I wrote you ten days ago a long letter
dated Cambridge from my Inn in that Town.
dated Cambridge from my Inn in that Town.
Thomas Carlyle
It
keeps in the winter; it could not be worse
than my London tobacco all this year. Tell
Alick about it; he rejoices always to help
me whenever he can.
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? THE BATTLEFIELD AT NASEBY 139
Carlyle's pilgrimage to Huntingdon, St.
Ives, and thereabouts, is not to be con-
founded with his former Cromwell journey
-- to Naseby -- undertaken a few months be-
fore, with Dr. Arnold. Froude's account of
Carlyle's investigation of the battlefield was
(necessarily) so incomplete that I venture to
quote here two highly interesting letters from
a long afterward published book, -- Letters
of Edward Fitzgerald. Says Fitzgerald, in a
memorandum on the subject: --
"As I happened to know the Field well, --
the greater part of it then belonging to my
Family, -- I knew that Carlyle and Arnold
had been mistaken -- misled in part by an
Obelisk which my Father had set up as on
the highest Ground of the Field, but which
they mistook for the centre-ground of the
Battle. This I told Carlyle, who was very
reluctant to believe that he and Arnold could
have been deceived -- that he could accept
no hearsay Tradition or Theory against the
Evidence of his own Eyes, etc. However, as
I was just then going down to Naseby, I
might enquire further into the matter.
"On arriving at Naseby, I had spade and
mattock taken to a hill near half a mile
across from the 'Blockhead Obelisk,' and
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? 140 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
pitted with several hollows, overgrown with
rank Vegetation, which Tradition had always
pointed to as the Graves of the Slain. One
of these I had opened; and there, sure
enough, were the remains of skeletons closely
packed together -- chiefly teeth -- but some
remains of Shin-bone, and marks of Skull in
the Clay. Some of these, together with some
sketches of the Place, I sent to Carlyle. "
Fitzgerald, in a letter which has apparently
not been preserved, sent the results of this
first investigation to Carlyle. He wrote also
from Naseby the following letter to Bernard
Barton : --
[Naseby], Septr. 22, /42.
My dear Barton, -- The pictures are
left all ready packed up in Portland Place,
and shall come down with me, whenever
that desirable event takes place. In the
meanwhile here I am as before; but having
received a long and interesting letter from
Carlyle asking information about this Battle
field, I have trotted about rather more to
ascertain names of places, positions, etc.
After all, he will make a mad book. I have
just seen some of the bones of a dragoon and
his horse who were found foundered in a
morass in the field -- poor dragoon, much
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? THE BATTLEFIELD AT NASEBY 141
dismembered by time: his less worthy mem-
bers, having been left in the owner's summer-
house for the last twenty years, have disap-
peared one by one, but his skull is kept safe
in the hall: not a bad skull neither; and in
it some teeth yet holding, and a bit of the
iron heel of his boot, put into the skull by
way of convenience. This is what Sir Thomas
Browne calls "making a man act his Anti-
podes. " 1 I have got a fellow to dig at one
of the great general graves in the field; and
he tells me to-night that he has come to
bones; to-morrow I will select a neat speci-
men or two. In the meantime let the full
harvest moon wonder at them as they lie
turned up after lying hid 2400 revolutions
of hers. Think of that warm 14th of June
when the Battle was fought, and they fell
pell-mell: and then the country people came
and buried them so shallow that the stench
was terrible, and the putrid matter oozed
over the ground for several yards; so that
the cattle were observed to eat those places
very close for some years after. Every one
1 Referring to a passage in the Garden of Cyrus, near the
end: "To keep our eyes open longer, were but to act our
antipodes. The huntsmen are up in America, and they are
already past their first sleep in Persia. "
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? 142 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
to his taste, as one might well say to any
woman who kissed the cow that pastured
there.
Friday, 23rd. We have dug at a place,
as I said, and made such a trench as would
hold a dozen fellows, whose remains positively
make up the mould. The bones nearly all
rotted away, except the teeth, which are quite
good. At the bottom lay the form of a per-
fect skeleton: most of the bones gone, but
the pressure distinct in the clay; the thigh
and leg bones yet extant; the skull a little
pushed forward, as if there were scanty room.
We also tried some other reputed graves, but
found nothing; indeed, it is not easy to dis-
tinguish what are graves from old marlpits,
etc. I don't care for all this bone-rummaging
myself; but the identification of the graves
identifies also where the greatest heat of the
battle was. Do you wish for a tooth?
As I began this antiquarian account in a
letter to you, so I have finished it, that you
may mention it to my Papa, who perhaps will
be amused at it. Two farmers insisted on
going out exploring with me all day: one a
very solid fellow, who talks like the justices
in Shakespeare, but who certainly was in-
spired in finding out this grave; the other a
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? TO EDWARD FITZGERALD 143
Scotchman, full of intelligence, who proposed
the flesh-soil for manure for turnips. The
old Vicar, whose age reaches halfway back
to the day of the Battle, stood tottering over
the verge of the trench. Carlyle has shewn
great sagacity in guessing at the localities
from the vague descriptions of contempora-
ries; and his short pasticcio of the battle is
the best I have seen. But he will spoil all
by making a demigod of Cromwell, who cer-
tainly was so far from wise that he brought
about the very thing he fought to prevent, --
the restoration of an unrestricted monarchy.
