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THE LAST WORDS OF 
 THOMAS' CARLYLE 
 
 WOTTON REINFRED : A ROMANCE 
 EXCURSION (FUTILE ENOUGH) TO PARIS 
 LETTERS /Qff^ )i 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1892 
 
 iM^-^tHhe X 
 

 Copyright, 1892, 
 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed 
 
 AT THE ApPLETON PrESS, U. S. A. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The two manuscripts included in The 
 Last Words of Thomas Carlyle were left among 
 the author's papers at his death. One of 
 them, Wot ton Reinfred, is Carlyle 's only essay 
 in fiction, and it therefore possesses so dis- 
 tinctive an interest that its omission from 
 Carlyle's complete works would not be justi- 
 fiable. The other, Excursion {Futile Ejzough) 
 to Paris, offers a vivid picture of Carlyle's 
 personality. By the publication of these two 
 manuscripts, with the accompanying letters, a 
 new and considerable volume is added to the 
 list of Carlyle's works. 
 
 Wotton Reinfred was probably written soon 
 after Carlyle's marriage, at the time when he 
 and his wife entertained the idea of produc- 
 ing a novel in collaboration. The romance 
 
iv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 may be said to possess a peculiar psychologi- 
 cal interest, inasmuch as it represents the 
 earlier peHod of Carlyle's literary develop- 
 ment. In the labored but not faulty style, 
 the most familiar characteristics of the writ- 
 er's later work are only occasionally apparent. 
 So far as matter is concerned, the reader will 
 not be slow to discover, in the conversations 
 of Wotton and the Doctor, the first expres- 
 sion of ideas and doctrines afterward set 
 forth with more formality in Sartor Resartus. 
 " It is a poor philosophy which can be taught 
 in words," is the Doctor's proposition. " We 
 talk and talk, and talking without acting, 
 though Socrates were the speaker, does not 
 help our case, but aggravates it. Thou must 
 act, thou must work, thou must do ! Collect 
 thyself, compose thyself, find what is wanting 
 that so tortures thee, do but attempt with all 
 thy strength to attain it, and thou art saved." 
 Here is the doctrine afterward expanded by 
 Teufelsdrockh in Sartor Resartus. 
 
 Concerning Carlyle's judgment of his con- 
 temporaries, he has often enlightened us with 
 
INTRODUCTION. y 
 
 his wonted frankness, but in Wottott Reinfred 
 alone he appears as the writer of a romance 
 whose characters are drawn from real life. 
 On this point we may quote Mr. James An- 
 thony Froude, who says : 
 
 . " The interest of Wotton Reinfred to me is 
 considerable from the sketches which it con- 
 tains of particular men and women, most of 
 whom I knew and could, if necessary, identify. 
 The story, too, is taken generally from real 
 life, and perhaps Carlyle did not finish it from 
 the sense that it could not be published while 
 the persons and things could be recognized. 
 That objection to the publication no longer 
 exists. Everybody is dead whose likenesses 
 have been drawn, and the incidents stated 
 have long been forgotten." 
 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen adds to this testimony 
 in a letter from which we make the following 
 extract : 
 
 " It is interesting as a historical document. 
 It gives Carlyle before he had adopted his 
 peculiar manner, and yet there are some char- 
 acteristic bits — especially at the beginning — in 
 
vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the Sartor Resartus vein. I take it that these 
 are reminiscences of Irving and of the Thack- 
 eray circle, and there is a curious portrait of 
 Coleridge, not very thinly veiled. There is 
 enough autobiography, too, of interest in its 
 way." 
 
 The Excursion (Futile Enough) to Paris is 
 the unreserved daily record of a journey in 
 company with the Brownings, when Carlyle 
 paid a visit to Lord Ashburton. That this 
 record is characteristic, and that it presents a 
 singularly vivid picture of the writer's per- 
 sonality, is self-evident. It is a picture Avhich 
 adds something to our knowledge of Carlyle 
 the man, and is therefore worth preservation. 
 The world has long since known that even 
 Carlyle's heroic figure may claim the sympa- 
 thy and pity due a great soul fretting against 
 its material environments. 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Surely," said Wotton, as he sat by the 
 clear evening fire engaged in various talk 
 with his friend, " surely, my good Doctor, the 
 poet is wrong ; and happiness if it be the aim 
 was never meant to be the end of our being." 
 The old Doctor gave a quiet smile. "Hap- 
 piness ! " continued Wotton with increasing 
 vehemence, " happiness ! where is it ? The 
 foolish can not find it, the wisest have sought 
 for it in vain. Not on the towering heights 
 of royalty, not in the houses of the rich and 
 noble, not down in the thatched hut of the 
 peasant does it dwell. The ambitious, be it 
 in the cabinet, the battle-field, or the counting- 
 room, discovers after a thousand mocking dis- 
 appointments that he is a hapless drudge ; the 
 voluptuary dies despicable and wretched, like 
 
 Copyright, 1892, by D. Appleton and Company. 
 
2 WOT TON REINFRED 
 
 a putrid gourd ; Brutus exclaims, ' O virtue, 
 I have worshipped thee as a substance, and 
 must I find thee a shadow ? ' But Science ! 
 Yes, Science ! And what does Science teach 
 us? The wisdom of living? The nature of 
 our own being, and the art of directing it 
 aright? Alas ! alas ! on these things she speaks 
 not but in enigmas ; for darkness and the 
 shadow of doubt rest over the path of our 
 pilgrimage, and at our journey's end the 
 wisest of us can but exclaim with the old 
 sage : Foede munditm intravi, miser vixi, pertur- 
 batus niorior ! " 
 
 ** Do not forget his prayer," said the 
 other, meekly. 
 
 "Yes! O causa causariim^ miserere mei!'" 
 cried Reinfred, looking upwards, with tears 
 almost starting to his e3^es. '' Miserere mei T' 
 repeated he, throwing himself down on the 
 table, and hiding his face in his hands. 
 
 His cousin looked at him sympathisingly, 
 but spoke not, 
 
 *' And yet," cried the other, starting up, 
 and throwing back his head to conceal the 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED, 3 
 
 wetness of his eyes, " if He DO not hear me ? 
 If there is no ear to hear me ; and the voice 
 of my sorrow peals unreturned through the 
 grim wilderness, and only the echo of the 
 dead rocks replies to me in the gloom ! O 
 heaven and earth, what am I or where am I ? 
 Alone ! Alone ! They are dead, all dead, 
 buried beneath the ground or faithless above 
 it, and for me there is no soul that careth ! 
 Forgive me, my father," continued he, after a 
 moment's pause ; " I do you wrong, but I am 
 very v/eak ; and surely these things will kill 
 me soon." 
 
 " Dear boy," said his friend, " you are not 
 to blame, you take the matter like a young 
 man as you are ; because hope has hid herself 
 you think she is utterly fled. Tush, I tell you, 
 all this is nonsense, and you will see it yet 
 though you think my words but wind. You 
 were twenty-two last Christmas, and the life 
 of man is three score years and ten. You 
 have much to do, and much to learn in this 
 world ; only nature must have her coarse, 
 nay, she is teaching you even now, teaching 
 
4 WOTTON REIN FRED. 
 
 you with hard but useful stripes, and you will 
 act your part the better and more wisely for 
 it." 
 
 *' It is acted already," said the other, bit- 
 terly, " and the curtain is dropped, and I have 
 nothing more to do but undress, but shuffle 
 off this mortal coil." 
 
 "Dropped? Aye, but not the green one, 
 it is the painted curtain that has dropped, and 
 the first act truly is done, and we have other 
 four to come to. Pity that our interlude of 
 music were not gayer, but we must even put 
 up with it, sighs and groans though it be. O, 
 Wotton Reinfred, thou art beside thyself ; 
 much learning doth make thee mad. I swear 
 it is even so," continued he, rising into his 
 usual lively tone. " There hast thou sat por- 
 ing over thy Geometries and Stereometries, 
 thy Fluxions direct and inverse, by the New- 
 tonian and the Leibnitzian method, thy Uni- 
 versal History, thy Scotch Philosophy and 
 French Poetics, till thy eyes are dazed with so 
 many lamps, and for very light thou canst not 
 see a glimpse, and so in thy head the world is 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED, 5 
 
 whirling like a sick man's dream, and for thee 
 it has neither top nor bottom, beginning, mid- 
 dle, nor end ! I care not for thy scepticism, 
 Wotton : I tell thee, it will grow to be belief, 
 and all the sounder for thy once having 
 doubted. I say so because thy froward mind 
 is honest withal, and thou lovest truth sin- 
 cerely. But deuce take it, man ! I would 
 have had thee pleading in the courts like a 
 brave advocate — " 
 
 " Illustrating the case of Stradling versus 
 Styles," cried Reinfred, hastily, for the talk 
 displeased him. *' Spending my immortal 
 spirit, in vain jangling, for a piece of bread ? 
 I have bread already." 
 
 *' So much the better ! But the honour, the 
 use to others — " 
 
 *' May be strongly doubted," cried the 
 youth, still more sharply. 
 
 " Well, I grant it would not do," said the 
 Doctor, hastening to quit this rather thorny 
 province. ^'Thou hadst a heart too, but we 
 could not master it ; six months of the Institute 
 had no whit abated thy aversion, nay, thy hor- 
 
6 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 ror ; and at last, when I saw thee after a reso- 
 lute night as Justice of the Peace absolutely 
 seized with a kind of tetanus or locked-Jaw, I 
 myself was obliged to vote that we should 
 give it up." — " Heigho ! " ejaculated Wotton. 
 *' But now, in Heaven's name," continued the 
 Doctor, " what is it that should so overcloud 
 thee, nay for ever benight thee notwithstand- 
 ing? Are we not here in thy own walled 
 house, amid thy own freehold fields? Hast 
 thou no talent that this world has use for? 
 Young, healthy ; a proper fellow of thy inches ; 
 learned too, though I say it, for thy years ; 
 and independent, if not rich ! Pshaw ! Is thy 
 game lost because the first trick has gone 
 against thee ? Patience, and shuffle the cards ! 
 Is the world all dead because Edmund Walter 
 is a scoundrel jackanapes, and — " 
 
 ** Good God ! " cried Wotton, starting from 
 his seat, and pacing hurriedly over the floor, 
 " can you not spare me ? What have I to do 
 with Edmund Walter? The tiger-ape ! " cried 
 he, stamping on the ground, " with his body 
 and shoulder knots, his smirks and fleers ! A 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. y 
 
 gilt outside, and within a very lazar-house! 
 Gayspeeches, a most frolick sunny thing ; and 
 in its heart the poison of asps ! O the — But 
 I will not curse him. No, poor devil ! He 
 but follows the current of his own vile nature, 
 like the rest of us. God help him — and me ! " 
 added he, pausing, with a deep sigh. 
 
 " Yet it is strange," said the other, " how 
 this puppy could muster rhetoric for such a 
 thing. Strange that for a cap and feather Jane 
 Montagu should have — " 
 
 " Doctor ! " said Wotton, turning towards 
 him abruptly, with a look striving to be calm. 
 *' I shall request of you never to mention that 
 name in my hearing again." 
 
 " Pooh, think not of her, or think of her as 
 she merits. A selfish minx after all ; brighter 
 talents, but no sounder judgment, or truer heart 
 than the rest of them ; a worthless — " 
 
 ** O do not blame her ! Who knows how 
 much or how little she was to blame? The 
 thraldom of her situation, her youth, that cold 
 cozening cruel woman ; all things were against 
 us. No, worthless she was not; and if her 
 
8 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 heart was false, it was doubly and trebly false, 
 for she knew the light and yet chose darkness 
 rather than light. But could she love that 
 caitiff ? She must have loved him ! O there 
 is a dark baleful mystery over it which I 
 shall never pierce through. Would she were 
 gone from my thoughts, gone as if she had not 
 been ; for here the remembrance of her is but 
 a curse. Was it not hard? One only hope, 
 and that to mock me with the Fiend's arch 
 scoff! The world was dead around me, the 
 last heart that loved me in the cold grave ; all 
 efforts baffled, one by one the green places of 
 my universe scathed and blackened into ashes ; 
 my whole life one error, a seeking of light and 
 goodness and a finding of darkness and de- 
 spair. I was to myself as a frightful mistake ; 
 a spectre in the middle of breathing men, an 
 unearthly presence, that ought not to be there. 
 And she — O fair and golden as the dawn she 
 rose upon my soul. Night with its ghastly 
 fantasms fled away ; and beautiful and solemn 
 in earnest shade and gay sunshine lay our life 
 before me. And then, and then ! O God, a 
 
WOT TON REINFRED, g 
 
 gleam of hell passed over the face of my an- 
 gel, and the pageant was rolled together like a 
 scroll, and thickest darkness fell over me, and 
 I heard the laughter of a demon ! But what 
 of it?" cried he, suddenly checking himself. 
 " It was a vision, a brief calenture, a thing that 
 belonged not to this earth." 
 
 He stood gazing out upon the starry night. 
 The old man approached, but knew not what 
 to say. " Do they not look down on us as if 
 with pity from their serene spaces," said Rein- 
 fred, " like eyes glistening with heavenly tears 
 over the poor perplexities of man ? ' Herr- 
 liche Gefiihle esttarren in,' etc. Their bright- 
 ness is not bedimmed by any vapour, the 
 mists of our troubled planet do not reach 
 them. Thousands of human generations all 
 as noisy as our own have been engulphed in 
 the abyss of time, and there is no wreck of 
 them seen any more ; and Arcturus and Orion 
 and the Pleiades are still shining in their 
 courses, clear and young as when the shep- 
 herd first noted them on the plain of Shinar. 
 O what is life, or why should we sorrow or joy 
 
lO WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 over it when it is but for a moment? What 
 is all the earth and all that have inherited 
 or shall inherit it? Blot it out utterly and 
 it is not missed from the Creation. Blot 
 me out, and shall I be missed ? Shame on 
 me, foolish child, to whine for such a 
 toy!" 
 
 " Truth, virtue, beauty, are in man," said 
 the other ; " they are older than the stars, and 
 will live when these too have returned to the 
 void night whence they were called forth in 
 the beginning. O Wotton, my son, thou wilt 
 know and feel this at last, though now thou 
 know it not; and affliction will be precious 
 which teaches thee such knowledge." Wot- 
 ton shook his head. " But I am wrong," con- 
 tinued he. " Why do I lead thee to such 
 thoughts ? It is a poor philosophy which can 
 be taught in words : we talk and talk ; and 
 talking without acting, though Socrates were 
 the speaker, does not help our case but aggra- 
 vate it. Thou must act, thou must work, thou 
 must do! Collect thyself, compose thyself, find 
 what is wanting that so tortures thee ; do but 
 
WOT TON REINFRED, II 
 
 attempt with all thy strength to attain it and 
 thou art saved." 
 
 " Wanting ? " said Wotton. " Wanting ? 
 There is nothing wanting but deepest sleep, 
 where there were no dreams to trouble me. 
 Ere long I shall find it in my mother's bosom. 
 But what of this?" added he, impatiently. 
 " Why do we talk, as thou sayest, when there 
 is nothing to be done ? O, my old friend, I 
 abuse your goodness, and load you with griefs 
 which I should bear myself. Forgive me, for- 
 give me. I was not always weak. It must 
 alter, for the better or the worse it must." 
 
 " For the better ! " cried the Doctor, cheer- 
 ily. " It must and will. I tell thee help is on 
 the road : it will arrive when we least think of 
 it. But enough ! Now tell me, to come to 
 business at last, what sayest thou to Mosely's 
 letter?" 
 
 ** That travelling will not recreate me ; that 
 I want no spiritual leech, for spiritual recipes 
 cannot avail ; that Mosely is a good man, but 
 knows nothing of my * case ' as he calls it ; in 
 brief, that I cannot and must not go." 
 
12 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 " Dost thou know I came hither solely to 
 persuade thee ; to offer myself as thy compan- 
 ion? " 
 
 *< My good, kind, only friend ! But why 
 should it be? Why should I intrude upon 
 happy men : to sit in their circle like a death's- 
 head, marring- all pleasure by my sepulchral 
 moods ? Leave me to fight with my own des- 
 picable fate. Here in the mountains I con- 
 sume my griefs in silence, and except when 
 you in your chivalrous benevolence come 
 over to doctor me, I trouble no one with 
 them." 
 
 " Be my patient then for once," cried the 
 other: "what harm can it do? Your books 
 have ceased to please you, and you are learn- 
 ing nothing from them but to doubt. Your 
 long rides among the moors do but feed your 
 melancholy humour. You can neither shoot, 
 nor hunt, nor dine. You keep no race-horses, 
 and the Commission of Supply does not fire 
 your ambition. What have you to do here ? 
 Arise, let us mingle in the full current of life, 
 or at least survey it for a season. Who knows 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 1 3 
 
 what fine things we may see and do ? Frank 
 Mosely is a true man, and you will learn to 
 love him ; he already loves you. Your case, 
 too, he understands better than you think. 
 Let me read you this," cried he^ taking- out a 
 letter and leading Wotton back to the table, 
 
 " O, I know it already ! The old story 
 over again, be not solitary, be not idle. And 
 good heaven ! what am I that people should 
 quacksalver me with their nostrums? Does 
 Mosely keep a private bedlam for afflicted 
 scholars? Or would he dissect me and ex- 
 periment upon me?" 
 
 " Patience ! patience ! " said the other; '* he 
 is a good man, and my friend. Do but lis- 
 ten." He read as follows : 
 
 "... TeKo^ 0, etc. The end of man is an ac- 
 tion, not a thought^ says Aristotle ; the wisest 
 thing he ever said. Doubt is natural to a 
 human being, for his conceptions are infinite, 
 his powers are only finite. Nevertheless it 
 must be removed, and this not by negation 
 but by affirmation. From experience springs 
 belief, from speculation doubt, but idleness is 
 
14 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 the mother of unbelief. Neither is our happi- 
 ness passive, but only active ; few men know 
 this, though all in words admit it, hence their 
 life is a perpetual seeking without finding. 
 
 '' Bring thy friend Reinfred hither ; I have 
 long known him, though he knows not me. 
 So fair a nature will not perish in its own su- 
 perfluity, be its circumstances for the present 
 never so perplexed. His state is painful, but 
 in the end it yields peaceable fruits. It must 
 at some time be the state of all men who are 
 destined to be men. Bring him hither, that 
 he may see what he has yet but heard of. 
 Time will indeed be his physician, be it there 
 or here : but I would gladly do myself a pleas- 
 ure in knowing him. Happy and unhappy two- 
 legged animals about me are many, but hap- 
 py or even unhappy men are very few. . . ." 
 
 The discussion of this matter between our 
 friends was protracted to a late hour ; Wotton 
 urging his own misanthropic habitudes, his 
 hatred of change, his inacquaintance with 
 Mosely, and the folly and hopelessness of the 
 whole project; his cousin answering all his 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 1 5 
 
 cold noes with as many warm yeas, and plead- 
 ing at last that in this whim of his, if he had 
 ever merited ought, he might for this once be 
 gratified. " It is a thing I have set my heart 
 on," said he ; " and I shall be positively un- 
 happy if thou deny me." Reinfred loved his 
 cousin ; esteemed him as a man of unintelligi- 
 ble or mistaken views indeed, but of the kind- 
 est heart, whose helpful sympathy he had 
 often taken in the hour of need; and who now, 
 sad, lonely, down-pressed and darkened as the 
 young man seemed, might almost be said to 
 form the last link that still in any wise con- 
 nected him with the living and loving world. 
 After long resistance he began to yield, and 
 before parting for the night a faint assent was 
 wrung from him. " Why many words?" said 
 he, " if it really can do anything for thee, mis- 
 taken as thou art ; against me it can do noth- 
 ing." 
 
 Next morning the cousin took his leave 
 and rode home to make arrangements for the 
 journey, as the third day was fixed upon for 
 their departure. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Reluctantly as Wotton had consented 
 to this scheme, the good effects of it were 
 already beginning to be felt. The prepara- 
 tions and preliminary settlements produced a 
 wholesome diversion of his thoughts, so many 
 little outward cares constraining him to calcu- 
 lation and exertion, the unusual bustle of 
 his still house, all contributed to draw him 
 from the dark Trophonius' cave of his own 
 imagination into the light and warmth of 
 day. 
 
 As he rode along through the bright morn- 
 ing to his lawyer, that he might finish, after 
 long loitering, some acts of business relating 
 to his little property, and some acts of benefi- 
 cence to one or two poor peasants dependent 
 on him, he almost felt as if he were in very 
 deed ceasing to be an alien from the common- 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 17 
 
 wealth of men, as if he too had some duties to 
 perform in his own sphere, barren and hum- 
 ble though it was. The journey itself, though 
 he viewed it with little pleasure, nay in gen- 
 eral with a sort of captious regret, was yet a 
 prospect if not a hope, and thus the future, if 
 not filled with inviting forms, was no longer 
 absolutely void. Nay in spite of himself some 
 promise of enjoyment rose faintly over his 
 mind ; for the plastic vigour of young fancies 
 which shapes such landscapes in the clouds, 
 though sorely marred in him was not extinct, 
 and where good and evil are both possible, 
 there is no such perverse alchemy as will ex- 
 clusively select the latter. He could not deny 
 that he felt some curiosity to know Mosely 
 and his circle, so enigmatic as it seemed, from 
 all that he had learned ; it may be even that 
 unconsciously some low whisper of his lost 
 Jane Montagu mingled in his fantasies, some 
 unavowed hope of again being cast into her 
 neighbourhood, of seeing and hearing her 
 once more, and though not of recovering her 
 affection, for that he could not even wish, at 
 
1 8 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 least of understanding how it had been for 
 ever lost. 
 
 Wotton was one of those natures which it 
 is of most importance to educate rightly, but 
 also of greatest difficulty, and which accord- 
 ingly with a capricious contradiction we often 
 find worse educated than any other. In early 
 boyhood he had lost his father, a man of an 
 equal but stern and indignant temper, soured 
 also by disappointments and treacheries, which 
 had driven him at middle age from the com- 
 merce of the world, to hide his shattered for- 
 tunes, his great talents, and too fiery but hon- 
 est and resolute spirit, in the solitude of his 
 little rustic patrimony. Here in this barren 
 seclusion he had lived, repelling from him by 
 a certain calm but iron cynicism all advances 
 either of courtesy or provocation, an isolated 
 man, busied only with the culture of his land, 
 amused only by studies of philosophy and 
 literature, which no one but himself under- 
 stood or valued. To neighbours he was an 
 object of spleen, of aversion ; yet on the 
 whole of envy rather than of pity, for he 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. jg 
 
 seemed complete in himself, free of all men, 
 fearless of all men, a very king in his own 
 domain. Even happy he might appear, but 
 it was not so, for the worm of pride was still 
 gnawing at his heart, and his philosophy pre- 
 tended not to root it out but only to con- 
 ceal it. 
 
 In a few years his deep-shrouded chagrin 
 undermined his health, a slight sickness gath- 
 ered unexpected aggravation, and he sank 
 darkly into the grave with all his ineffectual 
 nobleness, wayward and wilful in himself, 
 mistaken by the world, and broken by it 
 though he could not be bent. Of this parent 
 Wotton recollected nothing, save his strong, 
 earnest, silent figure, and a vague unpleasant 
 impression from him of restraint and awe. 
 
 The mother, to whose sole guidance he 
 was now committed, had a mother's love for 
 her boy, and was in all respects a true-minded 
 woman ; but for such a spirit as Wotton's no 
 complete though in some points a most pre- 
 cious instructress. She trained his heart to 
 the love of all truth and virtue ; but of his 
 
20 WOTTON REIN FRED. 
 
 Other faculties she took little heed, and could 
 take little proper charge. To this good be- 
 ing, intellect, or even activity, except when 
 directed to the purely useful, was no all-im- 
 portant matter ; for- her soul was full of lofti- 
 est religion, and truly regarded the glories of 
 this earth as light chaff ; nay, we may say she 
 daily and almost hourly felt as if the whole 
 material world were but a vision and a show, 
 a shadowy bark bound together only by the 
 Almighty's word, and transporting us as if 
 through a sea of dreams to the solemn shore 
 of Eternity, in whose unutterable light the 
 bark would melt like vapour, and we our- 
 selves awake to endless weal or woe. 
 
 In her secluded life, for like her husband 
 she was visited by few except the needy and 
 distressed, such feelings gathered strength ; 
 were reduced to principles of action, and 
 came at last to pervade her whole conduct, 
 most of all her conduct to her sole surviving 
 child. She never said to him : " Be great, be 
 learned, be rich ; " but, " Be good and holy, 
 seek God and thou shalt find Him." " What 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 21 
 
 is wealth ? " she would say ; " What are 
 crowns and sceptres ? The fashion of them 
 passeth away. Heed not the world, thou hast 
 a better inheritance ; fear it not, sufficient 
 food and raiment our Father will provide 
 thee ; has he not clothed the sparrow against 
 winter, and given it a fenced house to dwell 
 in ? " She wished to have her boy instructed 
 in learning, for though little acquainted with 
 it herself, she reverenced it deeply ; but judg- 
 ing his religious and moral habitudes of far 
 more consequence, she would not part with 
 him from her sight, still less trust him among 
 the contaminations of a boarding-school. 
 
 To read and write she had herself taught 
 him ; the former talent he had acquired so 
 early that it seemed less an art than a faculty, 
 for he could not recollect his ever having 
 wanted it or learned it. So soon as his 
 strength appeared sufficient, she had sent him 
 to a day-school in the nearest town, a distance 
 of six miles, which, with his satchel at his 
 back, the ruddy urchin used to canter over on 
 his little shelty evening and morning. His 
 
22 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 progress was the boast of the teachers; and 
 the timid still boy, devoted to his tasks and 
 rarely mingling in the pastimes, never in the 
 riots of his fellows, would have been a uni- 
 versal favourite in any community less selfish 
 and tyrannical than one composed of school- 
 boys. It may seem strange to say so ; but 
 among these little men, a curious observer 
 will detect some almost frightful manifesta- 
 tions of our common evil nature. What cru- 
 elty in their treatm^ent of inferiors, whether 
 frogs, vagrant beggars, or weaker boys ! How 
 utterly the hearts of the little wretches seem 
 dead to all voice of mercy or justice. It is 
 the rude, savage, natural man, unchecked by 
 any principle of reflection or even calculation, 
 and obeying, like animals, no precept but that 
 of brute giant power. 
 
 Poor Wotton had a sorry time of it in this 
 tumultuous, cozening, brawling, club-law com- 
 monwealth : he had not friends among them, 
 or if any elder boy took his part, feeling some 
 touch of pity for his innocence and worth, it 
 was only for a moment, and his usual purga- 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 23 
 
 tory, perhaps aggravated b}^ his late patron, 
 returned upon him with but greater bitter- 
 ness. They flouted him, they beat him, they 
 jeered and tweaked and tortured him by a 
 thousand cunning arts, to all which he could 
 only answer with his tears ; so that his very 
 heart was black within him, and in his sad- 
 ness, of which he would not complain, and 
 which also seemed to him as if eternal, he 
 knew not what to do. For he was a quiet, 
 pensive creature, that loved all things, his 
 shelty, the milk-cow, nay the very cat, un- 
 grateful termageant though she was ; and so 
 shy and soft withal, that he generally passed 
 for cowardly, and his tormentors had named 
 him " weeping Wotton," and marked him 
 down as a proper enough bookworm, but one 
 without a particle of spirit. However, in this 
 latter point they sometimes overshot them- 
 selves, and the boldest and tallest of the house 
 have quailed before the " weeping Wotton," 
 when thoroughly provoked, for his fury while 
 it lasted was boundless, his little face gleamed 
 like a thunderbolt, and no fear of earthly or 
 
24 V/OTTON RE IN FRED. 
 
 unearthly thing could hold him from the heart 
 of his enemy. 
 
 But the sway of this fire-eyed genius was 
 transient as the spark of the flint; his com- 
 rades soon learned the limits of danger, and 
 adjusting their operations with a curious ac- 
 curacy to the properties of their material, con- 
 tinued to harass him, more cunningly, but not 
 less effectually than before. 
 
 All these things acted on Wotton with 
 deep and mostly unfavourable influences ; fret- 
 ting into morbid quickness his already exces- 
 sive sensibility, and increasing the develop- 
 ment of his shy secluded nature. His mother 
 and her calm circle, the sole spot in the earth 
 where he could have peace, became doubly 
 dear to him ; and he knew no joy till, mount- 
 ing his pony, and leaving the pavement of the 
 burgh behind him, he could resign himself 
 among shady alleys and green fields to a 
 thousand dreams, which fancy was already 
 building for him in clouds of all gayest hues. 
 In the future he was by turns a hero and a 
 sage, in both provinces the benefactor and 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED, 25 
 
 wonder of the world ; and would weave a his- 
 tory for himself, of dainty texture, resuming it 
 day after day, and sometimes continuing it for 
 months and years. The bleak, monotonous 
 past itself was beautified in his thoughts ; its 
 sorrows were like steep rocks, no longer sharp 
 and stern, rising in the distance amid green 
 sunny fields of joy. All forms of his earlier 
 years rose meeker and kinder in his memory ; 
 especially the figure of a little elder sister, 
 with whom he had played in trustful gladness 
 in infancy, but whom death had snatched 
 away from him before he knew what the King 
 of Terrors was. Since the departure of this 
 little one, the green knolls, the dells of his na- 
 tive brook had been lonelier to him ; indeed, 
 he was almost without companion of his own 
 age, but his mother's bosom was still open to 
 him, and from her he had yet no care which it 
 concerned him to hide. 
 
 In the evenings, above all on holidays, he 
 was happy, for then the afflictions of life all 
 lay on the other side of the hill ; he wandered 
 over the fields in a thousand gay reveries ; he 
 
26 WOTTON REIN FRED. 
 
 made crossbows and other implements with 
 his knife, or stood by the peasants at their 
 work and listened eagerly to their words, 
 which, rude as they might be, were the words 
 of grown men, and awoke in him forecastings 
 of a distant world. Old Stephen in particu- 
 lar, the family gardener, steward, ploughman, 
 majordomo and factotum, he could have 
 hearkened to for ever. Stephen had travelled 
 much in his time, and seen the manner of 
 many men ; noting noteworthy things, which 
 his shrewd mind wanted not skill to combine in 
 its own simplicity into a consistent philosophy 
 of life. From Stephen also he had half bor- 
 rowed, half plundered, certain volumes of 
 plays and tales, among these the ever-m.emora- 
 ble " Arabian Nights," which, not so much 
 read as devoured, formed, with the theologi- 
 cal library of his mother, a strange enough 
 combination. These fictions Wotton almost 
 feared were little better than falsehoods, the 
 reading of which his conscience did all but 
 openly condemn, for he believed, as he had 
 been taught, that beyond the region of material 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 27 
 
 usefulness religion was the only study profit- 
 able to man. Nor was he behindhand in this 
 latter, at least, if entire zeal could suffice. 
 Ever in his great Taskmaster's eye, he watched 
 over his words and actions with even an over- 
 scrupulousness. His little prayer came even- 
 ing and morning from a full heart, and life, in 
 the thought of the innocent boy, seemed little 
 else than a pilgrimage through a sacred alley, 
 with the pinnacles of the Eternal Temple at 
 its close. 
 
 With increase of years came new feelings, 
 still farther complicated by change of scene. 
 In his fifteenth winter he was sent to college ; 
 a measure to which his mother had consented 
 by the advice of her ancient pastor, and the 
 still more earnest persuasion of Wotton's 
 teacher, and to the fulfilment of which the boy 
 himself had long looked forward with un- 
 speakable anticipations. The seminary was in 
 a large town at a distance of many miles ; to 
 Wotton, a pure ''city of the mind," glorious 
 as the habitation of wisdom, and cloud-capt 
 in his fancy with all earthly splendour. 
 
28 WOTTON REINFRED. 
 
 This new scene might have worked upon 
 him beneficially, but for the present it did not. 
 It was a university in which the great prin- 
 ciple of spiritual liberty was admitted in its 
 broadest sense, and nature was left to all not 
 only without misguidance, but without any 
 guidance at all. Wotton's tasks were easy of 
 performance, or, rather, the performance of 
 them was recommended not enforced ; while 
 for the rest he was left to choose his own so- 
 ciety and form his own habits, and had un- 
 limited command of reading. What a wild 
 world rose before him as he read, and felt, 
 and saw, with as yet unworn avidity ! Young 
 Nature was combining with this strange edu- 
 cation to unfold the universe to him in its 
 most chaotic aspect. What with history and 
 fiction, what with philosophy and feeling, it 
 was a wondrous Nowhere that his spirit dwelt 
 in : all stood before him in indistinct detached 
 gigantic masses ; a country of desire and ter- 
 ror ; baseless, boundless ; overspread with 
 dusky or black shadows, yet glowing here and 
 there in maddening light. To all this, more- 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. 29 
 
 over, the exasperating- influence of solitude 
 was superadded ; in fact, Wotton's manner of 
 existence was little less secluded than ever; 
 for though the persecutions of his school-fel- 
 lows had gradually died away as he grew 
 more able to resist them, his originally back- 
 ward temper had nowise been improved by 
 such treatment. Indeed, a keen and painful 
 feeling of his own weakness, added to a cer- 
 tain gloomy consciousness of his real intrinsic 
 superiority, rendered him at once suspicious 
 and contemptuous of others. 
 
 Besides, in the conversation of his equals 
 he truly felt little sympathy ; their specula- 
 tions were of far more earthly matters than 
 his ; and in their amusements, too often riot- 
 ous and libertine, his principle forbade him to 
 participate. Only with the little knot of his 
 countrymen, in the narrowest sense of that 
 word, did he stand in any sort of relation ; 
 and even of these he often felt as if their inter- 
 course were injuring him and should be aban- 
 doned, as if their impure influences were con- 
 taminating and seducing him. Contaminate 
 
30 wo r TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 him they did, but seduce him they could not. 
 Polished steel may be breathed on without 
 being rusted, but not long or often without 
 being bedimmed. Wotton fought hard with 
 evil ; for fiercely were the depths of his fiery 
 nature assailed ; he was not conquered, yet 
 neither did he conquer, without loss, and 
 these contests added new uproar to the dis- 
 cord within. 
 
 Of his progress in the learned languages 
 he himself made little account ; nor in meta- 
 physics did he find any light, but, rather, 
 doubt or darkness ; if he talked of the mat- 
 ter it was in words of art, and his own honest 
 nature whispered to him the while that they 
 were only words. Mathematics and the kin- 
 dred sciences, at once occupying and satisfy- 
 ing his logical faculty, took much deeper hold 
 of him ; nay, by degrees, as he felt his own in- 
 dependent progress, almost alienated him for 
 a long season from all other studies. " Is not 
 truth," said he, ** the pearl of great price, and 
 where shall we find it but here ? " He gloried 
 to track the footsteps of the mighty Newton, 
 
WOT TON REINFRED, 31 
 
 and in the thought that he could say to him- 
 self : Thou, even thou, art privileged to look 
 from his high eminence, and to behold with 
 thy own eyes the order of that stupendous 
 fabric ; thou seest it in light and mystic har- 
 mony, which, though all living men denied, 
 thou wouldst not even doubt! A proud 
 thought, truly, for little man ; but a sad one 
 if he pursue it unwisely ! 
 
 The Principia do but enlighten one small 
 forecourt of the mind ; and for the inner 
 shrine, if we seek not purer light and by purer 
 means, it will remain for ever dark and deso- 
 late. So Wotton found to his cost ; for v/ith 
 this cold knowledge, much as he boasted of it, 
 he felt in secret that his spiritual nature was 
 not fed. In time, like other men, he came to 
 need a theory of man ; a system of metaphys- 
 ics, not for talk, but for adoption and belief ; 
 and here his mathematical logic afforded little 
 help, as, indeed, without other rarer concomi- 
 tants, it is in such pursuits a hindrance rather 
 than a help. Great questions, the very great- 
 est, came before his mind ; with shuddering 
 
32 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 awe he drew aside the veil from all sacred 
 things ; but here, in what he called the light 
 of his reason, which was only a fitful glimmer, 
 there was no clear vision for him. Doubt 
 only, pale doubt, rising like a spectral shadow, 
 was to be seen, distorting or obscuring the 
 good and holy ; nay, sometimes hiding the 
 very Holy of Holies from his eye. 
 
 Who knows not the agonies of doubt? 
 What heart, not of stone, can endure to abide 
 with them ? Wotton's was a heart of flesh, 
 and of the softest ; it was torn and bleeding, 
 yet he could not pause ; for a voice from the 
 depths of his nature called to him, as he loved 
 truth, to persevere. He studied the sceptical 
 writers of his own country ; above all, the 
 modern literature of France. Here at length 
 a light rose upon him, not the pure sunlight of 
 former da3^s, but a red fierce glare, as by de- 
 grees his doubt settled in utter negation. He 
 felt a mad pleasure mingled with his pangs, 
 and unbelief was laying waste in scornful tri- 
 umph so many fairest things, still dear and ven- 
 erable even as delusions. Alas ! the joy of the 
 
WOTTON REIN FRED, 33 
 
 Denyer is not of long continuance. He burns 
 the city, and warms himself at the blaze for a 
 day ; but on the morrow the fair palaces as 
 well as the noisome alleys are gone, and he 
 stands houseless amid ashes and void silence. 
 Thus also it fared with Reinfred. 
 
 The philosophy of Epicurus was not made 
 for him ; his understanding was convinced, 
 but his heart in secret denied it. Vice and 
 all baseness, which at first it might have 
 seemed to sanction, he still rejected, nay, ab- 
 horred. But what, then, was virtue ? Another 
 name for happiness, for pleasure ? No longer 
 the eternal life and beauty of the universe, the 
 invisible all-pervading effluence of God ; but a 
 poor earthly theorem, a balance of profit and 
 loss resting on self-interest, and pretending to 
 rest on nothing higher. 
 
 Nay, was the virtuous always happiest? 
 To Wotton it seemed more than dubious ; for 
 himself, at least, he felt as if truth were too 
 painful, and animal stupidity the surest fount- 
 ain of contentment. By degrees a dreary stag- 
 nancy overspread his soul : he was without fear 
 
34 WOTTON REINFRED. 
 
 and without hope ; in this world isolated, poor, 
 and helpless ; had tasted little satisfaction, and 
 expected little, and in the next he had now no 
 part or lot. Among his fellow-men he felt 
 like a stranger and a pilgrim, a pilgrim jour- 
 neying without rest to a distant nowhere. 
 Pride alone supported him, a deep-hid satanic 
 pride ; and it was a harsh and stern support. 
 Gloomy mockery was in his once kind and 
 gentle heart; mockery of the world, of him- 
 self, of all things ; yet bitterest sadness lay 
 within it, and through his scowl there often 
 glistened a tear. 
 
 In such inward disquietudes it would have 
 been a blessing to communicate in trustful 
 kindness with other men. However, he kept 
 his secret locked up in himself, judging that if 
 spoken it would meet with little sympathy, 
 perhaps even be but imperfectly understood. 
 By light companions he was now and then 
 bantered on his melancholic mood ; but these 
 he dispatched with tart enough replies, and 
 himself only withdrew with his alleged imagi- 
 nary woes still farther from their circle. To 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. 35 
 
 his mother least of all could he impart 
 these cares. In his occasional visits, the good 
 woman had not failed to notice some unfa- 
 vourable change in his temper ; but as his 
 conduct still seemed strictly regular, she had 
 taken little heed of this, and imputed it to 
 more transitory causes. Besides, she was be- 
 coming more and more immersed in her reli- 
 gious feelings, more divided from the world's 
 cares ; and when she counselled her son, it 
 was her sole earnest injunction that he would 
 study to be right with God, and prepared for 
 the change, which for him as for her and 
 every one would be irrevocable, and lay near 
 at hand. Occasionally she may have sus- 
 pected that all was not right; but, if so, to 
 rectify it was beyond her sphere ; and she 
 trusted that the same good providence, which 
 had led herself through so many thorny and 
 steep paths, would also be the guide and 
 protector of all that was hers. At last, some 
 two years ago, her health declining, she had 
 moved, by the advice of her physician, into a 
 kinder climate ; and was now living far south 
 
36 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 in her native county, in the family of a wid- 
 owed sister, where Wotton had never yet seen 
 her. The visit had been unexpectedly pro- 
 tracted from month to month, and seemed at 
 last as if it would not end. Her letters to him 
 were frequent, earnest, and overflowing with 
 sublime affection ; often they brought tears . 
 into his eyes ; but he could only in return 
 give her false assurances of his welfare, and in 
 sighs thank Heaven that she knew not what 
 had befallen him. 
 
 Without associate, however, he was not al- 
 ways to be. In one of his summer rustica- 
 tions, since his mother left him, he had be- 
 come acquainted with Bernard Swane, or, rath- 
 er, Bernard Swane had become acquainted 
 with him ; for hearing much of the wonder- 
 ful talents, the moodiness, and bitter wayward 
 humours of his neighbour, and being himself 
 a man of influence, warm-heartedness, and 
 singular enthusiasm, he had forced his way 
 into the privacy of this youthful misanthrope ; 
 had accosted him with such frank kindliness, 
 and on subsequent occasions so soothed and 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 37 
 
 cherished him in sympathising affection, that 
 by degrees he had won his friendship, and 
 Wotton had now no secret, economical or 
 spiritual, which he did not share in. To both 
 parties their intercourse had from the first 
 been peculiarly attractive. There was that 
 contrast, and at the same time similarity, in 
 their natures which gives its highest charm to 
 social converse. Bernard was the elder by 
 several years, a man of talent, education, and 
 restless vigorous activity ; by profession be- 
 longing to the law ; already profitably en- 
 gaged in the public business of his county, 
 and cherishing perhaps, half consciously, hopes 
 of yet rising to some far higher department. 
 For he was a man of a large, if not a pecul- 
 iarly fine spirit ; strong, conscious of his 
 strength ; for ever full of practicable and im- 
 practicable schemes ; and though he flattered 
 himself that the promotion of public good in 
 any sphere was his best or only aim, to all 
 third parties it was clear enough that Bernard 
 had a deep am.bition. Nay in his frank and 
 sanguine manner there often appeared the 
 
38 V/OTTON REINFRED. 
 
 most indubitable outbreakings of vanity ; but 
 at the same time of vanity so kindly, social, 
 and true-hearted, that you were forced to par- 
 don it. The truth is, he v/as of a happy na- 
 ture ; existence of itself was sweet and joyous 
 to him : he lived for ever in the element of 
 hope ; loving" himself, and loving through him- 
 self all nature and all men. Rarely could you 
 find a person so superior to others, yet so be- 
 loved by them, so calculated to please at once 
 the many and the few. To Wotton in specu- 
 lation, as in conduct, he was a perfect oppo- 
 site. The former never believed, the latter 
 scarcely ever doubted; hence the one acted 
 and concluded, wrong, even absurdly, it might 
 be, but still acted and concluded, while the 
 other painfully hesitated and inquired. Both 
 truly loved goodness; of the two, Wotton 
 more fervently, yet Bernard with more trust- 
 fulness and effect. In active courage, the lat- 
 ter was superior ; in passive, the former; who, 
 indeed, had long lived with pain, and for the 
 better purpose of his mind had always fronted 
 and defied it. Not so with Bernard : he had 
 
WOT TON REINFRED, 3q 
 
 in secret a deep horror of passive suflering, so 
 deep that scarcely even conscience could drive 
 him to brave it ; and many times, as it seemed 
 to Wotton, he would practise cunning subter- 
 fuges, and underhand, nay, unconsciously, 
 play Jesuitic tricks with his own convictions 
 to escape such dilemmas. That he wished a 
 thing to be true was ever with him a strong 
 persuasion of its truth. He sympathised in 
 Wotton's scepticism ; often he seemed, with a 
 deep sigh, to admit that his objections were 
 unanswerable, yet himself continued to be- 
 lieve. Wotton loved him, for, in spite of draw- 
 backs, he felt all his singular worth ; and Ber- 
 nard v/as the only human soul that knew him, 
 in whose neighbourhood his own exiled, 
 marred, and exasperated spirit still felt any 
 touch of peace, still saw afar off, though but 
 .for a few moments, some glimpses of kind sun- 
 shiny life. To produce such effects, to attract 
 such a spirit, and be loved by it was no less 
 delightful to the other, for if he, as it were, 
 protected Wotton, he also admired, nay, al- 
 most feared, him ; and, feeling his own superi- 
 
40 WOTTON REIN FRED. 
 
 ority in strength and good fortune, he often 
 felt that in nobleness and merit the balance 
 might sway on the other side. 
 
 Thus their friendship rested on the surest 
 basis, that of mutual satisfaction and sym- 
 pathy ; on the one hand and on the other 
 good offices or good wishes, pleasure given 
 and received. In their intellectual discus- 
 sions, widely as they differed, they by no 
 chance quarrelled ; indeed, except in private 
 they almost never argued. In society, where, 
 except in the company and by the persuasion 
 of his friend, Wotton scarcely ever ventured, 
 you generally found them on a side ; Bernard 
 supporting the good and beautiful in vehe- 
 ment, flowing, rhetorical pleadings ; Wotton, 
 in bitter sarcasms and with keenest intellect, 
 demolishing the false and despicable, and this, 
 often in the dialect of his hearers, if no better 
 might be, to whom he justly enough appre- 
 hended his own would many times have been 
 a stone of stumbling. By such half displays 
 of his inward nature, poor Wotton's popu- 
 larity was seldom increased. Bernard was 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 41 
 
 confessedly a man of parts, by whom it might 
 seem less disgraceful to be tutored ; but who 
 was this Wotton, this sharp, scornful stripling, 
 whom no one meddled with unpunished ? By 
 degrees, indeed, he established for himself a 
 character of talent, the more wondered at per- 
 haps that it was little understood ; nay, observ- 
 ant people could not but admit that in his 
 rigorous, secluded, gloomy spirit there dwelt 
 the strictest justice, and even much positive 
 virtue ; but still, these things were conceded 
 rather than asserted. Nay, Wotton was less 
 than ever a favourite, and the first ineffectual 
 effort to despise him too often passed into a 
 sentiment of fear, uneasiness, and aversion. 
 
 On the young man himself the conscious- 
 ness of this was not without corresponding 
 and hurtful influence ; but one good effect 
 among many bad was that it bound him still 
 more closely to his friend. Bernard was now 
 almost his sole society ; a treasure precious, 
 therefore, both by reason of its rarity and its 
 intrinsic value. Gladly would Bernard have 
 rewarded him for such exclusive trust ; gladly 
 
42 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 have extracted by reasonable ministrations 
 the bitterness from his spirit; truly had he 
 watched over him in many a sad hour, and 
 much did he long- and hope to see his fine 
 gifts occupied in wholesome activity. 
 
 Hitherto, however, his efforts had been 
 fruitless, or only of transient influence. By 
 his counsel Wotton had meditated various 
 professions ; that of law he had even for a 
 time attempted. But he was too late; the 
 young enthusiasm had faded from his heart; 
 there was no longer any infinitude in his 
 hopes. The technicalities of the subject dis- 
 pirited and disgusted his understanding; its 
 rewards were distant and dubious, and to him 
 of small value. What were wealth and pro- 
 fessional fame when the world itself was tar- 
 nished in his thoughts, and all its uses weary, 
 flat, stale, and unprofitable? There had been 
 a time when, like the rest of us, he v/as wont 
 to impute his misery to outward circum- 
 stances; to think that if this or that were 
 granted to his wishes, it would be well with 
 him. The fallacy which lurked here experi- 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 43 
 
 ence had soon taught him, but not the truth. 
 He felt that he was wretched, and must ever 
 be so ; he felt as if all men would be so, only 
 that their eyes were blinded. 
 
 He abandoned law and hurried into the 
 country, not to possess his soul in peace 
 as he hoped, but in truth, like Homer's Bel- 
 lerophon, to eat his own heart. His love 
 of truth, he often passionately said, had 
 ruined him ; yet he would not relinquish 
 the search to whatever abysses it might 
 lead. His rural cares left much of his time 
 unoccupied ; in mad misdirection he read 
 and meditated, enjoying hours of wild pleas- 
 ure, divided by days and nights of pain. It 
 was not tedium that he suffered, he had too 
 deep an interest to weary, but light came not 
 to him — no light ; he wandered in endless 
 labyrinths of doubt, or in the void darkness 
 of denial. With other men his conversation 
 was stinted and irksome, for he had to shroud 
 his heart from them in deepest mystery, and 
 to him their doings and forbearings were of 
 no moment. It was only with Bernard that 
 
44 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 he could speak from the heart, that he still 
 felt himself a man ; scanty but invaluable 
 solace, which, it may be, saved him from 
 madness or utter despair. 
 
 Such was his mood when a little incident 
 quite transformicd the scene. One fine sum- 
 mer evening he had ridden over to Bernard's, 
 as he was often wont ; but, finding him en- 
 gaged with company, was about to retire 
 without seeing him, when Bernard himself 
 hurried out and constrained him to enter. 
 " It is but some one or two young friends," 
 said he, " who have come accidentally to see 
 my sister. There is ofte among them too," 
 added he with a roguish smile, as they ap- 
 proached the drawing-room ; but Wotton had 
 no time to answer till he found himself in the 
 middle of the circle welcomed by the mistress 
 of it, and introduced by name to a bright 
 young creature, the heroine of the evening, 
 whom in his bashfulness he scarcely dared to 
 look at, for the presence filled him with painful 
 yet sweetest embarrassment. Jane Montagu 
 was a name well known to him ; far and wide 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 45 
 
 its fair owner was celebrated for her graces 
 and gifts ; herself also he had seen and noted ; 
 her slim daintiest form, her soft sylph-like 
 movement, her black tresses shading a face 
 so gentle yet so ardent ; but all this he had 
 noted only as a beautiful vision which he 
 himself had scarcely right to look at, for 
 her sphere was far from his ; as yet he had 
 never heard her voice or hoped that he 
 should ever speak with her. Yet surely she 
 was not indifferent to him, else whence his 
 commotion, his astonishment, his agitation 
 now when near her? His spirit was roused 
 from its deepest recesses, a thousand dim im- 
 ages and vague feelings of gladness and pain 
 were clashing in tumultuous vortices within 
 him ; he felt as if he stood on the eve of some 
 momentous incident — as if this hour were to 
 decide the welfare or woe of long future 
 years. 
 
 Strange enough ! There are moments of 
 trial, of peril, of extreme anxiety, when a man 
 whom we reckoned timid becomes the calmest 
 
 and firmest. Reinfred's whole being was in a 
 4 
 
46 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 hurricane; but it seemed as if himself were 
 above it, ruling over it, in unwonted strength 
 and clearness. His first movement prospered, 
 and he went on to prosper. Never had his 
 manner been so graceful or free ; never had 
 his sentiments been nobler, his opinions more 
 distinct, emphatic, or correct. A vain sophis- 
 tical young man was afflicting the party with 
 much slender and, indeed, base speculation on 
 the human mind ; this he resumed after the 
 pause and bustle of the new arrival. Wotton, 
 by one or two Socratic questions in his hap- 
 piest style, contrived to silence him for the 
 night. The discomfiture of this logical ma- 
 rauder was felt and even hailed as a benefit by 
 every one ; but sweeter than all applauses was 
 the glad smile, threatening every moment to 
 become a laugh, and the kind, thankful look 
 with which Jane Montagu repaid the victor. 
 He ventured to speak to her; she answered 
 him with attention, nay, it seemed as if there 
 were a tremor in her voice ; and perhaps she 
 thanked the dusk that it half hid her. The 
 conversation took a higher tone, one fine 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 47 
 
 thought called forth another ; each, the speak- 
 ers and the hearers alike, felt happy and well 
 at ease. To Wotton the hours seemed mo- 
 ments ; he had never been as now ; the words 
 from those sweetest lips came over him like 
 dew on thirsty grass ; his whole soul was as if 
 lapped in richest melodies, and all better feel- 
 ings within him seemed to whisper, " It is 
 good for us to be here." At parting the fair 
 one's hand was in his ; in the balmy twilight 
 with the kind stars above them he spoke some- 
 thing of meeting again which was not contra- 
 dicted ; he pressed gently those small soft fin- 
 gers, and it seemed as if they were not hastily 
 or angrily withdrawn. 
 
 Wotton had never known love : brought 
 up in seclusion from the sex, immersed in soli- 
 tary speculation, he had seen the loveliest half 
 of our species only from afar, and learned in 
 his poetical studies to view them with an al- 
 most venerating reverence. Elysian dreams, 
 a fairyland of richest blessedness his young 
 fancy had indeed shaped for him ; but it lay 
 far apart from the firm earth, with impassable 
 
48 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 abysses intervening ; and doubting and disbe- 
 lieving all things, the poor youth had never 
 learned to believe in himself. That he, the 
 obscure, forlorn, and worthless, could ever 
 taste the heaven of being loved ; that for him 
 any fair soul should ever languish in fond 
 longing, seemed a thing impossible. Other 
 men were loved ; but he was not as other 
 men ; did not a curse hang over him ? had not 
 his life been a cup of bitterness from the be- 
 ginning? Thus in timid pride he withdrew 
 within his own fastnesses, where, baited by a 
 thousand dark spectres, he saw himself as if 
 constrained to renounce in unspeakable sad- 
 ness the fairest hopes of existence. And now 
 how sweet, how ravishing the contradiction ! 
 " She has looked on thee ! " cried he ; " she, the 
 fairest, noblest ; she does not despise thee ; 
 her dark eyes smiled on thee ; her hand was 
 in thine ; some figure of thee was in her soul ! " 
 Storms of transport rushed through his heart 
 as he recalled the scene, and sweetest intima- 
 tions that he also was a man, that for him also 
 unutterable joys had been provided. 
 
WOTTON REIN FRED. ^g 
 
 Day after day he saw and heard his fair 
 Jane; day after day drank rapture from her 
 words and looks. She sang to him, she played 
 to him ; they talked together, in gaiety and 
 earnestness, unfolding their several views of 
 human life, and ever as it seemed glancing 
 afar off at a holy though forbidden theme. 
 Never had Wotton such an audience; never 
 was fine thought or noble sentiment so re- 
 warded as by the glance of those dark eyes, 
 by the gleam which kindled over that soft and 
 spirit-speaking face. In her, hour after hour, a 
 fairer and fairer soul unveiled itself ; a soul of 
 quickest vision and gracefuUest expression, so 
 gay yet so enthusiastic, so blandishing yet so 
 severe ; a being all gentleness and fire ; meek, 
 timid, loving as the dove and high and noble 
 as the eagle. To him her presence brought 
 with it airs from heaven. A balmy rest en- 
 circled his spirit while near her; pale doubt 
 fled away to the distance, and life bloomed up 
 with happiness and hope. The young man 
 seemed to awake as from a haggard dream ; 
 he had been in the garden of Eden, then, and 
 
50 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 his eyes could not discern it! But now the 
 black walls of his prison melted away, and the 
 captive was alive and free in the sunny spring ! 
 If he loved this benignant disenchantress ? 
 His whole heart and soul and life were hers ; 
 yet he had never thought of love; for his 
 whole existence was but a feeling which he 
 had not yet shaped into a thought. 
 
