Thomas Carlyle : a history of his life in London, 1834-1881

THOMAS CAELYLE

VOL. II.

1'H.INTKIJ BY

SPOTTLSWOODE AN.D CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

THOMAS CAELYLE

A HISTORY OF HIS LIFE IN LONDON
1834-1881

BY

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A.

HONORARY FELLOW OP EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD

WUH PORTRAIT ENGRA VED ON STEEL

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.

FOURTH

LONDON
LONGMANS, GKEEN, AND CO.

1885

All riyhlf re<

CONTENTS

OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER XVII.

A.D. 1849-50. jET. 54-55.

PAGE

Tour in Ireland - The Irish problem— Impressions in the West —
Gweedore— Address at Derry— Return to Scotland— The Highlands
— A shooting paradise -Reflections on it — Liberty — Radicalism —
Impatience with cant— Article on the Nigger question—' Latter-
day Pamphlets ' • • • • I

CHAPTER XVIII.

A.D. 1850. JEI. 55-56.

Reaction from ' Latter-day Pamphlets ' — Acquaintance with Sir
Robert Peel — Dinner in Whitehall Place — Ball at Bath House-
Peel's death— Estimate of Peel's character — Visit to South Wales
—Savage Landor — Merthyr Tydvil— Scotsbrig— Despondency —
Visits to Keswick and Coniston — The Grange — Return to London 30

CHAPTER XIX.

A.D. 1851-2. jET. 56-57.

Reviews of the Pamphlets— Cheyne Rovr — Party at, the Grange—' Life
of Sterling '—Reception of it— Coleridge and his disciples Spiri
tual optics — Hyde Park Exhibition— A month at Malvern — Scot
land — Trip to Paris with Lord Ashburton

CHAPTER XX.

A.D. 1851-2. MT. 56-57-

Purpose formed to write on Frederick the (ireat The author of the
' Handbook of Spain '- Afflicting visitors Studies for ' Frederick '
- Visit to Linlathen- I'lo^u.-, .1 tour in Germany -Rotterdam
The Rhine Bonn— Horn burp Frankfurt Wart burg Luther re-
o • • < > Weimaj iviiin Betorn to England

vi CONTENTS OF

CHAPTER XXI.

A.D. 1852-3. jET. 57-58.

TAGE

The Grange— Cheyne How — The Cock Torment— Reflections — An im
proved house — Funeral of the Duke of Wellington — Beginnings of
'Frederick' — The Grange again — An incident — Public opinion —
Mother's illness — The demon fowls — Last letter to his mother —
Her death — James Carlyle 121

CHAPTER XXII.

A.D. 1854. jET. 59.

Crimean war — Louis Napoleon — The sound-proof room — Dreams —
Death of John Wilson — Character of Wilson — A journal of a day
— The economies of Cheyne Row — Carlyle's finances — Budget of a
Femme in comprise . . . . . . . . . .150

CHAPTER XXIII.

A.D. 1854-7. jET. 59-62.

Difficulties over ' Frederick' — Crimean war — Louis Napoleon in Eng
land — Edward Fitzgerald — Farlingay — Three weeks at Addis-
combe — Mrs. Carlyle and Lady Ashburton — Scotsbrig — Kinloch
Luichart — Lady Ashburton's death — Effect on Carlyle — Solitude
in Cheyne Row — Riding costume — Fritz — Completion of the first
two volumes of ' Frederick '—Carlyle as a historian . . 1 72

CHAPTER XXIV.

A.D. 1858. ^ET. 63.

Night in a railway train — Annandale— Meditations — A new ward
robe — Visit to Craigenputtock — Second tour in Germany — The
Isle of Riigen — Putbus — Berlin — Silesia — Prag — Weimar — Aix —
Frederick's battle-fields and Carlyle's description of them — Re
turn to England — Second marriage of Lord Ashburton . . . 206

CHAPTER XXV.

A.D. 1859-62. jET. 64-67.

KHVrts of a literary life upon the character — Evenings in Cheyne Row

Summer in Fife — Visit to Sir George Sinclair, Thurso Castle—

Mrs. Carlyle's Health — Death of Arthur Clough — Intimacy with

Mr. lluskin- -Party at the Grange — Description of John Keble —

• Unto 1 his Last . 231

THE SECOND VOLUME. vii

CHAPTER XXVI.

A.D. 1864. JET. 69.

PAGE

Personal intercourse — Daily habits — Charities — Conversation — Mo
dern science and its tendencies — Faith without sight — Bishop
Colenso — The Broad Church School — Literature — Misfortunes of
Fritz — Serious accident to Mrs. Carlyle — Her strange illness —
Folkestone — Death of Lord Ash burton — Mrs. Carlyle in Scotland
— Her slow recovery — ' Frederick ' finished ..... 254

CHAPTER XXVII.

A.D. 1865-6. Ml. 70-71.

' Frederick ' completed — Summer in Annandale — Mrs. Carlyle in
Nithsdale — Visit to Linlathen — Thomas Erskine — The Edinburgh
Rectorship — Feelings in Cheyne Row about it — Ruskin's ' Plthics
of the Dust' 286

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A.D. 1866. Ml. 71.

Preparations for the Rectorship — Journey to Edinburgh— Tyndall —
The installation — Carlyle's speech — Character of it— Effect upon
the world — Cartoon in ' Punch ' — Carlyle stays at Scotsbrig to
recover — Intended tea-party in Cheyne Row — Sudden death of
Mrs. Carlyle — John Forster — Funeral at Haddington — Letters
from Erskine- Carlyle's answers 2!)9

CHAPTER XXIX.

A.D. 1866. MT. 71.

Message of sympathy from the Queen— John Carlyle — Retrospects —
A future life! Attempts at occupation- Miss Davenport Bromley
— The Eyre Committee— Memories Mentone — Stay there with
Lady Ashburton — Entries in Journal ...... 320

CHAPTER XXX.

A.D. 1867. JET. 72.

Return to England — Intruders in ('hcync l!»\v - Want of employ
ment — Settlement of the Craigenputtock otatc < 'liarities— Pub
lic affairs Tory Reform Bill ' Shooting Niagara ' A m-v.
Visits in country houses Meditations in Journal A lirimtiful re-

rollection , -'Ml

viii CONTENTS OF SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A.D. 1868. JRf. 73.

PAGE

The Eyre Committee — Disestablishment of the Irish Church — A lec
ture by Tyndall — Visit to Stratton — ' S. G. O. ' — Last sight of the
Grange — ' Letters and Memorials of Mrs. Carlyle ' — Meditations in
Journal — Modern Atheism. — Democracy and popular orators —
Scotland — Interview with the Queen — Portraits— Modern Atheism
— Strange applications — Loss of use of the right hand — Uses of
anarchy 364

CHAPTER XXXII.

A.D. 1870. .ET. 75.

Anne Boleyn — ' Ginx's Baby ' — The Franco-German war — English
sympathy with France — Letter to the ' Times ' — Effect of it — In
ability to write—' Letters and Memorials of Mrs. Carlyle ' -Dispo
sition made of them 396

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A.D. 1872. vET. 77-

Weariness of life — History of the Norse Kings — Portrait of John
Knox — Death of John Mill and the Bishop of Winchester— Mill
and Carlyle — Irish policy of Mr. Gladstone — The Prussian Order
of Merit — Offer of the Grand Cross of the Bath — Why refused —
Lord Beaconsfield and the Russo-Turkish war — Letter to the
'Times' . . 410

CHAPTER XXXIV.

A.D. 1877-81. Ml, 82-86.

Conversation and habits of life — Estimate of leading politicians -
Visit from Lord Wolseley — Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone —
Dislike of Jews— The English Liturgy — An afternoon in Westmin
ster Abbey — Progress — Democracy— Religion — The Bible — Cha
racteristics 443

CHAPTER XXXV.

A.D. 1877-81. JET. 82-85.

Statues — Portraits— Millais's picture — Study of the Bible— Illness
and death of John Carlyle — Preparation of Memoirs — Last words
about it — Longing for death — The end — Offer of a tomb in West
minster Abbey — Why declined — Ecclefechan churchyard — Con
clusion . . 460

INDEX . 17r.

CABLYLE'S

LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTER XVII.

A.D. 1849-50. /ET. 54-55.

Tour in Ireland— The Irish problem— Impressions in the West—
Gweedore — Address at Derry — Return to Scotland — The Highlands

— A shooting paradise — Reflections on it — Liberty— Radicalism

Impatience with cant — Article on the Nigger question — ' Latter-
day Pamphlets.'

CARLYLE'S purpose of writing a book on Ireland was
not to be fulfilled. He went thither. He travelled
through the four provinces. After his return he
jotted down a hurried account of his experiences ;
but that was all the contribution which he was able
to make for the solution of a problem which he
found at once too easy and too hopeless. Ireland
is an enchanted country. There is a land ready,
as any land ever was, to answer to cultivation.
There is a people ready to cultivate it, to thrive, and
cover the surface of it with happy, prosperous homes,
if ruled, like other nations, by methods which suit
their temperament. If the Anglo-Saxons had set about
governing Ireland with the singleness of aim with

IV B

CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

which they govern India or build their own railways,
a few seasons at any time would have seen the end
of its misery and discontent. But the Anglo-Saxons
have never approached Ireland in any such spirit.
They have had the welfare of Ireland on their lips.
In their hearts they have thought only of England's
welfare, or of what in some narrow prejudice they
deemed to be such, of England's religious interests,
commercial interests, political interests. So it was
when Henry II. set up Popery there. So it was
when Elizabeth set up the Protestant Establish
ment there. So it is now when the leaders of the
English Liberals again destroy that Establishment to
secure the Irish votes to their party in Parliament.
The curse which has made that wretched island the
world's by-word is not in Ireland in itself, but in the
inability of its conquerors to recognise that, if they
take away a nation's liberty, they may not use it as
the plaything of their own selfishness or their own fac
tions. For seven hundred years they have followed on
the same lines : the principle the same, however oppo
site the action. As it was in the days of Strongbow,
so it is to-day ; and ' healing measures,' ushered in no
matter with what pomp of eloquence or parade of
justice, remain, and will remain, a mockery. Carlyle
soon saw how it was. To write on Ireland, as if
a remedy could be found there, while the poison
ous fountain still flowed at Westminster unpurified,
would be labour vain as spinning ropes of moon
shine. He noted down what he had seen, and
then dismissed the unhappy subject from his mind ;
giving his manuscript to a friend as something of
which he desired to hear no more for ever. It was

IRISH TOUR.

published after his death, and the briefest summary
of what to himself had no value is all that need
concern us here. He left London on the 30th of June
in a Dublin steamboat. He could sleep sound at sea,
and therefore preferred ' long sea ' to land when the
choice was offered him, Eunning past the Isle of
Wight, he saw in the distance Sterling's house at
Ventnor; he saw Plymouth, Falmouth, the Land's
End. Then, crossing St. George's Channel, he came
on the Irish coast at Wexford, where the chief scenes
of the Eebellion of 1798 stand clear against the sky.

I thought (he writes) of the battle of Vinegar Hill, but
not with interest ; with sorrow, rather, and contempt ; one
of the ten times ten thousand futile, fruitless battles this
brawling, unreasonable people has fought; the saddest of
distinctions to them among peoples.

At Dublin he met Gavan Duffy again ; stayed
several days ; saw various notabilities — Petrie, the
antiquarian, among others, whose high merit he at
once recognised ; declined an invitation from the
Viceroy, and on the 8th (a Sunday), Dublin and the
neighbourhood being done with, he started for the
south. Kildare was his first stage.

•-

Kildare, as I entered it, looked worse and worse— one of
the wretch edest wild villages I ever saw, and full of ragged
beggars : exotic, altogether like a village in Dahomey,
man and church both. Knots of worshipping people hung
about the streets, and everywhere round them hovered a
harpy swarm of clamorous mendicants — men, women, chil
dren ; a village winged, as if a flight of harpies had
alighted on it. Here for the first time was Irish beggary
itself.

In the railway 'a big blockhead sate with his

CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

dirty feet on seat opposite, not stirring them for
Carlyle, who wanted to sit there.' ' One thing we're
all agreed on,' said he. ' We're very ill governed — •
Whig, Tory, Radical, Repealer, all admit we're very
ill governed.' Carlyle thought to himself, ' Yes,
indeed. You govern yourself. He that would govern
you well would probably surprise you much, my
friend, laying a hearty horsewhip on that back of
yours.'

Owing to the magic companionship of Mr. Duffy,
he met and talked freely with priests and patriots.
Lord Monteagle's introductions secured him attention
from the Anglo -Irish gentry. He was entertained
at the Castle at Lismore, saw Waterford, Youghal,
Castlemartyr, and then Cork, where he encountered
' one of the two sons of Adam who, sixteen years
before, had encouraged Fraser, the bookseller, to
go on with "Teufelsdrockh,"' a priest, a Father
O'Shea, to whom for this at least he was grateful.

Killarney was the next stage ; beauty and squalor
there, as everywhere, sadly linked to one another.
Near Killarney he stayed with Sir - - and his
interesting wife ; good people, but strong upholders
of the Anglo-Irish Church, which, however great its
merits otherwise, had made little of missionary work
among the Catholic Celts. He wished well to all
English institutions in Ireland, but he had a fixed
conviction that the Anglo-Catholic Church at least,
both there and everywhere, was unequal to its work.
He went with his friends to the ' service,' which was
'• decently performed.'

I felt (he says) how English Protestants, or the sons
of such, might with zealous affection like to assemble here

IRISH TOUR.

once a week and remind themselves of English purities and
decencies and Gospel ordinances, in the midst of a black,
howling Babel of superstitious savagery, like Hebrews sit
ting by the streams of Babylon. But I felt more clearly
than ever how impossible it was that an extraneous son of
Adam, first seized by the terrible conviction that he had a
soul to be saved or damned, that he must read the riddle of
this universe or go to perdition everlasting, could for a
moment think of taking this respectable ' performance ' as
the solution of the mystery for him. Oh heavens ! never
in this world ! Weep by the stream of Babel, decent, clean
English Irish ; weep, for there is cause, till you can do
something better than weep ; but expect no Babylonian or
any other mortal to concern himself with that affair of
yours. ... No sadder truth presses itself upon me than the
necessity there will soon be, and the call there everywhere
already is, to quit these old rubrics and give up these empty
performances altogether. All religions that I fell in with in
Ireland seemed to me too irreligious : really, in sad truth,
doing mischief to the people instead of good.

Limerick, Clare, Lough Derg on the Shannon,
Galway, Castlebar, Westport — these were the suc
cessive points of the journey. At Westport was a
workhouse and ' human swinery at its acme ; ' 30,000
paupers out of a population of 60,000 ; ' an abomina
tion of desolation.' Thence, through the dreariest
parts of Mayo, he drove on to Ballina, where he
found Forster, of Eawdon, waiting for him — W. E.
Forster, then young and earnest, and eager to master
in Carlyle's company the enigma which he took in
hand as Chief Secretary three years ago (1881, &c.),
with what success the world by this time know^.
Carlyle, at least, is not responsible for the failure,
certain as mathematics, of the Irish Land Act.
Forster perhaps discovered at the time that he

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

would find little to suit him in Carlyle's views of the
matter. They soon parted. Carlyle hastened on
to Donegal to see a remarkable experiment which
was then being attempted there. Lord George Hill
was endeavouring to show at Gweedore that, with
proper resources of intellect, energy, and money
wisely expended, a section of Ireland could be lifted
out of its misery even under the existing conditions
of English administration.

His distinct conclusion was that this too, like
all else of the kind, was building a house out of sand.
He went to Gweedore ; he stayed with Lord George ;
he saw all that he was doing or trying to do, and he
perceived, with a clearness which the event has justi
fied, that the persuasive charitable method of raising
lost men out of the dirt and leading them of their
own accord into the ways that they should go, was,
in Ireland at least, doomed to fail from the beginning.

I had to repeat often to Lord Greorge (he says), to which
he could not refuse essential consent, his is the largest
attempt at benevolence and beneficence on the modern
system (the emancipation, all for liberty, abolition of capital
punishment, roast goose at Christmas system) ever seen by
me or like to be seen. Alas ! how can it prosper, except to
the soul of the noble man himself who earnestly tries it and
works at it, making himself a slave to it these seventeen
years ?

It would be interesting to compare Carlyle's tour,
or any modern tour, in Ireland, with Arthur Young's,
something over a hundred years ago — before Grattan's
constitution, the Volunteers, the glorious liberties of
1782, Catholic emancipation, and the rest that has
followed. Carlyle found but one Lord George Hill

DERRY ADDRESS.

hopelessly struggling with impossibilities ; Arthur
Young found not one, but many peers and gentle
men working effectively in the face of English
discouragement : draining, planting, building, making
large districts, now all ' gone back to bog ' again,
habitable by human beings, and successfully accom
plishing at least a part of the work which they were
set to do. All that is not waste and wilderness in
Ireland is really the work of these poor men.

From Gweedore to Derry was an easy journey.
There his travels were to end ; he was to find a
steamer which would take him to Scotland. Five
weeks had passed since he landed. On August 6
he met at breakfast a company of Derry citizens,
who had come to hear the impression which these
weeks had left upon him.

Emphatic talk to them, far too emphatic : human nerves
being worn out with exasperation. Remedy for Ireland ? To
cease generally from following the Devil ! No other remedy
that I know of. One general life element of humbug these
two centuries. And now it has fallen bankrupt. This uni
verse, my worthy brothers, has its laws, terrible as death and
judgment if we ' cant ' ourselves away from following them.
Land tenure ? What is a landlord at this moment in any
country if Rhadamanthus looked at him ? What is an
Archbishop ? Alas ! what is a Queen ? What is a British
specimen of the genus homo in th^se generations ? A
bundle of hearsays and authentic appetites — a canaille
whom the gods are about to chastise and to extinguish if
he cannot alter himself, &c.

Derry aristocrats behaved very well under all this. Not
a pleasant breakfast ; but, oh ! it is the last.

This was Monday, August 6. On the 7th, Carlyle
was in liis own land again, having left the

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

suppuration ' to suppurate more and more till it
burst, he feeling that any true speech upon it would
be like speaking to the deaf winds. On reaching
Scotsbrig, he exclaimed :

Thank Heaven for the sight of real human industry,
with human fruits from it, once more. The sight of fenced
fields, weeded crops, and human creatures with whole clothes
on their back — it was as if one had got into spring water out
of dunghill puddles.

His wife had meanwhile gone to Scotland on
her own account. She had spent three singularly
interesting days at Haddington (which she has herself
described 1), where she wandered like a returned spirit
about the home of her childhood. She had gone

o

thence to her relations at Auchtertool, in Fife, and
was there staying when her husband was at Gweedore.
A characteristic letter of hers survives, written thence,
wThich must have been omitted by accident in Carlyle's
collection. It was to her brother-in-law John, and is
in her liveliest style. John's translation of Dante's
' Inferno ' was just out, and the family were busy
reading it and talking about it.

To John Carlyle.

Auchtertool Mause : July 27, 1849.

We had been talking about you, and had sunk silent.
Suddenly my uncle turned his head to me and said, shaking
it gravely, ' He has made an awesome plooster o' that place.'
' Who ? what place, uncle ?' < Whew ! the place ye'll maybe
gang to if ye dinna tak! care.' I really believe he considers
all those circles of your invention.

Walter 2 performed the marriage service over a couple of

1 Letters and Memorials, vol. ii. p. 53.

2 A cousin just ordained.

A SCOTCH WEDDING.

colliers the day after I came. I happened to be in his study
when they came in, and asked leave to remain. The man
was a good-looking man enough, dreadfully agitated, partly
with the business he was come on, partly with drink. He had
evidently taken a glass too much to keep his heart up. The
girl had one very large inflamed eye and one little one, which
looked perfectly composed, while the large eye stared wildly
and had a tear in it. Walter married them very well indeed ;
and his affecting words, together with the bridegroom's pale,
excited face, and the bride's ugliness, and the poverty, penury,
and want imprinted on the whole business, and above all
fellow-feeling with the poor wretches then rushing on their
fate — all that so overcame me that I fell crying as despe
rately as if I had been getting married to the collier myself,
and, when the ceremony was over, extended my hand to the
unfortunates, and actually (in such an enthusiasm of pity
did I find myself) I presented the new husband with a snuff
box which I happened to have in my hand, being just about
presenting it to Walter when the creatures came in. This
unexpected Himmelsendung finished turning the man's
head ; he wrung my hand over and over, leaving his mark
for some hours after, and ended his grateful speeches with
' Oh, Miss ! Oh, Liddy ! may ye hae rnair comfort and
pleasure in your life than ever you have had yet ! ' which
might easily be.

Carlyle stayed quiet at Scotsbrig, meditating on
the break-down of the proposed Irish book, and
uncertain what he should turn to instead. He had
promised to join the Ashburtons in the course of
the autumn at a Highland shooting-box. Shooting
parties were out of his line altogether, but perhaps he
did not object to seeing for once what such a tiling
was like. Scotsbrig, too, was not agreeing with him.

Last night (he says in a letter thence) I awoke ;it
;unl made nothing more of it, owing to cocks and other

io CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

blessed fellow-inhabitants of this planet, not all of whom
are friendly to me, I perceive. In fact, this planet was not
wholly made for me, but for me and others, including cocks,
unclean things many, and even the Devil ; that is the real
secret of it. Alas ! a human creature with these particu
larities in mere sleep, not to speak of any others, is he not
a creature to be prayed for ?

He remained there till the end of August, and
then started on his expedition. Glen Truim, to
which lie was bound, was in the far North, in Mac-
pherson of Clunie's country. The railroad was yet
unfinished, and the journey — long and tedious — had
to be transacted by coach. He was going against
the grain. Perhaps his wife thought that he would
have done more wisely to decline. He stopped on
the way at Auchtertool to see her ; ' had,' he says,
' a miserable enough hugger-mugger time ; my own
blame — none others so much ; ' ' saw that always.'
Certainly, as the event proved, he would have been
better off out of the way of the « gunner bodies.' If
he was miserable in Fife, he was far from happy with
his Grand friends in Glen Truim.

o

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Glen Truim : September 2, 1849.

What can I do but write to you, even if I were not bound
by the natural law of the wayfarer ? It is my course when
ever I am out of sorts or in low spirits among strangers ;
emphatically my case just now in this closet of a house,
among rains and highland mosses, with a nervous system
all ' dadded about ' by coach travel, rail travel, multiplied
confusion, and finally by an almost totally sleepless night.
Happily, this closet is my own for the time being. Here is
paper. Here are pens. I will tell my woes to poor Goody.

GLEN TRUIM.

Well do I know that, in spite of prepossessions, she will
have some pity of me. . . .

You may fancy what the route was. . . . The fat old
landlord at Dunkeld, grown grey and much broader, was the
only known living creature.1 A still, olive-coloured mist
hung over all the country. Kinnaird and the old house
which was my sleeping-place when I used to write to you
were greyly discernible across the river amid their trees. I
thought of the waterhen you have heard me mention, of
the pony I used to ride, of the whole world that then lived,
dead now mostly, fallen silent for evermore, even as the
poor Bullers are, and as we shall shortly be. Such reflections,
when they do not issue pusillanimously, are as good as the
sight of Michael Angelo's ' Last Judgment,' and deserve
their place from time to time.

The journey to Invernessshire is detailed with
copious minuteness. His eye always caught small
details when they had meaning in them. The
coach dropped him finally at the roadside, in sight
of Glen Truim — ' the house, a rather foolish-looking,

C'

turretted, diminutive, pretentious, grey granite sort
of a place, half a mile off; ' the country an undulated
plain — a very broad valley with no high hill but one
near by, ' bare for the rest, and by no means a Garden
of Eden in any respect.' He continues :—

The gillie that was to wait for us was by no means
waiting. He 'mistook the time.' Nothing but solitary,
bare moor was waiting. I took the next cottage, left my
goods there, walked ; found nobody, as usual. In brief, oh,
Goody, Goody ! it was four o'clock before I actually found
landlord ; four and a half landlady ; I walking all the while,
with no refection but cigars : five before I could get hold
of my luggage, and eight, after vain attempts at sleep

1 Remembered from the time when he had been the I'.uller.s' tutor,
twenty-seven years before.

12 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

amidst noises as of a sacked city, before any nourishment,
for which indeed I had no appetite at all, was ministered to
me. From the hospitalities of the great world, even when
kindly affected to us, good Lord deliver hooz ! . . .

In fact, when I think of the Grange, and Bath House,
and Addiscombe, and consider this wretched establishment,
and 500£. for two months of it, I am lost in amazement.
The house is not actually much beyond Craigenputtock

say two Craigenputtock s ill contrived and ill managed.

Nor is the prospect in a higher ratio ; and for society, really
Corson,1 except that he was not called Lord, and had
occasionally « his forehead all elevated into inequalities,'
Corson, I say, was intrinsically equal to the average of
' gunner bodies.' Oh, Jeannie dear, when I think of our
poverty even at the present, and see this wealth, which do
you imagine I prefer ? The two Lords we have here are a

fat , a sensual, proud-looking man, of whom or his

genesis or environment I know nothing, and then a small,

leanish , neither of whom is worth a doit to me. Their

wives are polite, elegant-looking women, but hardly beyond

the range ; not a better, though a haughtier. Poor Lord

Ashburton looks rustic and healthy, but seems more absent
and oblivious than ever. A few reasonable words with me
seem as if suddenly to awaken him to surprised remem
brance. Young Lord N. you know. Merchant B., really
one of the sensiblest figures here, he and Miss Emily Baring
make up the lot, and we are crammed like herrings in a
barrel. The two lads are in one room. This apartment of
mine, looking out towards Aberdeenshire and the brown,
wavy moors, is of nine feet by seven : a French bed, and
hot water not to be had for scarcity of jugs. I awoke after
an hour and a quarter's sleep, and one of those Peers of the
Realm snored audibly to me. ... In fact, it is rather clear
I shall do no good here unless things alter exceedingly. I
mean to petition to be off to the bothy2 to-morrow, where at
least will be some kind of silence. I must go, and will if I

1 A farmer who lived near Craigenputtock.
- A lodge some milo distant.

A SHOOTING PARADISE. 13

miss another night of sleep and have to dine again at eight
amidst talk of 'birds ; ' and, on the whole, as soon as I can
get what little bit of duty I have discovered for myself to do
here done, the sooner I cut cable or lift anchor for other
latitudes, I decidedly find it will be the better. . . . Pity
me when thou canst, poor little soul ! or laugh at me if
thou wilt. Oh ! if you could read my heart and whole
thought at this moment, there is surely one sad thing you
would cease to do henceforth. But enough of all these sad
niaiseries, which indeed I myself partly laugh at ; for really
I am wonderfully well to-day, and have this impregnable
closet, with a window that pulls down, and the wide High
land moors before me worth looking at for once. And we
shall get out of this adventure handsomely enough, if I mis
calculate not, by-and-by. Mimes is to be here in a day or
two, and these Lords of Parliament with their gunboxes and
retinue are to go. We shall know shooting-boxes for the
time to come.

The Ashburtons were as attentive to Carlyle's
peculiarities as it was possible to be. No prince's
confessor, in the ages of faith, could have more con
sideration shown him than lie in this restricted man
sion. The best apartment was made over to him as
soon as it was vacant. A special dinner was arranged
for him at his own hour. But he was out of his
element.

September 7.

I have got a big waste room, and in spite of noises and
turmoils contrive to get nightly in instalments some six
hours of sleep. But on the whole my visit prospers as ill as
could be wished. Double, double, toil and trouble ! — that and
nothing else at all. No reasonable word is heard, or hardly
one, in the twenty-four hours. I cannot even get a washing-
tub. My last attempt at washing was in a foot-pail, as unfit for
it as a teacup would have been, and it brought on the lum
bago. Patientia ! I have known now what Highland shooting
paradises are, and one experiment, I think, will be quite

i4 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

enough. On the whole, I feel hourly there will be nothing
for it but to get my visit done and fly across the hills again,
quam primum. It is, in fact, such a scene of folly as no
sane man could wish to continue in or return to. Oh, my
wise little Goody ! what a blessing in comparison with all
the Peerage books and Eldorados in the world is a little solid
sense derived from Heaven !

Poor * shooting paradise ' ! It answered the pur
pose it was intended for. Work, even to the aristo
cracy, is exacting in these days. Pleasure is even
more exacting ; and unless they could rough it now
and then in primitive fashion and artificial plainness
of living, they would sink under the burden of their
splendours and the weariness of their duties. Carlyle
had no business in such a scene. He never fired off
a gun in his life. He never lived in habitual luxury,
and therefore could not enjoy the absence of common
conveniences. He was out of humour with what he
saw. He was out of humour with himself for being
a part of it. Three weeks of solitude at Scotsbrig, to
which he hastened to retreat, scarcely repaired his
sufferings at Glen Truim.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Scotsbrig : September 17, 1840.

I am lazy beyond measure. I sleep and smoke, and would
fain do nothing else at all. If they would but let me sit
alone in this room, I think I should be tempted to stay long
in it, forgetting and forgotten, so inexpressibly wearied is
my poor body and poor soul. Ah me ! People ought not to
be angry at me. People ought to let me alone. Perhaps
they would if they rightly understood what I was doing and
suffering in this Life Pilgrimage at times ; but they cannot,
the good friendly souls ! Ah me ! or, rather : Courage !
courage ! The rough billows and cross winds shall not beat

SCOTSBRIG. I5

us yet ; not at this stage of the voyage, and harbour almost
within sight. The fact is that just now I am very weary
and the more sleep I get I seem to grow the wearier. Yes
terday I took a ride ; the lanes ail silent, fields full of stooks,
and Burnswark and the everlasting hills looking quite clear
upon me. Jog ! jog ! So went the little shelty at its own
slow will ; and death seemed to me almost all one with life,
and eternity much the same as time.

1 September 24.

Alas, my poor little Goody ! These are not good times at
all. . . . Your poor hand, and heart too, were in sad case on
Friday. Let me hope you have well slept since that, given
up * thinking of the old 'un,' and much modified the ' Gum-
midge ' view of affairs. Sickness and distraction of nerves
is a good excuse for almost any degree of despondency. . . .
But we can by no means permit ourselves a philosophy a la
Gummidge — not at all, poor lone critturs though we be.
In fact, there remains at all times and in all conceivable
situations, short of Tophet itself, a set of quite infinite prizes
for us to strive after — namely, of duties to do ; and not till
after they are done can we talk of retiring to the < House.'
Oh no ! Give up that, I entreat you ; for it is mere want of
sleep and other unreality, I tell you. There has nothing
changed in the heavens nor in the earth since times were
much more tolerable than that. Poor thing! You are
utterly worn out ; and I hope a little, though I have no
right properly, to get a letterkin to-morrow with a cheerier
report of matters. Furthermore, I am coming home myself
in some two days, and I reasonably calculate, not unreason
ably according to all the light I have, that our life may be
much more comfortable together than it has been for some
years past. In me, if I can help it, there shall not be any
thing wanting for an issue so desirable, so indispensable in
fact. If you will open your own eyes and shut your evil
demon's imaginings and dreamings, I firmly believe all will
soon be well. God grant it. Amen, amen ! I love thee
always, little as thou wilt believe it.

1 In answer to a melancholy letter.

16 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

September 25.

For two nights past I have got into the bad habit of
dividing my sleep in two ; waking a couple of hours by way
of interlude, and then sleeping till ten o'clock— a bad habit,
if I could mend it ; but who can ? My two hours of waking
pass in wondrous resuscitations and reviews of all manner of
dead events, not quite unprofitably perhaps, and though
sadly, not unpleasantly— sad as death, but also quiet as
death, and with a faint reflex of sacred joy (if I could be
worthy of it), like the light which is beyond death. No
earthly fortune is very formidable to me, nor very desirable.
A soul of something heavenly I do seem to see in every
human life, and in my own too, and that is truly and for
ever of importance to me. ... Oh my best little Jeannie !-
for on the whole there is none of them all worth naming
beside thee when thy better genius is not banished — try to
sleep to compose thy poor little heart and nerves, to love me
as of old, at least not to hate me. My heart is very weary,
wayworn too with fifty-three rough years behind me : but it is
bound to thee, poor soul ! as I can never bind it to any other.
Help me to lead well what of life may still remain, and I will
be for ever grateful. — God bless you always.

T. CARLYLE.

The three months of holiday were thus spent-
strange holidays. But a man carries his shadow
clinging to him, and cannot part with it, except in a
novel. He was now driven by accumulation of dis
content to disburden his heart of its secretions.
During the last two revolutionary years he had
covered many sheets with his reflections. At the
bottom of his whole nature lay abhorrence of false
hood. To see facts as they actually were, and, if that
was impossible, at least to desire to see them, to be
sincere with his own soul, and to speak to others
exactly what he himself believed, was to him the

LETTER TO ERSK1NE. 17

highest of all human duties* Therefore he detested
cant with a perfect hatred. Cant was organised hypo-
'crTsy, the art of making thingTseem what they were
not ; an art so deadly that it killed the very souls
of those who practised it, carrying them beyond the
sta^e of conscious falsehood into a belief in their own

o

illusions, and reducing them to the wretchedest of
possible conditions, that of being sincerely insincere.
With cant of this kind he saw all Europe, all America,
overrun ; but beyond all, his own England appeared
to him to be drenched in cant — cant religious, cant
political, cant moral, cant artistic, cant everywhere
and in everything. A letter to Mr. Erskine, written
before the French Eevolution, shows what he was
then thinking about it ; and all that had happened
since had wrought his conviction to whiter heat.

To Thomas Erskine, Linlathen.

June 12, 1847.

One is warned by Nature herself not to ' sit down by the
side of sad thoughts,' as my friend Oliver has it, and dwell
voluntarily with what is sorrowful and painful. Yet at the
same time one has to say for oneself — at least I have — that
all the good I ever got came to me rather in the shape of
sorrow : that there is nothing noble or godlike in this world
but has in it something of ' infinite sadness,' very different
indeed from what the current moral philosophies represent
it to us : and surely in a time like ours, if in any time, it is
good for a man to be driven, were it by never such harsh
methods, into looking at this great universe with his own
eyes, for himself and not for another, and trying to adjust
himself truly there. By the helps and traditions of others
he never will adjust himself: others are but offering him
their miserable spyglasses ; Puseyite, Presbyterian, Free
Kirk, old Jew, old Greek, middle-age Italian, imperfect, not

IV. C

1 8 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

to say distorted, semi-opaque, wholly opaque and altogether
melancholy and rejectable spyglasses, one and all, if one
has eyes left. On me, too, the pressure of these things falls
very heavy : indeed I often feel the loneliest of all the sons
of Adam ; and, in the jargon of poor grimacing men, it is as
if one listened to the jabbering of spectres — not a cheerful
situation at all while it lasts. In fact, I am quite idle so
far as the outer hand goes at present. Silent, not from
having nothing, but from having infinitely too much, to say :
out of which perplexity I know no road except that of getting
more and more miserable in it, till one is forced to say some
thing, and so carry on the work a little. I must not complain.
I must try to get my work done while the days and years
are. Nay, is not that the thing I would, before all others,
have chosen, had the universe and all its felicities been
freely offered me to take my share from ? The great soul
of this world is Just. With a voice soft as the harmony of
spheres, yet stronger, sterner, than all thunders, this message
does now and then reach us through the hollow jargon of
things. This great fact we live in, and were made by. It
is ' a noble Spartan Mother ' to all of us that dare be sons to
it. Courage ! we must not quit our shields ; we must return
home upon our shields, having fought in the battle till we
died. That is verily the law. Many a time I remember
that of Dante, the inscription on the gate of hell : * Eternal
love made me' — made even me; a word which the paltry
generations of this time shriek over, and do not in the least
understand. I confess their 'Exeter Hall,' with its froth
oceans, benevolence, &c. &c., seems to me amongst the most
degraded platitudes this world ever saw; a more brutal
idolatry perhaps — for they are white men, and their century
is the nineteenth — than that of Mumbo Jumbo itself! This,
you perceive, is strong talking. This I have got to say yet,
or try what I can do toward saying if I live. From Dan to
Beersheba I find the same most mournful fact written down
for me ; mutely calling on me to read it and speak it abroad
if I be not a lazy coward and slave, which I would fain avoid
being. ... It is every way very strange to consider what

MEANING OF RELIGION. 19

* Christianity,' so called, has grown to within these two cen
turies, on the Howard and Fry side as on every other — a
paltry, mealy-mouthed ' religion of cowards,' who can have
no religion but a sham one, which also, as I believe, awaits
its ' abolition ' from the avenging power. If men will turn
away their face from God, and set up idols, temporary phan
tasms, instead of the Eternal One — alas ! the consequences
are from of old well known.

Religion, a religion that was true, meant a rule of
conduct according to the law of God. Religion, as it
existed in England, had become a thing of opinion, of
emotion flowing over into benevolence as an imagined

O D

substitute for justice. Over the conduct of men in
their ordinary business it had ceased to operate at
all, and therefore, to Carlyle, it was a hollow appear
ance, a word without force or controlling power in it.
Religion was obligation, a command which bound men
to duty, as something which they were compelled to
do under tremendous penalties. The modern world,
even the religious part of it, had supposed that the
grand aim was to abolish compulsion, to establish
universal freedom, leaving each man to the light of
his own conscience or his own will. Freedom — that
was the word — the glorious birthright which, once
realised, was to turn earth into paradise. And this
was cant ; and those who were loudest about it could
not themselves believe it, but could only pretend to
believe it. In a conditioned existence like ours,
freedom was impossible. To the race as a race, the
alternative was work or starvation — all were bound
to work in their several ways ; some must work or all
would die; and the result of the boasted political
liberty was an arrangement where the cunning or the
strong appropriated the lion's share of the harvest.

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

without working, while the multitude lived on by
toil, and toiled to get the means of living. That was
the actual outcome of the doctrine of liberty, as seen
in existing society ; nor in fact to any kind of man
anywhere was freedom possible in the popular sense
of the word. Each one of us was compassed round
with restrictions on his personal will, and the wills
even of the strongest were slaves to inclination.
The serf whose visible fetters were struck off was a
serf still under the law of nature. He might change
his master, but a master he must have of some kind,
or die ; and to speak of ' emancipation ' in and by
itself, as any mighty gain or step in progress, was
the wildest of illusions. No ' progress ' would or
could be made on the lines of Eadicals or philan
thropists. The 'liberty/ the only liberty, attainable
by the multitude of ignorant mortals, was in being
guided or else compelled by some one wiser than
themselves. They gained nothing if they exchanged
the bondage to man for bondage to the devil. It was
assumed in the talk of the day that ' emancipation '
created manliness, self-respect, improvement of cha
racter.1 To Carlyle, who looked at facts, all this

1 Mr. Gladstone somewhere quotes Homer in support of this argu
ment.

rjfjiicrv yap r' dperfjy dnoaivvTai fvpvona Ztiis
dvepos, (VT ai> fj.iv Kara 8ov\iov rjpap e\rj(nv.

' Jove strips a man of half his virtue on the day when slavery lays
hold on him.' Homer, be it observed, places these words in the mouth
of Eumseus, who was himself a slave. Eumseus and another slave were
alone found faithful to their king when the free citizens of Ithaca had
forgotten him. Eumseus was speaking of the valets left at home
in their master's absence. The free valets in a modern house left in
similar circumstances would probably have not been very superior to
them.

LIBERTY. 21

was wind. Those ' grinders,' for instance, whom he
had seen in that Manchester cellar, earning high
wages, that they might live merrily for a year or
two, and die at the end of them — were they im
proved ? Was freedom to kill themselves for drink
such a blessed thing ? Were they really better
off than slaves who were at least as well cared for
as their master's cattle? The cant on this subject
enraged him. He, starting from the other pole,
believing not in the rights of man, but in the duties
of man, could see nothing in it but detestable selfish
ness disguised in the plumage of angels — a shameful
substitute for the neglect of the human ties by which
man was bound to man. ' Facit indignatio versum.'
Wrath with the things which he saw around him
inspired the Eoman poet ; wrath drove Carlyle into
writing the ' Latter-day Pamphlets.'

Journal.

November 11, 1849. — Went to Ireland — wandered about
there all through July, have half forcibly recalled all my re
membrances, and thrown them down on a paper since my
return. Ugly spectacle, sad health, sad humour, a thing
unjoyful to look back upon. The whole country figures in
my mind like a ragged coat or huge beggar's gaberdine, not
patched or patchable any longer ; far from a joyful or
beautiful spectacle. Went afterwards from Annandale to
the Highlands as far as Glen Truim ; spent there ten wretched
days. To Annandale a second time, and thence home after
a fortnight, leaving my poor mother ill of a face cold, from
which she is not yet quite entirely recovered. The last
glimpses of her at the door, whither she had followed me,
contrary to bargain ; these are things that lie beyond speech.
How lonely I am now grown in the world ; how hard, many

22 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

times as if I were made of stone ! All the old tremulous
affection lies in me, but it is as if frozen. So mocked, and
scourged, and driven mad by contradictions, it has, as it
were, lain down in a kind of iron sleep. The general history
of man ? Somewhat, I suppose, and yet not wholly. Words
cannot express the love and sorrow of my old memories,
chiefly out of boyhood, as they occasionally rise upon me, and
I have now no voice for them at all. One's heart becomes
a grim Hades, peopled only with silent preternaturalism.
No more of this ! God help me Grod soften me again — so
far as now softness can be suitable for such a soul ; or rather
let me pray for. wisdom, for silent capability to manage this
huge haggard world — at once a Hades and an Elysium, a
celestial and infernal as I see, which has been given me to
inhabit for a time and to rule over as I can. No lonelier
soul, I do believe, lies under the sky at this moment than
myself. Masses of written stuff, which I grudge a little to
burn, and trying to sort something out of them for magazine
articles, series of pamphlets, or whatever they will promise
to turn to — does not yet succeed with me at all : am not yet
in the 'paroxysm of clairvoyance' which is indispensable.
Is it ? All these paper bundles were written last summer,
and are wrongish, every word of them. Might serve as
newspaper or pamphletary introduction, overture, or accom
paniment to the unnameable book I have to write. In
dissent from all the world ; in black contradiction, deep as
the bases of my life, to all the philanthropic, emancipatory,
constitutional, and other anarchic revolutionary jargon, with
which the world, so far as I can conceive is now full. Alas !
and the governors of the world are as anarchic as anybody
(witness the Canada Parliament and governor just now,
witness, &c. &c., all over the world) ; not pleasing at all to
be in a minority of one in regard to everything. The worst
is, however, I am not yet true to myself; I cannot yet call
in my wandering truant being, and bid it wholly set to the
work fit for it in this hour. Oh, let me persist, persist — may
the heavens grant me power to persist in that till I do
succeed in it !

' LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS.' 23

November 16, 1849. — A sad feature in employments like
mine, that you cannot carry them on continuously. My
work needs all to be done with my nerves in a kind of blaze ;
such a state of soul and body as would soon kill me, if not
intermitted. I have to rest accordingly ; to stop and sink
into total collapse, the getting out of which again is a
labour of labours. Papers on the « Negro Question,' fraction
of said rubbish coming out in the next * Fraser.'

A paper on the Negro or Nigger question,
properly the first of the « Latter-day Pamphlets,' was
Carlyle's declaration of war against modern Radical
ism. Hitherto, though his orthodoxy was question
able, the Radicals had been glad to claim him as
belonging to them; and if Radicalism meant an
opinion that modern society required to be recon
stituted from the root, he had been, was, and remained
the most thoroughgoing of them all. His objection
was to the cant of Radicalism ; the philosophy of it,
'bred of philanthropy and the Dismal Science,' the
purport of which was to cast the atoms of human
society adrift, mocked with the name of liberty, to
sink or swim as they could. Negro emancipation
had been the special boast and glory of the new
theory of universal happiness. The twenty millions
of indemnity and the free West Indies had been
chanted and celebrated for a quarter of a century
from press and platform. Weekly, almost daily, the
English newspapers were crowing over the Ameri
cans, flinging in their teeth the Declaration of Inde
pendence, blowing up in America itself a flame which
was ripening towards a furious war, while the result
of the experiment so far had been the material ruin of
colonies once the most precious that we had, and the

24 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

moral ruin of the blacks themselves, who were rotting
away in sensuous idleness amidst the wrecks of the
plantations. He was touching the shield with the
point of his lance when he chose this sacredly sensi
tive subject for his first onslaught. He did not mean
that the ' Niggers ' should have been kept as cattle,
and sold as cattle at their owners' pleasure. He did
mean that they ought to have been treated as human
beings, for whose souls and bodies the whites were
responsible ; that they should have been placed in a
position suited to their capacity, like that of the
Engli-h serf under the Plantagenets ; protected against
ill-usage by law ; attached to the soil ; not allowed to
be idle, but cared for themselves, their wives and
their children, in health, in sickness, and in old
age.

He said all this ; but he said it fiercely, scorn
fully, in the tone which could least conciliate atten
tion. . Black Quashee and his friends were spattered
with ridicule which stung the more from the justice
of it. The following passage could least be pardoned
because the truth which it contained could least be
denied : —

Dead corpses, the rotting body of a brother man, whom
fate or unjust men have killed, this is not a pleasant spec
tacle. But what say you to the dead soul of a man in a
body which still pretends to be vigorously alive, and can
drink rum ? An idle white gentleman is not pleasant to me,
but what say you to an idle black gentleman with his rum
bottle in his hand (for a little additional pumpkin you can
have red herrings and rum in Demerara), no breeches on his
body, pumpkin at discretion, and the fruitfullest region of
the earth going back to jungle round him? Such things
the sun looks down upon in our fine times, and I for one

' LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS: 25

would rather have no hand in them. . . . Yes — this is the
eternal law of nature for a man, my beneficent Exeter Hall
friends ; this, that he shall be permitted, encouraged, and, if
need be, compelled to do what work the Maker of him has
intended for this world. Not that he should eat pumpkin
with never such felicity in the West India Islands, is or can
be the blessedness of our black friend ; but that he should
do useful work there, according as the gifts have been be
stowed on him for that. And his own happiness and that of
others round him will alone be possible by his and their
getting into such a relation that this can be permitted him,
and in case of need that this can be compelled him. I beg
you to understand this, for you seem to have a little for
gotten it ; and there lie a thousand influences in it not quite
useless for Exeter Hall at present. The idle black man in
the West Indies had not long since the right, and will again,
under better form, if it please Heaven, have the right — ac
tually the first ' right of man ' for an indolent person — to be
compelled to work as he was fit, and to do the Maker's will
who had constructed him with such and such capabilities and
prefigurements of capability. And I incessantly pray Heaven
that all men, the whitest alike and the blackest, the richest
and the poorest, had attained precisely the same right, the
Divine right of being compelled (if ' permitted ' will not
answer) to do what work they are appointed for, and not to
go idle another minute in a life which is so short, and where
idleness so soon runs to putrescence. Alas ! we had then a
perfect world, and the Millennium, and the * organisation of
labour ' and reign of complete blessedness for all workers and
men had then arrived, which in their own poor districts of
this planet, as we all lament to know, it is very far from
having got done.

I once asked Carlyle if he had ever thought of
going into Parliament, for I knew that the opportunity
must have been offered him. 'Well,' he said, 'I did
think of it at the time of the " Latter-day Pamphlets."
I felt that nothing could prevent me from getting

26 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

up in the House and saying all that.' He was
powerful, but he was not powerful enough to have
discharged with his single voice the vast volume of
conventional electricity with which the collective
wisdom of the nation was, and remains, charged. It
is better that his thoughts should have been com
mitted to enduring print, where they remain to be
reviewed hereafter by the light of fact.

The article on the ' Mgger question ' gave, as
might have been expected, universal offence. Many
of his old admirers drew back after this, and ' walked
no more with him.' John Mill replied fiercely in the
same magazine. They had long ceased to be intimate ;
they were henceforth « rent asunder,' not to be again
united. Each went his own course ; but neither Mill
nor Carlyle forgot that they had once been friends,
and each to the last spoke of the other with affec
tionate regret.

The Pamphlets commenced at the beginning of
1850, and went on month after month, each sepa
rately published, no magazine daring to become
responsible for them. The first was on ' The Present
Time,' on the advent and prospects of Democracy.
The revolutions of 1848 had been the bankruptcy of
falsehood, ' the tumbling out of impostures into the
street.' The problem left before the world was how
nations were hereafter to be governed. The English
people imagined that it could be done by ' suffrages '
and the ballot-box; a system under which St. Paul
and Judas Iscariot would each have an equal vote,
and one would have as much power as the other.
This was like saying that when a ship was going on a
voyage round the world the crew were to be brought

' LA TTER-DA Y PAMPHLE TS. ' 2 7

together to elect their own officers, and vote the
course which was to be followed.

Unanimity on board ship — yes indeed, the ship's crew
may~5e very unanimous, which doubtless for the time being
will be very comfortable for the ship's crew, and to their
phantasm captain, if they have one. But if the tack they
unanimously steer upon is guiding them into the belly of
the abyss, it will not profit them much. Ships accordingly do
not use the ballot-box, and they reject the phantasm species
of captains. One wishes much some other entities, since ^
all entities lie under the same rigorous set of laws, could
be brought to show as much wisdom and sense at least of
self-preservation, the first command of nature.

The words in italics contain the essence of Carlyle's
teaching. If they are true, the inference is equally
true that in Democracy there can be no finality. If
the laws are fixed under which nations are allowed to
prosper, men fittest by capacity and experience to
read those laws must be placed in command, and the
ballot-box never will and never can select the fittest ;
it will select the sham fittest, or the imfittest. The
suffrage, the right of every man to a voice in the
selection of his rulers, was, and is, the first article
of the Radical Magna Charta, the articulus stands vel
cadentis Reipublicce, and is so accepted by every
modern Liberal statesman. Carlyle met it with a
denial as complete and scornful as Luther flung at
Tetzel and his Indulgences — not, however, with the
same approval from those whom he addressed.
Luther found the grass dry and ready to kindle.
The belief which Carlyle assailed was alive and green
with hope and vigour.

28 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Journal.

February 7, 1850. — Trying to write my ' Latter-day Pam
phlets.' Such form, after infinite haggling, has the thing
now assumed. Some twelve pamphlets, if I can but get
them written at all ; then leave the matter lying. No. 1
came out a week ago ; yields me a most confused response.
Little save abuse hitherto, and the sale reported to be
vigorous. Abuse enough, and almost that only, is what I
have to look for with confidence. Nigger article has roused
the ire of all philanthropists to a quite unexpected pitch.
Among other very poor attacks on it was one in * Fraser ; '
most shrill, thin, poor and insignificant, which I was surprised
to learn proceeded from John Mill. . . . He has neither told
me nor reminded me of anything that I did not very well
know beforehand. No use in writing that kind of criticism.
For some years back Mill, who once volunteered a close con
stant intimacy for a long time, has volunteered a complete
withdrawal of himself; and now, instead of reverent dis-
cipleship, which he aspired to, seems to have taken the func
tion of getting up to contradict whatever I say. Curious
enough. But poor Mill's fate in various ways has been very
tragic. His misery, when I chance to see him in the street
or otherwise (for we never had a word of quarrel), appeals to
my pity if any anger was rising. . . . The Pamphlets are all
as bad as need be. If I could but get my meaning explained
at all, I should care little in what style it was. But my state
of health and heart is highly unfavourable. Nay, worst of
all, a kind of stony indifference is spreading over me. I am
getting weary of suffering, feel as if I could sit down in it
and say, * Well, then, I shall soon die at any rate.' Truly all
human things, fames, promotions, pleasures, prosperities,
seem to me inexpressibly contemptible at times.

The second pamphlet, on ' Model Prisons,' was as
savage as the first. Society, conscious at heart that it
was itself unjust, and did not mean to mend itself, was
developing out of its uneasiness a universal ' Scoundrel

' LA TTER-DA Y PAMPHLE TS: 29

Protection ' sentiment. Society was concluding that
inequalities of condition were inevitable ; that those
who suffered under them, and rebelled, could not fairly
be punished, but were to be looked upon as misguided
brethren suffering under mental disorders, to be cured
in moral hospitals, called by euphemism Houses of
Correction. ' Pity for human • calamity,' the pam
phlet said, ' was very beautiful, but the deep oblivion
of the law of right and wrong, the indiscriminate
mashing up of right and wrong into a patent treacle,
was not beautiful at all.'

Wishing to see the system at work with his own
eyes, Carlyle had visited the Millbank Penitentiary.
He found 1,200 prisoners, ' notable murderesses among
them,' in airy apartments of perfect cleanliness, com
fortably warmed and clothed, quietly, and not too
severely, picking oakum ; their diet, bread, soup,
meat, all superlatively excellent. He saw a literary
Chartist rebel in a private court, master of his
own time and spiritual resources ; and he felt that
4 he himself, so left with paper, ink, and all taxes
and botherations shut out from him, could have
written such a book as no reader would ever get from
him.' He looked at felon after felon. He saw ' ape
faces, imp faces, angry dog faces, heavy sullen ox
faces, degraded underfoot perverse creatures, sons of
greedy mutinous darkness.' To give the owners of
such faces their 'due' could be attempted only where
there was an effort to give every one his due, and to
be fair all round ; and as this was not to be thought
of, ' they were to be reclaimed by the method of love.
' Hopeless for evermore such a project.' And these
fine hospitals were maintained by rates levied on the

3o CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

honest outs de, who were struggling to support them
selves without becoming felons — ' rates on the poor
servants of God and Her Majesty, who were still try
ing to serve both, to boil right soup for the Devil's
declared elect.'

He did not expect that his protests would be
attended to then, but in twenty years he thought
there might be more agreement with him. This, like
many other prophecies of his, has proved true. We
hang and flog now with small outcry and small com
punction. But the ferocity with which he struck right
and left at honoured names, the contempt which he
heaped on an amiable, if not a wise experiment, gave an
impression of his own character as false as it was un
pleasant. He was really the most tender-hearted of
men. His savageness was but affection turned sour, and
what he said was the opposite of what he did. Many a
time I have remonstrated when I saw him give a shilling
to some -wretch with ' Devil's elect ' on his forehead.
* No doubt he is a son of Gehenna,' Carlyle would say ;
' but you can see it is very low water with him. This
modern life hardens our hearts more than it should.'

On the Pamphlets rushed. The third was on
'Downing Street and Modern Government.' Lord
John Kussell, I remember, plaintively spoke of it in the
House of Commons. The fourth was on a 'New Downing
Street, such as it might and ought to become.' The
fifth, on 'Stump Oratory,' was perhaps the most impor
tant of the set, for it touched a problem of moment
then, and now every day becoming of greater moment;
for the necessary tendency of Democracy is to throw
the power of the State into the hands of eloquent
speakers, and eloquent speakers have never since the

' LATTER- DA 1 PAMPHLETS: 31

world began been wise statesmen. Carlyle had not
read Aristotle's 'Politics,' but he had arrived in his
own road at Aristotle's conclusions. All forms of
government, Aristotle says, are ruined by parasites
and flatterers. The parasite of the monarch is the
favourite who flatters his vanity and hides the truth
from him. The parasite of a democracy is the orator;
the people are his masters, and he rules by pleasino-
them. He dares not tell them unpleasant truths,
lest he lose his popularity ; he must call their
passions emotions of justice, and their prejudices
conclusions of reason. He dares not look facts in
the face, and facts prove too strong for him. To
the end of his life Carlyle thought with extreme
anxiety on this subject, and, as will be seen, had more
to say about it.

I need not follow the Pamphlets in detail. There
were to have been twelve originally ; one, I think, on
the * Exodus from Houndsditch,' for he occasionally
reproached himself afterwards for over-reticence on
that subject. He was not likely to have been deterred
by fear of giving offence. But the arguments against
speaking out about it were always as present with
him as the arguments for openness. Perhaps he con
cluded, on the whole, that the good which he might
do would not outbalance the pain he would inflict.
The series, at any rate, ended with the eighth — upon
' Jesuitism,' a word to which he gave a wider signifi
cance than technically belongs to it. England sup
posed that it had repudiated sufficiently Ignatius
Loyola and the Company of Jesus ; but, little as Eng
land knew it, Ignatius's peculiar doctrines had goiu-
into its heart, and were pouring through all its veins

32 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

and arteries. Jesuitism to Carlyle was the deliberate
shutting of the eyes to truth ; the deliberate insin
cerity which, if persisted in, becomes itself sincere.
You choose to tell a lie because, for various reasons,
it is convenient ; you defend it with argument — till
at length you are given over to believe it — and the
religious side of your mind being thus penally para
lysed ; morality becomes talk and conscience becomes
emotioi? ; and your actual life has no authoritative
guide left but personal selfishness. Thus, by the side
of a profession of Christianity, England had adopted
for a working creed Political Economy, which is the
contradictory of Christianity, imagining that it could
believe both together. Christianity tells us that we
are not to care for the things of the earth. Political
economy is concerned with nothing else. Christianity
says that the desire to make money is the root of all
evil. Political economy says that the more each
man struggles to 'make money' the better for the
commonwealth. Christianity says that it is the busi
ness of the magistrate to execute justice and maintain
truth. Political economy (or the system of govern
ment founded upon it) limits ' justice ' to the keeping
of the peace, declares that the magistrate has nothing
to do with maintaining truth, and that every man
must be left free to hold his own opinions and ad
vance his own interests in any way that he pleases,
short of fraud and violence.

Jesuitism, or the art of finding reasons for what
ever we wish to believe, had enabled Englishmen to
persuade themselves that both these theories of life
could be true at the same time. They kept one for
Sundays, the other for the working days ; and the

' LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS? 33

practical moral code thus evolved, Carlyle throws out
in a wild freak of humour, comparable only to the
memorable epitaph on the famous Baron in ' Sartor
Eesartus.' It is placed in the mouth of his imaginary
friend, Sauertcig, who is generally responsible for
every extravagant utterance.

Pig Philosophy.

If the inestimable talent of literature should, in these
swift days of progress, be extended to the brute creation,
having fairly taken in all the human, so that swine and oxen
could communicate to us on paper what they thought of
the universe, then might curious results, not uninstructive to
some of us, ensue. Supposing swine (I mean four-footed
swine) of sensibility and superior logical parts had attained
such culture, and could, after survey and reflection, jot down
for us their notion of the universe and of their interests and
duties there, might it not well interest a discerning public,
perhaps in unexpected ways, and give a stimulus to the
languishing book trade? The votes of all creatures, it is
understood at present, ought to be had, that you may legis
late for them with better insight. ' How can you govern a
thing,' say many, ' without first asking its vote ? ' Unless,
indeed, you already chance to know its vote, and even some
thing more — namely, what you are to think of its vote, what
it wants by its vote, and, still more important, what Nature
wants, which latter at the end of the account is the only
thing that will be got. Pig propositions in a vague form are
somewhat as follows : —

1. The universe, so far as sane conjecture can go, is
an immeasurable swine's trough, consisting of solid and
liquid and of other contrasts and kinds; especially consist
ing of attainable and unattainable, the latter in immensely
greater quantities for most pigs.

2. Moral evil is unattainability of pig's wash ; moral
good, attainability of ditto.

3. What is "Paradise or the State of Innocence? P:ira-
iv. D

34 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

dise, called also State of Innocence, Age of Ofold, and other
names, was (according to pigs of weak judgment) un
limited attainability of pig's wash ; perfect fulfilment of
one's wishes, so that pigs' imagination could not outrun
reality : a fable and an impossibility, as pigs of sense now
see.

4. Define the whole duty of pigs. It is the mission of
universal pighood to diminish the quantity of unattainable,
and increase that of attainable. All knowledge and desire
and effort ought to be directed thither, and thither only.
Pig science, pig enthusiasm and devotion have this one aim.
It is the whole duty of pigs.

5. Pig poetry ought to consist of universal recognition
of the excellence of pig's wash and ground barley, and the
felicity of pigs whose trough is in order, and who have
had enough. Hrumph !

6. The pig knows the weather. He ought to look out
what kind of weather it will be.

7. Who made the pig ? Unknown. Perhaps the pork-
butcher.

8. Have you law and justice in Pigdom ? Pigs of obser
vation have discerned that there is, or was once supposed to
be, a thing called justice. Undeniably, at least there is a
sentiment in pig nature called indignation, revenge, &c., &c.,
which, if one pig provoke another, comes out in a more or
less destructive manner ; hence laws are necessary — amazing
quantities of laws. For quarrelling is attended with loss of
blood, of life — at any rate, with frightful effusion of the
general stock of hog's wash, and ruin, temporary ruin, to
large sections of the universal swine's trough. Wherefore
let justice be observed, so that quarrelling be avoided.

9. What is justice ? Your own share of the general
swine's trough ; not any portion of my share.

10. But what is ' my share ' ? Ah ! there, in fact, lies
the grand difficulty, upon which pig science, meditating this
long while, can settle absolutely nothing. My share !
Hrumph ! my share is, on the whole, whatever I can con
trive to get without being hanged or sent to the hulks.

' LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS: 35

For there are gibbets, treadmills, I need not tell you, and
rules which lawyers have prescribed.

11. Who are lawyers? Servants of God, appointed re-
vealers of the oracles of God, who read off to us from day to
day what is the eternal commandment of God in reference
to the mutual claims of His creatures in this world.

12. Where do they find that written? In Coke upon
Littleton.

13. Who made Coke? Unknown. The maker of Coke's
wig is discoverable.

What became of Coke ? Died. And then ? Went to

the undertakers. Went to the But we must pull up.

Sauerteig's fierce humour, confounding even farther in his
haste the four-footed with the two-footed animal, rushes
into wilder and wilder forms of satirical torch-dancing, and
threatens to end in a universal Rape of the Wigs, which, in
a person of his character, looks ominous and dangerous.
Here, for example, is his 5 1st proposition, as he calls it :—

51. What are Bishops ? Overseers of souls.

What is a soul ? The thing that keeps the body alive.

How do they oversee that? They tie on a kind of

aprons, publish charges — I believe they pray dreadfully

macerate themselves nearly dead with continued grief that
they cannot in the least oversee it.

1 And are much honoured ? ' By the wise, very much.

52. ' Define the Church.' I had rather not,

' Do you believe in a future state ? ' Yes, surely.

' What is it ? ' Heaven, so called.

' To everybody ? ' I understand so— hope so.

1 What is it thought to be ? ' Hrumph !

' No Hell, then, at all ? ' Hrumph !

This was written thirty-three years ago, when
political economy was our sovereign political science.
As the centre of gravity of political power lias
changed, the science has changed along with it.
Statesmen have discovered that l<iixx<>z-f<i/r<\ though
doubtless true in a better state <>f existence, is in;i|,

36 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

plicable to our imperfect planet. They have at
tempted, with Irish Land Bills, &c., to regulate in
some degree the distribution of the hog's wash, and
will doubtless, as democracy extends, do more in that
direction. But when the Pamphlets appeared, this
and the other doctrines enunciated in them were re
ceived with astonished indignation. ' Carlyle taken
to whisky ' was the popular impression ; or perhaps
he had gone mad. ' Punch,' the most friendly to
him of all the London periodicals, protested affection
ately. The delinquent was brought up for trial be
fore him, I think for injuring his reputation. He
was admonished, but stood impenitent, and even
' called the worthy magistrate a windbag and a
sham.' I suppose it was Thackeray who wrote this,
or some other kind friend, who feared, like Emerson,
' that the world would turn its back on him.' He
was under no illusion himself as to the effect which
he was producing.

To John Carlyle.

April 29, 1850.

The barking babble of the world continues in regard to
these Pamphlets, hardly any wise word at all reaching me in
reference to them ; but I must say out my say in one shape
or another, and will, if Heaven help me, not minding that at
all. The world is not here for my objects. The world is
here for its own ; but let me too be here for my own. No
human word, or hardly any, once in the month, is uttered to
me by any fellow-mortal — a state of things I have long be
wailed, but learn ever better to endure, and silently draw
inferences from.

The prettiest personal feature during the ap
pearance of the Pamphlets was a small excursion

' LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS: 37

for ' a day in the country,' which Carlyle and his
wife made together, when the seventh, on Hudson's
statue, was off his hands. They went by rail to
Richmond on a bright May morning, and thence by
omnibus to Ham Common, where they strolled about
among the trees and the gorse. They had their
luncheon with them in the shape of a packet of
biscuits. They bought a single bottle of soda-water.
He had his cigar-case and a match-box. It was like
the old days at Craigenputtock, when, after an article
was finished, they used to drive off together in the
ancient gig for a holiday, with the tobacco-pipe in
a pocket of the apron.

The last Pamphlet appeared in July.

6 Latter-day Pamphlets ' (he says) either dead or else
abused and execrated by all mortals — non flocci facio, com
paratively speaking. Had a letter from Emerson explaining
that I was quite wrong to get so angry, &c. I really value
these savage utterances of mine at nothing. I am glad only
— and this is an inalienable benefit — that they are out of me.
Stump orator, Parliament, Jesuitism, &c., were and are a
real deliverance to me.

The outcry, curiously, had no effect on the sale
of Carlyle's works. He had a certain public, slowly
growing, which bought everything that he published.
The praise of the newspapers never, he told me, sen
sibly increased the circulation ; their blame never
sensibly diminished it. His unknown disciples be
lieved in him as a teacher whom they were to learn
from, not to criticise. There were then about tlmv
thousand who bought his books. Now, who can say
how many there are? He, lor himself, had delivered
liis Moul, and was comparatively at iv-t

3 8 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

I am not so heavy-laden to-day (he writes, when it was
over) as I have been for many a day. I have money
enough (no beggarly terrors about finance now at all). I
have still some strength, the chance of some years of time.
If I be true to myself, how can the whole posterity of Adam,
and its united follies and miseries, quite make shipwreck of
me?

The relief, as might be expected, was not of very
long continuance.

POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 39

CHAPTER XVIII.

A.D. 1850. ^ET. 55-56.

Eeaction from ' Latter-day Pamphlets ' — Acquaintance with Sir Eobert
Peel. — Dinner in Whitehall Place — Ball at Bath House — Peel's
death — Estimate of Peel's character — Visit to South Wales —
Savage Landor — Merthyr Tydvil — Scotsbrig — Despondency —
Visits to Keswick and Coniston — The Grange — Return to London.

IN the intervals between Carlyle's larger works,
a discharge of spiritual bile was always necessary.
Modern English life, and the opinions popularly cur
rent among men, were a constant provocation to
him. The one object of everyone (a very few chosen
souls excepted) seemed to be to make money, and
with money increase his own idle luxury. The talk
of people, whether written or spoken, was an extra
vagant and never-ceasing laudation of an age which
was content to be so employed, as if the like of it
had never been seen upon earth before. The thinkers
in their closets, the politicians on platform or in Par
liament, reviews and magazines, weekly newspapers
and dailies, sang all the same note, that there had
never since the world began been a time when tin:
English part of mankind had been happier or better
than llu-y were then. They had only to be let alone,
to have more and more liberty, and fix their «

40 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

steadily on ' increasing the quantity of attainable hog's
wash,' and there would be such a world as no philo
sophy had ever dreamt of. Something of this kind
really was the prevalent creed thirty years ago, under
the sudden increase of wealth which set in with rail
ways and free trade ; and to Carlyle it appeared a
false creed throughout, from principle to inference.
In his judgment the common weal of men and nations
depended on their characters ; and the road which
we had to travel, if we were to make a good end,
was the same as the Christian pilgrim had travelled
on his way to the Celestial City, no primrose path
thither having been yet made by God or man. The
austerer virtues — manliness, thrift, simplicity, self-
denial — were dispensed with in the boasted progress.
There was no demand for these, no need of them.
The heaven aspired after was enjoyment, and the
passport thither was only money. Let there be only
money enough, and the gate lay open. He could not
believe this doctrine. He abhorred it from the bottom
of his soul. Such a heaven was no heaven for a man.
The boasted prosperity would sooner or later be over
taken by ' God's judgment.' Especially he was angry
when he saw men to whom nature had given talents
lending themselves to this accursed persuasion ; states
men, theologians, philosophers composedly swimming
with the stream, careless of truth, or with no longer
any measure of truth except their own advantage.
Some who had eyes were afraid to open them ; others,
and the most, had deliberately extinguished their eyes.
They used their faculties only to dress the popular
theories in plausible language, and were carried away
by their own eloquence, till they actually believed

HABITS OF DECLAMATION. 41

what they were saying. Eespect for fact they hud
none. Fact to them was the view of things conven
tionally received, or what the world and they to
gether agreed to admit.

That the facts either of religion or politics were
not such as bishops and statesmen represented them
to be, was frightfully evident to Carlyle, and he could
not be silent if he wished. Thus, after he had written
the 'French Ke volution,' 'Chartism' had to come out
of him, and 'Past and Present,' before he could settle
to 'Cromwell.' 'Cromwell' done, the fierce acid had
accumulated again and had been discharged in the
' Latter-day Pamphlets ' — discharged, however, still
imperfectly, for his whole soul was loaded with bilious
indignation. Many an evening, about this time, I
heard him flinging off the matter intended for the rest
of the series which had been left unwritten, pouring
out, for hours together, a torrent of sulphurous
denunciation. No one could check him. If anyone
tried contradiction, the cataract rose against the
obstacle till it rushed over it and drowned it. But,
in general, his listeners sate silent. The imagery, his
wild play of humour, the immense knowledge always
evident in the grotesque forms which it assumed, were
in themselves so dazzling and so entertaining, that
we lost the use of our own faculties till it was over.
lie did not like making these displays, and avoided
them when he could ; but he was easily provoked,
and when excited could not restrain himself. Whether
he expected to make converts by the Pamphlets, I
cannot say. His sentences, perhaps, fell here and
there like seeds, and grew to something in minds (hat
could receive them. In the general hostility. !u- was

42 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

experiencing the invariable fate of all men who see
what is coming before those who are about them see
it ; and he lived to see most of the unpalatable
doctrines which the Pamphlets contained verified by
painful experience and practically acted on.

In the midst of the storm which he had raised, he
was surprised agreeably by an invitation to dine with
Sir Eobert Peel. He had liked Peel ever since he
had met him at Lord Ashburton's. Peel, who had
read his books, had been struck equally with him,
and wished to know more of him. The dinner was
in the second week of May. The ostensible object
was to bring about a meeting between Carlyle and
Prescott. The account of it is in his Journal.

There was a great party, Prescott, Milman, Barry
(architect), Lord Mahon, Sheil, Gibson (sculptor), Cubitt
(builder), &c., &c. About Prescott I cared little, and indeed,
there or elsewhere, did not speak with him at all ; but what
I noted of Peel I will now put down. I was the second that
entered the big drawing-room, a picture gallery as well,
which looks out over the Thames (Whitehall Gardens, second
house to the eastward of Montague House), commands West
minster Bridge too, with its wrecked parapets (old West
minster Bridge), and the new Parliament Houses, being, I
fancy, of semicircular figure in that part and projecting into
the shore of the river. Old Cubitt, a hoary, modest, sensible-
looking man, was alone with Peel when I entered. My re
ception was abundantly cordial. Talk went on about the
new Houses of Parliament, and the impossibility or difficulty
of hearing in them — others entering, Milman &c., joined in
it as I had done. Sir Robert, in his mild kindly voice,
talked of the difficulties architects had in making out that
part of their problem. Nobody then knew how it was to be
done : filling of a room with people sometimes made it
audible (witness his own experience at Glasgow in the
College Eector's time, which he briefly mentioned to us),

ROBERT PEEL. 43

sometimes it had been managed by hanging up cloth curtains
&c. Joseph Hume, reporting from certain Edinburgh mathe
maticians, had stated that the best big room for being heard
in, that was known in England, was a Quakers' meeting
house near Cheltenham. I have forgot the precise place.

People now came in thick and rapid. I went about the
gallery with those already come, and saw little more of Sir
Robert then. I remember in presenting Barry to Prescott
he said with kindly emphasis, ' I have wished to show you
some of our most distinguished men : allow me to introduce,'
&c. Barry had been getting rebuked in the House of
Commons in those very days or hours, and had been defended
there by Sir Robert. Barry, when I looked at him, did
not turn out by any means such a fool as his pepper-box
architecture would have led one to guess — on the contrary,
a broad solid man with much ingenuity and even delicacy of
expression, who had well employed his sixty years or so of
life in looking out for himself, and had unhappily found
pepper-box architecture his Goshen ! From the distance I
did not dislike him at all. Panizzi, even Scribe, came to
the dinner, no ladies there ; nothing but two sons of Peel,
one at each end, he himself in the middle about opposite to
where I sate; Mahon on his left hand, on his right Van de
Weyer (Belgian ambassador); not a creature there for whom
I cared one penny, except Peel himself. Dinner sumptuous
and excellently served, but I should think rather wearisome
to everybody, as it certainly was to me. After all the
servants but the butler were gone, we began to hear a little
of Peel's quiet talk across the table, unimportant, distin
guished by its sense of the ludicrous shining through a strong
official rationality and even seriousness of temper. Dis
tracted address of a letter from somebody to Queen Victoria .
' The most noble George Victoria, Queen of England, Knight
and Baronet,' or something like that. A man had once written
to Peel himself, while secretary, ' that he was weary of life,
that if any gentleman wanted for his park-woods a hermit,
lie, &c.,' all which was very pretty and human as Peel gave it
us. In vising we had some question about the pictures in

44 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

his dining-room, which are Wilkie's (odious) John Knox at
the entrance end, and at the opposite three, or perhaps four,
all by Reynolds ; Dr. Johnson, original of the engravings
one sees ; Keynolds himself by his own pencil, and two, or
perhaps three, other pictures. Doubts rising about who
some lady portrait was, I went to the window and asked
Sir Robert himself, who turned with alacrity and talked to
us about that and the rest. The hand in Johnson's portrait
brought an anecdote from him about Wilkie and it at
Dray ton. Peel spread his own hand over it, an inch or two
off, to illustrate or enforce — as fine a man's hand as I re
member to have seen, strong, delicate, and scrupulously
clean. Upstairs, most of the people having soon gone, he
showed us his volumes of autographs — Mirabeau, Johnson,
Byron, Scott, and many English kings and omcialities : excel
lent cheerful talk and description ; human, but official in all
things. Then, with a cordial shake of the hand, dismissal ;
and the Bishop of Oxford (mirum!), insisting on it, took me
home in his carriage.

Carlyle had probably encountered the Bishop of
Oxford before, at the Ashburtons' ; but this meeting
at Sir Robert Peel's was the beginning of an intimacy
which grew up between these singularly opposite men,
who, in spite of differences, discovered that they
thought, at bottom, on serious subjects, very much
alike. The Bishop once told me he considered Carlyle
a most eminently religious man. ' Ah, Sam ! ' said Car
lyle to me one day, ' he is a very clever fellow ; I do
not hate him near as much as I fear I ought to do.'

Once again, a few days later, Carlyle met Peel at
a dinner at Bath House — ' a real statesman ' as he
now discerned him to be. 'He was fresh and hearty,
with delicate, gentle, yet frank manners ; a kindly
man. His reserve as to all great or public matters
sits him quite naturally and enhances your respect—

CARLYLE AT A BALL. 45

a warm sense of fun, really of genuine broad drollery,
looks through him ; the hopefullest feature I could
clearly see in this last interview or the other. At
tea he talked to us readily, on slight hint from me,
about Byron (Birron he called him) and their old
school-days :' kindly reminiscences, agreeable to hear
at first hand, though nothing new in them to us.'

At Bath House also, this season, Carlyle was to
meet (though without an introduction) a man whom
he regarded with freer admiration than he had learnt
to feel even for Peel. He was tempted to a ball
there, the first and last occasion on which he was
ever present at such a scene. He was anxious to see
the thing for once, and he saw along with it the hero
of Waterloo.

Journal.

June 25, 1850. — Last night at a grand ball at Bath
House, the only ball of any description I ever saw. From
five to seven hundred select aristocracy ; the lights, decora
tions, houseroom and arrangements perfect (I suppose) ; the
whole thing worth having seen for a couple of hours. Of
the many women, only a few were to be called beautiful. I
remember the languid, careless, slow air with which the
elderly peeresses came into the room and thereafter lounged

about. A Miss L (a general's daughter) was the prettiest

I remember of the schonen Kindei'n. Old Londonderry looked
sad, foolish, and surly. His Marchioness, once a beauty you
could see, had the finest diamonds of the party, Jane tells
me. Lord and Lady Lovelace, Marquis of Breadalbane,
thickset farmer-looking man, round steel-grey head with
b:ild crown. Hat Nichts zu bedeuten. Anglesea, fine-looking
old man trailing his cork leg, shows better on horseback.
American Lawrence (minister here), broad, burly, energetic
ally sagacious-looking, a man of sixty with long grey hair
swirled round the bald parts of his big head : frightful

46 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

American lady, his wife, a la Cushman ; chin like a powder-
horn, sallow, parchment complexion, very tall, very lean, ex
pression thrift — in all senses of the word. ' Thrift, Horatio.'
Prescott, and the other Americans there, not beautiful any
of them. By far the most interesting figure present was
the old Duke of Wellington, who appeared between twelve
and one, and slowly glided through the rooms — truly a
beautiful old man ; I had never seen till now how beautiful,
and what an expression of graceful simplicity, veracity, and
nobleness there is about the old hero when you see him close
at hand. His very size had hitherto deceived me. He is a
shortish slightish figure, about five feet eight, of good breadth
however, and all muscle or bone. His legs, I think, must
be the short part of him, for certainly on horseback I have
always taken him to be tall. Eyes beautiful light blue, full
of mild valour, with infinitely more faculty and geniality
than I had fancied before ; the face wholly gentle, wise,
valiant, and venerable. The voice too, as I again heard, is
' aquiline ' clear, perfectly equable — uncracked, that is — and
perhaps almost musical, but essentially tenor or almost
treble voice — eighty-two, I understand. He glided slowly
along, slightly saluting this and that other, clear, clean,
fresh as this June evening itself, till the silver buckle of his
stock vanished into the door of the next room, and I saw
him no more. Except Dr. Chalmers., I have not for many
years seen so beautiful an old man.

In his early Eadical days, Carlyle had spoken
scornfully, as usual, of Peel and Wellington, not dis
tinguishing them from the herd of average politicians.
He was learning to know them better, to recognise
better, perhaps, how great a man must essentially be
who can accomplish anything good under the existing
limitations. But the knowledge came too late to ripen
into practical acquaintance. Wellington's sun was
setting, Peel was actually gone in a few weeks from
the dinner at Bath House, and Wellington had passed

DEATH OF PEEL. 47

that singular eulogy upon him in the House of Lords
— singular, but most instructive commentary on the
political life of our days, as if Peel was the only
public man of whom such a character could be given.
' He had never known him tell a deliberate falsehood.'
In the interval, Carlyle met Peel once in the street.
He lifted his hat ;

the only time (he says) we had ever saluted, owing to
mutual bashfulness and pride of humility, I do believe. Sir
Kobert, with smiling look, extended his left hand and
cordially grasped mine in it, with a ' How are you? ' pleasant
to think of. It struck me that there might certainly be
some valuable reform work still in Peel, though the look of
all things, his own strict conservatism and even officiality of
view, and still more the cohue of objects and persons his life
was cast amidst, did not increase my hopes of a great result.
But he seemed happy and humane and hopeful, still strong
and fresh to look upon. Except him, there was nobody I
had the smallest hope in ; and what he ivould do, which
seemed now soon to be tried, was always an interesting
feature of the coming time for me. I had an authentic

regard for this man and a wish to know more of him nearly

the one man alive of whom I could say so much.

The last great English statesman — the last great
constitutional statesman perhaps that England will
ever have — died through a fall from his horse in the
middle of this summer, 1850.

From Journal.

On a Saturday evening, bright sunny weather, Jane being
out at Addiscombe and I to go next day, 29th of June it
must have been, I had gone up Piccadilly between four and
five p.m., and was returning; half-past six when I got to
Hyde Park Corner. Old Marquis of Anglesey was riding a
brisk skittish horse, a good way down Piccadilly, just ahead
of me ; he entered the park as T passed, hiV horse capering

48 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

among the carriages, somewhat to my alarm, not to his. It
must have been some five or ten minutes before this, that
Sir Eobert had been thrown on Constitution Hill and got
his death-hurt. I did not hear of it at all till next day at
Addiscombe, when the anxiety, which I had hoped was ex
aggerated, was considerable about him. To this hour, it is
impossible to know how the fall took place. Peel had no
' fit,' I think. He was a poor rider, short in the legs, long
and heavy in the body. His horse took both to rearing and
flinging up its heels, says a witness. He came down, it
upon him, collar-bone broken. It turned out after death
that a rib had been broken (also), driven in upon the region
of the lungs or heart. It had been enough. On Monday I
walked up to some club to get the bulletin, which pretended to
be favourable. We went then to the house itself, saw carriages,
a scattered crowd simmering about, learnt nothing further,
but came home in hope. Tuesday morning, 2nd of July,
' Postman ' reported ' a bad night ; ' uncertain rumours of good
and evil through the day. (Ruskin &c. here in the evening ;
good report from Aubrey de Vere, about 11 p.m.) I had
still an obstinate hope. Wednesday morning 'Postman' re
ported Sir Robert Peel died last night, I think about nine.
Eheu ! eheu ! Great expressions of national sorrow, really a
serious expression of regret in the public ; an affectionate
appreciation of this man which he himself was far from being
sure of, or aware of, while he lived. I myself have said
nothing : hardly know what to think — feel only in general
that I have now no definite hope of peaceable improvement
for this country ; that the one statesman we had, or the
least similitude of a statesman so far as I know or can guess,
is suddenly snatched away from us. What will become of
it ? Grod knows. A peaceable result I now hardly expect
for this huge wen of corruptions and diseases and miseries ;
and in the meanwhile the wrigglings and strugglings in
Parliament, how they now do, or what they now do there,
have become mere zero to me, tedious as a tale that has
been told. Dr. Foucart, who was present, told Farre, Sir
Robert was frequently insensible; wandered, talking about his
watch, about getting to bed. ' Let us light the candles and

DEATH OF PEEL. 49

go to bed.' * Have you wound up that watch ? ' &c. Never
alluded to his hurt. He lay all the while in that dining-
room, made them take off his bandages as intolerable, would
not be examined or manipulated further ; got away from his
water-bed ; slept eight hours upon a sofa, the only sleep he
had. < God bless you all ! ' he said in a faint voice to his
children, clear and weak, and so went his way. Te'Xos.

Great men die, like little men ; ' there is no
difference,' and the world goes its way without them.
Parliament was to ' wriggle on ' with no longer any
Peel to guide ; ' the wen,' as Cobbett called Lon
don, was to double its already overgrown, monstrous
bulk, and Carlyle had still thirty years before him to
watch and shudder at its extending : but from this
time he cared little about contemporary politics,
which he regarded as beating the wind. What he
himself was next to do was a problem to him which
he did not see his way through. Some time or other
he meant to write a ' Life of Sterling,' but as yet he
had not sufficient composure. Up to this time he had
perhaps some hope or purpose of being employed
actively in public life. All idea of this kind, if he
ever seriously entertained it, had now vanished. As a
writer of books, and as this only, he was to make his
mark on his generation, but what book was to be
written next was entirely vague to him. The house
in Chelsea required paint and whitewash again — a
process which, for everyone's sake, it was desirable
that he should not be present to witness. His friend,
Mr. Redwood, again invited him to South Wales.
He had been dreadfully ' bored ' there ; but he was
affected, too, by Eed wood's loyal attachment. He
agreed to go to him for a week or two, and intended
afterwards to make his way into Scotland.

IV. L

50 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

On the way to Cardiff, lie spent a night with
Savage Landor, who was then living apart from his
family in Bath.

Landor (he wrote) was in his house, in a fine quiet
•street like a New Town Edinburgh one, waiting for me,
attended only by a nice Bologna dog. Dinner not far from
ready ; his apartments all hung round with queer old Italian
pictures ; the very doors had pictures on them. Dinner
was elaborately simple. The brave Landor forced me to
talk far too much, and we did very near a bottle of claret,
besides two glasses of sherry; far too much liquor and
excitement for a poor fellow like me. However, he was really
stirring company : a proud, irascible, trenchant, yet gene
rous, veracious, and very dignified old man ; quite a ducal
or royal man in the temper of him ; reminded me some
thing of old Sterling, except that for Irish blarney you
must substitute a fund of Welsh choler. He left me to go
smoking along the streets about ten at night, he himself
retiring then, having walked me through the Crescent, Park,
&c., in the dusk before. Bath is decidedly the prettiest
town in all England. Nay, Edinburgh itself, except for the
sea and the Grampians, does not equal it. Eegular, but by
no means formal streets, all clean, all quiet, yet not dead,
winding up in picturesque, lively varieties along the face of
a large, broad sweep of woody green sandstone hill, with
large outlook to the opposite side of the valley ; and fine,
decent, clean people sauntering about it, mostly small
country gentry, I was told ; 'live here for 1,2CO£. a year,'
said Landor.

Mr. Redwood was no longer at Llandough, but
had moved to Boverton, a place at no great distance.
Boverton was nearer to the sea, and the daily bathe
could be effected without difficulty. The cocks,
cuddies, &c., were as troublesome as usual, though
perhaps less so than Carlyle's vivid anathemas on the
poor creatures would lead one to suppose. His host

VISIT TO SOUTH WALE*. 51

entertained him with more honour than he would
have paid to a prince or an archbishop, and Carlyle
could not but be grateful.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Boverton : Aug. 12, 1850.

Kedwood is friendliness itself, poor fellow ; discloses a
great quantity of passive intelligence amid his great pro
fundity of dulness : nay, a kind of humour at times, and
certainly excels in good temper all the human creatures I
have been near lately. Several times his fussiness and
fikery have brought angry growlings out of me, and spurts
of fierce impatience which he has taken more like an angel
than a Welshman. Perfection of temper ! And his pony is very
swift and good, and his household is hospitably furnished,
and all that he has is at my disposal. On the whole I shall
handsomely make out my three weeks, and hope to get
profit from it after all.

Carlyle would have been the most perfect of
guide-book writers. Nothing escaped his observa
tion ; and he never rested till he had learnt all that
could be known about any place which he visited :
first and foremost, the meaning of the name of it, if it
was uncommon or suggestive. His daily letters to
Chelsea were full of descriptions of the neighbourhood,
all singularly vivid. Here, for instance, is an account
of Merthyr Tydvil, to which his friend carried him : —

In 1755 Merthyr Tydvil was a mountain hamlet of five
or six houses, stagnant and silent as it had been ever since
Tydvil, the king's or laird's daughter, was martyred here, say
1 ,300 years before. About that time a certain Mr. Bacon,
a cunning Yorkshireman, passing that way, discovered that
there was iron in the ground — iron and coal. He took a

99 years' lease in consequence, and in brief, there arc

now about 50,000 grimy mortals, black and clammy with

• 2

52 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

soot and sweat, screwing out a livelihood for themselves in
that spot of the Taff Valley. Such a set of unguided, hard-
worked, fierce, and miserable-looking sons of Adam I never
saw before. Ah me ! It is like a vision of Hell, and will
never leave me, that of these poor creatures broiling, all in
sweat and dirt, amid their furnaces, pits, and rolling mills.
For here is absolutely ' no ' aristocracy or guiding class ;
nothing but one or two huge iron-masters ; and the rest are
operatives, petty shopkeepers, Scotch hawkers, &c. &c. The
town might be, and will be, one of the prettiest places in the
world. It is one of the sootiest, squalidest, and ugliest : all
cinders and dust-mounds and soot. Their very greens they
bring from Bristol, though the ground is excellent all round.
Nobody thinks of gardening in such a locality — all devoted
to metallic gambling.

The house-cleaning at Chelsea was complicated
by the misconduct of servants. Mrs. Carlyle was
struggling in the midst of it all, happy that her
husband was away, but wishing perhaps that when
he was at home he would show himself a little more
appreciative of the troubles she was undergoing. No
one ever laid himself more open to being misunder
stood in such matters than Carlyle did. He was the
gratefullest of men, but, from a shy reluctance to
speak of his feelings, he left his gratitude unuttered.
He seemed to take whatever was done for him as a
matter of course, and to growl if anything was not
to his mind. It was only in his letters that he showed
what was really in his heart,

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Boverton : Aug. 19, 1850.

Keep yourself quiet. Do not let that scandalous randy
of a girl disturb you a moment more ; and be as patient with
your poor, soft dumpling of an apprentice as you can, in

VISIT TO SOUTH WALES. 53

hopes of better by-and-by. ' Servants ' are at a strange
pass in these times. I continually foresee that before very
long there will be on all hands a necessity and determination
on the part of wise people to do without servants. That is
actually a stage of progress that is ahead of us. How I feel
at this moment the blessedness of such a possibility, had one
been trained to do a little ordinary work, and were the due
preliminaries well arranged ! ' Servants,' on the present
principle, are a mere deceptive imagination. Command is
nowhere; obedience nowhere. The devil will get it all if
it do not mend. Oh! my dear little Jeannie, what a
quantity of ugly feats you have always taken upon you in
this respect ; how you have lain between me and these
annoyances, and wrapt me like a cloak against them ! I

know this well, whether I speak of it or not.

Aug. 21.

Thanks to thee ! Oh ! know that I have thanked thee
sometimes in my silent hours as no words could. For
indeed I am sometimes terribly driven into corners in this
my life pilgrimage, of late especially ; and the thing that is
in my heart is known, or can be known, to the Almighty
Maker alone.

He stayed three weeks at Boverton, and then grate
fully took leave. ' The good Redwood,' as he called
his host, died the year following, and lie never saw
him again. His route to Scotsbrig was, as usual, by
the Liverpool and Annan steamer. The discomforts
of his journey were not different from other people's
in similar circumstances. It was the traveller who
was different ; and his miseries, comical as they
sound, were real enough to so sensitive a sufferer,
lie sent a history of them to Chelsea on his arrival.
'I am,' he said, ' a very unthankful, ill-conditioned,
bilious, wayward, and lieartworn son of Adam, I do
suspect. Well, you shall hear my complaints. To
whom can we complain, if not to one another, after

54 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

all ? ' He had reached Liverpool without misadven
ture. He had gone on board late in the evening.
The night, as the vessel ran down the Mersey, was
soft and beautiful. He walked and smoked for an
hour on deck, and then went in search of his sleeping-
place.

' This way the gents' cabin, sir ! ' and in truth it was
almost worth a little voyage to see such a cabin of gents ;
for never in all my travels had I seen the like before, nor
probably shall again. The little crib of a place which I had
glanced at two hours before and found six beds in had now
developed itself by hinge-shelves (which in the day were
parts of sofas) and iron brackets into the practical sleeping-
place of at least sixteen of the gent species. There they
all lay, my crib the only empty one ; a pile of clothes up
to the very ceiling, and all round it gent packed on gent,
few inches between the nose of one gent and the nape of
the other gent's neck; not a particle of air, all orifices
closed. Five or six of said gents already raging and snoring.
And a smell ! Ach Gott I I suppose it must resemble that
of the slave-ships in the middle passage. It was positively
immoral to think of sleeping in such a receptacle of
abominations.

He sought the deck again ; but the night turned
to rain, and the deck of a steamer in wet and dark
ness is not delightful, even in August. When the
vessel reached Annan, and ' he was flung into the
street,' the unfortunate ' Jonah ' could but address a
silent word of thanks to the Merciful Power, and
' appeal to Goody and posterity.' At Scotsbrig he
could do as he liked — be silent from morning till
night, wander about alone among the hills, see no
one, and be nursed in mind and body by the kindest
hands ; but he was out of order in one as well as the
other. The reaction after the Pamphlets was now

£EST AT SCOTSBRIG. 55

telling upon him. Very strange, very characteristic,
is the account which he writes of his condition.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Scots brig : September 4, 1650.

I find it good that all one's ugly thoughts — ugly as sin
and Satan several of them — should come uninterrupted
before one and look and do their very worst. Many things
tend towards settlement in that way, and silently beginnings
of arrangement and determination show themselves. Why,
oh ! why, should a living man complain after all ? We get,
each one of us, the common fortune, with superficial varia
tions. A man ought to know that he is not ill-used ; that
if he miss the thing one way he gets it in another. Your
' beautiful blessings,' I have them not. I cannot train my
self by having them. Well, then, by doing without them I
can train myself. It is there that I go ahead of you. There,
too, lie prizes if you knew it.

September 6.

Nothing so like a Sabbath has been vouchsafed to me
for many heavy months as these last ten days at poor Scots-
brig are. Let me be thankful for them. They were very
necessary to me. They will open my heart to sad and
affectionate thoughts, which the intolerable burden of my
own mean sufferings has stifled for a long time. I do
nothing here, and pretend to do nothing but sit silent in
the middle of old unutterable reminiscences and poor simple

scenes more interesting to me on this side Hades } One

should be content to admit that one is Nothing : a poor,
vainly struggling soul, yet seen with pity by the Eternal
Powers, I do believe, and whose struggles at worst are bend
ing towards their close. This puts one to peace when nothing
else can ; and the beggarly miseries of the mere body
abating a little, as with me they sensibly do, it is strange
what dark curtains drop off of their own accord, and how the
promise of clearer skies again visits one. These last three

ce apparently uncompleted.

56 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

days have been of surpassing beauty — clear, calm September
days, the sky bright and blue, with fluctuating masses of
bright clouds. The hills are all spotted with pure light and
pure shade ; everything of the liveliest yellow on the live
liest green in this lower region. On riding up from the
Kirtlebridge side hitherward, I could not but admit that the
bright scene, with Burnswark and the infinite azure behind
it, was one of the loveliest that I had anywhere seen. Poor
old Annandale, after all ! ... A note to Lady Ashburton,
after I arrived here, brought this answer yesterday. Great
Gaudeamus at the Grange, it would seem. Between life
there and life here, as I now have it, it must be admitted
there is a contrast. We are about the two extremes of
decent human lodging, and I know which answers the best
for me. Kemember me generally to all friends. Good souls !
I like them all better than perhaps they would suspect from
my grim ways. Sometimes it has struck me, Could not T
continue this Sabbatic period in a room at Craigenputtock,
perhaps ? Alas ! alas !

The evident uncertainty as to his future occupa
tions which appears in these letters, taken with what
lie told me of his thoughts of public life at the time
of his Pamphlets, confirms me in my impression that
he had nourished some practical hopes from those
Pamphlets, and had imagined that he might perhaps
be himself invited to assist in carrying out some of
the changes which lie had there insisted on. Such
hopes, if he had formed them, he must have seen by
tliis time were utterly groundless. Whatever im
provements might be attempted, no statesman would
ever call on him to take part in the process. To this,
which was now a certainty, he had to endeavour to
adjust himself; but lie was in low spirits — unusually
low, even for him. He filled his letters with anecdotes
of misfortunes, miseries, tragedies, among his Annan-

DISCONTENTS. 57

dale neighbours, mocking at the idea that this world
was made for happiness. He went to stay with his
sister at Dumfries.

The kindness of these friends (he said), their very kind
ness, works me misery of which they have no idea. In the
gloom of my own imagination I seem to myself a pitiable
man. Last night 1 had, in spite of noises and confusions
many, a tolerable sleep, most welcome to me, for on the
Monday night here I did not sleep at all. Yesterday was
accordingly a day ! My poor mother, too, is very weak, and
there are clothes a- buying, and confusions very many ;
and no minute can I be left alone to let my sad thoughts
settle into sad composure, but every minute I must talk,
talk. God help me ! To be dead altogether ! But fie ! fie !
This is very weak, and I am but a spoony to write so. To
morrow I will write to you more deliberately. I had no idea
I was so sick of heart and had made such progress towards
age and steady dispiritment. Alas ! alas ! I ought to be
wrapped in cotton wool, and laid in a locked drawer at
present. I can stand nothing. I am really ashamed of the
figure I cut among creatures in the ordinary human situa
tion. One couldn't do without human creatures altogether.
Oh ! no. But at present, in such moods as I am now in, it
were such an inexpressible saving of fret and botheration
and futile distress if they would but let me alone. Woe's
me ! Woe is me !

It was in this humour that Carlyle read 'Alton
Locke,' which Kingsley sent him. I well remember
the gratification with which Kingsley showed me his
approving criticism; and it speaks volumes for the
merit of that book that at such a time Carlyle could
take pleasure in it. Little did either of us then guess
in what a depth of depression it had found him. The
cloud lifted after a while ; but these fits when they
came were entirely disabling. Robust constitutional
strength, which is half of it insensibility, was not among

58 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

the gifts which Nature had bestowed on Carlyle. His
strength was moral ; it lay in an unalterable resolu
tion to do what was right and to speak what was true
— a strength nobly sufficient for the broad direction
of his life and intellect, but leaving him a helpless
victim of the small vexations which prey like mos
quitoes on the nerves of unfortunate men of genius.
Sometimes, indeed, by the help of Providence, his
irritations neutralised one another. In his steady
thrift, he had his clothes made for him in Annandale,
the cloth bought at Dumfries and made up by an
Ecclefechan tailor. His wardrobe required refitting
before his return to London, and the need of attend
ing to it proved an antidote to his present miseries.
After relating his exertions in the tailor department,
he says very prettily : —

Do not regret these contrivances of a ' rude age,' dear
Goody mine. They are still useful for our circumstances,
and are always beautiful, as human virtue is. We are not
yet rich, my woman, nor likely ever to be. Devil may care
for that part of it ! No new ' suit of virtues : ' only not
quite so tight a fit as the old one ; one advantage that, un
doubtedly. But Chapman's account for the Pamphlets l
might teach us moderation if we were forgetting ourselves.
Such a return of money for so much toil and endurance of
reproach, and other things, as has not often come athwart
the Literary Lion. Devil may care for that, too ! He says
the account is all right. He will pay you your bit of an
allowance this week, however. And so let him and his
trade ledgers go their gates again. * The little that a just
man hath is more and better far, &c.,' said the old Psalmist,
a most true and comfortable saying.

