Some Letters and Conversations of Thomas Carlyle

THESE letters were, with one exception, written to me. In four of them are a few short passages which have already been printed. I print them again, to make the context complete. The allusions to my health will be explained by my saying that for some years I was confined to crutches, couch, and invalid carriage.

The notes of Conversations were written down the day after the talks took place, in letters to my aunt, Lady Louis, then at Malta, where Sir John Louis was Admiral Superintendent of the Dockyard. The first two conversations were at my lodgings in Albert Terrace, and the third at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Buller in Queen Square Place, where I was then on a visit.

I give so much of my own share in the conversation as is required to make that of Carlyle clear; but I would not now be made responsible for any opinions which I may have held fifty-six years ago.

Edward Strachey.

LETTER I.

5 CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA, Saturday, June, 1838.

MY DEAR SIR, — I could come to you, with great pleasure, any night after Monday, the llth; but till then I am delivering a course of extempore lectures which keeps me in continual nervousness and fret, and obliges me to decline all invitations whatever, — unfortunate dyspeptic as I am!

Some day next week, now that I know your address, I will see you, with the additional hope of seeing your good mother also, to whom, as to a friend now of many years, I beg to commend myself with all manner of good wishes.

Along with this I send a small pamphlet, promised to Lady Louis, which arrived only the night before last. I recommend you to read it in passing.

Believe me ever,

Yours very truly,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER II.

CHELSEA, Monday, June 18, 1838.

MY DEAR SIR, — I am not rightly well this week, having met with a little accident, or tumble, the other day, and fear I must not venture out so far to dinner. I hope to call some morning (Friday or sooner) and have a little speech with you ; unless the rain go very contrary indeed, T will make this out.

Your surgeon’s order precisely agrees with my ideas. Salt water and sea air, — these are of all things to me the wholesomest. I do hope they will do you good in this fine season.

Believe me always,

Most truly yours,

T. CARLYLE.

CONVERSATION I.

June 8, 1838.

Carlyle dines with me next week. He called here the other day. I forget whether I mentioned that he was lecturing on literature in general. His course is nearly complete, and Sterling told me he would get £250 by it. Carlyle said to me that nothing but necessity should make him lecture or write ; for he had said all he had to say at present, and he wished to remain in quiet and silence. He has written an article on Sir Walter Scott, which I hear is very good. Sterling has lent it to me.

CONVERSATION II.

(On Friday, June 22, 1838, Carlyle, my cousin John Kirkpatrick, and my friend Samuel Clark dined with me.)

E. S. Do you go out of town this summer, Mr. Carlyle ?

T. C. Yes ; but we have n’t yet fixed where it will be. Living in London is very bad for the health, but not so much from the climate as from the excitement and stimulating state of every man’s mind. Every man that you meet seems in a fever : he sees you for a minute, and knows you will then go your way and meet some one else ; so he comes out with some remark which is pungent and shall make an impression, that it may not easily be effaced by the next comer. When I return to London, after any absence, I feel in a strange, unnatural element for some time, and don’t know how to accustom myself to it.

(Enter Kirkpatrick, followed by a leg of Welsh mutton, fish curry, green peas, and, later, macaroni and tartlets, etc.)

T. C. (to J. K.) Are you of the family of the Closeburn Kirkpatricks ?

J. K. A distant branch, but we came through Ireland.

T. C. Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick is a man much looked up to in the county, but he lives now in a little appanage of the Closeburn estate, which he has parted with.

(Then we proceeded to discourse of sheriff deputes, procurators fiscal, coroners, lord advocates, trial of a boy by jury for stealing a jackass, at which Mr. Carlyle, one of the men summoned, but not impaneled on the jury, corrected a proof sheet, etc.)

E. S. Who signs “F “ in the London Review ?

T. C. Can you tell me the subject of the paper ? Then I may be able to say.

E. S. An article on the Statistical Society.

T. C. No, I do not know ; but I was going to ask, for he is a man of some intellect.

E. S. I was particularly delighted with his idea that facts are toads with jewels in their heads, and that the Statistical Society carefully collected the toads, and carefully rejected the jewels.

All. Hear ! Hear !

T. C. Yes ; that’s just the way with all the societies in London, from the Royal Society downwards ; they are of no use for anything except eating dinners and drinking tea. And they are now beginning to discover this, and to apply the whole energy of the Body Corporate to these more important affairs. The Royal Society have now got the best establishment for tea-making that is to be found anywhere on the same scale. When I was at one of their meetings, there was some sort of a paper being read with an infinite deal of tedium ; but then they all rose up with great alacrity and proceeded to the library, where there was most excellent tea prepared ; and this they evidently felt to be the real business of the evening.

