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1 2 3

•

THOMliS GARLYLE.

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I A Paper

liefc tie Liierary and Historical Socl

— BY

GEORGE STEWART, Jr.

[FIFTY COPIES.]

:«

Q U E B E (.' :

PKIJfTKP AT rilF. "moKMNO ( L'RONIiJI.k'' OFFICE.

1881.

>*3^fiwG9 ' • ' "i ; '».M.»».M.««««'>«'<» ^>v'<t'»/»v>«'y»'>.'>.M;>T.vi,' ."M' >i'^» t,i»i .m;»imi'' .<j^ {9iAi|i^ c^^w^

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THOMAS CARLYLE.

A Paper reail tefere tbe Literary aid Historical Society,

GEORGE STEWART, Jr.

[FIFTY COPIES.]

QUEBEC:

PRINTED AT THR "MORN'INO ("UROXU'Le" OFFlt.'E.

1881.

'?"«'.

isa:

^W^IIFE

Whose appreciation of the writings of Thomas Cablyle
is not less hearty than u,y own, and at whose suggestion
this lecture was prepared, these pages are affectionately
inscribed.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY, 25th MARCH, 1881,

BY —

GEORGE STEWART. Jr.

In these generous words, Thomas Carlyle summed up
his splendid estimate of Burns : " In pitying admiration,
he lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a i'ar nobler mauso-
leum than that one of marble ; neither will his Works, even
as they are, pass away from the memory of men. "While
the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers
through the country of Thought, bearing floets of trallickers
and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves ; this little
Valclusa Fountain will also arrest our eye ; For this also
is of Nature's own and most cunning workmanship, bursts
from the depths of the earth with a full gushing current,
into the light of day ; and often will the traveller turn
aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks
and pines." And now it is Thomas Carlyle himself who
has passed away, and to him and to his great career in the
mighty world of thought, tho^e burning words of his may
fittingly be applied. They do not expj-ess all that one
might say of him. They do not quite reveal the greatness
of his own character, the splendour of his mind, or the
magnificent grasp of his intellect, but they furnish an esti-
mate which we can all accept, even if they do not go to

~S-

the length we would wish. After a lingeTing illness of
many weeks' duration, the grand old man breathed his
last on Saturday morning, the 5th of February, in the little
room in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, where so many years of his
life had been spent. Up to within a few days of his
dissolution he had been able to recognize his friends, and
in some instances he had conversed with them, but as the
fatal moment drew nigh, he became unconscious, and in a
sort of peaceful sleep his life went out, and the groat heart
of English literature ceased to beat forever. The groat heart
of English literature I may say, for in the death of Thomas
Carlyle, we lose one who upheld its brightest star for sixty
years, and whose name will forever be classed as the lead-
ing prose writer of his time. He is linked closely with the
splendid achievements in letters which have been made
by the authors who have enriched the intellectual activity
of the nineteenth century. In history he has surpassed
many of them, in criticism he has had no superior, and in
miscellaneous essay writing, he has distanced all his con-
temporaries. A century hence and Carlyle's master-work
will be even more highly appreciated than it is now,
influential and vigorous as it is considered to-day by
thinkers and critics. It is cast into a certain mould which
must ensure it long life, it has a tendency to grow into
men's minds, it is composed of that stern, unyielding stuff
which leads and controls thought, and never gives way.
"What would appear to be dogmatisms in some writers, are
only zeal and earnestness and enthusiasm in Carlyle. He
must remain, for many years to come, the typical writer of
his age, the robust thinker and strong mind of a day which
gave him as companion authors, such brilliant men and
women as George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Herbert Spencer,
Emerson, Lewes, Clifford, Huxley, Darwin, Shairp and the
Dean of St. Paul's. One might compare him, almost, to
that pious Pagan Plato, of whom traces may be seen in
many chapters of his writings, though the German element

— 8

[e
f

as represented by Oootht' airl Schillor and Fichte, has
exerted a still more prolbiinJ inlluiMK'e on his thought and
morality. Indeed, it is the strong meat of German meta-
physics that early entered into the blood of Carlyle, which
always prevented him from apprecialing the light touch
and spirituelle manner of thought possessed by the French
writers, and notably by Voltaire, whom our grim JScotch
hero heartily despised, and sneered at. He never could
bring his mind down to that light and airy touch which
we all admire so much in the better class of French letters,
and which is always charming and full of ^wo/z/and grace.
He thought that for the most part, French authors were
frivolous and careless, too gay indeed for solid work, and
he saw, or professed to see, nothing in their literature that
he could approve or praise. He was wont to deal with
the French character in literature, as if he thought it were
a sham, and not worthy of his time or attention. We know
how sadly astray Carlyle has been in his estimate of the
author of Candide, but M. Henri Taine, the other day made
as serious a mistake in the estimate which he formed of
Carlyle's work, and which he described in that best of his
books, the History of English Literature, as "magnificence
and mud." The " magnificence," we will grant, but never
the " mud." Taine does not understand the rugged phil-
osopher, whose intense G-ermanism no Frenchman, in any
case, would care to applaud, and without his Germanism
Carlyle's strongest force would lose its impressiveness and
power — tremendous adjuncts both of them to his vitality
and heartiness as a thinker and *' writer of books." Our
French critic, whose estimates of English letters, f»^e gener-
ally so apt and clear and skilful, and whose knowledge of
our literature is, after all, so thorough and wonderful, con-
fesses that he read Carlyle with very strange emotions,
and that he contradicted every morning, the opinion w^hich
he had formed of his work the night before. He calls this
nineteenth century prophet of ours, an " extraordinary

