The Carlyles and Their House at Chelsea. I

The Carlyles and their House at Chelsea. BY FLORENCE L. LANCASTER.

I.

A plain, substantial dwelling in the Qieen Ann style, with little to" distinguish it from its neighbors, save that it lacks some touches of modern improvement proclaiming the latter still inhab- ited. But our eye falls on the mural portrait which marks the older-looking house, and we must needs pause in reverence, realiz-

ing as we tread the well-worn steps, in what manner the place is haunted. Here, in this unpretentious house, were written "glowingly, from the heart of a living man,'' Carlyles own words as he handed his wife the com- pleted manuscript of The French Revolution, books that will be hailed by thinkers while the English tongue endures. Here passed, with its travail, its pang of endur- ance, its potent integrity and achievement, the daily life Carlyle's House. Chelsea, S. W. of two of the most remark

THE CARLYLES AND THlIR HOUSE AT CHELSEA. 331

able people in the annals of English literature. Everyone, per- haps, for whom the name Carlyle stands for anything, either has read, or intends to read, Hero arid Hero Worship and Sartor Resar- tus. If our chief association with Jane Welsh Carlyle is in the relation in which she stood to the great man, her husband, how much of her distinctive personality is revealed — in a psychic sense, more or less tragic— in her Memoirs, or suggested in the single published poem by her, To a Swallow Building Under Our Eaves. Carlyle being inwardly one of the most sincere and out- wardly one of the simplest of men, we cannot read a single page of Hero Worship without a vibrant realization of that truth-seeing mind and flaming heart. We cannot walk through these rooms, dismantled as they are now, but with several relics telling eloquently

CARLYLE'S HOUSE —THE GARRET STUDY, CHELSEA, S. W.

of their past uses, without gaining a more intimate sense of the personalities of the two who dwelt here for half their liv^s. It was in 1834, he being thirty-nine and she thirty-three, that Carlyle and his wife came to this house, eight years after their marriage. The house was therefore the home of Mrs. Carlyle for thirty-two years; of Carlyle, who remained through the sad eventide of bereft old age, for fifteen years longer.

332 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

It will perhaps be well to take a glance backward at the chief events of Carlyle's life prior to coming here. Also to consider some relative conditions in the tenor of a married life which, though not altogether happy, was not — in Carlyle's own sense that there is "something higher than happiness,"— essentially a failure in the sum of things.

Thomas Carlyle was born in a hamlet of rural Scotland, his ancestors being of the yeoman class. A picture of his early home suggests conditions where everything breathed a simple dignity and solid comfort, the result of daily toil; but without the super- fluous touch of luxury. There are evidences that his parents, sim- ple, too, and unpolished in exterior, were people of "character," imbued with the intense, stern religion of Calvin, and desiring to do the best they could for their children. To Carlyle, therefore^ fell the heritage of sterling psychic qualities. Perhaps, too, he early felt a sense of responsibility in being the eldest of a family of nine. As was the case with a lad of another calibre, Shelly, when at Eton, the young Carlyle was persecuted by his school- fellows. Was it because in each of these boys was an intensity of temperament, a depth of thought, which his rough associates vaguely recognized but could not understand? This bully pro- voked in Thomas such a passionate outburst of resentment, that his mother made him promise "never to return a blow.' At school, however, his aptitude for learning was such that his par- ents resolved to send him to Edinburgh University, and to have him trained for the ministry. So, his trials and achievements of childhood behind him, he set off for Edinburgh on foot, a distance of a hundred miles. At the university he found himself among congenial compan- ions, and he became the leading spirit of a circle who took "re- markable interest in literary matters." Launched upon the tide of young manhood, Carlyle found stormy waters and little plain sailing at first. Though at a probationary period on leaving col- lege he preached what was pronounced as "a weak, flowery and sentimental sermon." Carlyle discovered in himself that his voca- tion was not for the ministry. Albeit, one has only to read Carlyle at almost any page to realize his essential religiousness of soul. "As soon as printing was discovered, books became the true

THE CARLYLES AND THEIR HOUSE AT CHELSEA. 333

medium of the preacher," he says in his own way, in Hero Wor- ship. On leaving college, therefore, he devoted his first ener- gies to teaching, being fortunate enough to obtain a mathematical tutorship at a place called Annan. It was in the capacity of tutor that Carlyle first met Edward Irving— also a tutor and afterwards a minister— who was at many points the connecting link of Carlyle's destiny. This Edward Irving ap- pears to have been a man of rare loyalty. Carlyle says he was indebted to him at this period for "the bond of hu- man fellowship." Though Carlyle was in two senses his rival — in the mathematical appointment and in another sense that was to appear later — their fellowship re- mained unbroken, and the good offices of Irving con- tinued. Carlyle had access to his library, and read the books that we may be sure were now shaping his thoughts. Subsequently Statue of Thomas Carlyle by Bochus recommended Carlyle Irving to the editor of the London Magazine which lead to the acceptance of some of his first manu- scripts. And during the period of struggle and uncertainty of action in the few years that followed, Irving was Carlyle's good angel at a financial crisis by introducing him to some young men of wealthy parentage, who engaged his services to coach them for the university. Meanwhile Carlyle was profoundly under the influence of German thought. He found leisure, in the intervals

of teaching these young men, to pursue literary work, one of his first achievements being a translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister This in due course led to an acknowledgment from Goethe, and

334 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

the beginning of that intercourse which was perhaps to Carlyle well-nigh life's crowning recompense. Goethe was to Carlyle the supreme ideal of the "Hero as Man of Letters;'' and their inti- macy continued till the great German's death. A word here must be said about the large-hearted generosity — almost amounting to recklessness— of Carlyle when essentials were concerned, while it has been hinted that he was disastrously neglectful sometimes over "trifles" in his personal relationships. At the time when he was earning a livelihood as private tutor, and paid moderate sums for his arduous literary labors, he defrayed the expenses of an invalid brother during a medical career, and lent to another brother a substantial sum to stock a farm, though his own future was by no means assured. But we now come to the effect of Irving's friendship in

another capacity. It was at Irving's rooms that Carlyle was intro-

duced to Jane Baillie Welsh, known among her circle as "the Flower of Haddington," her father being a doctor at that town. She was a delicately-nurtured only child, beautiful, as her por- traits tell; and there are proofs that while she was an essentially feminine woman, full of grace, she was mentally endowed far above the sampler-working, water-color dabbling ladies of the Britain of those days who were termed "accomplished." The relations between Miss Welsh and Irving were somewhat compli- cated. Irving had been her tutor, and she had cherished for him a girlish affection, which perhaps was a form of hero worship. He appears to have gone away and forgotten her, becoming engaged meanwhile to another lady, but returning after an interval to re- gard his old pupil in a new light. Some passage of courtship passed between them; but the "flower of Haddington" was no doubt told of "the other lady." Though Irving was perhaps the man of her heart, the conditional proposal did not culminate, and Irving fulfiled his former troth by marriage. Oblivious of this, Carlyle appeared on the scene as Miss Welsh's suitor, he himself having proposed to and been rejected by a lady who, it has been conjectured, was the original of the "Blumine" of Sartor Resartus, (Carlyle himself being the prototype of the somewhat Hamlet reminiscent Teufelsdrockh.) Miss Welsh — no doubt with experiences of more dapper and