Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 05.djvu/15



For the lectures on Heroes and Hero-Worship—in their form, at least, of oral dissertations—the world is indebted to poverty and Harriet Martineau. Unimpelled by the goad of the one, or undirected by the friendly counsel and practical organising ability of the other, it is most unlikely that Carlyle would ever have undertaken a task so thoroughly uncongenial to him as that of expounding his opinions on life and morals to, of all audiences, an assembly gathered together mainly from the ranks of polite society. Yet he delivered no fewer than four courses of lectures between 1837 and 1840, and hated the business as heartily at the end as at the beginning. To Emerson on April 17th, 1839, he writes:—'My lectures come on this day two weeks. O heaven! I cannot "speak"; I can only gasp and writhe and stutter, a spectacle to gods and fashionables, being forced to it by want of money.' And on the very eve of the delivery of this, his last course, the Heroes and Hero-Worship series, he describes himself as 'feeling like a man going to be hanged.' His severe self-criticism of his oratorical style, and platform manner was, no doubt, largely just. 'At times,' wrote one who had attended his lectures, 'he distorts his features as if suddenly seized by some paroxysm of pain … he makes mouths; he has a harsh accent and graceless gesticulation.' Yet the lectures themselves were fairly successful from the pecuniary point of view—the last course, indeed, more so, which is significant, than the first. Apparently the desire of the 'fashionables' to see and hear this uncouth man of genius was something more than a mere passing whim; and his simple but dignified words of farewell are clearly those of a man who was well

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