Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

:24 WOTTON EEINFKEDutter negation.He felt a mad pleasure mingled withhis pangs, and unbelief was laying waste in scornfultriumph so many fairest things, still dear and venerableeven as delusions. Alas ! the joy of the Denyeris not of long continuance. He burns the city, andwarms himself at the blaze for a day ; but on themorrow the fairpalaces as well as the noisome alleysare gone, and he stands houseless amid ashes andvoid silence. Thus also it fared with Eeinfred.The philosophy of Epicurus was not made for him;his understanding was convinced, but his heart insecret denied it.Vice and all baseness, which at first itmight have seemed to sanction, he still rejected, nay,abhorred. But what, then, was virtue ? Anothername for happiness, for pleasure? No longer theeternal lifeand beauty of the universe, the invisibleall-pervading effluence of God ; but a poor earthlytheorem, a balance of profit and loss resting on selfinterest,and pretending to rest on nothing higher.Nay, was the virtuous always happiest ? ToWotton it seemed more than dubious ; for himself,at least, he felt as if truth were too painful, andanimal stupidity the surest fountain of contentment.By degrees a dreary stagnancy overspread his soulhe was without fear and without hope ; jn tbiaworld isolated, poor, and helpless ; had tasted littlesatisfa^ioUjL and expected little, and in the next hehad now no part or lot. Among his fellow-men hefeltHlie a stranger and a pilgrim,—a pilgrim journey-