The Press Saturday, January 15, 1927. Carlyle-Third Stage.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18900, 15 January 1927, Page 14

The Press Saturday, January 15, 1927. Carlyle-Third Stage.

JWe have been following Mr David j Alec Wilson through the successive [ volumes of his monumental history of | Carlyle. The present is the third, covering the period 1837 to IS4S. As Carlyle did not die until 1831, thirtythree years still remain to be treated. Mr Wilson continues the method which he has made his own, breaking up his narrative into short chapters, each developing an incident or a conversation or a fragment of diary or a visiting personality, and so on. He attempts little in the way of exposition or commentary, but allows the personality of Carlyle to unfold itself through his own utterances, whether on paper or in conversation, and through the impressions formed and expressed about, him by men and women of high faculty of discernment. The amount of material of this kind which Mr Wilson has accumulated (much of it from forgotten sources) is really extraordinary. The result is that many things are made clearer to us, and many prejudices and illusions dispelled. For example, we now realise more fully the rich vein of human kindness that was in Carlyle, the depth and tenderness of his sympathies, and his self-sacrificing generosity in the face of distress. Well might Emerson (visiting the Carlyles again after fourteen years' absence in America) exclaim: "Carlylc's heart is "as large as the world." Another time-honoured myth exploded is that sordid story of dissension and strained relations in the Carlyle household, and the long-suffering, martyrised wife. In this book we have the testimony of many distinguished visitors to the " beauty " of the relations between the two. For instance, David Masson summed up his observations of their private life for many years thus: "The demeanour of this famous " couple to each other was exemplary " and loving, with a kind of stately " gallantry on Carlyle's part -when he " turned to his Jane, and on her part "the most admiring affection for him "in all that he said or did." Much might be said on this subject. The fact is that utterances of Mrs Carlyle's have been taken far too seriously. She had a brilliant, wayward, caustic mind; she could urge Anne Thackeray never to many a dyspeptic man of genius; and she could sprinkle her letters to her young girl-cousins with flashing gibes and sarcasms at her husband's expense. It was partly her way, and partly nervous head-aches; but in her heart of hearts she knew that she would not have given her man for all the men in England.

In the period covered by this volume Carlyle was undoubtedly the dominant figure in social London. Probably never has a house been such a universal resort for all kinds of peoplemen and women of genius, men and women of rank, struggling critics, old Scotch acquaintances of his youth, Continental celebrities or adventurers, Americans, Ministers of the Crown, etc. As Thackeray said: " Tom Carlyle "leads a quiet, dignified life in a "little £4O house in Chelsea, with a "snuffy Scotch maid to open the "door, and the best company in England ringing at it." The attraction was fairly evenly divided between husband and wife. Both were matchless conversationalists, in their respective styles. His style was a thing 1 unique in itself, and has often been described; one of the best descriptions of it which we have seen is here, and is worth quoting in part. It is from Margaret Fuller, the Boston transceudentalist lady, friend of Emerson, who, with her Italian husband and their child, was drowned on the way back to America. After various visits to the little Chelsea house she writes: "Accustomed to "the infinite wit and exuberant richness of his writings, his talk is still "an amazement scarcely to be faced " with steady eyes. He does not converse; only harangues—not in the "least from unwillingness to allow "freedom to others ..... just the " impulse o£ a mind accustomed to f ol- " low out its own impulse as the hawk " its prey He sings rather than " talks. He pours upon you a kind of "satirical, heroical, critical poem, with "regular cadences His talk, "like his books, is full of pictures; his "critical strokes masterly. He is a "large subject." We may supplement this by one more quotation, not from other people about him, but in illustration of his own way of describing other people. After his first talk (and smoke) with Alfred Tennyson (then aged 31), he wrote: "A fine, large- " featured, dim-eyed, bronze-coloured, "shaggy-headed man is Alfred; dusty, "smoky, free and,easy; bright, laugh"ing hazel eyes Swims, out-

" wardly and inwardly, with great composure,, in an inarticulate element "of tranquil chaos and tobacco smoke; "great now and then, when he does "emerge; a most restful, brotherly, "solid-hearted man."

Apart from occasional articles in "Fraser," Carlyle's literary output during this period falls roughly into three divisions, viz., four series of public lectures; the book, "Past and " Present"; and Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. Over " Cromwell" he underwent the same agonised wrestlings as were to be reproduced some years later over Frederick the Great. He had read tons of books on the Commonwealth and Civil War. He was saturated with the subject, practically lived in the seventeenth century, had explored battlefields, and had every surviving scrap of contemporary evidence on his fingers' ends. But his difficulty was to strike the right vein. He made several starts. Once he wrote hard for six weeks, and his wife sighed to herself "At last!" when one day, as she sat darning stockings by the fire, a gaunt figure stalked into the room, and with an air of grim determination laid a pile of manuscript on the flames. However, these vacillations of mood would have been overcome; bnt the real obstruction to progress

I v.'ith " Cromwell" lay in the condition : of the country around him. It was the terrible period of the " hungry 'forties," when misery and starvation stalked through the land. On his frequent rides through the country or visits to towns, Carlyle witnessed sights which burned into his very soul. How could he go on thinking himself buck into the seventeenth century, v.'ith hundreds of thousands of poor wretches round him without work to do. bread to eat, or fuel whereby to warm themselves? The fire kindled within him: and hot, like molten metal, " Past and Present" poured out of him. The white heat of indignation and sorrow carried him through the book at a rush, and the printers printed off the sheets as fast as he could supply them. When we read j that book now before a big fire or a well-stocked table, if i.s well to recall the conditions under which it was written, and the heroic soul of the man from whose heart's blood it was wrung.