FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-I9I9 
 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
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 \k «5'^ 
 
 Dm DUE 
 
 Cornetl University Library 
 PR 4433.A5H24 1899 
 
 Letters to his youngest sister; 
 
 3 1924 013 460 823 
 
Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013460823 
 
E^nmus Carlple 
 
 CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 With Portrait and Index. Jitverside Edition. 
 
 4 vols. i2mo, $7.50. 
 Popular Editiofi, With Portrait. 2 vols, izmo, 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF CARLYLE AND EM- 
 ERSON, 1834-1872. Edited by Charles 
 EiJOT Norton. Including newly found Let- 
 ters and new Portraits. 2 vols,/ crown 8vo, 
 $4.00. 
 
 LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE TO HIS 
 YOUNGEST SISTER. Edited by Charles 
 T. CoPELAND. Crown 8vo, $z.oo. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 Boston and New York. 
 

 EnorawPd by HW Smith,, 
 ri'uman oTitUiiil likeness m the -poasesioa of RW. Eiaerson Esq. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 Cftomas Carlple 
 
 TO HIS 
 
 YOUNGEST SISTER 
 
 EDITED WITH XS 
 
 INTE9DUCTORT 
 
 ESSAY BY 
 
 CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND 
 
 LECTURER ON ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 WITH POETEAITS AND OTHER 
 ILLUSTKATIONS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 (Six nitm^ibe pxtfi, Cambtibgt 
 
 1899 
 
 -H-t 
 
A-, iolv^cg 
 
 COFYBIOHT, 1899, BY HOUOHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANT 
 ALL BIGHTS BESEBYED 
 
PEEPACE 
 
 The letters printed in this volume were 
 mainly written by Thomas Carlyle to his 
 youngest sister, Mrs. Robert Banning, who 
 died in Toronto on the thirteenth day of De- 
 cember, 1897. Other members of the family 
 are represented in the correspondence ; there 
 are a few letters — these perhaps the most 
 interesting — from Carlyle to his mother; a 
 few, also, from the mother to her oldest and 
 to her youngest child. The collection extends 
 from 1832 to 1890, when Mr. John Carlyle 
 Aitken wrote to inform his aunt, Mrs. Ban- 
 ning, of the death of James Carlyle, her 
 youngest brother. 
 
 The editor of these letters found it desir- 
 able to make a careful study of all the pub- 
 lished Carlyle documents. The introductory 
 essay on Carlyle as a Letter- Writer grew out 
 of a comparison between Carlyle's correspond- 
 ence with his family, and his letters to other 
 persons, already printed by Mr. Norton and 
 Mr. Froude. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 rAOB 
 
 CabLTI^ A8 a LETTEB-fTBITEB 1 
 
 Lettebb 
 
 I. Gablyle to Janet Cablyle, ScoisBsia, Jannai; 
 
 23,1832 43 
 
 n. Cablyle to Mbs. Haniono, Manchesteb, May 16, 
 
 1836 54 
 
 m. Cablyle to Mbs. Eaxtning, Manchesteb, Jnly 8, 
 
 1836 61 
 
 rv. To Mbs. HAmrnra, Manohesteb, tbom heb Mo- 
 
 THEE, November 3, 1836 63 
 
 V. CabiiYle to Mbs. Hanitino, Maitohesteb, January 
 
 19, 1837 66 
 
 VI. To Mbs. HANnnrG, Mancbesteb, vbom heb Mo- 
 
 THEB, April 9 (1837) 75 
 
 VII. GabijYle to Mbs. HAmmra, Manchesteb, June 20, 
 
 1837 77 
 
 Vni. Cablyle to Mes. Haknins, Mastohesteb, July 18, 
 
 1837 80 
 
 IX. CabiiYLE to Mbs. HAmrare, Manchebteb, Angnst 
 
 28,1837 87 
 
 X. To Mbs. HAmnNO, Manchebteb, fbom heb Mo- 
 
 theb, January 11 (1838) 93 
 
 XI. Cablyle to Mbs. KAxrsisa, KiBTLEBBmoE, Febru- 
 ary 7, 1840 .... 96 
 
 Xn. Cablyle to his Motheb, Scotsbbig, August 1, 
 
 1840 102, 
 
 Xm. Cablyle to Mbs. HAmnNa, Ejbtlebbidoe, Octo- 
 ber 7, 1840 105 
 
 XIY. Cablyle to Mbs. Hannino, Kibilebbidoe, Janu- 
 ary 15, 1841 109 
 
 Xy. Cablyle to his Motheb, Scotsbbio (February, 
 
 1841) 112 
 
VI CONTENTS 
 
 XVT. CabltIiE to Mbs. Hanndtg, Dumfries, No- 
 vember 24, 1841 115 
 
 XVn. Caklttlb to his Mother, Scotsbrig, Jan- 
 uary 8, 1842 118 
 
 XVm. Cabltle to his Mother, Scotsbrig, June 4, 
 
 1842 124 
 
 XIX. Carltlb to his Mother, Scotsbrig, July 4, 
 
 1842 127 
 
 XX. Cakltlb to Mrs. HANNiifG, The Gir.1., July 
 
 21, 1842 . . . ■ 129 
 
 XXI. Carltlk to his Mother, Scotsbrig, Septem- 
 ber 7, 1842 132 
 
 XXII. To Carlti^ from his Mother, September 
 
 13, 1842 146 
 
 XXIII. To Mrs. Hanotitg, The Gill, from her Mo- 
 
 ther, Monday (1840-1851) 147 
 
 XXIV. Carlyle to his Mother, Scotsbrig, Septem- 
 
 ber 19, 1842 148 
 
 XXV. Carlyle to Mrs. Hahming, The Gill, No- 
 vember 2, 1842 150 
 
 XXVI. Carltle to his Mother, Scotsbrig (early 
 
 September, 1843) 154 
 
 XXVII. Carlyle to his Mother, Scotsbrig, Septem- 
 ber 12, 1848 156 
 
 XXVni. Carlyle to his Mother, Scotsbrig, Decem- 
 ber 6, 1843 160 
 
 XXIX. Carlyle to his Mother, Scotsbrig, March 
 
 10,1844 162 
 
 XXX. Carlyle to Mrs. James AtrsTOi, The Gill, 
 
 April 30, 1844 169 
 
 XXXI. Carlyle to Dr. John Carlyle, Scotsbrig, 
 
 August 5, 1844 172 
 
 XXXII. Carlyle to Mrs. HAmixNG, December 16, 
 
 1844 , 175 
 
 XXXIII. Carlyle to his Mother, Scotsbrig, July 12, 
 
 1845 177 
 
 XXXIV. Carlyle to his Mother, Scotsbrig, October 
 
 17, 1845 180 
 
 XXXV. Carlyle to his Mother, Scotsbrig, October 
 
 31,1845 182 
 
CONTENTS vu 
 
 XXXVI. CabIiYlb to his Motheb, Scotsbbio (Novem- 
 ber 1/15, 1845) 185 
 
 XXXVH. CABiiYLE TO Mbs. Haniokq, DtruFBiES, June 
 
 29,1846 18t 
 
 XXXYin. Cablylb to Mbs. Aitken, Dumfeies, Oetoter 
 
 17, 1846 190 
 
 XXXIX. Carltle to Mbs. Hanning, Dumteies, Au- 
 gust 18, 1849 192 
 
 XL. Mbs. Thomas Cablylb to Mbs. Hanming, 
 
 DuMFBiBS (spring of 1851) 196 
 
 XLI. John Aitkbn Cablylb to Mbs. Banning, 
 
 Hamilton, C. W., June 27, 1851 198 
 
 XLn. Cablylb to Alexandeb Cabltle, Canada, 
 
 October 24, 1851 201 
 
 XLm. Cablylb to Mbs. Hanking, Canada, April 
 
 22,1853 206 
 
 XLIV. Cablylb to Mbs. Banning, Canada, Decem- 
 ber 28, 1853 210 
 
 XLV. Cablyle to Mbs. Banning, Hamtltoit, C. W., 
 
 April 8, 1855 217 
 
 XLVI. Cablylb to Mbs. Banning, Hamilton, C. W., 
 
 January 7, 1859 220 
 
 XL VII. Cablylb to Mrs. Banning, BUmilton, C. W., 
 
 AprU 30, 1860 223 
 
 XLVm. Cablylb to Mbs. Hannihg, Hamilton, C. W., 
 
 February 28, 1861 226 
 
 XLIX. Cablylb to Mbs. Banning, Bamilton, C. W., 
 
 August 13, 1863 229 
 
 L. Cablyle to Mbs. Banning, Hamilton, C. W., 
 
 May 4, 1865 232 
 
 LI. Cablylb to Mes. Banning, Hamilton, C. W., 
 
 February 14, 1868 236 
 
 Ln. Cablylb to Mes. Banning, Hamilton, C. W., 
 
 February 13, 1871 238 
 
 Lm. Cablylb to Mrs. Banning, Hamilton, C. W., 
 
 January 2, 1873 242 
 
 LIV. Miss Maby Aitkbn to Mbs. Banning, Bamil- 
 ton, C. W., February 3, 1874 248 
 
 LV. Cablylb to Mbs. Banning, Hamilton, C. W., 
 
 AprU 12, 1875 248 
 
VIU CONTMNTS 
 
 LVI. Cabltlb to Dr. Jobxt Caklyuh, Duufbies, 
 
 September 21, 1878 251 
 
 Lvii. Mrs, Aldxaitdeb Cablyli: to Mbs. Han- 
 
 NHfo, Hamilton, C. W., July 18, 1880 ... 254 
 LVin. Mb. John Gabi.ti<e Aiteen to Mbs. Han- 
 
 jfDro, Hamilton, C. W., February 11, 1881 . 256 
 LIX. Mrs. Alexandbb Cablyle to Mbs. Hanning, 
 
 Hamilton, C. W., March 3, 1881 259 
 
 liX. Mb. John Cabltle to Mrs. Hannino, Ham- 
 ilton, C. W., May 11, 1890 266 
 
 Index ^ . 271 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS 
 
 PAGS 
 
 Thouas Gablyi^ Frontispiece. 
 
 The Vh-laqe op Ecolefbchan. From a photograph . . 42 
 
 Cablyte in the Gabden op No. 5 Chbtne Kow. Prom 
 a photograph in the possession of Garlyle's niece, Mrs. 
 G.M. Franklin 99 
 
 FAcsnoLE op a Letteb to Mbs. HANmNO. An addi- 
 tional letter, not printed elsewhere in the book .... 152 
 
 Jaite WeIiSH CABLYI.E. From an early photograph now in 
 the possession of Mrs. Hanning's family . 196 
 
 Cablti^'s Motheb. From a photograph of a painting . . 217 
 
 Thomas Cablyle. From a photograph, taken in his old 
 age, by Elliott & Fry, London 237 
 
 Janet CabiiTLE Hakning. From a photograph .... 255 
 
CARLYLE AS A LETTEE-WRITER 
 
 Most persons (perhaps because consciously 
 or unconsciously they hold the opinion of 
 George Eliot, that serious subjects should not 
 be discussed in letters) try to entertain their 
 correspondents, when they sit down to write 
 a friendly letter. Famous writers are no ex- 
 ception to this rule. Horace Walpole adapts 
 his materials with the nicest art ; Gray is sel- 
 dom elegiac in prose; and Chesterfield, not 
 content with urging his son to " sacrifice 
 to the Graces," makes his own epistles an 
 oblation on the altar of those ladies. It is 
 evident that the younger Phny chooses his 
 best stylus, whether a Tuscan villa, or the 
 eruption of Vesuvius, or a Corinthian statu- 
 ette form his theme ; and the fact that all is 
 composed in fear of Cicero and to the glory 
 of the Latin language cannot have made the 
 composition less acceptable to his contempo- 
 raries. The letters of Charles Lamb, the 
 " argument " of whose life was suited to a 
 Greek tragedy, must often have carried sun- 
 
2 CABLYLE AS A LETTER-WRITER 
 
 shine — quaintly filtered through Lamb's per- 
 sonality — to people who, had they but known 
 it, were far better off than their correspond- 
 ent. Cowper, the best of English letter- 
 writers, was also one of the most cheerful, 
 and in some of the last communications with 
 his friends, before the darkness had quite 
 settled over him, showed himself touchingly 
 conscious of the social bond. It was nearly 
 always dark with Cowper when he was ad- 
 dressing the Reverend John Newton, the evil 
 genius who tried to be his good genius ; but 
 let it be remembered that Cowper wrote to 
 Newton the escape of the hares, — a minia- 
 ture Gilpin in prose. Most of what came 
 from Olney and Weston, indeed, gave and 
 repeated an impression of sprightly serenity 
 that — - except in the letters to Newton — sel- 
 dom allowed itself to be clouded with the 
 fear which so often kept Cowper trembling. 
 When Madame de Sevigne smiles through 
 her tears, her face turned always toward her 
 daughter, we love her most. We do not feel 
 that she is not making the best of things, but 
 merely that the gayety of her century, thus 
 dashed, is brought nearer the key of our own. 
 Looked at from this point of view of good 
 spirits, whether real or benevolently feigned, 
 
CABLTLE AS A LETTEB-WBITEB S 
 
 Carlyle is in blackest contrast to the genial 
 tradition of letter-writing. As early as when 
 he was with the BuUers at Kinnaird, he had 
 frightened his family with an eloquent diag- 
 nosis of the torments of dyspepsia, and after- 
 ward often practiced a becoming caution in 
 complaining too loudly of anything to them. 
 Toward the world in general, however, and 
 toward his brother John — who alone of the 
 family lived in the world — he seldom ob- 
 served such care. What he felt, he thought ; 
 and what he thought, he wrote. The denun- 
 ciatory mood was frequent with Carlyle, and 
 it would be easy to collect enough of his 
 secular anathemas for a droll sort of com- 
 mination service. Men, women, and children, 
 if they disturbed him, came in for his curse. 
 All annoyances spoke to Carlyle and his wife 
 through a megaphone, and were proclaimed 
 by them through a still larger variety of the 
 same instrument. Every cock that crowed 
 near their house was a clarion out of tune, 
 and the " demon - fowls " were equaled by 
 dogs, of which each had to their ears the 
 barking power of Cerberus. When Carlyle 
 traveled, fierce imprecations upon everything 
 viatic were wafted back from every stage to 
 the poor " Goody " in Cheyne Row, often 
 
4 CASLYLE AS A LETTEB-WBITEB 
 
 while she was facing alone the problem of 
 fresh paint and paper. On the only occasion 
 I can now recall of Carlyle himself being at 
 home during repairs, they were to him what 
 a convulsion of nature would be to most of 
 us, and his outcries were of cosmic vehemence 
 and shrillness. In these wild splutterings of 
 genius, a maid servant was a "puddle," a 
 " scandalous randy," or even a " sluttish har- 
 lot;" a man servant was a "flunkey;" and, 
 if he waked Carlyle too early in the morning, 
 he was a " flunkey of the devil." Eank, 
 wealth, and worldly respectability were, it 
 need not at this day be said, no defense 
 against these grotesque indictments. The 
 clergy and lovers of the clergy — unless, 
 indeed, they happened to be anaemic and 
 " Socinian " — were always accused of " shov- 
 el-hattedness." Persons who, from Plato to 
 Scott, waged no visible warfare with their 
 own souls, and hved their lives without stated 
 conversion from " the everlasting No," were 
 rarely acceptable to Carlyle. Any man of 
 his acquaintance who, besides being thus at 
 ease in Zion, had also gathered worldly gear, 
 was apt, according to Carlyle, to have lost his 
 humanity in " gigmanity." London, in the 
 word he gladly borrowed from Cobbett, was 
 
CABLTLE AS A LETTEB-WRITEB 5 
 
 a "monstrous wen;" Europe, "a huge suppu- 
 ration ; " mankind, " mostly fools ; " and the 
 ■world at large, " a dusty, fuliginous chaos." 
 
 If, in moods which give forth such words, 
 Carlyle seems to write with a quiU plucked 
 from the fretful porpentine, a new book of 
 Lamentations might be gathered from his 
 other frequent and familiar condition. This 
 was the state of body and soul which moved 
 him to sorrow and repining over himself, 
 England, and the world.- If he had never 
 made his great success in literature, these 
 wailing cries might plausibly be assigned to 
 the disappointed ambitions of a man whose 
 lot was even more embittered by dyspepsia. 
 But in this respect the tone of the appren- 
 tice, throughout a wearifuUy long apprentice- 
 ship, was strangely like that of the past master 
 in literature, who for the last twenty years 
 of his life was the most eminent of English 
 writers. There is doubtless a habit of mourn- 
 ing as of rejoicing, and habit counted for 
 much with Carlyle. Yet what I am disposed 
 to contend is that though Aladdin's lamp 
 had lighted him to a success even earlier 
 than Sheridan's or Kipling's, his books and 
 letters would stiU from time to time have 
 sounded the whole gamut of Jeremiah. It 
 
6 CASLTLE AS A LMTTEB-WBITEB 
 
 was in his Scotch blood that thus they should, 
 — in his Puritan spirit and his Puritanical 
 digestion. In short, Carlyle's melancholy 
 was from temperament far more than from 
 circumstance, — a spiritual habitude to which 
 he was destined and born. 
 
 See the sparks fly upward in March, 1822 : 
 "Art is long and Ufe is short; and of the 
 threescore and ten years allotted to the liver, 
 how small a portion is spent in anything but 
 vanity and vice, if not in wretchedness, and 
 worse than unprofitable struggUng with the 
 adamantine laws of fate ! I am wae when I 
 think of all this, but it cannot be helped." 
 More than forty years after, the sad-eyed 
 victor in his chosen field reminds us that he, 
 more than most men, is born to trouble. In 
 1865 he writes to Emerson from Annandale : 
 " I live in total solitude, sauntering moodily 
 in thin checkered woods, galloping about, 
 once daUy, by old lanes and roads, oftenest 
 latterly on the wide expanses of Solway shore 
 (when the tide is out!) where I see bright 
 busy Cottages far off, houses over even in 
 Cumberland, and the beautifulest amphithe- 
 atre of eternal Hills, — but meet no living 
 creature ; and have endless thoughts as lov- 
 ing and as sad and sombre as I like." This 
 
CASLTLE AS A LETTEB-WBITER 7 
 
 is none the less (perhaps, rather, the more) 
 sad, for all the wide and shining landscape. 
 A few lines later Carlyle says : " You perceive 
 me sufficiently at this point of my Pilgrimage, 
 as withdrawn to Hades for the time being ; 
 intending a month's walk there, tiU the 
 muddy semi - solutions settle into sediment 
 according to what laws they have, and there 
 be perhaps a partial restoration of clearness." 
 The voice of 1865, though early in the in- 
 terim it gained its individual accent, is still 
 the voice of 1822. 
 
 Malice was operant in this choice of a pas- 
 sage from one of Carlyle's letters to Emerson, 
 to show the frequent hue of his spirit. For 
 not only is the mere thought of Emerson a 
 cause of cheer to most men, — 'to Carlyle him- 
 self it usually brought comfort, — but Carlyle 
 had adopted Emerson, or more nearly adopted 
 him than any one else except Sterling, into 
 the close communion of his own family, to- 
 ward whom he generally showed compunction 
 in the matter of invective and lament. Yet 
 in writing to Emerson and to them he would 
 sometimes forget his restraint, and, while eat- 
 ing his heart, would invite them to the same 
 repast. It has been said that Proude made 
 an exceptionally gloomy selection from Car- 
 
8 CAELYLE AS A LETTEB-WBITEB 
 
 lyle's correspondence, and that Mr. Norton's 
 volumes give a fairer view of the habitual 
 tone of his spirits. So far as they are con- 
 cerned with Emerson and with Carlyle's kin- 
 dred, an explanation of the higher average of 
 cheerfulness has already been offered. But 
 even in these letters, and stUl more in the 
 rest of Mr. Norton's selections, one is tempted 
 to inquire whether he did not intend (and 
 very properly) to redress the balance which 
 Froude had unduly weighted on the other 
 side. For the essence and gist of Carlyle's 
 published writings — books, letters, and jour- 
 nals — is that " it is not a merry place, this 
 world ; it is a stern and awful place." Much 
 that is meat to other men was poison, or tinc- 
 tured with poison, to him. " My letter, you 
 win see" (he wrote to his brother John in 
 1828), " ends in sable, like the life of man. 
 My own thoughts grow graver every day I 
 live." He could, and did, suck melancholy 
 from his own successful lectures, from his 
 own books and the books of others, from the 
 state of the nation and the state of his own 
 health, from society, from solitude. Craig^ 
 enputtock, high on the moors between Dum- 
 friesshire and Galloway, and sixteen miles 
 from the town of Dumfries, has always seemed 
 
CABLYLE AS A LETTES-WBITEB 9- 
 
 to me the right scenic background for Car- 
 lyle. The stone farmhouse, surrounded by a 
 few acres of land reclaimed from peat bog, 
 stands in the midst of bleak hills, seven hun- 
 dred feet above the level of the sea. This is 
 the right scenery for Carlyle, and many of 
 his most characteristic letters, from whatever 
 places written, carry with them a feeling of 
 the north, November, and the moors. Had 
 Froude left any gaps in his biography, they 
 might be bridged with sighs. 
 
 Persons who talked with Carlyle, or who 
 heard him talk, often received a different im- 
 pression. This was, no doubt, partly because 
 his Pentecostal gift excited him to a variety 
 and fire of speech for which he afterward 
 paid the penalty of a natural enough reac- 
 tion ; partly, also, because the sense of humor 
 never deserted him at those moments, and 
 rich gusts of laughter swept away boding 
 prophecy, fierce invective, and the whole sym- 
 bolic apparatus of Carlylean denunciation. 
 Humor, indeed, is always to be reckoned with 
 in Carlyle; and his letters, like his books, 
 abound in a range of it — seldom genial — 
 that extends from the grim to the farcical. 
 But you cannot hear a man laugh in print ; 
 and where in a Carlyle conversation the stage 
 
10 CABLYLE AS A LETTEB-WBITEB 
 
 direction would be, "Exit laughing," in a 
 Carlyle letter it appears, " Exit groaning " or 
 " Exit swearing." The writer " laughs ofE," 
 as Macbeth and Macduff "fight off;" and 
 the reader hears but the ghost of a laugh, — 
 a faint, imagined reverberation. 
 
 Hence, loathed Melancholy, and a truce to 
 sable. I have, perhaps, made too much of a 
 striking characteristic, however indubitable, 
 of a great writer. The famous rat was not 
 always gnawing at the pit of his stomach; 
 and when neither the mood of vituperation 
 nor the mood of lament was upon him, he 
 was of too vigorous and too honest a mind 
 not to discuss with comparative calmness 
 many subjects that interested him. What 
 did interest him and what didn't, what ap- 
 pears in his letters and what is never seen 
 there, would make a catalogue fairly descrip- 
 tive of Carlyle's intellectual and moral consti- 
 tution. Food and raiment he seldom writes 
 of, save as necessities of life. No Christmas 
 gastronomy in his letters, no rule for " cook- 
 ing a chub," no incipient essay on roast pig. 
 As Carlyle's pen is never occupied with cards, 
 one concludes that " old women to play whist 
 with of an evening," so much desired by a 
 certain delightful letter-writer, were not a de- 
 
CARLTLE AS A LETTER-WBITER 11 
 
 sideratum with him. Women, in fact, play 
 no dominantly feminine part in his life. 
 Love, as a passion, he apparently does not 
 understand. He gave no more sensitive re- 
 sponse to the fine arts than Emerson, in whose 
 books there are many " blind places," — so 
 says Mr. Chapman in his original and im- 
 portant essay on Emerson, — " like the notes 
 which will not strike on a sick piano." To 
 name the theatre is, with Carlyle, to scorn 
 it. Goethe himself could not make him care 
 for plays or play-acting. Goethe's Wilhelm 
 Meister he learned to admire, although, had 
 any other written it, the book would have 
 had from him the treatment it got from 
 Wordsworth. If we may believe Froude, 
 Carlyle called some of the most noteworthy 
 French novels " a new Phallus worship, with 
 Sue, Balzac, and Co. for prophets, and Ma- 
 dame Sand for a virgin." Poetry, art allied 
 to his own, interests Carlyle only through its 
 thought or its lesson. In the actual affairs 
 of life, he desires neither money, rank, nor 
 political power. He gives no adherence to 
 any religious creed, pohtical faith, or party 
 leader. He often feels himself in a " minor- 
 ity of one," but on a certain occasion doubles 
 the number, to include Emerson. 
 
12 CARLYLE AS A LETTEB-WBITER 
 
 Here may end, without special reason for 
 ending, the catalogue of negatives by which 
 people learn to know Carlyle in his letters. 
 Shorter, not less impressive or informing, is 
 the Hst of positives. Words Carlyle must have 
 had at least a sneaking fondness for. He 
 does not admit it, but he uses words and 
 phrases in a way that tells its own story to 
 those upon whose ears his noblest strains fall 
 like music. Very often, as he intended, the 
 words stand for facts, which he loved, and 
 for which he was proud to tell his love. Pu- 
 rity, honor, and truth are dear to Carlyle, and 
 he celebrates them in his letters. "Poor and 
 sad humanity," although it often moves him 
 to scorn, never quite loses its hold upon him : 
 his letters are a crowded thoroughfare of 
 human beings, who live again at his touch. 
 Good sayings — pious, shrewd, sage, or hu- 
 morous, as the case may be — this eloquent 
 talker rolls under his tongue, especially when 
 they are in the speech of the Scottish peo- 
 ple. His taste for humor is catholic enough 
 to relish jokes; and he himself, unclan- 
 nish chiefly in that, jokes without difficulty. 
 Strength of any kind bulks so large in Car- 
 lyle's esteem that the historian of Cromwell 
 and Friedrich has often been accused of mak- 
 
CABLTLE AS A LETTER-WRITER 13 
 
 ing might his right. After years of what he 
 felt to be misrepresentation, he endeavored to 
 set things straight by declaring that right, in 
 the long run, was pretty sure to be mighty. 
 However this may be, the strength of contem- 
 porary leaders was likely, by his thinking, to 
 be founded on unrighteousness; and it was 
 easier for him to worship his heroes through 
 the long nave of the past. There was an 
 altar for Cromwell, but — alas that it should 
 have been so — there was none for Lincoln. 
 
 Although these positives are lengthening 
 themselves out, there must be mention here 
 of the mother, wife, family, and friends, who 
 figure so engrossingly in Carlyle's correspond- 
 ence. I think we gather from the grand 
 total of documents in the case that he loved 
 his mother more deeply and singly than he 
 loved any other person. Yet for his wife 
 he had a strong, often disquieted affection. 
 The expression of this in his letters to her, 
 which are as remarkable for emotion as for 
 a very high order of writing, is of course 
 less checkered than it could have been in 
 the faring together of two such yoke-fel- 
 lows. In the action of temperament upon tem- 
 perament, like does not cure like. During 
 the long episode of Gloriana, it is often pos- 
 
14 CABLYLE AS A LETTER-WBITEB 
 
 sible to read between the lines of Carlyle's 
 letters to his -wife. After the death of the 
 first Lady Ashburton, however, occurs the 
 most striking passage of self-accusation to be 
 found in any letter before the death of Mrs. 
 Carlyle. Carlyle writes to her on the 11th 
 of July, 1858 : — 
 
 " All yesterday I remarked, in speaking to 
 
 , if any tragic topic came in sight, I had 
 
 a difficulty to keep from breaking down in 
 my speech, and becoming inarticulate with 
 emotion over it. It is as if the scales were 
 falling from my eyes, and I were beginning 
 to see in this, my soHtude, things that touch 
 me to the very quick. Oh, my Uttle woman ! 
 what a suffering thou hast had, and how no- 
 bly borne ! with a simplicity, a sUence, cour- 
 age, and patient heroism which are only now 
 too evident to me. Three waer days I can 
 hardly remember in my life; but they were 
 not without worth either ; very blessed some 
 of the feelings, though many so sore and mis- 
 erable. It is very good to be left alone with 
 the truth sometimes, to hear with all its stern- 
 ness what it will say to one." 
 
 It is often to be noted that no great mo- 
 ment finds Carlyle without a great word. 
 Moving as is the utterance just quoted, it is 
 
CABLYLJE AS A LETTES-WBITER 15 
 
 dumb in comparison with this, written after 
 the death of Mrs. Carlyle : " Not for above 
 two days could I estimate the immeasurable 
 depths of it, or the infinite sorrow which had 
 peeled my life all bare, and in a moment shat- 
 tered my poor world to universal ruin." 
 
 Mother, wife, family, and one or two 
 friends, then, were very dear to Carlyle. 
 " Love me a little," he writes once to Emer- 
 son. Next to these few persons, nature had 
 perhaps the strongest sway over him ; and 
 the strange, beautiful landscapes that shine 
 out from some of his darkest letters would 
 be enough to found a reputation on. The 
 phrases live in one's memory as if they had 
 line and color. 
 
 Two main facts detach themselves, I think, 
 from these imperfect suggestions of what 
 Carlyle's letters contain and what they are 
 vacant of. In the first place, no one can 
 doubt that although — except in writing to 
 the Annandale kin — Carlyle seldom attempts 
 to control himself, is seldom interesting or 
 entertaining of set purpose, he is yet, for 
 interest and entertainment, a letter - writer 
 among a thousand. Single-minded and single- 
 hearted, true as the very truth, in the words 
 of his mouth he utters the meditations of 
 
16 CAELTLE AS A LETTMB-WBITEB 
 
 his heart. Gifted with eloquence, with hu- 
 mor, with pathos, with eyes that see every- 
 thing and a memory that loses nothing, with 
 an energy of speech which (compared with 
 that given to the majority of his fellow crea- 
 tures) is clearly superhuman, Carlyle uses his 
 amazing literary vehicle as an Arabian magic 
 carpet to transport him to his correspondent. 
 The letter is the writer; the word is the 
 man. 
 
 So much for one fact. The other, not 
 now stated for the first time, is that Carlyle, 
 in his familiar letters as in his published 
 works, presents the curious combination of 
 mystic and realist. The world that can be 
 tested by the senses is, in Carlyle's belief, 
 only the vesture, sometimes muddy, sometimes 
 clear, of the divine principle. For many 
 readers, the expression of this ruUng idea 
 of Carlyle and his work is confused not only 
 by apparently contradictory phrasings, but by 
 the shifting of his conception of God between 
 theism and pantheism. When, however, Car- 
 lyle utters himself most earnestly and most 
 characteristically on this cardinal point of his 
 belief, no manner of man can misunderstand 
 him. " Matter," exclaims he, " exists only 
 spiritually, and to represent some idea and 
 
CABLYLE AS A LETTMB-WBITEB 17 
 
 body it forth. Heaven and Earth are but 
 the time-vesture of the Eternal. The Uni- 
 verse is but one vast symbol of God ; nay, if 
 thou wilt have it, what is man himself but a 
 symbol of God ? Is not all that he does sym- 
 bolical, a revelation to sense of the mystic 
 God-given force that is in him ? — a gospel 
 of Freedom, which he, the ' Messias of Na- 
 ture,' preaches as he can by act and word." 
 It was only to be expected that the favorite 
 quotation of a man whose high belief can be 
 stated thus, of a man who regarded time as 
 an illusion, should be the lines from Shake- 
 speare's Tempest : — 
 
 " We are such stnfE 
 As dreams are made on, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep." 
 
 Now, although it is proverbially difficult to 
 prove a negative, the ease with which a nega- 
 tive can be stated should be equally matter 
 of proverb. Accordingly, we find that Car- 
 lyle, in his letters, a hundred times denounces 
 the world as he sees it for once that he de- 
 scribes, or even suggests, the world as he 
 would see it. Silent heroes should be the 
 rulers of England. Silent heroes are rare 
 birds, even among the dead. Instead of 
 them, talking parliamentarians are at the 
 
18 CARLYLE AS A LETTER-WRITER 
 
 head of things ; and Carlyle has to say what 
 he thinks of Gladstone and Disraeli, the alter- 
 nately ruling talkers. When, in 1874, Dis- 
 raeli proposed to grant him a pension and 
 bestow on him also the Grand Cross of the 
 Bath, he wrote to John Carlyle : " I do, how- 
 ever, truly admire the magnanimity of Dizzy 
 in regard to me. He is the only man I 
 almost never spoke of except with contempt." 
 Men of letters fare no better than men of 
 action. They should be priests, in white, un- 
 spotted robes. What does Carlyle find them? 
 In 1824, after pinning Coleridge, De Quin- 
 cey, Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt fiercely to the 
 page, he writes to Miss Welsh : " ' Good 
 heavens ! ' I often inwardly exclaim, ' and is 
 this the literary world?' This rascal rout, 
 this dirty rabble, destitute not only of high 
 feeling and knowledge or intellect, but even 
 of common honesty ! The very best of them 
 are ill-natured weaklings. They are not red- 
 blooded men at all. . . . Such is the literary 
 world of London ; indisputably the poorest 
 part of its population at present." So Car- 
 lyle wrote of writers when he was putting on 
 his literary armor, and not very differently 
 when he was putting it off. His Hero as 
 Man of Letters was almost invariably seen at 
 
CABLYLE AS A LETTER-WRITER 19 
 
 a distance, either of time or space. He 
 spitted Coleridge on his sharpest spear, and 
 two blasting, withering descriptions of Charles 
 Lamb — with forty years between them for 
 reflection — remain to the everlasting hurt 
 of Carlyle's own reputation. 
 
 Vitriol blesseth neither him that gives nor 
 him that takes, yet Carlyle stayed to the end 
 of his many days essentially high-minded. 
 Honorable, simple, helpful, charitable in deed 
 though not in word, he was seen at the limit 
 of his course to have a better heart, a charac- 
 ter less deteriorated, than many a man — no 
 less good at the start — who has indulged 
 himself with " omitting the negative proposi- 
 tion." The habit of scorn would in the long 
 run have been more harmful to character than 
 the habit of tolerance and facile praise, ex- 
 cept that Carlyle had an extraordinarily high 
 standard of principle and performance, and 
 held to it not only in his judgment of others, 
 but also in what he exacted of himself. The 
 fact that Carlyle never tried to reconcile the 
 inconsistency (as it may have seemed to some 
 persons) between the Deity of his worship and 
 the symbolic manifestations of that Deity in a 
 world so little to Carlyle's liking no doubt 
 helped him to keep his spiritual integrity. 
 
20 CABLTLE AS A LETTEB-WBITEB 
 
 In company and contrast with the mysticism 
 of Carlyle's thought — "idealism" is the bet- 
 ter word, if it be strictly interpreted — is the 
 eager realism of his literary methods. As a 
 result of this piquant union, Carlyle means 
 one thing to one man, and another, quite dif- 
 ferent thing to another man. The Carlyle 
 of X, the strait idealist, is a moonish philoso- 
 pher, to be shunned by A, the strait realist, 
 who rejoices in the closely packed narrative, 
 the wild action, and the portraits of men and 
 women, that make but a trivial appeal to X. 
 This union of natures is plain enough in 
 Shakespeare, in whom nothing surprises. The 
 hand which gave us the Tempest gave us also 
 JuUet's nurse and Hotspur's description of 
 " a certain Lord." Too often, however, the 
 ideaUst's grasp of the concrete is wavering 
 and intermittent; too often the soul of the 
 realist needs little feeding. 
 
 Carlyle vibrated between these two ele- 
 ments of his nature, and fortified one with 
 the other. When, after burrowing in the 
 dust-heap of the past or fishing into "the 
 general Mother of Dead Dogs," he had 
 brought to light some pearl (or, it might be, 
 only some oyster-shell) of fact, he often im- 
 proved the opportunity to show the larger 
 
CABLTLE AS A LETTER- WE ITER 21 
 
 significance of the little gleam or glint of 
 reality. It was the defect of a fine quality 
 that, in his later work, and especially in Fred- 
 erick, he spent himseH on irrelevant facts 
 which helped to make Carlyle's longest book 
 a splendid failure, with episodes of indubita- 
 ble success. 
 
 The looser form of the letter more properly 
 admits the isolated concrete. Shrewd, wel- 
 come bits of fact are everywhere in Carlyle's 
 letters; everywhere, too, are those other ex- 
 pressions of a great realist, — vividly " com- 
 posed " elements of landscape, and portraits 
 that give every token of life except breath. 
 As with every artist, whatever he depicts 
 takes color from him, and is seen through his 
 temperament. In the summer of 1837 Car- 
 lyle writes to Sterling from Scotsbrig : " One 
 night, late, I rode through the village where 
 I was born. The old kirkyard tree, a huge 
 old gnarled ash, was nestling itself softly 
 against the great twilight in the north. A 
 star or 'two looked out, and the old graves 
 were all there, and my father and my sister ; 
 and God was above us all." Here be worn, 
 familiar things. Gray has been to the village 
 churchyard at the hour of parting day, and a, 
 procession has followed in his footsteps. But 
 
22 CAELYLE AS A LETTER-WRITER 
 
 this kirkyard, where Carlyle has since laid 
 himself down with his kindred, is Carlyle's. 
 
 The reappearance (usually heightened or 
 elaborated) of bits of prospect or topography 
 first recorded in Carlyle's letters is an inter- 
 esting characteristic of his writing. His first 
 visit to Paris was of much service to him in 
 fixing the places and scenes of The French 
 Revolution; the trip into the country of 
 Cromwell's birth and the examination of 
 Naseby field come into sight again in the 
 book, — witness especially the " Cease your 
 fooling," and the troopers' teeth that bit into 
 Carlyle's memory; and a number of rough 
 drafts for details of Frederick appear in let- 
 ters from the Continent. A brief note, dur- 
 ing a visit to Mr. Redwood in 1843, of the 
 Glamorganshire " green network of intricate 
 lanes, mouldering ruins, vigorous vegetation 
 good and bad," was afterward dilated (in 
 the Life of Sterling) into the spacious and 
 beautiful landscape beginning: " Llanblethian 
 hangs pleasantly, with its white cottages, and 
 orchard and other trees, on the western slope 
 of a green hill ; looking far and wide over 
 green meadows and little or bigger hills, in 
 the pleasant plain of Glamorgan." 
 
 Distinguished as are Carlyle's portraits of 
 
CABLYLE AS A LETTEB-WBITES, 23 
 
 places, it is probably his portraits of persons 
 that abide longest and most completely in 
 the memories of most readers* Robespierre, 
 Mirabeau and Mirabeau p^re, Frederick and 
 Frederick William, — it is one sign of Car- 
 lyle's power that he can make subordinate 
 characters salient and still bring out his hero, 
 — Voltaire, Cromwell, and the Abbot Sam- 
 son, are a few of the pictures that line his 
 galleries. Wonderful as are these render- 
 ings of men he never saw, his sketches of men 
 he had known are almost literally " speaking 
 likenesses." Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Dickens, 
 Thackeray, Tennyson, Mazzini, Louis Napo- 
 leon, are among the many who are painted to 
 a miracle in Carlyle's letters. Behold a great 
 American, in a letter to Emerson : — 
 
 " Not many days ago I saw at breakfast 
 the notablest of all your Notabihties, Daniel 
 Webster. He is a magnificent specimen ; 
 you might say to all the world. This is your 
 Yankee Englishman, such Limbs we make in 
 Yankee-land ! As a Logic-fencer, Advocate, 
 or Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline 
 to back him at first sight against all the 
 extant world. The tanned complexion, that 
 amorphous craglike face ; the dull black eyes 
 under their precipice of brows, Uke dull an- 
 
24 CABZYLE AS A LETTER-WRITEB 
 
 thracite furnaces, needing only to be blown ; 
 the mastifE - mouth, accurately closed : — I 
 have not traced as much of silent Berserker- 
 rage, that I remember of, in any other man. 
 'I guess I should not like to be your nigger ! ' " 
 At the risk of numbering this paper with 
 the books of Chrysippus, we must look again 
 at the portrait of De Quincey, which is, per- 
 haps, the artist's chief triumph. Although 
 it is to be found in the Reminiscences, it yet 
 belongs here well enough, for that book is 
 not so much a book as a long, rambling let- 
 ter, partly of remorse, partly of pity, from 
 Carlyle to himself. " He was a pretty httle 
 creature," says this terrible, sad old man, re- 
 membering after forty years, "fuU of wire- 
 drawn ingenuities; bankrupt enthusiasms, 
 bankrupt pride; with the finest silver-toned 
 low voice, and most elaborate gently-winding 
 courtesies and ingenuities of conversation : 
 * What would n't one give to have him in a 
 Box, and take him out to talk ! ' (That was 
 Her criticism of him ; and it was right good.) 
 A bright, ready and melodious talker; but 
 in the end an inconclusive and long-winded. 
 One of the smallest man-figures I ever saw ; 
 shaped like a pair of tongs ; and hardly above 
 five feet in all : when he sat, you would have 
 
CARLYLE AS A LETTER-WRITER 25 
 
 taken him, by candle-light, for the beauti- 
 f uUest Httle Child ; blue-eyed, blonde-haired, 
 sparkling face, — had there not been a some- 
 thing too, which said, ' Eccovi, this Child has. 
 been in Hell ! ' " One would be sure, without 
 other evidence than " Her criticism " in this 
 description, which is also a " character," — to 
 use the old word, — that She, too, had been 
 terrible. The broken order, the curious punc- 
 tuation, the capitals and italics, the leave of 
 absence granted to the verb, the quick inter- 
 jections, aU taken together make the passage 
 a concentrated example of Carlyle's vox hu- 
 Tnana style, — of his writing when it is most 
 like speech, sublimated. 
 
 In his use of persons, as of places, there 
 are pregnant comparisons to be made between 
 Carlyle's first study and the final portrait. 
 Sterling and old Sterling are cases in point ; 
 Coleridge, maybe, the best instance of all. 
 The main lines and the personal atmosphere, 
 always visible, I think, in the sketch, are 
 reproduced by Carlyle in the finished work. 
 But in the heightening of lights, in the deep- 
 ening of shade, in composition, above all, he 
 makes many changes, which almost invariably 
 result in greater intensity of effect. 
 
 From such comparisons, if patiently con- 
 
26 CABLYLE AS A LETTEB-WBITEB 
 
 ducted, might come luminous comment on 
 the question of Carlyle's style, — a question 
 more vexed than the Bermoothes. 
 
