Beacon Lights of History Volume Xiii Part 7

Carlyle in this essay exalts a life of letters, however poorly paid (which Pope in his "Dunciad" did so much to depreciate), showing how it contributes to the elevation of a nation, and to those lofty pleasures which no wealth can purchase. But it is the moral dignity of Johnson which the essay makes to s.h.i.+ne most conspicuously in his character, supported as he was by the truths of religion, in which under all circ.u.mstances he proudly glories, and without which he must have made s.h.i.+pwreck of himself amid so many discouragements, maladies, and embarra.s.sments,--for his greatest labors were made with poverty, distress, and obscurity for his companions,--until at last, victorious over every external evil and vile temptation, he emerged into the realm of peace and light, and became an oracle and a sage wherever he chose to go.

Johnson was the greatest master of conversation in his day, whose detached sayings are still quoted more often than his most elaborate periods. I apprehend that there was a great contrast between Johnson's writings and his conversation. While the former are Ciceronian, his talk was epigrammatic, terse, and direct; and its charm and power were in his pointed and vehement Saxon style. Had he talked as he wrote, he would have been wearisome and pedantic. Still, like Coleridge and Robert Hall, he preached rather than conversed, thinking what he himself should say rather than paying attention to what others said, except to combat and rebuke them,--a discourser, as Macaulay was; not one to suggest interchange of ideas, as Addison did. But neither power of conversation nor learning would have made Johnson a literary dictator. His power was in the force of his character, his earnestness, and sincerity, even more than in his genius.

I will not dwell on the other Review articles which Carlyle wrote in his isolated retreat, since published as "Miscellanies," on which his fame in no small degree rests,--even as the essays of Macaulay may be read when his more elaborate History will lie neglected on the shelves of libraries. Carlyle put his soul into these miscellanies, and the labor and enjoyment of writing made him partially forget his ailments. I look upon those years at Craigenputtock as the brightest and healthiest of his life, removed as he was from the sight of levities and follies which tormented his soul and irritated his temper.

Carlyle contrived to save about 200 from his literary earnings, so frugal was his life and so free from temptations. His recreation was in wandering on foot or horseback over the silent moors and unending hills, watered by nameless rills and shadowed by mists and vapors. His life was solitary, but not more so than that of Moses amid the deserts of Midian,--isolation, indeed, but in which the highest wisdom is matured.

Into this retreat Emerson penetrated, a young man, with boundless enthusiasm for his teacher,--for Carlyle was a teacher to him as to hundreds of others in this country. Carlyle never had a truer and better friend than Emerson, who opened to him the great reward of recognition in distant America while yet his own land refused to take knowledge of him; and this friends.h.i.+p continued to the end, an honor to both,--for Carlyle never saw in Emerson's writings the genius and wisdom which his American friend admired in the Scottish sage. Nor were their opinions so harmonious as some suppose. Emerson despised Calvinism, and had no definite opinions on any theological subject; Carlyle was a Calvinist without the theology of Calvinism, if that be possible. He did not, indeed, believe in historical Christianity, but he had the profoundest convictions of an overruling G.o.d, reigning in justice, and making the wrath of man to praise Him. Carlyle, too, despised everything visionary and indefinite, and had more respect for what is brought about by revolution than by evolution. But of all things he held in profoundest abhorrence the dreary theories of materialists and political economists.

It was the spirit and not the body which stood out in his eyes as of most importance; it was the manly virtues which he reverenced in man, not his clothes and surroundings. And it was on this lofty spiritual plane that Carlyle and Emerson stood in complete harmony together.

