180 Autobiographical Notes. 



a figure, as any of the same standing at college, and we do not 

 know, but will hope, what twenty years may bring forth. 



A letter from you every fortnight shall be answered faith- 

 fully, and will be highly delightful ; and if we live to be seniors, 

 the letters of the companions of our youth will call to mind our 

 college scenes, endeared to us by many tender associations, and 

 will make us forget that we are poor and old. . . . That 

 you may be always successful and enjoy every happiness that this 

 evanescent world can afford, and that we may meet soon, is, my 

 dear Carlyle, the sincere wish of 



Yours most faithfully, 



Thomas Murray. 



5 Carnegie Street, July 27, 1814. ^ 



Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Tliomas Murray. 



August, 1814. 



Oh, Tom, what a foolish, flattering creature thou art! To 

 talk of future eminence in connection with the literary history 

 of the nineteenth century to such a one as me ! Alas ! my good 

 lad, when I and all my fancies and reveries and speculations shall 

 have been swept over with the besom of oblivion, the literary 

 history of no century will feel itself the worse. Vet think not, 

 because I talk thus, 1 am careless of literary fame. No; 

 Heaven knows that ever since I have been able to form a wish, 

 the wish of being known has been foremost. 



Oh, Fortune ! thou that givest unto each his portion in this 

 dirty planet, bestow (if it shall please thee) coronets, and crowns, 

 and principalities, and purses, and pudding, and powers upon 

 the great and noble and fat ones of the earth. Grant me that, 

 with a heart of independence unyielding to thy favours and 

 unbending to thy frowns, I may attain to literary fame ; and 

 though starvation be my lot, I will smile that I have not been 

 born a king. 



But, alas ! my dear Murray, what am I, or what are you, 

 or what is any other poor unfriended stripling in the ranks of 

 learning ?8 



This letter from Carlyle, received by Murray in reply to 

 his own, is a gem of its kind. Couched in strong and vigorous 



7. Froude's Thomas Oo.rlyle. Lon Jon, 1882, Vol. I., pp. 37-8. 



8. Ihid, Vol. I. , pp. 38-9. 



