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That Scotch Diogenes: Thomas Carlyle and Cynicism

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Abstract

This article argues that Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) stood in a long tradition of philosophical and literary Cynicism, stretching from ancient Greece, through the early modern period, and into the French and German Enlightenments. In keeping with this tradition, Carlyle consistently advocated a life in accordance with nature, which he considered to mean a life in accordance with virtue. Concomitantly, he waged an ongoing polemic against all forms of artifice, folly, luxury and vice, whether these lay in established institutions, such as the landed aristocracy or Church, or in the commercial and democratic society that was emerging around him. Adopting a fiercely independent stance modelled upon that of Diogenes the Cynic, Carlyle scorned both aristocratic patronage and ‘public opinion’, setting himself up as a rigid moral censor. In pursuing this vocation, he made abundant use of the traditional techniques of literary Cynicism, such as invective, irony, satire, parody, ridicule and burlesque. Moreover, Carlyle’s contemporaries frequently acknowledged him as the preeminent Cynic sage of their era. Thus, while Carlyle was without doubt one of the great railers of the age, he always had a positive purpose in mind, namely to draw his readers away from artifice and vice, and back towards nature and virtue.

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Notes

  1. E. D. Mead, The Philosophy of Carlyle, Boston, MA, 1881, pp. 35–6.

  2. D. Wise, Thomas Carlyle, New York, 1883, p. 14; [F. Harrison], ‘Histories of the French Revolution’, North American Review, 137, 1883, pp. 388–402, at 400–401.

  3. J. Nichol, Thomas Carlyle, London, 1892, p. 151.

  4. E. Beresford Chancellor, Literary Types: Being Essays in Criticism, London, 1895, p. 68; [L. Stephen], ‘John Ruskin’, National Review, 35, 1900, pp. 240–55, at 248.

  5. To cite only the book-length studies: Heinrich Niehues-Pröbsting, Der Kynismus des Diogenes und der Begriff des Zynismus [1979], new ed. (Frankfurt am Main, 1988); M.-O. Goulet-Cazé and R. Goulet, eds., Le cynisme ancien et ses prolongements, Paris, 1993; R. Bracht Branham and M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, eds., The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, Berkeley, CA, 1996; N. Largier, Diogenes der Kyniker: Exempel, Erzählung, Geschichte in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, Tübingen, 1997; D. Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism, Charlottesville, VA, 2007; L. Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment: Diogenes in the Salon, Baltimore, MD, 2010; S. A. Stanley, The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism, Cambridge, 2012; D. S. Mayfield, Artful Immorality – Variants of Cynicism: Machiavelli, Gracián, Diderot, Nietzsche, Berlin, 2015. Additional studies will be found in the notes below. There is no reference to Cynicism in R. Jenkyns, The Victorians and Ancient Greece, Oxford, 1980, nor in Frank M. Turner, The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain, New Haven, CT, 1981.

  6. Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism (see n. 5 above), pp. 15–16, 176–94, 220; Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), p. xiii.

  7. Doubtless due to the heavy shadow cast by J. A. Froude, Thomas Carlyle: A History of the First Forty Years of His Life, 1795–1835, 2 vols, New York, 1882, in which Froude pronounced: ‘Of classical literature [Carlyle] knew little… He was not living in ancient Greece or Rome, but in modern Europe’ (1:104). Cf. T. Flint, ‘Carlyle as Classicist’, The Classical Weekly, 13, 1919, pp. 51–4.

  8. For variations of this claim, see Froude, Thomas Carlyle: A History of the First Forty Years, quote on 2:2; C. F. Harrold, Carlyle and German Thought, 1819–1834, New Haven, CT, 1934, pp. 111, 237; id., ‘The Nature of Carlyle’s Calvinism’, Studies in Philology, 33, 1936, pp. 475–86, at 480–81; J. Symons, Thomas Carlyle: The Life and Ideas of a Prophet, London, 1952, pp. 157–8; A. Abbott Ikeler, Puritan Temper and Transcendental Faith: Carlyle’s Literary Vision, Columbus, OH, 1972, ch. 4; A. L. Le Quesne, Carlyle, Oxford, 1982, pp. 2, 58, 79–80. To be clear, Froude, in the passage cited, made clear that he understood Carlyle’s ‘Calvinism’ to consist in a belief in the providential government of the universe, and the infinite difference between right and wrong, rather than the depravity of human nature. However, the other writers cited here went considerably further, tending to impute the latter doctrine to Carlyle (even if some, notably Harrold, did recognize the existence of countervailing, optimistic tendencies in Carlyle’s thought, drawn, for instance, from the pantheism of Goethe). The most recent literature, such as J. Morrow, Thomas Carlyle, London, 2006, has been more cognizant of Carlyle’s relative moral optimism, and the present article seeks to contribute to such recognition.

  9. Of course, it ought to be noted that moral optimism is a relative concept. While Carlyle did not take as low a view of human nature as many contemporary Evangelicals, neither did he rise to the giddy heights of thinkers such as William Godwin (my thanks to the anonymous reviewer for pointing this out).

