chivalrous. At first sight he heartily shook my hand, welcomed me as if I had been a valued old acquaintance, almost a brother, and before my leaving came up to me again and with the frankest tone said, 'You are coming to Kirkcaldy to look about you in a month or two. You know I am there; my house and all that I can do for you is yours; two Annandale people must not be strangers in Fife.' The doubting Thomas durst not quite believe all this, so chivalrous was it, but felt pleased and relieved by the fine and sincere tone of it, and thought to himself, 'Well, it would be pretty.'

To Kirkcaldy, then, Carlyle went with hopes so far improved. How Irving kept his word; how warmly he received him; how he opened his house, his library, his heart to him; how they walked and talked together on Kirkcaldy Sands on the summer nights, and toured together in holiday time through the Highlands; how Carlyle found in him a most precious and affectionate companion at the most critical period of his life-all this Carlyle has himself described. The reader will find it for himself in the reminiscences of Edward Irving.

Irving (he says) was four years my senior, the facile princeps for success and reputation among the Edinburgh students, famed mathematician, famed teacher, first at Haddington, then here a flourishing man whom cross fortune was beginning to nibble at. He received me with open arms, and was a brother to me and a friend there and elsewhere afterwards-such friend as I never had again or before in this world, at heart constant till he died.

I am tempted to fill many pages with extracted pictures of the Kirkcaldy life as Carlyle has drawn them. But they can be read in their place, and there is much else to tell; my business is to supply what is left untold, rather than give again what has been told already.

Correspondence with his family had commenced and was regularly continued from the day when Carlyle went first to college. The letters, however, which are preserved begin with his settlement at Kirkcaldy. From this time they are constant, regular, and, from the care with which they have been kept on both sides, are to be numbered in thousands. Father, mother, brothers, sisters, all wrote in their various styles, and all received answers. They were 6 a clannish folk' holding tight together, and Carlyle was looked up to as the flower of the whole flock. Of these letters I can give but a few here and there, but they will bring before the eyes the Mainhill farm, and all that was going on there in a sturdy, pious, and honourable Annandale peasant's household. Carlyle had spent his Christmas holidays 1816-17 at home as usual, and had returned to work.

James Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle.

Mainhill, Feb. 12, 1817.

Dear Son, I embrace this opportunity of writing you a few lines with the carrier, as I had nothing to say that was worth postage, having written to you

largely the last time. But only I have reason to be thankful that I can still tell you that we are all in good health, blessed be God for all his mercies towards us. Your mother has got your stockings ready now, and I think there are a few pairs of very good ones. Times is very bad here for labourers-work is no brisker and living is high. There have been meetings held by the Lairds and farmers to assist them in getting meal. They propose to take all the meal that can be sold in the parish to Ecclefechan, for which they shall have full price, and there they sign another paper telling how much money they will give to reduce the price. The charge is given to James Bell, Mr. Miller, and William Graham to sell it.

Mr. Lawson, our priest, is doing very well, and has given us no more paraphrases; but seems to please every person that hears him, and indeed he is well attended every day. The sacrament is to be the first Sabbath of March, and he is visiting his people, but has not reached Mainhill. Your mother was very anxious to have the house done before he came, or else she said she would run over the hill and hide herself. Sandy (Alexander Carlyle, the second son) and I got to work soon after you went away, built partitions, and ceiled- -a good floor laid—and indeed it is very dry and comfortable at this time, and we are very snug and have no want of the necessaries of life. Our crop is as good as I expected, and our sheep and all our cattle living and doing very well. Your mother thought to have written to you; but the carrier stopped only two days at home, and she being a very slow writer could not get it done, but she will write next opportunity. I add no more but your mother's compliments, and she sends you half the cheese that she was telling you about. Say in your next how your brother is coming on, and tell us when it is done and we will send you more. Write soon after you receive this, and tell us all your news and how you are coming on. I say no more, but remain, Dear son, your loving father,

JAMES CARLYLE.

Thomas Carlyle to Mrs. Carlyle (Mainhill).

