Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

WOTTON IJEUsFHED 31wealth and professional fame wlien the world itselfwas tarnished in his thoughts, and all its uses weary,flai;,~staTe, and unprofitable ? There had been a timewhen, like the rest of us, he was wont to impute hismisery to outward circumstances ; to think that ifthis or that were granted to his wishes, it would bewell with him. The fallacy which lurked here experiencehad soon taught him, but not the truth.He felt that he was wretched, and must ever be so ;he felt as ifall men would be so, only that their eyeswere blinded.He abandoned law and hurried into the country,not to possess his soul in peace as he hoped, but intruth, like Homer's Bellerophon, to eat his own heart.His love of truth, he often passionately said, hadruined him ;yet he would not relmquish the search towhatever abysses it might lead. His rural cares leftmuch of his time unoccupied ; in mad misdirectionhe read and meditated, enjoying hours of wild pleasure,divided by days and nights of pain. It was nottedium that he suffered, he had toodeep an interestto weary, but hght came not to him—no light ; hewandered., in endless labyrinths of doubt, or in thevoid darkness of denial. With other men his conversationwas stinted and irksome, for he had toshroud his heart from them in deepest mystery, andto him their doings and forbearings were of nomoment. It was only with Bernard that he couldspeak from the heart, that he still felt himself a man ;