The Story OF 
 
 • ThomasCarlyle 
 
 A. S. Arnold 
 
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THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
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 NK-PHOTO. SPRASl/t t C» LONDON. 
 
 CARLYLE'S STATUE ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT GARDEN. 
 
THE STOEY 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS CAELYLE. 
 
 BY 
 
 A. S. ARNOLD. 
 
 WARD AND DOWNEY, 
 
 12, YOEK STEEET, COYENT GAEDEK 
 
 1888. 
 
 [All rights reserved.'] 
 
Hichard Clay & Sons, Limited, 
 London & Bungay. 
 
1 >^> V \ 
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 "If," says Carlyle, "an individual is of sufficient con- 
 sequence to have his life recorded for public remembrance, we 
 have always been of opinion that the public ought to be made 
 acquainted with all the inward springs and relations of his 
 character." Heartily concurring in this opinion, I have 
 ventured to make the study of this great man's life my aim 
 for months past — to try and account for the gloom and 
 despondency which were so marked in his character, and 
 which, on the surface of things, seem almost unaccountable. 
 
 In the following pages I have endeavoured to give to my 
 readers incidents in his life, traits in his character, that made 
 him so little of an optimist in expression, and yet the inward 
 conviction that at heart he did not really believe the universe 
 to be demoniacal, but God-Hke, and man the temple of the 
 Most High. 
 
 The following pages, I trust, will prove that he was no 
 selfish, cantankerous, domestic tyrant, or teacher of virtues he 
 failed himself to put in practice ; that in him there was nothing 
 false or insincere ; that he was throughout his long, chequered 
 existence actuated by noble and heroic motives, carrying heavy 
 burdens enough to crush a less dauntless spirit. His life was one 
 of incessant toil, cheered with but few warm rays of sunshine 
 
 958 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 in his heart, yet in spirit he ever moved onward and upward, far 
 out of the range of weaker mortals. In his books and in his 
 letters he pours forth the glories and the achievements of his 
 mighty soul ; and what lessons he strove to inculcate on his 
 readers, he had himself learnt first, in his own irrepressible 
 spirit, by keen experience. He was a man cf intense original- 
 ity and unimpeachable veracity. The more one studies his life 
 and works, the more one is compelled to revere his profound 
 depths and wisdom, his intense sympathy for poor humanity, 
 his grim, tremendous earnestness. 
 
 The voice of the " old man eloquent " ought never to be 
 hushed, and as long as English letters endure never will be. 
 I am actuated in writing this life of the great departed by 
 the hope that it will fall into the hands of those who have 
 neither time nor opportunity to study all the volumes, com- 
 piled by Mr. Froude, in elucidating the history and character 
 of Thomas Carlyle. I pretend to no brilliancy ; except in my 
 love for my subject I feel unworthy to undertake so nobl3 a 
 theme. But intense sympathy and admiration is my excuse 
 for my presumption in dealing with so great a hero. If I 
 succeed in arousing something of the same in the minds of my 
 readers, I shall be amply repaid for the labour and research 
 
 I have expended upon our work. 
 
 A. S. A. 
 
 October, 1888. 
 
THE 
 
 STOEY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The life of every man is as the well-spring of a stream whose small 
 beginnings are indeed plain to all, but whose ulterior course and 
 destination, as it winds through the expanse of infinite years, 
 only the Omniscient can discern. — Carlyle, Essay on Voltaire. 
 
 On December the fourth, 1795, in an obscure Scotch village 
 called Ecclefechan, was born a man child. The cottage in 
 which he first saw the light was situated in a street which 
 constituted the entire hamlet, Dow^n one side ran an open 
 brook. The house, however, had been built by its owner, 
 James Carlyle, a mason, and was substantial and original in 
 structure. It was double. One side was occupied by himself 
 and wife, the other by a brother. In a scantily-furnished 
 bed-room the young mother gazed for the first time into the 
 tiny face of her firstborn, examined the little unformed 
 features, toyed with the wee limbs, full of unutterable joy 
 and gratitude. Had she any dreams of his future career ? 
 She was a loving, tender-hearted mother ; moreover godly. 
 Her greatest ambition would be that this God-sent blessing 
 might grow up good, a servant of the Most High. We have 
 no record of the state of the weather on that eventful day. 
 "We may imagine it cold, with a leaden gray sky, a dreary 
 out-look, while a piercing wind tried in vain to penetrate 
 
 B 
 
2 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 those substantial walls. The tiny morsel of humanity nestled 
 safe and warm in his mother's arms. 
 
 An obscure entrance enough into a world in which he was 
 destined to make no small stir. 
 
 Presently the stalwart figure of a middle-aged man, fresh 
 from his labour, entered upon the scene. He too looked 
 eagerly into the wee face of the new-comer. To him it was 
 no new event. A few years back he had been made the 
 proud father of a son, whose mother was now laid low in the 
 grave, while her parents reared his firstborn. Thus sorrow 
 had left its mark on his face and character. As he stood so 
 silently by that bedside his heart must have stirred with 
 mingled emotions all the deeper for being suppressed. This 
 new joy, though comforting, could never obliterate the 
 memory of past bereavement. 
 
 The young mother, who stood somewhat in awe of her 
 serious, taciturn husband, would read in his face his con- 
 trasted emotions, and would listen reverently as he at last 
 poured out in prayer his gratitude for all God's infinite mer- 
 cies. We can imagine the restful days that followed — the 
 calls of the few neighbours, the visits of distant relatives, 
 who would brave wind and weather to see how fared the 
 mother and child. We fancy we can hear the solemn Bible 
 readings and the earnest words of exhortation which fell 
 from the lips of the somewhat grim master of that primitive 
 household. Frequent too would be the long extempore 
 prayers ; for he was religious with his whole heart. To him 
 daily it was the Alpha and Omega of earthly existence. 
 
 Almost a century ago this happened, and yet the world is 
 little altered. National history repeats itself, much more 
 does family and domestic history. 
 
 In person James Carlyle was somewhat below the middle 
 height, but of a strong-built frame, and tremendous muscular 
 power. He had a large head, a pallid countenance, and clear, 
 keen gray eyes. His mouth and nose were the most unre- 
 fi.ned features of his face — often the case in those whose lives 
 are spent in hard manual labour. The expression of his 
 countenance was one of intense earnestness and inflexible 
 authority. He possessed great intellectual powers ; all un- 
 developed, for he had never enjoyed but three months' 
 schooling. 
 
 The mother feared him, and through life allowed that she 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 3 
 
 never quite understood him. His affections though deep 
 were undemonstrative, and he never gave way to any verbal 
 admiration for her or his children. A look, a smile was all 
 expressive ; yet he could laugh loud and heartily — " with all 
 his throat," as his son quaintly expresses it. He set an 
 example of doing thoroughly his daily task, which his children 
 in after life declared to be no mean inheritance. He was 
 rigidly religious, and for sixty years morning and evening 
 prayed impressively, that he and they might be prepared for 
 those solemn events — death, judgment, eternity. On such 
 occasions as the birth of a child, the prayers would be 
 doubly emphatic, more intensely earnest. But the baby slept 
 on unmindful. 
 
 A day arrived when the said infant was introduced into 
 kitchen life in that homely cot. A baby, especially a first 
 baby, is a veritable governor-general in an establishment of 
 that kind. No doubt even as an infant Thomas Carlyle 
 asserted his rights and made himself heard. Is not the child 
 the father of the man? He was not a delicate child, I 
 believe, he needed no special care. He grew, and thrived, 
 cut his teeth, learnt to toddle, then to tattle, and passed 
 safely through all the natural phases of a baby's existence. 
 
 It seems so strange to fancy all this, but they once were 
 facts. Behold him marching about with the help of table or 
 chairs, sometimes clinging to the cotton skirts of his industrious 
 mother as she busies herself in household pursuits ; listen to 
 his broken Scotch brogue, and imagine his long unutterable 
 silences, till he is discovered in a far corner or under the 
 table, engaged in some absorbing pursuit, intensely interesting 
 to his already expanding mind. May be it is a half-demolished 
 fly, which he tries to renovate or annihilate, perhaps a book 
 he is dissecting, or even his own bare little toes are filling him 
 with amazement, for Scotch children are reared in hardihood, 
 and rarely wear shoes or socks. 
 
 Picture him sitting with solemnly closed eyes while the 
 long grace is pronounced by the pious father, and gravely 
 looking on at the distribution of their invariable dish of 
 porridge, potatoes, and milk. On such fare children did and 
 do thrive better than on hot tea and toast, roast beef and plum 
 pudding. 
 
 Thomas was not meek and gentle as children ought to be. 
 When only two years of age, he could remember in after days 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 how on one occasion he gave way to a terrible explosion of 
 temper. His elder brother John had come over on a visit, 
 and the two children quarrelled. Snatching up his little brown 
 stool, Thomas hurled it at his brother's head with such force 
 that it broke in falling. The grave father was looking on, 
 but thought Thomas justified in his puny but indignant rage ; 
 and when sobbing with a fever of lost property mixed with 
 remorse, he took him on his knee and soothed his pangs — 
 veritable pangs, hard to bear even there. Thomas Carlyle 
 always felt deeply in earliest as in latest years. He could 
 scarcely more than toddle when his beloved mother, to whom 
 he went in all his griefs, was laid up-stairs again, where he 
 could not reach her. Another arrival threatened his baby 
 kingdom ; but that calamity never arrived, he ever remained 
 his mother's darling, her joy, her pride. Yet these absences 
 w^ere memorable days of darkness to him. 
 
 When worn with age he pathetically alluded to the lonely 
 times when site was absent from the hearth. " That I might 
 some day lose my mother was the terror of my childhood," he 
 declared. 
 
 She was the most beautifully religious soul. Proud enough 
 in one way, piously humble in another. Full of natural intel- 
 lect and a keen sense of humour ; peaceable and tender-hearted, 
 she seemed always full of love and cheerfulness, never cast 
 down. To her the lad naturally turned in all his childish 
 troubles. He stood in continual awe of his stern, taciturn 
 father, who no doubt appeared to him quite an old man, beiug 
 forty years of age at his birth. His next recollection was the 
 death of a little sister. The house was very small, and 
 Thomas wandered into the room where lay the little motion- 
 less figure under a white cloth. The sight filled him with 
 never-to-be-forgotten awe. 
 
 Thus even in those early years circumstances familiarized 
 him somewhat with death. His Uncle John died, and was 
 laid where the child found himself. His mother had now 
 several children, and could not be expected to give him 
 exclusive attention. He was too young to go to school, and 
 his inquiring mind led him into all kinds of places. A rough 
 servant, perhaps hired only foi' the occasion, though aware of 
 the child's presence, carelessly uncovered the distorted face of 
 the corpse to show it to some old crony. Little Tommy was 
 horrified. He never forgot that scene. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 0- 
 
 Tn Scotland education is the ruling passion. When Thomas 
 Carlyle was five he was taken to school in the village, where 
 he found other little bits of lads sitting like prisoners, some 
 made fast in corners of the room, with black rims round 
 their eyes, caused by cramming little dirty fists into them to 
 wipe away their tears. Poor little miserables ! Here Tommy 
 made uncommon progress. 
 
 In those early days he was on one occasion carried by his 
 father across a pool, spanned only by a wooden bow, -with, no 
 railing. Lifted up on his father's thigh, carried carelessly, 
 face downwards, he looked into the water full of terror, yet 
 confident of safety. Didn't his father hold him 1 
 
 Before he had ever gone to school this noble father had 
 given him a few crude lessons in arithmetic, calling the Divisor 
 the "Divider," &c. His mother declared he could never re- 
 member it all, but the father had already discerned his boy's 
 abilities. It was a proud moment when his stern parent said 
 to him — 
 
 " I do not grudge thee thy schooling, Tom, now thy Uncle 
 Frank owns thee a better arithmetician than himself.' 
 
 The schoolmaster gave a good account of his figuring and 
 the minister of his Latin. His early years were by no means 
 unpromising, but never joyful. In the evenings, open-eyed 
 and open-eared, the children would listen to father's reminis- 
 cences, scarcely venturing on a smile or a remark until the 
 narrator disappeared, when they would have it all over again. 
 
 James Carlyle's language was very striking and potent. He 
 could convey vivid pictures to the mind's eye in a wonderfully 
 illiterate but graphic manner, convulsing his grown-up audience 
 with laughter or melting them to tears. He scrupulously 
 avoided bad, language. In his most angry moments — and he 
 was irascible, choleric — he never was heard to make use of 
 godless expressions. An oath was never known to escape his 
 lips. His only fault was a tendency to exaggerate from mere 
 force of imagination. If cognisant of having done so, he 
 would repeat the account over again exactly as it occurred, 
 for he was scrupulously veracious, and had a horror of an 
 untruth. 
 
 Carlyle's father had been reared in extreme poverty. Misery 
 had trained the rugged boy into a stoic. He would often speak 
 of his early home and of his privations with bitter memory. 
 
 On one occasion the meal was almost exhausted, and they had 
 
6 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 no fuel to cook the little remainder, nntil they contrived to 
 pull up enough straw wherewith to make a fire. Once finding 
 himself in possession of four potatoes, he hid them against a 
 rainy day. Yet he loved his home, and shed tears on parting 
 with some huge stones, over which he had played. He related 
 how he dealt with a young rough who annoyed him and some 
 companions on one of their long walking expeditions, by taking 
 him by the shanks, throwing him up, and dashing him down 
 with the strength of a young Hercules. 
 
 " Wae to think on't ! wae to think on't ! " he added piously. 
 But the boys gloried in their father's tales of valour ; his 
 physical strength was their admiration, and h"s vigorous capa- 
 bilities of putting down wrong and injustice whenever brought 
 under his notice. Even in court, before magistrates, he would 
 utter forth indignant protests against what he thought harsh 
 or unjust sentences. 
 
 And to the rustics he would tell in his vehement way, of 
 some complaints he had heard of them, adding severely, '* It 
 is no idle tale I hear." 
 
 Through life he was manful and well-doing ; and had no 
 patience with human mismanagement, wilful idleness, shirking 
 of work, or general inexcusable incapacity. 
 
 He likened a bad preacher " to a fly wading among tar." 
 And this br.'ngs me to speak of the little barn-like meeting- 
 house where Thomas was wont to be taken from babyhood 
 Sabbath after Sabbath. That temple of his childhood was ever 
 more sacred to him in memory than the grandest cathedral he 
 saw in after life. There Carlyle used to sit side by side in 
 unconscious recognition, with the future friend of his life, 
 Edward Irving. 
 
 Ecclefechan was rather a free-thinking place, owing par- 
 tially to a drunken clergyman. The dissenting congregation 
 who attended the meeting-house consisted chiefly of men and 
 women heavily laden with burden and sorrow, patient, con- 
 tented, much-enduring, thrifty, cleanly. Dressed in coarse 
 clothes, in peasant fashion, each worshipper actually believed 
 they had a soul to be saved or a soul to be lost, and were very 
 much in earnest in making as sure as possible their eternal 
 salvation. They laboured, and hoped for a reward of their 
 labours ! 
 
 The theoretically religious, the respectable majority whose 
 soul's welfare was of less concern to them, still attended the 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 7 
 
 kirk, where fanaticism or enthusiasm were neither desired nor 
 appreciated. 
 
 The parents of Thomas Carlyle were ingrained Puritans. 
 It was the desire of their hearts to see their son some day 
 *' wag his head in a pulpit." At this time his father was by 
 trade a builder, and in business was one of those who felt 
 he had found his work in his Master's vineyard, and meant 
 to do it with a will. Man was meant to work, not to think 
 or dream only. 
 
 In spite of such utilitarian expressions, Carlyle's father was 
 essentially a man who thought, and he knew that man was 
 not created solely to work. It is a frequent notion, however, 
 among practical men ; labour is grand, God-sent — but thought 
 is grander, God-like. To work is a privilege granted to all 
 the animal creation ; to reason, to dream, is man's prerogative, 
 and to turn him into a mere machine is as degi'ading as to 
 turn him into a brute beast, a dishonour to the Divine nature 
 within him. The outcome of James Carlyle's thoughts was 
 the education of his son. It cost him no mean effort to find 
 funds out of his scanty earnings to carry him through school 
 and college. He determined to make the attempt in spite of 
 remonstrances from friends and false prophets. 
 
 " Educate your son above his parents, and he will learn to 
 despise you," said one foolish counsellor. He resolved to 
 brave the consequences. Thomas should go to boarding 
 school. He had a noble faith in his own progeny. 
 
 Behold Thomas one bright morning, aged ten, trotting by 
 his father's side fiom Ecclefechan to Annan academy. On 
 their way they met a wretched dog, mad with terror, rushing 
 about with a tin kettle fastened on to its tail by some inhuman 
 little imps. The sight turned the little fellow's thoughts for 
 a time. His young heart had been full of ardent hopes, timid 
 fears, and no little sadness at parting from his beloved mother 
 and his old surroundings. 
 
 On reaching the school-house Thomas was left by his father 
 to make his own way. He had received innumerable injunc- 
 tions from liis pious mother never to return a blow, entreaties 
 to read his Bible daily, and to love her always. The first 
 was an imprudent promise to extract from a new school-boy, 
 and caused Tom much misery. He was not well received by 
 his new comrades. Boys of genius are rarely liked or under- 
 stood. He obeyed his mother's injunctions as long as possible, 
 
8 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLTLE. 
 
 for he passionately loved her ; but his sufferings became more 
 and more unendurable. Even little lads, smaller and younger 
 than himself, tyrannized over him, mistaking his determin- 
 ation not to tight for inability to do so. They laughed at 
 what seemed to them his impotent rage, when his passion 
 found vent in violent expressions. 
 
 On one occasion he had a narrow escape from drowning in 
 trying to avoid his tormentors. They had all gone out to 
 bathe. Carlyle escaped from the rest, and presently found 
 himself in a deep pool, which had been dug out for a dock. 
 The tide had completely filled it. By the merest chance a 
 passer-by heard his cries, and rescued him from a watery 
 grave. It was not his fate to be drowned. The persecution 
 of his school-fellows never ceased until, provoked one day 
 beyond boyhood endurance, he suddenly turned round upon 
 the biggest bully, and so furiously kicked him that a pitched 
 battle was unavoidable. Carlyle was beaten, but he left such 
 marks upon his opponent that gained him universal respect. 
 From henceforward his comrades feared him. Persecution 
 ceased, but not the bitter recollection of what he had 
 suffered. 
 
 One day his father called to see him dressed in his coarse 
 working clothes. He sat down on the form beside his son, 
 making kind inquii'ies in his broad Scotch tongue. Carlyle 
 was in mortal fear lest the boys should laugh at him. He 
 was mistaken. His father's innate self-possession and 
 authoritative bearing awed them, and invariably forced 
 respect. 
 
 "When Carlyle was about thirteen there came a memorable 
 day in his school calendar. He had now overcome his worst 
 miseries, had learnt to stand in his own defence in spite of 
 precept. He had made companions, and as one of the elder 
 boys held a certain position in the school. 
 
 It was a big, airy room, lighted on both sides with windows, 
 a small half of the floor being occupied by desks and benches. 
 The boys, Thomas Carlyle among them, were standing, sup- 
 posed to be preparing lessons. There was a momentary silence 
 in the room, when suddenly the master entered, accompanied 
 by a slim, well-dressed youth, with handsome features, black 
 hair, swarthy skin, wonderfully bright eyes, spoilt by an 
 unmistakable squint. Eyes and ears of the boys were all 
 fixed on the visitor — this enviable ^outli, so self-possessed, so 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 9 
 
 spotlessly dressed. It was not the first time Carlyle had met 
 the stranger, for years before he had sat side by side in Eccle- 
 fechan meeting-house with Edward Irving, and now again 
 they met, still without any recognition on either side. 
 
 In alluding to his school days, Carlyle often spoke bitterly 
 of the unspeakable "damage and defilement he got from those 
 coarse, unguided, tyrannous young cubs," till he gave stroke 
 for stroke, blow for blow. 
 
 We hear nothing of holidays, nothing of school friendships, 
 nothing of amusements. He seems to have loved his masters 
 better than his comrades, and work more than play. Boyhood 
 ceased altogether at fourteen. Another stage of his existence 
 then opened, with which we will commence our next chapter. 
 
10 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Man is born to expend every particle of strength which God 
 Ahnighty lias given him in doing the work he finds he is fit for. To 
 stand up to it to the last breath of life, and do his best. — Carlyle. 
 
 There is little comparison between a Scotch and an English 
 University. In England, Oxford and Cambridge, our chief 
 seats of learning, are intensely interesting. They have 
 revenues, libraries, privileges, splendid connections, and ancient 
 names. Our universities in those days were indissolubly 
 connected with the aristocracy. Every undergraduate was 
 a gentleman, every one who takes his degree must have at 
 least five or six hundred pounds expended on his education. 
 Perhaps it costs them now much less than it did at the 
 commencement of the nineteenth century. Still it is costly. 
 Thus the English universities are occupied chiefly by the 
 sons of wealth. Among them, a very small majority only are 
 real students. 
 
 For the sons of gentlemen, whatever their natural pro- 
 clivities, it is considered necessary that they should have the 
 same gentlemanly advantages as their fathers. True, there is 
 no royal road to learning, yet in many cases learning is made 
 comparatively easy by tutors, coaches, and innumerable acces- 
 sories. Many youths are surfeited with education, who, were 
 it not for this forced cultivation, would do infinitely better at 
 the plough, and enjoy life more too. But caste, as strong 
 in England as in India almost, forbids the sons of gentlemen 
 following their natural bent and capability. Some of the 
 poorer classes are gifted by God with mental endowments 
 which, if developed, would benefit the race. To such an 
 English university career is an impossibility. In Scotland it 
 is otherwise. There, at the early age of fourteen, boys come 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 11 
 
 from distant towns and hamlets, whose fathers are either 
 peasants, small farmers, or shopkeepers. Being only obliged 
 to attend the classes five months in the year, during the other 
 seven months they can contribute to their own support either 
 by teaching or manual labour. Out of their earnings they 
 save sufficient to pay their expenses during the time they are 
 studying. 
 
 These youths in pursuit of knowledge generally enter the 
 town in knots or companies, and walk the distance from their 
 homes, so many miles a day. Mere boys as many of them are, 
 such a life is at any rate serviceable in teaching them self- 
 dependence. They learn to provide for all their own wants, 
 find their own lodgings, present themselves before the pro- 
 fessors, and take whatever place assigned to them. The 
 discipline must be beneficial, however deficient the teaching 
 may be. 
 
 To return to Carlyle. When he left Annan school his 
 master pronounced him a genius and fit for learned professors. 
 His father had boundless faith in his possibilities, and to his 
 mother he was inexpressibly dear. The two decided unanim- 
 ously that Thomas must enter the university, and eventually 
 become a minister. Father and mother accompanied him 
 through the dreary street of Ecclefechan, that they might see 
 him safe on the road to Edinburgh. For a companion he had 
 a youth who was some years his senior, able to introduce him 
 into his new life. With blessings and injunctions innumerable, 
 the parents took a sadly pathetic parting from their boy. 
 He, strengthened and inspired by their love and faith in him, 
 went on his way silent fiom beavitiful home memories. Their 
 journey was one hundred miles in length. He found his 
 companion, by name Tom Smails, intensely conceited and 
 ignorant, without any of the humour or conversational powers 
 of his own family. They walked twenty miles a day, Tom 
 stalking on in front whistling, utterly indifferent to the 
 sadness of his dreamy young companion. 
 
 Early one afternoon in November they reached Edinburgh, 
 and found lodgings in Simon Square. After a little rest they 
 sallied out to see the city. Carlyle expressed no astonishment, 
 his expectations were seldom realized. He invariably kept his 
 eyes open and his mouth closed as he walked along. 
 
 The one scene that remained vivid through after life was 
 that he witnessed in Parliament House, into which he got a 
 
12 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 glimpse, on that first memorable day. He always declared 
 he learnt little at the University. Like his father before him, 
 he set to work with a determination to do his task, whatever 
 it might be in life, conscientiously — to shirk no labour that 
 miofht perfect his work. Of all his early studies he liked 
 mathematics best. He was of too impatient a nature to care 
 for the study of uncertainties, the conclusion must be in- 
 disputable. He was earnest to grasp truth after he had 
 diligently sought after it. He carried on his studies with 
 equal assiduity as his father had built his house and ploughed 
 his land. He felt himself a part of his father's labours, and 
 meant to do him credit. 
 
 Such imaginative characters are doomed to many disappoint- 
 ments ; they meet them at every turn, for they invariably 
 expect too much. 
 
 The first term the boys as usual bullied and tormented him. 
 Carlyle hated strife and personal combats ; but evil days 
 began with his first view of Edinburgh. The professors treated 
 him harshly or indifferently. His desponding young heart 
 felt orphaned and alone. There seems a natural propensity in 
 older boys to persecute the miserable, the weak, the ill-clad, 
 the depressed. In fact, boys are tyrants. 
 
 Carlyle, who as an infant was never known to cry, now 
 was nicknamed the "Tearful." He lodged in the house of 
 
 o 
 
 one who was a skilled artisan. He never wearied of watching 
 a skilful workman, and from them learned many lessons. All 
 his coppers he spent on old bookstalls. His head was early 
 filled with all kinds of miscellaneous subjects. 
 
 His teachers, unfortunately, do not seem to have understood 
 men or boys, their heads and hearts being crammed with 
 vocabularies or cash accounts. Carlyle found himself much 
 isolated, unlike any other lad of his acquaintance. " He was 
 so dreadfully in earnest," was the universal complaint. He 
 so earnest — thei/ so trivial. It was thus through life. 
 
 About eleven hundred striplings were let loose into Edin- 
 burgh yearly, just to do as they listed so many months in the 
 year. This young brood by no means hungered after the 
 mental food they came to acquire. Perhaps " out of the 
 eleven hundred there were eleven who cared to learn," said 
 Thomas Carlyle. But probably, like some other remarks he 
 made on men and things, this was only strong language, not 
 meant to mislead. Most likely he found a set of eleven with 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 13 
 
 whom lie in a measure was able to associate — sons of peasants, 
 clever and good. Among these chosen few Carlyle was the 
 head ; they acknowledged him their leader and superior. 
 They all lived pm-e and simple lives in that city of " sin and 
 smoke." 
 
 None were so prudent as he. Not from stinginess, but 
 from habit and utter indifference to any kind of self-indulg- 
 ence. His luxuries were books. He gloried in denying him- 
 self things, to other and lesser minds considered indispensable. 
 True he learnt to smoke, and this through life was his sole 
 extravagance. He was always gratified to be able to put his 
 hand in his pocket and find a few savings, ready for the use 
 of friends in need. 
 
 When the session closed the students returned to their 
 homes. Carlyle and Smails commenced their tramp home- 
 wards. We can imagine the welcome given to our hero. It 
 would be on one of these visits that he saw one day with a 
 kind of faint horror a mass of long fair hair. He learnt that 
 it had belonged to his father's first wife. She had died of an 
 infectious fever. In her delirium, when it became necessary 
 to cut off her hair, she would allow no hand to touch her but 
 that of her husband. Regardless of contagion, he obeyed her 
 wish. This one long lock he preserved with a life-long love. 
 Yet this love of the lost in no degree lessened his love of the 
 living wife. She felt no mean jealousy, though to her, and to 
 his children, the deepest feeling and thoughts of his heart 
 were walled in by a thick shell of reserve. Neither she nor 
 they dared love him freely. Little strifes too occasionally 
 took place. He was easily angered, and in wrath his words 
 cut like swords. Endless gratitude, however, Thomas felt 
 was due to both parents ; the one so stern, but so inflexibly 
 just, the other brimming over with love and sympathy in 
 body and soul. 
 
 When the classes re-opened Carlyle was invariably in his 
 place, with precise punctuality. His few friends called him 
 Jonathan, or Dean, Doctor, or Parson, after Dean Swift, for 
 he was even then somewhat of a cynic. Elder people pro- 
 nounced him far too satirical for so young a man. But one 
 and all who came into personal contact with this young 
 student foretold his future greatness. They felt he must be 
 a marked man, because he was so unlike his fellows. 
 
 Now, as I have said before, he had had the privilege of a 
 
14 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 college career granted to him by parents who could little 
 afford it, for the express purpose of becoming a minister. To 
 be a preacher of the everlasting gospel was his own firm 
 intention. With all his might he studied theology — only to 
 discover that he was not meant for a divine. Every year he 
 became more and more conscious that he had no special call 
 that way. It was a grief to him to be a grief to his parents. 
 He determined to try still to prepare for the ministry ; to 
 sacrifice his own inclinations entirely, if that were all, to 
 spare them disappointment. His old faith did not then desert 
 him. The Bible never ceased to be in his estimation the 
 Book of bcoks. But — yes, there is a but — other studies 
 absorbed him more. He would not decide hastily, but he 
 could not give exclusive attention to theology. There were 
 other studies more attractive ta him. The Old, Old Story 
 he had been familiar with from infancy ; the innumerable 
 rigid, religious observances demanded by the Puritan faith, 
 seemed to him more of the shadow than the substance of 
 true religion, possible in theory only, intolerable as life-long 
 practice. The hours insisted upon for reading the Bible 
 and prayer seemed irksome to one who almost knew the 
 Scriptures by heart, and to whom silence tvas p-«yer itself] 
 audible to the Omnipresent — audible in heaven, if not on 
 e':\rth. He had always a reverence for religion, even more 
 than for knowledge. 
 
 It would be difiicult to say what was his favourite study at 
 that time. Greek and Latin were only taught mechanically, 
 with endless vocabularies ; history, philosophy, and general 
 literature not much better. He had frequent seasons of 
 depression and discouragement. He was no stranger to 
 pecuniary distress, was ill-clad, and not strong in health ; his 
 manifold anxieties told upon him. Often in desperate moorl, 
 he imajifined hard things of the schools and all connected with 
 them. 
 
 The library was small and ill-chosen. He searched out from 
 the dust of years books of which the keepers of them were per- 
 fectly ignorant. The professors, whose incomes were secured, 
 seemed to him to teach with such half-heartedness. The very 
 remembrance thereof disgusted and excited him when quite 
 advanced in years. But he had essentially the highest of all 
 possessions, "self help." He knew his own needs, and as far 
 as possible met them. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 15 
 
 He attended the coffee-house, often reeking with smoke and 
 gin, because there he met all the intellect of his own age ; there 
 they pleaded the cause of the poor and oppressed, spoke of 
 social and political reform. His speeches at times were so 
 original, striking, and pithy as to draw shouts of applause from 
 his companions. They ceased to expect him to speak or act 
 like anybody else. It was a peculiar fascination he exercised, 
 even in those early years, over the minds of others. 
 
 In Sartor Besartus, a kind of mystical autobiography of 
 himself, he thus describes his personal appearance at this time — 
 "Under those thick locks of hair, so long, so lank, over- 
 topping roof -wise the gravest face we ever in the world saw, 
 there dwelt a busy brain. In the eyes too, deep-set under the 
 shaggy brows, and looking out so still and dreamy, have we 
 not noticed gleaming an ethereal or else a diabolic fire, aud 
 half fancied their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion, 
 the sleep of the spinning-top. The figure — in loose, ill-brushed, 
 threadbare habiliments, sat amid letters and lumber whole days 
 to think and smoke tobacco — held in it a mighty heart." 
 
 The houses in Edinburgh are of many stories, "wigwam 
 atop of wigwam," as the Red Indians say. And it would be 
 in the very topmost that Thomas Carlyle dwelt, being the 
 cheapest. He would sit at night at his window and gaze on 
 the city beneath, some parts of which he likened to wasps' 
 nests, others to beehives. He would witness the honey-making, 
 the wax laying, or the poison brewing. A flood of living 
 humanity poured in and out those streets, he wondering from 
 whence they came and whither going, 
 
 "From eternity to eternity," he concludes. "These are all 
 apparitions — souls rendered visible in bodies that took shape ; 
 they will lose it and melt into air." 
 
 Ah, what scenes he witnessed nightly ! — scenes that are 
 enacted every night in the year in crowded cities. They 
 filled his soul with sad thoughts of the sin, the sorrow, the 
 misery of the universe in which he dwelt. There in chariots 
 rolled the children of wealth and vanity, regardless of the 
 poverty, the vice, the wretchedness grovelling at their feet. 
 Here sounds of revelry and laughter, there shrieks of misery, 
 cursing, and oaths. Where was the Hand that could banish 
 the evil, clear the atmosphere, purify the guilt? Was God 
 asleep % was He an absentee God, looking on indeed but utterly 
 regardless % No, no ! God had made man in His image — had 
 
16 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 given him power to ameliorate the suffering, to quell the evil, 
 to do good and he good ; but man paralyzed his God-sent 
 powers, trampled underfoot the laws of God bidding him, 
 bidding all, be up and doing. 
 
 " And I, what can / do ? " thought Thomas Carlyle. '' What 
 can I, insignificant in person, poor in pocket, despised, con- 
 temptible, what can I do against the mighty tide of wrong, of 
 sin, of oppression ? " His thoughts were overpowering. Could 
 he do no more than preach to a few simple-minded, ignorant 
 people in a country village, who lived in comparative purity 
 and goodness ? Yes, surely ; a greater work must be his. He 
 must rule men's minds — the minds of the great, the learned. 
 He had something to tell them, and he would spend his life, 
 his very heart's blood, to tell it to them faithfully. It was not 
 the forms and ceremonies of the churches that he could not 
 tolerate, it was the miserable practice of the lessons taught, 
 the evident want of belief in preacher and hearers, that dis- 
 gusted him, and that he would never tolerate in himself. " If 
 a man once really attained Christianity," he said, "he would 
 never, never descend from it again." But men rarely did 
 attain it — scarcely strived after such attainment. 
 
 But how to reach men's minds was the next question. By 
 preaching he could not hope to do so ; be could by that means 
 scarcely hope to gain the ear of a single educated or influential 
 individual. By lecturing 1 He was such a shy, modest fellow 
 that he could never do himself justice in crowds. He never 
 carried off any prizes. In solitude only could he bring his 
 mighty thoughts to perfection. No, it must be by his pen. 
 He would, if he could, move men's hearts to right the wrong 
 ■ — to do the work God appointed for them. 
 
 He had already the character of a Stoic, a philosopher, a 
 platonic, humdrum bookw^orm, and was strongly advised to fall 
 in love as a cure for these ills ; but he hugged them the closer ; 
 they made his individuality. 
 
 To a friend he writes — 
 
 " Do not think I am careless of literary fame. No ! Heaven 
 knows that ever since I have been able to form a wish, the 
 wish of being known has been foremost. Oh, Fortune ! bestow 
 crowns, coronets, pomposity and puddings upon the great and 
 fat ones of the earth, grant me that I may attain to literary 
 fame, and thovigh starvation be my lot, I will smile that I was 
 not born a king." 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. l7 
 
 Surely his wish was granted. But my readers must not 
 imagine from this that Carlyle cared for notice, or that he 
 had any gratification in being talked about. That was not 
 the idea he meant to convey at all, as the whole of his subse- 
 quent career proves. It was to do good in his day and to 
 future generations that was his ambition. I repeat it. To do 
 good alone, not to get applause or reward. To see the fruits 
 of his labours would be ample compensation. He was still a 
 Puritan, still as Scotch in character as in belief ; but he was 
 dropping the dogmas out of his creed. The external cases of 
 different beliefs he began to cast off as old clothes. He was 
 an inveterate hater of shams. He felt himself a dying man 
 with a message to dying men, and he would deliver it. 
 
 How he set about what he considered his God-appointed 
 task we must consider next. 
 
18 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 He was filled full with the scepticism, bitterness, hollowness, and 
 thousandfold contradictions of the Universe, till his heart was 
 like to break ; but he subdued all this, rose victorious over 
 this, and manifoldly by word and deed showed others that came 
 after him to do the like. — Caklyle's Miscellanies, iii. 90. 
 
 Carlyle had not relinquished all ideas of the ministry when 
 at nineteen he undertook the mathematical tutorship at 
 Annan school. The stipend was between £60 and £70 per 
 annum. He detested teaching. He felt intuitively it was 
 not, and never could be, his vocation. It was the hearts of 
 his fellow-men he wanted to reach, not to teach figuring to 
 little dullards. But he was determined to cast aside no 
 honest means by which he could relieve his parents from any 
 further expense on his behalf, for he feared that after all his 
 best endeavours, conscience, in him all-powerful, if not inclin- 
 ation, would compel him to disappoint them. He would do 
 everything he could to make them feel it as little as possible. 
 There was some compensation in residing in Annan. It was 
 within easy distance of home, and his visits there had a 
 peculiar joy for hiin. 
 
 His father had left Ecclefechan — had gone to inhabit a 
 small farm at Scotsbrig. There he reared eight children. 
 For every one of his brothers and sisters Thomas had a 
 special care and aifection. The house was a mere cottage, 
 low and whitewashed, with a few outbuildings attached. Here 
 Carlyle first studied German, studied Favst, and began his 
 translation of his well-known Wilhelm Meister, '' in a dry ditch 
 near by." The house was only one story high, and contained 
 but three or four rooms. It stood in a very bleak situation, 
 sheltered by no trees ; separated from adjoining fields by 
 unpicturesque fences. The wind swept piercingly round the 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 19 
 
 dwelling, permitting nothing to grow to perfection. The 
 scenery around Avas wild in the extreme. On the left a great 
 hill towered darkly heavenward ; in the foreground the river 
 Annandale meandered silently ; beyond it in the far distance 
 could be discerned the summits of Skiddaw, Saddleback, and 
 Helvellyn. 
 
 Here, then, Carlyle spent all his holidays, waited upon with 
 assiduous devotion by his mother and the younger brood. 
 There was no idleness desired or permitted in that peasant 
 home. The boys helped their father in the farmyard or in 
 the fields, the sterility requiring extra care and labour, while 
 the girls were busy in household w^ork or with their needles. 
 The evenings were occupied by all in some kind of self- 
 improvement. The mother had never learnt to write, but 
 now, longing to correspond with her gifted son when absent, 
 she set to work indomitably to accomplish that art. At the 
 plain deal table in that farmhouse kitchen were seated 
 scholars old and young, eager in the pursuit of knowledge. 
 
 In 1815 Carlyle had become personally acquainted with 
 Edward Irving. He was then nineteen, Irving some five 
 years older, and had already a reputation for splendid abilities 
 and success as a teacher. Divinity students w^ho could no 
 longer attend regular classes in the university were permitted 
 to go up once a year and deliver an address in the Divinity 
 Hall. Carlyle had already given one on the text, " Before I 
 was afflicted I went astray." It was pronounced a great suc- 
 cess by his fellow-students, also by the learned professors. He 
 himself expressed disgust at its sentimentality. But it was far 
 more the natural man to be sentimental than prosaic or even 
 practical. Nevertheless, the compliments he received must 
 have been gratifying. 
 
 There was a later discourse on Natural Religion. On that 
 occasion Carlyle and Irving met at a friend's rooms. A 
 discussion took place in which Irving found the laugh turned 
 against him. Carlyle feared he had mortally offended him, 
 and that Irving would resent his satire. He was happily 
 mistaken. They did not meet again for some years. Irving 
 left Edinburgh to manage a school at Haddington. In Scot- 
 land boys and girls of various classes sit side by side. Among 
 his pupils he had one gifted little girl, of whom more 
 hereafter. 
 
 Irving was next appointed master of a school at Kirkaldy, 
 
 C 2 
 
20 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 where lie did not meet with so great success. He was con- 
 sidered severe, overbearing, and proud. He was certainly- 
 little inclined to brook much faultfinding, but was too 
 sincerely religious, generous, and tender-hearted ever to have 
 been guilty cf the cruelty to the boys with which he was 
 charged. Some of the mauagers of the school, however, were 
 so much dissatisfied with him, that they separated altogether 
 from those who continued on Irving's side, and established a 
 rival school in the town. Strange to say, Carlyle was ap- 
 pointed master of this academy. When he found he was to 
 be Irving's rival, he feared as to the terms they would be on. 
 His alarm was needless. 
 
 Before Carlyle had entered upon his duties he and Irving 
 met at Annan school-house, whither both had gone to comfort 
 the sick aiid sorrowful old master. The reception he met 
 from Irving was generous in the extreme. He congratulated 
 Carlyle on his appointment, expressed unfeigned pleasure at 
 the prospect of his companionship, and offered him the use of 
 his house and all that he had. The incredulous Thomas could 
 not receive all these expressions of friendliness as Gospel truth 
 till he was most pleasantly surprised. Irving religiously, 
 chivalrously kept his word. When Carlyle went to Kirkaldy, 
 he received him with open arms, was such a friend and brother 
 as "I never had again in this world — faithful till death," says 
 Carlyle, disconsolately. He was the one companion who gener- 
 ally and generously sympathized with him, and of whom he 
 invariably spoke with true affection and tenderness. Carlyle 
 was not formed for many friendships. The few he had were 
 all the more trusted and valued. 
 
 Irving recognized the depth of Carlyle's genius, and reached 
 his heart. He encouraged him in his pursuit of all know- 
 ledge, religious or secular. These two friends were each re- 
 markable men, and are immortalized, one in the religious, the 
 other in the literary world. In character and person they 
 were very unlike, but extremes meet. 
 
 Carlyle was two years at Annan, his mind persistently 
 dwelling on the great and burning questions which agitated 
 the universe. He was decidedly successful as a teacher, was 
 never known to raise his hand, and yet commanded implicit 
 obedience. He ruled by moral force, the greatest of all forces. 
 Yet he was far from ha^Dpy at Kirkaldy. If it had not been 
 for Irving's companionship he would have been intensely 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 21 
 
 lonely. The natives were commonplace enough. "With them 
 he was " happy to meet, happy to part." Known to be the 
 son of peasant parents, his society was neither coveted nor 
 tolerated by those who imagined themselves his superiors. 
 
 Mr. Martin, the Presbyterian minister, invited him occa- 
 sionally to the Manse, at Irving's request. Irving had been 
 precipitately engaged to one of his daughters. To Carlyle a 
 drawing-room, however, was no temple, and his shabby exterior 
 was little calculated to please a society founded upon cloth, as 
 society everywhere is, in a great measure. It is rare indeed 
 to meet with one capable of piercing through the clothes to 
 the individual soul itself. 
 
 Carlyle had no respect for cloth, not the slightest ; not 
 much for beauty. In those and all days, " women were all 
 holy and heavenly for his mother's sake." *' But under the 
 pearliest throat was a windpipe, under the coarsest waistcoat 
 a heart." Kot pleasant reflections ; but Carlyle did not deal 
 in pleasant things, but in true ones. Under all his rough 
 speech, his rude exterior, however, dwelt a heart aching with 
 the woes of the universe. Infinite pity, infinite tenderness 
 lay there, ready for use when brought into contact with real 
 or even fancied misery. 
 
 Carlyle did not appreciate any member of the Martin 
 family, but little knew that Irving's hasty engagement would 
 prove a life-long repentance. He could rarely be induced to 
 enter their drawing-room society. He was shy in the extreme 
 at times, at others independent and self-asserting enough to 
 offend. He would brook neither j)atronage nor condescension. 
 He felt conscious of his own innate powers, and yet could net 
 comprehend them. 
 
 In Kirkaldy he met a fair elegant girl, a pupil of Irving's, 
 who for three years rendered him more romantic and silent 
 than ever. She was an orphan, by name Margaret Gordon, 
 adopted by a rich, proud, elderly aunt, who intended her to 
 wed a rich '' Mr. Somebody." These two young people met 
 frequently, and recognized in each other their ideal. She was 
 tall, grave, earnest, and gifted with great intellectual powers. 
 They exercised a peculiar but ennobling influence over each 
 other's minds. He worshipped her as a goddess. To this 
 first love he bent body and soul. There were one or two 
 letters preserved by him which give proof that their love had 
 found expression. 
 
22 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 One day she stood before him pale witli intense feeling, but 
 with stern determination to do what she considered her duty. 
 Her aunt, to whom she felt herself under immeasurable ob- 
 ligations, had forbidden any further intercourse with the 
 struggling peasant's sod. From a sense of gratitude Margaret 
 submitted. Yes, they must part, whatever the agony to both. 
 
 " Love," says Carlyle, " is the discerner of the infinite in 
 the finite. Such love he believed to be eternal ; perhaps it 
 was. Who can tell ? His ideal had been realized. His whole 
 heart and soul and life were hers. Yet they must part. It 
 was a stern, a cruel decree. He took her in his strong arms, 
 their lips met in one long passionate kiss ; their souls rushed 
 into one for the first and last time." He adds — "Such a 
 man could never love again." 
 
 In Sartor JResartus he gives vent to the passionate remem- 
 brance of this his first love. He wrote it after he had been 
 married some seven or eight years. And yet he could write, 
 " He never loved again." She afterwards sent him this letter, 
 worth perusal, and therefore presented to our readers. 
 
 Letter from Margaret Gordon to T. Carlyle. 
 
 " And now, my dear friend, a long adieu. One advice, and 
 as a parting, consider it. Cultivate the milder disposition of 
 your heart. Subdue the more extravagant visions of the 
 brain. In time your abilities must be known. Genius will 
 render you great. May virtue render you beloved. Remove 
 the awful difference between you and other men by kind and 
 gentle manner. Deal gently with inferiors, and be convinced 
 they will respect you as much, and like you the more. Why 
 conceal the real goodness that flows in your heart 1 Let your 
 light shine befoi-e men, and think they are not unworthy the 
 trouble. Exercise will prove its own reward. It must be a 
 pleasing thing to live in the affection of others. Again adieu. 
 Pardon the freedom I have used, and when you think of me, 
 be it as a kind sister, to whom your happiness will always 
 yield delight, your grief, sorrow. 
 
 " Yours with esteem and regard, 
 
 "M. 
 
 "P.S. — I do not send my address, because I dare not 
 promise to see you." 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 23 
 
 After this separation from so beloved an object, the world 
 became a desert waste. With darkened heart, hopes all 
 shattered, he threw himself on his knees, crying for light and 
 deliverance from death and the grave. He was unspeakably 
 miserable. Unbelief in the existence of a God, who could 
 thus torture His creatures, hung like a nightmare over his 
 soul. The dead letter of religion oppressed him to despair. 
 
 He took refuge once again in his humble home. At last he 
 disclosed his wretched but inevitable conviction that he was 
 not fitted for, and therefore must abandon, all thoughts of the 
 miuistry as a profession ; that he had, alas ! lost some of his 
 old faith. His good mother was filled with unspeakable 
 alarm. She was a severe Calvinist, and had an intense 
 anxiety for the spiritual rather than the temporal welfare of 
 her son. There was no thought of the money thrown away, 
 the self-denials exercised to give him the education they had. 
 Her attachment was far too passionate, too disinterested for 
 any sordid disappointment. It was the danger of his eternal 
 future that wrung from her such bitter tears of genuine grief. 
 • ' His sturdy father acted with the greatest magnanimity and 
 his usual generosity. He left him quite unfettered in his 
 choice of a profession. He never had and he never would 
 hinder where he could not help. 
 
 In 1817 his mother was attacked by a terrible fever, which 
 brought her near the verge of the grave. Carlyle was at 
 home, and scarcely left her side. When bereft of hope, her 
 husband writhed on the ground in a passion of grief. Tears 
 were forced from the stern, strong man, which his son com- 
 pared to the melting of a rock of granite, terrible to him to 
 witness. Happily the dearly-loved wife and mother recovered. 
 The husband resumed his normal stolidity, the children their 
 work, and Thomas Carlyle returned to his tutoring. But 
 Irving and he decided that teaching the young idea to shoot 
 was a detestable life, that indeed they would prefer death than 
 get their living by such drudgery. The year following, 1818, 
 as the result of their cogitations, the parent Carlyles had to 
 hear of another change in their son's prospects. He went 
 home as usual to spend his holidays, and to talk over his 
 affairs. He had already, by dint of extreme frugality, saved 
 no less than £90, with which he hoped to support himself at 
 Edinburgh till he could fall into some other way of earning 
 his livino-. 
 
24 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 So to Edinburgh they went, Carlyle and Irving having 
 thrown over the "schoolmaster function." Once again adrift 
 on the world. Never was Carlyle more miserable. His soul 
 was attacked w^ith demons of doubt, darkness, and scorn 
 unutterable. The devil and all his legions had laid siege to 
 the city of that mighty mind. Manfully, like old Bunyan of 
 old, he determined to take the devil by the horns, to conquer 
 or die. Then arose, gaunt and awful, Giant Fear, the worst 
 of all enemies. Before his fury Carlyle bowed, then bent 
 down almost to the earth, exhausted with mental and physical 
 suffering. But not once did he turn his back on the foe or 
 bend the knee. Again and again he rose defiantly and fought 
 furiously, all the principalities of earth and hell arrayed 
 against him. At last, he knew not how, Divine strength was 
 given, fresh vigour nerved his veins. Giant Fear was dis- 
 armed and laid low ; then one by one all his other foes were 
 crushed beneath his feet, he standing over them calm and 
 triumphant. Strong too — " strong in the strength that God 
 supplies." This was his conversion ; from that hour his faith 
 in the Eternal God never wavered. Poor, proud, shy, in- 
 signifi.cant in person, grim and sorrowful was this man, but 
 with indomitable will to conquer the adverse world now or 
 die in the fight. He was sadly conscious of his family's silent 
 disapproval of this new step, yet ecjually conscious of his own 
 righteous integrity. A man is bound to love his profession — 
 not loathe it — if he is to succeed. He was indeed learninsf 
 experimentally what he had first preached about in com- 
 paratively utter ignorance. He was drinking heavily of 
 the waters of afiiiction, and for ever remembered their 
 bitterness. 
 
 Moreover, besides his mental sufferings, he was attacked by 
 dyspepsia, which he likened to a " rat gnawing for ever at the 
 pit of his stomach." This bodily torment continued more or 
 less to scourge him for the remainder of his life. A veritable 
 torment it proved, and no doubt was caused in a great measure 
 by his too great abstemiousness, amounting really to insufficient 
 food. However miserable his earnings, he always managed 
 to save a little, to make innumerable and ofttimes costly 
 presents, and to spend money at the bookstalls. Mental food 
 seemed to him more necessary than bread itself. This self- 
 denial told upon him. Nature's calls are loud ; if disregarded, 
 we must inevitably pay the penalty. Carlyle did. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 25 
 
 At one time he sent his father ^20 for a thrashing machine, 
 and innumerable were the suitable and unsuitable presents 
 bestowed upon his best of mothers, of even gaudy bonnets and 
 smart frocks, — anything to show her liis unchangeable love, 
 although he had so reluctantly been obliged to cause her pain. 
 He had found his vocation. With pen in hand he felt 
 powerful, towering head and shoulders above his compeers. 
 Dr. Brewster employed him occasionally in writing articles for 
 his Encydopcedia. These were his happy triumphant hours. 
 He dreamt waking and sleeping of making books — tooks in 
 which he could produce his own soul — books which would 
 arouse other souls to dare and do. 
 
 In Sartor Resartus he gives a curious description of his 
 unique apartment. He describes it as full of books and 
 tattered papers, miscellaneous shreds of all conceivable sub- 
 stances, hidden partially under a common element of dust. 
 Books lay on and below the table, there a sheet of MS., here 
 a torn handkerchief, or a night-cap hastily thrown aside. Ink- 
 bottles alternately with bread crusts, coffee-pots, tobacco 
 boxes, periodicals, and Blucher boots side by side. Old Liza, 
 his " bed-maker, stove-lighter, washer, wringer, cook, errand- 
 girl, and general provider,'^ once a month forcibly entered his 
 sacred precincts with broom and duster, which event he 
 dreaded worse than the pestilence. There he fought his battle 
 with dulness and darkness. There, with the soul of a man 
 enclosed in his book, he was entertained with the best 
 society. 
 
 But still his chief pleasure was corresponding with his 
 mother. He confessed to her his confused, irregular reading 
 of the Bible, but entreated her to believe that he was " sin- 
 cerely desirous of being a good man, and firmly trusted that 
 the same power which created us with imperfect faculties, 
 would pardon the errors of every one who seeks truth and 
 righteousness with a single heart." This letter frightened his 
 mother. She answered — " Oh, my dear, dear son, I would 
 pray for a blessing on your learning. I beg you, with all the 
 feeling of an affectionate mother, that you would study the 
 Word of God, which He has graciously put into our hands, 
 that it may powerfully reach our hearts. God made man in 
 His own image, therefore it behoves him to be without any 
 imperfect faculties. Beware, my dear son, of such thoughts. 
 Let them not dwell in your mind. God forbid ! Do make 
 
26 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 religion your chief study, Tom. If you repent it, I will bear 
 the blame for ever." Alas, poor mother ! she must have 
 known that if the Bible is true, that were impossible ! 
 
 But Tom was really thinking as much of religion as ever his 
 mother was, only his thoughts took a different and not so 
 simple a form. " Oh ! " he cried piteously to that beloved 
 because so pious a mother, " do not despair of your ribe of a 
 boy I " And she did not. None knew him better than she. 
 In reality he did no discredit to her religious teaching. He 
 denied and defied only what he believed to be false, and 
 worshipped whatever he believed to be true. True poet that 
 he was, he believed that the universe, though made up of 
 fact, is nevertheless a mystery, and rests on a thousand 
 mysteries, inexhaustible, unfathomable. The mysteries of 
 life, death, time and eternity, of good and evil, filled his 
 soul with awful wonder. Miracles there were in himself, 
 in his body and soul and spirit, and he was surrounded by 
 a whole world no less miraculous. But he never believed 
 in an absentee God, sitting outside the universe, and seeing 
 it go on anyhow, unconcerned, but that He, the Eternal God, 
 owns and rules the universe — to whom all mysteries are 
 as clear as to us the noonday. He believed that God is good 
 and just, and that good is evermore with us. That evil also 
 is with us for the present, but eventually must be conquered 
 by the good, whose function it is incessantly to war against 
 the evil. Were there no evil, what would be the exercise of 
 the good 1 How could it be drawn forth ? Between God and 
 his own soul there was understanding, perfect, as between 
 two mortals there can never be. 
 
 After thus settling his own faith, he passionately and 
 persistently urges, commands, entreats the duty of earnest 
 purpose, earnest work. Know thy work and do it, is his 
 cry. Work while it is called to-day ; the night cometh when 
 no man can work. By faithful, life-long effort, one and all 
 may forward and strengthen some small portion of God's 
 kingdom. Such lessons, reader, are good for you and good 
 for me. 
 
 He regarded his own body, and that of the whole human 
 race, as a temple wherein dwells the Holy of Holies — the 
 soul of man, a ray of God Himself. By religion is not 
 meant merely the Church Creed which a man professes. 
 That is important, but not all-important. Religion is the 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 27 
 
 tiling a man really and truly believes at the bottom of his 
 heart respecting his own soul and God. That is his religion. 
 And Carlyle, having that, was a religious man. 
 
 Who can gainsay it 1 It was not the orthodox religion of 
 the present day ; nevertheless it was a true, earnest belief, 
 according to the light vouchsafed. 
 
28 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 " Thou slialt " is -wiitten upon life in cliaracters as terrible as Thou 
 
 slialt not. — Carlyle, Cromwell, iii. 312. 
 To be wise and true, we all are under the terriblest penalties. 
 
 Carlyle. 
 
 Carlyle and Irving were for some time companions in Edin- 
 burgh, in which place the former alone felt at home. In the 
 country he \vas a mere stranger and pilgrim. The two read, 
 walked, and talked together, Irving declaring that he knew- no 
 one so capable of cheering a sad or solitary hour as his friend 
 Carlyle. 
 
 The city had some social, many intellectual, and innumer- 
 able physical charms for our hero. Its romantic situation 
 never paled upon him, as scenery of the grandest description 
 does in time upon an inferior mind. He would sit silently 
 for hours, wrapj^ed in awe and -wonder, as he gazed at the 
 mighty expanse of ocean stretched before him, or listened to 
 the changeless voice of the waves as they ebbed and flowed, 
 or dashed with remorseless energy against the rough crags 
 and black jagged masses of rock beneath. Or he would raise 
 those deep-set, earnest eyes to the everlasting hills, darkly 
 towering in the distance ; and his heart worshipped incessantly 
 the Mighty Maker of such an infinitely beautiful and mira- 
 culous world. Still he was very obscure, very retiring, 
 wrapped up, as it w^ere, in an armour of reserve. Irving 
 penetrated his inner man, and prophesied that a day would 
 dawn when he would be unearthed. 
 
 In June, 1821, these two friends took a long walk from 
 EJinlnu'gh to Haddington. It was a hot, sultry, dusty day ; 
 but discoursing pleasantly, they felt unconscious of fatigue. 
 Irving was familiar with every stick and stone in Haddington. 
 He was now going with the express purpose of introducing 
 Carlyle to a young lady friend of his own, a certain Jane 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 29 
 
 "Welsh, who was herself ambitious of literary fame. Irving 
 thought Carlyle might give a bias to her thoughts, and render 
 her substantial as well as beneficial aid in her miscellaneous 
 efforts to wield her pen. She was the daughter of a deceased 
 doctor of high rei3ute, an heiress, and generally considered the 
 flower of Haddington. 
 
 Carlyle was very agreeably impressed by his new acquaintance. 
 She was slightly built, airy and graceful. Her eyes were large 
 and brilliant, black in colour, as was her hair. But it was the 
 vivacity and intellectual beauty of her countenance that was 
 her crowning charm. Unfortunately she had her faults, like 
 every other weak mortal, the worst of which were a fiery temper, 
 and a tonoue that cut like a sword. Her father alone had been 
 able to manage her. She loved him intensely, and feared him most 
 profitably. He was gone, and she mourned his loss through life. 
 
 Jane Welsh, like Margaret Gordon, had been a pupil of 
 Irving's. Carlyle possibly wondered that the tutor had not 
 chosen either of those two beautiful, gifted girls, instead of 
 the prosaic, plain-looking Miss Martin, to whom he had so 
 hastily become engaged. On this subject Irving seems to 
 have confided very little to his friend, and Carlyle, believing 
 him to be the soul of honour, looked upon him as good as 
 married. In Scotland, unfortunately, an engagement is con- 
 sidered almost as binding as marriage. 
 
 The two friends spent two or three days together in this little 
 country town, taking long, enjoyable rambles in the neighbour- 
 hood, spending the pleasant evening hours in the society of 
 Mrs. Welsh and her daughter. Carlyle was much appreciated, 
 especially by the younger lady, and before leaving obtained 
 permission to send her books from Edinburgh. Thus began 
 an acquaintanceship and correspondence that in time ripened 
 into a true and open friendship. 
 
 On returning to Edinburgh, Carlyle resumed his work. 
 Brewster continued to encourage and employ him in his 
 literary labours, by which, with a few mathematical pupils, he 
 managed to make about £2 per week. With this poverty 
 was kept far from his door. He also began to correspond 
 with London booksellers and publishers with a view of 
 further literary work. His zeal for mathematics had con- 
 siderably diminished. He had wandered into what he con- 
 sidered more " pungent inquiries." Inquiry had led him to 
 doubt, — doubt to its accompanying miseries. He had battled 
 
80 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 bravely, however, with that enemy of souls, and conquered. 
 He wrote thus to his mother — " I respect your religious feel- 
 ings, and honour you for them, more than if you were the 
 highest lady in the land without them." 
 
 That their son should have religious doubts was quite incom- 
 prehensible to his saintly, peasant parents. With them the 
 language of the Bible was accepted in its most literal sense. 
 It contained all their knowledge, all their hopes for time and 
 eternity. They were more familiar with the golden streets, 
 the pearly gates, and the River of Life of New Jerusalem, 
 than they were with the geography of any terrestrial city. 
 And they would as soon have doubted the reality of the 
 miracles, or the personation of the devil as a roaring lion, as 
 they would have doubted the existence of '' their Tom." Their 
 Tom did all he could to comfort them concerning himself. 
 
 In November his prospects again improved. He had a 
 personal interview with Brewster, who gave him fifteen 
 guineas for some literary work. This was for him a con- 
 siderable sum, and he at once proceeded to lay part of it out in 
 purchasing a pair of spectacles for his worthy father. These 
 he sent with a guinea for his mother, " to keep the fiend out 
 of hussif." "You tell me," he said, in answer to their 
 remonstrance, " that I am so poor, and have so few — but I 
 am soon going to have plenty of them ; and if I had but one, 
 I cannot see how I could procure more enjoyment out of it 
 than by sharing it with you ! " 
 
 His parents, however, were not his only thought. His 
 brother John was working bard at school, desirous of attend- 
 ing the medical classes at Edinburgh. Carlyle highly praised 
 and encouraged him, longing to undertake defraying all his 
 expenses himself. To help his family was his greatest luxury, 
 and his mother's love his most precious possession. 
 
 Irving did not stay long in Edinburgh. Having entered 
 the ministry, he became assistant to Dr. Chalmers in Glas- 
 gow. He invited Carlyle to share his rooms. Carlyle spent 
 Christmas with him, and devoured greedily every book in his 
 somewhat extensive library. 
 
 Not many months later Irving removed to London, having 
 been offered the ministry of Caledonian Chapel. There, in a 
 congregation composed of the rich and great of the meti'opolis, 
 he made brilliant success. Every service was crammed with 
 listeners, all alike struck with his eloquence and splendid 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 31 
 
 physique. He is thus described at thirty years of age by one 
 who saw him but once — " He had raven locks flowing down 
 his broad shoulders ; a giant figure magnificently erect ; eyes 
 black and piercing, and features classically perfect. A cloak 
 was thrown over his arm as he marched with giant strides 
 down the street." Under this fine exterior dwelt a crushed, 
 a miserable man. In spite of success suflicient to intoxicate 
 any man with average conceit, and an assured income of 
 £500 a-year, he writes to Carlyle — " Many things oppress my 
 mind at the present moment." Why did he not trust his 
 friend, open out to him his whole heart ? Oh, would that he 
 had ! would that he had ! But he did not ; he deceived him, led 
 him astray, and — paid the penalty. 
 
 Carlyle continued regular in his correspondence with Miss 
 Welsh, and she frequently came to Edinburgh to visit an 
 uncle with her mother. Carlyle often met her there. They 
 were on the most intimate terms. She loved to relate 
 incidents of her own childhood, and excelled in graphic 
 descriptions. 
 
 Her father had been disappointed at her birth that she was 
 not a boy, but as compensation, determined to give her the 
 doubtful benefit of a son's education. As a wee child she 
 went to school, and sat among the boys with other girls. On 
 one occasion a rough fellow teased her, when she dealt him 
 a blow on the face causing his nose to bleed. The master, 
 hearing the commotion, came down upon them, and demanded 
 who was the culprit. None of the boys, however, would tell 
 of their charming girl schoolfellow, till at last she blurted 
 out herself, " I did it." The schoolmaster burst into a 
 hearty laugh, and called her, Scotch fashion, a " leetle deevil." 
 And in our opinion she, in a certain sense, retained her 
 character through life. She seems almost devoid of any 
 religious feeling whatever. Her delight was in classical 
 literature. Bible teachings were disliked intensely, and she 
 would allow no preachments but what came from her father's 
 lips. 
 
 At five years of age she imagined herself too oM for a doll. 
 In imitation of Spartan stoicism, she dressed it completely one 
 day, gathered everything together belonging to it, piled up a 
 heap of wood into a kind of altar, and sacrificed what was 
 her heart's treasure to the flames. On seeing it burn she 
 seems to have shrieked in distress, but did not rescue it — 
 
32 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 certainly a strong but not a feminine characteristic Later 
 on, when she was about six or seven years okl, Edward 
 Irving was aj^pointed her tutor, and was delighted with her 
 precocious intellect and vivacious manner. She was a bright 
 little creature, and he ^vould be there by early dawn, and 
 carry her half- dressed in his arms to learn the names of the 
 stars, or set her on the table and teach her some other equally 
 unnecessary items for her infantine mind. The tutor and 
 child became much attached to each other, and if he ventured 
 to punish her he did. it with such evident pain that she 
 submitted. 
 
 From Glasgow^ Irving wrote thus to Carlyle concerning his 
 former little scholar — 
 
 " She contemplates the inferiority of others rather from the 
 point of ridicule and contempt than from that of com- 
 miseration or relief, and by so doing she not only leaves 
 objects in distress, and loses the luxury of doing good, but 
 she contracts her own mind to a degree of coldness and 
 bitterness which suits ill with my conception of female 
 character and a female's position in society. I would like to 
 see her surrounded ^vith more sober companions than Byron 
 or Rousseau. They will never make any diiferent characters 
 than they were themselves. Unless she get more solid food 
 I fear she will escape altogether out of the region of my 
 sympathy and of any honest homebred man. In giving to 
 her character a useful and elegant turn you will aid me, as 
 you have opportunity." Certainly this letter must have given 
 Carlyle the impression that Irving scarcely appreciated Jane 
 Welsh's character. Carlyle was himself at that time quite 
 heartwhole again, if such a man ever could forget his early 
 love. 
 
 In 1822 an important change took place in his career, through 
 the instrumentality of Edward Irving. Among the brilliant 
 members of his London chapel w^as an East Indian Director, 
 whose wife sought an introduction to the new star. This 
 Mrs. Buller, a fashionable, but superior sort of woman, was 
 the mother of three sons, about whose education she con- 
 descended to consult Edw^ard Irving. He at once recommended 
 Edinburgh University, with Carlyle as coach or tutor. The 
 eldest son, Charles Buller, was to enter Parliament, the second 
 to be a clergyman. Negotiations were entered into betw^een 
 Thomas Carlyle and the Bullers. Irving warned the fine 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 33 
 
 lady of his friend's peculiarities. She took no alarm, and as 
 Carljle consented, an arrangement was agreed npon, which 
 brought him an income of <£200 per annum. Times were 
 very hard just then to his parents. The farm yielded but 
 poor returns. For once, " their Tom " raised the hopes of 
 the whole family, and with so many brave sons they never 
 again were very hard pinched. The two eldest Buller boys 
 shortly after arrived in Edinburgh. Charles was a delightful 
 pupil, inquiring, manageable, intelligent ; pupil and tutor de- 
 lighted in each other. The friendship thus commenced was 
 life-long. 
 
 Now it was easy to render John assistance. No more 
 pecuniary difficulties, Carlyle living comfortably in apart- 
 ments in one of the most respectable streets in the city. The 
 evenings were all his own. When no longer under any 
 necessity to write he was inwardly compelled to do so. His 
 vocation he knew to be literature, though he rarely acknow- 
 ledged his own gifts. When he failed in gaining the appreci- 
 ation of the press he was only self-exasperated. He wrote 
 essays and biographies, and translated different works from 
 the German. He practised at any rate one cardinal virtue, 
 that of perseverance. He repeated to himself times without 
 end, *' It is a certain fact. I must write a book." 
 
 Meanwhile the correspondence with Haddington grew more 
 intimate. Carlyle corrected Miss Welsh's verses, and they 
 proposed writing a book in concert. He once ventured on a 
 few remarks more loverlike than she appreciated. She gave 
 him at once to understand that the only terms they could be 
 on was that of brother and sister. This did not affect Carlyle 
 m.uch ; he was not at that time at any rate very deeply in 
 love. Miss Welsh, he could not deny to himself, was, by 
 position, far beyond his reach. Little he knew or guessed 
 the real reason for her continued indifference. 
 
 Again Irving wrote to his friend almost prophetically, 
 " Your powers of devotion will yet have utterance, and your 
 deep-seated reverence of religion. The largest expansion and 
 highest attainment of the soul, which makes your mother so 
 superior to those around her, will yet make her son superior 
 among the rich and literary men that are hereafter to company 
 with him." 
 
 Such words cheered and inspired Carlyle to redouble his 
 efforts to conquer a world cram full of "conventional limita- 
 
 D 
 
34} THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 tions," and he never forgot to be grateful to his friend for his 
 constant faith in him. 
 
 Irving also wrote to Miss "Welsh, but in a very different 
 vein to that he wrote of her. Their correspondence did not 
 disconcert Carlyle in the least, not even when the letters were 
 sent under cover to him to deliver. Of course he knew 
 nothing of their contents, but he did know that Irving was 
 on the eve of marriage with Miss Martin, and he imagined 
 he rather depreciated than admired Jane Welsh. It is quite 
 evident that Irving managed to conceal from his truest friend 
 the deepest feelings of his heart ; nay more, purposely deceived 
 him. To himself and Jane Welsh alone was it known how 
 deeply he regretted his unfortunate engagement with Miss 
 Martin, who, however, had been true to her handsome lover 
 through many tedious years. 
 
 It must have been a painful awakening in Carlyle's mind 
 when he first learnt the facts of the case. '' Only in novels, 
 untrue to life, does a hero act with perfect propriety," says 
 Froude, but not many are as deceptive, surely, as was Edward 
 Irving. He acted a lie, and to Carlyle's truth-loving soul this 
 lie must have laid like a dead weight. The man of all others 
 whom he most trusted lied to him — to the friend who trusted 
 him as his own soul, who would have laid bare his own heart 
 if it had cost him his heart's blood rather than have deliberately 
 deceived him. Well might he write so bitterly of lies as the 
 very essence of social misery ! 
 
 " The first of all gospels is this, that a lie cannot endure 
 for ever. Lies exist only to be extinguished ; they wait and 
 cry earnestly for extinction." 
 
 And again : " When thou findest a lie oppressing thee, ex- 
 tinguish it. Think well, meanwhile, in what spirit thou wilt 
 do it : not with hatred, with headlong, selfish violence, but in 
 clearness of heart, with holy zeal ; gently, with pity." Poor 
 Irving ! a secret attachment to Jane Welsh made life at once 
 an elysium and a hell. Bound by every feeling of honour, 
 according to Scotch law, to one, and heart and soul wrapped 
 up in another. Duty called loudly, fii^st in one way, then in 
 another. A partially and foolishly-contracted bond could not 
 be gainsaid, yet natural inclination was dead against its fulfil- 
 ment. He suffered mental torture. Unfortunately he betrayed 
 his love to Jane Welsh, and found it was passionately recipro- 
 cated. This but added to his perplexities. He informed her 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 35 
 
 of his previous engagement, and even urged her to elope with 
 him. But Jane never lost her reason when she lost her heart. 
 He was prepared for any consequences, but she knew that such 
 a step would ruin his life and hers, and she was not prepared 
 for any such folly. Patience was the one thing needful ; but 
 everything now was tending to make Irving more and more 
 impatient. In a state of mind bordering on distraction, he at 
 last took a long journey to Kirkaldy, confessed his weakness, 
 and entreated to be released from his engagement to Miss 
 Isabella Martin. The parents as well as the girl herself refused 
 his prayer, and persisted in keeping him to the contract. 
 
 "To keep to the bond, or utter ruin," was Irving's only 
 alternative. To avoid the utter ruin, publicity, Irving adhered 
 to the bond ; but no less did ruin dog his steps, for happiness 
 had gone. He felt his very faith shaken, and his principles 
 scattered to the winds. To marry one woman while his heart 
 was entirely another's could not be right, and he almost seems 
 to have ignored the wrong he did Jane Welsh. 
 
 This terrible disappointment embittered her whole life. 
 Her deepest affections were completely crushed within her ; her 
 hopes of earthly happiness were all destroyed. We cannot but 
 feel the deepest commiseration for the intense pain such a wrench 
 must have produced. Irving could throw himself into a vortex 
 of religious dissipation, the excitement deadening his pain in 
 some degree ; while poor Jane for ever turned a deaf ear to 
 its call. Her religious adviser had blighted her life, and 
 turned all its sweetness to bitterness. 
 
 Yet was Irving intensely miserable. From his wedding-day 
 there was a new Irving, another impenetrable Irving, whose 
 intellect seemed abandoned to one master passion, that of 
 preaching. For years he more than met all the demands of 
 his fashionable congregation. He was true to his wife ; alas ! 
 he was also true to Jane Welsh, for he could no more change 
 his love for her than a leopard could change its skin. 
 
 *'A man can face a world's contempt when he has that 
 within him that tells him he is true," is a very favourite 
 quotation, but in many cases a great mistake. There are few 
 men who would not rather face the muzzle of a revolver than 
 the contempt of his fellow worms. Average men are rarely 
 endowed with moral courage ; they have mortal fear of public 
 opinion. Women have their weaknesses — men a double share. 
 
 Irving would have been nobler and truer if he had figured 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 in a breach of promise case. By marrying a woman with a 
 lie on his lips he made shipwreck of three lives. 
 
 Jane scorned to become one of his saints ; she would listen 
 to none of his sermons, and asked none of his prayers. There 
 was but one means left open to her to enable her to crush out 
 her unfortunate attachment, with all its bitter but tender 
 memories ; that was contempt for the man who had done her 
 so unpardonable a wrong, and ambition to attain distinction. 
 The first was a difiicult matter — she assumed it ; the latter 
 came more naturally. She hugged then this ambition to her 
 as a friend, and from henceforth it became the master passion 
 of her life. 
 
 And who was the victim of all these wretched blunders ? 
 Thomas Carlyle, at first unconsciously, afterwards the willing, 
 self-sacrificing victim, determined, as far as in him lay, to 
 give his life for his friends — to bind the broken heart of the 
 one, and undo as far as possible the evil committed by the 
 other. 
 
 Nine-tenths of the misery of the world is incurred through 
 ill-assorted marriages. Why should men and women persist 
 in crushing body, soul, and spirit under burdens intolerable to 
 bear 1 They will not be persuaded, though one rose from the 
 dead ; forgetting that in their own wreck they rob others of 
 happiness as well. How often do little children enter on this 
 world's stage not welcomed but endured, their earliest infancy 
 embittered by the consciousness of an indefinable want in their 
 homes — homes of wealth and luxury maybe, or homes of misery 
 and penury. Hunger exists in both — hunger insatiable, 
 and unquenchable thirst. 
 
 Had Irving been less powerful, intellectually or physically, 
 he would have suffered with less intensity. The stronger the 
 nature, the fiercer the torment. But we must leave him 
 wrestling in his dumb agony, and consider Carlyle, who all 
 this time was continuing the even tenor of his way, in blessed 
 ignorance of the tempest in which his friends were tossed. 
 
37 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Some people think the great business of Man is to be happy. 
 Better — though goodness were the most wretched — I would be 
 good. — Carlyle. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle was delighted with the accounts he received 
 and the rumours he heard of his friend's marriage and 
 popularity, and wrote him congratulatory letters of heartfelt 
 sympathy. These letters stung the heart of Irving to the 
 quick. His answers were no longer the frank, unselfish 
 epistles of former years, but very different productions, written 
 with apparent effort, suppressing the inner man, the true self. 
 
 "Ah ! " thought Carlyle, " he is intoxicated with the adula- 
 tion of the rich and powerful. Among them he will never 
 find a truer if a more influential friend." He knew Irving 
 was the topic of conversation among all the religious circles 
 in town, the hero of the hour, adored as much for his personal 
 advantages as for his zest and eloquence in preaching. 
 
 Of course he spoke of and wrote to Miss "Welsh concerning 
 the brilliant career opening out to their mutual friend. Jane, 
 too, acted with Carlyle, and spoke with only a common amount 
 of interest of the man who had spoilt her life, destroyed her 
 peace, and was fast turning her into a hard, stoical woman, of 
 all others the hardest to love. All that was visible of a 
 change in her was a feverish restlessness, suppressed excite- 
 ment, and at times a look of broken-hearted despondency. 
 Carlyle with his observant eyes marked all this, and as she 
 expressed affection for him, and was moreover an adept in 
 the art of flirting, he may very pardonably have suspected 
 this hidden grief was in some way connected with himself. 
 He determined once again to let her know that the awakened 
 attachment was reciprocated. But ever capricious, Jane 
 
88 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 forbade him to assume tlie lover with her, and sorely puzzled 
 him. 
 
 Mrs. "Welsh possessed none of the strength of character of 
 her daughter, and but little of her intellectual power. She 
 was an elegant, well-dressed, pretty woman, and was well 
 aware of all her personal and social advantages. To be the 
 elite of a provincial town was to be of some importance in the 
 world, which was the most desirable thing in life. No matter 
 what one's intellectual or physical charms might be, if in a 
 low position in society they were no inducement to cultivate 
 the acquaintance of such a one. For a man or woman to be 
 endowed above their station was only one of nature's freaks, 
 to be wondered at and lamented. 
 
 Mrs. Welsh tolerated Carlyle, because Irving had intro- 
 duced him as his personal friend, and because Jane was 
 amused by his society. But she herself had not the slightest 
 sympathy with his incomprehensible genius, could scarcely 
 endure his bluntness, was angered at his careless indifference 
 to dress and elegant manners, in fact to all social convention- 
 alities ; above all she despised his humble origin. From her 
 Carlyle at that time neither expected nor received favour. 
 They were at heart downright antagonistic — they knew it. 
 Jane Welsh was not really a woman after Carlyle's own 
 heart. When in the presence of these two women he was 
 always conscious of his own superiority. 
 
 Jane had no veneration for sacred things, which was one of 
 his chief characteristics — had no reverence for goodness. All 
 the worship of which she was capable she bestowed upon 
 brain power, to her the one thing needful. In Carlyle she 
 recognized this brain power and bowed before it. Even 
 Irving's intellect paled before his. But in other matters 
 Irving suited her far better. They were both dramatic animals, 
 excelling in tragedy. They both loved dress and personal 
 influence in the world ; such were absolutely necessary to 
 their comfort and happiness. However able they were to 
 recognize and admire genius, intellect, and moral worth, these 
 would not suffice in their native state ; they must produce 
 great effects to be valued. 
 
 Carlyle read all through this ; his searching eyes could 
 penetrate through the clothes to the heart within, he could 
 read their characters like an open book. But he never 
 Buspected them of deceiving him. In spite of all he saw of 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAKLTLE. 39 
 
 imperfections and weakness, he loved them both, was grateful 
 for their recognition of all that was good in himself, and 
 marvelled at their capability of appreciating so disagreeable, 
 so discontented a mortal. At the same time he knew what 
 they expected him to become, and was bent upon not dis- 
 appointing them. It was not what he was, so much as what 
 he was to he, that aroused Jane's interest. Carlyle was almost 
 foolishly grateful to those who understood him. They, how- 
 ever, were by no means the only friends he had to predict his 
 future advancement. All who came into contact with him 
 acknowledged his mighty mental capacity. His genius, like 
 every other genius, was appreciated only by some, tolerated 
 by a few, and detested by others. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. BuUer, the parents of the pupils to whom he 
 was so much attached, were charmed with his company, mar- 
 velled at the brilliance of his conversation, and dehghted in 
 his wit and humour. He was not merely received into their 
 house as an equal, but as a son, and his high attainments 
 duly acknowledged. Such treatment was enough to turn the 
 head of a less sensible man. Praise and flattery only aroused 
 his native modesty, and made him shrink within himself. He 
 tried to accustom himself to good society. He knew he was 
 woefully deficient in the courtesy, the ease, the grace of 
 manner, which go so far towards making a gentleman. Above 
 all things a gentleman avoids making unpleasant speeches in 
 a drawing-room, or introducing any topic which would pain 
 his listener. It is, and rightly, the aim in good society to 
 make everyone feel pleased with himself and those around 
 him. To this high state of culture unfortunately Carlyle did 
 not aspire. The common civilities of life were difficLilt to 
 manage at times, without cultivating (which he would have had 
 to do most assiduously to attain thereto) the art of pleasing. 
 Even his truest friends, his most loving disciples, must regret 
 this, and acknowledge that occasionally he even went out of 
 his way to say a disagreeable thing when a pleasant one 
 would have been more effective. 
 
 Between 1820-1824 Carlyle wrote sixteen articles for 
 Brewster, and the Life of Schiller, prepared Charles Buller for 
 Cambridge, and the younger ones for Edinburgh University. 
 He and his pupils loved each other dearly. All pecuniary 
 difficulties were at an end for a time. His brother John, 
 who was studying medicine, shared his apartments in Moray. 
 
40 THE STORY OF THOMAS CAKLYLE. 
 
 Street, and prepared his tea when he returned from the 
 Bnllers' mansion. They were some of his happiest days, if 
 it had not been for the dyspepsia afflicting him at times. 
 Many Hterary celebrities of the day gave him no encourage- 
 ment. De Quincey, the once opium-eater, could never appre- 
 ciate his German translations, and Francis Jeffrey, afterward 
 Lord Advocate, a distant connection of Jane Welsh's, reviewed 
 his book, Wilhelm Meister, most unmercifully pronounced it 
 "absurd, puerile, incongruous, and affected," while he was 
 forced to acknowledge the talent of the writer. These criti- 
 cisms on a work not his own, but of another powerful mind, 
 soured Carlyle, and disgusted him with countrymen who were 
 unable to comprehend Goethe's depth and originality. It 
 pleased him to watch and direct the literary attempts of 
 Jane Welsh, whose abilities were of the highest order. 
 Her family now treated Carlyle with more consideration. 
 They were aware of her passionate attachment to Edward 
 Irving, and could not entertain any serious apprehensions of 
 her friendship with a man so inferior in position ; for with 
 whatever terms he was on with the high family the Bullers 
 were known to be, he was only a tutor, a paid dependant. 
 The Bullers treated him as a son almost — to their honour let 
 this be recorded of them — but that did not alter the fact. 
 Carlyle thoroughly appreciated their kindness to him, and was 
 grateful ; it was his nature to be grateful, as it is of all 
 truly great minds. But he cared nothing for advantages 
 others value. The habits of the family were expensive, like 
 those of others in their social status ; their meals were 
 luxurious, and they insisted upon Carlyle being one of the 
 family. But luxury was never to his taste. 
 
 He wrote amusing letters to his mother, describing his grand 
 surroundings — " urns and china and other splendid parapherna- 
 lia," but assuring her that her '* loving affection in their humble 
 cottage made ample amends for loss of all earth's gorgeousness." 
 
 None of these things troubled his honest, hard-working 
 mother. Her anxieties were all for his spiritual welfare. 
 This anxiety she expressed so often that he thought she 
 misjudged him. He would reassure her by telling her that 
 in reality there was but little difference in their religious 
 belief, adding, "that her religion elevated her into a dignity 
 possessed by few high-born dames, and her hopes of a blessed 
 future made her richer than kings." 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 41 
 
 This was no cant, no humbug, on Carlyle's part ; at the 
 bottom of his soul he believed it. When the term began, 
 both the boys, Charles and Reginald, attended the classes 
 during the morning hours, and Carlyle had not to present 
 himself at the Bullers' house till two. This agreed with the 
 continued delicacy of his health at this time, but he would sit 
 up till midnight with brother Jack. 
 
 His mother persisted in sending him shirts and socks, at 
 which he ventured to remonstrate, calling them " superfluities," 
 and entreating her to spend more on herself. 
 
 On his 27th birthday, Dec. 4, 1882, he writes— 
 
 " What an unprofitable lout I am ; how have I rewarded 
 you for all your love and care ! " 
 
 When in love Carlyle attempted to express his feelings in 
 rhyme, which, however, he found as confusing, unnatural a 
 dress for his thoughts as Saul's armour was to David for the 
 battle. He soon relinquished poetical aspirations. 
 
 Mrs. Buller was a restless woman, unwearied in her efforts 
 at killing " Ennui," that huge, haggard giant so tormenting to 
 the wealthy. She tired of Edinburgh, and took a mansion in 
 Perthstown, called Kinnaird House. During the necessary 
 inconvenience of removal Carlyle had a week's holiday, which 
 he spent at his old home — a joyful week, terminating with a 
 visit to Jane Welsh at Haddington. He found Kinnaird 
 House a splendid residence, with pleasant rooms set apart for 
 his especial use, as far from noise and disturbance as possible. 
 The windows faced a handsome, well-kept lawn, where the 
 singing of birds made the music in which his soul delighted. 
 There he would sit, thinking of absent loved ones. Friendship 
 with him was drifting into love of a certain kind. It was 
 never reverential love he bore Jane Welsh ; never such a 
 love as he had given to Margaret Gordon. She was herself 
 incapable of experiencing, or perhaps of appreciating, that 
 kind of affection ; but it is the highest of all affections — a 
 love from which the grosser material, nature, is purified ; it 
 gives a kind of holy fear, lest we should say or do anything 
 to offend. 
 
 There must be something of this divine nature in every 
 soul, cultivated in some, trampled on in others, ignored by the 
 majority. It was this divine nature Carlyle sought in his 
 friends. He admired Jane's stoical endurance, her indefatig- 
 able industry, her indomitable determination to overcome 
 
42 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 difficulties, her insatiable ambition, her courage to dare and 
 speak and do, but none of these qualities could call forth 
 reverential love. Beauty, intellect, wit, are rather admirable 
 than lovable. Religion, tenderness, sympathy, were lament- 
 ably wanting in Jane Welsh, and for these he hungered his 
 life long. He loved her then, but not passionately. "The 
 human soul is infinite in its desires and aims, fettered by the 
 finite body, but everlastingly there." 
 
 Carlyle's good peasant mother was to him the type of what 
 a woman should be. He confessed, " he always judged her 
 beautiful, religious nature superior to Jane's." 
 
 Whatever he fancied, however, Jane was by no means in 
 love with him, and at that time never dreamt of marrying 
 him. She was flattered and amused at his shy attentions. It 
 was highly agreeable to have this great man at her feet, 
 whom so many, even in his obscurity, acknowledged a genius, 
 but to marry a man in his circumstances was a sheer im- 
 possibility. She could not forget her own birth and position, 
 and what was due to them. She, a descendant of John Knox ! 
 She knew well that neither her mother nor a single member 
 of her family would tolerate such a connection. 
 
 One day, at her uncle's house in Edinburgh, she teased, 
 coquetted, and irritated the philosopher to such a state of 
 excitement, that he left the room, banged the door after him, 
 and rushed out of the house. He sent a note of apology, 
 which she answered, comforting him with the belief that they 
 had been both possessed with "a devil." 
 
 At last, one day, in a fit of spleen, when visiting some 
 relatives with whom she could not agree, she wrote an 
 unusually affectionate letter to her patient friend. She dated 
 her letter as coming from ''Hell." In it she thanked him 
 for all his goodness and kindness to her, expressed her grati- 
 tude, &c. He took it all quite seriously, and thought that at 
 last she had consented to be his wife, and wrote to that effect. 
 She made haste to undeceive him — to let him understand she 
 meant nothing of the kind. 
 
 " My friend, I love you ! I repeat it, though I find the 
 expression a rash one. All the best feelings of my nature are 
 called forth in loving you ; but were you my brother I should 
 love you just the same. No, your friend I will be, your 
 truest, most devoted friend — your wife, never — never, were 
 you as rich as Croesus, as renowned as you yet shall be." 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 43 
 
 Carlyle took the rebuke manfully, as a man might who was 
 not deeply in love. ** My heart," he said, " is too old by ten 
 years, and is made of sterner stuff to break in junctures of 
 this kind. I have no intention of dying, as in the Arcadian 
 Shepherd style, for the disappointment of hopes which I never 
 earnestly entertained, nor had a right to entertain." 
 
 Ten years since the Margaret episode. This letter, so un- 
 loverlike in tone, must have piqued her vanity a little. This 
 great, strong man was not ready to cringe at her feet, what- 
 ever her charms or social advantages. She did not love him ; 
 why on earth could she not now let him alone 1 Perhaps his 
 coolness about the matter nettled her, and with unpardonable 
 littleness of mind she meant to make him smart for it, meant 
 to bring him to sue for her hand with greater humility. He 
 only a peasant born, and she a lady ! Besides, Irving had 
 gone out of her life for ever ! Interest flagged in everything 
 around her ; the world seemed to have emptied itself. Poor 
 girl ! one could have pitied her truly, but for the way she 
 tormented her generous friend — enticing him near, then driving 
 him far ; raising his hopes, then dashing them all to the ground, 
 just for the sake of killing time. 
 
 She was quite romantic enough to wish to become a real 
 heroine. There was no doubt about Carlyle's genius ; it was 
 universally acknowledged. Would there not be something 
 grand in assisting him to celebrity 1 It was a great specula- 
 tion, attended with great risk, but she would glory in having 
 assisted him, if he ever did really become renowned. Through 
 him all the world would hear of her too, and her head would 
 be crowned with his laurels ! The idea seemed gigantic, 
 because the end was so far distant. As yet he had met with 
 so little success. 
 
 She commenced a correspondence with her solicitor. Her 
 father had left her a small estate, called Craigen-Juttock, not 
 far from Annan, yielding about £200 a-year. This was the 
 income upon which she and her mother lived. If she married 
 she could claim this income. Perhaps from fear that she 
 might be thus tempted, she insisted upon having it settled on 
 her widowed mother for life, at whose death it was to be 
 Carlyle's, This was indeed a generous filial act, and to the 
 end of time will redound to her credit. 
 
 Now the Bullers enjoyed a very gay life at Kinnaird House, 
 in which Carlyle was bound to participate, but did not enjoy 
 
44 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 any further than the pleasure novelty gives to an inquiring 
 mind. He went out to see the sports, but he only expressed 
 disgust at the scenes. Cruelty to animals was no source of 
 enjoyment to him, whatever the object to be attained thereby, 
 whether for pleasure or in the pursuit of science. 
 
 Fashionable society bored him to death, and its members 
 seemed to bore each other to an intolerable degree. He called 
 them a " futile race — bed and blankets their most profitable 
 way of spending their time." From the grand London visitors 
 he heard that Irving was the popular rage there. He had 
 brought out a book, very high-flown in language and ideas, on 
 " Judgment to Come." Some parts of it Carlyle appreciated 
 heartily, but now and then he would lay it aside with a burst 
 of derisive laughter. Irving had been blown into the air with 
 flattery, and was destined to be cast into a pit with abuse. 
 Yet Carlyle called the theological lion, Happy Irving ! He 
 had found his life-work, and loved it. He had become a 
 wonder of the day. Statesmen, lawyers, men of the world 
 flocked to hear him for a time, and began to question if, after 
 all, there might not be something in religion, while under the 
 spell of his burning eloquence. 
 
 Happy Irving ! Little his friend knew his real condition. 
 Carlyle had witnessed his marriage ; had given an account of 
 what he had seen to Jane. He had exhibited an unnatural, 
 forced hilarity so unlike his usual serious self, but to Carlyle 
 easily to be accounted for, in the consummation of all his 
 hopes. 
 
 It had been proposed, perhaps by Mrs. Irving, that Miss 
 Welsh should make a visit to their London home, but Irving 
 could not face such a trial. " He only hoped a day might 
 dawn when he could. His dear Isabella had succeeded in a 
 measure in healing the wounds of his heart by her unexampled 
 affection and tenderness. His former peace and calmness 
 were returning ; he felt growing in grace and holiness, and in 
 another year hoped to be worthy to receive his friend and to 
 take charge of her." 
 
 Carlyle might have delivered the proposal of the said visit, 
 but he did not see Irving's letter of objections. Miss Welsh 
 still kept him in complete ignorance, though encouraging his 
 affection. Her conduct was unpardonable, whatever influence 
 Irving may have exerted in the matter over her. 
 
 Carlyle was quite satisfied to let matters so rest between 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 45 
 
 him and Jane Welsh. He was not at all anxious to be 
 married, nor assured of his manner of life. To remain a tutor 
 was far from his intention. He suffered much from intel- 
 lectvial fever and dyspepsia. He imagined these bodily- 
 sufferings were induced from not having entire control over 
 his own sleeping, eating, drinking, and waking arrangements. 
 Utter nonsense this. The fact remains there is no place of 
 rest for such sensitive skins, such keen sensibilities, such rest- 
 less, active brains, such tender sympathies and acute nerves 
 as he possessed. If time could deaden them, old age might 
 bring relief ; while they were all in full power, sleep and 
 calm would have no chance, under any circumstances, or under 
 any roof. He persisted unfortunately in trying remedies for the 
 incurable, which only added to his worries. To grin and bear 
 it is the only true solace. Beside these imaginings, his stern 
 Calvinism found much in the worldly family to offend him. 
 He wearied intensely of Mrs. Buller's perpetual efforts to 
 keep up her position and act the duchess. Irving tried to 
 persuade him to go and settle in London. For this he was 
 animated by selfish and unselfish motives. 
 
