A Letter Book

THE CARLYLES – THOMAS (1795-1881) andJANE WELSH (1801-1866)

A paradoxer, even of a less virulent-frivolous type than that with which we have been recently afflicted, might sustain, for some little time at any rate, the argument against preservation of letters from the case of this eminent couple. If Mrs. Carlyle had not written hers, or if they had remained unknown, the whole sickening controversy about the character and married life of the pair might, as was said in the Introduction, never have existed. And if Carlyle himself had written none, persons of any intelligence would still have had a pretty adequate idea of him from his Works. On the other hand the addition to knowledge in his case is quite welcome: and in hers it practically gives us what we could hardly have known otherwise – one of the most remarkable of woman-natures, and one of the most striking confirmations of the merciless adage "Whom the gods curse, to them they grant the desires of their hearts." For she wanted above all things to be the wife of a man of genius – and she was. So the pro and the con in this matter may so far be set against each other. But there remains to credit a considerable amount of most welcome and (notably in the instance specified in the Introduction) almost consummate literature of the epistolary kind. This instance itself is perhaps too tragic for our little collection: indeed it might help to spread the exaggerated idea of the writer's unhappiness which has been too prevalent already. There is some "metal more attractive" in her letters, which perhaps, taken all round, put her with Madame de Sévigné and "Lady Mary" at the head of all published women letter-writers. And Carlyle's annotations to them, when not too bilious or too penitent, show him almost at his best. His own (given below) to FitzGerald (the way in which epistolary literature interconnects itself has been noted) appears to me one of his most characteristic though least volcanic utterances. It was written while he was in the depths of what his wife called "the Valley of the Shadow of Frederick," (i. e. his vast book on that amiable monarch) and had retired to extra-solitude in consequence. "Farlingay" refers to a recent stay in Suffolk with FitzGerald. As often with Carlyle, there may be more than one interpretation of his inverted commas at "gentleman" as regards Voltaire, to whom he certainly would not have allotted the word in its best sense. The phrase about Chaos and the Evil Genius is Carlyle shut up in narrow space like the other genius or genie in the Arabian Nights. The "awful jangle of bells" speaks his horror of any invading sound. The "Naseby matter" refers to a monument which he and FitzGerald had planned, and which (with the precedent investigation as to the battle which F. had conducted years before for his Cromwell), occupies a good deal of FitzGerald's own correspondence. Indeed, it is thanks to Naseby that we possess this very letter. FitzGerald says elsewhere that he kept only these Naseby letters of all Carlyle's correspondence with him, destroying the rest, as he did Thackeray's and Tennyson's, lest "private personal history should fall into some unscrupulous hands." One admires the conduct while one feels the loss. As for the monument, it never came off: though it was talked about for some thirty years. Mrs. Carlyle's – one of the early and, despite complaints, cheerful time, the other later and, despite its resignation, from "the Valley of the Shadow" – require no annotation, save in respect of Carlyle's own on Deerbrook. He might well call it "poor": it is indeed one of the few novels by a writer of any distinction, which one tolerably voracious novel-reader has found incapable of being read. And this is curious: for she had written good stories earlier.

38. To Edward Fitzgerald

Dear Fitzgerald,

I have been here ever since the day you last heard of me; leading the strangest life of absolute Latrappism; and often enough remembering Farlingay and you. I live perfectly alone, and without speech at all, – there being in fact nobody to speak to, except one austerely punctual housemaid, who does her functions, like an eight-day clock, generally without bidding. My wife comes out now and then to give the requisite directions; but commonly withdraws again on the morrow, leaving the monster to himself and his own ways. I have Books; a complete Edition of Voltaire, for one Book, in which I read for use, or for idleness oftenest, – getting into endless reflexions over it, mostly of a sad and not very utterable nature. I find V. a 'gentleman,' living in a world partly furnished with such; and that there are now almost no 'gentlemen' (not quite none): this is one great head of my reflexions, to which there is no visible tail or finish. I have also a Horse (borrowed from my fat Yeoman friend, who is at sea-bathing in Sussex); and I go riding, at great lengths daily, over hill and dale; this I believe is really the main good I am doing, – if in this either there be much good. But it is a strange way of life to me, for the time; perhaps not unprofitable; To let Chaos say out its say, then, and one's Evil Genius give one the very worst language he has, for a while. It is still to last for a week or more. Today, for the first time, I ride back to Chelsea, but mean to return hither on Monday. There is a great circle of yellow light all the way from Shooter's Hill to Primrose Hill, spread round my horizon every night, I see it while smoking my pipe before bed (so bright, last night, it cast a visible shadow of me against the white window-shutters); and this is all I have to do with London and its gases for a fortnight or more. My wife writes to me, there was an awful jangle of bells last day she went home from this; a Quaker asked in the railway, of some porter, 'Can thou tell me what these bells mean?' – 'Well, I suppose something is up. They say Sebastopol is took, and the Rushans run away.' —À la bonne heure; but won't they come back again, think you?

