So here hath been dawning
Another blue day:
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Out of Eternity
This new day is born:
In to Eternity
At night will return.
Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did:
So soon it forever
From all eyes is hid.
Here hath been dawning
Another blue day:
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881), best known as a writer, was primarily a historian and essayist. His father was a small farmer in Scotland, and Thomas was educated at the University of Edinburgh where he showed particular promise in mathematics. Following graduation worked as a teacher in that field for five years. Unhappy with teaching, Thomas returned to Edinburgh University to study law in 1819. He spent three unhappy years there, eventually deciding that he would change direction again. He remained at Edinburgh University where he engaged in a serious study of German literature, J. W. von Goethe in particular. It was during this period that he turned to history and literature for which he is famed.
Carlyle held a number of posts as a tutor after leaving Edinburgh University, having no fixed base. He married one of his pupils in 1826 and he began to write but found no publisher. In 1834 he and his wife moved to London, where in 1837 he published a history of the French Revolution, which received both serious acclaim and popular success. He had a very high regard for strength combined with a belief in a God-given mission, and regarded Oliver Cromwell as the greatest English example of his ideal man. He produced a four volume Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches; With Elucidations in 1845. He was installed as rector of Edinburgh University in April 1866, and his speech at his installation was published later that year as On the Choice of Books. His wife died suddenly in London shortly after, and Carlyle never fully recovered from her loss; he wrote little in his later years.