 Eventually Carlyle went up to town with the Bullers. 
 Booms were taken for him and Charles at Kew, and what 
 irritated him most, Mrs. Buller was for ever changing his 
 plans. She next desired her tutor to accompany them to 
 France. This he bluntly refused to do ; and, sick of what 
 he considered his " despicable fetters," he threw up his tutor- 
 ship, and parted in some dudgeon with the high and mighty 
 dame. She, however, took no offence, but invited him to go 
 and dine the next day to meet some influential people. He 
 would not dine with a king, he said, but would go and have a 
 cup of tea. This he did, and had the satisfaction of witnessing 
 genuine grief in his pupils at parting from their friend. 
 
 When in town a closer correspondence than ever went on 
 between him and Jane Welsh. Her mother was in an agony 
 of apprehension, fearing that some day this most undesirable 
 match might be made. 
 
 Irving now did all in his power to advance Carlyle's tem- 
 poral interests. It was delightful again to enjoy his society. 
 He persuaded a publisher to undertake Carlyle's biographical 
 sketches at the rate of sixteen guineas a page. This was 
 handsome remuneration, and made him comparatively inde- 
 pendent. Carlyle was once more his own master, cast adrift 
 
46 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 on a world by no means ready to receive him with open arms 
 as a genius, as Jane Welsh had fondly hoped. There was no 
 decided engagement between them, but she promised him she 
 would marry no one else, and when he had made fame and 
 fortune she would not refuse to share them with him ! 
 Generous ! 
 
47 
 
 CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 All that is good, generous, wise, right, whatever 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 ? 
 — Carlyle. 
 
 Was Mr. Froude or any other biographer wrong in disclosing 
 unpleasant revelations of his friend's private history — in 
 dissecting, as it were, a great public character? Most 
 decidedly not, as Carlyle himself would say. If anything is 
 said, let it be the truth. One must pay the price of celebrity 
 or notoriety. If in accomplishing one's life-work much has to 
 be suffered, let it be suffered bravely ; it is the penalty of 
 success. The great, the notorious, should at any rate be 
 courageous ; must brave the opinion, good or bad, of their 
 fellow mortals, must not dread to appear before any earthly 
 tribunal, nor weakly pray for a merciful judgment. Before 
 acting they should anticipate consequences, and if not defy, 
 endure them. 
 
 Jane Welsh, as well as Thomas Carlyle, was most essentially 
 brave. If she had written an autobiography it would doubt- 
 less have been true. As the wife of one of Britain's greatest 
 sons, she must have anticipated discussion on her own charac- 
 ter and history, which have now become public property. 
 Carlyle, with unheard-of generosity and self-aspersion, has 
 endeavoured to throw his own character into the shade in 
 order to vindicate hers, and to raise her into a perfect heroine. 
 But it won't do. Her own confessions remain in black and 
 white, and his friends and loving disciples must try to clear 
 the noble character that has been so unmercifully defamed. 
 
 To continiie our narrative. Marriage was at last men- 
 tioned, to Mrs. Welsh's intense consternation. She had more 
 than once witnessed Carlyle' s occasional ebullitions of temper, 
 
48 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 and had had a life-long experience of Jane's irritability. She 
 was therefore full of mortal dread as to how these two fiery 
 natures could amalgamate. What scenes must inevitably 
 take place between them ! Besides, Jane did not even love 
 this poor, this unmannerly, peasant-born genius ! No one 
 knew this fact better than Jane's mother. But Jane had 
 taken her resolution, and some day meant to abide by it. 
 She was inflexible to all counter persuasions. Was she bereft 
 of her senses 1 What could induce her to throw herself away 
 on a man she did not love, and who apparently had nothing to 
 offer 1 She was possessed with an idea which had taken com- 
 plete hold of her — a prophetic idea. This man, whom her 
 mother so blindly despised, was in reality a great man, a 
 remarkable man, one who some day would be the companion 
 of the great and renowned men of his day. She felt intuitively 
 a positive certainty of his ultimate success. Over her he 
 exercised a power that mastered her spirit in spite of her- 
 self. She was always conscious of this, and this same power 
 she felt sure would rule others, and must eventually be 
 recognized by the world. She might safely, in attaching 
 herself to him, sink all her literary aspirations in forward- 
 ing his. She need no longer wear and tear her brain for the 
 distinction, the desire of which Irving so bitterly lamented 
 in her. No ! Carlyle would procure this for her. She had 
 sufficient intellect to discern a superior intellect, sufficient 
 discernment to know that her critical powers, her unceasing 
 endeavours to incite and stimulate him, would be effectual 
 in reaching the desired goal, her goal — celebrity — earthly 
 glory. She aspired no higher — all beyond was a blank. 
 '* I did not love Mr. Carlyle," she writes years after ; 
 " I did not love him ; I married him from ambition, and am 
 miserable." 
 
 Carlyle gratified her ambition with the whole strength and 
 endeavour of a life-time. Can he be blamed because after 
 tasting the sweets for which she so hungered she found them 
 so unsatisfactory? 
 
 We have nothing as yet to do with her marriage. She 
 accepted Carlyle as her future husband ; wrote pretty, cheery 
 letters to him ; received his dreamy, earnest replies ; laughed 
 at them, pondered over them ; treasured up every grotesque, 
 original expression ; gloried in and encouraged all the eccen- 
 tricities symbolic of his genius. He was engaged in trans- 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 49 
 
 lating one of Goethe's works, and sent the proof sheets for her 
 to correct. She failed to become interested in his characters 
 for the present. 8he was most concerned with his pecuniary 
 success. He must ensure her an income. She had no idea of 
 love in a cottage ; in fact she imagined she had done with 
 love. She was naturally an impatient, excitable creature. 
 •There was a kind of dare devilry about her that bewitched 
 men, especially clever, brilliant men. Nothing simpering or 
 affected could she tolerate, but she had studied and exercised 
 the art of pleasing to perfection. Having all her life been 
 accustomed to the society of gifted men, she was capable of 
 conversing with them on any topic. 
 
 Carlyle, even then, must have been acquainted with her 
 ambitious desires, but in his heart he believed them to be 
 subservient to her love for him. He imagined himself her 
 first love, and that she was coy in expressing it ; and had no 
 doubt that he should be able to mould her ciiaracter after his 
 mother's type, as she learned to love him more — tench her to 
 be earnest, gentle, religious. Alas ! she was already moulded 
 by a master hand. Try as he might he could never undo the 
 past, never alter the shape her mind had now taken, never 
 make her other than she was — stoical, all-enduring, stern, 
 sarcastic, brilliant, impulsive. 
 
 From London he wrote to her, " Do not mock and laugh, 
 however gracefully, when you can help it. I would almost 
 rather see you sad. It is the earnest, warm-hearted, affec- 
 tionate, enthusiastic Jane that I love. The acute, sarcastic, 
 clear-sighted, derisive Jane I can at best but admire. Is 
 it not a pity that you have such a turn that way 1 " 
 
 By this we see that she gave him occasional glimpses of 
 what she might have been under another's influence, under 
 other and happier circumstances. She replies in the same 
 mocking vein — " Pity that the follies of the world, and you 
 among the number, should so often call for castigation, Mr. 
 Quack." 
 
 She was no pliant clay to be moulded this way or that. 
 
 During 1824 — 1825 Carlyle was chiefly in London on visiting 
 terms with Irving, wretched with ill-health and constant 
 ferment of mind, to which Jane undoubtedly added con- 
 siderably. He took lodgings in Southampton Street, in close 
 vicinity to Edward Irving, and saw him daily. But it was 
 no longer the Irving of former years, and Carlyle blamed 
 
 E 
 
50 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 his popularity for his lack of confidence and coldness of 
 manner. 
 
 It must have been a trying time to Irving. With his usual 
 confidence in and love for the friend of former years, Carlyle 
 would tell him of his own hopes of some day winning Jane 
 Welsh for his bride — news bitter as gall, almost unbearable. 
 Poor Carlyle felt intensely his friend's want of sympathy. 
 Irving seemed to have far more patience with the mean people, 
 jostling and crowding about him, tearing his life to pieces, 
 than with his anxieties. He did not envy Irving his home- 
 life. Mrs. Irving he describes as " bouncing, frank, and gay, 
 by manner and talk always striving to be amiable. Ill- 
 looking, a skin always under blotches, and discoloured ; 
 muddy, gray eyes, which never laughed when the other 
 features did. Pock-marked, ill-shaped, triangular face, hollow 
 cheeks, and long chin. A strong wish to be good, but did all 
 she could to aggravate Irving's mistakes and weaknesses." 
 
 At times Irving seemed supremely miserable and dejected, 
 so incomprehensible to Carlyle, who thought he had married 
 the woman of his choice, however little he himself was able to 
 appreciate her. 
 
 Irving's strivings to " talk and even to think big," to Carlyle 
 were so very palpable, and ill- concealed his inward, confused 
 dissatisfaction. He was full of extravagances and aberrations, 
 bat there was still much "seriousness, beautiful piety, and 
 charity traceable." Still the old man, but the new element, 
 seemed so false, so abominable. An infant arrival seemed to 
 cheer him for a time. " Ah, Carlyle ! " he exclaimed, exhibit- 
 ing the precious morsel, " this little creature has been sent to 
 me to soften my hard heart, which needed it." One cannot 
 help feeling the deepest commiseration for this unhappy giant, 
 who had made such a miserable mess of his life, insanely 
 believing that he had no alternative. 
 
 During this time Carlyle made the acquaintance of Mrs. 
 Strachey, sister to Mrs. BuUer, a much more earnest-minded 
 and altogether superior person, " a singularly loving, pure- 
 hearted, noble woman." She took at once to Carlyle and 
 never swerved in her allegiance. Carlyle often visited her, 
 and was most agreeably entertained by his hostess and a niece, 
 named Kitty Kirkpatrick, who evidently found a great charm 
 in his peculiar fascinations. One cannot fancy the great man 
 flirting, but he condescended to allow certain kinds of women 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 51 
 
 to show him marked preference, without love on either side. 
 This Miss Kitty Kirkpatrick never forgot him during his 
 long and chequered career. 
 
 Somewhere in — 25 Carlyle visited friends in Birming- 
 ham, making London still his headquarters. During this 
 time he corresponded with Mrs. Strachey, whom he admired 
 chiefly for her unflinching veracity. She invited him to join 
 Irving in a visit to her at Dover. As soon as opportunity 
 occurred, he embraced the occasion, contemplating again settling 
 altogether in London on his return, especially if Irving could 
 receive him into his house. This idea was abandoned. He 
 and Irving, with wife and child, spent some time together at 
 Dover. From thence Carlyle went, with a selected party, over 
 to France, to Paris, which visit he found later on very useful 
 to remember, as he wrote his French Revolution. On his 
 return he received £100 for his Life of Schiller. 
 
 Still residing in Irving's neighbourhood, saddened by the 
 estrangement between them, one day, going by a Thames 
 steamer, he recognized his old friend's broad-brimmed hat 
 amid some passengers. He was with his wife and child. He 
 would no longer hurry to meet them, but hung back. Irving 
 the great, renowned preacher, he the obscure, unknown author, 
 why should he court his notice % He felt as if parted for 
 ever from his friend ; old days were all past and gone. With 
 such dreary reflections and a saddened heart he turned aside. 
 
 Finding his literary productions met with so little success, 
 he wrote despondently to Jane and offered to release her from 
 her engagement. But she was by no means desponding, and 
 in no hurry to be married. Again she cheered and stimulated 
 him to fresh efforts. 
 
 After fierce struggles in the big city, and disappointments 
 innumerable, he wound up all his London business, packed his 
 trunks, paid punctiliously every little debt, settled with his 
 publishers, and left his first great literary productions to the 
 neglect of the world, as he thought ! After making his 
 farewells — and they were by no means very few even then — 
 he set off again, northwards. 
 
 Irving and he took a last walk together, with their usual 
 interruptions. If Irving did not show bim sympathy in his 
 heart troubles, he did with his physical, dyspeptic sufferings, 
 and his intolerable miseries from London noises. They could 
 not proceed many steps without mutual greetings with men of 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 
 
 title and affluence. Conversation generally turned on prophecy 
 fulfilled or unfulfilled, Carlyle inquiring sarcastically if Irving 
 really expected to get any light whatever from such or such 
 an individual. Poor Irving ! His own mind was becoming so 
 darkened that he would welcome the slightest illumination. 
 They parted — Irving solemnly and earnestly pronouncing a 
 blessing on the man who was unconsciously robbing him of 
 every glimmer of hope. 
 
 On his way to Scotland, Carlyle passed through Birmingham ; 
 from thence to Manchester, and then across the wild Yorkshire 
 moors. Places now smoky from blast furnaces and various 
 manufactures, were at that time as exhilaratinpf as his own 
 Scotch hills. And what was he going to do in Scotland again, 
 this peculiar, ever changing individual, who had renounced the 
 Church, thrown over school-mastering, and every available 
 means of earning an honest living ? Well, he was going to 
 continue wielding his pen. Of his own capacity in that line 
 he had little doubt. At the same time he intended settling 
 at a farm which his father had leased for him, and where 
 his brother Alick would act as practical manager. 
 
 Haddam Hill was a picturesque little cottage, scarcely 
 worthy the name of farm. On one side was a magnificent 
 view. Here he would take long, solitary rides on his Irish 
 horse, Larry, for many years his faithful companion, whose 
 society never bored him, never interrupted his silent medita- 
 tions. He established himself at Haddam in May, 1825. 
 There he set up his small library, and wrote diligently ten 
 pages a day. His mother and one or two of his younger 
 sisters w^ere generally on the premises, assisting in the house, 
 and cheering him by their presence. Tiiere were petty 
 troubles, but he always looked back upon that year as one 
 of the happiest, most peaceful of his life. It was there he 
 conquered all scepticism, all agonizing doubts ; no longer felt 
 any concern in the " Puseyisms, metaphysics, ritualisms, and 
 cobwebberies," secular or religious, tormenting the outside world. 
 He experienced a pious joy and gratitude *' in the eternal blue 
 of ether." He looked through time and space into eternity, 
 and had become independent of the world, or so he thought. 
 As a fact he was not, no one living can be ; but in imagining 
 himself so he felt happier, and gained health and spirits. 
 
 He only remained one year at Haddam Hill, owing to some 
 misunderstanding with his landlord. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 63 
 
 In jNIay, 1826, his father removed to Scotsbrig with all his 
 family, Thomas among the number. The same year Jane 
 Welsh, being on a visit at Nithsdale, came over to pay his 
 mother a visit, when she gained all hearts. In this she 
 was always successful, if she only chose to exert her art of 
 pleasing. 
 
 The break-up at Haddam hastened matters. Carlyle was a 
 little in love, and in spite of Jane's assertions to the contrary, 
 imagined her more so. And so she was, but not with him, 
 unfortunately. The home at Scotsbrig was small, and with 
 so large a family it must have been a dithcult matter to find 
 quiet hours for study. Carlyle grew restless and feverish. 
 Some change was inevitable. He must have a house he could 
 call his own; he must have something permanently settled. 
 Jane must consent to wed him or decline to do so at once. 
 His patience was becoming exhausted. 
 
 He acknowledged that it was too much to expect that a 
 lady, reared in competence and luxury, should descend to his 
 comparatively poverty-stricken and obscure level. But she 
 had her choice. He offered her freedom, reminded her of 
 every disadvantage, almost predicted the wretchedness await- 
 ing her. She must, however, either grant or deny. If she 
 accepted him he would devote his life to her service, if she 
 denied him he would never blame her. He pointed out to 
 her what he considered the blessedness of a married woman's 
 lot — interests confined within four walls, time and thoughts 
 all centred in her husband, in serving him faithfully ; in 
 household duties, in humble, pious, social enjoyments. A 
 gentle, domesticated woman he would have made her, like 
 unto his saintly mother. He distinctly objected to blue 
 stockings. He wished her to aspire to doing the meanest, 
 commonest things with more than common excellence, if she 
 is to be his wife. If not content to do that, he fears she will 
 only become discontented and wretched, perhaps " despicable 
 and dangerous as a poor man's wife." 
 
 He did not see any chance of gaining a living by his pen, 
 for no power on earth would make him write for filthy lucre. 
 By that he meant that he could never write what he did not 
 from his very soul believe, to please public opinion. Such 
 authors he considered the most abject of men. Again he 
 urges her to remember the difference between his uncultured, 
 homely relations, and her educated friends, so utterly opposed 
 
54 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 in every way, socially, morally, physically. He adjured her 
 to give him up, to cast him out of her thoughts, and form a 
 more desirable connection. He concluded this epistle with 
 these words — " Yet I have a spirit in me worthy of this 
 maiden." 
 
 This she acknowledged. But she was indignant at the 
 decidedly matter-of-fact tone of his letter. To make her a 
 domesticated working wife would sink her heloiv his level ! 
 How could such an insane idea enter his generally over-wise 
 head ? She indeed ! settle into a mere household drudge, with 
 all her advantages, all her aspij^ations and ambitious designs ! 
 
 She wrote him an answer equally matter-of-fact, equally 
 precise, and to the point. She informed him that she knew 
 she was capable of a passionate attachment, of a self-sacrifice, 
 such as he demanded. But such a love she by no means 
 entertained for him. Her love for him never for a moment 
 robbed her of her reasoning faculties. He wanted to under- 
 take farming Craigenputtock, the estate then untenanted, 
 belonging to her mother ; she assured him he was perfectly 
 incapable of any such work. If he took to delving, the moss 
 would swallow up both him and his spade. Besides, she could 
 not be content to live one month in such a wilderness — not 
 with an ani'el for a companion, much less with a morose, 
 ill-natured, sickly man. When she married him against the 
 wishes of all her own family she would at any rate have the 
 approval of her own judgment. She must know that he had 
 means to keep her in something the same style to which she 
 was accustomed. 
 
 But still she declined to give him up because of the same 
 spirit within him which she acknowledged was indeed worthy 
 of her. SJie did not call Carlj'le seltish in his anxiety to make 
 her his wife. Why should others think so ? She must to him 
 have seemed bent on having him and no other for a husband ; 
 equally bent on waiting, like Micawber, for something miracu- 
 lous to turn up, to make the way easy. He almost entreated 
 her not to sacrifice herself ; but he was getting weary of being 
 sacrificed. He could see no vista of earthly prosperity, not 
 even in the far distance. 
 
 So again he wrote, thanking her for her candour, and 
 admiring the wisdom of her maxims. But as she was reso- 
 lute, he too must be resolute. The most miserable of 
 individuals are those who cannot decide. His life was being 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 55 
 
 wasted. To that he could not agree. Conscience cried aloiid 
 for him to put his shoulder to the wheel — to find his life-work, 
 and do it manfully. He admitted that his affection for her 
 was intertwined with every part of his life, must be necessarily, 
 W'lien she would not release him, while her affection for him 
 seemed quite subordinate to other principles. Though she 
 held to him so tenaciously, her happiness evidently did not 
 depend upon anything connected with him. What she desired 
 above all things was excitement and enjoyment. All he 
 longed for was peace. If she loved him truly, she would be 
 willing to make any personal sacrifice for that love ; if she 
 did not love him enough to find her entire happiness in him, 
 let her cast him from her utterly. 
 
 For seven years he had been tortured by her one way or 
 another. Having admitted to her that he loved her, he was 
 bound to hang on to her • she alone could release him, and in 
 fact he would have been thankful to her if she would do so, 
 tenderly, kindly ; for the renown, the wealth she anticipated, 
 he feared would never be his. And we fear it was the hope 
 of these alone that sustained Jeannie Welsh through those 
 and succeeding trying years. 
 
 INIr. Froude says that Mr. Carlyle was so loving to his 
 mother that he would not let the winds of heaven visit her face 
 too roughly. That was love indeed ; love lost in its object, 
 thinking first how to guard and foster it. True, indeed ', but 
 let us remember what a debt of gratitude he owed that loving, 
 gentle mother, and ask ourselves if she could ever have 
 written such a cool, calculating letter as Jane's. 
 
 The fact is plain enough. There was a higher, nobler love 
 between mother and son than between the lovers. In reply, 
 she again declared she had said nothing to anger, only to dis- 
 appoint him. How could he expect her to act as if under the 
 influence of passion, when her affections were in a state of 
 perfect tranquillity 1 All she asked or expected from him was 
 to earn a certain livelihood, and to exercise the profession of a 
 gentleman. Surely that was far from unreasonable. Some 
 day, as her mind expanded under his direction, her heart too 
 might enlarge, and she might learn to love him, as she was 
 capable of appreciating his goodness and greatness. She 
 generally managed to say something soothing to his vanity. 
 What man is there inaccessible to flattery 1 
 
 Thomas Carlyle must already have discovered that a 
 
56 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 marriage between them could not be a happy one ; but he 
 was destined to be still further enlightened, while the chains 
 which bound him were even more strongly riveted. 
 
 She declared she could not part from him, the only living 
 soul who understood her. She would rather marry him the 
 next day. If it were his will it would be another thing. 
 Then the bitterness all would be that he was unworthy. And 
 he believed her : felt quite sure that to give her up would be 
 dishonourable. (The very best thing to have done.) Part 
 from Carlyle she would not ; marry into poverty and obscurity 
 she would not. 
 
 But matters at last put a precipitate ending to her vacil- 
 lation, of which she little dreamt. 
 
57 
 
 CHAPTEE Yll. 
 
 If incurable grief be all steeped in tears, and lead us to pions thoughts 
 and longings, is not grief an earnest of blessing to us? — Carlyle. 
 
 There is no way of clearing muddy water but by letting it settle. — 
 Carlyle. 
 
 Edward Irving had made a confidant of a certain lady friend. 
 It was a comfort to him, if scarcely prudent, to find a sym- 
 pathizing ear into which to pour out his intolerable mental 
 torture. Sorrows shared are considerably lightened. This 
 lady was perhaps not very discreet, but she was staunch and 
 true, to the best of her judgment. The burden of his secret 
 weighed on her spirits, it was so unutterably, hopelessly sad. 
 In her anxiety to do good to both Irving and Miss Welsh, 
 she introduced herself by letter to Jane, as a personal friend 
 of her old tutor. Dexterously she managed to write disparag- 
 ingly of " the orator," as Carlyle now called him. She thought 
 it such a pity that the poor young lady should still be infatuated 
 w^ith a man who was the husband of another ; told her of the 
 all-absorbing interest he took in his church and in his family, 
 which almost left no room for any other friendship ; in fact, he 
 was no longer capable of giving any attention to other subjects 
 than home and religion. In writing this her motive was good, 
 but she did not write the truth, but a fabrication — Irving 
 never forgot his friends, never ceased to love Jane. 
 
 Not satisfied with writing to Jane, this well-intentioned but 
 rather oificious person wrote also to Carlyle, knowing that he was 
 the friend of both, and perhaps suspecting that he was being a 
 little duped by the disappointed but fascinating Miss Welsh. 
 She felt sure he must know something of the secret, so depress- 
 ing to his two most intimate friends, and spoke of the affection 
 being still " inextinguished " on either side. Could nothing be 
 done to bring them both to their senses "? She suggested that 
 
58 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Jane should come to London and have a glimpse of Irving in 
 his proud surroundings, and imagine how little capable he was 
 of considering any one outside his immediate circle. 
 
 Now for two years Jane had scarcely ever alluded to Irving 
 but in a " most satirical, contemptuous manner." It was worm- 
 wood and gall to her that anything could have prevailed upon 
 him to forsake her for another ; it was torture. She culti- 
 vated assiduously the faintest germ of contempt for the 
 popular man. No one should ever guess or hear that she 
 loved so insanely as that. She spoke of him with such bitter- 
 ness to Carlyle that if he had not been a most unsuspecting 
 character he must have guessed something, if only by the way 
 she aspersed her old tutor. 
 
 But Carlyle seems not to have had the sligh-^est suspicion 
 of the truth. Mr. Froude thinks the lady's letter even failed 
 to startle him. because he finds not a trace of his thoughts on 
 the subject ; but to a man of Carlyle's nature it would be such 
 a blow that no words could adequately describe. From that 
 day forth he would find out the inestimable use of silence, if 
 never before. We can fancy him wandering solitary on the 
 lonely moors in a passion of indignation, in such an agony of 
 disappointment in his friends that would have shamed them 
 to witness. Eut he controlled his indignation, and wrote 
 calmly to Jane, enclosing the good lady's letter to him. On 
 receiving her own epistle on the same painful subject, Jane 
 answered it at once, informing her correspondent that she was 
 engaged to be married to Mr. Carlyle. That was sufficient 
 reply to her remarks. She had no intention of allowing any 
 one to suspect she was mourning the loss of a false lover, the 
 husband of another. 
 
 The lady was thunderstruck, but in no way daunted by this 
 cool statement of fact. She implored Miss Welsh most ear- 
 nestly to re-consider her determination before she took so irre- 
 trievable a step, so ruinous to a man already burdened with 
 many sorrows and disappointments, unless she really loved him. 
 She reminded her that Irving's love for her might be all the 
 time indestructible, that accident might happen which would 
 set him free, and unless at the bottom of her heart she pre- 
 ferred Carlyle she solemnly adjured her never to marry him. 
 It would be such an unpardonable injury to one who had been 
 so true a friend to her. And Jane's heart misgave her. For 
 once she seems to have thoroughly despised herself. She felt 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 59 
 
 remorsefully conscious of the cruel way she had deceived one 
 who so entirely trusted her. His very confi'lence in her made 
 her guilt the greater. In her penitence and shame she deter- 
 mined at any rate to be true, then and there, whatever the 
 consequence ; to attempt no disguise, to make no excuse, but 
 to throw herself on his mercy. And as she feared the effect 
 of this knowledge might cost her his love, she felt it would be 
 an irreparable loss, almost unbearable. After such humili- 
 ating confessions, if he chose to cast her off, she could never 
 call him unworthy. She had purposely kept back the truth 
 from him, and would endure her just punishment. 
 
 Poor Carlyle ! what must have been his perplexity ? If he 
 had not been over head and ears in love before, he must be 
 still less so after such a letter of revelations ; and yet he was 
 too generous to turn her adrift. He wrote patiently and 
 sadly enough, that he quite lost hope of ever making her 
 happy, but if the marriage was to take place, the sooner it was 
 over the better for all. He did not reproach her, his soul was 
 incapable of any meanness. Pity almost overbalanced his 
 indignation. Carlyle's power of sympathy was his strongest 
 characteristic. 
 
 Miss Martineau, who personally knew him, says — " His 
 excess of sympathy was the master-pain of his life. He did 
 not know what to do with it and its bitterness, seeing that 
 human life is full of pain to those who look out for it." 
 
 Yes, like many another tender heart, he was the victim 
 of pity. The same friend declares that " Carlyle's affections 
 were too much for him, and were the real cause of the ferocity 
 with which he charged himself and astonished others." 
 
 Finding it impossible to conceal anything from him further, 
 Jane determined to go straight to his home, there to make 
 acquaintance with his humble relations, his still humbler sur- 
 roundings, and see if she really could tolerate such an existence 
 as he contemplated for her. Besides, it would be an unutter- 
 able comfort to her to make a clean breast of all her past 
 sorrows and errors, to hear him pronounce forgiveness, and 
 draw him still nearer to her, from sheer pity for her wrongs 
 and misfortunes. She knew the immensity of that great 
 man's heart — knew he would never fail her ; but in a noble 
 forgetfulness of the unpardonable deceit practised upon him, 
 would for ever protect her from future pain, as far as 
 mortal could. She was so gentle, so subdued in manner, 
 
60 THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 
 
 as to be scarcely recognizable, for she really felt contrite 
 and humiliated. 
 
 Having forgiven and condoned the past, lie seems never 
 once again to have referred to it. With unexampled generosity, 
 he spoke of that first visit of his future lady-wife to his 
 peasant parent home as sacred to him — so peaceful, so mourn- 
 fully beautiful. For at least one short week Jane was the 
 woman he wished her to be. 
 
 Truly there is no shock to the human heart so great but 
 time will in a measure alleviate it ; and he, at any rate, was 
 spared the affliction of a coward conscience. Some weeks 
 later he wrote thus in a note-book — it seems to give some 
 insight into the state of his mind at this time — 
 
 " Conscience, like my sense of pain or pleasure, has grown 
 dull. No w^onder ! and I secretly desire to compensate for 
 laxity of feeling by intensity of describing." After endless 
 unhappy reflections, he ends with these words in German, 
 which we will translate — 
 
 " Ach, Du Einzige, die Du mich liebst und Dich an mich 
 anschmiegst, warum bin ich Dir wie ein gebrochnes Rohr? 
 Sollst Du niemals gliicklich werden? Wo bist Du heute 
 Nacht 1 Mogen Friede und Freude, und Liebe und Hoffnung 
 Deine Gefahrten sein ! Leb wohl ! " 
 
 " Oh thou (unique) only beloved, thou who lovest me, and to 
 whom I cling, why am I to thee but as a broken reed 1 Wilt 
 thou never more be happy? Where wert thou last night? 
 May joy and peace, love and hope, be thy companions. 
 Farewell ! " 
 
 To whom could these words have been addressed ? He had 
 
 but just learnt how little Jane had ever loved him, and he had 
 
 candidly told her that it was ten years too late for him to 
 
 break his heart about her. At the commencement of the 
 
 same page, ending in such passionate tenderness, in a foreign 
 
 lansfuaae, he states that his feeline^s are all numbed — all sense 
 
 I'll 
 of pain or pleasure grown dull. It seems plain that he was 
 
 thinking of his reverential love, almost worship, of the noble- 
 hearted Margaret Gordon. Was he destined ever to see her 
 again ? We shall hear. But his destiny was to marry Jane 
 Welsh. Marriage, it is said, makes or mars the man. In his 
 case it did both. 
 
 But how to get married, when and where, was now the 
 anxious question. What numerous schemes they made and 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 61 
 
 abandone:!, both pulling different ways, with selfish and 
 unselfish views, and much determination. Neither intended 
 entirely to relinquish their old mode of life, or to separate 
 from family connections. 
 
 Jane sadly wanted to continue living with her mother ; she 
 being an only child, it was quite natural they should be 
 anxious to live together. But Carlyle was inexorable when 
 he had once resolved on anything. He did not want to share 
 another's home, he required a home of his own, and to be 
 complete master of it. 
 
 Mrs. AVelsh's ideas and his did not, and never would, coin- 
 cide. He neither cared for drawing-rooms nor drawinsf-room 
 society ; luxurious living disagreed with him, gorgeous furni- 
 ture was almost an eyesore to his unaccustomed eyes. The 
 society of the good or the intellectually superior he could 
 alone tolerate, ordinary people chattering and babbling mean- 
 inglessly on nothing bored him to death, however elegantly 
 or superbly attired. How could he consent to spend his days 
 in so uncongenial an atmosphere 1, 
 
 Mrs. Welsh, though somewhat feeble-minded, had a decided 
 will of her own, and having been mistress of the ceremonies so 
 long, could not submit to a master mind in household arrange- 
 ment. Haddington was now all alive with rumour. Tongues 
 were busy indeed. Jeannie Welsh, the belle of the town, Wcis 
 about to wed with Thomas Carlyle, the impecunious tutor, 
 the mason's son. What condescension on her part, what a 
 ■mesalliance ! She the admired, the beloved young heiress ! 
 
 Carlyle knew perfectly well what was being said about him, 
 but Carlyle was no slave to public opinion ; that never 
 weighed with him much. He knew his own motives for 
 stooping to marry a woman whom the world considered his 
 superior ; he knew they were neither selfish nor mercenary. 
 What mattered poor blind, human judgment ! Surely he 
 could face that storm for the sake of an unhappy girl who had 
 thrown herself on his mercy, who had herself chosen and 
 persisted in marrying him. 
 
 During this restless season there was no direct communica- 
 tion with Irving. We are not astonished. 
 
 Carlyle knew that Jane was full of brilliant expectations 
 concerning his future career. In imagination he was already 
 the renowned, successful man of letters, respected by everyone 
 worthy of respect, and much indeed was due to her influence. 
 
62 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Carlyle would make her see things in their true aspect. 
 These dreams of future glory might never be realized. He 
 might live and die, unknown, unheard. What then 1 He 
 entreated her to pause and think, to try and love the obscure 
 Thomas Carlyle, poor and sick, and not the imaginary Carlyle, 
 the renowned and wealthy. Keal love, however, was almost 
 absent as yet. They made almost superhuman e:ffort to 
 awaken it ; they used most endearing expressions, but the 
 very effort showed how weak it was. They had both an ideal, 
 they had both found and loved that ideal. Whatever ap- 
 proached theieto was beautified, but neither could recognize 
 that ideal in the other. 
 
 Now compare Irving and Carlyle, both great and good. 
 How like Jeannie Welsh and Margaret Gordon, both beau- 
 tiful, but as unlike as fire and water. Finding that Carlyle 
 would not consent to share her mother's house, the ladies both 
 gave in under compulsion. Carlyle was more than justified — 
 he was right in his decision. The match was altogether hateful 
 to Mrs. Welsh. She objected no less to Carlyle' s want of 
 fortune, of family, of prospects, than to his want of religion, 
 as she ignorantly thought, of good breeding, of good temper. 
 In everything she considered essential he was lamentably 
 deficient. 
 
 With a mother-in-law holding these ideas how could they 
 exist amicably together? But he was never selfishly incon- 
 siderate. He was unwilling to put her to such immense 
 efforts in tolerating his companionship. His chief objection, 
 however, was, that Mrs. Welsh would wish to bear rule in his 
 house, where it was manifestly his supreme right to rule. If, 
 however, she would consent to forget her own riches and his 
 poverty and scanty income, consent, in the spirit of meekness, 
 to make him her guardian and director, he would no longer 
 refuse to dwell with her. 
 
 Jeannie dared not even let her mother hear of such a pro- 
 posal ; she knew with what scorn it would be received. But 
 Mrs. Welsh decided her own future. She would leave Had- 
 dington, now become so hateful to her, and take up her abode 
 with her old father at Templand, about fifteen miles from 
 Scotsbrig, where next Carlyle proposed living with his parents. 
 He could consent to live Avith his own parents under any con- 
 ditions, he so loved and revered them. But they had far too 
 much common sense to harbour any such idea. They refused 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 63 
 
 point blank to allow a lady reared in affluence and extreme 
 gentility to share their humble way of living. Not that they 
 objected to her as a daughter-in-law at all. We daresay they 
 admired her immensely for her venture ; but they did not 
 want her to live with them ; it would be altogether unsuit- 
 able. The house itself was scarcely large enough to accom- 
 modate their own family, without any addition. So that plan 
 was effectually knocked on the head. 
 
 He next thought of a humble cottage outside the noise and 
 smoke of Edinburgh^ but within easy access of it. He would 
 have liked to have fitted up one such with the simplest 
 furniture, resembling as much as possible that in use at 
 Scotsbrig. He was never ashamed of his humble origin, had 
 an honest pride in his noble peasant parents, as well as 
 the deepest, unchangeable affection. He did not wish his 
 surroundings to be much grander than theirs. He had money 
 enough to begin life with, having already saved from his 
 earnings £200, and he thought he saw his way to earning 
 more. Why should a clever, intelligent woman, who had 
 a grand object in life, desire luxuries any more than his dear 
 old mother had 1 Having food and raiment provided for her, 
 and all essentials, what on earth did a sensible woman need 
 more ? Of mental food she would be surfeited. 
 
 This proposal highly amused Jane. She sent him a 
 characteristic reply, telling him how easily she could better 
 herself and her fortunes by accepting some other suitor, of 
 whom she had not a few. "A stammering Englishman 
 wanted to carry her down south. A cousin, a doctor 
 well established in Leeds, wrote that she was the first of 
 her sex. A young widower would be glad to make her step- 
 mother to his three interesting children." But she adds, 
 " But what am I talking about ? as if we were not already 
 married, married past redemption. God knows what is to 
 become of us ! " 
 
 His reply is worthy of his noble heart — " I do not 
 appreciate your proud boast of innumerable wooers. We are 
 not married already ; it depends still alone upon you if we 
 ever shall be. I do not write this in vulgar defiance, which 
 in our present relation would be coarse and cruel, but in 
 disinterested affection. I cannot bear your fair destiny to be 
 marred by me. Look around with calm eyes on the persons 
 you mention, and see if there is one among them whose wife 
 
64 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 you would rather be ; I do not mean ivhom you love hetter 
 th«n me, but whose wife, all things considered, you would 
 rather be than mine. Then I call upon you, I, your brother 
 and friend through every fortune, to accept that man, and 
 leave me to my destiny. But if my heart and hand appear 
 the best that this poor world can offer you, then take me, and 
 be content with me, and do not vex yourself with struggling 
 to alter what is unalterable, to make a man, who is poor and 
 sick, suddenly rich and healthy. You weep when you think 
 what is to become of us ! It is unwise to weep. Alas, Jane ! 
 you do not know me. It is not the poor, unknown Thomas 
 Carlyle that you know, but your ideal, the prospective, rich, 
 admired Carlyle. Oh, Jane ! I could weep too, for I love you 
 in my deepest heart. These are hard sayings, my beloved 
 child, but I cannot spare them, and I hope that though bitter 
 at lirst they may not be without wholesome influence. Do not 
 be angry with me. I swear I deserve it not. If you judge 
 it fit, I will take you to my heart as my wedded wife this very 
 day. If you judge it fit, I will this day forswear you for ever. 
 More I cannot do, but all this, when I compare myself with 
 }ou, it is my duty to do." 
 
 Mr. Froude criticizes this manly, straightforward, unselfish 
 letter unmercifully. 
 
 Compare Carljle's generosity and that of Isabella Martin. 
 Had she been capable of a tenth part of his self-abnegation 
 what different lives might have been written of the characters 
 in this book. Could anything be more utterly unselfish, 
 leaving himself and his fate for her to dispose of, utterly 
 heedless of personal consequences 1 
 
 Carlyle said he required neither the world's applause nor 
 favours, puddings nor breath, as he calls them. " Quite a 
 commendable conclusion," says Froude, " for himself perhaps, 
 but that he should expect another person to share this 
 unmoneyed, puddingless, and forlorn condition, was scarcely 
 consistent with lofty principle. Men may sacrifice themselves, 
 but have no right to marry wives and sacrifice them." 
 
 Now this is surely suflSciently insinuating that Carlyle was 
 over-persuading the comparatively wealthy Jane Welsh to 
 share his penury — a most unfair charge. He could not have 
 done or said more to persuade her against such a fate. She, 
 however, would not be persuaded. In a most decided manner 
 she writes that she had chosen him for her husband, and 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 65 
 
 should not change her mind. It was indeed she who had 
 chosen him more than he her. Since she so insisted, he begs 
 her to wed at once her wild man of the woods, and share his 
 cavern ! But she was in no hurry to share his peculiar 
 paradise, no hurry to part from her mother, and as yet they 
 had settled on no home. 
 
 When Mrs. Welsh decided to leave Haddington for ever, 
 Carlyle immediately thought that the old house, so dear to 
 Jane from old associations, would be exactly suitable for them 
 to occupy. Rather inconsistent, for one of his chief objections 
 to residing with Mrs. Welsh was the society she kept, " in- 
 truding fools," he styled most of them, from whom, when 
 master of the house, however, he could easily protect himself. 
 " A sort of deer he could easily dispatch." 
 
 Now considering these good people were Jane's old friends, 
 to say the least, we will hope she was not much attached to 
 them. Indeed, she herself could not tolerate stupid people, so 
 their absence would have been as great relief to her as to him, 
 if such they were. 
 
 Jane, however, refused also to live at Haddington. 
 Carlyle trusts Jane to accommodate her wants to her means. 
 " It is only our own stupidity that makes us straitened or 
 contemptible." He told her that he knew a man, a perfect 
 example of a happy man, Wightman the Hedger, a man who 
 hoped that after hedging and ditching were over, heaven 
 would be his inheritance. Of course Wightman' s wife 
 contributed in no small degree to that man's happiness. 
 She washed and cleaned, scrubbed and scoured, cooked and 
 sewed the day out and in. Did he expect Jeannie Welsh 
 thus to spend her days 1 She was not quite bereft of her 
 senses. 
 
 At last a house was found and settled upon at Comely Bank, 
 Edinburgh. It was situated on the outskirts of the town, 
 contained dining and drawing-rooms, a study for the master, 
 and several bedrooms, altogether a bijou residence, furnished 
 to perfection by Mrs. Welsh. Here, at any rate, she could 
 visit her beloved daughter from time to time. Then the 
 wedding-day was fixed and drew on apace, and Jane wrote to 
 an astonished relative and described her husband ; her special 
 property to be then — ours now. 
 
 " People would say he was poor, of humble origin, un- 
 polished, ill-looking, but in her estimation he was among the 
 
 F 
 
QQ THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 cleverest and most enlightened men of the day; that he 
 possessed all the qualities she deemed essential in a husband ; 
 a warm, true heart to love her, a towering intellect to com- 
 mand her, and a spirit of fire to be the guiding star of her 
 life ; a scholar, a poet, a philosopher, a wise and noble man, 
 one who holds his patent from Almighty God. 'Will you 
 like him 1 ' she asked. ' No matter whether you do or not, since 
 I like him in the deepest part of my soul.' " 
 
 Surely this was language reassuring enough to satisfy them 
 of her perfect contentment. 
 
 As the wedding-day drew near, they both grew terribly 
 nervous ; forewarnings perhaps that all was not really as well 
 as it seemed. It was an irrevocable step they were going 
 to take, and they both felt its solemnity ; truly the most 
 solemn, the most important event of a life-time. 
 
 " He is gey ill to live wi','' had said his loving mother, and 
 he himself doubted if he could make any woman happy. 
 Forty years later Mrs. Carlyle said earnestly to a young 
 friend, " My dear ! whatever you do, never marry a man of 
 genius ! " An expression certainly uncomplimentary to her 
 husband. ''The mountain peaks of intellect are no homes for 
 quiet people," says Mr. Froude. And we would ask why 
 not 1 For quiet people, we should say, the exact place to suit 
 them best. For an intelligent person to dwell with one void 
 of understanding one should think the greatest misfortune 
 that could happen to him or her. At Comely Back there is 
 no record that Jane was otherwise than perfectly contented. 
 
 But the course of my story has been broken off. There is 
 still something to say of the grand event itself. For days 
 previously Carlyle felt " splenetic, sad, sick, sleepless, void of 
 faith, hope, and charity." He knew well what he was about. 
 He was taking to himself a wife, who was not marrying him 
 for love, but for ambition, and he felt uncertain as to the 
 result of such an experiment. The banns had to be pro- 
 claimed in both churches, at which he felt too both ashamed 
 and abashed. They were to be married from her maternal 
 grandfather's house, at Templand church ; to breakfast there, 
 and the same day proceed to their own home at Comely Bank. 
 Carlyle suggested that they should travel by coach, or that 
 John should accompany them. Both seemed quite frightened 
 at the step they were taking. Jane saw all the whole affair 
 in a semi-tragic, comic way, both ludicrous and incougruous. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 67 
 
 If they had been going to the scaffold, they could scarcely 
 have tried to console each other more. She entreated him to 
 be more resigned, more benignantly disposed, or the ceremony 
 would be heartbreaking, and turned her sick to think about. 
 "Whatever it was, it would soon be over. '' Nothing for 
 us, but, like the Annan Congregation, to pray to the Lord." 
 It was Jane Welsh's delight to deride religion, then and 
 always. 
 
 Poor Carlyle tried to ease his mind, first by reading German 
 metaphysics, and then by Scott's novels. " Let no cold shudder 
 come over you," he wrote. ^' Do not call it an odious cere- 
 mony, but rather a blessed ordinance, sanctioning by earthly 
 laws what is already sanctioned in heaven, uniting two souls 
 for worldly joy or woe, who in God's sight have chosen one 
 another from amongst all men." 
 
 To all her further arrangements he had but to say — " Be it 
 as thou hast said." For once he was obediently conformable ; 
 only stipulated for three cigars ; if even refused that con- 
 solation, will not break off the match. 
 
 " My mother's prayers," he writes, '* (I speak in all earnest- 
 ness), are, I do believe, not wanting for either you or me ; and 
 if the sincere wishes of a true soul can have any virtue, we 
 shall not want a blessing." 
 
 He was loving his vivacious young bride, in spite of so many 
 things to deaden what was never the highest love of which he 
 was capable. Fortunately few human hearts are narrowed 
 to one exclusive love, banishing all others. The heart is 
 immeasurable in height and depth. Thank God for that 1 and 
 if we are debarred from perfect earthly bliss, by separation 
 from our one ideal, we have much remaining, deep and un- 
 changeable, and in eternity onc3 more re-union ! It is only 
 the cold, unloving nature that need despair of hope. A cold 
 heart is of itself a hell. 
 
 At last gloves, clothes, wedding paraphernalia were all 
 ready and waiting. Jane headed her last to Carlyle thus, 
 both sad and pathetic — " The last speech and marrying words 
 of Jane Bailie Welsh." 
 
 Again the instinctive piety of Carlyle's mind effervesces — 
 " Let us pray to God that our holy purpose is not frustrated. 
 Let us trust in Him and in each other, and fear no evil that 
 can befall us." 
 
 It was a very quiet wedding that took place October 17th, 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 1826, at Templand Church. Of Carlyle's relatives only John 
 was present. They drove off to their gem of a home in a 
 post-chaise, unaccompanied by Brother John, nor is it recorded 
 that the happy and nervous bridegroom indulged in one cigar. 
 They arrived early in the evening at Comely Bank, without 
 any mishaps befalling them, and there we will quietly close 
 the door upon them till we open it on another chapter. 
 
69 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 There seems indeed to be something in the idea of grim necessity, 
 which silences repining- When you know that it must be, your 
 sole resource is — So let it be I — Carlyle. 
 
 This is no work of fiction. Our story does not end with 
 weddinof bells. It is not a case of married and done for, but 
 rather married and begun for. 
 
 On entering their new career, husband and wife had each 
 a master passion. That of the wife, ambition ; that of the 
 husband, to work and gratify this ambition. Both equally 
 determined to do their duty. The confession remains — " I did 
 not marry Mr. Carlyle for love, but for ambition." The con- 
 sequences of such a marriage has to be told. Thomas Carlyle 
 once believed that love alone had prompted her to an act of 
 such self-sacrifice. 
 
 It must have been a terrible blow to a man of his calibre to 
 find out that this chosen wife was actuated by no such motive ; 
 that instead of sacrificing herself for him, she had been 
 already sacrificed, and looked to him to redeem the bitter past. 
 With grand, unselfish generosity he accepted the charge, and 
 resigned himself to the inevitable. When a wise man is a 
 fool, he is a fool with a vengeance. The question is — Was 
 Thomas Carlyle in this uncongenial marriage of his a fool, a 
 knave, or a martyr 1 Something of a fool, more of a martyr, 
 nothing of a knave. A fool because he expected good to come 
 out of evil ; a martyr, because he almost gave his heart's blood 
 for her gratification ; a knave he never was, he never could 
 be. He was like many another strong-minded man, victim- 
 ized by a feeble woman. He never victimized one. The 
 lion entrapped and fettered by the mouse. So it is. So it 
 will be. 
 
 But, alas ! men are never strong to suffer. Little troubles 
 
70 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 are ten times harder to them than to the poorest-hearted 
 woman. Minor miseries kill them. This is one other fact 
 which is an unaccountable mystery. This Mrs. Carlyle soon 
 found out, and from these she sheltered him through life, as 
 far as human power could. Mr. Froude tells us why. Not 
 from love, oh no ; but *' lest his work should suffer." 
 
 He never swerved an inch from his high aims, and she ever 
 urged him on in his intellectual pursuits. Oh that she had 
 gone a step higher, and that she could have been his true help- 
 meet ! Her aims were all of the earth, earthy, as must be the 
 aims of the most intelligent soul that has no faith, no hope of 
 its own immortality. Carlyle himself never lost this faith or 
 this hope. Jane seems scarcely ever to have entertained 
 them. This alone was enough to alienate the two. They had 
 entered married life without much love on either side, but, like 
 many others, expected it to grow. This is a dangerous specu- 
 lation for peace and happiness. Not even the highest 
 " mountain peaks " of intellect can exist satisfied, without 
 love. Love is of itself alone happiness, though passions are 
 torment. 
 
 These two original characters commenced life at Comely 
 Bank, determined to make the best of everything. Jane 
 wrote to her husband's mother to tell her " how much 
 happier and better Thomas was, now finally settled at Comely 
 Bank, and congratulating herself every hour of the day on her 
 own happy lot. He was so kind, and just the man after her 
 own heart, so tender to her when sick, and never a harsh 
 word, unless richly deserved. They saw a great many people, 
 but were never happier than when alone. To look at her 
 husband even was as profitable as any other occupation." 
 
 Though still not well known, Carlyle not being particularly 
 affable, they had chosen friends. Dr. Brewster, De Quincey, 
 and Sir William Hamilton were frequent visitors. They did 
 not reside long alone — soon Brother John was invited to share 
 their home. 
 
 Comely Bank life was simple, nay beautiful. After early 
 breakfast Brother John and Mrs. Carlyle retired to the little 
 drawing-room, exquisitely furnished like a '' lady's workbox." 
 A most amusing place for our great philosopher to contemplate 
 later in the day. The morning hours he invariably spent in 
 " softly scribbling, meditating, wrestling with the powers of 
 dulness till one or two." 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 71 
 
 He translated a German romance, wished most eagerly to 
 commence an Annual Register, with biographical notices of 
 noted characters lately deceased, essays, sketches, &c., but no 
 one seemed to take up the idea. "What a loss was their dense 
 stupidity to future generations ! However, he determined to 
 do what he could, and not to despair, particularly not to 
 despise the day of small things. 
 
 He longed ardently for work and plenty of it, feeling con- 
 scious inwardly of his own capabilities. Besides, work was as 
 necessary to him as meat or drink. At two o'clock he took a 
 constitutional, wandering by the seashore or into the city. 
 At four they dined. Carlyle was remarkably simple and 
 frugal in his diet, by choice and necessity, a well-cooked 
 mutton-chop, with vegetables and a little milk pudding, being 
 all that agreed with him. No elaborate cooking was required, 
 so that, supposing Mrs. Carlyle did it all herself, the work 
 would scarcely have been overpowering. 
 
 They kept one decent servant, and she, with the help and 
 superintendence of such a perfect housekeeper as Mrs. 
 Carlyle, would surely be able to keep clean a gem of a house, 
 wherein dwelt never a chit of a child. 
 
 Whatever Mrs. Carlyle did she was determined no mortal 
 should surpass her in, and she was just as anxious concerning 
 her husband's literary labours. If ever he flagged, his wife 
 spurred him on to renewed efforts. A veritable task-master 
 she proved, and in her criticisms as sarcastic as steel. 
 
 It seems sadly strange that Carlyle's constant complaint 
 was "utter loneliness" — he still lived alone and worked 
 alone. His wife could not penetrate into his heart of hearts 
 — the eye of love alone can do that, and read all that is hidden 
 there. No ! she w^as a true prophet, an incentive to go on 
 and on, but no true sympathizer. 
 
 Her very anxiety for him to succeed was too manifest. She 
 made haste for the renown she so coveted, and it seemed so 
 long in coming. She failed miserably to ease that over- 
 burdened heart and brain. Both toiled incessantly, says 
 Froude, but we do not think Mrs. Carlyle at that time at all 
 exceptionally hard worked, nor really at any time in her 
 history. Many a gentle lady marries into a life of much 
 greater loneliness and poverty, and in sickness and weariness 
 rears a large family of children. Carlyle was her only care ; 
 his success, her one grand object in life. 
 
72 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 He writes that his wife surpassed his hopes ; she might 
 easily have done that, and adds — " Why am I not happy ? " 
 *' A sick stomach, a heart full of bitterness and gloom. Why ] 
 My readers must satisfy themselves." 
 
 On December 7th, 1826, two months after marriage, he 
 writes in a note-book — " My whole life has been a continual 
 nightmare, and my awakening will be in hell ! " What a 
 retrospection ! What an anticipation ! Steady occupation, 
 however, never failed to restore him to health and spirits. 
 
 He sent his mother (after whom he seemed to long through 
 life) a volume of the Life of Henry Martin, telling her his 
 own hopes of future usefulness. He entreated her to believe 
 that in a certain sense he too would be a missionary to the 
 British heathen, an innumerable class then as now. He 
 begged them never to forget how truly he loved them all. 
 
 Jane cooked, and that seems to have been the extent of her 
 menial work at Comely Bank. She also did a certain amount 
 of sewing, but as an only child she did not care much for that 
 art. In the evening she studied foreign languages with her 
 husband and his brother until bedtime, or sometimes the now 
 learned doctor would go up-stairs and gaze through an open 
 window at the stars. As it was winter time, we are not sur- 
 prised to hear that he came down to his porridge supper, with 
 " nose dripping at the extremity." 
 
 It was a trim little cottage they now so peacefully inhab- 
 ited, far from all town nuisances — the noise, the smoke, the 
 people. Surrounding it was a little flower garden. Certainly 
 no purgatory, though inhabited by a man who often expressed 
 himself as deserving such a place of torment ! He took some 
 little pride in his visitors, and we never heard of his having 
 once shut the door in the face of intruders, wise men or fools. 
 
 People came on foot, on horseback, in carriages ; and after 
 all the fuss he made, he really enjoyed his little drawing-room 
 reunions in those early days of married life. They had also 
 invitations to dinner. These they decided neither to give nor 
 accept, under any circumstances. To a chosen few, selected 
 for some special good in them, Wednesday evening Avas set 
 apart for a cordial cup of tea and pleasant social intercourse. 
 Only decent, intelligent people would care to attend these 
 little gatherings. For them there was ever a hearty welcome. 
 
 One day he was gratified by receiving a letter of introduc- 
 tion to the editor of the Edinburgh Review, a certain Francis 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 7S 
 
 Jeffrey, who turned out eventually to be a kind of distant 
 cousin of his wife's. Carlyle, taking the letter with him, 
 called upon the grand little man, who at once recognized in him 
 a master mind. This acquaintance ripened into intimacy, and 
 he became a frequent visitor at Comely Bank. He was one who 
 invariably appreciated the society of pretty, intelligent women. 
 
 What was much more important, however, Jeffrey gave 
 Carlyle a real launch into literary work. Hitherto he had 
 only enjoyed occasional employment, now it became constant. 
 His first articles were full of humour, originality and spirit, and 
 attracted immediately the notice and admiration of the read- 
 ing world. They were, moreover, devoid of the grotesque 
 eccentricity of style that distinguished his later works. He 
 had at last secured a platform, and an audience for his 
 passionate, soul-stirring thoughts. He was heard, but was 
 not so successful in convincing as startling his readers. 
 
 His first paper in the Edhiburgli Review appeared in June, 
 1827, and attracted considerable attention. As months 
 advanced, Carlyle could not be ignorant of his many dis- 
 advantages. True, he occasionally found himself in congenial 
 society, and was acknowledged a; remarkable man, but in 
 every town there are purseproud, ignorant parvenus, high- 
 born, haughty aristocrats, and people of pretensions who can 
 never overlook social status. The most devoted of wives 
 could not shield him from many unavoidable annoyances of 
 a petty kind. He had a most imaginative mind, wonderfully 
 sharp ears, and most scrutinizing eyes. Would it be possible 
 that he could be unaware or unmindful of all the comparisons 
 drawn between him and his wife ? He, the low-born man of 
 genius, the Annandale peasant, the stonemason's son, a mere 
 nobody, who- had married a born lady, the heiress of Craigen- 
 puttock. The world would not know, that it was not until 
 after being married sixteen years, when he had made his 
 mark, and enjoyed the fruits of his labours, that he benefited 
 in the least from his wife's income, which was enjoyed by her 
 mother solely until her death. 
 
 A healthy mind makes a healthy body, a mind worn with 
 grief and sadness robs a man of strength and vigour. Carlyle's 
 physical powers were sacrificed in proportion to the extra force 
 he had to exert, to control his mental emotions, which were all 
 of prodigious strength, and often at agony point. 
 
 It mattered not what false prophets prophesied, or what was 
 
74! THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 said by unsympathizing friends, Mrs. Carlyle had always a 
 steady faith in her husband's powers, and hope in his ultimate 
 success. From the very first she had formed her opinion of 
 his abilities, his kind-heartedness and powers of sympathy, 
 and it never flinched. She approved of him entirely — proudly. 
 Oh that she could have loved him as thoroughly as she was 
 compelled to admire and esteem him. 
 
 One memorable day Comely Bank was honoured by the visit 
 of a no less distinguished man than Edward Irving himself. 
 Some time had elapsed since he had seen either of his two 
 friends. He had of course heard of their marriage, and came 
 to see with his own eyes how they fared — to see if Carlyle had 
 succeeded in eradicating the image of Edward Irving from the 
 heart of Jeannie Welsh. Yes, Jeannie AVelsh — she had refused 
 to drop her maiden name. She determined not to change 
 "Welsh for Carlyle, but to add Carlyle as an appendage. 
 What Irving discovered we can only guess, for as this is a 
 true story one dare not invent. 
 
 Carlyle describes the visit — " Irving called in quite a formal 
 way ; was cold and stiff, altogether unUke his former self ; 
 made a few remarks on the state of the weather, and discoursed 
 on prophecy." 
 
 He remained but a short time. Before going he insisted 
 upon praying with them, to Jane's consternation. This he did 
 in a standing posture, and then the door closed for years upon 
 that giant figure. He had found that little house exquisite in 
 its arrangements, the home of refinement and taste. Its 
 surroundings were congenial ; there was then " no isola- 
 tion, no wilderness, no forlorn puddingless existence." Jane 
 Welsh Carlyle, proud of her new position, and full of admira- 
 tion for her unselfish, heroic husband, sustained, we believe, 
 perfect self-possession, and gave Irving not the faintest shadow 
 of suspicion that he still reigned supreme in her heart. 
 
 Well done ! Poor broken-hearted Jeannie Carlyle ! 
 
75 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 The biographies of men of letters are for the most part the saddest 
 ciiapters in the history of the human race— except the Newgate 
 calendar. — Carlyle. 
 
 Like most men Carlyle may have had many secrets, but as 
 murder will out, so also do things one could wish to remain 
 buried for ever in the pages of the past. But now he has gone 
 and those nearest and dearest to him, we have his life's history 
 plainly recorded in his own reminiscences, in his wife's letters 
 and memorials, and in the published testimony of personal 
 friends ; thus we may try and penetrate into the inmost recesses 
 of his mighty heart. He was undeniably an unhappy man. 
 
 In marrying Jane Welsh he made a fatal but not a wilful 
 mistake. His motives had been far from selfish. He had no 
 cause for self-accusation, but the effect of that self-sacrificing 
 step was the chief cause of his melancholy misery. The heart 
 hunger, the utter isolation in which he spent his days and 
 nights, is unspeakably sad to think about. 
 
 To Carlyle the affections were of far deeper importance 
 than intellectual pursuits, however absorbing whilst engaged 
 in them. 
 
 Nor did a life of public success compensate in any way for 
 his private domestic sorrows — sorrows he felt bound to hide 
 from the world. Work was an antidote, but it never healed 
 his wounds, which day by day bled afresh, embittering all his 
 earthly life. 
 
 His honour and chivalry kept him silent, it is true. Beticence 
 was imperative. Had it been possible it would doubtless 
 have eased his aching heart to have poured out his griefs to 
 some sympathizers. But even to his wife he was bound to 
 be silent, and his whole life was one ceaseless effort to 
 
76 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 compensate to her for the grief another had inflicted, and to 
 forgive the deceit practised upon himself. He hoped and 
 intended that his secret disappointments should be known 
 only to his Maker, that they might be buried with him. But 
 time and pen have revealed all. Fortunately for us who 
 would know and understand all the workings of the mind of 
 our beloved master, Mrs. Carlyle was not nearly so reticent 
 as her husband. From her chiefly we learn the truth, whether 
 she meant us so to do or not, and we thank her for her 
 candour. God knows her powers of endurance must often 
 have been stretched to their utmost tension. Carlyle poured 
 out his soul in books that have immortalized tliem both. She 
 in her beautiful letters has interpreted much of their contents. 
 Both great hearts, though sadly crushed, were never wholly 
 broken. 
 
 It has been urged that the miserable secret of Carlyle's life 
 was his patriotism. Absurd idea ! Scotland, his native land, 
 he left voluntarily ; England, his adopted country, he called 
 a dog-kennel ; he never quite approved of it, and pitted 
 himself against all its ways. 
 
 Man was the object most interesting to him. He cared 
 intensely for the welfare of his fellows. Intense pity was his 
 chief characteristic. But of this he never made the slightest 
 secret. He had married his wife through pity, and through 
 life would shelter her as far as possible from further sorrow, 
 would never relax from his strenuous efforts to conquer the 
 world by his pen, that he might give her the only joys left, 
 friendship and fame. "When his searching eyes met her hope- 
 lessly sad ones, he was filled with unutterable yearnings to 
 console and comfort her, but he knew that though wed, there 
 was a gulf between them, an impassable gulf that no esteem, 
 no renown, no earthly honour could possibly bridge over. 
 Both hearts were desolate. Incapacity always irritated Car- 
 lyle, and his utter inability to fill up this void in his wife's 
 heart rendered him not only unutterably sad, but impatient. 
 He blamed himself, then he blamed her — but all in silence. 
 
 Irving's no less miserable fate lay like a dead weight on his 
 mind. Every new evidence of the distracted state of his soul 
 stabbed Carlyle with the reflection — How he loved her ! and 
 alas how she loved him, with a love as indestructible as the 
 grave. His own heart was naturally racked with inexpressible 
 gloom and dissatisfaction. If Irving had only been strong and 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 77 
 
 patient, what sufferings unutterable he would have spared 
 himself and his friends. 
 
 The happiest moments of Carlyle's life were those in which 
 he was absorbed in his work, when he became oblivious to his 
 own past, present or future, when he lost his own identity by 
 entering heart and soul into the characters he has so graphic- 
 ally pourtrayed, bringing them before his own mind and those 
 of his readers with marvellous reality. 
 
 By force of imagination he followed the hero, the martyr, 
 the soldier, the saint, yes, and the sinner, through all the 
 inner workings of their souls. Into each and all he incor- 
 porated himself. He felt stronger with the strong, both to 
 suffer or conquer. With the wretched he grew to despair. 
 With the martyred saints his religious enthusiasm kindled, 
 sympathy giving him powers of utterance, by tongue or pen, 
 that must once have animated them. Sometimes life to him 
 was the persistent contemplation of goodness, at others he 
 entered into the spirit of evil in its most diabolical moods, 
 and would feel himself horribly oppressed with the guilt of 
 their crimes. His own character was unchangeably true as 
 adamant, and when able to shake off the influence of painful 
 subjects, his " grimly tender smile would soften every rugged 
 feature, and beautify the natural stern expression that was 
 the outcome of his terrible earnestness and manifold dis- 
 appointments." 
 
 It was ever his most ardent wish to find some daily employ- 
 ment by which to earn his bread, and to make literature the 
 wine of life. He knew he was capable of many practical 
 things, " from the making of shoes to the engineering of 
 canals, or the architecture of palaces." Bodily exercise, more- 
 over, was a necessity to him. Yet in Edinburgh no practical 
 door of usefulness was open to him. This added to his depres- 
 sion, and made him feel himself pitted alone against the rest 
 of humanity, and he grumbled perhaps immoderately, but was 
 never ill-natured or unkind. 
 
 Finding, however, that literature was to be henceforth his 
 avocation, he wisely determined to deliver himself up to it, to 
 devote the whole energies of his gigantic mind to the per- 
 fecting of his work. He was always diligent, sometimes 
 desperate. He found it very difficult to write up to the public 
 taste. His employers complained that the opinions he ex- 
 pressed were impracticable, his theories and ideas saturated 
 
78 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 with German mysticism, that his language was un-English, 
 grotesque and uncultured. And yet the editors and publishers 
 were all after him, and his articles, though cruelly criticized, 
 were ravenously read. 
 
 Carlyle was never satisfied with his work, he never reached 
 the standard he had set for himself. Yet he persevered in- 
 domitably. The babbling of criticism appeared to him some- 
 times in his loftiest moments as unworthy of attention. The 
 world in general would shut him out from their society as an 
 inferior, yet he hoped by his works to influence the world. 
 The immense mass of mankind he believed " were very poor 
 creatures, poor in heart, poor in intellect." 
 
 Reader ! look round on the majority of your acquaintances 
 and ask if that conclusion is true or false. Remember, too, 
 that already he had tasted something of social ostracism, 
 during his struggling career, that alone would be quite enough 
 to add to his belief. He was no longer surprised or dis- 
 appointed at meeting with so little sympathy. It was an 
 accompaniment he expected through life. Yet, what he 
 wanted was to influence this " huge haggard world," and he 
 did, and does, and will do. 
 
 Besides being thus useful, he had his destiny and his wife's 
 to carve out. A gigantic task. There was his wife's ambition 
 to appease, his future greatness to secure. She must not be 
 disappointed after so heroically determining to share his 
 arduous pilgrimage, no, not if it cost him his heart's blood. 
 To do this, solitude for contemplation was absolutely necessary. 
 He must make tremendous efforts to be original, startling, 
 new, as it were apart from his fellows mentally. And Jane 
 urged him on persistently, allowing no relaxation. And yet 
 with more than a woman's inconsistency she grumbled, because 
 he was so uncompanionable ! And the reading world has 
 taken up her tone, and given her all the sympathy, all the 
 pity, and him all the censure. Besides this hidden motive, to 
 which he was a martyr, his writings were sacred to him. He 
 never penned a line merely to please ; never for money. Every 
 word proceeded from some inward inspiration, and what he 
 wrote he spared no labour to make perfect to the finest 
 fibre. 
 
 Now what did this strange man imagine his mission work 
 to be on earth 1 He had indeed much to say, and divers 
 people to whom to deliver his message, for the whole world 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 79 
 
 was his field. He had words of prophetic warning and entreaty 
 to the money-lovers, the pleasure-seekers, the idle, the selfish, 
 the canting members of society, and to all those who foi-get 
 God ; words of approbation for the earnest, the true, the dili- 
 gent, and words of encouragement for the feeble, the weakly- 
 striving, of whom there are so many. He, from his quiet 
 study, could reach the hearts of the earthly sovereign, the 
 statesmen, the nobility, the rich, the poor, master and servant, 
 the ruler and the ruled. Mighty indeed is the power of pen 
 and ink ! 
 
 Yes, he had a message, and he groaned in pain to deliver it 
 faithfully. It is in our possession now for all time. If any 
 intelligent man or woman can read any of Carlyle's books 
 without improving by them, or without discovering in each 
 page some short, pithy sentence directly applicable to them — 
 we pity them. 
 
 Of all beliefs he considered that of belief in God the most 
 essential. Next he would convince every man and woman 
 that they had some special task appointed for them on the 
 world's stage, and that it is all important how that task is 
 accomplished. Again, he impresses on every mind the positive, 
 urgent necessity of truth, the hatefulness and contempt ibility 
 of a lie. A man must know himself, must examine minutely 
 his own capabilities and incapacities, his peculiar virtues, if 
 happily possessed of any, and his own certain faults, however 
 deplorable or despicable. Conquer them victoriously in the 
 latter case ; make the very most of those in the first. He 
 insists — for though dead he still speaks — he insists that what- 
 ever work a man has to do, if only the making of a clay brick, 
 he should use all his energies in making it to perfection, look- 
 ing to God, not to man, as the Master. He believed no one 
 too great for manual labour, was firmly convinced that a 
 certain amount daily was beneficial and never degrading. 
 " Oh that I may write my books as my father built his 
 houses ! " was his exclamation — and he did. He taught, more- 
 over, that prayer to God, audible or inaudible, is the aspiration 
 of poor, struggling, heavy-laden souls towards the eternal 
 Father ; that to pray formally is an insult to the Almighty ; 
 to chatter meaninglessly on religion is irreverent ; to babble 
 about unspeakable mysteries, desecration of the Holiest of 
 Holies. Total silence is far safer, far more befitting the finite 
 in contemplation of the infinite, the creature of the Greater. 
 
80 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 To try and fathom the unknowable is presumption. There- 
 fore on religious subjects, or rather theological subjects and 
 all the religious " isms " of the day, he has little to say. All 
 religious speculations were hateful to him. To show mercy, 
 to fear God, and keep himself unspotted from the world was 
 Carlyle's religion ; and this he followed throughout his long 
 eventful life, as these pages will show. 
 
81 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 God is good. All this life is a heavenly miracle, great, though stern 
 and sad. — Carlyle. 
 
 Carlyle's reputation was evidently growing ; with it his spirits 
 rose, and his hopes with them, hopes of one day being " one 
 and somewhat among his fellow men." Hitherto he had held 
 a peculiar and undefined position in society. He had longed 
 for social intercourse of a deeper kind with the great and 
 influential, and knew that by his own tremendous efforts alone 
 he could force open the door of good society and be at one with 
 it. By high society he meant the learned, the intellectual — 
 the great actors on the world's stage ; not the idle, the luxurious, 
 the effeminate, simply because they were rich and of good 
 social status. With his limited means, however, he felt him- 
 self debarred from the society then available. The £200 was 
 gradually dwindling. The simplest home cannot be upheld 
 without expense. He had, moreover, impoverished himself by 
 assisting his own family, especially his brother John. His 
 earnings, though at times considerable, were uncertain, fluctu- 
 ating, and in gloomy moments dark visions of future debt and 
 difficulty obscured the present brightness. 
 
 Carlyle looked ahead. It was not in him to be satisfied 
 with mediocrity. He knew he had written well ; he knew he 
 could write better. To do so, however, positive solitude was 
 essential for him. At Comely Bank this was an utter im- 
 practicability. He began to indulge in waking dreams of a 
 Bobinson Crusoe life at Craigenputtock. 
 
 This was a solitary farmhouse, surrounded by steep rugged 
 hills and wild desolate moors, belonging to his wife's mother. 
 The rent would be less, which was a great consideration, dress 
 would be as unnecessary, as to fashion, as during the forty years 
 
 G 
 
82 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 in the wilderness, and food, from their farm produce, infinitely 
 cheaper ; all grave matters for contemplation. 
 
 His wife above all things was desirous for his literary dis- 
 tinction, and when he urged upon her his own conviction that 
 in that lonely spot he could conceive and bring forth thoughts 
 that would raise him above his fellows, her ambition more 
 than answered to his. 
 
 Immediate removal, however, was out of the question. For 
 eight months the subject was duly considered with all its pros, 
 and cons. It was very reluctantly that he saw the necessity 
 of renouncing every other but a literary occupation. He would 
 gladly have retained that as a luxury. 
 
 Hearing that a professorship in London University was 
 vacant, he was easily prevailed upon to apply for it, hoping 
 that with Irving's influence he might be the successful candi- 
 date. But the attempt failed. Irving, though still popular, 
 was not all-powerful by any means. 
 
 Poor Irving ! his day was on the wane already. He had 
 imagined that the world at large was going to be aroused once 
 more into reality and enthusiasm b}^ his thrice-blessed means. 
 He expected to achieve the unattainable ; to regain the lost 
 paradise. His new ideas were to permeate all minds. He 
 had infinite faith in the peculiar agencies he commenced in the 
 religious world. But he found out his fatal mistake ; his con- 
 gregation gradually changed in quality if not in quantity. 
 The great and the wise dwindled away one by one, either dis- 
 gusted or grieved by his wild prophetic language, his extra- 
 vagant canting terms and his unknown tongues. They could 
 not discover, as did his old friend Carlyle, " the real and 
 precious truths that still animated him." He was sermon 
 preaching, praying, or prophesying from early dawn till late 
 at night. During every holiday he laboured incessantly. By 
 these means he braced himself up to endure the heart-breaking 
 disappointment of his life. Religious frenzy made him forget. 
 The wear and tear would at any rate shorten the life he 
 valued but little. To spend and be spent was his aim. He 
 fought and wrestled manfully and mightily against sin and 
 weakness, "clutched and struggled after unattainable per- 
 fection," with a giant frame growing gaunt and feeble with 
 his gigantic eiforts. 
 
 Carlyle was always reluctant to blame Irving for any of his 
 extravagances. He believed the blame was intrinsically due 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 83 
 
 to the " prurient darkness, confused pedantry, and ostentatious 
 vanity " of modern Babylon, which almost intoxicated him 
 with overdone flattery, and was already contemplating casting 
 him into a pit of despair by its derisive abuse. Not yet ; the 
 process was gradual. 
 
 When Carlyle hinted to his Edinburgh friends his idea of 
 inhabiting Craigenputtock they were all loud in their protest- 
 ations against so wild a scheme, and used every argument 
 they could to dissuade him n gainst it. They did more. Hear- 
 ing that Dr. Chambers had vacated his professorship at St. 
 Andrew's University, they prevailed upon him to make another 
 attempt as candidate for that post. Always resolute in using 
 every available means to improve his position honestly, Carlyle 
 at once complied. After a few weeks of anxious suspense he 
 was again doomed to disappointment. Another " less original 
 and extraordinarily gifted" man was appointed. This was no 
 doubt a severe trial to both Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle, but to them, 
 and the world at large, an inestimable benefit. 
 
 Again, and almost as a last resource, he turned his thoughts 
 to Craigenputtock, as the most desirable spot on earth for 
 making his reputation as a literary man. He had many 
 demands for articles from different magazines, but it was 
 never easy work to Carlyle to write. The slightest noise or 
 interruption scattered his thoughts and threw him into a fever 
 of excitement, unaccountable and overwhelming. At Comely 
 Bank he did his best, but these interruptions could not always 
 be avoided in such a place as Edinburgh. Craigenputtock, 
 bleak and desolate as it was, would be far more in accordance 
 with his mental necessities. He had always done his best, 
 but he wanted to do better. At Christmas he persuaded his 
 mother to visit him at Comely Bank. His joy at her presence, 
 and his delight in showing her all the beauties and wonders of 
 their own Scottish capital, were unbounded. She, dear old 
 lady, enjoyed pleasing her gifted son far more than she did 
 the sightseeing, or the enforced idleness of a lady's life. She 
 had never been idle as many waking hours in her whole 
 previous career as she was during those days spent in Edin- 
 burgh. She remained with them three or four weeks, and he 
 vowed he would not change her for ten other mothers. His 
 poor old father he could nsver prevail upon to pay him a visit. 
 When the spring advanced he took his wife with him on a 
 return visit to Scotsbrig, and from thence they drove over to 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Craigenpiittock on a visit of inspection. The hon.<^e was situ- 
 ated ten miles from Dumfries, which was the nearest town 
 and station. It was surrounded by wild moors, huge rocks, 
 steep, rugged hills. This sounds grand in description, and yet 
 no one who has seen the place has ever called it a beautiful 
 spot. The immediate surroundings are rather flat, and un- 
 usually devoid of trees of any beauty. The house itself was a 
 plain cottage, with a front door in the centre, a window on 
 each side, and three at the top ; anything but picturesque in 
 appearance. A smaller cottage and outbuildinirs were separ- 
 ated from it by a large yard. This was inhabited by Carlyle's 
 younger brother, Alexander, who was again to be farm- 
 manager, as at Haddam Hill. 
 
 ]\Irs. Carlyle shuddered as she gazed on that dreary scene. 
 It seemed a desperate venture to take up their habitation 
 within those unfriendly walls ; the silence, the solitude were 
 awful in their intensity. But she knew her husband's heart 
 was set upon this scheme — she understood his reasons, she 
 agreed with true prophetic instinct to share his exile in the 
 midst of silence unutterable, that the world might hear. It 
 was a noble resolve — had it been less interested, however, 
 it would have been nobler. 
 
 We are glad to think that this terrible isolation met with 
 the desired reward. They returned to Comely Bank with 
 minds fully bent on bidding it farewell at the earliest date. 
 
 Many repairs were needed at both houses. There ensued 
 a season of wretched confusion and upheaval. Carpenters, 
 charwomen, vvorkmen, were necessarily employed, and our 
 irritable, sensitive philosopher found life at home a burden, 
 and sought out the libraries as oases in the desert, while his 
 wife, a thoroughly domestic genius, stayed in the house and 
 superintended the moving operations. It is our own firm 
 belief that she enjoyed the bustle and the excitement in the 
 midst of her unutterable " wae." 
 
 The last fortnight they were safely sheltered, and most 
 hos[)itably, at the residence of Lord Jeffery, who promised to 
 come and visit them in their Crusoe retreat at no very distant 
 date. Six carts conveyed their goods from Edinburgh to 
 their place of exile, and when they arrived, friendly hands 
 had tastefully arranged the handsome furniture in the different 
 rooms, trying to make it homelike for them. 
 
 Matters might have been much worse surely ! They had 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 85 
 
 the services of a very faithful domestic named Grace, and 
 Alexander Carlyle continually ran in and out. The natives 
 were, of course, illiterate, crude, rough, but as they went 
 there for the express purpose of avoiding society, they had no 
 cause to complain because they found none. They kept 
 horses, and when weather permitted, had daily morniug rides 
 together. A cow lowed in the yard, the poultry cackled, the 
 birds sang incessantly, and they declared they could " hear 
 the sheep nibble the grass." So sound wr.s not absent, even 
 pleasant sounds, nor the music most tolerable to Carlyle, the 
 twittering of birds. 
 
 When Lord Jeffery called with his wife and daughter, they 
 found everything bright and beautiful within that wilderness 
 home. He declared he expected to find Mrs. Carlyle hanging 
 on a door nail, instead of which he found her quite as ready 
 as in former days of carrying on a mild flirtation with him. 
 It was his custom with all charming women, and she perfectly 
 understood him. Carlyle was thoroughly amused and grateful 
 to him for cheering the grim life she lead by his side. His 
 great soul was high above all suspicion, meanness, and jealousy. 
 To see his sad little wife's face brightening could be only joy 
 to him. He knew his tongue was never formed for soft 
 flatteries, or endearing epithets. He could write them far 
 easier than he could utter them. She wearied awfully of the 
 very earnestness in which he spent a life in devotion to her 
 interests, while he rarely found words to express love or 
 sympathy, or the tender pity none felt more deeply than he. 
 
 Now Jeffery was the most egregious flatterer imaginable. 
 He never could drop that habit, it was his most conspicuous 
 and worst fault, all say that knew him. This famous little 
 gentleman became Carlyle's little Jeannie's " openly declared 
 friend, or quasi lover," resembling a little lap-dog. And, 
 moreover, Carlyle declared that " if flirting were a crime, his 
 Jeannie would have had a chance of being hanged a good 
 many times," for in those days nearly all crimes were 
 punishable by death. 
 
 Their visitors remained with them three days, and a very 
 pleasant change they found it. Mrs. Carlyle surprised them 
 by the information that the pancakes they were eating, and 
 relished so much, were made and tossed by her very own 
 hands. That fact itself must have improved their flavour to 
 the taste of the admiring Jeffery. 
 
86 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 They all parted with mutual regret — theh^ guests back to 
 the busy world, they to their lonely duties. 
 
 To Jane the solitude at times grew intolerably oppressive. 
 Carlyle was unable to bear the presence of a second person 
 when busy at his desk. After sacrificing so much towards 
 the attainment of an end, however, she would not be so mad 
 as to prevent the possibility of its fulfi.lment by miserable 
 complaints. She stood between him and everything that 
 could hinder him in his work. She read and criticized his 
 articles, fostered and encouraged his peculiarities, baked his 
 bread, cooked his food, mended his clothes, like many another 
 equally noble woman, and thus helped him to devote himself 
 heart and soul, uninterruptedly, to reach the celebrity she so 
 coveted. It was only for a time she laboured. Earthly 
 distinction was her sole desire. She scoffed at all religion, 
 and used language peculiar in any lady, and utterly impossible 
 to a Christian lady. 
 
 It must remain a matter of doubt as to whether Jane 
 Welsh was ever religious. From Irving's letters we should 
 decidedly think not. In one enclosed to Carlyle he says, — • 
 " Were I established in the love and obedience of my Maker, 
 I should rise toweringly aloft into the regions of a very noble 
 and sublime character, and so would my highly gifted pupil, 
 to retain whose friendship shall be the consolation of my life. 
 To have her fellowship in divine ambition would make her my 
 dear companion through eternity." 
 
 Again he writes — " Your desire to be distinguished by 
 achievement of mind is equalled only by your contempt of all 
 other distinction. I could wish that your mind were less 
 anxious of being enrolled amongst those whom the world has 
 crowned with their admiration, than among those whom God 
 has crowned with His approval." 
 
 Thus we see that there was not perfect agreement between 
 Irving and Jane Welsh in matters so essential as that of 
 religious belief. In those days, however, she was not the 
 " Pagan " her pious aunts named her later on. 
 
 This irreverence for everything pertaining to the Highest 
 life no doubt weakened her influence over Carlyle's naturally 
 devout mind. He hid from her his deepest thoughts, so that at 
 his best moments he was inevitably, as he expressed it, " the 
 loneliest man in all creation," totally apart from his wife, who 
 was deliberately unwilling to sympathize, as well as incompetent. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 87 
 
 Buoyed up through six years of tedious poverty and 
 isolation, with an unfaltering faith in her husband's future 
 greatness, she thus describes her life from day to day in the 
 *' wilderness " — " I am very content. I have everything here 
 my heart desires, except society, and even that deprivation is not 
 wholly an evil. My husband is as good company as reasonable 
 mortal could desire. Every fair morning we ride on horse- 
 back for an hour, and then we eat such a surprising breakfast 
 — home-made bread and eggs, &c. Then Carlyle takes to his 
 writing, and I, like Eve, studious of household good, inspect 
 my house, my garden, finally betake myself to reading, 
 writing, making, or mending, or Avhatever work comes fittest. 
 After dinner I lie on the sofa, sometimes sleep, oftenest dream 
 waking. In the eveniDg we walk on the moors, &c." 
 
 Surely this is not the heartrending terrible life of a neglected 
 wife ! Not, at any rate, altogether a tragic fate, " a strain on 
 heart and nerves from which she never recovered." The very 
 idea seems preposterous, when one considers the millions of 
 lives spent in tenfold greater hardships. 
 
 " Entsagen," was one of Carlyle's favourite expressions. It 
 means a fixed determination to do cheerfully without the 
 pleasant things of life. 
 
 Jane had declared formerly that she w^ould as soon think of 
 building her nest on the bleak Bass Bock as of making a 
 home at Craigenputtock, but she did not find it quite in- 
 tolerable, evidently, by her own account. To Carlyle, the 
 "sight of her elegant, graceful figure, flitting daintily amid 
 the wild heather of the lonely moors, and the sound of her 
 clear, ringing laugh in the dense solitude, was a blessing." It 
 seemed to him, as he looked back on his humble past, a 
 wonderful condescension on her part, to have married so 
 uncultured, if learned, a boor ; for he always depreciated 
 himself, was the shyest of men, though by no means the 
 meekest. Dumfries was fifteen miles by the road from 
 Craigenputtock, and it was not always possible to send there 
 for meat and provisions. Fortunately, therefore, there was 
 generally a fowl ready to be killed and eaten in the poultry 
 yard. 
 
 On one occasion, there came an unaccustomed visitor when 
 the larder was nearly empty. Undismayed, Mrs. Carlyle 
 mounted her horse " Harry," galloped off to Dumfries, and 
 returned to cook the repast, showing little signs of having 
 
88 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 accomplished a thirty miles ride previously. Does not that 
 prove that at that time she had considerable physical strength. 
 She was pre-eminently brave. For that alone her husband 
 might have loved and admired her, as well as for her many 
 other noble qualities. There is another anecdote of their 
 early years at Craigenputtock, which must not be omitted. 
 It was the depth of winter. The servant Grace obtained a 
 holiday to attend some fair. A terrible storm of wind and 
 snow came on. It was utterly impossible for the girl to 
 return in such weather, and useless to expect it. The night 
 passed, and the next morning there was nothing for it but 
 that Jane herself, or her husband, should get up, light the 
 kitchen fire, and get breakfast ready. They occupied separate 
 rooms. Mrs. Carlyle must have felt heroically inclined that 
 morning, for without rousing Carlyle, she descended into the 
 cold, empty kitchen, and began operations. She was necessi- 
 tated to go into the yard for coal or wood, but found without 
 assistance this could not be accomplished, as the door was 
 positively blocked up with snow. There was no help for it, 
 she was compelled to arouse Carlyle, who at once came 
 cheerfully to her assistance. He forced open the door, and 
 with spade in hand, carved his way through the snow, 
 returned with some wood to chop, fetched the coal, and did 
 for her everything he could, that was beyond her strength. 
 He then retired, leaving her to her household labours, and she 
 continued her task indomitably. There was soon a steaming 
 breakfast ready, of which they both hungrily and heartily 
 partook, wondering what had become of their valued domestic, 
 and where she could have found shelter. 
 
 After breakfast Mrs. Carlyle determined to complete her 
 labours as maid-of-all-work. She washed up the tea-things, 
 and commenced vigorously to sweep and clean the kitchen, 
 actually going on bended knee to scrub the floor. Having 
 completed all to her satisfaction, she turned into the scullery. 
 Suddenly she heard an unusual sound in the place she had 
 left, followed by an unmistakable smell of soot. Hurrying 
 into the kitchen so lately swept and garnished, she saw 
 a disaster that turned her heart sick. All her labours had 
 been exhausted for nothing. The clean floor was covered 
 with soot, everything coated in the dust therefrom. She 
 called aloud to Carlyle, who immediately answered her sum- 
 mons, and witnessed in dismay the wretched catastrophe. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 89 
 
 More than that, he did what he could to help, he cleared away 
 the soot. Jane was disheartened. She felt quite unequal to 
 the task of going over again the uncongenial task of washing 
 the floor ; once in a life-time sufficed for such drudgery. So 
 she turned her back on the uncomfortable scene, and betook 
 herself to snugger quarters. 
 
 Ere evening closed necessity again took her into the gloomy 
 kitchen. "While pottering about, the outer door burst open, 
 and to her intense surprise and delight she found herself 
 wrapped in the arms of her faithful Grace. Braving wind and 
 snow, this humble friend had made her way across the wild 
 moors to the solitary dwelling. " Oh, my dear mistress," she 
 exclaimed, "I dreamt you were dead." 
 
 Such an incident of devoted service is surely worth record- 
 ing, but we must remember, that this is the solitary instance 
 we have on record of Mrs. Carlyle " puddling wiih the soot," 
 of which so much has been said. 
 
90 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 "With him strong feelino- was continually a call to vigorous action. 
 He possessed in a high degree the faculty of conquering his 
 affliction, by directing iiis thoughts, not to maxims for enduring 
 them, but of plans of getting rid of them. — Carlyle, Life of 
 Schiller. 
 
 At Craigenputtock Carlyle wrote four or five pages of print 
 every day. He was, while writing, quite lost to humanity. 
 For thinking in, no place could be more favourable. Here he 
 wrote his Essay on Burns, his Miscellanies, and Sar^tor Resartus, 
 pronounced to be one of the greatest of all his works, in which 
 he strives to give utterance to the pent-up thought of years. 
 Penetrating through the clothes of the man, he proves that 
 the spiritual, the supernatural, is the real, the inner man, not 
 the outward, the all-important. It was not his aim to amuse 
 his readers, yet no writer could be more humorous. If 
 possible he longed to let some light into their souls, to enable 
 them to see how best to do their duty to God and to each 
 other. In all his writings there lurk forcible applications to 
 daily life. His endeavour was to divide light from darkness, 
 to distinguish friends from foes, truth from error, solid shams 
 from pure truth, to strengthen the heart as well as the arm, 
 for the conflict between good and evil. He could conceive no 
 happiness except as the reward of virtue gained over the 
 deadly enemies of the soul, raging incessantly in his own 
 passionate heart. It was not to be great (except for his wife's 
 sake), but to be useful, that was his own heart's desire. 
 
 A book must be the outcome of a man's highest nature, and 
 might be of infinite use for all time, teaching, cheering, com- 
 forting, advising. Books verily govern the universe. They 
 are essentially the fruits of the spirit — whether that spirit be 
 good or bad. In Carlyle' s books we have the essence of his 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 91 
 
 mind. He never wrote from the surface, but from the deepest 
 depth of his heart. 
 
 Is ecessarily Jane was much alone. Of that she ought never 
 to have spoken complain ingly, however regretfully. Such 
 complaints were totally unworthy of one who so ardently 
 desired dii^tinction. She did complain, however, and the 
 record must inevitably be to her discredit. It was rarely she 
 did so to her husband, lest it should retard or discourage him 
 in his work, but she did so to others, which was worse. 
 " Carlyle never asks me to go out with him, never looks as if 
 he desired my companionship. The exile is dreary and dis- 
 heartening," she wrote. In the evening, however, he invari- 
 ably joined her in the drawing-room, kept as beautiful in its 
 arrangements, in the Desert, as at Comely Bank. 
 
 Carlyle' s wonderful powers of language had no doubt won 
 her for his bride, raising her intense admiration as she listened 
 to him. This gift seemed to grow with years. After hours 
 spent in almost unexampled silence and solitude during the 
 early part of the day, he would sit at her feet in the evening 
 and pour forth whole volumes of thought, to which she listened 
 with wonder. But he complained that she herself had so little 
 to say in answer. It may not have been easy to answer such 
 a man, but surely she must have been aware how much he 
 needed her sympathy, in words as well as deeds. His own 
 thoughts oppressed him ; his endless strivings after originality 
 of expression, as well as idea, which was the sole hope of 
 earthly success, must inevitably have been a severe strain on 
 his mental powers. No effort to relieve or comfort him ought 
 to have been left undone on her part, yet she does not appear 
 to have made any special attempt to make him happier, 
 merely gave the encouragement that spurred him on. She 
 who to others was so communicative, and in society so 
 vivacious and full of repartee^ showed ennid in his presence ; 
 was silent ; indeed, so unresponsive that at times he would 
 entreat from her some sign of life. In reply she would bend 
 her head and impress a quiet kiss on his forehead. '^ Better 
 than nothing," she would say in excuse. They were not even 
 congenial companions, though each extraordinarily gifted, for 
 surely such scenes are the saddest imaginable. 
 
 They were not without visitors, dropping as if from clouds, 
 at Craigenputtock. In 1830, Margaret Carlyle, who was in 
 very delicate health, made a fortnight's stay with them. 
 
92 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Though far less educated, she was more companionable to her 
 brother than was his wife. Though seriously ill, she was 
 invariably cheerful. Later on she was taken from Scotsbrig 
 to Dumfries for better medical advice, but fruitlessly. On 
 June 20th, 1830, C;u'lyle was roused up at midnight by a rap 
 at his window. Sister Margaret was dying. He and his 
 brother Alick hurriedly mounted their horses, and under the 
 midnight, moonlit sky, galloped sadly over the fifteen miles 
 that divided Dumfries from their Desert home. Carlyle 
 entered the house at once ; Alick repaired to the stables to 
 put up the horses. They were too late — Margaret had passed 
 away. The brothers' grief wiis bitter, yet, though memories of 
 her were sad, they both had faith in reunion. A firm belief 
 in the immortality of the soul sustained Carlyle in every 
 bereavement. No man could have felt them more keenly. 
 