 So far and so much for Carlyle's general 
 aspect as a letter-writer. I have tried to show 
 that, in addressing himself to a very few 
 friends, and especially to his own family, he 
 displays a different set of qualities. The dif- 
 ference between his vehemence toward the 
 world at large and his gentleness toward his 
 mother sometimes seems as marked as that 
 between the two visions of the prophet Jere- 
 miah : the one a seething caldron, the face 
 thereof from the north ; the other, a rod of 
 an almond tree. The world, in truth, for this 
 peasant of genius, was, to the considerable 
 degree in which he remained a peasant, an 
 assemblage of persons and things to be ap- 
 proached with many reserves and a deal of 
 more or less violent disapproval. Annandale, 
 contrariwise, was an honest, strength-giving 
 corner of the world, which did for him 
 through life the office of the earth to An- 
 taeus. He went back to it so often that he 
 never lost his native accent, and, in certain 
 respects, the point of view to which he was 
 born. So long as Carlyle's mother lived, 
 there was rarely a year in which he did not 
 
CABLYLE AS A LETTEB-WBITEB 27 
 
 make a pilgrimage to Scotsbrig; and, after 
 she died, he went oftener to her grave than 
 most sons, dwelling at a distance from their 
 mothers, visit them in life. Scotsbrig also 
 came to him in the shape of letters, as well 
 as in the unsentimental (though, rightly be- 
 held, not unpathetic) guise of oatmeal, bacon, 
 clothes, and what not. The Carlyles held 
 that good meal could not be bought in Lon- 
 don ; and when the barrel wasted, it was filled 
 again from home. One far-brought fowl we 
 all remember as the epic subject of a letter 
 from Mrs. Carlyle in Chelsea to her sister- 
 in-law in Scotland. Carlyle had his clothes 
 made in Annan, partly from thrift, partly 
 from distrust of London tailors. 
 
 However much he depended on the people 
 and the kindly fruits of his native soil, how- 
 ever much the exclusiveness of the Carlyles 
 may have been only that common to all 
 Scotch peasant families, it is still hard to 
 credit, though on the excellent authority of 
 Mrs. Oliphant, that their mutual love was 
 not " by ordinar," even among Scotch peas- 
 ants. Especially is it difficult of credence 
 that the attachment of Carlyle and his mother 
 was not as rare as it was beautiful. In 1832, 
 after the death of his father, he writes to his 
 
28 CASLYLE AS A LETTER-WBITEB 
 
 brother Alick, at Scotsbrig : " let us all be 
 gentle, obedient, loving to our Mother, now 
 that she is left wholly to our charge ! ' Hon- 
 our thy Father and thy Mother ' : doubly 
 honour thy Mother when she alone remains." 
 For twenty years this double honor was more 
 than trebly paid. The son writes once to his 
 mother : " Since I wrote last I have been in 
 Scotsbrig more than in London." And so 
 it often is to the end, — and after. Dream- 
 ing and waking, he looks far up across Eng- 
 land and the Solway. In the spring the plow 
 and the sower pass between his eyes and the 
 page of Cromwell or The French Revolution ; 
 in the autumn he has a vision of the yel- 
 low fields, of " Jamie's " peat-stack, and the 
 " cauldron " singing under his mother's win- 
 dow. The mother's trembling thought of her 
 children answers their love for her. " She 
 told me the other day " (writes one of Car- 
 lyle's sisters), " the first gaet she gaed every 
 morning was to London, then to Italy, then 
 to Craigenputtock, and then to Mary's, and 
 finally began to think them at hame were, 
 maybe, no safer than the rest. When I asked 
 her what she wished me to say to you, she 
 said she had a thousand things to say if she 
 had you here ; ' and thou may tell them, I 'm 
 very little fra' them.' " 
 
CARLYLJE AS A LETTER-WRITER 29 
 
 As from his first clear earnings Carlyle sent 
 his father a pair of spectacles, and his mother 
 " a little sovereign to keep the fiend out of 
 her hussif," so throughout he never forgot 
 her in the least or the greatest particular. 
 From year to year he sent her money and to- 
 bacco, — which they often smoked together 
 in the farmhouse, — books and comforts and 
 letters. The letters, of course, were far the 
 best of all to her. Often as they came, they 
 could not come ofteu enough. In 1824 Mar- 
 garet Carlyle wrote to her son : " Pray do 
 not let me want food ; as your father says, I 
 look as if I would eat your letters. Write 
 everything and soon." Everything and soon 
 it always was ; and in these many letters Car- 
 lyle strove to bring near to the untraveled 
 ones at home all that he was seeing and 
 doing. One means of doing this was to de- 
 scribe interesting places in terms of Annan- 
 dale. Thus, in telUng his sister Jean about 
 Naseby, he wrote : — 
 
 " Next day they drove me over some fif- 
 teen miles off to see the field of Naseby fight 
 — Oliver Cromwell's chief battle, or one of 
 his chief. It was a grand scene for me — 
 Naseby, a venerable hamlet, larger than Mid- 
 dlebie, all built of mud, but trim with high 
 
30 CABLTLE AS A LETTES-WSITEB 
 
 peaked roofs, and two feet thick of smooth 
 thatch on them, and plenty of trees scattered 
 round and among. It is built as on the brow 
 of the Hagheads at Ecclefechan ; Cromwell 
 lay with his back to that, and King Charles 
 was drawn up as at Wull Welsh's — only the 
 Sinclair burn must be mostly dried, and the 
 hoUow much wider and deeper." 
 
 Carlyle knew that his mother would be 
 eager to hear of Luther and.Lutherland. In 
 September of the last year but one of her 
 life, he writes to her from Weimar that 
 " Eisenach is about as big as Dumfries ; " 
 that a hiU near by is " somewhat as Lock- 
 erbie hiU is in height and position." The 
 donjon tower of the Wartburg (which he 
 translates for her. Watch Castle) stands like 
 the old Tower of Eepentance on Hoddam 
 Hill, where his mother had visited him during 
 his " russet-coated idyll " there, many years 
 before. " They open a door, you enter a 
 little apartment, less than your best room at 
 Scotsbrig, I almost think less than your 
 smallest, a very poor low room with an old 
 leaded lattice window ; to me the most ven- 
 erable of all rooms I ever entered." That 
 afternoon they drive to Gotha in a " kind of 
 clatch." Carlyle helps out his English for 
 
CABLTLE AS A LETTER-WBITEB 31 
 
 his mother with hits of their common Doric, 
 and falls unconsciously into Scotch locutions, 
 such as " you would be going," or " you 
 would be doing," when he means " you are 
 likely to go " or " likely to do." In larger 
 matters it is the same. Carlyle may have 
 been chanting the Miserere to some corre- 
 spondent, but if he writes to his mother on 
 the same day, the note changes to Sursum 
 corda, even though it must visibly struggle 
 up from the depths. Nor do the Immensities 
 and the Eternities appear in his letters to her. 
 In these the Lord her God is also his God. 
 
 The belief in personal immortaUty came to 
 Carlyle, so far as I can discover, but dimly 
 and infrequently. This chill lack of faith, 
 so common in our day, sharpened the dread 
 of his mother's death. So early as 1844 he 
 writes in his Journal : " My dear old mother 
 has, I doubt, been often poorly this winter. 
 They report her well at present : but, alas ! 
 there is nothing in all the earth so stem to 
 me as that constantly advancing inevitability, 
 which indeed has terrified me all my days." 
 Yet, in Carlyle's letters after her death, a 
 dovelike peace seems to brood over his deep 
 sorrow. With Roman piety he records the 
 death-trance, sixteen hours long, in which his 
 
32 CARLTLE AS A LETTEB-WBITMB 
 
 mother, her face " as that of a statue," lay 
 waiting for the end. It was another 
 
 " Dulcis et alta quies, placidseque simillima morti;" 
 
 and all Carlyle's words about that holy part- 
 ing are grave and sweet. 
 
 Whatever of loveliness there may have been 
 in the life together of Carlyle and his wife, 
 — and there was much, in spite of all that 
 has been said to the contrary, — in death 
 they were far divided. She lies with her 
 gentle forbears in the abbey kirk at Hadding^ 
 ton ; he, in Ecclef echan kirkyard with his 
 peasant forbears. When Carlyle was dying, 
 the Lord remembered for him the kindness 
 of his youth, — his mother might have be- 
 lieved, — and " his mind seemed to turn alto- 
 gether to the old Ecclefechan days." Said 
 his niece, Mrs. Alexander Carlyle, writiag 
 just after his death : " He often took Alick 
 for his father (uncle Sandy), and he would 
 put his arms round my neck and say to me, 
 * My dear mother.' " 
 
 Great writer as Carlyle is, many critics feel 
 that he can never become classical. The 
 word " classic," as Sainte-Beuve has pointed 
 out, is a stretchable term ; but very possibly 
 the Soudanese lexicographer, descended from 
 
CABLTLE AS A LETTHR-WBITEB 33 
 
 a native of New Zealand, •will label many of 
 Carlyle's phrases "post-classical," and place 
 him with Browning and Kuskin, who felt his 
 influence, in the Silver Age of English. Cer- 
 tainly, the Soudanese Quintilian wiU do well 
 to tell his pupils the story of Erasmus's ape, 
 and warn them against the danger of imitat- 
 ing Carlyle. Classical or post-classical, Car- 
 lyle's name is as closely linked with the 
 French Kevolution and the Life of Oliver 
 Cromwell, as is the name of Thucydides with 
 the Peloponnesian War, that of Tacitus with 
 the Emperors of the Julian Une, or that of 
 Gibbon with the Decline and Fall of their 
 Empire. Yet even if Carlyle's historical titles 
 were torn from his grant of immortality, he 
 would survive as one of the most remarkable 
 of English letter-writers. 
 
LETTEES OF THOMAS CARLYLE TO 
 HIS YOUNGEST SISTER 
 
LETTERS 
 
 Mes. Hanning (Janet Carlyle) was born, as 
 were all her brothers and sisters before her, 
 in the village of Ecclefechan. The following 
 notes of her Ufe are supplied by her son-in-law, 
 the Eev. George M. Franklin : — 
 
 " She was reckoned the neatest seamstress 
 of the family, and received the rare compli- 
 ment of praise from her eldest brother (Thomas 
 Carlyle) for having done excellent work on 
 some shirts. Eobert Hanning, an old friend 
 of the Carlyles, going to the same school with 
 Janet, and ' looking on the same book,' wooed 
 and won her. They were married at Scots- 
 brig, on March 15, 1836. They went to 
 Manchester, England, to live, as Mr. Hanning 
 was employed by a Mr. Craig, and subse- 
 quently was a partner in the business. This 
 business having proved unprofitable, they re- 
 turned to Scotland, and Mr. Hanning entered 
 
38 LETTERS OF CARLYLE 
 
 into business with his brother Peter as part- 
 ner. This proved also a failure. Soon after- 
 ward the family went back to Dumfries. Mr. 
 Hanning sailed for America, arriving at New 
 York ; and after working there for a time 
 left that city for Hamilton, Ontario, his fu- 
 ture home. Mrs. Hanning and her two chil- 
 dren remained in Dumfries, although she had 
 wished much to go with her husband and 
 share his fortunes. Thomas persuaded her, 
 * against her judgment,' as she has said, to 
 wait until her husband was settled. Mr. 
 Hanning was a man of strong convictions and 
 the highest moral principle. The reunion of 
 his family was effected in 1851, when the 
 wife and two daughters left Glasgow in a 
 saiKng-vessel, the passage to Quebec occu- 
 pying about seven weeks. Then taking a 
 steamer from Quebec, they reached Hamilton 
 in good time. This was before the building 
 of the Great Western Railway. Mrs. Han- 
 ning soon made a home for her devoted hus- 
 band, earning the commendation ' brave little 
 sister.' Mr. Hanning entered the service of 
 the Great Western Railway of Canada in 
 1853, and remained with that company until 
 his death, which occurred March 12, 1878." 
 An indispensable guide to the correspond- 
 
THE CABLTLE FAMILY 39 
 
 enee will be found in the following list, given 
 by Professor Norton, of the children of James 
 Carlyle, with the dates of their births, — 
 Thomas, born December 4, 1795 (died at 
 Chelsea, February 5, 1881) ; Alexander, born 
 August 4, 1797; Janet, born September 2, 
 1799 ; John Aitkin, born July 7, 1801 ; Mar- 
 garet, born September 20, 1803 ; James, born 
 November 12, 1805 ; Mary, born February 2, 
 1808 ; Jean, born September 2, 1810 j Janet 
 (Mrs. Hanning), born July 18, 18l3. 
 
 Among the persons mentioned by Mr. 
 Franklin as visiting Mrs. Hanning, the most 
 distinguished was Emerson, who went to Ham- 
 ilton in the summer of 1865. " Mr. Emerson 
 placed her in a chair near the window, so 
 that he might the more readily examine her 
 features, and, looking into her eyes, ex- 
 claimed, ' And so this is Carlyle's little 
 sister ! ' " 
 
 Mention of "the youngest stay of the 
 house, little Jenny," is rare and slight in the 
 published letters and memorials of Carlyle. 
 Froude, in an ingeniously careless passage, 
 confuses her with an older sister, Jean. He 
 speaks of " the youngest child of all, Jane, 
 called the Craw, or Crow, from her black 
 hair." Carlyle, on pages 92 and 93 of the 
 
40 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 second volume of the Reminiscences, — in 
 Mr. Norton's edition, — mentions both Jean 
 and Jenny : " There was a younger and 
 youngest sister (Jenny), who is now in Can- 
 ada ; of far inferior ' speculative intellect ' to 
 Jean, but who has proved to have (we used 
 to think) superior housekeeping faculties to 
 hers." 
 
 " My prayers and afEection are with you 
 all, from little Jenny upwards to the head 
 of the house," writes Carlyle to his mother 
 on October 19, 1826, after a form common 
 enough, with its variations, in his early let- 
 ters. Occasionally she has done something 
 to be noted. On October 20, 1827 : " Does 
 Jenny bring home her medals yet ? " On 
 November 15 : " Does Jenny still keep her 
 medals ? Tell her that I stiU love her, and 
 hope to find her a good lassie and to do her 
 good." In the spring of 1828 Carlyle writes 
 from Scotsbrig to his " Dear Little Craw " 
 in Edinburgh : " Mag and Jenny are here ; 
 Jenny at the Sewing-school with Jessie Combe, 
 and making great progress." Mrs. Carlyle 
 adds, in a postscript to an 1835 letter to Mrs. 
 Aitken : " Carlyle has the impudence to say 
 he forgot to send his compliments to Jenny ; 
 as if it were possible for any one acquainted 
 
JENNY CABLYLE 41 
 
 with that morsel of perfections to forget her ! 
 Tell her I wUl write a letter with my own 
 hand, and hope to see her ' an ornament to 
 society in every direction.' " In a preface — 
 written many years after — to a letter to Jean 
 Carlyle, bearing date November, 1825, and 
 signed Jane BaiUie Welsh, Carlyle explains : 
 " This Jean Carlyle is my second youngest 
 sister, then a little child of twelve. The 
 youngest sister, youngest of us all, was Jenny 
 [Janet],, now Mrs. Eobert Banning, in Ham- 
 ilton, Canada West. These little beings, in 
 their bits of grey speckled [black and white] 
 straw bonnets, I recollect as a pair of neat, 
 brisk items, tripping about among us that 
 summer at the HiU." Letter and preface are 
 given by Proude, as is also a letter from Car- 
 lyle to his wife, dated Scotsbrig, May 3, 1842, 
 and ending thus : " Yesterday I got my hair 
 cropped, partly by my own endeavours in the 
 front, chiefly by sister Jenny's in the rear. 
 I fear you will think it rather an original 
 cut." 
 
 In 1827 : " TeU her that I still love her, 
 and hope to find her a good lassie and to do 
 her good ; " in 1873, in Carlyle's last letter 
 to Mrs. Banning written with his own hand : 
 " I please myself with the thought that you 
 
42 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 ■will accept this little New Year's Gift from 
 me as a sign of my unalterable affection, wh'', 
 tho' it is obliged to be silent (unable to write 
 as of old), cannot fade away until I myself 
 do ! Of that be always sure, my dear little 
 Sister ; and that if in anything I can be of 
 help to you or yours, I right willingly will." 
 
 All the letters that follow are strung on a 
 slender thread of biography. Even readers 
 who know their Carlyle thoroughly may like 
 to see, from year to year and from page to 
 page, the contrast between his life in the 
 world and his life with the peasant kindred 
 who were so far from everything that men 
 call the world. And although nothing in 
 these letters will add to our know;ledge of 
 Carlyle, they cannot — taken together — fail 
 to touch us freshly with the sense of what he 
 was to his people, and what they were to 
 him. 
 
 Carlyle's life until 1832, the year of the 
 first letter, may be most briefly summarized. 
 The son of James Carlyle, a stone-mason, he 
 was born at Ecclefechan, "in a room incon- 
 ceivably small," on the 4:th of December, 
 1795. He went to school at Annan, and, in 
 1809, to the University of Edinburgh. Five 
 years later he returned to the Annan school 
 
TO JANET CABLYLE 43 
 
 as a teacher of mathematics, and in 1816 
 went to Kirkcaldy to teach the same subject. 
 After an experience of literary hack -work in 
 Edinburgh, which began when he was twenty- 
 three years old, he became tutor in the BuUer 
 family. A long, strange, and ill-boding court- 
 ship ended, on the 17th of October, 1826, in 
 his marriage with Jane Baillie Welsh. She 
 had a small inherited estate at Craigenput- 
 tock, high up on the moors, and sixteen nules 
 from Dumfries; and there, two years after 
 their marriage, they went to live for six years. 
 In 1831 and 1832 they were merely trying 
 their wings in London. 
 
 " Mrs. Welsh " was Mrs. Carlyle's mother. 
 " Maister Ca;irlill " was a frequent name for 
 Carlyle's brother James. The family had 
 been living at Scotsbrig since 1826. Carlyle 
 was thirty-six years old, and his sister nine- 
 teen, when the following letter was written. 
 
 i. cablti.e to janet caeltle, scotsbbia. 
 
 Ampton St., London, 
 23rd January, 1832. 
 
 My deae Jenny, — Will you put up with 
 the smallest of letters rather than with none 
 at all? I have hardly a moment, and no 
 paper but this thick, coarse sort. 
 
44 LETTEBS OF CABLYLE 
 
 Understand always, My dear Sister, that I 
 love you well, and am very glad to see and 
 hear that you conduct yourself as you ought. 
 To you also, my little lassie, it is of infinite 
 importance how you behave : were you to get 
 a Kingdom, or twenty Kingdoms, it were but 
 a pitiful trifle compared with this, whether 
 you walked as God command you, and did 
 your duty to God and to all men. You have 
 a whole Life before you, to make much of or 
 to make Httle of : see you choose the better 
 part, my dear little sister, and make yourself 
 and all of us pleased with you. I wiU add 
 no more, but commend you from the heart 
 (as we should aU do one another) to God's 
 keeping. May He ever bless you ! I am too 
 late, and must not wait another minute. We 
 have this instant had a long letter from Mrs. 
 Welsh, fuU of kindness to our Mother and 
 all of you. The Cheese, &c., &c., is faithfully 
 commemorated as a " noble " one ; Mary is 
 also made kind mention of. You did all very 
 right on that occasion. Mrs. Welsh says she 
 must come down to Scotsbrig and see you all. 
 What will you think of that? Her Father, 
 in the meantime, is very ill, and gives her in- 
 cessant labour and anxiety. 
 
 See to encouraige Jean to write, and do 
 
DEATH OF HIS FATHER 45 
 
 you put your hand a little to the work. 
 What does Maister Cairlill think of the last 
 letter he wrote us ? Was it not a letter 
 among many? He is a graceless man. I 
 send you a portrait of one of our Chief Radi- 
 cals here : it is said to be very like. - 
 I remain always, My dear Sister, 
 Your affectionate 
 
 T, Carlylb. 
 
 On January 24, — Froude gives the date 
 wrongly as the 26th, — the day after the date 
 of this letter, Carlyle, still in London, heard 
 of the death of his father, at the age of sev- 
 enty-three. He wrote immediately to his mo- 
 ther in terms which place the letter high even 
 among his letters ; and in less than a week he 
 had uttered the wail of genius that stands 
 first in the Reminiscences, — a book which 
 has " no language but a cry." By April he 
 was back again at Craigenputtock, where it 
 was so still that poor Mrs. Carlyle could hear 
 the sheep nibbling a quarter of a mile away. 
 Carlyle had now a new grief in the death of 
 Goethe, who, making of him a disciple, had 
 left him a teacher on his own account. The 
 loss of Goethe found a measurable compensa- 
 tion in correspondence with MUl, who had 
 
46 LETTERS OF CARLYLE 
 
 been kindled; into something very like fire by 
 Carlyle's review of Croker's Boswell, just 
 published in Fraser's Magazine. It is one of 
 the greatest of Carlyle's briefer performances, 
 although written at short notice. " Carlyle," 
 said his wife, "always writes well when he 
 writes fast." This essay, indeed, has a high 
 place in the development of an idea which 
 may be stated as Croker's Boswell, Macaulay's 
 Boswell, Carlyle's Boswell, and — Boswell. 
 
 There followed now essays on Goethe and 
 Ebenezer Elliott's Corn Law Rhymes (Car- 
 lyle's last contribution to the Edinburgh 
 Eeview), and a highly important article on 
 Diderot for the Foreign Quarterly. In the 
 autumn of 1832, Carlyle notes that the 
 money from the essay on Goethe has gone 
 in part payment of JefErey's loan, that Craig- 
 enputtock has grown too lonely even for him, 
 and that his literary plans demand a library. 
 Not only must the work on Diderot have 
 assured him of his ability to fuse and weld 
 the most stubborn materials, but it opened 
 his eyes to the French Revolution as a sub- 
 ject for his pen. Moved, then, by weariness 
 of the solitude h deux among the peat moss, 
 and by this new purpose in writing, the twain 
 removed to Edinburgh toward the end of 
 1832. 
 
AT CRAIOENPUTTOCK 47 
 
 Four montlis of Edinburgh . were enough 
 to convince Carlyle that here was for him no 
 continuing city ; enough, also, to enable him 
 to collect and carry back to Craigenputtock 
 the substance of The Diamond Necklace, one 
 of the best of his tragi-comic pieces. 
 
 The loneUness of "the whinstone strong- 
 hold " on the moors was cheered in the fol- 
 lowing August by Emerson's memorable visit. 
 "We went out to walk over long hills," 
 writes Emerson in English Traits, " and 
 looked at Criffel, then without his cap, and 
 down into Wordsworth's country. There we 
 sat down and talked of the immortality of 
 the soul." 
 
 The essay on Cagliostro, written in March, 
 1833, was printed in Eraser's Magazine for 
 July and August ; and Eraser agreed to pub- 
 lish Sartor Resartus in the next volume, 
 "only fining Carlyle eight guineas a sheet 
 for his originality." This gadfly tax on gen- 
 ius; the Foreign Quarterly's refusal of The 
 Diamond Necklace, patently a masterpiece 
 though it was ; Jeffrey's refusal to recom- 
 mend Carlyle for a professorship of astron- 
 omy ; and, by way of climax, the defection of 
 one of those maids whose misdemeanors con- 
 tinue a servile war through so many of the 
 
48 LETTEBS OF CABLTLE 
 
 Carlyle chronicles, directed Carlyle's gaze 
 toward what Johnson thought the fairest 
 prospect ever spread before a Scotchman. 
 Emerson had observed that " he was already 
 turning his eyes towards London with a 
 scholar's appreciation," and at last, on the 
 25th of February, 1834, Carlyle wrote to his 
 brother John : " We learned incidentally last 
 week that Grace, our servant, though ' with- 
 out fault to us,' and whom we, with all her 
 inertness, were nothing but purposing to 
 keep, had resolved on 'going home next sum- 
 mer.' The cup that had long been filling ran 
 over with the smallest of drops. After medi- 
 tating on it for a few minutes, we said to one 
 another : ' Why not bolt out of all these sooty 
 despicabilities, of Kerrags and lying draggle- 
 tails of byre-women, and peat-moss and iso- 
 lation and exasperation and confusion, and 
 go at once to London ? ' Oedacht, gethan ! 
 Two days after we had a letter on the road 
 to Mrs. Austin, to look out among the 
 * houses to let ' for us, and an advertisement 
 to Mac Diarmid to try for the letting of our 
 own." Cattle, poultry, and various superflui- 
 ties, were sold. Carlyle went on ahead, and 
 was guided by the airy steps of Leigh Hunt, 
 then a dweller in Upper Cheyne Kow, Chel- 
 
IN LONDON 49 
 
 sea, to the house Number 5, Great Cheyne 
 Row, which the new tenants soon made inter- 
 esting to much of what was best in London 
 (to much, also, Mrs. Oliphant has taken pains 
 to say, of what was not the best), and event- 
 ually to the English-speaking world. The 
 house was not taken until Mrs. Carlyle had 
 inspected and approved it. A few days after 
 the 10th of June, the date of their installa- 
 tion, Carlyle wrote to his mother: "We lie 
 safe at a bend of the river, away from all the 
 great roads ; have air and quiet hardly infe- 
 rior to Craigenputtock, an outlook from the 
 back windows into mere leafy regions, with 
 here and there a red high-peaked old roof 
 looking through ; and see nothing of London, 
 except by day the summits of St. Paul's Ca- 
 thedral and Westminster Abbey, and by night 
 the gleam of the great Babylon affronting 
 the peaceful skies. The house itself is prob- 
 ably the best we have ever lived in, a right 
 old, strong, roomy brick-house, built near 
 one hundred and fifty years ago, and likely 
 to see three races of these modern fashiona- 
 bles fall before it comes down." It all sounds 
 like a sunny backwater, but in truth the Car- 
 lyles had taken a very bold plunge into the 
 world-sea. Their reserve of money could have 
 
50 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 been, at the utmost, no more than three hun- 
 dred pounds ; and the only personal sign of 
 the times for them was the fact that the 
 writer of Sartor — now coming out in chap- 
 ters — was thought a Hterary maniac, and 
 that Fraser feared the ruin of his magazine. 
 
 The household gods, however, once tem- 
 pled in Cheyne Row, were never carried back 
 across the Border ; nor, in fact, were they, 
 in the half-century of life that remained to 
 Carlyle, removed to any other spot. Here he 
 caught the last glimpse of Edward Irving, 
 the friend of his youth; here he welcomed 
 Sterling, " a new young figure," the closest 
 friend of his middle life ; and hither came to 
 him Froude and Euskin, his latest followers. 
 
 At first, in the chosen habitation, it was 
 " desperate hope " and " bitter thrift." The 
 readers of Fraser's Magazine received Sartor 
 each month with renewed disgust. " Sartor," 
 said the publisher, " excites universal disap- 
 probation." While this passionate history of 
 a soul, with its motive so strangely drawn 
 from the Holy Bible and the great, unholy 
 Dean, was waiting to touch the slow spirit of 
 the British reading public, Carlyle — taking 
 counsel of his necessities, his ambition, and 
 his inspirations — applied himself to the his- 
 
THE FBJENCH REVOLUTION 51 
 
 tory of the French Eevolution. The first 
 volume — as all the world knows — was lent 
 in manuscript to Mill, who lent it to Mrs. 
 Taylor, his " veevid " and " iridescent " Ege- 
 ria, whose servant kindled fires with it. Car- 
 lyle had not been offered, as he thought he 
 should have been, the editorship of the new 
 London and Westminster Eeview ; and Mill, 
 for fear of his father, did not dare even to 
 give him work to do for it. Carlyle himself 
 had refused to sell his independence to the 
 Times, There was thus nothing for it but to 
 rewrite the burnt volume, of which he had 
 kept no notes. With such vigor did he drive 
 his mind and his pen that the lost chapters 
 were restored by September 22, 1835. Mill 
 had told him of the loss on the 6th of the 
 preceding March, Mrs. Carlyle wrote to her 
 sister-in-law, Mrs. Aitken, in August : " I do 
 not think that the second version is, on the 
 whole, inferior to the first ; it is a Uttle less 
 vivacious, perhaps, but better thought and 
 put together. One chapter more brings him 
 to the end of his second ' first volume,' and 
 then we shall sing a Te Deum and get drunk ; 
 for which, by the way, we have unusual facil- 
 ities at present, a friend (Mr. Wilson) having 
 yesterday sent us a present of a hamper (some 
 
52 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 six or seven pounds' worth) of the finest old 
 Madeira wine." 
 
 Better yet than wine was an American edi- 
 tion of Sartor, godfathered by Emerson, to 
 the number of five hundred copies. This was 
 in April, 1836, and another edition was soon 
 demanded. Carlyle amused himself by quot- 
 ing the book, in his essay on Mirabeau, as the 
 work of a New England writer. 
 
 " The Doctor," mentioned in the letter to 
 follow, was Carlyle's brother John, who, 
 thanks to JefBrey, had been for some years 
 traveling physician to Lady Clare. " Anne 
 Cook " was an Annandale servant whom Car- 
 lyle brought with him on his return from 
 Scotsbrig, in October, 1835. Mrs. Carlyle 
 wrote of Anne Cook, " She amuses me every 
 hour of the day with her perfect incompre- 
 hension of everything like ceremony ; " and 
 several of her homespun sayings became pro- 
 verbs in Cheyne Row. "Short," as Carlyle 
 uses it in writing to his sister, has apparently 
 the meaning often attached to it in New 
 England, — " short of temper." The whole 
 sentence bears a quizzing reference to the 
 year before, when, on the 4th of June, Car^ 
 lyle had written : " Ahek, Writing to me yes- 
 terday, mentions among other things that you 
 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 53 
 
 are shorted (as he phrases it) hecause I have 
 not written. ... Do not you shorten, my 
 dear Httle Bairn, but lengthen, and know that 
 if you take anything amiss, it is for mere 
 want, of seeing how it really was ; that of all 
 delusions Satan could tempt you with, that 
 of wanting my brotherly affection, now and 
 always while we inhabit the Earth together, 
 is the most delusive." And on the 23d of 
 December : " Do not shorten, but lengthen." 
 The "second volume" is, of course, the 
 second volume of The French Revolution. 
 Of both first and second Carlyle had written 
 more vehemently to Emerson, a few weeks 
 before : " I got the fatal First Volume fin- 
 ished (in the miserablest way, after great 
 efforts) in October last ; my head was all in 
 a whirl ; I fled to Scotland and my Mother 
 for a month of rest. Rest is nowhere for the 
 Son of Adam ; all looked so ' spectral ' to me 
 in my old-familiar Birthland; Hades itself 
 could not have seemed stranger; Annandale 
 also was part of the kingdom of Time. Since 
 November I have worked again as I could; 
 a second volume got wrapped up and sealed 
 out of my sight within the last three days. 
 There is but a Third now: one pull more, 
 and then ! It seems to me, I will fly into 
 
54 LETTERS OF CABLYZE 
 
 some obscurest cranny of the world, and lie 
 silent there for a twelvemonth. The mind is 
 weary, the body is very sick; a little black 
 speck dances to and fro in the left eye (part 
 of the retina protesting against the liver, and 
 striking work). I cannot help it; it must 
 flutter and dance there, like a signal of dis- 
 tress, unanswered till I be done. My famihar 
 friends tell me farther that the Book is all 
 wrong, style, cramp, &c., &c. My friends, I 
 answer, you are very right; but this also, 
 Heaven be my witness, I cannot help. — In 
 such sort do I live here; all this I had to 
 write you, if I wrote at all." 
 
 The contrast between such a passage and 
 the whole letter to his sister is but one of a 
 multitude of instances that show the change 
 in Carlyle's spirit whenever he sat down to 
 write to his home people. 
 
 n. OABLYLE TO MES. HANHIirQ, MAlfCHESTEB. 
 
 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, 
 16th May, 1836. 
 
 My dear Jenny, — Your letter has been 
 here several weeks, a very welcome messen- 
 ger to us, and I did not think at the time I 
 should have been so long in answering it. 
 But I have been drawn hither and thither by 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 55 
 
 many things, of kte ; besides, I judged that 
 Robert and you were happy enough of your- 
 selves for the present, and did not much need 
 any foreign aid or interruption. I need not 
 assure you, my dear Httle Jenny, of the intei^ 
 est I took in the great enterprise you had 
 embarked on ; of my wishes and prayers 
 that it might prove for the good of both. 
 On the whole, I can say that, to my judg^ 
 ment, it looks all very fair and well. You 
 know I have all along regarded Hanning as 
 an uncommonly brisk, glegg little fellow since 
 the first time I saw him (hardly longer than 
 my leg, then), and prophesied handsome 
 things of him in the world. It is very rare 
 and very fortunate when two parties that have 
 affected each other from childhood upwards 
 get together in indissoluble partnership at 
 last. May it prove well for you, as I think 
 it will. You must take the good and the 
 ill in faithful mutual help, and, whoever or 
 whatever fail you, never fail one another. I 
 have no doubt Robert will shiEt his way with 
 all dexterity and prudence thro' that Cotton 
 Babylon, looking sharp about him ; knowing 
 , always, too, that " honesty is the best poUcy " 
 for all manner of men. Do thou faithfully 
 second him, my bairn : that will be the best 
 of lots for thee. 
 
56 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 I think it possible that now and then, es- 
 pecially when you are left alone, the look of 
 so many foreign things may seem dispiriting 
 to you, and the huge smoke and stour of that 
 tumultuous Manchester (which is not unlike 
 the uglier parts of London) produce quite 
 other than a pleasant impression. But take 
 courage, my woman, " yoU will use, you will 
 use," and get hefted to the place, as all crea- 
 tures do. There are many good people in 
 that vast weaving - shop, many good things 
 among the innumerable bad. Keep snug 
 within your own doors, keep your own hearth 
 snug ; by and by you will see what is worth 
 venturing out for. Have nothing to do with 
 the foolish, with the vain and ill-conducted. 
 Attach yourself to the well-living and sensi- 
 ble, to every one from whom you find there 
 is real benefit derivable. Thus, by degrees a 
 desirable httle circle will form itself around 
 you ; you will feel that Manchester is a home, 
 as all places under the heavenly sun here may 
 become for one. 
 
 In a newspaper you would notice that the 
 Doctor was come. Till this day, almost, there 
 was little else to be said about him than that 
 he was here and well. He has been specu- 
 lating and enquiring as to what he should do, 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 57 
 
 and now has determined that London practice 
 will not do for the present; that he should 
 go back with his Lady and try again to get 
 practice there. He is gone out this moment 
 to make a bargain to that effect. They are 
 to set out for Rome again on the first of Sep- 
 tember ; from that till the first of March the 
 Doctor is Lady Clare's doctor, but lives in his 
 own lodging at Eome ; after that he is free to 
 do whatsoever he will : to stay there, if they 
 seem inviting ; to return home, if otherwise. 
 I behave, myself, that he has decided wisely. 
 Till September, then, we have him amongst 
 us. He talks of being "off in a week or 
 two" for Scotland; he charged me to say 
 that he would see Manchester, and you, either 
 as he went or as he returned. It is not much 
 out of the way, if one go by Carlisle (or 
 rather, I suppose, it is directly in the way), 
 or even if one go by Liverpool, but I rather 
 think he will make for Newcastle this time ; 
 to which place we have a steamboat direct. 
 This is a good season for steamboats, and a 
 bad one for coaches ; for with latter, indeed, 
 what good season is there ? Nothing in 
 the world is frightfuUer to me of the travel- 
 ling rout, than a coach on a long journey. 
 It is easier by half to walk it with peas (at 
 
58 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 least boiled peas) in your shoes, were not the 
 time so much shorter. The Doctor looks very 
 well and sonsy ; he seems in good health and 
 well to live ; the only change is that his head 
 is getting a shade of grey (quite ahead o£ 
 mine, though I am six years older), which 
 does not mis-seem him, but looks very well. 
 
 We had a long speculation about going to 
 Scotland, too, but I doubt we must renounce 
 it. This summer I have finished my second 
 volume, but there is still the third to do, and 
 I must have such a tussle with it ! All sum- 
 mer I will struggle and wrestle, but then 
 about the time of the gathering in of sheaves 
 I too shall be gathering in. Jane has gone 
 out to " buy a cotton gown," for the weather 
 is, at last, beautiful and warm. Before going 
 she bade me send you both her best wishes 
 and regards, prayers for a happy pilgrimage 
 together. She has been but poorly for a 
 good while (indeed, all the world is sick with 
 these east winds and perpetual changes), but 
 will probably be better now. 
 
 Jack and I, too, have both had oxa colds. 
 Then Anne Cook fell sick, almost danger- 
 ously sick for the time ; but Jack was there 
 and gave abundant medical help ; so the poor 
 creature is on her feet again, and a great 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 59 
 
 trouble of confusion is rolled out of doors 
 thereby. 
 
 I am writing to our Mother this day. I 
 have heard nothing from that quarter since 
 the letter that informed me the poor little 
 child was dead. Jean wrote part of it her- 
 self, and seemed in a very composed state, 
 keeping her natural sorrow courageously 
 down. Our Mother, I believe, continues there 
 tin Jean be ill again, and we hope happily 
 well. Whether there be a frank procurable 
 to-day I know not, but I will try. At worst 
 I will not wait, lest you grow impatient again 
 and get short. If you knew what a fizz I am 
 kept in with one thing and another ! Write 
 to me when you have time to fill a sheet, — 
 news, descriptions of how you get on, what 
 you sufEer and enjoy, what you do : these are 
 the best. I will answer. Send an old news- 
 paper from time to time, with two strokes on 
 it, if you are well. Promise, however, to 
 write instantly if you are iU. Then shall we 
 know to keep ourselves in peace. 
 
 Farewell, dear little Sister. Give our love 
 to our new Brother. Tell him to walk wisely 
 and be a credit to your choice. God be with 
 you both. 
 
 T. Carlylb. 
 
60 LETTEBS OF CASLTLE 
 
 In Carlyle's Journal for June 1 occur these 
 words : — 
 
 " An eternity of life were not endurable to 
 any mortal. To me the thought of it were 
 madness even for one day. Oh ! I am far 
 astray, wandering, lost, ' dyeing the thirsty 
 desert with my blood in every footprint.' 
 Perhaps God and His providence will be bet- 
 ter to me than I hope. Peace, peace ! words 
 are idler than idle. 
 
 " I have seen Wordsworth again. I have 
 seen Landor, Americans, Frenchman-Cavaig- 
 nac the Republican. Be no word written of 
 them. Bubble bubble, toil and trouble. I 
 find emptiness and chagrin, look for nothing 
 else, and on the whole can reverence no ex- 
 isting man, and shall do well to pity all, 
 myself first, — or rather, last. To work, 
 therefore. That will still me a little, if aught 
 will." 
 
 Presently the household purse became so 
 shrunken that the Revolution had to be 
 dropped for two weeks, while Carlyle wrote 
 the article on Mirabeau. This — printed 
 first in Mill's Review, and afterward in the 
 Miscellanies — brought in about fifty pounds. 
 Mrs. Carlyle, meanwhile, became so iU. that 
 it was arranged for her to go home to her 
 
TO MRS. BANNING 61 
 
 mother. The voyage part of the plan, — by 
 steamer from Liverpool to Annan, — which 
 had been merely for economy, was not carried 
 out. Mrs. Carlyle's Liverpool uncle, John 
 Welsh, paid her fare in the coach to Dum- 
 fries, and gave her a handsome shawl as a 
 present for her birthday, the 14th of July. 
 
 m. CABLYLE TO MES. HAU-NTNG, MANCHESTEB. 
 
 Chelsea, 8«A July, Friday, 1836. 
 
 Dear Jenny, — I write you a few words 
 in the greatest haste, with a worthy Mr. Gib- 
 son even talking to me all the while ; but I 
 must write, for there is not a post to lose, 
 and I think the news will not be unwelcome 
 to you. 
 
 Jane is getting ill again in this fiercely hot 
 weather, and I have persuaded her to go home 
 for a month to her mother. She is going 
 by Manchester, and you. Off some time to- 
 morrow (Saturday), and will be in your town, 
 we calculate, on Sunday, and hopes to sleep 
 in your house that night. This is the news. 
 Now we know not as yet by what coach she 
 will come, or at what hour and what Inn she 
 wiU arrive, but this Mr. Gibson, who has un- 
 dertaken to go out and search over th« .city 
 for the suitablest vehicle, and to engage a 
 
62 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 seat in that for her, will take this letter in his 
 pocket. He, having engaged the seat, wiU 
 mark the name o£ it on the outside (where 
 see). I judge farther that this letter will 
 reach you on Saturday evening or next morn- 
 ing soon, so that there will be time. The 
 rest you will know how to do without telling, 
 I think Robert, if he be not altered from what 
 he was, will succeed in meeting the tired way- 
 farer as she steps out, which will be a great 
 comfort to her. She calculates on being at 
 full liberty to sit silent with you, or to sit 
 talking, to lie down on the bed, to do what- 
 soever she likes best to do, and to be in all 
 senses at home as in her own home. There 
 are few houses in England that could do as 
 much for her. I think she would like best 
 to be — " well let alone." 
 
 Next day, or when once right rested, Rob- 
 ert will conduct her to the Liverpool Railway, 
 and give her his " Luck by the road ; " after 
 which she has but a little whirl, a little sail, 
 — by the force of steam both ways, — and is 
 at Templand or Annan. She will tell you all 
 our news and get all yours, so I need not add 
 another word. Did you get a frank that I 
 sent you some months ago ? Did you ever 
 send even a newspaper since ? Jane has hal£ 
 
MES. CABLYLE TO MBS. BANNING 63 
 
 a thought that she may find the Doctor and 
 our mother with you. All good wishes to 
 your Goodman. 
 
 Yours, my dear Jenny, affectionately, 
 
 T. Caklylb. 
 
 rV. TO MRS. HAITNING, MANCHESTEE, FKOM HBB 
 MOTHES, nn SOOISBBIG. 
 
 November 3, 1836. 
 
 Dear Jenny, — I have long had a mind 
 to write you, but have put off, as you see, till 
 now, and though I have nothing worth while 
 to say but to tell you of my welfare, which I 
 know you are still glad to hear. I have been 
 very well since you left me, though I have 
 taken no medicine of any kind. You will 
 be ready to say, " What have you been doing 
 all this time ? " I have been very throng in 
 my own way. I have spun a little web of 
 droget and done many odd things. 
 
 We have got another fine Httle boy here 
 last Monday morning. Isabella is doing well. 
 
 They have had a long and sore fight with 
 the harvest. It is nearly finished. It is a 
 good crop, and upon the whole no great dam- 
 age is done. We had a bitter snow and frost 
 last week ; it is gone again, however, but the 
 weather is still coarse, with good days among. 
 
64 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 I had a long letter from London about the 
 time I got yours with the socks, which are 
 very comfortable indeed. I have them on at 
 this moment, and my feet are as warm as 
 pie. Many thanks to the giver. The iron is 
 likewise an excellent one, a perfect conceit. 
 Many, many thanks. 
 
