MR CABLYLE'S "REMINISCENCES."

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3861, 14 May 1881, Page 2

MR CABLYLE'S "REMINISCENCES."

These fragments, published under the editorial direction of Mr Froude; the historian hare just startled the reading public. Doubts bare been JWV expressed as to the prudence pi t&us giving them to the world _so soon ; but whether prudent or not, their publication throws fresh light; upon^the inner life of Mr Carlyle, and will, to most persons, exhibit him in quite' "other Character. It willibe a rev^t'O^o the majority to know what a difficul-manube must have been to life with. Orer and ™ver again (says the AtheDfflum) he tella us that he was the most miserable of men Hypochondriacal and dyspep. tic 'to the last de«ree, he was jet conscious that his one and only

. function in life was that kind of work which abore all "others requires for ifs happy, pursuit bodily health, and he y«»">cd f°r the sympathy of a friend who could be so close to him as to share his troubles, his longings, and his triumphs. Such a friend he found in the Jane Welsh Carlyle whose portrait he has so beauti fully painted in these volumes " The description of his wife, and of the part ■he enacted all through her life towards him, forms the most pleasing portion, of the " Reminiscences." It is impossible to read his words without emotion: "nh me; she never knew fully, nor could I show her in my heavy lad'n miserable life, how much I had at all times regarded, lored, and admired her. No telling of her now. .'Five minutes more of jour dear company in this world.' " Here is his reminiscence of the arrival at the house in Cheyneßow which he made famous foe so many; years :—•' Her arrival I best of : all remember : ah me 1 She was clear for this poor house (which she gradually as poverty a little withdrew after long years pushing, has made so beautiful and com fortable) in preference to all my other samples : and here we spent our two^andthirty^years of hard battle against fate ; hard but not quite unvictorious,,wbenshe me, as in her ear of heaven sfire. My noble one ? I say deliberately her part in the stern battle, and except myself none knows how stern, wM brighter and braver than my own. Thanks darling, for your shining words and acts, which were continual in my eyes, and in no other mortal's. Worthless I was of your divinity, wrapt in'your perpetual love of use and pride in me, in defiance of all men and things. Oh; was; it "not beautiful, all this that I have lost for ever! And I was Thomas the Doubter, the uchoping : till *n6w the only half believing, in tnyst-lf and tiiy priceless opulence ! Could Ibe easy to live with? She flickered round me like perpetual radiance, and in spite of my glooms and my misdoings, would at no moment cease to love me and to help me. "What of bounty too is in heaven!" Another pleasing description is that of his father, James Carlyle, mason, a man of no school education. His illustrious son says of him:—"ln several respects I consider my father as one of the most interesting men I have known. He was a man of perhaps the very largest natural endowment of any it has been my lot to converse with. Hone of us will ever forget that bold glowing style of his, flow, ing . free from his untutored soul full of metaphors (though he knew not what a metaphor was) with all manner of potent words which he appropriated and applied with a surprising accuracy you ofteni would not guess whence—brief, energetic, and ■ which I should say'conveyed the most] perfect picture, definite clear, not in ambitious colors but in full white sunlight, of all the dialects I have ever listened to Nothing did I ever hear him undertake to render visible which did not become almost ocularly so. Never shall we again hear such speech as that was. The whole-dis-trict knew of it and laughed joyfully over

it,not knowing how otherwise to express the feeling it gave them ; emphatic I have heard him beyond all men. Jn anger he had no need of oaths, his words were like

sharp arrows that smote into the very heart. The fault was that he exaggerated (which tendency I also inherit)yet only in description and for the sake chiefly of numerous effect. He was a man of rigid, even scrupulous veracity. I have often heard him turn back when he thought his strong words were misleading, and correct them into mensurative accuracy.''