Category Archives: Carlyle

Carlyle, Writing

Perseverance?

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I continue today with Thomas Carlyle’s letter to Henry Inglis, a young man 11 years his junior. Carlyle continues with the advice he had given earlier in the letter.

My earnest often-repeated advice to you, therefore, is: Persevere! Persevere! In all practical, in all intellectual excellence think no acquirement enough. Throw aside all frivolity; walk not with the world, where it is walking wrong; war ad necem [to the death] with Pride and Vanity and all forms of Self-conceit within you; be diligent in season and out of season! It depends on you, whether we are one day to have another man, or only another money-gaining and money-spending Machine.

So Carlyle tells the young Mr. Inglis not to give up. We find no end of such advice in the world. Persevere. Don’t give up. Keep going. Run the race faster, stronger, longer. Even the Apostle Paul got in on this type of advice.

Yes, in whatever endeavor we undertake, we need to do so having counted the cost, knowing what will be required of us, and persevering to the end. But what happens if the cost is too much? We are also cautioned in scripture, by the Savior himself, against beginning something we don’t have the wherewithal to finish—towers and war and such metaphors applying.

In the matter of writing, that’s where I am. Am I simply not persevering, or have I finally counted the cost and determined that I don’t have the wherewithal to finish? God, please help me to know.

Carlyle

The Rind Enclosing a Fruit of Wisdom

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Once again, I want to draw a lesson out of Thomas Carlyle’s 31 March 1829 letter to Henry Inglas. Here is the text I quoted recently:

…I look forward to see how in the future you will unfold and turn to use so fair a talent. For henceforth, it depends nearly altogether on yourself: if you can but learn the lessons which Experience will teach you, it matters little whether these be of a sweet or bitter nature: the bitter as well as the sweet are but the rind enclosing a fruit of Wisdom, which is in itself celestial and perennial. Diligence, unwearied steadfast Endeavour; ‘like the stars, unhasting, unresting’!

I love Carlyle’s metaphor of the rind that encloses, encapsulates a fruit of wisdom–actually Wisdom, personified. Metaphor almost always does a good job of explaining concepts, at least metaphors done well do. Carlyle did this well, in my judgment.

So the experiences of life should serve to provide Wisdom, and this Wisdom should then help you in your life. Perhaps what Carlyle wrote next will also be of interest.

This is the sceptre with which man rules his Destiny; and tho’ fragile as a reed, removes mountains, spiritual as well as physical. I need not remind you here that such Diligence as will avail is not of book-studies alone; but primarily, and in a far higher degree respects the heart and moral dispositions. He who loves Truth, knows it to be priceless, and cleaves to it thro’ all shapes, in thought, word, and deed, as to the life of his soul. Nay I believe the first and infinitely the most important question with regard to any Student of Knowledge is precisely this very question, so often overlooked: what is the state of his moral temper and practice? Does he really love Truth, or only the market-price of Truth, the praise and money it will sell for? Has he conquered his vanity; or, rather since that is impossible, is he faithfully striving against it?

I find that inspiring.

Writers are always looking for ideas for writing. Some writers struggle with this, being at paper with pen and drawing a blank. Others don’t. I don’t tend to have a problem with writing ideas. Sometimes capturing them and keep them from fleeing before they can be permanently locked down in a manner that will allow future development is a problem, but not the ideas themselves. These ideas typically come from life experiences, as Carlyle suggests.

One such event happened on 17 August 2004, and I wrote this cinquain as a result.

Fused
They met
on Tuesday morn,
quite accidentally.
You think it fate that made two one
head on?

What was the incident? A head on collision that I came upon perhaps five minutes after it happened, while on my morning commute. West Bound and East Bound, on that rural highway, found themselves in the same spot on the road, on a curve. The speed of the impact and centrifugal force forced the cars, now fused together, off the road outside the curve. By the time I went by, three or four other cars had stopped. One person was on a cell phone and three others were working car doors. I didn’t figure my feeble physical skill would provide any more help than was already at work, so I went on. About seven minutes later emergency vehicles from town came at and passed me. I don’t see how anyone could have survived the accident, but I never saw the police report to learn the details.