E. S. The article on Fra Paolo Sarpi is an able one ; who is that by ?

T. C. He is a foreigner,—some such name as Montanzi ; a man of some talent, but a furious radical, one who has no notion except of pulling down ; but he is a young man, and may get wiser.

E. S. I suppose it is unreasonable to expect that an Italian, when he opens his eyes, should be anything more than a mere destructive, since he has never seen anything of any kind in the form of good institutions.

T. C. Yes.

E. S. Lady Louis gives me an interesting account of Mrs. Austin’s proceedings at Malta. She is setting up schools everywhere, and the priests are cooperating. It would be a fine thing if they were really to begin to reform their religion.

T. C. Yes; but I fear there is no chance of it.

E. S. The papacy seems to be on the eve of breaking up everywhere.

T. C. From all I hear, things in Italy resemble a ripe pear, ready to drop with the first touch: the whole is ready to be removed, only there is nothing to put in its place; no one is prepared with anything.

E. S. Mrs. Austin is, I suppose, now on her way home ?

T. C. And the commission is recalled. It seems to have been just appointed to give Austin something, and also there was a sort of clamor among the people ; the fact is, they are all starving.

E. S. Yes ; and the remedy is a newspaper to create a public opinion, which being at present non-existent, the government meanwhile is to support the paper.

T. C. I do not know how a newspaper will remedy the evil. If you were to have a newspaper for every man in the island, it would not fill their bellies ; and till you feed them it is no use trying to give them education. It would be even better to kill them, just to blow them away from your cannon, than to let them linger on in this miserable way, which is death to the soul as well as to the body.

(We then turned to my brother in India, then to Sir Henry Strachey, then to the Somerset M. P.’s.)

T. C. The counties seem to be becoming more and more Tory, but the towns more Radical; and I think it is quite a mistake to believe you will ever bring the towns back again to Conservatism. It’s all very well for Sir Robert Peel to talk about it. He probably thinks that the best of all things — the main end to be aimed at — is that he, Sir Robert Peel, should be Prime Minister, and hopes things are tending to that.

E. S. I hope Peel will never be in office again. He has no political principles, though I do not doubt his individual and private integrity.

S. C. He is certainly a most poor creature.

T. C. I think the constituencies are beginning to see through him : they are beginning to see that he is a sham, and that the time for shams is past. It did very well for Canning, but Peel is too late, and we must now have realities. The Duke of Wellington seems to me the only man in the present day who is anything of a good statesman; I have said so ever since he was Minister. People said he could not speak, but whenever he got up he always had something he meant to say ; there was a real meaning, and that seems to be the main thing in speaking.

E. S. Maurice says that if the duke has not his head in the clear sky, yet his feet are firm on the ground ; whereas these wretched creatures are merely in the clouds, with no footing at all. What would the men at Conservative dinners, who sing “The pilot that weathered the storm ” after Peel’s health, say to us ?

T. C. Are these your books in these shelves ?

E. S. Yes, such as I have room for ; but I am obliged to stow away lots in cupboards and places.

T. C. The Odyssey and Iliad are remarkable for the simplicity and truth with which they exhibit human life ; but all this Pope has lost in his translation.

E. S. I think Cowper has succeeded in making very fine poems.

S. C. Do you know Sotheby’s translations, Mr. Carlyle ?

T. C. No ; but I think the best thing he could do would be to translate them into prose ; he would give more of the spirit than in any other way.

S. C. And the order of the words in Greek would be as much as possible preserved.

T. C. Look at our translations of Hebrew poetry ; they are in prose, but there can be nothing finer or more poetical than this literal translation into the good old Saxon.

E. S. I have just been reading Lowth on Isaiah ; his dissertation is most interesting, and his translations are most spirited.

T. C. Yes, it is an excellent book ; have you got it ?

E. S. I have borrowed it from Mr. Dunn.

S. C. It is remarkable, in comparing the older translations, — the Bishop’s Bible, that of Tyndale, and that of Coverdale, — how often our version has left them for the worse as regards language.

T. C. I do not know any of those translations you mention, but ours is still very fine, a noble specimen of Saxon English. Lowth says it is the best specimen in the language.

(Then we talked about American humor : of the man who was so tall that he got a ladder to shave himself ; of the man who put his coat to bed, when he came home on a wet night, and then hung himself on the back of a chair to dry ; of the man — the last new one — who, to avoid the expense of coach horses, put himself into his carpet bag, and then, taking it in his hand, passed himself off as luggage.)

T. C. These things show a great deal of intellect floating about in America, and not knowing what form to put itself into.

