110 NOTES FROM THE PRAIRIE 



in Grecian times ; he seemed out of place among 

 human beings." 



Of Carlyle, too, she has an independent 

 opinion. "It is a mystery to me why men so 

 universally admire Carlyle; women do not, or 

 if there is occasionally one who does, she does 

 not like him. A woman's first thought about 

 him would be, ' I pity his wife ! ' Do you 

 remember what he said in answer to Mrs. 

 Welsh's proposal to come and live with them 

 and help support them? He said they could 

 only live pleasantly together on the condition 

 that she looked up to him, not he to her. 

 Here is what he says : ' Now, think, Liebchen, 

 whether your mother will consent to forget her 

 riches and our poverty, and uncertain, more 

 probably scanty, income, and consent in the 

 spirit of Christian meekness to make me her 

 guardian and director, and be a second wife to 

 her daughter's husband?' Now, isn't that 

 insufferable conceit for you? To expect that 

 a woman old enough to be his mother would 

 lay aside her self-respect and individuality to 

 accept him, a comparatively young and inexpe- 

 rienced man, as her master? The cheekiness 

 of it! Here you have the key-note of his 

 character — ' great I and little u. ' 



"I have tried faithfully to like him, for it 

 seemed as if the fault must be in me because I 

 did not; I have labored wearily through nearly 

 all his works, stumbling over his superlatives 

 (why, he is an adjective factory; his pages 

 look like the alphabet struck by a cyclone. 



