University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor

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2011

Thomas Carlyle's Inverse Sublime and Early Canadian Humor

Andre Narbonne

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Recommended Citation Narbonne, Andre. (2011). Thomas Carlyle's Inverse Sublime and Early Canadian Humor. Nineteenth- Century Studies, 25, 45-70. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/englishpub/36

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Inverse Sublime he Tory idealism of Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) proved pe- and Early Canadian Humor, culiarly congenial to Canadian authors duringT the colonial period and in the first sixty years after Confederation (1867), one possible reason being that the 1836–1927 Canadian parliamentary system founded at Confederation was a projection and protector of the hierarchical and varied community that Carlyle’s principles em- braced. The earliest influence of his te- nets is particularly evident in emigrant André Narbonne literature, and his social philosophies are integral to the United Empire Loyalist myth as promulgated by William Kirby (1817–1906). Canadian academics such as George Robert Parkin (1846–1922) and Archibald MacMechan (1862–1933) taught Carlylean doctrines in the classroom to students who included two Confedera- tion poets, Charles G. D. Roberts (1860– 1943) and Bliss Carman (1861–1929), and the humorist, L. Maud Montgomery (1874–1942). As a result of the influence of his doctrines on these as well as other ca- nonical writers, such as Archibald Lamp- man (1861–99) and Stephen Leacock (1869–1944), Carlyle’s sublime humor helped define Canada in the first years of the twentieth century. Carlyle’s discussion of forms in his lectures On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the

Nineteenth Century Studies 25 (2011): 93-118. © 2011 Nineteenth Century Studies Association. All rights reserved, 0893-7931/2011.

Nineteenth Century Studies 93 Heroic in History (1841) is an index of the taken, is not there at all: Matter exists only major issues that inform both his social spiritually, and to represent some Idea, and and his comic visions: body it forth. Hence Clothes, as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably signifi- It is meritorious to insist on forms; Religion cant.”2 and all else naturally clothes itself in forms. Everywhere the formed world is the only hab- Because Carlyle held that “‘[c]us- itable one. The naked formlessness of Puri- tom . . . doth make dotards of us all,’”3 he tanism is not the thing I praise in the Puri- argued that old ideas that had become tans; it is the thing I pity, – praising only the mechanical needed to be stripped away spirit which had rendered that inevitable! All and new forms, natural forms, allowed to substances clothe themselves in forms: but grow. In Sartor Resartus, this stripping away there are suitable true forms, and then there is done with an almost surgical irony. To are untrue, unsuitable. As the briefest defini- underscore his technique and purpose, tion, one might say, Forms which grow round a substance, if we rightly understand that, will Carlyle has his Editor (who has charge correspond to the real nature and purport of of making sense of Teufelsdröckh’s pa- it, will be true, good; forms which are con- pers) remark that it is “[w]onderful . . . sciously put round a substance, bad.1 with what cutting words, now and then, he [Teufelsdröckh] severs asunder the According to Carlyle, all societies and confusion; shears down, were it furlongs individuals require political and social deep, into the true centre of the matter.”4 order. Form – or order – is what makes But despite its razor sharpness, the hu- a community habitable, a life livable; it mor Carlyle practiced is not the acerbic is the conqueror of shapelessness, chaos. wit of the rake; it is genial and inclusive. Furthermore, true forms, religious or The exposed form beneath, like the un- otherwise, are organic: they clothe with- dressed form of Puritanism in the lec- out being works of artifice and so are tures On Heroes, is to be pitied for its bare- complementary, not distorting. Carlyle ness and praised for its spirit. The style of arrived at his view of a naturally ordered comedy that Carlyle championed, then, society having eschewed what he re- blends humor and pathos to create sym- garded as the unnatural forms placed on pathetic laughter, not ridicule. The “fin- English society preceding and during the est” laughter, he explains in “The Hero as Victorian period. His ideal community Poet,” “is always a genial laughter.”5 This is, therefore, one in which individual re- harmonious humor, producing genial sponsibility is not legislated (social leg- laughter, was the comic expression of islation, he argues elsewhere, is the sign the same social vision that idealized an of an unhealthy community), and yet it is organic or whole community. one in which everyone plays a role. The The relationship between humor and community is whole and active. sociology was not lost on early Canadian While Carlyle is best described as a authors. Tory writers who saw Carlyle’s social critic, not a theorist (he disdained organic community as the promise of formulas), he was a literary theorist, and Confederation praised responsibility and his social philosophy is present in his labor. At a time when the creation of a theories on humor, harmony, and the Canadian literary canon was viewed as a inverse sublime. Carlyle’s first major national imperative, most Canadian hu- text, Sartor Resartus (1833–34), is a comic mor adhered to the theories of sympa- work in which he demonstrates how un- thetic humor expounded by Carlyle, es- natural forms – particularly, outdated pecially his concept of the inverse sublime. religious forms – disfigure rather than adorn society. The protagonist of Sartor HUMOR AND SOCIOLOGY Resartus, Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, shares his author’s view of forms: In an 1830 review in Fraser’s Magazine, Car- lyle lamented that the “true fountain of “All visible things are emblems; what thou seest is not there on its own account; strictly comic inspiration has long since been dried up in England,” adding that the drought would continue with the result Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime that “the cursed and Typhonian influ- 94 ence of utilitarianism shall upset and de- In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of stroy all existing institutions, and society the Wealth of Nations (1776), Smith explains should begin again, as it were, ‘ab ovo.’” 6 that the individual, “[b]y pursuing his The national comic vision was, of course, own interest[,] . . . frequently promotes not dead in England; as is the truth of all that of the society more effectually than nations, it was and is irrepressible. What when he really intends to promote it.”9 is, nevertheless, significant about Car- In the field of economics, laissez-faire lyle’s indictment of English humor is therefore operates on the principle that, his reference to the dampening effects socially, self-interest can serve the greater of utilitarianism in a statement about good. Also current in Victorian econom- comic inspiration. This was not mere ic and social thought was the Bentham- hyperbole. For Carlyle – as well as for ite belief that whatever causes the great- numerous other nineteenth-century lit- est happiness is for the greatest good. erary theorists – the humorous and the Carlyle’s reading of the story of Job did social were inseparable. Richard J. Dunn not suggest to him, however, that happi- has examined Carlyle’s oeuvre in terms ness is a meaningful standard for human of his comedy and his social ethos: “Ac- value. Like his friend and literary cor- cording to his theory, humour is more respondent, the American philosopher a philosophic attitude than a stylistic Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82), Carlyle device; it is ultimately the perspective felt it was more important for individu- which reconciles man’s laughter with his als to be self-reliant than to be happy, and more serious reflections; it gives mean- so he saw the ability to realize self-worth ing and purpose to laughter.”7 Carlyle’s through labor as a more responsible and philosophical attitude and, consequent- Christian basis for determining what ly, his sense of the type of literary com- might prove to serve the greatest good. munity needed to produce and endorse As a result of his conservative human- true humor led to his bitter statement in ism, Carlyle challenged the landed gen- Fraser’s that comedy was effectively dead try on the Corn Laws (1815–46), and yet in an England, where the utilitarian val- he also opposed working-class Chartism. ues of theorists such as Jeremy Bentham The fact that Carlyle, like Karl Marx (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–73) (1818–83), decried the abuses of Adam were in vogue. Smith’s laissez-faire capitalism did not At issue in much of Carlyle’s writing mean that he favored revolution. Despite during the most productive period of his sympathies for the common man, his prolific literary career (1827–43) is the Carlyle was neither a communist nor a human cost of the industrial revolution; radical. He was a Tory. The true hero in for this reason, Carlylean comedy regrets Carlylean philosophy is not the rebel per rather than endorses the growing mech- se (although his heroes included Oliver anization of society.8 His was a deeply Cromwell) but the individual who cre- conservative humor. Carlyle had been ates or maintains order. In part, Carlyle raised a Presbyterian, and from Calvin- was able to uphold his conservative val- ism he gleaned a righteous suspicion of ues despite the more radical views of human nature that left him pessimistic other reformers (including those of his about the utopian economics of his day. friend John Stuart Mill) because he re- Carlyle’s religious sensibility – combined jected the major philosophical tenets with the tangible evidence of working that had shaped the rational revolution conditions in English mills – aided in his of the late eighteenth century. His Eng- rejection of Adam Smith’s (1723–90) eco- lish translation of texts in the tradition nomic policy of laissez-faire. As a philo- of German idealism in combination sophical concept, laissez-faire is rooted with his inherited beliefs showed him a in the notion that man is fundamentally route out of the dominant philosophical good, and that his acquisitiveness, if left concourses that ran like tributaries from unregulated, will prove ultimately ben- Lockean empiricism and Continental ra- eficial to his community. Public welfare is a side effect of an economy guided by Smith’s “invisible hand” of self-interest. Nineteenth Century Studies 95 tionalism and that in France had not ex- lyle’s social outlook. Crucial to Burke’s tinguished but fueled the fires of 1789.10 Toryism is the conviction that civil in- Carlyle’s translation of Johann Wolfgang stitutions should be maintained and im- von Goethe (1749–1832), John Paul Fried- proved rather than abandoned or over- rich Richter (1763–1825), and Friedrich thrown. In Reflections, Burke argues that Schiller (1759–1805), among others, led “[w]e procure reverence to our civil insti- him to privilege intuitive knowledge tutions on the principle upon which na- over Lockean rationalism, but, unlike ture teaches us to revere individual men; the French philosophes who agreed with on account of their age; and on account his belief that some concepts can be un- of those from whom they are descended.” derstood only outside of the senses, Car- And, in a statement that resounds in Car- lyle did not accept that the universe was, lyle, Burke rebukes the Tiers Etat at the in its entirety, knowable; it remained, time of the French Revolution: “The best for him, as inscrutable as God. Further- [of them],” he scoffs, “were only men of more, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (1712–78) theory.”13 Along with their Toryism, with The Social Contract (1763), with its Lockean their belief in slow progress and in the premise of a social contract as the basis importance of the past, both Burke and of society, had become the textbook for Carlyle also adapted their social critiques the Girondins and for others during the to literary practice in their theories on French Revolution (1789–99). Rousseau’s the sublime. Burke wrote A Philosophical theories were therefore, for Carlyle, dan- Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sub- gerous by association. lime and the Beautiful (1757) while, in his es- Throughout his writing, Carlyle’s con- says on Jean Paul ([Johann Paul Friedrich tempt for theories that in effect diminish Richter] 1763–1825), Carlyle described the humanity – that reduce it by suspending “humorous sublime.” human values like a numerator over a va- To see Carlyle’s humor as being a re- riety of social causes – is palpable.11 “Men flection of his serious philosophic atti- who rebel, and urge the Lower Classes to tudes, then, is to recognize the deep con- rebel,” Carlyle inveighed against the Gi- servatism behind his comic vision. But rondins in Chartism (1839), “ought to have although Carlyle’s humor was conserva- other than Formulas to go upon.” It was tive, it was also comprehensive. While precisely because they had privileged Carlyle distrusted the revolutionary spir- ideas over humanity, formulas above it, he did not advocate stasis. He clarifies belief, that he heaped scorn on them. this position in “Characteristics” (1831): To Carlyle, they were men “to whom “Change is universal and inevitable,” but millions of living fellow-creatures, with “[t]he true Past departs not, nothing that beating hearts in their bosoms, beating, was worthy in the Past departs; no Truth suffering, hoping, are ‘masses,’ mere ‘ex- or Goodness realised by man ever dies, plosive masses for blowing-down Bas- or can die; but is all still here, and, rec- tilles with.’”12 Although Carlyle included ognised or not, lives and works through Rousseau among his heroes, he remained endless changes.”14 Carlyle’s perspective deeply suspicious of his work and prized on the present is not one in which it is the German model of intuitive knowl- necessary or even useful to break free edge above either English empiricism or, from the tyranny of history (as it would especially, Continental rationalism. Like be for some modernists after the First Edmund Burke (1729/30–97) in Reflections World War). “The bough that is dead on the Revolution