— 4 —

animal, a relic of a lost family, a sort of mastodon, lost in a
world not made for him." The History of the French
Revolution, which in perfect good faith he tries very hard
to understand, he calls a " delirium," — a meaningless and
Buperlicial criticism to say the least. But while Carlyle
has made some wrong conclusions in what he has said
about some French writers, he has made no mistakes in his
portraitures of the men who made the French Revolution
possible. His history of that wonderful and bloody epoch
in European civilization, stands to-day as one of the most
able contributions to historical literature ever written, and
beside which the work of Michelet, of Thiers, of Louis
Blanc, of Lamartine and even of Edmund Burke, occupies
scarcely a second place. The world will long continue to
take its impressions of that gory revolution from the pages
of Thomas Carlyle, and his fearful painting of the horrors
of the Bastile, which is full of intense dramatic power, and
rich warm coloring, his story of the struggles and triumphs
of the male and female actors, and his sketches of Robes-
pierre, of Marat, "whose bleared soul looks forth through
his bleared, dull-acrid, woe-strickeu face," ot Mirabeau,
whom he eulogizes, of Danton and the rest of them, are all
types of character which his pencil has made indelible for
all time to come. The book is a panorama of a great
national ev^ent in history, and it will always remain as an
enduring monument to his genius and skill as an historian
of the broad and philosophical school of historical writing.
Curtis called it " a vast and splendid phantasmagoria, — a
prodigious picture which burned into the memory of the
reader, and left a singularly clear and accurate conception
of the character, the movement, and the scope of that
great event." And Landor, who seldom gave way to im-
pulse, hailed it as the best book published in his time, and
prophesied a brilliant future for the author, — a prophecy
which the world has since seen fulfilled.

6 —

His Frederic the Great is another masterpiece of the age,
and a work which exhibits Carlyle in one of his greater
moods, and in which his genius has fall scope and play.
The portrait of the great commander stands out in relief as
the grandest hero of his time, the most perfect type of the
king and the general and the conqueror of nations. In
Carlyle's hands the character grows in stature, and though
some have refused to take his estimate of Frederic, on ac-
count of the excessive warmth of the coloring, and because
the warrior is so universally bepraised and glorified, still
the portrait must stand as a finished work, and as the great-
ness of the man becomes better known, and the brutality
of his nature, and the littlenesses which now and then
clouded the general splendour of his character as a whole,
are considered on their merits, his biographer's portraiture
will be found not so untruthfully drawn as some may to-
day suppose. With all his faults Frederic must ever re-
main a prominent figure in history, and in describing him
and the wars in which he engaged, the age in which he
lived, should not be forgotten. Ho must be considered by
his lights, and the influence of his sarroundings must not
be misunderstood or unappreciated. Carlyle never forgot
time, in his descriptions of men and of events. Great events
and great men call for great historians, and in Carlyle, the
world found a great historian and teacher. His account
of the battle of Leuthen has never been surpassed in
the way of impassioned descriptive writing, and this is
gaying a great deal when we remember what Macaulay did
in his story of Marlborough's campaign, what Napier ac-
complished with his Peninsular war history, what Motley
did in his "Netherlands," what Kinglake did in his "Invasion
of the Crimea," and so on through the long list of worthy
books descriptive of military achievement and daring. The
wonderful skill of his grouping, the brilliancy of the pigments
employed, and the masterly management of the whole mar-
vellous scene, impress every reader of the Leuthen fight in

a manner which cannot be forgotten. It must rank with
Carlyle's best work.

But splendid as these writing's are, the world will be
content to have his fame rest on the Miscellaneous Essays,
and the brilliant characterization of Oliver Cromwell — a
great work, and the first of the true portraits which have
been made of the Protector. Before Carlyle's time, Crom-
well was but imperfectly und(3rstood. None of the writers
of the day seemed capable of grasping the subject in its
entirety. The founder of the Commonwealth was a man
to be despised and belittled. The grandeur and nobility,
and greatness of the Conqueror were unknown, until
Thomas Carlyle wrote his book and revealed the man
Cromwell in the full light of his greatness. The historian's
mother early formed his impressions concerning her
stalwart hero, and years after, those lessons learned at
her knee, found expression in the masterpiece which
he gave to the world in 1845. The Cromwell, whom we
regard to-day as a great type of character, as a giant among
men, in morality, in generalship, and in statesmanship, is
the Cromwell as described by Thomas Carlyle, and he has
helped us to an estimate which none of us had fashioned
before his time. In biographical writing we can find little
to equal this great portrait of a manly man and leader of
men.

