CARLYLE, TOQ 



in his idolatry of mere pluck, when he was driven to choose 

 Friedrich as a hero. A poet and Mr. Carlyle is nothing 

 else is unwise who yokes Pegasus to a prosaic theme which 

 no force of wing can lift from the dull earth. Charlemagne 

 would have been a wiser choice, far enough in the past for 

 ideal treatment, more manifestly the Siegfried of Anarchy, 

 and in his rude way the refounder of that empire which is 

 the ideal of despotism in the Western world. 



Friedrich was doubtless a remarkable man, but surely very 

 far below any lofty standard of heroic greatness. He was 

 the last of the European kings who could look upon his king 

 dom as his private patrimony ; and it was this estate of his, 

 this piece of property, which he so obstinately and success 

 fully defended. He had no idea of country as it was under 

 stood by an ancient Greek or Roman, as it is understood by 

 a modern Englishman or American ; and there is something 

 almost pitiful in seeing a man of genius like Mr. Carlyle 

 fighting painfully over again those battles of the last century 

 which settled nothing but the continuance of the Prussian 

 monarchy, while he saw only the burning of a dirty chimney 

 in the war which a great people was waging under his very 

 eyes for the idea of nationality and orderly magistrature, and 

 which fixed, let us hope for ever, a boundary-line on the map 

 of history and man s advancement toward self-conscious 

 and responsible freedom. The true historical genius, to our 

 thinking, is that which can see the nobler meaning of events 

 that are near him, as the true poet is he who detects the 

 divine in the casual ; and we somewhat suspect the depth of 

 his insight into the past who cannot recognise the godlike of 

 to-day under that disguise in which it always visits us. Shall 

 we hint to Mr. Carlyle that a man may look on an heroic 

 age, as well as an heroic master, with the eyes of a valet, as 

 misappreciative certainly, though not so ignoble ? 



What Goethe says of a great poet, that he must be a 

 citizen of his age as well as of his country, may be said 

 inversely of a great king. He should be a citizen of his 

 country as well as of his age. Friedrich was certainly the 

 latter in its fullest sense; whether he was, or could have 

 been, the former, in any sense, may be doubted. The man 

 who spoke and wrote French in preference to his mother- 

 tongue, who, dying when Goethe was already drawing toward 

 his fortieth year, Schiller toward his thirtieth, and Lessing 