I decided to write the cinquain about the experience, forcing myself to stay within constraints of the cinquain form, trying disguising the words enough to imply a different meaning–a relationship–without leaving the other meaning out. I think I achieved that aim.

That was one of Experience’s bitter lessons, one about driving I hoped I learned, and one about writing ideas.

More about this letter from Carlyle to Inglis in my next post.

Carlyle

It depends nearly all on me

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Being between reading projects at work, I have on occasion gone to the Carlyle letters on line and read with great enjoyment. I had in mind to look through some of Carlyle’s early letters to see if they had any indication of some of his later extremes in political matters. I’m not sure I have yet found anything concerning my search. What I did find was a wonderful letter from Thomas Carlyle to Henry Inglis, written on 31 March 1829. Carlyle was 33; Inglis eleven years younger.

Although Carlyle was not yet at the point where his writing was providing him with renown or financial success, he was still able to give the younger man some advice about his future work and using his talent. Consider this excerpt.

…I look forward to see how in the future you will unfold and turn to use so fair a talent. For henceforth, it depends nearly altogether on yourself: if you can but learn the lessons which Experience will teach you, it matters little whether these be of a sweet or bitter nature: the bitter as well as the sweet are but the rind enclosing a fruit of Wisdom, which is in itself celestial and perennial. Diligence, unwearied steadfast Endeavour; ‘like the stars, unhasting, unresting’!

“It depends nearly altogether on yourself.” That phrase hit me hard when I read it last Friday. I have been bemoaning the difficulties of being published. It seems I have tried to break in to publishing at the wrong time. First I was unhappy to learn that the publisher does almost no marketing of books, except a catalogue entry; the author has to do everything. Then the concept of author’s “platform” hit me hard. I have no platform, and so am even less likely to be considered for book publishing. So I thought of my long-thought-of newspaper column as a means of platform building. Then, at the same time when Life was squeezing time from me, I saw what was happening in the newspaper business, the rapid shrinking of markets and failure to compete with the Internet–that and all the marketing time it would take to go that route. And, having little hope that that time would materialize, I put just about everything on hold.

Of course, I should not expect breaking in to a new business, having a second career, to be easy. I don’t know why I ever thought otherwise. Carlyle, as remote as he is to today and to me, is saying that success in this new endeavor depends on me. It’s not how well I write–because writing better is something that is totally within my power through improving my craft. It’s now about whether I have the right ideas–for market research is something I can and should do. It’s not about who you know–well, actually it is, but I can figure out how to meet people. Etc., etc., etc.

Okay, TC, back to the drawing board I guess. If you can just help me figure out how to find three or four more hours in the day, that would be a big help.

Carlyle, letters, miscellaneous

$2.109

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This has been a very busy Saturday, raking leaves, cutting deadfall, trying to get a riding mower started, buying groceries. I’m much too tired to do much right now.

Last night I spent a lot of time on the Thomas Carlyle letters to Leigh Hunt, specifically one where Carlyle discussed poetry. Ideas for an essay came to me, and I began some notes and even some writing of the essay. Tonight I’m just going to read in the next book on my list.

A high note for the day was buying gasoline for $2.109 per gallon, the lowest it’s been here in over 3 years, if I remember correctly. Then, when we were at another part of town, I saw a gas station manager change their price to $2.099 per gallon. They are not the lowest station in town, so I suspect at the Murphy Oil on the Wal-Mart outlot it was probably about $2.069. Way to go, Congress, for ending the prohibition on offshore drilling, which is depressing the futures market, which is coming back to the current price.

Carlyle, poetry, research

A New "Research" Project

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This morning I meant to post a report of a short book I finished, something not on my official reading list. I wrote some notes for the review last night, then laid them and the book next to the portfolio I carry to work each day. Alas, this morning, when I finished devotions at my desk, poured and doctored coffee, and opened my portfolio, the notes and book were not there. I suppose in my normal, strict routine way of getting out of the house in the morning, looking on the kitchen table for something out of the ordinary I was supposed to pick up was too much. That will teach me to go one tiny step further in the evening and put the non-standard item in the portfolio rather than next to it.

