Sublimer in this
world know I nothing than a peasant saint, could such now anywhere
be met with. Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself;
thou wilt see the splendour of heaven spring forth from the
humblest depths of earth, like a light shining in great darkness."
_Sartor Resartus_ has long taken its place among the greatest prose
works of the nineteenth century, and it is a strange commentary on this
mandate to us all to "produce, produce!" to find that for eleven years
Carlyle could find no publisher who would give it in book form to the
world!
It is a solemn reflection to think that there may be many books of
eloquence and splendour that have never seen the light of publicity.
Publishers concern themselves less with what is finely written than with
what will best sell; and in their defence it may be acceded that some of
the masterpieces of literature have at their first appearance before the
world fallen dead from the press.
The first edition of FitzGerald's _Omar Khayyam_, issued at one
shilling, was totally unrecognised, and copies of it might have been
bought for twopence in the trays and boxes of trash on the pavement
outside old bookshops!
But if once a work is published, time will with almost irresistible force
place it ultimately in the station it deserves in the literature of the
world.
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