LETTER 29.This letter, which I did not know of before, must have produced the 'Foreign Quarterly Review' article, 'Characteristics of German Genius,' which occupies pp. 382-422 in vol. i. of Hare's Book. A letter which tells its own story; solely, in regard to 'Forster' it should be known that he was yet but a new untried acquaintance, and that our tone towards or concerning him, both as 'critic' and as ever-obliging friend, greatly improved itself, on the ample trial there was. That of 'worst critic in England but one' was John Mill's laughing deliverance, one evening, as I still remember, imitated from Chamfort's Dites l'avant-dernier, car il y a presse. - T. C.
LETTER 30.The inclosed notes, I suppose, are from Forster. Mrs. Taylor, who used to be well known to us, became afterwards John Mill's wife. - T. C.
Shortly after this letter there came ill news from Templand - ill news, or which to her vigilant affection had an ill sound in them, and which indeed was soon followed by a doleful and irreparable calamity there. Something in a letter of her mother's, touching lightly enough on some disorder of health she was under, and treating the case as common and of no significance, at once excited my poor Jeannie's suspicion, and I had to write to Dr. Russell,[1] asking confidentially, and as if for myself only, what the real state of matters was! The Doctor answered cautiously, yet on the whole hopefully, though not without some ambiguity, which was far enough from quieting our suspicions here; and accordingly, almost by next letter (February 23 or 21 I find it must have been), came tidings of 'a stroke,' apoplectic, paralytic; immediate danger now over, but future danger fatally evident! My poor little woman instantly got ready. That same night (wild, blustering, rainy night, darkness without us and within), I escorted her to Euston Square for the evening train to Liverpool. She was deaf, or all but deaf, to any words of hope I could urge. Never shall I forget her look as she sat in the railway carriage, seat next the window, still close by me, but totally silent; her beautiful eyes full of sorrowful affection, gloomy pain, and expectation, gazing [Page 141] steadily forward, as if questioning the huge darkness, while the train rolled away. Alas, at Liverpool, her cousins (Maggie still remembers it here, after twenty-seven years) had to answer, 'All is over at Templand, cousin, gone, gone!' and with difficulty, and with all the ingenuity of love and pity, got her conveyed to bed. February 26, 1842, her mother had departed; that 'first stroke' mercifully the final one. 'Uncle John,' &c., from Liverpool, had found now no sister to welcome him; blithe Templand all fallen dark and silent now; Sister Jeannie, Father Walter, Sister Grizzie also no more there. I followed to Liverpool two days after (funeral already not to be reached by me), found my poor Jeannie still in bed, sick of body, still more of mind and heart, miserable as I had never seen her. The same night I went by mailcoach (no railway farther for me) to Carlisle, thence through Annan, &c., and was at Templand next morning for a late breakfast. Journey in all parts of it still strangely memorable to me. Weather hard, hoar-frosty, windy; wrapt in an old dressing-gown with mackintosh buttoned round it, I effectually kept out the cold, and had a strange night of it, on the solitary coach-roof, under the waste-blowing skies, through the mountains, to Carlisle. It must have been Saturday, I now find, Carlisle market-day. Other side of that city we met groups of market-people; at length groups of Scotch farmers or dealers solidly jogging thither, in some of which I recognised old schoolfellows! A certain 'Jock Beattie,' perhaps twelve years my senior, a big good-humoured fellow finishing his arithmetics, &c., who used to be rather good to me, him I distinctly noticed after five-and-twenty years, grown to a grizzled, blue-visaged sturdy giant, sunk in comforters and woollen wrappages, plod-plodding there, at a stout pace, and still good-humouredly, to Carlisle market (as a big bacon-dealer, &c., it afterwards appeared), [Page 142] and had various thoughts about him, far as he was from thought of me! Jock's father, a prosperous enough country-carpenter, near by the kirk and school of Hoddam, was thrice-great as a ruling-elder (indeed, a very long-headed, strictly orthodox man), well known to my father, though I think silently not so well approved of in all points. 'Wull Beattie,' was my father's name for him. Jock's eldest brother, 'Sandy Beattie,' a Probationer (Licentiate of the Burgher Church), stepping into our school one day, my age then between seven and eight, had reported to my father that I must go into Latin, that I was wasting my time otherwise, which brought me a Ruddiman's 'Rudiments,' something of an event in the distance of the past. At Annan, in the rimy-hazy morning, I sat gazing on the old well-known houses, on the simmering populations now all new to me - very strange, these old unaltered stone-and-mortar edifices, with their inmates changed and gone! - meanwhile there stalked past, in some kind of rusty garniture against the cold, a dull, gloomy, hulk of a figure, whom I clearly recognised for 'Dr. Waugh,'[1] luckless big goose (with something better in him too, which all went to failure and futility), who is to me so tragically memorable! Him I saw in this unseen manner: him and no other known to me there - him also for the last time. Six miles farther, I passed my sister Mary Austin's farmstead in Cummertrees. Poor kind Mary! little did she dream of me so near! At Dumfries, my Sister Jean, who had got some inkling, was in waiting where the coach stopped; she half by force hurried me over to her house, which was near, gave me a hot cup of tea, &c., and had me back again in plenty of time. Soon after 10 A.M. I was silently set down by the wayside, beckoned a hedger working not far off to carry my portmanteau the bit of furlong necessary, and, with thoughts enough articulate [Page 143] and inarticulate, entered the old Templand now become so new and ghastly. For two months and more I had to continue there, sad but not unhappy. Good John Welsh with his eldest daughter Helen and a lady cousin of his, good active people, were there to welcome me, and had the house all in order. In about a week these all went, but left an excellent old servant; and for the rest of the time I was as if in perfect solitude - my converse with the mute universe mainly. Much there was to settle, and I had to speak and negotiate with various people, Duke's farm-agents; but that was only at intervals and for brief times; and, indeed, all that could have been finished soon, had the agent people (factor, subfactors, &c., &c.) been definite and alert with me, which they by no means were. Nay, ere long, I myself grew secretly to like the entire seclusion, the dumb company of earth and sky, and did not push as I might have done. Once or twice I drove across the hills to Annandale; had one of my brothers, Jamie or Alick, on this or the other 'errand,' over to me for a day; had my dear old mother for perhaps a week at one time; I had also friendly calls to make (resolutely refusing all dinners); but on the whole felt that silence was the wholesome, strengthening, and welcome element. I walked a great deal, my thoughts sad and solemn, seldom or never meanly painful - sometimes in the great joyless stoicism (great as life itself), sometimes of victorious or high. The figure of the actual terrestrial 'spring' (the first I had seen for years, the last I ever saw) was beautiful, symbolic to me, full of wild grandeur and meanings. By day, now bright sunshine and a tinge of hopeful green, then suddenly the storm-cloud seen gathering itself far up in the centre of the hills, and anon rushing down in mad fury, by its several valleys (Nith, &c., &c., which I could count); a canopy of circular storm, split into [Page 144] spokes, and whitening everything with snow! I did not read much - nothing that I now recollect: 'Cromwell' books, which were then my serious reading, were, of course, all in Chelsea. By some accident, now forgotten, I had slid into something of correspondence with Lockhart more than I ever had before or after; three or four altogether friendly, serious, and pleasant notes from him I remember there, which I doubt are not now in existence. A hard, proud, but thoroughly honest, singularly intelligent, and also affectionate man, whom in the distance I esteemed more than perhaps he ever knew. Seldom did I speak to him; but hardly ever without learning and gaining something. From 'Satan Montgomery,' too, I was surprised by a letter or two, invoking me (absurdly enough) to 'review' some new book of his (rhymed rigmarole on 'Luther,' I believe), 'Oh, review it, you who can; you who,' &c., &c.! Windy soul, flung aloft by popular delusion, he soon after died with all his vanities and glories! My plan of business had at first been, 'Let us keep this house and garden as they are, and sublet the land; no prettier place of refuge for us could be in the world !' But my poor darling shrank utterly from that, could not hear of it in her broken