A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator,' 19 November 1870—Mr. Carlyle wrote to yesterday's Times a very long homily in favour of Prussia, King William, Count Bismarck, German piety, and German force, and against the hysterical falsehoods of France and her pretensions to resent, when applied to herself, the policy of territorial con- fiscation whieh she has so ruthlessly applied to others. Mr. Carlyle thinks territorial confisca- tion a capital medicine for the sick soul of France. and likely to cure her of her hysterics, her falsehoods, her vanity, and finally, perhaps, of her weakness. If not, the dose, he says, must .be followed up by further doses of the same unpleasant kind. We all know that that is Mr. Carlyle's creed, and that he is always disposed to think force "pious" and weakness, if not im- pious, at least contemptible; but why does he not explain how he expects his medicine to work? That defeat may be, and already has been, good for French vanity, we believe; but how the subjugation of some of her provinces is to render France either more sober or more sincere, we are at a complete losi to say. It certainly never did this for Italy, or, as far as we know, for any other country.
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