On the whole I say, when you get your little Suffolk cottage, you must have in it a 'chamber in the wall' for me, plus a pony that can trot, and a cow that gives good milk: with these outfits we shall make a pretty rustication now and then, not wholly Latrappish, but only half, on much easier terms than here; and I shall be right willing to come and try it, I for one party. – Meanwhile, I hope the Naseby matter is steadily going ahead; sale completed; and even the monument concern making way. Tell me a little how that and other matters are. If you are at home, a line is rapidly conveyed hither, steam all the way: after the beginning of the next week, I am at Chelsea, and (I dare so) there is a fire in the evenings now to welcome you there. Shew face in some way or other.

And so adieu; for my hour of riding is at hand.

39. To Mrs. Walsh,

My dear Aunt,

Now that I am fairly settled at home again, and can look back over my late travels with the coolness of a spectator, it seems to me that I must have tired out all men, women and children that have had to do with me by the road. The proverb says 'there is much ado when cadgers ride.' I do not know precisely what 'cadger' means, but I imagine it to be a character like me, liable to head-ache, to sea-sickness, to all the infirmities 'that flesh is heir to,' and a few others besides; the friends and relations of cadgers should therefore use all soft persuasions to induce them to remain at home.119

I got into that Mail the other night with as much repugnance and trepidation as if it had been a Phalaris' brazen bull, instead of a Christian vehicle, invented for purposes of mercy – not of cruelty. There were three besides myself when we started, but two dropped off at the end of the first stage, and the rest of the way I had, as usual, half of the coach to myself. My fellow-passenger had that highest of all terrestrial qualities, which for me a fellow-passenger can possess – he was silent. I think his name was Roscoe, and he read sundry long papers to himself, with the pondering air of a lawyer.

We breakfasted at Lichfield, at five in the morning, on muddy coffee and scorched toast, which made me once more lyrically recognise in my heart (not without a sign of regret) the very different coffee and toast with which you helped me out of my headache. At two there was another stop of ten minutes, that might be employed in lunching or otherwise. Feeling myself more fevered than hungry, I determined on spending the time in combing my hair and washing my face and hands with vinegar. In the midst of this solacing operation I heard what seemed to be the Mail running its rapid course, and quick as lightning it flashed on me, 'There it goes! and my luggage is on the top of it, and my purse is in the pocket of it, and here am I stranded on an unknown beach, without so much as a sixpence in my pocket to pay for the vinegar I have already consumed!' Without my bonnet, my hair hanging down my back, my face half dried, and the towel, with which I was drying it, firm grasped in my hand, I dashed out – along, down, opening wrong doors, stumbling over steps, cursing the day I was born, still more the day on which I took a notion to travel, and arrived finally at the bar of the Inn, in a state of excitement bordering on lunacy. The barmaids looked at me 'with wonder and amazement.' 'Is the coach gone?' I gasped out. 'The coach? Yes!' 'Oh! and you have let it away without me! Oh! stop it, cannot you stop it?' and out I rushed into the street, with streaming hair and streaming towel, and almost brained myself against – the Mail! which was standing there in all stillness, without so much as a horse in it! What I had heard was a heavy coach. And now, having descended like a maniac, I ascended again like a fool, and dried the other half of my face, and put on my bonnet, and came back 'a sadder and a wiser woman.'

I did not find my husband at the 'Swan with Two Necks'; for we were in a quarter of an hour before the appointed time. So I had my luggage put on the backs of two porters, and walked on to Cheapside, where I presently found a Chelsea omnibus. By and by, however, the omnibus stopped, and amid cries of 'No room, sir,' 'Can't get in,' Carlyle's face, beautifully set off by a broad-brimmed white hat, gazed in at the door, like the Peri, who, 'at the Gate of Heaven, stood disconsolate.' In hurrying along the Strand, pretty sure of being too late, amidst all the imaginable and unimaginable phenomena which the immense thoroughfare of a street presents, his eye (Heaven bless the mark!) had lighted on my trunk perched on the top of the omnibus, and had recognised it. This seems to me one of the most indubitable proofs of genius which he ever manifested. Happily, a passenger went out a little further on, and then he got in.