  10. S. Collini, Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850–1930, Oxford, 1991, pp. 2–3, 185–9.

  11. Three classic statements are Harrold, Carlyle and German Thought (see n. 8 above), pp. 216–19, J. Holloway, The Victorian Sage: Studies in Argument, London, 1953, pp. 23–6, and W. E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830–1870, New Haven, CT, 1957, pp. 153–8. More recently, see Morrow, Thomas Carlyle (see n. 8 above), pp. 3, 29–30.

  12. Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism (see n. 5 above), pp. 111–3.

  13. The notion of an ancien régime comes from J. C. D. Clark, English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice During the Ancien Regime, Cambridge, 1985, ch. 6. On Carlyle as a leading proponent of an ‘age of transition’, and the need to replace obsolete aristocratic and clerical institutions with new forms of authority, see R. O. Donovan, ‘Carlyle and the Climate of Hero Worship’, University of Toronto Quarterly, 42, 1973, pp. 122–41, at 137–8, B. Knights, The Idea of the Clerisy in the 19th Century, Cambridge, 1978, ch. 3, D. Roberts, Paternalism in Early Victorian England, London, 1979, pp. 47, 54, C. R. Vanden Bossche, Carlyle and the Search For Authority, Columbus, OH, 1991, pp. 8–13, and D. Eastwood, ‘The Age of Uncertainty: Britain in the Early-19th Century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 8, 1998, pp. 91–115, at 104–6, 111.

  14. Classical/ancient sources of inspiration are largely overlooked by the seminal study, viz., Collini, Public Moralists.

  15. This paragraph is based on Donald R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism From Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D., London, 1937, pp. 27–34, A. N. M. Rich, ‘The Cynic Conception of Aytapkeia’, Mnemosyne, 9, 1956, pp. 23–9, at 23–6, R. B. Branham and M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, ‘Introduction’, in The Cynic Movement, ed. R. B. Branham and M.-O. Goulet-Cazéeds, pp. 1–27, at 6–9, 25–7, A. A. Long, ‘The Socratic Tradition: Diogenes, Crates, and Hellenistic Ethics’, in ibid., pp. 28–46, at 29–32, 37–8, W. Desmond, Cynics, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 2008, pp. 15–16, 98–9, 132, 150–51, 156, 172, 190–91, and Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), pp. 9–16.

  16. On Cynicism as a ‘strongly missionary philosophy’, which sought to create a genuinely Cynic community, see J. Moles, ‘Honestius Quam Ambitiosius? An Exploration of the Cynic's Attitude to Moral Corruption in His Fellow Men’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 103, 1983, pp. 103–23, at 111–13, and id., ‘The Cynics and Politics’, in Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy, ed. A. Laks and M. Schofield, Cambridge, 1995, pp. 129–58, at 141–2.

  17. Branham and Goulet-Cazé, ‘Introduction’ (see n. 15 above), p. 7; Desmond, Cynics (see n. 15 above), p. 21. The principal source for these anecdotes was Diogenes Laërtius’s Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, but there is no evidence that the young Carlyle read this. He did, however, read François Fénelon’s Abrégé des vies des anciens philosophes (1726), in which many of these anecdotes were related, and which I cite from here (TC to T. Murray, 24 August 1814, The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, 42 vols., Durham, NC, 1970–, 1:19–25. Henceforth CL).

  18. Cited in Dudley, A History of Cynicism (see n. 15 above), pp. 27–8.

  19. [F. Fénélon], ‘Diogène’, in Abregé des Vies des Anciens PhilosophesTome Troisième, Amsterdam, 1727, pp. 186–211, at 205, 191, 197–8, 188, 193–4, 196, 188.

  20. TC to T. Murray, 28 July 1818, CL, 1:135–7; TC to R. Mitchell, 6 November 1818, CL, 1:141–7; TC to J. Johnston, 8 January 1819, CL, 1:55–9; TC to J. B. Welsh, 22 December 1823, CL, 2:490–92; ‘Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’ [1820], Montaigne and other essays, chiefly biographical, ed. S. R. Crockett, London, 1901, pp. 8–19, at 8; ‘Wotton Reinfred: A Romance’ [1826–7], in The Last Words of Thomas Carlyle, Boston, MA, 1892, pp. 1–147, at 51–2; ‘Life of Heyne’ [1828], Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, People's Edition, 7 vols, London, 1872, 2:54–84, at 68 (henceforth CME); Sartor Resartus [1833–4], Oxford World's Classics ed., Oxford, 1987, p. 120. For an account of Carlyle’s Stoicism, see A. Jordan, ‘Noble Just Industrialism: Saint-Simonism in the Political Thought of Thomas Carlyle’, PhD thesis, European University Institute, 2015, ch. 1.

  21. G. Calogero, ‘Cinismo e stoicismo in Epitteto’, [1933], in his Scritti minori di filosofia antica, Naples, 1984, pp. 395–408, at 403–4, 406–7; Dudley, A History of Cynicism (see n. 15 above), pp. 3–4, 25; Long, ‘The Socratic Tradition’ (see n. 15 above), p. 28; Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), p. 5.