in France (1790), Carlyle shall be cut away, for the sake of the tree strongly associated Continental ratio- itself,” he expostulates in Past and Present nalism with the moral depravity of the (1843), but nowhere in his writing does Reign of Terror (1793–94). he advocate uprooting the tree for the Burke’s and Carlyle’s beliefs were in sake of a new growth or even a wall.15 Nor close accord on several important issues, is it his view that it would be desirable and Burke’s Toryism is visible in Car- (were it possible) to turn back the clock; rather, he sees the present as being in a constant state of transition while main- Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime taining faith in what he deems to be the 96 tangible virtues of the past.16 Specifically, D’Arcy McGee (1825–68) to American de- as a result of this worldview, Carlylean mocracy. Carlyle had written in Chartism humor is broad and encompassing, not that American democracy could exist aloof and limited. His comedy achieves only in a fertile land where work was breadth by blending humor and pathos abundant and “[w]here no government to create what Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) . . . [was] wanted, save that of the parish- had defined in 1807 as the “humorous pa- constable” and that even then it was best thetic.”17 This style of comedy privileges seen as a temporary measure, “as a swift sympathetic identification over superi- transition towards something other and ority, and it gives Carlyle’s humor depth farther.”21 McGee’s comments in a speech by making it inclusive rather than exclu- delivered in Cornwall, Ontario, and re- sive or even indifferent. corded in the New York Times on 2 July Looking overseas to a society in which 1867, the day after Confederation, are a utilitarianism seemed to him to hold forceful expression of political beliefs less sway than in Britain, Carlyle in the that are very similar to Carlyle’s: same 1830 Fraser’s article in which he de- [D]emocratic rule may be good in some cried utilitarianism prophesied that “[i]n respects; but our representative system, America will be for the next century the founded upon the recognition of the right fair and ample field for comedy.”18 Car- of all classes, acknowledging the claims of lyle’s endorsement of the United States, minorities to protection from the tyranny of which was perhaps based on Burke’s ear- majorities . . . is the highest system of free gov- lier attempt at conciliation with Amer- ernment yet instituted among men. In estab- ica, was short-lived. He would later re- lished representative institutions here we are doing true service to the people of the United gard the American Revolution (1775–83) States, we are teaching them the advantage of as a gross error, but at the time, his posi- our form of government over theirs. If there tive assessments of America and of the are among our neighbours’ minorities, reli- potential for American humor indicate gious, political or social, borne down by the the degree to which he felt that the social weight of the mere majority, they have only and the humorous were interrelated.19 to look across the St. Lawrence to find a place In truth, Carlylean humor did have an of asylum where they can obtain that security 22 impact on the American literary mar- denied them at home. ketplace, but Carlyle’s brand of comedy What McGee approvingly describes – a proved particularly enduring in Canada, hierarchical system that can protect the a country that had not severed its ties rights of all classes – is a fundamental as- with the past, a country where social and pect of the Carlylean political ideal. political progress tended to be conserva- Twelve years after “Characteristics,” in tive in vision, orderly in execution. which he depicted society as a living or- Carlyle was no stranger to the Cana- ganism with each individual playing a vi- dian situation. When a younger brother, tal role, Carlyle returned in Past and Pres- Alexander (1797–1876), was no longer able ent to his theme of social connectedness, to support himself in England, Carlyle and examined and named the concept urged him to emigrate to Canada. In an of wholeness. Society, Carlyle maintained 1843 letter, while Alexander was still in throughout his literary career, should be Chelsea, Carlyle wrote: “I hope yet to see regarded more in terms of something liv- you in Canada some day; and sit by your ing than of something legislated. Like the hearth on ground that belongs to your- various constituents of a body, persons in self and the Maker alone!”20 Had Carlyle a community are distinct from each oth- fulfilled his wish, had he visited Alexan- er but still essential to the survival of the der in Canada in 1867, he would almost group as a whole. In “Characteristics” he certainly have felt at home with political stresses this interconnectedness: developments in the country. In Canada To understand man . . . we must look beyond he would have encountered a hierarchi- the individual man and his actions or inter- cal form of government modeled on the British parliamentary system, a form that sounded peculiarly Carlylean when compared by advocates such as Thomas Nineteenth Century Studies 97 ests, and view him in combination with his es: “Vagrant Sam-Slicks, who rove over fellows. It is in Society that man first feels the Earth doing ‘strokes of trade,’ what what he is; first becomes what he can be. wealth have they? . . . Slick rests nowhere, In Society an altogether new set of spiritual he is homeless.”24 What Carlyle advo- activities are evolved in him, and the old im- cates, then, is very different from what measurably quickened and strengthened. So- ciety is the genial element wherein his nature was to become the great American ex- first lives and grows; the solitary man were port: democracy. In contrast to Carlyle’s but a small portion of himself, and must con- ideal of responsibility and difference, the tinue forever folded in, stunted and only half American system touted freedom and alive. stressed homogeneity. Carlyle’s organic society is representa- This passage merits examination. Here, tive of the underlying social philosophy in germination, is the Carlylean doctrine that, according to McGee’s Cornwall of wholeness – an idea of individual and speech, Canada’s parliamentary system collective responsibility that might be was established to protect; and Carlyle’s called a gestalt theory of society (that is, humor, which was the product and re- a theory in which the whole is greater flection of his ideologies, found fertile than the sum of its parts). According soil in the newly shaped country. During to Carlyle’s interpretation of the social his lifetime, Carlyle’s influence crossed a sphere, individuals are enlarged by their seemingly incompatible political divide: communion with others. This enlarge- his doctrines resonate in the writings of ment is spiritual and moral. Carlyle’s de- emigrant authors such as Susanna Mood- lineation of society as “genial” projects a ie (1803–85) and Catharine Parr Traill familial identification between persons (1802–99), and also in the work of Kirby, and their community. As is generally a neo-Loyalist mythographer. After Con- the case in home life, it is in society that federation and into the first third of the “Morality begins; here at least it takes an twentieth century, while his reputation altogether new form, and on every side, waned in Europe, Carlyle’s philosophical as in living growth, expands itself.” This attitude remained a force on Canadian is a description of neither communism writers, critics, and academics engaged nor democracy, but of wholeness: “So- in the project of identifying and promul- ciety [in the past] was what we can call gating a sense of national identity. And whole, in both senses of the word,” Car- his influence was especially enduring lyle explains in “Characteristics”; “[t]he among Canadian scholars and among individual man was in himself a whole, the Confederation poets and humorists. or complete union; and could combine with his fellows as the living member of a greater whole.” Unlike communism or HUMOR AND HARMONY: CARLYLE’S democracy, the principle of wholeness INVERSE SUBLIME could not simply (or entirely) be legis- During his lifetime and into the Ed- lated into existence, but required active wardian period, Carlyle was critically participation from members of the com- acknowledged for his humor. In an 1866 munity. When Carlyle asserts that “all letter, George Meredith advises: “In read- men, through their life, were animated ing Carlyle, bear in mind that he is a hu- by one great Idea; thus all efforts pointed mourist.”25 Likewise, in 1903, G. K. Ches- one way, everywhere there was wholeness,” terton (1874–1936) relates Carlyle’s sense the “one great idea” to which he refers is of wholeness to Old Testament humor: 23 that of personal responsibility. In Past The profound security of Carlyle’s sense of and Present, Carlyle illustrates his argu- the unity of the Cosmos is like that of a He- ment with a striking allusion to Nova brew prophet; and it has the same expression Scotian author Thomas Chandler Hali- that it had in the Hebrew prophets – hu- burton and his character, Sam Slick, who mour. . . . Other writers had seen that there appeared in Haliburton’s satirical sketch- could be something elemental and eternal in a song or statute, he alone saw that there could be something elemental and eternal in Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime a joke.26 98 Carlyle’s theory of social wholeness was Carlyle needs to be seen. translated in his humor as comic harmo- In the nineteenth century, most criti- ny. His first major work,Sartor Resartus, is cal discussions of humor derived from a transcendental, semi-autobiographical one of two sources, either the superiority account of the author’s spiritual and in- theory as espoused by Thomas Hobbes tellectual growth that also includes his (1588–1679) or the incongruity theory views on the spiritual condition of his first sketched by Aristotle (384-22bce ) in culture. Despite – or perhaps because Poetics and expounded by theorists from of – its serious objectives, Sartor Resar- Joseph Addison (1672–1719) to Carlyle. tus is a work of humor. Peter Allan Dale Neither of these concepts can be said observes that the “humor, the essentially to constitute a theory, but, by the dawn friendly and sympathetic rather than sa- of the nineteenth century, ideas turning tiric laughter that Teufelsdröckh and his on incongruity dominated critical views Editor inspire, keeps the reader constant- of what humor should be and what it ly in mind of the fact that the ultimate should do, whereas explanations based aim of the book is not Denial but Affir- on superiority had outlived their popu- mation.”27 Teufelsdröckh, the author of a larity with critics and theorists. During philosophical treatise on clothes, regards the Restoration period, the comic sen- – as Carlyle does – all systems of belief sation of superiority – what Hobbes de- as being tantamount to outer apparel. As scribed as “Sudden Glory,” along with the the garments of belief become worn and type of humor said to produce that sen- frayed they need to be replaced, which timent – suited the sociopolitical creed is what Carlyle, through Teufelsdröckh of a society reacting against Puritanism. and his baffled Editor, attempts. InSar - In Leviathan (1651), Hobbes explains how tor Resartus, Carlyle demonstrates how feelings of superiority underlie “Sudden meaningless creeds and dead traditions Glory”: can be parted from the body beneath, Sudden Glory, is the passion which maketh how the stultifying weight of outdated those Grimaces called LAUGHTER; and is beliefs can be shed in deference to the caused either by some sudden act of their truly human. The metaphor was not own, that pleaseth them; or by the apprehen- new when Carlyle employed it; Jonathan sion of some deformed thing in another, by Swift (1667–1745) in A Tale of a Tub (1696) comparison whereof they suddenly applaud also used clothing as an allegory for re- themselves. And it is incident most to them, that are conscious of the fewest abilities in ligious beliefs.28 In Swift’s work, man is themselves; who are forced to keep them- held up to righteous ridicule because selves in their own favour, by observing the beneath his disguise he is not noble but imperfections of other men. And therefore pretentious. For Swift, man is a species of much Laughter at the defects of others, is a hypocrite, and the very existence of his signe of Pusillanimity.30 clothing proves the meanness of what Hobbes associates laughter with ego- lies beneath. In contrast, Carlyle dis- tism, an explanation that can stake only robes his subject of his beliefs in order to a modest claim to a theory of comedy sympathize with the unadorned human (although Sigmund Freud’s “tendency condition, not to condemn it. He notes wit” resembles Hobbes’s Sudden Glory).31 in Sartor Resartus that “there is something Hobbes’s commentary amounts to a re- great in the moment when a man first buke to laughter, and the power of the in- strips himself of adventitious wrappages; terregnum and Cromwellian legal piety and sees indeed that he is naked, and, as to influence literary productions waned Swift has it, ‘a forked straddling animal with time. By the nineteenth century, with bandy legs’; yet also a Spirit, and Hobbes’s kind of laughter, associated unutterable Mystery of Mysteries.”29 The with Cavalier wit, was regarded as vulgar clothes are extraneous; they are not in- and irreligious. dicators of character flaws. The distinc- Hobbes’s statement that the work of tion is important and points to a change of attitude towards humor that occurred principally during the Victorian period, and against the background of which Nineteenth Century Studies 99 “great minds” is not to laugh but to “free a stance of superiority in humor with others from scorn” suggests the influ- insincerity, warning that “Such grinning ence of the Bible on his understanding inanity is very sad to the soul of man.”36 of the human condition.32 Throughout Backing Carlyle’s rejection of superior- Leviathan, Hobbes attempts to reconcile ity as grounds for humor was Victorian the ways of God with the workings of a gentility. Donald Gray describes Victo- nation; and laughter, in the Bible, is con- rian society as one that “championed be- sistently associated with vanity and mor- nevolence and gentle manners as marks al stupidity. A New Testament story that of high civilization,”37 and for this reason is common to the Synoptics associates Carlyle’s admonition against