heart; which, alas, was natural too; so I had to get the lease valued, cancelled; sell off everything, annihilate all vestige of our past time there, a thing I now again almost regret; and certainly, for the moment, it was in itself a very sad operation. The day of the household sale, which was horrible to me, I fled away to Crawford Churchyard (20 miles off, through the pass of Dalveen, &c.), leaving my brothers in charge of everything; spent the day there by my mother-in-law's grave and in driving thither and back; the day was of bright weather, the road silent and solitary. I was not very miserable; it was rather like a day of religious worship, till in the evening, within short [Page 145] way of Templand again, I met people carrying furniture (Oh heaven); found Templand a ruin, as if sown with salt; and had, from various causes, an altogether sorry night in Thornhill. Tedious pedantic 'factor' still lingering and loitering, I had still to wait at Scotsbrig, with occasional rides across to him, and messages and urgencies, before he would conclude; 'paltry little strutting creature,' thought I sometimes (wrongfully, I have been told; at any rate, the poor little soul is now dead, requiescat, requiescat!). It was not till the beginning of May that I got actually back to Chelsea, where my poor sorrow-stricken darling with Jeannie, her Liverpool cousin, had been all this while; and of course, though making little noise about it, was longing to have me back. Her letters during those two months of absence seem to be all lost. I remember their tone of mournful tenderness; the business part, no doubt, related to the bits of memorials and household relics I was to bring with me, which, accordingly, were all carefully packed and conveyed, and remain here in pious preservation to this day: a poor praying child, some helpless enough rustic carving in funeral jet, commemorative of 'John Welsh'; these and other such things, which had pleased her mother, though in secret not her, she now accepted with repentant fondness, and kept as precious. She had great care about matters of that kind; had a real, though unbelieving, notion about omens, luck, 'first foot' on New Year's morning, &c.; in fact, with the clearest and steadiest discerning head, a tremulously loving heart! I found her looking pale, thin, weak; she did not complain of health, but was evidently suffering that way too: what she did feel was of the mind, of the heart sunk in heaviness; and of this also she said little, even to me not much. Words could not avail: a mother and mother's love were gone, irrevocable; the sunny fields of the past had all become sunless, [Page 146] fateful, sorrowful, and would smile no more! A mother dead: it is an epoch for us all; and to each one of us it comes with a pungency as if peculiar, a look as of originality and singularity! Once or oftener she spoke to me in emphatic self-reproach, in vehement repentance about her mother: though seldom had any daughter intrinsically less ground for such a feeling. But, alas, we all have ground for it! could we but think of it sooner; inexpressible the sadness to think of it too late. That little fact of the 'two candles' mentioned above,[1] reserved in sad penitence to be her own death-lights after seven and twenty years - what a voice is in that, piercing to one's very soul! All her mother's 'poor people,' poor old half-crazy 'Mary Mills,' and several others (for Mrs. Welsh was ever beneficent and soft of heart), she took the strictest inheritance of, and punctually transmitted from her own small pin-money their respective doles at the due day, till the last of them died and needed no gift more. I well remember, now with emotion enough, the small bank cheques I used to write for her on those occasions, always accurately paid me on the spot, from her own small, small fund of pin-money (I do believe, the smallest any actual London lady, and she was ever emphatically such, then had). How beautiful is noble poverty! richer, perhaps, than the noblest wealth! For the rest, I too have my self-reproaches; my sympathy for her, though sincere and honest, was not always perfect; no, not as hers for me in the like case had been. Once, and once only, she even said to me (I forget altogether for what) some thrice-sad words, 'It is the first time you show impatience with my grief, dear' - words which pain my heart at this moment. Ah me! 'too late'; I also too late! The summer could not but pass heavily in this manner; but it did grow quieter and quieter. Little cousin Jeannie [Page 147] was very affectionate and good; my own return had brought something of light into the household; various kind friends we had, who came about us diligently. Time itself, the grand soother and physician, was silently assuaging - never fails to do so, unless one is oneself too near the finis! Towards autumn Mrs. Buller, who had at the first meeting, years ago, recognised my Jeannie, and always, I think, liked her better and better, persuaded her to a visit of some three weeks out to Troston in Suffolk, where Mrs. Buller herself and husband were rusticating with the Rev. Reginald, their youngest son, who was parson there. This visit took effect, and even prospered beyond hope; agreeable in every essential way; entertaining to the parties; and lasted beyond bargain. It was the first reawakening to the sight of life for my poor heavy-laden one; a salutary turning aside, what we call diversion, of those sad currents and sad stagnancies of thought into fruitfuller course; and, I think, did her a great deal of good. Lucid account is given of it in the six following letters which we have now arrived at, which I still recollect right well. - T. C. [Before these letters, I introduce two of many written in the interval by Mrs. Carlyle to other friends after her mother's death. The first is to the wife of the physician who attended Mrs. Welsh in her last illness. - J. A. F.]
LETTER 31.
LETTER 32.
LETTER 33.The Buller family consisted of three sons: Charles, M.P. &c., a man of distinguished faculties and qualities, who was now at length rising into recognition, influence, and distinction; and might have risen far, had his temper of mind been more stubbornly earnest; perhaps I may say, had his bodily constitution been more robust! For he was of weak health, lamed of a leg in childhood; had an airy winged turn of thought, [Page 153] flowing out in lambencies of beautiful spontaneous wit and fancy, which were much admired in society, and too much attracted him thither; so that, with all his integrity, cleverness, and constant veracity of intellect and of character, he did not, nor ever could, as a 'reformer,' so much express his inborn detestation of the base and false by practically working to undo it, as by showering witty scorn upon it; in which, indeed, I never saw his rival, had that been the way to do good upon it. Poor Charles, only five years afterwards he died, amid universal regret, which did not last long, nor amount to anything! He had procured for his younger brother Arthur, who was my other pupil, some law appointment in Ceylon, which proved sufficient; and for his youngest brother Reginald (who used to dine with me in Edinburgh in the tutor times, an airy, pen-drawing, skipping clever enough little creature then) a richish country living; where, as utterly stupid somnolent 'Reverend Incumbent,' he placidly vegetated thenceforth, and still vegetates. Thackeray the novelist had been a college companion of his own; that perhaps is now his chief distinction. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Buller, senior, who now led a somewhat nomadic life, in the manner of ex-Indians of distinction, were superior people both; persons of sound judgment, of considerable culture and experience, of thoroughly polite manners (Madam considerably in the Indian style, as ex-'queen of Calcutta,' which she was, with a great deal of sheet-lightning in her ways). Charles, senior, was considerably deaf, a real sorrow to one so fond of listening to people of sense; for the rest, like his wife, a person of perfect probity, politeness, truthfulness, and of a more solid type than she; he read (idly, when he must), rode for exercise, was, above all, fond of chess, in which game he rarely found his superior. Intrinsically these excellent people had from the first, and all along, been very good to me; never boggled at my rustic
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outside or melancholic dyspeptic ways, but took, with ardent welcome, whatever of best they could discern within - over-estimating all, not under-estimating - especially not 'the benefit,' &c. Charles, junior, was getting of me. Indeed, talent of all real kinds was dear to them (to the lady especially); and at bottom the measure of human worth to both. Nobody in London, accordingly, read sooner what my rural Jeannie intrinsically was; discerned better what graces and social resources might lie under that modest veiling; or took more eagerly to profiting by these capabilities whenever possible. Mrs. Buller was, by maiden name, Kirkpatrick, a scion of the Closeburn (Dumfriesshire) people, which, in its sort, formed another little tie. - T. C.