But while these things may, in all fairness, be said of
Cromwell, and of the grand stand which he made for the
enduring principles of freedom and of liberty, it would be
manifestly unfair, in the interests of truth and of justice,
for me not to record in this place, and at this time, my
utter horror and detestation of the fiend-like course which
the great soldier thought fit to pursue in Ireland. He
went through that country like a devastating demon,
slaughtering the people on every side, and parcelling out
the lands among his unpaid followers. The Cromwellian
settlement is one of the black and dire pages of Irish his-

— 7

tory, and while we say generous things of CromweU's
greatness, we should not forget that he has done nothing to
earn the gratitude or esteem of Irishmen, and thathumankind
generally, must forever condemn unsparingly, his Irish
Conquest, when the grandeur of the man was for the time
submerged in the mere butcher and pillager. Carlyle
softens down some of the atrocities perpetrated, and doubt-
less many of the stories circulated at the time, and since
those bloody days, are to an extent exaggerated, but
enough was done by Cromwell's orders to justify the exe-
cration in which his name is held even in our time, by
many right-thinking per.sons. But let us speak now more
particularly of the man whose name has been sufficient to
induce you to assemble here to-night, and in whose life, I
believe many of you take a deep and warm interest.

Carlyle himself has had a career, of which literary his-
tory contains few prototypes. He has earned the proud po-
sition in letters, and in the thoughtful activity of the day,
which he occupied at the time of his death, by his own
honest endeavours. He was born on the fourth of December,
1795, in the neighborhood of Ecclefechan, a charming little
village in Annandale, Dumfriesshire. His father James
Carhde was at first, a stone-mason and afterwards a well
to-do farmer, and his mother was a woman of high activity
and much originality of mind. Both his parents were ed-
ucated far beyond the common for persons in their station
of life. His mother particularly was a most extraordinary
woman, and Thomas inherited much of her ability and force
of character. In his youthhood he was accustomed to hear
frequent discussions on abstruse theological questions be-
tween his i)arents, and he early imbibed a taste for the
branchof thought which tiiese talks suggested. He describes
his father as "quite the remarkablest man whom he had ever
known." He had great energy, a strong will and good
natural abilities. His short, pithy and sharp sayings — often
pungent and keen — were known the country round, and

8 —

many of his peculiarities of mind, afterwards found expres-
sion in the -writings of the philosopher, who seems to have
directly inherited them from his father. His favorite
books were the Bible and an old Puritan Divine which
he read often and with much affection, Mrs. Carlyle, as
has been remarked before, had peculiar ideas on Cromwell,
and young Thomas was not long in drawing her into con-
versation with him on the subject. Her wide reading and
extensive range of thought, influenced greatly his opinions
and completely formed the impressions, which in after years
found vent in his book on the Letters and Life of the Lord
Protector, The conversation at Carlyle's home was phil-
osophic and deep, and Thomas being the elder of the
somewhat large family, in commoi with a custom which
prevails in some parts of Scotland, it was decided that he,
as the elder son, should study for the ministry of the
Presbyterian Church, With this end in view he set about
his studies with great vigor. As a child he evinced extra-
ordinary aptitude, and in one night, it is said, he mastered
the alphabet while sitting at his mother's foet. Mrs. Car-
lyle was as good a talker in her day, as Margaret Fuller
became later on, and she attended to the elementary edu-
cation of her son herself. She as well as her husband,
was deeply religious, and both were exceedingly desirous
of having the first fruit of their marriage, become a minis-
ter of their chosen church. At the age of seven Thomas
Carlyle entered the parish ^ol at Ecclofechan, and after
some years had passed, he ,, ^at for a time to an advanced
public school at Annan. In his fifteenth year, he entered
the University of Edinl argh, where he met as a class-mate
the brilliant but erratis Edward Irving, who in after years
exerted considerable influence on his mind. An intimacy
at once sprang up between these two young men, and the
nervous force of Irving acted as a foil for the hard thought-
fulness of his friend. Both had much in common, and
both loved each other very dearly, even after Irving's

— 9

career became blighted and old friends had forsaken him,
Carlylp never forgot the brave soul, the "best man 1 have
ever found in this world," as he called him in those lattor
days of his friend's decline. Ho has left us these notes of
his old schoolfellow, in a batch of reminiscences, which are
full of tenderness and kindly regard. " The memory of
Irving," he says, " is still clear and vivid with me in all
points : that of his first and only visit to us in this house, in this-
room, just before leaving for Glasgow (October, 1834), which
was the last we saw of him, is still fresh as if it had been
yesterday, and he has a solemn, massive, sad, even pitiable,
though not much blamable, or in heart even blaraable, and
to me alw^ays dear and most friendly aspect, in those vacant
kingdoms of the past. He was scornfully forgotten at the
time of his death, having, indeed, sunk a good while before
out of the notice of the more intelligent classes. There
has since been -^nd now is, in the new theological genera-
tion, a kind ivival of him, on rather weak and question-
able terms, sentimental mainly, and grounded on no really
correct knowledge or insight, which, however, seems to
bespeak some continuance of by-gone remembrances for
a good w^hile yet, by that class of people and the many
that hang by them." Thus, he speaks of the famous preach-
er, who loved to walk with his face tow^ards the sky, his big
broad hat in his hand, and "his fleece of copious coal black
hair flowing in the w^ind." But we must return to
Carlyle. At this time mathematics formed his principal
study though he by no means neglected the other branches.
and his reading took a wide and miscellaneous turn. He
used to take for exercise long walks and strolls over the
hills and moors, and it w^as while engaged in one of those
pedestrian tours, one day, that he reviewed mentally his
past and present life, and began to think of the yet unfold-
ed future. He doubted his fitness for the career which had
been proposed to him before he had entered upon college
life. His severe studies had injured his digestion, and the

