MRS. CARLYLE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3200, 30 September 1881, Page 3

MRS. CARLYLE.

She had such a perfect mastery of herself and such a stoical resolution to shut in her own misery from the eyes of Ihe world, that I suppose not many even of her intimate friends ever knew how much she was actually suffering. It was not merely the feeling of utter loneliness, arisingfi-om Carlyle's moody absorption in his own work. All this, I believe, she could have borne without flinching. Indeed, she had such an unshaken faith in his genius, and such a queenly appreciation of her own prerogatives as his wife, that I am convinced she would not, even at the worst, have exchanged her lowly position for the highest in the land. I cannot for a moment suppose that their two lives were really, blended into one. How, on such terms, could they be ? But she was by no means deficient in that last infirmity of female hearts,, a jealous sense of " property" in her husband, of which all poachers would do well to beware. She showed also a true feminine intolerance for anything in her own sex which she did not herself understand ; especially if it aimed at an ideal with which she had no sympathy ; as was indeed almost unpardonably her case with regard to Irving's true hearted and devoted wife ;as Carlyle himself, unconsciously, yet too plainly, and even cruelly, testifies. Yet, I venture to believe, she would have been as much shocked fts anyone at his incredibly bitter fanatical " anti-fanatic" version of it, Oh! those " uuspeakable men," I can fancy her exclaiming, almost with horror, how Btupidly blundering they are, taking every silly thing so dreadfully in earnest ! There, had, too, been some superficial love passages between Irving and herself in their young days; and I can quite believe this also may have given piquancy to her feeling of antagonism. No one who knew her can doubt that she would fully appreciate the triumph of having once had the choice between two such men; and, with all .her I almost, invincible heroism, she evidently had not quite magnanimity enough to generously forget it. I always think-that any woman who can amuse herself and friends by talking of such little tempting victories could not have been altogether incapable of some little tantalising complicity in bringing them about! At the time I knew her, she possessed plenty of. resources of her own, and friends and acquaintances in more than abundance; and she well knew how to hold her own in all wordy warfare, and give tit for tat all round with sparkling vivacity. She had also a mischievous delight in treading on the delicate toes of the conventional proprieties : and I have heard her say tho most audacious things with a look of demure unconsciousness, which would have broken out into the pleasantest, or sharpest, mocking astonishment, if you were simple enough to profess being shocked. She sometimes tried these shafts at me, to see whether I would wince, especially with reference to what she was pleased to call my "youthful enthusiasms," and even more serious matters. But when I saw her deftly aim them, I generally allowed them to glance past me, being no match for her with that kind of swift, sharp-pointed artillery. Once she told me "it was mostly mad people who came running after Carlyle," leaving me to make my own application. It must have been on one of these occasions that she mentioned, as a kind of general remark, "what a comfort it was sometimes to, have stupid people about you, it saved so much trouble." All this sort of thing, I should say she fully enjoyed, while it was alive and on the wing; but when she was again solitary the reaction was proportionate. It was not, as I said, merely Carlyle's absorption in his work which weighed on her spirit; she knew this "was inevitable, and would have cheerfully faced it, if only for the vantage-ground it gave her with the world. The misery was to be shut up alone with hint, when he himself was struggling under his burdens in utter wretchedness and gloominess of heart. When his dark labour pains were strong upon him, I suppose he was the most absolutely wretched man I ever saw. Even to stand firmly on one's own feet in the presence of such misery and consequent irritability was well-nigh impossible. But what she felt most keenly of ill was that he never seemed to realise that misery is the most contagious of all diseases. He saw her always invincibly devoted to him ; and he thought her lot peaceful and happy in comparison with his own. He never saw the misery his own misery was inflicting upon her, and gradually sapping the very life out of her, I have heard her, many times, speak of their life at Craigenputtock with absolute shuddering; and Ido not wonder when they left at her gaily proposing to " burn our ships," and so prevent the possibility of return 1 I once took an opportunity of referring to What Sterling had said about her skill in writing; and ventured to wonder that she did not still try to find a little amusement in that way. But she shut me up very sharply by saying, " Oh, Mr Larkin, one writer is quite enough in a. house." And yet, I ought to say, I never once heard' an angry word pass between themselves. —Henry Larkin, in the British Quarterly Review.