  22. Epictetus, Discourses, as cited in Dudley, A History of Cynicism (see n. 15 above), pp. 191–2, and M. Billerbeck, ‘The Ideal Cynic from Epictetus to Julian’, in The Cynic Movement, ed. Branham and Goulet-Cazé, pp. 205–21, at 207–8. See also M. Schofield, ‘Epictetus on Cynicism’, in The Philosophy of Epictetus, ed. T. Scaltsas and A. S. MasonOxford, 2007, pp. 71–86, at 79–81, 83–5, and Desmond, Cynics (see n. 15 above), p. 59.

  23. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (see n. 15 above), pp. 96–9, 188–9, 198, 199; M. Griffin, ‘Cynicism and the Romans: Attraction and Repulsion’, in The Cynic Movement, ed. Branham and Goulet-Cazé, pp. 190–204, at 198–204; Desmond, Cynics (see n. 15 above), pp. 50–51. Carlyle quotes Marcus Aurelius in TC to Robert Mitchell, 14 July 1819, CL, 1:188–92, and lectured on Seneca in Lectures on the History of Literature [1838], ed. J. R. Greene, London, 1892, pp. 53–4.

  24. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (see n. 15 above), pp. 95, 103; M. Gigante, ‘Cinismo e epicureismo’, in Goulet-Cazé and Goulet eds., Le cynisme ancien et ses prolongements, pp. 159–223, at 163–4, 171–83.

  25. TC to R. Mitchell, 6 November 1818, CL, 1:141–7.

  26. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (see n. 15 above), pp. 144–6; H.-G. Nesselrath, ‘Lucien et le Cynisme’, L'antiquité classique, 67, 1998, pp. 121–35, at 121–2, 128–33; P. R. Bosman, ‘Lucian Among the Cynics: The Zeus Refuted and Cynic Tradition’, Classical Quarterly, 62, 2012, pp. 785–95, at 786.

  27. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (see n. 15 above), pp. 158–61; Desmond, Cynics (see n. 15 above), pp. 67–9.

  28. Branham and Goulet–Cazé, ‘Introduction’ (see n. 15 above), p. 17; Desmond, Cynics (see n. 15 above), pp. 60–61; Bosman, ‘Lucian Among the Cynics’, p. 795.

  29. ‘Montaigne’ [1820], Montaigne and other essays (see n. 20 above), pp. 1–7.

  30. Montaigne, Essays, as cited in A. Comte-Sponville, ‘Montaigne Cynique? (Valeur et vérité dans les Essais)’, Revue internationale de philosophie, 46, 1992, pp. 234–79, at 261. Carlyle borrowed vol. I of the 1754 London edition of the Essays on 7 January 1820, and vol. VI on 23 January 1820, as revealed by C. P. Finlayson, ‘Thomas Carlyle's borrowings from the Edinburgh University library’, Bibliotheck, 3, 1961, pp. 138–43, at 141. Carlyle also owned a copy of the 1818 Paris edition, as noted by R. L. Tarr, ‘Thomas Carlyle’s libraries at Chelsea and Ecclefechan’, Studies in Bibliography, 27, 1974, pp. 249–65, at 260.

  31. Comte-Sponville, ‘Montaigne Cynique?’ (see n. 30 above), pp. 261–4, 267–9.

  32. Montaigne, Essays, cited in R. Esclapez, ‘Montaigne et les philosophes cyniques’, Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Montaigne, 7, 1986, pp. 59–76, at 60, 62.

  33. A. Szabari, ‘Rabelais Parrhesiastes: The Rhetoric of Insult and Rabelais’s Cynical Mask’, Modern Language Notes, 120, 2005, pp. 84–123, at 90–91, 95, 117–19, quote on 117–18. For the young Carlyle’s references to Rabelais, see TC to R. Mitchell, 18 October 1814, CL, 1:25–30, and TC to D. Aitken, 26 January 1830, CL, 5:59–62. In 1838, Carlyle delivered a lecture on Rabelais, though the text has unfortunately been lost (Lectures on the History of Literature, 160).

  34. J. G. Gilbert, Jonathan Swift: Romantic and Cynic Moralist, Austin, TX, 1966, pp. 38–9, 61–2; S. M. B. Coulling, ‘Carlyle and Swift’, Studies in English Literature 15001900, 10, 1970, pp. 741–58.

  35. See generally Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), pp. xi–xiv, 23–44.

  36. D’Alembert, Essai sur la société des gens de lettres et des grands (1754), as cited (in English) by Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), p. 30.

  37. TC to M. A. Carlyle, 29 March 1819, CL, 1:173–5. Repeated almost verbatim in ‘State of German Literature’ [1827], CME, 1:22–73, at 36.

