The Beauty of Honesty

Extract

Exactly a hundred years ago, in 1831, Thomas Carlyle published his Sartor Resartus which, in his amusing manner of mock bombast, he claimed to be the first contribution of a fundamental character addressed to the British reader on the Philosophy of Clothes. It is probably quite an accident that Mr. Eric Gill’s book, Clothes’ appears in this year of grace 1931 : there is no evidence that he is falling in with the modern craze for celebrating obscure centenaries, or that he has any wish to revive interest in that solemn, sombre man who used to be called (how strange it sounds now !) the Sage of Chelsea. In fact, the two books bear little relation to one another, and they are separated by more important and significant things than by the big gap of a century. They agree in these particulars; each is very much the product of its age, dated 1831 and 1931 respectively; each is written by a man of genius who has an interest in stonecutting, though many will agree that Mr. Gill’s gift is pre-eminently for designing and sculpture and the cutting of letters, and less conspicuously for letters pure and simple; and each is in the nature of a satire which must have given its author great joy to write—Carlyle’s inclining to be sardonic and somewhat turgid, Gill’s more of a brilliant school-boy lark, scurrilous and Rabelaisian.