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 im 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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