Curio

Mitchell Vestibule Quote

1942

‘In books lies the soul of the whole past time the articulate audible voice of the past when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.’ – Thomas Carlyle, 1840

Etched into the eastern wall of the Mitchell vestibule, the words of Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle are from his influential Hero as Man of Letters lecture, the fifth in a series of six lectures presented in 1840 on heroes and hero worship. The stone was laid by the Beat Brothers, and carved by James Fowler, M Swan and A Sproule.

This famous quote captures the essence of the Library, which the principal librarian William Ifould and the Sydney press often referred to as ‘Everyman’s Library’. Ifould had tried hard and successfully changed the image and reach of the Library, as he believed that the wider public, not just the privileged few, should have access to its resources.

Living at a time when tertiary education was out of reach for most people, Carlyle also remarked, ‘the true university of these days is a collection of books’. These words were inscribed in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building in the US Library of Congress in 1897.

Carlyle studied Latin, French and taught himself Spanish and Italian, but he excelled in German literature and became passionate about the German writer, artist and politician Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Carlyle’s other famous works The French Revolution: A History and Heroes and Hero Worship strongly influenced the founding ideals of communism and inadvertently fascism.

Recognised as gifted as a child, Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle was accepted to the University of Edinburgh at the age of 14.

Principal Librarian William Ifould described the Public Library as the ‘University of the Workers’.

Footnotes

_{D J Jones, A Source of Inspiration and Delight, 1988, p 67}