With the end of September London and Cheyne
Eow came in sight again. The repairs were finished.

1 The outcry stopped the sale of them for many months and even years.

THE MARSH ALLS AT CONISTON. 59

At Scotsbrig, when the clothes had come in, he found
himself ' a distempered human soul that had slept ill,
and was terribly dadded about : a phenomenon not
quite unfamiliar to his wife's observation.' He had
thought of a trip to lona before going home, but the
season was too far advanced. A short visit was to
be managed to his friends in Cumberland. Then he
would hasten back, and be as amiable as he could
when he arrived. Mrs. Carlyle, in one of the saddest
of her sad letters, had regretted that her company
had become so useless to him.1 ' Oh ! ' he said, ' if
you could but cease being conscious of what your
company is to me ! The consciousness is all the
malady in that. Ah me ! Ah me ! But that, too,
will mend if it pleases God.'

On the 27th of September he parted sorrowfully
from his mother at Scotsbrig, after a wild midnight
walk in wind and rain the evening before. Three
days were given to the Speddings at Keswick, and
thence, on pressing invitation, he went to the Marshalls
at Coniston, where he met the Tennysons, then lately
married. Neither of these visits brought much com
fort. Mr. Spedding had gone with the rest of the
world in disapproving the ' Latter-day Pamphlets.' At
the Marshalls' he was prevented from sleeping by
' poultry, children, arid flunkeys.'

Love of the picturesque is here (he wrote from Coniston).
(lorgeous magnificence minus quiet or any sort of comfort
which to me, in my exceptional thin-skinned thrice morbid
condition, were human. I had to run away abruptly from a
survey of certain sublime rock-passes and pikes, never to be for-
, lest the post should go without my writing. Here,

1 Letter* find Moitariuk, vol. ii. p. 1 •').">.

60 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

avoiding lunch, too, and taking a solitary pipe instead, I end
for this day, feeling myself to be, of all men, by far the most
miserable, like that old Greek, yet knowing well privately
that it is not so, and begging pity and pardon from poor
Goody, whom God bless.

He announced that he could not stay, that he must
leave the next day , &c. Every attention was paid him.
His room was changed. Not a sound was allowed to
disturb him. He had a sound sleep, woke ' to find a
wonderful alteration in himself, with the sun shining
over lakes and mountains ; ' and then he thought he
would stay ' another day and still other days ' if he
were asked. But he had been so peremptory that his
host thought it uncourteous to press him further, and
then he discovered that he was not wanted, ' nothing
but the name of him, which was already got.' Mr.
Marshall himself accompanied him to the Windermere
station, 'forcing him to talk, which was small favour;'
and the express train swept him back to London.
Men of genius are ' kittle ' guests, and, of all such,
Carlyle was the ' kittlest.'

His wife was at the Grange when he reached
Cheyne Eow. There was no one to receive him but
her dog Nero, who after a moment's doubt ' barked
enthusiastic reception,' and the cat, ' who sat reflec
tive, without sign of the smallest emotion, more or less.'
He was obliged to Nero, he forgave the cat. He was
delighted to be at home again. The improvements in
the house called out his enthusiastic approbation.
' Oh Goody ! ' he exclaimed, ' incomparable artist
Goody ! It is really a series of glad surprises ; and
the noble grate upstairs ! all good and best. My
bonny little artistikin. Really it is clever and wise

RETURNS TO LONDON. 6r

to a degree, and I admit it is pity that you were
not here to show it me yourself. But I shall find it
all out too. Thank you, thank you a thousand times ! '
The tossing and whirling seemed even more un
attractive in the comparison.

But I have done with it (he said), and with the astonish
ingly admirable lights and shadows and valleys and Langdale
pikes and worship of the picturesque in all its branches, from
all and every of which for the future * Good Lord deliver
huz.' Oh my poor Goody ! It is a great blessing to be born
a person of sense, even with * the temper of a rat-trap ! ' One
must put up with the temper ; the other is not to be put up
with. Alfred looks really improved, I should say ; cheerful in
what he talks, and looking forward to a future less detached
than the past has been. A good soul, find him where or
how situated you may. Mrs. Tennyson lights up bright
glittering blue eyes when you speak to her ; has wit, has
sense ; and were it not that she seems so very delicate in
health, I should augur really well of Tennyson's adventure.

Mrs. Carlyle was distracted at his return in her own
absence. She insisted that she must go to him at once ;
but she had been gaining strength at the Grange, and
the Ashburtons begged her to stay on. Carlyle urged
it too. With pretty delicacy he said, as if learning a
lesson from her being away, ' I shall know better than
ever I did what the comfort to me is, of being received
by you when I arrive worn out, and you welcome me
with your old smiles and the light of a human fire and
a human home.' As she persisted that she must go
back, he accepted Lady Ashburton's proposal that he
should himself join his wife for a week or two before
finally settling in for the winter ; and it was not till
the middle of October that they were together ag.-im
in their own home, when lie summed up in his Journal

62 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

the experiences of his wanderings. Savage Landor,
whom he calls ' a proud, indignant, and remarkable
old man,' had pleased him from sympathy of discontent
with the existing order of things. His visit to poor
Mr. Eedwood he describes as ' dulness and the in
anity of worse than solitude.' Tie had left Boverton
' in a humour strangely forlorn, sad, and sickly even
for him.' He goes on :—

Four weeks at Scotsbrig : my dear old mother, much
broken since I had last seen her, was a perpetual source of
sad and, as it were, sacred emotions to me. Sorrowful mostly
and disgusting, and even degrading, were my other emotions.
G-od help me! Much physical suffering. Morality sunk
down with me almost to zero so far as consciousness went.
Surely there should be a hospital for poor creatures in such
a condition as mine. But let us not speak. In the end of
September I went over to Cumberland. T. Spedding limited
and dull. Off to Coniston for two days. Scenery, &c. Obliged
to steer for Chelsea by express train, and see whether in
my home was any rest for me. Alas ! not there either. Ar
rive about midnight : my wife gone down to the Grange.
Nothing for it but stoicism, of such sort as one had, once
more. In about a week go to the Grange to join my wife
there. Spend ten days amid miscellaneous company in the
common dyspeptic, utterly isolated, and contemptible condi
tion. Home again on Saturday gone a week ; and here ever
since at least in a silent state. I have still hopes of writing
another book, better perhaps than any I have yet done ; but
in all other respects this seems really the Nadir of my
fortunes ; and in hope, desire, or outlook, so far as common
mortals reckon such, I never was more bankrupt. Lonely, shut
up within my contemptible and yet not deliberately ignoble
self, perhaps there never was, in modern literary or other
history, a more solitary soul, capable of any friendship or
honest relation to others. For the rest I do in some measure
silently defy destiny, and try to look with steady eye into it,

SUMMARY OF THE YEAR. 63

not hoping from it (except that I might get some work well
done), nor fearing it for the remnant of my time here.
Latent pieties, I do believe, still lie in me ; deep wells of
sorrow, reverence, and affection ; but alas ! that is not the
humour at present, and my utmost prayer is that I might
deal wisely with that too, since it is the lot of me.

64 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTER XIX.

A.D. 1851-2. ^ET. 56-57.

Keviews of the Pamphlets— Cheyne Row — Party at the Grange — ' Life
of Sterling ' — Reception of it — Coleridge and his disciples — Spiritual
optics — Hyde Park Exhibition — A month at Malvern — Scotland —
Trip to Paris with Lord Ashburton. ,

THERE is a condition familiar to men of letters, and I
suppose to artists of all descriptions, which may be
called a moulting state. The imagination, exhausted
by long efforts, sheds its feathers, and mind and body
remain sick and dispirited till they grow again. Carlyle
was thus moulting after the 'Latter-day Pamphlets.'
He was eager to write, but his ideas were shape
less. His wings would not lift him. He was chained
to the ground, Unable to produce anything, he
began to read voraciously ; he bought a copy of
the ' Annual Eegister ; ' he worked entirely through
it, finding there ' a great quantity of agreeable and
not quite useless information.' He read Sophocles with
profound admiration. His friends came about Cheyne
Row, eager to see him after his absence. They were
welcome in a sense, but ' alas ! ' he confessed, ' nobody
comes whose talk is half so good to me as silence. I
fly out of the way of everybody, and would much

REVIEWS OF THE PAMPHLETS. 65

rather smoke a pipe of wholesome tobacco than talk
to anyone in London just now. Nay, their talk is
often rather an offence to rue, and I murmur to my
self, Why open one's lips for such a purpose ? '

The autumn quarterlies were busy upon the
Pamphlets, and the shrieking tone was considerably
modified. A review of them by Masson in the ' North
British ' distinctly pleased Carlyle. A review in the
' Dublin ' he found ' excellently serious,' and conjec
tured that it came from some Anglican pervert or
convert. It was written, I believe, by Mr., now Mr.
Justice, O'Hagan. The Catholics naturally found points
of sympathy in so scornful a denunciation of modern
notions about liberty. Carlyle and they believed
alike in the divine right of wisdom to govern folly.
' The wise man's eyes were in his head, but the fool
walked in darkness.' This article provided him ' with
interesting reflections for a day or two.' But books
were his chief resource in these months. A paper in
the ' Annual Register ' set him reading Wycherley's
comedies, not with satisfaction. He calls them a
combination of ' human platitude and pravity ' seldom
equalled. ; Faugh ! ' he said, ' I shut up the book last
night, having actually worked through the greater
part of it with real abomination.' ' Scaligerana ' was
far better. From this he made many extracts. He
calls it the most curious daguerreotype likeness of a
great man's loose talk that he had ever seen,

alternating between French and Latin, between high and low,
between thick and thin, the most free-and-easy shovelling
out of whatever came readiest in a human soul, a strange
draggly-wick'd tallow candle lighted in the belly of a dark

IV.

66 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

dead past, a sorcerer's dance of extinct human beings and
things.

At intervals he thought of writing something.
' Ireland ' came back upon him occasionally as still
a possibility. A theory of education on the plan of
Goethe's ' Wanderjahre' would give him scope to say
something not wholly useless. These were the two
subjects which looked least contemptible. There was
English history too: 'The Conqueror,' 'Simon de
Montfort,' ' The Battle of Towton.' ' But what,' he
asked himself, ' can be done with a British Museum
under fat pedants, with a world so sunk as ours, and
alas ! with a soul so sunk and subdued to its elements
as mine seems to be ? Voyons, voyons ! au moins
taisons-nousJ

To Margaret Carlyle, Scotsbrig.

Chelsea : December 14, 1850.

Jane has taken no cold yet ; goes out in some omnibus
whenever the day is not quite wretched. I hear nothing of
her hurt,1 and I believe it is getting well, though she does
not seem to like any speech about it. I am myself decidedly
better than when I wrote last — have, in fact, nothing wrong
about me except an incurably squeamish liver and stomach.
I generally go out for an hour's walking before bed-time ; the
little snaffle of a tries sin called Nero commonly goes with me,
runs snuffling into every hole, or pirrs about at my side like
a little glassy rat, and returns home the joyfullest and dirtiest
little dog one need wish to see. ... * No Popery ' is still
loud enough in these parts, and it is confidently expected
these pasteboard cardinals and their rotten garments will be
packed out of this island in some way. Ultimus crepitus
diaboli, as Beza said of the Jesuits.

1 Letters and Memorials, vol. ii. p. 141.

VISITORS IN CHEYNE ROW. 67

Journal.

December 30, 1850. — The year is wearing out; life is
wearing out ; and I can get to no work. Me miserum ! Of
course the thing is difficult — most things are — but I con
tinually fly from it too, and my poor days pass in the shabbiest,
wastefullest manner. Ballantyne, Maccall, and John Welsh
were with us on Christmas Day to dinner. Last night Kingsley
and Darwin. Good is to be got out of no creature. Lady
Bulwer Lytton — a most melancholy interview of her seeking.
How the Furies do still walk this earth, and shake their 'dusky
glowing torches ' over men and women ! Can do nothing
with the poor lady's novel, I fear. Yesterday I was clearing
myself of a tangle of extraneous letters, &c., with which 7 had
properly nothing to do. How much ' love,' ' respect,' ' admira
tion,' &c., is there in this world which resembles the * love '
of dogs for a dead horse ! * Fie on't ! 'tis an unweeded garden ; '
and then the sluggard of a gardener ! Awake ! Wilt thou
never awake, then ?

Notwithstanding the hopes and resolutions which
Carlyle had brought back with him from Scotland,
the domestic atmosphere was not clear in Cheyne
Eow, and had not been clear since his return. Nothing
need be said about this. It added to his other dis
comforts — that was all. In the Journal of January 20,
there is this curious observation :—

It is man's part to deal with Destiny, who is known to be
inexorable. It is the woman's more to deal with the man,
whom, even in impossible cases, she always thinks capable of
being moved by human means ; in this respect a harder, at
least a less dignified, lot for her.

At the end of January he wrent off again to the
Grange, alone this time, to meet an interesting party
there ; Thirlwall, Milnes, the Stanleys, Sir John Simeon.
Trench, then Dean of Westminster, and several others.

p 2

68 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

He might have enjoyed himself if his spirits had been
in better order, ' for, thanks to the Bishop, the conver
sation was a thought more solid than was usual.' One
evening it took a remarkable form, and as he more
than once described the scene to me, I quote what he
says about it in a letter.

Last night there was a dreadful onslaught made on—
what shall I say? properly the Church — in presence of
Trench and the Bishop. Trench affected to be very busy
reading, and managed extremely well. The Bishop was
also grand and rationally manful, intrinsically agreeing with
almost everything I said. Poor Simeon, a gentleman in
search of a religion, sate stupent in the whirlpool of heterodox
hail, and seemed to feel if his head were on his shoulders.
This is an extraordinary epoch of the world, with a witness !

It was perhaps as an effect of this singular piece
of talk, at any rate in discharge of a long-recognised
duty, that Carlyle, on returning home, set about
his long-meditated life of John Sterling. To leave
Sterling any longer as an anatomical subject for
the religious newspapers was treason to his friend's
memory. He had waited, partly from want of com
posure, partly that the dust might settle a little ; and
now, having leisure on his hands, and being other
wise in the right mood, he re-read Sterling's letters,
collected information from surviving relatives, and
without difficulty — indeed, with entire ease and ra
pidity — he produced in three months what is perhaps
the most beautiful biography in the English language.
His own mind for the past year had been restless and
agitated, but no restlessness can be traced in the
' Life of Sterling.' The scorn, the pride, the indigna
tion of the Pamphlets lie hushed down under a stream

LIFE OF STERLING. 69

of quiet affection. The tone is calm and tender.
Here, more than in any of the rest of his writings,
he could give play, without a jarring note, to the
gentlest qualities of his heart and intellect. It was
necessary for him to express himself more plainly
than he had hitherto done on the received religious
creeds ; but he wrote without mockery, without ex
asperation, as if his angry emotions were subdued to
the element in which he was working. A friend's
grave was no place for theological controversy, and
though he allowed his humour free play, it was real
play, nowhere savagely contemptuous. Sterling's life
had been a short one. His history was rather that of
the formation of a beautiful character than of accom
plished achievement ; at once the most difficult to
delineate, yet the most instructive if delineated suc
cessfully. The aim of the biographer was to lift the
subject beyond the sordid element of religious exas
perations ; yet it was on Sterling's ' religion,' in the
noble meaning of the word, that the entire interest
turned. Growing to manhood in an atmosphere of
Eadicalism, political and speculative, Sterling had
come in contact with the enthusiasts of European
revolution. He had involved himself in a movement
in which accident only prevented him from being per
sonally engaged, and which ended in the destruction
of his friends. In the depression which followed he
had fallen under the influence of Coleridge. He had
learnt from Coleridge that the key of the mystery of
the universe lay, after all, with the Church creed
rightly understood, and that, by an intellectual leger
demain, uncertainties could be converted into cer
tainties. The process by which the wonderful

70 CARLYLKS LIFE IN LONDON.

transformation was to be effected, Carlyle himself had
heard from the prophet's own lips, and had heard
without conviction when Irving long before had taken
him to Highgate to worship.

To the young and ardent mind, instinct with pious noble
ness, yet driven to the grim deserts of Radicalism for a faith,
Coleridge's speculations had a charm much more than literary,
a charm almost religious and prophetic. The constant gist
of his discourse was lamentation over the sunk condition of
the world, which he recognised to be given up to atheism
and materialism : full of mere sordid mis-beliefs, mis-pursuits,
and mis-results. All science had become mechanical, the
science not of men, but of a kind of human beavers. Churches
themselves had died away into a godless mechanical condi
tion, and stood there as mere cases of articles, mere forms of
Churches, like the dried carcases of once swift camels which
you find left withering in the thirst of the universal desert —
ghastly portents for the present, beneficent ships of the
desert no more. Men's souls were blinded, hebetated, and
sunk under the influence of atheism and materialism, and
Hume and Voltaire. The world for the present was an ex
tinct world, deserted of God and incapable of well-doing till it
changed its heart and spirit. This, I think, expressed with less
of indignation and with more of long-drawn querulousness,
was always recognisable as the ground tone, which truly a
pious young heart, driven into Eadicalism and the opposition
party, could not but recognise as a too sorrowful truth, and
ask the oracle with all earnestness, ' What remedy, then ? '
The remedy, though Coleridge himself professed to see it as
in sunbeams, could not, except by processes unspeakably
difficult, be described to you at all. On the whole, these
dead Churches, this dead English Church especially, must be
brought to life again. Why not ? It was not dead. The
soul of it in this parched-up body was tragically asleep only.
Atheistic philosophy was true on its side ; and Hume and
Voltaire could on their own ground speak irrefragably for
themselves against any Church. But lift the Church and them

LIFE OF STERLING. 71

into a higher sphere of argument, they died into inanition.
The Church revivified itself into pristine florid vigour, became
once more a living ship of the desert, and invincibly bore
you over stock and stone. But how ? but how ? By attend
ing to the ' reason ' of man, said Coleridge, and duly chaining
up the ' understanding ' of man. The Vemunft (reason) and
Verstand (understanding) of the Germans — it all turned upon
these if you could well understand them, which you couldn't.
For the rest, Coleridge had on the anvil various books,
especially was about to write one grand book on the Logos,
which would help to bridge the chasm for us. So much
appeared, however : Churches, though proved false as you had
imagined, were still true as you were to imagine. Here was
an artist who would burn you up an old Church, root and
branch, and then, as the alchemist professed to do with
organic substances in general, distil you an ' Astral Spirit '
from the ashes, which was the very image of the old burnt
article, its airdrawn counterpart. This you had, or might
get, and draw uses from if you could. Wait till the book on
the Logos was done ; alas ! till your own terrene eyes, blind
with conceit and the dust of logic, were purged, subtilised,
and spiritualised into the sharpness of vision requisite for
discerning such an ' 0-m-m-mject.' The ingenuous young
English head of those days stood strangely puzzled by such
revelations, uncertain whether it was getting inspired or
getting infatuated into flat imbecility ; and strange efful
gence of new day, or else of deeper meteoric night, coloured
the horizon of the future for it.

Carlyle for himself had refused to follow Coleridge
into these airy speculations. He for one dared not
play with truth, and he regarded this metaphysical
conjuring as cowardly unmanliness, fatal to honesty
of heart, and useful only to enable cravens, who in
their souls knew better, to close their eyes to fact.

What the light of your mind (he says), which is the
direct inspiration of the Almighty, pronounces incredible,
that, in God's name, leave uncredited. At your peril do not

72 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

try believing that. No subtlest hocus-pocus of ' reason '
versus ' understanding ' will avail for that feat. . . . Only
in the world's last lethargy can such things be done and
accounted safe and pious. . . . * Do you think the living God
is a buzzard idol,' sternly asks Milton, « that you dare address
Him in this manner ? ' It is not now known, what never
needed proof or statement before, that religion is not a
doubt — that it is a certainty, or else a mockery and horror ;
that none of all the many things we are in doubt about can
by any alchemy be made a ' religion ' for us, but are, and must
continue, a baleful quiet or unquiet hypocrisy for us, and
bring — salvation, do we fancy ? I think it is another thing
they will bring, and are on all hands visibly bringing this
long while.

He held sternly to what his conscience told
him, and would not listen to the Coleridgean siren.
But many did listen, and ran upon the fatal shore
Intellectual clergymen especially, who had been
troubled in their minds, imagined that they found
help and comfort there. If, as they had been told,
it \v as a sin to disbelieve the Church's creed, then the
creed itself must rest on something beyond proba
bility and the balance of evidence. Why not, then, on
Coleridge's ' reason ' ? It was a serious thing, besides,
to have a profession to which they were committed
for the means of living, and which the law forbade
tham to change. Thus, at the time when Carlyle
was writing this book, a whole flight of clergy,
with Frederick Maurice at their head and Kingsley
for lieutenant, were preaching regeneration on Cole
ridge's principles, and persuading themselves that ' the
sacred river could run backwards after all.' Sterling,
before them, had been carried away by the same
illusion. In his enthusiasm, he took orders ; a few
months' experience sufficed to show so true an in-

LIFE OF STERLING. 73

telligence that the Highgate philosophy was ' bottled
moonshine ; ' and Carlyle draws the picture of him,
not, like Julius Hare, as of ' a vanquished doubter,'
but as ' a victorious believer,' resolutely shaking him
self clear of artificial spider-webs — holding fast with
all his powers to what he knew to be true and good,
and living for that, and that only.

In Sterling's writings and actions (says Carlyle), were
they capable of being well read, we consider that there is for
all true hearts, and especially for young noble seekers and
strivers towards what is highest, a mirror, in which some
shadow of themselves and of their immeasurably complex
arena will profitably present itself. Here, also, is one
encompassed and struggling even as they now are. This
man also had said to himself, not in mere catechism words,
but with all his instincts, and the question thrilled in every
nerve of him and pulsed in every drop of his blood, ' What
is the chief end of man ? Behold ! I, too, would live and
work as beseems a denizen of this universe — a child of the
Highest God ! By what means is a noble life still possible
for me here ? Ye heavens, and thou, earth, oh how ? ' The
history of this long-continued prayer and endeavour, last
ing in various figures for near forty years, may now, and
for some time coming, have something to say to men. Nay,
what of men of the world ? Here, visible to myself for
some while, was a brilliant human presence, distinguishable,
honourable, and loveable amid the dim common populations,
among the million little beautiful once more a beautiful
human soul, whom I among others recognised and lovingly
walked with while the years and the hours were. Sitting now
by his tomb in thoughtful mood, the new times bring a new
duty to me. Why write the life of Sterling ? I imagine I
had a commission higher than the world's — the dictate of
Nature herself to do what is now done. Sic prosit.1

1 Among the many evidences of Carlyle's interest in young men who
applied to him for advice and guidance, I find the following letter,
written at the time at which he was engaged on the ' Life of Sterling,' and

74 CARL YLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

^ Something of the high purpose which Carlyle
assigns to Sterling was perhaps reflected from him
self, as with a lover's portrait of his mistress ; yet his
account of him is essentially as true as it is affec
tionate. He did not give his esteem easily, and
when it was given it was nobly deserved. I well re
member the effect which the book produced when
it appeared. He himself valued it little, arid even
doubted whether it was worth publishing. As a
piece of literary work it was more admired than
anything which he had yet written. The calmness
was a general surprise. He had a tranquil command
of his subject, and his treatment of it was exquisitely

showing that no occupation, however absorbing, could lead him to neg
lect a duty which, when the occasion offered, he always regarded as
sacred : —

' Chelsea : March 9, 1850.

'My good young Friend,— I am much obliged by the regard which
you entertain for me, and do not blame your enthusiasm, which well
enough becomes your young years. If my books teach you anything,
don't mind in the least whether other people believe it or not ; but do you,
for your own behoof, lay it to heart as a real acquisition you have made
—more properly, as a real message left with you, which you must set
about fulfilling, whatever others do. This is really all the counsel I can
give you about what you read in my books or those of others: practise
what you learn there ; instantly, and in all ways, begin turning the
belief into a fact, and continue at that till you get more and even more
belief, with which also do the like. It is idle work otherwise to write
books or to read them. And be not surprised that " people have no
sympathy with you." That is an accompaniment that will attend you
all your days if you mean to lead an earnest life. The " people " could not
save you with their "sympathy," if they had never so much of it to give.
A man can and must save himself, with or without their sympathy, as
it may chance. And may all good be with you, my kind young friend,
and a heart stout enough for this adventure you are upon ; that is the
best good of all.

' I remain, yours very sincerely,

<T. CARLYLE.'

This is one of thousands of such letters, written out of Carlyle's heart,
and preserved by those to whom they were addressed as their most pre
cious possession.

LIFE OF STERLING. 75

delicate. He was no longer censuring the world as a
prophet, but delighting it as an artist. The secular
part of society pardoned the fierceness with which
he had trampled on them for so beautiful an evidence
of the tenderness of his real heart. The religious
world was not so well satisfied. Anglicans. Pro
testants, Catholics had hoped from 'Cromwell,' and
even from the Pamphlets, that, as against spiritual
Eadicahsm, he would be on their side. They found
themselves entirely mistaken. ' Does not believe in
us either, then ? ' was the cry. ' Not one of the re-
ligiones licitce will this man acknowledge.' Frede
rick Maurice's friends were the most displeased of all.
The irreverence with which he had treated Coleridge
was not to be forgiven. Prom all that section of
Illuminati who had hitherto believed themselves his
admirers, he had cut himself off for ever, and, as a
teacher, he was left without disciples, save a poor
handful who had longed for such an utterance from
him. He himself gathered no conscious pleasure
from what he had done. ' A poor tatter of a thing,'
he called it, valuable only as an honest tribute of
affection to a lost friend. It was so always. The
execution of all his work fell so far short of his in
tention that when completed it seemed to be worth
nothing.

To Margaret Carlyle, Scotsbrig.

Chelsea : April 5, 1851.

I told the Doctor about ' John Sterling's Life,' a small,
insignificant book or pamphlet I have been writing. The
booksellers got it away from me the other morning, to see
how much there is of it, in the first place. I know not
altogether myself whether it is worth printing or not, but
rather think that will be the end of it whether or not. It

76 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

has cost little trouble, and need not do much ill, if it do no
great amount of good. . . . Alas, alas ! I have so many things
still to write — immense masses of things ; and the time for
writing them gets ever shorter, and, as it seems, the com
posure, strength, and other opportunity less and less. We
must do what we can. I am weak, very irritable, too, under
my bits of burdens, and bad company for anybody, and
shall need a long spell of the country somewhere if I can
get it. In general, I feel as if it would be very good for me
to be covered under a tub wherever I go, or, at least, set to
work, like James Aitkin's half-mad friend, ' ay maistly in a
place by himsel'.

Among the ' irritations ' was a portrait which had
been taken of him in Annandale, and of which an
engraving was now sent to him. No painter ever
succeeded with Carlyle. One had made him ' like a
flayed horse ; ' of the present one he says : —

Three months ago solicited me to sit for this thing.

I refused ; she entreated ; I consented, and here it is. No
more abominable blotch, without one feature of mine, was
ever called by the name of a rational man. It is the por
trait of an idiot that has taken Glauber salts and lost his
eyesight. We burn it and forget it. N.B. — Never again
consent to the like ; learn generally to say ' No.' Ah ! could
I ? The character attached, written by some young man
unknown to me, is very kind, and not bad at all. To the
fire ! To the fire !

This was nothing. The real uneasiness was about
' the immense masses of things ' on which lie wanted
to write, and project after project rose and faded
before he could see his way. The ' Exodus from
Hound sditch ' was still one of them ; ought he, or
ought he not, to be explicit in that great matter, and
sketch the outlines of a creed which might hereafter
be sincerely believed ?

SPIRITUAL OPTICS. 77

* Birth of a cherry ' in the spring of the year (he writes) ;
birth of a planet in the spring of the sons. The All pro
duces them alike, builds them together out of its floating
atoms, out of its infinite opulences. The germ of an idea
lies behind that. Another 'spiritual world,' its blaze of
splendour as yet all veiled, hangs struggling behind those
wrecks and dust-clouds—Hebrew, Greek, &c. When will it
be born into clearness ?

Again, April 1851 : —

In the spiritual world, as in the astronomical, it is ike
earth that turns and produces the phenomena of the
heavens. In all manner of senses this is true ; we are in
the thick of the confusion attendant on learning this ; and
thus all is at present so chaotic with us. Let this stand as
an aphoristic saying ? or work it out with some lucidity of
detail? Most true it is, and it forms the secret of the
spiritual epoch we are in.

Attempt to work it out Carlyle did in the two
fragments on ' Spiritual Optics ' which I printed in
the second volume of his early life. He there seems
to say that something of the sort was expected of
him, and even obligatory upon him. But either he
felt that the age was not ripe, or he could not de
velop the idea satisfactorily, and he left what he had
written to mature in some other mind. ' Few men,'
he says at this time, ' were ever more puzzled to find
their roj^l than I am just now. Be silent ! Look and
seek ! ' His test of progress — of the moral worth of his
own or any other age — was the men that it produced.
He admired most of all things in this world single-
minded and sincere people, who believed honestly
what they professed to believe, and lived it out in
their actions. Properly, he admired nothing else,
and his special genius lay in depicting such ages and

y8 CARLYLE'S LIPE IN LONDON.

persons. The ' Cid,' as be was looking about him for
subjects, tempted him for a few weeks. The story
of the Cid is the roughest, truest, most genial of the
epics of modern Europe, and some picture, he thought,
might be drawn out of it of the struggle of Spanish
chivalry with the Moslem. He read various books
— Miiller's, Southey's, &c. — with this view, but he
found, as everyone else has found, that although Buy
Diaz in the poem is as real as Achilles, nothing can
be made of him in the shape of history. Mliller he
found ' stilting and affected, walking as if he were half-
skating ; ' other learned writers ostentatious and windy.
' On the whole,' he said, ' I can make less of the Cid
than I expected, and, in fact, cannot get any clear
face view of him at all.' Should he try William the
Conqueror and the Norsemen? This seemed more
feasible, and his own sympathies — his own heart itself
was Scandinavian ; all the virtues we possessed he be
lieved to have come to us out of our Norse ancestry.
But this, too, faded, and his mind wandered from
thing to thing.1

1 Had Carlyle turned his mind to it, he would have been a great
philologist. I find in his Note-book at this period a remark on a peculiarity
of the English language too valuable to be omitted : —

' Did I mark anywhere the absurd state of our infinitive of verbs used
as a substantive? Building is good. Bdtir est bon. ALdificare bonum est.
JJnuen ist gut. In all languages, and by the nature of speech itself, it is
the infinitive that we use in such cases. How, in the name of wonder,
does English alone seem to give us the present participle ? Many years
ago I perceived the reason to be this : Build (the verb) was anciently
Suilden. All infinitives, as they still do in German, ended in en ; our
beautiful Liudley Murray, alarmed at a mispronunciation like " Buildin',"
stuck a g to the end of it, and so here we are with one of the most
perfect solecisms daily in our mouths — a participle where a participle
cannot be. I cannot pretend to give any specific appreciation of the
English as compared with other languages. It often seems to me, though
with many intrinsic merits and lost capabilities, one of the most bar-

CRYSTAL PALACE.

79

A new cant came up at this epoch to put him out
of patience — Prince Albert's Grand Industrial Exhi
bition and Palace of Aladdin in Hyde Park, a temple
for the consecration of commerce, &c., with the
Archbishop of Canterbury for fugleman, a contriv
ance which was to bring in a new era, and do for
mankind what Christianity had tried and failed to
do. For such a thing as this Carlyle could have no
feeling but contempt.

Journal.

April 21, 1851.— Crystal Palace— hless the mark!— is
fast getting ready, and bearded figures already grow fre
quent on the streets; 'all nations' crowding to us with
their so-called industry or ostentatious frothery. All the
loose population of London pours itself every holiday into
Hyde Park round this strange edifice. Over in Surrey
there is a strange agreeable solitude in the walks one has.
My mad humour is urging me to flight from this monstrous
place— flight « over to Denmark to learn Norse,' for example.

barons tongues now spoken by civilised creatures ; a language chiefly
adapted for invoices, drill-sergeant words of command, and such like.
The dropping of the y (ge in German) from our preterite participles,
so that participle and aorist, except by position, are undistinguish-
able, is an immense loss of resource ; your sentence is thus foot-shackled
to an amazing extent. Other losses, virtual loss of declension (all
but one case), of inflexion (almost altogether) ; these also, though a
gain of speed for invoices, &c., are a sad loss for speech or writing^and
shackle you very sore. Yet Shakespeare wrote in English. Honour
the Shakespeare who subdued the most obstinate material, and made it
melt before him. What will become of English ? I can by no means pre
dict eternity for our present hidebound dialect of English ; but there is such
a solid note of worth in this language, and it is spoken by such a multitude
of important human creatures just now, that it has evidently a great
part to play yet, and will enter largely into the speech of the future,
when all Europe shall gradually have, if not one speech, say three : —
1. Teutonic— English for the heart of it, with Danish, German, Dutch,
&c. ; 2, Roman— French the head element: and 3, Sclavonic— Russian
the ditto. Those will be grand times, Mrs. Rigmarole — ohe,jum sati* .'

So CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Every season my suffering and resistance drives me on to
some such mad project, and every season it fails. ' I can't
get out.' There was certainly no element ever contrived in
which the life of man was rendered more barren and un
wholesome than this same. Not to be helped at present, it
would seem. Heigho ! old age is stern and sad, but not un-
beautiful if we could guide it wisely. Try to keep a little
piety in thy heart; in spite of all mad contradictions,
enough to drive oneself utterly mad if one had no patience,
try to maintain a small altar-flame burning there. Eheu !

eheu !

May 3. — Cold grey weather. All the world busy with
their Industrial Exhibition. I am sick, very sad, and, as
usual for a long time back, not able to get on with anything.
My silence and isolation, my utter loneliness in this world, is
complete. Never in my life did I feel so utterly windbound,
lamed, bewildered, incapable of stirring from the spot in any
good direction whatever. Da war guter Rath theuer ; and
not even an attempt towards it can be made. The human
beings that come round one have the effect generally upon
me of beings that can or will give me no help in this my
extreme need, and that ought not to be so unkind as to
hinder me when I am so near the wall. One law only is
clear to me : Hold thy peace I Admit not into thy counsel
those that cannot have any business there ; and, with shut
lips, walk on the best thou with thy lamed limbs canst, and
not a word more here or elsewhere.

Poor ' human beings that came round him ' ! How
could they help, how could they offer to help ? They
came to worship. It was not for them to advise or
encourage. He was their teacher. They came to
learn of him and receive humbly what lie might
please to give them, and he himself was sick and
moulting. His feverishly active intellect had no fixed
employment, and the mental juices were preying upon
themselves. When summer came, and the Exhibition

MALVEKX.

opened, London grew intolerable. The enthusiasm
for this new patent invention to regenerate the
human race was altogether too much for him. He
fled to Malvern for the water-cure, and became, with
his wife, for a few weeks the guest of Dr. Gully, who,
long years afterwards, was brought back so terribly
to his remembrance. After long wavering he was
beginning seriously to think of Frederick the Great
as his next subject ; if not a hero to his mind, yet at
best a man who had played a lofty part in Europe
without stooping to cant of any kind. With Frederick
looming before him he went to cool his fever in the
Malvern waters. The disease was not in his body,
loudly as he complained of it. The bathing, packing,
drinking proved useless — worse, in his opinion, than
useless. 'He found by degrees that water, taken as
medicine, was the most destructive drug he had ever
tried.' He 'had paid his tax to contemporary stupor.'
That was all. Gully himself, who would take no
fees from him, he had not disliked, and was grateful
for his hospitality. He stayed a month in all. His
wife went to her friends in Manchester ; he hastened
to hide himself in Scotsbrig, full of gloom and
heaviness, and totally out of health.

In a letter which Mrs. Carlyle wrote to him after
they separated, she reprimanded him somewhat sharply
for having come to her, as she supposed, for a parting
kiss, with a lighted cigar in his mouth, and in the
' Letters and Memorials ' he allowed the reproach to
stand without explanation.1 Evidently she had re
sented the outrage on the spot, and, as he humbly
said, 'lie had not needed that addition to make liis

1 Vol. ii. p. 152.
IV. G

82 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

lonely journey abundantly sombre.' Yet he had been
innocent as a child.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle, Manchester.

Scotsbrig, September 4, 1851.

That of the cigar, at which you showed so much offence,
not much to my consolation on the way homewards, was an
attempt on my part to whisper to you that I had given the
maid half a crown, nothing more or other, as I am a living
sinner. What you, in your kind assiduity, were aiming at, I
in the frightful, hateful whirl of such a scene had not in the
least noticed or surmised. You unkind woman, unfortunate
with the best intentions, to send ine off in that humour with
such a viaticum through the manufacturing districts ! I
thought of it all day ; yet with sorrow, not with anger, if
you will believe me.

How many of Carlyle's imagined delinquencies in
this department may not have been equally explicable !
Of late years, even with her he had grown shy and
awkward ; meaning always well, and failing in manner
from timidity. At Scotsbrig he soothed himself with
the ' Life of Chalmers.' ' An excellent Christian man,'
he said. ' About as great a contrast to himself in all
ways as could be found in these epochs under the
same sky.' He found his mother not ill, but visibly
sinking. She had divined that all was not as well in
Cheyne Kow as it ought to be. Why had not Mrs.
Carlyle come too, to see her before she died ? She
said over and over again, ' I wad ha' liked well to see
Janie ance mair.' All else was still and peaceful.
The air, the home faces, the honest, old-fashioned life,
did for him what Malvern and Gully could not do.
The noise of the outside world reached him only as an
echo, and he was only provoked a little when its dis
turbances came into his close neighbourhood.

TRIP TO PARIS. 83

Father Gavazzi (he says, in a letter of September 10) is
going to harangue them (at Dumfries) to-morrow in Italian,
which one would think must be an extremely unprofitable
operation for all but the Padre himself. This blockhead,
nevertheless, is actually making quite a furore at Glasgow
and all over the west country, such is the anti-Popish
humour of the people. They take him for a kind of Italian
Knox (God help them !), and one ass, whom I heard the bray
of in some Glasgow newspaper, says, ' He strikingly reminds
you of our grand hater of shams, T. Carlyle.' Certainly a
very striking resemblance indeed ! Oh, I am sick of the
stupidity of mankind — a semum pecus. I had no idea till
late times what a bottomless fund of darkness there is in the
human animal, especially when congregated in masses, and
set to build Crystal Palaces, &c., under King Cole, Prince
Albert and Company. The profoundest Orcus or belly of
chaos itself, this is the emblem of them.

Scotsbrig lasted three weeks. There had been an
old arrangement that Carlyle should spend a few days
at Paris with the Ashburtons. Lord and Lady Ash-
burton were now there, and wrote to summon him to
join them. At such a command the effort seemed not
impossible. He went to London, joined Browning at
the South Eastern Railway station, and the same even
ing found him at Meurice's. The first forty-eight hours
were tolerable: 'nothing to do except amuse himself,'
which he thought could be borne for a day or two.
Lord Ashburton of course saw everyone that was worth
seeing. ' Thiers came the second afternoon and talked
immense quantities of watery enough vain matter.'
Thiers was followed by two other ' men of letters,' ' one
Merimee,' ' one Laborde,' Nichts zu bedeuten. The third
and fourth nights sleep unfortunately failed, with the
usual consequences. He grew desperate, ' found that
he had made a fruitless jump into a Red Sea of mud.'

34 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

The last remains of his patience vanished when Merimee
dared to say that he ' thought Goethe an inferior French
apprentice.' This was enough of literature. He packed
his bag and fled home to Chelsea. He had better have

o

stayed out his time at Scotsbrig. On his arrival he
recorded his Paris adventures in his Journal.

Went to Paris for a week, travelling with the Brownings,
and got nothing by the business but confusion, pain, dis
appointment ; total (or almost total) want of sleep ; and, in
line, returned home by express train and Calais packet in
one day ; glad beyond all things, and almost incredulous of
the fact, to find myself in my own bed again, in my own
poor hut again, with the prospect of arrangements that
suited me a little. Saw at Paris, besides English people of
high name, but small significance, Thiers several times —
not expressly visiting me — a lively little Provencal figure,
not dislikeable, very far from estimable in any sense : item,
Merimee — wooden pedant, not without conciseness, perti
nency, and a certain sarcastic insight — on the whole, no
mortal of the slightest interest or value to me. To be at
the trouble of speaking a foreign language (so ill) with such
people on such topics as ours was a perpetual burden to me.
Had letters to some others, but burnt them. Found some
interest in looking over the physical aspects of Paris again,
and contrasting it and myself with what bad existed twenty-
six years before. The town had a dirty un swept look still;
otherwise was much changed for the better. Hide in tbe
Bois de Boulogne with Lord Ashburton, horses swift and
good, furnished by an Englishman — nothing else worth
much — roads all in dust-whirl winds, witb omnibuses and
scrubby vehicles ; the Bois itself nearly solitary, and with a
soft sandy riding-course ; otherwise dirty, unkempt, a smack
of the sordid grating everywhere on one's ill-humour.
Articulate-speaking France was altogether without beauty
or meaning to me in my then diseased mood ; but I saw
traces of the inarticulate, industrial, &c., being the true
France and much worthier.

FIRST THOUGHTS OF FREDERICK. 85

CHAPTER XX.

A.D. 1851-2. jET. 56-57.

Purpose formed to write on Frederick the Great — The author of the
' Handbook of Spain '—Afflicting visitors — Studies for ' Frederick ' —
Visit to Linlathen — Proposed tour in Germany — Eotterdam— The
Rhine — Bonn — Homburg — Frankfurt — Wartburg — Luther remi
niscences — Weimar — Berlin— Return to England.

FOR several years now, with the exception of the
short interval when he wrote Sterling's life, Carlyle
had been growling in print and talk over all manner
of men and things. The revolutions of 1848 had
aggravated his natural tendencies. He had thought
ill enough before of the modern methods of acting

C *->

and thinking, and had foreseen that no good would
come of them. The universal crash of European
society had confirmed his convictions. He saw Eng
land hurrying on to a similar catastrophe. He had
lifted up his voice in warning, and no one would
listen to him, and he was irritated, disappointed, and
perhaps surprised at the impotence of his own ad
monitions. To go on with them, to continue railing
like Timon, was waste of time and breath ; and time
and breath had been given to him to use and not to
waste. His best resource, he knew, was to engage
with some subject large enough and difficult enough
to take up all his attention, and lie had fixed at last

86 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

on Frederick of Prussia. He had discerned for one
thing that Prussia, in those days of tottering thrones,
was, or would be, the centre of European stability,
and that it was Frederick who had made Prussia what
she was. It was an enormous undertaking ; nothing
less than the entire history, secular and spiritual, of
the eighteenth century. He was not one of those
easy writers who take without inquiry the accredited
histories, and let their own work consist in hashing
and seasoning and flavouring. He never stated a fact
without having himself gone to the original authority
for it, knowing what facts suffer in the cooking pro
cess. For Carlyle to write a book on Frederick would
involve the reading of a mountain of books, memoirs,
journals, letters, state papers. The work with Crom
well would be child's play to it. He would have to
travel over a large part of Germany, to see Berlin
and Potsdam, to examine battle-fields and the plans
of campaigns. He would have to make a special
study, entirely new to him, of military science and
the art of war ; all this .he would have to do, and do
it thoroughly, for he never went into any work
by halves. He was now fifty-six years old, and might
well pause before such a plunge. Frederick himself,
too, was not a man after Carlyle's heart. He had ' no
piety ' like Cromwell, no fiery convictions, no zeal for
any ' cause of God,' real or imagined. He lived in
an age when sincere spiritual belief In&d. become diffi
cult, if not impossible. But he had one supreme
merit, that he was not a hypocrite: what he did not
feel he did not pretend to feel. Of cant — either con
scious cant, or the ' sincere cant ' which Carlyle
found to be so loathsome in England — there was in

FREDERICK THE GREAT. 87

Frederick absolutely none. He was a man of supreme
intellectual ability. One belief he had, and it was
the explanation of his strength — a belief in facts. To
know the fact always exactly as it was, and to make
his actions conform to it, was the first condition with
him ; never to allow facts to be concealed from him
self, or distorted, or pleasantly flavoured with words
or spurious sentiments ; and therefore Frederick, if
not a religious man, was a true man, the nearest
approach to a religious man that Carry le believed
perhaps to be in these days possible. He might not
be true in the sense that he never deceived others.
Politicians, with a large stake upon the board, do not
play with their cards on the table. But he never, if
he could help it, deceived himself ; never hid his own
heart from himself by specious phrases, or allowed
voluntary hallucinations to blind his eyes, and thus
he stood out an exceptional figure in the modern
world. Whether at his age he could go through
with such an enterprise was still uncertain to him ;
but he resolved to try, and on coming back from
Paris sat down to read whatever would come first to
hand. He did not recover his good-humour. Lady
Ashburton invited Mrs. Carlyle to spend December
with her at the Grange, to help in amusing some
visitors. She did not wish to go, and yet hardly
dared say no. She consulted John Carlyle.

Heaven knows (she wrote) what is to be said from me
individually. If I refuse this time, she will quarrel with me
outright. That is her way; and as quarrelling with her
would involve also quarrelling with Mr. C. it is not a thing
to be done lightly. 1 wish I knew what to answer for the
best.

88 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Not a pleasant position for a wife, but she made
the best of it and submitted. She went to the Grange.
He stayed behind with Jomini and the Seven Years'
War, patiently reading, attending to his health, dining
out, seeing his friends, and at least endeavouring to
recover some sort of human condition — even, as it
seems, cleansing the Cheyne Eow premises with his
own hands.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle, at the Grange.

Chelsea: December 8, 1851.

( )n Saturday last in the morning I did what is probably
my chief act of virtue since you went ; namely, I decided
not to walk, but to take water and a scrub-brush, and swash
into some degree of tolerability those greasy clammy flags in
the back area. I did it without rebuke of Anne. I said
she couldn't do it in her present state of illness ; and on the
whole proceeded, and found it decidedly hard work for three-
quarters of an hour. Some ten or twelve pails of water with
vigorous scrubbing did, however, reduce the affair to order,
whereupon I washed myself and sat down to breakfast in vic
torious peace. * Dirt shall not be around me,' said Cobbett, ' so
long as I can handle a broom.' . . . Our weather here is now
absolutely beautiful. I executed a deal of riding yesterday,
and after near four hours' foot and horse exercise was at
South Place little after time. ' Mutton chop with Ford ? ' '
There was a grand dinner when I arrived en frac, Mrs. Ford,
Lawrence, and the girls all dressed like tulips ; Anthony
(Sterling) himself in white waistcoat, all very grand indeed.
T was really provoked, but said nothing. Happily I was
clean as new snow, and had not come in my pilot jacket ;
and in short I could not help it. Ford, though a man with
out humour or any gracefulness or loveability of character,

1 Author of the ' Handbook of Spain,' and parent of the whole hand
book series.

STUDIES 1OR 'FREDERICK: 89

is not the worst of men to dine with at all ; has abundance
of authentic information — not duller than Macaulay's, and
much more certain and more social too — and talks away
about Spanish wines, anecdotes, and things of Spain. I got
away about eleven, not quite ruined, though not intending to

go back soon.

December 11.

Do but think : I have had a letter from that bird-like,

semi-idiot son of poor , thanking me for the mention of

his father in ' Sterling,' and forwarding for my judgment a
plan to renovate suffering society ! a big printed piece with
MS. annotations, accompaniments, &c. — an association to do
it all. My answer was, in brief, ' A pack of damned non
sense, you unfortunate fool ! '

December 12.

Last night, just as tea was in prospect, and the hope of
a quiet, busy evening to a day completely lost, enter, with

a loud knock, poor leading his little boy ; a huge, hairy,

good-humoured, stupid-looking fellow the size of a house
gable, and all over with hair, except a little patch on the
crown, which was bald ; the boy noisy, snappish, and inclined
to be of himself intolerable. I gave them tea, tried to talk.

poor, has no talent, You expect good-humoured idiomatic

simplicity at least, and you do not get even that, He turns
like a door on a hinge from every kind of opinion or assertion,
and is a colossus of gossamer. They bored me to death, and
at half-past nine, to complete the matter, Sam1 enters. Oh,
heavens ! the whole night, like the day, was a painful wreck
for the rational soul of man.

Afflictions would come, but Carlyle's essentially
kind heart put up with them. He had to secure him-
s<-If more effectually before lie could make progress
with Frederick, which still hung before him uncertain,
lie joined his wife at the Grange in the middle of
l he month, and slaved out llie year then-.

1 Friend »f Mazzini; ex-triumvir of Home.

9o CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Journal.

January, 1852.— Took to reading about Frederick the
Great soon after my return from Paris, at which work, with little
definite prospect or even object — for I am grown very poor in
hope and resolution now — I still continue. Was at the Grange
before and till New Year's Day, three weeks in all, Jane five
weeks — rode daily, got no other good — Lords Lansdowne and
Grey ; Thackeray, Macaulay, Twisleton, Clough, a huge
company coming and going. Lonely I, solitary almost as the
dead. Infinitely glad to get home again to a slighter measure
of dyspepsia, inertia, and other heaviness, ineptitude, and
gloom. Keep reading Frederick. Precise, exact, copious,
dullest of men, Archenholtz (my first German book near thirty
years ago), Jomini, Lloyd, and now Frederick's own writings.
I make slow progress, and am very sensible how lame I now
am in such things. Hope is what I now want. Hope is as
if dead within me for most part ; which makes me affect soli
tude and wish much, if wishing were worth aught, that I
had even one serious intelligent man to take counsel with,
and communicate my thoughts to. But this is weak, so no
more of this ; know what the inevitable years have brought
thee, and reconcile thyself to it. An unspeakable grandeur
withal sometimes shines out of all this, like eternal light
across the scandalous London fogs of time. Patience !
courage ! steady, steady ! Sterling's Life out, and even second
edition of it — very well received as a piece of writing and
portrait-painting. Was bedeutefs aber ? Keligious reviews,
I believe, are in a terrible humour with me and it. Don't
look at one of them. Various foolish letters about it. * Latter-
day Pamphlets ' have turned nine-tenths of the world dread
fully against me — und das auch, was bedeutefs ? Can
Frederick be my next subject — or what?

Six months now followed of steady reading and
excerpting. He went out little, except to ride in the
afternoons, or walk at midnight when the day's work
was over. A few friends were admitted occasionally

STUDIES FOR ' FREDERICK: 91

to tea. If any called before, he left them to his wife
and refused to be disturbed. I was then living in
Wales, and saw and heard nothing of him except
in some rare note. In the Journal there are no
entries of consequence except the characteristic one
of April 1.

You talk fondly of ' immortal memory,' &c. But it is
not so. Our memory itself can only hold a certain quantity.
Thus for every new thing that we remember, there must
some old thing go out of the mind ; so that here, too, it is
but death and birth in the old fashion, though on a wider
scale and with singular difference in the longevities. Lon
gevities run from 3,000 years or more to nine days or less ;
but otherwise death at last is the common doom.

The temper does not seem to have much mended.
There were small ailments and the usual fretfulness
under them. When June came he sent his mother a
flourishing account of himself, but his wife added a
sad-merry postscript as a corrective: —

June 5.

It is quite true that he is done with that illness, and
might have been done with it much sooner if he had treated
himself with ordinary sense. I am surprised that so good and
sensible a woman as yourself should have brought up her son
so badly that he should not know what patience and self-
denial mean — merely observing 'Thou'st gey ill to deal wi'.'
Cfey ill indeed, and always the longer the worse. When he
was ill this last time, he said to Anne (the servant) one
morning, * I should like tea for breakfast this morning, but
you need not hurry.' The fact was, he was purposing to
wash all over with soap and water ; but Anne didn't know
that, and thought he must be dangerously ill, that he should
ever have thought of saying you needn't hurry. ' It was such
an unlikely thing for the master to say, that it quite made
flesh creep.' You see the kind of thing we still go on with.

92 CARLYLKS LIFE IN LONDON.

He had decided on going to Germany in August.
With the exception of the yacht trip to Ostend, he
had never been beyond Paris. Mrs. Carlyle had
never been on the Continent at all; and the plan was
for them to go both together. Repairs were needed
in the house again. He was anxious to complete a
portion of his reading before setting out, and fancied
that this time he could stay and live through the
noise ; but the workmen when they came in were too
much for him. She undertook to remain and super
intend as usual. He had to fly if he would not be
driven mad — fly to Scotland, taking his books with
him ; perhaps to his friend Mr. Erskine.

To Thomas Erskine, Linlathen.

Chelsea : July 12, 1852.

Dear Mr. Erskine, — I foresee that, by stress of weather
and of other evil circumstances, I shall, in spite of my reluc
tance and inertia, be driven out of this shelter of mine —
where I have already fled into the topmost corner with a
few books ; and, aided by a watering-pot, would so gladly
defend myself as at first I hoped to do. The blaze of heat
is almost intolerable to everybody; and alas! we, in addition,
have the house full of workers, armed with planes, saws,
pickaxes, dust-boxes, mortar-hods, the two upper storeys
getting a ' complete repair ' which hitherto fills everything
with noise, dust, confusion, and premonitions of despair. I
foresee, especially if this hot weather holds, that I shall have
to run. My wife, who is architect and factotum, will retire
to some neighbour's house and sleep ; but cannot leave the
ground till she see these two upper storeys made into her
image of them. I have fled into a dressing-room far aloft ;
sit there very busy with certain books, also with watering-
pot, which, all carpets &c. being off, is a great help to me.
Here I would so gladly hold out ; but in spite of wholesome

VISIT TO LINLATHEN. 93

and unwholesome inertias, shall too probably be obliged to
fly. Whitherward ? is now the question, and I am look
ing round on various azimuths to answer the same. Tell
me, if you are, or are likely to be, tolerably solitary for a
ten days at Linlathen, and about what time. A draught
attracts me thither, so as to few other places. But alas ! in
every way there lie lions for me, weak in body and strong in
imagination as I am. It seems sometimes as if, could you
leave me daily six hours strictly private for my German read
ing, and send me down once a day to bathe in your glorious
sea, I could try well not to be sulky company at other hours,
and might do very well beside so friendly a soul as yours is
to me always. Tell me, at any rate, how you are situated,
and regard this pious thought, whether it becomes an action
or not, as proof of my quiet trust in you. Hearty good

wishes to all.

Yours ever truly,

T. CARLYLE.

Erskine, who loved Carlyle and delighted in his
company, responded with a hearty invitation, and on
July 21, the weather still flaming hot, Carlyle dropped
down the river in a boat from Chelsea to the Dundee
steamer, which was lying in the Pool, his wife and
Nero accompanying to see him off. She was de
lighted that he should go, for her own sake as well
as for his. When he was clear off, she could go about
her work with a lighter heart. She writes to tell
John Carlyle of his brother's departure, and goes
on : —

Noise something terrific. In superintending all these
men, I begin to find myself in the career open to my par
ticular talents, and am infinitely more satisfied than I w;is
in talking * wits ' in my white silk gown, with white feathers
in my head, at soirees at Bath House, and all that sort of
thing. It is such a consolation to be of some use, though
it is only in helping stupid carpenters ami bricklayers out

94 CARLYLKS LIFE IN LONDON.

of their impossibilities, &c. ; especially when the ornamental
no longer succeeds with one as well as it has done. The
fact is, I am remarkably indifferent to material annoyances,
considering my morbid sensitiveness to moral ones ; and
when Mr. C. is not here recognising it with his overwhelm
ing eloquence, I can regard the present earthquake as some
thing almost laughable.

He meanwhile was reporting his successful arrival
in Fife.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Linlathen : July 23, 1852.

You and Nero vanishing amid the ships of the Pool
were a wae kind of sight to me in my then and subsequent
condition of imagination. ... I got on very well in the
steamer, was nearly utterly silent, found everybody civil,
and everything tolerably what it should be. The weather
was of the best. That first evening, with the ships all hang
ing in it at the Thames mouth like black shadows on a
ground of crimson, was a sight to make anybody give way
to the picturesque for a few minutes. I passed almost all
my time in reading ; smoked too, and looked with infinite
sorrow, yet not unblessed or angry sorrow, into the continent
of chaos, as is my sad wont on such occasions. I contrived
to get a berth, by good management, where I had a door to
shut upon myself, and a torrent of wind running over me
all night, where accordingly I managed to sleep tolerably well
both nights, and am really better, rather than worse. Give
Nero a crumb of sugar in my name.

July 26.

Thanks, many thanks, for the note I got this morning.
You know not what a crowd of ugly confusions it delivered
me from, or what black webs I was weaving in my chaotic
thoughts while I heard nothing from you here . . . for I am
terribly bilious, though it might be hard to say why ; every
thing is so delightfully kind and appropriate here — weather,
place, people, bedroom, treatment all so much ' better than
I deserve.' But one's imagination is a black smithy of the

VISIT TO LINLATHEN. 95

Cyclops, where strange things are incessantly forged. . . .
The good Thomas and all the rest religiously respect my
six hours, and hitherto I have always got a fair day's work
done. I sit in my big high bedroom, hear nothing but the
sough of woods, have a window flung clean up, go out and
smoke at due intervals, as at home, &c. In fact, I am almost
too well cared for and attended to. The only evil is that
they will keep me in talk. Alas ! how much happier I
should be not talking or talked to ! I require an effort to
get my victuals eaten for talk.

This was too good to last. Carlyle would not
have been Carlyle if he had been even partially con
tented for a week together. The German problem
seemed frightful as the time drew on. Travelling of
all kinds was horrible to him. ' Frederick was no
sufficient inducement to lead him into such sufferings
and expenses.' ' Shall we cower into some nearest
hole,' lie said, ' and leave Germany to the winds? I
am very weary of all locomotion, of all jargon talk
with my indifferent brethren of mankind. " She
said, I am a-weary, a-weary." I am very, very weary,
truly so could I say ; and the Eankes, Varnhagens,
and other gabbling creatures one will meet there are
not very inviting.' Linlathen itself became tedious :
he admitted that all the circumstances were favour
able — the kindest of hosts, the best of lodging ; ' but
the wearisome was in permanence there.' It was
only by keeping as much alone as possible that he
managed to get along. ' Oh, Goody ! ' he cried, ' have
pity on me and be patient with me ; my heart is very
lonely sometimes in this world.' They would make
him talk, that was the offence ; yet it was his own
fault. His talk was so intensely interesting, so in
tensely entertaining. No one who heard him flowin

96 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

on could have guessed at the sadness which weighed
upon him when alone. Those bursts of humour,
flashing out amidst his wild flights of rhetoric, spoke
of anything but sadness ; even the servants at places
where he dined had to run out of the room, choking
down their laughter. The comic and the tragic lie
close together, inseparable like light and shadow, as
Socrates long ago forced Aristophanes himself to
acknowledge. He escaped to Scotsbrig after a fort
night with the Erskines, and there he hoped his wife
would join him. But the work at Cheyne Row
lingered on, and was far from completion. He felt
that he ought to go to Germany ; yet he was un
willing to leave her behind him. She had looked
forward with some eagerness to seeing a foreign
country, and Carlyle knew it. ' You surely deserve
this one little pleasure,' he said ; ' there are so few you
can get from me in this world.' To himself it would
be no pleasure at all. ' Curtainless beds, noisy, sleep
less nights ' were frightful to contemplate. He, in
dividually, was ' disheartened, dyspeptical, contemp
tible in some degree ; ' still, for her sake, and for the
little bit of duty he could get done, he was ready to
encounter the thing. Especially he wished her to
come to him at Scotsbrig. She had held aloof of
late years, since things had gone awry. c My poor
old mother,' he wrote, ' comes in with her sincere,
anxious old face : " Send my love to Jane, and tell
her " (this with a wae-ish tone) " I would like right
weel to have a crack 1 wi' her ance mair."

Mrs. Carlyle was still unable to come away from
Chelsea, but she was alarmed at the extreme depres-

1 Crack, conversation*

TO GO TO GERMANY OR NOT? 97

sion of his letters. He reassured her as well as he
could.

August 12.

Don't bother yourself (he said) about my health and
spirits. That is not worse at all than usual ; nay, rather it
is better, especially to-day, after a capital sleep — my best
for six weeks ; nor is the gloom in my mind a whit increased.
It is the nature of the beast ; and he lives in a continual
element of black, broken by lightnings, and cannot help it,
poor devil !

He concluded that he must go to Germany. She,
if things were well, might come out afterwards, and
join him in Silesia. He found that ' he did not care
much for Frederick after all ; ' but ' it would be dis
graceful to be beaten by mere travelling annoyances.'

My own private perception (he said, a few days later) is
that I shall have to go — that I shall actually be shovelled
out to-morrow week into a Leith steamer for Rotterdam, a
result which I shudder at, but see not how to avoid with the
least remnant of honour. I wait, however, for your next
letter, and the candid description of your own capabilities
to join me, especially the when of that ; and, on the whole,
am one ' coal of burning sulphur ' — one heap, that is to say,
of chaotic miseries, horrors, sorrows, and imbecilities, actually
rather a contemptible man. But the ass does swim, I some
times say, if you fling him fairly into the river, though he
brays lamentably at being flung. Oh, my Goody ! my own,
or not my own, Goody ! is there no help at all, then ?

Letter followed letter, in the same strain. It was
not jest, it was not earnest ; it was a mere wilfulness
of humour. He told her not to mind what he said ;
' it was the mere grumbling incidental to dyspepsia
and the load of life. It was, on the whole, the nature
of the beast, and was to be put up with, as the wind
and the rain.' She had to decide, perhaps prudently,

iv.

98 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

that she could not go, either with him or after him.
' The wind and the rain,' with the aggravation of
travelling, would probably rise to a height. He him
self was heartily disappointed. ' I do grudge,' he
said, ' to go to Germany without you, and feel as if
half the scheme were gone on that account.' He was
a little ashamed, too. It was harvest-time at Scots-
brig, and men and women were all busy with the
shearing.

These rugged Annandale shearers (he said) ought to
put a Kopfhdnger like me to shame. In Grermany, whether
I slept or not, the odious captivity to indolence, incompe
tence, and do-nothingism which encircles me at present
would be cast off at least. Life anywhere will swallow a man,
unless he rise and vigorously try to swallow it.

He gathered himself together for the effort. On
August 25 he wrote : —

Last night I slept much better, and, indeed, except utter
dispiritment and indolent confusion, there is nothing essen
tial that ails me. ' Jist plain mental awgony in my ain in
side,' that is all ; which I can in a great manner cure when
ever I like to rise and put my finger in the pipie o' t.

And on the 27th :—

Yesternight, before sunset, I walked solitary to Stock-
bridge hill top, the loneliest road in all Britain, where you
go and come some three miles without meeting a human
soul. Strange, earnest light lay upon the mountain-tops all
round, strange clearness ; solitude as if personified upon the
near bare hills, a silence everywhere as if premonitory of the
grand eternal one. I took out your letters and read them
over again, but I did not get much exhilaration there either.
On the whole, I was very sore of heart, and pitied my poor
Jeannie heartily for all she suffers ; some of it that I can mend
and will ; some that I cannot so well, and can only try. God
bless thee ever dear Jeannie ! that is my heart's prayer, go
where I may, do or suffer what I may.

SAILS FOR ROTTERDAM. 99

All this came from his heart, and she knew it
well. She never doubted his heart ; but, in the midst
of his emotions, he had forgotten his passport, and had
to instruct her to go with the utmost haste to the
proper quarters to procure one, and she would have
desired him to feel less and to consider more.

It is much to be wished (she wrote to his brother) that
Mr. C. could learn not to leave everything to the last mo
ment, throwing everybody about him, as well as himself,
into the most needless flurry. I am made quite ill with that
passport ; had to gallop about in street-cabs by the hour,
like a madwoman, and lost two whole nights' sleep in conse
quence — the first from anxiety, the second from fatigue.

All was settled at last — resolution, passport, and
everything else that was required ; and on Sunday,
August 30, Carlyle found himself ' on board the greasy
little wretch of a Leith steamer, laden to the water's
edge with pig-iron and herrings,' bound for the country
whose writers had been the guides of his mind, and
whose military hero was to be the subject of his own
greatest work. He reached Eotterdam at noon on
September 1. He was not to encounter the journey
alone. Mr. Neuberg was to join him there, a German
admirer, a gentleman of good private fortune, resi
dent in London, who had volunteered his services to
conduct Carlyle over the Fatherland, and afterwards
to be his faithful assistant in the ' Frederick ' bio
graphy. In both capacities Neuberg was invalu
able, and Carlyle never forgot his obligation to him.
His letters are the diary of his adventures. They
are extremely long, and selections only can be given
here. He went first to Bonn, to study a few books
lie fore going farther.

H 2

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle, Chelsea.

Bonn : Sunday, September 6, 1852.

Thank thee very much, dear Jeannie, for the letter of
yesterday, which lay waiting to refresh me in the afternoon
when I returned from my dusty labours in the library here.
It seemed to me the kindest I had got from you this long
while, almost like the old ones I used to get ; and any letter
at all, so anxious and impatient had I grown, would have
been right welcome. My journey has had nothing that was
not pleasant and lucky hitherto. At Bonn here, on my
arrival, there lay nothing for me except a note from Lady
Ashburton, enclosing the introduction from Lord A. to the
Ambassador at Berlin — not a first- rate comfort to me. I
must, or should, acknowledge it to-day ; but writing of all
kinds in these sad biliary circumstances, with half-blind eyes,
and stooping over low rickety tables, is perfectly unpleasant
to me. . . . Well, but let me say I got beautifully up the
Rhine ; stuck by the river all day, all night, and the second
afternoon found Neuberg waiting here on the beach for me.
Alas ! at Eotterdam I had slept simply none at all, such was
the force of noisy nocturnal travellers, neighbours snoring,
and the most industrious cocks I ever heard. The custom
house officers, too, had spoilt the lock of my portmanteau,
and, on the whole, I was in such a whirl of storm-tost flurries
and confusions — God help me, wretched, thin-skinned mortal
that I am ! At five a.m. next morning I was in a precious
humour to rise, and settle with unintelligible waiters and
German steamboat clerks, and get myself, on any terms, on
board. On board I got, however, and the place proved in
finitely better than I hoped; some approach to Christian
food to be had in it, some real sleep even ; indeed, the prin
cipal sleep I have yet had since Friday gone a week was four
hours, and again four hours, deep, deep, lying on the cabin
sofas, amid the general noises, in that respectable vessel. I
spoke German too, being the one Englishman on board,
made agreeable acquaintances, &c. &c. The Ehine, of a
vile reddish-drab colour, and all cut into a reticulary work

AT BONN. ioi

of branches, flowing through an absolutely flat country,
lower than itself, was far from beautiful about Rotterdam, and
for a fifty miles higher, but it was highly curious, and worth
seeing once in a way ; a country covered with willows, bul
rushes, and rich woods, kept from drowning by windmill
pumps. One looked with astonishment upon it, and with
admiration at the invincible industry of man. Higher up
(towards four p.m. of the first day) the river gets decidedly
agreeable; and about Cologne, twenty miles below this, a
beautiful mountain group, Sieben Gebirge, the Seven Hills,
which are still some five or seven miles beyond us here, an
nounces that the ' picturesque ' is just going to enter on the
scene. Much good may it do us ! We had beautiful
weather all the way, and yet have. But surely the most
picturesque of all objects was that of Neuberg, standing on
the beach here to take me out of all that puddle of foreign
things, and put me down, as I hoped, in some place where I
might sleep and do nothing else for several days to come.

Neuberg's kindness nothing can exceed ; but as to the
rest of it, as to sleep in particular, I find the hope to have
been somewhat premature. Oh heavens ! I wonder if the
Devil anywhere ever contrived such beds and bedrooms as
these same are. And two cocks are industrious day and
night tinder the back window, &c. &c. But, upon the whole,
I have slept every night here more or less, and am decidedly
learning to do it ; and Neuberg asserts that I shall become
expert by-and-by.

Yesterday, as my first day's work, I went to the Univer
sity Library here ; found very many good books unknown
to me hitherto on Vater Fritz ; took down the titles of what
on inspection promised to be useful ; brought home some
twenty away with me, and the plan at present is that N.
and I shall go with them to a rural place in the Siebeu
Gebirge, called Eoland's Eck, for one week, where sleep is
much more possible, and there examine my twenty books
before going farther, and consider what is the best to be
done farther.

102 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

September 9.

A letter from my Jeannie will surely be one of the joy-
fullest occurrences that can befall me in these strange,
sleepless, nervous, indescribable foreign parts. Oh, my
own dear little soul, would to God I were in our own little
cabin again, even in sooty London, since not under the free
sky anywhere ! That would be such a blessing ; and it
seems to me I shall be rather unwilling to get upon the
road again were I once fairly home.

Last Sunday when I ended we were just going to
Roland's Eck, a terrestrial Paradise and water-cure which
Neuberg and the world recommended as every way eligible.
Well, the little journey took effect, though under difficulties
and mismanagements. But the ' place ' ! It was beautiful
exceedingly ; but it was as little like sleeping in as
Cremorne Gardens might be, and I turned back from it
with horror. Home again, therefore, in the cool dusk, and
next day trial of a small, sequestered village called Hunef,
at the foot of the Sieben Gebirge, on the other side of the
river, where N. went to seek a lodging for me in which
human sleep might be possible. Not entirely to distress
the good N., I consented, though with shuddering reluc
tance, to try one of his eligiblest places, and accordingly I
packed on the morrow and proceeded thither to take posses
sion. What a nice long letter I proposed to write to my
poor Goody out of that strange place, the heart of a real
German Dorflein in the lap of the hills, when once I should
have had a night's sleep ! Neuberg waited in the inn till
next morning to see how I should do. Ach Gott! of all the
places ever discovered, even in Germany, that Hundehof
surely was the most intolerable for noise. A bed, as every
where in Germany, more like a butcher's tray or a big
washing-tub than a bed, with pillows shaped like a wedge
three feet broad, and a deep pit in the middle of the body,
without vestige of curtains, the very windows curtainless,
and needing to be kept wide open — for there is no fire-place
or other hole at all — if you will have any air. There you
will have to sleep or die, go where you will in this country.

AT BONN. 103

Then for noise — loud gossip in the street till towards mid
night, tremendous peals of bells from the village church
(which seems to have been some cathedral, such force of
bells is in it), close by one's head, watchman's horn of the
loudness and tone of a jackass, and a general Sanhedrim
apparently of all the cats and dogs of nature. That was my
Nachtlager on the night of Tuesday, when, nevertheless, I
did get about three hours' sleep, did greatly admire and
esteem the good-natured, faithful ways of the poor villagers,
smoked two or three times out of my window, and, on the
whole, was not so unhappy at all, and had thoughts of my
loved ones far away which were pious rather than otherwise.

Neuberg, at the meeting on the morrow, agreed that we
must instantly get off towards Homburg, perhaps towards
Nassau, Ems, &c., but always ultimately through Frankfurt.
At Homburg, if at no other of these places, a week's quiet
reading might be possible, and he could send the books
back to Bonn. ... So stands it, then : to-morrow at
eight we sail, pass Coblentz towards Frankfurt. One can
get out and stay where one likes.

Some professors have come athwart me -none that I could
avoid — ' miserable creatures lost in statistics.' Old Arndt, a
sturdy old fellow of eighty-three, with open face, loud voice,
and the liveliest hazel eyes, is the only one I got even momen
tary good of. To non cerco nessuno, and find Gelehrten in
particular less and less charming to me. The river is grand
and broad, the country rather picturesque and very fertile
and pleasant, though the worst-cultivated in creation, a
Lothian farmer would say ; the people sonsie, industrious, in
their stupid way, and agreeable to look on, though tending
towards ugliness. Tobacco perpetually burning everywhere.
Many Jews abroad. Travellers, if not English, are apt to be
rich Jews, with their Jewesses, I think. Neuberg is not
bright, but full of kindness and solid sense. Let not my
poor Goody fret herself about me. I am really wonderfully
well, in spite of these outer tribulations and dog concerts,
and doubt not I shall do my journey without damage if I
take care.

io4 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Homburg : September 15.

We did get out of Bonn fairly on Friday morning. At
first wettish, but which dried and brightened by degrees.
... Of the Ehine you shall hear enough by-and-by. It is
verily a * noble river,' much broader than the Thames at full
tide, and rolling along many feet in depth, with banks quite
trim, at a rate of four or five miles an hour, without voice,
but full of boiling eddies, the most magnificent image of
silent power I have seen ; and, in fact, one's first idea of a
world-river. This broad, swift sheet, rolling strong and
calm in silent rage for three or four hundred miles, is itself
far the grandest thing I have seen here or shall likely see.
But enough of it. Neuberg and I got out at Coblentz that
Friday about 2 p.m., and, by N.'s suggestion, put ourselves
in the coupe of aii Ems omnibus — Bad Ems, ten miles
off, up a side valley, east side, there to try for a quiet
sleeping-place and day for excerpting German books ; which
really answered well. Ems is the strangest place you ever
saw — Matlock ; but a far steeper set of rocks close to rear ;
in front a river equal to Nith ; and half a mile of the
brightest part of Kue de Eivoli (say Eegent's Quadrant) set
into it ; a place as from the opera direct, and inhabited by
devil's servants chiefly. Of it enough in winter evenings
that are coming. We got the quietest lodging perhaps in
Germany (not very quiet either), at the farther end of the
place ; and there, in spite of cocks, I got one night's sleep
and two half-ones, and did all my bits of books, and shall
not undertake any similar job while here. Better buy the
books in general and bring them home to read. At Ems we
saw Eussians gambling every evening ; heard music by the
riverside among fantastic promenades and Eegent's Quadrant
edifices, and devil's-servant people every evening, every
morning. Saw a dance,' too, unforgetable by man ; in fine,
drove in cheap cuddy vehicle on Sunday evening up to
Nassau (Burg Nassau, the birthplace of William the Silent
and other heroes). A kind of pious pilgrimage which I am
glad to have done. At the top of the high tower, on a high,
woody hill, one has of course a « view ' not worth much to

FRANKFURT. 105

me. But I entered my name in their album, and plucked
that one particle of flower on the tip top of all, which I now
send to thee. Next morning we left Ems, joined our steam
boat at Coblentz, and away again to the sublime portions of
the Ehine country : very sublime indeed, really worth a
sight. Say a hundred miles of a Loch Lomond, or half Loch
Lomond, all rushing on at five miles an hour, and with
queer old towers and ruined castles on the banks ; a grand
silence, too, and grey day adding to one's sadness of mood ;
for ' a fine sorrow,' not coarse, is the utmost I can bring it
to in this world usually. Beyond Coblentz our boat was too
crowded ; nasty people several of them, French mainly ;
stupid and polite, English mainly. There was a sprinkling
of Irish, too, * looking at the vine-clad hills,' as I heard
them lilting and saying.

Neuberg guided and guides, and does for me as only a
third power of courier reinforced by loyalty and friendship
could. Bless him ! the good and sensible but wearisome
and rather heavy man ! At Maintz at dusk it was decidedly
pleasant to get out and have done with the Ehine, which
had now grown quite flat on either side, and full of islands
with willows, not to speak of chained (anchored) cornmills,
&c. Maintz and Faust of Maintz we had to survey by cat's-
light — good enough for us and it, I fancy. In fine, about
ten the railway, twenty miles or so, brought us to Frankfurt,
and the wearied human tabernacle, in well-waxed wainscoted
upper apartments in the t Deutscher Hof,' prepared itself to
court repose ; not with the best prospects, for the street or
square was still rattling with vehicles, and indeed continued
to do so, and we left it rattling. Of the night's sleep we
had as well say nothing. I remembered Goody and the
Malvern inn gate, and endeavoured to possess my soul in
patience. In shaving next morning, with my face to the
Square, which was very lively, and had trees in the middle,
I caught, with the corner of my eye, sight of a face which
was evidently Goethe's. Ach Gott! merely in stone, in the
middle of the Platz among the trees. I had so longed to
see that face alive ; and here it was given to me at last, as if

io6 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

with huge world irony, in stone, an emblem of so much that
happens. This also gave me a moment's genial sorrow, or
something of that sort.

From Bonn I had written to Mephisto M at Weimar.

Behold, one of the first faces the morning offered me at Frank
furt was that of M himself, who had come in person to

meet us the night before, and had been at the Post Office
and all inns, the friendly ugly little man ! He was quite
desolate to hear I could not stop at Weimar or any place
beyond one day for want of sleep. He went about with us
everywhere, and at first threatened to be rather a burden;
but by degrees grew to be manageable and rather useful, till
we dined together and parted on our own several routes. He
is gone round by Wiirzburg, &c., to Weimar, and is to
expect us there about Saturday. His Grand Duke and
Duchess are in Italy. Eckermann himself is at Berlin — one
day may very well suffice in Berlin.

At Frankfurt yesterday after breakfast we saw — weariedly
I — all manner of things. Goethe's house — were in Goethe's
room, a little garret not much bigger than my dressing-room
— and wrote our names ' in silence.' The Judengasse,
grimmest section of the Middle Ages and their pariahood I
ever saw. The Eomer where old Kaisers were all elected.
On the whole a stirring, strange, old Teutonic town, all bright
with paint and busy trade. The fair still going on under its
booths of small trash in some squares. Finally we mounted
to the top of the Pfarrkirche steeple — oldest church, highest

steeple — 318 steps, and then M called for and got a

bottle of beer, being giddy, poor soul ! and we aided in
drinking the same (I to a cigar) and composedly surveying
Frankfurt city and the interior parts of Germany as far as
possible. At 5 p.m. Neuberg put me into an omnibus — vile
crowded airless place — and in two hours brought me here
in quest of an old lodging he had had, * the quietest in the
world,' where we were, lucky enough to find a floor unoccupied,
and still are, for at least one other day. As I said, my
book-excerpting, taliter qualiter, is as good as done ; and the
place is really quite rustic, out at the very end of Homburg,

HO M BURG. 107

and that by narrow lanes. I see nothing here but fields,
and hear nothing but our own internal noises. Last night
accordingly I expected sleep. Alas ! our upper floor lodgers
took ill— Devil mend them !— and my sleep was nothing to
crack of. In fact I have renounced the hope of getting any
considerable sleep in Germany. I shall snatch nightly,
it may be hoped, a few hours, half a portion, out of the
black dog's throat ; and let every disturbance warn me more
and more to be swift in my motions, to restrict myself to the
indispensable, and to hurry home, there to sleep. I calculate
there will but little good come to me from this journey.
Heading of books I find to be impossible. The thing that I
can do is to see certain places and to see if I can gather
certain books. Wise people also to talk with, or inquire of,
I as good as despair of seeing. All Germans, one becomes
convinced, are not wise ! On the whole, however, one cannot
but like this honest-hearted hardy population, very coarse of
feature for most part, yet seldom radically hdsslich ; a sonsie
look rather : and very frugal, good-humouredly poor in their
way of life.

Of Homburg proper — which is quite out of sight and
hearing, yet within five minutes' walk — N. and I took survey
last night. A public set of rooms — Kursaal they call such
things, finer than some palaces, all supported by gambling,
all built by one French gambling entrepreneur, and such a
set of damnable faces — French, Italian, and Eussian, with
dull English in quantities — as were never seen out of Hell
before ! Augh ! It is enough to make one turn cannibal. An
old Eussian countess yesternight sat playing Gowpanfuls
of gold pieces every stake, a figure I shall never forget in
this world. One of the first I saw risking coin at an outer

table was Lord almost a beauty here, to whom I did not

speak. Afterwards in music-room — also the gambling entre
preneur's, as indeed everything here is — the poor old Duke
of Augustenburg hove in sight. On him I ought to call if
I can find spirits. Oh, what a place for human creatures
to flock to ! Och ! Och ! The taste of the waters is nasty,
Seltzer, but stronger — as Ems is too, only hot. On the whole,

io8 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

if this is the last of German Badeorter I ever see, I shall
console myself.

The next letter is to his mother dated from Wei
mar, September 19. She, he well knew, if she cared
for nothing else, would care to hear about the Luther
localities. She had a picture of Luther in her room
at Scotsbrig. He was her chief Saint in the Christian
calendar. After describing briefly the early part of
his journey as far as Homburg, which he calls the
' rallying-place of such a set of empty blackguards as
are not to be found elsewhere in the world,' he tells
how on his way to Cassel he stopped at Marburg, 'a
strange, most ancient town, famed for some of Luther's
operations and for being the Landgraf Philip of Hesse's
place of residence.' He continues :—

The Landgraf s high old castle, where we loitered a couple
of hours, is now a correction-house filled with criminals and
soldiers. The chamber of conference between Luther,
Zwingli, &c., is used for keeping hay. The next morning
brought us from Cassel to Eisenach, with its \\rartburg, where
Luther lay concealed translating the Bible ; and there I
spent one of the most interesting forenoons I ever got by
travelling. Eisenach is about as big as Dumfries, a very old
town but well whitewashed, all built of brick and oak with
red tile roofs of amazing steepness and several grim old swag-
bellied steeples and churches and palatial residences rising
conspicuous over them. It stands on a perfect plain by the
side of a little river, plain smaller than Langholm and
surrounded by hills which are not so high, yet of a some
what similar character, and are all grassy and many of them
thickly wooded. Directly on the south side of it there rises
one hill, somewhat as Lockerbie hill is in height and position,
but clothed with trim rich woods ; all the way through which
wind paths with prospect houses, &c. On the top of the hill
stands the old Wartburg, which it takes you three-quarters of

THE CASTLE AT WARTBURG. 109

an hour to reach ; an old castle — Watch Castle is the name
of it — near 800 years old, where there is still a kind of garrison
kept, perhaps twenty men ; though it does not much look
like a fortress ; what one sees from below being mainly two
monstrous old houses, so to speak, with enormous roofs to
them, comparable to two gigantic peat stacks set somewhat
apart. There are other lower buildings that connect these
when one gets up. There is also of course a wall all round
— a donjon tower, standing like Eepentance ' — and the Duke
of Weimar, to whom the place belongs, is engaged in restora
tions, &c., and has many masons employed on it just now. I
heeded little of all they had to show, except Junker Georg's 2
chamber, which is in the nearest of the peat stacks, the one
nearest Eisenach and close by the gate when you enter on
your right hand. A short stair of old worn stone conducts
you up. They open a door, you enter a little apartment, less
than your best room at Scotsbrig, I almost think less than
your smallest, a very poor low room with an old leaded lattice
window ; to me the most venerable of all rooms I ever entered.
Luther's old oak table is there, about three feet square,
and a huge fossil bone — vertebra of a mammoth — which
served him for footstool. Nothing else now in the room did
certainly belong to him ; but these did. I kissed his old oak
table, looked out of his window — making them open it for
me — down the sheer castle wall into deep chasms, over
the great ranges of silent woody mountains, and thought to
myself, * Here once lived for a time one of God's soldiers.
Be honour given him ! ' Luther's father and mother, painted
by Cranach, are here — excellent old portraits — the father's
with a dash of thrift, contention, and worldly wisdom in his old
judicious, peasant countenance, the mother particularly pious,
kind, true, and motherly — a noble old peasant woman.
There is also Luther's self by the same Cranach ; a picture
infinitely superior to what your lithograph would give a
notion of; a bold effectual-looking rustic man, with brown

1 The Tower of llepentance on Iloddam Hill. Carlyle ill
throughout from localities near Ecclefechan which his mother would know.

2 The name under which Luther passed when concealed there.

no CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

eyes and skin ; with a dash of peaceable self-confidence and
healthy defiance in the look of him. In fact one is called to
forget the engraving in looking at this ; and indeed I have
since found the engraving is not from this, but from another
Cranach, to which also it has no tolerable resemblance. But
I must say no more of the Wartburg. We saw the place on
the plaster where he threw his inkstand — the plaster is all cut
out and carried off by visitors — saw the outer staircase which
is close by the door where he speaks of often hearing the
Devil make noises. Poor and noble Luther ! I shall never
forget this Wartburg, and am right glad I saw it.

That afternoon, there being no train convenient, we drove
to G-otha in a kind of clatch— two-horsed— very cheap in
these parts ; a bright beautiful country and a bonny little
town; belongs to Prince Albert's brother, more power to
his elbow ! There we lodged in sumptuous rooms in an old
quiet inn; the very rooms where Napoleon lodged after
being beaten at Leipzig. It seems I slept last night where
he breakfasted, if that would do much for me. At noon we
came off to Erfurt, a place of 30,000 inhabitants, and now a
Prussian fortified town, all intersected with ditches of water
for defence' sake. Streets very crooked, very narrow, houses
with old overhanging walls, and still the very room in it
where Martin Luther lived when a monk, and, one guide
book said, the very Bible he found in the Convent library
and read in this cell. This of the Bible proved wrong.
Luther's particular Bible is not here, but is said to be at
Berlin. Nothing really of Luther's there except the poor
old latticed window glazed in lead, the main panes round,
and about the size of a biggish snap, all bound together by
whirligig intervals. It looks out to the west, over mere
old cloistered courts and roof-tops against a church steeple,
and is itself in the second storey. Except this and Luther's
old inkstand, a poor old oaken boxie with inkbottle and sand-
case in it now hardly sticking together, there is nothing to
be seen here that actually belonged to Luther. The walls
are all covered over with texts, &c., in painted letters by a
later hand. The ceiling also is ornamentally painted ; and

PORTRAITS OF LUTHER.

indeed the place is all altered now, and turned long ago into
an orphan asylum, much of the old building gone and
replaced by a new of a different figure. On one wall of the
room, however, is again a portrait of Luther by Cranach, and
this I found on inspection was the one your engravers had
been vainly aiming at. Vainly, for this too is a noble face ;
the eyes not turned up in hypocritical devotion, but looking
out in profound sorrow and determination, the lips too
gathered in stern but affectionate firmness. He is in russet
yellow boots, and the collar of his shirt is small and edged
with black.

So far about Luther. Though writing1 from

D O

Weimar, he was less minute in his account of the
relics of Goethe.

To Jane, Welsh Carlyle.

Weimar : September 20, 1852.

Last night I sat long, till everything was quiet, in this
Gasthof zum Erbprinz, writing to my mother all about
Luther's localities. Those of to-day belong especially to you.
I write within half a gun-shot of the Groethe'sche Haus and
of the Schiller'sche. Our own early days are intertwined in
a kind of pathetic manner with these two. At Homburg
we had a quieter time than could have been expected _ we
stayed out our two days and three nights under tolerable
circumstances. I finished my books and saw the Schloss
where are many interesting portraits, and a whole lot of books
about Frederick, to the whole of which I might have had
access without difficulty had it been my cue to stay, which
it was not. I also saw the Augustenburgs, and spent an
interesting hour with the good Duchess and her two sons
and two daughters ; in a very Babylonish condition as to
languages, but otherwise quite pleasant and luminous. The
old gentleman sat mostly silent, but looking genial ; the
Duchess, whose French seemed bad, and whose German was
not clear to me, is a fine broad motherly woman. The
girls, with their stiff English, were beautiful, clear-eyed, fair-

ii2 CARLYLE'S LIFE I AT LONDON.

skinned creatures, and happy in spite of their exile ; the
sons ditto ditto. It was here that I first heard of Wellington's
death, the night before we came away. Cassel is a large,
dull town, and there, in the best inn, was such an arrange
ment for sleeping as — Ach Himmel! I shall not forget those
cow-horns and ' Horet ihr Herren ' in a hurry. It was a
night productive of * pangs which were rather exquisite,' and
nevertheless, some three hours of sleep on which one could
proceed and say, ' It will not come back.' I had also the
pleasure to see that Hassenpflug's— the tyrannous, traitorous
court minion's — windows were broken as we drove past in the
morning towards Eisenach, where again we halt for Luther's
and the Wartburg's sake. Of all that you shall hear enough
by-and-by — it was a real gain to me. I could not without
worship look out of Luther's indubitable window, down into
the sheer abysses over the castle wall, and far and wide out
upon the woody multitude of hills; and reflect that here
was authentically a kind of great man and a kind of holy
place, if there were any such. In my torn-up, sick, exas
perated humour I could have cried, but didn't. . . . Weimar
— a little, bright enough place, smaller than Dumfries, with
three steeples and totally without smoke — stands amid dull,
undulating country ; flat mostly, and tending towards ugli
ness, except for trees. We were glad to get to the inn, by
the worst and slowest of clatches, and there procure some

chuck of dinner. Poor M had engaged me the ' quietest

rooms in Germany,' ricketty, bare, crazy rooms, and with a
noisy man snoring on the other side of the deal partition — yet
really quiet in comparison, where I did sleep last night and

hope to do this. M truly has been unwearied, would

take me into Heaven if it depended on him. Good soul !
I really am a little grateful, hard as my heart is ; and ought
to be ashamed that I am not more. Neuberg too — veritably
he is better than six couriers, and is a friend over and above.
People are very good to me.

Goethe's house, which was opened by favour, kept us
occupied in a strange mood for two hours or more. Schiller's
for one ditto. Everybody knows the Goethe'sche Haus ; and

GOETHE'S HOUSE AT WEIMAR. 113

poor Schiller and Goethe here are dandled about and multi
plied in miserable little bustkins and other dilettantisms,
till one is sick and sad. G.'s house is quite like the picture,
but one-third smaller ; on the whole his effective lodging I
found was small, low- roofed, and almost mean, to what I had
conceived ; hardly equal — nay, not at all equal, had my little
architect once done her work — to my own at Chelsea. On
the book- shelves I found the last book I ever sent Goethe —
Taylor's * Survey of German Poetry ' ; and a crumb of paper
torn from some scroll of my own (Johnson, as I conjectured),
still sticking in, after twenty years. Schiller's house was still
more affecting ; the room where he wrote, his old table,
exactly like the model, the bed where he died, and a portrait
of his dead face in it. A poor man's house, and a brave, who
had fallen at his post there. Eheu ! Eheu ! what a world !

I have since dined at M 's with two Weimarese moderns.

One of them is librarian here, of whom I shall get some use.
But, oh Heavens ! would that I were at home again. Want
of sleep and ' raal mental awgony i' my ain inside,' do hold
me in such pickle always. Quick, quick, and let us get it
done!

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Xieder liathen, near Dresden :
September 25, 1852.

I wrote to you from Weimar some five days ago, and
therefore there is nothing pressing me at present to write ;
but, having a quiet hour here by the side of the Elbe river,
at the foot of wild rock mountains in the queerest region
you ever saw, I throw you another word, not knowing when
I may have another chance as good. I am on the second
floor in a little German country inn literally washed by the
Elbe, which is lying in the moonshine as clear as a mirror
and as silent. Right above us is a high peak called the
Bastei, a kind of thing you are obliged to do. This we have
done, and are to go to-morrow towards Frederick's first
battle-field in the Seven Years' War ; after which, the second
day, if all go well, will bring us into Berlin. We came by
an Elbe steamer, go on to-morrow by another steamer,
iv. I

ii4 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

then by railway; and hope to see, though, alas ! in quite con
fused circumstances and to little advantage, some of the
actual footsteps of Father Fritz; for here too, amid these
rocks, as well as farther on at Lobositz, he did feats. But
let me tell in order, and take up my story where I left it.
The day after I wrote we were to leave Weimar ; but lo,

in the morning while we sat at breakfast, little M came

in, looking highly animated, with letters from the Schloss,
from the « Grand Duchess,' from the, &c. In short, the
said Grand Duchess— sister of the Czar Nicholas, and mother
of the Duke, who was at Chelsea — had seen in the newspapers
that one ' Carlyle ' was among the arrivals. Could this be the
beruhmte, &c., in which case naturally he and his com
panion must come to dinner ; and of course there could be
no travelling that day. Well, we did go to dinner, saw how they
ackit ; a rather troublesome dramatic affair, of which you
shall have full description when I return. Enough, it was
very sublime, and altogether heartless, and even dull and
dreary ; but well worth doing for once. The Grand Duchess
is towards sixty, slightly deaf, and has once been extremely
pretty, though hard always as nails or diamonds. Her
husband, a kind of imbecile man they say, looks extremely
like a gentleman, and has an air of solemn serene vacuity,
which is itself almost royal. I had to sit by the Duchess at
dinner — three p.m. to five — and maintain with energy a
singularly empty intellectual colloquy, in French chiefly, in
English and in German. The lady being half-deaf withal,
you may think how charming it was. She has a thin croaky
voice ; brow and chin recede ; eyes are blue, small, and of the
brightness and hardness of precious stones. Ach Gott ! At
last we got away, soon after five, and I for one was right
charmed to think here is one thing done. But it must be
owned the honour done me was to be recognised ; and I was
very glad to oblige poor Neuberg too by a touch of Court
life which he would not otherwise have seen.

At Leipzig all was raging business, the fair being in
hand ; noisy and busy almost as Cheapside, London. Lots
of dim haberdashery, leather without end, and all things

LEIPZIG AND DRESDEN. 115

rolling about in noisy waggons with miniature wheels. To
get any sleep at all was a kind of miracle. However, we did
tolerably well, got even a book or two of the list I had formed,
drank a glass of wine — one only in Auerbachs Keller — and
at last got safe to Dresden, eighty miles off, which was a
mighty deliverance, as from the tumult of Cheapside into
the solitude of Bath, or the New Town of Edinburgh — a very
interesting old capital where, if sleep had been attainable, I
could have stayed a week with advantage. But, alas ! it was
not ; so I had to plunge along and save, as from a conflagra
tion, what little I could of my possibilities ; and at length,
with gratitude to Heaven, to get away into the steamer this
afternoon and bid adieu to Dresden and its Japan and other
palaces. . . . For Berlin, if it be not all the noisier, I design
at least a week ; in ten days hence I may be far on my way
homeward again. ... A tap-room with some twenty rustic
gents (they did not go till after midnight, the scamps) enjoy
ing cards, beer, and bad cigars for the last hour or two, seems
to have winded itself up, and things are growing stone quiet
in this establishment. I must now address myself to the task
of falling asleep. We go to-morrow at nine. Lobositz (in
Bohemia), Zittau (Lusatia), Frankfurt an der Oder — Berlin
—that is the projected route, but liable to revisal.

Mrs. Carlyle was still in Chelsea with her work
men all this time. It had been a trying summer to
her. But she had the comfort of knowing that her
husband was achieving the part of the business which
had fallen to his share, better than might have been
looked for. She writes to her brother-in-law, John : —

Mr. C. seems to be getting very successfully through his
travels, thanks to the patience and helpfulness of Neuberg.
He makes in every letter frightful misereres over his sleeping
accommodations ; but he cannot conceal that he is really
pretty well, and gets sleep enough to go on with, more or
less pleasantly. I wonder what he would have made of my
sleeping accommodations during the last three months.

r -2

n6 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Bad Toplitz, September 27.

No opportunity of posting the above ; so I tear it open
again and add a few words. We have had a sore pilgrimage
these last two days since I ended the other page ; a small
space to go over, but by confused Bohemian conveyances amid
the half-savage Bohemian populations, with their fleas, their
dirt, and above all their noises. However, we have partly man
aged the thing, and are got into beautiful quarters again ; a
romantic mountain watering-place, with the sun still bright
upon it ; and everybody of Bath kind gone away. Here or
nowhere I ought to find some sleep, and then Berlin is full
before us, and after Berlin, home, home ! We have actually
seen Lobositz, the first battle-field of Fritz in the Seven
Years' War ; and walked over it all this morning before break
fast, under the guidance of a Christian native, checked by
my best memory of reading and maps, and found it do toler
ably well. In fact, oh Groody dear, I have seen many curious
and pleasant things, I ought to say — and will say at great
length when we are by our own fireside together again.
Neuberg is strong; one of the friendliest, handiest, most
patient of men.

Berlin, October 1, 1852.
[British. Hotel, Unter den Linden.]

Here you see we are at the summit of these wanderings,
from which I hope there is for me a swift perpendicular
return before long ; not a slow parabolic one as the ascent has
been. We came twenty-four hours ago, latish last night,
from Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, from the field of Kunersdorf (a
dreadful scraggy village where Fritz received his worst de
feat), and various toils and strapazen ; very weary, in a damp
kind of night, and took shelter in the readiest inn, from
which we have just removed to this better, at least far grander,
one ; where perhaps there are beds one can sleep in, and the
butter is not bitter. Alas ! such sorrows attend the wayfarer,
and his first refuge is to sit down and write, if haply he have
anyone to whom his writing will give a feeling of pity for

HERRNHUT. 117

him. . . . Oh, I do wish these sleepless, joyless, sad and
weary wanderings were at an end, as by Heaven's help they
now soon shall be. And you too, poor little weary soul !
You are quite worn out with that accursed ' thorough repair.'
Would to Heaven we had never thought of it ; but lived in
the old black house we had, where at least was no noise of
carpenters to drive one mad, no stink of paint to poison one.
Driven out of the house again, and sleeping solitary in a little
lodging ! I declare it makes me quite sad to think of it ; and

, if is the fundamental cause of it, deserves to

be, as you pray, ' particularly damned.' Confound him, and
confound the whole confused business, this abominable,
sorrowful, and shockingly expensive tour to Germany in
cluded. But no. Eather let us have patience. Nevertheless,
I do grieve for thee. But let me narrate as usual, only with
greater brevity.