The substance of this letter was of course
communicated by Fitzgerald to Carlyle, who
promptly and gratefully replied.
Chelsea, Saturday, 25 [24] Septr. 1842. My dear Sir, -- You will do me and the
Genius of History a real favour, if you per-
sist in these examinations and excavations to
the utmost length possible for you! It is
long since I read a letter so interesting as
yours of yesterday. Clearly enough you are
upon the very battle-ground ; -- and I, it is
also clear, have only looked up towards it
from the slope of Mill Hill. Were not the
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? 144 LETTERS OF CABLYLE
weather so wet, were not, etc. , etc. , so many
etceteras, I could almost think of running up
to join you still! But that is evidently un-
feasible at present.
The opening of that burial-heap blazes
strangely in my thoughts: these are the very
jawbones that were clenched together in
deadly rage, on this very ground, 197 years
ago! It brings the matter home to one,
with a strange veracity, -- as if for the first
time one saw it to be no fable and theory,
but a dire fact. I will beg for a tooth and a
bullet; authenticated by your own eyes and
word of honour! Our Scotch friend, too,
making turnip manure of it, -- he is part of
the Picture. I understand almost all the
Netherlands battlefields have already given
up their bones to British husbandry; why
not the old English next? Honour to thrift.
If of 5000 wasted men you can make a few
usable turnips, why, do it!
The more sketches and details you can
contrive to send me, the better. I want to
know, for one thing, whether there is any
house on Cloisterwell; what house that was
that I saw from the slope of Naseby height
(Mill-hill, I suppose), and fancied to be Dust Hill Farm? It must lie about North by
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? TO EDWARD FITZGERALD 145
West from Naseby Church, perhaps near a
mile off. You say, one cannot see Dust Hill
at all, much less any farm house of Dust Hill,
from that Naseby Height?
But why does the Obelisk stand there?
It might as well stand at Charing Cross; the
blockhead that it is! I again wish I had
wings; alas, I wish many things; that the
gods would but annihilate Time and Space,
which would include all things!
In great haste, Yours most truly,
T. Carlyle.
Both Carlyle's letter to Fitzgerald and
that to his mother from Cambridge are nota-
ble illustrations of the insatiable hunger of
the eye which went far to make him the
great writer he was. The print of those
teeth on his mind is shown in Cromwell,
where we read: "A friend of mine has in
his cabinet two ancient grinder-teeth, dug
lately from that ground, -- and waits for an
opportunity to rebury them there. Sound,
effectual grinders, one of them very large;
which ate their breakfast on the fourteenth
morning of June, two hundred years ago,
and, except to be clenched once in grim
battle, had never work to do more in this
world! "
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? 146 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
The old mother was not ungrateful for
her son's mindfulness. Nothing in their re-
lations is more touching than the brevity and
stiffness of her letters, with every now and
then some burst of natural affection which
even the artificial medium cannot check.
Margaret Carlyle had learned to write in
adult life for the sake of replying to her
son's letters, but the pen never became an
obedient instrument in her hand. She could
always have sympathized with Joe Gargery.
XXII. TO CARLYLE FROM HIS MOTHER.
Scotsbrig, Sept. 13,1842. My dear Son,-- It is a long time since
you had a word from me, though I have had
many kind letters from you, for which if I
am not thankful enough, I am glad. I am
full as well as I was when you saw me last.
I am reading the poem on "Luther" and I
am much pleased with it. I wish the author
Godspeed. It is a good subject and well
handled, is my opinion of it. I had a letter
from John yesterday, he thinks he will see us
in the Course of a month or so. We will be
glad to see him again if it please God. We
have excellent weather here. I do not re-
member such a summer and harvest. Jamie
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? MBS. CARLYLE TO MBS. HANNING 147
had a good crop and very near all in and well
got up. Isabel is still poorly. She is rather
better than she was at one time. How are
you after your wanderings? Write as soon
as you can and tell us all your news.
Ever your affectionate Mother,
M. A. C.
XXIII. TO MRS. HANGING, AT THE GILL, FROM HER
MOTHER.
Scotsbrig, Monday [1840-1851].
My dear Jenny, -- I have been longing
for you to come here for a long time. I
want to send two hams on to London.
Could you get a box which would hold the
shirts and both could be sent at the same
time. If you have not sent them any, bring
them over as soon as you can, and come soon.
At any rate bring the winter things that
Jean sent. We are all in our frail way of
health. Give my kindest love to young and
old.
Ever your old mother,
M. A. C.
In the letter subjoined, Carlyle gives his
mother the conclusion of his visit to the
Bullers, of which he had written so fully.
