Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

204 LETTERS "WRITTEN BY THOMAS CARLYLE TOrevieived here, but, having now no connection withthat department of things, could not find a properhand to undertake the business.Indeed, I apprehendGentz has altogether passed here. I can rememberhim as a popular pamphleteer with a certain partyin my early boyhood ; but the party has now disappeared,the ideas of it have disappeared ; andnobody will now recollect Gentz in the old light, orrecognise him in a new. To myself I must confesshe hitherto will by no means seem a hero.The onlyportion of his writings that I have read with anyentertainment is that historical piece delineatmg theprologue to the Battle of Jena. What you somewheresay about him I can read ; hardly what any othersays. A lady here, daughter of the late Sir JamesMackintosh, remembers him at Vienna :'a man inpowdered ceremonial hair, with a red nose,' seeminglyfond of dining ! Edidit monumentum !The fair Sophie kindly undertaking to carry anyparcel, I send you a little pamphlet of mine publishedlast year. Chartism, whether one hear the word ordo not hear it, is the great fact of England at present.Did any one ever write an adequate life of yourFrederick the Great ? Is there anywhere a legiblelife of Luther, so much as an attainable edition ofhis Tischreden ? I fear the answer is No ' ' in all thesecases.Farewell, dear sir ; be, I do not say happy, butnobly busy, and think of us here as friends.