From Lobositz to Toplitz the last letters brought you,
letters written in the so-called Saxon Switzerland, amid the
Bohemian mountains. ... No English, scarcely any civilized
traveller seems to have accomplished the thirty or forty
English miles which lie between Lobositz and Zittau. We
had a strange and strangest day of it in slow German Stell-
•wagens ; and in fact were horribly tired before the thing in
general ended by a seat in the soft-going, swift, and certain
railway-carriage, and the inn at Herrnhut, where we had to
wait four hours of the stillest life you ever saw or dreamt
of. Herrnhut (Lord's keeping) is the primitive and still
central city of the Moravian brethren ; a place not bigger
than Annan, but beautiful, pure, and quiet beyond any town
on the earth I dare say ; and indeed more like a saintly
dream of Ideal Calvinism made real than a town of stone
and lime, where London porter, not needed by me, is to be
had for money. I will tell you about Herrnhut too some
day, for it is among the notable spots of the world, and I
retain a lively memory of it. But not of it, nor of dreary
moory Frankfurt and its Kunersdorf villages and polite lieu
tenants — for a Prussian lieutenant-adjutant knew me there
by fame, and was very polite without knowing me — not of

n8 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

this, nor of any other phenomenon will I now speak. In fact
I am dead stupid ; my heart nearly choked out of me, and
my head churned to pieces. . . . Berlin is loud almost as
London, but in no other way great or among the greatest.
I should guess it about the size of Liverpool ; and more like
Glasgow in the straight openness of its streets. Many grand
public edifices about this eastern end of the town ; but on
the whole it looks in many quarters almost shabby, in spite
of its noise and paint ; so low are the houses for a capital
city ; more like warehouses or maltkins, with the very
chimneys wanting, for within is nothing but stoves. This
' Unter den Linden ' is the one good street of the place, as
if another Princes Street at 300 yards' distance, and with
tree rows between them, ran parallel to the Princes Street
we know. It is on the north side of this we live, grand
rooms indeed, and not dearer than an Edinburgh lodging, or
nearly so dear as a London one — two guineas a week, one
guinea each.

October 2, 4 P.M.

The night yielded me a handsome modicum of sleep,
handsome for these parts, and the lodging promises every
way to be good. Certainly the most like a human bed-room
of any I have yet had in this country. After breakfast I went
to the library, introduced myself, got catalogue of Frederick
books. A dreary wilderness, mountains of chaff to one
grain of corn ; caught headache in the bad air within about
an hour, and set off to the British Ambassador's, who can
procure me liberty to take books home. Well received by
the British Ambassador so soon as he had read Lady A.'s
letter. His wife too came in and was very kind. All right.
Have been in the Museum Picture Gallery since. Endless
Christs and Marys, Venus's and Amors — at length an excel
lent portrait of Fritz.

October 8.

We leave Berlin to-morrow, Saturday the 9th. Go by
Brunswick, by Hanover, Cologne, and from thence on Tues
day evening at Ostend I find a steamer direct for London. . . .
I have had a terrible tumbling week in Berlin. Oh, what a

JO URNE Y ENDED . 119

month in general I have had ; month of the profoundest,
ghastliest solitude in the middle of incessant talk and
locomotion. But here after all I have got my things not so
intolerably done, and have accomplished what was reasonably
possible. Perhaps it will not look so ugly when once I am
far away from it. In help from other people there has been
redundancy rather than defect. One or two — especially a
certain Herr Professor Magnus, the chief portrait painter
here — have been quite marvellous with their civility ; and
on the whole it was usually rather a relief to me to get an
hour, as now, to oneself, and be left to private exertions and
reflections mainly. Yesterday I saw old Tieck, beautiful old
man ; so serene, so calm, so sad. I have also seen Cornelius,
Eauch, &c., including Preuss, the historian of Frederick, all
men in short for whom I had any use. Nay, they had me in
their newspapers it would appear, and would gladly make a
lion of me if I liked. A lion that can only get half sleep is
not the lion that can shine in that trade, so we decline. The
Ambassador has also been very good to me, got me into the
library with liberty to take books home, invited me to dinner.
But Magnus had engaged me before, and I could only make
it tea. No matter for that, for they were all English common
places where I went. You will see me on Wednesday, but
not till noon or later.

So was this terrible journey got done with, which
to anyone but Carlyle would have been a mere plea
sure trip ; to him terrible in prospect, terrible in the
execution, terrible in the retrospect. His wife said
he could not conceal that he was pretty well, and
had nothing really to complain of. Here is what he
himself said about it when looking back with de
liberate seriousness :—

After infinite struggles I had roused myself to go. The
parting with my poor old mother, the crowning point of those
unbearable days, was painful beyond endurance almost ; and
yet my heart in the inside of it seemed as if it were made of

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

stone, as if it would not weep any more except perhaps blood.
One pays dear for any ' intellect ' one may have. It means
primarily ' sensibility,' which again means injury, pain,
misery from unconscious nature, or conscious or unconscious
man ; in fact, a heavy burden painful to bear, however piously
you take it.

After recapitulating the places which he had seen,
and the persons whom he had met, he goes on : —

All this, which is etched into me painfully as with burning
acids, I once thought of writing down in detail, but have not
done, probably shall not do. It was a journey done as in some
shirt of Nessus ; misery and dyspeptic degradation, inflamma
tion, and insomnia tracking every step of me. Not till all
these vile fire showers, fallen into viler ashes now, have once
been winnowed quite away, shall I see what ' additions to my
spiritual picture gallery,' or other conquests from the business
I have actually brought back with me. Neuberg, I ought to
record here and everywhere, was the kindest, best-tempered,
most assiduous of friends and helpers, ' worth ten couriers to
me,' as I often defined him.

THE COCK NUISANCE. 121

CHAPTER XXI.

A.D. 1852-3. ^ET. 57-58.

The Grange — Cheyne Bow — The Cock torment — Reflections — An im
proved house— Funeral of the Duke of Wellington— Beginnings of
' Frederick '—The Grange again— An incident— Public opinion —
Mother's illness— The demon fowls— Last letter to his mother —
Her death — James Carlyle.

THE painters had not completed their work, and the
smell was insupportable when Carlyle got home in
the middle of October. He was in no condition to
face any more annoyances, and he and his wife took
refuge for three weeks at the Grange with the ever-
hospitable Ashburtons. There, too, the sulphurous
mood was still predominant, and things did not go
well with him. It was not till November that he was
fairly re-established in his own quarters, and in a con
dition to so much as think of seriously beginning his
work. A preliminary skirmish became necessary, to
put to silence his neighbour's cocks. Mr. Remington,
who then lived near him, and was the owner of the
offenders, has kindly sent me the correspondence
which passed on the occasion ; very gracious and
humble on Carlyle's part, requesting only that the
cocks in question should be made inaudible from
midnight till breakfast time ; Mr. Remington, though
they were favourites which he had brought from

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Northumberland, instantly consenting to suppress them
altogether. This accomplished, Carlyle proceeded as it
were to clear the stage by recovering his own mental
condition, and took himself severely to task for what
he found amiss. Much that he says will seem ex
aggerated, but it will be remembered that he was not
speaking to the world but to himself. It is idle to
judge him by common rules. His nerves were abnor
mally sensitive. He lived habitually, unless he vio
lently struggled against it, in what he had described
as ' an element of black streaked with lightning.'
Swift, when the evil humour was on him, made a
voyage to the Houyhnhmns, and discharged his bile
on his human brethren. Carlyle, who wished to purge
the bile out of himself that he might use his powers
to better purposes, began with a confession of his sins.

Journal.

November^, 1852. — There has been a repair of the house
here, which is not yet, after four months, quite complete. I
write now in an unfurnished but greatly improved room,
which is already, and still more will be, greatly superior to
what it used to be ... small thanks to it. My poor wife has
worn herself to a shadow, fretting and struggling about it. I,
sent on my travels since the middle of July, and only just
finally home, am totally overset in soul, in body, and I may
fear in breeches pocket too ; and feel that I am drifting
towards strange issues in these years and days. Never in my
life nearer sunk in the mud oceans that rage from without
and within. My survey of the last eight or nine years of
my life yields little ' comfort ' in the present state of my
feelings. Silent weak rage, remorse even, which is not com
mon with me ; and, on the whole, a solitude of soul coupled
with a helplessness, which are frightful to look upon, difficult
to deal with in my present situation. For my health is

RETROSPECT. 123

miserable too ; diseased liver I privately perceive has much
to do with the phenomenon ; and I cannot yet learn to sleep
again. During all my travels I have wanted from a third to
half of my usual sleep. For the rest I guess it is a change
of epoch with me, going on for good perhaps ; I am growing
to perceive that I have become an old man ; that the flowery
umbrages of summer — such as they were for me — and also
the crops and fruits of autumn are nearly over for me, and
stern winter only is to be looked for — a grim message — such,
however, as is sent to every man. Oh ye Supreme Powers !
thou great Soul of the world that art just, may I manage this
but well, all sorrow then and smothered rage and despair itself
shall have been cheap and welcome. No more of it to-day.
I am not yet at the bottom of it ; am not here writing wisely
of it, even sincerely of it, though with an effort that way.

Dundee steamer to Linlathen about the middle of July ;
inexpressible gloom, silence. Sickly imprisonment of one's
whole soul and life ; such has often before been my lot, has
also become my customary lot in this world. Cowardice ?
Sometimes. Generally, in late years, I think it is. Unusual
weights have been thrown upon me. Ach Gott! whole moun
tains of horror and choking impediment. But certainly I
have not been strong enough on my side ; often, often not
bold enough ; but have fled and struck when I should have
stood and defiantly fought. The votes of men, the respecta
bilities, the &c. &c., have been too sacred to me. It must
be owned, too, the man has had such a set of conditions as
were not always easy to govern, and could not by the old law-
books be treated well. SchicJcsal und eigen Schuld. Aye, aye.
Three weeks at Linlathen very memorable to me just now,
but sordid, unproductive, to think of. Came away, by Kirk-
caldy and Edinburgh, to Scotsbrig. There beside my poor old
mother for near four weeks. ... To Germany, after infinite
struggles, I had roused myself to go. . . . Leith, Rotterdam
steamer, the Rhine, Bonn for a week, Ems, Frankfurt, Hom-
burg, Cassel, Eisenach, Wartburg (unforgettable), Weimar,
Leipzig, Dresden, Lobositz, Zittau, Herrnhut, Kunersdorf,
and Berlin, whence, after ten days, home.

124 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

My arrival here. Seas of paint still flooding everything,
and my poor Jane so beaten in her hard battle — a wild hard
battle many ways, and in which I cannot help thee, poor kind
vehement soul for ever dear to me — this also is memorable,
only too much. We went to the Grange till these unclean-
nesses were over here. At the Grange almost for four weeks.
No right rest, no right collapse till Tuesday last, when in
the wet damp evening of a pouring day I once more got
home again for a continuance. Since then, here are we
fairly fronting our destiny at least, which I own is sufficiently
Medusa-like to these sick, solitary eyes. Courage ! piety !
patience ! Heaven grant me wisdom to extract the meanings
out of these sore lessons and to do the behests of the same.
If that be granted me, oh how amply enough will that be !

To begin ' Frederick ' then ! It was easier to pro
pose than to do. When a writer sets to work again
after a long pause, his faculties have, as it were, to
be caught in the field and brought in and harnessed.
There was anxiety about his wife too, who Avas worn
out by her summer discipline, and was ' never thinner
for seven years.' She had gone home first from the
Grange to get things ready.

Jane (he wrote to his mother) had the place clear of
workers at last, clean as her wont is, and shining with gas
at the door, and other lights to welcome me to tea. I have
had a weary struggle every day since, and am not through it
yet, arranging my things in their new places, an operation
rather sad than hopeful to me in my present dull humour,
but I must persist till it is done, and then by-and-by there
will be real improvement. The house is clearly very much
bettered ; this room of mine in particular, and my bed-room
upstairs, are, or will be, perfect beauties of rooms in their way.
Let us be patient, ' canny as eggs,' and the better day will
come at last. I am terribly brushed with all these tumblings
about, and have not yet fairly recovered my feet, but with
quiet, with pious endeavour, I shall surely do so ; and then

FUNERAL OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 125

it will be joyful to me to see the black tempest lying all
behind me and the bright side of the cloud attained for me.
All clouds have their bright sides too. That is also a thing
which we should remember ; and, on the whole, I hope to
get to a little work again, and that is the consolation which
surpasses all for me.

He would have got under way in some shape, but,
before starting, any distraction is enough to check the
first step, and there were distractions in plenty ; among
the rest the Duke of Wellington's funeral. The Duke
had died in September. He was now to be laid in
his tomb in the midst of a mourning nation ; and
Carlyle did not like the display. The body lay in
state at Chelsea, ' all the empty fools of creation '
running to look at it. One day two women were
trampled to death in the throng at the hospital close
by ; and the whole thing, ' except for that dreadful
accident,' was, in his eyes, ' a big bag of wind and
nothingness.' ' It is indeed,' he said, ' a sad and
solemn fact for England that such a man has been
called away, the last perfectly honest and perfectly
brave public man they had ; and they ought, in re
verence, to reflect on that, and sincerely testify that,
if they could, while they commit him to his resting-
place. But alas for the sincerity. It is even pro
fessedly all hypocrisy, noise, and expensive upholstery,
from which a serious man turns away with sorrow
and abhorrence.' In spite of ' abhorrence ' he was
tempted to witness the ceremony in the streets, which,
however, only increased it.

Journal.

November 19, 1852. — Yesterday saw the Duke of Wel
lington's funeral procession from Bath House second-floor

126 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

windows ; a painful, miserable kind of thing to me and others
of a serious turn of mind. The one true man of official
men in England, or that I know of in Europe, concludes his
long course. The military music sounded, and the tramp of
feet and the roll of guns and coaches, to him inaudible for
evermore. The regiment he first served in was there, various
regiments or battalions, one soldier from every regiment of
the British line ; above 4,000 soldiers in all. Nothing else
in the sumptuous procession was of the least dignity. The
car or hearse, a monstrous bronze mass, which broke through
the pavement in various places, its weight being seven or
ten tons, was of all the objects I ever saw the abominably
ugliest, or nearly so. An incoherent huddle of expensive
palls, flags, sheets, and gilt emblems and cross poles, more
like one of the street carts that hawk door-mats than a bier
for a hero. Disgust was general at this vile ne plus ultra of
Cockneyism ; but poor Wellington lay dead beneath it faring
dumb to his long home. All people stood in deep silence and
reverently took off their hats. In one of the Queen's carriages
sat a man conspicuously reading the morning newspaper.
Tennyson's verses are naught. Silence alone is respectable
on such an occasion.

' Frederick ' meanwhile was still unstarted. Where
to begin ? On what scale ? In what tone ? All was
unsettled, and uncertainty, with Carlyle, was irritation
and despondency.

As usual (he says, on the 5th of December) many things,
or almost all things, are conspiring to hinder me from any
clear work, or to choke up my power of working altogether. If
I do not stand to myself and to my own cause it will be the worse
for me. Heaven help me ! Oh Heaven ! But it is so always.
The elements of our work lie scattered, disorganised, as if in a
thick viscous chaotic ocean, ocean illimitable in all its three
dimensions ; and we must swim and sprawl towards them,
must snatch them, and victoriously piece them together as
we can. Eheu! Shall I try Frederick, or not try him ?

BEGINNING OF ' FREDERICK: 127

The winter passed on. In January he tells his
mother : —

Our quiet way of life continues, and our wet weather,
and other puddles, outward and inward, have not ceased
either. We should be thankful for the health we have, both
of us. If we use our besom machinery and sweep honestly
and well, the puddles do not gain quite the upper hand after
all. Jane is out just now, gone out to enjoy the dry day
among so many wet. She complains of defective sleep, &c.,
but still goes hardily about, and indeed I think is stronger
than in past years. She reads now with specs in the candle
light, as well as I ; uses her mother's specs I perceive, and
indeed looks very well in them, going handsomely into the
condition of an elderly dame. I remember always your joy
over specs. Old age is not in itself matter for sorrow. It is
matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.
God deal with us in mercy, not in rigour, on that head ; as
we trust it will be for the faithful of us. But, in fact, it is
not a serious person's sorrow surely that he is getting out of
the battle ; that he sees the still regions beyond it, where
there is no battle more.

He began at last to write something — but it was
wrongly pitched. It would not do, and he threw it
aside. In March he was off to the Grange again —
off there always when the Ashburtons invited him —
but always, or almost so, to no purpose. « Worse
than useless to me,' he said when the visit was over.
' A long nightmare ; folly and indigestion the order of
the day. Why go thither ? Eeally it neither does,
nor can do me any good to frequent that much coveted
kind of society — or, alas ! any kind. I believe there
is no lonelier mortal on the face of the earth at pre
sent, nor perhaps often was. Don't be a Kopf hanger,
however. Use Solitude, since it is thy lot ; that also is
a lot, and rather an original one in these days.' The

i28 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

party at the Grange was in itself brilliant enough.
Venables was there, whom he liked better than most
men ; and Azeglio and other notabilities. But even
Venables, on this occasion, he found ; dogmatic,' and
to Azeglio he was rude. Azeglio had been talking
contemptuously of Mazzini. ' Monsieur,' said Carlyle
to him, c vous ne le connaissez pas du tout, du tout ! '
and turned away and sat down to a newspaper. « Not
a word of sense was talked to him, except by acci
dent.' One thing, however, did occur which im
pressed him considerably, and of which I often heard
him speak.

To Margaret Carlyle, Scotsbrig.

The Grange, April 1, 1853.

Last night, while we sate quietly at dinner, a slip of paper
was handed in by one of the servants to Lord Ashburton.
' A fire visible somewhere in the neighbourhood.' I admired
much the silent promptitude with which Lord A., telling
nobody, went out, leaving his dinner in the middle, drew on
boots and cloak as we found afterwards, and galloped off
with a groom in the wild, squally night, which soon became
plunges of rain. This is what an English country gentleman
is always good for, this and the like of this, if he is of the
right quality. The fire proved to be six miles off— one of
the farmers of this estate, his 'omstead all in a blaze, cattle,
&c., saved. Lord A. came back about eleven, wet enough,
but one would have said almost glad ; though to him also it
will be a considerable loss, no doubt.

A week at the Grange was as much as he could
bear, and it did not seem to have done very much
for him.

Journal.

April 13, 1853.— Still struggling and haggling about
Frederick. Ditto ditto, alas ! about many things! No words

MED IT A TIONS. 1 2 9

can express the forlorn, heart-broken, silent, utterly enchanted
kind of humour I am kept in ; the worthless, empty, and
painfully contemptible way in which, with no company but
my own, with my eyes open, but as with my hands bound, I
pass these days and months, and even years, (rood Heavens !
Shall I never more rally in this world then, but lie buried
under mud and imbecility till the end itself (which cannot
be distant, and is coming on as with seven-leagued boots)
overtake me ? Several are to blame ; for though no one
hates me, I think nearly everybody of late takes me on the
wrong side, and proves unconsciously unjust to me, more or
less destructive to me. Several are to blame, or to pity.
But above all there is one. Thou thyself. Awake — arise !
Oh heaven and earth, shall I never again get awake, and
feel myself working and alive ? In the earth there is no
other pleasure for me, no other possession for me but that
same ; and I neglect it, indolently lie praying for it, do not
rise and victoriously snatch it, while the fast fleeting days
yet are. Here are now ten years, and what account can I
give of them? The work done in them is very small even,
in comparison. Remorse is worthless. The remnant of the
future, this yet remains to us. ... Endless German history
books ; dull, bad, mostly wearisome ; most uninstructive,
every one of them; Frederick, an unfortunate subject. In
the heart of huge solar systems — anti-solar rather, of chaff
and whirling confusions, I sometimes think I notice linea
ments of a Fritz, concerning whom I shall have a word to
say — say it ? Oh Heaven, that I could say it !

The review newspaper and world, all dead against me
at present, which is instructive too if I take the right point
of survey for it, and look into it without jaundice of any
kind. The canaille of talkers in type are not my friends
then. They know not well what to say about me if not
' Thou, scoundrel, art of other mind than we, it would appear ; '
which the wiser are afraid might be questionable ; and the
unwiser, with one voice pretty much, have already done. Well,
out of that too I had got new views. I myself was in fault,
and the depths and immensities of human stupidity were

IV. K

130 CARLYLE'S LTFE IN LONDON.

not practically known to me before. A strange insight, real,
but hardly fit for uttering even here, lies in that. ' Who
can change the opinion of these people ? ' That is their view
of the world, irrefragable, unalterable to them. Take note
of that, remember that. * The Gadarene Swine ! ' Often,
in my rage, has that incident occurred to me. Shrill snort of
astonishment, of alert attention. ' Hrumph ! ' ' That is it,
then ! ' ' So sits the wind ! ' And with tails up and one accord
at full speed away they go, down steep places to their watery
grave, the Demi being in them. Withal it is rather curious
to remark also, as I do on various occasions, how, while all
the talk and print goes against me, my real estimation in the
world — alas, certainly without new merit of mine, for I never
was so idle and worthless — seems steadily increasing — steadily
in various quarters, and surely fast enough, if not too fast.
Be true to thyself. Oh Heaven ! Be not a sluggard. And
so give up this and take to something like work.

To try to work Carlyle was determined enough.
He went nowhere in the summer, but remained at
Chelsea chained to ' Frederick,' and, moving ahead
at last, leaving his wife to take a holiday. His
brother John, who was now married, had taken a
house at Moffat, and Mrs. Carlyle, needing change,
went off to stay with him there. Paint was wanted
in Cheyne Row again, and Carlyle was exquisitely
sensitive to the smell of it. Other cocks — not, it is
to be hoped, Mr. Eemington's — set up their pipes in
the summer mornings. ' Vile yellow Italians ' came
grinding under his windows. He had a terrible time
of it ; but he set his teeth and determined to bear his
fate. One haunting thought only refused to leave him.
Good migbt still lie ahead if his wife and he could
keep the devil out of them. If ! but what an ' if !

0 Jeannie (he wrote), you know nothing about me just
now. With all the clearness of vision you have, your lynx-

A SAGE'S SORROWS. 131

eyes do not reach into the inner region of rne, and know not
what is in my heart, what, on the whole, was always, and will
always be there. I wish you did ; I wish you did.

Sitting all alone in his Chelsea garden he medi
tated on his miseries, in one letter eloquently dilating
on them, in the next apologising for his weakness.

But what could I do (he said)? fly for shelter to my
mammy, like a poor infant with its finger cut ? complain
in my distress to the one heart that used to be open to me ?

' Greater than man, less than woman,' as Essex
said of Queen Elizabeth. The cocks were locked
up next door, and the fireworks at Cremorne were
silent, and the rain fell and cooled the July air ; and
Carlyle slept, and the universe became once more
tolerable.

With friends outside his family he was equally
disconsolate.

To Thomas Erskine, Linlathen.

Chelsea: July 9, 1853.

I had a very miserable tour in Germany ; not one night
of sleep all the time, and nothing, or too little, of the living
kind that was beautiful to look upon in return for all that
physical distress at once so tormenting and so degrading. J
remember the Ehine river as a noble acquisition to my
internal picture gallery. Cologne, &c., I got no good of,
but rather mischief; the sight of those impious charlatans
doing their so-called * worship ' there (a true devil worship,
if ever there was one) ; and the fatal brood, architectural
and others — Puseyites and enchanted human apes that
inhabit such places — far transcended any little pleasure I
could have got from the supreme of earthly masonry,1 and

1 Bunsen had once tried to enlist Carlyle's sympathies in the con-
pletion of Cologne cathedral, showing him the plans, &c. Carlyle said

K 3

i32 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

converted my feeling into a sad and angry one. I was in
the Wartburg, however — in Martin Luther's room- — and I
believe I almost wept there, feeling it to be, as far as I
could understand, the most sacred spot in all the earth at
this moment. Here, tempted by the devil (always by
'devils ' enough), but not subdued or subduable, stood God's
Truth, embodied in the usual way: one man against all
men. It was upon these hills he looked out ; it was there
and in that way he dealt with the devil and defied him to
his face. A scene worth visiting indeed. There are excellent
portraits by Cranach of Luther and his father and mother
hnng on the walls. Martin himself has a fine German face :
eyes so frank and serious, a look as if he could take a cup of
ale as well as wrestle down the devil in a handsome manner.

The Wartburg is much visited by tourists ; but I was
not sorry to find they did not much heed Luther — merely
took him among the rest and dwelt chiefly on the ' Byzan
tine architecture ' and restorations. The only other beautiful
thing I saw was Tieck, and he is since dead. On Fritz I
can make no impression whatever, and practically consider I
have given him up and am not equal to such a task on such
terms.

My wife is now at Moffat with my brother and his house
hold. As to me, I got so smashed to pieces and perceptibly
hurt in every way by my journeying last autumn — all travel
and noise is at all times so noxious to me — I have never yet
been able to brook the notion of travelling since, but have
flattered myself I should sit still here, and would on almost
any terms. Certain it is, I have need enough to stay here,
if staying by myself in my own sad company be the way to
riddle any of the infinite dross out of me and get a little
nearer what grains of metal there may be.

nothing till obliged to speak. Then at last, being forced, he said : ' It is
a very fine pagoda if ye could get any sort of a God to put in it ! ' Bun-
sen's eyes flashed anger for a moment, but the ' ridiculous ' was too strong
for him, and he burst out laughing. I have heard the story told as if
there had been a breakfast party with bishops, &c., present. Caiiyle,
however, when I asked him, said that he and Bunsen were alone.

END NEAR AT SCOTSBRIG. 133

Adieu ! dear Mr. Erskine. Give my kind and grateful
remembrances to your two ladies and to everybody at Lin-

lathen. , f .,, ,. „

I am always faithfully yours,

T. CARLYLE.

A real calamity, sad but inevitable and long fore
seen, was now approaching. Signs began to show
that his old mother at Scotsbrig was drawing near
the end of her pilgrimage. She was reported to be
ill, and even dangerously ill. Mrs. Carlyle hurried
over from Moffat to assist in nursing her, meeting,
when she arrived there, the never-forgotten but
humbly offered birthday present of July 14 from her
poor husband. Her mother-in-law, while she was
there, sank into the long, death-like trance which
she so vividly describes.1 Contrary to all expecta
tions, the strong resolute woman rallied from it, and
Carlyle, always hopeful, persuaded himself that for
the time the stroke had passed over.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle, Scotsbrig.

Clieisea : July 23, 1853.

Thank you very much, my dear, for your judicious and
kind attention in writing and in not writing. You may judge
with what feelings I read your letter last night, and again
and again read it ; how anxiously I expect what you will say
to-night. If I had indeed known what was going on during
Monday, what would have become of me that day ? I see
everything by your description as if I looked at it with my
own eyes. My poor, beloved, good old mother. Things
crowd round me in my solitude, old reminiscences from the
very beginnings of my life. It is very beautiful if it is so
sad ; and I have nothing to say. I, like all mortals, have to
feel the inexorable that there is in life, and to say, as piously
as I can, ' God's will, God's will ! ' Upon the whole, I am
1 Letters and Memorials, vol. ii. p. i^'l.

134 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

glad you went there at this time. If you could only begin
to sleep I should be thankful to have you there in my own
absence. Write to me ; do not fail to write while you con
tinue. Was not that a beautiful old mother's message :
' None, I am afraid, that he would like to hear ' ? 1 Sunt

lacrymce rerum. You need not be apprehensive of

where you are. She really likes you, and has good insight,
though capable of strong prepossessions. John, even if you
are in his way, which I do not think at all, has nothing to
do with it. The rest are loyal to you to 'the bone. Surely,
as you say, it was quite wrong to give such quantities of
wine, &c., to an old, weak person. I hope and trust John
has entirely abandoned that system. It is purchasing of
momentary relief at a price which must be ruinous.

I have done my task to-day again, but I had drugs in
me, and am not in a very vigorous humour. My task is a
most dreary one. I am too old for blazing up round this
Fritz and his affairs ; and I see it will be a dreadful job to
riddle his history into purity and consistency out of the
endless rubbish of so many dullards as have treated of it.
But I will try, too. I cannot yet afford to be beaten ; and
truly there is no other thing attainable to me in life except
even my own poor scantling of work such as it may be. If
I can work no more, what is the good of me further ? We
shall all have a right deep sleep by-and-by, my own little
Jeannie. Thou wilt lie quiet beside me there in the divine
bosom of eternity, if never in the diabolic whirl of time
any more. But this is too sad a saying, though to me it is
blessed and indubitable as well as sad.

I called on Lady A ; less mocking than usual ; is to

have a last Addiscombe party on Saturday week, and then
go for the North.

Adieu ! Jeannie mine. God bless for ever my poor
mother and thee !

T. C.

1 ' I asked her if she had any message for you, and she said, " None,
Tfm afraid, that he would like to hear, for he'll be sorry that I'm so frail." '
— Letters and Memorials, vol. ii. p. 225.

THE DEMON FOWLS. 135

The alarm at Scotsbrig having passed off", minor
evils became again important. The great cock
question revived in formidable proportions. Mrs.
Carlyle had gone to her cousin's at Liverpool, but
her presence was needed urgently in Cheyne Eow to
deal with it. A room was to be constructed at the
top of the house, where neither cockcrows nor other
sound could penetrate ; but until it was completed
' the unprotected male,' as Carlyle called himself, was
suffering dismally.

I foresee in general (he wrote to her on July 27) these
cocks will require to be abolished, entirely silenced, whether
we build the new room or not. I would cheerfully shoot
them, and pay the price if discovered, but I have no gun,
should be unsafe for hitting, and indeed seldom see the
wretched animals. Failing everything, I see dimly the
ultima ratio, and indeed wish I had in my drawer what of
mineral or vegetable extract would do the fatal deed. Truly
I think often it will need to be done. A man is not a
Chatham nor a Wallenstein ; but a man has work too which
the Powers would not quite wish to have suppressed by two-
and-sixpence worth of bantams. 0 ! my dear ! my dear ! I
am a most unvictorious man surely.

Morning after morning the horrid clarions blew.

The cocks must either withdraw or die (he cried, two
days later). That is a fixed point ; and I must do it myself
if no one will help. It is really too bad that a ' celebrated
man,' or any man, or even a well-conditioned animal of any
size, should be submitted to such scandalous paltrinesses;
and it must end, and I had better make that my first busi
ness to-day. But I will do nothing till you come. Then
indeed I feel as if mercy were already wrought for me.

For some cause there was a respite for a night or
two, but now the owner of the cocks, one Ronca, was

136 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

heard coughing at half-past eight in the morning,
and this — but this could hardly be made a crime.
* Poor devil ! ' he said to himself, with a tinge of re
morse, ' a bad cough indeed ; and I am to be
annoyed at the mere noise of it. Selfish mortal ! '
Lady Ashburton, hearing of his forlorn condition,
made over the now vacant Addiscombe to him. His
wife came back. The cocks were for a time disposed
of, and the new room was set about. The new room
was the final hope. Till it was finished there could
be no surety of peace. * Ach Gottl ' he said, ' I am
wretched, and in silence nearly mad.'

Journal.

August 17, 1853. — Near the nadir, I should think, in
my affairs. The wheel must turn. Let me not quite
despair. All summer, which I resolved to spend here, at
least without the distraction of travel for a new hindrance, I
have been visibly below par in health ; annoyed with in
numerable paltry things ; and, to crown all — a true mock-
crown — with the Growings, shriekings, and half-maddening
noises of a stock of fowls which my poor neighbour has set
up for his profit and amusement. To great evils one must
oppose great virtues ; and also to small, which is the harder
task of the two. Masons, who have already killed half a
year of my life in a too sad manner, are again upon the roof
of the house, after a dreadful bout of resolution on my part,
building me a soundless room. The world, which can do
me no good, shall at least not torment me with its street and
backyard noises. It is all the small request I make of the
world, says wounded vanity, wounded &c. ; in fact, a
wounded and humiliated mind. No more unvictorious man
is now living. I can do no work though I still keep trying.
Try better ! Alas ! alas ! my dear old mother seems to be
fading fast away from me. My thoughts are dark and sad
continually with that idea. Inexorabile fatum ! The great,

MISERIES GREAT AND SMALL. 137

the eternal is there, and also the paltriest and smallest, to
load me down. I seem to be sinking inextricably into chaos.
But I won't ! These are the two extremes of my lot of
burdens; and there lie enough more, and sore enough
between, of which I write nothing here. I am getting
taught contempt of the world and its beneficences. Nay,
perhaps I am really learning. Let me learn with piety.
Perhaps I shall one day bless these miseries too. Steady !
steady ! Don't give it up ! ... Panizzi, whom 1 do
not love, and who returns the feeling, ^uill not, though
solicited from various quarters — high quarters some of them
—admit me to the silent rooms of the King's Library, to a
place where I could read and enquire. Never mind ! No
matter at all ! Perhaps it is even better so. I believe I
could explode the poor monster if I took to petitioning,
writing in the ' Times,' &c. But I shall take good heed of
that. Intrinsically he hinders me but little. Intrinsically
the blame is not in him, but in the prurient darkness and
confused pedantry and ostentatious inanity of the world
which put him there, and which I must own he very fairly
represents and symbolizes there. Lords Lansdowne and
Brougham put Panizzi in ; and the world with its Hansards
and ballot-boxes and sublime apparatus put in Lords Lans
downe and Brougham. A saddish time, Mr. Kigmarole.
Yes ! but what then ?

Of the two extreme trials of which Carlyle spoke,
the greatest, the one which really and truly was to
shake his whole nature, was approaching its culmina
tion. Although his mother had rallied remarkably
from her attack in the summer, and was able to read
and converse as usual, there had been no essential
recovery ; there was to be and there could be none.
His mother, whom lie had regarded with an affection
'passing the love of sons,' with whom, in spite of, or
perhaps in consequence of, her profound Christian
piety, he had found more in common, as he often

138 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

said, than with any other mortal — was now evidently
about to be taken away from him. A feeling pecu
liarly tender had united these two. . . . Carlyle, as
his letters show, had been haunted from his earliest
days by the terror that he must one day lose her.
She had watched over the workings of his mind with
passionate solicitude : proud of his genius, and alter
nately alarmed for his soul. In the long evenings when
they had sate together over the fire with their pipes
at Mainhill, he had half-satisfied her that he and she
were one in heart and in essentials. His first earnings,
when a school usher, were spent in contributing to
her comforts. When money came from Boston for
the 'French Eevolution,' the ' kitlin' instantly sent 'the
auld cat ' an ' American mouse.' If she gloried in
his fame and greatness, he gloried more in being the
son of the humble Margaret Carlyle — and while she
lived, she, and only she, stood between him and the
loneliness of which he so often and so passionately
complained. No one else, perhaps, ever completely
understood his character ; and of all his letters none
are more tenderly beautiful than those which he sent
to Scotsbrig. One more of these has yet to be given
• — the last — which it is uncertain whether she was
able to read. He wrote it on his own birthday, when
he was on the point of going again to the Grange,
and it is endorsed by him in his own latest shaking
hand, ' My last letter to my mother.'

Chelsea : December 4, 1853.

My dear, good Mother, — I wrote to Jean the other day
and have very little news to tell you ; but I cannot let this
day pass without sending you some word or other, were it
never so insignificant. We are going into the country

MARGARET CARLYLE. 139

to-morrow, to the Grange, for two weeks or perhaps a little
more, partly to let the painters get done with that weary
' room ' of which you have heard so much ; partly because
the Ashburtons, whose house we visited lately without their
own presence, would have it so, and Jane thought we were
bound. She will go therefore : and I, having once landed
her there, am to have liberty to leave again when I will.
Meanwhile I have bargained to be private all day in their
big house, to go on with my work just as if at home, &c.
We will see how it answers. I confess I get no good of any
company at present ; nor, except in stubbornly trying to work
— alas ! too often in vain — is there any sure relief to me from
thoughts which are very sad. But we must not ' lose heart;'
lose faith — never, never ! Dear old mother, weak and sick
and dear to me, while I live in God's creation, what a day
has this been in my solitary thought; for, except a few words
to Jane, I have not spoken to anyone, nor, indeed, hardly
seen anyone, it being dusk and dark before I went out — a
dim silent Sabbath day, the sky foggy, dark with damp, and
a universal stillness the consequence, and it is this day gone
fifty-eight years that I was born. And my poor mother !
Well! we are all in God's hands. Surely God is good.
Surely we ought to trust in Him, or what trust is there for
the sons of men ? |0h, my dear mother ! Let it ever be a
comfort to you, however weak you are, that you did your
part honourably and well while in strength, and were a noble
mother to me and to us all. I am now myself grown old,
and have had various things to do and suffer for so many
years ; but there is nothing I ever had to be so much
thankful for as for the mother I had. That is a truth which
I know well, and perhaps this day again it may be some
comfort to you. Yes, surely, for if there has been any good
in the things I have uttered in the world's hearing, it was
your voice essentially that was speaking through me ; essen
tially what you and my brave father meant and taught me
to mean, this was the purport of all I spoke and wrote.
And if in the few years that may remain to me, I am to get
any more written for the world, the essence of it so far as it

140 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

is worthy and good, will still be yours. May God reward
you, dearest mother, for all you have done for me ! I never
can. Ah no ! but will think of it with gratitude and pious
love so long as I have the power of thinking. 1 And I will
pray God's blessing on you, now and always, and will write nc
more on that at present, for it is better for me to be silent.
Perhaps a note from the doctor will arrive to-morrow ; I
am much obliged, as he knows, for his punctuality on that
subject. He knows there is none so interesting to me, or
can be. Alas ! I know well he writes me the best view he
can take ; but I see too, how utterly frail my poor mother is,
and how little he or any mortal can help. Nevertheless, it
is a constant solace to me to think he is near you, and our
good Jean. Certainly she does me a great service in assidu
ously watching over you ; and it is a great blessing to us all
that she is there to do such a duty. As to my own health,
I am almost surprised to report it is so good. In spite of all
these tumblings and agitations, I really feel almost better
than I have done in late years ; certainly not worse ; and at
this time within sight of sixty it is strange how little decay
I feel ; nothing but my eyesight gone a very little ; and my
hope, but also my fear or care at all, about this world, gone
a great deal. Poor Jane is not at all strong, sleeps very ill,
&c. Perhaps the fortnight of fresh air and change of scene
will do her some good. But she is very tough, and a bit of
good stuff too. I often wonder how she holds out, and braves
many things with so thin a skin. She is sitting here
reading. She sends her affection to you and to them all.
She speaks to me about you almost daily, and answers many
a question and speculation ever since she was at Scotsbrig.
Give my love to Jamie, to Isabella, and them all. May
God's blessing be on you all !

T. CAELYLE.

It could not have been with any pleasure that, at
a moment when his mother was so manifestly sink
ing, Carlyle felt himself called on to go again to the
Grange. He had been at home only a month since

MARGARET CARLYLE. 141

he last left. But there was to be a grand gathering
of great London people there. The Ashburtons
were pressing, and he was under too many obligations
to refuse. They went, both of them, into the midst
of London intellect and social magnificence. Mrs.
Garlyle was able to stay a few days only, for
the cock problem had reached a crisis. In his
despair, Carlyle had thought of actually buying the
lease of the house where the dreadful creatures were
nourished, turning the people out and leaving it
empty. The ' demon fowls ' were a standing joke
at the witty Grange. Either he or his wife was
required upon the spot to make an arrangement.
He says that she proposed to go ; she indicates that
the pressure was on his side, and that she thought it
a ' wildgoose enterprise.' 1 At any rate, the visit
which was to have improved her health was cut
short on this account, and she was packed off to
Chelsea. He continued on in the shining circle till,
on December 20, news came from Scotsbrig that his
mother was distinctly worse and could not long
survive. It was not quite clear that the danger was
immediate. He tried to hope, but to no purpose.
He felt that he ought to go down to her, at any rate
that he ought not to continue where he was. His
hostess consented to his going ; he writes as if he had
been obliged to apply for permission. Lady Ashburton,
he says in one place, gave him leave.2 In a letter
written at the time, he says, ' Lady A. admitted at
once, when I told her the case, that I ought to go
thither, without doubt; at all events to get out
of this has become a necessity for me ; this is not

1 Letters and Memorials, vol. ii. p. 1J.'51>. 2 Ibid. p. LM±

142 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

supportable in my present condition ' He hurried to
Scotsbrig, stopping only a night in London, and was
in time to see his mother once more alive. He has
left several accounts of the end of this admirable
woman. That in his Journal is the most concise.

Journal.

January 8, 1854. — The stroke has fallen. My dear old
mother is gone from me, and in the winter of the year,
confusedly under darkness of weather and of mind, the stern
final epoch — epoch of old age— is beginning to unfold itself
for me. I had gone to the Grange with Jane, not very wil
lingly ; was sadly in worthless solitude for most part passing
my Christmas season there. The news from Scotsbrig had long
been bad ; extreme weakness, for there was no disease,
threatening continually for many months past to reach its
term. What to do I knew not. At length shaking aside
my sick languor and wretched uncertainty I perceived plainly
that I ought not to be there — but I ought to go to Scotsbrig
at all risks straightway. This was on Tuesday, December
21 ; on Wednesday I came home ; on Thursday evening set
off northward by the express train. The night's travel,
Carlisle for the three quarters of an hour I waited, Kirtle-
bridge at last, and my anxieties in the walk to Scotsbrig ;
these things I shall not forget. It is matter of perennial
thankfulness to me, and beyond my desert in that matter
very far, that I found my dear old mother still alive ; able to
recognise me with a faint joy, her former self still strangely
visible there in all its lineaments, though worn to the utter
most thread. The brave old mother and the good, whom to
lose had been my fear ever since intelligence awoke in me
in this world, arrived now at the final bourn. Never shall I
forget her wearied eyes that morning, looking out gently
into the wintry daylight ; every instant falling together in
sleep and then opening again. She had in general the most
perfect clearness of intellect, courageous composure, affec
tionate patience, complete presence of mind. Dark clouds

DEATH OF MARGARET CARLYLE. 143

of physical suffering, &c., did from time to time eclipse and
confuse ; but the clear steady light, gone now to the size of
a star, as once it had been a sun, came always out victorious
again. At night on that Friday she had forgotten me —
' Knew me only since the morning.' I went into the other
room ; in a few minutes she sent for me to say she did now
remember it all, and knew her son Tom as of old. ' Tell us
how thou sleeps' she said, when I took leave about mid
night. ' Sleeps ! ' Alas she herself had lain in a sleep of
death for sixteen hours, till that very morning at six, when
I was on the road ! That was the third of such sleeps or
half-faints lasting for fifteen or sixteen hours. Jane saw the
first of them in August. On Saturday if I recollect, her
sense in general seemed clear, though her look of weakness
was greater then ever. Brother Jamie and I had gone out
to walk in the afternoon. Returning about dusk we found
her suffering greatly ; want of breath, owing to weakness.
What passed from that time till midnight will never efface
itself, and need not be written here. I never saw a mind
more clear and present, though worn down now to the utter
most and sinking in the dark floods. My good veracious
affectionate and brave old mother ! I keep one or two
incidents and all the perplexed image of that night to
myself, as something very precious, singular, and sternly
sacred to me ; beautiful too in its valiant simple worth, and
touching as what else could be to me ? About eleven my
brother John ventured on half a dose of laudanum, the pain
of breathing growing ever worse otherwise. Eelief perceptible
in consequence— we sent my sister Jean to bed — who had
watched for nights and months, relieved only by John at
intervals. I came into the room where John was now watch
ing. < Here is Tom come to bid you good night, mother,'
said he. She smiled assent, took leave of me as usual. As
I turned to go she said, ' I'm muckle obleeged t' ye.' Those
were her last voluntary words in this world. After that she
spoke no more — slept ever deeper. Her sleep lasted about
sixteen hours. She lay on her back, stirred no muscle. The
face was as that of a statue with slight changes of expression.

144 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

' Infinite astonishment ' was what one might have fancied to
read on it at one time ; the breathing not very hard or quick,
yet evidently difficult, and not changing sensibly in character,
till four p.m., when it suddenly fell lower, paused, again
paused, perhaps still again : and our good and dear old
mother was gone from her sorrows and from us. I did not
weep much, or at all : except for moments : but the sight
too, and the look backwards and forwards, was one that a far
harder heart might have melted under. Farewell, farewell !
She was about 84 years of age, and could not with advantage
to any side remain with us longer. Surely it was a good
Power that gave us such a mother ; and good though stern
that took her away from amid such grief and labour by a
death beautiful to one's thoughts. 'All the days of my
appointed time will I wait till my change come.' This they
often heard her muttering, and many other less frequent
pious texts and passages. Amen, Amen ! Sunday, December
25, 1853 — a day henceforth, for ever memorable to me.

The funeral was on Thursday. Intense frost had come on
the Monday night. I lingered about Scotsbrig, wandering
silently in the bright hard silent mornings and afternoons,
waiting till all small temporal matters were settled ; which
they decently were. On Monday morning I went— cold as
Siberia, yet a bright sun shining ; had a painful journey,
rapid as a comet, but with neither food nor warmth attainable
till after midnight, when my sad pilgrimage ended.

Since then I have been languidly sorting rubbish, very
languid, sad, and useless every way. It cannot be said that I
have yet learned this severe lesson I have got, I must try
to learn it more and more, or it will not pass from me.

To live for the shorter or longer remainder of my days
with the simple bravery, veracity, and piety of her that is
gone : that would be a right learning from her death, and a
right honouring of her memory. But alas all is yet frozen
within me ; even as it is without me at present, and I have
made little or no way. God be helpful to me ! I myself am
very weak, confused, fatigued, entangled in poor worldlinesses
too. Newspaper paragraphs, even as this sacred and peculiar

JAMES CARLYLE. 145

thing, are not indifferent to me. Weak soul ! and I am fifty-
eight years old, and the tasks I have on hand, Frederick &c.,
are most ungainly, incongruous with my mood — and the
night cometh, for me too is not distant, which for her is
come. I must try, I must try. Poor brother Jack ! Will he
do his Dante now ? ' For him also I am sad ; and surely he
has deserved gratitude in these last years from us all.

James Carlyle, who was the master at Scotsbrig,
was the youngest of the brothers. Carlyle told me
that he thought his brother James had been the
happiest of them all — happy chiefly in this, that he
had fallen less under his own influence than Alexander
and John. He was a mere child in the years when
' Tom was home from College ' ; he had been educated
by his father and mother, and had believed what they
believed. There is a touching mention of James in a
letter written during this sad time from Scotsbrig.

* Jamie is kind,' Carlyle tells his wife, * and honest as a
soul can be ; comes and sits with me, or walks with me when
I like, goes gently away when he sees I had rather be alone.'

He shuddered as he thought of his hesitation in
setting out.

* Oh,' he said, ' I am bound to be for ever thankful that I
got here in time ; not by own wisdom either or by any worth
in my own management of the affair. Had I stayed at the
Grange and received the news there, it would have driven
me half-distracted and left a remorse to me till the very
end of my existence.'

The few days of reflection before the funeral were
spent in silence. He wrote on one of them to Erskine.

' I got here in time to be recognised, to be cheered with
the sacred beauty of a devout and valiant soul's departure.

1 Translation of Daute, part of which had been admirably done by
John Carlyle. He was doubting whether to go on with it or leave it.
IV. L

146 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Grod make me thankful for such a mother. God enable me
to live more worthily of her in the years I may still have
left. I must rally myself if I can for a new and sterner
final epoch which I feel has now arrived for me. The last
two years have been without action, worthless to me except
for the final burning away of things that needed to be
burnt.'

In London, when settled there again, he lived for
many weeks in strictest seclusion, working at his task
or trying to work, but his mind dwelling too con
stantly on his irreparable loss to allow him to make
progress.

My labour (he wrote to his brother John on January
14th, 1854) is miserably languid : the heart within me is
low and sad. I have kept quite alone, seen nobody at all.
I think of our dear mother with a kind of mournful blessed
ness. Her life was true, simple, generous, brave ; her end,
with the last traces of these qualities still visible in it, was very
beautiful if very sad to us. I would not for much want those
two stern days at Scotsbrig from my memory. They lie con
secrated there as if baptised in sorrow and with the greatness
of eternity in them.

A fortnight later it was still the same.

My soul is exceeding sorrowful, all hung with black in
general, thinking of what is gone and what cannot return to
me. I hold my peace in general and accept the decrees of
heaven, still hoping that some useful labour may be again
possible for me here, which is the one consolation I can con
ceive at present.

Towards the spring, evening visitors were re
admitted into Cheyne Eow ; but they were not very
welcome, and were not, perhaps, very graciously
received .

We have a turn or two of talk (he reports on February
10th;, which does me little good, yet is perhaps better than

NO TES IN JO URNAL. 1 4 7

flat silence, perhaps not. The other night, H., by volunteer
appointment, came to us ; brought one, E., more than half-
drunk, in his train, and one D., an innocent ingenuous babe,

in red hair and beard, member for the borough. K.

also and more conspicuously, member for something, is a
Jew of the deepest type, black hook-nosed Jew, with the
mouth of a shark ; coarse, savage, infidel, hungry, and with
considerable strength of heart, head, and jaw. He went
early away. The rest, to whom Ape L., and an unknown
natural philosopher sometimes seen here with him, had acci
dentally joined themselves, stayed long. Nichts zu bedeuten.

It was entertaining to watch the struggle in
Carlyle on such occasions between courtesy and vera
city. He was seldom actually rude, unless to a great
man like the Sardinian Minister. But he was not
skilful in concealing his dislikes and his boredoms.
His journal shows a gradual but slow, very slow
recovery out of his long prostration.

Journal.

February 28, 1854. — Not quite idle ; always indeed pro
fessing to work ; but making, as it were, no way at all.
Alas ! alas ! In truth I am weak and forlorn to a degree ;
have the profound est feeling of utter loneliness in the world ;
which the company, ' when it comes,' of my fellow-creatures
rather tends to aggravate and strengthen than assuage, I have,
however, or am getting, a kind of sad peace withal, ' renuncia
tion,' more real superiority to vain wishes, worldly honours,
advantages, &c., the peace that belongs to the old. My
Frederick looks as if it never would take shape in me ; in
fact the problem is to burn away the immense dungheap of
the 18th century with its ghastly cants, foul, blind sensualities,
cruelties and inanity now fallen putrid, rotting inevitably
towards annihilation; to destroy and extinguish all that, having
got to know it, and to know that it must be rejected for ever
more ; after which the perennial portion, pretty much Fried-

i. 2

r48 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

rich and Voltaire, so far as I can see, may remain conspicuous
and capable of being delineated1 (very loosely expressed all
this ; does not fit my thought like a skin ; but, like an Irish
waistcoat, it does in some degree).

Sunday morning last, there came into my mind a vision
of the old Sunday mornings I had seen at Mainhill, &c.
Poor old mother, father, and the rest of us bustling about to
get dressed in time and down to the meeting-house at Eccle-
fechan. Inexpressibly sad to me, and full of meaning. They
are gone now, vanished all ; their poor bits of thrifty clothes,
more precious to me than Queen's or King's expensive trap
pings, their pious struggling effort, their ' little life,' it is all
away. It has all melted into the still sea ; it was ' rounded
with a sleep.' So with all things. Nature and this big
universe in all corners of it show nothing else. Time ! Death !
All-devouring Time ! This thought, ' Exeunt omnes,' and
how the generations are like crops of grass, temporary, very,
and all vanishes, as it were an apparition and a ghost ; these
things, though half a century old in me, possess my mind
as they never did before. On the whole I have a strange
interior tomb life, and dwell in secret among scenes and
contemplations which I do not speak of to anybody. My
mother ! my good heavy-laden dear and brave and now lost
mother ! The thought that I shall never see her more with
these eyes gives a strange painful flash into me many times
when I look at that poor portrait I have of her. ' Like
Ulysses,' as I say, I converse with the shade of my mother
and sink out of all company and light common talk into that
grand element of sorrow and eternal stillness. God is great.
I will not ask or guess (know no man ever could or can)
what He has appointed for His poor creatures of the earth ;
a right and good and wise appointment, it full surely is.
Let me look to it with pious manfulness, without either
hope or fear that were excessive. Excessive ? Alas ! how very
small it is in me ; really inconsiderable, beaten out of me by
' many stripes,' pretty continual for these fifty years, till I
feel as if fairly broken and pounded in the mortar ; and have
oftenest no prayer except Rest, rest ; let me sleep then if

NOTES IN JOURNAL. 149

^=r?

that must be my doom ! ~Eor as God lives I am weary, very
weary, and the way of this world does not suit me at all.
Such changes grow upon the spirit of a man. When I look
back thirty years and read my feelings, it is very strange.
* Oh pious mother ! kind, good, brave, and truthful soul as I
have ever found, and more than I have ever elsewhere found
in this world, your poor Tom, long out of his schooldays now,
has fallen very lonely, very lame and broken in this pilgrimage
of his ; and you cannot help him or cheer him by a kind word
any more. From your grave in Ecclefechan kirkyard yonder
you bid him trust in God, and that also he will try if he can
understand, and do.\ The conquest of the world and of death
and hell does verily yet lie in that, if one can understand
and do it.

150 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTER XXII.

A.D. 1854. ^ET. 59.

Crimean war — Louis Napoleon — The sound-proof room — Dreams —
Death of John Wilson — Character of Wilson — A journal of a day
— The economies of Cheyne Row — Carlyle finances — ' Budget of a
Femme Incomprise.'

THE year 1854 was spent almost entirely in London.
Neither Carlyle nor his wife was absent for more than
a day or two : she in indifferent health, to which she
was stoically resigning herself; he ' in dismal continual
wrestle ' with ' Frederick,' ' the inexecutable book,' and
rather ' in bilious condition,' which meant what we
know. The work which he had undertaken was
immense ; desperate as that of the girl in the fairy
tale with the pile of tangled silks before her ; and
no beneficent godmother to help him through with
it ; and the gea of life, the spring and fire of
earlier years, gone out of him. He allowed what
was going on in the world to distract him as little
as possible ; but the sounds of such things broke in
upon him, and were as unwelcome as the cocks
had been. The Crimean war was in prospect, and
the newspapers were crowing as loud as the Demon
Fowls.

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 151

Journal.

Spring, 1854. — Russian war ; soldiers marching off, &c.
Never such enthusiasm seen among the population. Cold I
as a very stone to all that ; seems to me privately I have
hardly seen a madder business. 1696 was battle of Zeutha
on Theiss ; Eugene's task in this world to break the back
bone of Turk. A lazy, ugly, sensual, dark fanatic, that Turk,
whom we have now had for 400 years. I, for my own private
part, would not buy the continuance of him there at the
rate of sixpence a century. Let him go whenever he can,
stay no longer with all my heart. It will be a beautifuller,
not an uglier, that will come in his place ; uglier I should
not know where to look for under the sky at present. Then
as to Russian increase of strength, &c. Really, I would wait
till Russia meddled with me before I drew sword to stop his
increase of strength. It is the idle population of editors, &c.,
that have done all this in England. One perceives clearly
the ministers go forward in it against their will. Indeed, I
have seen no rational person who is not privately very much
inclined to be of my own opinion ; all fools and loose-spoken
inexperienced persons being of the other. It is very dis
graceful for any • ministry ' or government ; but such is the
fate and curse of all ministries here at present, inevitably.
Poor souls ! What could the ministry do after all ? To attend
to their home affairs, fortify their own coasts, encourage their
own fisheries (for new seamen), regulate their own population
into or towards proper manliness of spirit and position, and
capability of self-defence, and so bid defiance to all the
earth, as England peculiarly might — to do this, or any
portion of this, is far from them ; therefore they must do
the other thing. Better speed to them !

The French alliance, into which we were drawn
by the Crimean affair, was not, in Carlyle's opinion, a
compensating circumstance — very much the reverse.
The Revolution of 1848, a weak repetition of 1793,
had been followed by a corresponding Napoleonic

152 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Empire, a parody on the first. Carlyle had known
Louis Napoleon in England. He had watched him
stepping to the throne through perjury and massacre,
and had been indignant and ashamed for the nation
who could choose or tolerate at its head an adventurer
unrecommended by a single virtue. From the first, he
was certain that for such a man no good end was
to be looked for. It was with a feeling of disgust
that he found the English newspapers now hailing the
' scandalous Copper Captain,' as he called him, as the
saviour of European order, and a fit ally for England.
I, was with something more than disgust that he
heard of this person paying a visit to the Queen of
England, and being welcomed by her as a friend and
brother sovereign. The war and its consequences
and circumstances he thrust out of his mind, to the
utmost possible distance, and thought of other things.
To one of these, ' the eighth wonder of the world,'
which had sprung into being out of the Great Ex
hibition, the glass palace at Sydenham, he was less
intolerant than might have been expected. At the
end of April he spent a Saturday and Sunday with
the Ashburtons at Addisccmbe.

On Sunday (he tells his brother) we made a pilgrim
age to the Crystal Pa] ace. which is but some two miles off,
a monstrous mountain of glass building on the top of Syden
ham Hill, very conspicuous from Cheyne Walk here. In
numerable objects of Art in it, whole acres of Egyptian
monsters, and many really good copies of classical and
modern sculpture, which well deserve examination one day.
The living visitors not so very numerous in so huge an
edifice- — probably not above 200 — were almost all Jews.
Outside were as many thousands of the Christian persuasion
— or rather, Christian Cockney — unable to get in. The

THE SOUND-PROOF ROOM. 153

whole matter seemed to me to be the very highest flight of
Transcendental Cockney ism yet known among mankind. One
saw ' Regardless of expense ' written on every fibre of it, and
written with the best Cockney judgment, yet still with an
essentially Cockney one. Regardless of expense ! That was
the truly grand miracle of it.

At Cheyne Eow the great feature was the com
pletion of the 'sound-proof room, into which he
' was whirled aloft by the angry elements.' It was
built above the highest story, the roof being, as it
were, lifted over it, and was equal in size to the
whole area on which the house stood. A second
wall was constructed inside the outer one, with a
space between to deaden external noise. There
were doors in the inner wall, and windows in the
outer, which could be opened for ventilation, but the
room itself was lighted from above. It had no out
look except to the sky. Here Carlyle spent his work
ing hours, cut off from everyone — ' whirled aloft,' as
he said ; angry at the fate which had driven him into
such a refuge, and finding in it, when finished, the
faults inseparable from all human contrivances. But
he did admit that ' the light was superb,' that all
' softer sounds were killed on the road to him, and
that of sharp sounds scarce the thirtieth part could
penetrate.' The cocks had been finally abolished,
purchased out of existence by a 51. note and Mrs.
Carlyle's diplomacy. Thus they ' were quiet as mice,'
he working with all his might, dining out nowhere,
save once with the Procters, to meet Dickens, and
' finding it the most hideous evening he had had for
years.' Under these conditions, ' Frederick ' ought
to have made progress, if it could progress at all.
But it seemed as if it could not.

i54 CARLYLE\S LIFE IN LONDON.

Journal.

April, 1854. — No way made with my book, nor like
to be made. I am in a heavy, stupefying state of health,
too, and have no capacity of grasping the big chaos that lies
round me, and reducing it to order. Order! Eeducing !
It is like compelling the grave to give up its dead, were it
rightly done, and I am in no capacity for working such a
miracle. Yet all things point to work — tell me sternly
enough that except in work there is simply no hope for me
at all, no good that can now come to me.

I read old German books, dull as stupidity itself — nay,
superannuated stupidity — gain with labour the dreariest
glimpses of unimportant, extinct human things in that
region of the world ; but when I begin operating ; how to
reduce that widespread black desert of Brandenburg sand to
a small human garden — alas ! alas ! But let me not spend
time here making matters worse. Surely now I am at
the bottom of the wheel. I dream honibly— the fruit of
incurable biliousness ; waste scenes of solitary desolation,
gathered from Craigenputtock, as I now perceive, but ten
fold intensated-, endless uplands of scraggy moors, with
gnarls of lichened crag of a stern ugliness, for always I am
quite a hermit there too — fit to go into Dante's ' Inferno ' ;
with other visions less speakable, of a similar type. Every
vision, I find, is the express symbol and suitable representa
tive of the mood of mind then possessing me. Also, it is
sometimes weeks after the actual dream, as of these Dan-
tesque Galloway moors, when some other analogous dream
or circumstance first brings them to my waking recollection
—a thing rather curious to me. But nearly all my dreams
in this world have come from bodily conditions of the nerves,
I think ; and ninety-nine out of every hundred have been ugly
and painful, very stupid too, and weak, and, on the whole,
by no means worth having, could one have avoided them.
For the rest, I find nothing sublime in the act of dreaming,
nor even anything very strange. Shut your eyes at any
time, there will be a phantasmagory of thoughts and images

DEATH OF JOHN WILSON. 155

begin parading in unbroken series through your head. To
sleep is but to shut your eyes and outer senses a little better.
I have an impression thatrone always dreams, but that only
in cases where the nerves are disturbed by bad health, which
produces light, imperfect sleep, do they start into such re
lief — call it agony and antagony — as to force themselves
on our waking consciousness. On the whole, the miracle of
dreams was never much of a miracle to me, and now, this
long while, none at all, beyond what everything is.

Advancing years have one inseparable accompani
ment, painful if we like to make it so, or soft and sad,
as an ordinance of nature — a thing which has to be, and
must be so accepted. Each season takes away with
it more and more of the friends whom we have known
and loved, cutting one by one the strings which
attach us to our present lives, and lightening the
reluctance with which we recognise our own time
approaching. Anyone at all that we have personally
known has a friendly aspect when we hear that he is
dead. Even if he has done us an ill turn, he cannot
do it again. We forget the injuries we have received,
because, after all, they did not seriously hurt us ; we
remember the injuries which we have inflicted, be
cause they are past remedy. With the dead, whatever
they were, we only desire to be at peace. Between
John Wilson and Carlyle there had never been any cor
dial relation. They had met in Edinburgh in the old
clays ; on Carlyle's part there had been no backward
ness, and Wilson was not unconscious of Carlyle's ex
traordinary powers. But he had been shy of Carlyle,
and Carlyle had resented it, and now this April the
news (tame that Wilson was gone, and Carlyle had
t<> write his epitaph.

156 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Journal.

April 29, 1854. — John Wilson dead at Edinburgh about
ten days ago. Apoplexy had gradually cut him out of the
lists of the active, years ago, and for six months had quite
broken his memory, &c., and rendered recovery hopeless. I
knew his figure well; remember well first seeing him in
Princes Street on a bright April afternoon — probably 1814—
exactly forty years ago. Princes Street, on bright afternoons,
was then the promenade of Edinburgh, and I, as a student,
had gone among the others to see the KaXai and the ica\oi ;
one Campbell, some years older than myself, was walking
with me in the crowd. A tall ruddy figure, with plenteous
blonde hair, with bright blue eyes, fixed, as if in haste
towards some distant object, strode rapidly along, clearing
the press to the left of us, close by the railings, near where
Blackwood's shop now is. Westward he in haste ; we slowly
eastward. Campbell whispered me, ' That is Wilson of the
" Isle of Palms," ' which poem I had not read, being then
quite mathematical, scientific, &c., for extraneous reasons, as
I now see them to have been. The broad-shouldered stately
bulk of the man struck me ; his flashing eye, copious, dis
hevelled head of hair, and rapid, unconcerned progress, like
that of a plough through stubble. I really liked him, but
only from the distance, and thought no more of him. It
must have been fourteen years later before I once saw his
figure again, and began to have some distant straggling
acquaintance of a personal kind with him. Glad could T
have been to be better and more familiarly acquainted ;
but though I liked much in him, and he somewhat in me,
it would not do. He was always very kind to me, but
seemed to have a feeling I should — could — not become
wholly his, in which he was right, and that on other
terms he could not have me ; so we let it so remain, and
for many years— indeed, even after quitting Edinburgh I
had no acquaintance with him ; occasionally got symptoms
of his ill-humour with me— ink-spurts in ' Blackwood,' read
or heard of, which I, in a surly, silent manner, strove to

DEATH OF JOHN WILSON 157

consider flattering rather. Poor Wilson ! I cannot remember
ever to have at all much respected his judgment, or depth
of sincere insight into anything whatever ; and by this time
I was abroad in fields quite foreign to him, where his word
was of less and less avail to me. In London, indeed, I
seldom or never heard any talk of him. I never read his
blustering, drunken ' Noctes ' after Gordon in Edinburgh
ceased to bring them to me. We lived apart, as in different
centuries ; though, to say the truth, I always loved Wilson
— really rather loved him, and could have fancied a most
strict and very profitable friendship between us in different,
happier circumstances. But it was not to be. It was not
the way of this poor epoch, nor a possibility of the century
we lived in. One had to bid adieu to it therefore. Wilson
had much nobleness of heart, and many traits of noble
genius, but the central tie-beam seemed always wanting ;
very long ago I perceived in him the most irreconcilable
contradictions, Toryism with sansculottism ; Methodism of
a sort with total incredulity; a noble, loyal, and religious
nature, not strong enough to vanquish the perverse element
it is born into. Hence a being all split into precipitous chasms
and the wildest volcanic tumults ; rocks overgrown, indeed,
with tropical luxuriance of leaf and flower, but knit together
at the bottom — that was my old figure of speech — only by
an ocean — of whisky punch. On these terms nothing can
be done. Wilson seemed to me always by far the most
gifted of all our literary men, either then or still ; and yet
intrinsically he has written nothing that can endure. The
central gift was wanting. Adieu ! adieu ! oh, noble, ill-
starred brother ! Who shall say I am not myself farther
wrong, and in a more hopeless course and case, though
on the opposite side. . . . Wilson spoke always in a
curious dialect, full of humour and ingenuity, but with an
uncomfortable wavering between jest and earnest, as if it were
his interest and unconscious purpose to conceal his real
meaning in most things. So far as I can recollect, he was
once in my house (Comely Bank, with a testimonial, poor
fellow ! ) and I once in his, De Quincey, &c., a little while

i58 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

one afternoon. One night, at Gordon's, I supped with him,
or witnessed his supper — ten or twelve tumblers of whisky
punch, continued till the daylight shone in on him and us ;
and such a firework of wildly ingenious — I should say volcani-
cally vivid — hearty, humorous, and otherwise remarkable,
entertaining, and not venerable talk (Wordsworth, Dugald
Stewart, many men, as well as things, came in for a lick), as
I never listened to before or since. We walked homewards
together through the summer sunrise, I remember well.
Good Wilson! Poor Wilson! That must be twenty-six
years ago. I know not if among all his ' friends ' he has
left one who feels more recognisingly what he was, and how
tragical his life when seemingly most successful, than I now.
Adieu to him, good, grand, ruined soul, that never could be
great, or, indeed, be anything. This present is a ruinous
and ruining world.

In the obituary of this spring the name of another
Scotchman appeared — of more national temperament
— on whom Carlyle also leaves a few words.

A few days later (Wednesday last) there died also at
Edinburgh Lord Cockburn, a figure from my early years :
Jeffrey's biographer and friend ; in all respects the converse
or contrast of Wilson — rustic Scotch sense, sincerity, and
humour, all of the practical Scotch type, versus the Neo-
poetical Wordsworthian, Coleridgean, extremely chaotic
* Church of the Future,' if Calvary, Parnassus, and whisky
punch can ever be supposed capable of growing into any
thing but a dungheap of the future or past. Cockburn,
small, solid, and genuine, was by much the wholesomer
product ; a bright, cheery- voiced, hazel-eyed man ; a Scotch
dialect with plenty of good logic in it, and of practical
sagacity. Veracious, too. A gentleman, I should say, and
perfectly in the Scotch type, perhaps the very last of that
peculiar species.

Carlyle's own special work at this time was con
fined almost to reading books. The little that he

A JOURNAL OF A DAY. 159

composed was unsatisfactory, and the entries in
his journal, which were unusually numerous in the
period of forced inactivity, were at once an occupa
tion and a relief. When once he was launched upon
his enterprise, he had little leisure for self-reflection.
A long vacant interval was soon to follow in the
journal ; here is one more passage from it — one more
open window into his inner soul : —

Journal.

June, 15, 1854. — Being to all appearance just about the
nadir in my affairs at present, solitary, without any human
being to whom I can with profit communicate myself, and
totally unable, from illness, &c., to get any hold of the ugly
chaos, wide as the world, which I am called to subdue into the
form of work done, I rushed out yesterday and took a violent,
long, fatiguing walk in the Surrey precincts, Tooting, &c.,
that at least I might be quite alone with my unbeau-
tiful self and my ditto affairs. A beautiful, soft, bright
day; the sky unusually clear, moist clouds floating about
upon the wind far enough aloft, and the sun shining out
from time to time. Sitting silent on Wandsworth Common,
remote amid the furze bushes, I said, ' Suppose we write a
journal of a week ? the time of acti labores may once
again come, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, and
then it will be pleasant to look back.' I did not much enter
tain the project, nor at this time am I clear to do it. Here,
however, is yesterday : — Wrote some business notes invitis-
sima Minerva after breakfast ; had lost the little dog, &c.,
who, however, was found about noon. Then examined
the scribble I had been doing about Jillich and Berg;
Preussen, &c. Totally without worth ! Decided to run
out, as above said. Out at half-past one p.m. ; return
towards five. Asleep on the sofa before dinner at half-past
five ; take my ' Schlosser,' vol. 4 ; can do little at it till tea.
Not a l>a<l book, though very crabbed and lean. Brother

160 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

John l enters at eight ; gossip with him till nine ; then out
to escort him home, getting three-quarters of an hour of
walking to myself withal. Had refused the Lowe soiree
before. Jane poorly ; in a low way for some days back.
Read till one a.m., she soon leaving me. To bed then,
having learned little ; how little ! To-day I am at my desk
again ; intend to try Liegnitz and Silesian matters. Small
hope there. My eyes are very dim ; bad light (from sky
direct), though abundant. Chiefly the state of liver, I
suppose, which indeed in itself and its effects is beyond
description. Have taken to iron pens ; compelled to it by
the ever-fluctuating * cheap and nasty ' system which has
prevailed in regard to paper and ink everywhere for twenty
years past, which system, worse to me almost than the loss
of an arm, not to mention money at all, may the Devil con
found, as indeed he does. Basta! Basta! Liegnitz itself
will be better than that.

So far Carlyle on himself and his affairs. I will
now add a piece of writing of his wife's, which throws
light on the domestic economies of Cheyne Eow, and
shows how life was carried on there, with what skill,
with what thrift, under what conditions, personal and
material. Her letters indirectly tell much, but this
particular composition is directly addressed to that
special subject. There was a discussion some years
ago in the newspapers whether two people with the
habits of a lady and a gentleman could live together
in London on 300/. a year. Mrs. Carlyle, who often
laughed about it while it was going on, will answer
the question. Miss Jewsbury says that no one who
visited the Carlyles could tell whether they were
poor or rich. There were no signs of extravagance,
but also none of poverty. The drawing-room arrange-

1 John Carlyle had come with his wife to live in London. She died
tragically two months later in her first confinement.

THE ECONOMIES OF CHEYNE ROW. 161

ments were exceptionally elegant. The furniture was
simple, but solid and handsome ; everything was
scrupulously clean ; everything good of its kind ;
and there was an air of ease, as of a household livin<>-

D

within its means. Mrs. Carlyle was well dressed
always. Her admirable taste would make the most
of inexpensive materials ; but the materials them
selves were of the very best. Carlyle himself
generally kept a horse. They travelled, they visited,
they were always generous and open-handed. They
had their house on easy terms. The rent, which
when they came first was 30/. a year, I think was
never raised — out of respect for Carlyle's character ;
but it had many rooms in it, which, because they
could not bear to have them otherwise, were main
tained in the best condition. There was much curiosity
among their friends to know how their establishment
was supported. Mrs. Carlyle had 150/. a year from
Craigenputtock. He himself, in a late calculation,
had set down his average income from his books at
another 150/. For several years before the time at
which we have now arrived he had published little
which materially added to this. There was a fixed
annual demand for his works, but not a large one.
The 'Cromwell' was a large book, and had gone
through three editions. I do not know precisely
how much he had received from it ; perhaps 1,500/.
The ' Latter-day Pamphlets ' had produced little be
yond paying their expenses. The ' Life of Sterling '
was popular, but that too only in a limited circle.
Carlyle was thrifty, but never penurious ; he gave
away profusely in his own family, and was liberal
beyond his means elsewhere. He had saved, I think,

IV.

162 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

about 2,000/. in all, which was lying at interest in
Dumfries bank, and this was all. Thus his entire
income at this time could not have exceeded 400/., if
it was as much. His German tour had been expen
sive. The new room had cost 1TO/. The cost of
living was increasing through the rise in prices,
which no economy could guard against, and though
they had but one servant the household books
mounted disagreeably. Mrs. Carlyle, not wishing to
add to her husband's troubles, had as far as possible
kept her anxieties to herself. Indeed, Carlyle was
like most husbands in this matter, and was inclined
to be irritable when spoken to about it. But an
explanation at last became necessary, and the
humorous acidity of tone with which she entered on
it shows that she had borne much before she pre
sented her statement. It is dated February 12, 1855,
and is endorsed by Carlyle 'Jane's Missive on the
Budget,' with a note appended.

The enclosed was read with great laughter; had been
found lying on my table as I returned out of the frosty
garden from smoking. Debt is already paid off. Quarterly
income to be 581. henceforth, and all is settled to poor
Goody's heart's content. The piece is so clever that I
cannot just yet find in my heart to burn it, as perhaps I
ought to do.

Budget of a Femme Tncomprise.

I don't choose to speak again on the money question !
The k replies ' from the Noble Lord are unfair and unkind,
and little to the purpose. When you tell me ' I pester your
life out about money,' that « your soul is sick with hearing
about it,' that ' I had better make the money I have serve,'
' at all rates, hang it, let you alone of it ' — all that I call

THE ECONOMIES OF CHEYNE ROW. 163

perfectly unfair, the reverse of kind, and tending to nothing
but disagreement. If I were greedy or extravagant or a bad
manager, you would be justified in « staving me off' with loud
words ; but you cannot say thatofme (whatever else)— cannot
think it of me. At least, I am sure that I never ' asked for
more ' to myself from you or anyone, not even from my own
mother, in all my life, and that through six and twenty years I
have kept house for you at more or less cost according to given
circumstances, but always on less than it costs the generality
of people living in the same style. What I should have
expected you to say rather would have been : ' My dear, you
must be dreadfully hampered in your finances, and dread
fully anxious and unhappy about it, and quite desperate of
making it do, since you are " asking for more." Make me
understand the case, then. I can and will help you out of
that sordid suffering at least, either by giving you more, if
that be found prudent to do, or by reducing our wants to
within the present means.' That is the sort of thing you
would have said had you been a perfect man ; so I suppose
you are not a perfect man. Then, instead of crying in my
bed half the night after, I would have explained my budget
to you in peace and confidence. But now I am driven to
explain it on paper ' in a state of mind ; ' driven, for I can
not, it is not in my nature to live « entangled in the details,'
and I will not. I would sooner hang myself, though ' pes
tering you about money ' is also more repugnant to me than
you dream of.

You don't understand why the allowance which sufficed
in former years no longer suffices. That is what I would

explain to the Noble Lord if he would but — what shall I say ?

keep his temper.

The beginning of my embarrassments, it will not surprise
the Noble Lord to learn, since it has also been « the begin
ning of almost every human ill to himself, was the repair /'„>/
of the house. There was a destruction, an irregularity, an
incessant recurrence of small incidental expenses, during
all that period, or two periods, through which I found myself
in September gone a year, ten pounds behind, instead of

1 64 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

having some pounds saved up towards the winter's coals.
I could have worked round ' out of that,' however, in course
of time, if habits of unpinched housekeeping had not been
long taken to by you as well as myself, and if new unavoidable
or not to be avoided current expenses had not followed close
on those incidental ones. I will show the Noble Lord, with
his permission, what the new current expenses are, and to
what they amount per annum. (Hear, hear ! and cries of
'Be brief!')

1. We have a servant of ' higher grade ' than we ever
ventured on before ; more expensive in money. Anne's
wages are 16 pounds a year; Fanny's were 13. Most of the
others had 12 ; and Anne never dreams of being other than
well fed. The others scrambled for their living out of
ours. Her regular meat dinner at one o'clock, regular
allowance of butter, &c., adds at least three pounds a year to
the year's bills. But she plagues us with no fits of illness
nor of drunkenness, no warnings nor complainings. She
does perfectly what she is paid and fed to do. I see houses
not so well kept with ' cook,' ' housemaid,' and ' manservant '
( Question ! ). Anne is the last item I should vote for re
trenching in. I may set her down, however, at six additional
pounds.

2. We have now gas and water ' laid on,' both producing an
admirable result. But betwixt ' water laid on ' at one pound
sixteen shillings per annum, with shilling to turncock, and
water carried at fourpence a week there is a yearly difference
of 1 9 shillings and four pence ; and betwixt gas all the
year round and a few sixpenny boxes of lights in the winter
the difference may be computed at fifteen shillings. These
two excellent innovations, then, increase the yearly expendi
ture by one pound fourteen shillings and four pence — a trifle
to speak of ; but you, my Lord, born and bred in thrifty
Scotland, must know well the proverb, ' Every little mak's a
mickle.'

3. We are higher taxed. Within the last eighteen
months there has been added to the Lighting, Pavement,
and Improvement Rate ten shillings yearly, to the Poor Rate

THE ECONOMIES OF CHEYNE ROW. 165

one pound, to the sewer rate ten shillings ; and now the

doubled Income Tax makes a difference of 51. 16s. 8d. yearly,

which sums, added together, amount to a difference of

11. 16s. Sd. yearly, on taxes which already amounted to

171. 12s. 8d. There need be no reflections for want of taxes.

4. Provisions of all sorts are higher priced than in

former years. Four shillings a week for bread, instead of

two shillings and sixpence, makes at the year's end a

difference of 3L 18s. Butter has kept all the year round

2d. a pound dearer than I ever knew it. On the quantity

we use_two pounds and a half per week ' quite reg'lar '-

there is a difference of 21s. 8d. by the year. Butcher's

meat is a penny a pound dearer. At the rate of a pound

and a half a day, bones included — no exorbitant allowance

for three people — the difference on that at the year's end

would be 21. 5s. Qd. Coals, which had been for some years

at 21s. per ton, cost this year 26s., last year 29s., bought

judiciously, too. If I had had to pay 50s. a ton for them,

as some housewives had to, God knows what would have

become of me. (Passionate cries of « Question ! question ! ')

We burn, or used to burn — I am afraid they are going

faster this winter — twelve tons, one year with another.

Candles are riz : composites a shilling a pound, instead of

10d.; dips 8 pence, instead of od. or 6ci Of the

former we burn three pounds in nine days— the greater

part of the year you sit so late— and of dips two pounds a

fortnight on the average of the whole year. Bacon is 2d. a

pound dearer ; soap ditto ; potatoes, at the cheapest, a penny

a pound, instead of three pounds for 2d. We use three

pounds of potatoes in two days' meals. Who could imagine

that at the year's end that makes a difference of 15s. 2d. on

one's mere potatoes ? Compute all this, and you will find

that the difference on provisions cannot be under twelve

pounds in the year.

5. What I should blush to state if I were not at bay, so
to speak : ever since we have been in London you have, in
the handsomest manner, paid the winter's butter with i/mu-
i>n'fi money, though it was not hi the bond. And this

i66 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

gentlemanlike proceeding on your part, till the butter
became uneatable, was a good two pounds saved me.
Add up these differences : —

& s. d.

1. Rise on servant .... 600

2. Rise on light and water . 1 14 4

3. On taxes 7 16 8

4. On provisions .... 12 0 0

5. Cessation of butter ... 200

You will find a total of £2911 0

My calculation will be found quite correct, though I am
not strong in arithmetic. I have thochtered all this well in
my head, and indignation makes a sort of arithmetic, as
well as verses. Do you finally understand why the allow
ance which sufficed formerly no longer suffices, and pity my
difficulties instead of being angry at them ?

The only thing you can reproach me with, if you like* is
that fifteen months ago, when I found myself already in
debt, and everything rising on me, I did not fall at once to
pinching and muddling, as when we didn't know where the
next money was to come from, instead of ' lashing down ' at
the accustomed rate : nay, expanding into a ' regular servant.'
But you are to recollect that when I first complained to you
of the prices, you said, quite good-naturedly, ' Then you are
coming to bankruptcy, are you ? Not going to be able to
go on, you think ? Well, then, we must come to your
assistance, poor crittur. You mustn't be made a bankrupt
of.' So I kept my mind easy, and retrenched in nothing,
relying on the promised ' assistance.' But when ' Oh ! it
was lang o' coming, lang o' corning,' my arrears taking every
quarter a more alarming cifer, what could I do but put you
in mind ? Once, twice, at the third speaking, what you
were pleasantly calling * a great heap of money' — 151. — was
— what shall I say ? — flung to me. Far from leaving any
thing to meet the increased demand of another nine months,
this sum did not clear me of debt, not by five pounds.
But from time to time encouraging ivords fell from the

THE ECONOMIES OF CHEYNE ROW. 167

Noble Lord. ' No, you cannot pay the double Income Tax ;
clearly, I must pay that for you.' And again : < I will burn
as many coals as I like ; if you can't pay for them somebody
must ! ' All resulting, however, thus far in « Don't you wish
you may get it f ' Decidedly I should have needed to be
more than mortal, or else « a born daughter of Chaos,' to
have gone on without attempt made at ascertaining what
coming to my assistance meant: whether it meant 15L
without a blessing once for all ; and, if so, what retrench
ments were to be permitted.

You asked me at last money row, with withering sarcasm,
' had I the slightest idea what amount of money would satisfy
me. Was I wanting 501. more ; or forty, or thirty ? Was
there any conceivable sum of money that could put an end to
my eternal botheration ? ' I will answer the question as if
it had been asked practically and kindly.

Yes. I have the strongest idea what amount of money
would < satisfy ' me. I have computed it often enough as I
lay awake at nights, and didn't I wish I might get it ? In
deed, when I can't sleep now it is my ' difficulties' I think
about more than my sins, till they become * a real mental
awgony in my own inside.' The above-named sum, 291.,
divided into quarterly payments, would satisfy me (with
a certain parsimony about little things somewhat less might
do), I engaging my word of a gentlewoman to give back at
the year's end whatever portion thereof any diminution of tlie
demand on me might enable me to save.

I am not so unpractical, however, as to ask for the
whole 291. without thought or care where it is to come from.
I have settled all that (Derisive laughter, and Hear, hear !), so
that nine pounds only will have to be disbursed by you over
and above your long-accustomed disbursements (Hear, hear !).
You anticipate, perhaps, some draft on your waste-paper
basket. No, my Lord, it has never been my habit to inter
fere with your ways of making money, or the rate which you
make it at ; and if I never did it in early years, most unlikely
I should do it noiv. My bill of ways and means has nothing
to do with making money, only with disposing of the money
made. (Bravo ! hear \}

r 68 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

1. Ever since my mother's death you have allowed me
for old Mary Mills 3£. yearly. She needs them no more.
Continue these three pounds for the house.

2. Through the same long term of years you have made
me the handsomest Christmas and birthday presents ; and
when I had purposely disgusted you from buying me things,
you gave me at the New Year 51. Oh I know the meaning
of that 51. quite well. Give me nothing ; neither money nor
money's worth. I would have it so anyhow, and continue
the 51. lor the house.

3. Ever since we came to London you have paid some 21.,
I guess, for butter, now become uneatable. Continue that 21.
for the house ; and we have already ten pounds which you
can't miss, not having been used to them.

4. My allowance of 251. is a very liberal one ; has enabled
me to spend freely for myself ; and I don't deny there is a
pleasure in that when there is no household crisis ; but with
an appalling deficit in the house exchequer, it is not only no
pleasure but an impossibility. I can keep up my dignity
and my wardrobe on a less sum — on 151. a year. A silk dress,
' a splendid dressing-gown,' ' a milliner's bonnet ' the less ;
what signifies that at my age ? Nothing. Besides, I have
had so many ' gowns ' given me that they may serve for two
or three years. By then God knows if I shall be needing
go^uns at all. So deduct 10L from my personal allowance ;
and continue that for the house.

But why not transfer it privately from my own purse to
the house one, and ask only for 1 91. ? It would have sounded
more modest — figured better. Just because ' that sort of
thing ' don't please me. I have tried it and found it a bad
go : a virtue not its own reward ! I am for every herring to
hang by its own head, every purse to stand on its own bottom.
It would worry me to be thought rolling in the wealth of
25L, when I was cleverly making 151. do, and investing 101.
in coals and taxes. Mrs. is up to that sort of self-
sacrifice thing, and to finding compensation in the sympathy
of many friends, and in smouldering discontent with X. for
having no intuition of her magnanimity. I am up to neither

THE ECONOMIES OF CHEYNE ROW. 169

the magnanimity nor the compensation, but I am quite up
to laying down 10L of my allowance in a straightforward
recognised way, without standing on my toes to it either.
And what is more, I am determined upon it, will not
accept more than 151. in the present state of affairs.

There only remains to disclose the actual state of the
exchequer. It is empty as a drum. (Sensation.) If I con
sider twenty-nine more pounds indispensable — things remain
ing as they are — for the coming year, beginning the 22nd of
March, it is just because I have found it so in the year that is
gone ; and I commenced that, as I have already stated, with
101. of arrears. You assisted me with 151., and I have assisted
myself with 101., five last August, which I took from the
Savings Bank, and the five you gave me at New Year, which
I threw into the coal account. Don't suppose — ' if thou's r
the habit of supposing ' — that I tell you this in the uwdevout
imagination of being repaid. By all that's sacred for me —
the memory of my father and mother — what else can an
irreligious creature like me swear by ? I would not take back
that money if you offered it with the best grace, and had
picked it up in the street. I tell it you simply that you may
see I am not so dreadfully greedy as you have appeared to
think me latterly. Setting my 10Z. then against the original
arrears, with 151. in assistance from you, it would follow, from
my own computation, that I should need 14£. more to clear
off arrears on the weekly bills and carry me on paying my way
until 2 2nd of March, next quarter-day. (Cries of Shame ! and
Turn her out !) I say only ' should need.1 Your money is
of course yours, to do as you will with, and I would like
to again ' walk the causeway ' carrying my head as high — as
—Mr. A., the upholsterer, owing no man anything, and
dearly I would like to * at all rates let YOU alone of it,' if I
knew who else had any business with my housekeeping, or
to whom else I could properly address myself for the mo
ment ; as what with that expensive, most ill-timed dressing-
gown, and my cheap ill-timed chiffonnier, and my half-year's
bills to Khind and Catchpole, I have only what will serve me
till June comes round.

170 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

If I was a man, I might fling the gauntlet to Society,
join with a few brave fellows, and ' rob a diligence.' But
my sex ' kind o' debars from that.' Mercy ! to think there
are women — your friend Lady A., for example (' Rumeurs I '
Sensation) — I say for example ; who spend not merely the
additamental pounds I must make such pother about, but
four times my whole income in the ball of one night, and
none the worse for it, nor anyone the better. It is — what
shall I say ? — ' curious,' upon my honour. But just in the
same manner Mrs. Freeman might say : ' To think there are
women — Mrs. Carlyle, for example — who spend 3l. 14s. 6d.
on one dressing-gown, and I with just two loaves and eighteen
pence from the parish, to live on by the week.' There is no
bottom to such reflections. The only thing one is perfectly
sure of is 'it will come all to the same ultimately,' and I
can't say I'll regret the loss of myself, for one. — I add no
more, but remain, dear Sir, your obedient humble servant,

JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

Mrs. Carlyle, it must be admitted, knew how to
administer a ' shrewing.' Her poor husband, it must
be admitted also, knew how to bear one. He, perhaps,
bore it too well, for there were parts of what she
said which he might with advantage have laid to
heart seriously. At any rate, he recognized instantly
and without the least resentment the truth of a state
ment to which he had been too impatient to listen.
The cleverness of it delighted him, in spite of the
mockery of himself and his utterances. At the foot
of the last page he wrote immediately —

Excellent, my dear clever Goody, thriftiest, wittiest, and
cleverest of women. I will set thee up again to a certainty,
and tby 30£. more shall be granted, thy bits of debts paid,
and thy will be done.

T. C.

Feb. 12, 1855.

THE ECONOMIES OF CHEYNE ROW. 171

No man ever behaved better under such a chastise
ment. Not a trace is visible of resentment or impa
tience, though also less regret than a perfect husband
ought to have felt that he had to a certain extent

o

deserved it. Unfortunately, knowing that he had
meant no harm and had done all that he was
asked to do the instant that the facts were before
him, he never could take a lesson of this kind properly
to heart, and could be just as inconsiderate and just
as provoking on the next occasion that arose. Poor
Carlyle ! Well he might complain of his loneliness !
though he was himself in part the cause of it. Both
he and she were noble and generous, but his was the
soft heart, and hers the stern one.

172 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTEE XXIII.

A.D. 1854-7. ^ET. 59-62.

Difficulties over 'Frederick' — Crimean war — Louis Napoleon in
England— Edward Fitzgerald— Farlingay— Three weeks at Addis-
combe — Mrs. Carlyle and Lady Ashburton — Scotsbrig — Kinloch
Luichart— Lady Ashburton's death — Effect on Carlyle— Solitude
in Cheyne Row— Biding costume— Fritz— Completion of the first
two volumes of ' Frederick ' — Carlyle as a historian.

Journal.

Chelsea., September 16, 1854. — 'The harvest is past,
the summer is ended, and we are not saved/ What a fear
ful word! I cannot find how to take up that miserable

* Frederick,' or what on earth to do with it. ' Hohenzollerns,'

* Sketches of Grerman History ' — something of all that I have
tried, but everything breaks down from innumerable out
ward impediments — alas ! alas ! from the defect of inward
fire. I am getting old, yet would grudge to depart without
trying to tell a little more of my mind. This of repairing
my house has been a dreadful thing, tumbling topsy-turvy
all my old habits, &c. I feel as if I never could write any
more in these sad, altered circumstances ; as if it were like
being placed on the point of a spear, and there bidden at
once stand and write. That was my thought this morn
ing when I awoke — an unjust, exaggerated thought ; yet it
is certain all depends on myself; and in the whole earth,
probably, there is not elsewhere so lonely a soul. To work !
Try to get some work done, or thou wilt go mad.

CRIMEAN WAR. 173

October 25. — I do not write here, or write at all, to say
how ill I prosper, how ill I manage myself ; what a sad out
look my studies, interests, and endeavours in this world con
tinue to offer. I seem as if beaten, disgracefully vanquished,
in this ' the last of my fields.' I am weak— a poor angry-
hearted mortal, sick, solitary, and altogether foiled. For a
week or two past I have been to the State Paper Office, in
hopes of getting some illumination for my dim, dreary,
impossible course through the ' desert of Brandenburg sand.'
Occasionally it has seemed promising. Neuberg has now
been admitted, or will be in a day or two, to attend me
there, the good man having heroically undertaken that
piece of charity. Let us see ; let us see. Nothing but ' re
morse,' the sharp sting of conscience for time wasted, carries
me along, or even induces such a resolution for desperate
effort as could carry me along. Alas ! I am not yet into
the thing. Generally, it seems as if I never should or could
get into it. What will become of me ? Am I absolutely
beaten by this and the thousand other paltry things that
have gone wrong with me in these late times ?

« Victory at the Alma ! ' fierce and bloody ; forcing a pas
sage right across fortified heights and 45,000 Russians, to
begin the siege ofSebastopol — a terrible, and almost horrible
operation, done altogether at the command of the news
papers. What have I to do with all that ? In common, I
believe, with nearly all the rational men in the country, I
have all along been totally indisposed to this miserable Turk
war. The windy fools alone — it is the immense majority of
that class, that have done and do this last enterprise of ours.
Would we were well out of it. That is all my prayer and
thought in regard to that.

April 4, 1855. — Writing at something called ' Frede
rick ; ' the ' Double Marriages ' at present ; most mournful,
dreary, undoable work. All the world in emotion about
Balaclava and the Turk war— too sad a fulfilment of my
'Latter Day ' prophecies, as many now admit. I perceive
it to be the beginning of baitl.'i'nj>t<-f/ to Constitutional
England, and have in silence my own thoughts about it.

174 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Lonelier and lonelier! Let me get along with my work.
For me there is no other good ever to be hoped.

If he needed comfort, he was not likely to find it
in the things which were going on round him. It was
no satisfaction to him that the state of the army in the
Crimea — the dysentery and starvation, with the memo
rable ' take care of Dowb ' in the midst of it — con
firmed his notions of the nature of modern British
administration. In this April came the still more
sinister phenomenon of the visit to England of the
French Emperor. On this point, if on no other, he
was at one with the majority of his countrymen.
Outside the privileged circles who wanted order
preserved, and security to property, and safe enjoy
ment of idle luxury, Louis Napoleon had no friends
among us. But the times were hard, and we looked
on, swallowing down our disgust as best we could,
while the man of December was entertained at
Windsor. It was said in the papers that he was received
in London by enthusiastic crowds. That was not
Caiiyle's impression from what he himself saw.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea : April 20, 1855.

Louis Napoleon has not been shot hitherto. That is the
best that can be said. He gathers, they say, great crowds
about him, but his reception from the hip-hip-hurrahing
classes is not warm at all. On Monday, just before they
arrived, I came (in omnibus) down Piccadilly. Two thin and
thinnest rows of the most abject-looking human wretches I
had ever seen or dreamt of — lame, crook-backed, dwarfish,
dirty-shirted, with the air of pickpockets and City jackals, not
a gent hardly among them, much less any vestige of a gentle
man — were drawn up from St. James's Street to Hyde Park

LOUIS NAPOLEON. i?S

Corner to receive the august pair. I looked at them with
a shuddering thankfulness that they were not drawn up to

receive me.

April 23.— We have got done with our Emperor. Thank
Heaven, he took himself away before the week ended.
Never was such a blaze of enthusiastic reception, &c., says
rumour, which. I for my own share cannot confirm or de
cisively contradict. Royal children all weeping when ^ the
soi-disant august pair took themselves away again— a la
bonne heure !

Very bitter this — too bitter as we look back, per
haps. Louis Napoleon was a symbol and creature of
his time, which divided with him the crime of the
coup d'etat. He had his day, and paid his debt at the
end of it to the retributory powers. But while his day
lasted and he seemed to thrive, he was an ugly object
in the eyes of those who believed in some sort of
Providence.

' Frederick ' meanwhile, in spite of lamentations
over failure, was at last moving. Carlyle had stood
steadily to it for eighteen months, and when August
came he required rest and change. Many friends were
eager for the honour of entertaining him. There
was no longer any mother to call him down to Scots-
brig. He selected among them Mr. Edward Fitz
gerald, who had been useful to him in the ' Cromwell '
days, investigating Naseby field, and whose fine gifts
of intellect and character he heartily loved and ad
mired. Mr. Fitzgerald lived at Woodbridge, near
Farlingay, in Suffolk, an old-fashioned mansion-house
of his own, in which he occupied a few rooms, the
rest being a farm-house. The scene was new to him.
A Suffolk farmer, 'with a dialect almost equal to
Xithsdale,' was a fresh experience. The farm

T 76 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

cookery was simple and wholesome, the air perfect,
the sea, with a beach where he could bathe, at no
great distance ; his host ready to be the pleasantest
of companions if his society was wished for, and as
willing ' to efface himself when not wanted. Under
these conditions, a ' retreat ' for a few clays to Wood-
bridge was altogether agreeable. The love which
all persons who really knew him felt for Carlyle made
it a delight to minister to his comfort. His humours
were part of himself. They took him as he was,
knowing well how amply his conversation would pay
for his entertainment. He, for his part, enjoyed him
self exceptionally ; he complained of nothing. Place,
lodging, company were equally to his mind.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Farlingay, August 10.

As to me, all things go prosperously. I made an excellent
sleep out last night — at least, two sleeps added together that
amounted to excellent. You see I have skill in the weather
too. Here are the sunny autumn days begun, and this, the
first of them, has been one of the beautifullest that could be
desired ; as nice a morning as I remember to have seen, and
your letter waiting for me, and good Fitz sitting patient on a
big block — huge stump of a tree-root, on which they have sown
mignonette — at the bead of the garden till I pleased to
come down. I have sauntered about, reading, in the fields.
We drove in the gig : afterwards I walked lustily through
pleasant lanes and quiet country roads, all of hard, smooth
sand ; in short, a day suitable to my purpose in coining here.
I already seem to feel twice as strong for walking ; step
along at a great rate in spite of the windless heat. I design

to have a try again at the sea to-morrow.

August 13.

There have been some adventures here, or rather one
adventure, but all goes right after it as much as before.

VISIT TO FAR LING AY. 177

It was an adventure of cows. Cows go in a field — or rather
went, but do not now go — opposite this big window, sepa
rated merely by the garden and an invisible fence. The
night after I wrote last, these animals, about 2 a.m., took to
lowing with an energy to have awakened the seven sleepers.
No soul could guess why ; but there they raged and lowed
through the night watches, awoke the whole house here, and
especially awoke me, and held me vigilant till six, when I
arose for a walk through fields and lanes. No evil came of
it, only endless sorrow of poor Fitz and the household, end
less apologies, &c. The cows were removed, and I have slept
well ever sinee, and am really growing better and better in
my silent rustication here. Fitz took me down yesterday to
Aldborough, a very pleasant drive — seventeen miles ; off at
8 A.M., home about the same hour of evening. It is a beau
tiful little sea town, one of the best bathing-places I have
seen. Nothing can excel the sea — a mile of fine shingly
beach, with patches of smooth sand every here and there ;
clear water shelving rapidly, deep at all hours ; beach solitary
beyond wont, whole town rather solitary. My notion is, if
you have yet gone nowhere, you should think of Aldborough.
If a lodging could be had there, which is probable, I could
like very well to take a fortnight or so of it. Never saw
a place more promising. . . . Adieu, dearest ! Drown Nero,
and be reasonable. — Yours ever, T. C.