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? 148 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
"The good Mrs. Strachey," sister to Mrs.
Buller, was the pious widow of a rich exami-
ner in the India House. Mr. Strachey, eigh-
teen years before, had accompanied Carlyle to
Paris. "Min" must have been a household
name for Miss Jeannie Welsh.
XXIV. CARLYLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBRIG.
Chelsea, 19th Sept. 1842.
My dear Mother, -- Will you take the
smallest of notes from me merely to perform
the essential function of a note, -- ask you
how you are and say that I am well.
I wrote you ten days ago a long letter
dated Cambridge from my Inn in that Town.
This I hope you received duly. It would
let you into my ways in those weeks. Next
day I got well enough back to Troston, rain
attending me for the last two hours. I was
terribly wearied of my great flat-soled mon-
ster of a horse, but much gratified with my
pilgrimage and all rejoiced very handsomely
at my return. Charles had come in the in-
terim. They would not let us away on Mon-
day as we proposed. It was settled at last
that Thursday should be the day. Charles
came up with us to Town. We had a very
pleasant kind of journey and got safe home^
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? TO BIS MOTHER
149
to dinner here. So ends the Troston journey
and I think all travelling for this season.
The good Mrs. Strachey, who is now in Italy,
wrote to offer us her house and servants for
two months at Clifton, a beautiful Village
near Bristol, 100 miles to the west of us, but
we have refused. Rolling stone gathers little
bog. I must resolutely get some work done
now.
Jane seems really better for her country
excursion. I observed to-day that she eats
a whole slice of bread to breakfast again.
Little Min W. is still here. I think she likes
much better to be here than at home, in the
midst of luxury but also of Liverpool stupid-
ity. She is a fine cheery little lass, very
pretty too, and would make a good wife for
somebody.
The Duke of Buccleuch has now actually
paid me the ? 100 -- at least sent a draft
payable in 10 days hence. I sent my thanks
and the business is all over -- a right agree-
able result. You may tell Jamie that the
Templand Grates too are paid, payable at the
same time; that we saved the Grates that
day, and our broiling journey was not in vain,
therefore.
I hope they have now all got a sight of
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? 150 LETTERS OF CABLYLE
your picture and that I shall get it soon. It
will be needless to wait for Jack, he, as I re-
flect, can do nothing towards carrying it.
Poor fellow -- you will see him again. Here
is his last letter, though it can have no news
for you. How goes Jamie's harvest? The
weather has been brittle ever since that thun-
derstorm. How go you yourself, my dear
good Mother? Somebody ought to write to
me now. I do not hear anything even from
Jean. Could Jenny make me two pairs of
flannel drawers along with the shirts? I
fear not. Adieu, dear Mother, my love to
one and all.
T. Carlyle.
XXV. CARLYLE TO MRS. HANNING, THE GILL.
Chelsea, 2d Noo. 1842.
My dear Jenny, -- Yesterday I meant to
have written to you, in order to be ready for
Thursday at Annan, such had been my firm
purpose, but something came in the way, and
I altogether forgot till this morning. Lest I
make a similar mistake for Saturday too, I
will take time by the forelock and write even
now. The barrel of meal, and the box of
garments arrived all safe, on Saturday night
last.
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? TO MRS. BANNING
151
And I have to apprize you, as the expert
needlewoman of the whole, that all Jits with
perfect correctness. I have had a pair of
drawers on, and a flannel shirt, I have one of
the cambric shirts on me at present: every-
thing is as right as if it had been made under
my own eye. The flannel of the shirts is
excellent, they are made to the very measure.
The drawers also are the best Jit of the article
I have had for several years back ; two of the
pairs, I observe, are of the fine flannel the
shirts are of. Perhaps it will prove too cool
for the depth of winter -- perhaps not, but
either way I have plenty of warmer, for that
season. One of the pairs is of right shaggy
flannel. My good Mother sent a fine wool
plaid too and a dozen pair of socks, few mor-
tals are better off for woolen this winter ! --
As to the muslin shirts Jane says they are
excellently sewed, -- She is the judge, I find
them to He flat on the breast too, which the
old would never do.
In short, it is all perfectly right; and you
will be very glad, I doubt not, that you
have got it well off your hands. If in the
course of the winter, you fall out of work,
and want a canny job for yourself, it will be
acceptable enough to me that you set Jean
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? 152 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
upon getting you some more stuff, and make
me half a dozen more of the like shirts! But
this you need not, unless in the aforesaid
case. I believe the stock I have will serve
me some couple of years or more. But they
eat no bread. -- If you ever do think of this,
you can let me know before starting; I may
perhaps have some remarks to make.
You will be nestling all under cover now
at Gill, when the short days and the frosts
are come. I hope you have a right stock of
fuel in your end of the house; and that your
little carpet is now complete. I long to
question the Dr. about you when he comes
back hither. He is at a place they call
Malvern some 120 miles west of this.
