FEINBERG/WHITMAN LITERARY FILE Prose "Death of Thomas Carlyle" (Feb. 13. 1881). The Critic. A.MS. s. draft. (DCN 67) Box 33 Folder 23 Includes verso note. Also includes partial verso letter to an unknown, n.d. 765 1881 Feb. 6 DEATH OF CARLYLE; an essay. A.MS. (16 p. 24 x 14 cm. and less) First draft. Written on paper scraps of various sizes, versos of split envelopes, etc. At head "Feb. 6 '81 - First Draught. Pub. in. N. Y. Critic Feb. 12, 1881." {67} Feb 6 '81 - First Draught Death of Carlyle Pub in NY Critic Feb 12 1881 WW And so the flames of the lamp after long wasting & flickering, has [indeed gone out at] at last gone out [for good] entirely. [As a char] As an author, a figure, no [?] else will [????] last to the future as more significant of [these] our stormy age, its paradoxes, its din, the terrible parturition period that it is than Carlyle. He belongs to our stock too. [Neither lat] Neither Latin or Greek but essentially Gothic. Niagara Mr Thomas [?????] Niagara Niagara [Yandan?] [out?] [kand?] [do?] West Niag Suspension Bridge [Toanti] Toronto M Montreal Ottowa Kingston Ottowa Quebec Philadelphia Quebec Washington Rugged [and] mountainous [and] volcanic, he [Such a man as Carylyle] He [is] was himself a more of a [great] French Revolution than his volumes. [Story ??? the result of much pre???? formentation] Two [antagonistic] conflicting almost agonistic elements seen indeed to have contended in the man, sometimes, pulling him [sometimes] different ways like wild horses. He was a cautious, conservative Scotchman, fully with what a foetid gas-bag [most] [so]much of modern "radicalism" is; and then his great [demanding reform] heart, demanding reform, was [entirely] fully sympathetic, entirely human. It was often evidently at terrible odds with his brain [Carlyle I should say] No author ever put so much wailing and despair in his books. He reminds me at times of that passage in Young's [gloomy death-]poems, where [the soul] as [a the] [fatal result] death [is imminent] presses closer and closer for his prey he runs hither. Thither, [with appeals] appealing, shrieking, storming, berating, and finds no [help] [avenue] [outlet] escape, no resort from the general doom. In some respect [his was] so far in the Nineteenth Century, the [stur?][or?] best equipt mind of all Britain, [bu] only he had an ailing body. [and] [d]Dyspepsia is to be [treated?] in every page and now and then fills the page. [I should say that the] One would include [One of the lesson[s]] among others, how [?] [that] how behind the [counts] tally of [all] [post] [the] genius and[?i???] stands the stomach, and gives [the] a sort [cur-?] vote. [positive or negative] 4 of short-comings, positive blur-spots from our American and Democratic point of view, he had serious shape; but this is no time for specifying them Great changes do not go by jumps in the universe. Long preparations, processes, break ground. Viewed that way he was the most serviceable democrat of the century. 6 TRÜBNER & CO., 57 and 59, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON. Walt Whitman 431 Stevens St. Camden New Jersey NPR J How he splashes and respects the tatter like a [great] leviathan in the sea of literature and politics. Doubtless one needs to [see] realize the squalor vice and doggedness ingrained in the [p] bulk-population of the British Islands, [These] with the red tape, the fatuity, the flunkey's everywhere to understand much that is in his books. 7 For the last three years we have [little] glimpses glints of [his decay] Carlyle's prostration & bodily decay [notes] [of] pictures of [an] a [faint] thin-bodied lonesome, wifeless, childless [sect?] pain-suffering, [faint] old man lying [nearly all] [the time] kept out of bed [in] [on [take?] well, but on a sofa. never well enough even to take the open air. [Sometimes] [about] [We received] [n]News of this sort [a???] came in the talk of the old man's [Carlyles] [the old man's] neighbor and [frequent] occasional crony [visitor] Moncure Conway lately visiting in; sometimes 9 [sti lately,] in brief items in the papers. [As] I read one of these items one every way lately, just before I [went] started out for [a] my usual [stroll outdoor] [?] evening stroll between 8 and 9. In the fine cold night as I walked, as some of open grounds adjacent the [*(Feb. 5. '81.)