Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

68 WOTTON REINFEEDthe young gentleman fume as he Hkes; bless us,what a storm he gets into ! What terrible elegies,and pindarics, and Childe Harolds, and Sorroivs ofWerther ! Oh, devil take it. Providence is in thewrong ; has used him (sweet, meritorious gentleman)unjustly. He will bring his action of damages againstProvidence ! Trust me, a hopeful lawsuit !'We are too apt to forget,' said Bernard, * that forcreatures formed as we are, all permanent enjoymentmust be active not passive. Without evil there werefor us no good ; our condition is militant ; it is onlyin labour that we rest. Our highest, our only realblessedness, lies in this very warfare with evil. Letus conquer it or not ; truly an abundant blessedness,but which, as you remark, we seldom take mto accountin our estimates of life. Weighing the attainment,we find it light, and the search must go fornothing. We would have a paradise of spontaneouspleasm-es; forgetting that in such a paradise thedullest spiritwould and must grow wearied, nay, intime unspeakably wretched.''Yes,' added Maurice, 'the lubberland of the oldpoets in an impossible chimera ; impossible, even inthe region of chimeras.'*Yet it is this very lubberland,' said Bernard,'which so many pilgrims are seeking, and in despairbecause they cannot find.''Most know not what they are seeking,' saidWotton, 'but wander with the crowd, picking sloes'