How are Mary and Jamie? very busy, and
well, I hope. Mary never writes. I sent
James a tobacco-box! -- Poor Allan Cunning-
ham the Poet is dead very suddenly; a sad
event for several of us ! --
Adieu, Dear little sister.
Ever your affect.
T. Caelyle.
Much as Carlyle had been thinking about
Cromwell, another book was to come first, --
a book for which his very trip to Cromwell's
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? [ To Mrs. Han nil
Jcu^ ,
"SUA
C c*^ OaJ ">>
'HjJ* t tw ^A-u^.
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? k*^ *\G-S ttzzc (kit h t^u? yn*
Hi/ Ivov-j) 'WvU- U^u/" ftC^^, J C*^. Uvx^ ttu^,
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? A PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY 153
country was fruitful in suggestion. At St.
Ives he had seen not only Cromwell's farm,
but also St. Ives poorhouse with its inhabit-
ants, -- "in the sun," to be sure, but neither
spinsters nor knitters, nor workers after any
fashion, for the simple reason that they had
no work to do. The Chartist riots of 1842
remained in Carlyle's mind with this symbolic
picture, and by October of the same year he
was deeply pondering the condition of "the
English nation all sitting enchanted, the poor
enchanted so that they cannot work, the rich
enchanted so that they cannot enjoy. " Over
against this contemporary view Carlyle set
the life of the monks of Bury St. Edmunds,
as told by their chronicler, Jocelyn de Brake-
londe; and the result was Past and Present,
written, apparently with less struggle than
any of the author's other books, in the first
seven weeks of 1843. Although Carlyle
went too far in this work, -- as indeed he
so seldom failed to do, -- Past and Present
proved the germ of more than one sadly
needed reform; and the splendid, sonorous
passage beginning, " All true work is sacred,"
will remain, one must believe, an inalienable
possession of English literature and English
morals.
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? 154 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
Publication followed in April, and soon
afterward Carlyle wrote in his Journal:
"That book always stood between me and
Cromwell, and now that has fledged itself
and flown off. " Face to face with Oliver
again, Carlyle went in the summer of 1843
to see famous battlefields of the civil war.
He so planned his itinerary as to reach Dun-
bar on the 3d of September, -- the day of
the fight there, the day of Worcester fight,
and the day of Cromwell's death.
This professional journey was preceded by
a peaceful month at Scotsbrig, and followed
by a visit to Erskine which fixes the date of
the next letter.
XXVI. CARLYLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBRIG.
[Linlathen, early September, 1843. ]
Yesterday by appointment, the good
Thomas Erskine took me up at Kirkcaldy,
carried me off hither on the top of the coach,
bag and baggage. The day was damp and
dim, not exactly wet, yet in danger of becom-
ing very. There had been rain in the night
time (Sabbath night or early on Monday morn-
ing) but there fell no more. This day again
is oppressively hot, dry yet without sun or
wind -- a baddish "day for a stock. " But
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? TO HIS MOTHER
155
they prophesy fair weather now -- which I
shall be glad of, and the whole country will
be glad, for all is white here, in sheaves and
stooks, and little got into ricks. We got
here about 5 in the evening, a great party of
people in the house (a big Laird's house
with flunkeys &c, &c). I was heartily tired
before I got to bed. I do not think I shall
be rightly at rest till I get on ship board,
then I will lie down and let all men have a
care of stirring me, -- they had better let the
sleeping dog lie! The Dundee steamers are
allowed to be the best on these waters, large
swift ships and very few passengers in them
at present. I spoke for my place yesterday
and am to have the best. The kind people
here will relieve me down (it is four miles off)
and then about 4 o'clock in the afternoon --
I shall -- light a pipe in peace and think of
you all, speaking not a word. I expect to
sleep well there too, and then on Friday, per-
haps about 3 o'clock, I may be at London
Bridge and home by the most convenient
conveyance to Chelsea for dinner. This, if
all go well, this ends for the present my pil-
grimings up and down the world.
Dear Mother, I wish I had gone direct
home when I left you, for it is not pleasant
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? 156 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
somehow to be still in Scotland and far from
you. I speak not the thoughts I send to-
wards you, for speech will not express them.
If I arrive home on Friday you may perhaps
find a newspaper at Ecclefechan on Sabbath
morning, Monday much likelier. God bless
you all.
T. Carlyle.
The passage about Jeffrey in the next let-
ter is better than the corresponding one given
by Froude. The reader who remembers Jef-
frey's complaint that Carlyle was " so dread-
fully in earnest," will smile at Carlyle's coun-
ter charge that Jeffrey had "too little real
seriousness in him" to "make a nice old
man. "
XXVII. CARLYLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBRIG. LlNLATHEN, DUNDEE,
Tuesday, 12th Sep. 1843.