 I was sorry to hear of your lassie turning 
 out so badly. She had too much confidence. 
 One should trust them no farther than they 
 see. Old James of the hill is just come up 
 for some beasts of Alick's. He talks of tak- 
 ing them over the water to sell them soon. 
 So you will perhaps have a visit of him soon. 
 
 You must not be long in writing to me, my 
 good bairn, and tell me how you are coming 
 on. Are you anything healthy now? I 
 intend visiting you, if I be well. Afterward 
 it will be the next year before I think of 
 coming. They were all well at London when 
 I got their letter. John was at Geneva. I 
 long to hear from him, and to know where 
 he is now. I am expecting word daily. The 
 rest are all well, for aught I know ; but Jamie 
 is at Annan to-day, and he will hear of them 
 all, as Alick was at Dumfries yesterday. 
 
 Your folk are all well. I saw William Han- 
 ning last week at the market with John. He 
 
MBS. CARLYLE TO MBS. BANNING 65 
 
 told me he had sent away a letter that day, I 
 think, to you. I forgot to teU you how Tom 
 is getting on with his book. He intends 
 going to press about New Year's Day. It 
 will be a fine time for him. May we all go 
 on in the strength of God, the Lord, making 
 mention of His righteousness, even of His 
 only, trusting in Him for all we need for 
 time and for eternity. I had done, but have 
 just got a letter from the good Doctor, wrote 
 about a fortnight since. If he is well, he is 
 near Eome by this time. 
 
 Write, for I can write none. Send me a 
 long letter. No more. 
 
 Prom your own mother, 
 
 M. A. Cablyle. 
 
 They are aU well at Annan and Dumfries. 
 
 Friday. I believe Ahck goes off for Liv- 
 erpool to-day. Send me word when to come 
 over, and write soon. 
 
 By the end of October, 1836, Carlyle was 
 already wondering what he should do after 
 finishing The French Eevolution, and wrote 
 to his brother John : " Here, with only liter- 
 ature for shelter, there is, I think, no contin- 
 uance. Better to take a stick in your hand, 
 and roam the earth Teufelsdrockhish ; you wiU 
 
66 LETTERS OF CARLYLE 
 
 get at least a stomach to eat bread, — even 
 that denied me here." On the evening of the 
 12th of January, 1837, the book was fin- 
 ished which raised Carlyle from obscurity — 
 so far as the pubUc was concerned — to 
 an undisputed place among great writers. 
 Though popularity did not come for many a 
 year, fame attended him from this point on- 
 ward. The French Revolution was not pub- 
 lished, however, until June ; and in the interim 
 Carlyle's circumstances looked little more pro- 
 mising than before. A week after he had 
 finished the last sentence, and handed the 
 manuscript to his wife with a since famous 
 and often-quoted speech, he found time and 
 spirits to send prescriptions of cheerfulness to 
 Mrs. Hanning. The " two strokes " of a pen 
 on a newspaper signified to the Carlyle who 
 received the paper that all was well with the 
 Carlyle who sent it. 
 
 v. cabltub to mks. hanning, manchestee. 
 
 6 Cheyne Kow, Chelsea, London, 
 19th Jan'y, 1837. 
 
 My deae Jenny, — It is a long time since 
 I heard directly of you at any length, or since 
 you heard of me. To-day, tho' I have not the 
 best disposition or leisure, I will send you a 
 
TO MBS. HANNINa 67 
 
 line : there are no franks going, but the post 
 is always going, and you will think a shilling 
 might be worse spent. 
 
 We are very sorry, and not without our 
 anxieties, at the short notice Robert sent us 
 on the Newspaper ; however, the next week 
 brought confirmation on the favourable side, 
 and I persuade myself to hope that all is get- 
 ting round again to the right state. Your 
 health is evidently not strong ; but you are 
 growing in years, and have naturally a sound 
 constitution ; you must learn to take care and 
 precautions, especially in the life you are now 
 entered upon, in that huge den of reek and 
 Cotton-fuz, where one cannot go on as in the 
 free atmosphere of the Country. Exercise, 
 especially exercise out of doors when it is 
 convenient, is the best of all appliances. Do 
 not sit motionless within doors, if there is a 
 sun shining without, and you are able to stir. 
 Particularly endeavour to keep a good heart, 
 and avoid all moping and musing, whatever 
 takes away your cheerfulness. Sunshine in 
 the inside of one is even more important than 
 sunshine without. 
 
 I do not understand your way of life so 
 well as to know whether the Goodman is gen- 
 erally at your hand ; in that case, you have 
 
68 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 both a duty to do, and society in the doing' 
 of it independently of others; but, at all 
 events, frank communication with one's fel- 
 low-creatures is a pleasure and a medicine 
 which no life should be without. Be not sol- 
 itary, be not idle ! That is a precept of old 
 standing. Doing one's duties (and aU crea- 
 tures have their solemn duties to do), living 
 soberly, meekly, " walking humbly before 
 God," one has cause to hope that it wiU be 
 well with him, that he shall see good in the 
 world. Write me a letter, fuU of all your 
 concerns and considerations, when you can 
 muster disposition. I shall always be right 
 glad of such a message. In fine, I hope the 
 spring weather wiU come and set us all up a 
 little. 
 
 Before going farther, let me mention here 
 that a Newspaper came to me last Monday, 
 charged nineteen shillings and some pence ! 
 I, of course, refused it. I got a sight of it, 
 but could not ascertain accurately from whom 
 it was. Either Alick or your Robert, I 
 thought, but the Post people had stamped 
 it, and sealed it, and smeared it all over, and 
 marked it " Written on," so that I could 
 make little of it. The cover, I noticed, was 
 in writing paper scored with blue lines: it 
 
TO MRS. BANNING 69 
 
 strikes me it may have been the Manchester 
 paper, after all, and no writing in it but the 
 copper-plate on a piece of one of Eobert's 
 account papers. At all events, when any 
 more Newspapers come, the law is that the 
 cover be of vacant blank paper ; likewise we 
 win cease writing or marking except two 
 strokes on the cover, lest we get into trouble 
 by it. I refused this nineteen shillings fel- 
 low ; and they wiU be able to make no more 
 of it, but it will make them more watchful in 
 future. I mean to write into Annandale to 
 the like effect. 
 
 The Doctor sends me word out of Eome 
 that he wants a Dumfries Herald forwarded 
 to him thither. I have not yet arranged that ; 
 but I am thinking of having this Herald (if 
 the days answer) sent by Manchester, thro' 
 your hands. I think it would reach you on 
 Saturday. You could look at it, and send it 
 on, the same day, whereby no time at all 
 would be lost. The two strokes would always 
 be a satisfaction. We shall see how it an- 
 swers. If any such Herald, then, come your 
 way, you know what to do with it. 
 
 It is several weeks since I had any direct 
 tidings out of Scotland, except what James 
 Aitken's address of the Courier gives me : it 
 
70 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 had the sign of well-being on it last week. I 
 am to write thither shortly, ha^dng a letter 
 of the Doctor's lying here, as I have hinted. 
 The Doctor says he had written a few days 
 before to our Mother, which has made me less 
 anxious about speed with this to her. He is 
 well and doing tolerably well, — getting what 
 Practice in Rome a beginner can expect. 
 The Cholera was about gone from Naples, 
 and the panic of it from Rome, so that more 
 English were coming in, and he hoped to do 
 still better. You can send this news into the 
 Scotch side when you have opportunity. 
 
 All people here have got a thing they call 
 Influenza, a dirty, feverish kind of cold ; very 
 miserable, and so general as was hardly ever 
 seen. Printing-offices, Manufactories, TaUor- 
 shops, and such like are struck silent, every 
 second man lying sniftering in his respective 
 place of abode. The same seems to be the 
 rule in the North, too. I suppose the miser- 
 able temperate of climate may be the cause. 
 Worse weather never fell from the Lift, to 
 my judgment, than we have here. Reek, 
 mist, cold, wet ; the day before yesterday 
 there was one of our completest London fogs, 
 — a thing of which I suppose you even at 
 Manchester can form no kind of notion. For 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 71 
 
 we are exactly ten times as big as you are, 
 and parts of us are hardly less reeky and 
 dirty ; farther, we lie flat, on the edge of a 
 broad river : and now suppose there were a 
 mist, black enough, and such that no smoke 
 or emanation could rise from us, but fell again 
 the instant it had got out of the chimney- 
 head ! People have to light candles at noon, 
 coaches have torch-bearers running at the 
 horses' heads. It is like a sea of ink. I 
 wonder the people do not all drop down dead 
 in it, ^- since they are not fishes, of a partic- 
 ular sort. It is cause enough for Influenza. 
 Poor Jane, who misses nothing, has caught 
 fast hold of this Sunday last, and has really 
 been miserably ill. She gets better these last 
 two days, but is weak as water ; indeed, the 
 headache at one time was quite wretched. 
 She has been, on the whole, stronger since 
 you saw her, but is not at all strong. As for 
 myself, I have felt these wretched fogs pene- 
 trating into me, with a clear design to pro- 
 duce cough ; but I have set my face against 
 it and said No. This really does a great 
 deal, and has served me hitherto. I hope 
 to escape the Influenza ; they say it is abat- 
 ing. 
 
 The Book is done, about a week ago : thi& 
 
72 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 is my best news. I have got the first printed 
 sheet, since I sat down to write this. We 
 shall go on swiftly, it is to be hoped, and 
 have it finished and forth into the world, say, 
 before the month of March end. I care Kttle 
 what becomes of it then ; it has been a sore 
 Book to me. There are two things I was 
 printing lately, which I would send to you, 
 but there is no conveyance. I fear you would 
 do Uttle good with them, at any rate; not 
 five shillings' worth of good, which they 
 would cost you. Besides, if Robert or you 
 want to see them, you can let him go to a 
 Circulating Library and ask for the last 
 Number of the London and Westminster 
 Review. In it he will find a thing called 
 Memoirs of Mirabeau : that thing is mine. 
 The other thing is in Fraser's' Magazine, — 
 half of it; the other half wiU be in the 
 February Number: it is called Diamond 
 Necklace. 
 
 This latter was written at Craigenputtock 
 a good while ago. I see your Manchester 
 Editor feels himself aggrieved by it, worthy 
 man, but hints that there may be some mis- 
 take on his part ; which I do very seriously 
 assure him is my opinion, too. Other Edi- 
 tors, it would seem, sing to the same tune. 
 
TO MRS. BANNING 73 
 
 After this Book is printed, it remains un- 
 certain what I shall do next. One thing I 
 am firmly enough resolved on : not to spend 
 the summer here. I will have myself rested, 
 and see the fields green and the sky blue yet 
 one year, follow what may. Many things 
 call me towards Scotland ; hut nothing can 
 yet be determined upon. If I go Northward, 
 Manchester is a likely enough step for me ; 
 nay, perhaps the Doctor may be home from 
 Eome, and we shall both be there ! Nothing 
 is yet fixed ; we will hope all this. 
 
 And now, my dear Sister, I must bid thee 
 good day. Salute Eobert from me with all 
 manner of good wishes. I have known him 
 as a " fell fellow " since he was hardly longer 
 than my leg. Tell him to be diligent in 
 business, and also (for that is another indis- 
 pensable thing) fervent in spirit, struggling 
 to serve God. Make thou a good wife to 
 him, helping him in all right things by coun- 
 sel and act. Good be with you both ! Jane 
 sends you all good wishes from her sick bed, 
 and " was grieved to hear of what had hap- 
 pened you." She wiU be better in a day or 
 two. 
 
 Your affectionate Brother, 
 
 T. Carlylb. 
 
74 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 The next letter, "a holy and a cheerful 
 note " from Margaret Carlyle to her daughter, 
 falls of necessity between 1836 and 1840, the 
 year of Mrs. Hanning's going to Manchester 
 and that of her leaving it. The statement 
 that " Tom . . . has to begin to lecture the 
 first of May, ^nd has no time to prepare," 
 points to 1837 ; for all the following courses 
 Carlyle had time to make ready. This first 
 series, with German Literature for subject, 
 was suddenly arranged by a number of Car- 
 lyle's friends, — Miss Martineau zealous among 
 them, — in the fear that, unless things bright- 
 ened for him, he would be forced to leave 
 London, " and perhaps England." The lec- 
 tures were a great success; Carlyle spoke, 
 instead of reading, to " an audience of Mar- 
 chionesses, Ambassadors, ah me ! and what 
 not ; " and the resulting sum of one hun- 
 dred and thirty-five pounds, with the promise 
 of another course for the next season, set- 
 tled the household gods more firmly on their 
 pedestals. In the words of Mrs. Carlyle, 
 " Nothing that he has ever tried Seems to 
 me to have carried such conviction to the 
 public heart that he is a real man of gen- 
 ius, and worth being kept aKve at a moderate 
 rate." 
 
MBS. CAMLTLE TO, MBS. BANNING 7,5 
 
 TL TO MKS. HANNING, MAJTCHESTEE, FBOM HEK 
 MOTHEB. 
 
 SCOTSBBIG, April 9th [1837]. 
 
 Deab Jenny, — I have nothing worth writ- 
 ing at this time. We are all in our usual 
 health. I have had little Grace with me 
 these three weeks. Now I have to go to 
 Dumfries this week to put some money in the 
 bank for John, your brother. It is at Dum- 
 fries by this time. I told Mary to bid you 
 write me soon and tell me how you are com- 
 ing on. If you have not written, write to 
 Dumfries. Do you know that Jane has been 
 very badly ? She is rather better. Thank 
 God, her mother is there with them. She, 
 took a coach and went straight for London. 
 Tom is in a great bubble at this time : you 
 will know he has to begin to lecture the first 
 of May, and has no time to prepare. May 
 God be with him and all of us, and as our 
 day is so may our strength be, and may He 
 prepare us for whatever He see meet to come 
 in our way, that it may be for His glory and 
 our good in the end. Our time is short at 
 longest : may we have grace given us to im- 
 prove it. 
 
 I had no thought of writing at, this time, 
 
76 LETTERS OF CAJSLTLE 
 
 but Fanny Caruthers called and told me she 
 ■was going to Manchester. She is much al- 
 tered : I did not know her. Now, Jenny, I 
 intend to see you this summer ; I cannot say 
 when, but if health permit I will come. If I 
 am long in coming, I can stay the longer : it 
 depends on Tom when he comes home. It 
 will be June at the soonest before he can get 
 away. I had a letter from him shortly which 
 troubled me not a little, telling of Jane's ill- 
 ness. She is rather better, but still confined 
 to her bed at last accounts, which was about 
 a week ago. I had a letter of John : he was 
 well then. Write soon and tell me how you 
 keep your health, now this cold weather is 
 come, and how is Robert. Thank him in my 
 name for nursing you so well when you were 
 poorly. I hope you are stout now. Take 
 good care of yourself and be well when I 
 come over. I long to see you both. I will 
 add no more, but am still 
 
 Your loving mother, 
 
 Makgabbt a. Carlylb. 
 
 God be with us all, and bless us, and do 
 us good. 
 
 Clap your thumbs on mistakes. 
 
 On the 7th of June Carlyle wrote to Ster- 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 77 
 
 ling, "I cannot say a word to you of the 
 book or of the lectures, except that by the 
 unspeakable blessing of Heaven they are fin- 
 ished." " A few days after the date of this 
 letter," says Froude, "Carlyle fled to Scot- 
 land, fairly broken down." That he lingered 
 a fortnight longer in Chelsea, however, the 
 following letter is witness. 
 
 vh. cabltle to mrs. hahntng, maitchesteb. 
 
 5 Cheyne Kow, Chelsea, London. 
 20th June, 1837. 
 
 My dear Jenny, — I write to-day with 
 one of the worst of pens and in the extreme 
 hurry of packing, to say that I am just com- 
 ing ofE for Annandale, and shall take Lan- 
 cashire in my way. I think of taking the 
 steamboat to-morrow morning for Hull. Af- 
 ter that, I believe we go by Leeds and then 
 to Manchester, where I hope to find you and 
 your Goodman well. The times and the dis- 
 tances after getting to Hull, as we hope on 
 Thursday, are unknown to me. Most prob- 
 ably, I should think, it will be on Saturday 
 that I get to you, but it may be the day after, 
 it may be the day before, for all is yet un- 
 certain; nay, there is a certain Dr. Hunter 
 in Leeds, a cousin of Jane's, with whom I 
 
78 LETTEBS OF CABLTLE 
 
 may (though that is not very likely) loiter an 
 hour or two. We shall see. We shall hope 
 to meet all in order some how or other at 
 last. 
 
 Jane is to stay here till I come back, her 
 mother keeping her company. Jane, as you 
 perhaps know, has been very ill. She has 
 now grown much stronger again, but still not 
 strong enough. Her mother hastily joined 
 us when things were at the worst in the 
 month of April, and wiU not quit us till we 
 get together again. 
 
 I am not very eminently well at present, 
 yet neither is anything special gone wrong 
 with me. I want rest, and mean to have that 
 now; at Scotsbrig. I have got my book com- 
 pletely done. I gave a course of lectures 
 too, &c., &c., and have " got all by " for the 
 present. I seem to myself to require a little 
 while of repose as the one thing needful. 
 
 A newspaper came the other day from the 
 Doctor, indicating that he was well. He is 
 not in Rome through the Summer, but in a 
 place called Albano, not far from Rome. He 
 seemed to consider it as not unlikely that he 
 might be here in September again. He had 
 succeeded pretty well at Rome as a Practi- 
 tioner. 
 
TO MRS. BANNING 79 
 
 Last time I heard from Annandale our 
 Mother and all the rest were well. It is not 
 very long since, — some three weeks or little 
 more. They also reported well of you at 
 Manchester. 
 
 Give my compliments to Robert. Say I 
 mean to ask his assistance in buying a quan- 
 tity of breeches, as I pass through that huge 
 Weaving-shop of the World. I ought to get 
 them there better than elsewhere. 
 
 Let us hope, therefore, that on Saturday, 
 or some time near before or near after that 
 day, I shall succeed in finding you at Bank 
 Street and finding all right. 
 
 I have not a moment's time more. Indeed, 
 what more is there to be said at present with 
 such a pen ? 
 
 I remain always, my dear sister, 
 Your affectionate 
 
 T. Caelylb. 
 
 James Carlyle was now with his mother, 
 farming Scotsbrig for her. Alick did after- 
 ward go to America, and died there. "John 
 of Cockermouth" was a half-brother. "James 
 Austin and Mary" are Carlyle's brother-in- 
 law and sister. 
 
80 LETTERS OF CARLTLE 
 
 Vni. CAELTLE TO MKS. HANNING, MANCHESTEB. 
 ScoTSBRiG, 18th July, 1837. 
 
 My dear Jenny, — According to promise, 
 I set about writing you a word of Scotch 
 news, now that I am fairly settled here and 
 know how things are. The railway train 
 whirled me away from you rapidly that even- 
 ing. Next evening, about the same hour, we 
 were getting out of Liverpool harbour, and 
 on the following morning, between seven and 
 eight o'clock, I had got my eye upon Alick 
 waving to me from the end of the Jetty at 
 Annan. It is almost three weeks now that 
 I have been here and found all well, but it 
 was only the day before yesterday that we 
 got our first visit to Dumfries made out, and 
 could rightly report about matters there. I 
 fancied a newspaper with two strokes would 
 communicate the substance of what was to be 
 said in the interim. 
 
 There has been a good deal of discussion 
 about Alick and his going to America. He 
 himself seemed of mind to go, but not 
 very strongly or hopefully set on it. Our 
 Mother, again, was resolute against it, and 
 made such a lamenting as was suf&cient to 
 dishearten one more incUned than he. So 
 
TO MRS. BANNING 81 
 
 now I think it seems fixed so far as that he 
 will not go. What he is to do here one does 
 not so well see, but it will evidently be a 
 great point gained for him that he give up 
 thinking about departure, and direct his whole 
 industry to ascertaining how he can manage 
 here where he is. Men of far less wit than he 
 do contrive to manage, when once they have 
 set their heart on it. Jamie is quite ready to 
 go to Puttock and give up Scotsbrig to him, 
 but I still rather think there will nothing 
 come of that ; nay, some think Alick himself 
 does not at bottom wish that, but is satisfied 
 with finding Jamie so far ready to accommo- 
 date him and keep him at home. He seems 
 very tranquil, cheerfuUer than he was and 
 altogether steady ; likeher to have a little fair 
 luck than he was a while ago. He must per- 
 sist where he is. There is nothing that can 
 prosper without perseverance. Perseverance 
 will make many a thing turn out weU that 
 looked Ul enough once. John of Cockermouth 
 is gone off to America about a fortnight ago 
 with all his family. I got him a letter from 
 Burnswark to a brother of his at New York. 
 I doubt not he vnll do well. Clow of Land 
 has his property advertised for sale; means 
 to be off about the end of August, which also 
 
82 LETTEUS OF CABLTLE 
 
 I reckon prudent. With two or three thou- 
 sand pounds in his pocket and four or five 
 strong sons at his back, a man may make a 
 figure in America. James Austin and Mary 
 were at one time talking of America, but they 
 also have given it up. 
 
 We had a letter from the Doctor shortly 
 after my arrival here. He is well, living at 
 Albano, a summer residence some twenty 
 miles from Eome. He speaks of it being pos- 
 sible, or probable, that he may get back to 
 England in September, but it is not certain. 
 He will be pretty sure to come by Manchester 
 and you if he come Northward. The rest, as 
 I have already hinted, are all well and follow- 
 ing their usual course. Jamie and his wife 
 and two sons go along very briskly. His 
 crops look well. He had his Peat-stack up 
 (and mother's little one beside it) and his hay 
 mown, though the late rains and thunder have 
 retarded that a little. The coimtry never 
 looked beautifuUer in my remembrance, green 
 and leafy; the air is fresh, and all things 
 smiling and rejoicing and growing. Austin 
 is busy enough now with work. He had a 
 bad time of it in spring, when horse proven- 
 der was so dear. The children are well, — 
 even the eldest looks better than I expected, 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 83 
 
 — and Mary, their mother, seems hearty and 
 thrifty. I mentioned that we had been at 
 Dumfries. Alick took up our Mother and 
 me on Friday last in a rough " Dandy cart " 
 of Mrs. Scott's with a beast of Jamie's. One 
 of the first questions my Mother asked of 
 Jean was, "Hast thou had any word from 
 Jenny ? " To which the answer was " No." 
 Jean's child is running about quite brisk, 
 though a little thinner than it once was ; from 
 teeth, I suppose. James Aitken has plenty 
 of work, three or four journeymen. In 
 short, they seem doing well. Finally, Jamie 
 (Maister CairKLl) authorizes me to report that 
 he this day met with a brother of thy Rob- 
 ert's, who said that the Peat-knowes too were 
 all well. The day after my arrival here I fell 
 in with William Hanning, the father, on Mid- 
 dlebie Brae, measuring some Dykes, I think, 
 with a son of Pottsfowns. He looked as well 
 as I have seen him do. The same man as 
 ever, though he must be much older than 
 he once was. The tea parcel was forwarded 
 to him, or sent for, by my desire, that same 
 night. 
 
 Our good Mother here is quite well in 
 health; indeed, as well every way as one 
 could expect, though doubtless she is a little 
 
84 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 lonelier now than when you were with her. 
 She complains of nothing, but does her en- 
 deavour to make the best of all things. She 
 wishes you " to write very soon and tell her 
 how the world is serving you." She would 
 have sent a word or two to that effect in her 
 own hand, she says, but "having a good 
 clerk " (me, namely) " she does not need." I 
 am to confirm her promise of coming with 
 me when I return southward, and staying till 
 you tire of her. There was word from Jane 
 on Sunday gone a week. She wrote in haste, 
 but at great length, and seemed very cheer- 
 ful. She win not come hither this time, I 
 think. Her mother is to return home about 
 the end of this month. Jane appears quite 
 prepared to stay by herself. She has some 
 friends yonder whom she is much with, and 
 she rather Ukes the treat. Mrs. Welsh ex- 
 pects Liverpool people with her to Templand, 
 and can stay no longer. 
 
 I have ended my paper, dear Jenny, and 
 given one of the meagrest outlines of our 
 news. You will see, however, that nothing 
 is going wrong with us ; that we are thinking 
 of you and desirous to hear from you. Be a 
 good bairn and a good wife, and help your 
 Goodman faithfully in all honest things. He 
 
TO MRS. BANNING 85 
 
 is a thrifty fellow with a good whole heart. 
 There is no danger of him. Help one an- 
 other. Be good to one another. God's hless- 
 ing with you both. AU here salute you. 
 I am always 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 T. Cablylb. 
 
 Meantime, while Jamie was building his 
 peat-stack in "the beautifuUest weather" that 
 Carlyle had ever seen, Alick was setting up a 
 shop in the village of Ecclefechan, and The 
 French Revolution was beginning to take the 
 English-reading world for its parish. The 
 French verdict was for the most part adverse. 
 Merimee, whether or not he agreed with the 
 translators in describing Carlyle as le pMno- 
 mene d'un protestant poUique, expressed a 
 sincere desire to throw the writer out of the 
 window. But Dickens carried the book about 
 with him, Southey read it six times running, 
 and Mill, approving his opposite, maintained 
 that the much berated style was of high ex- 
 cellence. Carlyle, wishing to "lie vacant," 
 neither read nor so much as saw many of the 
 reviews, though he heard of most of them. 
 One untactful friend sent him the opinion 
 of a certain critical journal, with which he 
 
86 LETTERS OF CARL7LE 
 
 forthwith "boiled his teakettle." Much more 
 than a pot-boiler was one enthusiastic review, 
 although that function of his article was sadly 
 important to the writer, for whom Vanity 
 Fair and fame were stiU ten years ahead. 
 Writes Carlyle to his brother : " I understand 
 there have been many reviews of a very mixed 
 character. I got one in the Times last week. 
 The writer is one Thackeray, a half-monstrous 
 Cornish giant, kind of painter, Cambridge 
 man, and Paris newspaper correspondent, who 
 is now writing for his li£e in London. I have 
 seen him at the BuUers* and at Sterling's. 
 His article is rather Hke him, and I suppose 
 calculated to do the book good." 
 One adds involuntarily : — 
 
 " Brigadier, r^pondit Fandore, 
 Brigadier, yous avez raison." 
 
 Without regard to reviewers, and in spite 
 of the cholera, the homely idyl goes melodi- 
 ously on. " Jean and her two Jamies " are 
 Carlyle's sister, Mrs. Aitken, her husband 
 and Kttle son. " Jamie of Scotsbrig " is, of 
 course, Carlyle's brother. Betty Smail's short 
 history may be found in Froude's First Forty 
 Years of Carlyle, vol. i. p. 119. 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 87 
 
 IX. CAELTLE TO MRS. HAITOING, MANCHESTEB. 
 
 SCOTSBBIG, ECCLEFECHAN, 
 
 28 Aug. 1837. 
 
 Dear Jenny, — Your letter to Mary at 
 Annan got this length on Saturday night. 
 As you appear to be impatient for news from, 
 this quarter, not unreasonably, having had 
 none for six weeks, I am appointed to write 
 you a few lines without any loss of time what- 
 ever, — a thing I can easily enough do, being 
 even idler to-day than common. 
 
 We were not so well pleased to hear of 
 your fecklessness and pain in the stomach 
 during the last fortnight, but we hope it is 
 but something derived from the season and 
 will not continue. There is very often a kind 
 of " British Cholera " in this harvest time. It 
 is even very frequent at present in this re- 
 gion, owing partly to the air (as they say), 
 and chiefly, perhaps, to the new potatoes and 
 other imperfectly ripened substances which 
 people eat. Jamie, here, had a cast of it for 
 two days just a week ago, rather sharp, but 
 he is free now. Our Mother too was taken 
 with it, — came home rather ill from Eccle- 
 fechan one day, — but by aid of Castor and 
 some prime Brandy has got quite round 
 
88 LETTERS OF CARLYLE 
 
 again. You do not say that the disorder has 
 got that length with you, but very probably 
 it is something related to the same business. 
 The only remedy is to be careful of what one 
 eats, to take due moderate exercise in the 
 open air, in case of extremity employing a 
 little medicine. Cold, especially cold feet 
 are very bad ; but the great thing is to take 
 care of one's self, especially to take care what 
 one eats. New potatoes are very unwhole- 
 some for some people. 
 
 We are now all well here, and with the 
 slight exception mentioned above have been 
 so ever since I wrote last. Alick brought us 
 news of you. Alick's news are the main 
 ones I have now to send you. He quitted 
 Annan on Monday last (this day gone a 
 week), and has been in the Big house at Ec- 
 clefechan ever since. I suppose he explained 
 to you and Robert the plan he had of setting 
 up a shop there. He has gathered himself 
 together, and is aU alive after that same en- 
 terprise now. We had him and little Tom 
 over here all yesterday. Mother, Jamie, and 
 I walked with them to Cleughbrae in the 
 evening. To-day, as we understand, he has 
 got masons and actually broken in upon the 
 house to repair it and arrange it for that 
 
TO MBS. EANNINO 89 
 
 object; Hale Moffet and his retinue having- 
 been got out. It is in a sad state of wreck, 
 the poor house, but Alick expects to put a 
 new face on it with great despatch indeed ; 
 and then, " shop drawers " and all the rest 
 being provided, and James Aitken's brush 
 having given the last touch to it, he will un- 
 fold his wares and try the thing in the name 
 of Hope. We all pray heartily that it may 
 prosper beyond his expectations. Ecclefe- 
 chan is a sad Village : only last Friday night 
 some blackguard broke 14 panes of the Meet- 
 ing House windows. Fancy such an act of 
 dastardly atrocity as that ! But it lies in the 
 centre of a tolerable country, too, and certain 
 there is need of some good shop and honest 
 Trader there. 
 
 I have seen Mary pretty frequently, the 
 last time on Friday last. She is very well, 
 and all her bairns are well. James has al- 
 ways some work, though seldom enough, and 
 Mary is the brightest, thriftiest little creature 
 that can be. They go on there as well as 
 one could hope in these times. We had a 
 letter from the Doctor, too : stiU in the same 
 place, — Albano, near Kome ; still well ; un- 
 certain as to his future movements or engage- 
 ments, though it must be settled some way 
 
90 LETTERS OF CARLTLE 
 
 before this date, if we knew how. He 
 seemed to think it very unlikely that he 
 would he here in the present autumn, the 
 likeKest of all that he would try to return 
 next spring. The Cholera was in that coun- 
 try, but had not got to them. We fancy 
 they will not fail to fly out of the road of it, 
 if it advance too near. 
 
 I was at Dumfries since I wrote : up to 
 Templand, and then again at Dumfries on 
 my return. Mrs. Welsh came home several 
 weeks ago, and had at the time I was up, 
 and has still, her Liverpool friends with her. 
 The house was very crowded. I was not 
 very well, and stayed only four and twenty 
 hours or so, cutting out my way in spite of 
 all entreaties. Jean and her two Jamies are 
 very tolerably well : the elder Jamie a thrifty, 
 effectual, busy man ; the younger as yet alto- 
 gether silent, staggering and tripping about, 
 — one of the gleggest Uttle elves I have 
 seen. There is talk of her coming down to 
 Annan this very week to have the benefit of 
 the tide for sea bathing. Jamie of Scotsbrig, 
 who goes up to-morrow to pay his rent, will 
 bring us word. 
 
 The other morning, walking out, I met 
 Kobert's father at the "Lengland's Nett," 
 
TO MBS. HANNme 91 
 
 coming down from Dairlaw Hills with a row 
 of bog-hay carts he had been buying at Dair- 
 law Hills. He was hale and well to look at, 
 and reported all well. I suppose he has been 
 very busy of late ; seldom were so many 
 roups seen in one season; all the farmers 
 selling off, none of them having money for 
 their rent day ; Land farm, and now all the 
 stock, crop, and household furniture have 
 been sold off. Poor Clow goes off for Amer- 
 ica on Wednesday morning by the Liverpool 
 steamer. People are all sorry. The Burn- 
 foot Irvings, or Sandy Cowie for them, have 
 bought his land : £4000. 
 
 Betty Smail, bound for Ecclefechan, has 
 been waiting this half hour till I should be 
 done ; I did not know of her when I began. 
 The needfuUest thing, therefore, that I can 
 do is to tell you about our coming. It will 
 be soon, but is still uncertain when. I 
 should say in about a fortnight, — nay, in a 
 day or so less ; but it depends somewhat on 
 a letter we look for from Jane which has not 
 yet come to hand. Jane, you must know, 
 after her mother's departure went into the 
 country with the Sterlings, friends of hers. 
 I wish her to stay there while she likes, and 
 would get home about the same time as she; 
 
92 LETTERS OF CAMLYLE 
 
 a month was the time she first spoke of, and 
 that I have little doubt will su£B.ce, — so my 
 guess is as above given. A newspaper with 
 one stroke on it will come to you (barring 
 mistakes) two days before you are to look for 
 us. This shall be a token, and we need not 
 write any more. AUck has some talk of 
 coming with us to get his goods ready then, 
 but I think he will hardly be ready. The 
 butter and another firkin of butter has been 
 talked of and will be forthcoming, but it 
 seems dubious whether any of it wiU get with 
 us. It can come before or after, I believe 
 safe and with little expense. Mother wOl 
 bring "some pounds of it" in her box. I 
 shall perhaps be obliged to go back by Liver- 
 pool, and must not calculate to stay more 
 with you than a day. My Mother sends you 
 both her love (she is smoking here) ; she 
 " will tell you all her news " when we come. 
 Compliments and good wishes to Robert from 
 all of us. We are glad to hear his trade is 
 better. A glegg feUow like him will get 
 through worse troubles than this. God keep 
 you, my dear little Jenny. 
 
 Your afEectionate Brother, 
 
 T. Cablyle. 
 
MBS. CARLTLE TO MBS. BANNING 93 
 
 X. TO MRS. HAOTfING, MANCHBSTEE, FBOM HER 
 MOTHER. 
 
 [Sootsbrig] January llth [1838]. 
 
 Dear Children, — I received your letter 
 this day about mid-day. Then AUck and his 
 family came here, so we talked on till bed- 
 time ; and now they are gone to bed. I am 
 sorry to hear that Jenny is poorly. I intend 
 to see you very soon ; I cannot say pointedly 
 which day yet. I am going down to Annan 
 with Alick, and will fix. It shall not be 
 long, God willing. I have some thoughts o£ 
 taking the steamer. Keep up your heart, 
 Jenny, and be well when I come. Trust in 
 God, casting all your cares on Him. He is a 
 kind father to all them that put their trust in 
 Him. I win say no more to-night ; it is late. 
 Do you think the railway is passable ? 
 
 I had not finished this scrawl when I re- 
 ceived your last letter, of which I was very 
 glad. It is all well, God's will be done. I 
 was coming by the steamer on Thursday or 
 Friday. Now I will let the storm blow by. 
 Now, Jenny, be very careful of yourself; 
 take care of cold, and Ukewise what you eat. 
 May God's blessing rest on us aU. May He 
 make us thankful for aU His ways of dealing 
 
94 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 with US. Write soon. You may direct to 
 Annan, as I will be there some time. Could 
 you let Tom know that I am there, also, and 
 that I am well? Now, bairns, write soon. 
 You see I cannot write, though nobody would 
 take greater pleasure in it. 
 
 Your own mother, 
 
 Mabgaeet a. C. 
 P. S. My tooth is better, though not very 
 sound yet. I forgot to thank you very 
 kindly for the things you sent me. 
 
 In the two ensuing years Carlyle gave two 
 more courses of lectures, both notably suc- 
 cessful. Among many other new acquaint- 
 ances was Mr. Baring, afterward Lord Ash- 
 burton, who, with his two wives, was to figure 
 so largely in the lives of Carlyle and his wife. 
 Sartor Resartus was published in England, 
 and republished in the United States. Chart- 
 ism was written and printed. Other events 
 of the same biennium were Mrs. Carlyle's 
 " only Soiree," the appearance of Count d'Or- 
 say in Cheyne Row, and Mr. Marshall's gift 
 to Carlyle of a mare, ^- " Citoyenne " to be 
 called. 
 
 After several visits in Scotland during 
 the summer of 1838, Carlyle went home 
 
NOISr MANCHESTEB 95 
 
 again to Scotsbrig. On his return thence, 
 he spent a few days in Manchester with Mrs. 
 Banning. " He had been put to sleep in an 
 old bed, which he remembered in his father's 
 house." " I was just closing my senses in 
 sweet oblivion," wrote he, " when the watch- 
 man, with a voice like the deepest groan of 
 the Highland bagpipe, or what an ostrich 
 corncraik might utter, groaned out Groo-o-o-o 
 close under me, and set me all in a gallop 
 again. Groo-O'O-o ; for there was no articu- 
 late announcement at all in it, that I could 
 gather. Groo-o-o-o, repeated again and again 
 at various distances, dying out and then 
 growing loud again, for an hour or more. I 
 grew impatient, bolted out of bed, flung up 
 the window. Groo-o-o-o. There he was ad- 
 vancing, lantern in hand, a few yards ofE me. 
 ' Can't you give up that noise ? ' I hastily 
 addressed him. ' You are keeping a person 
 awake. What good is it to go howling and 
 groaning aU night, and deprive people of 
 their sleep?' He ceased from that time — 
 at least I heard no more of him. No watch- 
 man, I think, has been more astonished for 
 some time back. At five in the morning 
 all was as still as sleep and darkness. At 
 half past five all went off like an enormous 
 
96 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 mill-race or ocean-tide. The Boom-m-m, far 
 and wide. It was the mills that were all start- 
 ing then^ and creishy drudges by the million 
 taking post there. I have heard few sounds 
 more impressive to me in the mood I was 
 in." 
 
 The following letter belongs to the time 
 between the Hannings' departure from Man- 
 chester and Mr. Hanning's sailing for Amer- 
 ica. Kirtlebridge, where they were now liv- 
 ing, is a few miles southeast of Ecclefechan. 
 " The little ' trader,' " the " bit creeture," 
 was probably Mrs. Hanning's first child, Mar- 
 garet Aitken Carlyle, who was not yet two 
 years old. The reference to the new penny 
 post marks an era. 
 
 XI. CAKLTLB TO MES. HAUNHTG, KIETLEBEEDGE. 
 
 5 Cheyne Kow, Chelsea, London, 
 7 Feb. 1840. 
 
 Dear Jenny, — Had I known definitely 
 how to address a word to you, I might surely 
 have done so long before this. We have 
 heard in general that you are stationed some- 
 where in the Village of Kirtlebridge or near 
 it, and we fancy in general that your hus- 
 band is struggling along with his old impetu- 
 osity. From yourseU we have no tidings. 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 9T 
 
 Pray, now that the Postage is so cheap, send 
 us a pennyworth some day. I address this 
 through Alick, fancying such may be the 
 best way. 
 
 I enclose my last letter from the Doctor. 
 I wrote to him the day before yesterday to 
 his final destination. I calculate he may 
 have got my letter to-day, — that is two days 
 aitet his arrival. By that note all seems to be 
 going well with him ; — we are all well here, 
 as well as our wont is, and fighting along 
 with printers, proof sheets &c, &c. Jane 
 cannot regularly get out ; so horribly tem- 
 pestuous, wet and uncertain is the weather, 
 which keeps her stiU sickly, but she never 
 breaks actually down. How is the little 
 " trader," as Jean or some of them call her ? 
 I remember the "bit creeture" very dis- 
 tinctly. 
 
 This is the worst year or among the worst 
 for working people ever seen in man's mem- 
 ory. Robert must not take this as a measure 
 of his future success, but toil away stead- 
 fastly in sure hope of hetter times. It is 
 well anyway that you are out of Manchester ; 
 nothing there but hunger, contention and de- 
 spair — added to the reek and dirt I Be dili- 
 gent and fear nothing. 
 
98 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 Do you often run over to see our dear Mo- 
 ther in her Upper Eoom yonder ? It will be a 
 great comfort to her that she has you so near. 
 Pray explain to me what part of the Village 
 it is that you live in. I thought I knew it 
 all, but I do not know Firpark Nook. Give 
 my best wishes to your Goodman. Accept 
 my thanks for your written remembrance, 
 from one who always silently remembers you 
 in his heart. 
 
 On April 23 of this year Carlyle wrote in 
 his journal, " Miscellanies out, and Chartism 
 second thousand." A month later he re- 
 lieved his mother's anxiety about the last of 
 his lectures on Heroes and Hero-Worship : 
 "I contrived to tell them something about 
 poor Cromwell, and I think to convince them 
 that he was a great and true man, the valiant 
 soldier in England of what John Knox had 
 preached in Scotland. In a word, the people 
 seemed agreed that it was my best course of 
 lectures, this." Certainly his last course of 
 lectures, this. He never spoke from a plat- 
 form again till twenty-six years later, when, 
 as Lord Rector, he addressed the students 
 of Edinburgh University. He detested the 
 *' mixture of prophecy and play-acting." In 
 
CARLYLE IN THE GARDEN OF 5 CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA 
 July 20, iSjy 
 
SUMMER IN LONDON 99 
 
 the midst of his own work of making ready 
 these final lectures for publication, Carlyle 
 found time to push the London Library 
 along. He thought England, as regarded its 
 provision of books for the poor, in " a con- 
 dition worthier of Dahomey than of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 Yet, in spite of this good and successful 
 work for the library, Carlyle was of a mind 
 to write, on July 3 : " Alas ! I get so dyspep- 
 tical, melancholic, 'half mad in the London 
 summer : all courage to do anything but hold 
 my peace fades away ; I dwindle into the 
 pusillanimity of the ninth part of a tailor, 
 feel as if I had nothing I could do but ' die 
 in my hole like a poisoned rat.' " He was 
 apparently brought to the pitch of applying 
 to himself this most terrible word of Swift's 
 by the necessity of serving on a special jury. 
 Let us set over against it what he said — 
 never to be too often quoted — about a friend 
 whom he found sitting smoking in the garden 
 one evening, with Mrs. Carlyle : " A fine, 
 large - featured, dim, - eyed, bronze-coloured, 
 shaggy-headed man is Alfred ; dusty, smoky, 
 free and easy, who swims outwardly and 
 inwardly with great composure in an inarticu- 
 late element of tranquil chaos and tobacco 
 
100 LETTERS OF CARLTLE 
 
 smoke. Great now and then -when he does 
 emerge, — a most restful, brotherly, solid- 
 hearted man." Taken together with what 
 Tennyson himself called " the dirty monk " 
 portrait, this probably gives a better picture 
 of him than most of us could have made for 
 ourselves with the eye of the flesh. Other, 
 less welcome visitors came to Carlyle that 
 summer, — among them a young woman from 
 Boston, whom he called " a diseased rosebud." 
 But America sent money as well as flowers, 
 and the summer, according to Froude, brought 
 the net result up to four hundred pounds. 
 
