Thomas Carlyle, that Favorite Son of Craigenputtock, burst on the scene like a comet in 1831 with the publication of… hold on a second. Do comets burst? Now that I think about it, that doesn’t seem right. “Burst.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think what a comet likes to do is to streak through the night flashing its glittery tail. These are certainly not actions I would ascribe to Mr. Carlyle, as staid a Scot as you could ask for.
Anyhow, Thomas Carlyle burst on the scene in 1831, like a… a… Tropical Fruit Flavored Starburst with the publication of Sartor Resartus, his satire of German philosophy. I think it’s meant to be funny, but if you were born after 1870 you may not “get” any of the jokes. I sure as heck didn’t.
Basically, he starts out bummed. He calls it “The Everlasting No.” (das ewige Nein) Everything gives him a pain in the neck and all he does is thrash. After a while he calms down a bit, becoming sort of listless. He calls this condition “The Center of Indifference.” Ho-hum, he says. Finally, after a bracing “Annihilation of Self” (Selbst-todtung), he gets the Yippies good. He cheers up a lot – even alarmingly — because he has figured out “The Everlasting Yay!” Here’s how Mr. Carlyle puts it:
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 YAY, wherein all contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him.
Ha ha! I guess that is kind of funny in a Fallen-Away-Calvinist sort of way. No wonder Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower kept a copy of Sartor Resartus on him throughout his command of the ETO in the forties. Amid all that destruction and death, he surely needed a good laugh.
