MR. ZANGWILL ON THE CARLYLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10037, 25 January 1896, Page 2 (Supplement)

MR. ZANGWILL ON THE CARLYLES.

Mr, Zangwill, discoursing in the Pall Mall Magazine on the loves of Mr. and Mrs. Curly says;—" The real truth about this immortal couple is, I havo reason to believe, that the wife had too little capacity for passion. And, whatever she had to suffer from Carlyle's careless tyranny and gloomy humours, still it ought to have been a satisfaction to a woman of such brilliant parts to live in daily contact with such an intellect. She seems to have found Carlyle's company stimulating enough before marriage; could she not, I wonder, have taken more interest in the books he was writing, so that, instead of silently perpending, lie should talk his points over with her ? But, as a matter of fact, except during the Lady Ashburton period, the marriage was such a companionship—witness her literally killing anxiety as to the success of his Lord Rector speech. Tho selfishness of Carlyle was not wilful, even though it be inexcusable. It was blindness ; his soul was wrapt away from the real world around him, and lived amid men and picturesque mobs. And it must not be forgotten that the artist, inasmuch as lie lives a double life, comes under two sets of standards, and it is something if he satisfies one. Egoistic as Carlyle may have been as a man and a husband, as an artist he was impeccable. He yielded neither to the temptations of gold nor of shoddy-work. His energy was herculean, his labour supremely conscientious, his perseverance equalled his genius. Vetily he could 'toil terribly,' this man who could re-write ' The French Revolution' after the first manuscript had been destroyed. That men of letters and painters and musicians ore not immaculate the world knows well enough; but erO it points the Pharisaic finger of scorn, let it remember to make the distinction between the conscienceless in both life and art, and those whose artistic conscience is at loiigt clear. And let it romember that the artistic part of him is to tho artist his own inmost reality, and that, as was the case with Carlyle, he may in the service of his art bo even unconscious of his lapses from common morality. Tho prophet was a weak and sinful creature—perhaps. But did he prophesy from the heart of him, or was he a charlatan posing for money in the marketplace? That is the question to be considered in tho matter of great men. Owing to the double nature of the artist, four logical possibilities arise. He may be a good man and a dishonest artist, or a bad man and an honest artist, or a bad man and a dishonest artist, or a good man and an honest artist. Whiio there can be no question as to the supreme greatness of the fourth variety, or as to tho turpitude of the third, casuists might wrangle eternally over the alternative of the first two. Should a painter turn out pot boilers to support his family or should he neglect his domestic duties to follow his artistic ideais ? Whatever you may feel about Carlyle's character, pray bear in mind the terrible amount of morality that went to make those wonderfill books, and which is stored up in them liko force in nitro glycerine; and if you are an ordinary humdrum person, who contributes nothing to tho world's treasury, it will become you better to say grace than to pronounce judgment. And, whatever you may think of tho rights and wrongs of tho Carlyle household, remember the shrewd thing that Tennyson said about it—the shrewdest thing anyone has said about it— that it was a blessing they had married each other, for otherwise there would have been four unhappy people instead of two."