THOMAS CARLYLE. 383 



composition.' It was not the guilt of ' a skin not 

 coloured like his own,' but the demoralising idleness of 

 the negro amid his pumpkins, that drew down the con- 

 demnation of Carlyle. His feelings towards the idle, 

 pampered white man were more contemptuous and un- 

 sparing than towards the black. * A poor negro over- 

 worked on the Cuba sugar grounds, he is sad to look 

 upon ; yet he inspires me with sacred pity, and a kind 

 of human respect is not denied him. But with what 

 feelings can I look upon an over-fed white flunkey, if 

 I know his ways ? Pity is not for him, or not a soft 

 kind of it ; nor is any remedy visible except abolition 

 at no distant date.' In ' Sartor ' he writes : ' Two men 

 I honour, and no third. First, the toil-worn craftsman 

 that, with earth-made implement, laboriously conquers 

 the earth, and makes her man's. A second man I 

 honour, and still more highly : Him who is seen toiling 

 for the spiritually indispensable ;.not daily bread, but 

 the bread of life.' 



Still, it must be admitted that Carlyle estimated 

 the whites as of greater value than the blacks ; and he 

 deprecated the diversion towards the African of power 

 which might find a more profitable field of action at 

 home. Perhaps he saw too vividly, and resented too 

 warmly, the mistakes sometimes made by philanthro- 

 pists, whereby their mercies are converted into cruelties. 

 We see at the present moment a philanthropy, which 

 would be better named an insanity, acting in violent 

 opposition to the wise and true philanthropists, who 

 are aiming at the extinction of rabies among dogs, and 

 of its horrible equivalent, hydrophobia, among men. 

 Reason is lost on such people, and instead of reason 

 Carlyle gave them scorn. Perhaps he was too scornful. 

 History had revealed to him the unspeakable horrors 

 of a black insurrection. Hence his action, as regards 