 By August, the lecture-writing now two 
 thirds done, Carlyle, having so far taken no 
 holiday, made a week's riding-tour in Sussex 
 on the back of the gift-horse, Citoyenne. 
 " Mrs. Carlyle described to us, some years 
 after," says " the skilful biographer," " in her 
 husband's presence, his setting out on this 
 expedition ; she drew him in her finest style 
 of mockery, — his cloak, his knapsack, his 
 broad-brimmed hat, his preparation of pipes, 
 etc., — comparing him to Dr. Syntax. He 
 laughed as loud as any of us, — it was impos- 
 sible not to laugh ; but it struck me, even 
 then, that the wit, however briUiaut, was 
 rather untender." 
 
THOMAS EBSKINE 101 
 
 On the eve of riding forth, Carlyle wrote 
 to his mother. The Bullers, mentioned in 
 the letter which follows, were the family of 
 Charles BuUer, to whom he had been tutor. 
 Buller died eight years afterward, in the 
 midst of a brilliant parliamentary career. 
 The " clergyman " was probably the Eev. 
 Julius Hare. I find no record of a visit to 
 Erskine until three years later. Carlyle had 
 written to his brother John, in the winter of 
 1838 : " Did you ever see Thomas Erskine, 
 the Scotch saiat ? I have seen him several 
 times lately, and like him as one would do a 
 draught of sweet rustic mead, served in cut 
 glasses and a silver tray ; one of the gentlest, 
 kindliest, best bred of men. He talks greatly 
 about 'Symbols,' and other Teufelsdrockhi- 
 ana ; seems not disinclined to let the Christian 
 religion pass for a kind of mythus, provided 
 men can retain the spirit of it. . . . On the 
 whole I take up with my old love for the 
 Saints." And from that time Carlyle held 
 much salutary communion with " St. Thomas," 
 as Mrs. Carlyle used playfully to call him. 
 
102 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 Xn. CAELYLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBEIG. 
 
 Chelsea, 1st August, 1840. 
 
 My deab Mother, — Before setting out 
 on my long-talked-of excursion I must send 
 you a word. I am to go to the Bullers' place 
 to-morro"w, a place near Epsom (the great race 
 course) some eighteen miles of. I am to ride 
 out with a Macintosh before my saddle and a 
 small round trunk the size of a quartern loaf 
 fastened behind, and no clothes upon me that 
 bad weather will spoil. I shall be one of the 
 most original figures ! I mean to stay a day 
 or two about BuUer's, riding to and fro to 
 see the fine green country. I have written 
 to a clergyman, an acquaintance of mine on 
 the South coast some 40 miles farther o£E : if 
 he repeat the invitation he once gave me, 
 perhaps I shall ride to him and see the place 
 where William the Conqueror fought &c. and 
 have one dip in the sea. I mean to be out 
 in all about a week. The weather has grown 
 suddenly bright. I calculate the sight of the 
 green earth spotted yellow with ripe corn will 
 do me good. After that I am to part with 
 my horse :' the expense of it is a thing I can- 
 not but continually grudge. I think it will 
 suit better henceforth to get rolled out on a 
 
TO BIS MOTHEB 103 
 
 railway some 20 miles, clear of all bricks and 
 reek, to walk then for haH a day, now and 
 then, and so come home at night again. 
 The expense of a horse every day here is 
 nearer four than three shillings, far too heavy 
 for a little fellow like me, whom even it does 
 not make altogether healthy. I have offered 
 to give the beast to Mr. Marshall (son of the 
 original donor), who kept her for me last 
 winter. I hope he will accept on my return. 
 It will be much the handsomest way of end- 
 ing the concern. If he refuses I think I 
 shall sell. I meditated long on riding aU the 
 way up to Carlisle and you ! But in the 
 humor I am in, I had not heart for it. These 
 Southern coasts too are a still newer part of 
 England for me. I give up the riding North- 
 ward, but not the coming Northward yet, as 
 you shall hear. 
 
 My Fourth Lecture was finished three days 
 ago. On returning strong, as I hope to do a 
 week hence, I will attack my two remaining 
 lectures and dash them off speedily. The 
 Town will be empty — none to disturb me. 
 About the end of August I may hope to have 
 my hands quite free, and then ! Thomas 
 Erskine invites me to Dundee &c. There 
 are steamers, steam coaches, — I shall surely 
 see you. 
 
104 LETTERS or CARLTLE 
 
 Alick's good letter gave me welcome tid" 
 ings of you. I had read your own dear little 
 epistle before. Heaven be praised for your 
 welfare. I am glad to hear of "the peat- 
 shed" and figure to myself the cauldron 
 singing under your windows. I have written 
 to-day to Jack. There had come a letter 
 from Miss Elliott for him from the Isle of 
 Wight : he once talked of settling there. I 
 know not whether that is still in the wind 
 again. He wiU have to decide about the 
 PeUipar affair in three weeks or less. 
 
 To-day I enclose a little half sovereign. 
 You must accept it merely to buy gooseber- 
 ries : they are really very wholesome. I am 
 to go into the City to send off some money 
 for the Bank at Dumfries. I am in great 
 haste. I will write again directly on my 
 return if not sooner. 
 
 Alick's letter, tell him, was the pleasantest 
 he has sent for many a day. I thank him 
 much for it and will answer soon. I still 
 owe Jamie a letter too : he is very patient, 
 but shall be paid. Did you ever go near the 
 sea again ? This is beautiful weather for it 
 now. It would do you and little Tom good, 
 I think. 
 
 Jane still likes the warmth and salutes you 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 105 
 
 all. Wish me a good journey ! It is like to 
 be a very brief and smooth one. Adieu, 
 dear Mother. 
 
 Carlyle was disappointed in his hope of 
 going home. He did not visit Scotsbrig 
 again for another year. 
 
 So long before as January, 1839, Carlyle 
 had written to his brother : " I have my face 
 turned partly towards Oliver Cromwell and 
 the Covenant time in England and Scotland." 
 He continued to read and think much on the 
 subject ; and in the autumn of 1840 he wrote 
 to Mr. Erskine : " I have got lately, not till 
 very lately, to fancy that I see in Cromwell 
 one of the greatest tragic souls we have ever 
 had in this kindred of ours." But in this 
 letter to his sister, as in so many another, 
 there is no mention save of the close family 
 kindred of the Carlyles : — 
 
 Xin. CABLTLB TO MES. HAIWING, KIBTLEBRIDGB. 
 
 5 Chbynb Row, Chelsea, 7 October, 1840. 
 
 Dear Jenny, — Will you take a word 
 from me to-day in place of many hundreds 
 which I wish I had the means of sending 
 you? My time is very limited indeed, but 
 the sight of my handwriting may be a kind 
 
106 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 of enlivener to your kind thoughts about me. 
 My dear Mother tells me you are afraid some- 
 times I may have forgotten you. Believe 
 that never, my dear little sister, it will forever 
 be an error if you do ! The whirl I am kept 
 in here is a thing you can form no notion of, 
 nor how natural or indeed inevitable it is for 
 me to give up writing letters at all except 
 when I am bound and obHged to do it. You 
 have no lack of news from me ; to my Mother 
 at least I send abundant details. Did I not 
 answer your letter too ? I surely meant and 
 ought to have done it. If at any time you 
 wanted the smallest thing that I could do for 
 you, and wrote about, I should be busier than 
 I have ever yet been, if I did not answer. — 
 In short, dear Jenny, whatever sins I may 
 have, whatever more I may seem to have, try 
 to think handsomely of them, to forgive 
 them. And above all things, consider that 
 whether I write many letters or few, my 
 afEection for you is a thing that will never 
 leave me. 
 
 My Mother tells me frequently how good 
 you are to her ; what a satisfaction it is that 
 you are so near her. I thank you a hundred 
 times for your goodness to her ; but I know 
 you do not need my thanks or encourage- 
 
TO MES. HANNING lOT 
 
 ment — and to me it is a real comfort to 
 reflect that you, with your true heart and 
 helpful hand, are always so near. Surely it 
 is a duty for us all, and a blessing in the 
 doing of it, to take care of our Mother, and 
 promote her comfort by all means possible to 
 us ! I will love you better and better for 
 this. 
 
 You would see by my Mother's last letter, 
 where the Doctor is at present. I have heard 
 nothing since I had a Newspaper from Dum- 
 fries, the other day, no letters. I mentioned 
 that the box for Scotsbrig was to be sent off ; 
 it went accordingly and is now on the way to 
 Liverpool, likely to be with you soon. There 
 is a small parcel in it for you. "We rejoice 
 to hear that Robert prospers in his business : 
 it is difficult to prosper in any business at 
 present. A man of industry, sobriety, and 
 steadiness of purpose; such a man has a 
 chance iE anybody have. Jane is certainly 
 in better health this year than I have seen 
 her for a good while. We wait to see what 
 she will say to the cold weather ! I myself 
 am as well as usual ; no great shakes of a 
 wellness at any time. I expect to be busy, 
 very busy this winter, which is the best con- 
 solation for all things. How I should like 
 
108 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 to hear of Jamie's harvest being all thatched ! 
 My love to my Mother, to Alick and all the 
 rest. Jane unites with me in special remem- 
 brances to Eobert and the glegg little lassie. 
 
 Yours, dear Jenny, in great haste, in all 
 truth, T. Carlyle. 
 
 Late in November, Carlyle, " greatly 
 against wont," went out to dinner. Among 
 the people he met were " Pickwick " and old 
 Rogers, " still brisk, courteous, kindly affec- 
 tionate — a good old man, pathetic to look 
 upon." Carlyle's acquaintances did not al- 
 ways grow in his favor, and six years later he 
 said of Rogers : " I do not remember any old 
 man (he is now eighty-three) whose manner 
 of living gave me less satisfaction." In this 
 winter of 1840-41, his dissatisfaction with 
 things in general made him think at times of 
 so desperate a move as retreating again to 
 Craigenputtock. Still he kept on with the 
 reading of " needful books." " He has had 
 it in his head for a good while," said Mrs. 
 Carlyle to a correspondent, on the 8th of 
 January, 1841, " to write a ' life of Cromwell,' 
 and has been sitting for months back in a 
 mess of great dingy fohos, the very look of 
 which is like to give me locked-jaw." 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 109 
 
 Mrs. Hanning's second child, Mary, was 
 born December 24, 1840. 
 
 Xrv. CAELYLE TO MRS. HAjnSTniG, KIKTIiEBEIDGE. 
 
 Chelsea, 15th January, 1841. 
 
 Dear Jenny, — We have heard very fre- 
 quently from Alick of late about you, for 
 •which punctuality we are greatly obliged to 
 him. You have had a bad turn, poor little 
 Jenny, and we were all anxious enough to 
 hear from day to day, as you may believe, 
 how it went with you. Alick reports of late, 
 yesterday in particular, that you are now con- 
 sidered out of danger, steadily getting better. 
 We will hope and beheve it so, tiU we hear 
 otherwise. You must take good care of your- 
 self. This weather is good for no creature, 
 and must be worst of all for one in your situ- 
 ation. Do not venture from the fire at all, 
 till the horrible slush of snow be off the 
 ground. 
 
 And what becomes of our good Mother all 
 this time ? She could not be at rest of course 
 if she were not beside you, watching over you 
 herself. Alick struggles to report favourably 
 of her, but we have our own apprehensions. 
 What can I do but again and again urge her 
 to take all possible precautions about herself 
 
110 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 (which however she will not do !) and trust 
 that she may escape without serious mischief. 
 If you were once up again I will fancy you 
 taking care of her. It must be a great com- 
 fort to have you so near her — within walk- 
 ing distance in the good season. 
 
 We have never had here so ugly a winter : 
 first violent frost, snow &c., then still nastier 
 times of the thawing sort; for a week past 
 there has been nothing but sleet, rime and 
 slobber, the streets half an inch deep with 
 slush and yet a cake of slippery ice lying 
 below that ; so in spite of daily and hourly 
 sweeping and scraping, they constantly con- 
 tinue. I, with some few others, go daily out, 
 whatever wind blow. I am covered to the 
 throat in warm wool of various textures and 
 can get into heat in spite of fate. Jane too 
 holds out wonderfully, ventures forth when 
 there is a bright blink once in a week ; sits 
 quiet as a mouse when the winds are piping 
 abroad. We understand you are far deeper 
 in snow than we. I believe there is now a 
 good thick quilt of it lying over the entire 
 surface of the Island. 
 
 The Doctor was here till Tuesday morning. 
 We saw him daily with much speech and sat- 
 isfaction. A letter yesterday announced that 
 
TO MRS. HANNINCf 111 
 
 they were fairly settled in Wight again. 
 He looked as well as need be. 
 
 I have sent by Alick a bit half-sovereign 
 to buy the poor new bairn a new pock. You 
 must take it without grumbling. TeU my 
 dear Mother that she must take care of her- 
 self, that I wiU write to her before many days 
 go. Better health to us all. Our kind wishes 
 to Robert. Good be with you every one. 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 T. Caelylb. 
 
 Here is another and a more highly elabo- 
 rated bit of London weather from an undated 
 fragment in Mrs. Hanning's possession at the 
 time of her death : — 
 
 " Our weather is grown decidedly good for 
 the last three days ; very brisk, clear and dry. 
 Before that it was as bad as weather at any 
 time need be : long continued plunges of wet, 
 then clammy, glarry days on days of half 
 wet (a kind of weather peculiar to London, 
 and fully uglier than whole wet) : — a world 
 of black sunless pluister, very unpleasant to 
 move about in ! The incessant travel makes 
 everything mud here, in spite of all that clats 
 and besoms can do ; a kind of mud, too, 
 which is as fine as paint, and actually almost 
 
112 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 sticks like a kind of paint ! I took, at last, 
 into the country, with old clothes and trousers 
 folded up ; there the mud was natural mud, 
 and far less of it, indeed, little of it in com- 
 parison with other country. We dry again 
 in a single day of brisk wind." 
 
 Early in 1841 Carlyle arranged with Fraser 
 for the publication of Heroes and Hero-wor- 
 ship. " The Miscellanies, Sartor, and the 
 other books," says Froude, " were selling 
 well, and fresh editions were wanted." 
 
 XV. CARLYIiB TO HIS MOTHEB, SCOTSBEIG. 
 
 Chelsea, Saturday IFebruary, 1841]. 
 
 My dbak good Mother, — Take half a 
 word from me to-day since I have no time for 
 more. I had forgotten that it was Saturday 
 till after breakfast I learnt it, and ever since 
 there has been business on business ! 
 
 We received your good little letter one 
 evening and sent it on to John. Thanks to 
 you for it. I had a letter too from Grahame 
 about his Miscellanies, for which he seems 
 amazingly thankful, poor fellow. We will 
 not tell him about the Ecclef echan Library — 
 let well be ! 
 
 John also sends word of himself — all right 
 enough, the *' probabiUty " that he will be 
 here again before long. 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 113 
 
 Jane and I are well, rejoicing in the im- 
 proved weather, not the best of weather yet, 
 but immensely better than it was. Some 
 days have been sunny and bright, a pleasant 
 prophecy of spring. 
 
 I have bargained with Fraser for my lec- 
 tures. They are now at press, that kept me 
 so very busy. He would give me only £75, 
 the dog, but then he undertakes a new edi- 
 tion of Sartor, too, (the former being sold) 
 and gives me another £75 for that too. It 
 is not so bad, £150 of ready money — at 
 least money without risk. I did not calculate 
 on getting anything at present for Teufels- 
 droeckh. You see we are rather rising than 
 falling, '' mall in shaft," at any rate. That 
 is always a great point. Poor Teufelsdroeckh, 
 it seems very curious money should lie even 
 in him. They trampled him into the gutters 
 at his first appearance, but he rises up again, 
 — finds money bid for him. 
 
 On the whole I expect not to be obUged to 
 lecture this year, which will be an immense 
 relief to me : I shall not be broken in pieces, 
 I shall have strength for perhaps some better 
 things than lecturing. 
 
 You spoke of going to Dumfries : I am 
 always afraid of your getting hurt on those 
 
114 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 expeditions, but I suppose you will not be 
 able to rest without going. I wish Jean and 
 you both were through it. 
 
 By the bye, did I ever sufficiently teU Isa- 
 bella that her butter continues excellent, none 
 better. I owe Jamie a letter too. Alick 
 ought to have been apprised how good his 
 bacon was — was, for alas, I myself eat the 
 most part of it and it is done : some weeks 
 ago his tobacco ran out ; I never told this 
 either — I forgot everything ! 
 
 Well, dear Mother, this is all I can say in 
 my hurry. I wiU write again soon, but with 
 two Books at the printer's with &c., &c., 
 what can a poor man do ? Be good bairns, 
 one and all of you. 
 
 Your ever affectionate 
 
 T. Caelylb. 
 
 When the proofs of Hero-Worship were 
 finished, visits to Eichard Monckton MHnes 
 (afterward Lord Houghton), and to the James 
 MarshaUs at Headingly, gave Carlyle what 
 seem to have been his first glimpses of life in 
 great country houses. On the 17th of April, 
 1841, he communicated his impressions to his 
 wife : "I never lived before in such an 
 element of 'much ado about almost No- 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 115 
 
 thing ; ' life occupied altogether in getting 
 itself lived ; ... and such champagning, 
 claretting, and witty conversationing. Ach 
 Oott ! I would sooner be a ditcher than 
 spend all vaj days so. However, we got 
 rather tolerably through it for these ten 
 days." Visits to his mother, Miss Martineau, 
 the Speddings, and a month in lodgings at 
 Newby — where he probably did not think 
 of Eedgauntlet — disposed of most of the 
 remaining holiday, and brought Carlyle back 
 to Cheyne Row in September. The book 
 would not yet begin itself. " Ought I to 
 write now of Oliver Cromwell ? Gott weiss ; 
 I cannot yet see clearly." Toward the close 
 of this year, Carlyle was asked to let himself 
 be nominated to the new History Chair in 
 Edinburgh University. He declined, with 
 noble thanks. 
 
 " Our brother," whom Carlyle writes of to 
 Mrs. Hanning, was their half-brother, already 
 referred to, who had emigrated to Canada in 
 1837, and died there in 1872. 
 
 XVI. CABLTIB TO MES. HANNING, DUMFRIES. 
 
 Chelsea, 24 Nov'r, 1841. 
 Dear Jenny, — Here is the American let- 
 ter you spoke of. It arrived yesterday, and 
 
116 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 to-day, after showing it to John, I send it to 
 you. I do not exactly know what part of 
 Canada it is dated from, but the place lies 
 some hundreds of miles northwest of where 
 your husband is likely to be. Our brother 
 seems to be going on in a very prosperous 
 way there. 
 
 On Sunday last the Doctor showed me a 
 letter he had written for you. It appeared 
 to be f uU of rational adAdce, in all of which I 
 agree. You must pluck up a spirit, my good 
 little Jenny, and see clearly how many things 
 you yourself, independent of aU other per- 
 sons, can stiU do. You, then, can either act 
 like a wise, courageous person or like a fool, 
 between which two ways of it there lies still 
 aU the difference in the world for you. . . . 
 I assert, and believe always, that no person 
 whatever can be ruined except by his own 
 consent, hy his own act, in this world. 
 Your little bairn will get to walk, then you 
 will have more time to sit to some kind of 
 employment. This will be your first consolar 
 tion. 
 
 I know not whether our Mother is still 
 with you, but suppose yes. I wrote to her a 
 very hurried scrawl last week. Pray take 
 good care of her from the damp and cold. I 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 117 
 
 will write to her again before long. Bj 
 Alick's letter of yesterday I learn that the 
 Doctor's Book for her is safely come to Ec- 
 clefechan. You can tell her farther that I 
 have now settled finally about her Luther 
 and it is hers. The cost was only some 26 
 shillings instead of 28. 
 
 Jane has again over-hauled the drawers 
 which you had such work with ; the best 
 plan was found to be to clip the leg ofB alto- 
 gether and put in four new inches above the 
 knee ! Good be with you, dear Jenny, with 
 you, and them all. 
 
 It is evident from one letter and another 
 that, after the removal to Dumfries and Mr. 
 Hanning's departure for Canada, Mrs. Han- 
 ning spent more time at the GUI than in 
 Dumfries. " Poor Helen " was Helen Mitch- 
 ell from Kirkcaldy, an entertaining as well 
 as a faithful servant. She came to Cheyne 
 Eow toward the end of 1837, was reclaimed 
 from drink by Mrs. Carlyle, but fell hope- 
 lessly into it again after eleven years of ser- 
 vice. " Her end was sad, and Uke a thing 
 of fate." 
 
118 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 XVn. CABLYLB TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBEIG. 
 
 Chelsea, 8th January, 1842. 
 
 My bear Mother, — You have been wan- 
 dering so about of late times, and there has 
 been such confused trouble going on, that I 
 have not got you regularly written to. It 
 seems to me a long while since we had any 
 right communication together. To-day I will 
 scribble you a word before going out. Alick 
 says you are for moving over to Gill again to 
 bear Jenny company till the day lengthens. 
 If you be already gone they wiU send this 
 after you. 
 
 The great trouble there has been at Scots- 
 brig must have been distressing to every per- 
 son there, from the poor father and mother 
 downwards. You, in particular, could not 
 escape. The weather also is sorely inclement 
 and not wholesome for those that cannot take 
 violent exercise ; yet Alick assures me you 
 are " as well as usual." Nay, he adds that 
 you mean soon to write to me. I pray you 
 take care, dear Mother, in your shifting to 
 the Gill and during your stay there in the 
 stranger house ; it is bitter weather and looks 
 as if it would continue long frosty. Tell me 
 especially how you are, what clothes you 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 119 
 
 wear, whether you get good fires. A waiin 
 bottle is indispensable in the bed at night. 
 You have books to read, daily little bits of 
 work to do ; you must crouch quiet till the 
 sun comes out again. 
 
 A considerable noise has been going on 
 about that little Review- Article of mine which 
 I sent you. The last page of the Divine 
 Might of Squires has been circulating widely 
 through the Newspapers with various com- 
 mentary and so forth. This I by no means 
 grudge : as the thing is true, it may circulate 
 as widely as it likes. It can do nothing but 
 good (whether pleasant or painful good) be- 
 ing true, — let it circulate where it will. If 
 a word of mine can help to relieve the world 
 from an insupportable oppression, surely it 
 shall be very welcome to do so ! The man 
 has paid me for this " article " (£24) but I 
 think I shall not soon trouble the world again 
 with reviewing. I mean something else than 
 that if I could get at it. On the whole, what 
 with Edinburgh Professorships, what with 
 Covenanter Articles, we have had rather a 
 noisy time of it in the newspapers for a while 
 back. It is not unpleasant, but except for 
 aiding the sale of one's books, perhaps it is 
 apt to be unprofitable. Fame ? Reputation ? 
 
120 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 &c, as old Tom White said of the whisky, 
 " Keep your whisky to yoursel' ! deevil o' 
 ever I 'se better than when there 's no a drop 
 on 't i' my wame ? " which is a literal truth, 
 — both as to fame and whisky. 
 
 My new book, I may tell you now, is to 
 be something about that same Civil War in 
 England which Baillie was in the midst of ; 
 I think mainly or almost exclusively about 
 Oliver Cromwell. I am struggling sore to 
 get some hold of it, but the business will be 
 dreadfully difficult, far worse than any French 
 Revolution, if I am to do it right : — and if 
 I do not do it right what is the use of doing 
 it at all ? For some time I tried actual writ- 
 ing at it lately, but found it was too soon 
 yet. I must wrestle and tumble about with 
 it, indeed at bottom I do not know yet whe- 
 ther ever I shall be able to make a Book out 
 of it ! AU that I can do is to try, till I as- 
 certain either Yes or No. For the rest I am 
 grown too old and cunning now to plunge 
 right on and attempt conquering the thing 
 by sheer force. I lie back, canny, canny, 
 and whenever I find my sleep beginning to 
 suffer, I lay down the tools for a while. By 
 Heaven's great blessing I am not now urged 
 on by direct need of money. We have ar- 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 121 
 
 ranged ourselves here in what to London 
 people is an inconceivable state of thrift, and 
 in our small way are not now tormented with 
 any fear of want whatever, for the present. 
 To myself my poverty is really quite a suit- 
 able, almost comfortable, arrangement. I 
 often think what should I do if I were 
 wealthy ! I am perhaps among the freest 
 men in the British Empire at this moment. 
 No King or Pontiff has any power over me, 
 gets any revenue from me, except what he 
 may deserve at my hands. There is nothing 
 but my Maker whom I call Master under this 
 sky. What would I be at? George Fox 
 was hardly freer in his suit of leather than I 
 here: if to be sure not carrying it quite so 
 far as the leather. Jane, too, is quite of my 
 way of thinking in this respect. Truly we 
 have been mercifully dealt with, and much 
 that looked like evil has turned to be good. 
 One thing I must tell you as a small adven- 
 ture which befell, the day before yesterday. 
 On going out for walking along one of these 
 streets an elderly, innocent, intelligent-look- 
 ing gentleman accosted me with " Apologies 
 for introducing himself to Mr. Carlyle whose 
 works &c, &c. He was the Parish clergy- 
 man" rector of the Parish of St. Luke's, 
 
122 LETTEBS OF CABLTLE 
 
 Chelsea ! I replied of course with all civility 
 to the worthy man (though shocked to admit 
 that after seven years of parishionership I 
 did not know the face of him). We walked 
 together as far as our roads would coincide, 
 then parted with low bows. I mean to ask 
 about the man (whose name I do not even 
 know yet !) and, i£ the accounts be good, to 
 invite a nearer approximation. 
 
 Jack will be with us to-morrow evening, 
 we expect ; oftenest we see him only that 
 once in the course of a week. He is healthy, 
 cheery and as full of talk and activity as I 
 ever saw him. His Patient and he walk 
 daily, or drive, or ride several hours, which is 
 a good encourager of health. He seems like- 
 lier than ever to stay a good while in this 
 present situation, to realize a good purse per^ 
 haps, — and then retire as a half-pay. Jane 
 sticks close in the house ever since the frost 
 began, for near a week now ; she is in very 
 tolerable health. Poor Helen, our servant, 
 heard the other night of the death of a poor 
 sick (asthmatic) sister at Edinburgh, which 
 grieved her to the ground for a while and 
 still greatly afflicts her ; we are sorry for the 
 poor creature. 
 
 Alick's long letter, you can tell him, shall 
 
DEATH OP MBS. WELSH 128 
 
 be answered by and by. I had also a letter 
 from Jean not many days ago. I have ex- 
 tremely httle time for writing letters. You 
 must all be patient with me. Commend me 
 to poor Isabella, whose affliction we deeply 
 sympathize with. Yours affectionately. 
 
 On February 26th Mrs. Welsh died at 
 Templand, in Nithsdale, where she had lived 
 since her daughter's marriage. Carlyle had 
 now to pass two months and more at Temp- 
 land in the settlement of affairs. By the 
 death of her mother Mrs. Carlyle regained 
 possession of Craigenputtock, the rent of 
 which, £200 a year, she had settled on Mrs. 
 Welsh for her life. " Thus, from this date 
 onward," notes Carlyle in the Eeminiscences, 
 "we were a little richer, easier in circum- 
 stances; and the pinch of Poverty, which 
 had been relaxing latterly, changed itself 
 into a gentle pressure, or into a limit and 
 little more. We did not change our habits 
 in any point, but the grim collar round my 
 neck was sensibly slackened. Slackened, not 
 removed at all, — for almost twenty years 
 yet. ... I do not think my literary income 
 was above £200 a year in those decades, — in 
 spite of my continual diligence day by day." 
 
124 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 The " cHeery little cousin " was Miss Jean- 
 nie Welsh, daughter to John Welsh of Liver- 
 pool, before mentioned, and mentioned again 
 in the last paragraph of the following letter. 
 
 XVIII. CARLTLE TO HIS MOTHEB, SCOTSBRIG. 
 
 Chelsea, Friday, ith June, 1842. 
 
 My dear Mother, — A letter from Jenny 
 came in the beginning of the week; then 
 last night another from her for Jack, which 
 seemed to have been written at the same 
 time, which also I opened as it passed, — for- 
 warding them both thereupon to Jack. Jack's 
 address is 3 Chester Terrace, Regent's Park. 
 Tell Jenny to copy this, and then she will 
 know it henceforth. You must also thank 
 her very kindly for the word she sends me 
 about you and about the rest. I find your 
 eyes are still sore, and I doubt this hot wea- 
 ther will do them no good. Perhaps keeping 
 out of the light as much as possible might be 
 useful. I would also recommend to abstain 
 from rubbing as much as you can. If Jack 
 know any likely eye water, I will make him 
 send a receipt for it. This is a very trouble- 
 some kind of thing : — but surely we ought 
 to be thankful that it is not a worse thing 
 too ! 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 125 
 
 Jack was away in the country last week, 
 but is come home again. He was down here 
 on Wednesday night to tea, as fresh and 
 hearty as ever. They are to be in London 
 mainly, I beheve, all summer. He will con- 
 trive plenty of " jaunts " &c., I suppose. It 
 is, as formerly, an idle trade, but a very well 
 paid one. It was precisely on that Wednes- 
 day that the Queen had been shot at. These 
 are bad times for Kings and Queens. This 
 young blackguard, it seems, is not mad at all ; 
 was in great want, and so forth; it is said 
 they will hang him. Such facts indicate that 
 even among the lowest classes of the people, 
 Queenship and Kingship are fast growing 
 out of date. 
 
 My poor wife is still very disconsolate, 
 silent, pale, broken-down, and very weak. I 
 urge her out as much as possible ; her cheery 
 little cousin, too, does what she can. Alas, 
 it is a very sore afBiction ; we have but one 
 mother to lose. I speak to her seriously 
 sometimes, but speaking cannot heal grief ; 
 only Time and Heaven's mercy can. 
 
 As for me, I sleep tolerably well, and also 
 have now begun to work a httle, which is 
 still better ! I shall have a terrible heap of 
 reading, of meditating, sorting, struggling of 
 
126 LETTERS OF CAJRLYLE 
 
 every kind. But why should I not do it, if 
 it be a good work? I feel as if there did 
 lie something in it. I ■will grudge no toil 
 to bring it out. I go often all day to the 
 Museum Library and search innumerable old 
 pamphlets, &c. It is a nasty place, five mUes 
 off, and full of heat and bad air, but it con- 
 tains great quantities of information. I re- 
 fuse all dinners whatsoever, or very nearly 
 all. I say, " Well, if you do take offence at 
 me, how can I help it ? In the whole world 
 there is only one true blessing for me, — that 
 of working an honest work. If you would 
 give me the Bank of England, and all set to 
 worship me with bended knees, — alas, that 
 would do nothing for me at all. It is not 
 you that can help me or hinder me ; it is I, 
 even I." Pray that I persist in this good 
 course. 
 
 Poor Isabella does not seem to profit by 
 the warm weather, I would recommend the 
 shower bath to her. I take it daily here. 
 Tell Jenny that there is no hurry about the 
 shirts. She can go on with all leisure. Did 
 Jamie ever learn from me that in the drawer 
 of their washstand, if he will pull it out, 
 there lies for him a little piece of new stuff 
 for rubbing on his razor strop ? I always 
 
TO HIS MOTSEB 127 
 
 forgot to mention it. Our weather here is 
 excellent, threatening to be too hot by and 
 by, which, however, I shall not grudge so 
 much this year. Broiling weather to me will 
 be the basis of a plenteous year for all. 
 There is much need of it ! 
 
 But I must end, dear Mother. I write 
 hardly any letters except to you, so you will 
 accept this as the best I can do at present. 
 The subscription for Burns's sister is doing 
 well, in Liverpool at least (under John 
 Welsh). My afEection to Alick and all of 
 them. You will get this when you go to the 
 Preaching. 
 
 My blessings on you, dear Mother, and all 
 love. 
 
 Your son, 
 
 Tom. 
 
 XIX. CABLTLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBBIQ. 
 
 Chelsea, Monday Morning, 
 ith July, 1842. 
 
 My dear Mother, — Before setting to 
 my work, let me expend a penny and a scrap 
 of paper on you, merely to say that we are 
 well, and to send a bit of ugly and curious 
 public news that you cannot yet have heard 
 of. On Saturday night it was pubHcly made 
 
128 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 known that Francis, the man who last shot at 
 the Queen, was not to be hanged, but to be 
 sent to Botany Bay, or some such punish- 
 ment. Well, yesterday about noon, as the 
 Queen went to St. James' Chapel, a third 
 individual presented his pistol at the Majesty 
 of England, but was struck down and seized 
 before he could fire it ; he and another who 
 seemed to be in concert with him are both 
 laid up. There is no doubt of the fact. 
 The two are both " young " men ; we have 
 yet heard nothing more of them than that. 
 The person who struck down the pistol (and 
 with it the man, so vehement was he) is said 
 to be a gentleman's flunkey; but I do not 
 know that for certain and have seen no news- 
 paper yet. . . . Are not these strange times ? 
 The people are sick of their misgovernment, 
 and the blackguards among them shoot at the 
 poor Queen : as a man that wanted the steeple 
 pulled down might at least fling a stone at 
 the gUt weathercock. The poor little Queen 
 has a horrid business of it, — cannot take a 
 drive in her clatch without risk of being 
 shot ! Our clatch is much safer. All men 
 are becoming alarmed at the state of the 
 country, — as I think they well may. 
 
 Jane and her cousin have this morning 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 123 
 
 been got ofE to Windsor by the Sterlings. 
 The jaunt in the open air will do the poor 
 Wifie good. 
 
 John is very well. I parted with him last 
 night near his own house rather after 10 
 o'clock. 
 
 Adieu, dear Mother. Here is a foolish. 
 Yankee letter of adoration to me. Bum it I 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 T. Cablyle; 
 
 The picture of Sartor measuring himself 
 for shirts to be made at long range, as it- 
 were, is memorable even in the annala o£ 
 Cheyne Row. 
 
 XX. CAELYLE TO MBS. HAmSTDTG, THE GILIi.. 
 
 Chelsea, 21 July, 1842. 
 My dear Jenny, — I am glad to hear of 
 your well being, and that you have got done 
 with the shirts, which is a sign of your indus- 
 try. They will be well off your hands, and 
 I have no doubt will be found very suitable 
 when they arrive here. In the meanwhile I 
 do not want them sent off yet till there are- 
 some more things to go with them. I am in 
 no want of them yet, and shall not, I think,, 
 be so tiU it will be about time for the meal 
 
130 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 to be sent from Scotsbrig. At all events, 
 you may look to that (for the present) as the 
 way of sending them, and therefore keep 
 them beside you tUl some chance of deliver- 
 ing them safe to my Mother or another Scots- 
 brig party turn up. There is no haste about 
 them ; the meal cannot be ready, I suppose, 
 till the end of September, if then. 
 
 In the meanwhile I want you to make 
 me some flannel things, too, — three flannel 
 shirts especially : you can get the flannel 
 from Alick, if he have any that he can well 
 recommend. You can readily have them 
 made before the other shirts go off : I have 
 taken the measure to-day, and now send you 
 the dimensions, together with a measuring 
 strap which I bought some weeks ago (at one 
 penny) for the purpose ! You are to be care- 
 ful to scour the flannel first, after which 
 process the dimensions are these. Width 
 (when the shirt is laid on its back) 22|- 
 inches, extent from wrist button to wrist 
 button 61 inches,^ length in the back 35 
 inches, length in the front 25J inches. Do 
 you understand all that? I dare say you 
 will make it out, and this measuring band 
 wfll enable you to be exact enough. Only 
 
 ' So that each sleeve is 19} inches long. 
 
TO MBS. HANNma 131 
 
 you must observe that at the beginning of it. 
 . . . Hoity-Toity ! I find that it is I myself 
 that have made a mistake there, and that you 
 have only to measure fair with the line and 
 all will be right; the dimensions as above, 
 22J, 61, 35, 25|. 
 
 If you could make me two pairs of flannel 
 drawers, I should like very well too, but 
 that I am afraid will be too hard for you. 
 This is all the express work I have for you 
 at present. Neither is there any news of 
 much moment that I could send you. Jane 
 continues still weak, but seems to gather 
 strength, too. I keep very quiet and very 
 busy, and stand the summer fully better than 
 is usual with me here. John still continues 
 in town, and does not speak of going yet. 
 We meet every Sunday here at Dinner. 
 
 Our good Mother, you perhaps know, has 
 got over to Jean for some sea bathing about 
 Arbigland. We hope they are all well about 
 GUI, and that a good crop is on its feet for 
 them. Give our kind regards and continual 
 good wishes both to Mary and Jamie, and ac- 
 cept them for yourself. Next time you write 
 you had better tell me how your money 
 stands out ; and if at any time, my dear little 
 Sister, I can help you in anything, be sure 
 
132 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 do not neglect to write then. Our love and 
 best -wishes to you, dear Jenny. 
 
 Your afiEectionate brother, 
 
 T. Caelyle, 
 
 In May, on his way back from Temp- 
 land, Carlyle had stopped to visit Dr. Arnold 
 at Rugby, and in August he went to Bel- 
 gium with Mr. Stephen Spring Rice and 
 his younger brother. Of this trip Carlyle 
 wrote an extraordinarily vivid account under 
 title of The Shortest Tour on Record. The 
 picture of the poor lace-maker and her habi- 
 tation, at Ghent, makes one think, by a 
 queer, austere contrary, of an earHer traveler 
 and his adventures. 
 
 In August, also, Mrs. Carlyle had gone to 
 the BuUers', in Suffolk. Twenty capital 
 pages of Letters and Memorials make her 
 visit live again. 
 
 XXI. CAELTLB TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBBIG. 
 
 Cambridge, 7tk Sep., 1842. 
 My dear Mother, — I am sitting here in 
 the " Hoop Inn " of Cambridge, in a spa- 
 cious apartment, blazing with gaslight and 
 nearly solitary. It strikes me I may as weU 
 employ the hour before bedtime in writing a 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 133 
 
 word for my good Mother, — to explain to 
 her how I am, and above all what in the 
 world I am doing here ! There is a magnifi- 
 cent thunderstorm just going on, or rather 
 beginning to pass off in copious floods o£ 
 rain, and there is no other sound audible in 
 this room ; one single fellow-traveller lies 
 reading the Times Newspaper on the sofa 
 opposite, and the rain quenches even the 
 sound of his breath. 
 
 Well, dear Mother, you heard that Jane 
 was gone into Suffolk to Mrs. Buller's, and 
 perhaps you understand or guess that she 
 continues still there ; nay, perhaps Jack may 
 have informed you that on Thursday last (a 
 week ago all but a day) I, after long hig- 
 gling, set out to bring her home. Home, 
 however, she was not to go quite so fast. 
 Mrs. Buller, rather lively up in that region, 
 wanted her to stay a little longer, wanted me 
 also, I suppose, to go flaunting about, calling 
 on Lady this and Sir Henry that, and lioniz- 
 ing and amusing myself as I best might in 
 her neighbourhood. She is very kind in- 
 deed, — more hospitable and good than I 
 have almost ever seen her to anybody. The 
 place Troston is a quiet, sleek, green place, so 
 intersected with green, wide lanes (loanings) 
 
134 LETTEBS OF CABLTLE 
 
 all overgrown with trees that you can hardly 
 find your way in it, — like walking in some 
 coal-mine in paths underground; it or any 
 green country whatever, as you know, is 
 likely to be welcome to me. One day I 
 walked off to a place called Thetford in 
 Norfolk, about 8 miles from us. It was the 
 morrow after my arrival, and I did not know 
 the nature of the lanes then. I lost my way 
 both going and coming, and made the dis- 
 tance 12 or 13 each way, but got home in 
 time to dinner, and was all the better for my 
 walk. Afterwards I never ventured out of 
 sight of Troston Church-tower without first 
 drawing for myself a little map of my route 
 from a big map that hangs in the lobby. 
 With my little map in my waistcoat pocket 
 I feared nothing, and indeed in three days 
 knew all the outs and ins of the counta-y ; — 
 for Mrs. BuUer in that interval had contrived 
 to borrow me a farmer's horse to go about 
 on. Was not that a friendly office to a man 
 like me ? 
 
 But to hasten to the point ! Mrs. BuUer's, 
 I knew beforehand, was but some 30 miles to 
 the east of Cromwell's country ; his birth- 
 place, the farm he had first, and the farm he 
 had second, all lie adjoining on the West- 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 135 
 
 ward, either in the next County, which is this 
 (Cambridgeshire), or in Huntingdonshire, the 
 one Westward of this. Accordingly, having 
 talked a long enough time about jaunts and 
 pilgrimages, — about it and about it, ^— I de- 
 cided at last (the women threatening to laugh 
 at me i£ I did not go) on actually setting 
 off, and accordingly here I am, with my face 
 already homewards, the main part of my little 
 errand successfully accomplished ; and a " rid- 
 ing tour " through the country parts of Eng- 
 land, which I have been talking of these 
 dozen years or more, has actually taken effect 
 on the small scale, — a very small scale in- 
 deed. I have ridden but two days, and on 
 the morrow evening I shall be at Troston 
 again, or near it. My conveyance being the 
 farmer's horse above mentioned, my fatigue 
 has been great ; — for it is the roughest and 
 dourest beast nearly that I ever rode, and to- 
 day in the morning, to mend matters, it took 
 to the trick they call " scouring," — in a sul- 
 len, windless ninny niawing. — Many a time 
 I thought of Alick and Jamie in these Cam- 
 bridge Fens, and wished one or both of them 
 had been near me. But I let the creature 
 take time (for it would have it), and it grad- 
 ually recruited again, though not brilliant at 
 
136 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 the best ; and indeed I shall be very willing 
 to wish it good-bye to-morrow evening, were 
 I at Troston again. Poor brute, it cannot 
 help being supple and riding as with stUky- 
 clogs at its feet! It has eaten four and a 
 half feeds of corn to-day, or I think it would 
 altogether have failed. 
 
 But at any rate I have seen the Cromwell 
 country, got an image of it in my mind for 
 all time henceforth. I was last night at Ely, 
 the Bishop's City of this district. I walked 
 in and about the Cathedral for two good 
 hours. Thought vividly of Cromwell step- 
 ping up these floors, with his sword by his 
 side, bidding the Priest (who would not obey 
 his first order, but continued reading his lit- 
 urgies), " Cease your fooUng and come out, 
 Sir." — One can fancy with what a gollie in 
 the voice of him. I found the very house 
 he had lived in. I sat and smoked a pipe 
 about nine o'clock under the stars on the 
 very "Horseblock" {harping-on stone) which 
 Oliver had often mounted from, two hundred 
 years ago. It was all full of interest, and 
 though I could get but very little sleep at 
 tight, I did not grudge that price. To-day 
 I rode still farther Westward to a place called 
 St. Ives, where OUver first took to farming. 
 