J. K. I suppose Charming is one of their ablest men.

T. C. He never thoroughly raises himself above the commonplace. I often think he is just going to take some fine poetic flight, but, to my disappointment, he never fairly gets on the wing. He should, either soar altogether above the earth, or be content to go on in his splayfooted course.

E. S. But is not that the consequence of his being a Unitarian ?

T. C. Yes, I think it is. If he were to rise any higher than he does, he must give up his Unitarianism. I think the author of that pamphlet I sent through you to Lady Louis is about the man of most mind in America.

E. S. There are striking things in it, but he does not seem to have thought out his views.

T. C. No ; only glimpses of truth.

E. S. Was it not strange that such plain, practical men as the Americans should have adopted the Rousseau theory as the foundation of their Constitution ?

T. C. They just wanted to express their feeling that they had a right to freedom ; and they were determined, as all our colonies have been, that they would not be taxed without their own consent. But when you come to put down a theory about freedom, you find that your words are just nonsense ; there is no meaning in them. People seem to think that the great thing is to have a vote for a member of Parliament; but I do not myself feel that this is essential to my freedom, or enough to make me free to have the five hundredth part of a whole goose talking nonsense in the House of Commons. I want something else, although I cannot define what it is. I think the principle of government must be carrière aux talents, but the difficulty is to find out the proper men of talent. Yet if there were not some real men in public, but above all in private life ; if there were none but your Peels, shams, things would break up altogether, and we should have the French Revolution over and over again, till the whole world was in ashes.

E. S. Does not our Constitution provide better than any other for bringing forward the ablest men ?

T. C. I don’t know. Look at Robert Burns, a man fit for anything (for his poetry was but an accident, just when he found opportunity for it), and at a time when, of all others, we wanted men, and he spent his life gauging beer casks. Look at Sir Robert Peel, the head of the country, and Dr. Johnson living on fourpence a day. Our representative system is useful as showing how much the people will submit to, and what a wise governor may do without bloodshed ; but the will of the majority is usually, if not always, in the wrong for the first fifty years. When they cried out, “ Crucify him! Crucify him ! ” that was the will of the majority ; when the most frightful crime ever committed, the most lamentable mistake ever made, was enacting, it was by the will of the great majority of all classes. I must wish you good-night ; I will soon call on you again.

CONVERSATION III-

October 11, 1838.

Carlyle and his wife dined with us last night. She is a very pleasing woman. She appears to have a good deal of humor ; and though she seems very gentle, I hear that she has a sharp wit when she chooses to exercise it. Aunt Buller told me that Sterling wrote Mrs. Carlyle a severe lecture on her proceedings in this line. They were at a party, when Sterling, in a very solemn manner, pronounced the world to be a mere sepulchre, adding, “ But there are martyrs’ crowns for some of us.” To this Mrs. Carlyle rejoined, “ Yes: hut I don’t think any of us seem much inclined to try for them.” A laugh was immediately raised against poor Sterling’s oracular declaration, and the next morning Mrs. Carlyle got the letter.

Carlyle was as interesting as usual. I think he is second to no one but Maurice in the depth and earnestness of his humanity. Would that, like Maurice, he could see what is the only means and method of delivering man from all evil, and restoring him to perfect bliss ! He is just returned from Scotland, and says that all over the north there are indications of a fearful storm gathering among the people and artisans. In one place where he was staying he used to hear a loom at work till twelve o’clock at night, and it used to wake him before seven in the morning; and when he inquired what it was, he was told that there was a weaver next door, — a man with a wife and six children, —earning six shillings a week by his seventeen hours of daily work. And while ministers and all public men in Parliament and in the newspapers are declaring that the condition of the workingman is very prosperous, such misery as this is too common all over the country. And when men, instead of earning six shillings, are earning two guineas a week, their condition is really no better. Whether we pay them ill or well, we treat them equally as mere machines for providing us with selfish indulgences ; and we have utterly neglected and abandoned all duties towards them, till they have sunk into a brutalized state which is becoming quite intolerable to themselves. In many places they are forming societies for purchasing rifles by a subscription of a penny a week. They are desperate men, who say it is better to shoot or be shot, than to endure this any longer ; and, says Carlyle, “ we shall soon have insurrections, and these poor creatures must be put down by sabre and gallows, and then perhaps thinking men will be roused to seek for a remedy.” He observed that the Duke of Buccleugh has about fifty thousand men working for him. and giving up to him two thirds of the fruit of their labors ; and yet it never occurs to him (though he is by no means a bad man) that he has any duties to perform to any one of this multitude. They may live on their six shillings a week, while he imports his cartloads of foxes from Ireland as the best mode of employing his great wealth. Truly did he add that such a state of things is what the old priests would have called a damnable heresy.