superiority laughter with shame. In Matthew, Jesus in humor placed him among the major- raises from the dead the daughter of a rul- ity of critics. Most nineteenth-century er: “Give place: for the maid is not dead, writers rejected superiority in favor of but sleepeth,” Jesus says to an astounded, incongruity as an explanation of laugh- disbelieving household, which replies ter, one that suggested a kindlier humor, by “laugh[ing] him to scorn” (Matt. 9:24, but this alternative theory likewise suf- and see Mark 5:40 and Luke 8:53 [AV]). In fered from vagueness and was open to a that story, laughter is next to blasphemy, wide range of interpretations. because the laughter expresses supe- Incongruity, as the concept was first riority where humility is warranted. If used by Aristotle to frame a theory of laughter in the New Testament is linked humor, indicates a duality that in and of to arrogance, in the Old Testament it is itself is bereft of social or moral contexts. associated with foolishness, and its very Ideology needs to be asserted as a com- sound is cacophonous, not cheerful. Ac- ponent of incongruity in order for com- cording to Ecclesiastes 7:4–6: “The heart edy to have propagandistic value. For in- of the wise is in the house of mourning; stance, in Laughter (1900), Henri Bergson but the heart of fools is in the house of (1859–1941), writing at the close of the mirth. . . . For as the crackling of thorns Victorian period, theorizes that “[a] situ- under a pot, so is the laughter of the ation is invariably comic when it belongs fool: this also is vanity.” Biblical outrage simultaneously to two altogether inde- at laughter is consistent with Hobbes’s pendent series of events and is capable of condemnation of it.33 And Carlyle, while being interpreted in two entirely differ- himself a humorist, was likewise antago- ent meanings at the same time.” This ac- nistic to certain uses of laughter. count differs from Hobbes’s in attribut- Carlyle was, of course, aware of the ing laughter to the intellectual pleasure Biblical disapproval of laughter, and in of observing a paradoxical arrangement three separate works he condemns hu- rather than to feelings of superiority, mor arising from an assumption of supe- but the “independent series of events” riority. In the lecture “The Hero as Poet,” to which Bergson refers might involve he argues that “good laughter is not ‘the any actions whatsoever. As an ideological crackling of thorns under the pot,’” and statement, Bergson’s notion of the com- he contends for a different type of laugh- ic, at least in the passage quoted above, ter that exists beyond what is described is without content. In another passage, in the Old Testament: “Laughter means Bergson’s theory is specific because the sympathy.”34 In the 1829 essay “Voltaire,” kind of incongruity he chooses to focus he deflates specifically the kind of hu- on relates firmly to his arguments about mor arising from superiority: “Ridicule,” elasticity. “Any arrangement of acts and he comments, “is indeed a faculty much events is comic,” he writes, “which gives prized by its possessors; yet, intrinsi- us, in a single combination, the illusion cally, it is a small faculty; we may say, of life and the distinct impression of a the smallest of all faculties that other mechanical arrangement.”38 Here, the in- men are at the pains to repay with any congruity is specifically between the liv- esteem.”35 In Past and Present, he connects ing and the mechanical, but the theory of incongruity available to scholars at the beginning of the nineteenth century was Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime broader. 100 The type of humor Aristotle describes discourse, Hunt coins a new term: in Poetics, a style of comedy that is more It cannot be called tragi-comedy, for though kind than cruel, formed the basis of most it breathes a gentle spirit of humor, its essence Victorian ideas about humor. For Aristo- is really serious; it differs widely from ludi- tle, the ludicrous consists in some defect crous distress, for though it raises our smiles, it of ugliness that is not painful or destruc- never raises our contempt, but in the midst tive. As an example, Aristotle points to of our very inclination to be amused abso- the comic mask, which is “ugly and dis- lutely moves us with a pathetic sympathy; torted,” but which does not imply pain.39 perhaps it may be defined as thehumorous the art of raising our tears and our The provisions that Aristotelian humor pathetic, smiles together, while each have a simple and must exclude pain and combine the pos- distinct cause.42 sible with the actual, or the ideal with the real, meant that the theory could be Here, in embryo, is a definition of the used to assert positive social values. Abi- genre of humor that would typify Vic- gail Bloom explains that “implicit in this torian productions. Hunt’s “humorous idea [of doubleness or incongruity] is a pathetic,” itself a form of incongruous normal world order against which differ- humor, would be further explicated by ence can be measured.”40 While the idea Carlyle, and given a new terminology of incongruity implied a standard against that translated the dramatic to the liter- which Victorian humorists could mea- ar y. sure the foibles of society, their humor Not surprisingly for Carlyle, he found would not be as aggressive or hurtful as a language for his humor in German lit- Restoration wit had been. Instead, there erature. In his 1827 essay, “Jean Paul Fried- was to be what Stuart Tave describes as a rich Richter,” he identifies the “humor- “good-natured and good-humored ideal ous pathetic”: “Richter is a man of mirth,” [that] exerted a twofold influence on the but “in his smile itself a touching pathos comic: it corrected the Puritan by liber- may lie hidden, a pity too deep for tears.” ating and encouraging the milder forms Pity, for Richter, is not cathartic (as it is of comic expression, the smile, or sym- for Wordsworth), but social. In Richter, pathetic laughter, and innocent mirth; “a man of feeling, in the noblest sense of and it corrected the rake by controlling that word,” Carlyle could claim a humor- and discouraging the more vigorous ist whose humor produced an effect of forms, punitive laughter, ridicule, satiric “harmony,” which is a key word in Car- 43 wit.”41 But the humor of incongruity still lyle’s epistemology. Harmony, like sym- needed concrete definitions – even a pathy, is knowledge. As Carlyle’s Editor new language of critical terms – in order claims in Sartor Resartus, a man’s laughter to enter into academic discourse. gives insight into his moral character: In “Mr. Bannister” (1807), Leigh Hunt Some men wear an everlasting barren simper; described the humor of the stage ac- in the smile of others lies a cold glitter as of tor, John Bannister (1760–1836), as more ice: the fewest are able to laugh, what can be Aristotelian than Hobbesian because of called laughing, but only sniff and titter and what it did not do – it avoided scorn. But snigger from the throat outwards; or at best, produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, what it did do by marrying humor and as if they were laughing through wool: of pathos rendered it nearly unclassifiable. none such comes good. The man who cannot In Hunt’s description of Bannister one laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, can sense the freshness of the idea. Hunt and spoils; but his whole life is already a trea- opines that “to mingle feeling with hu- son and a stratagem.44 mor, and humor with feeling, seems to be True humor is “sympathy,” as Carlyle as- Mr. Bannister’s nature rather than his art.” serts in “The Hero as Poet.” This state- The distinction between nature and art ment places Carlyle’s humor in cor- is neither irrelevant nor equivocal, but respondence with his social criticism. essential and absolute; Bannister’s hu- According to Tave, “By the beginning mor is organic to his characterization – it is the comedic pulse that gives life to his portrayals. Unable to place Bannister’s work within the current terms of critical Nineteenth Century Studies 101 of the nineteenth century an increas- its essence is love; it issues not in laughter, but ing confidence in the goodness of the in still smiles, which lie far deeper. It is a sort free play of natural emotion and spirits of inverse sublimity; exalting, as it were, into made frank laughter a sign of an open our affections what is below us, while sub- and universal humanity, and even an un- limity draws down into our affection what is above us. The former is scarcely less precious restrained laughter at times a sign of a or heart-affecting than the latter; perhaps it is 45 large, wise, and sympathetic heart.” As still rarer, and, as a test of genius, still more the age became increasingly mechanical, decisive. It is, in fact, the bloom and perfume, however, Carlyle perceived that a mecha- the purest effluence of a deep, fine and loving nistic society was beset by a crisis in sym- nature; a nature in harmony with itself, rec- pathy. Formulas supplanted extra-ratio- onciled to the world and its stintedness and nal humanistic values; ideas superseded contradiction, nay, finding in this very con- beliefs. When Carlyle writes of Richter tradiction new elements of beauty as well as 48 that “Aversion itself with him is not ha- goodness. tred; he despises much, but justly, with The style of humor that Carlyle admires tolerance also, with placidity, and even a in Richter is more Aristotelian than sort of love,” the focus on tolerance and Hobbesian, and yet distinct from both placidity was the result of Carlyle’s per- of those theoretical orientations. Rich- ception of this crisis in sympathy.46 ter’s humor, in Carlyle’s account, has its In Poetics, Aristotle opposes comedy basis in incongruity in that it is human- to tragedy, designating tragedy as “an istic, but it does not necessarily have its imitation of personages better than the basis in comedy. Because Carlyle’s inverse ordinary man,” and arguing that tragic sublime draws on the lofty and not just characterization should attempt to “re- on the low, and because it humanizes its produce the distinctive features of a man, subject (whether high or low), it is twice and at the same time, without losing the removed from Aristotelian comedy. Car- likeness, make him handsomer than he lyle was evidently aware of the distinc- is.” According to Aristotle, then, tragedy tion when he wrote in his second essay involves a representation of personages on Richter, “Jean Paul Friedrich Richter of high station in which the characters Again” (1830), that Richter “is a Humorist presented are to be elevated above the . . . not only in low provinces of thought, common man. In contrast, comedy, for where this is more common, but in the him, is “an imitation of men worse than loftiest provinces, where it is well-nigh the average.”47 Here, again, there is an at- unexampled.”49 The purpose of the in- tempt at producing difference. In com- verse sublime is to produce a state of har- edy, the personages represented are to be mony, which is the comedic equivalent of low station, and they are to be repre- to social wholeness. In a study of inverse sented in a way that stresses the human sublimity in Victorian humor, Max Keith aspects that place them below the com- Sutton writes: “This analogue to the view mon man. of an organically unified existence is the In his essays on Richter, Carlyle mixes viewpoint underlying the inverse sub- elements from Aristotle’s genres in order limity of Victorian humor. As a way of to produce an effect that he calls the in- looking at life, it could appeal to the de- verse sublime. In “Jean Paul Friedrich Rich- sires of many persons to see a more hu- ter,” he makes his most important state- man, more poetically interesting world ment on humor, one that establishes a than the one described by scientists.”50 method by which the humorous pathet- While Carlyle’s inverse sublime presents ic can be adopted to produce a harmoni- the heroic in comedy as deeply human, ous humor. As is the case with the Car- the concept also presents a strategy for lylean notion of wholeness, the comedic Carlyle’s more serious writing. ideal of harmony is personal and public: When applied to his serious charac- True humour springs not more from the terizations of important people, Carlyle’s head than from the heart; it is not contempt, inverse sublime can be said to have its ancestry in the Puritan artistic sensibili- ties of Cromwell as well as in Richter’s Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime prose. Cromwell uttered the quintes- 102 sential statement of Calvinist art theory are poetic, even sportful, and this idea of when he told his portraitist, Peter Lely humor that elevates the subject was es- (1618–80), to paint him “warts, and ev- pecially attractive to Dickens, who might erything.”51 This sort of portraiture – not almost be considered Carlyle’s protégé just realist, but humanistic/realist por- in the art of this kind of comedy. Mil- traiture – is the hallmark of Carlyle’s dred G. Christian, writing on Carlyle’s style. For instance, his description of an influence on Dickens, remarks about the encounter with William Wordsworth two writers’ personal relationship: “in (1770–1850) includes a depiction of the the enthusiasm of any fresh encounter concentration with which Wordsworth with Dickens, Carlyle was likely to be ate raisins.52 Carlyle found Wordsworth carried away with the man’s personal- to be insufferably self-absorbed, yet Car- ity and especially with his ‘cheerful ge- lyle’s focus on an utterly common act niality’ – Carlyle’s own phrase.” Carlyle’s and on the dedication with which Word- enthusiasm for Dickens was more than sworth performed it counterbalances his reciprocated by the younger man. Ac- litany against the poet’s pomposity. In- cording to Christian, “Dickens, in his stead of denouncing Wordsworth, Car- nearly thirty years’ friendship with Car- lyle humanizes him. Sutton describes the lyle, maintained, throughout, an attitude effect: “Carlyle’s realistic touches help to of respectful, enthusiastic, loving venera- emphasize the humanity of his subject, tion, such as a son might offer a father.”55 linking the famous man with his fellows Respecting Carlyle’s influence on Dick- by showing his ‘descendental’ charac- ens’s social ideas, Christian describes teristics, and thus saving him from the Dickens as “attempting throughout the empty grandeur of conventional eulogy period of his novel-writing to be one of in the memoirs of reverent friends.”53 The those ‘wielders of