LETTER 34.
LETTER 35.
LETTER 36.
LETTER 37.
LETTER 38.
Ends so, without signature, on inverted top-margin of first leaf: day of the week is Tuesday, date August 23.
LETTER 39.
[One other letter followed from Troston. In a day or two more I went thither myself; walked about, nothing loth (as far as Thetford one day), sometimes with escort, oftener with none. Made at last (mainly by Mrs. Buller's contrivance, and delicate furtherance), 'till Charles should come,' a riding tour into Cromwell's Country; which did me much benefit in the future Book, and was abundantly impressive at the time, as indeed in memory it still is, strangely vivid in all its details at this day. Saw Hinchinbrook for the first time, St. Ives, Godmanchester (Ely, Soham, &c.); from Godmanchester to Cambridge trotted before a thunder cloud, always visible behind, which came down in deluges half a minute after I got into the Hoop Hotel, &c. &c. Can have lasted only about four days (three nights). Can it be possible? I seem as if almost a denizen of that region, which I never saw before or since. - T. C.]
LETTER 40.Follows Troston, seemingly at short distance. Good old Mr. Dobie's visit (Rev. Emeritus, Mrs. Dr. Russell's father) I remember well, and that it was in her absence. He never 'came back.' Letter is infinitely mournful to me, and beautiful in a like degree. The 'Margaret' is Margaret Hiddlestone, whom she wanted for a servant, but could not get. - T. C.
To Mrs. Russell, Thornhill.
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sept. 1842.
My dear Mrs. Russell, - I meant to have written to you yesterday, along with my letter to Margaret; - but how to write to you without mentioning the purport of my writing to her, and how very much I had it at heart that she should come! And then if it so happened that she applied to you for advice, as is likely enough, and that your real opinion was she had better remain with her children? Between the two you were thus, it seemed to me, going to find yourself in a constraint, in which it was hardly fair to place you. But now this morning comes another consideration (I have such a way of tormenting myself with all sorts of out-of-the-way considerations!), viz, that you might think it unkind of me to send a letter to your care without a word, and unkindness towards you is what I could not bear to lie under the smallest suspicion of even for a moment. Oh, no, my dear Mrs. Russell, though I should never see you more, nor hear from you more, I shall think of you, and love you, and be grateful to you as long as I live. But for the knowledge of what you did for her,[1] and how thankfully she felt it, I know not how I should ever have brought myself to think of her last weeks with any degree of composure. As it was, God knows there still remains enough to feel eternal regrets about; - but without a friend like you, to make her
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feel that she was not quite alone with her sickness and her vexations, it would have been unspeakably worse for her then, and for me now.
How grieved I was that I happened to be absent during your father's stay in London! I felt somehow as if he had come from her - had brought me kind messages from her, and I had missed him! I would have returned immediately on purpose to see him but they knew that I would, and so did not tell me until it was too late. But he will come again, having found how easy it is, will he not, and bring you with him? Oh, I should like so well to have you here!
I am always very weakly in health, though better than when I last wrote to you. At present my brother-in-law has put me on a course of blue-pill for pain in my side. But, until I turn what health and strength I have to better account, I have no business to regret that I have not more.
I wish you would write to me some day, and tell me about old Mary and all the people. Thornhill and Templand and everything about there is often as distinct before my eyes as the house and street I am actually living in - but as it was; as it must be now, I can never bring myself to figure it.
Give my kindest regards to your father and husband. I felt your father's letter very kind.
God bless you, dear Mrs. Russell.
Ever your affectionate
JANE W. CARLYLE.
Fragment (very mournful), first small half of it lost.
To Mrs. Aitken, Dumfries.
Chelsea: (Early Summer) 1843.
What you say of my coming to Scotland is very kind; Isabella, too, has sent me the heartiest invitations, and I should like so well to see you all again. But when I try to fancy myself on the road, to fancy myself there, everything the same for me there as it used to be - and beyond, nothing of all that used to be - I feel so sick at heart, and so afraid of encountering the pain that seeing all those places again, and going about like a ghost in them, would cause me, that I can do no otherwise but say I will not go. It looks very cowardly to you, this? - perhaps, too, unkind and ungrateful towards the living. But fancy yourself in my place, looking out on the hills, at the back of which there had so lately lain a little loving home for you, where your mother had run to meet you with such joy; and now nothing for you there but the silence of death. If you do not feel that you would be just as weak, at least you will understand how I might be so without unkindness. If I were going beside your mother and all of you, I should think myself bound to be cheerful, and to look as if I were happy among you; and until I know myself up to that, is it not right to stay
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away? At present it seems to me I could do nothing at Scotsbrig or Dumfries but cry from morning till night. All this is excessively weak; I am quite aware of that, and if anybody will show me a way of being stronger, I will follow it to my best ability: but merely telling me or telling myself to be stronger is of no use. Ever your affectionate
JANE CARLYLE.
To Miss Helen Welsh, Liverpool.
Chelsea: March 1843.
My dearest Helen, - After (in Dumfries and Galloway-Courier phraseology) 'taking a bird's-eye view' of all modern literature, I am arrived at the conclusion that, to find a book exactly suited to my uncle's taste, I must write it myself! and, alas, that cannot be done before to-morrow morning!
'La Motte Fouqué's "Magic Ring,"' suggests Geraldine[1] (Jewsbury). 'Too mystical! My uncle detests confusion of ideas.' 'Paul de Kock? he is very witty.' 'Yes, but also very indecent; and my uncle would not relish indecencies read aloud to him by his daughters.' 'Oh! ah! well! Miss Austin?' 'Too washy; water-gruel for mind and body at the same time were too bad.' Timidly, and after a pause, 'Do you think he could stand Victor Hugo's
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"Notre Dame"?' The idea of my uncle listening to the sentimental monstrosities of Victor Hugo! A smile of scorn was this time all my reply. But in my own suggestions I have been hardly more fortunate. All the books that pretend to amuse in our day come, in fact, either under that category, which you except against, 'the extravagant, clown-jesting sort,' or still worse, under that of what I should call the galvanised-death's-head-grinning sort. There seems to be no longer any genuine, heartfelt mirth in writers of books; they sing and dance still vigoureusement, but one sees always too plainly that it is not voluntarily, hut only for halfpence; and for halfpence they will crack their windpipes, and cut capers on the crown of their heads, poor men that they are!
I bethink me of one book, however, which we have lately read here, bearing a rather questionable name as a book for my uncle, but, nevertheless, I think he would like it. It is called 'Passages from the Life of a Radical,' by Samuel Bamford, a silkweaver of Middleton. He was one of those who got into trouble during the Peterloo time; and the details of what he then saw and suffered are given with a simplicity, an intelligence, and absence of everything like party violence, which it does one good to fall in with, especially in these inflated times.
There is another book that might be tried, though
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I am not sure that it has not a little too much affinity with water-gruel, 'The Neighbours,' a domestic novel translated from the Swedish by Mary Howitt. There is a 'Little Wife' in it, with a husband, whom she calls 'Bear,' that one never wearies of, although they never say or do anything in the least degree extraordinary.