(Mrs. Phillips [Blumine] had asked me to inquire how the late governess of her daughter might find employment in translating from the German, and the following is Carlyle’s reply.)

LETTER III.

CHELSEA, August 27, 1841.

DEAR MR. STRACHEY, — You judge rightly that it would at any time give me very high satisfaction could I be of the smallest service to the lady now named Mrs. Phillips, the remembrance of whom, under what name soever, is always pleasant to me ! I have, unfortunately, however, no connection at all with any publisher of German things ; nor do I know in the least how they manage that business now. except, perhaps, that as there is greatly more demand for German ware in these days than gold, some wages may now, by wise methods, be derivable from it, which was hardly the case in my days. Mrs. Austin seems to be the established hand at present; Mrs. Jameson, too, works in it. I rather fancy the chief difficulty is to fix on some book likely to succeed, — which of course is the translator’s own task. There is seldom any offer of a given book to be translated ; or indeed, if there were, I suppose hundreds are ready for it on bread-and-water terms. Translation, I doubt, is no very good resource ; indeed, literature in any shape, without some express vocation and necessity, is a thing not to be recommended to any one, — to a young lady least of all. My own prosecution of it was entered upon only by the severest compulsion, and has been a life-and-death wrestle all along. Whosoever does not think lightly of starvation, in comparison with several things that he will see practiced, ought to keep aloof altogether from that province.

However, if the young lady so decide on trying the enterprise, I should think her best plan would be to prepare some actual translation and write it out in a legible hand, — some promising book, if she know of one, not of great extent, — whereby it could be judged what faculty she had fit for this business, and whether there were any hope in prosecuting it. I could show Mrs. Jameson such a performance ; ask her advice about it ; she is a reasonable, energetic, and very helpful woman. This is all very light; little other, as you see, than darkness visible.

You are very kind to sympathize so heartily with my books ; the response of an honest, natural human heart is precious to whomsoever speaks. The tolerance of men is very great ; I might say, the rarity of every word honestly spoken, and the growing desire for such, and for such only, is very notable in these times, — with deep sorrow, yet with hope that cannot die!

You should have come to see me. But indeed my wayfarings have been a little will-o’-wispish this season, and even still liable to be ; for I feel I must soon be out of this Nebuchadnezzar furnace of a London, and know not in the least whitherward. Will you offer my loving remembrance to your good lady mother, from whom it is very long since I have heard anything ? For yourself, be of good hope ; and what is perhaps almost better, be a good patient in the interim, resigned to the will of One who knows better than we.

Yours always affectionately,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER IV.

5 CHKYNK ROW, CHELSEA, Friday night, August 26, 1842.

MY DEAR SIR, — I have, as you know, a most kind message from your mother ; the answer to which is still in a state of earnest adjudication, the pleadings pro and contra not yet completed.

Your great distance and my limited power of walking in this hot weather form a great obstacle to our meeting. It strikes me that if you could drive down hither some day, and would consent to wait five minutes till I put on my coat, I would cheerfully go out to drive with you, and we might make a pleasant visit of it without trouble. Any day till two o’clock, and generally till near three, I am to be found here.

Or, alas ! perhaps your carriage holds only two, the servant and yourself ; that did not strike me till now. If so, pray never mind it farther ; we will meet some other way.

Yours always truly,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER V.

CHELSEA, September 21, 1842.

DEAR STRACHEY, — About a week ago I addressed a note to you at 11 Mount Street. Going yesterday to call upon you there, I found that it was a wrong address ; that you were not discoverable there ! Rather unwisely, I had left your last note with Mrs. Buller, to keep her in mind of your address; I fancying that I could carry it safely in my head. The worst will be if the note have miscarried, for it contained a small letter to your mother on a subject that could ill afford to wait longer for an answer. My hope is that the postman of your street had sagacity and memory enough to correct the number from his own resources. Trusting partly to this, I send you a new note with the old address, but with a supplement or pis alter. When you answer me, I will pay better heed to the cipher.

The main purport of my visit yesterday was to say that my wife, who is a chess-player of some eminence, like yourself, will be very happy to come and play a game with you whenever you can send to give her warning, and fetch her up and down. She is, unfortunately, no walker, but very well affected to chess and to you.

My brother seems to be about Beaumaris, with intent to continue some weeks in that neighborhood, and pass over into Scotland for a few days.

Believe me always, dear Mr. Strachey,

Yours most truly,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER VI.

CHELSEA, September 26, 1842.

My DEAR SIR, — Thursday 1st stands fixed for the chess game, unless you say !No. The lady will be ready to start at one o’clock.