My brother-in-law had gone two days before, so my arrival was most well-timed. I found all at home right and tight; my maid seems to have conducted herself quite handsomely in my absence; my best room looked really inviting. A bust of Shelley (a present from Leigh Hunt), and a fine print of Albert Durer, handsomely framed (also a present) had still further ornamented it during my absence. I also found (for I wish to tell you all my satisfaction) every grate in the house furnished with a supply of coloured clippings, and the holes in the stair-carpet all darned, so that it looks like new. They gave me tea and fried bacon, and staved off my headache as well as might be. They were very kind to me, but, on my life, everybody is kind to me, and to a degree that fills me with admiration. I feel so strong a wish to make you all convinced how very deeply I feel your kindness, and just the more I would say, the less able I am to say anything.

God bless you all. Love to all, from the head of the house down to Johnny.

40. To Mrs. Stirling, Hill Street, Edinburgh.

You dear nice woman! there you are! a bright cheering apparition to surprise one on a foggy October morning, over one's breakfast – that most trying institution for people who are 'nervous' and 'don't sleep!'

It (the photograph) made our breakfast this morning 'pass off,' like the better sort of breakfasts in Deerbrook,120 in which people seemed to have come into the world chiefly to eat breakfast in every possible variety of temper!

Blessed be the inventor of photography! I set him above even the inventor of chloroform! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything that has 'cast121 up' in my time or is like to – this art by which even the 'poor' can possess themselves of tolerable likenesses of their absent dear ones. And mustn't it be acting favourably on the morality of the country? I assure you I have often gone into my own room, in the devil's own humour – ready to answer at 'things in general,' and some things in particular – and, my eyes resting by chance on one of my photographs of long-ago places and people, a crowd of sad, gentle thoughts has rushed into my heart, and driven the devil out, as clean as ever so much holy water and priestly exorcism could have done! I have a photograph of Haddington church tower, and my father's tombstone in it – of every place I ever lived at as a home – photographs of old lovers! old friends, old servants, old dogs! In a day or two, you, dear, will be framed and hung up among the 'friends.' And that bright, kind, indomitable face of yours will not be the least efficacious face there for exorcising my devil, when I have him! Thank you a thousand times for keeping your word! Of course you would – that is just the beauty of you, that you never deceive nor disappoint.

Oh my dear! my dear! how awfully tired I was with the journey home, and yet I had taken two days to it, sleeping – that is, attempting to sleep – at York. What a pity it is that Scotland is so far off! all the good one has gained there gets shaken off one in the terrific journey home again, and then the different atmosphere is so trying to one fresh from the pure air of Fife – so exhausting and depressing. If it hadn't been that I had a deal of housemaiding to execute during the week I was here before Mr. C. returned, I must have given occasion for newspaper paragraphs under the head of 'Melancholy Suicide.' But dusting books, making chair covers, and 'all that sort of thing,' leads one on insensibly to live – till the crisis gets safely passed.

My dear! I haven't time nor inclination for much letter-writing – nor have you, I should suppose, but do let us exchange letters now and then. A friendship which has lived on air for so many years together is worth the trouble of giving it a little human sustenance.

Give my kind regards to your husband – I like him – and believe me,

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-1859)

