366 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF 



gladness, which he amply shared ; but he seemed unable, 

 subsequently, to shoot the rays of memory through the 

 heavy atmosphere which immediately surrounded him. 

 Like light-rays in a fog, they were quenched by re-per- 

 cussion from his own melancholy broodings. In Edin- 

 burgh all the necessary elements combined to render 

 him happy. In the background slumbered the con- 

 sciousness of success. In the same region lay thoughts 

 of his wife, whose pride in his triumph would rever- 

 berate its glow upon him. Clinging to her image were 

 memories of a time when her union with him was 

 deemed a mesalliance. Who could think so now ? He 

 stood consciously there as a victor over difficulties which 

 would have broken to pieces not the feeble only, but 

 the strong a victor in the chief city of his country, 

 which he had entered fifty-seven years previously as a 

 wayworn peasant-boy. Such, during his actual stay in 

 Edinburgh, were Carlyle's pleasant musings swept, 

 alas! into practical oblivion by calamity soon afterwards. 

 Huxley and I had proposed to ourselves an excursion 

 in the Highlands ; but snow had fallen, covering the hills 

 and rendering them unfit for exercise. Our thoughts 

 turned homewards, and our bodies soon followed our 

 thoughts. Before coming away I visited Carlyle in his 

 bedroom. He was correcting the proofs of his Address. 

 ' Now,' he said, ' the tollgates at Freystone are to be 

 settled for.' I made light of them, and urged him to 

 say ' Good-bye.' But he would not. ' The thought 

 of them clings to me like unwashed hands.' He re- 

 cognised as mean the cause of the discomfort, and used 

 a congruous metaphor to express it. I still refused to 

 make out a bill, so he put down all the items he re- 

 membered, added them together, and said, ' I owe you 

 so much.' Looking ove"r the account I retorted, with 

 mock sternness, 'I beg your pardon, you owe me 