 But human life were another matter than 
 it is could it grant such things continuance. 
 Jane Montagu had an ancient maiden aunt 
 who was her hostess and protectress, to whom 
 she owed all and looked for all. With the 
 eyes of fifty, one sees not as with the eyes 
 of fifteen. What passed between the good 
 maiden and her aunt we know not; the old 
 lady was proud and poor ; she had high hopes 
 from her niece, and in her meagre, hunger- 
 bitten philosophy, Wotton's visits had from 
 the first been but faintly approved of. 
 
 One morning he found his fair Jane con- 
 strained and sad ; she was silent, absent ; she 
 seemed to have been weeping. The aunt left 
 the room. He pressed for explanation, first in 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. gj 
 
 kind solicitude, then with increasing appre- 
 hension; but none was to be had, save only 
 broken hints that she was grieved for herself, 
 for him, that she had much to suffer, that he 
 must cease to visit her. It was vain that the 
 thunderstruck Wotton demanded, " Why ? 
 Why ? " " One whom she entirely depended 
 on had so ordered it, and for herself she had 
 nothing to do but to obey." She resisted all 
 entreaty ; she denied all explanation : her 
 words were firm and cold ; only by a thrill of 
 anguish that once or twice quivered over her 
 face could a calmer man have divined that 
 she was suffering within. Wotton's pride was 
 stung ; he rose and held out his hand : *' Fare- 
 well, then, madam ! " said he, in a low steady 
 voice ; " I will not — " She put her hand in 
 his ; she looked in his face, tears started to 
 her eyes ; but she turned away her head, hasti- 
 ly pressed his hand, and sobbing, whispered, 
 scarcely audibly, " Farewell ! " He approached 
 in frenzy ; his arms were half-raised to encir- 
 cle her ; but starting back she turned on him 
 a weeping face — a face of anger, love, and 
 
525 WOT TON REIN FRED, 
 
 agony. She sternly motioned to him to with- 
 draw, and Wotton scarce knew where he was 
 till with mad galloping he had reached his 
 own solitudes, and the town, and the fair 
 Jane, and all his blessed dreams were far 
 away. 
 
 This look of hers he had long time to medi- 
 tate, for it was the last. How many burning 
 thoughts he had to front ; how many wild 
 theories he formed of his misfortunes; how 
 many wild projects to repair it! But all in 
 vain : his letters were unanswered, or an- 
 swered in cold, brief commonplaces. At last 
 he received a pressing entreaty, or rather, a 
 peremptory injunction, to write no more. 
 Then hope no longer lingered ; thickest night 
 sank over his spirit, and a thousand furies 
 were sent forth to scourge him. They wxre 
 cruel days that followed. By-and-bye came 
 reports that his Jane was to be wedded — wed- 
 ded to Edmund Walter, a gay young man of 
 rank, a soldier, and, as Wotton rated him, a 
 debauchee, but wealthy, well-allied, and in- 
 fluential in the county. The wedding-day, it 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 53 
 
 was even stated, had been fixed. " What have 
 I to do with it ? " said Wotton, as he shud- 
 dered at the thought ; ** she is nought to me, 
 I am nought to her." 
 
 But some secret change had occurred, and 
 the public expectation was baulked. The 
 marriage did not take place, no one knew 
 why ; only Walter had left the neighbourhood 
 in indignant haste ; the aunt, also, and her 
 niece, the latter apparently in deepest sorrow, 
 had closed their house and retired to their 
 friends in London. The talk of gossips was 
 loud and manifold, but no light could be elicit- 
 ed ; a curtain of mystery still enveloped the 
 transaction, and one spiteful hypothesis only 
 gave place to another as spiteful and no bet- 
 ter founded. 
 
 What effect all this produced on the soli- 
 tary Wotton we need not describe at length. 
 His heart bled inwardly ; in solitude he suf- 
 fered, for his pride and his affection had 
 alike been cruelly wounded ; it was long 
 before even Bernard could penetrate into his 
 confidence, and soothe his darkened and ex- 
 
54 WOTTON REINFRED, 
 
 asperated spirit by a touch of human sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 Six months were now gone ; the whole in- 
 cident had removed into distance, and Wotton 
 could now see clearly how it had been and 
 how it was to be with him. He felt that he 
 had loved not wisely, yet irrevocably, and in 
 vain. A celestial vision had entranced him, 
 and now it was all fled away, and the grim 
 world lay round him, sicklied over by inef- 
 fectual longing. One little month so fair and 
 heavenly ; such a blissful meeting, such a 
 stern good-night ! He felt with tenfold force 
 that all hope was lies, that man's life was but 
 a mockery and a fever-dream. By degrees 
 he sank into iron quietude. " What is the 
 world," said he, " but a gloomy vision as the 
 poets have called it, and your fair landscapes, 
 so sunshiny, so green, so far-stretching, are 
 but cunning paintings on the walls. We are 
 captives, but it is only for a season. Death 
 is still our birthright; destiny itself cannot 
 doom us not to die. Strong death, the frown- 
 ing but helpful and never-failing friend ! Cow- 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. 55 
 
 ards have painted him as a spectre ; he is a 
 benignant genius bearing freedom and rest to 
 weary, heavy-laden man ! " 
 
 To all this Bernard listened with regret, 
 yet also with sympathy and firm hopes of bet- 
 ter things. This dreary stagnancy he knew 
 would not be final ; Wotton's nature was vir- 
 tuous, it would at length become believing, 
 become active, become happy. For malig- 
 nant activity it was too noble and moral, 
 for such icy rest too passionate. Nay, even 
 as it stood, was not a burst of fierce ten- 
 derness, or far-glancing despair every now 
 and then breaking forth as if in spite of 
 him? 
 
 Bernard had half-foreseen his passion for 
 Jane Montagu, and hoped that it might lead 
 him back to life, and in the end make two 
 worthy and beloved beings happy. Painfully 
 as the issue had deceived him, he did not 
 slacken his efforts or abate his confidence. 
 This journey he had diligently contrived and 
 recommended, in the course of which many 
 things, as he hoped, might occur to solace, to 
 
56 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 excite and instruct the marred and afflicted 
 spirit of the young man, and so in the end 
 to recall him from those regions of baleful 
 shadows into the light of truth and living 
 day. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Well mounted, wrapped and equipped 
 for travelling, our friends were on horseback 
 at an early hour. The sunbeam was still dewy 
 and level as they reached by a slanting path 
 the brow of the hill-range which bounded 
 in the valley to the left, and Wotton looked 
 back for a moment on the blue streak of 
 smoke which was rising from his own chim- 
 ney far down in the bottom, where all that he 
 possessed or delighted to remember on earth 
 lay clustered together in peaceful brightness. 
 The sound of a distant steeple-clock came 
 faint and saddened through the sunny morn- 
 ing. " How trim the burgh stands among its 
 woods and meadows ! " cried Bernard, looking 
 far across the dale ; " how gay its red steeples 
 rise through the fleece of blue, where many a 
 thrifty mother is cooking breakfast for her 
 
58 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 loved ones ! The place is alive and astir and 
 full of busy mortals though you think here 
 you might cover it all with your hat. It is 
 speaking to us, too, with its metal tongue ! " 
 
 Wotton moved on, for to him it was speak- 
 ing not in pleasure but in pain. It was the 
 sound which had announced to him in school- 
 boy years the scene of his daily martyrdom ; it 
 was the sound he had often heard beside Jane 
 Montagu; the note of that bell was getting 
 doleful and of evil presage to him. 
 
 '' I know not how it comes," said he, " but 
 to my imagination this journey of ours, simple 
 as it is, seems strangely momentous. It is as 
 if we were leaving our hampered but safe and 
 hospitable ark to venture forth on a world of 
 waters." 
 
 "A sign that hope is not dead in you," 
 said Bernard, " since you can still fear. We 
 shall return with olive leaves, I prophesy." 
 
 " Or at least fly to and fro upon the waters," 
 answered Wotton. *' Well, that is better than 
 pining in the prison. We shall be among the 
 mountains to-morrow," added he cheerily. 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 5^ 
 
 " Those granite peaks are shining on us as if 
 they were made of sapphire, and near at hand 
 they are but like other rocks. So man was 
 made to be deceived." 
 
 Wotton as a travelling companion, at least 
 to Bernard, was peculiarly delightful. The 
 excitement of a fine exercise, in which he 
 took pleasure and excelled, seemed to shake 
 the vapours from his spirit and awaken in 
 it all beautiful and healthful feelings. In the 
 glow of motion, under the thousandfold be- 
 nign influences of rural nature, he could many 
 times for a while attain to self-forgetfulness, 
 and pour forth in free and even glad effusion 
 the sensations of the hour. His moody cares 
 retired to the distance and formed as it were 
 a ground of deepest black, on which the 
 bright, lovely, nay, sometimes sportful imagery 
 of his mind looked out with double grace. 
 With Bernard his conversation was at all 
 times, and especiall}^ on such occasions, of the 
 most p)leasurable sort. There was in them 
 that agreement of feeling and disagreement of 
 opinion, that similarity in dissimilarity, which 
 
6o WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 is justly thought to form the great charm of 
 conversation. Much as they disputed they 
 never quarrelled. 
 
 The scene and the lovely weather were of 
 a kind to maintain the most genial humour. It 
 was a region as yet unvisited of mail-coaches, 
 traversed only by the solitarj^ horseman, or 
 some wayworn cadger toilsomely collecting for 
 city consumpt the minor produce of the dis- 
 trict ; a region of knoll and hollow, of modest 
 streamlet, and lone-lying tree-shaded farm ; 
 the mower was stooping in the valleys, where 
 as yet the fields were all of the greenest ; and 
 ever, as they mounted any height, our friends 
 saw before them afar off the long narrow Frith 
 winding like silver among its craggy head- 
 lands or grey sands ; beyond which, over 
 many an intervening range, towered up in 
 white light in the extreme distance the world 
 of mountains, with its blue tops and shadowy 
 chasms shutting in like a land of romance a 
 land of so many fair realities. 
 
 Pleasantly journeying, amid abundant talk, 
 they had reached before sunset the strand of 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 6i 
 
 the Frith ; where advancing to the end of one 
 among several long rude piers of wattle-work 
 fronted on the other side by several corre- 
 sponding piers which extended through sand 
 and silt and enabled the ferrymen to ply their 
 trade at all seasons of the tide, their signal 
 was soon answered, and two gnarled weather- 
 beaten rowers, with a helmsman and a huge 
 shapeless boat had in a few minutes landed 
 man and horse on the farther shore. Front- 
 ing and close by stood a rather gay-looking 
 mansion, which it seemed was an inn and 
 bathing establishment, and where our friends 
 proposed continuing for the night. During 
 their short voyage Wotton had remarked that 
 the helmsman eyed him somewhat too curious- 
 ly ; he was still farther struck, indeed offended, 
 when the same personage, who appeared like- 
 wise to be an under -waiter, continued to 
 glance at him, nay, seemed also to have 
 awakened the curiosity of his official supe- 
 rior ; for ever and anon as the two were 
 covering with much bustle a frugal enough 
 table, they kept privily casting looks on our 
 
62 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 hero, who at length determined to end their 
 survey. 
 
 " My friends." said he," is there anything 
 especially remarkable in my appearance that 
 you so gaze at me? Have I ever had the 
 honour of your acquaintance for good or bad ; 
 or are you apprehensive I may do your estab- 
 lishment here an ill turn ? " 
 
 " Thousand pardons ! " said they of the 
 apron, ducking very low. '' It is nothing, sir," 
 added the head waiter, '' but you are so very 
 like a picture we have here. You will excuse 
 our freedom, sir ! " 
 
 '' Picture ? " said Wotton. 
 
 '■' A gold locket with a miniature : an hon- 
 est countryman found it among the mount- 
 ains ; thought some of our guests in their 
 pleasure excursions might have lost it, so he 
 brought it hither, but no one claimed it ; and 
 the thing is still here waiting for an ov/ner. 
 You shall see it, sir." 
 
 The man left the apartment, and soon re- 
 turned with the trinket in question. It was a 
 pretty enough piece of work ; a little oval 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 5^ 
 
 casket of chased gold or filigrane, on a pink 
 ribbon, which seemed once to have suspended 
 it over some fair bosom. It might have been 
 dropped in riding. But what most surprised 
 our friends was, on opening the lid, for the 
 lock had been broken, to discover in the tiny 
 picture what really seemed a decided resem- 
 blance to Wotton, As a painting it was of 
 little value ; neither the individual tints nor 
 the general finish, though apparently great 
 pains had been taken with it, betrayed the 
 hand of an artist, yet the cast of our hero's 
 features did appear to have been aimed at, 
 nay, in some points accurately seized ; the 
 dark gray eyes under their deep decided 
 brows and high arched forehead, the well-pro- 
 portioned nose, the somev/hat too shallow 
 chin, the cluster}^ dark auburn hair were all 
 more or less correctly Wotton's; and about 
 the lips there played a mingled half-painful, 
 half-lofty expression of scorn, which in some 
 passionate moments was still more peculiarly 
 his. 
 
 Our travellers, it may well be supposed, 
 
64 WOTTON REIN FRED. 
 
 scarce knew what to make of this adventure. 
 They examined and re-examined the locket, 
 they questioned and re-questioned the waiter, 
 and all to little purpose. Except that it had 
 been found about six weeks ago, on a mount- 
 ain road at some fifteen miles distance, he 
 could tell them nothing. Wotton, in particu- 
 lar, with the vague imagination, which at such 
 an age a smaller circumstance will excite, 
 could not help feeling an unusual interest in 
 the matter, and determined if possible at no 
 rate to part with this copy of himself, which 
 chance had so strangely sent him. 
 
 " This trinket is not mine/' said he to the 
 waiter, " yet I question v/hether you are like 
 to meet with any one who has a better right 
 to it. I will leave you my address, and money 
 to the full amount for the finder ; if the pict- 
 ure be ever claimed, you will know where it is 
 to be had ; for in the mean time you must let 
 me take it with me." 
 
 The man made little objection, and in re 
 turn for the deposit of a few guineas the toy 
 was formally made over. For the rest of the 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 65 
 
 evening it formed between our friends the 
 chief topic of conversation, which indeed on 
 Wotton's part was kept up with no great 
 spirit. His mind was hunting over all its do- 
 mains for some trace of a solution to the mys- 
 ter)% or building on this slender basis all man- 
 ner of castles in the air. He could not recol- 
 lect that he had ever sat to any painter, and 
 who was this that had so daintily limned him 
 in his absence? One sweetest possibility he 
 dared not openly surmise to Bernard, scarcely 
 even to himself ; yet a light dawned upon him 
 as in the dusky remoteness, and the figure 
 of Jane Montagu came forth in new beauty 
 saddened over by inexpressible longing. 
 
 At an early hour he retired to his apart- 
 ment. His window fronted the sea, over 
 which the moon was peering from her couch 
 of clouds in the far east, while the tide swell- 
 ing forth as if to meet her into every creek 
 was murmuring hoarse and slow through the 
 mellow night. Soft vapours shrouded the 
 other shore ; the sea was shipless, for the 
 fisher barks were at anchor in their coves ; 
 
^() WOTTON REINFRED. 
 
 the moonbeam flickered on a solitude of wa- 
 ters. The thought of life and its mysteries 
 and vicissitudes came over Wotton's troublous 
 but solemn mind. He saw the images of 
 Time as if flitting so fair and transient through 
 the night of Eternity ; yet kind scenes crowd- 
 ed round him, and the earth vfith its stinted 
 joys and man with his marred destiny, seemed 
 but the lovelier that they were weak and with- 
 out continuance. The picture was in his hand, 
 was already suspended round his neck. ** Why 
 dost thou remember hcr^'' said he to himself, 
 '' when she is for ever hid from thy eyes ? 
 She came like a heavenly messenger preach- 
 ing peace to my spirit, and peace was not 
 appointed me. O Jane Montagu ! why was 
 the tinsel of the world precious to thee, and 
 its fine gold of no price ? Surely, surely thy 
 heart said nay, nay at that cruel hour ; we 
 might have been so blessed, so rich, so passing 
 rich ! — I will see her, at least," cried he, ris- 
 ing ; *^ something whispers that she thinks of 
 me, that she loves me ; and without her will 
 no power on earth or under it shall part us." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It was in a pleasurable mood, and with 
 hopes vaguely excited, that our friends en- 
 tered the mountain region. Mountains were 
 not new to either of them ; but rarely are 
 mountains seen in such combined majesty and 
 grace as here. The rocks are of that sort 
 called primitive by the mineralogist, which 
 always arrange themselves in masses of a 
 rugged and gigantic character ; but their rug- 
 gedness is softened by a singular elegance of 
 form ; in a climate favourable to vegetation, 
 the gray shapeless cliff itself covered with 
 lichens rises through a garment of foliage or 
 verdure, and white bright tufted cottages are 
 clustered round the base of the everlasting 
 granite. In fine vicissitude beauty alternates 
 with grandeur : you ride through stony hol- 
 lows, along strait passes traversed by torrents, 
 
68 WOT TON REINFRED, 
 
 and overhung by high walls of rock ; now 
 winding amid broken shaggy chasms, and 
 huge fragments ; now suddenly emerging into 
 some emerald valley, where the streamlet col- 
 lects into a lake, and man has found a fair 
 dwelling, and it seems as if peace had estab- 
 lished herself in the stony bosom of strength. 
 
 All this is not without effect on thinking 
 minds ; in Wotton it co-operated with much 
 that he already felt ; for the incident of last 
 night, though as if by tacit consent it was not 
 spoken of, still lurked in his thoughts, predis- 
 posing him to vague wondrous imaginations 
 and all high feeling. Bernard was full of 
 eloquence ; praising the beauty of nature, the 
 benignity of Providence, and the happiness 
 of men ; Wotton the while answered him, as 
 a stout sceptic, indeed, but as a sceptic that 
 grieved, not rejoiced to be so, and thus for 
 both parties the conversation was entertain- 
 ing, for with both such topics, and so treated, 
 were chief favourites. They were in the bot- 
 tom of a rude solitary glen, engaged so pleas- 
 antly, when the tramp of a horse was heard 
 
WOTTON REIN FRED. 6q 
 
 on the left, and presently a rider was observed 
 issuing by a steep side path from a sort of 
 break in the hills, and seemed as if advancing 
 like themselves, though from a different point, 
 toward the head of the valley. 
 
 The horseman, in fact, soon joined them, 
 and his courteous salutation being as court- 
 eously returned, the common-place introduc- 
 tions to talk ere long gave place to more in- 
 teresting topics, and a pleasant feeling of com- 
 panionship diffused itself over the party. The 
 stranger seemed a man of some fifty years ; 
 of a staid, determinate, yet, at the same time, 
 winning manner ; at once polished, intelligent, 
 and sociably frank : to look at him and listen 
 to him you felt inclined to assign the man a 
 higher rank than his equipment could have 
 challenged, for he was well and sufficiently 
 rather than splendidly mounted and dressed ; 
 and it was only in his clear kind eyes and 
 strong yet calm and gentle look that you read 
 a title to superior deference. Bernard was 
 celebrating the beauty of the scenery ; the 
 stranger spoke of it as one familiar with the 
 
70 WOTTON REIN FRED. 
 
 subject and the district, yet briefly and with 
 judgment rather than enthusiasm. 
 
 " A passing traveller," said Bernard, " might 
 envy your mountaineers their constant abode 
 among so many noble influences, did not one 
 remember the effect of habit how it deadens 
 all our impressions both of beauty and de- 
 formity." 
 
 " What is grander than the sun ? " added 
 Wotton ; *' yet we all see it daily, and few 
 think of the heavenly lamp save as a ripener 
 of corn. The moon, too, and the stars are 
 measured in their courses : but astronomy is 
 praised or tolerated because it helps us in 
 navigating ships, and the divine horologe is 
 rated as a supplement or substitute for Harri- 
 son's timekeeper." 
 
 The stranger glanced slightly at his ve- 
 hement companion, yet without expression of 
 displeasure, then answered : '' True goodness 
 of all sorts must have its life and root within 
 ourselves ; it depends on external appliances 
 far less than we suppose. The great point is 
 to have a healthy mind, or, if I may say so, a 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. yi 
 
 right power of assimilation^ for the elements of 
 beauty and truth lie round us on all sides, 
 even in the meanest objects, if we could but 
 extract them. Claude Lorraine, the painter 
 of so many heavenly landscapes, was bred a 
 colour-grindor ; the noble-minded Epictetus 
 was a slave. As to the effect of natural scen- 
 ery," continued he, '' I think with you that it is 
 trifling. The mountaineer has a peculiar way 
 of life, and differs from the inhabitant of the 
 plains because of it ; differs by reason of the 
 things he has to do, but scarcely of the things 
 he has to see. No nation has produced fewer 
 artists than the Swiss." 
 
 " Indeed," said Wotton, " this effect, what- 
 ever be its value, lies in a great measure open 
 to all men, dwell where they may. The 
 bleakest moor I can stand on is visited by the 
 eye of Heaven, and bears on its bosom the 
 traces of innumerable years. The pebble I 
 strike from my path was severed from distant 
 mountains in the primeval convulsions of Na- 
 ture, and has rolled for ages in the depth of 
 waters. This streamlet, nameless except to a 
 
f2 WOTTEN REIN FRED. 
 
 few herdsmen, was meted out by the hand of 
 the Omnipotent as well as the great ocean ; it 
 is ancient as the Flood, and was murmuring 
 through its solitude when the ships of ^neas 
 ascended the Tiber, or Silva's Brook was flow- 
 ing past by the Oracle of God." . 
 
 " Yet surely," said Bernard, " there are de- 
 grees of beauty in external things ; beauty 
 more direct, and I will add more pure, than 
 those universal attributes which my friend 
 here paints so vividly. Is it not the essence 
 of all true beauty, of all true greatness, that it 
 makes us forget our own little individuality ? 
 That we mingle for the moment as if in 
 boundless glory, feeling not that we are thus 
 and thus, but only \k\.2X we are ; remembering 
 nothing of ourselves, least of all that we are 
 weak and needy and of short duration?" 
 
 " Surely," answered Wotton. ** And if 
 mountain or any other scenery could do this," 
 added he, pensively, **it were well worth 
 travelling to see." 
 
 " One thing, at least, you have many times 
 occasion to observe, no topic sooner or more 
 
I 
 
 WOT TON REIN FRED. ^3 
 
 painfully wearies us than description of scen- 
 ery. Your view-hunter is the most irksome 
 of all articulate-speaking men," 
 
 " A proof of the little interest we really 
 take in views," answered the stranger. 
 
 " Besides," added Wotton, " if long-winded 
 he is generally in part insincere : there is cant 
 in his raptures ; he is treating us not with 
 his subject, but with his own false vainglori- 
 ous self. At best it is in sensations not in 
 thoughts that he is describing ; and no sensa- 
 tions, except our own, can long fix our atten- 
 tion." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the stranger, with a 
 kind smile, *'by your accent I take you to be 
 Scotch, yet your philosophy is not what we 
 call Scotch." 
 
 " Is Scotch philosophy in very bad odour 
 here?" inquired Wotton, somewhat piqued 
 for the honour of his country. 
 
 " In bad odour I should not say," replied 
 the stranger, '' for our little commonwealth is 
 a willing member of the great one ; and 
 everywhere, disguise it as we may, in the 
 
74 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 senate, the press, the pulpit, the parlour, 
 and the market, David Hume is ruler of the 
 world." 
 
 "The pulpit?" cried Bernard. 
 
 '' I have said," answered the stranger ; 
 " but it is a subject too long for present dis- 
 cussion. On the whole, I honour the Scotch, 
 and quarrel not with their philosophy. But 
 see, gentlemen," continued he, '' our roads 
 will soon part ; at the corner of that gray cliff 
 I turn to another valley. You are still far 
 from your inn : if a stra,nger's invitation 
 might prevail, you shall go with me and rest 
 you in the House of the Wold. The path is 
 rough, but the place is tolerable, and good 
 welcome will not fail you. Come with me," 
 added he, " I will show you wonders." 
 
 To Bernard, fond of adventures and hope- 
 ful of all dubious issues, these were no un- 
 pleasant words. He looked wistfully on Wot- 
 ton, who, rating the speech as little more 
 than a flourish of rhetoric, had no thought of 
 accepting the proposal, no thought that their 
 acceptance of it was desired. But as the 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 75 
 
 stranger pulled up at the parting of the roads, 
 and with the kindest frankness in words and 
 looks that could not be mistaken, assured 
 them that their presence would cause not 
 trouble but much enjoyment; and withal, 
 smiling on Wotton, with whom, as he per- 
 ceived, lay the hindrance, told him that it 
 were hard to part till they had talked of 
 Scotch philosophy, the latter yielded ; and 
 so, after some complimentary formalities, our 
 travellers turned their horses to the right 
 along with him. Their road or rather track 
 lay up a winding rocky glen and many times 
 crossed the brook which was gurgling along 
 its bottom to join the larger stream of the 
 main valley. 
 
 Ascending the pass, after half an hour's 
 incommodious riding, they found the brook, 
 no longer fed by subsidiary springs, dimin- 
 ished to a rill, which also in a httle while 
 ending in a boggy delta disappeared from 
 their side. A rough causeway, which seemed 
 to be the Avork of man, conducted them 
 across the swamp, still overshaded by craggy 
 
76 WOT TON REIN FRED, 
 
 heights ; till as they proceeded, the bog again 
 drew to a point, and another thread of water 
 began to indent with its tiny channel the bot- 
 tom of another glen, descending in the oppo- 
 site direction, but narrow, deep, winding and 
 rocky as the former. 
 
 ^^ Facilis descensus Averni^' said the guide, 
 smiling : " the worst of our road is past." 
 Ere long, in fact, the walls of their chasm be- 
 gan to widen and soften ; copse wood alter- 
 nating with verdure mantled the steep, a 
 shepherd's hut rose cheerful and secure in 
 the hollow, and at the next turn our travellers 
 emerged into a scene which no stranger ap- 
 proaching it by such a road could view with- 
 out astonishment. 
 
 " It is the Happy Valley of Prince Rasse- 
 las!" cried Wotton. 
 
 " It is not Avernus, but Elysium ! " cried 
 Bernard. 
 
 *' It is the House of the Wold," said the 
 guide, '' where refreshment and rest are wait- 
 ing us." 
 
 A circular valley of some furlongs in 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 77 
 
 diameter lay round them, like a huge amphi- 
 theatre, broken only in its contour by the 
 entrance of two oblique chasms like the one 
 they had left ; on its level bottom of the 
 purest green stood a large stately mansion, 
 which seemed to be of granite, for in the sun- 
 beams it glittered from amid its high clusters 
 of foliage like a palace of El Dorado, over- 
 laid with precious metaL Behind it, and on 
 both sides at a distance, the hills sloped 
 up in gentle wavy curvature ; the sward was 
 of the greenest, embossed here and there 
 with low dark- brown frets of crag, or spotted 
 by some spreading solitary tree and its shad- 
 ow ; in front at a corner of the valley lay 
 the small lake, hemmed in by woody cliffs : 
 and beyond and around all this^ ridge after 
 ridge, higher and bluer and wilder as 
 they receded were seen the peaks of the 
 mountains watching in severe loveliness, 
 like everlasting guardians, over a scene so 
 calm. 
 
 Servants hastened out an the lawn to meet 
 
 our travellers, who a few minutes after found 
 6 
 
7a WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 themselves in a large parlour before the lady 
 of the mansion. 
 
 " Dorothy, my love," said the host, " I 
 have made a capture in the east to-day. 
 Here are two strangers, whom we must 
 change into friends." 
 
 " The beginning of friendship is good 
 offices," replied she, w^ith graceful courtesy : 
 " you must be faint and wearied, as pilgrims 
 are wont; and dinner will not come for an 
 hour." 
 
 For the present our friends declined any 
 refreshment ; and after some little conversa- 
 tion, which could not but be general and 
 formal, they gladly retired to their chambers, 
 under pretext of dressing, a process which, 
 with the scanty wardrobe of travellers, was 
 soon enough performed, but chiefly that they 
 might have time to consider their adventure, 
 and collect their thoughts, which this ren- 
 counter and its unexpected issue had some- 
 what put to rout. 
 
 The pealing of a gong in a little while sum- 
 moned our friends to the drawing-room, from 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. yg 
 
 which in a few minutes a party of some 
 twelve persons moved down in order to a 
 table tastefully and plenteously furnished. 
 Sprightly conversation enlivened the repast ; 
 the company seemed singularly varied for its 
 number ; each an original in his class ; men, 
 as it appeared generalh^, of intellect and edu- 
 cation, rather than of special rank or breed- 
 ing ; yet all animated by good humour, and in- 
 sensibly participating in the gentle influences 
 of their hosts, whose manners indicated a re- 
 finement in every point corresponding with 
 the highest station. Their fair mistress, for, 
 though elderly, she still bore traces of a sin- 
 gular beauty, a woman of the stateliest yet hu- 
 manest respect, presided over them with the 
 graceful dignity of a queen. To Wotton the 
 sound of her voice was melody ; the few 
 words she spoke were of the most polished, 
 yet expressive sort ; her little sentences, so 
 meekly and opportunely uttered, stood before 
 the mind like living images, full of loveliness 
 and persuasion. Fain would the poor youth 
 have spoken to her, fain have replied to her 
 
8o WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 courtesies with a copiousness proportioned to 
 his feeling of them ; but his heart was pressed 
 together by so singular an environment; he 
 felt as if he had no right to be so splendidly 
 welcomed, as if it were by mistake that he 
 was here. 
 
 Other ladies also there were ; young, beau- 
 tiful, and blooming; visitors, as it might be 
 gathered, from no distant neighbourhood ; and 
 not without fit gallants proud to do them serv- 
 ice : but these fair ones skirmished only in 
 buckram or from afar ; what manner of per- 
 sons they might be you did not learn ; and 
 Virgil could only have described them as 
 pulchram Annam, pulchramque Elisam. With 
 one of these Bernard entered on a sort of dis- 
 tant flirtation to Wotton's astonishment, who 
 could not comprehend such audacity, or help 
 half-envying the success it appeared to meet 
 Vv'ith. Though he had loved, he was an utter 
 novice in affairs of love : vain had it been for 
 Chesterfield to tell him and assure him that 
 every woman wishes us to love her ; in his 
 tenfold diffidence and disbelief it never struck 
 
WOTTON REINFRED, gl 
 
 him that his approbation could be of worth to 
 any one. He was even threatening to become 
 absent, for sad thoughts were gathering on 
 him ; these beauties were blond ; but dark 
 locks clustered round another face far nobler ; 
 and black eyes had told him such things ! 
 Lies they were — perhaps not altogether lies ! 
 yet lovelier than any truth : it was pain to re- 
 member them, but to forget them was like a 
 living death. 
 
 The cloth being removed, conversation, 
 which had hitherto turned chiefly on the vari- 
 ous personal adventures of the morning, be- 
 gan to take a wider range. Public occur- 
 rences and persons, glanced at rather than dis- 
 cussed, led the way to topics more strictly 
 intellectual ; to abstract views of men and 
 things set forth in criticisms, expositions, com- 
 parisons, and the other ever-varying modes 
 b}^ which in social hours our individual Philos- 
 ophy of Life may be so delightfully communi- 
 cated and apprehended. 
 
 To Wotton, much, indeed passionately as 
 he liked such conversation, the tone of the 
 
82 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 present company was, nevertheless, in some 
 degree alien : the feeling it awoke in him was 
 one of surprise and unrest as well as pleasure. 
 The Attic salt, that air of candour and good- 
 ness, those striking glimpses of man's nature 
 and its sufferings and wants, had his sympathy 
 and hearty approval ; but he sought in vain 
 for the basis on which these people had built 
 their opinions ; their whole form of being 
 seemed different from his. Men equally in- 
 formed and cultivated he had sometimes met 
 with, but seldom or never had he seen such 
 culture of the intellect combined with such 
 moral results, nay, as it appeared, conducing 
 to them. Here were fearless and free think- 
 ers, yet they seemed not unbelievers, but, on 
 the contrary, possessed with charity and zeal : 
 their affirmations and denials would not har- 
 monise in his conception. It is not always 
 that originality, even when true and estima- 
 ble, pleases us at first ; if it go beyond our 
 sphere it is much more likely to unsettle and 
 provoke us. Of much that he heard, Wotton 
 knew not what to determine ; it was a strain 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. 83 
 
 of thought which suited not with any of his 
 categories, either of truth or error ; in which, 
 therefore, he could only mingle stintedly and 
 timidly, for he felt as if hovering in the vortex 
 of some strange element, in which as yet he 
 had not learned to move. 
 
 What, for instance, could he make of such 
 tenets as this, in which, however, several so- 
 ber-minded persons, their host among the 
 number, seemed partially to acquiesce ? 
 
 ** Demonstrability is not the test of truth ; 
 logic is for what the understanding sees, what 
 is truest we do not see, for it has no form, be- 
 ing infinite; the highest truth cannot be ex- 
 pressed in words." 
 
 " How is it expressed, then ? " cried the 
 brisk voice of Henry Williams ; a speaker, 
 whom, alone of them all, Wotton had from 
 the first understood. 
 
 " How is it expressed, then ? " cried Wot- 
 ton and several more, in tones partly of in- 
 quiry, partly of cavil. 
 
 " It is expressed oftener than it is listened 
 to or comprehended," said the other in reply ; 
 
84 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 *' for our ears are heavy, and the divine har- 
 mony of the spheres is drowned in the gross, 
 harsh dissonance of earthly things. Ex- 
 pressed ? In the expiring smile of martyrs ; 
 in the actions of a Howard and a Cato ; in the 
 still existence of all good men. Echoes of it 
 come to us from the song of the poet ; the sky 
 with its azure and its rainbow and its beautiful 
 vicissitudes of morn and even shows it forth ; 
 the earth also with her floods and everlasting 
 Alps, the ocean in its tempests and its calms. 
 It is an open secret, but we have no clear 
 vision for it : woe to us if we have no vision 
 at all!" 
 
 " JLantism ! Kantism ! " cried several voices. 
 ** German mysticism ! mere human faculties 
 cannot take it in." Wotton looked at this 
 singular exotic speaker; he was a man of 
 sixty, yet still hale and fresh ; thin gray hair 
 lay over a head of striking proportions ; the 
 face was furrowed and overlined with traces 
 of long, deep, and subtle thought, of feeling 
 rather fine than passionate, and this of pain as 
 much as pleasure ; there was especially a look 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. ' 85 
 
 of strange anxiety in the eyes ; a look at once 
 of vehemence and fear : indeed the whole man 
 seemed labouring with some idea, which he 
 longed vainly to impart, for which, while he 
 sought earnestly some outward form, he knew 
 beforehand that none would be found. 
 
 " My good Dalbrook," said Maurice (such 
 was the landlord's name), " we are hard bested 
 with these gainsayers. Do you mean that the 
 sense of poetic beauty and moral obligation is 
 the highest truth, and to be apprehended not 
 by conviction but by persuasion, not by cult- 
 ure of the head but of the heart ? " 
 
 ** There is a truth of the market place," 
 continued Dalbrook, attending little to the 
 question ; " a truth of the laboratory, and a 
 truth of the soul. The first two are of things 
 seen and their relations, they are practical or 
 physically scientific, and belong to the under- 
 standing ; the last is of things unseen and be- 
 longs exclusively to the reason." 
 
 '' Reason, understanding ? Things unseen ? " 
 cried the sceptics. 
 
 " Laplace's M^canique Cdeste, Adam Smith's 
 
86 WOTTON REIN FRED. 
 
 Wealth of Nations are full of understanding," 
 continued Dalbrook, '' but of reason there is 
 hardly any trace in either. Alas ! the hum- 
 blest peasant reverently offering up his poor 
 prayer to God, and in trembling faith draw- 
 ing near to Him as to his Father ; thus recogniz- 
 ing, worshipping, loving, under emblems how- 
 ever rude, the invisible and eternal, has many 
 times more reason, mixed as it is with weakness 
 and delusion, than vainglorious doctors for 
 whose philosophy there is nothing too hard." 
 
 " Then you think with Hucheson that there 
 is a moral faculty, and that taste and virtue 
 are fiot the result of association ? " cried a 
 young Oxonian, with a look of glad earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 Dalbrook looked down, arching his eye- 
 brows very high. ^' Faculty ! Association ! " 
 repeated he, with an unspeakable accent. The 
 Oxonian fell back. 
 
 Bernard had listened with no ordinary in- 
 terest. " Then pray, sir," said he, " is not this 
 understanding like what Bacon calls his lumen 
 siccum ; and reason like his lumen madidum^ or 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. %j 
 
 intellect steeped in affection ? " The old man 
 looked up with an air of partial contentment, 
 but slightly shook his head. " Understand- 
 ing perceives and judges of images and meas- 
 ures of things," said he ; " reason perceives 
 and judges of what has no measure or image. 
 The latter only is unchangeable and everlast- 
 ing in its decisions, the results of the former 
 change from age to age ; it is for these that 
 men persecute and destroy each other; yet 
 these comparatively are not worth the name 
 of truth, they are not truth, but only ephem- 
 eral garments of truth." 
 
 " Then what in heaven's name is truth," 
 said an atrabiliar gentleman, whom, in spite of 
 his politeness, the whole discussion was too 
 evidently wearying. 
 
 " Truth ! " interrupted Williams in his gay 
 voice, " Home Tooke's is the best of all defi- 
 nitions : truth is simply troweth, or that which 
 is trowed, or believed. In this way we have 
 many trozveths, and my troweth is very differ- 
 ent from thy troweth, and the only rule is that 
 the one should let the other live in peace." 
 
38 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 '''■ It is not essential to being happy,** ob- 
 served our Oxonian from beside the fair 
 Anna : " the way to happiness is plain before 
 all men if they like to follow it.** 
 
 " Aye ! " said the atrabiliar, who seemed to 
 be his uncle or some relation. 
 
 " But they miss it," continued the other, 
 *'by cowardice and indecision.*' The clear 
 eyes and buxom sceptic aspect of this youth 
 seemed to vex his relation. 
 
 « My good sir,'* replied he, " we have all 
 had pretty views of it ourselves in our time. 
 Fair and softly ! There is an age when to 
 every man life appears the simplest matter. 
 How very manageable 1 Every why has its 
 wherefore ; this leads to that, and the whole 
 problem of existence is easy and certain as a 
 question in the Rule of Three. Multiply the sec- 
 ond and third terms together^ and divide the prod- 
 uct by the firsts and the quotient will be the an- 
 swer I Trust me, friend, before you come to 
 my time of day, you will find there is a devil- 
 ish fraction always over, do what you will ; 
 and if you try to reduce it, it goes into a re- 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 89 
 
 peating decimal and leads you the Lord knows 
 whither. Life happy ! " continued he : " what 
 thinking mortal ever found it so ? Which of 
 us might not say with Swift: I have had 
 hours that might be tolerated, but none which 
 could be enjoyed, and my life in general has 
 been misery ! Show me a man that is happy, 
 and I will show thee a man that has — an excel- 
 lent nervous system. Williams, when you 
 write again, it should be an essay on the Com- 
 forts of Stupidity. 
 
 *' I have sometimes taken that matter into 
 consideration," answered Williams, *' but I 
 fear I should vote rather against you. Much, 
 much depends on the nerves ; but something 
 also on prudence and wise management. On 
 the whole, too, I think Nature is kind to us, 
 and it is a blessing to exist : there is more of 
 happiness in life than of misery." 
 
 " To me the contrary is clear as noon," 
 said the other; "and have not all countries 
 and stations recorded opinions in my favour ? 
 * Man that is born of a woman is of few days, 
 and full of evil,' says the Patriarch. * He is 
 
90 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards.' 
 * It is better to sit than to walk,' say the In- 
 dians, * it is better to sleep than to wake ; but 
 to be dead is best of all.' — When an infant was 
 presented for consecration to the Mexican 
 priest, his address to it was, * Remember that 
 thou art come into the world to suffer ; suffer 
 then, and be silent ! ' What more can any of 
 us say ? " 
 
 " But there is a fairer land on the other 
 side of the dark waters," said Doroth}^ 
 meekly ; " where pain and sin are banished. 
 This is but a winter day's journey to a home 
 that is glorious and enduring." 
 
 " Alas ! " ejaculated he, lifting up his fin- 
 gers from the bottom of his glass, then slowly 
 restoring them, without farther speech, then 
 looking up with a smile. On the whole, this 
 gentleman had no look of death, but rather of 
 jollity and social well-being. At dinner he 
 had done fair duty, his wine he was sipping, 
 moderately, and not without relish, while he 
 talked in this lugubrious dialect, and to what 
 spleen soever might be lurking about his 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. qi 
 
 heart, these speeches were evidently giving 
 comfortable vent. 
 
 " Surely, sir," said Wotton, who, in spite 
 of similarity in thought, sympathised but ill 
 with him, "if your opinion is correct, there 
 ought to be a change in our social arrange- 
 ments. Nay, what use is there for social ar- 
 rangements, or aught else in this life, since 
 life itself is an evil, and there is nothing be- 
 yond it? Let us pay off our clergy, pull 
 down our parish churches, and on the ruins 
 of each establish simply a bag of arsenic 
 for the good of the parish. It might be 
 kept up by contribution, and would save 
 us tithes. We could have it supended on a 
 pole, with this superscription, * Ho, every 
 one ! * " 
 
 The atrabiliar himself was forced to join in 
 the laugh, which rose on all sides at his ex- 
 pense. " A hit ! A palpable hit ! " cried Will- 
 iams. ** The arsenic-bag, the arsenic-bag for 
 ever! The death of all blue-devil philoso- 
 phy!" cried the others. — "Young gentleman, 
 I must owe you a thrust," said the atrabiliar, 
 
92 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 laughing ; " for the present, your arsenic is 
 too strong." 
 
 " Nay, cousin, you deserve it," said Mau- 
 rice, " for the cause is radically bad ; even if 
 true, you were wrong to urge it. Does not 
 the adage say, * Speak no evil of your own ? * 
 This life, be what it may, is all that has been 
 given us, to mend or to mar, to hold and to 
 have for better for worse ; and not by reviling 
 and contemning what is bad in it, but by ar- 
 ranging, furthering, augmenting what is good 
 shall we ever turn it to account. Fie ! would 
 you list under no better flag than the devil's ? 
 Your arch fault-finder is the devil ; it is no 
 one's trade but his to dwell on negations, to 
 impugn the darkness and overlook the light ; 
 and out of the glorious All itself to educe not 
 beauty but deformity." 
 
 " I believe," added Williams, " there is 
 generally in this very trite topic one of those 
 ambiguities in language, which logicians are so 
 frequently beset with, and this chiefly occa- 
 sions the dilemma. When we speak of happi- 
 ness and being happy, we half unconsciously 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED, 93 
 
 mean some extra enjoyment if I may say so, 
 pleasure, some series of agreeable sensation, 
 superadded to the ordinary pleasure of existing, 
 which really, if free from positive pain, is all 
 we have right to pretend to. In place of 
 reckoning ourselves happy when we are not 
 miserable, we reckon ourselves miserable 
 when not happy. A proceeding, if you think 
 of it, quite against rule ! What claim have I 
 to be in raptures? None iw the world, except 
 that I have taken such a whim into my own 
 wise head ; and having got so much, I feel as 
 if I could never ^^t my due. It is with man 
 and enjoyment as with the miser and money : 
 the more he gets the more he wants.'' 
 
 "It is our vanit}^'' said Maurice; "our 
 boundless self-conceit. Make us emperors of 
 the earth, nay, of the universe, we should soon 
 feel as if we deserved it, and much more.'' 
 
 *' Poor fellows I " added Williams, " And 
 
 so when the young gentleman goes forth into 
 
 the worlds and finds that it is really and truly 
 
 not made of wax, but oi stone and metal, and 
 
 will keep its own shape, let the young gentle- 
 7 
 
94 WOT TON REIN FRED, \ 
 
 man fume as he likes ; bless us, what a storm 
 he gets into ! What terrible elegies, and pin- 
 darics, and Childe Harolds and Sorrows of 
 Werter ! O devil take it, Providence is in the 
 wrong ; has used him (sweet, meritorious gen- 
 tleman) unjustly. He will bring his action of 
 damages against Providence ! Trust me, a 
 hopeful lawsuit ! " 
 
 '' We are too apt to forget," said Bernard, 
 " that for creatures formed as we are, all per- 
 manent enjoyment must be active not passive. 
 Without evil there were for us no good ; our 
 condition is militant ; it is only in labour that 
 we rest. Our highest, our only real blessed- 
 ness, lies in this very v/arfare with evil. Let 
 us conquer it or not ; truly an abundant bless- 
 edness, but which, as you remark, we seldom 
 take into account in our estimates of life. 
 Weighing the attainment, we find it light, 
 and the search must go for nothing. We 
 would have a paradise of spontaneous pleas- 
 ures ; forgetting that in such a paradise the 
 dullest spirit would and must grow wearied, 
 nay, in time unspeakably wretched." 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 95 
 
 " Yes," added Maurice, *' the lubberland of 
 the old poets in an impossible chimera ; im- 
 possible, even in the region of chimeras." 
 
 " Yet it is this very lubberland," said Ber- 
 nard, " which so many pilgrims are seeking, 
 and in despair because they cannot find." 
 
 " Most know not what they are seeking," 
 said Wotton, '' but wander with the crowd, 
 picking sloes and brambles by the way ; 
 others run hither and thither, now after this 
 gewgaw, now after that. Pilgrims also we 
 have, walking apart, with their faces set on 
 distant glorious landmarks ; but your sloe- 
 and-bramble men are the happiest." 
 
 " In spite of your arsenic," said the atra- 
 biliar,^ " 1 half suspect you agree with me ; in 
 a private corner you would say, there is little 
 happiness in the world, and that little chiefly 
 for fools." 
 
 " Happiness is not man's object," said Dal- 
 brook, awakening from a muse. '■' He does 
 not find it, he ought not to seek it, neither is 
 it his highest wish." 
 
 *' Wish ? " cried Williams. " Nay, Dal- 
 
q6 wot ton rein FRED. 
 
 brook, of all your paradoxes this is the most 
 paradoxical." 
 
 '' Pleasure and pain," continued the other, 
 little moved, *' are interwoven with every ele- 
 ment of life : to love the one and hate the 
 other is the essence of all sentient natures, 
 nor for a nature merely sentient is there any 
 higher law. But was man made only to feel ? 
 Is there nothing better in him than a passive 
 system of susceptibilities ? Can he move only 
 like a finer piece of clockwork when you 
 touch this spring and stop when you touch 
 that other ? Is his spirit a quality, not a sub- 
 stance ? has it no power, no will ? And is his 
 freedom, that celestial patent of nobility, the 
 crowning gift of God, to mark him for the 
 sovereign of this lower world, a mockery and 
 a lie ? O philosophy ! O heaven-descended 
 wisdom ! what hast thou been made to teach ! 
 In thy name cozeners have beguiled us of our 
 birthright and sold us into bondage, and we 
 are no longer servants of goodness, but slaves 
 of self. My friends ! " continued the old man, 
 with a singular half-natural, half-preaching 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. gy 
 
 tone, " I say to you this is false and poisonous 
 doctrine, and the heart of every good man 
 feels that it is false, and well for him if he 
 pluck it out and cast it away for ever ! If not, 
 farewell to all religion, all true virtue, all true 
 feeling of the beautiful and good, all dignity 
 of life, all grandeur beyond it ! Nature, in- 
 deed, is kind, and from under the basest phi- 
 losophy some gleams of natural goodness will 
 break forth ; nay, thank heaven, righteousness 
 and mercy are everlasting inmates of man's 
 spirit, overcloud them as we may ; but all 
 that any creed can do to banish them, this 
 does." 
 
 " By day and night ! " cried Williams. 
 *' This is wondrous strange. Must a man be- 
 come vicious because he wishes to be happy ? 
 Because he wishes to be happy ? no ; but be- 
 cause he wishes nothing more, yes, doubtless. 
 What is virtue ; tell me ? A task to be per- 
 formed for hire ? This is not virtue, but profit 
 and loss. If ye do these things that good 
 may come, what reward have ye ? Do not 
 even the Pharisees the same ? " 
 
C)8 WOTTON REIN FRED 
 
 ** But is not He?4.ven promised to the Chris- 
 tian as a recompense ? Of Heaven and the 
 Christian we might have much to say, but 
 this is not the time for it. One thing I am 
 sure of, no Christian man was ever a Christian 
 because he hoped for Heaven, or would cease 
 to be so, though that hope were taken from 
 him. Nay, hear me ; true religion is grounded 
 not on expectation, but on vision ; not on pal- 
 try hopes of pleasure, satisfaction, happiness, 
 whatever you may name it, but on all-pervad- 
 ing, soul-subduing, infinite love of goodness. 
 Self is self, whether its calculations end with 
 the passing day, or stretch to the limits of 
 eternity." 
 
 " Wire-drawing," murmured the atrabiliar. 
 " Metaphysical quibbles," said he. 
 
 '' I am afraid," said Williams, "if you push 
 matters so far, there are few of us will stand 
 your scrutiny. To say nothing of Utilitarians, 
 Epicureans, and other tribes of the avowed 
 alien ; it seems to me that many an orthodox 
 devout person, if tried by this electrometer, 
 might find himself in a shockingly negative 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. gg 
 
 state. Self-seeking, if you so understand it, is 
 certainly the staple of human principle ; for 
 my share, I will confess, I find it difficult to 
 see how any living creature ca7t act on any 
 other. If you told me, ' This is and will be 
 pleasant, that is and will be painful,' should I 
 not, must I not, reject the latter and cling to 
 the former ?" 
 
 '* But if I told you, ' The pleasant is and 
 will be vicious, the painful is and will be 
 virtuous ' ? " said Maurice, hastening to assist 
 Dalbrook, who seemed to be ill at ease in ar- 
 gument. 
 
 " 'Tis an impossible case," said the other. 
 " Admit it for a moment ; would you feel no 
 twinge, no compunctious visiting ? Nay, if I 
 offered that you should to all eternity be filled 
 and satisfied with pleasure, on condition that 
 you became a villain and a fool, supposing 
 even that I took your conscience from you, 
 and no trace of repentance or remembrance 
 were ever to afflict you again, would you 
 strike the bargain without scruple ? Would 
 you plunge into the scene as into your native 
 
100 WOT TON RE INF RED. 
 
 element ? Would you hasten to it as to the 
 bosom of a mother ? Would there be no 
 whisper of gainsaying ? " 
 
 '' Perhaps some whisper ; but — " 
 
 '' That little whisper saves us ! " cried Mau- 
 rice. 
 
 '' It was the voice of your better genius ! " 
 cried Dalbrook. 
 
 '' Perhaps only of my vanity," said Will- 
 iams. '' I might not like to be degrad- 
 ed." 
 
 " The voice at least of something which 
 was not love of pleasure ; something which 
 the philosopher and I reckon higher, and 
 which you yourself must admit to be differ- 
 ent," said Maurice. 
 
 " O good Heavens ! " cried Dalbrook. 
 '■'- Quoiisque venimus ? Does it require proof 
 that there is something better in man than 
 self-interest, however prudent and clear-sight- 
 ed ; that the divine law of virtue is not a 
 drudge's bargain, and her beauty and omnipo- 
 tent majesty an * association,' a shadow, the 
 fable of a nurse ? O Prodicus ! Was thy 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. iqi 
 
 *■ Choice of Hercules ' written to shame us ; 
 that after twenty centuries of ' perfectibil- 
 ity ' are here still arguing ? Do you know, 
 sirs," added he, in a lower tone, '' this 
 doctrine is the curse of Europe in our gen- 
 eration ; the bane of all true greatness ; the 
 root of sensuality, cruelty, and Atheism ? 
 It was the creed of Rome under Nero and 
 Caligula, when the human race seemed lost ; 
 lost, thank God, it was not, and will not 
 be!" 
 
 " But on what motive do we act then, or 
 can we act virtuously?" said the atrabiliar, 
 with impatience. 
 
 *' Possibly on no utotive at all, in that sense 
 of the word motive," answered Dalbrook. 
 " One of the wisest men now living has told 
 us, as applied to art, * Of what is wrong we 
 are always conscious ; of what is right, never.' 
 The virtue we are conscious of is no right 
 virtue. But, come," added he, " Williams is 
 smiling incredulous, Frank is suspending me 
 7iaso adtmco, our young friends are wearied. I 
 move that we exchange our wine for coffee, 
 
 \ 
 
I02 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 and the thorns of philosophy for the roses of 
 beauty." 
 
 " One of the wisest things you have 
 said," cried Williams. " Will you lead the 
 way ? " 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Before parting for the night it had been 
 settled that our travellers were not to depart 
 the next day, or the next ; an arrangement to 
 which, entreated as they were by such friend- 
 ly hosts, and tempted by so many fair entice- 
 ments, they had consented without difficulty. 
 Bernard in particular was charmed with the 
 valley and its inmates, and eager to penetrate 
 still farther into the secrets and affections of 
 so singular and gifted a household ; of whom, 
 as was his way, he felt ready to believe all 
 good. Wotton, again, with less hope of the 
 adventure, had perhaps still deeper curiosity 
 respecting it. On retiring to his room he 
 could not but wonder in contrasting his pres- 
 ent mood-with the mood of j^esternight. An 
 unusual, almost painful, excitement had stirred 
 up -many latent energies, crowds of confused 
 
104 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 images and all manner of obscure anticipa- 
 tions and ideas were whirling through his 
 mind, the very basis of which had been as- 
 sailed and shaken ; while the gorgeous scenery, 
 as of a new world of thought which he had 
 only beheld in brief dreams, seemed now to 
 advance before him in living reality. The fig- 
 ures of the past, the present, and future were 
 tumultuously mingled in his head till sleep 
 sank over him like an ambrosial cloud, and 
 hid him within dreamy curtains from his cares. 
 
 Next morning he was on the hills with 
 Williams. The rosy precincts of the House 
 in the Wold were out of sight, and the two 
 were pretending to botanise. We say pre- 
 tending, for neither of them were intent on 
 the matter ; to Wotton, at least, the science of 
 botany was uninteresting, indeed, unknown, 
 or known only as a tedious beadroU of names. 
 Williams, however, was a mineralogist also, 
 and a pleasant, lively man. 
 
