Page:Prophets of the Century.djvu/87

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THOMAS CARLYLE
83

sities, and others, as if they were interchangeable. He speaks of Christ as our divinest Symbol. "Higher has the human thought not yet reached," though, in the same chapter of Sartor Resartus, he says, "On the whole, as Time adds much to the sacredness of Symbols, so likewise in his progress he at length defaces, or even desecrates them; and Symbols, like all terrestrial Garments, wax old." "For all things, even Celestial Luminaries, have their rise, their culmination, their decline." Carlyle constantly declares that a Moral Power rules the world, and it is in the light of the qualities he feels this Power to possess that he ex- amines human affairs, and pronounces upon them. This Moral Power moves and works in the world; all good men appeal to it as their Sanction and Authority. The universe attests its existence; the conscience of mankind witnesses to it. It is the standard by which we estimate right and wrong, terms that are meaning- less without it. The whole duty of man is to obey this power, and work honestly.

We have the history of his opinions in Sartor Resartus, the autobiography of Carlyle's spiritual life. Unique in our literature, this strange, curiously-attractive book is one of the profoundest of our century. It marks an epoch in the intellectual development of those who read it. For him who reads and understands it, the world is no longer the same as before he knew it. Fantastic, humorous, whimsical, mystical, sad, hopeful, it bears the impress of Carlyle's character on every page. If the book is not simple, it has all the other essentials for expressing its author's meaning, and conveying such meaning to the reader. It has ease, vigour, grace, aptness, strength, picturesqueness, flexibility, subtlety. The skill of the true artist animates, illuminates, throughout. The style is congenial to the thought, the language completely congruous with its subject. On the literary side it has the loving craftsman's conscientiousness, pride in his work, desire to find a perfect medium for the translation of his ideas; on the moral and intel-