August 17.

No news from you to-day, which I will take to mean that
there is no bad news, all things remaining with Goody, as they
do with Illy, in statu quo. I have bathed ; I have been driven
about. Weather hot and shining, without wind. Last night
I slept unusually well, and to-morrow I am to go. Fitz has
been the best of landlords, and has discharged the sacred
rites really with a kind of Irish zeal and piety ; a man not
to be forgotten. He has done everything except ' leave me
well alone ; ' that he has not quite done ; and to say truth,
I shall not care to be off and lie down in my own corner
;igain, even with the sputter of Oemorne in the distance.

IV. if

178 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

Eestless spirit ! for ' in his own corner,' when ' he
did lie down in it,' he grew ' sleepless, disconsolate,
and good for little or nothing.' The Ashburtons,
knowing his condition, offered him Addiscombe
again for the short remains of the summer, and there
he and Mrs. Carlyle tried to make a brief holiday
together. It did not answer. She preferred Chelsea
and solitude, and left him to wander about the Surrey
lanes alone.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Addiscombe : September 2, 1855. Sunday midnight.

My poor little Jeannie is away. You may fancy, or
rather, perhaps, in your spleen you will not fancy, what a
dreary wae sight it was to me this morning when I sallied
out, stupid and sad, and found your door open, the one cup
downstairs, tea-pot washed out. ' Mrs. Carlyle gone at
eight, sir ; don't know whither ; had not slept at all.' Alas !
alas ! I know not even whether you had got any breakfast.
It did not strike me to question my Hycena further on that
subject, and it now strikes me you probably had none. Poor
little soul ! tough as wire, but rather heavy-laden. Well, I
hope you are now asleep in your own safe, big, curtained
old bed. In all ways you can now stretch yourself out.

I have had the loneliest day I can recollect in all my
life, or about the very loneliest. I declined riding. My
horse had need of rest, at any rate. The wind was howling
and the dust flying, and on all my nerves lay dull embargo,
only to be lifted by hard labour. I set out soon after one ;
walked over heaths, through thick woods, in solitary places,
with a huge sough of the wind and a grey troublous sky for
company, about three and a half hours ; did not weary, did
not much improve. Sate smoking once with a bush at my
back, on a hill-side by the edge of a wood. Grot home five
minutes before five, and the punctual Dragon was there with
the dinner you had ordered. After dinner I read for an
hour, smoked, then sate down by the fire, and, waiting to
ring for candle, fell into nightmare sleep till almost nine.

THREE WEEKS AT ADDISCOMBE. 179

I look for you on Tuesday early. Nevertheless, if you
would rather not, I have no doubt of getting some feasible
enough dinner, &c., for indeed that poor woman seems to
understand her work well enough ; and the Dragon herself
is all civility and sugary smiles, if that were of much ad
vantage. For the rest, the dreariness of solitude — that,
though disagreeable to bear, is understood to be of the
nature of medicine to the mind at this juncture. No way
of clearing muddy water but by letting it settle.

However, I calculate you will come, and take the reins
in hand for another stage. My poor little Protectress !
Good night now finally.

T. C.

Such letters as this throw strange lights into
Carlyle's domestic life, sad and infinitely touching.
When he complains so often of the burdens that
were laid upon him, one begins to understand what
he meant. And yet, harassed and overloaded as he
was, he could find leisure for acts of kindness to
strangers who would not have intruded on him had
they known of his anxieties. I had not yet settled in
London ; but I came up occasionally to read books
in the Museum, &c. I called as often as I ventured
in Cheyne Eow, and was always made welcome there.
But I was a mere outward acquaintance, and had no
right to expect such a man as Carlyle to exert himself
for me. I had, however, from the time when I became
acquainted with his writings, looked on him as my own
guide and master — so absolutely that I could have
said : ' Malim errare cum Platone quam cum aliis bene
sentire'-, or, in Goethe's words, which I often indeed did
repeat to myself : ' Mit deinem Meister zu irren ist dein
Gewinn.' The practice of submission to the authority
of one whom one recognises as greater than one's self

N 2

i8o CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

outweighs the chance of occasional mistake. If I wrote
anything, I fancied myself writing it to him, reflecting
at each word on what he would think of it, as a check
on affectations. I was busy then on the first volume
of my ' History of England.' I had set the first two
chapters in print that I might take counsel with
friends upon them. I sent a copy to Carlyle, which
must have reached him about the time of this Addis-
combe sojourn, and it came back to me with pencil
criticisms which, though not wanting in severity, con
soled me for the censures which fell so heavily on
those chapters when the book was published.

Autumn passed on, and winter and spring, and
Carlyle was still at his desk. At Christmas there
was another visit to the Grange. ' Company at first
aristocratic and select : Lord Lansdowne and Eobert
Lowe ; then miscellaneous shifting, chiefly of the
scientific kind,' and moderately interesting. But his
stay was short, and he was absorbed again at his
work in the garret room. With Mrs. Carlyle, unfor
tunately, it was a period of ill-health, loneliness, and
dispiritment. At the end of 1855 she had com
menced the diary, from which her husband first
learnt, after her death, how miserable she had been,
and learnt also that he himself had been in part the
cause. It was continued on into the next spring
and summer, in the same sad, stoically indignant tone ;
the consummation of ten years of resentment at an
intimacy which, under happier circumstances, should
have been equally a delight to herself, yet was ill-
managed by all parties concerned, and steeped in
gall and bitterness her own married life. It is im
possible to suppose that Lady Ashburton was not

MRS. CARLYLE AND LADY ASHBURTON. 181

aware of Mrs. Carlyle's feelings towards her. She
had a right perhaps to think them ridiculous, but for
Carlyle's own sake she ought to have been careful
how she behaved to her. If nine-tenths of Mrs.
Carlyle's injuries were imaginary, if her proud and
sensitive disposition saw affronts where there had
been only a great lady's negligence, there was a real
something of which she had a right to complain ;
only her husband's want of perception in such matters
could have prevented him from seeing how unfit it
was that she should have to go and come at Lady
Ashburton's bidding, under fear of her husband's dis
pleasure. A small incident in the summer of 1856,
though a mere trifle in itself, may serve as an illus
tration of what she had to undergo. The Carlyles
were going for a holiday to Scotland. Lady Ash-
burton was going also. She had engaged a palatial
carriage, which had been made for the Queen and
her suite, and she proposed to take the Carlyles
down with her. The carriage consisted of a spacious
saloon, to which, communicating with it, an ordinary
compartment with the usual six seats in it was
attached. Lady Ashburton occupied the saloon
alone. Mrs. Carlyle, though in bad health and need
ing rest as much as Lady A., was placed in the
compartment with her husband, the family doctor,
and Lady A.'s maid,1 a position perfectly proper for
her if she was a dependent, but in which no lady
could have been placed whom Lady Ashburton re
garded as her own equal in rank. It may be that
Mrs. Carlyle chose to have it so herself. But Lady
A. ought not to have allowed it, and Carlyle ought

1 S<-c Jh'Dihiiscences, rol. ii. p. 245.

1 32 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

not to have allowed it, for it was a thing wrong in
itself. One is not surprised to find that when Lady A.
offered to take her home in the same way she refused
to go. ' If there were any companionship in the
matter,' she said bitterly, when Carlyle communi
cated Lady A.'s proposal, ' it would be different ; or
if you go back with the Ashburtons it will be
different, as then I should be going as part of your
luggage without self-responsibility.' Carlyle regarded
the Ashburtons as ' great people,' to whom he was
under obligations : who had been very good to him :
and of whose train he in a sense formed a part.
Mrs. Carlyle, with her proud, independent, Scotch re
publican spirit, imperfectly recognised these social
distinctions. This it may be said was a trifle, and
ought not to have been made much of. But there is
no sign that Mrs. Carlyle did make much of what was
but a small instance of her general lot. It happens
to stand out by being mentioned incidentally. That
is all. But enough has been said of this sad matter,
which was now drawing near its end.

On reaching Scotland the party separated. Lady
Ashburton went to the Highlands, where Carlyle was
to follow in September. Mrs. Carlyle went to her
cousins in Fife and he to Scotsbrig, which he had
left last after his mother's funeral. All his family
were delighted to see him once more amongst them.
His brother James was waiting for him at the station.
His sister-in-law had provided a long new pipe of
the right Glasgow manufacture : he would smoke
nothing else. His mother — she, alas ! was not
there : only the chair in which she had sate, now
vacant.

AUTUMN IN SCOTLAND. 183

But (as he said) there is no wisdom in yielding to such
thoughts. It is on death that all life has been appointed
to stand for its brief season, and none of us can escape the
law. There is a certain solemn consolation which reconciles
me to almost everything in the thought that I am myself
fairly old', that all the confusions of life, whether of this
colour or that, are soon about to sink into nothing, and
only the soul of one's work, if one did any that had a soul,
can be expected to survive.'

He had not come to Scotsbrig to be idle ; he had
his work with him, at which he toiled on steadily.
He had expected his wife to join him there, but
she showed no intention that way. He wrote to her
regularly with his usual quiet affection. Her answers
'he found sombre and distrustful perhaps beyond
need,' but kind and good ; he ' begged her to know
that in his own way none loved her so well as he,
or felt that he had better cause to do so.' From
Scotsbrig he moved to his sister's at the Gill, by
Annan — happy among his own kindred, longing to
be ' out of London, never to return,' and to spend the
rest of his days in a scene where health of mind and
body would not be impossible.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

The Gill : August 7, 1856.

I seem to be doing really excellently in regard to health.
What a change (mostly for the better) has been brought
about since I escaped from that Devil's oven with its dirts
and noises. — The disgusting dearth of London, the noise,
unwholesomeness, dirt, and fret of one's whole existence
there has often forced itself upon me when I look at this
frugality and these results. If I had done with those books
what more have I to do with that healthless, profitless, mad,
and heavy-laden place? I will really put it to you once
more to consider if it were not better we returned to poor

1 84 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

old Scotland, there to adjust ourselves a little, there to lay
our bones, I care not much in what part. Annan dale is
very sad to me, and has no charm almost, except that Jamie
would be here. It is certain we might live here in opulence,
keep brougham, cow, minister's man, &c.), and give our
poor selves and Nero a much wholesomer life were those
printing enterprises once ended.

One spot Carlyle could not fail to visit — the
Ecclefechan kirkyard : —

On Sunday (he said) I made a visit tuhither you can
guess; had a few sacred moments there, standing with
bared head out of sight. Surely there is not any mystery
more divine than this unspeakably sad and holy one. There
they were all lying in peace, having well finished their
fight. < Very bonny ; very bonny,' as poor old Mary Mills
said in another case.1

He continued well in health. Never in his life
had he more the kind of chance he was always
crying out for — ' perfect kindness and nearly perfect
solitude, the freshest of air, wholesomest of food,
riding horse, and every essential provided — m — m — •
better than he — m — deserved.' 2 ; He had got some
work done,' ' made a real impression on the papers
he had brought with him.' Why could not he stay
where he was when he was well off? Why need he
have supposed that he must start away to the Ash-
burtons at Loch Luichart ? Harvest, he said, was
coming on in Annandale, when guests were incon
venient. Any way, it was a fresh drop of acid to his
wife, who took no notice to him of the letter in which
he informed her of his purpose, but wrote to another
of the family.

1 Of the grave of Mrs. Welsh.

2 Coleridge ; with the humming pronunciation.

IN THE HIGHLANDS. 185

You say in your letters to • (he said) you wait for

MR. C.'s plans. Alas ! Mr. C. has no plans you do not long
since know of. He means to be back at Chelsea at his work
about the end of September ; would be well content to pass
the whole time on these present terms, here and about here ;
has no theory of future movements as visits, except that
one to the Inverness regions, which he will avoid if he can.
That is the whole truth.

It appeared he could not avoid it, for lie went to
Loch Luichart, stayed a fortnight there, and did not
enjoy himself, if we may judge from this specimen of
his experiences : —

Kinloch Luichart : September 23.

Very cold ; no fire, or none but an imaginary one, can
be permitted in the drawing-room. Her ladyship is in
worse humour than usual ; is capable of being driven to
extremities by your setting up a peat from its flat posture :
so I have learned altogether to abstain. Nothing earthly
to be done, nothing good to be read, to be said, or thought.
This is not a luxurious kind of life for a poor wayfaring
individual. My commonest resource is this : to walk out
from six to ten miles, ducking under bushes from the
showers ; return utterly tired, put on dressing-gown, cape,
plaid, &c., and lie down on one's bed under all the woollen
stuff one can gather, with hat laid on cheek to keep out the
light. I usually get to a kind of warm half-sleep, and last
till dinner time not so ill off.

His wife was still silent for some days, and when
she wrote it was to be satirical at his situation, and to
refuse, in sharper tones than he liked, to return under
Lady A.'s convoy to London.

The second part of your letter (he replied) is far less
pleasant to me than the first. It is wholly grounded on
misknowledge, or in deep ignorance of the circumstances,
and deserves for answer no further details, credible or in-

186 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

credible, about these Highland matters till we meet. There
is for you — but you are a good body, too ! What you say
about the regal vehicle to London from Edinburgh is mostly
right, and I have settled it must be the way you write.
Lady A., whose kind intentions and endeavours cannot be
questioned, seems particularly anxious we should both
profit by this Edinburgh conveyance. My answer is * No ;
with thanks.' What pleasure or profit they would get by it
is not apparent; but any way, we have to stand by the
above decision, which I see you think the best for various
reasons.'

An unpleasant state of things ! But there is one
remedy for all evils. The occasion of the ' rifts ' in
Carlyle's life was to be removed for ever in the en
suing spring.

Journal.

May 6, 1857. — Monday, May 4, at Paris, died Lady Ash-
burton, a great and irreparable sorrow to me, yet with some
beautiful consolations in it too ; a thing that fills all my
mind since yesterday afternoon that Milnes came to me
with the sad news, which I had never once anticipated,
though warned sometimes vaguely to do so. ' God sanctify
my sorrow,' as the old pious phrase went. To her I believe
it is a great gain ; and the exit has in it much of noble
beauty as well as pure sadness worthy of such a woman.
Adieu ! adieu ! Her work — call it her grand and noble en
durance of want of work — is all done !

He was present at the funeral, at Lord Ash-
burton's particular entreaty. It seemed like taking
leave of the most precious possession which had
belonged to him in the world. A few days after, the
22nd of May, he writes to his brother John : —

I got a great blow by that death you alluded to, which
was totally unexpected to me ; and the thought of it widen
ing ever more, as I think further of it, is likely to be a

DEATH OF LADY ASHBURTON. 187

heaviness of heart to me for a long time coming. I have
indeed lost such a friend as I never had, nor am again
in the least likelihood to have, in this stranger world ; a
magnanimous and beautiful soul which had furnished the
English earth and made it homelike to me in many ways is
not now here. Not since our mother's death has there been
to me anything resembling it.

Many years later, on casually hearing some one
describe Lady A. in a way that interested him, he
notes : —

A sketch true in every feature I perceived, as painted on

the mind of Mrs. L ; nor was that a character quite

simple to read. On the contrary, since Lady Harriet died
I have never heard another that did so read it. Very
strange to me. A tragic Lady Harriet, deeply though she
veiled herself in smiles, in light, gay humour and drawing-
room wit, which she had much at command. Essentially
a most veracious soul too. Noble and gifted by nature, had
Fortune but granted any real career. She was the greatest
lady of rank I ever saw, with the soul of a princess and cap-
tainess had there been any career possible to her but that
fashionable one.

After this the days went on with sombre uni
formity, Mrs. Carlyle still feeble and growing indeed
yearly weaker, Carlyle toiling on in his ' mud
element,' driving his way through it, hardly seeing
anyone, and riding for three hours every afternoon.
He had called his horse Fritz. ' He was a very clever
fellow,' he said of him to me, ' was much attached
to me, and understood my ways. He caught sight
in Palace Yard of King Eichard's horse, clearly per
ceived that it was a horse, and was greatly interested
in it.' ' Ah, Fritz,' he once apostrophised him,
' you don't know all your good fortune. You were
well brought up to know and do your duty. No-

i88 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

body ever told you any lies about some one else that
had done it for you.' He wrote few letters, his
mother no longer living to claim his time. It was
only on occasion that he gave anyone a lengthened
account of himself. This is to his brother John : —

Chelsea : June 11, 1857.

Probably I am rather better in health ; the industrious
riding on this excellent horse sometimes seems to myself to
be slowly telling on me ; but I am habitually in sombre,
mournful mood, conscious of great weakness, a defeated
kind of creature, with a right good load of sorrow hanging
on me, and no goal that looks very glorious to aim towards
now within sight. All my days and hours go to that sad
task of mine. At it I keep weakly grubbing and puddling,
weakly but steadily ; try to make daily some little way as
now almost the one thing useful. I refuse all invitations
whatsoever for several reasons, and may be defined as a
mute solitary being at present, comparable to an owl on the
housetop in several respects. The truth is, I had enough
before, and I have had privately a great loss and sorrow
lately as it were of the one genuine friend I had acquired in
these parts, whose nobleness was more precious to me than
I knew ; a loss not in any measure to be repaired in the
world henceforth. That of old Johnson, common to old
men in this world, often comes into my head. ' Been de
layed till most of those whom I wished to please are sunk
into the grave, and success and failure are empty sounds ; I
therefore dismiss it with frigid indifference ; ' but will do
the best I can all the same. In fact, I do make a little
way, and shall perhaps live to see the thing honestly done
after all. Jane is decidedly better; gets out daily, &c.,
but is still as weak as possible ; and though we have the
perfection of weather, warm, yet never sultry, the poor
mistress does not yet get even into her old strength for
walking or the like. She went out to East Hampstead,
Marquis of Downshire's people, beyond Windsor, and got so
much good of her three days there I have been desirous she

PROGRESS WITH ' FREDERICK: 189

could get to Scotland or somewhither for a couple of
months, and she did seem to have some such intention.
Sunny Bank l the place ; but that has misgone, I fear.
Meanwhile, she is very busy ornamenting the garden, poor
little soul ; has two China seats, speculates even upon an
awning, or quasi-tent, against the blazes of July that are
coming, which, you see, are good signs. Poor Douglas
Jerrold, we hear incidentally this morning, is dead ; an
* acrid philanthropist,' last of the * London wits.' I hope the
last. A man not extremely valuable in my sight ; but an
honest creature withal ; and he has bade us Adieu for ever !

The ' Frederick ' work did not grow more easy.
The story, as it expanded, became the history of
contemporary Europe, and even of the world, while
Carlyle, like a genuine craftsman as he was, never
shirked a difficulty, never threw a false skin over
hollow places, or wrote a sentence the truth of
which he had not sifted. One day he described
himself as ' busy drawing water for many hours from
the deep Brandenburg well,' and realising nothing
' but a coil of wet rope.' Still progress was made in
July of this year 1857. The opening chapters were
getting into print. He did not himself stir from
London. The weather indoors had grown calmer
after the occasion of difference was gone, and the
gentle companionship of early days, never voluntarily
impaired on his part, had partiaUy returned. But
change was necessary for her health. Her friends
at Sunny Bank were really eager to have her, and
he was glad to send her off. He himself travelled
generaUy third class on railway journeys. She, weak
though she was, insisted on going second. Carlyle
saw her into the train. She had a wretched journey,

1 1 Faddington.

190 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

and his first letter, after hearing of her misfortunes,
was as tender as a lover's :—

To Jane Welsh Carlyle, Sunny Bank.

Chelsea : July 9, 1857.

Oh, what a passage! My poor little Goody Goody,
Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! I was miserable all the way home to
leave you in such a hole, the rather as I noticed, just when
you were rolling off, one of the first-class carriages behind
you with not a soul in it. You shall go no more into any
wretched saving of that kind, never more while we have
money at all. Eemember that. I consoled myself with
thinking most of your neighbours would go out in the Fen
country and leave you with at least room and air. But it
has been far otherwise, (rood heavens ! all the windows
closed ! Tobacco and the other stew all night ! My heart
is sore for my poor weak woman. Never again : should I
sell my shirt to buy you a better place. Lie still and be
quiet ; only saunter out into the garden, into the balmy,
natal air, and kind though sad old memories. We are doing
well enough here. By God's favour — of which we have had
much surely, though in stern forms — I will get rid of this
deplorable task in a not disgraceful manner. Then for the
rest of our life we will be more to one another than ever we
were, if it please Heaven.

I have looked at the birds daily ; J all right ; and daily
bestowed a bunch of chickweed on the poor wretches, who
sing gratefully in return. Nero ran with me through the
Brompton solitudes last night, merry as a maltman. Always
on coming home he trips up to your room till I call him
back. I wish he would give it over, for it makes me wae.
I have been mainly under the awning all day, and got my
sheets — three of them — corrected. God keep thee ever,
dearest ; whom else have I in the world ? Be good, be
quiet, and write.

T. CARLYLE.

1 Mrs. Carlyle's canaries.

SOLITUDE IN CHEYNE ROW. 191

The prohibition against ' presents ' had not been
rescinded.

This is your birthday (he wrote on July 14). God
grant us only many of them. I think now and then I could
dispense with all other blessings. Our years have been well
laden with sorrows, a quite sufficient ballast allowed us ;
but while we are together here there is always a world left.
I am not to send you any gifts other than this scrap of
paper ; but I might give you California and not mean more
than perhaps I do. And so may there be many years, and
(as poor Irving used to say) the worst of them over.

Such halcyon weather could not continue without
an occasional break. The air grew hot ; proof-sheets
were now and then troublesome. Photographers
worried him to sit for their gallery of illustrious men,
offering to send their artist to Chelsea for the pur
pose. The ' incomparable artist ' was forbidden to
come near the place. Sleep was irregular ; solitude
was trying.

I do pretty well, considering (he said after a fortnight
of it). All I complain of is gloom, and I do not know how
I should get well rid of that at present even if 7 had you to
throw some portion of it upon ! Tea is the gloomiest of all
my meals. No Goody there ! I am thankful even to Nero
for reminding me of you.

At last there came interruption of work, from
the need of revising the ' Latter-day Pamphlets ' for
a new edition. He was not well, and there came one
of the old cross fits, and even Nero himself fell out of
favour.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Chelsea: July 26, 1857.

To confess truth, I have had for about a week past a fit
of villanous headaches, feverishness, &c., which T at first

1 92 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

attributed to oxtail soap, but now discover to be cold caught
sitting in the sweep of the wind under the awning. I have
been at proofs again all day. I am getting on slow, like an
old spavined horse, but never giving in. The gloom of my
soul is perfect at times, for I have feverish headaches, and
no human company, or absolutely none that is not ugly to
me. One hope remains — that of working out of this sad
element, getting my book done, and quitting London, I
often think, or as good as quitting it, for the sake of fresh
air and dairy produce in abundance. Nero is already
grunting for a sally out. He lost me yesternight, the in
tolerable messin that he is. I was hurrying home from a
long walk, full of reflections not pleasant. At the bottom of
Cadogan Place eleven o'clock struck : time to hurry home
for porridge. But the vermin was wanting ; no whistle
would bring him. I had to go back as far as Wilton Crescent.
There the miserable quadruped appeared, and I nearly
bullied the life out of him. He licked my milk-dish at
home with the ' same relish.' On the whole, however, he
is a real nuisance and absurdity in this house.

The relapse happily did not last. The cold, or
whatever it was, departed, and the gloom retired.
The canaries had their chickweed, ' and said "Thank
you kindly" as plain as could be sung.' Friends
ceased to be ugly again, and Nero ceased to be a
nuisance. ' Farie,' he said, ' rode with me yester
night. Poor Farie ; very honest, gentlemanlike,
friendly, more like a human creature than anybody
I see at present.' ' Nero came into the garden and
stationed himself on the warm flags to inquire about
dinner.' His wife's comfort, he knew, would depend
on the accounts which he sent about himself, and he
made the best that lie could of everything. She was
paying visits which were not all pleasant. He was
eager for every detail.

COSTUME AND ITS DIFFICULTIES. 193

T ~~\
I am glad,; he said,' you make your bits of complaints

freely to me ; Tf not tcTme, to whom else now alive on the
earth ? Oh ! never distrust me, as the devil sometimes
tempts your poor heart to do. I know you for an honest
soul, far too sharp-tempered, but true to the bone ; and if
I ever am or was unkind to you, (rod knows it was very far
against my purpose. Do not distrust me. Tell me every
thing, and do not mind how weak you are before me. I
know your strength and your weakness pretty well by this
time. Poor little Goody! Sha'n't I be glad to see you
back again ? Yes ; for a considerable number of reasons.

For more reasons than one, but for one especially.
Carlyle's costume was always peculiar : so peculiar,
thanks to his Ecclefechan tailor, that it was past
being anxious about. Who that knew Carlyle would
care what clothes he chose to wear ? But there
were degrees even in these singular articles.

I perceive, he said, you will have to set earnestly about
getting me some wearing apparel when you come home. I
have fallen quite shameful. I shall be naked altogether if
you don't mind. Think of riding most of the summer with
the aristocracy of the country, whenever I went into Hyde
Park, in a duffle jacket which literally was part of an old
dressing-gown a year gone. Is the like on record ?

The sense that ' Frederick ' was actually getting
itself executed had tended wonderfully to soothe down
the irritated humours. Even a night made sleepless
by the heat of the weather had its compensations.
On August 5 he wrote : —

Sunday I started broad awake at 3 a.m., went downstairs,
out, smoked a cigar on a stool : have not seen so lovely, sad,
and grand a summer weather scene for twenty years back.
Trees stood all as if cast in bronze, not an aspen leaf stirring ;
sky was a silver mirror, getting yellowish to the north-east ;
iv. o

i94 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

and only one big star, star of the morning, visible in the in
creasing light. This is a very grand place, this world, too.
It did me no ill. Enough !

The world was well ; all was well ; for his own
writing even was turning out better than he ex
pected, though his opinion of it varied from day to
day.

The worst is, he said, there is not the heart of a jay piat
in me, to use Jamie's phrase. I want, above all, a light
mood of spirits to gallop through such topics ; and, alas !
where is that to come from ? We must just do without it.
I am well aware mourning and kicking at the pricks is not
the way to mend matters.

The news of the Sepoy rebellion coming in this
summer of course affected Carlyle, more, however,
with sorrow than surprise. ' Tongue cannot speak,'
he wrote, ' the horrors that were done on the English
by those mutinous hyrcnas. Allow hyamas to mutiny
and strange things will follow.' But he had long
thought that ' many British interests besides India were
on a baddish road.' The best that lie could do was to
get on with his own work, and not permit his atten
tion to be drawn from it. Mrs. Carlyle greatly ap
proved of the opening of ' Frederick.' She recognised
at once the superiority of it to any other work that
he had done, and she told him so. He was greatly
delighted ; he called her remarks the only bit of
human criticism which he had heard from anyone.

It would be worth while to write books, he said, if man
kind would read them as you do. From the first discovery
of me you have predicted good in a confident manner ; all
the same whether the world were singing chorus, or no part
of the world dreaming of such a thing, but of much the re
verse.

PEACE WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 195

He was essentially peaceable the whole time of
her absence ; a flash might come now and then, but
of summer sheet-lightning, ' which meant no harm.
Even distant cocks and wandering organ-grinders got
nothing but a passing anathema.

I am better to-day, he wrote on September ij after he
had been for two montlis alone. I hope you doliot mind
transient grumbling, knowing the nature of the beast by
this time. Yellow scoundrels [the organ boys], though I
speak of them so often, really are not troublesome; very
many days they do not come at all, and if I were always
tolerably well I should care little about them. A young
lady, very tempestuous on the piano at one of those open
back windows, really does me no ill almost ; nor does your
friend with the accordion. He rather tickles me, like a
nigger song ; such an enthusiasm is in him about nothing at
all ; and when he plays ' Ye banks and braes,' I almost like
him. Never mind me and my grumblings.

A few days after this she came home to him, and
' there was joy in Nero and the canaries, and in crea
tures more important.' Work went on without inter
ruption. Fritz gave increasing satisfaction, taking
better care of his -rider than his rider could have
taken of himself, and showing fresh signs of the ex
cellence of his education. Not only was the moral
part of him what it should be, but he had escaped
the special snare of London life. 'He had not
been brought up to think that the first duty of a
horse was to say something witty.' The riding was
late in the afternoon, and lasted long after dusk,
along the suburban roads, amidst the glare of the
red and green railway lamps at the bridges, and
the shrieks and roars of the passing trains ; Fritz

o 2

196 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

never stumbling or starting, or showing the least
sign of alarm.

The Scotch do not observe times and seasons,
and Christmas in London to so true a Scot as Carlyle
was a periodic nuisance. The printers suspended
work, and proof-sheets hung fire. English holidays
might have been beautiful things in old days, in
country manors and farms ; but in modern Chelsea
they meant husbands staggering about the streets, and
their miserable wives trying to drag them home before

v O O

the last of the wages was spent on beer and gin.

All mortals [Carlyle wrote on December 28 J are tumbling
about in a state of drunken saturnalia, delirium, or quasi-
delirium, according to their several sorts; a very strange
method of thanking Grod for sending them a Eedeemer ; a
set singularly worth ' redeeming,' too, you would say. I spent
Christmas and the two days following in grim contention
all day each time with the most refractory set of proof-sheets
I expect in this work ; the sternly sad remembrance of
another Christmas [when his mother died] present to me
also at all moments, which made a strange combination,
peculiarly tragic when I had time to see it from the distance,
like a man set to whittle cherry-stones and toy boxes in the
Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Indoors, happily, the old affectionate days had
come back — the old tone, the old confidences. It
had really been as he had said in the summer, ' They
were more to one another than they had ever been.'
But Mrs. Carlyle suffered more than she had yet done
from the winter cold, and a shadow of another kind
now darkened the prospect. He had gone for three
or four days to the now solitary Grange, at Lord Ash-
burton's earnest entreaty. Mrs. Carlyle was to have
gone with him, but could not venture. He had been

MRS. CARLYLES HEALTH. 197

most unwilling to leave her, but she insisted that he
must.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea : January L>2, 1858.

Happily, my poor Jane is somewhat better. She had a
little improved on Friday or Saturday, which made her urge
the shocking unpoliteness of breaking an express promise,
and despatch me at the eleventh hour. She professed to
be still further improved when I came home, and, in fact,
does sleep perceptibly better, though still very ill, and eats
also a little better ; though her cough, I perceive, is rather
worse than before ; and, in fact, she is weak and heavy-
laden to a degree, and nothing but an invincible spirit
could keep her up at all. It was the first day of the thaw
when she discovered her cold, but I doubt not it had been
getting ready in the cold days before ; indeed, there were
some wretched operatives here, busy upon the grate and its
back and its tiles down below, with whom she had a great
deal of trouble and vexation. They, I think, had mainly
done it. I had, at any rate, a considerable notion to kick
their lime-kits and them completely out of the house, but
abstained from interfering at all, lest explosion should arise.
Poor little soul ! I have seldom seen anybody weaker, hardly
ever anybody keeping on foot on weaker terms. But if she
could only continue to have half sleep instead of only a
fourth or even lower proportion, I should expect her to be
able to get out again on good days, and so to recover soon
anything she has lost lately. She has a particular pain
about a handbreadth below the heart, rather sore to the
touch — on pressure not sore at all, if not stirred, nor
seemingly connected with coughing otherwise than by the
mere stir produced. This is now some three weeks old, and
vexes her somewhat. T. yesterday — judicious, kind man ! —
assured her he knew that, and it was an inflammation of the
pleura just getting under way. If you can form any guess
about it by this description, you may tell me. Affectionate
regards to all. — Yours ever, T. CARLYLE.

198 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON,

House worries, with servants, &c., did not im
prove Mrs. Carlyle. Fritz had been left at the Grange.
Carlyle, driven to his feet again, had lost his own chief
comfort, and ' Frederick ' had to be continued in more
indifferent spirits. In the spring he writes to John
again : —

Chelsea : March 26, 1858.

I am not worth seeing, nor is anybody much worth being
seen by me in my present mood and predicament. I never
was so solitary intrinsically. I refuse all invitations, and,
except meeting people in the street, have next to no com
munication with my external fellow-creatures. I walk with
difficulty long snatches, nothing but Nero attending me. I
begin to find I must have my horse back again one of these
days. My poor inner man reminds me that such will be my
duty. I am sorry to report that since yesterday my poor
Jane has caught new cold, and is flung down again, worse,
probably, than before. She had never sunk so weak this
year, and we hoped when the singularly good weather came
it was all over. But within this day or two there has been
a change of temperature, and this is where we are. ' No
sleep at all ' last night ; nothing but the sofa and silence for
my poor partner. We are changing our servant too ; but how
the new one (will answer) — a Scotch Inverness subject of
promising Gemuth, but inexperienced in house-work — is
somewhat of a problem. Few people that I have seen suffer
their allotment in this world in a handsomer mariner. I still
hope this relapse will not last long.

To the Same.

April 15.

Our weather has suddenly got warm. Jane is now out,
poor little soul. She would have been joyful, and on the
road to well again, had it not been for that devil's brood of
house servants. Anne went away a fortnight ago — no further
good to be had of Anne. Better that she should go. Then
came the usual muster and choice for poor Missus — great

LONDON SERVANTS. 199

fash, fidget, and at last a simple-looking Scotch lass preferred,
who did not know her work, but whose physiognomy pleased
hugely in the proper quarter. Much new fash in con
sequence for the two weeks gone — patient teaching of the
simpleton, animated by hope of honesty, veracity, affectionate
mind, &c., &c., the whole of which fell upon poor Jane ; for I
had nothing to do in it except hold my peace, and rejoice in
such prospects of all the virtues in a simple form. Night
before last the poor Dame did not sleep, seemed sad too. On
pressing into her I found the simpleton of virtues had broken
into bottomless lying, f drinking of cream on the road upstairs,'
&c., and that, in short, it was hopeless. And while we yet
spoke of it, a poor charwoman, used to the house, knocked
at the room door, and entered with the sudden news that
our simpleton was off, bag and baggage, plus a sovereign
that had just been advanced her. Gone, ten p.m., and had
left the pass key with the said charwoman.

My poor little sick partner. I declare it is heart-breaking
for her sake, disgusting, otherwise, to a high degree, and
dirtier for the mind than even brushing of boots oneself
would be for the body. But our Dame is not to be beaten
quite ; has already improvised a new arrangement — unhappily
no sleep almost yet, and we must help her all we can.

In spite of anxieties and ' sordid miseries,' the two
volumes of 'Frederick' meanwhile drew to completion.
Carlyle (for him) was amazingly patient, evidently for
his wife's sake having laid strong constraint on him
self. His complaints, when he did complain, were of
a human reasonable kind. Neuberg was most assi
duous, and another young intelligent admirer — Mr.
Larkin,1 who lived next door to him — had volunteered
Jiis services, which were most gratefully recognised.
' My excellent helper,' he calls Mr. Larkin, ' in these
printing enterprises, makes maps, indexes, &c., &c.,

1 Letters and Meinvriulx, vol. ii. p. 362,

CARLYLES LIFE IN LONDON,

makes everything ; in fact, one of the best men I have
almost ever seen, and a very indispensable blessing
to me.' Much went against him — or so he thought.

April 15.

Nothing (he said), will ever reconcile me to these miser
able iron pens. Often in writing the beautiful took now on
hand I remind myself of the old Spaniard who had to do
his on leather with a dagger,1 and, in fact, I detest, writing
more and more, and expect fairly to end it if I can ever
finish this — but all friends be soft with me, for I declare
myself hard bested in the present season.

By the first of May the printers had their last ' copy.'

By the end of May all was in type. In the second

week in June the first instalment of the work on which

he had been so busy toiling was complete and off his

bands, waiting to be published in the autumn. For

six years he had been labouring over it. In 1851 he

had begun seriously to think about the subject. In

1852 lie made his tour to Berlin and the battle-fields.

Ever since he had lain as in eclipse, withdrawn from

all society save that of his most intimate friends. The

effort had been enormous. He was sixty- three years

old, and the furnace could be no longer heated to its

old temperature. Yet he had thrown into the task all

the strength he had left ; and now, although the final

verdict has long been pronounced on this book, in

Germany especially, where the merits of it can be

best appreciated, I must say a very few words myself

about it, and on Carlyle's historical method generally.

History is the account of the actions of men ; and

in 'actions ' are comprehended the thoughts, opinions,

motives, impulses of the actors and of the circum-

1 The Araucana, by Alonzo de Ereilk.

CARLYLE AS A HISTORIAN. 201

stances in which their work was executed. The actions
without the motives are nothing, for they may be
interpreted in many ways, and can only be understood
in their causes. If ' Hamlet ' or ' Lear ' was exact to
outward fact — were they and their fellow-actors on
the stage exactly such as Shakespeare describes them,
and if they did the acts which he assigns to them,
that was perfect history ; and what we call history is
only valuable as it approaches to that pattern. To say
that the characters of real men cannot be thus com
pletely known, that their inner nature is beyond our
reach, that the dramatic portraiture of things is only
possible to poetry, is to say that history ought not
to be written, for the inner nature of the persons of
whom it speaks is the essential thing about them ;
and, in fact, the historian assumes that he does know
it, for his work without it is pointless and colourless.
And yet to penetrate really into the hearts and souls
of men, to give each his due, to represent him as he
appeared at his best, to himself and not to his enemies,
to sympathize in the collision of principles with each
party in turn ; to feel as they felt, to think as they
thought, and to reproduce the various beliefs, the
acquirements, the intellectual atmosphere of another
age, is a task which requires gifts as great or greater
than those of the greatest dramatists ; for all is re
quired which is required of the dramatist, with the
obligation to truth of ascertained fact besides. It

o

is for this reason that historical works of the highest
order are so scanty. The faculty itself, the imagina
tive and reproductive insight, is among the rarest of
human qualities. The moral determination to use it
for purposes of truth only is rarer still — nay, it is but

202 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

in particular ages of the world that such work can be
produced at all. The historians of genius themselves,
too, are creatures of their own time, and it is only
at periods when men of intellect have ' swallowed
formulas,' when conventional and established ways of
thinking have ceased to satisfy, that, if they are serious
and conscientious, they are able ' to sympathize with
opposite sides.'

It is said that history is not of individuals ; that
the proper concern of it is with broad masses of facts,
with tendencies which can be analysed into laws, with
the evolution of humanity in general. Be it so — but
a science can make progress only when the facts
are completely ascertained ; and before any facts of
human life are available for philosophy we must
have those facts exactly as they were. You must
have Hamlet before you can have a theory of Hamlet,
and it is to be observed that the more completely we
know the truth of any incident, or group of incidents,
the less it lends itself to theory. We have our re
ligious historians, our constitutional historians, our
philosophical historians ; and they tell their stories
each in their own way, to point conclusions which they
have begun by assuming — but the conclusion seems
plausible only because they know their case imper
fectly, or because they state their case imperfectly.
The writers of books are Protestant or Catholic, re
ligious or atheistic, despotic or Liberal ; but nature is
neither one nor the other, but all in turn. Nature is
not a partisan, but out of her ample treasure-house
she produces children in infinite variety, of which she
is equally the mother, and disowns none of them ; and
when, as in Shakespeare, nature is represented truly,

CARLYLE AS A HISTORIAN. 203

the impressions left upon the mind do not adjust
themselves to any philosophical system. The story of
Hamlet in Saxo-Grammaticus might suggest excellent
commonplace lessons on the danger of superstition, or
the evils of uncertainty in the law of succession to the
crown, or the absurdity of monarchical government
when the crown can be the prize of murder. But
reflections of this kind would suggest themselves only
where the story was told imperfectly, and because it
was told imperfectly. If Shakespeare's ' Hamlet ' be
the true version of that Denmark catastrophe, the
mind passes from commonplace moralising to the
tragedy of humanity itself. And it is certain that if
the thing did not occur as it stands in the play, yet
it did occur in some similar way, and that the truth,
if we knew it, would be equally affecting — equally
unwilling to submit to any representation except the
undoctrinal and dramatic.

What I mean is this, that whether the history of
humanity can be treated philosophically or not :
whether any evolutionary law of progress can be
traced in it or not ; the facts must be delineated first
with the clearness and fulness which we demand in
an epic poem or a tragedy. We must have the real
thing before we can have a science of a thing. When
that is given, those who like it may have their philo
sophy of history, though probably they will care less
about it ; just as wise men do not ask for theories of
Hamlet, but are satisfied with Hamlet himself. But
until the real thing is given, philosophical history is
but an idle plaything to entertain grown children with.

And this was Carlyle's special gift — to bring dead
things and dead people actually back to life ; to make

204 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

the past once more the present, and to show us men
and women playing their parts on the mortal stage
as real flesh-and-blood human creatures, with every
feature which he ascribes to them authenticated, not
the most trifling incident invented, and yet as a result
with figures as completely alive as Shakespeare's own.
Very few writers have possessed this double gift of
accuracy and representative power. I could men
tion only two, Thucydides and Tacitus ; and Carlyle's
power as an artist is greater than either of theirs. Lock-
hart said, when he read ' Past and Present,' that, ex
cept Scott, in this particular function no one equalled
Carlyle. I would go farther, and say that no writer
in any age had equalled him. Dramatists, novelists
have drawn characters with similar vividness, but it
is the inimitable distinction of Carlyle to have painted
actual persons with as much life in them as novelists
have given to their own inventions, to which they
might ascribe what traits they pleased. He worked
in fetters — in the fetters of fact ; yet, in this life of
Frederick, the king himself, his father, his sister, his
generals, his friends, Voltaire, and a hundred others,
all the chief figures, large and small, of the eighteenth
century, pass upon the stage once more, as breathing
and moving men and women, and yet fixed and made
visible eternally by the genius which has summoned
them from their graves. A fine critic once said to
me that Carlyle's Friedrich Wilhelm was as pecu
liar and original as Sterne's Walter Shandy ; cer
tainly as distinct a personality as exists in English
fiction. It was no less an exact copy of the original
Friedrich Wilhelm — his real self, discerned and
reproduced by the insight of a nature which had

CARLYLE AS A HISTORIAN. 205

much in common with him. Those bursts of passion,
with wild words flying about, and sometimes worse
than words, and the agonised revulsion, with the
' Oh, my Feekin ! oh, my Feekin ! whom have I in
the world but thee ? ' must have sadly reminded Mrs.
Carlyle of occasional episodes in Cheyne Row.

206 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTEE XXIV.

A.D. 1858. JET. 63.

Night in a railway train — Annandale — Meditations — A new wardrobe
— Visit to Craigenputtock — Second tour in Germany — The Isle of
Eiigen — Putbus — Berlin — Silesia — Prag — Weimar — Aix — Frede
rick's battlefields and Carlyle's description of them — Eeturn to
England — Second marriage of Lord Ashburton.

No further progress could be made with ' Frede
rick ' till there had been a second tour in Germany,
which was to be effected, if possible, in the summer
or autumn of this year, 1858. The immediate ne
cessity, after the completion of the present volumes,
was for rest. When the strain was taken off, Carlyle
fell into a collapsed condition. Notwithstanding his
good resolutions, he became slightly fretful and
troublesome, having nothing immediate to do. He
was somewhat out of health, and fancied himself worse
than he was. Mrs. Carlyle had grown better with
the warmer weather ; he could venture to leave her,
and he went off in the middle of June to his sister in
Annandale.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

The Gill, Annan, June 24, 1858.

Well, my dear little Jeannie, here I am safe, with less
suffering than I anticipated. Nothing went awry of all the

A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND. 207

arrangements ; not the smallest ill accident befell. My
chief suffering was from dust. Foul air I overcame by ad
dressing, at the very first pulling up of the opposite, win
dow, a forcible bit of familiar eloquence to the gentleman
active ; ' how would he like to have his neighbour's dirty
shirt offered him to wear, which was a clean transaction
in comparison ? ' so that they at least let me keep down my
own window, and even kept down theirs, poor souls ! in
whole or in part, almost the whole night. We were five—
mostly fat ; but these arrangements secured air, though
with a painful admixture of dust and engine smoke. Ex
cept myself, the poor souls (Glasgow bodies mostly) fell
sound asleep in an hour or two, and word of speech to me
there was none, though perfect good nature, mixed with
apprehension, as I judged. About midnight I changed
my waistcoat, and took out the supper provided me by my
own poor considerate little Goody. It was an excellent de
vice. Some winks of sleep I had, too, though the stoppage
always woke me again. In fine, Carlisle, through a beauti
ful, bright, breezy morning, a little before six. Cigar there ;
hardly finished when we started again ; and at seven the
face of Austin, with a gig, met me at Cummertrees, and
within half an hour more I was busy washing here, and
about to fall upon breakfast in my old quarters. ... I have
had coffee of prime quality, been out strolling to smoke a
pipe, and returned with my feet wet. This is all I have yet
done, and I propose next to put on my dressing-gown, and
fairly lie down in quest of a sleep. This will probably be
gone before I awake again ; but, indeed, what news can
there well be in the interim from a man in his sleep. Oh,
my dear, one Friendkin ! (what other have I left really ?) I
was truly wae to leave thee yesternight ; you did not go
away either. I saw you, and held up my finger to you
almost at the very last. Don't bother yourself in writing
me a very long letter ; a very short one, if it only tell me
you begin to profit by being left alone, will be abundantly
welcome. Adieu, dearest. I even think of Nero, the
wretch ! Ever yours, T. CARLYLE.

2c8 CARLYLES LIFE IN LONDON.

The next morning he gathered and sent her a
sprig of heather,

I am perfectly alone, he said, nothing round me but
the grey winds and the abyss of Time, Past, Present, and
Future. A whole Sanhedrim, or loudly debating parliament,
so to speak, of reminiscences and ghosts is assembled round
me — sad, very sad of tone in the mind's ear, but not un
profitable either. A little live note to Goody will be a com
fort to myself, and no displeasure to Nero and her over the
tea to-morrow morn.'

He bethought himself that before he left London
he had been more cross than he ought to have been,
indeed both cross and perverse. It was ' the nature
of the beast,' as he often said, and had to be put up
with, like the wind and the rain. Mrs. Carlyle had
imagined that she must have been in some fault her
self, or that he thought so.

The one thing that I objected to in your note, he
answered, was that of my being discontented with you, or
having ever for an instant been. Depend upon it that is
a mistake, once for all. I was indeed discontented with
myself, with hot, fetid London, generally with all persons
and things — and my stomach had struck work withal ; but
not discontented with poor you ever at all. Nay, to tell
you the truth, your anger at me (grounded on that false
basis) was itself sometimes a kind of comfort to me. I
thought, ' Well, she has strength enough to be cross and ill-
natured at me; she is not all softness and affection and
weakness.'

At the Gill he could indulge his moods, bright or
sombre, as he liked.

Here, he said, all goes without jolt ; well enough we
may define everything to be. I find the air decidedly whole
some to me. I do my sleeping, my eating, my walking, am

IN DUMFRIESSHIRE. 209

out all day, in the open air ; regard myself as put in hos
pital, decidedly on favourable terms, and am certain to im
prove daily. One of my worst wants is clothes ; my thin
London dress does not suit this temperature, and positively
I am too shabby for showing face on the roads at all.

Gloom, as usual, clung to him like a shadow.

I go on well, he continued ; am very sad and solitary,
ill in want of a horse. The evening walks in the grey howl of
the winds, by the loneliest places I can find, are like walks
in Hades. Yet there is something wholesome in them ;
something stern and grand, as if one had the Eternities for
company, in defect of suitabler.

The Eternities, however fond he was of their
company, left him time to think of other things. His
wife's cousin, John Welsh, was ill. He at once in
sisted that the boy should go to Madeira, and should
go at his own and his wife's expense. If thoughtful
charity recommends men to the Higher Powers, none
ever better deserved of them than Carlyle. But he
thought nothing of such things. He was soon finding
himself happy, in clear air and silence, with his sister,
' feeling only a wearied man, not a ghastly phantasm,
haunted by demons, as he usually was in London.'
His costume was his chief anxiety.

Oh you lucky Goody, to be out of all that, he said.
Never did I see so despicably troublesome a problem in
soluble, too ; the endless varieties being all of quack nature,
and simply no good stuff for raiment to be had. I have
come to discover that here, too, I must pay my tribute to
the general insanity, take such clothes as are to be had, and
deliver poor Jean and myself from further bother on the
subject. Oh, my Goody ! I am very wae and lonely here.
Take care, take care of thy poor little self, for truly enough
I have no other.

IV.

i

210 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

The next letters are very touching, almost tragic.
To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

The Gill : July 5, 1858.

I reckon myself improving in bodily health. As for the
spiritual part, there is no improving of me. I live in a
death's head, as Jean Paul says some woodpeckers do, finding
it handier than otherwise, and there I think I shall mostly
continue. I sleep tolerably well always. They are all as
kind and attentive here as they can be. Fractus hello,
fessus annis. I ought to think myself lucky in such a
niche, and try to gather my wayward wanderings of thought,
and compose myself a little, which I have not yet in the
least done since I came hither. My best time is usually
the evening ; never saw such evenings for freshness,
brightness — the west one champaign of polished silver, or
silver gilt, as the sun goes down, and I get upon the wastes
of the Priest-side, with no sound audible but that of tired
geese extensively getting home to their quarters, and here
and there a contemplative cuddy, giving utterance to the
obscure feeling he has about this universe. I go five or six
miles, striding along under the western twilight, and return
home only because porridge ought not to be belated over
much. I read considerably here, sit all day sometimes under
the shelter of a comfortable hedge, pipe not far distant, and
read Arrian. Oh, if I sent you all the thoughts — sad ex
tremely some of them — which I have about you, they would
fill much paper, and perhaps you would not believe in some
of them. It grieves my heart to think of you weltering
along in that unblessed London element, while there is a
bright, wholesome summer rolling by.

July 8.

I am a prey to doleful considerations, and my solitary
imagination has free field with me in the summer silence
here. My poor little Jeannie ! my poor, ever-true life-
partner, hold up thy little heart. We have had a sore life
pilgrimage together, much bad road, poor lodging, and bad
v\ eat her, little like what I could have wished or dreamt for

PENITENCE. 2 i ;

my little woman. But we stood to it, too ; and, if it please
(rod, there are yet good years ahead of us, better and quieter
much than the past have been now and then. There is no
use in going on with such reflections and anticipations. No
amount of paper would hold them all at this time, nor could
any words, spoken or written, give credible account of them
to thee. I am wae exceedingly, but not half so miserable
as I have often been.

July 9.

I lay awake all last night, and never had I such a series
of hours filled altogether with you. . . I was asleep for some
moments, but woke again ; was out, was in the bathing tub.
It was not till about five that I got into ' comatose oblivion,'
rather than sleep, which ended again towards eight. My
poor suffering Jeannie was the theme of my thoughts. Nay,
if I had not had that I should have found something else ;
but, in very truth, my soul was black with misery about
you. Past, present, future, yielded no light point anywhere.
Alas ! and I had to say to myself, This is something like
what she has suffered 700 times within the last two years.
My poor, heavy-laden, brave, uncomplaining Jeannie ! Oh,
forgive me, forgive me for the much I have thoughtlessly
done and omitted, far, far, at all times, from the poor purpose
of my mind. And Grod help us ! thee, poor suffering soul,
and also me. Grod be with thee ! what beneficent power we
can call God in this world who is exorable to human prayer.

One of Mrs. Carlyle's letters had been delayed in
the post. It arrived a day late. He writes : —

July 11.

If nothing had come that day too, I think I must have
got into the rail myself to come up and see. It was a great
relief from the blackest side of my imaginings, but also a
sad fall from the brighter side I had been endeavouring to
cherish for the day preceding. Oh me, oh me ! I know not
what has taken me ; but ever since that sleepless night,
though I am sleeping, &c., tolerably well again, there is
nothing but wail and lamentation in the heart of all my

p 2

212 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

thoughts — a voice as of Eachel weeping for her children ;
and I cannot divest myself of the most pusillanimous strain

of humour. All yesterday I remarked, in speaking to ,

if any tragic topic came in sight, I had a difficulty to keep
from breaking down in my speech, and becoming inarticulate
with emotion over it. It is as if the scales were falling from
my eyes, and I were beginning to see in this, my solitude,
things that touch me to the very quick. Oh, my little
woman ! what a suffering thou hast had, and how nobly
borne ! with a simplicity, a silence, courage, and patient
heroism which are only now too evident to me. Three waer
days I can hardly remember in my life ; but they were not
without worth either ; very blessed some of the feelings,
though many so sore and miserable. It is very good to be
left alone with the truth sometimes, to hear with all its
sternness what it will say to one.

All this was extremely morbid ; but it was not
an unnatural consequence of habitual want of self-
restraint, coupled with tenderness of conscience when
conscience was awake and could speak. It was
likely enough that in those night-watches, when the
scales fell oj), accusing remembrances must have risen
before him which were not agreeable to look into.
With all his splendid gifts, moral and intellectual
alike, Carlyle was like a wayward child — a child in
wilfulness, a child in the intensity of remorse. His
brother James provided him with a horse — a ' drome
dary,' he called it, ' loyal, but extremely stupid ' — to
ride or drive about among the scenes of his early
years. One day he went past Hoddam Hill, Eepen-
tance Tower, Ecclefechan churchyard, &c., beautiful,
quiet, all of it, in the soft summer air, and yet he
said, ' The valley of Jehoshaphat could not have been
more stern and terribly impressive to him. He could

MISCELLANEOUS SORROWS. 213

never forget that afternoon and evening, the old
churchyard tree at Ecclefechan, the white headstones
of which he caught a steady look. The deepest de
Profandis was poor to the feeling in his heart.' The
thought of his wife, ill and solitary in London, tor
tured him. Would she come to the Gill to be nursed ?
No one in the world loved her more dearly than his
sister Mary. The daughters would wait on her, and
be her servants. He would himself go away, that he
mio-ht be no trouble to her. Amidst his sorrows the

G

ridiculous lay close at hand. If he was to go to
Germany, his clothes had to be seen to. An entire
4 new wardrobe ' was provided, ' dressing-gown, coats,
trousers lying round him like a hay coil ; ' rather
well-made too, after all, though ' the whole operation
had been scandalous and disgusting, owing to the
anarchy of tilings and shopkeepers in those parts.'
He had been recommended to wear a leather belt for
the future when he rode. His sisters did their best,
but ' the problem became abstruse ; ' a saddler had
to be called in from Dumfries, and there was adjust
ing and readjusting. Carlyle, sad and mournful, ' in
expressibly wearied,' impatient, irritated, declared
himself disgusted with the ' problem,' and more
disgusted with himself, ' when he witnessed his
sister's industrious helpfulness, and his own unhelp -
able nature.'

Pardon me, he cried — pardon me, ye good souls ! ( )li,
it is uot that I am cruel or unthankful ; but I am weary,
\\cary, and it is difficult to get the galling harness from me,
and the heavy burden off the back of an old wayworn animal,
at this advanced stage. You never saw such sewing of belts
thrice over each of the two that were realized (and, in fact,
they do seem to fit perfectly); not to speak of my unjust

2i4 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

impatience — most unjust — of my sulky despair. Poor, good
sister ! No wonder I was wae in walking into the cold,
bright sunset after seeing her off. The silence before I
returned in again — the wind having gone down — was in
tense ; only one poor collie heard expressing his astonish
ment at it miles away.

The clothes and belt question being disposed of,
he grew better — slept better. The demons came less
often. A German Life of Charles XII. was a useful
distraction.

Such a man ! would not for the whole world have spoken
or done any lie ; valiant as a son of Adam ever was — strange
to see upon a throne in this earth ; the grand life blown out
of him at last by a canaille of ' Nobility,' so called.

A visit to Craigenputtock had become necessary.
There was business to be attended to, the tenant to
be seen and spoken with, &c. He rather dreaded
this adventure, but it was not to be avoided. His
brother James went with him.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

The Gill, August 6, 1858.

Yesterday the Craigenputtock expedition was achieved.
Battering showers attended us from Iron Grey kirkyard to
Sunday well, but no other misadventure at all; for as to
famine, neither Jamie nor I could have eaten had the chance
been offered us, as, indeed, it was by our loyal tenant and
his wife. On the whole, the business was not at all so un
comfortable as I had anticipated, or, indeed, to be called
miserable, at all, except for the memories it could not fail to
awaken. From Stroquhan upwards there are slight im
provements noticeable in one or two places, but essentially
no marked change. The bleak moor road lay in plashes of
recent rain from Carstammon onwards. Stumpy [some field]
was in crop — very poor promise the oatmeal coming there ;

VISIT TO CRAIGENPUTTOCK. 215

and after two other gates by the side of the ragged woods
grown sensibly bigger, and through our once * pleasaunce,'
which is grown a thicket of straggling trees, we got to the
front door, where the poor old knocker, tolerably scoured
still, gave me a pungent salutation. The house, trim and
tight in all essential particulars, is now quite buried in
woods ; and even from the upper back windows you can see
no moor, only distant mountain-tops, and, near by, leafy
heads of trees. The tenant, who was in waiting by appoint
ment, is a fine, tall, strapping fellow, six feet two or so, with
cheerful sense, honesty, prompt mastery of his business look
ing out of every feature of him ; wife, too, a good busy young
mother. Our old dining-room is now the state apartment,
bearing her likeness, as it once did quite another dame's,
and grand truly for those parts : new-papered, in a flaming
pattern, carpetted do., with tiny sideboard, &c. I recognised
only the old grate and quasi-marble mantelpiece, little
changed, and surely an achievement dear to me now. Your
old paper is on the other two rooms, dim, like the fading
memories. I looked with emotion upon my old library
closet, and wished I could get thither again, to finish my
' Frederick ' under fair chances. Except some small injuries
about the window-sashes, &c., which are now on the road to
repair, everything was tight and right there. A considerable
young elm (natural son of the old high tree at the N.E.
corner of the house, under which I have read Waverley
Novels in summer holidays) has planted itself near the bare
wall — our screen from the old peat-house, you recollect —
and has got to be ten or twelve feet high under flourishing
auspices. This I ordered to be respected and cherished
towards a long future, &c.

Craigenputtock looks all very respectably; much wood
to cut and clear away, the tenant evidently doing rather well
in it. The poor woods have struggled up in spite of weather,
tempest, and misfortune. Even Macadam's burnt planta
tion begins to come away, and the old trees left of it are tall
and venerable beings. ' Nothing like Craigenputtock larch
for toughness in all this country.' For most part, there are

216 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

ctgain far too many trees. ( 300£. worth o' wud to cut away,
and mair, and there is a market,' said a man skilled in such
matters, whom I found mowing there and consulted. . . Is
not this enough of Craigenputtock — Crag of the Grleds, as
its name means? Enough, and to spare.

Germany was to come next, and to come im
mediately, before the days drew in. He shuddered
at the recollection of the Zwei ruhige Zimmer, &c.,
in which he had suffered so much torture. But he
felt that he must go, cost what it might. Some friend
had proposed to take him in a yacht to the Mediter
ranean and land him at Trieste. Lord Ashburton
more reasonably had offered him a cast in another
yacht to the Baltic. But Carlyle chose to stand by
the ordinary modes of conveyance. He sent for his
passport, nailed a map of Germany to his wall, daily
perused it, and sketched an outline of his route. M.
Neuberg, who was at Leipzig, was written to, but it
was doubtful whether he was attainable. A Mr. Fox-
ton, a slight acquaintance, offered his companionship,
and was conditionally accepted; and after one or
two ' preliminary shivers ' and ' shuddering recoils,'
Carlyle screwed his courage to the sticking-point
and, in spite of nerves and the rest of it, got through
with the operation. The plan was to go by steam to
Hamburg ; whither next was not quite decided when
an invitation came from Baron von Usedom and his
English wife to visit them in the Isle of Kiigen. It
was out of the way ; but Stralsund, Eiigen, the
Baltic, were themselves interesting. The Usedoms'
letter was most warm, and Carlyle, who rather
doubted Mr. Foxton's capabilities as courier, thought
that this excursion might ' put him on his trial.' He

SECOND TOUR IN GERMANY. 217

could be dismissed afterwards if found unsuitable.
Much anxiety was given to poor Mr. Foxton. Neuberg
held out hopes of joining, and Foxton in that case
would not be wanted. But John Carlyle suggested
that Neuberg and he would perhaps neutralize each
other, like alkali and acid. On August 21 Carlyle
went off to Edinburgh, whither poor Mr. Foxton had
come, at great inconvenience to himself. He found
his friend ' very talky, scratch o' plastery, but service
able, assiduous, and good compared with nothing.'
The evening of the same day they sailed from Leith.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Hamburg: August 24, 11 p.m.

Here I am safe enough since eight hours, after such a
voyage for tumult and discomfort (now forgotten) as I have
seldom made. The Leith people, innocent but ineffectual
souls, forgot every promise they had made except that of
sailing five hours after their time and landing us at last
fifteen hours after ditto. We had baddish weather all Sun
day, mediocre till this morning, and such a scrambling dog-
kennel of a sickly life. However, the sail up the Elbe all
this day was bright, sunny, and beautiful, and our history
since — a fair prospect even of sleep being superadded — has
been favourable in all points ; so that thanks to Heaven are
alone due from me in that matter. And thy little heart,
poor woman, wherever this may find thee, may set itself at
rest on my score. We have the finest airy hotel, cheap too,
they say. My room is five stairs up, looking over mere roofs.
We dined wholesomely. Neuberg had a man in wait — poor
good soul after all ! — to say that he was ready at any hour,
&c. In short, except a storm of fine wind music spreading
over the city and not yet concluded, there is a right fair
share of comfort and good omens round me here on fair
earth again. The music is excellently sweet ; pathetic
withal to the worn soul towards midnight; and I write to

218 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

my own little partner far away for to-morrow's post, till it
cease. Again let us thank Heaven. Foxton, poor fellow, is
very good ; stands snubbing into silence ; annihilates him
self whenever I like, and is verily a gentleman in air and
heart, (rood for almost nothing in the way of help,1 though
prompt as possible. But along with Neuberg he will do

extremely well,

August 25, 9 a.m.

We go off at noon towards Usedom and Kiigen, Foxton
stopping at Stralsund near by. There will we wait Neuberg's
advance in safety, and can take a fine sea-bathe if we like,
for Riigen is the German Isle of Wight.

Carzitz, Insel Riigen : August 27.

How glad I am to write to thee from here. Since yester
day my prospects and situation have miraculously mended,
and at present I call myself a lucky kind of man. I am rid
of Foxton quite ad libitum, free of scratching on the plaster.
Have had again a sound good sleep, and am lodged in the
prettiest strange place you ever saw, among people kind to
me as possible. Am going to get my enterprise deliberately
made feasible, and as a preliminary mean to have a bathe in
the Baltic Sea as soon as this note and one to Neuberg is
done.

Yesterday, about 1 1 a.m., after two rather sleepless and
miserable nights on land, which with the three preceding at
sea had reduced me to a bad pitch, I had, with poor, helpless
but assiduous Foxton stepped out of the railway train at Kos-
tock, biggish sea capital of Mecklenburg, and was hurrying
along to get a place in the Stralsund diligence, with no prospect
but eight hours of suffocation and a night to follow without
sleep, when a lady, attended by her maid, addressed me with
sunny voice and look, ' Was not I Mr. Carlyle ? ' ' I am the Frau
von Usedom,' rejoined she on my answer, ' here to seek you,
sixty- four miles from home, and you must go with me hence
forth.' Hardly in my life had such amanus e nubibus been
extended to me. I need not say how thrice gladly I accepted.

1 I may as well say that both Mr. Foxton and Mr. Neuberg have
been dead for several years.

ISLE OF RUGEN. 219

I had, in fact, done with all my labour then, and was carried
on henceforth like a mere child in arms, nothing to do or
care for, but all conceivable accommodation gracefully pro
vided me up hither to this pleasant Isle of the Sea, where I
now am a considerably rested man. We posted forty-five
miles, I sitting mainly on the box, smoking and gazing
abroad. Foxton, whom after a while I put inside to do the
talking, we dropped at Stralsund, 6 p.m., other side of the
little strip of sea, and he is off to Berlin or whither he likes,
and I need not recall him again except as sour to the fat of
Neuberg, who is worth a million of him for helping me on
and making no noise about it. Happy journey to poor
Foxton !

After Stralsund and one little bit of sea steaming in one
of the brightest autumn evenings, we had still almost twenty
miles into the strange interior of the Riigen, a flat, bare, but
cultivated place, with endless paths but no roads. Strange
brick-red beehives of cottages, very exotic-looking ; a very
exotic scene altogether in the moonlight, and a voluble,
incessantly explosive, demonstrative, but thoroughly good
Madame von Usedom beside me. Most strange, almost as
in a Mahrchen. But we had four swift horses, a new, light
carriage, and went spanking along roadless, and in fine I am
here and have slept. The place is like nothing you ever
saw, mediaeval, semi-patriarchal, half a farmhouse, half a
palace. The Herr, who is at Berlin, returns this night.
Has made arrangements, &c. Oh, what arrangements ! and
even * spoken of it to the Prince of Prussia.' "What is also
for practice definitely lucky, Neuberg's letter finds me this
morning, and he will himself be in Berlin to-morrow night,
there to wait. N. thinks in about two weeks after our
meeting the thing might be got completed. Would it were
so, and I home again out of these foreign elements good
and bad. In a word, be at ease about me, and thank Heaven
I have human room to sleep in again, am seeing strange
things not quite worthless to me, and, in fact, am in a fair
way. If I knew you were but well I think I could be almost
happy here to-day in the silent sunshine on these remote

220 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

Scandinavian shores. The wind is singing and the sun
sporting in the lindens, and I hear doves cooing. Windows
up ! Two rooms all to myself. Coo ! coo !

Berlin : September 5.

Above a week since you heard of me ! and I, unhappy
that I am, have not heard from you one word.1 Oh ! may
the like never happen between us again. May this be the
last journey I take into foreign tumults and horrors, far
away from all that I love and all that is really helpful to me.
But to my narrative : — The Usedoms in Eiigen were the
kindest of hosts to me, and the place and circle had its
interests and advantages ; but alas ! I fell unwell the day
after writing to you. Bathed in the Baltic on the back of
all my Hamburg and other adventures ; caught cold ; had
already caught it, but developed it by the vile ' bathe.'
Felt as if I were getting into a fever outright, and had to
take decisive measures, though in a foreign house. That
did prove effectual, but you can fancy what two or three
days I had, the rather as they made me do the ' picturesque '
all the time ; and there was no end to the talk I had to
carry on. The Herr von Usedom is a fine, substantial,
intelligent, and good man. We really had a great deal of
nice speech together, and did beautifully together ; only
that I was so weak and sickly, and except keeping me to
the picturesque, he would not take almost any wise charge
of my ulterior affairs. At length — Friday afternoon last-
he did set out with me towards Berlin and practicalities. ' To
stay over night at Putbus, the Eichmond of Eiigen, and
then catch the steamer to Stettin, and thence by rail to
Berlin next day.' We got to Putbus, doing picturesque by
the way. A beautiful Putbus indeed ! where I had such a
night as should be long memorable to me : big loud hotel,
sea-bathing, lodgers with their noises, including plenteous
coach-horses under my window, followed by noises of cats,
item of brood sows, and at two a.m. by the simultaneous
explosion of two Cochin China cocks, who continued to play
thenceforth, and left me what sleep you can fancy in such
1 Her letters bad gone to Dresden.

BERLIN. 221

quarters. Never till the end of things may I visit Putbus
again. However, next day's — yesterday's — steam voyage
and rail was pleasantly successful, and at 10.30 p.m. I found
the useful Neuberg, who had secured me my old apartment
in the British Hotel, and here, thank God, I have got some
sleep again and have washed my skin clean, and mean to be
on the road towards Liegnitz and Breslau to-morrow. . . .
Neuberg looks very ugly — is, in fact, ill in health. Foxton
is here too; scratchy, though in a repentant condition.
Enough ! let us on, and let them do ! Berlin is loud under
my windows. A grey, close, hottish Sunday ; but I will
take care not to concern myself with it beyond the needful.
To-morrow we are off: Liegnitz, Breslau, Prag, then Dresden ;
after which only two battlefields remain, and London is
within a week. Neuberg is also going straight to London.
You may compute that all the travelling details — washtubs,
railways, money settlements, &c — are fairly off my hands
from this point. I have strength enough in me too. With
the snatches of sleep fairly expectable, I conclude myself
roadworthy for fourteen days. Then adieu ! Keil Kissen,
sloppy, greasy victual, all cold too, including especially the
coffee and the tea. Adieu, Teutschland ! Adieu, travelling
altogether, and I will never leave my Goody any more. Oh !
what a Schatz even I, poor I, possess in that quarter, the
poorest, but also the richest in some respects, of all the sons
of men.

I saw some prettyish antient Rugen gentlemen, item
ladies, who regarded with curiosity the foreign monster
Small thanks to them. N.B. — The Baltic Sea is not rightly
salt at all — not so salt as Solway at half-tide, and one even
ing we rode across an arm of it. Insignificant sea !

Brieg, Lower Silesia : September 10, 1858.
We quitted Berlin under fair auspices Monday morning
last, fortified with a general letter from the Prince's aide-
de-camp to all Prussian officers whatsoever. But hitherto,
owing to an immense review, which occupies everybody, it
bus done us less good than we expected. At Ciistrin a

222 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

benevolent major did attend us to the field of Zorndorf, and
showed us everything. But in other places the review at
Liegnitz has been fatal to help from such quarters. We
have done pretty well without ; have seen three other fields,
and had adventures of a confused, not wholly unpleasant,
character.

Our second place was Liegnitz itself, full of soldiers, oak
garlands, coloured lamplets, and expectation of the Prince.
We were on the battlefield, and could use our natural eyes, but
for the rest had no other guidance worth other than contempt.
Did well enough nevertheless, and got fairly out of Liegnitz
to Breslau, which has been our head-quarters ever since. A
dreadfully noisy place at night, out of which were excursions.
Yesterday to Leuthen, the grandest of all the battles ; to
day hither about fifty miles away to Molwitz, the first of
Fritz's fights, from which we have just now returned. Sleep
is the great difficulty here, but one does contrive some way.
Occasionally, as at Custrin, one has a night ' which is rather
exquisite.' But I lie down in the daytime — in fine, struggle
through one way or the other. I do not think it is doing
me much hurt, and it lasts only some ten days now. As to
profit — well, there is a kind of comfort in doing what one
intended. The people are a good, honest, modest set of
beings ; poorer classes, especially in the country, much
happier than with us. Every kind of industry is on the
improving hand ; the land, mainly sandy, is far better tilled
than I expected. And oh! the church steeples I have
mounted up into, and the barbarous jargoning I have had,
questioning ignorant mankind. Leuthen yesterday and
Molwitz to-day, with their respective steeples, I shall never
forget.

Breslau : September 11.

This is a queer old city as you ever heard of. High as
Edinburgh, or more so. Streets very strait and winding ;
roofs thirty feet or so in height, and of proportionate steep
ness, ending in chimney-heads like the half of a butter
firkin set on its side. The people are not beautiful, but
they seem innocent and obliging, brown-skinned, scrubby

THE BATTLEFIELDS. 223

bodies, a good many of them of Polack or Slavic breed.
More power to their elbow ! You never saw such churches,
Kath-houses, &c., old as the hills, and of huge proportions.
An island in the Oder here is completely covered with
cathedrals and appendages. Brown women with cock noses,
snubby in character, have all got straw hats, -umbrellas,
crinolines, &c., as fashion orders, and are no doubt charming
to the brown man. Neuberg is a perfect Issachar for taking
labour on him ; needs to be held with a strongish curb.
Scratchy Foxton and he are much more tolerable together.
Grease plus vinegar, that is the rule.

Prag : September 14, 1858.

From Breslau, where I wrote last, our adventures have
been miscellaneous, our course painful but successful. At
Landshut, edge of the Riesen Gebirge, where we arrived
near eleven the first night, in a crazy vehicle of one horse,
you never saw such a scene of squalid desolation. I had
pleased myself with the thoughts of a cup of hot milk, such
as is generally procurable in German inns. Umsonst ! no
milk in the house ! no nothing ! only a ruhiges Zimmer
not opened for weeks past, by the smell of it. I mostly
missed sleep. Our drive next day through the Riesen
Gebirge into Bohemian territory was as beautiful as any I
ever had. It ended in confusion, getting into railways full
of dirty, smoking, Sunday gents, fully as ugly on the Elbe
there as on the Thames nearer you. We had passed the
sources of the Elbe early in the day ; then crossed it at
night. We have not far quitted it since, nor shall till we
pass Dresden. The gents that night led us to a place called
Pardubitz, terribly familiar to me from those dull ' Frederick '
books, where one of the detestablest nights of all this expe
dition was provided me. Big, noisy inn, full of evil smells ;
contemptible little wicked village, where a worse than jerry-
shop close over the way raged like Bedlam or Erebus, to
cheer one, in a bed, i.e., trough, eighteen inches too short,
and a mattress forced into it which cocked up at both ends
as if you had been in the trough of a saddle. Ack Himmel !

224 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

We left it at 4 a.m. to do the hardest day's work of any.
Chotusitz, Kolin — such a day, in a wicked vehicle with a
spavined horse, amid clouds of dust, under a blazing sun. I
was half-mad on getting hither at 8.30 p.m., again by the
railway carriage, among incidental groups of the nastiest
kind of gents.

The Bohemians are a different people from the Germans
proper. Yesterday not one in a hundred of them could
understand a word of German. They are liars, thieves,
slatterns, a kind of miserable subter-Irish people — Irish with
the addition of ill-nature and a disposition decidedly dis
obliging. We called yesterday at an inn on the battlefield
of Kolin, where Frederick had gone aloft to take a survey
of the ground. ; The Golden Sun ' is still its title ; but it
has sunk to be the dirtiest house probably in Europe, and
with the nastiest-looking, ill-thriving spectre of a landlady,
who had not even a glass of beer, if Foxton could have sum
moned courage to drink it in honour of the occasion.

This is a grand picturesque town, this Prag. To-day we
had our own difficulties in getting masters of the Ziscaberg,
Sterbehohe, and other localities of the battle which young
ladies play on the piano — but on the whole it was light com
pared with the throes of yesterday. Here is an authentic
wild pink plucked from the battlefield. Give it to some
young lady who practises the ' Battle of Prague ' on her piano
to your satisfaction.

There are now but three battlefields to do, one double,
day after to-morrow by a return ticket to be had in Dresden,
the two next — Torgau, Eossbach — in two days following.
Poor Neuberg has fairly broken down by excess of yesterday's
labour, and various misery. He gave up the Hradschin
(Radsheen they pronounce it) to Foxton and me, though
one of the chief curiosities of Prag, and has gone to bed —
a noisy bed — with little nursing, poor man ; but hopes to be
roadworthy to-morrow again. He is the mainstay of every
enterprise — I could not do without him — and Foxton is good
for absolutely nothing, except to neutralize him, which he
pretty much does.

SECOND TOUR IN GERMANY. 225

Dresden, September 15, 1SK

I have got your second letter here — a delightful little
letter, which I read sitting on the Elbe bridge in the sun
shine after I had got my face washed, with such a struggle,
and could get leave to feel like Jonah after being vomited
from the whale's belly. Our journey from Prag has excelled,
in confusion, all I ever witnessed in the world ; the beauti
fullest country ever seen too, and the beautifullest weather
— but, Ach Gott! However, we are now near the end of it. . .
I am not hurt ; I really do not think myself much hurt-
but, oh what a need of sleep, of silence, of a right good
washing with soap and water all over !

On September 22 be was safe at home again at
Chelsea — having finished his work in exactly a month.
Nero was there to ' express a decent joy ' at seeing
him again — Nero, but not his mistress. She was away
in Scotland with her friends, Dr. and Mrs. Russell.
He had charged her not to return on his account
as long as she was getting good from the change of
air and scene. On the twenty-third he sent her the
history of the rest of his adventures.

Our journey after Dresden continued, with the usual
velocity and tribulation, over Hochkirch — beautiful outlook
from the steeple there, and beautiful epitaph on Marshal
Keith, one of the seven hundred that perished on that spot,
the church doors still holed with the musketry there — over
Leipzig, where Foxton rejoined us after our thrice-toilsome
day at Torgau ; then from Weissenfeld over Rossbach, the
last in our series, thank Heaven! We then got into the

Weimar train, found little M , and, what was better, a

fine, quiet bed-room, looking out upon decent garden-ground
in the inn already known to me, where I procured a human
bleep, and also a tub with water enough next morning — and,
in short, was greatly refreshed; the rather as I absolutely
refused to go about except in the narrowest limits next day,
IV. ()

226 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

and preferred lying on my bed, asleep or not, to all the ' sights'
in nature. At three p.m. we had to go again. The Grand
Duchess sent a telegram — being telegraphed to— most gra
cious, but it was to no purpose. I did wish to see the high
lady — very clever and distinguished, everybody says — but it
involved waiting twenty-four hours in an uncertain hostelry
at Eisenach, and then getting off at two a.m., therefore re
solutely, ' No, Illustrious Madame.' Next day from Guriters-
hausen, near Cassel, to Aix-la-Chapelle, was among the hardest
in my experience of physical misery — begins at four a.m.,
no sleep behind it, nor any food before it, and lasts inces
santly till seven p.m. ; oftenest in slow trains through broiling
sun, sand clouds, and manufacturing smoke. My living was
a cup of most lukewarm coffee, swallowed like physic, which
it much resembled, as all German coffee does, and poor eating
to it ; not even a crumb of bread and butter ; raw ham and
bread, to be washed down too in one minute of time. On
this, with a glass of soda water and cognac and farthing loaf
of tough bread picked up somewhere, human nature had to
subsist to Aix, arrive there about seven. . . About half-past
eight try to eat if you could something tepid and question
able. Happily the bed was once more human — I was
thoroughly done up.

Next morning stand upon the lid of Charlemagne —
abominable monks roaring out their idolatrous grand music
within sight. Then embark again — arrive at Ostend six to
seven p.m., get on board a boat to Dover (mail steamer), six
hours — nothing to be had as living, Neuberg and others very
sick. In Dover one a.m., tumult of custom-houses, of over
crowded inns ; in despair try tea and retire to one's garret,
with nothing to depend on but lucifers and tobacco through
the night. It was not so bad as might have been expected.
Next day a fine train up to town, Foxton branching off at
Redhill, and taking leave almost with tears. By the river
steamer I reach home half-past four, or rather later. To-day,
after a good sleep, good coffee, &c., I have as bad a head
ache as need be desired, and trace the Strapazen of this
journey in a lively manner. I feel in me, down in the breast

INSPECTION OP BATTLEFIELDS. 227

chiefly, the stock of cold I have had secretly these three
weeks, but otherwise ail nothing.

Such was Carlyle's second tour in Germany, as
sketched in these letters by himself. One misses
something of the liveliness of the experiences of the
first, when everything was new, and was seized upon
by his insatiable curiosity. It was a journey of busi
ness, and was executed with a vigour and rapidity
remarkable in so old a man. There were fewer com
plaints about sleep — fewer complaints of any kind.
How well his surveying work was done, the history
of Frederick's campaigns, when he came to write
them, were ample evidence. He speaks lightly of
having seen Kolin, Torgau, &c., &c. No one would
guess from reading these short notices that he had
mastered the details of every field which he visited ;
not a turn of the ground, not a brook, not a wood, or
spot where wood had been, had escaped him. Each
picture was complete in itself, unconfused with any
other ; and, besides the picture, there was the cha
racter of the soil, the extent of cultivation every

particle of information which would help to elucidate
the story.

There are no mistakes. Military students in Ger
many are set to learn Frederick's battles in Carlyle's
account of them — altogether an extraordinary feat on
Carlyle's part, to have been accomplished in so short a
time. His friends had helped him no doubt ; but the
eye that saw and the mind that comprehended were
his own.

Very hoon after his return the already finished
volumes of ' Frederick ' were given to the world. N<»

Q 2

228 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

work of his had as yet obtained so instant and wide
a welcome. The literary success was immediate and
exceptionally great. 2,000 copies had been printed
— they were sold at the first issue. A second 2,000
were disposed of almost as rapidly, and by December
there was a demand for more. He had himself been
singularly indifferent on this part of the business. In
his summer correspondence there is not a single
word of expectation or anxiety. As little was there
sign of exultation when the world's verdict was pro
nounced. The child that is born with greatest diffi
culty is generally a favourite, but it was not so in
this instance. In his journal he speaks of the book
as ' by far the most heartrending enterprise he had
ever had ' as ' worth nothing,' though ' faithfully done
on his part.' In Scotland he describes himself as
having been ' perfectly dormant,' ' in a sluggish, sad
way, till the end of August.' In Germany he had
seen the battlefields — ' a quite frightful month of
physical discomfort,' with no result that he could be
sure of, ' except a great mischief to health.' He had
returned, he said, ' utterly broken and degraded.'
This state of feeling, exaggerated as it was, survived
the appearance of the two volumes. He had com
plained little while the journey was in progress —
when he was at home again there was little else but
sadness and dispiritment.

Journal.

December 28th, 1858. — Book was published soon after
my return; has been considerably more read than usual
with books of mine ; much babbled of in newspapers. No
better to me than the barking of dogs. Verachtung, ja Nicht

SALE OF WORKS IN ENGLAND. 229

achtung my sad feeling about it. Officious people three or
four times put ' reviews ' into my hands, and in an idle hour
I glanced partly into these ; but it would have been better
not, so sordidly ignorant and impertinent were they, though
generally laudatory. Ach Gott, allein, allein auf dieser
Erde ! However, the fifth thousand is printed, paid for I
think — some 2,800£. in all — and will be sold by-and-by with
a money profit, and perhaps others not useless to me. One
has to believe that there are rational beings in England who
read one's poor books and are silent about them. Edition
of works l is done too. Larkin, a providential blessing to me
in that and in the ' Frederick.' I am fairly richer at this time
than I ever was, in the money sense — rich enough for all
practical purposes — otherwise no luck forme till I have done
the final two volumes. Began that many weeks ago, but
cannot get rightly into it yet, struggle as I may. Health un
favourable, horse exercise defective, villanous ostlers found
to be starving my horse. Much is ' defective,' much is against
me ; especially my own fidelity of perseverance in endeavour.
Ah me, would I were through it ! I feel then as if sleep
would fall upon me, perhaps the last and perfect sleep. I
haggle and struggle here all day, ride then in the twilight
like a hunted ghost ; speak to nobody ; have nobody whom
it gladdens me to speak to. Truce to complaining.

A few words follow which I will quote also, as
they tell of something which proved of immeasurable
consequence, both to Carlyle and to his wife.

Lord Ashburton has wedded again — a Miss Stuart Mac
kenzie — and they are off to Egypt about a fortnight ago.
* The changes of this age,' as minstrel Burns has it, ' which
fleeting Time procureth ! ' Ah me ! ah me !

Carlyle sighed ; but the second Lady Ashburton
became the guardian genius of the Cheyne Row house-

1 Collected edition of Carlyle's works.

2 30 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

hold ; to Mrs. Carlyle the tenderest of sisters, to
Carlyle, especially after his own bereavement, sister,
daughter, mother, all that can be conveyed in the
names of the warmest human ties. . . But the ac
quaintance had yet to begin. Miss Stuart Mackenzie
had hitherto been seen by neither of them.

TEMPTATIONS OF A LITERARY LIFE. 231

CHAPTER XXV.

A.D. 1859-G2. ^.ET. G4-07.

Effects of a Literary Life upon the Character— Evenings in Cheyne
Row— Summers in Fife — Visit to Sir George Sinclair, Thurso
Castle— Mrs. Carlyle's Health — Death of Arthur Clough — Intimacy
•with Mr. Buskin — Party at the Grange — Description of John
Keble — ' Unto this Last.'

No one who has read the letters of Carlyle in the pre
ceding chapters can entertain a doubt of the tenderness
of his heart, or of his real gratitude to those relations
and friends who were exerting themselves to be of use
to him. As little can anyone have failed to notice
the waywardness of his humour, the gusts of ' unjust
impatience ' and ' sulky despair ' with which he re
ceived sometimes their best endeavours to serve him,
or, again, the remorse with which he afterwards re
flected on his unreasonable outbursts. ' The nature
of the beast ' was the main explanation. His tempera
ment was so constituted. It could not be altered,
and had to be put up with, like changes of weather,
But nature and circumstances worked together ; and
Lord Jeffrey had judged rightly when he said that
literature was not the employment best suited to a
person of Carlyle's disposition. In active life a man
works at the side of others, lie has to consider them
as well as himself. lie has to check his impatience',

232 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

he has to listen to objections even when he knows
that he is right. He must be content to give and
take, to be indifferent to trifles, to know and feel at
all times that he is but one among many, who have
all their humours. Every day, every hour teaches
him the necessity of self-restraint, The man of letters
has no such wholesome check upon himself. He lives
alone, thinks alone, works alone. He must listen to
his own mind ; for no other mind can help him. He
requires correction as others do ; but he must be his
own school-master. His peculiarities are part of his
originality, and may not be eradicated. The friends
among whom he lives are not the partners of his
employment ; they share in it, if they share at all,
only as instruments or dependants. Thus he is an
autocrat in his own circle, and exposed to all the
temptations which beset autocracy. He is subject to
no will, no law, no authority outside himself; and
the finest natures suffer something from such un
bounded independence. . . Carlyle had been made
by nature sufficiently despotic, and needed no impulse
in that direction from the character of his occupations,

while his very virtues helped to blind him when it

would have been better if he could have been more
on his guard. He knew that his general aim in life
was noble and unselfish, and that in the use of his time
and talents he had nothing to fear from the sternest
examination of his stewardship. His conscience was
clear. His life from his earliest years had been pure
and simple, without taint of selfish ambition. He
had stood upright always in many trials. He had
become at last an undisputed intellectual sovereign
over a large section of his contemporaries, who looked

PECULIARITIES OF TEMPER. 233

to him as disciples to a master whose word was a law
to their belief. And thus habit, temperament, success
itself had combined to deprive him of the salutary
admonitions with which the wisest and best of mortals
cannot entirely dispense. From first to last he was
surrounded by people who allowed him his own way,
because they felt his superiority — who found it a
privilege to minister to him as they became more
and more conscious of his greatness — who, when
their eyes were open to his defects, were content to
put up with them, as the mere accidents of a nervously
sensitive organization.

This was enough for friends who could be amused
by peculiarities from which they did not personally
suffer. But for those who actually lived with him—
for his wife especially, on whom the fire-sparks fell
first and always, and who could not escape from
them — the trial was hard. The central grievance
was gone, but was not entirely forgotten. His let
ters had failed to assure her of his affection, for she
tli ought at times that they must be written for his
biographer. She could not doubt his sincerity when,
now after his circumstances became more easy, lie
i^ave her free command of money ; when, as she could
no longer walk, he insisted that she should have a
brougham twice a week to drive in, and afterwards
gave her a carriage of her own. But affection did
not prevent outbursts of bilious humour, under which,
for a whole fortnight, she felt as if she was ' keeper
in a mud-house.' 1 When he was at a distance from her
he was passionately anxious about her health. When
lie was at home, his own discomforts, ivul or imaginary,

1 Letters and Memorials, vol. iii. p. 4.

234 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

left no room for thought of others. 'If Carlyle
wakes once in a night,' she said to me, ' he will
complain of it for a week. I wake thirty times
every night, but that is nothing.' Notwithstanding
all his resolutions, notwithstanding the fall of ' the
scales from his eyes ' and the intended amendment
for the future, things relapsed in Cheyne Row
after Carlyle returned from Germany, and settled
again to his work, much into their old condition.
Generally the life was smooth and uneventful, but
the atmosphere was always dubious, and a disturbed
sleep or an indigestion would bring on a thunder
storm. Mrs. Carlyle grew continually more feeble,
continual nervous anxiety allowing her no chance to
rally ; but her indomitable spirit held her up ; she
went out little in the evenings, but she had her own
small tea parties, and the talk was as brilliant as ever.
Carlyle worked all day, rode late in the afternoon,
came home, slept a little, then dined and went out
afterwards to walk in the dark. If any of us were
to spend the evening there, we generally found her
alone ; then he would come in, take possession of
the conversation and deliver himself in a stream
of splendid monologue, wise, tender, scornful, hu
morous, as the inclination took him — but never bitter,
never malignant, always genial, the fiercest denun
ciations ending in a burst of laughter at his own
exaggerations. Though I knew things were not alto
gether well, and her drawn, suffering face haunted me
afterwards like a sort of ghost, I felt for myself that
in him there could be nothing really wrong, and that
he was as good as he was great.

So passed the next two or three years ; he toiling

MRS. CARLYLES HEALTH. 235

on unweariedly, dining nowhere, and refusing to be
disturbed — contenting himself with now and then
sending his brother word of his general state.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea, March 14, 1859.

We go along here in the common way, or a little below
it, neither of us specially definable as ill, but suffering
(possibly from the muddy torpid weather), under unusual
feebleness, and wishing we were a little stronger. Jane keeps
afoot ; takes her due drives, tries walking when the weather
permits, and is surely a good deal better than she has been
wont to be in the last two years. But her weakness is very
great; her power of eating runs very low, poor soul. To
day she seems to be trying total abstinence, or something
near it, by way of remedy to a constant nausea she complains
of. ' We must do the best we can for a living, boy ! ' As to
me, the worst is a fatal inability to get forward with my
work in this state of nerves and stomach. I am dark, inert,
and stupid to a painful degree, when progress depends almost
altogether on vivacity of nerves. The remedy is ... there is
no remedy but boring along mole-like or mule-like, and re
fusing to lie down altogether.

In June after ' months of uselessness and wretched
ness,' he was ' tumbled ' into what he called ' active
chaos,' i.e. he took a house for the summer at
llumbie, near Aberdour in Fife. The change was not
very successful. He had his horse with him, and ' rode
fiercely about, haunted by the ghosts of the past.' Mrs.
Carlyle followed him down. John Carlyle was charged
to meet her at Edinburgh, and see her safe for the
rest of her journey. ' Be good and soft with her,' he
said, 'you have no notion what ill any flurry or fuss
docs her, and I know always how kind your thoughts

. and also TUTS, in spile of any Haws that may

236 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

arise.' Was it that he could not ' reck his own rede ! '
or was Mrs. Caiiyle herself exaggerating, when she
described the next fortnight with him at Humbie, as
like being in a ' madhouse ' ? They went afterwards
to the cousins at Auchtertool, and from Auchtertool
she wrote the sad letter to a young friend in London
who had asked to be congratulated on her marriage.1
They remained in Scotland till the end of September.
At Chelsea again, on the 3rd of October, he wrote a
few words in his journal, the last entered there for
several years.

' Returned Saturday night from a long miscellaneous
sojourn in Scotland which has lasted very idly and not too
comfortably since the last days of June. Bathing, solitary
riding, walking, one or two fits of catarrhal illness of a kind
I did not like ; this and much solitary musing, reminiscence,
and anticipation of a painful kind filled that fallow period.
Perhaps both of us are a little better ; one cannot hope much.
A terrible task now ahead again. Steady ! steady ! To it
then ! Isabella, my good sister-in-law at Scot sbrig, was gone.
Poor brother Jamie ! We looked at the place of graves
Tuesday last. There at le*ast is peace ; there is rest. Foolish
tears almost surprised me.'

There was a short visit to the Grange in January
(I860), another in April to Lord Sandwich at Hin-
chinbrook — from which he was frightened away pre
maturely by the arrival of Hepworth Dixon. He had
evidently been troublesome at home, for from Hin-
chinbrook he wrote to his wife begging her ' to be
patient with him.' ' He was the unhappy animal, but
did not mean ill.' With these exceptions, and a week
at Brighton in July, he stayed fixed at his desk,

1 Letters and Memorials, vol. iii. p. 1.

VISIT TO THURSO CASTLE. 237

and in August, leaving his wife in London, where
nervousness had reduced her to the brink of a bilious
fever, he went off, taking his work with him, to stay at
Thurso Castle with Sir George Sinclair. There he
remained several weeks, in seclusion as complete as he
could wish. His letters were full and regular, though
they did not give entire satisfaction.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Off Aberdeen Harbour : August 3, 1860.

Arrived here after what they call an excellent voyage,
which indeed has had good weather and all other fine quali
ties except that finest, the possibility of reasonable sleeping.
I have seldom seen such an overcrowded piggery of a place
as we had to try that latter operation in.

I did manage a little, however, each night. I feel wonder
fully tolerable after all is done ; the sound in my ears either
gone or else lost amid other innumerable clankings, snorings,
and clangours. Thank God we are got so far with success.
Could I only hear that my poor Jeannie is a little come
round again, now that the noises and disturbances from my
side of the house are done.

Thurso Castle : August 6, I860.

Saturday — wet, dreary, gaunt, and strange — was a little

dispiriting, in spite of the cordial and eager welcome of all

these good people. But that night I had a capital sleep.

Next morning I contrived to shirk church (which I shall

always do) and walked along the many-sounding shore with

a book, a cape, and a little tobacco, some mile or two among

the cliffs and crags. Not a human being visible ; only the

grand ever-murmuring sea ; Pentland Frith clear as crystal,

with Orkney,Hoy Island,a fine precipitous sea-girt mountain,

to our left, and Dunnet Head some six or seven miles ahead.

There I sate and sauntered in the devoutest, quietest, and

handsomest mood I have been in for many months. Then

I read, bathed carefully, and set out vigorously walking to

arrive warm and also punctual. In short, clear, I did well

238 CARLYLE'S LTFE IN LONDON.

yesterday and have had again a tolerable sleep. Nay, have
got my affairs settled, so to speak ; breakfast an hour before,
the family (who don't get into their worship, &c., till ten),
am not to show face at all till three p.m. and mean actually
to try some work. If I can it will be very fine for me.

The little butler here seems one of the cleverest, willing-
est creatures I have seen for a long time, and is zealously
anxious (as hitherto all and sundry are) to oblige the mon
ster come among them.

Thurso, visible, about two gunshots off, from one of my
windows, is a poor grey town, treeless, with one or two steam-
engines in it, and a dozen or two of fishing-boats. Nor is
Thurso Castle much of a mansion, at least till you examine
it attentively. But it is really an extensive, well-furnished,
human dwelling-place ; and its situation with its northern
parapet, looking down upon the actual waves which never go
a stone's throw off, is altogether charming ; a place built at
three different times, from 1664 downwards (quite modern
this my northern side of it), with four or five poor candle-
extinguisher-like towers in different parts, very bare, but
trim, with walks and sheltering offices and walls. No saddle
horse ; not even a saddle shelty ; but there is a carriage and
pair for the womankind, with whom I have not yet gone,
though I mean to.

August 14.

My dear little Groody, — I could have been somewhat
fretted yesterday morning. First at your long delay in
writing, and your perverse notion of my neglect in that
particular, also of your scornful condemnation of my descrip
tive performance (which I can assure you was not done for
the sake of future biographers, nor done at all except with
considerable pain and inconvenience and at the very first
moment possible in my gloom and sickliness, if you had
known of it). But all feelings were swallowed up in one-
grief and alarm at the sleepless, excited, and altogether
painful state my poor little Jeannie had evidently got into.
A long letter was to have been written yesterday afternoon
after work and bathing and dinner were well over. But, alas!

THURSO CASTLE. 239

at dinner (which had been unexpectedly crowded forward to
two p.m. instead of three, and had sent me into the sea and
back again at full gallop, not to miss the essential daily
bath) — at dinner, which I found them denominating luncheon,
I was informed that three miles off, at some Highland laird's

named Major , there stood an engagement for me of a

strict nature, and that there I was to dine. Nimmer und
Nimmermehr. The major had not even asked me. I want
no acquaintance with any laird or major. I positively can
not go. It was in vain that I insisted and reiterated in this
key. Poor Sir Greorge offered to dine now and go walking
with me on the sands while the major's dinner went on.

In short I found I should give offence and seem a very
surly, unthankful fellow by persisting, so I was obliged to go.
The laird, an old Peninsula soldier, was not a bad fellow ;
quite the reverse indeed ; had a wife and wife's sister and a
son just from India and the Crimea ; finally a very pretty
Highland place, and a smart douce little daughter who made
the Caithness dialect beautiful. Of myself I will say only
that I have cunningly adjusted my hours ; am called at eight,
bathe as at home, run out from heat : breakfast privately,
and by this means shirk ' prayers ' — am at work by ten, bathe
at two, and do not show face till three. After which comes
walking, comes probably driving. Country equal to Craigen-
puttock for picturesque effects, plus the sea, which is always
one's friend. I have got some work done every day ; have
slept every night, never quite ill, once or twice splen
didly.

Carlyle abhorred the ' picturesque,' when sought
after of set purpose. He was exquisitely sensitive of
natural beauty, when he came across it naturally and
surrounded by its, own associations. Here is a finished
picture which he sent to his brother.

240 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

To John Carlyle.

Thurso : August 24, 1860.

I sit boring over my work, not idle quite, but with
little visible result, and that has considerably weakened the
strength of my position here. I dimly intended to hold on
for ' about a month ; ' and this is not unlikely to be the limit.
Sir G. has always professed to be clear for two months as
the minimum, but will perhaps be at bottom not so averse to
the shorter term, there being such a cackle of grandchildren
here, with governesses &c., whom he sees to be a mere bore
to me, though to him such a joy. Yesterday we went to
John o' Groats actually. It is about twenty miles from us to
the little seaside inn. There you dismount, walk to Groats,
i.e. to the mythic site of Groats — a short mile — thence two
rather long ones to the top of Duncan sby Head.

