Meanwhile, he succeeded in getting sorely needed funds by lecturing, giving four courses in successive springs, the last of which was his well-known "Heroes and Hero-worship." These relieved him from pressing necessities, and with the recognition of the brilliant qualities of his "French Revolution"came the turn in his fortunes. He gained many friends, among whom were such men as John Sterling, whose life he afterward was to write with sympathy and charm; F. D. Maurice, J. G. Lockhart, R. M. Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton, and the Barings; and he was often sought out by young inquirers. Emerson had introduced his works to America, with the result of both fame and profit. He was already becoming a noted figure in intellectual circles in London.
His political ideas were put into definite shape in his "Chartism" (1839), and, if any one had ever doubted it, it now became clear that he was never to be classed with any of the established political parties. "Past and Present,"a contrast between medieval monastic life and modern conditions, still further emphasized his separation from both Tories and Radicals. While these shorter works were being put forth, he was laboring on his next great book, the "Life and Letters of Oliver Cromwell"; and when this appeared in 1845 his position as one of the leading men of letters of the day was thoroughly established.
After a year or two mainly occupied with political writing, most of it at once powerful in style and ineffective in result, he settled down to another great task, a life of Frederick the Great, which occupied his main energies till 1865, and extended his reputation both on the Continent and at home. In this year he was elected Lord Rector of Edinburgh University. The Inaugural Address, which constitutes the sole duty of this honorary office, he delivered the next year; and on his journey south after a triumphal reception he was met at Dumfries by the news of his wife's death. She was buried in the Abbey Kirk at Haddington; and the epitaph which her husband placed upon her grave tells what the blow meant for him. It runs thus: "In her bright existence she had more sorrows than are common, but also a soft invincibility, a capacity of discernment, and a noble loyalty of heart which are rare. For forty years she was the true and loving helpmate of her husband, and by act and word unweariedly forwarded him as none else could in all of worthy that he did or attempted. She died at London, 21st April, 1866, suddenly snatched from him, and the light of his life as if gone out."And, indeed, the light of his life had gone out. He was henceforth a broken man. He revised his collected works, wrote his "Reminiscences," but undertook no new tasks. He was now at the head of his profession, and surrounded by friends and admirers; honors were showered on him at home and abroad; but he lived in a gloom that deepened to the end. He died on February 4, 1881, and was buried in the old kirkyard at Ecclefechan.
Of the works by Carlyle here printed, "Characteristics" is a condensed and telling statement of some of his most fundamental ideas; the essay on "Sir Walter Scott" exhibits, both in its strength and in its shortcomings, the domination of ethical over esthetic considerations in his estimate of literature, and contains besides many characteristics generalizations on human life and conduct; the "Inaugural Address," the subject of which is nominally the "Reading of Books," summarizes rapidly his own intellectual history, and digresses in true Carlylean fashion into religion, ethics, history, and a variety of other topics. It is written in an exceptionally ****** and straightforward style, admirably suited to the occasion; the two other papers represent more truly his habitual manner of expression - often abrupt, often exaggerated, sometimes grotesque, but, to use his own words of his "French Revolution,"coming "direct and flamingly from the heart of a living man."This style was, indeed, highly characteristic of its owner. The endless labor he put into his histories, the passion of his political convictions, the profound earnestness of his moral and religious preaching, were combined with a thirst for effective expression that led him to shatter any convention that stood in the way of truth, and gave a weight and edge to his utterance that make it a thing unique in English literature. Complex and inconsistent to the point of paradox, absolutely sincere yet exaggerated and over-emphatic, violent to brutality yet tender of heart, a Radical to the Tories and a Tory to the Radicals Carlyle formed no school, yet was one of the most stimulating and potent influences of his century. Over his character and his message the voices of controversy have not yet died down, but whoever turns to his work finds coursing everywhere through it the red blood of a man.