I cannot quit this part of Carlyle's life without mention of what I conceive to be his most original and remarkable production,--"Sartor Resartus,"--The St.i.tcher Rest.i.tched: or, The Tailor Done Over,--the t.i.tle of an old Scotch song. It is a quaintly conceived reproduction of the work of an imaginary German professor on "The Philosophy of Clothes,"--under which external figure he includes all inst.i.tutions, customs, beliefs, in which humanity has draped itself, as distinguished from the inner reality of man himself. "The beginning of all Wisdom," he says, "is to look fixedly on Clothes, or even with armed eyesight, till they become _transparent_." And thus, in grotesque fas.h.i.+on, with amazing vigor he ranges the universe in search of the Real. In one of his letters to Emerson, Carlyle, discussing a project of lecturing in America, takes on his sartorial professor's name, and writes: "Could any one but appoint me Lecturing Professor of Teufelsdrockh's Science,--'Things in General'!" This work was written in his remote solitude, yet not published for years after it was finished,--and for the best of reasons, because with all his literary repute Carlyle could not find a publisher. The "Sartor" was not appreciated; and Carlyle, knowing its value, locked it up in his drawer, and waited for his time.

The "Sartor Resartus" is a sort of prose poem, written with the heart's blood, vivid as fire in a dark night; a Dantean production; a revelation probably of the author's own struggles and experiences from the dark gulf of the "Everlasting Nay" to the clear and serene heights of the "Everlasting Yea." To me the book is full of consolation and encouragement,--a battle of the spirit with infernal doubts, a victory over despair, over all external evils and all spiritual foes. It is also a bold and grotesque but scorching sarcasm of the conventionalities and hypocrisies of society, and a savage thrust at those quackeries which seem to reign in this world in spite of their falsity and shallowness.

It is not, I grant, easy to read. It is full of conceits and affectations of style,--a puzzle to some, a rebuke to others. "Every page of this unique collection of confessions and meditations, of pa.s.sionate invective and solemn reflection," is stamped with the seal of genius, and yet was the last of Carlyle's writings to be appreciated. I believe that this is the ordinary fate of truly original works, those that are destined to live the longest, especially if they burn no incense to the idols of prevailing wors.h.i.+p, and be characterized by a style which, to say the least, is extraordinary. Flashy, brilliant, witty, yet superficial pictures of external life which everybody has seen and knows, are the soonest to find admirers; but a revelation of what is not seen, this is the work of seers and prophets whose ordinary destiny has been anything other than to wear soft raiment and sit in king's palaces. The "Sartor" was at last, in 1833-1834, printed in Fraser's Magazine, meeting no appreciation in England, but very enthusiastically received by Emerson, Channing, Ripley, and a group of advanced thinkers in New England, through whose efforts it was published here in book form. And so, in spite of timid London publishers, it drifted back to London and a slow-growing fame. In our time, sixty years later, it sells by scores of thousands annually, in cheap and in luxurious editions, throughout the English-speaking world.

In respect of early recognition and popularity, Carlyle differs from his great contemporary Macaulay, who was so immediately and so magnificently rewarded, and yet received no more than his due as the finest prose writer of his day. Macaulay's Essays are generally word-pictures of remarkable men and remarkable events, but of men of action rather than of quiet meditation. His heroes are such men as Clive and Hastings and Pitt, not such men as Pascal or Augustine or Leibnitz or Goethe. But Carlyle in his heroes paints the struggling soul in its deepest aspirations, and the truths evolved by profound meditations. These are not such as gain instant popular acceptance; yet they are the longer-lived.

The time came at last for Carlyle to leave his retirement among moors and hills, and in 1831 he directed his steps to London, spending the winter with his wife in the great centre of English life and thought, and being well received; so that in 1834 he removed permanently to the metropolis. But he was scarcely less buried at his modest house in Chelsea than he had been on his farm, for he came to London with only 200, and was obliged to practise the most rigid economy. For two years he labored in his London workshop without earning a s.h.i.+lling, and with a limited acquaintance. Not yet was his society sought by the great world which he mocked and despised. He fortunately had the genial and agreeable Leigh Hunt for a neighbor, and Edward Irving for his friend.

He was known to the critics by his writings, but his circle of personal friends was small. He was more or less intimate with John Stuart Mill, Charles Austin, Sir William Molesworth, and the advanced section of the philosophical radicals,--the very cla.s.s of men from whom he afterwards was most estranged. None of these men forwarded his fortunes; but they lent him books, and helped him at the libraries, for no carpenter can work without tools.

