There is, for instance, nothing in literature more
ingenious than the way in which he presents Cromwell as the apostle
of "truth" during the campaigns in Ireland after the death of the
King. He lets slip no opportunity of setting forth the importance of
those military operations as a means of bringing "truth" to the
Irish, so much so that the reader at last begins to expect the
revelation of some formula in which the Lord-General presented the
truth to them. But long before the end is reached one finds that the
only truth which Cromwell was spreading in Ireland was the simple
one that anybody who resisted him in arms would probably be knocked
on the head. This collocation of truth and superiority of physical
force, and of falsehood and weakness, was, in fact, worked into all
Carlyle's writings of a political character, and did, through his
writings, become a very positive political influence after the
generation which was roused by the first blasts of his moral trumpet
had grown old, or had passed away.
Pages:
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331