TO BIS MOTHER 137 
 
 The house they showed as his I did not be- 
 lieve in, but the fields that he tilled and 
 reaped are veritably there. I sat down under 
 the shade of one o£ his hedges and kindled a 
 cigar, not without reflections ! I have also 
 seen his native town Huntingdon, with many 
 other things to-day, and am here now on my 
 way homeward, as I said, and wiU not trouble 
 my dear good Mother with one other word of 
 babblement on the subject at present. No 
 country in itself can well be uglier ; it is aU 
 a drained immensity of fen (or soft peat 
 moss), and bears a considerable resemblance 
 to the trench at Dumfries, — if that were 
 some 30 or 40 miles square, with Parish 
 churches innumerable, all built on dry knolls 
 of chalky earth that rise up like islands. 
 You can teU Jamie that it bears heavy crops ! 
 oats, beans, wheat, which they are just con- 
 cluding the leading in of at present ; the rest 
 of the country being done a week or two 
 ago. 
 
 Dear Mother, was there ever such a clatter 
 of a letter written ? And not one word of 
 news, not one word even of the many hun- 
 dred I could use in inquiring ! We return to 
 Chelsea, I expect, about Monday first. Sat- 
 urday was to be proposed, but will not stand 
 
138 LETTEBS OF CARLYLE 
 
 I believe. Jack is already gone, on Satur- 
 day last, to Cheltenham, and then for North 
 Wales. Right glad am I for him and for 
 you that he is to come into Annandale for a 
 little while. Poor fellow, it is long since he 
 has been there, and he too has his own feel- 
 ings and straits which he does not speak 
 about often. My dear Mother, I will bid you 
 all good-night. I send you my heart's best 
 blessing o'er all the hills and rivers that lie 
 between us to-night. The thunder is gone, 
 and the rain. I will send you a little word 
 when we get to Chelsea; perhaps there is 
 something from yourself for me already for- 
 warded to Troston. I doubt it. Good-night, 
 my dear true Mother. 
 
 Ever your affect? 
 
 T. Cablylb. 
 
 I know not whether Alick has now any 
 communication with the Whitehaven Tobac- 
 conist ? A quarter of a stone might be ven- 
 tured upon along with the Harvest meal, or 
 by the Doctor or some other conveyance. It 
 keeps in the winter; it could not be worse 
 than my London tobacco all this year. Tell 
 Alick about it ; he rejoices always to help 
 me whenever he can. 
 
THE BATTLEFIELD AT NA8EBY 139 
 
 Carlyle's pilgrimage to Huntingdon, St. 
 Ives, and thereabouts, is not to be con- 
 founded with his former Cromwell journey 
 — to Naseby — undertaken a few months be- 
 fore, with Dr. Arnold. Fronde's account of 
 Carlyle's investigation of the battlefield was 
 (necessarily) so incomplete that I venture to 
 quote here two highly interesting letters from 
 a long afterward published book, — Letters 
 of Edward Fitzgerald. Says Fitzgerald, in a 
 memorandum on the subject : — 
 
 " As I happened to know the Field well, — 
 the greater part of it then belonging to my 
 Family, — I knew that Carlyle and Arnold 
 had been mistaken — misled in part by an 
 Obelisk which my Father had set up as on 
 the highest Ground of the Field, but which 
 they mistook for the centre-ground of the 
 Battle. This I told Carlyle, who was very 
 reluctant to believe that he and Arnold could 
 have been deceived — that he could accept 
 no hearsay Tradition or Theory against the 
 Evidence of his own Eyes, etc. However, as 
 I was just then going down to Naseby, I 
 might enquire further into the matter. 
 
 " On arriving at Naseby, I had spade and 
 mattock taken to a hill near half a mile 
 across from the 'Blockhead Obelisk,' and 
 
140 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 pitted with several hollows, overgrown with 
 rank Vegetation, which Tradition had always 
 pointed to as the Graves of the Slain. One 
 of these I had opened ; and there, sure 
 enough, were the remains of skeletons closely 
 packed together — chiefly teeth — but some 
 remains of Shin-bone, and marks of Skull in 
 the Clay. Some of these, together with some 
 sketches of the Place, I sent to Carlyle." 
 
 Fitzgerald, in a letter which has apparently 
 not been preserved, sent the results of this 
 first investigation to Carlyle. He wrote also 
 from Naseby the following letter to Bernard 
 Barton : — 
 
 [Naseby], Septr. 22, /42. 
 
 My dear Barton, — The pictures are 
 left aU ready packed up in Portland Place, 
 and shall come down with me, whenever 
 that desirable event takes place. In the 
 meanwhile here I am as before ; but having 
 received a long and interesting letter from 
 Carlyle asking information about this Battle 
 field, I have trotted about rather more to 
 ascertain names of places, positions, etc. 
 After all, he will make a mad book. I have 
 just seen some of the bones of a dragoon and 
 his horse who were found foundered in a 
 morass in the field — poor dragoon, much 
 
TRE BATTLEFIELD AT NASEBY 141 
 
 dismembered by time: his less worthy mem- 
 bers, having been left in the owner's summer- 
 house for the last twenty years, have disap- 
 peared one by one, but his skull is kept safe 
 in the hall : not a bad skull neither ; and in 
 it some teeth yet holding, and a bit of the 
 iron heel of his boot, put into the skull by 
 way of convenience. This is what Sir Thomas 
 Browne calls "making a man act his Anti- 
 podes." ^ I have got a fellow to dig at one 
 of the great general graves in the field ; and 
 he tells me to-night that he has come to 
 bones ; to-morrow I will select a neat speci- 
 men or two. In the meantime let the full 
 harvest moon wonder at them as they lie 
 turned up after lying hid 2400 revolutions 
 of hers. Think of that warm 14th of June 
 when the Battle was fought, and they fell 
 pell-mell : and then the country people came 
 and buried them so shallow that the stench 
 was terrible, and the putrid matter oozed 
 over the ground for several yards ; so that 
 the cattle were observed to eat those places 
 very close for some years after. Every one 
 
 ' Beferring to a passage in the Garden of Cyrus, near the 
 end : " To keep our eyes open longer, were but to act our 
 antipodes. The huntsmen are up in America, and they are 
 already past their first sleep in Persia.'' 
 
142 LETTERS OF CASLYLE 
 
 to his taste, as one might well say to any 
 woman who kissed the cow that pastured 
 there. 
 
 Friday, 2drd. We have dug at a place, 
 as I said, and made such a trench as would 
 hold a dozen fellows, whose remains positively 
 make up the mould. The bones nearly all 
 rotted away, except the teeth, which are quite 
 good. At the bottom lay the form of a per- 
 fect skeleton : most of the bones gone, but 
 the pressure distinct in the clay; the thigh 
 and leg bones yet extant ; the skull a little 
 pushed forward, as if there were scanty room. 
 We also tried some other reputed graves, but 
 found nothing ; indeed, it is not easy to dis- 
 tinguish what are graves from old marlpits, 
 etc. I don't care for all this bone-rummaging 
 myself; but the identification of the graves 
 identifies also where the greatest heat of the 
 battle was. Do you wish for a tooth ? 
 
 As I began this antiquarian account in a 
 letter to you, so I have finished it, that you 
 may mention it to my Papa, who perhaps will 
 be amused at it. Two farmers insisted on 
 going out exploring with me all day : one a 
 very solid fellow, who talks like the justices 
 in Shakespeare, but who certainly was in- 
 spired in finding out this grave ; the other a 
 
TO EDWABD FITZGERALD 143 
 
 Scotchman, full of intelligence, who proposed 
 the flesh-soil for manure for turnips. The 
 old Vicar, whose age reaches halfway back 
 to the day of the Battle, stood tottering over 
 the verge of the trench. Carlyle has shewn 
 great sagacity in guessing at the localities 
 from the vague descriptions of contempora- 
 ries ; and his short pasticcio of the battle is 
 the best I have seen. But he will spoil all 
 by making a demigod of Cromwell, who cer- 
 tainly was so far from wise that he brought 
 about the very thing he fought to prevent, — 
 the restoration of an unrestricted monarchy. 
 
 The substance of this letter was of course 
 communicated by Fitzgerald to Carlyle, who 
 promptly and gratefully repHed. 
 
 Chelsea, Saturday, 25 [24] Septr. 1842. 
 
 My dear Sir, — You will do me and the 
 Genius of History a real favour, i£ you per- 
 sist in these examinations and excavations to 
 the utmost length possible for you ! It is 
 long since I read a letter so interesting as 
 yours of yesterday. Clearly enough you are 
 upon the very battle-ground ; — and I, it is 
 also clear, have only looked up towards it 
 from the slope of Mill Hill. Were not the 
 
144 LETTERS OF CAMLYLE 
 
 weather so wet, were not, etc., etc., so many- 
 etceteras, I could almost think of running up 
 to join you still ! But that is evidently un- 
 f easible at present. 
 
 The opening of that burial -heap Mazes 
 strangely in my thoughts : these are the very 
 jawbones that were clenched together in 
 deadly rage, on this very ground, 197 years 
 ago ! It brings the matter home to one, 
 with a strange veracity, — as if for the first 
 time one saw it to be no fable and theory, 
 but a dire fact. I wQl beg for a tooth and a 
 bullet ; authenticated by your own eyes and 
 word of honour ! Our Scotch friend, too, 
 making turnip manure of it, — he is part of 
 the Picture. I understand almost aU the 
 Netherlands battlefields have already given 
 up their bones to British husbandry; why 
 not the old English next ? Honour to thrift. 
 If of 5000 wasted men you can make a few 
 usable turnips, why, do it ! 
 
 The more sketches and details you can 
 contrive to send me, the better. I want to 
 know, for one thing, whether there is any 
 house on Cloisterwell ; what house that was 
 that I saw from the slope of Naseby height 
 (Mill-hill, I suppose), and fancied to be Dust 
 Hill Farm? It must lie about North by 
 
TO EDWARD FITZGSBALD 145 
 
 West from Naseby Church, perhaps near a 
 mile off. You say, one cannot see Dust Hill 
 at all, much less any farm house of Dust HiU, 
 from that Naseby Height ? 
 
 But why does the Obelisk stand there? 
 It might as well stand at Charing Cross ; the 
 blockhead that it is ! I again wish I had 
 wings ; alas, I wish many things ; that the 
 gods would but annihilate Time and Space, 
 which would include all things ! 
 
 In great haste, Yours most truly, 
 
 T. Caklylb. 
 
 Both Carlyle's letter to Fitzgerald and 
 that to his mother from Cambridge are nota- 
 ble illustrations of the insatiable hunger of 
 the eye which went far to make him the 
 great writer he was. The print of those 
 teeth on his mind is shown in Cromwell, 
 where we read : " A friend of mine has in 
 his cabinet two ancient grinder-teeth, dug 
 lately from that ground, — and waits for an 
 opportunity to rebury them there. Sound, 
 effectual grinders, one of them very large ; 
 which ate their breakfast on the fourteenth 
 morning of June, two hundred years ago, 
 and, except to be clenched once in grim 
 battle, had never work to do more in this 
 world!" 
 
146 LETTERS OF CAMLTLE 
 
 The old mother was not ungrateful for 
 her son's mindfulness. Nothing in their re- 
 lations is more touching than the brevity and 
 stiffness of her letters, with every now and 
 then some burst of natural affection which 
 even the artificial medium cannot check. 
 Margaret Carlyle had learned to write in 
 adult life for the sake of replying to her 
 son's letters, but the pen never became an 
 obedient instrument in her hand. She could 
 always have sympathized with Joe Gargery. 
 
 XXII. TO CAKLTLE FBOM HIS MOTHER. 
 
 ScoTSBRiG, Sept. 13, 1842. 
 
 My dear Son, — It is a long time since 
 you had a word from me, though I have had 
 many kind letters from you, for which i£ I 
 am not thankful enough, I am glad. I am 
 full as well as I was when you saw me last. 
 I am reading the poem on " Luther " and I 
 am much pleased with it. I wish the author 
 Godspeed. It is a good subject and well 
 handled, is my opinion of it. I had a letter 
 from John yesterday, he thinks he will see us 
 in the Course of a month or so. We will be 
 glad to see him again if it please God. We 
 have excellent weather here. I do not re- 
 member such a summer and harvest. Jamie 
 
MBS. CABLTLE TO MBS. BANNING 147 
 
 had a good crop and very near all in and well 
 got up. Isabel is still poorly. She is rather 
 better than she was at one time. How are 
 you after your wanderings ? Write as soon 
 as you can and tell us all your news. 
 
 Ever your afEectionate Mother, 
 
 M. A. C. 
 
 XXm. TO MRS. SASmSG, AT THE GILL, FEOM HER 
 MOTHER. 
 
 ScoTSBRiG, Monday [1840-1851]. 
 
 My dear Jenny, — I have been longing 
 for you to come here for a long time. I 
 want to send two hams on to London. 
 Could you get a box which would hold the 
 shirts and both could be sent at the same 
 time. If you have not sent them any, bring 
 them over as soon as you can, and come soon. 
 At any rate bring the winter things that 
 Jean sent. We are aU in our frail way of 
 health. Give my kindest love to young and 
 old. 
 
 Ever your old mother, 
 
 M. A. C. 
 
 In the letter subjoined, Carlyle gives his 
 mother the conclusion of his visit to the 
 BuUers, of which he had written so fully. 
 
148 LETTERS OF CAHLTLE 
 
 " The good Mrs. Strachey," sister to Mrs. 
 Buller, was the pious widow of a rich exami- 
 ner in the India House. Mr. Strachey, eigh- 
 teen years before, had accompanied Carlyle to 
 Paris. " Min " must have been a household 
 name for Miss Jeannie Welsh. 
 
 XXIV. CABLTIiE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBKIG. 
 
 Chelsea, 19^ Sept. 1842. 
 
 My dear Motheb, — Will you take the 
 smallest of notes from me merely to perform 
 the essential function of a note, — ask you 
 how you are and say that I am well. 
 
 I wrote you ten days ago a long letter 
 dated Cambridge from my Inn in that Town. 
 This I hope you received duly. It would 
 let you into my ways in those weeks. Next 
 day I got well enough back to Troston, rain 
 attending me for the last two hours. I was 
 terribly wearied of my great flat-soled mon- 
 ster of a horse, but much gratified with my 
 pilgrimage and all rejoiced very handsomely 
 at my return. Charles had come in the in- 
 terim. They would not let us aWay on Mon- 
 day as we proposed. It was settled at last 
 that Thursday should be the day. Charles 
 came up with us to Town. We had a very 
 pleasant kind of journey and got safe home 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 149 
 
 to dinner here. So ends the Troston journey 
 and I think all traveUing for this season. 
 The good Mrs. Strachey, who is now in Italy, 
 wrote to offer us her house and servants for 
 two months at CUfton, a beautiful Village 
 near Bristol, 100 miles to the west of us, but 
 we have refused. Rolling stone gathers little 
 bog. I must resolutely get some work done 
 now. 
 
 Jane seems really better for her country 
 excursion. I observed to-day that she eats 
 a whole slice of bread to breakfast again. 
 Little Min W. is still here. I think she Hkes 
 much better to be here than at home, in the 
 midst of luxury but also of Liverpool stupid- 
 ity. She is a fine cheery little lass, very 
 pretty too, and would make a good wife for 
 somebody. 
 
 The Duke of Buccleuch has now actually 
 paid me the £100 — at least sent a draft 
 payable in 10 days hence. I sent my thanks 
 and the business is all over — a right agree- 
 able result. You may tell Jamie that tha 
 Templand Grates too are paid, payable at the 
 same time; that we saved the Grates that 
 day, and our broOing journey was not in vain, 
 therefore. 
 
 I hope they have now all got a sight of 
 
150 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 your picture and that I shall get it soon. It 
 will be needless to wait for Jack, he, as I re- 
 flect, can do nothing towards carrying it. 
 Poor fellow — you will see him again. Here 
 is his last letter, though it can have no news 
 for you. How goes Jamie's harvest? The 
 weather has been brittle ever since that thun- 
 derstorm. How go you yourself, my dear 
 good Mother ? Somebody ought to write to 
 me now. I do not hear anything even from 
 Jean. Could Jenny make me two pairs of 
 flannel drawers along with the shirts? I 
 fear not. Adieu, dear Mother, my love to 
 one and all. 
 
 T. Carlylb. 
 
 XXV. CAELTLE TO MBS. HAOTJItfG, THE GILL. 
 
 Chblsea, 2d Nov. 1842. 
 
 My dear Jenny, — Yesterday I meant to 
 have written to you, in order to be ready for 
 Thursday at Annan, such had been my firm 
 purpose, but something came in the way, and 
 I altogether forgot till this morning. Lest I 
 make a similar mistake for Saturday too, I 
 wiU take time by the forelock and write even 
 now. The barrel of meal, and the box of 
 garments arrived all safe, on Saturday night 
 last. 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 151 
 
 And I have to apprize you, as the expert 
 needlewoman of the whole, that all fits with 
 perfect correctness. I have had a pair of 
 drawers on, and a flannel shirt, I have one of 
 the cambric shirts on me at present : every- 
 thing is as right as if it had been made under 
 my own eye. The flannel of the shirts is 
 excellent, they are made to the very measure. 
 The drawers also are the best fit of the article 
 I have had for several years back ; two of the 
 pairs, I observe, are of the fine flannel the 
 shirts are of. Perhaps it will prove too cool 
 for the depth of winter — perhaps not, but 
 either way I have plenty of warmer, for that 
 season. One of the pairs is of right shaggy 
 flannel. My good Mother sent a fine wool 
 plaid too and a dozen pair of socks, few mor- 
 tals are better off for woolen this winter ! — 
 As to the musHn shirts Jane says they are 
 excellently sewed, — She is the judge, I find 
 them to lie flat on the breast too, which the 
 old would never do. 
 
 In short, it is all perfectly right ; and you 
 will be very glad, I doubt not, that you 
 have got it well off your hands. If in the 
 course of the vrinter, you fall out of worTc, 
 and want a canny job for yourself, it will be 
 acceptable enough to me that you set Jean 
 
152 LETTERS OF CARLTLE 
 
 upon getting you some more stuff, and make 
 me half a dozen more of the like shirts ! But 
 this you need not, unless in the aforesaid 
 case. I believe the stock I have will serve 
 me some couple of years or more. But they 
 eat no bread. — If you ever do think of this, 
 you can let me know before starting ; I may 
 perhaps have some remarks to make. 
 
 You will be nestling all under cover now 
 at Gill, when the short days and the frosts 
 are come. I hope you have a right stock of 
 fuel in your end of the house ; and that your 
 little carpet is now complete. I long to 
 question the Dr. about you when he comes 
 back hither. He is at a place they call 
 Malvern some 120 miles west of this. 
 
 How are Mary and Jamie ? very busy, and 
 well, I hope. Mary never writes. I sent 
 James a tobacco-box ! — Poor Allan Cunning- 
 ham the Poet is dead very suddenly ; a sad 
 event for several of us ! — 
 
 Adieu, Dear little sister. 
 
 Ever your affect. 
 
 T. Cablyle. 
 
 Much as Carlyle had been thinking about 
 Cromwell, another book was to come first, — 
 a book for which his very trip to Cromwell's 
 
[To Mrs. Hanning\ 
 
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A PBOFESSIONAL JOVB.NET 153 
 
 country was fruitful in suggestion. At St. 
 Ives he had seen not only Cromwell's farm, 
 but also St. Ives poorhouse with its inhabit- 
 ants, — " in the sun," to be sure, but neither 
 spinsters nor knitters, nor workers after any 
 fashion, for the simple reason that they had 
 no work to do. The Chartist riots of 1842 
 remained in Carlyle's mind with this symbolic 
 picture, and by October of the same year he 
 was deeply pondering the condition of " the 
 English nation all sitting enchanted, the poor 
 enchanted so that they cannot work, the rich 
 enchanted so that they cannot enjoy." Over 
 against this contemporary view Carlyle set 
 the life of the monks of Bury St. Edmunds, 
 as told by their chronicler, Jocelyn de Brake- 
 londe ; and the result was Past and Present, 
 written, apparently with less struggle than 
 any of the author's other books, in the first 
 seven weeks of 1843. Although Carlyle 
 went too far in this work, — as indeed he 
 so seldom failed to do, — Past and Present 
 proved the germ of more than one sadly 
 needed reform j and the splendid, sonorous 
 passage beginning, " All true work is sacred," 
 will remain, one must believe, an inalienable 
 possession of English literature and EngUsh 
 morals. 
 
154 LETTEBS OF CABLTLE 
 
 Publication followed ia April, and soon 
 afterward Carlyle wrote in his Journal : 
 " That book always stood between me and 
 Cromwell, and now that has fledged itself 
 and flown o£E." Face to face with Oliver 
 again, Carlyle went in the summer of 1843 
 to see famous battlefields of the civil war. 
 He so planned his itinerary as to reach Dun- 
 bar on the 3d of September, — the day of 
 the fight there, the day of Worcester fight, 
 and the day of Cromwell's death. 
 
 This professional journey was preceded by 
 a peaceful month at Scotsbrig, and followed 
 by a visit to Erskine tvhich fixes the date of 
 the next letter. 
 
 XXVI. CAELTIiB TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBKIG. 
 
 [LiNLATHEN, early September, 1843.] 
 
 Yesterday by appointment, the good 
 Thomas Erskine took me up at Kirkcaldy, 
 carried me ofE hither on the top of the coach, 
 bag and baggage. The day was damp and 
 dim, not exactly wet, yet in danger of becom- 
 ing very. There had been rain in the night 
 time (Sabbath night or early on Monday morn- 
 ing) but there fell no more. This day again 
 is oppressively hot, dry yet without sun or 
 wind — a baddish " day for a stock." But 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 155 
 
 they prophesy fair weather now — which I 
 shall be glad of, and the whole country will 
 be glad, for all is white here, in sheaves and 
 stooks, and little got into ricks. We got 
 here about 5 in the evening, a great party of 
 people in the house (a big Laird's house 
 -with, flunkeys &c., &c.). I was heartily tired 
 before I got to bed. I do not think I shall 
 be rightly at rest till I get on ship board, 
 then I will lie down and let all men have a 
 care of stirring me, — they had better let the 
 sleeping dog lie ! The Dundee steamers are 
 allowed to be the best on these waters, large 
 swift ships and very few passengers in them 
 at present. I spoke for my place yesterday 
 and am to have the best. The kind people 
 here will relieve me down (it is four miles off) 
 and then about 4 o'clock in the afternoon — 
 I shall — light a pipe in peace and think of 
 you all, speaking not a word. I expect to 
 sleep well there too, and then on Friday, per- 
 haps about 3 o'clock, I may be at London 
 Bridge and home by the most convenient 
 conveyance to Chelsea for dinner. This, if 
 all go well, this ends for the present my pU- 
 grimings up and down the world. 
 
 Dear Mother, I wish I had gone direct 
 home when I left you, for it is not pleasant 
 
156 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 somehow to be still in Scotland and far from 
 you. I speak not the thoughts I send to- 
 wards you, for speech will not express them. 
 If I arrive home on Friday you may perhaps 
 find a newspaper at Ecclefechan on Sabbath 
 morning, Monday much hkeUer. God bless 
 you all. 
 
 T. Caklyle. 
 
 The passage about Jeffrey in the next let- 
 ter is better than the corresponding one given 
 by Fronde. The reader who remembers Jef- 
 frey's complaint that Carlyle was " so dread- 
 fully in earnest," will smile at Carlyle's coun- 
 ter charge that Jeffrey had " too little real 
 seriousness in him " to " make a nice old 
 man." 
 
 XXVn. CABLTLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBRIG. 
 LiNLATHEN, DuNDEB, 
 
 Tuesday, 12th Sep. 1843. 
 
 My dear Mother, — According to pro- 
 mise, I write you another little word to an- 
 nounce that I am safe so far on my way, that 
 I embark to-morrow and hope to be home on 
 Friday afternoon. I am heartily desirous of 
 it ! This last part of my travels has been 
 considerably the weariest, for I have been all 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 157 
 
 along eager chiefly to have done with it. 
 Jamie knows how fain I would never have 
 entered upon it all. He took notice of my 
 reluctance at Dumfries and how welcome a 
 shower of rain would have been to me ! 
 However it is near ending now ; and I shall 
 enjoy the quiet of home all the more. One 
 thing, dear Mother, let me straightway tell 
 you; that I have not left one of my new 
 shirts, that the whole six, when I fold them 
 duly out, are here. I grieve that you should 
 have had a moment's uneasiness about that 
 matter, which is due only to my own blind- 
 ness and numbness ; my hope is that you did 
 not take it up too earnestly, but left the 
 matter over " tUl Jenny came." 
 
 I have now got two letters from Jane, the 
 last of them only yesterday ! All is well at 
 Chelsea; Jack not yet settled in any lodging, 
 nor in the least decided what to do, but " in 
 a state of torpor " as Jane says " playing 
 with the cat." He was dining with Lady 
 Clare; that was the last feat recorded of 
 him. I was much grieved to hear that you 
 had somehow missed AUck's letter : has it 
 never yet turned up for you ? I am too ig- 
 norant about the business to form any con- 
 jecture how it could have come about. Mean- 
 
158 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 while it was very lucty that there came 
 another letter of the same date for Jack : — 
 this I am in hopes will be ready for me at 
 London when I arrive. By the bye, might 
 it not be that Alick had only meant and fully 
 intended to write you a letter, and then had 
 suddenly found that he would not have time 
 by that mail ? Of course the two letters, if 
 there had been two, would come together : it 
 is unaccountable how one of them should 
 drop by the way. What a blessing to us to 
 hear that poor Alick is safe there and ready 
 to begin his adventure on fair terms. Jane 
 says his letter is of very composed tone and 
 " very practical looking." She seems to like 
 the tone of it well. I went over to Edin- 
 burgh since I last wrote. I there saw Gor- 
 don, saw various other friends — with more 
 or less of labour and fatigue. I spent a fore- 
 noon with Jeffrey who is very thin and fret- 
 ful I think ; being at any rate weakly, he is 
 much annoyed at present by a hurt on his 
 shin — a quite insignificant thing otherwise, 
 which however disables him from walking. 
 Poor Jeffrey! he does not make a nice old 
 man, he has too little real seriousness in him 
 for that. On the whole I was heartily glad 
 to quit Edinburgh again and get away from 
 
HOUSEHOLD CHANGES 159 
 
 it into quietude across the Frith. I wrote to 
 Jean at Dumfries one day. 
 
 " Carlyle returned from his travels very 
 bilious," so his wife wrote to Mrs. Aitken in 
 October, 1843, " and continues very bilious 
 up to this hour." He could not refuse a 
 " certain admiration " at the state of the 
 house, which had been painted and papered 
 in his absence. Mrs. Carlyle, with her own 
 hands, had put down carpets, newly covered 
 chairs and sofas, and arranged a library ac- 
 cording to his (expressed) mind. His satis- 
 faction lasted only three days, for on the 
 morning of the fourth day " the young lady 
 next door took a fit of practising on her ac- 
 cursed piano-forte." There had then to be 
 another upheaval : " down went a partition 
 in one room, up went a new chimney in 
 another ; " and still another hbrary, farther 
 from the piano, was thus contrived. Finally, 
 the young lady, charmed by " a seductive 
 letter" from Carlyle, agreed never to play 
 until two in the afternoon. The dinner hour 
 was changed to the middle of the day, be- 
 cause Carlyle thought it would be better for 
 his digestion. 
 
 Although these changes, which in Mrs. 
 
160 L*ETTEBS OF CABLYLE 
 
 Carlyle's account seem planet-shaking, were 
 in the interest of Cromwell, Cromwell re- 
 mained persistently unwritable. On the 4th 
 of December the historian wrote to Sterling : 
 " Confound it ! I have lost four years of 
 good labour in the business; and still the 
 more I expend on it, it is like throwing good 
 labour after bad." Two days later he put a 
 better face on it to his mother. 
 
 XXVm. CAELTLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBEIG. 
 
 Chelsea, Monday, 6th Dec. 1843. 
 
 My deak Mother, — We have a letter 
 from Jean this week, who reports a visit to 
 you and gives us a description of what you 
 were about. We were very glad to look in 
 upon you in that way. Jean describes you 
 as very well when they came, but since then 
 (though she tells us of your prohibition to 
 mention it at all) there has been some iU 
 turn of health which we long greatly to hear 
 of the removal of ! I study,- dear Mother, 
 not to afflict myself with useless anxieties, 
 but on the whole it is much better that one 
 knows exactly how matters do stand, the very 
 fact, no better and no worse than it is. To- 
 day there was a httle Note from James Ait- 
 ken apprising us that the Books are come. 
 
TO HIS MOTHEB 161 
 
 that Jenny is -with him. He has evidently 
 heard nothing farther from Scotsbrig, so we 
 will hope things may have got into their 
 usual course again there. But Jamie or 
 somebody may write us a scrap of intelli- 
 gence, surely ? . . . 
 
 This is said to be a very unhealthy season 
 here ; for the past two months about two 
 hundred more deaths in the week have oc- 
 curred than is usual at this season, but I 
 rather conjecture it is the result of the long 
 continued hardship the Poor have been suf- 
 fering, which now, after wearing out the con- 
 stitution by hunger and distress of mind, be- 
 gins to tell more visibly ! Our weather is 
 very mild, soft without any great quantity of 
 rain and not at all disagreeable. Jane's cold 
 is gone again and we are in our common 
 way. 
 
 My Book goes on badly, yet I do think 
 it goes on. in fact it must go : Bore away 
 at it with continuous boring day and night 
 and it will be obliged to go ! I study how- 
 ever not to " split my gall " with it, but 
 to " hasten slowly " as the old Romans said. 
 When writing will not brother with me at all, 
 I fling it entirely by and go and walk many 
 a mile in the country. I have big thick 
 
162 LETTEHS OF CABLYLE 
 
 shoes, my jacket is waterproof against slight 
 rain, I take a stick in my hand and walk with 
 long strides. The farther I walk, the abler 
 I grow ; in fact I am rather in better health, 
 I think, than usual, if all things are consid- 
 ered. Jack and I had a long walk after 
 Tailors for some three hours in the moon- 
 light streets last night. To-day it is damp, 
 but I am for a sally again. Alas, it is but a 
 very poor morning task I have done, but we 
 cannot help it. Adieu, dear good Mother, 
 for our sakes take care of yourself. My love 
 to all. 
 
 Yours affectioni^ 
 
 T. Cablyle. 
 
 Carlyle never liked any portrait of himself. 
 The one mentioned in the following letter 
 had made him look like " a flayed horse's 
 head." 
 
 XXIX. CABLYLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBRIG. 
 
 Chelsea, 10/7i March, 1844. 
 
 My dear Mother, — It is a shame for me 
 if I do not write a bit of a letter to you. 
 There is nothing else I can do for you at 
 present. I will scribble you a few words of 
 
TO BIS MOTHEB 163 
 
 news on this paper, let other employments 
 fare as they can for the present. 
 
 I sent your good little note to the Doctor. 
 Jamie's letter for Alick came duly to hand 
 and was duly forwarded ; I also wrote a let- 
 ter to Alick myself. Poor fellow, I suppose 
 he has had a very solitary, meditative winter 
 of it over in America, and has no doubt had 
 a great many reflections in his head, looking 
 back and looking forward, with perhaps sad- 
 ness enough, but it will do him good, I really 
 beUeve. Perhaps this winter, seemingly one 
 of the idlest he has had, may turn out to be 
 one of the most profitably occupied. My 
 own hope and persuasion is that he will now 
 do well, that he is probably about to begin a 
 new course of activity on better terms than 
 before, better terms both inward and out- 
 ward, and that in fine, poor fellow, he may 
 begin to see the fruit of his labor round him 
 and go on with much more peace and pro- 
 sperity than heretofore. ... I also like the 
 tone of his letters, which is much quieter 
 than it used to be. He does not know, I 
 suppose, in what direction he is to go when 
 April arrives. I urged, as Jamie did, that a 
 healthy quality of situation should outweigh 
 aU other considerations whatever, that for the 
 
164 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 rest all places seemed to me much alike ; if 
 the land were cheap, it would be unfavour- 
 ably situated &c. I also hinted my notion 
 that a small piece of good handy soil might 
 be preferable to a large lot of untowardly, 
 outlying ground. We can only hope and 
 pray he may be guided well. We cannot 
 assist him with any real guidance. Difficul- 
 ties beset a man everywhere under this sun. 
 There if he have patience, insight, energy 
 and justness of mind he wiU daily conquer 
 farther, — not otherwise, either in America 
 or here. But, as I said, I have never lost 
 hope with Alick, and I have now better hope 
 than ever. We will commit him to the all- 
 wise Governor with many a prayer from the 
 bottom of all our hearts that it may be well 
 with him. To hear and know that he does 
 see good under the sun, fighting his way like 
 a true man in that new country ! — what a 
 comfort to you and to every one of us. My 
 dear Mother, I know your heart is many a 
 time sad about AliCk. He is far away and 
 there are others of us gone still farther, be- 
 yond the shores of this earth, whither our 
 poor thoughts vainly strive to f oUow them, — 
 our hearts' love following them still : — but 
 we know this one thing, that God is there 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 165 
 
 also, in America, in the dark Grave itself and 
 the unseen Eternity — even He is there too, 
 and -will not He do aU things well? We 
 have no other Anchor of the soul in any of 
 the tempests, great or little, of this world. 
 By this let us hold fast and piously hope in 
 all scenes and seasons whatsoever. Amen. 
 
 You bid me " call on Patience " in this 
 Book of mine. Dear Mother, it is the best 
 and only good advice that can be given. I do 
 endeavour to call on patience and sometimes 
 she comes, and if I keep my shoulder stiffly 
 at the wheel withal, we shall certainly get 
 under way by and bye. The thing goes in- 
 deed, or now promises to go, a little better 
 with me. I stand to it as I can. But it will 
 be a terribly difficult job and take a long 
 time, I think. However, that it is a useful 
 one, worthy to be done by me I am resolved, 
 and so I will do it i£ permitted — the return 
 and earthy reward of it may be either great 
 or small, or even nothing and abuse into the 
 bargain, just as it likes. Thank Heaven I 
 can do either or any way as to that, for this 
 time, and indeed, often when I look at it, the 
 prizes people get in this world and the kind 
 of people that get them seem but a ridiculous 
 business. If there were not something more 
 
166 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 serious behind all that, I think it would 
 hardly be worth while to live in such a place 
 as this world at aU. In short I hold on the 
 best I can — and my good Mother's picture 
 looking down on me here, seems to bid me 
 " call on Patience " and persevere like a man. 
 Jane has not been very well in these cold 
 stormy weeks, but I think is now getting 
 better again. It is the spring weather, which 
 this year has been the real winter ; all manner 
 of people are unwell here at present. You in 
 the North have it stiU worse, far worse than 
 we. Many a time have I asked myself what 
 is becoming of my good old Mother in these 
 wild blasts. Surely you keep good fires at 
 Scotsbrig ? Surely you wear the new Hawick 
 sloughs ? Jane finds hers very warm and 
 nice ; but the thing you might improve greatly 
 and never do is your diet. I think you 
 should live chiefly on fowl. A hen is always 
 fair food, divide her into four pieces — she 
 makes you an excellent dinner of soup and 
 meat for four days. This you know very 
 well for others, but never learn it for your- 
 self. I am very serious. You should actu- 
 ally set about this reform. Do now — you 
 will find it more important on your health 
 than any medicine or other appliance you can 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 16T 
 
 think of. Jenny, I suppose, is still at the 
 Gill. When you feel tired of solitude again 
 she will come back to you. The bairns as 
 they grow will be quieter and give less trou- 
 ble. Poor Jenny, no doubt of it, she has 
 many cares of her own : we should all be 
 gentle with her, pity her and help her what 
 we can. 
 
 But now I suppose you are very impatient 
 to know what is in that paste board roll tied 
 with string. Open the string with your scis- 
 sors and you will see — one of the ugliest 
 pictures ever drawn of man. A certain per- 
 son here has been pubUshing some book 
 called " Spirit of the Age," pretending to 
 give people account of all the remarkable men 
 of the age; he has put me into it — better 
 luck to him. He wrote several months ago 
 requesting that I should furnish him with 
 some life of myself — forsooth ! This I alto- 
 gether begged leave respectfully to decline, 
 but he got hold of a picture that a certain 
 painter has of me, and of this he has made 
 an engraving, — like me in nothing, or in 
 very little, I should flatter myself. Let Isa- 
 bella roll the paper of it the contrary way 
 and then it wUl lie flat, if indeed the post 
 office bags do not squeeze it all to pieces, 
 
168 LETTERS OF CASLYLE 
 
 which I think is fully as likely and will be no 
 great matter. I sent it to you as to the one 
 that had a right to it. Much good may it do 
 you! 
 
 Jamie said he would write. Let him do so 
 — or else you yourself ought to write, or both 
 will be best. Jack and I were at Dinner to- 
 gether among a set of notables the night be- 
 fore last, came home together smoking two 
 cigars, all right. Adieu, dear Mother, my 
 big sheet is done. My regards to Isabella, 
 to Jamie and them all. My blessings with 
 you, dear Mother. 
 
 Yours affect. 
 
 T. Caelyle. 
 
 Carlyle maps the GiU, as well as other 
 places to which these letters make frequent 
 reference, in his introductory note to Letter 
 283, in the " Letters and Memorials of Jane 
 Welsh Carlyle : " — " The Gill, Sister Mary's 
 poor but ever kind and generous human 
 habitation, is a small farmhouse, seven miles 
 beyond Annan, twenty-seven beyond Carlisle, 
 eight or ten miles short of Dumfries. . . . 
 Scotsbrig lies some ten miles northward of 
 the GUI (road at right angles to the Carlisle 
 and Dumfries EaUway)." 
 
TO MRS. JAMES AUSTIN 169 
 
 " Our brother," spoken of in the second 
 paragraph, is again the half-brother already 
 mentioned. 
 
 XXX. CAELYLE TO MES. JAMES AUSTIN, THE GILL. 
 
 Chelsea, 30th April, 1844. 
 My dbab Maky, — We seldom hear di- 
 rectly of you and it is a long while since you 
 have had an express word from any of our 
 hands here. You are not to suppose that we 
 forget you on that account. Far enough 
 from that ! You are many times in my 
 thoughts. I fancy you and James strug- 
 gling along in your diligent, industrious way, 
 struggling to fight your battles in these bad 
 times, and from the bottom of my heart I 
 affectionately bid you God Speed. Struggle 
 away, my dear sister. We must so struggle 
 and we must not be beaten. Assure yourself 
 always that I am not less brother-like in heart 
 towards you than in old days when you saw 
 me oftener and heard from me oftener. To- 
 day I send you a little slip of paper which 
 will tm'n into a sovereign when you present it 
 at the Annan Post Office and sign your name 
 " Mary Austin " — from me " at Chelsea." 
 If you be not there yourself, James can sign 
 for you i£ you sign it first, but the thing is 
 
170 LETTEBS OF CABLTLE 
 
 in no haste and will lie till you go. Buy 
 yourself a bit of a bonnet or anything you 
 like with the piece of money and wear it with 
 my blessing, sometimes thinking of us here. 
 
 No doubt you hear duly about us. You 
 have heard I suppose how Alick is gone over 
 to Canada, to our brother there, not into the 
 deep Western regions of America with Clow, 
 which Canada arrangement of AUck's we like 
 better than the other. It seems to me Alick 
 may do well there now. He will get a piece 
 of land and every year that he tills it faith- 
 fully it wiU be growing better for him. La- 
 bour is labour, not joyful but heavy and sore 
 in any part of this world, but if a person see 
 any fruit of his labour it is always an encour- 
 agement to him. 
 
 Our dear old Mother seems to have been 
 rather weaklier this last winter than hereto- 
 fore. Jack had a letter yesterday from Jen- 
 nie at Scotsbrig which represents her as being 
 pretty well at present. I think Jenny should 
 stay much with her and look after her. Good 
 old Mother — the spring weather wiU grow 
 gradually into steady summer and then she 
 will have a better time of it, we may hope. 
 
 Jack was here last night. He talks of go- 
 ing North to " the country," probably toward 
 
TO MBS. JAMES AUSTIN 171 
 
 Annandale, before long, but his movements 
 are very uncertain. He has not yet any 
 fixed employment here and would be much 
 better if he had. He does not seem to like 
 medicine and is hovering among a great 
 variety of things. We always hope he will 
 fix himself on some specific object by and 
 bye. As for me I am very busy but making 
 very bad progress. I have nothing for it but 
 to bore along mole-like ; I shall get out some 
 time or other. Our spring wind has turned 
 round tempestuously into the North of late 
 and brought cold and dust, with the glare of 
 sunshine, not so pleasant to the invalid part 
 of us. Jane, however, is tolerably well and 
 growing stronger as the sun grows. She 
 sends her old love to you and kind remem- 
 brances. Give my regards to James — he 
 must be planting his potatoes now. Love to 
 you. 
 
 John Sterling, whose illness is lamented in 
 the next letter, died on the 18th of the fol- 
 lowing September. Shortly before his death 
 he wrote to Carlyle : " Towards me, it is stiU 
 more true than towards England, that no 
 man has been and done like you." 
 
172 LSTTEBS OF CARLTLE 
 
 XXXI. CAKLTLE TO DR. JOHN CAKLTLE, SCOTSBEIG. 
 
 Chelsea, Sth Aug. 1844. 
 
 My dear Brother, — Your letter in my 
 dearth of news was very welcome to me. 
 You should keep me going at least for Scots- 
 brig news while you are there. Our good 
 Mother must go back to the bathing. I hope 
 the next spring, rides will prove handier. 
 Our weather here too is much broken with 
 rain, though otherwise warm and genial. 
 
 I asked about your Book-sheets of Coch- 
 rane. The sheets were duly furnished : the 
 book is lying bound and ready in the London 
 Library. I would have brought it home with 
 me had there been a conveyance at my com- 
 mand. I left it lying there for yourself. Our 
 City is got almost empty and very quiet in 
 comparison. I hope I shall get on with some- 
 what less interruption in my labour ; it is a 
 sluggish element, sluggish as thick mud and 
 bottomless, except when one makes a bottom. 
 Nothing but strenuous hard work, harder 
 than I have yet continuously given it, will 
 ever bring me through ; for all is chaos 
 within it and without it. Eheu ! 
 