  38. Sartor Resartus (1833–4), p. 160. Repeated almost verbatim in Lectures on the History of Literature (1838), p. 62.

  39. Rousseau, Confessions (1770), cited (in English) by Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism (see n. 5 above), pp. 136–7, Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), pp. 100–101, and Stanley, The French Enlightenment, 151. In 1833, Carlyle told Emerson that ‘Rousseau’s Confessions had discovered to him that he was not a dunce’ (Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits, Boston, MA, 1882, p. 17). See also the reference to ‘Rousseau's Confessions’ in ‘Schiller’ [1831], CME, 3:65–110, at 69, and Carlyle's depiction of Teufelsdröckh as a ‘young cynical Nondescript’, who ‘envelops’ himself in ‘Sarcasm’, so that his ‘own poor Person might live safe there… being no longer exasperated by wounds’, in Sartor Resartus, 1833–4, p. 107, 100.

  40. Rousseau, Judge of Jean Jacques [1782], as cited (in English) by T. M. Scanlan and M. Elayne Bockey, ‘Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Diogenes the Cynic’, USF Language Quarterly, 15, 1976, pp. 23–4, at 23–4, and Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism (see n. 5 above), pp. 130–31.

  41. Lectures on the History of Literature, 1838, p. 192; On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History [1841], Oxford World's Classics ed., London, 1904, pp. 187–9.

  42. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, cited by Scanlan and Bockey, ‘Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Diogenes the Cynic’ (see n. 40 above), p. 24.

  43. See generally K. Herding, ‘Diogenes als Bürgerheld’, Boreas: Münsterliche Beiträge zur Archäologie, 5, 1982, pp. 232–54, at 239–40, Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism (see n. 5 above), p. 110, M. Sonenscher, Sans-Culottes: An 18th-Century Emblem in the French Revolution, Princeton, NJ, 2008, pp. 134–201, at 143, 178–83, 199, and Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), pp. 89, 96.

  44. Froude, Thomas Carlyle: a history of the first forty years of his life (see n. 7 above), p. 242. See also 21 August 1832, CL, 6:204–7, and 28 August 1832, CL, 6:209–13. This was in preparation for ‘Diderot’ [1833], CME, 5:1–63.

  45. Diderot, ‘Cynique’, cited in J. Starobinski, ‘Diogène dans Le Neveu de Rameau’, Stanford French Review, 8, 1984, pp. 147–65, at 160, 163–4.

  46. ‘Diderot’, CME, 5:61. See also 5:33.

  47. Diderot did not identify with either interpretation, seeing both as equally one-sided. See Starobinski, ‘Diogène dans Le Neveu de Rameau’ (see n. 45 above), pp. 147–9, 162, 165, H. Harth, ‘Der Aufklärer und sein Schatten: Zynismus im Neveu de Rameau’, in Denis Diderot 1713–1784: Zeit – Werk – Wirkung, ed. T. Heydenreich, Erlangen, 1984, pp. 95–105, at 96–7, 99, and H. Niehues-Pröbsting, ‘Wielands Diogenes and der Rameau Diderots: Zur Differenz von Kyniker und Zyniker in der Sicht der Aufklärung’, in Peter Sloterdijks » Kritik der zynischen Vernunft « , Frankfurt am Main, 1987, pp. 73–109, at 101. For further analysis of the novel, see Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), ch. 3, and J. D'Hondt, ‘Le cynisme de Rameau’, Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, 36, 2004, pp. 125–37.

  48. Starobinski, ‘Diogène dans Le Neveu de Rameau’ (see n. 45 above), p. 162.

  49. Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre (1768), cited in Starobinski, ‘Diogène dans Le Neveu de Rameau’ (see n. 45 above), p. 161; Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), p. 101.

  50. Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron, cited in Starobinski, ‘Diogène dans Le Neveu de Rameau’ (see n. 45 above), p. 153, and Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), p. 43.

  51. Réfutation d'Helvétius [1773–8], cited in Starobinski, ‘Diogène dans Le Neveu de Rameau’ (see n. 45 above), p. 161, and Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), p. 101.

  52. ‘Diderot’ (1833), CME, 5:28. Nonetheless, despite such partial sympathy, Carlyle certainly did not believe that Rousseau had succeeded in practising the Cynic ideals he preached, nor that his other writings were entirely free from the vices that he denounced in others. See, for instance, On Heroes, 187–8: ‘[Rousseau’s] Books, like himself, are what I call unhealthy; not the good sort of Books. There is a sensuality in Rousseau. Combined with such an intellectual gift of his, it makes pictures of a certain gorgeous attractiveness: but they are not genuinely poetical. Not white sunlight: something operatic; a kind of rose-pink, artificial bedizenment’ (my thanks to the anonymous reviewer for pointing out this passage).

