The book makes great approaches
to true contemporary history, a very rare success, and firmly holds
up to daylight the absurdities still tolerated in the English and
European system. It is such an appeal to the conscience and honor of
England as cannot be forgotten, or be feigned to be forgotten. It
has the merit which belongs to every honest book, that it was
self-examining before it was eloquent, and so hits all other men,
and, as the country people say of good preaching, "comes bounce down
into every pew." Every reader shall carry away something. The
scholar shall read and write, the farmer and mechanic shall toil with
new resolution, nor forget the book when they resume their labor.
Though no theocrat, and more than most philosophers a believer
in political systems, Mr. Carlyle very fairly finds the calamity of
the times not in bad bills of Parliament, nor the remedy in good
bills, but the vice in false and superficial aims of the people, and
the remedy in honesty and insight. Like every work of genius, its
great value is in telling such simple truths. As we recall the
topics, we are struck with the force given to the plain truths; the
picture of the English nation all sitting enchanted, the poor
enchanted so they cannot work, the rich enchanted so that they cannot
enjoy, and are rich in vain; the exposure of the progress of fraud
into all arts and social activities; the proposition, that the
laborer must have a greater share in his earnings; that the principle
of permanence shall be admitted into all contracts of mutual service;
that the state shall provide at least school-master's education for
all the citizens; the exhortation to the workman, that he shall
respect the work and not the wages; to the scholar, that he shall be
there for light; to the idle, that no man shall sit idle; the picture
of Abbot Samson, the true governor, who "is not there to expect
reason and nobleness of others, he is there to give them of his own
reason and nobleness;" and the assumption throughout the book, that a
new chivalry and nobility, namely the dynasty of labor is replacing
the old nobilities.
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