— 10

! ,i

pains of dyspepsia did not add much in the way of assisting
him to decide as to his futare course. Of his mental and
physical condition at this i^eriod of his existence, he
"writes : — " I had been destined by my father and my
father's minister to be myself a minister of the Kirk of
Scotland. But now that I had gained man's estate, I was
not sure that I believed the doctrines of my father's Kirk,
and it was needful that I should now settle it. And so
1 entered my chamber and closed the door, and round
me there came a trooping throng of phantasms dire from the
abysmal depth of nethermost perdition. Doubt, fear, un-
belief, mockery and scoffing were there, and I wrestled
with them in agony of spirit. Thus it was for weeks.
Whether I ate I know not ; whether I drank I know not ;
whether I slept I know not. But I know that when I
came forth again it was with the direful persuasion that I
was the miserable owner of a diabolical arrangement
called a stomach." After this discovery he took a vacation,
and with Irving opened a small school at Kirkcaldy, his
department being mathematics. But teaching school was
too irksome an occupation for a soaring soul such as his,
and he soon resigned his position and returned to Edin-
burgh, where he busied himself in writing a series of six-
teen articles for the "Edinburgh Encyclopcedia," then being
edited by Sir David Brewster. His companion-writers on
this work were Thomas Campbell, the poet, John Gibson
Lockhart, the son-in-law and biographer of Scott, James
Grrahame, Dionysius Lardner, Dr. Thomas Chalmers,
Robert Stevenson and other men of good reputation.
Carlyle's papers were on Lady Mary Wortley Montague,
Montaigne, Montesquieu, Montfaucon, Dr. John Moore, Sir
John Moore, Necker, the father of Madame de Stael, and
the most brilliant financier who ever administered the
affairs of France, Nelson, Netherlands, New Foundland,
Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberlandshire, Mungo
park, Lord Chatham and William Pitt. This work con-

— 11—

eluded, he went for a tour on the continent, and ultimately
found himself in Germany at an age when the mind is
most impressionable. He studied the German language
and literature with all the earnestness, of which he was
capable, and soon mastered the idioms and pronunciation
of the tongue. He went the whole round of Gorman liter-
ature and scholarship, and his meeting with Goethe,
which was mutually agreeable to both, gave him a supreme
idea of Germany's superiority in letters and in thought,
over any other country in the world, save perhaps, his
own. A. life-long intimacy grew up between theso two
great thinkers, and Carlylc's mind became thoroughly
imbued with the teachings of his friend. He returned
home, and published a translation which he had made of
Legendre's Geometry, with a chapter of his own on
" Proportion," of which he w^as very proud. The work
appeared under the editorship of Sir David Brewster. It
scarcely paid him, howev(;r, in a pecuniary way, though it
certainly added at the time to his reputation as a mathema-
tician and scholar. He is next heard of as private tutor to
Charles Buller, who was then seventeen years of age. Thi^
was the Charles Buller who afterwards became famous as
a w^riter and member of Parliament, and -whose death in
18 18 drew from his old teacher a touching obituary in the
Examiner. Carlyle gave up his tutorship at the expiration
of the second year, and settled in Edinburgh as a man of
letters.

The life of Schiller was his first strong book. It was
published serially in the London Maf^azine in 1820-4, and
occupied some half-a-dozeii numbers or so. A year later
it appeared in book-form considerably enlarged. About
this time Carlyle's translation of Goethe's "Wilhelm Meis-
ter's Apprenticeship" appeared, and it at once established
his fame as a translator and editor of the German language.
Though some of the great Reviews found fault with what
they regarded as its "inelegance," the public approved of it,

> I'

— 12--

and its readers wore soon numbered by hundreds. Car-
lyle cared little for public opinion, or even for the dicta of
the critics.

De Quincey attacked "Wilhelm Meister" very violently
in a famous review in Blackwood's Magazine, which attract-
ed considerable attention at the time. It did not discomfit
Carlyle much however, if we may judge from the account
which he gives us of the circumstance. "Jemmy Belcher,"
he says, "was a smirking Jittle dumpy Unitarian bookseller,
in the Bull Ring, regarded as a kind of curiosity and favor-
ite among these people, and had seen me. One showery
day I took shelter in his shop ; picked up a new magazine,
found in it a cleverish and completely hostile criticism of
my "Wilhelm Meister," of my Goethe, and self, &c., read it
faithfully to the end, and have never set eye on it since.
On stepping out of my bad spirits did not feel much elevat-
ed by the dose just swallowed, but I thought with myself,
This man is perhaps right on some points ; if so, let him be
admonitory ! And he was so on a Scotticism, (or perhaps
two) ; and I did reasonably soon (in not above a couple of
hours) dismiss him to the devil, or to Jericho, as an illgiven,
unserviceable kind of entity in my course through this
world. It was DeQuincey as I often enough heard after-
wards from foolish-talking persons. What matter who, ye
foolish-talking persons, would have been my silent answer,
as it generally pretty much was. I recollect how, in Edin-
burgh, poor DeQuincey, whom I wished to know, was re-
ported to tremble at the thought of such a thing, and did
fly, pale as ashes, poor little soul, the first time we actually
met. He was a pretty little creature, full of wire-drawn
ingenuity, bankrupt enthusiasm, bankrupt pride with the
finest silver-toned low voice, and most elaborate gently
winding courtesies and ingenuities in conversation. What
wouldn'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 iu the

— 18 —

end 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 sate, you . would
have taken him by candle-light, for the beautitulest little
child, — blue-eyed, sparkling face, had there not been a
something too, which said, 'Eccovi — this child has been iu
hell.'