My dear Mother, -- According to pro-
mise, I write you another little word to an-
nounce that I am safe so far on my way, that
I embark to-morrow and hope to be home on
Friday afternoon.
keeps in the winter; it could not be worse
than my London tobacco all this year. Tell
Alick about it; he rejoices always to help
me whenever he can.
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? THE BATTLEFIELD AT NASEBY 139
Carlyle's pilgrimage to Huntingdon, St.
Ives, and thereabouts, is not to be con-
founded with his former Cromwell journey
-- to Naseby -- undertaken a few months be-
fore, with Dr. Arnold. Froude's account of
Carlyle's investigation of the battlefield was
(necessarily) so incomplete that I venture to
quote here two highly interesting letters from
a long afterward published book, -- Letters
of Edward Fitzgerald. Says Fitzgerald, in a
memorandum on the subject: --
"As I happened to know the Field well, --
the greater part of it then belonging to my
Family, -- I knew that Carlyle and Arnold
had been mistaken -- misled in part by an
Obelisk which my Father had set up as on
the highest Ground of the Field, but which
they mistook for the centre-ground of the
Battle. This I told Carlyle, who was very
reluctant to believe that he and Arnold could
have been deceived -- that he could accept
no hearsay Tradition or Theory against the
Evidence of his own Eyes, etc. However, as
I was just then going down to Naseby, I
might enquire further into the matter.
"On arriving at Naseby, I had spade and
mattock taken to a hill near half a mile
across from the 'Blockhead Obelisk,' and
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? 140 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
pitted with several hollows, overgrown with
rank Vegetation, which Tradition had always
pointed to as the Graves of the Slain. One
of these I had opened; and there, sure
enough, were the remains of skeletons closely
packed together -- chiefly teeth -- but some
remains of Shin-bone, and marks of Skull in
the Clay. Some of these, together with some
sketches of the Place, I sent to Carlyle. "
Fitzgerald, in a letter which has apparently
not been preserved, sent the results of this
first investigation to Carlyle. He wrote also
from Naseby the following letter to Bernard
Barton : --
[Naseby], Septr. 22, /42.
My dear Barton, -- The pictures are
left all ready packed up in Portland Place,
and shall come down with me, whenever
that desirable event takes place. In the
meanwhile here I am as before; but having
received a long and interesting letter from
Carlyle asking information about this Battle
field, I have trotted about rather more to
ascertain names of places, positions, etc.
After all, he will make a mad book. I have
just seen some of the bones of a dragoon and
his horse who were found foundered in a
morass in the field -- poor dragoon, much
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? THE BATTLEFIELD AT NASEBY 141
dismembered by time: his less worthy mem-
bers, having been left in the owner's summer-
house for the last twenty years, have disap-
peared one by one, but his skull is kept safe
in the hall: not a bad skull neither; and in
it some teeth yet holding, and a bit of the
iron heel of his boot, put into the skull by
way of convenience. This is what Sir Thomas
Browne calls "making a man act his Anti-
podes. " 1 I have got a fellow to dig at one
of the great general graves in the field; and
he tells me to-night that he has come to
bones; to-morrow I will select a neat speci-
men or two. In the meantime let the full
harvest moon wonder at them as they lie
turned up after lying hid 2400 revolutions
of hers. Think of that warm 14th of June
when the Battle was fought, and they fell
pell-mell: and then the country people came
and buried them so shallow that the stench
was terrible, and the putrid matter oozed
over the ground for several yards; so that
the cattle were observed to eat those places
very close for some years after. Every one
1 Referring to a passage in the Garden of Cyrus, near the
end: "To keep our eyes open longer, were but to act our
antipodes. The huntsmen are up in America, and they are
already past their first sleep in Persia. "
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? 142 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
to his taste, as one might well say to any
woman who kissed the cow that pastured
there.
Friday, 23rd. We have dug at a place,
as I said, and made such a trench as would
hold a dozen fellows, whose remains positively
make up the mould. The bones nearly all
rotted away, except the teeth, which are quite
good. At the bottom lay the form of a per-
fect skeleton: most of the bones gone, but
the pressure distinct in the clay; the thigh
and leg bones yet extant; the skull a little
pushed forward, as if there were scanty room.
We also tried some other reputed graves, but
found nothing; indeed, it is not easy to dis-
tinguish what are graves from old marlpits,
etc. I don't care for all this bone-rummaging
myself; but the identification of the graves
identifies also where the greatest heat of the
battle was. Do you wish for a tooth?
As I began this antiquarian account in a
letter to you, so I have finished it, that you
may mention it to my Papa, who perhaps will
be amused at it. Two farmers insisted on
going out exploring with me all day: one a
very solid fellow, who talks like the justices
in Shakespeare, but who certainly was in-
spired in finding out this grave; the other a
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? TO EDWARD FITZGERALD 143
Scotchman, full of intelligence, who proposed
the flesh-soil for manure for turnips. The
old Vicar, whose age reaches halfway back
to the day of the Battle, stood tottering over
the verge of the trench. Carlyle has shewn
great sagacity in guessing at the localities
from the vague descriptions of contempora-
ries; and his short pasticcio of the battle is
the best I have seen. But he will spoil all
by making a demigod of Cromwell, who cer-
tainly was so far from wise that he brought
about the very thing he fought to prevent, --
the restoration of an unrestricted monarchy.
