There is something antique, even, in
his style of treating his subject, reminding us that heroes and Demi-gods,
Fates and Furies, still exist; the common man is nothing to him, but after
death the hero is apotheosized and has a place in heaven, as in the religion
of the Greeks.
Exaggeration! was ever any virtue attributed to a man without exaggeration?
was ever any vice, without infinite exaggeration? Do we not exaggerate
ourselves to ourselves, or do we recognize ourselves for the actual men we
are? Are we not all great men? Yet what are we actually, to speak of? We live
by exaggeration. What else is it to anticipate more than we enjoy? The
lightning is an exaggeration of the light. Exaggerated history is poetry, and
truth referred to a new standard. To a small man every greater is an
exaggeration. He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth. No
truth, we think, was ever expressed but with this sort of emphasis, so that
for the time there seemed to be no other. Moreover, you must speak loud to
those who are hard of hearing, and so you acquire a habit of shouting to
those who are not. By an immense exaggeration we appreciate our Greek poetry
and philosophy, and Egyptian ruins; our Shakespeares and Miltons; our Liberty
and Christianity. We give importance to this hour over all other hours. We do
not live by justice, but by grace. As the sort of justice which concerns us
in our daily intercourse is not that administered by the judge, so the
historical justice which we prize is not arrived at by nicely balancing the
evidence. In order to appreciate any, even the humblest man, you must first,
by some good fortune, have acquired a sentiment of admiration, even of
reverence, for him, and there never were such exaggerators as these.
To try him by the German rule of referring an author to his own standard, we
will quote the following from Carlyle’s remarks on history, and leave
the reader to consider how far his practice has been consistent with his
theory.
“Truly, if History is Philosophy teaching by Experience, the
writer fitted to compose history is hitherto an unknown man. The Experience
itself would require All-knowledge to record it, were the All-wisdom, needful
for such Philosophy as would interpret it, to be had for asking. Better were
it that mere earthly Historians should lower such pretensions, more suitable
for Omniscience than for human science; and aiming only at some picture of
the things acted, which picture itself will at best be a poor approximation,
leave the inscrutable purport of them an acknowledged secret; or, at most, in
reverent faith, far different from that teaching of Philosophy, pause over
the mysterious vestiges of Him whose path is in the great deep of Time, whom
History indeed reveals, but only all History, and in Eternity, will clearly
reveal.”
Carlyle is a critic who lives in London to tell this generation who have been
the great men of our race. We have read that on some exposed place in the
city of Geneva, they have fixed a brazen indicator for the use of travelers,
with the names of the mountain summits in the horizon marked upon it,
“so that by taking sight across the index you can distinguish them at
once.