 *' The mountain air is pure," said he, ** and 
 the brown hill-tops in their solitude are a 
 pleasure to look on. We shall go by cliff and 
 
WOTTON REIN FRED, 105 
 
 tarn, and ' interrogate Nature ' as well as any 
 of them. Oh," continued he, '' does it not do 
 your heart good to think of Nature being 
 interrogated ? To see some innocent little 
 whipster, with a couple of crucibles, and pith- 
 balls, and other like small gear, setting forth 
 in such gaiety of spirit to cross-question Na- 
 ture. By heaven ! I think Nature must be 
 the queen of dolts if she don't bamboozle 
 him ! " 
 
 " The Book of Nature," said Wotton, '' is 
 written in such strange intertwisted charac- 
 ters, that you may spell from among them a 
 few words in any alphabet, but to read the 
 whole is for omniscience alone." 
 
 '' So each walks by his own hornbook," 
 said the other ; '' and whatever contradicts 
 the hornbook is no letter but a flourish. As 
 the fool thinks, the bell clinks, our adage says ; 
 and so it is here as well as elsewhere." 
 
 However, it was not to interrogate Nature 
 that Wotton chiefly wanted ; but, rather, to 
 interrogate his new acquaintance on matters 
 nearer home. 
 
I06 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 " I may confess to you," said he, " I am in 
 no scientific mood at present. The sudden 
 chang-e of my scene confuses so young a trav- 
 eller ; indeed, this House of the Wold is still 
 a riddle to me ; and of much that I saw and 
 heard last night, I knew not and yet know not 
 what to make. Will you give me a little 
 light, for I am wandering in dark labyrinths ? 
 Among all our philosophers there was none 
 whom I so well understood and sympathised 
 with as yourself. Can you explain to me what 
 manner of persons I am got amxong, that so 
 kindly welcome me, and instruct me in such 
 wondrous doctrine ? " 
 
 " Willingly," cried his companion, '* so far 
 as may be ; but I myself am only a purblind 
 guide, so have a care that we do not both fall 
 into the ditch. You say truly, this House in 
 the Wold is a riddle ; we are altogether a sur- 
 prising household, varying from week to week 
 as visitors arrive and go, yet still differing 
 from all other earthly households. Come 
 when you will, you shall find a circle of origi- 
 nals assembled here ; the strangest mortals 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED, 107 
 
 with the strangest purposes, attracted as by 
 magnetic virtue to the place ; in figuration 
 still you might think Proteus was returned to 
 the world, and had driven all his flock to visit 
 the lofty mountains, as in the era of Deuca- 
 lion. Artists, poets, sciolists, sages, men of 
 science, men of letters, politicians, statesmen, 
 pedagogues, all find place ; one only condition 
 is required, so far as I can see : that the man 
 be something, and this something with a cer- 
 tain honesty of mind ; for knaves and scoun- 
 drels of the most amusing cast I have known 
 ere now packed off decisively enough. 
 
 " But to particulars ! And first o* the first. 
 Our noble hosts are persons whom, however 
 we may wonder at, no one that knows them 
 can speak of without reverence. Maurice Her- 
 bert is by possession and descent the sover- 
 eign of this quarter of the mountains ; a man 
 naturally of talent, generosity, and resolution, 
 whom a life of various activity, not unmixed 
 with suffering, has moulded into a character 
 of singular composure and humanity. You 
 will find him well and universally informed ; 
 
I08 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 polished by intercourse with court and camp ; 
 for he has seen the world under both these 
 aspects ; indeed, his natural endowments and 
 connections seemed to appoint him as if from 
 birth for public life ; but his philosophic 
 tastes, joined to a certain almost haughty in- 
 flexibility of spirit, and also, I believe, to some 
 cruel domestic afflictions, soon drove him back 
 into retirement. His lady and he have been 
 wedded some twenty years, most part of 
 which they have passed in this valley. They 
 have no children ; at least they are now child- 
 less ; though thereby hangs some secret, for a 
 tale goes of one child having been mysteri- 
 ously stolen from them while abroad ; but on 
 this subject you shall never hear them speak, 
 nor is it safe to question them. For the pres- 
 ent they may be said to live, or, at least, to 
 endeavour to live, in the element of intellect 
 and well-doing ; their hospitable house is open 
 to all good men ; persons of culture, and still 
 more of any worthy purpose or decided ca- 
 pacity, they study to attract and forward by 
 all kind appliances, of which, with such ample 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 109 
 
 means, there are many in their power. With 
 the neighbouring gentry, all this passes for 
 quixotic or even hypocritical ; nor will I deny, 
 such is the imperfection of human things, that 
 a certain spicing of vainglory mingles with so 
 much benevolence ; but who would quarrel 
 with goodness because it is not perfection ? 
 If Maurice Herbert cannot claim the praise 
 of charity and active public spirit, there are 
 few men in England who w^ill deserve it. Far 
 and wide he goes and sends and gives in fur- 
 therance of all improvement and useful enter- 
 prise ; making this, indeed, his occupation, the 
 chosen business of his life. To-day, for in- 
 stance, he is out with your friend Bernard ; 
 if I mistook not, there was something in the 
 wind. It is true, there can no Utopia be real- 
 ised on earth, and many a time the pure ele- 
 ment in which a man like Maurice moves and 
 works, will be polluted by baser admixtures ; 
 but for constancy of generous endeavour, nay, 
 I may add for real importance of result, his 
 manner of existence is to be applauded and 
 prized." 
 
no WOTTOKT REIN FRED. 
 
 " But does he believe in Dalbrook's mysti- 
 cism ? " inquired Wotton. 
 
 ^' That he believes I should somewhat 
 doubt, though he constantly defends it. But 
 he has a love for all high things, and no dark- 
 ness or exaggeration can utterly destroy his 
 favour for them. What his own opinions are 
 you will find it difficult to learn, for he sel- 
 dom contradicts and never dogmatises, having 
 boundless tolerance for honest speculation, 
 and being himself singularly uncontrollable 
 in thought as well as purpose. Indeed, the 
 grand feature of his mind and conduct is 
 this same vigour of will ; for meek as you 
 will always see him, Maurice is an auto- 
 crat over himself ; whatever lies within his 
 sphere must be mastered, cost what it may. 
 It is thus that he has retired from the 
 world of politics and fashion to a world of 
 his own. In morals, also, he is a sort of 
 Stoic, and naturally, for he enjoys little hap- 
 piness and hopes little — at least, so in spite 
 of his equanimity, I have many times sus- 
 pected. To such a mind that subtle doc- 
 
WOT TON REINFRED, m 
 
 trine of the stiinmum bonum may not be so 
 foreign." 
 
 '^ A goodly gentleman," said Wotton, "j^ou 
 have shown me, and one whom it were a pride 
 and pleasure to belong to. But now what of 
 this philosopher, this mystic Dalbrook ? Am 
 I to think him fatuous or inspired ? What 
 with his truth and happiness, what with his 
 understanding and his reason, my wits are al- 
 together muddled." 
 
 "I cannot wonder," said Williams, "the 
 man does generally pass for mad, and some- 
 times I fear he will infect us all. For really, 
 if you watch him, there is curious method in 
 his madness, and that huge whirlpool of a 
 mind, with its thousand eddies and unfathom- 
 able caverns, is a kind of mahlstrom you were 
 better not to look on lest it swallowed you, 
 unless, indeed, you first cast anchor at a safe 
 distance, which I have now learned to do. 
 Good heavens, how he talks ! The whole day 
 long, if you do not check him, he will pour 
 forth floods of speech, and the richest, noblest 
 speech, only that you find no purpose, tend- 
 
112 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 ency, or meaning in it ! A universal hubbub, 
 wild it seems to you, with touches of seraphic 
 melody flitting through the boundless, aimless 
 din of anarchy itself. 
 
 " On the whole, I will confess to you, I can- 
 not rightly understand this Dalbrook. Ab- 
 surdities innumerable I might laugh at in him, 
 but I see not rightly how his folly is related 
 to his wisdom. Such discord may in part be 
 harmony not understood. He is undoubtedly 
 a man of w^onderful gifts, acquirements almost 
 universal, of generous feelings, too ; on the 
 whole a splendid nature, yet strangely out of 
 union with itself, and so alloyed with incon- 
 sistencies that in action it is good for nothing, 
 and with its vast bulk revolves rather than 
 advances. His very speech displays imbe- 
 cility of will ; he does not talk with you but 
 preaches to you ; his thoughts are master of 
 him, not he of them. Accordingly, with all 
 his fine endowments he has effected little, 
 scarcely even the first problem of philosophy, 
 an independent living. Maurice loves and 
 honours him, else matters would go hard. In 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. n^ 
 
 fact, the man has an unspeakable aversion to 
 pain in all shapes, and among the rest to la- 
 bour ; this, I take it, is the secret of his char- 
 acter. With the loftiest idea of what is to be 
 done, he does and feels that he can do noth- 
 ing ; hence a dreary contradiction in his life, 
 a constant self-reproach, and to help himself 
 he only talks the more. In this v/ay I inter- 
 pret his exaggerated schemes of virtue, his 
 misty generalities in science, the whole dreamy 
 world where his mind so likes to live. Poor 
 Dalbrook! He was made to be a Brahman 
 or a Gnostic, and he found himself an unap- 
 pointed English scholar, and the task of living 
 would not prosper with him. Much he talks 
 of writing and teaching, and day after day he 
 reads all manner of supernatural metaphysics 
 and the like ; but what will it come to ? And 
 yet it is a thousand pities, for there is finest 
 gold in him if it could be parted from the 
 dross." 
 
 " How does his practice correspond with 
 his stoical theories of virtue and happiness ? " 
 inquired Wotton. 
 
114 WOTTON REINFRED. 
 
 ** Indifferently," answered Williams ; " idle- 
 ness is no propitious soil for virtue, and, as we 
 have seen, he cannot work. With all his gen- 
 erous humanity in the gross, you shall often 
 find him spiteful and selfish in detail. Mean 
 men have obtained preferment, and he is un- 
 preferred ; then while he despises them, he 
 cannot help half envying. The world has 
 used him ill, and he has no stronghold of his 
 own where he might abide its shocks in peace, 
 nay, love it, pitiful as it is ; but wages a sort 
 of Bedouin warfare with its arrangements ; an 
 employment in which no one can appear to 
 advantage. Yet certainly he wishes to do 
 well ; and his sins are of omission not commis- 
 sion. Let us pity the good philosopher ! He 
 was made for a better world than ours, and 
 only in the Heaven, where he looks to arrive, 
 can his fine spirit be itself. 
 
 " But now," continued he, " I must speak 
 of Burridge whom you poisoned last night 
 with arsenic. Frank, in spite of his atrabiliar 
 philosophy, is no bad fellow ; his liver, I be- 
 lieve, is wrong, but his heart is not. A man 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED, 115 
 
 of birth and wealth, with sense enough to see 
 what is wrong, but scarcely what is right, sits 
 in Parliament legislating after the manner of 
 an English squire ; hunts at home or abroad 
 when he is not voting; believes in Hume; 
 curses the badness of the weather, the villainy 
 of men, the derangement of the universe at 
 large; yet, strange enough, feels withal that 
 he must vote with ministers, and Church and 
 State be supported ; both are false, but bad 
 might be worse. A Manichean I might call 
 him, or rather an Arimasian, for in theory his 
 sole God is the devil, since he worships noth- 
 ing but necessity ; yet such are the contradic- 
 tions of human nature, you shall meet few 
 better men than this same Burridge with the 
 basest creed ; just, frank, true-hearted to a 
 proverb, nay, as occasion offers, generous if 
 not benevolent, his life puts to shame many 
 high-sounding professors, and shows what 
 metal there must be in English character that 
 can resist such calcination, and still be metal. 
 Frank is a contradiction ; he piques you into 
 loving him." 
 
Il6 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 " Maurice called him cousin," said Wotton. 
 
 '' They are related, I believe, but chiefly 
 by old acquaintance, nay, on Frank's side, I 
 might almost say discipleship ; he reverences 
 Maurice, asks his counsel, and in all domestic 
 arrangements walks by his light. Every sum- 
 mer he is here with his household ; his son, 
 the Huchesonian philosopher, you saw last 
 night ; his lady and his nephew are expected 
 to-morrow ; they are on a visit in the neigh- 
 bourhood, whither Frank would not attend 
 them. You will mark his nephew, a fellow of 
 some substance, for good or evil, I know too 
 little of him to say for which." 
 
 " Is he a scholar too? " 
 
 "Oh, nowise," said the other; "a man of 
 action this, bred among drums, gunpowder, 
 fire, tempest, and warfare ; he is a soldier, 
 every inch a soldier, has fought and stormed 
 across the world, and is now resting with his 
 medals and his laurels and the rank of major, 
 and fair prospects every way. He is heir ap- 
 parent to our landlord, I believe, though 
 Maurice does not seem to like him over much, 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. ny 
 
 a thing I hardly blame him for, but you your- 
 self shall judge." 
 
 ''And his aunt?" inquired Wotton. 
 
 ''A faded dame of quality, who will not recol- 
 lect that autumn is no summer. She has been 
 fascinating once, nay, is so still, for she is lively, 
 clever, and by help of the toilette even pretty. 
 She has some real virtues, and many graces ; 
 but if old age overtake her, as is like it must, 
 she will surely go distracted, unless, indeed, 
 she take to saintship or bliiisin which is worse." 
 
 *' You are no friend to Blues, then ? " 
 
 " I profess a kind of enmity to cant, wher- 
 ever I may find it, but on the whole I think 
 the poor Blues have hard measure among us." 
 
 '* We forgive the fashionable woman many 
 follies while she courts distinction in the 
 sphere of common vanity ; why should we 
 refuse a similar tolerance to folly in the 
 sphere of literature ? The motive is the same 
 in both cases, self-conceit, and undue love of 
 praise, while the means in the latter case are 
 often the more innocent." 
 
 *' After all," said Williams, '' cant is the 
 
Il8 WOT TEN REIN FRED. 
 
 great cosmetic and enamel of existence, the 
 cheap and sovereign alchemy for making 
 crooked things straight and rough places 
 plain ; why should I quarrel with it, I that 
 need it so much myself, nay, so many times 
 am forced to use it? " 
 
 '' You ? " said Wotton ; " surely of all the 
 men I have ever met with, you seem the most 
 free from cant." 
 
 " Ah ! how little you know of it," replied 
 the other ; " few can avow distinctly to them- 
 selves what they are aiming at, can weigh in 
 a fair balance the worthlessness of their whole 
 craft and mystery, and see without blinking 
 v^^hat pitiful knaves they are. It goes against 
 the grain with one to feel that with incessant 
 bustle, he is doing nothing but digest his 
 victuals ! Man}^ a time when I leave our 
 chancery court, and find three bushels of 
 briefs piled up on my table, I say to myself : 
 * Well, Jack, thou art a man useful in thy day 
 and generation, here is much gall peaceably 
 evaporated, much Avrong prevented ; law is a 
 noble science ! ' instead of saying : * Well, 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. hq 
 
 Jack, thou art a man lucky in thy day and 
 generation, here is much corn and wine con- 
 verted into ink, much right delayed, law is a 
 sleek milk-cow whence thou hast thy living.* 
 And so it is with most trades that men trade 
 in under the sun. If you viewed them with- 
 out magnifiers you would find that the result 
 was much the same. Life^is a hug;e treadmill, 
 if you don't step forward they trample you to 
 jelly, and if you do step forward for a century, 
 you are exactly where you started. Good 
 Cant ! Now she tells us this is a journey to- 
 wards a noble goal with prospects of this and 
 that on the right and left ; it is a journey as I 
 tell. you. Long life to Cant! if it were not 
 she, we might hang and drown ourselves, 
 and with her one can live in surprising com- 
 fort." 
 
 The conversation of his new acquaintance 
 could not but amuse our hero, however little 
 it might satisfy him. 
 
 To be spoken to with such attention, and 
 so confidentially treated by a man of influence 
 and talent was in itself gratifying, and still 
 
I20 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 more so by its rarity in Wotton's previous 
 experience ; for it was seldom that his hap 
 had led in the way of such people, and much 
 seldomer that he had found them so divested 
 of vanity as to give their minds free play and 
 forget in his presence that he being little and 
 they being great, it behoved them to trample 
 on him, or at least to astonish and overawe 
 him. Williams was none of those painful per- 
 sons ; he cared too little about anything on 
 earth to vex himself or others for it ; the basis 
 of his philosophy was : Live and let live. 
 With a gay kind guileless heart, and the clear- 
 est and sprightliest perceptions, he was the 
 most attractive of all unbelievers. Intelli- 
 gence and courteous pleasantry sparkled in 
 his eyes; he was of quick sensation, yet not 
 irritable, never deliberately vindictive ; for 
 nature had so blandly tempered him, that he 
 could wish no injury to any living thing. 
 Without effort, he habitually forgot self and 
 the little concerns of self, and mingled with 
 trustful entireness in the feelings of the place 
 and hour, even while his judgment despised 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 121 
 
 them. Nothing' could be kindlier than his con- 
 tempt, which indeed extended far and wide, 
 embracing with a few momentary exceptions 
 the whole actions and character of man, his 
 own not excluded, nay rather placed in the 
 foremost rank of pettiness. For moral good- 
 ness and poetical beauty, save only as pleasur- 
 able sensations, he had no name ; yet few men 
 had a keener feeling or a better practical re- 
 gard for both ; he was merciful and generous, 
 he knew not why ; and a great character, a 
 fine action, a sublime image or thought struck 
 through his inmost being, and for an instant 
 gleaming in every feature with ethereal light, 
 the gay sceptic had become a worshipper and 
 a rapt enthusiast. These, however, were but 
 momentary glows, reflexes of a strange glory 
 from a world which he had never dwelt in, 
 which he knew not, and soon lost in the ele- 
 ment of quiet kindly derision and denial where 
 he lived and moved. They consorted ill with 
 his philosophy of life, and might have made 
 him doubt it, had he taken time to search it to 
 the bottom ; but time was wanting in his busy 
 
122 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 Sphere; jostling for ever among selfish men 
 and their pursuits, he believed as they be- 
 lieved, and such contradictions pleasant or 
 painful with which his own kinder nature now 
 and then warned him of his error he heeded 
 little, or loosely referred to that unknown 
 infinitude which encircles all human under- 
 standing, mocking it with phantasms and in- 
 scrutable paradoxes which, thought Williams, 
 he is wisest who heeds least. In this way had 
 the man grown up to middle age, the light 
 and not unlovely product of benignant nature 
 striving with perverted culture, professedly a 
 sceptic, unconsciously a believer and bene- 
 factor : all men wished him well, and if more 
 serious critics missed in Williams any earnest- 
 ness and true manliness of purpose, they too 
 were often captivated in his gay fascinations, 
 and forced to prize him as a thing if not as a 
 man, and to like if they could not love him. 
 
 In manifold narration and discussion the 
 hours passed swiftly on, till without singular 
 advancement to the science either of botany 
 or mineralogy, but with the consciousness of 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 123 
 
 having spent a pleasant day, our two friends 
 found themselves again descending into their 
 hospitable valley, under some fear of being 
 stayed for by their company. Burridge had 
 caught several wonder-worthy fishes ; his son 
 had been listening to Dalbrook lecturing un- 
 der the elm-rows and shady garden-walks, as 
 in the groves of a new Academe ; Bernard 
 and Maurice were returned from a visit in 
 some neighbouring valley. All seemed con- 
 tented with their morning's work ; the Lady 
 Dorothy with her two fair secretaries, studi- 
 ous like her of household good, found that 
 they had laboured for no unthankful guests. 
 
 On this occasion, it was moved and agreed 
 that the party should withdraw with their 
 wine and coffee to the garden-house, not quit- 
 ting the dames, whose harps and melodious 
 voices were to heighten and as it were vivify 
 with music the other charms of a scene and 
 evening so lovely. Embowered in the richest 
 foliage, in front of them the fair alternation of 
 lawn and thicket, of bush and fruit-tree, and 
 m-any-coloured fiower-bed, stretching far and 
 
124 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 wide, cut with long winding walks, in mellow 
 light, and silent, save when from his green 
 spray the thrush or blackbird was pouring his 
 gushes of harmony in many a linked bout, 
 around them towering clusters of roses, and 
 the hues and odours of a thousand flowers, and 
 beyond all, in the remote distance, the slopes 
 and peaks of the mountains sparkling in the 
 glow of evening, our friends were soon socia- 
 bly seated in their little garden-house, the 
 front of which had been thrown open to admit 
 so many kindly influences. 
 
 In such hours, when all is invitation to 
 peace and gladness, the soul expands with full 
 freedom, man feels himself brought nearer to 
 man, and the narrowest hypochondriac is 
 charmed from his selfish seclusion and sur- 
 prised by the pleasure of unwonted sympathy 
 with nature and his brethren. Gaily in light 
 graceful abandonment and touches of careless 
 felicity, the friendly talk played round the 
 table ; each said what he liked without fear 
 that others might dislike it, for the burden 
 was rolled from every heart ; the barriers of 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. 125 
 
 ceremony, which are indeed the laws of polite 
 
 living, melted into vapour, and the poor claims 
 
 of me and thee, no longer parted and enclosed 
 
 by rigid lines, flowed softly into each other ; 
 
 and life lay like some fair unappropriated 
 
 champaign, variegated indeed with many tints, 
 
 but all these mingling by gentle undulations, 
 
 by imperceptible shadings, and all combining 
 
 into one harmonious whole. Such virtue has 
 
 a kind environment of circumstances over 
 
 cultivated hearts. And yet as the light grev/ 
 
 yellower and purer on the mountain tops, and 
 
 the shadows of these stately scattered trees 
 
 fell longer over the valley, some faint tone of 
 
 sadness may have breathed through the heart, 
 
 and in whispers more or less audible reminded 
 
 every one by natural similitude, that as this 
 
 bright day was coming towards its close, so 
 
 also m.ust the day of man's existence decline 
 
 into dusk and darkness, and the night come, 
 
 wherein all image of its joy and woe would 
 
 pass awa}^ and be forgotten. 
 
 In the fair Anna at least, we cannot but 
 
 suspect the presence of some such intrusive 
 9 
 
126 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 thought, for by degrees she had withdrawn 
 her contribution, nay her interest from the 
 conversation ; her look, still and pensive, was 
 lost in the remote landscape ; it seemed as if 
 in the long eyelashes a tear were trembling. 
 It was her turn to sing ; she started from her 
 reverie, flung her hand hastily over the harp- 
 strings, and after short preluding in a melody 
 half longing and plaintive, half sad and con- 
 temptuous, thus began : 
 
 What is Hope ? A golden rainbow, etc. 
 
 All listened with attention, and still for a 
 few instants after the music ceased there was 
 silence, while the fair singer, glancing rapidly 
 between tears and smiles over the company, 
 then hung down her head, and seemed busy 
 rectifying some error with her strings. 
 
 " Surely, my good Anne," said Williams, 
 " you mean not as you sing ; these dismal 
 quatrains are fitter for a lykewake than to 
 greet so fair a banquet, amid sunshine and 
 roses, and plenty of brave young gallants to 
 boot ! " 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 127 
 
 " Women go by the rule of contraries," 
 answered the lady, with a smile, but rather 
 of concealment than of gladness. " Do you 
 know," added she, " I have work within doors, 
 and must beg the fair banquet's pardon, sun- 
 shine and roses and brave gallants, young or 
 old, notwithstanding. My blessing with you 
 all ! " cried she, tripping through the bushes 
 towards the house, and making signs that she 
 was not to be followed. 
 
 " A strange young lady," said Burridge, 
 "and more full of crotchets than ever." 
 
 " But did you like her song ? " inquired 
 Dorothy. " Was it not in the spirit of your 
 own bitter creed, cousin ? Why the rhymer 
 may have meant not ill ; the spirit as you say 
 was willing but the flesh was weak. There is 
 no pith in this balladmonger ; his v/ires are 
 slack and have a husky jingle. Besides, I 
 doubt he is an imitator." 
 
 " Neither is the spirit of his verse unex- 
 ceptionable," said Williams. '' His is a con- 
 clusion in which nothing emphatically is con- 
 cluded, save perhaps our old friend the bag 
 
128 WOTTON REINFRED. 
 
 of arsenic, Frank ! Really one tires of your 
 death's head when it grins at one too long. 
 This sweet singer, as you hint, is but a faint 
 echo of Lord Byron." 
 
 " Say rather of the general tone of our 
 time," observed Maurice. " Lord Byron was 
 the loudest harper, but not the first or the 
 best of this arsenical school. The keynote was 
 struck in Goethe's Werther, and Europe has 
 rung ever since with the tune and its vari- 
 ations." 
 
 ** It is the want of the age," said Wotton. 
 " Thousands on thousands feel as Byron felt ; 
 and his passionate voicing of emotions hitherto 
 shapeless and crushing with a force vague 
 and invisible v/as a relief to the heart that 
 could not speak them. He was a spirit of 
 Heaven, though cast down into the abyss ; 
 and his song, like that singing of the fallen 
 seraphs, 
 
 ' was partial, but the harmony 
 (What could it less when Spirits immortal sing ?) 
 Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment 
 The thronging audience,' " 
 
WOTTON REIN FRED. 129 
 
 *' An apt enough allusion," said Maurice, 
 " for the unbelief of men, their sickly sensi- 
 tiveness and vociferous craving for enjoyment, 
 have made the world a sort of hell for every 
 noble nature that is not delivered from the 
 baleful greed of the day. Our longing is to- 
 wards the Infinite and Invisible : but for these 
 our time has no symbol ; nay, rather it denies 
 their existence ; substituting in their stead the 
 shadows and reflections of a merely sensual 
 and mechanic philosophy ; and thus the high- 
 est faculties of the spirit are shut up in pain- 
 ful durance, or directed into false activit}^ ; 
 thought cannot be converted into deed ; what 
 should have been worship and blessing be- 
 comes idolatry and malediction ; for Self is a 
 false God, and his rites are cruel, and end in 
 the destruction of his votaries." 
 
 ** Moloch and Juggernaut," said Dalbrook, 
 *' could but kill the body ; but this, with long 
 doleful agonies, or worse, v/ith craftier opiate 
 poisons, kills the soul." 
 
 "• But surely," said Dorothy, " there is a 
 truer poetry possible even for us than this 
 
130 WOTTON RE IN FRED. 
 
 frightful sort, which is built not on love but 
 on hatred, and for all the wounds of humanity 
 acknowledges no balm but pride." 
 
 " Which is a caustic, and no balm ; may 
 corrode but cannot cure," added Bernard. 
 
 " O call not by the name of poetry," cried 
 Dalbrook, " such fierce disharmony, which is 
 but infuriated not inspired ! The essence of 
 poetry is love and peace, but here is only rage 
 and disdain. Is the poet gifted with a finer 
 sense only to feel with double anguish the 
 stings of pain? Was his creative faculty be- 
 stowed on him to image forth and falsely 
 ornament deformity and contradiction ? Is it 
 he that should mistake the discords of the 
 poor imperfect part for the diapason of the 
 glorious all, and hear no fairer music in this 
 symphony of the creation than the echoes of 
 his own complaining ? must he hover through 
 existence, not like a bird of paradise, feeding 
 on flowers, nay sleeping with outstretched 
 wings in middle air, but like a hungry vulture, 
 searching for the carrion of selfish pleasure, 
 and shrieking with baleful cry when he does 
 
WOT TON REINFRED, 131 
 
 not find it? Shame on us! When the very 
 high priests in this solemn temple of the uni- 
 verse have become blasphemers, when they 
 deny their God, and love not the worship but 
 the incense ! " 
 
 " Bravely said, philosopher ! '* cried Bur- 
 ridge. " With your rhetoric you might per- 
 suade one that black was white ; but we must 
 not let your figures of speech mislead us. If 
 people do feel in pain, and vexed with these 
 same discords, how can they help it, and help 
 complaining of it ? What is your glorious all 
 which lies far enough away, when a man has 
 got a scurvy fraction for his own whole allot- 
 ment, and can draw from it neither sense nor 
 profit, but only trouble and grief for his life 
 long ? Was it the poor soul's own blame that 
 he came no better off ; or must he be denied 
 the small privilege of complaining? And is 
 he not obliged to the poet, who utters for him 
 in soul-subduing melodies, a feeling which in 
 his own mouth would have sounded harsh 
 and trivial ? " 
 
 *' If untrue, it could not sound too harsh 
 
132 WOT TON RE IN FRED, 
 
 or be too little heeded/* observed Mau- 
 rice. 
 
 *' Nay, but true or untrue/* cried Williams, 
 " it is the general feeling of mankind at pres- 
 ent, and will express itself in spite of us. 
 Now the poet is a citizen of his age as well as 
 of his countr3^ It is his proper nature to feel 
 with double force all that other men feel, as 
 to give this back with double force, ennobled 
 and transfigured into beauty, is his proper 
 business," 
 
 "There are many things men feel," said 
 Maurice, " which he should suppress and war 
 against, for he has no alchemy which can so 
 transfigure them. If his age is worthless and 
 sunk, he must make for himself another; let 
 him strive to change his degraded brethren 
 into his noble likeness, not deface himself into 
 theirs." 
 
 " But the means," said Williams. 
 
 " By deep worship of truth and a generous 
 scorn of falsehood, however popular and pat- 
 ronised. Let no momentary show of things 
 divert him from their essence. Let him not 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED, 133 
 
 look to the idols of the time, but to the pure 
 ideal of his own spirit ; let him listen not to 
 the clamours and contradictions from with- 
 out, but to the harmonious unison from 
 within." 
 
 '' And how v/ill the time relish this ? *' said 
 Burridge. 
 
 " Badly, it may be," answered Maurice, 
 ** but all hope is not therefore lost. Fit au- 
 dience he will find though fev/, let him speak 
 where he will ; and if his words are sure and 
 well-ordered they will last from age to age, 
 and the hearing ear and the understanding 
 heart will not be wanting. Cast thy bread upon 
 the water Sy thou shalt find it after many days ! 
 So it is with true poetry and all good and 
 noble things. The wheat is sown amid au- 
 tumnal vapours, and lies long buried under 
 snow, yet the field waves yellow in summer, 
 and the reaper goes down to it rejoicing." 
 
 **Then it is not the poet's chief end to 
 please?'* said Wotton. 
 
 " His means not his end," replied Maurice; 
 " on the whole, in art as in morals, it seems to 
 
134 WOTTON REIN FRED. 
 
 me, we must guard ourselves against the love 
 of pleasure, which admitted as a first principle 
 may lead us in both cases far astray (at all 
 events please man not the man. Popularity, 
 etc.) The first poets were teachers and seers ; 
 the gifted soul, instinct with music, discerned 
 the true and beautiful in nature, and poured 
 its bursting fulness in floods of harmony, en- 
 trancing the rude sense of men ; and song was 
 a heavenly voice bearing wisdom irresistibly 
 with chaste blandishments into every heart." 
 
 " But what of Homer, or Shakespeare ? " 
 cried Burridge. " Methinks their science was 
 of the meagrest ; what did they teach us ? " 
 
 " Much, much," answered Maurice, " that 
 we have not yet rightly learned. They 
 taught us to know this world, cousin, and yet 
 to love it; a harder science, cousin, and a 
 more precious than any chemistry or physics 
 or political economy that we have studied 
 since. Look with their eyes on man and life ! 
 All its hollowness, and insufficiency, and sin 
 and woe are there ; but with them, nay by 
 them, do beauty and mercy and a solemn 
 
WOTTON REIN FRED. 135 
 
 grandeur shine forth, and man with his stinted 
 and painful existence is no longer little or 
 poor, but lovely and venerable ; for a glory of 
 Infinitude is round him ; and it is by his very 
 poverty that he is rich, and by his littleness 
 that he is great." 
 
 " I have heard the poet's spirit likened to 
 an Eolian harp," said Dorothy, " over which 
 the common winds of this world cannot pass 
 but they are modulated into music, and even 
 their anger and their moaning become kindly 
 and melodious." 
 
 '* Yes," cried Dalbrook, " there dwells in 
 him a divine harmony, which needs but to be 
 struck that it be awakened. His spirit is a 
 spirit of goodness and brotherhood ; anger, 
 hatred, malignity may not abide with him, will 
 not consort with his purer nature. Where- 
 fore should he envy ; where shall he find one 
 richer than he? While the vulgar soul, iso- 
 lated in self, stinted and ignoble alike in its 
 joy and woe, must build its narrow home on 
 the sand of accident, and taste no good but 
 what the winds and waves of accident may 
 
136 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 bring it, the poet's home is on the everlasting 
 rock of necessity, the law which was before 
 the universe, and will endure after the uni- 
 verse has passed away ; and his eye and his 
 mind range free and fearless through the world 
 as through his own possession, his own fruitful 
 field ; for he is reconciled with destiny, and in 
 his benignant fellow-feeling all men are his 
 brethren. Nay, are not time and space his 
 heritage, and the beauty that is in them do 
 they not disclose it to him and pay it as their 
 tribute? What do I say? The beauty that 
 is in them ! The beauty that shines through 
 them ! For time and space are modes not 
 things ; forms of our mind, not existences 
 without us ; the shapes in which the un- 
 seen bodies itself forth to our mortal sense ; 
 if we were not, they also would cease to 
 be." 
 
 ** God help us ! whither are we going 
 now?" cried Burridge. 
 
 " It is in this unseen," hastily continued 
 Dalbrook, " that the poet lives and has his be- 
 ing. Yes, he is a seer, for to him the invisible 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. 137 
 
 glory has been revealed. Life with its prizes 
 and its failures, its tumult and its jarring din, 
 were a poor matter in itself ; to him it is base- 
 less, transient and hollow, an infant's dream ; 
 but beautiful also, and solemn and of myste- 
 rious significance. Why should he not love it 
 and reverence it? Is not all visible nature, all 
 sensible existence the symbol and vesture of 
 the Invisible and Infinite ? Is it not in these 
 material shows of things that God, virtue, im- 
 mortality are shadowed forth and made mani- 
 fest to man? Material nature is as a Fata-mor- 
 gana, hanging in the air ; a cloud-picture, but 
 painted by the heavenly light; in itself it is 
 air and nothingness, but behind it is the glory 
 of the sun. Blind men ! they think the cloud- 
 city a continuing habitation, and the sun but a 
 picture because their eyes do not behold him. 
 It is only the invisible that really is, but only 
 the gifted sense that can of itself discern this 
 reality ! " 
 
 " Now, in Heaven's name," cried Burridge, 
 " what is all this ? Must a poet become a mys- 
 tic, and study Kant before he can write verses? 
 
138 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 I declare, philosopher, you are like to turn 
 one's brain." 
 
 Dalbrook only smiled and shook his head, 
 but Maurice answered : " Nay, cousin, let us 
 abide by things, and beware of names, above 
 all of nicknames, which are mint-stamps, not 
 metal, and should make brass and pewter pass 
 for gold and silver not among the wise few 
 but among the simple many. Much of this 
 which you call Kantism seems but the more 
 scientific expression of what all true poets and 
 thinkers, nay, all good men, have felt more or 
 less distinctly, and acted on the faith of,, in all 
 ages. Depend on it, there are many things 
 in heaven and earth which you believe in, 
 though you can neither see them, nor make 
 a picture of them in your head. What is 
 all religion, but a worship of the Unseen, 
 nay, the Invisible ? Superstition gives its 
 God a shape, sometimes in marble or on 
 canvas, oftener in the imagination ; but re- 
 ligion tells us that with Him, form and du- 
 ration are not ; for He is the same yester- 
 day, to-day, and for ever. Time is an eter- 
 
 \ 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 139 
 
 nal now, and no eye hath seen Him nor can 
 see." 
 
 Burridge shook his head. ''Ah, Frank, you 
 are a heretic in understanding, and if your 
 heart did not know better, I really think we 
 should have you burnt by the first Auto da Fe. 
 But tell me v/hy do you fight duels ? No, it 
 is not out of disgrace or fear, for you would 
 let yourself be shot equally in the Island of 
 Juan Fernandez, nay, in another planet, if need 
 were, and though you were never more to see 
 a human face ; but it is because you also w^or- 
 ship the spirit of honour, which is your invisi- 
 ble deity, before which all other feelings, all 
 earthly joy and pain fly away like light dust 
 before the whirlwind. Thus you too believe 
 in the reality of the invisible, nay, in its chief 
 or sole reality ; yes, you and all of us, else 
 were we machines not men ; more cunningly 
 devised steam-engines, to manufacture and to 
 be impelled ; not reasonable souls, to make 
 and to will." 
 
 "But what has this to do with poetry?" 
 said Williams. 
 
140 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 " In our view it has much to do with moral 
 goodness," answered Maurice, " and therefore 
 with the poet who is the interpreter and shad- 
 ower forth of goodness. Except on some such 
 principle, consciously or, it may be, uncon- 
 sciously adopted, I see not how he is to find 
 firm footing ; for it is only by a sense of the 
 invisible that we can clearly understand the 
 visible, that we learn to tolerate it, nay, to love 
 it and see its worth amid its worthlessness." 
 
 " These are hard sayings," rejoined the 
 other, archly : " Who can understand them ? 
 I question but that blackbird that sits on the 
 hawthorn-tree, singing its carol in the red sun- 
 light, is a better poet in its way than any of us." 
 
 " The perfection of poets," answered Mau- 
 rice, " would be a man as harmonious and 
 complete in his reasonable being as that bird 
 in its instinctive being." 
 
 " The blackbird, at least, is born, not made,'' 
 said Williams ; " is it not so also of the 
 poet?" 
 
 " Born and made were perhaps truer of the 
 poet," answered Maurice. " Nature in her 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 141 
 
 bounty gives him much, but her most pre- 
 cious gift is the wish and aptitude to cultivate 
 himself to become what he was capable of 
 being." 
 
 " Are not all men, while under strong ex- 
 citement, poets ? " said the Oxonian. 
 
 *' Scarcely," answered Burridge ; " the hen 
 does but cackle when you excite her, she will 
 not sing." 
 
 " A false simile ! " cried the other. " The 
 hen's cackling may be musical to hens ; for it 
 is the law of nature that all living beings sym- 
 pathise with beings organised like themselves. 
 Human passion is poetical to men, and makes 
 men poets. The rude Indian defies his fellow 
 savage in gorgeous tropes, the peasant is a 
 poet when he first sees the wonders of the 
 city, a poet when he trembles at the moon- 
 shiny churchyard, a poet when he goes to 
 church in sunlight with his wedding company 
 and his bride." 
 
 " Umph ! " inarticulated Dalbrook. 
 
 " Now the poet is simply always what 
 
 these are only now and then," continued the 
 10 
 
142 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 other, '' and his fine frenzy, when he utters it, 
 is poetry." 
 
 " Yet this frenzy, you observe, must be 
 fine," said Wotton, *' and therein lies the puz- 
 zle of the problem. The poet is an artist and 
 does not sing from any Delphic tripod ; he 
 has need of forethought as well as fury, and 
 many times, I doubt, finds it no such smooth 
 matter." 
 
 " True, he is an artist," said the other ; 
 " his mind is stored with imagery and beauti- 
 ful remembrances ; these he unites, omitting 
 what was trivial or repulsive in them, and 
 thus is formed by degrees an ideal whole in 
 his mind. When the painter would create his 
 Venus, does he not borrow the eyes from this 
 fair woman, the nose from that, the lips from 
 another ; and uniting so many separate beau- 
 ties, form them into one beauty, which is in- 
 deed all taken from nature, yet to which na- 
 ture has and can have no parallel ? " 
 
 " When the mantua-maker would create a 
 kettle-quilt," cried Williams, gaily, '' does she 
 not borrow the patch of taffeta from this 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED, 143 
 
 bright remnant, the lustring from that, the 
 sarcenet from another, and so produce a kettle- 
 quilt, which is indeed all taken from Spital- 
 fields, yet to which all Spitalfields can show 
 no parallel? I declare to you, my friend, I 
 could never for an hour believe in this theory, 
 though Akenside himself took it under his 
 wing, nay, for aught I know first hatched it." 
 
 " Why do we not in good earnest set up 
 Gulliver's poetical turning-loom," said Wot- 
 ton, '' and produce our poetry in Birmingham 
 by steam?" 
 
 '* It is surely a false theory," said Dal- 
 brook, " but of a piece with other false me- 
 chanical philosophy. All things must be ren- 
 dered visible or they are not conceivable : 
 poetry is an internal joiner-work, but what of 
 that? Virtue itself is an association or per- 
 haps a fluid in the nerves ; thought is some 
 vibration, or at best some camera-obscura pict- 
 uring in the brain ; volition is the mounting 
 of a scale or the pressing of a spring ; and the 
 mind is some balance, or engine, motionless of 
 itself, till it be swayed this way and that by 
 
144 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 external things. Good Heavens! Surely if 
 we have any soul there must be a kind of life 
 in it ? Surely it does not hang passive and in- 
 ert within us, but acts and works ; and if so, 
 acts and works like an immaterial spirit on 
 spiritual things, not like an artisan on matter. 
 Surely it were good, then, even in our loosest 
 contemplations, to admit some little mystery 
 in the operating of a power by its nature so 
 inscrutable. With our similitudes, we make 
 the mind a passive engine, set in motion by 
 the senses : as it were a sort of thought-mill 
 to grind sensations into ideas, by which fig- 
 ures also we conceive this grinding process to 
 be very prettily explained. Nay, it is the 
 same in our material physiology as in our 
 mental ; animal life, like spiritual, you find is 
 tacitly regarded as a quality, a susceptibility, 
 the relation and result of other powers, not it- 
 self the origin and fountain-head of all other 
 powers ; but its force comes from without by 
 palpable transmission, does not dwell mys- 
 teriously within, and emanate mysteriously in 
 wonder-working influences from within ; and 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. 145 
 
 man himself is but a more cunning chemico- 
 mechanical combination, such as in the prog- 
 ress of discovery we may hope to see manu- 
 factured at Soho. Nay, smile not incredu- 
 lously, John Williams ! It is even as I say ; 
 and thus runs the high-road to Atheism in 
 religion, materialism in philosophy, utility in 
 morals, and flaring, effect-seeking mannerism 
 in Art. Art do I call it ? Let me not profane 
 the name! Poetry is a making, a" creation," 
 added he, " and the first rising up of a poem 
 in the head of a poet is as inexplicable, by ma- 
 terial formulas, as the first rising up of nature 
 out of chaos." 
 
 " I have often recollected the story of 
 Phidias," said Wotton, " when in his exile he 
 had retired to Elis, and, to punish his country, 
 men, had resolved to make a Jupiter still 
 grander than their Minerva. The thought he 
 meant to express was present to him, all the 
 strength and the repose, the kingly omnipo- 
 tence of the Olympian ; but no visible form 
 would it assume, no feature to body itself 
 forth ; and the statuary wandered for days 
 
146 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 and weeks in the pain of an inward idea which 
 would cast itself out in no external symbol. 
 Once he was loitering at sunset among the 
 groves, his heart sick in its baffled vehemence 
 his head full, yet dark and formless ; when, at 
 the opening of some avenue, a procession of 
 maidens, returning from the fountain with 
 their pitchers on their heads, suddenly uplift- 
 ed the evening hymn to Jove ; and, in a mo- 
 ment, the artist's head was overflowed with 
 light, and the figure of his Jupiter started 
 forth in all its lineaments before his mind, and 
 stood there visible and admirable to himself, 
 as afterwards, transferred to marble, it was for 
 many ages to the world." 
 
 " Yes," said Dalbrook, "• a strange wind 
 will sometimes rend asunder the cloud-cur- 
 tains from the soul, and the fair creation, 
 perfected in secret, lies unexpectedly be- 
 fore us like the gift of some higher gen- 
 ius." 
 
 " Some such process," said Maurice, "some 
 such influence as this of Phidias's, in one man- 
 ner or another, most poets seem to have felt. 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 147 
 
 What else is it that they call their inspira- 
 tion ? " 
 
 " Well ! " cried Elizabeth, " the sun is 
 going down here also ; our groves on such a 
 night are little worse than those of Elis. If I 
 should sing you some song to my harp, we 
 might have the scene of this same Phidias 
 moderately realised ; and then," added she 
 archly, '■'■ if any of you geniuses had a heart, 
 who knows but you might make somewhat 
 yourselves by winds of inspiration?" 
 
 " Do let us try, Elizabeth ! " cried several 
 voices. 
 
 Elizabeth complying, sang handsomely 
 enough, with sweet accompanying harp-tones, 
 a not ungraceful song to evening ; but none 
 of our friends, as would appear, played Phid- 
 ias to it, but retired to the house, and by de- 
 grees to their rooms, without creation of any 
 sort ; nay, rather, with destruction, for cer- 
 tain of them consumed some supper. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The inmates of the House in the Wold 
 were a fluctuating brotherhood ; now coming-, 
 now departing ; so that week after week, 
 often day after day, a new assortment of char- 
 acters appeared upon the scene. Bernard 
 had not yet returned ; and Vv^otton was spend- 
 ing the morning in a richly-furnished picture- 
 gallery, under the conduct of his fair hostess, 
 who had herself proposed this indoors occu- 
 pation, less with a view of instructing her new 
 friend in pictorial art, for which, however, she 
 Vv-as well qualified, than of gradually dispell- 
 ing his reserve, and winning her way into 
 more free communication with him. For 
 such an object, which besides she carefully 
 kept out of sight, this place was not ill chosen. 
 Wotton knew little of art, but his suscepti- 
 bility for it was deep and keen ; these noble 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. j^^ 
 
 pictures could not but pleasantly engage him ; 
 and while under the clear and graceful com- 
 mentary of one speaking from the heart and 
 to the heart, many a figure rose with fresh 
 loveliness before his eyes, and revealed to him 
 in glimpses the secret of its beauty, he felt as 
 if acquiring some new sense, and distant an- 
 ticipations of unknown glories finally predis- 
 posed him for giving and receiving, at inter- 
 vals, some friendlier expression of personal 
 feeling, with which the pictorial lesson might 
 be intermingled. He began to be at home 
 with his fair critic, and had the satisfaction to 
 perceive that here and there an observation 
 which he hazarded was partially approved 
 of, and given back to him by new examples, 
 and in new elucidation and expansion. The 
 thought of being interrupted could not have 
 been welcome to either, when the rolling of a 
 carriage rapidly approached the house, and 
 terminated in as loud an explosion of sound as 
 the gravel would admit of before the main 
 door. 
 
 " It is Isabella and her nephew," said the 
 
I50 WOTTON REINFRED. 
 
 lady. *' We shall by and bye resume our lect- 
 ure. Meanwhile let us go and meet them." 
 
 The gallery extended from the drawing- 
 room, which they had reached by a side en- 
 trance, when the door flew open, and a ser- 
 vant ushered in the new guests. The airy 
 lady and her gay voluble compliments, as she 
 floated in with her silken travelling attire, ob- 
 tained little notice from Wotton, for his whole 
 being was fascinated in strange pain, at 
 another name and aspect. Figure his mood 
 when he found himself introduced in form to 
 Captain — Edmund Walter! For one suffocat- 
 ing moment no force of ceremonial principle 
 could hide the fierce alarm which pealed 
 through his soul ; but he stood motionless, 
 and with wild dilated eye, the quiverings or 
 quick stormful flushes of the face must have 
 betokened mystery to the least heedful wit- 
 ness. Over Walter's darker countenance there 
 also passed, but with inconceivable rapidity, a 
 twinge of sternest recognition ; but it van- 
 ished as it rose ; and with courteous compos- 
 ure, he approached his new acquaintance, 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 151 
 
 affably expressing his happiness in meeting 
 with a countryman, of whom he had often 
 heard ; and subjoined this and that compli- 
 mentary remark, passing by easy transition to 
 more general topics, and this with a frankness, 
 nay, a kindness, which irresistibly rolled back 
 the tempest into Wotton's heart, and with 
 gentle influence smoothed him into calmness. 
 Thus was serenity restored almost before it 
 had been missed ; the company were at their 
 ease, and Wotton wondered to find himself so- 
 cially exchanging indifferent thoughts with this 
 man, both hearts meanwhile, it is like, shut up 
 in enmity; as soldiers from two hostile camps 
 may for a time mingle in some common mar- 
 ket, and traffic peaceably, though their artil- 
 lery is not destroyed, but only slumbering 
 within the trenches, and to-morrow they must 
 join in battle. 
 
 Some such thought was lurking in the 
 
 background of Wotton's mind ; but Walter's 
 
 j thoughts seemed not of war, for nothing could 
 
 be friendlier and gayer than the temper he 
 
 j showed. Dorothy alone glanced at him now 
 
1^2 WOT TON REINFKED. 
 
 and then, as if she had observed the effect of 
 his entrance, and not forgotten it ; as if she 
 suspected somewhat. To Wotton, again, 
 deeply as he reckoned himself entitled to de- 
 test and dread this Walter, there was a singu- 
 lar dominion in his presence ; a power which, 
 whether it were benignant or the contrary, 
 you could not but in part respect. He seemed 
 a man of thirty, military in his air rather 
 than his dress ; his compact, sinewy frame im- 
 pressed you in its soldier-like repose with an 
 idea of strength beyond his stature, which, 
 however, was tall and portly ; while the thick 
 black locks clustering in careless profusion 
 round that face, so still and massive, burnt by 
 many suns ; the broad brow ; the calm, quick 
 eyes, fearless, not defiant ; the lips, firm with- 
 out effort, and curved in manifold j^et scarce 
 perceptible expression ; all bespoke a charac- 
 ter of singular vehemence and vigour, a strik- 
 ing union of passionate force with the strict- 
 est self-control. Yet this self-control did not 
 invite you, but rather silently beckoned you 
 away ; for this, too, seemed passionate, the re- 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 1^3 
 
 suit not of love, but of pride ; not of principle, 
 but of calculation ; its very strength seemed 
 dangerous. You would have said, the man had 
 lived in wild perils and wild pleasures ; min- 
 gling stormfuUj in both, but surrendering him- 
 self to neither ; acting among multitudes, nay, 
 ruling over them, yet apart and alone when in 
 the midst of them ; it was as if no difficulty 
 could discompose him, no danger make him 
 tremble, but, also, no pity make him weep. 
 To Wotton there was something alienating 
 and oppressive in this look of quietude, of 
 sufficiency, and unsuffering isolation ; he 
 gazed on the man, sitting there, thrown negli- 
 gently backwards, speaking with such vivid- 
 ness and penetration, yet so cool, so indiffer- 
 ent; and there were moments when, had it 
 not been for a softer gleam, perhaps of sor- 
 row, now and then blending in the steady fire 
 of those dark eyes, he could almost have fan- 
 cied him a man molten out of bronze. 
 
 In a little while, the gay Isabella had re- 
 tired to her room, and Walter, who professed 
 an unabated love for art, volunteered to attend 
 
 L 
 
154 WOTTON REINFRED 
 
 our two students in a farther survey of the 
 gallery. Wotton was again among his pict- 
 ures ; his eye still followed that of his fair in- 
 structress ; but the pleasure of the lesson was 
 now in great part gone. His late growing 
 frankness, checked rudely enough by this ren- 
 counter, had given place to a certain irksome 
 estrangement, which, indeed, Walter himself 
 by many little attentions, the more artful that 
 they seemed involuntary, was the readiest to 
 attempt removing. Walter's feeling of art ap- 
 peared much more distinct, but also much 
 coarser and narrower than Wotton's ; you 
 would have said he admired in the picture lit- 
 tle more than some reflex of himself. For the 
 still beauty, and meek, graceful significance of 
 Raphael he expressed no love ; he lingered 
 rather over the scenes of Caspar, Poussin, and 
 Salvator, as if enjoying their savage strength, 
 as if in art in general the superiority of beauty 
 to force had not been revealed to him. But 
 what he chiefly dwelt on were portraits, by 
 eminent masters of eminent men. For the 
 merit of these his taste seemed true ; yet his 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. I 55 
 
 partialities were regulated by the former prin- 
 ciple, and appeared to depend as much on the 
 subject as on the painter. 
 
 " Cousin," said Dorothy, with a smile, " I 
 grieve to see you are still an idolater and no 
 true worshipper in art ; with the clearest sense 
 of what is good you do not prefer the best ; it 
 is not the pure ideal, but the exciting real that 
 you look for ; you want devoutness, cousin ; 
 you reverence only power." 
 
 *' I am without critical taste," said Walter ; 
 " but I tell you honestly what I enjoy and 
 what I do not. Here, for instance," continued 
 he, " here is my old friend again ; can I help 
 it if I like him ? " 
 
 " It is Cromwell's portrait," said Wotton. 
 " Truly a striking picture ; and, if I mistake 
 not, physiognomically expressive of the man." 
 
 " Old Noll, as he looked and lived ! " said 
 Walter. " The armed genius of Puritanism ; 
 dark in his inward light ; negligent, awkward, 
 in his strength ; meanly apparelled in his 
 pride ; base-born, and yet more than kingly 
 Those bushy grizzled locks, flowing over his 
 
 L 
 
156 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 shoulders ; that high, care-worn brow ; the 
 gleam of those eyes, cold and stern as the 
 sheen of a winter moon ; that rude, rough- 
 hewn, battered face, so furrowed over with 
 mad inexplicable traces, the very wart on the 
 cheek, are full of meaning. This is the man 
 whose words no one could interpret, but 
 whose thoughts were clearest wisdom, who 
 spoke in laborious folly, in voluntary or in- 
 voluntary enigmas, but saw and acted uner- 
 ringly as fate. Confusion, ineptitude, dishon- 
 esty are pictured on his countenance, but 
 through these shines a fiery strength, nay, a 
 grandeur, as of a true hero. You see that he 
 was fearless, resolute as a Scanderbeg, yet 
 cunning and double withal, like some paltry 
 pettyfogger. He is your true enthusiastic 
 hypocrite ; at once crackbrained and inspired ; 
 a knave and a demigod ; in brief, old Noll as 
 he looked and lived ! Confront him in contest 
 with that mild melancholy Stuart, who eyes 
 him in regal grace and order from the other 
 wall, and you see that royalty is lost, that it is 
 but withered stubble to devouring fire." 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. it^y 
 
 " Yet ih.Q gray discrowned head^' said Doro- 
 thy, " has something of a martyr halo round 
 it in feeling minds; and our thoughts dwell 
 rather with the ringdove in his nest, than with 
 the falcon who made it desolate." 
 