I meant to have called and said this to-day ; but alas ! could not.

Yours ever truly,

T. CARLYLE.

(In the autumn of 1842, my old schoolfellow, Mr. [now Sir] Charles Hutton Gregory, told me that a friend of his, Mr. ——by name, wished me to inform Carlyle that he was in possession of the head of Oliver Cromwell, and invited him to go and see it. I have applied to Sir Charles Gregory to confirm my recollection, and he now writes as follows : —

“ I believe it is a matter of history ¹ that Cromwell was embalmed before his burial, and that his body was exhumed and beheaded, and that the head was stuck upon a pike and set up on the top of Westminster Hall, from which it disappeared one windy night.

“ Years after this, the reputed head was in the possession of the Russell family, from whom its descent to the possession of the late Mr.——was never disputed.

“ When I saw it, the head was in a very old box : it was stuck on a pike, which had been broken off from its lower part; upon parts of it there was hair of a chestnut color. Experts stated that it had evidently been embalmed, and the head cut off from the body long afterwards, and that it bore such a resemblance as might be expected to a cast of Cromwell’s face taken after death.

“ The legend which connected ancient history with modern was as follows : —

“ It was said that a sentry who was on guard when the head was blown down picked it up and hid it, and subsequently sold it to a member of the Russell family.

“ From what I saw and heard more than fifty years ago I was quite convinced that the head was genuine, which is more than can he said of a small head which was at one time shown as the head of Oliver Cromwell when a boy.”

In reply to my report to the above effect Carlyle wrote the following letter. I learn that he never went to see the head.)

LETTER VII.

CHELSEA, November 6, 1842.

DEAR MR. STRACIIEY, — The head must evidently have belonged to some son of Adam who lived a good while ago, and went through strange vicissitudes after burial. Though I doubt there is next to no chance of its ever having belonged to Cromwell, yet merely as an anatomical specimen and envious “ product of the arts ” it seems well worth a journey to Camberwell, especially to such a courteous host’s as Mr. ——’s. Pray let my thanks be conveyed to him. I hope also to see your friend Mr. Gregory by and by. But at present I am too weakly with a dirty, sneaking sore throat, the fruit of easterly winds; and indeed, through winter generally I am unequal to a night adventure so far as Camberwell. Perhaps Mr. ——would see me some time by daylight on a Sunday or holiday ? I should like to look on this notable piece of Anak-Reality (supposing it to be only such), and hear what account it gives of itself. The history of poor Oliver, from his cradle to his grave, and even beyond it, is such a mere mass of stupid fables as never, or hardly ever, elsewhere clustered themselves round the memory of a great man. In other times and conditions he would have been sung of as a demigod, and here Tyburn gallows was in all ways the lot of him ! It is really painful to consider such depth of sheer thick stupidity, and total want of sense for the godlike in man is very sure to punish itself ; as, alas ! we find it now in these quack-ridden generations everywhere too fatally doing. But the poor leather head at Camberwell is not to blame for much of this, surely. Let us leave it, therefore.

My wife is out of her cold, but hanging, as her wont is through winter, on the verge of another.

When your good mother approaches this country, I pray you give me notice.

You, I think, will be wise not to stir much out at present. I hope to see you again soon. Ever truly yours,

T. CARLYLE.

My wife wants Mrs. Buller’s address at Lady Louis’s. I have settled with her that she shall write her letter, and that I will inclose it to you, with merely “ Mrs. Buller ” on it, that you may do the needful.

(The ” little book ” referred to below was written as a wedding gift to my sister.)

LETTER VIII.

CHELSEA, March 21, 1843.

MY DEAR MR. STRACHEY,— I have received your beautiful little book, and am far indeed from “ thinking less of you ” for writing it. The little book is the product of a generous, pure, lovingheart, and will speak good only, and not evil, into other hearts. Thanks to you for writing it; thanks to you for sending me a copy of it.

I have been exceedingly busy with printers, with copyists, and other confused persons and things ever since I saw you, or I should have been in Mount Street again. In a week or so I hope to be freer, and then —

With many thanks, with constant good wishes,

Yours most sincerely,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER IX.

CHELSEA, Monday morning,

March 20, 1843.

MY DEAR SIR, — I wrote on Saturday to my Russian ; he called yesterday with his answer. I, unfortunately, had gone out, and he had to leave it with my wife. Still more unfortunately, the answer itself proved to be entirely negative, and very little better than zero.

He does not think that there is on sale in any shop in London a single Russian book. Nobody learns the language here ; a few English merchants about Petersburg are the only English persons that do. He knew of a teacher of Russian here at one time, but he could get hardly any shadow of encouragement, and after long struggling had to withdraw to Brighton, where probably he now is.

