CARLYLE HOUSE, CHELSEA 
Carlyle’s. admirable conscientiousness in refusing to use his gifts 
in support of what he did not thoroughly approve, a line of conduct 
in which his wife nobly seconded him, kept him poor for many 
years; but, through his thrift, and her excellent management, 
“the extremity of poverty never came near them.” 
““T mean to write according to my strength,” he writes to his 
brother in 1834. ‘“‘ As to riches, fame, success, and so forth, I 
ask no questions. Were the work laid out for us but the kneading 
of a clay brick, let us, in God’s name, do it faithfully, and look for 
our reward elsewhere.” He finds no encouragement in the book- 
selling world, for at this time the author of “ Sartor Resartus ”’ 
was an unpopular person with the reading public. ‘‘ On July 26, 
at ‘Sunset’ ”’ (an ominous hour), he writes in his journal, “ nothing 
can exceed the gravity of my situation here. ‘Do or die’ seems 
the word; and, alas! what to do?... no periodical editor 
wants me; no man will give me money for my work. Bad health, 
too . . . despicable fears of coming to absolute beggary, etc., etc., 
besiege me.’ But he never entirely despaired, and a month 
earlier he had written: ‘‘ Surely as the blue dome of Heaven 
encircles us all, so does the providence of the Lord of Heaven. He 
willewithhold no good thing from those that love Him! This, as 
it was the ancient psalmist’s faith, let it likewise be ours. It is 
the Alpha and Omega, I reckon, of all possessions that can belong 
to man.” 
Sir Leslie Stephen truly says “ that Carlyle was too often judged 
by his defects, and regarded as a selfish and eccentric misanthrope, 
with flashes of genius, rather than a man with the highest qualities 
of mind and character, clouded by constitutional infirmities.” 
For alas! ‘ The fierce light that beats upon a throne” beats also 
upon the home of genius, betraying all the little flaws and imper- 
fections that escape remark when they are seen on commoner clay. 
To my mind, therefore, what men have called a tragedy, was 
no tragedy at all, and the dingy, old house in Cheyne Row, though 
it saw tragic moments, is coloured rosy-red with romance—romance 
that did not end, as is the way with most fiction, with marriage 
rejoicings, the union of the Haddington belle with the peasant’s 
son; but romance that followed them throughout the rough and 
tumble of their early days in Annandale and Edinburgh, through 
the struggles, and disappointments, and joys, the growing fame, 
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