 " I confess I am for the falcon," said Wot- 
 ton, '■'■ only he should fly at other game than 
 ringdoves. And for this martyr of ours, we 
 love him chiefly, I believe, because he was 
 unfortunate ; otherwise in his history there is 
 much to pity, but little to admire. Surely, 
 indeed, to quit our figure, it is wrong to rev- 
 erence the spirit of power, considered simply 
 as such ; yet power is the sense of all sublim- 
 ity, and does not this of necessity captivate 
 the mind ; nay, is it not the chief element of 
 religion itself? " 
 
 " Scarcely of the highest religion, our phi- 
 losophers would tell us," answered she. '' Per- 
 fect love casteth out fear. To a true worship- 
 per, the omnipotence of God is lost in His 
 holiness ; in other words, sublimity is swal- 
 lowed up in all-comprehending beauty. You 
 will observe, too, how much easier it is to 
 
158 WOT TON- RE IN FRED. 
 
 homage the former than the latter attribute. 
 In every thunderstorm we see the very beasts 
 fall prostrate with a sort of terror-struck, slav- 
 ish Avorship, and dumb cry for mercy ; such, 
 likewise, has been, and in great part still is, 
 the devotion of most men ; but for the pure 
 soul that, without thought of self, worships 
 the beauty of holiness, fears not and yet rever- 
 ences, we still look as for a jewel in the com- 
 mon sand ; and in ourselves we are glad if we 
 can trace any vestiges of what in its complete 
 sovereignty should form the crowning glory 
 of our culture. For is it not our chief glory 
 that the strong can be made obedient to the 
 weak ; that we yield not to force but to good- 
 ness ; that we walk under heavenly influences, 
 which are mild and still, not under earthly de- 
 sires, which are fierce and tumultuous ? Nay, 
 that while these incessantly assault us, those 
 alone should quicken us, alone be felt and re- 
 garded. Of you, my friend, I shall one day 
 make a convert; but for our cousin here," 
 added she, with a grave smile, '' he is wedded 
 to his errors." 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 15^ 
 
 "And a stormy matrimony we have had of 
 it," said Walter, " before the household could 
 be brought to peace. But positively, cousin, 
 you do me wrong ; I have my lucid intervals 
 as well as another ; only in a life of storm 
 and battle our philosophy will sometimes step 
 aside, and many things must be left as they 
 can be, not as they should." 
 
 Dorothy, with a faint smile, shook her 
 head. On the whole it seemed to be an object 
 with the soldier to stand well with her ; an 
 object which, under a show of candour and in- 
 difference, he was not imperceptibly pursuing 
 with unusual eagerness, and in which with all 
 his mastery in such arts, he appeared by no 
 means completely prospering. In the pierc- 
 ing eye of such a woman, the craftiest dissimu- 
 lation brings no perfect concealment ; in pure 
 souls there is an instinct which, in the absence 
 of vision, warns them away from the bad, and 
 as if in obscure beckonings declares : ** There 
 cannot be communion between us." Much 
 more when this instinct, the product of the 
 heart, has been allied to quickness of intellect- 
 
l6o WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 ual perception, and its dim intimations be- 
 come clear in the light of long observation 
 and experience of men and their ways. Wal- 
 ter's secret might be hidden, but the hiding of 
 it was not hidden ; under this smooth smiling 
 expanse his fair cousin felt that there were 
 rocks and cruel abysses ; that whoso trusted 
 to its calmness might find it a treacherous 
 element, and in its strength make shipwreck. 
 
 But in a little while the Lady Isabella 
 flitted in, new and glittering like a pheasant 
 after moultmg-time ; in whose gay, graceful 
 discursiveness all sober study, all serious pur- 
 pose, whether of aversion or affection, neces- 
 sarily found its turn. She was one of those 
 souls to whom Heaven has denied the power 
 of any perseverance. Sharp, rapid in her un- 
 derstanding, keen and many times correct in 
 her tastes, she had, indeed, the elements of 
 much worth within her, but these so loosely 
 combined, and intermixed with such a quan- 
 tity of light alloy, that generally their influ- 
 ence was ineffectual, nay, often their existence 
 altogether invisible. She looked upon the 
 
WOTTON REIN FRED. y6i 
 
 world as a vain show, for such to her it really 
 was ; without serious interest in it, without 
 hope, or, indeed, wish of any abiding good, 
 she flickered through it gracefully and care- 
 lessly as through the mazes of a masquerade, 
 neither loving any of her brother figures nor 
 hating any, content if this or that individual 
 among them could transiently amuse her with 
 his talent, and all would gratify her with due 
 admiration. Nor was it men only that she 
 viewed as masks, but, indeed, all things ; in 
 her conceptions no object was, properly speak- 
 ing, of more than two dimensions, length and 
 breadth, without thickness ; so she dwelt not 
 among things, but among hollow shells of 
 things, mere superficies, of more or less brill- 
 iancy in truth, but without solidity or value, 
 and which thus deserved no care from her, 
 thus obtained none. For with all her suscep- 
 tibility it was nearly impossible to fix her 
 mind on aught ; greatness, goodness of any 
 sort, would bring a tear into her bright eyes, 
 but next moment she was thinking how very 
 singular this greatness or this goodness looked. 
 
1 62 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 
 
 She believed in Heaven and Hell ; yet always 
 after the first thrill of wonder or terror, she 
 insensibly figured them like more extended 
 meetings at Almack's ; the first, a bright as- 
 semblage, gas-lit, harmonious, fantastic, and 
 unspeakably amusing; the last, some obscure 
 chaotic medley, horrid, it is true, but chiefly 
 by its dulness and vulgarity, an intensation 
 merely of the horror suffered in a maladroit 
 *' At Home." Thus all things in her were like 
 Sybil's leaves ; her opinions, purposes, moods, 
 at the breath of every accident, were in con- 
 tinual flux and reflux, and if with her gaiety 
 and grace she was delightful for an hour, her 
 dominion for a day was well-nigh insupport- 
 able. 
 
 To Wotton, in his present humour, such 
 entertainment was peculiarly unsolacing : this 
 sparkling, fitful levity, which he could neither 
 rule nor obey, distressed him ; but if Walter's 
 presence had been like a nightmare, which he 
 thought not to withstand, this was a continual 
 dropping, which in its annoyance reminded 
 him of escape. He seized the first fit oppor- 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. 163 
 
 tunity ; said something of his customary morn- 
 ing ride ; and with hasty compliments took 
 leave. 
 
 His morning ride was a ceremony of no 
 binding nature ; but a new light rose on him 
 while his horse was a-saddling. " Would I 
 were with Bernard ! '* thought he ; for his 
 heart was weighed down with a crushing 
 load, and he felt as if free speech would be an 
 inexpressible relief to him. Leaving a proper 
 message with the groom, he accordingly in- 
 quired his way across the hills ; learned that 
 in two hours of good riding he might reach 
 his friend ; and so at a brisk pace, which soon 
 became a gallop, he left the happy valley. 
 
 Such furious speed seemed at once to ex- 
 press and in some degree assuage the internal 
 uproar; but in his mind there was neither 
 peace nor clearness, all was yet imagination 
 and sensation ; its forms had not given birth 
 to thoughts, but in their greater stillness were 
 only growing more complicated, more gigan- 
 tic; and ever as he pulled up, in ascending 
 some rough steep, or from his ledge of road 
 
164 WOTTON REIN FRED, 
 
 looked down into the shaggy chasm, it seemed 
 amid the sound of waterfalls and moaning 
 woods and hoarse choughs, as if deep were 
 speaking of him to deep in prophetic words 
 full of mystery, sadness, and awe. The jour- 
 ney itself was soon and safely accomplished, 
 but it proved ineffectual. Bernard was from 
 home, he had gone with the nobleman, his 
 landlord, to attend some meeting in the mar- 
 ket town of the district, and was not expected 
 till the morrow. 
 
 With difficulty, Wotton, bent on continu- 
 ing his quest, yielded to friendly entreaty and 
 alighted, that so clearer direction and brief 
 rest and refreshment might enable man and 
 horse to pursue their route with more conven- 
 ience. The town was at some twelve miles 
 distance, and two roads led to it; of which 
 our traveller preferred the horseway through 
 the mountains, as shorter and more solitary ; 
 for in this mood the waste stillness of such 
 regions was friendh'' to him. For the rest, the 
 mansion being empty, save of servants, no un- 
 essential delay was called for : in a little while 
 
WOTTON REIN FRED. 165 
 
 Radbury Park with its groves and lawns had 
 disappeared, and Wotton was again mounting 
 the uplands in vain eagerness to reach what 
 he half knew could little avail him. The de- 
 clining sun shone softly on him through the 
 foliage of the glens ; the brooks gushed loud 
 and cheerful by his side ; and often from some 
 open eminence his eye rested on stern blue 
 ranges, or caught here and there the glitter of 
 a lake or streamlet in the distance. But his 
 heart was heavy and alone as in old days ; the 
 dreamy hope which had mingled with so much 
 inquietude in the morning, seemed to die away 
 and retire into littleness, as the scene of it re- 
 tired ; and he asked himself : '■'■ What art thou 
 to this man Walter, or what is he to thee, that 
 thou shouldst either shrink from him or seek 
 him ? Dost thou still love, still look for bless- 
 edness, outcast as thou art? Art not thou poor 
 and helpless ; are not the gates of human ac- 
 tivity inexorably shut against thee ? Have I 
 an aim that is not mad, a hope of peace but in 
 the chambers of death ! O thou bright form, 
 why lingerest thou still in the desert of my 
 
1 66 WOTTON RE IN FRED. 
 
 life? Vanish, fair treacherous vision, vanish 
 and mock me not. If I have been unwise I 
 bear it, and darkness and desolation are my 
 lot for ever." 
 
 In this humour, little would have tempted 
 him to turn his horse suddenly ; to snap asun- 
 der these new-formed ties, and, without leave- 
 taking, hurry back to his native solitudes with 
 blank despondency for his guide. But shame 
 and a little remnant of hope still urged him 
 forward : " After all," said he, '* what have I 
 to lose ? My integrity is mine, and nothing 
 more. Who fears not death, him no shadow 
 can make tremble ; " and reciting this latter 
 sentence with a strong low tone in the original 
 words of Euripides, its author ; he rode along 
 as if composing his soul by this antique spell 
 into forced and painful rest. 
 
 In a short while his attention was called 
 outwards from these meditations, for the val- 
 ley he had been ascending closed in abruptly 
 on a broad, rugged mountain, stretching like 
 a wall across the whole breadth of the hollow, 
 the high sides of which it irregularly inter- 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. i^y 
 
 sected, forming on both hands a rude course 
 for the winter torrents, and on the right a 
 path, which suddenly became so steep and 
 stony that Wotton judged it prudent to dis- 
 mount while climbing it. Arrived with some 
 labour at the top, he again found himself in 
 the western sunlight, which had been hid be- 
 low, and he paused with the bridle in his hand 
 to wonder over a scene which, whether by its 
 natural character, or from the present temper 
 of his own mind, surpassed in impressiveness 
 all that he had ever looked on. 
 
 It was an upland wavy expanse of heath or 
 rough broken downs, where valleys in com- 
 plex branching were, openly or impercepti- 
 bly, arranging their declivity towards every 
 quarter of the sky. The hilltops were beneath 
 his feet ; the cottages, the groves, and mead- 
 ows lapped up in the folds of these lower 
 ranges and hid from sight ; but the loftiest 
 summits of the region towered up here and 
 there as from their base ; gray cliffs also were 
 scattered over the waste, and tarns lay clear 
 and earnest in their solitude. Close on the left 
 
1 68 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 was a deep chasm, the begmnhig of another 
 valley, on the farther side of which abruptly 
 rose a world of fells, as it were, the crown and 
 centre of the whole mountain country ; a hun- 
 dred and a hundred savage peaks attracting" 
 eye and heart by their form, for all was glow- 
 ing like molten gold in the last light of the sun 
 now setting behind them, and in this majestic 
 silence to the wanderer, pensive and lonely in 
 this wilderness, the scene was not only beauti- 
 ful but solemn, Wotton was affected to his 
 inmost soul ; he gazed over these stupendous 
 masses in their strange light, and it seemed to 
 him as if till now he had never known Nature ; 
 never felt that she had, indeed, a fairy and un- 
 speakable loveliness ; nay, that she was his 
 mother and divine. And as the ruddy glow 
 faded into clearness in the sky, and the sheen 
 of the peaks grew purple and sparkling, and 
 the day was now to depart, a murmur of eter- 
 nity and immensity, a voice from other worlds, 
 stole through his soul, and he almost felt as if 
 the earth were not dead : as if the spirit of the 
 earth might have its throne in this glory, and 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 169 
 
 his own spirit might commune with it as with 
 a kindred thing. '' ^Qpeo-repa irdfju^oTL Fa ! '* 
 internally exclaimed he in Doric words ; 
 ** 'Hpearepa irdfji^QTi Va, thou rugged all-sup- 
 porting earth ! " 
 
 But what words can express our feeling in 
 such hours ? It is as if the spirit for a mo- 
 ment were delivered from the claj^ ; as if in Pis- 
 gah vision it descried the gates of its celestial 
 home, and tones of a diviner melody wafted 
 from beyond this world, led captive our puri- 
 fied sense. And the thought of death, as in 
 all scenes of grandeur, steals over us, and of 
 our lost ones that are already hid in the nar- 
 row house, and of all the innumerable nations 
 of the dead that are there before them, the 
 great and famous that have gone thither since 
 the beginning of time. Their multitude af- 
 frights us ; the living are but a handful ; one 
 wave in the boundless tide of ages. Who 
 would grieve for his own light afflictions in 
 this universal doom ? Who could envy, who 
 could hate or injure any fellow-man? Frail 
 transitory man ! we weep over him in fondest 
 
170 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 pity, for the shadows of Death bound in our 
 brightest visions, and mingling in the jubilee 
 of Nature is heard a voice of lamentation ! 
 
 Wotton was aroused from his strange rev- 
 eries by the tramp of approaching riders. 
 Starting round, he observed a cavalcade 
 emerging from the dwarf thickets that skirted 
 the base of a neighbouring cliff, and advancing 
 towards him at a brisk pace ; or, rather, per- 
 haps, towards his track which winded for- 
 ward through the wolds obliquely to their 
 present one. The evening light shone full on 
 the group, which consisted of two men gaily 
 mounted and a lady between them, managing 
 a light Arab with the skill and elegance of a 
 complete equestrian. Long folds of a dark 
 riding-dress flowed over her feet and the side 
 of her horse ; black locks waved in graceful 
 clusters beneath her gold-banded fur barrette ; 
 but, as she approached, the first glimpse of 
 her features struck our hero with a nameless 
 feeling. His presence also in these solitudes 
 at such an hour seemed to give surprise in its 
 turn, for the whole party simultaneously 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. iprj 
 
 pulled in as they noticed him ; and the lady 
 drew back and hastily dropped her veil. 
 
 " A good evening, fair sir ! " said one of 
 the riders, advancing near him. " You lin- 
 ger late on the moors. Has anything be- 
 fallen ? " 
 
 Wotton was instinctively clinging to his 
 horse, which this new arrival had disturbed : 
 but in his confusion he scarcely knew what 
 the stranger had said, much less how to an- 
 swer him with courtesy ; he answered merely 
 with a slight bow and an inquiring, " Sir?" 
 
 " Nay, Jack, you are wrong, 'tis another ! " 
 cried the second horseman also coming up. 
 " Pardon us, sir ! " continued he, addressing 
 Wotton. " The sight of a traveller at sunset 
 on these wolds and not in motion but at rest 
 surprised us, and we have forgotten good 
 manners in interfering with your privacy. 
 We crave your pardon." 
 
 " The wilderness has privileges of its own," 
 said Wotton, who had now recovered him- 
 self. " In such solitudes every human face is 
 friendly. No pardon, for there is no offence, 
 
1^2 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 but a favour. I am a stranger among the 
 mountains, a passing pilgrim ; the wild light 
 of these fells detained me in spite of haste. 
 If our roads go together, I shall be proud of 
 such company, I am riding northwards." 
 
 " We ride alone," said the first horseman, 
 in a somewhat surly voice. 
 
 Wotton looked in his face ; the man, natu- 
 rally nowise truculent, had an aspect of elab- 
 orate resolve, almost of menace. 
 
 " You have leave, sirs," answered Wotton 
 coldly, and bending his eyes towards the path 
 they had quitted. 
 
 " And we go armed," said the other, glanc- 
 ing at his holsters, and evidently piqued by 
 this indifference. 
 
 " Z>^fensively, I may presume," said Wot- 
 ton, in a still chiller tone. '' But for the love of 
 God, madame," cried he with utmost earnest- 
 ness, and advancing a step towards the lady, 
 whose horse had now joined the rest, " tell 
 me, are not you — ?" 
 
 ** Ah, yes ! " faintly interrupted the sweet 
 silver voice of Jane Montagu. " But — " 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. ^j-i^ 
 
 " Gracious God ! " exclaimed he, almost 
 sinking in the unspeakable conflict of his feel- 
 ings. " Oh, my friend I ray friend ! " 
 
 ** Wotton Reinfred," said she, in a livelier 
 tone, as he grasped her hand, *' if you are in- 
 deed m}^ friend, you will not quarrel with my 
 guardians, nay, my blood relations. Here is 
 no time for ceremonies and the point of hon- 
 our. This is no recreant, but a true knight* 
 and loyal to me. Of caitiffs we have enow 
 besides ; there, give him your hand ; and for 
 you, sir, mount, if you will, and come along 
 with us." 
 
 The surly rider brightened up into frank- 
 ness as she spoke in this tone ; readily apolo- 
 gising for his over-hastiness, he proffered cor- 
 dial reconcilement ; and thus, in the singular 
 vicissitudes of a few moments, was Wotton 
 riding forward through the desert, at the side 
 of one whom he had long bitterly mourned as 
 lost, and 3^et could scarcely in his tumultuous 
 bewilderment believe that he had found. 
 
 The rapid pace at which they rode was 
 unfavorable to talk or explanation, which, at 
 
174 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 any rate, the lady seemed desirous to avoid ; 
 she did not lift her veil ; she answered briefly, 
 and in a voice from which its first liveliness, 
 perhaps only a transient gleam constrained 
 for the occasion, had disappeared. She was 
 evidently thoughtful, earnest, and it might be, 
 her thoughts were of sorrow rather than of 
 joy. As for Wotton, his mind was as in a 
 maze ; the past would not join with the pres- 
 ent or the future ; and at times, as he dashed 
 along in silence with the rest, the dusk sink- 
 ing deeper and stiller over the mountains in 
 their horizon, and the crags near at hand 
 growing whiter, huger, and almost spectral, 
 and the quick footsteps of the horses alone 
 sounding through the v/aste, or mingling in 
 echoes with the rush of distant waters, he 
 could have fancied that his senses were deceiv- 
 ing him ; that he should awake and find this 
 vision, so full of sadness and of rapture, only a 
 dream-picture, a pageant of the mind. 
 
 ** But is it really you ? " whispered he, 
 with melting heart in the ear of his loved one, 
 as he approached her for a moment. " Is it 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 175 
 
 really you, the Jane whom I have sat with 
 and talked with of old ? For here in the wiz- 
 ard solitude, I begin to doubt it, and feel that 
 I were too happy." 
 
 *' God knows," said she, " times are altered, 
 and we with them ; but surely I was once 
 Jane Montagu, and had a friend called Rein- 
 fred. That you may believe." 
 
 The two horsemen were silent also, or 
 spoke only at intervals, and of their distance 
 from the town, the qualities of the road, or 
 the rare performance of their horses. In an- 
 other hour the foreground of the scene grew 
 darker, and the track began to slope. At last, 
 far down, rose the light of the burgh, gleam- 
 ing peacefully in hospitable sheen against the 
 sky, like a beacon to the wayfarer. Our party 
 descended into the valley, and soon a smooth 
 shady road conducted them to paved streets 
 and their inn. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Jane Montagu had with brief good- 
 night retired directly to her apartment, an 
 example which her two attendants, wearied 
 by a hard day's journey, seemed not disin- 
 clined to follow. Their supper with our 
 friend was short, and in regard to table-talk, 
 laborious rather than exhilarating ; they yet 
 knew not rightly on what footing he was to 
 stand, or how far he might safely be admitted 
 to their secrets, so that cheerfulness and trust- 
 ful communing gave place on all hands to po- 
 liteness and cautious generalities. From their 
 conversation, which he could but watch, not 
 lead, he had gathered only that they were 
 naval officers, that Jaspar the elder and blunter 
 of the two, was in fact the cousin of Jane, 
 with whose character and late history, how- 
 ever, he appeared nowise personally familiar, 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. lyy 
 
 nor did either he or Elton his comrade seem 
 to be her lover, though in her fortunes both 
 testified a true interest. For the rest, the 
 party was evidently in a state resembling 
 flight, though whence or whither was not so 
 much as hinted, only a pressing entreaty for 
 silence and concealment taught Wotton that 
 they still reckoned themselves within the 
 sphere of pursuit, and dreaded being over- 
 taken as a great evil. To their request he 
 gave a strict and prompt assent, and so with 
 expressions of good will, and of hopes that 
 what v/as dark would to the happiness of all 
 become light, the company broke up, and 
 Wotton like the strangers withdrew to his 
 room. 
 
 From the servants he had learned that 
 Bernard was in the town, nay at that very 
 hour in the inn, but to speak to him, much 
 as he had longed for it, he now carefully 
 avoided. What could he speak of, v»rhen all 
 concerns were swallowed up in one, of which 
 he could not yet divine the mystery, or thou- 
 sandfold importance, and must not even whis- 
 
178 WOTTON REINFRED. 
 
 per his surmises ? But what, now in his seclu- 
 sion, was he to think of this strange day ? 
 What had befallen Jane Montagu, that she 
 was crossing the mountains, a fugitive, encom- 
 passed with anxieties, and under such dubious 
 escort? The men seemed honourable men, 
 and of the friendliest feelings to her ; but 
 whither was she hastening with them, what 
 was she flying or in search of ? Was it in fear 
 or hope ; was she driven or allured ? To all 
 which questions, with the utmost strain of his 
 invention, he could answer nothing, but he 
 only in baffled efforts at conjecture increased 
 the weariness which was already stealing over 
 him like the advance of night. 
 
 Did she love another, then ; did she trust 
 another more than him ? Her manner had 
 been kind, confiding, nay for moments almost 
 tender. No ! She did not love another ! 
 Gracious Heaven ! She still loved him ! And 
 was she unfortunate ? Did she need his help ? 
 Could he assist her ; could his heart, his life 
 have value to her? And this thought, like a 
 little point of splendour, by degrees tinged in 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. lyg 
 
 wild hues of beauty the whole chaos of his 
 mind ; the cruel became meek, the impossible 
 easy ; all harsh discordant shapes, expanding 
 into infinitude, coalesced in friendly union 
 and his spirit sank into sleep as into a sea of 
 many-coloured lights. 
 
 At an early hour he awoke from vague 
 gorgeous dreams, but depressed and heavy- 
 laden, and with the feeling of a man who has 
 much to do and suffer. Looking forth from 
 his window across the wide courtyard with its 
 grooms in their miscellaneous occupation, he 
 observed in the alleys of the garden, two men 
 walking to and fro and earnestly conversing, 
 one of whom he directly recognised for Ber- 
 nard. The air of his friend seemed anxious 
 and busy ; he v/as bent forward and moving 
 his hand as in the endeavour to persuade, 
 while his companion, apparently a man of 
 rank, seemed listening kindly rather than re- 
 plying. Wotton drew back, for at present he 
 dreaded interruptions even from Bernard. 
 
 He was scarcely dressed, when a servant 
 whom he had summoned for some other pur- 
 
l8o WOT TON RE IN FRED, 
 
 pose delivered him a note. The handwriting 
 Wotton knew of old, it was Jane Montagu's ! 
 " To Wotton Reinfred, Esquire." He opened 
 and read : 
 
 "• A new day has risen, and like the Wan- 
 dering Jew I must again set forth with the 
 morning. Come and wish me good speed ere 
 I go ! A strange chance restored me a friend, 
 and in two hours I must part with him, per- 
 haps for ever." 
 
 Wotton made no loitering ; in a few min- 
 utes, with proper guidance and announcement, 
 he found himself in a trim, quiet, little parlour, 
 where Jane Montagu, already in her travel- 
 ling attire, received him with smiles, beautiful 
 in their sadness as a cloudy summer morn. 
 Both parties looked embarrassed, as they nat- 
 urally felt, while there was so much demand- 
 ing utterance, and no words in which it could 
 be uttered. What change since these two 
 had last met face to face ! What a chasm 
 now separated them, over which in the pale 
 dusk of memory, hovered past joys, mourn- 
 fully beckoning them from afar, and as if 
 
tVO TTON REIN FRED. i g i 
 
 weeping that there was no return ! Those 
 times were now gone, that blissful community 
 of life had been all rent asunder, and yet still 
 her right hand was in his, and they again 
 stood near in space, though in relation so 
 widely divided ! A tear was gathering in the 
 bright eyes of Jane, which she fixed on the 
 ground, and through Wotton's heart v/ere 
 quivering wild tones of remembrance and 
 hope, wailing as of infinite grief, and touches 
 of rapture rising almost to pain. He gazed 
 silently on that loved form ; there was no mo- 
 tion in her hand, but she timidly raised her 
 face, where over soft, quick blushes tears were 
 stealing and next moment, neither knew how- 
 it was, but his arms were round her, and her 
 bosom was on his, and in the first pure heav- 
 enly kiss of love two souls were melted into 
 one. 
 
 It was but for a moment. She sharply, al- 
 most angrily withdrew herself and cried, hid- 
 ing her face : " Forbear, sir ! If you hope to 
 see me another minute, no more of this ! " 
 Wotton stood confounded at his rashness, yet 
 
1 82 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 glorying in its celestial fruit : he attempted in 
 broken words to apologise. 
 
 " Beware, sir ! " said she. *' It was not to 
 hear love declarations, which I must not lis- 
 ten to, that I sent for you hither. My life is 
 made for sterner stuff; they are far other 
 tasks that await me. Alas ! " continued she, 
 *' I have no friend in this world, if you be my 
 lover. I am an unhappy girl, an orphan wan- 
 derer ! " she burst into weeping. 
 
 " Jane Montagu ! *' said Wotton, in a voice 
 striving to be calm, " I have hoped, I have 
 wished for no other happiness, but to be your 
 friend and brother through all time. If there 
 was ever any vestige of goodness in me, be- 
 lieve that I am yours, to live and die for you 
 as you shall desire. Weak, unworthy I am, 
 but not wicked ; trust in me, O trust in me ! 
 Can I betray your trust ? Can I give it in ex- 
 change as a thing less precious ? O what else 
 could my life have in it worth keeping ! " 
 
 " My wish and purpose is to trust you," 
 said she, giving him her hand, which he mod- 
 estly pressed to his lips. " I am parting from 
 
WOT TON REINFRED, 183 
 
 you, but I would not part from your good 
 wishes, from your estimation. But come, 
 why all this tragedy ? " continued she, in a 
 lighter tone, and summoning a smile through 
 her tears. " Sit down, and speak to me, for I 
 have much to inquire and say, and it will be 
 long before we meet again." 
 
 " In Heaven's name," cried he, " whither 
 are you going? Why did I lose you, and in 
 what strange scenes have I found you after 
 long waiting ? " 
 
 " You have a right to ask," said she ; " but 
 I cannot answer in a word. Have patience 
 with me ; I have longed to tell you all ; 
 longed to unfold the sad perplexities which 
 encompass me, to give them voice and shape 
 to any mortal that was not false-hearted, who 
 if he could not offer me help, would faith- 
 fully offer me pity, the solace of all the 
 wretched. I have been alone in my grief, 
 alone ! Perhaps it were wiser to continue so, 
 but it is otherwise determined ; listen to me, 
 you shall hear all." 
 
 Wotton sat in breathless attention, and the 
 
1 84 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 fair Jane with a resolute eifort at indifference 
 and composure, thus proceeded : 
 
 ^* I might well say with Macbeth : My 
 May of life is fallen into the sear and yellow 
 leaf, were it not that little sunshine visits one 
 at any time, and as for my life, I think it has 
 been cast in some Nova Zembla climate, 
 where however it might be May by the cal- 
 endar, by the sky it was December. Bright 
 blue hours I have had too, and one always 
 hopes the weather will mend ! 
 
 *' Of my childhood I can say little. Some- 
 thing whispers me that in the earlier part of 
 it I was happier, for I have faint recollections 
 of a pleasant home and kind nurses, and one 
 that used to weep over me and kiss me, per- 
 haps she was my mother. But an obscure, 
 confused period succeeds ; of which I have no 
 remembrance, except a certain vague impres- 
 sion of tumult and distress ; and this first 
 scene stands like some fair little island, di- 
 vided by wild seas from my whole after life. I 
 had lost my parents, how I have never known ; 
 some baleful mystery hangs over their fate, a 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 185 
 
 gloomy secret, which when I have inquired 
 into, I have been answered only in hints and 
 dark warnings to forbear inquiring. Unhappy 
 father ! It seems he must have died miser- 
 ably, sometimes I have feared by his own hand. 
 And she too, the good mother, she that 
 fondled me and laid me on her bosom, was 
 for ever hid from my eyes. Alas ! was she my 
 mother? or is this also but a dream which I 
 mistake for a reminiscence ? Father or mother 
 in truth I have never known. 
 
 " You have seen my aunt, and something 
 of her character, which therefore I need not 
 describe at large. Surely I owe her much, 
 she was my sole benefactress ; herself a 
 widow, she found me a helpless orphan, for 
 with their ill-starred life the fortune of my par- 
 ents had also gone to wreck, and had it not 
 been for her affection I v/as destitute as well 
 as orphaned. Affection I may call it, though 
 of a strange sort, and made up of mere contra- 
 dictions. She has shared her all with me ; 
 though poor she has shunned no cost in pro- 
 curing me instruction and improvement, in- 
 
1 86 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 deed day after day she has watched over me 
 with the solicitude of a mother, yet scarcely 
 a day has passed but I have had to doubt 
 whether her feeling towards me was love or 
 hatred. In my childhood often she would hold 
 me in her arms, and gaze over me till her 
 heart seemed melting with saddest tender- 
 ness, then all at once I have seen those swim- 
 ming eyes flash into fury, and she would 
 spurn me from her as an accursed thing. A 
 tempestuous life we had of it, and sore many 
 tinies was my little heart oppressed and vexed. 
 I had none to trust in, I wept in secret, and 
 were it not that childhood is naturally forget- 
 ful and inclined to joy, I must have been often 
 quite wretched. 
 
 ** My aunt is certainly no common person ; 
 she has the most decisive opinions, a firm and 
 speedy resolve, high feelings also, indeed a 
 certain taste for all excellence. Yet these fine 
 elements of goodness have in her come to no 
 good ; she is proud, vindictive, jealous, she 
 does even kindness unkindly, and her temper 
 is changeful as winter winds. It seems as if 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. jg^ 
 
 some malign influence had passed over her na- 
 ture, and thwarted into perverse direction so 
 many possibilities of virtue. Poor lady ! For 
 if she makes others suffer, she herself suffers 
 still more. It is long since I discovered that 
 she had no happiness, no peace, but rather the 
 gnawing of an inward discontent, which never 
 dies, and often I have thought its source lay 
 deeper than mere worldly disappointment. 
 Perhaps her marriage was unfortunate, she 
 will not speak of it, she sternly avoids it, and 
 to Jaspar her son she shows less affection than 
 even to me. Perhaps — But alas ! Do not 
 mystery and mischance environ me and gird 
 me round ? My whole history is a riddle, 
 which he were a cunning seer that could read 
 me ! Disquietude of conscience my unhappy 
 relative may have or not, disquietude of some 
 kind she too evidently has. No system of cir- 
 cumstances, no scene, no circle of society can 
 long please her, nowhere can she take up her 
 permanent abode, but she wanders from place 
 to place seeking that rest which she knows be- 
 forehand is not to be found. Of late years her 
 
1 88 WOT TON REIN FRED, 
 
 misery seems increasing, there are times when 
 she shrinks from human presence ; for days she 
 will sit secluded in her room, refusing all sym- 
 pathy or trustful communication, and her look 
 when it falls on you is cruel and cold. Poor 
 lady ! Her heart will break one day, for she 
 is too strong-willed to end in madness. 
 
 '* My native place and hers is this North of 
 England, but directly on the death of my par- 
 ents she retired with me to Vevey in Switz- 
 erland, where she had before resided. Thus 
 French became a second mother-tongue to 
 me, and the Leman Lake and the wild mount- 
 ains of Savoy are the earliest scenes of my 
 memory. Our way of life here was sombre 
 enough ; except with certain clergy of the 
 place, and one or two sedate persons chiefly 
 of literary habits, my aunt had no society ; the 
 English travellers of whom many passed, she 
 carefully avoided, nay repelled if they sought 
 her. Jaspar was not with us but in England 
 at a boarding-school ; one grave old woman 
 was our only servant. Yet this solitude was 
 not lonesome to m.e, nor with all my little 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. igo 
 
 griefs did I feel myself unhappy. What wealth 
 is in childhood, how that morning sun makes 
 a very desert beautiful ! One has yet no con- 
 sciousness of self, one is a thought, an action, 
 not a thinker or an actor. They praised me 
 for diligence at school, the whole world was 
 indeed a school to me, where day after day I 
 was learning new wonders, and forming new 
 ties of love. What joy when I could escape 
 to bound over the meadows with my little sis- 
 ter maidens ! But still deeper joy I felt when 
 in solitary castle-building I shaped out the fu- 
 ture, and saw myself not a princess with kneel- 
 ing knights — no, no ! — but a Corinna, a poet- 
 ess, an intellectual woman ! For towards this 
 goal, whether by natural temper, or the influ- 
 ence of our literary visitors, my whole soul 
 was already bent. Blame not my mad whim ! 
 I cannot blame it, though I know its empti- 
 ness ; this poor vision has come before me in 
 its brightness, and been a city of refuge to my 
 soul in all troublous seasons. Vevey is still 
 dear to me, and the great Mont Blanc with 
 
 his throne of glacier-rubies still visits me in 
 13 
 
IQO WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 sleep and shines in the background of many a 
 dream. 
 
 " It was not without bitter tears that I left 
 this first home and all that I had ever loved 
 or known in life. But I was now in my twelfth 
 summer, and my tears soon dried, for England 
 and London were before me. What a world 
 of hopes ! England the land of my nativity, 
 where in some lone churchyard, which I often 
 figured, were the graves of my parents, over 
 which I should indeed weep, but tears so soft 
 and blessed ! London, the city of wonders, 
 where I was to see and learn so much ! My 
 heart leapt at the thought ; in spite of all per- 
 versities, caprices, nay cruelties, I was the hap- 
 piest little soul alive. Not so my aunt ; her 
 gloom seemed to deepen as she approached 
 the English shore, and I was more than once 
 reminded that but for me and my interests she 
 would not have set foot on it again, but in 
 kinder hours she told me I might now be hap- 
 pier, if I were good ; I was to complete my 
 learning, by and by I should meet friends, 
 be introduced to society, of which, however, I 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. jqi 
 
 ought rather to beware than expect much 
 good. I was too young to understand her 
 fully, but my images of danger and enjoyment 
 were alike gorgeous and almost alike attract- 
 ive, and her ideas I still rocked to and fro on 
 the wildest waves. 
 
 " London fulfilled neither my expectations 
 nor hers. The deafening, never-ceasing tu- 
 mult of that monstrous city, its aspect of 
 power and splendour for a while intoxicated 
 me, but the charm of novelty wore off, and I 
 looked back to my little room at Vevey, and 
 its book-shelves and rose-festoons and studious 
 quiet seemed doubly precious. Of masters I 
 had abundance, but they taught me only fe- 
 male accomplishments, and what I most want- 
 ed was knowledge. In public our relations, 
 gay, grand people, saw me and caressed me, 
 but I soon found that their kindness was from 
 the lips only, Avhile in secret at home I had 
 more to suffer than ever. My aunt had be- 
 come a stranger among her kindred, in every 
 circle her place had long ago been filled up, 
 or rather in so many years of absence the cir- 
 
IQ2 WOT TON REIN FRED. 
 
 cle itself had disappeared, and now she saw 
 herself superfluous, nay it may be regarded 
 with distrust, for her way of life had long been 
 involved in a certain mystery, from which it 
 was not difficult for many to draw spiteful in- 
 ferences. She felt all this and smarted under 
 it in her proud spirit. I too was unhappy. 
 Alas ! I was now awakening to life, I was now 
 looking on the world with my own eyes, and 
 sad enough were my surveys and forecastings ! 
 I saw myself alone ; I saw my aunt, as she was, 
 desolate, gloomy, if not malignant ; sometimes 
 I secretly accused her, sometimes I almost 
 hated her, this aunt that had been a mother to 
 me. I was still gay, sportful, but no longer 
 from the heart, which, when I thought of it, 
 was often full of fear and sorrow. The future 
 lay before me, so vast, so solemn, and often all 
 gloomy ; except in my darling vision, my old 
 dream of intellectual greatness, I had no 
 strength or stay, and this was but a trembling 
 hope which T hid from every one almost as a 
 guilty thought. The fate of literary women, 
 the ridicule I saw cast on them had grieved 
 
WOTTON REINFRED. IQ3 
 
 me deeply, yet in the end nowise effaced my 
 first project ; nay perhaps, for there is a spirit 
 of contradiction in us, rather added strength 
 to it. Foolish girl ! But soon I had more 
 pressing matters to reflect on. 
 
 " We left London finally after a residence 
 of three years ; my aunt mortified and dis- 
 dainful ; I neither glad nor sorry at the 
 change which, indeed, I foresaw would not be 
 lasting, for dissatisfaction and unrest had now 
 taken firm hold of my unhappy relative ; she 
 had ceased to be devout, she was at once vio- 
 lent and aimless, and bad days seemed to 
 await me beside her wherever we might live. 
 It was in the south of Wales, whither a pleas- 
 ant situation and some distant connections in 
 the neighbourhood had invited her, that we 
 next settled. Our way of life here you can 
 figure : why should I trouble you with the 
 poor repetition of frivolity and spleen which 
 with only superficial varieties now this now 
 that new abode has witnessed ? One circum- 
 stance there is, however, which makes these 
 scenes for ever memorable to me. It was 
 
194 WOTTON REINFRED, 
 
 here that I first saw the being whom I may 
 justly call my evil genius ; for since that hour 
 his influence has pursued me only to my hurt, 
 and still hangs like a baleful shadow over my 
 whole life. Oh, my friend ! This man, this 
 demon ! Why did he ever behold me ? Why 
 must the black, wasting whirlwind of his life 
 snatch him into its course ? But I will be 
 calm. 
 
 ** Edmund Walter, the first time I saw him, 
 thought right to treat me with a distinction 
 which could not but be visible to everyone. 
 It was a rather numerous assembly : Walter 
 was among the cynosures of the night, and 
 perhaps the poor bashful girl was somewhat 
 envied such attention. In my own mind, God 
 knows, it caused little joy : on the contrary, 
 this man with all his pomp and plausibility of 
 aspect was positively distressing to me, or if 
 I had for the moment some touch of female 
 vanity in his flatteries, I received them but as 
 fairy-money and with a half-criminal feeling, 
 for dread and aversion, as to a wicked soul, 
 were my impressions of him from the first. 
 
WOT TON REINFRED. igj 
 
 My impressions, however, it appeared, were 
 not to regulate our intercourse ; nay, perhaps 
 this indifference, this repulsion, accustomed 
 as he was to prevail over all hearts, rather 
 piqued him into new assiduity. He followed 
 me, at least — followed me from that hour with 
 continual civilities, the more questionable as 
 they could not be rejected, for so dextrously 
 did he go to work that his conduct expressed 
 at once everything and nothing, wavered like 
 a changing colour ; seen on this side, all soft- 
 ness and beguilement ; on that, mere acquaint- 
 anceship and common social courtesy. With 
 such craft was he studying to spin his nets 
 about me, but it profited him little. If for 
 moments I might trust to the voice of his 
 charming, and feel only that a person of such 
 talents and commanding energy was profit- 
 able as a transient companion, especially to 
 one who had so few that could instruct her in 
 aught, I failed not with all my inexperience to 
 see habitually what and how dangerous was 
 our true relation, nay, the more his conver- 
 sation pleased, instructed, fascinated me, the 
 
196 WOT TON RE IN FRED, 
 
 stronger in my mind grew a dim persuasion 
 that he was selfish and v/orthless, that it be- 
 hoved me to break off from him, once for all 
 to be open and decided and, with whatever 
 violation of ceremony, for ever forbid him my 
 presence. This, indeed, had I been mistress 
 of my own actions, I should have done. 
 
 *' But my aunt said nay, and my part was 
 submission. Her conduct in regard to this 
 man had all along been a puzzle to me. At 
 first she vehemently objected to him, received 
 his visits with coldness, sometimes scarcely 
 even v/ith a polished coldness; it was plain 
 that she watched for opportunities of hurting 
 him — that she strove, by all means short of 
 open incivility, to harass him into retreat. 
 Nevertheless, he was not to be so baffled : 
 with a strange patience he submitted to her 
 injuries, or by cunning turns of courtesy 
 evaded them, and so persevered with a thou- 
 sand wiles in paying court to her, that by de- 
 grees he insinuated himself into tolerance, 
 nay, ere long into highest favour. By what 
 new arts he had effected this I knew not, but 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. igy 
 
 SO it was, for the two were evidently on the 
 most trustful footing ; they had private inter- 
 views, the purport of which I did not learn ; 
 only I could see by abundant symptoms that 
 secrets were between them — secrets of what 
 they reckoned weighty import, and from which 
 it seemed I was to be carefully shut out. 
 
 *' This mystery surprised and sometimes 
 alarmed me ; I hate mystery at all times, and 
 in the present case I had signs that it con- 
 cerned myself. My aunt had now changed 
 her dialect with regard to Walter; she no 
 longer spoke of him with bitterness, but zeal- 
 ously, with affection, nay, with admiration. 
 She daily introduced the topic ; asked my 
 opinion of this and that feature in his char- 
 acter ; defended him where I disliked, and 
 warmly confirmed my judgment when it was 
 favourable. She descanted at large on his 
 looks, his talent, his manliness of mind ; the 
 polished strength, the elegance, the perfect 
 nobleness of his whole bearing — in short, 
 whatever quality she knew me to approve of, 
 with that in full measure she strove to invest 
 
ipS WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 him. I had much to object ; I failed not to 
 point out in contrast her own prior view of 
 him. She owned that she had been mistaken ; 
 a fair outside was not always a false one ; she 
 understood this man better than I and could 
 answer for his integrity, nay, more, for his in- 
 tentions towards myself, which she had at first 
 doubted, but now knew to be generous. As 
 she saw me shrink from such applications, she 
 did not pursue them, but talked in general of 
 the charms of wealth and high station, and 
 how precious it was to be loved for one's own 
 sake. The drift of all this I could not but di- 
 vine ; in fact, her whole being seemed pos- 
 sessed with the project ; a glad animation 
 sparkled in her looks when she spoke of it, a 
 hope and ardour such as I had never seen 
 there before. 
 
 " Of my own feelings on the matter I could 
 give little account. By such influence, with 
 which his own treatment of me skilfully co- 
 operated, a sort of false glory had been 
 thrown round this man ; yet surel}^ thought 
 I, this is not love ? For I felt, or might have 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. jgg 
 
 felt, that I feared and did not trust him, that 
 we were still divided, must for ever be di- 
 vided. The thought of wedding him was 
 frightful to me, but his asking me to wed him 
 seemed a thing, with all the hints I had heard 
 of it, so utterly unlikely that it gave me little 
 trouble. On the whole I was mazed, dazzled, 
 and knew only that in this bewilderment I 
 knew nothing. 
 
 *' Walter disappointed my calculations ; in 
 a letter full of cunning rhetoric he declared 
 himself my lover, and offered me his hand ; 
 my aunt had already given her consent, and 
 he waited only for mine to be the happiest of 
 living mortals ! What could I do ? what could 
 I say ? I wept and sobbed, for there was a 
 fearful contradiction within me. On the one 
 side lay a life of dependence and chagrin, now 
 threatening to become more galling than 
 ever, without sympathy, without a friend, but 
 one relative whom by my refusal I should bit- 
 terly afflict, nay, as it seemed, I should rob of 
 her last earthly hope ; and here, on the other 
 side, stood the tempter, bright and joyful, 
 
200 WOT TON REINFRED. 
 
 stretching forth his hand and beckoning me 
 with smiles to a scene so different ! A man 
 who loved me, of so many graces, too, and 
 really splendid endowments ! For some in- 
 stants I could have yielded, but a secret 
 voice, in tones faint, yet inexpressibly earnest, 
 warned me that he was false and cruel, that 
 it should not and must not be. This warning 
 I at last resolved, come what come might, to 
 obey. 
 
 " After two sleepless nights, and days ex- 
 posed to a thousand influences of intreaty, 
 menace, and persuasion, I rose with a decid- 
 edness of purpose such as I had never before 
 felt ; briefly, in words as distinct as were con- 
 sistent with politeness, I penned my refusal, 
 and, without speaking a word, laid the note 
 before my aunt. Contrary to expectation she 
 showed no anger, but only sorrow ; she wept 
 and kissed me ; said that my happiness was 
 hers ; that if I so wished it, so it should be. 
 Such tenderness melted me ; I burst into tears 
 and expressed in passionate language my un- 
 happiness at distressing her. She renewed 
 
WOT TON RE IN FRED. 20I 
 
 her caresses and encouragement, only at the 
 same time hinting as a question ; if perhaps 
 my note was not too vigorously worded ? 
 Why should we offend a man so powerful, so 
 friendly to us? Were it not better if I ex- 
 cused myself on simply the score of youth, 
 and, without peremptory denial, left the mat- 
 ter to die away of itself and Walter to change 
 imperceptibly by force of time from a lover 
 into a friend ? Eager for conciliation, glad by 
 any means to purchase peace for the present, 
 I consented ; in an unlucky hour the new let- 
 ter was written and despatched ; and so the 
 evil which I should have fronted when it 
 came, postponed into vague distance, where 
 it gathered fresh wrath against me for a 
 future day. 
 
 " Walter renewed his visits almost as if 
 nothing had happened, only glancing once 
 and from afar at the occurrence, to which he 
 adroitly contrived to give a light turn, so that 
 matters soon settled on their old footing, and I 
 blessed myself that the storm was blown over. 
 Of love for me he had never spoken and did 
 
202 WOTTON REINFRED. 
 
 not now speak, but strove rather with all his 
 resources, which were nowise inconsiderable, 
 to make our conversation generally interesting 
 and profitable in particular for my intellectual 
 culture, which he saw well was the object I 
 had most at heart. By such means my suspi- 
 cions were certainly quieted if not dispersed ; 
 I again began to look on him with some 
 degree of satisfaction, at least, with thankful- 
 ness for what he taught me ; nor could I hide 
 from myself that dubious, nay, repulsive as his 
 inward nature might appear to me, I had seen 
 few men of such endowments, few who had 
 so quickened my faculties, and though with 
 somewhat alien influence, given me so many 
 new ideas and so much incitement to improve. 
 *' In this favourable mood he left us, his 
 regiment being ordered to the North, where 
 it was to be reduced, perhaps broken. He 
 took his leave quietly, with friendliness, but no 
 show of tenderness, and in the manner of a 
 man who hoped yet without anxiety to meet 
 us again. War, he observed, was a trade for 
 the present as good as ruined, and of which at 
 
WOT TON REIN FRED. 203 
 
 any rate one would in time grow tired ; he 
 had thoughts of slackening his connection 
 with the army and settling on his own soil ; 
 who knew but the Cincinnatus, when his 
 sword had become a ploughshare, might 
 tempt his fair hostesses to a long journey, or 
 at least meet them in their wayfarings and re- 
 new the memory of so many happy days ? In 
 this fashion we parted ; with my aunt he was 
 in dearer esteem than ever; even I could not 
 but wish him good speed, and sometimes 
 afterwards not without regret contrast his 
 sprightly sense with the laborious, often mali- 
 cious, inanity of most that remained in my 
 sphere behind him. 
 
 " A brisk correspondence had commenced 
 between my aunt and Walter, in which she 
 seemed to find her chief, or rather, sole pleas- 
 ure, for ever since his departure a double dis- 
 content had settled over Ipjr. About this time 
 Jaspar, her son, paid us his first visit ; a gay, 
 rather boisterous, but on the whole true- 
 hearted young man ; with him, as with the 
 only one of my relations who had ever shown 
 
204 WOT TEN RE IN FRED. 
 
 me much affection, I by degrees established a 
 pleasant friendship, which has remained un- 
 broken through various vicissitudes, and nov/, 
 indeed, forms my last confidence in the fu- 
 ture. His regiment had returned from India, 
 where he had fought and wandered, of all 
 which he had much to tell us, or rather, to tell 
 me, for his mother manifested little interest in 
 this or aught that concerned him, and, strange 
 as it may seem, her own only child had now 
 come to see her, for the second time since in- 
 fancy, not by her solicitation, but by her con- 
 sent, and that unwillingly bestowed. Of these 
 things he sometimes complained to me, yet 
 with pity towards his mother rather than with 
 anger ; indeed, my cousin is of so jocund, buoy- 
 ant a temper that nothing painful abides with 
 him. 
 
 " Walter he knew by old acquaintance ; 
 they had been fellow-students at the military 
 college, but as Jaspar spoke of him with dis- 
 like, the mother, to avoid quarrels, rarely 
 mentioned this subject, and to me it was now 
 become well-nigh indifferent. Jaspar and I 
 
WOTTON REIN FRED. 205 
 
 had family concerns and much that interested 
 both to talk of. On the history of my par- 
 ents he could throw no light, but he won- 
 dered with me at my aunt's mysterious si- 
 lence ; encouraged me under so many pain- 
 ful circumstances, and often with unusual 
 warmth declared that he would be a friend 
 and brother to me always, befal what might. 
 I had never had a brother, but I felt towards 
 this man something like what a sister may 
 feel. Undistinguished by any great quality, 
 nay, with many faults and a certain coarse- 
 ness of nature, he was good and kind to me, 
 and in his company I felt so glad and safe, so 
 affectionate yet so calm ! These five weeks 
 flew away too quickly ; my new brother left 
 us and I again remained alone, my aunt by 
 some unaccountable perversity refusing even 
 to let me correspond with him. 
 
 " Her days v/ere indeed become days of 
 darkness ; she was wasting in unexplained 
 sorrows; her soul wrapt up in mystery and 
 often also in the terrors and mortifications of 
 
 superstition ; she felt no hope in life, no sym- 
 14 
 
2o6 WOTTON REIN FRED. 
 
 pathy with the living. With the social circle 
 of our neighbourhood she was displeased, her- 
 self likewise displeasing, and had almost 
 ceased to correspond ; except when she heard 
 of this stranger, her face was seldom bright- 
 ened with any smile. What I suffered from 
 her why should I describe to you? But I 
 foresaw that some change of place would 
 soon follow, and with it perhaps some allevia- 
 tion. Meanwhile I kept retired within my 
 old fortress, where, quiet and diligent, I felt 
 as if for the sake of knowledge I could suffer 
 all this and much more. 
 
 " What I had anticipated failed not to hap- 
 pen. Early next spring we moved north- 
 wards, and after a short residence among 
 these fells, still farther northwards into Scot- 
 land to the spot you know so well ! Dear 
 land!" 
 
EXCURSION (FUTILE ENOUGH) 
 TO PARIS; 
 
 AUTUMN 1851 : 
 
 THROWN ON PAPER, WHEN GALLOPING, 
 FROM SATURDAY TO TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4-7, 1851. 
 
 Chelsea^ Oct. 4, 185 1. — The day before yes- 
 terday, near midnight (Thursday, Oct. 2) I re- 
 turned from a very short and insignificant ex- 
 cursion to Paris ; which, after a month at 
 Malvern Water-cure and then a ten days at 
 Scotsbrig, concludes my travel for this year. 
 Miserable puddle and tumult all my travels 
 are, of no use to me, except to bring agitation, 
 sleeplessness, horrors and distress ! Better 
 not to travel at all unless when I am bound to 
 it. But this tour to Paris was a promised 
 one ; I had engaged to meet the Ashburtons 
 (Lord and Lady) there on their return from 
 Switzerland and Homburg, before either party 
 left London : the times at last suited ; all was 
 
 Copyright, 1891, by D. Appleton and Company. 
 
208 EXCURSION TO PARIS, 
 
 ready except will on my part ; so, after hesi- 
 tation and painful indecision enough, I did re- 
 solve, packed my baggage again, and did the 
 little tour I stood engaged for. Nothing 
 otherwise could well be more ineffectual, 
 more void of entertainment to me ; but, in 
 fine, it is done, and I am safe at home again. 
 Being utterly weary, broken-down, and unfit 
 for any kind of work, I will throw down my 
 recollections of that sorry piece of travel, then 
 fold the sheet or sheets together, and dismiss 
 the business. Allans done. I will date, and be 
 precise, so far as I am able. 
 
 Monday, Sept. 21. — Brother John still here ; 
 he and I went to Chorley to consult about 
 passports, routes, conditions, the journey be- 
 ing now, and not till now, resolved upon. 
 John was to set out for Yorkshire and Annan- 
 dale on the morrow, and so had special busi- 
 ness of his own to attend to. For me Chor- 
 ley recommended the route by Dieppe and 
 Rouen ; got me at the Reform Club a note of 
 the packet and railway times (the former of 
 which proved to be in error somewhat) ; could 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 209 
 
 say nothing definite of passports. We are 
 consulting Elliott at the Colonial Office. I 
 was instantly taken across to the Foreign Of- 
 fice, close by in Downing Street, and there for 
 "js. 6d. got a passport, which, in spite of ru- 
 mours and surmises, proved abundantly suffi- 
 cient. Did no more that day that I can re- 
 member. Next morning early John awoke 
 me, shook hands, and rapidly went, leaving me 
 to my own reflections and opposite of 
 
 the sky. How we come and go in this world ! 
 A rumour had arisen that my passport would 
 require to be visaed (if that is the word) ; that 
 I must go to the City for this end ; that, etc. : 
 I called on Chorley to consult ; Chorley, his 
 old mother having fallen suddenly ill, could 
 not get away to see me even for a minute : 
 laziness said, however, " Not to the Cit}^ 
 don't ! " At Chapman's shop, I learned that 
 Robert Browning (poet) and his wife were 
 just about setting out for Paris : I walked to 
 their place — had during that day and the fol- 
 lowing, consultations with these fellow pil- 
 grims ; and decided to go with them, by 
 
2IO EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 Dieppe, on Thursday ; Wednesday had been 
 my original day, but I postponed it for the 
 sake of company who knew the way. Such 
 rumours, such surmises ; the air was thick 
 with suppositions, guesses, cautions ; each pub- 
 lic office (Regent's Circus, Consul's House, or 
 elsewhere), proclaimed its own plans, denying^ 
 much more ignoring, that there was any other 
 plan. For very multitude of guide-posts you 
 could not find your way ! The Brownings, 
 and their experience and friendly qualities, 
 were worth waiting for during one day. 
 Thursday, September ^^, at lo A. M., I was to be 
 at London Bridge Railway Station ; there in 
 person with portmanteau, and some English 
 sovereigns : das Weiter wiirde sick geben. 
 