 A striving Scotch youth came to me the 
 other week, equal, as he said, to all kinds of 
 
TO DB. JOEN CABLTLE 173 
 
 old manuscripts &c, &c. I gave him a sov- 
 ereign to copy me that Election Tumult ? of 
 d'Ewer at Ipswich. I have got that here 
 and think of trying to make a magazine 
 article of it somewhere. The poor lad at- 
 tempted farther to make an estimate of copy- 
 ing all d'Ewer's Parl't manuscript for me. 
 £30, he said, would do it and I had for some 
 days real thoughts of the thing, but alas, 
 my man in the interim was discovered by me 
 to be a quite loose-talking, dishonest-minded 
 little thing, unable to employ on any busi- 
 ness ; so having found him a job with Mau- 
 rice, writing to dictation (in which dishonesty 
 cannot long remain undetected) I shook him 
 off, but it does partly appear to me I must 
 have that MSS. to read and con over at my 
 leisure — if possible. I am now about con- 
 sulting with the Secretary of the Camden 
 Society, but expect to hear that they, poor 
 dilettante quacks, will do nothing. Nothing 
 however will serve me as an answer from 
 them. I think if I had the MS. right here I 
 could either now or some time pay myself 
 £30 of it. On the whole I am looking out 
 for a hand amanuensis to copy me a good 
 many things. I find such a one may be got, 
 if you alight luckily, for some £60 or £80 
 
174 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 to work all the year round; it is but the 
 price of keeping a horse here. On the other 
 hand no Bookseller can be made in the least 
 to bite at such a thing ; — the inane mounte- 
 bank quacks, — one must do it one's self or 
 it will remain undone. I made them get 
 into the Library a Thrigg and now also a 
 Vicen, Part First, which are real conquests to 
 me. 
 
 Nothing remarkable has arrived here ex- 
 cept Emerson's letter, which indeed is not 
 very remarkable either. Poor Sterling, as 
 you will see by it, and may know more 
 directly now from me, continues very ill, 
 even I begin now to doubt, to despond alto- 
 gether. He is obliged to " sit up all night 
 propped with pillows," the greater part of his 
 lungs (Clark says) is quite useless to him and 
 he cannot get breath enough without immense 
 difficulty. Anthony is going down to wait 
 near him awhile. Poor Sterling ! I fear the 
 worst. Eobertson, they say, is in Sutherland, 
 marking out the site of Free Kirks. Go 
 ahead ! 
 
 Jamie's letter was very gratifying and 
 satisfactory ; certainly we will take a couple 
 more of Annandale hams. I will write to 
 him more specially on the subject very soon. 
 
TO MBS. SANNING 175 
 
 Isabella too is in the way of shower baths 
 and better : Bravely that is good. Did any 
 of you write to Alick by this mail ? Jane is 
 well again from her bit of headaches. Bless- 
 ings on my Mother and you aU. 
 
 T. 
 
 In 1844 there was " no Scotland " for Car- 
 lyle, but early in September he went to Mr. 
 and Lady Harriet Baring at the Grange. 
 The Baring friendship had begun to rise into 
 his life, — not yet in the form of a cloud. 
 
 All the rest of the year Carlyle stayed 
 closely at home, working on Cromwell, and 
 seeing fewer people than usual. The follow- 
 ing quaint fragment belongs to this period, 
 from which Froude has preserved none of 
 Carlyle's letters or journal record. 
 
 XXXn. CAELXLB TO MRS. HANNING. 
 
 Chelsea, 16rt Dec. 1844. 
 Dear Jenny, — I dare say you can knit 
 WristiTcins. It has struck me in these cold 
 days I might as well apply to you to have a 
 pair. The best pair I yet have is a very old 
 pair now, which either you, or I think Jean, 
 
176 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 knit for me at Hoddam Hill when you were 
 little bairns many years ago. They have 
 beautiful stripes of red yet, as fresh as ever. 
 In fact I sometimes wear them in preference 
 to the pair Jane has bought for me out of 
 the shops here. Being already provided as 
 you see I will not in the least hurry you as to 
 the matter '■ — wait tiU you have leisure, till 
 you can get right your colors &c. &c. — only 
 I will tell you what kind of thing will suit 
 me and how you can do it when convenient. 
 The great defect of all my present wristikins 
 is that they are too slight, too thin, and do 
 not fill up the cuff of the coat, which is 
 rather wide with me. They should be at 
 least double the common thickness of those in 
 the shops. If you had fine, boozy yarn and 
 took it two ply it will make a pretty article. 
 Then as to color, it should be deep for our 
 reeky atmosphere here ; red is beautiful, a 
 stripe of good red, and holds out well, but 
 perhaps the basis had better be some sort of 
 brown. Please your own eye. There never 
 was a good horse had an ill color. As to 
 breadth I think they should be at least three 
 inches. . . . 
 
 The horse which Carlyle describes to his 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 177 
 
 mother as " a very darling article " was a new 
 one, called " Black Duncan." 
 
 Of Addiscombe Froude writes : " The Bar- 
 ings had a villa at Addiscombe, and during 
 the London season frequently escaped into 
 the Surrey sunshine." 
 
 XXXIII. CABLTLB TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBEIG. 
 
 Chelsea, 12th July, 1845. 
 
 My dear Mother, — My hurry is indeed 
 great, but it ought to be greater than it is 
 before I neglect writing you a little word this 
 week as I did last. I am whipt about from 
 post to pillar at a strange rate in these weeks. 
 
 Jack's visit to you was a welcome piece of 
 news here. The good account he gave of 
 you was much wanted. We are very sorry 
 indeed to hear of poor Isabella. It seems as 
 if nothing could be done for her, and her own 
 weakness and suffering must be very great. 
 Jamie is kind and patient, you may assure 
 him of our sympathies. A sudden turn for 
 the better may take place, I understand, as of 
 its own accord all at once. Let us keep 
 hoping the best. 
 
 The back of this sorrowful Book is now 
 broken. I think another month of stifE labour 
 will see it well through. They are printing 
 
178 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 away at the second volume — about half 
 done. I have to go along amid endless con- 
 fusions, the way one has to do in all work 
 whatsoever. The Book will, on the whole, 
 be better than I hoped, and I have had some 
 honest thoughts in the writing of it which 
 make me the more careless what kind of re- 
 ception the world gives it. The world had 
 better try to understand it, I think, and to 
 like it as well as it can ! Here is another leaf 
 of a proof sheet to be a token to you of our 
 progress. So soon as ever it is over I am ofE 
 for Annandale. The heat has never been 
 very oppressive to me, never violent beyond a 
 day or two at a time, then rain comes and 
 cools it again. I get considerable benefit of 
 my horse, which is a very darling article, 
 black, high, very good natured, very swift — 
 and takes me out into the green country for 
 a taste of that almost every day. I some- 
 times think of riding it up into Annandale, 
 but that will be too lengthy an operation. 
 
 Jane is going to Liverpool to her Uncle's 
 in a fortnight. She wiU stay with them a 
 week, then another week with some country 
 friends in that quarter. I wished her to 
 go to Scotland and see old friends there at 
 Haddington and elsewhere, but she is rather 
 
TO HIS MOTHER 179 
 
 reluctant to that. She is not very strong^ 
 and has many sorrows of her own, poor little 
 thing, being very solitary in the world now. 
 In summer however she is always better. 
 
 I have heard nothing from Jack of late 
 days. I suppose him to be still at Mr. 
 Raine's. Perhaps uncertain whitherward he 
 will go next. At any rate country is better 
 than town at present, — free quarter than 
 board-wages. I expect he will come back to 
 you again before the season end. 
 
 We were out at a place called Addiscombe 
 last week among great people, very kind to us, 
 but poor Jane could sleep only about an hour 
 each night — three hours in all. I stayed 
 but one night, came home on my black horse 
 again. Some peace and rest among green 
 things would be very welcome to me — and it 
 is coming soon, I hope. Adieu, dear Mother 
 — my kind love to you and to all of them. I 
 am in great haste and can speak but a few 
 words to mean much by them. My blessings 
 with you. 
 
 On the 26th August, 1845, Carlyle wrote : 
 " I have this moment ended Oliver ; hang it ! 
 He is ended, thrums and all." And presently 
 
180 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 the author joined his wife at Seaforth near 
 Liverpool. After a few days there with the 
 Paulets, he went on by water to Annan and 
 his mother. From Seaforth again, he writes 
 to her on the journey Chelsea-ward. 
 
 xxxrv. cakltle to his mothee, scotsbeig. 
 
 Seaporth, Livekpool, 
 
 Friday, 17 Oct'r, 1845. 
 
 My dbak Mother, — I hope you have, 
 this morning, got the Httle Note I pushed 
 into the Post Office for you at Lancaster, and 
 consoled yourself with the assurance that all 
 the difficult part of my journey was well over. 
 I am quite safe, and in good quarters here, 
 since yesterday afternoon ; and will now write 
 you another word with a Uttle more delibera- 
 tion than yesterday. My journey hither was 
 altogether really pleasant : a fine bright day, 
 and a swift smooth carriage to sit in, nothing 
 wanted that one could wish on such an occa- 
 sion. I got along to this house about half 
 past four, when dinner was ready and a wel- 
 come as if it had been home, — real joy to 
 me. It has all gone much better than I could 
 have expected since I quitted Kirtlebrig and 
 Jamie, that night. 
 
 I find the good people here did send their 
 
TO HIS MOTHEB 181 
 
 carriage for the Steamer; and a very wild 
 adventure that was, and much better that I 
 had but little to do with it, and could plead 
 that I had forbidden them to do such a thing ! 
 The Paulet carriage went duly to the Clarence 
 Dock, after inquiring at the Steamer Office 
 too, and waited for the Eoyal Victoria from 
 half past 8 on Wednesday night till past 
 12, when the Docks close; but no Royal 
 Victoria came ! She did not make her ap- 
 pearance till noon yesterday, owing to fog or 
 wind, or what cause I have not yet heard, — 
 not till twelve o'clock yesterday; when the 
 Paulet carriage was again in attendance : 
 but of course there was no guest there ; the 
 guest was advancing by another much less 
 uncomfortable route ! On the whole it was 
 a good luck I did not get into that greasy 
 Whale's Belly (as I call it) ; twenty-four 
 hours there would have reduced me to a 
 precious pickle ! 
 
 Our journey to Lancaster as I told you 
 was decidedly prosperous, almost pleasant 
 thro' the moonlight country, with plenty to- 
 bacco to smoke ! The wild solitude of Shap 
 Fell at midnight is a thing I really like to 
 have seen. And then the railway yesterday 
 was all the welcomer, and the daylight. At 
 
182 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 Carlisle I got myself a pound o£ tobacco from 
 Irving, so do not fret your heart, dear Mother, 
 about that ! I also took out my old dressings 
 gown there and* wrapt it well round my legs, 
 which was useful. A small proportion of 
 corn, you may tell Jamie, was still in the 
 fields here and there all the way ; but to-day 
 and last night there is a rustling thuddening 
 North wind which must have dried it. 
 
 Dr. Carlyle's Dante, which he was very 
 " eager upon," was the prose translation of the 
 Inferno, so well done that many readers have 
 regretted that the translator did not proceed. 
 
 XXXV. CAELTLE TO HIS MOTHEK, SCOTSBEIG. 
 
 Chelsea, 31 Oct\, 1845. 
 
 My dear Mother, — You will take a 
 short word from me rather than none at all, 
 to tell you that we are all struggling along 
 here without disaster ; which indeed is all 
 that is to be told. I write also to see if I can 
 induce you to make use of one of those 
 Letter-covers which I left, and to send me a 
 small line about yourself and how you are. 
 Except one short line from Jamie to the Doc- 
 tor, I have heard nothing at all since I left 
 you. 
 
TO HIS MOTBEB 183 
 
 There has been no rain, or almost none 
 whatever since I left Scotsbrig; so that, I 
 hope, tho' your weather can hardly have been 
 so favourable, Jamie is now over with his 
 harvest, and fast getting all secured under 
 thatch-and-rope. The Potatoe business, as I 
 learn from the Newspapers, proves very seri- 
 ous everywhere, in Ireland as much as any- 
 where ; and over all Europe there is a rather 
 deficient crop ; besides which, the present 
 distracted railway speculation and general 
 fever of trade is nearly certain to break down 
 soon into deep confusion, so that one may 
 fear a bad winter for the poor, a sad thing 
 to look forward to. They are best off, I think, 
 who have least to do with that brutal Chase 
 for money which afflicts me wherever I go in 
 this country. " Give me neither poverty nor 
 riches, feed me with food convenient for 
 me." 
 
 Our freedom from rain has not hindered 
 the November fogs from coming in somewhat 
 before their time. The weather is not whole- 
 some, many people have got cold in these 
 late days. I advise you, dear Mother, to put 
 on your winter clothing and be cautious of 
 going out except when the sun is shining. 
 In the morning and evening do not venture 
 
184 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 at all. This is the most critical time o£ all, 
 I believe, these weeks while the change to 
 winter is just in progress. I thought myself 
 extremely well here for a week after my re- 
 turn, and indeed was so and hope again to be 
 so — much improved by my journey, — but 
 last Sabbath, paying no heed to these frost 
 fogs, I caught a little tickling in my nose 
 which rapidly grew into a sniftering, and by 
 the time next day came I had a regular ugly 
 face-ache and fair foundation for cold in all 
 its forms, which required to be energetically 
 dealt with and resisted on the threshold. 
 Next day, accordingly, I kept the house 
 strictly and appealed to medicine and their 
 diet, and so on Wednesday morning I had 
 got the victory again and have been getting 
 round and growing nearer the old point ever 
 since — in fact reckon myself quite well again, 
 except that I take a little care of going out 
 at night &c. Jane has had a little whiff of 
 cold too, but it is abating again. We are 
 taught by these visitations to be upon our 
 guard. The Doctor is quite well, tho' I 
 think he sits too much in the house, being 
 very eager upon his Dante at present. 
 
 They are not to publish the Cromwell till 
 " the middle of next month " — about a fort- 
 night. 
 
TO HIS MOTHEB 185 
 
 " They are not to publish the Cromwell till 
 ' the middle of next month,' " wrote Carlyle in 
 the preceding letter. As a matter of fact the 
 book did not get out until December. 
 
 Carlyle and his wife did go to the Barings 
 in the middle of November, and the date of 
 the following undated fragment thus swings 
 between the 1st and the 15th of November. 
 Carlyle says here that they were invited to the 
 Grange ; Fronde, that Mr. Baring and Lady 
 Harriet were at Bay House, in Hampshire. 
 " Grange " is probably a slip of the pen. 
 
 XXXTT. CAELTLE TO HIS MOTBOIR, SCOTSBEIG. 
 
 Chelsea [1/15 November, 1845]. 
 
 ... It lies perfectly ready, but the Town 
 is still very empty ; besides they are getting 
 ready a Portrait, the rudiments of which 
 John and I went to see the other day, but 
 did not very much like. I fear it will not 
 turn out much of an ornament to the Book 
 or a true likeness of Oliver ; but we cannot 
 help that. Nor does it very much matter. — 
 For the rest, I am and have been nearly as 
 idle as possible ; merely reading Books, and 
 doing other small etceteras. 
 
 There is an invitation to go down to the 
 Grange (where I was the other year), for 
 
186 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 Jane and me both, " for a few days " (per- 
 haps three) ; but I think it is not certain 
 whether we can accept in such a state of the 
 weather, etc. It will be within the next ten 
 days if at all. We are very quiet here at 
 home ; hardly anybody yet coming about us : 
 and indeed in general it is, the fewer the 
 better, with us. 
 
 I cannot yet learn with the least distinct- 
 ness whether John is for Scotsbrig or not ; 
 but I continue to think he will after all come 
 down and plant himself there with his Dante 
 for a while. I have fully expressed your 
 wishes to him in regard to that ; and cer- 
 tainly if he do not come it will not be for 
 want of wish to be there. 
 
 Jenny, I suppose, is home again : all is 
 grown quiet in the upstairs rooms ! My dear 
 good Mother, let us not be sad, let us rather 
 be thankful, — and still hope in the Bounty 
 which has long been so benignant to us. I 
 will long remember your goodness to me at 
 Scotsbrig on this occasion, and the sadness 
 that is in it I will take as inevitable, — every 
 joy has its sorrow here. . . . 
 
 If I think of any Carlisle Tobacco I wiU 
 send word about it in good time; if I send no 
 word, do not in the least delay about it. 
 
TO MRS. BANNING 187 
 
 " In February, 1846," says Froude, " a new 
 edition was needed of the Cromwell. Fresh 
 letters of Oliver had been sent which required 
 to be inserted according to date; a process, 
 Carlyle said, ' requiring one's most excellent 
 talent, as of shoe-cobbling, really that kind of 
 talent carried to a high pitch.' 
 
 " He had 'to unhoop his tub, which abeady 
 held water,' as he sorrowfully put his case to 
 Mr. Erskine, ' and insert new staves.' " 
 
 Other editors of letters, before and since, 
 have had such cobbling and coopering to do. 
 
 XXXVn. CAELTIiE TO MRS. HANNING, DUMFKIES. 
 
 Chelsea, Monday, 29th June, 1846. 
 
 Dear Jenny, — I heard of your arrival in 
 your new place at Dumfries a day or two ago, 
 and on Saturday I sent you a newspaper which 
 I suppose you will receive this morning. You 
 will understand it as a hasty token that we are 
 in our usual way and still mindful of you, 
 although there has been little express writing 
 of late. 
 
 No doubt you will feel a little lonely, un- 
 accustomed, and now and then dispirited and 
 anxious in your new situation. Yet I do con- 
 sider it a very fit change for you to have made, 
 and believe confidently you wiU find yourself 
 
188 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 much more comfortable than you have been 
 in your old place, i£ once you are fairly hafted 
 to the new one. Do not be discouraged, my 
 little Jenny, I know you will behave always in 
 a douce, prudent, industrious and wise way, 
 and there is no fear of you, if so. You will 
 be mistress of your own little heart at any 
 rate, free to follow your own wisest purposes. 
 I think you will gradually find work, too, 
 which may be useful to you. In short this is 
 a fact always, in Maxwell-town and in all towns 
 and situations, — a person that does act wisely 
 will find wise and good results following him 
 in this world and in all worlds ; which really 
 is the comfort of poor struggling creatures 
 here below. And I hope you understand 
 firmly always that you have friends who will 
 never forsake you, whom all considerations 
 bind to help you what they can, in the honest 
 fight you are making. So do not fear, my 
 poor little sister; be wise and true and dili- 
 gent and do the best you can, and it shall all 
 be well yet, and better than we hope. 
 
 Getting into a new house, it strikes me, you 
 must find various things defective and not yet 
 in order, so you must take this bit of paper 
 from me which James Aitken, on Wednesday 
 first, will change into three sovereigns for you 
 
TO MRS. HANNINO 189 
 
 — and you must lay them out in furnitures 
 and bits o£ equipments such as you see need- 
 fullest. I know nobody that could lay them 
 out better and make more advantage of them 
 than you will do, only you want to consider 
 that this is a supernumerary thing, a clear gift, 
 and that your regular income (which John said 
 was to be enlarged — whatever he may have 
 settled it) will arrive at the usual time inde- 
 pendently of this. And so, my blessing with 
 you, dear little Jenny, and right good days to 
 you in this new dwelling, — right wise days, 
 which are the only good ones. 
 
 I have owed Jean a letter this long time. 
 Tell her a box of supplements to Cromwell 
 (one for each of you and two new copies of 
 the whole book — one for my mother, the 
 other for Jack) wiU reach her in a day or two, 
 which she will know how to dispose of. For 
 the rest, I am fast getting through my book, 
 
 — it is mere tatters of work now, — and ex- 
 pect to be off northward before long. North- 
 ward we do mean ; Jane sometimes talks of 
 being off this week and I to follow in a week 
 or two. To Seaf orth, Liverpool, is Jane's first 
 place. I, of course, will soon be across if once 
 there. Good be with you, dear sister. 
 
 Yours always, T. C. 
 
190 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 Do you address the next newspaper to us if 
 this come all right. That will be a sufficient 
 sign to us. 
 
 TTyxViil. CAELTLE TO MES. AITKEN, DUMFEIES. 
 
 Chelsea, Saturday, llth October, 1846. 
 
 Dbab Sister, — That letter for the Doctor 
 reached me last night with instructions, as you 
 see, to forward it to you. There is another 
 little one from poor little Jane, which I like 
 still better, but I am ordered to return it to 
 my mother.. Alick is going on very tolerably 
 and seems to do as well as one could expect in 
 his new settlement, — somewhat bitter of tem- 
 per yet, but diligent and favoured to see the 
 fruits of his diligence. 
 
 We are extremely quiet here, not writing, 
 or expressly meditating to write, resting in 
 fact, for I find Chelsea greatly the quietest 
 place I could meet with. This long while I 
 read a great many books of very little value, 
 see almost nobody except with the eye merely, 
 find silence better than speech — sleep better 
 than waking ! My thoughts are very serious, 
 I will not call them sorrowful or miserable; I 
 am getting fairly old and do not want to be 
 younger — I know not whether Jeffrey would 
 call that " happy " or not. 
 
TO MBS. AITKEN 191 
 
 Our maid Helen is leaving us, invited to be 
 some Housekeeper to a brother she has in 
 Dublin, at present a rich trader there, "all 
 upon float " as I sometimes fear. Jane is busy 
 negotiating about a successor, hopes to get a 
 suitable one from Edinburgh or almost to Jiave 
 got such. You have not written to me. Tell 
 Jenny I will send her some word soon. My 
 kind regards to James. Good be with you 
 and your house, dear Jean. Jane is out, and 
 therefore silent. 
 
 Ever yours, T. C. 
 
 Between 1846 and the spring of 1849 
 Carlyle had made the acquaintance of Louis 
 Blanc, John and Jacob Bright, and Sir Eobert 
 Peel. 
 
 On the 30th of June, 1849, Carlyle started 
 on a journey through Ireland, — the notes of 
 which were printed after his death, — and 
 returned on the 7th of August. He went 
 directly to Scotsbrig, where, " owing to cocks 
 and other blessed fellow-inhabitants of this 
 planet," he was a good deal disquieted. In 
 Scotsbrig he remained, however, till the end 
 of August. 
 
192 LETTERS OF CARLTLE 
 
 XXXrX. CAELTLE TO MES. HANNING, DtTSIFEIEa. 
 
 ScoTSBRiG, 18 August, 1849. 
 
 Dear Sistbk Jeitoy, — Here is a Draft for 
 your money, which you will get by presenting 
 that Paper at the Bank, when the Martinmas 
 Term comes; I wish you much health and 
 good industrious days till the 22nd comes 
 round again; and have done nothing more 
 gladly, I may say, in the payment line than 
 write this little paper for you, ever since the 
 last was written, I think. It gave me very 
 great pleasure to see your neat little Lodging 
 and thrifty, modest, and wise way of life, when 
 we were in Dumfries the other day. The re- 
 ports of all friends agree in testifying to the 
 same effect. Continue so, my good little sister, 
 and fear nothing that can befall. Our out- 
 ward fortune, lucky or what is called unlucky, 
 we cannot command; but we can command 
 our own behaviour under it, and we do either 
 wisely or else not wisely; and that, in real 
 truth, makes all the difference, — and does in 
 reality stamp us as either "lucky" or else "un- 
 lucky." For there is nobody but he that acts 
 foolishly and wrong that can, in the end, be 
 called " unlucky ; " he that acts wisely and 
 right is, before all mortals, to be accounted 
 
TO MRS. BANNING 193 
 
 " lucky ; " lie and no other than he. So toil 
 honestly along, my dear little Jenny, even as 
 heretofore; and keep up your heart. An 
 elder brother's duty to you, I trust I may 
 promise, you shall never stand in "want of 
 ■while I live in this world. 
 
 Take the next Courier (-which Jean will 
 give you for the purpose) and address it in 
 your own hand to me : " Care of John Fer- 
 gus, M. P. etc., Kirkcaldy," — or in fact if 
 James Aitken write that, it will he all the 
 same, — and I shall need no other sign that 
 you have received this Note and Inclosure 
 safe. You can tell James to send only one 
 Courier that way ; but to direct the other to 
 Scotsbrig till further notice. 
 
 Our Mother and I got well home on Thurs- 
 day ; the thunder - showers hung and fell 
 heavy on all hands of us; but we escaped 
 with little damage from them, — got no rain 
 at all till we were on the top of Dodbeck (or 
 rather Daneby) Banks ; which rain was never 
 violent upon us, and had as good as ended 
 altogether by the time we reached the old 
 Gildha Road. Our Mother's new bonnet, or 
 any of her clothes, suffered nothing whatever. 
 There had been great rains here and all the 
 way ; the fields all running brooks, and the 
 
194 LETTERS OF CAMLYLE 
 
 road-conduits hardly able to contain the loads 
 they had. It was a good deal clearer yester- 
 day ; yet, in the evening, we had again a 
 touch of rain, which I saw was very heavy 
 over in Cumberland. To-day is a degree 
 brisker still, tho' with remnants of thunder- 
 clouds still hanging, so we fancy the " Flood " 
 is about terminating, and the broken weather 
 going to heal itself again. Jamie has some 
 cattle rather suffering by the "epidemic," 
 which, in the last year, has destroyed several ; 
 his bog-hay, too, is of course much wetted ; 
 but he is otherwise getting briskly enough 
 along. You are to tell James Aitken that 
 there is " an excellent spigot " here already 
 for the water-barrel, so that he need take no 
 farther heed of that, at least, till he hear 
 again. 
 
 I could not quite handily get packed (owing 
 to Garthwaites tailoring) for this day ; so I 
 put it ofE till Monday ; and am fixed for that 
 morning (10 A. M.) to be in Edinburgh about 
 one o'clock and over in Kirkcaldy in good 
 time, where Jane, as I conclude, is arrived 
 since yesterday and expects me against the 
 given time. Give my kindest remembrances 
 in Assembly Street ; what our further move- 
 ments from Kirkcaldy are to be, Jean or some 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 195 
 
 of you will hear in due time. No more at 
 present, dear Sister, with many blessings to 
 you all. 
 
 Ever your Affectionate Brother, 
 
 T. Carlylb. 
 
 In 1850 the Latter-Day Pamphlets were 
 published. In spite of the outcry against 
 them, Carlyle's regular " public " was not dis- 
 turbed. Froude estimates that about three 
 thousand persons were then buying whatever 
 Carlyle printed. 
 
 He wrote in his Journal during October of 
 the same year : " Four weeks (September) at 
 Scotsbrig : my dear old Mother, much broken 
 since I had last seen her, was a perpetual 
 source of sad and, as it were, sacred emotion 
 to me. Sorrowful mostly and disgusting, 
 and even degrading, were my other emotions. 
 God help me ! " 
 
 The next letter concerns the departure of 
 Mrs. Hanning to join her husband in Canada. 
 It is the only one in this collection from Mrs. 
 Thomas Carlyle. " Jane " is Carlyle's sister, 
 Jean Aitken, — Jane only by courtesy, he 
 somewhere says. 
 
196 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 XL. MBS. THOMAS CAELTLE TO MBS. HANNING, DUMTBIES. 
 5 Chbyne Row, Tuesday [spring of 1851]. 
 
 My deak Jenny, — I sent off yesterday by 
 railway to Jane's care a bundle of things 
 which I hope may be of some use to you in 
 your preparation for departure. They are 
 not much worth as they are, but you have a 
 great talent — at least you had when I knew 
 you — for making silk purses out of sows' 
 ears, a very valuable talent in this world. For 
 the rest what can I say to you but that I 
 wish you good speed in your great adventure, 
 and that it may turn out even better for you 
 than you hope. Decidedly it is an adventure 
 in which you ought to be let please yourself, 
 to be let follow the guidance of your own 
 heart without remonstrance or criticism of 
 others. It is my fixed opinion that between 
 man and wife no third person can judge, and 
 that all any of us could reasonably require of 
 you is that you should consider well what 
 you are about to do and that you should do 
 nothing from secondary motives. If it be 
 affection for your husband and the idea of 
 doing your duty by him that takes you from 
 your family and friends so far away, then go 
 in God's name, and may your husband prove 
 
JANE WELSH CARLYLE 
 
MBS. THOMAS CABLYLE TO MBS. BANNING 197 
 
 himself worthy of so much constancy. In 
 any case you will have no cause for self-re- 
 proach. But if it be impatience of your 
 position here which is driving you away from 
 your kind old Mother and all the rest who 
 love you so well, then God help you, my poor 
 Jenny, for you are flinging away all the real 
 blessings of your lot for an imagination of 
 independence. I hope, however, you are 
 quite justified by your feelings towards your 
 husband in leaving all to follow him. You 
 have always seemed to me to cherish a most 
 loyal affection for your husband, and I will 
 never believe, however appearances may be 
 against him, that a man can inspire such an 
 afEection in the wife he has lived years beside 
 and yet be wholly unworthy of it. So fare- 
 well, dear Jenny, and God go with you. 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Jane Caklylb. 
 
 Three months of the late winter and early 
 spring of 1851 had sufficed for writing the 
 life of John Sterling. Julius Hare and the 
 religious newspapers had treated Sterling 
 as a poor stray lamb from the Christian 
 fold. Hare regarded him as "a vanquished 
 doubter j " Carlyle, as " a victorious believer." 
 
198 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 " Here, visible to myself for some while," 
 wrote he, " was a brilliant human presence, dis- 
 tinguishable, honourable, and loveable amid 
 the dim common populations, among the mil- 
 lion little beautiful once more a beautiful 
 human soul, whom I among others recognised 
 and lovingly walked with while the years and 
 the hours were." Carlyle's Ufe of the man 
 whom he thus looked upon came out like a 
 star after the storm of the " Latter-Day Pam- 
 phlets." FuU of a kind of shining peace, the 
 work of an artist perturbed by neither con- 
 troversy nor any need of " buffeting his 
 books," the Life of SterUng is one of the 
 very few most beautiful biographies in Eng- 
 lish. 
 
 XLI. JOHK' AITKEN CABLYLE TO MBS. MASNTSG, HAM- 
 rLTON. 
 
 ScoTSBRiG, 27 June, 1851. 
 
 My dear Jenny, — Mr. Smellie wrote 
 punctually to tell us you had sailed on the 
 27th of last month exactly according to ap- 
 pointment, and that he had seen you on the 
 day following some twelve miles down the 
 Clyde, having gone to give you a Brooch you 
 had forgotten in his mother's house. He said 
 your berths looked very comfortable, and 
 
JOHN AITEEiar CABLTLE TO MBS. BANNING 199 
 
 spoke of the Clutha as a tight good ship, 
 every way fit for the voyage. Almost every 
 day since that time we have had westerly 
 winds, and if you have had the same, your 
 voyage is likely to be considerably longer 
 than you anticipated. I hardly know whether 
 to write by this week's post, or wait till next, 
 but it seems best to err on the . safe side, for 
 you will expect to find a letter at Hamilton 
 whenever you arrive, and be much disap- 
 pointed if there be none. My writing need 
 not be otherwise than briefly, as we are aE 
 going on in much the same way as when you 
 left us. Our Mother has been uneasy when- 
 ever the winds were sounding loud, and once 
 or twice she has taken to bed, but she is now 
 at least as strong as usual and moving about 
 in the old way. She desires me to send her 
 love to yourself and the children, and kindest 
 regards to your husband, and bids you write 
 without delay whenever you get to your home 
 in the far West. We had a note from Dum- 
 fries two days ago, Jean and hers are all well, 
 James as busy as possible with one thing and 
 another. We expect them here next week, 
 and hope Jean will remain a few days. Mary 
 was here on Tuesday last. She is looking 
 stouter than usual and things seem to be a 
 
200 LETTERS OF CARLTLE 
 
 little more prosperous at the Gill than they 
 have been of late years. I was there very 
 lately along with Jamie, who went to purchase 
 some cattle. From Chelsea we heard yester- 
 day. Tom is busy with his Life of J. Ster^ 
 ling, which is now going through the press. 
 He has not yet decided whether we are to 
 expect him here or not this season. There is 
 one of the Miss Welsh's of Liverpool staying 
 with them at Cheyne Row. 
 
 Little Jamie takes this with him to Annan. 
 I need not add any more except to mention 
 that Mr. Goold had received a letter from 
 your husband to you addressed to his care, a 
 short time after you sailed. I will send you 
 a paper now and then with its two strokes if 
 we continue aU well. 
 
 Our Mother sent a copy of the second edi- 
 tion of Cromwell's Letters to Mr. SmelUe, 
 the week after you sailed, and had an acknow- 
 ledgement from him. She wished him to 
 have some memorial from her, for all his 
 kindness to you in looking after your berths, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Ever yours afEectionately, 
 
 J. A. Caklylb. 
 
 The following letter, interesting as it is. 
 
TO ALEXANDUB, CABLTLE 201 
 
 jars a little on the homely calm of the series. 
 The Exhibition and the " glass palace " need 
 no explanation. Church and State are still 
 English facts.' 
 
 XLn. CABLXLE TO ALEXAmDEB CAELTLE, CANADA. 
 
 Chelsea, 24 Oct'r, 1851. 
 My dear Bbother, — About a fortnight 
 ago I wrote to you intimating that I would 
 soon send a copy of a Book called Life of 
 John Sterling, which was just about coming 
 out, and also that I would write soon again. 
 Last week, in good time for the mail, said 
 Life of Sterling did accordingly set out 
 towards you. On enquiring practically I 
 found such a feat was now quite handy. If 
 the Book weighs under one pound, it will go 
 to Canada or from it for a shilling ; if under 
 two pounds and above one, you must pay 
 two shillings, (in stamps always), and so on 
 for other weights. It is an immense conven- 
 ience and I design if I live to make use of it 
 on other occasions on your behalf. If all 
 went right the book will reach you about a 
 week before this present letter, if it do not, 
 ■write to me and I wiU take some order in the 
 matter. If it do come rightly you may send 
 me an old newspaper addressed in your hand. 
 
202 LETTEBS OF CABLTLE 
 
 That will be announcement enough for the 
 purpose, and so we have finished this affair of 
 the Book, let us hope. 
 
 Since I wrote last our "Exhibition" has 
 dissolved itself, all gone or going to the four 
 ^inds, and on our streets there is a blessed 
 tranquillity in comparison. London is of all 
 the year stillest at this season or a httle ear- 
 lier. AU one's acquaintances are in the coun- 
 try, two or three hundred thousand of the 
 inhabitants are in the country. Now is the 
 time for a little study, for a little private 
 meditation and real converse with one's self 
 — a thing not to be neglected, however little 
 pleasant it be. The days are getting foggy, 
 a kind of dusky, stoory-looking, dry fog, 
 dimmed with much thin reek over and above, 
 not an exhilarating element at all, but it is 
 very quiet comparatively and one ought to be 
 thankful. I often think I will go into the 
 country to live, out of this dirty reek and 
 noise, but I am very feckless for making 
 changes and find all countries (Annandale 
 itself) grown very solitary and questionable 
 to me. " Busy, busy, be busy with thy 
 work : " — let that in the meanwhile suffice 
 as commandment for me. 
 
 Within the week I have news from Scots- 
 
TO ALEXANDEB CABLTLE 203 
 
 brig. Our dear old Mother was reported well 
 (for her) " better than when I was there." 
 Jack being now with her, that is always a 
 considerable fact in her favor. The good 
 old woman, she can do wonderfully when 
 things go perfectly "straight," but a small 
 matter is now sufficient to over-set her. She 
 can read, the whole day if she have any Book 
 worth reading, and her appetite for reading 
 is not at all sickly or squeamish, but can 
 eagerly welcome almost anything that has, on 
 any subject, a glimmering of human sense in 
 it. Jamie's harvest is well over, a rather 
 superior crop for quality, the quantity about 
 an average, that is the account he gives — 
 and indeed it is the general account of the 
 country this year. Trade is good this year 
 or more back ; so that numbers of the people 
 are or might be well off (tho' I think they 
 mainly waste their superior wages) and huge 
 multitudes of vagrant, distressed wretches are 
 to be found everywhere even now. What 
 will there be when " trade," as it soon will do, 
 takes another turn. Strolling Irish, hawk- 
 ing, begging, doing all kinds of coarse labour, 
 are getting daily more abundant — unhappy 
 beings ! We hear from the Newspapers much 
 absurd talk about the "Milhons that have 
 
204 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 emigrated to America." Alg,s, it has been 
 to England and Scotland that they have " emi- 
 grated," as anybody but a Stump Orator or 
 Newspaper Editor might see — and they will 
 produce their effects here by and by ! — On 
 the whole, dear Brother, you are right happy 
 to have got out of this horrible welter into 
 a quiet garden o£ your own over the sea. 
 There are times coming here, and rushing on 
 with ever faster speed, though unnoticed by 
 the " glass palace " sages and their followers, 
 such as none of us have ever seen for vio- 
 lence and misery. Church and State and all 
 the arrangements of a rotten society, often 
 seem to me as if they were not worth 20 
 years' purchase and the thing that will first 
 follow them is nearly certain to be greatly 
 worse than they. God mend it. We can 
 do nothing for it but try if possible to mind 
 our own work in the middle of it. 
 
 There came a letter lately from Sister 
 Jenny which reports of you at Bield in a very 
 interesting and cheering fashion. You are 
 not much changed except (like myself) a little 
 whiter in the happita. Tom is a stout handy 
 looking fellow, not too tall. Jane a douce 
 tidy lass, in short "you look all very com- 
 fortable on your two farms." We were 
 
TO ALEXANDER CABLYLE 205 
 
 thankful enough for such a pictorial report, 
 I need not tell you. As to Jenny herself 
 there seem good omens too, and "we hope her 
 hushand and she may now do well, his follies 
 having stilled themselves with advance of 
 years. At all events she will be more content 
 than in Dumfries in her old position : there it 
 was clear enough she could not abide much 
 longer. That she is near you on any emer- 
 gency is a great comfort to our Mother and 
 the rest of us. 
 
 Adieu, dear Brother, I did not mean to 
 write so much to-day, being hurried enough 
 with many things. Jane sends her love to 
 her namesake and to you all. I wish you 
 would buy Tom an American copy of one of 
 my books, (Translation of W. Meister? 
 No?), and give it him as a memento of me 
 and you, some time when his behaviour is at 
 the best. Assure him, at any rate, of my 
 hearty regard, him and all the household. 
 My blessing with you all. 
 
 AfEectionately, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 By 1851 Carlyle had begun to think seri- 
 ously of Frederick the Great as his next sub- 
 ject, and it soon became evident that he must 
 
206 LETTERS OF CARLTLE 
 
 walk in whatever footsteps of his hero were still 
 visible. Carlyle reached Rotterdam Septem- 
 ber 1, 1852, at noon, and was there met by Mr. 
 Neuberg, — "a German admirer," says Froude, 
 " a gentleman of good private fortune, resi- 
 dent in London, who had volunteered his ser- 
 vices to conduct Carlyle over the Fatherland, 
 and afterwards to be his faithful assistant in 
 the ' Frederick ' biography." Carlyle returned 
 to England in October, but many distrac- 
 tions — among them repairs in Cheyne Row 
 and the funeral of the Duke of Wellington 
 — kept him from starting with Frederick. 
 During the winter he wrote something, and 
 threw it aside. On the 13th of April, 1853, 
 he wrote in his Journal, " Still struggling and 
 haggUng about Frederick." 
 
 There is neither struggling nor haggling, 
 however, in the letter which follows. The 
 " Talbottypes " mentioned here were, like 
 " Daguerreotypes," dim and glimmering pro- 
 phecies of the merciless photograph. 
 
 xlm. caeltie to mks. haitning, caitada. 
 
 5 Chbtne Kow, Chelsea, London, 
 22 Apt. 1853. 
 
 My dear Jenny, — Though it is a long 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 207 
 
 time since I have written to yon, no mistake 
 can be greater than that I have forgotten 
 you. No, no, there is no danger of that. 
 My memory at least is active enough ! But 
 I live in such a confused whirlpool of hurries 
 here as you can have no conception of, and 
 always in poor weak health, too, and in cor- 
 responding spirits, and for most part when 
 my poor stroke of work for the day is done 
 (if alas, I be lucky enough to get any work 
 done one day in ten, as days now go !) — I 
 have in general nothing for it but to shut 
 up my ugly cellar of confusions and address 
 myself to the task of being silent — writ- 
 ing no letter whatever but those I absolutely 
 cannot help. That is the real truth and 
 you must not measure my regard for you by 
 the quantity I write, but by quite other stand- 
 ard. 
 
 We regularly see your letters here and are 
 very glad indeed to observe that you get on 
 so well. The fits of ague-fever you had at 
 first were a severe introduction and began to 
 be alarming to us, but I can hope now it was 
 only the hanselling of you in your new cU- 
 mate, and that henceforth you will go on with 
 at least your old degree of health. One thing 
 I have understood to be of great moment 
 
208 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 (indeed I am sure of it), in the Canada cli- 
 mate ; it is to take good care that your house 
 be in an airy situation, quite free from the 
 neighbourhood of damp ground, especially of 
 stagnant water, and with a free exposure to 
 the wind. That undoubtedly is of great im- 
 portance. You are accustomed from sound 
 old Annandale to take no thought at aU 
 about such things, but you may depend upon 
 it they are necessary and indispensable con- 
 siderations in your new country. I beg you 
 very much to keep them earnestly in view 
 with reference to the house you hve in. 
 Plenty of dry \vind, all marshes &c. at a dis- 
 tance, and there is no more danger of ague in 
 Canada than in Scotland ; that you shove up 
 your windows in season and keep your house 
 clean as a new pin — these are advices I need 
 not give, for you follow these, of course, of 
 nature or inveterate habit, being from of old 
 one of the neatest little bodies to be found in 
 five Parishes ! In all remaining respects I 
 find you have chosen clearly for the better, 
 and I doubt not are far happier in your re- 
 united household than you ever were or could 
 have been in Dumfries. It was a wise and 
 courageous adventure of you to take the 
 Ocean by the face in search of these objects, 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 209 
 
 and all your friends rejoice to learn that it 
 has succeeded. Long and richly may you 
 reap the rewards of your quiet, stout and wise 
 hehaviour — then and all along, under cir- 
 cumstances that were far from easy to man- 
 age; and God's blessing be on you always, 
 my poor little Jenny ! I hope, too, poor 
 Robert has learned many a thing and forgot- 
 ten many a thing in the course of his hard 
 fortune and wide wanderings. Give him my 
 best wishes,' temporal and spiritual, ffelp 
 him faithfully what you can, and he (for he 
 has a kind enough heart) -will do the Uke by 
 you — and so we hope all will be better with 
 you both than it is with many, and continue 
 to grow better and better to the end. I 
 recommend myself to the nice gleg little lasses 
 whom I shall not forget, but always think of 
 as little, however big they grow. My bless- 
 ing on you all. 
 