 It must have been that same or the following year that 
 Irving visited Craigenputtock, literally, " The Bill of the 
 Hawks." He came alone, unencumbered by wife or child, and 
 was franker and happier than he had seemed for a long time. 
 
 It was beautiful summer weather, and the two old friends 
 sauntered lovingly " in the safe green solitudes," conversing on 
 topics interesting to both. Such a season of renewed friend- 
 ship reminded them pleasantly of " auld lang syne," though 
 they could never be unmindful of the changes which now 
 divided their interests and their lives. They strolled once 
 more over the fields, across the wild moors, so silent, save for 
 the songs of the birds, the lowing of the cattle, or the mur- 
 muring brook. It grieved Carlyle to hear his friend's ravings 
 on tongues and prophecies, and miraculous gifts of healing. 
 But he felt sure that with Irving they were matters of real 
 conviction ; so, though he pitied, he never despised him for them. 
 
 For real honest belief he had ever true respect. They spoke 
 rather uncharitably of Wesleyanism ; considered it only fit for 
 gross and vulgar-minded people ; " cowardice and hunger, 
 terror of pain and appetite for pleasure, being the essence of 
 it." As Wesley was a founder of a new sect, so also was 
 Irving. Alas ! every additional sect but makes confusion 
 worse confounded. It is not our intention to compare their 
 tenets, or to notice their respective results on humanity, but 
 as we look back on the vista of years, we see how much more 
 powerful and more extensively recognized are those of John 
 Wesley than those of Edward Irving. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAHLYLE. 93 
 
 Carlyle drove Irving over to Dimscore Church and heard 
 him discourse — probably for the last time. The sermon seems 
 to have made but little impression upon our philosopher, 
 however eloquent, for he cculd not even remember the subject. 
 Jane did not go to hear. She remained at home super- 
 intending domestic affairs. She had never appreciated much 
 her lover's preachments, and would scarcely have patience to 
 hear him as the husband of another. What poor Jeannie 
 felt and thought during this strange visit who can say 1 The 
 years of mental torture were no doubt telling upon him and 
 her, for they .had not the contempt that would cure. The two 
 days' visit was soon over. Irving wrote of it thus to his 
 wife — 
 
 *' My dear wife, beloved in the Lord, — At Dunscore, Thomas 
 Carlyle came to meet me, and drove me up to Craigenputtock, 
 where I was received with much kindness by him and his 
 wife. My dear wife, what I owe to you in love and gratitude. 
 The Lord reward you and enable me to cherish you as my own 
 self ! Sweet home ! the dwelling-place of those I am most 
 hound to in this world. What a blessing is a faithful wife ; 
 but for your bearing and forbearing with me, what might I 
 not this day be 1 Your love to me has been very great." 
 
 Surely there is much cant, almost amounting to humbug, in 
 this letter — a letter enough to turn Mrs. Carlyle sick had she 
 read it, and yet have filled her soul with intense pity. But 
 Jane's pity was of a peculiar turn. " Beloved in the Lord." 
 Ah well ! that meant something, no doubt ; we leave it to the 
 initiated to guess what. The gratitude he owed her must have 
 been that she had given him cause almost to curse the day of 
 his birth, having blighted not his own only, but the life of 
 another, more dear than self. He would cherish her as his 
 own self. Poor woman, if that were all ! He would have but 
 little mercy on her. Bound ! Yes, verily, but the fetters she 
 had tightened upon him were no less of an iron grasp because 
 so feeble a hand had forged them. 
 
 Poor Irving ! Our heart aches for him as we write ', yet he 
 drove away with apparent cheerfulness from the solitary home 
 of the woman he had so wronged ! Surely that was a miracle 
 of itself. However, he knew the magnanimity of Carlyle's 
 great heart. He knew there would be no limit to his patience, 
 mixed, as it must have been, with pain unutterable when he 
 once more bade her farewell. And who can tell the storm 
 
94) THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 that raged in unhappy Irving' s great passionate heart as he 
 wrote that curious epistle to the wife he so strove to love 1 
 
 From Craigenputtock he rushed into further religious excite- 
 ment. He went to Glasgow, the scene of his early ministerial 
 labours. He wrote home of a certain Mary Campbell, who on 
 a sick bed, inspired with superhuman strength, began to speak 
 in an unknown tongue, to her own and everybody else's 
 edification ! His mind was evidently giving way under the 
 fearful pressure put upon it. 
 
 Then followed, as may be supposed, several other examples 
 of hysterical religious frenzy, especially among the young, to 
 which Irving gave credence. To him personally the gift of 
 tongues was never vouchsafed, nor could he by all his prayers and 
 entreaties save his own little darlings from their early graves. 
 "When his only son was sick unto death, his religious fervour 
 was so great that, having an hour to spare, instead of spending 
 it upon his boy, he wasted it on an explanatory chapter on the 
 Apocalypse ! To him, religious meetings were all engrossing, 
 and he calmly reposed wife and babes to the Lord's care, Who 
 in His mercy gathered them in His arms, leaving Irving with 
 but one little girl to survive him. 
 
 It is awful to think how much wrong-doing is perpetrated 
 for fancied honour, or in the name of religion and virtue ! 
 Carlyle's solitude, as he expressed it, was as sad as Golgotha, 
 but Irving' s religious world was mad as Bedlam. " Oh that 
 God would give rest to Carlyle and instruct him in His truth," 
 prayed Irving. " May God deliver me from the religion of 
 my friends," must have been Carlyle's petition. 
 
95 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Cast forth thy act, thy word, into the ever-living, ever-working 
 universe. It is a seed grain that cannot die. Unnoticed to-day, 
 it will be found flourishing as a Banyan Grove after a thousand 
 years. — Carlyle, Sartor Besartus. 
 
 After three years' diligent laborious plodding, Sartor Besartus 
 was completed at Craigenputtock in 1832. Carlyle admitted 
 it was a kind of mystical autobiography, not so much of his 
 actual life as of the workings of his inward, spiritual man. 
 Conscious himself, in a certain degree, of its literary merits, 
 he contemplated taking it to the metropolis with the hope of 
 selling it advantageously to some London publisher. 
 
 This book was the outcome of his solitary rambles on the 
 wild moors surrounding his Craigenputtock exile. He had 
 been passing through a fiery trial, and in writing gave utter- 
 ance to all the intellectual and speculative thoughts that 
 crowded upon his brain concerning God — His universe, and 
 man's position therein. He came to the conclusion that no 
 earthly paradise ought to be expected by any man. The true- 
 abiding home lies beyond these scenes. Like a true Puritan, 
 his aim was always to reach the individual heart. He gazed 
 at man from his hermitage with strange impartiality. To 
 high and low, rich and poor, he had the same message, burning 
 thoughts uttered in burning language. 
 
 What he despised, and would teach others to despise, viz. 
 earth's treasures, pleasures, fashions, forms, manners, shams, 
 cant, and all oppression and wrong. What he loved was God 
 above all, and his fellow man, pity for distress, industry in 
 work, sacrifice of self, honesty of purpose, truth in word and 
 deed, purity of heart, good works anywhere and everywhere. 
 This is the end of all Carlyle's teachings. His language is 
 strong, marred perhaps by his deep study of German writers, 
 
96 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 whose sentences have been declared to " commence one week 
 and finish the next." 
 
 True he had not had much intercourse with high society, 
 what he had had he did not over value. It was not his aim 
 to pamper to the tastes of the higher classes. He was one of 
 the people, belonged to them, and was never ashamed of the 
 fact. He wrote for their benefit. 
 
 He emerged from each solitary hour of reflection, true to 
 God and his own soul, and from his heart hurled fiery darts 
 against all the wretched shams, vanities, and tyrannies that 
 dominate all classes. For the world then, as now and ever 
 will be, was burdened with sloth, luxury, and falsehood. 
 
 His wife bravely insisted that he should go to London 
 with his manuscript, leaving her behind. How anxiously 
 she awaited news of his success ; but it was the old, old story. 
 Publisher after publisher scornfully rejected such a peculiar 
 work. In vain he paced the busy thoroughfares, unrecognized 
 and unknown, trying in vain to sell his MS., feeling himself 
 more solitary in the midst of crowds than on the desolate 
 Scottish Moors. 
 
 He soon sought out his first friend, Edward Irving, whom 
 he found deep in prophecy and other '' futile aberrations," 
 surrounded as usual by innumerable weak imitations of himself, 
 all in almost hourly expectation of the second coming of Christ. 
 
 An anecdote is related of a terrible storm bursting over 
 the church where Irving was preaching. The windows were 
 darkened by black thunder clouds. Suddenly the whole build- 
 ing was brilliantly illuminated by a vivid flash of lightning, 
 followed by a terrific peal of thunder. The preacher paused, 
 the silence was intense, the darkness deepened. Then the 
 orator's grand tones fell on the ears of the terrified worshippers 
 with wonderful power and harmony. " As the lightning cometh 
 out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also 
 the coming of the Son of Man be." The effect was marvellous. 
 At that time the gift of tongues had fairly broken out, like 
 an epidemic, among the weakest members of the church. 
 
 Carlyle was both disgusted and saddened at the mad course 
 his friend was taking, effectively alienating all but wild 
 fanatics from his church. 
 
 *'Poor Irving !" he exclaimed, "come to this. 'How are 
 the mighty fallen ! ' " 
 
 Carlyle was not long unrecognized in London, though still 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 97 
 
 unsuccessful in the sale of his book. He became acquainted 
 with many kindred spirits, and, at any rate for a time, 
 thoroughly appreciated their society — his old pupil Charles 
 Buller, whose friendship and esteem he never ceas^ed to value 
 inestimably ; John Stuart Mill, the *' Mocking Hayward ; " 
 Jeffery, the Lord Advocate, Mrs. Montague, Allan Cunning- 
 ham, and others, all of whom saw in Carlyle a master mind. 
 These men were all known for their superior intellect. What 
 comparison did the peasant's son bear with them 1 His 
 Jeannie should come and see with her own clear, far-seeing 
 eyes. He missed her sorely whenever absent from her. With 
 him indeed absence made the heart grow fonder. It was 
 never " out of sight, out of mind " with him. 
 
 He wrote and bade her come to him, and she was quick to 
 obey. In September she joined him in London. They took 
 apartments in Ampton Street, where they lived in the strictest 
 economy. We can imagine how proud he was to introduce his 
 cultured, charming, lady- wife to his new acquaintances. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle was never constitutionally strong, and never 
 as well as at Craigenputtock. During her London visit her 
 health was very precarious, but did not seem in any way to 
 interfere with her thorough enjoyment of her new life. Her 
 indomitable energy, her delight in the society of the dis- 
 tinguished and brilliant, her stoical endurance of all the ills 
 of life, and her unfailing spirits never deserted her altogether. 
 
 Too much of the very best society, however, was beyond 
 Carlyle's powers of endurance Solitude had become habitual 
 to him, and it was an immense advantage to him that he 
 could so safely leave his friends to be entertained by his wife, 
 agreeably and intellectually, when he retired to his den. 
 
 They early made acquaintance with Leigh Hunt, poet and 
 author of great renown, which ripened into a hearty friendship, 
 of whom more hereafter. 
 
 They did not see much of poor Irving, perhaps it was un- 
 desirable that they should ; but even when Carlyle called 
 alone, Mrs. Irving had always some excuse for her husband's 
 non-appearance. On one occasion they both called, were 
 admitted into the " Orator's" presence, and had the doubtful 
 benefit of hearing for themselves the miraculous gift of 
 tongues. 
 
 Mrs. Irving was engaged with the devotees in one room, 
 while Irving remained with his guests in an adjoining one, 
 
 H 
 
98 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 dandling his last baby on his knee, and looking peculiarly 
 uncomfortable. Presently, wild shrieks were heard from the 
 sacred chamber, which Irving calmly explained was the 
 miraculous gift of tongues finding utterance. 
 
 The Carlyles could scarcely contain their impatience. The 
 former quite agreed with his wife, who declared "that had 
 Irving married her there would have been no speaking in 
 unknown tongues. Of that there is not the slightest doubt. 
 It was his unsuitable marriage that proved his ruin. It 
 would perhaps have been better for Irving if they had entirely 
 dropped his acquaintance, but it was hard to wrench asunder 
 the life-long friendship which existed between these three 
 remarkable people. They never seem to have contemplated 
 such an idea. The mere suggestion might have had a harrow- 
 ing effect on the sensitive mind of the most wretched among 
 them, Edward Irving. 
 
 After pacing the streets fruitlessly for months, calling first 
 on one publisher, then another, Carlyle disposed at last of his 
 manuscript, and thought of returning to his desert home. 
 Before doing so they paid a farewell visit to Edward Irving. 
 These interviews must have been terribly trying to Carlyle 
 to witness, but he never seems to have raised the least objec- 
 tion to them, looking on with mixed feelings of bitterness and 
 pity. Both Carlyle and his wife, curiously, had a mutual and 
 intense dislike to Mrs. Irving. On this farewell visit she had 
 the audacity to kiss Mrs. Carlyle, who resented the act with 
 unutterably bitter disgust. How could she erase the impres- 
 sion of that hypocritical kiss 1 Carlyle quite agreed with her, 
 that it was an indignity to which she ought never to have 
 been subjected, a pain she ought to have been spared. Poor 
 Carlyle 1 How palpable was the fact that even yet in his 
 wife's heart he held only a secondary place. Partially he 
 had himself to blame. In that grand, unselfish letter, giving 
 her the final choice of marring or making the destiny of both, 
 he gave her permission to love another better than himself, 
 even if she decided to marry him. He knew not what he did. 
 But that fact must have been another strong inducement to 
 keep his own lips for ever silent on that subject, and he did it 
 religiously. 
 
 So once again they rolled away from the misfhty city, from 
 the faithful hearts of appreciating friends and kindred spirits, 
 from scenes of intense business and activity, to the awful still- 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 99 
 
 ness and unbroken solitude of Craigenputtock. There for two 
 more seasons they remained in almost complete obscurity, 
 cheered by letters from absent friends, and perseveringly 
 following their daily pursuits, however dreary. • 
 
 But Carlyle's fame was spreading farther and deeper than 
 he imagined. Across the wide Atlantic his published works 
 had reached the heart of an American genius, Ralph "Waldo 
 Emerson, who was irresistibly attracted and peculiarly influ- 
 enced by Carlyle's powerful mind. He determined to cross 
 the ocean, and become personally acquainted with the author 
 of those soul-stirring thoughts. 
 
 Arriving at Dumfries, he hired a conveyance to conduct 
 him to the Craigenputtock hermitage. Great and joyful was 
 the surprise of the lonely inhabitants to be honoured by such 
 a guest. They clasped hands as brothers, and gazed in each 
 other's faces to trace the impress of the inner man produced 
 thereon. They were neither disappointed. There were the 
 unmistakable signs in the deep-set earnest eyes, the grimly 
 tender smile, the massive brow of the one, and the delicate 
 refined features, the calm unwrinkled brow, the suave, gentle 
 manners of the cultured American. 
 
 " I found the house," says Emerson, '* amid desolate, heathery 
 hills, where the lonely scholar nourished his mighty heart. 
 Amid granite hills and bleak morasses the estate stands forth 
 a green oasis in the desert. Surely the loneliest nook in 
 Great Britain ! " 
 
 Emerson was no stranger to Carlyle. In his way he was 
 scarcely less solitary than his great contemporary. Each 
 longed for human sympathy, each recognized in their writings 
 a kindred spirit, struggling and wrestling continuously, in the 
 great battle, between the spirit and the flesh. Precious indeed 
 was this interview between man and man — when soul met 
 soul, stripped of all earthly trammels ; social status, clothing, 
 nationality, all forgotten, as they met face to face. It was a 
 memorable event in their lives, never to be forgotten. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle declared their visitor descended upon them 
 from the clouds in their desert home, and left her weeping 
 that he stayed but one brief day. As for Carlyle, with tears 
 dimming his eyes, he watched him depart like a vanishing 
 angel. 
 
 Emerson came upon them like an apparition, and comforted 
 them in their desolation like a ministering spirit in those few 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 short hours. The result of this visit was a correspondence 
 which commenced immediately, and was continued from time 
 to time to the very last — forty years. It is now given to the 
 public. Thoughts and sentiments which, if taken to heart, 
 may be of incalculable benefit to their readers of generations 
 to come, are contained in these unsurpassed epistles. 
 
 Emerson declared that '' Carlyle's gloomy views of modern 
 -civilization always ended with a laugh that cleared the atmo- 
 sphere, and that he was the most amiable and lovable of men, 
 the most catholic philosopher, forgiving and loving everybody." 
 
 Carlyle pronounced Emerson not only lovable, but an 
 intellectual lion, and a true man whom he could revere. To 
 find such a one was joy unspeakable. 
 
101 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Sablimer in this world know I nothing than a peasant saint. Such 
 a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself. — Carlyle, Cromwell. 
 
 It was during his last visit to London that Carlyle lost his 
 father. Before taking that journey south he had paid a visit 
 to Scotsbrig to see his honoured parents, and had enjoyed 
 pleasant chats with the old man, who was fast ageing, and 
 somewhat ailing. Little, however, did any one anticipate his 
 death. The Saturday previous to his sudden departure he 
 was slowly moving about as usual, and took his customary 
 pipe before the kitchen fire. He had always experienced, not 
 only a physical dread of the great change, but a spiritual fear 
 of the " King of Terrors.^' He was mercifully preserved from 
 a knowledge of the dread summons, passing away in his sleep, 
 unconsciously changing this mortality for immortality. 
 
 When Carlyle received the news of his bereavement in his 
 London lodgings, he betook himself to a solitary ramble in 
 Hyde Park, watching the brilliant equipages, and the knights 
 and dames of fashion prancing along the "Row." Even at 
 that sad moment he would not have changed existences with 
 the brightest of fortune's favourites. 
 
 How much gratitude and admiration he owed the humble 
 stock from which he sprang ! Over and over again he repeated 
 the words, " Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." He 
 too *'felt his feet upon the Everlasting Rock, and through 
 Time, with its Death, could see, in some degree. Eternity with 
 its Life." Surely his father's humble career had been that of 
 a true hero. 
 
 Is not the life of any man " remarkable which has been a 
 continuously faithful work in the vineyard of the Highest, in 
 whatever capacity ? " His father had been no ordinary man. 
 
102 THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 He had possessed " immense originality and rude uncultured 
 worth ; " working for no earthly fame, but under the searching 
 eye of the great Taskmaster. 
 
 " I have reason to think my father was proud of me, not 
 vain," says Carlyle, " for unless provoked he never bragged 
 of us. Here too he lived to see the pleasure of the Lord 
 prosper in His hands. Oh, was it not a happiness to me ! 
 The fame of the planet were not half so precious." 
 
 Yes, he had had a noble faith in his gifted son ; had 
 educated him against the advice of all his friends, who 
 prophesied that he would grow up to despise his ignorant 
 parents. When at the height of his celebrity, in alluding to 
 those days to Carlyle, the old man added pathetically, " Thou 
 hast not done so ; thank God for that." 
 
 No, indeed ; to his father that son declared he owed far 
 more than existence, a noble, inspiring example, which he 
 tried to imitate in writing his books. Carlyle did not believe 
 exactly as his father did — no man ever does. His father had 
 stood on the verge of the old world, while he stood on the 
 threshold of the new. Both were, however, equally true to 
 their convictions, and dared to act up to them. 
 
 But throughout his unusually long life Carlyle was more 
 or less dominated by the remembrance of the lessons taught 
 by father and mother. They never ceased to influence his 
 mind. Their reproofs, their admonitions, their approval were 
 never forgotten. All the mad ideas which animated the great 
 outer world, for ever changing in its opinions and customs, as 
 it does in its clothing fashions, failed to change Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 *' We are not to be passive buckets to be pumped into," he 
 said, " mere receptacles for ready-made ideas, but men capable 
 of being roused into independent activity." So Carlyle, though 
 never unmindful of early lessons, and devoutly grateful for 
 such parents, used his own independent judgment, and acted 
 up to the light vouchsafed to him. 
 
 His father, no less, had been endowed with a grand stoical 
 independence. All the wealth of the Indies would not have 
 constrained him from unflinchingly plodding at his monotonous 
 labour. He never desired any pecuniary benefit from his son's 
 success. Carlyle had given proof enough, surely, that members 
 of one family had a right to call upon each other from the 
 common purse. Indeed, his generosity to his family, when 
 almost in abject poverty himself, was almost Quixotic. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 103 
 
 And yet, since his death, it has been said that he selfishly- 
 hoarded up his money, and stinted his wife. Enough of these 
 contemptuous slanders at present. 
 
 There are several anecdotes worth relating of the venerable 
 James Carlyle. When our philosopher visited his old humble 
 home, he never thought it beneath his dignity to lend a hand 
 at any work, however menial, in which any member of his 
 family was engaged. 
 
 On one occasion he was energetic in assisting his father to 
 hoe turnips, and while doing so gave him one of his graphic 
 descriptions of Turkey and the " unspeakable Turk," to the 
 old man's infinite amusement. He had as strong a sense of 
 the ridiculous as his own son had ; indeed Thomas firmly 
 believed that had his father had his intellectual advantages his! 
 genius would have far outshone his own. No two men ever 
 more thoroughly enjoyed each other's society, none were more 
 humorous or could laugh louder or longer than they. 
 
 " How much lies in laughter," writes Carlyle, " the cipher 
 key wherewith to decipher the whole man ! Some men wear 
 an everlasting barren simper ; in the smile of others lies a 
 cold glitter as of ice ; the fewest are able to laugh what is 
 called laughing, but only sniff and titter from the throat out- 
 wards, and at best produce some whifiling cachinnation as if 
 they were laughing through wood ; of none such comes good. 
 The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for stratagems, 
 treasons and spoils, but his whole life is already a treason and 
 a stratasrem." 
 
 When Carlyle and his lady-bride paid their first visit to 
 Scotsbrig the old man was out. Coming in later on from his 
 farm labours, dressed in his working clothes, face, hands, and 
 clothes besprinkled with marks of the soil, with true filial 
 respect, Jane, disregarding all, offered him a dutiful kiss. But 
 the old man drew back. 
 
 " Nay, nay. Mistress Jane," he said, too respectful towards 
 his gifted son's lady wife to call her by her Christian name ; 
 "I'm no like to kiss the likes of you." 
 
 " Hoot, man !" cried his wife, distressed by the apparent 
 rudeness, though not without her share of the same feeling. 
 " You'll na refuse when it's her pleasure." 
 
 " Na, na," persisted the old man, softly putting her back, 
 full of admiration for her beauty and condescension. 
 
 He then disappeared, leaving the whole party somewhat 
 
104 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 disconcerted at such inexplicable behaviour. In a short time* 
 however, he reappeared, washed and shaven and dressed in 
 his spotless Sunday clothes, *' with metal buttons and all his 
 rustic bravery." 
 
 *' If you will, I will give you a kiss now," he said. 
 
 Truly Jane Carlyle must have felt that among all her higher 
 acquaintance she could never have met with a truer act of noble 
 chivalry. The politeness of the old Hebrew patriarchs, whose 
 lives he studied daily, and whose innate courtesy came as 
 natural to James Carlyle as to them, was a courtesy the 
 modern courts of Europe could scarcely exceed. And now 
 that grand old man was gone from them for all time, not 
 for ever. 
 
 Carlyle did not mourn his dead as one without hope. He 
 firmly believed that his father had been translated to be per- 
 fected ; he had gone from error to truth, from faults to virtue, 
 from suffering to bliss. The soul's prison was broken through 
 and had escaped to perfect freedom. His father's aspirations 
 had ever been for immortality, and had the Creator endowed 
 a man with desire that should be for ever unsatisfied ? 
 
 "It is a remarkable law in nature," says Addison, " that 
 there is nothing waste and nothing meaningless in the feel- 
 ings and faculties wherewith living creatures are endowed 1 
 Now, but for the doctrine of immortality, man would be an 
 exception to that law. He would stand forth an anomaly in 
 nature, with aspirations in his heart for which the universe 
 had no antitype to offer, with capacities for thought and 
 understanding that were never to be followed by objects of cor- 
 responding greatness, through the whole history of his being." 
 
 James Carlyle was gathered to his fathers, but his spirit 
 had gone to God who gave it. The fool alone has said in his 
 heart, there is no God. Thomas Carlyle was no such fool ! 
 *' Not lost, but gone before," he believed to the letter. 
 Though a true poet, Carlyle rarely indulged in rhyme. This 
 is, however, one of his rare productions — 
 
 BELIEF. 
 
 " It is an old belief, that on some solemn shore, 
 Beyond the sphere of grief, dear friends siiall meet once more 
 Beyond the sphere of time, and sin, and fate's control ; 
 Serene in changeless prime of body and of soul. 
 That creed I fain would keep, this hope I'll not forego, 
 Eternal be the sleep, if not to waken so." 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 105 
 
 Nothing, however, comforted Carlyle more, in his sore be- 
 reavement, than the beautiful resignation of his dear old 
 mother. "It is God who has done it," she wrote. " Be still, 
 my children." 
 
 And Carlyle acknowledged the Hand, and inaudibly gave 
 answer, " Yes, it is the Lord ; let him do what seemeth Him 
 good." 
 
106 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 For a man of high qualities it is rare to find a meet companion ; 
 painful and injurious to want one. Solitude exasperates or deadens 
 the heart, perverts or enervates the faculties. — Carlyle, Life of 
 Schiller. 
 
 After the somewhat excitable visit to London, Craigenput- 
 tock seemed dreary and isolated beyond endurance. Carlyle 
 himself named it ''The Devil's Den." Being debarred from 
 all social intercourse with cultured minds and kindred spirits 
 seemed to both of them an incalculable evil. They could not 
 resign themselves to such wearying obscurity, such dense 
 solitude, cut off from all human communication. 
 
 They now spoke more often to one another, and the burden 
 of their conversation was, "life in London." They had both 
 great and valuable social powers. Their society was a boon 
 in any house. It was not society, however, that had fascin- 
 ated Carlyle. He continued throughout life to grumble at it 
 and its ways, though he never had expected much from it ; 
 but the very fact that it had once ostracized him, made him 
 determine to conquer it, by virtue of his own brain efforts, as 
 many had done by much less powerful means. 
 
 Though his peeps into society had not quite infatuated 
 him, he enjoyed exchange of thought with lofty minds. So 
 he listened complacently to Jane's sug.^^estions of leaving the 
 Hermitage, sympathized entirely with her dissatisfaction, and 
 considered matters over. The cholera was then scouring the 
 country mercilessly. Every heart trembled in anticipation of 
 its deathly approach. Every morning startled eyes sought the 
 columns of the newspapers to ascertain its ravages. Ejacu- 
 lations of horror and dismay were heard, first from one and 
 then another in our vast cities, as if the dread summons had 
 searched them out. Secret fears were betrayed in look and 
 
THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 107 
 
 voice as eye met eye. Every earthly care was absorbed in 
 thoughts, first of prevention, then of cure. Prevention, alas ! 
 was often too late and cure impossible. The poor, who were 
 generally left to toil in misery and die in squalor, were then 
 the object of intense solicitation, lest by neglect of their 
 necessities the disease might spread. The awful pestilence 
 was no respecter of persons, when he stalked abroad. 
 
 But its influence acted as a great social reformer for the 
 time being ; no less a teacher, than a scourge. Beside plague 
 and famine, riot and revolution were hanging like two-edged 
 swords over the land. 
 
 Carlyle did not fear much for his own safety ; but he felt 
 for the distress and danger of the convulsions that threatened 
 the country. He hardly knew which was or might be most 
 direful in effect, the cholera or the anticipated revolution. 
 The latter disease had swept off in Paris several thousand 
 souls in the space of one day. Could cholera be more 
 destructive 1 
 
 Carlyle sought out day and night the cause of these terrible 
 national disasters. In his books he has given us the results 
 of his research. The Bishop of London declared that it was 
 by the providence of Almighty God that cholera came in our 
 midst ; so did most of the religious world. The physicians' 
 opinions were that the cholera arose from some pestiferous 
 exhalation from the interior of the earth. The superstitious 
 ascribed its visitation to the expected appearance of a new 
 comet ; and even poor Irving's tongues were supposed to have 
 emanated from the surrounding " amphitic " atmosphere. 
 
 Carlyle believed in none of these theories, nor did he 
 imagine that a universal fast insisted upon would in any way 
 mitigate the evil. Few indeed were the ills of life he ascribed 
 to a beneficent Providence. These were brought about chiefly 
 by stupid, human means. Wretchedness and want, filth and 
 starvation, the enormous overplus of wealth among the upper 
 classes, and the absolute need of the necessaries of life among 
 the millions, brought the accompanying scourge. The rich 
 were even then liberal enough in support of the spiritual 
 wants of the people, contributing no less than £300,000 
 annually towards religious causes, while starvation and want 
 were more abundant than Bibles. What was meat for the 
 soul was not meat for the body. 
 
 Plague and famine are inseparable. Let us look to the 
 
108 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 cleanliness and the larders of the masses of our over-populated 
 cities, and the ravages of disease will coDsiderably lessen. 
 
 But the awful pestilence was not confined to the crowded 
 cities, it crept silently but surely even to the distant hamlets. 
 Whether it really reached Craigenputtock we cannot remem- 
 ber, but if it had, it would have been met with no coward 
 fears. " Man who has reconciled himself to die, need not go 
 distracted on the manner of his death. God make us all 
 ready, and be His time ours ! " That was the spirit in which 
 Carlyle met the approaching danger. 
 
 Of the other danger of revolution he had much to say. He 
 knew that the greatest evils in Great Britain were the toil 
 that could scarcely earn its bread, and the hands that could 
 find no work. He was no party man, he was born for man- 
 kind, and if for the good of mankind he had belonged to a party, 
 he would have sacrificed both himself and it, for universal 
 good. Our laws were then barbarous in severity. The 
 punishment of death was denounced on innumerable criminal 
 offences, though never carried out but on twenty, now only 
 on one. Ought not laws to be loved because they are good, 
 not tolerated because they exist 1 If bad laws are passed, is 
 it possible to uphold and respect them 1 Political happiness 
 can only depend on political virtue. If men pay hypocritical 
 obedience to a hated constitution, without attempting to 
 reform its evils, they are only worthy of contempt. Magis- 
 trates in those days sat in judgment on persons, and sent 
 them to prison, for breaking laws which their own sons broke 
 every day. Influence and authority, wealth, learning and 
 ingenuity, combined to resist a reform that would lessen the 
 privileges they enjoyed and vindicate abuses that they con- 
 tended were bulwarks of the constitution. 
 
 The slightest improvement was of the highest importance, 
 and wherever a salutary change was necessary, Carlyle would 
 invariably advocate such change ; but never by violent measures. 
 *' Where violence might reign, let magnanimity supersede," 
 was his advice. The evils that menace a country ought to 
 make the highest in the land pause and see if any remedy be 
 possible, by amending the law or by acceding to public opinion, 
 if possible without endangering one's own conscience. Where 
 a truth could be discovered, or an error detected, Carlyle 
 marked them out — forced his readers to acknowledge the one, 
 and urged upon them to seek for a remedy for the other. He 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 100 
 
 was not all-powerful, he could not even attempt a great social 
 revolution ; but he could detect where society was all wrong 
 and out of joint, and point it out for the workmen to remedy. 
 It was not his function to set it right, and he never pretended 
 it was. He was more an onlooker than an actor. A master 
 can often find errors in workmanship that for the life of him 
 he could not rectify. 
 
 He knew the facts — " That the Poor were perishing like 
 neglected, foundered Draught Cattle, of hunger and over work ; 
 the Kich, still more wretchedly of Idleness, Satiety, and Over- 
 growth. The Highest in Rank, at length, without honour 
 from the Lowest, scarcely, with a little mouth-honour, as from 
 tavern-waiters, who expect to put it in the bill. A world 
 becoming dismantled : in one word, the Church fallen speech- 
 less, from obesity and apoplexy ; the State shrunken into a 
 Police Office, straitened to get its pay." 
 
 Any observant soul who considers the state of the Church 
 in those days, and regards it without impartiality at the pre- 
 sent time, must acknowledge that her clergy at any rate have 
 found great remedies and adopted them. ISTo longer sloth and 
 obesity, no longer surfeiting and even drunkenness, but mighty 
 efforts at reform, and visible results therefrom — activity, zeal, 
 temperance, charity. Carlyle has not spoken in vain in the 
 mouth of his Teufelsdrock ; nor has the State been without 
 its reforms. But " there remaineth yet very much land to be 
 possessed." 
 
 In 1833 Sartor Resartus was read far and wide, brought out 
 first in Frazers Magazine. Early in '34 Carlyle received the 
 following letter from Ralph W. Emerson — 
 
 " May I use the word ? I thank my God whenever I call 
 you to remembrance. I receive with great pleasure the 
 wonderful professor. I feel like congratulating you upon the 
 cold reception which you say Teufelsdrock has met. As it 
 is not earthly happy, it is marked of a high sacred sort. I 
 like it a great deal better than ever, and before it was all 
 published I had eaten nearly all my words of objection. But 
 do not think it shall lack a present popularity ; as God 
 maketh the world for evermore, whatever the devils may seem 
 to do, so the thoughts of the best minds always become the 
 last opinion of society. Truth is ever born in a manger, but 
 is compensated by living till it hath all fools for its kingdom. 
 The good word lives for ever, the impure word can only 
 
110 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 bury itself in the gross gas that now envelopes it, and will 
 sink altogether to ground as that works itself clear in the 
 everlasting effort of God. Strange to me that you do not 
 sympathize with Socrates — so ironical, so true, and who 
 tramped in the mire with wooden shoes whenever they 
 would force him into the clouds. I seem to see him offering 
 his hand to you across the ages which some time you will 
 clasp." Then he expresses a joyful hope that Carlyle will 
 cross the ocean and settle in America. 
 
 Again he writes — 
 
 " I write to implore you to take care of your health. You 
 are the property of all whom you rejoice in heart and soul, 
 and you must not deal with your body as your own. Oh, my 
 friend, if you would come here and let me nurse you and pasture 
 you in my nook of this long continent, I will thank God and 
 you morning and night. Come and make a home with me, and 
 let us make a truth, that is better than dreams." 
 
 Carlyle was so nearly yielding to his friend's persuasions, 
 that Emerson actually gathered for him every item of neces- 
 sary expenditure, arranged a series of lectures, and offered to 
 shelter and entertain them both for a year. 
 
 But Carlyle reconsidered his decision. He felt himself too 
 old for change. He doubted whether America would suit his 
 peculiar taste any better, or as well, as the old country. If he 
 hated the pride of purse and pedigree, he feared he should 
 hate the purse without the pedigree still worse. He had 
 little interest in the spirit of commercial enterprise ; great 
 wealth with its accompanying slavery in the attainment, and 
 idle luxury in the enjoyment, had no charm for him. But he 
 sincerely loved the American Emerson as a kinsman and a 
 brother ; cried over his speeches, declaring nothing was like 
 them since Schiller was silent. " May God grant you strength, 
 for you have a fearful task before you to do — great, the greatest. 
 Can I ever forget or think otherwise than lovingly of the 
 man Emerson ? Write and tell them that I have still a 
 brother soul left me in this world, and a kind thought-memory 
 far over the sea." 
 
Ill 
 
 CHAPTEK XY. 
 
 He whose pen we yet thank sits there, in stoical, meditative humour, 
 of tenest silent, accepting what destiny will send. — Carlyle, French 
 Revolution. 
 
 Having decided against emigration, Carlyle once again turned 
 his thoughts towards London, with its old associations, its 
 thousandfold historical interests, its innumerable resources, 
 of such infinite delight to literary characters. Husband and 
 wife were both of one mind. Craigenputtock must have 
 another tenant ; they must, metaphorically, " burn their ships 
 and march." 
 
 It took them some time to arrive at a decision ; having 
 reached it, they were not long in putting it into execution. 
 Leaving his widowed mother was the sorest trial of all. " God 
 be thanked, she wass till surrounded by loving sons and daugh- 
 ters," and would not be left alone. 
 
 When she learnt their determination to leave their native 
 Scotland, however deeply affected, she made little sign. No 
 tears were shed by that wise old mother. Her face bore trace 
 of firm resignation, mixed with unconscious pride. She had 
 unflinching faith in her son's genius ; but her hopes of his 
 earthly distinction alternated with fears for his immortal soul. 
 
 Carlyle's love and reverence deepened as he witnessed her 
 beautiful conduct, and he prayed "the Father of all" to be 
 ever near her, and grant them all a grand reunion in a higher 
 country. He wrote thus to Leigh Hunt — ■ 
 
 " It is actually true that we are coming to London. So far 
 has destiny and a little resolution brought us. The kind Mrs. 
 Austin, after search enough, has found us a house (we imagine) 
 
112 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 which is not far from you. It shall be farther than my widest 
 calculation if I fail to meet your challenge, and walk and talk 
 with you to all lengths. I know not well how far Chelsea lies 
 from the parish of Kensington, but it is within sight of the 
 latter that we are to be, and some trysting tree is already 
 gettino- into leaf, as yet unconscious of its future honour, 
 between these two suburbs of Babylon. Some days too we 
 will walk the whole day long in wide excursion. My best 
 amusement is walking. Innumerable, immeasurable, grave 
 forebodings hang over me as I write. Meanwhile there is one 
 good assurance — the feeling that it is a duty, almost a neces- 
 sity. My dame is also full of resolution for the enterprise, 
 whatsoever may follow it. I am writing nothing. As for 
 the unhappy Sartor, none can detest him more than my 
 present self. There are some ten pages fused and harmo- 
 nious, the rest is only welded, and may be thrown to the 
 swine," &c. 
 
 Some time before they quitted Craigenputtock Edward 
 Irving had been expelled from the Scottish Church on account 
 of his heresies. 
 
 Carlyle defines orthodoxy as My doxy, heterodoxy as Thy 
 doxy. Nothing could be more expressive. Irving had been 
 summoned to appear before the religious tribunals, and was 
 found unworthy to continue one of Christ's ministers, not 
 on account of extravagant language, his prophecies or speak- 
 ing in unknown tongues, but because he believed that our 
 Saviour when Incarnate was indeed Yery Man, endowed with 
 every faculty of man, able though never guilty of committing 
 sin. That was his chief heresy, and for that he was condemned. 
 
 On that visit to his native land he did not call at Craigen- 
 puttock, but continued preaching in the fields, as he was for- 
 bidden to do so in the churches. Crowds everywhere flocked 
 to hear him, among them Carlyle's youngest brother Jamie, 
 who dearly loved the " Orator," and brought home full accounts 
 of his sermons and personal appearance. 
 
 "When the Carlyles had resolved to take up their residence 
 in London, they did not deem it advisable to inform Irving 
 of their intention. Many and various were the motives that 
 actuated them. They knew him only too well, and could 
 understand how deeply he would feel the humiliation of his 
 deposition. They both truly loved him, and dreaded to see 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 113 
 
 the dire effects. " Surely the worst of madmen is the saint 
 gone mad." But it was becoming more and more evident that 
 his troubled soul was fast verging towards insanity. His 
 passionate emotions were exhausting his physical and mental 
 powers alike ; they were quite beyond his control in their 
 vehemence. The sighs of the heart-broken, the shrieks of the 
 despairing, the cries of the penitent among his hysterical 
 flock, each and all found an answer in his own dumb agony, 
 and powers of imagination. 
 
 But to return to Carlyle. In May 1834 he started for 
 London, leaving Jane to superintend the packing operations, 
 and his dear old mother to bear her company. So kind and 
 tender-hearted was she to her daughter-in-law, that she offered 
 to sit up all night by her side, that she might sleep more com- 
 fortably ', we need scarcely say, that she was not permitted 
 so to do. Having arrived in London, Carlyle at once repaired 
 to his old lodgings in Ampton Street, where he was warmly 
 welcomed, the good people of that house having quite an 
 affection for both him and his wife. 
 
 For days he tramped the streets in search of a house, re- 
 turning in the evening to the dreary apartments, where he had 
 neither books nor company, nor any available resource for 
 distracting his gloomy thoughts. Every house he inspected 
 had some insurmountable drawback. Kensington he de- 
 clared was dirty and confused. What place in London could 
 look anything else to a man lately emerged from scenes of 
 such silence unutterable, and cleanliness unspottable? 
 
 To add to his minor miseries, his feet became sore with 
 pacing the London flagstones — generally the case with country 
 people, and must be endured. One day while resting and 
 ruminating in Kensington Gardens, who should rise up before 
 his astonished gaze but Edward Irving — but how changed ! 
 His figure, gaunt and emaciated, looked like that of an old 
 man ; his raven locks were fast turning white, the dark 
 handsome face bore indelible lines of sorrow and disappoint- 
 ment ; his tall figure, though still erect, had lost all its 
 elasticity. 
 
 Irving' s astonishment was exceeded by his distress, that 
 his friends should have undertaken so important a step with- 
 out consulting or even informing him. Carlyle said what he 
 could to soothe him, for he was deeply grieved to see his 
 
 I 
 
114 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 visibly declining health. That he was a dying man he felt 
 intuitively. But it seemed quite impossible to arouse in 
 Irving's mind either anxiety or interest concerning his own 
 health. The summer weather he expected would set him to 
 rights again, was all he said. Carlyle chatted as cheerfully 
 as he was able, and managed to draw a smile and even a 
 laugh from his solemn friend. He was glad to have met him, 
 and to feel that if wanted he would be within call. A closer 
 intimacy was impossible, owing chiefly to the miserable jealousy 
 of Irving's weak-minded wife. 
 
 This meeting with his first old friend did but tend to 
 increase Carlyle' s melancholy ; happily for him he was com- 
 pelled to continue his house hunting. What endless bother- 
 ation he found it we can well imagine. In business he was 
 always prudent, and he was fully determined, whatever his 
 choice, he would finally decide on no house without his wife's 
 judgment. He wrote to her of his " poor Edward," and gave 
 her a full description of the various neighbourhoods he visited, 
 and the houses he inspected, bidding her to come as soon 
 as possible and decide for herself. There was one house in 
 Chelsea that made an excellent impression upon our eccentric 
 philosopher. 
 
 Leigh Hunt, who lived in the neighbourhood, had pointed it 
 out to him, and taken him over it. Its age, its dimensions, 
 and substantiality took his fancy. Chelsea, formerly the city 
 of palaces, was then but an unfashionable though genteel 
 suburb of London. The Embankment was not made till forty 
 years later. Boats and barges lay on the river, moored under 
 shady trees, while an odour of shipping and tar pervaded the 
 l)reezy atmosphere. The little street, with houses only on one 
 side, ran down almost to the water's edge. Exactly opposite 
 the house in question were lime trees, where now a great ugly 
 building, after the Peabody style, rears itself, effectually con- 
 cealing from view what might once have been fields and 
 orchards. 
 
 At the back of the house was a long, narrow garden, badly 
 cultivated, looking into what was once a bishop's pleasure- 
 ground. Bishops were in dreadful bad odour in those days, 
 through their determined opposition to the Reform Bill. The 
 interior of the house pleased Carlyle immensely. The lofty 
 . rooms, the walls wainscotted almost to the ceilings, the marble 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 115 
 
 chimney-pieces, and the shelves and cupboards, enough to 
 satisfy the most " covetous Goody " — a favourite name he 
 had given to his wife, in contra-distinction to the one he gave 
 himself, '• Illy." The rent seemed, however, enormous, £35 
 per annum. Should they make such a ventuie or not ? lie 
 called the area " The sunken story." 
 
 Battersea Bridge, now disappeared to make room for a new 
 one, was very near Cheyne Row, beyond which were the far 
 famed Surrey Hills, and Wimbledon and Clapham Commons, 
 over which he could wander for hours together, with or 
 without a companion. 
 
 After hearing that Carlyle had really found a house agree- 
 able to his peculiar taste, and in a neighbourhood within easy 
 access of green fields, wise Jeannie made no further delay. 
 Beturning one evening from a solitary ramble to his lodg- 
 ings in Ampton Street, Carlyle was greeted by the well-known 
 chirping of their little canary, "Chico." Mrs. Carlyle he 
 knew had arrived. She had retired to rest, w^earied out with 
 her long journey. She had not travelled alone, having 
 brought with her a remarkable maid, named Betsy Barnet. 
 The next day they all visited No. 6, Cheyne Bow, Chelsea. 
 Mrs. Carlyle quite approved of her husband's choice, and the 
 house was finally taken. 
 
 On June 10th, 1834, a damp, cloudy day, they all set out 
 from Ampton Street in an old hackney coach — Thomas 
 Carlyle, his wife Jane, Betsy Barnet, and Chico the canary 
 inside; luggage without end outside. Duriug the day the 
 weather brightened, thereby reviving their spirits. 
 
 So Craigenputtock was left behind, and the house at 
 Chelsea was in confusion, apparently almost inextricable ; 
 furniture, boxes, books and carpets, here, there, and everywhere. 
 Perhaps it was a blessed thing that Carlyle was still his wife's 
 sole care. No little feet were ever heard pattering about in 
 hall or on staircase, to interrupt with their innocent prattlings 
 the household operations, or disturb its habitual quietude. 
 Better so for both of them — yes, better so. She had there- 
 fore nothing to do but to set bravely to work to change that 
 scene of discomfort into the little paradise it soon grew to be, 
 the centre of a brilliant circle of distinguished men and 
 women, among whom Thomas and Jane Carlyle were destined 
 to be the most distinguished. Carlyle writes — 
 
 I 2 
 
116 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 "From the ever-silent whinstones of NitlisJIale to the 
 mud-rattling streets of Piccadilly there is but a step ! I feel 
 it the strangest transition, but one uses himself to all. 
 Our upholsterers, with all their rubbish and chippings, are at 
 length handsomely swept out of doors. I have got my little 
 book-press set up, my table fixed firm in its place, and sit here, 
 awaiting what time and I, in our questionable wrestle, shall 
 make out between us." 
 
 His literary fame was soon acknowledged ; his mind and 
 heart then, as ever, were full of all generous impulses. 
 Having settled in London, occasional visits to Edward Irving 
 were peremptory. 
 
 On one occasion Carlyle accepted an invitation to dine 
 with his old friend in Newman Street. He found him solemn 
 and sad, his mental agitation fast wearing him out. No 
 eirthly power could reach the disease from which he suffered. 
 There was not the slightest allusion to his chiirch affairs, nor 
 to his peculiar views, considered so heretical, but the sym- 
 pathetic Carlyle was thankful to return to his own little 
 paradise. Jane intensely enjoyed society, but strictly avoided 
 any extrav^agant ways. It should never be said of her, that 
 "the wife's pleasure proved the husband's ruin." Their daily 
 life at Cheyne Row was about as quiet as at Craigenputtock, 
 the evenings only brightened by distinguished visitors. 
 
 John Stuart Mill became a frequent guest, and assisted 
 Carlyle by loan of books and arguments innumerable. Leigh 
 Hunt sent constant little notes whenever he failed to put in 
 an appearance. They designated him a " talking nightingale," 
 his voice being particularly low and melodious, and his con- 
 versation inspiriting and cheerful, rising in power and 
 eloquence as the night advanced. Darwin soon became a 
 frequent visitor — " Always to be got," wrote Mrs. Carlyle. 
 Scotch Allan Cunningham rather annoyed his host by per- 
 sistently speaking only of Nithsdale, as if Carlyle's interests 
 could extend no further. The aimiable Charles Buller, the 
 clever John Stuart Mill, Mrs. Montague, Mrs. Buller, and a 
 little later on Miss Martineau Avere constant visitors. 
 
 Besides Carlyle's towering intellect and marvellous con- 
 versational powers, his personal appearance was also striking. 
 His tall, muscular, spare figure was almost military in its 
 erect bearing. His complexion through dyspepsia was "yellow," 
 
THE STOPtY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 117 
 
 as Jane described it, but when animated, tinged with the 
 colour of perpetual youth ; his eyes Leigh Hunt declared to 
 be the very finest he had ever seen, clear, penetrating, and 
 burning with latent fire under his massive brows. His man- 
 ner was that of a perfect gentleman, as modest and retiring, 
 yet with complete self-possession ; while his laugh was the 
 most genial thing about him, clearing the very atmosphere from 
 the gloom or irritation his frequent fierce language provoked. 
 
 He had no sooner settled in London than he contem- 
 plated writing his French Revolution, reading, studying, 
 ransacking the British Museum for that purpose. The 
 weather was intensely hot, and going so suddenly among tlie 
 children of fashion, he, poor fellow, at first felt bound to do 
 as they did, and was incessantly grumbling at the brimless 
 hat, which was then the order of the day. He grew wiser 
 even in such matters, and wore exactly what suited him best. 
 He had turned his eye towards London with a true scholar's 
 appreciation of its many advantages, but he met at first with 
 some bitter disappointments. His brain was always seething 
 with some kind of wild thoughts, unmanageable, inexpressible. 
 No words could he find strong enough to express his feelings. 
 In Sartor Resartus he had made some attempt to give utter- 
 ance to the volume of ideas that oppressed him. The book, 
 however, perhaps from its peculiar style, at first met with 
 little success. Critics wrote freezingly or utterly condemned. 
 The thinking and reading world acknowledged the unknown 
 writer to be a man of power, but without the refined tastes of 
 good society. " Is it then a certain fact," he wrote bitterly, 
 " that taste and riches are indissolubly connected "? That 
 truth of feeling must ever be preceded by weight of purse, and 
 the eyes be dim for inward and eternal beauty, till they have 
 long rested on gilt walls and costly furniture? " 
 
 A contemporary magazine declared Frazer, in which 
 Carlyle's Sartor appeared, to be a "coarse, stupid, illiterate, 
 foetid magazine." 
 
 Such criticisms stung Carlyle keenly ; but there are two 
 ways of establishing a reputation — immoderate praise and 
 immoderate abuse. Our hero received both without stint, 
 administered by wise men and fools respectively. By these 
 means, at any rate, his reputation is secured for future 
 generations. 
 
118 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 He had travelled enthralled over the whole field of German 
 literature, translating and making much of it clear and 
 beantifal even to English eyes. Unfeigned gratitude to him 
 for that ! Now he had come to London to seek bread and 
 work. What did he find? He was then thirty-nine, without 
 any remunerative occupation whatsoever, and in vain he 
 sought it for weary, weary months. He was literally one of 
 the great unemployed. By no means idle, however. He had 
 a wondrous talent, and God forbid that, whether recognized 
 or unrecognized, he should hide it under a napkin as an 
 unprofitable servant. Though mortal man refused it, the 
 great Taskmaster had given him work to do in His vineyard, 
 and faithfully he did it. Honour him for that, all ye who are 
 incapable of giving the great departed any other favourable 
 judgment. And does he not speak to you, ye poor suffering 
 millions, who endure, even as he did, the tortures, physical and 
 mental, of seeking work, remunerative work, and finding none? 
 
 Patience, patience, my poor fellow-sufferers, he would say. 
 There is an Eternal God, a present, all-seeing God over- 
 head. Wait ; seek first His kingdom and righteousness, and 
 the rest is sure to follow. Kever despair; never be hope- 
 lessly, unutterably despondent. Neither be ye buyable or 
 saleable, but true men, scorning to do, even for bread or 
 wealth untold, what would tarnish your soul in the perform- 
 ance thereof. God has given to each a talent, perhajDS only 
 one, and that a little one, but it is there — it is God-given — 
 despise it not. Seek it out, use it in His name, and it will 
 bring forth. It is God's own decree ; it shall bring forth, 
 perhaps thirty, perhaps sixty, or even a hundred-fold. 
 
 That time, that sad, dreary time no one wanted Carlyle's 
 services. Editors all turned their backs on him. His 
 language was not sufiiciently polite for high society, and they 
 particularly wanted to jDamper to the taste of cultured people. 
 
 The editor of the Times offered him work, but on his own 
 condition, he must write his articles to advance party cause. 
 Carlyle would none of it, " Parties might come and parties 
 might go, and self-interest go on for ever," but never lead by 
 Carlyle. He belonged to all alike, declined to barter conscience 
 or individuality for all the wealth of Europe, and defied 
 poverty to do its worst. His wife entirely coincided with 
 this grand independence. In writing of her later on he says— 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 110 
 
 '' Beautiful poverty ! triumphed over and victoriously bound 
 hand and foot by his too unacknowledged little heroine." 
 
 And he too could wait and work on indomitably, writing 
 to his beloved mother, that however desperate his circum- 
 stances, or however successful, he meant to live worthy of 
 her. A grand resolution, and difficult to perform in those 
 days, as in these. 
 
120 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 In the huge mass of evil, as it rolls and swells, there is ever some 
 good working imprisoned, working towards deliverance and 
 triumph. — Carlyle, French Revolution. 
 
 The final mercy of God appears to me the deliverance from life, 
 which has become too hard a task for us. — Carlyle. 
 
 Neither poverty, solitude, nor private sorrows ever succeeded 
 in entirely crushing the spirits of the Carlyles. Pressed 
 down almost to earth, they invariably reasserted themselves, 
 rose erect, conquered difficulties, and marched on their way 
 triumphantly. 
 
 During this time of forced failure, as it seemed, Carlyle 
 was never idle. Indolence was not only detestable, but a 
 sheer impossibility to such a man. Nature itself compelled 
 activity of mind and body. Undauntedly Carlyle continued 
 his unsuccessful literary occupations, and worked in his little 
 garden, while Jane worked in the house — he with no helper, 
 but his wife invariably with either maid or charwoman. 
 
 They had brought with them, with their usual common 
 sense, shrubs and plants from Haddington and Craigenputtock. 
 These he planted and tended assiduously. He kept neat and 
 trim the tiny plot of grass, and frequently washed the flag- 
 stones immediately outside the scullery door. Here he would 
 sit and smoke, grimly contemplative, or entertain his more 
 successful but not more gifted acquaintances and friends. 
 
 To them he made no secret of his diflSculties. Of poverty 
 he was never ashamed. Concealment of anything but 
 another's wrongs and weaknesses he abominated. Of his 
 own faults and mistakes he was nobly candid ; and if by 
 maligning himself, without a deliberate lie, he could exalt 
 
THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 121 
 
 a friend, he would scarcely have demurred. But truth was 
 precious to him, and neither for friend nor foe would he 
 condescend to lie. 
 
 No doubt his friends would have helped him but for his 
 sturdy independence, which seemed to put it out of their 
 power. His views were so peculiar, and his convictions so 
 strong, that they could scarcely comprehend him. Let us try 
 and see wherein he differed from others in those early years 
 of London life. 
 
 Excess was the order of the day in all grades of society — 
 in religion, in politics, in art, in wealth, in poverty. Religious 
 intolerance, extreme party views, minute details in art, often 
 almost disgusting in character, excess at table, among the 
 rich ; starvation, famine, and disease among the oft-degraded 
 poor. All these met Carlyle fresh from his Craigenputtock 
 simplicity, and horrified him wherever he went. 
 
 The kindly optimist poet, Leigh Hunt, thus describes the 
 routine of a rising young man of the day — 
 
 " A young gentleman of position went up to town to haunt 
 the lobbies of theatres, to destroy his constitution by vicious 
 living, and to bestow the remnants on some young lady of his 
 own rank in life, and then settle down into a proper Church 
 and King man of the old leaven, perhaps a member of the 
 society for the suppression of vice. This gave one the right 
 to be didactic ; exceeding want of faith in the sj irit, excelled 
 only by exceeding faith of the letter of Christianity." 
 
 Again he says — 
 
 "There was licenced contradictions of all sorts between 
 Christian doctrine and Christian practice in this world." So 
 there is, alas ! at all times. Is it to be wondered at that 
 London society astonished, charmed, and disgusted Carlyle 
 alternately, the disgust predominating ? " Carlyle was one of 
 the kindest, the best, the most eloquent of men, though not 
 always kind in tone." Boiling over as he was with contempt 
 and indignation, how on earth could he be " kind in tone " ? 
 
 Hunt wished heaven might prosper his denunciations, which 
 even ice can see heaven mercifully has deigned to do, for 
 things are improving; but he "regretted that poor Carlyle 
 felt so terribly in earnest about them, that he had the habit 
 of looking at them on the antipathetic instead of the sym- 
 pathetic side." 
 
 A vain regret. Carlyle had no sympathy with vice or even 
 
122 THE STORY OF THOMAS CAHLYLE. 
 
 with weakness weakly yielded to. He expected to see every 
 Christian professor trying to do manfully his duty to God and 
 man, to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul ; 
 and unless he did that as a professing Christian, he was a 
 hideous sham. 
 
 A Christian's aim and chief happiness must consist in a 
 perpetual warfare against vice, till he, with the manifold 
 weapons he possesses, tramples it under-foot. Basely to yield 
 to vicious habits was to be a coward deserter to the cause, 
 and should be treated with the contempt it deserved. There- 
 fore a drunkard, a debauchee, a profane person, or an habitual 
 liar calling himself a Christian was a most contemptible bipei, 
 scarcely worthy the name of man. An atheist, an agnostic, a 
 theorist like Robert Owen, who dropped all creeds, was far 
 more worthy of respect. 
 
 Carlyle and his wife had both a voracious appetite for inter- 
 course with their fellows ; but some equality of mind was 
 necessary to make it pleasurable or profitable. In his hermit- 
 age he had dreamt of a society being possible not '* founded on 
 cloth," a society of highly gifted, intellectual, virtuous people, 
 who would be bright, inspiring examples of godly life rather 
 than godly talk ; who would let more light into the peasant-born 
 soul, widen his sympathies, perfect his moral perceptions, open 
 out to his vision a higher life than ever yet he had attained. 
 Such souls he was ready to honour, to love, to revere ; but, 
 alas ! they were few and far between. A society of such seemed 
 impossible in "huge smoky London." Here an individual, 
 self wrecked, verging on eternity ; there another far over the 
 deep blue sea. 
 
 Few indeed were Carlyle's friendships, but they were all 
 lifelong. When disappointed he retired within himself, looked 
 back to his peasant home, and believed verily that the 
 purest, the noblest, perhaps the most cultured society lay 
 there. The Bible he ever regarded as the gi-eatest civilizer 
 and best book. No one well read in old Hebrew lore could 
 possibly be ignorant or uncultured, no one totally unacquainted 
 with its pages could be perfectly educated. Its inspirations 
 breathed the purity, gentleness, courtesy, honesty, truth, law, 
 order, cleanliness. In sublime poetry, in splendid prose pro- 
 ductions and quaintest proverbs it has never been equalled. 
 Well studied, it could not fail to teach every essential for 
 man's or for national welfare. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 123 
 
 Such culture now-a-days is within the grasp of every child, 
 and though esteemed among the least of educational advantages, 
 is in reality the greatest ; allowed to be so by the most learned 
 intellects the globe has ever produced. Drunkenness, far more 
 common in those days than in these, he never laughed at or 
 pitied as a weakness, but loathed as a disgusting vice ; so was 
 gluttony, sensuality, and deliberate lying. He never posed 
 before the world as an apostle or a saint, but he never allowed 
 animal passions to dominate him. For a man with God-given 
 intellect to debase himself to the condition of a brute beast 
 was conduct no words were strong enough to condemn. He 
 had more toleration for teetotalism, though it is a kind of 
 maudlin acknowledgment of human weakness being excusable, 
 and an encouragement to people by sympathizing with their 
 vicious propensities, instead of making them downright honestly 
 ashamed of them. 
 
 All classes were dominated by aristocratic tendencies. A 
 lord, a duke, a man in high position were venerated, not for 
 any virtue they possessed in themselves, but merely on account 
 of their social advantages. 
 
 To a man devoid of wisdom, be he a king or a beggar, 
 Carlyle could yield no reverence, neither could he tolerate 
 bishops and clergy, who were more renowned for surfeiting than 
 for their good deeds. Professed piety and selfishness going 
 hand in hand, and comfortably tolerated, gave a contemptuous 
 bias to Carlyle' s mind. In the most exalted stations low habits 
 were the custom. " Righteousness alone exalteth a nation," 
 and national righteousness was the dream of his life. He 
 hated the constant quibbling on theological subjects, " split- 
 ting dogmas and doctrines into hairs," but he never complained 
 of too much Bible or too much real religion. At Craigen- 
 puttock he regularly read it aloud to his household, and 
 throuj^hout his life his creed remained much what he had 
 learnt at his mother's knees. 
 
 He went to some dissenting place of worship when first he 
 came to Chelsea, where he heard an illiterate man speak on 
 what he knew nothing about. It was an intollerable inflic- 
 tion. Next time he went to the Church of England, where 
 he heard a discourse from a highly-educated, cultured man, 
 who, however, in Carlyle's opinion, also spoke of things he 
 knew nothing about. It seems deplorably sad that such a 
 deeply earnest, religious character could nowhere find food 
 
124 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 for his soul in church or chapel ; but the state of the English 
 Established Church was then almost at its worst, the spirit 
 of Christianity being almost entirely sacrificed to the letter. 
 The clergy seemed to think themselves and their church 
 either " miraculously celestial or nothing," and were saturated 
 with dogmas and doctrines, with which they unmercifully 
 dosed their hearers, without giving proof by their deeds that 
 they even believed what they taught. But the Church, though 
 State established, is not responsible for the state of the 
 country or for the conduct of her clergy. As Luther says, 
 without any intentional irreverence, in his blunt, straight- 
 forward way — 
 
 " We tell our Lord God plainly, that if He will have His 
 Church He must look after it Himself. ' We cannot sustain 
 it, and if we could we should be the proudest of asses." 
 
 The clergy needed indeed, then and now, to remember their 
 tremendous responsibilities, to gratefully acknowledge their 
 advantages, spiritual and temporal, and to tremble at their 
 unbounded even if unacknowledged influence upon society. 
 But the Church of England is not dependent upon its clergy. 
 As a part of the visible Church of Christ, she is the Church 
 triumphant ; her very continuance and success, century upon 
 century, proves indeed that God Himself has "looked after 
 her." 
 
 "Well is it," said Carlyle, "if we have a printed litany to 
 read from, and yet not ill, if we can pray even in silence, for 
 silence too is audible there." 
 
 Being brought up a Nonconformist, and still retaining his 
 veneration for the simnle services of the Ecclefechan meetinar- 
 house, to him " ever the mast sacred of temples," we cannot 
 be surprised that he disliked all other systems, forms, or sects. 
 Later in life he spoke with much greater sympathy of the 
 Church of England. 
 
 Duels were almost of daily occurrence. Gentlemen thought 
 little of repairing to the field to settle their differences, 
 where they shivered, fired, and generally wound up their 
 aifairs by violent hand-shaking. 
 
 There were no gentlemen's clubs to frequent in those days, 
 but though they met to smoke and sip at public taverns, they 
 were not forced to be habitual drunkards, nor were they, 
 though such were very leniently looked upon, especially if 
 they were men of rank. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 125 
 
 Having thus given our readers some insight into polite 
 society of the day, we will continue our narrative. 
 
 In a contemporary magazine of August, 1834, appeared this 
 announcement — whether Carlyle saw it we know not — • 
 
 "The infatuated Mr. Irving has now taken to field-preach- 
 ing, in garments ancient enough to have belonged to one of 
 the veritable apostles. The bailiffs, it is said, are at present 
 his most zealous followers." 
 
 True or not, it was a fact that Irving's popularity was 
 deserting him. The intelligent were alienated through his 
 absurdities, the people through his strenuous opposition to 
 the Eeform Bill and his anti-democratic views. 
 
 Carlyle grieved over his still well-loved friend's misfortunes. 
 He and his wife heard much of Irving's sayings and doings 
 from Eliza Mills of Ampton Street, who was one of his most 
 devoted disciples, and they resolved to go together, and make 
 one more appeal to turn him from the wild course he was 
 pursuing. 
 
 Irving received them both kindly. With his head buried 
 in his hands on the table before him, he listened in total 
 silence to the earnest, passionate remonstrance of his long- 
 tried friend. Jane stood by in silence, feeling even more 
 intensely what a wreck her ever- revered tutor had made of 
 himself and of her. 
 
 When Carlyle paused Irving raised his haggard face and 
 looked at him with such unspeakable sadness, uttering only the 
 simple words, "My friend." That friend's heart ached to 
 bursting. He turned aside to hide his emotion, and could 
 say not another reproachful word. 
 
 Then they came away, leaving Irving to his sad reflections. 
 Once again they saw unhappy Irving, and only once. He had 
 been ordered to Glasgow by his doctors, and came to Cheyne 
 Row on horseback to take what proved to be a last farewell. 
 Husband and wife were sitting in the room on the ground 
 floor when their mutual friend was admitted. He looked ill, 
 but had no disease traceable by any doctor. He was steeped 
 in failure, sick of life, and ready to die. Despondency was 
 his constant attendant, and the grim shadow of death hung 
 visibly over that giant frame. But " though the vials of 
 heaven's wrath seemed poured out upon him, yet even then 
 his heart was filled with trust in his God and gentle patience." 
 
 They both looked at him with unutterable but suppressed 
 
126 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 grief. No earthly power could undo the past ; there was 
 therefore no remedy possible. He sat with them about half- 
 an-hour, behaving towards Jane Avith a ''fine chivalrous 
 demeanour;" complimenting her on the beauties of her 
 household arrangements, all so simple and graceful, saying 
 sadly, " You are like an Eve, and make a little Paradise 
 wherever you are." His manner was tender and affectionate, 
 but with ill-disguised grief, knowing that he must not linger 
 in that paradise. 
 
 After showing interest in Carlyle's historical labours, he 
 rose to go, bidding them both a "last, loving farewell." 
 Carlyle accompanied him out into the starlit night, and held 
 his horse's bridle, while the great sick man slowly mounted. 
 He then watched him down the street, till horse and rider 
 were lost in the darkness, never, never more to be seen by 
 the disconsolate wife or her burdened husband. He died the 
 December following at Glasgow, aged only forty-three, of no 
 disease, but simple weariness of life. 
 
 Surely the unique friendship between these remarkable 
 people cannot be passed over without comment. The innocent 
 affection between tutor and pupil deepening into love is no 
 new thing, but that this love should continue indestructible 
 as the grave, after both were married to another, is, we 
 sincerely hope, no common occurrence. The peculiarity of 
 it consisted in its open acknowledgment ; there was no 
 miserable secrecy. Carlyle and Mrs. Irving were both per- 
 fectly cognizant of the fact that they were not best beloved 
 by their respective partners. Such a case proves that if 
 people are unsuitably married, the possibility and stringent 
 duty remains to be faithful till death, for rather death than 
 infamy. Edward Irving and Jane Carlyle's attachment never 
 abated, and never for a moment assumed indifference, from 
 their wedding-day till their last parting. Their respective 
 partners knew their inevitable burden, and with heroic 
 patience devoted their lives to alleviating their sorrows and 
 administering to their wants. The weaker mind gave way to 
 useless jealousy, the greater never stooped so low. He trusted 
 his wife, he trusted Irving implicitly ; they proved they were 
 worthy of his trust. 
 
 But this noble confidence shows the immensity of Carlyle's 
 own heart, his magnanimity, his boundless sympathy and 
 .compassion, his generous unselfishness. Knowing the depth of 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 127 
 
 Irving's love for his wife, he still believed that it was equalled 
 by his unflinching integrity. There were no stepping-stones 
 to ruin — no stolen meetings, no secret correspondence, no 
 unseen kiss. As he was capable of grand self-control and 
 stern endurance, so also he knew were the noble hearts of 
 Jane Carlyle and Edward Irving. 
 
 We cannot but mourn over so pathetic an end, such tragic 
 circumstances; but at the same time we thank God for giving 
 such power unto men, and learn from this sad story that, 
 with His almighty help, all things are possible. That such 
 marriages ought ever to be contracted, under any circum- 
 stances, is another question. It is our firm conviction that 
 any marriage formed for filthy lucre, for ambition, for social 
 status, from spleen, or on compulsion, must inevitably be 
 miserable, more miserable, or most miserable. From such 
 contracts, good Lord deliver us. 
 
128 
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 Story and Tissue, faint, ineffectual Emblem of that grand Miraculous 
 Tissue, and listing Tapestry named French Revolution, which did 
 weave itself then in very fact, on the "loud sounding Loom of 
 Time." — Carlyle, French Revolution. 
 
 January 1st, 1835. Carlyle writes thus in his diary — "Twelve 
 o'clock has just struck the last hour of 1834, the fii^st of a 
 new year. Bells ringing to me dolefully — wet winds are 
 blustering. My wife in bed, ill with a foot which a puddle of 
 a maid scalded three weeks ago. I, after a day of fruitless 
 toil, reading and re-reading about that Versailles 6th of 
 October still. It is long since I have written anything here. 
 The future looks too black to me, the present too infinitely 
 doleful. I am too sick at heart, wearied, wasted in body to 
 complain even to myself. My first friend E. I. is dead. I 
 am friendless, or as good as friendless as that. My book 
 cannot get on, though I stick to it like a burr. Why should 
 I say peace when there is no peace 1 May God give me 
 strength to do, or to endure as right, what is appointed me 
 in this new commenced division of time. Peace be to my 
 mother, and all my dear ones that yet live." 
 
 Noble-hearted, brave Jeannie had resolved to make that 
 Christmas, of all others, the most cheerful — that Christmas 
 when her beloved tutor was laid low in the grave, for ever 
 hidden from her sight. She felt she had cause to rejoice. 
 At last he was at rest, to which for years he had been a 
 stranger. " Sorrow vanquished, labour ended, Jordan past." 
 And for herself, for Carlyle's sake, she would not grieve. 
 That Christmas should be a happy one. She even decided to 
 be merry, and told Carlyle so. 
 
 " I shall be glad if you can realize any fun," he replied 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 129 
 
 laconically. Useless to try by such methods to hide from his 
 far-seeing eyes her bleeding heart, her hopeless despondency, 
 her undying regrets. 
 
 " Edward Irving, his first friend, was dead." Ah ! there was 
 no relief to Carlyle that his rival had departed ; only sorrow, 
 unmitigated and deepened. As it happened, the attempts at 
 merriment were never commenced, for that Christmas morning 
 found Mrs. Carlyle laid up as he described her, with a scalded 
 foot ; and had it rot been for his loving care, she must have 
 remained a prisoner to her room during that festive season. 
 But he cheerfully carried her from room to room in his strong 
 arms, like an infant. Indeed, his relations towards her were 
 more like those of a fond father compassionating a much- 
 loved, spoilt, disappointed child than those of a husband. But 
 there were times when she showed herself both the strongest- 
 minded, sternest, and least aifectionate of the two. 
 
 That same somewhat indiscreet lady friend, Mrs. Montagu, 
 wrote Jane a letter of sympathy on the death of Edward 
 Irving, and proposed paying her a visit of condolence. From 
 the latter infliction Jane was happily spared, and only longed, 
 with longings unutterable, that she might bury the past with 
 all its exceeding bitterness. Surely that year, 1835, opened 
 dolefully enough ; but another sore trial awaited Carlyle. 
 
 On the 7th of February he finished his first volume of the 
 French Revolution. It had been a labour of all-absorbing 
 interest, intense study, and great fascination. But it both 
 tortured and wearied him exceedingly, and it was with infinite 
 relief he placed his MS. into the hands of John Stuart Mill 
 to peruse, to correct, or to criticize. 
 
 It is a coincidence worthy of note, that Thomas Carlyle 
 first saw the light just after the French Democracy had 
 exterminated itself by the guillotine, fire, and sword. We 
 know not how long Mill had the manuscript in his possession, 
 when one evening he was admitted into their room with a 
 face as white as " Hector's Ghost." 
 
 "What is the matter 1" they both exclaimed in utmost 
 alarm. With strong emotion, he soon informed them that the 
 manuscript, that precious manuscript, which had cost its 
 writer such infinite trouble, had accidentally been burnt. 
 Words could not describe Carlyle's inner man on the dis- 
 closure, though we know that he successfully assumed -an 
 air of perfect self-control, uttered no reproach, but made 
 
 K 
 
130 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 noblest efforts to assuage his friend's distress. Mill remained 
 talking till long after midnight, while Carlyle's whole being 
 was literally writhing in torture at the intelligence just 
 received. 
 
 It seems strange that no explicit account of such an accident 
 has ever been fully given. In Mill's Autobiography the fact 
 is not so much as mentioned. As far as Carlyle is concerned, 
 it mattered little to him how his work had been destroyed. 
 Perhaps it had been explained to him minutely enough ; but 
 the loss was so tremendous, that the fact alone could be con- 
 sidered. The blow had been given, and the force stunned him 
 almost ; the manner of it mattered nothing to the sufferer. 
 
 Mill must have known that no money could make repar- 
 ation for such intense, mental labour, and would scarcely 
 imagine that Carlyle could go over again that whole, harrow- 
 ing field of the terrible French Revolution. In its destruction 
 he felt that such a graphic account must be lost for all 
 time. He marvelled at Carlyle's calm, philosophic bearing 
 under such a trial, as much as he must have lamented his own 
 carelessness. 
 
 At last he rose to depart, to the intense relief of the victim, 
 who immediately turned to his wife, saying, " We must try 
 and not let Mill see the extent of the injury he has done — he 
 is teriibly cut up about it ; " or words to that effect. 
 
 Truly no nobler episodes in the life of any man could ever 
 be found than in that of Thomas Carlyle. In his diary he 
 thus writes of his irremediable loss — 
 
 " But, on the whole, should I not thank the Unseen ; for 
 I was not driven out of composure, hardly for a moment. 
 Walk humbly with thy God. This morning I have determined 
 that I caoi write a history of the French E evolution, and 
 will do it. Nay, our money will suffice. How I long for 
 some pieties and prayers that I could have uttered — that my 
 loved ones could have joined me in." 
 
 Again — " Oh, that I had faith — oh, that I had ! Then were 
 there nothing too hard or too heavy for me. Cry silently in thy 
 inmost heart to God for it ; surely He will give it thee. At 
 all events, it is as if my invisible schoolmaster had torn my 
 copy-book when I showed it, and said, ' No, boy ; thou must 
 write it better.' What can I sorrowing do but obey — obey 
 and think it best. To work again — and do, may God be with 
 me, for this earth is not friendly. On, in His name ! " 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 131 
 
 And on he went, surely a magnificent instance of direct 
 answer to prayer. Faith was granted, the gigantic labour 
 renewed. His grain of faith was in reality strong enough to 
 erect an immortal monument to the glory of the Unseen, who 
 gives such gifts unto men. 
 
 He determined to write no bewildering complaints to his 
 mother or his brother until he was fairly launched once 
 again into the spirit of his work. He knew perfectly what a 
 stupendous task it was to go over again those terrible scenes ; 
 but he manfully set about it at once, with fresh paper, pens, 
 and ink. In writing thoughts often seem to spring from the 
 nib of one's pen instead of from one's own brain. Carlyle's 
 pen and paper did not succeed at once in inspiring him, in 
 spite of their newness. He sat over them and mused, trying in 
 vain to recall what had been inscribed on those lost, lost pages. 
 Hour after hour he sat persistently, believing that thoughts 
 would return, that power icould be granted, inspiration come. 
 Had he not cried to God for it — his God? Day after day he 
 returned to that writing-table, to stare vaguely at the clean 
 writing-paper, the voiceless pen, the self-consuming ink. He 
 sat on and waited. 
 
 Mill sent him £200 as compensation, but not even £200 
 could buy for him an ounce of inspiration. He calculated 
 minutely the value of the time expended on that lost MS. and 
 reckoned it at £100. So this he accepted, and deliberately 
 retui-ned the other half with his usual grand independence. 
 
 His wife did what she could to lighten his burden. It was 
 not much, though surely it has been made much of by some 
 who could never comprehend Carlyle's necessities. She never 
 joined with him in prayer to their mutual Father. By her, 
 alas ! He, the immortal, the invisible Schoolmaster, was ever 
 ignored. But she did what she could. She managed the 
 little household cares — they could scarcely be great for those 
 two ; she half managed her constantly changing domestics, or 
 the unfaithful charwomen, and kept his surroundings quiet 
 and comfortable. 
 
 She was truly grieved for his disappointment j she was 
 unusually kind and sympathetic, and Carlyle gratefully 
 acknowledged it. Her own heart, moreover, was full of 
 hidden grief, and the destruction of that manuscript seemed as 
 if the success of her ambitious hopes were still further pro- 
 tracted. She had much common sense, and a true estimate of 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 her husband's immense capabihties, so she did not despair of 
 his accomplishing any task he set himself. 
 
 After being in solitary seclusion hours every day, Carlyle 
 would emerge from his den with the same grim expre.^sion of 
 defeated resolution — no work done ; occasional pages written, 
 but always torn up — they would not do. 
 
 This state of things lasted for weeks, and became very 
 oppressive to poor Jane. Carlyle stoutly refused all invit- 
 ations, the society she craved was as unattainable as at 
 Craigenputtock, and she as miserable, for society was as much 
 a necessity to Jane as work was to Carlyle. At last his mental 
 state became intolerable. His feelings of enthusiasm, of 
 pathos, of horror, would not be excited, and unless he could 
 feel, he knew it was utterly useless to write. So as a last 
 resource he determined to do what seemed forced upon him — 
 to rest, not to give up. God has made rest a human necessity. 
 It is folly and wickedness to disobey His laws, so Carlyle 
 rested, locked up his paper, turned his back on his MSS., 
 lounged in the parks, read novels, and wrote long, chatty 
 letters to his beloved old mother, in which he seems to turn 
 himself mentally inside out. With her he had no reserve. 
 
 John Carlyle was now (through Thomas's unexampled 
 generosity) the great man of the family. Gladly would he 
 have repaid fourfold the benefits he had received from his 
 brother. Every member of that family seem to have been 
 endowed with the warmest hearts, the most unbounded 
 generosity and gratitude, the usual accompaniments of great 
 minds. 
 
 John Carlyle was now resident doctor to a lady of title, who 
 through ill-health and mental sorrows spent most of her time 
 abroad. He at that time wrote to Chelsea that he contem- 
 plated a holiday of three months, half of which time he would 
 spend with them, and the rest of the time he hoped Carlyle 
 would spend with him at Scotsbrig. This plan delighted the 
 almost distracted Thomas, who believed that a few weeks 
 companionship with one of his own kin would restore his 
 mental activity. But he was again destined to disappoint- 
 ment. Lady Clare — the delicate, unhappy, capricious lady of 
 fashion — changed her plans, and John could not be spared. 
 
 Carlyle detested women's caprices ; but sorrow in rags did 
 not command any more of his sympathy than sorrow in silk. 
 Sorrow he knew was there — that was enough for him, whatever 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 133 
 
 the cause ; sorrow invariably met from him nothing but pity. 
 As John could not come, neither would he go to Scotland till 
 his task was completed. 
 
 Once again he determined to lose himself to humanity, to 
 shut himself out from the world, even from the society of his 
 wife, till he had written what he knew he could and deter- 
 mined that he would write — a full, graphic history of the 
 terrible French Revolution. Jane, however, was not to be 
 left alone. As if he were going abroad, he cared for her 
 wants, bade her send for her mother to come and keep her 
 company, that she might still enjoy society, and go any- 
 where and everywhere she listed during h's voluntary 
 exile. Jane consented ; her mother arrived, and Carlyle 
 departed. 
 
 He was so full of his subject that at last his heart as well 
 as his intellect was enlisted in his work. Then he was 
 successful. Page after page of that mighty work was written 
 with the same minute care and graphic powers of description 
 as shown in the destroyed MS. The same inimitable humour, 
 pathos, and passion — one knows not which exceeds. 
 
 Peace of mind could scarcely be compatible with the subject 
 that so engrossed him, but he experienced an inward content 
 at his ever-increasing ease in delivering his burden. The 
 horrible scenes upon which he was forced to dwell entered his 
 very soul, affecting health and spirits. But, undismayed, he 
 toiled on. 
 
 With such powers, in imagination he suffered more than in 
 the reality was endured by many. The sufferings of the 
 tortured millions during that frightful reign of riot, when the 
 worst passions of diabolic men were let loose with as unsparing 
 pity on the innocent and helpless as upon the tyrant and 
 oppressor, were as actual to Carlyle as if he were himself a 
 victim. Day and night his ears were pierced with the shrieks 
 of the maddened mob, the piteous cries of the defenceless ; 
 while Death, grim Death, in its most horrible forms met him 
 at every page — in the palace, in the street, the hovel, and on 
 the scaffold. Death everywhere, the awful Eternity hanging 
 overliead, and the All-seeing Eye witnessing silently the 
 terrible havoc of all things. 
 
 But Carlyle believed that as revolution was the outcome of 
 wrong, so even revolution was right. Instead of famine or 
 pestilence, God had sent the sword, which of all evils is the 
 
134 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 most revengeful and cruel. God is Love itself, therefore 
 Justice itself. Injustice cannot go hand in hand with love ; 
 guilt and innocence cannot receive the same treatment. For 
 every wrong punishment is appointed, and carried out too, to 
 the letter. 
 
 It is right so. To those who hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness, a departure therefrom is Hell itself ; to those 
 who seek it not, other punishment is awarded. Revolution is 
 letting the Devil loose on a nation which has been serving 
 him. Their master is allowed for a season to rule absolutely, 
 giving his worshippers a taste of his power. Such an experi- 
 ence may be an incentive to its people to turn to the God they 
 have so persistently ignored, and He in His infinite mercy 
 may, after punishment, have compassion. Surely such lessons, 
 so awfully inculcated, ought never to be forgotten, should 
 prevail indeed in convincing a nation that a heaven on earth 
 is preferable to a hell, but that heaven can be won by faith, 
 love, and good works alone, and not by famine or sword. 
 
135 
 
 CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 Work exacting — pleasure more exacting. — Carlyle. 
 
 While Carlyle was thus devoting himself heart and soul to 
 his work, Jane was initiating her mother into London society, 
 a labour she enjoyed intensely. She had formed a new friend- 
 ship with one of her husband's most enthusiastic admirers, a 
 certain young clergyman named John Sterling. He, in a 
 measure, filled up the gap the death of Edward Irving must 
 inevitably have made. He was indeed one of the noblest of 
 men, and in very delicate health. This correspondence con- 
 tinued briskly for ten years, cheering and interesting both. 
 During this time Sterling's mental condition underwent great 
 changes, probably due in some measure to her influence. 
 
 What Mrs. Carlyle most appreciated was recognition of her 
 own intellectual gifts. This was given her without stint by 
 all the distinguished characters which now so frequently 
 haunted that little bye-street at Chelsea. Her wondrous 
 powers of narrative, her brilliant repartee, her sarcastic wit, 
 her criticisms of men and women, of things animate and in- 
 animate, were all duly acknowledged ; and she herself, with 
 her sad dark eyes, her faultless attire, her affable graciousness, 
 like some " lady abbess," was much beloved. Not by ordinary 
 people ; — ordinary people could find nothing congenial in either 
 of the Carlyles. Such were endured as bores. They both 
 detested beinof bored. How can larks soaring heavenward be 
 the constant companions of ducks or snails ? Impossible ! 
 "A character that never utters anything new or interesting 
 to you, it may be good, better, or best, but you have a right 
 to say, * He tires me to death.' " 
 
136 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Thus, though now the door of society was open to them, they 
 were very difficult to please in their choice. Social status was 
 of least importance, educational advantages next, native sense, 
 natural gifts of some kind most essential. But at this time 
 Mrs. Carlyle had nearly all the society to herself. After being 
 absorbed in his work so many hours her husband was little 
 fitted for any kind of company. But he would be persuaded 
 to enter the charming little drawing-room for a short time, 
 to pour forth a volume of monologue, head and heart 
 brimful, pressed down, and running over. But he soon 
 returned to his study, leaving his guests in bewildered admir- 
 ation of the wonderful " monster " come amongst them. 
 
 Their pecuniary difficulties were known, lamented, and most 
 generously would have been relieved if Carlyle would have 
 allowed it. Indeed costly presents poured upon them, all 
 gratefully accepted, except money unearned and work that 
 conscience denied. 
 
 Carlyle resolved that if his French Revolution failed he 
 would have done with literature, take spade and trowel, and 
 emigrate to the backwoods of America — a fate poor Jane 
 dreaded above all things, as another and worse edition of 
 dreary Ciaigenputtock. In one of her letters to John Sterling 
 she says she has three wishes — "First to remain in Cheyne 
 Row, the second that he and his family might come and settle 
 in Cheyne Walk, the third, like a thrifty Scotchwoman, she 
 would hold in reserve." The two first were granted. The 
 terrible American speculation still hung over her head as a 
 last resource. 
 
 Meanwhile Carlyle continued his arduous labours, growing 
 very yellow over it, and somewhat irritable. Jane wished he 
 would be a '* little more peaceable when he emerged from his 
 solitude." 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle speaks of living under the " shadow " of tlie 
 characters her husband writes of with such enthusiasm. She 
 herself seemed constantly under the " shadow " of some luck- 
 less maidservant or inefficient charwoman. One ridiculous 
 maid pinned on three dusters for a bustle, then the rage. 
 Truly necessity is the mother of invention. 
 
 Mrs. Leigh Hunt, who lived close by, was still more unfor- 
 tunate in her domestic arrangements. Her income amounted 
 to no less than eight guineas a week, and yet she was always 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 137 
 
 in muddle and discomfort, often in difficulty, always in debt, 
 and continually borrowing articles of domestic use from Mrs. 
 Carlyle. But the Hunts were highly intellectual, literary 
 people, and appreciated Carlyle's society ; so the intimacy in- 
 creased, and little drawbacks were overlooked. 
 
 Mrs. Buller, the high-born lady of fashion, still cultivated 
 the society of her late tutor, and invited both him and his wife 
 to her fashionable assemblies, treating them with every honour 
 and respect. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle would array herself in all possible splendour 
 for these " routs," but poor Carlyle was literally dragged into 
 them when he did go. He had no enjoyment for the brilliant 
 scenes, no appetite for the well-furnished tables, no heart for 
 the talk, while his soul was absorbed in his grim subject. 
 Mrs. Carlyle was again in her glory, and writes that Cheyne 
 E.OW was " out of sight " more suitable for her than Craigen- 
 puttock. Trouble too and bereavement had drawn the hearts 
 of husband and wife nearer together. At that time, at any 
 rate, they had no one to come between them. 
 
 Mrs. Welsh also enjoyed the society her daughter now 
 entered so freely, and took delight in assisting her in her 
 drawing-room arrangements in anticipation of distinguished 
 gatherings. Entering the room one evening, Jane was horrified 
 to find it literally filled with a flood of light — wax candles 
 ablaze here, there, and everywhere. 
 
 "What will people say and think, mother? " she excla^'med ; 
 " simply that I am ruining my husband by my extravagance. 
 They know we cannot aii'ord such display." 
 
 She at once blew out some of the offending candles, and 
 thereby pained her p^or mother extremely, who would have 
 willingly shared, if not entirely defrayed, the extra expense. 
 Seeing how her impetuosity had grieved the mother she truly 
 loved, Jane carefully fol led up two of the largest wax candles 
 and carried them up-stairs, making on her way a pathetic reso- 
 lution respecting them, of which more hereafter. She never 
 again saw them alight. She then returned and comforted her 
 mother, and they spent another delightful evening. But, 
 strange enough, she could not get along with her sole remain- 
 ing parent. Every day witnessed a scene between them, and 
 every evening a reconciliation. Jane was irritable, her mother 
 irritating. 
 
138 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Mrs. Welsh and her son-in-law remained ever after the 
 wedding-day on most amicable and even affectionate terms. 
 Carlyle was the most chivalrous of men, and Mrs. Welsh ever 
 gratefully acknowledged any personal attention received from 
 him. 
 
 Meanwhile all through those hot summer months Carlyle 
 perseveringly toiled at his desk. He was longing for an ex- 
 hilarating breath of his beloved Scotch hills — for a chat and 
 a smoke with his precious mother. 
 
 And here we must say a few words about the habit of 
 smoking, then so prevalent among the women of the poorer 
 sort. It proves, at any rate, that a peasant's instincts are not 
 wholly selfish. Gentlemen of means, whose wives have little 
 to do but to endure the pain of ennui, look upon their less 
 fortunate fellow-men as callous or heartless, because they can 
 witness quite unconcernedly the toil to which their women 
 necessarily submit. Carlyle had been blamed for occasionally 
 allowing his gently-nurtured wife to soil her hands. We must 
 remember that habit is second nature ; that to Carlyle his 
 wife was immeasurably raised by stooping to such things ; that 
 manual labour he considered degrading to no one to whom the 
 Almighty has vouchsafed a pair of hands. 
 
 When men saw their mothers or wives as hardworking as 
 they were, they gladly extended to them the soothing, com- 
 forting pipe, and would prefer leaving their own empty 
 than that these should lack the cheering weed. Wliy 
 should the stronger sex selfishly monopolize any of God's 
 good gifts'? 
 
 A story is told of Carlyle as follows — 
 
 He was once suffering intolerably from dyspepsia, and con- 
 sulted a doctor, who asked him seriously if he could give up 
 tobacco. Could indeed ! Carlyle replied, that he could, if 
 necessary, take an axe and chop off his left hand with his right. 
 Then he was advised at once to cease smoking. He acquiesced. 
 For months he discontinued his pipe, and though he was not 
 any better, but rather the worse, he persevered. One day he 
 was crawling about on the heath, not one whit better in mind 
 or body, from tree trunk to tree trunk, tobaccoless and weary, 
 when he saw, lying on the ground before him, what appeared 
 to him a literal godsend — a long clay pipe and a tobacco 
 pouch. Gleefully, gratefully he seized both, and without 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELTLE. 139 
 
 pausing to think, struck a match, lighted the pipe, and puffed 
 away there and then to his heart's content, exclaiming — ■ 
 "I will endure this diabolical farce and delusion no longer ! " 
 From that hour he determined never to give up what in his 
 case was the most soothing, comforting alleviation for all his 
 sufferings, corporal and mental. Who can blame him ? What 
 is health to one is death to another. Now, as he believed 
 tobacco to be one of God's good gifts, at no time did he enjoy 
 it so much as when shared with his revered mother ; it was 
 but another bond of sympathy between them. 
 
 The custom, we believe, is gradually dying out, chiefly for 
 the sake of respectability, having got into bad repute. Perhaps 
 it is to be regretted, perhaps not. The dear old smoking 
 women we remember were generally remarkable for their 
 industry, thrift, piety, and cleanliness ; were home-abiders, no 
 busy-bodies, gossips, brawlers, or drunkards. We hope that 
 when the smoke is vanished all other evils will vanish with it, 
 and not enter in and take its place, making the last state in- 
 finitely worse than the first. 
 
 Carlyle's love for his mother was almost idyllic, and never 
 marred in the least by their combined fumes of the noxious 
 yet delectable weed. In his letters to her he showed himself 
 as he really was. To be insincere to her was an utter impossi- 
 bility to him. She alone penetrated into his soul, and read all 
 the latent pieties, the deep reverence, the hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness that oppressed it. She knew that when wander- 
 ing away from the simple faith of his childhood he was most 
 miserable. 
 
 Surely Carlyle's history is of itself a special study for 
 mothers, reminding them of their immense responsibilities. 
 How indelible are early impressions ; how indestructibly the 
 lessons taught at a mother's knee cling to the children from 
 the cradle to the grave, however long and weary the distance ! 
 A mother's influence is undying ; surely it is worth cojisidering 
 what that influence is. 
 
 In September, 1835, the second manuscript of that ''un- 
 utterable " first volume of the French Eevolution was com- 
 pleted — a task he had never had before, and fortunately 
 never had again. Of its contents we will speak later. The 
 mental labour expended upon it had quite exhausted him, 
 and his purse was getting ever lighter. Basil IMontague, son 
 
140 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 of his friend, Mrs. Montague before mentioned, sent for him 
 and offered him a clerkship out of pure kindness. 
 