 Up accordingly on Thursday morning, in 
 unutterable flurry and tumult of humour, — 
 phenomena on the Thames, all dreamlike, one 
 spectralism chasing another ; to the station in 
 good time ; found the Brownings just arriving 
 which seemed a good omen. Fare to Paris, 
 22J., wonderful ; thither and back " by return 
 ticket" was but ^i \2s. according to this 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 21I 
 
 route — such had been the effect on prices of 
 this '* Glass Palace," and the crowds attracted 
 towards it. Browning v/ith wife and child 
 and maid, then I, then an empty seat for 
 cloaks and baskets, lastly at the opposite end 
 from me a hard-faced, honest Englishman or 
 Scotchman, all in grey and with a grey cap, 
 who looked rather ostrich-like, but proved 
 very harmless and quiet: this was the load- 
 ing of our carriage, — and so away we went, 
 Browning talking very loud and with vi- 
 vacity, I silent rather, tending towards many 
 thoughts. To Reigate the county was more 
 or less known to me. Beautiful enough, still 
 green, the grey, cool light resting on it, oc- 
 casionally broken by bursts of autumn sun. 
 Some half-score miles from Brighton our road 
 diverges to the left ; we make for " New- 
 haven," the mouth of a small sea-canal, divided 
 from Brighton by a pretty range of chalk 
 hills. Chalk everywhere showing itself, grass 
 very fine and green ; fringings of wood not in 
 too great quantity ; all neat, all trim, a pretty 
 enough bit of English country, all English in 
 
212 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 character. Newhaven, a new place, rising- 
 fast as " haven " to the railways : our big soli- 
 tary inn, the main building in it ; other dwell- 
 ing-houses, coal-wharves, etc., chiefly on the 
 opposite side of the channel, a channel of 
 green, clear sea-water, hardly wider than a 
 river : everything in a state of English trim- 
 ness, and pleasant to look upon in the grey 
 wind while we had nothing to do but smoke. 
 Browning managed everything for me ; in- 
 deed there was as yet nothing to manage. 
 Our company numerous, but not quite a 
 crowd ; mostly French : operations (as to lug- 
 gage, steamer, etc.) all orderly and quiet. At 
 length perhaps about half-past one, P. M., we 
 got fairly under way. — I should have said, a 
 man with religious tracts^ French, German, 
 English, came on board ; I took from him in 
 all the three kinds (which served me well as 
 w^aste paper) ; many refused, some (chiefly of 
 the English) with anger and contempt. On 
 the deck were benches each with a back and 
 hood covered with well-painted canvas, im- 
 penetrable to rain or wind ; these proved 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 213 
 
 very useful by-and-by. Stewards' assistants 
 enough ; especially one little French boy, in 
 fine blue clothes and cap, who w^as most in- 
 dustrious among his countrywomen ; bigger 
 French gawky (very stupid-looking fellow 
 this) tried to be useful too, but couldn't much. 
 Our friends, especially our French friends, 
 were full of bustle, full of noise at starting ; 
 but so soon as we had cleared the little chan- 
 nel of Newhaven, and got into the sea or 
 British Channel, all this abated, sank into the 
 general sordid torpor of sea-sickness, with 
 its miserable noises, " Hoahah — hohh ! " and 
 hardly any other amid the rattling of the 
 wind and sea. A sorry phasis of humanity. 
 Browning was sick, lay in one of the bench- 
 tents horizontal, his wife, etc., below ; I was 
 not absolutely sick, but had to lie quite quiet, 
 and without comfort, save \xv one cigar for 
 seven or eight hours of blustering, spraying, 
 and occasional rain. Amused myself with 
 French faces, and the successive prostration 
 of the same — prostration into doleful silence, 
 then evanition into utter darkness under some 
 
214 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 bench-tent whence was heard only the " Hoah- 
 hah-hohh ! '* of vanquished despair. Pretty 
 enough were several of them, not perfectly 
 like gentlemeyi any one of them : — indeed that 
 character of face I found of the utmost rarity 
 in France generally. " Bourgeois," in clean 
 clothes, if civil, rather noisy manner. One 
 handsome man of forty, olive complexion, 
 black big eyes and beard, velvet cap without 
 brim, stood long wrapped in copious blue 
 cloak, and talked near me ; at length sank 
 silent and vanished. Other, of brown hair 
 and beard, head wrapt in shawl, rather silent 
 from the first, protruded his under lip 
 in sick disgust, and vanished a little sooner. 
 Third, of big figure, blind and with specta- 
 cles, strikingly reminded me of Jeffrey of 
 Cierthon (" Robin Jeffrey," long since dead) : 
 he sat by the gunwale, spoke little, in prepara- 
 tion for the worst, and staid there. Inside 
 the tent-benches all was '' Hoahoh— hohh ! " 
 and more sordid groaning and vomiting. 
 Blankets were procurable if you made interest. 
 ■ Many once elegant Frenchmen lay wrapt in 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 215 
 
 blankets, huddled into any corner with their 
 heads hid. We had some sharp brief showers ; 
 darkness fell ; nothing but the clank of the 
 paddles, raving- of the sea, and *' Hoah-oh-ho- 
 ahh ! " Our Scotch ostrich friend stood long 
 afoot, hard as stick ; at length he too disap- 
 peared in the darkness, and we heard him ask- 
 ing about ^^ Dipe'' (Dieppe) whether it was not 
 yet near. Hard black elderly man came to 
 smoke on the gunwale seat, near me ; Cap- 
 tain forbade, stopped him, long foolish con- 
 troversy in consequence ; — this was in day- 
 light, and the ostrich had assisted : now it 
 was only *' Dipe ? " in the 7th or 8th hour from 
 starting. At length lighthouses appeared, 
 and soon the lighthouse at the end of Dieppe 
 pier; and we bounded into smooth water, 
 into a broad basin, and saw houses and lamps 
 all round it. Towards nine P. M. by English 
 time: — put your watch forward a quarter of 
 an hour, for that is French time which you 
 have to do with now. 
 
 H6tel de I'Europe, near the landing place, 
 proved to be a second-rate hotel ; but we got 
 
2i6 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 beds, a sitting-room, and towards lo P. M. some 
 very bad cold tea, and colder coffee. Brown- 
 ing was out in the Douane : we had all passed 
 our persons through it, guided in by a rope- 
 barrier, and shown our passports ; now 
 Browning was passing our luggage ; brought 
 it all in safe about half-past ten ; and we could 
 address ourselves to desired repose. Walked 
 through some streets with my cigar: high 
 gaunt stone streets with little light but 
 the uncertain moon's; sunk now in the pro- 
 foundest sleep — at half-past ten. To bed in 
 my upper room, bemoaned by the sea, and 
 small incidental noises of the harbour ; slept 
 till four; smoked from the window, grey 
 cool morning, chalk cliff with caves be- 
 yond the harbour — France there and no 
 mistake. If France were of much moment 
 to me ! Slept gradually again, a little while ; 
 woke dreaming, confused things about my 
 mother : ah, me ! At eight was on the street, 
 in the clear sun, with my portmanteau lying 
 packed behind me ; to be back for breakfast 
 at nine. Dieppe harbour is the mouth of a 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 217 
 
 river, broad gap in the general chalk cliffs 
 (bounded to east by the chalk of "■ caves " 
 aforesaid ; westward it stretches into a level 
 doivii of some extent beyond H5tel de I'Eu- 
 rope and the other houses) ; basin big, I know 
 not how deep, has fine stout quays, draw- 
 bridges, fevv^, very few ships ; range of high 
 quaint old houses border it on two sides, the 
 west (ours) and south where is a market of 
 fish, etc., and then the main part of the town ; 
 eastward is innocent fringed undulating green 
 country (cliff of " caves ** goes but a short 
 way inland), northward is the sea. Walked 
 south, with early cigar, into the interior of the 
 town. Good broad street with trottoirs, v/ith 
 fair shops, and decent-looking population ; 
 very poor several of them, but none ragged, 
 their old clothes all accurately patched — a 
 thrifty people. Ragpickers ; a sprinkling of 
 dandies too ; London dandy of ten years ago, 
 with hands in coat pockets, and a small stick 
 rising out from one of them ! Bakers, naked 
 from the waist, all but a flannel waistcoat and 
 cotton nightcap ; horse-collar loaves and of 
 
2i8 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 other straighter cable shapes, all crust and 
 levity. Streets of fair cleanness, water flow- 
 ing in the gutters. Beards abundant. Rue 
 d Ecosse : thought of old Knox, how he was 
 driven to " Deap " and from it A chateau^ 
 with soldiers, is in the place, the dow7t is forti- 
 fied, and shows big cannon. Several big old 
 churches ; many fountains, at one of which I 
 drank by help of a little girl and her caraffe. 
 Besides the chief street (continuation of our 
 Hotel de I'Europe), there break off at least two 
 others from the southern part of the harbour, 
 and join with chief street in the interior ; one 
 of these is Rue d'Ecosse, very poor and dead, 
 which I did not far survey. Near the har- 
 bour, between chief street and next, is a 
 square, and general market-place (fruit, her- 
 rings, etc.) ; big old church, new statue of 
 Duquesnoy (?"ancien marin de cette vilie," 
 said a snuffy, rusty kind of citoyen to me on 
 my inquiry): a quaint old town of lo or 15,- 
 000: fairly as good as Dumfries: immense 
 roofs, two or sometimes three stories in them : 
 many houses built as courts with a street door ; 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 219 
 
 each house in its own style : all very well to 
 look upon, and good for a morning stroll. — 
 Breakfast was not much to brag of ; tea cold, 
 coffee colder, as before ; butter good, bread 
 eatable though of crusty-spoitge contexture. 
 Browning and I strolled out along the quay 
 we were upon, very windy towards the sea ; 
 sheer chalk cliffs some mile or two off, dov/ns 
 and scraggly edifices close by. House given 
 by " Napoleon le grand " to somebody there 
 named : we inquired of three persons in vain 
 for explanation of the inscription legible 
 there ; at length an old fisherman told us. 
 The M. somebody had saved many persons 
 from the sea: a distinguished member (or per- 
 haps servant) of the Humane Society, which 
 had its offices there within sight. Trts Men. 
 An immense flaring crucifix stood aloft near 
 the end of this quay : sentries enough, in red 
 trousers, walked everywhere ; a country ship, 
 with fresh fish, came bounding in : we strolled 
 back to pay our bill, and get ready for our 
 start to Paris. Browning, as before, did every- 
 thing ; I sat out of doors on some logs at my 
 
220 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 ease, and smoked, looking over the popula- 
 tion and their ways. Before eleven v/e were 
 in the omnibus ; facing towards the Debarca- 
 dere (rail Terminus), which is at the south-east 
 corner of the harbour, a very smart, airy, but 
 most noisy and confused place. 
 
 Maximum of fuss ! The railway people, in- 
 stead of running to get your luggage and self 
 stowed away quhm primum and out of their 
 road, keep you and it in hall after hall, weigh- 
 ing it, haggling over it, marching you hither, 
 then thither ; making an infinite hubbub. You 
 cannot get to your carriages till the very last 
 minute, and then you must plunge in head 
 foremost. '' They order these matters worse 
 in France ! " Browning fought for us, and 
 we, that is the women, the child, and I, had 
 only to wait and be silent. We got into a 
 good carriage at last : we four, a calm young 
 Frenchman in glazed hat, who was kind 
 enough not to speak one word, and a rather 
 pretty young lad}^ of French type, who smiled 
 at the child sometimes, but sat thoughtful for 
 the rest and did not speak either. There was 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 221 
 
 air enough, both my window and the other 
 down ; the air was fine ; the country beautiful ; 
 and so away we rolled under good auspices 
 again. 
 
 This rail, all but the Terminus department, 
 is managed in the English fashion, and carried 
 us excellently along. Country of bright wav- 
 ing green character, undulating, our course 
 often along brooks, by pleasant old coun- 
 try hamlets; many manufactures (spinning, I 
 guessed), but of most pleasant, clean, rustic 
 character ; wood enough on the hill sides, far 
 too thick-planted ; stations not named, you can 
 only guess where you are. " Junction " by 
 and by — from Havre probably — an open space 
 without buildings as yet : an altogether beau- 
 tiful, long, manufacturing village town to the 
 left near by; without smoke or dirt visible, 
 trees enough — might really be a model in 
 Lancashire ; the Glostershire railway scenes 
 offer nothing much superior. Country all 
 made of chalk, as in England (to near Paris, I 
 think) ; fine velvet grass, meadow culture main- 
 ly ; fine old humble parish churches ; wood 
 15 
 
222 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 enough still, but twice or even thrice as thick 
 as we allow it to be. Rouen in two hours : 
 long tunnel, still stronger signs of cotton, 
 bleaching, spinning, etc., then the big black 
 steeples, thick heavy towers of cathedral and 
 the rest — and here is Joan of Arc's last resting 
 place and the scene of many singular things. 
 Distinguished still by the clearness of its air, 
 the trees and gardens and pleasant meadow- 
 looking places, which extended to the very 
 entrance. No smoke to speak of ; a lovely 
 place compared with Manchester or the others 
 of that region ! It is true the press of business 
 seemed a great deal more moderate. Our 
 railway station, roofed wath glass, was equal 
 to the Carlisle one ; *' buffet " (refreshment 
 room), etc., all in order ; and they let us smoke 
 under conditions. In twenty minutes some 
 other train got in to join us ; and we took our 
 flight again through space. 
 
 Country still chalk : we cross and again 
 cross the Seine river, swift but not bigger- 
 looking than the Thames at Chelsea : fine hills, 
 fine villages, with due fringing of wood ; a 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 223 
 
 really pleasant landscape for many a mile. 
 Pass " Vernon," battle-scene of Convention 
 with Charlotte Corday's people : not notable 
 farther. Another town visible, all in white 
 stone, and rural purity on my right. At 
 Mantes we stop ten minutes ; fine houses with 
 their French windows and blinds hung over 
 our station : " Mantes, je crois. Monsieur ! " 
 and away we go again. A " swift " method 
 of travelling ; swift and nothing more ! The 
 land, I observe, is all divided into ribbons ; pe- 
 tite culture with a vengeance. Beans and le- 
 giimes probably the chief growth. Ploughing 
 shallow and ill-done : certainly the Seine val- 
 ley, which ought to be one of the richest in 
 the world, was not w^// cultivated, nor by this 
 plan could it be. Copses are pretty frequent ; 
 at length we get into vineyards. But still the 
 ribbon subdivision lasts; pleasant to the eye 
 only, not to the mind. Towards four P. M. see 
 symptoms of approach to Paris : blunt height 
 with something like a castle on it — guess to 
 be St. Cloud : big arch of hard masonry to 
 left of that — guess to be /^r^ de lEtoile : right 
 
224 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 in both cases. At length Paris itself (4 P. M.), 
 and we are safe in the terminus at our set 
 hour. 
 
 Alas, it was still a long battle before our 
 luggage could be got out; and a crowding, 
 jingling, vociferous tumult, in which the brave 
 Browning fought for us, leaving me to sit be- 
 side the women. It is so they manage in 
 France ; there are droits de Toctroi ; there 
 are — in fine, there is maximum of fuss, and 
 much ado about almost nothing ! Some other 
 train was in the act of departing, as our poor 
 women sat patiently waiting on their bench ; 
 and all was very fidgetting and very noisy. 
 I walked out to smoke ; one official permitted 
 me, another forbade ; I at length went into the 
 street and sat down upon a borne to smoke ; 
 touters of hotels came round me : I am for the 
 H6tel Meurice, inflexibly fixed ; de grace, Mes- 
 sieurs, laissez-moi en paix ; which at last they 
 did. Cigar ended, I went in again. Browning 
 still fighting (in the invisible distance) about 
 nothing at all. Our luggage visible at last 
 upon a distant counter, then Browning visible 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 225 
 
 with report of a hackney coach : we think it is 
 now over ; rash souls, there is yet endless up- 
 roar among the porters, wishing to carry our 
 luggage on a truck ; we won't, they will : even 
 Browning had at last grown heated ; at length 
 I do get a cab for myself and little trunk, cer- 
 tain French coins hastily from Browning, and 
 roll away. Halt! Browning has my key, I 
 have to turn back, and get it; happily this 
 proves the last remover, and now I do get 
 along and reach Meurice's — at five instead of 
 four P. M. : Friday, the 25th September, 185 1. — 
 And here, it being now two o'clock, and the 
 sun inviting, I will draw bridle, and stop for 
 the present day. 
 
 A brisk, bright autumn evening as I rolled 
 through the streets of Paris; recognise my 
 route first on the Boulevard, still better in the 
 Rue de la Paix and Place Vendome ; cigar 
 nearly done, we are at the door of Meurice's 
 in the Rue de Rivoli, a crowd of cabs and 
 other such miscellanies loitering there. Con- 
 cierge, old good-humoured v/oman with black 
 eyes and clean cap, knows the number of the 
 
226 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 Ashburtons, knows not whether they are at 
 home : my cabman, an old, poor, good-hu- 
 moured knave of the whip, is defective in pe- 
 tite momiaie^ at length by aid of the concierge 
 we settle handsomely ; Mason, too, Lord Ash- 
 burton's servant, appears, and I get aloft into 
 my appointed bedroom, ** No. 22," a bare fan- 
 tastic place, looking out into the street — bad 
 prospects of sleep — though I am at the very 
 top of the house for that object. Both Lady 
 and Lord have gone out, not finding me at 
 four as covenanted ; dinner is to be *' at six 
 precisely." Walk on the streets, finishing my 
 cigar ; dress, have melancholy survey of my 
 bedroom ; dinner in the dim salle h manger^ 
 seasoned with English news ; after dinner to 
 the ThMtre Fran^ais, where Lord Normanby 
 has been pleased to furnish us his box. Very 
 bad box, " stage box,'' close to the actors ; full 
 of wind-drafts, where we all took cold more or 
 less. A clever energetic set of faces visible 
 in stalls (far superior to such as go to Drury 
 Lane) ; among them, pointed out by Lady 
 Ashburton, who had met him, the figure 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 22/ 
 
 of Changarnier. Strange to see such a man 
 sitting sad and solitary there to pass his even- 
 ing. A man of placid baggy face, towards 
 sixty ; in black wig, and black clothes ; high 
 brow, low crown, head longish ; small hook 
 nose, long upper lip (all shaved), corners of 
 which, and mouth generally, and indeed face 
 generally, express obstinacy, sulkiness, and 
 silent long-continued labour and chagrin. I 
 could have likened him to a retired shop- 
 keeper of thoughtful habits, much of whose 
 savings had unexpectedly gone in railways. 
 Thomas Wilson of Eccleston-street resembles 
 him in nose and mouth ; but there was more 
 intellect in Changarnier, though in a smoke- 
 bleared condition. A man probably of con- 
 siderable talent; rather a dangerous-looking 
 man. I hear he is from Dijon, come of repu- 
 table parliamentary people. Play was called 
 La Gageure hnprevu^ or some such name ; 
 worthless racket and cackle (of mistaken jeal- 
 ousy, etc., in a country chateau of the old re- 
 gime) ; actors rather good ; to me a very wea- 
 risome affair. Lady Ashburton went to her 
 
228 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 mother's at the end of this; Lord Ashburton 
 and I staid out a trial of the next piece, Maison 
 de St. Cyr : actors very good here again, play 
 wretched, and to my taste sadder and sadder — 
 two rou^s of Louis XIV. time, engaged in se- 
 ducing two Maintenon boarding-school girls, 
 find the door of St. Cyr locked as they attempt 
 to get out ; find at the window an Exempt 
 ^' de park roi^' are carried to the Bastille, and 
 obliged to marry the girls : their wretched 
 mockeries upon marriage, their canine liber- 
 tinage and soulless grinning over all that is 
 beautiful and pious in human relations were 
 profoundly saddening to me ; and I proposed 
 emphatically an adjournment for tea; which 
 was acceded to, and ended my concern with 
 the French theatre for this bout. Pfaugh ! — 
 the history of the day was done ; but upstairs, 
 in my naked, noisy room, began a history of 
 the night, which was much more frightful to 
 me. Eheu ! I have not had such a night these 
 many years, hardly in my life before. My 
 room had commodes, cheffoniers, easy chairs, 
 and a huge gilt pendule (half an hour wrong) 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 229 
 
 was busy on the mantelpiece ; but on the bed 
 was not a rag of curtain, the pillow of it looked 
 directly to the window, which had bateaus 
 {leaves, not sashes), no shutters, nor with all 
 its screens the possibility of keeping out the 
 light. Noises from the street abounded, nor 
 were wanting from within. Brief, I got no 
 wink of sleep all night ; rose many times to 
 make readjustments of my wretched furniture, 
 turned the pillow to the foot, etc. ; stept out 
 to the balcony four or five times, and in my 
 dressing-gown and red night-cap smoked a 
 short Irish pipe there (lately my poor moth- 
 er's), and had thoughts enough, looking over 
 the Tuileries garden there, and the gleam of 
 Paris city during the night watches. I could 
 have laughed at myself, but indeed was more 
 disposed to cry. Very strange : I looked down 
 on armed patrols stealthily scouring the streets, 
 saw the gleam of their arms ; saw sentries with 
 their lanterns inside the garden ; felt as if I 
 could have leapt down among them — preferred 
 turning in again to my disconsolate truckle 
 bed. Towards two o'clock the street noises 
 
230 EXCURSION TO PARIS, 
 
 died away ; but I was roused just at the point 
 of sleep by some sharp noise in my own room, 
 which set all my nerves astir ; — I could not try 
 to sleep again till half-past four, when again a 
 sharp noise smote me all asunder, which I dis- 
 covered nov/ to be my superfluous friend the 
 heterodox pendiile striking (all wrong, but on a 
 sharp loud bell, doubly and trebly loud to my 
 poor distracted nerves just on the act of clos- 
 ing into rest) the half-\iQVir ! This in waking 
 time I had not noticed ; this, and the pendule 
 in toto, I now stopt : but sleep was away ; the 
 outer and the inner noises were awake again ; 
 sleep was now none for me — perhaps some 
 hour of half stupor between six and seven, at 
 which latter hour I gave it up ; and deter- 
 mined, first, to have a tub to wash myself in ; 
 secondly, not for any consideration to try 
 again the feat of "sleeping " in that apartment 
 for one. My controversies about the tub 
 {paquet as I happily remembered to call it) 
 were long and resolute, with several success- 
 ive lackeys to whom I jargoned in emphatic 
 mixed lingo ; very ludicrous if they had not 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 23 1 
 
 been very lamentable : at length I victoriously 
 got my paqicet (a feat Lord Ashburton himself 
 had failed in, and which I did not try again 
 while there) : huge tub, five feet in diameter, 
 with two big cans of water, into which with 
 soap and sponges I victoriously stept, and 
 made myself thoroughly clean. Then out — 
 out, thank heaven — to walk and smoke ; an 
 hour yet to breakfast time. 
 
 Rue de Rivoli had been mainly built since 
 my former visit to Paris ; a very fine-looking 
 straight street, of five or six storey houses, 
 with piazza ; French aspect everywhere, other- 
 wise reminding me of Edinburgh New Town, 
 — and only perhaps three furlongs in length. 
 Streets straight as a line have long ceased 
 to seem the beautifullest to me. Population 
 rather scanty for a metropolitan street ; street- 
 sweeper, " cantonniers^' a few omnibuses with 
 Passy, Versailles, etc., legible, a few strag- 
 gling cabriolets and insignificant vehicles, — it 
 reminded you of Dublin with its car-driving, 
 not of London anywhere with its huge traffic 
 and its groaning wains. Walkers anywhither 
 
232 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 were few. Tuileries Garden (close on my 
 left) seemed to have grown bushier since my 
 visit; the trees, I thought, were far larger; 
 but nobody would confirm this to me when I 
 applied to neighbours' experience. I did not 
 enter Tuileries Garden yet : sentries in abun- 
 dance ; uncertain whether smoking was per- 
 mitted within; judged it safest to keep the 
 street, — westward, westward. Place de la Rev- 
 olution (Place Louis Quinze) altogether altered : 
 Obelisk of Luxor, asphalt spaces and stone 
 pavements, lamps all on big gilt columns, 
 big fountain (its Nereids all silent) : a smart 
 place, and very French in its smartness ; but 
 truly an open airy quarter. Champs Elys6es 
 woods (or brushwoods), broad roads, river, 
 quais, all very smart indeed. Cross the 
 bridge (Pont de la Concorde, I think, a new- 
 looking bridge), Palais Bourbon or National 
 Assembly House on the south side of it, — J^o^ 
 I did not now cross these, I crossed by the 
 next bridge eastward (Pont Royal), that was 
 my route, so important to myself and man- 
 kind ! Quais rather rusty and idle-looking 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 233 
 
 river itself no great things either for size or 
 quality, — bathing-barges mainly, and nothing 
 very clean, or busy at all. Re-cross by the 
 Pont des Arts ; Louvre getting itself new-faced, 
 its old face new hewn, complicated scaffold- 
 ings and masons hanging over it, — rather 
 coburbbish in its effect. Much of the interior 
 is getting pulled down ; Carrousel, Tuileries, 
 Jardin des Tuileries, Palais Royal, etc., all 
 looked dirty, unswept, or insufficiently swept, 
 — the humble besom is not perhaps the chosen 
 implement of France. Home at nine : all our 
 party ill of cold. Lady invisible ; my room to 
 be next night a much better, curtained and 
 quite elegant, but still not quiet one, on this 
 same floor (the third I think ; directly above 
 the pillars and the first entresol), looking out 
 into the interior court : there I will try again, 
 one night at least. Lord Ashburton to see 
 *' Museums " or some such thing with two 
 French " gentlemen of distinction ; " I decline 
 to go ; — lie down on a sofa, covering my face 
 with a newspaper, address two stamped Gali- 
 gnani's Journals to Chelsea, to Scotsbrig, and 
 
234 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 decide to do nothing whatever all day but lie 
 still and solicit rest. Si fait ; — but very little 
 rest may prove discoverable? I lay in one 
 place at least, — having first made a call on the 
 Brownings whom I found all brisk and well- 
 rested in the Rue Michodiere (queer old quiet 
 inn, Aux armes de la Ville de Paris), and very 
 sorry for my mischances. After noon, Lord 
 Ashburton returned, out to make calls, etc. ; I 
 with him in the carriage, into the Payslatin 
 and other quarters ; lazily looking at Paris, the 
 only thing I care to do with it in present cir- 
 cumstances. Did me good, that kind of " ex- 
 ercise,*' the hardest I was fit for. Nimm Dick 
 in Acht. — At 4 o'clock home, when two things 
 were to be done : M. Thiers to be received, 
 and a ride to be executed, — of which only the 
 former took fulfilment. 
 
 A little after 4 Thiers came. I had seen 
 the man before in London, and cared not to 
 see him again ; but it seemed to be expected I 
 should stay in the room, so after deciphering 
 this from the hieroglyphs of the scene, I staid. 
 Lord and Lady Ashburton, Thiers and I : a 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 235 
 
 sumptuous enough drawing-room, yellow silk 
 sofas, pendules, vases, mirrors, turkish carpet, 
 good wood fires ; dim windy afternoon ; voila. 
 Royer-CoUard, we heard, once said : " Thiers 
 est un polisson ; mais Guizot, c'est un dr61e?" 
 Heigho, this Avas Prosper Merimee's account 
 afterwards, heigho ! — M. Thiers is a little brisk 
 man towards sixty, with a round, white head, 
 close-cropt and of solid business form and 
 size ; round fat body tapering like a ninepin 
 into small fat feet, and ditto hands ; the eyes 
 hazel and of quick, comfortable, kindly aspect, 
 small Roman nose; placidly sharp fat face, 
 puckered eyeward (as if all gravitating to- 
 wards the eyes) ; voice of thin treble, pecul- 
 iarly musical ; — gives you the notion of a frank 
 social kind of creature, whose cunning must 
 lie deeper than words, and who with whatever 
 polissonnerie may be in him has absolutely no 
 malignity towards anyone, and is not the least 
 troubled with self-seekings. He speaks in a 
 good-humuored treble croak which hustles it- 
 self on in continuous copiousness, and but for 
 his remarkably fine voice would be indistinct. 
 
236 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 — which it is not even to a stranger. " Oh 
 bah ! eh b'en lui disais-j — " etc. — in a monot- 
 onous low gurgling key, with occasional sharp 
 yelping warbles (very musical all, and inviting 
 to cordiality and laissez-aller), it is so that he 
 speaks, and with such a copiousness as even 
 Macaulay cannot rival. "Oh, bah, eh b'en!" 
 I have not heard such a mild broad river of 
 discourse ; rising anywhere, tending any- 
 whither. His little figure sits motionless in 
 its chair ; the hazel eyes looking with face 
 puckered round them looking placidly ani- 
 mated ; and the lips, presided over by the 
 little hook-nose, going, going! But he is 
 willing to stop too if you address him ; and 
 can give you clear and dainty response 
 about anything you ask. Not the least offi- 
 ciality is in his manner ; everywhere rather 
 the air of a bon enfant^ which I think really 
 (with the addition of coqum) must partly be 
 his character! — Starting from a fine Sevres 
 vase which Lady Ashburton had been pur- 
 chasing, he flowed like a tide into pottery in 
 general ; into his achievements when minister 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 237 
 
 and encourager of Sevres; half-an-hour of 
 this, truly wearisome, though interspersed 
 with remarks and questions of our own. 
 Then suddenly drawing bridle, he struck into 
 Association (Lord Ashburton had the day be- 
 fore been looking at some ot the Associated 
 Workmen) ; gave his deliverance upon that 
 affair, with anecdotes of interviews, with po- 
 litical and moral criticisms, etc. For me 
 wenig zu bedeuten, but was good too of its 
 kind. One master of Assoc(^es, perhaps a hat- 
 ter, ''ruled like a Cromwell," — though by 
 votes only ; and had banished and purged out 
 the opposition party, not to say all drunkards 
 and other unfit hands : tel regime de fer was the 
 indispensable requisite; — for which, and for 
 other reasons. Association could never suc- 
 ceed or become general among workmen. 
 Besides, it forbade excellence : no rising from 
 the ranks there, to be a great captain of work- 
 ers, — as many, six or seven of whom he named, 
 had done by the common method. Then ap- 
 plicable only to hatters, chair-makers, and 
 
 tradesmen whose market was constant. Try 
 16 
 
238 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 it in iron-working-, cotton-spinning, or the like, 
 there arrive periods when no market can be 
 found, and without immense capital you must 
 stop. Good thing however for keeping men 
 from chomagej for " educating " them in several 
 respects. Thing to be left to try itself, — is not, 
 and never can be, the true way of men's work- 
 ing together. To all this I could well assent ; 
 but wished rather it would all end, there being 
 little new or important in it to me ! At length, 
 on inquiry about Michelet (for whom I had a 
 letter) we got into a kind of literary strain for 
 a little. Michelet stood low in T.'s esteem as 
 a historian ; lower even than in mine. Good- 
 humoured contempt for Michelet and his airy 
 syllabubs of hj^pothetic songerie instead of nar- 
 rative of facts. " Can stand le Poete in his 
 place; but not in the domain of truths": — a 
 sentence, commented on and expanded ; Avhich 
 indicated to me no great aesthic sovereignty 
 on the part of M. Thiers, — leave him alone 
 then! Our conclusion was, M. Michelet was 
 perhaps a bit of a sot ; — M. Lamartine, who 
 had meanwhile come in course too, being de- 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 239 
 
 finable rather as 2i fat (a hard saying of mine, 
 which T. with a grin of laughter adopted) : — 
 and so we left Parnassus a la Frangaise ; and 
 M. Thiers, who could not stay to dinner, took 
 himself away. Our horses, in the meanwhile, 
 had roved about saddled for two hours, and 
 were now also gone. Nothing remained but 
 to " dress for dinner," when at seven the two 
 French gentlemen of distinction were ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Our two Distmgic/s were literary, one Meri- 
 mee already mentioned, a kind of critic, his- 
 torian, linguistically and otherwise of worth, a 
 hard, logical, smooth but utterly barren man 
 (whom I had seen before in London, with lit- 
 tle wish for a second course of him) ; the other 
 a M. Laborde, Syrian traveller ; a freer-going, 
 jollier, but equally unproductive human soul. 
 Our dinner, without Lady, was dullish, — the 
 talk confused, about Papal aggression, etc., — • 
 supported by me in very bad French (unwill- 
 ingly), and in Protestant sentiments, which 
 seemed very strange to my sceptical friends. 
 Joan of Arc too came in course, about whom 
 
240 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 a big book had just come out : of De VAverdy, 
 neither of our friends had ever heard ! In the 
 drawing-room with coffee it was a little bet- 
 ter : a little better : a little, not much ; at last 
 they went away ; and I, after some precau- 
 tions and preparations into bed, — where, in 
 few minutes, in spite of noises, there fell on 
 me (thank heaven) the gratefullest deep sleep ; 
 and I heard or thought of nothing more for 
 six hours following ! — so ends the history of 
 Saturday, 26th September. Ay de mi ! 
 
 Sunday morning, short walk again ; glance 
 into the Champs Elys^es and their broad avenue 
 with omnibuses ; — I had to return soon for 
 breakfast. My good sleep, — though it ended 
 at 5 A. M. and would not recommence, — had 
 made me very happy in comparison. Break- 
 fast, — badish always, tea and coffee coldy etc., 
 the Hotel Meurice^ spoiled by English and suc- 
 cess, in general bad, though the most expensive 
 to be found in Paris. Lord Ashburton's bill 
 (I incidentally learned) was about £a,^ a week, 
 self. Lady Ashburton, and two servants, maid 
 and man ! — After breakfast, came Lord Gran- 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS, 24 1 
 
 ville, talked intelligently about the methods of 
 '' Glass Palace " (bless the mark !), — graphic 
 account of Fox the builder thereof; once a 
 medical student, ran off with master's daugh- 
 ter, lived by his wits in Liverpool, lecturing 
 on mechanics, etc., got into the railway ; be- 
 came a railway contractor, ever a bigger and 
 bigger one (though without funds or probably 
 almost without), is now very great, — "ready 
 to undertake the railway to Calcutta" at a 
 day's notice, if you asked him : he built the 
 glass soap bubble, on uncertain terms : — very 
 well described indeed. A cleverer man, this 
 Lord Granville than I had quite perceived 
 before. After his departure, wrote to Chel- 
 sea, to Scotsbrig; towards 2 went to walk 
 with Herrschaft in the Tuileries Gardens ; 
 Garden very dirty, fallen leaves, dust, etc. ; 
 many people out : to Place de la Concorde, op- 
 posite Lady Sandwich's windows (2, Rue 
 Saint Florentin) where Talleyrand once dwelt. 
 Lady Ashburton still suffering from cold, 
 couldn't go to see her mother, v/ent driving 
 by herself, — the last time she was out at all 
 
242 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 during my stay : — after a call by Lord Ash- 
 burton and me at Lady S.'s we went, about 
 3 P. M., to ride ; the Champ de Mars our first 
 whitherward. 
 
 Paris, Sunday :— All rather rusty ; crowds 
 not very great ; cleanness, neatness, neither in 
 locality nor population, a conspicuous feature. 
 Ch. de Mars all hung round with ugly blankets 
 on Pont-du-Jean side ; a balloon getting filled ; 
 no sight except for payment. Against my 
 will, we dismounted at another entrance, and 
 went in. Horse-holder with brass badge, ve- 
 hement against another without : ** Serjent de 
 Ville ! " — at length he got possession of the 
 horses, and proved a very bad *' holder." 
 Dirty chaos of cabriolets, etc., about this gate : 
 four or five thousand people in at half-a-franc, 
 or to the still more inner mysteries, a franc 
 each. Clean shopkeeper people, or better, un- 
 expectedly intelligent — come to see this ! A 
 sorry spectacle ; dusty, disordered Champ de 
 Mars, and what it now held. Wooden bar- 
 riers were up ; seats on the old height raised 
 for Feast of Pikes, which is terribly sunk now, 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 243 
 
 instead of " thirty feet " hardly eight or ten, 
 without grass, and much of it torn away alto- 
 gether. Grassless, graceless, untrim and sor- 
 did, everything was ! An Arab razzia, with 
 sad gurrous, and blanketed scarecrows of per- 
 formers (perhaps 15 or 20 in all) was going 
 on ; then a horse race ditto ; noisy music, 
 plenty of soldiers guarding and operating. I 
 moved to come away ; but just then they in- 
 flated a hydrogen mannequin of silk ; his foot 
 quivered and shook, he was soon of full size, 
 then they let him off, and he soared majesti- 
 cally like a human tumbler of the first grace 
 and audacity, right over the top of the inflated 
 balloon (I know not by what mechanism), per- 
 haps 500 feet into the air, and then majesti- 
 cally descended on the other side : none 
 laughed, or hardly any except we. Off again ; 
 find our horses with effort, — man wants two 
 francs not one : (a modest horse-holder) ! We 
 ascend the river side; dirty lumber on all 
 sides of path : guingette (coarse dirty old 
 house, dirty wooden balcony, and mortals 
 miserably drinking) : — across by Pont de Gre- 
 
244 EXCURSION TO PARIS.. 
 
 noble, into Passy, by most dusty roads, omni- 
 buses, cabs, etc., meeting us in clouds pretty 
 often, on each side to Auteuil, finally into 
 Bois de Boulogne, which also is a dirty 
 scrubby place (one long road mainly of two 
 miles or so, with paltry bits of trees on each 
 hand, and dust in abundance) ; there we 
 careered along, at a sharp trot, and had 
 almost all to ourselves, for nobody else ex- 
 cept a walker or two, a cab-party or two at 
 long intervals w^ere seen. Ugly unkept grass 
 on each side ; cross-roads, one or two, turn- 
 ing off into one knew not what ; I found it an 
 extremely sober " Park ! " One of the " Forts " 
 with great ugly chasms round it, on our left. 
 At length we emerge again into Passy ; see 
 the balloon high overhead, people in it wav- 
 ing their hats, mannequin (shrunk to a monk- 
 ey) hanging on below : a sudden wind then 
 blew it av/ay, — for ever one was glad to think. 
 Arc de TEtoile, some Hippodrome just coming 
 out, and such a bewildered gulf-stream of peo- 
 ple and cabs on the big road townwards as I 
 never saw before ! Lord Ashburton cautioned 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS, 245 
 
 me to ride vigilantly, the people being- reck- 
 less and half-drunk : crack, crack, gare ! gare 
 h vous I it vv^as abundantly unpleasant ; at 
 length I proposed setting off with velocity in 
 the aggressive manner, and that soon brought 
 us through it. Dirty theatre tea-gardens 
 (where are singers, drink, etc.), with other 
 more pleasant suburb houses, were nestled 
 among the ill-grown trees, — why is this wood 
 so ill-grown ? At the corner of Place de la 
 Concorde, " Secour mix Blesses " stood painted 
 on a signboard of a small house (police or other 
 public house) ; a significant announcement ; 
 rain was now falling. Many carriages ; al- 
 most all shabby. One dignitary had two ser- 
 vants in livery, and their coat skirts were hung 
 over the rear of the carriage, to be rightly con- 
 spicuous ; the gQvmsgentle7na7i (if taken strictly) 
 seemed to me extremely rare on the streets of 
 Paris, or rather not discoverable at all. Per- 
 haps owing to the season, all being in the 
 country ? Plenty of well-dressed men were on 
 the streets daily ; but their air was seldom or 
 never " gentle ' in our sense : a thing I re- 
 
246 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 marked. — Dinner of two was brief and dim ; 
 ^piir^es, what they are. After coffee, English 
 talk ; winded up with {pbligato) readings of 
 Burns, which were not very successful in my 
 own surmise. — To bed, and alas ! no sleep, but 
 tossing, fluctuating, and confusion till 4 A. M. ; 
 a bad preparation for next day. 
 
 Monday morning was dim, and at 7 I 
 was again awake ; an unslept man. Walk 
 through the old streets, eastward and north- 
 ward. Rue Neuve des Petits Augustins, to 
 Place des Victoires ; places known to me of old : 
 contrast of feelings seven and twenty years 
 apart : eheu, eheu ! The streets had all got 
 trottoirs, the old houses seemed older and 
 more dilapidated : crowds of poor-looking 
 people, here and there a well-dressed man, 
 going as if to his " office " (bourgeois, in clean 
 linen and coat) ; very small percentage of 
 such, and all smoking. Louis XIV. in PI. des 
 Victoires : " Comment? *' said I to two little 
 dumpy men in white wide-awakes : " Est-ce 
 qu' on a laisse cela^ pendant la republique ? " 
 They grinned a good-humoured affirmation. 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS, 247 
 
 Homewards by the Palais Royal ; said Palais 
 Royal very dirty, very dim ; hardly anybody 
 in it : new in the southern part ; Louis Phi- 
 lippe's Palace made into an exhibition place for 
 Arts et Metiers. Emerge then, after some wind- 
 ings and returnings, into the Rue St. Honore ; 
 heart of the old Louvre and Carrousel almost 
 gutted out, block of half-demolished build- 
 ings still standing ; very dusty, very dim, all 
 things. In the narrow streets and poor dark 
 shops, etc., such figures, poor old women, lit- 
 tle children, the forlorn of the earth. " How 
 do they live ? " one asked oneself with sorrow 
 and amazement. — Catarrh general still in our 
 party, catarrh or other illness universal in it. 
 Better get home as soon as possible ? 
 
 After breakfast, with Lord Ashburton to 
 call on General Cavaignac, whom we under- 
 stood to be in town, of all Frenchmen the one 
 I cared a straw to see. Rue Houssaie where it 
 joins as continuation to Rue Taitbotit, north 
 from Boulevard des Italiens ; there in a mod- 
 est-enough locality was the General's house. 
 " Gone to the countr}^ (atix Depart ements)!' un- 
 
248 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 certain whither, uncertain when ; clearly no 
 Cavaignac for us ! We drove away, disap- 
 pointed in mind, tant soit peu. " Lift the top 
 from the carriage, let me drive through the 
 streets with you, and sit warm and smoke 
 while you do business : " that was my pro- 
 posal to Lord Ashburton, who gladly as- 
 sented : agreed to wait at his " club " {Club of 
 Frenchmen chiefly, and of some fitrangers, near 
 the Boulevards, — quite " empty " at this time); 
 home for a warmer coat, coachman and lackey 
 to doff the carriage-roof : and after some wait- 
 ing we all duly rally (at Rue de la Paix I, at 
 said club Lord Ashburton) — and roll away 
 eastward and into the heart of the city. 
 Pleasant drive, and the best thing I could do 
 to-day. Boulevards very stirring, airy, loco- 
 motive to a fair degree, but the vehiculation very 
 light. Looked at the exotic old high houses ; 
 the exotic rolling crowd. Barriere St. Mar- 
 tin ; turn soon after Into the rightward streets, 
 shops, lapidary or other. Lord Ashburton has 
 to call at ; I remain seated ; learn we are near 
 the Temple ; decide to go thither. Old, 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS, 249 
 
 pale-dingy edifice, shorn of all its towers ; 
 only a gate and dead wall to the street. 
 Policeman issues on us as w^e enter ; stony 
 eyes, villainous look, has never heard of Louis 
 XVI., or his imprisonment here. " Non, mon- 
 sieur!" — but from the other side of the gate 
 comes an old female concierge who is fully 
 familiar with it ; she, brandishing her keys, will 
 gladly show us all. Building seems totally 
 empty : a police station in some corner of it, 
 that is all. Garde Mobile lived in it in 1848, be- 
 fore that it was a convent (under the Bour- 
 bons) ; Napoleon had already much altered it ; 
 filled up {comblf) one storey of it, in order to 
 make a piece cTeaii (not quite dry) in the gar- 
 den. Old trees still up to their armpits there : 
 a very strange proceeding for a piece d'eaii ! 
 Damp, brown, and dismal, all these empti- 
 nesses ; grass growing on the pavements ; big 
 halls within (a grand royal hotel once, after 
 the Templars ceased from it) ; on the second 
 floor (once third ?) the royal /^-/^^/^-apartments, 
 religiously kept, are still there. Marie An- 
 toinette's oratoire ; the place of Clery's scene of 
 
250 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 adieu . a grim locality indeed ! Garde Mobile 
 had drawn emblematic figures with burnt 
 stick, in a few instances they had torn the 
 walls, and made ugly big gaps with their bay- 
 onets. Our old cocierge called the primitive 
 republicans (in reference to Louis) ^' gueux,' — 
 she seemed of royalist disposition, — cut us off 
 a bit of room-paper for souvenir, accepted our 
 three francs with man)^ courtesies, and so we 
 left the Temple^ a memorable scene in one's 
 archives. 
 
 Bronze-dealer next, manufacturer rather, — 
 the greatest {soi-disanf) de Vunivers : Lord Ash- 
 burton in want of such things went in, I with 
 him, and we walked through various long 
 suites, of pendicles y statuettes, chandeliers , etc., — 
 an ardent, greedy, acrid-looking person (he of 
 '' Funivers ") escorting us ; almost frantic with 
 the desire to sell, to a milord for money. A 
 vehement lean creature, evidently of talent 
 in his kind, and of an eagerness — I have 
 not seen such a hungry pair of eyes. We 
 bought nothing ; I would not have had a gift 
 of anything I saw there, — the htsi de T univers : 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 25 I 
 
 ^^ tantis noil egeo ! " Out at last, and I decided 
 not to enter any other, but to sit outside and 
 smoke. Next place, a still finer bi'onze con- 
 cern ; indisputably de I'univers, — but I wouldn't 
 enter ; sat smoking pleasantly in an old quaint 
 street (Quartier du Temple somewhere) for 
 three-quarters of an hour, and bought a glass 
 of vin ordinaire (id.) in the interim, and 
 another for cocher, who seemed charmed 
 and astonished. That suited me better than 
 bronzes. But Lord Ashburton did buy a pen- 
 dule and some fire or hearth apparatus here, 
 all being so extremely good, and the chief 
 man of the establishment, whom I soon after 
 saw at the Hotel Meurice delivering his goods, 
 seemed to me again a decidedly clever, saga- 
 cious, courageous, broad and energetic man. 
 Mem. I had been in a Bookseller s (on Saturday), 
 the cut of whose face indicated some talent, 
 and a similar sincerity of greed and eagerness. 
 A reflection rose gradually that here, in the 
 industrial class, is the real backbone of French 
 society : the truly ingenious and strong men 
 of France are here making money, — while the 
 
252 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 politician, etc., class is mere play-acterism, and 
 will go to the devil by and by ! " Assuredly," 
 as Mahomet says. — We returned by Marche 
 des Innocens, by Rue St. Honore and many 
 streets, which to look upon was a real drama 
 to me, — so many queer stone objects, queer 
 flesh-and-blood ones, seen just once and never 
 again at all! Home about 5, to dine with 
 Lady Sandwich at 7 ; I flung my self on bed, 
 and actually caught a few minutes of sleep. 
 
 Lady Sandwich's dinner was wholly in the 
 French fashion, this was its whole result for 
 me, — to see such a thing once. Company, be- 
 sides us two who entered first : Marquis Villa- 
 real, a thick Portuguese man with big hoary 
 head, and boring black eyes (glitter of black 
 glass), a sturdy man, long ambassador in Eng- 
 land, — spoke English — had he had anything to 
 say for me : M. and Mme. Thiers, madame a 
 brunette of forty, pretty enough of her kind, 
 an insignificant kind, hardly spoke with her; 
 lastly, a Scotch Miss Ellice ('' Bear's ") ; and 
 our two " distinctions," Merimee and Laborde, 
 with a Comte (something) Roget, a poor thin 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 253 
 
 man with two voices, bass and treble alter- 
 nating, who said almost nothing with either of 
 them. Kickshaws, out of which I gathered a 
 slice of undone beef, wines enough, out of 
 which a drop of good sherry and tumbler of 
 vin ordinaire ; talk worth nothing, tolerable 
 only had one 7iot been obliged to manufacture 
 French. Women 3.nd men together, all sud- 
 denly rise from table, pushing back their 
 chairs with fracas ; then to the drawing-room 
 for coffee and talk with Thiers and Merimee, 
 who said or could say nothing notable, heartily 
 glad to get away, with twenty drops of some 
 soporific liquid ("Jeremy " a laudanum prepa- 
 ration) from the good old lady which was to 
 make me sleep. Eheu ! — Merimee sat again in 
 the drawing-room at Meurice's ; got upon 
 German literature : " Jean Paul, a hollow fool 
 of the first magnitude ; " '' Goethe the best, 
 but insignificant, unintelligible, a paltry kind 
 of scribe manqud (as it seemed) : " — I could 
 stand no more of it, but lighted a cigar, and 
 adjourned to the street. " You impertinent 
 
 blasphemous blockhead ! " this was sticking in 
 17 
 
254 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 my throat ; better to retire without bringing 
 it out ! such was the sin of the Jews^ thought 
 I ; the assay of so much that goes on still, 
 " crucify him^ he is naught ! " — for which they 
 still sell " old clothes." Good-humoured banter 
 on my return in, Merimee being gone : then 
 to bed, — and sleep, alas ! no sleep at all. A 
 plunging and careering through chaos and 
 cosmos, through life and through death, all 
 things high and low huddled tragically to- 
 gether; now in my poor room at Scotsbrig 
 (so quiet there, beside my poor old mother !), 
 now at Chelsea, now beyond the moon : I did 
 not sleep till six, and then hardly for an 
 hour, such the noises, such my nerves. The 
 "Jeremy" (ten drops of it) had rather done 
 me mischief, the other ten I poured out of 
 window. Towards morning one practical 
 thought rose in me, that I could get home 
 again in a day ; that I had no work here, and 
 ought to get home ! Out after eight, up Rue 
 de la Paix, down towards Obelisk of Luxor 
 again ; bought an indicateur des Chemins de Per, 
 It was settled at breakfast that Lord Ashbur- 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 255 
 
 ton should go with me on Thursday^ — the Lady 
 to stay behind till Saturday, while her cold 
 mended and then come. Ti-es Men. Lady 
 Sandwich has a second dinner for us to-day ; 
 out of which I apologise ; to dine simply at 
 four, and will keep myself peaceably at home, 
 [Pause here: have to go the Strand with an 
 umbrella! Monday, 6 Oct., 185 1.] 
 
 Tuesday, 30 September, after breakfast 
 {theny I think) call on the Brownings, very sorry 
 they that I am bound for home perhaps to- 
 morrow, at any rate next day ; will come to 
 them to tea " if possible." At Meurice's, Meri- 
 mee again to take Lord Ashburton to some 
 show of ancient armour : I decline to go ; stay 
 there, and lounge in talk with Lady Ashbur- 
 ton, who knits. "Attache to French Em- 
 bassy," name forgotten or never known, thin, 
 half - squinting, insignificant, brown - skinned 
 young Parisian ; — I go out to call on Lady 
 Sandwich ; dinner in prospect there, and lam- 
 entations over my and everybody's sickness. 
 Dine at 4, on frugal starved beef with one 
 glass of sherry ; Lord Ashburton to dine be- 
 
256 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 low with certain Bruces (Lord Aylesbury's 
 son and femme who is Sidney Herbert's sister) 
 who are just come : enter said Lady Bruce, 
 pretty but unhedeutend ; enter Bruce, big nose, 
 English noisy say-nothing ; enter finally an 
 Englishman who knows me, whom I cannot 
 recollect to know, who proves at last to be 
 Sherida7i (Mrs. Norton's brother) : talkee, talkee, 
 nichts zu bedeuten. I withdraw to Browning's 
 before seven. Great welcome there ; and tea 
 in quiet ; Browning gives me (being cun- 
 ningly led to it) copious account of the late 
 "revolutions" at Florence, — such a fantastic 
 piece of Drury-lane " revolution '' as I have 
 seldom heard of. With all such " revolutions " 
 may the devil swiftly fly away ! Home soon 
 after ten ; remember nothing of what I found 
 there ; — to bed, and happily get some reason- 
 able sleep. Weather has now broken into 
 showers. Lady Sandwich's dinner (an English 
 party in honour of us) has consisted mainly of 
 Sir (is he that ?) Henry Bulwer, whom I never 
 saw and care little about seeing. 
 
 Wednesday morning, damp walk ; Nero's 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 257 
 
 collar and string (gift for my wife), at the top 
 of Rue de la Paix : cigars a little farther on, 
 one or two, — very bad^ dear as in England. 
 Settled now that Lord Ashburton is to go with 
 me to-morrow, through in one day ; the Lady 
 to wait " till Saturday " when probably she 
 will be able to follow. Tres bien. Donothing- 
 ism for a while ; then out to see Champ de 
 Mars again ; Hotel des Invalides by the way ; 
 curious hazvker (in good clothes, like a kind of 
 gentleman) selling steel pens on Pont Royal : 
 he wrote like a Butterworth, — poor soul, no 
 better trade ! Invalides and barracks in front 
 near by very striking. Multitudes of blind old 
 soldiers. Promenade des Aveugles ; place noth- 
 ing like so clean as Chelsea ; cannons round it, 
 chimmey tops, etc., shaped (I thought) like a 
 kind of fantastic hehnets ; figure of Napoleon 
 in inner court : — very well. Through dull 
 streets, with some trees, to Ecole Militaire and 
 grand review in Champ de Mars. Poor 
 Champ de Mars, in a very dilapidated, un- 
 swept, and indeed quite ugly condition ! Fed- 
 eration " 30 feet " of mound is sunk to eight 
 
258 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 or ten (as I said above), is torn through in 
 many places, is untrimmed, sordid everywhere, 
 — the place (perhaps loo acres or more) is al- 
 together dusty, disorderly, v/aste and ugly. 
 If Federation slope were to be completed, 
 trimmed, and kept green with the trees on it ; 
 if miy order or care were shown. — But there is 
 none of that kind, there or anywhere. What 
 strikes you in all public places first is the dirt, 
 the litter of dust, fallen leaves or whatever 
 there may be. Review going on, worth little : 
 finer men than common about the streets, with 
 these strange <5^//(?z£/^-shaped red trousers (tight 
 over the hips, tight at ancles, intermediately 
 wide as petticoats), with their strait pinched 
 blue coats and ridiculous flower-pot caps ; 
 good middle-sized, well-grown men many of 
 them ; they were marching, going on in detail, 
 some resting, not many together anywhere: 
 hardly worth above a glance or two. Passy 
 and Chaillot looked very beautiful across the 
 river. Troops now began to take up position 
 and fire, — burn the Republic's gunpowder. I 
 went my way ; inquired of an oldish soldier 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 259 
 
 (not Invalid) about the populous heights to 
 westwards : it was *' Sevres " ; St. Cloud not 
 quite visible here ; this is the Pont de Jena (old 
 soldier, very civil and talkative). I cross by 
 Pont Jena; ascend through dirty little tea. 
 garden groves into Passy, sit down there 
 among wilderness of stones (new unused mason 
 stones), and smoke, looking over a pleasant 
 view of some wing of Paris, the noise from 
 Champ de Mars growing louder and louder — 
 to the waste of the Republic powder. Passy, 
 Chaillot, suburban village street ; very quiet, 
 in spite of an. omnibus or two; exotic of as- 
 pect, worth walking alone. Arc de I'Etoile 
 again ; still enough to-day when there is no 
 Hippodrome. Rain begins in the Champs Ely- 
 sees ; call on Lady Sandwich ; home to din- 
 ner, by the arcades, in decided rain. Comte 
 (something) Roget is there ; has been speak- 
 ing of Abbes, Abbe Gondy, etc., is getting 
 himself delicately quizzed, I perceive. ^' Jeu~ 
 nesse dor^e^ jeunesse argentee, — des bottes," — in 
 fine M. le Comte, who is a very weak brother, 
 hastens to take himself away, feeling not at 
 
26o EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 ease here. Dinner {bad mutton-chop, — useless 
 wretched " cookery " all along, to my poor ex- 
 perience), then half dress a little, a dinner is 
 to be here at 7. Thiers and the two inevitables 
 (Merimee and Laborde) ; I decided to vanish 
 to Brownings in the interim. At Brownings 
 vague talk, kind enough ; take leave, and 
 home soon after 9. Prints, I had been survey- 
 ing two large batches of Bookseller's Prints, 
 "' on approb ; " — marking the defects, etc. Did 
 not go up to the three strangers all at once ; 
 duly by degrees shook hands with the two 
 inevitables (who staid late, clatter-clattering) ; 
 Thiers, in about half an hour, glided out with- 
 out any speech v/ith me. I am told that he is 
 jealous that I respect him insufificiently ! Poor 
 little soul, I have no pique at him v/hatsoever ; 
 and of the three, or indeed of known French- 
 men (Guizot included) consider him much the 
 best man. A healthy human animal, with due 
 braverism (high and low), due bulkinism, or 
 more than due; in fine a healthy creature, 
 and without any " conscience " good or bad. 
 Whereas, Guizot — I find him a solemn in- 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 26 1 
 
 triguant, an Inquisitor-Tartuffe, gaunt, hollow, 
 resting on the everlasting No, with a haggard 
 consciousness that it ought to be the everlast- 
 ing Yea : to me an extremely detestable kind 
 of man. So I figure him, — from his books and 
 aspect, and avoided to speak with him while 
 he was last here. Heaven forgive me if I do 
 the poor man wrong ; practically I have only 
 to avoid him, that is all. To poor Thiers I 
 have sent compliments (if such be due at all) 
 since my return ; part with him in peace. 
 