The substance of this letter was of course
communicated by Fitzgerald to Carlyle, who
promptly and gratefully replied.
Chelsea, Saturday, 25 [24] Septr. 1842. My dear Sir, -- You will do me and the
Genius of History a real favour, if you per-
sist in these examinations and excavations to
the utmost length possible for you! It is
long since I read a letter so interesting as
yours of yesterday. Clearly enough you are
upon the very battle-ground ; -- and I, it is
also clear, have only looked up towards it
from the slope of Mill Hill. Were not the
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? 144 LETTERS OF CABLYLE
weather so wet, were not, etc. , etc. , so many
etceteras, I could almost think of running up
to join you still! But that is evidently un-
feasible at present.
The opening of that burial-heap blazes
strangely in my thoughts: these are the very
jawbones that were clenched together in
deadly rage, on this very ground, 197 years
ago! It brings the matter home to one,
with a strange veracity, -- as if for the first
time one saw it to be no fable and theory,
but a dire fact. I will beg for a tooth and a
bullet; authenticated by your own eyes and
word of honour! Our Scotch friend, too,
making turnip manure of it, -- he is part of
the Picture. I understand almost all the
Netherlands battlefields have already given
up their bones to British husbandry; why
not the old English next? Honour to thrift.
If of 5000 wasted men you can make a few
usable turnips, why, do it!
The more sketches and details you can
contrive to send me, the better. I want to
know, for one thing, whether there is any
house on Cloisterwell; what house that was
that I saw from the slope of Naseby height
(Mill-hill, I suppose), and fancied to be Dust Hill Farm? It must lie about North by
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? TO EDWARD FITZGERALD 145
West from Naseby Church, perhaps near a
mile off. You say, one cannot see Dust Hill
at all, much less any farm house of Dust Hill,
from that Naseby Height?
But why does the Obelisk stand there?
It might as well stand at Charing Cross; the
blockhead that it is! I again wish I had
wings; alas, I wish many things; that the
gods would but annihilate Time and Space,
which would include all things!
In great haste, Yours most truly,
T. Carlyle.
Both Carlyle's letter to Fitzgerald and
that to his mother from Cambridge are nota-
ble illustrations of the insatiable hunger of
the eye which went far to make him the
great writer he was. The print of those
teeth on his mind is shown in Cromwell,
where we read: "A friend of mine has in
his cabinet two ancient grinder-teeth, dug
lately from that ground, -- and waits for an
opportunity to rebury them there. Sound,
effectual grinders, one of them very large;
which ate their breakfast on the fourteenth
morning of June, two hundred years ago,
and, except to be clenched once in grim
battle, had never work to do more in this
world! "
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? 146 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
The old mother was not ungrateful for
her son's mindfulness. Nothing in their re-
lations is more touching than the brevity and
stiffness of her letters, with every now and
then some burst of natural affection which
even the artificial medium cannot check.
Margaret Carlyle had learned to write in
adult life for the sake of replying to her
son's letters, but the pen never became an
obedient instrument in her hand. She could
always have sympathized with Joe Gargery.
XXII. TO CARLYLE FROM HIS MOTHER.
Scotsbrig, Sept. 13,1842. My dear Son,-- It is a long time since
you had a word from me, though I have had
many kind letters from you, for which if I
am not thankful enough, I am glad. I am
full as well as I was when you saw me last.
I am reading the poem on "Luther" and I
am much pleased with it. I wish the author
Godspeed. It is a good subject and well
handled, is my opinion of it. I had a letter
from John yesterday, he thinks he will see us
in the Course of a month or so. We will be
glad to see him again if it please God. We
have excellent weather here. I do not re-
member such a summer and harvest. Jamie
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? MBS. CARLYLE TO MBS. HANNING 147
had a good crop and very near all in and well
got up. Isabel is still poorly. She is rather
better than she was at one time. How are
you after your wanderings? Write as soon
as you can and tell us all your news.
Ever your affectionate Mother,
M. A. C.
XXIII. TO MRS. HANGING, AT THE GILL, FROM HER
MOTHER.
Scotsbrig, Monday [1840-1851].
My dear Jenny, -- I have been longing
for you to come here for a long time. I
want to send two hams on to London.
Could you get a box which would hold the
shirts and both could be sent at the same
time. If you have not sent them any, bring
them over as soon as you can, and come soon.
At any rate bring the winter things that
Jean sent. We are all in our frail way of
health. Give my kindest love to young and
old.
Ever your old mother,
M. A. C.
In the letter subjoined, Carlyle gives his
mother the conclusion of his visit to the
Bullers, of which he had written so fully.
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? 148 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
"The good Mrs. Strachey," sister to Mrs.
