GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



Carlyle, than I formerly possessed. The ' New Letters and 

 Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle " are calculated, as intended, 

 to raise still higher the reader's opinion of Thomas Carlyle ; but 

 I think that, in vindicating the philosopher in his Introduction, 

 Sir James Crichton-Browne is not infrequently unjust to Mrs. 

 Carlyle. " The course of true love never did run smooth," which 

 applies equally to married, and unmarried lovers. These two 

 gifted people were genuinely devoted. Who can read the letters 

 that passed between them to the end of their long, wedded lives, 

 letters never intended for the eye of the public, and doubt it ? 

 But, unluckily for perfect harmony, they were temperamentally 

 too much alike. Both were highly-strung ; victims of a peculiarity 

 of physical and mental organization that influenced their thoughts 

 and actions ; both were emotional, and, unfortunately, equally 

 endowed with hot tempers, as well as mental gifts. Here perhaps 

 the resemblance between them ended, for the character of their 

 mentality, and their outlook, and aspirations, were different. 

 Mrs. Carlyle longed for children and she was childless ; his children 

 were the offspring of his genius. She herself was not without the 

 ambition, and, as her letters show, the capacity, to excel in litera- 

 ture ; yet she generously and cheerfully immolated her talents 

 in that direction on the altar of her husband's genius, " because," 

 says Froude, " she honoured his character, she gloried in his fame, 

 and she was sure of his affection." She was the first to recognize 

 the merit of " The French Revolution," and it is touching, as well 

 as amusing, to find her celebrating its accomplishment by treating 

 him to a bread pudding, of which he remarks, " he consumed it 

 with an appetite got by walking far and wide." 



Although sufficiently capable in business affairs, Carlyle was at 

 heart a mystic. ' The word God," says Froude, " was too awful 

 for common use, and he veiled his feelings in metaphor to avoid 

 it." On the other hand, Mrs. Carlyle was eminently practical ; 

 an excellent and active housekeeper, who, even with the narrow 

 means at her disposal, made light of domestic difficulties that 

 would have appalled most women brought up as she had been, 

 in comparative ease and luxury. No one, we are assured, calling 

 at Cheyne Row in the days of their poverty, could have told 

 whether the Carlyles were rich or poor. The house was well- 

 furnished, the drawing-room even elegant. The little garden at 



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