a sharp sickle’ whom upshot of Carlyle’s description of an ut- Carlyle so earnestly desired”: terly human, quotidian act is a moment The greatest evidence of Carlyle’s influence of heartfelt realism – that is, a realism upon the social theory of Dickens is to be whose closest relative can be located in found in Hard Times. The novel, inscribed to the language and literature of sensibility Carlyle, made a deliberate attempt to weave and domesticity, not in naturalism. The in as many of his teachings as possible. The same spirit that informs his serious por- multiplicity of details supplying proof of in- 56 traiture is also at play in his comedy, but fluence is striking. to fully represent harmony, Carlyle’s sub- Throughout his writing, Dickens uses lime must also make the low accessible humor to elevate lower-class characters to the high. by making them sympathetic to his read- Carlyle’s humor is again distinct from ership. In doing this, he follows not only that of Aristotle and Hobbes in that it Carlyle’s social theories but also his theo- raises characters of low stature to the lev- ries of humor.57 el of their audience, and it was this idea Although twentieth-century writ- of a humor that elevates its subject, rath- ers would accuse Carlyle of being un- er than expressing contempt, that influ- theoretical, he never claimed to be a enced Charles Dickens (1812–70), among social theorist; he identified himself as others. In the essay, “Schiller” (1831), Car- a critic – a censor. Nevertheless, Carlyle’s lyle explains the connection between hu- inverse sublimity places his social criti- mor and humanity: “Humour is properly cism within literary theory, and his theo- the exponent of low things; that which ries on humor in particular influenced first renders them poetical to the mind. his own and later generations of writ- The man of Humour sees common life, ers. “[B]y translating Richter’s umgekehrte even mean life, under the new light of Erhabene as ‘inverse sublimity’ near the sportfulness and love; whatever has ex- outset of the Victorian era,” Sutton re- istence has a charm for him.”54 Types of marks, “Thomas Carlyle gave to English comic characters that Carlyle admires, criticism a term which his younger con- then, are the Falstaffs and Sancho Pan- zas of literature whose lives are ruled by their stomachs and yet whose portrayals Nineteenth Century Studies 103 temporaries could profitably use in ana- With no financial resources, no one to give lyzing the comic literature of their age.”58 him a “push,” he launched himself in London G. B. Tennyson agrees that the concept in 1873, to practise Medicine for a livelihood, achieves the status of theory: but especially to study what he used to call “problems of the World and of Human Life,” Carlyle’s . . . “inverse sublimity” is an excellent and to offer his original solutions in this vast translation of Jean Paul’s “das umgekehrte Er- puzzle through the medium of literature. habene.” Humor in Carlyle, then, as in Jean One reads with a certain amused interest Paul, goes beyond the mere perception of how in search for counsel on this project similarities, although it is likely to start there. he betook himself immediately after his ar- It goes from that which is beneath us to that rival to the writer whose books had at once which is above. As an example of what the stimulated and perplexed his own thought so theory means in Carlyle’s practice, we have much in the rural hamlet of Ontario. After a only to look at the subject of Sartor Resartus letter in which he asked for an interview with – Diogenes Teufelsdröckh. Diogenes, born Thomas Carlyle had secured an invitation for of God, is linked with Teufelsdröckh, devil’s “not more than ten minutes,” he made his way dung. The juxtaposition must be comic if it to Cheyne Row and waited his turn to see the is not blasphemous – or perhaps it is both at sage of Chelsea. Standing on the hearth-rug, once.59 young Crozier explained that he had much to say to mankind about “great problems of the Carlyle’s inverse sublime was not only a 61 term but also a technique that belonged World and Human Life.” to the literature of a peculiar social vi- Stewart’s sketch of Crozier provides re- sion. His theories on humor inspired a markable evidence of the extent of Car- generation of English writers, including lyle’s popularity – the reach of his celeb- Dickens, and his influence on Canadian rity – in Canada during his lifetime. Even writers from the colonial to the Confed- though Carlyle told Crozier to stick to eration periods would prove especially medicine – it paid better – the memory strong. of the meeting between the two men was important enough to Crozier that, nearly

THE DOCTRINE OF WHOLENESS, fifty years after the event had taken place, THE HUMOR OF HARMONY, it remained as one of the defining stories AND THEIR IMPACT of his life. ON CANADIAN WRITERS These two examples, the Lutheran In 1908, parishioners in Church of Eng- psalm and Stewart’s eulogistic anecdote, land churches across Canada would have suggest both the subtlety and the pen- recognized the name in their newly pub- etration of Carlyle’s influence on early lished praise books of the translator of Canadian writers. How aware were pa- “Hymn 391,” the Lutheran psalm “Eine rishioners singing “Hymn 391” of the ex- feste Burg ist unser Gott.”60 Even twenty- tent to which Carlyle’s interest in North- seven years after his death, Carlyle’s name ern European literature had affected remained ubiquitous in Canada. His their own sense of nationalism?62 What writing and translations had an impact complicates any discussion of Carlyle’s on every level of Canadian society. A 1921 influence on Canadian writers is that, article in the Dalhousie Review gives sur- by mid-century, his ideas had become prising evidence of the extent to which mainstream to the point that people did Carlyle’s celebrity penetrated even small- not realize they were quoting him. The town Ontario. In “A Neglected Man of following two passages describe what Letters,” Herbert L. Stewart describes the might be called the phenomenon of Car- literary career of Dr. John Beattie Crozier lyle’s invisible influence (and also show (1849–1921), the author of History of Intel- the facility with which English opinions lectual Development on the Lines of Modern crossed the Atlantic Ocean). In a 27 Octo- Evolution (1897). In the course of describ- ber 1855 article in the Leader, George Eliot ing Crozier’s intellectual development, (1819–80) was of the opinion that there Stewart relates the following anecdote: was hardly a superior or active mind of this gener- ation that has not been modified by Carlyle’s Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime writings; there has hardly been an English 104 book written for the last ten or twelve years older brother, Canadians could still as- that would not have been different if Carlyle sert that their country maintained blood had not lived. The character of his influence connections with the “Sage of Chelsea.” is best seen in the fact that many of the men The Globe boasted that, although Carlyle who have the least agreement with his opin- died childless, he “left a large circle of ions are those to whom the reading of Sartor relatives, many of whom are in Canada, Resartus was an epoch in the history of their 68 minds. The extent of his influence may be to cherish his memory.” In the Canadi- best seen in the fact that ideas which were an Monthly and National Review alone, six startling novelties when he first wrote them publications on Carlyle appeared during are now become common-places.63 the first year after his death.69 As late as A similar point was made in the obituary 1894, John Sharp, writing in the Queen’s of Carlyle published twenty-six years lat- Quarterly, could claim a place for Carlyle’s er in the Toronto Globe. According to the criticism in contemporary Canada: Monday, 7 February 1881, edition, Carlyle Carlyle began his work in an age when the stands in the very front rank of English litter- selfishness of men was regarded as one of ateurs, not so much on account of the great the highest evidences of divine providence, amount of work he accomplished during Bentham, Ricardo, Mill, were the names to his long literary life as of his widespread and conjure with, and it was held that if men enduring influence on all modern thought. were let alone, society would run itself. . . . In Many writers, and a still greater number of this vortex or rather co-mingling of vortices thinkers, have been more or less moulded Carlyle was the first Englishman to discern by his views and opinions who are not them- and herald the order which was struggling selves conscious of the spell under which through the disorder. . . . It may be added that they developed, and some of whom have very notwithstanding the changes of the past sixty little acquaintance with his writings. Of him years Carlyle’s criticism of society is still vital, and the light which he brought to the prob- more than of any other English writer, living 70 or dead, it may truly be said that his thoughts lems of his day may still be a torch to us. have saturated the intellectual life of his day, Not only is Sharp’s essay an argument and imparted to it their own colour and about Carlyle; it is also a document on 64 tone. the peculiar influence that Carlyle exert- Both in the Leader and also the Globe, Car- ed in Canada long after his death. lyle is described in terms that cannot Carlyle’s importance to Canadian au- be quantified. “Moulded opinions and thors during colonial times is best seen views” are matters of perception that are by the degree to which his ideas are dis- themselves untraceable. seminated in the writing of two signifi- The language of Carlyle’s other Cana- cant groups: British emigrant writers, dian obituaries further evidences his en- and writers who subscribed to the Loy- during popularity. The Globe spoke about alist myth. His doctrine of responsibility his “grim but not unkindly humour,” focusing on labor as an indicator of per- and predicted that his “predominating sonal worth is at the moral core of Alex- influence would not be confined to his ander McLachlan’s (1818–96) writing; and own generation.”65 Similarly, the Mon- his idealization of an organic communi- treal Gazette observed that his “vigour and ty in which the practice of hero-worship earnestness, produced an effect on both is respected, and in which the need for hearer and reader which had scarcely social continuity with the past is cher- a precedent in modern time.”66 Indeed, ished, is at the heart of Kirby’s construc- Carlyle’s impact on Canadian society tion of the United Empire Loyalist myth is palpable from the sheer number of (as it is in the writings of Ralph Connor obituaries that appeared in Canada both [1860–1937], the best-selling writer in the in city and small-town newspapers, from English-speaking world in the 1890s). In the Ottawa Daily Citizen and the Toronto Eve- all these writers, treatments of Carlyle’s ning Telegram to the St. Mary’s Argus, the lat- key doctrines are infused with humor: ter proclaiming that the “announcement humor allows McLachlan to elevate the [of his death] will be heard throughout the entire world with regret.”67 While Alexander Carlyle had predeceased his Nineteenth Century Studies 105 working man, while it enables Kirby to munity. As Catharine Parr Traill observes humanize his portrait of Sir Isaac Brock in The Backwoods of Canada (1836) and Su- (1769–1812). sanna Moodie likewise recognizes in Although the four-stages theory that Roughing It in the Bush, the leisured class underpins many early Canadian concep- was unsuited to life in Canada. A gentle- tions of social development argued that man, Traill warns her readers, “brings a fully developed country allows its citi- with him a mind unfitted to his situa- zens time for leisure, emigrant literature tion; and even if necessity compels him written in and about Canada during the to exertion, his labour is of little value.”74 colonial period is deeply indebted to Moodie concurs: “To the poor, industri- Carlyle’s valuation of work over recre- ous working man it [Canada] presents ation.71 As noted above, Carlyle’s worship many advantages; to the poor gentleman, of work was one reason why his philoso- none!”75 (Notably, one of Moodie’s greatest phy was opposed to Benthamism, since embarrassments mentioned in Rough- he argued that a notion of happiness that ing It in the Bush is her inability to milk is measured solely by material posses- cows.) In a world sans social registry, the sions, leisure, and mirth, is not a mean- very unsuitableness of gentlemen – and ingful goal for any individual’s life, let ladies – to colonial life meant that other alone for the life of a society; such happi- standards for social status than inherited ness is a mere byproduct of striving. “It is ones would apply. Carlyle professes in not what a man outwardly has or wants,” Chartism that the man who can work is a Carlyle contends in Chartism, “that con- born king: 72 stitutes the happiness or misery of him.” He that can work is a born king of some- Happiness can be acquired, but it is not thing; is in communion with Nature, is mas- properly in itself the product of an indi- ter of a thing or things, is a priest and king vidual’s acquisitiveness. In any case, the of Nature so far. He that can work at nothing Bible does not promise happiness on is but a usurping king, be his trappings what earth; rather, in a Carlylean emphasis, they may; he is the born slave of all things. it insists that “[i]n the sweat of thy face Let a man honour his craftsmanship, his can- 76 shalt thou eat bread” and instructs that do. “[s]ix days shall work be done” for every Carlyle’s regal language proved impor- one day of rest (Gen. 3:19; Exod. 35:2).73 tant to emigrant authors. In an article, Work is peculiarly suited to Carlyle’s “The Dignity of Labour,” which Susanna worldview for a number of reasons. La- Moodie and her husband excerpted from bor is private; regardless of how many Sartor Resartus and printed in their Victoria people work together, an individual’s Magazine (1847–48), Carlyle uses the lan- exertions are his or her own. Labor be- guage of nobility when he describes the comes public when it produces order. “hard hand” of the “toil-worn craftsman” This was often the case in colonial Cana- as “indefeasibly royal, as of the septre [sic] da where, for instance, the labor of clear- of this planet,”77 and this was the idiom of ing land produced tangible results from identity throughout emigrant literature. which neighbors could