Geraldine strongly recommends Stephen's 'Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia, and Petrea,' as 'very interesting and very short.' Also Waterton's 'Wanderings in South America.' There are two novels of Paul de Kock translated into English, which might be tried at least without harm done, for they are unexceptionable in the usual sense of that term, the 'Barber of Paris,' and 'Sister Anne.'
I have read the last, not the first, and I dare say it would be very amusing for anyone who likes 'Gil Blas,' and that sort of books; for my taste it does not get on fast enough.
There! enough of books for one day. Thank you for your letter, dear. If I had not wee angels to write me consolatory missives at present, I should really be terribly ill off. My maid continues highly inefficient, myself ditto; the weather complicates everything; for days together not a soul comes, and then if the sun glimmers forth a whole rush of people breaks in, to the very taking away of one's breath!
Yesterday, between the hours of three and five,
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we had old Sterling, Mr. and Mrs. von Glëhen, Mr. and Mrs. Macready, John Carlyle, and William Cunningham. Geraldine professed to be mightily taken with Mrs. Macready, not so much so with 'William.' Poor dear William! I never thought him more interesting, however. To see a man, who is exhibiting himself every night on a stage, blushing like a young girl in a private room is a beautiful phenomenon for me. His wife whispered into my ear, as we sat on the sofa together, 'Do you know poor William is in a perfect agony to-day at having been brought here in that great-coat? It is a stage great-coat, but was only worn by him twice; the piece it was made for did not succeed, but it was such an expensive coat, I would not let him give it away; and doesn't he look well in it?' I wish Jeannie had seen him in the coat - magnificent fur neck and sleeves, and such frogs on the front. He did look well, but so heartily ashamed of himself.
Oh, I must tell you, for my uncle's benefit, a domestic catastrophe that occurred last week! One day, after dinner, I heard Helen lighting the fire, which had gone out, in the room above, with a perfectly unexampled vengeance; every stroke of the poker seemed an individual effort of concentrated rage. What ails the creature now? I said to myself. Who has incurred her sudden displeasure? or is it the red herring she had for dinner which has disagreed
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with her stomach? (for in the morning, you must know, when I was ordering the dinner, she had asked, might she have a red herring? 'her heart had been set upon it this a good while back;' and, of course, so modest a petition received an unhesitating affirmative.) On her return to the subterranean, the same hubbub wild arose from below, which had just been trying my nerves from above; and when she brought up the tea-tray, she clanked it on the lobby-table as if she were minded to demolish the whole concern at one fell stroke. I looked into her face inquiringly as she entered the room, and seeing it black as midnight (morally, that is), I said very coolly, 'A little less noise, if you please; you are getting rather loud upon us.' She cast up her eyes with the look of a martyr at the stake, as much as to say, 'Well, if I must be quiet, I must; but you little know my wrongs.' By-and-by Geraldine went to the kitchen for some reason; she is oftener in the kitchen in one day than I am in a month, but that is irrelevant. 'Where is the cat?' said she to Helen; 'I have not seen her all night.' She takes a wonderful, most superfluous charge of the cat, as of everything else in this establishment. 'The cat!' said Helen grimly, 'I have all but killed her.' 'How?' said Geraldine. 'With the besom,' replied the other. 'Why? for goodness' sake.' 'Why!' repeated Helen, bursting out into new rage; 'why indeed? Because she ate my red herring! I set it all
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ready on the end of the dresser, and she ran away with it, and ate it every morsel to the tail - such an unheard of thing for the brute to do. Oh, if I could have got hold of her, she should not have got off with her life!' 'And have you had no dinner?' asked Geraldine. 'Oh, yes, I had mutton enough, but I had just set my heart on a red herring.' Which was the most deserving of having a besom taken to her, the cat or the woman?
My love to Babbie; her letter to-day is most comfortable. Blessings on you all.
Your affectionate cousin,
J. WELSH.
To Miss Helen Welsh, Liverpool.
Chelsea: March 1843.
Now do you deserve that I should send you any letter, any autograph, anything, thou graceless, 'graceful Miss Welsh'? I think not; but 'if everyone had his deserts, which of us should escape whipping?' And besides I see not what virtues remain possible for me, unless it be the passive ones of patience and forgiveness; for which, thank Heaven, there is always open course enough in this otherwise tangled world!
Three of the autographs, which I send you to-day, are first-rate. A Yankee would almost give a dollar apiece for them. Entire characteristic letters from Pickwick, Lytton Bulwer, and Alfred Tennyson; the
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last the greatest genius of the three, though the vulgar public have not as yet recognised him for such. Get his poems if you can, and read the 'Ulysses,' 'Dora,' the 'Vision of Sin,' and you will find that we do not overrate him. Besides he is a very handsome man, and a noble-hearted one, with something of the gipsy in his appearance, which, for me, is perfectly charming. Babbie never saw him, unfortunately, or perhaps I should say fortunately, for she must have fallen in love with him on the spot, unless she be made absolutely of ice; and then men of genius have never anything to keep wives upon!
JANE CARLYLE.
To John Sterling, Esq., Falmouth.
Chelsea: June (?) 1843.
My dear John, - Thank you passionately for giving me Vittoria Accoramboni; and thank you even more for knowing beforehand that I should like her. Your presentiment that this was 'a woman exactly after my own heart' so pleases my own heart! proves that I am not universally 'a woman misunderstood.' But you said nothing of the man after my own heart, so that Bracciano took me by surprise, and has nearly turned my head! My very beau-idéal of manhood is that Paul Giordano; could I hear of the like of him existing anywhere in these degenerate times, I would, even at this late stage of the business - send him - my
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picture! and an offer of my heart and hand for the next world, since they are already disposed of in this. Ah! what a man that must be, who can strangle his young, beautiful wife with his own hands, and, bating one moment of conventional horror, inspire not the slightest feeling of aversion or distrust! When a man strangles his wife nowadays he does it brutally, in drink, or in passion, or in revenge; to transact such a work coolly, nobly, on the loftiest principles, to strangle with dignity because the woman 'was unworthy of him,' that indeed is a triumph of character which places this Bracciano above all the heroes of ancient or modern times; which makes me almost weep that I was not born two centuries earlier, that I might have been - his mistress - not his wife!
But what think you befel? In the simplicity of my heart I lent the book to a friend, a man of course, whose hitherto version of me has borne a considerable resemblance to the Santa Maria; lent it too with all my marginal marks (as Carlyle would say) 'significant of much'! And when the man[1] brought it back he could neither look at me nor speak to me; but blushed and stammered, as if he were in the presence of a new goddess of reason. Disliking all that sort of thing, I asked him plain out, what ailed him? 'The truth is,' said he, 'Mrs. Carlyle, that book' (looking at it askance) 'has confused me! May I ask who
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recommended to you that book?' 'A clergyman,' said I; for the first and probably the last time in my life recognising your sacred vocation; 'John Sterling gave it to me.' 'The son?' 'Yes, to be sure, the son,' and then I laughed outright, and the man looked at me with a mingled expression of pity and alarm, and changed the subject.
JANE CARLYLE.
Fragments of letters to T. Carlyle, July 1843.
The house in Cheyne Row requiring paint and other re-adjustments, Carlyle had gone on a visit to Wales, leaving his wife to endure the confusion and superintend the workmen, alone with her maid. - J. A. F.
July 4, 1843. - The first night is over, and we are neither robbed nor murdered. I must confess, however, that I observed last night for the first time with what tremendous facility a thief with the average thief agility might swing himself, by laying hold of the spout, off the garden wall into my dressing closet, leaving me no time to spring my rattle, or even unsheath my dagger. 'You must excuse us the day;' I am in a complete mess, and my pen refuses to mark. I shall be in a complete mess for a time, times and a half. I will perhaps go for a few days to the Isle of Wight, for breathing, in the midst of it; but I shall not be done with my work this month to come. You
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see you do so hate commotion that this house gets no periodic cleanings like other people's, and one must make the most of your absence.
