“GUIDING STAR OF MY LIFE.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18009, 20 November 1926, Page 9

“GUIDING STAR OF MY LIFE.”

JANE WELSH’S TRIBUTE TO “ NOBLE CARLYLE.” “Ha po6r«'.sos all th«T qualities I doom essential in my husband—a warm true heart to love me, a tow ©ring intellect to command me. and a spirit of fire to be the guide of my lifo.” The above tribute to Carlyle is contained in one of a score of letters discovered by Mr Leonard Huxley, written by Jane Welsh Carlyle to her aunt. Mrs George Welsh, whose husband was brother to John Welsh, the Haddington doctor. Mrs Carlyle’s father. A first series of extracts from these letter is given in the October “Cornhil.” In the first letter Jane Welsh writes from Tcmpland in 182(5, before her marhill.” They would tell you that my intended is poor, ard moat likely indulge in some criticism scarcely flattering on his birth. But a hundred chances to one they would not tell you he is among the cleverest men of the day . . . the meet enlightened .... Such is this future husband of mine; not a great man according to the most common sense of the word, but truly great in iu natural proper sense ; a scholar, poet, and philosopher, a wine and noble man .... We get an interesting glimpse of the household in Chevne Row:— ..For ourselves we are going on much after the old fashion—Carlyle busy as busy can be over his book about Cromwell, which, for all that 'he works at it like a house on fire, is still a long way from being done. A letter written in the spring of 1846 gives a lively account of a visit—selfinvited—paid to the Carlyles by a voting cousin of Mrs Carlyle, John Welsh:— The first five minutes satisfied me that I found no cousin here except in name. One stood amazed at the obtuse assurance and barefaced egotism of the bov. He contradicted my husband—lectured him, even, as if he had been the Angel Gabriel come amongst us. The wittiest and most high-bred woman of her time, the Lady Harriet Baring, coming to tea one evening, was put to rights at every word—one might almost say bullied, by this presumptuous youth, as if she had no more sense than a clucking hen! He stayed three weeks and kept Mrs Carlyle sitting up at nights until two and three in the morning. We

can hardly wonder that she “privately determined never to suffer him to sleep under my roof again thro’ all eternity.”