benefit along Carlyle’s indefeasibly royal scepter of la- with the individual. Moreover, in keep- bor was politically empowering for Max ing with the notion of a whole society in in Isabella Valancy Crawford’s (1850–87) which only active participation brings Malcolm’s Katie (1884), who boasts: “‘We about the full realization of society, such build up nations – this my axe and I!’”78 a society was more living than legislated. In Alexander McLachlan’s poetry, the Labor – both personal and public, but Carlylean labor ethos found perhaps its above all active – was not just a metaphor; most vocal champion. it was a process. McLachlan’s “Acres Of Your Own” In emigrant literature a person’s la- contains the lines, “True men all must bor is the yardstick by which his or her toil and drudge. / Nature’s true Nobility social status is marked within the com- / Scorns such mock gentility,”79 an apho- rism that testifies to the extent to which Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime Carlyle’s ideals influenced the poet’s so- 106 cial outlook. E. H. Dewart (1828–1903), who edited Selections from Canadian Poets Carlylean language of the “orator” who (1864), and who wrote an introductory spurs on his fellow men by asserting that essay for The Poetical Works of Alexander “‘by honest manly toil, / Lords we shall McLachlan (1900), considered McLach- be of the soil.’” He continues in the lexi- lan “the Burns of Canada,” and saw at con of aristocracy, claiming that ‘“[w]hen play in his work the relation of “racy a job is well begun, / Success crowns the humor” to “natural pathos,”80 a humor- persevering.’”84 ous pathos that is also the hallmark of Work not only signified social rank Carlylean humor. Perhaps this connec- and self-worth, but also placed the soli- tion is why E. Margaret Fulton prefers to tary woodsman or farmer, laboring in name McLachlan “the Carlyle of Cana- the wilderness, in contact with the sub- da.”81 McLachlan’s “Up, and Be a Hero” lime. Like Saint Paul, Carlyle discerned clearly is patterned on Carlyle’s lectures that the creation of order through labor on hero-worship. “High heroic deeds brought him closer to his own creator: are done,” he claims in the poem, “With- “All true Work is sacred; in all true Work, out either sword or gun.” McLachlan’s were it but true hand-labour, there is sense of the heroic is Carlylean in that something of divineness,” he declares in his metaphor links together intellectual Past and Present; and in the passage quoted and working-class endeavors, the hero by the Moodies from Sartor Resartus, he sowing the “seed which must be sown” expresses how “[u]nspeakably touching – which of course suggests farming – “[i] is it” when he finds “both dignities unit- n the mighty fields of thought.”82 Fulton ed: and he that must toil outwardly for describes how McLachlan echoed Car- the lowest of man’s wants, is also toiling lyle’s social outlook in his poetry and in inwardly for the highest.”85 McLachlan the speeches he delivered during a series describes the combined work of a num- of lecture tours in Canada: “Carlyle had ber of men cutting the first tree as “a taken very seriously his task of raising kind of sacrament.”86 Labor is ennobling the ‘British heathen’ to nobler ideals by according to emigrant writing because it preaching the gospel of work, duty, and ennobles the soul, bringing the sublime silent reverence for God.” Like Carlyle, within reach of the understanding and McLachlan making the poor self-reliant and respon- 87 undertook a series of lecture tours where he sible. McLachlan’s humorous treatment spoke to mechanics and tradespeople, as well of the theme of labor in Canada serves as to the more educated classes. He, too, as- a serious purpose by elevating the com- sumed the role of “man of letters” in an effort mon man and dignifying his work, an to elevate the whole tone of man’s thinking, aim that is consistent with Carlyle’s so- and to raise the whole cultural level in Can- cial outlook and with his literary theo- ada. Poems like “Heroes,” “Gladstone,” and ries.88 Labor was the metaphoric church “Garibaldi” suggest the influence of Carlyle’s and castle of emigrant writing, and this Heroes and Hero Worship; and the subject for a lecture at Queen’s College, Kingston, was theme also proved a component of the “Great Men.” Clearly McLachlan in his way United Empire Loyalist myth. was attempting to do for Canada what Carlyle The Loyalist myth in Ontario during with his lecture series was doing for England, the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods and Emerson for the United States. If the re- held a vital position in the historical and views of the day are to be trusted, McLachlan literary productions from this period was no less successful than either Carlyle or and helped to define and assert a con- Emerson.83 servative ethos, one effect of which was “Cutting the First Tree” in McLachlan’s the bringing together of disparate com- long poem, The Emigrant (1861), is a study munities from Niagara to Kingston and of the Carlylean idealization of labor and beyond. According to Dennis Duffy, the the community, and it is also infused Loyalist myth “was not a matter of an- with humor. The Emigrant includes the cient precedent and philosophical posi- comic figure of “lazy Bill” who prefers tions alone, but a view shaped by specif- pessimistic speeches to honest work. His humorous diatribe is opposed by the Nineteenth Century Studies 107 ic, recollected, ordered, and embellished a foundation for the future in an ideal- historical events.”89 Nowhere was it more ized past.”93 In The U.E., that past contains strongly asserted than in the writing of a place where “toil repays” and where Kirby who, like McLachlan, admired and “Schoolmen” “learn that serving God adopted Carlyle’s doctrines, transplant- is love to man.”94 In Canadian Idylls, that ing them in New World soil. In Kirby’s place in the past is also one of supreme writing, Loyalist history is translated into order. Remembering a state that never a near-biblical account of paradise lost truly existed, Kirby laments: (the Loyalist migration from the United The world goes rushing by States after 1783), paradise regained (the The ancient landmarks of a nobler time, – creation of peaceable communities in When men bore deep the impress of the law the Canadian wilderness), and paradise Of duty, truth, and loyalty unstained.95 defended and secured (the War of 1812– Order was the byword of the United 14, the Rebellion of 1837, the Fenian Raids Empire Loyalists in Kirby’s rendering of of 1866). The fact that a small army of their history, but equally important was British soldiers and natives had, with the the manner in which order was created. help of Loyalist volunteers, defeated a Carlyle wrote in “Characteristics” that numerically superior enemy during the “[i]t is not by Mechanism, but by Reli- War of 1812–14 seemingly testified to Kir- gion; not by Self-interest, but by Loyalty, by’s belief in Loyalist destiny. His treat- 96 ment of the three mythological stages of that men are governed or governable,” Loyalist settlement is indebted to a Car- and Kirby’s history of the Servos family lylean belief in labor, order, and heroism, identifies Carlylean order as the stron- and his depiction of an ideal community gest principle guiding the United Em- is bolstered by the unifying power of hu- pire Loyalists’ exodus from the United mor as embodied in his hero. States. In The United Empire Loyalists in Can- Kirby’s admiration for Carlyle is re- ada: Illustrated Memorials of the Servos Family, peatedly evident in his Annals of Niagara he pronounces: “While the United States (1896). In the opening chapter, Kirby in- lost the very best and most moral of their troduces his history of Loyalism with a people, Canada was the gainer by having Carlylean exhortation: its territory settled and the foundation of its greatness laid by the advent of these Riches are deceitful if they occupy too exclu- loyal, high-principled men, who pre- sively our thoughts and energies in their ac- ferred starting the world anew in the wil- quisition. Pleasures and pastimes that are not derness, rather than be untrue to their the allowable relaxation of honest work or study, weaken the hands and dull the edge of King and the British flag, which was their 97 the intellect – deadening the better feelings own native symbol.” The post–Revolu- which dignify and adorn true manhood.90 tionary War migration into Canada was predicated on loyalty and resulted in the In “The Hungry Year” (1859), Kirby de- bringing of order – stability – into Cana- scribes Canada, as Carlyle did, as a “land da. William Renwick Riddell notes that of labour, but of sure reward.”91 His long Kirby “stressed that part of Canadian life poem, The U.E.: A Tale of Upper Canada which most nearly corresponded to his (written in 1846 and published in 1859) English ideal”: begins in Carlylean fashion by imagin- ing an idyllic past in which labor is en- He was himself, and always thought and wrote nobling. In Kirby’s Edenic history, people of the great mass of Canadians as contented, “In cheerful labours pass their peaceful conservative and intensely patriotic, with no love for drastic political measures, or even re- days, / While grateful evening all their form, and firmly believing in the doctrines of 92 toil repays.” D. M. R. Bentley intimates the Established Church of England.98 the close connection between Kirby’s long poem and Carlylean doctrine: “As The American Revolution was for Kirby the machinery that would produce Con- the historical cataclysm that the French federation ground forward, Kirby sought Revolution had been for Carlyle, repre- senting the triumph of unwholesome passions over order.99 In order to pre- Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime serve the type of society the United Em- 108 pire Loyalists imagined, Carlyle posited Colonel Brock had the social qualities of the need for hero-worship. In On Heroes, a popular member of society as well as of a he wrote that the great man’s “mission is gallant officer. . . . His good humour and affa- Order; every man’s is. He is here to make bility won their hearts, and man, woman and what was disorderly, chaotic, into a thing child loved and honoured Colonel Brock, de- claring he was the equal of [Lieutenant-Gov- ruled, regular. He is the missionary of ernor of Upper Canada, John Graves] Simcoe 100 Order.” [1752–1806], and higher praise than that they While critics would increasingly con- could not give. . . . His visits to the houses of demn Carlylean hero worship (especially the farmers were hailed as the happiest of after the First World War), Chesterton events.104 emphasized the humanity of Carlyle’s he- Brock’s good humor produces and de- roes and his hero-worship: fends social harmony. Kirby’s Brock His view is not that human nature is so vul- resembles Carlyle’s Cromwell. In his gar and silly a thing that it must be guided lecture on “The Hero as King,” Carlyle and driven; it is, on the contrary, that human praises the “depth and tenderness” of nature is so chivalrous and fundamentally Cromwell, “the quantity of sympathy he magnanimous a thing that even the meanest had with things, – the quantity of in- have it in them to love a leader more than sight he would yet get into the heart of themselves, and to prefer loyalty to rebel- 105 lion. When he speaks of this trait in human things.” The Carlylean warrior does nature Carlyle’s tone invariably softens. We not rule by physical force alone but also feel that for the moment he is kindled with by the force of sympathetic insight. The admiration of mankind, and almost reaches same is true of Kirby’s Brock. The passage the verge of Christianity. Whatever else was in which Kirby describes Brock’s ami- acid and captious about Carlyle’s utterances, ability and humanness may be indebted his hero worship was not only humane, it directly or indirectly to Carlyle’s inverse was almost optimistic. He admired great men sublime, and it suggests as well the social primarily, and perhaps correctly, because he philosophy of harmony and geniality in- thought that they were more human than tegral to neo-Loyalist writers during the other men.101 Confederation period. It was this style of The softening of tone Chesterton ob- humor that Archibald Lampman would serves in Carlyle’s treatment of heroes is endorse and that a generation of Cana- consistent with the sage’s theory of hu- dian humorists, including Sara Jean- mor. What Chesterton describes when nette Duncan (1861–1922), L. Maud Mont- he writes that Carlyle sees great men as gomery, and Stephen Leacock, would “more human than other men” is the in- produce during the first quarter of the verse sublime. This notion of humanistic twentieth century. heroism is at the heart of Carlyle’s humor and is a vital aspect of Kirby’s treatment CARLYLE, CANADIAN EDUCATORS, of Sir Isaac Brock in Annals of Niagara. THE CONFEDEREATION POETS, AND In Annals, Kirby calls Brock “the Hero THE CONFEDERATION HUMORISTS of Upper Canada,” and he describes him In a 1946 letter to the writer Duncan in a sonnet commemorating a large Campbell Scott (1862–1947), the critic stone, called “Brock’s Seat,” as being able E. K. Brown (1905–51) chides himself for “to unlock / The people’s hearts and fill 102 “not get[ting] much writing done these them from his own.” In Kirby’s render- days.” He explains that he is “reading in- ing, Brock is not godlike. He is a human stead. I have decided to offer a course on hero, and it is precisely his humanity – Carlyle next quarter, and need to read his sympathy – that makes Brock heroic. and reread much. It is more than a de- “How much lies in Laughter,” Carlyle cade since I read the French Revolution; and declares in Sartor Resartus, “the cipher- I am glad that it seems even better now key, wherewith we decipher the whole 106 103 than it did then.” Even after the First man!” In the Annals, Kirby’s depiction of World War, after his importance had di- Brock includes an important statement about the power of humor to unite the residents of Niagara in a heroic cause: Nineteenth Century Studies 109 minished in Europe, Carlyle’s philosophy serve both as an endorsement of Car- remained important to many Canadians lylean hero-worship, and also as an at- – even to some Canadian modernists. As tempt to replicate its heroic spirit. suggested earlier, the reason for his stay- In 1885, two years after penning “Gam- ing power may have had something to betta,” Lampman again found inspiration do with the adaptability of his doctrines in Carlyle’s writing, this time in Sartor