Carlyle allowed his book to take care of itself while he
looked about for a wife. He found her iu 1826, and she
proved to be the witty and clever daughter of Dr. Welsh,
of Haddington, and a lineal descendant of sturdy John
Knox. She was a lady of high intelligence and culture.
Dickens often spoke of her sweet and noble nature, and
John Forster, his biographer, once wrote these kindly words
about her : — " "With the highest gifts of intellect, and the
charm of a most varied knowledge of men and things,
there was something bevond. No one who knew Mrs.
Carlyle could replace her loss when she passed away."
She was the subject of a little poem w^hich some of you
may remember, for Guernsey has told the story of Leigh
Hunt and "Jenny Kissed me," to very many readers. One
day, this w^riter says, Hunt rushed into the home of the
Carlyles in his impatient and impetuous way, bearing glad
tidings of some rare good fortune which had just happened
to them, when Mrs. Carlyle — the " Jenny " of the screed,
sprang from her chair, threw her arms about the astonished
and bewildered poet's neck, and gave him a resounding
congratulatory smack. This was the result :

*• Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping fjom the chair she sat iu :

Time, you thief ! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad ;
Say that health and wealth have misjed me ;

Say I'm growing old, but add —
Jenny kissed me."

I (

— 14 —

Mary Jane Welsh became a most exemplary wife, and
having a small estate of her own at Craigenputtock,
she and her husband forsook Edinburgh for this cosy retreat
in the wilds of Dumfriesshire. They lived here very hap-
pily for six years, and it was at this place that Oarlyle
received Kalph "Waldo Emerson, after the famous Tvans-
cendentalist had resigned his charge in Boston. The
interview between these two masters in thought and
morals was very impressive. Emerson describes the phil-
osopher as a tall gaunt man with " clifF-like brow," and
self-possessed, and he found him " nourishing his mighty
heart," in this quiet home.

Of his model wife and of this moorland retreat, Carlyle
himself says : —

"Perfection of housekeeping waa her clear and speedy attaininent in that
new scene. Strange how slie made the desert Ijlossoni for lierself and me
there ; what a fairy palace she had made of that wild moorland home of the
poor man ! In my life I have seen no human intelligence tliat so genuinely
pei'vaded every fibre of the human existence it belonged to. From the baking
of a loaf or the darning of a stocking up to comporting herself in the highest
scenes and most intricate emergencies, all was insight, veracitj', graceful suc-
cess (if you could judge it), fidelity to insight of the fact given

Beautiful queenlike woman, I did admire her complete perfection on this head
of the actual 'dowry' she had now (1842) brought, £200 yearly or so, which to
us was a highly considerable sum, and how she absolutely ignored it, and as it
were had not done it at all. Once or so I can dimly remember telling her a,a
much (thank God I did so), to which she answered scarcely by a look, jind cer-
tainly without word, except, perhaps, ' Tut !' "

And in his well-known and oft-quoted letter to Goethe
he says again of this little home which his well-beloved
wife, so beautified and glorified : — " Our residence is not
in the town itself, but fifteen miles to the North-West of it,
among the gaunt hills and black morasses which stretch
west-ward through Galloway to the Irish Sea. In this
wilderness of heath and bog, our estate stands forth as a
green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly enclosed and planted
ground, where corn ripens and trees afford a shade, al-
though surrounded by sea-mews and rough woolled sheep.

— 16 —

Here, with no small effort, have we built and furnished a
neat, substantial dwelling. Here, in the absence of a pro-
fessional or other office, we live to cultivate literature
according to our strength, and in our own peculiar way.
"We wish a joyful growth to the roses and flowers of our
garden ; we hope for health and peaceful thoughts to fur-
ther our aims. The roses, indeed, are still in part to be
planted, but they blossom already in anticipation. Two
ponies, which carry us everywhere, and the mountain air
are the best medicine for weak nerves. This daily exercise,
to which I am much devoted, is my only recreation, for
this nook of ours is the loneliest in Britain — six miles
removed from any one likely to visit me."

