Title:  On the Choice of Books

Author:  Thomas Carlyle

Release Date:  September 11, 2004 [EBook #13435]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of this project gutenberg EBOOK on the choice of books ***

Produced by Malcolm Farmer, S.R.Ellison and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

    On the choice of books

        ThomasCarlyle

  WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR

[Illustration:  No. 5 Great Cheyne Row.

The Residence of Mr. Carlyle from_ 1834 until his Death]

        A NEW EDITION

  CHATTO & Windus, Piccadilly

[Illustration]

Contents.                                        Page
biographical introduction                         7

  Address delivered to the students of Edinburgh
  University, April 2, 1866 125

  The moral philosophy chair in Edinburgh
  University 189

  Farewell letter to the students 192

  Bequest by Mr. Carlyle 195

INDEX 201

[Illustration]

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION.

There comes a time in the career of every man of genius who has devoted a long life to the instruction and enlightenment of his fellow-creatures, when he receives before his death all the honours paid by posterity.  Thus when a great essayist or historian lives to attain a classic and world-wide fame, his own biography becomes as interesting to the public as those he himself has written, and by which he achieved his laurels.

This is almost always the case when a man of such cosmopolitan celebrity outlives the ordinary allotted period of threescore years and ten; for a younger generation has then sprung up, who only hear of his great fame, and are ignorant of the long and painful steps by which it was achieved.  These remarks are peculiarly applicable in regard to the man whose career we are now to dwell on for a short time:  his genius was of slow growth and development, and his fame was even more tardy in coming; but since the world some forty years ago fairly recognised him as a great and original thinker and teacher, few men have left so indelible an impress on the public mind, or have influenced to so great a degree the most thoughtful of their contemporaries.