MR. CARLYLE'S SINGING PEERS.
MR. CARLYLE'S last wail over England was appreciated by us in its political bearings at the time of its first appear- ance two months ago in Macmillan's Magazine. It is now repub- lished, with certain additions which have an eccentric pathos of their own. His advice to the young Aristoi, titled and untitled, vocal and silent, has been somewhat expanded, especially as regards the vocal aristoi. For the most part, Mr. Carlyle holds that the titled aristoi will be wise in retiring altogether from the jumble of "Reformed Parliament," and governing silently their own domains, with pri- vate consultations amongst each other, so far as they are competent for it, as to the more general steps needed for beating back anarchy from the realm, and turning chaos into cosmos. Mr. Carlyle
'would doubtless recommend Viscount Amberley, for example, to
retire to his father's Irish estate, and there govern it sedulously and well, without contributing to the Fortnightly Review, or other " geysers " of "soda-water," essays tending to account for the moral sense "instead of bending your thought to have more and more moral sense, and therewith to irradiate your own poor soul and all its work into something of divineness, as the one thing needful to you in this world." But if this young nobleman, or any other titled or untitled of the class of Aristoi, does not feel it his true mission to rule estates and impose rhythmic drill on the peasantry, feels, on the contrary, that he is one of the vocal aristoi, "whose lips God has touched with His hallowed fire," then Mr. Carlyle encourages him "to write the his- tory of England as a kind of BIBLE (or in parts and snatches, to sing it, if you could); this were work for the highest Aristos, or series of .Aristoi, in sacred literature (really a sacred kind, this)," especially if it be interpreted not as in modern times, but by "pious and human interpretation," such, for instance, as Mr._ Carlyle has himself attempted in his life of Cromwell. Those of the Aristoi, in a word, who are silent, are to try to introduce non-vocal "rhythmic drill" into the life of their dependents, and especially into the schools in which the future generation are to be brought up,—a rhythmic drill which is to insist on "simultaneous move- ment and action, which may be practical, symbolic, artistic, mechanical, in all degrees and modes." Those who are vocal are in some way to show that the history of the past is metrical or 'rhythmic,' by themselves chaunting such portions of it as contain the principal key to the rhythm of the whole history. Thus, vocal or non-vocal, the chief object of the Aristoi will be to bring out rhythm, —rhythm in the past capable of suggesting and producing rhythm in the present,—rhythm of action, to be suggested by the singing or chaunting of the noblest portions of English history, till it takes hold of the hearts of rhythmically trained children of our own day, and carries them by
• storm into taking up and prolonging the music of the old heroic deeds. This perpetual emphasis on rhythm, this talk of singing aristoi, of schools trained to non-vocal harmony by "simultaneous move- ments and actions of a symbolic kind," is perhaps the most characteristic touch in the half pathetic, political wail with which Mr. Carlyle sums up his condemnation of the superstitions and idolatries of the age. What he really worships has never been, as has been falsely imputed to him, mere Force. What he admires truly is the strong organization of ordering mind, showing itself capable of transmitting a key-note, as it were, through all lower minds, till the whole of any one society acts together in a sort of metrical unity. He would have somebody near the top, —whether soldier, priest, peer, or king he does not much care,—to strike a moral and social tuning-fork, with such effect that the whole inferior body politic should be more or less drawn into the hymn of social duty. It is true that, attaching as he does such infinite importance to having the centre of this order at the centre of government, disbelieving wholly, as he does, in the possibility of a great social order arising from an indefinite number of distinct individual wills, "the mean, common popu- lations," he sees the necessity of investing any capable centre of government with an indefinite power of arbitrary will, while he denies to ordinary people the right to criticize or dispute from below. But this is only because it is an essential of his idea. If the king or peers are to strike the tuning-fork, there must be no disputing the note struck by those who are to strike into the tune. To permit this were to endanger the organic submission of the lower to the higher, which is the very pith of his faith. Nay, we must even permit a divine ruler like Crom- well or Frederick to commit what seem to even earnest and humble followers real crimes at times, lest we para- lyze their power for good, and disorganize the whole bar-
raony, by proclaiming too loudly that they have been unfaith- ful to their own light. An indefinite power of wiping out black Quashees, as Mr. Eyre wiped them out, or Irish anar- chists as Cromwell did, if they only seem to be elements of anarchy, is so essential a feature of the whole conception, that though only a subordinate inference from the principal idea, it has become in Mr. Carlyle's mind almost a "note" of a true ruler to use this arbitrary power ; nay, be even wakes up with a. quick gleam of intelligence and delight when he hears a "whiff of grapeshot," and of a lot of black or white carrion, as the case may be, being carried off for burial. He supposes that he has found a true King because he has found one of those coups d'Itat which, as he has trained himself to see, must be absolutely unquestioned,—not condoned, but accepted by an act of faith, —if his notion .of social organization is to prevail at all. Intensity of purpose cannot be propa- gated through society from the seat of government like an electric current, if on the first occasion on which it shoots a pain through the lower limbs, there is to be a right of protest on behalf of those lower limbs against the centre of telegraphic will. And this being the weakest, and consequently the most sensitive, point of Mr. Carlyle's ideal system, he has naturally put it forward. with even more than its natural emphasis, almost with bluster, till he himself regards the sort of discords which it must be permitted to the leader of the social orchestra to interpose, if he is to drown discord, as the grand justification of his function, instead of the. exceptional function which itself needs justifying by a conspicuous. previous success in his more legitimate function.
