/lit/ - Literature

>>23337080
t. brown
>This King Shakspeare, does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying-signs; indestructible; really more valuable in that point of view than any other means or appliance whatsoever? We can fancy him as radiant aloft over all the Nations of Englishmen, a thousand years hence. From Paramatta, from New York, wheresoever, under what sort of Parish-Constable soever, English men and women are, they will say to one another: "Yes, this Shakspeare is ours; we produced him, we speak and think by him; we are of one blood and kind with him."

>>23330396
Once you adopt an affirmative attitude to life you are impelled to action. The negative attitude hinders action in place of idle talk.
>Speech is silver, silence is golden.

>In some sense it may be said that this glorious Elizabethan Era with its Shakspeare, as the outcome and flowerage of all which had preceded it, is itself attributable to the Catholicism of the Middle Ages. The Christian Faith, which was the theme of Dante's Song, had produced this Practical Life which Shakspeare was to sing. For Religion then, as it now and always is, was the soul of Practice; the primary vital fact in men's life. And remark here, as rather curious, that Middle-Age Catholicism was abolished, so far as Acts of Parliament could abolish it, before Shakspeare, the noblest product of it, made his appearance. He did make his appearance nevertheless. Nature at her own time, with Catholicism or what else might be necessary, sent him forth; taking small thought of Acts of Parliament. King Henrys, Queen Elizabeths go their way; and Nature too goes hers.

>>23323341
Latter-Day Pamphlets

>What is Democracy; this huge inevitable Product of the Destinies, which is everywhere the portion of our Europe in these latter days? There lies the question for us. Whence comes it, this universal big black Democracy; whither tends it; what is the meaning of it? A meaning it must have, or it would not be here. If we can find the right meaning of it, we may, wisely submitting or wisely resisting and controlling, still hope to live in the midst of it; if we cannot find the right meaning, if we find only the wrong or no meaning in it, to live will not be possible!—The whole social wisdom of the Present Time is summoned, in the name of the Giver of Wisdom, to make clear to itself, and lay deeply to heart with an eye to strenuous valiant practice and effort, what the meaning of this universal revolt of the European Populations, which calls itself Democracy, and decides to continue permanent, may be.

>>23309009
>Very curious: if one sought for "discrepancies of national taste," here surely were the most eminent instance of that! We also can read the Koran; our Translation of it, by Sale, is known to be a very fair one. I must say, it is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook. A wearisome confused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement; most crude, incondite;—insupportable stupidity, in short! Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran. We read in it, as we might in the State-Paper Office, unreadable masses of lumber, that perhaps we may get some glimpses of a remarkable man. It is true we have it under disadvantages: the Arabs see more method in it than we. Mahomet's followers found the Koran lying all in fractions, as it had been written down at first promulgation; much of it, they say, on shoulder-blades of mutton, flung pell-mell into a chest: and they published it, without any discoverable order as to time or otherwise;—merely trying, as would seem, and this not very strictly, to put the longest chapters first. The real beginning of it, in that way, lies almost at the end: for the earliest portions were the shortest. Read in its historical sequence it perhaps would not be so bad. Much of it, too, they say, is rhythmic; a kind of wild chanting song, in the original. This may be a great point; much perhaps has been lost in the Translation here. Yet with every allowance, one feels it difficult to see how any mortal ever could consider this Koran as a Book written in Heaven, too good for the Earth; as a well-written book, or indeed as a book at all; and not a bewildered rhapsody; written, so far as writing goes, as badly as almost any book ever was! So much for national discrepancies, and the standard of taste.

>Might and Right do differ frightfully from hour to hour; but give them centuries to try it in, they are found to be identical.

>>23299990
Not all of us are so sectarian. I will say that all the virtues I've found in men outside the Church are to be found more purely and in a greater degree within it (pic related).

>>23179732
I forgot the pic

>>22913874
Carlyle probably had the biggest fall from grace. People in his time literally predicted that he would never be forgotten and would perennially be a source of wisdom. He was called a prophet. You cannot find a single writer from his era that didn’t at least respect him or evaluate his ideas. Goethe, Wagner, Eliot, Marx, Engels, Dickens, Ruskin, Nietzsche, etc. And today he is mostly obscure and reviled. In my opinion though this has more to do with academic suppression. Carlyle is simply too reactionary and outside the fold of modern politics for him to be a respected voice. His body of work has many problems but his central writings like Past & Present and the Latter-day Pamphlets are still brilliant and highly influential. He was instrumental in forming the basis of socialist and welfare policies in the world today just like Ruskin (also largely forgotten for the same reasons) and Charles Dickens.

I just went to a bookstore and the zoomer running the store was a fellow Carlyle fan and we commiserated about not being able to find early editions of some of his works. The kids are alright and also to my immense surprise Carlyle seems to be in demand again. I'm feeling whitepilled.