My Russian (probably a German merchant, and a most obliging man) is persuaded that there must be extant some kind of Russian-English grammar, Russian-English dictionary, for the use of the St. Petersburg English clerks, if no otherwise, but he himself is entirely ignorant of any. The like as to Russian-French, though probably the hope is greater on that side. This is all that he knows. For the rest, he will “ send to St. Petersburg ” for me, “ send to Paris,” do all that a zealous man can do. If you think, in these circumstances, it is worth while prosecuting such an outlook, pray entrust me, and I will most cheerfully employ this gentleman, who, I think, will like to be employed by me. If your brother be determined to learn Russian, it might be possible for him, but such books as we are like to get will almost infallibly be bad, and the difficulties will be greatly increased thereby. They can be got, it seems, by sending to St. Petersburg, and St. Petersburg can be sent to.

I am afraid I shall not get so far eastward to-day as to see you again this time. Let us hope you will return before long. Pray take care of yourself; keep up and encourage the improvement you are already making ; exercise and regimen, not medicine or doctors. And so Good speed you.

Will you offer my affectionate remembrances to your mother, whom I will always reckon among my chosen ones ? May Good be with you and yours.

I remain, my dear sir,

Yours with true good wishes,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER X.

CHELSEA, Au’/ust 28, 1844.

MY DEAR SIR, — We heard some days ago from Mrs. Buller that you were to be wedded, and more especially last night, from your brother and others of your friends, that the great event had actually taken place. I am much obliged by your announcing it this morning yourself.

May it prove good, and the beginning of all manner of improvements for you. It does seem of good augury. I very sincerely offer you my congratulations and good wishes. You have long had a painfully darkened existence, which you have had to illumine for yourself by your own virtues; may this new element be the beginning of a far more genial illuminating, — the beginning of a return for you to the general sunshine, if Heaven please. Mrs. E. Strachey, whom I saw only once in the distance, shall be better known to me by and by, I hope.

My wife unites with me in all kind regards to you both.

Yours always truly,

T. CARLYLE.

Poor John Sterling, you will be very sad to learn, is gradually sinking towards his end. He himself has not had any hope for many months, and I, the most obstinate of all his friends, have now quitted hope. He sees nobody ; sits solitary at Ventnor. His brother and father, who are in the Isle of Wight too, occasionally visit him, as the Maurices do, who are at present here. He is calm and strong of soul, a most serene, valiant man, and goes down like the setting of a great sun.

LETTER XI.

CHELSEA, November 23, 1844.

DEAR MRS. Strachey,²— ... We are pretty well here, for us, — a complaining set of people. I am exceedingly busy, fishing up out of the depths of brutish human stupidity, washing clean and making legible the letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell, a heroic man, buried in such an element of mud and darkness as few heroes ever were. It is an infinitely ugly kind of drudgery ; I know no man living whom such stupidity and brutality do more disgust than me ; but it seems a kind of duty lying on the like of me. I say, “ He fought ; thy poor trade is but to speak ; speak, then, for him.” Happily, this branch of the business is now almost done ; we must then try others, which, if still harder work, offer work a little more inspiring. I begin to be much disaffected to the whole business of books, and often think, if I have ever done with this, I will never write another.

We heard in some oblique way that our French travelers had all got safe to Nice at last, though not without adventures, disarrangements, and, I understand, sickness to all, or most of them. They were in a steamer, all the Buller family, and driven into Toulon harbor that night Louis Philippe found himself storm-stayed on our coast here. Poor Mrs. Buller must have suffered not a little. But Mr. Fleming seemed to say he understood they were all settled and well now.

I congratulate you on Devonshire in comparison with London. Daily these many years I have had one desire that never quits me, — to see the green earth round me, godly silence, and a sky undefaced with soot and other dirt. But we have to do without it the best we can. Except by some revolution in my affairs, I do not see how it is to be obtained within measurable periods.

Will you offer my kind regards to Lady Louis, of whom we saw a little in London, whom it must be a great pleasure to you to meet again ? Mrs. Phillips, too, I think, is within your sphere : ask her again if she still remembers me as I do her.

My wife unites with me in all good wishes and affectionate regards.

Yours ever truly,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER XII.

CHELSEA, May 10, 1847.

MY DEAR SIR, — I am much pleased to hear of your return to England safe, and if not recovered, yet improved in health, and at all events fitter to enjoy again the blessings which your country still holds out to you. My brother is in Chelsea again (15 Cadogan Terrace), within a short mile of us, for some two months past. I gave him your letter last night, — not having myself received it until the day before, owing to a short absence from home.

