“Every reunion of men, is it not, as we often say, a reunion of incalculable influences; every unit of it a microcosm of influences;—of which how shall science calculate or prophesy! Science, which cannot, with all its calculuses, differential, integral, and of variations, calculate the problem of three gravitating bodies, ought to hold her peace here, and say only: In this National Convention there are seven hundred and forty-nine very singular bodies, that gravitate and do much else;—who, probably in an amazing manner, will work the appointment of Heaven.”
In 1837, Carlyle described the members of the States-General of 1789 and the National Convention, depicted above, into which it was transformed, as gravitating bodies (see: social gravitation). |
“Viewed in his merely external relations, Goethe exhibits an appearance such as seldom occurs in the history of letters, and indeed, from the nature of the case, can seldom occur. A man who, in early life, rising almost at a single bound into the highest reputation over all Europe; by gradual advances, fixing himself more and more firmly in the reverence of his countrymen, ascends silently through many vicissitudes to the supreme intellectual place among them; and now, after half a century, distinguished by convulsions, political, moral, and poetical, still reigns, full of years and honors, with a soft undisputed sway; still laboring in his vocation, still forwarding, as with kingly benignity, whatever can profit the culture of his nation: such a man might justly attract our notice, were it only by the singularity of his fortune. Supremacies of this sort are rare in modern times; so universal, and of such continuance, they are almost unexampled.”— Thomas Carlyle (1877), Goethe (pgs. 3-4)
“Close thy Byron, open thy Goethe.”Printed direct commentary by Carlyle on Goethe's Elective Affinities, however, is elusive.— Thomas Carlyle (c.1850) (Ѻ)
“Thomas Carlyle, probably one of Goethe's biggest supporters, does not even mention Die Wahlverwandtschaften in his major works on Goethe.”— Astrida Tantillo (2001), Goethe’s Elective Affinities and the Critics (pg. 49)
“Coleridge is ‘very great but rather mystical, sometimes absurd.’ Essayist William Hazlitt is ‘worth little, tho’ clever.’ Alexander Pope is ‘eminently good,” while Thomas Gray was found to be ‘very good and diverting.’ On Washington Irving: ‘It was a dream of mine that we two should be friends!’ Byron, and those like him, are to be regarded as ‘opium eaters’, people who ‘raise their minds by brooding over and embellishing their sufferings, from one degree of fervid exaltation and dreamy greatness to another, till at length they run amuck entirely, and whoever meets them would do well to run them thro’ the body.”— Thomas Carlyle (c.1850) [3]
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