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The Times Great Scottish Lives: Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest. Magnus Linklater
Читать онлайн.Название The Times Great Scottish Lives: Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest
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isbn 9780008280215
Автор произведения Magnus Linklater
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство HarperCollins
We are bound to record the fact that Dr. Livingstone claims to have found that ‘the chief sources of the Nile arise between 11 deg. and 12 deg. of south latitude, or nearly in the position assigned to them by Ptolemy.’ This may or may not be the case; for time alone will show us whether this mystery has been actually solved. During the last year or two our news of Dr. Livingstone has been but scanty, though from time to time communications – some alarming and others, again, reassuring – have reached us from himself or from other African Consuls, officially through the Foreign Office and privately through Sir Roderick Murchison. An account of his death at the hands of a band of Matites was discounted by Sir Roderick, who, with a keen insight which almost amounted to intuition, refused to believe the evidence on which the tale was based and gradually the world came round and followed suit.
In July, 1869, Dr. Livingstone resolved to strike westwards from his headquarters at Ujiji, on the Tanganyika Lake, in order to trace out a series of lakes which lay in that direction, and which, he hoped, would turn out eventually to be the sources of the Nile. If that, however, should prove not to be the case, it would be something, he felt, to ascertain for certain that they were the head waters of the Congo; and, in the latter case, he would probably have followed the course of the Congo, and have turned up, sooner or later, on the Western Coast of Africa. But this idea he appears to have abandoned. At all events, in the winter of 1870–71, he was found by Mr. Stanley, once more in the neighbourhood of his old haunts, still bent on the discovery of certain ‘fountains on the hills,’ which he trusted to be able to prove to be the veritable springs of the Nile.
During the last two years or so, if we except the sudden light thrown upon his career by the episode of Mr. Stanley’s successful search after him, we have been kept rather in the dark as to the actual movements of Dr. Livingstone. Mr. Stanley’s narrative of his discovery of the Doctor in the neighbourhood of Ujiji is in the hands of every well-informed Englishman, and his journey in company with him round the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika was recorded in the address delivered by Sir Henry Rawlinson, the President of the Geographical Society, last summer, who ended by predicting that ‘he will continue his journey along the Congo, and emerge from the interior on the Western Coast.’
We fear that these forecastings have been falsified by the event, and that we must now add the name of David Livingstone to the roll of those who have fallen in the cause of civilisation and progress. After his death on 1 May 1873 from dysentery in what is now Zambia, his body, accompanied as far as Zanzibar by his two most faithful servants, was brought back to Britain for burial in Westminster Abbey. His posthumous reputation was fostered by Henry Morton Stanley.
It is impossible not to mourn the loss of a missionary so liberal in his views, so large-hearted, so enlightened. By his labours it has come to pass that throughout the protected tribes of Southern Africa Queen Victoria is generally acknowledged as ‘the Queen of the people who love the black man.’ Livingstone had his faults and his failings; but the self-will and obstinacy he possibly at times displayed were very near akin to the qualities which secured his triumphant success, and much allowance must be made for a man for whom his early education had done so little, and who was forced, by circumstances around him, to act with a decision which must have sometimes offended his fellow-workers. Above all, his success depended, from first to last, in an eminent degree upon the great power which he possessed of entering into the feelings, wishes, and desires of the African tribes and engaging their hearty sympathy.
Thomas Carlyle
‘A great man of letters, quite as heroic as any of those whom he depicted’
7 February 1881
Thomas Carlyle died at half-past 8 on Saturday morning at his house in Cheyne-row, Chelsea. He had been for some years in feeble health, and more than once his recovery seemed doubtful. Of late even his friends saw little of him, and growing weakness and pain had compelled him to give up his old habit of taking long walks every day. The announcement of his death opens a chasm between the present and the past of our literature, a whole world of associations disappears. A great man of letters, quite as heroic as any of those whom he depicted, has passed away amid universal regret.
About eight months before Robert Burns died, and within but a few miles of Dumfries, the scene of his death, was born the most penetrating and sympathetic interpreter of his genius. Carlyle’s birth-place was Ecclefechan, an insignificant Dumfriesshire village, in the parish of Hoddam, known by name, at least, to readers of Burns, and memorable for an alehouse which was loved only too well by the poet. There Carlyle was born on the 4th of December, 1795. He was the eldest son of a family of eight children; his brothers were all men of character and ability; one of them, Dr. John Carlyle, was destined to make a name in literature as the translator of Dante. Mr. Carlyle’s father, James Carlyle, was the son of Thomas Carlyle, tenant of Brown-Knowes, a small farm in Annandale, and of Margaret Aitken. At the time of his eldest son’s birth James Carlyle was a stone mason, and resided in Ecclefechan; but he became afterwards tenant of Scotsberg, a farm of two or three hundred acres, which is now occupied by Mr. Carlyle’s youngest and only surviving brother. Of James Carlyle, his son once said, ‘I never heard tell of any clever man that came of entirely stupid people,’ and his own lineage might well have suggested this saying. Carlyle never spoke of his father and mother except with veneration and affection. All extant testimony goes to show that Mr. Carlyle’s father and mother were of the finest type of Scotch country folk – simple, upright, and with family traditions of honest worth.
Carlyle learnt to read and write in the parish school of Hoddam, where he remained until his ninth year. The parish minister, his father’s friend, taught him the elements of Latin. From the parish school he passed to the Burgh School of Annan, six miles distant, where he saw Edward Irving, ‘his first friend,’ as he once called him, who was some years his senior. Carlyle was barely 14 when he entered the University of Edinburgh. It was then in its glory. Some of its professors possessed a European reputation. The eloquent and acute Dr. Thomas Brown lectured on moral philosophy; Playfair held the chair of natural philosophy; the ingenious and quarrelsome Sir John Leslie taught mathematics; and Dunbar was professor of Greek. However, the only professor for whom Carlyle seems to have had much regard was Sir John Leslie, who had some points of affinity to his pupil; and the feeling was returned. Carlyle made few friends at the University. He was lonely and contemplative in his habits. He took no part in the proceedings, and his name is not to be found on the list of members of the Speculative Society, which every clever student was then expected to join. In after years he laid it down that ‘the true University of these days is a collection of books,’ and on this principle he acted. Not content with ransacking the College Library, he read all that was readable in various circulating libraries – among others, one founded by Allan Ramsay – and acquired knowledge which extended far beyond the bounds of the University course. He left the University with no regret.
Carlyle had been intended for the church, but could not bring himself to embrace the doctrines of his father’s kirk, and turned his hand instead to work by which he could earn his bread. For a year or two he taught mathematics