So what to do in my personal time, after devotions, at my desk? I have finished culling printed writing materials from notebooks, so nothing to do there. I was not ready to again pick up John Wesley’s letters and take up where I left off somewhat more than a month ago (expect a future post on that). Reviewing Absolute Write for a poem to critique or a political discussion to burst in on revealed nothing I had to do. But there, in my favorites in Internet Explorer, was the folder titled “Carlyle” and in it the link to The Carlyle Letters Online, hosted by Duke University. A few clicks, making decisions on what to read, found me at a letter from Carlyle to Leigh Hunt in June 1833. I decided on a letter to Hunt because I recently posted for critique my parody of Hunt’s famous poem “Jenny Kissed Me”. If my readers can stand this affectation, here’s my parody.

Hunter Licked Me

Hunter licked me on the nose,
showing me his deep affection.
Whimpering, this dachshund knows
who provided food and protection.
Tell me that my poems won’t sell,
that no muse has ever picked me.
Call me crazy, but then yell
Hunter licked me.

I read the letter from Carlyle to Hunt, and decided, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a collection of letters between Hunt and Carlyle much as I have between Emerson and Carlyle?” So I decided to start one. I copied that letter–including footnotes and source citations, and dumped it into a MS Word document. Some formatting was needed, to put it in my typical compressed yet readable layout (trying to save a tree or two, you know), and making the footnotes real footnotes rather than embedded things at the end of the letter.

All of that took little time, so I decided to do some more. I went to the Index By Recipient, and found one more to Hunt in the 1832-34 time frame. This puzzled me, because I expected more than this. So I went to the chronological list and found a number of letters in this time frame, including the first, a brief Carlyle note to Hunt about receiving a book of his from Hunt’s publisher. By the time my work day officially started (okay, I may have done my personal stuff 15 minutes too long, but I’ll make it up this evening), I had fourteen pages of Carlyle to Hunt.

So what am I going to do with this? Don’t know yet. And I have to see if I can find Leigh Hunt’s letters on line. I know they’ve been published, but haven’t yet looked for them. I suppose you could call this a “reading and research” project. But it’s more than that. It is entertainment for me. And it should also, should I really read these letters, help with the brain atrophy I’m trying to overcome.

Carlyle, Writing

Carlyle: writing contemptible to me

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After Emerson wrote to Carlyle that every writer is a skater, a sailor, and that a book has more variation than a surveyor’s compass (see my post on June 17), Carlyle had this to say in reply.

How true is that you say about the skater; and the rider too depending on his vehicles, on his roads, on his et ceteras! Dismally true have I a thousand times felt it, in these late operations; never in any so much. And in short the business of writing has altogether become contemptible to me; and I am become confirmed in the notion that nobody ought to write,–unless sheer Fate force him to do it;–and then he ought (if not of the mountebank genus) to beg to be shot rather. That is deliberately my opinion,–or far nearer it than you will believe.
Carlyle to Emerson, 2 June 1858

Carlyle is a difficult writer to understand. His motivations for being a writer are unclear, except that he could. No doubt his statement that the business of writing has “become contemptible” to him is an exaggeration, an over-statement at a time of physical or mental exhaustion. Yet, in all his correspondence to Emerson, Carlyle always complained about whatever he was writing: how difficult it was to do the research; how the book never came together as he wanted it to; how he had to change directions often in midstream; how he would go mad if he continued to write. I’m sure Emerson’s statement of the nature of writing and of the book was somewhat in response to prior complaints by Carlyle.

Carlyle was either considerably down in the dumps or revelling in over-statement to say “nobody ought to write…unless Fate force him…and then he ought…to beg to be shot rather.” Yet, I suspect these words contain a large measure of truth. While I would ascribe it to a calling rather than to Fate, perhaps the writer ought to make sure he has a calling for it, with proofs of the calling equivalent to the preacher’s proofs: grace, gifts, and usefulness. An urge to write may not be enough.