 Imagine Carlyle's feelings ! No ; he could not stoop to 
 fetter his soul in such a way. He would continue to fight 
 his own way, to conquer or die. He humorously likened 
 himself to a " Polar bear, reduced to such a state of dyspeptic 
 dejection, as to be safely trusted to feed rabbits." He 
 acknowledged the friendly intention, however, gratefully 
 enough. 
 
 His greater friends do not seem to have exerted themselves 
 in the least to help him at that critical time; but indeed it 
 was no easy task to help such a man. He was a new lion 
 come among them, and they never doubted his own powers of 
 safe deliverance out of any dilemma. His strong individuality 
 made condescending patronage downright impossible. He was 
 either almost worshipped or feared and disliked intensely. To 
 ease his irritated nerves, he would take solitary walks in the 
 London parks. Battersea Park, afterwards such a boon, was 
 then little better than a "field ill-drained." He would watch 
 the entrance to Hyde Park Corner as the stream of carriages 
 issued to and fro ; quaint, passionate thought.5 of his present 
 painful life, of his future destiny, and that of the unhappy 
 one entrusted to him, seething through heart and brain. ISTot 
 envious or angry thoughts either, but a certain conviction 
 that he and others like him '' were equipped and ordained 
 not by Parliament, but by Heaven itself, to accomplish some- 
 thing on earth without help from mortal man." 
 
 Carlyle then determined to visit his old Scottish home, that 
 he might regain some of his expended vigour, and t.ike in a 
 fresh supply of mental power to finish his gigantic task. In 
 October he took his journey northward. Mrs. Welsh remained 
 at Cheyne Row with Jane, who wrote letters daily to her 
 absent lord. 
 
 *' God bless you, my own dear husband," she writes, " and 
 bring you safe back to me. The house looks very empty 
 without you ; and my mind feels empty too." 
 
 Yet sh? picked up strength and activity when her absent- 
 minded lord was absent-bodied too. She had the house 
 ransacked and cleaned from top to basement, knowing there 
 was nothing Carlyle hated worse than domestic chaos. She 
 gave parties without end ; conducted herself with exemplary 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 141 
 
 goo:I-nature towards all things animate or inanimate. His 
 friends visited her as often during his absence as when he was 
 at home, and she only moped when society was not attainable, 
 society now being to her all in all. 
 
 Unfortunately poor Carlyle, wherever he went, could not 
 disburden himself. He was still in the " throes of the French 
 E-evolution," and though welcomed with every demonstration 
 of affection and marked respect by kith and kin, he could not 
 shake off the burden of heart that weighed him down ; he 
 could not get rid of himself, or the thoughts that made his 
 nights sleepless and his days restless or even gloomy. His wife 
 invariably wrote affectionate letters, but was as indefatigable 
 in her efforts to make little social gatherings a delight to her 
 guests when he was absent as when at home. And she was 
 most successful. Society, she declared, " shook the blue devils 
 out of her, and made her feel thirteen instead of thirty." For 
 those who prefer peipetual youth to maturity there must be 
 some advantage in that. 
 
 Jane craved for the excitement conversation gives with like 
 intellectual minds. Who does not ? Strange to say, with her 
 gifted husband she was often silent to paiufulness, and dis- 
 tressed him much thereby. One is compelled to acknowledge 
 that she appeared at times to appreciate the guest more than 
 the host. Yet the excitement produced by these social 
 gatherings was exhausting, and when the last friend departed 
 Jane felt feeble and irritable ; the few weary remarks she 
 uttered would be as cutting as steel. During his long waking 
 hours Carlyle brooded over these scenes. He raiely com- 
 plained of her, but finding something else to grumble at gave 
 vent to his inward dissadsf action. Somewhere he likened 
 her tongue to " that of a cat, which took off the skin with 
 a touch," and her temper was always inclined to be both 
 imperious, exacting, and passionate. 
 
 He welcomed any unwonted sign of affection from her, 
 treasured her letters, and wrote constantly and tenderly at 
 all times, he himself needing affection more than anything on 
 earth. She expressed a desire for kind looks. He entreated 
 her not to depsnd upon him for cheerful looks, for at some 
 moments of his life they were impossible to assume or to 
 bestow. 
 
 There is no doubt of the calm depths of love and com- 
 
142 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 passion in that great heart for his sad, excitable little wife ; 
 no doubt that he looked leniently upon her every fault, and 
 pardoned all in consideration for the sorrows of her disap- 
 pointed life, known entirely to him, alone. Moreover, he 
 made tremendous efforts to believe that she loved him, in spite 
 of so many contradictory evidences. Surely we may hope so 
 too. She loved a good many at different periods of her life, 
 among them we will include her grim but tender husband. 
 
143 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 So deep-seated is religion in the heart of a man, and holds of all 
 intinite passion. If the dead letter of it still did so much, what 
 could not the living voice of it once do ? — Carlyle, French 
 Revolution. 
 
 Before going to Scotland for his holiday, Carlyle had 
 summarily and impetuously dismissed a wretched little Irish 
 maid who had exasperated him, and in his penitent mood 
 promised to bring from their native land a clean Scotch lassie 
 to take her place. Probably Mrs. Carlyle had been com- 
 plaining about her inefficiency, as she was unfortunate in her 
 domestics. When a lady is constantly changing servants, it 
 is generally supposed that seme blame is to be attached to the 
 mistress. Jane was not naturally patient, and never assumed 
 the virtues she did not possess. This we believe in such a 
 matter is permissible to the most sincere. When she was 
 inclined to scold she scolded, and expressed herself as angry 
 as she felt herself to be. The girls no doubt followed the 
 example set, and lost all command of their unruly members, 
 besides often being utterly incompetent. London servants 
 seem to think first of their objections, next their wants, holi- 
 days, perquisites, clothes ; last and least important of all — 
 their duties. 
 
 His wife's constant complaints irritated Carlyle, and called 
 forth terms anything but complimentary towards that really 
 hardworking, often long-suffering class of individuals — do- 
 mestic servants.- One was a ''puddle of a maid;" another 
 " a scandalous randy of a girl ; " in fact, they were all " a 
 devil's brood " of house servants. They are not choice 
 expressions, better let them die, but Jeannie heard them with 
 relish, and used quite as harsh terms herself. At the same 
 
144* THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 time, they thoroughly appreciated faithful servants, of whom 
 they had not a few, and treated them with more equality than 
 do most employers, and with more consideration. 
 
 ^N^either the Scotch girl nor charwoman gave more satis- 
 faction, however, than the London generals. They were per- 
 petually coming and going. It was a queer creature Carlyle 
 brought with him on this occasion. He had been at infinite 
 trouble to find her, but was determined not to disappoint his 
 wife. Anne Cook was the name of the girl who had the 
 honour to travel with so renowned a master. They took 
 steamer from Annam to Liverpool, and continued their journey 
 by coach. Imagine a drive lasting forty or fifty hours in such 
 companionship ! One hardly knows which was most to be 
 pitied — the philosopher, who with excruciating patience looked 
 after his charge, or the poor girl, who was too frightened to eat 
 or speak unless bidden. 
 
 The mutual infliction came to an end. They reached 
 Holborn. It was a bright Sunday afternoon. They were 
 literally besieged by crowds of hungry-looking men, pushing 
 ravenously forward for tips, or the unutterable longing to 
 earn an honest penny. His heart bled for the misery so 
 evident, so hopeless and endless. And this was the Sabbath ! 
 With a cry of pain he turned away his eyes, and was driven 
 homewards. 
 
 On arriving at Cheyne Eow, he was greeted at his own door 
 by his bright and beautiful Jeannie kindly and tenderly. She 
 could read in the expression of his face that he was in both 
 mental and physical torture. Leading him towards the bright 
 fireside, she poured out for him a glass of sherry and held it 
 to his lips. Never draught so refreshing ! The very medicine 
 he required, and he thanked God for his excellent doctor, who 
 had so efficiently prescribed. How pleasantly his own charming 
 house must have contrasted with the scenes so lately ex- 
 perienced. Even his spotless peasant home must have 
 seemed very inferior in refinement, if not in comfort, to this. 
 Carlyle, however disdainfully he spoke of the necessity of 
 externals, nevertheless had a true artist's eye to appreciate the 
 elegance and grace of his wife's little drawing-room. But 
 neither grace nor elegance added to his happiness. He valued 
 such appurtenances exactly for what they were worth — no 
 more, and no less. 
 
 Poor Anne Cook proved herself scarcely fitted for London 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 145 
 
 society. Of politeness or ceremony she had not the faintest 
 notion. She was, however, clean and an early riser, and it 
 was very refreshing to Mrs. Carlyle to listen to her Scotch 
 brogue. She declared her mistress to be " the w^eakliest 
 creature she had ever seen in her life," and was almost terri- 
 fied to have her help in any way. This Mrs. Carlyle occa- 
 sionally liked to give, even to wringing sheets, folding clothes, 
 or making puddings for her " gude man." 
 
 Poor Carlyle ! he could not sleep. Thought oppressed him, 
 anxiety tugged at his heart-strings respecting his own and 
 Jeannie's destiny, and a burning desire, nay, a necessity, to 
 transmit to paper his warnings, denunciations, appeals to 
 England to be up, and do the duties that her immense privi- 
 leges called for so loudly — duties not only to her own country- 
 men, but to all the nations upon earth with which she came 
 in contact. 
 
 In pourtraying the disasters of France through neglect of 
 such duties, surely his cry would be loud and deep. On with 
 it then, in God's name, said Conscience, and on he went. By 
 night he thought out what the following day was transmitted 
 to paper. His dreams were haunted by terrible scenes of riot 
 and bloodshed, from which he would start horrified at his own 
 imaginings. Hastily throwing on his dressing-gown, he would 
 pace his own floor, or go down-stairs for diversion. 
 
 His restless movements disturbed the stranger girl. She 
 desired her mistress to ask him to call her up at five, " after 
 he had been goin' oneasy through the nicht, staiveiin aboot 
 the hoose," which request, so quaintly put, amused them 
 immensely. 
 
 Towards the close of 1835 the Sterling family came and 
 settled at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, to the infinite delight of 
 the Carlyles. Nothing could exceed the kindness they received 
 from every member. Jane declared that, from the master to 
 the footman, one and all were devoted to her. John Sterling's 
 father was editor of the Times, and, as we have said before, 
 would willingly have taken Carlyle on his staff. Who could 
 imagine our hero a hack journalist? What a commotion he 
 would have made in the office ! One could as soon have 
 pictured a lion in his wife's drawing-room, or a bull in a china 
 shop. They would have been equally at home, and e:|ually 
 tolerated. 
 
146 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 No, Carlyle was necessitated to keep his own independence. 
 But though he refused to be employed, he did not refuse the 
 friendship so generously offered. Sometimes he would say 
 to himself, " Surely, friend, Providence, if ever it did warn, 
 warns thee to have done with literature, which will never 
 yield thee bread, nor stomach to digest it." 
 
 Yet, with scarcely hope of ultimate success, he plodded on 
 with an inward consciousness that in a degree he merited 
 success. He was endowed with a strength of purpose in- 
 herited from ancestors of past ages. What a boon ! He had 
 even in his peasant parents a model by which to shape his 
 life, instead of merely a beacon to warn, as, alas ! so many 
 have had of England's highest geniuses. He knew well, 
 however, the market price of wisdom — " hunger, nakedness, 
 perils, revilings, the scourge, the prison, the poison, the 
 cross," Why should any wise man expect other reception? 
 
 The Sterling household was an immense acquisition to Mrs. 
 Carlyle. They procured her daily drives, sent hampers of 
 wine, introduced her to congenial society, cheered, soothed, 
 flattered, and loved her. 
 
 Like most intelligent women, Jane Carlyle preferred the 
 society of gentlemen to ladies as a rule. This surely is easily 
 to be accounted for. To enjoy thoroughly another's society 
 there must be mental equality. Jane was singularly intel- 
 lectual. She was superior to small-talk ; she detested stupidi- 
 ties, dulness, conventionalism ; she was no blue stocking, no 
 female pedant, but gifted, enthusiastic, intelligent, straight- 
 forward, without an ounce of affectation. Thus by the sterner 
 sex she was as much appreciated as appreciative, and being 
 avowedly very susceptible to admiration and approbation, 
 she liked those who demonstrated the same. The deepest 
 attachment, undemonstrated, would not be half so much 
 valued, as an avowed friendship on the surface. 
 
 In all her friendships, and she had a good many, there was 
 no secrecy. All was open and above-board, effectually dis- 
 arming suspicion in the heart of her truth-loving, truth- 
 exacting husband. Nor did she, unfortunately, make any 
 secrecy of her want of deep attachment to him, high-souled, 
 self-sacrificing as he had proved himself to be. She often 
 ignored him for others, and constantly repeated the warning — 
 *' Let no woman who values her peace of mind ever dream of 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 147 
 
 marrying an author." Such speeches do but lessen our faith 
 in her magnanimity. Rather ought she to have said, " Let 
 no woman marry a man unless she loves him, let his genius 
 or future prospects be what they may." 
 
 It was an intensely cold winter that of '35 and '36, and 
 Jane wrote to her mother and his of the " frost of Lunnon," 
 with its accompanying influenza colds, coughing, nose-blowing, 
 &c. Indeed she wrote essays on influenza colds — their cause 
 and general effects ; wrote well and graphically, but to the 
 present writer the subject is not attractive. 
 
 The Carlyle family never treated her quite as one of them- 
 selves. In writing to their " Tom " they would beg to be 
 remembered to his lady-wife, or to Mrs. Carlyle. This deference 
 proceeded as much from pride as humility, perhaps more. 
 Jane once resented this, and declared that old Mrs. Carlyle 
 could not disguise her sin of pride under all her professions of 
 humility. 
 
 The old lady was now grandmother to several. Jane 
 wi'ote and congratulated the family that the last "new" 
 arrival was " fat." Long, sprawling, ill-put-tos^ether children 
 gave promise of being '' gey ill to live wi'." This expression, 
 '* gey ill to live wi'," has certainly been misapplied. Every 
 magazine article on "Thomas Carlyle" has reiterated it to 
 his disa.dvantage. It originated with his mother, who said it 
 one day as a joke. Little did she dream to what use the 
 term would be applied in aspersing the character of the best, 
 the most devoted of sons, who to her had been the best-loved 
 and most loving of all her children. How gratefully and 
 generously he had repaid her for all the tender care bestowed 
 upon his early years she alone knew. It is surely time this 
 his beloved mother's humorous but tenderly-meant words 
 should be understood, and not so slanderously and cruelly 
 abused as they have been times innumerable. 
 
 John Sterling had the greatest admiration for Carlyle. 
 He even believed on first acquaintance that he would turn 
 out a second John Knox. He could not bear to think that 
 such an earnest, religious, intellectual giant should be lost 
 to every visible Church of Christ. What an acquisition he 
 would have been to any sect, and what a loss to the literary 
 world ! 
 
 But there was no sect extant that in theory or practice met 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 
 
 Carlyle's spiritual necessities. Had he lived in John Knox's 
 days there might have been. The various sects irritated him 
 even to contemplate. The internal squabbles of the Church 
 of England puzzled and angered him. He, not deciding 
 which was right, set them all down as wrong. Theology, 
 dogma, orthodoxy, doctrines, seemed to swallow up all true 
 righteousness, holiness, purity, and temperance, and as the 
 opinions of his friends all varied as much as their features 
 it was difficult to choose. His natural impatience could be 
 satisfied with nothing short of perfection. His own imper- 
 fections, the more apparent they were, made him still more 
 anxious not to detect them in his friends. Every failure in 
 them grieved and disappointed him. He was ready to give 
 reverence wherever he found his superior. The simple, 
 earnest faith of his ancestors made their memory grand and 
 sublime. It was only a source of bitterness to him that 
 his intellect had over-stepped theirs, and compelled him to 
 question mysteries they accepted as simple facts. Not that 
 he ever dreamt of explaining the Unknowable. Such 
 penetration would be daring, unpardonable. 
 
 He had arguments without end with his young clerical 
 friend and his brother-in-law, the Rev. Frederic Maurice, but 
 they were surprised at his reticence on theological subjects, 
 and annoyed at his contumacy in altogether rejecting the 
 Thirty-nine Articles. Of them Carlyle wrote derisively — 
 
 " Thirty-nine Articles, 
 
 Ye wondrous little particles. 
 Did God shape the universe really by you ? 
 
 In that case I swear it, 
 
 And solemnly declare it, 
 The logic of Mauiice is true." 
 
 His own soul was ever full of awe and wonder. Like the 
 old Hebrews, he felt he must hide his face in self-abasement 
 when he uttered the name of the Most High, and shuddered 
 involuntarily when he heard others speak on such solemn 
 subjects with audacious flippancy of tone. This organ of 
 reverence was the strongest he possessed, scarcely equalled by 
 his intense capability for contempt. It extended to the 
 faintest divine spark recognizable in a fellow-man. He 
 was called a mystic, and so he acknowledged himself to be; 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 149 
 
 the ^Yo^cl mystery being but an apology for ignorance. Carlyle 
 confessed himself densely ignorant ; the more he learnt the 
 more convinced he became of this fact. He acknowledged his 
 own incapability, his extreme insignificance. As the love of 
 God passeth knowledge, so do the ways of God and the works 
 of God. We may not like the idea, it may be humiliating, 
 but our highest mental capacities cannot reach the infinite. 
 At best we remain but atoms in the universe of immensity. 
 When we would advance a step too far we are bafiled, reined 
 in by the Unseen Hand. "Thus far and no farther shalt 
 thou go," says a Power unheard but felt. AVillingly or un- 
 "willingly, we compulsively obey. We recede, we are conscious 
 of our own littleness, and are forced to wait for the power 
 "to know even as we are known." 
 
 The Bible, Carlyle thought, ought to be consulted as to its 
 historical facts rather than to elucidate its hidden mysteries, 
 for its moral teaching rather than to investigate the miracles, 
 or for argument on uncertain dogmas. The spirit of the 
 Sacred Writings never varies in mood, a pure and holy life 
 being insisted upon by every inspired waiter — by Moses, the 
 law^-giver ; by David, the saintly soldier, the fallen king, the 
 sweet singer of Israel ; by the stern old Hebrew prophets ; by 
 the faithful Evangelists ; by the Man Christ Jesus ; His 
 martyred apostles. His loving disciples. One and all breathe 
 one and the self- same spirit. 
 
 Oh, that we could cultivate more this spirit without laying 
 down as law our own dogmatic opinions on what w^e really can 
 know so little about, and which divide those whom God meant 
 to be indissolubly joined together ! Christ prayed that we 
 might be all one ; and St. Paul emphatically bids us " to be 
 all of one mind." Alas ! alas ! how far w^e fall short of 
 obedience to the plain, practical commands, while we quibble 
 and quarrel over matters too high for us that we cannot 
 attain unto. 
 
 The Bible, Carlyle declared, was the only revelation God 
 ever propounded to man. He was charged with not believing 
 in a personal God, a charge, however, he solemnly and most 
 emphatically denied, avowing himself once for all an unfor- 
 tunate Christian individual, while every sect-founder he con- 
 sidered radically wrong. If he had not believed in Christ, 
 the Man of Sorrows, being precisely all He assumed to be — • 
 
150 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 sinless, One with the Father, the Way, the Truth, and the 
 Life — he would have disdained to be falsely called a Christian. 
 "With Leigh Hunt he marvelled at the " paucity of true 
 Christians, considering the number of them," the essence of 
 Christianity being the loving religion of duty to God and 
 man. 
 
151 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 A mean, stout of heart, whose popularity is not of the populace, who 
 no clamour of unwashed mobs without doors, or of washed mobs 
 within, can scare from his way. — Carlyle, French Revolution. 
 
 During the whole of 1836 Carlyle was absorbed in his work, 
 The History of the French Revolution. He occasionally went 
 into society, but was rather inclined to look upon it with 
 a jaundiced eye, his mind ready ever to detect the social 
 evils that had caused such an awful upheaval in France. 
 So unsatisfactory he found men and women of the day, 
 measuring them by what he would have them be, according 
 to his high standard, that all visiting was " Bubble, bubble, 
 toil and trouble " to him. He had intensity of insight, and 
 though himself singularly free from every vice, could discern 
 the faintest approach to it. This brought with it correspond- 
 ing depression, caused by bitter disappointment. He had 
 expected so much from the admired literary characters of 
 the day — Campbell, Coleridge, Lamb, Southey, Wordsworth, 
 Macaulay, Jeffery, De Quincey, Irving. One and all, upon 
 further acquaintance, disappointed him. It was in his nature 
 to be exacting, to expect too much. He was ever striving 
 himself to act up to his ideal. Some of them seemed scarcely 
 to aim after it, except in talk. They were intellectual giants 
 in all virtues, but lyi'dctically pigmies or Lilliputians, appearing 
 deficient altogether in will. They have one and all carved 
 out for themselves a niche in the temple of fame, and we are 
 quite sure that in writing of them exactly as he found them, 
 Carlyle never intended to maliciously defame one of them. 
 But he was never softly mealy, either in speech, or in writing. 
 
152 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 He saw all men as they were ; never clothed them in flatter- 
 ing garments. His unseen heroes he clothed by his own 
 imagination and perfected them. He was quick to observe, 
 prone to criticize, forced to laugh, and even ridicule, what 
 tickled his marvellous sense of the ludicrous. Any absurdity, 
 even while it distressed, caused him infinite amusement, and 
 would convulse him with laughter. This has been the case 
 with hundreds of good, kindhearted people, and has been a 
 source of bitter regret to them. But what Carlyle wrote of 
 his contemporaries was true. He did not write his marvellous, 
 descriptive epistles to his dear old mother for the public, but 
 for her eyes alone ; not those of any one else. But he never 
 wrote falsely ; and Leigh Hunt in his autobiography entirely 
 bears out the truth of Carlyle' s private opinions. There 
 must have been something extremely peculiar in Charles 
 Lamb's appearance and character; something ludicrous, and 
 something pitifully sad. 
 
 Of the heroic side of Lamb's life Carlyle knew nothing. 
 To him he and his sister both appeared half insane. We 
 know the pathetic history of their lives, accounting for such 
 apparent singularities, so we judge them fairly ; not so Cai'lyle. 
 When he met the quaint, feeble-looking brother and sister, 
 walking arm in arm, he described them exactly as they 
 appeared to him. Lamb was "humour personified," a speci- 
 men of " diluted insanity," and when he was lauded to excess, 
 which was then the fashion, Carlyle would say humorously 
 to his admirers, "Don't take too much of poor Lamb." There 
 was no intimacy between the two. 
 
 But what says Leigh Hunt, who was a special friend of 
 Lamb's? — • 
 
 " Lamb's frame was fit only for thought, not for action. 
 One could imagine him cracking a jest in the teeth of a ghost, 
 and then melting into thin air himself, out of sympathy for 
 the awful." 
 
 His puns, his melancholy, his superstition, his conversation, 
 his sensibility, his horror of change, were all intense. He 
 was stiff in manner, clerical in dress ; had a long, melancholy 
 face. He had indeed been driven insane in his early years, 
 through a disappointed love affair, but under an intense, 
 passionate sympathy for a sister who was subject at intervals 
 to such violent attacks of insanity, as to be compelled to 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 153 
 
 retire into an asylum, his own spirit Avas ''henceforward 
 saved from mental wreck." But Carlyle's insight was so 
 keen, that he discovered the insane tendency, without being 
 able to account for it in any way. He knew Lamb was 
 addicted to the bottle. He was, moreover, a thorough cockney, 
 and Carlyle had an unfortunate aversion for cockneys, believing 
 them to be necessarily *' stunted men." Lamb declared that 
 even the London smoke suited his vision ; the noisy streets 
 made him cheerful ; the familiar localities and old houses 
 were all story-telling to him. So they were to Carlyle in 
 spite of his grumbling. Besides, Lamb had a great fault of 
 interrupting grave discourses with light jests. This always 
 annoyed Carlyle in any one. But he never knew how little 
 these jests proceeded from animal spirits, but from a load of 
 pain, physical and mental, that laid at poor Lamb's heart, or 
 surely Carlyle, if any one on earth, would have felt only pity 
 for such mirth. Yet even in that case, his sense of the 
 ridiculous could not have allowed him to be blind to 
 extraordinary singularities. 
 
 Carlyle, moreover, indulged in a satirical vein in describing 
 the transcendental poet, Coleridge. He says — 
 
 " I have seen many curiosities, not the least of them I 
 reckon Coleridge, the Kantean metaphysician and quondam 
 Lake poet. Figure a fat, flabby, incurvated personage, at once 
 short, rotund, relaxed, with a watery mouth, a snuffy nose, 
 a pair of strange, brown, yet earnest-looking eyes, a high 
 tapering brow, and a great bush of grey hair, and you 
 have at once a faint idea of Coleridge. The question is, 
 was Carlyle giving a true or a false portrait of a truly great 
 man? 
 
 What says Leigh Hunt ? — 
 
 *' Coleridge was sluggish and solid, suffered his face to 
 look old for want of exercise ; open, indolent, good-natured 
 mouth. Good-natured wizard, very fond of earth, and con- 
 scious of reposing with weight enough in his easy chair. A 
 mighty intellect in a sensual body. Took opium. Puzzled 
 with innumerable unconscionable inquiries from within and 
 without, so sat comfortably in his easy chair, determined to 
 form no conclusions." 
 
 Take a much later biogi^apher, Samuel Smiles. What says 
 he of the character of Coleridge, which character Carlyle gives 
 
154 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 as minutely almost, in his vivid description of his personal 
 appearance 1 — • 
 
 " Coleridge possessed brilliant powers, but was infirm of 
 purpose. With all his great intellectual gifts he wanted the 
 gift of industry, and had no stomach for steady work. He 
 wanted also the sense of manly independence, and thought 
 it no degradation to leave his wife and children to be 
 maintained by the brain work of Southey, while he himself 
 retired to Highgate Grove to discourse transcendentalism to 
 his disciples, looking down contemptuously upon the honest 
 work going forward beneath him, amidst the din and smoke 
 of London. "With remunerative and honourable employment 
 at his command, he preferred stooping to accept the charity 
 of friends, and with the loftiest ideas of philosophy, he yet 
 condescended to humiliations in his life, from which many a 
 day-labourer would have shrunk." 
 
 Robert NicoU wrote to a friend — 
 
 " What a mighty intellect was lost in that man for want of 
 a little energy, a little determination ! " 
 
 In speaking of Coleridge's character, Carlyle is more lenient. 
 
 *' He is a kind, good soul, full of religion and animal 
 magnetism. His conversation is a forest of thoughts, some 
 true, some false, most part dubious ; all of them ingenious in 
 some degree, often in a high degree." But to be true he 
 must add — " That in talk he wanders like a man sailing 
 among many currents, whithersoever his lazy mind directs 
 him, and what is more unpleasant, he soliloquizes, or rather 
 preaches." 
 
 So says Leigh Hunt — 
 
 " That he was disgusted with Coleridge's soliloquy on 
 orthodox faith," and one occasion exclaimed to Charles Lamb, 
 " What makes Coleridge talk in that way about heavenly 
 grace and our holy church 1 " 
 
 "Oh ! " replied Lamb, with his habitual stammer, "there is 
 a gr-gr-great deal of fun in Coleridge." 
 
 Thus we see that Carlyle' s views of his contemporaries were 
 not harsh or unjust, but coinciding with others in the main, 
 and in some respects, were even more charitable. Carlyle 
 had a terrible deal of the spirit of contempt. Had not even 
 Margaret Gordon, the beloved of his youth, discovered the 
 same ? Time and destiny had rather fostered than dis- 
 
THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 155 
 
 couraged it, to his own bitter regret, for he pitifully and 
 regretfully calls himself almost an Ishmaelite, with his hand 
 against every man. 
 
 His Reminiscences have been cruelly attacked. They are 
 no " literary scandal," nor if judged fairly, would they be 
 considered a '' blow to Carlyle's own reputation." 
 
 We cannot discuss all the other characters of whom he 
 wrote, if not with unqualified praise, with unvarnished truth 
 at all times, and never with malice or envy. Every one he 
 met, when weighed in the balance, was found wanting. He 
 himself most of all — of whom he declared, "if he got his 
 desert, it would be purgatory only." 
 
 He had always an ideal of what a literary life should and 
 might be, and with true dignity he adhered to his ideal — 
 with marvellous tenacity aimed after it. He considered that 
 even literary work was anything but ennobling, if not under- 
 taken with the single aim of promulgating truth, or of 
 elevating his fellow man, making him stronger, firmer, braver, 
 truer. He could not pamper to public taste, could not adopt 
 " a comfortable creed " either, in which he did not believe, 
 for the sake of being at peace with himself and his fellows, 
 or for hastening his speed to popularity. 
 
 But bread must be earned ; how, was a problem. Months 
 must elapse before those carefully studied volumes would be 
 ready for the press — weary, dreary months, and no money 
 coming in. When finished, unless something unforeseen 
 arrived, he decided to cross the broad Atlantic, and seek by 
 spade and trowel to live in the backwoods of America, or by 
 lecturing in the cities to fill his fast emptying pockets. 
 
 Lord Jeffery would have given him an annuity if he w^ould 
 have accepted it. He did once lend him £50, which Carlyle 
 punctiliously returned. His brother John would have re- 
 turned fourfold what his brother had so generously laid out 
 for him when a youth, but Carlyle would only accept what 
 he considered just. This kept their heads above water, at 
 any rate. 
 
 At last John Stuart Mill allowed him to write for his 
 Beview without any restrictions. This was at a great risk. 
 Carlyle's asperities and singularities had effectually frightened 
 all publishers and editors out of their wits. He would not 
 modify a sentence he wrote, would not have one altered or 
 
156 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 hacked. They were the products of his isolated spirit. They 
 were himself, whatever disapprobation they received. 
 
 Whilst working for Mill, the French Revolution was for a 
 time necessarily laid aside, to be resumed when his immediate 
 necessities were relieved. 
 
 Many were the hampers received from Scotsbrig during 
 this trying time. Hams, bacon, fruit, knitted stockings, and 
 other garments, all perfect of their kind. Still the wolf 
 pressed hard at the door. It was impossible to please God and 
 mammon, and Providence ''meant to try him to the utmost." 
 
 After he had finished his second volume, his brother John 
 came to Chelsea for his long-promised, much-desired visit. 
 Carlyle thoroughly enjoyed his companionship, laid aside his 
 pen for the time, entirely giving himself up to interest and 
 amuse him. 
 
 At the end of three weeks that pleasant change ended. 
 Sadly was the " round, cheerful face " of the successful doctor 
 missed in that quiet household. Jane had borne up braA^ely 
 under disappointment after disappointment, terrible bereave- 
 ment and poverty. But they were telling upon her. She 
 sickened grievously, lost heart as well as health. Change 
 of scene was compulsory, and Carlyle urged upon her to visit 
 her relatives in Scotland. He was working almost frantically 
 at his book, his whole nervous system terribly agitated thereby, 
 and her sufferings augmented his distress. She wisely deter- 
 mined to go northwards, and remain there till health was 
 restored, if that could be. 
 
 So in the middle of June or July she took steamer to 
 Liverpool, as the cheapest though least pleasant method of 
 travelling. John Carlyle met her there, and conducted her 
 safely to her mother, who had a purse of gold ready for her 
 as a birthday present. Of this visit to her old home, to places 
 dear by old associations, to loving friends and faithful depend- 
 ants, she gives touching and delightful descriptions, which 
 prove, undoubtedly, her own literary capabilities and powers 
 of affection. 
 
 During her absence, Carlyle went for a short visit to John 
 Stuart Mill's pleasant residence in Kent, where he met with 
 unbounded hospitality. But the two men were very dissimilar 
 in character and opinions, and when that is the case, com- 
 panionship can scarcely be congenial. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 157 
 
 As Mill says — " Carlyle's philosophy did not instruct him 
 as his poetry animated him. Carlyle was a poet ; he was not. 
 Carlyle was a man of intuition, which he was not — saw many 
 things before him which he could only hobble after when 
 pointed out to him, and that it was highly probable that he 
 could see many things which would remain invisible to him, 
 even when pointed out." 
 
 Mill declared he could not see round Carlyle, and could 
 never be certain that he saw over him, therefore he never 
 presumed to judge him. 
 
 Between August and September, during Jane's absence, 
 Carlyle published in Frazer one of his masterpieces — The 
 Diamond Necklace. This brought him in money. If he had 
 been less conscientious, he could by that time have been 
 wealthy and renowned. 
 
 Jane wrote regularly, and her letters delighted him. Some- 
 times they showed how shattered she had become through 
 suppressed agitation. She tells him how good and pleasant 
 his letters were for her, but Scotland was not doing much 
 towards re-establishing her health. There were long, sleepless 
 nights, disagreements with her mother, whose ways were very 
 tormenting ; she was terribly despondent. 
 
 " Oh, my poor bairn," he wrote, " do not throw life away as 
 insupportable, despicable. Let us work it out, and rest it out 
 as a true two, in spite of sore obstructions." 
 
 He offers her shelter, liberty, bread and milk which the 
 cowboy brings ; and called heaven to witness that he would 
 be as cheerful as possible. " Here is the place for my poor, 
 little Goody, let us sink or swim together." 
 
 In September, she returned once more to the din of London, 
 *' a sadder and a wiser woman." Carlyle was to have met her 
 at the station, but somehow they missed each other. She 
 took the omnibus for Chelsea, and her luggage was safely 
 deposited on the outside. But Carlyle was anxiously on the 
 look-out. He saw the bus, recognized the luggage, and hailed 
 the conductor. Unfortunately, when he presented himself at 
 the door, wearing his broad-brimmed hat, the vehicle was too 
 full for his admission. This discovery of her luggage Jane 
 considered one of the most indisputable proofs of her husband's 
 genius. 
 
 After being some little time in London, Jane's health was 
 
158 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 much improved. She wrote to her " ever dear John Sterling," 
 that Carlyle " is surrounded by a host of lady admirers," and 
 leaves him to fancy what a way he was making with the fair 
 intellects in town, adding, alas ! " that only women and mad 
 folks appreciate her husband's writings." Indeed, Carlyle 
 allowed that the literary ladies of the day showed a real 
 superiority over the "men of genius," who were generally 
 '' vain, curled, cravatted and dandified to a degree, and were 
 deficient in moral courage as well as moral rectitude." To 
 the stalwart, self-reliant, self-controlled peasant's son their 
 weakness, to say the least of them, appeared degrading to 
 manhood, and disgusted him. 
 
 Carlyle was in no humour to be lenient. He was fagged 
 and worn. The grim book he was writing was wearing the 
 very life out of him. His future prospects seemed no brighter. 
 Had they been, he would have greeted his wife on her 
 return with a more cheerful aspect. Her life had hitherto 
 been one of unmitigated disappointment. He longed to 
 brighten it, longed to be the means of bringing her wealth 
 and honour. 
 
 They both bravely bore up and tried to encourage each 
 other, she, by withholding, perhaps, occasional forebodings of 
 his possible failure, and by shielding from him all possible 
 annoyances ; he, by perseveringly plodding at his task. 
 
 The winter months drew on apace. His work became more 
 and more exciting. When completed — what next ? The 
 backwoods of America would surely afford him bread for his 
 labour, if his own country expatriated him. 
 
 Christmas, 1836, passed tranquilly, if not hopefully. Another 
 New Year's Day dawned, January 1st, 1837. Another week. 
 Still not quite complete that terrible task. A dull, damp 
 day, January 12th. Carlyle was unusually silent, his pen 
 went rapidly hour after hour. The gloomy day closed fast 
 — twilight set in — finding him still poring over his papers. 
 Barely able to see to write the closing words of his terrible 
 scenes. His labours had ended. 
 
 " And so, oh reader ! has the time come for us two to part. 
 Toilsome was our journey together, not without offence, but 
 it is done. To me thou wert as a beloved shade, the dis- 
 embodied or not yet embodied spirit of a brother. To thee 
 I was but as a voice. Yet was our relation a kind of sacred 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 159 
 
 one. Doubt not that. Ill stands it with me if I have 
 spoken falsely ; thine also it was to hear truly. Farewell." 
 
 Finished ! With feelings unutterable, he carried his MS. 
 to his wife, left it with her, saying — '' Thank God ! it is done, 
 Jeannie. This I know, that, for a hundred years, no book has 
 come more direct, more flamingly, from the heart of living 
 man." Then he went out for a quiet stroll in Kensington 
 Gardens, and wrote no more for months. 
 
160 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The spiritual fire which is within that man, shining through such 
 confusion, is, nevertheless, conviction, and makes him strong, and 
 without which he had no strength. — Carlyle. 
 
 January 17th, 1837, Carlyle writes this in his diary. "Five 
 days ago I finished my book, and was almost ready to weep 
 and pray, but did not either visibly or audibly. The book- 
 seller has it ; the printer has it. I expect the first sheet to- 
 morrow. It is a wild, savage book, come black out of my own 
 soul, born in blackness, Avhirlwind, and sorrow. Gone as near 
 as possible to choking the life out of me." He was, however, 
 so inured to disappointment, that he expected absolutely 
 nothing from a labour that had cost him so much. 
 
 About this time, he w^as introduced to the celebrated Miss 
 Harriet Martineau, and in her, at first, was pleasantly dis- 
 appointed. She was struck by the gentlemanly bearing and 
 the native modesty of the mason's son. He addressed her 
 through her ear-trumpet, she being positively deaf without it, 
 and she marvelled at his constant, sustained flow of language, 
 and his original ideas on every imaginable subject. For such 
 a man to be under the necessity of emigration was a disgrace 
 to the English nation. Indeed, all his personal friends were 
 sorely perplexed how to keep this extraordinary man among 
 them. They contemplated first one scheme and then another, 
 but patronage seemed impossible, journalism also, for neither 
 editors nor publishers could force the public to appreciate his 
 works, nor could they risk outraging its opinion. 
 
 Harriet Martineau, with her ready wit, came to the rescue. 
 To him she said bluntly — " My friend, you would not do for 
 the backwoods of America, you shall not, and if you could 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 161 
 
 lecture in the far off American cities, why not lecture here in 
 London 1 " 
 
 That he would eventually be successful she felt confident. 
 Proverbially slow as the English are to recognize merit, when 
 the fact dawns upon them they are not niggardly in their 
 acknowledgment. He was at once waylaid, cajoled, entreated, 
 commanded, and at last persuaded. He screwed up his 
 courage to agony point, and yielded. 
 
 Of " health and impudence," above all things necessary to 
 the comfort of a lecturer, he had a very limited quantity, but 
 he had a passionate eloquence that could electrify, a moral 
 force that mastered, and a thrilling pathos that could melt 
 an audience to tears. He was conscious of his powers. 
 They were God-given. However shrinkingly, he would use 
 them. 
 
 So Willis's rooms were engaged. Miss Martineau nobly 
 canvassing for subscribers to a series of lectures on German 
 Literature, to begin in May, 1837. Ladies and gentlemen, 
 literary and non-literary, liberally responded to her suggestion. 
 Guinea subscriptions poured in. The first and most trying 
 day in Carlyle's life now dawned. His subject was well pre- 
 pared. To get himself into shape was the most diihcult 
 accomplishment. His tongue, dry as parchment, seemed to 
 cling to the roof of his mouth ; his breath came in gasps, the 
 great heart in that stalwart frame beat as violently as that of 
 a schoolboy with an unfinished task in the presence of the 
 birch. It was to him the most detestable method of gaining 
 his living, this of exposing his gifts before the public. In 
 actual torment he rose and faced his audience. In his hand 
 was a paper, with notes of his lecture. He found they hindered 
 rather than helped him. Warming with his subject, they 
 were cast aside, while streams of original thoughts poured 
 forth with immense power and singular eloquence. The whole 
 assembly either applauded vociferously, or listened breath- 
 lessly. The intense earnestness, the grim humour, or the 
 tender pathos of his manner and look, acted like magic on his 
 listeners. His closing words were greeted with tremendous 
 applause, leaving the hero of the hour agitated, but not elated 
 at his success. From that time his genius was undoubted. 
 The lecture was a novelty, the lecturer a still greater novelty, 
 his singularities giving impetus to the excitement produced. 
 The proceeds exceeded his most sanguine hopes. On reaching 
 
]62 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLK 
 
 home he drew out his purse at the dinner table, and presented 
 Jane and her mother each with a piece of gold, bidding them 
 buy something in honour of the event. 
 
 These lectures continued during the early summer months 
 for four years — a continual source of enjoyment to his 
 listeners, but of infinite personal annoyance to himself. He 
 called it " eating fire," but as some people were disposed to 
 pay well for the exhibition, however deep his aversion at thus 
 being " dandled before the public," he must submit from sheer 
 necessity. 
 
 After the first lecture, Jane would accompany him, and 
 wrote that to her " the new trade would be rather amusing 
 than otherwise, if only Carlyle could sleep, and herself be 
 free from headaches." Indeed, all that time, Jane found it 
 very difi^icult to keep " perpendicular," and considered it very 
 hard that a poor man should be allowed but one wife, man 
 being so utterly helpless, and a woman absolutely necessary 
 to his comfort, yet so often incapacitated. 
 
 Leigh Hunt, speaking of Carlyle's lectures, says — "The 
 effect was as if some Puritan had come to life again, liberal- 
 ized by German philosophy, and his own reflection and experi- 
 ence." Financially, they were successful. More than that, 
 they established his reputation, and the thought of emigration 
 was for the present abandoned. 
 
 In the autumn of '37, exhausted in mind, and dilapidated 
 in body, Carlyle, having concluded his first series of lectures, 
 resolved to rest and rusticate amid early scenes. Change of 
 society, as well as change of scene, seemed essential to husband 
 and wife when they went from home ; they rarely journeyed 
 together. On this occasion Carlyle was away five or six weeks, 
 nothing noteworthy occurring. He sends his wife, as usual, 
 "good, loving letters, which inspire her with a fervour of 
 enthusiasm to which nothing short of an earthquake shall 
 prevent her from sending a reply." 
 
 She complained again of being unable to sleep after his 
 departure. First night, three hours ; second, forty minutes ; 
 third night, not at all. In despair she obtained a kind of 
 opiate, which took effect. The Sterlings were indefatigable 
 in friendly deeds, frequently hiring cabs for her, or taking 
 her drives, to keep up her oft-failing health and spirits. " I 
 hope you will become a great ^;ai(i somebody, then we can 
 indulge in a gig, &c.," she wrote. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 163 
 
 For diversion Jane read French novels, did nothing but 
 take her ease, and keep cheerful and comfortable by " culti- 
 vating the pleasant." She had company in abundance, so her 
 social wants were satisfied. Two "tea shines" went off with 
 eclat. Darwin was always to be got ; Sterling of course, and 
 innumeiable others. Finally, she asked Carlyle "if he were 
 struck at such intelligence," assuring him that he had no 
 need to be alarmed. In one letter she alluded to " the poor," 
 the subject having been introduced by a clerical visitor. Jane 
 assumed an interest she never felt — for the poor she cared 
 not a jot, was never for a moment inspired with an enthusiasm 
 for humanity. To another gentleman she discoursed most 
 ably on "domestic service." He, delighted, brought his wife 
 to hear and profit by the same interesting topic. Jane dis- 
 appointed them. " Catch me throwing my pearls before 
 swine," was her comment. Like a true woman, after diverting 
 her husband with such trifles, she adds something important. 
 
 The first money for the French Revolution had actually 
 come to hand. It had come from the Americans ; sent by 
 the well-beloved Emerson. It had brought tears to her eyes. 
 Fortune was smiling far over the sea. <£50 was the first 
 instalment. "Don't be bashful," she adds to her intelligence. 
 Again she wrote and told him that John Sterling had 
 called and breakfasted with her, as a farewell visit before 
 starting for Italy. " He looked like Edward Irving used 
 to do." Surely that was an unnecessary stab to give her 
 husband Great Heart ; and as if with the set purpose of 
 exciting his jealousy, she said, " People who are so decidedly 
 devoted to their wives, are apt to get devoted to other people's 
 wives as well, from mere habit." 
 
 It was all in vain. Suspicion was not allowed a dwelling- 
 place in a mind over-crowded with every noble thought. The 
 few friends he made were above suspicion ; they were kindred 
 spirits, pure, high-minded, true. If they loved his wife, and 
 made her sad life more cheerful, he was grateful to them. 
 Did he not himself hope some day to be done with harrowing 
 care and gigantic efforts % to give her all her heart's desire ? 
 to settle down himself to calm, domestic happiness] having 
 satisfied her ambition, and his own ideal of usefulness, only 
 sharing with her his hard-earned laurels. 
 
 Yes, they would be happier some time. " Oh, how happy, 
 if God will." Such was his hope. In the mean time, far be 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 it from him to grudge her the " cordial drops of friendship 
 that make the nauseous draughts of life go down." 
 
 The appearance of the French Revolution in England estab- 
 lished Carlyle's reputation indisputably, but America Avas the 
 first to recognize its extraordinary power. He was no longer 
 despicable by his eccentricities and absurdities. Even his 
 worst enemies, and most despondent friends, were forced to 
 confess that he was a star of startling magnitude. The long 
 distrustful Jeffery lauded the book extravagantly — he who 
 had persistently prophesied for him naught but failure. 
 Carlyle had been misjudged and misunderstood. All were 
 anxious now to compensate, by immoderate adulation, the 
 man they had so depressed by their censures. 
 
 Before sending forth his first great works he had gained 
 knowledge in the school of experience ; bitter experience, 
 too, which is generally the sum total of life — passionate love, 
 bitterly disappointed ; blighting poverty, galling, but endured ; 
 hope so long deferred, that his inmost soul almost fainted 
 with its sickness ; while dyspepsia, with its attendant miseries, 
 was his daily companion, irritating his overtried nerves with 
 its persistent torture, and thereby aggravating every other 
 evil. All this matured him early. When only a youth in 
 years, such experience had given him wisdom, sympathy, and 
 stoical endurance. 
 
 He had become, as he intended, a lay preacher of righteous- 
 ness ; the only authority he possessed being the inward 
 righteousness implanted by the Almighty in his own soul. 
 His God-given power of rousing all noble passions in heart- 
 piercing language was expressed, ever with scorn unutterable, 
 against wrong, oppression, and falsehood, with tenderness 
 most pathetic for the weak, the sad, the poor, the oppressed. 
 How could a man so incessantly urge upon his fellows love, 
 purity, justice, mercy, self-sacrifice, with such passionate 
 earnestness, unless he experienced the burning desire for such 
 in his own soul ? " Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth 
 speaketh ; " from the overflowing abundance of the soul the 
 pen also writeth, even more necessarily, perhaps more forcibly. 
 For the eventual success of his book Carlyle prophesied one 
 friend to ten enemies, but was satisfied to have it altogether 
 extinguished, if it were the Supreme will. He knew he was 
 an isolated man, '' disunited from his fellows." He looked 
 king or beggar in the face with the same cool indifference, or 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 165 
 
 intensest sympathy, as the case might be. Like his Master, 
 he was no respecter of persons. For both, his reverence could 
 be enlisted, his affections drawn out, or his contempt undis- 
 guised and unmitigable. Belonging to no sect, and to no 
 party, he inquired of all whom they thought the Most High 
 was most favourable to? They all claimed Him as their 
 Ruler and Guide alike. Surely it was enough for him to 
 aspire always to be on the side of justice, heroism, honesty, 
 freedom, and in open combat with tyranny, cant, cowardice, 
 and falsehood. 
 
 His French Revolution teems with pictures true to life, never 
 exceeded by poet in brilliancy, pathos, or awfid solemnity. 
 On the death of the wicked Louis XV. of France, he writes : 
 '' Time is done ; and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked 
 with hideous clangour round thy soul. The pale kingdom 
 yawns open, there thou must enter naked, and await, all 
 unhinged, what is appointed thee. Unhappy man ! there, as 
 thou turnest in dull agony, on thy bed of agony, on thy bed 
 of weariness. What a thought is thine ! Purgatory and 
 hell-fire, now all too possible in the prospect — in the retrospect 
 — alas ! what thing didst thou do, that were not better 
 undone? what mortal didst thou generously help? what 
 sorrows hadst thou mercy on ? Frightful seem these moments 
 to thee ! We will pry no more into the horrors of a sinner's 
 deathbed." 
 
 This wondrous book exasperated and perplexed, delighted 
 and enthralled the critical world. All his thoughts, as well 
 as the scenes depicted, are of some difficulty to decipher. His 
 characters are living photographs, as minutely described as 
 from under the eye of a microscope. But the terms, and the 
 names, are all foreign, and tend to perplex and bewilder the 
 insular eyes and brains of the English reader ; added to 
 which, his vocabulary is marvellous. When unable to find 
 a word expressive of his meaning, he invents one ; or, for the 
 sake of brevity or emphasis, frequently adds a syllable to the 
 beginning or end of a word, taking no end of liberties with 
 the English language spoken by the haughtiest, most unap- 
 proachable inhabitants of the globe. This, by some, is still 
 accounted un pardonably audacious, especially to " Donothings " 
 and " Eatalls," who will not take the trouble to master the 
 peculiarities of style of one of the greatest writers their isle 
 has ever produced. He wrote of the "wild excitation of 
 
166 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 nerves, while writing that grim book," and the sympathetic 
 reader experiences the same excitement in its perusal. 
 
 "For three years the infernal and celestial state of things 
 with which I was absorbed kept me in a fever blaze. My 
 own prospects seeming desperate all the time, success but 
 dim, keeping me in a wretched frame of mind and body. 
 Criticisms, of course, were overwhelming in number, exagger- 
 ated in approval and disapproval. The Athenceum set me 
 down as a blockhead, so did others. Thackeray, Dickens, 
 Southey, Kingsley, Dr. Arnold, were profuse in congratulation." 
 
 He felt himself that the fate of the book was in the hand 
 of Providence. According to His will it would live or die. 
 Censure and popularity he treated with equal stoicism. The 
 one did not inflate, nor the other quench his spirit. It con- 
 tained — it was meant to contain — lessons hard to learn, still 
 harder to put in practice. 
 
 The history is almost forgotten, in spite of its vivid, awful 
 realities, in the soul-inspiring, or condemnatory lessons it 
 gives. Self-accusation overwhelms us, self-application seems 
 imperative, self-searching irresistible. Veritable sermons, 
 indeed, are there, in sentences short and pithy, as if cut in 
 clear marble, striking home like daggers ; plain, unvarnished 
 truths, however^ that one and all would do well to lay to 
 heart. 
 
1C7 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 "When the heart is full it seeks for a thousand reasons, in a thousand 
 ways, to impart itself. How sweet, how indispensable in such 
 case is fellowship ; soul mystically strengthening soul. — Carlyle, 
 French Revolution. 
 
 No money was ever more acceptable than that sent by Emer- 
 son from America, during Carlyle's early years in London. It 
 came when fortune was just beginning to smile upon him, by 
 the success of his lectures. By his pen he had not, however, 
 earned anything for tw^enty-two months. The American first- 
 fruits of his hitherto greatest literary labour were extremely 
 sweet, and welcomed with deep emotion. To Emerson he 
 wrote — 
 
 " To Ralph Waldo Emerson be thanks always, and a sure 
 place in the sanctuary of the mind. Long shall we remember 
 that autumn Sunday that landed him (out of infinite space) 
 on the Craigenputtock wilderness, not to leave us as he found, 
 us. I may well say you are a blessing to me on this earth, no 
 letter comes from you with other than good tidings, or can 
 come while you live there to love me. You were like an 
 angel to me, and absorbed in the beautifullest manner all 
 thunder clouds into the depths of your immeasurable ether. 
 I never doubted your fidelity of heart, your deep, general, 
 friendly recognition of my bits of merits and my bits of suffer- 
 ings, difliculties and obstructions, your forgiveness of my faults. 
 I have not many voices to commune with in the world. In 
 fact, I have properly no voice at all, and yours, I have often 
 said, was the unique among my fellow-creatures, from w^hich 
 came full response and discourse of reason. You know not in 
 the least, nor can be made to understand, how indispensable your 
 letters are to me ; how you are, and have for a long time been, 
 
168 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 the one of all the sons of Adam, who I felt completely under- 
 stood what I was saying, and answered with a truly human 
 voice, inexpressibly consolatory to a poor man in his lonely 
 pilgrimage towards the evening of the day. In my lonely 
 thoughts you are never long absent. Hold open still the 
 hospitable door for me, in joy or grief, a voice seems to say. 
 Behold ! there is one that loves thee in thy loneliness, in thy 
 darkness. See how a hospitable candle shines from far over 
 the seas — how a friendly heart watches ! My blessing on you, 
 good Kalph Waldo Emerson." 
 
 There was deep sympathy between these two great men. 
 The " old Puritan creed of their forefathers survived in the 
 heart of each, and cemented their attachment," though the 
 ocean rolled between tliem, and their characters were so 
 widely different. 
 
 Emerson had not such gloomy ideas of the world he dwelt 
 in as had Carlyle. But his world had treated him better so 
 far. Little Concord bore no comparison to the millions of 
 London, among whom Carlyle ever felt an alien. It was a 
 bitter disappointment to Emerson that Carlyle had relinquished 
 the idea of emigration. 
 
 " Censure not," writes Carlyle ; " I came to London to find 
 bread and work. So it literally stands, and so do I literally 
 stand, with the largest, gloomiest future before me, which in 
 all sane moments I good-humouredly defy. A strange element 
 this, and I as good as an alien in it." And so he remained to 
 the end of the chapter. He has gone home at last, and has, 
 we trust, met his long-desired ideals, the realization of the 
 unutterable longing of his heart for sympathy. 
 
 Emerson was no stranger to opposition either. On one 
 occasion, descending from his own pulpit, it was immediately 
 occupied by a stranger, who began thus — ■ 
 
 *' We beseech thee, O Lord, to deliver us from ever hearing 
 any such transcendental nonsense, as we have just listened to 
 from this sacred desk ! " 
 
 Emerson was not in the slightest degree perturbed, only he 
 styled his declaimer — "A very good, conscientious, plain-spoken 
 man." 
 
 Never was a purer, less egotistical spirit than Emerson's ; 
 but much as Carlyle would have delighted in his congenial 
 society, there was a certain charm for him in the greatness 
 and the meanness, the opulence ever increasing, and the poverty 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 169 
 
 ever deepening, in over-grown and ever-growing London, a 
 kind of fascination that attracted even more than it repelled 
 him. But his feeling of inward loneliness was a stern reality 
 to Carlyle, and depressed him fearfully. Had his wife under- 
 stood him as well as his mother, he would have had no cause 
 to complain of such utter heart solitude. But with all those 
 lynx eyes, he declared she never saw what lay deepest there. 
 "I wish you did, I wish you did," he cried in despair. 
 
 The fact is palpable, she never tried to reach so far. He 
 remained ten months away from Chelsea, avoiding much 
 speech of any kind, even with his mother, but read Pickwick 
 and similar works as a kind of opiate upon his overstrung 
 nerves. He never could comprehend how men with towering 
 intellects like Dickens, Scott, or Thackeray could spend their 
 lives in attempts, however successfully, only to amuse people. 
 In that, surely he was mistaken. Neither Dickens, Scott, or 
 Thackeray meant only to amuse, but also to instruct. Each 
 work of theirs contain sermons of their own, if not uttered 
 in so decided or so fierce a manner as were those of Carlyle. 
 
 It w^ould not do for every writer to be philosophical, pro- 
 phetical, fierce, or didactic. According to Carlyle's own show- 
 ing, the human mind requires change of diet, even like the 
 body. And some people there are, whose chronic state of 
 mental digestion forbids even a taste of Carlyle, people who 
 require opiates daily, as he did periodically. And even such 
 invalids must have their wants considered. What Carlyle ought 
 to have done, was silently to have given thanks for his own 
 benefits received, and not have grumbled at his good physicians, 
 providing so generously for the necessities of frailer mortals. 
 At the end of two months Carlyle returned to Chelsea. He 
 had not, and declared he never should, quite recover from the 
 effects of having exhibited himself. 
 
 Jane received him even more gladly than usual. She had 
 written to him regularly, and in assumed good spirits ; but 
 Carlyle wrote to his brother John that " there was no real 
 fund of cheerfulness in her letters, though there was no 
 serious melancholy visible in their tone." Yet with his usual 
 painful insight he could perceive what she would fain conceal. 
 She still was grieving inwardly over the mournful past. Her 
 letter to his mother after his return is truly pathetic, and sets 
 Ccirlyle in his true character, doing him the justice she too 
 often withheld. 
 
170 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 " My dear Mother — You know the saying, * It is not lost 
 what a friend gets,' and in the present case it must comfort 
 you for losing him. Moreover, you have others behind, and I 
 have only him, only him in the whole wide world, to love me, 
 and take care of me ; poor little wretch that I am ! Not but 
 that numbers of people love me, after their fashion, far better 
 than I deserve, but then his fashion is so different from all 
 these, and seems alone to suit the crotchety creature I am. 
 
 " Thank you, in the first place, for having been kind enough 
 to produce him in this world, and for having, in the last place, 
 sent him back to me again." 
 
 This letter gives us a true insight into Carlyle's private 
 life and character, and proves beyond dispute that he did 
 endeavour to live up to the high ideal he preached, that he 
 was no selfish, domestic tyrant, and that she had little, if any, 
 cause for complaint. 
 
 In April, 1838, before commencing his second series of 
 lectures, Carlyle was gratified at receiving a letter from a 
 Quakeress, in which she speaks of the " originality, the first- 
 rate talent, the taste, the poetry of his three wonderful volumes 
 of the French Revolution, and the deep, unspeakable interest 
 with which she perused them." 
 
 " A spell is cast over me by the waving of the enchanter's 
 wand, given to thee to wield for the instruction of thy less 
 gifted fellow mortals. 
 
 " Go on and prosper, saith my whole soul. Such abilities 
 as thine were never meant to be folded in a napkin. Use 
 them worthily, and they will bless thyself and thousands. I 
 am truly rejoiced that a writer has at last appeared to do 
 justice to modern history, and present it in colours so attractive, 
 that as certainly as mind recognizes mind, and speaks to it, 
 and is comprehended by it, so certainly will the French 
 Bevolution, by Thomas Carlyle, be read and approved by all 
 men, and all women too, endowed with any of that Promethean 
 fire which he seems to fetch down from heaven at will, and 
 finally win its way through all obstructions to form a part, an 
 important part, of the standard of English language. Accept 
 my most cordial thanks for the rich, intellectual banquet thou 
 hast provided. 
 
 " Thy sincere friend and admirer, 
 
 "Phcebe Chorly." 
 
THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 171 
 
 Yes, indeed, that book alone would have made his name 
 classic, and he would have been more than mortal if such 
 appreciation had failed to please and inspire. 
 
 In this letter there was intellectual sympathy, encourage- 
 ment from a kindred spirit. And he thanked the writer from 
 the depths of his heart. Other acknowledgments of his 
 rising reputation he received ; one morning, an invitation 
 to dine from a no less distinguished man than Lord Mount- 
 eagle, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His nervous excite- 
 ment made him desire to decline such an honour, but Jane 
 would not hear of a refusal being sent, and he, knowing what 
 unfeigned delight in those days she experienced at every fresh 
 signal of his success, gave in. 
 
 He was never awkward in the very highest society, but 
 with the true aristocracy of genius, behaved as a perfect 
 gentleman. Yet his simple tastes could find no enjoyment in 
 those long, interminable banquets, when the conversation 
 rarely entertained, unfortunately bored him considerably. 
 As soon as he spoke, others were silent, waiting intensely to 
 hear what this strange mortal was going to say. His manner, 
 his voice, the intense courage of his opinions, gave him 
 authority, added to which, he never spoke unless he were 
 master of his subject. 
 
 Every one seemed anxious to pay honour and respect to the 
 man, who, of all others, rebuked and exposed all the errors of 
 society, who, indeed, was fiercely antagonistic to them. To be 
 morally dissected cannot fail to be a painful operation to the 
 victim, yet they bore it all with exemplary patience. 
 
 Carlyle paid no kind of respect to long established, un- 
 meaning customs ; to antiquated notions, religious or secular, 
 unless he considered they were worth conserving, and his 
 whole soul was repugnant to insincerities and dissipations. 
 He always remembered poor Robert Burns, and what society 
 had done for him and Irving. Not that he blamed society 
 entirely for the moral wreck of any human being. " External 
 circumstances can never utterly ruin the mind of any man. 
 For that, there must be some internal mal-arrangement." 
 
 The world had little influence upon Carlyle. It never 
 modified him, never ruled him, hardly aifected him, one way 
 or the other. He had already defied poverty, neglect, and 
 every other evil, and had reached an element rarely breathed 
 by his fellow mortals. He longed for true friendship in the 
 
172 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 old heroic sense of the word. That was the one event of his 
 existence. The communion of mind with mind. For after 
 all, the grandest, most independent nature finds the love of 
 his own species a necessity, in obedience to the solemn 
 magnate of the Highest, " Love one another." And because 
 he could only love what was lovable, he was often disheartened 
 and unhappy. His ideals were too high for earth. We do 
 not dispute it. Blessed is he that expects nothing, and he 
 shall not be disappointed. 
 
 Most people glory in being ordinary, in having no high 
 standard ; in seeking none. With such, Carlyle, and such as 
 he, can find no fellowship. 
 
 That same month, whilst walking, he met the Queen, " her 
 little Majesty taking her bit departure for Windsor." He 
 was struck by her simple beauty, her vivacious manner, and 
 bashful modesty. His great heart yearned in pity for her 
 youth and heavy responsibilities, whilst such endless forms 
 and ceremonies waylaid her every step. How tedious, how 
 unutterably useless and wearisome they must have been to so 
 young a child ! She, however, looked upon them as the duties 
 of her high office, and bore them nobly, like the heroine she 
 was, and is, and not one of which would she have dispensed 
 with, that her ancestors had borne before her. His interest 
 in his sweet young monarch never deserted him, however 
 infuriated he sometimes felt against her advisers. 
 
 When May arrived, the lectures re-commenced. Jane was 
 quite elated, and accompanied the lecturer to his scene of 
 triumph. The subject was Voltaire, one in which Carlyle 
 could take but little interest. The man was not a hero, and 
 only for heroes did Carlyle feel any enthusiasm. He felt 
 nervous, ''his heart beat convulsively against the bars," 
 fearing failure. But no such thing. He could arouse his 
 hearers to wildest excitement, even when at his worst. 
 
 " The philosophy of Voltaire and his tribe exhilarates and 
 fills us with glorying for a season — the comfort of the 
 Indian, who warmed himself at the flames of his own bed." 
 
 So he wrote, and so he felt, concerning that notorious infidel. 
 But the lecture itself was a surprising success. His audience 
 was profoundly attentive, intensely sympathetic, and loudly 
 appreciative. What could mortal expect more ? Nothing ; 
 only Carlyle was out of his wits, because he felt himself 
 stupid. Jane declared that whatever his faults, he never was 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 173 
 
 stupid in his life. Moreover, he detested the notice he was 
 making ; felt thoroughly ashamed, and longed to be free from 
 congratulatory calls, hand-shakings, &:c. Indeed, the flattery, 
 the adulation, deserved and undeserved, that beset him, was 
 enough to turn a less vigorous brain frantic. 
 
 " Delivor me from self-conceit, oh ye Supreme Powers," he 
 prayed, "oh do that, and then what ye will ! " 
 
 He was evidently beginning to be afraid for himself. But 
 as he was the apostle of hero-worship, it was right that he 
 should have a taste of the effects of such honours, however 
 painful. He had more than a taste, he was surfeited. 
 
 In 1839 the excitement of his lectures still deepened, and 
 with it Carlyle's irritability. Over and over again he 
 promised himself that this series should be his last. His 
 literary labours were beginning to bring in at least enough to 
 keep the wolf from the door, and the gold obtained by lecturing 
 could be dispensed with by and by. " Oh the ' dusty hubbub ' 
 of it all ; oh to be let alone ! " Driving to the place, what 
 was Jane's triumph, and Carlyle's dismay, to see the street 
 literally blocked with carriages, among them one from the 
 Royal Household, lords and ladies, statesmen, lawyers, clergy, 
 all assembling to hear a second John Knox tell them only 
 what was true. A man that dared to do that to their faces 
 was surely worth hearing. 
 
 His audience increased every succeeding lecture to the last, 
 when the rooms were crammed. There were so many mag- 
 nificently arrayed ladies that Carlyle dared not let his eye fall 
 upon them, lest their brilliance should dazzle, perhaps bewitch 
 him. It was a most splendid success ; the enraptured audience 
 gave Carlyle heart fever ; and as he and his wife were going 
 away, exclamations on all sides greeted their ears. '' He 
 is a glorious fellow. His very faults lovable. A free, wild, 
 chaotic sort of chap, noble fellow," ikc. Such a whirlwind of 
 glory, ending in such a blaze, and producing no less than 
 £200 ! A blessing indeed to those who had for months been 
 haunted by the "giant spectre of beggary." Even such 
 magnificent results could not change his grim determination 
 ere long to have done with spouting in public. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle had noticed among the hearers the figure of 
 poor Mrs. Edward Irving, looking sad and thin in f^orrjwful 
 weeds — a sight, one would think, that would have effectually 
 stilled any proud thoughts of triumph. But, alas, no ! Jane's 
 
174 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 master passion burnt strong as ever. She confessed to con- 
 trasting their lots. The widowed husband's old friend, 
 ''carrying on the glory," while she laments that she is only 
 a woman. The glory is not altogether hers, only reflected ! 
 
 Foolish Jane ! "Was not that more than enough 1 Had he 
 not accomplished the end for which you married him, and 
 no word of gratitude for the exhausting labour expended 
 upon it ? 
 
 Carlyle had "exceeded all her hopes, and yet she was 
 miserable." 
 
75 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 Wtatsoever vices, whatsoever weaknesses were in the man, the 
 parvenu will show us them enlarged into frightful distortion. 
 
 The impotent, insolent Donothingism in Practice, and Saynothingism 
 in Speech, is altogether amazing. 
 
 One look of genuine sympathy overpowered him. 
 
 Carlyle, Life of Sterling. 
 
 Early in March, 1839, Carlyle went to dine with a certain 
 Mr. Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton, and thus commenced 
 an intimacy between the two families, which was lifelong. 
 At the fine mansions, Bath House, and at Addiscombe, or 
 *' The Grange," the Carlyles met specimens of the very highest 
 members of English society. 
 
 It pleased Carlyle. " Gigmanity," or vulgar wealth, with 
 its endless pretensions, was obnoxious to his very soul, vulgar 
 pride being its certain accompaniment. Vulgarity of manner 
 rarely exists with a polished mind, or ui^banity with an 
 uncultured one. 
 
 " Gigmanity " glories in display. Every one has heard of 
 the warm farmer, who complained of the " heat of wearing 
 silver buttons," when he found those he sported unnoticed. In 
 like manner, Dr. Johnson related an anecdote of a vulgarian, 
 who was so fond of displaying all the plate he possessed, that 
 he actually added his silver spurs to the shining heap ! 
 
 The Carlyles now met the perfection of human politeness 
 and courtesy face to face, shown on every occasion without 
 the least perceptible effort. It charmed Carlyle, Combined 
 with unexceptional affability, and extreme simplicity, was a 
 light, airy cheerfulness, effectually concealing stoical endur- 
 ance of oft-aching hearts. Drawing-room heroes and heroines ! 
 
176 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 for noblesse oblige yet suffers no less from the sorrows and 
 ills that mortal flesh is heir to. 
 
 Carlyle was now in the prime of life, at the height of his 
 celebrity, and, for him, in excellent spirits. Every great man 
 who happened to be in town, or was resident in London, was 
 anxious to make his acquaintance. People invited the " new 
 star " to breakfast and dinners innumerable. 
 
 Carlyle used to say that if Christ cams again on earth, 
 certain people would be sure to ask him to breakfast, and 
 then discuss at club or tavern the good things he had 
 said. 
 
 Lady Harriet Baring, his frequent hospitable hostess, not 
 only recognized the genius, but loved the man ; and they 
 honoured each other with a friendship that was enthusiastic 
 and life-long. 
 
 This lady, from the first, exercised a great influence over 
 Carlyle. "For ^ood and evil," says Mr. Froude. We do not 
 acquiesce. We see no reason to add for evil. If it had been 
 for evil, Carlyle would have been ashamed of it, and have 
 regretted their intimacy. On such a man, an evil influence 
 would not have been tolerated year after year ; he would cast 
 it from him as a racer his outer garments. More of this 
 later on. 
 
 " Dissipation, if such it can be called, pursued him even to 
 his own home." Jane audaciously gave a brilliint soiree, and 
 made thereby quite a sensation among her friends and 
 acquaintance. She had twenty or thirty brilliant guests, both 
 she and Carlyle making excellent entertainers. 
 
 But such an affair was quite foreign to Carlyle's idea of 
 life, and when they had all dispersed, he betook himself 
 silently to his pipe, and prayed inaudibly that such a gathering 
 might never again assemble within his peaceful walls. He 
 was naturally hospitable and sociable, but felt himself, as 
 master of such ceremonies, out of character and element. 
 About this time he received a third remittance from America, 
 the product of the sale of his works. His gratification was 
 only exceeded by his disgust at receiving not a penny from his 
 own country. He took the draft and showed it to his own 
 publisher, and made him blush, but did not make him produce 
 on the spot. 
 
 More than £1000 had been made in England, but all had 
 been " swallowed by the sharks," so many having to be paid 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 177 
 
 before the author received his share. To say the least of it, 
 such a state of things was aggravating. 
 
 Having finished his course of lectures for the season, 
 Carlyle took up his pen to commence a new work. Oliver 
 Cromwell was his new subject. For this much research was 
 necessary Carlyle believed that the great Protector's 
 character had been grossly misjudged and defamed. Here 
 was a work of justice, therefore of deep interest, and requiring 
 study on every side of the question. He unearthed all the 
 long-neglected manuscripts and volumes in the British Museum 
 bearing on the question. He found almost insurmountable 
 difficulties, especially that of not being able to take home any 
 of the volumes he required. 
 
 Another business then occupied his mind — a scheme for 
 establishing a library, to be of service to all men who could 
 pay the subscription, from which books could be received and 
 retained till they were well " read, marked, learned, and 
 inwardly digested." It was a great idea, but had to be well 
 drilled into many minds before put into action. 
 
 Carlyle, however, found many sympathizers, and in course 
 of time the London Library in St. James's Square was the 
 grand result — a library which has been a boon to thousands, 
 and for which we should never forget we are indebted to our 
 hero, Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 But there were questions of the day more pressing than 
 Oliver Cromwell — questions that had weighed upon his mind 
 for years. That was the problem concerning the existence of 
 the labouring classes of the United Kingdom, so Cromwell 
 was laid aside for a time. He attended a Radical meeting 
 got up by his old pupil, Charles Buller, in the London Tavern. 
 No less than two thousand men were present, addressed chiefly 
 by Mr. Roebuck. Carlyle disagreed with nearly everything 
 that was said. It was an immense room, densely packed, a sea 
 of human faces alone visible — faces bespeaking fierce emotion, 
 discontent, anger, woe unutterable — a sight to sadden any one 
 who saw with Carlyle's eyes. These poor fellows would listen 
 to nothing that did not tend in their estimation to mitigate 
 their wrongs. They showed their disapprobation with terrible 
 vehemence, while their " ayes " were pathetically loud and deep. 
 
 Eighteen hundred and thirty-nine was a year of strange 
 and fearful events. A Chartist petition was presented to 
 Parliament, signed by a quarter of a million persons. There 
 
 N 
 
178 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 were riots at Birmingliam and elsewhere, meetings were 
 held by torchlight, with pikes and guns. They were 
 rather ruinous than remedial, and yet there was a cause. 
 The state of the labouring classes was fearful : low wages, 
 long hours, taxed corn, wretched cottage accommodation, 
 personal disrespect was the lot of the working man. He 
 felt himself God-forsaken. Carlyle longed to teach him that 
 such was not the fact, that some day he also would meet 
 with eternal justice as well as his oppressor. The politics, the 
 philanthropy, the religion of the higher classes seemed to him 
 a mere artificial humbug, because they entailed so little self- 
 exertion or self-sacrifice. The iniquitous Corn Laws, for what- 
 ever reasons upheld, brought famine to the majority ; the 
 Game Law, preserving for amusement to the rich what was 
 life to the poor, was demoniacal. What wonder that the whole 
 country teemed with a burning sense of awful injustice, a 
 sense of wrong committed against them, goading them on to 
 agony's point ! 
 
 Such questions entered Carlyle's soul, and he had no rest 
 until he had disburdened it. In his Chartism he urged upon 
 the aristocratic landowners, the capitalists, the statesmen 
 and clergy, with burning eloquence, to awaken to a sense of 
 their awful responsibilities, their high duties, theii- tremendous 
 advantages, each and all God-given, and for a special purpose. 
 This they ignored, taking their ease in idleness and luxury, as 
 if all were inherited by right. The poor, the ignorant, yea, 
 and the ignoble, cried aloud for guidance from those set 
 over them — merciful, wise guidance ; impartial laws for noble 
 and peasant. 
 
 Carlyle's fierce denunciations sometimes exasperated retort. 
 This pleased him, soothed his pain. Anything was preferable 
 to indifference. He became a new moral force, and shook 
 society. Society has recovered the shock in many instances ; 
 not altogether. In Carlyle's opinion, true religion required 
 no Church catechism, no Thirty-iS^ine Articles, no credos, 
 Bible only, and faith to believe it. 
 
 He was neither Radical nor Conservative in politics. 
 '' Conservatism I cannot attempt to conserve, believing it 
 to be a portentous, embodied sham, accursed of God, and 
 doomed to destruction, as all lies are; but woe the while if 
 people are not taught, — if not wisdom, then their brutish folly 
 will incarnate itself in the frightfuUest reality. Democracy 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 179 
 
 was still worse. The first were for laws to enthrall ; the 
 latter for do laws at all." Laws should be enacted and 
 enforced by which pauperism must be abolished, vagrants 
 must work — have work suitable provided for them. What 
 else do healthy men require ? The sick and the aged be 
 tenderly cared for. He would have no ultra-rich., no waste 
 lands in a country densely populated. It was owing to the 
 meanness, selfishness, and cowardice of capitalists that social 
 ruin was imminent. " Money ought never to be gained at 
 the expense of a fellow-man, labour in what field he might. 
 Such money was stolen; nothing else." 
 
 To sneer at those who had not birth or fortune was the 
 fashion of the day, and we fear is still. A man is always 
 worthy of respect, be he king or peasant, provided he be a 
 man possessed with natural nobility of soul, and without 
 pretcDsion. After the Reform Bill was passed, Parliament 
 was congratulated upon not being quite "so low" as many 
 anticipated. The one thing needful is a master-hand, to see 
 that the immutable laws of right and justice are carried out. 
 No man has a right to more — none to less. Injustice makes 
 a debt in the human heart that can be cancelled by no other 
 means. Fair judgment alone can give satisfaction, and that 
 of all things on earth is hardest to get. When it arrives it is 
 often too late ; the heart has eaten itself out with the cease- 
 less pain of being misjudged. We must not say it does not 
 matter — it does matter; yet in the great "Tor Ever" all 
 wrongs will be righted, the misjudged will be cleared, the 
 misjudging condemned. God is overhead, looking on — noting 
 all things in His book of remembrance, and the reckoning 
 draws on apace. Oh, to rouse men to this belief ! to make 
 them act upon it, was Carlyle's inward longing, and found 
 utterance at that time in Chartism. 
 
 Exhausted by lecturing and the enthusiasm with which he 
 was writing his work, he and Jane went north together. His 
 brother John had sent £30 to Alick, to have ready a gig for 
 them to drive about in — another instance of the generosity 
 and thoughtfulness possessed more or less by each member of 
 the Carlyle family. They proceeded first to Templand, on a 
 visit to Jane's mother, Mrs. Welsh. What was Carlyle' s 
 delight, to find his own beloved old mother awaiting him ! 
 He had at one time feared that their respective mothers could 
 never be on visiting terms. But Mrs. Welsh had learned to 
 
 N 2 
 
180 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 appreciate her gifted son-in-law, and the mother that bore 
 him ; so there she was, in all her rustic superiority, to greet 
 him on his arrival. 
 
 This was an act of kindly forethought on the part of Mrs. 
 Welsh that Carlyle never forgot. He felt like a " boy out of 
 school," and he and his mother drove about side by side, 
 walked in the lanes, and smoked their pipes in the chimney- 
 corner in high delight. Mr. Froude declares they were like a 
 pair of lovers — indeed that they were a pair of lovers. This 
 is what mothers and sons ought always to be. 
 
 Carlyle felt quite ashamed of enjoying himself so much. 
 Incompatible to a man whose heart so frequently ached with 
 the woes of the whole human race. He thought truly that a 
 wise man can scarcely be a jovial one. 
 
 That summer, however, nothing went wrong. It has been 
 said that an *' English person is never so happy as when 
 miserable." Be this as it may, for one short term Carlyle, 
 though still grumbling at his " sluggish, ignoble " inactivity, 
 thoroughly enjoyed his brief two months' holiday, and Jane 
 also. They separated as usual, each spending the greater 
 part of the time with their respective relatives. John so 
 enjoyed his brother's society, that he expressed a strong desire 
 to take up his residence near Chelsea. Their " Tom," how- 
 ever, advised him decidedly to do no such thing, confessing to 
 his crotchety ways, his frequent dyspeptic melancholy. 
 
 That journey home was Carlyle' s first experience of railway 
 travelling — a method of locomotion he scarcely relished ; 
 writing of it as an extraordinary sensation, " as if rapidly 
 rushing through darkness and confusion, past towns, villages, 
 over churches, chimney-pots, into unknown space." Not 
 altogether pleasant, but infinitely better, because of so much 
 shorter duration, than stage-coach journeying. 
 
 A pleasant surprise awaited him in town. We scarcely do 
 right to call it " pleasant " ; better say a surprise only. This 
 was a striking review " on Carlyle," written by John Sterling, 
 in the Westminster. " A thing all glaring and boiling, like a 
 furnace of molten metal ; a brave thing, vast and headlong, 
 full of generosity, passionate insight, extravagant Sterling- 
 ism. Will create astonishment and give offence. Won't 
 thank you. Doubt the good thereof. The most magnanimous 
 eulogy I ever knew one man utter of another, whom he 
 knew face to face, and saw go grumbling about, in coat and 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 181 
 
 breeches, a poor concrete reality, very offensive now and 
 then. God help you, my man ; I would not be in your shoes 
 for something." 
 
 Thus he humorously concludes his thanks to the true- 
 hearted friend, who had made the great heart beat faster 
 by this manly proof of his love and admiration — a love that 
 never grew colder, an admiration that rather increased than 
 diminished as years advanced. 
 
 Carlyle was fortunate in his friends, the few he possessed ; 
 and where he once gave his heart he never recalled it. 
 Admiration, however, does not constitute friendship, being 
 often one-sided. It is not to be expected that such a man 
 could reciprocate every proof of admiration, he could not 
 even make a show of so doing ; and there were many great 
 and good men with whom he could find no fellowship, and 
 others whom he admired less he perhaps loved more. A 
 kindred spirit is rarely met. 
 
 John Sterling, however, had this kindred spirit in a 
 different kind and degree, both with Thomas and Jane 
 Carlyle. They both loved and appreciated the delicate, 
 dreamy young clergyman ; and he, with true insight, dis- 
 covered the nobler side of the two so strangely united, so 
 widely disunited. Writing on this same review to Miss 
 Martineau, Carlyle said, "It is like the Brocken Spectre, a 
 very large likeness and not very correct." 
 
 Miss Martineau wrote of Carlyle as she found him — just as 
 he found her, tolerable or intolerable. On one occasion he 
 was in " great spirits, made a great laugh at scientific folks, 
 called them quacks and what not. I wish," she adds, " that 
 he had more sympathy and less cynicism." 
 
 Again she went to the Carlyles, and met John Sterling 
 there. She wished Carlyle " would learn somewhat of him, 
 for his views are deplorably dismal and very unreasonable 
 in my eyes. He doubts not all being for the best, but believes 
 in a preponderance of misery for the best of the race, and 
 that the stupid and sensual only are happy. I asked him 
 what was his idea of good, if he is sure all is well, but the 
 best men miserable. He says he can give no clearer reply 
 than that it is found in the Kew Testament — ' The worship 
 of Sorrow.' Bather the Man of Sorrows, which we believe 
 he meant." 
 
 Carlyle, writing of Miss Martineau at the same time. 
 
182 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 says that "Miss Martineau was too noisy and talkative, that 
 she was a formalist, limited in the extreme, yet triumphantly 
 so. Waved her banner of victory, and expected her admirers 
 to do the same." 
 
 One observation too she made which was surely mistaken, 
 namely, that Jesus Christ when on earth led a most joyous 
 life. He, the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief ! 
 This was too much for Carlyle's patience, and would call forth 
 the above reply to his inquiry. Miss Martineau revelled in 
 open movements, and in being the instigator and leader of 
 them. She declared that Carlyle's contempt of such was a 
 diseased part of his mind. "We fear Miss Martineau had 
 a considerable share in producing his dislike to " scribbling " 
 women. 
 
 On another occasion Miss Martineau went to dine at 
 Cheyne Row. She found " Mrs. Carlyle looking pretty, in a 
 black velvet high dress and blonde collar." They had a nice 
 feminine gossip together for a couple of hours before dinner, 
 about divers domestic doings of literary people, which they 
 both declared justified the scandal with which literary lives 
 were assailed. 
 
 Poor Leigh Hunt would come in for his share of con- 
 demnation by these two gossips, for he was loud in his 
 complaints at Carlyle's parody on thrift. Directly after 
 reading it he sent to him to borrow a couple of pounds, which 
 Carlyle lent. Self-indulgence in those whom God had endowed 
 with extraordinary mental power seemed to both the Carlyles 
 unpardonable, unjustifiable. Indeed, animal gratification had 
 no temptation to Carlyle's exalted mind ; it sickened rather 
 than excited him to dissipation. Again, Miss Martineau it 
 was who said what pleasure it gave her to see him enter a 
 room full of company, he was " so modest, so gentlemanly." 
 
 Leigh Hunt used to tell Carlyle that all his troubles wouM 
 cease at forty-five, that men reconcile themselves and grow 
 quiet at that age. He was mistaken. Carlyle's sorrows were 
 life-long, and he never became reconciled to wrongs that were 
 remedial, yet never were remedied. He was made of diif ereut 
 material. Harriet Martineau called both the Carlyles " true, 
 sensible people, who knew what domestic life ought to be." 
 Only few do not, and yet how rarely is it as it ought to be. 
 
 Both Leigh Hunt and Miss Martineau bear grand testi- 
 mony to Carlyle's character, in spite of his imperfections. 
 
THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLTLE. 183 
 
 Hunt said, "that it was his belief that what Carlyle loved 
 better than anything, in spite of his fault-finding, was the 
 face of any human creature that looked suffering, loving, 
 and sincere." And still further, 'Hhat if the creature were 
 suffering only, and neither loving or sincere, but had come to 
 a pass of agony in this life that put him at the mercy of 
 some good man for some last help and consolation towards 
 the grave, even at the risk of loss of repute, and a sure 
 amount of pain and vexation, that man, if the groan reached 
 him in its forlornness, would be Thomas Carlyle." 
 
 Hunt found he had judged him truly more than once. In 
 his own distress he called upon that friend, and never called 
 in vain. 
 
 Miss Martineau is no less enthusiastic in her description of 
 the man. 
 
 " Carlyle's rugged face, steeped in genius, I had seen under 
 all aspects, from the deepest gloom to the most reckless and 
 most genial mirth — each mood a different portrait. The 
 sympathetic far the finest, his excess of sympathy being 
 the master pain of his life. He did not know what to do 
 with it and its bitterness, seeing that human life is full of 
 pain to those who look out for it ; and the savageness which 
 has come to be the main characteristic of this singular man 
 is, in my opinion, a mere expression of his intolerable sym- 
 pathy with suffering. He cannot express his love and pity 
 like other people ; but to those who understand his eyes, his 
 shy manner, his changing colour, his sigh, his constitutional 
 2)udeur, which renders him silent about everything he most 
 deeply feels, his wild and abrupt speech is perfectly intelli- 
 gible. I have felt to the depth of my heart what his sympathy 
 was. I have observed the same strength of feeling towards 
 all other sufferers, and am confident that Carlyle's affections 
 are too much for Mm, and are the real cause of the ferocity 
 with which he charges himself and astonishes others. When 
 I knew him familiarly he rarely slept, and was woefully 
 dyspeptic." 
 
 This is the testimony of two personal friends, neither of 
 them being in perfect sympathy with Carlyle. This was 
 their just, unbiased opinion of the man. Another proof of 
 the hero he was. It is to be questioned if either of them 
 would have altered one jot or tittle of their testimony had 
 they read his equally sincere opinion of them. It is not 
 
184 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 necessary Dor possible that all admiration should be mutual. 
 Yet it is perhaps wiser to leave unsaid what is not to the 
 advantage of those we describe. Is it, or is it not, wise or 
 right to give a true, graphic description of people we meet 
 as of places we visit? Are we ever justified in giving de- 
 teriorating information of the personal character or appearance 
 of those we wish to portray for the amusement or edification 
 of others 1 It is a matter for consideration. Are photographs 
 to be true or false ? Is not some artistic method being de- 
 vised by which to make bulky people appear slender, stern 
 faces smiling, old age youthful, red hair brown, the squint, 
 the deformity, the wrinkle — all obliterated 1 If so, and it is 
 allowable, nay more, justifiable, must biographers too learn 
 the transition process 1 \ 
 
 Carlyle would never have given in to such a demand. 
 Veracity was too dear to him. The art of veneering he 
 scorned with scorn unutterable when the intent was pure 
 deception. 
 
185 
 
 CHAPTER XXIY. 
 
 TJiou art the latest birth of Nature ; it is the inspiration of the 
 Almighty that giveth thee understanding 1 My brother, my 
 brother ! — Carlyle, Past and Present . 
 
 Having written Chartism, the question now was how to get it 
 disposed of. Every publisher respectfully declined to publish 
 it at his own risk. Its fierce expressions, fiery denimciations, 
 exaggerated peculiarities terrified them all. It mattered not 
 — published it must be, or his own soul would suffer by its 
 retention. John Carlyle was then on a visit to Cheyne Row, 
 and used his influence as to the disposal of the MS. 
 
 The Westminster Review of that day was at its death-gasp. 
 John Stuart Mill, editor, perhaps proprietor, had two years 
 previously refused to accept an article from Carlyle on the 
 same subject. '' Now, however, as a last spasmodic effort to 
 avert ignoble discontinuance," he offered to publish Carlyle's 
 passionate appeal in its pages. Carlyle would have let him 
 have done so, as much for Mill's benefit as his own satisfaction, 
 but his wife and his brother John were loud in their dissen- 
 sion. Mill and the Carlyles were no longer on quite such 
 intimate terms. Mill had joined a set entirely antagonistic 
 to his friend — a set which Carlyle said " bound him in ice," 
 and he grieved over the disaster that cost him his friendship. 
 It was to Carlyle's mind a "set of beggarly, unbelieving 
 Radicalism," and because they cost him Mill's friendship, 
 became more and more obnoxious. 
 
 However, having finally declined Mill's offer, he determined 
 to publish Chartism at his own risk. The rapidity of the sale 
 was astonishing. The more bitter the criticisms the louder 
 it was called for ; with a masterly hand he had dissected 
 social disease, suggested remedies, and demanded attention. 
 
186 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 He had made no concealments. The disease was the effect of 
 wrong ; it would spread, would prove fatal, unless its rapid 
 progress was stayed. To be effectual the remedies must be 
 decisive, well studied ; all the powers of intellect and know- 
 ledge must combine to combat its progress. No quacks could 
 be of the slightest service, no party spirit must be tolerated. 
 The poor, the poor that God has ordained to ba ever with us, 
 to call out all our sympathies, our unselfishness, our noblest, 
 highest, God-given virtues, were now crying aloud for common 
 justice, which for centuries had been withheld — justice that 
 demanded but little self-sacrifice, merely an obedience to the 
 command, " Do to others as you would be done by." Even a 
 worm will turn if trodden upon repeatedly, and man, oppressed 
 man, will strive to rise after repeated falls. Common-sense 
 alone, without any very exalted notions of life, bids man 
 beware how he tramples down his fellow-man. 
 
 Carlyle, at any rate, was relieved at the rapid sale of his 
 book and the commotion it made. He had done his part ; he 
 had delivered his burden, and must await the result. Alas ! 
 peace of mind was not for Carlyle, or domestic peace. April 
 23rd, 1840, he wrote in his diary — 
 
 " Work ruined for the day. Imprudently expressed com- 
 plaints in the morning ; filled all the sky with clouds portend- 
 ing grave issues, or only inane ones. I am sick and very 
 miserable." 
 
 What a revelation of domestic wretchedness is here. It 
 was just as Jane herself wrote. She was miserable, and made 
 him so. One fact seemed to be undeniable, namely, that 
 Carlyle's popularity did not give her the same pleasure as she 
 anticipated. Carlyle's popularity, however great, however 
 brightly it reflected upon her as his wife, was not her own, 
 and she loved herself better than she loved her lord ; perhaps 
 because he was only peasant-born, her inferior as far as birth 
 and family went. Pedigree is something, after all. To 
 people who have more pedigree than anything else it is of 
 infinite, nay, paramount importance. That, however, was not 
 Jane's predicament. She liked to be admired and sought 
 after on her own merits ; she confessed that she never forgot 
 her own " lety," her self -subsistence, or her self-seeking. She 
 did not care that her peasant-born husband, whose genius she 
 considered she had assisted in developing, should receive more 
 adulation than his better half, Jane Welsh Carlyle. Perhaps 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 187 
 
 it is not to be expected that she should. But she ought 
 never to have forgotten that she married him more than he 
 married iier ; and might have shown a little more patience 
 with her loveless and therefore unhappy husband. It would 
 have cost her little, and have soothed him much, if she had 
 tried to rule that fast-running, sarcastic, sneering little mem- 
 ber, her tongue, which her greatest admirers declared could 
 sting like a wasp ; for her powers of language almost 
 equalled his. 
 
 The "grave issues portended" after that unfortunate morn- 
 ing's grumbling ended, as the most noisy scenes frequently 
 do, "all in smoke." Carlyle had been presented with a 
 horse, which was a source of much enjoyment to the solitary 
 "man of thought." Two could scarcely mount the same 
 back. Jane began to consider that a gig would be a most 
 acceptable presentation. Irving had been the fortunate 
 recipient of a gig from one of his lady devotees ; would that 
 one of Carlyle's admirers would generously follow so bright 
 an example ! Carlyle would have been delighted for her sake, 
 though as yet his means were scarcely ample enough to keep 
 his horse, and indeed he sold it soon after as being a too 
 expensive personal luxury. 
 
 From pecuniary motives alone he determined that year to 
 make another tremendous effort at displaying his oratorical 
 powers. It was a painful but peremptory ordeal through 
 which to pass. In courage Carlyle was by no means deficient, 
 but he had not an ounce of bluster or brag — qualities which 
 necessarily make spouting easy, though of themselves are 
 both contemptible and detestable. 
 
 Financial reasons alone, then, induced him to continue his 
 lectures that year. There was one comfort more to be derived 
 from them. Spouting gave him a grand opportunity of de- 
 nouncing, upbraiding, and exposing all shams and muddlers 
 in society, politics, and religion. 
 