 The inevitables are not interesting ; at 
 length they go their ways : and now it palpa- 
 bly turns out, Lord Ashburton is not going to- 
 morrow morning, feels better, and ought to 
 stay for Lady Ashburton ! Heavy news for 
 my poor fancy (shuddering at a French jour- 
 ney) ; but how could I deny that the measure 
 w^as perfectly reasonable ; that, in fact, the 
 poor ailing lady ought to have some escort. I 
 must go myself, then ; must part and shave 
 this night, be called to-morrow at 63/4 : " adieu, 
 madame ! " Lord Ashburton walks with me 
 while I smoke in Place Yendome : will see me 
 
262 EXCURSION TO PARIS, 
 
 on the morrow (but doesn't) ; lends me two 
 gold sovereigns : Good night ! Packing, shav- 
 ing, fiddling hither and thither : it is past one 
 o'clock before I get to bed ; and then there are 
 many noises (some strange enough) to start 
 and again start me : at length, in spite of fate^ 
 sink into chaotic sleep, and lie so till Mason 
 (" groom of chambers," valet long known) call 
 me : quarter to 7 : up, and not a minute lost ! 
 Thursday morning (2 Oct. 185 1). Swift, 
 swift ! The little brown valet has coffee 
 ready ; I can eat only a cubic inch of bread, 
 h2ili-drmk a small egg; drink nearly all the 
 hot milk : that is my five-minutes breakfast in 
 the deadly press of hurry ; then into a fiacre, 
 laquais de place volunteering to attend me, — 
 and so away ! Early French streets ; some 
 " Place de Lafayette " (so far as I could read), 
 then Terminus, still in good time, — but such a 
 bustle, such a fuss and uproar for half-an-hour 
 to come! Tickets, dear (some £2 12^.), and 
 difficult extremely, then sliding of 3^our lug- 
 gage en queue along a lid counter (to be 
 weighed), and quarrels about it; ohone. 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS. 263 
 
 ohone ! laquais and fiacre cost me 3% + I'A = 
 5 francs. Luggage (mistaken, I believe after 
 all) is r/2 franc -\- endless, maddening bothera- 
 tion. At length you are admitted, hardly find 
 a place ; and so away ! Eight of us inside : 
 two John Bulls (one with tooth-ache and 
 afraid of air); one fat Frenchwoman, very 
 sad-looking ; then I, opposite, young John Bull, 
 and snappish old-young English lady ; at the 
 extreme right, two French exhibitioners : have 
 to fight for air, but get it, — then hold my 
 peace as much as possible : " Madame, cela 
 finira ; cela ne durera pas a tout jamais ! '' We 
 are quiet to one another, and no incivility oc- 
 curs. " Auteuil," said my French neighbour 
 on the right, an oldish, common-place, inno- 
 cent man ; then " Montmorenci ; " country 
 very beautiful here ; grows gradually less so ; 
 ** Pontoise," and still uglier fiat bare country, 
 gradually after which quite flat, bare, ill- 
 tilled and ugly, and so continues. " At Arras " 
 (you can see nothing of it, or of anything : a 
 mere open barren flat, and a meagre little bar- 
 rack of a station-house built), get a bun and 
 
264 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 
 
 glass of vin ordinaire, — this was all my food 
 till England. " Amiens " (nothing visible) ; 
 " Lille " (ugly waste station-house) : on, on, Oh 
 let it end ! Country all flat; flax with ditches : 
 haricots in upright bundles with a stick in 
 each ; spade husbandry (man digging), careful 
 culture hereabouts ; pleasant-looking villages 
 on the higher ground towards the sea ; some 
 trees, very feeble ; broad level railway course, 
 often straight as a line : not one tunnel from 
 Paris. Short battering shower or two, then 
 again bright weather. Thank Heaven, Calais 
 at last. Passport showing ; crowded bothera- 
 tion, steamer overflowing (German, Italian, 
 French), in the end we do get under way, — 
 have seen nothing of Calais but the harbour 
 and some of the steeple-tops: is not that a 
 beautiful way of travelling ? 
 
 Our passage was of two hours, rather 
 pitching, cold wind, once a violent shower of 
 rain : *' Hoahh — ohh ! " frequent and sordid ; 
 couldn't think of smoking; stood mainly. 
 Stewards abundantly humane ; one poor Ger- 
 man lad half-dead ; two hundred of us or 
 
EXCURSION TO PARIS, 265 
 
 more, — Dover in the damp, gusty twilight; 
 and at length squeeze out. " Commissioner 
 of Gun Tavern," one can get refreshment: 
 along then ! Brandy and water and beef- 
 steak, in the dirty coffee-room of Gun Tav- 
 ern, — extremely welcome in fine, and benefi- 
 cial. India captain talking as he ate, foolish 
 old Lancashire steam machinist (from Lago 
 Maggiore region) answering loudly, foolishly. 
 Commissioner has done my trunk : '' two-franc 
 piece " (what you please), — no likelihood of 
 starting " for an hour yet," so mafiy are we. 
 Get my wetted {iiot dried) topcoat. Some- 
 body has stolen three good cigars ; happily 
 nothing else. Station house, and place my- 
 self; can't see trunk, have to believe it right, 
 (and it proves so). Fat French woman lands 
 beside me again. Young English -Belgian tour- 
 ists (seemingly), three young men, one ditto 
 woman : silly all, and afraid of air. Off, at 
 last, thank Heaven ! By the shore, cliffs, and 
 sea to Folkstone ; we have no lamp (so many 
 in train), after Folkstone, thanks to beef-steak 
 and extremity of fatigue, I fall asleep (never 
 
266 EXCURSION TO PARIS, 
 
 the like in a railway before) ; half-waken 
 twice, to pull down the window (which is 
 always pulled up again straightway) ; awaken 
 wholly, and it is London Bridge! Admira- 
 ble silence, method and velocity here. They 
 keep us standing some ten minutes, tickets 
 got, trunks are all laid out^ in an enclosure 
 under copious light ; " Tiens, je vois deja ma 
 malle ! " exclaims Monsieur : as might I, and 
 others. Near midnight, through muddy rains, 
 am safe, home, — scarce credible! — and have 
 as it were slept ever since. Oh the joy of be- 
 ing home again, home and silent ! No Ash- 
 burton come ^^/ .• weather wet. Finis, 7 Oct., 
 1S51. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 WRITTEN BY THOMAS CARLYLE 
 TO VARNHAGEN VON ENSE 
 
 IN THE YEARS i837-'57. 
 EDITED BY RICHARD PREUSS. 
 
 The letters here published for the first time 
 do not require more than a few introductory 
 words. Testimonies of Carlyle's mind and 
 genius, they speak for themselves. 
 
 The originals have been found among the 
 manuscript treasures of the Royal Library at 
 Berlin, into whose possession the whole literary 
 inheritance of Varnhagen — all this man, fond 
 of collecting, had heaped up during a long life 
 abounding in personal relations — came after 
 his death in the year 1858. Of his own letters 
 the author, otherwise so careful in such matters, 
 took no copies ; it is to be doubted whether it 
 will be possible to find the originals ; even to 
 be doubted whether they exist at all. 
 
 Copyright, 1S92, by D. Appleton and Company. 
 
268 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 It was a happy idea of Varnhagen to send, 
 in the year 1837, ^he first four volumes of his 
 collection entitled Denkwurdigkeiten meines Le- 
 bens over the sea to Carlyle. It seems that he 
 wished to see them reviewed in England. At 
 least Carlyle devoted to the Denkwurdigkeiten 
 as well as to the former writings of Varnhagen, 
 relating to his wife Rahel, a long essay in the 
 London a7id Westminster Review (1838). But 
 at a later period the connection became im- 
 portant for both men. Since the death of 
 Goethe, Carlyle's personal relations to Ger- 
 many were almost confined to occasional and 
 withal rare meetings with German men who 
 lived in London. Even then there came, from 
 time to time, letters and messages from Ger- 
 many, but they were, as he wrote to Emerson, 
 of no moment. When the message of Varn- 
 hagen came, the French Revolution was about to 
 be published, and the troubles of supervising 
 the book in the press, as well as the first lect- 
 ures then undertaken before a great audience 
 about the German literature, may have re- 
 tarded the answering of Varnhagen's letter. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 269 
 
 As soon as leisure was given to him, he wrote. 
 And so the apostle of German genius and Ger- 
 man literature in England entered in direct 
 connection again v/ith a German writer, and 
 with the writer who, like no other, was in the 
 very centre of the literary life in Germany 
 then. Thence a correspondence arose, if not 
 lively, yet continuous, which was maintained 
 by occasional messages from both sides. Varn- 
 hagen sent to Carlyle the new volumes of his 
 Denkwilrdigkeiten and other German books 
 which the latter was in need of, and Carlyle 
 sent to Varnhagen his writings and autographs 
 of English authors and public men, for auto- 
 graphs became more and more the great pas- 
 sion of Varnhagen. Twice the two men saw 
 each other in the course of years : at first 
 in 1852, then in 1858, not long before the death 
 of Varnhagen, who has reported thereupon in 
 his Journal^ both times at Berlin, where the 
 historian of Frederick the Great was led b}^ 
 the wish to see the life-places of his hero with 
 his own eyes. Naturally the communications 
 about his work upon the Life of Frederick 
 
2^0 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 take up, in the second part of these letters, the 
 largest room. From the first shy appearance 
 of the idea of venturing on this vast subject, 
 we are enabled here to accompany the whole 
 labour, the painful struggle with the strange- 
 ness of the subject, with the continuous want 
 of books and materials of all sorts, with the 
 doubts resulting from the distance of the places 
 of the narrated events. And surely our ad- 
 miration is not lessened by comparing the final 
 result with the difficulties of the execution, 
 and we are enabled here to accompany him, 
 as it were, throughout the task. 
 
 To conclude, it is a most agreeable duty for 
 me to express also here my hearty thanks to 
 the friend and literary executor of Carlyle, 
 James Anthony Froude, for his kind readiness 
 in authorising me to publish these letters. He 
 has added thereby a new service to the many 
 which he has rendered to the memory of his 
 great friend. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 I 
 
 271 
 
 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London: December 31, 1837. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Will you accept, after too 
 long delay, my hearty thanks for your kind 
 and estimable gift, which, a good many weeks 
 ago, on returning hither out of Scotland, I 
 found awaiting me here ? The name Varn- 
 hagen von Ense was long since honourably 
 known to me ; in the book Rakers Gallery, as in 
 a clear mirror, I had got a glimpse of the man 
 himself and the world he lived in; and now, 
 behold ! the mirror-image, grown a reality, had 
 come towards me, holding out a friendly right 
 hand in the name of the ever dear to both of 
 us! Right heartily I grasp that kind hand, 
 and say again and again. Be welcome, with 
 thanks. 
 
 If it were suitable or possible to explain 
 amid what complexity of difficulties, engage- 
 ments, sicknesses, I struggle to toil along here, 
 my slowness in answering would not seem in- 
 excusable to you. I wished to read the book 
 first. A book unread is still but the offer of a 
 gift ; I needed first to take it into me, and then 
 tell you with proper emphasis that it had in 
 very truth become mine. Not till these late 
 days was the leisure and the mood for such an 
 enjoyment granted me. The two volumes of 
 Denkwilrdigkeiten remained like a little kindly 
 inn, where, after long solitary wandering in 
 
2/2 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 bad weather, I should find repose and friends. 
 Once more I say to you, and now with proper 
 significance, Many thanks. 
 
 Insight, liveliness, originality, the hardy 
 adroit spirit of a man who has seen and suf- 
 fered and done, in all thing acquitting himself 
 like a man, shines out on me, in graceful co- 
 herence, light, sharp, decisive, from all parts 
 of this as of your other books. It is a great, 
 and to me a most rare, pleasure in these times 
 to find that I agree wholly on all important 
 matters with a writer ; that in many highest 
 cases his words are precisely such as I should 
 wish to hear spoken. But, indeed, your view 
 of Goethe being also mine, we set out as it 
 were from a great centre of unity, and travel 
 lovingly together tov/ards all manner of re- 
 gions. For the rest, nothing pleases me more 
 than your descriptions of facts and transac- 
 tions, a class of objects which grows contin- 
 ually in significance with me, as much else 
 yearly and daily dwindles away, in treating 
 which a man best of all shows what manner of 
 man he is. I read with special interest your 
 Doctor Bollmann,* a name not altogether new 
 to me ; I could read volume after volume of 
 
 * The characteristic of Justus Erich Bollmann is to be found 
 in the fourth volume of the Denkwilrdigkeiten und ver7nischte 
 SchHften, by Varnhagen. There is also published an excellent 
 essay about him by Friedrich Kopp in the Deutsche Rundschati, 
 vol. xviii. (1879), entitled " Justus Erich Bollmann un die Flucht 
 Lafayette's aus Olmtitz." 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 273 
 
 such autobiography as that you give us — such 
 Halle universities, such Battles of Wagram, 
 such Fichtes, Wolffs, Chamissos, and the high, 
 tranquil -mournful, almost magical spirit of 
 your Rahel shining over them with a light as 
 of stars ! You must not cease ; you must con- 
 tinue. That we might see, eyes were given us ; 
 and a tongue, to tell accurately what we had 
 got to see. It is the Alpha and Omega of all 
 intellect that man has. No poetry, hardly 
 even that of a Goethe, is equal to the true 
 image of reality — had one eyes to see that. I 
 often say to myself, the highest kind of writing, 
 poetry or what else we may call it, that of the 
 Bible for instance, has nothing to do with fic- 
 tion at all, but with behefs, with facts. Go on, 
 and prosper. 
 
 If you see Herr Criminaldirector Hitzig, 
 pray remember me very kindly to him. Your 
 friend Chamisso is also one I love. Dr. Mundt 
 will mourn with me that the brave Rosen,* his 
 friend and mine who brought him hither, has 
 been so suddenly summoned for ever away. 
 He is one whom many regret. Do you know 
 Friedrich Riickert ? If you stand in any cor- 
 respondence with him, I will bid you tell him 
 that I got acquainted altogether unexpectedly 
 with his " Hariri " last summer, and rejoiced 
 over it for weeks as over a found jewel. 
 
 * Considerable Orientalist and Sanscritist, born 1805 at 
 Hanover, was called at the age of 22 to teach the Oriental Ian- 
 
274 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 Perhaps you sometimes write to Weimar ; 
 if so, pray offer our peculiar regards, my wife's 
 and mine, to Madame von Goethe. I sent Dr. 
 Eckermann a packet and letter, six months 
 ago, to which there is yet to answer. His 
 Gesprdche * and your remarks on them were 
 ri^ht welcome. 
 
 II 
 
 London : March lo, 1838. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Some two months ago I 
 wrote to you in grateful tho' late acknowledge- 
 ment of your two volumes of Denkwiirdig- 
 keiten, which work I had then read, as others 
 here have since done, with great satisfaction. 
 
 The bearer of this note is Mr. Woodhouse, 
 a worthy English gentleman, proceeding to- 
 wards Vienna ; desirous of knowing what is 
 best in Germany and among the Germans. 
 Permit me to recommend him to you. He is a 
 stranger to Deiitschland as yet, but deserves to 
 know it better. 
 
 Perhaps if Dr. Mundt is still in Berlin, he 
 
 guages at the London University, laid down his professorship for 
 want of satisfaction at it, and died 1837 in London, before he 
 could finish the principal work of his life, the edition of the Rig- 
 veda. His early death caused general sympathy. 
 
 * Vols. i. and ii. of the Gesprdche mit Goethe, by Eckermann, 
 were published 1836. The essay Varnhagen has written there- 
 upon is to be found in vol. vi. of his Denkwurdigkeiten und ver- 
 mischte Schriften, 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 275 
 
 could, for my sake, be of some furtherance in 
 this matter. At all events, please to accept, 
 thro' Mr. Woodhouse, my salutations and 
 hearty assurances of continued regard. 
 Believe me always, yours with true esteem, 
 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Chelsea, London : Nov. 7, 1840. 
 
 My dear Sir, — A fair traveller from your 
 country, who has done us the honour and 
 pleasure of a visit, reminds me that I ought to 
 write, that I ought to have written long weeks 
 ago. Weeks, or even months : for on looking 
 at your last note I am shocked to discover 
 that it must be almost half a year since it, and 
 the new volume accompanied by it, arrived 
 here ! Why I have shamefully delayed so long 
 were now hard to say. Certainly it was not 
 for want of thankfulness ; neither was it for 
 the rather common reason, that I had not read 
 the book and so knew not how to speak of it. 
 The new volume of the Denkwiirdigkeiteji was 
 eagerly read in the first days after its arrival 
 here, and with a pleasure which is still vividly 
 present to me. Alas, you are a sickly man 
 like myself ; you know well enough, I doubt 
 not, what Procrastination means ! One of our 
 poets calls it the *' thief of time." After long 
 months one is suddenly astonished, some day, 
 
2/6 
 
 LETTERS EROM CARLYLE. 
 
 to find how much of life, and of the best uses 
 of life, it has stolen from us. 
 
 The most striking piece in this fifth volume 
 was, to me, the " Congress of Vienna." All 
 was good, and very good ; but this best. At 
 the risk of speaking things which, in a rapid 
 hollow time like ours, were perhaps as well 
 unspoken, I must express my real admiration 
 (that is the word) of the talent, skill, and fac- 
 ulty of many sorts displayed is such a compo- 
 sition. That is what we call the art of writ- 
 ing — the summary and outcome of many arts 
 and gifts. The grand secret of it, I believe, is 
 insight — just estimation and understanding, by 
 head, and especially by heart. Give a man a 
 narration to make, you take in brief the meas- 
 ure of whatsoever worth is in the man. The 
 thing done lies round him, with length, width, 
 depth, a distracted chaos ; he models it into 
 order, sequence, and visibility ; justly, with 
 whatever force of intelligence is in him. So 
 far could he see into the genesis, organisation, 
 course and coherence of it ; so truly and far, 
 no trulier and farther : it is the measure of his 
 capability, of his Taugeiid, and even, if you 
 like, of his Ttigend. I rejoice m.uch in such a 
 style of delineation ; I prefer it to almost all 
 uses which a man can make of the spiritual 
 faculty entrusted him here below. Let us un- 
 derstand the thing done : let us see it, and pre- 
 serve true memory of it ; a man has under- 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 277 
 
 standing given him, and a pen and ink, chiefly 
 for that. In the name of the present and of 
 future times, I bid you to continue to write us 
 " Memoirs." 
 
 Your proposed visit to London did not 
 take effect last year. In another year perhaps 
 you may execute it. You will find some per- 
 sons here right well-affected towards you ; 
 much to see and consider ; many things, I may 
 suppose, which at first, and some which to the 
 last, will afflict and offend you. We are near 
 two millions in this city ; a whole continent of 
 brick, overarched with our smoke-canopy 
 which rains down sometimes as black snow ; 
 and a tumult, velocity, and deafening torrent 
 of motion, material and spiritual, such as the 
 world, one may hope, never saw before. Pro- 
 found sadness is usually one's first impression. 
 After months, still more after years, the method 
 there was in such madness begins a little to 
 disclose itself. 
 
 I read few German works at present ; know 
 almost nothing of what you are doing. In- 
 deed, except your own writings there turns up 
 little which a lover of German literature, as I 
 have understood the word in old years, would 
 not as soon avoid as seek. In these days I 
 have read a new volume of Heine's with a 
 strange mixture of feelings. Hehie ilber Borne 
 — it is to me the most portentous amalgam of 
 sunbeams and brutal mud that I have met with 
 
278 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 for a long while. I remember the man Borne's 
 book, in which he called Goethe the graue 
 Staar that had shut into blindness the general 
 eye of Germany. Heine seems to have given 
 up railing at Goethe ; he, Heine himself, it 
 seems, has now become a " Column of Luxor," 
 aere perennius, and a god does not rail at gods. 
 Eheti ! Eheu ! 
 
 If you stand in any correspondence with 
 Dr. Schlesier of Stuttgart, will you take occa- 
 sion to signify, with many thanks on my part, 
 that I have received his third volume of Gentz's 
 Writings ; that I did make some attempt to get 
 the book reviewedh.QYQ, but, having now no con- 
 nection with that department of things, could 
 not find a proper hand to undertake the busi- 
 ness. Indeed, I apprehend Gentz has alto- 
 gether passed here. I can remember him as a 
 popular pamphleteer with a certain party in 
 my early boyhood ; but the party has now dis- 
 appeared, the ideas of it have disappeared ; 
 and nobody will now recollect Gentz in the 
 old light, or recognise him in a new. To 
 myself I must confess he hitherto will by 
 no means seem a hero. The only portion of 
 his writings that I have read with any enter- 
 tainment is that historical piece delineating the 
 prologue to the Battle of Jena. What you 
 somewhere say about him I can read ; hardly 
 what any other says. A lady here, daughter of 
 the late Sir James Mackintosh, remembers him 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 279 
 
 at Vienna: "a man in powdered ceremonial 
 hair, with a red nose," seemingly fond of din- 
 ing ! Edidit monumentur/i I 
 
 The fair Sophie kindly undertaking to 
 carry any parcel, I send you a little pamphlet 
 of mine published last year. Chartism, whether 
 one hear the word or do not hear it, is the 
 great fact of England at present. 
 
 Did any one ever write an adequate life of 
 your Frederick the Great ? Is there anywhere 
 a legible life of Luther, so much as an attain- 
 able edition of his Tischreden f I fear the an- 
 swer is " No " in all these cases. 
 
 Farewell, dear sir ; be, I do not say happy, 
 but nobly busy, and think of us here as friends. 
 
 Sophie promises to see us a second time 
 to-morrow. I do not rightly know her name 
 yet, but she has a right gemiithlich face, and 
 laughing eyes of that beautiful German gray ! 
 Believe me, yours ever truly, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 IV 
 
 Chelsea, London : May 16, 1841. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Some six weeks ago, while 
 I was just running off into the country, your 
 very welcome and most friendly letter reached 
 me here. An ugly disorder, which they call 
 Influenza, had altogether lamed me, in the cold 
 weather of spring ; the doctors, and still more 
 emphatically my own feelings, declared that I 
 
28o LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 could not shake the drug of it off except in 
 the quiet of the fields. Always, after a certain 
 length of time spent in this enormous never- 
 resting Babel of a city, there rises in one not 
 a wish only, but a kind of passion, for utter- 
 most solitude : were it only some black, ever- 
 desolate moor, where nature alone was pres- 
 ent, and manufacture and noise, speech, witty 
 or stupid, had never reached. I prolonged 
 my excursion, which at first was only a visit 
 to Yorkshire, into the South of Scotland, my 
 native region, v/here brothers of mine, where 
 an aged, good mother still live for me. I my- 
 self, to all other persons, am now as good as a 
 stranger there. It is a mournful, solemn, nay, 
 almost preternatural place for me now, that 
 birthland of mine ; sends me back from it 
 silent, for there are no words to speak the 
 thoughts and the unthinkable s it awakens ! Ar- 
 riving here, ten days ago, your Berlin books, 
 one of the most interesting gifts, lay all beauti- 
 fully arranged on a table for me. I had heard 
 of their safe arrival in my absence, and here 
 they lay like a congratulation waiting my re- 
 turn. 
 
 You forbid me to speak oi this altogether ex- 
 traordinary gift ; accordingly I shall say noth- 
 ing of it, how much so ever I must naturally 
 feel, except that, under penalty of my never 
 asking you again about my book, you must not 
 purchase for me any more than these ! No, that 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 28 1 
 
 would never do ; for I shall want perhaps to 
 ask about many books. I will put them on my 
 shelves, having once read them thro* ; there let 
 them stand as a peculiar thing, a memorial to 
 me of man}^ things. All my da3^s I have 
 laboured and lamented under a fatal lack of 
 books; as indeed England generally and Lon- 
 don itself would astonish you in that particu- 
 lar ; think onty that in London, except it be the 
 garbage of new novels and such like, there is 
 no library whatever from which any man can 
 borrow a book home with him. One library 
 alone in our huge empire, that of the British 
 Museum here, is open to the public, to read in 
 it ; thereat first I went to attempt reading, but 
 found that in a room with 500 people I could 
 do no good as a reader. A German, a French- 
 man, can hardly believe the existence of such 
 a state of things ; but it is a lamentable fact. 
 We are a strange people, we English: a peo- 
 ple, as I sometimes say, with more //^articulate 
 intelligence and less of articulate than any peo- 
 ple the sun now shines on. Speak to one of us, 
 speak to almost any one of us, you will stand 
 struck silent at the contractedness, perhaps 
 Cimmerian stupidity of the tuord he responds ; 
 yet look at the action of the man, at the com- 
 bined action of twenty-eight millions of such 
 men. After years you begin to see through 
 their outer dumbness how these things have 
 been possible for them ; how they do verily 
 
282 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 stand ill closest continual communication with 
 many a power of nature, clearest insight into 
 that; how perhaps their very dumbness is a 
 kind of force. On the whole, I grow to admire 
 less and less your spcakijig peoples. The French 
 are a speaking people, and persuade number of 
 men that they are great; but coming to try 
 veracious nature, the ocean for example, 
 Canada, Algier or the like, nature answers, 
 *' No, Messieurs, you are little ! " Russia again, 
 is not that a great thing, still speechless ? From 
 Petersburg to Kamtchatka the earth answers, 
 " Yes, I love the English too, and all the Teu- 
 tons, for their silence." We can speak, too, by 
 a Shakespeare, by a Goethe, when the time 
 comes. Some assiduous whisking *' dog of 
 knowledge " seems to itself a far cleverer creat- 
 ure than the great quiet elephant or noble 
 horse ; but it is far mistaken ! 
 
 However, this of the lamentable want of 
 books in London (owing to that " outer stu- 
 pidity " of the English) has now brought about 
 some beginning of its own remedy. What I 
 meant to say was, that the generous Varnhagen 
 need not send me any more books, because any 
 good book, German or other, has now become 
 attainable here. Some two years ago, after 
 sufficiently lamenting and even sometimes exe- 
 crating such a state of matters, it struck me, 
 Couldst not thou, even thou there, try to mend 
 it ? The result, after much confused difficulty, 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 283 
 
 is a democratic institution called " London 
 Library," where all men, on payment of a small 
 annual sum, can now borrow books ; a thing 
 called here " Subscription Library," which in 
 such a city as London, appetite growing by 
 what it feeds on, may well become by-and-by 
 one of the best libraries extant. We are demo- 
 cratic, as I said, or rather we mean to be ; for 
 as yet only the elect of the public could be in- 
 terested in the scheme. Prince Albert, good 
 youth, is patron, by his own free offer ; has 
 given fifty pounds of money, and promises "a 
 stock of German books." Varnhagen's are al- 
 ready there. Faustum sit. 
 
 You give an altogether melancholy account 
 of your health ; in which, alas, I can too well 
 sympathise ! It seems to me often the one 
 misery in this world. But the supreme powers 
 send it : we are to work under such condition ; 
 we cannot alter that condition. Perhaps there 
 is even much good in it : I often feel so. Your 
 response to the poor pamphlet Chartism is that 
 of a generous human heart, resonant to all 
 human things, never so remote from it. We 
 are struggling as thro' thick darkness, in this 
 England of ours, towards light and deliverance 
 as I do believe. Adieu, my dear Sir ; better 
 health of body to you, and no worse healthy 
 brotherliness of soul. 
 
 With affectionate esteem, yours always, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
284 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 Chelsea, London: Dec. 19, 1842. 
 
 My dear Sir, — For several months now I 
 have been a great defaulter ; defrauding you 
 of a most indispensable reply to a kind mes- 
 sage, and myself of a great pleasure in impart- 
 ing it ! How this has been, by what foolish 
 combinations of sickliness, idleness, excessive 
 work, you, who alas are yourself too often a 
 sick man, will perhaps well enough understand. 
 Suffice it now, better now than still later, very 
 penitently and very thankfully to say that your 
 most welcome gift, with the kind written re- 
 membrance in it, arrived safe here, in due 
 course ; that I have read the books, especially 
 your own part of them, a good while ago, with 
 agreeable results then and since, and that now, 
 when you are home again (as I hope) refreshed 
 and recruited by the bath waters and summer 
 recreations, I knock again at your town door 
 with a grateful salutation. 
 
 Your Denkwiirdigkeiten are again, as ever, 
 the delightfullest reading to me. Truly, I 
 think, were I an absolute monarch I should 
 decree among other things, that Varnhagen 
 von Ense be encouraged, ordered and even 
 compelled to write and ever to continue writ- 
 ing Memoirs ! It is authentically my feeling. 
 Always alas, as one grows older, one's appetite 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 285 
 
 for books grows more fastidious ; there is now 
 for me very little speculation and almost noth- 
 ing- of the so-called Poetry that I can bear to 
 read at all ; but a man with eyes, with a soul 
 and heart, to tell me in candid clearness what 
 he saw passing round him in this universe — is 
 and remains for ever a welcome man. Specu- 
 lations, poetries, what passes in this or the 
 other poor human brain, — if it be not some 
 most rare brain of a Goethe or the like : this 
 is often a very small matter ; a matter one had 
 rather not know. But what passes in God's 
 universe ; this only is a thing one does wish 
 to know, if one adequately could ! In truth, 
 I have not for years read any writings that 
 please me, solace and recreate me as these Denk- 
 vjilrdegkeiten do. It is beautiful to see such 
 a work so done. A Historical Picture of the 
 living present time; all struck off with such 
 light felicity, such harmonious clearness and 
 composure ; such a deep, what I could call 
 unconscious soul of Method lying under it : — 
 the work of an Artist ! Well, I will thank you, 
 and wish you long heart and strength to con- 
 tinue, for my own sake and the world's ; for 
 the sake of this Time, and perhaps still more 
 of the Times that are coming. 
 
 Your Russian Kartoptschin is a terrible 
 
 fellow ; a man in the style of Michael Angelo ! 
 
 One begins to understand how what I often call 
 
 ** dumb Russia " may be a kind of dumb Rome, 
 
 19 
 
286 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 one of the greatest phenomena on the Earth 
 present, with such souls in it here and there. 
 We have to thank you, at least I have, for 
 showing us a glimpse of actual Russia face to 
 face for the first time. By your help I got a 
 real direct look at the wild Poet-soul, Pusch- 
 kin ; and said to myself, Yes, there is a Rus- 
 sian man of genius ; for the first time, I see 
 something of the Russians ! We begin here, 
 the better heads of us, to have a certain true 
 respect for Russia with all its " Barbarism " 
 real and imaginary ; to understand that though 
 the Russians have all Journalists in the world 
 against them, they have Nature, Nature's laws 
 and God Almighty partly in their favour! 
 They can drill wild savage peoples and tame 
 waste continents, though they cannot v/rite 
 Journalistic Articles. What a contrast with 
 our French friends ! They can prove by the 
 precisest logic before all men that they were, 
 are, and probably wall always be in possession 
 of the true light : Voila, this is the key to all 
 arcana, this of ours. And then take a look at 
 them in Algier and elsewhere ! 
 
 My own studies and struggles, totally inef- 
 fectual as yet, have lain principally for a long 
 time back in the direction of Oliver Cromwell 
 and our great Puritan Civil War, what I call 
 the " Apotheosis of Protestantism." I do not 
 count with any certainty that I shall ever 
 get a book out of it : but in the meanwhile it 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 287 
 
 leads to various results for me ; across all the 
 portentous rubbish and pedantry of two cent- 
 uries I have got a fair stout view, also, of the 
 flaming sun-countenance of Cromwell, — and 
 find it great and godlike enough, tho' entirely 
 ^/;mtterable to these days. Our Histories of 
 him contemporary and subsequent are numer- 
 ous ; all stupid, some of them almost infinitely 
 stupid. The man remains imprisoned, as un- 
 der Aetna Mountains of rubbish ; unutterable, 
 I suppose, forever. But the meaning of this 
 preamble was that I had an inquiry to make of 
 you. Whether, namely, there exists in German 
 any intelligent and intelligible Book about the 
 military antiquities of Gustavus Adolphus's 
 time? Much in our Cromwell's methods of 
 fighting &c., remains obstinately obscure to 
 me. I understand only that it was the German 
 and Swedish method ; the chief officers of our 
 Civil War, especially great multitudes of 
 Scotch, had served in the Thirty- Years' War. 
 Often have I reflected, in gazing into military 
 puzzles of that period, '' Would that I had 
 Varnhagen here, the soldier and thinker, to 
 tell me v>^hat this means ! " 
 
 I decide on asking, if there is any German 
 Book, at least. But I fear there is none. We 
 have a late Life of Wallenstein by a very intelli- 
 gent Scotch Soldier, Colonel Mitchell, but 
 Mitchell too says he cannot understand how 
 they fought with their pikes and muskets or 
 
288 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 matchlocks ; in short, I find he knows no more 
 of it than I do. 
 
 There is a Life of Jean Paiil^ come to me 
 from over the Atlantic ; by one Mrs. Lee, of 
 Boston : an entertaining little book and curious 
 as coming from the other hemisphere. I think 
 of sending you a copy by some opportunity, 
 if I can find one. Pray write to me by and 
 by ; do not imitate my sluggishness ! 
 
 Yours ever, with true regard, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 VI 
 
 Chelsea, London: den 5. Febr. 1843. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Many thanks again for your 
 kind present of Books ; for your two kind 
 letters, the latter of which arrived with 
 Asehr's f book-parcel, duly, a few nights ago. 
 The only unfriendly news you send is that of 
 your own health, which I wish you had been 
 able to make a little pleasanter to me ! Sum- 
 mer weather at the baths, and no permission 
 to enjoy it except thro' carriage windows, is 
 very sad work. And you are still a prisoner 
 
 * Life of Jean Paul Frederic Richter. Compiled from vari- 
 ous sources. Together with his autobiography. Translated 
 from the German. In two volumes. Boston, 1842. 
 
 f The meritorious German bookseller, who since 1830, at 
 Berlin, successfully laboured to further the book trade with the 
 foreign countries, and has deserved well, especially of the great 
 English libraries. He died 1883, on a journey, at Venice. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 289 
 
 in Berlin, or nearly so ; — yet, thank heaven, 
 not an idle one, not a discontented one : this 
 too is something to be thankful for. We have 
 to take the Light and the Dark as they alter- 
 nate for us here below ; and try to make the 
 right use of both. I say often of myself that 
 if I had suffered no ill health, I should have 
 known nothing. The stars shine out, as Fried- 
 land's did, when it is grown rightly dark 
 round us ! Yet I hope to hear, as the sum- 
 mer advances, that you emerge again, and 
 see good under the sun. Nay, so long as you 
 can continue writing, with whatever pain it 
 be, how many sons of Adam are there, who 
 ought to pity you ; who are not rather called 
 to envy you? I know not if I ever reported 
 with what pleasure I read that little Delinea- 
 tion of the Prussian Field-Marshal Schv/erin,* 
 One has pleasure in it because it is a " Delinea- 
 tion," which so many books only pretend to 
 be : one sees a certain section of Human Life 
 actually painted, rendered credible and con- 
 ceivable to one. That last Battle is clear to 
 me as if I had fought in it : there is a kind of 
 gloomy dumb tragic strength in the Phenom- 
 enon, as in some old Norse-Mythics, for me, 
 — as if I looked into the old Death-Kingdoms, 
 whereon Living Prussia, with what it can say 
 and do, reposes and grows ! Those long ranks 
 
 * Leben des Feldmarschall Graf en von Schwerin, von Varn' 
 hagen was published in 1841. 
 
290 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 of speechless Men standing ranked there, with 
 their three-cornered hats and stiff hair-queues 
 and fighting apparatus ; dumb, standing Hke 
 stone statues to be blasted in pieces with can- 
 non-shot : — there are " inarticulate meanings '* 
 without end in such a thing for me ! Surely I 
 much approve your further biographic pro- 
 jects ; and bid you ^' Frisch zu f '' How true 
 also is that of Goethe in his advice to you : * 
 I have felt it a hundred times ; — indeed it is 
 properly the grand difficulty with my own 
 poor Cromwell at present : that he lies buried 
 so deep ; that his dialect, thought, aim, whole 
 costume and environment are grown so obso- 
 lete for men. What an English Puritan prop- 
 erly meant and struggled for in the seven- 
 teenth Century : I say to myself '' Is all that 
 dead ? Or is it only asleep (not entirely with 
 good consequences for us) ; a thing that can 
 never die at all?" If it be dead, vv^e ought to 
 leave it alone ! " Let the dead bury their dead " 
 is as true in Literature as elsewhere. Hence 
 
 * In the essay " Varnhagen von Ense's Biographien," in the 
 sixth vokime of Ueber Kttnst und Altcrthum (1827). The words 
 of Goethe Carlyle here refers to are the following : " We wish 
 that he [Varnhagen] may proceed, with his biographical repre- 
 sentations, more and more to the eighteenth century, and pro- 
 mote, by delineating of the individualities and of the spirit of 
 the time with which they stood in action and reaction, clearness 
 of the whole state of things. Clearness necessitates insight, in- 
 sight creates tolerance, tolerance alone is able to procure a peace 
 active in all parts and talents." 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 291 
 
 indeed so few Histories, and so many Pedantries 
 and mere Sham Histories, — which if men were 
 resolute enough, they would verily fling into 
 the fire at once and make an end of ! 
 
 Stuhr, as you predict, is heavy ; but I find 
 him solid and earnest, I believe I shall find it 
 well worth while to travel thro' him.* One's 
 desire to know about the old days is so un- 
 quenchable; the average of fulfilment to it 
 grows at length so very low ! Stuhr is very 
 far indeed above what I have to call " far " in 
 late times. 
 
 Some fortnight ago, I sent off the Life of 
 Richter, by the channel you pointed out. There 
 was not another copy readily procurable ; so I 
 sent you the one we had ourselves been read- 
 ing here. There was a Mitchell's Life of Wal- 
 lensteiit added, which perhaps you ma}^ find 
 partly interesting even in its very shortcom- 
 ings. Mitchell is an honest man ; but his in- 
 dignation against much inanit}^ that he has to 
 witness here throws him into somewhat of a 
 cramp antagonism now and then. He is dis- 
 tinguished here by his deadly enmity to the 
 bayonet, which he declares to be a total chi- 
 mera in V7ar, — -false, damnable, heretical, almost 
 
 * We conclude from the inquiry made in the preceding let- 
 ter that, under the numerous works of the Prussian historian 
 Peter Feddersen Stuhr, here is meant Die Brandenburgisch- 
 Preussische Kriegsvcrfassung zttr Zeit Friedrich Wilhems des 
 grossen Kurfiirsten (Berlin, i8ig). 
 
292 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 in the old ecclesiastic sense ! My stock of au- 
 tographs which I have had much pleasure in 
 gathering for you is of much more bulk than 
 value ! Hardly a half dozen of men very in- 
 teresting to you v/ill you find here ; the rest 
 are transitory notabilities, — on many of whom 
 as they are like to be entirely unknown out 
 of their own Parish, I have had to mark 
 some brief commentary in pencil. Pray use 
 your Indiari rubber there, where you find need- 
 ful : for it is of the nature of the speech to a 
 trusted friend, not of litera scripta. Perhaps even 
 thro' the Trivial, you with your clear eyes will 
 get here and there a glimpse into our English 
 Existence: the great advantage is, that you 
 can and ought to burn some nine-tenths of the 
 bundle so soon as you have looked it over. As 
 occasion offers I will not forget to gather you 
 a few more autographs : Byron, Fox, Pitt I do 
 not yet give up ; indeed, the first of those, 
 with some others, are already promised me. 
 
 Your reading of the Austins is altogether 
 correct. Mrs. iVustin cam^e first into vogue 
 among us by translating Puckler Muskau (if 
 that is the right spelling) and has risen ever 
 since by her sunny hopeful vivacious charac- 
 ter, and a good share of female tact and the 
 like. Her husband, as you say, is truly pain- 
 ful, — a kind of Prometheus Vinctus, bound uot 
 by any Jupiter ! The man is faithful, vera- 
 cious, energetically almost spasmodically labo- 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 293 
 
 rious ; but of an egoism which has, alas, proved 
 too strong, — which has made him unhealthy 
 unhappy ; which, as I say, " has eaten holes in 
 the case of it." Poor Austin, — a brave man 
 too : but able to bring it no farther than hard 
 isolated Pedant hood / Nay, as Sir Toby in 
 Shakespeare has it, ** because thott, art virtuous, 
 shall there be no more cakes and ale ? " 
 
 I am very busy ; and hope to tell you about 
 what (it is a poor Volume, perhaps preparatory 
 to something farther) in a month or two. 
 Adieu, my good Friend : better health to both 
 of us ; unabated heart to both of us. 
 Yours ever truly, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 VII 
 
 Chelsea, London : May i, 1843. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Almost a month ago your 
 three beautiful volumes of Memoirs were safely 
 delivered to me here, and in all ways cordially 
 welcomed. I reckon it a healthy sign of your 
 German Public, in spite of all its confusions, 
 that it demands a new supply of such Writings : 
 there is everywhere a great heart of truth liv- 
 ing silent and latent amid the noise and tumult 
 of world-wide Inanities literary and other ; this 
 we shall always know, and quietly trust in this. 
 
 Last week there was consigned to your 
 Berlin-London Bookseller here a new volume 
 
294 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 of mine ^ with your address on it ; probably 
 in a fortnight it may be looked for. I now, by 
 the direct conveyance, write to announce it ; 
 enclosing- a few more Autographs, which have 
 come to me since your last packet. None of 
 them is like to be of alm.ost any interest ; but 
 they are gathered here without trouble, and I 
 say always, you can at worst burn them. From 
 time to time, when such an object turns upon 
 my path, I will not fail to lift it ; to send it 
 over sea, to the man of all living men who can 
 extract most meaning out of it, for his own be- 
 half and ours ! 
 
 Since the finishing of that Book, I have 
 been reposing myself with various iiiiaginary 
 kinds of work ; — among others a daily spell at 
 reading Danish, with a vievv^ to get acquainted 
 with the old Norse world. Miiller's Sagabibli- 
 othek, I had hoped, was in German; but, alas, 
 it proves to be in Danish ; and I have to learn 
 that nev/ dialect first which turns out to be an 
 almost ridiculous mixture of Scotch, and brok- 
 en Deutschy artfully disguised ; the v/hole brok- 
 en down, seemingly so as to give the speech-organs 
 a minimum of trouble ! I get into it without dif- 
 ficulty ; but find MUller unluckily to be no per- 
 fect oracle after all. Nials Saga in Icelandic 
 is also here ; and the abstract of it in Miiller 
 gives me great curiosity to penetrate into a 
 
 * Past and Present, written and published 1843, 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 295 
 
 sight of it, and of the strange old world it be- 
 longs to. We are without due helps in Eng- 
 lish for introducing ourselves to old Scandi- 
 navia ; nor do I find hitherto in German any 
 effectual notice of such. Do you know the 
 magazine Bragicr; and what is the v/orth of it ? 
 Has anybody written or translated, or in any 
 way made accessible a solid word on that old 
 province of things, in German speech ? Gey- 
 er's Swedish History in its German dress is al- 
 ready ordered from the bookseller: I have 
 also read with attention the German Version 
 of one Strinnholm a Swede on the Wiking- 
 szilge, — it is something, not much. This ; and 
 some nine or ten Books of travels in Iceland, 
 from not one of which can I gain the smallest 
 distinct insight even as to what specially the 
 outward look of the Island is ! — If in your cir- 
 cle, you happen to know any real Master in 
 Scandinavian things, you could perhaps ques- 
 tion him for me, on some convenient occasion : 
 perhaps even a German Book-catalogue, if I 
 knew v/hich, might instruct me in several 
 things. 
 
 There was one other matter, of the smallest 
 possible weight, about which I have often for- 
 gotten to ask you a small question. In the 
 supplement to Creuzer's Symbolik, written I 
 think by one Mone (which I found to be but a 
 stupid book) there is account given of an an- 
 cient German Body having been dug up from 
 
296 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 some morass, I think in the neighborhood of 
 Paderborn, in which, or some such museum, 
 says Mone, the Body yet lies ; due account of 
 the business having been given in printed 
 Transactions or the like, to which he refers. If 
 I remember rightly the date is 18 17. But I 
 have not Mone's book at hand ; and, as you 
 see, the matter has got somewhat dim for me. 
 The purport of my request is, that if there was 
 any Pamphlet published about it, any Paper in 
 some Society's Transactions, or other attain- 
 able Article descriptive of this singular affair, 
 you would indicate it to me. This poor old 
 Cheruscan brother man, apparently some hor- 
 rible miscreant, plunged down to be tanned in 
 peat-bogs, and then to be dug up into daylight 
 again after 2,000 years : this is a thing I shall 
 never forget. This is almost all that I now re- 
 member of Mone and his grey dreary book. 
 In Dublin Museum, I believe, there is the anal- 
 ogous figure of an antique nearly naked Celt, 
 dug out of bogs, in like manner ; but this, from 
 my account of it, seems much less notable than 
 the Cheruscan. 
 
 I ought earnestly to caution you against 
 taking much or any trouble about all this, but I 
 am afraid, that will be almost of no avail ! In 
 verity, these matters are so unimportant to me, 
 you can hardly take too little trouble with 
 them ; and if I find, as is still to be dreaded, 
 that you have taken too much, why then, in 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 297 
 
 that case, I will not employ you again ! Actu- 
 ally that shall be your punishment. 
 
 To-day, however, in my haste, I must bid 
 you Adieu, in hope of meeting again, on paper 
 at least, before long. Poor Schelling ! I really 
 fear you are right regarding him ! As for us, 
 by God's help, Dringen wir vorzvdrts. 
 
 Yours ever, T. Carlyle. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Chelsea : Dec. 4, 1843, 
 
 My dear Sir, — Will you accept from me this 
 new packet of mostly worthless Autographs, if 
 perchance it may amuse you for an hour. The 
 collecting of it, as opportunity spontaneously 
 turned up, has been a real pleasure to me, not 
 a trouble or employment in any*sense. We 
 will keep the lion's mouth still open ; and when 
 I find any contribution accumulated there, I 
 will continue to send it you. 
 
 Several of these autographs, I think, are 
 duplicates : but you can burn the second or 
 the first, which ever you find the more worth- 
 less, and retain the other. The best part of 
 them, as you will perceive, came to me from 
 Mr. Lockhart, Sir Walter Scott's son-in-law, 
 Editor of our chief Review,* a man of sound 
 faculty and rather important position here, — 
 
 * Qtiarterly Review. 
 
298 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 who has lately made acquaintance with your 
 writings, and is glad to do any civility to 
 such a man. 
 
 It is now about three weeks since a new 
 Gift of Books from you arrived safe, thro' the 
 assiduous bookseller Nutt. Many thanks for 
 your kindness, which never wearies ! They 
 are beautiful volumes, the outside worthy of 
 the interior, these of your own : they stand on 
 my shelves, in a place of honour ; and, as I look 
 at them or re-examine them, shall remind me 
 of many things. Nyerup too seems an excel- 
 lent work of its kind ; and shall be well read 
 and useful to me one day. I wanted precisely 
 such a lexicon, for those Norse Mythics. The 
 business has had to postpone itself for the pres- 
 ent ; but is by no means finally dismissed ; nay, 
 it is likely to return, on occasion, for a long 
 course of time. I often feel it to have been a 
 great mistake this that we Moderns have made, 
 in studying with such diligence for thousand 
 of years mere Greek and Roman Pi'imordia^ 
 and living in such profound dark inattention 
 to our own. Odin seems to me as good a di- 
 vinity as Zeus, the lomsburg is not a whit less 
 heroic than any Siege of Troy ; — the Norse 
 conceptions of this universe, the Norse oper- 
 ations in this universe, were as well worth 
 singing of, and elaborating, as some others ! 
 But Greeks and Romans, I suppose, did not 
 found Colleges for studying the Phcenician Ian- 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 299 
 
 guages and antiquities ? In how many ways 
 are we hidden as with night-mares, we poor 
 Modern Men ! 
 
 After long sorrows and confused hesitations, 
 1 have at last sat down to Avrite some kind of 
 book on Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil 
 Wars and Commonwealth. It is the ungainliest 
 enterprise I ever tried ; grows more and more 
 bewildering, the closer I look into it: m.any 
 times I have wished it had never come athwart 
 me ; stolen already various years of ugly labor 
 from me. But in many enterprises years of 
 sore labor are to be sunk as under the founda- 
 tions. I say and rappeal to myself : St. Peters- 
 burg is a noble city ; and there had to perish 
 170,000 men in draining the Newa bogs, before 
 the building of it could begin ; under the first 
 visible stone of Petersburg there lie 170,000 
 lives of men ! Courage ! I must not forget to 
 thank you for the good Stiihr : some gleams of 
 military illumination I did get from him, which 
 is more than I can say of several more pre- 
 tentious personages. 
 
 The Musca volitans * is not unknown to me ; 
 I had, for some five years, and still occasion- 
 ally have, a very pretty one, — which I call 
 the " French Revolution," that book having 
 brought it on me ! Ill health is a most galling 
 addition to one's burdens. But here too we 
 
 * Mouche volante, a disease of the eyes. 
 
300 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 must say, Courage, Courage ! You have long 
 been a sufferer under this foul Fiend ; and you 
 have wrenched some good hours from it too, 
 and have some right brave work to show for 
 yourself nevertheless. Festina lente that is the 
 important rule. May I hear that you are bet- 
 ter ; that you are again victorious and remem- 
 ber me ! And so adieu, dear Friend, from 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 IX 
 
 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London : April 20, 1844. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I am deeply in your debt, 
 for books and most friendly messages ; I have 
 had two parcels both of which have come safe, 
 and been duly welcomed and enjoyed. The 
 Marschal Keith pleases me greatly, reminds me 
 of the Schwerin and other things I had before. 
 We have now got the entire act * into our Lon- 
 don Library, and even our young ladies are 
 busy reading it. Of all this I should have sent 
 you notification long ago ! Alas, I was wait- 
 ing for some expected autographs ; I was wait- 
 ing for this and that. At length enters a young 
 American friend just about setting off to Ber- 
 lin : By him I on the sudden send you off 
 Bulwer's new book on Schiller, which has 
 stood ready for you these several weeks ; this 
 
 * The Biographischen Denkmale, 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 301 
 
 with my love, and excuses, — my Letter shall 
 follow, when the autographs please to arrive. 
 Here are three, of no value. 
 
 Get well in this beautiful weather ; let us 
 all get well, and be busy, and good to one 
 another ! 
 
 In great haste, ever truly yours, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 The " three autographs " are not, at the 
 moment, discoverable! 
 
 X 
 
 Chelsea: Febr. 16, 1845. 
 
 My dear Sir,— I am delighted to hear from 
 you again, to taste of your old friendliness and 
 forgiveness again. I have behaved very ill, 
 - — or rather seemed to behave, for the blame 
 is not wholl}^ mine, as the penalty wholly is. 
 These many months I have not, except upon 
 the merest compulsion, written to any person. 
 Not that I have been so busy as never to have 
 a vacant hour, — alas, very far from that, often 
 enough ; — but I have been, and am still, and 
 still am like to be, sunk deep ; down in Chaos 
 and the Death kingdom ; sick of body, sick of 
 heart ; saddled with an enterprise which is too 
 heavy for me. It is many long years now since 
 I began the study of Oliver Cromwell, a prob- 
 lem for all ingenuous Englishmen ; it is four or 
 
302 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 five long years since I as it were committed 
 myself to the task of doing something with it : 
 and now, on fair trial, it proves the likest to 
 any impossible task of all I ever undertook. 
 The books upon it would load some wagons, 
 dull as torpor itself every book of them ; the 
 pedantries, dilettantisms. Cants, misconcep- 
 tions, platitudes and unimaginable confusions 
 that prevail upon it, — drive one to despair ! I 
 have read, and written and burnt ; I have sat 
 often contemplative, looking out upon the mere 
 Infinite of desolation. What to do 1 yet know 
 not. I have Goethe's superstition about " not 
 turning back ; " having put one's hand to the 
 plough, it is not good to shrink away till one 
 has driven the furrow thro' in some way or 
 other ! Alas, the noble seventeenth Century, 
 with a God shining thro' all fibres of it, by 
 what art can it be presented to this poor Nine- 
 teenth which has no God, which has not even 
 quitted the bewildering pretention to have a 
 God? These things hold me silent, for of 
 them it is better not to speak ; and my poor 
 life is buried under them at present. 
 