I think, in a future post, I will write about the writer’s grace, gifts, and usefulness, and see where that takes me. Not tomorrow, nor maybe this week, for I have some accumulated book reviews to post.

Carlyle, Emerson, Writing

Every writer is a skater

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As time allows, I continue to read through my ancient volume of the letters between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Carlyle, a letter or two at a time in the evening, every few days. I came across this tidbit from Emerson.

Every writer is a skater, who must go partly where he would and partly, where the skates carry him; or a sailor, who can only land where sails can be safely blown. The variations to be allowed for in the surveyor’s compass are nothing like so large as those that must be allowed for in every book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson to Thomas Carlyle, from Concord 17 May 1858

These two friends had been writing for twenty-five years. Emerson had made two visits to Carlyle in England during that time, but Carlyle never ventured across the seas to America. In all his letters, Carlyle always complained about the books he was writing. Each one was an arduous task he would love to be rid of (I’ll cover that specifically in a future post); each was likely to cause his death; each resulting work was terrible. At present Carlyle was about done with his longest work, a biography of Frederick the Great, and he complained about it in every letter to Emerson (these letters now being a year apart, with Emerson the reluctant to write).

I think these words of Emerson might have partly been in answer to some of Carlyle’s complaints. The writer begins a piece, Emerson says, but the piece winds up only partly where the writer expected it to go. Just as an ice skater sets his direction, but is somewhat at the mercy of skates and ice (depending, of course, on the skill of the skater). The exact direction and stopping point is unknown. The writer chooses the subject of the book; does the outline; maybe even writes a synopsis of the chapters; but the book takes on a life of its own as the writer writes.

Or, as Emerson says, “the writer is…a sailor, who can only land where sails can be safely blown.” Now of course, a skilled sailor, with a good ship or boat, properly rigged and outfitted, can reduce the variability of the landing spot. I remember my brief sailing days, and the frustration at trying to get my 10 foot trimaran to do what I wanted it to do on Point Jude Pond. A skilled sailor learns how to use the variable direction and strength of the wind to his best advantage, yet can never quite tell exactly what spot of water he will be on at every given time, nor exactly where he will land.

So with the writer. The Olympian skater has much less variability in where the skates take him than do I when I get on the ice–which I haven’t in at least twenty-eight years. The writer must acquire skills and experience to allow the things he writes to be more under his control. As the vessel carrying the sailor must be properly built and maintained, the writer does not get where he wants to be except with similar preparation and outfitting. Still, just as the best skaters sometimes end up not exactly where they thought they would be, as the best sailors still have variable conditions to account for, so the writer’s work is never quite as imagined from the start.

It’s something for me to think about as I progress on this journey.

Next blog post: Carlyle’s reply.

Carlyle, Engineering, Wesley

It’s been an even more turbulent week

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More than a week has passed since I last gave the “weekly report”. Sorry for my absence. Many of the days during this time were chock full of what I can only describe as turbulence. Much of that was at work, but some was personal, especially yesterday. I can’t say anything publicly. The immediate crisis has passed, but a long term crisis looms.

But, each cloud has a silver lining, right? The good news is that all the stress has about taken away my appetite. I’ve reduced to the lowest weight I’ve been at for two or three years.

Hopefully tomorrow I will find time to get back to the Wesley letter of recent posts, then to a Carlyle letter I began research on three weeks ago.

We can hope.

Carlyle, Documenting America, Writing

Capturing the Idea

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Over at the Absolute Write Water Cooler, my current Internet writing hangout, a recent threadbrought up the subject of documenting ideas. As I wrote previously, Carlyle didn’t worry about capturing the many ideas that went march-marching through his head. Maybe his writing list was enough to last a lifetime without trying to capture those stray thoughts.

I have to capture them, however. How do I know but that a stray idea will be the one that gives me a magazine article writing credit? Or that possibly one might be a better novel or non-fiction book than the one I’m currently working on? That happened to me recently. I’d been working mostly on getting ready to market Documenting America, and writing for this blog, when an idea for a non-fiction book hit me. This idea was strong enough that no documentation was required. After a week, I discussed it with my wife and she encouraged me to write it. So all other writing projects are dropped, save for the sporadic posting to this blog, so as to get four chapters, a table of content, and a proposal done before the May conference. I’ve completed the four chapters in first draft, and will tonight begin the editing process. I’ve begun working on the proposal, but only barely. The TOC will come in due course during the proposal.