 " Heroes " was the subject he now determined to bring 
 before the public. The heroically inclined only can love and 
 appreciate the heroic. It is not the individual to whom we 
 should pay homage, but to the godlike, the Divine spark in 
 man or woman that makes the creature instrumental in 
 workino- God's "will on earth, as it is in heaven:" those 
 who are inspired with grand ideals, aims, and ends. The 
 interval is long before the ideal is reaKzed, even from the 
 
188 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 cradle to the grave ; but that should never lessen the endeavour 
 to attain what, in its ultra-ipeviectioii, is on earth unattainable. 
 True it is, that when we come into actual contact with 
 those thus gifted, we are often lamentably disappointed. 
 Their imaginary superiority seems to fall into shivering atoms ; 
 they are after all but common clay. True ; personally they 
 are all veritably common clay, from the queen on her throne, 
 to the beggar outside the gate. No less true is it, however, 
 that the heroic in them, which by personal contact we often 
 fail to discover, burns on clearer and clearer, till it shall 
 reach the perfect day. Ifc is in absence of body that spirit 
 dominates most powerfully ; and it is the inward spiritual, not 
 the outward corporeal, that has this unseen, overwhelming 
 force. An insignificant casket, to those who have neither 
 will nor strength to look within, is despicable only. An 
 undiscerning spirit sees only the outward appearance of the 
 body which encloses one of God's jewels. 
 
 ; No man felt this more than Carlyle, and yet no man felt 
 more keenly the power of superior physique. To him a great 
 soul enclosed in a feeble frame was a painful phenomenon. 
 Mind and body frequently act one upon the other indisputably. 
 A feeble, a contemptible, a deformed body has a depreciating 
 influence on the soul within, unless gifted with genius and 
 moral force. It tends to lessen self-confidence, and by so 
 doing enfeebles the personality. This is in itself a sign of 
 moral weakness. 
 
 A Napoleon, a Nelson, a Wesley, a Garnet Wolseley, a 
 Dickens, a Bronte, a Wellington, a St. Paul, never measured 
 themselves by their inches, or allowed others to do so. Their 
 God-given genius magnified them into spiritual giants, and, 
 consciously or unconsciously, made them a power for good or 
 evil among their fellow mortals. Spiritual giants ! the only 
 giants worthy of homage or of fear — giants in the Senate or 
 the battlefield, in the pulpit, on the platform, at the desk, or 
 giants in their stoical endurance of the inevitable, or the 
 patient bearing of another's burden. These giants, especially 
 the latter, do not always come to the front rank ; when they 
 do, they are sure to be recognized. Common clay enough may- 
 be, but beneath the clay burns the grand, indomitable, long- 
 suffering soul, conscious, if none other is, of its own un- 
 questionable triumphs. 
 
 On May 6th, 1840, Carlyle gave his first lecture of his 
 
THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 189 
 
 fourth and last series. The subject taken was Odin, and he 
 declared that he managed to unfold about a tenth-part of his 
 meaning. His audience listened as attentively as if he were 
 reading the gospel, and for deficiency of comprehension gave 
 vociferous applause. What the newspaper said of his 
 singularities had not the remotest effect upon him. He went 
 on unmodified. 
 
 On the 9th he next discoursed on Mahomet, or Priest as 
 King. Bishops and all kinds of grandees were present. Un- 
 dismayed, the orator, with passionate utterance, tried to give 
 them the impression that he thought them one and all 
 " quacks," wondering all the time that they had the patience 
 to give him a hearing. 
 
 " Such a tirrivee ! " he pronounced that success. His 
 third lecture was on Dante and Shakspeare ; his fourth on 
 Luther and John Knox ; his last, and best, on Kings as Heroes. 
 His hearers were startled and perplexed. The majority, how- 
 ever, were loud in their applause, and the minority acquiesced 
 in the general satisfaction expressed. The public was en- 
 thralled, amused, delighted; Carlyle alone was dissatisfied 
 and miserable. He had probed his hearers to the quick, had 
 moved many to tears, but a few only listened with a brave 
 resolution to learn, and do as the great man bade them. In 
 his lectures he had reached the mountain-top, and coming 
 down to hand-shakings and glorifications made him despise 
 himself. He determined nothing on earth should induce him 
 to continue that role another season, and strode away to air 
 himself on Wimbledon Common, listening to the early cuckoo 
 amid sweet country scenes, and bringing the tears to his eyes. 
 Of dinners, popularity, lords, and lionizing, he said, " Keep 
 it, and give it to those who like it." Had he appreciated it 
 thoroughly he would of course have received much less of it ; 
 — such is human nature. The Common was just at the 
 height of its beauty — clothed in all bright, green, spring 
 loveliness. 
 
 Carlyle wended his way over the old wooden Battersea Bridge 
 several times that year, to learn how like elysium this " huge, 
 haggard " world is, after all. Safe over the river, he would 
 wander away from " Monster London," looking back ever and 
 anon as he went at the slowly-disappearing heaps of bricks 
 and mortar, the silent domes, the clouds of smoke. Farther 
 still on the clear, breezy commons he would gaze on the mighty 
 
190 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 city, looking but one " vast, dusky-coloured mountain in the 
 distance, all shapelessly melting into infinite space." 
 
 Think of the extreme feebleness of the strongest tele- 
 scope to penetrate, at so slight a distance, into the broadest 
 thoroughfares or gorgeous palaces, and compare therewith 
 the microscopic eye of its Creator, searching not only into 
 the remotest alleys and darkest dens of our sin-stricken city, 
 but into the very hearts and souls of the creatures He has 
 made ! 
 
 Jane never seemed to care to accompany the philosopher in 
 these delightful rambles ; for her human society and exciting 
 chatter was the one thing needful. So Carlyle wandered alone, 
 the most solitary man living. Occasionally he would contem- 
 plate a flight still farther, even into far-away American cities, 
 where he would spout victoriously, and thereby make sufiicient 
 cash to purchase for himself an annuity that would enable 
 him to remain at liberty to keep silence for the rest of his 
 days. 
 
 On returning home one evening, he was pleasantly surprised 
 to find his wife entertaining Alfred Tennyson in the back 
 garden. This was an unexpected and undeniable treat to 
 them both. 
 
 Mr. Froude says Carlyle admired, almost loved, Tennyson. 
 From what he said himself, we conclude that he not only 
 almost, but altogether loved the man, the unequalled poet of 
 his day and ours. They would sit together under the one tree 
 in the Chelsea garden, holding long arguments as they smoked 
 their pipes. Tennyson's free-and-easy manners, his mighty 
 intellect, his tender sympathy and large-heartedness, as well 
 as his manly exterior, were ardently acknowledged by the 
 enthusiastic, poetical sage of Chelsea. 
 
 This year he also met Dickens, the gay, the inimitable, the 
 highly-gifted author, full of genius and dramatic power. If 
 his praise is not quite unqualified, we must remember that 
 Carlyle' s marvellous yet painful insight into character forbade 
 any blindness to faults. He discovered the imperfections of 
 Dickens's character, but did not speak of them with the harsh- 
 ness with which he acknowledged and bewailed his own. 
 Dickens was vain, somewhat dandified and threatrical. Car- 
 lyle did not deplore these failings, as he grieved over his own 
 irritability, his rugged rudeness, his overbearing and overflow- 
 ing talking powers, wliich silenced all others, and made him 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 191 
 
 marvel how such a " monster " could be tolerated in polite 
 society. 
 
 Another meeting he had that eventful year, and it was 
 as the sight of one risen from the dead, one who had gone out 
 of his life for evermore. Walking in the hubbub of Picca- 
 dilly he noticed a lady, whose face and figure were stamped 
 indelibly on his heart. She was attended only by a maid. 
 It was the Margaret Gordon who had been before Jeannie 
 Welsh in recognizing his genius and prophesying his fame ; 
 she who had given him her heart, and who had received his 
 highest, passionate, undying love. He was unobserved as he 
 gazed upon her. She walked quietly on, and he made no sign. 
 Who can tell what thoughts oppressed him as he returned to 
 his childless, loveless home, where the wife awaited him who had 
 married him purely from ambition, and who, now that he had 
 given her her heart's desire, declared she still was miserable. 
 
 Once again he met this lady. He was on horseback in 
 Hyde Park, when they came face to face in the Pow. This 
 time the recognition was mutual ; her eyes looked touchingly 
 into his, and seemed to say, " Yes, that is you,'^ How that 
 grim, tender face must have lit up momentarily with a fire 
 none other ever witnessed. That was all ; no word was uttered, 
 but a new memory was written on their hearts, never to be 
 effaced. Carlyle noted the incident down in briefest terms, 
 adding to the simple facts, ''Enough of that matter;" and 
 this after his wife's death. They never met again on life's 
 weary journey. 
 
 Carlyle resolved not to visit Scotland that year. His dear 
 old mother was weak and ailing ; he was gloomy and dyspeptic, 
 beside having his head filled with the figure of Oliver Cromwell, 
 who was fast growing in his mind to gigantic dimensions out 
 of the dust of ages. From a long-acknowledged scoundrel he 
 was changing into a God-fearing, courageous, indomitable hero, 
 having a fearful task allotted to him by the Almighty Him- 
 self, believing himself to be God's instrument in dethroning 
 an unworthy monarch, in castigating a tyrannical and de- 
 bauched aristocracy, and uplifting a down-trodden people. 
 But to clear Cromwell's memory from the calumny that had 
 been accumulating for two centmnes was a work of time, of 
 intense study, and vast liistorical research. Carlyle was not 
 altogether daunted, but felt sometimes unequal to the work. 
 Progress was exceedingly slow. 
 
192 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Before that year had elapsed Carlyle had received no less 
 than £400 from America as the proceeds of his literary pro- 
 ductions. They were no longer in want of cash, yet it behoved 
 them to be frugal, for as yet Carlyle had no certain income. 
 A day might dawn when his powers of earning a living by pen 
 or speech would be exhausted. What then 1 Better be called 
 parsimonious, he, the most generous of men, than be the 
 recipient of charity, or be unable to meet his just debts. 
 
 During the summer he took a solitary week's riding tour. 
 For that and all other occasions he dressed suitably for his 
 own convenience, without any regard for fashion. Jane 
 watched him start with a kind of knapsack, a long gray coat, 
 and a broad-brimmed white hat. With her usual ready 
 sarcasm, she tui-ned her noble-hearted husband " untenderly," 
 as Mr. Froude mildly puts it, into ridicule. Carlyle took these 
 frequent laughs at his expense with the utmost good-nature, 
 and such scenes, oft repeated, do but add to the glory of his 
 reputation to succeeding ages. Away he went in the dim 
 twilight, by the waterside, across the old bridge, over the 
 mighty Thames, leaving behind the Chelsea twinkling lights, 
 his sarcastic wife, but with a weary heart full of thoughts too 
 deep for utterance. 
 
 In December 1840 he wrote thus in his diary — 
 
 " Things might be written here which were considerably 
 better not written. Death and Hades differ little to me from 
 earth and life. The human figure I meet, so wild, so wondrous 
 ghastly, is to me almost as a spectre, and I a spectre." 
 
 Who is that figure 1 Is it Jane ? or is it the imaginary one 
 of Oliver Cromwell, the great departed tragic soul, towards 
 whose past he was so much attracted? Our readers must 
 answer for themselves. 
 
193 
 
 CHAPTER XXY. 
 
 On the whole genius has privileges of its own. It selects its own 
 orbit for itself, and be this never so eccentric, if it is indeed a 
 celestial orbit, we mere stargazers must at least compose ourselves, 
 must cease to cavil. — Carlyle, Miscellanies. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle was the paragon of a hostess, yet, like her 
 husband, she was not sparing of her criticisms, or of sarcastic 
 allusions to those who paid her their court, or "ravenously eat 
 her bread-and-butter." Some were blockheads, some ambitious 
 blockheads, some miserably stupid, prolonging their visits to 
 interminable lengths, asked questions innumerable, with 
 curiosity unsatiable. 
 
 It can scarcely be expected that those who are desirous of 
 making acquaintance with the distinguished are of great 
 interest to the fortunate or unfortunate celebrity. The Car- 
 lyles must indeed often have felt that they had too much 
 of a good thing as appreciation. Clever people are generally 
 quite conscious of their own superiority ; would that stupid 
 people had just enough intelligence to discover how very 
 prosaic they are, and cease to bore those they admire, thought 
 Mrs. Carlyle. 
 
 Jane certainly loved admiration. In spite of her undisputed 
 genius, she had feminine weaknesses. She even related how 
 the woman of the "Mews," from whom they hired their gig 
 for the last lectures, actually sent an extra unbargained-for 
 flunky, because she " was such a nice lady," and a flunky 
 supposed to be such an acquisition. There was doubtless 
 something of a kindred spirit in the " Lady of the Mews." 
 
 It is astonishing how much more native sympathy, humour, 
 wit, intelligence, there is among the real people than in the 
 
 o 
 
194 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 half-educated middle classes, the genuine "respectables," who 
 seem to think it derogatory to their dignity to be natural 
 and unreserved ; living in a constant state of repression or 
 suppression. Surely perfect ease is a blessing to the beholder 
 as to the possessor. 
 
 Leigh Hunt was still a frequent visitor, but he had not 
 enough moral force or earnest steadfastness of purpose to 
 be one of Carlyle's heroes. He thought everything cou'd 
 be done by persuasion, never through obedience to command 
 alone, or from fear of punishment, with which we must coincide. 
 He thought very kindly altogether of the world and its ways. 
 What he could not approve he endured. Society generally 
 praised and flattered him, helped him to get into debt, and 
 occasionally helped him out ; looked upon his failings as weak- 
 nesses, not faults, and participated in his revels. Carlyle said 
 Hunt never laughed, ooly tittered, and to Carlyle that was 
 objectionable. 
 
 One bright night, after the breaking up of a party, Carlyle 
 and Hunt were together under the midnight sky, gazing up 
 into the starry heavens, which spoke to the one only of peace 
 and rapture, to the other of awful magnificence, immensity, 
 and power. " God the Beautiful ! " exclaimed Hunt raptur- 
 ously. " God the Terrible ! " cried Carlyle, with awe, always 
 filled with a sense of the solemnity and seriousness of life, so 
 often frittered away in gaiety, or superficial indolent attempts 
 at work, the eye of the Great Taskmaster neither slumbering 
 nor sleeping. 
 
 And here we must make one last allusion to Leigh Hunt. 
 In 1847 an effort was made to secure for him a provision for 
 his declining years in the form of a pension. Carlyle was 
 one of the most earnest advocates for the movement. The 
 effort was successful ; £200 a year was secured for that man 
 of genius. When he brought out his autobiography in 1855, 
 Carlyle spent three days in its perusal, and with a heart full of 
 appreciation wrote to Hunt a characteristic letter. He called 
 it a " worthy book, imaging interesting objects and persons, and 
 displaying throughout a gifted, gentle, patient, valiant, human 
 soul, as it buffets its way through the billows of the time and 
 will not drown, though oft in danger ; but conquering, leaves 
 a ladianco behind it. In fact, the book has been like an 
 exercise of devotion to me. I have not assisted at any sermon, 
 liturgy, or litany this long while that has had so religious an 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 195 
 
 effect on me. I am horribly sick and lonely, and beset with 
 spectres, go wliitherward I may. 
 
 " God bless you, prays heartily 
 
 " T. C." 
 
 By this letter we ascertain that Carlyle did sometimes assist 
 at sermons, liturgy, and litany, and that he prayed for his 
 friends. 
 
 When Carlyle accepted invitations to dine he paid the 
 penalty. Such indulgence damaged him. Forty-eight hours' 
 bodily suffering, aud much longer mental torture, was in- 
 variably the sequel. He had no taste for revelry, and could 
 never acquire it. Shattered nerves, and immeasurable soul 
 confusion at the uproar of life drove him almost frantic. He 
 felt a longing to fly to some sane country place, that he might 
 retain what he valued more than all the wealth of Egypt — his 
 God-given reason. 
 
 " Died of surfeiting — to digest not able. 
 Verdict — dined twice at Bishop Bloomfield's table." • 
 
 Whether Carlyle ever dined at the bishop's table or not we 
 are not aware, but the example set by the shepherd is naturally 
 followed by the sheep, and if the bishop surfeited, the clergy 
 would do the same, as far as their means allowed, to Carlyle's 
 puritanical disgust. 
 
 In 1840 Jane wrote to John Foster — "Why do women 
 marry ? God knows ; unless it be that they do not find scope 
 for their genius and qualities in an easy life." Why do 
 women marry ? We wish Mr. Foster had solved the riddle. 
 It is more than we are able to do. Every woman would give us 
 a reason, and nearly every one would declare their reasoning 
 illogical after all. 
 
 Had Mrs. Carlyle any reason to regret her marriage 1 We 
 think not, as matters stood. As she could not marry Edward 
 Irving, there was no other man on earth who would have 
 filled Carlyle's place ; none that we have ever met, heard, or 
 read of. A faithful man, who can find 1 And if she had 
 remained single, with her insatiable craving for distinction, 
 how much better off would she have been? Oh, this marriage 
 question, the most momentous in life ! Giggled and tittered 
 over by the young, to be severely reprimanded by the old as 
 trifling and improper, though every parent knows, whether 
 
 o 2 
 
196 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 acknowledged or denied, how tlieii^ own marriage has either 
 made or marred their happiness for time and perhaps for 
 eternity. It seems as if experience failed entirely to teach. 
 Do we not see parents who have led years of uncongenial 
 wedded life, still urging the same on their children, professing 
 to believe that social and pecuniary advantages are the 
 greatest of all to ensure contentment. It is a lie. Where 
 love is not, discontent, if not worse, fills the vacuum. The 
 wisdom of Solomon still excels all other — *' Better is a 
 dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred 
 therewith." 
 
 A loveless marriage entails misery untold on generations 
 yet unborn. For the sins of the fathers are visited verily 
 and indeed on the children and children's children, as a natural 
 consequence as well as condign punishment. It has been 
 remarked, and perhaps with truth, that men and women of 
 genius rarely enjoy conjugal bliss. And yet it is genius alone 
 that can make married life truly happy, genius on both sides 
 to make it perfectly so combined with religion, which gives 
 promise of its joys being extended beyond the grave. Surely 
 the solemn words — "To have and to hold, from this time 
 forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, till death 
 us do part," are the words of inspiration. When genius is ill- 
 mated misery is inevitable ; and misery feeds genius, which 
 in time brings forth literature, art, science. But misery, with 
 or without genius, sometimes bring forth something worse 
 than these — envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, 
 murders, adulteries, divorce courts. In making false marriages 
 let parents look these things fairly in the face, and teach 
 their children so to do. Charles Kingsley was surely an 
 undisputed genius. He made a happy marriage. In his case 
 bliss too brought forth books. So let genius not despair. 
 When almost at death's door, on entering his wife's presence, 
 after a long separation, he exclaimed rapturously, " This is 
 Heaven ! " 
 
 Unfortunately Jane Carlyle's paradise was not quite heaven 
 to her husband, though he fain would make it so. To him 
 existence was often intolerable. Carlyle was Carlyle, with a 
 capacity for loving and being loved genius alone possesses, 
 yet he was for ever debarred from both. 
 
 " In the mutual misery we are both in," he writes, " we do 
 not know how dear we are to each other." That they did not 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 197 
 
 know made most of the mutual misery. They did know of 
 their mutual misery, however, to their own unutterable 
 distress. In this very letter, he adds how at a dinner-table 
 he had been made into a laughing-stock by one of her 
 sarcastic remarks. " When the wife has influenza it is a 
 slight cold ; when the man has it it is . ." &c., &c. These 
 constant attempts to turn him into ridicule, or to enlighten 
 the world upon his weak points, could not have been 
 agreeable to any man, with ever so wooden a head, or with 
 the skin of a rhinoceros. To Carlyle they must have con- 
 tributed in no small degree to his sense of being for ever 
 misunderstood. 
 
 About this time he had to pass through the intolerable 
 experience of being a juryman. He fumed and fretted, as was 
 his custom at minor miseries, enduring the heavier burdens 
 with stoical fortitude. That he should be compelled to endure 
 such an infliction seemed incredible. He wrote to Charles 
 Buller, which was not of the slightest avail. Submission was 
 inevitable, to the intense amusement of wife and friends. 
 Their banter of course called forth a few explosives, but he 
 passed through the two days' trying ordeal with a limited 
 amount of baffled fury. 
 
 His domestic quiet was again disturbed by their servant — 
 a certain Helen of Kirkaldy, who gave curious tokens of 
 attachment to Mrs. Carlyle, and was retained at Chelsea for 
 eleven years. Carlyle in time looked upon her as one of his 
 household. " In passing through the din of London, she took 
 no more notice of anything than an old hen would have done 
 safely sitting in a basket. A curious little being indeed, 
 affording them endless amusement and no little trouble. 
 Strange to say, she was a great reader. Her end was sad." 
 That is Carlyle's testimony respecting their attached domestic. 
 Mrs. Carlyle said that " the girl declared she was always busy, 
 and yet nothing was to be seen as the fruit of her labour, 
 which she hopes to find after many days." The wretched 
 creature was always tippling. 
 
 Imagine Carlyle and his wife down in the subterranean 
 regions till three o'clock in the morning, trying to get the 
 maddened creature, crouching in a corner, to go to bed. He, 
 the great philosopher, the Chelsea sage, " head of the whole 
 mystic school," spending his precious hours on such an atom 
 of degraded humanity ! He was evidently attached to the 
 
198 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 girl, there was something original, true-hearted about her, and 
 he would think of what she might have been born under other 
 auspices. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle too showed infinite patience, and wrote graphic 
 descriptions of the scenes she passed through with the unhappy 
 Helen. Tippling was her only fault — the signal instance 
 within our experience when it did not bring others in its 
 train. The next morning found Helen penitent, tearful, pro- 
 testing ; she was forgiven, and left sole occupant of her 
 domain. Half an hour later her mistress descended to the 
 lower regions, and found the penitent dead drunk on the 
 floor ! And this kind of thing, off and on, a genius endured 
 for eleven years, in heart-felt pity for the poor creature, who 
 in her sane moments was loving and faithful. Abstinence 
 for her would be easier than temperance — the only remedy 
 indeed. 
 
 Carlyle was reading voraciously all this time, but could not 
 bring his subject into shape. Remembering all he had suffered 
 during the writing of the French Revolution, he dreaded to 
 begin. Writing was never easy or pleasant to Carlyle. It 
 was duty calling loudly and imperatively upon his God-given 
 talents, and he dare not disobey. But he sometimes grumbled 
 loud and long when ideas would get muddled. When after 
 scribbling for hours, perusal convinced him that it was not 
 his best work, deliberately, with grim countenance and 
 firmly-closed mouth, he would stand over the fire, while the 
 flames consumed page after page of his brain-work, his burn- 
 ing, passionate thoughts. No, it was certainly no easy task 
 to resume the subject the next morning ; but it mattered not, 
 he must do his work patiently, laboriously, and leave no 
 effort untried to perfect it, cost what it might. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle used to say, that a look at Carlyle's books was 
 enough to give her the lockjaw. Alas ! she had often been an 
 unwilling witness of the terrible cost of their production. Bat 
 yet she was as anxious as he for them to be written, else what 
 Avould become of her 1 As it was, he often spoke with grim 
 delight of returning to the seclusion of Craigenputtock. The 
 prospect to Jane was most unpalatable. At Chelsea she had 
 callers, admirers, and even friends ; she kept up a constant 
 correspondence with John Sterling, and her letters were worth 
 preserving, and were so religiously. She showed little reserve 
 — writing as if he were her brother on all subjects of interest 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 199 
 
 to her — her husband and his grim ways, his work, and his 
 accustomed growl, her servants, her visitors, and her thoughts. 
 John also wrote wonderful letters to her and Carlyle, one of 
 which Jane declared she would not have given for the best 
 drama of Shakspeare. " John Sterling, the poet, no matter 
 so long as the man is what her heart wishes him to be." 
 But poor Sterling was slowly hastening to that bourn from 
 which there is no return. The weakness of his chest neces- 
 sitated change to a warmer climate. He went to Falmouth. 
 It was John Sterling who taught Mr. Froude to understand 
 and appreciate Carlyle. 
 
 In the autumn of 1841 Carlyle again visited Scotsbrig, but 
 he was restless and unsettled even there. During his absence 
 Jane wiote to Sterling that *' she did nothing but read 
 novels, lying on the sofa, in wonder at being in this great big 
 absurdity of a world." And what a prodigious long time one 
 takes to die. 
 
 After Carlyle had been on a series of visits to Yorkshire 
 with Sir R. Milnes, and at Scotsbrig with his mother, Mrs. 
 Carlyle followed him to Liverpool, where he met her. The last 
 look on her face as he parted from her in London had haunted 
 him all through his jonrneyings. *' Oh, Jeannie, would thou 
 wert happy ! would that I could make thee happy I " was his 
 undying wish. His pity and sympathy were too much for 
 him, too much for poor human endurance. From Liverpool 
 they drove over together to Templand, where Carlyle en- 
 deavoured to pass the night ; but from some cause he found 
 sleep unattainable for either of them. At three o'clock in the 
 morning he rose stealthily, and went out into the yard. The 
 cocks and hens were all awake, crowing and chuckling. He 
 tried in vain to silence them, for they disturbed his wife. 
 Then in the dim light of the early dawn he saddled his 
 horse and returned to Scotsbrig to finish the night, thinking 
 tragically of his poor Jeannie, and all the history they had 
 had together, "Alas! let us not take the tragic side of it. 
 Yet all tragedy has a meaning and a blessing in it withal. 
 Sleep and be well. No fixed intentions, only rebellious 
 impulses, blind longings." Poor Carlyle ! rest nowhere 
 attainable. 
 
 In despair he hired a cottage in a most remote seaside place, 
 a perfect curiosity of its kind — tide scarcely ten yards from 
 the door. "A dandified fantasticality!" he pronounced the 
 
200 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 spot. It was situated very near to Annan, the scene of his 
 own boyhood. All around were the friends and relatives of 
 Edward Irving. These he, however, persistently avoided. 
 He recognized no one, and allowed no one to speak to him 
 as he wandered at dusk, lonely and sad, amid the old familiar 
 scenes. Ii'ving was dead, and of the dead Carlyle harboured 
 none but tender, forgiving thoughts. These people were 
 living, perhaps knew the history of his life's sorrow and dis- 
 appointment. He would take care not to subject himself to 
 their scrutiny ; he had still his poor old mother within walk- 
 ing distance, and he could visit her, leaving the faithful Helen 
 of Kirkaldy to take care of Jeannie when she declined to 
 accompany him. 
 
 Unfortunately this retreat proved even more expensive than 
 life at Chelsea, and on the whole not nearly so satisfactory, 
 costing him at least .£70. It was a mutual arrangement, so 
 they could not blame each other ; but both were glad to find 
 themselves once more at Cheyne Kow. 
 
201 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 In tlie heart of the remotest mountain, rises the little Kirk — the dead 
 all slumbering round it, under the white memorial stones, in hope 
 of a happy resurrection. Dull wert thou, Reader, if it never spoke 
 in any hour to thee, things unspeakable, that went into thy soul's 
 soul. — Carlyle, French Revolution. 
 
 February 23rd, 1841. — A wild, blustering, rainy day. 
 Telegrams were unknown in those times, but sad news arrived 
 at Cheyne Row. Mrs. Welsh had been seized with sudden 
 illness, her life was in danger. 
 
 Heedless of wind and weather, or any other hindrances, Jane 
 immediately prepared for a journey north, while deaf to all 
 words of hope of ever seeing her mother alive again. Carlyle 
 accompanind her to the Euston Station ; she would not delay 
 an hour. On reaching Liverpool it was as she feared ; kind 
 friends met her, but with the heartrending intelligence that 
 all was over. Poor Jeannie was taken to bed unconscious, 
 and news of the sad event was sent immediately to Carlyle, 
 who had made preparations to follow his wife. This he did at 
 once, and on reaching Liverpool he found her still too ill almost 
 to comprehend her loss. He proceeded at once to Templand. 
 
 The weather had changed from rain and storm to a biting 
 wind, a hard clear frost. He wrapped himself in his old dress- 
 ing-gown, over which he buttoned his great-coat, and walked 
 across the familiar mountain-passes, under the midnight sky. 
 At Dumfries he passed his sister Jane's farmstead, but she, 
 having heard the news, did not intend to miss the chance of 
 meeting him. He found her looking out for him, and was 
 persuaded to go home with her and take some refreshment. 
 This was no long delay. Others also he recognized, who did 
 not know that muffled figure. The house at Templand he found 
 intensely silent and Sabbath-like. Mrs. Welsh had died from 
 a paralytic stroke, had apparently suffered little, and Carlyle 
 
202 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 felt what a blessing it was for them both to remember that 
 they had faced the poverty and spared her its pain. " Lament 
 not, my poor Jeannie," he wrote. " As sure as we live we 
 shall go to her, we shall before long join her, and be united, 
 we, and all our loved ones, even in such a way as God has seen 
 good, which way, of all conceivable ways, is it not the best ? " 
 But Jane refused to be comforted, continued in a sad, excitable, 
 and sick condition. 
 
 Carlyle was obliged to remain a couple of months at Temp- 
 land, much business having to be transacted. Finding the 
 place dreary in the extreme, he sent for his mother to come 
 and bear him company, thanking God she was yet spared to 
 him. The intense silence of the place was unceremoniously 
 broken in upon only by the loud and lively cawing of the 
 rooks. Lively, he pronounced it ! We always felt that of all 
 sounds that is the most melancholy, with the exception of the 
 tolling of a Church bell from a distance. 
 
 Carlyle went and spent two hours, two " meditative hours," 
 at the newly -made grave. He copied the inscription from the 
 tombstone, and with hammer and chisel corrected some little 
 mistakes thereon ; wrote part of a letter to his wife from the 
 spot, and gathered some flowers for her. All the heirlooms 
 and relics he forwarded to Chelsea ; the rest of the furniture 
 and effects were sold by auction, and it was during this trying 
 scene that Carlyle paid the above-mentioned visit to Crawford 
 churchyard. It was a dreary time for Carlyle. He had 
 become attached to Mrs. Welsh, had discovered in her many 
 estimable qualities, and was conscious that her reasons for 
 opposing his marriage with her daughter had pretty well 
 coincided with his own. If there was anything to condone in 
 the past, it had already been done entirely. He now remem- 
 bered her love and devotion to her spoilt child, and her later 
 kindness to himself. " A mother dead is an epoch for us all," he 
 wrote, and must inevitably call aloud for vehement repentance. 
 
 Amidst the calm stillness of those country scenes, he looked 
 back regretfully on " London vanities, dinners, and hencoops," 
 and felt more and more drawn towards Craigenputtock ; but 
 as Jane hated the idea, he declared that if she preferred 
 Chelsea, he would not consider himself. At Chelsea they 
 would remain ; and, after all, " London was the only spot where 
 he could enjoy the blessedness of freedom, though at the 
 expense of dirt, smoke, vanity, and noises." 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 203 
 
 He entreated her to rouse herself from her stupor of grief, 
 to engage all her faculties in some real work. " Her life then, 
 if not happy, would cease to be miserable, though he recognized 
 well how peculiar and original her case appeared to her, and in 
 many ways ivas.^' He did not wish to argue with her, only to 
 persuade her, to try the effect of being adequately busy with 
 her whole mind, finding surely by his own sad experience that 
 in this grimmest, rocky wilderness of existence " there are 
 blessed well-springs, there is an everlasting guiding star." 
 *' Courage, my poor little Jeannie. God look down upon us, 
 and guide us not happily, but ivell through life." 
 
 A real gratification awaited Carlyle ere he returned to 
 Chelsea. This was an invitation from Dr. Arnold of Rugby, 
 or rather an entreaty, that he would pay him a visit on his 
 way from Scotland to the south. Dr. Arnold was enthusiastic 
 in his commendation of Chartism and the French Revolution, 
 and desired to become acquainted with their author. Carlyle 
 gladly embraced this opportunity, for though he did not 
 coincide with all Dr. Arnold's opinions, he recognized his 
 abilities and his usefulness as immense. He greatly enjoyed 
 his short visit. Dr. Arnold and his sons drove him over to 
 Naseby, the scene of one of Cromwell's greatest victories, the 
 sight of which aroused fresh enthusiasm for his new work. 
 " JSTaseby is a peaceable old Hamlet yet, of perhaps five hun- 
 dred souls \ clay cottages for labourers, but neatly thatched 
 and swept ; smith's shop, saddler's shop, beer shop, all in order, 
 forming a kind of square, which leads off, north and south, 
 into two long streets; the old Church, with its graves, stands 
 in the centre, the truncated spire finishing in a strange old 
 ball. It stands nearly in the heart of England. It was on 
 this high moor-ground that King Charles, on the 14th of June, 
 1645, fought his last battle, and was shivered utterly to ruin." 
 
 As Carlyle stood and gazed on the scene, the figure of the 
 old battle was brought dimly back to him ; and the later 
 remembrance of it helped him not a little in describing the 
 momentous events of that day in his history of Cromwell. His 
 host. Dr. Arnold, he found " a real believer in the Christian 
 religion." A real believer ! That from Carlyle meant much. 
 He used often to say that, " if a man once achieved such a 
 height, as to be a true Christian, he would never descend from 
 it again ; and let it once be supposed that the clergy were 
 generally teaching what they themselves believed, the Church 
 
204 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 of England would cease to be a hideous hypocrisy." "We 
 do not pretend that Carlyle was perfectly consistent in 
 all he said, or is rather credited with saying, but his writings 
 always breathe the same spirit. We know as well as he how 
 many men enter the Church even now, not so much from 
 earnest belief, as from expediency. This to Carlyle's pure 
 mind was downright deceit. He described Rugby " as a temple 
 of industrious peace, one of the rarest sights in the world." 
 
 He returned to Chelsea, to his sorrow-stricken wife, fully 
 believing that, though she said little about it, she was longing 
 to have him back. However, on his arrival she had little to 
 say to him on any subject. His heart was full, and to his 
 mother he wrotG what strange thoughts on all imaginable 
 things oppressed him. Jane had her cousin to keep her com- 
 pany. They sat together in what he called the Low Room, 
 where they sewed, read, chatted, and entertained company, 
 keeping themselves and it out of Carlyle's way. "When 
 with him " Jane mournfully cried, or was worse when she did 
 not." 
 
 At last poor John Stirling, with still shattered health, 
 returned to Chelsea, and the husband congratulated himself 
 on his arrival as " being a new resource for his wife, who only 
 cared for sympathy from her friends." In July Jane 
 graciously wrote to some one that Carlyle had remembered 
 her birthday, and had given her a present. Such an action 
 proved to her indisputably how anxious he was to replace 
 what was, however, irreplaceable, bat nevertheless his thought- 
 fulness touched her deeply. She knew how of all things he 
 detested entering a shop to make a purchase, yet from hence- 
 forth her birthday was never forgotten, and he " proved thereby 
 that he was as good in little things as he was in great." 
 
 Carlyle was anxious about his wife's continued depress'on. 
 Now her Scottish home was for ever broken up, he did not 
 know where to send or take her for chanjje of air. His old 
 pupil, Reginald Bailer, had a fat Norfolk living, where he 
 vegetated luxuriously. The BuUers had remained ever his 
 staunchest friends, " never boggled at his rustic outside or his 
 melancholy, dyspeptic ways." Mrs. BuUer, now an elderly, 
 matronly lady, proposed that Jane should go with her on a 
 visit to her son, the rector, and only stipulated as a reward 
 for taking her that Carlyle should go to the " House," and 
 hear Charles speak in Parliament. He could not refuse. So 
 
THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 205 
 
 Jane went to Troston, and her descriptive letter gives us a 
 vivid idea of clerical life in those days. 
 
 ''August, 1842. 
 
 " I hope you are rested, and are going to Lady Harriet's, 
 and hope you will think of me a good deal, and be as good to 
 me when I return as you were when I came away. I do not 
 desire any more of you." 
 
 The church she likened to the burial-place of real religion. 
 At the rectory no sleep was attainable at all. Asses brayed 
 as if the devil were in them, cocks crowed, rooks cawed, 
 children screamed, and some vermin of a creature hooted 
 incessantly to keep the birds away. That is her description of 
 country noises. Hear what Carlyle says of town noises — 
 " How the ear of man is tortured in this terrestrial planet ! 
 The cock's shrill clarion, the dog's harsh bark, the neighing of 
 jackasses, wheels, wooden clogs, loud harsh human voices, 
 tremendous bells, the hollow triviality of the piano. Oh, for 
 a hammer to smash all the pianos in Europe ; for once you 
 hear real music, you hear five hundred distracted janglings." 
 
 l!s"ot only the church and the noise, but the parson gave 
 Jane dissatisfaction. She wished Carlyle were Kector of 
 Troston — what a boon it would have been for the poor people ! 
 Felt almost inclined to run over to the church, and give the 
 congregation a word of monition herself. Reginald Buller did 
 not preach, only read. She went in the afternoon of the first 
 Sunday to see how the creature got through it, and heard 
 strange things. The congregation consisted of about thirty 
 adults. Reginald ascended the pulpit in white vestment, pro- 
 foundly Church of England like, gave out the Psalm, where- 
 upon arose at the far end of the mouldering church a clear, 
 shrill sound, something between a scream of agony and the 
 highest tone of the bagpipes. She looked in astonishment, 
 but could discover nothing. It turned out to be a clarionet ! 
 
 While Reginald droned through some one else's sermon, 
 Jane gazed at two tombstones opposite to her. Between 
 laughing and crying, she pored over the inscriptions ; both 
 concluded with hopes of an immortality, through Jesus Christ. 
 Also another monument, erected in memory of a young oflScer 
 killed in battle in Spain, expressed the same hope of a joyful 
 resurrection through Jesus Christ ; and she was at the same 
 time listening to this same Gospel of Jesus Christ made as 
 intelligible as the cawing of rooks. Choking with various 
 
206 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 emotions, Jane decided to attend that church no more. In 
 the evening she played chess with the rector ! though to her 
 Puritan, sabbath-keeping husband she admitted that it was 
 very improper. 
 
 Carlyle attended no place of worship, or rarely, but this is 
 his expressed opinion of that day — "The blessed silence of 
 the Sabbath ! Nobody loves the Sabbath as I do. Left alone, 
 I have a kind of solemn sadness — a gloom of mind which, 
 though heavy to bear, is not unallied with sacredness and 
 blessedness." 
 
 The following Sunday, however, Reginald looked at Jane 
 so reproachfully, that she felt compelled to break through her 
 resolution, and again attend his church. This time she was 
 prepared. The pew was large and comfortable, its high back 
 making it a secluded nook. When the long sermon began, 
 she took off her bonnet, arranged the cushions, and, resting 
 her head upon them, fell into a fast sleep, without troubling 
 herself any further with vain regrets or thoughts of any kind 
 upon the Church of England question. 
 
 In the mean time Carlyle fulfilled his promise, and went 
 to hear his old pupil spout in Parliament. It was the first 
 and last time he ever entered the House of Commons. The 
 sight amused and grieved him. Hurrying and bustling, 
 members rushed to their places, all talking together, drowning 
 the words of the Speaker ; coming and going just as they 
 listed, as if utterly careless, or unaware, that anything of 
 moment was taking place ; and yet this was the Assembly, in 
 which the affairs concerning the welfare or misery of countless 
 numbers were discussed and finally settled. Bills were passed 
 to which no one seemed to have paid the least attention, or 
 cared a farthing about. A well-known eloquent man alone 
 could ensure attention or silence. 
 
 Thus he wrote to a certain member — " Loving my life and 
 time, which is the staff of life, I read Parliamentary debates, 
 rarely any Parliamentary speech ; but I am told that there 
 is not in the seven years the smallest gleam of new intelli- 
 gence, earthly or divine, thrown out by any honourable 
 gentleman on his legs in Parliament. Honourable gentlemen 
 have complained to myself that under the sun there was not 
 such a bore." 
 
 Carlyle rivetted his eyes on Sir Pobert Peel. He had once 
 travelled with him in the same railway carriage. He described 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 207 
 
 him as clever-looking, with a large, substantial head, a Roman 
 nose, massive cheeks, and with a wrinkle of half-sneer, half- 
 sorrow on his face. An honest-looking, curious man, who 
 aroused great interest in the mind of his examiner. Carlyle 
 confessed having at one time contemplated becoming a member 
 of the Commons, with the sole purpose of telling its members 
 what he thought of them, and their merits. 
 
 While Jeannie was absent, he took the shortest tour on 
 record with Stephen Spring Kice. They went in an Admiralty 
 yacht to Ostend on public business. They stopped at Margate, 
 and attended a ball. Carlyle was pressed to dmce, but 
 stoutly refused. On board the vessel he could not sleep ; 
 went on deck, and spent the night pacing to and fro. On 
 reaching Ostend, while others were sight-seeing, he went and 
 bathed, and then alone wandered about the town, making his 
 own reflections. He looked upon churches and buildings, 
 dykes and streets, as a miracle of human industry. A strange 
 old city it seemed to him. In the middle of the market-place 
 a tree had been planted, called the " tree of liberty." Carlyle 
 patted it with his hand in approbation. He emptied his 
 pockets of all his loos 3 cash to the possible descendants of so 
 brave and industrious a people. 
 
 He entered a magnificent church. Scene most impressive ; 
 high arched roof. Through the painted windows the dim 
 twilight fell on new and ancient tombstones. The mass had 
 ended, but worshippers still lingered, kneeling in devotion as 
 they counted their beads. The sight was so solemn, so soul- 
 stirring, that to him it formed a far more interesting picture 
 than the renowned paintings in the church, of which he took 
 no notice. The fat, greasy-looking priests alone raised his 
 ire. He felt an inclination to "kick them into the canal," 
 but came to the conclasion that, even if at liberty to do so, he 
 would refrain, lest "something worse should take their place." 
 
 Carlyle afterwards went to Troston to fetch Jane home. 
 He walked about the country lanes, and visited scenes in 
 Cromwell's county, feeling like a ghost as he moved about on 
 historical ground. He paid a visit to Ely Cathedral, which 
 impressed him deeply. The building was tenanted solely by a 
 solitary sparrow, which had strayed within the sacred walls. 
 Carlyle stood motionless. Presently the tones of the organ 
 were heard softly stealing up the silent aisles. The sound 
 fairly overcame his feelings ; unbidden tears filled his eyes. 
 
208 THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 He pictured his hero, Cromwell, long since gone to dust, 
 standing on that same spot, crying out to the occupant of 
 that selfsame pulpit in sonorous tones, " Cease your fooling 
 and come out, sir ! " 
 
 From the cathedral he went to Oliver's old house, and 
 carried away a crumb of the old Horse-block. Veritable 
 hero-worshipper was Thomas Carlyle. He also visited Crom- 
 well's farm, and had a peep at St. Ives' poor-house and the 
 paupers, which gave him various ideas. He had read tons of 
 books on his new subject, but as yet not a word was written. 
 Now another book shaped itself in his mind, called into 
 existence by that sight of the St. Ives' workhouse and its 
 paupers, in addition to the accounts of the terrible Manchester 
 insurrection. No more of Cromwell till Past and Present was 
 written and published. This book took him seven weeks to 
 write, and called forth the warmest admiration and storms of 
 censure. 
 
 These revolutionary movements he declared were spasmodic 
 efforts of the working-classes to recover for themselves the 
 position they had lost when they ceased to be serfs. The 
 toilers toiled hard as ever, but now were fooled by the shadow 
 of the substance they had lost. 
 
 It has been said that Past and Presnet was an appeal that, 
 " when the niggers over the seas were attended to, some 
 attention might be paid to the hunger-stricken, pallid, yellow- 
 coloured free labourers of Lancashire," who were then in dire 
 distress. Carlyle's pity was unbounded for all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men. He scarcely knew how to divide it between 
 the black and white victims of mismanagement. He was 
 full of generous, almost exaggerated impulses, always on the 
 grand and gigantic scale, and only longed that those who had 
 the power might be somewhat influenced by his writings to 
 use it for the benefit of suffering humanity. And this son of 
 a peasant, leading his pure, simple life in his little house at 
 Chelsea, seeking no promotion for himself, contented with 
 scarcely more than workman's wages, was instrumental in 
 shaking the modern world. Yes, indeed, he did what he could 
 to stem the tide of human misery, and to elevate his fellows, 
 and his conscience was stilled for a time when that book 
 appeared. Emerson declared that Past and Present was "a 
 monument of Carlyle's keen practicability." 
 
209 
 
 CHAPTER XXYII. 
 
 He expected heroes, and he found mean men. He had dreamt of 
 magnanimity and every generous impulse and principle, and he 
 found that prudence is the only virtue sure of its reward. — 
 Carlyle, Miscellanies. 
 
 On receiving a present of Carlyle's works, Charles Kingsley 
 writes — " I am utterly delighted with them ! The French 
 Bevolution strengthened my faith in God's righteous govern- 
 ment of the world. The Miscellanies and Past and Present 
 placed me under a still deeper debt to that old Hebrew prophet 
 (aged forty-six), who goes to prince and beggar and says — ' If 
 you do this or that you shall go not to the hell that priests 
 talk of, but to a hell on earth.' " 
 
 Again he says — "From them I learnt somewhat of true 
 Catholicity, of the love which delights to recognize God's spirit 
 through every alternation of age, of character, and circum- 
 stance. Our vaunted intellect is nothing, nothing but a noble 
 mechanism. The source of feeling is the soul. This explains 
 the mysteries of moral responsibility and moral culture. 
 
 " Read Carlyle, that you may strive to free men from the 
 bondage of custom and self, the two great elements of the 
 world that lieth in wickedness. More and more I find that 
 Carlyle's writings do not lead to gloomy discontent, that theirs 
 is not a dark but a bright view of life ; in reality more evil- 
 speaking against the age and its inhabitants is thundered from 
 the pulpit daily, by both evangelical and tractarian, than 
 Carlyle has been guilty of in all his works ; but he finds fault 
 in tangible, original language. They speak evil of every one 
 but their own party, but in such conventional language that 
 no one is shocked by the oft- repeated formulae of original sin, 
 unconverted hearts, &c. I find, also, that Carlyle's system, or 
 rather chaos, so far from making one unloving, makes one 
 more and more loving and charitable at every page. I do not 
 
 p 
 
210 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 think it would do this unless translated and explained by the 
 great truths of Christianity, but in their light I see its light. 
 I cannot say what / personally owe to that man's writings." 
 
 We quote these opinions from Charles Kingsley, as express- 
 ing, more forcibly than we can, what . Carlyle's writings have 
 been to ns, and would be to all who are equally willing to 
 learn. But Carlyle's style is unique, and requires deep study. 
 To those unable or unwilling to take pains they must remain 
 sealed books. 
 
 Carlyle was really more orthodox than Kingsley. He had 
 no more doubt of eternal punishment than of eternal happi- 
 ness, though we fear there were moments when he doubted 
 both. He declared it was Divine love that instituted hell, and 
 to his sense of justice there was no cruelty, but immovable 
 righteous fulfilment of law in its enactment. 
 
 George Eliot declared that men were very little influenced 
 by fear of future retribution, yet conscience makes cowards of 
 us all, and when fierce passions obliterate every noble impulse, 
 when the reaction sets in, fear creeps upon the sinner till he 
 cringes abjectly before the unknown. Would to God he were 
 on the safe side ! is the inward ejaculation. 
 
 But to continue our story. Having published his rather 
 hastily-written work, Past and Present, Carlyle needed change 
 of scene. The house at Chelsea was sadly in need of re-paint- 
 ing and other re-adjustments. A household earthquake was in 
 the air, and his absence was to be preferred to his company 
 during a state of domestic chaos ] so Carlyle was persuaded to 
 pay a visit to a no less exalted personage than Bishop Thirl- 
 wall, whose acquaintance he had made. The Bishop was 
 considered unorthodox, which was of itself a recommendation. 
 He was a man of original and independent views, and pleased 
 our hero much by his stern, rigir], incorruptible character. 
 Surely the contemplation of and desire to meet a high ideal 
 is of itself elevating. When an ideal turns out to be very 
 ordinary it is very disappointing, perhaps bitterly so, but it is 
 in no way deteriorating to the credulous believer in heroic 
 virtues. 
 
 Carlyle was invariably a little disappointed in his living 
 heroes, and Froude, tl.e historian of the apostle of hero- 
 worship, scarcely does him justice. Of this visit to Wales he 
 says — " Carlyle had gone o:ffi to Wales, leaving his wife to 
 endure the confusion, and to superintend the workmen alone 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 211 
 
 with her maid." Is Mr. Froude a bachelor 1 Can he know any- 
 thing of the misery of a woman, to have a husband muddling 
 helplessly about, when everything in the house is of ne- 
 cessity topsy-turvy 1 Carlyle was kind to go away during 
 such an upheaval of home comforts. His wife watched him 
 depart with glee — nothing short of glee ; and so would any 
 other wife, on such an occasion. 
 
 From the Bishop's residence in South Wales, 1843, Carlyle 
 writes — 
 
 "At Aberguili the Bishop in his wide, secluded mansion 
 sat waiting for me, all friendly, all quiet, and green ; neverthe- 
 less, as I predicted, I have been forced to record that the last 
 I have yet seen of rest was at Llandough. Blessings on its 
 green trees and solitary knolls. The Bishop led me incessantly 
 about in search of the picturesque, on high-trotting horses, in 
 all weathers, sometimes twenty miles off in one ride ; conver- 
 sation wise, but not restful, going on all day. Prayers in 
 Laud's chapel, and other solemnities going on from seven in 
 the morning till midnight. We had the judge one night to 
 dinner, and a shipload of noisy barristers." 
 
 To be a guest in a bishop's palace was altogether a new 
 experience, and one not of pleasure unalloyed. He found the 
 attendant flunkeys a kind of curb bridle on his liberties. 
 Their obsequious politeness and ofhciousness irritated the man, 
 who knew so well how to wait upon himself. The ceaseless 
 routine, the rigid forms and ceremonies, however elegant and 
 decent, were quite foreign to Carlyle, and not much appreciated. 
 "Even a strong Bishop Thirlwall," he wrot?, "constitutes 
 himself a Macready of Episcopacy, as the best he can, and does 
 it uncommonly well too." 
 
 From Aberguili he proceeded on, northwards, by steamer. A 
 foolish young couple laughed at his peculiar turn-out on deck. 
 He gave them a look which was almost annihilating, and 
 " reduced them at once to a state of mind befitting their 
 station, and procured for himself the treatment and respect 
 due to genius ! " While at Liverpool he heard Father Mathew, 
 the great teetotal advocate, and witnessed a scene he declared 
 to be at once most religious, interesting, and pathetic. Father 
 Mathew's solemnity and earnestness of manner, his self-deny- 
 ing efforts to reform the wretched drunkard, called forth all 
 Carlyle's respect and reverence. Proof there indeed of genuine 
 religion, such as was rarely seen. He raised his broad- brimmed 
 
 p 2 
 
21*2 THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 hat, tears filling his eyes as he listened to the deep-toned voice 
 invoking God's blessings on the vow just t;iken by some poor 
 wretch to abstain from the degrading vice of drunkenness. 
 
 From Liverpool he went to Scotsbrig in search of rest, quiet, 
 and sympathy. He found his dear old mother fast aging, 
 looking thin and pale. This helped to make this visit sad, 
 together with the reflection that his poor little Jeannie was 
 altogother motherless. 
 
 It is the romance of our earthly existence that makes life a 
 perpetual pain or a perpetual joy. Only the densely stupid or 
 intensely selfish are contented with the lowest things of nature, 
 only to such are material things satisfying. Carlyle's family, 
 however much attached to him, were unable to *' unwrap the 
 baleful Nessus spirit of perpetual pain and isolation in which 
 he was lamed, embaled, and swathed, as in enchantment." No 
 wonder that a man of such warm affections, such keen sensi- 
 bilities, gave way occasionally not only to loud grumbling but 
 to absolute frenzy, amidst the poverty, the neglect, the dis- 
 appointment he met at one time, or the extravagant adulation, 
 flattery, and attention he experienced at others. But he 
 managed to possess his soul in some sort of patience through- 
 out his long life, and became neither savage nor frantic, though 
 the habit of looking for the ideal among the real left him bat 
 little contentment. 
 
 During his Welsh visit Jeannie was infinitely amused at his 
 accounts of his sufferings unutterable at the Bishop's palace 
 and elsewhere, congratulating both herself and him that they 
 were, after all, nothing in comparison to what he must have 
 endured had he remained at Cheyne Row during its state of 
 siege by the workmen. However, it would be gratifying for 
 him to return to a renovated paradise, and only she and such 
 as she could be jolly during the transition process. She even 
 enjoyed the musical powers of a working lad, who invariably 
 sang scraps of songs, which even at her request he was unable 
 to finish. Helen was still her devoted maid, and she had the 
 satisfaction of being called upon by all her husband's distin- 
 guished friends, to inquire kindly after her state, and to pro- 
 nounce her a " model wife," as indeed in some respects she was. 
 When the smell of paint became intolerable, Jane pitched 
 herself a tent in the back garden, utterly regardless of the 
 curious eyes of her neighbours over the wall, as they watched 
 her gipsying. '* London, be it e'er so hot, is ne'er too hot for 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 213 
 
 me," she wrote. " Your little note has come. Thank you for 
 never neglecting me." Never neglecting her ! Could any wife 
 say more in her husband's favour ? I trow not. 
 
 When alone Jane evidently had plenty of resources. She 
 read novels, she chatted with the workmen, flirted with her 
 visitors, st^'tched with her dainty little fingers, laughing in her 
 sleeve at the foolish imaginings of the male sex concerning 
 women's helplessness ; they are really almost superior to fate, 
 while the sterner sex is hopelessly dependent upon them for 
 comfort, &c. Occasionally she would picture her grim lord in 
 the midst of this uproar, and the contemplation was enough 
 to make her laugh, cry, or shriek. 
 
 They had made many new acquaintances, among them was 
 Mazzini, the Italian patriot, Wordsworth, the poet, and 
 Geraldine Jewsbury, who became a novelist of no mean order. 
 This young lady was a warm partizan of Mrs. Carlyle's, 
 and her confidante. From her letters to this friend we glean 
 much of her life's history. 
 
 Carlyle says that Miss Jewsbury was a young woman who 
 yearned passionately for some one to guide her, and fancied 
 that George Sand could help her in finding an earthly 
 Paradise. 
 
 Of George Sand Carlyle had a very poor opinion. He 
 loathed all sensual, indecent literature with his whole soul — 
 called her a " great, improper female." 
 
 Poor Geraldine ! He would fain teach her that people 
 were born into the world for some other purpose than to fall 
 in love — that falling in love is a ridiculous, contemptuous 
 term — one need never expect such a love to last. A\ hen 
 people fall they generally pick themselves up ere long ; it is 
 the deliberately walking into love, growing, deepening, 
 strengthening therein, that is of life importance. To Carlyle 
 himself love was most essential, but from the human he 
 invariably passed far beyond to the spirit, only partially 
 reached till we regain the last step of the ladder that leads to 
 perfect reality. 
 
 In spite of failings, Geraldine Jewsbury established herself 
 as a household guest at Cheyne Row, where she ever met 
 with a warm welcome. When there she was much more 
 frequently in the subterranean regions than was Mrs. Carlyle, 
 going down in one day oftener than the mistress did in a 
 month. By Jane's own confession, we perceive that she was 
 
214 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 no domestic martyr, and we are glad of any proof that tends 
 to a denial of the aspersions that are and have been cast 
 upon the memory of our hero. 
 
 This visit of Carlyle's was a protracted one. But nowhere 
 did he ever express himself at peace. Happiness was not for 
 him, nor for the majority of his fellow mortals. He was very 
 fond of repeating the anecdote of the Irishman, who, while 
 belabouring with his cudgel another of his unfortunate country- 
 men, exclaimed, " Oh, the devil burn it, there is no pleasing 
 yer, strike where I will." 
 
 Carlyle was in a chronic state of suffering ; indeed he was a 
 verb alive, " always a being, incessantly a doing, and con- 
 tinually a suffering." His tossings and tumblings in Wales 
 and elsewhere had wearied him much. Wherever he went, he 
 found something to rouse his indignation or to excite his irony. 
 
 At Scotsbrig he hoped to find the repose he needed, but 
 even here his obscurity was broken in upon by a visit from 
 strangers from the West Indies, who had heard of his fame, 
 and would make his acquaintance. Although a veritable 
 hero- worshipper, he never himself sought the society of cele- 
 brities, or flattered them to their face, nor did he appreciate 
 being courted and worshipped. 
 
 To admire exalts the character ; to be admired is humiliating. 
 Those who came from curiosity to see a great man, neither 
 admired nor sympathized with him very often. How could he 
 pretend they were welcome ! He regaled these West Indian 
 visitors with whisky-and-water, and soon despatched them 
 about their business, mentally exclaiming — " There is no rest 
 for the wicked." 
 
 While in Scotland he had another veritable burden, and 
 that was to be fitted with clothes — a most detestable business. 
 He always employed the Ecclefechan tailors, believing that 
 they would use the genuine article he ordered, no shoddy, no 
 hateful imitations. He could not tolerate imposture, and 
 London was the city of shams, make-believes, adultei-ation, and 
 shirking of work. He had a veritable antipathy to the 
 " stunted cockneys " as a rule, having no faith in their 
 integrity. But though he patronized his countrymen he 
 I'arely mixed with them. In his native Annandale he held 
 little human communication with any but his own kith and 
 kin, wandering about like the ghost of the past, contemplating 
 Oliver Cromwell, and the awful, mysterious eternity. He 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 215 
 
 wandered still farther than Annandale. At Jeannie's request 
 he went on to Tempi and, and there distributed the customary- 
 doles with which Mrs. "Welsh had befriended certain poor 
 people; from thence he visited Crawford, and, amidst unearthly 
 stillness, gazed on her grave. 
 
 From such solemn scenes he went to Haddington, where he 
 had first met his wife. With what mingled feelings he must 
 have recalled her bright, beautiful girlhood, when her speaking 
 countenance was radiant with the happiness of her early- 
 love, so passionately given, so passionately returned. Now, 
 alas ! she had only him to rely upon, only him to fill up the gap 
 that separated her for all time from the great love of her life. 
 
 Surely his genius never deadened his feelings, but rather 
 rendered them more acute than ordinary mortals'. His heart 
 was full of pity and kindness for her, but no less was it 
 capable of as passionate, as enduring an affection as her own, 
 or of as bitter a disappointment. Finding that the woman 
 who had at last promised to be his wife was irrevocably 
 attached, though as irrevocably separated, from another man, 
 turned the lover at once into the friend — the brother born 
 for adversity, for all time to keep, to comfort, and cheer, 
 religiously, veraciously. Strange thoughts must have rushed 
 through his mind at Haddington. He next called upon Lord 
 Jeffery, now growing old and infirm, but little more serious 
 than of old. 
 
 Carlyle was now pursued by the same terror that had so 
 often darkened his childhood — the fear of losing his beloved 
 mother. Her death was advancing with slow but certain 
 steps, an inevitable bereavement. He could see its grim 
 shadow in her pale and wrinkled countenance, her feeble steps, 
 her fast emaciating frame. To him her loss would be irre- 
 parable. He revered no one so much, and none on earth had 
 ever, or could ever, love him, pray for him, or believe in him 
 as she did. 
 
 We must not imagine that Jeannie remained alone at 
 Chelsea all this time. Indeed, she knew perfectly well 
 how to take care of herself. She was not a martyr to 
 Carlyle at all. She knew when she required change and took 
 it, or where to find enjoyment. Old Mr. Sterling, who from 
 age and other, causes was growing very infirm, invited her to 
 Kvde for a month. She went, but while there suffered from 
 sleeplessness, indigestion, and incipient despair. Blue pill 
 
216 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 was the fashion, blue pill the scourge of our predecessors, 
 ruining them occasionally, physically and morally ; at the 
 best, tormenting and irritating them. Jane was bilious as 
 well as her husband, and she lost interest in everything when 
 suffering from such an attack. 
 
 Old Mr. Sterling, her former devoted admirer, was now *' a 
 
 sentimental old d ," and she imprecated his infernal 
 
 majesty to fly away with his nonsense. Besides, he had 
 become miserly, and she was disgusted with his notion of 
 saving when on the verge of the grave. He hail lost his 
 charm for her, had grown pitiable, and to her, what he ought 
 never to have become, contemptible. Here she also met 
 Father Mathew, and became a most enthusiastic admiier, but 
 not a follower, for she did not sign the pledge. 
 
 John Carlyle came to Cheyne Row before her husband 
 returned, and of him she wrote in a very changed tone. The 
 *' dearest of doctors " was likened to a fly weltering in the 
 treacle ; so untidy, so restless ! But she was thankful for 
 her own beautiful little home. On earth there was no place 
 affording her such comforts. Yet she expresses no gratitude 
 to the man who laboured so incessantly to keep up his and 
 her reputation, without which her life would indeed be 
 tedious ! 
 
 And now he was expected. "Would he approve the altera- 
 tions ? would he appreciate her efforts to improve their nest, 
 their exceedingly comfortable tub, out of which he could 
 safely bark at the dog-kennel of a world 1 Indeed he did. 
 All the fittings and refittings, all the new paint, the re- 
 adjustments he looked upon as the fruit of her loving 
 ingenuity. Tueir separate bed-rooms were beautifully arranged ; 
 everywhere his comfort had been considered. And above all, 
 his sadness for the time had dispersed ; her pre>ence was 
 bright and cheerful, instead of being so hopelessly despondent 
 as it so frequently was. That alone irradiated their house 
 with unusual brilliance. Would this mutual satisfaction 
 abide ; oh, would it 1 
 
217 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Peculiar difficulties, followed by peculiar success ! 
 Souls escape from their clay prisons, and meet in the Paradise of 
 Love. — Carlyle, Life of Schiller. 
 
 Jane returned to Chelsea to enjoy the fruit of her labours 
 in her beautiful surroundings ; Carlyle again to be absorbed in 
 his incessant toil. 
 
 After three days' calm, the domestic peace was broken by 
 a wretched girl, who commenced to strum on a miserable 
 piano at an unconscionably early hour, scattering all the wise 
 man's thoughts, and distracting him to frenzy. He had 
 returned bilious, and continued bilious, but determined to 
 work, and this unknown young woman seemed determined he 
 should not. Thoughts had been treasured for months in that 
 active brain. At times he was so susceptible to sound that a 
 sparrow's chirping would overpower the highly-strung nerves. 
 
 Jane wrote a " seductive " letter to the young lady, who 
 graciously promised never to play until two o'clock in the 
 afternoon. So again Carlyle essayed to write. But the new 
 arrangements of his study seemed to drive away all powers of 
 thought, while the street noises and the back-yard noises sent 
 him frantic. He must retain his senses. He could not hold 
 his genius if it were on the eve of departure ; could never 
 with the wildest intentions command inspiration. It no 
 douVjt grieved him, but the necessity of listening to and 
 obeying the requirements of his mental condition was im- 
 perative. Carpets must be taken up, another household 
 earthquake was positively inevitable. 
 
 Helon, a strange mixture of philosopher and idiot, com- 
 forted herself and her mistress with the reflection that when 
 " one was doing this, one's doing nothing else, anyhow." 
 She evidently meant to be consolatory, and strutted about 
 
218 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 idiotically, while Mrs. Carlyle swept and dusted, and Carljle 
 himself was ready to wring his hands and tear his hair at 
 the commotion he had so unwillingly caused. 
 
 Jane did not complain. She knew how necessary it was at 
 all hazards to keep his mental equilibrium. Unfortunately, 
 at times this was impossible, nor was he to be blamed, but 
 pitied for his sufferings. He could not hold his genius or 
 command it at will. Control over his animal propensities 
 man can command ; over God-given genius scarcely any. 
 That comes and goes nolens volens. At last chaos was reduced 
 to order again, but still Carlyle moved about like a wandering 
 Jew, everything around him seeming new and strange. He 
 hated alterations in his surroundings, even the old dust grew 
 friendly, as at his bachelor chambers at Edinburgh. 
 
 By and by he became reconciled to the changes. He 
 vanished early from the breakfast table, leaving Jane ' in her 
 fashionable reception-room to entertain callers and friends, 
 and closing the door of his study, put heart and soul into the 
 work of elucidating the character and deeds of Oliver Crom- 
 well. The more he studied, the more convinced he became 
 that Oliver had been an actually " pious, prayerful, God- 
 fearing, bible-reading man," one of his mother's heroes. 
 This belief heightened the enthusiasm he felt. She would 
 peruse such a book with approval. In it he could give 
 expression to all the faith he possessed in unison with her. 
 This would cheer and comfort her declining years. 
 
 It was Oliver Cromwell under whose shadow Jane Welsh 
 Carlyle was now forced to dwell. To Carlyle he was a reality, 
 alive for evermore, and the result of his life-work was still 
 felt and enjoyed by posterity. To Jane he was another odious 
 departed, enough to give her the lockjaw, but in duty bound 
 must be toleriited. Over this skeleton of the past Carlyle 
 cast living raiment. Who knows but that the dead are 
 conscious of the reputation they leave behind them, conscious 
 whether justice or injustice has been done to them, that 
 children, and children's children must enjoy, or endure for 
 centuries ! 
 
 Poor Cromwell ! poor descendants of so renowned a man ! 
 despised, maligned, execrated ! Was such odium merited % 
 Was he a veritable hero, or an accursed legicide, unworthy 
 even to be allowed to rest in his giavel To Carlyle he 
 appeared a hero, a hero of immense magnitude, and had 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 219 
 
 met with posthumous injustice. His heart burnt within 
 him, burnt with righteous indignation, exceeding wrath, 
 and enthusiastic admiration. In his book he presents 
 Oliver as he appeared to him — re-animating him. We are 
 carried away with the author. We sympathize with the 
 hitherto detested usurper. We enter into all his perplexities, 
 the sufferings, the excitement, the awful solemnity of the 
 questions that agitated him. 
 
 The whole destiny of the nation hung upon his word. To 
 be or not to be. He alone must decide. Terrible responsi- 
 bility ! What momentous questions were these to occupy the 
 mind of a hitherto obscure farmer ! — questions affecting the 
 laws, the individuals, the rise and fall of institutions, the origin 
 of kingly authority, the life or death of his own sovereign ! 
 
 Cromwell thought deeply. Thought is a thing, a most 
 productive thing. Action should be invariably the outcome 
 of thought. A thoughtless act is inhuman, being the prerog- 
 ative only of the beasts that perish. Action is the test of 
 true greatness. When thought is unproductive, mere'y 
 speculative, theorizing, abstract, it is utterly useless ; each 
 one an idle thing, or a talent cast aside. To such men as 
 Cromwell and Carlyle thought was the forerunner of prompt 
 performance. 
 
 Carlyle's mind was oppressed with thoughts of the injustice 
 done to a great man's memory, and he set about clearing away 
 the cobwebs, searching far and wide for the truth, or at any 
 rate what he sincerely believed to be unanswerable facts. 
 
 We cannot coincide altogether with Carlyle's views. It is 
 a perplexing inquiry whether heroes or geniuses are privi- 
 leged to strike out an entirely new field for themselves, to 
 dispen>^e altogether with conventional notions of right and 
 wrong. In our opinion nothing on earth or in heaven could 
 make wrong, right ; virtue, vice ; or justice, injustice. Is it 
 murder or regicide for a king to suffer capital punishment, if 
 guilty of greater crimes than hundreds whom he himself con- 
 demns to such an end ? Should the chief delinquent escape, 
 while the less guilty perish 1 
 
 Many a king was sentenced to the sword in the old Hebrew 
 days. Cromwell made this inquiry with the utmost solemnity, 
 with terrible earnestness, and prayers in private and public. 
 A meeting was called when that was the sole subject to be 
 discussed. The decision was unanimous almost. The king's 
 
220 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 death was a necessity — the only remedy for allaying political 
 anarchy, the only thing possible for the salvation of his 
 country. 
 
 Cromwell was called to tread a perilous path, but he 
 would not shirk what seemed to him an imperative duty. 
 He was forced to exercise boundless power to govern a nation 
 divided against itself. No bed of roses, even though his 
 rustic head rested on the royal pillow ; the chamber itself 
 indeed must have seemed haunted by its late unhappy 
 occupant. 
 
 One cannot be surprised that after the direful, if necessitous, 
 deed was done, Cromwell should have assumed all a king's 
 authority, and rule with a rod of iron to retain his power. 
 What is, however, a matter of astonishment in so pious a 
 man is, that he should have consented to occupy the sump- 
 tuous palace, to enjoy all the luxuries, the comforts, the glory 
 of the monarch he imagined he had had a right to depose, 
 condemn, and execute. As we imagine this simple farmer 
 wandering through the gorgeous apartments of his dead 
 master, whatever he supposed, we shudder for him. He may 
 have been great, strong, heroic ; but if he had retired into a 
 house suitable to his antecedents, and having refused the 
 empty title of king, had also refused the privileges ; had he 
 been content to take upon himself all the duties and have 
 dispensed with the glories, he would have been infinitely 
 greater, infinitely more heroic. 
 
 But we will here leave the subject, and only remind our 
 readers with what marvellous jDains Carlyle did his work, how 
 he re-spelt, re-arranged, re-punctuated every letter of Crom- 
 well's that he could unearth. Cromwell is the subject of his 
 book and no one else, and he leaves it impossible for his 
 readers to misunderstand the earnestness, the sincerity, the 
 immense power of his hero. If his views are rather one-sided, 
 surely the odium and injustice which had aspersed the great 
 man's character for centuries, is an excuse for his enthusiasm 
 in doing him even more than justice. 
 
 In 18-1:4 he describes his book as going on its own gait. 
 He made a terrible labour of his work by taking such infinite 
 pains. This year a professorship at St. Andrew's College was 
 offered, but he declined what once would have been so thank- 
 fully accepted. It was no longer needed — no longer possible. 
 
 He was also taking mach interest in political questions. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 221 
 
 Lord Ashley, afterwards the philanthropic Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 had introduced his Factory Act, which met with Carlyle's loud 
 approval. Indeed, any means for lessening the misery of the 
 millions was hailed with delight by our really great philan- 
 thropist as well as philosopher. Unfortunately, philanthropists 
 have such various modes of alleviating the wretchedness of the 
 poorer classes. 
 
 ]N'othing could be more practical than Carlyle's methods, if 
 only the selfishness of man would consent to adopt them. 
 But anything that comes too near to personal interests is 
 always pronounced at once impracticable. He was desirous 
 to make the rich willing to forego some of their own advan- 
 tages for the good of their poorer brethren. 'No other means 
 but self-sacrifice is permissible to man, accoi-ding to the teach- 
 ing of Him whom England, of all nations, professes to 
 acknowledge as worthy of imitation. "Sell all that thou 
 hast, and give to the poor ; " " Mind not high things, but 
 condescend to men of low estate," were the direct commands 
 of the Master, who took upon Himself the form of a servant, 
 and had not where to lay His head. 
 
 Alas! where are His imitators? Are the bishops, the 
 clergy, the statesmen, the landowners in this Christian country 
 striving in any way to follow the blessed steps of that Holy 
 Life ? Well may working men, with the Bible in their hands, 
 fail to see the resemblance, and be widely conscious of the 
 shams, the religious shams, practised from day to day upon 
 them. They are sickened with hearing religion, they want to 
 see it. And Carlyle poured out the whole force of his eager, 
 passionate heart in imploring the would-be superiors thus to 
 inspire and instruct. At any rate such seeds he sowed. To 
 God alone it belongs to give the increase. 
 
 Macaulay, or some contemporary, considered reform to be a 
 judicious combining of those who have money to keep down 
 those who have none. " Hunger among the poor was irreme- 
 diable, and the pigs must be taught to die without squealing. 
 That was the sole improvement possible," 
 
 Such ideas, even the utterance of such, Carlyle rightly 
 considered damnable. That they existed in the human heart 
 horrified him. We must never forget that Carlyle was of the 
 people. How rarely is it that one emerges from the humblest 
 strata of society to the higher without ignoring the fact, and 
 despising those outstripped in the journey of life. It is this 
 
222 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 that makes the parvenu so often unbearable, his preten- 
 sion, his visible contempt for those he has left behind in the 
 race. But our hero was far too great for any such meanness. 
 His interest throughout his long life was almost centred in 
 the condition, physical and mental, of the working classes — • 
 the masses, and every abuse, especially what oppressed them, 
 he longed to reform. Oh, the sufferings of the poor ! never 
 was he a moment ashamed of once having experienced the 
 same. That experience alone gave him authority to use every 
 influence he possessed to lessen it. Suffering is inevitable, 
 God-sent, if only to call out human sympathy. Government 
 need not be incompetent to alleviate, and a righteous God 
 demands the attempt. 
 
 And now the peasant's son, the man of the people, was the 
 honoured guest of the highest in the land. 
 
 In April, 184:4, Mrs. Carlyle was invited to Addiscombe, 
 the seat of Lord Ashburton — a period of dignified idleness, she 
 called it. She found the atmosphere of this aristocratic home 
 colder than that at Cheyne Row, and declared that the more 
 she saw of wealthy establishments, the less wish had she to 
 preside over one. 
 
 That at Addiscombe was presided over, however, by one 
 well able to fulfil all the duties of her station, and if Jane 
 found " the superior splendour to be inferior comfort," others 
 did not. The fact must be admitted, that Jane was bitterly 
 jealous of Lady Ashburton, the only lady of her acquaint- 
 ance her equal — perhaps her superior — in wit, humour, 
 repartee, and personal charms. Neither of them was beautiful 
 in feature, but both possessed something infinitely more 
 striking — superior intelligence and fascination of manner. 
 Jane felt herself tolerated for her husband's sake, and that 
 was wormwood and gall to her. 
 
 Lady Harriet Baring admii-ed Carlyle. She revered him, 
 and every time she met him her sympathy deepened for 
 the master whose life was a martyrdom. She could see for 
 herself, as did others, how isolated he was, how he loDged for 
 human friendship, with whom he could share his troubles, his 
 aspirations, and even his triumphs, and she saw that Jane 
 was not quite that friend. The blessed influence of one true 
 soul over another is not calculable nor to be accounted for. 
 It is a fact about which reason itself is baffled. The 
 hidden process remains a secret by which friend is knit to 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 223 
 
 friend, soul mystically strengthening soul. Sympathy itself 
 seems clothed in a human form ; every touch, every tone of 
 the voice, even a whisper becomes responsive sympathy. Such 
 a friendship is holy, pure. The love described eo beautifully 
 in 1 Corinthians xiii. is this spirit of friendship. In all its 
 purity, strength, and unselfishness it existed between the 
 aristocratic lady of fashion and the peasant-born philosopher, 
 a friendship that neither of them would allow mortal to cancel 
 or spoil. Jealousy, sneers, slander even might assail them, 
 but they rose superior over all this, and would have borne 
 greater, rather than have lost faith in each other. 
 
 Nearly all Jane Carlyle's friendships were formed with 
 those of the opposite sex, Carlyle himself never raising an 
 objection, firmly believing his wife to be pure minded and 
 true-hearted — above suspicion. That she stooped to mean 
 jealousy when he too at last found a friend speaks but little 
 for her magnanimity or faith in him who had ever been so 
 true to her. 
 
 Of course Lady Harriet dressed to perfection ; her house 
 was almost a palace, her furniture was gorgeous, her hospi- 
 tality literal banq[uets ; but whoever was invited to her table 
 lost all social distinction — all were equal there. The Carlyles 
 met with the very best society, where all the subjects of the 
 day were fully discussed by statesmen, bishops, lords, and 
 pre-eminent thinkers. Such society could not fail to attract 
 Carlyle. Nor are the highly born, the apparently happy rich, 
 devoid of heroism. Under the dignified exterior, that calm 
 demeanour, that rich apparel — sorrows, disappointments, and 
 disease are often borne with marvellous patience. High ac- 
 complishments, combined with long-suffering and native 
 modesty, often characterize nobility ; while hypocrisy, insin- 
 cerity, artificial shallow pretence, foppery, snobbishness are 
 the frequent infallible characteristics of those who envy th'^m. 
 The inheritors of wealth often recognize their responsibility 
 far more deeply than those who have made their own. But 
 Jane always met Addiscombe, the Grange, and Bath House 
 society with jaundiced eye, when with or without her husband. 
 
 On returning to Chelsea, she found Carlyle very bad with 
 a sore throat, looking and feeling miserable. That evening 
 he had several gentlemen visitors whom she helped to enter- 
 tain until eleven. What a relief it was once again to be 
 hostess instead of visitor. How much more blessed to give 
 
224 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 than receive. When they had all departed, she poulticed 
 Carlyle's throat and put him to bed, where she kept him by 
 force for some days, on Dr. John's " accursed diet of slops." 
 But not for long ; Carlyle declared he would follow Nature's 
 directions in the matter of eating and drinking. If Nature 
 told him to dine on a chop, it would take a clever fellow to 
 persuade him against it. 
 
 In the summer of '44 Jane visited friends at Liverpool. 
 Carlyle was now over head and ears in Cromwell, and felt her 
 absence a relief, enjoying the perfect silence, though he ad- 
 mitted that in general she was his ''necessary evil." She had 
 a peculiar pet, a leech ! which she left to her husband's care, 
 and he never forgot to attend to its wants. Surely Jane had 
 her own singularities as well as her lord, and he humoured 
 hers far mure than she his. 
 
225 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 A Petraclian Romance yet a Reality. — Carlyle, Miscellanies. 
 
 Death, the unknown sea of rest. Who knows what hidden 
 harmonies lie there to wrap us in softness, in eternal peace : 
 where perhaps, not sooner or elsewhere, all the hot longings 
 of the soul, are to be satisfied and stilled. — Carlyle. 
 
 In 1844 Carlyle describes his book on Cromwell as ''going 
 on its own gait." This was the third year in which he had 
 been occupied in " digging through the mountains of dust " 
 in his historical researches. He found it a wearisome task 
 and so did Jeannie, although he seems to have kept very 
 much out of her way when he was thus plagued with his 
 subjects ; giving her, in the meantime, every opportunity of 
 visiting or receiving company in her reception-room and doing 
 exactly what she listed. 
 
 This year was another sad year to them both. John 
 Sterling, their mutual friend, was dying. For years his 
 health had been failing fast, and he had been compelled to 
 be absent most of his time from London for more salubrious 
 climates. Not more congenial, for he had no friends he valued 
 so much as those in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, and when in London 
 he spent most of his time with them. 
 
 In '42 he had spent months at Falmouth, where also was 
 young Henry Mill, brother to John Stuart Mill, Carlyle's first 
 London friend. There Sterling and Mill were great com- 
 panions. Carlyle deplored the change that had seemed to 
 estrange him from Mill, whom he said was now " bound in 
 ice." John S. Mill, however, in his own autobiography ex- 
 plains it, if not to Carlyle's satisfaction, to his own. He had 
 been anxious to become one of Carlyle's disciples, but formed 
 the acquaintance of people whose views were diametrically 
 
226 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 opposed to those he held. They were thorough Radicals, 
 democrats, upholders of "Women's Rights," almost Atheists. 
 
 J. S. Mill was a man of decided genius, the founder of a 
 new school of metaphysics, but it was a school Carlyle could 
 not tolerate ; and as his new friends exercised an all-powerful 
 influence over Mill's mind, it is not to be wondered at that 
 Carlyle's influence visibly declined. This particular friend 
 was a certain young married lady named Mrs. Taylor, with 
 whom Mill experienced a partnership of thought and feeling 
 completely in common. Carlyle thought at one time that this 
 " Taylor business was becoming more and more a questionable 
 benefit to him, but on that subject we were strictly silent, and 
 he was pretty still." 
 
 Again he writes — " Mrs. Austin had a tragical story of his. 
 Mill's, having fallen desperately in love with some philosophic 
 beauty (yet with the innocence of the sucking dove), and 
 being lost to all his friends and to himself and what not, but 
 I traced nothing of this in poor Mill, and even incline to 
 think that what truth there is, or was, in his adventure, may 
 have done him good." 
 
 When Mrs. Taylor was introduced to the Carlyles, she at 
 first made a very favourable impression, but it gave place to 
 misunderstandings on both sides and the intimacy gradually 
 diminished, and finally quite declined. 
 
 ¥ov twenty years Mill continued to revere this lady, as 
 " a friend of boundless genius, lovingness and modesty, com- 
 bined with pride and utmost scorn of whatever was mean and 
 tyrannical." At the end of that time, Mrs. Taylor was a widow, 
 and the year following. Mill married her. She had influenced 
 his life so many years, his noblest thoughts originating with 
 her, and now they enjoyed a brief season of married bliss. 
 Seven years, 07ih/ seven years were granted, when Mrs. Mill 
 died at Avignon, to the unspeakable grief of her husband. 
 He bought a cottage as near as possible to her grave, where 
 with her only child he spent the remainder of his days. Her 
 spirit there seemed to pervade the atmosphere and gave him 
 all the earthly consolation possible. " Her memory," he 
 declared, "was a religion, and her approbation the standard 
 by which, summing up as it did all excellence, he endeavoured 
 to regulate his life." 
 
 John Stuart Mill has been called a wife worshipper. It 
 was not so exactly. He was a heroine worshipper. If hero 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 227 
 
 "worship is allowed, so also must be heroine worship, for the 
 weakest woman is capable of being equally endowed with heroic 
 virtues, as the strongest man. It was the heroic in Mrs. 
 Taylor that Mill so much admired. She was an undoubted 
 genius, and was mated to one in no way suited as a life 
 companion, yet she faithfully devoted herself to her duties as 
 a wife and mother, in uncomplaining patience — "Faithful till 
 death," according to promise. Mill became her accepted and 
 acknowledged friend. He gave her the mental food, as neces- 
 sary to her mind as bread for her body ; and in so noble and 
 generous a manner, we hope, that the knowledge of his self- 
 sacrificing devotion was not known by the lady, as such 
 knowledge must inevitably have added immeasurably to her 
 own sorrows and been a burden almost too heavy to bear. 
 
 John Stuart Mill must have practised almost unexampled 
 self-control, for this hopeless passion lasted twenty years, and 
 the whole time he maintained an unbroken friendship for her 
 and her husband, whether his hopeless attachment was known 
 or unknown to her. His patience presents an admirable 
 contrast to the unmanly, precipitate marriage of Edward 
 Irving. But John S. Mill was no slave to that wretched old 
 hag, Mrs. Grundy, and would not barter his conscience out 
 of consideration to her possible slanders. He ignored her 
 existence, left her alone, and acted upon his own convictions, 
 leaving her to say what she pleased. We are inclined to 
 think he made an idol. To do so is rather a national weak- 
 ness, especially when Dame Grundy is the idol. But even 
 an angel from heaven is not to be worshipped. "See thou do 
 it not. Worship God." 
 
 Carlyle had not many friends, if any, who went with him 
 all the way in his opinions. Some failed to discover what 
 they were on any subject. Even John Sterling did not 
 always coincide, though, he had penned such a generous, 
 glaring article in his favour. Now that noble spirit was 
 sinking before half his course was run, and both the Carlyles 
 sorrowed deeply. Carlyle had already lamented the death of 
 Allan Cunningham, the sculptor, "as one other face that 
 looked kindly on him ; " a loss that the sympathetic Sterling 
 said Carlyle could "ill afford," such was the warmth and 
 exclusiveness of his affection. 
 
 In 1844, as a last resource, John Sterling went to Yentnor. 
 It was only to die. When in his sick room, he received a 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 note from Carlyle, which he declared was "the noblest, 
 tenderest thing, that ever came from human pen." To his 
 friend the dying man wrote — 
 
 '' Towards me, it is still more true, than towards England, 
 that no man has been and done like you. Heaven bless you ! 
 If I can lend you a hand over there, that will not be wanting ! " 
 
 But he would not permit Carlyle to go and see him on his 
 death-bed. He knew how indelible would be the impression, 
 how harassing to Carlyle's imaginative mind, the sight of his 
 sufferings, infinitely more acute and lasting than on many a 
 tender woman's heart. Poor Sterling was " ever dear to Jane. 
 The very man one desires to see, and hardly ever succeeds in 
 seeing, in this make believe world. A pearl of great price." 
 
 Miss Martineau met him at the Carlyles, and described 
 him as a "young man, next to death's door, but if he only 
 lived a few years would be sure to be eminent ] so wise, so 
 cheerful, so benignant." He was ill-spared from Cheyne 
 Row. One day, Carlyle was pouring out all his indignation 
 at the quackery and speciosity of the time. He wound up by 
 saying to John Sterling, " When I look at this, I determined 
 to cast all tolerance to the winds." Sterling gently answered, 
 " My dear fellow ! I had no idea you had any to cast." 
 
 No one had more tolerance for some things that would be 
 unbearable to others than Thomas Carlyle, and no one knew 
 it better than Sterling, but he never would modify his manner 
 to suit his matter, and did not understand the method of 
 removing the friction that naturally exists between men of 
 different opinions, education, and social status. For one 
 thing, he tolerated his wife's constant quizzings as a lesser 
 man never could have done. John Sterling used to excuse 
 them on the ground that she put them forthwith such evident 
 fiction, they could not mislead. 
 
 But she played all manner of tricks upon her husband, and 
 would tell startling stories about him in his presence, which 
 he tried in vain to refute, without being unkind. These tales 
 were often produced from her own imagination, and generally 
 tended to turn him into ridicule, or make his conduct what is 
 considered consistent with the vagaries of genius. " When 
 she thought she had cut him up sufficiently she would clear 
 the course." 
 
 Sterling said there were only three great men in England, 
 Wellington, Carlyle, and Wordsworth. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 229 
 
 Carlyle is often credited with speaking well of only this, 
 that, or the other of his contemporaries. But when counted 
 up, they amount to a good few. If his praise was qualified, 
 it is as it should be. Men are not perfect ; even those who 
 tower immeasurably above ordinary mortals have human 
 frailties, and fall far below their own ideal ; and when one 
 genius comes into personal contact with another genius, he 
 would sooner discover tl:e discrepancies than a less gifted 
 individual. Unqualified praise belongs to no " walking 
 biped ; " a certain amount to most of them. Carlyle appreci- 
 ated the Duke of AVellington. It has been said even of him, 
 that the Reform Bill was passed, because the Iron Duke had 
 not sufficient moral courage to use an ear trumpet, and could 
 not hear the speeches or reply to them. Carlyle also appreci- 
 ated Wordsworth, though not nearly so much as he did 
 Robert Southey. 
 
 In his Miscellanies, i. 180, Carlyle writes : — Goethe studied 
 how to live and how to write with a fidelity, an unwearied 
 earnestness of which there is no other living instance ; of 
 which, amongst British poets especially, Wo7xlsivorth alone 
 offered any resemblance. As a personal acquaiotance, there 
 was no sympathy between the two, and later on, no doubt, 
 Carlyle gave Tennyson the palm over all other living poets. 
 We are not surprised that he did not enjoy Wordsworth's 
 srciety. No two men could have been more unlike, and the 
 poet could scarcely tolerate the rugged eloquence of our hero. 
 Leigh Hunt, writing of Wordsworth, speaks of his pomposity 
 being so great, that when on one occasion he had made a visit. 
 Hunt offering him refreshment, inquired what he would take. 
 " Anything that is going forward," was the formal reply. 
 At that moment Leigh Hunt glanced out of the window, and 
 observing a vehicle going along, felt inclined to offer his 
 visitor " a little cart." 
 
 Carlyle was once dining with Wordsworth, and was greatly 
 amused at the poet's imperturbability. He was so intent on 
 eating raisins that he never raised his eyes from his occupa- 
 tion, and seemed quite unconscious of all the babble and 
 twaddle called Table Talk that was going on around him. 
 His rock-like indifference was quite gratifying ; eyes and 
 thoughts centred on raisins only ! Carlyle' s own Table Talk 
 exceeded, and was recognized as being the best of any man's 
 living ; had he sat equally silent, he would have caused not 
 
230 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 only disappointmenfc, but dismay to his hosts. He was ex- 
 pected to talk iu many instances, probably invited for no 
 other purpose. The more arrogant and scornful the utterances 
 from that great fiery soul, the more attention he commanded, 
 and his veracious independence was always mixed up in a 
 marvellous degree with grim humour and hearty laughter. 
 His influence was a perpetual " thawing of the frosts of 
 custom and conventionality." 
 
 Wordsworth declared that Carlyle was a pest to the English 
 tongue, and Lamb would banish all Scotchmen to a certain 
 reo^ion without the brimstone. It was not given to all men 
 to admire Carlyle. 
 
 John Sterling declared that Mrs. Carlyle was the most 
 brilliant letter writer he had ever known. He kept all her 
 letters under a sealed cover. The first, dated June 15th, 1835; 
 the last, August 14th, 1844. By thus carefully preserving 
 them he proved how much he had valued them, and the friend 
 who had penned them. It is deeply to be regretted that he 
 ceased to be a clergyman, that he neglected theology for 
 poetry, and -that religion to the invalid became only a "great 
 perhaps." His dying statement is not satisfactory, not one 
 to inspire another with the longing that our end may be like 
 his. " On higher matters there is nothing to say," he wrote. 
 " I tread the common road into the great darkness without 
 any thought of fear, and with very much of hope. Certainty 
 indeed I have none." With Carlyle may we all cry, " May 
 God have mercy on me, on him, and on all such men." 
 
 John Sterling drank in the Spirit of Christ with feverish 
 thirst — love, joy, peace, gentleness, meekness, goodness ; and 
 surely they who have His Spirit, they are His. Mrs. Carlyle 
 always kept a little picture belonging to her lost friend, as 
 much for his sake as for its own intrinsic beauty, and to the 
 last it hung in Carlyle's dressing-room, where he preserved it 
 for the sake of both. On September 18th, 1844, John Sterling 
 breathed his last at Yentnor, just six weeks after penning his 
 last letter to Carlyle, who as soon as he could control his 
 grief set about collecting materials for writing a biography 
 of his departed friend. 
 
 Carlyle had met a true soul in John Sterling, and it did 
 him good to contemplate such. " Of all the deplorables and 
 despicables of this time and city are the literary men." 
 *' They make my heart sick and wae. Among them were so 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 231 
 
 many dilletantl, who had no heart of faith, not even for the 
 coarsest beliefs ; " many of them given to a kind of false 
 mirth, not based on earnestness, Avhich to him was most 
 '' distressing, intolerable, and mournful." John Sterling was 
 always true, always practised the goodness he taught, as far 
 as human capacity allowed, and in Carlyle he had an 
 enthusiastic, veracious biographer, who did him justice and 
 immortalized his name. A well written life is the life of 
 Sterling, a perfect model of what a biography should be, 
 and as Carlyle says, " a well written life is almost as rare as 
 a well spent one." 
 
232 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Here, too, thou slialt be strong and not in muscle only, if thou wilt 
 prevail. Thou shalt be strong of heart, noble of soul ; thou shalt 
 dread no pain, or death, thou shalt not love ease or life ; in rage 
 thou shalt remember mercy, justice. — Carlyle, Past and Present. 
 
 Carlyle's first visit to the Grange took place the same month 
 that John Sterling died at Ventnor, September, 1844. He 
 was naturally somewhat depressed, and his hostess devoted 
 herself to make his visit agreeable. He wrote to his wife 
 *' that Lady Harriet was a rattling woman, who seemed fond 
 of talking to him, and with whom he should grow to do very 
 well." His chief resource, however, was the old Lord Ash- 
 burton, who was a cheery, solid, noble-hearted man, delighting 
 in conducting his peculiar guest over his new churches, his 
 model cottages, and pointing out to him the treasured old 
 cedars and oak trees studded about his magnificent grounds. 
 But the habits of the mansion were not suited to the tastes of 
 the Hermit of Chelsea. He persisted in waking early, rising, 
 and promenading about, though breakfast was never ready 
 till ten. By that time he had become ravenously hungry, and 
 dare only partake sparingly of the rich fare provided. After 
 breakfast he would stroll about again with the old gentleman, 
 both alternately chatting, or puffing their pipes. He also took 
 long rides in the beautiful neighbourhood, finding the silence 
 and solitude of the country divine. 
 