The work to which Carlyle now devoted himself was a history of the French Revolution, the princ.i.p.al characters of which he had already studied and written about. It was a subject adapted to his genius for dramatic writing, and for the presentation of his views as to retribution. His whole theology, according to Froude, was underlaid by the belief in punishment for sin, which was impressed upon his mind by his G.o.d-fearing parents, and was one of his firmest convictions. The French were to his mind the greatest sinners among Christian nations, and therefore were to reap a fearful penalty. To paint in a new and impressive form the inevitable calamities attendant on violated law and justice, was the aspiration of Carlyle. He had money enough to last him with economy for two years. In this time he hoped to complete his work.

The possibility was due to the intelligent thrift of his wife.

Commenting on one of her letters describing their snug little house, he writes:--

"From birth upwards she had lived in opulence; and now, for my sake, had become poor,--so n.o.bly poor. Truly, her pretty little brag [in this letter] was well founded. No such house, for beautiful thrift, quiet, spontaneous, nay, as it were, unconscious--minimum of money reconciled to human comfort and human dignity--have I anywhere looked upon."

He devoted himself to his task with intense interest, and was completely preoccupied.

In the winter of 1835, after a year of general study, collection of material and writing, and at last "by dint of continual endeavor for many weary weeks," the first volume was completed and submitted to his friend Mill. The valuable ma.n.u.script was accidentally and ignorantly destroyed by a servant, and Mill was in despair. Carlyle bore the loss like a hero. He did not chide or repine. If his spirit sunk within him, it was when he was alone in his library or in the society of his sympathizing wife. He generously writes to Emerson,--

"I could not complain, or the poor man would have shot himself: we had to gather ourselves together, and show a smooth front to it,--which happily, though difficult, was not impossible to do. I began again at the beginning, to such a wretched, paralyzing torpedo of a task as my hand never found to do."

Mill made all the reparation possible. He gave his friend 200, but Carlyle would accept only 100. Few men could have rewritten with any heart that first volume: it would be almost impossible to revive sufficient interest; the precious inspiration would have been wanting.

Yet Carlyle manfully accomplished his task, and I am inclined to think that the second writing was better than the first; that he probably left out what was unessential, and made a more condensed narrative,--a more complete picture, for his memory was singularly retentive. I do not believe that any man can do his best at the first heat. See how the great poets revise and rewrite. Brougham rewrote his celebrated peroration on the trial of Queen Caroline seventeen times. Carlyle had to rewrite his book, but his materials remained; his great pictures were all in his mind. In this second writing there may have been less emotion,--less fire in his descriptions; but there was fire enough, for his vivacity was excessive. Even _his_ work could be pruned, not by others, but by himself. "The household at Chelsea was never closer drawn together than in those times of trial." Carlyle lost time and spirits, but he could afford the loss. The entire work was delayed, but was done at last. The final sentence of Vol. III. was written at ten o'clock on a damp evening, January 14, 1837.

This great work, the most ambitious and famous of all Carlyle's writings, and in many respects his best, was not received by the public with the enthusiam it ought to have awakened. It was not appreciated by the people at large. "Ordinary readers were not enraptured by the Iliad swiftness and vividness of the narrative, its sustained pa.s.sion, the flow of poetry, the touches of grandeur and tenderness, and the masterly touches by which he made the great actors stand out in their individuality." It seemed to many to be extravagant, exaggerated, at war with all the "feudalities of literature." Partisans of all kinds were offended. The style was startlingly broken, almost savage in strength, vivid and distinct as lightning. Doubtless the man himself had grown away from the quieter moods of his earlier essays. Froude quotes this from Carlyle's journal: "The poor people seem to think a style can be put off or on, not like a skin but like a coat. Is not a skin verily a product and close kinsfellow of all that lies under it, exact type of the nature of the beast, not to be plucked off without flaying and death? The Public is an old woman. Let her maunder and mumble."

