A History of English Literature

for which, in 1833-4, he finally secured publication, in 'Fraser's
Magazine,' to the astonishment and indignation of most of the readers. The
title means 'The Tailor Retailored,' and the book purports to be an account
of the life of a certain mysterious German, Professor Teufelsdrockh
(pronounced Toyfelsdreck) and of a book of his on The Philosophy of
Clothes. Of course this is allegorical, and Teufelsdrockh is really
Carlyle, who, sheltering himself under the disguise, and accepting only
editorial responsibility, is enabled to narrate his own spiritual struggles
and to enunciate his deepest convictions, sometimes, when they are likely
to offend his readers, with a pretense of disapproval. The Clothes metaphor
(borrowed from Swift) sets forth the central mystical or spiritual
principle toward which German philosophy had helped Carlyle, the idea,
namely, that all material things, including all the customs and forms of
society, such as government and formalized religion, are merely the
comparatively insignificant garments of the spiritual reality and the
spiritual life on which men should center their attention. Even Time and
Space and the whole material world are only the shadows of the true
Reality, the spiritual Being that cannot perish. Carlyle has learned to
repudiate, and he would have others repudiate, 'The Everlasting No,' the
materialistic attitude of unfaith in God and the spiritual world, and he
proclaims 'The Everlasting Yea,' wherein are affirmed, the significance of
life as a means of developing character and the necessity of accepting life
and its requirements with manly self-reliance and moral energy. 'Seek not
Happiness,' Carlyle cries, 'but Blessedness. Love not pleasure; love God.'
This is the central purport of the book. In the second place and as a
natural corollary Carlyle vigorously denounces, throughout, all shams and
hypocrisies, the results of inert or dishonest adherence to outgrown ideas
or customs. He attacks, for instance, all empty ostentation; war, as both
foolish and wicked; and the existing condition of society with its terrible
contrast between the rich and the poor.
Again, he urges still a third of the doctrines which were to prove most
characteristic of him, that Gospel of Work which had been proclaimed so
forcibly, from different premises, five hundred years before by those other
uncompromising Puritans, the authors of 'Piers Plowman.' In courageous
work, Carlyle declares, work whether physical or mental, lies the way of
salvation not only for pampered idlers but for sincere souls who are
perplexed and wearied with over-much meditation on the mysteries of the
universe, 'Be no, longer a Chaos,' he urges, 'but a World, or even
Worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal,
fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast
in thee: out with it, then. Up, up! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do
it with thy whole might. Work while it is called Today; for the Night
cometh, wherein no man can work.'
It will probably now be evident that the mainspring of the undeniable and
volcanic power of 'Sartor Resartus' (and the same is true of Carlyle's
other chief works) is a tremendous moral conviction and fervor. Carlyle is
eccentric and perverse--more so in 'Sartor Resartus' than elsewhere--but he
is on fire with his message and he is as confident as any Hebrew prophet
that it is the message most necessary for his generation. One may like him
or be repelled by him, but a careful reader cannot remain unmoved by his
personality and his ideas.
One of his most striking eccentricities is the remarkable style which he
deliberately invented for 'Sartor Resartus' and used thenceforth in all his
writings (though not always in so extreme a form). Some of the specific
peculiarities of this style are taken over, with exaggeration, from German