CARLYLE HOUSE, CHELSEA 



of poor Nero who had to be strychnined by the doctor, is still 

 memorable, sad and miserable to me. The last nocturnal walk he 

 took with me, his dim white little figure in the universe of dreary 

 black, and my then mood about Frederick and other things." 



" What is become of that little, beautiful, graceful life, so full 

 of love and loyalty and sense of duty," wrote Mrs. Carlyle. 

 " One thing is sure, anyhow, my little dog is buried at the top of 

 our garden, and I grieve for him as if he had been a little human 

 child." 



But Mrs. Carlyle might have written differently if she had ever 

 had a child to lose. She must have sighed for one sometimes, when 

 Carlyle's bilious outbursts were frequent, or, when all going 

 well, he was work- engrossed, or on the other hand, could produce 

 nothing to satisfy himself in many long months. One day he 

 brought all that he had written into the room where she was 

 peacefully darning stockings, " and it was up the chimney in a fine 

 blaze " before she knew what he was burning. 



There was, I think, a good deal in common between Michael 

 Angelo and Thomas Carlyle. Each got rid of his superfluous 

 energy, or drove away painful thoughts, by dint of hard, bodily 

 exercise ; and just as A. J. Symonds tells us that a contemporary 

 describes Michael Angelo when well over sixty, hewing away at a 

 block of marble " in a sort of fury ' : so we have seen Carlyle clean- 

 ing flags before breakfast, with a will ; both, too, had long periods 

 of inertia, in which the brain was lying fallow, a state of unconscious 

 preparation for future effort, but inexplicable to their friends ; 

 and Carlyle sometimes openly declared that " he preferred to ripen 

 and rot for a while." 



When the sun shines athwart the turf in the little " garden so 

 called " at the back of No. 5 and, leaving the grey old house in 

 shadow, penetrates the vine leaves that drape the wall to the right, 

 and turns them to a veil of gold the place where Carlyle dwelt for 

 forty strenuous years has still its moments of positive beauty, for 

 sunshine glorifies everything. At other times although very 

 neatly tended by the kindly Scottish caretaker, whose intelligent 

 interest and pride in her great countryman, helps many a visitor- 

 it is rather dreary. The ivy that came from Mrs. Carlyle's early 

 home, still mantles the old buttressed wall to the left, but in common 

 with the surrounding trees, it is darkened by London's smoke, 



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