378 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF 



could suppose him to have written at any period of his 

 life.' I went down to Chelsea next day. and made 

 inquiries about the authorship of the volume. ' Oh,' 

 said Carlyle with a laugh, ' that was " the Miracle." ' 

 There was in Annaridale a second Thomas Carlyle, 

 whose cleverness, when a youth, caused him to be 

 looked upon as a prodigy. Both he and the other 

 Thomas sent from time to time mathematical questions 

 to a local newspaper, and answered them mutually. 

 Here Carlyle's extraordinary memory and narrative 

 power came into play. He ran some centuries back, 

 struck into ' the Miracle's ' family history, and traced it 

 to that hour. While studying at the University of 

 Marburg, I had been one morning startled by the in- 

 telligence that Thomas Carlyle, der Engldnder, had 

 arrived in that historic town. On inquiry, however, 

 I found that it was not my Carlyle, but Carlyle the 

 Irving-it e, who had come on a visit to Professor Thiersch. 

 It was, in fact, ' the Miracle. 1 The Professor, a very 

 distinguished Greek scholar and a pious man, had just 

 joined the Irviugites ; hence the visit of ' the Miracle.' 

 Carlyle spoke with feeling regarding what he considered 

 to be the decadence and spiritual waste of his namesake 

 and competitor, who, when he came to Marburg, had, I 

 was told, the rank and function of an ' Apostle.' 



An event, important in its relation to Carlyle's 

 memory, is to be noted here. Meeting one day in the 

 Athenaeum Club Mr. (now Sir Mountstuart) Grrant- 

 Duff, he informed me that an accomplished American 

 friend of his was very anxious to know Carlyle, but 

 that he was held back by the notion that Carlyle dis- 

 liked Americans. I was able to say upon the spot that 

 this was an error. From my own direct questionings I 

 had learned that the feelings of the old man were those 

 of gratitude rather than of dislike. At a time when 



