Isaiah 2:4 and the ‘Isaiah of the Nineteenth Century’: The Prophecy of Universal Peace in Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus and Past and Present

Thomas Carlyle, the ‘Isaiah of the Nineteenth Century’ as he was sometimes referred to in the years following his death,1 occasionally made allusions in his works and private correspondence to Isaiah’s prophecy of universal peace (Isaiah 2:4).2 This note uncovers and explains these allusions in two of Carlyle’s major works: his semi-autobiographical philosophical novel Sartor Resartus, published serially in Fraser’s Magazine between 1833 and 1834 before appearing in book form first in Boston in 1836 and then in Britain in 1838; and Past and Present (1843), arguably his most influential piece of social and cultural criticism.3 To contextualize and illuminate these allusions properly, the note first briefly considers what I term Carlyle’s ‘qualified or reluctant advocacy of war’ that was, as I argue, congruent with his avowed peace-mindedness—a crucial aspect of his thought which remains underappreciated in scholarship. That Carlyle made allusions to Isaiah 2:4 might come as a surprise. After all, his name has often been associated with war and the veneration of a heroic martial ethos. Contemporaries and later critics in Britain and abroad arraigned him for his apparent exaltation of militarism, Prussianism, and authoritarianism,4 with a recent scholar even identifying his ‘illiberal influence’ across the Atlantic.5 Around a decade after Carlyle’s death, Herbert Spencer confessed that due to his own profound aversion to autocracy, ‘Carlyle’s political doctrines had ever been repugnant’ to him.6 At the turn of the twentieth century, J.A. Hobson saw a close intellectual affinity between Carlyle’s and John Ruskin’s ‘tendency to worship force qua force’.7 Among those who had cultivated a ‘belief in a “divine right” of force’, Hobson singled out three Victorian men: Carlyle, Ruskin, and the Revd Charles Kingsley.8 During the Great War and the interwar period there were some voices who went so far as to claim that the war and its devastating consequences were the legacy of Carlyle.9 The period during and after the Second World War solidified further the association of Carlyle’s name with German militarism and even with fascism and Nazism. In his 1944 essay ‘Raffles and Miss Blandish’, George Orwell gave an unforgiving assessment of Carlyle’s seemingly pernicious legacy to the twentieth century. In Orwell’s eyes, Carlyle was part of ‘that older generation of intellectuals […] who bowed down before German militarism’, and who ‘[worshipped] power and successful cruelty’.10 Writing one year later, J. Salwyn Schapiro declared that Carlyle’s ‘views on social and political problems, divested of their moral appeal by the march of time, are revealed to be those of a fascist in their essential implications’.11 And Goebbels’s act of reading aloud to Hitler in the Berlin bunker of Carlyle’s History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great (1858–65) in the final days of Nazism, led Hugh Trevor-Roper to the conclusion that Carlyle’s doctrine—namely ‘that power should be entrusted unconditionally to great men, heroes who were laws to themselves, not responsible to the institutions or prejudices of inferior men’—‘rang musically in German ears, in a time of gloom and defeat’. This doctrine, added Trevor-Roper, was ‘aptly illustrate[d]’ in the history of Nazism.12 This is just a handful of interpretations of Carlyle’s work and legacy that have consolidated the idea that he inadvertently helped to open the floodgates to twentieth-century German militarism, authoritarianism, and total war. Sketching a full picture of Carlyle’s attitude to war is beyond the scope of this note, but it is nonetheless important to emphasize that the argument that he worshipped at the altar of militarism is a crude generalization. His support for Prussia during the war with France as ventilated in his famous letter to the Times in November 1870 might, on the surface, suggest otherwise.13 So too might his excuses for slavery and his view that the American Civil War was ‘a tragically pointless conflict’ rather than ‘a struggle for democracy and the survival of the Union’.14 True, Carlyle often employed military references, symbolism, and allusions in many of his works, including Sartor Resartus, Past and Present, as well as Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850). True also that he seemed almost or wholly defensive and exculpatory towards the actions of his two warrior-heroes, Oliver Cromwell and Frederick the