 However, I suppose, we shall get into day- 
 light again, sooner or later! After a good 
 deal of consideration, I decided on gathering 
 together all that I could yet find of Oliver's 
 own writing or uttering ; his Letters and 
 Speeches I now have in a mass, rendered for the 
 first time legible to modern men : this, tho* it 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 303 
 
 must be a very dull kind of reading to most or 
 all, 1 have serious thoughts of handing out, 
 since men now can read it ; — I would say, or in 
 some politer way intimate, " There, you un- 
 fortunate Canaille ; read them ! Judge whether 
 that man was a * hypocrite,' a '■ charlatan,' and 
 * liar,' whether he was not a Hero and god-in- 
 spired man, and you a set of singering '■ Apes 
 by the Dead Sea '." This you perceive will 
 not be easy to say ! All these things, how- 
 ever, plead my excuse with you, who know 
 well enough what the like of them means in a 
 man's existence; and so I stand absorbed in 
 your thoughts, and am pitied by you, and ten- 
 derly regarded as before ! 
 
 Your beautiful little Books came safe to 
 hand above a week ago. The reading of them 
 is like landing on a sunny green island, out of 
 waste endless Polar Seas, which my usual 
 studies have resembled of late. I like Derf- 
 fiinger very well ; and envy you the beautiful 
 talent of getting across a wide dim wilderness 
 so handsomely, delineating almost all that is 
 visible in it as you go ! Your Elector of Bran- 
 denburg, Derfflinger's Elector, was an acquaint- 
 ance of my Oliver, too ; this is a new point of 
 union. I had read Lippe * already; but grudged 
 him not a second reading, neither is this per- 
 
 * Graf Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst von Schaumburg-Lippe, Port- 
 uguese Field-marshal, called Herder, 1771, to Buckeburg as 
 counsellor of the consistory. 
 
304 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 haps the last. I have known the man always 
 since Herder's Biography by his Widow ; and 
 regarded him with real curiosity and interest. 
 A most tough, original, unsubduable lean man ! 
 Those scenes in the Portuguese War which 
 stood all as a Picture in my head were full of 
 admonition to me on this last occasion. I said 
 to myself, ** See, there is a man with a still 
 uglier enterprise than thine ; in the centre he 
 too of infinite human stupidities ; see how he 
 moulds them, controuls them, hurls them asun- 
 der, stands like ^a piece of human Valour in 
 the middle of them ; — see, and take shame to 
 thyself ! " Many thanks to you for this new 
 Gift. And weary not to go on working with 
 great or with small encouragement in that true 
 province of yours. A man with a pen in his 
 hand, with the gift of articulate pictural utter- 
 ance, surely he is well employed in painting 
 and articulating worthy acts and men that by 
 the nature of them were dumb. I on the whole 
 define all Writing to mean even that, or else 
 almost nothing. From Homer's Iliad down to 
 the New-Testament Gospels, — to the Goethe s 
 Poems (if we will look what the essence of them 
 is), — all writing means Biography ; utterance in 
 human words of Heroisms that are not fully 
 utterable except in the speech of gods ! Go 
 on, and prosper. Tho' all kinds of jargon cir- 
 culate round the thing one does, and in these 
 days no man as it were is worth listening to at 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 305 
 
 all upon it ; yet the Silences know one's work 
 very well, and do adopt what part of it is true^ 
 and preserve that indestructible thro' eternal 
 time ! Courage ! 
 
 I have sent you here a few Autographs; 
 they are w^orth almost nothing ; they came 
 without trouble, and will testify at least of my 
 goodwill. If I had any service useful for you, 
 very gladly would I do it. 
 
 You ask me what Books &c. you can again 
 procure for me ? At present no Books ; but 
 there is another thing perhaps, — tho' I know 
 not certainly. The case is this. Booksellers 
 are about republishing a miserable litttle Life 
 of Schiller by me ; and want a J/^^^/ of Schiller 
 which they could engrave from. A good like- 
 ness ; an autograph in addition is hardly to be 
 looked for. I have here a small cameo copied 
 from Danecker's Bust, by much the finest 
 Schiller's-face I have seen. But perhaps there 
 is no such Medal? Do not mind it much, I 
 pray you ! And so farewell and wish me 
 well ! T. Carlyle. 
 
 XI 
 
 Chelsea, London : April 7, 1845. 
 
 My dear Sir, — About a week ago I had 
 your very kind letter with the Autograph of 
 Schiller which latter I shall take care to return 
 you so soon as it has served its purpose here. 
 
3o6 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 The Medallions, and the Portrait of Schiller 
 will arrive in good time for their object ; we 
 shall certainly be able to make out a likeness 
 of Schiller from the combination, unless our 
 part in it be mismanaged ; yours has been per- 
 formed with all imaginable fidelity ! I could 
 regret that you give yourself such a quantity 
 of trouble to serve me ; really a far too liberal 
 quantity of trouble ! — but I suppose you find a 
 satisfaction in it ; so I must let you have your 
 way. To-day is my extremity of haste, with Prin- 
 ters chasing me, and paper litter of every de- 
 scription lying round me in the most distracting 
 way, I must restrict myself to the one little 
 point of business which your letter indicates : 
 that matter of the Behemoth, Your great 
 Frederick is right in what he has written there, 
 at least he is not wrong, — tho' I suspect he 
 has but consulted Book Catalogues, or some 
 secondhand Criticism, rather than the Work 
 itself which he speaks of. Behemoth is the 
 name of a very small book of Thomas Hobbes, 
 Author of the Leviathan, as you have guessed : 
 I think the big Lemathajz was published about 
 1650 or shortly after; and this little Behemoth 
 not till about 1670, tho' probably written long 
 before. I had a copy of it, and read it twice 
 some years ago ; but at this moment it has 
 fallen aside, and I must speak from memory. 
 It is properly a historical Essay on the late 
 Civil War, which had driven Hobbes out of 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 307 
 
 Eng-land ; it takes a most sceptical atheistic 
 view of the whole Quarrel ; imputes it all to 
 the fury of the Preaching Priests, whom and in- 
 deed all Priests and babbling Religionist of 
 every kind Hobbes thinks the Civil Power 
 ought to have coerced into silence, or ordered 
 to preach in a given style. In this manner, 
 thinks he, the troubles had all been prevented ; 
 similar troubles may again be prevented so. 
 He speaks little about Cromwell ; rather seems 
 to admire him, as a man who did coerce the 
 Priests, tho' in a fashion of his own ; — this 
 leads me to suspect that your king had never 
 seen the actual book, but spoken of it from 
 hearsay. It is a most rugged, distinct, forcible 
 little Book, by a man of the Creed and Temper 
 above indicated ; I remember it gave me the 
 idea of a person who had looked with most 
 penetrating tho' unbelieving eye upon the 
 whole Affair, and had better pointed out the 
 epochs and real cardinal points of this great 
 quarrel than any other contemporary v^^hom I 
 had met with. I know not whether this will 
 suffice for Herr Preus's object and yours : but 
 if you need more precise instruction, pray 
 speak again ; it is very easy to be had to any 
 extent. Nay I think it would not be difficult 
 to pick from the Old-Book stalls a copy of the 
 book itself : but indeed there is a new Edition 
 of all Hobbes' works lately published, in which 
 the Behemoth is duly included, — Sir William 
 
3o8 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 Moles worth's Edition of Hobbes ; which is 
 probably in one of your Public Libraries by 
 this time. 
 
 I send you an Autograph of Thomas Bab- 
 ington Macaulay, a conspicuous Politician, 
 Edinburgh-Reviewer, Rhetorician, and what 
 not, among us at present. The note is ad- 
 dressed to me : * the subject is perhaps worth 
 mentioning. An old foolish story circulates 
 concerning Oliver Cromwell: how when the 
 king, in 1647, was negotiating between the 
 Army and the Parliament, he had promised to 
 make Oliver an Earl and Knight of the Gar- 
 
 * We are enabled to give the said letter of Macaulay to Car- 
 lyle. 
 
 Albany : March 31, 1845. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I should be most happy to be of the smallest use 
 to you. But I fear that Mr. Mackintosh's memory has misled 
 him. He is under the impression that the famous saddle letter 
 got into Sir Edward Harley's hands, and that Sir Edward Har- 
 ley shewed it to Sir Harry Vane. This, he thought, was men- 
 tioned in the extracts which Sir James Mackintosh made from 
 the Welbeck papers. There certainly is among those extracts 
 a concise account of Sir Edward Harley's life by one of his 
 sons, but not a word touching the letter. In truth the story is 
 incredible. For Sir Edward was a strong Presbyterian, bitterly 
 hostile to the military Saints, and closely connected with Den- 
 zil Hollis. If Cromwell had found such a letter, the last man 
 to whom he would have given it would have been Harley ; and, 
 if Harley had got hold of such a letter, the last man to whom 
 he would have shown it would have been Vane. But I believe 
 the whole story of the letter to be a mere romance. 
 
 If you have the smallest curiosity to look over the Welbeck 
 papers or any other part of Sir James Mackintosh's collection, I 
 shall be truly glad to give you any help in my power. Mr. Mack- 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 309 
 
 ter ; how Oliver did not entirely believe him ; 
 got to understand that he was writing a letter 
 to his Queen, which was to go off on a certain 
 afternoon, sewed into the pannel of a saddle, 
 by a Courier from an Inn in London : how Oli- 
 ver thereupon, and his son-in-law, on that cer- 
 tain afternoon, disguised themselves as troopers^ 
 proceeded to the specified Inn, gave the Cou- 
 rier a cup of liquor, slit open the saddle, found 
 the Letter, and there read, — " Fear not, my 
 Heart ; the garter I mean to give him is a 
 hemp rope." Whereupon, etc. This story, 
 of which we have Oil Pictures, Engravings, 
 and a general ignorant believe current among 
 us, I have for a long time seen to be mere 
 Mythus ; and had swept it, with many other 
 such, entirely out of my head. But now a 
 benevolent gentleman writes to me that, for 
 certain, I shall get evidence about it, in Sir 
 James Mackintosh's papers, — sends me even a 
 
 intosh, I have no doubt, would permit me to send you any vol- 
 ume which you might have occasion to examine. I fear how- 
 ever that you would find little relating to times earlier than the 
 restoration. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, youi-s very truly, 
 
 T. B. Macaulay. 
 
 To the date of this letter Carlyle has written with pencil the 
 following note ;— - 
 
 " The Albany is a set of houses included within gates, within 
 regulations, — and all let as lodgings to opulent Bachelors here. 
 Old Indians^ official persons, and such like are to be found 
 there." 
 
310 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 long- memoir on the subject. Macaulay has Sir 
 James's Papers at present : I forward to Ma- 
 caulay the long memoir; requesting- him to 
 burn it, if, as I conclude, he has and can have 
 no evidence to confirm the story. This is his 
 answer. It is astonishing- what masses of dry 
 and wet rubbish do lie in one's way towards 
 the smallest particle of valuable truth on such 
 matters ! I was in Oliver's native region two 
 years ago ; and made sad reflections on the 
 nature of what we call " immortal fame " in 
 this world ! 
 
 Peel is considered to have done a great feat 
 in getting a Grant of Money (a much increased 
 Grant) for the Catholic College of Maynooth 
 in Ireland. I do not wonder your King is in 
 a great hesitation about setting up Parliaments 
 in Prussia. I would advise a wise man, in love 
 with things, and not in love with empty talk 
 about things, to come here and look first! 
 Adieu, my dear Sir, — in haste to-day. 
 Yours always truly, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 XII 
 
 Chelsea : juin 8, 1845. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I am still kept terribly busy 
 without leisure at anj hour : but no haste can 
 excuse my neglecting announce the safe. ar- 
 rival of your bounties, which arrive in swift 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 311 
 
 succession, and ought to be acknowledged in 
 word as well as thought. 
 
 The tiny Package of the Schiller Valuables 
 had survived without damage the hazards of its 
 long journey : it arrived here, after not much 
 delay, several weeks ago, — just as the Printing 
 of the Book was about completed : still in time. 
 We admire much the new Portrait of Schiller. 
 It was put at once into the hand of the Pub- 
 lisher; who with all alacrity, set about engag- 
 ing "the best Engraver," — whose name I do 
 not know ; whose quality I much insisted on ; 
 and whom, accordingly I suppose to be busy 
 with the operation even now. Hitherto I have 
 heard nothing farther ; my Publishers live far 
 off in the heart of the City and its noises ; and 
 all my locomotions at this period direct them- 
 selves towards the opposite quarter. But of 
 course I expect to see a Proof before they 
 publish : if the Artist do his duty, it will not 
 fail of welcome from all parties. I would 
 thank you and the kind Madame von Kalb ^ 
 for all your kindness : but you will not accept 
 . even of thanks. I suppose this must be the real 
 likeness of Schiller, in fact ; whosoever spreads 
 this abroad, to the gradual extrusion of the 
 others, is doing a good thing ! We have hung 
 
 * Fraulein von Kalb, who was, since the death of her mother 
 Charlotte von Stein, lady of honour at the court of Berlin. In 
 her possession was the miniature whose reproduction ornates 
 the second edition of Carlyle's Life of Friedrich Schiller, 
 
31^ 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 up the little Medallions on the wall, where they 
 shall many times remind us of you. 
 
 Your Life of Blucher came next; which 
 shall solace my earliest leisure; — and which in 
 the meanwhile does not lie idle, but gets itself 
 read with acceptance in the house. I for- 
 warded the copy to Mr. Lockhart : I had by 
 chance seen him the night before. He is not, 
 and has not been, so poorly in health as your 
 news had reported : a man of sharp humours, 
 of leasible nerves ; he complains somew^hat, 
 but is recovering ; — a tough, elastic man. It 
 is a strange element for a man, this town of 
 ours ; and the voice of what is called " Litera- 
 ture " in it gets more and more into the cate- 
 gory oi Jargon if you be a little in earnest in 
 this world ! Were there not something bet- 
 ter meant than all that is said, it were a very 
 poor affair indeed. " Verachtung, ja Nichtach- 
 tung " : that really is the rule for it. 
 
 My poor book on Cromwell will, if the Fates 
 permit, get itself disengaged from the Abysses 
 by and by. It is very torpid, after all that I 
 can do for it; but it is authentic, indisputable; 
 and earnest men may by patience spell out for 
 themselves the lineaments of a very grand 
 and now obsolete kind of man there ! What 
 else is the use of writing ? To explain and 
 encourage grand dumb acting, that is the 
 whole use of speaking, and Singing, and Liter- 
 aturing ! That or nearly so. Good be with 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 313 
 
 you, my dear Sir. With many thanks and re- 
 gards, Yours ever truly, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Chelsea: juin 13, 1S45. 
 
 My dear Sir, — This morning the Bookseller 
 called with a Proof of the " Engraving of 
 Schiller," and with this Autograph which he 
 has now done with. The Engraving seemed 
 to be tolerably good, but you will have an op- 
 portunity yourself of judging before long. As 
 to the Autograph, knowing its value I am im- 
 patient to get it returned ; and, on considering, 
 fancy that an instant despatch by the Post 
 may perhaps be the safest way : — however, I 
 will consider that farther ; at all events, I now 
 straightway seal it up with your address, that 
 it may be ready for whatever conveyance, and 
 in some sense off my hand. Our weather has 
 grown hot as Sahara ; my press of confused 
 business rolls along more bewildering than 
 ever, — and has to transact itself in this tumult 
 of tumults, as if a man should sit down to col- 
 lect his scattered thoughts in the inside of a 
 kettle-drum ! It will be over by and by. 
 
 Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle. 
 
 In great haste, — by a sure hand, the Herr 
 Plattnauer. This Saturday, 28 juin, 1845. 
 
 T. C. 
 
314 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 XIV 
 
 Chelsea, London : August 19, 1845. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Once more I am to trespass 
 on your good nature for a little bit of service 
 you can do me. A distinguished lady here, 
 the lady Harriet Baring, has seen lately, in the 
 house of some country friend, an Illustrated 
 Life of Frederick the Great,'^ ]w.^t imported from 
 Germany, a copy of which she is very desirous 
 to possess. It is " in one stout volume 8vo, 
 the woodcuts are beautiful " ; recently pub- 
 lished ; where, by whom, or of whose author- 
 ship I cannot tell ! This is somewhat like the 
 Interpreting of Nebukadnezzar's Dream, the 
 Dream itself not being given : however, I hope 
 your sagacity will be able to divine what is 
 meant. It is evidently some " Pracht-Buch " 
 for Drawing room Tables: ''Leben Friedrichs mit 
 Holzsclmitten " ; — the Woodcuts, moreover (or 
 perhaps they were not wood-cuts at all) were '' in 
 the manner of Ratsch." Does this define it 
 for you ? Wood-cuts or not, they were inter- 
 spersed among the Letterpress, — part of a page 
 printed, part engraved. 
 
 If you can find with certainty what Book 
 it is, and get me a Copy well bound, and send 
 
 * Evidently is meant Geschichte FHedrichs des Grossen. 
 Geschrieben von Franz Kugler. Gezeichnet von Adolf Menzel. 
 Leipzig, 1840. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 315 
 
 it over by the Berlin and Fleet-Street Book- 
 seller, I shall be really obliged. One might 
 have it bound here; but the foreign binding 
 will be more piquant. It should be done 
 anmuthig yet with much modesty : we will 
 trust to your taste for that. On the outside of 
 one of the boards (of course not on the bacH) 
 there should be legible, within a border, the 
 letters " H. M. B." (which mean Harriet Mon- 
 tague Baring) and " Addiscombe " (the place 
 of residence). These are rather singular duties 
 to impose upon you ! Nevertheless I will 
 trust to your goodness for doing them even 
 with pleasure. And pray observe farther : I 
 cannot consent to the operation at all unless 
 you leave the whole money part of it to be 
 settled by myself with the bookseller here ; 
 that is an absolute condition, a sine qua nojt. 
 
 Another lady has employed me in another 
 somewhat singular thing of the Book kind, — 
 which also, when your hand is in, I may as 
 well ask you to do. It is to send a copy of the 
 established " Domestic - Cookery Book" of 
 Germany ! We wish to see what the Germans 
 live upon ; and perhaps to make incidental ex- 
 periments of our own out of that. Any Gnd- 
 dige Frau acquainted with her duties will direct 
 you what the right Book is. It need not be 
 bound ; it is for use : to get the right Book is 
 the great point. I hope you w^ll so far ap- 
 prove this International Tendency, and new 
 
3i6 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 virtuosity on the part of high persons here, as 
 to lend due help in the matter ! '' Absolute 
 condition," or sine qua non as in the former 
 case. 
 
 I sent by a private hand, some two months 
 ago, a couple of Copies of Schiller s Life, with 
 the Autograph you had kindly lent me. My 
 Messenger reported that you were gone to 
 the baths ; where I suppose you still are. I 
 hope, well? 
 
 In November you will get CromweWs Let- 
 ters ; which I hope you will be able to read. 
 I have had a really frightful business of it 
 with that book, which grew in my hands into 
 rather unexpected shape ; — which still detains 
 me here, now that all the world has quitted 
 London. Accept many salutations and kind 
 wishes from 
 
 Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle. 
 
 XV 
 
 Chelsea : Octr. 22, 1845. 
 
 My dear Sir, — You have again, as you are 
 on all occasions doing, deserved many thanks 
 from me. The German Books, all right and 
 fit according to the requisition, were an- 
 nounced to me as safe arrived, three weeks 
 ago, while I was in Scotland on a visit to my 
 native place there. They were sent straight 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 317 
 
 to the fair hands to whom they now belonged ; 
 and due thanks, the real ownership of which 
 was yours, were paid me by return of Post. 
 The Friedrich der Grosse, I find, was perfectly 
 correct ; not less so, I will hope, the Geist der 
 Kochkmtst ! In fact you have very much 
 obliged me by your goodness in this matter ; 
 and now if the Bookseller v/ill send his ac- 
 count, it will complete the favour; and this 
 important little matter, m^ore important than 
 some greater ones, will be v/ell and kindly 
 finished. 
 
 A few days after I w^rote last, there came 
 to me, from Lewis, your Book on Hans von 
 Held. Lewis had been unwell ; had hoped 
 always to bring the Book, and never till then 
 decided on sending it. For this Book also I 
 will very heartily thank you. It is like a 
 Steel Engraving ; has vividly printed on my 
 mind the image of a Man and his Environ- 
 ment ; and in its hard outlines, bound up by 
 the rigours of History and Authenticity, one 
 traces indications enough of internal harmo- 
 ny and rhythm. As in the Tirynthian walls, 
 built of dry stone, it is said you may trace the 
 architectural tendencies that built a Parthenon 
 and an Iliad, of other materials ! I found much 
 to think of this life of Held : new curiosities 
 awakened as to Prussian life ; new intimation 
 that the soul of it as yet lay all dumb to us 
 English, perhaps to the Prussians themselves. 
 
3i8 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 They begin to seem to me a great People : a 
 kind of German-English, I sometimes call 
 them ; great dumb Titans, — like the other 
 Mecklenburger that have come to this side of 
 the Channel so long since. 
 
 In my Scotch reclusion I read Preuss's two 
 Books on " Friedrich," * which you sent me a 
 long time ago. The liveliest curiosity awoke 
 in me to know more and ever more about that 
 king. Certainly if there is a Hero for an Epic 
 in these ages, — and why should there not in 
 these ages as well as others, — then this is he ! 
 But he remains still very dark to me ; and 
 Preuss, tho' full of minute knowledge and 
 seemingly very authentic, is not exactly my 
 man for all purposes: In fact I could like 
 to know much more about this king ; and if 
 of your own knowledge, or with Herr Preuss' 
 help, you could at any time send me a few 
 names of likely Books on the subject, they 
 would not be lost upon me. 
 
 About the middle of next month the 
 Cromwell, which is waiting for a portrait, and 
 also for the return of London Population from 
 the Country, is to make its appearance; and 
 your Copy shall have the earliest conveyance 
 I can find. You will of course try to read it ; 
 
 * Friedrich der Grosse, eine Lebensgeschichte, Bd. 1-4 (Ber- 
 lin, T 832-4), QXid Friedrich der Grosse ah Schrif tste Her {Btrlm, 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 319 
 
 and if you can get across the rind of it, will 
 find somewhat to interest you. Gliick und 
 Segen always ! 
 
 Yours most trul}^, T. Carlyle. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Chelsea: Novr. 13, 1845. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Again accept many thanks 
 for your kind letter, for your kind punctuality 
 in sending me that little Note of Monies, which 
 completes our small book-operation, and per- 
 fects your service to me in regard to it. Here 
 is Bookseller Nutt's receipt for the amount; 
 and so we conclude with the Scotch wish on 
 glad occasions, " May never worse be among 
 us! " 
 
 Your commission for the Schiller Portraits 
 was very easily executed. I have made the 
 Bookseller send you six, that you might have 
 two still on hand, since four were already dis- 
 posed of : they are put into a copy of the little 
 book itself, and are to leave London, by Nutt's 
 Parcel, on Tuesday next, four days hence. I 
 hope they will come all right ; and be a mo- 
 mentary pleasure to your friends and you. I 
 have not been able to see them myself; but 
 Chapman the Bookseller is a punctual man. 
 About the beginning of December he will 
 send you by the same conveyance, a copy of 
 the Cromwell : a rather bungling Engraver is 
 
320 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 busy with a Portrait of the old Puritan Hero, 
 — which I am somewhat afraid he will spoil. 
 Our Artists are, for most part, properly Me- 
 chanics ; and excel, if at all, only in that latter 
 department ! 
 
 We have Preusss big book in our library 
 here, tho' not quite accessible at present. I 
 design to consult it and others by and by. 
 Archenholz'^ is an old friend of mine; the first 
 book I ever read in German, — many years ago 
 now ! — By the way, would you on some good 
 occasion send me a complete list of all your 
 writings? We have most of them here in 
 our London Library, a favourite reading for 
 all manner of intelligent men and women : but 
 I think they are hardly all here, and we ought 
 to have them all. Pray do not forget this. — I 
 have lately been reading Biilow-Cammerow f 
 on Prussia : a somewhat commonplace, long- 
 winded, watery man : out of whom, however, 
 I glean some glimpses of Prussian life, which 
 are very strange to me. Almost the converse 
 of ours ; full of struggle, full of energy and 
 difficulty ; so like and so unlike ! 
 
 * Geschichte des siebenjdhrigen Krieges^ von F. W. von 
 Archenholz, published first in Berliner historishes Jahrbuch of 
 1789. 
 
 \ Preussen, seine Verfassung, seine Verwaliung sein Verhalt- 
 niss zu Deutschland, von Ernst Gottfried Georg von Biilow- 
 Cummerow. The book M'as pubHshed 1842, first gift of the 
 liberty of censorship, afforded by cabinet's order of the 4 Octo- 
 ber, 1842, to books above 320 pages. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 321 
 
 Our wanderings here are not yet concluded. 
 The day after to-morrow we go down to the 
 Sea-Coast in Hampshire, for a week or two of 
 winter sunshine, and the sight of kind friends, 
 in a climate much superior to London at this 
 season. One of our gracious Hosts is the Lady 
 to whom that Friedrich Book of Prints you 
 sent us has gone. — I should have told you long 
 since that my Wife made friendship with Miss 
 Wynne, of whom we hope to see more in time 
 coming. 
 
 And now for the present, Farewell. I will 
 wish strength and good-speed ; courageous 
 resistance to the Winter, and to all other ene- 
 mies and obstacles, of which a man finds al- 
 ways enough ! 
 
 With true regard yours always, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Chelsea, London : Deer. 16, 1846. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Yesterday there went from 
 Mr. Nutt's shop, imbedded, I suppose, in a 
 soft mass of English Literature, — a small box 
 bearing your address ; which I hope may reach 
 you safely, in time for a New-year's remem- 
 brance of me. It is a model of the Tomb of 
 Shakespeare, done by one ingenuous little artist 
 here ; which may perhaps interest you or some 
 of your friends, for a moment. I understand 
 
322 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 the likeness in all respects to be nearly perfect, 
 — which indeed is the sole merit of such a 
 thing ; — a perfect copy of the old monument, 
 as it stands within Stratford Church for these 
 two centuries and more : — only with regard to 
 that part of the Inscription, " Sweet friends, 
 for Jesus' sake," etc. to these lines, which in 
 the model have found room for themselves 
 directly u7tder the Figure of Shakespeare, you 
 are to understand that, in the original, they lay 
 on the floor of the Church, some three feet in 
 advance of the Figure ; in fact, covering the 
 dust of the Poet; the Figure itself standing, 
 at the head of the grave, against the wall. — 
 And so enough of it ; and may the poor little 
 Package arrive safe, and kindly bring me be- 
 fore you again ! — 
 
 I have been silent this long while, only 
 hearing of you from third parties ; the more is 
 the pity for me. In fact, I have not been well ; 
 travelling, too, in Scotland, in Ireland ; much 
 tumbled about by manifold confusions out- 
 ward and inward ; and have, on the whole, 
 been silent to all the world ; silent till clearer 
 days should come. I have still no fixed work ; 
 nothing in the dark chaos that it could seem 
 beautiful to conquer and do; — no work to write 
 at ; and as for reading, alas that has become, 
 and is ever more becoming, a most sorry busi- 
 ness for me ; and often enough I feel as if 
 Caliph Omar, long ago, was pretty much in 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 323 
 
 the right after all ; as if there might be worse 
 feats than burning whole continents of rhe- 
 torical, logical, historical, philosophical jangle, 
 and insincere obsolete rubbish, out of one's 
 way ; and leaving some living God's-message, 
 real Koran or " Thing worth reading," in its 
 stead ! These are my heterodoxies, my para- 
 doxes of which too I try to know the limits. 
 But in very deed I do expect from the region 
 of Silence some salvation for myself and others ; 
 not from the region of Speech, of written or 
 Oral Babblement, unless that latter very much 
 alter soon ! Cant has filled the whole uni- 
 verse, — from Nadir up to Zenith, — God de- 
 liver us ! 
 
 Preuss's Friedrich has not yet reached 
 hither, except thro* private channels ; but I 
 mean to make an effort for sight of it by and 
 by. I have the old CEuvres de Frederic beside 
 me here ; but without chronology and perpet- 
 ual commentary they are entirely illegible. — 
 Zinzendorf * received long since, and read : 
 thanks ! 
 
 Yours ever truly, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 * Varnhagen von Ense, Leben des Graf en von Zinzendorf in 
 the 5tli volume of the Biographische Denkmale, 1830. 
 
324 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Chelsea, London : March 3, 1847. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Some ten days ago your 
 new volume of Denkwurdigkeiteii was safely 
 handed in to me ; I fancy it must have been 
 delayed among the ices of the Elbe, for the 
 note accompanying it bears date a good 
 while back. Thanks for this new kindness : a 
 valued Gift, to be counted with very many 
 other which I now owe to you. — Some time be- 
 fore, there had arrived your announcement 
 that the little Tomb of Shakespeare had made its 
 v/ay across the impediments and, v/hat was 
 very welcome to me, that you meant to show 
 it to Herr Tick. Surely, there is no man in 
 all the v/orld that deserves better to see it! 
 Will you say to him, if he knov/s my name at 
 all, that I send him my affectionate respects 
 and salutations ; that, for the last twenty years 
 and m.ore, he has flourished always in my mind 
 as a true noble '' Singing-Tree " in that Ger- 
 man land of Phantasus and Poesisy that I, and 
 very many here, still listen to him with the 
 friendliest regards, with true love and rever- 
 ence, and bid him live long as a veteran very 
 precious to us. Your king did no act that got 
 him more votes from the instructed part of 
 this Community, than that of his recalling Tiek 
 in the way he did, to a country where he was 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 325 
 
 indeed unique, and which had good reason to 
 be proud of him. 
 
 I have read the new volume of Denkzvilrdig- 
 keiten ; and am veritably called to thank you, 
 not in my private capacity alone, but as a speak- 
 er for the Public withal. If the Public thought 
 as I do on such matters, — that is to say, if the 
 Public were not more or less a blockhead — the 
 Public would say to itself, " This is the kind of 
 thing that before all others is good for me at 
 present ! This, to give me an account of memo- 
 rable actions and events, in more and more 
 compact, intelligent, illuminative form, evolving 
 for me more and more the real essence of said 
 actions and events, — this is Literature, Art, 
 Poetry, or what name you like to give it ; this 
 is the real problem the writing -man has to 
 solve for me, at present." Truly if I had com- 
 mand over you, I should say, " Memoirs, and 
 ever new Memoirs ! " There are no books 
 that give me so lively an impression of mod- 
 ern Facts as this of yours do. Withal I get a 
 view as if into the very heart of Prussia thro' 
 them ; which also is highly valuable to me. I 
 can only bid yow persevere, give us what is pos- 
 sible ; and must reflect with regret that one 
 man's capabilities in such respect are limited 
 and not unlimited. — Last week too I have read, 
 with the liveliest interest, your book on Blil- 
 cher, which I had not sufficiently studied before. 
 A Capital Book ; a capital rough old Prussian 
 
326 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 Mastiff set forth to us there ! I seem to see 
 old Bliicher face to face ; recognise his su- 
 preme and indispensable worth in that vast 
 heterogeneous Combination, — which also to 
 him was indispensable; for in a common ele- 
 ment, one sees, he might very easily have 
 spent himself, as hundreds like him have done, 
 to comparatively small purpose ; but that huge 
 inert mass was always there to fall back upon, 
 to be excited and ever anew excited, till it also 
 had to kindle and flame along with him. 
 " Kerle, Ihr sehet aits wie Sehweine! " and then 
 these scenes, as at Katztadt, " Napoleon just 
 behind me, say j^ou ? " or to the enthusiastic 
 Public on the streets of Halberstadt, " So mogt 
 Ihrdennalle — / " — I have laughed aloud at such 
 naiveties, every time they have come into my 
 mind since. Thanks again and again for paint- 
 ing us such pictures, a real possession for all 
 men. 
 
 Probably you are aware there is a kind of 
 translation going on for your Works, for our 
 behoof, at present? One Murray, a principal 
 Bookseller here, has decided on picking out 
 two volumes from you, for a Series of Books 
 (" Home and Colonial Library," or some such 
 name) which he is going on with, in these years. 
 The Translator is of the Austin Firm, which 
 is partly known to you ; — respectable, he and 
 his Enterprize, and to be welcomed in the 
 meanwhile ; but I cannot but heartily wish he 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 1^7 
 
 and his party had let the matter alone ; for 
 precisely in those days I had in private set 
 another young man, of much superior talent, 
 upon the same adventure, and had got a book- 
 seller too — when this announcement of the 
 Murrays and Austins brought us to a sudden 
 stop. Meanwhile, as I say, the thing is not to 
 be regretted ; the thing is to be welcomed in 
 its place and time ; wall do good in the mean- 
 while, and prepare us by and by for better. 
 
 Of my own affairs I can report no alteration 
 hitherto. I remain contentedly idle ; shall 
 doubtless feel a call to work again by and 
 by, but wait tmbeschretblich ruhig (as Attila 
 Schmelze* has it) for that questionable con- 
 summation ! I am very serious in my ever- 
 deepening regard for the " Silences " that are 
 in our Existence, quite unheeded in these poor 
 days ; and do, for myself, regard Book-writing 
 in such a time as but a Pis-aller, With which 
 nevertheless one must persevere ! Adieu, my 
 dear Sir ; enliven me soon by another letter. 
 Yours ever, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 * Des Feldpredigers Schmelze Reise nach Fldtz mit fortge hen- 
 den Noten; nebst der Beichte des Teufels bei einem Staatsmanne, 
 Von Jean Paul, i8og. The little book seems to have been much 
 in favour in Carlyle's house, for also his wife alludes to it in a let- 
 ter written from Liverpool the 23rd July, 1845. Above the date 
 she writes : " First day in Flatz " (cf. Letters and Memorials of 
 Jane Welsh Carlyle, vol. i. p. 310). 
 
328 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 XIX 
 
 Chelsea, London : Nov, 5, 1847. 
 
 My dear Sir, — It is a long time since I heard 
 from you ; a long time since I wrote to you, — 
 a still longer indeed ; so that, however I may 
 regret, there is no room for complaining : it is 
 my own blame ! Your last letter found me in 
 Yorkshire ; wandering about the country, as I 
 long continue to do, in the brightest Autumn 
 weather ; I did not get the Schiller book * into 
 actual possession till my return home, some 
 little while ago ; when I found there had a 
 second volume also arrived. Many kind thanks 
 to you for such a Gift. For its own worth, 
 and for sake of the Giver, it is right welcome 
 to me. I finished the second volume last night ; 
 my most interesting book for many months 
 past : in great haste, I send you forthwith a 
 word of hasty acknowledgement ; — in great 
 eagerness for the Sequel too ! The book does 
 not say who is Editor ; have not You yourself 
 perhaps some hand in it? Whoever the Ed- 
 itor may be, the whole world is bound to thank 
 him. Never before did one see Schiller ; the 
 authentic homely Prose Schiller, out of whom 
 the Hero Schiller as seen in Poetry and on the 
 Public Stage hitherto, had to fashion himself 
 
 * ^chiW.Qx's Briefwechs el mit /Corner y whose first edition was 
 then published. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 329 
 
 and grow ! And truly, as you say, they are 
 one and the same. For the veracity, and real 
 unconscious manliness of this poor hungry 
 Schiller of Prose, fighting his battle Avith the 
 confusion of the world, are everywhere admi- 
 rable. No cant in him, no weak sentimentalism ; 
 he has recognised the rugged fact in all its 
 contradictoriness ; looks round, with rapid 
 eager eye, upon his various milk -cows of 
 finance, " This one will yield me so much, that 
 so much, and I shall get thro* after all ! " — and 
 is climbing tov/ards the Ideal, all the while, by 
 an impulse as if from the Gods. Throughout 
 I recollected that Portrait you sent me ; with 
 its big jaws, loose lips, hasty eager eyes, — all 
 as in loose onset and advance, " Forward ! 
 Forward ! " Poor Schiller, there is some- 
 thing that one loves extremely in that ragged 
 careless aspect of him ; true to the very heart : 
 a veritable Brother and Man ! Korner too I 
 hear universally recognised as a TOchtiger ; 
 full of sense, of friendly candour and fidelity: 
 it is rarely that one reads such a Correspond- 
 ence between two modern men. Thanks to 
 you all for giving it to us ; thanks to yoti indi- 
 vidually for sending it me at once. 
 
 I would fain send you some news of myself ; 
 but alas, that is a very waste Chapter, not fit 
 for entering upon, to-day ! I have no work 
 on hand that can be named ; I feel only that 
 the whole world of England, of Europe, 
 
330 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 grows daily full of new meanings, which it well 
 beseems all persons of intelligence to try if 
 they can read and speak. For the rest, I am 
 very solitary; by choice and industry, keep 
 solitary : the world here, especially the world 
 of " Literature " so called, is not my world. 
 In fact I begin very greatly to despise the 
 thing they call " Literature," — and to envy the 
 active ages that had none of it. A waste sea 
 of vocables : what salvation is there in that ? 
 Ranke's failure* does not surprise me: If I 
 were a Prussian, even a German, I would 
 decidedly try Friedrich. Adieu my dear Sir: 
 be kind and write again soon. 
 
 Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle. 
 
 XX 
 
 Chelsea: Deer. 2g, 1848. 
 
 My dear Sir, — It is a long sad time since I 
 have written to you, or could expect to hear 
 any word directly from you : for indeed I have 
 been, and still am, in an altogether inarticulate 
 condition ; writing to nobody ; in the highest 
 degree indisposed to writing or uttering of 
 myself in any kind ! You do not doubt but 
 
 * The Neun Biicher preussischer Geschichte^ which were 
 published 1847 and which, at the time of their first appearance, 
 underwent a most unfavourable critique by many parts. Cf. the 
 disapproving judgment of Varnhagen in Brief e Vamhagens an 
 eine Freundin, Hamburg, i860, p. 70 sq. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 331 
 
 many kind thoughts and remembrances have 
 crossed the sea to you, all this while : nor do 
 we want evidence of the like on your part; 
 nay, from Miss Wynn and otherwise, we have 
 pretty accurately known how you were going 
 on, and have generally had some image of you 
 kept lurid and vivid in our circle here. For- 
 give my silence — silence is not good altogether, 
 when there are kind hearts that will listen and 
 reply ! The advent of the New Year admon- 
 ishes me that I should open my leaden lips, and 
 speak 07ice more, — were it but as Odin's Proph- 
 etess, from the belly of the Grave ! In the 
 language of the season, I wish you a right 
 brave New Year, and as many of them as your 
 heart can still victoriously port in such a 
 world. Courage ! En avant! I will start up 
 too, some day, and march along with you 
 again, I doubt not. 
 
 Some weeks ago your little Pamphlet on 
 the question of German Unity {Schlichte Redeti) 
 came to me, a welcome little word, which I 
 read with entire assent. This was your mes- 
 sage hitherward ; and now, the other day, I 
 despatched for you a little old Book of mine 
 which they have been republishing here ; — a 
 book of no moment ; which probably you 
 already have received : let this be a small 
 memento from me, when you look upon it. 
 Whether I shall ever write another book in 
 this world has often seemed uncertain to me 
 
332 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 of late ; but I believe I shall have to try it 
 again before long, or else do worse ! 
 
 What a year we have had since February 
 last ! The universal breaking down of old 
 rotten thrones, and bursting up of street-barri- 
 cades ; enfuriated Sansculottism everywhere 
 starting up, and glaring like a world-basilisk 
 into the empty V/an-VVmi that pretended to be 
 a god to it. " What art thou, accursed con- 
 temptibility of a Wan-Wan? " — It is to me the 
 most sordid, scandalous and dismal sight the 
 world ever offered in my time ; and if there 
 v^rere not in the dark womb of that " abomina- 
 tion of desolation " a ray of eternal light for 
 me, I should think (like poor Niebuhr) the uni- 
 verse was going out, and pray for my own 
 share, '^ From me hide it." But withal I dis- 
 cern well, none more loyally. It is a sacred 
 phenomenon, a fulfilment of the eternal proph- 
 ecies, the beginning of a new birth of the 
 world. A general " bankruptcy of Imposture " 
 (so I define it) ; Imposture, long known by the 
 wise for what it was, is now known and de- 
 clared for such to the foolish at the market- 
 cross, and admits openly that it is a bankrupt 
 piece of scandalising and requests only time to 
 gather up its rags, and walk away unhanged. 
 How can I lament at this? Dismal, abomina- 
 ble as the sight is, I cannot but intrinsically 
 rejoice at it. And yet what a Future lies 
 before us, for centuries to come, — if we 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 333 
 
 had any thought within us, which very few 
 have. 
 
 The feeling here among considerate persons 
 is, that Germany, in spite of all the explosions 
 of nonsense we have seen, will certainly re- 
 cover some balance ; and march like a brave 
 country, — not towards Chaos, as some others 
 seem to do ! We can understand that it is all 
 the dirty^ the foul and mutinous folly that 
 comes first to the top : but Germany deceives 
 us all if there be not abundant silent heroic 
 faculty in the heart of it ; — and indeed it is to 
 England and Deutschland that the Problem 
 seems to me now to have fallen : and a dread- 
 ful Problem it is, — ?;zsoluble by the Southern 
 genius, as we see, God assist us all ! 
 I am ever your affectionate Friend, 
 
 T. Carlyle, 
 
 Goethe and the Frau von Stein : but that de- 
 serves a chapter by itself ! I read yoiir copy. 
 With pleasant wonder, which has not yet sub- 
 sided into clear appreciation.^ 
 
 * Goethes Briefe an Fran von Steift, herausgegeben von 
 Adolf Scholl, 1848-51. In the same time Carlyle wrote about 
 this book to his friend, often mentioned in these letters, Miss 
 Carlotte Williams Wynn : — " I have read little yet — Gcethe is 
 quite Wertherian — and the Frau von Stein, a consummate flirt, 
 seems to have led an edifying life, — what did the poor Herr von 
 Stein say to it?" " This is a coarse view," says Miss Wynn in 
 her letter to Varnhagen, to whom she communicates it, " but so 
 like Carlyle that I give it." 
 
334 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 [There is a '' Memorandum " joined to this 
 letter, on a particular bit of paper :] 
 
 My wife, for above a year past, is acquainted 
 with your works done on paper by the scissors ; 
 works that fill the female fingers with despair, 
 — the female heart with desire to possess for 
 itself a few specimens. Can you kindly think 
 of this, some after-dinner ? — T. C. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Chelsea : Deer. 24, 1850. 
 
 My dear Sir, — At the winter solstice, when 
 Christmas Carols are about breaking out, and 
 men are remembering old friends, I again 
 write to you. For many months past, I have 
 been too sickly and dispirited to write to any 
 one ; indeed, of late, the burden of life falls so 
 heavy on me, and things in this strange epoch 
 are so intricate around and in me, I feel it kind 
 of necessity to hold my peace, and contemplate 
 the Inextricable without attempting to name it 
 at all. I do confidently hope to reacquire the 
 use of speech, and with it much human joy at 
 present very much forborne : — in the mean- 
 while I can say : old friends are only the more 
 dear "and sacred to me that I have to look at 
 them as if I were already in Hades, — as if they 
 and I had no portion but in Eternity, and our 
 speech to one another, for the present, were as 
 that of Gods, a mute symbolical one ! Perhaps 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 335 
 
 you understand all this, out of your own ex- 
 perience too ; at any rate, I know you will for- 
 give it, and look kindly on it as you do on all 
 things. 
 
 We regularly hear of you thro' Miss Wynne 
 and otherwise ; we had Berlin visitors not long 
 since, and looked direct upon faces that had 
 lately looked on you. Many kind and pleasant 
 messages have we had, and none that was not 
 kind and pleasant, from Herrn Varnhagen ; for 
 all which, accept gratitude if we have nothing 
 better ! — The other evening Miss Wynne was 
 with us ; and we hoped to have persuaded her 
 again to-morrow ; but she decides to pass this 
 Christmas day, the first after her Father's 
 death, in solitude and silence. Which also we 
 reckon to be good. — You v/ill be rejoiced to 
 learn that, since this final consummation and 
 winding up of her many toils and sorrows, her 
 health appears decidedly to begin improving ; 
 and friends look forward Avith assurance 
 towards better days for this excellent and 
 amiable person. Of Milnes,* Bolte,t etc. I say 
 nothing ; for I suppose you hear of them much 
 oftener than I do, at this season of the year. 
 
 But let me state my special errand before 
 my paper end. I have a favour to ask on this 
 occasion ; and I know you will do in it for me 
 
 * Monckton Milnes, afterwards (since 1863) Lord Houghton. 
 
 f The lately (November 1891) deceased German authoress 
 
 Amely Bolte, who, while she lived in London, frequented much 
 
336 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 what you can, — my only apprehension is that 
 you put yourself about to do more. Beware of 
 that latter extreme ; and hear in brief what the 
 matter is. A certain Herr Neuberg '^ who has 
 lived long in England, and has now revisited 
 Germany (a VVurtemberger, I think), is resident 
 at Bonn this winter ; and I think meditates 
 some journey to Berlin soon. He is a man of 
 unostentatious but truly superior character ; 
 a most pious, clear, resolute, modest and 
 earnest man ; with excellent insights and facul- 
 ties ; well acquainted both with our literature 
 and yours, and indeed knows England and 
 English affairs better probably than any 
 stranger you have met. This Neuberg, who 
 was twenty years a merchant in this country, 
 and then, finding himself possessed of a com- 
 petence and totally without enthusiasm for 
 
 Carlyle and his wife. Engaged by Carlyle to gather autographs 
 for Varnhagen, she was in correspondence with this latter since 
 1844, ^^^ has, after his death, published his letters to her in a 
 book entitled Varnhagens Briefe an cine Freundi?t, Leipzig, 
 i860. Carlyle devotes to her in a note to the Letters and 
 Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle a. characteristic not altogether 
 flattering : " This was a bustling, shifty little German governess, 
 who, in a few years, managed to pick up some modicum of 
 money here, and then retired with it to Dresden, wholly devot- 
 ing herself to literature." More mildly judged his wife about 
 her, in a letter written to him August 13, 1843 : " In the even- 
 ing I had Miss Bolte till after tea . . . she is really a fine 
 manly little creature, with a deal of excellent sense, and not 
 without plenty of German enthusiasm, for all so humdrum as 
 she looks." (Vol. i. p. 234 s^.) 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 337 
 
 more, decided to give up business, and live 
 henceforth among intellectual objects, — ap- 
 pears to have produced some small volume for 
 the Press (I think it consists mainly of transla- 
 tions from me, upon the subject of Work) ; and 
 this chiefly is his errand to Berlin at present. 
 In which matter it is naturally clear to him of 
 how much service you, whose works, qualities 
 and position are well known to him as to every- 
 one, might be ; wherefore he modestly insinu- 
 ates, not a request, but a hint or wish that I 
 would introduce him. Being a man whom I 
 so much esteem, and who has really so much 
 sense and practicality, and deserves so much 
 esteem, there is no refusing him this favour : 
 accordingly, either by post from Bonn, or more 
 probably direct from hand in Berlin, you will 
 likely soon receive a card of mine introducing 
 Neuberg and his little errand ; whom I will 
 only ask you to receive for my sake and to 
 treat farther according as the circumstances 
 seem to yourself to direct. His Manuscript, I 
 believe, is of no great length, and will probably 
 be very clearly written : if you pleased to run 
 your eye over it, and give him any advice, he 
 
 * Joseph Neuberg, bom 1806 at Wiirzburg (not a Wurtem- 
 berger therefore, but a Bavarian), died 1867, friend of Carlyle, 
 translated Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History, and 
 the first four volumes of Fnedrich II. into German, and 
 gathered out of his works Beitrdge zum Evangelium der Arbeit. 
 Cf. about him the Deutsche Rundschau, 1884, vol. xli. p. 144 
 
338 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 would be very grateful for it (as should I), and 
 would receive it with a truly intelligent and 
 modest mind. But, once more, let this "be, I 
 entreat you, just as the case directs ; for neither 
 N. nor I will be so unfair as to make an}^ re- 
 quest about it, or entertain any expectation 
 upon it. With regard to the man himself, I 
 much mistake if you do not find him a rather 
 pleasant incidental acquaintance, with conver- 
 sation which will entertain you well on various 
 subjects ; — and as such I will beg you to wel- 
 come him ; leaving the rest to follow, or not 
 to follow, as the lav/ of the phenomenon pre- 
 scribes. 
 
 And so adieu, my dear Sir ; with many 
 wishes and regards, suitable at this season and 
 at all seasons. I hope to write again, about 
 many other more interesting matters ; I even 
 hope to hear from you again. We are full 
 of " Papal Aggression," " Crystal Palace,'* and 
 other nonsense of which I say nothing just 
 now. Yours ever truly, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Chelsea: Octr. 29, 1851. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Mr. Neuberg intimates to 
 me, the other night, that he is about returning 
 to Germany, probably to Berlin among other 
 places, and that he will take charge of any 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 339 
 
 packet of " Autographs " or other small ware, 
 which I may have to send you. By way of 
 acknowledgement for your great kindness to 
 Neuberg, if not for infinitely more solid rea- 
 son, I ought to rouse myself, and constitute 
 him my mesenger on this occasion! He is 
 deeply sensible of your goodness to him ; and 
 surely so am I, to whom it is not the first nor 
 the hundred-and-first example of your dis- 
 position in that respect. Many thanks I give 
 you always, whether I express them in words 
 or do not at all express them. This I believe 
 you know ; and so we need not say more of 
 it at present. 
 
 There were other letters I had laid up for 
 you ; w^hich seem, in some household earth- 
 quake to have been destroyed, at least they 
 are undiscoverable now when I search for 
 them ; but by the present sample I think you 
 will infer that they were not good for much, 
 — hardly one or two by persons of any note or 
 singularity, whom you are not already ac- 
 quainted with, so far as handwriting can bring 
 acquaintance : such were those now fallen 
 aside, such are these now sent ; if they yield 
 you a moment's amusement in your solitude, 
 and kindly bring you in mind of a friendly 
 hand far away, they will do all the function 
 they are fit for. About a fortnight ago I 
 despatched, without any letter enclosed, a 
 volume I have been publishing lately, Biog- 
 
340 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 raphy of a deceased Friend of mine.* This 
 also I hope you have got, or will soon get, 
 and may derive a little pleasure from. It will 
 give you a kind of glimpse into modern English 
 life ; and may suggest reflexions and considera- 
 tions which, to a humajt reader like yourself, 
 are not without value. I wrote it last sum- 
 mer when we were all in Babel uproar with 
 the thing they called " Crystal Palace," — such 
 a gathering of jubilant Windbeutelm from all 
 the four corners of the world as was never let 
 loose on our poor city before ! — in which sad 
 circumstances all serious study was as good 
 as impossible ; and, not to go quite out of pa- 
 tience, one had to resolve on doing something 
 that did not need study. Thank the gods, we 
 are now rid of that loud delirium, of street- 
 cabs, stump oratory, and general Hallelujah 
 to the Prince of the Power of the Air,- — what 
 I used to call the '' Wind-diisUry of all Nations ; " 
 — and may the angry Fates never send the 
 like of it again in my time ! 
 
 In the end of July I ran off to tr}^ a month 
 of Water Cure^ which has done me no ill, and 
 not traceably very much good ; after which I 
 went to my native region in Scotland, then to 
 Lancashire etc. on my way homewards, nay was 
 even a week in Paris ; f — and at last, for a 
 
 * The Life of John Stirling (185 1). 
 
 f Carlyle's journal of this journey is published lately (1891) 
 in the New Review; "Excursion (futile enough) to Paris: 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 341 
 
 month past, am safe at my own hearth again, 
 beautifully silent in this deserted season of the 
 Town-year; and on the whole am much more 
 content with my lot than I have been in the 
 past noisy months. Silence, solitude : I find 
 this withal an indispensable requisite in life for 
 every faithful man ; and have often thought of 
 ancient oriental Ramadhan etc. with a real re- 
 gret, and pity for the modern generation. No 
 devout mortal but will long to be alone from 
 time to time ; left utterly to himself and the 
 dumb universe, that he may listen to the 
 Eternal voices withal, that the whirhvinds of 
 dusty terrestrial nonsense may from time to 
 time precipitate themselves a little. 
 
 What my next task is to be? That is the 
 question ! If I were a brave Prussian, I believe I 
 should forthwith attempt some Picture of Fried- 
 rich the Great, the last real king that we have 
 had in Europe, — a long Avay till the next, I fear — 
 and nothing but sordid loud anarchy //// the 
 next. But I am English, admonished towards 
 England ; — and Friedrich, too, is sure enough 
 to be known in time without aid of mine. — 
 And so I remain in suspense ; have however 
 got Preuss' big book, and decide to read that 
 again very soon. I am much at a loss for maps 
 and good topographies on that subject : if you 
 could select me a very recommendable name 
 
 Autumn 1851 : Thrown on paper, when galloping, from Satur- 
 day to Tuesday, October 4-7." 
 
342 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 
 
 or two, it might be of real help. We have 
 huge map-dealers here, a wilderness of wares : 
 and can get any Germ.an thing at once, if we 
 will know which. Item, I have been reading 
 again (for curiosity merely) about Catharine 
 II.: — you who know Russian might guide me 
 a little there too. Catharine is a most remark- 
 able woman ; — and we are to remember that, 
 if she had been a 7na7i (as Francis I., Henry 
 IV., etc.), how much of the scandal attached 
 to her name would at once fall away. Doubt- 
 less you have read Kropomisky's Tagebuch : is 
 it good for anything ? Are there no Histories 
 but Castera's and Took's ? Any news on that 
 subject would be welcome too, some time 
 when you are benevolent to me. Adieu, my 
 dear Sir, and do not forget me !■ — 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 Vv^e have lost Miss Wynne's latitude and 
 longitude in these her travels. If she comes 
 to Berlin, remind her punctually of that fact. 
 — Milnes, as you perhaps know, is at last 
 wedded ; just returning from his marriage- 
 jaunt : a very eligible wife he got. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 , Chelsea, London: June 6, 1852, 
 
 My dear Sir, — Since you last heard of me 
 I have been reading and inquiring not a little 
 about Frederick the Great; and have often 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 343 
 
 had it in view to write to you, but was always 
 driven back by the vague state of my affairs 
 in that quarter. For all is yet vague ; I may 
 say chaotic, pathless ; — and on the whole, my 
 studies (if they deserve that name) have hith- 
 erto served less to afford me direct vision on 
 the subject, than to shew what darkness still 
 envelopes it for me. Books here are pretty 
 abundant upon Frederick, for he has always 
 been an object of interest to the English ; but 
 on the whole not the right Books, — the right 
 Books, materials and helps are not accessible 
 here, and indeed do not exist here even if one 
 could (which I cannot) sit in the British Mu- 
 seum to read them. On the other hand, im- 
 portation of books from German}^, I find, is 
 untolerably tedious and uncertain : — in that, I 
 have to admit that my real progress, in pro- 
 portion to my labour, is quite mournfully 
 small ; and after struggling with so many dull 
 reporters, Preiiss (in all forms), Ranke, Frcddric 
 (OEuvres de,' in two editions), Voltaire, Lloyd 
 (Tempelhof* still unattainable), y^;;^2>2/, ^r^/2- 
 enhoh, Retzow, not to speak of Zimmer7nanny 
 Nicolai, Denina^ etc., " reporters " enough, — I 
 
 * Lloyd's History of the Late War in Germany between the 
 I'Cing of Prussia a?id the Empress of Germany and her Allies, 
 containing " reflections on the general principles of war . . ." 
 London, 1781-g, was published in a German translation 1783- 
 1801 by Tempelhof, whose notes became the principal source for 
 Archenholtz's History of the Seven Years^ War, 
 
344 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 find the thing reported of still hovering at an 
 immeasurable distance, and only revealing it- 
 self to me in fitful enigmatic glimpses, not 
 quite identical with any of the "reports" I 
 have heard ! — Add to which, I have no definite 
 literary object of my own in viev/, to animate 
 me in this inquiries ; nothing but a natural 
 human curiosity, and love of the Heroic, in 
 the absence of other livelier interests from 
 my sphere of work at present : you may fig- 
 ure I have not been a very victorious labourer 
 for the last seven or eight months. 
 