No

Why was he so famous in his time? He doesn’t have any works that are still popular esteemed classics. His economic critiques were immediately improved upon by socialists. Was he just the contemporary equivalent of a Twitter user who shits on everything?

>>22131311
>The chaotic Thunder-cloud, with its pitchy black, and its tumult of dazzling jagged fire, in a world all electric:
Carlyle describing the air of revolution in France and how we perceive it through the dark lens of history.

>In the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world's Priest;—guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time.

>>21522303
Most histories are written by Dryasdust.
>'Interpreting events;' interpreting the universally visible, entirely INdubitable Revelation of the Author of this Universe: how can Dryasdust interpret such things, the dark chaotic dullard, who knows the meaning of nothing cosmic or noble, nor ever will know? Poor wretch, one sees what kind of meaning HE educes from Man's History, this long while past, and has got all the world to believe of it along with him. Unhappy Dryasdust, thrice-unhappy world that takes Dryasdust's reading of the ways of God!

/lit/ loves reading history.

Say yes.
>On the roaring billows of Time, thou art not engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not Pleasure; love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA, wherein all contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him.

the point of fiction is to be read by bugmen.
>Fiction, I think, or idle falsity of any kind, was never tolerable, except in a world which did itself abound in practical lies and solemn shams; and which had gradually impressed on its inhabitants the inane form of character tolerant of that kind of ware. A serious soul, can it wish, even in hours of relaxation, that you should fiddle empty nonsense to it ? A serious soul would desire to be entertained, either with absolute silence, or with what was truth, and had fruit in it, and was made by the Maker of us all. With the idle soul I can fancy it far otherwise; but only with the idle.

>>21513991
C sent us
>Fiction or idle falsity of any kind is never tolerable.

Anons Carlyle-pilled, do you prefer Sartor Resartus or the French Revolution?

A short time before his death in 1881, Thomas Carlyle made the following sudden outburst about Darwinism:

> "The so-called literary and scientific classes in England now proudly give themselves to protoplasm, origin of species and the like, to prove that God did not build the universe. I have known three generations of the Darwins - grandfather, father, and son, atheists all. The brother of the present famous naturalist, a quiet man, who lives not far from here, told me that among his grand-father's effects he found a seal engraven with this legend: Omnia ex conchis (everything from a cockle shell)! I saw the naturalist not many months ago; told him that I had read his Origin of Species and other books; that he had by no means satisfied me that men were descended from monkeys, but had gone far towards persuading me that he and his so-called scientific brethren had brought the present generation of Englishmen very near to monkeys. A good sort of man is this Darwin, and well-meaning, but with very little intellect. Ah! It is a sad and terrible thing to see nigh a whole generation of men and women professing to be cultivated, looking around in a purblind fashion, and finding no God in this universe! I suppose it is a reaction from the reign of cant and hollow pretence, professing to believe what in fact they do not believe. And this is what we have got. All things from frog-spawn; the gospel of dirt the order of the day. The older I grow - and now I stand upon the brink of eternity - the more comes back to me the sentence in the Catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes: ' What is the great end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.' No gospel of dirt, teaching that men have descended from frogs through monkeys can ever set that aside."

>>21210654
Thomas Carlyle also had an outburst. Although unlike James Clerk Maxwell he was not religious, but he liked religion as he was raised by a religious Calvinist family and didn’t take well to the idea that religion might decline even more now with the help of Darwinism. A short time before his death in 1881, Thomas Carlyle made the following sudden outburst about Darwinism:

> "The so-called literary and scientific classes in England now proudly give themselves to protoplasm, origin of species and the like, to prove that God did not build the universe. I have known three generations of the Darwins - grandfather, father, and son, atheists all. The brother of the present famous naturalist, a quiet man, who lives not far from here, told me that among his grand-father's effects he found a seal engraven with this legend: Omnia ex conchis (everything from a cockle shell)! I saw the naturalist not many months ago; told him that I had read his Origin of Species and other books; that he had by no means satisfied me that men were descended from monkeys, but had gone far towards persuading me that he and his so-called scientific brethren had brought the present generation of Englishmen very near to monkeys. A good sort of man is this Darwin, and well-meaning, but with very little intellect. Ah! It is a sad and terrible thing to see nigh a whole generation of men and women professing to be cultivated, looking around in a purblind fashion, and finding no God in this universe! I suppose it is a reaction from the reign of cant and hollow pretence, professing to believe what in fact they do not believe. And this is what we have got. All things from frog-spawn; the gospel of dirt the order of the day. The older I grow - and now I stand upon the brink of eternity - the more comes back to me the sentence in the Catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes: ' What is the great end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.' No gospel of dirt, teaching that men have descended from frogs through monkeys can ever set that aside."

>want to read Carlyle
>acquire complete works epub
>it's 27900+ pages long
>mfw

So, what's this guy all about?