 But with all these enjoyments, Carlyle could never feel 
 happy, could never shake off the depression and weariness 
 now become so habitual to him. Every one who met him 
 here, or elsewhere, became convinced of one thing about him, 
 and that was the truth of his own oft-repeated asseveration 
 *' that he was the loneliest of men." No one was like him. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 2o3 
 
 There was no class of men who were familiar with such an 
 individual, and they hardly knew how to treat him. '* He 
 became a chartered libertine of society," says Sir H. Taylor, 
 " assailing them and their rights, insisting that they should be 
 governed with a rod of iron, and yet he was more admired and 
 humoured by them than any demagogue who paid them knee 
 worship." 
 
 What really gave him more influence than other men was 
 his persistent independence and indifference to their opinion 
 concerning him, and his own immeasurable sympathy. With 
 his marvellous intellect, great physical strength and powerful 
 if aching frame, he had the instincts of the tenderest woman. 
 Intuitively he felt and pitied the breath of sorrow, and his 
 great heart yearned to soothe and comfort, even where he 
 knew pain was the best or only remedy. He had a scornful 
 brain, but his heart was too tender for his own happiness. 
 He returned to Cheyne Row to continue his Cromwell ; August 
 26th, 18-i5, saw its completion, just as John Forster, the 
 '' excellent Fuz," came in to tell Carlyle that he and Charles 
 Dickens were to take part in some amateur theatricals at 
 which Mrs. Carlyle, who was then in Lancashire, had promised 
 to be present. 
 
 Carlyle rarely went to theatres. A writer in Blackwood 
 states, that in a tragic scene Carlyle once witnessed, he was 
 deeply affected. "It quite hurt him," he said, "to see a fair 
 delicate creature (Desdemona) so brutally used." " Would that 
 I could give an idea of his tone and accent," continues the 
 writer, " so gentle and tremulous, as if a suffering living 
 creature were actually before him." 
 
 Mr. Forster found Carlyle on that occasion unusually cheer- 
 ful. His four years' labour had ended. It was a grand relief. 
 His subject had been particularly toilsome, and caused much 
 " spluttering." He had even been obliged to try if some teeth 
 and an old shin bone, dug up at ISTaseby, could invoke inspira- 
 tion. When his books were completed, he was almost ready 
 for a hospital ; instead of which he invariably took one 
 journey to shake off the effects of his studies, and another to 
 recover from the effects of the first. 
 
 He proceeded to Liverpool just as Jane, who was there, 
 was expecting to return home to him at Chelsea. The change 
 of place annoyed her much; but he had been good to her 
 
234 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 during her absence, had written regularly, had remembered 
 her birthday by letter and memento, though she had begged 
 him to dispense with the latter, " to leave presents to those 
 whose affection stands more in need of vulgar demonstration 
 than yours does." So she repented of her irritability, and 
 wrote to that effect, receiving him cordially on his arrival. 
 He remained with her a week ; he, as may be supposed, in a 
 very "reactionary" state of mind, and she very anxious to 
 return to the house he had left. So he continued his journey 
 northwards, and she travelled south, and very soon commenced 
 another household earthqiiake, calling in sweeps, carpet beaters, 
 charwomen. 
 
 Carlyle thought of scarcely anything else whilst writing a 
 book, yet Jane declared " he was the first to forget it when 
 written, and as for herself, she was so thankful it was out of 
 the house, that she could not trouble herself in the least about 
 criticisms, favourable or adverse." 
 
 When Carlyle returned to London, his Cromwell was well 
 before the public, but he was scarcely prepared for the reception 
 it received from one quarter. One evening they were honoured 
 by a visit from three excited Irishmen, who came to expostulate 
 with the author of Oliver Cromwell, on the unfavourable way 
 in which he had written of their native Isle, and his excuses 
 for Cromwell's decisive measures in that unhappy country. 
 
 Speaking of Puritan intolerance, Carlyle exclaimed, " Why ! 
 How could they do otherwise? If one sees one's fellow 
 creatures following a damnable doctrine or error, by con- 
 tinuing in which the devil is sure to get him at last, and 
 roast him in eternal fire and brimstone, are you to let him go 
 towards such consummation, or are you rather not to use all 
 manner of means to save him ? " But his visitors were loud 
 and vociferous in their defence of their native land, which 
 they considered the great man before them had foully aspersed. 
 One of them became so excited that his nose began to bleed. 
 They had come mildly to expostulate, and were unprepared for 
 so unflinching a reception. They could not make Carlyle 
 modify a sentence that he had written. Not a word had he 
 penned without due thought. He even excused the terrible 
 massacres, as the only means of saving further bloodshed. 
 The poor baffled Irishmen at last departed, leaving their hats 
 behind them, so absent-minded had they one and all become 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 235 
 
 daring that agitating interview. They returned very crest 
 fallen to find them scattered about in various directions. 
 
 Such excitement at least had preserved the visit from 
 boredom. Being bored was of all hardships the most intoler- 
 able to Carlyle. Earnestness on any subject, in any indi- 
 vidual, was the only antidote, ''The anathemas he heaped 
 on unfortunate bores, exceed Emulphius in exquisite variety." 
 He describes three gentlemen introduced from Haddington 
 acquaintance as " Wretched Duds, a precious Three, to be 
 selected from all the populations in the world. Miserable 
 snufflers, full of animal magnetism, Free Kirk and other 
 rubbish." He had doubts whether or not to rise with red-hot 
 oaths, and pack them all instantly into the street. He says, 
 he bit in his rage as best 1^ could, took his hat, pretended 
 business, and walked the three out, instead of kicking them 
 out. Evening parties could not always be escaped. He had 
 been invited to one at the Coleridges', where he expected an 
 equal degree of suffering ; half thought he would fall sick. 
 On such occasions he would wish he were in " Goody's pocket." 
 Lady Harriet never bored him, " and at the worst extremity 
 he had Bath House always open to him." 
 
 On returning from Scotland, in '45, he found he had abso- 
 lutely nothing to do. Frederick the Great, as a future 
 possible subject to write upon, had occasionally occupied his 
 mind, but as yet was a mere thought. He had now reached 
 the heights of fame ; people were not only speaking of him as 
 a great man, but treating him as if they verily believed it, 
 and yet he found the air of such a mountain top anything but 
 exhilarating. He became gloomy, somewhat from reaction, 
 and was very glad to accept an invitation to Bay House, 
 Alverstoke, the seat of Mr. Baring, whither Jane accompanied 
 him. There they remained together for six weeks. They both 
 spoke of it as a season of " strenuous idleness, sumptuosity, 
 and elegance." 
 
 Lady Harriet, Jane was forced to allow, was out of sight 
 the very cleverest woman she ever saw, full of energy and 
 sincerity ; yet she declared her belief that her mother had 
 done more good in a week than the said Lady did in a year. 
 We have no proof of this, or that Jane had either. Lady 
 Harriet seems to have laid herself out for the good of those 
 she appreciated. It can have been no easy task to have been 
 
236 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 such a friend to so peculiar a man as Carlyle, or to entertain 
 for weeks his wife, who so ungraciously received her advances. 
 Ingratitude for intended benefits is not pleasant. A gracious, 
 grateful acknowledgment of favours shown by the richer to 
 the poorer is awfully grudgingly given, and this is so to be 
 deplored, where the kindness has any proof of sincerity. 
 Pride swallows gratitude, makes favours received only hateful 
 to the recipient, kills all happy enjoyment, and crushes out 
 the noblest sentiments of the heart. 
 
 When the rich of the land keep open house, for the hospit- 
 able entertainment of the gifted in art, science, literature, 
 giving them opportunities for relaxation, and recreation and 
 rest from their arduous pursuits, they are doing as much good 
 as the Lobdon hospitals, showing equally as much charity, 
 and very often experience as much encouragement or gratitude 
 in their endeavours as do other philanthropists. 
 
 Carlyle, having the greatest mind of the two, knew how to 
 be grateful. It was not the wealth nor the luxuries he valued 
 — it was the lady's true sympathy and wish to be helpful to 
 him that charmed him most, as did the society of her genial 
 husband and his noble old father. He was obliged to confess 
 that idleness did prevail. No one enforced it, however. Each 
 guest, had he or she so chosen, might have found occupation ; 
 gentlemen in those vast libraries, ladies with their needles. 
 Lady Harriet had noble talents, good natural tendencies, and 
 high aspirations buried under that brilliant exterior. " The 
 sad, the tragic Lady Harriet," Carlyle styled her more than 
 once. Oh, surely the heart knoweth its own bitterness ! 
 *' God's pardon, God's mercy we all of us might pray for, if we 
 could," was his frequent ejaculation. 
 
 Carlyle set his heart on a friendship being established 
 between his wife and Lady Baring ; but friendship cannot be 
 forced, and Mrs. Carlyle was determined to fancy herself 
 slighted, or at best only tolerated by this lady of fashion, as 
 the great man's wife. She had superior advantages to Mrs. 
 Carlyle ; advantages of travel, birth, wealth, and position, 
 and was at least her equal in intellectual power and fascin- 
 ation of manner. They were neither of them strictly beautiful. 
 Had Lady Harriet also possessed physical advantages, it is 
 painful to imagine the state of helpless jealousy to which the 
 hitherto unrivalled Jeannie would have been reduced. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 237 
 
 As it was, she fumed and fretted, and wrote to Carlyle that 
 " this Lady Baring of yours, of Mazziui's, and Mill's, and 
 everybody's, was an arch coquette ; " that she played her 
 cards well with all Jane's own especial friends, which no lady 
 so situated could have found altogether agreeable. 
 
 Mazzim had become a staunch friend of Mrs. Carlyle. He 
 was described by the American authoress, Margaret Fuller, 
 as the "most beauteous man she had ever seen," He called 
 at Cheyne Row at all seasons, seemingly quite impervious to 
 atmospheric influences. Jane had always a great affection 
 for him. Indeed, she was never without some great friend of 
 the opposite sex ; as soon as one departed off the scenes, 
 another appeared. Carlyle wrote to Emerson that Mazzini 
 called frequently and told " him, or rather his wife, all the 
 news." He informed her that he was an arch conspirator, 
 and divulged the names of all his accomplices, to her infinite 
 amusement. He moreover declared that if revolution broke 
 out, he would throw himself into the very thick of it. To 
 save his head, and those thus confidingly betrayed to her 
 keeping, Jane would threaten exposure. We fear she would 
 almost rather that Mazzini should lose his head for Italy 
 than his heart to Lady Harriet Baring. As for Carlyle, 
 neither he nor she knew for what he was created ; whether to 
 be a prophet, or a destroyer. He had no ambition to make a 
 commotion, or a revolution ; all he wanted was steady, silent 
 reforms. And yet he felt sure, that if any man succeeded in 
 razing old institutions to the ground, they would be recon- 
 structed, should they prove indispensable. 
 
 Is any adequate estimate of Carlyle's work, his message, or 
 influence on the nineteenth century possible 1 That he was 
 one of the most remarkable men of his age is indisputable. 
 But biography should endeavour to show, as Carlyle says, 
 "what, and how produced, was the effect of society upon him, 
 what, and how produced, was his effect upon society." This, 
 as far as Carlyle is concerned, is somewhat difficult to do. It 
 was at Lady Harriet Baring's that he entered most into what 
 is called society, but it was only really a fraction of it. The 
 society to which he alluded was the world at large, in what- 
 ever field he wandered ; there he received impressions, and 
 there he left his footprints. If he taught the world nothing 
 new, it was because there was little new to be taught ; only 
 
238 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 old truths, old as the hills, but expressed with quaint origin- 
 ality, and with fresh faces. Even John the Baptist found no 
 new subject, repentance being the keynote of many an old 
 Hebrew prophet before him. That Carlyle adhered to truth 
 and truth only is his chief characteristic ; he longed to explode 
 all the shams and nonsense he found abounding wherever he 
 went, and would crush all pretensions. Is there anything 
 absolutely new under the sun 1 Carlyle never pretended to 
 have discovered it. He never presented himself as being in 
 advance of his age — he rather preferred being behind it, and 
 spoke of the past with much greater reverence than he did 
 of hope for the future, while the present was often simply 
 intolerable. Truth was all Carlyle ever troubled himself to 
 find ; truth concerning historical facts, concerning matters 
 philosophical or pliilanthropical. For Carlyle was a true 
 lover of his species, though his eyes were so keen to mark the 
 blemishes. He came to many conclusions, like every other 
 man troubled with the *' malady of thought." 
 
 That might is right, was, and ever will be, is not Carlyle' s 
 doctrine, but the Almighty's immutable law. Carlyle never 
 deified mere force, nor felt a blind idolatry for acknowledged 
 success. The doctrine of might being right is most ably 
 given in the inspired words, " Every good gift, and every 
 perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father 
 of lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning." 
 On this text Carlyle is a veritable lay preacher, and any 
 simple individual, to whom the Giver has bestowed one single 
 talent, may, if he will, employ it in recognizing the ten which 
 the Most High has bestowed on some of his fellows ; among 
 them, Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 Nor need we despise our gift, if only one, for of its kind it 
 also is perfect, and can be added thereto by patient persever- 
 ance. Carlyle bids every man get some belief into him. He 
 himself had a firm belief in an ever-present, all-seeing, all- 
 knowing, personal God. To prove His existence, as Paley 
 has attempted to do, he compared to " lighting a lantern to 
 seek the sun." 
 
 The world has called Carlyle an idolator, because he has 
 such powers of reverence in him, and so perpetually tries to 
 inculcate the same in others. Eeverence for what 1 our 
 readers may ask. Reverence for intellect, not separated from 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 239 
 
 goodness, but indissolubly united with it. " Truly a thinking 
 man," he writes, " is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness 
 can have ; every time such a one announces himself, I doubt 
 not there runs a shudder through the Nether Empire. Not 
 reverence for virtue by itself — very feeble men may be highly 
 virtvious and amiable ; but reverence for wisdom, which gives 
 Divine strength and power to see the true God-relations of 
 man to man, and how to apply and realize these relations 
 in the universe. He agreed with Wordsworth that admiration 
 (which is another term for reverence) is one of the three 
 vital elements in the mind of man. Carlyle would always 
 venerate when possible. 
 
 The proverb says, "the hero is no hero to his valet." 
 Carlyle qualifies it by answering, "to the valet soul." For 
 it is possible that a serving man may be more of a hero than 
 the master he serves, or sufficiently heroic to recognize and 
 reverence the hero upon whom he waits, or the teacher from 
 whom he learns. A valet soul, curiously, is frequently met 
 upstairs, even in the drawing-room, and the heroic soul in the 
 kitchen. How to find living heroes is a real difficult}^ ; when 
 people are dead all their virtues are generally and rightly 
 remembered. When one reads monumental inscriptions, one 
 is prone to inquire what becomes of the unworthy. Of them 
 there are no records. It is our humble opinion that the 
 happiness of life would be incalculably increased if every one 
 habitually looked only for the good that somewhere exists in 
 most of the human family. If we thought less of the sin that 
 lurks within ourselves it would thereby considerably lose its 
 power. 
 
 Nearly all great historical characters are marked by some 
 terrible defect — occasional crimes. But we must not " reject 
 the sun because of its spots," nor can we disdain an Elizabeth, 
 or a Cromwell, onr Nelson, or George Eliot, nor the old 
 Hebrew characters, whose heinous crimes, truthfully related, 
 leave them still veritable heroes, Carlyle's greatest faults 
 were of an intellectual kind. Of vice he was singularly free, 
 his whole soul being repugnant to it. But his melancholy 
 and dyspeptic irritation have been magnified into neglect of 
 home duties, and have made him appear almost a domestic 
 tyrant, which on closer inspection is found to be a false 
 estimate of the man. He was imperfect, but he nevertheless 
 
240 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 tried to he what he would have others be, and all kind of 
 tyranny he detested. If domestic tyranny did exist in that 
 little house at Chelsea, we are inclined to think it was on the 
 side of the weaker vessel. " Be ye angry and sin not." This 
 was probably one of Carlyle's n^ost consolatory texts in his 
 relations with his fellow man — a permission of which he 
 occasionally gladly availed himself. He thanked God for that 
 text, one can imRgine. But at home, as Mr. Froude says, 
 *' his was the tender heart, and hers the stern one." 
 
2il 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 The annals of insanity contain nothing madder than jealousy. — 
 Carlyle. 
 
 All through the year 1846 a "great black cloud" was 
 hanging over the house at Chelsea, a cloud that took years to 
 disperse, and which, however painful to contemplate, must be 
 recorded. 
 
 Early that spring Mrs. Carlyle was quite an invalid. Lady 
 Harriet invited her to Addiscombe for the benefit of the 
 country air. Jane went, but unwillingly, and was in no 
 frame of mind to be grateful or even agreeable. She hated 
 being there. She felt herself patronized, of all things most 
 detestable to her proud spirit ; besides. Lady Harriet had a 
 "genius for ruling," and tried to manage the "unmanage- 
 able." Carlyle only went from Saturday to Monday, remain- 
 ing at work during the week. He always did his best to 
 make her see everything in its true light, and did all he could 
 to be comforting, without insulting or grieving the friend he 
 valued. " Oh, my poor Goody," he wrote, " let us try to be 
 just and wise and good. Nothing more is required of mortals." 
 He promised to be to her all he had ever been, but wishes she 
 would find a house away from London noises. That little 
 street at Chelsea, when compared with Craigenputtock, was 
 like a mad-house. 
 
 Jane returned from the abode of wealth with " a mind and 
 heart all churned to froth," as she describes it. Keally in a 
 most deplorable, unamiable condition altogether, and all her 
 spleen and dissrust she heaped upon Carlyle's devoted head. 
 They quarrelled, and Jane threatened to leave him for ever I 
 After a violent scene she did leave him, and went to Lancashire. 
 He made her promise to writs him of her safe arrival before 
 
 R 
 
242 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 she went, but she failed even to do that. Never before had 
 they parted in such a manner, and all, as he said, " literally 
 for nothing." After waiting some time for news, he sent her 
 these weary words of remonstrance. 
 
 " I hope it is only displeasure and embarrassed estrangement 
 from me, and not any accident or illness of your own, that 
 robs me of a note this morning. I will not torment myself 
 with that new uneasiness, but you did expressly promise to 
 announce your arrival straightway. This is not good, but 
 perhaps a miserable or unfriendly letter would be worse, so I 
 .will be as patient as I can. Composure and reflection, at a 
 distance from all causes of irritation or freaks of diseased 
 fancy, will show us both more clearly what the God's truth of 
 the matter is. May God give us grace to follow piously, and 
 with all loyal fidelity, what that is ! " 
 
 She had gone off in a rage with her husband, because he 
 had found one friend to her ten. She made much more use of 
 her friends than did he. She confided all her troubles to 
 Mazzini. Carlyle bore his in silence. When she supposed 
 he was enjoying himself at Addiscombe, he was alone in his 
 study, busy with his pen, finding consolation in work. At 
 every pause his sad heart dwelt with extreme bitterness on all 
 the disappointments of his life. He called it a " day of 
 resurrection of all sad, great, and tender things within him, 
 sad as the very death, yet not unprofitable." We know now 
 the reason of his heart loneliness — we will spare further 
 painful repetition. 
 
 Mazzini replied nobly to her confidences, proved himself 
 indeed a worthy friend. Jane was far too discriminate to 
 misplace her confidence. She was indeed happy in never 
 having cause to complain of unworthiness in one of them. 
 
 " My Dear Friend (he writes), I was yesterday almost the 
 whole day out, and did not receive your note except in the 
 evening, too late to answer then. 
 
 " Your few words seemed sad, deeply, I will not say irre- 
 parably, sad ; and the worst of it is, that none can help you 
 but yourself. It is only you who can by a calm, dispassionate, 
 fair re-examination of the past, send back to nothingness the 
 ghosts and phantoms you have been conjuring up. It is only 
 
THE STORY OF THOMA.S CARLYLE. 243 
 
 you tliat can teach yourself that whatever the present may be, 
 you must front it with dignity, with a clear perception of all 
 your duties, with a due reverence for your immortal soul, with 
 a religions faith in times yet to come, that are to dawn under 
 the approach of other cloudless suns. I could only point out 
 to you the fulfilment of duties which can make life — not 
 happy ; what can 1 — but earnest, sacred, and resignated ; but I 
 should make you frown or scorn. We have a diiferent concep- 
 tion of life, and are condemned down here to walk on two 
 parallels. Still, it is the feeling of these duties that saves me 
 from the atheism of despair, and leads me through a life, 
 every day more barren and burdensome, in a sort of calm, 
 coDiposed manner — such, I repeat, as the consciousness of 
 something everlasting within us claims from every living 
 mortal. For I now most coolly and deliberately declare to 
 you that partly thi^ough what is known to you, and partly 
 through things that will never be known, I am carrying a 
 burden, heavier even than you, and have undergone even 
 bitterer deceptions than you have. But by dint of repeating 
 to myself that there is no happiness under the moon, that life 
 is a self-sacrifice meant for some higher and happier thing, 
 that, to have a few loving beings, or, if none, to have a mother 
 watching you from heaven or Italy (it is all the same) ought 
 to be quite enough to preserve us from falling, and by falling 
 — parting. I have mustered up strength to go on, to work at 
 my task, as far as I have been able to make it out, till I reach 
 the grave — the grave for which the hour will come, and is fast 
 approaching without my loudly calling for it. 
 
 " Awake ! arise ! dear friend. Beset by pain or not, we must 
 go on with a sad smile, and a practical encouragement from 
 one another. We have something of our own to care about, 
 something god-like that we must not yield to any living 
 creature, whoever it be. Your life proves an empty thing, 
 you say. Empty ! Do not blaspheme. Have you never done 
 good ] Have you never loved ? 
 
 " Think of your mother, and do good. Set the eye to 
 Providence. It is not as a mere piece of irony that He has 
 given us these aspirations, these yearnings after happiness 
 that are now making us both unhappy. Can't you hush him 
 a little longer ? How long will you remain at Seaforth ? 
 Does he himself propose to go anywhere 1 1 was coming to 
 see you on Saturday. Write if and when it does good, even 
 
 E 2 
 
244 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 homoeopathically to yon, and be assnred that to me it will 
 always do. 
 
 " Ever yonrs, 
 
 "Joseph Mazzini." 
 
 Snrely this letter is that of a trne friend, but it gives 
 invincible proofs that she had been betraying all matters 
 connected with her husband, her own distrust, her weak, 
 miserable jealousy ; for jealousy is miserably beneath a true 
 soul, being utterly selfish. 
 
 Carlyle's acknowledgment of Lady Harriet's superiority 
 had annoyed her intensely. She was unwilling to acknow- 
 ledge any lady superior to her. He, who so frequently 
 laughed good-naturedly at the mild adoration he received, and 
 who really almost detested lion-hunting ladies, was now literally 
 grateful for Lady Harriet's queenly esteem, admired her 
 brilliant wit and energy, while she loftily ignored altogether 
 causing any annoyance to the wife. Enough of this at 
 present. A new edition of Cromwell was demanded, and 
 Carlyle was much occupied thereby. It did not cause him 
 much elation, nor did the criticisms, friendly or unfriendly, 
 affect him in any way. Such matters were left far behind. 
 " We shall be dead soon, and then it is only the fact of our 
 work, that will speak for us through all eternity." All he 
 wanted was to convince people that Oliver had been, nay was, 
 a genuine man, and by believing that, they might also believe 
 that all great characters must also be genuine, or they must 
 sink into obscurity or something worse. 
 
 Carlyle had long been watching Sir Robert Peel, waiting 
 for him to bring in some measure worthy of him. Until he 
 did, he refrained from openly avowing any preference for him 
 or his politics. He was now actually repealing the abomin- 
 able Corn Laws, to Carlyle's infinite delight. By this deed 
 he was proving himself a worthy statesman in Carlyle's estima- 
 tion, and he puzzled himself how to let the great man know 
 that such an act met with his gratitude and appreciation. It 
 had not been Carlyle's habit to dedicate his books to any 
 notability, or even to present them with a copy. But in this 
 instance he determined to break through his rule. He sent 
 a copy of his Cromwell to the Prime Minister, the gift being 
 accompanied by an autograph letter, in which he says — 
 
 "The authentic words and actings of the noblest governor 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 245 
 
 England ever had, may well have interest for all governors of 
 England ; may well be, as all Scripture is, as all genuine 
 words and actings are profitable, profitable for reproof, for 
 correction, for instruction in righteousness, for edifying and 
 streno^thenins: withal." 
 
 Sii' Kobert Peel answered — 
 
 "Sir, 
 
 " "Whatever may have been the pressure of my public 
 engagements, it has not been so overwhelming as to prevent 
 me from being familiar with youi' exertions in another depart- 
 ment of labour, as incessant and severe as I have undergone. 
 
 '• I am the better enabled, therefore, to appreciate the value 
 of your favourable opinion, and to thank you, not out of mere 
 courtesy, but very sincerely, for the volumes which you have 
 sent for my acceptance ; most interesting as throwing a new 
 light upon a very important chapter in our history, and 
 gratifying to me as a token of your personal esteem. 
 " I have the honour to be. Sir, 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 " Robert Peel." 
 
 Carlyle was naturally pleased at the success of his book, 
 which no longer rested upon criticisms. He was gratified, 
 because he felt the labour he had expended upon it had been 
 given to a good cause. Oliver had been looked upon for two 
 centuries as a gigantic hypocrite, committing murder, sacrilege, 
 bloodshed, with the singing of psalm tunes to deaden the out- 
 cries ; and after all this slander he had been really a true 
 God-fearing, God's law-abiding man, and wore his natural face 
 at all times unmasked. It was a revelation ; and for Oliver, 
 and to any possible descendants of his, an emancipation, an 
 act of justice that had been delayed too long. This little 
 excitement tended to relieve Carlyle a little from his own 
 domestic trials, which were severe. He was quite alone, 
 childless, and temporarily wifeless. After receiving Mazzini's 
 manly reply to her foolish grumblings at an estimable husband, 
 she softened a little and wrote to Carlyle, and he touchingly 
 acknowledged that she thereby lifted a mountain from his inner 
 man. " Oh ! if you could see there the real fact of the thing, 
 verily all would be well. It would indeed, as if, by God's 
 blessing, it shall yet be, and so let us say not a word more of 
 
246 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 it, but pray earnestly from our inmost heart, that we may be 
 enabled to do all that is true and good, and be helpful, not 
 hindersome to one another, and in spite of our anomalous lot, 
 be found as wise, not as foolish." 
 
 On July 13th he sent her, as usual, her now never-forgotten 
 birthday present and letter. But the post-master overlooked 
 them, and said there was none for her, which caused Mrs. 
 Carlyle keen mortification, and raised all sorts of wild 
 imaginations in her excitable brain. He was perhaps ill ; had 
 gone to Addiscombe, and in the enjoyment of his special 
 friend, had forgotten her very existence ! She was in an 
 agony. It was benefi^cial agony, because it made her value 
 what she feared she was losing ; his constant esteem, his calm, 
 unchangeable attachment. She was indeed going the way to 
 forfeit esteem of any sensible body. To doubt the truth, the 
 faithfulness of such a truth-loving, veracious soul as Thomas 
 Carlyle, whom she had already tried to the utmost, was un- 
 worthy of her altogether. To begrudge him the society of 
 the solitary few who failed to bore him to death was refined 
 cruelty. His mental necessities demanded such sympathy. 
 He had never complained of her friendships and confidences ! 
 What a relief it was to her, we can imagine, when a voice 
 cried, ''Mrs. Carlyle! Here is a letter." A letter; yes 
 indeed, a noble letter. Thus it ran — 
 
 (Abridged.) "I send thee a poor little card-case. My poor 
 little Jeannie ! no heart ever wished another more truly many 
 happy returns of the day, or if happy returns are not in our 
 vocabulary (why not ?), then wise returns, wise and true and 
 brave, which after all are the only happiness, as I conjecture, 
 that we have any right to look for in this segment of eternity 
 that we are travelling together, thou and I. God bless thee ! 
 And know thou always, in spite of the chimeras and illusions, 
 that thou art dearer to me than any other creature. That is 
 a fact if it can be any use to thy poor soul to know. So 
 accept my little gift, and kiss it as I have done, and say, in 
 the name of heaven, it shall yet all be well, and my poor 
 husband is the man I have always known him from of old, is 
 and will be." 
 
 Perhaps the humorous philosopher did excusably laugh in 
 his sleeve sometimes, to find he could so pitiably excite liis 
 scornful little wife's jealousy. He must have found a little 
 consolation in the reflection, that jealousy must in a certain 
 
THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 24-7 
 
 "way proceed from some kind of love or value set upon one ; 
 and yet surely there is nothing on earth so tiresome as the 
 ceaseless watch and suspicion of the jealous ! Deliver us from 
 its torments, oh ye powers ! Surely such a letter ought to 
 have set her mind at rest, but things were little improved 
 thereby. She did kiss the card-case, she even cried over his 
 letter, but she wi^ote again to Mazzini, even more confiden- 
 tially than before ; we judge from liis reply — 
 
 " Awake, arise, dear friend ! " he wrote ; " but by pain or 
 not we must go on with a sad smile and a practical encourage- 
 ment from one another. You have affection for me as 1 for 
 you. You would not shake mine ? you would not add your- 
 self to the temptations haunting me to wreck and despair 1 
 you would not make me worse than I am, by your example, by 
 your showing yourself selfish and materialistic? I have often 
 thought that the arrangement by which loved and loving 
 beings are to pass through death is nothing but the experiment 
 appointed by God to human love," &c. 
 
 This is an answer to a despairing heart. Life was just then 
 a burden to her, apparently despicable, worthless, and mar- 
 riage an unendurable institution. Yet she guarded the affec- 
 tions of her husband with all the jealousy of an adoring wife. 
 One absolutely wonders at the hitherto self-reliant, brave, 
 consciously superior little woman becoming so abject. 
 
248 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Friendslnp is tlie great Balsam of existence. The more vehement, 
 the more enthusiastic it is. — Carlyle. 
 
 Charles C. Duffy, of the Irish National Neivspaper, had 
 sought Carlyle out in London, and persuaded him. to cross the 
 Channel to see what they were doing in Ireland. Something 
 Carlyle had written in Chartisw. about Irish mismanagement, 
 had attracted the attention of this political writer. But 
 Carlyle went first to Seaforth to see his wife, and try to be 
 reconciled. He had also promised to meet the Barings in the 
 north for a few days, and would fain persuade Jane to join 
 them there, for he was most desirous that she should also 
 enjoy all the advantages so kind a friend provided. But 
 Jane's heart seemed gradually to be dwindling into the 
 smallest dimensions. She refused point blank to associate 
 with Lady Harriet, or to visit her. He might please himself, 
 but at the risk of her temper. It was a most perplexing, 
 painful time for Carlyle. He could not tell Lady Harriet of 
 his wife's absurdities ; he could not account for his own 
 altered demeanour, his reticence and reserve, which was the 
 natural outcome of the suspicions his wife felt and expressed. 
 He was the shyest of men, and he felt the slightest breath of 
 suspicion was degrading to the open, candid, avowed friend- 
 ship with which the titled lady had so graciously favoured 
 him. Jane's thought of his faithlessness disgusted as much 
 as it grieved him, but he was firmly resolved to continue the 
 friendship he valued. To gratify a wife's caprice would not 
 be sufficient justification for marked ingratitude and disrespect 
 towards one Avho revered and trusted him. Mr. Froude says 
 Carlyle wandered on from mistake to mistake. We cannot 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 2-1:9 
 
 see his mistakes ; we fail to see what other he could have 
 done in the matter. He pursued continuously the same 
 honourable course. He kept his promise to spend a few days 
 with the Barings, not pleasant days either, for the lady felt 
 intuitively, with a true woman's instinct, that he was changed. 
 It made her rather cross naturally, but she conformed to the 
 new regime with calm indifference, " with perfect politeness 
 and a graceful conformity with destiny," that rather astonished 
 and perhaps piqued him a little ; for his friendship with this 
 high-born dame was very true and real, and he never meant 
 to forego it. His wife's groundless fears of her evil intentions 
 never contaminated his soul. " His relations with her had 
 grown sad, so that he almost wished he had never met her ; 
 but with Lady Harriet, he felt sure, no ill-will, no unkindness, 
 no injustice were ever harboured, her intents towards you and 
 me are charitable, not wicked, ]My relation to her is a very 
 small element in her position, but a just and laudable one, 
 and I wish to retain that if I can, and give it up if I cannot. 
 Voil'i tout! Oh, Goody dear, be wise, and all is well." 
 
 The greatest mistake he made was in being so anxious to 
 try and force a friendship upon her she pretended she did not 
 want ; but it stands to reason she would have been more 
 angry still, and more justly so, had the lady of fashion ignored 
 her. 
 
 From Seaforth, before he paid this short visit to the Barings, 
 he went to see his aged mother, who received her illustrious 
 son with a " moist radiance of joy in her old eyes," which 
 touched him sadly ; not many more such meetings could be 
 expected on earth. She would be quick to detect the new 
 anxiety that was fretting that great heart, and when morning 
 after morning passed and brought him no letter from his lady 
 wife, she would share his disappointment and indignation. 
 
 The day he started for that unpropitious visit, he wrote — 
 
 " Oh, my dearest, how little I can make you know of me ! 
 In what a black, baleful cloud for myself and thee are all our 
 affairs involved to thy eyes, at this moment threatening ship- 
 wreck if we do not mind. The annals of insanity contain 
 nothing madder than jealousy directed against such a journey 
 as I have before me to-day." But the weighty matter ended 
 that had caused such a tempest. Jane wisely resigned herself 
 to fate. The intimacy was to go on, and she consented to 
 take her part in it ; to visit occasionally the miserable abode 
 
250 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 of wealth, luxury, and idleness. Indeed there was no excuse 
 to give it up ; nothing reasonable to be conjured up, except 
 that Carlyle had found a sympathetic friend who never bored 
 him. She must have been a phenomenon. 
 
 Poor Carlyle ! he declared that " he deserved little to be 
 loved by anybody, but was very grateful to any one who 
 would take the trouble to do it." We wonder if he knows 
 how many there are who now love him, for he "being dead 
 yet speaketh." Still Jane was most unreasonable and con- 
 tinued so at intervals for years, embittering her own and her 
 husband's life by these absurd fears, he showing by every deed 
 and word that she was precisely the same to him as she had 
 ever been. Their minds were at variance on many points, 
 but he was her husband, and there never was one more 
 faithful. 
 
 Mr. Larkin, we think it is, who says, that " Mrs. Carlyle 
 shrank from Bath House influence, as from siren flatteries 
 tempting him to destruction." Perhaps she avowed as much. 
 If so, it was much to her discredit ; she ought to have had 
 more confidence. Indeed when confidence dies, love must be 
 at a terribly low ebb. As Mr. Larkin says, " the actual rela- 
 tion between Mr. Carlyle and Lady Harriet was in reality 
 much to the credit of both." It was a friendship that he would 
 not allow even his "dear little Jeannie " to destroy by her 
 jealousy or her evil insinuations. A man whose single aim 
 was to purify society was not likely himself to become em-* 
 broiled in any unworthy intrigue. 
 
 In Lady Harriet Carlyle recognized a kindred spirit, and 
 because that brave, heroic spirit dwelt in the frame of a 
 gently-reared lady of rank, that was no reason why he should 
 forego the pleasure they experienced in each other's society. 
 Her intentions and his were both pure and elevating, not 
 degrading, true sympathy animating the minds of each. We 
 know there are those to whom such a friendship would be a 
 sheer impossibility ; we can only say we pity them. 
 
 From Scotsbrig Carlyle took a short trip to Ireland, his 
 poor old mother experiencing agonizing fears lest the Papists 
 should injure her renowned son. As soon as he arrived he 
 despatched intelligence of his safety to his brother John, with 
 the strict injunction to tell his mother that far from doing 
 him harm, the " Irish were abundantly and over-abundantly 
 kind and hospitable." Indeed all men delighted to do him 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 251 
 
 honour, though he, poor man, felt himself constantly an object 
 of curiosity, a state of being he could scarcely tolerate. 
 
 At Dublin he heard O'Connell, for whom he entertained in- 
 tense dislike ; calling him the " poisonous professor of blarney." 
 It was only a flying visit, but he considered it might be of 
 use to him later on. From Ireland he returned direct to 
 Chelsea, where he found his house in a state of "chaos." 
 Helen, their faithful Kirkaldy maid, who had conquered her 
 drinking propensities and had become almost perfect as a 
 domestic servant, had accepted a brother's invitation to Dublin, 
 there to act as his housekeeper. She could not withstand the 
 brilliant hopes of becoming a lady herself, so notice was given 
 and accepted with real disappointment. Helen had seemed 
 almost a fixture — a necessary fixture, and how to get another 
 girl to fall into their ways Jane did not know. She wrote to 
 an Edinburgh friend and told her her perplexities, declaring 
 that Helen had grown better and better for keeping. 
 
 Carlyle liked the girl, called her a strange creature, which 
 was what he liked best in her, " possessing intellectual insight 
 almost as of genius, combined with a folly and simplicity as of 
 infancy. Her sayings and observations, her occasional criti- 
 cisms on men and things, translated into the dialect of upstairs, 
 were by far the most authentic table wit I have anywhere 
 heard. This is literally true, though I cannot make it con- 
 ceivable." Thus her very eccentricities, united to a faithful 
 and loyal heart, made her both interesting and valuable. 
 
 When Carlyle returned, Helen had gone and Jeannie was at 
 her wits' end. This was in September. Of the succeeding 
 months' experience with general servants Jane gives a graphic 
 description in a letter to her sister-in-law. It is dated December, 
 '46. She says that the house had been in a regular puddle 
 through the loss of Helen. Their temporary servant had 
 driven both Carlyle and her to despair, while she had been 
 laid up ill. Betty, their old Haddington servant, had sent 
 them down a real finely educated Scotch girl, who was perfect 
 in Free Kirk orthodoxy and free grace spirituality. She was 
 fully conscious of these inestimable blessings, and was ex- 
 tremely shocked, that her master and mistress " received " on 
 Sabbath. Her pretensions alone made her detestable. Car- 
 lyle told her that she would have been better educated if she 
 had been left to puddle in the gutter with her neglected 
 fellow brats, by whom she would have been trampled out of 
 
252 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 the world, had she behaved no better than now, and his brief 
 request was that she would disappear straightway, and in no 
 region of God's universe, if she could avoid it, ever let him 
 behold her again." 
 
 This Edinburgh maid refused to do her work, declared she 
 had never been told she had to wash, and could not bear 
 spoiling her hands. So Jane had to work a good deal herself, 
 till she was laid up, when of course Carlyle's miseries were inten- 
 sified, though Jane's cousin, who came to their assistance, did 
 all she could for both of them. At last the girl threatened 
 to take fits and be laid up for twelvemonths, as she declared 
 had happened to her once before. Carlyle told her to go in the 
 devil's name, and on Sunday morning this paragon rushed off 
 after breakfast, arriving next morning with an omnibus for 
 her box, and a female friend for protection. " So much for 
 free grace ! " 
 
 This girl was followed by an old woman they nick-named 
 "Slow Coach." She gained Carlyle's sympathy by her clean- 
 liness and isolation. Going into the kitchen on one occasion, 
 he found the old woman with white apron, partaking of some 
 meal at a clean table cover. There was a calm dignity of 
 demeanour in this lonely old dame, that struck him as being 
 quite pathetic. 
 
 '' Slow Coach," however, was succeeded by a little creature 
 called Anne, who was in the happy possession of a single 
 silent follower, a butcher boy, who came to see her regularly 
 once a week till she married him and went to Jersey to reside, 
 when perhaps he found his tongue. By that time Helen's 
 brief lady life had suddenly collapsed. Her relation Carlyle 
 considered a rogue. Helen quarrelled with the " fool of a 
 brother " and returned to Chelsea, but, alas ! she had fallen 
 into her old degrading habits of tippling, and they found 
 it impossible to keep her. But we are looking forward. 
 
 In October, 1846, Margaret Fuller, the American authoress, 
 visited Cheyne Bow, accompanied by a whole bevy of Ameri- 
 cans, who invariably took Carlyle for the greatest Englishman 
 alive. This lady did not bore him as he feared she would. 
 No lady bored him so much as Harriet Martineau, to whom 
 he also felt indebted. This feeling of gratitude induced him 
 to make a kind of compulsory effort to be agreeable. This 
 effort alone would make his intercourse with her more weari- 
 some. He wanted to enjoy her society but could not. She 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 253 
 
 was a 'presence, and it was infinite relief when lie knew she 
 had left town. He breathed freer. Margaret Fuller thus 
 writes of Carlyle — 
 
 " When I first saw him I was delighted with him. He was 
 in a very sweet humour, full of wit and pathos without being 
 overbearing or oppressive. Quite carried away with the rich 
 fiow of his discourse, and the hearty noble earnestness of his 
 personal being. He was never ashamed to laugh when he 
 was amused. He seems to be quite isolated, lonely as the 
 desert, yet never was man more fi.tted to prize a man, could 
 he find one to match his mood. He finds them, but only in 
 the past. He remarked that the only reader he ever cared to 
 listen to was Elizabeth Fry, as he heard her in Newgate, 
 surrounded by the prisoners. Mrs. Carlyle also is full of grace, 
 sweetness, and talent. Her eyes both sad and charming. On 
 another occasion Mazzini, a dear friend of Mrs. Carlyle's, was 
 present, full of what Carlyle called 'rosewater imbecilities.' " 
 
 Margaret Fuller did not always speak so favourably of 
 Carlyle. He was a man of many moods, and could never 
 tolerate much contradiction, and if he was, as even a stranger 
 could see, as lonely as the desert, it is no wonder he was 
 melancholy and irritable. 
 
 When her own household was in a wretched- state, Jane 
 found it some relief to take refuge at " the Grange." She had 
 at last ceased to make any objection to the continuance of the 
 intimacy, and made the best of it for her own convenience. 
 Yet it was always a subject which she could use to annoy her 
 husband when so inclined. 
 
 The visit that winter lasted a fortnight, but they both pre- 
 tended they got but little enjoyment out of it. The complaint 
 was idleness prevailed. One would imagine if Jane had been 
 so hard worked at Cheyne Row she would for so short a space 
 have welcomed rest. According to her own reports she often 
 did at Chelsea, lying on the sofa, reading French novels, and 
 cultivating the " Pleasant." What is that but idleness? To 
 make entertainment for a miscellaneous number of people for 
 weeks together can scarcely have been unmixed idleness to 
 Lady Harriet. On that occasion old Samuel Rogers the poet 
 was also a guest, and was one of those who bored Carlyle, and 
 we deplore to have to relate, that he expressed impiously an 
 inclination " to throttle him," but added self-reproachfully, 
 *' Pity the sorrows of a poor old man." 
 
254 THE STORY OF THOMAS CAllLYLE. 
 
 Lady Harriet had no guest who interested her so much as 
 the one most difficult to entertain — her friend Carlyle. But 
 then he was her friend, and when she made herself very scarce, 
 as she did on that occasion, remembering, no doubt, the faint 
 breath of slander that had gone between them, Carlyle was 
 annoyed, pained. On their return to Chelsea Mrs. Carlyle 
 was taken seriously ill with cough and headache, and took to 
 her bed, where she was slowly nursed back to convalescence. 
 Lady Harriet was most anxious to show kindness. She in- 
 sisted upon them both coming to Bay House for a month, for 
 change of air and continued rest, and Jane engaged to go 
 without much ado. Of all things, to be laid up at home is 
 most distressing to any wife, and to creep about in weakness 
 and depression, seeing things going to rack and unable to 
 give them due attention, is grievous. Lady Harriet was very 
 good. She secured a separate railway compartment for the 
 invalid, and at the station her carriage, with rugs, wraps, and 
 hot water bottles, awaited the travellers. Her ladyship re- 
 ceived them both most graciously, and was unremitting in 
 kind attentions. Surely such treatment was enough to heap 
 coals of fire on Jane's head — but the coals did not catch. Her 
 health slowly returned, but gratitude was scarcely awakened. 
 She acknowledged that she had been well done to in every 
 way, but the grand style of the noble mansion, with its con- 
 fusion of servants, visitors, banquets, &c., could not suit 
 people who though totally unaccustomed to such luxuries, 
 were well used to all kinds of personal comforts. 
 
 Carlyle wandered much alone among the " whins and shingle 
 beaches," communing with his own heart. He was at that 
 time writing nothing, and was determined to wait until 
 something made writing peremptory. 
 
255 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 He that cannot be servant of many, will never be master, true 
 
 guide, and deliverer of many. That is the meaning of true 
 
 mastership. 
 Man obeys those he esteems better than himself, wiser, braver, and 
 
 will forever obey such ; and ever be ready and delighted to do 
 
 it. — Carlyle, Past and Present. 
 
 The New Year, 1847, found both Carlyle and his wife at 
 Addiscombe, for the benefit of the latter's health. The 
 house was full of company, and Jane rapidly became con- 
 valescent. We must not suppose that Carlyle had become 
 enriched through his popularity. That would be a mistake. 
 He has been reproached with being parsimonious, because he 
 did not provide better domestics for his wife and a private 
 carriage for her use. But his income would certainly not 
 allow the latter at that time, and it was for Jane to make her 
 own household arrangements. His income was extremely 
 fluctuating, and rarely came in when expected. When he 
 brought out another volume of his JlisceUanies, he wrote to 
 his brother — " These books of mine, poor things, bring me in 
 some money now, like cows that give a drop of milk at last, 
 though they have had a terrible time of it as calves. It is 
 better to have our evil days when one is young, than when 
 one is old." His French lievolution also went through another 
 edition that year, and for that and his Miscellanies he received 
 about £600. 
 
 His pecuniary affairs were much improved, but still very 
 uncertain. From Craigenputtock they now possessed a fixed 
 income of about £150 a year, and in the Bank a sum of 
 £1500 was deposited. One year he made £800 from his books, 
 another year £100, sometimes more, sometimes less — but 
 
256 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Jeannie was an excellent housekeeper, and spent every penny 
 to the best advantage, and he had no extravagant habits, and 
 would not have had, had his rent roll been ,£1500 interest 
 instead of capital. He wrote a letter to a young man who 
 was anxious for his advice respecting his adoption of a 
 literary career. He told him candidly '' that even with the 
 highest talent he might have to be fed oftentimes like Elijah, 
 by the Ravens, and if his talent, though real, was not very 
 high, he might easily see himself cut off from wages altogether. 
 All men saying to him, * The thing you offer to us is in the 
 supply and demand market, worth nothing whatever.' " So 
 he practically advised the young man to forswear literature if 
 only he had any solid path of practical business to follow. 
 
 How he longed for such business we have certain proof. So 
 anxious was he to obtain the Professorship of St. Andrews in 
 his early married life that he, Thomas Carlyle, actually con- 
 descended to " boo " for an ornamental addition to his little 
 list of testimonials. He felt compelled to " boo " to the 
 influential in such a cause, never to forward any deed, or 
 to follow any pursuit that his whole soul did not approve. 
 Probably Jeannie, more anxious than he for his success, 
 invented this epistle of adulation. Carlyle was very human, 
 and with the powerful influence of his ambitious little wife, 
 might on this occasion have weakly yielded to her persuasions 
 without soiling his conscience. 
 
 What became of the young man who sought his advice we 
 know not, but if he had the spirit of a Carlyle he still wields 
 the pen he loves, or his hand has lost its cunning by disease or 
 death. 
 
 After visiting aristocratic circles, Jane declared that she 
 '' was quite content with the place she was born to ; that she 
 could not be other than perfectly miserable in idleness, world 
 without end ; and for a grand lady, it seems somehow im- 
 possible, whatever be her talents or good intentions, to be 
 other than idle to death." We do not as^ree with Mrs. 
 Carlyle, nor in writing of Donothings and Eatalls did 
 Carlyle mean to allude, as do the vulgar herd, to the Bloated 
 Aristocrats only. 
 
 These Donothings and Eatalls are found in every class of 
 society. In the palace, the mansion, the cottage, the common 
 lodging-house, or even under a city archway. They are the 
 plague spots of humanity, and anywhere and everywhere met, 
 
THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 257 
 
 carry with them the unmistakable stamp of their profession. 
 For such people Carlyle ever expressed withering contempt. 
 They did not often put in an appearance at Lady Harriet's 
 table, and she herself was always as brisk as a huntress, 
 sparkling, energetic, devoting herself to her high duties, 
 often heavily laden with efforts of one kind or another, and 
 efforts to produce beneficial results can never truly be called 
 idleness. 
 
 Jane and even Carlyle seemed to forget that though they, 
 in a short time, wearied of the change, and gladly returned 
 from their convalescent home, to their quiet duties, Lady 
 Harriet was carrying on her good efforts for others in the 
 field — her labours seemed rarely at an end. All honour to 
 her, and to the memory of every such Lady Bountiful ! 
 
 In July, that year, Carlyle took his wife to Matlock for 
 change of air, where Mr. W. E. I'orster joined them. He was 
 then an ardent admirer of Carlyle, and insisted upon their 
 both going with him to Rawdon. Thither they went for a 
 week, finding it one of the most charming spots in Yorkshire. 
 From thence, Carlyle went for a visit to the house of Geraldine 
 Jewsbury, at Manchester, where he had an opportunity of 
 looking over the cotton mills and talking to the leaders of 
 the working men, who were studying his books, and could 
 tell him how far his suggestions were practicable. They 
 expressed a passionate interest in these books, favourable or 
 adverse. There he met Jacob and John Bright, and allowed 
 himself to be miserably stared at in the Manchester drawing- 
 rooms. Mr. Froude says, " he shook peaceable Brightdom as 
 with a passing earthquake." He spoke of the mills he saw 
 as '' foetid, fuzzy, and ill-ventilated." This would not be 
 flattering to their owners, nor would his opinions on the Corn 
 Laws be gratifying to their chief supporter, with whom 
 Carlyle was certainly at discord, for he declared their aboli- 
 tion was the greatest veracity done in Parliament this 
 century. Jane, meanwhile, was left under the protection of 
 Mr. Forster, M.P. for Bradford, who took her on to Morpeth, 
 saying, " she looked so horribly helpless, he could not reconcile 
 it to his conscience to leave her to the chance of losing her- 
 self." Jeannie looked far more helpless than she was. She 
 was ever full of her own resources. 
 
 When she returned home, (Carlyle having gone to Scots- 
 brig,) she found everything delicious there. Anne had been 
 
 s 
 
258 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 so good, and was well prepared for her reception. She gave 
 ]ier mistress a pathetic account of poor old Mr. Sterling, who 
 a week before he died had insisted upon being driven to 
 Cheyne Row, where, quite speechless, he made signs, with 
 tears in his eyes, that he had some dying message for them. 
 Surely that was one of the saddest proofs of the real affection 
 he had entertained for them, and now he was gone for ever. 
 Jane deeply regretted his loss, and remembered his virtues. 
 
 Carlyle was " sleepless and stagnant " at Scotsbrig. That 
 is his own description of his state of being. His poor old 
 mother was nearing the dread valley of the shadow of 
 death. The fact was too palpable, and would account for 
 Carlyle's melancholy to a great degree. But she was not yet 
 quite helpless, as she proved. 
 
 Carlyle received a letter from Jane. Again she had been 
 ill, and again like a beneficent angel, Lady Harriet appeared 
 at Cheyne Kow and carried her oft' to Addiscombe. But the 
 grand lady, the possessor of so much magnifi.cence, never had 
 been accustomed to as much personal indulgence as had Mrs. 
 Carlyle. Being summer time, no fire was lighted in Jeannie's 
 bed-room, and no wine placed at hand to comfort her before 
 going to rest. No, in spite of Lady H.'s inferior method of 
 spending her time, she does not seem to have encouraged 
 luxury, to the demoralization of her guests. 
 
 Jane wrote, full of complaints of her ladyship's harsh treat- 
 ment, and poor okl Mrs. Carlyle, fearing her delicate daughter- 
 in-law was freezing with the cold of August, knitted her some 
 warm woollen stockings, and sent them from her " old withered 
 mother." Every one was kind to Jane. Even old John, her 
 next neighbour's servant-man, when he heard she was suffering 
 from headache, managed to stop all the pianos in the neigh- 
 bourhood from jingling. 
 
 After she had been a little time at Addiscombe, matters 
 improved, and she comforted Carlyle with the news that she 
 had never seen Lady H. in such good spirits, talkative, and 
 liking to be talked to. Only she would seem to ignore the 
 fact, that Jane was ill, and this was quite enough to make her 
 believe that there was no place like home to be sick in. Her 
 belief adds to our assurance, that after all her complaints, she 
 had a very snug home in which to be sick. But an expected 
 visitor recalled her to Chelsea. Between Emerson and Carlyle 
 an affectionate correspondence had existed ever since they 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 259 
 
 had met at Craigenputtock. In America, Emerson had not 
 only got his friend's books read, but had helped to make them 
 understood in a way that his own countrymen are scarcely yet 
 capable of doing. Moreover he had entered into no end of 
 uncongenial business relations on Carlyle's behalf, and sent 
 him money when he was most in need of it. 
 
 And now once more Emerson was coming to England, and 
 was to be Carlyle's guest for a time. Afterwards to take 
 Carlyle's old hated role of exhibiting himself on British 
 platforms. The very remembrance of his own successful, 
 but to his mind, despicable success, irritated Carlyle. Emerson 
 went to Oxford and Manchester. " I rather think," Carlyle 
 wrote shortly after, "Emerson's popularity is not very great 
 hitherto, his doctrines are too airy and thin for the solid 
 practical heads of the Lancashire region. He is a fine high- 
 souled man, but I think his talent is not quite so high as I 
 anticipated." 
 
 "We are quite sure it was not. Nothing but perfection could 
 reach Carlyle's expectations. Heaven itself and heavenly 
 bodies alone could satisfy bis requirements. Unfortunate 
 man. But he truly loved Emerson, and he astounded the 
 American genius even more on the second interview than on 
 the first. In America, Emerson thus described him — 
 
 " Carlyle talks like a very unhappy man. As profoundly 
 solitary, displeased and hindered by all men and things about 
 him, meditating how to explode the whole world of nonsense 
 which torments him. He is greatly respected by all sorts of 
 people, understands his own value, and sees society on his 
 own terms. He is as remarkable in London as the Tower of 
 London." 
 
 But Carlyle would not believe himself that he was a great 
 man ; when in his native county, he declared he felt himself 
 *' the smallest man in Annandale." No doubt blue pill and 
 castor oil had something to do with his sadness. He often 
 expressed pity for the rich, but feels all the time that he has 
 need to be " wae " for himself, signing himself to his wife — 
 '* Your affectionate Bad ! " 
 
 Carlyle's contempt for the emancipation question annoyed 
 Emerson very much, as it had done Harriet IMartineau. It is 
 somewhat difficult to account for, knowing as we do the 
 boundless compassion of that mighty heart. But he en- 
 deavoured to explain himself to the satisfaction of the philan- 
 
 S 2 
 
260 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 thropic, and to prove that he, in his own soul, was indeed no 
 less philanthropic than they. With intense pain he had come 
 to the heartbreaking conclusion that the very negro slaves 
 might be envied in comparison to the destitute, the neglected 
 and benighted heathen of the British Isles. To have work 
 and plenty of it, with food and raiment, was luxury in 
 comparison to what was endured by many a white man. As 
 for the word slave or servant, had it not been chosen with 
 proud humility by the Highest in Christendom 1 "Were there 
 not, and are there not, thousands of toilworn English work- 
 men labouring from morning till night with the bare possibility 
 of procuring enough to keep body and soul together] Perpetual 
 slavery, perpetual and hopeless misery. Earth crying all 
 around — Come and till me ! come and reap me ! yet by the 
 governing powers and impotences of this England, men are 
 bidden to sit still, to lie, cheat, or steal for their daily bread ! 
 forbidden to obey the calls of nature ! Such prove their 
 sisterhood and brotherhood by dying of sheer want and hope 
 deferred." 
 
 Carlyle's own heart ached ceaselessly for the miseries of his 
 fellow- creatures. He longed to see more fraternity among 
 men. Fraternity is not and never ca7i mean equality. Where 
 the inequality is to our advantage we should show least 
 consciousness of it. It is sure to be recognized on the other 
 side, willingly or unwillingly. But Carlyle never forgot, at 
 the height of his glory, that he was the brother of slaves 
 and prisoners, or when riding on horseback did he ever 
 despise his footsore, weary, or poverty-stricken fellows, tramp- 
 ing within sight, ragged and shoeless. The mercilessness of 
 man to man horrified him, whether the victim of misgovernment 
 be black or white. He felt a contempt for emancipation, 
 because too much was expected from it. The word was in 
 every mouth. Every man, woman, or child, would be emanci- 
 pated from being obliged to do what they did not like. 
 Carlyle did not believe in any such stuff and nonsense. 
 Political emancipation for the working man, of not the 
 slightest use to an uneducated man, could not change him 
 into a manly, self-respecting, moral character, as suggested. 
 First educate the masses, then endow them with the power of 
 using their educational powers. A man who cannot read 
 fluently, can scarcely understand his own politics, and for a 
 man to vote according to order, is far worse than that he 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 261 
 
 should not vote at all. Of course we know that many a 
 member sits to make the laws who has not given one tenth of 
 the attentive thought to his subject as the humble voter who 
 has helped him to his place. 
 
 But then the emancipation of the negroes was, of course, 
 another question. Carlyle was prejudiced against the very 
 word. The only liberty attainable to the multitude of ignorant 
 mortals was in being guided or else compelled by some one 
 wiser than themselves. Only let their masters he wiser than 
 the men. Only let them prove by their justice, their capa- 
 bility, industry, self-sacrifice, that they were worthy of being 
 masters, and such guides and rulers would make even slavery 
 tolerable. 
 
 To Carlyle it was a problem how three millions of humau 
 beings, trained to be useful to their masters, accustomed to 
 no thought of the morrow, to have everything provided for 
 them, and decided for them — bow, if suddenly thrown upon 
 their own resources, they would mauage to exist ? How could 
 they all be started in the world *? The masters might be 
 compensated for giving the poor creatures their freedom, but 
 would they be compelled to find them work sufficient to provide 
 them even with the barest necessaries of life ? Has the 
 question been satisfactorily answered 1 What has become of 
 the Uncle Toms without the Cabins 1 
 
 The theory for the abolition of slavery was grand enough, 
 but slavery was instituted by the Almighty in the olden 
 times, and when conducted according to Hebrew laws, was 
 not an unendurable institution, and Carlyle had tremendous 
 veneration for the old Testament, so he could not bring it to 
 his conscience to condemn what God had justified, though the 
 world was growing very old and needed mending. He feared 
 it would never be restored to its original glory. 
 
 Carlyle was, at the time of Emerson's visit, lying fallow, 
 '' Frederick the Great floating about his brain as a future 
 possibility." But he was uncommonly idle, consequently more 
 unhappy than usual. When Emerson arrived at Cheyne Bow 
 "the door was opened by Mrs. Carlyle, and the man himself 
 stood behind her and bore the candle." 
 
 " Well, here we are shovelled together again," was his 
 greeting. 
 
 " Carlyle's talk was like a river, full and never ceasing ; 
 we talked till after midnight, and again next morning at 
 
262 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 breakfast we were on. Then started to walk to London, and 
 London Bridge, the Tower, and Westminster were all melted 
 down in the river of his speech." 
 
 When people crowded round Emerson in America, urging 
 him to denounce Carlyle for his strong expressions against 
 their country, and told him it was his sacred duty so to 
 do, Emerson stood serene and silent as the rocks until the 
 storm had subsided, and the angry sea was calm. 
 
 Perhaps he was a little disappointed in his master, but he 
 never avowed it, and years before when he invited him over 
 to Concord, he gave him permission to be " as cynical, as 
 headstrong, and fantastical as he pleased." And he found 
 his friend precisely the same man as at the hermitage of 
 Craigenputtock, neither spoilt nor improved by his contact 
 with his fellow man. Isolated then — isolated still. The 
 loneliest man in Christendom, with sorrows secret and 
 irremediable. 
 
263 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 The comic at his command, with the highest degree of the sublime. 
 
 — Carlyle, Miscellanies. 
 Aversion itself with him is not hatred. He despises much, but justly, 
 
 with tolerance, even with a sort of love. Love, in fact, is the 
 
 atmosphere in which he breathes, is the medium through which 
 
 he looks. — Carlyle, Miscellanies. 
 
 We are told that Dr. Johnson once admittel that to him the 
 " praises of a great duke were pleasanter than those of a 
 great writer." Carlyle never reciprocated that sentiment, 
 never pretended to have any veneration for Aristocracy 
 for its own sake, only for the intrinsic merits with which 
 some of its members were endowed. The praise of a noodle, 
 whether an aristocratic or literary noodle, was not valued by 
 Carlyle half a farthing. Literature to him was a power, and 
 never could reduce him to servility, or make him dependent 
 on a patron ; and some would-be patrons " are no more 
 capable of forming a just estimate of a great man's works, 
 than they are of analyzing the music of the spheres." Carlyle 
 had extraordinary gifts and indefatigable energy. He would 
 sell neither. 
 
 About this time the question was raised of admitting Jews 
 into Parliament. Baron Rothschild was very anxious to 
 enlist Carlyle into the cause, and wrote requesting a favour- 
 able pamphlet on the subject, hinting that he might demand 
 any sum as compensation. Carlyle replied that it could not he. 
 For himself he did not care one jot who joined the majority 
 of talking, inactive Parliamentarians, but at the same time 
 he expressed surprise that "the Jews, who were looking out 
 for the coming of Shiloh, should be seeking office in a Gentile 
 Legislature. But the Man of Wealth, Jew or Gentile, seems 
 
264 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 to think the coming of Shiloh a very dubious question, and 
 in the meantime " they could look after the main chance. 
 
 Carlyle himself was absolutely indifferent to wealth and to all 
 the luxury it can afford. In his sane hours he felt thankful 
 that the grim shadow of beggary had receded far out of sight, 
 and that poverty could no longer afflict him or his wife. Yet 
 still he was afflicted ; he had too much to say, and except by 
 saying, was otherwise almost helpless. When at Alverstoke, 
 Addiscombe, Bath House, or other places of earthly grandeur, 
 mixing in the very highest society, a voice would cry inwardly, 
 as to Elijah of old, " What doest thou here? " Never could he 
 banish from his mind at the sumptuous table, in the presence 
 of those clothed in purple and fine linen, that outside at the 
 very gate, perhaps, lay Lazarus, hungry, naked, sick. He 
 never forgot, among the most cultivated, that the uncultivated 
 were yet endowed with an inner spiritual man, making the 
 beggar a brother to Dives, and equally capable of culture. 
 He contemplated himself as being " considered and tolerated 
 as a desperate, half -mad, if usefullish fireman, rushing along 
 the ridge tiles in a frightful manner, to quench the burning 
 chimney, not one coming to his assistance." He far from 
 despised good breeding, nay, he considered it " the finest thing 
 in the world." But though it was a thing one might not be 
 endowed with naturally, it was within the grasp of all with 
 means of culture at their command, but totally beyond the 
 reach of the children of toil. What angered him was the 
 terrible example set by those possessed of every advantage to 
 those so far less fortunate. If idleness among the poor is 
 unpardonable, it is equally disgraceful, however gracefully 
 assumed, by the rich. 
 
 January, '48, found Carlyle again at Alverstoke, where he 
 laid awake at night contrasting his present brilliant surround- 
 ings with his early peasant-home. He wrote to his mother all 
 about his grand doings, or no doings, by which he hoped to 
 amuse her. Visitors generally rose at eight, but special 
 orders were given to Carlyle' s valet not to enter his room till 
 half- past eight, when he attended upon the celebrated guest 
 and assisted him to dress. Shaving, bathing, and dressing 
 took him three-quarters of an hour. He was provided with a 
 beautiful bed-room with three windows looking out upon 
 lawns, woods, and shrubberies. His bed was large, old- 
 fashioned, curtained, tempting him to laziness, while the quiet 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 265 
 
 was perfectly unsurpassable. Most of the visitors were out 
 of doors by nine, sauntering about, smoking, or amiably con- 
 versing. If Jane were also a guest she would issue out of 
 her own two pretty rooms and join her husband. At break- 
 fast they were attended by an *' infinite number of flunkeys, 
 cates and condiments. Much making of wits without much 
 gravity of reason ;" but no one enjoyed laughter more than 
 Carlyle. Till two in the afternoon he retired to his own room 
 to grumble at himself for enjoying himself so much. At two 
 they lunched and then dispersed, the ladies to drive and the 
 gentlemen to ride on horseback. 
 
 Thus day after day glided by — the tide of guests ebbing 
 and flowing in one continual stream. In such an establish- 
 ment who could charge host or hostess with idleness 1 
 
 "Strange quarters for the likes of them," said Carlyle, 
 " and in spite of all this fuss not unpleasant." One visit 
 lasted five weeks, and the friendliness of the Barings never 
 diminished, never fagged. Surely Carlyle and his wife ought 
 to have been grateful. That he was truly there can be no 
 doubt, and also that if he dared he would have expressed it 
 more loudly; but to spare Jeannie's ridiculous jealousy he 
 said as little about the subject as possible. 
 
 Charles Buller was a frequent guest at those fashionable 
 resorts ; also Macaulay, for whom Carlyle ever entertained 
 some respect. On one occasion he met Sir Robert Peel at 
 dinner at Bath House. Ever since he had sent him the 
 present of Oliver Cromwell, the Prime Minister had always 
 recognized him, though as yet they had not been introduced. 
 He described the statesman as being well read, rather re- 
 served, unobtrusive, possessing a great deal of mild humour, 
 and real sensibility to the ludicro.^s, which our melancholy 
 prophet and philosopher admired most of all. Sir Robert's 
 laugh promised much, and Carlyle felt it a privilege to 
 know him. 
 
 In the spring of '48 all London was agitated by the monster 
 Chartist movement. As he was the author of a book called 
 Chartism, he was pested by everybody interested or terrified 
 by the rumours afloat ; but they were all so intent in giving 
 vent to their own opinions, that these interviews with Carlyle 
 produced little but interrupted twaddle. He longed to 
 deliver his soul in writing for the magazines, but no established 
 journal dare give him his full swing, knowing his propensity 
 
266 THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 to hit all round. The streets were swarming too with Irish 
 beggars. Jane was ill, and Lady Harriet had taken her out 
 of town, so Carlyle spent his time at Chelsea like an Egyptian 
 mummy, without uttering twenty words in a day, waiting the 
 upshot of the monster petition and the Chartist scare. 
 
 Thousands of special constables had been sworn in, and 
 Carlyle ventured out into the London streets to see if a 
 revolution was astir. He found all as quiet as Addiscombe 
 farm. No constables were required, though every one was 
 alarmed. The streets were almost deserted, the Duke of 
 Wellington's blinds all down, and the Green Park gates closed. 
 The revolution all ended in smoke. Carlyle was disappointed 
 that so little or perhaps nothing had come out of this Chartist 
 agitation. The leaders were imprisoned, and he declared that 
 " Cant, insincerity, imposture, and practical injustice once more 
 had the rule." The scheme had been wild, he acknowledged, 
 but oh ! there were remedies to be found for the crying evils, 
 and the doctrine of " Laisser faire " was diabolical. Ireland 
 was famine stricken. Was it a fact that for that unhappy 
 country discontent or emigration were inevitable? Carlyle 
 would never believe that good government was a human 
 impossibility, and determined that he would never allow his 
 own energy in advocating it to depart from him while he 
 breathed. 
 
 That year old Lord Ashburton died, and Mr. Baring reigned 
 in his stead. He did not appear to rejoice thereat. After 
 the funeral he looked miserably ill, thin, pale — the very picture 
 of sorrow. He was the inheritor of .£60,000 per annum, but 
 he was childless. What was the use of it 1 So thought 
 Carlyle, and he thought very much the same respecting his 
 own fortune should he ever amass one. 
 
 There was also another death that pained him deeply. This 
 was no other than that of Charles Buller. He had attained 
 the highest parliamentary distinction, and the brightest future 
 seemed before him ; but through the unskilf .d treatment of 
 some surgeon, lost a life esteemed invaluable. To Carlyle it 
 was almost the grief of a parent. He, like Emerson, was one 
 of his few spiritual sons. When he had in a measure recovered 
 the blow, he wrote a most tender, pathetic elegy, which was 
 published in time for his heartbroken mother to read, who 
 soon followed her beloved son to the grave, dyins^ of pure 
 grief for his irreparable loss. Carlyle was heart-sick, his hair 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 267 
 
 was rapidly turning white, and he deplored that as yet he had 
 done so little. The question now was what to write about. 
 His Oliver had had a wide sale, and the man was at last 
 magnified into a hero. People were anxious to raise up an 
 immortal monument to his memory, to give him a corner in 
 Westminster Abbey or in the public squares, anything or any- 
 where to do him honour, Carlyle never encouraged that way 
 of perpetuating fame. He said they had much better learn 
 of him to be honest and true. 
 
 In '49, people were anxiously watching the fortunes of the 
 brave enthusiast, Mazzini. Carlyle wrote to his mother con- 
 cerning his Italian friends, " Death grapples with the old 
 Anti-christ, the Poj)e." Mazzini was then one of the three 
 kings of Rome, actually living in the Pope's palace, and Louis 
 Napoleon, whom Carlyle had often seen driving about in 
 London, with whom he had dined and conversed, was now 
 wielding the sceptre of France. "Yery likely," prophesied 
 Carlyle, truly enough, "the Copper Captain will be driving 
 his carriage in England again some day." 
 
 Mazzini had, we know, been more appreciated by Mrs. 
 Carlyle than her husband, who, though he pronounced him 
 " beautiful, merciful, fierce, full of fun and wild emotion, had, 
 notwithstanding, a large amount of moonshine about him," 
 and wearied Carlyle with his wild ideas of overthrowing the 
 Austrian Empire ! He ! why even Jeannie declared she could 
 prove herself a more powerful arch-conspirator. Yet there 
 he was in Rome, resisting unto death. 
 
 Ireland remained England's plague-spot — has been, and very 
 likely will be, for centuries — " the breaking-point of the huge 
 suppuration of British society, the ragged lady of a diseased 
 soul," whom, however, Carlyle determined to revisit at some 
 early date. 
 
 That year Mr. Froude was introduced to Carlyle, and he 
 gives us his first impression. He found him sitting in his 
 little flagstoned backyard — smoking. His age then, fifty-four ; 
 his personal appearance tall, thin, upright, angular, beardless ; 
 with a somewhat prominent chin, a thin neck, firmly closed 
 mouth, under lip slightly projecting, eyes a deep violet, with 
 fire burning out of the bottom of them. He was not over 
 polite to Mr. Froude, having heard some of his opinions, which 
 he disapprove 1. But, indeed, conventional politeness Carlyle 
 did not cultivate, his was all heart-felt or nil. 
 
2 68 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Mrs. Cai'lyle was the most interesting woman Mr. Fronde 
 had ever seen, and told stories at her husband's expense, 
 which apjmrently amnsed him as much as the'r visitors ! 
 
 Carlyle had said of his great future biographer, that he 
 " ought to burn his own smoke, and not torment other 
 people's nostrils with it." Mr. Froude, when better known, 
 did not torment, but cheered the sage. 
 
 In 1849 Mrs. Carlyle at last ventured on a visit to Had- 
 dington. She tried to pass incognito, and climbed over the 
 churchyard wall at early dawn to visit her father's grave. 
 "It looked old, old ! " and yet some one had lately been there, 
 and cleared away the weeds. She entered the church and sat 
 in the old square pew, where she recalled a vision of her 
 beloved parents and her own childish figure. The place 
 seemed struck with the coldness and silence of the grave, and 
 she herself seemed but the ghost of the happy, yet mournful 
 past. 
 
 From such solemn scenes she visited the old schoolroom 
 where she had learnt from her beloved tutor so many of life's 
 lessons. All the people she met seemed so calm and indifferent, 
 while her own heart was bursting with the emotions she could 
 scarcely control. But wherever she made herself known, the 
 delight every one expi?essed rose to wildest excitement. She 
 was dear to all who recollected the bright, vivacious little 
 Jeannie Welsh of past days. 
 
 " Have you any children % " asked one old man. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " What have you been doing with yourself ? " 
 
 " Amusing myself," replied brave Jeannie. 
 
 She also visited her father's sisters, and excused her late 
 estrangement from them as arising from her fears that they 
 would bother her concerning her soul ! 
 
 Carlyle was paying his long-promised visit to Ireland. He 
 had left London on the 30th of June, in a Dublin steamboat, 
 leaving Jeannie with Lady Harriet, who showed her no sym- 
 pathy at parting from him, or for her fears at his catching 
 cold, because he had left his plaid behind him. Carlyle was 
 able to look out for hims df , thought my ladyship, and would 
 not hesitate to wrap himself even in the tarpaulin if nothing 
 else was available. 
 
 Ireland he found in a wretched state, full of ragged beggars, 
 swarming everywhere — a sight of all others of " despicable. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 269 
 
 abject incapability." Irish welfare had constantly been on 
 tha lips of Englishmen, while the interests of England had 
 ever been, and still are, paramount. All the religion he fell 
 in with seemed to him too irreligious, doing mischief instead 
 of good. He denounced landlords, archbishops, monarchs, as 
 " canailles whom the gods are about to chastise and extinguish, 
 unless they altered." 
 
 He was sorely perplexed with the Irish question, and 
 exasperated that exit out of the difficulty seemed alaiost a 
 superhuman discovery. He was indeed thankful to return 
 from such scenes of hopeless misery, beggary, and desolation, 
 lasting for centuries and no nearer the end. From Ireland he 
 went straight to Scotsbrig, where the sight of human industry, 
 thrift, cleanliness, human creatures decently clothed and in 
 their right mind, was truly refreshing. In Scotland he and 
 Jane spent a few days at her cousin's peaceful manse, and she 
 gave him a graphic description of her late Haddington experi- 
 ences. When they parted, she returned to visit some friends 
 at Haddington, and he to the Ashburton shooting-place for 
 about a fortnight, which he styled a "crowded gypsy exist- 
 ence," only restlessly and grumblingly endured. 
 
 Before returning to Chelsea he paid a last visit to their old 
 friend, Lord Jeffery, who died the following spring. 
 
 Thus ended their three months' excursion, and husband and 
 wife met at Cheyne Row, with their sad faces still more 
 saddened by mournful memories, but none the less welcome to 
 each other for that. 
 
270 
 
 CHAPTER XXXY. 
 
 It is the morality of a man. to whom the earth and all its glories are 
 in truth a vapour and a Dream, and the Beauty of Goodness the 
 only real possession. Poetry, Virtue. Religion, for other men 
 have but, as it were, a traditionary and imaginary existence ; are 
 for him the everlasting basis of the Universe. — Carlyle, Novalis. 
 
 A GENTLEMAN friend once accosted Carlyle in the streets of 
 Edinburgh, armed as a special constable or volunteer, and 
 said, "You should have the like of this." The characteristic 
 answer was, " Yes, but I have not yet decided on which side." 
 That incident occurred when he was almost a youth ; now, in 
 the year 1850, as a middle-aged man, he had scarcely decided 
 with whom to unite himself. 
 
 After his return from Ireland, he meditated a work on that 
 unhappy country, but could not make up his mind what was 
 the precise cause of its wretchedness. That the Irish were a 
 noble, self-sacrificing, patriotic people, capable of managing 
 their own affairs, he could not allow ; but that they had been 
 miserably mismanaged he could, and did. The Irish question 
 was a problem ; he felt instinctively that his personal knowledge 
 was inadequate to solve it, so besides writing a journal of 
 what he saw and felt during his visit, he resolved to let it alone. 
 
 But he must do something — write something. Modern 
 Radicalism was disgusting him. Hitherto the Radicals had 
 counted him as being on their side. He meant to open their 
 eyes to their delusion. His interest was always awake to the 
 cause of the " atoms of humanity," which Radicalism, he 
 believed, was ready to leave to swim or sink, or, like dumb- 
 driven cattle, to press on their weary march. Carlyle would 
 make laws that every poor black man should be treated 
 humanely, better, far better, than the finest racehorse. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 271 
 
 Masters of white men, and owners of black, should be com- 
 pelled to provide well for, and kindly to treat those in their 
 service. Surely if a society for prevention of cruelty to 
 animals could be founded, the general voice of a nation could 
 prevent cruelty to one's brethren. To turn adrift a vast and 
 increasing nation of black negroes, naturally animalized by 
 centuries of toil and the vegetation of mere existence, seemed 
 to Carlyle like letting loose a huge menagerie in every town. 
 It would be idleness running to putrefaction. It has 1 een 
 done, and the human animals were found very tractable, and 
 in many instances proved themselves, in spite of their skin, in 
 spite of their previous lives of bondage — veritable men, sober, 
 industrious, godly. But what of the incapables ? Have 
 they proved their incapacity by dying off and becoming 
 extinct 1 We hear of many an old negro who pines after the 
 fleshpots of slavery, and bewails the miseries entailed by 
 emancipation. A gentleman with whom w^e are personally 
 acquainted recently visited America, where he had himself 
 known many slaves. All were dead after whom he inquired, 
 every one ; but, in his opinion, the abolition of slavery will be 
 a benefit to succeeding generations. 
 
 Carlyle, however, prophesied only ill, and brought out the 
 first of his Latter Day Paini')lile,ts on the nigger question. 
 This gave general dissatisfaction. John Mill, his former friend, 
 made quite a ferocious attack upon it. The breach widened 
 to a gulf, and yet when Carlyle met his antagonist in the 
 street, his l.eart warmed towards him because his face wore 
 such an expression of sadness. The Petrachan, but no less 
 painful romance, shadowed his life and left lines of care and 
 sorrow on those handsome features. There are two things 
 essential to human happiness — a hard heart and a capital 
 digestion. Carlyle was lamentably deficient in both, and was 
 at times comforted by the thought that life is short. 
 
 His second pamphlet was on model prisons. He went to 
 visit Millbank jail, that he might see with his own eyes liow 
 the new philanthropical system worked. The criminals were 
 comfortably housed, clothed, fed, and on their way to supposed 
 reclamation by the love instead of the punishment method. 
 Among them he noticed faces brutalized by all manner of 
 vice ; faces expressive of every evil propensity ; men whose 
 lives had given ample proof that they were the " Devil's 
 Elect." And these were amply provided for by the imposition 
 
272 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 of rates on Clod's honest poor, who, when sickness or age crept 
 upon them, had no place of shelter save the workhouse, 
 infinitely inferior in some respects to those fine places of con- 
 finement. The reflection made him savage, and he wrote so 
 fiercely and contemptibly of such charitable projects, that he 
 mortally ofi^ended the originators, and the gulled public who 
 believed in them. Yet he was never hard-hearted, cr rarely, 
 when he came into personal contact with misery, however 
 degraded its appearance. Many a coin he bestowed indis- 
 criminately. It was hard to him ever to refuse a cry for 
 help. Upon poor bare footed beggary he ungrudgingly bestowed 
 his alms, and when some friend would remonstrate, he would 
 say — " No doubt he is a son of Gehenna, but it is very low 
 water with him. This modern life hardens our hearts more 
 than it should." 
 
 His Latter Day Pamj)hlets were twelve in number, and 
 have no doubt done much good, though at the time the read- 
 ing world declared that *' Carlyle had taken to drinking 
 whisky, or perhaps gone mad." He bore all that was said 
 very complacently, being by that time inured to all manner 
 of treatment. The criticisms, however unfavourable, did not 
 in the least hinder the sale of his work. He had many dis- 
 ciples who would think it irreverent to criticize anything he 
 wrote, who swallowed all unconditionally. As for himself 
 he declared that the whole posterity of Adam, if he but con- 
 tinued true to himself, could never succeed in making shipwreck 
 of him. 
 
 At the height of his unpopularity he was gratefully sur- 
 prised to receive an invitation to dinner from Sir Robert Peel, 
 who was anxious to know more of so renowned an author, and 
 Carlyle, no less favourably impressed by the statesman, who 
 had actually repealed the Corn Laws, availed himself gladly 
 of the honour conferred upon him. He was received most 
 cordially, Sir Robert personally introducing the now unpopular 
 author to his most distinguished guests. 
 
 Carlyle' s eyes and ears were all riveted on the statesman, 
 who in his estimation was fast becoming the type of what 
 a minister should be. And as a man he was. His reserve, 
 his calm voice, his hearty laugh, and burst of quiet humour, 
 charmed them. When the party broke up, he remembered it 
 as one of the pleasantest in his life. The Bishop of Oxford, 
 Samuel Wilberforce, insisted upon driving Carlyle home in his 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 273 
 
 carriage. From that day these two great men "began an 
 intimacy that continued for years. Two greater extremes 
 could scarcely be found. The Bishop thought Carlyle one of 
 the most truly religious men living, and Carlyle declared that 
 " he did not hate Sam half so much as he feared he ought." 
 
 Once again Carlyle met Sir R. Peel at dinner at Bath 
 House, and his respect deepened. At a grand ball, the only 
 ball he ever patronized, given by Lord Ashburton, he met the 
 Duke of Wellington, for whom he always expressed the greatest 
 admiration. 
 
 Once Carlyle met Sir Robert Peel in the streets, and 
 ventured to do what was foreign to him — he saluted. The 
 Prime Minister at once advanced, and shaking him cordially 
 by the hand gave him a never-to-be-forgotten " How are you 1 " 
 That must have been the last time they met. 
 
 On the 29th of June, that same year, 1850, Carlyle was 
 returning from Piccadilly on foot, and noticed an elderly 
 nobleman, whose horse was capering among the carriages in 
 an alarming manner, and at the same moment a tragic event 
 was occurring on Constitution Hill, for which he was little 
 prepared. Sir Robert Peel was then similarly plunging on 
 horseback. Unhappily, this horse threw its rider. He was 
 mortally injured. Carlyle did not hear of the accident till the 
 next day, when he joined his wife at Addiscombe and received 
 the sad intelligence. He could scarcely credit the report, and 
 hastened back to Chelsea for further news. In a few days, 
 however, all was over. In Carlyle's estimation the hope of 
 England had departed. " God bless you all," were the dying 
 statesman's last words to his weeping children. 
 
 To Carlyle this was a great blow. Since his personal 
 acquaintance with the illustrious dead he had been big with 
 hope for England's future ; having such faith in his adminis- 
 tration. This terrible fatality crushed him for a moment, but 
 he bowed to the inevitable. He had had some hopes of enter- 
 ing parliament himself under so able a leader ; from that 
 time he renounced the idea, and lost much of his political 
 interest. Sad and depiessed, he went to South Wales for 
 change of air, and from thence to the quiet of Scotsbrig. 
 Part of his travels were by steamer, and he most comically 
 described the tortures he endured by the new steam boat 
 arrangements. The gents' cabin contained some sixteen male 
 ■creatures packed one upon another in layers, and *' he felt 
 
 T 
 
274 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 it positively immoral to think of sleeping in such a receptacle 
 of abominations. He compared himself to an unfortunate 
 Jonah, most thankful to be cast once more upon the 
 streets." 
 
 From Scotsbrig he wrote : " Why should a living man com- 
 plain at all. We get, each of us, the common fortune with 
 superficial variation. A man ought to know that he is not 
 ill-used, if he miss the thing one way, he gets it in another." 
 
 Scotsbrig was so calm, so simple and peaceful in its habits, 
 that it seemed a continued Sabbath to the man who was now 
 habituated to the excitement of London society. The scenery 
 all round was, moreover, of surpassing beauty. Poor old 
 Annandale ! He received wliile there a note from his brilliant, 
 but true-hearted friend. Lady Ashburton. Surely their two 
 lives were then at the extreme ends of society, and he was 
 puzzled to know which end pleased him most. His mother 
 was very weak, but so sweetly, piously resigned. And yet 
 even amid such peaceful scenes he was tormented. He wanted 
 new clothes, and that meant " talk " on painful subjects with 
 tailors and cloth manufacturers. He declared he ought to be 
 " wrapped in cotton wool and laid in a drawer," where, at any 
 rate, human beings would leave him alone, and thus spare him 
 no end cf fret and botheration. It seemed to him he had said 
 over and over again on every subject all he had to say. He 
 was the acknowledged king of talkers ; his vast knowledge, 
 his pungent wit, his keen sarcasm, made him almost a walking 
 encyclopaedia to the intellectual world. He was flattered, 
 admired, tolerated, listened to as no other man was. "His 
 chief strength was moral rather than physical," says Mr. 
 Froude. Mrs. Carlyle continued still out of humour with him, 
 and wearied him with ceaseless reproaches. She went to 
 Addiscombe some of the time that he was absent. She wrote 
 tartly that her company had become useless to him ; to which 
 he replied, " Oh ! if you could but cease to be conscious of 
 what your company is to me. The consciousness is all the 
 malady in that. Ah me ! ah me ! " 
 
 Did she forget what his company had so often been to her 1 
 Wearisome, heavy, without end. She had been so silent as he 
 sat at her feet, that he had often entreated even for a sign of life 
 from her. But now that he had found a friend whose interest 
 he had roused, whose constant sympathy was unfailing, and 
 one, moreover, who revered him more than any other man 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 275 
 
 living, Jane was an^jered. Naturally, say some. She never 
 charged him with flirting with Lady Harriet ; when people 
 revere each other they never flirt. Perhaps the feeling is 
 much deeper. With true spiritual discernment they admire 
 in each other their best gifts, and love that kindred spirit 
 with all pureness, with all knowledge. It was not Carlyle's 
 intellect that Lady Harriet esteemed most highly in him, but 
 his goodness, his earnestness ; so intense, so passionately true. 
 He was something what he so ardently wished to be, and as such, 
 the lady of fashion looked up to him as master. Naturally he 
 appreciated such esteem in so superior a mortal. "What man 
 would not 1 But Lady Harriet had no accursed flannel shirts 
 to mend for her peculiar guest, no odious buttons to put 
 on different articles of his wearing apparel, as had the wife 
 of the hero, and she considered these things, and felt a 
 contemptible pity for the man who thus required such prosaic 
 attentions. 
 
 To his mother she wrote grumblingly that '' Carlyle never 
 notices that anything ailed her, if only she were on her legs." 
 On his behalf, we must remind our readers that Mrs. Carlyle 
 was so frequently off them that he was only too gratified to 
 find her capable of making use of them ; also, that even a 
 hero cannot go buttonless or ragged, and that she, being a 
 spoilt and an only child, did not take very kindly to her 
 needle ; though to her credit she used it vigorously enough, 
 by fits and starts, and did not forget to tell her friends of her 
 performances. They had now a little dog, which became a 
 great favourite with his master ; and even of this fact Jane 
 writes sarcastically to her friend John Forster — 
 
 " Oh Lord, I forgot to tell you, I've got a little dog, and Mr. 
 C. has accepted it with an amiability ! To be sure when he 
 comes down gloomy in the morning, or comes in wearied from 
 his walk, the infatuated little beast dances round him on his 
 hind legs, as / ought to do and can't, and he feels flattered 
 and impressed by such unwonted capers to his honour and 
 glory ! " 
 
 To write in such a way of her husband to a comparative 
 stranger was not kind or magnanimous on Jane's part. Again 
 she wrote to the same friend — " that she is ill, and a sight of 
 him would do her good." She had been reading a book written 
 by her friend Geraldine, all on love, which sadly reminds her 
 of her own love's young dream, adding — " She will sing to* 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 anotlier tune if she live and go on writing for twenty 
 years." 
 
 Her love's young dream, alas ! was not Thomas Carlyle, who 
 had made a dangerous experiment in making a helpmeet of a 
 woman at the very time when her love for another was nearly 
 driving her to despair. 
 
 When Carlyle arrived at Chelsea from his visit to his mother 
 he found no one to greet him but his little Nero. Jane, 
 knowing he was to pay a visit to the Lake district, did not expect 
 him so soon. He had stayed a short time at Windermere, but 
 being out of sorts, had proved himself but a sorry guest. He 
 had visited Alfred Tennyson, who had just married, and 
 anticipated much happiness for the poet in his new state. 
 
 Carlyle found all the domestic arrangements wonderfully 
 improved, and bestowed silent blessings on his " incomparable 
 artist Goody ! " 
 
 Finding the change to Addiscombe was doing her good, he 
 joined her there for a week, before settling down to their 
 Chelsea home. 1851 was the year of the Great Exhibition, 
 and the crowded London streets became intolerable to Carlyle. 
 Visitors would naturally pour upon him, and he fled for refuge 
 into the country, taking up his residence with Dr. Gully, of 
 Malvern, to try hydropathy. But he did not appreciate the 
 water-cure system one bit, with its endless botheration. His 
 wife had gone to friends in Lancashire, and he pursued his 
 journey to Scotland. 
 
 Again he and his wife had parted with mutual dissatisfaction. 
 Carlyle had ventured to approach her for a farewell kiss with 
 a cigar in his mouth, for which she cruelly reprimanded him, 
 he all the while as innocent as a child of giving offence. But 
 now she seemed ever on the alert to find cause for complaint. 
 
 The air of Scotsbrig, the dear home faces, especially the best 
 loved and revered on earth, that of his visibly fading old 
 mother's, were all so sweet and refreshing to the wearied man 
 of too illustrious fame. His mother knew instinctively that 
 all was not quite as it should be at Chelsea, and her heart was 
 troubled. Ko one knew the honour and truthfulness of her 
 son as she did, no one knew how keenly he would feel the breath 
 of suspicion. He remained with her three weeks — a peaceful 
 time that passed only too rapidly, and then he returned to 
 Chelssa to find the Ashburtons away from town. They had 
 g')ne to Paris, where, in answer to a warm invitation, Carlyle 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 277 
 
 and Mr. Browning, the poet, followed them. Carlyle was 
 mentally and physically an invalid, and though, as usual, he 
 was most generously entertained, the Paris expedition was 
 a failure. Lord Ashbuiton introduced him to everybody 
 worth knowing, but the excitement and the noise caused 
 sleeplessness, and in spite of the enjoyable rides in the Bois 
 de Boulogne, on English horseback, he packed up his trunk, 
 and took his flight back to the gloomy street at Chelsea. 
 
278 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYI. 
 
 Farewell for the last time, in this world of shadows. In the world 
 of realities may the Great Father again bring us together in perfect 
 holiness, in perfect love. — Carlyle. 
 
 Carlyle began now to study seriously for his Life of Frederick 
 called the Great. He was out of humour both with himself 
 and with his subject, Frederick was by no means a man after 
 his own heart, and yet he could hit upon no character whose 
 supreme determination and force of will could entitle him 
 better to be considered Great. Of Frederick's greatness, how- 
 ever, he was very dubious \ but he, at any rate, had proved 
 himself a ruler of men, and possessed immense decision of 
 character. 
 
