Thomas Carlyle — If All Is Lost, Start Over
The Scottish historian lost his life’s work. Then he discovered the power of resilience.
In 1859, Charles Dickens wrote the best-selling novel of all times, A Tale of Two Cities, with the opening line: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
Dickens may have been writing about 2021 when you read the next lines: “It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”
We may hope Dickens was right, and this is the spring of hope. The book is set in London and Paris in the 1790s. The two cities are the setting for the period shortly after the French Revolution during the Reign of Terror. Dickens was not exaggerating about the worst times. In September of 1793, Maximilien de Robespierre, a noble statesman and one of the Revolution's founders, declared: “It is time to horrify the conspirators. So legislators, place Terror on the order of the day! The blade of the law should hover over all the guilty.”
It is how it became known as the Reign of Terror.
In the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, Robespierre sentenced over 40,000 people to death by guillotine. Although he was a nationally known lawyer who led the revolution and helped obtain women’s voting rights and abolition of slavery in the French colonies, he feared insurrection more than he loved freedom.
The public tired of Robespierre after a year of ruthlessness. In a moment of inspired poetic justice, he went to trial and was sentenced to be guillotined. As chaos resumed one year later, a Parisian soldier named Napoleon Bonaparte came to the rescue. He restored order, and that was the beginning of the story of one of the world's most iconic leaders.
There is an irony in why we know this. Dickens was moved to write his best-selling novel, which brought the Fench Revolution's unfortunate aspects into the public domain. Dickens was born in 1812 and had no direct experience in the French Revolution. For insight, he turned to Thomas Carlyle’s three-volume history. If fate had its way, Carlyle’s book would never have been published.
Conveniently, Carlyle was the first serious thinker to make the study of leadership his life’s work. In his treatise, On Heroes, Hero-Worship (available for free on Amazon), he laid the groundwork for what became known as the “Great Man theory.”
Carlyle’s theory was based in part on Napoleon’s rescue of the French Revolutionary goals. The French emperor was not a perfect human being, but he rescued people from lawlessness and mayhem. Carlyle recognized great leaders were complicated and believed they should be judged less on minor mistakes than major outcomes.
Carlyle worried that later generations would focus on the small failings. “Atlas, the titan, may have held the world on his shoulders, but he said some derogatory things,” that sort of thing. That is how history gets rewritten by focusing on sensational anecdotes. Carlyle’s term for this was “valetism,” from the expression “no man is a hero to his valet.” We call them “micro transgressions,” the kind we should not repeat but not use as a standard by which to judge.
He was encouraged by the well-known economist and close friend, John Stuart Mill, to begin work on his history of the French Revolution. His publisher had offered mill the chance, but he thought Carlyle would do a better job.
Then, in 1834, on a wet and gray London afternoon, Carlyle experienced a random fate that turned into the existential crisis. Carlyle slaved for months on the manuscript, working from copious notes and writing in longhand (typewriters were for the very rich until 1874). He sent the first volume to Mill to review.
After reading the manuscript, Mill brought it with him to a close acquaintance's house and accidentally left it. The servant in the home was illiterate. She thought the heap was scrap and promptly used the manuscript to light a fire in her bed-chamber. And that’s how disruption happens.
Quickly, silently, with only the leaves of paper's crackling to reveal the lost manuscript, Mill arrived the next day at Carlyle’s house. He carried a satchel under his arm, which held the charred remains from the hearth. He tried to explain but could barely speak.
Most of us would be in a state of hysteria. Carlyle took Mill aside and said not to worry. Mill offered to pay Carlyle. Carlyle refused. When Mill left, Carlyle’s only words were, “Mill, poor fellow, is terribly cut up.” Then he added,” We must endeavor to hide from him how very serious this is.”
It was more than serious, Carlyle’s work was gone and his notes destroyed. How could he complete the book? He gave up any hope of completing The French Revolution. He was broke, with no way to provide for his family.
That night Carlyle had a dream. Not an imaginary thing, but a real one. His father and brother came to him from their graves and begged him not to abandon the work. The next morning Carlyle pondered the dream and set off for Mill’s home to say he would accept his generosity so that he could buy writing paper.
Instead of wringing his hands over the loss, he began work on volume two and then finished volume three before painstakingly re-creating the first volume from memory. By 1847, about the time he originally planned to complete the entire work, the three-volume history was published. It was more than a triumph over adversity. It became the best-selling history of the century.
Dickens was inspired by Carlyle’s description of the Reign of Terror. He wrote A Tale of Two Cities. If Carlyle had not gone forward with the best-selling history, Dickens might never have written the best-selling novel of all times, and the world might never have known of the excesses of revolutionary fervor.
Coda
Carlyle’s history, The French Revolution, is still being published 200 years later. By the way, Carlyle took the charred leaves of the burned manuscript that Mill brought with him and placed them on the fireplace mantel, where they remained for the rest of his life.