July 11. - It has been such a morning as you cannot figure: a painter filling the house with terrific smells, the whitewashers still whitewashing, Pearson and men tearing out the closet, and the boy always grinding with pumice stone. Having been taught politeness to one's neighbours by living next door to Mr. Chalmers, I wrote a note to Mr. Lambert, No. 6, regretting that his and his family's slumbers were probably curtailed by my operations, and promising that the nuisance would have only a brief term. This brought Mr. Lambert upon me (virtue ever its own reward), who stayed for an hour, talking, you know how. Then I. ... And you do not like my beautiful 'Vittoria'! oh, what want of taste!
July 12. - If you had seen me last night asleep you would have seen a pretty sight. The paint was smelling, of course - one can't make a household revolution, any more than a State one, with rose water; and so this house did not smell of rose water, I can assure you. Old Sterling had said so much about its costing me my life, and the absolute necessity of my at least sleeping at his house, that I did begin to think it might cause me a headache! So I took all wise precautions against it, kept my door carefully shut all
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day, and slept with both my windows open, so that I really suffered very little inconvenience from the smell. But just when I was going to bed, it occurred to me that in this open state of things, with several ladders lying quite handy underneath the window, 'heavy bodies might,' as Helen phrased it, 'drop in,' and be at my pillow before I heard them; so, feeling it my duty to neglect no proper precaution, I laid my dagger and the great policeman's rattle on the spare pillow and went to sleep quite pleasantly, without any more thought about thieves.
I have got such a pretty writing establishment - a sort of gipsy's tent, which I have mounted in the garden 'with my own hands,' constructed out of the clothes ropes and posts and the crumb cloth of the library! I sit under its 'dark brown shade - wh'[1] - the Macready of Nature - an arm-chair, and the little round table, with my writing materials, and my watch to keep me in mind that I am in a time world, a piece of carpet under foot, and a foot-stool. Behold
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all that is necessary for my little garden house! Woman wants but little here below - an old crumb cloth mainly, you perceive. But one has no credit in being jolly in such a pretty bower. By-and-by I shall have to return indoors, 'to come out strong.'
July 17. - Tout va bien. The work goes well, and myself goes well. The early rising and the shower-bathing and the having something to look after agrees with me wonderfully. The degree of heat also is exactly suited to my needs. This and the other person drops in and asks me if I do not feel very lonely? It is odd what notions men seem to have of the scantiness of a woman's resources. They do not find it anything out of nature that they should be able to exist by themselves; but a woman must always be borne about on somebody's shoulders, and dandled and chirped to, or it is supposed she will fall into the blackest melancholy. When I answered that question from Arthur Helps yesterday, 'Why should I feel lonely? I have plenty to do, and can see human beings whenever I look out at the window,' he looked at me as if I had uttered some magnanimity worthy to have place in a 'Legitimate Drama,' and said, 'Well, really you are a model of a wife.'
To John Welsh, Esq., The Baths, Helensburgh.
Chelsea: July 18, 1843.
Dearest, dear only Uncle of me, - I would give a crown that you could see me at this moment through a powerful telescope! You would laugh for the next twelve hours. I am doing the rural after a fashion so entirely my own! To escape from the abominable paint-smell, and the infernal noise within doors, I have erected, with my own hands, a gipsy-tent in the garden, constructed with clothes lines, long poles, and an old brown floor cloth! under which remarkable shade I sit in an arm-chair at a small round table, with a hearth rug for carpet under my feet, writing-materials, sewing-materials, and a mind superior to Fate!
The only drawback to this retreat is its being exposed to 'the envy of surrounding nations'; so many heads peer out on me from all the windows of the Row, eager to penetrate my meaning! If I had a speaking trumpet I would address them once for all: - 'Ladies and Gentlemen, - I am not here to enter my individual protest against the progress of civilisation! nor yet to mock you with an Arcadian felicity, which you have neither the taste nor the ingenuity to make your own! but simply to enjoy Nature according to ability, and to get out of the
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smell of new paint! So, pray you, leave me to pursue my innocent avocations in the modest seclusion which I covet!'
Not to represent my contrivance as too perfect, I must also tell you that a strong puff of wind is apt to blow down the poles, and then the whole tent falls down on my head! This has happened once already since I began to write, but an instant puts it all to rights again. Indeed, without counteracting the indoors influences by all lawful means, I could not stay here at present without injury to my health, which is at no time of the strongest. Our house has for a fortnight back been a house possessed by seven devils! a painter, two carpenters, a paper-hanger, two non-descript apprentice-lads, and 'a spy;' all playing the devil to the utmost of their powers hurrying and scurrying 'upstairs, down stairs, and in my lady's chamber!' affording the liveliest image of a sacked city!
When they rush in at six of the morning, and spread themselves over the premises, I instantly jump out of bed, and 'in wera desperation' take a shower bath. Then such a long day to be virtuous in! I make chair and sofa covers; write letters to my friends; scold the work-people, and suggest improved methods of doing things. And when I go to bed at night I have to leave both windows of my room wide open (and plenty of ladders lying quite handy underneath),
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that I may not, as old Sterling predicted, 'awake dead' of the paint.
The first night that I lay down in this open state of things, I recollected Jeannie's house-breaker adventure last year, and, not wishing that all the thieves who might walk in at my open windows should take me quite unprepared, I laid my policeman's rattle and my dagger on the spare pillow, and then I went to sleep quite secure. But it is to be confidently expected that, in a week or more, things will begin to subside into their normal state; and meanwhile it were absurd to expect that any sort of revolution can be accomplished. There! the tent has been down on the top of me again, but it has only upset the ink.
Jeannie appears to be earth quaking with like energy in Maryland Street, but finds time to write me nice long letters nevertheless, and even to make the loveliest pincushion for my birthday; and my birthday was celebrated also with the arrival of a hamper, into which I have not yet penetrated. Accept kisses ad infinitum for your kind thought of me, dearest uncle. I hope to drink your health many times in the Madeira[1] when I have Carlyle with me again to give an air of respectability to the act. Nay, on that evening when it came to hand, I was feeling so sad and dreary over the contrast between this Fourteenth of July - alone,
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in a house like a sacked city, and other Fourteenths that I can never forget, that I hesitated whether or no to get myself out a bottle of the Madeira there and then, and try for once in my life the hitherto unknown comfort of being dead drunk. But my sense of the respectable overcame the temptation.
My husband has now left his Welshman, and is gone for a little while to visit the Bishop of St. David's. Then he purposes crossing over somehow to Liverpool, and, after a brief benediction to Jeannie, passing into Annandale. He has suffered unutterable things in Wales from the want of any adequate supply of tea! For the rest, his visit appears to have been pretty successful; plenty of sea-bathing; plenty of riding on horseback, and of lying under trees! I wonder it never enters his head to lie under the walnut-tree here at home. It is a tree! leaves as green as any leaves can be, even in South Wales! but it were too easy to repose under that: if one had to travel a long journey by railway to it, then indeed it might be worth while!
But I have no more time for scribbling just now; besides, my pen is positively declining to act. So, God bless you, dear, and all of them.
Ever your affectionate
JANE CARLYLE.
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Llandough, Cowbridge.
Chelsea: July 18, 1843.