The melancholy message which reached me last winter has not even yet produced its whole effect upon me ! New days and new events turn up ever new remembrances, sad and sacred. I had not, and cannot again expect to have, any such friend. Her life was a noble struggle ; and it has ended, — has left us still to struggle yet a little farther. Inexorable time sweeps on, all-producing, all-devouring ; and they that are departed return not to us any more. It is a law as old as the world; and yet it is ever new, — comes upon us with strange originality, as if it had never been before. We are “ sons of time,” fearfully and wonderfully made, in very truth ; but, as I often say, the Living and the Dead are equally with God ; and properly there is nothing more to be said. Surely the remembrance of your noble mother will never leave me while I live in this world.

Bath or Clifton promises to be the eligible residence for you ; accompanied, let us hope, with occasional visits to London, when friends here, too, may now and then get a sight of you. If I ever come into the west again, which is possible in time, certainly I will not forget what possession I have there.

When you see Mr. Hare, your brother-in-law, could you ask him if he knows whence that copy of the Cromwell letter which he sent me came to him ? The original itself has just now turned up, “ saved from the fire by an old land-steward of the Haselrigs, long since,” — a very curious salvage of one of the most remarkable letters in existence ; if indeed the steward is the one exclusive saviour of it, — which is the point to be ascertained. Mr. Hare can at least guess at the age of his copy, which would be one little indication ? I suppose, on the whole, there is no doubt but the old steward has the merit all to himself.

With many kind regards to Mrs. Strachey,

Yours ever truly,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER XIII,

CHELSEA, May 14, 1847.

DEAR MR. STRACHEY, — I have no influence or connection now with any magazine or periodical whatever, but I can readily submit your paper on Hamlet to the publisher of Fraser’s Magazine, with whom I have some acquaintance, and get him at least to have it examined, and to send you an answer. And this, on the whole, is all that can be done by anybody. If the paper please the man’s own dim judgment, he will take it; if it do not, of course nothing can or should induce him. I fear the subject is not likely to be very popular at present.

Pray thank Mr. Hare for the pains he takes. I will not trouble him to bring the Cromwell autograph, but hope to see it sometime at Clifton. The only point of inquiry for me (and that is by no means very weighty) is concerning the copy of the letter to Haselrig, written just before the battle of Dunbar (letter 126 of 2nd edition, letter 91 of 1st), as to where this copy came from, — whether in fact it proceeds from the Haselrig establishment at Nosely Hall, or from that of Mr. Ormston, an old steward of theirs (whose grandson now possesses the original), by whom it and three others were ” snatched from the fire,” once upon a time. The Haselrigs, some sixty or seventy years ago, it appears, had brought this letter, among many others, to the fire to be destroyed, and old Ormston saved it; whereupon the question has arisen with me (a small, but not quite uninteresting question) whether this letter, certainly one of the remarkablest we have that relate to English history, would have been abolished and quite destroyed out of memory had not old Ormston intervened. If Mr. Hare’s copy be anterior to that of Ormston’s interference, of course it at once decides against him ; if posterior, it will not decide anything ; but if its date and history were known, it might help us to decide. This is the small question which, when Mr. Hare has opportunity, I will recommend to him. In great haste,

Yours very truly,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER XIV.

CHELSEA, February 20, 1848.

DEAR MR. STRACHEY, — Here is your Cromwellian leaf, and along with it a letter, by which you will perceive that my inquiry as to what magazine it had belonged to has not been successful. That is not an important point; the date, 1789, being, luckily, marked on the leaf itself, — which date, I can observe farther, is also that of Brand’s History of Newcastle (London, 1789), where this letter and another, and extracts from two more, all stand printed. The year is 1789 in Brand’s ; and as the month in your magazine is November, near upon the end of that year, I think that we may reasonably guess that the magazine has copied from Brand, and therefore that old Bailiff Ormston was in reality the saviour of that letter, and of its three brethren, from the flames at Nosely Hall, — a really remarkable service for an old unconscious gentleman to do.

There is only one point that puzzles me. Along with the magazine leaf, it appears, Mr. Hare was offered the original to purchase. Whereas the undoubted original and the three other originals are now in the hands of Ormston junior, grandson of the old bailiff, and do not seem to have been ever out of the household, or even known to exist there, in late years, till this grandson quite recently searched them out ! Which difficulty, indeed, is not of any intrinsic importance at all, and may be solved by various hypotheses very near the surface.

Such evidence as can be had seems all to point to the conclusion that it was old Ormston that saved this Dunbar letter; and to him, therefore, we will be grateful, and close therewith this small investigation.

