Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle depicts not blissful progress but the societal downfalls of the Industrial mindset. In his “Past and Present-Midas”, he calls the riches of the Industrial Revolution “enchanted wealth” (479). He asserts that this wealth helps no one, only increases the divide between the have and have-nots, “In Poor and Rich, instead of noble thrift and plenty, there is idle luxury alternating with mean scarcity and inability” (479). He points out that this new age of hope has done little for the poor, who are not helped by these magical riches. He describes the silent inhabitants of a workhouse, “They sit there, pent up, as in a kind of horrid enchantment; glad to be imprisoned and enchanted, that they might not perish starved” (478). Even more indicative of these men’s sad situation is their countenances, “…the gloomiest expression, not of anger, but of grief and shame and manifold inarticulate distress and weariness…” (478). If these impoverished men are any indication, society is not booming but on a decline. Indeed, Carlyle notes that the workhouse scene reminds him of “Dante’s Hell” (478).

Another sign of the desperate times are the desperate measures the poor must take to survive. Carlyle mentions a horrifying case, wherein, “…a Mother and a Father are arraigned and found guilty of poisoning three of their children, to defraud a ‘burial-society’ of some 3l.8s due on the death of each child…” (479). Yet he does more than just decry this horrific event; he makes sure the lesson sticks with the reader. He describes the parents’ hopeless outlook and consequently horrifying conversation,

“What shall we do to escape starvation? We are deep sunk here, in our dark cellar, and help is far…. Our poor little starveling Tom, who cries all day for victuals, who will see only evil and not good in the world: if he were out of misery at once; he well dead, and the rest of us perhaps kept alive? It is thought, and hinted; at last it is done” (479).

Carlyle’s description makes this a highly personal and memorable scenario. Not only does Carlyle put the reader in the parents’ place by describing the child as “our” child, he also names him. Naming this innocent and unfortunate child gives the reader one more mental hook with which to remember this horrific event. In appealing to family emotions and a sense of justice, Carlyle ensures that no one who reads his Midas can possibly walk away without a strong feeling that something is highly amiss in such a society.

Carlyle seems to argue that even those who benefit financially from the Industrial Revolution do not really gain much. Carlyle notes, “We have sumptuous garnitures for our Life, but have forgotten to live in the middle of them” (479). Carlyle obviously puts financial gain at the bottom of his list of life priorities. Instead of celebrating with the rich, he contemplates this new society and its effect on the individuals. He asks, “…what increase of blessedness is there? Are they better, beautifuler, stronger, braver? Are they even what they call ‘happier’ ?” (479). He seems to feel that character is much more important than wealth. I agree. I find it ironic that a search for progress and happiness could bring about so little real improvement and such a false sense of happiness and security. After reading Carlyle’s works, I am starting to wonder if the optimism seen in the writings of other Victorians such as Fanny Kemble and Thomas Macaulay was in reality quite phony and misinformed.

I think Carlyle makes an apt association in comparing English Industrial society to the fable of King Midas. Just as Midas’ wish to have everything he touched become gold was granted, so too was England increasing exponentially in wealth. However, like Midas, they have yet to realize the isolation of wealth. Midas could touch no one, or he would turn that person into gold. Similarly, the Industrial society was comprised of people who, as Carlyle notes in “Past and Present-Captains of Industry”, are “encased each in his transparent ‘ice-palace’; our brother visible in his, making signals and gesticulations to us;-visible, but forever unattainable…” (485).The Industrial Society also has yet to really feel the sorrow that Midas felt upon turning his beloved child into a piece of gold. They actually are turning their children into gold, with the parents killing the children for money just to survive, and more prevalently with the child labor in unsafe factories.

* I realized in retrospect that I expanded a bit above the details of the King Midas story than what Thomas Carlyle gives. I had been read the story from The Book of Virtues as a child, and I guess some of the details just stuck with me. The story of King Midas is retold as “The Golden Touch” in The Book of Virtues by William J. Bennet. The story is on pages 63-66 in the version published by Simon & Schuster, presumably in New York, in 1993.