But the extraordinary merits of the book made a great impression on the cultivated intellects of England,--such men as Jeffrey, Macaulay, Southey, Hallam, Brougham, Thackeray, d.i.c.kens,--who saw and admitted that a great genius had arisen, whether they agreed with his views or not. In America, we may be proud to say, the work created general enthusiasm, and its republication through Emerson's efforts brought some money as well as larger fame to its author. Of the first moneys that Emerson sent Carlyle as fruits of this adventure, the dyspeptic Scotchman wrote that he was "half-resolved to buy myself a sharp little nag with twenty of these trans-Atlantic pounds, and ride him till the other thirty be eaten. I will call the creature 'Yankee.' ... My kind friends!" And _Yankee_ was duly bought and ridden.

Carlyle still remained in straitened circ.u.mstances, although his reputation was now established. In order to a.s.sist him in his great necessities his friends got up lectures for him, which were attended by the _elite_ of London. He gave several courses in successive years during the London season, which brought him more money than his writings at that time, gave him personal _eclat_, and added largely to his circle of admirers. His second course of twelve lectures brought him 300,--a year's harvest, and a large sum for lectures in England, where the literary inst.i.tutions rarely paid over 5 for a single lecture. Even in later times the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, which commanded the finest talent, paid only 10 to such men as Froude and the archbishop of York.

But lecturing, to many men an agreeable excitement, seems to have been very unpleasant to Carlyle,--even repulsive. Though the lectures brought both money and fame, he abominated the delivery of them. They broke his rest, destroyed his peace of mind, and depressed his spirits. Nothing but direst necessity reconciled him to the disagreeable task. He never took any satisfaction or pride in his success in this field; nor was his success probably legitimate. People went to see him as a new literary lion,--to hear him roar, not to be edified. He had no peculiar qualification for public speaking, and he affected to despise it. Very few English men of letters have had this gift. Indeed, popular eloquence is at a discount among the cultivated cla.s.ses in England. They prefer to read at their leisure. Popular eloquence best thrives in democracies, as in that of ancient Athens; aristocrats disdain it, and fear it. In their contempt for it they even affect hesitation and stammering, not only when called upon to speak in public, but also in social converse, until the halting style has come to be known among Americans as "very English." In absolute monarchies eloquence is rare except in the pulpit or at the bar. Cicero would have had no field, and would not probably have been endured, in the reign of Nero; yet Bossuet and Bourdaloue were the delight of Louis XIV. What would that monarch have said to the speeches of Mirabeau?

After the publication in 1837 of the "French Revolution,"--that "roaring conflagration of anarchies," that series of graphic pictures rather than a history or even a criticism,--it was some time before Carlyle could settle down upon another great work. He delivered lectures, wrote tracts and essays, gave vent to his humors, and nursed his ailments. He was now famous,--a man whom everybody wished to see and know, especially Americans when they came to London, but whom he generally snubbed (as he did me) and p.r.o.nounced them bores. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Monckton Milnes, afterward Lord Houghton, who invited him to breakfast, where he met other notabilities,--among them Bunsen the Prussian Amba.s.sador at London; Lord Mahon the historian; and Mr.

Baring, afterward Lord Ashburton, the warmest and the truest of his friends, who extended to him the most generous hospitalities.

Carlyle was now in what is called "high society," and was "taking life easy,"--writing but little, yet reading much, especially about Oliver Cromwell, whose Life he thought of writing. His lectures at this period were more successful than ever, attended by great and fas.h.i.+onable people; and from them his chief income was derived.

While collecting materials for his Life of Cromwell, Carlyle became deeply interested in the movements of the Chartists, composed chiefly of working-men with socialistic tendencies. He was called a "radical,"--and he did believe in a radical reform of men's lives, especially of the upper cla.s.ses who showed but little sympathy for the poor. He was not satisfied with the Whigs, who believed that the Reform Bill would usher in a political millennium. He had more sympathy with the "conservative"

Tories than the "liberal" Whigs; but his opinions were not acceptable to either of the great political parties. They alike distrusted him. Even Mill had a year before declined an article on the working cla.s.ses for his Review, the Westminster. Carlyle took it to Lockhart of the Quarterly, but Lockhart was afraid to publish it. Mill, then about to leave the Westminster, wished to insert it as a final shout; but Carlyle declined, and in 1839 expanded his article into a book called "Chartism," which was rapidly sold and loudly noticed. It gave but little satisfaction, however. It offended the conservatives by exposing sores that could not be healed, while on the other hand the radicals did not wish to be told that men were far from being equal,--that in fact they were very unequal; and that society could not be advanced by debating clubs or economical theories, but only by gifted individuals as instruments of Divine Providence, guiding mankind by their superior wisdom.

