‘All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble: be that here said and asserted once more. And in like manner too, all dignity is painful; a life of ease is not for any man, nor for any god.’
A Victorian classic, Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present focuses on the contradictions of Victorian life and warns of the impending disaster facing Victorian Britain. Carlyle examines how a country so wealthy can feel so impoverished and intensely attacks a society ruled by ‘cash-payment,’ instead promoting a renewed ethic of work and duty. Part history, part polemic, and part prophecy, Carlyle aims to awaken his contemporaries to their societal conditions. Despite being written during the Victorian era, the conditions he highlights still exist uncomfortably close to home today.
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish historian, essayist, and philosopher. He was highly influential on the intellectual and artistic culture of the Victorian era.