It is one of the prettiest shores I ever saw : trim grass
or fine corn, even to the very brow of the sea. Sand (where
there is sand) as white as meal, and between sand and farm-
field a glacis or steep slope, which is also covered with grass,
in some places thick with meadow-sweet, * Queen of the
Meadow^,' and quite odoriferous as well as trim. The island
of Stroma flanks it, across a sound of perhaps two miles
broad. Three ships were passing westward in our time.
The old wreck of a fourth was still traceable in fragments,
sticking in the sand, or leant on harrows higher up by way
of fence. The site of Groats has a barn short way behind it,
and a cottage short way to its left looking seaward. The
waves are about a pistol shot off at high water. It stands—
i.e. a house would stand — very beautifully, as at the bottom
of a kind of scoop rising slowly behind into highish country,
ditto to west, though not into great heights at all, and the
big Duncansby quite grandly screening it both from E. and
N.E. ; and all was so admirably still and solitary : extensive
Cheviot sheep nibbling all about, and JOQ other living thing,
like a dream. The Orkneys, Ronald^ Shay, Skerries, &c.,
lay dim, dreamlike, with a beauty as of sorrow in the dim
grey day. Groats' site appeared to me terribly like some

THURSO CASTLE. 241

extinct farmer's lime-kiln. Rain broke out on coming home,
and I lost a good portion of my sleep last night by the
adventure. This is all I have to say of Groats or myself.

Amid these scenes, and heartily conscious of his
host's kind consideration for him, he stayed out his
holiday. He had wished his wife to have a taste of
Scotch air too before the winter, and had arranged

o

that she should go to his sister at the Gill. She had
started, and was staying on the way with her friends
the Stanleys at Alderley, when her husband dis
covered that he could do no more at Thurso, and
must get home again. The period of his visit had
been indefinite. She had supposed that he would
remain longer than he proposed to do. The delay
of posts and a misconstruction of meanings led Mrs.
Carlyle to suppose that he was about to return to
Chelsea immediately, and that her own presence
there would be indispensable ; and, with a resent
ment, which she did not care to conceal, at his
imagined want of consideration for her, she gave up
her expedition and went back. It was a mistake
throughout, for he had intended himself to take
Annandale on his way home from Thurso ; but he
had not been explicit enough, and she did not spare
him. He was very miserable and very humble.
He promised faithfully that when at home again he
would worry her no more till she was strong enough
to be ' kept onasy.'

I will be quiet as a dream (he said). Surely I ought to
be rather a protection to your poor sick fancy than a new
disturbance. Be still; be quiet. I swear to do thee no
mischief at all.

Alas! he might swear ; but with the excllentest
iv. R

242 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

intentions, he was an awkward companion for a
nervous, suffering woman. He had meant no mischief.
It was impossible that he could have meant it. His
misfortune was that he had no perception. He never
understood that a delicate lady was not like his own
robuster kindred, and might be shivered into fiddle-
strings while they would only have laughed.

This was his last visit to Scotland before the com
pletion of ' Frederick.' A few words to Mr. Erskine,
who had written to inquire about his wife, give a
more accurate account of his own condition than it
gave of hers.

To Thomas Erskine, Esq.

Chelsea : October 12, 1860.

I got home nearly three weeks ago. Jane was not
weaker than I expected; her house, poor soul, all set in
order on an improved footing as to servants, almost pathetic
as well as beautiful to me. I am happy to report that she
has grown stronger ever since, and is now once more in her
usual posture. I have got my smithy fire kindled again,
and there is sound of the hammer once more audible. I
have sunk silent, humiliated, endeavouring to be quietly,
wisely, not foolishly, diligent with all the strength left to
me. * Frederick ' is not the most pious of my heroes ; but
the work awakens in me either piety or else despair. Why
have I not a more pious labour to end with ? perhaps not to
be able to end. But one must not quarrel with one's kind
of labour. To do it is the thing requisite. My horse is
potent for riding, and one of the loyallest quadrupeds. That
perhaps is the finest item in the horoscope.

The ' improved footing ' as to servants had been
Carlyle's own arrangement. In his wife's weakened
condition he thought it no longer right that she
should be left to struggle on with a single maid-of-

IMPROVED DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. 243

all-work. He had insisted that she should have a
superior class of woman as cook and housekeeper,
with a girl to assist. He himself was fixed to his
garret room again, rarely stirring out except to ride,
and dining nowhere save now and then with Forster,
to meet only Dickens, who loved him with all his
heart.

The new year brought the Grange again, where
Mrs. Carlyle was now as glad to go as before she
had been reluctant.

Everybody (he wrote) as kind as possible, especially the
lady. This party small and insignificant ; nobody but our
selves and Venables, an honest old dish, and Kingsley, a
new, of higher pretensions, but inferior flavour.

The months went by. On March 27 a bulletin
to his brother says : — ' I have no news ; nothing but
the old silent struggle continually going on ; for my
very dreams, when I have any, are apt to be filled
with it. A daily ride nearly always in perfect soli
tude, a daily and nightly escort of confused babble
ments, and thoughts not cheerful to speak of, yet
with hope more legible at times than formerly, and
on the whole with health better rather than worse.

In this year he lost a friend whom he valued
beyond any one of the younger men whom he had
learnt to know. Arthur Clough died at Florence,
leaving behind him, of work accomplished, a transla
tion of Plutarch, a volume of poems (which by-and-
by, when the sincere writing of this ambitious age of
ours is sifted from the insincere, may survive as an evi
dence of what he might have been had fulness of years
grunted 1o him), and, besides these, a beautiful

R 2

244 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

memory in the minds of those who had known him.
I knew what Carlyle felt about him, and I tried to
induce him to write some few words which might
give that memory an enduring form.

I quite agree in what you say of poor Clough (he replied).
A man more vivid, ingenious, veracious, mildly radiant, I
have seldom met with, and in a character so honest, modest,
kindly. I expected very considerate things of him. As
for the ' two pages ' you propose, there could, had my hands
been loose, have heen no valid objection, but, as it is, my
hands are tied.

Every available moment had been guaranteed to
' Frederick.' Clough was gone ; but another friend
ship had been formed which was even more precious
to Carlyle. He had long been acquainted with
Buskin, but hitherto there had been no close
intimacy between them, art not being a subject
especially interesting to him. But Euskin was now
writing his ' Letters on Political Economy ' in the
' Cornhill Magazine.' The world's scornful anger
witnessed to the effect of his strokes, and Carlyle
was delighted. Political Economy had been a creed
while it pretended to be a science. Science rests on
reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent
with calmness. A creed is always sensitive. To
express a doubt of it shakes its authority, and is
therefore treated as a moral offence. One looks back
with amused interest on that indignant outcry now,
when the pretentious science has ceased to answer
a political purpose and has been banished by its chief
professor to the exterior planets.

But Carlyle had hitherto been preaching alone in
the wilderness, and rejoiced in this new ally. He

JOHN RUSKIN. 245

examined Buskin more carefully. He saw, as who
that looked could help seeing, that here was a true
'man of genius,' peculiar, uneven, passionate, but
wielding in his hand real levin bolts, not flashes
of light merely— but fiery arrows which pierced,
where they struck, to the quick. He was tempted
one night to go to hear Buskin lecture, not on the
'Dismal Science,' but on some natural phenomena,
which Buskin, while the minutest observer, could
convert into a poem. 'Sermons in Stones' had
been already Carlyle's name for 'The Stones of
Venice.' Such a preacher he was willing to listen to
on any subject.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea: April 23, 1861.

Friday last I was persuaded — in fact had unwarily com
pelled myself, as it were — to a lecture of Euskin's at the
Institution, Albemarle-street. Lecture on Tree Leaves as
physiological, pictorial, moral, symbolical objects. A
crammed house, but tolerable to me even in the gallery.
The lecture was thought to 'break down,' and indeed it
quite did ' as a lecture ; ' but only did from embarras des
richesses—fi rare case. Buskin did blow asunder as by gun
powder explosions his leaf notions, which were manifold,
curious, genial ; and, in fact, I do not recollect to have
heard in that place any neatest thing I liked so well as this
chaotic one.

This was a mere episode, however, in a life which
w;is as it were chained down to ' an undoable task.'
Months went by ; at last the matter became so com
plicated, and the notes and corrections so many, that
the printers were called in to help. The rough
fragments of manuscript were set in type that
lie might see his way through them.

246 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

You never saw such a jumble of horrors as the first
proofs are (he said in reporting the result). In my bewilder
ing, indexless state, and with such books and blockheadism,
I cannot single-handed deal with the thing except stage
after stage in this tentative way. Often enough I am doing
the very last revise when, after such screwing and torturing,
the really vital point of the matter — rule of all the articula
tion it must have — will disclose itself to me, overlooked by
the fifty Dryasdusts I have been consulting.

Alas ! (he cries at another time) my poor old limbs are
nothing like so equal to this work as they once were ; a fact
that, but an irremediable one. Seldom was a poor man's
heart so near broken by utter weariness, disgust, and long-
continued despair over an undoable job. The only point is,
said heart must not break altogether, butfi7iish if it can.

No leisure — leisure even for thought — could be
spared to other subjects. Even the great phenomenon
of the century, the civil war in America, passed by
him at its opening without commanding his serious
attention. To him that, tremendous struggle for
the salvation of the American nationality was merely
the efflorescence of the ' Nigger Emancipation '
agitation, which he had always despised. 'No
war ever raging in my time,' he said, when the
first news of the fighting came over, ' was to me more
profoundly foolish-looking. Neutral I am to a degree :
I for one.' He spoke of it scornfully as ' a smoky
chimney which had taken fire.' When provoked to
say something about it publicly, it was to write his
brief Jlias Americana in nuce.

Peter of the North (to Paul of the South) : Paul, you
unaccountable scoundrel, I find you hire your servants for
life, not by the month or year as I do. You are going
straight to Hell, you ,

PARTY AT THE GRANGE. 247

Paul : Good words, Peter. The risk is my own. I am
willing to take the risk. Hire you your servants by the
month or the day, and get straight to Heaven ; leave me to
my own method.

Peter : No, I won't. I will beat your brains out first !
[And is trying dreadfully ever since, but cannot yet manage

it']

T. C.

At the Grange where he had gone in Janu
ary 1862, the subject was of course much talked
of. The Argyles were there, the Sartoris's, the
Kingsleys, the Bishop of Oxford, Milnes, Venables,
and others. The Duke and Duchess were strong for
the North, and there was much arguing, not to
Carlyle's satisfaction. The Bishop and he were
always pleased to meet each other, but he was not
equally tolerant of the Bishop's friends. Of one of
these there is a curious mention in a letter written
from the Grange during this visit. Intellect was
to him a quality which only showed itself in the
discovery of truth. In science no man is allowed to
be a man of intellect who uses his faculties to go
ingeniously wrong. Still less could Carlyle acknow
ledge the presence of such high quality in those who
went wrong in more important subjects. Cardinal.
Newman, he once said to me, had not the intellect
of a moderate-sized rabbit. He was yet more un
complimentary to another famous person whom the
English Church has canonized.

1 Macmillaris Magazine, August 1863. — Carlyle admitted to me

after the war ended that perhaps he had not seen into the bottom of the
matter. Nevertheless, he republished the llias in his Collected Works.

248 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

The Grange : January 18(52.

We are a brisk party here, full of locomotion, specula
tion, and really are in some sort agreeable to one another.
The Bear, the Duke, with the womankind wholly, are off some
twenty miles, mostly in an open carriage. The Bishop
is gone with them, to see some little ape called Keble,
of ' The Christian Year.' He (the Bishop) is very perceptibly
older in the face, but no change in the shifty, cunning,
thorough-going ways of him. He took me riding yesterday,
galloping as if for the King's Hundred to see something
which he called the Beacon Hill, which we never saw, day
light failing us, though we had a gallop of some sixteen
miles. You may figure whether it suited me in my feverish
feeble mood. The most agreeable man among us is the
Duke ; really a good, solid, Scotch product. Takes, I think,
considerably to me, as does his Duchess, though I do not
speak much to her. Find the Nigger question much a topic
with her, and by no means a safe one.

' Frederick,' meanwhile, was making progress,
though but slowly. The German authorities he found
to be raw metallic matter, unwrouglit, unorganised, the
ore nowhere smelted out of it. It is curious that on
the human side of things the German genius should
be so deficient, but so it is. We go to them for
poetry, philosophy, criticism, theology. They have
to come to us for a biography of their greatest poet
and the history of their greatest king. The standard
Life of Goethe in Germany is Lewes's ; the standard
History of Frederick is Carlyle's. But the labour
was desperate, and told heavily both on him and on
liis wife. When the summer came she went for
change to Folkestone. He in her absence was like a

o

forsaken child.

MENTAL DIALOGUE. 249

Nothing is wrong about the house here (he wrote to her),
nor have I failed in sleep or had other misfortune ; never
theless, I am dreadfully low-spirited, and feel like a child
ivishing Mammy back [italics his own]. Perhaps, too, she
is as well away for the moment. The truth is, I am under
medical appliances, which renders me for this day the
wretchedest nearly of all the sons of Adam not yet con
demned, in fact, to the gallows. I have not spoken one
word to anybody since you went away. Oh! for God's
sake, take care of yourself! In the earth I have no other.

Again, a few days later : —

July 2, 1862.

Silence, even of the saddest, sadder than death, is often
preferable to shake the nonsense out of one. Last night, in
getting to bed, I said to myself at last, ' Impossible, sir,
that you have no friend in the big Eternities and Im
mensities, or none but Death, as you whimper to yourself.
You have had friends who, before the birth of you even,
were good to you, and did give you several things. Know
that you have friends unspeakably important, it appears,
and let not their aweful looks or doings quite terrify you.
You require to have a heart like theirs in some sort. Who
knows? And fall asleep upon that honourable pillow of
whinstone.'

This was a singular dialogue for a man to hold
with himself. ' A spectre moving in a world of
spectres' — 'one mass of burning sulphur' — these
also were images in which he now and then described
his condition. At such times, if his little finger ached
lie imagined that no mortal had ever suffered so
before. If his liver was amiss he was a chained
Prometheus with the vulture at his breast, and earth,
ether, sea, and sky were invoked to witness his
injuries. When the lit was on him lie could not,
would not, restrain himself, and now when Mrs.

250 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

Carlyle's condition was so delicate, her friends,
medical and others, had to insist that they must be
kept apart as much as possible. He himself, lost as
he was without her, felt the necessity, and when she
returned from Folkestone he sent her off to her
friend Mrs. Kussell in Nithsdale. Some one, I know
not who, wrote to entreat her to stay away as long
as possible. The letter runs :—

I hope you do not think of returning home. Should

Mr. Carlyle become rampageous I will set Mrs. on to

pray for him. Should you, during your absence, require any
transaction in London to be carried out with more than
usual intelligence and finesse, remember

ML

But no one was more anxious than Carlyle him
self now was that she should be saved from worries.
As soon as he had clearly recognised how ill she was, his
own grievances disappeared. There was no ' rampag
ing.' He was all that was thoughtful and generous. He
called himself a ' desultory widow,' but he tried his
best to be happy in his desertion, or at least to make
her believe him so. . . She was afraid of costing
him money. * I positively order,' he wrote to her,
' that there be no pinching about money at all. Fie,
fie ! Here is a draft, which Dr. Kussell, as banker,
will pay when you ask.' Not a complaint escaped
him in his daily letters. All was represented as going
well ; ' Frederick ' was going well ; the sleep was well ;
the servants were doing well. Fruit, flowers, cream,
&c., came regularly in from Addiscombe — game boxes
came with the grouse season. There was a certain
botheration from visitors — ' dirty wretches,' would
call and be troublesome. It was the year of the

PROGRESS OF ' FREDERICK: 251

second Exhibition, which I believe Carlyle never
entered, but which brought crowds to London — a
party from Edinburgh among the rest who were well
anathematized : but some one came now and then
who was not ' dirty,' and on the whole the book
went forward, and he himself worked, and rode, and
grumbled at nothing, save the Scotch Sunday Post
arrangements, which interrupted his correspondence.
' Truly,' he said, ' that Phariseean Sabbath and mode
of disarming Almighty wrath by something better
than the secret pour lui plaire is getting quite odious
to me, or inconvenient rather, for it has long been
odious enough.'

The third volume of c Frederick ' was finished and
published this summer. The fourth volume was getting
into type, and the fifth and last was partly written.
The difficulties did not diminish ; ' one only consola
tion there was in it, that ' Frederick' was better worth
doing than other foul tasks he had had.

At times (he said ) I am quite downcast on my lonesome,
long, interminable journey through the not Mount Horeb
wilderness, but the beggarly ' Creca Moss ' one. Then at
other times I think with myself, ' Creca,' and the Infinite of
barren, brambly moor is under Heaven too. What if thou
could'st show the blockhead populations that withal, and get
honourably out of this heart-breaking affair, pitied by the
Eternal Powers ! If I can hold out another year. Surely
before this time twelvemonth we shall have done.

He rarely looked at reviews. He hardly ever read
a newspaper of any kind. I do not remember that I
ever saw one in his room. For once, however, he
made an exception in favour of a notice of his last
volume in the ' Saturday.'

252 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

It was by Venables (he said), not a bad thing at all —
excellent in comparison to much that I suppose to be going,
though I have only read this and one other. They really do
me no ill, the adverse ones, or inconceivably little, and hardly
any good, the most flattering of the friendly. In my bitter
solitary struggle, continued almost to the death, I have got
to such a contempt for the babble of idle, ignorant mankind
about me as is sometimes almost appalling to myself. What
am I to them in the presence of very fate and fact ?

He had one other great pleasure this summer.
Euskin's ' Unto this Last,' a volume of essays on poli
tical economy, was now collected and re-published.
Carlyle sent a copy to Mr. Erskine, with the following
letter : —

To T. Erskine, Lirfathen.

Chelsea : August 4, 1832.

Dear Mr. Erskine, — Here is a very bright little book of
Ruskin's, which, if you have not already made acquaintance
with it, is extremely well worth reading. Two years ago,
when the Essays came out in the fashionable magazines, there
rose a shriek of anathema from all newspaper and publishing
persons. But I am happy to say that the subject is to be
taken up again and heartily gone into by the valiant Ruskin,
who, I hope, will reduce it to a dog's likeness — its real phy
siognomy for a long time past to the unenchanted eye, and
peremptorily bid it prepare to quit this afflicted earth, as R.
has done to several things before now. He seems to me to
have the best talent for preaching of all men now alive. He
has entirely blown up the world that used to call itself of
' Art,' and left it in an impossible posture, uncertain whether
on its feet at all or on its head, and conscious that there will
be no continuing on the bygone terms. If he could do as
much for Political Economy (as I hope), it would be the
greatest benefit achieved by preaching for generations past ;
the chasing off of one of the brutallest nightmares that ever
sate on the bosom of slumbrous mankind, kept the soul of

' UNTO THIS LAST: 253

them squeezed down into an invisible state, as if they had no
soul, but only a belly and a beaver faculty in these last sad
ages, and were about arriving we know where in consequence.
I have read nothing that pleased me better for many a year
than these new Ruskiniana.

I am sitting here in the open air under an awning with
documentary materials by me in a butler's tray, desk, &c.
for writing, being burnt out of my garret at last by the heat
of the sun. I hope by this time twelvemonth I may be at
Linlathen again ; at least I do greatly wish it, if the hope
be too presumptuous. There is a long stiff hill to get over
first, but this is now really the last ; fifth and final volume
actually in hand, and surely, with such health as I still have,
it may be possible. I must stand to it or do worse. . .
London has not been so noisy and ugly for ten years, but
this too is ending. . . Adieu, dear friend !

Yours ever,

T. CARLYLE

254 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A.D. 1864. ^ET. 69.

Personal intercourse — Daily habits — Charities — Conversation — Modern
science and its tendencies — Faith without sight — Bishop Colenso —
The Broad Church School — Literature — Misfortunes of Fritz —
Serious accident to Mrs. Carlyle — Her strange illness — Folkestone
— Death of Lord Ashburton — Mrs. Carlyle in Scotland — Her slow
recovery — ' Frederick ' finished.

So far my account of Carlyle has been taken from
written memorials, letters, diaries, and autobiographic
fragments. For the future the story will form itself
round my own personal intercourse with him. Up to
1860 I had lived in the country. I had paid frequent
visits to London, and while there had seen as much
of Cheyne Eow and its inhabitants as Mrs. Carlyle
would encourage. I had exchanged letters occasion
ally with her and her husband, but purely on exter
nal subjects, and close personal intimacy between us
there had as yet been none. In the autumn of that
year, however, London became my home. Late one
afternoon, in the middle of the winter, Carlyle called
on me, and said that he wished to see more of me —
wished me in fact to be his companion, so far as I could,
in his daily rides or walks. Eide with him I could not,
having no horse ; but the walks were most welcome
— and from that date, for twenty years, up to his own
death, except when either or both of us were out of

PERSONAL INTERCOURSE. 255

town, I never ceased to see him twice or three times
a week, and to have two or three hours of conversa
tion with him. The first of these walks I well re
member, from an incident which happened in the
course of it. It was after nightfall. At Hyde Park
Corner, we found a blind beggar anxious to cross over
from Knightsbridge to Piccadilly, but afraid to trust
his dog to lead him through the carts and carriages.
Carlyle took the beggar's arm, led him gently over,
and offered to help him further on his way. He
declined gratefully; we gave him some trifle, and
followed him to see what he would do. His dog led
him straight to a public-house in Park Lane. We both
laughed, and I suppose I made some ill-natured re
mark. ' Poor fellow,' was all that Carlyle said ; ' he
perhaps needs warmth and shelter.'

This was the first instance that I observed of what
I found to be a universal habit with him. Though

o

still far from rich, he never met any poor creature,
whose distress was evident, without speaking kindly
to him and helping him more or less in one way or
another. Archbishop Whately said that to relieve
street beggars was a public crime. Carlyle thought
only of their misery. * Modern life,' he said, ' doing
its charity by institutions,' is a sad hardener of our
hearts. rWe should give for our own sakes. It is
very low water with the wretched beings, one can
easily see that.'

Even the imps of the gutters he would not treat
as reprobates. He would drop a lesson in their
way, sometimes with a sixpence to recommend it. . .
A small vagabond was at some indecency. Carlyle
touched him <_><<ntly on the back with his stick. ' Do

256 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

you not know that you are a little man,' lie said, ' and
not a whelp, that you behave in this way ? ' There
was no sixpence this time. Afterwards a lad of four
teen or so stopped us and begged. Carlyle lectured
him for beginning so early at such a trade, told him
how, if he worked, he might have a worthy and re
spectable life before him, and gave him sixpence.
The boy shot off down the next alley. ' There is a
sermon fallen on stony ground,' Carlyle said, 'but
we must do what we can.' The crowds of children
orowino- up in London affected him with real pain ;

JD o *

these small plants, each with its head just out of the
ground, with a whole life ahead, and such a training !
I noticed another trait too — Scotch thrift showing
itself in hatred of waste. If he saw a crust of bread
on the roadway he would stop to pick it up and put
it on a step or a railing. Some poor devil might be
glad of it, or at worst a dog or a sparrow. To de
stroy wholesome food was a sin. He was very tender
about animals, especially jogs, who, like horses, if
well treated, were types of loyalty and fidelity. I
horrified him with a story of my Oxford days. The
hounds had met at Woodstock. They had drawn the
covers without finding a fox, and, not caring to have
a blank day, one of the whips had caught a passing
sheep dog, rubbed its feet with aniseed, and set it to
run. It made for Oxford in its terror, the hounds in
full cry behind. They caught the wretched creature in
a field outside the town, and tore it to pieces. I never
saw Carlyle more affected. He said it was like a human
soul flying for salvation before a legion of fiends.

Occupied as he had always seemed to be with high-
soaring speculations, scornful as he had appeared,

CARLYLE AS A COMPANION. 257

in the * Latter-day Pamphlet?,' of benevolence, phi
lanthropy, and small palliations of enormous evils,
I had not expected so much detailed compassion in
little things. I found that personal sympathy with
suffering lay at the root of all his thoughts ; and that
attention to little things was as characteristic of his
conduct as it was of his intellect.

His conversation when we were alone together was
even more surprising to me. I had been accustomed
to hear him impatient of contradiction, extravagantly
exaggerative, overbearing opposition with bursts of
scornful humour. In private I found him impatient
of nothing but of being bored ; gentle, quiet, tolerant ;
sadly-humoured, but never e7/-humoured ; ironical,
but without the savageness, and when speakino- of
persons always scrupulously just. He saw through
the 'clothes' of a roan into what he actually was.
But the sharpest censure was always qualified.
He would say, 'If we knew how he came to be
what he is, poor fellow, we should not be hard
with him.'

But he talked more of things than of persons, and
on every variety of subject. He had read more mis
cellaneously than any man I have ever known. His
memory was extraordinary, and a universal curiosity
had led him to inform himself minutely about matters
which I might have supposed that he had never heard
of. With English literature he was as familiar as
Macaulay was. French and German and Italian he
knew infinitely better than Macaulay, and there was
this peculiarity about him, that if he read a book
which struck him he never rested till he had learnt
all that could be ascertained about the writer of it.

IV- s

258 CARLYLE'S LIFE Iff LONDON.

Thus his knowledge was not in points or lines, but
complete and solid.

Even in his laughter he was always serious. I
never heard a trivial word from him, nor one which
he had better have left unuttered. He cared nothing
for money, nothing for promotion in the world. If
his friends gained a step anywhere he was pleased
with it — but only as worldly advancement might give
them a chance of wider usefulness. Men should think
of their duty, he said ; — let them do that, and the rest,
as much as was essential, ' would be added to them.'
I was with him one beautiful spring day under the
trees in Hyde Park, the grass recovering its green,
the elm buds swelling, the scattered crocuses and
snowdrops shining in the sun. The spring, the annual
resurrection from death to life, was especially affecting
to him. 'Behold the lilies of the field! ' he said to me;
4 they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet Solomon, in
all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. What
a word was that ? and the application was quite true
too. Take no thought for the morrow— care only for
what you know to be right. That is the rule.'

He had a poor opinion of what is called science ;
of political economy; of utility as the basis of morals;
and such-like, when they dealt with human life. He
stood on Kant's Categorical Imperative. Eight was
ri<*ht, and wrong was wrong, because God. had so
ordered; and duty and conduct could be brought
under analysis only when men had disowned their
nobler nature, and were governed by self-interest.
Interested motives might be computed, and a science
mi* 'lit "row out of a calculation of their forces. But
love of Truth, love of Righteousness — these were not

DISTRUST OF MODERN SCIENCE 259

calculable, neither these nor the actions proceeding
out of them.

Sciences of natural things he always respected.
/^ft'ts of all kinds were sacred to him. A fact, what
ever it might be, was part of the constitution of the
universe, and so was related to the Author of it. Of
all men that have ever lived he honoured few more than
Kepler. Kepler^s ' laws ' he looked on as the grandest
physical discovery ever made by man ; and as long
as philosophers were content, like Kepler, to find out
facts without building theories on them to dispense
with God, he had only good to say of them. Science,
however, in these latter days, was stepping beyond
its proper province, like the young Titans trying to
take heaven by storm. He liked ill men like Hum-
boldt, Laplace, or the author of the ' Vestiges.' He
refused Darwin's transmutation of species as un
proved ; he fought against it, though I could see he
dreaded that it might turn out true. If man, as ex
plained by Science, was no more than a developed
animal, and conscience and intellect but develop
ments of the functions of animals, then God and re
ligion were no more than inferences, and inferences
which might be lawfully disputed. That the grandest
achievements of human nature had sprung out of
beliefs which might be mere illusions, Carlyle could
not admit. That intellect and moral sense should
have been put into him by a Being which had
none of its own was distinctly not conceivable to
him. It might perhaps be that these high gifts lay
somewhere in the original germ, out of which organic
life had been developed; that they had been inten-
tionallyand consciously placed then- by the Author of

260 CARLYLE'S LfFE IN LONDON.

nature, whom religious instincts had been dimly able
to discern. It might so turn out, but for the present
the tendency of science was not in any such direction.
The tendency of science was to Lucretian Atheism ; to
a belief that no ' intention ' or intending mind was
discoverable in the universe at all. If the life of man
was no more than the life of an animal — if he had no
relation, or none which he could discern, with any
being higher than himself, God would become an un
meaning word to him. Carlyle often spoke of this,
and with evident uneasiness. / Earlier in his life, while!
he was young and confident, and the effects of his
religious training were fresh in him,~he could fling
-eff-lhe whispers of • the— scioatific spirifr-with

the existence, the omnipresence, the omni
potence of God, were then the strongest of his con
victions. The faith remained unshaken in him to the
end ; he never himself doubted ; yet he was per
plexed by the indifference with which the Supreme
Power was allowing its existence to be obscured. I
once said to him, not long before his death, that I
could only believe in a God which did something.
With a cry of pain, which I shall never forget, he
said, ' He does nothing.' For himself, however, his
faith stood firm. He did not believe in historical
Christianity. He did not believe that the facts al
leged in the Apostles' creed had ever really happened.
The resurrection of Christ was to him only a symbol
of a spiritual truth. As Christ rose from the dead,
so were we to rise from the death of sin to the life of
righteousness. Not that Christ had actually died and
had risen again. He was only believed to have died
and believed to have risen in an age when legend was

RELIGION AND MATERIALISM. 261

history, when stories were accepted as true from their
beauty or their significance. J As long as it was sup
posed that the earth was the centre of the universe,
that the sky moved round it, and that sun and moon
and stars had been set there for man's convenience,
when it was the creed of all nations that gods came
down to the earth, and men were taken into heaven,
and that between the two regions there was incessant
intercourse, it could be believed easily that the Son of
God had lived as a man among men, had descended
like Hercules into Hades, and had returned again
from it. Such a story then presented no internal
difficulty at all. It was not so now. The soul of it
was eternally tru£, but it had been bound up in
a mortal body. I The body of the belief was now |
perishing, and the soul of it being discredited by
its connection with discovered error, was suspected
not to be a soul at all ; half mankind, betrayed
and deserted, were rushing off into materialism.
Nor was materialism the worst. Shivering at so
blank a prospect, entangled in the institutions which
remained standing when the life had gone out of
them, the other half were ' reconciling faith with
reason,' pretending to believe, or believing that they
believed, becoming hypocrites, conscious or uncon
scious, the last the worst of the two, not daring to
look the facts in the face, so that the very sense of
truth was withered in them. It was to make love
to delusion, to take falsehood deliberately into their
hearts. For such souls there was no hope at all.
Centuries of spiritual anarchy lay before the world
before sincere belief could again be generally possible
among men of knowledge and insight. With the

262 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

half-educated and ignorant it was otherwise. To them
the existing religion might still represent some real
truth. There alone was any open teaching of God's
existence, and the divine sanction of morality. Each
year, each day, as knowledge spread, the power of the
established religion was growing less ; but it was not
yet entirely gone, and it was the only hold that was
left on the most vital of all truths. Thus the rapid
growth of materialism had in some degree modified
the views which Carlyle had held in early and middle
life. Then the 'Exodus from Houndsditch' had
seemed as if it might lead immediately into a brighter
region. He had come to see that it would be but an
entry into a wilderness, the promised land lying still
far away. His own opinions seemed to be taking-
no hold. He had cast his bread upon the waters
and it was not returning to him, and the exodus
appeared less entirely desirable. Sometimes the old
fierce note revived. Sometimes, and more often as he
grew older, he wished the established shelter to be left
standing as long as a roof remained over it — as long
as any of us could profess the old faith with complete
sincerity. Sincerity, however, was indispensable. For
men who said one thing and meant another, who
entered the Church as a profession, and throve in
the world by it, while they emasculated the creeds,
and watered away the histories — for them Carlyle
had no toleration. Eeligion, if not honest, was a
horror to him. Those alone he thought had any
right to teach Christianity who had no doubts about
its truth. Those who were uncertain ought to choose
some other profession, and if compelled to speak
should show their colours faithfully. Thirl wall, who

THE BROAD CHURCH CLERGY. 263

discharged his functions as a Macready, he never
blamed to me ; but he would have liked him better
could he have seen him at some other employment.
The Essayists and Eeviewers, theSeptem contra Chris
tum, were in people's mouths when my intimacy with
Carlyle began. They did not please him. He con
sidered that in continuing to be clergymen they were
playing tricks with their consciences. The Dean of
Westminster he liked personally, almost loved him
indeed, yet he could have wished him anywhere but
where he was.

' There goes Stanley,' he said one day as we passed
the Dean in the park, ' boring holes in the bottom of
the Church of England ! ' Colenso's book came out
soon after. I knew Colenso ; we met him in one of
our walks. He joined us, and talked of what he had
done with some slight elation. ' Poor fellow ! ' said
Carlyle, as he went away ; ' he mistakes it for fame.
He does not see that it is only an extended pillory
that he is standing on.' I thought and think this
judgment a harsh one. No one had been once more
anxious than Carlyle for the ' Exodus.' No one had
done more to bring it about than Colenso, or more
bravely faced the storm which he had raised, or, I
may add, more nobly vindicated, in later life, his
general courage and honesty when he stood out to de
fend the Zulus in South Africa. Stanley spoke more
truly, or more to his own and Colenso's honour, when
he told the infuriated Convocation to its face, that
the Bishop of Natal was the only English prelate
whose name would be remembered in the next cen
tury. Partly, I believe, at my instance, Mrs. Carlyle
invited Colenso to one of her tea-parties, but it was

264 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

evident that he suited her no better than her hus
band. I told her so, and had this note in reply :—

Oh, my dear Mr. Froude, I surely couldn't have looked
so bored as that. I couldn't because I wasn't. I own to
feeling rather antipathetic to that anomalous bishop. A
man arrived at the years of discretion wearing an absurd
little black silk apron, disturbs my artistic feelings to begin
with. Then consider whom I am descended from, the
woman who when King James offered to make her husband
a bishop if she would persuade him to return to his country
and be a peaceable subject, held up her apron and answered,
1 1 would rather kepp his head in there.' Add to all this
that I strongly believe with a German friend of mine, that
it is the 'mixing up of things which is the Great Bad ! and
that this particular bishop mixes up a black silk apron with
arithmetical confutation of the Bible, and you will allow
that I have better reason than a woman usually has for first
impressions, why I should not take to Colenso. But I was
really not bored that day. You came with him ; you were
there ; and, without meaning to say anything pretty (which
is far from my line), I am always so pleased to see you, that
were you to come accompanied by the — the — first gentleman
in England, I should rather than that you didn't come at all.

Literature was another subject on which Carlyle
often talked writh me. In his Craigenputtock Essays
he had spoken of literature as the highest of human
occupations, as the modern priesthood, &c., and so to
the last he thought of it when it was the employment
of men whom nature had furnished gloriously for that
special task, like Goethe and Schiller. But for the
writing function in the existing generation of Eng
lishmen he had nothing but contempt. A ' man of
letters.' a man who had taken to literature as a
means of living, was generally some one who had
gone into it because he was unfit for better work,

LITERATURE AND THE VALUE OF IT. 265

because he was too vain or too self-willed to travel
along the beaten highways, and his writings, unless
he was one of a million, began and ended in nothing.
Life was action, not talk. The speech, the book,
the review or newspaper article was so much force
expended — force lost to practical usefulness. When a
man had uttered his thoughts, still more wrhen he was
always uttering them, he no longer even attempted
to translate them into act. He said once to me that
England had produced her greatest men before she
began to have a literature at all. Those Barons who
signed the charter by dipping the points of their
steel gauntlets in the ink, had more virtue, manhood,
practical force and wisdom than any of their suc
cessors, and when the present disintegration had
done its work, and healthy organic tissue began to
form again, tongues would not clatter as they did
now. Those only would speak who had call to speak.
Even the Sunday sermons would cease to be necessary.
A man was never made wiser or better by talking
or being talked to. He was made better by being
trained in habits of industry, by being enabled to do
good useful work and earn an honest living by it.
His excuse for his own life was that there had been
no alternative. Sometimes he spoke of his writings
as having a certain value ; generally, however, as if
they had little, and now and then as if they had
none. ' If there be one thing,' he said, ' for which I
have no special talent, it is literature. If I had
been taught to do the simplest useful tiling, I should
have been a better and happier man. All that I
can say for myself is, that I have done my best/
A strange judgment to come from a man who has

266 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

exerted so vast an influence by writing alone. Yet in
a sense it was true. If literature means the expres
sion of thought or emotion, or the representation of
facts, in a completely beautiful form, Carlyle wax
inadequately gifted for it. But his function was not
to please, but to instruct. Of all human writings,
those which perhaps have produced the deepest
effect on the history of the world have been St.
Paul's Epistles. What Carlyle had he had in com
mon with St. Paul : extraordinary intellectual insight,
extraordinary sincerity, extraordinary resolution to
speak out the truth as he perceived it, as if driven
on by some impelling internal necessity. He and
St. Paul — I know not of whom else the same thing
could be said — wrote as if they were pregnant with
some world-important idea, of which they were la
bouring to be delivered, and the effect is the more
striking from the abruptness and want of artifice in
the utterance. Whether Carlyle would have been
happier, more useful, had he been otherwise oc
cupied, I cannot say. He had a fine aptitude for all
kinds of business. In any practical problem, whether
of politics or private life, he had his finger always,
as if by instinct, on the point upon which the issue
would turn. Arbitrary as his temperament was, he
could, if occasion rose, be prudent, forbearing, dex
terous, adroit. He would have risen to greatness in
any profession which he had chosen, but in such a
world as ours he must have submitted, in rising, to
the ' half -sincerities,' which are the condi tion of suc
cess. We should have lost the Carlyle that we know.
It is not certain that we should have gained an
equivalent of him.

TONE OF CONVERSATION. 267

This is the sort of thing which I used daily to
hear from Carlyle. His talk was not always, of
course, on such grave matters. He was full of
stories, anecdotes of his early life, or of people that
he had known.

For more than four years after our walks began,
he was still engaged with ' Frederick.' He spoke freely
of what was uppermost in his mind, and many scenes
in the history were rehearsed to me before they ap
peared, Voltaire, Maupertuis, Chatham, Wolfe being
brought up as living figures. He never helped him
self with gestures, but his voice was as flexible as if
he had been trained for the stage. He was never
tedious, but dropped out picture after picture in
inimitable finished sentences. He was so quiet, so
unexaggerative, so well-humoured in these private
conversations, that I could scarcely believe he was
the same person whom I used to hear declaim in the
ramphlet time. Now and then, if he met an acquaint
ance who might say a foolish thing, there would
come an angry sputter or two ; but he was generally
so patient, so forbearing, that I thought age had
softened him, and I said so one day to Mrs. Carlyle.
bhe laughed and told him of it. 'I wish,' she said,
' Froude had seen you an hour or two after you
seemed to aim so lamblike.' 13ut I am relating what
he was us I knew him, and as I always found him
from lirst to last.

To go on with the story: —

Through the winter of ISG^-o Mrs. Carlyle seemed
tolerably well. The weather was warm. iShe had no
si-nous cold. She was very feeble, and lay chiefly on
the sofa, but she contrived to prevent Carlyle from

268 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

being anxious about her. He worked without respite,
rode, except on walking days, chiefly late in the
afternoon, in the dark in the winter months, about
the environs of London ; and the roaring of the sub
urban trains and the gleam of the green and crimson
signal lamps were wildly impressive to him. On his
return he would lie down in his dressing gown by the
drawing-room fire, smoking up the chimney, while
she would amuse him with accounts of her daily
visitors. She was a perfect artist, and could carve a
literary vignette out of the commonest materials.
These were his happiest hours, and his only mental
refreshment. In November 1862, Lord Ashburton
fell ill at Paris, and there were fears for his life.
4 His death,' Carlyle said, ' would be a heavy loss and
sorrow to us, a black consummation of what there
has already been.' But the alarm passed oif for the
time. ' We are both of us,' he reported at the end
of December, ' what we call well ; indeed, for my
own part, I am really in full average case, as if I had
got little or no permanent damage from this hideous
pfluister of a book, which I can hope is now looking
towards its finis. I have done the battle of Kossbach
(Satan thank it !). Battle of Leuthen, siege of Olmiitz
lie in the rough (not very bad, I hope). After that
there is only Hochkirch. Eigorous abridgment after
that. One short book, I hope, will then end the Seven
Years' War ; and then there is one other. After that,
home, like the stick of a rocket.'

Age so far was dealing kindly with him. There
was no falling off in bodily strength. His eyes were
failing slightly, but they lasted out his life. His right
hand had begun to shake a little, and this unfortu-

BREAKDOWN OF FRITZ. 269

nately was to develop till he was eventually disabled
from writing ; but as yet about himself there was
nothing to give him serious uneasiness. A misfortune,
however, was hanging over him of another kind, which
threatened to upset the habits of his life. All his days
lie had been a fearless rider. He had a loose seat and
a careless hand, but he had come to no misfortune,
owing, he thought, to the good sense of his horse,
which was much superior to that of most of his biped
acquaintances. Fritz, even Fritz, was now to mis
behave.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea: February 13, 1863.

I have been very unlucky, or my excellent old horse was,
twice over last week, Tuesday and Friday. Think as you
read. I had let the old fellow rest on Monday. Tues
day I tumbled out, and finding rain, snatched my mackin
tosh cloak and got away. Fritz very lively ; wind so loud
that, being then in crisis of interior, I resolved to go at walk.
Till the Marble Arch, Hyde Park, we did very well, but the
wind being right ahead, and mackintosh given to rattle, the
old scoundrel determined on a caper ; my hat blew off me ;
hands under the mackintosh. A labourer picked up the hat,
tried to wipe some of the mud off it, Fritz prancing all the
while. I had no coppers in my pocket, drew out my purse
to give sixpence to the man, crushed on the hat, and gal
loped home. At night I discovered that I had no purse.
In the tempest of rattling and prancing and embarrassed
hurrying, I had stuck it, not into my pocket again, but past
my pocket, and it was gone, twelve or ten shillings in it.
That was misadventure first, Nichts zu bedeuten in com
parison. Till Friday I daily rode the old scoundrel. On
Friday, without the least warning or cause, he came smash
down, lying flat on the ground for one quarter of an instant,
had done me no mischief at all, sprang up and trotted half
a mile (greatly ashamed of himself, I suppose); when

270 CARLYLE'S LTFE IN LONDON.

looking over his shoulder T saw the blood streaming over
his hoof, drew bridle, dismounted, found the knees quite
smashed, and except slowly home have ridden no more since.
Jane will not hear of my ever riding him again, nor in real
truth is it proper. Finis therefore in that department. I
have been extremely sorry for my poor old fourfooted friend.
Ganz treu he constantly and wonderfully was; and now, what
to do with myself! or how to dispose of poor Fritz. Of
course I can sell him ; have him knocked down at Tatter-
sail's for a IQl. or an old song ; and then (as he goes delirious
under violent usage and is frightened for running swift in
harness) get the poor creature scourged to death in a hor
rible way, after all the 20,000 faithful miles he has carried
me, and the wild puddles and lonely dark times we have
had together. I cannot bear to think of that. He is a
strong healthy horse, loyal and peaceable and wise as horse
ever was.

Fritz was sold, it may be hoped, to some one who
was kind to him. What became of him further I
never heard. Lady Ashburton supplied his place with
another, equally good and almost with Fritz's intellect.
Life went on as before after this interruption, and
leaves little to record. On April 29 he writes : —

I had to go yesterday to Dickens's Reading, 8 p.m.,
Hanover Eooms, to the complete upsetting of my evening
habitudes and spiritual composure. Dickens does do it capi
tally, such as it is ; acts better than any Macready in the
world ; a whole tragic, comic, heroic theatre visible, perform
ing under one hat, and keeping us laughing — in a sorry way,
some of us thought — the whole night. He is a good crea
ture, too, and makes fifty or sixty pounds by each of these
readings.'

From dinner parties he had almost wholly with
drawn, but in the same letter he mentions one to which
lio had been tempted by a new acquaintance, who grew

ACCIDENT TO MRS. CARLYLE. 271

afterwards into a clear and justly valued friend, Miss
Davenport Bromley. He admired Miss Bromley from
the first, for her light, airy ways, and compared her
ton 'flight of larks.'

Summer came, and hot weather ; he descended
from his garret to the awning in the garden again.
By August he was tired, 'Frederick ' spinning out
beyond expectation, and he and Mrs. Carlyle went
for a fortnight to the Grange. Lord Ashburton
seemed to have recovered, but was very delicate.
There was no party, only Venables, the guest of all
others whom Carlyle best liked to meet. The visit
was a happy one, a gleam of pure sunshine before the
terrible calamity which was now impending.

One evening, after their return, Mrs. Carlyle had
gone to call on a cousin at the post office in St.
Martin's Lane. She had come away, and was trying
to reach an omnibus, when she was thrown by a cab
on the kerbstone. Her right arm being disabled by
neuralgia, she was unable to break her fall. The
sinews of one thigh were sprained and lacerated, and
she was brought home in a fly in dreadful pain. She
knew that Carlyle would be expecting her. Her chief
anxiety, she told me, was to get into the house with
out his knowledge, to spare him agitation. For her
self, she could not move. She stopped at the door
of Mr. Larkin, who lived in the adjoining house in
Cheyne Row, and asked him to help her. The sound
of the wheels and the noise of voices reached Carlyle
in the drawing-room. He rushed down, and he and
Mr. Lurkin together bore her up the stairs, and laid
her on her bed. There she remained, in an agony
which, experienced in pain as she was, exceeded the

272 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

worst that she had known. Carlyle was not allowed to
know how seriously she had been injured. The doctor
and she both agreed to conceal it from him, and dur
ing those first days a small incident happened, which
she herself described to me, showing the distracting
want of perception which sometimes characterised
him — a want of perception, not a want of feeling, for
no one could have felt more tenderly. The nerves
and muscles were completely disabled on the side on
which she had fallen, and one effect was that the
under jaw had dropped, and that she could not close
it. Carlyle always disliked an open mouth ; he
thought it a sign of foolishness. One morning, when
the pain was at its worst, he came into her room,
and stood looking at her, leaning on the mantel-piece.
' Jane,' he said presently, ' ye had better shut your
mouth.' She tried to tell him that she could not.
' Jane,' he began again,' ' ye'll find yourself in a more
compact and pious frame of mind, if ye shut your
mouth.' In old-fashioned and, in him, perfectly sin
cere phraseology he told her that she ought to be
thankful that the accident was no worse. Mrs. Car-
lvK> hated canl as heartily as be, -md to her, in her
sore state of mind and body, such words had a flavour
of cant in them. True herself as steel, she would
not bear it. ' Thankful ! ' she said to him ; ' thankful
for what ? for having been thrown down in the street
when I had gone on an errand of charity ? for being
disabled, crushed, made to suffer in this way ? I am
not thankful, and I will not say that I am.' He left
her, saying he was sorry to see her so rebellious
We can hardly wonder after this that he had to re
port sadly to his brother : ' She speaks little to me,

ILLNESS OF MRS. CARLYLE.

and does not accept me as a sick nurse, which, truly,
I had never any talent to be.'

Of course he did not know at first her real con
dition. She had such indomitable courage that she
persuaded him that she was actually better off since
she had become helpless than ' when she had been
struggling to go out daily and returned done up,
with her joints like to fall in pieces.' For a month
she could not move — at the end of it she was able
to struggle to her feet and crawl occasionally into thfc
adjoining room. Carlyle was blind. Seven weeks
after the accident he could write : ' She actually sleeps
better, eats better, and is cheerfuller than formerly.
For perhaps three weeks past she has been hitching
about with a stick. She can walk too, but slowly
without stick. In short she is doing well enough —

o o

as indeed am I, and have need to be.'

He had need to be, for he had just discovered that
he could not end with ' Frederick ' like a rocket-stick,
but that there must be a new volume ; and for his
sake, and knowing how the truth, if he was aware of
it, would agitate him, with splendid heroism she had
forced herself prematurely to her feet again, the men
tal resolution conquering the weakness of the body.
She even received visitors again, and in the middle
of November, I and my own wife once more spent
an evening there.1 But it was the last exertion which
she was able to make. The same night there came on
neuralgic pain — rather torture than pain — of which
the doctor could give no explanation. ' A mere cold,'
he said, ' no cause for alarm ; ' but the weeks went
on and there was no abatement, still pain in every

1 Letters and Memorials, vol. iii. p. I7S.
IV. T

274 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

muscle, misery in every nerve, no sleep, no rest from
suffering night or day — save in faint misleading
intervals — and Carlyle knew at last how it was with
her, and had to go on with his work as he could.

' We are in great trouble,' he wrote on the 29th of
December, in one of those intervals, * trouble, anxiety, and
confusion. Poor Jane's state is such as to fill us with the
saddest thoughts. She does not gather strength — how can
she ! She is quieter in regard to pain. The neuralgia and
other torments have sensibly abated, not ceased. She also
eats daily a little — that is one clearly good symptom. But
her state is one of weakness, utter restlessness, depression,
and misery, such a scene as I never was in before. If she
could only get a little sleep, but she cannot hitherto. To
night, by Barnes's advice and her own reluctant consent, she
is to try morphine again, (rod of His mercy grant that it
may prosper ! There has been for ten days a complete cessa
tion of all druggings and opiate abominations. They did
her a great deal of mischief instead of any good. . . I still
try to hope and believe that my poor little woman is a
little thought better, but it is miserable to see how low and
wretched she is, and under what wearing pain she passes her
sleepless nights and days. In health I am myself as well as
usual, which surely is a blessing. I keep busy too in all
available moments. Work done is the one consolation left
me.'

Other remedies failing, the last chance was in
change and sea air. Dr. Blakiston, an accomplished
physician at St. Leonards, whose wife was an old friend
of Mrs. Carlyle, offered to receive her as a guest. She
was taken thither in a ' sick carriage,' in construction
and appearance something like a hearse, in the begin-
nin"1 of March. Carlyle attended her down, left her,
with her cousin Maggie Welsh, in the Blakistons' affec
tionate hands, and himself returned to his solitary

ALONE IN CHEYNE ROW. 275

home and task. There, in Hades as he called it, he
sate toiling on, watching for the daily bulletins, now
worse, now a little better, his own letters full of
passionate grief and impatience with intruders, who
came with the kindest purpose to enquire, but just
then could better have been spared.

' I was left well alone last night,' he wrote on the 15th
of March, * and sate at least silent in my gloom. On Sunday
came Or. to enquire for Mrs. C. His enquiry an offence to
me. I instantly walked him out, but had to go talking with
him, mere fire and brimstone upon suet dumpling, progress
of the species, &c. &c., all the way to Hyde Park. What does
the foolish ball of tallow want with me ? '

Sorrows did not come single. Ten days later
came news that Lord Ashburton was dead, the dearest
friend that had been left to him. As an evidence of
regard Lord A. had left him 2,000/., or rather had
not left it, but had desired that it should be given
to him, that there might be no deduction for legacy
duty. It was a small matter at such a moment that
there appeared in the ' Saturday Eeview ' ' an ex
tremely contemptible notice, hostile if the dirty puppy
dared,' on the last published volumes of ' Frederick.'
This did not even vex him, ' was not worth a snuff of
tobacco ; only he thought it was a pity that Venables
just then should have allowed the book to fall into
unworthy hands. He wrote to his wife daily — a few
words to satisfy her that he was well. At length the
absence from her became unbearable. He took a
house at St. Leonards, to which she could be removed ;
and, leaving Cheyne Eow to the care of Mr. Larkin,
he went down, with his work, to join her. Most
things in this world have their sunny side — the planet

T 2

276 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

itself first, and then the fortunes of its occupants.
His grief and anxiety had convinced Mrs. Carlyle of
her husband's real love for her, which she had long
doubted. But that was all, for her sufferings were of
a kind which few human frames could bear without
sinking under them. Carlyle was patient and tender ;
all was done for her which care and love could
provide ; she had not wholly lost her strength or
energy ; but the pain and sleeplessness continued week
after week without sign of abating. They remained
at St. Leonards till the middle of July, when despe
rate, after twelve nights absolutely without sleep of
any kind, she rallied her force, rose, and went off,
under John Carlyle's charge, through London to
Annandale, there to shake off the horrible enchant
ment or else to die.

It was on the eve of her birthday that she made
her flight. No one was more absolutely free than she
was from superstition, but times and seasons were
associated with human feelings ; she might either
end her life altogether or receive a fresh lease of it.
Carlyle remained at St. Leonards, to gather his books
and papers together. She was to go first to his sister,
Mrs. Austin, at the Gill. ' Oh what a birthday is this
for thee ! ' he cried after her, ' flying from the tormentor,
panting like the hunted doe with all the hounds of
the pit in chase. Poor Mary will do her very best
and sisterliest for you; a kinder soul is not on earth.'
The violent revulsion, strange to say, for a time
succeeded. The journey did not hurt her. She
recovered sleep a little, strength a little. Slowly, very
slowly and with many relapses, she rallied into a more
natural state, first at the Gill and afterwards with the

ALONE IN CHEYNE ROW. 277

Eussells in Nithsdale.1 Carlyle could not follow
except with his heart, but the thoughts which he
could spare from his work were given to what he
would do for her if she was ever restored to him
alive.

There was to be no more hiring of carriages, no
more omnibuses. She was henceforth to have a
brougham of her own. Her room in Cheyne Eow in
which she had so suffered, was re-papered, re-arranged,
with the kind help of Miss Bromley, that she might
be surrounded with objects unassociated with the past.

Here are a series of extracts from the letters which
he wrote to her : —

Chelsea : July 29, 1864.

People do not help me much. Oh darling, when will
you come back and protect me ? God above will have
arranged that for both of us, and it will be His will not ours
that can rule it. My thoughts are a prayer for my poor little
life-partner who has fallen lame beside me after travelling
so many steep and thorny ways. I will stop this, lest I fall
to crying altogether.

August 1.

Worked too late yesterday. Walked out for exercise at
seven p.m. Wild, windy sky. Streets — thank God ! — nearly
empty ; rain threatening. My walk was gloomy, sad as death,
but not provoking, not so miserable as many. Gloom, sorrow ;
but instead of rage — suppressed rage as too often — pious
grief, heavy but blessed rather. I read till midnight, then
out again, solitary as a ghost, and to bed about one. I see
nobody, wish to see nobody.

August 2.

I am out of sorts ; no work hardly ; and run about as
miserable as my worst enemy could wish ; and my poor little
friend of friends, she has fallen wounded to the ground and

1 For the Ilussells and all they did lor Mrs. Carlvl*'. sec /W/<r,s
mtd MctH'nialt, vol. iii. p. -01 cf scq.

278 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

I am alone — alone! My spirits are quite sunk ; my hand is
quite out. Postman Bullock wants me to get his son pro
moted. Can't I ? Somebody else wants 501. till he prove
the Bible out of square. Another requests me to induct him
into literature. Another to say how he can save mankind,

which is much his wish, &c.

August 3.

Your poor nervous system ruined, not by those late
months only, but by long years of more or less the like !
Oh, you have had a hard life ! I, too, not a soft one : but
yours beside me ! Alas ! alas !....! am better than yes
terday, still not quite up to par. The noises^ have consider
ably increased about me, but I care much less about them
in general. Night always brings her coolness, her silence,
which is an infinite solace to us, body and soul. Nothing of
blockhead mankind's procedure seems madder and even
more condemnable to me than this of their brutish bed-

larnitish creation of needless noises.

August 4.

What a blessed course of religious industry is that of
Scotland, to guard against letters coming or going so many
days every month. The seventh day, fourth part of a
lunation ; that is the real fact it all rests on ; and such a
hubbub made of it by the vile flunkey souls who call them
selves special worshippers of the Most High. Mumbo
Jumbo on the coast of Guinea almost seems a shade more
respectable.

I was absent from London during the summer. I
had heard that the Carlyles had left St. Leonards and
that she was in Scotland, and I wrote to him under
the impression that she must be recovering. He
answered that I had been far too hopeful.

Chelsea : August 6.

The accounts have mostly been bad ; but for two days
past seem (to myself) to indicate something of real improve
ment, I am always very sanguine in the matter ; but get
the saddest rebukes, as you see. God only knows what is to

ALONE IN CHEYNE ROW. 279

become of it all. But I keep as busy as the Fates will allow,
and in that find the summary of any consolation that remains
to me. My progress is, as it has always been, frightfully
slow ; but, if I live a few months, I always think I shall get
the accursed millstone honourably sawed from my neck,
and once more revisit the daylight and the dry land, and see
better what steps are to be taken. I have no company here
but my horse. Indeed I have mainly consorted with my
horse for eight years back — and he, the staff of my life
otherwise, is better company than any I could get at present
in these latitudes — an honest creature that is always candid
with me and rationally useful in a small way, which so few
are. Wish me well and return, the sooner the better. How
well I remember the last night you and Mrs. Froude were
here ! It was the last sight I had of my poor little life-
companion still afoot by my side, cheerily footing the rough
ways along with me, not overwhelmed in wild deluges of
misery as now. At spes infracta I This is the Place of
Hope. — Yours ever, T. C.

To her his letters continued constant, his spirits
varying with her accounts of herself, but, as he had
said to me, always trying to be sanguine.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Chelsea: August 11.

Oh, what a deliverance to the loaded heart of me — one
ought not to be so desperate, but I was too early awake
again, and flesh is weak. Oh, I am so sad, sad, sad, but have
often been more miserable far. The sorrow has forgiveness
in it, reconciliation to all men and things, especially to all
men, not secret rage and vain struggle, as too often. Oh, do
but get better, my own Schatz. We shall have good days
yet, please God.

August 16-18.

May I really think the vengeful Furies are abating, going
gradually to their homes — and that my poor little Eurydice
will come back again and make me rich. God of His mercy

2 So CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

grant it to me and you. Amen ! . . . . What a humiliated,
broken-down, poor cheepy wretch I am ! Condemned to
dwell among the pots and live upon unclean blockheadism,
and hug foul creatures to my bosom, coaxing them to tell
me what they know, these long years past, till I feel myself
to have become foul and blockheadish. On, on, to get it
pitched away from me into the bottomless Pool !

August 25.

The girls are raging and scrubbing ; the curtains all on
the ropes in the garden. Cat, with miniature black likeness
of herself, contemplatively wandering among the skirts of
them. Not a mouse stirring ! Oh dear ! I wish my Goody
was back, but I won't be impatient. Oh, no, no ; as long as
I hear of her getting inch by inch into her old self again.
The heavens truly are merciful and gracious to me, though
they load my back rather sore.

August 29-30.

The blessed silence of Sabbath. Nobody loves his Sab
bath as I do. There is something quite divine to me in that
cessation of barrel organs, pianos, tumults, and jumblings.
I easily do a better day's work than on any other day of the
seven ; and, if left alone, have a solemn kind of sadness, a
gloom of mind which, though heavy to bear, is not unallied
with sacredness and blessedness. . . . Poor little soul I You
are the helm, intellect of the house. Nobody else has the
least skill in steering. My poor scissors, for example, you
would find them in perhaps five minutes. Nobody else I think
will in five months. ' Nowhere to be found, sir.' ' Can't find
them,' say they, as so many rabbits or blue-bottle flies might.

August 31.1

It is the waest and forlornest-looking thing, like to make
me cry outright. Indeed, I often feel, if I could sit down
and greet for a whole day it would be an infinite relief to
me, but one's eyes grow dry. What a quantity of greeting,
( oo, one used to do in the beginning of life. ... 1 am but low-

1 Describing the re-arrangement of her bedroom.

ALONE IN CHEYNE ROW. 281

spirited, you see. Want of potatoes, I am ashamed to say, is
the source of everything, and I will give up.

September 8-9.

Oh, how I wish I had you here again, ill or not ill. We
will try to bear the yoke together, and the sight of your face
will do my sick heart good. . . . Your account would have
made me quite glad again, had not my spirits been otherwise
below par. Want of potatoes, want of regular bodily health,
nay— it must be admitted— I am myself too irregular with
no Goody near me. If I were but regular ! There will be
nothing for it but that you come home and regulate.

September 20.

You are evidently suffering much. I cannot help you
at all. The only thing I can do is to wish for you here again,
such as you are ; quiet at your own chimney-nook where it
would be new life to me to see you sitting, never so lame if
not quite too miserable and not in pain unendurable. Endur
able or not, we two, and not any other body, are the natural
bearers of it. ... Of myself there is nothing to record, but
a gallop of excellence yesterday, an evening to myself alto
gether, almost incapable, not quite, and a walk under the
shining skies between twelve and one a.m. The weather is
as beautiful as it can be. Silent strangely when the infernal
cockneyisms sink away — so silent, brilliant, sad, that I was

like to greet looking at it.

September 22.

I had the pain of excluding poor Farie last night. I
knew his rap and indeed was peremptory before that. * No
body ! ' Kut Farie really wishes well to both of us. In my
loneliness here it often seems to me as if there was nothing
but nasty organ-grinding, misguided, hostile, savage, or
indifferent people round me from shore to shore ; and Farie's
withdrawing footstep had a kind of sadness.

September 27.

It is no wonder, as Jean says, that you are ' blackbased ' '
at such a journey lying ahead, but the real likelihood is it

1 Abased.- It \va.; a 'lirast' of my mother's. — T. C.

282 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

will pass without essential damage to you. You will get to
me on Saturday morning, and find me at least, and what
home we have on this vexed earth, true to one another while
we stay here. The house is quite ready. I shall not be
long with my book now. ... On Sunday in Belgrave Square
I met the Dean of Westminster ; innocent heterodox soul,
blase on toast and water, corning on with his neat black-eyed
little Scotch wife. Oh, what inquiries ! Really very innocent
people, and really interested in you.

September 29.

Oh, my suffering little Jeannie ! Not a wink of real
sleep again for you. I read (your letter) with that kind of
heart you may suppose in the bright beautiful morning ;
even Margaretta Terrace looking wholesome and kind, while
for poor us there is nothing but restless pain and chagrin.
And yet, dearest, there is something in your note * which is
welcomer to me than anything I have yet had — a sound of
piety, of devout humiliation and gentle hope and submission
to the Highest, which affects me much and has been a great
comfort to me. Yes, poor darling ! This was wanted. Proud
stoicism you never failed in, nor do I want you to abate of
it. But there is something beyond of which I believe you
to have had too little. It softens the angry heart and is
far from weakening it — nay, is the final strength of it, the
fountain and nourishment of all real strength. Come home
to your own poor nest again. That is a, good change, and
clearly the best of all. Gird your soul heroically together,
and let me see you on Saturday by my side again, for weal
or woe. We have had a great deal of hard travelling
together, we will not break down yet, please Grod. How to
thank Dr. and Mrs. Russell for what they have done for you,
much more how to repay them, beats all my ingenuity.

And so Mrs. Carlyle came back to Cheyne Eow,
from which she had been carried six months before
as in a hearse, expecting to see it no more. She re
appeared in her old circle, weak, shattered, her body

1 Letters and Memorials, vol. iii. p. 211.

MRS. CARLYLE'S RECOVERY. 283

worn to a shadow, but with her spirit bright as ever —
brighter perhaps ; for Carlyle's tenderness in her illness
had convinced her that he really cared for her, and
the sunset of her married life recovered something of
the colours of its morning. He, too sanguine always,
persuaded himself that her disorder was now worn out,
and that she was on the way to a perfect restoration.
She, I think, was under no such illusion. There was
a gentle smile in her face, if one ever spoke of it,
which showed her incredulity. But from London she
took no hurt. She seemed rather to gain strength
than to lose it. To her friends she was as risen from
the dead, and it was a pleasure to her to see how
dear she was to them and with what eagerness they
pressed forward to be of use. No one could care
a little for Mrs. Carlyle, and the singular nature of
her illness added to the interest which was felt for her.
She required new milk in the morning. A supply
was sent in daily, fresh from the Eector's cow. The
brougham was bought, and she had a childlike pride
in it, as her husband's present. ' Strange and precious
to look back upon,' he says, ' those last eighteen
months as of a second youth — almost a second child
hood, with the wisdom and graces of old age, which by
Heaven's great mercy were conceded to her and me.'
' Frederick ' was finished in January, the last of
Carlyle's great works, the last and grandest of them.
4 The dreary task, and the sorrows and obstructions
attending it,' ' a magazine of despairs, impossibilities,
and ghastly difficulties never known but to himself,
and by himself never to be forgotten,' all was over,
* locked away and the key turned on it.' ' It nearly
killed me ' [he says in his journal], ' it, and my poor

284 CARLYLE''S LIFE IN LONDON.

Jane's dreadful illness, now happily over. No sympathy
could be found on earth for those horrid struggles of
twelve years, nor happily was any needed. On Sun
day evening in the end of January (1865) I walked
out, with the multiplex feeling — joy not very promin
ent in it, but a kind of solemn thankfulness traceable,
that I had written the last sentence of that unutter
able book, and, contrary to many forebodings in bad
hours, had actually got done with it for ever.'

' Frederick ' was translated instantly into German,
and in Germany, where the conditions were better
known in which Carlyle had found his materials, there
was the warmest appreciation of what he had done.
The sharpest scrutiny only served to show how accu
rate was the workmanship. Few people anywhere
in Europe dreamt twenty years ago of the position
which Germany, and Prussia at the head of it, were
so soon to occupy. Yet Carlyle's book seemed to
have been composed in conscious anticipation of what
was coming. He had given a voice to the national
feeling. He had brought up as it were from the dead
the creator of the Prussian monarchy, and had re
placed him among his people as a living and breath
ing man. He had cleared the air for the impending
revolution, and Europe, when it came, could see how
the seed had grown which had expanded into the
German Empire.

In England it was at once admitted that a splendid
addition had been made to the national literature.
The book contained, if nothing else, a gallery of
historical figures executed with a skill which placed
Carlyle at the head of literary portrait painters. The
English mind remains insular and is hard to interest

RECEPTION OF ' FREDERICK: 285

supremely in any history but its own. The tone of
'* Frederick ' nowhere harmonized with popular senti
ment among us, and every page contained something
to offend. Yet even in England it was better received
on its first appearance than any of Carlyle's other
works had been, and it gave solidity and massiveness
to his already brilliant fame. No critic, after the
completion of ; Frederick,' challenged Carlyle's right
to a place beside the greatest of English authors, past
or present.

He had sorely tried America ; but America for
gave his sarcasms — forgot the ' smoky chimney,' for
got the ' Iliad in a Nutshell,' and was cordially and
enthusiastically admiring. Emerson sent out a para
graph, which went the round of the Union, that
' " Frederick " was the wittiest book that was ever
written ; a book that one would think the English
people would rise up in mass and thank the author
for by cordial acclamation, and signify, by crowning
him with oak leaves, their joy that such a head ex
isted among them ; ' ' while sympathising and much-
reading America would make a new treaty, or send
a Minister Extraordinary to offer congratulations of
honouring delight to England in acknowledgment of
this donation.' A rather sanguine expectation on Emer
son's part ! England has ceased to stone or burn her
prophets, but she does not yet make them the subject
of international treaties. She crowns with oak leaves
her actors and her prima-donnas, her politicians, who
are to-day her idols, and to-morrow will find none so
poor to do them reverence ; to wise men she is con
tented to pay more moderate homage, and leaves the
final decorating work to time and future irenerations.

286 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTEE XXVII.

A.D. 1865-6. ^ET. 70-71.

' Frederick ' completed — Summer in Annandale — Mrs. Carlyle in
Nithsdale— Visit to Linlathen — Thomas Erskine — The Edinburgh
Rectorship — Feelings in Cheyne Eow about it — Buskin's ' Ethics
of the Dust.'

THE last proofs of * Frederick ' being corrected and
dismissed, the Carlyles went down, in the spring of
1865, to stay with Lady Ashburton at a seaside cot
tage at Seaton, in Devonshire. They spent a few
quiet weeks there, and then went home again — Car
lyle, so he says, to ' sink and sink into ever new
depths of stupefaction and dark misery of body and
mind.' He was a restless spirit. When busy, he
complained that his work was killing him ; when he
was idle, his mind preyed upon itself. Perhaps, as
was generally the case, he exaggerated his own dis
comforts. Long before he had told his family, when
he had terrified them with his accounts of himself,
that they ought to know that when he cried Murder
he was not always being killed. When his soul seemed
all black, the darkness only broken by lightnings, he
was aware that sometimes it was only a want of pota
toes. Still, in the exhaustion which followed on long
exertion he was always wildly humoured: About
May he found that he wanted fresh change. Some-

ANNANDALE ONCE MORE. 287

thing was amiss with Mrs. Carlyle's right arm, so that
she had lost the use of it for writing. She seemed
well otherwise, however ; she had no objection to
being left alone, and he set off for Annandale, where
he had not been for three years, ' Poor old Scot
land ! ' he said. ' It almost made me greet when I
saw it again, and the first sound of a Scotch guard,
and his broad accent, was strange and affecting to
me.' His wife and he had grown but ' a feckless pair
of bodies,' ' a pair of miserable creatures,' but they
would not ' tine heart ' ; and at the house of his sister,
Mrs. Austin, he found the most careful preparations
for his comfort — ' new pipes,' ' new towels,' ' new,
excellent potatoes,' ' a new sofa to lie down upon
after his rides,' everything that his heart could wish
for.

Not a sound all night at the Gill, he wrote, after his
arrival, except, at stated times, the grinding, brief clash of
the railway, which, if I hear it at all, is a lash or loud crack
of the Mammon whip, going on at present over all the
earth, on the enslaved backs of men ; I alone enfranchised
from it, nothing to do but hear it savagely clashing, breaking
God Almighty's silence in that fatal or tragic manner, saying
— not to me — ' Ye accursed slaves ! :

Mrs. Carlyle made shift to write to him with the
hand which was left to her ; lively as ever, careful,
for his sake, to take her misfortunes lightly. He, on
his part, was admiringly grateful.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

The Gill, June 9.

Thanks for the struggle you have made to get me a word
of authentic tidings sent. I can read perfectly your poor

288 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

little left-hand lessons, and wonder at the progress you have
made. Don't be impious, however. Your poor right hand
will be restored to you, please (rod ; and we may depend
upon it, neither the coming nor the going in such cases goes
by the rule of caprice. Alas ! what a time we have all got
into! I finished last night the dullest thick book, long-
winded, though intelligent, of Lyell ; and the tendency of
it, very impotent, was, upon the whole, to prove that we are
much the same as the apes ; that Adam was probably no
other than a fortunate ourang-outang who succeeded in
rising in the world. May the Lord confound all such dreary in
solences of loquacious blockheadism, entitling itself Science.
Science, as the understanding of things worth knowing, was
once a far different matter from this melancholy maundering
and idle looking into the unknowable, and apparently the
not worth knowing.

He had his horse with him — Fritz's successor,
Lady Ashburton's present, whom he called Noggs.
On Noggs's back he wandered round the old neigh
bourhood, which he had first known as a schoolboy,
and then as usher.

Poor old Annan ! he wrote. There the old houses stood,
a bleared evening sun shining as if in anger on them ; but
the disagreeable, mostly paltry living creatures who used to
vex me in those days were all gone. The old Academy
House ! what a considerable stride to the New Academy I
have been in for some time, and am thinking soon to quit.
Good night, ye of the paltry type— ye of the lovely, too.
Good, and good only, be with you all ! Noggs and I, after
these reflections, started at a mighty pace for Cummertrees,
wind howling direct in our faces, and were there just as a
luggage train was passing, amid tempests of muddy smoke,
with a shrieking storm of discord, which Noggs could not
but pause to watch the passage of, with a mixture of wonder
and abhorrence. The waving of the woods about Kelhead,
grandly soughing in the windy sunset, soon hushed the mind
of both of us to a better tone, if not a much gladder.

RETREAT IN ANNANDALE. 289

Again :—

June-July, 1865.

My rides are very strange, in the mood so foreign as
mine. Last night, 6 to 8 p.m., was a perfect whirlwind, as
the day had been, though otherwise fresh and genial. I
went for the first time by the Priest-side Sands. Noggs
had some reluctance to put forth his speed in the new
element : strong tempests on the right eye ; on the left the
far-off floods of Solway ; Criffel and the mountains, with the
foreground of flat sand, in parts white with salt, right ahead.
But I made the dog go, and had really a very interesting
gallop, as different from that of Rotten Row as could well be.
' Oh, rugged and all- supporting mother ! ' says Orestes, ad
dressing the earth. One has now no other sermon in the
world, not a mockery and a sham, but that of these telluric
and celestial silences, broken by such winds as there may be.

So went Carlyle's summer at the Gill. She mean
while, dispirited by her lamed hand, and doubtful
of the future, resolved that she, too, would see Scot
land once more before she died. Not guessing how
ill all was with her about the heart, he wished her to
join him at his sister's.

I am doing myself good in respect of health, he said,
though still in a tremulous state of nerves, and altogether
sombre and sad and vacant. My hand is given to shake.
Alas! what is shaking to other states we know of? I am
solitary as I wished to be, and do not object to the gloom
and dispiritment, going down to the utterly dark. If they
like to rest there, let them. The world has become in many
parts hideous to me. Its highest high no longer looks very
high to me ; only my poor heart, strange to say, is not very
much blunted by all it has got. In the depths of silent sad
ness, I feel as if there were still as much love in me — all gone
to potential tears — as there was in my earliest day.

Mrs. Carlyle was proud of her husband ; she
honoured his character, she gloried in his fame and,
iv. u

2 9o CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

she was sure of his affection. But in her sick state she
needed rest, and rest, when the dark spirit was on
him, she could not find at his side. He had his sister
with him ; he had his brother James close at hand.
To these kind kindred she might safely leave him ; and
she went on past Annan to the good Eussells in Niths-
dale, who had nursed her in the past year. Carlyle
wished her only to do what would give her most
pleasure. He went to see her at Thornhill, met her
at Dumfries, was satisfied to know that she was in
safe hands, and was blind to the rest.

There was in you [he wrote, after one of these meetings]
such a geniality and light play of spirit, when you got into
talk, as was quite surprising to me, and had a fine beauty in
it, though very sorrowful. Courage! By-and-by we shall
see the end of this long lane, as we have done of others, and
all will be better than it now is.

His own life ' was the nearest approach to zero
that any son of Adam could make.' He read ' his
Boileau ' lying on the grass, * sauntered a minimum,'
' rode a maximum,' sometimes even began to think
of work again, as if such idleness were disgraceful.
For her, evidently, he was in no alarm at all. After
her birthday, he paid a visit to his old friend, Mr.
Spedding, at Mirehouse, near Keswick. Spedding
himself (elder brother of James, the editor of ' Ba
con ') he thought one of the best men he had ever
known. There were three ' beautiful young ladies,'
Mr. Spedding's daughters. Mirehouse was beautiful,
and so were the ways of it ; ' everything nice and neat,
dairy, cookery, lodging rooms. Simplex munditiis
the real title of it. not to speak of Skiddaw and the
finest mountains of the earth.' He must have enjoyed

RETREAT IN ANNANDALE. 291

himself indeed, when he could praise so heartily.

* My three days at Keswick,' he said when they were
over, ' are as a small polished flagstone, which I am
not sorry to have intercalated in the rough floor of
boulders which my sojourn otherwise has been in
these parts.'

To Mrs. Carlyle Nithsdale this time had been a
failure. The sleeplessness came on again, and she
fled back to Cheyne Eow. ' Poor witch-hunted
Goody,' he said ; * was there ever such a chase of the
fiends ? ' Miss Bromley took charge of her at Folke
stone, from which she was able to send a brighter
account of herself. He, meanwhile, lingered on at
his brother's at Scotsbrig.

I am the idlest and most contented of men, he said,
would things but let me alone, and time stay still. The
clearness of the air here, the old hill-tops and grassy silences
— it is with a strange acquiescence that I fancy myself as
bidding probably farewell to them for the last time. Annan-
dale is gone out of me, lies all stark and dead, as I shall
soon do, too. Why not ?

The peaceable torpor did not last long. He was
roused first into a burst of indignation by reading an

* insolent and vulgar ' review upon Euskin's ' Sesame
and Lilies.' It was written by a man who professed
attachment to Mrs. Carlyle. I need not name him ;
he is dead now, and cannot be hurt by reading Car-
lyle's description of him to her :

A dirtyish little pug, irredeemably imbedded in com
monplace, and grown fat upon it, and prosperous to an un
wholesome degree. Don't you return his love. Nasty
creature ! with no eye for the beautiful, and awefully interest
ing to himself.

292 CARLYLE1 S LIFE IN LONDON.

In August Carlyle started on a round of visits—
to Mr. Erskine at Linlathen, to Sir William Stirling
at Keir, to Edinburgh, to Lord and Lady Lothian at
Newbattle, and then again to Scotsbrig. At Linlathen
as wherever he went, he was a most welcome guest ;
but he was slightly out of humour there.

The good old St. Thomas, he wrote, seemed to me some
times to have grown more secular in these his last years ;
eats better, drinks ditto, and is more at ease in the world :
very wearisome, and inclined to feel distressed and to be
disputatious on his new theories about God when Sinner
Thomas will have nothing to do with them.

Erskine was not conscious of a fall in favour,
either for himself or his theories, and his own allu
sion to Carlyle's visit shows that the differences had
not been much accentuated. He had hoped that
Mrs. Cariyle would have come with her husband. As
she could not, he wrote her an affectionate letter, in
which some of the offending theories will perhaps be

found.

To Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Linlathen : August 18, 1865.

Beloved Mrs. Carlyle,— I suppose you could not have
come here, and yet it is with some sorrow that I accept this
arrangement, as I scarcely expect to have another sight of
your dear face on this earth. One might ask what good
would come of it if I had. I can only answer that ever since
I have known that face it has been a cordial to me to see it.
I am happy to think that you are getting better, and re
covering a little strength after that long suffering.

I have a paternal feeling towards you, a tender feeling,
as for a child, though you may think I have no right to have
such a feeling; and yet your last letter, which was most
sweet to my heart, seemed to say that you almost expected
such a feeling.

LINLATHEN. 293

The way in which I should like to express that feeling
would be by telling you things which I have myself found to
be helpful and supporting in trouble and darkness and con
fusion ; but the difficulty of saying the thing in the right
way always stops both mouth and pen. I hope (rod will
speak it to you in his own right way. There is an expression
in the 28th Psalm that often comes to me : « Be not silent
unto me, lest I become like those that go down into the
pit.' If there be anything that I have a perfect assurance
of, it is this, that God is indeed a Father, and that His un
changeable purpose towards me, and you, and all, is to make
us right ; to train us into the capacity of a full sympathy
with Himself, and thus to unite us to each other in righteous
love. I require such a confidence, and I cling to it, in spite
of manifold contradictions.

I arn glad to see Mr. Carlyle so well, after passing through
such a process. He sits under the same rowan tree that he
sate under when here before, in accordance with his conser
vative fidelity. I have a fellow-feeling with him in many
things, and love his singleness of heart and purpose more
than I can express.

Ever yours, with true affection,

T. ERSKINE.

Carlyle, for his part, was happy to find himself
under his brother's roof again at Scotsbrig.

The truth is [he wrote to his wife], I have nowhere been
so comfortably lodged as here just now. Silence, sleep pro
curable ; and, indeed, a kind of feeling that I arn a little
better really since getting home. All this, added to the
loveliest skies I ever saw, clear as diamonds this day, and an
earth lying white to the harvest, with monitions in it against
human gloom — all this is here ; but, as usual, it can only
last for a day. My Edinburgh, Keir, &c., fortnight was not
without profit, perhaps, though the interest it could have to
me was only small ; not a single loved face there. Ah me !
so few anywhere at this date. The physiognomies, all Scotch,
looked curious to me, the changed streets and businesses-.

294 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

The horrors of the railway station called Waverley, where
John often had me, are a thing to remember all one's life —
perhaps the liveliest emblem of Tartarus this earth affords.
Newbattle is fine of its kind, and finely Scotch. Nobody
there but the two poor inmates ! and a good-humoured
painter, doing portrait of the lady. The lady took me out
to walk, talked like a sad, serious, enquiring, and intelligent
soul ; the saddest, thin, kindly, anxious face you could any
where see. The Marquis did not appear till luncheon ; a
truly beautiful young man, body and mind, weaker than
ever, hands now shaking, eyes beginning to fail, but heart
as lively as ever. We had a great deal of innocent, cheer
fully reasonable talk, and I daresay my advent might be a
kind of relief, like a tree in the steppe, in the melancholy
monotony of such a life. Had you and my lady been fairly
acquainted, she would have liked you well.

The summer ended, as summers do and summers
will, and autumn saw the Carlyles together once
more in their Chelsea home, which one of them was
not again to leave alive. The great outward event
of Carlyle's own life, Scotland's public recognition of
him, was now lying close ahead. This his wife was
to live to witness as her final happiness in this world.
She seemed stronger, slept tolerably, drove about daily
in her brougham ; occasionally even dined out. Once
I remember meeting her and Carlyle this autumn at
the Dean of Westminster's, and walking home with
him. Once they dined with me to meet Mr. Spedding
of Mirehouse, Buskin, and Dean Milman. Buskin, I
recollect, that night was particularly brilliant, and
with her was a special favourite. She was recovering
slightly the use of her right hand ; she could again

1 Lord Lothian had been already struck, in the midst of his brilliant
promise, by the slow, creeping malady which eventually killed him.

THE EDINBURGH RECTORSHIP. 295

write with it; and nothing visible on the surface
indicated that danger was near.

I had been at Edinburgh, and had heard Gladstone
make his great oration on Homer there, on retiring
from office as Eector. It was a grand display. I
never recognised before what oratory could do : the
audience being kept for three hours in a state of
electric tension, bursting every moment into applause.
Nothing was said which seemed of moment when read
deliberately afterwards ; but the voice was like en
chantment, and the street, when we left the building,
was ringing with a prolongation of the cheers. Per
haps in all Britain there was not a man whose views
on all subjects, in heaven and earth, less resembled
Gladstone's than those of the man whom this same
applauding multitude elected to take his place. The
students too, perhaps, were ignorant how wide the
contradiction was ; but if they had been aware of it
they need not have acted differently. Carlyle had
been one of themselves. He had risen from among
them — not by birth or favour, not on the ladder of
any established profession, but only by the internal
force that was in him — to the highest place as a
modern man of letters. In ' Frederick ' he had given
the finish to his reputation; he stood now at the
summit of his fame; and the Edinburgh students
desired to mark their admiration in some signal way.
He had been mentioned before, but he had declined
to be nominated, for a party only were then in his
favour.

On this occasion the students were unanimous, or
nearly so. His own consent was all that was wanting,
and the question lay before him whether, hating as he

296 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

did all public displays, he would accept a quasi-coro-
nation from them.

On November 7, 1865, he wrote to his brother: —

My Eectorate, it seems, is a thing settled, which by no
means oversets my composure with joy ! A young Edinburgh
man came here two weeks ago to remind me that last time,
ir flatly refusing, I had partly promised for this if my work
•was done. I objected to the ' speech.' He declared it to be a
thing they would dispense with. Well ! if so ! I concluded ;
but do not as yet see my way through that latter clause,
which is the sore one. Indeed, I have yet heard nothing of
official upon it, and did not even see the newspaper para
graph till yesterday. Hat gar wenig zu bedeuten, one way
or the other.

Hat wenig zu bedeuten. So Carlyle might say —
but it was bedeutend to him nevertheless, and still
more so to his wife. It seemed strange to me, so
strange as to be almost incredible, that the Rectorship
of a Scotch University could be supposed to add any
thing to the position which Carlyle had made for
himself. But there were peculiar circumstances which
gave to this one special form of recognition an ex
ceptional attractiveness. Carlyle's reputation was
English, German, American — Scotch also — but Scotch

CT1 '

only to a certain degree. There had always in Scot
land been an opposition party ; and if the prophet
had some honour in his own country, it was less than
in other places. At least some feeling of this kind
existed in Cheyne Row, though it may have been
partly fancy, and due to earlier associations. Carlyle's
Edinburgh memories were almost all painful. His
University days had been without distinction. They
had been followed by dreary schoolmastering days at
Kirkcaldy, and the scarcely less dreary years of private

FEELINGS TOWARDS EDINBURGH. 297

tutoring in Edinburgh again. When Miss Welsh, of
Haddington, announced that she was to be married to
him, the unheard of mesalliance had been the scoff of
Edinburgh society and of her father's and mother's
connections there. It had been hoped after the mar
riage that some situation might have been found for

o

him, and they had settled in Comely Bank with a view
to it. All efforts failed, however, and nothing could
be done. At Craigenputtock he laid the foundation of
his reputation — but his applications for employment in
Scotland had been still refused invariably, and some
times contumeliously. London welcomed him, in 1831,
as a person of importance ; when he spent the winter
following in Edinburgh he was coldly received there —
received with a dislike which was only not contempt
because it was qualified with fear. This was all past
and gone, but he had always a feeling that Edinburgh
had not treated him well. The Eectorship would be
a public acknowledgment that his countrymen had
been mistaken about him, and he had an innocent
satisfaction in the thought of it. She, too, had a
similar feeling. Among old friends of her family, who
knew little about literature, there was still an impres
sion that ' Jeannie Welsh had thrown herself away.'
They would be forced to say now that ' Jeannie was
right after all.' She laughed when she talked about
it, and 1 could hardly believe that she was serious.
But evidently both in him and her some consciousness
of the kind was really working, and this perhaps
more than anything else determined him to go
through with a business which, in detail, was sure to
be distressing to him.

Tin is it was all settled. Carlyle was chosen Rector

298 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

of Edinburgh University, and was to be installed in the
ensuing spring. The congratulations which poured
in all the winter — especially from Mrs. C.'s Scotch
kinsfolk — ' amused ' them. Even a speech had been
promised, and so long as it was at a distance seemed
not inexecutable.

The Eectorial office, he wrote on December 21 to his
brother John, is beginning to promise to be a highly pacific
one ; and has" already shifted itself to a corner of the mind
where I seldom remember it, and never almost with anything
of anxiety or displeasure. When the time for speaking
approaches I shall have to bethink me a little, and be
bothered and tumbled about for a week or so ; but that done
I hope essentially all will be done.

During the winter I saw much of him. He was,
for him, in good spirits, lighter-hearted than I had
ever known him. He would even admit occasionally
that he was moderately well in health. Even on
the public side of things he fancied that there were
symptoms of a possibility of a better day coming.
In Buskin he had ever-increasing hope and con
fidence.

I have been reading (he says on the same day) a strange
little Christmas book of Kuskin's, called * Ethics of the Dust.'
It is all about crystallography, and seems to be, or is, geolo
gically well-informed and correct ; but it twists symbolically
in the strangest way all its geology into morality, theology,
Egyptian mythology, with fiery cuts at political economy ;
pretending not to know whether the forces and destinies
and behaviour of crystals are not very like those of a man !
Wonderful to behold. The book is full of admirable talent,
with such a faculty of expression in it, or of picturing out
what is meant, as beats all living rivals.

THE RECTORSHIP 299

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A.D. 18G6. ^ET. 71.

Preparations for the Rectorship— Journey to Edinburgh— Tyndall —
The Installation — Carlyle's speech— Character of it — Effect upon
the world — Cartoon in ' Punch ' — Carlyle stays at Scotsbrig to
recover — Intended tea-party in Cheyne Row — Sudden death of
Mrs. Carlyle — John Forster — Funeral at Haddington — Letters from
Erskine — Carlyle's answers.

THE time approached for the installation and the
delivery of the speech in Edinburgh. Through the
winter Carlyle had dismissed it from his mind as the
drop of bitter in his cup ; but it had now to be seri
ously faced . To read would have been handiest to him,
but he determined to speak. A speech was not an
essay. A speech written and delivered, or even written
and learnt by heart was to him an imposture, or, at
best, an insincerity. He did not seem to be anxious,
but anxious he was, and painfully so. He had never
spoken in public since the lecture days. He had
experienced then that he could do it, and could do it
eminently well if he practised the art — but he had
not practised. In private talk he had no living equal;
words flowed like Niagara. But a private room
among friends, and a hall crowded with strangers
where he was to stand up alone under two thousand
pairs of eyes, were things entirely different; and Carlyle,

300 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

with all his imperiousness and high scornful tones,
was essentially shy — one of the shyest of men. He
resolved, however, as his father used to say, to ' gar
himself go through with the thing,' or at least to try.
If he broke down, as he thought that he probably
would, he was old and weak, and it could signify
little. Still, he says that he 'was very miserable,'
' angry with himself for getting into such a coil of
vanity,' provoked that a performance which, to a
vulgar orator would be a pride and delight, should
to him appear so dreadful. Mrs. Carlyle kept up his
spirits, made fun of his fears, bantered him, encour
aged him, herself at heart as much alarmed as he was,
but conscious, too, of the ridiculous side of it. She had
thought of going with him, as she had gone with him
to his lectures, but her courage misgave her. Among
the freaks of her imagination she fancied that he might
fall into a fit, or drop down dead in the excitement.
She had herself been conscious lately of curious
sensations and sharp twinges, which might mean worse
than she knew. A sudden shock might make an end
of her also, ' and then there would be a scene.' There
would be plenty of friends about him. Huxley was
going down, and Tyndall, who, wide as his occupations
and line of thought lay from Carlyle's, yet esteemed,
honoured, loved him as much as any man living did.
Tyndall made himself responsible to Mrs. Carlyle that
her husband should be duly attended to on the road
and at the scene of action ; and to Tyndall's care she
was content to leave him. The journey was to be
broken at Fryston, where he would be received by
Milnes, now Lord Houghton. There he was to stay
two nights, and then go on to Scotland.

THE RECTORSHIP. 301

Accordingly, on Thursday, the 29th of March, at
nine a.m., Tyndall appeared with a cab in Cheyne
Eow, he himself radiant— confident— or if he felt mis
givings (I believe he felt none), resolute not to show
them? Carlyle submitted passively to his directions,
and did not seem outwardly disturbed, 'in the saddest
sickly mood, full of gloom and misery ; but striving
to hide it.' She, it was observed, looked pale and ill,
but in those days she seldom looked otherwise. She
had been busy providing little comforts for his journey.
Kemembering the lecture days she gave him her own
small travelling flask, with a single glass of brandy in
it, that he might mix and drink it in the Hall, and
think of her and be inspired.

' The last I saw of her (he says) was as she stood
with her back to the parlour door to bid me good
bye. She kissed me twice, she me once, I her a second
time.' The cab drove away. They were never to
meet again in this world. ' Tyndall,' lie says in his
journal, ' was kind, cheery, inventive, helpful. The
loyallest son could not have more faithfully striven to
support his father under every difficulty that rose,
and they were many.' In a letter he says, ' Tyndall's
conduct tome has been loyalty's own self: no adoring
son could have more faithfully watched a decrepit
father.' Fryston was reached without misadventure.
1 Lord and Lady Houghton's kindness was unbounded.'
Tyndall wrote to Mrs. Carlyle daily reporting every
thing on its brightest side, though the omens did not
open propitiously. ' My first night,' he wrote him
self, ' owing to railway and other noises, not to speak of
excitations, talkings, dinnerings, was totally sleepless ;
a night of wandering, starting to vain tobacco and

302 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

utter misery, thought of flying off next morning to
Auchtertool for quiet.' Morning light and reflection
restored some degree of composure. He was allowed
to breakfast alone — Tyndall took him out for a long,
brisk ride. He dined again alone, threw himself on
a sofa, ' and by Heaven's blessing, had an hour and
a half of real sleep.' In his bed he slept again for
seven or eight hours, and on the Saturday on which
he was to proceed found himself ' a new man.'

Huxley had joined the party at Fryston. Lord
Houghton went with them as far as York. The
travelling was disagreeable. Carlyle reached Edin
burgh in the evening, ' the forlornest of all physical
wretches.' There too the first night was ' hideous,'
with ' dreadful feelings that speaking would be im
possible,' ' that he would utterly break down ; ' to which
he in his mind said, ' well then,' ' and was preparing to
treat it with the best contempt he could.' On Sunday,
however, he found himself surrounded with friendly
faces. Mr. Erskine had come from Linlathen. His two
brothers were there from Scotsbrig ; all Edinburgh
was combining to do him honour, and was hearty
and warm and enthusiastic. His dispiritment was
not proof against a goodwill which could not but be
agreeable. He collected himself, slept well the Sun
day night (as felons sleep, he would himself probably
have said, the night before execution), and on the
Monday was ready for action.

The installation of a Eector is a ceremonious affair.
Ponderous robes have to be laid on, and there is a
marching in procession of officials and dignitaries
in crimson and ermine through the centre of the
crowded Hall. The Rector is led to a conspicuous

THE RECTORSHIP. 3°3

chair; an oath is administered to him, and the
business begins.

When Carlyle rose in his seat he was received with
an enthusiasm at least as loud as had been shown for
Mr. Gladstone— and perhaps the feeling of thestudents,
as he had been one of themselves— was more com
pletely genuine. I believe — for I was not present-
that he threw off the heavy academical gown. He
had not been accustomed to robes of honour. He had
been only a man all his life ; he chose to be a man still ;
about to address a younger generation who had come
together to hear something that might be of use to
them. He says of himself, ' My speech was delivered
as in a mood of defiant despair, and under the pressure
of nightmare. Some feeling that I was not speaking
lies alone sustained me. The applause, &c., I took for
empty noise, which it really was not altogether.' This
is merely his own way of expressing that he was doing
what he did not like ; that, having undertaken it, he
became interested in what he was about, grew
possessed with his subject, and fell into the automatic
state in which alone either speaking or any other
valuable work can be done as it ought to be. His
voice was weak. There were no more volleys of the
old Annandale grape-shot; otherwise he was easy,
fluent, and like himself in his calmest mood.

He began with a pretty allusion to the time when
he had first come up (fifty-six years before) to Edin
burgh to attend the University classes. Two entire
generations had passed away since that time. A
third, in choosing him as Rector, was expressing its
opinion of the use which he had made of his life, and
was declaring that 'lie had not been an unworthy

304 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

labourer in the vineyard.' At his age, and residing as
he did, far away in London, he could be of little service
to the University, but he might say a few words to
the students which might perhaps be of some value
to them. In soft, earnest language, with the plainest
common-sense, made picturesque by the form in
which it was expressed, he proceeded to impress on
them the elementary duties of diligence, fidelity, and
honest exertion, in their present work, as a preparation
for their coming life. Their line of study was, in the
main, marked out for them. So far as they could
choose (after a half- reverent, half-humorous allusion
to theology, exactly in the right tone for a modern
audience) he advised them to read history — especially
Greek and Eoman history — and to observe especially
how, among these nations, piety and awe of the gods
lay at the bottom of their greatness ; that without
such qualities no man or nation ever came to good.
Thence he passed to British history, to Oliver Crom
well, to their own Knox (one of the select of the
earth), to the Covenanters, to the resolute and noble
effort of the Scotch people to make Christ's gospel
the rule of their daily lives. Religion was the thing
essential. Theology was not so essential. He was
giving in brief a popular epitome of his own opinions
and the growth of them.

In early life he had himself been a Eadical. He
was a Eadical still in substance, though no longer
after the popular type. He was addressing students
who were as ardent in that matter as he had himself
once been, and he was going on dangerous ground as
he advanced. But he chose to speak as he felt. He
touched upon democracy. He showed how demo-

SPEECH AT EDINBURGH.

cracies, from the nature of things, never had been, and
never could be of long continuance ; how essential it
was, in such a world as ours, that the noblest and wisest
should lead and that the rest should obey and follow.
It was thus that England and Scotland had grown to
be what they were. It was thus only that they could
keep the place which they had won. We were apt
to think that through the spread of reading and
knowledge the conditions of human nature were
changed, and that inequalities no longer existed. He
thought slightly of the spread of knowledge as it
was called, ' maid-servants getting instructed in the
'ologies,' and ' knowing less of brewing, and boiling,
and baking, of obedience, modesty, humility, and
moral conduct.' Knowledge, wisdom, true superiority
was as hard to come at now as ever, and there were
just as few that arrived at it. He then touched on
another branch of the same subject, one on which
he was often thinking, the belief in oratory and
orators which was now so widely prevailing. Demos
thenes might be the greatest of orators, but Phocion
proved right in the facts. And then after a word
from Goethe on education, he came to speak of this
present age, in which our own lot was cast. He
spoke of it then as he always did — as an era of
anarchy and disintegration, in which all things, not
made of asbestos, were on the way to being con
sumed. He did not complain of this. He only bade
his hearers observe it and make the best of it. He
told them to be true and faithful in their own lives ;
to endeavour to do right, not caring whether they suc
ceeded, as it was called, in life ; to play their own parts
us quietly and simply as they could, and to leave the

IV.

3o6 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

rest to Providence. ' Don't suppose,' he said, ' that
people are hostile to you, or bear you ill-will in the
world. You may often feel as if the whole world was
obstructing you, setting itself against you ; but you
will find that to mean that the world is travelling in a
different way, and, rushing on its own paths, heedlessly
treads on you. That is mostly all. To you there is
no specific ill-will.' He bade them walk straight
forward ; not expecting that life would be strewed
with roses ; and knowing that they must meet their
share of evil as well as good. But he told them, too,
that they would find friends if they deserved them,
and in fact would meet the degree of success which
they had on the whole deserved. He wound up with
Goethe's hymn, which he had called, to Sterling, ' The
marching music of the Teutonic nations;' and he
finished with the words to which to the end he so
often returned :

' Wir heissen euch hqffen.' (We bid you to hope.)