These views were expanded in a new course of lectures, on "Heroes and Hero Wors.h.i.+p," and subsequently printed,--the most able and suggestive of all Carlyle's lectures, delivered in the spring of 1840 with great _eclat_. He never appeared on the platform again. Lecturing, as we have said, was not to his taste; he preferred to earn his living by his pen, and his writings had now begun to yield a comfortable support. He received on account of them 400 from America alone, thanks to the influence of his friend Emerson.

Carlyle now began to weary of the distraction of London life, and pined for the country. But his wife would not hear a word about it; she had had enough of the country, at Craigenputtock. Meanwhile preparations for the Life of Cromwell went on slowly, varied by visits to his relatives in Scotland, travels on the Continent, and interviews with distinguished men. His mind at this period (1842) was most occupied with the sad condition of the English people,--everywhere riots, disturbances, physical suffering and abject poverty among the ma.s.ses, for the Corn Laws had not then been repealed; and to Carlyle's vision there was a most melancholy prospect ahead,--not revolution, but universal degradation, and the reign of injustice. This sad condition of the people was contrasted in his mind with what it had been centuries before, as it appeared from an old book which he happened to read, Jocelin's Chronicles, which painted English life in the twelfth century.

He fancied that the world was going on from bad to worse; and in this gloomy state of mind he wrote his "Past and Present," which appeared in 1843, and created a storm of anger as well as admiration. It was a sort of protest against the political systems of economy then so popular.

Lockhart said of it that he could accept none of his friend's inferences except one,--"that we were all wrong, and were all like to be d.a.m.ned."

Gloomy and satirical as the book was, it made a great impression on the thinkers of the day, while it did not add to the author's popularity. It seemed as if he were a prophet of wrath,--an Ishmaelite whose hand was against everybody. He offended all political parties,--"the Tories by his radicalism, and the Radicals by his scorn of their formulas; the High Churchman by his Protestantism, and the Low Churchman by evident unorthodoxy." Yet all parties and sects admitted that much that he said was true, while at the same time they had no sympathy with his fierce ravings.

For ten years after the publication of the "French Revolution" Carlyle a.s.sumed the functions of a prophet, hurling anathemas and p.r.o.nouncing woes. To his mind everything was alike disjointed or false or pretentious, in view of which he uttered groans and hisses and maledictions. The very name of a society designed to ameliorate evils seemed to put him into a pa.s.sion. Every reformer appeared to him to be a blind teacher of the blind. Exeter Hall, then the scene of every variety of social and religious and political discussion, was to him a veritable pandemonium. Everybody at that period of agitation and reform was giving lectures, and everybody went to hear them; and Carlyle ridiculed them all alike as pedlers of nostrums to heal diseases which were incurable.

He lived in an atmosphere of disdain. "The English people," said he, "number some thirty millions,--mostly fools." His friends expostulated with him for giving utterance to such bitter expressions, and for holding such gloomy views. John Mill was mortally offended, and walked no more with him. De Quincey said, "You have made a new hole in your society kettle: how do you propose to mend it?"

Yet all this while Carlyle had not lost faith in Providence, as it might seem, but felt that G.o.d would inflict calamities on peoples for their sins. He resembled Savonarola more than he did Voltaire. What seemed to some to be mockeries were really the earnest protests of his soul against universal corruption, to be followed by downward courses and retribution. His mind was morbid from intense reflection on certain evils, and from his physical ailments. He doubtless grieved and alienated his best friends by his diatribes against popular education and free inst.i.tutions. He even appeared to lean to despotism and the rule of tyrants, provided only they were strong.

