On this day...

Scottish critic and writer Thomas Carlyle died in 1881, at the age of 85. Born to a strict Calvanist family, Carlyle was brought up in the expectation that he would become a preacher. Yet Carlyle lost his faith at university, whilst retaining the sense of Christian morality; and so he became the embodiment of the Victorian struggle between religion and science. Following the study of German literature, including Goethe and Fichte, Carlyle began to persue his own literary career, publishing his first major work, 'Sartor Resartus', in 1832. Preceding the development of New England Transcendentialism, the work was an attack on English Utilitarianism, using a fictional German 'philosopher of clothes' to explore them.

Meanwhile, Carlyle had married Jane Welsh, a woman of letters; yet their union was said to be unhappy. Indeed novelist Samuel Butler said of them; 'It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four'. Carlyle's works, including 'The French Revolution' and 'Heroes and Hero Worship', would go on to influence later commentators, such as John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold.

On this day...

English art and social critic John Ruskin died in 1900, at the age of 80. Ruskin showed an aptitude for writing from a young age, and by 15 he was contributing to several well known publications, including the 'Magazine of Natural History', and the 'Architectural Magazine'; the latter  under the pen name κατα φυσιν - 'according to nature'. Donning another pen name, of 'A Oxford Graduate', Ruskin published the first of his important works, 'Modern Painters', in which he argued the value of contemporary landscape painters such as Turner, over those of the post-Renaissance period. Yet perhaps he is more well known for his connections to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; supporting Rossetti, Hunt and Millais, until the latter married his wife, who had been granted divorce on account of impotency on Ruskin's part. Ruskin then changed his focus from art, to social theory. Greatly inspired by friend and critic Thomas Carlyle, he started to explore capitalism and its downfalls, influencing the development of both the Labour Party, and Christian Socialism. Ruskin was, as Tolstoy describes him, 'one of those rare men who think with their heart' and he has left a lasting legacy, even including the addition of the term pathetic fallacy to the language.