Great. Yet Carlyle was never an advocate of war per se. Rather, as D.J. Trela has convincingly suggested, Carlyle shows his support for war ‘only when he believes it is morally right and there is no alternative. When it comes it is saddening and tragic’.15 Carlyle’s views on peace and the contemporary peace movement—which originated in the 1790s during the French wars and drew most of its support from the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the London Peace Society (founded in 1816), and other peace groups and organizations—throw much-needed light into his qualified or reluctant advocacy of war. Although his earlier stance towards it had been more critical,16 by 1851 he became more receptive to the peace movement and its objectives.17 One year earlier he averred in Latter-Day Pamphlets that wars were becoming unnecessary as the world became more integrated: ‘wars,—misunderstandings that get to the length of arguing themselves out by sword and cannon,—have, in these late generations of improved intercourse, been palpably becoming less and less necessary; have in a manner become superfluous,—if we had a little wisdom, and our Foreign Office on a good footing.’18 The year 1851 marked the zenith of the peace movement’s influence and cultural power. Its fifth international congress was held in London’s Exeter Hall, and coincided with another epoch-making event, the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. In the words of Henry Richard, secretary of the London Peace Society and one of the main figureheads of the peace movement, the Congress was ‘a fitting expression in living speech to the sentiment of which the Crystal Palace and its contents were the significant material symbol’.19 Carlyle was invited to the Peace Congress. In lieu of attending, Carlyle sent a letter to Richard commending the meeting and subscribing to its objects. The letter was read aloud during the first day’s proceedings. The letter is worth quoting here in full because it remains little known and is hardly ever cited by scholars; more importantly, because it offers a glimpse into Carlyle’s attitude towards peace and the peace movement: Chelsea, 18th July, 1851 Sir,—I fear I shall not be able to attend any of your meetings; but certainly I can at once avow, if, indeed, such an avowal on the part of any sound-minded man be not a superfluous one, that I altogether approve your object, heartily wish it entire success, and even hold myself bound to do, by all opportunities that are open to me, whatever I can towards forwarding the same. How otherwise? ‘If it be possible, as much as in you lies, study to live at peace with all men;’ this, sure enough, is the perpetual law for every man, both in his individual and his social capacity; nor in any capacity or character whatsoever is he permitted to neglect this law, but must follow it, and do what he can to see it followed. Clearly, beyond question, whatsoever be our theories about human nature, and its capabilities and outcomes, the less war and cutting of throats we have among us, it will be the better for us all! One rejoices much to see that immeasurable tendencies of this time are already pointing towards the result you aim at; that, to all appearance, as men no longer wear swords in the streets, so neither, by and by, will nations; that, among nations, too, the sanguinary ultima ratio will, as it has done among individuals, become rarer and rarer; and the tragedy of fighting, if it can never altogether disappear, will reduce itself more and more strictly to a minimum in our affairs. Towards this result, as I said, all men are at all times bound to co-operate; and, indeed, consciously or unconsciously, every well-behaved person in this world may be said to be daily and hourly co-operating towards it—especially in these times of banking, railwaying, printing, and penny-posting; when every man’s traffickings and labourings, and whatever industry he honestly and not dishonestly follows, do all very directly tend, whether he knows it or not, towards this good object among others. I will say farther, what appears very evident to me, that if any body of citizens, from one, or especially from various countries, see good to meet together, and articulate, reiterate these or the like considerations, and strive to make them known and familiar,—the world in general, so soon as it can sum up the account, may rather hold itself indebted to them for so doing. They are in the happy case of giving some little furtherance to their cause by such meetings, and (what is somewhat peculiar) of not retarding it thereby on any side at