Dearest, - I take time by the pigtail, and write at night after post-hours. During the day there is such an infernal noise of pumice-stone, diversified by snatches of 'wild strains;' the youth who is scraping the walls (as if it were a hundred knife-grinders melted into one) consoling himself under the hideous task by striking up every two minutes 'The Red Cross Knight,' or 'Evelyn's Bower,' or some such plaintive melody, which, after a brief attempt to render itself 'predominant,' 'dies away into unintelligible whinner.'[1] Yesterday forenoon Mrs. Chadwick came; and had just seated herself on the sofa beside me, and was beginning to set forth amiabilities; when bang, bang, crash, screech, came the pumice-stone over the room-door, to the tune
making us both start to our feet with a little scream and then fall back again in fits of laughter. Then the stairs are all flowing with whitewash; and 'altogether' when I fancy you here 'in the midst of it,' I do not know whether to laugh, or to cry, or to shriek.
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But it will be a clean pretty house for you to come home to; and should you find that I have exceeded by a few pounds your modest allowance for painting and papering, you will find that I have not been thoughtless nevertheless, when I show you a document from Mr. Morgan,[1] promising to 'indemnify us for the same in the undisturbed possession of our house for five years!' A piece of paper equivalent to a lease of the house for five years, 'with the reciprocity all on one side,' binding him and leaving us free. 'Such a thing,' old Sterling said, who attended me to Pope's Head Alley, 'as no woman but myself would have had the impudence to ask, nor any lawyer in his senses the folly to grant.' I do not see but we might get a lease of the house after all for as long as we pleased, if I went about it, instead of the volupchious Perry.[2] This was one of those remarkable instances of fascination which I exercise over gentlemen of a 'certain age;' before I had spoken six words to him it was plain to the meanest capacity that he had fallen over head and ears in love with me; and if he put off time in writing me the promise I required, it was plainly only because he could not bear the idea of my going away again! No wonder! probably no such beatific vision as that of a real live woman, in a silk bonnet and muslin gown, ever
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irradiated that dingy, dusty law-chamber of his, and sat there on a three-feet-high stool, since he had held a pen behind his ear; and certainly never before had either man or woman, in that place, addressed him as a human being, not as a lawyer, or he would not have looked at me so struck dumb with admiration when I did so. For respectability's sake, I said, in taking leave, that 'my husband was out of town, or he would have come himself.' 'Better as it is,' said the old gentleman, 'do you think I would have written to your husband's dictation as I have done to yours?' He asked me if your name were John or William - plainly he had lodged an angel unawares.
By the way, that other angel[1] is becoming a bore. Charles Barton, with whom I dined at Sterling's in returning from Pope's Head Alley, told me that he had been making quite a sensation in Berlin, and been invited to a great many places, on the strength of the 'French Revolution.' He (Charles B.) was asked to meet him - that is, 'Thomas Carlyle, author of "The French Revolution,"' at the Earl of Westmorland's. 'Is he here?' said Charles; 'I shall be delighted to see him, I know him quite well;' and accordingly, on the appointed day, he 'almost ran into the arms of the announced Thomas Carlyle, and then retreated with consternation.' It was so far good that he had an opportunity to disabuse these people at
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least by declaring 'that was not Thomas Carlyle at all!' But is it not a shame in the creature to encourage the delusion, and let himself be feted as a man of genius when he is only a 'crackbrained enthusiastic'?[1]
I have awoke at four every morning since you went away; and the night before last I slept just half an hour in all; it is always the effect of finding one's self in a new position. When the workpeople come at six, I get up, which makes a prodigiously long day; but I do not weary, having so many mechanical things to do. This morning I took, or rather failed to take, a shower bath; I pulled with concentrated courage, and nothing would come; determined not to be quite baffled, however, I made Helen pour a pitcherful of water on me instead.
Mazzini came this forenoon, for the first time; very pale and weak, but his face pretty well mended. He was horribly out of spirits; and no wonder. They have brought out the 'British and Foreign Review' without his article!! a most untimely contretemps for him, in an economical point of view; and besides very mortifying to him morally, as he is sure it is 'merely because of his being a foreigner that he is so ill-used.' I was strongly advising him to - run away, to hide himself from all people, friends and creditors and disciples, in Switzerland or some cheap, quiet place; and I should not wonder if he did
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some such thing in the end - a man cannot live 'in a state of crisis' (as he calls it) for ever.
I do not see how I am to get to the Isle of Wight. I cannot leave the house with workpeople coming and going; and Helen declares, naturally, that without me she could not stay a night in the house for the whole world. But I daresay I am quite as content here, studious of household good, as I should be, dragged about to look at picturesque views, at the Isle of Wight, or anywhere else that 'fool[1] creturs go for diversion;' but London, be it e'er so hot, is ne'er too hot for me![2] To-day we have had the beautifullest soft rain, to make all fresh again; and on the whole, the weather is charming; and I never go into the dusty streets on foot. Good night.
Saturday. - Well! you cannot come back here just now at all rates, that is flat. What think you of going to this -----? Here indeed you would not 'come out strong' under the existing circumstances. It is only I who can be 'jolly' in such a mess of noise, dirt, and wild dismay! I said to the lad in the lobby this morning, who was filling the whole house with 'Love's young dream:' 'How happy you must feel, that can sing through that horrible noise you are making!' 'Yes, thank you, ma'm,' says he, 'I am happy enough
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so far as I knows; but I's always a-singing any how! it sounds pleasant to sing at one's work, doesn't it, ma'm?' 'Oh, very pleasant,' said I, quite conquered by his simplicity, 'but it would be still pleasanter for me, at least, if you would sing a song from beginning to end, instead of bits here and there.' 'Thank you ma'm,' says he again, 'I will try!' But he does not succeed.
I have the most extraordinary letter from * * *, which I would send, only that it would cost twopence of itself. He writes to tell me that 'he did not like his reception,' that, 'often as he came and long as he stayed, I treated him indeed with perfect civility, did not yawn, or appear to be suppressing a yawn; but I seemed to labour under a continual feeling of oppression! and to be thinking all the while of something else!' 'What did I see to offend me in him?' he asks me with great humility; from what he heard of preferences and saw of my society, he was inclined to suppose that what I objected to in him must be the want of that first great requisite, earnestness. But he begged to assure me, &c., &c. - in short, that he had as much earnestness 'as he could bear'!! A letter from a man calling himself bishop to a woman whom he calls infidel, and pleading guilty to her of want of earnestness - Bah! I wish I could snort like Cavaignac.
There, now I must stop. I daresay I have
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wearied you. God keep you, dear. Be quite easy about me.
Ever yours
J. C.
Cuittikins (old Scotch word for spatterdashes, 'cuits' signifying feet) means * * * * *, now become 'Bishop,' so-called, 'of -----' (title we used to think analogous to Great Mogul of London?), in whose episcopal uniform, unsuitable to the little bandy-legged man, the spats were a prominent item. Indisputable man of talent and veracity, though not of much devoutness, of considerable worldliness rather, and quietly composed self-conceit - gone now, ridiculously, into the figure of 'a bandy-legged black beetle,' as was thought by some.
'Old Morrah,' or Murrough, was an Irish surgeon of much sense and merit, well accepted by the Sterlings and us.
The policeman's 'rattle' was a thing she actually had on her night-table at this time.
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Carmarthen.
Chelsea: Thursday, July 20, 1843.
Dearest, - I quite fretted, last night, at your having been cheated out of your letter. D'abord, I had a headache; but that was not the reason, for it was not an even-down headache, under which no woman can write; I could have written, better or worse; but I put off, thinking always I should get into 'a freer and clearer state'[1] before the post left;
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and, as the copy-line says, 'procrastination is the root of all evil.' From two till four I had visitors, and not of free and easy sort who could be told to go away and return at a more convenient season; first, Mrs. Prior[1] and her companion Miss Allan, the primmest pair; but meaning well, and making me a long first visit of ceremony, in testimony of Mrs. Prior's sense of my 'goodness to her poor brother.'
