition of his presence. She had passed by, he remembered, with only a slight in- clination of the head, leaving him standing in the road alone, in the darkness she and the sun had left behind. That was all, but the professor’s mind had travelled back ten years to another wood, when a woman had looked at him steadily with just such grave, gray eyes. He drew a long breath of pain as he thought of the earnest face with the trusting eyes and sweet, unsmiling mouth. “Tf I had never known ”—he said ina half whisper, with a queer little touch of pain in his voice—‘‘if she had only let me think her true!” He stood there in the gathering darkness in a silence ap- palling in its intensity, thinking in a vague, disconnected fashion of that summer’s idyl that had ended as summer idyls do. ‘Then hismind hastened back to the stern, Saint- like figure that had caused his reverie. if. was in the forest that he first met her. She was com-