In 1827 Carlyle appeared again in type, as the translator
of a number of bright stories from Tieck, Hoffman, Jean
Paul Richter and others. Besides magazine and review
writing, our author also finished while at Craigenputtock,
his f\\mous "Sartor Resartus" — the Patched Tailor — one of
the cheerfullest and most humorous of all his books. It
failed to find a publisher, however, and it went the rounds
of some half dozen or so of the book-makers, John Murray
oddly enough, among the rest. Fraser's Magazine accepted
it at last, and it was published serially. In America it had
a better fate. Alexander Everett, the editor of the North
American Revievj, was much impressed by its genius, as
he read it in the numbers of Fraser, which came over the
sea, and he put it into book-form on its completion. It be-
came a great success, and the speculations of Herr Teufels-
drockh remain to-day one of the cleverest bits of satire
known to readers of that class of literature. This book
gave Carlyle a fine reputation with the American people,
and he was soon flooded with invitations to visit the Uni-
ted States, which, however, his engagements at home never
permitted him to accept. His next great book was the
French Revolution. After he had completed the first vol-
ume, Mr. John Stuart Mill borrowed it, in maWuscript, to

— 16 —

read. Through- unexampled carelessness on the part of the
eminent Political Economist, the precious sheets were left
in such an exposed situation, that Mr. Mill's cook, thinking
them of little use, turned the papers to account in baking
some cakes, partly as lining for the cake-tins and partly as
fuel. When this was discovered the unfortunate Mill be-
came wild with excitement and terror ; there was no help
for it, however, and he sought his friend and told hira the
story. Carlyle says of this interview : —

"How well do I still remember that night vvhea ho oaino to tell us, pale as
Hector's ghost, that my unfortunate first volunin was burnt. lb was like lialf
sentence of death to us both, and wc had to prctoud to take it lightly, ho dis-
mal and ghastly was his horror at it, and try to talk of other matters. He
stayed three mortal hours or so ; his departure quite a relief to us. Oh, the
burst of sympathy my poor darling then gave nie, flinging her arms around my
neck, and openly lamenting, condoling, and encouraging like a nobler
BOcond self ! Under heaven is nothing beautifulcr. Wc sat talking till late ;
'shall be written again,' my fixed word and resolution to her. Which proved
to be such a task iis 1 never tried before or .since. J wrote out 'Feast of Pikes"
(vol. II. ), and then went fairly at it. Found it fairly impossible for about a
fortnight ; pa.ssed three weeks (reading Manyatt's novels), tried, cautious-cau-
tiously, as on ice paper-thin, once more ; and, in short, had a job mor« like
breaking my heart than any other in my experie-ijce. Jenny, alone of beings,
burnt like a steady lamp beside me. I forget how much of money we still had.
[ think there was at first something like JtSOO, poihaps £280, to front London
with. Nor can I in the least I'cuiumber where we had gathered such a sum,
except that it was our own, no part of it borrowed or yivea us by anybody.
'Fit to last till " French llevolution" is ready !' and ahe had no misgivings at
all. Mill was penitently liberal; scut nie £"^00 (in a day or two), of which I
kept £100 (actual eost of house while I had written burnt volume) ; upon
which he bought me 'Biographic Universclle,' which I got boititd, and still have.
Wish I could find a way of getting the now much macerated, changed and fan-
atieized, 'John Stuart Mill' to take that £100 back ; but I fear there is no
way."

The work was published in three large volumes in 1837
complete, and Carlyle was never known to lend a manus-
cript again under any circumstances. In this same year he
appeared as a lecturer on German literature in "Willis'
rooms, London, and though his appearance on the platform
was ungainly and uncouth, the subject-matter of his paper
disarmed ^ personal criticism, and the audience were de-

— 17 —

lighted and charmed with every word which fell from the
brilliant writer's lips. His eloquence was simple and
earnest.

" Heroes and Hero-Worship" followed in course, and was
succeeded in 1839 by a small book on " Chartism," which
attracted a good deal of attention. In 1843 "Past and
Present " came out. It is a book of admirable essays, show-
ing Carlyle's habits of thought to great advantage, and
dealing with a variety of subjects in a homely, practical
way. Oliver Cromwell's " Letters and Speeches" were
given to the world in 1845, and five years later the Latter
Day Pamphlets wero printed. These essays aroused a good
deal of indignation among the anti-slavery agitators, and
John Qt. "Whittier, the gentle Quaker poet of New lilngland,
wrote a very caustic article against Carlyle for the stand he
had taken on the slavery question. The little book deals
altogether with social topics, and does not always show
Carlyle at his best. The Life of John Sterling — a line piece
of biographical writing — was given to the public in 1851,
and in 1864 the concluding volume of The Ilistory of Fred-
eric the Great, w^hich was begun in 1858, was published.

In 1865, the students of the University of Edinburgh
elected Mr. Carlyle Lord Rector over Mr. Disraeli. After
being installed in his office, he remained in the Scot-
tish capital for more than a fortnight. In the midst of the
enjoyment of his honors, he received a blow, which had a
. distressing influence on his life ever afterwards. News of
his wife's death reached him, and crazed almost to distrac-
tion, he hastened home to find the partner of his life for
forty years, beyond hope of recall. Her death had occurred
tinder most painful and shocking circumstances, on the
afternoon of the 21st of April.