 No doubt you know by eyesight whom 
 these two Talhottypes represent ; mine is 
 very hke — Jane's (done by a different pro- 
 cess) is not quite so like, but it will serve for 
 remembrance. I begged two pairs of them 
 awhile ago and had one sent to Alick {Jane. 
 slightly different in his set), the other pair I 
 now send to you and wish only it were some 
 
210 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 usefuUer gift. However, they will eat no 
 bread and so you may give them dry lodging, 
 that is aU they want. 
 
 I heard from the Dr. at Moffat the day 
 before yesterday. He reports our good old 
 Mother being in her usual way and now with 
 the better prospect of summer ahead. Poor 
 Mother, she is now very feeble, but her mind 
 is stUl all there and we should be thankful. 
 The rest are well. John is to quit Moffat in 
 July. Jane sends her kind regards. 
 
 The White mat on Jane's lap is her wretched 
 little messiu'dog " Nero ; " a very unsuccess- 
 ful part of the drawing, that ! 
 
 XLIV. CAKLYLE TO MKS. HANUING, CANADA. 
 
 SCOTSBRIG, ECCLEFECHAN, 28 Dec. 1853. 
 
 My dear Sister, — This letter brings very 
 sorrowful news to you, probably the sorrow- 
 fullest I may ever have to send from Scots- 
 brig. Our dear and good old Mother is no 
 more : she went from us, gently and calmly 
 at last, on the Sunday just gone (Christmas 
 Day the 25th) at four or ten minutes past 
 four in the afternoon: The Dr., Jean, Isa- 
 bella, Jamie, and I standing in sorrowful rev- 
 erence at her bed-side; our poor suffering 
 Mother had lain in a heavy kind of sleep for 
 
TO MBS._ HANNINO 211 
 
 about 16 hours before; and died at last, 
 rather unexpectedly to the watchers, so sud- 
 den was it, without struggle or seeming pain 
 of any kind. We had to think " Her suffer- 
 ings are over ; and she has fought her fight 
 well and nobly ; and as for us, — we are left 
 here alone ; and the soul that never ceased to 
 love us since we came into the world, is gone 
 to God, her Maker and ours." This is the 
 heavy news I have to send you, dear Sister ; 
 and nobody can spare you the sorrow and 
 tears it will occasion. For above a year-and- 
 a-half past, our dear Mother had been visibly 
 falling fast away ; when I saw her in August 
 gone a year, her weakness and sufferings were 
 quite painful to me ; and it seemed uncertain 
 whether we should ever meet again in this 
 scene of things. She had no disease at that 
 time nor afterwards, but the springs of Ufe 
 were worn out, there was no strength left. 
 Within the last six months the decay pro- 
 ceeded faster and was constant : she could 
 not much rise from bed ; she needed Mary 
 and Jean alternately to watch always over 
 her, — latterly it was Jean alone (Mary not 
 being strong enough) ; and surely Jean has 
 earned the gratitude of us all, and done a 
 work that was blessed and beautiful, in so 
 
212 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 standing by her sacred task, and so perform- 
 ing it as she did. There has been no regular 
 sleep to her for months past, often of late 
 weeks and days not much sleep of any kind : 
 but her affectionate patience, I think, never 
 failed. I hope, though she is much worn out, 
 she will not permanently suffer: and surely 
 she will not want her reward. Our noble 
 Mother too behaved like herself in all stages 
 of her illness; never quailed into terror, 
 lamentation or any weak temper of mind; 
 had a wonderful clearness of intellect, clear- 
 ness of heart, affection, piety and simple 
 courage and beauty about her to the very 
 end. She passed much of her time in the 
 last weeks in a kind of sleep ; used to awaken 
 " with a smile " (as John described it to me), 
 and has left a sacred remembrance with all of 
 us consolatory in our natural grief. 
 
 I have written to Alick this day, a good 
 many other details, and have bidden him send 
 you the letter (which is larger and fuller than 
 this), — as you probably in asking for it will 
 send this to him. I am in great haste, to- 
 morrow (Thursday 29th Dec.) being the fune- 
 ral day, and many things occupying us still. 
 I wiU therefore say no more here ; your little 
 pieces of worldly business will, I hope, be 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 213 
 
 satisfactorily and easily adjusted before I 
 return to Chelsea, and then it will be some- 
 body's task (John's or mine) to write to you 
 again. For the present I will only bid, God 
 bless you, dear sister, you and yours ; — and 
 teach you to bear this great sorrow and 
 bereavement (which is one chiefly to your 
 heart, but to her a blessed relief) in the way 
 that is fit, and worthy of the brave and noble 
 Mother we have had, but have not any longer. 
 Your affectionate Brother, 
 
 T. Cablyle. 
 
 With a few days excepted, the Carlyles 
 spent the whole of the year 1854 in London. 
 There was little but the Crimean war to dis- 
 tract Carlyle's attention from his long strug- 
 gle with Frederick. 
 
 Early in this year was completed the much 
 talked of " sound-proof room," of which the 
 best account is given by Mr. Reginald Blunt, 
 in his little-known book, " The Carlyles' Chel- 
 sea Home." 
 
 " The arrangement of this room, which was 
 built in 1853, occupied by Carlyle till 1865, 
 and afterwards used as a servant's bedroom, 
 is clearly indicated on the plan ; whilst Mr. 
 
214 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 Tait's photographs (taken in 1857) give an 
 excellent record of its aspect. Indeed, it is 
 not often that so famous a literary workshop 
 has been so faithfully depicted for posterity. 
 The spacious skylight, which drove Carlyle to 
 despair by besmutting his books and papers, 
 gave his visitor the abundant light which in- 
 door photography so often lacks, and the 
 result is a series of pictures of wonderful 
 interest. Mr. Tait was good enough to in- 
 trust the negatives to me to make my own 
 prints ; and it was, indeed, a fasciaating em- 
 ployment to resuscitate, by a few minutes 
 of exposure to light, these speaking records 
 of the dead past of nearly forty years ago. 
 By their aid we have little difficulty in men- 
 tally reconstituting the ' soundless room ' as 
 it was during Carlyle's ' thirteen years' war ' 
 there. Entering by the door at the head of 
 the staircase (a second door opens into the 
 cupboard space, though for what reason, un- 
 less to provide a means of escape, is not obvi- 
 ous), one finds immediately to one's right 
 hand a third door into this same closet. 
 Beyond it, against the partition wall, stood a 
 half-round table with an oilcloth cover, carry- 
 ing books and papers ; above it hung a small 
 portrait of Carlyle's mother, an engraving of 
 
TBE 80UND-PB00F BOOM 215 
 
 Frederick on horseback, and a map, pinned 
 on the wall, unframed. On the north wall, 
 to the right of the fireplace, shelved cup- 
 boards were fitted. » Over the square white 
 marble mantelpiece, with its ' merely human ' 
 fireplace and white-tiled sides, hung several 
 small sketches and engravings around the 
 wooden pulley-board, to which were attached 
 the Unes for the sliding-shutter and the venti- 
 lators. On the left of the fire, above a circu- 
 lar silk-pleated screen, hung a paper rack and 
 some written notes on Friedrich, probably 
 chronological. On the mantel stood two 
 white china candlesticks and a small bronze 
 statuette of Napoleon. In the further corner, 
 to the left of the fireplace, was a high up- 
 right cabinet with drawers for manuscripts, 
 prints, etc. ; and on the western wall there 
 were bookshelves to right and left of the 
 door leading into the closet behind the par- 
 tition. 
 
 "Against the southern wall stood a low 
 couch with loose leather mattress ; while the 
 eastern side, from the corner to the door, was 
 occupied by a long, dwarf, three-tiered book- 
 shelf, the upper half of which was filled with 
 the works of Voltaire, in over ninety vol- 
 umes. Maps, prints, and engravings, relating 
 
216 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 almost exclusively to the ' Life of Frederick 
 the Great,' covered the available wall space ; 
 and in one corner stood the long hooked 
 pole by which the balanced frames of the 
 skylight could be opened and closed. Near 
 the fireplace^ a little to the left, was the place 
 of the famous writing-table on which so 
 much of noble work had painful birth. The 
 photograph gives so exact an impression of 
 its sturdy frame, its broad folding flap, its 
 slightly boxed top, and back drawers, that no 
 further description is needed either of it or 
 the soHd writing-chair. Hard by stood an- 
 other little table on castors, which carried the 
 books in immediate use (or such as were not 
 on the floor !), while behind was the fourfold 
 screen on which were pasted near a hundred 
 old portrait prints, to which the maker of 
 history always turned for insight and guid- 
 ance in depicting his characters. 
 
 " When Carlyle gave up the use of this 
 room, after the completion of his great his- 
 tory, the pictures, books, and furniture were 
 dispersed elsewhere about the house, and later 
 visitors will remember the writing-desk as 
 standing in the drawing-room, the cabinet of 
 drawers and little table in the dining-room, 
 and many of the prints in the hall, staircase. 
 
MARGARET A. CARLYLE 
 Carlyle's Mother 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 217 
 
 and elsewhere, as indicated in the Picture List 
 appended." 
 
 The 30th of September is given by Pro- 
 fessor Norton as the date of Margaret Car- 
 lyle's birth, ■which was evidently unknown to 
 her children when the following letter was 
 written : — 
 
 XLV. CAKLTLE TO MES. HANNING, HAMILTON, C. W. 
 
 Chelsea, 8 April, 1855. 
 Dbae Sistee, — I know not if you ever 
 saw our lamented Mother's portrait which 
 was done at Dumfries a good many years 
 ago. It hangs in my room ever since, and 
 has been very sad but precious company to 
 me, as you may fancy, ever since the Christ- 
 mas day of 1853 ! I have got seven copies 
 taken of it (done by the machine they call 
 photograph), and this is the one that falls 
 to your share. I can well believe it will 
 be very sad to you, dear little sister, but 
 sacred, too, and very precious. You can 
 easily get it framed in some modest cheap 
 way ; it may lie in the cupboard secure from 
 dust till then. The birthday, " 30th Sept.," 
 was not quite certain ; Eoodfair in the year 
 1771 was held on the "25th of Sept.," and 
 
218 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 whether it was the " Monday after," or the 
 "Monday before" (which would be 23rd 
 Sept.), there was diversity of recollection. I 
 myself and, I think, Jane inclined to think 
 " after ; " Jean thought rather the other way : 
 so no date was put upon the Tombstone, — 
 but perhaps you yourself have a better re- 
 membrance of what our Mother used to say 
 on that point? Alas, we cannot settle it 
 now, nor is that the important thing we have 
 lost hold of in the change that has happened 
 to us all ! But let us not lament ; it is far 
 from our part to lament ; let us try rather to 
 bless God for having had such a Mother, and 
 to walk always while in this world as she 
 would have wished we might do. Amen, 
 Amen. 
 
 There has been nothing wrong since the 
 Doctor's sad loss. Jane and I, in particular, 
 have not been worse than usual, though I 
 think it was the severest winter I ever ex- 
 perienced (certainly far the worst I ever saw 
 here), and has lasted, indeed, almost up to 
 this time — " real spring weather " being yet 
 hardly a week old with us. Sister Jean at 
 Dumfries got a bad whitlow in one of her 
 fingers ; and the thrice unlucky blockhead 
 of a Doctor she got there, cut away three 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 219 
 
 times over some white substance he saw, 
 which proved to be the sinew (sorrow on 
 the fool), so that she has now no use of 
 her (right hand) forefinger, though otherwise 
 quite recovered again. She has learned to 
 write with the next finger and makes no com- 
 plaint. 
 
 The Doctor is here for sometime back, and 
 I think may likely enough continue awhile, 
 and perhaps draw hither as his main place. 
 He lodges only about a mile off nearest the 
 town, so I see him very often — almost every 
 day in fact. He is very quiet, patiently com- 
 posed, reads Books, writes letters, runs about ; 
 is chiefly occupied hitherto about his late 
 wife's affairs, and the three boys (from 12 
 to 16) whom she left, who are aU there stay- 
 ing with him (for a week or two) just now. 
 Jane is pretty well, for her, and sends her 
 kind remembrances to " little Jenny." I am 
 very busy with work, but making hardly any 
 way in it. Give my best wishes to Robert 
 and the two little lassies whom I remember 
 so well. Send me your own address (without 
 " Gunn," etc., in it) when you write next. 
 And fare right well, dear sister Jenny. 
 I am, your affectionate brother, 
 
 T. Caelylb. 
 
220 LETTEBS OF CABLYLE 
 
 * 
 
 In May,' 1857, Lady Ashburton died. 
 Both as Lady Harriet Baring and as Lady 
 Ashburton, she had been a friend to Carlyle 
 but a cause of much unhappiness to his wife. 
 Many years after her death Carlyle said of 
 her, "She was the greatest lady of rank I 
 ever saw, with the soul of a princess and cap- 
 tainess had there been any career possible to 
 her but that fashionable one." 
 
 Carlyle made a second tour in Germany, 
 in August, 1857, for the purpose of visiting 
 Frederick's battle-fields. In September of 
 the next year the first volumes of the book 
 were published. In December Lord Ash- 
 burton married again, and the new Lady 
 Ashburton became a fast friend to both 
 Carlyles. 
 
 XLVI. CABLYLE TO MBS. HAOTSTNG, HAMILTON, C. W. 
 
 Chelsea, LoNDOif, 7th January, 1859. 
 
 Dear Jenny, — I got your letter acknow- 
 ledgiQg receipt of the Book; I have more 
 than once got news of you that were welcome 
 since I wrote last, though in general I tried 
 to make some other of our kinsfolk give you 
 notice. Indeed I have been inexpressibly 
 busy for months and for years — with that 
 frightful Book, and other burdens that lay 
 
TO MSS. BANNING 221 
 
 heavy on me. I have in general lived per- 
 fectly alone, working all day with what 
 strength remained to so grey a man, then 
 rushing out into the dusk to ride for a couple 
 of hours, then home again to Books, etc. It 
 was seldom that I had leisure to write the 
 smallest note. Indeed, I wrote none except 
 upon compulsion — and never wrote so few 
 in the same length of time on any terms 
 before. I am again busy at the two remain- 
 ing volumes, almost as busy and miserable as 
 ever, but I cannot go on thinking of you (as 
 you need not doubt I have often enough 
 done) without sometime or other writing, and 
 here has the time at last come by an effort of 
 my own. 
 
 You must take this enclosed Paper to some 
 Bank (John says " Any Bank in Canada 
 will do," and "perhaps even give a pre- 
 mium"), the Bank will change it into Can- 
 ada money (with or without "premium"), 
 and my little Jenny is to accept it as a small 
 New Year's Gift from her Brother. That is 
 all the practical part of this present letter. 
 My blessings conveyed aloud with it, if they 
 could be of any avail, are known to you I 
 hope always without writing. 
 
 Your Messenger, a very honest lookiDg 
 
222 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 young man, called with the photographs of 
 the two bairns whom I could hardly recog- 
 nize, such strapping Hizzies were they grown ; 
 this is a long while since. I carried the 
 photographs into Annandale with me, where 
 also they were interesting. Mary at the Gill 
 now has them, I believe. Give my affection- 
 ate remembrances to the originals whom I 
 always remember as little bairns, though they 
 are now grown big. May a blessing be on 
 them, whatever size they grow to ; and may 
 their lot be that of good and honourable 
 women, useful in their day and generation, 
 and a credit to those connected with them. 
 I am very glad to hear what you say of your 
 household, and judge that you are doing well, 
 tho' not so rich as some are. A Uttle money 
 before one's hand is very useful, but much is 
 not needed. It is written " the hand of the 
 diligent" does find chances, and "maketh 
 rich," or rich enough. Give my best wishes 
 to your Husband — my best encouragements 
 to persevere in well doing. 
 
 The D'" was here a while ago; but he is 
 off to Annandale agam. He has four step- 
 sons, (children of his late wife,) who form 
 his main employment in late years and give 
 him much writing and running about, with 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 223 
 
 their schooling and affairs. The Austins, it 
 ■was settled lately, are to stay in the Gill 
 for another seven years, which we were very 
 glad of. Scotsbrig and the other farmers are 
 prosperous — a good time for farmers owing 
 to new railways (I think), and Californian 
 gold, which are resources that wiU not last 
 for ever. Jean and hers are well. Her 
 eldest son Jamie is, since some months, a 
 clerk in a good mercantile house here and 
 does very well. The Doctor his uncle pro- 
 cured him the place. My Jane has been very 
 weakly for two winters past, but is a little 
 stauncher this winter ; a great blessing to us. 
 I sent some books the other day to Alick's 
 Tom ; to Alick's self there went a Frederick 
 at the same time as yours, but I have heard 
 yet nothing of it, tho' I persuade myself it, 
 too, is safe. My love to them by the first 
 opportunity. God bless you all. 
 
 T. Caklyle. 
 
 XLVn. CAELTLE TO MRS. HANNING, HAMILTON, C. W. 
 
 Chelsea, London, 30 April, 1860. 
 
 Dear Sister Jenny, — I have twice had 
 a Newspaper from you lately, the last time 
 only two days ago ; and I am always glad 
 to see such a mark of your remembrance, 
 
224 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 and understand by it that things are going 
 tolerably well with you, or at least not going 
 far out of course. I would write oftener, 
 and I hope to do so by and by ; but at 
 present I am kept at such a press as you 
 have not the least idea of ; and, for months 
 and indeed years past, I have had almost to 
 cease corresponding with everybody; and 
 have not, except upon compulsion, written the 
 smallest Note, — every moment of my time 
 being so taken up with another dismal kind 
 of " writing " which I cannot shirk. It is of 
 no use afflicting you with complaints of what 
 you cannot help, or with pity for me which 
 could do no good, but the truth is I never 
 had in all my life such a frightfully undoable 
 disgusting piece of work as this which has 
 been reserved for the end of my strength, and 
 it has made and makes me now and for years 
 back miserable till I see it done. I stick to 
 it like death and it shall not beat me if I can 
 help it. No more of it here, — nothing of it, 
 except to explain my silence ; within a couple 
 of years, if I live so long, I hope to be much 
 more in case for correspondence with those 
 whom I merely think of with affection, as 
 times are. 
 
 To-day I have done a little thing which has 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 225 
 
 been among my purposes for some time, 
 namely, got a small memorial ready for you 
 — ■which so soon as you have read this note 
 you can go and ask for and so conclude. For 
 the paper of the Messrs. Coutts, Bankers, I 
 conclude, TviU go in the same steamer as this 
 Note and all -will be ripe by the time you 
 have done reading. You are to go to the 
 " Bank of Upper Canada," Hamilton, to say 
 you are " Mrs. Janet Hanning " and that 
 there is £10 for you from "Mr. Thomas 
 Carlyle, London " — upon -which they will 
 hand it out and so end. It is a great plea- 
 sure to me, dear little Jenny, to think of 
 your getting this poor fairing from me, and 
 stitching up for yourself here and there a 
 loose tack with it — as I know you well 
 understand how to do. Do not trouble your- 
 self writing ; address me a newspaper in your 
 own hand and put one stroke on it, that will 
 abundantly tell me whatever is to be said. 
 
 Your kindred here and in Scotland are all 
 in their usual course. Nothing wrong with 
 any of them, or nothing to speak of. My 
 own poor Jane has by accident hurt her side 
 a little the other day, which annoys her for 
 the present, but we are promised a " perfect 
 cure in less than four weeks." 
 
226 LETTEBS OF CABLYLE 
 
 The new year took the Carlyles to the 
 Grange again. " Everybody," Carlyle wrote, 
 "as kind as possible, especially the lady. 
 This party small and insignificant; nobody 
 but ourselves and Venables, an honest old 
 dish, and Kingsley, a new, of higher preten- 
 sions, but inferior flavour." 
 
 Visits in general, however, were rarer than 
 ever in these years of " Frederick," to which 
 every possible moment was devoted. Even 
 Carlyle's letters to his kindred had grown 
 fewer. 
 
 XlVm. CAELTLE TO MES. HAOTTmG, HAMILTON, C. W. 
 
 Chelsea, London, 28 Feh'y, 1861. 
 
 Dbab Jenny, — The enclosed bit of paper 
 has lain here for some days back, in the hope 
 that I might find leisure to write you a couple 
 of words along with it. With or without 
 leisure, I had determined to send it to-day, 
 (Friday, which is our American post day), 
 but last night your pleasant little note from 
 Hamilton arrived and that naturally quick- 
 ened my determination. No man in all the 
 world has less time than I, for these many 
 months pasi and to come, and I write no 
 notes at all unless like this in strictly excep- 
 tional cases. 
 
TO MRS. BANNING 227 
 
 Your account of your laying out the last 
 little New Year's gift is touching and beauti- 
 ful to me. I know you are a thrifty, gleg 
 creature and wise thrift is becoming much a 
 rarity in our time. The image of your tidy 
 household and of the valiant battle you are 
 fighting far away is worth many pounds to 
 me. If the pinch become sharp at any time, 
 fear not to apply to me. I know you are a 
 proud little soul and somewhat disdain not 
 to do your own turn yourself. All this is 
 right : — nevertheless I expressly tell you 
 (and pray don't neglect it), " send me word 
 when the pinch threatens to be sharp " — 
 which I hope it will not be, only if it is at 
 any time observe what I say and mean here. 
 
 We are getting very feckless, Jane and I 
 — partly by advancing years, partly, (in my 
 own case), by such an unutterable quagmire 
 of a job in which I have been labouring for 
 about 10 years — and have still at least one 
 year of it ahead if I live. Want of sleep, I 
 believe, is the latest form of illness with me, 
 latest and most frightful : — but I try to 
 dodge it and have still (in secret) a surpris- 
 ing toughness in me for my years. Hope is 
 rising too as the hideous months of a job 
 done at last visibly diminish. 
 
228 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 All the kindred in Scotland are well — 
 under date three or four days ago. The Dr. 
 is spending this winter in Edinburgh : — has 
 still no hearth of his own but lives in lodg- 
 ings, shifting about. Jean and her affairs 
 are prosperous, thinking' of " buying a house" 
 &c. Jamie, her oldest boy, is a very douce, 
 well-doing clerk in the City here for two 
 years past or more. Young Jamie of Scots- 
 brig, owing to health, had to give up that 
 and is now with his father thinking to be a 
 farmer. Times are good with them at Scots- 
 brig, though our poor brother Jamie is in 
 weak health and silently feels his " hervist 
 endit." Poor feUow! still I send my good 
 wishes heartily to your good Kobert. I am 
 always, dear little Jenny, 
 
 Your truly affectionate, 
 
 T. Carlylb. 
 
 .In April, 1861, Carlyle went to hear Bus- 
 kin's lecture on "Leaves;" and in August, 
 1862, highly praised to Erskine the same 
 writer's " Unto this Last." 
 
 April 29, 1863, Carlyle wrote thus of one 
 of Dickens's readings: "I had to go yesterday 
 to Dickens's Beading, 8 p. m. Hanover Booms, 
 to the complete upsetting of my evening habi- 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 229 
 
 tudes and spiritual composure. Dickens does 
 do it capitally, such as if is ; acts better than 
 any Macready in the world ; a whole tragic, 
 comic, heroic theatre visible, performing under 
 one hat, and keeping us laughing — in a sorry 
 way, some of us thought — the whole night. 
 He is a good creature, too, and makes fifty or 
 sixty pounds by each of these readings." 
 
 Carlyle's unfortunate horse, mentioned in 
 the following letter, was Fritz. He was sold 
 for nine pounds. Lady Ashburton supplied 
 a successor, whom Carlyle called Noggs. 
 
 XLrS. CARLTLE TO MES. HAmSTSTG, HAMILTON, C. W. 
 
 Chelsea, London, 13 Aug. 1863. 
 Dear Sistee Jenny, — It is a long time 
 since I have had on hand to send you the 
 little bit of remembrance marked on the other 
 page, but I am held in such a ferment of per- 
 petual hurry and botheration here and have 
 grown so weak and weary of my sad work, 
 (till it do end), that I have seldom five minutes 
 to dispose of in my own way, and leave many 
 little jobs undone for a long time and many 
 little satisfactions unen joyed for want of a bold 
 stroke at them. Finally I bethought me of 
 the Dr. in Edinburgh and he has now got me 
 your little paper into readiness for sending. 
 
230 LETTERS OF CARLYLE 
 
 I understand you have nothing to do but pre- 
 sent it at the Bank and at once get payment. 
 If, (till you have time to write a long letter of 
 news, which wiU be very welcome), you at once 
 address me a Canada newspaper with three 
 strokes, nothing more will be necessary in 
 regard to this little bit of business. 
 
 I expect to get done with my book in six 
 or eight months. that I saw the day ! I 
 can and have been working thitherward with 
 all the strength that I possess, to the hurt of 
 my health as well, but I calculate when the 
 end have once come I shall begin directly to 
 improve more or less, and perhaps by degrees 
 get very considerably better again. I had an 
 excellent horse who had carried me 7 years 
 and above twenty thousand miles, his hoofs 
 were got spoiled on the stone hard roads. He 
 came plunging down with me one day, (not 
 throwing me nor hurting me in the slightest), 
 — a most decided fall for no reason what- 
 ever — upon which I had to sell him (to a 
 kind master for an old song), and for the last 
 six weeks have been walking, which was a 
 great enjoyment by way of change. It would 
 not do, however, and since about a week I 
 am mounted again : — very swift, very rougk 
 (in comparison to my old friend), but good 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 231 
 
 natured, healthy, willing: — and mast con- 
 tinue adding a dozen miles daily to the twenty 
 thousand already done. 
 
 We have had such a winter for warmth as 
 was never seen before, not very healthy, I be- 
 lieve, but it has agreed well with Jane: — and 
 indeed the kindred, I think, are all well. Poor 
 "Wullie Carlyle" (if you remember him at 
 all) died lately at Edinburgh, an old man, as 
 we are all growing hereabouts. 
 
 Tell Alick about my affairs and this last 
 news you have had. That I never do or can 
 forget him, he need not be told. I hope your 
 lasses are doing well and that Eobert and all 
 of you are pushing along patiently, faithfully 
 as heretofore. 
 
 In August, 1863, Mrs. Carlyle fell in St. 
 Martin's Lane and broke her thigh. The 
 accident resulted in long illness and pain. 
 During the spring of 1864: she grew worse, 
 and in March was taken to St. Leonards. 
 From a subsequent trip to Scotland she re- 
 turned in October to Cheyne Row, " weak, 
 shattered, body worn to a shadow, spirit bright 
 as ever." 
 
 The last volume of " Frederick " was pub- 
 lished in April, 1865. When the proofs were 
 
232 LETTERS OE CAMLTLE 
 
 finished, Carlyle and his wife went to Devon- 
 shire for a few weeks with Lady Ashhurton. 
 
 L. CABLTLE TO MRS. HANNING, HAMILTON, C. W. 
 
 Chelsea, 4 May, 1865. 
 Deab Jenny, — Two or three days ago, I 
 saw a letter from you to Sister Jean ; which 
 was very welcome here, as bringing more defi- 
 nite news of you than we had got for a good 
 while before. I have now got done with my 
 Book (a copy of it probably in your hands 
 before this) ; and am not • henceforth to be so 
 dreadfully hampered in writing a little note to 
 my friends from time to time. I am still in a 
 huge fuss, confusions of all kinds lying about 
 me, and indeed I am just about running ofE 
 for Scotland (to Jean's, in the first place), to 
 try and recover a little from the completely 
 shattered state these twelve years of incessant 
 drudgery and slaving have reduced me to. 
 But there is something I had meant, this long 
 time and here it is — just come to hand. In- 
 closed is a Paper which will bring you the 
 amount of Dollars for £20, on your present- 
 ing it at the Hamilton Bank. If by way of 
 "identifying" they ask you who sends the 
 money, you can answer with my name, and if 
 further needful, add that the Negotiator for 
 
TO MBS. HANNING 233 
 
 me with the Edinr. Bank, was Br. Carlyle of 
 that City. Nothing more, I suppose, if even 
 that much will be necessary. Let me know 
 by return that it is safe in your hand (a news- 
 paper with three strokes wiU serve if you are 
 short of time for the moment). And so with 
 my best blessings, dear Utile Jenny, accept 
 this poor mark of my remembrance. 
 
 My Jane is very frail and feeble, but always 
 stirring about, and has got blessedly away out 
 of the horrible torments she had (and all of 
 you had on her account) last year. Scotsbrig, 
 Gill, Dumfries, Edinburgh ; all is going in the 
 usual average way there. To you I can fancy 
 what a distress the removal of your poor little 
 Mary and her Husband to the Far West must 
 be ! These things happen and are inevitable 
 in the current of Ufe. That your son-in-law 
 is a good man, this should be a great joy to 
 you. Do not you be too hasty to follow to 
 Iowa ; consider it well first. 
 
 You see what a shaky hand I have ; you do 
 not see the bitter hurry I am still in ! With 
 kindest wishes to you and all your household, 
 
 Ever your Affectionate Brother, 
 
 T. Cablylb. 
 
 Carlyle was elected Lord Eector of the Uni- 
 
234 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 versity of Edinburgh in November, 1865 ; and 
 on April 2, 1866, spoke his inaugural address 
 at Edinburgh, of which the best account 
 known to me — best for a general impression 
 of Carlyle — is that given by Mr. Moncure 
 Conway. On the 21st of April the news 
 of Mrs. Carlyle's sudden death was brought 
 to Carlyle at his sister's house in Dumfries, 
 The epitaph which he wrote for her grave 
 in the abbey church of Haddington ends 
 with the words, " And the light of his life as 
 if gone out." 
 
 An episode of the time when that light was 
 fading will remain longer with some of us than 
 most of the occurrences of Carlyle's Ufe. Mrs. 
 OUphant has left a sketch, done with very few 
 lines, of Mrs. Carlyle playing Scotch airs " to 
 the tall old man in his dressing-gown, sitting 
 meditative by the fire." Carlyle himself, in 
 his Journal for December 3, 1867, described 
 the last of these occasions : " One evening, I 
 think ia the spring of 1866, we two had come 
 up from dinner and were sitting in. this room, 
 very weak and weary creatures, perhaps even 
 I the wearier, though she far the weaker ; I 
 at least far the more incKned to sleep, which 
 directly after dinner was not good for me. 
 ' Lie on the sofa there,' said she — the ever 
 
" TBE LIGHT OF HIS LIFE" 235 
 
 kind and graceful, herself refusing to do so — 
 ' there, but don't sleep,' and I, after some 
 superficial objecting, did. In old years I used 
 to lie that way, and she would play the piano 
 to me : a long series of Scotch tunes which set 
 my mind finely wandering through the realms 
 of memory and romance, and effectually pre- 
 vented sleep. That evening I had lain but a 
 few minutes when she turned round to her 
 piano, got out the Thomson Burns book, and, 
 to my surprise and joy, broke out again into 
 her bright little stream of harmony and poesy, 
 silent for at least ten years before, and gave 
 me, in soft tinkhng beauty, pathos, and melody, 
 all my old favourites : ' Banks and Braes,' 
 ' Flowers of the Forest,' ' Gilderoy,' not for- 
 getting ' Duncan Gray,' ' Cauld Kail,' ' Irish 
 Coolen,' or any of my favourites tragic or comic. 
 . . . That piano has never again sounded, nor 
 in my time will or shall. In late months it 
 has grown clearer to me than ever that she 
 had said to herself that night, 'I will play his 
 tunes aU yet once,' and had thought it would 
 be but once. . . . This is now a thing infi- 
 nitely touching to me. So like her ; so like 
 her, Alas, alas ! I was very blind, and might 
 have known better how near its setting my 
 bright sun was." 
 
236 LETTEES OF CABLYLE 
 
 The following letter is shadowed with the 
 death of Mrs. Carlyle, although nearly two 
 years had passed. 
 
 LI. CABLTLB TO MRS. HAmSING, HAMILTON, C. W. 
 
 Chelsea, 14dh February, 1868. 
 
 My dear Jenny, — This is a little New 
 Year's gift which I intended for you sooner. 
 It (the essential part of it) has been lying here 
 apart and wrapt up for you ever since Christ- 
 mas time, but I never could get up to have it 
 made into a banking, portable form till now, 
 so languid, sad and lazy have I been ! The 
 banks all close at an earHer hour than my 
 walking one, and it is rare that I can get so 
 far into town in time. I am dreadfully indis- 
 posed to writing, and even my poor shaking 
 right hand makes continual protest ! I hope 
 the poor little Gift wiU be welcome to you and 
 in some savings bank or otherwise be inno- 
 cently waiting to do you good some time or 
 other ! — ^ I am told there will be no difficulty 
 for you at the "Gore Bank" in Hamilton 
 merely to go thither and sign your name. A 
 newspaper with three strokes will sufficientiy 
 announce it for me till you have leisure for 
 writing. I have also sent a photograph for 
 nephew Tom's young wife, to whom, with all 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 237 
 
 my affectionate regards to them both, pray 
 send it by your first opportunity. There is 
 another (if the letter will carry it), for your- 
 self for your own free disposal otherwise. 
 
 I am not specially in worse health than 
 usual, but excessively languid, dispirited, 
 weary, sad and idle — especially in the late 
 dark months of winter, which however are 
 now gone, and indeed were never severe but 
 lighter upon us than common. Jean has 
 been here ever since early in December. It 
 makes the house a little less lonesome to me 
 than it has become for the last twenty two 
 months, but cannot, as you may imagine, lift 
 the heavy heart of me into anything of 
 cheeriness, nor indeed perhaps should it. 
 She will go home by Liverpool before long, 
 where her son Jim (who is a clever soUd fel- 
 low and has got promotion in Liverpool) is 
 just setting up house with his sister Maggie 
 as Manageress. Their mother will look in so 
 soon as they have the home settled. All 
 kinds of business are reported as utterly dull 
 here ; much distress among the idle poor — 
 and a general silent anxiety as to this new 
 " Reform Bill " or " Leap in the dark," — 
 poor stupid souls ! 
 
 An extremely accursed atrocity of murder 
 
238 LETTMBS OF CABLTLE 
 
 and worse has happened in Cummertrees, 
 ■which has thrown all the community into 
 horror and excitation — of which you will 
 see or hear soon enough in the newspapers 
 and prohahly know the location as I do. 
 Your kindred in Annandale and here are all 
 well and I can send their best regards. 
 Ever your affectionate brother, 
 
 T. Cakltlb. 
 
 In October, 1868, Carlyle was again thrown, 
 — this time from a horse named Comet. A 
 conversation with the Queen, the death of 
 Mr. Erskine of Linlathen, and a letter to 
 the Times newspaper on the Franco-Prussian 
 war were among the events of the next few 
 years. 
 
 Carlyle speaks again now of his shaking 
 right hand. A few weeks after he quite lost 
 the use of it for writing with a pen. " Mary 
 Aitken," ready to write to his dictation, was 
 Mary Carlyle Aitken, daughter to his sister 
 Jean. 
 
 Ln. CABLTIiB TO MBS. HANKING, HAMILTON, 0. W. 
 
 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 13 Feb. 1871. 
 
 My deab Sister Jbkny, — Here is a Uttle 
 bit of a present which you must accept from 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 239 
 
 me ; it was intended for the New Year's time, 
 but has been belated; which will do it no 
 great ill with you. Buy yourself something 
 nice with it ; and consider at aU times that 
 my affectionate best wishes are with you; 
 and that if I could in any way do you a use- 
 ful kindness, I gladly would. 
 
 We get a good few Canada newspapers 
 from you ; welcome tokens of your remem- 
 brance : in one of the last, there was a very 
 melancholy item of news marked by your 
 hand, — the death of your dear little grand- 
 child, poor Mary's Bairn ; we conceived pain- 
 fully how sad it must have made you all ; 
 and were ourselves sad and sorry. Poor 
 Mary, she was herself a child when I saw her 
 last, and she is now a bereaved mother : — 
 Death snatches us from one another at all 
 ages ! I often think with silent gratitude to 
 Providence how gently we older ones have 
 been dealt with in this respect ; saved, a 
 whole family of us, for so many years ; none 
 lost but poor Margaret, (very dear, and very 
 sacred to me at this hour), and a wee wee 
 Jenny whom you never saw, but whose death, 
 and my mother's unappeasable grief for it, 
 are still strangely present to me, after near 
 seventy years. AU we can say is, both the 
 
240 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 Living and the Dead are with God j and we 
 have to obey, and be of hope. 
 
 You regret sometimes that I do not write 
 to you ; but it is not my blame, it is my mis- 
 fortune rather. For rather above five years 
 past my right hand has been getting useless 
 for writing, (the left strangely enough, is stiU 
 steady, and holds good) ; the weight of years, 
 too, 75 of them gone December last, presses 
 heavy on me ; and aU work, but most espe- 
 cially all kinds of writing, are a thing I avoid 
 as sorrowfully disagreeable. Mary Aitken, 
 who drives an- admirable pen, is indeed ever 
 willing to be "dictated" to; and I do, in 
 cases of necessity, trust that method; but 
 find, on the whole, that it never will succeed 
 with me. 
 
 From the Dr. and from Jean I believe you 
 get all the news that are worth writing ; and 
 that is the main interest in the matter. 
 
 The Dr. is in Edinburgh of late weeks, and 
 seems to be enjoying himself among old 
 friends : — and finds it, no doubt, a pleasant 
 and useful interruption of his Dumfries soli- 
 tude, to which he will return with fresh appe- 
 tite. He is much stronger and cheerier than 
 I ; five years younger, and at least twice five 
 lighter of heart. He has an excellent lodging 
 
TO MBS. HANNUfG 241 
 
 at Dumfries yonder ; and is of much service 
 to all the kindred ; every one of whom he is 
 continally ready to help. Mary Aitken has 
 been here with me above two years: — a 
 bright Httle soul, writing for me, trying to be 
 useful and cheerful to me. I have plenty of 
 friends here ; but none of them do me much 
 good, except by their evident good-wiU ; com- 
 pany in general is at once wearisome and 
 hurtful to me ; silence, and the company of 
 my own sombre thoughts, sad probably, but 
 also loving and beautiful, are wholesomer 
 than talking ; these and a little serious read- 
 ing are my chief resource. I have no bodily 
 ailment,' except what belongs to the grad- 
 ual decay of a digestive faculty which was 
 always weak; except when sleepless nights 
 afflict me too much, I have no reason to com- 
 plain, but the contrary. This winter, now 
 nearly done, has been a blusterous, cold, in- 
 clement one as. any I can latterly remember; 
 it grew at last to tell upon me as the un- 
 f riendliest of all its brethren : — but I think, 
 after all, it may have done me little or no 
 intrinsic damage. With the new Spring and 
 its bright days I hope to awaken again and 
 shake away this torpor of nerves and mind. 
 I have long owed Alick a letter — that is to 
 
242 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 say, intended to write him one, though by 
 count it is his turn. I often think of you 
 all on that side the Sea as well as this; if 
 that could do you any good. Alas ! I wUl 
 end here, dear little Sister ; wishing all that 
 is good to you and yours, as at all times. I 
 am and remain. 
 
 Ever your affectionate Brother, 
 
 T. Cablylb. 
 
 Send a newspaper with 3 strokes when 
 this comes: don't trouble yrself with any 
 other announcement. 
 
 In November, 1872, Emerson made his 
 last visit to England. Carlyle was now re- 
 duced to writing " in largish letters with blue 
 pencil." After the next letter he never wrote 
 again with his own hand to Mrs. Hanning 
 or to any member of the family across the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 Lni. CABLTLE TO MES. HAJSTNTNG, HAMILTON, 0. W. 
 
 Chelsea, 2 Jan' 1873. 
 
 Deak Sister Jenny, — I please myself 
 with the thought that you will accept this lit- 
 tle Newyear's Gift from me as a sign of my 
 unalterable affection, wh? tho' it is obliged, 
 
MART AITKEN TO MBS. BANNING 243 
 
 to be silent (unable to write as of old) cannot 
 fade away until I myself do ! Of that be 
 always sure, my dear little sister, — and that 
 if in anything I can be of help to you or 
 yours, I right willingly will. 
 
 " Clinthill's " Photograph is wonderful and 
 deeply affecting to me. Not one feature in it 
 can I recognize as his : such are the changes 
 half-a-century works upon us ! If you have 
 any means, send him my affectionate remem- 
 brances and unchanged good-wishes. 
 
 No more from this lame hand, dear sister 
 Jenny, — except my heart's blessings for the 
 year and forever. 
 
 Yr affect? Brother, 
 
 T. Caelylb. 
 
 tnr. miss mart caeltie aitken to mks. hahhing, 
 hamilton, c. w. 
 
 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 
 3 Feb. 1874. 
 
 My dear Aunt, — Your httle note arrived 
 duly and was very welcome ; telling as it did 
 that all was well with you in your far off 
 home. I have several times lately intended 
 to write to you, spontaneously, but some- 
 how one's time seems to get so filled up that 
 few of all the things one proposes to do get 
 
244 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 accomplished. I was very glad of the little 
 note which you sent sometime ago in answer 
 to one from me, and would have taken up 
 Cousin Kate's Challenge as to writing, but 
 had a great deal of writing to do at that time 
 and was moreover in very indi£Eerent health, 
 — or I certainly should have written to her. 
 I hope she is getting on well. We had a 
 very good account of her from Ahck and 
 James Carlyle when they were here. 
 