By the way, I really believe that I have been the instrument, under Providence, of saving old Sterling's life. I told you how Dr. Fergusson seemed to me to be ruining him with recommendations of 'a plentiful use of porter, wine, and other stimulants to restore the tone of his nervous system'(!) Then he recommended him vapour baths. I saw him after his first bath, all scarlet as a lobster and pale as milk by turns, and shivering and burning by turns. I had an uncomfortable feeling about him all the evening; was not sure whether I ought not to write to John; he looked to me so much in danger of some sudden stroke. Two days after, he came and told me he had been twice cupped; had been so ill that he had himself proposed the thing to Fergusson, who approved. Now this was quite enough to show what sort of person this Fergusson must he, feeding a man up with porter and wine, and cupping him at the same time. I told Sterling most seriously that he
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looked to me in a very critical state; and that if he did not go home, and send at once to old Morrah, who was no quack, and had never flattered his tastes, I would not answer for his living another week. He was furious at my suspicion of Fergusson; but on the way home thought better of it, and did send for Morrah; who immediately proceeded to scour him with the most potent medicines. Morrah called for me two days ago, and said that he did not think he could have gone on another week under Fergusson's system, without a stroke of apoplexy; that his pulse was a hundred and thirty, and his tongue quite black. Now he is sleeping well, and much better every way.
After Mrs. Prior, came the Dundee Stirlings, and the sister who is going to India. I liked the big bald forehead and kind eyes of Stirling very much indeed. He looks a right good fellow. They are to return to Dundee in a few days. But the most unexpected, the most stroke-of-thunder visitor I have had was Cuttikins!![1] I declare when Helen told me he was below, I almost sprung the rattle. I had not answered his letter, had made up my mind not to answer it at all; a man puts one in quite a false position who demands an explanation of one's coldness - coldness which belongs to the great sphere of silence; all speech about it can only make bad worse. Was he come there because, like ----,
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he 'had found it so easy' to ask me for an answer? Was the small chimera gone out of his wits? When I came down, though outwardly quite calm, even indifferent, I was in a serious trouble. He put me speedily at ease, however, by telling me that he had been sent for express, to see his aunt, who had thought herself dying (and from whom he has expectations); she was now recovering, and he hoped to be able to go back in a few days - I hope so, too. I said I had not answered his letter, because it seemed to me that was the best way to counteract the indiscretion of his having written it; that, 'although, as a man much older than myself, and a dignitary of the church, he ought to be wiser than I, I could not help telling him that I had learned a thing or two, which he seemed to be still in ignorance of - among the rest, that warmth of affection could not be brought about by force of logic.' He said 'I was right, and he did not design to bore me this time,' and so we parted with polite mutual tolerance. But you may figure the shock of having that little Cuttikins descend from the blue so suddenly when I was relying on seeing no more of him for three years.
Only think what human wickedness is capable of! Some devils broke into Pearson's workshop the night before last, and stole all the men's tools. The poor creatures are running about, lost, their occupation quite gone. They have never any money laid by,
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so they cannot buy new tools till they get money, and they cannot make money till they get tools. It is the cruellest of thefts - a man's tools. Last night six or seven pounds' worth of glass was cut out of a new house - out of the windows that is to say.
Your letter is just come; I thank you for never neglecting me. Yesterday looked such a blank day; no letters came, as if in sympathy with your silence. You must feel something of a self-constituted impostor in your present location. I have a good many little things to do, and an engagement with Mrs. Prior, who is to come to take me a drive at two o'clock. Oh, if you could mend me some pens! Bless you, dearest.
Your own
J. C.
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Liverpool.
Chelsea: Monday night, July 31, 1843.
Dearest, - The postman presented me your letter to-night, in Cheyne Walk, with a bow extraordinary. He is a jewel of a postman; whenever he has put a letter from you into the box, he both knocks and rings, that not a moment may be lost in taking possession of it. In acknowledgment whereof, I crossed the street one day, when Cuttikins, who stayed a week and returned twice, was with me, and at that moment doing the impossible to be entertaining, for the purpose of saluting his (the postman's) baby,
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which he was carrying out for an airing. The rage of Cuttikins at this interruption was considerable; he looked at me as if he could have eaten me raw, and remarked with a concentrated spleen, 'Well, I must say, never did I see any human being so improved in amiability as you are. Everybody and everything seems to be honoured with a particular affection from you.' 'Everything,' thought I, 'except you;' but I contented myself with saying, 'Isn't it a darling baby?' Poor Cuttikins, his aunt did not die; so he is gone with the prospect of - alas! - of having to return ere long. The last day he came, John Sterling exploded him in a way that would have done your heart good to see. John looked at me as much as to say, 'Does he bore you?' and I gave my shoulders a little shrug in the affirmative; whereupon John jumped to his feet and said in a polite undertone, as audible, however, for the Bishop as for me, 'Well, my good friend, if you cannot keep your engagement with me, I must go by myself - I am too late already.' The cool assurance of this speech was inimitable, for I had no engagement in the world with him; but the bishop, suspecting nothing, sprang to his feet, and was off in a minute with apologies for having detained me.
Well, I actually accomplished my dinner at the Kay Shuttleworths'. Mrs. ----- was the only lady at dinner; old Miss Rogers, and a young wersh-looking[1]
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person with her, came in the evening; it was a very locked-jaw sort of business. Little Helps was there, but even I could not animate him: he looked pale and as if he had a pain in his stomach. Milnes was there, and 'affable' enough, but evidently overcome with a feeling that weighed on all of us - the feeling of having been dropped into a vacuum. There were various other men, a Sir Charles Lemon, Cornewall Lewis, and some other half-dozen insipidities, whose names did not fix themselves in my memory. Mrs. ----- was an insupportable bore; she has surely the air of a retired unfortunate female; her neck and arms were naked, as if she had never eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil! She reminded me forcibly of the Princess Huncamunca, as I once saw her represented in a barn. She ate and drank with a certain voracity, sneezed once during the dinner, just like a hale old man, 'and altogether' nothing could be more ungraceful, more unfeminine than her whole bearing. She talked a deal about America and her poverty with exquisite bad taste. Indeed, she was every way a displeasing spectacle to me.
Mazzini's visit to Lady Baring (as he calls her) went off wonderfully well. I am afraid, my dear, this Lady Baring of yours, and his, and John Mill's, and everybody's, is an arch coquette. She seems to have played her cards with Mazzini really too well;
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she talked to him with the highest commendations of George Sand, expressed the utmost longing to read the new edition of 'Lelia'; nay, she made him 'a mysterious signal with her eyes, having first looked two or three times towards John Mill and her husband,' clearly intimating that she had something to tell him about ---- which they were not to hear; and when she could not make him understand, she 'shook her head impatiently, which from a woman, especially in your England, was - what shall I say? - confidential, upon my honour.' I think it was. John Mill appeared to be loving her very much, and taking great pains to show her that his opinions were right ones. By the way, do you know that Mill considers Robespierre 'the greatest man that ever lived,' his speeches far surpassing Demosthenes'? He begins to be too absurd, that John Mill! I heard Milnes saying at the Shuttleworths' that 'Lord Ashley was the greatest man alive; he was the only man that Carlyle praised in his book.' I dare say he knew I was overhearing him.