She had been out driving, as was her custom, on fine
days, in Hyde Park. A little spaniel, for which she had
much affection and to which she was greatly attached, was
running by the side of the carriage, when suddenly the

— 18 —

wheel passed over it. The dog uttered a shrill, piercing
cry, but, curiously enough, was not at all hurt. The
brougham was stopped, and the spaniel placed on the seat
by the side of its mistress. The driver drove about for an
hour or so, and receiving, at the expiration of that time, no
directions from his mistress, he turned to her for instructions
as to what course he should take next. To his horror he
found her pale and speechless. He drove at once to St.
Q-eorge's Hospital, which was near at hand. She was
quite dead, however, before she reached it, deLth having
been, probably, instantaneous, and the result of heart
disease, accelerated by the excitemenL caused by the
accident to the spaniel. "Word was sent at once to her
husband, and the message broke his heart. "Ah," said
the old man in the very midst of his Edinburgh triumphs
" the light of my life has clean gone out." In his diary,
he wrote down these words : —

"She lived nineteen days after that Edinburgh Monday; on the nineteenth
(April 21, 1866, between 3 and 4 p. m., an near as I can gather and sift),
suddenly, as by a thunderbolt from skies all blue, she was snatched from me ;
a 'death from the gods,' the old Romans would have called it, — the kind of
death she many a time expressed a wish for ; and in all my life (and as I feel
ever since) there fell on me no misfortune like it ; which has smitten my whole
world into universal wreck (unless I can repair it in some small measure), and
extinguish whatever light of cheerfulness and loving hopefulness life still had in
it to me.

"0 my dear one, sad is my soul for the loss of thee, and will to the end be as
I compute. Lonelier creature there is not henceforth in this world ; neither
person, work, nor thing going on in it that is of any value in comparison, or even
at all. Death I feel almost daily in express fact, death is the one haven ; and
have occasionally a kind of kingship, sorrowful, but sublime, almost god-like, in
the feeling that that is nigh. Sometimes the image of her, gone in her car of
victory fin that beautiful death), and as if nodding to me, with a smile, ' I am
gone, loved one ; work a little longer, if thou still carest ; if not, follow. There
is no baseness, and no misery here. Courage, courage to the last ! ' that some-
times, as in this moment, is inexpressibly beautiful to me, and comes nearer to
bringing tears than it once did Not all the Sands and Eliots and bab-
bling cohue of 'celebrated scribbling women' that have strutted over the world
in my time could, it seems to me, if all boiled down and distilled to essence,
make one saoh woman."

— 19 —

She was buried on the 25th of April, in the choir of the
Cathedral of Haddington, her native town, and her hus-
band caused this epitaph to be placed upon her tomb-
stone : —

Here likewiae now rests Jane Welsh Carlylo, spouse of Thomas Uarlyle,
Chelsea, London. She was boni at Haddington, 14th July 1801 ; only
child of the above John Welsh and Grace Welsh, CaplegfU, Duiiifiicsshire>
his wife. In her bright existence, she had more sorrows than aro common .
but also a soft invincibility, a capacity of discernment, and a noble loyalty
of heart, which are rare. For 40 years she was the true and loving help-
mate of her husband, and by act and word unweariedly forwarded him, as
none else could, in all of worthy that he did or attempted. She died in
London, 2l3t April, 18GG, suddenly snatched away from him, and the light
of his life as if gone out.

Carlyle accepted, jn 1873, on the death of Manzoni,
the civil class of the Prussian Royal Order " for merit."
He refused, however, all honors which had been tendered
him by his own country. The Queen offered him the
Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, but he declined it,
and when it w^as proposed to knight him and Mr.
Tennyson he again refused the distinction. He was
offered even higher honors, but he declined these also. In
1867, he published " Shooting Niagara ; and After ?'' and a
few years later he printed " The Early Kings of Norway,'*
and "John Knox." On the 4th of December, 1875, on iue
occasion of his 80th birthday, he was the recipient of
numerous congratulations from people in all parts of the
world, and was at the same time presented with an address
and a gold medal, which had been struck off in honor of
the day.

Carlyle was a wonderful reader, rapid, nervous and ex-
haustive. He seemed to read by whole pages instead of
by mere words, and for fifty years of his life, and more, he
devoured books, on almost every conceivable subject, read-
ing fully six or eight hours a day, and often sitting up for
the purpose until two or three o'clock in the morning. It
is said he went through Gibbon at the rate of one volume

I'f

';;i

— 20 —

per diem, delighted at the " winged sarcasms, so quiet and
yet 60 conclusively transpiercing and killing dead," and
finding the " colors " *' strong but coarse, and set oflf by
lights from the side scenes." A story is told of him which
exhibits very clearly his marvellous grasp on the inside of
books. Once, having gone to spend an afternoon and to
dine with a new acquaintance, and arriving several hours
before his host, he entered the library, upon which the
gentleman prided himself, as it contained very many
volumes of great variety and literary value. The host came
at last, and dinner eaten, the author was asked if he would
not like to go into the library and see the books. *' I've
read 'em," was the laconic reply ; and it proved that Car-
lyle had actually absorbed in the time before dinner all
that was of use to him in that well-selected collection.

It is, as a talker, however, that the grand old man,
appeared to the better advantage. Less polished than
Alcott or Emerson, he was, if anything, more earnest.
Margaret Fuller, herself one of the best talkers who ever
lived, wrote of him in 1846 : —

"Hia talk is still an amazement and splendour, scarcely to be faced with
steady eyes. He does not converse, only harangues. Carlyle alows no
one a chance, but bears down all opposition, not only by his wit and onf .c
of words, resistless in thoir sharpness as so many bayonets, but by actual
physical superiority raising his voice and rushing on his opponent with a
ton-ent of sound. This is not, in the least, from unwillingness to allow
freedom to others ; no man would more enjoy a manly resistance to his
thought. B'.it it is the impulse of a mind accustomed to follow out its own
impvdsos as the hawk its prey, and which knows not how to stop in the

chase He sings rather than talks. He pours upon you a kind

of satirical, heroical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and generally
catching up near the beginning some singular epithet, which serves as a

refrain when his song is full He puts out his chin till it looks

like tho beak of a bird of prey, anil his eyes flash bright instinctive mean-
ings like Jove's bird."

