FEINBERG/WHITMAN LITERARY FILE Prose "the Dead Catyle" (Feb.12,1881). Boston Literary World. Offprint. (D9/242) Box 33 Folder 25 Includes A. Ms. notation. [*Boston Literary World Feb 12 87*] THE DEAD CARLYLE Not for his merely literary merit, (though that was great)- not as "maker of books," but as launching into the self-complacent atmosphere of our days a rasping, questioning, dislocating agitation and shock, is the man's final value. It is time the English-speaking peoples had some true idea about the verteber of genius, namely power. As if they must always have it cut and biased to the fashion, like a lady's cloak! What a needed service he performs! How he shakes our comfortable reading circles with a touch of the old Hebraic anger and prophecy- and indeed it is just the same. Not Isaiah himself more scornful, more threatening: "The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet: And the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley shall be a fading flower." (The word prophecy is much misused; it is narrowed to prediction merely. That is not the main sense of the Hebrew word translated prophet; it means one whose mind bubbles up and pours forth as a fountain, from inner, divine spontaneities revealing God. Prediction is a very minor part of prophecy. The great matter is to reveal and outpour the God like suggestions pressing for birth in the soul. This is briefly the doctrine of the Friends or Quakers.) Then the simplicity and amid ostensible frailty the towering strength of the man- a hardy oak knot, you could never wear out-an old farmer dressed in brown clothes, and not handsome- his very foibles fascinating. Who cares that he wrote about Dr. Fancia and "Shooting Niagara,"- and "the Nigger Question," (I doubt if he ever thought of said half as bad words about us as we deserve.) The way to test how much he has left us all were to consider, or try to consider, for a moment the array of British thought, the resultant and ensemble of the last fifty years, as existing to-day, but with Carlyle left out. It would be like an army with no artillery. The show were still a gay and rich one-Byron, Scott, Tennyson, and many more-horsemen and rapid infantry, and banners flying-but the last heavy roar so dear to the ear of the trained soldier, and that settles fate and victory, would be lacking. His mantle is unfallen. We certainly have no one left like him. I doubt if any nation of the world has. [*Boston Literary World Feb 12 87*] THE DEAD CARLYLE Not for his merely literary merit, (though that was great)- not as "maker of books," but as launching into the self-complacent atmosphere of our days a rasping, questioning, dislocating agitation and shock, is the man's final value. It is time the English-speaking peoples had some true idea about the verteber of genius, namely power. As if they must always have it cut and biased to the fashion, like a lady's cloak! What a needed service he performs! How he shakes our comfortable reading circles with a touch of the old Hebraic anger and prophecy- and indeed it is just the same. Not Isaiah himself more scornful, more threatening: "The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet: And the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley shall be a fading flower." (The word prophecy is much misused; it is narrowed to prediction merely. That is not the main sense of the Hebrew word translated prophet; it means one whose mind bubbles up and pours forth as a fountain, from inner, divine spontaneities revealing God. Prediction is a very minor part of prophecy. The great matter is to reveal and outpour the God like suggestions pressing for birth in the soul. This is briefly the doctrine of the Friends or Quakers.) Then the simplicity and amid ostensible frailty the towering strength of the man- a hardy oak knot, you could never wear out-an old farmer dressed in brown clothes, and not handsome- his very foibles fascinating. Who cares that he wrote about Dr. Fancia and "Shooting Niagara,"- and "the Nigger Question," (I doubt if he ever thought of said half as bad words about us as we deserve.) The way to test how much he has left us all were to consider, or try to consider, for a moment the array of British thought, the resultant and ensemble of the last fifty years, as existing to-day, but with Carlyle left out. It would be like an army with no artillery. The show were still a gay and rich one-Byron, Scott, Tennyson, and many more-horsemen and rapid infantry, and banners flying-but the last heavy roar so dear to the ear of the trained soldier, and that settles fate and victory, would be lacking. His mantle is unfallen. We certainly have no one left like him. I doubt if any nation of the world has. [WALT WHITMAN] 1881 THE DEAD CARLYLE; an essa. Offprint (1p. 24 cm.) [*1767*] This essay titled "The Dead Carlyle", is much shorter and quite different from "The Death of Carlyle" published in the Critic and Specimen Days. At head in Walt Whitman's writing: "Boston Literary World Feb 12 '81." {242} Ending with the words : Dear to the Muse-thrice dear to Nationality-to the whole human race-precious to this Union-precious to Democracy-unspeakably and forever previous-their first great Martyr Chief. From a lecture delivered in New York, 1879, first published in Specimen Days and Collect, 1882-83 {239} Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.