Thomas Carlyle has written a letter to Mr. George Howard,
in which he expresses at some length his views of the F.astern situation. He thinks the Russians a "good and even noble " element in Europe, they having the virtue of obedience ; holds that to fight them on behalf of the Turks would be an insanity, and advises Englishmen to tell the Turk peremptorily to turn his face eastward, quit this side of the Hellespont, and for ever give up his arrogant ideas of governing anybody but himself. He suggests accord, and apparently, though not very clearly, a division of European Turkey between the three great Powers, Russia, Austria, and England, but would make Prince Bismarck arbiter of the whole situation. The letter is chiefly valuable as showing that the Turks, who ought to be ac- ceptable to Mr. Carlyle, they, like himself, thinking the Alights of man much more important than the Rights of man—indeed denying all rights to man unless he has mights—are too bad even for him. He can stand Frederic the Great and an American slaveowner, but he draws the line there.
Previous page
