Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

X!246 LETTERS WRITTEN BY THOMAS CARLYLE TOIn fact, I have not been well ; travelling, too, in Scotland,in Ireland ; much tumbled about by manifoldconfusions outward and inward; and have, on thewhole, been silent to all the world ; silent till clearerdays should come. I have still no fixed work ; nothingin the dark chaos that it could seem beautiful to conquerand do ;—no work to write at ; and as for reading,alas that has become, and is ever more becoming, amost sorry business for me ; and often enough I feelas if Caliph Omar, long ago, was pretty much in theright after all ; as if there might be worse feats thanburning whole continents of rhetorical, logical, historical,philosophical jangle, and insincere obsoleterubbish, out of one's way ; and leaving some UvingGod's-message, real Koran or • Thing worth reading,'in its stead ! These are my heterodoxies, my paradoxes,of which too I try to know the limits. But invery deed I do expect from the region of Silence somesalvation for myself and others ; not from the regionof Speech, of written or Oral Babblement, unless thatlatter very much alter soon ! Ca7it has filled thewhole universe,—from Nadir up to Zenith,—Goddeliver usPreuss's Friedrich ' ' has not yet reached hither,except thro' private channels ; but I mean to makean effort for sight of it by and by. I have the old« (Euvres de Frederic ' beside me here ; but withoutchronology and perpetual commentary they are en-