He was long puzzled at the effect upon the
world's estimate of him which this speech produced.
There was not a word in it which he had not already
said, and said far more forcibly a hundred times.
But suddenly and thenceforward, till his death set
them off again, hostile tongues ceased to speak against
him, and hostile pens to write. The speech was
printed in full in half the newspapers in the island.
It was received with universal acclamation. A low
price edition of his works became in demand, and
they flew into a strange temporary popularity with
the reading multitude. Sartor, ' poor beast,' had
struggled into life with difficulty, and its readers
since had been few, if select ; 20,000 copies of the

THE RECTORSHIP. 307

shilling edition of it were now sold instantly on its
publication. It was admitted universally that Carlyle
was a ' great man.' Yet he saw no inclination, not
the slightest, to attend to his teaching. He himself
could not make it out, but the explanation is not
far to seek. The Edinburgh address contained his
doctrines with the fire which had provoked the ani
mosity taken out of them. They were reduced to the
level of church sermons ; thrown into general pro
positions which it is pretty and right and becoming
to confess with our lips, while no one is supposed
to act on them. We admire and praise the beautiful
language, and we reward the performance with a
bishopric, if the speaker be a clergyman. Carlyle,
people felt with a sense of relief, meant only what
the preachers meant, and was a fine fellow after all.

The address had been listened to with delight by
the students, and had ended amidst rounds of ap
plause. Tyndall telegraphed to Mrs. Carlyle his1
brief but sufficient message, ' A perfect triumph.'
The maids in Cheyne Eow clapped their hands when
it arrived. Maggie Welsh danced for delight. Mrs.
Carlyle drove off to Forster's, where she was to dine.
Dickens and Wilkie Collins were there, and they
drank Carlyle's health, and it was, as she said, 'a
good joy.' He meanwhile had escaped at his best
speed from the scene of his exploit ; making for his
brother's lodgings in George Street, where he could
smoke a pipe and collect himself. Hundreds of lads
followed him, crowding and hurrahing.

I waved my hand prohibitively at the door (he wrote),
perhaps lifted iny hat, and they gave but one cheer more —

1 Letters and Mi'/imrials, vol. iii. p. 318.

\ Z

3o8 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

something in the tone of it which did for the first time go
into my heart. Poor young men, so well affected to the
poor old brother or grandfather here, and in such a black
whirlpool of a world, all of us.

He dispatched a few words home.

All is finished, and rather well, infinitely better than T
often expected. You never saw such a tempest of enthu
siastic excitation as that among the student people. Never
in the world was I in such a scene. I took your drop of
brandy with me — mixed it in a tumbler for cooling of the
tongue. I had privately a kind of threap that the brandy
should be yours.

The note sent off, he had a quiet walk in the
twilight with Erskine and his brother James.

Some fragments of ornamental work had still to
be gone through ; invitations to this and that, and
congratulations to reply to ; ' Spedding's letter wel-
comer than any other.' He slept tolerably in spite
of excitement, but was ' like a man killed with kind
ness, all the world coming tumbling on him. Do me
this, see me that ! above all, dine, dine ! ' He stayed
four days in the middle of all this. On the Thursday
he was worn out. ' Oh ! ' he cried, ' there never was
such an element — comparable to that of the three
children in the fire before Nebuchadnezzar. . .
His original plan had been to go straight home, but
he was tempted by the thought of a few peaceful
days in Annandale, before plunging into London
iii^ain. On the Friday he made for quiet Scotsbrig,
there, with no company but his brother and his
sister Mary, to ' cool down and recover his wits.'
The newspapers, meanwhile, were sounding his
praises. ' Punch/ always affectionate, even in the

THE NEWSPAPERS. 30y

Pamphlet times, had a cartoon in which Carlyle
seen speaking on one side, like a gently wise old
patriarch, and Bright on the other, with due contrast
of face and sentiment. At the end of a week he
was in his old condition again. ' Seldom,' he said,
' have I been better in the last six months, so blessed
is the country stillness to me, the purity of sky and
earth, and the absence of all babble and annoyance.'
He would then have hastened back, but he met with
an accident, a slight sprain in one of his ankles, sent,
he supposed, ' to keep him in the level of common
humanity, and take any undue conceit out of him.'
Thus he lingered on, not sorry, perhaps, for the
excuse. ' Punch ' came to Scotsbrig, and ' gave every
body hearty entertainment.' 'The thing,' he said,
' is really capital, and has been done by some
thoroughly well wishing man. The portrait, too, is
not bad, though comical a little, and the slap directed
on Bright is perfectly suitable.' Mill wrote as warmly
as he could about an address which must have been
wholly unpalatable, Mrs. Carlyle sending the letter
down to him, and expecting he ' would scream at such
a frosty nothingness.' He did not scream, he answered,
1 localise he had ceased to care what Mill might do
or forbear to do. k Mill essentially was made of saw
dust, he and his "great thinking of the Age," and
was to be left lying, with good-bye and peace to him
for evermore.'

The ankle was long in mending, and the return
was still delayed. On the 19th of April he wrote—

Nothing from Goody to-day — well, you have been hand
somely diligent of laic, and ha\v Mivcn m<> at least one
sunny blink among the great dreary nia,^ i get on awaking

3io CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

to a new day. I am very well in health here, sleep better
than for a month past, in spite of the confusion and im
perfect arrangements. The rides do me good. Yesterday
it was as if pumping on me, and Dirty Swift (the Scotsbrig
pony) and I, under the mackintosh, were equal or superior
to the Trafalgar fountains in dramatic effect. But the
silence, the clearness of the air and world, the poor old
solitary scene too — all do me good ; and if I had an Oberon
to attend me, to pick a furnished tent from his waistcoat
pocket, and blow it out to perfection, I should be tempted
to linger a good while perhaps. But nothing of that is the
arrangement in esse here, and I still think of Monday, the
23rd, as the day of return. At any rate mark that Jean
and I are to go for Dumfries to-morrow ; so for Saturday
morning do you aim towards Dumfries, and hit me like a
good bairn.

No more, except my blessing and adieu.

One more letter he was to write to her, which he
was to find on his table in London, with the seal un
broken and which stands endorsed by him, ' never
read. Alas ! alas ! ' The presentiment of evil which
it contains may have been natural, for the post had
again brought him nothing from her ; but it deserves
to be noticed.

Scotsbrig, April 20.

I had said, it is nothing, this silence of hers ; but about
1 a.m., soon after going to bed, my first operation was a
kind of dream ; an actual introduction to the sight of you
in bitterly bad circumstances, and I started broad awake
with the thought, « This was her silence, then, poor soul ! '
Send better news, and don't reduce me to dream. Adieu,
dearest. Send better news, clearer any way. What a party
is that of Saturday evening — unexampled in modern society,
or nearly so. My regards to Froude.

Your ever affectionate

T. CARLYLE.

DEATH OF MRS. CARL\LE 31 1

This was the last letter he ever wrote to her, and
the last word in it was my own name. The ' party '
spoken of will be explained immediately.

Anxiety about the speech and its concomitants
had, as Mrs. Carlyle expressed it, ' tattered her to
fiddlestrings.' The sudden relief, when it was over,
was scarcely less trying. She had visitors to see,
who came with their congratulations. She had end
less letters to receive and answer. To escape from
part of this she had gone to Windsor, to spend two
clays with her friend Mrs. Oliphant, and had greatly
enjoyed her visit. On coming back she had dined
with Lady William Eussell, in Audley Square, and had
there a smart passage of words with Mr. Hayward,
on the Jamaica disturbances, the news of which,
and of Governor Eyre's action, had just arrived.
The chief subject of conversation everywhere was
her husband's address, and of this there was nothing
said but good. Tyndall came back. She saw him,
heard all particulars from him, and was made per
fectly happy about it. Carlyle himself would be
home in a day or two. For Saturday the 21st, pur
posely that it might be got over before his arrival,
she had invited a small party to tea.

Principal Tulloch and his wife were in London ;
they wished to meet me or else I to meet them. I
forget which it was. I hope the desire was mutual.
I, the Tullochs, Mr. and Mrs. Spottiswoode, and Mrs.
Oliphant were to be Mrs. Carlyle's guests in Cheyne
Row that evening. Geraldine Jewsbury, who was then
living in Markham Square, was to assist in entertain
ing us. That morning Mrs. Carlyle wrote her daily
letter to Carlyle, and took it herself to the post, la

3i2 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

the afternoon she went out in her brougham for the
usual drive round Hyde Park, taking her little dog
with her. Nero lay under a stone in the garden
at Cheyne Row, but she loved all kinds of animals,
dogs especially, and had found another to succeed
him. Near Victoria Gate she had put the dog out, to
run. A passing carriage went over its foot, and, more
frightened than hurt, it lay on the road on its back
crying. She sprang out, caught the dog in her arms,
took it with her into the brougham, and was never
more seen alive. The coachman went twice round
the drive, by Marble Arch down to Stanhope Gate,
along the Serpentine and round again. Coming a
second time near to the Achilles statue, and surprised
to receive no directions, he turned round, saw in
distinctly that something was wrong, and asked a
gentleman near to look into the carriage. The
gentleman told him briefly to take the lady to St.
George's Hospital, which was not 200 yards distant.
She was sitting with her hands folded on her hip

dead.

I had stayed at home that day, busy with some
thing, before going out in the evening. A servant
came to the door, sent by the housekeeper at Cheyne
Eow, to say that an accident had happened to Mrs.
Carlyle, and to beg me to go at once to St. George's.
Instinct told me what it must be. I went on the
way to Geraldine ; she was getting ready for the
party, and supposed that I had called to take her
there. I told her the message which I had received.
She flung a cloak about her, and we drove to the
hospital together. There, on a bed in a small room,
wo found Mrs. Carlyle, beautifully dressed, dressed

DEATH OF MRS. CARLYLE. 313

as she always was, in quietly perfect taste. Nothing
had been touched. Her bonnet had not been taken
off. It was as if she had sate upon the bed after
leaving the brougham, and had fallen back upon
it asleep. But there was an expression on her face
which was not sleep, and which, long as I had
known her, resembled nothing which I had ever seen
there. The forehead, which had been contracted in
life by continued pain, had spread out to its natural
breadth, and I saw for the first time how magnificent
it was. The brilliant mockery, the sad softness with
which the mockery alternated, both were alike gone.
The features lay composed in a stern majestic calm.
I have seen many faces beauti^Hn_deat]i, but never
any so grand as hers. I can write no more of it. I
did not then know all her history. I knew only how
she had suffered, and how heroically she had borne
it. Geraldine knew everything. Mrs. Carlyle, in her
own journal, calls Geraldine her Consuelo, her chosen
comforter. She could not speak. I took her home.
I hurried down to Cheyne Eow, where I found Forster
half-distracted, yet, with Ids vigorous sense, alive to
what must immediately be done. Mr. Blunt, the
Eector of Chelsea, was also there ; he, too, dreadfully
shaken, but collected and considerate. Two points had
immediately to be considered : how to communicate;
the news to Carlyle ; and how to prevent an inquest
and an examination of the body, which Forster said
would kill him. Forster undertook the last. He was
a lunacy commissioner, and had weight with official
persons. Dr. Quain had attended Mrs. Carlyle in
her illness, and from him I believe Forster obtained
a certificate of the probable cause of the death,

3i4 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

which was received as sufficient. As to Carlyle, we
did not know precisely where he was, whether at
Dumfries or Scotsbrig. In the uncertainty a tele
gram was sent to John Carlyle at Edinburgh, another
to Dr. John Brown, should John Carlyle be absent.
By them the news was forwarded the same night
to Dumfries, to his brother-in-law, Mr. Aitken, with
whom he was staying, to be communicated according
to Mr. Aitken's discretion.

And now I go on with Carlyle's own narrative
written a fortnight after.

Saturday night, about 9 p.m., I was sitting in sister Jean's
at Dumfries, thinking of my railway journey to Chelsea on
Monday, and perhaps of a sprained ankle I had got at
Scotsbrig two weeks or so before, when the fatal telegrams,
two of them in succession, came. It had a kind of stun
ning effect upon me. Not for above two days could I
estimate the immeasurable depths of it, or the infinite
sorrow which had peeled my life all bare, and in a moment
shattered my poor world to universal ruin. They took me
out next day to wander, as was medically needful, in the
green sunny sabbath fields, and ever and anon there rose
from my sick heart the ejaculation, ' My poor little woman !'
but no full gust of tears came to my relief, nor has yet
come. Will it ever ? A stony Woe's me, woe's me ! some
times with infinite tenderness and pity, not for myself, is
my habitual mood hitherto. I had been hitching lamely
about, my company the green solitudes and fresh spring
breezes, quietly but far from happily, about the hour she
died.

Sixteen hours after the telegram, Sunday, about 2 p.m.,
there came to me a letter from her, written on Saturday,
before going out, the cheeriest and merriest of all her
several prior ones. A note for her, written at Scotsbrig
Friday morning, and which should have been a pleasure to
her at breakfast that morning, was not put in till after 6 a.m.

DEATH OF MRS. CARLYLE. 315

at Ecclefechan, negligence excusable but unforgetable ; had
not left Ecclefechan till 10 p.m., nor arrived till 2 p.m., and
lay imopened.

Monday morning, John set off with me for London.
Never, for 1,000 years, should I forget that arrival here of
ours, my first imwelcomed by her. She lay in her coffin,
lovely in death. Pale death, and things not mine or ours,
had possession of our poor darling. Very kind, very helpful
to me, if to no other, everybody was ; for I learnt ultimately,
had it not been for John Forster and Dr. Quain, and every
body's mercy to me, there must have been, by rule, a
coroner's inquest held, which would have been a blotch upon
my memory, intolerable then, and discordantly ugly for all
time coming. It is to Forster's unwearied and invincible
efforts that I am indebted for escape from this sad defile
ment of my feelings. Indeed, his kindness then and all
through, in every particular and detail, was unexampled,
of a cordiality and assiduity almost painful to me. Thanks
to him, and perpetual recollection. Next day wander over
the fatal localities in Hyde Park, Forster and brother John
settling, apart from me, everything for the morrow. Morrow,
Wednesday morning, we were under way with our sacred
burden. John and F. kindly did not speak to me. Good
Twistleton was in the train without consulting me. I looked
out upon the spring fields, the everlasting skies in silence,
and had for most part a more endurable day till Haddington,
where friends were waiting with hospitalities, which almost
drove me openly wild. I went out to walk in the moonlit
silent streets, not suffered to go alone. I looked up at the
windows of the old room, where I had first seen her, on a
summer evening after sunset, six and forty years ago. Ed
ward Irving had brought me out walking to Haddington,
she the first thing I had to see then ; the beautifullest
young creature I had ever beheld, sparkling with grace
and talent, though sunk in sorrow ' and speaking little. I
noticed her once looking at me. Oh heavens, to think of
that now !

1 She had lately lost her father.

3»6 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

The Dods,1 excellent people, in their honest, homely
way, had great pity for me, patience with me. I retired to
my room, slept none all night, little sleep to me since
that telegram night, but lay silent in the great silence.
Thursday, April 26, wandered out into the churchyard, &c.,
at 1 p.m. came the funeral, silent, small, only twelve old
friends and two volunteers besides us there. Very beautiful
and noble to me, and I laid her in the grave of her father,
according to covenant of 40 years back, and all was ended.
In the nave of the old Abbey Kirk, long a ruin, now being
saved from further decay, with the skies looking down on
her, there sleeps my little Jeannie, and the light of her face
will never shine on me more.

We withdrew that afternoon ; posted up by Edinburgh,
with its many confusions, towards London all night ; and
about 10 or 11 a.m. were shovelled out here, where I am
hitching and wandering about ; best off in strict solitude —
were it only possible— my own solace and employment that of
doing all which I could imagine she would have liked me to
do. . . . The first awakening in the morning, the reality of
all, stripped so bare before me, is the ghastliest half-hour
of the day. A kind of leaden weight of sorrow has come
over all my universe, with sharp poignancy of memory every
now and then. I cannot weep ; no relief yet, or almost
none — of tears. Grod enable me to live out my poor rem
nant of days in a manner she would have applauded. Hers
—as known to me only — were all very noble, a life of hidden
beauty, all given to me as part of my own. How had I
deserved it ? I, unworthy ! Beautiful, exceedingly ! Oh,
how mournfully beautiful now! I called her and thought
her my Schatzen ; but my word was shallow as compared to
the fact, and I never thought of losing her. Vaguely,
always, I reckoned that I as the elder should be the first,
such a vivacity and brightness of life I noticed in her, in
spite of her perpetual burden cf infirmities and sufferings
day by day. Twice, perhaps thrice, during her horrible illness

1 Old friends of the Welshes, at whose house he was received at
lladdingtoii.

DEATH OF MRS. CARLYLE. 317

of 1864, the thought rose in me, ghastly and terrible, that I
was about to lose her ; but always my hope soon revived
into a strange kind of confidence ; and very rarely was my
work interrupted, but went on steadily up in the garret, as
the one thingr salvatory to both of us. And oh, her looks as
she sate in the balcony at St. Leonards ! Never, never shall
I forget that tenderness of love, and that depth as of misery
and despair.

In these days, with mournful pleasure, Carlyle
composed the beautiful epitaph which is printed in
the 'Letters and Memorials1,' 'a word,' he said,
' true at least, and coming from his heart, which
felt a momentary solace from it.' A few letters,
too, he wrote on the subject, two especially to Mr.
Krskine, one while the wound was freshly bleeding,
another a few months after, which I give together : —

To Thomas Erskine, Esq.

Chelsea, May 1, I860.

Dear Mr. Erskine, — Your little word of sympathy went
to my heart, as few of the many others could do. Thanks
for it. Thanks also, and many of them, for your visit to
poor Betty,2 to whom I have yet written nothing, though
well aware that of all living hearts but one, hers is the
saddest on this occasion. Pray go out to her again after a
time, and say that so long as I live in the world, I wish and
propose to keep sight of her, and in any distress that may
fall on her, to ask myself what I can do to be of help to
that good soul.

Hitherto I write to nobody, see nobody but my brother
and Maggie Welsh, of Auchtertool. Indeed, I find it is best
when I do not even speak to anybody. The stroke that has
fallen on me is immeasurable, and has shattered in pieces

1 Vol. iii. p. 341.

- Mrs. Carlvle's old IT, aldington nurse, often mentioned in lier
letters.

3i8 CARLYLES LIFE IN LONDON.

my whole existence, which now suddenly lies all in ruins
round me. In her name, whom I have lost, I must try to
repair it, rebuild it into something of order for the few years
or days that may remain to me, try not to waste them
further, but to do something useful with them, under the
stern monition I have had. If I but can, that should be
my way of honouring her, whose history on earth now lies
before me, all bathed in sorrow, but beautiful exceedingly,
nay, of a kind of epic grandeur and heroic nobleness, known
only to one heart now. God bless you, dear Mr. Erskine.
You will not forget me, Mrs. Stirling and you ; nor will I
either of you.

Yours sincerely,

T. CARLYLE.

Chelsea : October 27, 1866.

Dear Mr. Erskine, — Your word of remembrance was very
welcome to me, and has gone ringing through my solitude
here with a gentle, pleasant, and friendly sound ever since.
I have had many thoughts since I last saw you, silent nearly
all, and mostly beyond the domain of words. A calamity
which was most sudden, which was infinite to me, and for
which there is no remedy conceivable, my poor little home
in this world, as if struck by lightning, when I least ex
pected it, and shattered all into ruin ! — I have had enough
to think of, to mourn over, and earnestly consider ; taking
counsel of the Eternities mainly, and of such still voices
as dwell there,. I have been and am very sad, sad as
death I may well say ; but not miserable either ; nothing of
the mean wretchedness which has defaced other long por
tions of my life. This is all noble, tender, solemn to me.
' I might define it as a time of divine worship rather, per
haps the only period of real worship I have known for a
great while past. I have tried considerably to be busy, too,
and am still trying. Much has to be set in order, and rest
is not permitted till I follow whither she has gone before
me. Maj7 my death, which stands calmly consolatory in my
sight at all moments, be beautiful as hers, and God's will
be done now and for ever.

DEATH OF MRS. CARLYLE. 319

For several weeks there was absolutely no speech or
company. Now there is occasionally an hour of rational dis
course, which is worth something. Vain, idle talk, which is
always rife enough, I find much sadder than any form of
silence. My bodily health is not worse, perhaps even a
shade better than what you last saw of it. My arrangements
for the winter are not yet fixed ; but I try to keep myself
in what I fondly call work, of a weak kind, fitted to my
weakness. That is my anchor, if it will hold. Adieu, dear
Mr. Erskine ! Here has F. come in upon me, who is my
nearest neighbour and a good man. I must say farewell.

Yours ever,

T. CARLYLE.

32o CARLYLE'S LIFE TN LONDON.

CHAPTER XXIX

A.D. 18H6. ^ET. 71.

Message of sympathy from the Queen— John Carlyle— Betrospects-
A future life— Attempts at occupation— Miss Davenport Bromley
—The Eyre Committee— Memories— Mentone— Stay there with
Lady Ashburton — Entries in Journal.

THE installation at Edinburgh had drawn the world's
eyes on Carlyle. His address had been in everyone's
hands, had been admired by the wise, and had been
the fashion of the moment with the multitude. The
death of his wife following immediately, in so sudden
and startling a manner, had given him the genuine
sympathy of the entire nation. His enemies, if ene
mies remained, had been respectfully silent. The
Queen represented her whole subjects and the whole
English-speaking race when she conveyed to Cheyne
Eow, through Lady Augusta Stanley, a message deli
cate, graceful, and even affectionate. John Carlyle
had remained there after the return from Haddington
to London. To him Lady Augusta wrote, at her
Majesty's desire, arid I will not injure the effect of
her words by compressing them.

To Dr. Carlyle.

Osborne: April 30, 18G6.

Dear Dr. Carlyle,— I was here when the news of the
terrible calamity with which your brother has been visited

DEATH OF MRS. CARLYLE. 321

reached Her Majesty, and was received by her with feelings
of sympathy and regret, all the more keen from the lively
interest with which the Queen had so recently followed the
proceedings in Edinburgh. Her Majesty expressed a wish
that, as soon as I could do so, I should convey to Mr. Carlyle
the expression of these feelings, and the assurance of her
sorrowful understanding of a grief which she herself, alas !
knows too well.

It was with heartfelt interest that the Queen heard yester
day that Mr. Carlyle had- been able to make the effort to
return to his desolate home, and that you are with him.

Personally Carlyle was unknown to the Queen.
He had never been presented, had never sought
admission within the charmed circle which sur
rounds the constitutional crown. Perhaps, in read
ing Lady Augusta's words, lie thought more of the
sympathy of the ' bereaved widow ' than of the notice
of his sovereign. He replied :—

Chelsea : May 1, 1866.

Dear Lady Augusta, — The gracious mark of Her Majesty's
sympathy touches me with many feelings, sad and yet beau
tiful and high. Will you in the proper manner, with my
humblest respects, express to Her Majesty my profound
sense of her great goodness to me, in this the day of my
calamity. I can write to nobody. It is best for me at pre
sent when I do not even speak to anybody.

Believe me yours, with many grateful regards,

T. CARLYLE.

What he was to do next, how he was to live
for the future, who was to live with him and take
care of him, were questions which his friends were
anxiously asking among themselves. Circumstances,
nature, everything seemed to point to his brother
John as the fittest companion for him. From early

IV. y

322 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

years John had been the nearest to his heart of all
liis brothers. John was the correspondent to whom
he wrote with the most absolute imdisguise ; from
whom alone — and this was the highest proof of affec
tion which he could give — he had once been prepared
to accept help in money, if extremity had overtaken
him. After a good many years of experience as a
family physician, after some fitful independent prac
tice, John Carlyle had retired from his profession
with an ample fortune. He had married, but had
been left a childless widower, and was using his
means in adding to the comforts of his sisters' fami
lies. He had a sound intellect, which he had dili
gently cultivated. He was a fine Italian scholar.
His translation of Dante was of admitted excellence.
In face, in voice, in mind, he was like his brother.
Though with less fire and capacity, he was his equal
in singleness of character, essentially true, genuine,
and good — with occasional roughness of manner,
occasional heedlessness of other people's feelings—
but with an honest affectionateness, with an admira
tion and even adoration of his brother's grander
qualities. He, of all others, was the one who was
best qualified to relieve, by residing there, ' the gaunt
solitude of Cheyrie Row.'

Some thoughts of the kind, as will be seen, had
been in the minds of both of them. Meanwhile,
- somewhere about in the first week in May, Carlyle,
who had hitherto desired to be left alone, sent me
a message that he would like to see me. He came
down to me into the library in his dressing gown,
haggard and as if turned to stone. He had scarcely
•uept, he said, since the funeral. He could not

DEATH OF MRS. CARLYLE. 323

* cry.' He was stunned and stupefied. He had never
realised the possibility of losing her. He had settled
that he would die first, and now she was gone.
From this time and onwards, as long as he was in
town, I saw him almost daily. He was looking
through her papers, her notebooks and journals ;
and old scenes came mercilessly back to him in
vistas of mournful memory. In his long sleepless
nights, he recognised too late what she had felt and
suffered under his childish irritabilities. His faults
rose up in remorseless judgment, and as he had
thought too little of them before, so now he ex
aggerated them to himself in his helpless repentance.
For such faults an atonement was due, and to her no
atonement could now be made. He remembered,
however, Johnson's penance at Uttoxeter ; not once,
but many times, he told me that something like that
was required from him, if he could see his way to it.
' Oh !' he cried, again and again, ' if I could but see
her once more, were it but for five minutes, to let her
know that I always loved her through all that. She
never did know it, never.' ' If he could but see her
again ! ' His heart seemed breaking as he said it/and
through these weeks and months he was often mourn
fully reverting to the subject, and speculating whether
such future meeting might be looked for or not. He
would not let himself be deluded by emotion. His
intellect was vigorous as ever, as much as ever on
its guard against superstition. The truth about the
matter was, he admitted, absolutely hidden from us ;
we could not know, we were not meant to know. It
would be as God willed. ' In my Father's house are
many iminsions ! ' * Yes,' he said, 'if you are God.

Y 2

324 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

you may have a right to say so ; if you are man,
what do you know more than I or any of us ? ' Yet
then and afterwards when he grew calm, and was in
full possession of himself, he spoke always of a life
to come, and the meeting of friends in it as a thing
not impossible. Ii> spite of science lie had a dear
conviction that everything in this universe, to the
smallest detail, was ordered with a conscious purpose.
Nothing happened to any man which was not or
dained to happen. No accident, no bullet on battle
field, or sickness at home, could kill a man till the
work for which he was appointed was done, and if
this was so, we were free to hope that there was a
purpose in our individual existence which was not
exhausted in our earthly condition. The spirit, the
soul of man, was not an accident or mere result of
the organisation of protoplasm. Intellect and moral
sense were not put into man by a being which had
none of its own. At no time of Carlyle's life had such
a conclusion as this been credible to him. Again it
was unlike nature so to waste its energies as to spend
seventy years in training and disciplining a character,
and to fling it away when complete, as a child flings
away a plaything. It is possible that his present and
anguished longing lent more weight to these argu
ments than he would otherwise have been able to
allow them. At any rate it was round this hope
and round his own recollections and remorse that our
conversations chiefly turned when we took up our
walks again ; the walks themselves tending usually to
the spot where Mrs. Carlyle was last seen alive ; where,
in rain or sunshine, he reverently bared his head.
By degrees he roused himself, as he said in his

ATTEMPTS AT OCCUPATION. 325

letters to Erskine, to think of trying some work
again. He could still do something. Politics, philo
sophy, literature, were rushing on faster than ever in
the direction which he most disliked. He sketched
a scheme for a journal in which there was to be a
running fire of opposition to all that. I and Euskin
were to contribute, and it might have come to some
thing if all three of us had been willing, which it
appears we were not. In a note of the 2nd of
August, this year, he says to me : —

Has Ruskin yet written to you on that periodical we, or
at least I, were talking of ? I did not find him bite very
ardently on my first or on this second mention of the pro
ject ; nor do I know what you can well answer him ; nor am
I to be much or perhaps at all considered in it. I ! alas !
alas ! but the thing will have to be done one day, I am well
of opinion ; though by whom or how, which of us can say ?

John Carlyle stayed on in Cheyne Eow, with no
fixed arrangement, but as an experiment to see how
it would answer. We all hoped it might continue ;
but struck down as Carlyle had been he was still
himself, and his self-knowledge made him amusingly
cautious. John, good natured though he might be,
had his own ways and humours, and his own plain
ness of speech ; and to live easily with Carlyle re
quired that one must be prepared to take stormy
weather when it came, in silence. He would be
penitent afterwards ; he knew his brother's merits
and his own faults. ' Your readiness,' he said, ' and
c.-igerness at all times to be of help to me, you may
depend upon it is a thing I am always well aware of,
at the bottom of all my impatiences and discontents.'
Hut the impatiences and discontents were there, and

326 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

had to be calculated upon. John was willing to
go on, and Carlyle did not absolutely refuse, but
both, after some months' trial, doubted if the plan
would answer.

I felt (Carlyle wrote to him, during a short separation)
that in the practical substance of the thing you are probably
right. Noises are not the rock it need split on. Everything
might be peaceably deafened, if that were all ; but it is cer
tain you and I have given one another considerable annoy
ance, and have never yet been able to do together. That is
the nature of the two beasts. They cannot change that, and
ought to consider it well in their eagerness to be near one
another, and get the benefit of mutual affection, now that
each of them, one of them above all, needs it more and
more. I must see, I must see ; and you too, if you are still
upon this project, you will consider all things, weigh them
wi*"h the utmost clearness you have, and gradually come to
some decision which the facts will correspond to. The facts
will be very rigid when we try them.

The wish to live together was evidently more on
John's part than on Carlyle's. Carlyle was perhaps
right. The ' two beasts ' were both too old to change
their natures, and they would agree best if they did
not see each other too often. John went back to
Scotland ; Carlyle was left alone : and other friends
now claimed the privilege of being of use to him,
especially Miss Davenport Bromley, the 'flight of
sky larks,' and Lady Ashburton. They had been
both her friends also, and were, therefore, in his
present mood, especially dear to him. Miss Bromley
was then living at Eipple Court, near Walmer. She
invited Carlyle to stay with her. He went in the
middle of August, and relates his visit in his journal

MISS DA VENPOR T BR OMLE Y. 327

Journal.

Ripple Court, Augiist 15, 1866. — Arrived here the
day before yesterday — beautiful sunny day in the midst
of wet and windy ones. Solitude and green country,
spotted with autumn colours and labours, mournfully wel
come to me after the dreary sadness and unwelcome in
terruptions to my poor labours at Chelsea which, alas
were nothing more than the sorting, labelling, and tying
up in bundles all that is now left me of her that is gone.
Was in this country once, now 42 years ago, and re
member a Sunday of wandering between Dover and here
with Edward Irving and Mr. Strachey. What a flight of
timel My project here was 14 days of solitude and sea
bathing. Hitherto, except a very long sleep, not of the
healthiest, last night, almost all has gone rather awry with me.

August 16. — Had a beautiful ride yesterday, a tolerable
bathe, plenty of walking, driving, &c., and imagined I was
considerably improving myself ; but, alas ! in the evening
came the G.'s, and a dinner amounting to total wreck of
sleep to me. Got up at 3 a.m., sate reading till 6, and
except a ride, good enough in itself, but far from * pleasant '
in my state of nerves and heart, have had a day of desolate
misery, the harder to bear as it is useless too, and results
from a vibit which I could have avoided had I been skilful.
Oh, my lost one ! oh, my lost one ! irrecoverable to my
lonely heart for ever.

' Miss Bromley's hospitality and genuine beauti
fully simple politeness and kindness were beyond all
praise,' he said when his visit was over. But the
time at Ripple Court had been spent, ' as in Hades,'
the general complexion of his thoughts, and he was
-lad to get back to his ' gloomy dwelling.' The
Hades, in fact, was in himself, and was therefore
everywhere. The hopgardens and woods had given
him a faint pleasure on his way up through Kent on

328 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

the railway. ' After Sydenham it became unspeakable,
abominable, a place fitter for demons and enchanted
swine than for human creatures of an ordinary type.'
On reaching home he wrote a grateful letter to his
hostess, ' whose goodness to him he would never
forget.' ' My home,' he said, ' is very gaunt and
lonesome ; but such is my allotment henceforth in
this world. I have taken loyally to my vacant cir
cumstances, and will try to do my best with them.'

Another invitation was awaiting him. Lady Ash-
burton had taken a house at Mentone, and pressed
him to spend the winter months with her there. She
asked Miss Welsh to accompany him, ' to screen
him, and pad everything into softness in the new
scene.' She was so warm, so eager in her offers,
showed so clearly that his consent would be rather
for her pleasure than his own, that he resisted his
natural impulse to refuse on the spot. He let his
decision wait till he had disposed of a matter which
had become immediately pressing.

The affair of Governor Eyre had blown into white
heat. In submission to general clamour Eyre had
been recalled in disgrace. He had applied for other
employment and had been refused. He had several
children, and was irretrievably ruined. It was, Carlyle
said to me, as if a ship had been on fire ; the cap
tain, by immediate and bold exertion, had put the
fire out, and had been called to account for having
flung a bucket or two of water into the hold beyond
what was necessary. He had damaged some of the
cargo, perhaps, but he had saved the ship. The
action of the Government, in Carlyle's opinion, was
base and ungenerous, and when the recall was not

THE EYRE COMMITTEE. 329

sufficient, but Eyre was threatened with prosecution,
beaten as he himself was to the ground, he took
weapon in hand again, and stood forward, with such
feeble support as he could find for an unpopular
cause, in defence of a grossly injured man.

To Miss Davenport Bromley.

Chelsea : August 30, 1866.

Yesterday, in spite of the rain, I got up to the Eyre
Committee, and even let myself be voted into the chair,
such being the post of danger on the occasion, and truly
something of a forlorn hope, and place for enfans perdus.
We seemed, so far as I can measure, to be a most feeble
committee ; a military captain, a naval ditto, a young city
merchant, Henry Kingsley, Charles still hanging back afraid,
old S. C. Hall of the Art Union, a well-meaning man ; only
these, with a secretary who had bright swift eyes, but
showed little knowledge of his element. ... In short, con
trary to all hope, I had to set my own shoulders to the
wheel, and if it made any progress at all, which I hope it
did, especially in that of trying for an infinitely better com
mittee, the probable chief cause was that my old coat is not
afraid of a little mud on the sleeve of it, as superfiner ones
might be. Poor Eyre ! I am heartily sorry for him, and for
the English nation, which makes such a dismal fool of itself.
Eyre, it seems, has fallen suddenly from 6,000£. a year into
almost zero, and has a large family and needy kindred de
pendent on him. Such his reward for saving the West
Indies, and hanging one incendiary mulatto, well worth the
gallows, if I can judge.

I was myself one of the cowards. I pleaded that
I did not understand the matter, that I was editor
of ' Fraser,' and should disturb the proprietors ; mere
paltry excuses to escape doing what I knew to be
right. Ruskin was braver far, and spoke out like a

330 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

man. Carlyle sent Miss Bromley a copy of what he

had said.

*~
The Eyre Committee, he wrote on September 15, is

going on better, indeed is now getting fairly on its feet.
Kuskin's speech — now don't fruwn upon it, but read it again
till you understand it — is a right gallant thrust I can assure
you. While all the world stands tremulous, shilly-shallying
from the gutter, impetuous Euskin plunges his rapier up to
the very hilt in the abominable belly of the vast block
head ism, and leaves it staring very considerably.

The monster, alas ! was an enchanted monster,
and ' as the air invulnerable.' Its hour had not
come, and has not yet, in spite of Buskin's rapier.
Carlyle gave his money and his name, but lie was in
no condition for rough struggling with the ' blatant
beast.' He soon saw that he could make no impres
sion upon the Government, and that Eyre was in no
personal danger from the prosecution. He wrote a
few words to one of the newspapers, expressing briefly
his own feeling about the matter, and so left it.

Journal.

September 26, 1866. — Eyre Defence Committee — small
letter of mine — has been raging through all the newspapers
of the empire, I am told ; for I have carefully avoided
everything pro or contra that the foolish populace of scrib
blers in any form put forth upon it or me. Indifferent in
very deed. What is or can be the value to any rational
man of what these empty insincere fools say or think on the
subject of Eyre's Jamaica measures, or of me that approve
them. Weather very wet. Wettest harvest I have seen
since 1816. Country very base and mad, so far as I survey
its proceedings. Bright, Beales, Gladstone, Mill, and Co.,
bring on the suffrage question, kindling up the slow canaille

MEMORIES. 331

what they can. This, and ' Oh, make the niggers happy ! '
seem to be the two things needful with these sad people.
Sometimes I think the tug of revolution struggle may be
even near for poor England, much nearer than I once judged
— very questionable to me whether England won't go quite
to smash under it (perhaps better that it do, having reached
such a pitch of spiritual beggary], and whether there is much
good likelihood that England can ever get out of such Medea's
Caldron again, " made new,'' and not rather be boiled to
slushy rags and ended ? My pleasure or hope in looking
at the things round me, or talking of them to almost any
person, is not great.

The world was going its way, and not Carlyle's.
He was finding a more congenial occupation for him
self, in reviving the history of his own young days,
of the life at Ecclefeclian and Mainhill, with the old
scenes and the old companions. He had begun 'lan
guidly,' as lie said, to write the ' Eeminiscences of
Edward Irving,' which were more about himself than
his friend ; and to recall and write down fragments
of his mother's talk.1

1 One of these fragments, as it had special reference to himself,
besides being curious in itself, I preserve in a note.

Journal.

' September 26. — Ghyouw — a name my mother had for any big ill-
siuiped awkward object — would sometimes call me, not in ill-humour,
half in good, "Thou Ghyouw." Some months ago I found, with great
interest, that in old Icelandic the same word — sound the same, spelling
slightly different— was, and perhaps is, their term for the huge volcanic
crack or chasm that borders their old Parliament-place or Thing valla,
still well known. My mother, bred not in a country of chasms, never
used it except for solid bodies; but with her, too, it completely meant a
tiling shapeless, rude, aukwardly huge ; the huger the fitter for its name.
I nevr lir;i:-d the word from any other mouth. Probably 'now there is
no other Scotchman alive that knows the existence of it in his mother
tongue— proof positive, nevertheless, and indisputable, that the Lowland
Scots spoke an Icelandic or ok! Norse language a thousand or thousands

332 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

While thus employed, he did not encourage
visitors.

Strange [he said] how little good any, even the best of
them can do me. Best, sad best, is that I be left to myself
and my sorrows. My state is then much more supportable
and dignified. My thoughts, all sad as death, but also
calm and high, and silent as Eternity, presided over by her,
and my grief for her, in which there is something of devout
and inexpressibly tender — really my most appropriate mood
in the condition I am got to. Remedy must be had against
such intrusions of the impertinent and kind ; but how ?

A note in the ' Journal ' says that ray visits and
Raskin's were not regarded as impertinent. He
allowed me to see as much of him as I liked. He
did not tell me what he was doing, but talked much
on the subject of it. He often said — the wish no
doubt suggesting the expectation — that he thought
his own end was near. He was endeavouring to
preserve the most precious parts of his recollections,
before they and he should pass away together. The
Irving memories were dear to him, but there was
something else that was still dearer. Putting these
aside for the time, he set himself to write a memoir
of the beautiful existence which had gone at the side

-

of years ago. My mother's natal place was the Water of Ae (little
farm of Whitestanes, or Hazelly Bray afterwards), pleasant pastoral green
hill region at the N.VV. nook of Aunandale, just before Annandale,
reaching the summit of the watershed, closes, and the ground drops
rapidly down to Closelinn, Kil Osbern, and is Nithsdale, which you can
still see, then and long- afterwards, was a part of Galloway, most of the
names in it still Celtic: and the accent of the wild Scots of Galloway
rapidly, almost instantly, exchanging itself for that of the Teutonic
Annandalers. Perhaps this of Giaon or Ghyouw is written down some
where else (nowhere that I know of. — J. A. F.). I did not wish it for
gotten, being now sole depositary of it — pretty little fact — clear and
dear to me.— T. CY

MENTONE. 333

of his own, a record of what his wife had been to
him, and a testimony of his own appreciation. At
their first acquaintance, it was she who was to make
a name in literature, and he was to have supported
and stood by her. It was a consolation to him to
describe the nature and the capabilities which had
been sacrificed to himself, that the portrait of her
mio'ht still survive. He was not writing it for the

G <~>

world. He finished it just before he went abroad,
when he was expecting that in all probability he
would never see England again. He left it sealed
up, with directions to those into whose hands it
mio-ht fall, that it was not to be published, no one
being capable of properly editing it after he should
be gone.

He had decided that he would try Mentone.
Lady Ashburton had entreated. His friends believed
that change would be good for him. He himself,
languid, indifferent, but having nothing of special
consequence to retain him in England, had agreed
to go. Miss Welsh could not accompany him. He
was not equal to the journey alone. The same friend
who had taken charge of him to Edinburgh under
took to place him safely under Lady Ashburton's
roof, an act of respectful attention which Carlyle
never forgot, ' So chivalrous it was.' For Tyndall
was not an idle gentleman, with time on his hands.
He had his own hard work to attend to in London,
and would be obliged to return on the instant. But
he was accustomed to travelling. He was as good a
courier as Neuberg, and to sacrifice a few days to
Carlyle was an honour and a pleasure.

They started on the 22nd of December, and in

334 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

two days were transported from the London fogs to
the sunny shores of the Mediterranean.

Journal.

Mentone, January 20, 1867. — Am actually here; came
the day before Christmas, Professor Tyndall triumphantly
bringing me. The heroic Tyndall would hear no whisper
of my paying his expenses, though hither and thither they
must have exceeded 20?., and he came purely on my account.
Christmas Day, a strange contrast to English experience,
being hot and bright, the gracious lady took us all on asses
by the rugged cliffs and sierras to a village and peak called
St. Agnes, strangest village in the world, with a strange old
castle, perched on the very point of the cliff, where we
lunched in sight of the population. In the evening we
dined with Lady Marion Alford, not known to me before,
but elegant, gifted, and blandly high in her way, who, with
her two sons, Lord Brownlow and Mr. Gust, are the only
interesting people I have met here. Tyndall set off home
ward the second day after.

Thus was Carlyle left in a new environment ;
nothing save the face of his hostess not utterly
strange to him, among olive groves and palms and
oranges, the mountains rising behind into the eternal
snow, and the sea before his windows — Homer's
violet sea at last under his eyes. Here he got his
papers about him. Lady Ashburton left him to
himself. He went on with his Eeminiscences, and in
the intervals wandered as he pleased. Everyone
feels well on first reaching the Riviera. Carlyle slept
sound1 y, discovered ' real improvement ' in himself,
and was almost sorry to discover it.

My poor life [the ' Journal ' continues] seems as good as
over. I have no heart or strength of hope or of interest
for further work. Since my sad loss I feel lonesome in the

MENTONE.

earth (Oh, how lonesome !) and solitary among my fellow-
creatures. The loss of her comes daily home to me as the
irreparable, as the loss of all ; and the heart as before knows
*its own sorrow, if no other ought to do so. What can any
other help, even if he wished it? ... I have finished
Edward Irving's Reminiscences, and yesterday a short paper
of Jeffrey's ditto. It was her connection with them that
chiefly impelled me. Both are superficially, ill, and poorly
done, especially the latter. But there is something of value
for oneself in re-awakening the sleep of the past, and bring
ing old years carefully to survey by one's new eyes. A certain
solemn tenderness too, in these two cases, dwells in it for
me ; and, in fine, doing anything not wicked is better than
doing nothing.

Distinguished visitors called in passing on their
way to or from Italy ; among others, Mr. Glad
stone, 'on return from Rome and the Man of Sin,'
' intending for Paris, and an interview with M. Fould.'

Journal.

January 23. — Gladstone, en route homewards, called on
Monday, and sate a long time talking, principally waiting
for Madame Bunsen, his old friend, whom it was his one
chance of seeing, as he had to leave for Paris the next day.
Talk copious, ingenious, but of no worth or sincerity-
pictures, literature, finance, prosperities, greatness of out
look for Italy, &c. — a man ponderous, copious, of evident
faculty, but all gone irrecoverably into House of Commons
shape — man once of some wisdom or possibility of it, but
now possessed by the Prince, or many Princes, of the Power
of the Air. Tragic to me rather, and far from enviable;
from whom one felt oneself divided by abysmal chasms and
immeasurabilities. He went next morning ; but it seems,
by the journals, will find his M. Fould, &c., suddenly
thrown out by some jerk of their inscrutable Copper Captain,
and unable to do the honours of Paris in the way they
wished.

336 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

His chief pleasure at Mentone was in long walks
about the neighbourhood. He was the best of lite
rary landscape painters, and his journal, with his
letters to myself and others, are full of exquisite little
sketches, like the pictures of the old masters, where
you have not merely a natural scene before you, but
the soul of the man who looks upon it.

Journal.

Mentone, January 21. — I went out yesterday, walked
two or three miles up the silent valley ; trifling wet of mist,
which hung in shifting scarfs and caps all about among the
peaks of the ravine ; beautiful green of orange woods and
olive woods ; here and there a silent olive mill, far down
in some nook at the bottom, nothing but its idle mill-race
and the voice of the torrent audible ; here and there a
melancholy ill-kept little chapel, locked, I suppose, but its
two windows open with iron stanchions, inviting the faithful
to take view of the bits of idols inside, and try if prayer
was possible. Oh ye bewildered and bewildering sons of
men ! There was a twitch of strange pity and misery that
shot through me at the thought of man's lot on earth, and
the comparison of our dumb Eternities and Immensities
with this poor joss-house and bambino. I might have had
reflection enough, for there reigned everywhere the most
perfect Sabbath stillness ; and Nature and her facts lay
round me, silently going their long road. But my heart
was heavy, my bodily case all warped awry ; and except
my general canopy of sadness and regret, very vain except
for the love that is in it, regret for the inevitable and in
exorable, there was nothing of thought present to me.

To Miss Davenport Bromley.

Mentone : January 23.

You heard of my safe arrival in these parts, that the
promises they made me seemed to be good. I am lucky to

MEN TONE. 337

add that the promise has been kept so far that, outwardly
and that in respect of sleep, &c., I feel as if rather better
than in Chelsea ; certainly not worse. Sometimes for mo
ments it almost seems as if I might perhaps recognise
some actual vestige of better health in these favoured lati
tudes, and be again a little more alive than of late. But
that is only for moments. In what is called ' spirits ' I don't
seem to improve much, or, if improvement means increase
of buoyancy or levity, to improve at all. How should I ?
In these wild silent ravines one's thoughts gravitate to
wards death and eternity with more proclivity than ever, and
in the absence of serious human discourse, go back to the
vanished past as the one profitable or dignified company.
There has been no glimpses of what one would call bad
weather ; for the most pan, brilliant sunshine, mixed with a
tingling briskness of air.

In beauty of situation, of aspect and prospect by sea
and land, nothing can exceed us in the world. Mentone,
old town and new, latter perhaps a hundred years old,
former several thousands, is built principally as a single
street by the sea-shore, along the diameter of two beautiful
semicircular little hollows, or half-amphitheatres, formed
by the mountains which are the airiest wings of rocky
peaks and cliffs, all terraced and olive-clad, with some
times an old castle and village. Castle visible like a bird
cage from the shore here, six miles off. I never saw so
strangely beautiful a ring of peaks, especially this western
one, which is still new to me every morning on stepping
out. Western ring and eastern form in the middle, es
pecially form at each end, their bits of capes and promon
tories and projections into the sea, so that we sit in the
hollow of an alcove, and no wind from the north can reach
us at all; maritime Alps intercepting all frost and snow.
Mentone proper, as diameter or street along the sea, is per
haps three-quarters of a mile long; a fair street of solid
high houses, but part of it paved all through with big
smooth whinstones, on which at evening all the population
seem to gather ; many asses, &c., passing home with their
iv. z

338 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

burdens from the mountains, and many women, young and
old with them, and thriftier, quieter, more cheerfully serious
and innocent-looking set of poor people you never saw.

Old Mentone, thousands of years old (for there are caves
of the troglodytes still extant near by), sprawls up like a
huge herring-bone of lanes, steep against the cliff — by way
of defence against the Saracens, it is thought ; at some
distance from the sea, and only hangs by New Mentone as a
shoulder or fin would. Most of the poor people live there.
There also in her fine church, the Deipara misericordiarum
Mater , so called. And finally the ruins of an old castle, now
mostly made into a churchyard.

English travellers went and came, all eager to
have a talk with Carlyle. Lady Marian Alford and
her family were a real acquisition to him ; shaded
over, however, unfortunately, by the death of Lord
Brownlow, which occurred while he was at Mentone.
Carlyle often spoke to me of this young nobleman,
and of the fine promise which he had observed in
him. His own spirits varied ; declining slightly as
the novelty of the scene wore off. To Miss Jewsbury
lie gave a tolerable account of himself.

-•

I seem to be doing rather well here [he wrote], seem to
have escaped a most hideous winter for one thing, if other
griefs were but as easy to leave behind. The weather, ever
since I awoke at Marseilles, has been superb ; not only bright,
sunny, and not wintry, but to my feeling more agreeable
than any summer, so elastic, dry, and brisk is the air, an
atmosphere in which you can take exercise, so pure and
beautiful are all the elements. Sun, moon, sky and stars
have not yet ceased to surprise me by their incredible bril
liancy, about ten times as numerous, these stars, as yours.
1 he sceneries all around, too, these wild and terrible Alpine
peaks, all gathered to rear of us like a Sanhedrim of witches
of Endor, and looking blasted, naked rock to the waibt,

MEN TONE. 339

then all in greenish and ample petticoats of terraced olive
woods, orange groves, lemon groves ; very strange to me.

Shadows of the great sorrow, however, clung to
him. Even the beauty was weird and ominous, and
his Journal gives the picture of what was passing in
him.

Journal.

Mentone, February 13, 1867. — My thoughts brood
gloomily, sometimes with unspeakable tenderness, too, over
the past, and what it gave me and took from me. I am
best off when I get into the brown olive woods, and wander
along by the rugged paths, thinking of the one, or of the
many who are now there, safe from all sorrow, and as if
beckoning to me : ' Hither friend, hither ! thou art still
dear to us if we have still an existence. We bid thee hope.'
The company of nearly all my fellow-creatures here, and
indeed elsewhere, is apt to be rather a burden and desecra
tion to me. Their miserable jargoning about Ephemera
and insignificances, their Reform Bills, American Nigger
questions, unexampled prosperities, admired great men, &c.,
are unspeakably wearisome to me, and if I am bound to
make any remark in answer, I feel that I was too impatient
and partly unreasonable, and that the remark had better
not have been made. All of this that is possible I sedu
lously avoid, but too much of it comes in spite of me,
though fairly less here than in Chelsea. Let me be just
and thankful. Surely the kindness everybody shows me
deserves gratitude, too. Especially the perfect hospitality
and honestly-affectionate good treatment I experience in
this house, and from the wildly-generous mistress of it, is
worthy of the heroic ages. That I do not quite forget, let
us hope, nor shall. Oh, there have been noble exceptions
among the vulgar dim-eyed greedy millions of this age ;
and I may say I have been well loved by my contemporaries
— taken as a body corporate — thank God ! And these ex
ceptions I do perceive and admit to have Iv.'ii tin- very

2 2

340 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

flower of their generation, to be silently proud of and loyal
to while I live.

March 8, 1867. — Health very bad, cough, et cetera, but
principally indigestion — can have no real improvement till
I see Chelsea again. Courage! get through the journey
taliter qualiter, and don't travel any more. I am very sad
and weak, but not discontented or indignant as sometimes.
I live mostly alone with vanished shadows of the Past.
Many of them rise for a moment inexpressibly tender. One
is never long absent from me. Gone, gone, but very beau
tiful and dear. Eternity, which cannot be far off, is my
one strong city. I look into it fixedly now and then.
All terrors about it seem to me superfluous ; all knowledge
about it, any the least glimmer of certain knowledge, im
possible to living mortal. The universe is full of love, but
also of inexorable sternness and severity, and it remains for
ever true that God reigns. Patience ! Silence ! Hope !

RETURN TO ENGLAND. 341

CHAPTER XXX.

A.D. 1867. ^ET. 72.

Return to England — Intruders in Cheyne Bow — Want of employment
— Settlement of the Craigenputtock estate — Charities — Public affairs
— Tory Reform Bill — ' Shooting Niagara ' — A new horse — Visits in
country houses — Meditations in Journal — A beautiful recollection.

THE party at Mentone broke up in the second week
in March. Lady Ashburton went to Eome and
Naples, having tried in vain to induce Carlyle to
accompany her. He prepared for home again, and,
shrinking from the solitude waiting him in Cheyne
Row, he wrote, before leaving, to ask his brother to
meet him there, with some consciousness that he had
not received, as graciously as he might have done,
his brother's attempts to live with him.

I am often truly grieved [he said] to think how un
reasonable and unmanageable I was with you last time.
Surely your sympathy was all I could have expected ; and
your readiness to help me was and continues far beyond
what I could have expected. But perhaps with a definite
period, ' one calendar month,' and each doing his wisest, we
shall be able to do much better. I intend to make an
effort at regulating my Chelsea affairs a little ; especially
sweeping my premises clean of the intolerable intrusions
that torment me there. I fancy, too, I should not try again
the gaunt, entirely solitary life I led latterly ; but am not

342 CARLYLE' 8 LIFE IN LONDON.

certain as to getting back Maggie Welsh, or whom I should
get. On these points I do not know that you could give me
much advice. I only feel that it would be a kind of light
amid the glooin of my arrival if, on stepping out, I found
your face instead of a dead blank.

Tyndall's escort was not needed a second time.
He found his way back to Chelsea without misad
venture. John Carlyle was waiting as he desired,
and he settled in with more composure than he
had felt since his bereavement. The ' intrusions '
had to be dealt with, but were not easily disposed of.
Mrs. Carlyle once said she had the faculty of attract
ing all miserable people that wanted consolation.
Carlyle seemed to attract everyone who wanted help
for body or soul, or advice on the conduct of life.
The number of people who worried him. on such
matters, most of them without a form of introduc
tion, is hardly to be believed. Each post brought
its pile of letters. One admirer wanted a situation
under Government, another sent a manuscript to be
read and recommended to a publisher, another com
plained that Nature had given him a hideous face ;
he had cursed his life, and cursed his mother for
bearing him; what was he to do? All asked for
interviews. Let them but see him, and they would
convince him of their deserts. He was marvellously
patient. He answered most of the letters, he saw
most of the applicants. He gave advice. He gave
money, infinitely too much. Sometimes, when it
was beyond endurance, he would order the servant
to admit no strange face at all. In such cases men
would watch in the street, and pounce upon him
when he came out for his walk. I have been with

INTRUDERS IN CHEYNE ROW. 343

him on such occasions, and have been astonished at
the efforts which he would make to be kind. Once
I recollect a girl, an entire stranger, wrote to him to
say that in order to get books she had pawned some
plate of her grandmother's. She was in danger of dis
covery and ruin. Would Carlyle help her to redeem
it ? He consulted me. A relation of mine, who lived
in the neighbourhood, made inquiry, saw the girl,
and found that the story was true. He replied to
her letter as the kindest of fathers might have done,
paid the money, and saved her from shame. Some
times the homage was more disinterested. I had
just left his door one day, when a bright eager lass
of seventeen or eighteen stopped me in the Eow, and
asked me if Thomas Carlyle lived there. I showed
her the house, and her large ejes glowed as if she
was looking upon a saint's shrine. This pleased him
when I mentioned it. The feeling was good and
honest and deserved recognition. But altogether he
was terribly worried. Intruders worried him. Public
affairs worried him. Disraeli was bringing in his
scandalous Keform Bill ' to dish the Whigs.' Worse
than all, there was no work cut out for him, and he
could make none for himself.

Journal.

Chelsea, April 4, 1867.— Idle ! Idle ! My employments
mere trifles of business, and that of dwelling on the days
that culminated on the 21st of last year. How sudden was
that bereavement to me! how pathetic, touchingly and
grandly fateful ; in extent of importance to me how infinite !
Perhaps my health is slightly mending; don't certainly
know, but my spirits don't mend apparently at all. Inter, .-t ,
properly, I have in no living person, in no present, thing.

344 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Their 'Reform Bill,' their &c., &c. Ach Gott ! I am dis
gusted if by chance I look into my newspaper, or catch
a tone of the insane jargon which seerns to be occupying
everybody.

April 20. — What a day to look back upon ! . . . To
morrow by the day of the month, this day by the day of
the week, about 3 p.m. How shall I ever learn to deal
with that immense fact ? I am incompetent hitherto. It
overwhelms me still. I feel oftenest crushed down into
contemptibility as well as sorrow. All of sunshine that
remained in my life went out in that sudden moment. All
of strength too often seems to have gone. Except some
soft breathings of affection, of childlike grief, and once —
only once that I remember, of pious, childlike hope in the
eternity before us — my last fortnight has been the saddest,
dreariest, sordidly idle, without dignity, satisfaction, or
worth. I have tried too, twice over, for something of work,
but all in vain. Will it be for ever in vain then ? Better
be silent than continue thus. . . . Were it permitted, I could
pray — but to whom ? I can well understand the Invocation
of Saints. One's prayer now has to be voiceless, done with
the heart still, but also with the hands still more.

April 21. — Abundantly downcast, dreary, sorrowful ; no
thing in me but sad thoughts and recollections ; ennobled
in part by a tenderness, a love, a pity, steeped as if in
tears. Eegrets also rise in me ; bits of remorse which are very
pungent. How death the inexorable, unalterable, stern
separator, alters everything ! . . . But words are of no value,
and, alas ! of acts I have none, or as good as none. The
question, Why am I left behind thee ? as yet nearly altogether
unanswered. Can I ever answer it ? God help me to answer
it. That is earnestly my prayer, and I will try and again
try. Be that the annual sacrifice or act of Temple worship,
on this the holiest of rny now days of the year.

April 24. — Idle, sick, companionless ; my heart is very
heavy, as if full and no outlet appointed. Trial for employ
ment continues, and shall continue ; but as yet in vain.
Writing is the one thing I can do ; and at present what to

SETTLEMENT OF CRAIGENPUTTOCK. 345

write of to such a set of ' readers ' full of Eeform Bills, Paris
Exhibition, Question of Luxemburg, &c. ? Sometimes poor old
moorland Craigenputtock shines out on me ; and our poor
life there has traits of beauty in it, almost like a romance.
I wish I could rise with something into the limitless Ideal,
and disburden myself in rounded harmony and what poets
call song — a fond wish indeed ! But this crabbed Earth with
its thunder rods and dog grottoes, is become homeless to
me, and too mean and contradictory.
May 26.—

To die is landing on some silent shore,
Where billows never break nor tempests roar ;
Ere well you feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.

Such a life as I now lead is painful and even disgraceful ; the
life of a vanquished slave, who at best, and that not always,
is silent under his penalties and sores.

In this tragic state Carlyle found one little thing
to do which gave him a certain consolation. By his
wife's death he had become the absolute owner of
the old estate of the Welshes at Craigenputtock. An
unrelenting fatality had carried off one by one all her
relations on the father's side, and there was not a
single person left of the old line to whom it could be
bequeathed. He thought that it ought not to lapse
to his own family ; and he determined to leave it to
his country, not in his own name, but as far as possible
in hers. With this intention he had a deed drawn,
by which Craigenputtock, after his death, was to
become the property of the University of Edinburgh,
the rents of it to be laid out in supporting poor and
meritorious students there, under the title of ' the
John Welsh Bursaries.' Her name he could not give,
because she had taken his own. Therefore he gave
her father's.

346 CARL YLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Journal.

June 22, 1867.— Finished off on Thursday last, at three
p.m., 20th of June, my poor bequest of Craigenputtock to
Edinburgh University for bursaries. All quite ready there,
Forster and Froude as witnesses ; the good Professor Masson,
who had taken endless pains, alike friendly and wise, being
at the very last objected to in the character of * witness,' as
* a party interested,' said the Edinburgh lawyer. I a little
regretted this circumstance ; so I think did Masson secretly.
He read us the deed with sonorous emphasis, bringing every
word and note of it home to us. Then I signed; then they
two — Masson witnessing only with his eyes and mind. I was
deeply moved, as I well might be but held my peace and
shed no tears. Tears I think I have done with; never, ex
cept for moments together, have I wept for that catastrophe of
April 21, to which whole days of weeping would have been in
other times a blessed relief. . . . This is my poor ' Sweetheart
Abbey,' ' Cor Dulce,' or New Abbey, a sacred casket and tomb
for the sweetest ' heart ' which, in this bad, bitter world, was
all my own. Darling, darling ! and in a little while we shall
both be at rest, and the Great God will have done with us
what was His will.

This is very beautiful, and so is an entry which
follows : —

July 14. — Her birthday. She not here — I cannot keep
it for her now — send a poor gift to poor old Betty, who, next
to myself, remembers her in lifelong love and sacred sorrow.
That is all I can do. To a poor old beggar here of no value
otherwise, or even of less, to whom she used to give a shilling
if they met, I have smuggled a small anonymous dole —
most poor, most ineffectual, sorrowful, are all our resources
against the gate that is for ever shut.

This is another instance of Carlyle's charities.
He remembered his wife's pensioners : but he had as
long or a longer list of his own. No donation of his
ever appeared in printed lists ; what lie gave he gave

CHARITIES. 347

in secret, anonymously as here, or else with his own
hand as one human being to another ; and of him it
may be truly said that the left hand did not know
what the right was doing. The undeserving were
seldom wholly refused. The deserving were never
forgotten. I recollect an old man, past eighty, in
Chelsea, who had refused parish help, and as long as
he could move earned his living by wheeling cheap
crockery about the streets. Carlyle had a genuine
respect for him, and never missed a chance of showing
it. Money was plentiful enough now, as he would
mournfully observe. Edition followed edition of
the completed works. He had more thousands now
than he had hundreds when he published ' Cromwell '
— but he never altered his thrifty habits, never, even
in extreme age, allowed himself any fresh indulgence.
His one expensive luxury was charity.

The sad note continues to sound through the
Journal. The shadow of his lost wife seemed to rise
between him and every other object on which he tried
to fix his thoughts. If anything like duty called to
him, however, he could still respond — and the political
state of England did at this time demand a few
words from him. Throughout his life he had been
studying the social and political problems of modern
Europe. For all disorders modern Europe had but one
remedy, to abolish the subordination of man to man,
to set every individual free, and give him a voice in
the government, that he might look after his own
interests. This once secured, with free room and no
favour, all would compete on equal terms, and might
be expected to fall into the places which naturally
belonged to them. NOIU- at any rate could then

343 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

complain of injustice ; and peace, prosperity, and
universal content would follow. Such was and is the
theory ; and if the human race, or the English race,
were all wise and all good, and had unbounded ter
ritorial room over which to spread, something might
be said for it. As the European world actually is,
the actual moral and material condition of European
mankind being what it is, with no spiritual convic
tions, no sincere care for anything save money and
what money can buy, this notion of universal liberty in
Carlyle's opinion could end in nothing save universal
wreck. If the English nation had needed governing
when they had a real religious belief, now, when their
belief had become conventional, they needed it, he
thought, infinitely more. They could bear the degree
of freedom which they had already, only in virtue
of ancient habits, contracted under wiser arrange
ments. They would need the very best men they had
among them if they were to escape the cataracts of
which he heard the approaching thunder. Yet it was
quite certain to him that, with each extension of the
franchise, those whom they would elect as their rulers
would not be fitter men, but steadily inferior and
more unfit. Under any conceivable franchise the
persons chosen would represent the level of character
and intelligence in those who chose them, neither
more nor less, and therefore the lower the general
average the worse the government would be. It had
long been evident to him how things were going :

o O o C '

but every descent has a bottom, and he had hoped
up to this time that the lowest point had been reached.
He knew how many fine qualities the English still
possessed. He did not believe that the majority were

PUBLIC AFFAIRS. 349

bent of themselves on these destructive courses. If
the wisest and ablest would come forward with a clear
and honourable profession of their true convictions,
he had considered it at least possible that the best part
of the nation would respond before it was too late.
The Tories had just come into office. He had small
confidence in them, but they at least repudiated the
new creed, and represented the old national traditions.
They had an opportunity, if they would use it, of
insisting that the poor should no longer be robbed by
false weights and measures and adulterated goods,
that the eternal war should cease between employers
and employed, and the profits of labour should be
apportioned by some rule of equity ; that the splendid
colonial inheritance which their forefathers had won
should be opened to the millions who were suffocating
in the foetid alleys of our towns ; that these poor
people should be enabled to go where they could lead
human lives again. Here, and not by ballot-boxes
and anarchic liberty, lay the road to salvation. States
men who dared to try it would have Nature and her
laws fighting for them. They might be thrown out,
but they would come back again — come in stronger
and stronger, for the good sense of England would be
on their side.

With a languid contempt, for he half-felt that he
had been indulging in a dream, Carlyle in this year
found the Tories preparing to outbid their rivals,
in their own arts or their own folly, courting the
votes of the mob by the longest plunge yet ventured
into the democratic whirlpool; and in the midst of
his own grief he was sorry for his country.

There is no spirit in me to write [he notes in his

350 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Journal], though I try it sometimes ; no topic and no au
dience that is in the least dear or great to me. Eeform Bill
going its fated road, i.e. England getting into the Niagara
rapids far sooner than I expected ; even this no longer
much irritates me, much affects me. I say rather, Well !
why not ? Is not national death, with new birth or
without, perhaps preferable to such utter rottenness of
national life, so called, as there has long hopelessly been.
Let it come when it likes, since there are Dizzies, Glad
stones, Russells, &c., triumphantly prepared to bring it in.
Providence truly is skilful to prepare its instrumental men.
Indeed, all England, heavily though languidly averse to this
embarking on the Niagara rapids, is strangely indifferent to
whatever may follow it. ' Niagara, or what you like, we will
at least have a villa on the Mediterranean (such an improve
ment of climate to this), when Church and State have gone,'
said a certain shining countess to me, yesterday. News
paper editors, in private, I am told, and discerning people
of every rank, as is partly apparent to myself, talk of ap
proaching ' revolution,' ' Common wealth,' ' Common illthj
or whatever it may be, with a singular composure.

Disraeli had given the word, and his party had
submitted to be educated. Political emancipation
was to be the road for them — not practical administra
tion and war against lies and roguery. Carlyle saw that
we were in the rapids, and could not any more get
out of them ; but he wished to relieve his own soul,
and he put together the pamphlet which he called
' Shooting Niagara, and After ? ' When Frederick
Maurice published his heresies about Tartarus, inti
mating that it was not a place, but a condition, and
that the wicked are in Tartarus already, James Sped-
dinf observed to me that ' one was relieved to know
that it was no worse.' Carlyle's Niagara, now that we
are in the middle of it, seems to us for the present
nothing very dreadful, and we are preparing with much

^SHOOTING NIAGARA: 35i

equanimity, at this moment, to go down the second
cataract. The broken water, so far, lies on the other
side of St. George's Channel. The first and immediate
effect of the Eeform Bill of 1867 was the overthrow
of Protestant ascendency in Ireland. After five cen
turies of failure in that country, the English Pro
testants succeeded in planting an adequate number
of loyal colonists in the midst of an incurably hostile
population, and thus did contrive to exercise some
peaceful influence there, and make constitutional go
vernment in that island not wholly impossible. The
English Democracy, as soon as they were in possession
of power, set at work to destroy that influence. The
result we have partly seen, and we shall see more fully
hereafter. Carlyle, however, did not anticipate, as the
consequence of the Niagara shooting, any immediate
catastrophe ; not even this in Ireland. He meant by
it merely the complete development of the present
tendency to regard money-making as the business of
life, and the more rapid degradation of the popular
moral character — at the end of which perhaps, but
still a long way off, would be found some ' scandalous
Copper Captaincy.' The believers in progress on
these lines, therefore, may breathe freely, and, like
Spedding, be ' glad that it is no worse.' The curious
feature in the pamphlet is that Carlyle visibly under
rated the disturbance to be looked for in our actual
arrangements. He thought that, after the complete
triumph of democracy, the aristocracy would be
left in possession of their estates, and be still able to
do as they pleased with them; to hunt and shoot
their grouse ; or, if the moors and coverts failed
them, at least to subside into rat-catching. In his

352 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Journal, September 17, 1867, there is a quotation
from the ' Memoirs of St. Palaye ' : — ' Louis XI aima
la chasse jusqu'a sa mort, qui arriva en 1483.
Durant sa maladie a Plessis-les-Tours, comme il ne
pouvait plus prendre ce divertisement, on attrapait
les plus gros rats qu'on pouvait, et on les faisait
chasser par les chats dans ses appartements, pour
1'amuser.' ' Had a transient thought,' he says, ' of
putting that as emblematic Finis to the hunting epoch
of our vulgar noble lords.' He even considered that,
if the stuff was in them, they might find a more
honourable occupation. Supposing them to retain the
necessary power over their properties, they might form
their own domains into circles of order and cosmos,
banishing the refractory, and thus, by drill and disci
pline and wise administration, introduce new elements
into the general chaos. 'A devout imagination'
on Carlyle's part ; but an imagination merely. If it
were conceivable, as it is not, that the aristocracy
would prefer such an occupation to rat-catching,
their success would depend on that very power of
' banishing the refractory,' of which it is certain that
they would be deprived if they showed a disposition
to create, in using it, an influence antagonistic to a
ruling democracy. The Irish experiment does not
indicate that the rights of landowners would be
treated with much forbearance when the exercise of
those rights was threatening a danger to ' liberty.'

' Shooting Niagara' appeared first in 'Macmillan's
Magazine' for August 1867. It was corrected and
republished as a pamphlet in September, and was
Carlyle's last public utterance on English politics.
He thought but little of it, and was aware how use-

DAILY WORRIES.

353

less it would prove. In his Journal, August 3, he
says : —

An article for Masson and ' Macmillan's Magazine ' took
up a good deal of time. It came out mostly from accident,
little by volition, and is very fierce, exaggerative, ragged,
unkempt, and defective. Nevertheless I am secretly rather
glad than otherwise that it is out, that the howling doggeries
(dead ditto and other) should have my last word on their
affairs and them, since it was to be had.

A stereotyped edition of the ' Collected Works '
was now to be issued, and, conscientious as ever,
Carlyle set himself to revise and correct the whole
series. He took to riding again. Miss Bromley pro
vided him with a horse called Comet, between whom
and himself there was soon established a personal
attachment, and on Comet's back, as before, he saun
tered about the London environs. He described
himself to Miss Bromley as very solitary, the most
silent man not locked into the solitary system, to be
found in all her Majesty's dominions. 'Incipient
authors, beggars, blockheads, and canaille of various
kinds,' continued their daily worries. ' Every day
there was a certain loss of time in brushing off such
provoking botherations ; ' on the whole, however, the
trouble was not much.

I find that solitude [he said] and one's own sad and
serious thoughts (though sometimes in bad days it is all too
gloomy) is almost as good as anything I get. The most
social of mankind I could define myself, but grown old, sor
rowful, and terribly difficult to please in regard to his society.
I rode out on Comet to Addiscombe, stayed two hours for
dinner, and rode home again by moonlight and lamplight.
There are now three railways on that poor road since I was
last there, and apparently 3,000 new diggings, lumber heaps
JV. A A

354 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

and new villas rising, dirty shops risen, and coster-mongers'
carts, &c. — a road, once the prettiest I knew for riding,
and now more like Tophet and the City of Dis than any
I have tried lately. Tophet now reaches strictly to the
boundary lodge of Lady A., and has much spoiled Addis-
combe Farm for a tenant of my humour. * Niagara,' I heard
yesterday, is in its fourth thousand, stirring up many a dull
head one hopes, and ' sweeping off the froth from the Pro
gress Pot,' as one correspondent phrased it.

He worked hard on the ' revising ' business, but
felt no enthusiasm about the interest which 'his
works' were exciting; 'nothing but languor, con
tempt, and indifference for said works — or at least for
their readers and them.' ' The works had indeed
cost him his life, and were in some measure from the
heart, and all he could do. But the readers of them
were and had been — what should he say ? ' and in
fact ' no man's work in this world could demand for
itself the smallest doit of wages, or was intrinsically
better than zero. That was the fact, when one had
arrived where he had arrived.' The money which
was now coming in was actually painful.

Vanished, vanished, they that should have taken plea
sure from it. Ah me ! ah me ! The more I look back on that
thirteen years of work [over ' Frederick'], the more appall
ing, huge, unexampled it appears to me. Sad pieties arise
to think that it did not kill me, that in spite of the world
I got it done, and that my noble uncomplaining Darling
lived to see it done. As to the English world's stupidity
upon it, that is a small matter to me — or none at all for
the last year and a half. That I believe is partly silence
and preoccupancy ; and were it wholly stupidity, didn't I
already know how ' stupid ' the poor English now are. Book
is not quite zero I perceive, but will be good for something
by-and-by. ... My state of health is very miserable, though

WEARINESS OF LIFE. 355

I still sometimes think it fundamentally improving. Such
a total wreck had that ' Frederick ' reduced me to, followed
by what had lain next in store for me. Oh, complain not
of Heaven ! now does my poor sinful heart almost even fall
into that bad stupid sin. Oceans of unspoken thoughts — or
things not yet thought or thinkable — sombre, solemn, cloudy-
moonlit, infinitely sad, but full of tenderness withal, and of
a love that can now be noble, — this, thank (rod, is the
element I dwell in.

Journal.

Chelsea, September 30, 1867. — Nothing to mark here
that is not sad and mean. Trouble with extraneous fools
from all quarters ; penny post a huge inlet to that class who,
by hypothesis, have no respect of persons, but think them
selves entitled to intrude with any or without any cause,
upon the busiest, saddest, sacredest, or most important of
their fellow-mortals. Fire mostly delivers us from the
common run of these. . . . There is nothing of joyful in my
life, nor ever likely to be ; no truly loved or loving soul — or
practically as good as none — left to me in the earth any more.
The one object that is wholly beautiful and noble, and in any
sort helpful to my poor heart, is she whom I do not name.
The thought of her is drowned in sorrow to me, but also in
tenderness, in love inexpressible, and veritably acts as a kind
of high and sacred consolation to me amidst the intrusive base
nesses and empty botherations that otherwise each day brings.
I feel now and then, but repress the impatient wish, 'Let me
rejoin her there in the Land of Silence, whatever it be.'
Truly, if my work is done why should not I plainly wish to
be there ? This is very ungrateful to some of my friends I
still have, some of whom are boundlessly kind to me ; and
indeed all the world, known and unknown, seems abundantly
eager to do for me whatever it can, for which I have a kind
of thankfulness transiently good, and ought to have more.
But, alas ! I cannot be helped — that is the melancholy fact.

Chelsea, October 1. — Inconceivable are the mean miseries
I am in just now, about getting new clothes— almost a

A A

356 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

surgical question with me latterly — about fitting this, con
triving that; about paltry botherations with which I am
unacquainted, which were once all kept aloof from me by a
bright one now hidden from my eyes. ... In fact my skin is
naturally far too thin, for this ' age of progress ' especially.

Chelsea, October 8. — Solitary since Thursday last alto
gether. Maggie went away that day, and no human voice,
not even a light giggling one, sounds in this vacant house of
mine. No matter that in general ; but as yet I am unused
to it. Sad enough I silently am. Infirmities of age crowd
upon me. I am grown and growing very weak, as is natural
at these years. Natural, but not joyful — life without the
power of living — what a misery !

Chelsea, October 30. — Am of a sadness, and occasionally
of a tenderness which surprises even myself in these late
weeks — seems as if the spirit of my loved one were, in a poor
metaphorical sense, always near me ; all other friends gone,
and solitude with her alone left me henceforth. Utterly
weak health I suppose has much to do with it. Strength
quite a stranger to me ; digestion, &c., totally ruined, though
nothing specific to complain of as dangerous or the like —
and probably am too old ever to recover. Life is verily a
weariness on these terms. Oftenest I feel willing to go, were
my time come. Sweet to rejoin, were it only in Eternal
Sleep, those that are away. That, even that, is now and then
the whisper of my worn-out heart, and a kind of solace to
me. ' But why annihilation or eternal sleep ? ' I ask too.
They and I are alike in the will of the Highest. Amen.

'Niagara,' seventh thousand printed, Forster told me —
well well ! Though what good is in it either ?

Chelsea, November 15. — Went to Belton ! Saturday, gone
a week. Returned Saturday last, and have been slowly
recovering myself ever since from that ' week of country air '
and other salubrity. Nothing could excel the kindness of
my reception, the nobleness of my treatment throughout.
People were amiable too, and clever, some of them almost
interesting, but it would not do. I, in brief, could not sleep,

1 Lady Marian A Herd's, near Gruntham.

WOOLSTHORPE. 357

and oftenest was in secret supremely sad and miserable
among the bright things going. Conclude I am not fit any
longer for visiting in great houses. The futile valetting—
intrusive and hindersome, nine-tenths of it, rather than
helpful — the dressing, stripping and again dressing, the
' witty talk ' — Ach Gott I — especially as crown and summary
of all, the dining at 8-9 p.m., all this is fairly unmanageable
by me. Discejustitiam, monite. Don't go back if you be wise,
except it be fairly unavoidable. . . . Oh, the thoughts I had
in those silent, solitary days, and how, in the wakeful French
bed there, the image of another bed far away in the Abbey
Kirk of Haddington, in the still infinitude of Eternity, came
shooting like a javelin through my heart. Don't, don't again !
All day my thoughts were of her, and there was far less of
religion in them than while here.

A more interesting expedition than this to Belton
was with Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe to see Wools-
thorpe, the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton.

Newton (he says), who was once my grandest of mortals,
has sunk to a small bulk and character with me now ; how
sunk and dwindled since in 1815, fifty years ago, when I
sate nightly at Annan, invincibly tearing my way through
that old Principia, often up till three a.m., without outlook
or wish almost, except to master it, the loneliest and among
the most triumphant of all young men. Newton is quite dead
to me since that ; and I recognise hundreds and thousands of
* greater men.' Nevertheless, he remains great in his kind,
and has always this of supremely notable that he made
the grandest discovery in science which mankind ever has
achieved or can again achieve. Wherefore even I could not
grudge the little pilgrimage to him.

The loneliness in Cheyne Eow was not entirely
unbroken this autumn. He had a visit from his
brother James, ' whose honest, affectionate face en
livened the gloomy solitude for him.' James Carlyle
had been rarely in London, and had 'the sights' to

358 CARLYLES LIFE IN LONDON.

see, had he cared about them. It seemed that he
cared nothing for any of them, but very much for
his forlorn and solitary brother, showing signs of true
affection and sympathy, which were very welcome.
Carlyle spoke of him as ' an excellent old Annandale
specimen ; my father's pupil, formed by my father's
fashions, as none of the rest of us were.'

A certain attention, though growing yearly fainter,
was given to the world and its affairs. The Eeform
Bill was producing its fruits, changes of ministry,
Clerkenwell explosions, &c. &c., which brought the
Irish question ' within the range of practical politics.'
Carlyle observed it all with his old contempt, no
longer at white heat, but warming occasionally into
red.

No Fenian has yet blown us up (he wrote to Miss Brom
ley). I sit in speechless admiration of our English treatment
of these Fenians first and last. It is as if the rats of a
house had decided to expel and exterminate the human in
habitants, which latter seemed to have neither rat-catchers,
traps, nor arsenic, and are trying to prevail by the * method
of love.' Better speed to them a great deal ! If Walpole
were to weep to the head-centres a little, perhaps it might
help.

He had an old interest in Ireland. He had studied
it once, with a view to writing on the subject, and
was roused into disgust and scorn with this new fruit
of Liberalism. But he was haunted by ghosts, and
neither Ireland nor English politics could drive his
sorrow out of his mind.

Journal.

November 30, 1867. — Have been remembering vividly
all morning, with inexpressible emotion, how my loved one at

RETROSPECTS. 359

Craigenputtock, six or seven-and-thirty years ago, on summer
mornings after breakfast used very often to come up to the
little dressing-room where I was shaving and seat herself
on a chair behind me, for the privilege of a little further talk
while this went on. Instantly on finishing I took to my
work, and probably we did not meet much again till dinner.
How loving this of her, the dear one ! I never saw fully till
now what a trust, a kindness, love, and perfect unity of heart
this indicated in her. The figure of her bright, cheery,
beautiful face mirrored in the glass beside my own rugged,
soapy one answering curtly to keep up her cheerful, pretty
talk, is lively before me as if I saw it with eyes. Ah ! and
where is it now ? Forever hidden from me. Forever ? The
answer is with God alone, and one's poor hopes seem fond
and too blessed to be true. Ah me ! ah me ! Not quite till
this morning did I ever see what a perfect love, and under
such conditions too, this little bit of simple spontaneity be
tokened on my dear Jeannie's part. Never till her death
did I see how much she loved me. . . . Nor, I fear, did she
ever know (could she have seen across the stormy clouds and
eclipsing miseries) what a love I bore her, and shall always,
how vainly now, in my inmost heart. These things are
beautiful, but they are unutterably sad, and have in them
something considerable of remorse as well as sorrow. Alas!
why does one first see fully what worth the soul's jewel had
when it is gone without return? Most weak creatures are
we ; weak, perverse, wayward, especially weak. . . . Some
times I call myself weak, morbid, wrong, in regard to all
this. Sometimes again I feel it sordid, base, ungrateful,
when all this gets smothered up in vulgar interruption, and
I see it as if frozen away from me in dull thick vapour for
days together. So it alternates. I pretend to no regulation
of it ; honestly endeavour to let it follow its own law. That
is my rule in the matter. Of late, in my total lameness
a nil impotency for work (which is a chief evil for me), I have
soinH inics thought, 'One thing you could do — write some
record of her — make some selection of her letters which
you think justly among the cleverest ever written, and which

360 CARL YLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

none but yourself can quite understand. But no ! but no !
How speak of her to such an audience ? What can it do
for her or for me ?

This is the first sign of the intention which Car-
lyle afterwards executed. How it ripened will be
seen presently. Meanwhile the Journal continues : —

December 6. — I am in my seventy-third year.1 . . . Length
of days under such conditions as mine are is not a thing to
be coveted, but to be humbly deprecated rather. . . . My
outlook continually is all to the great change now inevitably
near. The sure hope to be at rest and to be where rny loved
ones are (the Almighty God alone knows where or how that is,
but I take it always to be a place of rest) is the only prospect
of being fairly better than I have been. My work being all
done, as I more and more fear it is, why should I wish to
linger here? My lost bright one, all my bright ones are
away — away. ^Society, of which I might still have plenty,
does me no good whatever; frets, disgusts, and provokes
me ; leaves the poor disturbed heart dark and void ; an un
fathomable lake of sorrow lying silent under that poor foam
of what is called talk, and in perhaps three cases out of four
is fairly worse than solitude. ' There is no serious talk, sir,'
said old Samuel ; ' nobody now talks seriously ' — a frightful
saying, but a truer now than ever. ... In general the talk of
people suggests to me what a paltry dog-kennel of a world —
now rushing fast to total anarchy and self-government by
the basest — this must be ; and that I am a poor old man,
liable to be bored, provoked, and distressed, rather than
helped any way, by his fellow-creatures. In every condition
under God's sky is there not a right way of behaving under
it ? And is there any other item important except simply
that one ? Courage, hope, love to the death, and be silent
in defect of speech that were good.

December 22. — ' Youth,' says somebody, ' is a garland of
roses.' I did not find it such. ' Age is a crown of thorns.'
Neither is this altogether true for me. If sadness and sorrow

1 His birthday was December 4.

JOURNAL. 361

tend to loosen us from life, they make the place of rest
desirable. If incurable grief be love all steeped in tears, and -
lead us to pious thoughts and longings, is not grief an earnest
blessing to us ? Alas ! that one is not pious always : that
it is anger, bitterness, impatience, and discontent that occu
pies one's poor weak heart so much oftener. Some mornings
ago I said to myself, ' Is there no book of piety you could
still write? Forget the basenesses, miseries, and abomi
nations of this fast sinking world — its punishment come or
at hand ; and dwell among the poor straggling elements of
pity, of love, of awe and worship you can still discern in it !
Better so. Eight, surely, far better. I wish, I wish I could.
Was my great grief sent to me perhaps for that end ? In
rare better moments I sometimes strive to entertain an
imagination of that kind ; but as to doing anything in
consequence, alas ! alas ! '

* All England has taken to stealing,' says a certain news
paper for the last two weeks. Very serious, means railway
swindling, official jobbery, &c. Eemedy, he thinks, will be
that we shall all grow as poor as Hindoos, and then be as
fiercely vigilant. Would it not be reasonabler to find now
your small remainder of honest people, and arm them with
authority over your multitudinous knaves ! Here and there
we are beginning to see into the meaning of self-government
by the hungry rabble.

The last stage of life's journey is necessarily dark, sad,
and carried on under steadily increasing difficulties. We
are alone ; all our loved ones and cheering fellow-pilgrims
gone. Our strength is failing, wasting more and more ; day
is sinking on us ; night coming, not metaphorically only.
The road, to our growing weakness, dimness, insurability of
every kind, becomes more and more obstructed, intricate,
difficult to feet and eyes ; a road among brakes and brambles,
swamps and stumbling places ; no welcome shine of a human
cottage with its hospitable candle now alight for us in these
waste solitudes. Our eyes, if we have any light, rest only
on the eternal stars. Thus we stagger on, impediments in
creasing, force diminishing, till at length there is equality

L

362 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

between the terms, and we do all infallibly ARRIVE. So it
has been from the beginning ; so it will be to the end — for
ever a mystery and miracle before which human intellect
falls dumb. Do we reach those stars then ? Do we sink in
those swamps amid the dance of dying dreams ? Is the
threshold we step over but the brink in that instance, and
our home thenceforth an infinite Inane ? God, our Eternal
Maker, alone knows, and it shall be as He wills, not as we
would. His mercy be upon us ! What a natural human
aspiration !

December 30. — Ah me ! Am I good for nothing then ?
Has my right hand — head rather — altogether lost its cunning?
It is my heart that has fallen heavy, wrapt in endless sadness
and a mist of stagnant musings upon death and the grave.
Nothing now, no person now is beautiful to me. Nobleness in
this world is as a thing of the past. I have given up England
to the deaf stupidities, and to the fatalities that follow, like
wise deaf. Her struggles, I perceive, under these night
mares, will reach through long sordid centuries. Her actual
administerings, sufferings, performings, and attemptings fill
me unpleasantly with abhorrence and contempt, both at once,
for which reason I avoid thinking of them. ' Fenianism,'
' Abyssinian wars,' ' trades-unions,' ' philanthropic movement '
— let the dead bury their dead.

One evening, I think in the spring of 1866, we two had
come up from dinner and were sitting in this room, very
weak and weary creatures, perhaps even I the wearier, though
she far the weaker ; I at least far the more inclined to sleep,
which directly after dinner was not good for me. ' Lie on
the sofa there,' said she — the ever kind and graceful, herself
refusing to do so — ' there, but don't sleep,' and I, after
some superficial objecting, did. In old years I used to lie
that way, and she would play the piano to me : a long series
of Scotch tunes which set my mind finely wandering through
the realms of memory and romance, and effectually prevented
sleep. That evening I had lain but a few minutes when she
turned round to her piano, got out the Thomson Burns book,

JOURNAL. 363

and, to my surprise and joy, broke out again into her bright
little stream of harmony and poesy, silent for at least ten
years before, and gave me, in soft tinkling beauty, pathos,
and melody, all my old favourites : * Banks and Braes,'
' Flowers of the Forest,' * Grilderoy,' not forgetting ' Duncan
Gray,' ' Cauld Kail,' ' Irish Coolen,' or any of my favourites
tragic or comic ; all which she did with a modest neatness
and completeness — I might say with an honest geniality and
unobtrusively beautiful perfection of heart and hand — which
I have never seen equalled by the most brilliant players,
among which sort she was always humbly far from ranking
herself; for except to me, or some quiet friend and me, she
would never play at any time.

I was greatly pleased and thankful for this unexpected
breaking of the silence again, and got really a fine and
almost blessed kind of pleasure out of it, a soothing and
assuagement such as for long I had not known. Indeed I
think it is yet the actually best little hour I can recollect
since, very likely the pleasantest I shall ever have. Foolish
soul ! I fancied this was to be the new beginning of old
days, that her health was now so much improved, and her
spirits especially, that she would often do me this favour,
and part of my thanks and glad speech to her went in that
sense, to which I remember she merely finished shutting
her piano and answered nothing. That piano has never
again sounded, nor in my time will or shall. In late months
it has grown clearer to me than ever that she had said to
herself that night, ' I will play him his tunes all yet once,'
and had thought it would be but once. . . . This is now a
thing infinitely touching to me. So like her; so like her.
Alas, alas ! I was very blind, and might have known better
how near its setting my bright sun was.

364 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A.D. 1868. ^ET. 73.

The Eyre Committee — Disestablishment of the Irish Church — A lec
ture by Tyndall — Visit to Stratton — S. G. 0. — Last sight of the
Grange — ' Letters and Memorials of Mrs. Carlyle ' — Meditations in
Journal — Modern Atheism — Democracy and popular orators —
Scotland — Interview with the Queen — Portraits — Modern Atheism
— Strange applications — Loss of use of the right hand — Uses of
anarchy.

THE persecution of General Eyre had been protracted
with singular virulence. He had been recalled from
Jamaica. His pension was withheld, and he was
financially a ruined man. The Eyre Committee con
tinued, doing what it could for him. Carlyle was
anxious as ever. I never knew him more anxious
about anything. It had been resolved to present
a petition in Eyre's behalf to the Government.
Carlyle drew a sketch of one ' tolerably to his
own mind,' and sent it to the Committee. It ap
peared, however, not to be to their minds. They
thanked him, found what he said ' fine and true ; '
but, in short, they did not like it, and he acquiesced.
His interest was not altered.

I have done my bit of duty or seeming duty (he said),
and there will be no further noise from it. Eyre's self down
here, visibly a brave, gentle, chivalrous, and clear man, whom I
would make dictator of Jamaica for the next twenty-five years
were I now king of it — has withal something of the Grandison
in him, mildly perceptible. That is his limiting condition.

DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 365

Occasionally and at longish intervals he allowed
himself to be tempted into London society. He
made acquaintance with Lord and Lady Salisbury
(the father of the present lord, who died soon after),
both of whom he much liked. He went one evening
to the Dean of Westminster's.

Lion entertainment to Princess Helena and her Prince
Christian. Innocent little Princess, has a kind of beauty, &c.
One little flash of pretty pride, only one, when she rose to
go out from dinner, shook her bit of train right, raised her
pretty head (fillet of diamonds sole ornament round her hair),
and sailed out. ' A princess born, you know ! ' looked really
well, the exotic little soul. Dinner, evening generally, was
miserable, futile, and cost me silent insomnia the whole
night through. Deserved it, did I ? It was not of my
choosing — not quite.

The Irish Church fell soon after, as the first
branch of the famous upas tree the hewing down
of which has proved so beneficent. Carlyle had
long known that the Irish Church was an anomaly,
but he did not rejoice in its overthrow, each step
which weakened English authority in Ireland bring-
in<r nearer the inevitable fresh conflict for the

o

sovereignty of the island.

Irish Church Resolution passed by a great majority. Non
flocci facio. In my life I have seen few more anarchic,
factious, unpatriotic achievements than this of Gladstone and
his Parliament in regard to such an Ireland as now is. Poor
Gladstone ! Poor old decayed Church and ditto State ! But
once more, non flocci facio, him or it. If they could abolish
Parliamentary eloquence it would be worth a hundred
abolitions of the Irish Church, poor old creature !

Time hung heavily at Chelsea, and the evenings
were dreary. Tyndall was to lecture at the Royal

366 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Institution on Faraday. Carlyle was not enthusiastic
about science and the blessings to be expected from
it ; yet he was gratefully attached to Tyndall, and
was persuaded to attend.

Journal.

January 27, 1868. — Attended Tyndall's lecture (on Fara
day, his genius and merits), which Tyndall treated as quite
heroic. A full and somewhat distinguished audience, re
spectful, noiseless, attentive, but not fully sympathetic, I
should say ; such, at least, was my own case, feeling rather
that the eulogy was perhaps overdone. As to myself, ' the
grandeur of Faraday's discoveries,' &c., excited in me no
real enthusiasm, nor was either his faculty or his history a
matter I could reckon heroic in that high degree. In sad
fact, I cared but little for these discoveries — reckoned them
uncertain — to my dark mind, and not by any means the
kind of ' discoveries ' I wanted to be made at present. ' Can
you really turn a ray of light on its axis by magnetism ?
and if you could, what should I care ? ' This is my feeling
towards most of the scientific triumphs and unheard of
progresses and miracles so trumpeted abroad in these days,
and I sadly keep it secret, a sorrowful private possession of
my own. Saw a good many people there, ancient friends
of mine, to whom I wished right well, but found it painful
to speak beyond mere salutations. Bishop Thirlwall, Sir
Henry Holland, Dean Stanley and his wife. Lecture done,
I hurried away, joined by Conway, American nigger friend,
innocent and patient.

February 6. — Nothing yet done, as usual. Nothing.
Oh, me miserum! Day, and days past, unusually fine.
Health in spite of sleeplessness, by no means very bad.
Stand to thyself, wretched, mourning, heavy-laden creature.
For others there is no want of work cut out for me.
Yesterday, by our beautiful six posts, I had the following
demands made upon me : To write about Sir William

LAST SIGHT OF THE GRANGE. 367

Hamilton ; item about Stirling, candidate for Edinburgh
Professorship ; item to write about poor Clough. Have as good
as nothing to say either about Clough or Hamilton, though
I love them both. Just before bedtime, news from a young

man, son of a Mr. C , who used to call on me, and thought

well of me, that he is fallen utterly ruined into very famine,
and requests that I should lend him ten pounds. Nine-
tenths of the letters I get are of that tenour, not to speak of
requests for autographs, exhortations to convert myself or

else be ; which latter sort, especially which last, I

burn after reading the first line. So profitable have my
epistolary fellow-creatures grown to me in these years, so
that when the postman leaves nothing it may be well felt

as an escape. I will now send young C 51. from a 501.

I am steward to.

In April Lord Northbrook wrote to invite Carlyle
to spend a few days with him at Stratton. He had
known Lord Northbrook in the old Grange time.
Stratton was not far from the Grange, and there was
a sort of pleasure in the thought of seeing it a^ain,
though now in new hands. He was unwell, sufFerino-

*-* C

from sorrow ' at once poignant and impotent.' In
agreeing to go he forgot the approaching anniver
sary, the fatal April 21.

It strikes me now, with a shadow of remorse (he wrote),
that Tuesday will be the 21st, and that I shall be far away
from the place in Hyde Park to which I would have walked
that day. I did not recollect in consenting, or perhaps I
should have refused — certainly should have paused first.
But alas! that is very weak too. The place, which no
stranger knows of, is already quite changed : drink foun
tains, &c. I was there yesterday, but — — was in company. I
could only linger one little instant. Ah me ! how weak we
are ! Yesternight I read in the newspapers of an old man
who had died of grief in two or three months Cor the loss of

368 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

his wife. They had been wedded fifty-five years. And of
another in Pimlico somewhere, who, on like ground, had
stabbed himself dead, finding life now unendurable.

He went to Stratton, and, except that as usual he
slept badly, he enjoyed himself and ' had cause to be
grateful to the kind people round him and the kind
scenes he was among.' The anniversary came and
went. ' All passes ; ' ' time and the hour wear out
the gloomiest day."

Journal.

April 27, 1868. — I was at the Grange twice over; all
vacant, silent, strange like a dream ; like reality become a
dream. I sate in the church (Northington) with my two
companions, Lords Northbrook and Sidney Gr. Osborne, our
horses waiting the while. Church is all decorated, new-
paved in encaustic, painted, glazed in coloured figures, in
scribed, &c. ; most clean, bright, ornate ; on every pew a
sprig of rosemary, &c., wholly as a Temple of the Dead. Such
the piety and munificent affection of the now Dowager Lady
Ashburton. I sat in silence, looking and remembering.
The ride thither and back was peacefully soothing to me.
Another day the two boys (Northbrook's sons) and I rode
that way again ; pretty galloping for most part, thither and
from, by the woods, over the down, &c. Strange, strange to
ride as through a dream that once was so real ; pensive,
serious, sombre, not painfully sorrowful to me. It is again
something as if solemnly soothing to have seen all this for
probably the last time.

My principal or almost sole fellow-guest at Stratton was
' the strange Rev. Lord Sidney,' named above, the famous
S. OK O. of the newspapers, and one of the strangest brother
mortals E ever met ; a most lean, tall, and perpendicular man,
face palpably aristocrat, but full of plebeian mobilities, free and
easy rapidities, nice laughing little dark grey eyes, careless,
honest, full of native ingenuity, sincerity, innocent vanity,

LETTERS OF MRS. CARLYLE. 369

incessant talk, anecdotic, personal, distractedly speculative,
oftenest purposely distracted, never altogether boring. To
me his talk had one great property, it saved all task of
talking on my part. He was very intrinsically polite too,
and we did very well together.1

Proof-sheets of the new edition of his works were
waiting for him on his return home. He 'found
himself willing to read those books and follow the
printer through them as almost the one thing he was
good for in his downpressed and desolate years.'
The demand for them ' was mainly indifferent ' to
him. What were his bits of works? What was
anybody's work ? ' Those whom he wished to please
were sunk into the grave. The works and their
praises and successes had become more and more
" reminiscences " merely.' On the other hand, ' the
thought of a selection from her letters had not yet
quitted him, nor should. Could he but execute it
well, and leave it legible behind him, to be printed
after twenty years.'2

The selection and the copying was taken in hand.
His passing meditations continued meanwhile to be
entered in his Journal, and are increasingly inte
resting.