 Uncle has been pretty well all the winter, 
 until a fortnight ago, when he caught cold, 
 which has troubled him a good deal ; but he 
 is getting rid of it now. Last August he 
 and I went to Norfolk, and, after spending 
 ten days very pleasantly there, during which 
 time he seemed every day to grow younger 
 and better, we turned our faces to the north. 
 After a disagreeable journey to Newcastle by 
 steamer, went on to Dumfries, where we found 
 everybody well ; from Dumfries we made sev- 
 eral excursions, — to the Gill, where all were 
 prospering, and especially Jane, who used to 
 look rather thin and delicate, was looking 
 very well. Aunt Mary is one of the kindest 
 people one ever sees; she looked older than 
 she did when I saw her before ; and is gener- 
 ally rather serious than lively. They have 
 
MAMT AITKEN TO MBS. HANNWG 245 
 
 got on their farm for another nineteen years 
 at a very small increase of rent, which must 
 be a great comfort to them. We one day 
 went to Scotsbrig, where I have not been 
 more than about three times in my life. 
 John's wife, whom I never saw before, looks 
 very amiable and gentle, rather than clever 
 and smart ; they have three children, one boy 
 and two girls, one of the latter about the 
 prettiest little thing I ever saw. Uncle Jamie 
 had unfortunately made a mistake as to the 
 day of our coming; so that we did not see 
 him then ; but he came to Dumfries and was 
 looking very well ; though, poor man, he has 
 had a hard enough time of it since ; for his 
 daughter Jenny has been very ill all the win- 
 ter; as it was she lost her little daughter; 
 and last Sunday night poor Jenny's long, 
 painful illness ended in death. I think she 
 has left three children. It must be a cruel 
 blow to Uncle Jamie, who always seemed so 
 fond of her. We have been expecting no 
 other news than this for some time back ; 
 but when death comes it never fails to sur- 
 prize. There have been a great many deaths 
 amongst us the last year or two ; you are well 
 off, dear Aunt, to have all your children 
 spared to you. My Mother when I saw her 
 
246 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 in Summer did not seem to have forgotten 
 those that were taken away. We used to be 
 very fond of singing songs together in the 
 evenings, but when we once tried it last time 
 I was at home, one after another of us broke 
 down until we had to give up the one solitary 
 attempt. At Ecclefechan I went with the 
 two Uncles to see the houses in which they 
 were born and also to see Grandfather's and 
 Grandmother's graves. I don't remember 
 ever to have seen Ecclefechan before. It was 
 a very interesting day we spent ; none of us 
 were in high spirits, as you may suppose ; but 
 it is very pleasant to me to look back upon 
 the visit. Uncle and I went also to Fife to 
 visit the Welsh's (Aunt Jane's Cousins) and 
 after two or three days there we spent a day 
 at Haddington ; staid one night in Edin- 
 burgh and, after seeing one or two people 
 there, returned to Dumfries, and after a week 
 or two to Chelsea, — having been away in all 
 only about six weeks. Uncle was not very 
 well and complained of the noise of the rail- 
 way whistle &c. at Dumfries ; and so we 
 were not sorry to be back to Chelsea again ; 
 I am hoping to get away for a week or 
 two this spring to see them all at home, if 
 Miss Welsh comes on a visit, as she may very 
 
MABY AITKEN TO MBS. BANHriNQ 247 
 
 possibly do. Uncle has not been working at 
 anything lately ; he spends nearly all his time 
 in reading. I am very glad to be back "with 
 him again, although I was sorry to leave the 
 Taylors, who are very good people, and were 
 most kind to me. I got on there very well, 
 only I was in bad health nearly all the time. 
 However, I am very much better now. 
 
 I have written this note, or rather long 
 scrawl, in great haste ; and have been often 
 interrupted, so I hope you will excuse it — as, 
 if I read it over, I shall be sure not to send it 
 off and have not time at present to write 
 another. Uncle sends his kindest love and 
 best wishes, as well as thanks for your 
 kind letter, with all good messages from 
 myself. 
 
 Ever, dear Aunt, 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 Mary Caelyle Aitken. 
 
 During the month in which the last letter 
 was written, Carlyle received the Prussian 
 Order of Merit, and, later in the year, re- 
 fused the Grand Cross of the Bath, offered 
 by Disraeli. 
 
 " Bield " was the name of Alexander Car- 
 lyle's farm. 
 
248 LETTERS OF CABLTLE 
 
 lv. caeltie to mes. hannhtg, hamilton, c. w. 
 
 6 Cheynb Row, Chelsea, 
 12 April, 1875. 
 
 My dear Sister Jenny, — It is a long 
 time since I have heard direct from you ; and 
 a good deal longer since I wrote myself. 
 But we see aU your letters to the Dr., yours 
 and your children's ; and I hope and indeed 
 even know, that you never doubt of my bro- 
 therly remembrance and affectionate thoughts 
 of you all. SUent my thoughts are obliged 
 mostly to be, for my hand this long while 
 back is quite useless for writing and indeed 
 even by dictation I never do write except on 
 absolute compulsion. This time I send you a 
 small practical memorial of which you wiU 
 see the nature from Adamson the Banker's 
 little note enclosed ; which I hope you will 
 have no difficulty in negotiating and turning 
 into dollars. Pray accept it kindly, and lay 
 it out in buying yourseU any httle thing you 
 find useful or agreeable to you, — or lay it 
 by i£ you Hke better, added to any Uttle pose 
 of your own against a rainy day. Do not 
 trouble yourself with writing any answer ; 
 merely send me an old newspaper, addressed 
 in your own hand with three strokes, which 
 
TO MBS. BANNING 249 
 
 will be taken as a sure sign that you have got 
 it all right. 
 
 I have grown very old (now getting fast 
 forward with my 80th year) and am very 
 weak and useless, as is natural ; hut by bless- 
 ing from above, still wonderfully keep my 
 health, what health I could expect to have ; 
 and have suffered little or nothing by the late 
 severe winter, which also I find has been so 
 severe with you. Take care of yourself in 
 the bitter cold when it comes again ; and 
 above all provide yourself with effectual warm 
 clothing. I read with interest your daugh- 
 ter Mary's letter : and was glad after all that 
 you had been so kind as to go to Bield on 
 report of BUly Bobby, tho' the reception 
 there was not quite of the kind one could 
 have wished. Alas, alas ! Perversity is born 
 with us all, and comes out in little touches, 
 where we least expected it. The one remedy 
 is to crush it down each of us for himself, 
 and in respect of others to forgive and for- 
 get. Our spring here is very tardy ; the 
 weather stiU damp, chiU and disagreeable. I 
 hope it may be much brighter vnth you, 
 thanks to your deep, clear skies ; not drowned 
 in mist like ours, and that it may be shining 
 summer when this arrives. This morning we 
 
250 LETTERS OF CARLYLE 
 
 had a letter from the Dr. who reports all the 
 kindred well. He proposes to come up hither 
 about the end of the month; he has been 
 much more quiescent this season than I have 
 often known him; but is about to move at 
 last. God bless you always, dear Jenny, you 
 and yours. 
 
 I am and remain 
 
 Ever your affectionate Brother 
 
 T. Caelylb. 
 
 Carlyle's eightieth birthday — December 4, 
 1875 (year of " Early Kings of Norway" and 
 " Portraits of John Knox ") — was celebrated 
 with a memorial from his friends and " a whirl- 
 wind of gifts and congratulations." In Feb- 
 ruary, 1876, John Forster died, and in April 
 Carlyle's brother Alexander. Carlyle wrote 
 in his Journal : " Young Alick's account of 
 his death is altogether interesting — a scene 
 of sublime simplicity, great and solemn under 
 the humblest forms. That question of his, 
 when his eyes were already shut, and his 
 mind wavering before the last_^ms of all : — 
 * Is Tom coming from Edinburgh the Morn ? ' 
 will never leave me should I live a hun- 
 dred years. Poor Alick, my ever faithful bro- 
 ther ! Come back across wide oceans and long 
 
TO DB. JOHN CABLYLE '251 
 
 decades of time to the scenes of brotherly 
 companionship with me, and going out of 
 the world as it were with his hand in 
 mine. Many times he convoyed me to meet 
 the Dumfries coach, or to bring me home 
 from it, and fuU of bright and perfect affec- 
 tion always were those meetings and part- 
 ings. 
 
 The last bit of Carlyle's writing printed 
 during his life was a letter to the "Times," 
 in May, 1877, on the Eusso-Turkish war. In 
 the same year Boehm made a statue of Car- 
 lyle, and Millais a portrait. 
 
 " 24 Cheyne Kow " was the new (and pre- 
 sent) numbering of Carlyle's house. 
 
 lvi. caeltle to de. john cakltle, dumfbies. 
 
 24 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 
 21 Sep. 1878. 
 
 My dear Bbothbb, — We got your letter 
 this morning, and were very glad to hear that 
 things went so tolerably with you in your 
 present sad imprisonment. We had not the 
 bit of bad weather you speak of, or had it 
 only in a milder type. We also get out daily 
 in a drive of two hours which might be plea- 
 santer were we in better circumstances to 
 enjoy it, but it does us good and forms a 
 
252 LETTERS OF CARLTLE 
 
 variety in our rather stagnant ways. I also 
 contrive to get some modicum of sleep every 
 night and have now got rested from the great 
 confusions of our journey hither, in which till 
 Crewe we could get no place to ourselves. 
 The scene on Carlisle platform was beyond 
 aU others I have seen the most chaotic and 
 disturbing to me. The Town seems quite 
 empty of people we have business with. We 
 have seen only Blakiston and his Bessy Blak- 
 iston is as nonsensical as formerly. He spoke 
 of writing to you, but I know not whether he 
 has done it. His knowledge about your cir- 
 cumstances seems to me to amount to zero. 
 Yesterday we called at Darwin's door, heard 
 he was in his usual way of health, but as 
 nephews of his had just driven up to his door, 
 we did not venture in. Froude is still at 
 Saltcombe for a month to come. Till then 
 does not make his appearance here. I have 
 nearly done my reperusal of Frederick and 
 know not what book next to apply to. But 
 something I wiU devise for that poor purpose. 
 The Town is very empty, but begins in a slow 
 way to repeople itself. 
 
 We are much concerned to hear by James 
 of Newlands that poor Austin lies at the GUI 
 in dangerous circumstances 3 jaundice is the 
 
TO DB. JOHN CABLYLE 253 
 
 last figure of his illness. May, it appears, is 
 in her usual way. Here our weather is gen- 
 erally good and I often have a walk down to 
 the bottom of the embankment, which is 
 strange and I suppose salutary to me. A sad 
 thought to me in this operation is that, alas, 
 you cannot share it with me, or for the pre- 
 sent enjoy anything like it. No word from 
 Canada, but certainly some must be coming. 
 My kindest love to Jean. Tell her if I had 
 a hand, she should not long expect a letter 
 from me ! With kindest love to one and all 
 of you, 
 
 I ever am 
 
 Your affecte Brother, 
 
 T. Cablylb. 
 
 Will you kindly send Umerson back when 
 everybody has done with it. 
 
 John Carlyle died in 1879. Carlyle was 
 now growing steadily weaker, and by October 
 of 1880 was under the constant care of a phy- 
 sician. 
 
 Mary Aitken, by marriage with her cousin 
 Alexander Carlyle, was now become "Mary 
 Carlyle." 
 
254 LETTERS OF CAJtLYLE 
 
 LVn. MES. AliEXANDER CABLTLE TO MES. HAiraHfG, 
 
 hamilton, 0. w. 
 
 24 Chetne Kow, Chelsea, 
 18 July, 1880. 
 
 My dear Aunt, — I received my Cousin 
 Mrs. Baixd's letter about tea days ago, asking 
 for tidings of my Uncle. I am extremely 
 sorry that you have been made anxious about 
 him through my not writing; but indeed 
 there have been many sufficient apologies 
 for my want of punctuality in that way, 
 which, however, I need not trouble you with 
 here. It will suffice to say that I use the 
 very first chance I have had to answer your 
 enquiries. 
 
 It is not very easy to explain to you exactly 
 how Uncle is. He is exceedingly weak, 
 hardly able to walk fifty yards without help, 
 and yet until about ten days ago, when he 
 had a very severe attack of Diarrhoea which 
 has left him much below par, he was what 
 one might call for him very well. He gener- 
 ally spends his mornings till about half past 
 two o'clock between lying on the sofa, read- 
 ing in his easy chair, and smoking an occa- 
 sional pipe ; at half past two he goes out to 
 drive for two or two and a half hours, sleeps 
 
JANET GARLYLE HANNING 
 At the age of S3 
 
MBS. ALEX. CABLTLE TO MBS. BANNING 255 
 
 on the sofa till dinner time (half past six) 
 then after dinner sleeps again, at nine has 
 tea, reads or smokes or talks, or lies on the 
 sofa till bed time, which is usually about mid- 
 night, and so ends the day. He looks very 
 well in the face, has a fine, fresh ruddy com- 
 plexion and an immense quantity of white 
 hair, his voice is clear and strong, he sees and 
 hears quite well ; but for the rest, as I have 
 said, he is not good at moving about. In 
 general he is wonderfully good humored and 
 contented; and on the whole carries his 
 eighty-four years well. He desires me to 
 send you his kind love, and his good wishes : 
 as you know, he writes to nobody at all. I 
 do not think he has written a single letter, 
 even dictated one, for over a year. 
 
 We are very glad to hear that all is well 
 with you and with all your family. I have 
 not time for more just now, as I am inter- 
 rupted. Good-bye, dear aunt. 
 
 I am. Your affectionate Niece, 
 
 Maky Carlylb. 
 
 Carlyle died on the 5th of February, 1881. 
 The Abbey was offered, but refused; and, 
 as the world knows, Carlyle was buried in 
 the kirkyard of his native Ecclefechan. The 
 
256 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 following narrative of the funeral is from the 
 pen of Mr. John Carlyle Aitken, brother to 
 Mary Aitken Carlyle. 
 
 One likes his letters less than his sister's, 
 which are perfect in their unafEected plain- 
 ness. 
 
 The three remaining letters need neither 
 explanation nor comment. 
 
 ltqi. mb. johk cablyle aitkek' to mbs. hanitikg, 
 hamilton, c. w. 
 
 The Hill, Dumfbies, N. B. 
 11 Feb., 1881. 
 
 My deab Aunt, — Today I mean only to 
 write a note of the more needful details, re- 
 serving for a more fitting time the full state- 
 ment. I need not worry you with the 
 account of my tempestuous voyage from New 
 York, in which I made acquaintance with a 
 hurricane, and its full meaning — nor how 
 glad I was at sight of the dear hare and 
 rugged hills of my native land — Leaving 
 America to the Americans — and welcome ! 
 I shall think for sometime ere I do the " her- 
 ring-pond " again ! Well, no more of that 
 i£ you love me ! no more o' that ! I am 
 home, and well, and Ukely to remain there 
 for the remainder of my days in one shape 
 
MB. AITKEN TO MBS. BANNING 267 
 
 or other. Let that serve just now on that 
 score. 
 
 You -would observe the date of Uncle's 
 death and might hear of it the same day, as 
 I thought. At all events The Scotsman would 
 supply more details ; and that I hopei reached 
 you all right. AU has been in such hurry, 
 bustle and confusion ever since that no one 
 has had time to think of writing anything 
 requiring time or calm consideration. Uncle 
 had not been considered seriously iU more 
 than about a fortnight or so before the end. 
 The vital spark of life towards the last days 
 kept flickering in a way so extraordinary that 
 the Doctor declared he had never met such 
 tenacity of life and vitality in the whole 
 course of his varied London and other expe- 
 rience. Dear Uncle, the good, true and noble 
 old man that he was, really suffered little in 
 the way of pain for some weeks before his 
 death, which was itself little more than a 
 gentle flickering sleep, ending in a scarcely 
 heard last sigh of sound. While lying in a 
 comatose or unconscious state his mind seemed 
 to wander back to old Annandale memories 
 of his ever loved ones and their surround- 
 ings; his mother holding her supreme seat 
 surrounded by a trooping throng of once 
 
258 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 familiar faces, not very greatly less dear to 
 him. He died full of years, with all his 
 ■weary task of world's work well and nobly 
 done, and leaves no mortal behind him who 
 does not love and reverence his life and mem- 
 ory. 
 
 By the newspapers I send today you may 
 see how very quiet the funeral yesterday was. 
 The vale of Annan was grim and wintry. 
 You could catch a glimpse of Hoddam, the 
 Brownmuir, Woodcockaigne, and aU the old 
 places through the white roupy mist hanging 
 over and round them. The most touching 
 sight I saw was that of three gray haired, 
 smooth crowned fathers of the village of Ec- 
 clefechan, who stood together by the way- 
 side, bare-headed and with unfeigned sadness 
 of face and manner silently and impressively 
 bearing witness to their sorrow. It was 
 really very touching to look upon. The 
 Presbyterian Kirk bells tolled mournfully as 
 they laid him gently in the bed of rest within 
 a few yards of the place where he first drew 
 the breath of life, and all was as unostenta- 
 tious as he himself desired it might be. Ah, 
 me ! Ah, me ! Uncle James was there, as 
 the last male link of the ever shortening 
 chain. Mother bids me send her love to you 
 
MRS. ALEX. CAJRLYLE TO MBS. BANNINa 259 
 
 and your fellow mourners who here and over 
 all the wide world are many. All would 
 gladly unite in sympathy and love with you 
 in your far away home. 
 
 Ever affectionately, 
 
 John C. Aitkbn. 
 
 lix. mbs. alexamdek caeltlb to mrs. hanning, 
 hamilton, c. w. 
 
 24 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 
 3 March, 1881. 
 
 My dear Atjnt, — AUck received two kind 
 notes from you and Kate, which I will answer 
 as well as I can. The news itself you would 
 receive ahnost too soon ! When we were at 
 Dumfries (where we stayed from Thursday till 
 Monday) John wrote to you and told you some 
 particulars, no doubt more will be welcome, 
 and it would have been natural we should 
 have written ere this, but there has been little 
 composure to write to anyone, and a very great 
 many letters coming every day to be attended 
 to in one shape or another. Last July, as I 
 think I told you, Uncle had a short though 
 rather bad turn of illness evidently brought 
 on by the heat ; he seemed to a great extent 
 to recover from it, but he never got up any 
 considerable strength after it; he seemed to 
 
260 LETTERS OF CARLYLE 
 
 grow a little weaker month by month and 
 week by week. He was out on New Year's 
 Day for the last time, a short drive of an hour 
 or so; he complained of the fatigue very much 
 after he came back. He was confined to his 
 bed exactly three weeks all but a day. Until 
 the last few days he was, though now and then 
 delirious, for the most part quiet and collected, 
 and able to talk to us, which he did with great 
 kindness and afEection. For the last two days 
 and nights he was in a deep unnatural looking 
 sleep, and except once when he seemed to be 
 trying to speak to us, and he said distinctly 
 "AKck" — and "Woman," he hardly once 
 looked up or moved. On Saturday morning 
 about eight (Alick and I having both sat up 
 with him) I was in the room alone, and at 
 8.30 I noticed a change in the breathing, at 
 first it seemed to stop, then there were one or 
 two louder breaths and all was over. In the 
 last few days his mind seemed to turn alto- 
 gether to the old Ecclef echan days ; he often 
 took AKck for his Father (Uncle Sandy) and 
 he would put his arms round my neck and say 
 to me, " My dear Mother." His was a great 
 and noble life. I have no words to tell how 
 much I miss him and how sad I feel now that 
 he is gone. I am sure you would get a great 
 
MBS. ALEX. CASLTLE TO MBS. BANNING 261 
 
 shock when you heard of it. We have formed 
 no plans yet for the future, but we mean to 
 keep together all the furniture and Books in 
 memory of him as long as we live and not to 
 sell any part of them. 
 
 In Scotland we found them all pretty well. 
 John [her brother] was there as you know, 
 looking no worse for his multifarious adven- 
 tures in America. He spoke enthusiastically 
 of your kindness to him for which we are all 
 most grateful to you. They then spoke of 
 writing to you very shortly. Alick and I 
 drove to the Gill one afternoon and found 
 them all pretty well there. Aunt Mary, 
 though complaining of a bad cold, looked as 
 well as when I saw her before. The other 
 branches of the family were well, but as we 
 had so little time I did not see any of them. 
 I went with the funeral to the gate of the 
 Kirkyard at poor old Ecclef echan ; but I kept 
 behind the curtain in the carriage, and saw, 
 or was seen by nobody. I hope to send you 
 some little memorial of him and I will not for- 
 get Kate's request for some little thing of the 
 kind. I hope all is well with you and yours, 
 dear Aunt, and that you will excuse me if I 
 have failed to teU you anything that would be 
 interesting to you. Give Alick's thanks and 
 
262 LETTEBS OF CABLTLE 
 
 his and my kind regards to Kate, and with 
 many kind regards to you all, 
 I am, 
 
 Ever your affectionate Niece, 
 
 Mart Cakltlb. 
 
 An anonymous writer sent to the Pall Mali 
 Gazette in 1885 a record of travel in Dum- 
 friesshire, with the title Carlyle's Country. 
 A selection from it follows : — 
 
 "The next point in my pilgrimage was 
 Mainhill, a farmhouse about two miles from 
 the village of Ecclefechan. Here, again, I 
 fancy Mr. Froude gives a rather erroneous 
 impression. The situation is not very bleak 
 or cheerless, nor very high ; but perhaps he 
 may have judged of it by the day he visited 
 the place — on the day when Carlyle was 
 buried. I was told — my informant being no 
 other than the man who had toUed the beU 
 for the funeral — that it was a * clarty day : ' 
 and as the term was to me technical, I had it 
 amplified: *It blawed, it snawed, an' it rained, 
 an' sleeted. 0, it was verra clarty ! ' 
 
 " On such a day I can well understand that 
 Mainhill would be dreary enough. It was 
 damp and wet the day I was there, and I car- 
 ried away from the farm road dust, in the shape 
 
CAMLYLE'S COUNTRY 263 
 
 of mud ankle deep, that refused to be shaken 
 off. The house must have been small indeed 
 for such a family as the Carlyles : only three 
 rooms of any kind for all purposes, no ' upper 
 ben 'at aU : apparently the sleeping accom- 
 modation was arranged as on shipboard, by 
 berths one above the other. It was at Main- 
 hiU that Carlyle spent his vacations during his 
 schoolmaster's and tutorship period: the most 
 miserable and unhappy period of his whole life. 
 Wandering upon the hills above Mainhill he 
 meditated on his unsuccessful efforts at getting 
 under way, and had it not been for the kindly 
 and tolerant refuge he here found, he might 
 well have ended in despair all his valorous 
 attempts to ' open his oyster : ' as it was, he 
 says, ' almost had I desisted, as obstinately did 
 it continue shut.' When the early romance 
 of his first love was rudely ended, these hills 
 witnessed the weary and hopeless journeyings 
 which are magnified into the world-wide 
 wanderings of the sorrows of Teufelsdrockh. 
 Here he heard pealing in his ears the everlast- 
 ing No, and sank into the centre of indiffer- 
 ence, and finally emerged into the calmness of 
 the everlasting Yea. I purposed, with these 
 thoughts as comrades, a walk over these same 
 hills, Burnswark and its neighboring heights 
 
264 LETTERS OF CAMLYLE 
 
 — but alas ! the heavenly powers forbade, the 
 landscape was blotted out by foul mists, and 
 the drenching rain descended and efEectually 
 drove me back. Gladly did I take refuge in 
 the railway station, and more gladly, though 
 stiff with cold and weariness, did I enter the 
 kindly hostelry at Dumfries, where I ate the 
 repast of the hungry, and slept the sleep of 
 the laboring man, which is sweet, whether he 
 eat little or much." 
 
 After describing Craigenputtock, the writer 
 in the Pall Mall Gazette continues : — 
 
 " It struck me as a little strange that in a 
 house so associated with Carlyle, given by 
 him to his own university, there should be no 
 mark or token of the connection. Surely the 
 university might make some little acknowledg- 
 ment to the memory of the donor in the 
 house he had given. If there were a good 
 engraving of him, or a copy of his works — 
 some memento, however slight — it would 
 appear more gracious. But the stranger 
 might come and go away and never know 
 that Craigenputtock was bequeathed to the 
 University of Edinburgh by Thomas Carlyle. 
 I next retraced my way over the moor and 
 down to the valley. I changed my route 
 here, wishing to see Auldgarth Bridge, and 
 
CABLYLE'S COUNTBT 265 
 
 to go by Templand to Thornhill, and thence 
 to Annan once more. Auldgarth is hardly 
 more than a mile from EUesland, and again 
 it seemed hard to tear one's self from Burns, 
 but I had not leisure for both. Prom Thorn- 
 hill the steam engine whirls me back to Dum- 
 fries and on to Annan once more. I had 
 only one more spot to visit, Scotsbrig, near 
 Ecclefechan, and I could spare no more than 
 another day : by taking an early train from 
 Annan to Kirtlebridge and thence walking 
 by Birrens and Middlebie, I could accomplish 
 my purpose. It was still early — before nine 
 o'clock — when I reached the farm house of 
 Scotsbrig, the house of Carlyle's parents after 
 their removal from Mainhill, and then of his 
 youngest brother James till a few years ago. 
 My reception here was anything but hospi- 
 table. I felt myself looked upon with sus- 
 picion as some kind of a tramp, and to none 
 of my questions could I get more than a 
 monosyllabic answer. The morning was raw 
 and damp and ungenial, a drizzling rain was 
 falling, and I soon left Scotsbrig, with no very 
 pleasant recollections. The farm house is 
 prettily situated on a little bluff overhanging 
 the burn, which tumbles over the rocks in a 
 pretty little cascade just below the house. A 
 
266 LETTERS OF CABLYLE 
 
 tramp through the muddy roads brought me 
 again to the railway, and my pilgrimage was 
 over." 
 
 I,X. MR. JOHN GABLYLG AITKEN TO MES. HANNING, 
 HAMILTON, C. W. 
 
 The Hnx, Dumfkies, N. B., 11 May, 1890. 
 
 My dear Aunt, — Although long ere this 
 reaches you, you will have heard the sad' 
 news of the death of Uncle James of Scots- 
 brig, at John Carlyle, his son's farm, of Pingle, 
 some ten miles nearer the EngUsh Border 
 than Ecclefechan, on Sunday morning the 
 fourth of May at two o'clock. 
 
 I know that you may like to hear anything 
 in the shape of details. We were all very 
 sad to think that the last brother was gone, 
 although in the course of human things other- 
 wise the time could not have been greatly 
 extended. He had been pretty well confined 
 to the house and to his bed for seven weeks 
 or so before, and John C. seemed to say 
 that the end was rather painful, on account 
 of his sufferings which no human aid could 
 materially alleviate, than unexpected in any 
 way. The funeral was at Ecclefechan on 
 Wednesday the seventh, or that is to say, 
 some three days after his death. And I was 
 
MB. AITKEN TO MRS. BANNING 267 
 
 the only nephew present and the others were 
 grandsons, two of Craigenputtock and three 
 of John's own sons, all nice lads. The train 
 started from Pingle at eleven, coming to 
 Ecclefechan by way of Waterbeck and Mid- 
 dlebie, by a not very good road in any part, 
 and I noticed when we got into Ecclefechan 
 the school-house clock stood at twenty min- 
 utes to two. There were a great number of 
 people at the funeral in gigs and on foot, a 
 good number from Ecclefechan had gone 
 about a mile out towards Middlebie to meet. 
 It was a cloudy sunny morning with great 
 black clouds which threatened rain all day 
 although there was not any, and the sun's 
 rays came darting through a greyish mist in 
 long streaks of light which threw into relief 
 Repentance Hill, Woodcockaigne, and the si- 
 lent-looking steeples and roofs of Ecclefechan 
 itself, in a strange way. As I arrived at 
 Ecclefechan by the train from Dumfries 
 _ which reached there shortly after ten without 
 finding anyone else going there on the same 
 sad errand, I walked by the Common and 
 avoided the Main Street and so on to the 
 Kirkyard. 
 
 At the funeral there were few, even among 
 the goodly sprinkling of older men, whom I 
 
268 LETTESS OF CABLYLE 
 
 knew either by sight or by name, and who 
 were of the older generation. A number of 
 the younger ones I knew, or could guess the 
 names of, as people once around about Scots- 
 brig and Middlebie. One notable figure 
 called " Auld John Kennedy, the Post," was 
 pointed out to John Carlyle for some recog- 
 nition as having been at school with Uncle 
 James. A queer looking little man of small 
 bulk and stature, and with a pair of small 
 restless eyes which under the excitement of 
 the moment appeared as if they might loup 
 out of his head. I should think he must 
 have been on the borders of ninety years of 
 age by his appearance. The all absorbed 
 interest and the earnestness of the old man's 
 gaze into the proceedings as he held both his 
 withered hands clenched to the top of the 
 iron railings, was as impressive as it was wae 
 and touching to look upon. So goon as he 
 might — John Carlyle went to shake hands 
 with him, and I did so too. So soon as the 
 funeral was over I instantly took leave and 
 found a relief in walking from Ecclefechan 
 all the way to Lockerbie, rather than wait 
 about for hours for a suitable train. I 
 glanced at Main HiU in passing, but as there 
 is an addition in the ^hape of a new dwelling 
 
PRESERVATION OF CABLYLE'S HOUSE 269 
 
 house of red sandstone, and a couple o£ 
 stories high, I was not certain about its iden- 
 tity at first, until I had it confirmed by after 
 inquiry. 
 
 I hope you have been in as fair health as 
 you could wish and I could sincerely wish, 
 who have often thought of you and yours, 
 to aU of whom please oflfer my loving wishes. 
 All here are well and would wish to send 
 their love also. Ever affectionately, 
 
 J. C. AlTKEN. 
 
 I give here the conclusion of Mr. Reginald 
 Blunt's account of the movement to preserve 
 Carlyle's house : — 
 
 " The canvass was pushed vigorously for- 
 ward from the beginning of 1895. Circulars 
 and letters were widely distributed, the assist- 
 ance of libraries throughout the country was 
 invoked, and, by the invitation of the Lord. 
 Mayor, a crowded meeting was held at the 
 Mansion House at the end of February, and 
 addressed by Lord Ripon, the United States 
 Ambassador, Mr. Leonard Courtney, Mr. 
 Leslie Stephen, and Mr. Crockett. Funds 
 came in slowly, but steadily ; auxiliary com- 
 mittees were fojmed in New York and in 
 Glasgow, and over £400 was remitted from 
 
270 IMTTMBS OF CABITLE 
 
 America. By the end of April about £2000 
 had been collected, sufficient to complete the 
 purchase, pay the expenses of the fund, and 
 carry out part of the essential repairs- The 
 freehold of the house was accordingly bought 
 in May, and, after a careful survey of its 
 actual condition, the necessary works were 
 put in hand at the end of the month, and 
 completed in June. 
 
 " The end of the season in London, and 
 the occurrence of a General Election in July, 
 rendered the arrangement of any opening 
 ceremony impossible, and the House was 
 therefore opened informally at the end of 
 July, and was visited by over a thousand per- 
 sons, from all parts of the world, during the 
 next six weeka.'* 
 
 In December, 1897, at th© age of eighty- 
 four, died Janet Carlyle Hanning, the last 
 surviving Carlyle of her generation., As the 
 reader has seen, many of the foregoing let- 
 ters were addressed to her. Those which 
 had passed between other members of the 
 family, and were afterward either carried by 
 her beyond seas or sent to her in Canada, 
 were preserved by Mrs. Handling as precious 
 memorials, of family affection. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 AiTKEif, Jean Carlyle, letter to, 
 
 190. 
 
 Aitken, John Carlyle, letters of, 
 to Mrs. Hanning, 256, 266. 
 
 Aitken, Mary Carlyle, Carlyle's 
 amanuensis, 238 ; letter to Mrs. 
 Banning, 243 ; married to Alex- 
 ander Carlyle, 253. See, also, 
 Mrs. Alexander Carlyle. 
 
 Annandale, Carlyle's fondness for, 
 26, 202 ; funeral scene at, 258. 
 
 Ashburton, Lady, 220 ; generosity 
 of, 229. 
 
 Austin, Mrs. James, letter to, 169. 
 
 Bield, 204, 249. 
 
 Blunt, Eeginald, The Carlyles' 
 
 Chelsea Home, 213. 
 Boehm, his statue of Carlyle, 2B1. 
 BuUers, the, 86 ; Carlyle's visits to, 
 
 102, 133. 
 
 Carlyle, Alexander, birth of, 39; 
 proposed emigration of, 80 j at 
 Ecclefechan, 88; in America, 
 163 ; letter to, 201 ; death of, 250 ; 
 Carlyle's lament on, 250. 
 
 Carlyle, James, birth of, 39; 
 " Maister Cairlill," 43 ; his farm, 
 81, 82 ; in old age, 245 ; death of, 
 266 ; burial of, 267. 
 
 Carlyle, Jane Welsh, wit of, 25, 51, 
 100, 108 ; her marriage with Car- 
 lyle, 43 ; ill-health of, 78, 97, 178, 
 223; letter from, to Mrs. Han- 
 ning, 196 ; her view of marital 
 duty, 197 ; accident to, 231 ; death 
 of, 234 ; burial-place of, 234 ; Car- 
 lyle's memory of her music, 235. 
 
 Carlyle, Janet, birth of, 39; mar- 
 riage of, to Bobert Hanning, 37 ; 
 
 housekeeping skill of, 40 ; help- 
 fulness of; 41 ; letter to, 43. See, 
 also, Hanning, Janet Carlyle. 
 
 Carlyle, Jean, birth of, 39 ; home at 
 Bnmfries, 83. See, also, Aitken, 
 Jean Carlyle. 
 
 Carlyle, John, birth of, 39; physi- 
 cian to Lady Clare, 62, 57; in 
 Eome, 69, 78, 82 ; in London, 122, 
 124; letter to, 172; translation 
 of Dante, 182 ; later life of, 219, 
 240 ; letters to, 172, 261 ; family 
 of, 219 ; death of, 253. 
 
 Carlyle, John Aitken, letter from, 
 to Mrs. Hanning, 198. 
 
 Carlyle, Margaret A., her love for 
 her children, 27, 29; death of, 
 31, 210; letters from, to Mrs. 
 Hanning, 63, 75, 93, 147 ; to Car- 
 lyle, 146 ; her religious feeling, 
 65, 75, 93 ; letters to, 102, 112, 118, 
 124, 127, 132, 148, 1B4, 1B6, 160, 162, 
 177, 180, 182, 185; difficulty at 
 writing, 146 ; fondness for books, 
 203; birth of, 217; portrait of, 
 
 217. 
 
 Carlyle, Mrs. Alexander, letters 
 from, to Mrs. Hanning, 254, 259. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, his melancholy, 
 6, 53, 60, 99, 195 ; humor, 9 ; dis- 
 likes, 10 ; likes, 12 ; mysticism, 
 16; religious faith, 16, 31, 44, 
 164, 211, 239 ; opinion of the lit- 
 erary world, 18 ; pension ofEered, 
 18 ; habit of scorn, 19 ; realism 
 of, 20; portraits of places, 21, 
 29, 49, 133 ; portraits of persons, 
 23, 24, 86, 93, 99 ; Style, 25 ; burial- 
 place, 32 ; birth of, 42 ; attends 
 Edinburgh University, 42 ; mar- 
 riage, 43; letters from, to Mrs. 
 
274 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hanning, 43, 52, 61, 66, 77, 87, 96, 
 105, 109, 115, 129, 150, 175, 187, 192, 
 206, 210, 217, 220, 223, 226, 229, 232, 
 236, 238, 242, 248 ; to his mother, 
 102, 112, 118, 124, 127, 132, 148, 154, 
 156, 160, 162, 177, 180, 182, 185; to 
 Edward Fitzgerald, 143 ; to Mrs. 
 Austin, 169; to John Carlyle, 
 172, 251 ; to Mrs. Aitlcen, 190 ; to 
 Alexander Carlyle, 201 ; his life 
 in Edinburgh, 46 ; goes to Lon- 
 don, 48; poverty, 49, 103, 120, 
 123; delivers lectures, 74, 98; 
 his horses: Citoyenne, 94, lOO, 
 103; Black Duncan, 177, 178; 
 Fritz, 229, 230; Noggs, 229; 
 Comet, 238; visit to Manches- 
 ter, 95; work for London Li- 
 brary, 99 ; generosity, 104, 111, 
 131, 169, 180, 188, 192, 209, 221, 226, 
 226, 229, 232, 236, 238, 242, 248 ; 
 publishes lectures, 112, 113 ; de- 
 clines Chair of History at Edin- 
 burgh, 116; visits Cromwell's 
 country, 134; writes Past and 
 Present, 153; difficulty in get- 
 ting materials, 173; his pessi- 
 mism, 203, 207 ; work-room, 213 ; 
 elected Lord Kector of Edin- 
 burgh, 233; receives Prussian 
 Order of Merit, 247; refuses 
 Grand Cross of the Bath, 247; 
 letter to Dr. John Carlyle, 251 ; 
 his death, 255, 260; burial, 256, 
 268 ; memorial to, 269. 
 
 Chartism, success of, 98. 
 
 Cheyne Kow, Carlyle's home in, 
 49, 50 ; description of, 49. 
 
 Cook, Anne, 52. 
 
 Craigenputtock, scenery of, 8; 
 loneliness of, 46; quietness of, 
 49, 108; work done there, 72; 
 Mrs. Carlyle comes into posses- 
 sion of, 123; given to the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh, 264. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, lectures on, 98 ; 
 visit to home of, 134. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, Life of, begun, 
 105, 108; work upon, 120, 126, 
 160 ; finished, 179 ; new edition 
 of, 187. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 252. 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas, Carlyle's 
 
 portrait of, 24. 
 Diamond Necklace, The, 47, 72. 
 Dickens, Charles, his admiration 
 
 for French Bevolution,85; meets 
 
 Carlyle, 108 ; readings of, 228. 
 Diderot, memoirs of, 46. 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, offers Carlyle 
 
 pension and Grand Cross of the 
 
 Bath, 18, 247. 
 Divine Eight of Squires, The, 119. 
 Dumfries, Mrs. Banning at, 187, 
 
 192 ; Carlyle visits, 244, 259 ; Dr. 
 
 Carlyle there, 240. 
 
 Ecclefechan, birthplace of Car- 
 lyle, 42, 89, 246; burial-place of 
 Carlyle, 255, 258, 261. 
 
 Edinburgh, Carlyle attends Uni- 
 versity of, 42; Carlyle goes to 
 live at, 46; Carlyle decUnes 
 Chair of History, 116 ; Dr. Car- 
 lyle at, 228 ; Carlyle, Lord Eec- 
 tor of University of, 234. 
 
 Eisenach, Carlyle's description of, 
 30. 
 
 Emerson, Ealph Waldo, visit of, 
 to Mrs. Hanning, 39; visit to 
 Carlyle, 47 ; friendliness of, 52 ; 
 letter to, 53; last visit to Eng- 
 land, 242. 
 
 Erskine, Thomas, friendship of, 
 with Carlyle, 101, 105, 154, 187 j 
 death of, 238. 
 
 Fame, Carlyle's estimate of, lift 
 
 Fitzgerald, Edward, about Naseby 
 Field, 140. 
 
 Eraser's Magazine, Cagliostro ap- 
 pears in, 47; Sartor Eesartus 
 appears in, 50 ; Diamond Neck- 
 lace, The, appears in, 72. 
 
 Frederick the Great, preparation 
 for, 205, 215 ; toil upon, 221, 224, 
 227, 229 ; finished, 231. 
 
 French Eevolution, inception of, 
 46 ; work upon, 51, 53, 65 ; com- 
 pletion of, 66; reception of, in 
 France, 85 ; reception of, in Eng- 
 land, 85 ; reviews of, 86. 
 
INDEX 
 
 275 
 
 Froude, James Anthony, in error, 
 39, 4B, 77 ; friendship of, with Car- 
 lyle, 60, 252 ; reference of, to Jef- 
 frey, 156. 
 
 German Literature, Carlyle's lee- 
 tui'es on, 74. 
 
 Gill, the, described, 1G8. 
 
 Goethe, Johanu "Wolfgang, Car- 
 lyle's discipleship of, 45. 
 
 Haddington, Mrs. Carlyle's burial- 
 place at, 234, 246. 
 
 Hamilton, C. W., Mrs. Hanning 
 moves to, 199; Mrs. Hanning's 
 home, 225 ; Bank, 226, 232. 
 
 Hanning, Janet Carlyle, emigra- 
 tion of, to Canada, 38, 195, 196, 
 
 204; letters to, 52, 54, 61, 63, 66, 
 75, 77, 87, 93, 96, 105, 109, 115, 129, 
 147, 150, 176, 187, 192, 196, 198, 206, 
 210, 217, 220, 223, 226, 229, 232, 236, 
 238, 242, 243, 248, 254, 256, 269, 266 ; 
 residence of, at Manchester, 56, 
 95 ; residence of, at Kirtlebridge, 
 96; residence of, at Dumfries, 
 187, 192, 204; residence of, at 
 Hamilton, 199, 225 ; death of, 270. 
 See, also, Carlyle, Janet. 
 
 Hanning, Robert, character of, 38 ; 
 Carlyle's regard for, 55, 107 ; fa- 
 ther of, 90; his emigration to 
 America, 96, 117. 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, his assistance to 
 Carlyle, 49. 
 
 Influenza, Carlyle's account of, 
 70. 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis, bis refusal to 
 recommend Carlyle, 47; Car- 
 lyle's comment on, 158. 
 
 Journal, Carlyle's, extracts from, 
 60, 250. 
 
 Kirtlebridge, home of the Han- 
 
 nings at, 96. 
 Knox, John, 98. 
 
 Latter-Day Pamphlets, 195. 
 Library, London, the, Carlyle's 
 
 work for, 99 ; of the British Mu- 
 seum, the, 126, 174. 
 
 Llanblethian, 22. 
 
 London, Carlyle moves to, 48; 
 weather of. 111. 
 
 Mainhill, surroundings of, 262; 
 house of the Carlyles at, 263. 
 
 Manchester, Mrs. Hanning's resi- 
 dence at, 56 ; Carlyle's impres- 
 sions of, 95. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, 74; visit ol 
 Carlyle to, 115. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, Carlyle's friend- 
 ship with, 45 ; and the French 
 Bevolution, 51. 
 
 Mlllais, his portrait of Carlyle, 
 251. 
 
 Milnes, Eichard Monckton, visit 
 to, 114. 
 
 Mirabeau, Carlyle's Memoirs of, 
 60. 
 
 Mitchell, Helen, 117. 
 
 Naseby, Carlyle's description of, 
 29, 145 ; Edward Fitzgerald's ac- 
 count of, 139. 
 
 Neuberg, Mr., service to Carlyle, 
 
 206. 
 Newby, 115. 
 
 Oliphant, Mrs., sketch of Carlyle, 
 234. 
 
 Past and Present, 163. 
 Portraits of Carlyle, 162, 167, 206, 
 209, 261. 
 
 Queen, the, attempts on her life, 
 123 ; converses with Carlyle, 
 238. 
 
 Euskin, John, 228. 
 
 Sartor Eesartus, early failure of, 
 50; American edition of, 52 j 
 later success of, 113 ; inception 
 of, 263. 
 
 Scotsbrig, Carlyle's description of, 
 21, 168 ; visits to, 80, 191 ; another 
 accoimt of, 266. 
 
276 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Small, Betty, history of, 86 s help- 
 fulness of, 91. 
 
 Sterlings, tlie, 91. 
 
 Sterling, John, 50 ; regard of, for 
 Carlyle, 171 ; illness of, 174 ; Car- 
 lyle's life of, 197. 
 
 Templand, 123. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Carlyle's por- 
 trait of, 99. 
 
 TenfelsdrSckh, Carlyle's fondness 
 for, 113. 
 
 Thackeray, W. M., Carlyle's ac- 
 count of, 86. 
 Tobacco, Carlyle's fondness for, 
 
 114, 136, 138, 165, 168, 181, 186, 255 ; 
 
 Mrs. Margaret Carlyle's use of, 
 92. 
 Troston, Carlyle's visit there, 133, 
 148. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, Carlyle's por- 
 trait of, 23. 
 Welsh, Mrs., death of, 123. 
 
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