 Nevertheless, I decidedly grow in love for 
 my Hero, and go on ; and can by no means 
 decide to throw him up at this stage of the in- 
 quiry. That I should ever write anj^thing on 
 F^^ seems more and more unlikely ; but per- 
 haps it would be good that my readmg upon 
 him, which has been a kind of intermitting 
 pursuit with me all my life, should now finish 
 and complete itself at last. Accordingly friend 
 Neuberg, I believe, has now another small 
 cargo of Books on the road for me ; nay other 
 wider schemes of inquiry are opening: one 
 way or other, I suppose, I ought to play the 
 game out. 
 
 From Raymann's Kreiskarten, and Stieler's 
 maps, joined to an invaluable old Busching'^ 
 which has come to me, I get, or can get fair 
 
 * Anton Friedrich Busching, the establisher of the poUtical- 
 statistical method of geography. His principal work, Neue 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 345 
 
 help towards all manner of topography : on the 
 other hand, I greatly want some other kind of 
 Book or Books which should give me with the 
 due minuteness and due indubit ability a correct 
 basis of Chronology ; in all former inquiries, I 
 had some Contemporary set of Newspapers, 
 Analyse du Moniteur^ Commons Journals^ private 
 Diary or the like, to serve me in this respect ; 
 but here I have yet found nothing, and do 
 much want something, the result being always 
 an indispensable one with me, and preliminary 
 to all other results. Had faithful Preuss done 
 the GEuvres de F"^ according to what I think 
 the right plan, all would have been safe in this 
 particular, in the hands of so exact a man : but 
 unfortunately he has looked on F<='s works as 
 literature (which they hardly are, or not at all 
 are) and not as Autobiographic Documents of 
 a World-Hero (which is their real character) ; 
 and their tying up every little ounce-weight of 
 different ware into a bundle of his own, — we 
 have a most perverse regularity of method; the 
 book, in spite of its painful unrememberable 
 annotations, very often unintelligible to the 
 earnest reader ; not to be read in any way ex- 
 cept with all the volumes about you at once ; 
 and yielding at last a result which is quite be- 
 wildering, — not a living hero and the shadow 
 
 Erdbesch^'eibung, of which he has written himself the first eleven 
 volumes, — that is to say Europe and a part of Asia, in the years 
 1754-92 — v/as continued after his death. 
 
346 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 of his history, but the disjecta membra of him 
 and it. From these CEuvres, were they even 
 completed, there will be no Chronology easily 
 attainable. — If you know of any such book as 
 would serve me in this particular, or can hear 
 of any, I will beg you to let me know of it. 
 Also (after all my Buschings and Reymanns) I 
 should be very thankful for a little Topograph- 
 ical Dictionary of Prussia, or even of Germany 
 (if not too big) : Biisching's Indexes being hith- 
 erto my only help in this respect. Character 
 of place, sequence of time, Topography and 
 Chronology, — these are the warp and woof of 
 all historical intelligibility to me. 
 
 Another book which I want still more, if 
 there be such a book, is somQ Biographical'Dic- 
 tionary, or were it even an authentic old Pee?-- 
 age Book such as we have in England, — or even 
 a distillation of old Army-lists and Court Cal- 
 endar, — some Prussian Book, I mean, or gen- 
 eral German Book, v/hich would tell me a little 
 who these crowds of empty names are^ at least 
 which of them is meant, when one hears them 
 mentioned. This is a quite frightful want with 
 me. There are such multitudes of different 
 Schwerins ("of Schwerins," I somewhere 
 heard), all of them unknown to me, so many 
 Brandenburg -Schwedl Brunswic Bewerns, 
 half-dozens of Dukes of Wurtemberg, etc. — it 
 becomes like a Walpurgis-Nacht, where you 
 can fix some of them into the condition of visual 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 347 
 
 shadows at least! The very Margraves of 
 Baireuth and Anspach are and continue mere 
 echoes to me. — The Duchess of Saxe-Gotha 
 too (F 's and Voltaire's), I have asked on all 
 sides who or what she is and nobody can so 
 much as show me the colour of a ribbon of 
 her! Voltaire's 5,000 letters (100 times too 
 many) I find as imperfectly edited as any ; in- 
 deed they are three-parts utterly illegible al- 
 ready, for want of editing, — and must end by 
 being flung out, as portions of Chaos or the 
 utterly Dark, for most part before very long, I 
 apprehend. It was F^ alone that first sent me 
 into that black element, or beyond the very 
 shores of it ; and I confess I had no idea how 
 dark and vacant it had grown. — If you can 
 think of any guide or guides for me, in this 
 important particular at once so essential and 
 so completely unprovided for, surely it will be 
 a great favour. Of course there are guides bet- 
 ter or worse, to an inquiring stranger ; and 
 the worst of them, if only authentic and intel- 
 ligible, would be a kind of heaven to me in 
 this enterprise. 
 
 Did you see the Selection from Sir Andrew 
 Mitchell's Correspondence, two thick volumes 
 which appeared here some years ago ? Doubt- 
 less they are in some of your Berlin libraries. 
 The Editor, one Birret, is a man of some energy 
 and talent; but said to be very vain and ill- 
 natured ; and is, beyond doubt, profoundly ill-in- 
 
348 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 formed on the matter he has here undertaken. 
 There is a letter, from a poor English soldier, 
 acting as servant to Marshal Keith, which 
 gives some poor glimpses of Keith in his last 
 moments, and of the terrible mewing of Hoch- 
 kirch: you must j^ee this poor Tebays letter 
 (that is the name of him) for your second edi- 
 tion of " Keith " ; if you have it not at hand, 
 pray apply to me for a copy, which will be 
 very easily got. It seems there are large 
 masses of Mitchell Correspondence still un- 
 printed in the British Museum, and various 
 MSS. of Frederick included in them ; which, 
 however, I believe, have been seen by Raumer 
 and other Prussians. I read Mirabeau,"^ and 
 still have him ; but except Maubillon's f vol- 
 ume on the Prussian soldiers, I found the rest 
 mainly a huge and to me quite questionable 
 lecture on Free-trade a la Cobden ; — well worth 
 its reading too, for Mirabeau is Mirabeau 
 wherever one finds him. I have often pictured 
 to myself the one interview of Vater Fritz and 
 Gabriel Honore on the stage of this world ! 
 
 But, on the whole, I must now tell you of 
 a project that has risen here of a little tour to 
 
 * Sur la monarchic prussienne sous Frederic le Grand {i']^']). 
 
 f Mauvillon, v/ho collected the materials for Mirabeau's 
 book, has written himself therein the chapter about the tactic of 
 the Prussian infantry. Later he has made a German translation 
 of the Monarchie prussienne^ whose printing was finished only- 
 after his death (1794). 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 349 
 
 Germany itself on our part ; of which the chief 
 justification to me, — tho' the female mind with- 
 al has other views in it, — would be to assist 
 myself in the inquiries after Frederick. To 
 look with my eyes upon Potsdam, Ruppin, 
 Rheinsberg, Kiistrin, and the haunts of Fred- 
 erick ; to see the Riesengebirge country and 
 the actual fields of Frederick's ten or twelve 
 grand battles : this would be a real and great 
 gain to me. Hohenfriedberg, Soor, Leuthen, 
 I could walk these scenes as truly notable ones 
 on this Earth's surface ; footsteps of a most 
 brilliant, valiant and invincible human soul 
 which had gone before me thro' the countries 
 and left indelible trace of himself there. Then 
 at Berlin, one could see at least immensities of 
 portraits^ Chodowieski Engravings, etc., which 
 are quite wanting in this country ; as well as 
 all manner of books to be read or to be col- 
 lected and carried home for reading ; — not to 
 mention oral inquiries and communications, or 
 the very sight of friends who might otherwise 
 remain always invisible to me ! In short, I 
 think it not urilikely that we may actually 
 come, my Wife and I, this very summer ; and 
 try the business a little ; for there are Hom- 
 burg or other watering places in the game too, 
 and we really both of us need a little change 
 of scene, after so many years of this Babel. 
 The drawbacks are sad incapacity, especially 
 on my part, for sleeping, for digesting, for 
 23 
 
350 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 porting the conditions of travel, — which are 
 sport to most people, and alas are death to poor 
 us ! However, if the motive energy were suffi- 
 ciently great? We can both of us speak, or could 
 soon learn to speak, a kind of Deutsch-Kauder^ 
 walsch, which might be intelligible to the quick- 
 eared ; and for me, I have a certain readiness in 
 bad French as well. Miss Wynne eagerly urges 
 the attempt, on hygienic grounds; others urge, 
 and in fact, there is a kind of stir in the matter, 
 which may perhaps come to something. 
 
 Will you, at any rate, be so kind as to de- 
 scribe to me a little what you reckon the re- 
 sources of Berlin in regard to my F° specula- 
 tions might be. — Berlin, I conclude, must be 
 the headquarter in regard to all that ; — and 
 mention especially what the proper time, both 
 in regard to climate and to the presence of in- 
 structive persons, might be for visiting your 
 city. People speak of Berlin heats, and sand, 
 and blazing pavements, and again of Berlin 
 sleets and frosts : a still more important point 
 would be the possibility of lodging in some 
 open-aired and above all, quiet place ; doubt- 
 less all this is manageable, — with a maximum 
 quidem, and also with a iniyiimitm. Till your 
 answer comes, I will' stir no farther. 
 
 Miss Wynne, home from Paris this good 
 while, seems as well as ever, and quite beauti- 
 ful again. We all salute Varnhagen. 
 
 Yours always, T. Carlyle. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 351 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Dresden : Septr. 25, 1852. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Here I actually am in Ger- 
 many, and have been there three or four 
 weeks ; in my great haste and confusion I 
 despatch a line to announce that small fact to 
 you, — and farther that I hope to be in Berlin 
 itself (and to see you, if I am lucky) about 
 Tuesday or at farthest Wednesday next. I 
 have come up the Rhine from Rotterdam ; 
 have been at Ems, Homburg, Frankfurt, Wei- 
 mar, etc.: this afternoon we go towards Schan- 
 dau, Lobositz; and after Lobositz, direct to 
 Berlin, — I suppose by Zittau and Frankfurt 
 a. O. 
 
 My wife is not here ; she is safe at home, — 
 where I wish I too were ! Neuberg alone 
 accompanies me ; one of the friendliest and 
 helpfuUest road-companions man ever had. I 
 have of course seen many interesting things ; 
 in fact I have prospered well in all respects, 
 except that / can hardly get any sleep, in these 
 noisy bedrooms, in these strange beds : in fact 
 it is now four weeks since I had a night of 
 sound sleep ; I am obliged to help myself along 
 with broken sleep, in about half the natural 
 quantity, — which circumstance necessarily 
 modifies very much the objects I can hope 
 to attempt with success in this journey of 
 
352 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 mine. To gather some old books (on the sub- 
 ject of F^), to see Portraits and Places, this is 
 nearly all I can aim at, as matters go. 
 
 Berlin is to be my last station ; from Berlin 
 I go home by the shortest route, and at the 
 quickest rate of steam conveyance. I calcu- 
 late on staying there perhaps a week ; longer 
 if I c** get a lodging where sleep were possible ; 
 but of that I fancy there is no hope ! I am 
 habitually a bad sleeper; cannot do with 
 noises, etc., at all : and the arrangements for 
 sleep, in all German places where I have tried, 
 are eminently unsuitable hitherto. — If you or 
 any of your people could advise where a quiet 
 bedroom was to be had in Berlin, that would 
 be one of the valuablest favours ! At all events, 
 leave a line for me " Berlin, Poste restante " ; 
 that I may know at once whether you are in 
 Town ; and where to find you. — And now for 
 the Sachsische Schweiz, and other confused 
 journeyings ! Yours always truly, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Chelsea: Janr. 15, 1854. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Your '• Billow's Leben," * 
 with the kind letter in it, has come safe to 
 hand : many thanks for so welcome and friend- 
 
 * Varnhagen von Ense, Leben des Generals Graf en Billow 
 von Donnewitz, Berlin, 1854. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 353 
 
 ly a Gift, which so many others, a long list 
 now, have preceded ! It lay waiting for me 
 here, on my return from a short sad visit I 
 had made to Scotland, whither I had been 
 called in the mournfullest errand, — the death 
 of my aged, dear and excellent Mother, whose 
 departure I witnessed on Christmas day ; a 
 scene which, as you can well believe, has filled 
 me with emotions and reflexions ever since, 
 and cannot for the rest of my life be forgotten. 
 I have kept myself very silent, and as solitary 
 as possible, ever since my return ; looking out 
 more earnestly towards new labour (if that 
 might but be possible for me), as the one con- 
 solation in this and in all afflictions that can 
 come. In the evenings of la,st week, three of 
 them at least, I have read Billow, as an agree- 
 able halting-place for my mind ; and was very 
 sorry last night when it ended upon me, as all 
 things have to^ do. 
 
 You have given us a flowing Narration, in 
 your old clear style ; painted out a stormy 
 battling Life-Pilgrimage, with many interest- 
 ing particulars in it. Biilow was not much 
 other than a Name to me before ; but I possess 
 him now on much closer terms : the man and 
 the scene he worked in are very vividly 
 brought out in this Book. Both in face and in 
 character, I find him an intensely Prussian 
 Physiognomy ; really very interesting to me, 
 — with his strange old Swedenborgian Father, 
 
354 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 his wild Brothers, and all his peculiar environ- 
 ments and personalities. Almost a type Prus- 
 sian, as I said ; reminding me of much that I 
 saw, and guessed, among your military people, 
 while among you. — Was that Tauentrien a 
 kinsman of Frederic's Governor of Breslau? 
 A most ridiculous figure he makes in that pro- 
 posed duel with Billow ! — 
 
 I have gone thro' great quantities of the 
 dreariest Prussian reading since I saw 3^ou ; 
 but cannot boast to myself that Prussia or 
 Vater Fritz becomes in the least clearer to me 
 by the process. Human stupidity (with the 
 pen, or with other implements in its hand) is 
 extremely potent in this Universe ! How I 
 am to quit this Fritz after so much lost labour, 
 is not clear to me ; still less how I am ever to 
 manage any Picture of him on those terms. 
 Mirabeau, so far as I can see, is the only man 
 of real genius, that has ever spoken of him ; and 
 he only in that cursory and offhand way. In 
 the end, I suppose I shall be reduced to Fritz's 
 own letters and utterances, as my main re- 
 source, if I persist in this questionable enter- 
 prise. If I had been able to get any sleep in 
 Germany, my own eyes might still have done 
 a good deal for me ; but that also was not pos- 
 sible : the elements were too strong for so thin 
 a skin ; I was driven half-distracted after five 
 or six weeks of that sort, — and to this hour the 
 Street of the Linden, and with it all Berlin, is 
 
LETTERS EROM CARLYLE. 
 
 355 
 
 uncurably reversed to me ; and I cannot bring 
 the North side out of a southern posture in my 
 fancy, let me do what I will. I remember 
 Lobositz, however ; I remember Kunersdorf 
 too in a very impressive manner ; and wish I 
 had gone to Reinsberg, to Prag, to Leuthen, etc. 
 
 My wife had a pleasant Note from Miss 
 Wynne at Rome the other day : Rome seems 
 full of interest to the two fair Tourists, and 
 they are doing well, — in the middle of a large 
 colony of English visitants, if other interests 
 should fail. It is a very welcome hope of ours, 
 at all times, to see Miss Wynne settled within 
 easy reach of us again. 
 
 You must recommend me to Mademoiselle 
 Solmar * very kindly, if you please : her kind 
 politeness to me I often think of, with real re- 
 gret that I was not in a condition to profit by 
 it more: such goodness, coupled with such 
 gracefulness, — what but five weeks of want of 
 sleep could have rendered it of small use to a 
 foreign wayfarer ! 
 
 We are busy here, babbling about Turk 
 wars, Palmerston resignation - reacceptances, 
 Prince-Albert interferences, etc., — with very 
 triiiing degree of wisdom, and to me with no 
 interest whatever. London, England every- 
 where are swelling higher and higher with 
 golden wealth, and the opulences which fools 
 
 * A friend of Varnhagen at Berlin, who died very old a few 
 years ago. 
 
356 
 
 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 most prize ; — London in particular is stretch- 
 ing itself out on every side, at a rate which to 
 me is frightful and disgusting ; for we are al- 
 ready two millions and more ; and our new 
 populations are by no means the beautifullest 
 of the human species, but rather the greediest 
 and hungriest from all ends of the Earth that 
 are flocking towards us. We must take our 
 destiny. *' Unexampled prosperity," fools call 
 it, — by no means I. 
 
 Yours ever with thanks, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 Neuberg requested me lately to ask if you 
 had got a copy of his Heldenverehrtcng, and to 
 bid you demand one appointed, at Decker's,^ 
 if not. — Adieu. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Chelsea, London : Aug. 12, 1857. 
 
 My dear Sir, — About ten days ago, there 
 came to me a very pretty message from Berlin : 
 a note from you in the incomparable hand so 
 familiar to me of old, and a beautiful little 
 book,f which entertained me greatly for several 
 
 * The Geheime Ober-Hofbuchdrtickerei of Decker, who pub- 
 lished the German translations of Carlyle's writings. 
 
 f It is the book of Varnhagen's niece, Ludmilla Assing, en- 
 titled : Grdfin Elisa von Ahlefeld, die Gattin Adolphs von Liit- 
 zow, die Freundin Karl Immermanns. Nebst Briefen von Im- 
 mermann, Moller und Henriette Paalzow. Berlin 1857. 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 357 
 
 evenings after. I am truly glad to get a word 
 from you, in assurance of the old disposition 
 towards me, and marking that you are still 
 well and active ; such things grow ever more 
 precious as one grows more solitary in this 
 world, — inexorable time more and more exer- 
 cising his sad privilege upon us ! Do not for- 
 get me ; nor will I you, — amid the wrecks that 
 go on around us. 
 
 The book is altogether delightful reading : 
 I have sent it on, the instant it was finished 
 here, to my Wife who has run into Scotland 
 during the heats, and who I dare say is busy 
 now upon it. Nothing can be more gracefully 
 thrown off ; with perfect clearness too, so far 
 as the circumstances permitted. It gives me 
 curious glimpses into the latest chapter of 
 your Berlin Histories, which was quite dark 
 to me before. Immermann, etc., I had heard 
 of ; but only as rumours of Names ; I never 
 read anything of Immermann, — nor does this 
 narration give me much appetite to him : he 
 plays but a sorry figure here. On the whole, 
 a tragic Female History throughout ; things 
 all gone awry in that and other departments, 
 and no immediate prospect of their coming 
 right again ! But the Grdfinn herself is very 
 beautiful, in her sorrows and otherwise ; a fine 
 clear Being, — clear, sharp, as if she were made 
 of steel. Perhaps there are other good books 
 upon that Freischaar of Liitzow's, and the hu- 
 
358 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 man aspects of the Befreiungskrieg in Prussia ? 
 They would be welcome to me, if they are at 
 all like this present one, — had I gone into a lit- 
 tle leisure again. The last letter in the book, 
 about digging up the friend's body, and bring- 
 ing it home to natal earth, — has a grim pathos, 
 and silent Tapferkeit and Redlichkeit that goes 
 into one's very heart. — Ask the fair authoress 
 if she has not other books perhaps, of the like 
 quality, lying in her heart ! You can assure 
 her, with my respectful homages, that I find 
 this one a book extremely well worth writing, 
 and well worth reading. 
 
 For months and years past I have been 
 sunk as man seldom was, in the dismallest Sty- 
 gian regions, struggling with this unblessed 
 Task of mine, which I have often thought 
 would kill me outright. You called it a ge- 
 waltiges subject ; I have often bethought me of 
 that term, — and that if I had been twenty 
 years yotmger, it might have suited better ! but 
 now, there is no help ; — struggle thro' to the 
 farther side, or else drown : that is the condi- 
 tion. — We are now at last fairly at Press; slow- 
 ly printing, — I flying slowly ahead. In an- 
 other twelvemonth (if all can hold out) there 
 may be three volumes ready, — down to Deer. 
 1745 ; — and the worst part of the job done. 
 Taliter qualiter, dreadfully taliter indeed ! — At 
 present I am in very great want of books, Mag- 
 azines, Essays, or any real Elucidations by per- 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 3^0 
 
 sons of veracity and insight, about the two Si- 
 lesian wars (1740, 1744). Guerre de Bohhne, Es- 
 pagnac (Marshal Saxe) and the terrible im- 
 broglio called Helde7i- Staats-und Lebens-Ge- 
 schichte, are almost my only resources hitherto. 
 Miss Wynn, you doubtless know, is at 
 Heidelberg. My Wife was sadly ill the whole 
 of last winter ; and is still too weak. Milnes is 
 looking towards Heidelberg too, he tells me. 
 Weather is very hot ; News from India, etc. : 
 good news in fact are scarce. 
 
 Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle. 
 
 xxvn 
 
 Chelsea , Oct. 7, 1857. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Many thanks for your two 
 notes to me, — for your kind thought in regard 
 to that matter of " Voltaire at Frankfurt." "^ I 
 already had a copy of that excellent little tract, 
 — fruit of your goodness to me at its first ap- 
 pearance ; — and have again studied it over, 
 more than once, since these investigations 
 began. It lies bound up with other interest- 
 ing pieces of a kindred sort ; ready for use 
 when the time comes. But you are not to 
 think this second copy wasted either ; the 
 little pamphlet itself I have already turned to 
 
 * Reprinted in vol. viii. of DenkwUrdigkeiten und ver- 
 vtischte Schriften, von K. A. Varnhagen von Ense, after his 
 death (1858), published by Lixdmilla Assing (1859). 
 
360 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 good account for my interests ; — and the fact of 
 its being sent me on those terms has a value 
 which I would not willingly part with. 
 
 How often have I wished that I had you 
 here "as a Dictionary" ! but there is nothing 
 such attainable in these latitudes : — the truth 
 is, I should have come to Berlin to write this 
 book : but I did not candidly enough take 
 measure of it, before starting, or admit to my- 
 self, what I dimly felt, how ^^ gewaltig^' an 
 affair it was sure to be ! In that case, I had 
 probably never attempted it at all. Nobody 
 can well like his own performance worse than 
 I in this instance, but it must be finished taliter 
 qiialiter. Nay, on the whole it needed to be 
 done : the English are utterly, I may say dis- 
 gracefully and stupidly dark about all Prus- 
 sian and German things ; — and it did behove 
 that some Englishman should plunge, perhaps 
 on his mere English resources, into that black 
 gulph, and tear up some kind of human foot- 
 path that others might follow. — At any rate, I 
 hope to get it done / and that will be reward 
 enough for me, after the horrible imprison- 
 ment I have had in it so long. 
 
 The Edinburgh Review on Goethe I have 
 not seen : somebody told me it was by Mrs. 
 Austin, whom you may remember : " Hat 
 nichts zu bedeuten," there or here. Nor Lord 
 Brougham's speculations on the Great Fried- 
 rich any more ; — the speculations of Lord 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 361 
 
 Brougham's horse are as well worth attending 
 to. And indeed are about as much attended to 
 by the best kind of people here ! For I am 
 happy to say, there is, sparingly discoverable, 
 a class among us of a silent kind, much su- 
 perior to that vocal one ; — and many a " Palm- 
 erston," *' Crimean War," etc., as mirrored 
 in the Newspapers and in the heads of these 
 Stillen vn Lande would surprise you by the 
 contrasts offered. What they call " Liberty of 
 the press " is become a thing not beautiful to 
 look at in this country, to those who have 
 eyes! 
 
 The Indian mutiny is an ominous rebuke. 
 It seems probable they will get it beaten down 
 again, but I observe those who know least 
 about it, make lightest of it. What would 
 Friedrich Wilhelm have said to such an 
 ''army" as that black one has been known for 
 thirty years past to be ! — Miss Wynne has re- 
 turned to us ; bright as ever. Adieu dear Sir, 
 take care of yourself thro' the grim months. 
 Yours ever truly, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 The little Ahlefeld book (tell Madame) is a 
 great favourite here, as it deserves to be, with 
 all who see it. 
 
LETTER 
 
 OF THOMAS CARLYLE TO KARL 
 EDUARD VEHSE 
 
 {Born 1802, died 1870), 
 
 AUTHOR OF " GESCHICHTE DER DEUTSCHEN HOFE SEIT DER 
 REFORMATION," 48 VOLS., HAMB. 185I-58, " SHAKESPEARE 
 ALS POLITIKER, PSYCHOLOG UND DICHTER," 2 VOLS., HAMB. 
 185I, AND OTHER BOOKS. 
 
 5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London: Octr. ii, 1853. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Since I saw you last 3xar 
 in Dresden, I have been reading a great many 
 of 3^our books ; finding in them, as all the 
 world does, abundant entertainment, and end- 
 less matter for reflexion. It is very surprising 
 to me how you have contrived to amass such 
 a quantity of floating information on things 
 seldom formally recorded ; and how correct it 
 all is ; at least how correct our British part of 
 it is, which I naturally take as a sample of the 
 whole. You do often name your authorities, 
 which is a great satisfaction to every careful 
 reader; if you had in all cases done so, it 
 would among other advantages have saved 
 you the trouble of this Note, which I had 
 long had it in view to venture upon writing 
 
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 363 
 
 to you, containing the two following inqui- 
 ries : — 
 
 1. Can you tell me, in what book or books 
 that account of George the First's Death is to 
 be found, — with all the tragic particulars be- 
 tween Velden and Osnabriick ; — and in general 
 what is the chief book for the secret history of 
 George the First ? In English I remember only 
 Horace Walpole, and Coxe ; in German I have 
 got the Herzogin von Ahlden^ which you often 
 refer to, and Aurora von Konigsmark : but, I 
 think, you must have had some better book 
 than any of these. 
 
 2. In one of your Histories, — I think that 
 of the Prussian Hof^ but have unfortunately 
 mislaid all reference to it, — you quote from the 
 ambassador Mitchell a sentence which I never 
 can forget ; to the effect : " If the English 
 would give up talking (in their Parliaments 
 etc.) and were led on by such a man (as Fried- 
 rich the Great), what might they not accom- 
 plish ! " These are not the words ; but that 
 is the sense ; and I am extremely anxious, 
 and shall indeed thank you much, if you can 
 have the goodness to tell me where in Mitchell 
 the passage is to be found. As was said, I can 
 now find no reference to it in any of my Note- 
 books ; I did not find it in our English book 
 of the Mitchell Papers, nor is it in Raumer that 
 I can see ; nor did I yesterday succeed in hunt- 
 ing it up out of your own book on the Prussian 
 
364 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 
 
 Court: at the same time I have the liveliest 
 remembrance of reading it in one of your 
 books ; so that, being really anxious to get 
 hold of the thing, I am obliged to send my 
 question to you in this vague shape (not quite 
 so bad as Nebuchadnezar's dream, but too 
 like that celebrated production of the human 
 mind !) — and must appeal to your charity to 
 summon out your own better remembrance, 
 on my behalf. I think the words must cer- 
 tainly be in the Preussische Hof^ or, failing 
 that, there is only the Hannoverische to be 
 looked to. Please discover for me, if you pos- 
 sibly can. 
 
 It is only this seco7id question that I am 
 essentially concerned in; but if you can 
 answer the first also, it will of course be wel- 
 come, — tho' in that case, who knows if it will 
 be the last I may ask of you in the progress 
 of my reading ! 
 
 Believe me, Dear Sir, sincerely yours, 
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
TRANSLATION OF 
 
 SOME NOTES OF VARNHAGEN 
 
 ABOUT CARLYLE'S FIRST VISIT TO 
 
 BERLIN 1852. 
 
 Carlyle 
 
 Tieck told me he was greatly surprised, 
 even astonished, at Carlyle when he visited 
 him here. His appearance was wretched, not- 
 withstanding his ruddy face ; his dress was 
 extremely slovenly, and his behaviour boor- 
 ish ; and it was evident that he was not un- 
 conscious of these things, but that he gloried 
 in them. Tieck mentioned Coleridge almost 
 at the beginning of the conversation, when 
 Carlyle broke out in immoderate laughter 
 — a laughter which it could be perceived 
 was forced, and was quite offensive. Tieck 
 asked him with cool seriousness, '' Why do 
 you laugh?" upon which Carlyle stopped, 
 and said, with grave tone and mien, '' Oh, 
 no ! " He knew well that to talk seriously 
 about Coleridge would be, etc. Now it was 
 still more the question why he laughed. But 
 no answer was returned to it. Foolish vanity ! 
 
 At his complaints of traveller's troubles and 
 24 
 
366 NOTES OF VARNHAGEN, 
 
 taverns, that there Avere no quiet rooms here, 
 no curtained beds, that he had no books about 
 Frederick the Great, which he wanted much, 
 that he wished to see and hear nothing incom- 
 patible w^ith the object of his journey, and at 
 his distorted views of the importance of the 
 great King, Tieck sympathetically shrugged 
 his shoulders, and thought it would be better 
 for Carlyle not to write about him.* Tieck 
 spoke German with Carlyle. His English, he 
 said, he had too nearly forgotten. 
 (Signed) 
 
 Varnhagen. 
 
 Jan. 1854. 
 
 Carlyle 
 
 1852. 
 
 In Berlin Carlyle dined with the banker 
 Magnus, who had invited many distinguished 
 guests on his account, among others Privy 
 
 * So also thought the historian Heinrich Leo, who wrote on 
 the loth of February, 1853, to Varnhagen : " Of Carlyle's Fred- 
 erick II. I never expected much, although I have been charmed 
 with other of his works, especially with the first part of his 
 Past and Present, and with his Cromwell. His History of the 
 French Revolutiott has also excellent, sublime pages, only too 
 much of the magic lantern. But Englishmen, even Germanized 
 Englishmen, have not a clear understanding of Prussians and 
 Prussian magnificence — as Anglicised Germans (for example, 
 Bu. [Bunsen]) are no better off. Carlyle's Frederick will, as I 
 believe, be like a blind man's treatise on colors. Instead of 
 Nature, artful floundering, as a matter of course. 
 
NOTES OF VARNHAGEN. 
 
 367 
 
 Councillor Wiese and like pious folk. The 
 conversation turned upon Goethe, and after 
 much had been said in his praise, and his great- 
 ness had been admiringly acknowledged by 
 all, Wiese could not restrain himself, and with 
 devout air and gestures lamented that so great, 
 so gifted a mind had not possessed the blessing 
 of faith, and had not consecrated its strength 
 to the glory of the Lord. Several joined 
 heartily in this strain of attack. Carlyle be- 
 came uneasy, and made a variety of unpleasant 
 faces. At last he brought both arms down 
 upon the table, and, leaning forward, began in 
 his heavy, long-drawn way and his halting 
 German, with a loud voice : " Gentlemen ! do 
 none of you — then — know the old story — how 
 a man reviled the sun — because he — couldn't 
 light his cigar — at it?" The confounded 
 guests were silent, and perceived with shame 
 that they had been mistaken in this Englishman. 
 (Signed) 
 
 Varnhagen von Ense. 
 
 This story was already known from Lewes's 
 Life of Goethe. Lewes heard it in Berlin from 
 an artist, whose name he does not give. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE TO 
 AMELY BOLTE, 1843-1849. 
 
 5, Cheyne Row : December 23, 1843. 
 
 Unmenschliche ! — Are you become so in- 
 oculated with the commercial spirit of this 
 England, that you will no longer write to me 
 but on the debtor-and-creditor principle ? Are 
 I no longer to have any privileges — moi ? no 
 longer to receive two or three or even four 
 letters for one, in consideration of my worries 
 and my indolence ? So you, at least, seem to 
 have resolved ! But thank heaven there are 
 still generous spirits among my correspond- 
 ents who despise such balancing of accounts : 
 who rain down letters on me "thick as 
 autumnal leaves " without asking even whether 
 I read them ! — And you think no shame of 
 yourself, cold-blooded calculating little Ger- 
 man that you are? — Well then, open your 
 ledger and set down now in black and white : 
 " Mademoiselle Bolte debtor to Mrs. Carlyle — 
 in one letter to be paid immediately — no credit 
 given.'' 
 
LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 369 
 
 What are you doing and thinking-, and 
 wishing, and hoping, — for in Devonshire I sup- 
 pose people can still hope — even in December — 
 here the thing is impossible. On the dark dis- 
 mal fog which we open our eyes upon every 
 morning, there is written as on the gate of the 
 citta dolente, alias Hell : " Lasciate ogni speran- 
 zavoi che entrate." And many things besides 
 speranza have to be thrown overboard as well. 
 To keep one's soul and body together seems to 
 be quite as much as one is up to under the cir- 
 cumstances. I attempt nothing more. As 
 there is nothing which I so much detest as 
 failure where I have willed, so I take precious 
 care never to will anything as to which I have a 
 presentiment of failing. My husband is more 
 imprudent, he goes on stilHe/////;?^ to write this 
 Life of Cromzvell under the most desperate ap- 
 prehension that it will ^' never come to any- 
 thing " — and as if people had the use of their 
 faculties in all states of the atmosphere ! And 
 so he does himself a deal of harm and nobody 
 any good. He came into this room the other 
 morning when I was sitting peaceably darn- 
 ing his stockings, and laid a great bundle of 
 papers on my fire, enough to have kindled the 
 chimney, if it had not been, providentially, 
 swept quite lately — the kindling of a chimney 
 (as you in your German ignorance may per- 
 haps not be aware) subjecting one here in Lon- 
 don to the awful visitation of three fire-engines ! 
 
370 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 
 
 besides a fine of five pounds ! I fancied it the 
 contents of his waste-paper-basket that he was 
 ridding himself of by this summar}^ process. 
 But happening to look up at his face, I saw in 
 its grim concentrated self-complacency the 
 astounding truth, that it was all his labour 
 since he returned from Scotland that had been 
 there sent up the vent, in smoke ! '' He had 
 discovered over night " he said " that he must 
 take up the damnable thing on quite a new 
 tact ! " Oh a very damnable thing indeed ! I 
 tell you in secret, I begin to be seriously afraid 
 that his Life of Cromwell is going to have the 
 same strange fate as the child of a certain 
 French marchioness that I once read of, which 
 never could get itself born, tho' carried about 
 in her for twenty years till she died ! A wit is 
 said to have once asked this poor woman if 
 " Madame was not thinking of swallowing a 
 tutor for her son ? " So one might ask Car- 
 lyle if he is not thinking of swallowing a pub- 
 lisher for his book ? Onl}^ that he is too mis- 
 erable poor fellov/ without the addition of 
 being laughed at. In lamenting his slow 
 progress, or rather non-progress he said to me 
 one day with a naivete altogether touching, 
 '' Well ! They may tzvaddle as they like about 
 the miseries of a bad conscience : but I should 
 like to know whether Judas Iscariot was more 
 miserable than Thomas Carlyle who never did 
 anything criminal, so far as he remembers ! " 
 
LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 
 
 371 
 
 Ah my dear, this is all very amusing to write 
 about, but to transact ? God help us well thro' 
 it ! And, as the Kilmarnock preacher prayed, 
 " give us all a good conceit of ourselves," for 
 this is what is chiefly wanted here at present ! 
 If my husband had half the conceit of himself 
 which shines so conspicuous in some writers I 
 could name, he would "take it aisj/'' and re- 
 generate the world with rose-water (twaddle), 
 as t/iej/ do, instead of ruining his digestive 
 organs in the manufacture of oil of vitriol for 
 that purpose ! 
 
 Your little friend Miss Swan wick called 
 here the other day looking ineffably sweet I 
 almost too sweet for practical purposes ! " That 
 minds me " (as my Helen says) I received by 
 post a little while since a letter in a handwrit- 
 ing not new to me, but I could not tell in the 
 first minutes whose it was. I read the first 
 words : ^' Oh those bright sweet eyes ! " I stop 
 amazed, " as in presence of the Infinite ! " 
 What man had gone out of his wits? In what 
 year of grace was I ? What was it at all ? — I 
 looked for a signature — there was none ! I 
 turned to the beginning again and read a few 
 words more : " There is no escaping their be- 
 witching influence ! " '* Idiot ! " said I, " who- 
 ever you be ! " having now got up a due 
 matronly rage ! I read on however. " It is 
 impossible that such eyes should be unaccom- 
 panied with a benevolent heart ; could you not 
 
372 
 
 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 
 
 then intercede with the possessor of them to 
 do me a kindness ? The time of young ladies is 
 in general so uselessly employed that I should 
 think you would really be benefitting — Miss 
 Swanwick (!) in persuading her to — translate 
 for me those French laws on pawnbroking ! " 
 Now, the riddle was satisfactorily solved I 
 The '-'■ bright swe'et eyes " were none of mine 
 but Miss Swan wick's ; and the writer of the 
 letter was Robertson who you may remember 
 I told you raved about those same eyes — to a 
 weariness ! My virtuous-married-woman-indig- 
 nant blushes had been entirely thrown away ! 
 It was too ridiculous ! But could you have 
 conceived of such stupidity — even among 
 authors — as this of beginning a letter to one 
 woman with an apostrophe to the eyes of 
 another ? 
 
 My German friend has returned from Ger- 
 many safe and sound, and brought me thence 
 a highly curious gage d' amour, which is caus- 
 ing a sort of general panic among my admir- 
 ers. Old Sterling in particular is furious at it 
 and likens it to the Devil's tail (where he saw 
 the Devil's tail, whether at the Times newspa- 
 per-office, or in what other unholy place, I did 
 not like to ask). The thing is the most splen- 
 did, most fantastical, altogether inconceivable 
 — bell-rope ! Made for me by the hands of 
 Plattnauer's countess-sister. A countless num- 
 ber of little Chinese pagodas y of scarlet network 
 
LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 
 
 373 
 
 festooned with white bugles, are threaded on a 
 scarlet rope, ending in a " voluptuous'' scarlet tas. 
 sel, which again splits itself away into six little 
 bugle-tassels ! For three days and three nights 
 I was in the dreadfullest perplexity what to 
 do with it ! To ring up one's ojte maidservant 
 with such a bell-rope would have been an act 
 of inconsistency all too glaring ! besides I 
 should have been always fearing when I pulled 
 it that I should bring a shower of bugles about 
 my ears! So I decided finally to give it a 
 sine cur e-'^\2LCQ beside the drawing-room-door, 
 where there is no bell- wire but only a brass- 
 headed nail to suspend it from ! '' Don't you 
 admire it there ? " I asked my husband after it 
 was hung up. " Oh yes," said he, " certainly ! 
 — as a splendid solecism ! as one admires a 
 beautiful idiot! " 
 
 But it strikes me that considering your de- 
 merits, my dear, I am here v/riting you an ab- 
 surdly long letter ! The fact is that I have 
 not, I find, got quite rid of what somebody 
 described as *' that damned thing called the 
 milk of human kindness " — and I bethink me 
 that on Christmas day you will be feeling sad 
 more or less. When one is far from one's own 
 land and own friends, those anniversaries, how- 
 ever they may be cheered for one by present 
 kindness, always bring the past and distant 
 strangely and cruelly near and make one long as 
 one dares not long every day to be as one has been ! 
 
374 
 
 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE, 
 
 A word of encouragement and sympathy from 
 a fellow-sufferer under these anniversary-feel- 
 ings may be some little comfort to you, at all 
 rates it is such comfort as I have to give, and 
 if I had any better you should have it with a 
 blessing — and so this is why I write just to- 
 day ; because I mean that you should read 
 my letter on Christmas. 
 
 Give my kindest regards to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Buller and a kiss to Theresa, who I hope is 
 striding thro' all departments of human knowl- 
 edge in seven-leagued boots and carrying all the 
 cardinal virtues along with her ! 
 
 I send you a little thing for good luck to 
 your new year. And so I commend you to 
 Providence and your own sound little judg- 
 ment, which is a very good deputy for Provi- 
 dence on this earth, — and remain w^ith sincere 
 good wishes very 
 
 Kindly yours 
 
 Jane Carlyle. 
 
 Bay House: Wednesday (1845.) 
 
 Ah my dear little friend ! I am so sorry for 
 the disappointment that is awaiting you ! and 
 yet, — should I like that you were not to leel 
 some disappointment on finding me no longer 
 there to welcome you back ? Certainly not. I 
 shall have been here a fortnight on Saturday 
 — how much longer we remain depends on 
 others than me — for me I never can do long 
 
LETTERS FROM MRS, CARLYLE. 
 
 375 
 
 well in idleness — unless indeed in the idleness 
 of Seaforth-House, which feels to be a sort of 
 preparation for future exertion, a gathering of 
 new strength from touching the bosom of 
 Mother Earth. But at Seaforth-House (?) it 
 is not so much idleness as indolence — and the 
 difference is immense. The one is a repose 
 for the faculties, the other a strenuous waste 
 of them. — Mr. Charles Buller is here — no other 
 visitor for the present besides ourselves. 
 
 Lady Harriet is perfectly kind for me and 
 I admire her more and more, but do not feel to 
 be more intimate with her. I fear she is too 
 grand ioT QYtr letting herself be loved — at least 
 by an insignificancy like me. I could love her 
 immensely if she looked to care for it. 
 
 I have a very stupefying headache to-day 
 and afraid of having to betake myself to bed, 
 but 1 would in the first place send you this 
 scrap that you might have some shadow of a 
 welcome from me on your return. 
 
 By and by I shall be back and then ! 
 Ever your affectionate 
 
 Jane Carlyle. 
 
 5, Cheyne Row: (1848). 
 
 My Dear, — Having constituted yourself a 
 little Providence for your friends you must 
 take the consequence of being applied to in 
 all sorts of contingencies. But you are a rash 
 slap-dash Providence and your interventions 
 
3/6 
 
 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 
 
 often miscarry thro' this over-zeal. So I pray 
 you not only to come to my aid with your 
 good intentions, but to do it with a certain prac- 
 tical deliberation. My maid is going away 
 and I must have another. The reasons for my 
 parting with her need not be stated here — 
 enough that she is to go — and I must again 
 endure the horrors of a household-revolution, 
 a hateful thought, just now, whilst I am still 
 confined to the house, and good for so little 
 in it. 
 
 By communicating my want to the trades- 
 people or by putting an advertisement in the 
 newspapers I might have plenty of servants 
 sent me to look at, — but such over-plenty ! and 
 a chance whether 07ie would be found among 
 them worth the trouble of investigating — and 
 this year I have not poor Christie to receive 
 the whole swarm and send me only such as 
 seemed to have some feasibility for my pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Miss Wynne has a Welsh-woman out of a 
 situation of whom she spoke to me some time 
 since, in case of my hearing of a place for her ; 
 but she does not think her adequate to my own 
 service. Tho' she says so much good of her 
 that I have her to let me at least judge of her 
 with my own two eyes. 
 
 It would be a kindness to me then if you 
 would inquire among your acquaintance if 
 what Mr. Duller calls " a treasure " be known 
 
LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 
 
 Z77 
 
 to any of them. You should know by this 
 time the sort of person I need — and such a one 
 is more likely to be heard of among your poor- 
 er acquaintance than the rich ones. A servant 
 out of a fi7te house would not content herself in 
 mine nor could I ever reconcile myself to the 
 ways of such a one. 
 
 If you hear of any, write to me and tell me 
 her particulars before sending her here — for 
 there is great awkwardness in refusing any 
 one senty when one don't like her on examina- 
 tion. 
 
 There are Servants Homes and Places I be- 
 lieve where one can have choice on pa3ang 
 something. But I am not well enough to vent- 
 ure out yet on such errands. My cough has 
 been worse of late days and I have had mus- 
 tard blisters on and been bothered consider- 
 ably. 
 
 Lady Harriet was here yesterday and met 
 Miss Wynne at the parlour door. 1 never saw 
 two such tall v/omen in my room together. 
 Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 Jane Carlyle. 
 
 Epsom : Sunday, Febr. i8, 1849. 
 
 My dear Amalie, — I am still here with no 
 particular wish to return to London. Never- 
 theless as we live in a conditional world with 
 duties to do better and worse — and " forms of 
 Society " to attend to, and above all a lot of 
 
378 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 
 
 silverspoons to look after, it behoves me to go 
 back to-morrow. Then the first business re- 
 quiring my attention may have to be trans- 
 acted with you yourself. I shall call for you to- 
 morrow betwixt 2 and 3 p.m., when I hope it 
 will not be inconvenient for you to receive me 
 for a few minutes. Don't get into any appre- 
 hensions that I am empowered to make any 
 proposal to you of either legitimate or illegiti- 
 mate nature, having no superfluity of lovers 
 on hand at present, while people are so uni- 
 versally occupied with politics. 
 
 But times may mend for us women — one 
 lives in hope. — Meanwhile it is an innocent lit- 
 tle concern of a daily soreness I have to speak 
 about. You having always plenty of that sort 
 of things which it is a convenience to yourself 
 as well as to others to dispose of. N.B. — 
 Beauty to be dispensed with. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 Jane W. Carlyle. 
 
 Friday, March (1849). 
 
 You divined perfectly right, Dear, as to the 
 intention part of it ; Lady A. was to *' take me 
 with her to Addiscombe " and we were to 
 have gone yesterday, to stay till Monday or 
 Sunday, as I meant to have told you in time to 
 spare you a vain journey on Sunday. 
 
 But Lady A. felt too unwell yesterday for 
 making a journey in such bitter cold — so put 
 
LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 
 
 379 
 
 off till to-day, and to-day I have another note 
 from her putting off into the vague. I am 
 thankful ; tho' I should have stood to my en- 
 gagement I was wishing greatly I had not 
 made it — this weather taking all spirit of en- 
 terprise out of me. 
 
 Thanks for the offer of Music, but I found 
 the only concert of that sort I ev^er tried dread- 
 fully wearisome and besides a concert-room in 
 this weather! Oh my dear! '^ Dinna speak 
 o'it!" 
 
 Yesterday on my way to Oxford Street in 
 quest of warm stockings I called on your milli- 
 ner—but saw nothing to excite my cupidity. 
 Besides, the things seemed to me much about 
 the usual shop-price ! 
 
 Thanks for all your '* delicate attentions." 
 I rather wish you had been " a man," for if 
 anything could rouse a spirit in one it would 
 surely be the getting oneself " eloped with " 
 and I think you understand me better than any 
 male lover ever did — hang them all ! 
 Your affectionate 
 
 Jane Carlyle. 
 
 (August 6, 1849). 
 
 Thanks Dear. I send the address to Count- 
 ess Pepoli by this post, and yours, — and she 
 can communicate with you on the not-young 
 lady herself — or await my return on Monday 
 if she likes that best. 
 
38o 
 
 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 
 
 As for Figgy — do not name that little viper 
 to me again ! And if you wish to avoid seri- 
 ous difficulties material as well as moral you 
 will let her and her concerns alone. I find 
 anj^body furious at what is considered j^our 
 impertinent and ill-intentioned interference 
 with her — for she herself makes herself a merit 
 with the others of showing you up! She took 
 the last I must say very ill-advised letter you 
 wrote her to Captain Robinson and said, " See 
 here what an impertinent and most improper 
 letter Miss Bolte has written to me. I mean 
 to write to her that she is to send me no more 
 such letters and that my mind is quite made 
 up to go to India " — and she writes to Hen- 
 ning (he had all the letters here yesterday) 
 that she is quite satisfied that going to India 
 is best, etc., to buy a certain dog for her she 
 had seen in the Park ; and to get her a new 
 dress. Pray keep from mixing yourself fur- 
 ther in the concerns of such a little traitor or 
 it will be the worse for you. Lady A. is high- 
 ly indignant at the unauthorized use made of 
 her name. / also might be a little indignant 
 at having mine used in inciting the wretch to 
 open rebellion. But that you are the most in- 
 discreet little woman in the world is no news 
 to me ! I did not mean to have told 3^ou 
 anything of all this till I could do it viva 
 voce, but having to write at any rate I may 
 as well put you on your guard, and advise 
 
LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 381 
 
 you to give over meddling in what you can- 
 not mend. Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 Jane Carlyle. 
 
 All you say to Figgy out of mistaken com- 
 passion is repeated to Henning and Capt. 
 Robinson, etc., and you are made to look a sort 
 of Demon lying in wait for her soul. So pray 
 be quiet if you can. 
 
 5, Cheyne Row : Aug. 14, 1849. 
 My poor little woman ! — I can quite under- 
 stand your intention " to scream " — I have the 
 same feeling myself very often — a notion to 
 scream for four and twenty hours without stop- 
 ping ! — not over the treachery of one good for 
 nothing Figgy but over the treachery of the 
 species generally — and indeed over what Mr. 
 Carlyle calls '■'■ the whole infernal caudle of 
 things " ! What/ object to you is not so much 
 what I call your indiscretion as a certain heed- 
 lessness of judgement — thro' which you fly at 
 helping everybody in every difficulty without 
 having first satisfied yourself, that the difficulty 
 is soluble^ or the person capable of having it solved 
 — for you know the proverb '* one man may 
 take a horse to the water but twenty cannot 
 make it drink." And where one tries to lead 
 a girl without truth or affection like Figgy by 
 noble ways to noble aims, it is a labour which a 
 little consideration of the laws of nature might 
 25 
 
382 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE, 
 
 have spared one. All the trouble you take for 
 an unhelpable person is so much out of the 
 pocket of some other who could have been 
 helped. But you have heard enough of Figgy 
 for the present 1 should think — I shall merely 
 add that I have taken upon me to send those 
 letters of hers to Lady Ashburton (deserving 
 to have them back) that she might see how lit- 
 tle the correspondence was of your seeking — 
 and how detestably the girl had behaved to 
 you. Her guardians talked much of their de- 
 termination to put an end to your " interfer- 
 ence " with her. I said the girl had done that 
 herself I should suppose, when she carried 
 your letter to Capt. R. and declared she would 
 " order you to write to her (!) no more in such 
 a foolish strain " — that if you found her work 
 interferely with after that you must be fit for 
 Bedlam ! 
 
 Capt. R. was going to v/rite to you they 
 said — whoever writes to you and whatever 
 they say : I advise you to hold you peace al- 
 together — if permissible — if you must an- 
 swer something to make your words as few 
 and cold and impassible as you can. 
 
 I did something after your energetic fashion 
 last night ; Miss Heerman came to me at seven, 
 to say she must decide about the other situa- 
 tion to-day — I liked her appearance and man- 
 ner very much and so did Mr. Carlyle. So 
 rather than let her slip thro* their fingers, I 
 
LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 383 
 
 put on my things tired as I was with my jour- 
 ney and walked off with her thro' the dark 
 lanes to Countess Pepoli at Kensington. She 
 v/as in a great quantum of indecision but prom- 
 ised to settle the matter in the morning — and 
 she did — at eleven she came here, having first 
 been to Miss Heerman, to tell me she had en- 
 gaged her. I hope it will answer on both sides. 
 I wish Capt. S. had got her — he thinks his fat 
 lump sadly ignorant. 
 
 The habit-shirt is a great hit ! — the very 
 sort of thing I have wanted for long — some- 
 thing that would cover m}^ neck, which looks 
 very bad at this date, and at the same time 
 not give one the appearance of having a sore 
 throat. Thank you heartily for your pains. 
 
 My maid was so glad to have me back and 
 had everything so clean ! A real jew^el she is ! 
 For her too I have to thank you every day. /, 
 you see, am one of the helpable, so you had bet- 
 ter stick to helping me in my various needs. 
 I will go to see you some morning, if the 
 weather mend before Sunday. 
 
 Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 Jane Carlyle. 
 
 THE END. 
 
T 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 ^HE SOVEREIGNS AND COURTS OF 
 
 EUROPE. The Home and Court Life and Characteristics of 
 the Reigning Families. By " POLITIKOS." With many Por- 
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 " A remarkably able book. ... A great deal of the inner history of Europe is to be 
 fuund in the work, and it is illustrated by admirable portraits." — The Athe/icetim. 
 
 '• Its chief merit is that it gives a new view of several sovereigns. . . . The anony- 
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 book seem? well fitted to satisfy the demand. The author is a well-known writer on 
 qiiistions indicated by his psendonym."— Montreal Gazette. 
 
 "A very handy book of reference. ' — Boston Transcript. 
 
 M\ 
 
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 General of Canada, With Portrait, Map, and Illustrations from 
 sketches by Lord Dufferin, i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 
 
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 ers." — Philadelphia Bulletin. 
 
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 2l'avx%\\\%." —'Book-B^iyer, 
 
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 New York: D, APPLETON & CO,, i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
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 T IFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ASSYRIA. 
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 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 A NEW BOOK BY THE AUTHOR OF "UNCLE REMUS." 
 
 O' 
 
 W THE PLANTA- 
 TION. By Joel Chandler 
 Harris. With numerous Il- 
 lustrations by E. W. Kemble. 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 The announcement of a new vol- 
 ume by Joel Chandler Harris will be 
 welcomed by the host of readers who 
 have found unlimited entertainment 
 in the chronicles of Uncle Remus, 
 On the Plantation abounds in stir- 
 ring incidents, and in it the author 
 presents a graphic picture of certain 
 phases of Southern life which have not 
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 the public in the pages of Uncle Remus. 
 
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 Fro7n the Introductory Note. 
 
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 which are herein described, seem to have been bom of a dream. That 
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 the fiction and label it to suit himself." 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 MODERN SCIENCE SERIES. 
 Edited by Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F. R. S. 
 
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 far issued. Others are in preparation. 
 
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 'HE CAUSE OF AN ICE AGE. By Sir Robert 
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 ^HE OAK: A Study in Botany. By K. Marshall 
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 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 

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