353 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OP 



It was arranged that he should go first to Frey- 

 Btone, in Yorkshire, and pay a short visit to Lord 

 Houghton. On the morning of March 29, 1866, I drove 

 to Cheyne Row, and found him punctually ready at 

 the appointed hour. Order was Carlyle's first law, and 

 punctuality was one of the chief factors of order. He 

 was therefore punctual. On a table in a small back 

 parlour below-stairs stood a 'siphon,' protected by 

 wickerwork. Carlyle was conservative in habit, and in 

 his old age he held on to the brown brandy which was 

 in vogue in his younger days. Into a tumbler Mrs. 

 Carlyle poured a moderate quantity of this brandy, and 

 filled it up with the foaming water from the siphon. 

 He drank it off, and they kissed each other for the 

 last time. At the door she suddenly said to me, * For 

 God's sake send me one line by telegraph when all 

 is over.' This said, and the promise given, we drove 

 away. 



In due time we reached Freystone, where the 

 warmest of welcomes greeted Carlyle. A beautiful 

 feature in the record of Carlyle's relations to his friends 

 is the loving loyalty of Lord Houghton. Not long 

 prior to his lamented death he sent me an extract from 

 a letter written by Carlyle to his wife on the occasion, 

 I believe, of his first visit to Freystone. It had been 

 purchased by Lord Houghton from some collector of 

 letters, into whose hands it had fallen. It showed how 

 long-standing Carlyle's malady of sleeplessness had 

 been. It spoke of the weary unrest of the previous 

 night the ceaseless tossing to and fro and of the 

 comfort he experienced in thinking of her, as he 

 smoked his morning cigar in the sunshine. On the 

 first night of his last visit to Freystone, the unrest waa 

 not only renewed but intensified. Railways had multi- 

 plied ; they clasped Freystone as in a ring, and their 



