ISSN:
1060-1503
Source:
Cambridge Journals Digital Archives
Topics:
English, American Studies
,
History
Notes:
When in 1876 James Thomson asked readers of the Secularist, “Why work, work, work..., ” he recalled the futile asceticism of Carlyle's biblical command, for to the younger man, the Night (in Sartor Resartus) that awaited all laborers seemed “black[,] abyssmal... inscrutable, utterly void and silent” (Essays 144). Unsupported by doctrinal faith in God or an afterlife, the Carlylean imperative was in fact, Thomson tells his readers in “Indolence,” a command to “save yourselves from yourselves; to overwhelm and exhaust the natural... man in each of you; to occupy all your hours and make them pass as swiftly as possible, thus distracting yourselves from vain talk and thought and self-consciousness, until you are... impotent for further mischief” (144).
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S106015030000512X
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