In "God's Funeral", A.N. Wilson writes "For the Victorians, it was Carlyle's ordinariness and not his extraordinariness which appealed. We, perhaps, approach him as a journalist of genius, peculiarly in touch with the Zeitgeist which he so abominated and deplored. He was indeed an embodiment of the Victorian dilemma about God. He wished to believe - in a Supreme Lawgiver, in Duty and Morality, in a personal Guide to life. But he had looked into Christianity and found it to be false. His heart could not subscribe to it. The God and the religion of Revelation being incredible to him, Carlyle could not rest in mere unbelief. Such a thing was horrifying to him" (56, italics chosen by me for emphasis).
We see this clearly in Carlyle's s spiritual autobiography "Sartor Resartus" and most explicitly The Everlasting No": Carlyle in a self-described 'state of crisis, of transition' (qtd. in Buckler 85). For Carlyle, without religion the world had become derelict of Hope or Duty:
"Doubt had darkened into Unbelief,' says he; 'shade after shade goes grimly over your soul, till you have the fixed, starless, Tartartean* black'. To such readers as have reflected, what can be called reflection, on man's life, and happily discovered, in contradiction to much Profit-and Loss Philosophy, speculative and practical, that Soul is not synonymous with Stomach; who understand therefore, in our Friend's words, "that, for man's well-being, Faith is properly the one thing needful; how with it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; and without it, Worldlings puke up their sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxury": to such it will be clear that, for a pure moral nature, the loss of religious Belief was the loss of everything." (86)
Carlyle paints a bleak picture for the future of a mankind without God, one that Marie Corelli cleverly elaborated on in "The Sorrows of Satan". Corelli's book follows the memoir of Geoffrey Tempest, a struggling writer who inherits millions from a unknown rich uncle he has never heard of. The next day, Lucio Rimanez (a.k.a.: the Devil) shows up in his doorstep and becomes his mentor as Tempest 'descends' into a frivolous and self-serving lifestyle. Corelli's view of the connection between moral depravity and wealth often echoes Carlyle's 'sick existence in the midst of luxury', in fact Corelli cleverly uses the words of Lucio Rimanez to warn Tempest of his fate:
"It often happens, nevertheless that when bags of money fall to the lot of aspiring genius, God departs and the devil walks in. Have you never heard of that?"
"Never" I answered smilingly.
"Well, of course the saying is foolish, and sounds doubly ridiculous in this age when people believe in neither God nor devil. It implies however that one must choose as up or a down - genius the up, money is the Down. You cannot fly and grovel at the same time" (35)
However, Marie Corelli doesn't stop here but skillfully ties explains this 'scale of money to genius for the doubting Tempest in 'rational, scientific terms':
"The possession of money is not likely to cause a man to grovel" -I said- "It is the one thing necessary to strengthen his soaring powers and lift him to the greatest heights."
"You think so?" and my host lit his cigar with a grave and pre-occupied air--"Then I'm afraid you don't know much about what I shall call natural physics. What belongs to the earth tends earthwards, -surely you realize that? Gold belongs most strictly to the earth,- you dig it out of the ground, - you handle and dispose of it in solid wedges or bars - it is a substantial metal enough. Genius belongs to nobody knows where,- you cannot dig it up or pass it on, or do anything with it except stand and marvel - it is a rare visitant and capricious as the wind, and generally makes sad havoc among the conventionalities of men." (35-6)
Corelli cleverly gives a scientific rationalization for the 'physics' of wealth. Money, being Gold, has material form and belongs to the earth. As such, the pursuit of it will pull you down. Forgoing wealth and pursuing works of Genius, however, although hard to achieve, is obviously a more heavenly pursuit.
Similarly, Carlyle saw the rise of materialism and profit as reducing 'Genius' or imagination:
"But what, in these dull unimaginative days, are the terrors of Conscience to the disease of the Liver! Not on Morality, but on Cookery, let us build our stronghold: There brandishing our frying-pan, as censer, let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and live at ease on the fat things he has provided for his Elect!" Carlyle saw luxury and greed as a sign of the Devil's will manifesting itself.
In contrast, Corelli's Satan is not thrilled with man's greed and egoism; in her retelling of the 'fall of Lucifer' God proclaims "Fall proud Spirit from thy high estate! Thou and thy companions with thee! Each human soul that yields unto thy tempting shell be a new barrier set between thee and heaven; each one that of it's own choice doth repel and overcome thee, shall lift thee nearer thy lost home! When the world reject thee I will pardon and receive thee,- but not till then." Lucio is trying to re-enter heaven and is made miserable by the world around him: he sees the the rise of commerce and industry as replacing God with 'The Almighty Dollar'.
*of or relating to Tartarus: infernal, hellish
Carlyle, Thomas Sartar Resartus : The Everlasting No 1838, qtd in
Buckler, William E. Prose of the Victorian Period Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1958.
Corelli, Marie Sorrows of Satan J.B. Lippincott Co., Philedelphia, 1896.
Wilson, A.N. God's Funeral: A Biography of Faith and Doubt in Western Civilization Ballantine Publishing Group, New York, 1999.
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