Buller, was the pious widow of a rich exami-
ner in the India House. Mr. Strachey, eigh-
teen years before, had accompanied Carlyle to
Paris. "Min" must have been a household
name for Miss Jeannie Welsh.
XXIV. CARLYLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBRIG.
Chelsea, 19th Sept. 1842.
My dear Mother, -- Will you take the
smallest of notes from me merely to perform
the essential function of a note, -- ask you
how you are and say that I am well.
I wrote you ten days ago a long letter
dated Cambridge from my Inn in that Town.
This I hope you received duly. It would
let you into my ways in those weeks. Next
day I got well enough back to Troston, rain
attending me for the last two hours. I was
terribly wearied of my great flat-soled mon-
ster of a horse, but much gratified with my
pilgrimage and all rejoiced very handsomely
at my return. Charles had come in the in-
terim. They would not let us away on Mon-
day as we proposed. It was settled at last
that Thursday should be the day. Charles
came up with us to Town. We had a very
pleasant kind of journey and got safe home^
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? TO BIS MOTHER
149
to dinner here. So ends the Troston journey
and I think all travelling for this season.
The good Mrs. Strachey, who is now in Italy,
wrote to offer us her house and servants for
two months at Clifton, a beautiful Village
near Bristol, 100 miles to the west of us, but
we have refused. Rolling stone gathers little
bog. I must resolutely get some work done
now.
Jane seems really better for her country
excursion. I observed to-day that she eats
a whole slice of bread to breakfast again.
Little Min W. is still here. I think she likes
much better to be here than at home, in the
midst of luxury but also of Liverpool stupid-
ity. She is a fine cheery little lass, very
pretty too, and would make a good wife for
somebody.
The Duke of Buccleuch has now actually
paid me the ? 100 -- at least sent a draft
payable in 10 days hence. I sent my thanks
and the business is all over -- a right agree-
able result. You may tell Jamie that the
Templand Grates too are paid, payable at the
same time; that we saved the Grates that
day, and our broiling journey was not in vain,
therefore.
I hope they have now all got a sight of
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? 150 LETTERS OF CABLYLE
your picture and that I shall get it soon. It
will be needless to wait for Jack, he, as I re-
flect, can do nothing towards carrying it.
Poor fellow -- you will see him again. Here
is his last letter, though it can have no news
for you. How goes Jamie's harvest? The
weather has been brittle ever since that thun-
derstorm. How go you yourself, my dear
good Mother? Somebody ought to write to
me now. I do not hear anything even from
Jean. Could Jenny make me two pairs of
flannel drawers along with the shirts? I
fear not. Adieu, dear Mother, my love to
one and all.
T. Carlyle.
XXV. CARLYLE TO MRS. HANNING, THE GILL.
Chelsea, 2d Noo. 1842.
My dear Jenny, -- Yesterday I meant to
have written to you, in order to be ready for
Thursday at Annan, such had been my firm
purpose, but something came in the way, and
I altogether forgot till this morning. Lest I
make a similar mistake for Saturday too, I
will take time by the forelock and write even
now. The barrel of meal, and the box of
garments arrived all safe, on Saturday night
last.
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? TO MRS. BANNING
151
And I have to apprize you, as the expert
needlewoman of the whole, that all Jits with
perfect correctness. I have had a pair of
drawers on, and a flannel shirt, I have one of
the cambric shirts on me at present: every-
thing is as right as if it had been made under
my own eye. The flannel of the shirts is
excellent, they are made to the very measure.
The drawers also are the best Jit of the article
I have had for several years back ; two of the
pairs, I observe, are of the fine flannel the
shirts are of. Perhaps it will prove too cool
for the depth of winter -- perhaps not, but
either way I have plenty of warmer, for that
season. One of the pairs is of right shaggy
flannel. My good Mother sent a fine wool
plaid too and a dozen pair of socks, few mor-
tals are better off for woolen this winter ! --
As to the muslin shirts Jane says they are
excellently sewed, -- She is the judge, I find
them to He flat on the breast too, which the
old would never do.
In short, it is all perfectly right; and you
will be very glad, I doubt not, that you
have got it well off your hands. If in the
course of the winter, you fall out of work,
and want a canny job for yourself, it will be
acceptable enough to me that you set Jean
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? 152 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
upon getting you some more stuff, and make
me half a dozen more of the like shirts! But
this you need not, unless in the aforesaid
case. I believe the stock I have will serve
me some couple of years or more. But they
eat no bread. -- If you ever do think of this,
you can let me know before starting; I may
perhaps have some remarks to make.
You will be nestling all under cover now
at Gill, when the short days and the frosts
are come. I hope you have a right stock of
fuel in your end of the house; and that your
little carpet is now complete. I long to
question the Dr. about you when he comes
back hither. He is at a place they call
Malvern some 120 miles west of this.