But though Mr. Carlyle has been foolish and almost weak in turn- ing this discretional power of destruction which he is obliged to as- sume for his hero-leaders of society, into the evidence of their fitness, instead of, quantum valeant, a sign of inadequate power for their true- function, that, namely, of ordering society without destroying it,. it would be unjust to him to suppose that his main idea of central. governing power does not include as part of its very essence a. vague sense,—which he delights in leaving as vague as possible,— of right, order, and even, perhaps, in some degree, gentleness and good-will. He praises, in this last effusion of his despair, the- " politeness" of the English nobleman, and still more the " grace- fulness " of noble women, as a true sign of kingship, and deprecates. "the Orson element" in low-caste kingships as a defect. What. he desires is not roughness of will, but intensity and wisdom of will, able and willing to set the example of government, to strike its key-note, for all below. Singleness of intelligent purpose flashed through society from above,—that is his ideal. It has been said by one of the most acute of modern critics that the modem man of the world has lost all that expression of singleness of nature' which distinguishes all the old heroic types of face ; and this is. what Mr. Carlyle rebels against, and longs to root out of the world by organization from above. "Instead of an inborn unity of purpose, wound up to some great occasion, it [the modern ex- pression] is frittered down into a number of convenient expres- sions, fitted for every variety of unimportant occurrences; instead of' the expansion of general thought or intellect, you trace chiefly the- little, trite, cautious, movable lines of conscious but conceited self - complacency. If Raphael had painted St. Paul as a gentleman,. what a figure he would have made of the great Apostle of the Gentiles,—occupied with himself, not carried away, raised, in- spired with his subject,—insinnating his doctrines into his audi- ence, not launching them from him with the tongues of the Holy Spirit and with looks of fiery, scorching zeal I . What a. difference is there in this respect between a Madonna of Raphael_ and a lady of fashion even by Vandyke ; the former, refined
and elevated, the latter light and trifling, with no emanation of soul, no depth of feeling,—each arch expression playing on
the surface, and forcing out every other at pleasure,—no one- thought having its full scope, but checked by some other,—soft, care- less, insincere, pleased, affected, amiable." This is just the fea- ture of modern life that Mr. Carlyle cannot bear,—the smallness, subdivision, multiplicity of its petty interests. It is this which he looks to the intensity of purpose, singleness, and, so to say, whole- ness, of ruling minds to counteract, by impressing themselves on the community. His curious trust in Peers and peers' sons is, as far as we can see, founded only on the calm self-possession and slight haughtiness of nature which the long habit of rule has ren- dered hereditary, and which has no doubt tended to give a certain unity and even dignity to their characters. If "vocal," Mr. Carlyle, perhaps rightly, supposes them to be more in sympathy than other men with the most imperious figures of English history ; if not vocal, he thinks them better able to translate this intensity of a governing purpose into actual life. By this means he hopes
to see the feeble and feminine flexibilities and distractions of modern society eventually counteracted and overruled.
Mr. Carlyle's great mistake seems to us to be, not so much in what he desires, as in the method by which he hopes to gain his desire. " Singing " Peers, peers who are to strike the key-note of modern society, to impress their own individual character on modern life, are as much obsolete as singing mermaids, and can never be restored. It is not by drill from outside that the intensity and singleness of the ancient type of greatness can ever be restored to the generations which are yet to come. If the pettiness and dis- organized minuteness of individual wishes and interesta,—all that Mr. Carlyle means by 'godlessness,'—all that seems to make an anarchy of modern society, is to be conquered, as we believe it will, it will not be by singing Peers, whether vocal or non-vocal. The centres of the new order must be more and more rapidly multiplied, as time goes on, till every member of society is one of these centres, instead of the whole mass being subdued into unity by a few leading minds. How this will take place, how the pulverization of circumstance, which is so conspicuous a feature of the new era, is to be prevented from permanently pulverizing the character of men, is a question which Mr. Carlyle has assuredly in no way solved, but which cannot but profoundly interest all thinking men. Those who believe in the power of the Christian faith to regain its ascendancy over man will look, as we do, in that direction for salvation from the anarchy of petty circum- stance. Even pantheistic dreamers like Mr. Emerson believe, not without a reality in their view, that the law of spiritual reaction will itself save us from this danger. Pulverized circumstances and mo- tives and interests and amusements will in time nauseate men, and drive them back on their own souls, so that we shall have a new era of spiritual life and great ideas, even though that spiritual life and _those great ideas be not those of Christ and God. The two views are not only not inconsistent, but quite in concord. However this may be, the new greatness of life must more and more be separ- ately germinated in each individual mind, instead of being pro- pagated in great waves from a few centres. Singing lords, vocal or non-vocal, will clearly never regenerate English society.
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