  53. Sokrates mainomenos, oder die Dialogen des Diogenes von Sinope (1770). See W. D. Wilson, ‘Wieland’s Diogenes and the Emancipation of the Critical Intellectual’, in Christoph Martin Wieland: Nordamerikanische Forschungsbeiträge zur 250. Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages 1983, ed. H. Schelle, Tübingen, 1984, pp. 149–79, at 149–54, Niehues-Pröbsting, ‘Wielands Diogenes and der Rameau Diderots’ (see n. 47 above), pp. 77–8, 81–3, 86–7, H. Niehues-Pröbsting, ‘The Modern Reception of Cynicism: Diogenes in the Enlightenment’, in The Cynic Movement, ed. Branham and Goulet-Cazé, pp. 329–65, at 334–8, and Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (see n. 5 above), pp. 84–5, 90–94. There is no definite proof that Carlyle read this work. However, he did read J. G. Gruber, Christoph Martin Wieland, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1816, which contained a short summary (2:12–16, 436–41). See TC to J. Taylor, 12 July 1824, CL, 3:108–9, and TC to J. P. Eckermann, 20 March 1830, CL, 5:83–7.

  54. Wieland, conversation dated 26 February 1797, cited in Niehues-Pröbsting, ‘The Modern Reception of Cynicism’, p. 337.

  55. In this sense, Cyrenaicism can be said to have anticipated Epicureanism.

  56. Goethe, reported in J. Falk, Goethe aus näherem persönlichen Umgange dargestellt, Leipzig, 1832, as cited in Niehues-Pröbsting, ‘The Modern Reception of Cynicism’ (see n. 53 above), 337. Carlyle had read an English translation by his friend, Sarah Austin (TC to S. Austin, 8 July 1833, CL, 6:6; TC to J. P. Eckermann, 6 May 1834, CL, 7:141–4).

  57. The Life of Schiller [1825], People's ed. (London, 1872), 95–6.

  58. Sartor Resartus, 1833–4, p. 160. It is important to note that Carlyle is not speaking directly, but rather through Teufelsdröckh, who is in turn citing D’Alembert, something which tends to introduce a degree of ambiguity. Moreover, the praise for Diogenes is immediately qualified; Teufelsdröckh claiming that the founder of Quakerism, George Fox (1624–91), was in fact ‘greater than Diogenes’, in that he possessed a sense of ‘Mercy and Worship’ that the latter did not. However, viewed against the background of the many unambiguously positive references to Diogenes elsewhere in Carlyle’s work (see below), it is not unreasonable to conclude that Carlyle was to some extent expressing his own admiration for Diogenes through the words of Teufelsdröckh.

  59. Lectures on the History of Literature, 1838, pp. 61–2.

  60. TC to R. Mitchell, 6 November 1818, CL, 1:141–7. The Cynosarges was the gymnasium at which Antisthenes was supposed to have lectured. Similarly, in his semi-autobiographical novel Wotton Reinfred (1826–7), Carlyle had implied that pretensions to ‘iron cynicism’ often stemmed from little more than wounded ‘pride’ (‘Wotton Reinfred’, 13–14). See also Sartor Resartus, pp. 100, 105, 107–9, 118.

  61. TC to J. A. Carlyle, 12 July 1831, CL, 5:301–4. See also TC to J. A. Carlyle, 4 March 1831, CL, 5:240–46.

  62. TC to J. S. Mill, 12 July 1836, CL, 9:6–7.

  63. TC to R. Browning, 10 October 1851, CL, 26:201–2.

  64. On similar uses of Diogenes during the 18th century, see Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism (see n. 5 above), pp. 97–8.

  65. Journal entry dated 1824, in Froude, Thomas Carlyle: A History of the First Forty Years, 1:205.

  66. TC to J. A. Carlyle, 26 January 1836, CL, 8:287–8. See also ‘Corn Law Rhymes’ [1832], CME, 4:184–211, at 186–8, and ‘Lord Jeffrey’ [1867], Reminiscences, ed. C. E. Norton, Everyman ed., London, 1972, pp. 308–42, at 329. Even towards the end of his life, in 1874, Carlyle rejected the offer of a baronetcy and state pension, made by the then Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. As one contemporary recalled, ‘the Chelsea Diogenes would have neither the honor, nor the pelf’ (H. Vitzetelly, Glances Back Through Seventy Years: Autobiographical and Other Reminiscences, 2 vols., London, 1893, 1:304).

  67. TC to J. B. Welsh, 7 March 1824, CL, 3:44; TC to J. A. Carlyle, 7 March 1825, CL, 3:298–9. See also ‘State of German Literature’ [1827], CME, 1:37.

  68. ‘Novalis’ [1829], CME, 2:183–229, at 188. In this sense, Carlyle, like many of his contemporaries, suffered from anxiety as to whether journalism was really a reputable profession. See A. Aspinall, ‘The Social Status of Journalists at the Beginning of the 19th Century’, The Review of English Studies, 21, 1945, pp. 216–32, at 216, 219, 222, J. Shattock, Politics and Reviewers: The Edinburgh and the Quarterly in the Early Victorian Age, Leicester, 1989, p. 5, and Collini, Public Moralists (see n. 10 above) pp. 30–31, 105–7.

  69. It might be noted that Carlyle did not object to other people being placed in a state of dependence – see, for instance, the notorious advocacy of forced labour in the ‘Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question’ (1849) and Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850) (my thanks to the anonymous reviewer for pointing this out).