all. If they be accused of doing little good, they can answer confidently that the little good they do is quite unalloyed, that they do no evil whatever. The evil of their enterprise, if evil there be, is to themselves only; the good of it goes wholly to the world’s account without any admixture of evil:—for which unalloyed benefit, however small it be, the world surely ought, as I now do, to thank them rather than otherwise. One big battle saved to Europe, will cover the expense of many meetings. How many meetings would one expedition to Russia cover the expense of! Truly I wish you all the speed possible; well convinced that you will not too much extinguish the wrath that dwells as a natural element in all Adam’s posterity;—and I beg to subscribe myself, Sir, yours very sincerely, T. Carlyle Henry Richard, Esq., Secretary, &c., &c.20 This highly illuminating letter reflects Carlyle’s attitude towards peace and the peace movement. He not only expresses his unequivocal support for the London Peace Congress and approves of its objectives, but also shares his belief that in this age of liberal internationalism and global interconnectedness the arc of history points towards the elimination of war in human affairs. Perhaps there was something here echoing Isaiah’s prophecy, although Carlyle appears less hopeful—as indicated by the pessimistic note he strikes towards the end of the letter in observing that humanity’s propensity for war and conflict, ‘the wrath’ as he calls it, is a seemingly inextinguishable ‘natural element’. Before we uncover and examine his allusions to Isaiah’s prophecy in Sartor Resartus and Past and Present, it is important first to note that Carlyle knew his Bible well.21 It was from his parents that he learned ‘the Calvinist doctrines of the work ethic and of the Bible as a guide to personal morality’, according to one of his biographers.22 This biblical-Calvinist upbringing had a profound influence on his intellect and literary imagination. As one scholar has put it: ‘Thomas Carlyle may well be, of all writers in English, the most thoroughly imbued with the Bible. His language, his imagery, his syntax, his stance, his worldview—all are affected by it’, and ‘the biblical allusions’ in his works ‘outnumber those to his other favourites: Goethe, Shakespeare, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, and Laurence Sterne’.23 This is the case with Sartor Resartus, ‘Carlyle’s most scriptural text’, as Christopher Lane has described it.24 One of the book’s major literary critics has noted that Sartor’s language is ‘heavily Biblical’.25 The same can be said for Past and Present, the tone and preaching style of which are not unlike those of a sermon laden with biblical references and moral exhortations.26 As evidenced in Carlyle’s private correspondence, the biblical prophecies of Isaiah were frequently on his mind.27 The same had been true for one of Carlyle’s heroes, Oliver Cromwell, as Carlyle himself observed.28 References to Isaiah can also be found in some of Carlyle’s early periodical articles.29 But these references are not always explicit, as is the case with Isaiah 2:4 in Sartor Resartus and Past and Present. In the former, Carlyle alludes to Isaiah 2:4 in Chapter I of Book II. Here the ‘Editor’, who seeks to explain to a British audience the idealist philosophy of clothes of Diogenes Teufelsdröckh from his book Die Kleider ihr Werden und Wirken (‘Clothes, their Origin and Influence’), is looking through some papers in his attempt to learn more about the life of this enigmatic philosophical author and university professor from the imaginary German town of ‘Weissnichtwo’. The biblical undertones of this chapter are made clear from the outset. This is suggested by the title of the chapter, ‘Genesis’, and by the Editor’s comment in the first paragraph. ‘To the Genesis of our Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this First Chapter consecrated’, writes the Editor, whilst also observing that Teufelsdröckh ‘seems to be of quite obscure extraction’; this meant ‘that this Genesis of his can properly be nothing but an Exodus’.30 The Editor then tries to piece together the details of Teufelsdröckh’s early life in the village of Entepfuhl and the household of his foster parents, Andreas and Gretchen Futteral. It is when Andreas Futteral is introduced that Carlyle inserts an allusion to Isaiah 2:4. Andreas, as we learn, ‘had been grenadier Sergeant, and even regimental Schoolmaster under Frederick the Great’.31 Yet Andreas abandoned his army posts: ‘but now, quitting the halbert and ferule for the spade and pruning-hook, cultivated