In sending back the magazine leaf, pray do not neglect to thank Mr. Hare for his ready politeness in this as in all matters. Many thanks to yourself, also, are due, and need not be expressed in words at present.

We have had somewhat to do with influenza here, but are now pretty well recovered. Last Sunday your young brother called, — a most brisk, stirring youngster; gratified us, among other things, by the assurance that you at Clifton were all in a prospering condition.

Believe me, with many regards and kind remembrances.

Always truly yours,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER XV.

Bo WESTON, COWBRIDGE,

GLAMORGANSHIRE, August 6, 1850.

DEAR, STRACHEY, — Your note, as you anticipated, did not come till too late, but was very welcome, as a proof of your hospitable thoughts, when it did. I lodged with Mr. Savage Landor all night at Bath, on my journey hither ; then to Bristol next morning, and across by the Cardiff steamer, and here (twelve miles further) the same night, where I have remained with really a maximum of quietness ever since, and am still to remain for perhaps a fortnight, more or less. My kind host, a solitary man, full of loyalty to me, exclaims zealously, “ Two months ! “ But that, clearly, will not do, admirable as the plan is for certain of my wants just now.

We look over upon Minehead, Exmoor, and the hills of Devonshire ; commanding Watchet and Bridgewater Hill on our left, and even something that I call the ridge of Mendip, on clear days. The coast is of limestone boulders, with portions of clear, natural flag pavement, clean and smooth as finer kinds of marble might be, and admirable for seabathing ; one of the loneliest, or perhaps the very loneliest seacoast I have ever frequented. Landward, no public road within six or seven miles ; only a network of rough country lanes, interweaving a congeries of sleepy, sluttish Welsh hamlets, — good for solitary riding by a meditative man, if for few other purposes ! Pieces of the soil, which is all excellent, are well cultivated, generally by English, farmers, in large lots, or by natives whom they have trained ; but the bulk of it still offers the image of slovenly “ folding of the hands to sleep,” which characterizes the C’imbric populations, — populations all given to “ Methodisms ” or other vague enthusiasms of a drowsy nature, and nothing like sufficiently inspired with horror of dirt, weeds, and other disorder! For a week or two it will suit me to ride about in it, and recover a little strength if I can; and farther than that, what have I to do with censuring it ?

My next move is toward Scotland ; but how I go is still somewhat uncertain. By sea from Swansea to Liverpool, if the steamer will suit my times and hours, or else back eastward to some starting-point on the railways: that is the alternative which I must settle by and by.

It would give me great pleasure to see you in the Mendip region, which is a country I have never seen, and long rather wished to see ; but at present I fear, even in the event of returning by Bath, you are too far to the right to be attainable by me. Across the sea hereabouts there is no conveyance whatever, except you go to Cardiff and hire one on purpose. I fear the omens are not good for the Mendip expedition on this present occasion ! However, we will not quite despair, but some time or other it may answer.

Will you offer my kind remembrances and thanks to Mrs. Strachey, and accept good wishes from me for yourself and all your household hidden behind the hills from me at present ?

I remain always,

Very sincerely yours,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER XVI.

CHELSEA, 26 September, 1857.

DEAR STRACHEY, — I believe there is none of your friends hut will be thankful at the prospect that has again opened for you. The solacements of a home of one’s own are precious to all soundminded men, and to you, I can well believe, are more indispensable than to another. Home without a helpmeet for you is as good as impossible. I am truly glad you have found once more an honorable soul with whom you can venture upon this blessed relation. I do not yet know her, as I hope one day to do ; but knowing your own qualities, — prudence, insight, and propriety, — I can augur nothing but good of it, and with all my heart congratulate you on what is like to come.

To-day I am in haste beyond expression, — as is too usual with me in these months (of a labor altogether frightful, with my years and health) ; but I would not let the week end without answering the announcement you were friendly enough to make in those terms.

My wife is come back to me from Scotland,— much improved, as it at first seemed ; but, unluckily, she has already caught a cold again, of which, however, we have good hope that it is but an accident. She joins in all manner of regards to you especially, and to our other friends of your honored family now in those parts.

Believe me,

Yours always sincerely,

T. CARLYLE.

LETTER XVII.

CHELSEA, November 2, 1858.

DEAR STRALHEY, —We are heartily glad, as all your friends will be, at this new gift Heaven has sent you ! There is no doubt but, of all the resources you have yet experimented upon, this will be incomparably the richest, to lighten your burdens in this world, or give you a blessed interest in bearing them. May the little fellow prosper, and be useful to himself and to the world one day, as he is already to those in his immediate neighborhood. I offer my respects and congratulations to father and mother, and am always,

Sincerely yours,

T. CARLYLE.

EDWARD STRACHEY, etc.