There are very few examples in biography where the publication of letters has had a happier effect on the general idea of the writer than in Macaulay's case. It is not here a question of historical trustworthiness, or even of literary-style, in both which respects he has come in for severe strictures and sometimes for rather half-hearted defence. Nor do the letters display any purely literary gifts in him (except perhaps a playfulness of humour or at least wit) which do not appear in the History and the Essays. But, as the exception may perhaps partly indicate, they extend and improve the notion of his personality in the most remarkable fashion. Even those who did not quarrel with his views sometimes, before Sir George Trevelyan's book, disliked and regretted what have been called his "pistolling ways" – the positive, hectoring "hold-your-tongue" sort of tone which dominated his productions. With the very rarest exceptions, themselves sometimes of a revealing and excusable frankness, this tone is, if not quite absent122 from, much seldomer present in, his letters. He jokes without difficulty; talks without in the least monopolising the conversation; shows himself often willing to live and let live; and is on the whole as different a person as possible from the Macaulay who is sure that "every schoolboy" knows better than the author he is reviewing, and who finds Johnson guilty of superstition and Swift of apostasy. "Happy thrice and more also" are those whose letters thus vindicate them. I have purposely chosen the following example (written to his sister) from the most mundane class. "Appointment" was to the Indian Council, which explains the "Cotton" and "Muslin" and other things. "Ellis" (Thomas Flower), a friend of Macaulay's from Cambridge days and his literary executor in part. "Lushington" (Stephen), a civilian lawyer of great eminence as a judge in Admiralty and ecclesiastical matters, but a rather violent politician. "Town" – Leeds. "Miss Berry" is annotated elsewhere. "Sir Stratford Canning," later Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, George Canning's cousin, and one of the most famous diplomatists of the nineteenth century, especially during his long tenure of the Embassy at Constantinople. Vivian Grey– Disraeli's first novel. "Lady Holland," the most famous hostess on the Whig side in the first half of the nineteenth century, but, by all accounts, a person now and then quite intolerable. "Allen" (John), an Edinburgh Reviewer, was familiarly called her "tame atheist" (All the company were of the Holland House "set"). "Bobus" – Robert Percy Smith, Sydney's elder brother, a great wit and scholar. "Cosher," an Irish word, is not always used in this sense of "chat."

41. To his Sister

Dear Hannah,

Things stand as they stood; except that the report of my appointment is every day spreading more widely; and that I am beset by advertising dealers begging leave to make up a hundred cotton shirts for me, and fifty muslin gowns for you, and by clerks out of place begging to be my secretaries. I am not in very high spirits to-day, as I have just received a letter from poor Ellis, to whom I had not communicated my intentions till yesterday. He writes so affectionately and so plaintively that he quite cuts me to the heart. There are few indeed from whom I shall part with so much pain; and he, poor fellow, says that, next to his wife, I am the person for whom he feels the most thorough attachment, and in whom he places the most unlimited confidence.

On the 11th of this month there is to be a dinner given to Lushington by the electors of the Tower Hamlets. He has persecuted me with importunities to attend and make a speech for him; and my father has joined in the request. It is enough, in these times, Heaven knows, for a man who represents, as I do, a town of a hundred and twenty thousand people to keep his own constituents in good humour; and the Spitalfields weavers and Whitechapel butchers are nothing to me. But, ever since I succeeded in what everybody allows to have been the most hazardous attempt of the kind ever made, – I mean in persuading an audience of manufacturers, all Whigs or Radicals, that the immediate alteration of the corn-laws was impossible, – I have been considered as a capital physician for desperate cases in politics. However, to return from that delightful theme, my own praises, Lushington, who is not very popular with the rabble of the Tower Hamlets, thinks that an oration from me would give him a lift. I could not refuse him directly, backed as he was by my father. I only said that I would attend if I were in London on the 11th, but I added that, situated as I was, I thought it very probable that I should be out of town.

I shall go to-night to Miss Berry's soirée. I do not know whether I told you that she resented my article on Horace Walpole so much that Sir Stratford Canning advised me not to go near her. She was Walpole's greatest favourite. His Reminiscences are addressed to her in terms of the most gallant eulogy. When he was dying at past eighty, he asked her to marry him, merely that he might make her a Countess and leave her his fortune. You know that in Vivian Grey she is called Miss Otranto. I always expected that my article would put her into a passion, and I was not mistaken; but she has come round again, and sent me a most pressing and kind invitation the other day.

I have been racketing lately, having dined twice with Rogers, and once with Grant. Lady Holland is in a most extraordinary state. She came to Rogers's, with Allen, in so bad a humour that we were all forced to rally, and make common cause against her. There was not a person at table to whom she was not rude; and none of us were inclined to submit. Rogers sneered; Sydney made merciless sport of her; Tom Moore looked excessively impertinent; Bobus put her down with simple straightforward rudeness; and I treated her with what I meant to be the coldest civility. Allen flew into a rage with us all, and especially with Sydney, whose guffaws, as the Scotch say, were indeed tremendous. When she and all the rest were gone, Rogers made Tom Moore and me sit down with him for half an hour, and we coshered over the events of the evening. Rogers said that he thought Allen's firing up in defence of his patroness the best thing that he has seen in him. No sooner had Tom and I got into the street than he broke forth: "That such an old stager as Rogers should talk such nonsense, and give Allen credit for attachment to anything but his dinner! Allen was bursting with envy to see us so free, while he was conscious of his own slavery."