Re- to the Canadian sociopolitical environ- sartus, for his fairy tale, “Hans Fingerhut’s ment. Carlyle preached a gospel of so- Frog-lesson.” Lampman’s fairy tale is the cial wholeness, of organic relationships story of a poet, Hans Fingerhut, who, be- between individuals and communities, cause of his unrequited vanity, becomes which suited the Canadian situation af- increasingly “peevish and querulous” ter Confederation. to the point that no one will listen to Of the Confederation poets who came him anymore. Having lost his audience, under Carlyle’s spell, none was more pro- Hans becomes a tailor, but his personal foundly influenced and influential than descent continues. Hans (impotently) Archibald Lampman. The historical vi- assaults a river for speaking in beautiful sion and heroic ideology behind his es- murmurs and, as one might expect in a say on “Gambetta” (1883) has its roots in fairy tale, he is punished by being magi- Carlyle’s On Heroes and The French Revolu- cally transformed into a frog, and he tion (1837). Lampman names and quotes must remain in that state until he can Carlyle three times in order to describe correctly interpret the water’s song.109 the pulse of French history and Léon Bentley writes in his introduction to The Gambetta’s (1838–82) heroism, arguing, Fairy Tales of Archibald Lampman that “the There are times in every nation, especially very fact that Hans Fingerhut is a tailor that of the French with their vehement and aligns him with the craftsmen in several . sensitive, but at the same time light and . . of the Grimms’ fairy tales . . . , but herein changeable character, when some ill-govern- lies a significant difference: Hans is not ment, some hollow “formula,” has rested so simply a tailor but, by virtue of his frog- long upon the people, that all the pulses of lesson, a tailor re-tailored (sartor resartus) the national spirit are deadened, and life it- along Carlylean lines so that he is no lon- self to every active thinking man becomes a ger angry, bitter, and out of tune with the heavy, wearisome, unbearable thing, and men 110 begin to cry to one another in their different, natural world.” While the clothing met- dim ways for something living, something aphor also has a Swiftian quality, perhaps human, they know not what – but know that suggesting A Tale of a Tub, Hans’s rebirth is some new thing must come – times in which similar to Teufelsdröckh’s. Both emerge the old and known leaders of the people have from a spiritual crisis and embrace a pos- lost all heart or know not in what way to set itive worldview. themselves to the gigantic work. Then rises In “The Modern School of Poetry in the brave, powerful, original man whose soul England” (1885), Lampman expounds on is carried away in the untrammeled tide of the humorous pathetic in a manner that energy and hope, who knows no fear or any resembles Carlyle’s discussion of humor- other retarding impulse – the man too with ous sympathy in his essay on “Schiller,” an “eye,” as Carlyle would say – and tells the people in words of fire, that are borne upon an essay that Lampman quotes, before the four winds to every corner of the earth, almost immediately engaging in a dis- just what it is they all want.107 cussion about how humorous geniality is fundamental to the work of true poets: Lampman’s disdain for formulas is simi- lar to Carlyle’s. His discussion of French The work of all the greatest poets has been character, as D. M. R. Bentley has noted, very varied, and it has been very genial. Look- ing with a wide and hearty and sympathetic is likewise drawn from Carlyle;108 and the eye upon all life, they have touched innumer- very language of his essay, Lampman’s able notes, and have absorbed themselves “words of fire, that are borne upon the readily into every phase of its humour or pa- four winds to every corner of the earth” thos. They have laughed and wept with living men and women; and in their laughter is the kindliness of a large heart, in their sadness Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime the sweetness of brotherly sympathy.111 110 In his discussion, Lampman uses terms are wrapped up in their own ideas of better- (“pathos,” “kindliness,” “brotherly sym- ing the world, are perfectly incapable of look- pathy”) that are resolutely Carlylean. ing at the ridiculous side of anything. On the Humor is integral to Lampman’s view other hand, the great reformers of all ages of serious poetry (as it is to Carlyle’s), have been intensely susceptible to humour, and appreciated it to the fullest extent. Hence although today the two genres are not all of the greatest humorists have been close- generally considered together. In a lat- ly identified with the world’s progress.114 er essay, “Happiness” (1896), Lampman maintains that “[a] quick sense of humor Campbell’s dissertation on humor is is surely one of the happiest of mortal fired with the passionate conviction of possessions,” and that humor generates a a literary man who considered literary “kindly feeling,” “tenderness,” and “toler- theory to have a practical application ance” because, for him, humor is a force beyond the printed page. In this he re- of moderation that allows for clear judg- sembles Carlyle. Campbell’s association ment.112 of humor with “great reformers” is a Carlyle’s and Lampman’s theories of nod to both Carlyle and Dickens, and his humor were shared and endorsed by “intense zealots” are similar to the older other members of the Confederation philosopher’s humorless man in Sartor group who were attempting to create Resartus whose “whole life is already a 115 and define a patriotic literature. Indeed, treason and a stratagem.” Campbell and the most striking example of the pen- others continued to praise Carlyle’s writ- etration of Carlyle’s theories on humor ing and to espouse his theories long after into Confederation thought may be the philosopher’s death; as a result, Car- found in Charles G. D. Roberts’s In Divers lyle’s influence on Canadian authorship 116 Tones (1886). His inclusion in his dedica- continued to be strong. tion to the journalist Joseph Edmund The Halifax scholar and contem- Collins (1855–92) of the lines “Where the porary of Lampman, Archibald Mac- light laughters ring / You may detect Mechan, described the same sadness in a tear,” which indicate the emotional, Carlyle’s humor and gave it a name that even moral content of laughter, recalls resonates in Canadian theories of hu- Carlyle’s statement that “[t]rue humour mor: humorous melancholy. In MacMechan, springs not more from the head than Carlyle’s philosophies found one of their from the heart; it is not contempt, its es- ablest and most vocal adherents, and sence is love; it issues not in laughter, but MacMechan in turn played a significant in still smiles, which lie far deeper.”113 And role in the literary development of two William Wilfred Campbell’s (1860–1918) Confederation humorists, Sara Jeannette discussion of humor in an 1892 column Duncan and Stephen Leacock. In the for the Globe is a tacit endorsement of 1880s, MacMechan completed a B.A. at Carlyle’s treatment of humor in Sartor Re- the University of Toronto and he wrote sartus and of Carlyle himself: about his experiences and his influences in “Reminiscences of Toronto Univer- On my humble bookshelves a place has ever sity”: been set apart as sacred to volumes of wit and humour. I cannot exactly understand When Toronto men of the early eighties call the nature of a man who is impervious to the that time Toronto’s Age of Gold, they are influences of this essential department of lit- thinking chiefly of certain hearts of gold, erature. Like Shakespeare’s man who did not which every test of time only proves true appreciate music, he would seem to me a sort metal. But it is just possible that the dons of of moral monstrosity, lacking one of the qual- the day did not hold precisely this opinion. ities that go to constitute an all round person- We were undoubtedly a licentious crew. . . . ality. He may be a heavyweight, to use a sport- We read Sartor for the Blumine episode; we ing expression, in the affairs of life, but he is despised “gig men”; our greatest oath was by among his fellows but bread without leaven, Saint Thomas of Carlyle.117 sandwich without the mustard, wine without MacMechan’s interest in Carlyle con- the sparkle; and, no matter what may be his ideas or qualities as a worker, such a man is sure in the end to be a failure. . . . Men and women of an intensely zealous nature, who Nineteenth Century Studies 111 tinued long after graduation. He edited patriarchs of Canadian literary studies. North American editions of Sartor Resar- His conclusion to Head-waters is particu- tus (1896) and of Carlyle on Heroes, Hero-Wor- larly striking in speaking to the respect ship, and the Heroic in History (1901).118 In the that Canadian critics and academics held classroom, he remained devoted to the for the work of humorists. After assess- Sage of Chelsea. In an appreciation pub- ing the field of Canadian authorship, he lished in the Dalhousie Review the year of names two Confederation humorists, MacMechan’s death, a former student, G. Duncan and Leacock, as belonging to C. Sedgwich, explained that “Archie was posterity.123 Duncan had written to Mac- proud of being and remaining a Victori- Mechan on 4 May 1905, to thank him for an”; and Wilhelmina Gordon (1886–1968), his review of her work: “I need not say writing in the Queen’s Quarterly that same that I have taken the greatest pleasure in year, described how “Carlyle profoundly your generous expression of liking for influenced him.” MacMechan, she notes, The Imperialist” (1904), she begins; “I con- “called himself ‘a professed Carlylean,’ fess I had wondered, a little here on my and [he] had analysed the style of Sartor remote hill top, whether anybody had as admiringly as the thought.”119 listened to me in Canada and had come MacMechan’s discussion of Carlyle’s rather to the conclusion that I had been humor in his introduction to Sartor Resar- too far away to be well heard, or perhaps tus places Carlylean humor in line with I had forgotten my country’s note.”124 It what MacMechan calls in later discus- is a measure of his penetration, of his sions of Alfred Tennyson (1809–92) and critical insight, that MacMechan, ahead Herman Melville (1819–91) the “humour of the majority of critics of his genera- of the North.” He writes: “the essence tion, recognized Duncan’s achievement of . . . [Carlyle’s humor in Sartor Resartus] as he had Melville’s. He was also aware consists in a juxtaposition of the remote of Montgomery’s work. She had been and the incongruous with the result of his student at Dalhousie University, and awakening a feeling of amusement or he adroitly picked up on the realism in of scorn or of sadness.” It is the third of her comedy, writing in his Head-waters these, Carlyle’s ability to turn “the jest that Anne of Green Gables (1908) “is per- into sadness,” that MacMechan also ob- vaded with a sense of reality; the pitfalls serves in Tennyson and Melville.120 In his of the sentimental are deftly avoided.”125 introduction to Select Poems of Alfred Ten- In MacMechan, the “professed Car- nyson (1907), MacMechan describes Ten- lylean,” all three Confederation humor- nyson’s humor as “deep and rich.” Of Ten- ists found a strong supporter within the nyson’s earlier poems, he explains that upper echelon of Canadian scholarship. “[t]he beauty of the form makes us forget MacMechan corresponded with Dun- the eternal note of sadness in them all. can, taught Montgomery, and concluded Tennyson’s sadness is the melancholy of Head-waters of Canadian Literature with an the North, which is quite compatible endorsement of Duncan’s and Leacock’s with a gift of humor.”121 In his ground- work. All three Canadian humorists be- breaking essay on Moby Dick (1851), enti- came internationally famous for works tled “‘The Best Sea-Story Ever Written,’” that incorporated Carlyle’s theories of and published at a time when Melville humor and that legitimated his organic was a forgotten man, MacMechan reads doctrines. in Melville’s “humour . . . the usual tinge Nowhere was Carlyle’s influence of Northern melancholy.”122 more evident during the early years of As a critic of Carlyle, Tennyson, and the twentieth century than on this gener- Melville, MacMechan’s scholarship was ation of Canadian humorists born with- substantial and his position in Cana- in a few years of each other at the time dian letters remains considerable. Mac- of Confederation. As late as 1938, in his Mechan authored Head-waters of Cana- Humor and Humanity, Leacock expressed dian Literature (1924), and was one of the Carlyle’s comic theory: “Humor in its highest reach touches the sublime,” Lea- cock writes; “humor in its highest reach Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime mingles with pathos: it voices sorrow 112 for our human lot and reconciliation tions in England during the industrial revolu- with it.”126 Leacock and the Leacockean tion. middle way, which combined conserva- 10. G. B. Tennyson observes the influence tive and socialist values in a Tory political of German idealism on Carlyle, and he traces the influence of Carlyle’s translations of Ger- view, reflects Carlyle’s closest comic rela- man authors on Anglo–German literary his- tion. Carlyle’s dictum, from “The Hero as tory: “Between 1824 and 1831 Carlyle produced Poet,” that no one should laugh “at mere a body of work that alone would have suf- 127 weakness, at misery or poverty; never” ficed to secure him an important place in is often repeated in Leacock’s critical and Anglo–German literary history. His transla- theoretical arguments about human- tions and essays infused new vigor into the izing humor; and Carlyle’s sublime hu- waning cult of Germanism and gave it a dif- mor, a humor that mingles comedy and ferent and much more intellectual direction.” pathos, is integral to Duncan’s Imperialist The distinction between rationalism and in- and Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. tuitive rationalism is that “Carlyle’s artist, or, Adopting and adapting Carlyle’s doc- as he always called him, the poet, must like the philosopher see through appearances and trines of social wholeness and comic har- employ what Carlyle would call Kantian rea- mony for a late-Victorian and Edwardian son as opposed to mere Understanding” (Sar- readership, the Confederation humorists tor Called Resartus: The Genesis, Structure, and Style gave his humor its fullest expression. of Thomas Carlyle’s First Major Work [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965], 66, 90).