 Carlyle was indeed at a loss for a subject. He would not 
 venture on the life of a saint ; he considered he had left theo- 
 logy for the theologians when he threw up the ministry. He 
 wanted to write for practical purposes. Yet we fail to see 
 that his immense work was as didactic or instructive as he 
 meant it to be. It is chiefly valuable on account of its vast 
 historical research, its inimitable humour and wonderful 
 descriptive powers. One might almost fancy that the prophet 
 had grown wearied and disheartened in the delivery of his 
 message. But his voice was not hushed when he ceased to 
 cry aloud and spared not. No, his appeals, his warnings 
 and denunciations are a living voice for all time. Their grim, 
 tremendous earnestness will never more be silent while Enaflish 
 letters last. As Kingsley truly says — " Except a living man, 
 there is nothing more wonderful than a book," so we say — 
 " Except the living man, Carlyle, there is nothing more wonder- 
 ful than his books, which are ours for all time." He did not 
 write for the uneducated, nor did he write for any particular 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 279 
 
 class, but for all who would take the trouble to read him. 
 His works require study, aod he wanted above all things to 
 make his readers think for themselves, and not be blindly led 
 by another. He never wrote a page without evincing unmis- 
 takably the noble spirit which animated him ; but the comic 
 and the tragic were ever at war within him ; laughter and 
 tears following close upon each other. He was far from happy 
 when he commenced that last great work. Jane was on a 
 ceaseless fret ; his mother was passing away, and his own heart 
 was sick unto death. Lady Harriet wrote and begged Jane 
 to come to her assistance in the entertainment of her guests. 
 Lady Harriet never felt at liberty to despatch '' bores," if once 
 admitted within her walls. It was compulsory on her, for 
 noblesse oblige, to find amusement for the most stupid, un- 
 interesting people as well as for the gifted. She asked Jane's 
 help, showing thereby her own recognition of Jane's powers. 
 
 Now Mrs. Carlyle liked to be useful, but to be made use of 
 was a very different thing. She took offence, wrote to John 
 Carlyle of what she had to endure, expressed the opinion that 
 if she refused Lady Harriet Carlyle would quarrel with her 
 outright, and then, after making a tremendous fuss, packed 
 up her trunk and went. 
 
 Carlyle was pained — perhaps angry. We know a good many 
 husbands who would have lost patience altogether. One can- 
 not expect to be for ever receiving kindnesses and benefits and 
 never to make a return. One would think that with so 
 independent a spirit as Jane possessed, she would be glad in 
 any way to wipe oif some of the endless scores of gratitude 
 they owed to Lady Harriet, who kept open house for them 
 both, and was lavish in her kind attentions. 
 
 Carlyle always missed his wife. When at home she delighted 
 in entertaining his visitors, and spared him infinite trouble. 
 When she was away they seemed to pour upon him. He 
 retained many of his hardy peasant tastes. He delighted in 
 swilling his flagstones with pails of water, and just in the 
 midst of such interesting occupation a " bore " would beg for 
 admittance. Even ladies have caught him similarly engaged, 
 with a kind of smock on, and his bushy hair all disarranged. 
 Too many such interruptions irritated him. Soon he packed 
 up his bag and followed Jeannie to Addiscombe, where he 
 felt as much at home as at Cheyne E,ow, and had quite as 
 much liberty granted him. 
 
280 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Sir Henry Taylor relates a curious anecdote of Addiscombe. 
 The house was as usual full of guests, and Carlyle was 
 dyspeptic and gloomy. When that was the case he knew he 
 was apt to alarm gentler souls. He betook himself into the 
 seclusion of his private apartments, where he remained for 
 some days, refusing to see or be seen. Lady Ashburton became 
 alarmed, fearing her friend was perhaps seriously indisposed. 
 She prevailed upon her own doctor to force an entrance. The 
 doctor went to the door and was admitted by Carlyle himself, 
 with a volley of explosives against himself and the whole 
 medical profession. He declared he might as well pour out 
 a tale of suffering into the long hairy ears of a jackass as into 
 those of any medical man living. His language was so gro- 
 tesque, and the whole scene so comical, that the doctor could not 
 take offence. He returned to her ladyship with assurances 
 that Carlyle was in no danger, if dangerous. 
 
 They invariably spent Christmas with the Ashburtons, who 
 never objected to his peculiar habits or his vehement language. 
 They did not tolerate, but valued him too much. His very fail- 
 ings were unlike those of anybody else, and in spite of them 
 his superiority was everywhere felt. The religious world 
 cruelly criticized his Life of Sterling, but criticisms had lost 
 their power, he never so much as read one of them. Most 
 afternoons he rode out at Chelsea, for he had now another 
 horse ; and at midnight, when his day's work of intense study 
 was over, he would wander about the almost silent streets, or 
 by the riverside, still " lonely, solitary as the dead." 
 
 In the summer of '52, he wrote what for him was a cheerful 
 letter to his dear old mother, to Avhich Jane thought well to 
 add, somewhat audaciously, we think, the following postscript 
 — "I am surprised, and wonder 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 that he is ' ^qj ill to live wi'.' Gey ill, 
 indeed, and always tlie longer the worse." Surely she might 
 have spared a fast-dying and deeply-loving mother such pain- 
 ful recriminations on her son. But Jane, whatever her virtues, 
 was not considerate or magnanimous. 
 
 Carlyle was now contemplating a visit to the continent for 
 the purpose of his work, and was anxious for Jane to accom- 
 pany him. It is difficult to ascertain her own views on the 
 matter. What she wanted was a renovated house, and to be 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 281 
 
 rid of the master. But he vainly imagined that the house 
 could be done up without turning him out. He was anxious 
 to get on with his writing, and willing to endure a certain, if 
 not an unlimited, amount of annoyance. He consented to be 
 removed from room to room, keeping a pail of water close 
 beside him to allay the heat. But Jane called in workmen of 
 every description — plasterers, joiners, paper-hangers, &c. He 
 was driven frantic with the continued uproar, and at last took 
 up his books and fled to Scotland, on a visit to Mr. Erskine, 
 who dearly loved him. Jane remained behind to superintend 
 operations, right glad to have packed off her husband, and 
 herself delighting in being the architect and factotum of the 
 household improvements. She was then in her element, and 
 found such occupation " infinitely more to her taste than talk- 
 ing in silk at soirees at Bath House," where she was not the 
 presiding genius. It was such a consolation to be of use to the 
 bricklayers or workmen ; such a nuisance to be a help to her 
 ladyship. Carlyle spoke of these household earthquakes with 
 overwhelming eloquence. He disliked intensely all domestic 
 changes, as well as change in personal habits. 
 
 At Linlathen he sat hours each day with his pen, and 
 declared that his friends only treated him too well. Of one 
 infliction only did he complain, and that was that he was made 
 to talk, and that so incessantly, that he could barely find time 
 to eat. In conversation he gave little impression of the sad- 
 ness of spirit that so perpetually weighed him down. His talk 
 was so interesting that people quite hungered to hear him. 
 His hearty bursts of merriment, his wit and humour, his 
 wonderful pathos, his passionate earnestness, and almost 
 tremulous emotion were magical to his listeners. But there 
 was much excitement in such table talk ; it frequently left 
 Carlyle sufl:ering with exhaustion and weariness. On this 
 occasion Jane seemed determined that Carlyle should have a 
 long holiday, for she kept the workmen about an unconscion- 
 ably long time. He was longing to get his continental tour 
 over ; the anticipated discomforts of which were as great as 
 the reality proved to be. He went first to see his mother, and 
 begged Jeannie to come too, as the old mother wanted sadly 
 " to have a crack wi' her ance mair." 
 
 From Scotsbrig Mrs. Carlyle noticed a deepened sadness in 
 the tone of her husband's letters, and she knew the cause. 
 She wrote to him in some alarm, but he allayed her fears by 
 
282 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 reminding her " that it was the nature of the beast." He was 
 determined to hasten to Germany to see if he possibly could 
 arouse himself to any interest in Frederick, for whom he could 
 not care much, after all. Yet it would be disgraceful to be 
 beaten after commencing the work. Jane positively declared 
 she could not accompany him abroad for weeks, the men not 
 having half completed their work, so he decided to go alone. 
 He wrote that he is determined " to swallow life rather than 
 be swallowed by it " ; that there was really nothing the 
 matter with him but just " plain mental agony in his ain 
 inside. Goi bless thee, dear Jeannie," he added; ''that is 
 my heart's prayer, go where I may or suffer what I may." 
 Jane must have known that, and that she added to his suffer- 
 ings by tormenting him so ceaselessly with unworthy doubts 
 and suspicions. During his absence in Germany, she was 
 again hospitably entertained at Addiscombe, where she met 
 
 a certain Mr. G , who became very fond of her, because 
 
 he perceived that " she did not admire his wife, and he was 
 grateful for that ! " 
 
 Carlyle set out on his German travels on Sunday, August 
 30th, 1852, and returned in October of the same year, half 
 dead of his German experiences. The first words with 
 which his wife greeted him were, " Take care of the wet 
 paint." 
 
 The restitution of all things in Cheyne Eow had been an 
 incredible labour. The comforts of Addiscombe had, how- 
 ever, been at Jane's disposal whenever she had been willing 
 to accept them. Carlyle acknowledged all the grand improve- 
 ments, but he never cared much for art decorations, and the 
 smell of the newly-painted rooms was unbearable. Lady 
 Harriet, knowing how wearied and heartsick he was, invited 
 them both for a long stay at the Grange, whither he gladly 
 took refuge ; and Jane also, if she only had been generous 
 enough to acknowledge it was a refuge. 
 
 From Bath House in '53 they saw the solemn pageantry of 
 the Duke of Wellington's funeral procession, and to their dis- 
 gust imagined they saw in one of the mourning coaches some 
 official or dignity reading a newspaper. But the fact was 
 simple enough. Every official had been supplied with a large 
 printed programme of the proceedings bordered with black. 
 These must have been mistaken for newspapers. A deeper 
 sorrow than any he had yet experienced overwhelmed Carlyle 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 283 
 
 at the end of the year, namely, the death of his beloved 
 mother. Jane had paid her a long-looked-for visit in the 
 autumn. The dear old woman had kept her bed for days, but 
 when she heard that her illustrious son's lady-wife was coming 
 to see her at last, she insisted upon getting up and being 
 dressed in her Sunday gown, to greet her with the respect she 
 considered her due. She had spent a humbly diligent and 
 beneficent life, and had borne her trials and sufferings with 
 exemplary patience, and now was quietly waiting to be called 
 up higher into the presence of Him in Whom she had believed 
 so unfalteringly even from youth to tottering age. She 
 had ceased even to find pleasure in the prospect of seeing her 
 beloved " Tom." During Jane's visit she fell into a kind of 
 lethargy, when they expected every moment to be her last. 
 This lasted for days. Suddenly, as her daughter was bathing 
 her face, the invalid seized the sponge, and with extraordinary 
 vigour, washed her own face, and talked with perfect uncon- 
 sciousness of her re-awakening. After such a resurrection 
 everyone hoped she might rally for some years, and Jane soon 
 took her departure. On bidding her good-bye, she expressed a 
 wash that she could do the dear old woman some good. " You 
 have done me good mony a time," was her answer. She had 
 no message for " Tom," only a painful certainty that he would 
 be sorry "she was so frail." 
 
 When Jane returned to Chelsea, she found the Frederick 
 MS. accumulating, and for Christmas they both again went to 
 the Grange, where Jane admitted she was enjoying herself for 
 once. Her husband entreated her to return to Cheyne Row and 
 see if she could come to terms with the neighbours about 
 their fowls, which persistently annoyed the sleepless author 
 with their crowing and cackling. " Those Demon Fowls," were 
 a standing joke at the Grange, and a veritable torment to the 
 Carlyles, both of them apparently lying awake, lest they 
 should lose one luckless cackling proceeding from the hen-coop ! 
 
 While Jane was gone on her errand of mercy, in which she 
 was highly successful, news reached Carlyle that his mother 
 was dying. He took a mournful farewell of Lady Harriet, as 
 he hurried away from those brilliant scenes to the humble 
 bedside, and she bade him not to hasten back, but not to be 
 dilatory. He arrived at Scotsbrig just in time to see his 
 beloved parent alive. She breathed her last in a gentle sleep 
 on Christmas Day, 1853, aged 83. He was then fifty-eight. 
 
284 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Jane wrote to comfort him, telling him that he had cause 
 to be thankful in that he had not been too late to hear her 
 last words, as had been her case. She deserved her punish- 
 ment, however, for she had not been the dutiful child to her 
 mother that he had ever been to his. He declared that he was 
 thankful for nothing in life so much as for the mother he had, 
 and that the essence of all his best works was all her due. 
 
285 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYII. 
 
 To men who have formed themselves into harmony and wisdom, 
 high life, as it is called, will be a province of human life — nothing 
 more. — Carlyle, Life of Jean Paul Bichter. 
 
 The New Year opened with sorrowful reflections. In Carlyle's 
 note-book, dated January 8th, 1854, he writes — 
 
 " The stroke has fallen. My dear old mother is gone from 
 me." In earliest childhood he had dreaded her loss above all 
 things, and in middle age felt it hard to bear. It was an 
 unspeakable joy that he had left the Grange and gone to her. 
 Kever could he forget the faint look of recognition in the 
 wearied eyes that could still turn lovingly towards him and re- 
 member how ill he slept. She had suBered little, except from 
 shortness of breath, had slept in perfect unconsciousness six- 
 teen hours at a time. Her last words were characteristic. 
 Her " Tom " bent over her, and she murmured softly, " I'm 
 muckle obleeged to ye." 
 
 A good Power had given such a mother, and good though 
 stern, had taken her away. He noticed shortly before she 
 breathed her last that an expression of great astonishment 
 crossed her worn and withered countenance. Her change had 
 come, and infinite wonder seemed the effect. Oh to penetrate 
 the mysteries thus opening to that departing soul ! One 
 thing he could do — determine to live the rest of his life with 
 the same simple bravery, veracity, and piety that had animated 
 her. Would that he might. Alas ! he complained of every- 
 thing within his own mind being frozen, that worldliness 
 entangled him in its meshes, that he could not, as did his 
 youngest brother James, believe exactly as his parents had 
 believed, but the farther he wandered from that simple faith 
 the more gloomy he became. 
 
286 THE STORY OF THOMAS CAKLYLE. 
 
 On his return to Chelsea, he shut himself up in seclusion, 
 would receive no visitors, nor accept any invitations. His 
 soul was exceeding sorrowful, " the present and the future all 
 hung with black." But towards spring his hospitable doors 
 were again opened to his friends and numerous callers. He 
 was not always glad to see them, and he had much difficulty 
 to appear courteous and yet to be true. Surely he was not 
 alone in that difficulty. The Sabbath he spent in solitude, 
 conversing like Ulysses with the shade of his pious mother. 
 He spared himself the light common talk of society, and 
 dwelt in "a grand element of sorrow and eternal stillness." 
 She still seemed to cheer him even from the grave, bidding 
 him ever to trust in God. He would " remember now and 
 always that life is no idle dream, but a solemn reality, based 
 upon eternity and encompassed by eternity." 
 
 That year the Carlyles spent in town. He was in no mood 
 for drawing-rooms, or any human society. War had broken 
 out with Russia ; in his opinion, a reckless, needless war. The 
 newspaper accounts every morning, which he insisted upon 
 reading or hearing, caused him as much irritation as the 
 " Demon Fowls." All the Crimean affair was a mad business. 
 For himself, instead of fighting for him, he would exterminate 
 the " Unspeakable Turk " from off the face of the earth. 
 England's alliance with France pleased him no better. It 
 was enough to make all thinking men indignant that we 
 should be on such terms with our late antagonists, now under 
 the rule of that *' scandalous Copper Captain, Napoleon III." 
 Try as he might to crowd this all-absorbing question out of 
 his mind altogether it rankled there perpetually. He was 
 prevailed upon to visit the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. " A 
 monster mountain of glass," he styled it, the eighth wonder 
 of the world, which, however, quite repaid him for the 
 examination. 
 
 In the summer, the Ashburtons pressed the entire use of 
 Addiscombe upon their friends, while they were in the High- 
 lands ; but Jane hated to be there during their absence, lest 
 some little accident should spoil the grand sofas or carpets. 
 Of course if her husband grew ill from the heat of London 
 she would go with him to look after him and order his dinners. 
 Jane herself was in a very poor state of health, and the 
 change would have been beneficial for her. Night and day 
 she was haunted by thoughts of the horrors of the war. One 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 287 
 
 personal friend, Colonel Sterling-, brother to the " ever dear 
 John," was in the Crimea, and she searched the papers daily 
 to see if his name were in the list of the dead or wounded. 
 
 Carlyle had now a room at the top of the house, meant to 
 be sound proof , the scene of the laborious industry of his 
 unsurpassable imaginative powers. Since his death we have 
 visited this peculiar attic. The house was empty save for the 
 workmen who were clearing away the dust and preparing it 
 for future occupants. To us, the very dust spoke of the de- 
 parted genius, as we passed from room to room, and hallowed 
 thoughts crowded upon us of his indomitable perseverance, 
 his mighty wrestlings, his manifold victories over powers 
 seen and unseen. These feelings reached their climax as we 
 stood in the centre of this sound-proof room ; unbidden tears 
 would dim the sight. Then we closed the door, and without 
 much difficulty could imagine the beloved figure of the " old 
 man eloquent " clad in his simple gray dressing-gown, sitting 
 over the fire in his easy chair, or at his desk with pen in hand, 
 or with trembling hands seeking papers or books in that 
 capacious cupboard with its innumerable lockers, drawers, and 
 shelves. This is on the right-hand side of the fire-place. The 
 walls of the room were double, with doors to let one pass to 
 the windows, and narrow passages between. When closed, all 
 outward scenes were effectually shut out, light streaming in 
 through an immense skylight. The walls are painted a pale 
 yellow. The room, however, was not quite sound-proof, for 
 faint noises of hammering we heard, no doubt from workmen 
 within. Carlyle had needed such a room, and though it had 
 not quite answered his purpose it was a grand place of retire- 
 ment. We felt ourselves on sacred gi-ound. This was the 
 private scene of the wise man's travail of soul. The same 
 feeling one experiences in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey, 
 intensified by the thought that here the spirit of Carlyle had 
 entirely dominated the body, and even might still pervade 
 the atmosphere. We lingered long in that lofty chamber, and 
 then made our way into the neglected back garden, gazed with 
 reverent eyes on those old flagstones where the master has so 
 often entertained distinguished men and women. Some long 
 since have entered the Silent Country and left no voice behind 
 them; others though dead yet speak. The greatest among 
 them, our beloved Poet Laureate, still lives to inspire us by 
 example and song. 
 
288 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Carlyle loved Tennyson, but he had a queer way of showing 
 his appreciation. When he introduced Sir J. Simeon to the 
 poet at Bath Hous3, he made the well-known speech — " There 
 he sits upon a dung-heap, surrounded by unmistakable dead 
 dogs." (By which he meant the Greek versions and adapta- 
 tions.) "I was told of this," said Tennyson, " and some time 
 afterwards I repeated it to Carlyle, adding — I'm told that is 
 what you say of me." 
 
 Carlyle gave a kind of guffaw, made no denial, but said, 
 "Eh! That was not a very luminous description of yon." 
 They were often together about this time. They used to 
 dine together at the Cork Tavern, in the Strand, and at other 
 places, and at night take long solitary walks together. 
 
 On one occasion Tennyson read aloud his Revenge to 
 Douglas Jerrold and Carlyle. Jerrold remarked, " You will 
 last." Carlyle added, " Eh ! he has got the grip of it." It 
 does not seem much, but it meant a good deal, and Tennyson 
 understood. 
 
 It has been said that Carlyle was unkind to young aspirants. 
 Indeed we cannot say what has not been said in attempts to 
 detract from and deteriorate his character, since he departed 
 from life's busy scene. We give one other example of the 
 manner in which he treated them. 
 
 Chelsea, May 9th. 
 " My good young Friend, I am much obliged by the regard 
 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 Avhat you learn, instantly and in 
 all ways begin twining the belief into a fact, and continue 
 at that, until you get more and even more belief, with which 
 also do the like. It is idle work otherwise, to write books or 
 even 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 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 2S9 
 
 must save himself, with or without their sympathy, as it may 
 chance. 
 
 " May all good be with you, my kind young friend, and a 
 heart stout enough for this adventure you are on. That is 
 the best good of all. 
 
 "I remain, 
 
 " Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "T. Carlyle." 
 
 Carlyle felt little satisfaction with his own productions. 
 They fell so far short of his intention. He had so much to 
 write, immense masses of subjects fermenting continuously 
 in his busy brain, that he oftentimes felt unable to reduce to 
 words, thereby making what was perfectly intelligible to him- 
 self, intelligible also to others. His present work, the history 
 of Frederick, called the Great, he compared to making the grave 
 give up its dead. The labour was immense — that very 
 immensity made it interesting to the toiler. During that 
 summer, spent entirely in that obscure and somewhat gloomy 
 street at Chelsea, he would wander solitary on Wandsworth 
 Common, and sit silently meditating under the furze bushes. 
 " His days seemed dark, his mind spiritually muddy." 
 
 In November, he ran down to Windsor, having obtained an 
 introduction to the Palace, through the influence of Lady 
 Harriet, or some of her high people. Prince Albert chatted 
 with him for an hour, and showed him Prussian prints to 
 assist him in his gigantic task. Carlyle was gratefully pleased 
 with the Prince's goodness and condescension. At this time 
 he had almost renounced all political questions ; and was 
 entirely absorbed in his historical researches. There seems 
 to be no reason to suppose that he anticipated any further 
 result from this interview^ with the Prince than what he 
 obtained — that of examining choice Prussian prints bearing 
 on his subject, and the unfeigned pleasure it gave him to 
 become personally acquainted with the husband of his sovereign 
 Queen Victoria, an honour for which he felt greatly in- 
 debted to Lady Ashburton, and which must have given him 
 unquestionable gratification. He thought the wisdom of the 
 Prince was of the deepest importance to the welfare of 
 England, and the world at large, as influenced by him. 
 Carlyle acknowledged that wisdom, which this personal inter- 
 view stamped indelibly upon his mind. 
 
 u 
 
290 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Lady Ashburton, herself so gifted and brilliant, cared little 
 for the frivolous occupations of fashionable life. By enter- 
 taining men and women of genius, statesmen, warriors, the 
 real workers of the world, she might have felt her life was 
 not an idle or useless one. Among all her guests, none 
 was more feared, admired, or reverenced, than Carlyle, the 
 acknowledged King of English Letters. 
 
 We grieve to be obliged to give extracts from Mrs. Carlyle's 
 diary, kept about this time. In it she wrote down what she 
 would have been ashamed to say. From some of her remarks 
 we fear that she anticipated the publication both of her letters 
 and her journal, after she was dead and gone. Celebrity had 
 been her ambition, but to make herself appear a martyr, and 
 her gifted husband a perfect tyrant, through whom alone she 
 was entitled to more celebrity than many another equally 
 gifted woman, w^as not to her credit. 
 
 In giving them to the world, Carlyle felt no need to suppress 
 them. What his pen should never reveal, her own pen has 
 done for him, unmistakably. Her letters prove that the first 
 twenty years of her married life she was indisputably as 
 happy and contented with her lot as a previously disappointed 
 woman could possibly be — that her home was cheerful and 
 bright, that Carlyle was invariably tender and kind in 
 manner, that he showed admiration for her many virtues and 
 noble qualities, that he appreciated every little labour of 
 love on his behalf, and that the small amount of occasional 
 drudgery circumstances forced upon her neither impaired her 
 health nor damped her spirits. She was always conscious of 
 her own physical charms and graces, as well as of her intel- 
 lectual powers ; and had he not demonstrated the same 
 consciousness, she would never have been the contented wife 
 she was with him, when her heart was not wholly absorbed in 
 some other friend still dearer to her than he. 
 
 Still, all those dreary years of Carlyle's life, she knew that 
 since the Margaret Gordon episode, he had never seen a lady 
 whom he regarded in any way as equal to his vivacious little 
 Jeannie. That was satisfactory — it mattered not how many 
 heroes she found, so long as he religiously never found another 
 heroine but Jane AYelsh Carlyle. But at the end of that 
 term a lady appears upon the scene, every whit her equal in 
 intellect, vivacity, personal graces, and conversational powers ; 
 nay more than that, her superior in some things personal, and 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 291 
 
 in all tilings temporal — superior by birth, rank, wealth and 
 influence. That this lady generously shared with her all her 
 earthly advantages, treated her with marked attention, 
 showered benefits upon them both, in no ways mitigated the 
 envy, hatred and malice, burning so furiously in Jeannie's 
 rebellious little heart. This trial proved her heart was narrow 
 — narrower even than her husband ever dreamt it could be. 
 The terrible effect of this ever-smouldering jealousy towards 
 this generous, sympathetic and gifted lady, spoilt many years 
 of Jeannie's life, alienated her from her unchangeable faithful 
 husband, and turned all the sweets of friendship to gall. 
 
 Surely Jane Carlyle's most devoted admirers must admit, 
 that the epithets she made use of are unusually strong for a 
 v/oman of refined taste, and that she fi'equently betrayed the 
 contempt she felt for everything sacred, as well as gave way 
 to unjust and mean suspicions of her husband, and cast 
 aspersions which are perfectly unfounded upon his reputa- 
 tion. If she did this to procure extra sympathy for herself, 
 or from pure disgust at the frequent immoderate adulation he 
 received, we are unable to say. It is ^suflicient for us to be 
 able to prove to our own entire satisfaction, and we ho23e to our 
 readers, that such aspersions were unjust and wholly unworthy 
 the generally pure and generous mind of Jane AYelsh Carlyle. 
 
 That Thomas Carlyle was bilious, dyspeptic, melancholy, 
 absorbed in his work, absent-minded, peculiar and irritable, 
 we do not for a moment deny — but that he was ever tyrannical, 
 rude, selfish, neglectful of his duties towards his wife ; cold, 
 unsympathizing, or hard, we emphatically declare, from her 
 own statements, to be a false representation of the character 
 loe revere, as if personally acquainted with him. 
 
 u 2 
 
29; 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYIII. 
 
 No man can explain himself, can get himself explained. Men see 
 not one another, but distorted phantasms, which they call one 
 another, which they hate and go to battle with, for all battle is 
 well said to be — Misunderstanding. — Carlyle, French Bevolution. 
 
 It was a comfort to Mrs. Carlyle to write down complaints 
 she was not slow at uttering, " Oh the miles and miles 
 Carlyle tramped backwards and forwards between that eternal 
 Bath House and Cheyne Row, every stone of which now 
 seemed to lie like a stone w^eight on her heart." She once 
 told a friend that "marrying a man of genius is a mistake. 
 I've had a hard time of it. But wait till I die, and see what 
 an apotheosis I shall have." And indeed so she has, and now 
 we are bound to consider what were her grounds of complaint 
 against this man of genius. While Jane was young and 
 fascinating, everybody had been in love with her ; while these 
 charms lasted, which in the eyes of her husband they did to 
 the end, she was happy. She was a born coquette, by which 
 term we mean, that she loved admiration, and delighted in 
 pleasing the sterner sex ; no more. She never pretended 
 what she did not feel, as flirts do. But when she felt silent 
 admonitions that youth was dead, that old age was creeping 
 on, and her physical charms visibly declining, it was at a 
 time when she was least able to bear it, a time when 
 another than herself was in the ascendancy among the circle 
 in which she formerly desired to be, and now so unwillingly 
 found herself. Jane loved to be head of affairs. She would 
 prefer being the head of a mouse than the paw of a lion. She 
 must be first. At Bath House that could not be, nor any- 
 where else, if Lady Harriet was present, who was then the 
 presiding genius of London Society. And to Jane it was 
 palpable enough, that her husband, Thomas Carlyle, and Lady 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 233 
 
 Harriet Ashburton, exercised a far more powerful sway over 
 the minds of people they met than she did. It was painful, 
 humiliating, unendurable. This peasant husband, for whom 
 she was supposed to have taken up a noble life-task, in order 
 to help him to celebrity, had far outstripped her, and was now 
 the acknowledged superior of many a man of mark, while she, 
 Jane Welsh, was simply celebrated as his wdfe, though much 
 admired for herself. But Jane must have recollected the 
 plain facts of the case, known only to few ; in black and 
 white she admits that it was no such thing as self-sacrifice 
 that prompted her to undertake that difficult task, but 
 ambition. And he knew itj and granted her her heart's desire, 
 even when that heart was stilled in death. She was not, 
 as Miss Jewsbury asserts, the only one who believed in him. 
 Among her few relatives or acquaintances he might have been, 
 but had Tliomas Carlyle never seen Jane Welsh, he would 
 have been no less recognized as a master-mind. She was 
 never, even as his wife, what Mrs. Taylor was to John Stuart 
 Mill, as friend only. She criticized, but never inspired or 
 shared Carlyle's work, and found the labour of hearing of it 
 "enough to give her the lock jaw," 
 
 Every day she wrote a little in this journal. One day she 
 "walked, walked, walked, with no aim but to tire herself." 
 Another it "rained, rained, rained." "Oh Lord, this is too 
 ridiculous," as the farmer exclaimed. Next day she relates 
 an infliction she never anticipated before marriage ; she actually 
 mended Mr. Carlyle's trowsers ! What an unexpected calamity ! 
 
 November 5 th she spent alone, Mr, C of course at Bath 
 
 House. November 6th Jane mends her lord's dressing-gown ! 
 " Oh for sleep, sleep, unfathomable and everlasting sleep, the 
 only conceivable heaven." 
 
 Another day she is going to Bath House, and finds it a 
 terrible " bore to have to dress, now she is fading, remember- 
 ing what she once was — young, pretty, and happy." 
 
 Jane is not alone in such reflections, only to some people 
 they are not sad or envious ones, but patient submission to 
 the inevitable lot. The brightest beauty, as well as the 
 plainer members of the human family, must fade and die ; 
 things utterly useless to grumble about ; lamenting over 
 which is the very idlest of all employments. 
 
 When the spring came round, Jane records that she took 
 an omnibus at the top of the street, and drove to the Angel, 
 
294 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Islington, where she recalled the day she first arrived in the 
 big metropolis. Then she was set down on this very spot, 
 and was eagerly welcomed by her patient husband, and her 
 adorer, Edward Irving. How changed is life now. "The 
 past is gone — and gone, is gone." Poor Jeannie ! We grant 
 thy burden, too, was heavy, thy heart-sorrows no ordinary 
 ones, enough to crush a weaker soul. 
 
 Miss Jewsbury said that " Mrs. Carlyle at that time was 
 miserable, more abidingly and intensely miserable than words 
 could utter." The misery was a reality, and we do not 
 question the assertion, but we venture to say that other 
 causes than Carlyle' s friendship with Lady Harriet was the 
 cause. Her weak health, her fading charms, and the dearth 
 of outside friends, affected her more than she would allow. 
 Edward Irving, Lord Jeffery, John Sterling, Mazzini, John 
 Forster, and now Colonel Sterling, were dead or absent, and 
 Carlyle himself she had, we fear, somewhat estranged, by her 
 groundless suspicions. She fancied she could see through 
 this " great dame's manners and little ways plainly enough, 
 and knew how much they were worth." She knew how little 
 her favours to Carlyle cost the high-born lady of fashion, and 
 remembered only too bitterly all her own daily endeavours to 
 make his life free from hindrances, not happy — that she 
 did not even pretend to do, but free from hindrances. The 
 fowls had been removed by a five-pound note, and every other 
 annoyance that money or care could drive away ; and yet she 
 likened the man for whom she once so gratefully thanked 
 his mother for producing, to a glacier or a mountain ; 
 declared he showed her no tenderness, gave her no caresses, 
 and no loving words. A wife knows that it is generally her 
 part to bestow these first after marriage, and his before. 
 Now by her they were persistently withheld. He was full, 
 too, of uncertainties ; of *' ifs and buts, perhapses, possibles, 
 and probables," just like every other man of our acquaintance, 
 and many women too. We must not expect more from a 
 genius, as a married man, than any ordinary individual ; for 
 the mind of a genius is, alas, pre-occupied, and he cannot 
 decide to go hither and thither at a moment's notice, or even 
 remember promises when foolishly made. It is all very 
 trying, but if every woman kept her journal, we should often 
 hear something worse — occasional murder must be the conse- 
 quence, if Charles Buller is to be credited. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 295 
 
 Jane was sick of Bath, "sick of the sight of diamonds and 
 bare shoulders, and other splendours." She longed for rural 
 simplicity, where the rustics could gaze upon her with 
 bewildered admiration. So she went north ; visited once 
 again old scenes, and wrote to Carlyle that it would have 
 touched his heart (even his) '' to have seen the attentions she 
 received, and the tears and kisses bestowed upon her for the 
 sake of her dead father and mother." 
 
 Unfortunate Carlyle ! under his rugged exterior he had 
 the heart of a very woman, and grieved silently over these 
 strange, cold epistles of undeserved reproach, which rarely 
 had a beginning, and invariably ended "Yours faithfully." 
 He ceased to remonstrate ; it was utterly useless. There was 
 no way out of the dilemma. And now another horror hangs 
 over her. Carlyle wrote — " I perceive that you will have to 
 set quite 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, in a duffle 
 jacket, which was literally part of an old dressing-gown a 
 year gone. Is the like on record ? Indeed, to say the least 
 of it, Carlyle's dress was generally peculiar ; but who cared 
 what such a man wore ? He was in no way indebted to his 
 attire for any of his marvellous popularity. " He may wear a 
 queer 'at," said a cabman, " but what would you give for the 
 'ead-piece a' inside of if?" Ah! what indeed! He was 
 loved with a real personal affection, and he swayed the minds 
 of his disciples in an extraordinary manner, unaccountable 
 to them, and to those who did not experience the influence 
 over their own minds. 
 
 The sense that his new work was actually getting into 
 shape cheered him much. It was turning out much better 
 altogether than he expected. "When Jane came home she 
 found him wonderfully improved in spirits, and was received 
 with every demonstration of joy by little iS^ero and the 
 canaries ; whether her pet leech participated in the joyful 
 commotion we are not informed. AYhen Mrs. Carlyle read 
 the opening chapters of Frederick, she expressed unfeigned 
 delight ; pronounced it at once superior to all he had ever 
 done, and told him so. There was no opinion he valued more 
 highly than hers on his literary productions. She invariably 
 told him her candid opinion, without any addiction to flattery. 
 
296 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 He said her remarks were the only bit of human criticism he 
 had heard from any oDe. 
 
 Carlyle's special gift, as Mr. Froude explains, was to bring 
 the dead to life; to make the persons of whom he wrote 
 living creatures, playing their part on this mortal stage as if 
 endowed with real flesh and blood. In his oft-repeated term 
 that "might is right" he is grossly misunderstood, by seme 
 purposely so. He never meant that force, either physical, 
 wilful, or intellectual, is the thing most desirable, or that 
 success, as far as we can trace it, is the sole test of merit. 
 He never meant that " Cromwell was right because he cut off 
 Charles's head, and Charles wrong because he lost his head, or 
 that Frederick's political immorality is to be condoned, because 
 by it he succeeded in making Prussia great, or that Napoleon 
 was right so long as he was victorious, and to be condemned 
 because he ended in St. Helena." Such ideas he never had, 
 and would be the first to denounce. He looked upon all 
 tyrannical force with perfect hatred — tyranny of the mob, or 
 tyranny of the few. But might belongs to the Almighty, 
 and wherever He bestows it, it must be right in the end ; and 
 when the time comes for all the inexplicable to be made clear, 
 we shall certainly find it so, however dark and inscrutable 
 things may now appear to our mortal sight. 
 
 Jane returned to Chelsea in miserable health. A doctor 
 had recommended what he might have recommended to the 
 whole world at large, that she should be kept always hapjoy 
 and tranquil. Now it would have taken a very great deal to 
 make Jane one or the other, and we hope the said doctor had 
 no very heavy fee for such a very simple but useless prescrip- 
 tion. To show what chance she had of adopting his regime, 
 she describes a scene in that little house at Chelsea. It takes 
 place in " a room where everything is enveloped in a dark, 
 yellow fog — a London fog. For air to breathe, a sort of 
 liquid soot. For breakfast, which is spread, adulterated 
 cotfee, adulterated bread, adulterated cream, and even adulter- 
 ated water. Mr. Carlyle at one end of the table, looking 
 remarkably bilious ; Mrs. Carlyle at the other end, looking 
 half dead. Mr. C. : ' My dear, I have to inform you that my 
 bed is full of bugs, or fleas, or some sort of animals that crawl 
 over me all night.' " Mrs. C, for reply, gives a sarcastic shrug 
 of unbelief, and thereby makes the great man pardonably 
 angry. Being practical, as soon as breakfast is over, Jane 
 
THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 297 
 
 paid a visit to the bed, and there made a vigorous search, and 
 found his assertion only too true. A tiny creature is observed, 
 small enough of itself, but an evidence past dispute that more 
 of its species must also reside in the neighbourhood. In 
 veritable dismay, Jane called the maid, and scolded her more 
 vehemently than she considered pleasant. She gave immediate 
 notice. In utter discomfort, poor Jane sat down and penned 
 a sad letter to a certain Mrs. Kussell, which terminates, " Oh, 
 my darling, I wish you were here to kiss and cheer me up a 
 bit with your soft voice. In cases of this sort, Geraldine, 
 with the best intentions, is no help ; unpracticable, like all 
 women of genius." Jane, indeed, seemed to have a natural 
 aversion to genius ; but we must not forget to remind oiir 
 readers of the energy this same Geraldine displayed on former 
 occasions, when Jane herself allowed that she visited the lower 
 kitchen regions oftener in a day than she herself in a month. 
 
 Mr. Carlyle, Jane notes, had turned fashionable, and dined 
 at six ; she being still an invalid, took an invalid's privilege, 
 and dined when it suited her best. For supper, she adhered 
 to her Scotch porridge, while Carlyle partook of breadberry, 
 or, as the maid called it, "master's pap." So much commiser- 
 ation has been expressed, publicly and privately, for Mrs. 
 Carlyle, in which we freely coincide, but as far as the friend- 
 ship between her husband and Lady Harriet is concerned, we 
 can only say her sufferings were self-inflicted. A certain 
 lady, writing in Temple Bar, gives us a graphic idea of the 
 respective characters of these two ladies. Slie asserts posi- 
 tively "that especial care was taken by her ladyship that a 
 certain prominence should be conceded to Mrs. Carlyle, who 
 evidently expected the same, in that delightful and most 
 hospitable house known as the Grange. Mrs. Carlyle' s instinct 
 was to take the lead, and at the Grange this was not easy, for 
 the grandeur and brilliance of the hostess eclipsed all others. 
 Lady Ashburton was said to possess the fairy gift of ' sccittering 
 pearls and diamonds whenever she spoke.' But to those who 
 knew her more intimately, the wise counsels, the tender con- 
 sideration, and the protection of her faithful friendship, were 
 beyond all superficial comparison to pearls and diamonds, and 
 can never be forgotten." 
 
 The visitors consisted of nobles, bishops, statesmen, fastidious 
 ladies, and men of letters, among whom none received more 
 marked attention than Carlyle and his wife. The latter 
 
298 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 maintained always an attitude of proud defiance towards 
 those very few sceptics who did not appear to understand or 
 recognize her remarkable ability. This writer also adds her 
 opinion that "Jane showed a rather exacrgerated deference 
 to those in high social position. She did not pass over or 
 neglect those whose worldly surroundings were insignificant ; 
 quite the reverse ; but where it was possible, she preferred to 
 associate with those who were on the heights, while she 
 required homage rather than equal terms from those of the 
 same class as herself." All or nothing seemed to be her rule, 
 if her acquaintance was to expand into friendship. The same 
 writer gives two anecdotes characteristic of Carlyle. 
 
 "The very least attention from Carlyle just glorifies me," said 
 Jane, one day. " When I have one of my headaches, and the 
 sensation of red hot knitting-needles darting into my brain, 
 Carlyle's way of expressing sympathy is to rest a heavy hand 
 on the top of my head, and keep it there in perfect silence for 
 several seconds, so that although I could scream with nervous 
 agony, I sit like a martyr, smiling with joy at such a proof of 
 profound pity from him." 
 
 That "heavy hand" was very thin, and not large, and she 
 might have spoken of it rather as a loving hand had she ever 
 spoken of him without contempt or banter. 
 
 When the question arose of buying up and silencing the 
 noise of the cocks and hens which disturbed the rest, not only 
 of Carlyle, but of Jane also, who was equally susceptible to 
 the least sound, she started very early in the morning to get 
 the matter settled to their mutual satisfaction. She had the 
 headache, to which she was a martyr, and could not eat 
 anything for breakfast. Carlyle appeared just in time to see 
 her off. With evident concern he inquired after her head- 
 ache, and whether she had had any breakfast. 
 
 " No, it had been quite impossible, but by and by, she 
 miofht have eaten a bit of toast, if she had thouo^ht of takins: 
 it — too late now." 
 
 Instantly Carlyle had darted into the house and hurried 
 back, just able to throw the bit of toast into the carriage- 
 window. She smiled pleasantly and drove away — toast in 
 hand. 
 
 Thus we see that an eyewitness positively declares that so 
 far from being slighted by Lady Ashburton, she was treated 
 with marked respect and deference. Carlyle was justified in 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 299 
 
 considering his wife unreasonable, and the misunderstandings 
 between them, so much to be deplored, were not wilfully 
 caused by Lady Ashburton, whose actual relations with each 
 and all of her guests were always to her credit. We do not 
 deny, any more than she would have done, that she had far 
 more subtle sympathy with Carlyle than with his wife. The 
 old serpent is often busy with the best of us, but in the pure 
 disinterested friendship existing between the melancholy 
 philosopher and the lady of fashion, his assistance was entirely 
 dispensed with. 
 
300 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 A right woman, with the strongest feelings I have ever seen, and tlie 
 completest mastery over them. Such an one would be worth 
 knowing. — Carlyle, Bahel. 
 
 Her last and perfect sleep. — Carlyle. 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman once spoke of St. Paul as " having had a 
 thousand friends, and loved each as his own soul, and seemed 
 to live a thousand lives in them, and died a thousand deaths 
 when he must quit them." Now-a-days, if an unfortunate 
 individual entertains an enthusiastic friendship for more than 
 one of the opposite sex, Mrs. Grundy lifts up her pious, 
 prudish hands in dismay, and instead of aspiring to be such 
 a one as Paul the Aged, except the bonds — bids us be such 
 as he save his friendships, for Mrs. Grundy would keep us in 
 chains of her own forging. And we are afraid of Mrs. Grundy. 
 Yet it does not become an independent Britain to be domi- 
 neered over. We, in spite of our exclusiveness, have not 
 really deteriorated as a Christian community surely, and are 
 as much to be trusted as the Jews of old. To the pure all 
 things are pure. 
 
 Christmas, 1855, was the last Christmas the Carlyles spent 
 at the Grange under the presidency of Lady Harriet Ash- 
 burton. If they had known that, we wonder if it would have 
 made any difference. Could Carlyle have shown her more 
 appreciation, more gratitude or consideration, and would Jane 
 have spoken less bitterly, and looked with kinder eyes upon 
 her envied rival, had she guessed that never, never more 
 would she have the opportunity of acknowledging that she 
 owed her some word of thanks and heartfelt gratitude for 
 intended kindness 1 Who can tell 1 That visit was of some 
 weeks' duration, so we will hope that it was not made unen- 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 301 
 
 durable to Jane by lier fascinating hostess, who perhaps was 
 suffering more, mentally and physically, than Jane had ever 
 suffered yet. On that occasion, the company was most aristo- 
 cratic and select. Her ladyship thought the highest nobles in 
 the land could be only honoured by the presence of her special 
 friend — the peasant philosopher. There was a continuous 
 course of gaiety of some kind, we are told, and those who have 
 been admitted into such circles will know exactly what those 
 gaieties were. Not balls, for Carlyle was only once present at 
 a ball ; not theatricals. Whatever they were, they wearied 
 both him and his wife. Most likely Carlyle would have 
 enjoyed his friend's society more had she kept less company, but 
 Lady Harriet fulfilled what she considered the duties of her 
 station more indefatigably than she enjoyed its luxuries. She 
 never seems to have shirked those duties. 
 
 Again the festive season came to an end, and Carlyle and 
 Jane returned to their little house at Chelsea. When Lady 
 Harriet was the presiding genius over those grand assemblies, 
 they always knocked Mrs. Carlyle up, when another took her 
 place she throve better then. They remained at Cheyne Kow 
 until July, when the intense heat drove them northwards. 
 Lady Ashburton was travelling to Scotland at the same time, 
 and very considerately offered to take them both with her. 
 She had a royal saloon, to which an ordinary first class 
 carriage was attached. She was travelling alone, with her 
 personal attendant, a lady companion and her doctor, for she 
 was ill at the time, though always uncomplaining. She was 
 rather perplexed how to arrange matters. She felt unable to 
 accommodate them all in her private saloon. She could not 
 pick and choose. Jane refused to leave her husband, and 
 indeed a tete-a-tete journey would be anything but delightful 
 to Jane. It was therefore arranged that Lady Harriet should 
 travel alone in her own compartment, where there was of 
 course a couch, and the rest should travel together in the 
 ordinary way. Surely a first class carriage was good enough, 
 even for Jane Carlyle, and yet Mr. Froude considered that 
 Carlyle should not have allowed such an arrangement. Indeed 
 the poor fellow could only allow the ladies to manage it between 
 them without much voice in the matter. But Jane's indigoa- 
 tion had no bounds. She felt that she had been treated as 
 Carlyle's luggage because her ladyship was in a saloon, and 
 she, with her husband, in only a first class ordinary compart- 
 
302 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 ment. "VVe fail to see under the circumstances where else she 
 could have been, unless she and Carlyle had been in the 
 saloon with Lady Ashburton, and the doctor left alone. 
 Evidently the state of Lady Harriet's health required privacy 
 and quiet, though she did not say so. JNIrs. Carlyle was not 
 sufficiently sympathetic to the sulferer to gain her confidence. 
 So the last journey they ever took together was embittered 
 by unjust recriminations and dissatisfaction. 
 
 Dear tragic Lady Harriet ! So brave, so true. On this 
 journey the carriage took fire, and everything was in a sad 
 state with the attempts to extinguish it, without avail — it con- 
 tinued to smoulder. At Newcastle they were forced to change 
 into other carriages. After putting up for the night at 
 Edinburgh they parted. Lady Harriet for the Highlands, 
 Carlyle for the Gill, and Jane for her own friends. Nothing 
 remained so clear on the memory of Carlyle as Lady Harriet's 
 calm and patient bearing during the inconveniences necessarily 
 caused by that accident. It was indelibly impressed upon his 
 mind for all time, and our hope is it was not lost upon Mrs. 
 Carlyle. " God knows," she wrote to her husband, " how 
 gladly / would be sweet-tempered and cheerful-hearted, and 
 all that sort of thing, for your sake, if my temper were not 
 soured and my heart saddened beyond my own power to mend 
 them." 
 
 In vain Carlyle besought her to seek another power, a 
 power which gives strength to the feeblest. Jane detested 
 being troubled about her soul, despised any strength that was 
 not her own. But she acknowledged that "a skin had been 
 given to them both, much too thin for the rough purposes 
 of human life." The skin of the Carlyles had much to 
 answer for, and made them almost envy the black. Jane 
 cared not to acknowledge that she possessed an immortal soul, 
 a belief grasped firmly by his greater intellect, without which 
 he declared life would have been intolerable to him. And he 
 longed to clean the windows of Jane's darkened mind, to let 
 into it the light of heaven. Again Jane wrote that she would 
 be sure to visit his brother Jamie and his wife, for she 
 never forgets kindness or unkindness either ! Unhappy 
 Jeannie ! What self-inflicted torture an unforgiving spirit 
 must inevitably endure from day to day. Surely all God's 
 commands were given for our good — no kinder one among the 
 Decalogue than the new one Christ taught, to forgive as we 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 303 
 
 hope to be forgiven. Jeannie was dearly loved by her northern 
 friends, and most heartily welcomed among them. She de- 
 clared they " all seemed to grow so good and kind as they 
 grew older, which was not the way in the south." She gave 
 an amusing anecdote of her old Haddington nurse Betty, to 
 whom she had sent her likeness in which she wore her bonnet. 
 The white feather or flowers seemed foreign to the old dame, 
 who said, " As yer wur for sending yer pictur, I would liket 
 better if yer had gotten it dune wi' yer bare pow." Chatting 
 to this same old Betty, Jeannie regretted that her aunts, who 
 considered her a Pagan, should exist always in such a fuss of 
 religion. 
 
 " My dear," replied Betty, " they were idle, plenty to live 
 on, note to do for it. They might hae ta'an to waur, so we 
 maun no compleen." 
 
 But Jeannie was continually complaining ; she wrote again 
 to Carlyle, comparing her many friends of former days "as 
 something like those of the Hare." 
 
 When she was returning to England that year Lady Harriet 
 offered to take her back with her in her saloon. Jane declined 
 the honour ; " though? a very little herring, she had a born 
 liking to hang by her own head." 
 
 Of course Lady Ashburton knew nothing of such remarks ; 
 some graceful excuse would be made, or we are quite sure she 
 would never have persisted in forcing Jane to accept her 
 favours. No one could be a more agreeable companion than 
 Jane, and she knew it, and if she chose to exert herself, she 
 could make herself quite an acquisition to the gifted, but sick 
 and weary lady of fortune. She would return with her if 
 Carlyle did, when she could be stowed away as his luggage, 
 and not be indebted to any one. One mourns over the fuss 
 made about that unintentional slight. But when people are 
 bent upon looking out for grievances, they are not hard to 
 find. 
 
 Carlyle had been to Scotsbrig where his widowed brother 
 John and stepsons were rusticating. He also visited Eccle- 
 fechan churchyard, standing bareheaded over the graves of 
 his beloved dead. He was not idle during his holiday, for he 
 had brought his work with him, and toiled at it incessantly. 
 He wrote regularly to his wife in precisely the same affec- 
 tionate manner, without any further useless recriminations at 
 the altered tone of her letters. He rejoiced at his temporary 
 
304 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 absence from the heat, the dirt, and noises of London, and 
 felt convinced that life in the country would now be much 
 happier and wholesomer for them both. If Jane had any 
 real grounds for her jealous fears, he gave her the opportunity 
 for removal from the evils she conjured up. But she would 
 not hear of country life ; to her it was intolerable. 
 
 Towards the end of this visit he had promised to join his 
 friends, the Ashburtons, who were staying in the Highlands. 
 He did not express much anticipated delight ; but the change 
 from Scotsbrig must have been refreshing. He must have 
 tirei, though his adhesiveness was tremendous, of his yearly 
 visits to Annandale, and often to Annandale only. He ac- 
 cepted this invitation. His mother's vacant chair alone was 
 enough to sadden him at Scotsbrig, so he went to Loch 
 Luichart, where he took long walks amidst the magnificent 
 scenery of the neighbourhood, solitary but enjoyable, till he 
 returned tired out. Wrapping himself up snugly, he would 
 lie down and sleep off the effects of his exertions. Carlyle 
 and his wife were regular salamanders. The month was 
 September, yet he complained of having no fires about the 
 place, and that Lady Harriet was out of humour and not very 
 companionable. She was only human, and was suffering 
 silently, we fear, and was not very much pleased in the 
 way Jane continued at times to reject every friendly advance 
 on her part. Whatever the cause, she was unusually quiet, 
 and Carlyle was puzzled and annoyed too, because, during his 
 stay, Jane only wrote once to give a satirical refusal to accom- 
 pany Lady Harriet on their homeward journey. Carlyle 
 acquiesced in his wife's arrangements, and parted from his 
 friends. Lady Harriet was much disappointed. She had 
 been particularly anxious that they should profit by her 
 unusually comfortable conveyance. Perhaps she had some 
 foreboding that this was her last opportunity of showing them 
 that her intentions towards them were only kind and true, 
 and pure. Jeannie refused her that last charitable act, one 
 would hope to her continual regret. This seems to have been 
 the last time they ever saw each other. 
 
 The spring following, 1857, Lady Harriet Ashburton was 
 abroad. On her way home from Nice, she broke her journey 
 at Paris, and from there the sad and unexpected intelligence 
 was forwarded of her sudden and lamented death, which took 
 place on the 4th of May. We are not told where or how 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 805 
 
 Carlyle received the news. It was a terrible blow to him 
 nothing could equal save his mother's death, a blow from 
 which there is no complete recovery. The same evening that 
 he received the melancholy tidings he wandered gloomily up 
 the moonlit streets ; everything appeared to him to wear a 
 funereal aspect, and every sound was a solemn dirge. He 
 called at Lady Sandwich's door to inquire after the devoted 
 aged mother of his lost friend. He knew she must be almost 
 heart-broken at the tragic event. He was scarcely less 
 grieved himself. He candidly acknowledged what that noble 
 friendship had been to him. Her constant regard for ten 
 years back " had been the proudest and most valued of his 
 possessions." Now gone, for ever gone! "The most queen- 
 like woman he had ever seen," as said all her friends, whose 
 equal they scarcely hoped to meet again. And this beautiful 
 soul had recognized the immense superiority of Carlyle over 
 all her other guests. She knew how good he was as well as 
 how great, how pure-hearted, earnest, God-fearing was the 
 real inner man ; and she did him reverence. She, the gifted, 
 high-born, majestic lady of rank, with true sympathy was 
 struggling, even as he was, after a higher, better life, yearning 
 for grander things than money could buy, and he helped her. 
 For in comparison to him she was ignorant, foolish, weak. If 
 his words were inspiring to the most intellectual, the noblest 
 men of the day, surely they could not fail to enlighten and 
 cheer the heart of this brave, aspiring, gentle lady of fashion. 
 She knew the latent pieties that were stirring within him, and 
 the solemn consecration of his whole soul to the service of 
 his Maker, so far as he understood what those requirements 
 were. Carlyle would have taught her, as he taught all, that 
 " without a spiritual belief in a Divine Being, in the know- 
 ledge of whom, and obedience to whom, mortal welfare alone 
 consists, the human race must degenerate," and that the " road 
 we had to travel, if we made a good end, was the road the 
 Christian pilgrim had travelled on his way to the Celestial 
 City, no primrose path thither having been yet made by God 
 or man." 
 
 If Bishop Wilberforce, who was a frequent guest at Bath 
 House, thought Carlyle an eminently religious man, we will 
 hope that Lady Harriet found it only good for her to have 
 his openly avowed and constant friendship unbroken to the 
 
f^ 
 
 OG THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 end. " A traijic La'ly Harriet, deeply though she veiled 
 herself in smiles, in light, gay humour. Essentially a vera- 
 cious soul too. Noble and gifted by nature." That was 
 Carlyle's testimony of the friend he had lost, " the one genuine 
 friend he had acquired in England whose nobleness was more 
 precious to him than he knew until it was lost to him." which 
 " he never so much as hoped to repair in any measure hence- 
 forth." And we think he never did. 
 
 We can find no letter from Mrs. Carlyle concerning the 
 sudden death of Lady Ashburton, nor of Edward Irving, or 
 John Sterling, which seems unaccountable. But after this 
 date her letters to him resume their former affectionate terms, 
 with petitions to God to bless and keep him, that for years 
 had been withdrawn. She entreated him, however, not to put 
 such great, black patches of wax on letters addressed to her 
 at least. For he had gone, at Lord Ashburton' s earnest 
 entreaty, to attend the funeral of her whose death was a great 
 and irreparable sorrow to him. The scene to him seems to 
 have been too sad to write about, for we find no clear account. 
 Lideed, most of those Eeminiscences were written years after 
 the events took place, when the weakness of old age was 
 creeping over him, and he was weary of waiting for 
 re -union. 
 
 Jane stayed a long time in Scotland that summer. Lord 
 Ashburton sent her some relics of his departed wife, to whom 
 she sends profuse thanks ! Cnrlyle wrote but little, and in the 
 midst of his gloom and sorrow cross fits came to his relief, 
 and he besprinkled his epistles with a few consolatory exe- 
 crations. Jane did not seem to improve under or relish the 
 Puritanical, strict observance of the Lord's Day. She wrote 
 that Edinburgh was a " devil of a place for keeping Sunday 
 in. Such mouthing and prating, and touting and praying as 
 I was never before concerned in." Quite welcomes a slight 
 ailment to deliver her from church-going — most appropriate 
 sickness ! 
 
 Christmas Day, '57, they passed at Cheyne Row, and then 
 Carlyle had to go through a trying ordeal. The widowed 
 lord entreated them both to go and cheer his loneliness for a 
 short time. Jane was unable to do so through household 
 dilemmas, so Carlyle went alone. In the silence of evening 
 twilight he entered once more that empty drawing-room. To 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 307 
 
 him he owned it was a tragic moment, probably one of the 
 most trying in his life. But he had gone with the honest 
 endeavour to be of some comfort to the solitary mourner to 
 whom he was scarcely less a friend than he had ever been to 
 Lady Harriet. They both shared the same irrevocable loss, 
 and their hearts were drawn in mutual sympathy. 
 
 "A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for 
 adversity." Such a friend, such a brother, was Thomas 
 Carlyle. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Literature too is a quarrel and internecine duel with the whole 
 World of Darkness that lies without one and within one — rather 
 a hard fight at times. — Carlyle, Past and Present. 
 
 It was not in any way due to Carlyle that after the tragic 
 death of his incomparable friend the old affectionate days 
 came back to his home. It had in no way been his wish, 
 or his fault, that they had ever departed, and he welcomed 
 his wife's renewed kindness as he always did after a shar]3 
 storm. That this storm had been long and wearisome to him 
 we cannot doubt, and her smiles and caresses were very cheer- 
 ing after so much gloom and heartache. They both felt that 
 they had now only each other, and while they were spared 
 together, "there was always a world left." Both were 
 growing old, but Mrs. Carlyle was especially feeling physically 
 weaker, and her husband's affectionate attentions became 
 more valuable. He still continued to visit the solitary 
 Grange, and deplored the absence of her who had ever made 
 it so homelike to him, so bright and beautiful. And Jane 
 had still her household worries, or rather say excitements, for 
 she seemed to have a veritable enjoyment in constant altera- 
 tions, improvements, and new arrangements in the house, 
 which poor Carlyle declared to be " heartbreaking, disgusting 
 and dirtier to the mind, than cleaning one's own boots would 
 be to the body." But when Jane had set her heart on such 
 accomplishments, she would not be beaten. 
 
 Carlyle seems to us amazingly patient. From what we 
 know and have seen of gentlemen whose avocations keejD them 
 within the four walls of home, we should call him a paragon 
 of patient husbands. He was no less indomitable in his 
 labours than his wife in her superintendence of other people's 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 309 
 
 work. When only half finished, his History of Frederick 
 became a detestable business. Yet he was determined to 
 complete it to his own satisfactory conclusion — that at any 
 rate he had not shirked taking pains because he found the 
 labour uncongenial. 
 
 In '58 he found that he could write no more of his in- 
 exhaustible subject without another tour in Germany. First 
 he went to Scotland to be rigged out in proper travelling 
 costume. There he found his wife's cousin out of health, and 
 with his usual thoughtful generosity, insisted upon taking all 
 the expense of a journey to some Mediterranean health resort 
 for the benefit of the sufferer. He loved to wander about the 
 churchyards, gazing on the white headstones, thinking of those 
 dear ones gone before, with sad and sombre thoughts. Truly 
 he had lived alone, thought alone, worked alone, and grieved 
 alone. The summer heat, the loss of his friend, the completion 
 of the half of his book, had all told on his nervous system, 
 making him " grandly bilious " and gloomy. He was irritable 
 with his patient sisters, and the awe-stricken tailors, who 
 trembled at his voice. 
 
 " Pardon me, pardon me, ye good souls," he cried in self- 
 reproach. "It is not that I am cruel or unthankful, but weary 
 and as worn with the heavy burdens of life as an old way- 
 worn animal." 
 
 He paid a visit to the scene of his old exile, dear old Craigen- 
 puttock, and with deep emotion looked into his old library 
 closet, wishing he could finish his Frederick in that same quiet 
 spot. But this tour to Germany must be endured. He 
 screwed up his courage to sticking point, packed his trunk 
 and went by the ordinary route to Hamburg. Jane wrote to 
 him of a madcap French lady, who was determined to see 
 " Garlyle." Galloped all round Hyde Park in chase of his 
 brown wide-a-wake. All in vain. She met a most courteous 
 clergyman of her acquaintance to whom she appealed for one 
 glimpse of Carlyle. 
 
 "Take me to see Mr. Carlyle," was her only request. 
 
 " Ask me to invite the Archbishop of Canterbury to dance 
 a polka with you," he said, aghast, " and I would dare it, 
 though I have not the slightest acquaintance with him, but to 
 take you to see Mr. Carlyle is utterly impossible ! " 
 
 Carlyle left Leith on the 24th August for Hamburg. It 
 was a journey of pure business, and was little commented 
 
310 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 on. He mastered, however, every necessary detail, nothing 
 escaped his investigation, he grasped every particle of inform- 
 ation attainable that could possibly help him to elucidate his 
 history. 
 
 When he had exhausted every available source of inform- 
 ation or suggestion, he returned to Chelsea, September 22nd, 
 having accomplishe I his undertaking in exactly one month. 
 On his return he found that his first volumes had been 
 greedily devoured by the public, and produced that year only 
 the round sum of £2,800. While writing Frederick, he calcu- 
 lated that he rode about 30,000 miles, under cloud of night 
 most of it. When he returned from these rides, he generally 
 found Jane, who was now habitually in the feeblest health, 
 lying on the sofa. He would look at her piteously, grieving 
 helplessly over all the past sadness of their two lives, and 
 woul 1 try to restore her as well as himself to cheerfulness, 
 by wishing her, as Irving used to say, " many happy years to 
 come, and the worst all over," 
 
 Again Christmas, '58, was spent at Cheyne Row. Carlyle 
 saw through his windows, and met in the streets, " numerous 
 people stumbling about in a drunken Saturnalian delirium, or 
 quasi delirium, according to their sorts and conditions." It 
 seemed to him a very strange method of thanking God for 
 sending them a Redeemer, and they a set singularly worth 
 redeeming too ! 
 
 Indoors, however, things were restored to their nominal 
 state of quietude and calm affection. They were perhaps 
 more to each other than they ever had been yet, for the 
 world wide over, there was no one else. Though Jane's 
 health was visibly declining, her spirit still sustained her, 
 and her small tea-parties and the table talk were as biilliant 
 as ever. 
 
 Carlyle continued to work all day, to ride late every after- 
 noon ; to sleep till six o'clock dinner, and then to pace 
 the streets after dark — sometimes till midnight. Visitors 
 generally found Jane alone ; and she enjoyed entertaining 
 them with unfaltering energy. 
 
 Lord Ashburton had married again, that winter. "The 
 changes of the age which fleeting time procureth," sighed 
 tmforgetful Carlyle. " Ah me, ah me ! " Yet the second 
 Lady Ashburton was no less a friend to him than I he first, 
 according to Mr. Froude. He says she became the " guardian 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 311 
 
 genius at Cheyne Row, a tender sister to Mrs. Carlyle, and 
 sister, friend, and mother, to her husband." But we still 
 believe, that she in no way compensated for the friend he had 
 lost, even though she became all this. Carlyle's aifections 
 were too deep ever to be ousted, though his heart was large 
 enough to embrace the universe. When Carlyle thwarted 
 his wife, she found the best plan was to cry. Most likely 
 most wives do the same as the best means of reducing the 
 " blockheadism " of their husbands to a state of acquiescence. 
 We don't advise any one to commence at once who has not 
 already tried this innocent means of getting their own way — 
 we would not do such a thing. Don't — pray don't. 
 
 Though still on very affectionate terms, Jane found it 
 difficult to talk much to her " king of talkers." She declared 
 that " he, the apostle of silence, grumbles at her when she 
 puts his doctrine into practice." AVhen separated, anxiously 
 they each awaited a daily letter, full of every particular 
 respecting health, feelings and doings. Jane received in- 
 telligence that a dear young friend is to be married. Of 
 course congratulations had to be sent, which she declared to 
 be a tempting of Provi Jence ; for all the world like saying a 
 " Te Deum before the battle had begun, for marriage was but 
 a fearful leap into infinite space." 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle treated herself like an exotic, until she really 
 could not bear a breath of air without catching cold. It was 
 a great mistake. In our climate we must accustom ourselves 
 to change of temperature ; it is a positive necessity. More- 
 over, she swallowed two glasses of wine, then a stiif tumbler 
 of whisky toddy, and so on, for two days, to battle down the 
 September cold with stimulants ! On one occasion she made 
 herself a jacket, but she avowed it was so distasteful a piece 
 of business, that she would not touch another needle for six 
 months, except to sew on buttons. AVe really wonder in 
 what marvellous industrial manner Mrs. Carlyle spent her 
 time. We should like to be informed. We may find the 
 fruits of her labours after many days — as she hoped to find 
 Helen's of Kirkaldy. 
 
 The Christmas of '59^60 they spent at the Grange once 
 more, under the presidency of its new mistress. The house 
 had undergone a change that Jane thoroughly appreciated. 
 It was warmed throughout with hot water pipes, and she need 
 shiver no more. The new lady was charming ; the house was 
 
812 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE, 
 
 full of visitors, no less than four brides being present. From 
 that time Jane always throve at the Grange better than any- 
 where else, and Cheyne Kow lost much of its magnetic power. 
 
 That year Mrs. Carlyle had a great loss in the death of her 
 little dog Nero, over whom she grieved as a c^evoted friend 
 of eleven years' standing ; and Carlyle too missed the faithful 
 creature. To childless people a domestic pet invariably be- 
 comes dear. In the year '60 Carlyle visited Sir George 
 Sinclair, at Thurso, where nothing was wanting on the part of 
 his generous host to make the change enjoyable. Sir George 
 was "a learned man, full of piety, veracity, and good nature." 
 But Carlyle began to fear, that instead of finishing his 
 Frederick, his Frederick would finish him. This was no idle 
 joke, but a veritable apprehension, and made him sick and 
 weary, and bored beyond all endurance. Compassionating his 
 guest's almost frantic state of mind, Sir George courteously 
 wrote himself to Jane, to give an account of his journey and 
 safe arrival. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle sometimes begrudged him the time he expended 
 on the " unborn generations," and began to go about more on 
 her own account. Her doctors strongly urged upon them both 
 to live apart as much as possible while Carlyle was so sleepless, 
 excited, and engrossed in his work. Sir George accompanied 
 him to Chelsea, and dined and chatted with the wife, while 
 Carlyle persisted in sitting aloft to write. To die, and leave 
 his work unfinish3d, was an idea that at times haunted him, 
 and for fear — for very fear, he must stick to it like a burr. 
 Years were coining and goicg, and still so much to say. One 
 almost feels sorry he undertook such a task, such a monument 
 of indomitable perseverance. Yet surely we all glory in it 
 as a noble British achievement ; of which, as fellow-country- 
 men, we cannot fail to be proud. 
 
 If his absorption in his work was cruel to Jane, she felt it 
 was ii;evitable, and pitied him on that account. He wished 
 her to go to the Gill, for he thoroughly appreciated his sister's 
 "milk-loving habits ; " but Jane much preferred accepting an 
 invitation to Lord Stanley, at Alderley Park. She confessed 
 that she did not care to be stared at by good Mrs. Aitkin's 
 children as their '' Aunt." So to Alderley she went, intending 
 to stay for a week and then to proceed to Scotland. But when 
 one has married a man of genius, as she says, one takes the 
 consequences. And among the consequences to her, was this 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 313 
 
 very cleliglitfiil visit to Lord Stanley, also its termination. 
 For sudden news arrived that Carlyle must return to Chelsea, 
 to his reservoir of books ; and she took it, though it was cot 
 so intended, as a peremptory order to march back to Cheyne 
 Kow, instead of onwards to Scotland. 
 
 The correspondence that ensued between them was a literal 
 game of cross purposes. She returned to Chelsea, but he did 
 not, and told her plainly, that the conclusions she had arrived 
 at were "foolish, infatuated, precipitate, and in fact a huge 
 error ; " while his sister wrote, that Jane ought to have taken 
 her holiday, and have left him to "fin for himself." When 
 he did arrive, he horrified her by waking up in the micdle of 
 the night, bolting up, smoking, and sometimes taking a cold 
 bath ! Jane woke up herself frequently during the night, 
 but to hear Carlyle floundering over head was an extra trial 
 to her nerves. 
 
 Mr. Froude tells us that there was now an improved con- 
 dition of domesticity in the house, due to Carlyle. Mrs. 
 Carlyle, however, did not approve the change ; she declared 
 she never felt her house her own since " her general was con- 
 verted into Cook and Housemaid." But she had heaps of 
 personal comfort. Lady Sandwich sent her a seal-skin pelisse, 
 costing twenty guineas, a Greek merchant sent her a beautiful 
 woollen shawl, she slept under racoon skins, and drank three 
 glasses of wine a day ; all of which comforts were the results 
 of marrying that dreadful man of genius ! 
 
 In one of her inimitable letters, she relates a tale of horror 
 concerning the Marquis of Devonshire, who was remarkable 
 for taking the law into his own hands occasionally. The 
 story ran, that on a voyage, the Earl caught the skipper on 
 his knees before his daughter, grasped him by the collar, 
 tossed him overboard, and watched him drown, while the 
 frightened girl implored mercy. The whole tale was a pure 
 fabrication, which Jane prophesied would most likely end in 
 the noble earl bestowing a thorough good thrashing upon the 
 originator or somebody else if he could not catch him. 
 
 In '61 Jane went to Eamsgate with Geraldine. We 
 wonder if it was during this visit that Geraldine got the 
 impression that Jane could not have loved Irving much or 
 she would not have insisted upon such punctilious honour. 
 Jane only insisted that Irving should avow his determination 
 not to marry Miss Martin but Miss Welsh. And it was not 
 
314 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 at her instigation that he so madly married Miss Martin after 
 all. Well, poor fellow ! surely he paid the penalty ! and at 
 the same time made others sharers in his folly and partici- 
 pators in his pain. It would have been infinitely better if he 
 had defied old Mrs. Grundy, faced a breach of promise, and 
 obtained his freedom by those means, than to have made such 
 a mess of his own life, as well as other people's. But they 
 all made the worst of things, as people generally do, and there 
 is nothing more to be said. 
 
 Poor old Lady Sandwich was devoted to Carlyle. When 
 she was in town, he visited her without fail twice a week, 
 as much from real personal affection to the dear old lady, as 
 from tender remembrances of his lost friend. She took a 
 villa on the outskirts of Windsor Forest, which she invited 
 him to share. There he could take his books and be quiet. 
 He felt such a " poor, shivering, nervous wretch," that he 
 would not go without Jane accompanied him. They found 
 Windsor Forest full of Windsor Cockneydom, which took all 
 the sense of retirement away, so that neither he nor Fritz 
 much enjoyed their rides together. The stately appearance 
 and courteous bearing of the old lady always affected him 
 painfully, and in a strangely pathetic way. Never, never 
 could he forget the friend he had lost. He longed to return 
 to Chelsea. The choking emotions he was forced to suppress 
 were intolerable. To his relief lumbago attacked him, and 
 as " women are born to duties as the sparks fly upward," 
 Jane came to the rescue and returned with him to Cheyne 
 Kow. His next anxiety seems to have been a fear lest he 
 should be invited to Miss Barne's wedding. He begged Jane 
 to intercede for him, for it would be so hard to refuse 
 anything to that '' bonnie wee lass," but such a scene would 
 be the ruin of him. He was spared the infliction, and 
 he invited bride and bridegroom to come and spend an 
 evening in his own house among quiet things — Jane and 
 the cat ! 
 
 In 1861 Mr. Froude became Carlyle's chosen friend and 
 companion, seeing him at least twice a week, accompanying 
 him on his long walking tours, and exchanging thoughts with 
 him on every imaginable subject. He assures us that he 
 invariably found this extraordinary man " consistently noble, 
 high-minded, simple-hearted, and affectionate. Indeed, the 
 more intimate he became, the ever grander and more imposing 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 315 
 
 did his character appear." He was a great talker, but never 
 gesticuUited, employing his marvellously flexible voice only to 
 emphasize his words. 
 
 Jane had a serious fall and injured her foot. Cailyle 
 carried her to bed at the imminent risk of knocking her head 
 off against the lintels. She declared she would not " allow 
 herself to be carried by him auy more, as her head was of 
 much more consequence than her foot." As soon as she had 
 sufliciently recovered from the effects of this accident he sent 
 her to Nithsdale, and by his whole conduct proved how trtdy 
 thoughtful and generous he was. He gave positive orders 
 that no money should be spared in procuring for her every 
 comfort and convenience. He wrote to her daily without a 
 single complaint, representing everything as going on at its 
 best. To judge by these considerate epistles, his sleep must have 
 been uninterrupted ; the bores all out of town, the servants 
 irreproachable, both in their conduct and attendance. 
 
 These daily letters which invariably passed between them, 
 Mrs. Carlyle once complained, must be despatched dead or 
 alive. At the same time nothing offended her more than not 
 receiving one from him, if he chanced to disappoint her, so 
 that the pain and the pleasure derived from the custom was 
 mutual. All this time he was toiling incessantly at his desk. 
 The third volume was in the press, the fourth rapidly progress- 
 ing. Oh 1 if he could only hold out another year. He seems 
 to have had some trouble with his publishers, but to others he 
 gave due credit. He called Chapman a " hard-fisted, cautious 
 bibliographer." To another he said, "I see you're a raal mon, 
 but taking the publishers altogether, they're a d — ble race. 
 They want to vest their money at night and get it back in 
 the morning. But see, if you publish good books, you must 
 just be content to wait. You may raise cresses on a dish 
 clout in a night, but it takes years to raise the oak." And 
 it took him thirteen years of hard plodding to rear his 
 monument of Frederick, called the Great. 
 
 While in Scotland, Jane always managed to visit her old 
 nurse Betty, who confided to her the fact that " her Gudeman " 
 (Carlyle) directed Punch to her every week, " with his ain 
 hand to sic as us." A wonderful condescension, thought the 
 old dame, an act worthy of him, we agree. There was a 
 beautiful love between Jane and old Betty ; the ancient 
 dame soothing, comforting, and caressing the sick and weary, 
 
816 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 excitable little lady, as if she were still her spoilt nurseling. 
 Jane visited her mother's grave in the lonely churchyard amid 
 the green hills of Haddington, and asks, " Would we be light- 
 hearted at the cost of having nothing in one's heart, very 
 precious and sacred?" "Oh no! better ever such grief for 
 the lost, than never to have loved any one enough to have 
 one's equanimity disturbed by the loss." Ah surely ! " Better 
 to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." 
 
 From Haddington she invariably visited her old aunts, and 
 never received a letter from her husband with more gratitude 
 than one that delivered her from the " prayers." Indeed that 
 element of religiosity made her feel like a fish out of water, 
 or rather " like a human being i?i water and the water too 
 hot." Her return journey home had a curative effect upon 
 her whole system; of Carlyle "it made pigs and wdiistles." 
 Jane told him that she had heard of one of their late maid- 
 servants having been converted, who prayed continually for 
 her late master, and made -frequent inquiries to learn the 
 effect of these fervent petitions on his behalf. 
 
817 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 Night's candles are burning out, and \vith her, too, Time is finishing, 
 and it Avili be Eternity and Day. — Carlyle, French Revolution. 
 
 Lady Sandwich, the aged mother of the late Lady Harriet 
 Ashburton, was the only person in London, or rather in the 
 whole world, that Carlyle visited at regular intervals. In 
 1862 she died, to his inexpressible regret. Twice a week the 
 faithful Fritz had carried liis illustrious master to Grosvenor 
 Square, and still persisted in going in that direction, quite 
 unmindful of the sad " escutcheon " that sickened them to see. 
 There were many who would willingly have been to the lonely 
 man all that departed friends had been, but it was no easy 
 matter to him to form new ties. He would bury himself at 
 the top of the house, safe from all interruptions, and engrossed 
 in his labour would find mental relief. On one occasion he 
 was invited to Blickley Park, ISTorfolk, the seat of the Marquis 
 of Lothian, He felt unequal to the " botheration " entailed. 
 The Countess wrote again that there was a good library at his 
 disposal, and no company, as her husband's health would not 
 permit society. Both these were great inducements to make 
 Carlyle change his mind, but— there was still a but, an if, or 
 a perhaps. Mrs. Carlyle refused to send anything but a 
 decisive answer, at which Carlyle told her she had better go 
 without him. But Jane was hankering after a visit to her 
 great friend Mrs. Russell, in Dumfriesshire, and avowed it. 
 
 '■' Then go to Mrs. Russell, pack yourself up and be olf as 
 soon as you like ! " 
 
 Is ot a very gracious permission, and Jane did not at once avail 
 herself of it ; she knew only too well what absence from home 
 meant. About this time they were in the happy possession 
 of an " emotional domestic," who had but one recommendation. 
 
318 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 and that was she understood the arrangement of Mr. Carlyle's 
 books. This she fancied made her superior to her position, 
 and she gave h rself no end of airs. Jane was, however, 
 reluctant to part with her, imagining Carlyle set some value 
 upon her services. It was some relief to hear him call her 
 "an affected fool," w^ith the addition that it would be "quite 
 agreeable to him if she would carry her fantasticality and 
 incompetencies elsewheie." When she w^as leaving she wanted 
 to make a scene, tirst with her mistress, who, howt-ver, was not 
 to be bamboozled ; she then rushed up to the top of the house 
 and made one there with more effect, her tender-hearted 
 master being " dreadfully sorry for the poor creature ! " 
 Another Scotch "blockhead" was engaged, "a cow, a moon- 
 calf, M^ho turned wholesome food to poison, blackened the 
 dinner to cinders, made the house lively by constant crashes 
 of glass and china, her brutal manners, lumpish insincerity, 
 and base ingratitude." 
 
 Carlyle was full of trouble as well as his wife while dwelling 
 under " the valley of the shadow of Frederick the Great^'' and 
 his wife complained, perhaps with some justice, that he was 
 m.ore and more impatient of servants and housewives. Surely 
 his patience was somewhat tried by the former, according to 
 Jane's own showing, though he became quite attached to a 
 small domestic they had of fifteen, who was simple and faithful, 
 and anxious to please. 
 
 In November of '62 Lord Ashburton was at death's door 
 with congestion of the lungs. "God help me," exclaimed 
 Carlyle, " since I am to lose him, the kindest, gentlest, friend- 
 liest man in my life ; I may say, the one friend I have in the 
 world," " The one friend " was rather ofttimes repeated, like 
 the " one person " Carlyle praised at different times, mounting 
 up to tens of people. 
 
 Jane shared his anxiety about Lord Ashburton. One even- 
 ing in great suspense they sat up, Jane walking backwards 
 and forwards, saying it was no use going to bed in such a 
 state of mind. The door suddenly opened wide, a note was 
 handed in from Paris, the second that d^y. She dared not 
 open it. Carlyle snatched it hurriedly, and then his fears were 
 so great he could not read it. His agitation so increased that 
 he could barely exclaim — " Better — I can see that word and 
 nothing else. Is not that word better % " It was ; we can 
 imagine their relief. Fluctiiating news continued from day 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 819 
 
 to day. Jane offered to go over to assist Lady Ashburton in 
 nursing the much-loved sufferer, but knowing how feeble was 
 her own health Lady Ashburton would not permit her to do 
 so. Sometimes Jane dared not show Carlyle the notes she 
 received, they upset him so. And as it was, he often got up 
 on the wrong side of his bed, sick of his daily task before he 
 took his pen in hand. 
 
 On New Year's Day, 1863, he discovered that his only 
 salvation depended upon a beggarly pair of old cloth boots 
 being lined with flannel, new-bound and repaired by one of 
 the two domestics, which piece of business Jane declared they 
 were either of them as capable of doing as of repairing the 
 " Great Eastern." There was no help for it — the mighty task 
 they could not do she could ; so she sat down bravely that 
 New Year's Day and did an immortal act. With that " great 
 ugly beast of a man's boot " on her lap, she stitched and 
 worried herself the blessed day through, and the second day 
 of the same month she reduced its fellow to the same comfort- 
 able condition for the feet of that tiresome genius ! Young 
 ladies, beware ! unless you feel up to the mark to perform 
 even such tasks as these, never marry a genius ! We always 
 give this advice, and some very proper young ladies reply 
 most religiously " they hope they never may," and we, for the 
 sake of the unhappy genius, echo their wish exceedingly. 
 
 What a dreary, monotonous life ! Visiting dukes and 
 lords, dining with celebrities, daily tributes of admiration, 
 champagne, shawls, wines, horses, adorers, and two whole days 
 in the year spent over a pair of wretched boots ! Who would 
 be the wife of a genius ] He all the while struggling manfully 
 as for life itself with his gigantic task. People were con- 
 siderate to Carlyle, as a rule, as far as their hero-worship would 
 allow them. One gentleman sent Jane a beautiful shawl with 
 a letter which delighted her husband. In it he said he was 
 unwilling to interrupt him in his stern task, but was humbly 
 desirous to show his admiration for his goodness, his attain- 
 ments and great gifts to the world, and begs her to accej)t the 
 accompanying shawl as a token of the same. Carlyle wrapped 
 it round her himself, and walked about in evident delight, 
 saying, with great mistaken modesty — " I think it is the only 
 bit of real good my celebrity ever brought to you." He 
 evidently considered friends and favours one by one. 
 
 In taking his long rambles he never met any poor creature 
 
320 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 in apparent suffering, from whatever cause, without showing 
 some kindness and sympathy. On one occasion he saw a blind 
 man waiting to cross the road ; immediately he was at his side 
 escorting him safely over. He then presented him with a 
 coin and offered to go with him to his journey's end, but the 
 old man gratefully declined further assistance. Carlyle, who 
 was with a friend, followed at a distance to see where was the 
 old man's destination. Quite undismayed, his benefactor saw 
 him enter a public house. " Poor old fellow ! " exclaimed 
 Carlyle, " perhaps he needs warmth and shelter." He had 
 relieved his own heart by that act of charity, and surely such 
 deeds are recognized on high as much as the modern method 
 of only relieving necessity to the worthy, through so-called 
 charitable institutions, turning even our God-given sympathies 
 into mechanical hardness. As yet there was no falling off 
 in Carlyle' s personal appearance. He was still erect and 
 muscular ; his hair was quite white ; he complained of dim- 
 ness of sight, though his eyes lasted him as long as life ; his 
 hand trembled somewhat from constant use, but there was no 
 serious ailment whatever. It was not so with poor horse 
 Fritz, however. He gave several indications of declining 
 vigour and sense, though Carlyle persisted in riding him. 
 
 At last, February 13th, '63, he fell and broke both knees, 
 throwing his master, shaken but unhurt, on to the pavement. 
 After that, of course, Carlyle was obliged to part with him, but 
 expressed much anxiety concerning the poor creature's fate. 
 Finally he was sold for £9, having cost £59, and considered 
 cheap at that. 
 
 A certain Mrs. Fergusson was praying incessantly for 
 Mr. Carlyle, and attributed his escape from injury as the 
 probable result of her fervent petitions ; so that by those 
 who most differed from him he was not as yet considered past 
 praying for. 
 
 That summer was unbearably hot, and Carlyle was " vara 
 obstinate " in his own way. He would remain in town without 
 his usual visit to Scotland till he had finished Frederick. To 
 try and get away from the heat and pursue his heavy task 
 undisturbed, he set up his tent in the back area. The Ash- 
 burtons had presented him with a new horse, but he complained 
 that he could not take to it, had no affection for the brute, 
 and as he rode him thought regretfully of old Fritz, who used 
 to go along trying to find out his master's wishes, " a horse of 
 
THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 321 
 
 sound sense and sensibility," and had a profound regard for 
 his rider that was veritably reciprocated. 
 
 Jane had now found new friends in the celebrated Mrs. 
 Oliphant, Madame Elise, of millinery renown, and a faithful 
 servant who had become the happy wife of a clever physician. 
 She made pleasant visits to one and all, and of however short 
 duration, they did her good. She also accepted invitations to 
 dine, to meet Dickens and others, while her husband remained 
 stoically pursuing his task. 
 
 But dark days were dawning for both of them that had 
 been mercifully veiled from their sight. How truly says 
 Charles Kingsley — ''That if w^e foresaw the troubles that are 
 coming, it would break our hearts, and if we foresaw the 
 happiness wiiich is coming, perhaps it would turn our heads." 
 Poor Carlyle's present burdens, as he met them each day, seemed 
 indeed as heavy as he could bear, yet when the weight was 
 immeasurably increased, strength to endure was also granted. 
 Jane began to be in constant pain with a neuralgic arm, the 
 torture of which she bravely tried to hide from him as much 
 as possible, knowing that his own existence was heavy laden 
 with the ceaseless effort to complete his work that he might 
 be able to give himself rest, as if that were possible, and her 
 the whole attention of his later years. She Avas now habitu- 
 ally weak and ailing, and slept very often under the effects of 
 morphia, and as for port wine she was credited with saying, 
 even as a wee child, that " it maks inside a' cosy." That 
 being the case, when Carlyle saw that these things alleviated 
 her in any way, he did not attribute her use of them as 
 indicative of breaking health. 
 
 He would always spend part of his evenings with her, she 
 lying on the sofa as usual, looking at him with eyes as 
 " bright as stars and diamonds," and her presence growing 
 more and more a cheery sunshine to the weary man. Natur- 
 ally he would talk of the overwhelming subject of some great 
 tragic scene that oppressed his brain. On one occasion it was 
 the *' Battle of Molwitz " which had been most difficult of 
 description. Triumphantly he read his account aloud to her, 
 thankful that he had mastered the difficulties. She listened, 
 as she invariably did, with few remarks, but he could hardly 
 imagine her indifference to what was to him of absorbing 
 interest. She, poor thing, was becoming fast convinced that 
 she would never see that graphic description in print, that she 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 was hurrying fast to the grave. "Alas!" he cries, "how 
 little I knew of her secret thoughts, wishes, or necessities — • 
 then or ever ! " Visitors who had not seen her for years were 
 loud in their exclamations of dismay at her altered appearance. 
 Surely they might have shown greater discretion, for such 
 remarks but added to her depression. 
 
 In '63, another terrible fatality happened to Mrs. Carlyle. 
 8he had been on a charitable visit to a distant cousin, and on 
 i-eturning near St. Martin's Church, she tried to reach an 
 omnibus, when a cab prevented her doing so, and she fell on 
 the curb-stone. Unfortunately, her right arm was disabled by 
 the neuralgia, and she was therefore quite unable to break her 
 fall. She was more seriously injured than she imagined, 
 though she suffered intense pain. She was assisted into a cab, 
 and was driven at once to Chelsea, but the driver Avas bidden 
 to call first at the door of a friend, Mr. Larkin, so anxious 
 was the poor sufferer to spare her husband alarm. Mr. Larkin 
 accompanied her to Cheyne Row, bvit Carlyle's quick ears 
 caught the unwonted sound of a cab at his door, and he pre- 
 sented himself at once. It was a grievous shock to witness 
 the agony on her face. She was almost powerless. He and 
 his friend managed to carry her upstairs, and a maid was 
 despatched in haste for medical assistance. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle knew how distracted he would be, what fears 
 he would conjure up, with that tormenting imagination of his, 
 and made as light as possible of the effects of her fall. He 
 was only too glad to be assured of her safety, while he began 
 to think it might not be serious after all. Poor Jane ! her 
 very attempt to disguise her intolerable pain irritated her 
 nerves. For a time her fall had contracted the muscles of her 
 face, and made it rather a difficult matter to close her mouth. 
 Carlyle, quick to discern the peculiarity, but failing utterly 
 to perceive the cause, said, " Jane, ye'll find yerself in a more 
 compact and pious frame of mind if ye shut your mouth." 
 
 Surely the remark was enough to try her patience. Another 
 time he told her *' she ought to be thankful it was no worse." 
 This was too much for her equanimity. " Thankful ! " she 
 exclaimed, indignantly ; " thankful for what 1 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. I will not say I am." For she 
 detested any approach to cant. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 323 
 
 He left her, saying he was sorry to see her so rebellious. 
 He wrote in his note-book — " She speaks little to me, and 
 does not accept me as a sick nurse, which truly I had never 
 talent to be. I will stop this, lest I fall to crying altogether." 
 He would fain soothe and comfort her. The sight of her 
 sufferings, and certainty of his own utter helplessness, was all 
 too much for him. If he could only direct her thoughts to his 
 mother's God, and teach her to believe that however He 
 afflicts His children, He has some unfathomable but merciful 
 design in His dealings with them ! Such a faith must inevitably 
 cheer. But Jane persisted in ignoring any special Providence, 
 and turned a deaf ear to all that had proved such unspeakable 
 consolation to Edward Irving in his unutterable sufferings. 
 
 But, alas ! the time came when she, too, would fain pray for 
 herself, as well as entreat others to do so for her. Not yet 
 finding herself a compulsory prisoner to her bedroom, she set 
 about having it turned into a beautiful boudoir, where she 
 could receive her many sympathizing friends while Carlyle 
 still sat solitary. She had heaps of champagne, sent chiefly by 
 Lady Ashburton. " And champagne does me good, I can tell 
 you," was her settled conviction. By degrees, unbeknown to 
 her secluded lord, she crept from her room into the next and so 
 on, until one evening she stole into the drawing-room, where 
 he was busy writing, like an apparition, exclaiming timidly, 
 " Here I am, come back to you, dear ! " That was a gleam of 
 sunlight to the solitary student, one bright picture that could 
 never be obliterated from his memory. 
 
 Ten months elapsed before she sat again with him in that 
 elegant drawing-room — ten months spent by her in excruciating 
 physical torture, effectually crushing out all hope, save for death 
 as a relief. She had the kindest and cleverest known doctor, but 
 they were one and all quite incapable of curing, or even at 
 times of alleviating her sufferings. She would lie alone on her 
 bed almost contemplating suicide, till every pattern on the 
 w^all-paper was learnt by heart, every article in the room 
 engraved on her brain, every accustomed sound from within 
 and without intolerably familiar. Carlyle was beside himself, 
 and continued to write more vigorously than ever as an effort 
 to drown thought. Three distinct times a horrible dread 
 seized him that she would die and leave him. He could not 
 explain what he experienced in that fear. She seemed the 
 only creature left on earth for him to love. 
 
 T 2 
 
324 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 In January, '64, she began to improve a little, and longed 
 to get out of that scene of tortures unspeakable. Carlyle 
 accompanied her to St. Leonards, where most comfortable 
 apartments had been secured for her. His brother. Dr. John, 
 and her cousin. Miss Welsh, were in the same carriage, while 
 Carlyle at every station went to see how she bore the journey. 
 Unfortunately, she did not derive as much good from that 
 change as he hoped, but she preferred to remain there rather 
 than to return to Chelsea in the same sick state. 
 
 Carlyle finding another volume of Frederick indispensable, 
 and that the sea air in a measure alleviated his wife's suffer- 
 ings, returned to town, and made arrangements to leave Cheyne 
 Eow for a time, while he took a house at 117, Marina Terrace, 
 St. Leonards. There, with a temporary library and desk, they 
 all managed an " eight months' martyrdom." In one of her 
 notes, written with her left hand, she says to him — • 
 
 "Oh, my own Darling, — God have pity on us. I am 
 wretched with that horrible malady. God help me, for on 
 earth there is no help. 
 
 " Lady Ashburton writes that Lord Ashburton (who, after 
 all, had succumbed), has left you £2,000, without legacy duty. 
 The wished-for has come too late. Money can do nothing for 
 us now. 
 
 *' Your loving and sore-suffering, 
 
 "J. W. C." 
 
 Again she writes, that she would like him beside her when 
 she suffers most, but coidd not bear to hinder him in his 
 work. To her pious aunts she also seuds an entreaty that 
 they will pray for her ; at last she was brought to inaudible 
 prayer herself — doubtless heard and answered in some hidden 
 way. 
 
 When Carlyle rode out in the peaceful country scenes, tears 
 would dim the long-tearless eyes, that looked on the gay 
 daylight and degraded nightly scenes of the London streets 
 with rage and disgust only. 
 
