STORIES OF CARLYLE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 229, 20 June 1908, Page 12

STORIES OF CARLYLE.

In David Masson's "Memories of London in the Forties," published in the May issue of ''Blackwood's' Magazine)," ho gives theso stories of walks and talks with Carlylo:— "If you dropped -iir~about, or a little after, seven o'glocid, you found Carlylo and Carlylo atctqa. in. the drawing room, and_ woroviwelcpipo ! t(j yourself,' a slice-of bread"and 'bufcter or biscuit— ja.-n generally On <.the-table \ If you ,woro later you'"raifcsed'''tho tea, but ii-id talk asjQng as.you ghppo to stay, and n-jgUt eye -Carlylo 'fill bis pipe and smoke It on-;o or twice in the courso of tin ovening, and overi, if you were jn his good graces, ai'd capable of communion with him in' that particular, be invited to join him. "His pipes, then and always, wore 'ong olays, of Glasgow make, with grecn-glawJ tips for the mouth; his tobacco, if the same then as it was afterwards, was of a strong and rather harsh kind, which he called Freo-snioking York River. The ] ipc he was using—and I."think he took a no'v pipe every day, or perhaps oftoner, from the stock ho kept 'somewhere in a box— usually stood in tho corner of the fireplace' within the fender ready for his.further _ service; and a half-pound tin canister of his tobacco, replonished from his larger supply which also was- out of sight somewhere, stood, usually on the mantelpiece, but sometimes on the table. , , "To an ovening with Carlylo there was almost, invariably in my own case one appendage. "When I rose to go, about ten or half-past ton o'clock, he would say, 'Wait till I put on my shoes, and I'll walk a"; bit with you.' Tho shoes on, and tho dressing-gown in which lie. usually sat exchanged for a coat, witli* tho addition of an overcoat if the weather required it, but nover of an umbrella, and never, of. a hat of the ordinary shape, or anything elso but a soft and wide felt, wo would tako leave of Mrs.,,Carlylo and sally forth. . - "TheZ direction ' being - determined by •my convenience,"our route- was almost uniformly by Cook's Ground to King's Road, and then either along the lighted and still. lively King's Road to Sloano"Strcet,.or, for greater quiet, through-a diagonal zigzag of streets and squares; bringing us out at tho uppor or'Hydo Park end \of< Sloano Street.- All tho way//through'.tho" Jamplit streots he would continue '/th'e/italfc.''" 'As he had no bashfulnoss ill. letting his voico bo heard by casual passers-by;' and as ho was often led, in one' of v -his ..objurgations, not only to raisevhis: voice,- but' also to. apostrophise the absqnt; object •of ■ his wrath. as if ho wore present,-:'tho result was • sometimes a little awkward. .

"'I toll you what,..sir, if I had my will I'd lay . a whip across ;, the back of you!' was ono such apostrophe of his, spoken in a; loud voice, and with some angry gesticulation aa -I ra' dnco < walking by his side, the object really addressed being somo absent evil-doer, or somo personification of evil-doing lie; had beeri' 1 conjuring up, but the effect being such that .tho pafcsors-by, knowing ' nothing of the context, naturally looked' round'' at' me. '"'This was in broad daylight, close to the South Kensington Museum, and at a much later, period than that of tho nightly,-walks of which l am speaking; but' I "hiivo" a recollection of a similar mischance or .two even in them from his disregard of by-passers, and his reckless habit of apostrophe. "In some of these walks ho was at his very. best. The loudest and longest laugh I over heard : from- him was one evening near tho middle <of ■ Sloauo Street. •, Tho echoes'.'rang,-again,-and :wo had to stop by a lamppost'-' till the'' fronzy had spent itsolf. -' -'AVhat' with those nightly walks in, 1844, and the' frequency with which 'in subsequent years, wo took tho same route, there is no portion of London with which I havfe stronger or moro familiar Carlyle associations to this day than the dense oblong of streets and squares between Clicync Row, Chelsea, and Hyde Park Corner. This was his usual termintis. - There we would part, and he would turn and make his way Iback to Choyne \Rows '