  70. TC to J. A. Carlyle, 13 January 1829, CL, 5:3–7.

  71. ‘Jean Paul Friedrich Richter’ [1830], CME, 3:1–59, at 20, 26.

  72. Lectures on the History of Literature, pp. 61–2.

  73. ‘Characteristics’ [1831], CME, 4:1–38, at 6–9.

  74. On Heroes, pp. 62–3.

  75. Of course, I do not wish to claim that Cynicism was the only current of thought that informed Carlyle’s rhetorical juxtaposition of ‘the Natural’ and ‘the Artificial’. Indeed, in fully explaining the latter, one would also have to consider the legacy of natural law, the Romanticism of Wordsworth, religious conceptions of the fundamental orderliness of creation and any number of other factors (my thanks to the anonymous reviewer for pointing this out). However, I do wish to claim that Cynicism made an important contribution to this juxtaposition, and thus deserves to be recognized alongside such various other factors.

  76. In a letter written during the same year, Carlyle had made an implicit reference to Diogenes, the ‘Man with the Lamp’ (TC to J. W. Carlyle, 8 August 1843, CL, 17:24–6).

  77. Past and Present [1843], Everyman ed., London, 1912, pp. 171–2, 214–15.

  78. Ibid., p. 161. See also pp. 227–8.

  79. Ibid., pp. 8, 23, 27–8. See also pp. 131, 178, 181. As noted above, when Plato had defined man as a ‘featherless biped’, Diogenes plucked a chicken.

  80. Ibid., pp. 210–11.

  81. Latter-Day Pamphlets [1850], Copyright ed., London, 1897, p. 75. While beginning work on the Pamphlets, Carlyle reported having read William Tooke, ed., Lucian of Samosata. From the Greek. With the Comments and Illustrations of Wieland and Others, 2 vols., London, 1820, praising this as ‘really lively reading’ (TC to J. A. Carlyle, 23 December 1849, CL, 24:314–15). Thus, the Pamphlets might be seen as an exercise in Lucianic, quasi-Cynic satire, particularly in their use of invective, irony, caricature, parody and burlesque.

  82. Latter-Day Pamphlets, pp. 122–3, 84–5.

  83. Ibid., pp. 84–5, 149.

  84. ‘Occasional Discourse’ [1849], in ibid., pp. 2–3, 5–6.

  85. Latter-Day Pamphlets, pp. 82–3.

  86. Ibid., pp. 39–40, 215.

  87. Ibid., pp. 223, 266–8. As noted above, when Plato had defined man as a ‘featherless biped’, Diogenes plucked a chicken.

  88. The French Revolution [1837], Everyman ed., 2 vols., London, 1906, 1:53–4.

  89. On Heroes, pp. 44–5.

  90. Latter-Day Pamphlets, pp. 37–8.

  91. Ibid., pp. 163–4. See also pp. 133–4.

  92. Desmond, Cynics (see n. 15 above), pp. 79–81.

  93. Sonenscher, Sans-Culottes (see n. 43 above), 23–7.

  94. Herding, ‘Diogenes als Bürgerheld’ (see n. 45 above), pp. 244–9; Sonenscher, Sans-Culottes (see n. 43 above), p. 144; Niehues-Pröbsting, ‘Wielands Diogenes and der Rameau Diderots’ (see n. 47 above), pp. 79–80.

  95. Sartor Resartus, pp. 12, 48–9.

  96. Ibid., pp. 157, 176–7. The reference to ‘Greek-fire’ implies a Cynic reference, insofar as Cynicism originated in ancient Greece. See also pp. 155–6, 164, 193–6.

  97. Ibid., pp. 193–6. See also p. 160. However, it ought also to be noted that, having stripped away and burnt up the obsolete trappings of medieval society, Teufelsdröckh then advocates the need to devise new spiritual vestures, suited to the changed realities of the 19th century. Thus, he is not literally advocating a return to nudity, savagery or ‘the state of Nature’. In this sense, Carlyle’s use of such Cynic rhetoric is perhaps more metaphorical than literal, and the proposed reversion to ‘Nature’ is perhaps intended to be temporary rather than permanent, more of a means than an end in itself.

  98. TC to L. Hunt, 29 October 1833, CL, 7:26–31. See also French Revolution, 2:294, 309, On Heroes, pp. 187–9, 202–3, and Past and Present, p. 263.

  99. See A. Jordan, ‘David Hume is Pontiff of the World: Thomas Carlyle on Epicureanism, Laissez-faire, and Public Opinion’, Journal of British Studies, 56, 2017, pp. 557–79, id., ‘Thomas Carlyle on Epicureanism in the French and German Enlightenments’, Historical Journal (forthcoming), and id., ‘A Drudge’s Bargain: Thomas Carlyle on Christian Epicureanism’ Historical Research (forthcoming). Also, compare John Stuart Mill, Autobiography [1873], Oxford World's Classics ed., London, 1924, pp. 40–41: ‘[My father, James Mill's] standard of morals was Epicurean… taking as the exclusive test of right and wrong, the tendency of actions to produce pleasure or pain. But [personally] he had (and this was the Cynic element) scarcely any belief in pleasure’.

