CARLYLE AND HIS WIFE. A Home PICTURES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2083, 25 January 1894, Page 41

CARLYLE AND HIS WIFE. A Home PICTURES.

I can see Carlyle now, in an old brown dresßing-gown, seated on a footstool on tbe hearthrug, close to the fireplace in the little parlour, sending most deftly up the chimney whiffs from a loDg clay pipe, so that the room might not be odorous of tobacco smoke. I can hear him between the whiffs, which served as commas and colons — there was never a full stop — pouring forth in the strongest possible of Scotch accents an oral Latter-day Pamphlet, contrasting Cromwell and his Puritans with contemporary English politicians and the multitudes whom they were leading by the nose to the abyss. I see Mrs Oarlyle, with head bent and one hand covering her facs, listening in silence. She had heard it all so often before, poor lady, and knew how little would come of it.

I can hear her, when Carlyle's denunciations of the present became terribly fierce, make the considerate appeal, "Don't be angry with Mr Espiaasße; he is not to i blame," or, before .the pipe had been sub-

etitttted for the teacup, "My dear, your tea is getting quite cold ; that is the way with reformers." .

Toon, perhaps, the wild tempest of words would cease, and the Latter-day Prophet break out into a hearty laugh at his own vehemence. — Fbancis Espinasse.