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Life of John Sterling-Part15_Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Cant: surely a tragicpilgrimage for all mortals; Darkness, and the

mere shadow of Death, enveloping all things from pole to pole; and in



the raging gulf-currents, offering us will-o'-wisps for

loadstars,--intimating that there are no stars, nor ever were, except



certain Old-Jew ones which have now gone out. Once more, a tragic

pilgrimage for all mortals; and for the young pious soul, winged with



genius, and passionately seeking land, and passionately abhorrent of

floating carrion withal, more tragical than for any!--A pilgrimage we



must all undertakenevertheless, and make the best of with our

respective means. Some arrive; a glorious few: many must be



lost,--go down upon the floating wreck which they took for land. Nay,

courage! These also, so far as there was any heroism in them, have



bequeathed their life as a contribution to us, have valiantly laid

their bodies in the chasm for us: of these also there is no ray of



heroism _lost_,--and, on the whole, what else of them could or should

be "saved" at any time? Courage, and ever Forward!



Concerning this attempt of Sterling's to find sanctuary in the old

Church, and desperately grasp the hem of her garment in such manner,



there will at present be many opinions: and mine must be recorded

here in flat reproval of it, in mere pitying condemnation of it, as a



rash, false, unwise and unpermitted step. Nay, among the evil lessons

of his Time to poor Sterling, I cannot but account this the worst;



properly indeed, as we may say, the apotheosis, the solemnapology and

consecration, of all the evil lessons that were in it to him. Alas,



if we did remember the divine and awful nature of God's Truth, and had

not so forgotten it as poor doomed creatures never did before,--should



we, durst we in our most audacious moments, think of wedding _it_ to

the World's Untruth, which is also, like all untruths, the Devil's?



Only in the world's last lethargy can such things be done, and

accounted safe and pious! Fools! "Do you think the Living God is a



buzzard idol," sternly asks Milton, that you dare address Him in this

manner?--Such darkness, thick sluggish clouds of cowardice and



oblivious baseness, have accumulated on us: thickening as if towards

the eternal sleep! It is not now known, what never needed proof or



statement before, that Religion is not a doubt; that it is a

certainty,--or else a mockery and horror. That none or all of the



many things we are in doubt about, and need to have demonstrated and

rendered probable, can by any alchemy be made a "Religion" for us; but



are and must continue a baleful, quiet or unquiet, Hypocrisy for us;

and bring--_salvation_, do we fancy? I think, it is another thing



they will bring, and are, on all hands, visibly bringing this good

while!--



The time, then, with its deliriums, has done its worst for poor

Sterling. Into deeper aberration it cannot lead him; this is the



crowning error. Happily, as beseems the superlative of errors, it was

a very brief, almost a momentary one. In June, 1834, Sterling dates



as installed at Herstmonceux; and is flinging, as usual, his whole

soul into the business; successfully so far as outward results could



show: but already in September, he begins to have misgivings; and in

February following, quits it altogether,--the rest of his life being,



in great part, a laborious effort of detail to pick the fragments of

it off him, and be free of it in soul as well as in title.



At this the extreme point of spiritual deflexion and depression, when

the world's madness, unusuallyimpressive on such a man, has done its



very worst with him, and in all future errors whatsoever he will be a

little less mistaken, we may close the First Part of Sterling's Life.






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