How are Mary and Jamie? very busy, and
well, I hope. Mary never writes. I sent
James a tobacco-box! -- Poor Allan Cunning-
ham the Poet is dead very suddenly; a sad
event for several of us ! --
Adieu, Dear little sister.
Ever your affect.
T. Caelyle.
Much as Carlyle had been thinking about
Cromwell, another book was to come first, --
a book for which his very trip to Cromwell's
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? [ To Mrs. Han nil
Jcu^ ,
"SUA
C c*^ OaJ ">>
'HjJ* t tw ^A-u^.
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? k*^ *\G-S ttzzc (kit h t^u? yn*
Hi/ Ivov-j) 'WvU- U^u/" ftC^^, J C*^. Uvx^ ttu^,
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? A PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY 153
country was fruitful in suggestion. At St.
Ives he had seen not only Cromwell's farm,
but also St. Ives poorhouse with its inhabit-
ants, -- "in the sun," to be sure, but neither
spinsters nor knitters, nor workers after any
fashion, for the simple reason that they had
no work to do. The Chartist riots of 1842
remained in Carlyle's mind with this symbolic
picture, and by October of the same year he
was deeply pondering the condition of "the
English nation all sitting enchanted, the poor
enchanted so that they cannot work, the rich
enchanted so that they cannot enjoy. " Over
against this contemporary view Carlyle set
the life of the monks of Bury St. Edmunds,
as told by their chronicler, Jocelyn de Brake-
londe; and the result was Past and Present,
written, apparently with less struggle than
any of the author's other books, in the first
seven weeks of 1843. Although Carlyle
went too far in this work, -- as indeed he
so seldom failed to do, -- Past and Present
proved the germ of more than one sadly
needed reform; and the splendid, sonorous
passage beginning, " All true work is sacred,"
will remain, one must believe, an inalienable
possession of English literature and English
morals.
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? 154 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
Publication followed in April, and soon
afterward Carlyle wrote in his Journal:
"That book always stood between me and
Cromwell, and now that has fledged itself
and flown off. " Face to face with Oliver
again, Carlyle went in the summer of 1843
to see famous battlefields of the civil war.
He so planned his itinerary as to reach Dun-
bar on the 3d of September, -- the day of
the fight there, the day of Worcester fight,
and the day of Cromwell's death.
This professional journey was preceded by
a peaceful month at Scotsbrig, and followed
by a visit to Erskine which fixes the date of
the next letter.
XXVI. CARLYLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBRIG.
[Linlathen, early September, 1843. ]
Yesterday by appointment, the good
Thomas Erskine took me up at Kirkcaldy,
carried me off hither on the top of the coach,
bag and baggage. The day was damp and
dim, not exactly wet, yet in danger of becom-
ing very. There had been rain in the night
time (Sabbath night or early on Monday morn-
ing) but there fell no more. This day again
is oppressively hot, dry yet without sun or
wind -- a baddish "day for a stock. " But
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? TO HIS MOTHER
155
they prophesy fair weather now -- which I
shall be glad of, and the whole country will
be glad, for all is white here, in sheaves and
stooks, and little got into ricks. We got
here about 5 in the evening, a great party of
people in the house (a big Laird's house
with flunkeys &c, &c). I was heartily tired
before I got to bed. I do not think I shall
be rightly at rest till I get on ship board,
then I will lie down and let all men have a
care of stirring me, -- they had better let the
sleeping dog lie! The Dundee steamers are
allowed to be the best on these waters, large
swift ships and very few passengers in them
at present. I spoke for my place yesterday
and am to have the best. The kind people
here will relieve me down (it is four miles off)
and then about 4 o'clock in the afternoon --
I shall -- light a pipe in peace and think of
you all, speaking not a word. I expect to
sleep well there too, and then on Friday, per-
haps about 3 o'clock, I may be at London
Bridge and home by the most convenient
conveyance to Chelsea for dinner. This, if
all go well, this ends for the present my pil-
grimings up and down the world.
Dear Mother, I wish I had gone direct
home when I left you, for it is not pleasant
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? 156 LETTERS OF CARLYLE
somehow to be still in Scotland and far from
you. I speak not the thoughts I send to-
wards you, for speech will not express them.
If I arrive home on Friday you may perhaps
find a newspaper at Ecclefechan on Sabbath
morning, Monday much likelier. God bless
you all.
T. Carlyle.
The passage about Jeffrey in the next let-
ter is better than the corresponding one given
by Froude. The reader who remembers Jef-
frey's complaint that Carlyle was " so dread-
fully in earnest," will smile at Carlyle's coun-
ter charge that Jeffrey had "too little real
seriousness in him" to "make a nice old
man. "
XXVII. CARLYLE TO HIS MOTHER, SCOTSBRIG. LlNLATHEN, DUNDEE,
Tuesday, 12th Sep. 1843.
My dear Mother, -- According to pro-
mise, I write you another little word to an-
nounce that I am safe so far on my way, that
I embark to-morrow and hope to be home on
Friday afternoon.
