English Prose (1137-1890) edited by John Matthews Manly: "SARTOR RESARTUS" --Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
"[..]The authentic Church-Catechism of our present century has not yet fallen into my hands: meanwhile, for my own private behoof, I attempt to elucidate the matter so. Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers and Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake in joint stock company to make one Shoeblack happy? They cannot accomplish it, above an hour two: for the Shoeblack also has a Soul quite other than his Stomach; and would require, if you consider it, for his permanent satisfaction, and saturation, simply this allotment, no more, and no less: God's infinite Universe altogether to himself, therein to enjoy infinitely and fill every wish as fast as it rose. Oceans of Hochheimer, a Throat like that of Ophiucus: speak not of them; to the infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is your ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might been of better vintage. Try him with half a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarreling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself the most maltreated men. --Always there is a black spot in our sunshine: it is even as I said, the Shadow of Ourselves.[..]"
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