*] condition of Carlyle & his approach [I south?], [quite] fill'd me with speculations, thoughts, [and soon] that curiously blended with my usual observation of the heavens. 10 Night of Feb. 4 1881 cold, wonderfully clear and pure between 8 and 9 and hour high in the west Venus, with all her old volume, she has been ? and ? for a year of lustre recoveres, and a new sentiment I never noticed before _crossout_more magnificent, more liquid than ever, but calm _crossout_ no mere voluptous, _crossout_ star_crossout_ ? steeping and fascinating star, now-but a calm, commanding, dashing _crossout_ and the Milo Venus Now. 11 Jupiter, [and] Saturn and the half-Moon trailing, in procession above her, and close after in the arch of space [with] the Pleiades and the constellation [of] Taurus, [with] and bright Aldeberan. [Every] Not a cloud in [all] [the] heaven. Every star of [if] Orion [Standing out] to the south east, [with] and his glittering belt, and a [little] trifle below the [mighty g[?] far-off] sun of suns, Sirius - all dilated, nearer more vitreous[?] than usual. Not us in some clear nights when the larger orbs[?] entirely[?] outshine the rest. Every little star [of the] or cluster of the myriads, just as distinctly. 8 (0) 8 10 81(0 (12) 101 32-50 68+34+40+62+74=11 [St?? ??] September 3 Thomas Nicholson visible and just as [near] nigh, Berenice's Hair showing every gem and new ones, To the north east or north, The Sickle, the Goat and Kids, Cassiopea, Castor and Pollusc[?], and the Great Dipper; [to the] 13 And [in the] all through [midst of] this [in] silent, far-off [indesculy?] show [run] ran the thought of Carlyle dying as started by the picture there I had absorbed. [I] [saw him in] [his] 14 [considered under the [The] midnight and the stars [how death], and in silence, death, framed] To soothe and spiritualize [and] and average the mysteries [y] of death, [c??] [and which] [& life] [or] & genius [??] consider them under the stars at midnight 15 [[??]ing you. If you desert us again in that way I shall cry and bawl all night. From which nonsense entract the meaning that] And now that he has gone here [The body] [?] of Thomas Carlyle Can [The essential] [bodily] grow to [?] chemically dissolve in ashes and by wind [Lower] in essential [?] remain intact still? In ways eluding statement [all] the lore and speculation of ten thousand years but [becoming to] simple to all enclosing spiritual law, [does it?] [remain] yet exist a definite he [exists still] a vital being, an individual in spirit - perhaps now [wafted?] Space, among those [planets] systems which go undiscernibly [that are] [?] The edge of other and more limiteless illimitable. Systems I have [little] no doubt of it, Return to D. RANSOM & CO., Buffalo, N.Y., If not delivered in 10 days Buffalo Jan 31 5 PM N.Y. Walt Whitman Camden N.J. 431 Stevens St. U.S. POSTAGE 3 THREE CENTS [Meg][?] In silence of a fine[?], might such [many] things are nowhere else [alterable][?] are [ever certain. Work[?] to the good[?] are answered to the good. [frequent stops] With me too, when Depressedly[?] some [p] specially sad event or [for] tearing problem. I [can] go out under the stars for thy[?] last[?] voiceless satisfaction. [And it would[?] fails] Walt Whitman 17 [rough?] He is [largely an] no chartist or radical I consider his books by far the most [indignant?] protest against the continuation of Feudalism [in Europe] [in his islands] today. -- the increasing poverty and degradation of a homeless landless twenty-millions in Old England [Great Britain] while few thousands or rather [almost] a few hundreds possess [the titles ?] [titles of all the British] soil, the money & the [?], "culture" [All] and the Cash and trade and shipping, and [clubs?], and sure payment of dividends [and the modern improvements], and literature and guns and prestige, [of England] with every [all the] modern improvements cannot defend that stupendous hoggishness Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.