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Heroes and Hero Worship-Part7_Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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"pure" as dead dry sand is pure. David's life and history, as written for



us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given of

a man's moral progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever



discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul towards what

is good and best. Struggle often baffled, sore baffled, down as into



entire wreck; yet a struggle never ended; ever, with tears, repentance,

true unconquerable purpose, begun anew. Poor human nature! Is not a man's



walking, in truth, always that: "a succession of falls"? Man can do no

other. In this wild element of a Life, he has to struggle onwards; now



fallen, deep-abased; and ever, with tears, repentance, with bleeding heart,

he has to rise again, struggle again still onwards. That his struggle _be_



a faithful unconquerable one: that is the question of questions. We will

put up with many sad details, if the soul of it were true. Details by



themselves will never teach us what it is. I believe we misestimate

Mahomet's faults even as faults: but the secret of him will never be got



by dwelling there. We will leave all this behind us; and assuring

ourselves that he did mean some true thing, ask candidly what it was or



might be.

These Arabs Mahomet was born among are certainly a notable people. Their



country itself is notable; the fit habitation for such a race. Savage

inaccessible rock-mountains, great grim deserts, alternating with beautiful



strips of verdure: wherever water is, there is greenness, beauty;

odoriferous balm-shrubs, date-trees, frankincense-trees. Consider that



wide waste horizon of sand, empty, silent, like a sand-sea, dividing

habitable place from habitable. You are all alone there, left alone with



the Universe; by day a fierce sun blazing down on it with intolerable

radiance; by night the great deep Heaven with its stars. Such a country is



fit for a swift-handed, deep-hearted race of men. There is something most

agile, active, and yet most meditative, enthusiastic in the Arab character.



The Persians are called the French of the East; we will call the Arabs

Oriental Italians. A gifted noble people; a people of wild strong



feelings, and of iron restraint over these: the characteristic of

noble-mindedness, of genius. The wild Bedouin welcomes the stranger to his



tent, as one having right to all that is there; were it his worst enemy, he

will slay his foal to treat him, will serve him with sacredhospitality for



three days, will set him fairly on his way;--and then, by another law as

sacred, kill him if he can. In words too as in action. They are not a



loquacious people, taciturn rather; but eloquent, gifted when they do

speak. An earnest, truthful kind of men. They are, as we know, of Jewish



kindred: but with that deadly terrible earnestness of the Jews they seem

to combine something graceful, brilliant, which is not Jewish. They had



"Poetic contests" among them before the time of Mahomet. Sale says, at

Ocadh, in the South of Arabia, there were yearly fairs, and there, when the



merchandising was done, Poets sang for prizes:--the wild people gathered to

hear that.



One Jewish quality these Arabs manifest; the outcome of many or of all high

qualities: what we may call religiosity. From of old they had been



zealous worshippers, according to their light. They worshipped the stars,

as Sabeans; worshipped many natural objects,--recognized them as symbols,



immediate manifestations, of the Maker of Nature. It was wrong; and yet

not wholly wrong. All God's works are still in a sense symbols of God. Do



we not, as I urged, still account it a merit to recognize a certain

inexhaustible significance, "poetic beauty" as we name it, in all natural



objects whatsoever? A man is a poet, and honored, for doing that, and

speaking or singing it,--a kind of diluted worship. They had many



Prophets, these Arabs; Teachers each to his tribe, each according to the

light he had. But indeed, have we not from of old the noblest of proofs,



still palpable to every one of us, of what devoutness and noble-mindedness

had dwelt in these rusticthoughtful peoples? Biblical critics seem agreed



that our own _Book of Job_ was written in that region of the world. I call

that, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever



written with pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew; such a

noble universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns



in it. A noble Book; all men's Book! It is our first, oldest statement of

the never-ending Problem,--man's destiny, and God's ways with him here in






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