Thus Carlyle destroyed his influence, even while he moved the mind to reflection. It was seen and felt that he had no sympathy with many movements designed to benefit society, and that he cherished utter scorn for many active philanthropists. In his bitterness, wrath, and disdain he became himself intolerant. In some of his wild utterances he brought upon himself almost universal reproach, as when he said, "I never thought the rights of negroes worth much discussing, nor the rights of man in any form,"--a sentiment which militated against his whole philosophy. In this strange and unhappy mood of mind, the "Latter Day Pamphlets," "Past and Present," and other essays were written, which undermined the reverence in which he had been held. These were the blots on his great career, which may be traced to sickness and a disordered mind.

In fact, Carlyle cannot be called a sound writer at any period. He contradicts himself. He is a great painter, a prose-poet, a satirist,--not a philosopher; perhaps the most suggestive writer of the nineteenth century, often giving utterance to the grandest thoughts, yet not a safe guide at all times, since he is inconsistent and full of exaggerations.

The morbid and unhealthy tone of Carlyle's mind at this period may be seen by an extract from one of his letters to Sterling:--

"I see almost n.o.body. I avoid sight, rather, and study to consume my own smoke. I wish you would build me, among your buildings, some small Prophet Chamber, fifteen feet square, with a flue for smoking, sacred from all noises of dogs, c.o.c.ks, and piano-fortes, engaging some dumb old woman to light a fire for me daily, and boil some kind of a kettle."

Thus quaintly he expressed his desire for uninterrupted solitude, where he could work to advantage.

He was then engaged on Cromwell, and the few persons with whom he exchanged letters show how retired was his life. His friends were also few, although he could have met as many persons as pleased him. He was too much absorbed with work to be what is called a society man; but what society he did see was of the best.

At last Carlyle's task on the "Life of Oliver Cromwell" was finished in August, 1845, when he was fifty years of age. It was the greatest contribution to English history; Mr. Froude thinks, which has been made in the present century. "Carlyle was the first to make Cromwell and his age intelligible to mankind." Indeed, he reversed the opinions of mankind respecting that remarkable man, which was a great accomplishment. No one doubts the genuineness of the portrait. Cromwell was almost universally supposed, fifty years ago, to be a hypocrite as well as a usurper. In Carlyle's hands he stands out visionary, perhaps, but yet practical, sincere, earnest, G.o.d-fearing,--a patriot devoted to the good of his country. Carlyle rescued a great historical personage from the acc.u.mulated slanders of two centuries, and did his work so well that no hostile criticisms have modified his verdict. He has painted a picture which is immortal. The insight, the sagacity, the ability, and the statesmans.h.i.+p of Cromwell are impressed upon the minds of all readers. That England never had a greater or more enlightened ruler, everybody is now forced to admit,--and not merely a patriotic but a Christian ruler, who regarded himself simply as the instrument of Providence.

People still differ as to the cause in which Cromwell embarked, and few defend the means he used to accomplish his ends. He does not stand out as a perfect man; he made mistakes, and committed political crimes which can be defended only on grounds of expediency. But his private life was above reproach, and he died in the triumph of Christian faith, after having raised his country to a higher pitch of glory than had been seen since the days of Queen Elizabeth.

The faults of the biographer centre in confounding right with might; and this conspicuously false doctrine is the leading defect of the philosophy of Carlyle, runs through all his writings, and makes him an unsound teacher. If this doctrine be true, then all the usurpers of the world from Caesar to Napoleon can be justified. If this be true, then an irresistible imperialism becomes the best government for mankind. It is but fair to say that Carlyle himself denied this inference. Writing of Lecky's having charged him with believing in the divine right of strength, he says:--

"With respect to that poor heresy of might being the symbol of right 'to a certain great and venerable author,' I shall have to tell Lecky one day that quite the converse or _re_verse is the great and venerable author's real opinion,--namely, that right is the eternal symbol of might; ... in fact, he probably never met with a son of Adam more contemptuous of might except when it rests on the above origin."

