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Heroes and Hero Worship-Part10_Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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is found straggling. The body of the Book is made up of mere tradition,

and as it were vehemententhusiastic extempore preaching" target="_blank" title="n.说教 a.说教的">preaching. He returns



forever to the old stories of the Prophets as they went current in the Arab

memory: how Prophet after Prophet, the Prophet Abraham, the Prophet Hud,



the Prophet Moses, Christian and other real and fabulous Prophets, had come

to this Tribe and to that, warning men of their sin; and been received by



them even as he Mahomet was,--which is a great solace to him. These things

he repeats ten, perhaps twenty times; again and ever again, with wearisome



iteration; has never done repeating them. A brave Samuel Johnson, in his

forlorn garret, might con over the Biographies of Authors in that way!



This is the great staple of the Koran. But curiously, through all this,

comes ever and anon some glance as of the real thinker and seer. He has



actually an eye for the world, this Mahomet: with a certain directness and

rugged vigor, he brings home still, to our heart, the thing his own heart



has been opened to. I make but little of his praises of Allah, which many

praise; they are borrowed I suppose mainly from the Hebrew, at least they



are far surpassed there. But the eye that flashes direct into the heart of

things, and _sees_ the truth of them; this is to me a highly interesting



object. Great Nature's own gift; which she bestows on all; but which only

one in the thousand does not cast sorrowfully away: it is what I call



sincerity of vision; the test of a sincere heart.

Mahomet can work no miracles; he often answers impatiently: I can work no



miracles. I? "I am a Public Preacher;" appointed to preach this doctrine

to all creatures. Yet the world, as we can see, had really from of old



been all one great miracle to him. Look over the world, says he; is it not

wonderful, the work of Allah; wholly "a sign to you," if your eyes were



open! This Earth, God made it for you; "appointed paths in it;" you can

live in it, go to and fro on it.--The clouds in the dry country of Arabia,



to Mahomet they are very wonderful: Great clouds, he says, born in the

deep bosom of the Upper Immensity, where do they come from! They hang



there, the great black monsters; pour down their rain-deluges "to revive a

dead earth," and grass springs, and "tall leafy palm-trees with their



date-clusters hanging round. Is not that a sign?" Your cattle too,--Allah

made them; serviceable dumb creatures; they change the grass into milk; you



have your clothing from them, very strange creatures; they come ranking

home at evening-time, "and," adds he, "and are a credit to you!" Ships



also,--he talks often about ships: Huge moving mountains, they spread out

their cloth wings, go bounding through the water there, Heaven's wind



driving them; anon they lie motionless, God has withdrawn the wind, they

lie dead, and cannot stir! Miracles? cries he: What miracle would you



have? Are not you yourselves there? God made you, "shaped you out of a

little clay." Ye were small once; a few years ago ye were not at all. Ye



have beauty, strength, thoughts, "ye have compassion on one another." Old

age comes on you, and gray hairs; your strength fades into feebleness; ye



sink down, and again are not. "Ye have compassion on one another:" this

struck me much: Allah might have made you having no compassion on one



another,--how had it been then! This is a great direct thought, a glance

at first-hand into the very fact of things. Rude vestiges of poetic



genius, of whatsoever is best and truest, are visible in this man. A

strong untutored intellect; eyesight, heart: a strong wild man,--might



have shaped himself into Poet, King, Priest, any kind of Hero.

To his eyes it is forever clear that this world wholly is miraculous. He



sees what, as we said once before, all great thinkers, the rude

Scandinavians themselves, in one way or other, have contrived to see: That



this so solid-looking material world is, at bottom, in very deed, Nothing;

is a visual and factual Manifestation of God's power and presence,--a



shadow hung out by Him on the bosom of the void Infinite; nothing more.

The mountains, he says, these great rock-mountains, they shall dissipate



themselves "like clouds;" melt into the Blue as clouds do, and not be! He

figures the Earth, in the Arab fashion, Sale tells us, as an immense Plain



or flat Plate of ground, the mountains are set on that to _steady_ it. At

the Last Day they shall disappear "like clouds;" the whole Earth shall go



spinning, whirl itself off into wreck, and as dust and vapor vanish in the




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