  100. ‘Jean Paul Friedrich Richter’, CME, 3:20, 26.

  101. Lectures on the History of Literature, pp. 61–2. Carlyle’s chronology is incorrect, since Cynicism preceded Stoicism, not vice versa. See also TC to J. W. Carlyle, 2 September 1841, CL, 13:238–41: ‘Diogenes perhaps took the shortest cut to comfort, after all: that of having the minimum of wants’.

  102. Past and Present, pp. 261, 147–8, 150, 173.

  103. Antisthenes had stressed the importance of ponos (meaning both ‘labour’ and ‘pain’), citing the labours of Heracles, undertaken for the good of humanity. Moreover, numerous ancient sources associated Cynicism with skilled artisans, particularly shoemakers. See K. W. Göttling, ‘Diogenes der Cyniker oder die Philosophie des griechischen Proletariats’, in Gesammelte Abhandlungen aus dem classischen Alterthume, 2 vols., Halle, 1851, 1:251–77, at 253–7, 269, 275–6, Dudley, A History of Cynicism (see n. 15 above), p. 45, R. F. Hock, ‘Simon the Shoemaker as an Ideal Cynic’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 17, 1976, pp. 41–53, at 41–3, 46–9, 52, H. Schulz-Falkenthal, ‘Zum Arbeitsethos der Kyniker’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Martin Luther Universität, 29, 1980, pp. 91–101, at 91–5, and Desmond, Cynics (see n. 15 above), pp. 17, 153–4. C.f. Calogero, ‘Cinismo e stoicismo in Epitteto’ (see n. 21 above), pp. 400–401.

  104. ‘Chartism’ [1839], CME, 6:109–86, at 124; On Heroes, p. 92.

  105. Past and Present, p. 189. See also pp. 152–3.

  106. In this sense, Carlyle framed his own personal resentment of dependence, and corresponding desire for independence, within a general theory of an ‘age of transition.’ As he put it in ‘Boswell’s Life of Johnson’ [1832], CME, 4:67–131, at 100–101: ‘[During the 18th century,] Literature… was in a transitional state… as respects the pecuniary subsistence of its cultivators. It was in the very act of passing from the protection of Patrons into that of the Public; no longer to supply its necessities by laudatory Dedications to the Great, but by judicious Bargains with the Booksellers… [However, this system] appears now to have well-nigh discharged its functions also, and to be working pretty rapidly towards some third method, the exact conditions of which are yet nowise visible.’ See also TC to M. Napier, 6 February 1832, CL, 6:117.

  107. Journal entry dated 2 November 1831, Two Note Books of Thomas Carlyle, ed. C. E. Norton, New York, 1898, p. 223; On Heroes, pp. 167–8.

  108. MS dated 1842, reproduced in H. Henderson, ‘Carlyle and the Book Clubs: A New Approach to Publishing?’ Publishing History, 6, 1979, pp. 37–62, at 49–53.

  109. ‘Petition on the Copyright Bill’, [1839], CME, 6:187–8. See also the account of the campaign in H. Martineau, A History of the Thirty Years’ Peace, A.D. 18151846, 4 vols., London, 1878, 4:194.

  110. TC to J. C. Aitken, 7 May 1847, CL, 21:200; TC to J. C. Aitken, 25 December 1847, CL, 22:180. The italics are Carlyle’s.

  111. On Heroes, pp. 167–8.

  112. G. Gilfillan, ‘Thomas Carlyle’, in Sketches of Modern Literature, and Eminent Literary Men (Being A Gallery of Literary Portraits), 2 vols., New York, 1846, 1:145–77, at 145; on Gilfillan’s personal acquaintance with Carlyle, TC to J. W. Carlyle, 12 August 1843, CL, 17:38–40, and TC to J. G. Lockhart, 20 November 1845, CL, 20:59–60; Vitzetelly, Glances Back Through Seventy Years (see n. 67 above), 1:329.

  113. Visit to Chelsea c. 1855, cited in U. Pope-Hennessy, Canon Charles Kingsley, A Biography [1949], new ed., New York, 1973, p. 154. Kingsley's novel Alton Locke (1849) had included a character based on Carlyle, ‘Sandy Mackaye’, who ‘grew daily more and more cynical.’ In Hypatia (1853), Kingsley had referred to ‘Diogenes’ and his search ‘for a man’, ‘cynic peevishness’, a ‘sneering Cynic’ and ‘the self-dependence of a Cynic.’ See C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet, 2 vols., London, 1850, 1:286, and id., Hypatia, or, New Foes with an Old Face, 2 vols., Boston, MA, 1854, 1:169–70, 162, 186, 275.

