Terribly in Earnest [pp. 172-177]

TERRIBLY IN EARNEST.
f)r it is impossible almost to conceive that the human intellect can
advance beyond those magnificent creations of "Zanoni," "What
will Ite Do with It," "'The Strange Story," etc., which crown the
column of his colossal literary genius.- EDITOR.
ART. VII.-TERRIBLY IN EARNEST.
THrs is a pet phrase of Mr. Carlyle's, and one which he has
brought into vogue and made quite popular. To be in earnest, to
apply ourselves seriously and industriously to whatever we undertake, is a moral duty, and the dictate of commnon-sense. Lord
Chesterfield well remarks, "'that whatever is worth doing, is worth
doing well." Earn'estness, carried further than this, ceases to be a
virtue and becomes a vice. Indeed, all moral qualities pushed to
excess become criminal.
In the physical as in the moral world, excess is evil, nay poisonous,
and destructive of life. Feed man or any other animal on one kind
of food for a length of time, and it will kill him. Not because it is
given in large quantities, but because it is given without its antinomes, that is, food possessing opposite qualities. Everything in
the moral and in the physical world is evil in itself, evil in the
abstract, for then it exists in the greatest possible excess. Every.
thing is good in the concrete, when properly compounded or balanced
by its appropriate antinomes. It certainly takes two or more, nay
very many, wrongs to make a right. The homely phrase, "overly
good," is an admirable one, and should be adopted into polite
language, for it is needed, and we know none other that will supply
its place. Men are eternally riding moral hobbies, practising to
excess, and pushing to extremes, some one virtue to the neglect of
all others. Such men become conscientious villains, the worst, most
dangerous and most mischievous of all villains. Such was the
Jesuit Ravaellar who assassillated Henry IV of France, and the
Puritan Fenton who murdered the Duke of Bucking,ham. Such
Guy Fawkes and his- coadjutors, the actors in the vespers of St.
Bartholomew, the judicial murderers of Charles I and Louis XVI,
and the Puritan Fathers who hung Quakers and witches. Such
were Brutus and Cassius and Cato and old John Brown, and Booth,
who, but the other day, murdered Mr. Lincoln. Such were the
Greeks who gave the hemlock to Socrates and the Jews who crucified Christ. Such also were the Crusaders, who disturbed and upheaved Europe and Western Asia for two centuries. In fine, all of
the greatest and darkest crimes recorded in history have been perpetrated by men' terribly in earnest" blindly attemnptingr to fuilfill,
what they considered, some moral, political or religious duty.
Were we asked to define " The Right," we should say it consisted
in "moderation." All excesses are criminal, and none so criminal
as those commnitted conscientiously in the too eager pursuit of some
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