I am quite rid of the paint-smell now; but I have the whitewasher coming again to-morrow. I could not turn up the low room till the upstairs one was in some sort habitable again, and all last week, nothing could be got on with, owing to Pearson's absence. It is surprising how much easier it is to pull down things than to put them up again.
Welsh Tour done. Leaving Liverpool for Scotsbrig I get this. - T. C.
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Liverpool.
Chelsea: Thursday, Aug. 3, 1843.
Dearest, - If you go on board to-night, this letter will reach you no sooner than if written to-morrow and addressed to Scotsbrig; but if you do not, and to-morrow there be a second day for you without any news, you will be 'vaixed;' and on no account must you be vaixed if one can possibly help it. I cannot, however, make much of writing to-day; for it is thundering and raining in a quite soul-confusing manner; that in the first place, then, in the second, I have a headache. Last night the Stickwoman, who is always showing me small civilities, brought me a present of ass's milk (God knows where she got hold of the ass to milk it!), and she bade Helen tell me that if I would please to drink it to my supper, I should feel great benefit in the morning. I drank it, more for curiosity than for any superiority I could taste in it over cow's milk; and awoke, after two hours' sleep, with such a headache, and such a detestation of ass's milk! I was able to get up early to my breakfast; but am not recovered yet, nor shall be till I have had a night's sleep. I did myself no good by cleaning the lamp in the morning. It had ceased
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to act some time ago, and was beginning to lie heavy on my conscience, besides that light is one of the things I do not like to economise in, when I am alone; just the more alone I am, the more light I need, as I told Darwin, the night he drank tea with me, and, when the lamp was brought in, remarked that 'it was surely far too much light for a single woman'! Darwin, by the way, has gone out of sight latterly; it is a fortnight, I am sure, since he was here; he talked then of paying a visit to his brother and then going to the Mackintosh's.
I am sitting in the upstairs room now, while the earthquake is rumbling beneath it, and this and the thunder together are almost too much for me. They have washed the ceilings, and Helen is now washing the paint, and doing the impossible to clean the paper with bread. 'Ah!' it takes such a quantity of labour, for a man quite inconceivable, to make what is dirty look one shade more near to clean. But here it is all quite clean, and so pretty! I feel like a little Queen sitting in it, so far as what Mazzini calls 'the material' is concerned; indeed, I suppose no Queen ever got half the comfort out of a nice room; Queens being born to them as the sparks fly upwards. There are still some finishing strokes to be given, the bookshelves all to be put up, and the window curtains; and a deal of needlework has to go to the last. But when all is done, it will be such a pleasure to receive
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you and give you tea in your new library! when you have exhausted the world without.
Thanks for your constant little letters; when you come back, I do not know how I shall learn to do without them, they have come to be as necessary as any part of my 'daily bread.' But, my dear, I must stop, you see that my head is bad and that I am making it worse.
Bless you,
Yours, J. C.
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Scotsbrig.
Pier Hotel, Ryde:[1] Wednesday morning, Aug. 9, 1843.
Dearest, - Here I actually am, and so far as has yet appeared, 'if it had not been for the honour of the thing,' I had better have stayed where I was. The journey hither was not pleasant the least in the world. What journey ever was or shall be pleasant for poor me? But this railway seems to me particularly shaky, and then the steamboating from Gosport, though it had not time to make me sick - the water, moreover, being smooth as the Thames - still made me as perfectly uncomfortable as need be; a heavy dew was falling; one could not see many yards ahead; everybody on board looked peevish. I wished myself at home in my bed.
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We reached Ryde at eight in the evening, and, the second hotel being filled, had to take up our quarters for that night at the first, which 'is the dearest hotel in Europe,' and the hotel in Europe, so far as I have seen, where there is the least human comfort. I had to make tea from an urn the water of which was certainly not 'as hot as one could drink it;'[1] the cream was blue milk, the butter tasted of straw, and the 'cold fowl' was a lukewarm one, and as tough as leather. After this insalubrious repast - which the Stimabile,[2] more easily pleased than I, pronounced to he 'infinitely refreshing, by Jove!' - finding that, beyond sounding the depths of vacuum, there was nothing to be done that night, I retired to my bed. The windows looked over house-roofs and the sea, so I hoped it would be quiet; but, alas, there was a dog uttering a volley of loud barks, about once in the five minutes; and rousing up what seemed to be a whole infinitude of dogs in the distance! Of course, fevered and nervous as I was at any rate from the journey, I could not sleep at all; I do not mean that I slept ill, but I have absolutely never been asleep at all the whole night! So you may fancy the favourable mood I am in towards
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Ryde this morning! I feel as if I would not pass another night in that bed for a hundred pounds!
Nor shall I need. Clark[1] has been out this morning to seek a lodging; and has found one, he says, very quiet, quite away from the town. If I cannot sleep there, I will return to my own red bed as fast as possible. I did not bind myself for any specified time. To Helen I said I should most likely be back in three or four days; but in my own private mind, I thought it possible I might make out a week. It was best, however, to let her expect me from day to day; both that she might get on faster and that she might suffer less from her apprehension of thieves, for she flattered herself nobody would know I was gone before I should be returned. I left Elizabeth with her, with plenty of needlework to do; alone, she would have gone out of her senses altogether, and most probably succeeded in getting the house robbed.
And now let me tell you something which you will perhaps think questionable, a piece of Hero-Worship that I have been after. My youthful enthusiasm, as John Sterling calls it, is not extinct then, as I had supposed; but must certainly be immortal! Only think of its blazing up for Father Mathew! You know I have always had the greatest reverence for that priest; and when I heard he was in London, attainable to me, I felt that I must see him, shake him
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by the hand, and tell him I loved him considerably! I was expressing my wish to see him, to Robertson, the night he brought the Ballad Collector;[1] and he told me it could be gratified quite easily. Mrs. Hall had offered him a note of introduction to Father Mathew, and she would be pleased to include my name in it. 'Fix my time, then.' 'He was administering the pledge all day long in the Commercial Road.' I fixed next evening.
Robertson, accordingly, called for me at five, and we rumbled off in omnibus, all the way to Mile End, that hitherto for me unimaginable goal! Then there was still a good way to walk; the place, the 'new lodging,' was a large piece of waste ground, boarded off from the Commercial Road, for a Catholic cemetery. I found 'my youthful enthusiasm' rising higher and higher as I got on the ground, and saw the thousands of people all hushed into awful silence, with not a single exception that I saw - the only religious meeting I ever saw in cockneyland which had not plenty of scoffers hanging on its outskirts. The crowd was all in front of a narrow scaffolding, from which an American captain was then haranguing it; and Father Mathew stood beside him, so good and simple-looking! Of course, we could not push our way to the front of the scaffold, where steps led up to it; so we went to one end, where there were
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no steps or other visible means of access, and handed up our letter of introduction to a policeman; he took it and returned presently, saying that Father Mathew was coming. And he came; and reached down his hand to me, and I grasped it; but the boards were higher than my head, and it seemed our communication must stop there. But I have told you that I was in a moment of enthusiasm; I felt the need of getting closer to that good man. I saw a bit of rope hanging, in the form of a festoon, from the end of the boards; I put my foot on it; held still by Father Mathew's hand; seized the end of the boards with the other; and, in some, to myself (up to this moment), incomprehensible way, flung myself horizontally on to the scaffolding at Father Mathew's feet! He uttered a scream, for he thought (I suppose) I must fall back; but not at all; I jumped to my feet, shook hands with him and said - what? 'God only knows.' He made me sit down on the only chair a moment; then took me by the hand as if I had been a little girl, and led me to the front of the scaffold, to see him administer the pledge. From a hundred to two hundred took |