Monday night another non-fiction book idea came to me, I think it was as I was driving home. The idea was in response to something someone said on a news or talk program. An idea for a book loosely related to that came to my mind. By the time I was home, the idea was gone, lost behind a nuked baked potato and veggies. Yesterday it came back, so I decided I’d better do something with it. I took a sheet of re-use paper and wrote a single line: a proposed book title. Tonight I’ll take a few minutes to hand-write a short paragraph, discussing what the book will be about, and will stick it in my newly created Writing Ideas notebook. When will I get to this idea for actually developing an outline, and maybe writing it? I don’t know. It will take some research to write, for it’s something I have strong opinions on but am not familiar with historical details that I’ll need. So this might not be any time soon. But who knows? Maybe my current non-fiction book will sell in May. If so, a follow-up book might be needed at some point. This one doesn’t follow that one in subject matter; the following is only that they are both non-fiction. But, since non-fiction outsells fiction something like 8 to 1, perhaps that is the way to go.

Then again, it might be years before I get to this idea—or never. I might get into the research and realize it was a stupid idea (the word “stupid” is in the title), and not worthy of a book. Maybe it’s just magazine article length, not book length. Or maybe the idea is valid, but I have many better ideas to pursue. Or maybe my fiction takes off, and I abandon non-fiction for a long time.

Whatever, for once I have correctly documented the idea, in a three stage process (or, if you want to say “remembering” the idea was a step, then it’s a four stage process). Either way, I feel I’ve come a long way.

Carlyle, Emerson

Critique Between Friends

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Just one more post from The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 2, before I move on to other things.

These two giants of literature, unkown to the general public in the 21st century (though Emerson has a following in American acedemia), regularly sent writings to the other, for reading and criticism. This wasn’t for critique, since these were published items. Emerson took over as publisher and editor of The Dial magazine, and sent each issue to him. Carlyle had some interesting thoughts about it:

“I love your Dial, and yet it is with a kind of shudder. You seem to me to be in danger of dividing yourselves from the Fact of this present Universe, in which alone, ugly as it is, can I find any anchorage, and soaring away after Ideas, Beliefs, Revelations, and such like,–into perilous altitudes, as I think; beyond the curve of perpetual frost, for one thing! I know not how to utter what impression you give me; take the above as some stamping of the fore-hoof. Surely I could wish you returned into your own poor nineteenth century.”

Well, that is heavy criticism, to say a good friend has his head so far in the clouds that his writing, and the publication he edits, lacks grounding in the current times. I’ve been active on some Internet writing boards where this type of criticism would cause a massive flame war. That is harsh criticism. How did Emerson respond?

“For the Dial and its sins, I have no defence to set up. We write as we can, and we know very little about it. If the direction of these speculations is to be deplored, it is yet a fact for literary history, that all the bright boys and girls in New England, quite ignorant of each other, take the world so, and come and make confession to father and mothers,–the boys that they do not wish to go into trade, the girls that they do not like morning calls and evening parties. They are all religious, but hate the churches; they reject all the ways of living of other men, but have none to offer in their stead. Perhaps, one of these days, a great Yankee shall come, who will easily do the unknown deed.”

Most interesting. Emerson acknowledges the criticism, seems to be somewhat in agreement with it, and then says he doesn’t care. They will go on writing as they do, for the writing is better than other activities they could do. If they are unconnected with the current age, so be it. Again, on some Internet writing boards, this rejection of criticism would be a call to fightin’.

But Emerson and Carlyle remained friends, and continued to write each other for thirty more years, seeing each other on two visits Emerson made to England. That is a kind of relationship I would like to have: to be able to be honest about another’s writing (and to be open to their honest criticism), to accept or reject it as best suits the author’s intentions for the piece, and to be friends for decades hence.