Yet the impression of all his strongest work is the other way.

Certain other kindred doctrines may be inferentially drawn from Carlyle's defence of Cromwell; namely, that a popular a.s.sembly is incapable of guiding successfully the destinies of a nation; that behind all const.i.tutions lies an ultimate law of force; that majorities, as such, have no more right to rule than kings and n.o.bles; that the strongest are the best, and the best are the strongest; that the right to rule lies with those who are right in mind and heart, as he supposed Cromwell to be, and who can execute their convictions. Such teachings, it need not be shown, are at war with the whole progress of modern society and the enlightened opinion of mankind.

The great merit of Carlyle's History is in the clearness and vividness with which he paints his hero and the exposure of the injustice with which he has been treated by historians. It is an able vindication of Cromwell's character. But the deductions drawn from his philosophy lead to absurdity, and are an insult to the understanding of the world.

It was about this time, on the conclusion of the "Cromwell," when he was on the summit of his literary fame, and the world began to shower its favors upon him, that Carlyle's days were saddened by a domestic trouble which gave him inexpressible solicitude and grief. His wife, with whom he had lived happily for so many years, was exceedingly disturbed on account of his intimate friends.h.i.+p with Lady Ashburton. Nothing can be more plaintive and sadly beautiful than the letters he wrote to her on the occasion of her starting off in a fit of spleen, after a stormy scene, to visit friends at a distance; and what is singular is that we do not find in those letters, when his soul was moved to its very depths, any of his peculiarities of style. They are remarkably simple as well as serious.

Carlyle's friends.h.i.+p for one of the most brilliant and cultivated women of England, which the breath of scandal never for a moment a.s.sailed, was reasonable and natural, and was a great comfort to him. He persisted in enjoying it, knowing that his wife disliked it. In this matter, which was a cloud upon his married life, and saddened the family hearth for years, Mrs. Carlyle was doubtless exacting and unreasonable; though some men would have yielded the point for the sake of a faithful wife,--or even for peace. There are those who think that Carlyle was selfish in keeping up an intercourse which was hateful to his wife; but the Ashburtons were the best friends that Carlyle ever had, after he became famous,--and in their various country seats he enjoyed a hospitality rarely extended to poor literary men. There he met in enjoyable and helpful intercourse, when he could not have seen them in his own house, some of the most distinguished men of the day,--men of rank and influence as well as those of literary fame.

Until this intimacy with the Ashburtons, no domestic disturbances of note had taken place in the Carlyle household. The wife may occasionally have been sad and lonely when her husband was preoccupied with his studies; but this she ought to have antic.i.p.ated in marrying a literary man whose only support was from his pen. Carlyle, too, was an inveterate smoker, and she detested tobacco, so that he did not spend as much time in the parlor as he did in his library, where he could smoke to his heart's content. On the whole, however, their letters show genuine mutual affection, and as much connubial happiness as is common to most men and women, with far more of intimate intellectual and spiritual congeniality. Carlyle, certainly, in all his letters, ever speaks of his wife with admiration and grat.i.tude. He regarded her as not only the most talented woman that he had ever known, but as the one without whom he was miserable. They were the best of comrades and companions from first to last, when at home together.

For a considerable period after the publication of the Life of Cromwell, Carlyle was apparently idle. He wrote for several years nothing of note except his "Latter Day Pamphlets" (1850), and a Life of his friend John Sterling (1851), to whom he was tenderly attached. It would seem that he was now in easy circ.u.mstances, although he retained to the end his economical habits. He amused himself with travelling, and with frequent visits to distinguished people in the country. If not a society man, he was much sought; he dined often at the tables of the great, and personally knew almost every man of note in London. He st.u.r.dily took his place among distinguished men,--the intellectual peer of the greatest.

He often met Macaulay, but was not intimate with him. I doubt if they even exchanged visits. The reason for this may have been that they were not congenial to each other in anything, and that the social position of Macaulay was immeasurably higher than Carlyle's. It would be hard to say which was the greater man.