Autobiographical Notes. 179 



sent; the past; but mostly the future. They were young and 

 their hopes and ambitions would be uppermost. What these were 

 we need no trick of the imagination to portray, for Froude in his 

 Life of Carlyle publishes the following two letters which passed 

 between the friends at this period and which lift the veil. The 

 first is from Murray, and Froude lends these introductory sen- 

 tences : — 



" To another friend, Thomas Murray, author afterwards of a 

 history of Galloway, Carlyle had complained of his fate in a light 

 and less bitter spirit. To an epistle written in this tone Murray 

 replied wlfh a description of Carlyle's style, which deserves a 

 place if but foi the fulfilment of the prophecy which it contains." 



Letter from Thomas Murray to Thomas Carlyle. 



I have had the pleasure of receiving, my dear Carlyle, your 

 very humorous and friendly letter, a letter remarkable for 

 vivacity, a Shandean turn of expression, and an affectionate 

 pathos, which indicate a peculiar turn of mind, make sincerity 

 doubly striking and wit doubly poignant. You flatter me with 

 saying my letter was good ; but allow me to observe that among 

 all my elegant and respectable correspondents there is none whose 

 manner of letter-writing I .so much envy as yours. A happy flow 

 of language either for pathos, description, or humour, and an 

 easy, graceful current of ideas appropriate to every subject, 

 characterise your style. This is not adulation; I speak what I 

 think. Your letters will always be a feast to me, a varied and 

 exquisite repast ; and the time, I hope, will come, but I trust is 

 far distant, when these our juvenile epistles will be read and 

 probably applauded by a generation unborn, and that the name 

 of Carlyle, at least, will be inseparably connected with the literary 

 history of the nineteenth century. Generous ambition and perse- 

 verance will overcome every difficulty, and our great Johnson sa\ s, 

 "Where much is attempted something is performed." You will, 

 perhaps, recollect that when I conveyed^ you out of town in 

 April, 1814, we were very sentimental: we said that few knew us, 

 and still fewer took an interest in us, and that we would slip 

 through the world inglorious and unknown. But the prospect is 

 altered. We are probably as well known, and have made as great 



6. ? Convoyed. 