a little Orchard, on the produce of which he, Cincinnatus-like, lived not without dignity. Fruits, the peach, the apple, the grape, with other varieties came in their season; all which Andreas knew how to sell’.32 Andreas thus exchanged those objects associated with his military career for tools associated with a peaceful, agricultural, and productive modus vivendi: his weapon, the ‘halbert’, and the ‘ferule’ which he had used as regimental schoolmaster, were replaced by the ‘spade’ and the ‘pruning-hook’. This is evocative of Isaiah 2:4, which prophesies that nations will no longer know war, and that ‘they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks’—in other words, that they will convert their weapons into agricultural tools. On one occasion in his private correspondence around two decades to the of Sartor Resartus, Carlyle had on the same from Isaiah 2:4 in the career of one of his after his at the had a and only a that had his into his into is to Carlyle to this about Teufelsdröckh’s Andreas an allusion to Isaiah This is far from in Sartor Resartus, the that Teufelsdröckh a by the of as well as by a after his with another man, who a like that of the His him to and at Thomas he has a which him out of into a the of before he into the At the of he the of the of and a philosophical war and its with and men and not so much as Teufelsdröckh also the by war on the natural is up and man’s of it, his and with and the as a This in to the of which with of The of war, Teufelsdröckh only to the tools of on the other are and their to produce and to This is the of Isaiah’s prophecy which Carlyle is through Teufelsdröckh’s In the of how ‘the final of would come Teufelsdröckh the answer in a from The of the two in a with light the and in one the Yet Teufelsdröckh his and ‘but from such what and may Here one can almost Carlyle’s and is of his own as in the of his letter to the London Peace Congress. from a man to a man the productive tools of to have an on As we learn later in the Teufelsdröckh had that the Editor to Teufelsdröckh’s but by no The allusion to Isaiah 2:4 in Past and Present is more To it we must first Carlyle’s views on the and of Carlyle, work is it is something and that to the and by an and As Carlyle put it in Chapter of Book there is a and even in he never so of his there is always in a man that and works: in is there perpetual never so is in with the to get done will itself one more and more to to and which are have a natural and and productive This is what them and them and in their as well as their than all was this but and have of and of there not, in the of a of a for like a giving no it, it down in around It is those tools that human and for the of and that them to expression to this about As Carlyle had avowed in Sartor Resartus a decade to the of Past and is a […] do you him without without he is with he is The and the in Past and Present. Chapter of Book with a is your your and the of this world is not now and the how much and the it is now and the that, to all time, is now our first of all I were to note of As has been in two of Past and Present, Carlyle the and the from the of Book I of the The this But what I to suggest is that here Carlyle is also Isaiah 2:4. The of the according to Carlyle, is no longer by but rather by those tools of work that to the and productive of the Isaiah’s prophecy in Carlyle’s just as Isaiah prophesies that in a swords and spears will be into and Carlyle that man’s and are found not in but in those tools that and Carlyle’s idea is biblical and from the Book of Carlyle’s attitude towards war in Past and Present further the undertones of his view about the tools of work and those of Past and Present is with military This it to into the of that Carlyle is and language because of his of the of Past and Present that this is not the Carlyle even in the of and in he not the he towards the is no than two men with and eyes, one living and living into of only for In Book he the that all the had some for […] this of one seemed to be ‘the one important to learn and to How much better would it have been of men and the for them to and our work at rather than abroad is the are the in the one true war’ to social this to be Carlyle that what is is a force which is and as a but as a with an of is human human and social in this at a of their and the of human now the military he Carlyle was not an of war. On the he to the idea that war was and unnecessary as a to human affairs. Isaiah 2:4 a and of this in an of universal But even if this was in Carlyle, just like was that would not be and History has been him