  114. John Nichol, letter dated April 1856, in William Knight, Memoir of John Nichol, Glasgow, 1896, p. 133.

  115. ‘T. Carlyle’, Methodist Review, 31, 1849, pp. 119–39, at 121; [E. P. Hood] ‘Thomas Carlyle and His Critics’, The Eclectic Review, 1, 1861, pp. 25–57, at 28; ‘Another Nuisance to be Abated’, The Chronicle (Chicago), 5, 2 June 1870, p. 1. Shortly after Carlyle’s death in 1881, another reviewer wrote: ‘His habits were, with rare exception, morose and unsocial; his sayings were harsh and insolent. He might with more truth be compared, among Greek philosophers, to a Diogenes, whom he resembled in his arrogance… than to a Socrates or a Plato’ (‘Thomas Carlyle’, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art [8 November 1884], p. 598).

  116. ‘Carlyle on Slavery’, The Ladies' Companion, 4, 1853, pp. 123–7, at 125–6. See also ‘The Life of John Sterling. By Thomas Carlyle’, British Quarterly Review, 15, 1852, pp. 240–53, at 243.

  117. ‘Two Carlyles, or Carlyle Past and Present’, Christian Examiner, 77, 1864, pp. 206–31, at 222–3. See also Nichol, Thomas Carlyle, p. 207.

  118. [W. H. Smith] ‘Past and Present, by Carlyle’, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 54, 1843, pp. 121–38, at 136–8.

  119. ‘Latter-Day Pamphlets’, English Review, 16, 1851, pp. 331–51, at 336–8, 347.

  120. [W. H. Smith] ‘Past and Present, by Carlyle’ (see n. 118 above), pp. 125–6.

  121. [F. Harrison], ‘Histories of the French Revolution’, North American Review, 137, 1883, pp. 388–402, at 400–401.

  122. [J. R. Lowell], ‘History of Frederick II. of Prussia, called Frederick the Great. By Thomas Carlyle’, North American Review, 102, 1866, pp. 419–45, at 435, 437–8.

  123. J. Sterling to TC, 29 May 1835, in The Life of John Sterling [1851], Oxford World's Classics ed., Oxford, 1907, pp. 113–14.

  124. ‘Pantagruelism’, Quarterly Review, 81, 1847, pp. 107–30, at 108–9, 111–12, 118, 123–4, 126–7.

  125. [J. R. Lowell], ‘History of Frederick II. of Prussia, called Frederick the Great. By Thomas Carlyle’, North American Review, 102, 1866, pp. 426, 433, 437–8. This also points out Carlyle's debts to ‘Rabelais’ and ‘Swift’ (426–8).

  126. For instance, Moncure Conway remarked that ‘Carlyle has suffered much from having his humorous exaggerations taken, as one might say, underfoot of the letter’, while Leslie Stephen, having compared Carlyle to ‘Diogenes’, recalled that ‘Carlyle often used to clarify his extravagant remarks by a huge guffaw, which implied that he was only half serious.’ Similarly, Henry Taylor reported that Carlyle’s ‘powers of invective and disparagement… are exercised in conversation sometimes in a manifest spirit of contradiction and generally with an infusion of humor… so that forcible as they are, they are not serious enough to give offence.’ For his part, G. S. Venables opined that ‘[Carlyle] indulged his humorous propensity without thinking it necessary to cultivate either literal accuracy or dispassionate justice’, and that ‘the very extravagance of his invective showed that he was rather fanciful than earnest.’ (M. Conway, Thomas Carlyle, New York, 1881, p. 111; L. Stephen, ‘John Ruskin’, National Review, 35, 1900, pp. 240–55, at 248, 250; Autobiography of Henry Taylor 1800–1875, 2 vols, London, 1885, 1:330; G. S. Venables, ‘Carlyle in Society and at Home’, Fortnightly Review, 33, 1883, pp. 622–42, at 631, 641). Indeed, Carlyle recognized this characteristic in himself, admitting that he had inherited his father’s propensity to ‘exaggerate’, ‘for the sake chiefly of humorous effect’ (‘James Carlyle’ [1832], in Reminiscences, ed. C. E. Norton, new ed., London, 1972, pp. 1–34, at 4, Carlyle’s italics).

  127. E. C. Martin, ‘Carlyle’s Politics’, Scribner’s Magazine, 10, 1891, pp. 506–12, at 511.

  128. Cited in Dudley, History of Cynicism (see n. 15 above), p. 31.

  129. See Jordan, ‘David Hume is Pontiff of the World’ (see n. 100 above).

  130. See A. Jordan, ‘Thomas Carlyle and Political Economy: The ‘Dismal Science’ in Context’, English Historical Review, 132, 2017, pp. 286–317.

  131. As such, we might say of Carlyle what he himself said of Samuel Johnson: ‘Johnson said, he loved a good hater; by which he must have meant, not so much one that hated violently, but one that hated wisely; hated baseness from love of nobleness’ (‘Burns’ [1828], CME, 2:1–53, at 21).

  132. Mead, The Philosophy of Carlyle (n. 1 above), pp. 36–8.

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Jordan, A. That Scotch Diogenes: Thomas Carlyle and Cynicism. Int class trad 26, 295–318 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-018-0466-x

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