Chelsea: June 8, 1868. — One was bragging to me the
other day that surely, for an item of progress, there was

1 A letter to Miss Bromley contains a second description of the great
S.G.O. ' One of the cheeriest, airiest, and talkingest lean old gentlemen I
ever met with in my life; tall as a steeple, lean as a bundle of flails, full
of wild Ingenuity, of good humour and good purpose; a perfectly
boneet, human, headlong, and yet strictly aristocratic man. We smoked
a great deal of tobacco together.'

* In his will of 1873 Carlyle says ten or seven years, and finally 1.
the time of publication to me. Vide infra, p. 412.

IV. BB

370 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

a visibly growing contempt for titles, aristocratic and other.1
I answered him yes, indeed ; and a visible decay of respect
or reverence for whatever is above one's own paltry self, up
and up to the top of the universe even, up to Almighty God
Himself even, if you will look well, which is a more frightful
kind of ' progress ' for you.

Seriously the speed with which matters are going on in
this supreme province of our affairs is something notable,
and sadly undeniable in late years. The name — old Numen
withal — "has become as if obsolete to the most devout of us ;
and it is, to the huge idly impious million of writing,
preaching, and talking people as if the fact too had quite
ceased to be certain. « The Eternities,' « the Silences,' &c. I
myself have tried various shifts to avoid mentioning the
* Name ' to such an audience — audience which merely
sneers in return — and is more convinced of its delusion than
ever. * No more humbug ! ' 'Let us go ahead ! ' 'All de
scended from gorillas, seemingly.' « Sun made by collision
of huge masses of planets, asteroids, &c., in the infinite of
space.' Very possibly say I ! ' Then where is the place for
a Creator ? ' The fool hath said in his heart there is no
God. From the beginning it has been so, is now, and to the
end will be so. The fool hath said it — he and nobody else ;
and with dismal results in our days— as in all days ; which
often makes me sad to think of, coming nearer myself and
the end of my own life than I ever expected they would
do.2 That of the sun, and his possibly being made in that
manner, seemed to me a real triumph of science, indefinitely
widening the horizon of our theological ideas withal, and
awakened a good many thoughts in me when I first heard
of it, and gradually perceived that there was actual scien
tific basis for it — I suppose the finest stroke that ' Science,'

1 The Parliamentary Whips on both sides are, perhaps, of a different
opinion as to this supposed contempt.

2 Carlyle did not deny his own responsibilities in the matter. In his
desire to extricate the kernel from the shell in which it was rotting,
he had shaken existing beliefs as much as any man, and, he admitted to
me, ' had give a considerable shove to all that.'

MEDITATIONS IN JOURNAL. 3?I

poor creature, has or may have succeeded in making during
my time — welcome to me if it be a truth— honourably wel
come ! But what has it to do with the existence of the
Eternal Unnameable ? Fools ! fools ! It widens the horizon
of my imagination, fills me with deeper and deeper wonder
and devout awe.

No prayer, I find, can be more appropriate still to ex
press one's feelings, ideas, and wishes in the highest direction
than that universal one of Pope : —

Father of all in every age

In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,

Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.

Thou great First Cause, least understood,

Who all my sense confined,
To know but this, that Thou art good,

And that myself am blind.

Not a word of that requires change for me at this time
if words are to be used at all. The first devout or nobly
thinking soul that found himself in this unfathomable
universe— I still fancy with a strange sympathy the first
insight his awe-struck meditation gave him in this matter.
' The Author of all this is not omnipotent only, but infinite in
wisdom, in rectitude, in all noble qualities. The name of
him is God (the good).' How else is the matter construable
to this hour ? All that is good, generous, wise, right—what
ever I deliberately and for ever love in others and myself,
who or what could by any possibility have given it to me
but One who first had it to give ! This is not logic. This
is axiom. Logic to-and-fro beats against this, like idle wind
on an adamantine rock. The antique first-thinker naturally
gave a human personality and type to this supreme object,
yet admitted too that in the deepest depths of his anthropo
morphism, it remained « inconceivable,' ' past finding out.'
Let us cease to attempt shaping it, but at no moment forget
that it veritably is—in this day as in the first of the days.

It was as a ray of everlasting light and insight this,
that had shot itself zenithward from the soul of a man,

372 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

first of all truly ' thinking ' men, struggling to interpret for
himself the mystery of his as yet utterly dark and unfathom
able world ; the beginning of all true interpretation, a piece
of insight that could never die out of the world thenceforth.
Strange, high, and true to me as I consider it and figure it
to myself in those strange newest days — first real aperture
made through the utter darkness, revealing far aloft strange
skies and infinitudes. 'Inspired by the Almighty,' men
might well think. What else is it in all times that « giveth
men understanding ' ! This ' aperture zenithward,' as I
like to express it, has gone on slowly widening itself, with
troublings and confusings of itself sad to witness, at in
tervals in the process all along— very witnessable even now.
But it has steadily gone on, and is essentially, under condi
tions ever widening, our faith, capable of being believed
by oneself alone against the whole world, this day and to
the end of days.

Poor ' Comtism,' ghastliest of algebraic specialities—
origin of evil, &c. — these are things which, much as I have
struggled with the mysteries surrounding me, never broke
a moment of my rest. Mysterious ! be it so if you will.
But is not the fact clear and certain ! Is it a ' mystery ' YOU
have the least chance of ever getting to the bottom of!
Canst thou by searching find out God ? I am not surprised
thou canst not, vain fool.

These things are getting to be very rife again in these
late years. ' Why am /, the miraculously meritorious " 7,"
not perfectly happy then ? It would have been so easy : and
see.' That I perceive is the key-note of all these vehement
screechings and unmelodious, impious, scrannel pipings of
poor men, verging towards apehood by the Dead Sea if they
don't stop short.

June 29. The other morning a pamphlet came to me

from some orthodox cultivated scholar and gentleman—
strictly anonymous. Pamphlet even is not published, only
printed. The many excerpts, for I read little of the rest,
have struck me much. An immense development of Atheism
is clearly proceeding, and at a rapid rate, and in joyful

MODERN ATHEISM. 373

exultant humour, both here and in France. Some book or
pamphlet called ' The Pilgrim and the Shrine ' was copiously
quoted from. Pilgrim getting delivered out of his Hebrew old
clothes seemingly into a Hottentot costume of putrid tripes
hugely to his satisfaction, as appeared. French medical
prize essay of young gentleman, in similar costume or worse,
declaring * we come from monkeys.' Virtue, vice are a
product, like vitriol, like vinegar; this, and in general
that human nature is rotten, and all our high beliefs and
aspirations mud ! See it, believe it, ye fools, and pro
ceed to make yourselves happy upon it ! I had no idea there
was so much of this going on ! The Logic of Death (English
pamphlet) had already sold to 50,000 copies. Another
English thing was a parody on the Lord's Prayer : — ' Instead
of praying to the Lord for daily bread, ask your fellow-work
men why wages are so low,' &c., &c.

This is a very serious omen, and might give rise to end
less meditation. If they do abolish ' God ' from their own
poor bewildered hearts, all or most of them, there will be
seen for some length of time (perhaps for several genera
tions) such a world as few are dreaming of. But I never
dread their * abolition ' of what is the Eternal Fact of Facts,
and can prophesy that mankind generally will either return
to that with new clearness and sacred purity of zeal, or else
perish utterly in unimaginable depths of anarchic misery
and baseness, i.e. sink to hell and death eternal, as onr
fathers said. For the rest I can rather welcome one symptom
clearly traceable in the phenomenon, viz., that all people
have awoke and are determined to have done with cants
and idolatries, and have decided to die rather than live longer
under that hatefullest and brutallest of sleepy Upas trees.
Euge ! euge ! to begin with. And there is another thing
I notice, that the chosen few who do continue to believe in
the ' eternal nature of duty,' and are in all times and all
places the God-appointed rulers of this world, will know
at once who the slave kind are ; who, if good is ever to
begin, must be excluded totally from ruling, and in fact, be
i rusted only with some kind of collars round their necks.

374 CARL YLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Courage ! courage always ! But how deep are we to go ?
Through how many centuries, how many abject generations
will it probably last ?

September 8. — I wish Stirling1 would turn the whole
strength of his faculty upon that sad question, * What is the
origin of morals ? ' Saddest of all questions to the people
who have started it again, and are evidently going to all
lengths with it, to the foot of the very gallows, I believe, if
not stopt sooner. Had I a little better health, I could almost
think of writing something on it myself. Stirling probably
never will, nor in fact can metaphysics ever settle it, though
one would like to hear, as times go, what of clearest and
truest poor Metaphysics had to say on it, for the multitude
that put their trust in Metaphysics. If people are only driven
upon virtuous conduct, duty, &c., by association of ideas, and
there is no ' Infinite Nature of Duty,' the world, I should
say, had better ' count its spoons ' to begin with, and look
out for hurricanes and earthquakes to end with. This of
morality by * association of ideas ' seems to me the grand
question of this dismal epoch for all thinking souls left. That
of stump oratory — ' oh, what a glorious speech ! ' &c., and the
inference to be at last and now drawn from this : the vTrorcpicris
— actio of Demosthenes 2 — ter optimum — is the second ques
tion intimately connected with the former, and it seems to
me there are no two questions so pressing upon us here and
now as these two. I wish sometimes I had a little strength
of body left — for the other strength is perhaps still there, as
the wish, for certain, occasionally is. Wish indeed ! Wish
ing is very cheap, and at bottom neither of these two ques
tions is what I am most like trying at present.

This matter of the power of ' oratory ' was much
in Carlyle's mind at this time ; for since ' Niagara ' his

1 Edinburgh Stirling, author of the ' Secret of Hegel.'

2 Demosthenes, when asked what was the first qualification of orators,
is said by Oicero to have answered Actio. What the second ? Actio. What
the third ? Actio. It is usually translated action, gesture. But it
means all the functions of an actor, gesture included. Cicero, De, Oratore,
passim.

ORATORY. 375

chief anxiety centred there. As democracy grows
intensified, the eloquent speaker who can best please
the ears of the multitude on provincial platforms
will more and more be the man whom they will
most admire and will choose to represent them. The
most eloquent will inevitably, for some time to come,
be the most powerful minister in this country. It
becomes of supreme importance therefore to under
stand what oratory is, and how far the presence of
those other faculties of intellect and character which
can be trusted with the administration of the Empire
may be inferred from the possession of it. It was
the sad conviction of Carlyle that at no time in
the world's history had famous orators deserved the
name of statesmen. Facts had never borne then,
out. They had been always on the losing side.

Victrix causa Deis placuit, sed victa Catoni.

Nor had they been themselves true men, but men
who had lived in the show and outsides of things,

c> "

not in the heart and essence of things. The art of
speech lies in bringing the emotions to influence the
judgment — to influence it by 'assuming a feeling if
you have it not,' by personation, by vrro/cpicris, the art
of the stage-player. I do not suppose that Carlyle
had ever read either Plato's ; Gorgias ' or Aristotle's
' Politics.' But, on his own grounds, he had come
to the same conclusion as they. Plato, Aristotle, had
seen in the Greek republics the same ascendency of
popular orators with which England was now menaced.
It was only rarely and by accident that the power in
purely democratic communities fell into the hands of
men lit to hold it. The mobs of the cities chose

376 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

almost invariably men of two kinds, and neither a
good one ; either knaves who played upon them and
led them by the nose for personal or party objects,
or men who were themselves the victims of the pas
sions to which they appealed, who lived intoxicated
with their own verbosity, who had no judgment, and
no criterion of truth, save that it must be something
which they could persuade others to believe, and
had therefore no power of recognising truth when it
was put before them. From this cause more than
from any other the Greek constitutions went to ruin,
as the Eoman did after them. The ascendency of
the ' orator ' was the unerring sign of the approach
ing catastrophe. Plato compared oratory to the art
of the fashionable cook who flavoured his poisonous
messes to tempt the palate. Aristotle says that all
forms of government have their special parasites,
which are bred by them, and destroy them. Kings
and emperors are misled by favourites who flatter
them. The orator is the parasite of the mob ; he
thrives on its favour, and therefore never speaks un
pleasant truths to it. A king may be wise and may
choose prudent councillors. A democracy from its
nature never can. This was the opinion of the great
Greeks, and Cicero, though he fought against the
conviction, felt the truth of it.

The orator was like a soldier trained in the use of
arms, and able to use them, either for good purposes
or for bad. Antonius, the first master of the art in
Home, discusses the qualifications for success in Cicero's
' Dialogue ' with delicate humour. He supposes a
case where he has to persuade an audience of some
thing which he knows to be false. Fire, he says, can

ORATORY. 377

only be kindled by fire. The skilfullest acting cannot
equal the fire of real conviction. But so happily,
Antonius says, is the orator's nature constituted that
when he has taken up a cause with eagerness he
cannot help believing in it. He envelopes it in
an atmosphere of moral sentiments and common
places, and, being once possessed with these sublime
emotions, he pours them out in the triumphant con
fidence of a conviction, for the moment sincere.1
Such a man, or such a species of man, is certain to
be found, and certain to be in front place, omnipotent
for mischief under all democratic constitutions. He
leads the majority along with him, and rules by
superior numbers ; while to men of understanding,
who are not blinded by his glowing periods, he ap
pears, as he really is, a transparent charlatan. De
mosthenes himself admitted that if he was speaking
only to Plato his tongue would fail him ; and it is a
bad augury for any country when matters of weight
and consequence are determined by arguments to
which only the unintelligent can listen. The ominous
ascendency of this quality, illustrated as it was in the
persons of the two rival chiefs of the political parties
in England, was a common topic of Carlyle's talk in
his late years, and appears again and again in his
diary.

Meantime his life fell back into something like
its old routine. While his strength lasted he went

.-

1 'Magnavis estearura sententiarum atque eorum locorum, quos agas
tractesque dicendo, uibil ut opus sit simulatione et fallaciis. Ipsa enim
natura orationis ejus, quse suscipitur ad alioruin animos permovendos,
oratorem ipsum magis etiam, quam quemquam eoruiu qui audiunt, ptT-
uii i\ ft.' De Oratore, lib. ii. cap. 46.

378 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

annually to Scotland ; never so happy as among his
own kindred. Yet even among them he was less
happy than sadly peaceful. ' Pity me,' he writes to
Miss Bromley, September 8, 1868, from Dumfries : —

Nay, I don't see how you are quite to avoid despising me
as well. I was never so idle in my life before ; but the
region here is very beautiful, in the beautiful weather we
again have ; and to me it is not beautiful only, but almost
supernatural, like the Valley of Mirza with its river and
bridge. The charm of sauntering about here like a dis
embodied ghost, peacefully mournful, peacefully meditative,
is considerable in comparison, and I repugn against quitting
it.

On getting back to London he worked in earnest
in sorting and annotating his wife's letters. His feel
ing and purpose about them, as it stood then, is thus
expressed in his journal : —

To be kept unprinted for ten to twenty years after
my death, if, indeed, printed at all, should there be any
babbling of memory still afloat about me or her. That is
at present my notion. At any rate, they shall be left legible
to such as they do concern, and shall be if I live. To her, alas !
it is no service, absolutely none, though my poor imagina
tion represents it as one, and I go on with it as something
pious and indubitably right ; that some memory and image
of one so beautiful and noble should not fail to survive by
my blame, unworthy as I was of her, yet loving her far
more than I could ever show, or even than I myself knew
till it was too late — too late.

Occasional rides on Miss Bromley's Comet formed his
chief afternoon occupation ; but age was telling on his
seat and hand, and Comet and Carlyle's riding were
both near their end.

RIDING ACCIDENT. 379

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea : October 9, 1868.

Hiding is now fairly over. Above a week ago I had the
once gallant little Comet brought down to me here ; delighted
to see me the poor creature seemed. But alas ! idleness,
darkness, and abundant oats had undermined and hebetated
and, in fact, ruined the once glorious Comet; so that in
about half-an-hour, roads good, riding gentlest and care-
fullest, the glorious Comet splashed utterly down — cut eye,
brow, and both knees — horse and rider fairly tracing out
their united profile on the soil of Middlesex in the Holland
House region. Silent, elegant new street, hardly anyone
seeing the phenomenon. As I stuck by the horse through
his sprawlings, I had come down quite gradually, right
stirrup rather advanced ; so that I got no injury whatever,
scarcely even a little dirt. I silently perceived this must
be my last ride on Comet.

The marvel was that he had been able to con
tinue riding to so advanced an age, and had not met
long before with a more serious accident. He rode
loosely always. His mind was always abstracted. He
had been fortunate in his different horses. They had
been ' very clever creatures.' This was his only
explanation.

Another incident befell him in the beginning of
1869, of a more pleasing kind. He received an in
timation from Dean Stanley that her Majesty would
like to become personally acquainted with a man of
whom she had heard so much, and in whose late
sorrows she had been so interested. He was not
a courtier ; no one could suspect him of seeking the
favour of the great of this world, royal or noble.
But for the Queen throughout his life he had enter-

380 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

tained always a loyal respect and pity, wishing only
that she could be less enslaved by ' the talking appa
ratus ' at Westminster. He had felt for her in her be
reavement, as she had remembered him in his own.
The meeting was at the Westminster Deanery : —

The Queen [he says of it] was really very gracious and
pretty in her demeanour throughout; rose greatly in my
esteem by everything that happened ; did not fall in any
point. The interview was quietly very mournful to me;
the one point of real interest, a sombre thought : ' Alas ! how
would it have cheered her, bright soul, for my sake, had she
been there ! '

A less flattering distinction was Watts's portrait
of him, lately finished for John Forster, and the en
graving of it, which was now being proceeded with.
Of the picture itself his opinion, as conveyed to his
brother, was not flattering. The failure may have
been due to the subject, for no painter, not even
Millais, ever succeeded with Carlyle. This particular
performance he calls

Decidedly the most insufferable picture that has yet been
made of me,1 a delirious-looking mountebank full of violence,
awkwardness, atrocity, and stupidity, without recognisable
likeness to anything I have ever known in any feature of
me. Fuit in fatis. What care I, after all ? Forster is
much content. The fault of Watts is a passionate pursuit
of strength. Never mind, never mind !

In the spring he was troubled by want of sleep
again; the restlessness being no doubt aggravated
by the ' Letters,' and by the recollections which they
called up. Public opinion, politics, the tone of the
press, of literature generally, the cant of progress,

1 Not excepting the flayed horse !

MRS. CARLYLE'S LETTERS. 381

daily growing louder, all tended too to irritate him.
Some scientific article, I think in the ' Fortnightly,'
was '* disgusting and painful ' to him ; ' tells me nothing
new either,' he noted, ' however logical and clear,
that I did not know before, viz. that to the eye of
clay spirit is for ever invisible. Pah ! nasty ! needless
too. " A little lower than the angels," said Psalmist
David ; "A little higher than the tadpoles," says Evan
gelist ." ' These people,' he said to me, ' bring

you what appears the whitest beautifullest flour to
bake your bread with, but when you examine it you
find it is powdered glass, and deadly poison.'

The ' Letters,' however, and his own occupation
with them, were the absorbing interest, although to
me at this time he never mentioned the subject.

Journal.

April 29, 1869. — Perhaps this mournful, but pious, and
ever interesting task, escorted by such miseries, night after
night, and month after month — perhaps all this may be
wholesome punishment, purification, and monition, and again
a blessing in disguise. I have had many such in my life.
Some strange belief in an actual particular Providence rises
always in me at intervals, faint but indestructible belief in
spite of logic and arithmetic, which does me good. If it be
true and a fact, as Kant and the clearest scientific people
keep asserting, that there is no Time and no Space, I say to
myself sometimes all minor ' Logic ' and counting by the
fingers becomes in such provinces an incompetent thing.
Believe what thou must, that is a rule that needs no
enforcing.

July 24, 1869. — In spite of impediments we are now
getting done with that sacred task. In a month more, if per
mitted still, I can hope to see the whole of those dear letters
lying legible to good eyes, with the needful commentaries,

382 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

for which ought not I to be thankful as for a chosen mercy.
. . . My impediments, however, have been almost desperate ;
ignorance, unpunctuality, sluggish torpor on the part of
assistants, all hanging about my weak neck, depending on
me to push it through or to leave it sticking. In fact, this
has been to me a heavy-laden miserable time, impeded to
me as none ever was by myself and others — others ever
since October last. But I will speak of it no more. Thank
Grod if this thing be got done.

Addiscombe seems to have been again offered to
him, as an escape this summer from London, if he
cared to go thither.

September 28, 1869. — The old story. Addiscombe and
Chelsea alternating, without any result at all but idle misery
and want of sleep, risen lately to almost the intolerable
pitch. Dreary boring beings in the lady's time used to
infest the place and scare me home again. Place empty,
lady gone to the Highlands, and, still bountifully pressing,
we tried it lately by removing bodily thither.1 Try it for
three weeks, said we, and did. Nothing but insomnia there,
alas ! Yesterday morning gone a week, we struck flag again
and removed all home. Enterprise to me a total failure. . . .
The task in a sort done, Mary finishing my notes of 1866
this very day ; I shrinking for weeks past from any revisal
or interference there as a thing evidently hurtful, evidently
antisomnial even, in my present state of nerves. Essen
tially, however, her ' Letters and Memorials ' are saved,
thank God ! and I hope to settle the details calmly, too.

This is the last mention of these ' Letters,' &c.,in
the Journal. I, as I said, had heard nothing about
them ; and though I was aware that he was engaged
in some way with his autobiography, I had no con
jecture as to what it was. Finished in a sort the

1 ' We ' means himself, his brother, and hia niece, Miss Mary Aitken,
who was now with him.

OPINION OF R US KIN. 383

collection was, but it needed close revision, and there
was an introductory narrative still to be written.
Carlyle, however, could then touch it no further, nor
did a time ever come when he felt himself equal to
taking it up again. It was tied together and laid
aside for the present, and no resolution was then
formed as to what was to be done with it.

This subject being off his mind, he was able to
think more calmly of ordinary things. Buskin was
becoming more and more interesting to him. Buskin
seemed to be catching the fiery cross from his hand,
as his own strength was failing. Writing this autumn
to myself, he said, ' One day, by express desire on
both sides, I had Buskin for some hours, really in
teresting and entertaining. He is full of projects,
of generous prospective activities, some of which I
opined to him would prove chimerical. There is, in
singular environment, a ray of real Heaven in B.
Passages of that last book " Queen of the Air " went
into my heart like arrows.'

The Journal during the same month becomes soft
and melodious, as if the sense of a duty heroically
performed had composed and consoled him.

October 6. — For a week past I am sleeping better, which
is a special mercy of Heaven. I dare not yet believe that
sleep is regularly coming back to me ; but only tremulously
hope so now and then. If it does, I might still write some
thing. My poor intellect seems all here, only crushed down
under a general avalanche of things foreign to it. Men
have at one time felt that they had an immortal soul, have
they not? Physical obstruction, torture of nerves, &c.,
carried to a certain pitch is insuperable. All the rest I
could take some charge of, but this fairly beats me ; and th.-
utmost I can do — coidd I always achieve even that, which I

384 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

can't almost ever — is to be silent, to be inert and patient
under it. The soul's sorrow that I have, too, is notable,
perhaps singular. At no moment can I forget my loss, nor
wish to do it if I could. Singular how the death of one
has smitten all the Universe dead to me. Morbid ? I
sometimes ask, and possibly it is. But in that sadness for
my loved one — to whom now sometimes join themselves
my mother, father, &c. — there is a piety and silent patient
tenderness which does hold of the divine. How dumb are
all these things grown in the now beaverish and merely
gluttonous life of man ! A very sordid world, my masters !
Yes. But what hast thou to do with it ? Nothing. Pass

on. Still save thy poor self from it if possible

Am reading Verstigan's ' Decayed Intelligence ' night after
night, with wonder at the curious bits of correct etymology
and real sense and insight, floating about among masses of
mere darkness and quasi-imbecility. It is certain we have
in these two centuries greatly improved in our geologies, in
our notions of the early history of man. Have got rid of
MOSES, in fact, which surely was no very sublime achieve
ment either. I often think, however, it is pretty much
all that science in this age has done, or is doing.

October 14. — Three nights ago, stepping out after mid
night, with my final pipe, and looking up into the stars,
which were clear and numerous, it struck me with a strange
new kind of feeling. Hah ! in a little while I shall have
seen you also for the last time. God Almighty's own
Theatre of Immensity, the Infinite made palpable and visible
to me, that also will be closed, flung to in my face, and I
shall never behold that either any more. And I knew so
little of it, real as was my effort and desire to know. The
thoughts of this eternal deprivation — even of this, though
this is such a nothing in comparison — was sad and painful
to me. And then a second feeling rose on me, * What if
Omnipotence, which has developed in me these pieties, these
reverences and infinite affections, should actually have said,
Yes, poor mortals.' Such of you as have gone so far shall
be permitted to go farther. Hope. Despair not ! I have

ORATORY. 385

not had such a feeling for many years back as at that
moment, and so mark it here.

With his thoughts thus travelling into the far In
finities, Carlyle could scarcely care long, if he could
care at all, for the details of the progress of English
political disintegration. Yet he did observe with
contemptuous indignation the development of the
Irish policy by the Prime Minister, and speculated
on the construction of a mind which could persuade
itself and others that such a policy was right. It
was the fatal oratorical faculty.

Journal.

November llth, 1869. — If vTroKpiats, 'hypocrisy'1 be
the first, second, and third thing in eloquence, as I think
it is, then why have it at all ? Why not insist, as a first and
inexorable condition, that all speech be a reality; that every
speaker be verily what he pretends or play-acts to be ? I
can see no outlet from this. Grant the Demosthenic dictum,
this inference, this, were there nothing else urging it, in
exorably follows as the very next. Experience, too e.g.,

Oliver Cromwell's speeches. So soon as by long scanning
you can read them clearly, nowhere in the world did I find
such persuasion, such powers of compelling belief, there and
then, if you did really hear with open ear and heart. Duke
of Wellington ! I heard him just once for a quarter of an
hour. The whole House of Lords had spoken in Meliboean
strains for two or three hours ; might have spoken so for two
or three centuries without the least result to rne. vTro/cpia-is
not good enough. Wellington hawking, haing, humming —
the worst speaker I had ever heard — etched and scratched
me out gradually a recognisable portrait of the fact, and
was the only noble lord who had spoken at all.* These are

1 vtroKpirrjs is the Greek word for ' actor.'

2 This is precisely what Plato means. Truth, however plainly
spoken, convinces the intdlii/ntt. The orator speaks «V TO'IS OVK €i8om

the tint intelligent, and requires something else than, truth.
IV. C c

386 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

accurate facts familiar to my thoughts for many years back,
and might be pointed out far more vividly than here in the
actual features they have. Can so many doctors, solemn
pedants, and professors for some 2,000 years past — can
Longinus, Demosthenes, Cicero, and all the universities,
parliaments, stump oratories, and spouting places in this
lower world be unanimously wearing, instead of anreoles
round their heads, long ears on each side of it? Unani
mously sinning against Nature's fact, and stultifying and
confiscating themselves and their sublime classical labours.
I privately have not the least doubt of it, but possess no
means of saying so with advantage. Time, I believe, will
say so in the course of certain centuries or decades emphati
cally enough.

November 13th. — A second thing I will mark.

The quantities of potential and even consciously in
creasing Atheism, sprouting out everywhere in these days, is
enormous! In every scientific or quasi-scientific periodical
one meets it. By the last American mail I had two eloquent,
determined, and calmly zealous declarations of it. In fact,
there is clear prophecy to me that in another fifty years it
will be the new religion to the whole tribe of hard-hearted
and hard-headed men in this world, who, for their time, bear
practical rule in the world's affairs. Not only all Christian
churches but all Christian religion are nodding towards
speedy downfall in this Europe that now is. Figure the
residuum: man made chemically out of Unchlwm, or a
certain blubber called protoplasm. Man descended from
the apes, or the shell -fish. Virtue, duty, or utility an
association of ideas, and the corollaries from all that, France
is amazingly advanced in that career. England, America,
are making still more passionate speed to come up with her,
to pass her, and be the vanguard of progress. What I had to
note is this only : that nobody need argue with these people,
or can with the least effect, Logic never will decide the
matter, or will decide it— seem to decide it— their way. He
who traces nothing of God in his own soul, will never find
Cod in the world of matter — mere circlings of force there,

MODERN ATHEISM. 387

of iron regulation, of universal death and merciless in-
differency. Nothing but a dead steam-engine there. It is ? ,
in the soul of man, when reverence, love, intelligence, mag
nanimity have been developed there, that the Highest can
disclose itself face to face in sun-splendour, independent of
all cavils and jargonings. There, of a surety, and nowhere
else. And is not that the real court for such a cause?
Matter itself — the outer world of matter — is either Nothing
or else a product due to man's mind. To Mind, all ques
tions, especially this question, come for ultimate decision, as
in the universal highest and final Court of Appeal. I wish all
this could be developed, universally set forth, and put on its
true basis. Alas ! I myself can do nothing with it, but per
haps others will.

December 4th, 1869. — This is my seventy-fourth birth
day. For seventy-four years have I now lived in this world.
That is a fact awakening cause enough for reflection in the
dullest man. ... If this be my last birthday, as is often not
improbable to me, may the Eternal Father grant that I be
ready for it, frail worm that I am. Nightly I look at a
certain photograph— at a certain tomb1 — the last thing I do.
Most times it is with a mere feeling of dull woe, of endless
love, as if choked under the inexorable. In late weeks I
occasionally feel able to wish with my whole softened heart
—it is my only form of prayer— ' Great Father, oh, if Thou
canst, have pity on her and on me, and on all such.' In this
at least there is no harm. The fast-increasing flood of
Atheism on me takes no hold — does not even wet the soles
ofrny feet, I totally disbelieve it ; despise as well as abhor
it ; nor dread that it ever can prevail as a doom of the sons
of men. Nay, are there not perhaps temporary necessities
for it, inestimable future uses in it ? Patience ! patience !
and hope ! The new diabolic school of the French is really
curious to me. Beaudelaire for example. Ode of his in
' Fraser ' the other night, Was there ever anything so
bright infernal ? Fleurs du Mai indeed !

1 Photograph of the interior of Haddingtou Church and Mrs. Car-
'•'•<ting-plac6 there.

c o

388 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

January 2lst, 1870. — It is notable how Atheism spreads

among us in these days. 's protoplasm (unpleasant

doctrine that we are all, soul and body, made of a kind of
blubber, found in nettles among other organisms) appears
to be delightful to many ; and is raising a great crop of
atheistic speech on the shallower side of English spiritualism
at present. One - — , an army surgeon, has continued
writing to me on these subjects from all quarters of the
world a set of letters, of which, after the first two or three,
which indicated an insane vanity, as of a stupid cracked man,
and a dull impiety as of a brute, I have never read beyond
the opening word or two, and then the signature, as pro
logue to immediate fire ; everyone of which nevertheless
gives me a moment of pain, of ghastly disgust, and loathing

pity, if it be not anger, too, at this poor and his life.

Yesterday there came a pamphlet, published at Lewes, by
some moral philosopher, there called Julian, which, on look
ing into it, I find to be a hallelujah on the advent and dis
covery of atheism ; and in particular, a crowning — with

cabbage or I know not what — of this very •. The real

joy of Julian was what surprised me — sincere joy you would
have said — like the shout of a hyaena on finding that the
whole universe was actually carrion. In about seven minutes
my great Julian was torn in two and lying in the place fit
for him.

The ' Diabolic ' sometimes visited Carlyle in actual
form. One day in November this year, an appar
ently well-conditioned gentleman waited upon him
with a request for help in some local Chelsea charity.
A sovereign was at once forthcoming. The man
went, and ten minutes after he discovered that the
plausible stranger was a ticket-of-leave man, and that
he himself had been a ' nose of wax.' Too late he
remembered an air of ' varnished devilry ' in the
fellow. ' Well ! well ! ' he reflected, ' you must just
take your just wages whatever mortification there is.

STRANGE APPLICATIONS. 389

The handsome scandalous face came back to him at
night in a half- waking dream. ' Hah ! ' he thought,

O O o '

I had a personal visit of the DEVIL too, as poor St.
Culm had many ; and slept off with something of real
pity for this miserable Devil of mine.' The fraud was
itself a tribute to his known good-nature. But he had
better evidences of the light in which the world now
looked on him. « The marks of respect,' he said, ' of
loving regard and praise in all forms of it, that come
to me here, are a surprise, an almost daily astonish
ment and even an embarrassment to me, though I
answer uniformly nothing ; so undeserved they seem,
so excessive, so wildly overdone.' One letter I
insert here from a person who sought him as a ghostly
father under singular circumstances ; an endorsement
shows that he did answer it, though what he said can
only be conjectured.

To Thomas Carlyle.

1869.

Sir, — As I learned from the note that Mrs. received

from you that you were not unwilling to pay some attention
to what I might have to say, I have ventured to trouble you
with the following account of my wretched state. It is not
without horrible misgivings that I do it. But you must
know the nature of my complaint to enable you to prescribe
a remedy, if remedy there be for it. Know then the secret
of all my sorrows and my hardships. I am ugly — I had
almost said hideous — to behold. Oh what a devilish mis
fortune to be sent into the world uglv. How often do
I curse the day of my birth. How often do I curse the
mother that brought me into this world out of nothingness
into hellish misery — aye, and often do more than curse her.

I have no friends or companions ; all shun and despise
me. As I cannot share the pleasures and enjoyments of

390 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

those around me, I have sought to beguile away my time
with books. My mental capacities are near zero, so I read
them to little purpose ; yet they have aroused in me dim
ideas of something I cannot express- — something that almost
makes me glad I am in the world. I do not like to go and
seek work (necessity compels me sometimes) for I cannot
bear the taunts and jibes of those I work with, so I am
always poor.

Oh what a devilish life is mine ! You call this a God's
world ; if it is, I must say I am a (rod- forgotten mortal.
You talk of big coming Eternities ; you call man a Son of
Earth and Heaven. I often ponder over such phrases as
these, thinking to find some meaning in them that would
bid me look into brighter prospects in the dark future. I,
who have such a wretched life here, often try to make myself
believe that there is a better life awaiting me elsewhere.

I am about twenty-five years of age. I am heartily sick
of life, and I live here only because I have not the courage
to die. I flatter myself that I shall yet get courage. I have
become misanthropical. I hate all things. How I wish that
this solid globe was shattered into fragments, and I left alone
to gaze upon the ruins. Now if you could show me that
I have anything to live for, that there is anything better
waiting me in the ' big coming eternities,' anything that
would make me bear ' the whips and scorns of time,' I will
ever remember your kindness with gratitude.

I know no such hopes can be aught to me. It would
have been much better that I had never been born. It is
hard for me to confess all this to you — hard for me to confess
it to myself. I will conclude, fearing that I have trespassed
too far on your attention already.

Among the infirmities of age, a tremulous motion
began to show itself in his right hand, which made
writing difficult and threatened to make it impossible.
It was a twitching of the muscles, an involuntary
lateral jerk of the arm when he tried to use it.

RIGHT HAND DISABLED. 391

And no misfortune more serious could have befallen
him, for ' it came,' he said, ' as a sentence not to do
any more work while thou livest ' — a very hard one,
for he had felt a return of his energy. ' In brighter
hours he saw many things which he might write,
were the mechanical means still there.' He could
expand the thoughts which lay scattered in his
Journal. He could occupy himself at any rate, in
itself so necessary to so restless a spirit. He tried
' dictation,' but it resulted only in ' diluted moon
shine.' Letters he could dictate, but nothing else,
and the case was cruel.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea: May 26, 1870.

Gloomy, mournful, musing, silent, looking back on the
unalterable, and forward on the inevitable and inexorable.
That, I know, is not a good employment, but it is too
generally mine, especially since I lost the power of pen
manship,1 and have properly no means of working at my
own trade, the only one I ever learned to work at. A great
loss this of my right hand. Dictation I try sometimes, but
never with any success, and doubt now I shall never learn it.
Courage nevertheless ; at least, silence in regard to that !

Another sorrow, aggravating the rest, was the
death, March 20, 1870, of his dear friend Mr. Erskine
of Linlathen. Erskine, ' one of the most religious
men ' left in Scotland, had been among the first of
his countrymen to recognise Carlyle, and to see in
him, across his heterodoxies, the intense ' belief
which is the essence of genuine piety. Erskine's
orthodoxy, on the other hand, had been no impedi
ment to Carlyle's affection for him.

1 He \srotc nuw,;iuu u.- iuiij: us he could write ;it till, with a pencil.

392 CARLYLE'S LIFE TN LONDON.

On Sunday (he writes), Thomas Erskine, nearly my last
Scotch friend, except my own kindred, died, weary and heavy-
laden, but patient, true, and reverently peaceable to the very
last. Another of my few last links severed, about which and
whom the flutter to me has not yet ceased without or within.
Night before last, just as I was falling asleep, vision of him
in Princes Street, as if face to face ; clear discernment of
what a pure and beautiful and brotherly soul he had been,
and that he too was away for ever, which at once awoke me
again, usefully for some minutes. . . . Four years all but
thirteen days I have stood contemplating my (own) calamity.
Time was to bring relief, said everybody ; but Time has not to
any extei.t, nor in truth did I much wish him. No. At all
hours and at all moments her transfigured spirit accom
panies me, beautiful and sad ; lies behind all thoughts that I
have and even all talk that I carry on, little as my collocutors
suspect. Sometimes I reflect, Is not this morbid, weak,
improper ? but cannot bring myself to regret it at any time,
much less to try altering it, even if I could. The truth is,
I am unable to work. Work is done. Self am done. My
life now has nothing in it but the shadow, sad, grand, un
fathomable, of what is coming — coming.

Time and sorrow had softened the angry tones of
Carlyle's earlier days. The Geyser spring rarely shot
up the hot stones and steam, and his talk generally
was as calm as the entries in his Journal. He would
still boil up under provocation, but he was sorry for
it afterwards. ' Walk with Spedding last week,' he
notes on the 1st of May. 'My style of talk to him so
fierce, exaggerative, scornful of surrounding men and
things, as is painful to me to think of now.' Far more
often he was trying to see the silver lining of the
cloud, and discover, even in what he most detested,
the action of something good. Thus—

USES OF ANARCHY. 393

Journal.

April 16, 1870. — American Anarchy. Yes; it is huge,
loud, ugly to soul and sense, raging wildly in that manner
from shore to shore. But I ask myself sometimes, ' Could
your Frederic Wilhelm, your wisest Frederic, by the strictest
government, by any conceivable skill in the art of charioteer
ing, guide America forward in what is its real task at present
— task of turning a savage immensity into arability, utility,
and readiness for becoming human, as fast and well as
America itself, "with its very anarchies, gasconadings, vulgari
ties, stupidities, is now doing ? No ; not by any means.
That withal is perfectly clear to me this good while past.
Anarchies, too, have their uses, and are appointed with
cause. Our own anarchy here, ugliest of created things to
me, do I not discern, as its centre and vital heart even now,
the visibly increasing hatred of mendacities, the gradually
and now rapidly spreading conviction that there can be no
good got of formulas and shams ; that these are good only
to abolish, the sooner the better, toss into the fire and have
done with them. True — most true ! This also I see.

From this point of view even the speculative anarchy
was not without its uses.

Journal.

June 23, 1870. — Book (posthumous) by a Professor
Grrote, sent to me. Anxious remonstrance against J. S.
Mill and the Utilitarian Theory of Morals. Have looked
through it seriously intent, this Grote meaning evidently
well, but can't read it, nor get any good of it, except see
again and ever again what the infinite bewilderment of
men's minds on that subject is ; lost in vortexes of Logic,
bottomless and boundless, for ever incapable of settling or
even elucidating such a question. He that still doubts
whether his sense of right and wrong is a revelation from
the Most High, I would recommend him to keep .silence,

394 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

rather to do silently, with more and more of pious earnestness,
what said sense dictates to him as right. Day by day in
this manner will he do better, and also see more clearly
where the sanction of his doing is, and whence derived.
By pious heroic climbing of your own, not by arguing with
your poor neighbours, wandering to right and left, do you at
length reach the sanctuary — the victorious summit — and
see with your own eyes. The prize of heroic labour, suffer
ing, and performance this, and not a feat of dialectics or of
tongue argument with yourself or with another, I more and
more perceive it to be. To cease that miserable problem of
the accounting for the ' moral sense ' is becoming highly
desirable in our epoch. Can you account for the * sense of
hunger,' for example ? Don't ; it is too idle ; if you even
could ; which you never can or will, except by merely telling
me in new words that it is hunger ; and if, in accounting for
' hunger,' you more and more gave up eating, what would
become of your philosophy and you? Cease, cease, my
poor empty-minded, loud-headed, much-bewildered friends.
4 KV!i.^i.>ii,' this, too, Grod be thanked, I perceive to IK- .i^.-iin
possible, to be again here, for whoever will piously struggle
upwards, and sacredly, sorrowfully refuse to speak lies,
which indeed will mostly mean refuse to speak at all on that
topic. No words for it in our base time. " In no time or
epoch can the Highest be spoken of in words— not in many
words, I think, ever. But it can even now be silently
beheld, and even adored by whoever has eyes and adoration,
i.e. reverence in him. ' Nor, if he must be for the present
lonely and ! ... in such act, will that always be the case ?
No, probably no, I begin to perceive ; not always, nor
altogether. But in the meanwhile Silence. Why am I
writing this even here? The beginning of all is to have
done with Falsity ; to eschew Falsity as Death Eternal.

December 28. —I wish I had strength to elucidate and
write down intelligibly to my fellow-creatures what my outline

1 This passage, written in pencil, has been so corrected and altered as
to be in parts illegible.

ATHEISM. 395

of belief about God essentially is. It might be useful to a poor
protoplasm generation, all seemingly determined on those
poor terms to try Atheism for a while. They will have to
return from that, I can tell them, or go down altogether into
the abyss. I find lying deep in me withal some confused but
ineradicable flicker of belief that there is a ' particular pro
vidence.' Sincerely I do, as it were, believe this, to my own
surprise, and could perhaps reconcile it with a higher logic
than the common draughtboard kind. There may further be
a chessboard logic, says Novalis. That is his distinction.

\

396 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTEE XXXII.

A.D. 1870. J3T. 75.

Anne Boleyn — ' Ginx's Baby ' — The Franco-German war — English
sympathy with France — Letter to the ' Times ' — Effect of it — In
ability to write — ' Letters and Memorials of Mrs. Carlyle ' — Dis
position made of them.

I BEGIN this chapter with an opinion of Carlyle on an
intricate historical problem. In studying the history
of Henry VIII. , I had been uncertain what to think
about the trial and execution of Anne Boleyn. The
story of her offences was on the face of it monstrous,
and the King's marriage, following instantly on her
execution, was at least strange and suspicious. On
the other hand, it was hard to believe that Commis
sions of Enquiry, Judges, juries, the Privy Council,
and finally, Parliament, which was specially sum
moned on the occasion, could have been the accom
plices of a wanton crime ; and the King in ordinary
prudence would have avoided insulting the common
sense and conscience of the realm, if he knew that
she had been falsely accused, and would have at least
waited a decent period before taking a new wife. I
did not know till I had finished my book, that the
despatches of Eustace Chapuys, the Imperial Am
bassador resident at the time in London, had been
preserved at Vienna. I went thither to examine them

ANNE BOLEYN. 397

in the spring of 1870, and I published extracts from
them afterwards in ' Fraser's Magazine.' Chapuys's
account, though it leaves the question of Anne's guilt
still uncertain, yet reveals a mass of intrigue, political
and personal, in Henry's court, which made it seem
possible, for the first time to me, that the poor Queen
might have been innocent, yet that the King and
Parliament might have honestly believed her guilty.
During violent revolutions, men can believe anything
that falls in with their prevailing passions. I talked
the subject over with Carlyle after my return. In
the summer he went to Scotland, where the maga
zine, with the letters in it, reached him ; and he
wrote thus to me : —

The Hill, Dumfries : August 14, 1870.

As to Anne Boleyn, I find still a considerable want of
perfect clearness, and, without that, the nearest approach I
made to clearness about her was in the dialogue we had one
day before Chapuys came out. Chapuys rather sent me to
sea again, and dimmed the matter. I did not quite gather
from him what I did from you — the frantic, fanatical, rabid,
and preternatural state of 'public opinion.' This I had
found to be quite the illuminative lamp of the transaction,
both as to her conduct and to every one's . . . and such in
fact it still continues, on the faith of what you said, and
inclines me to believe, on all the probabilities I have, that
those adulterous abominations, even the caitiff lute-player's
part,1 are most likely altogether lies upon the poor lady.

This was Carry le's judgment, formed on such data
as I could give him on this difficult matter. I added
what more I had to say upon it in an appendix to the
next edition of my work.

Carlyle enjoyed Scotland this year. He described

1 Mark Smeton, who confessed to the adultery.

398 CAXLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

his life to me as ' encircled in cotton, such the un
wearied kindness and loving patience of his sister's
household with him.' To Miss Bromley he wrote :
' The incomparable freshness, the air on the hillside,
and the luxurious beauty of these old hills and dales
all round, so silent, yet so full of voices, strange and
sacred, mournfully audible to one's poor old heart,
are evidently doing me day by day some little good ;
though I have sad fighting with the quasi-infernal in
gredient — the railway whistle, namely — and have my
difficulties and dodgings to obtain enough of sleep.'

Miss Bromley had sent him a book which pleased
him.

To Miss Bromley.

The Hill: July 11.

' Grinx's Baby ' is capital in its way, and has given great
satisfaction here. The writing man is rather of penny-a-liner
habits and kind, hut he slashes along swift and fearless,
sketching at arm's length, as with a burnt stick on a cottage
wall, and sketches and paints for us some real likeness of
the sickening and indeed horrible anarchy and godless
negligence and stupor that pervades British society, espe
cially the lowest, largest, and most neglected class ; no
legislator, people's William or official person, ever casting
an eye in that direction, but preferring to beat the wind
instead. God mend it ! I perceive it will have to try
mending itself in altogether terrible and unexpected ways
before long, if everybody takes the course of the people's
William upon it. This poor penny-a-liner is evidently
sincere in his denunciation and delineation, and, one hopes,
may awaken here and there some torpid soul, dilettante
M.P. or the like, to serious reflection on what is the one
thing needful at this day, in Parliament and out of it, if he
were wise to discern.

Alas ! it is above thirty years since I started the Con-

THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 399

dition of England question as well worthy of considering,
but was met with nothing but angry howls and Eadical
Ha, ha's ! And here the said question still is, untouched and
ten times more unmanageable than then. Well, well ! I
return you Grinx, and shut up my lamentations.

To me lie wrote something in the same strain, a
propos of some paper of mine on the colonies :

People's William and all the parties to so unspeakable a
plan of ' management ' and state of things, to me are unen
durable to think of. Torpid, gluttonous, sooty, swollen, and
squalid England is grown a phenomenon which fills me
with disgust and apprehension, almost desperate, so far as it
is concerned. What a base, pot-bellied blockhead this our
heroic nation has become ; sunk in its own dirty fat and
offal, and of a stupidity defying the very gods. Do not grow
desperate of it, you who have still a hoping heart, and a right
hand that does not shake.

The finer forces of nature were not sleeping
everywhere, and Europe witnessed this summer, in
the French and German war, an exhibition of Divine
judgment which was after Carlyle's own heart. So
suddenly too it came ; the whole sky growing black
with storm, and the air ablaze with lightning, ' in an
hour when no man looked for it.' France he had
long known was travelling on a bad road, as bad as
England's, or worse. The literature there was ' a new
kind of Phallus-worship, with Sue, Balzac, and Co. for
prophets, and Madame Sand for a virgin.' The Church
getting on its feet again, with its Pope's infallibility,
&<•., was the re-establishment of exploded lies. As
the people were, such was their government. The
' Copper Captain,' in his eyes, was the abomination of
desolation, a mean and perjured adventurer. He
bad known him piTMMially in his old London days.

400 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

and had measured his nature. Prince Napoleon had
once spent an evening in Cheyne Kow. Carlyle had
spoken his mind freely, as he always did, and the
Prince had gone away inquiring ' if that man was
mad.' Carlyle's madness was clearer-sighted than
Imperial cunning. He regarded the Emperor's pre
sence on a throne which he had won by so evil means
as a moral indignity, and had never doubted that in
the end Providence would in some way set its mark
upon him. When war was declared, he felt that the
end was coming. He had prophesied, in the ' Life of
Frederick,' that Prussia would become the leading
State of Germany, perhaps of Europe. Half that pro
phecy had been fulfilled already through the war of
1866. The issue of the war with France was never
for a moment doubtful to him, though neither he
nor any one could foresee how complete the German
victory would be. He was still in Scotland when
the news came of Gravelotte and Sedan, and I had
this letter from him :—

September 1870. — Of outward events the war does in
terest me, as it does the whole world. No war so wonderful
did I ever read of, and the results of it I reckon to be
salutary, grand, and hopeful, beyond any which have occurred
in my time. Paris city must be a wonderful place to-day.
I believe the Prussians will certainly keep for Germany
what of Elsass and Lorraine is still German, or can be
expected to re-become such, and withal that the whole
world cannot forbid them to do it, and that Heaven will not
(nor I). Alone of nations, Prussia seems still to understand
something of the art of governing, and of fighting enemies
to said art. Germany, from of old, has been the peaceablest,
most pious, and in the end most valiant and terriblest of
nations. Germany ought to be President of Europe, and

PROSPECTS FOR FRANCE. 40,

will again, it seems, be tried with that office for another five
centuries or so.

In September Carlyle came back to Chelsea, still
eagerly watching the events of the war.

Journal.

October 3.— State of France, lying helpless, headless
even, but still braggart in its ignominy under the heel of
Prussia, is full of interest even to me. What will become of
the mad country next ? Paris, shut up on every side, can
send no news except by balloon and carrier-pigeons. The
country is without any visible government. A country with
its head cut off; Paris undertaking to 'stand siege;' the
voice of France a confused babblement from the gutters,
scarcely human at all, you would say, so dark, ignorant,'
mad do they seem. This is her first lesson poor France is
getting. It is probable she will require many such. For
the last twenty years I have been predicting to myself that
there might lie ahead for a nation so full of mad and loud
oblivion of the laws of this universe, a destiny no better than
that of Poland. Its strongest bond, I often guess, is pro
bably the fine and graceful language it has got to speak,
and to have so many neighbours learn ; one great advan
tage over Poland, but not an all-availing one. Peace with
Prussia, by coming in Prussia's ' will,' as the Scotch say, is
the first result to be looked for ; after which Due d'Auinale
or d'Orleans for a while ? Kepublic for a while ? None
knows, except that it can only be for a while ; that ' anarchies '
are not permitted to exist in this universe, and that nothing
not anarchic is possible in such a France as now is. N'im-
porte; n'importe. Poor France! Nay, the state of Eng
land is almost still more hideous to me ; base exceedingly,
to all but the flunkey and the penny editors, and given up
to a stupidity which theologians might call judicial !

It will be remembered that Russia took advanta-r
of the state of Europe and tore the article in the
lv- D D

402

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Treaty of Paris which limited her Black Sea fleet.
When the article was drawn, the essentially tempo
rary character of it was well understood ; but Eng
land bristled up when the trophies of her Crimean
glories were shattered and flung in her face so
cavalierly; for a week or two there was talk of
war again between us and Russia.

Quarrel (Carlyle said) mad as a March hare, if it don't
confine itself to the able editors, which who can be sure of?
Never thou mind. England seems to be all pretty mad.
Perhaps God will be merciful to her : perhaps not, too ; for
her impious stupidities are and have been many. . . .

Ten days ago read Gladstone's article in the ' Edinburgh
Review' with amazement. Empty as a bloiun goose-egg.
Seldom have I read such a ridiculous solemn addle-pated
Joseph Surface of a thing. Nothingness or near it con
scious to itself of being greatness almost unexampled.
Thanks to ' parliamentary eloquence ' mainly, and its value
to oneself and others. According to the People's William,
England, with himself atop, is evidently even now at the
top of the world. Against bottomless anarchy in all fibres
of her, spiritual and practical, she has now a completed
ballot-box, can vote and count noses, free as air. Nothing
else wanted, clearly thinks the People's William. He would
ask you, with unfeigned astonishment, ' What else ? ' « The
sovereign'st thing in nature is parmaceti' (read ballot) < for
an inward bruise.' That is evidently his belief, what he
finds believable about this universe, in England A.D. 1870.
Parmaceti ! Parmaceti ! Enough of him and of it.

France had so clearly been the aggressor in the
war with Germany that the feeling in England at the
outset had been on the German side. The general
belief, too, had been that France would win. Sym
pathy, however, grew with her defeats. The English
are always restive when other nations are fighting.

LETTER TO THE < TIMES:

4°3

and fancy that they ought to have a voice in the
settlement of every quarrel. There is a generous
disposition in us, too, to take the weaker side ; to
assume that the stronger party is in the wrong
especially if he takes advantage of his superiority'
When Germany began to formulate her terms of
peace, when it became clear that she meant, as
Carlyle foretold, to take back Elsass and Lorraine
there was a cry of spoliation, sanctioned unfortu
nately m high Liberal quarters where the truth ou^ht
to have been better known. A sore feeling began to
show itself, aggravated perhaps by the Eussian busi
ness, which, if it did not threaten to take active
form, encouraged France to prolong its resistance.
Ihe past history of the relations between France and
Germany was little understood in England. Carlyle
perhaps alone among us knew completely how France
had come by those essentially German provinces, or
my the bill was now being presented for payment
en had been running for centuries. To allay the
outcry which was rising he reluctantly buckled on
his armour again. With his niece's help he dictated
a long letter to the < Times,' telling his story simply
clearly, without a trace of mannerism or exag
geration. It appeared in the middle of November
and at once cooled the water which might otherwise
have boiled over. We think little of dangers .scaped-
but wise men everywhere felt that in writing i, he
had rendered a service of the highest kind to Euro
pean order and justice. His own allusions to what
he had done are slight and brief. As usual he thought
but little of his own performance.

D D 2

4o4 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

To John Carlyle.

November 12, 1870.

Poor Mary and I have had a terrible ten days, properly
a ' Much Ado about Nothing.' It concerned only that pro
jected letter to the newspapers about Germany. With a
right hand valid and nerves in order I might have done the
letter in a day, but with nerves all the contrary, and no
right hand, it was all different. Poor Mary had endless
patience, endless assiduity ; wrote like a little fairy ; sharp
as a needle, and all that could be expected of her when
it came to writing : and before that there was such a haul
ing down of old forgotten books, &c., in all which my little
helpmate was nimble and unwearied. Tn fine, we have got
the letter done and fairly sent away last night. I do not
reckon it a good letter, but it expresses in a probably too
emphatic way what my convictions are, and is a clearance to
my conscience in that matter whether it do good or not,
whether it be good or not.

Journal.

November 21. — Wrote, with much puddle and confused
bother, owing to mutinous right hand mainly, a letter to the
' Times ' on the French-German question, dated ten days
ago, published in ' Times ' of November 18. Infinite jargon
in newspapers seemingly, and many scrubby notes knocking
at this door in consequence. Must last still for a few days
--in a few days will pass away like a dust-cloud.

Not scrubby notes only, but ' a rain of letters,
wise, foolish, sane, mad,' streamed in upon Cheyne
Eo\v during the next few weeks. Some were really
interesting, coming from German soldiers serving in
the trenches before Paris, grateful to the single
Englishman who could feel for them and stand up
for them. On the 25th a telegram was forwarded to
him by the Prussian Ambassador, with a note from

EFFECT ON ENGLISH FEELING. 405

himself. The terms of the message I do not know,
nor by whom it was sent. The nature of it, how
ever, may be inferred from the words of Count
Bernstorff.

Prussia House, Carlton House Terrace,
November 25, 1870.

Sir, — T received yesterday evening the enclosed telegram
for you from Hamburg, and I am much gratified to be able
to avail myself of the opportunity of forwarding it to you,
and of expressing to the celebrated historian my entire con
currence in the thankfulness of my countrymen.
I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

BERNSTORFF.

In fact Carlyle's letter had most effectually
answered its purpose. There was no more talk of
English interposition. M. Thiers came over to beg
for help ; if not material, at least moral. We had to
decline to interfere, and France was left to its fate —
a fate terrible beyond Carlyle's expectation, for Paris,
after being taken by the Germans, had to be re
covered again out of the hands of the French Com
mune amidst the ashes of the Tuileries, and a second
* September ' massacre, to be avenged by a massacre
in turn. On these horrors there is a pregnant pas
sage in a letter of his to his brother. He saw, when
no one else saw it, the coming greatness of Prussia.
Perhaps he saw other things equally correctly which
no one else can see.

To John Carlyle.

May 29, 1871.

I am much in the dark about the real meaning of all
these quasi-infernal Bedlamisms, upon which no newspaper
that I look into has any tiling to say except 'horrible,'

406 CARLYLKS LIFE IN LONDON.

' shameful,' and ' 0 Lord, I thank thee that we Englishmen
are not as other men.' One thing I can see in these
murderous ragings by the poorest classes in Paris, that they
are a tremendous proclamation to the upper classes in all
countries : ' Our condition, after eighty- two years of strug
gling, 0 ye quack upper classes, is still unimproved ; more
intolerable from year to year, and from revolution to revolu
tion ; and by the Eternal Powers, if you cannot mend it,
we will blow up the world, along with ourselves and you.'

It was Carlyle's deliberate conviction that a fate
like that of Paris, and far worse than had yet befallen
Paris, lay directly ahead of all great modern cities,
if their affairs were allowed to drift on under laissez-
faire and so-called Liberty.

But the world and its concerns, even Franco-
German wars and Paris revolutions, could not
abstract his mind, except fitfully, from the central
thoughts which occupied his heart. His interest had
essentially gone from the Present to the Past and
Future, the Past so painfully beautiful, the Future
with the veil over it which no hand had lifted or could
lift. Could he but hope to see her once more, if
only for five minutes ? By the side of this the rest
was nothing.

In the midst of the echoes from the battlefields
he writes :—

Journal.

October 11, 1870.— Very sad, sunless, is the hue of this
now almost empty world to me. World about to vanish
for me in Eternities that cannot be known. Infinite longing
for my loved ones — towards Her almost a kind of mournful
worship — this is the one celestial element of my new exist
ence ; otherwise in general ' wae and weary ' — ' wae and

THE RIGHT HAND. 407

weary.' Not even the amazing German-French war, grandest
and most beneficent of Heavenly providences in the history
of my time, can kindle me, except for a short while.'

Again, soon after Count Bernstorff's note : —

Journal.

December 15, 1870. — How pungent is remorse, when it
turns upon the loved dead, who cannot pardon us, cannot hear
us now ! Two plain precepts there are. Dost thou intend a
kindness to thy beloved one ? Do it straightway, while the
fateful Future is not yet here. Has thy heart's friend care
lessly or cruelly stabbed into thy heart. Oh, forgive him !
Think how, when thou art dead, he will punish himself.
True precepts — clear dictates of prudence both, yet how often
neglected !

In the following spring there are the saddest
notices of the failure of his hand, as if he was still
eager to write something, but could not :—

Loss of my right hand for writing with — a terrible loss.
Never shall I learn to write by dictation, I perceive. Alas !
alas ! for I might still work a little if I had my hand, and
the night cometh wherein no man can work.

And a fortnight later : —

June 15, 1871. — Curious to consider the institution of
the Eightjiand among universal mankind ; probably the very
oldest human institution that exists, indispensable to all
human co-operation whatsoever. He that has seen three
mowers, one of whom is left-handed trying to work to
gether, and how impossible it is, has witnessed the simplest
form of an impossibility, which but for the distinction of
' right hand ' would have pervaded all human things. Have
often thought of all that — never saw it so clearly as this
morning while out walking, unslept and dreary enough in
the windy sunshine. How old? Old! I wonder if there is
any pfopk- barbarous enough not to liavc this distinction

4o8 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

of hands ; no human Cosmos possible to be even begun
without it. Oldest Hebrews, &c. writing from right to left,
are as familiar with the world-old institution as we.

Why that particular hand was chosen is a question not to
be settled, not worth asking except as a kind of riddle : pro
bably arose in fighting ; most important to protect your heart
and its adjacencies, and to carry the shield in that hand.

This is very characteristic of Carlyle, who went
always to the heart of every subject which occupied
him. But his particular occupation with it at that
moment, and his impatience with his inability to
write, perhaps arose from an eagerness to leave com
plete, with a fitting introduction, the letters and
memorials of his wife, before making a final dis
position of the manuscript. He could not do it. He
was conscious that he would never be able to do it,
and that he must decide on some other course. I
was still his constant companion, but up to this time
he had never mentioned these memoirs to me. Of
her he spoke continually, always in the same remorse
ful tone, always with bitter self-reproach ; but of
the monument which he had raised to her memory
he had never spoken at all. One day — the middle or
end of June, 1871 — he brought, himself, to my house
a large parcel of papers. He put it in my hands.
He told me to take it simply and absolutely as my
own, without reference to any other person or persons,
and to do with it as I pleased after he was gone.
He explained, when he saw me surprised, that it was
an account of his wife's history, that it was incom
plete, that he could himself form no opinion whether
it ought to be published or not, that he could do no
more to it, and must pass it over to me. He wished

' LETTERS AND MEMORIALS: 409

never to hear of it again. 1 must judge. I must
publish it, the whole, or part — or else destroy it all,
if I thought that this would be the wiser thing to
do. He said nothing of any limit of time. I was to
wait only till he was dead, and he was then in con
stant expectation of his end. Of himself he desired
that no biography should be written, and that this
Memoir, if any, should be the authorised record of
him. So extraordinary a mark of confidence touched
me deeply, but the responsibility was not to be hastily
accepted. I was then going into the country for the
summer. I said that I would take the MS. with me,
and would either write to him or would give him an
answer when we met in the autumn.

On examining the present which had been thus
singularly made to me I found that it consisted of a
transcript of the ' Eeminiscence ' of Mrs. Carlyle,
which he had written immediately after her death,
with a copy of the old direction of 1866, that it was
not to be published ; two other fragmentary accounts
of her family and herself; and an attempt at a preface,
which had been abandoned. The rest was the collection
of her own letters, &c. — almost twice as voluminous
as that which has been since printed — with notes, com
mentaries, and introductory explanations of his own.
The perusal was infinitely affecting. I saw at once
the meaning of his passionate expressions of remorse,
of his allusions to Johnson's penance, and of his re
peated declaration that something like it was due
from himself. He had never properly understood till
her death how much she had suffered, and how much
he had himself to answer for. She, it appeared, in
her young day> had aspired after literary distinction.

410 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

He had here built together, at once a memorial of the
genius which had been sacrificed to himself, and of
those faults in himself which, though they were faults
merely of an irritable temperament, and though he
extravagantly exaggerated them, had saddened her
married life. Something of this I had observed, but
I had not known the extent of it ; and this action
of Carlyle's struck me as something so beautiful, so
unexampled in the whole history of literature, that I
could but admire it with all my heart. Faults there
had been ; yes, faults no doubt, but such faults as
most married men commit daily and hourly, and never
think them faults at all : yet to him his conduct
seemed so heinous that he could intend deliberately
that this record should be the only history that was
to survive of himself. In his most heroic life there
was nothing more heroic, more characteristic of him,
more indicative at once of his humility and his in
tense truthfulness. He regarded it evidently as an
expiation of his own conduct, all that he had now
to offer, and something which removed the shadow
between himself and her memory. The question
before me was whether I was to say that the atone
ment ought not to be completed, and that the bravest
action which I had ever heard of should be left
unexecuted, or whether I was to bear the reproach,
if the letters were given to the world, of having un
covered the errors of the best friend that I had ever
had. Carlyle himself could not direct the publication,
from a feeling, I suppose, of delicacy, and dread of
ostentation. I could not tell him that there was
nothing in his conduct to be repented of, for there
was much, and more than I had guessed ; and I had

« LETTERS AND MEMORIALS:

again to reflect that, if I burnt the MS., Mrs. Carlyle
had been a voluminous letter-writer, and had never
been reticent about her grievances. Other letters of
hers would infallibly in time come to light, telling
the same story. I should then have done Carlyle's
memory irreparable wrong. He had himself been
ready with a frank and noble confession, and the
world, after its first astonishment, would have felt in
creased admiration for the man who had the courage
to make it. I should have stepped between him
and the completion of a purpose which would have
washed his reputation clear of the only reproach
which could be brought against it. Had Carlyle been
an ordinary man, his private life would have con
cerned no one but himself, and no one would have
cared to inquire into it. But he belonged to the
exceptional few of whom it was certain that every
thing that could be known would eventually be sifted
out. Sooner or later the whole truth would be re
vealed. Should it be told voluntarily by himself, or
maliciously by others hereafter ? That was the
question.

When I saw him again after the summer we
talked the subject over with the fullest confidence.
He was nervously anxious to know my resolution. I
told him that, so far as I could then form an opinion,
I thought that the letters niit/ht be published, provided
the prohibition was withdrawn against publishing
his own Memoir of Mrs. Carlyle. That would show
what his feeling had really been, and what she had
really been, which also might perhaps bo miscon
strued. It would have him hard on both of them
if the sharp CI-MMUVS of Airs. Carlyle's pen had b

4i2 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

left unrelieved. To this Carlyle instantly assented.
The copy of the Memoir had indeed been given to
me among the other papers, that I might make use of
it if I liked, and he had perhaps forgotten that any
prohibition had been attached, but I required, and I
received, a direct permission to print it. The next
question was about the time of publication. On the
last page of the MS. was attached a pencil note naming,
first, twenty years after his death, The ' after my
death ' had been erased, but the twenty years re
mained. Though I was considerably younger than
he was, I could not calculate on living twenty years,
and the letters, if published at all, were to be pub
lished by me. When he had given them to me in
June he had told me only that I was to wait till he
was gone. He said now that ten years would be
enough — ten years from that time. There were many
allusions in the letters to people and things, anec
dotes, criticisms, observations, written in the con
fidence of private correspondence, which ought not
to be printed within so short a time. I mentioned
some of these, which he directed me to omit.

On these conditions I accepted the charge, but
still only hypothetically. It had been entrusted to
me alone, and I wished for further advice. He said
that if I was in a difficulty I might consult John
Forster, and he added afterwards his brother John.
John Carlyle I had never an opportunity of con
sulting. I presumed that John Carlyle was ac
quainted with his brother's intentions, and would
communicate with me on the subject if he wished
to do so ; but I sent the manuscript to Forster, that
I might learn generally his opinion about it. Forster

'LETTERS AND MEMORIALS: 413

had been one of Mrs. Carlyle's dearest friends, much
more intimate with her than I had been. He, if any
one, could say whether so open a revelation of the
life at Cheyne Row was one which ought to be made.
Forster read the letters. I suppose that he felt as
uncertain as I had done, the reasons against the pub
lication being so obvious and so weighty. But he
admired equally the integrity which had led Carlyle
to lay bare his inner history. He felt as I did, that
Carlyle was an exceptional person, whose character
the world had a right to know, and he found it diffi
cult to come to a conclusion. To me at any rate he
gave no opinion at all. He merely said that he
would talk to Carlyle himself, and would tell him
that he must make my position perfectly clear in his
will, or trouble would certainly arise about it. No
thing more passed between Forster and myself upon
the subject. Carlyle, however, in the will which
he made two years later bequeathed the MS. to
me specifically in terms of the tenderest confidence.
He desired that I should consult Forster and his
brother when the occasion came for a final resolu
tion ; but especially he gave the trust to me, charging
me to do my best and wisest with it. He mentioned
seven years or ten from that date (1873) as a term
at which the MS. might be published ; but, that no
possible question might be raised hereafter on that
part of the matter, he left the determination of the
time to myself, and requested others to accept my
judgment as his own.

Under these conditions the ' Letters and Memorials '
remained in my hands. At the date of his will of 1873
he adhered to his old resolution, that of himself there

414 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

should be no biography, and that these letters and
these letters alone should be the future record of him.
Within a few weeks or months, however, he discovered
that various persons who had been admitted to partial
intimacy with him were busy upon his history. If
lie was to figure before the world at all after his
death he preferred that there should be an authentic
portrait of him ; and therefore at the close of this
same year (1873) again, without note or warning,
he sent me his own and his wife's private papers,
journals, correspondence, ' reminiscences,' and other
fragments, a collection overwhelming from its abun
dance, for of his letters from the earliest period of
his life his family and friends had preserved every
one that he had written, while he in turn seemed to
have destroyed none of theirs. ' Take them,' he said
to me, ' and do what you can with them. All I can
say to you is, Burn freely. If you have any affection
for me, the more you burn the better.'

I burnt nothing, and it was well that I did not,
for a year before his death he desired me, when I had
done with these MSS. to give them to his niece. But
indeed everything of his own which I found in these
papers tended only to raise his character. They
showed him, in all his outward conduct, the same
noble, single-minded, simple-hearted, affectionate man
which I myself had always known him to be ; while
his inner nature, with this fresh insight into it, seemed
ever grander and more imposing.

The new task which had been laid upon me com
plicated the problem of the ' Letters and Memorials.'
My first hope was, that, in the absence of further
definite instructions from himself, I might interweave

1 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS: 415

parts of Mrs. Carlyle's letters with his own corre
spondence in an ordinary narrative, passing lightly
over the rest, and touching the dangerous places
only so far as was unavoidable. In this view I wrote
at leisure the greatest part of ' the first forty years '
of his life. The evasion of the difficulty was perhaps
cowardly, but it was not unnatural. I was forced
back, however, into the straighter and better course.

416 CARLYLE'S LfPE IN LONDON.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A.D. 1872. ^ET. 77.

Weariness of life — History of the Norse Kings — Portrait of John Knox
— Death of John Mill and the Bishop of Winchester — Mill and
Carlyle — Irish policy of Mr. Gladstone — The Prussian Order of
Merit — Offer of the Grand Cross of the Bath — Why refused — Lord
Beaconsfield and the Eusso-Turkish war — Letter to the ' Times.'

CARLYLE lived on after this more easy in his mind,
but otherwise weary and ' heavy laden'; for life, after
he had lost the power of working, was become a
mere burden to him. Often and often he spoke en
viously of the Roman method of taking leave of it.
He had read of a senator in Trajan's time who, slip
ping upon the pavement from infirmity, kissed the
ground, exclaiming ' Proserpine, I come ! ' put his house
in order, and ended. Greatly Carlyle approved of such
a termination, and regretted that it was no longer
permitted. He did not conceive, he said, that his
Maker would resent the voluntary appearance before
Him of a poor creature who had laboured faithfully
at his task till lie could labour no more. He made one
more effort to produce something. He had all along
admired the old Norsemen, hard of hand and true of
speech, as the root of all that was noblest in the
English nation. Even the Scandinavian gods were
nearer to him than the Hebrew. Witli someone to
write for him, lie put together a sketch of the Norse

LATEST WRITINGS. 417

kings. The stories, as lie told them to me, set off by
his voice and manner, were vigorous and beautiful :
the end of Olaf Trygveson, for instance, who went
down in battle into the fiord in his gilded armour.
But the greater part of them were weakened by
the process of dictation. The thing, when finished
seemed diluted moonshine, and did not please him.

Journal.

February 15, 1872. — Finished yesterday that long
rigmarole upon the Norse Kings. Uncertain now what to
do with it ; if not at once throw it into the fire. It is worth
nothing at all, has taught me at least how impossible the
problem is of writing anything in the least like myself by
dictation ; how the presence of a third party between my
thoughts and me is fatal to any process of clear thought.

He wrote also a criticism on the portraits of John
Knox, in which he succeeded in demolishing the
authority of the accepted likenesses, without, how
ever, completely establishing that of another which he
desired to substitute for them. He had great insight
into the human face, and into the character which
lay behind it. ' Aut Knox aut Diabolus,' he said, in
showing me the new picture ; ' if not Knox who can
it be ? A man with that face left his mark behind
him/ But physiognomy may be relied upon too far,
and the outward evidence was so weak that in his
stronger days he would not have felt so confident.

This, with an appendix to his 'Life of Schiller,' was
the last of his literary labours. He never tried any
thing again. The pencil entries in the Journal grew
scantier, more illegible, and at last ceased altogether.

iv. !•: i:

4i8 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

The will was resolute as ever, but the hand was power
less to obey. I gather up the fragments that remain.

July 12, 1872. — A long interval filled only with pitiful
miseries and confusions best forgotten. Empty otherwise, ex
cept for here and there an hour of serious, penitent reflection,
and of a sorrow which could be called loving, calm, and in some
sort sacred and devout ! Pure clear black amidst the general
muddy gloom. Item, generally if attainable, two hours
(after 10.30 P.M.) of reading in some really good book —
Shakespeare latterly — which amidst the silence of all the
Universe is a useful and purifying kind of thing. Keminis-
cences too without limit. Of prospects nothing possible
except what has been common to me with all wise old men
since the world began. Close by lies the great secret, but
impenetrable (is, was, and must be so) to terrestrial thoughts
for evermore. Perhaps something ! Perhaps not nothing,
after all. Grod's will, there also, be supreme. If we are to
meet ! Oh, Almighty Father, if we are, but silence ! silence !

The end of the summer of 1872 was spent at
Seaton with Lady Ashburton, whose affectionate care
was unwearied. In a life now falling stagnant it is
unnecessary to follow closely henceforth the occu
pation of times and seasons. The chief points only
need be now noted. The rocket was burnt out and
the stick falling. In November of that year Emerson
came again to England, and remained here and on the
Continent till the May following. He had brought
his daughter with him, and from both of them Car-
lyle received a faint pleasure. But even a friend so
valued could do little for him. His contemporaries
were dropping all round ; John Mill died ; Bishop
Wilberforce died ; everyone seemed to die except
himself.

DEATH OF FRIENDS. 4x9

Journal.

June 9, 1873. — ' More and more dreary, barren, base, and
ugly seem to me all the aspects of this poor diminishing quack
world — fallen openly anarchic — doomed to a death which
one can only wish to be speedy. . . . Death of John Mill at
Avignon about a month ago, awakening what a world of
reflections, emotions, and remembrances, fit to be totally kept
silent in the present mad explosion (among the maddest I
have seen about anyone) of universal threnodying penny-
a-linism ; not at any time a melodious phenomenon.'

I had myself written to him on the Bishop of
Winchester's death. He answered : —

July 29, 1873. — ' I altogether sympathize in what you say
of poor Sam of Winchester. The event is pitiful, tragical,
and altogether sadder to me than I could have expected. He
was far from being a bad man, and was a most dexterous,
stout, and clever one, and I have often exchanged pleasant
dialogues with him for the last thirty years — finished now —
silent for all eternity ! I find he was really of religious
nature, and thought in secret, in spite of his bishophood,
very much in regard to religion as we do.

His remarks on Mill and Mill's autobiography are
curious.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea : May 10, 1873.

Yesterday, on stepping out into the street, I was told
that John Mill was dead. I had heard no whisper of such a
thing before ; and a great black sheet of mournful, more or
less tragic, memories— not about Mill alone— rushed down
upon me. Poor Mill ! He too, has worked out his life drama
in sight of me ; and that scene has closed too before my old
eyes — though he was so much my junior. Goose N. came
down to me to day — very dirty — very enthusiastic — very
stupid and confused, with a daily newspaper ' containing two

K E 2

420 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

articles, ineffably sublime and heart-interesting upon Mill.'
Two more blustrous bags of empty wind I have seldom read.
' Immortal fame ! ' ' First spirit of his age ! ' ' Thinker of
thinkers ! ' What a piece of work is man with a penny-a-
liner pen in his hand.

To the Same.

November 5.

* You have lost nothing by missing the autobiography of
Mill. I have never read a more uninteresting book, nor I
should say a sillier, by a man of sense, integrity, and serious
ness of mind. The penny a-liners were very busy with it,
I believe, for a week or two, but were evidently pausing in
doubt and difficulty by the time the second edition came
out. It is wholly the life of a logic-chopping engine, little
more of human in it than if it had been done by a thing
of mechanized iron. Autobiography of a steam-engine,
perhaps, you may sometimes read it. As a mournful
psychical curiosity, but in no other point of view, can it
interest anybody. I suppose it will deliver us henceforth
from the cock-a-leerie crow about ' the Great Thinker of his
Age.' Welcome, though inconsiderable ! The thought of
poor Mill altogether, and of his life and history in this poor
muddy world, gives me real pain and sorrow.

Such a sentence, so expressed, is a melancholy
ending to the affectionate intimacy which had once
existed between Mill and Carlyle. At heart, perhaps,
they remained agreed — at least as much agreed as
Carlyle and Bishop Wilberforce could have been ;
both believed that the existing social arrangements
in this country were incurably bad, that in the con
ditions under which the great mass of human beings in
all civilised countries now lived, moved, and had their
being, there was at present such deep injustice that
the system which permitted such things could not

MILL AND CARLYLE. 421

be of long endurance. Carlyle felt this to his latest
hours. Without justice society is sick, and will con
tinue sick till it dies. The modern world, incapable
of looking duty in the face, attempts to silence
complaint with issuing flash-notes on the Bank of
Liberty, and will leave all men free to scramble for
as much as they can secure of the swine's trough.
This is the notion which it forms to itself of justice,
and of the natural aid which human beings are bound
to give to one another. Of the graces of mutual kind
liness, of the dignity and beauty which rise out of or
ganically-formed human society, it politically knows
nothing, and chooses to know nothing. The battle
is no longer, even to the strong, who have, at least,
the one virtue of courage ; the battle is to the
cunning, in whom is no virtue at all. In Carlyle's
opinion no remedy lay in political liberty. Anarchy
only lay there, and wretchedness, and ruin. Mill
had struck into that road for himself. Carlyle had
gone into the other. They had drifted far apart,
and were now separated for ever. Time will decide
between them. Mill's theory of things is still in the
ascendant. England is moving more eagerly than
ever in the direction of enfranchisement, believing
that there lies the Land of Promise. The orators
echo Mill's doctrines : the millions listen and believe.
The outward aspect of things seems to say that Mill
did, and that Carlyle did not, understand the con
ditions of the age. But the way is long, the expected
victories are still to be won — are postponed till the
day when 'England, the mother of free nations, her
self is free.' There are rapids yet to be stemmed,
or cataracts to descend, and it remains uncertain

422 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

whether on arriving (if we do arrive) at a finished
democracy, it will be a land flowing with milk and
honey, or be a waste heaving ocean strewed with the
wrecks of dead virtues and ruined institutions.

Carlyle was often taunted — once, I think, by Mr.
Lecky — with believing in nothing but the divine right
of strength. To me, as I read him, he seems to say,
on the contrary, that, as this universe is constructed,
it is ' right ' only that is strong. He says himself:—

With respect to that poor heresy of might being the
symbol of right ' to a certain great and venerable author,' I
shall have to tell Lecky one day that quite the converse or
reverse is the great and venerable author's real opinion —
namely, that right is the eternal symbol of might : as I hope
he, one day descending miles and leagues beyond his present
philosophy, will, with amazement and real gratification, dis
cover ; and that, in fact, he probably never met with a son
of Adam more contemptuous of might except where it rests
on the above origin.

Old and weary as he was, the persistent belief of
people in the blessings of democracy, and the con
fidence which they gave to leaders who were either
playing on their credulity or were themselves the
dupes of their own phrases, distressed and provoked
Carlyle. He was aware that he could do nothing,
that self-government by count of heads would be
tried out to the end before it would be abandoned ;
but in his conversation and letters he spoke his
opinions freely — especially his indignation at the
playing with fire in Ireland, which the great popular
chief had begun.

IRISH POLICY OF MR. GLADSTONE. 423
To John Carlyle.

Chelsea : March 7, 1873.

The whole world is in a mighty fuss here about Gladstone
and his Bill : ! the attack on the third branch of the Upas
Tree, and the question what is to become of him in conse
quence of it. To myself from the beginning it seemed the
consummation of contemptibilities and petty trickeries on
his part, one of the most transparent bits of thimblerigging
to secure the support of his sixty Irish votes, the Pope's
brass band, and to smuggle the education violin into the
hands of Cullen and the sacred sons of Belial and the
scarlet woman, I had ever seen from him before.

And again : —

March 23, 1873.

Gladstone appears to me one of the contemptiblest men
I ever looked on. A poor Eitualist ; almost spectral kind of
phantasm of a man — nothing in him but forms and cere
monies and outside wrappages ; incapable of seeing veritably
any fact whatever, but seeing, crediting, and laying to heart
the mere clothes of the fact, and fancying that all the rest
does not exist. Let him fight his own battle, in the name of
Beelzebub the god of Ekron, who seems to be his God.
Poor phantasm !

He was better pleased with a lecture on English
notions of government, delivered by Sir James Stephen,
at the Philosophical Institution, at Edinburgh : —

I found it (he says, November 15) a very curious piece
indeed, delineating one of the most perfect dust-whirls of
Administrative Nihilism, and absolute absurdities and impo
tences, more like an electric government apparatus for Bedlam,
elected and submitted to by Bedlam, than any sane apparatus
ever known before. And strangely enough it is interlarded
with the loyallest assurances every now and then that it is the

1 Irish Education Hill.

424 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

one form of government for us for an indefinite period, and
that no change for the better can be practically contemplated.
He is a very honest man, Stephen, with a huge heavy stroke
of work in him.

Of Stephen, Ruskin, and one or two others, Carlyle
could still think with a degree of comfort. He would
gladly have struck one more blow against ' things not
true ; ' for his intellect was strong as ever and his
sight as piercing ; but he sadly found that it was not
to be. On December 6 he made the last pencil
entry, or the last that is legible, in his Journal. From
this time his hand failed him entirely, and the pri
vate window that opened into his heart was closed
up — no dictation being there admissible.

December 6, 1873. — Day before yesterday was my poor
birthday, attended with some ceremonial greetings and
more or less sincere expressions of regard. Welcome these
latter, though unimportant. To myself the serious and
solemn fact, ' Thy seventy-eighth year is finished then.' Nor
had that in it an impressiveness of too much depth; perhaps
rather of too little. A life without work in it, as mine now
is, has less and less worth to me ; nay, sometimes a feeling
of disgrace and blame is in me ; the poor soul still vividly
enough alive, but struggling in vain under the strong im
prisonment of the dying or half-dead body. For many
months past, except for idle reading, I am pitifully idle.
Shame, shame ! I say to myself, but cannot help it. Great
and strange glimpses of thought come to me at intervals,
but to prosecute and fix them down is denied me. Weak,
too weak, the flesh, though the spirit is willing.

He seemed to be drifting calmly towards the end,
as if of outward incidents or outward activities there
would be nothing more to record. But there was
still something wanting, and he was not to leave the

THE ORDER OF MERIT. 425

world without an open recognition of his services
to mankind. In January 1874, there came a rumour
from Berlin that Prussia proposed to reward the
author of the ' Life of Frederick the Great,' by confer
ring on him the Order of Merit, which Frederick him
self had founded. Possibly the good turn which he
had done to Germany by his letter during the siege of
Paris, might have contributed to draw the Emperor's
attention to him. But his great history, translated and
universally accepted by Frederick's countrymen as
the worthiest account of their national hero, was itself
claim sufficient without additional motive. Carlyle
had never been ambitious of public honours. He had
never even thought of such things, and the news,
when it first readied Cheyne Eow, was received with
out particular flutter of heart. ' Were it ever so well
meant,' he said, i it can be of no value to me what
ever. Do thee neither ill na gude.' The Order of
Merit was the most flattering distinction which could
have been offered him, for it really means ' merit,'
and must be earned, even by the Princes of the Blood.
Of course he could not refuse it, and, at the bottom,
I am sure that lie was pleased. Yet it seemed as if
he would not let himself enjoy anything which she
was no longer alive to enjoy with him.

The day before yesterday (he tells his brother on the 14th
of February) his Prussian Excellency forwarded to me by
registered parcel all the documents and insignia connected
with our sublime elevation to the Prussian Order of Merit.
Due reply sent ; and so we have done, thank Heaven, with
this sublime nonentity. I feel about it, after the fact is
over, quite as emphatically as I did at first, — that had they
sent me a quarter of a pound of good tobacco, the addition

426 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

to my happiness would probably have been suitabler and
greater.

To his friends this act of the German Govern
ment was a high gratification, if to himself it was a
slight one. The pleasure which men receive from
such marks of respect is in most cases ' satisfied
vanity ' ; and Carlyle never thought of his own per
formances, except as ' duty ' indifferently done.

We, however, were all glad of it, the more so
because I then believed that when I wrote his life I
should have to say that although for so many years
he had filled so great a place amongst us, and his
character was as noble as his intellect, the Govern
ment, or Governments, of his own country — Tory,
Liberal, or whatever they might be — had passed him
over without notice. The reproach, however — for
reproach it would have been — was happily removed
while there was yet time.

It is rather for their own sakes, than for the
recipients of their favours, that Governments ought
to recognise illustrious services. The persons whom
they select for distinction are a test of their own
worth.

Everyone remembers the catastrophe of 1874.
Mr. Gladstone, but lately ' the people's William,' the
national idol, was flung from his pedestal. The
country had wearied of him. Adulation had soured
into contempt, and those who had chanted his praises
the loudest professed, like the Roman populace on
the fall of Sejanus, that they had never admired him
at all. At the time, the general opinion was that his
star had set for ever, and Carlyle thought so too till

THE CONSERVATIVES IN POWER. 427

he saw who it was that the people had chosen to
replace him. His mind misgave him then that the
greater faults of his successor would lift Mr. Gladstone
back again to a yet more giddy eminence and greater
opportunities of evil. But this was not the world's
impression, and Carlyle tried to hide it from himself
as long as he could. Little sanguine as he was, he
flattered himself at the time of the election that the
better spirit of ancient England was awake again,
that she had sickened of her follies and was minded
in earnest to put a curb between the teeth of anarchy.
It was a bright flash of hope, and might have been
more than a hope if the Conservatives could have
wisely used the chance which was once more offered
them. Unfortunately, the conditions of the time per
mitted only the alternative of Mr. Disraeli and Mr.
Gladstone — products, both of them, of stump oratory.
From the author of the Eeform Bill of 1867 he
could only look for stage tricks or illusions. No wise
action could come of such a man, and the pendulum
would too surely swing back to its old place. Of the
two, however, since one or the other was inevitable,
he liked Disraeli the best. Disraeli, though he might
delude the world, did not delude himself, and could
see facts as they were if he cared to see them. At
any rate there was a respite from the disintegrating
process, and he might hope to live out his remaining
years unvexed by any more of it.

Mr. Disraeli could not have been unaware of the
unfavourable light in which he was regarded by

o */

Carlyle. but he by no means reciprocated the feeling.
He was essentially goodnatured, as indeed Curlylc
always acknowledged, and took any blow that might

428 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON,

be aimed at him with undisturbed composure. He
had been a man of letters before he was a politician.
He was proud of his profession and of the distinction
which he had himself acquired as a novelist. He
was personally unacquainted with Carlyle ; they had
moved in different circles, and I believe had never
met. But in early life he had been struck with the
; French Revolution ; ' he had imitated the style of
it, and distinctly regarded the author of that book
as the most important of living writers. Perhaps he
had heard of the bestowal of the Order of Merit, and
had felt that a scandal would rest on England if a
man whom Germany could single out for honour was
left unnoticed in his own land. Perhaps the con
sideration might have been forced upon him from
some private source. At any rate, he forgot, if he
had ever resented, Carlyle's assaults upon him, and
determined to use his own elevation as Premier to
confer some high mark of distinction on a person
who was so universally loved and admired. It was
indeed time, for Carlyle hitherto had been unnoticed
entirely, and had been left without even the common
marks of confidence and recognition which far in
ferior men are seldom without an opportunity of
receiving. He would not have accepted a pension
even when in extremity of poverty. But a pension
had never been offered. Eminent men of letters were
generally appointed trustees of the British Museum ;
Carlyle's name had not been found among them. The
post of Historiographer Eoyal for Scotland had been
lately vacant. This, at least, his friends expected for
him ; but he had been intentionally passed over. The
neglect was now atoned for.

OFFER OF THE GRAND CROSS. 429

The letters which were exchanged on this occa
sion are so creditable to all persons concerned, that
I print as many of them as I possess complete — in
perpetuam rei memoriam.

To Thomas Carlyle, Esq.

(Confidential.) Bournemouth : December 27, 1874.

Sir, — A Government should recognise intellect. It
elevates and sustains the tone of a nation. But it is an
office which, adequately to fulfil, requires both courage and
discrimination, as there is a chance of falling into favouritism
and patronising mediocrity, which, instead of elevating the
national feeling, would eventually degrade or debase it. In
recommending Her Majesty to fit out an Arctic Expedition,
and in suggesting other measures of that class, her Govern
ment have shown their sympathy with Science ; and they
wish that the position of High Letters should be equally
acknowledged ; but this is not so easy, because it is in the
necessity of things that the test of merit cannot be so
precise in literature as in science. When I consider the
literary world, I see only two living names which I would
fain believe will be remembered, and they stand out in un-
contested superiority. One is that of a poet — if not a great
poet, a real one ; the other is your own.

I have advised the Queen to offer to confer a baronetcy
on Mr. Tennyson, and the same distinction should be at
your command if you liked it; but I have remembered that,
like myself, you are childless, and may not care for hereditary
honours. I have, therefore, made up my mind, if agreeable
to yourself, to recommend to Her Majesty to confer on you
the highest, distinction for merit at her command, and which,
I believe, has never yet been conferred by her except for
direct services to the State, and that is the Grand Cross of
the Bath.

I will speak with frankness on another point. It is not
well that in the sunset of your life you should be disturbed

430 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

by common cares. I see no reason why a great author
should not receive from the nation a pension, as well as a
lawyer or statesman. Unfortunately, the personal power
of Her Majesty in this respect is limited ; but still it is in
the Queen's capacity to settle on an individual an amount
equal to a good fellowship ; and which was cheerfully ac
cepted and enjoyed by the great spirit of Johnson and the
pure integrity of Southey.

Have the goodness to let me know your feelings on these
subjects.

I have the honour to remain, Sir,

Your faithful Servant,

B. DISRAELI.

To the Right Hon. B. Disraeli.

5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea :

December 29, 1874.

Sir, — Yesterday, to my great surprise, I had the honour
to receive your letter containing a magnificent proposal for
my benefit, which will be memorable to me for the rest of
my life. Allow me to say that the letter, both in purport
and expression, is worthy to be called magnanimous and
noble, that it is without example in my own poor history ;
and I think it is unexampled, too, in the history of governing
persons towards men of letters at the present, as at any
time ; and that I will carefully preserve it as one of the
things precious to memory and heart. A real treasure or
benefit it, independent of all results from it.

This said to yourself and reposited with many feelings in
my own grateful mind, I have only to add that your splendid
and generous proposals for my practical behoof, must not
any of them take effect ; that titles of honour are, in all
degrees of them, out of keeping with the tenour of my own
poor existence hitherto in this epoch of the world, and would
be an encumbrance, not a furtherance to me ; that as to
money, it has, after long years of rigorous and frugal, but
also (thank Grod, and those that are gone before me) not

OFFER OF THE GRAND CROSS. 431

degrading poverty, become in this latter time amply abun
dant, even superabundant ; more of it, too, now a hindrance,
not a help to me ; so that royal or other bounty would
be more than thrown away in my case ; and in brief, that
except the feeling of your fine and noble conduct on this
occasion, which is a real and permanent possession, there
cannot anything be done that would not now be a sorrow
rather than a pleasure.

With thanks more than usually sincere,
I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obliged and obedient servant,

T. CARLYLE.

To the Countess of Derby.

5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea :

December 30, 1874.

Dear Lady, — As I believe you to have been the origi
nator, contriver, and architect of this beautiful air mansion
intended for my honour and benefit, and as the Premier's
letter appears to me very beautiful on his part, I venture
directly to send you a correct copy of that and of my answer
to it, which I really had a regret in feeling obliged to write ;
that is to say, in reducing so splendid an edifice of the
generous mind to inexorable nothing ; though I do say still,
and will say it, the generous intention, brought ready for
fulfilment from such a quarter, will ever remain a beautiful
and precious possession for me.

Mr. Disraeli's letter is really what I called it, magnani
mous and noble on his part. It reveals to me, after all the
hard things I have said of him, a new and unexpected
stratum of genial dignity and manliness of character which I
had by no means given him credit for. It is, as my penitent
heart admonishes me, a kind of 'heaping coals of fire on my
head ; ' and I do truly repent and promise to amend. For
the rest, I naturally wish there should be as little as possible
>;iid ;ibout this transaction, though almost inevitably the

432 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

secret will ooze out at last. In the meanwhile silence from
us all. . . .

Forgive this loose rambling letter. Write no answer to
it till your own time come, and on the whole forgive me my
sins generally, or think of me a? mercifully as you can.
With my respectful compliments to Lord Derby, and most
loyal wishes that all good may be with you and yours,

I remain, dear Lady,
Your attached and most obedient,

T. CARLYLE.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea : January 1, 1875.

The enclosed letter and copy of my answer ought to go
to you as a family curiosity and secret. Nobody whatever
knows of it beyond our two selves here, except Lady Derby,
whom I believe to have been the contriver of the whole
affair. You would have been surprised, all of you, to have
found unexpectedly your poor old brother converted into Sir
Tom ; but alas ! there was no danger at any moment of such
a catastrophe. I do, however, truly admire the magnanimity
of Dizzy in regard to me. He is the only man I almost
never spoke of except with contempt ; and if there is any
thing of scurrility anywhere chargeable against me, he is the
subject of it ; and yet see, here he comes with a pan of hot
coals for my guilty head. I am, on the whole, gratified a
little within my own dark heart at this mark of the good
will of high people — Dizzy by no means the chief of them —
which has come to me now at the very end, when I can
have the additional pleasure of answering, ' Alas, friends ! it
is of no use to me, and I will not have it.' Enough, enough !
Return me the official letter, and say nothing about it beyond
the walls of your own house.

The Government was unwilling to accept the
refusal, and great private efforts were tried to induce
him to reconsider his resolution. It was intimated

OFFER OF THE GRAND CROSS. 433

to him that Her Majesty herself would regret to be
deprived of an opportunity of showing the estimation
which she felt for him. But the utter unsuitableness
of a ' title of honour ' to a person of his habits and
nature, was more and more obvious to him. ' The
Grand Cross,' he said to me, ' would be like a cap and
bells to him.' And there lay below a yet prouder
objection. ' You accepted the Order of Merit ? ' I said.
' Yes,' he answered, ' but that is a reality, never given

save for merit only ; while this .' The Prussian

Order besides did not require him to change his
style. It would leave him, as it found him, plain
Thomas Carlyle.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea: January 30, 1875.

I have not been worse in health since you last heard ; in
fact, usually rather better ; and at times there come glimpses
or bright reminiscences of what I might, in the language of
flattery, call health— very singular to me now, wearing out
my eightieth year. It is strange and wonderful to feel these
glowings out again of intellectual and spiritual clearness,
followed by base physical confusions of feeble old age ; and,
indeed, daily I am taught again the unfathomable mystery
of what we call a soul, radiant with heaven, yet capable of
being overclouded and, as it were, swallowed up by the
bottomless mud it has to live in, in this world. . . . There
has been again a friendly assault made upon me, Disraeli him
self the instigator, in regard to the celebrated « baronetcy '
affair. There was first a letter from Lady Derby. Then
there duly came the interview of Wednesday, with a great
deal of earnest and friendly persuasion to accept some
part or other of the Ministerial offers. Then at last, when
all had to be steadfastly declined as an evident superfluity
and impropriety, a frank confession from her ladyship that

IV. PF

434 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

I had done well to answer No in all particulars. The
interview was not painful to me, but rather the contrary ;
though I really was sorry to disappoint— as it appeared I
should do — both Disraeli and a much higher personage,
Queen's Majesty herself, namely. Lady D. had at once per
mission from me to break the secret of the matter, and to tell
or publish whatever she pleased of the truth about it.

So this small circumstance ended. The endeavour
to mark his sense of Carlyle's high deserts, which
no other Premier had thought of noticing, will
be remembered hereafter to Lord Beaconsfield's
credit, when ' peace with honour ' is laughed at or
forgotten. The story was a nine days' wonder, with
the usual conflict of opinion. The final judgment
was perhaps most completely expressed to me by the
conductor of an omnibus : ' Fine old gentleman that,
who got in along with you,' said he to me, as Carlyle
went inside and I mounted to the roof ; ' we thinks
a deal on him down in Chelsea, we does.' ' Yes,' I
said, ' and the Queen thinks a deal on him too, for
she has just offered to make him a Grand Cross.'
4 Very proper of she to think of it,' my conductor
answered, ' and more proper of he to have nothing
to do with it. Tisn't that as can do honour to the
likes of he.'

More agreeable to Carlyle were the tributes of
respect which poured in upon Cheyne Eow when the
coming December brought his 80th birthday. From
Scotland came a gold medal; from Berlin two re
markable letters. I have copies of neither, and there
fore cannot give them. One was from a great person
whom I do not know ; the other was from Prince
Bismarck, written in his own large clear hand, which

BIRTH DA Y LETTERS. 435

Carlyle showed me, but I dare not reproduce it from
recollection.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea : December 4, 1875.

There has been this morning a complete whirlwind of
birthday gifts and congratulations about the poor arrival of
my eightieth and probably last 4th of December. Prince
Bismarck, you will observe, thinks it is my seventieth birth
day, which is enough to quench any vanity one might have
on a missive from such a man ; but I own to being truly
pleased with the word or two he says about ' Frederick the
Great,' which seems to me a valuable memorial and certiH-
cate of the pains I took in the matter, not unwelcome in the
circumstances.