 But Mrs. Carlyle seemed to get even worse. Twelve suc- 
 cessive sleepless nights made her wildly resolute to kill or 
 cure. One morning she announced her fixed determination 
 to travel by express to London, and from thence to Scotland, 
 her brother-in-law, the doctor, as companion. And with 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 325 
 
 grand heroism she accomplished the excruciating journey, and 
 found it not death, but a renewed lease of life. She went 
 direct to the Gill, where she was tenderly nursed by Carlyle's 
 sister Mary, and from thence to her beloved friends, Doctor 
 and Mrs. Russell. Once she cried, truly, '' Oh dear ! you 
 cannot help me, though you would. Nobody can help me, 
 but God only ; and can I wonder if God take no notice of me, 
 when I have all my life taken so little heed of Him ? " 
 
 Yes, indeed, it is wonderful, but no less a fact, that those 
 who all their lives persistently ignore a Father in Heaven,, 
 hope as much from Him in distress as those who have loved 
 and humbly tried to serve Him all their lives. Most wonder- 
 ful of all. He hears their faintest sigh, sees them ever so far 
 off, and folds them in the Everlasting Arms of His love and 
 mercy. In His own good time He restored Jane's health, and 
 she expressed real thankfulness to Him for her recovery. 
 She wrote of her appreciation of a grand, solemn faith, that 
 could bear all, and triumph over all. She does not profess 
 having herself possessed such a faith, but that tlwt was a 
 faith she could admire ; while she continued to detest all 
 religious excitements and cant. 
 
 On October 1st, '64, John Carlyle brought her home to 
 Chelsea. They arrived later than they were expected. Carlyle 
 had been in agonies of anticipation, and when he heard the 
 cab at the door, he rushed out in his dressing-gown, welcomed, 
 kissed, and even cried over her ; it was like having the dead 
 restored to life. The servants were scarcely less excited. She 
 found her bed-room newly papered and decorated, so as to be 
 hardly recognizable. Two dozen of champagne awaited her 
 from Lady Ashburton ; new milk from the rector's cow, fresh 
 every morning ; and as soon as ever she was able to pick and 
 choose for herself, Carlyle presented her with a beautiful 
 brougham, that he only too often and too bitterly regretted 
 that she had not had before, then, perhaps, that accident 
 might have been prevented. But it is idle to lament over 
 second causes, in any case. " God be for ever thanked that 
 I did not longer loiter," was his pious thanksgiving, in which 
 we can all participate. Jane could not express " how good 
 and quiet Mr. Carlyle was after her return, for he studied 
 her peace and comfort more than he ever did before," though 
 im cannot forget how lavishly she had praised him years 
 and years ago; not once, but many times, until she was 
 
826 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 possessed with the demon fire of jealousy. That made her 
 withhold from him, for the time, even common justice. This 
 was now all forgotten. To have her once more restored, as it 
 were, from the jaws of death, sitting before his eyes, presiding 
 at his table, smiling occasionally upon him with her own rare, 
 sweet smile, filled his mind with feelings too deep for utter- 
 ance. " His heart wept tragically loving tears, though his 
 eyes were dry, for in it was a wealth indeed of woe and love 
 that abided with him." Through life they both abided, but 
 in death the love alone, without the woe, through all eternity. 
 
327 
 
 CHAPTEK XLII. 
 
 He was destined also to be famous — more than enough ! — Carlyle, 
 The Diamond Necklace, 
 
 During the latter years of Mrs. Carlyle's life Mrs. Oliphant 
 was a good deal at Cheyne Row, and she gives a far more 
 faithful picture of his wife than did Carlyle himself. To him 
 she ever remained in imagination what she was when he first 
 knew her. He became blind to her faults, her altered appear- 
 ance, her advancing years ! Mrs. Oliphant tells us " she was 
 full of force and energy, worn into wrinkles and sparseness 
 of age with her caustic wit, her relentless insight and potent 
 humour. With a humorous twitch at the corners of her 
 eloquent mouth, she would tell sometimes of the fine people 
 who left her out in their invitations, as the great man's 
 insignificant wife, with a keen mot, which told of individual 
 feeling, not extinguished, though under command," when 
 she chose to command it. The fact was she enjoyed the 
 lionizing far more than he, and went more into society from 
 their own accounts, and would feel any personal .slight most 
 keenly. She contemplated both the men who loved her, with, 
 a kind of curious contempt; she admired their genius, but 
 laughed at their weaknesses. '' He was quite unconscious of 
 this contempt," says Mrs. Oliphant. We doubt it. It seems 
 to us Carlyle was never unconscious of anything around him, 
 unless absorbed in his writing. 
 
 " Jane had a wonderful gift of narrative. It did not 
 matter what the subject, whether that gaunt figure in the 
 gray coat, stalking silently in and out, or the cocks and hens 
 which a magnanimous neighbour sacrificed to the sleep of the 
 sage, or a wonderful story of some maid-of-all-work. She had 
 never a thought of missionary usefulness. In fact, to do good 
 
328 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 was not her aim. She had a scorn beyond words for impurity," 
 yet when she heard that her neighbours were immoral cha- 
 racters, she went to their house on business matters, and 
 shamed them out of the neighbourhood to more congenial 
 haunts. Once she was accosted in the street by some man, 
 to whom she vouchsafed but a single word, " Idiot ! " She 
 was not particularly gentle, or a tender companion ; she had 
 little feminine softness of manner, and was no meekly loving 
 wife. 
 
 To Mrs. Oliphant and Geraldine Jewsbury she spoke of 
 Irving, and we are inclined to think to Carlyle also. It was 
 no small glory to boast of the love of two such men, yet we 
 cannot but wish that she had never boasted of a love that 
 ruined the life of one at least. Surely that should have been 
 kept more sacred. There was even an announcement in the 
 paper, in 1862, of Irving's well-known relations to the wife of 
 the most celebrated author of -the day, that had Carlyle seen 
 must have annoyed him, unless his feelings were all deadened, 
 and his heart turned to adamant. It seems a general belief 
 that Carlyle, because he never alluded to certain matters, was 
 unaware of their existence. 1 he fact was, he both knew and 
 felt all too keenly, except criticisms on his works — those made 
 no impression whatever, if they pleased others they did not 
 hurt him. 
 
 Jane "was the proudest woman, as proud and tenacious of 
 her dignity as a savage chief. She could not be called charit- 
 able, but pitiful to the bottom of her heart, and her tongue 
 was far more satirical than her heart." When she was at 
 Rawdon, with Mr. W. E. Forster, she went with him to a 
 public meeting at Bradford, when a young man of the people 
 got on the platform and addressed the audience with real 
 heart eloquence, and delighted Jane, who felt inclined to 
 embrace him on the spot. Suddenly she thought she would 
 give him her address instead. As soon as he saw it, his 
 delight knew no bounds. He acknowledged Carlyle as his 
 master; said he owed him everything for years. Jane con- 
 sidered the man a very creditable turn-out, and Mr. Forster 
 invited him to breakfast the next morning. Such acknow- 
 ledgments of Carlyle's usefulness impressed her much, and 
 made her conscious of a righteous pride in such a husband. 
 A very different affair to the London lionizing. 
 
 With the great intellectual movements of the day neither 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAELYLE. 829 
 
 Carlyle nor his wife had much sympathy. They were both far 
 more conservative than democratic. What Carlyle desired 
 was a silent, steady, sensible reform. With Darwinism, 
 Positivism, Evolution, Agnosticism, he would have nothing to 
 do. They were not so much indifferent as detestable to him. 
 On one occasion he met Darwin, Macaulay, and other dis- 
 tinguished people at dinner. He seems to have listened until 
 his patience was exhausted, when he began to speak himself, 
 as the most effectual means of silencing what he considered 
 their babble ; and he scarcely ceased until the party broke up, 
 the subject of his monologue being " Silence." Darwin thanked 
 him on its conclusion with some satire on his subject. Carlyle 
 would probably give a grim smile of satisfaction at his 
 own successful endeavours to shorten the scientific discussion. 
 To him such was all vain talk, and much sadder than 
 solitude. 
 
 He criticized Lyall's book as tending to prove 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 insolences of loquacious blockheadism entitling 
 itself science. Science was formerly a far different matter 
 from the melancholy maundering and idle looking into the 
 unknowable." Darwin declared that " Carlyle thought it a 
 most ridiculous thing that anyone should care whether a glacier 
 moved a little quicker or a little slower, or even if it moved 
 at all ; "as far as I can judge," he adds, "I never met a man 
 with a mind so ill-adapted for scientific research." Carlyle 
 considered that the welfare of mankind depended indeed much 
 more upon virtue than on "scientific discoveries." In all his 
 ideas he was Christian rather than secular; but he w^as singu- 
 larly and deplorably reticent concerning his religious beliefs. 
 
 "After all," exclaimed Darwin, one day, to Jane, "what 
 the deuce is Carlyle's religion? " She said she knew no more 
 than he did. That was her fault ; she so detested the subject. 
 Yet about this time she wrote a letter which called forth this 
 earnest reply — 
 
 " There is something in your note more welcome than any- 
 thing I have had yet, a sound of piety, of devout humiliation, 
 gentle hope and submission to the Highest, which affects me 
 much. Proud stoicism, you never failed in ; but there is 
 something beyond, of which I think you have hitherto had 
 too little. It softens the angry heart, and far from, weakening 
 
330 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 it, is the final strength of it, and nourishment of all real 
 strength." 
 
 It is a mere allusion to what to him was ever of paramount 
 importance, the very essence of his own life. He was afraid 
 to say too much, lest he should work harm instead of good. 
 His works are nearly all passionate appeals to man's hiofhest 
 nature, and display a positive faith in a revealed God, every- 
 where and in every man. 
 
 A great deal of the Christianity of the day tended to make 
 men weakly, self-indulgent, moral cowards, and idle ; teach- 
 ing them that Christ has done everything for them ; they are 
 quite safe if they could only believe that, while he felt in 
 himself an ever burning necessity, impelling him to work out 
 his own salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who 
 works in us, and if a man or woman is idle, it is plainly 
 evident that God is not in such a one, let him believe what 
 he may. " By their fruits ye shall know them," was Christ's 
 own teaching, and Carlyle believed Him, and by the labour of 
 a life proved that he did. " If I had my deserts," he cried, 
 nevertheless, " they would be Purgatory." He believed verily 
 that he was living in an age of shams — religious, social, and 
 political shams. He had evidences that he was, indisputable 
 evidences from the actions and the words of those who prac- 
 tised them. " And people were contented to go to perdition 
 in their own way." 
 
 Mr. Knighton at one time was a constant visitor at Cheyne 
 Kow at the time Mrs. Carlyle was an invalid. He found her 
 generally in a cap and shawl on the sofa, and Carlyle in a 
 long, gray dressing-gown. When he returned home from 
 these visits he would note down the topics of conversation and 
 what he could remember of the remarks made by his host. 
 One thing he noticed — Carlyle smarted under his wife's re- 
 proofs or criticisms, became impatient ; while he was gentle as 
 a lamb with Mrs. Knighton. His native chivalry always 
 made him courteous to ladies, but he dreaded what Jane 
 woull say next, if he gave her carte hlandie. She never 
 spared him, as far as she dared go. 
 
 They spoke of the Bible, and Carlyle said it was the most 
 beautiful, most sublime of books. Speaking of Thirlwall, his 
 former friend, he declared that it spoilt a man to be made a 
 bishop. Of the German stupids that had been imported into 
 England from the Continent, Prince Albert was the grand 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 331 
 
 exception, he said. He told a story of seven brothers who 
 
 were all condemned to purgatory but one. That one was the 
 
 possessor of an ugly dog. When he reached the Gates of 
 
 Paradise the solitary brother refused to enter unless his 
 
 brothers were also admitted ; he would rather suffer with 
 
 them. For his sake they were pardoned. Then the man 
 
 remembered his ugly dog, and could net bear to leave him 
 
 outside. He pleaded so earnestly for the poor brute that this 
 
 prayer was also heard, and they all passed through the gates 
 
 to the Celestial City. That story, Carlyle declared, contained 
 
 more pathos than can be found in a thousand modern novels. 
 
 It was enough to make a man sit down and cry. He had no 
 
 patience with mawkish sympathy with vice ; he considered it 
 
 the worst symptom of the age. In fact the human race was 
 
 "moving with accelerated velocity downward." We want a 
 
 superior race to be got somewhere and somehow, a race of 
 
 God-fearing, honest, sincere men. " If I were a preacher," he 
 
 said to Mr. Knighton, " I would tell people one Sunday what 
 
 they were to do, and the next I would inquire — ' Well, have 
 
 you done that 1 How much have you done yet ? None ! 
 
 Then go home and do it.' I would remind them once more, 
 
 giving them a little at a time, but not a step farther than I 
 
 thought right. What conceivable use is it going over a long 
 
 rigmarole, Sunday after Sunday, of the same thing that they 
 
 know well enough no one intends to practise, they themselves, 
 
 perhaps, least of all." 
 
 With such ideas it is no wonder he had no patience to sit 
 under any pulpit. He belonged to no sect, but he began to 
 see the usefulness of the Established Church more plainly 
 year by year. He had had, he confessed, a natural prejudice 
 against the sleek, trim, shovel-hatted parsons, and to the end 
 detested sacerdotalism, even more strongly than he loved Puri- 
 tanism. It seemed to him a kind of spiritual flunkeyism, a 
 kind of ushering men into the presence of God, as if they had 
 no right to approach Him alone, and on equal terms as the 
 priest himself. He would go his own way to heaven without 
 their aid, though he wished them well. His exact religious 
 views no one ever heard him express. 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury is credited with saying there is only one 
 true religion, and that is what no wise man ever tells to 
 another, and Carlyle seemed to think the same. We do not 
 agree with either of them on that point, and feel certain that 
 
332 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury, later in life, made no secret of his, if Car- 
 Ijle did, and even he was decided enough on one point, " that 
 the chief end of man was to glorify God and to enjoy Him for 
 ever." 
 
 Charles Kingsley writes — " Strange to say, Thomas Carlyle 
 now says that the Church of England is the most rational 
 thing he sees now going, and that it is the duty of every wise 
 man to support it to the uttermost." It is the deplorable 
 controversies, divisions, and internal miserable squabbles of 
 the Established Church that weaken her influence, and de- 
 bilitate her strength. If her members and ministers would 
 only consent to differ and remain as brethren, it would be 
 much to her advantage. Resting as she does on the Rock of 
 Ages, she must endure — however much she suffers — and she 
 will, till the end. 
 
 Carlyle said to some one that he detested Renan's Life of 
 Christ. AVhen asked, he allowed that such a life might be 
 written, but added, that to his ideas it would be wrong to do 
 it. If Carlyle did not believe in the divinity of Christ, why 
 should it be wrong to write His life ? That simple statement 
 is a proof that Carlyle believed that Christ was God, and he 
 worshipped Him in his heart as the Saviour, the Man of 
 Sorrows, and too much reverence could not be shown in 
 speaking or writing upon that Divine mystery. He could 
 not refrain from laughing at some one speaking of the 
 treachery of Judas Iscariot as " extraordinary conduct." He 
 was disgusted that every man thougld he could write, as that 
 was all the thinking they could do. To the many translators 
 of the Roman and Greek poets he would say, " I don't want 
 your silly poesy, I want to know what those men in their 
 wisdom thought and wrote, not what you in your folly think 
 or write." 
 
 Mr. Knighton one evening told Carlyle that the reviews and 
 magazines had been very busy with him. " Ay ! " exclaimed 
 Carlyle, " have they ? I never read them. I have the utmost 
 contempt and abhorrence of the literary canailles of the day 
 with their reviews, magazines, and Times newspaper. They 
 should try and understand me. Give me a God-fearing and 
 God-believing man ; he will understand me. The Reviewers 
 collect, refuse and then grope among it for novelties. The 
 work just befits them." 
 
 One day a parson sent him a most elaborate letter com- 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 333 
 
 mencing with reminders of his age, his nearness to the grave, 
 &c. Carlyle crushed it in his hand, and put it on the fire 
 without perusal. Indeed he had no time to bestow on the 
 gratuitous advice he had never solicited. He was quite 
 willing to be prayed for, which if the petitioner was in earnest 
 would be infinitely more to the purpose. 
 
 After Jane returned, her husband felt quite sanguine of her 
 restoration to health, and prophesied a brighter future than 
 any they had yet enjoyed. She was indeed in a happier mood 
 than she had been for years. The unconscious cause of so 
 much misery was removed; her husband's affections were 
 undivided with any living creature, and she had learnt to 
 value them more than she ever had done. There was a calm 
 at Cheyne Row — a calm unbroken by " demons." But when 
 any one spoke to Jane of some day being as strong as ever, 
 she would give a sweet but incredulous smile. 
 
 In January, 1865, Carlyle finished that unutterable book, 
 Frederick called the Great, and determined to have done with it 
 for ever. It was acknowledged one of the greatest monuments 
 of human pertinacity ever accomplished. Poor Carlyle came 
 to the bitter conclusion that it had been labour lost. But 
 people, nay nations, were loud in their praise. The Germans 
 had it translated at once ; to them it was a work that 
 increased their national pride, and their sharpest scrutiny 
 failed to detect any inaccuracies. To England it was a grand 
 addition to national literature, and they awarded to the 
 author, ungrudgingly, the title of "King of English Letters." 
 He was a marvellous literary portrait painter; never was 
 equalled in bringing the dead to actual life in the minds of 
 his readers. America granted him most extravagant adula- 
 tion ; Emerson and Ruskin declared it was the wittiest book 
 ever written. Of every character he seemed to pen a kind of 
 enthusiastic biography. Even now Ruskin asserts that the 
 book oftenest in his hand is Carlyle's Frederick the Great, and 
 avows that in his opinion, " in serious thought, his half-pages 
 are generally only worth about a single sentence of Tennyson's 
 or Carlyle's." 
 
 This enormous labour was now finally accomplished, to the 
 satisfaction of the reading world. Unfavourable criticisms 
 are difficult to find, and we prefer spending our time in other 
 research. When the first excitement was over, reaction — 
 inevitable reaction set in, and Carlyle became sick and gloomy. 
 
334 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Overvrhelming work gave place to idleness. He lived in a 
 chronic state of the two extremes. Leave home he must ; 
 idleness in Cheyne Row, with that noise-proof room overhead, 
 was simply intolerable. To Scotland once more, after a three 
 years' absence, he would wend his steps. Would his Jeannie 
 go with him 1 No ; his Jeannie preferred to take another 
 direction. Carlyle hard at work, and Carlyle bent on com- 
 pulsory idleness, was not restful. Jeannie was still weak and 
 feeble ; her right hand was quite useless, but she would not 
 disappoint him of his letters, she would learn to write with 
 her left hand. So he quitted London, and was soon with 
 sister Jane, who had procured " new pipes, new towels, new 
 potatoes, and a new sofa," all for his especial use, and what a 
 cordial reception so renowned and beloved a brother received 
 we can better imagine than describe. He took his own horse, 
 poor old Fritz's successor, with him, whom he had called 
 Noggs, and they went long rides together. Noggs was quite 
 unaccustomed to the sight of a train in rapid motion, and 
 insisted upon standing quite still to watch one pass, evincing 
 an almost equal amount of wonder and abhorrence as his 
 master at such an unnatural phenomenon. But the soughing 
 of the wind in the branches of the trees of an adjoining wood 
 hushed the minds of both the horse and his rider. He 
 received frequent little notes from his wife, and expressed 
 much admiration for the poor little left hand performances. 
 His own right hand trembled and shook, and he felt the 
 necessary physical changes of old age creeping over him, only 
 his heart had all the loving capabilities of perpetual youth. 
 Carlyle said once " that what people call love is confined to a 
 very few years of a man's life ; in fact, to a quite insignificant 
 fraction of it, and even then is but one thing to be attended 
 to among many infinitely more important things. The whole 
 course of love is such a beggarly futility, that in an heroic 
 age of the world nobody would be at the pains to think of it, 
 much less to open his mouth upon it." When he said this he 
 must have been in a painful transition state, for here at 
 seventy he declares that his heart has all the capacity for 
 loving as when a youth. Poor Carlyle ! it was at a very 
 unloved and unloving period of existence he wrote those 
 words. It is a shame to quote them, they are so entirely 
 foreign to the man, whose great passionate heart was for ever 
 craving for human sympathy. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 335 
 
 Jane resolved to go to her friends the Russells, but she 
 found that she did not derive any benefit from the change ; 
 she could not sleep, and that made her ill. So she hurried 
 back to her own little home, and Carlyle wrote — " Poor, 
 witch-hunted Goody ! was there ever such a chase of the 
 fiends?" He made many visits after leaving the Gill. He 
 w^ent to Scotsbrig, to Mr. Thomas Erskine at Linlathen, and 
 found Saint Thomas " grown more secular, eat more, drank 
 more, and took his ease. Wearied Sinner Thomas with his 
 new theological theories, who would have nothing to do with 
 the ill Nevertheless, Saint Thomas still has a fellow-feeling 
 with Sinner Thomas in many things, and loves his singleness 
 of heart and purpose more than he can express." Would it 
 were always so. The saints should first set the example of 
 loving the sinners, and perhaps they, like " Sinner Thomas," 
 would declare as he did, that " on the whole, I take up with 
 my old love for the saints. Of all the people I see, the best 
 class of all are the religious people, certain of whom have 
 taken, very strangely, a kind of affection to me, in spite of 
 my contradictions towards them." 
 
 Carlyle had his intense likes and dislikes, loves and hatreds, 
 affinities and antagonisms, yet he declared he could not hate 
 anyone, not " even the devil, with downright proper ortho- 
 doxy." On his return journey he denounced railway stations 
 as the liveliest emblems of Tartarus this earth affords ; in 
 which his friend Kuskin coincides. There was a pleasant 
 dinner-party that winter, at which Thomas Carlyle, his wife, 
 Froude, Spedding, Milne, and Kuskin were guests — quite a 
 mutual admiration concern. Ruskin was delighted with Jane, 
 and there was nothing in her manner or appearance to 
 indicate a coming disaster. 
 
 When Gladstone retired from office as Lord Rector of 
 Edinburgh, the students were clamorous for Carlyle to take 
 his place. They had once before offered it to him, but on 
 account of his work he had declined. Now he had no inclina- 
 tion, but no other excuse. His horror of any public display 
 was well known. But the young men were importunate, they 
 would take no denial ; they would even dispense with a 
 speech, if he would only come among them — he, the most 
 renowned of their countrymen. Carlyle yielded to their wish. 
 Hitherto all his Edinburgh experiences had been rather pain- 
 ful than pleasant ; this would be the fulfilment of his boyhood's 
 
836 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 dreams. This would be the crowning-point to prove to all 
 the croakers, that in choosing the poor mason's son, his 
 Jeannie had been right after all ; the man she had chosen was 
 not to be despised ; he had possessed a "' spirit worthy of the 
 maiden." 
 
 Loud were the congratulations on all sides when the fact 
 became known. The speech he felt he must not, would not 
 forego, in spite of the two thousand pairs of eyes to meet, in 
 spite of the excitement and botheration entailed. He would 
 tell the young men what he could to inspire them to walk 
 upward and heavenward. An opportunity was oiven to him 
 — a grand opportunity; God forbid he should let it slip 
 unheeded. 
 
337 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 Death — the unalterable, inexorable, stern separator 1 Eternity my 
 cue strong city. — Carlyle. 
 
 Those early spring months of 1866 were unusually happy. 
 The old piano which Jane had neglected for ten years past 
 was one evening retouched. An ever memorable occasion. 
 They had now both become fashionable, and dined late. On 
 entering the drawing-room, Jane insisted that her husband 
 should lie on the sofa, with the injunction that he must not 
 fall asleep, which was particularly bad for him. After a few 
 faint objections, he complied with her request. Presently, 
 without being asked, she went quietly to the piano, sat down 
 and played all his favourite old Scotch airs. He was delight- 
 fully surprised and cheered with the hope that she would soon 
 be completely herself. She made no reply to his remarks, 
 however, on that subject. When she had gone through all 
 she could remember, she once again closed the instrument, 
 and silently resumed her place near his side. 
 
 That little incident became a memorable event. He thought 
 a great deal of the coming " Inauguration." It was no slight 
 recognition of his merits to have succeeded Mr. Gladstone in 
 office, and triumphed over Mr. Disraeli. On such an occasion 
 a little honest pride on his part was excusable, as well as a 
 few nervous tremblings in anticipation of the coming ordeal. 
 
 His friends were all in joyful excitement, and foes, if he 
 really had any, were silent. Not a dissentient remark was heard, 
 only hearty congratulations, true and honest. The morning- 
 dawned for him to take his journey north. Professor Tyndall, 
 full of generous enthusiasm, arrived with a cab at Cheyne 
 Row to accompany him through the glorious but trying scene. 
 
 z 
 
338 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Jane dared not venture. Bat she thought of his comforts, and 
 knew what the excitement would cost him and her. If she 
 were not present, she would be no less a participator. She 
 went into the passage to see him off, gave him her own little 
 flask of brandy, bidding him take some in the Hall on the 
 auspicious occasion, and think of her. He kissed her once, 
 nervous and agitated, yet again he turned back and kissed 
 her once more ; then was hurried into the cab, and for the 
 last time she watched her tiresome, but now beloved genius, 
 vanish from her sight. 
 
 Surely we have cause to be thankful that the future is 
 veiled from ovir eyes ! On reaching Edinburgh he found him- 
 self in the bosom of his own family. There was his brother 
 John, whose rooms he shared once more. Sister Jane and 
 her husband James from Scotsbrig, &c. Alick, we believe, 
 had already gone to Canada. Their presence did much to 
 restore Carlyle's equilibrium. Yet he still felt what a blessed 
 thing it would be when it was all over. He passed a restless 
 night. The necessary public display of the honours bestowed 
 upon him were detestable to contemplate. The hour had 
 come, and Carlyle found himself arrayed in gorgeous robes of 
 office, the central object for two thousand eyes to gaze upon. 
 He was not in his element exactly, did not feel quite as 
 comfortable as he might, with grandees right and left of him. 
 Talking was not difficult to the " old man eloquent," but on 
 this occasion painful to begin. 
 
 The first thing necessary was to be rid of his unaccustomed 
 robes, which in his opinion were of no earthly use. Casting 
 them aside he felt considerably better, a plain old man with a 
 message to the thousand young men around him, who had 
 chosen him of all others to be their Rector ; he, who once was 
 as poor, as obscure, as unnoticed, as the humblest among 
 them. As he looked down upon their eager faces, his heart 
 glowed with many tumultuous emotions. All early days 
 were but as yesterday. His boyhood's entrance into that 
 city, his years of plodding industry, of suffering and penury, 
 his first sermon, his first friend, his mesalliance with a lady 
 bride, the forebodings of her friends, their contempt, and 
 finally his success, and this unquestionable vindication of his 
 wife's unerring judgment. 
 
 All these thoughts rushed upon him with momentary sad- 
 
THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 839 
 
 ness, scorn, and pride, but with gratitude undying to the 
 Great Giver of all good gifts, who now was crowning his old 
 age, and that of his wife, with glory and honour. In appear- 
 ance he was still healthy and robust. He had taken notes as 
 he had done when lecturing, but found them now, as then, 
 useless. Many had gone from England to Edinburgh to hear 
 him, and not one regretted the journey. He spoke for an 
 hour and a half with such glowing earnestness, such sparkling 
 wit, such fiery eloquence, that he touched the hearts of his 
 hearers in a way no other man could. Besides, they all felt 
 he was one of them. The expression of his face was most 
 variable. He looked as well as spoke all he felt of severity, 
 sarcasm, humour, and when he alluded to sacred subjects, his 
 face was lightened up with wonderful earnestness and beauty. 
 He touched upon his ow^n struggles in life, and then in 
 conscious pride at his own victories, he raised himself erect, 
 threw back his white hair from his massive forehead, bidding 
 them also bravely to fight the battle of life with steadfast 
 purpose, and resolute w^ill. In conclusion, he recited some 
 verses translated from Goethe, w^hen his eloquent gestures 
 and marvellous intonation reached their climax. He resumed 
 his seat amid vociferous and prolonged applause that almost 
 overpowered him. As soon as possible he hurried away to his 
 brother's room, followed by crowds of young students, cheering 
 continuously, and eagerly longing to shake hands with him, as 
 he hurried away from the glorification. He was much moved 
 by their evident sincere appreciation of his '' bit merits," 
 though he considered they were wildly overdone, that nothing 
 he had ever accomplished deserved so much applause. He 
 scarcely knew what to do. All these enthusiastic young 
 admirers were unknown to him, yet to each one in a measure 
 he felt grateful, almost affectionate. On reaching his brother's 
 rooms he turned round and faced them, waving his hands in fare- 
 well. Seeing that they were oppressing him somewhat with 
 their excessive demonstrations, they desisted, their hearts still 
 glowing with enthusiastic reverence for their venerable 
 '' Rector," whom they now had seen and heard, and would 
 remember for all time. He entered the house to be met by 
 the congratulations of his own family. Indeed, wherever he 
 went for a time, what else could he expect 1 
 
 Professor Tyndall telegraphed immediately to Mrs. Carlyle 
 
 z 2 
 
840 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 the simple words — " A perfect triumph." She, poor thing, had 
 been imagining terrible disasters, among them that Carlyle had 
 made a most extravagant speech, had become fearfully excited 
 and fallen down dead. Oh the relief that telegram brought 
 with it, and wildest excitement. The servants exulted, Masrofie 
 Welsh clapped her hands, and Mrs. Carlyle went off into a 
 violent fit of hysterics. A beneficial fit, recovering from 
 which, the laughter and tears both subsided, and she drove 
 away in her brougham to spread the delightful news. 
 
 Carlyle wrote, " All is finished, infinitely better than I 
 expected. You never saw such a tempest of enthusiastic 
 excitation among the students. Never in the world was I 
 in such a scene ! " In the cool twilight he walked about the 
 old familiar city streets with Brother John and St. Thomas 
 Erskine ; felt in an element resembling the fiery furnace, 
 literally half-killed with kindness, and invitations to dine, dine, 
 dine ! Jeannie wrote to him that if ever he got into such 
 a mess again she would never forgive him — ^never. He meant 
 to return to Chelsea directly, but was tempted to spend a few 
 peaceful days in Annandale, " to recover his wits." There he 
 unfortunately sprained his ankle and was unavoidably detained 
 a little longer. As soon as he was able he wrote to his wife 
 to send her next letter to Dumfries, whither he would stay a 
 night or two with sister Jean on his way home. 
 
 Once more he wrote complaining of her silence. He had 
 been dreaming that she was in desperate bad circumstances, 
 and started up at the painful thought, exclaiming, " That is 
 the meaning of her silence then ! " In her last letter to him 
 she had informed him of a grand party she intended giving 
 on Saturday evening, April 21st, in honour of his honours, 
 and would get it all over before he came back, that he might 
 escape the botheration of it. In reply he humorously 
 alluded to the grand party ''unexampled in Modern History." 
 She never saw this letter ; when it arrived at Cheyne Kow, 
 her circumstances, we trust, had vastly improved. She had 
 changed this world of shadows for life immortal. "Anxiety 
 had tattered her to fiddlestrings." She had declared visitors 
 and congratulations had been incessant ; she enjoyed them. 
 To listen to her husband's praises never piqued her now, and 
 his beautiful address was on every lip. Saturday arrived — 
 the day of the grand party of distinguished scientific and 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 341 
 
 literary characters. Their chivalrous, generous-hearted friend, 
 Professor Tyndall, had returned from Edinburgh, and had 
 given Jeannie a graphic account of the whole scene. lie was 
 to be one of the party, also Geraldine Jewsbury, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Froude, Mrs. Oliphant, Mr. and Mrs. J. Forster, Spottiswoode, 
 and others. Mrs. Carlyle determined to take her accustomed 
 drive in Hyde Park, taking with her a new little dog, that 
 she had to replace the irreparable Nero, who lay in his last 
 sleep under a stone in the back garden. She thought a run 
 would do the dog good, so let liim out of the carriage, while 
 the coachman drove slowly on. A few moments later, some 
 lady drove over the dog's paw, and he made a terrific yell, as 
 dogs invariably do when hurt. Mrs. Carlyle in great alarm, 
 jumped out of the carriage and hastened to the rescue. She 
 took the howling little creature tenderly in her arms, her last 
 act an endeavour to soothe. She re-entered the carriage, and 
 the coachman proceeded on his route. He drove on and on, 
 backwards and forAv^ards, looked in the carriage, and saw his 
 mistress tenderly nursing the dog, with its injured paw in her 
 hand. Again he drove on, expecting further orders. None 
 came, however. Once more he looked in. Mrs. Carlyle was 
 in precisely the same attitude. Terror ; a horrible dread 
 seized the man. He asked a lady to look inside. She did so, 
 and horrified told him her fears ; others came and pronounced 
 her to be dead. The poor fellow was bidden to drive on to 
 St. George's Hospital. He did so, and then hurried off with 
 the sad intelligence to Mr. Froude, that something had 
 happened to Mrs. Carlyle. Intuitively her friend felt what 
 it was, and hastened to Geraldine, whom he found ready for 
 the party. She hastily threw on a shawl, and they drove at 
 once to the hospital. Their fears were only too true. Their 
 beloved friend lay beautifuUy dressed, her bonnet still un- 
 removed, on a hospital bed — dead — quite dead ; all the 
 brilliant mockery of expression vanished, and with it the 
 lines of pain that of late years had contracted her forehead. 
 Death had smoothed away every wrinkle of sorrow and of 
 mirth. The magnificent brow was spread out to its full 
 breadth, and the whole face wore a solemn majesty of ex- 
 pression in life unseen. Geraldine looked on that beloved 
 face with speechless grief. When John Forster arrived he 
 was almost distracted, and Mr. Blunt, the Pvector of Chelsea, 
 scarcely less agitated. 
 
342 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 What could be done 1 How let Carlyle know 1 How spare 
 him the agony of an inquest, which they believed would kill 
 him? Mr. Forster determined to use all his influence, and 
 Dr. Quain, who had attended her for long, would be able to 
 certify the cause of death. 
 
 The body was removed to Cheyne Row, the blinds were all 
 lowered, when a certain Mrs. Warren went to a closet and 
 brought therefrom two long wax candles, which she lit and 
 placed in candlesticks at the foot of the bed. This she did 
 according to orders received from Mrs. Carlyle herself. For 
 thirty years these two wax candles had been carefully laid 
 aside for this solemn occasion. They were the identical 
 candles she had so hastily extinguished and carried away, to 
 her mother's annoyance, on the occasion of their almost first 
 distinguished gathering at Chelsea. Repenting of her rash 
 impatience, she made the pathetic resolution that they should 
 never illumine any other than her own death scene. When 
 expecting every hour to be her last, she disclosed her wishes 
 respecting them to Mrs. Warren, and obtained the pro- 
 mise that it should be as she des'red. When Mrs. Carlyle 
 appeared to have received a renewed lease of life, the good 
 woman would imagine that another hand than hers might 
 fulfil that dying wish. 
 
 Meantime, Carlyle had been wandering about the green 
 solitudes, quietly thinking of her brilliant assembly at Cheyne 
 Row. He was not sad nor happy, but had no forebodings of 
 the coming heartrending grief awaiting him. 
 
 On returning home to Sister Jean's hearth, he sat quietly 
 contemplating, when two telegrams followed each other in 
 quick succession. How he received the news we are not told, 
 but it stunned him. It almost turned him to stone. It 
 seemed too awful to realize. His little Jeannie who now 
 loved him, trusted him, clung to him, was snatched away for 
 ever — for ever. Oh ! how could he endure life bereft of all his 
 dear ones ! peeled bare of every comfort ! Tears would not 
 come to relieve him. His friends were alarmed for him as 
 they watched the dry agony of those deep-set eyes. Where 
 was she 1 Of his mother he never dreamt of asking such a 
 question. If there were a future existence, she had so 
 thoroughly prepared for it that for her there was no doubt. 
 But his wife — " Oh ! may God have mercy on me, on her 
 and on all such," he cries from the depth of his breaking 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 343 
 
 heart. Heaven without her could be no heaven, he felt. 
 He wandered about the now emptied earth all through that 
 Sabbath silence, almost speechless, and quite tearless. Early 
 on Monday morning he and John set off for London. When 
 they arrived at Cheyne Row, the windows were all darkened, 
 and his wife, all that remained of her, was sleeping calmly in 
 her new narrow bed, not closed yet from sight. Once more 
 he saw that calm motionless frame, and pronounced her 
 " lovely in death." Oh the awful stillness, the gloomy 
 atmosphere of that so lately bright little home ! Grim 
 death had entered and claimed his own. Why, why was 
 he left, left so long to mourn over all his beloved ones 1 
 Everybody was kind and helpful, but utterly powerless to 
 comfort. 
 
 The next day he wandered with Mr. Eroude all over the 
 neighbourhood where she had been last, standing with his 
 white head bared to the wind in reverent, heartrending sorrow, 
 with every remembered hasty w:ord or deed magnified into 
 unpardonable faults, and remorsefully mourned over. Oh 
 that we could always treat our loved ones, so that if death 
 should suddenly snatch them from us, as in this case, we 
 could remember nothing but tender words and loving deeds, 
 without one shade of regret for a vanished past ! 
 
 On Wednesday, that precious burden was escorted by the 
 bereaved husband and sorrowing friends to Haddington, there 
 to repose in the grave of her father, according to a promise 
 made forty years back. On arriving at Haddington, Carlyle 
 wildly longed to escape from the boundless sympathy and 
 pity of all who had known her. Every tender allusion simply 
 distracted him. Indeed, at such times, any words are out of 
 season. They do but stab afresh the breaking heart. In the 
 evening he wandered out with some friend, with whom he 
 scarcely exchanged a word, out among the old familiar haunts. 
 He gazed up at the window, where with Edward Irving he 
 had hrst seen that graceful girlish figure. He recalled the 
 sad expression her face wore even then, so early inured to 
 sorrow, for she had just lost the beloved father with whom 
 she was now to rest, and Irving's brightest and best-loved 
 scholar is once more with him beyond the grave. The long 
 weary fight, so heroically endured, so frequently triumphed 
 over, is all ended now. He still left to linger on. That was 
 the hardship. That night he lay throughout wide awake. 
 
844 THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 alive only to the sad voices of the irrevocable Past ; " silent 
 in the great Silence." 
 
 Thursday, April 26th, was the day of the funeral. At 
 1 p.m. the small solemn procession, consisting of Carlyle, a 
 dozen friends, and two volunteers, wound its way to the old 
 churchyard which poor Jeannie had visited so romantically a 
 few years back, and in the nave of the old Abbey Kirk they 
 left her. 
 
 " Darling, darling ! " cried the sorrow-stricken heart. " And 
 in a little while we shall both be at rest, and the Great God 
 will have done with us what was His will ! " 
 
 *'Do you intend a kindness to thy beloved one?" he says, 
 "do it straightway, while the fateful future is not here. 
 Has thy heart's friend carelessly or cruelly stabbed thee into 
 thy heart ? Oh forgive him ! Think how when thou art dead 
 he will punish himself ! " 
 
 His own passionate expressions of remorse in no way 
 exaggerated his real feelings. Nothing can be more pungent 
 than recollection of what in life seem mere trivialities, if those 
 whom we so carelessly pained are suddenly called away, and 
 can never more pardon or hear us. At the same time, this 
 feeling, like all others, is measured by the heart capacity of 
 the individual. With Carlyle every mental emotion was in- 
 tense. Joy, sorrow, hope, despair, remorse and gratitude, anti- 
 pathies and affinities. This record of his faults which he himself 
 designed that the public should know, if they were to know 
 anything about him, seems to us to be the most eloquently 
 expressed testimony of his greatness and goodness. He sought 
 for the worst to be written of him, say, that could be written, 
 and of her the best. None ever shone with nobler virtues 
 than Carlyle, and it is utterly out of the power of mortal to 
 accuse him of graver faults than those which are committed 
 daily and hourly by frailer human beings, almost unconsciously. 
 He was not purely intellectual, but intensely human. We 
 love him for his weaknesses ; his gigantic mental powers raise 
 him so far above us, that but for them, we could scarcely love 
 him as a brother man. His tenderness, enthusiasm, indigna- 
 tion, and irritation, warm our hearts towards him and prove 
 us kin. Like St. Paul, he may call himself the " Chief of 
 Sinners." But he was much nearer a, saint than many who 
 are believed such. His self-aspersions contradict his and her 
 own narrative, and do but add to the lustre such a life sheds 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CAKLYLE. 345 
 
 even on our humble pathways. The very strength of his 
 nature made consolation impossible in his great grief. His 
 life now seemed scarcely w^orth a wish or a prayer. He had 
 climbed the mountain top of life. At the foot he was sad, 
 but not utterly lonely ; now, at the summit, he had lost all, 
 and stood solitary and heart-broken, unwilliDg to descend to 
 the world beneath, unable to soar where they had gone. 
 With Jeremiah he cried, " Woe is me now ! for the Lord has 
 added grief to my sorrow. I fainted in my sighing, and I 
 find no rest." 
 
346 
 
 CHAPTEE XLIY. 
 
 The need of the human heart for uttermost union — oneness with life 
 in another. This, amid tlie meannesses, the basenesses of the vast 
 majorit}^ of mankind, this is that haven, which so many long for — 
 so few attain. — Carlyle. 
 
 On returning to Chelsea, his old home seemed as if struck with 
 lightning, all his life's joys blasted and shattered to ruins. 
 A leaden weight pressed him down, varied only by sharp 
 poignant memories of the irretrievable. He wandered about 
 from room to room, refused to see anybody, or to have any- 
 thing of hers removed out of his sight. Ghastly thoughts of 
 ever losing her had so rarely assailed him. He had vainly 
 imagined that being the elder he would go first. In the midst 
 of his grief he remembered poor old Betty, whose distress 
 almost equalled his own. He wrote to Mr. Erskine, thanking 
 him for having visited her, and entreating him to go again. 
 He could endure no intrusions, however kindly meant ; they 
 were utterly powerless to console. God alone could do that; 
 of Him he could and did take counsel, and comfort. He 
 gradually became less unutterably miserable ; noble, tender, 
 solemn thoughts of the heroic life now ended so beautifully, 
 made his own death stand solemnly consolatory as a future 
 deliverance from the burdens of the flesh. Over and over 
 again he reiterates, " May God's will be done for ever and 
 ever." He could still write, and composed the beautiful 
 epitaph engraved on his wife's tombstone, as it came from his 
 very heart. He had scarcely returned from Scotland when 
 the following letter was received from Dr. Carlyle, who had 
 accompanied him. It was from Lady Augusta Stanley. 
 
THE STOllY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 347 
 
 "OsBOENE, April ZO, 1866. 
 ^' Dear Dr. Carlyle, 
 
 " I was here when the news of the terrible calamity 
 with which your brother has been visited 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 has 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. C. the expression of these feelings, 
 and the assurance of her sorrowful understandins^ of a grief 
 which she herself, alas ! knows too well. It was with heartfelt 
 interest the Queen heard yesterday that Mr. Carlyle had been 
 able to make the effort to return to his desolate home, and 
 that you are with him." 
 
 As far as it was possible for Carlyle to be susceptible of any 
 feeling of gratification, this sympathy of the bereaved widow, 
 rather than of his sovereign, gave such comfort. He was 
 personally unknown to Her Majesty, in whom he had ever 
 taken the warmest interest. He replied thus ; 
 
 " Dear Lady Augusta, 
 
 " The gracious mark of Her Majesty's sympathy 
 touches me with many feelings, sad, yet beautiful and high. 
 Will you, in the proper manner, express to Her JMajesty my 
 profound sense of her great goodness to me, in this day of my 
 calamity. I can write to nobody. It is best for me at present, 
 when I do not even speak to anybody. 
 
 " Believe me, yours with many thanks, 
 
 "T. Carlyle." 
 
 The first week in May he sent for Mr. Froude, whom he had 
 not seen since he returned from Haddington. Mr. Froude 
 found him terribly altered — seemed to be turned to stone. 
 After that they recommenced their long walks together ; such 
 a companion was a boon indeed to the desolate philosopher. 
 To Mr. Froude he would open his heart, speak of his unquench- 
 able hope of immortality, and persisted invariably in wending 
 his way to the spot she had last seen. On one occasion, he 
 alluded to the "many mansions," and said, "If God, Christ 
 had a right to say so, but if only man, had no more right than 
 he himself," itc. 
 
348 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Mr. Froude was in a fog himself on the subject, and some- 
 times Carlyle was assailed with doubts, it appears, which Mr. 
 Froude in no way enlightened, but rather tended to thicken 
 the mist. It seems to us that Christ must have been indeed 
 God or the greatest impostor the world ever produced. Car- 
 lyle and Mr. Froude must sometimes have come to the same 
 conclusion. The assumptions of Christ make it indisputable. 
 And who could imagine such a life, such a death, that of an 
 impostor ! Which was He 1 Oh the immense importance of 
 the answer ! Unfortunately, Carlyle and his brother John 
 agreed best when separated. It was not the " nature of the 
 two hearts " to live amicably in too close companionship, so 
 John returned to Scotland and Carlyle was left solitary. As 
 soon as this was noised abroad, other friends drew near ; lady 
 friends with gentler influences, soft voices, tender words, 
 soothing and comforting. These were especially Miss Bromley, 
 of Ripple Court, and the Lady Ashburton, both friends of 
 he7's too, making them doubly welcome. Miss Bromley was 
 first successful in carrying him off to her beiutiful home in 
 Kent, out of the dreary sadness of Chelsea. There he had 
 been spending long lonely hours in sorting out his wife's 
 letters and tjdng them in bundles. He enjoyed the change 
 of scene ; the country was mournfully welcome after the 
 desolate streets. A dinner party became inevitable. He sub- 
 mitted to fate, but it completely upset him. He could not 
 sleep all through the night. Sat up reading for hours, 
 occasionally sobbing, " Oh my lost one, my lost one ! irrevocable 
 to my lonely heart for ever ! " 
 
 Miss Bromley had showered beautiful hospitality and kind- 
 ness upon him, her sympathy, he declared, was beyond all 
 praise, but he was again in Hades. The dinner had increased 
 his sufferings, though Hades was within and not without that 
 desolate heart. He returned to his own lonely dwelling', and 
 then began languidly writing his Reminiscences. He did not 
 encourage visitors, only allowiug Mr. Froude and Ruskin to 
 visit him whenever they liked. Thus he passed the summer 
 and autumn of that sad eventful year. When the dull winter 
 months drew on apace he was tempted to try a brighter 
 climate. Lady Ashburton was at Mentone and wrote letters 
 of entreaty for him to join her there, and he decided he would 
 go. Professor Tyndall was as anxious for him to take this 
 journey as was Lady Ashburton, and most generously volun- 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 349 
 
 teered to accompany him, which he did, nobly defraying all 
 the expenses. Being somewhat of a hero worshipper himself, 
 he would feel it a per.-onal honour to do any kind act for such 
 a man, who called him friend. Heroes only love the heroic. 
 "We can say no more. So when Christmas Day dawned, instead 
 of frost and snow, or fog and mist, Carlyle saw a bright 
 summer's sun in the clear blue of heaven's immensity. His 
 journal teems with marvellous landscape scenery, amidst olive 
 groves, palm trees, orange woods, wild silent ravines, lofty 
 mountains, up the rugged paths of which he would go some- 
 times on a donkey's back, with his generous hostess as com- 
 panion ; sometimes alone, imagining in the solitude that he 
 could hear the voices of his lost ones, calling to him, " Hither, 
 friend — hither. Thou art still dear to us. We bid thee to hope ! " 
 
 The sun, moon, and sky were a ceaseless surprise by their 
 incredible brilliancy, while the atmosphere was marvellously 
 elastic, dry, and hot, yet pure and bracing. In that beautiful 
 neighbourhood he spent the winter, charmed and grateful to 
 his noble hostess for her " wildly generous hospitality." 
 Indeed he had found " noble exceptions among the green-eyed 
 greedy millions." 
 
 When our English winter had passed, and spring approached, 
 he wanted to return to Chelsea. It was his determination to 
 spend every anniversary of his wife's death where he could 
 visit the spot upon which her eyes had last rested. In vain 
 Lady Ashburton implored him to accompany her to Rome and 
 Naples. To London he would go and to London he went, first 
 writing to his brother John to forgive his past irritability and 
 impatience, and meet him there, that he may see his familiar 
 face, instead of a " dead blank " on his arrival, John responded 
 heartily to the invitation and awaited him, all disagreements 
 forgotten and forgiven by those two great hearts, which 
 could contain nothing ignoble but momentarily. Here Car- 
 lyle soon found himself besieged by well intentioned as well 
 as selfish intruders, who could not understand the value 
 of "an old man's leisure." These he felt he must some- 
 how manage to sweep away. The calls were so incessant, 
 intolerable. He was like a magnet, drawing to him every 
 one who had a wish or desire unsatisfied. And he felt him- 
 self so often utterly powerless to help by word or deed. One 
 man asked his advice for being born hideous ! Poor Carlyle ! 
 He could never be other than pitiable to the miserable, and 
 
350 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 they indeed seemed to know it. Mr. Fronde fonnd a young 
 girl with glowing eyes gazing np at the sage's window one day. 
 " Does Mr. Carlyle live there 1 " she inquired. On being 
 answered in the affirmative, her face lightened np with the 
 enthusiasm of a pilgrim at the shrine of a saint. Another 
 servant girl wrote to Carlyle that she had actually pawned 
 her mistress's property in order to buy books, and was afraid 
 of being found out and imprisoned. Carlyle made inquiries, 
 found it was true, and at once, with counsel as of a father, 
 gave her money to save her from shame. But he was terribly 
 worried, and after all was wonderfully patient. He could not 
 write, felt idle, companionless, and ofttimes sick, understanding 
 human beings weakly invocating saints, yet himself not doing so. 
 About this time he drew up a deed by which Craigenputtock 
 became the property of the University of Edinburgh, the rest 
 of it to be laid out in supporting poor and meritorious students, 
 under the title of the "John Welsh Bursaries." He could not 
 leave it in his wife's name, as she had taken his, so he left it 
 in her father's. 
 
 Every time her birthday came round, he sent a gift to old 
 Betty, who mourned his wife with a " life-long love and a 
 sacred sorrow." To a poor old beggar man, to whom she 
 would give a shilling every time she met him in Chelsea, 
 he also sent an anonymous dole. His own charities were a far 
 longer list than hers. He was only too happy to have the 
 means at last of relieving distress, but all privately ; he 
 took care not to let the world know what he did. He lived 
 in an age of progress, which did not agree with him at all — that 
 unfortunate ''skin being far too thin." "Statesmen, philo- 
 sophers, theologians, all swimming with the stream, careless 
 of truth except to their own advantage. Christianity and 
 political economy clashing one against the other, one saying 
 money is the root of all evil — the other that the want of it 
 is the root of all evil." 
 
 The modern world, moreover, thought and taught that the 
 salvation of man was in Universal Suffrage, when each could 
 look after his own ends. " He found even the Tories pre- 
 paring to outbid their rivals in their own arts and their own 
 folly, courting the votes of the mob, by the longest plunge 
 yet ventured into the democratic pool." " There was a visible 
 growing contempt for titles, aristocratic or other, a visible 
 decay of respect and reverence for whatever is above one's 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 351 
 
 own paltry self, up and up to Almighty God Himself even, if 
 you will look well, which is a more frightful kind of progress 
 for you." Indeed, man would abolish God altogether from 
 their own poor bewildered hearts. But Carlyle was convinced 
 " that the Fool, and the Fool only, and nobody else, says that 
 there is no God, and with dismal results too." 
 
 Science itself seeks to eclipse God, and tries fruitlessly 
 to fathom the mysteries of this dark impenetrable world. 
 Scripture gives man a place a little lower than the angels. 
 Science would assign him a place only so much higher than 
 an ape, and yet give him the right to read omniscience. In 
 '67 he wrote a pamphlet called Shooting Niagara, and this 
 was his last public utterance on English politics. He himself 
 called it very "fierce, exaggerative, rugged, unkempt, de- 
 fective," but it was the last word the " howlinof dos^oreries " 
 would have from him — his last effort to avert " Universal 
 wreck." 
 
 Now a new edition of his works occupied mercifully both 
 his time and attention. Maggie Welsh was his present com- 
 panion, and did her best to help and cheer him. He took to 
 riding again, Miss Bromley having presented him with a fresh 
 horse, to which he gave the name " Comet." He became the 
 " most silent man, not locked into the solitary system." 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant paid him a visit not long after his wife's 
 lamented death, scarcely with the hope of condoling or even of 
 showing sympathy — of that he was assured in every friend 
 who knew them both so well — but for the sake of seeing the 
 man she esteemed so highly, and pitied so sincerely. She 
 describes how mournfully sad was the now faded drawing- 
 room in which its late mistress ever took so unfailing an 
 interest — how different its aspect, the widowed master sitting 
 alone in an unaccustomed place in the centre, as though for 
 ever unable to bear his wonted seat, without a sight of that lost 
 figure on that little couch. His occasional short laughs were 
 as pathetic as tears and sobs in another. With bitter wrath 
 he spoke of the " little vermin of a dogue " which he said was 
 not even her own, but borrowed, and which was the innocent 
 cause of her death. What littlenesses, what haphazard chances 
 seem to be employed by Providence, to bring about mighty 
 events. He constantly dwelt upon the mysterious workings 
 of a special Providence, not only in preparing instrumental men 
 to carry out the Divine will, but instrumental means, which 
 
352 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 appear to our blinded sight mere trifles. Mrs. Oliphant 
 wanted him to pay a visit to the Eton Boys, but he felt 
 unequal to the exertion, although he took a lively interest 
 in the young. He began quoting the Scotch version of the 
 90th Psalm ; his memory failed him, and Mrs. Oliphant was 
 unable to help him out of the difliculty. " It is a mother I 
 want ! " he exclaimed, with one of his peculiarly pathetic, 
 short laughs. Yes, indeed ! a pious mother to help to guide 
 his feet once more into the ways of j)e£ice, a praying, loving, 
 Bible-reading mother, to cheer him through the dark valley. 
 Some American author says, " God would not be everywhere, 
 therefore he made mothers." A peculiar thought, but has 
 something in it too. 
 
 His brother James paid him a visit, and was gladly 
 welcomed. He was quite a stranger to London ; had seen 
 none of the sights, but had come with the sole object of 
 cheering his desolate brother — and right glad was " their 
 Tom " to see him. He reminded him more of his revered 
 father than any of the others, having been brought up in his 
 faith and under his tuition. He was a simple rustic farmer, 
 faithfully doing his daily allotted task in the fear of God. 
 Possibly Thomas Carlyle envied this brother's simplicity, as we 
 know he loved him for it, and joined in his cheerful broad 
 Scotch brogue with more pleasure than in the small talk of 
 the highest circles. 
 
 When seventy-two, he wrote in his journal that " length of 
 days were not to be coveted but deprecated. My lost bright 
 one, all my bright ones, are away, away ! " An unfathomable 
 lake of sorrow lay beneath him. He went a week into the 
 country, but it took him " twice as long to recover from the 
 effects of country air and other salubrities." He was no 
 longer fit for visiting or valetting, talking or dining. All 
 had become unmanageable and unbearable, but out of grateful 
 acknowledgment of boundless kindness acceptance was some- 
 times unavoidable. Youth to him had been no garland of roses, 
 nor was age composed entirely of a crown of thorns. He 
 acknowledged many mercies left. Everyone sought to do him 
 honour ; he had innumerable devoted friends, to whom, on 
 former occasions, he had begged to be remembered, declaring 
 that " he loved them all a great deal better than any one 
 supposed, from his grim ways." 
 
 A lion entertainment was given by the Dean of West- 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 853 
 
 minster, to vrhich Carlyle was persuaded to go. There he met 
 Princess Helena and her Prince Christian. He calls her " an 
 innocent little Princess, with a little flash of pretty pride, 
 only one, when she shook her bit of train right, raised her 
 pretty head, and sailed out. A Princess born you know. 
 Looked really well, the exotic little soul ! " 
 
 April, '68, Carlyle paid a last visit to the Grange, with 
 curiously mixed feelings. Lord ISTorthbrook had invited him 
 to his seat in the neighbourhood of those old familiar haunts, 
 and he could not withstand the inclination to revisit those 
 ever memorable scenes. On Sunday he accompanied his host 
 and Lord S. G. Osborue to the church he used to attend when 
 staying with the Ashburtons. It was now in a highly restored 
 condition, everything about it made bright and beautiful 
 by the munificence of the now Dowager Lady. Carlyle sat 
 in silence, looking and remembering. Surely there was much, 
 much to remember. Now all was a dream, of what once was 
 £0 real. How strange it all seemed to him ; like looking on a 
 world all dead and gone, and he alone left to mourn ! As he 
 rode across the country, pensive, sombre, serious thoughts he 
 had crowding upon him, painfully sorrowful, not unmixed 
 with infinite tenderness, sweet memories as well as bitter, 
 and with a conviction that it was the last time ! The im- 
 pressions were doubtless melancholy, but his companions 
 were most interesting. He was quite struck with Lord S. G. 
 O., of letters renowned ; found him highly gifted and amusing, 
 actually glad to have made a new acquaintance. 
 
 He still went annually to his beloved Scotland, for he was 
 never so happy as with his own kindred. He seems to have 
 suffered much from Heinnach ; to have had an intense love of 
 his own country. Carlyle considered that local attachments 
 distinguished man from apes, and was the root of all true 
 patriotism, valour, civilization. By local attachments he must 
 have meant love of country rather than of dwellings, this 
 last being a distinguishing characteristic of many inferior 
 domestic animals as well as of man, and was one of Carlyle's 
 strongest phrenological organs. Adhesiveness and reverence 
 were those largest developed, and helped to make him what 
 he was — strong in human love of creatures and place, strong 
 and constant, proving that death and the grave are weak in 
 comparison. His afi:"ections were heightened and deepened by 
 his love of God, the Supreme Good. 
 
 A A 
 
354 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE; 
 
 He continued to suffer from constant, poignant, but utterly 
 impotent sorrow, go where he might. " God alone knows our 
 destiny," he wrote, " His mercies be upon us ! What a natural 
 human aspiration ! " Certainly, quite human, and we are 
 thankful he was not above such. For pedestalled or unpedes- 
 talled he was but a man, a miserable sinner, and without 
 God's mercy could expect no brighter destiny. 
 
 Like the poor publican, Carlyle's aspirations at his highest 
 moments amounted to no more or less than " God be merciful 
 to me a sinner ! " 
 
 " To know but this, that Thou art Good, 
 And that myself am blind." 
 
855 
 
 CHAPTER XLY. 
 
 Time was, Time is, and withal Time will be. There are three 
 tenses or Times ; and there is one Eternity, and as for us — 
 
 " We are such stuff as Dreams are made of ! " 
 
 Carlyle, Past and Present. 
 
 Ix 1869 Carlyle received an intimation from the Dean of 
 Westminster that no less exalted a person than Her Gracious 
 Majesty the Queen desired to become personally acquainted 
 with so renowned a scholar. 
 
 This was a noble distinction indeed, but he groaned in 
 anguish that Jane, whose delight nothing could have exceeded, 
 could not rejoice thereat. It was the climax of all his efforts 
 for her sake, and she was gone where earthly ambitions are 
 no more. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, 
 and the mutual woe cf the sovereign and the weary philosopher 
 made a sad bond of sympathy between them. It must have 
 been a touching scene, that meeting — the widowed Queen, with 
 the thoughts of her own irreparable loss, holding out in 
 sweetest condescension her Cjueenly hand to the no less 
 sorrowful old man, peasant born, but a glory to his country 
 by his own mighty brain efforts. 
 
 That interview was ever remembered by the toil-worn sage, 
 and can never be forgotten by the most sympathetic, loving- 
 hearted woman in her own realms — our beloved Lady, Queen 
 Victoria. " She was so good, so gracious to him," said Carlyle. 
 That his wife could not participate in such a gracious mark of 
 her condescension was his only regret. On his seventy-fourth 
 birthday he wrote — " 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." "When Mr. Erskine died 
 
 A A 2 
 
,M> 
 
 G THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 lie wrote — " My life now has nothing in it but the shadow ; sad, 
 grand, nnfatlioniable of what is coining — coining." 
 
 "What he called the Gospel of Dirt was now spreadin'X. He 
 was pestered with tracts and pamphlets innumerable on 
 scientific and atlieistic subjects, all of which horrified and 
 disgusted hiin. What an idea to revel in, that man is only a 
 higlily improved ape ! What miserable conception of i he origin 
 of man ! If it is so, wliere ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be 
 wise. How much nobler the iJible's revelation of human origin 
 — that God breathed into man the breath of lif , and he became 
 a living soul, made in the image of his Almighty Creator. 
 
 No, neither Atheism nor Evolution wetted even the soles 
 of Carlyle's feet. And " how would the world get on when 
 Christianity was abolished. Only * figure the residuum.* 
 Unless men returned to a firm, unfaltering faitli in God, they 
 must sink to hell and death eternal." Of that Carlyle had 
 not the slightest doubt. With the dial)olic school of the 
 French, Cnuptism, &c., he had no patience, all atheistic ten- 
 dencies seemed to him the products of stupid cracked men ; he 
 felt a veriiabli! pain nnd loathing pity for the grand hallelujahs 
 so often expressed at the advent of atheism ; likened it to the 
 " shout of the hyena should he find the whole world carrion." 
 
 But he was becoming much (piieter in tone generally, 
 except an occasional outburst, when he would invariably 
 express contrition for his explosion. He seemed to live in the 
 shadow of the great Hereafter; was somewhat morbid. Such 
 utter s )litude naturally tended to make him more so. His 
 right hand was now quite powerless, and whatever he wrote 
 more ho (lictat(>d to his niece, Mary Aitkin. This method of 
 transmitting his thoughts was very trying to him. He found 
 the very presence of another, however silent, an obstacle to 
 thinking out any subject at all to his own satisfacdicm ; but he 
 hated living without producing something. However weak 
 the effort, it must be made. The Norse Kings was written and 
 completed by dictation, and this book is his very last work. 
 Visits to Addiscombe recommenced when Lady Ashburton 
 returned from the Continent. She was unwearied in her care 
 of the old man, who was now nearer and ever nearer to the 
 great secret, impenetrable to the most penetrating terrestrial 
 sight for ever. *' If we are to meet," he cried, " oh. Almighty 
 Father, if we are ! " 
 
 As years advanced, his affections increased in intensity. 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 357 
 
 Love he fouiKl to be the one undying, unfading emotion of 
 the mind, for it burnt on ever brighter and deeper as his body- 
 decayed. Reunion was the one desire of his heart. In '73 
 John Mill's death awoke a world of reHections, emotions, and 
 remembrances. The thought of his sad history, in this 
 muddy world, gave him real pain and sorrow, all so melancholy 
 and tragic. '' Would you ask where is Romance — we would 
 answer, where is it not ? " 
 
 Shortly after, the English Church lost one of her cleverest, 
 stoutest-hearted sons, in the fatal fall from his horse of the 
 Bishop of Winchester, Samuel Wilberforce. Fancy what a 
 treat it must have been to hear him and Carlyle argue, as they 
 so often did. Carlyle declared that Sam, in spite of his 
 bishopric, had precisely the same religious belief as he had. 
 All men were dying around him. He was glad to welcome 
 one old living friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who again 
 visited England with his daughter, and cheered tlie lonely 
 scholar once more. Carlyle inquiring after him some time 
 after his return to America, received the reply that except for 
 the decline of his mental powers he was well. The idea of 
 his being well or ha})py with mental powers failing him made 
 Carlyle roar with laughter, as to him an utter impossibility. 
 
 Emerson outlived the Chelsea philosopher about one year. 
 He kept Carlyle's likeness suspended on the wall where he 
 could see it as he lay in bed. Almost his last act was to gaze 
 at it, and his last words, ''That's the man — my man!" 
 Faithful in his friendship till death. 
 
 In '74, the Prussian Order of Merit was conferred and grate- 
 fully accepted by Carlyle, though he humorously declared that 
 for actual use a quarter of a pound of good tobacco would have 
 been more serviceable. He was also destined to have fires of 
 coal heaped on his head by Mr. Disraeli, of whom he had said 
 that " he was a lineal descendant of the impenitent thief, only 
 never in such good company ! " "Indeed, though he preferred 
 Disraeli to Gladstone," says Mr. Froude, "he had rarely 
 spoken a word in his favour." Of Mr. Gladstone he had, 
 unintentionally perhaps ; but of him he said, that though full 
 of cant, he believed in his cant — and honest belief in Carlyle 
 always covered a multitude of sins. With this truth to his 
 opinions, we rejoice he credited Mr. Gladstone, who, however 
 mistaken he may be, always acts upon conviction. 
 
 This is, intentionally or not intentionally, in our opinion, a 
 
858 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 great testimony in Mr. Gladstone's favour. "What an in- 
 estimable blessing to have the courage of your own honest 
 opinions, even if they honestly change every year, or even 
 every month in the year ! Mr. Disraeli probably was not 
 ignorant of Carlyle's unfavourable remarks concerning him and 
 his politics, but he was eager to recognize intellect as the 
 Premier. He wrote to Carlyle informing him that a baronetcy 
 had been offered to Tennyson, and to him, as he had no 
 children, the Order of the Cross of the Bath was earnestly 
 pressed, as some acknowledgment of his literary labours, &c. 
 At the same time he hoped he would accept a pension, that 
 might add to the comfort of his declining years. 
 
 Carlyle replied that he gratefully acknowledged the noble 
 feelings that prompted such generous and splendid proposals, 
 all of which, however, were quite out of keeping with the whole 
 tenor of his life. Title had no value to him, and more money 
 would be merely an encumbrance, &c. Before sending this, he 
 waited until he heard how Tennyson had received his offer, for 
 he feared his refusal might have influenced him, and as Tenny- 
 son had children who might inherit their father's honours, he 
 would most earnestly have urged upon him the duty of acceding 
 to the proposal, even should his inclination prompt a refusal. 
 He rejoiced to hear that Tennyson was elected a peer. Now 
 there was another noble man in the right place ! 
 
 Mr. Disraeli was really sorry to find Carlyle so obdurate, 
 and Carlyle was ashamed of the hard things he had said of his 
 would-be patron, and gave him credit for great magnanimity 
 and generosity. But he continued to hate his policy as much as 
 ever. To the country at large he cries, " Oh, forgive me my 
 sins generally, and think of me as mercifully as you can." To 
 his brothers he wi'ote — " Fancy the old brother ' Sir Tom ' in 
 such catastrophes ! " The Grand Cross would be like cap and 
 bells to him. Yet there was much to admire in Dizzy He 
 might delude the world, but he never deluded himself He 
 had called him a lineal descendant of the impenitent lliief, 
 but never in such good company ; after such an instance of 
 magnanimous generosity, he would probably question that 
 ancestry ! But the Jews in England, as a rule, had no serious 
 beliefs whatever, and Dizzy at least made no pretensions. 
 What could we expect of a people " who took Jesus Himself 
 for a scoundrel, and thought all they could do with Him was 
 to nail Him up on a Cross. Ah ! that was a bad business, and 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 359 
 
 SO He returned to Heaven, and they go wandering about the 
 streets selling old clothes ! " And Carlyle would willingly 
 have condemned them all to continue in that walk of life for 
 all time, as well befitting them. 
 
 The poor people at Chelsea were delighted that the old man, 
 who was the pride of their hearts, had declined the Grand 
 Order of the Bath. " Very proper of s/^e," said a conductor to 
 Mr. Froude, speaking of Her Majesty, " to think of offering 
 Carlyle the Grand Cross, and more proper of he to have nothing 
 to do with it." We agree with the conductor ; we prefer that 
 our beloved master should have remained the simple man he 
 had lived. Carlyle, emerged into " Sir Thomas," would have 
 lost rather than have gained by such distinction. " 'Tisn't 
 that as can do honour to the likes of he ! " 
 
 Carlyle lamented the ignorance of the English lower orders. 
 The parsuit of culture he considered in the highest degree 
 recommendable to every human soul, let his daily labour be what 
 it might. Ignorance, to knowledge, is like darkness to light. 
 Why let the souls of the poor be doomed perpetually to intel- 
 lectual obscurity 1 The masses called imperatively for educa- 
 tion, or they must degenerate lower and lower. In that surely 
 his advice has been followed, but we have not yet quite 
 arrived at the results anticipated. The effects of emancipation 
 from ignorance, like that from slavery, future generations will 
 enjoy when we are beyond all earthly progress, knowing even 
 as we are known. 
 
 He was still in much physical suffering from his old com- 
 plaint, and exclaimed on one occasion — " I can't wish Satan 
 anything worse than to digest with my stomach to all 
 eternity." He was much annoyed at people's mistaken and 
 persistent interpretation of his doctrine of Might and Right. 
 They seemed determined to misunderstand him. Might is 
 never man's prerogative ; never self-attained. It is God-given, 
 and for God's own special purposes, even when it comes as a 
 scourge. Still, coming from God, emanating from Him, Might 
 itself is Right, though wielded by a demon. The inscrutable 
 design, and even fulfilment of such design, are far beyond our 
 finite conception, but they are nevertheless there — must be. 
 
 Cromwell worked God's will, intentionally or unintention- 
 ally, and was endowed for that express purpose, as was also 
 Wellington, Napoleon, and all other great men. When their 
 work was accomplished, what became of them matters little. 
 
3G0 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Cromwell's head was taken from its grave, and stuck on the 
 gates of Tyburn ; but, as Carlyle quaintly said, *' Not till he 
 had quite done with it." So men live and die, but not till 
 the Almighty has quite done with them, for this fleeting 
 world, and finds them other work beyond. 
 
 The fire of Carlyle's soul burnt red hot to the end, and the 
 very fact that he found his mental powers did not decay, as 
 his body wasted visibly, gave him a brighter hope of im- 
 mortality. It confirmed his belief that the mind was not a 
 function of the body at all ; that it had another origin, and 
 another destination. His innate humour never deserted him. 
 He would study his Shakspeare, and the sermons of the old 
 Puritans ; his love for the latter increased by the excessive 
 fun that burst out occasionally. He believed, all great men 
 were great laughers too, and that those who have the gravest 
 c.ipacity, have also the greatest fun in them. 
 
 On one occasion he went to St, Paul's, and standing in the 
 nave, the sound of the organ, and the distant " Amens " of 
 the choristers, impressed, him deeply. Tears filled his eyes, 
 and he would fain believe such sounds, such prayers, proceeded 
 from true piety. This impression he expressed, and he was 
 persuaded to attend Westminster Abbey to hear his friend 
 Dean Stanley. It was with Lady Ashburton, we believe, that 
 he went. He was put in the Dean's seat, in much too close 
 proximity to the choir. He noticed much irreverence in the 
 choristers and other worshippers, his own devout soul full of 
 reverent awe, until rather less saintly feelings took its place. 
 The intoning annoyed him intensely, and, alas ! instead of 
 the Dean some other popular preacher ascended the pulpit. 
 Carlyle listened attentively for some time, his limited stock of 
 patience diminishing perceptibly. His friends noticed his 
 gradually changing manner, and began to tremble lest a 
 catastrophe should occur. Their fears increased when he 
 commenced crushing his hat, and striking the floor impatiently 
 with his stick. Every moment they anticipated an outburst, 
 but the preacher closed his discourse ere his anger had reached 
 its climax, and they were all liberated from an half-hour's 
 thraldom. We fear he never went again, perhaps was never 
 invited ; but Carlyle, with his devout soul, could worship God 
 anywhere. One Sunday afternoon he went with Mr. Froude 
 to Battersea Park, and sat in the large gravelled circle in the 
 centre of the Broad Walk under the trees. He was growing 
 
THE STORY OF THOxMAS CARLYLE. 361 
 
 very feeble. Presently an old blind man and his daughter 
 came and sat at a little distance from thom, and began singing 
 that beautiful hymn, "The pilgrims of the night." Carlyle 
 listened breathlessly to the sad pathetic strains; his chest 
 heaved, "i'ar, far away, like bells at evening stealing," 
 came floating on the still summer air. "Take me away — take 
 me away ; I shall cry if I stay any longer," he murmured, 
 and his friend led the faltering steps further on, until the 
 sound died away in the distance, and he was calmed. 
 
 On his 80th birthday honours poured upon him. From 
 Scotland a gold medal, from Berlin a letter from. Bismarck, 
 which really gratified him much, besides a telegram signed by 
 Germany's most distinguished men. It ran thus: "To the 
 valiant champion of Germanic freedom of thought and moral- 
 ity ; to the true friend of our Fatherland, who by the labour 
 of a long rich life has successfully advanced the hearty under- 
 standing between the English and German people ; to the 
 historian of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick the Great — send, 
 on his 80th birthday, grateful greeting and warm congratu- 
 lations." Another address, presented by his own eminent 
 countrymen in honour of the day, accompanied by a gold 
 medal. Yet another address, signed by Earl Cadognn, the 
 President and the Honourable Secretary of the Chelsea 
 liiterary Institution, was presented to him as one of the Vice- 
 presidents of the Society. A portrait, bearing his autograph, 
 has been put in the reading-room in honour of the event. 
 
 In his journal he noted that this was "the birthday of a 
 skinless old man ; a day of the most miserable agitation of his 
 life, full of fret and fuss, all proceeding from excessive kind- 
 ness and goodwill," which he gratefully acknowledged. He 
 closed that day by slowly pacing along the Chelsea Embank- 
 ment, taking pious and patient counsel of his own soul. In 
 '76 his beloved friend John Forster died. He attended his 
 funeral at Kensal Green, and a month later that of Lady 
 Augusta Stanley. The same year he heard of the death of 
 his brother Alick in Canada, and was deeply touched by the 
 graphic account sent by his son. His last words showed that 
 his mind was wandering back across the ocean to his old 
 Scottish home, and dwelling in tender memory on his renowned 
 brother. "Is Tom coming from Edinburgh to-morn?" he 
 asked, and thus went out of the world, as it were, with his 
 hand in his. To Cailyle this was most pathetic. 
 
362 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 One more short letter he wrote to the Times — only a few- 
 lines in length — written with the hope of averting what he 
 considered would prove a national catastrophe — namely, a 
 Philo-Turkish war ; and if it in any way contributed to 
 prevent so mad a disaster, it was one of the most useful 
 things he ever did in his life. 
 
 He was much gratified by a visit from Sir Garnet Wolseley, 
 and much pleased with the brave soldier. Before leaving, he 
 tried to impress upon him a duty that he might have the 
 privilege of performing, namely, to turn out all the talking 
 apparatus of the House of Commons, and lock the door after 
 them. Sir Garnet has not yet been either willing or able to 
 carry out this injunction, and only latterly has added, for 
 once, his own voice to the jargon. What would Carlyle say 
 to that 1 
 
 In '78 John Carlyle died, to his brother's dismay. Surely 
 all were dead and dying around him, and the King of Terrors 
 had become a friend he longed to greet. 
 
363 
 
 CHAPTER XLYI. 
 
 His garment only is dead. The essence of it lives through all Time 
 and Eternity. His place now with the stars of Heaven. — Carlyle, 
 Fast and Present. 
 
 Some people never grow old. Carlyle's physical frame dimin- 
 ished in size, in strength and activity, but his mind retained 
 all its supreme original powers, his heart the fire of youth, his 
 imagination its unsurpassed creative faculty. As in days 
 past he rarely attended theatres without suffering in witness- 
 ing the tragic scenes represented on the stage, as if they were 
 stern realities ; so now all the past history of his life rose up 
 before him as if ever present. His Jeannie never grew old ; 
 his mother never lacked the vigour of his own early days ; 
 his brothers and sisters remained lads and lasses ; his departed 
 friends all rose up before his mind in living forms, and he 
 dwelt among them, recalled them to his side as he sat lonely 
 and apparently desolate in that quiet house at Chelsea. Ah ! 
 to him how it was peopled with his lost loves. Strangers, try 
 as they might to find access to the old man, could not enter 
 his heart. All he had loved, not many, but so well, completely 
 filled up every gap. He allowed many to come, to look at the 
 " great man "as he sat awaiting his great change, but the 
 only friend he wanted was Death. Of him he stood in no 
 mortal dread. Mrs. Oliphant called once more. He was still 
 sitting in the centre of the room, in a suit of gray cloth — no 
 shoddy — his well-known marked identity, " his figure gaunt 
 and feeble, helpless and stranded amidst the wrecks of life." 
 
364 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 He was full of old-fashioned politeness, was ever courteous to 
 ladies, and tottered to his feet to greet a stranger, as long as 
 he had the power. 
 
 For the first time for forty years a baby was born in that 
 house — another Thomas Carlyle, the child of his niece. He 
 looked tenderly upon the little face, called him a bonnie little 
 mannikin. ''It was curious — very curious, to contrast the 
 new-comer with the departing guest," he said. 
 
 He was always kind to the young. Two school-boys, sons 
 of the sculptor, Mr. Munro, knowing what friendly terms 
 their father had been on with the famous Thomas Carlyle, 
 ventured to call on the venerable sage. He received them 
 both cordially, made personal inquiries concerning their school, 
 their holidays, their future careers ; gave them fatherly 
 counsel, and touched their young hearts in a way they could 
 never forget, seeming to them as he did on the very verge of 
 the grave, He had one of Dr. Channing's books on the table 
 before him, which he had been perusing. They left him, 
 deeply ailected, and of course they knew they could never 
 again behold that venerable form. He grew more and more 
 feeble, slowly but surely withering away, with that mighty 
 intellect still unimpaired, that loving heart still beating warm 
 as in early days of youth. Death and reunion — all he wanted 
 now on earth, and almost impatiently awaited. 
 
 Before we close we must give our readers a letter written 
 in 1867, so characteristic of our hero, that we must beg its 
 perusal. He had just received intelligence of a bequest from 
 Henry Chorly, Esq., an old and valued friend, of a sum of 
 £1000. There was no fascination to Carlyle in accumulating 
 gold, as this letter so grandly proves. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — It is infinitely affecting to me, this generous 
 message from him who is now gone away. How little I 
 deserved it ; how little needed now, though so good and noble. 
 Before going to the actual finis of this matter, there is some- 
 thing I will crave to mention, to which I must beg your 
 serious attention, ybr my sake. I knew generally, or under- 
 
THE STOKY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 365 
 
 stood long since, by some casual hint, that the bulk of his 
 property was to go to literary charities; anl once agaia, long 
 afterwards, I learnt about your brother William's commercial 
 misfortunes. Now if it be that there is any lack, or chance 
 of lack in that quarter, permit me to urge with emphasis, that 
 as there is no shadow of it here, it would gratify me in a 
 much higher and greater degree if I might be permitted to 
 lay down this, the actual sum of money in question, retaining 
 ever the essence and soul of it, that is to say, the sacred 
 memory of it, which would be ever among the perennial 
 jewels of my life, more precious far than gold." 
 
 "Yours ever, with much sympathy and many thanks, 
 
 " T. Carlyle." 
 
 Charity should begin at home. Carlyle not only believed 
 the maxim, but followed it out to the letter, and thus urged 
 it upon others, even where he was himself the loser. 
 
 Since those wretched Reminiscences were published — the 
 wearied wail of a bereaved and sick old man — all his nobler 
 qualities have been cruelly cast in the shade, and his beloved 
 memory harshly distorted. Surely if any great man's character 
 needs true and faithful emancipation from heartless aspersions 
 cast upon it by himself, his friends and his foes alike, it is 
 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 But to draw this long, romantic, eventful career to a close, 
 we must, with whatever pain, recall his last solemn hours. 
 
 Mr. Froude and Ruskin seem to have been oftenest with 
 him, and with the former he entrusted all the MSS. that were 
 to be given to the world after his death, with permission to 
 omit what he thought advisable. For ourselves, we are glad 
 Mr. Froude omitted so little, for read rightly, interpreted 
 truly, every act of his life deliberated over was worthy of 
 him. Hasty, passionate words, but not one cruel deed is 
 recorded in those pages ; not one, of which we can find a 
 trace. All is grandly heroic, self-sacrificing, noble ; such a life 
 that the tenderest mother can bid her son to imitate in every 
 relation with his fellow-men and women, combined with such 
 
366 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 reverential awe with which his thoughts for ever dwelt in con- 
 templation of his Almighty Creator. We may urge upon them 
 to be more decided in their expression of faith, but we doubt 
 if they could ever believe more intensely ; we may urge them 
 to show more patience in enduring trifles, but we cannot hope 
 they will bear such grief, disappointment and physical suffering 
 through life with grander self-control than he ; with such pro- 
 found reticence, such unexampled generosity. He kept his 
 room during the winter of '80 and '81, but shortly after the 
 New Year he took to his bed. " Up to Thursday, February 
 3rd, he was fully conscious, and recognized the ceaseless watch 
 of his niece and her husband. Then consciousness seemed to 
 have left him, and he rejected even the little brandy-and-water 
 by which life had been sustained. All Friday he continued in 
 the same unbroken silence. On Saturday morning, about 
 eight, there was one faint quiver of expiring breath, one slight 
 fluttering of that vigorous frame, and all was over." The 
 soul of our great master had departed into the region of his 
 loved ones. There was a wail of sorrow throughout the land, 
 reaching far beyond — into Scotland, on the continent, across 
 the ocean, throughout the world. He had been the man of 
 the age, and his influence was felt wherever an educated man 
 was to be found ; for his works had been translated into many 
 languages, and in every clime he had disciples. He had no 
 son in the flesh to inherit his name or his honours. Spiritual 
 sons and daughters he can count by the millions, for he had 
 made himself a power, and taught all thinking scholars lofty 
 aims, the awful importance of truth and justice, of love and 
 mercy. 
 
 Dean Stanley earnestly desired that the mighty dead should 
 rest among his fellows in Westminster Abbey, but his friends 
 knew Carlyle's own wish, that his bones should rest beside 
 those of his humble parents. If ever man honoured his father 
 and mother and inherited the promise, it was Thomas Carlyle. 
 To Ecclefechan then he was taken the night before the funeral. 
 The next day a procession was formed consisting of six mourn- 
 ing coaches, and about two hundred spectators. All that 
 
THE STOEY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 367 
 
 remained of him lay in a plain oaken coffin, covered with 
 wreaths. The Board School bell tolled as solemnly as it could. 
 The old church had altogether fallen into disuse. According 
 to Scottish custom no service was held at the grave ; all stood 
 with bared heads around the open grave, and with their own 
 hands lowered the venerated remains into their last resting- 
 p^ace. It was a dreary scene, that dismal winter's day ; the 
 whole village as well as the churchyard wore a sadly uncared- 
 for appearance ; but he was, as he wished, safely deposited with 
 the mother who in all the world knew him and loved him best, 
 so in death they are not divided. 
 
 Surely some day not far distant there will be a bust in some 
 nook of the Abbey containing memorials of Britain's greatest 
 sons ; that his loving disciples from every clime, when they 
 visit the land of their master's birth, may find no sign that he 
 has been either neglected or forgotten. To many it would be 
 a disappointment — an incomprehensible omission. "When he 
 died he was called the last great man of his age, philosopher, 
 prophet, critic, sage, poet. Every one expressed alternately 
 grief and adoration for the great departed. After his Reiniin- 
 iscences appeared, all was changed ; a most violent and absurd 
 reaction set in. Everybody strained every nerve to recall his 
 slightest fault and magnify it into crime almost. His very 
 name became execrated. And all for what 1 Because he spoke 
 truly of his neighbours' faults and exaggerated his own. 
 They said he spoke evil of everybody, which is a gross mistake. 
 Those of whom he spoke well are almost innumerable. Besides 
 his own family and that of his wife, whose virtues he praises 
 sufficiently loudly to please any one, there were Irving, 
 Emerson, Erskine, Owen, the naturalist, Badams, Bailer, 
 Sinclair, Sir H. Taylor, Lord S. Gr. Osborne, the Ashburtons, 
 one and all, Southey, Tennyson, Dickens, Sir Robert Peel, 
 Bishops Thirlwall and Wilberforce, Allan Cunningha^m, Lord 
 Northbrook, Proctor Ruskin, Mr. Froude, Professor Tyndall, 
 and often and in much both Coleridge and Wordsworth, 
 Jeffery and Macaulay. These are by no means all the eminent 
 men whom he distinguished by his warm personal regard, and 
 
368 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 of ladies too, except the lion-hunting ones, an infinite number. 
 It is well to clear up this mistake. A lady who had been 
 painting his portrait, which was exhibited in the Academy 
 after his death, was most distressed to find that the etcher 
 had, as a satire, thought fit to add to it the figure of a por- 
 cupine, with two books, and wrote immediately — " During the 
 six years I knew Mr. Carlyle, I never found him for a moment 
 other than kind, gentle, and most friendly." And so, after 
 all, say all who were personally acquainted with him, except 
 perhaps a few diametrically opposite characters, perfect antag- 
 onisms to all that was so high and noble in the " King of 
 Letters." There were many whom he delighted to honour, 
 would to heaven there were more, for the sake of ourselves 
 and our children and children's children. We are sure that 
 the more one learns of Carlyle, of his life and of his books 
 the more we shall revere his memory. He never wronged 
 man, woman, or child ; his only fault towards his fellow mortals 
 was a sarcastic vein in which he became habituated, oftentimes 
 to his own regret. He never refused a call for help, either in 
 money or advice — which was infinitely the hardest to give. 
 
 In reading his books, in contemplating his heroic life, he 
 rouses noblest passions, teaches us all to be brave and perse- 
 vering, never to weary in well-doing, never indifferent to 
 suffering, mental or physical, never to be ashamed of human 
 sympathy, even if it brings the tears to the eyes of the 
 strongest man ; above all, and hardest of all, never to be 
 ashamed of one's origin or to shun poor relations. He taught 
 tha^t all of one family have a right in times of necessity to 
 call upon the common purse. His saintly robe was not only 
 spottable but spotless as was that of the noblest of the army 
 of martyrs ; for no wisdom, no holiness is perfect down here 
 — that blessed goal is our future hope. 
 
 To his wife he had really nothing to atone. He nobly bore 
 her sorrows with the heroism of Giant Great-heart. May 
 our young men — may all of us — learn of him. 
 
 On the morning of August 29th, 1884, a certain gentleman 
 who, as a youth, had taken tea on one occasion with Carlyle, 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 369 
 
 repeated weirdly to himself the following sentence from Past 
 and Present : " Brief, brawling day, with its noisy phantoms, 
 its poor paper crowns, tinsel gilt, is gone, and divine, everlast- 
 ing night, with her star diadems, with her silences and her 
 veracities is come," and he determined then and there to visit 
 the grave, only some miles distant, of his old spiritual master. 
 He reached Ecclefechan, entered the dilapidated churchyard, 
 and sought out the only noticeable feature in that obscure spot, 
 A substantial wall, with a plain iron gate for admission, sur- 
 rounded the sepulchre. The gate was locked. Undaunted, the 
 enthusiastic disciple buttoned his coat, satisfied himself as to 
 the condition of his boot-soles, rushed at the jagged, hard, 
 ungainly wall, scrambled up like a cat, and leapt below. 
 Within that enclosure he found three different stones. One 
 with a very long inscription, bearing the names of the first 
 wife of James Carlyle, followed by that of an infant-sister, 
 Jannet, who had died at Ecclefechan in 1801. Next on the 
 list is that of Sister Margaret, who died at Dumfries, 1830, 
 aged 27. 
 
 AND THE ABOVE 
 
 JAMES CARLYLE, 
 
 BORN AT 
 
 BROWN KN"OWE, in AUG. 1758, 
 
 DIED AT 
 
 SCOTSBRIG, ON THE 23KD JANY., 1832, 
 AND NOW ALSO RESTS HERE. 
 
 And licro now rests the above 
 
 MARGARET AITKIN", 
 
 THE SECOND WIFE, 
 
 BORN AT 
 
 WHITESTANE, KIRKONA HOE, in SEPT., 1771, 
 
 DIED AT 
 
 SCOTSBRIG, ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 1853. 
 
 SHE BROUGHT HIM NINE CHILDREN, WHEREOF FOUR SONS AND THREE 
 
 DAUGHTERS SURVIVED, GRATEFULLY REVERENT OF SUCH A 
 
 FATHER AND SUCH A MOTHER. 
 
 B B 
 
370 THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 The other tombstone was erected to the memory of an 
 infant Thomas Carlyle, nephew to our hero. The central 
 stone contains the names of Tliomas Carlyle and his brother 
 John. 
 
 " The only funeral tapers over that honoured grave were a 
 few heads of clover blooming among the sweet and ungrimed 
 green grass, over Avhich trod the feet of his childhood." 
 
 On his tombstone are these simple words — 
 
 S)ximilitate. 
 
 HERE RESTS 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE, 
 
 WHO WAS BORN AT 
 
 ECCLEFECHAN, 4th DECEMBER, 1795, 
 
 AND DIED AT 
 
 24, CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA, LONDON, on 
 SATURDAY, 5th FEBRUARY, 1881. 
 
 HERE ALSO RESTS 
 
 JOHN AITKIN CARLYLE, M.D., LL.D., 
 
 WHO WAS BORN AT 
 
 ECCLEFECHAN, 7th JULY, 1801, 
 
 AND DIED AT 
 
 THE HILL, DUMFRIES, on MONDAY, 15th SEPTEMBER, 1879. 
 
 An intense belief, handed down to him from his parents, 
 gives a moral sublimity to his writings, which is entirely 
 absent in so many of our modern writers. In his turn he 
 would hand down a legacy to his spiritual sons. He would 
 impress upon them a certain fact,, that there is no necessity 
 to be initiated into dissipation at any time of life. A mud 
 bath there is, into which many young men plunge, madly 
 believing that they become stronger by the immersion. A 
 " leprous Armada," Carlyle calls it, and passionately entreats 
 our youths to shun the stagnant pool, which tarnishes the 
 
THE STORY OF THOMAS CARLYLE. 371 
 
 would-be noble and strong, and wrecks the lives of the 
 weak and irresolute. By practice as well as precept he thus 
 urges the avoidance of vice. His books are the essence of 
 the man, are his very soul, and this he reiterates in a 
 thousand different ways. 
 
 *' A Calm, Holy Rest " is a beautiful anagram formed by 
 some one from the name " Thomas Carlyle," and that we 
 doubt not he is enjoying till higher work employs his freed 
 and gladdened soul in the full vision of eternal Day. What 
 we would desire above all things is, that readers, especially 
 young readers, will not collect the refuse of his books, with 
 which he charged his reviewers, thus himself allowing that 
 refuse was to be found ; but earnestly to seek out the good as 
 earnestly as he wrote it ; the gems that prove beyond ques- 
 tion that he was a " genius, a poet, an inspired soul, once 
 more vouchsafed us direct from Nature's own Great Fire 
 Heart, to see the Truth and do it." The truth was all he 
 troubled himself to seek, though he sometimes found a lie. 
 H43 longed to see the Personification of Christianity. That 
 was permitted but once on earth. When he saw merely the 
 caricature he was wrathful and merciless. Such a spiritual 
 giant could scarcely be humble or patient towards the pigmies 
 around him, however strong the effort. 
 
 It has been said that Mr. Froude, his great biographer, 
 did his departed friend great injustice. AVe will close by a 
 quotation of his from a later work, which proves that the 
 injustice was unintentional, the love and admiration indeed 
 genuine. In Oceana he writes, " Carlyle was the noblest and 
 truest man that I ever met in this world. He can wait for 
 the certain future, when he will be seen soaring as far beyond 
 them all as the eagle soars beyond the owl and the buzzard, 
 or rather he will be seen, and they and their works be 
 forgotten." 
 
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