NOTES It should be noted, however, that many critics do not attribute Carlyle’s notion of Kantian 1. Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and reason to his reading but to his misreading of the Heroic in History, in The Works of Thomas Car- German idealism. See, as Tennyson suggests, lyle, ed. with an introduction by H. D. Traill, C. F. Harrold, Carlyle and German Thought: 1819– 30 vols. (1896–99; New York: AMS, 1969), 5:205 1834 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1934), 120–147. (lecture 6, “The Hero as King”). 11. Against natural rights, Carlyle poses 2. Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, in Works, duty, and he offers the following fraction in ed. Traill, 1:57 (bk. 1, chap. 11). Sartor Resartus: “‘Obedience is our universal 3. Ibid., 206 (bk. 3, chap. 8). duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not 4. Ibid., 23 (bk. 1, chap. 4). bend must break: too early and too thor- 5. Carlyle, On Heroes, 109 (lecture 3, “The oughly we cannot be trained to know that Hero as Poet”). Would, in this world of ours, is as mere zero 6. Thomas Carlyle, review of The Dominie’s to Should, and for most part as the smallest of Legacy, by Andrew Picken (1788–1833), Fraser’s fractions even to Shall’” (p. 79 [bk. 2, chap. 2]). Magazine (1830): 318–35, 322. Later, he has Teufelsdröckh explain that “‘the 7. Richard J. Dunn, “‘Inverse Sublimity’: whim we have of Happiness is somewhat Carlyle’s Theory of Humour,” University of To- thus. By certain valuations, and averages, of ronto Quarterly 1 (1970): 41–57, 42. our own striking, we come upon some sort of 8. Major publications during this period average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs include German Romance (1827), “Signs of the to us by nature, and of indefeasible right. It is Times” (1829), “Characteristics” (1831), Sartor simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; Resartus, History of the French Revolution (1837), requires neither thanks nor complaint; only Chartism (1839), On Heroes, Hero–Worship, and such overplus as there may be do we account the Heroic in History (1841), and Past and Present Happiness; any deficit again is Misery. . . . So (1843). true is it, what I then said, that the Fraction of 9. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature Life can be increased in value not so much by increas- and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Buffalo: Pro- ing your Numerator as by lessening your Denomina- metheus, 1991), 351, 343. In the same year as the tor. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive me, Unity publication of The Wealth of Nations, Bentham itself divided by Zero will give Infinity. Make articulated his utilitarian principle (“the thy claim of wages a zero, then; thou hast the greatest happiness of the greatest number”) world under thy feet’” (pp. 152–53 [bk. 2, chap. in the preface to A Fragment on Government; see 9]). Jeremy Bentham, A Comment on the Commentar- 12. Thomas Carlyle, Chartism, in Works, ed. ies and a Fragment on Government, ed. J. H. Burns Traill, 29:118–204, 189 (chap. 9). and H. L. A. Hart (London: Athlone, 1977), 13. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolu- 393. Later generations of Victorian theorists would continue the work of these Enlight- enment economists and modify it to suit the rapidly changing economic and social condi- Nineteenth Century Studies 113 tion in France, ed. J. C. D. Clark (Stanford, Calif.: collected in The Clockmaker, or, the Sayings and Stanford University Press, 2001), 185, 170. Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville, a work that 14. Thomas Carlyle, “Characteristics,” in garnered international fame for Haliburton Works, ed. Traill, 28:1–43, 38. (available at http://www.gutenberg.org/ 15. Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, in dirs/etext05/clckm10a.txt [accessed 1 July Works, ed. Traill, 10:165 (bk. 3, chap. 5). 2009]). The Clockmaker predates Carlyle’s Past 16. Again there is a strong resonance of and Present by seven years, having been first Burke in Carlyle’s claims. In his Reflections, published in London and Halifax, Nova Sco- Burke writes that a “state without the means tia, in 1836. It should be noted in this passage of some change is without the means of its that Carlyle decries the social irresponsibility conservation” (p. 170). Like Carlyle, Burke be- of English, not American, Sam Slicks. Never- lieved that social stasis was impossible, but theless, the argument is between permanence that change should be gradual and that it and inconstancy, and the naming of (if not a should be arrived at with a view to the past direct reference to) Haliburton’s celebrated because “[p]eople will not look forward to creation suggests that the influence of Carlyle posterity, who never look backward to their on Canadian writers was not strictly one way. ancestors” (p. 184). 25. George Meredith to Frederick A. 17. Leigh Hunt, “Mr. Bannister,” in Dramatic Maxse, 15 January 1866, in The Letters of George Essays, ed. William Arder and Robert W. Lowe Meredith, ed. C. L. Cline, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clar- (London: Walter Scott, 1894), 29–40, 38. endon, 1970), 1:326–28, 327. 18. Carlyle, review of “The Dominie’s Leg- 26. G. K. Chesterton, “Thomas Carlyle,” in acy,” 322. Varied Types (1903; reprint, Freeport, N.Y.: Books 19. Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s (1796- for Libraries, 1968), 109–22, 111–12. 1865) preface to Traits of American Humour, by 27. Peter Allan Dale, “Sartor Resartus and the Native Authors, 3 vols. (London: Colburn, 1852), Inverse Sublime: The Art of Humorous De- 1:v–xviii, suggested that American newspaper construction,” in Allegory, Myth, and Symbol, ed. humor, the humor of the masses, was too Morton W. Bloomfield (Cambridge, Mass.: indelicate for English tastes. Haliburton felt Harvard University Press, 1981), 293–312, 302. the need to edit his materials into an “unob- 28. Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub, in Gulliver’s jectionable shape” (p. xviii) before presenting Travels, A Tale of a Tub, Battle of the Books, with an them to English readers because, “[a]s they introduction by Carl Van Doren (New York: were designed for ‘the million,’ among whom Modern Library, 1931), 341–513, 402–16 (sect. 2). the scenes are laid, rather than the educated 29. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 45 (bk. 1, chap. 9). class, they were found to contain many ex- 30. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. pressions unfit for the perusal of the latter, Macpherson (New York: Penguin, 1968), 125 which I have deemed it proper to expunge” (pt. 1, chap. 6). (p. xii). Haliburton believed that American 31. Sigmund Freud, Wit and Its Relation to the tastes were as democratic as their nation. If Unconscious, trans. A. A. Brill (New York: Mof- a nation’s political creed did indeed have an fat, Yard, 1916), 146–74. impact on its sense of humor, as Carlyle him- 32. Hobbes, Leviathan, 125 (pt. 1, chap. 6). self argued, the American democratic sys- 33. The belief that humor could disguise tem could only provide an indifferent comic immoral purposes is expressed in early Cana- yield, regardless of the girth of its field. As dian literature by Susanna Moodie, who de- Carlyle would soon claim in Chartism, democ- scribes the “Land–Jobber” in Roughing It in the racy is, “by the nature of it, a self-cancelling Bush (1852) as being a “humorist . . . because he business” (Carlyle, Chartism, 29:158). found that jokes and fun admirably served his 20. Thomas Carlyle to Alexander Carlyle, turn. They helped to throw people off their 26 May 1843, in The Letters of Thomas Carlyle to guard, and to conceal his hang-dog look” (Su- His Brother Alexander with Related Family Letters, sanna Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush, or, Life ed. Edwin W. Marrs Jr. (Cambridge, Mass.: in Canada, 2 vols., reprint (with an afterword Harvard University Press, 1968), 554–57, 556. by Susan Glickman (Toronto: McClelland & 21. Carlyle, Chartism, 158. Stewart, 1989), 235 (vol. 1, chap. 13). 22. Thomas D’Arcy McGee, “The Domin- 34. Carlyle, On Heroes, 109 (lecture 3, “The ion of Canada,” New York Times, 2 July 1867, 1. Hero as Poet”). 23. Carlyle, “Characteristics,” 10–11, 15. 35. Thomas Carlyle, “Voltaire,” in Works, ed. 24. Carlyle, Past and Present, 281 (bk. 4, chap. Traill, 26:396–468, 412. 5). Haliburton’s satirical sketches were origi- 36. Carlyle, Past and Present, 151 (bk. 3, chap. nally published in the Novascotian, and first 3). 37. Donald J. Gray, “The Uses of Victorian Laughter,” Victorian Studies 10, no. 2 (December Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime 1966): 145–176, 152. 114 38. Henri Bergson, Laughter, in Comedy, ed. success, it cannot be doubted that Carlyle Wylie Sypher (New York: Doubleday, 1956), and Dickens shared a common view of hu- 59–190, 123, 105 (chap. 2). mor, as is evident in an anecdote related by 39. Aristotle, Poetics, trans. Ingram Bywater, the American journalist, James Shepherd in Introduction to Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon Pike (1811–82), in a journal entry of 28 April (New York: Random House, 1947) 624–67, 630 1863: “To–night I saw the greatest thing in (chap. 5). London. It was Dickens reading Pickwick’s 40. Abigail Burnham Bloom, “Transcen- Trial to Thomas Carlyle. I thought Carlyle dence through Incongruity: The Background would split, and Dickens was not much bet- of Humor in Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus,” in The ter. Carlyle sat on the front bench and he Victorian Comic Spirit: New Perspectives, ed. Jen- haw–hawed right out over and over again till nifer A. Wagner-Lawlor (Brookfield, Vt.: Ash- he fairly exhausted himself. Dickens would gate, 2000), 153–72, 158. read and then he would stop in order to give 41. Stuart M. Tave, The Amiable Humorist: A Carlyle a chance to stop. Of course the whole Study in the Comic Theory and Criticism of the Eigh- crowded audience were in the same mood teenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Chicago: and the uproar was tremendous. I laughed till University of Chicago Press, 1960), 3. my jaws ached, and I caught myself involun- 42. Hunt, “Mr. Bannister,” 37, 38. tarily stamping. Now and then some fellow 43. Thomas Carlyle, “Jean Paul Friedrich would astonish himself and the audience by Richter,” in Works, ed. Traill, 26:1–25, 15. a loud bawl.” James S. Pike, “Dickens, Carlyle, 44. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 26 (bk. 1, chap. 4). and Tennyson,” Atlantic Monthly 164, no. 6 [De- 45. Tave, The Amiable Humorist, 43–44. cember 1939]: 810–19, 811. 46. Carlyle, “Jean Paul Friedrich Richter,” 58. Sutton, “‘Inverse Sublimity’ in Victorian 15. Humor,” 177. 47. Aristotle, Poetics, 644 (chap. 15), 630 59. Tennyson, Sartor Called Resartus, 277. (chap. 5). 60. See The Book of Common Praise: Being the 48. Carlyle, “Jean Paul Friedrich Richter,” 17. Hymn Book in the Church of England in Canada 49. Thomas Carlyle, “Jean Paul Friedrich (Toronto: Milford, 1908). For Carlyle’s transla- Richter Again,” in Works, ed. Traill, 27:96–159, tion of and commentary on Luther’s psalm, 97. see Thomas Carlyle, “Luther’s Psalm” (1831), in 50. Max Keith Sutton, “‘Inverse Sublimity’ Works, ed. Traill, 27:160–164. in Victorian Humor,” Victorian Studies 10, no. 2 61. Herbert L. Stewart, “A Neglected Cana- (December 1966): 177–92, 192. dian Man of Letters,” Dalhousie Review 1 (1921– 51. Cromwell’s comment to Lely, according 22): 407–17, 409. to Horace Walpole’s (1717–97) account of the 62. Kenneth N. Windsor writes: “To the anecdote, reads in full: “Mr. Lely, I desire you heady nationalism of the turn of the century would use all your skill to paint my picture the physical environment suggested oppor- truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but tunities not limitations, a challenge to hu- remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, man ingenuity and moral purpose not a range and everything as you see me, otherwise I nev- of restricted possibilities,” in part because of er will pay a farthing for it” (Horace Walpole, Carlyle’s “pervasive” influence (“Historical Anecdotes of Painting in England [1762–80], in The Writing in Canada [to 1920],” in Literary History Works of Horatio Walpole, Earl of Oxford, 5 vols. of Canada: Canadian Literature in English, ed. Carl [London: 1798], 3:292). F. Klinck, Alfred G. Bailey, Claude Bissell, Roy 52. Thomas Carlyle, “Wordsworth” (1867), Daniells, Northrop Frye and Desmond Pacey in Reminiscences, ed. James Anthony Froude [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965], (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881), 337. 208–50, 229). 53. Sutton, “‘Inverse Sublimity’ in Victorian 63. George Eliot, “Thomas Carlyle,” in Se- Humor,” 184. lected Essays, Poems and Other Writings, ed. A. S. 54. Thomas Carlyle, “Schiller,” in Works, ed. Byatt and Nicholas Warren (New York: Pen- Traill, 27:165–215, 200. guin, 1990), 343–48, 344. 55. Mildred G. Christian, “Carlyle’s Influ- 64. Obituary of Thomas Carlyle, Globe ( To - ence upon the Social Theory of Dickens. Part ronto), 7 February 1881, 4. One: Their Personal Relationship,” Trollopian 1, 65. Ibid. no. 4 (March 1947): 27–35, 33–34, 35. 