The Scotch medal too was an agreeable tribute,
due, he believed, to the kind exertions of Professor
Masson. But he was naturally shy, and disliked
display when he was himself the object of it. The
excitement worried him. He described it as ' the
birthday of a skinless old man ; a day of the most
miserable agitation lie could recollect in his life. ' The
noble and most unexpected note from Bismarck,' he
said, ' was the only real glad event of the day. The
crowd of others, including that of the Edinburgh
medal, was mere fret and fuss to me, intrinsically of
no value at all, at least till one had time to recognise,
from the distance, that kindness and goodwill had
lain at the heart of every part of it.'

'Kindness and goodwill,' yet not in the form
which he could best have welcomed. The respect
of the nineteenth century, genuine though it be, takes
tin- colours of the age, and shows itself in testi
monials, addresses, compliments. ' They sny I am a

F V 2

436 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

great man now, he observed to me, ' but not one of
them believes my report ; not one of them will do
what I have bidden them do.'

His time was chiefly passed in reading and in dic
tating letters. He was still ready with his advice to
all who asked for it, and with help when help was
needed. He walked in the mornings on the Chelsea
Embankment. ' A real improvement that,' as he
reluctantly admitted. In the afternoon he walked in
the park with me or some other friend ; ending gene
rally in an omnibus, for his strength was visibly fail
ing. At the beginning of 1876, Mr. Trevelyan brought
out his Life of his uncle, and sent Carlyle a copy.
' It promises,' he writes to his brother, to give a re
cognisable likeness of the great Thomas Babington,
whom, to say truth, I never could in any way deeply
admire, or at all believe in, except to a very shallow
extent. You remember bringing me his first-' Edin
burgh Review n essay,1 one night from Annan to the
Gill, and reading it with me before going to bed. I
think that was the only thing of his I ever read with
lively satisfaction. Did you know that Macaulay is
understood to signify ' the son of Olaf ' ; Aulay Macau-
lay — Olaf, son of Olaf ? Olaf Tryg veson would surely
be much surprised to see some of the descendants he
has had. It is a most singular biography, and psy
chologically may be considered the most curious ever
written. No man known to me in present or past
ages ever had, with a peaceable composure too, so
infinite a stock of good conceit of himself. Trevelyan
has done his task cleverly and well. I finished it
with a rather sensible increase of wonder at the

1 On Milton.

ADVICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. 437

natural character of him, but with a clearer view
than ever of the limited nature of his world-admired
talent.'

Many letters have been sent to me from unknown
correspondents — young men probably who had been
diverted from clericalism by reading his books — and
had consulted Carlyle in their choice of a life. Here
is one. I would give many more had I room for
them, for they are all kind and wise.

Chelsea: March 30, 1876.

Dear Sir, — I respect your conscientious scruples in regard
to choosing a profession, and wish much I had the power of
giving you advice that would be of the least service. But
that, I fear, in my total ignorance of yourself and the posture
of your affairs, is pretty nearly impossible. The profession
of the law is in many respects a most honourable one, and
has this to recommend it, that a man succeeds there, if he
succeeds at all, in an independent and manful manner, by
force of his own talent and behaviour, without needing to
seek patronage from anybody. As to ambition, that is, no
doubt, a thing to be carefully discouraged in oneself; but it
does not necessarily inhere in the barrister's profession more
than in many others, and I have known one or two who, by
quiet fidelity in promoting justice, and by keeping down
litigation, had acquired the epithet of the ' honest lawyer,'
which appeared to me altogether human and beautiful.

Literature, as a profession, is what I would counsel no
faithful man to be concerned with, except when absolutely
forced into it, under penalty, as it were, of death. The
pursuit of culture, too, is in the highest degree recommend-
able to every human soul, and may be successfully achieved
in almost any honest employment that has wages paid for
it. No doubt, too, the Church seems to offer facilities in
this respect; but I will by no means advise you to over
come your reluctance against seeking refuge there. On the
whole there is nothing strikes me as likelier for one of your

433 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

disposition than the profession of teacher, which is rising into
higher request every day, and has scope in it for the
grandest endowments of human faculties (could such hitherto
be got to enter it), and of all useful and fruitful employ
ments may be defined as the usefullest, fruitfullest, and also
indispensablest in these days of ours.

Kegretting much that I can help you so infinitely little,
bidding you take pious and patient counsel with your own
soul, and wishing you with great truth a happy result,
I remain, dear Sir,

Faithfully yours,

T. CARLYLE.

Thus calmly and usefully Carlyle's later years
went by. There was nothing more to disturb him.
His health (though lie would seldom allow it) was
good. He complained of little, scarcely of want of
sleep, and suffered less in all ways than when his
temperament was more impetuously sensitive. One
form of sorrow — inevitable when life is far prolonged,
that of seeing those whom he had known and loved
pass away — this he could riot escape. In February,
1876, John Forster died, the dearest friend that he
had left. I was with him at Forster's funeral in
Kensal Green ; and a month later at the funeral of
Lady Augusta Stanley at the Abbey.

In April his brother Alick went, far off in
Canada.

April 22, 1876. — Poor Alick! he writes: He is cut
away from us, and we shall behold his face no more, nor
think of him as being of the earth any more. The much-
struggling, ever true and valiant brother is for ever gone.
To himself in the state he was in, it can be considered only
as a blessed relief, but it strikes me heavily that he is gone
before myself; that I, who should in the course of nature

THE RUSSIAN-TURKISH WAR. 439

have gone before him, am left among the mourners instead
of being the mourned.

Young Alick's account of his death is altogether in
teresting — a scene of sublime simplicity, great and solemn
under the humblest forms. That question of his, when his
eyes were already shut, and his mind wavering before the
last finis of all : — ' Is Tom coming from Edinburgh the
morn ? ' l will never leave me should I live a hundred
years. Poor Alick, my ever faithful brother ! Come back
across wide oceans and long decades of time to the scenes
of brotherly companionship with me, and going out of the
world as it were with his hand in mine. Many times he
convoyed me to meet the Dumfries coach, or to bring me
home from it, and full of bright and perfect affection always
were those meetings and partings.

Though he felt his life to be fast ebbing, he still
watched the course of things outside him. He had,
as has been seen, been touched by Mr. Disraeli's
action towards him, but it had not altered in the
least his distrust of Disraeli's character ; and it was
thus with indignation, but without surprise, that he
found him snatch the opportunity of the Eussian-
Turkish War to prepare to play a great part in
European politics. It was the curse of modern English
political life, as Carlyle saw it, that Prime Ministers
thought first of their party, and only of the wellbeing of
their country as wrapped up in their party's triumph.
Mr. Gladstone had sacrificed the loyal Protestants in
Ireland for the Catholic vote. Disraeli was appealing
to the traditions of the Crimean War, the most foolish
enterprise in which England had ever been engaged,
to stir the national vanity and set the world on fire,

1 Alluding to the old times when Carlyle was at the University and
his brother wou'd V1 'ookin^ <>ut for him at vacation time.

44° CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

that he and his friends might win a momentary popu
larity. That any honour, any benefit to England or
to mankind, could arise from this adventure, he could
neither believe himself nor do Disraeli so much in
justice as to suppose that he believed it. Lord Pal-
merston, a chartered libertine, had been allowed to
speak of the Turks as ' the bulwark of civilisation
against barbarism.' There was no proposition too
absurd for the unfortunate English people to swallow.
Disraeli was following on the same lines ; while the
few decently informed people, who knew the Turks,
knew that they were the barbarians, decrepit, and in
curable ; that their presence in Europe was a disgrace ;
that they had been like a stream of oil of vitriol,
blasting every land that they had occupied. And
now we were threatened with war again, a war which
might kindle Europe into a blaze ; in defence of this
wretched nation. The levity with which Parliament,
press, and platform were lending themselves to the
Premier's ambition, was but an illustration of what
Carlyle had always said about the practical value of
English institutions ; but he was disgusted that the
leaders in the present insanity should be those from
whom alone resistance could be hoped for against
the incoming of democracy. It was something worse
than even their Reform Bill ten years before. He
saw that it could lead to nothing but the discredit,
perhaps the final ruin of the Conservative party, and
the return of Mr. Gladstone, to work fresh mischief
in Ireland. He foresaw all that has happened as
accurately as if he had been a mechanically inspired
prophet ; and there was something of the old fire of
the ' Latter-Day Pamphlets ' in the tone in which he

LETTER TO THE ' TIMES: 44*

talked of what was coming. John Carlyle had spent
the spring of 1877 in Cheyne Eow. He had left at
the end of April, when the excitement was growing
hot. His brother writes April 28 : —

Dismal rumours are afloat, that Dizzy secretly intends to
break in upon the Eussian-Turkish War, and supporting
himself by his Irish Home Eulers, great troop of common
place Tories, Jews, &c., suddenly get Parliament to support
him in a new Philo-Turk war against Eussia — the maddest
thing human imagination could well conceive. I am strongly
urged to write something further upon it, but cannot feel
that I have anything new to say.

Events move fast in these days, and one nail drives
out another ; but we all remember the winter cam
paign which brought the Eussians to Constantinople
and the English fleet to the Dardanelles. Opinion in
England was all but prepared to allow the Govern
ment to throw itself into the fray — all but — but not
entirely. If initiative could be forced upon the Rus
sians, those who wished for a fresh struggle could
have it. A scheme was said to have been formed either
to seize Gallipoli or to take some similar step, under
pretence of protecting English interests, which would
have driven Eussia, however reluctant she might be,
into a declaration of war. The plan, whatever it may
have been, was kept a secret ; but there is reason to
believe that preparations were actually made, that com
manders were chosen, and instructions were almost on
their way, which would have committed the country
beyond recall. Carlyle heard of this, not as he said
from idle rumour, but from some authentic source ;
and he heard too that there was not a moment to
lose. On the 5th of May he writes to his brother : —

442 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

After much urgency and with a dead-lift effort, I have
this day got issued through the ' Times ' a small indispen
sable deliverance on the Turk and Dizzy question. Dizzy, it
appears, to the horror of those who have any interest in
him and his proceedings, has decided to have a new war for
the Turk against all mankind ; and this letter hopes to drive
a nail through his mad and maddest speculations on that
side.

The letter to the ' Times ' was brief, not more
than three or four lines ; but it was emphatic in its
tone, and was positive about the correctness of the
information. Whether he was right, or whether
some one had misled him, there is no evidence before
the public to show. But the secret, if secret there
was, had thus been disclosed prematurely. The letter
commanded attention as coming from a man who was
unlikely to have spoken without grounds, and any
unexpected shock, slight though it may be, will
disturb a critical operation. This was Carlyle's last
public act in this world ; and if he contributed ever
so little to preventing England from committing
herself to a policy of which the mischief would have
been immeasurable, counterbalanced by nothing, save
a brief popularity to the Tory party, it was perhaps
also the most useful act in his whole life.

CONVERSATIONS IN LATE YEARS 443

CHAPTER XXXIV.

A.D. 1877-81. ,ET. 82-85.

Conversation and habits of life — Estimate of leading politicians — Visit
from Lord Wolseley — Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone —
Dislike of Jews — The English Liturgy — An afternoon in West
minster Abbey — Progress — Democracy — Religion— The Bible —
Characteristics.

MY tale draws to an end. In representing Carlyle's
thoughts on men and things, I have confined myself
as much as possible to his own words in his journals
and letters. To report correctly the language of
conversations, especially when extended over a wide
period, is almost an impossibility. The listener, in
spite of himself, adds something of his own in colour,
form, or substance.

I knew Carlyle, however, so long and so inti
mately, that I heard many things from him which
are not to be found under his hand ; many things
more fully dilated on, which are there only hinted
at, and slight incidents about himself for which I
could make no place in my narrative. I have already
noticed the general character of his talk with me.
I add here some few memorabilia, taken either from
notes hastily written down, or from my own recol
lection, which I believe in the main to be correct.

When tlic shock of his grief had worn off, and

444 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

he had completed his expiatory memoir, he became
more composed, and could discourse with his old
fulness, arid more calmly than in earlier times. A
few hours alone with him furnished then the most
delightful entertainment. We walked five or six
miles a day in Hyde Park or Battersea, or in the
environs of Kensington. As his strength declined,
we used the help of an omnibus, and extended our
excursions farther. In his last years he drove daily
in a fly, out Harrow way, or to Richmond or
Sydenham, or wherever it might be. Occasionally,
in the warm days of early summer, he would go with
me to Kew Gardens to see the flowers or hear the
cuckoo and the nightingales. He was impervious
to weather — never carried an umbrella, but, with a
mackintosh and his broad-brimmed hat, let the rain
do its worst upon him. The driving days were the
least interesting to me, for his voice grew weak, and,
my own hearing being imperfect, I lost much of
what he said ; but we often got out to walk, and
then he was as audible as ever.

He was extremely sensitive, and would become
uneasy and even violent — often without explaining
himself — for the most unexpected reasons. It will
be remembered that he had once stayed at Malvern
with Dr. Gully, and on the whole had liked Gully, or
had at least been grateful to him. Many years after
Dr. Gully's name had come before the world again,
in connection with the Balham mystery, and Carlyle
had been shocked and distressed about it. We had
been out at Sydenham. He wished to be at home
at a particular hour. The time was short, and I
told the coachman to go back quickly the nearest

SENSITIVENESS. 445

way. He became suddenly agitated, insisted that
the man was going wrong, and at last peremptorily
ordered him to take another road. I said that it
would be a long round, and that we should be late,
but to no purpose, and we. gave him his way. By-
and-by, when he grew cool, he said, ' We should
have gone through Balham. I cannot bear to pass
that house.'

In an omnibus his arbitrary ways were very
amusing. He always craved for fresh air, took his
seat by the door when he could get it, and sat
obliquely in the corner to avoid being squeezed.
The conductors knew him, and his appearance was
so marked that the passengers generally knew him
also, and treated him with high respect. A stranger
on the box one day, seeing Carlyle get in, observed
that the ' old fellow 'ad a queer 'at.' ' Queer 'at ! '
answered the driver ; ' ay, he may wear a queer 'at,
but what would you give for the 'ed-piece that's
a inside of it ? '

He went often by omnibus to the Regent Circus,
walked from thence up Eegent Street and Portland
Place into the Park, and returned the same way. Port
land Place, being airy and uncrowded, pleased him
particularly. We were strolling along it during the
Russo-Turkish crisis, one afternoon, when we met a
Foreign Office official, who was in the Cabinet secrets.
Knowing me, he turned to walk with us, and I intro
duced him to Carlyle, saying who he was. C. took
the opportunity of delivering himself in the old erup
tive style ; the Geyser throwing up whole volumes
of steam and stones. It was very fine, and was the
last occasion on which I ever heard him break out

446 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

in this way. Mr. - - wrote to me afterwards to
tell me how much interested he had been, adding,
however, that he was still in the dark as to whether
it was his eyes or the Turks' that had been damned
at such a rate. I suppose I might have answered
both.

He spoke much on politics and on the characters
of public men. From the British Parliament he was
profoundly convinced that no more good was to be
looked for. A democratic Parliament, from the
nature of it, would place persons at the head of
affairs increasingly unfit to deal with them. Bad
would be followed by worse, and worse by worst, till
the very fools would see that the system must end.
Lord Wolseley, then Sir Garnet, went with me once
to call in Cheyne PLOW, Carlyle having expressed a
wish to see him. He was much struck with Sir
Garnet, and talked freely with him on many sub
jects. He described the House of Commons as ' six
hundred talking asses, set to make the laws and ad
minister the concerns of the greatest empire the
world had ever seen ; ' with other uncomplimentary
phrases. When we rose to go, he said,^' Well, Sir, I
am glad to have made your acquaintance, and I wish
you well. There is one duty which I hope may yet
be laid upon you before you leave this world — to
lock the door of yonder place, and turn them all
out about their business.'

Of the two Parliamentary chiefs then alternately
ruling, I have already said that he preferred Mr.
Disraeli, and continued to prefer him, even after his
wild effort to make himself arbiter of Europe. Dis
raeli, he thought, was under no illusions about him-

THE POLITICAL LEADERS. 447

self. To him the world was a mere stage, and he a
mere actor playing a part upon it. He had no
serious beliefs, and made no pretences. He under
stood, as well as Carlyle himself, whither England
was going, with its fine talk of progress ; but it would
last his time ; he could make a figure in conducting
its destinies, or at least amuse himself scientifi
cally, like Mephistopheles. He was not an English
man, and had no true care for England. The Con
servatives, in choosing him for their leader, had sealed
their own fate. He had madi his fame by assailing
Peel, the last of the great order of English ministers.
He was dexterous in Parliamentary manoeuvres, but
looked only to winning in divisions, and securing his
party their turn of power. If with his talents he
had possessed the instincts of a statesman, there was
anarchic Ireland to be brought to order ; there were
the Colonies to be united with the Empire ; there
was the huge, hungry, half-human population of our
enormous towns to be drafted out over the infinite
territories of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand,
where, with land to cultivate and pure air to breathe,
they might recover sanity of soul and limb.

He used to speak with real anger of the argu
ment that such poor wretches were wanted at home
in their squalid alleys, that labour might continue
cheap. It was an argument worthy only of Carib
cannibals. This was the work cut out for English
Conservatives, and they were shutting their eyes to
it because it was difficult, and were rushing off, led
by Dizzy, into Russian wars.

Mr. Disraeli, however, had, he admitted, some
good qualities. He could see facts, a supreme merit

448 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

in Carlyle's eyes. He was good-natured. He bore no
malice. If lie was without any lofty virtues, lie af
fected no virtuous airs. Mr. Gladstone Carlyle con
sidered to be equally incapable of high or sincere pur
pose, but with this difference, that he supposed himself
to have what he had not. He did not look on Mr.
Gladstone merely as an orator, who, knowing nothing
as it ought to be known, had flung his force into
words and specious sentiments ; but as the represen
tative of the multitudinous cants of the age — religious,
moral, political, literary ; differing in this point from
other leading men, that the cant seemed actually
true to him; that he believed it all and was pre
pared to act on it. He, in fact, believed Mr. Glad
stone to be one of those fatal figures, created by
England's evil genius, to work irreparable mischief,
which no one but he could have executed.

This, in sum, was the opinion which he expressed
to me a hundred times, with a hundred variations,
and in this imperfect form I have here set it down.
In a few years, the seed which Mr. Gladstone has
sown in Ireland and elsewhere will have ripened
to the harvest. ' All political follies,' Carlyle says
somewhere, ' issue at last in a broken head to some
body. That is the final outcome of them.' The next
generation will see whether we are to have broken
heads in Ireland, or peace and prosperity.

His dislike for Disraeli was perhaps aggravated
by his dislike of Jews He had a true Teutonic
aversion for that unfortunate race. They had no
humour, for one thing, and showed no trace of it at
any period of their history — a fatal defect in Carlyle's
eyes, who regarded no man or people as good for

DISLIKE OF JEWS. 449

anything who were without a ' genial sympathy with
the under side.' They had contributed nothing,
besides, to the ' wealth ' of mankind, being mere
dealers in money, gold, jewels, or else old clothes,
material and spiritual. He stood still one day, oppo
site Eothschild's great house at Hyde Park Corner,
looked at it a little, and said, ' I do not mean that I
want King John back again, but if you ask me
which mode of treating these people I hold to have
been the nearest to the will of the Almighty about
them — to build them palaces like that, or to take the
pincers for them, 1 declare for the pincers.' Then he
imagined himself King John, with the Baron on the
bench before him. ' Now, sir, the State requires
some of those millions you have heaped together
with your financing work. " You won't ? " very well,'
and he gave a twist with his wrist — ' Now will you ? '
and then another twist, till the millions were yielded.
I would add, however, that the Jews were not the
only victims whose grinders he believed democracy
would make free with.

London housebuilding was a favourite text for a
sermon from him. He would point to rows of houses
so slightly put together that they stood only by the
support they gave to one another, intended only to
last out a brief lease, with no purpose of continuance,
either to themselves or their owners. ' Human life,'
he said, was not possible in such houses. All real
worth in man came of stability. Character grew
from roots like a tree. In healthy times the family
home was constructed to last for ages ; sons to follow
their fathers, working at the same business, with
established methods of thought and action. Modern

iv. G G

450 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON

houses were symbols of the universal appetite for
change. They were not houses at all. They were
tents of nomads. The modern artisan had no home,
and did not know what home meant. Everything
was now a makeshift. Men lived for the present.
They had no future to look forward to, for none
could say what the future was to be. The London
streets and squares were an unconscious confession
of it.

For the same reason he respected such old insti
tutions as were still standing among us — not except
ing even the Church of England. He called it the
most respectable teaching body at present in exist
ence ; and he thought it might stand for a while yet
if its friends would let it alone. ' Your rusty kettle,'
he said, ' will continue to boil your water for you if
you don't try to mend it. Begin tinkering, and there
is an end of your kettle.' It could not last for ever,
for what it had to say was not wholly true. Puri
tanism was a noble thing while it was sincere, but
that was not true either. All doctrines had to go,
after the truth of them came to be suspected. But as
long as men could be found to work the Church of
England who believed the Prayer-book sincerely, lie
had not the least wish to see the fall of it precipi
tated. He disliked the liberal school of clergy. Let
it once be supposed that the clergy generally were
teaching what they did not believe themselves, and
the whole thing would become a hideous hypocrisy.

He himself had for many years attended no place
of worship. Nowhere could he hear anything which
he regarded as true, and to be insincere in word or
act was not possible to him. But liturgies and sudi-

THE ENGLISH LITURGY. 451

like had a mournful interest for him, as fossils of belief
which once had been genuine. A lady — Lady Ash-
burton, I think — induced him once, late in his life, to
go with her to St. Paul's. He had never before heard
the English Cathedral Service, and far away in the
nave, in the dim light, where the words were indis
tinct, or were disguised in music, he had been more
impressed than he expected to be. In the prayers
he recognised ' a true piety,' which had once come
straight out of the heart. The distant ' Amen ' of
the choristers and the roll of the great organ brought
tears into his eyes. He spoke so feelingly of this, that
I tempted him to try again at Westminster Abbey.
I told him that Dean Stanley, for whom he had
a strong regard, would preach, and this was perhaps
another inducement. The experiment proved dan
gerous. We were in the Dean's seat. A minor canon
was intoning close to Carlyle's ear. The chorister boys
were but three yards off, and the charm of distance
was exchanged for contact which was less enchant
ing. The lines of worshippers in front of him, sitting
while pretending to kneel, making their responses,
bowing in the creed by habit, and mechanically re
peating the phrases of it, when their faces showed that
it was habit only, without genuine conviction ; this
and the rest brought back the feeling that it was but
play-acting after all. I could see the cloud gathering
in his features, and I was alarmed for what I had
done before the service was half over. Worst of all,
through some mistake, the Dean did not preach, and
in the place of him was a popular orator, who gave
us three quarters of an hour of sugary eloquence.
For a while Carlyle bore it like a hero. But by-

452 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

and-by I heard the point of his stick rattle audibly
on the floor. He crushed his hat angrily at each
specially emphatic period, and groans followed, so
loud that some of the congregation sitting near, who
appeared to know him, began to look round. Mrs.

D , the Dean's cousin, who was in the seat with

us, exchanged frightened glances with me. I was
the most uneasy of all, for I could see into his mind ;
and at the too florid peroration I feared that he
would rise and insist on going out, or even, like
Oliver, exclaim, ' Leave your fooling, sir, and come
down ! ' Happily the end arrived before a crisis, and
we escaped a catastrophe which would have set
London ringing.

The loss of the use of his right hand was more
than a common misfortune. It was the loss of every
thing. The power of writing, even with pencil, went
finally seven years before his death. His mind was
vigorous and restless as ever. Eeading without an
object was weariness. Idleness was misery ; and I
never knew him so depressed as when the fatal cer
tainty was brought home to him. To this, as to other
immediate things, time partly reconciled him ; but at
first he found life intolerable under such conditions.
Every day he told me he was weary of it, and spoke
wistfully of the old Eoman method. ' A man must
stick to his post,' he said, ' and do his best there
as long as he can work. When his tools are taken
from him, it is a sign that he may retire.' When a
dear friend who, like himself, had lost his wife and
was heart-broken, took leave in Eoman fashion, he
was emphatic in his approval. Increasing weakness
only partially tamed him into patience, or reconciled

WEARINESS OF LIFE. 453

him to an existence which, even at its best, he had
more despised than valued.

To Carlyle, as to Hamlet, the modern world was
but ' a pestilent congregation of vapours.' Often and
often I have heard him repeat Macbeth's words : —

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps on this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time :
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusky death. Out, out, brief candle !
Life's but a walking shadow ; a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

He was especially irritated when he heard the ordi-
( nary cant about progress, unexampled prosperity, &c.
Progress whither? he would ask, and prosperity in
what ? People talked as if each step which they took
was in the nature of things a step upward ; as if each
generation was necessarily wiser and better than the
one before ; as if there was no such tiling as progress
ing down to hell ; as if human history was anything
else but a history of birth and death, advance and
decline, of rise and fall, in all that men have ever
made or done. The only progress to which Cariyle
would allow the name was moral progress ; the only
prosperity the growth of better and nobler men and
women : and as humanity could only expand into high
dimensions in an organic society when the wise ruled
and the ignorant obeyed, the progress which consisted
in destroying authority, and leaving everyone to
follow his own will and pleasure, was progress down
to the devil and his angels. That, in his opinion, was

454 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

the evident goal of the course in which we were all
hurrying on in such high spirits. Of the theory of
equality of voting, the good and the bad on the same
level, Judas Iscariot and Paul of Tarsus counting equal
at the polling booth, the annals of human infatuation,
he used to say, did not contain the equal.

Sometimes he thought that we were given over
and lost without remedy ; that we should rot away
through inglorious centuries, sinking ever deeper into
anarchy, protected by our strip of sea from a violent
end till the earth was weary of us. At other times
the inherent manliness of the English race, inherited
from nobler ages, and not yet rinsed out of them,
gave him hopes that we might yet be delivered.

I reminded him of the comment of Dion Cassius
on the change in Eome from a commonweath to an em
pire. In a democracy, Cassius says, a country cannot
be well administered, even by accident, for it is ruled
by the majority, and the majority are always fools.
An emperor is but a single man, and may, if the gods
please, be a wise one. But this did not please Carlyle
either. The emperors that Eome got, and that we
should be likely to get, were of the Copper Captain
type, and worse than democracy itself. The hope,
if there was hope, lay in a change of heart in the
English people, and the re-awakening of the nobler
element in them ; and this meant a recovered sense
of ' religion.' They would rise out of their delusions
when they recognised once more the sacred meaning
of duty. Yet what religion ? He did not think it
possible that educated honest men could even profess
much longer to believe in historical Christianity.
ITo had been reading the Bible. Half of it seemed

THE BIBLE. 455

to be inspired truth, half of it human illusion. ' The
prophet says, " Thus saith the Lord." Yes, sir, but
how if it be not the Lord, but only you who take
your own fancies for the word of the Lord ? ' I spoke
to him of what he had done himself. Then as always
he thought little of it, but he said, ' They must come
to something like that if any more good is to grow
out of them.' Scientific accountings for the moral
sense were all moonshine. Right and wrong in all
things, great and small, had been ruled eternally by the
Tower which made us. A friend was arguing on the
people's right to decide this or that, and, when Carlyle
dissented, asked who was to be the judge. Carlyle
fiercely answered, ' Hell fire will be the judge. God
Almighty will be the judge, now and always.'

The history of mankind is the history of creeds
growing one out of the other. I said it was possible
that if Protestant Christianity ceased to be credible,
some fresh superstition might take its place, or even
that Popery might come back for a time, developed
into new conditions. If the Olympian gods could
survive Aristophanes 800 years ; if a Julian could
still hope to maintain Paganism as the religion of the
empire, I did not see why the Pope might not survive
Luther for at least as long. Carlyle would not hear
of this ; but lie did admit that the Mass was the most
genuine relic of religious belief now left to us. He
was not always consistent in what he said of Chris
tianity. He would often speak of it with Goethe ' as
:i height from which, when once achieved, mankind
could never descend.' He did not himself believe in
the Resurrection as a historical fact, yet he was angry
and scornful at Strauss's language about it. 'Did

456 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON

not our hearts burn within us ? ' he quoted, insisting
on the honest conviction of the apostles.

The associations of the old creed which he had
learnt from his mother and in the Ecclefechan kirk
hung about him to the last. I was walking with him
one Sunday afternoon in Battersea Park. In the
open circle among the trees were a blind man and his
daughter, she singing hymns, he accompanying her
on some instrument. We stood listening. She sang;

t? o

Faber's ' Pilgrims of the Night.' The words were
trivial, but the air, though simple, had something
weird and unearthly about it. ' Take me away ! ' he
said after a few minutes, 'I shall cry if I stay longer.'
He was not what is commonly called an amiable
man. Amiability runs readily into insincerity. He
spoke his mind freely, careless to whom he gave
offence : but as no man ever delighted more to hear
of any brave or good action, so there was none more
tender-hearted or compassionate of suffering. Stern
and disdainful to wrongdoers, especially if they
happened to be in high places, he was ever pitiful
to the children of misfortune. Whether they were
saints or sinners made no difference. If they were
miserable his heart was open to them. He was like
Goethe's elves :—

Ob er heilig, ob er bcise,
Jammert sie der Ungliicksruann.

His memory was extremely tenacious, as is always
the case with men of genius. He would relate anec
dotes for hours together of Scotch peasant life, of
old Edinburgh students, old Ecclefechan villagers,
wandering from one thing to another, but always
dwelling on the simple and pious side of things, never

CHARACTERISTICS. 457

on the scandalous or wicked. Burns's songs were
constantly on his lips. He knew them so well that
they seemed part of his soul. Never can I forget the
tone in which he would repeat to me, revealing un
consciously where his own thoughts were wandering,
the beautiful lines : —

Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met and never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Not once but many times the words would burst from
him, rather as the overflow from his own heart than
as addressed to me.

In his last years he grew weak, glad to rest upon
a seat when he could find one, glad of an arm to lean
on when on his feet. He knew that his end must be
near, and it was seldom long out of his mind. But
he was not conscious of a failure of intellectual power,
nor do I think that to the last there was any essential
failure. He forgot names and places, as old men
always do, but lie recollected everything that was
worth remembering. He caught the point of every
new problem with the old rapidity. He was eager as
ever for new information. In his intellect nothing
pointed to an end ; and the experience that the mind
did not necessarily decay with the body confirmed
his conviction that it was not a function of the body,
that it had another origin and might have another
destination. When he spoke of the future and its
uncertainties he fell back invariably on the last words
of his favourite hymn : —

Wir heiysen euch hoffen.
(\\Y bid you to hope.)

458 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

Meanwhile his business with the world was over, his
connection with it was closing in, and he had only to
bid it Farewell.

Fear no more the heat of the sun,

Nor the furious winter's rages ;
Thou thy worldly task hast clone,

Home art gone and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Often and often these words were on his lips.
Home, too, he felt that he was going ; home to those
' dear ' ones who had gone before him. His wages
he has not taken with him. His wages will be the
love and honour of the whole English race who read
his books and know his history. If his writings are
forgotten, he has left in his life a model of simplicity
and uprightness which few will ever equal and none
will excel. For he had not been sustained in his
way through this world by an inherited creed which
could give him hope and confidence. The inherited
creed had crumbled down, and he had to form a belief
for himself by lonely meditation. Nature had not
bestowed on him the robust mental constitution
which passes by the petty trials of life without heed
ing them, or the stubborn stoicism which endures in
silence. Nature had made him weak, passionate,
complaining, dyspeptic in body and sensitive in spirit,
lonely, irritable, and morbid. He became what he
was by his moral rectitude of principle, by a con
scientious resolution to do right, which never failed
him in serious things from his earliest years, and,
though it could not change his temperament, was the
inflexible guide of his conduct. Neither self-iudul-

MORAL STRUCTURE. 459

gence, nor ambition, nor any meaner motive, ever led
him astray from the straight road of duty, and he left
the world at last, having never spoken, never written
a sentence which he did not believe with his whole
heart, never stained his conscience by a single delibe •
rate act which he could regret to remember.

460 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

CHAPTEE XXXV.

A.D. 1877-81. MT. 82—85.

Statues — Portraits — Millais's picture — Study of the Bible — Illness
and death of John Carlyle — Preparation of Memoirs — Last words
about it — Longing for death — The end — Offer of a tomb in West
minster Abbey — "Why declined — Ecclefechan churchyard — Con
clusion.

A BEIEF chapter closes my long story. All things
and all men come to their end. This biography ends.
The biographer himself will soon end, and will go where
he will have to answer for the manner in which he has
discharged his trust, happy so far that he has been
allowed to live to complete an arduous and anxious
undertaking. In the summer of 1877 Carlyle, at my
urgent entreaty, sat for his picture to Mr. Millais.
Mr. Boehm had made a seated statue of him, as satis
factory a likeness in face and figure as could be
rendered in sculpture ; and the warm regard which
had grown up between the artist and himself had
enabled Mr. Boehm to catch with more than common
success the shifting changes of his expression. But
there was still something wanting. A portrait of
Carlyle completely satisfactory did not yet exist, and
if executed at all could be executed only by the most
accomplished painter of his age. Millais, I believe,

MILLAIS'S PORTRAIT. 461

had never attempted a more difficult subject. In the
second sitting I observed what seemed a miracle.
The passionate, vehement face of middle life had long
disappeared. Something of the Annandale peasant
had stolen back over the proud air of conscious in
tellectual power. The scorn, the fierceness was gone,
and tenderness and mild sorrow had passed into its
place. And yet under Millais's hands the old Carlyle
stood again upon the canvas as I had not seen him
for thirty years. The inner secret of the features
had been evidently caught. There was a likeness
which no sculptor, no photographer, had yet equalled
or approached. Afterwards, I knew not how, it
seemed to fade away. Millais grew dissatisfied with
his work and, I believe, never completed it. Car-
lyle's own verdict was modestly uncertain.

The picture, he said, does not please many, nor in fact
myself altogether ; but it is surely strikingly like in every
feature, and the fundamental condition was that Millais
should paint what he was able to see.

His correspondence with his brother John, never
intermitted while they both lived, was concerned
chiefly with the books with which he was occupying
himself. He read Shakespeare again. He read
Goethe again, and then went completely through the
4 Decline and Fall.'

I have finished Gibbon, he wrote, with a great deduction
from the high esteem I have had of him ever since the old
Kirkcaldy days, when I first read the twelve volumes of poor
Irving's copy in twelve consecutive days. A man of endless
reading and research, but of a most disagreeable style, and
a great want of the highest faculties (which indeed are very
rare) of what we could call a classical historian, compare 1

462 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

with Herodotus, for instance, and his perfect clearness and
simplicity in every part.

In speaking of Gibbon's work to me he made one
remark which is worth recording. In earlier years
he had spoken contemptuously of the Athanasian
controversy, of the Christian world torn in pieces over
a diphthong, and he would ring the changes in broad
Annandale on the Homoousion and the Hoinozousion.
He told me now that he perceived Christianity itself
to have been at stake. If the Arians had won, it
would have dwindled away into a legend.

He continued to read the Bible, ' the significance
of which ' he found ' deejT and wonderful almost as
much as it ever used to be.' Bold and honest to the
last, he would not pretend to believe what his in
tellect rejected, and even in Job, his old favourite,
he found more wonder than satisfaction. But the
Bible itself, the Bible and Shakespeare, remained ' the
best books ' to him that were ever written.

He was growing weaker and weaker, however,
and the exertion of thought exhausted him.

I do not feel to ail anything, he said of himself, Novem
ber 2, 1878, except unspeakable and, I think, increasing
weakness, as of a young child — the arrival, in fact, of second
childhood, such as is to be expected when the date of de
parture is nigh. I am grateful to Heaven for one thing, that
the state of my mind continues unaltered and perfectly clear :
surely a blessing beyond expression compared with what the
contrary would be. Let us pray to be grateful to the great
Giver of Good, and for patience under whatever His will
may be.

And again, November 7 : —

The fact is, so far as I can read it, my strength is faded
nearly quite away, and it begins to be more and more evident

ILLNESS OF JOHN CARLYLE. 463

to me that I shall not long have to struggle under this
burden of life, but soon go to the refuge that is appointed
for us all. For a long time back I have been accustomed to
look at the Emster Freund as the most merciful and indis
pensable refuge appointed by the Great Creator for his
wearied children whose work is done. Alas, alas ! the final
mercy of (rod, it in late years always appears to me is, that
He delivers us from life which has become a task too hard
for us.

As long as John Carlyle survived, he had still the
associate of his early years, on whose affection he
could rely, and John, as the younger of the two,
might be expected to outlive him. But this last
consolation he was to see pass from him. John
Carlyle, too, was sinking under the weight of years.
Illness bore heavily on him, and his periodic visits to
Chelsea had ceased to be manageable. His home was
at Dumfries, and the accounts of him which reached
Cheyne Eow all through that winter were less and
less hopeful. It was a winter memorable for its long,
stern, implacable frost, which bore hard on the aged
and the failing. Though they could not meet, they
could still write to each other.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea: December 4, 1878.

My dear Brother,— On coming down stairs from a dim
and painful night I find your punctual letter here, announc
ing that matters are no better with yourself, probably in
some respects even worse. We must be patient, dear brother,
and take piously if we can what days and nights are sent
us. The night before last was unusually good with me. All
the rest, especially last night, were worse than usual, and
little or no sleep attainable by me. In fact I seem to perceive
tli:it there is only one hope, (lint Of being called away out of

464 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

this unmanageable scene. One must not presume to form
express desires about it, but for a long time back the above
has been my clear conviction. About you, dear brother, I
think daily with a tender sorrow for your sake, and surely
have to own with you that there is no good news to be ex
pected from either side. Grod's will be done. The frost, I
perceive, will not abate yet, and the darkness gives no sign
of lessening either. Your case, dear brother, I feel to be
even worse than my own, aud I am often painfully thinking
of you. Let us summon all the virtue that is in us, if there
be any virtue at all, and quit us like men and not like fools.
Mary sends her kindest love. To me she is unwearied in
her attention ; rose last night, for example, as she ever does
at my summons ; but was not able last night, for the first time,
to do me any real good. I send my love to sister Jean, and
am always eager for news of her. Blessings on you all.
I am ever, dear brother, affectionately yours,

T. CARLYLE.

A little more and John was gone. As his con
dition grew hopeless, Carlyle was afraid every day
that the end had come, and that the news had been
kept back from him. ' Is my brother John dead ? '
he asked me one day as I joined him in his carriage.
He was not actually dead then, but he suffered only
for a few more days. John Carlyle would have been
remembered as a distinguished man if he had not
been overshadowed by his greater brother. After his
early struggles he worked in his profession for many
careful years, and saved a considerable fortune. Then,
in somewhat desultory fashion, he took to literature.
He wanted brilliancy, and still more he wanted
energy, but he had the virtue of his family — veracity.
Whatever he undertook he did faithfully, with all his
ability, and his translation of Dante is the best that
exists. He needed the spur, however, before he would

BEQUESTS TO EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY. 465

exert himself, and I believe he attempted nothing
serious afterwards. In disposition he was frank,
kind-hearted, generous ; entirely free from all selfish
ness or ambition ; simple as his brother in his personal
habits; and ready always with money, time, or pro
fessional assistance, wherever his help was needed.
When Carlyle bequeathed Craigenputtock to the
University of Edinburgh, John too settled a handsome
sum for medical bursaries there, to encourage poor
students. These two brothers, born in a peasant's
home in Annandale, owing little themselves to an
Alma Mater which had missed discovering their
merits, were doing for Scotland's chief University
what Scotland's peers and merchants, with their
palaces and deer forests and social splendour, had, for
some cause, too imperfectly supplied.

James Carlyle and three sisters still remained,
and Carlyle was tenderly attached to them. But
John had been his early friend, the brother of his
heart, and his death was a sore blow. He bore his
loss manfully, submitting to the inevitable as to the
will of his Father and Master. He was very feeble,
but the months went by without producing much
visible change, save that latterly in his drives he had
to take a supply of liquid food with him. He was
still fairly cheerful, and tried, though with diminished
eagerness, to take an interest in public affairs. He
even thought for a moment of taking a personal
part in the preparation of his Memoirs. Among his
papers I had found the Eeminiscences of his father,
of Irving, of Jeffrey, of Southey and Wordsworth. I
had to ask myself whether these characteristic, and as
I thought, and continue to think, extremely beautiful

IV. H U

466 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

autobiographical fragments, should be broken up
and absorbed in his biography, or whether they ought
not to be published as they stood, in a separate
volume. I consulted him about it. He had almost
forgotten what he had written ; but as soon as he
had recalled it to his recollection he approved of the
separate publication, and added that they had better
be brought out immediately on his death. The world
would then be talking about him, and would have
something authentic to go upon. It was suggested
that he might revise the sheets personally, and that
the book might appear in his lifetime as edited by
himself. He turned the proposal over in his mind,
and considered that perhaps he might try. On re
flection, however, he found the effort would be too
much for him. He gave it up, and left everything
as before to me, to do what I thought proper.

At this time there had been no mention and no
purpose of including in the intended volume the
Memoir of Mrs. Carlyle. This was part of his
separate bequest to me, and I was then engaged, as
I have already said, in incorporating both memoir
and letters in the history of his early life. I think a
year must have elapsed after this before the subject
was mentioned between us again. At length, how
ever, one day about three months before his death,
he asked me very solemnly, and in a tone of the
saddest anxiety, what I proposed to do about ' the
Letters and Memorials.' I was sorry — for a fresh
evidence at so late a date of his wish that the Letters
should be published as he had left them would take
away my discretion, and I could no longer treat them
as I had begun to do. But he was so sorrowful and

PUBLICATION OF MEMOIRS. 467

earnest — though still giving no positive order — that
I could make no objection. I promised him that the
Letters should appear with such reservations as might
be indispensable. The Letters implied the Memoir,
for it had been agreed upon from the first between
us that, if Mrs. Carlyle's Letters were published, his
Memoir of her must be published also. I decided,
therefore, that the Memoir should be added to the
volume of Reminiscences ; the Letters to follow at
an early date. I briefly told him this. He was en
tirely satisfied, and never spoke about it again.

I have said enough already of Carlyle's reason for
preparing these papers, of his bequest of them to me,
and of the embarrassment into which I was thrown
by it. The arguments on either side were weighty,
and ten years of consideration had not made it more
easy to choose between them. My final conclusion
may have been right or wrong, but the influence
which turned the balance was Carlyle's persevering
wish, and my own conviction that it was a wish
supremely honourable to him.

This was in the autumn of 1880, a little before
his 85th birthday. He was growing so visibly infirm,
that neither he himself nor any of us expected him
to survive the winter. He was scarcely able even to
wish it.

He was attended by a Scotch physician who had
lately settled in London. He disliked doctors gene
rally, and through life had allowed none of them near
him except his brother ; but he submitted now to oc
casional visits, though he knew that he was past help
and that old age was a disease for which there was
no earthly remedy. I was sitting with him one day

H H

468 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

when this gentleman entered and made the usual
inquiries. Carlyle growled some sort of answer, and
then said : —

I think very well of you, sir. I expect that you will
have good success here in London, and will well deserve
it. For me you can do nothing. The only thing you could
do, you must not do — that is, help me to make an end of
this. We must just go on as we are.

He was entirely occupied with his approaching
change, and with the world and its concerns we could
see that he had done for ever. In January he was
visibly sinking. His political anticipations had been
exactly fulfilled. Mr. Gladstone had come back to
power. Fresh jars of paraffin had been poured on
the fire in Ireland, and anarchy and murder were
the order of the day. I mentioned something of it
to him one day. He listened indifferently. ' These
things do not interest you ? ' I said. ' Not the
least,' he answered, and turned languidly away.
He became worse a day or two after that. I went
down to see him. His bed had been moved into the
drawing-room, which still bore the stamp of his wife's
hand upon it. Her workbox and other ladies' trifles
lay about in their old places. He had forbidden
them to be removed, and they stood within reach of
his dying hand.

He was wandering when I came to his side. He
recognised me. ' I am very ill,' he said. ' Is it not
strange that those people should have chosen the
very oldest man in all Britain to make suffer in this
way? '

I answered, ' We do not exactly know why those
people act as they do. They may have reasons that

THE END. 469

we cannot guess at.' ' Yes,' he said, with a flash of
the old intellect, ' it would be rash to say that they
have no reasons.'

When I saw him next his speech was gone. His
eyes were as if they did not see, or were fixed
on something far away. I cannot say whether he
heard me when I spoke to him, but I said, ' Ours
has been a long friendship ; I will try to do what
you wish.'

This was on the 4th of February, 1881. The
morning following he died. He had been gone an
hour when I reached the house. He lay calm and
still, an expression of exquisite tenderness subdu
ing his rugged features into feminine beauty. I have
seen something like it in Catholic pictures of dead
saints, but never, before or since, on any human
countenance.

So closed a long life of eighty-five years — a life
in which extraordinary talents had been devoted,
with an equally extraordinary purity of purpose, to
his Maker's service, so far as he could see and under
stand that Maker's will — a life of single-minded effort
to do right and only that ; of constant truthfulness
in word and deed. Of Carlyle, if of anyone, it may
be said that ' he was a man indeed in whom was no
guile.' No insincerity ever passed his lips ; no dis
honest or impure thought ever stole into his heart.
In all those long years the most malicious scrutiny
will search in vain for a single serious blemish. If he
had frailties and impatiences, if he made mistakes and
suffered for them, happy those whose conscience has
nothing worse to charge them with. Happy those
who, if their infirmities have caused pain to others

470 CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

who were dear to them, have, like Carlyle, made the
fault into a virtue by the simplicity and completeness
of their repentance.

He had told me when Mrs. Carlyle died, that he
hoped to be buried beside her at Haddington. It was
ordered otherwise, either by himself on reconsideration,
or for some other cause. He had foreseen that an
attempt might be made to give him a more distin
guished resting-place in Westminster Abbey. For
many reasons he had decided that it was not to be.
He objected to parts of the English burial service,
and, veracious in everything, did not choose that
words should be read over him which he regarded as
untrue. 'The grain of corn,' he said, ' does not die ; or
if it dies, does not rise again.' Something, too, there
was of the same proud feeling which had led him to
decline a title. Funerals in the Abbey were not con
fined to the deserving. When was buried

there he observed to me, ' There will be a general
gaol delivery in that place one of these days.' His
own direction was that he was to lie with his father
and mother at the spot where in his life he had made
so often a pious pilgrimage, the old kirkyard at
Ecclefechan.

Dean Stanley wrote to me, after he was gone, to
offer the Abbey, in the warmest and most admiring
terms. He had applied to me as one of the executors,
and I had to tell him that it had been otherwise
arranged. He asked that the body might rest there
for a night on the way to Scotland. This also we
were obliged to decline. Deeply affected as he was,
he preached on the Sunday following on Carlyle's
work and character, introducing into his sermon a

BURIAL AT ECCLEFECHAN. 47i

beautiful passage which I had given to him out of
the last journal.

The organ played afterwards the Dead March in
' Saul ' — grand, majestic — as England's voice of fare
well to one whose work for England had closed, and
yet had not closed. It is still, perhaps, rather in its
infancy ; for he, being dead, yet speaks to us as no
other man in this century has spoken or is likely to
speak.

He was taken down in the night by the railway.
I, Lecky, and Tyndall, alone of his London friends,
were able to follow. We travelled by the mail train.
We arrived at Ecclefechau on a cold dreary February
morning ; such a morning as he himself describes
when he laid his mother in the same grave where he
was now to rest. Snow had fallen, and road and
field were wrapped in a white winding-sheet. The
hearse, with the coffin, stood solitary in the station
yard, as some waggon might stand, waiting to be
unloaded. They do not study form in Scotland, and
the absence of respect had nothing unusual about it.
But the look of that black, snow-sprinkled object,
standing there so desolate, was painful ; and, to lose
sight of it in the three hours which we had to wait,
we walked up to Mainhill, the small farmhouse, two
miles distant, where he had spent his boyhood and
his university vacations. I had seen Mainhill be
fore, my companions had not. The house had been
enlarged since my previous visit, but the old part of
it, the kitchen and the two bedrooms, of which it
had consisted when the Carlyles lived there, remained
as they had been, with the old alcoves, in which the
beds were still standing. To complete the resem-

472 CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

blance, another family of the same station in life now
occupied it — a shrewd industrious farmer's, whose
wife was making cheeses in the dairy. Again there
were eight children, the elder sons at school in the
village, the little ones running about barefoot as Car-
iyle had done, the girls with their brooms and dusters,
and one little fellow not strong enough for farm work,
but believed to have gifts, and designed, by-and-by,
for college. It was the old scene over again, the
same stage, the same play, with new players. We
stayed looking about us till it was time to go, and
then waded back through the half-melted snow to
the station. A few strangers had arrived from Edin
burgh and elsewhere, but not many; for the family,
simple in their habits, avoided display, and the day,
and even the place, of the funeral, had not been
made public. Two or three carriages were waiting,
belonging to gentlemen in the neighbourhood. Mr.
James Carlyle and his sisters were there, with their
children, in carriages also, and there was a carriage
for us. The hearse was set in movement, and we
followed slowly down the half-mile of road which
divides the station from the village. A crowd had
gathered at the churchyard, not disorderly, but seem
ingly with no feeling but curiosity. There were boys
and girls bright with ribands and coloured dresses,
climbing upon the kirkyard walls. There was no
minister — or at least no ceremony which implied the
presence of a minister. I could not but contrast, in
my own thoughts, that poor and almost ragged scene,
with the trampled sleet and dirt, and tmordered if not
disordered assemblage, with the sad ranks of mourners
who would have attended in thousands had Dean

BURIAL AT ECCLEFECHAN. 473

Stanley's offer been accepted. I half-regretted the
resolution which had made the Abbey impossible.
Melancholy, indeed, was the impression left upon me
by that final leave-taking of my honoured master. The
kirkyard was peopled with ghosts. All round me were
headstones, with the names of the good old villagers
of whom I had heard so many stories from him : the
schoolmaster from whom he had learnt his first Latin,
the blacksmith with whom his father had argued on
the resurrection of the body, his father, mother, sister,
woven into the life which was now over, and which it
was to fall to myself to describe. But the graves were
soiled with half-thawed sleet, the newspaper corre
spondents were busy with their pencils, the people were
pressing and pushing as the coffin was lowered down.
Not in this way, I thought for a moment, ought Scot
land to have laid her best and greatest in his solemn
sleeping-place. But it was for a moment only. It
was as he had himself desired. They whom he had
loved best had been buried so — all so — and with no
other forms. The funeral prayers in Scotland are not
offered at the grave, but in private houses, before or
after. There was nothing really unsuitable in what
habit had made natural and fit. It was over, and
we left him to his rest.

In future years, in future centuries, strangers
will come from distant lands — from America, from
Australia, from New Zealand, from every isle or
continent where the English language is spoken —
to see the house where Carlyle was born, to see
the green turf under which his dust is lying. Scot
land will have raised a monument over his grave ;
but no monument is needed for one who lias made an

474 CARLYL&S LIFE IN LONDON.

eternal memorial for himself in the hearts of all to
whom truth is the dearest of possessions.

' For, giving his soul to the common cause, he has won for
himself a wreath which will not fade and a tomb the most
honourable, net where his dust is decaying, but where his
glory lives in everlasting remembrance. For of illustrious
men all the earth is the sepulchre, and it is not the inscribed
column in their own land which is the record of their virtues,
but the unwritten memory of them in the hearts and minds
of all mankind.'

INDEX.

ABE

A BBBGWILI, visit to Bishop Thirl-

A. waU at, i. 307

Addiscombe, visits to, ii. 178, 374

Alma, on the battle of the, ii. 173

America, receipt of remittances from,
i. 145, 152, 193; the Civil War in,
ii. 246

Anarchy, on the uses of, ii. 293

Annandale, incidents at, i. 253 ; anec
dotes of, 322 ; visits to, ii. 276,
287

Anne Boleyn, Carlyle's estimate of,
ii. 397

Argyll, Duke of, ii. 248

Arnold, Dr., of Rugby, on the ' French
Revolution,' i. 178 ; visited by
Carlyle, 253

Art, Carlyle's characteristic remarks
on, i. 231

Ashburton, Lord (father of Mr. Bar
ing), makes the acquaintance of
Carlyle, i. 347, 348 ; his death, 444

Ashley, Lord (afterwards Lord Shaftes-
bury), his efforts for the protection
of factory children, i. 366

Athanasian controversy, on the, ii. 462

Atheism, modern, Carlyle's opinion
of, ii. 372, 386

Authors, remarks on, i. 153

Azeglio, rebuke of, ii. 128

BABBAGE, i. 200
Baring, Lady Harriet (afterwards
Lady Ashburton), her admiration
for Carlyle, i. 342 ; visited by Mrs.
Carlyle, 367 ; her death, ii. 186
Baring, Mr. (afterwards Lord Ashbur
ton), i. 155, 34'2 ; visited by the
Carlyles, 370; joint tour in Scot
land, 392 ; Carlyle's visits to, 1 1 (i,
414, ii. 247; an incident at the

CAR

Grange, ii. 128 ; his second mar
riage, 229; his illness, 268; his
death, 275 ; legacy to Carlyle, 275

Barry, the architect, ii. 42

Bath, description of, i. 298

Benthamism, i. 290

Berlin, the revolution in, i. 434 ; de
scription of the city, ii. 118

Bernstorff, Count (Prussian Ambas
sador in London), his letter to Car
lyle, ii. 405

Blanc, Louis, visit from, i. 452

Boehm's statue of Carlyle, ii. 460

Bonn, visit to, ii. 100

Bores, Carlyle's contempt for, i. 345

Breslau, visit to, ii. 222

Bright, Jacob, acquaintance with, i.
412

Bright, John, acquaintance with, i.
412

Bromley, Miss Davenport, visit to, ii.
326

Bruges, visit to, i. 262

Budget of a Femme Inconi prise, \\. 162

Buller, Charles,!. 186, 257; his high
Parliamentary reputation, 449 ; his
death, i. 449 ; Carlyle's elegy on,
449

Bullers, the, their kindness to Car
lyle, i. 257 ; death of Mrs. Buller,
449

Bunsen, meeting with, i. 155

Buxton, visit to, i. 410

/CAMBRIDGE friends, liberality of,

VJ i. 151

Cant, Carlyle's detestation of, ii. 17

Carleton, the novelist, i. 398

Carlyle, J;nncs (brother of T.
C;irlylc), represents Carlyle at the
funeral of the latter's mother-in-

476

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

CAB

law, i. 236 ; visits his brother in
London, 357 ; his character, ii. 145

Carlyle, Alick (brother of T. Carlyle),
the death of, ii. 438

Carlyle, Jane Welsh, her opinion of
the rewritten burnt manuscript, i.
54 ; Carlyle's letters to, 59, 76, 78,
111, 145, 146, 209, 235, 237, 300,
301, 307, 319, 353, 364, 380, 382,
394, 435, ii. 10-14, 52, 88, 113,
176, 210, 277; her illness, i. 73;
visits her mother in Scotland, 74 ;
her domestic trials, 79 ; returns
to London in better spirits, 80;
again seriously ill, 100 ; gives a
soiree, 156 ; accompanies Carlyle to
Scotland, 166; her temper, 180;
her close friendship with Miss
Geraldine Jewsbury, 207 ; letter to
her mother on affairs in Cheyne
Row, 233 ; her illness at Liverpool
on learning the death of her
mother, 234 ; returns to Cheyne
Row, 241 ; consents to follow the
Bullers to Suffolk, 257 ; her birthday
present from Carl) le, 304 ; super
intends the alterations in Cheyne
Row, 329 ; her indomitable spirit
under illness, 341 ; visits Lady Har
rier Baring, 367 ; visits the Barings
in Hampshire, 370 ; her dislike of
Addiscombe, 374 ; disagreement
with Carlyle, 379 ; goes to Seaforth,
379 ; seeks advice from Mazzini,
381 ; his letters in answer, 381, 384 ;
returns to Cheyne Row, 393 ; resolu
tion regarding the Barings, 393 ;
friendship with Mazzini, 402 ; ac
companies Carlyle to the Grange,
403 ; and to Matlock and Buxton,
410; her illness at Addiscombe,
414; visits Haddington, ii. 8 ;
writes to John Carlyle, 8 ; her
description of a Scotch wedding,
9 ; visit to the Grange, 88 ; decides
not to accompany Carlyle to
Germany, 97 ; visits John Carlyle
and his wife at Moffat, 130; nurses
Carlyle's mother, 133 ; her thrifti-
ness, 160 ; Budget of a Femme In-
cinttjirisc, 162; begins her diary,
180 ; satirical letter from, 185 ; goes
to Haddington, 189 ; her opinion of
the opening of ' Frederick,' 194 ;
grows weaker in health, 196 ; her
improved condition, 206 ; domestic
trials, 233 ; improved domestic

CAB

arrangements, 242; her delicate
condition, 250 ; goes to Nithsdale,
250 ; note to Mr. Froude on Bishop
Colenso, 264 ; her continued weak
ness, 267 ; accident, 271 ; goes to St.
Leonards, 274 ; flight to Annandale,
276 ; her partial recovery, 283 ; loses
the power of her right arm, 287 ;
goes to Nithsdale, 290 ; and returns
to Cheyne Row, 29 1 ; her last part
ing from her husband, 301 ; her
pleasure at the success of Carlyle's
Edinburgh address, 307 ; her death,
312 ; and funeral, 316 ; dawn of
the ' Letters and Memorials of,'
359

Carlyle, John (brother of T. Carlyle),
i. 21, 34 ; Carlyle's letters to, 55,
70, 83, 96, 99, 117, 135, 167, 177,
446, ii. 197, 240, 405, 432; visits
his brother in Cheyne Row, i.
72 ; criticises his MS., 81 ; devotes
himself to the poor in Rome during
the cholera, 116; his thoughtfulness
for his brother, 166 ; his influence
over him, 296 ; leaves for Scotland,
297; his translation of Dante's
' Inferno,' ii. 8 ; death of his wife,
160 note ; stays with his brother at
Cheyne Row, 325 ; returns to Scot
land, 326 ; meets his brother on his
return from Mentone, 342 ; his
death, 464 ; his character, 464 ; his
bequest to Edinburgh University,
465

Carlyle, Margaret (mother of T. Car
lyle), her anxiety regarding Car
lyle's faith, i. 62 ; characteristic
letters to her son, 63, 191 ; Carlyle's
letters to, i. 94, 102, 125, 284, 333,
337, 408, 439, 447, 453, ii. 108, 138 ;
her increasing weakness, i. 365 ;
Carlyle visits her, 249, 413, ii. 142 ;
her indignation at Lady Harriet
Baring's treatment of Mrs. Carlyle,
i. 414 ; divines domestic trouble in
Cheyne Row, ii. 82 ; death, 142

Carlyle, Thomas, his opinion of bio
graphy, i. 1 ; beginning of life
in Cheyne Row, 8 ; uncertain pro
spects, 9 ; absorbed in French Revo
lution, 12 ; his creed, 12 ; on litera
ture as a profession, 22, 82, 130 ; his
reception of the news of the burnt
manuscript, 27 ; compensation for,
29 ; resolves to rewrite the volume,
28 ; meets Wordsworth, 31 ; his

INDEX.

477

CAE

poverty and confidence, 35 ; blank
prospects, 37 ; his style, 40, 53 ;
its justification, 42 ; refuses to
recognise any body of believers,
44 ; thoughts of abandoning litera
ture, 47 ; finishes the rewriting of
the burnt volume, 55 ; starts for
Scotland, 57 ; returns to Chelsea,
61 ; refuses to be connected with
parties, 65 ; Mr. Basil Montagu's
offer of employment, 67 ; mode of
life, 68 ; relaxation in garden work,
71 ; pleasure in his brother's com
pany, 72 ; the discipline of genius,
7ii ; visits John Mill, 74 ; progress
of his work, 75 ; reception of the
' Diamond Necklace ' by the critics,
80 ; pessimistic views of literary
life, 82 ; completes the ' French
Revolution,' 84 ; his belief in the
Divine guidance of the world's
affairs, 89 ; his ' word-pictures,' 91 ;
his inflexible love of truth, 91 ;
reception of his work by contem
poraries, 93 ; consents to deliver
lectures in London, 98 ; prospectus
of the lectures, 99 ; their success,
103 ; visits Scotland, 108 ; returns
to London, 114; his kindness to
others, 116; thoughts on the
cholera, 117; resolutions against
vanity, 119; proposals from the
publishers regarding reprints of his
works, 121 ; distaste for public
employment, 129 ; prepares for
second course of lectures, 131 ;
opinion of popularity and its value,
133; depressing effect of lecturing
upon him, 138; visits Kirkcaldy,
144; calls on Jeffrey, 144; goes to
Scotsbrig, 145 ; evidences in Lon
don of his growing importance,

148 ; agrees to write on Cromwell
for the 'London and Westminster,'

149 ; agitates for the institution
of a public lending library, 1 ~>2 ;
resulting in the formation of the
Loudon Library, 152 ; on authors
and publishers, 153 ; first impres
sions on the records of the Com
monwealth, 153 ; makes the ac
quaintance of Monckton Milnes,
155 ; Bunsen, 155 ; and Mr. Baring
(afterwards Lord Ashburton), 155 ;
remarks on Mrs.Carlyle's soiree,156;
interview with Count d'Orsay, 158,
success of third course of lectures,

CAR

159 ; his dissatisfaction with them,
159; his fear of being led away
by public speaking, 160 ; reflections
on condition of the working classes,
160; corresponds with Mill and
Lockhart on writing an article
thereon, 163; meets Webster, 164;
his portrait of him, 164 ; becomes
acquainted with Connop Thirlwall
(afterwards Bishop of St. David's),
165 ; receives present of a mare,
165 ; visits Scotland, 166 ; first
experience of railway travelling,
167; benefit derived from riding,
170; article on 'Chartism,' 171;
which Lockhart refuses, 172 ; pub
lishes the article in book form
successfully, 173 ; its reception
by the critics, 174 ; on heroes, 175 ;
proposed discourses on ' Heroes and
Hero-worship,' 176; receives con
gratulatory letters from strangers,
178; his unrest, 179 ; his letters on
Heroes, 180 ; resolves to put them
into book form, 185 ; his treatment
of uncongenial company, 186 ; on
special juries, 190 ; remarks on the
supposed Macaulay article about
bin in the ' Edinburgh Review,' 1<)2 ;
receives further remittances from
Am >rica, 193 ; finishes ' Lectures
on Heroes,' 194; wishes to live
by tie sea, 198; continues studies
on the Commonwealth, 199 ; im
patience with London, 201 ; his
nervous irritability, 204 ; experi
ence of a special jury, 205 ; comes
to terms with Fraser about lectures
on ' Hero-worship,' 207 ; first ac
quaintance wi'h Miss Genildinc.
Jewsbury, 207; goes to Fryston
with Milnes, 209; visits the James
Marshalls at Hwnlingly, 212 ; a new
experience of life in English country
houses, 213 ; proceeds to Liverpool
and Dumfriesshire, 214; takes a
cottage on the Solway for the sum
mer, 215; lives in seclusion, 222;
returns to London, 222 ; difficulty
in beginning ' Cromwell,' 224 ; dis
belief in the present being better
than the past, 224 ; sets out to attend
his mother-in-law's funeral, 236 ; is
left sole executor, 236 ; his life at
Templand, 217, 240; incident in
Crawford churchyard, 248 ; visit s his
mother, 249 ; his pride in his family

478

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

CAR

pedigree, 252 ; visits Dr. Arnold at
Rugby, 253; the battle-field of
Naseby, 255 ; returns to London,
256 ; goes to the House of Com
mons to hear Charles Buller speak,
257 ; his opinion of the House, 258 ;
agrees to accompany Stephen
Spring Rice to Ostend, 259; his
descriptive power, 259; visits Ghent,
266 ; returns to London, 272 ; his
high appreciation of English sailors,
272 ; becomes acquainted with
Owen, the geologist, 273; follows his
wife to Suffolk, 275 ; a ride in
Cromwell's country, 275 ; visits Ely
Cathedral, 275 ; St. Ives, 276 ;
Huntingdon, 276 : his slow progress
with ' Cromwell,' 279 ; his prophecies
regarding the future laughed at,
281 ; the birth of ' Past and Present,'
281 ; rapidity of its composition, 284 ;
reception of the work, 286 ; its
effect among his contemporaries,
288 ; his position and influence,
291 ; passion for truth, 294 ; earnest
ness, 295; opinion of the reviews
on 'Past and Present,' 297; accepts
invitations to visit South Wales,
298 ; visits the Bishop of St. David's,
307 ; description of an inn at Glou
cester, 313 ; surveys the battle
field of Worcester, 314 ; arrives at
Liverpool, 315 ; sees Father Matbew,
315 ; brief tour in North Wales
with his brother, 316; goes to
Scotsbrig, 317; reflections on a
biography of Ralph Erskine, 320 :
visits Templand and Crawford
churchyard, 322 ; Haddington, 324 ;
remarks on Irish and Highland
shearers, 325 ; visits Jeffrey and
Erskine, 327 ; and returns to Lon
don, 327; effects upon him of the
alterations in Cheyne Row, 328 ;
conscientiousness in writing, 333;
refuses a professorship at St.
Andrews, 336 ; delight at the
success of the movement for the
protection of factory children,
336 ; anxiety for his mother, 339 ;
difficulties with 'Cromwell,' 339-
low estimate of his own work, 340 ,
an evening with the Barings at
Addiscombe, 343 ; his contempt for
bores, 345 ; life at the Grange, 347 ;
progress with 'Cromwell,' 351 ; its
completion, 356 ; nature of the

CAB

work, 357 ; effect upon his mind
of the long study of the Common
wealth, 359 ; political conclusions,
360 ; the rights of majorities, 360 ;
joins his wife at Seaforth, 364;
goes on to Scotsbrig, 364 ; the
reception of ' Cromwell ' by the
public, 369 ; dawn of ' Frederick
the Great,' 369 ; returns to London,

369 ; visits the Barings in Hamp
shire in company with his wife,

370 ; domestic clouds, 379 ; solicited
to assist the « Young Ireland ' party,
389 ; impatience at his wife's silence,
391 ; accompanies the Barings to
Scotland, 392 ; visits Ireland, 397 ;
witnesses the last appearance of
O'Connell, 397 ; meets Carleton, the
novelist, 398 ; clines with John Mit-
chel, 399 ; returns to England, 399 ;
meets with Margaret Fuller, 401;
visits Lord and Lady Ashburton at
the Grange, 403 ; visits the Barings,
404 ; his sympathy for Ireland, 405 ;
visits from Jeffrey, 407 ; and from
Dr. Chalmers, 407 ; his advice to
young men on literature as a pro
fession, 409; visits Matlock and
Buxton, 410 ; and Mr. W. E. Forster
at Rawdon, 410 ; makes the ac
quaintance of John and Jacob
Bright, 412 ; visits his mother, 413 ;
returns to London, 415 ; visit to
the Barings, 416 ; corresponds with
Baron Rothschild on the Jew Bill,
419; his financial circumstances,
420; projects for new book?, 423;
the ' Exodus from Houndsditch,'
423 ; thinks of writing a work on
democracy, 429 ; meets Sir Robert
Peel, 433 ; thoughts on the state of
Europe, 434 ; on Chartism, 437
writes newspaper articles, 437 ;
accompanies Emerson to Stone-
henge, 440; visits the Barings,
444 ; his opinion of the proposed
Cromwell statue, 451 ; visited by
Louis Blanc, 452 ; encounters
Louis Napoleon, 453 ; provides
temporary refuge for Charles
Gavan Duffy, 456; tour through
Ireland, ii. 1 ; meets Gavan Duffy,

3 ; and Petrie, the antiquarian, 3 ;
declines an invitation from the
Viceroy, 3 ; his description of Kil-
dare, 3 ; meets Mr. W. E. Forster,
5 ; his opinion of Lord George

INDEX.

479

CAB

Hill's experiment in Donegal, 6 ;
address at Derry, 7 ; stays at
Scotsbrig, 9 ; visits the Ashburtons
at Glen Truim, 10 ; his description
of a Highland shooting paradise, 1 3 ;
returns to Scotsbrig, 14 ; his de
testation of cant, 17 ; his bitterness
on the Negro question, 24 ; severs
his connection with Mill, 26 ; visits
Millbank Penitentiary, 29 ; a re
miniscence of old times, 37 ; his
habits of declamation, 41 ; invited
to dine with Sir Robert Peel, 42 ;
meets Prescott, Cubitt, and Barry
the architect, 42 ; meets Savage
Landor, 50 ; visits Mr. Redwood,
50 ; his description of Merthyr
Tydvil, 51 ; life at Scotsbrig, 54 ;
reaction after the Pamphlets, 55 ;
his discontent, 57 ; visits the Mar-
shalls, 59; returns to London, 61;
opinion of Wycherley's Comedies,
65 : writes the ' Life of Sterling,'
68 ; his remarks on a portrait of
himself, 76 ; on a peculiarity of
the English language, 78 note ; on
the Crystal Palace, 79, 152; goes
to the waters at Malvern, 81 ; visits
the Ashburtons in Paris, 83 ; meets
Thiers, Merimee, and Laborde, 83 ;
resolves to write the history of
Frederick the Great, 86 ; magnit ude
of the task, 86 ; studies for ' Frede
rick,' 90; projects going to Ger
many, 92 ; visits Linlathen, 93 ;
goes to Germany, 97 ; at Bonn, 100 ;
description of the Rhine, 104 ; at
Frankfurt, 106; Homburg, 107;
Marburg, 108 ; description of Goe
the's house, 112 ; and Schiller's, 113 ;
Herrnhut, 117; description of Ber
lin, 118; end of the journey, 119;
retrospect, 123; on the Duke of
Wellington's funeral, 126; the
beginning of ' Frederick,' 127 ; re
bukes Azeglio, 128; an incident at
the Grange, 128 ; revival of the cock
nuisance, 135; extract from journal
on his miseries, 136 ; his last letter
to his mother, 138; hurries to
Scotsbrig in time to see her once
more, 142 ; on his mother's death,
142 ; his grief, 146 ; his oi.ininn of
the Crimean war, 151 ; and of Louis
Napoleon, 152 ; the sound-proof
room, 153 ; the journal of a day,
159 the economies of Chcyne Row,

CAR

161 ; sources of income, 161 ; his
difficulties over ' Frederick,' 172 ; on
the battle of the Alma, 173; and
Louis Napoleon's visit to England,
174; visit to Suffolk, 175, 176;
goes to Addiscombe, 178 ; spends
the autumn in Scotland, 183 ; visits
the Ashburtons, 184 ; grief at the
death of Lady Ashburton, 186; his
horse Fritz, 187; progress witli
' Frederick,' 189 ; fresh worries, 191 ;
the difficulties in costume, 193, 209 ;
rematks on the Indian Mutiny, 194 ;
and on London Christmas, 196 ; on
Scotch servants, 198 ; completion
of first two volumes of tne' Frede
rick,' 200; his Frederick William
compared with Walter Shandy, 204 ;
a night in a railway train, 207;
pays visit to Craigenputtock, 214 ;
second tour in Germany, 217 ; nar
rative of his journey, 217; visits
Riigen, 218 ; Frederick's battle
fields, 222 ; Breslau, 222 ; Prag, 223 ;
and Dresden, 225 ; returns to Lon
don, 225 ; his masterly grasp of the
battle-fields, 227 ; success of ' Fre
derick,' 228; effects of literary life,
231 ; mode of life, 234 ; takes a
house in Fife, 235 ; visits Thurso
Castle, 237 ; improved domestic
arrangements, 242; his friendship
with John Ruskin, 244 ; on the
American Civil War, 246 ; visit to
the Grange, 247; publication of third
volume of 'Frederick,' 251 ; per
sonal intercourse with Mr. Froude,
254 ; his charity, 255 ; his compas
sion for suffering, 257; as a com
panion, 257 ; his distrust of modern
science, 259 ; his estimate of re-
ligion,260;andmaterialism,261 ; his
opinion of Dean Stanley, 263 ; and
Colenso, 263; on literature and its
value, 264 ; is compared to St. Paul,
266 ; tone of his conversation, '2<'>J •
breakdown of his horse Fritz, i>r,<» ;
on Dickens's reading, 270 ; his wife's
accident, 271 ; his blindness to its
nature, 273 ; accompanies her to St.
Leonards, L>7t ; takes a house there,
275 ; alone in Cheyne Row, '111 :
presents his wife with a brougham,
283; completes 'Frederick,' 283;
goes to Annandale, 287; visits the
Speddings at Kcswick, 290; returns
to Cheyne How, 2!>4 ; his feelings

480

CARLYLE' S LIFE IN LONDON.

CAR

towards Edinburgh, 296; chosen
Rector of the University, 298; his
opinion of Buskin's ' Ethics of the
Dust,' 298 ; departs for Edinburgh,
301 ; his last parting from his wife,
301 ; installation as Rector, 303 ; his
speech, 303 ; its effect on the world,
306 ; temporary popularity of his
works, 306 ; recognised as a ' great
man,' 307 ; praise from the news
papers, 308 ; delajred by an acci
dent, 309 ; his reception of the
news of his wife's death, 314 ; re
turns to London, 315 ; accom
panies the body of his wife to
Haddington, 315 ; her funeral, 316 ;
receives message from the Queen,
320 ; his reply, 321 ; attempts at oc
cupation, 325 ; visits Miss Davenport
Bromley, 326 ; and Lady Ashburton
at Mentone, 333 ; returns to Eng
land, 341 ; his charities, 346 ; on
public affairs, 347 ; publishes
' Shooting Niagara,' 350 ; his last
public utterance on English poli
tics, 352 ; resumes riding, 353 ;
daily worries, 353 ; revision of his
' Collected Works,' 354 ; his weari
ness of life, 355; visit to Wools-
thorpe, 357 ; receives a visit from
his brother James, 357 ; on the
Clerkenwell explosion, 358 ; retro
spect, 359 ; dawn of ' The Letters
and Memorials of Mrs. Carlyle,'
359 ; interests himself in the defence
of Eyre, 364 ; his opinion of the
disestablishment of the Irish Church,
365 ; and of Tyndall's lecture on
Faraday, 366 ; visits Lord North-
brook, 367 ; meets S.G.O. ('the Kev.
Lord Sidney '), 368 ; makes selec
tions from his wife's letters, 369 ;
meditations from his journal, 370 ;
his opinion of modern atheism, 372,
386 ; and of oratory, 374 ; another
riding accident, 379 ; meets the
Queen at Westminster, 380 ; loses
the power of his right hand, 391 ;
on the death of his friend Erskine,
391 ; on the uses of anarchy, 393 ;
on Anne Boleyn, 397 ; on Ginx's
Baby, 398 ; on the Franco-German
war, 399 ; and Napoleon TIL, 399 ;
on the victory of Germany, 400 ;
on the prospects for France, 401 ;
on Russia's breach of the Treaty
of Paris, 401 ; his letter to the

CHA

' Times ' on the Franco - German
question, 403; its effect on the
English people, 405 ; on the loss of
the use of his right hand, 407 ; gives
his wife's Reminiscences into the
keeping of Mr. Froude, 408 ; in
trusts Mr. Froude with the writing
of his biography, 414 ; his latest
writings, 417 ; on the death of
Bishop Wilberforce and J. S. Mill,
419 ; on Mill's Autobiography, 420 ;
on Mr. Lecky, 422 ; on the Irish
policy of Mr. Gladstone, 423 ; on
Sir James Stephen, 423 ; his last
entry in the journal, 424 ; receives
the Order of Merit from Prussia,
425 ; on the general election of 1874,
426; on Gladstone and Disraeli,
427,447; his answers to Mr. Disraeli's
letter on proposed honours, and to
the Countess of Derby, 431 ; tributes
of respect on his eightieth birth
day, 434 ; mode of life, 436 ; his
opinion of Trevelyan's ' Life of
Macaulay,' 436 ; a characteristic
letter of advice to a young man,
437 ; on the death of his brother
Alick, 438 ; on the policy of the
Tory party during the Russo-
Turkish war, 439 ; his letter to the
' Times ' thereon, 442 ; his opinion
of the British Parliament, 446;
meets Sir Garnet Wolseley, 447 ;
his opinion of the Jews, 449 ; on
London housebuilding, 450 ; and the
Church of England, 450 ; his opinion
of the services at St. Paul's and
Westminster, 451 ; his irritation at
his decaying powers, 453 ; on pro
gress, 453 ; his tenacious memory,
457 ; his knowledge of his approach
ing end, 457 ; his unswerving rec
titude, 459 ; Boehm's statue of
him, 460 ; Millais's portrait, 461 ;
his opinion of Gibbon's ' Decline
and Fall,' 461 ; his anxiety regarding
the 'Letters and Memorials,' 466;
his dislike of doctors, 467 ; increas
ing weakness, and death, 469 ; his
funeral, 471

Cavaignac, General, i. 439
Chalmers, Dr., visits Carlyle, i. 407
Charteris, Lady Anne, i. 405
Chartism, i. 160; article on, 171, 173,

1 74 ; thoughts upon, 437
Chartism and Radicalism, Carlyle's
estimate of, i. 160, 171

INDEX.

481

CUE

Chepstow, description of, i. 299

Cheyne Row, beginning of life in, i.
8 ; effect on Carlyle of alterations
in, 328 ; visitors to, ii. 67 ; the econo
mies of, 161 ; alone in, 277, 294, 342 ;
strange applications at, 389

Cholera, thoughts on the, i. 117

Christianity and political economy,
difference between, ii. 32

Church of England, Carlyle's views on
the, ii. 450

Clerkenwell explosion, on the, ii. 358

Clough, Arthur, his reason for leav
ing Oxford, i. 457; Carlyle's high
opinion of him, 458 ; his death, ii.243

Cockburn, Lord, Carlyle's estimate of,
ii. 158

Colenso, Bishop, Cnrlyle's opinion of,
ii. 263 : Mrs. Carlyle's note to Mr.
Froude on, ii. 264

Coleridge, i. 45 ; ii. 71, 170

Cologne Cathedral, anecdote of, ii.
131 note

Commons, House of, Carlyle visits the,
i. 257 ; his opinion of it, 258

Commonwealth, Carlyle's first impres
sions on the records of the, i. 153;
continues their study, 199 ; its effect
on his mind, 359

Commune, the French, Carlyle's
opinion of, ii. 405

Conservatism, remarks on, i. 24

Craigenputtock, visit to, ii. 214 ; be
queathed to University of Edin
burgh. 345

Crawford churchyard, incident in, i.
248 ; visit to, 322

Crimean war, the, ii. 151

Cromwell, i. 149,151,154; difficulty
with the Life of, 224, 339 ; its be
ginnings, 331; its progress, 351;
and completion, 35R ; its reception
by the puldic, 369; new edition
called for, 373 ; Carlyle's opinion
of the proposed Cromwell statue,
451

Crystal Palace, the, ii. 79, 152

Cubitt, meeting with, ii. 42

"TvEMOCRACY, Carlyle's thoughts
JJ on, i. 429

Derby, Lady, Carlylr's letter to, ii.
431 ; her interview with Carlyle re
garding liis proposed honours, 433

Derry, Carlyle's address at, ii. 7

IV.

BYB

' Diamond Necklace,' its reception by
the critics, i. 80

Dickens, Charles, Carlyle's first sight
of, i. 177 ; on his readings, ii. 270

Disraeli, Benjamin, Carlyle's opinion
of, ii. 428, 447: his letter to Car
lyle, 429 ; Carlyle's answer, 430

Doctors, Carlyle's dislike of, ii. 467

Donegal, Lord G. Hill's experiment in,
ii. 6

D'Orsay, Count, interview with, i. 158

' Downing Street and Modern Govern
ment,' ii. 30

Dresden, visit to, ii. 225

Duffy, Charles Gavan, and the ' Young
Ireland ' party, i. 389 ; Carlyle's
opinion of Duffy, 399; his narrow
escape, 400 ; guest in Cheyne Row,
456 ; meets Carlyle in Dublin, ii. 3

Dumfriesshire, visit to, i. 214

T7DINBURGH, Carlyle's feelings to-
JJ wards, ii. 296 ; is chosen Rector
of the University of, 297 ; his in
stallation, 303 ; bequeaths Craigen
puttock to the University, 3 -15
' Edinburgh Review,' Carlyle's remarks
on supposed article by Macaulay in
the, i. 192

Ely Cathedral, visit to, i. 275
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, his relations
with Carlyle, i. 45, 139 ; high ap
preciation of, 220; visits Carlyle
in London, 415 ; lectures in England,
422 ; visits Paris and Oxford, 4-10 ;
at Stonehenge, 440 ; his opinion of
' Frederick,' ii. 285 ; again visits
England, 418

England, condition of, in 1842, i.

280 ; improved condition now 2S3 ;

this partly the effect of Carlylu's

teaching, 283

English language, on a peculiarity of

the, ii. 78 imh:

Erskine, Ralph, reflections on a bio
graphy of, i. 320

Erskine, Thomas, of Linlathen, i. 127,
ii. 93; Carlyle's let i ITS fco, i. L'l."»,
277, 377, 430, ii. 17, 131, 2:, 2, 317 ;
visit to, i. 327 ; his letter to Mr.
Carlyle. ii. 2(.I2; his death. 391
Europe, thoughts on tli i. 134

'Exodus from Houndsditch,' i. 123
Eyre. Governor, Carlyle's ojiininn <>f
his conduct, ii. 32!) ; and interest
in his defence, 364

I I

482

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

FAR

FARADAY, Carlyle's opinion of Tyn-
dall's lecture on, ii. 366

Feinme Inconymse, Budget of a, ii,
162

Fife, Carlyle takes a house in, ii.
235

Forster, John, his kindness on the
death of Mrs. Carlyle, ii. 313 ; on
the ' Letters and Memorials,' 412 ;
his death, 438

Forster, Mr. W. E., visit to, at Rawdon,
i. 410 ; meets him in Ireland, ii. 5

Foxton, Mr., ii. 216

France, Carlyle on the prospects of,
ii. 401

Franco-German war, Carlyle on the,
ii. 399 ; and the victory of the
Germans, 400

Frankfurt, visit to, ii. 106

Fraser, James (proprietor of the maga
zine), Carlyle's opinion of his criti
cal faculty, i. 121 ; come to terms
about the lectures on 'Hero Wor
ship,' 207

' Frederick the Great,' dawn of the
history, i. 369 ; studies for, ii. 90 ;
its beginning, 127 ; difficulties with,
172 ; its progress, 189 ; completion
of the first two volumes, 200 ; its
success, 228 ; publication of the
third volume, 251 ; completion of
the work, 283 ; its translation into
German, 284 ; its effect in Ger
many, 284 ; reception in England,
285

French Revolution, Carlyle's History
of the, i. 12 ; mishap with the MS.,
27, 34 ; resolves to rewrite it, 28,
51, 53, 55 ; progress with, 75 ; its
completion, 84 ; nature of the work,
88 ; its reception by contemporaries,
93, 95

Fripps, Mr., i. 300

Froude, J. A., first introduction to
Carlyle, i. 457 ; a disciple of Car
lyle's, ii. 179; Carlyle's criticisms
on his work, 180 ; on Carlyle's his
torical method, 200 ; become close
friends, 254 ; Carlyle gives the cus
tody of his wife's Reminiscences to,
408 ; and intrusts him with the
writing of his biography, 414

Fryston, visit to Mr. Monckton Milnes
at, i. 209

Fuller, Margaret, her meeting with
Carlyle, i. 401, 402, 403

IRE

pAVAZZI, FATHER, Carlyle's

vJ opinion of, ii. 83

German Literature, Lectures on, i. 99,

102
Germany, projected visit to, ii. 92, 97 ;

second tour in, ii. 217
Ghent, visit to, i. 266-270
Gibbon's 4 Decline and Fall,' estimate

of, ii. 461

Ginx's Baby, ii. 398
Gladstone, W. E., on slavery, ii. 20

note ; his valedictory address as

Rector of Edinburgh University,

295 ; Carlyle's opinion of him, 335,

423, 427, 448
Gloucester, picture of an inn at, i.

313
Goethe, letters to Sterling on, i. 122,

226 ; description of his house, ii.

112
Gully, Dr., ii. 81, 445

HADDINGTON, visit to, i. 324;
Mrs. Carlyle's visit to, ii. 8
Hampshire peasantry, letter on the, i.

447
Hare, Archdeacon, his Life of John

Sterling, i. 418 ; Carlyle's opinion

of it, 418

Headingly. visit to, i. 212
' Heroes and Hero-worship,' i. 176, 180,

185, 194, 207

Herrnhut, Carlyle's opinion of, ii. 117
Highland and Irish shearers, i. 325
Hill, Lord George, his attempt to im
prove the state of Ireland, ii. 6
Holland, Lady, i. 178, 296
Holland, Lord, i. 178
Homburg, visit to, ii. 107
House of Commons, visit to the, i.

257
Housebuilding in London, Carlyle's

remarks on, ii. 450
Hudson, the ' Railway King,' i. 455
Hunt, Leigh, i. 136
Huntingdon, visit to, i. 276
Huxley, John, ii. 302.

TNDIAN MUTINY, remarks on the,

i ii. 194

Ireland, Carlyle's anxiety about, i.
396 ; visits to, 397, ii. 1 ; sympathy
for, i. 405 ; under English rule, ii.
1 ; Lord George Hill's attempt to

INDEX.

483

IBI

improve its condition, 6 ; the Govern
ment's Irish policy, 385
Irish and Highland shearers, i. 325
Irish Church, Carlyle's opinion of the

disestablishment of the, ii. 365
Irving, Edward, Carlyle's Reminis
cences of, ii. 331

JEFFREY, his opinion of the

tl ' French Revolution,' i. 107 ; on
Carlyle as an author, 131 ; meets
Carlyle in Edinburgh, 144 ; Carlyle's
visit to, 327 ; visits Carlyle, 407

' Jesuitism,' ii. 31

' Jew Bill,' the, i. 419

Jews, Carlyle's opinion of the, ii.
449

Jewsbury, Miss Geraldine, Carlyle's
acquaintance with, i. 207, 208

KEBLE, JOHN, Carlyle's description
of, ii. 248
Kepler, ii. 259
Kildare, description of, ii. 3
Kingsley's ' Alton Locke,' ii. 57
Kirkcaldy, visit to, i. 144
Knox, John, Carlyle's criticisms on
the portraits of, ii. 417

T ABORDE, M., ii. 83

_LJ Landor, Savage, visit to, ii. 50

Larkin, Mr., assists Carlyle with

' Frederick,' ii. 199
' Latter-day Pamphlets,' the first of,

ii. 23 ; reviews of them, 65
Lecky, Mr., ii. 422
Lectures in London, Carlyle's, i. 98,

131, 136, 138, 140, 159
Lending library, agitates for a, i.

152

' Letters and Memorials of Mrs. Car
lyle,' Mr. Froude's opinion of, ii.

408 ; John Forster on, 413 ; Carlyle's

anxiety about, 466
Liberty, on, ii. 20
Linlathen, visit to Mr. Erskine at, ii.

93
Literature as a profession, i. 22, 47,

82, 130, 409 ; its effects on Carlyle,

ii. 2)51 ; its value, 264
Liverpool, visits to, i. 214, 315
Llandough, South Wales, visit to, i.

300
Lockhart, his correspondence with

MIL

Carlyle about the article on the
working classes, i. 163, 171 ; his
opinion of ' Past and Present,' 288

' London and Westminster Review,'
article on Cromwell in, i. 149

London Library, establishment of the,
i. 152, 188

London lions, letter to his brother on,
i. 177

Luther, on the localities of, ii. 108.

MA CAUL AY, Carlyle's remarks on
supposed article by, i. 192;
opinion of him, 433 ; his ' Essay on
Milton,' 432; Trevelyan's Life of,
ii. 436

Mackenzie, Miss Stuart (Lady Ash-
burton), her marriage to Lord Ash-
burton, ii. 229 ; invites Carlyle to
Mentone, 328

Mahomet, i. 181

Majorities, the rights of, i. 360

Malvern, visit to the waters at, ii. 81

Manchester, adventure in, i. 147 ; in
surrection at, 282

Marburg, visit to, ii. 108

Marshall, Mr., of Leeds, i. 165, 212,
ii. 59

Martineau, Harriet, visits Carlyle, i.
97

Materialism, Carlyle's estimate of, ii.
261

Mathew, Father, described, i. 315

Matlock, visit to, i. 410

Maurice, Frederick (brother-in-law of
John Sterling), his pamphlet on
the Thirty-nine Articles, i. 39 ;
Carlyle's opinion of him, 126 ; his
' Religions of the World,' 409

Mazzini and London society, i. 344;
his letters to Mrs. Carlyle, 381, 384 ;
conversation with Carlyle, 402 ; his
temporary triumph in Italy, 452;
resists the French at Rome, 454

Melbourne, Lord, i. 186

Mentone, visit to, ii. 336

Merimee, M , ii. 83

Merivale, Herman, his article on Car
lyle in the ' Edinburgh Review,'
192

Merthyr Tydvil, description of, ii. 51

Michael Angelo, Carlyle's criticism of
his work, i. 265

Mill, John Stuart, Carlyle's estimate
of, i. 25 ; entreats Carlyle to accept
compensation for the burnt manu-

r i 3

484

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

MIL

script, 29 ; is visited by Carlyle, 74 ;
correspondence with Carlyle on his
article upon the working-classes,
163 ; willing to publish ' Chartism '
in the ' Westminster Review,' 173 ;
replies to Carlyle on the Negro
question, ii. 26 ; severs his connec
tion, 26 ; Carlyle on his death, 419 ;
and his Autobiography, 420

Millais's portrait of Carlyle, ii. 461

Millbank Penitentiary, visit to, ii. 29

Milnes, Monckton, Carlyle's intimacy
with, i. 155, 209

Mitchel, John, Carlyle's opinion of
him, i. 399 ; the result of his work.
400

' Model Prisons,' ii. 29

Modern science, Carlyle's distrust of,
ii. 259

Moffat, Mrs. Carlyle's visit to, ii. 130

Montagu, Basil, his offer of employ
ment, i. 67

Monteagle, Lord (Mr. Spring Rice),
i. 124

Montrose, remarks on, i. 154

Murray, Dr. Thomas, i. 186

NAPOLEON, LOUIS, Carlyle's opi
nion of him, i. 399, 453, ii. 152,

399 ; his visit to England, 174
Naseby, visit to the battle-field of, i.

255

Negro question, the, ii. 23
Neuberg, Mr., Carlyle's companion in

Germany, ii. 99 ; Carlyle's high

appreciation of, 120
Newby, life at, i. 218
Nithsdale, Mrs. Carlyle's visit to, ii.

250, 290

North brook, Lord, visit to, ii. 367
North Wales, tour in, i. 316

O'CONNELL, DANIEL, i. 397
Oratory, Carlyle's opinion of, ii.
374

OsU'iid, visit to, i. 261
Owen, the geologist, acquaintance
with, i. 273

I, the librarian, ii. 137
JT Paris, revolution in, i. 428 ; and
the reaction, 439 ; on Russia's breach
of the Treaty of, ii. 401

BUS

Parliament, Carlyle's opinion of, ii.
446

' Past and Present,' i. 281 ; its recep
tion, 286; reviews of, 297

Peel, Sir Robert, receives a copy of
' Cromwell ' from Carlyle, i. 375 ;
his answer, 376 ; becomes personally
acquainted with Csrlyle, 433 ; article
in ' Spectator ' on, 452 ; invites Car
lyle to dinner, ii. 42 ; his death, 47 ;
Carlyle's estimate of his character,
48

Petrie, the antiquarian, meeting with,
ii. 3

Pig Philosophy, ii. 33

Political economy, remarks on, i. 282 ;
difference between Christianity and
ii. 32

Prag, visit to, ii. 223

Prescott, the historian, meeting with,
ii. 42

Publishers, remarks on, i. 153

Puseyism, i. 193

QUEEN, the, her message of sym
pathy to Carlyle, ii. 320 ; meets
him at Westminster, 380

"RADICALISM, remarks on, i. 24 ;

-It Carlyle's declaration of war
against modern, ii. 23

Redwood, Mr., i. 298, ii. 49

Reform Bill of 1867, ii. 343, 351

Religion, Carlyle's opinion of, ii. 19,
260

Remington, Mr., ii. 121

Rhine, description of the, ii. 104

Robertson and the article for the
' London and Westminster,' i. 149

Rogers, Carlyle's opinion of, i. 200,
403

Rothschild, Baron, asks Carlyle to
write in favour of the Jew Bill, i.
419

Riigen, visit to, ii. 2] 8

Ruskin, John, his acquaintance with
Carlyle, ii. 244; his 'Letters on
Political Economy,' 244 ; his 'Unto
this Last,' 252 ; his ' Ethics of the
Dust,' 298 ; defends Governor Eyre,
330 ; Carlyle's opinion of him, 383

Russell, Lord John, and Carlyle's
' Downing Street and Modern Go
vernment,' ii. 30

INDEX.

485

SAN

SAND, GEORGE, her works, i. 308
Schiller's house, description of, ii.
113

Scotch History Chair, i. 227
Scotch servants, on, ii. 198
Scotsbrig, life at, i. 59, 111, 145, 166,

317, 364, ii. 9, 14, 54, 183
Scott, Sir Walter, writes article on,

i. 120
Si •; i forth, visit to his wife at, i. 364

il, William, his article on Carlyle,
i. 193
S. G. O. ('the Rev. Lord Sidney '), "•

31)8, 369 note
' Shooting Niagara,' publication of, ii.

3.50

Sinclair, Sir George, ii. 237
South Wales, invitations to, i. 298;

description of, 304

special juries, remarks on, i. 190; ex
perience of, 205
S] Holdings, visit to the, at Keswick,

ii. 290

' Spiritual Optics,' ii. 77
Spring Rice, Mr. (Lord Monteagle), i.

124

Spring Rice, Stephen, i. 259
St. Andrews Professorship, the, i.

336

St. Ives, visit to, i. 276
St. Leonards, Carlyle accompanies his

wife to, ii. 274
St. Paul's, on the services at, ii.

451

Stanley, Dean, ii. 263 ; his champion
ship of Bishop Colenso, 263 ; offers
Westminster Abbey as the last rest
ing-place of Carlyle, 470; his

ral sermon, 470
Stephen, Sir James, ii. 423
Sterling, John, his opinion of Carlyle,
i. 10; is caught by the Radical
epidemic, 38 ; offended by Carlyle's
style, 40; Carlyle's letters to, 84,
107, 110, 122, 169, 226, 274, 285,
332 ; dispute about Goethe, 122 ; his
article on Carlyle in the 'West
minster Review,' 169; bad state of
health, 229; his ' Straff ord,' 230;
returns to London from Italy, 257 ;
( 'arlyle, 350; 349 ; his last letter to
his death, Carlyle's Life of him,
ii. (58
Stonehenge, Carlyle accompanies

KllK.Tsnil to, i. I 10

' Stump Oratory,' ii. 30

Ik, visits to, i. 275, ii. 175

WIN

Sussex, a week's riding tour in, i. 194
Symons, Dr., i. 300

rPEMPLAND, life at, i. 217, 240
J. 322

Ten Hours' Bill, i. 336

Tennyson, Carlyle's admiration for, i.
190; poetical parallel to Carlyle,
291; ii. 61

Thames, Carlyle's word-picture of a
scene on the, i. 195

Thiers, M., ii. 83

Thirlwall, Connop (afterwards Bishop
of St. David's), i. 165, 185; invites
Carlyle to Wales, 298; Carlyle's
visit to him, 307

Thurso Castle, ii. 237 ; its neighbour
hood, 240

Tieck's 'Vittoria Accorombona,' i.
302

' Times,' Carlyle refuses employment
on the, i. 11

Town and country, on, i. 197

Trevelyan, his ' Life of Macaulay,'
Carlyle's opinion of, ii. 436

Tyndall, John, ii. 300 ; his lecture on
Faraday at the Royal Institution,
365 ; Carlyle's opinion thereof, 366

'• TTITTORIA ACCOROMBONA,'
V Tieck's, i. 302

WATTS'S portrait, Carole's re
marks on, ii. 380

Webster, meeting with, i. 164

Wellington, Duke of, Carlyle's por
trait of him, ii. 46 ; his funeral,
125

Welsh, Mrs. (mother of Mrs. T. Car
lyle), visits her daughter in London,
i. 58 ; her death, 234

Westminster Abbey, on the services at,
ii. 451

' Westminster Review,' Sterling's article
on Carlyle in the, i. 169

Wilberforce, Bishop, ii. 44, 419

Wilkie, the artist, Carlyle's opinion of,
i. 330

Wilson, Miss, i. 97

Wilson, John, death of, ii. 155; Car-
lylo's estimate of him, 156

Windsor Castle, CarMe's com"
on, i. 1 26

486

CARLYLE'S LIFE IN LONDON.

WOIi

Wolseley, Sir Garnet (now Lord), his

interview with Carlyle, ii. 447
Woolsthorpe, visit to, ii. 357
Worcester, the battle-field of, i. 314
Wordsworth, meeting with, i. 31 ;

remarks on, 45

Working classes, reflections on their
condition, i. 160, 163, 171

YOU

Wycherley's Comedies, Carlyle's dis
satisfaction with, ii. 65

TTOUNG, ARTHUR, his tour in Ire-
JL land, ii. 6

' Young Ireland ' movement, i. 389 ;
Carlyle's opinion of it, 398

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