Carlyle's appearance at that time has been carefully
noted by Dr. Cuyler, who visited him in his garret after
he had seen Dickens and Montgomery and "Wordsworth.

— Sl-

Cuyler was a raw college lad then, and impressionable.
He had read " Sartor Resartus," and " Heroes and Hero
"Worship," and he felt that he ought to thank their author,
in person, for the pleasure he had experienced in perusing
them. He found the object of his search, and was received
cordially in that famous front room on the second floor of
that modest house in Cheyne Row. A renowned
locality for literary men, this quaint suburb of Chelsea
which can boast of such residents, at different times, as
Sir Thomas More, Erasmus, Swift, Addison and Dick Steele
of classic memory, of Boyle, Locke, the logician, Arbuth-
not, Noll Goldsmith, Smollett and the Walpoles, besides
such worthies of a later day as Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt,
Leigh Hunt and Maclise, the great painter. In this red"
brick unpretending house, Cuyler feasted his eyes on
Thomas Carlyle, who was then in his prime. " He was
hale and athletic," says this observant youth of thirty and
odd years ago, " with a clear blue eye, strong lower jaw,
stiff iron-gray hair brushed up from a capacious forehead,
and with the look of a sturdy country deacon, dressed up
for church." In 1872. Theodore Cuyler, then a D.D. and
with a reputation which penetrated even as far as England,
visited the Scottish sage again. ""We found," he says,
" the same old brick dwelling. No. 5 Cheyne Row, Chel-
sea, without the slightest change, outside or in. But
during those 30 years, the kind, good wife, whom I had
met in 1842, had departed, and a sad change had come
over the once hale, stalwart man. After we had waited
some time, a feeble and stooping figure, attired in a blue
flannel gown, moved slowly into the room. His gray hair
was unkempt, his blue eye was still keen and piercing, and
a bright hectic spot of red appeared in each of his hollow
cheeks. His hands were tremulous and his voice was deep

and husky Much of his extraordinary harangue was

like the eruption of Vesuvius ; but the sly laugh he occa-
sionally gave showed that he was 'mandating' about as

:;Jf

— 22 —

much for his own amusement as for ours. He was terribly
severe on Parliament, which he described as an ' endless
babblement o' windy talk, and a grinding o' hurd5'^-gurdies,
grinding out lies and inanities.' And in this strain the
thin and weird-looking old iconoclast went on for an hour,
until he wound up by declaring that ' lilngland has joost
gane clean down into an abominable cesspool of lies and
shoddies and shams — down to an utter and bottomless
domnation. Ye may gie whatever meaning to that word
that ye like.' "

This was Carlyle in old age. With his infirmities fast
coming upon him, we prefer not to linger. With his life-
work we will deal now, that work by which the world
will long continue to know him, that work which he has
left behind, and which speaks to his fellow-men in trumpet-
tones. The future will understand him better than have
those of his own generation understood him. He was a
many-sided man, a true type of the noble-hearted ihinker
and philosopher, whose life was dedicated to his fellows,
whose broad humanity, high morality, observation and
insight were never expended in an unworthy cause. He
was a good man, and his teachings have made the world
better for his coming. We know that he did not believe
in a structural creed, and that the thirty-nine articles, or
the confession of faith, had no charms or terrors, it may be,
for him, but he did believe in God and honest labour. He
hated shams of all sorts, he loathed from his inmost soul,
hypocrisy and cant, and double dealing. He worshipped
force and might and honesty of purpose. He was an
iconoclast and a pessimist of the most uncompromising
type. Even the bright, glorious starlight, which Leigh
Hunt, in his delicious way, used to think was all joy and
gladness, and contained voices which sang an eternal song
of hope in the soul of man, Carlyle considered a sad sight.
The brilliant stars would yet become gaunt graves, for all
living things must die and have an end. But, despite all

— 23 —

this, despite the gloomy view of things which the philo-
sopher persisted in stamping on his life-work, may we not
learn enduring lessons, to aid us in our journey through
life, from these same teachings from the master mind of
this masterful century of ours, so prolific in thought, in
poetry and in scientific advancement? The impress of
Carlyle's mind may be found in all the thought which is
worth having in our day. Unconsciously, as well as
consciously, he has influenced public opinion, and from
the pulpit and the platform, from the press and from the
schoolmaster, from the very heart of the thinking people,
the mind of that Scottish stone-mason's son speaks with
terrific force and volume, and the prescience of the seer,
and tells us how we may live lives of usefulness and purity
and of honorable purpose. The Carlyle idea is marching
on with irresistible strength and vigor. He has left us a
vast store-house of treasures, a heritage of priceless pearls.
Ought we not to gather these riches up, and ponder well,
the lessons which they reveal to us ?