66. “Thomas Carlyle,” Montreal Gazette, 7 56. Mildred G. Christian, “Carlyle’s Influ- February 1881, 4. ence upon the Social Theory of Dickens. Part 67. “Thomas Carlyle,” St. Mary’s Argus (St. Two: Their Literary Relationship,” Trollopian 2, Mary’s, Ont.), 7 February 1881, 2. no. 1 (June 1947): 11–26, 11, 19–20. 57. Although Carlyle seems on occasion to have resented the younger man’s financial Nineteenth Century Studies 115 68. Obituary of Thomas Carlyle, Globe, 4. 2, chap. 14). See also Elizabeth Waterston, “Travel Books 76. Carlyle, Chartism, 135 (chap 3). (1880–1920),” in Literary History of Canada, 77. Thomas Carlyle, “The Dignity of La- 347–63, which mentions Carlyle’s sister, Janet bour,” Victoria Magazine, ed. Susanna Moodie Hanning, among the attractions accessible to and J. W. D. Moodie (Vancouver: University tourists traveling to Canada in the 1880s (p. of British Columbia Library, 1968), 120. Su- 353). sanna Moodie and her husband, J. W. Dunbar 69. In the Canadian Monthly and National Moodie (1797–1869), founded the Victoria Mag- Review for 1881, see Fidelis [Agnes Maule azine in Belleville in 1847 in the “hope of in- Machar], “In Memoriam: Thomas Carlyle” ducing a taste for polite literature among the (6 [March 1881]: 316–18); Garet Noel, “Carlyle” working classes (p. 287). The magazine, which (6 [April 1881]: 433–34); William Dawson Le contained mostly their own writing, includ- Sueur, “Carlyle and Comte” (6 [June 1881]: 639– ing significant parts ofRoughing It in the Bush, 42); Louisa Murray, “A Defence of Carlyle’s closed the next year. Their publication of Car- ‘Reminiscences,’ Partly Written by Himself ” (7 lyle in the fifth issue speaks volumes for the [August 1881]: 121–33); Gowan Lea [Mary Mor- Moodies’ estimation of him. The importance gan], “On the Death of Carlyle” (7 [Septem- of Carlyle’s comedy to his social philosophy ber 1881]: 302); Louisa Murray, “Thomas Car- and to emigrant readers is underscored by the lyle and Edward Irving” (7 [September 1881]: fact that the Moodies found this passage on 303–15). With the exception of Le Sueur’s ar- labor in Carlyle’s humorous work, Sartor Re- ticle, which compares Carlyle negatively with sartus (see Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 181–82 [bk. 3, Comte and attacks what Le Sueur perceives chap. 4]). as Carlyle’s lack of system, the various publi- 78. Isabella Valency Crawford, Malcolm’s cations (Noel’s “Carlyle” is a poem, Murray’s Katie, in Early Long Poems on Canada, ed. D. M. “Defence” is ostensibly a book review, Mach- R. Bentley, (London, Ont.: Canadian Poetry ar’s “In Memoriam” is a eulogy) are positive in Press, 1993), 507–50, 532 (sec. 4, line 56). their treatment of both Carlyle and Carlylean 79. Alexander McLachlan, “Acres of Your ideology. Machar’s assertion that Carlyle is Own,” in Songs of the Great Dominion: Voices from “the grandest literary figure of the present the Forests and Waters, the Settlements and Cities of century” (6:316) is typical of the views of Car- Canada, ed. William Douw Lighthall (London: lyle expressed in Canadian Monthly and National Walter Scott, 1889), 115–16, 116. Review during the first year after his death. 80. E. H. Dewart, “Introductory Essay,” in 70. John Sharp, “Some of Carlyle’s Hints to The Poetical Works of Alexander McLachlan (1900), Theology,” Queen’s Quarterly 2 (July 1894): 103–9, reprint, with an introduction by E. Margaret 103. Fulton (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 71. The four-stages theory argued that as 1974), 9–15, 11. a society developed through savage, pastoral, 81. E. Margaret Fulton, introduction to Po- agricultural, and commercial stages, it be- etical Works of Alexander McLachlan, vii–xxi, xiv. came more morally sophisticated. The com- 82. McLachlan, “Up, and Be a Hero,” in Po- mercial stage allowed for more leisure and etical Works of Alexander McLachlan, 93–94. for the pursuit of knowledge. 83. Fulton, introduction to Poetical Works of 72. Carlyle, Chartism, 144 (chap. 5). Alexander McLachlan, xv. 73. Saint Paul uses labor as a metaphor for 84. Alexander McLachlan, The Emigrant, spiritual closeness with God, writing that “ev- in Bentley, ed., Early Long Poems on Canada, 476 ery man shall receive his own reward accord- (chap. 4, sect. 4, line 41), 477 (chap. 4, sect. 6, ing to his own labour. For we are labourers line 85), 478–79 (chap. 4, sect. 7, lines 111–112, together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye 126–27). are God’s building” (1 Cor. 3:8–9); and Carlyle, 85. Carlyle, Past and Present, 201–2 (bk. 3, while in agreement with Paul, expands his chap. 12); Sartor Resartus, 182 (bk. 3, chap. 4). metaphor of constructing God’s building to See Carlyle, “The Dignity of Labour,” Victoria include the social as well as the divine. Magazine, 120. 74. Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of 86. McLachlan, The Emigrant, 476 (chap. 4, Canada: Being Letters from the Wife of an Emigrant sect. 3, line 34). Officer, Illustrative of the Domestic Economy of Brit- 87. Moodie merges self-reliance with the ish America, reprint, with an afterword by D. sublime when she exclaims: “Ah, glorious M. R. Bentley (Toronto: McClelland & Stew- poverty! thou art a hard taskmaster, but in thy art, 1989), 140 (letter 9). soul-ennobling school I have received more 75. Moodie, Roughing it in the Bush, 489 (vol. godlike lessons, have learned more sublime truths, than ever I acquired in the smooth highways of the world! The independent in Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime soul can rise above the seeming disgrace of 116 poverty, and hold fast their integrity, in defi- 36–37). ance of the world and its selfish and unwise 100. Carlyle, On Heroes, 203 (lecture 6, “The maxims. To them, no labour is too great, no Hero as King”). trial too severe” (Roughing It in the Bush, 352 [vol. 101. Chesterton, “Thomas Carlyle,” 118–19. 2, chap. 7]). 102. Kirby, Annals of Niagara, 131, 135 (chap. 88. The belief that Canada was ideally suit- 20). ed to the laboring classes did not belong ex- 103. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 26 (bk. 1, chap. clusively to literate and literary Canadian em- 4). igrants; it was a view held by Carlyle himself. 104. Kirby, Annals of Niagara, 126 (chap. 20). In the same letter in which Carlyle expressed 105. Carlyle, On Heroes, 217 (lecture 6, “The his desire to visit his brother, Alexander, in Hero as King”). Canada (see n. 20, above), he wrote: “Canada, 106. E. K. Brown to Duncan Campbell by Steam and other means, is coming daily Scott, Chicago, 27 November 1946, in The Poet closer to Britain; for my share, I see not but it and the Critic: A Literary Correspondence between D. is likelier the whole of them [the British farm- C. Scott and E. K. Brown, ed. Robert L. McDou- ing class] may have to go out to you if times do gall (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1983), not mend. There is positively no existence for 181. an industrious tiller of the soil in this country 107. Archibald Lampman, “Gambetta,” in in our day” (The Letters of Thomas Carlyle to His The Essays and Reviews of Archibald Lampman, Brother Alexander, 555). Carlyle also promoted ed. D. M. R. Bentley (London, Ont.: Canadian Canada publicly in Chartism: “For all this of the Poetry Press, 1996), 46–57, 47. The other two ‘painless extinction’ [Malthusianism], and the references to Carlyle appear on pp. 51, 54. rest [laissez faire], is in a world where Cana- 108. D. M. R. Bentley, editorial notes to dian Forests stand unfilled, boundless Plains Essays and Reviews of Archibald Lampman, e.g., and Prairies unbroken with the plough; on 220–21. the west and on the east green desert spaces 109. Archibald Lampman, “Hans Finger- never yet made white with corn; and to the hut’s Frog–lesson: A Fairy Tale,” in The Fairy overcrowded little western nook of Europe, Tales of Archibald Lampman, ed. D. M. R. Bentley our Terrestrial Planet, nine-tenths of it yet (London, Ont.: Canadian Poetry Press, 1999), vacant or tenanted by nomades [sic], is still 3–12, 3. crying, Come and till me, come and reap me!” 110. D. M. R. Bentley, introduction to The (Carlyle, Chartism, 203 [chap. 10]). Fairy Tales of Archibald Lampman, i–xxviii, xv– 89. Dennis Duffy, Gardens, Covenants, Exiles: xvi. Loyalism in the Literature of Upper Canada/Ontario 111. Archibald Lampman, “The Modern (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), School of Poetry in England,” in The Essays and 10. Reviews of Archibald Lampman, 58–69, 59. In his 90. William Kirby, Annals of Niagara, ed. editorial notes to Essays and Reviews, Bentley Lorne Pierce (Toronto: Macmillan, 1927), 2. discusses the quotation from Carlyle’s “Schil- 91. William Kirby, “The Hungry Year,” in ler” (pp. 247–48). Canadian Idylls, 2d ed. (Welland, Ont., 1894), 112. Archibald Lampman, “Happiness,” 127–136, 136. “The Hungry Year,” written in 1859, in The Essays and Reviews of Archibald Lamp- was first published in 1888. man, 191–96, 195. For additional discussion of 92. William Kirby, The U.E.: A Tale of Upper Lampman’s use of Carlyle’s social critique, Canada (Niagara, Ont., 1859), 7 (canto 1, sect. see George Wicken, “Prelude to Poetry: ii), available online at http://www.canadiana. Lampman and the Rouge et Noir,” Canadian Po- org/record/36153 (accessed 20 July 2009). etry: Documents, Studies, Reviews 6 (1980): 50–60. 93. D. M. R. Bentley, Mimic Fires: Accounts of Among Wicken’s observations is that Lamp- Early Long Poems in Canada (Montreal: McGill– man’s essay “Friendship,” “with its sweeping Queens University Press, 1994), 226. view of mankind hardened and corrupted by 94. Kirby, The U.E., 7 (canto 1, sect. ii). materialism owes much to Carlyle’s Past and 95. Kirby, “The Hungry Year,” 136. Present” (p. 51). 96. Carlyle, “Characteristics,” 42. 113. Charles G. D. Roberts, In Divers Tones 97. William Kirby, The United Empire Loyal- (Boston: D. Lothrop, 1886), iv; Carlyle, “Jean ists of Canada: Illustrated by Memorials of the Servos Paul Friedrich Richter,” 17. Family (Toronto: Briggs, 1884), 17. 114. Wilfred Campbell, “7 May 1892,” in At 98. William Renwick Riddell, William Kirby the Mermaid Inn: Wilfred Campbell, Archibald (Toronto: Ryerson, 1923), 158. Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott in “The Globe,” 99. Decrying George Washington’s (1732– 1892–93, with an introduction by Barrie Da- 99) disloyalty, Kirby in the Annals of Niagara relates an anecdote in which Carlyle rebukes an American over Washington’s example (pp. Nineteenth Century Studies 117 vies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Stewart, 1924), 238. 1979), 68–69, 68. 124. Sara Jeanette Duncan to Archibald 115. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 26 (bk. 1, chap. MacMechan, 4 May 1905, in The Imperialist: A 4). Critical Edition, ed. Thomas E. Tausky (Ottawa: 116. Carl Berger describes two pivotal Con- Tecumseh, 1996), 311. federation–era educators, George Robert 125. MacMechan, Head-waters, 211. Parkin (1846–1922; principal of Fredericton 126. Stephen Leacock, Humor and Humanity: Collegiate School, 1871–89, and later prin- An Introduction to the Study of Humor (New York: cipal of Upper Canada College, 1895–1902), Henry Holt, 1938), 211. and George Monro Grant (1835–1902; prin- 127. Carlyle, On Heroes, 109. cipal of Queen’s College, 1877–1902), and he places Carlylean doctrine within the realm of education, in general, and suggests a pos- sible connection to the educations of Charles G. D. Roberts and Bliss Carman, in particular. Both of the latter Confederation poets were students at the Fredericton Collegiate School during Parkin’s tenure. Berger writes that Grant and Parkin “were heavily influenced by Carlyle’s conception of the role of great men in the past”; and, as educators, it is not unlikely that they introduced their students to their views on history. This was no passing interest. Berger writes that Grant’s “idoliza- tion of . . . Thomas Carlyle . . . was life–long and intense” (Berger, The Sense of Power: Stud- ies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867–1914 [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970], 220, 24). Berger suggests that Carlyle’s writing may have played a role in the early intellec- tual development of Roberts and Carman in much the same way that it did in that of John Beattie Crozier (1849–1921). 117. Archibald MacMechan, “Reminiscenc- es of Toronto University,” (Toronto: n.d., Ca- nadian Institute for Historical Microproduc- tions microfiche series, no. 89878). 118. Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, ed. Ar- chibald MacMechan (New York: Ginn, 1896); Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero–Worship, and the Heroic in History, ed. Archibald MacMechan (Boston: Ginn, 1901). 119. G. C. Sedgwich, “A.M.,” Dalhousie Review 13 (1933–34): 451–58, 455; Wilhelmina Gordon, “Archibald MacMechan,” Queen’s Quarterly 40 (November 1933): 635–640, 639. 120. MacMechan, introduction to Sartor Resartus, xiii–lxxi, lv, lvi. 121. Archibald MacMechan, introduction to Select Poems of Alfred Tennyson, ed. Archibald MacMechan, (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1907), xv– lviii, lvi. 122. Archibald MacMechan, “‘The Best Sea-Story Ever Written,’” in The Life of a Little College, and Other Papers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), 179–98, 194. 123. Archibald MacMechan, Head-waters of Canadian Literature (Toronto: McClelland & Carlyle’s Inverse Sublime 118