Kirkcaldy, March 17, 1817.

My dear Mother,---I have been long intending to write you a line or two in order to let you know my state and condition, but having nothing worth writing to communicate I have put it off from time to time. There was little enjoyment for any person at Mainhill when I was there last, but I look forward to the ensuing autumn, when I hope to have the happiness of discussing matters with you as we were wont to do of old. It gives me pleasure to hear that the bairns are at school. There are few things in this world more valuable than knowledge, and youth is the period for acquiring it. With the exception of the religious and moral instruction which I had the happiness of receiving from my parents, and which I humbly trust will not be entirely lost upon me, there is nothing for which I feel more grateful than for the education which they have bestowed upon me. Sandy was getting fond of reading when he went away. I hope he and Aitken3 will continue their operations now that he is at home. There cannot be imagined a more honest way of employing spare hours.

My way of life in this place is much the same as formerly. The school is doing pretty well, and my health through the winter has been uniformly good. I have little intercourse with the natives here; yet there is no dryness between us. We are always happy to meet and happy to part; but their society is not very valuable to me, and my books are friends that never fail me. Sometimes I see the minister and some others of them, with whom I am very well satisfied, and Irving and I are very friendly; so I am never wearied or at a loss to pass the time.

I had designed this night to write to Aitken about his books and studies, but I will scarcely have time to say anything. There is a book for him in the box, and I would have sent him the geometry, but it was not to be had in the town. I have John Aitken Carlyle, the third son, afterwards known as John.

sent you a scarf as near the kind as Aitken's very scanty description would allow me to come. I hope it will please you. It is as good as any that the merchant had. A shawl of the same materials would have been warmer, but I had no authority to get it. Perhaps you would like to have a shawl also. If you will tell me what colour you prefer, I will send it you with all the pleasure in the world. I expect to hear from you as soon as you can find leisure. You must be very minute in your account of your domestic affairs. My father once spoke of a threshing machine. If twenty pounds or so will help him, they are quite ready at his service.

I remain, dear mother, your affectionate son,

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Mrs. Carlyle could barely write at this time. She taught herself later in life for the pleasure of communicating with her son, between whom and herself there existed a special and passionate attachment of a quite peculiar kind. She was a severe Calvinist, and watched with the most affectionate anxiety over her children's spiritual welfare, her eldest boy's above all. The hope of her life was to see him a ministera 'priest' she would have called it-and she was already alarmed to know that he had no inclination that way.

Mrs. Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle.

Mainhill, June 10, 1817.

Dear Son, I take this opportunity of writing you a few lines, as you will get it free. I long to have a craik, and look forward to August, trusting to see thee once more, but in hope the mean time. Oh, Tom, mind the golden season of youth, and remember your Creator in the days of your youth. Seek God while He may be found. Call upon Him while he is near. We hear that the world by wisdom knew not God. Pray for His presence with you, and His counsel to guide you. Have you got through the Bible yet? If you have, read it again. I hope you will not weary, and may the Lord open your understanding.

I have no news to tell you, but thank God we are all in an ordinary way. I hope you are well. I thought you would have written before now. I received your present and was very proud of it. I called it 'my son's venison.' Do write as soon as this comes to hand and tell us all your news. I am glad you are so contented in your place. We ought all to be thankful for our places in these distressing times, for I dare say they are felt keenly. We send you a small piece of ham and a minding of butter, as I am sure yours is done before now. Tell us about it in your next, and if anything is wanting.

Good night, Tom, for it is a very stormy night, and I must away to the byre to milk. Now, Tom, be sure to tell me about your chapters. No more from

Your old

MINNIE.

The letters from the other members of the family were sent equally regularly whenever there was an opportunity, and give between them a perfect picture of healthy rustic life at the Mainhill farm-the brothers and sisters down to the lowest all hard at work, the little ones at school, the elders ploughing, reaping, tending cattle, or minding the dairy, and in the intervals reading history, reading Scott's novels, or

even trying at geometry, which was then Carlyle's own favourite study. In the summer of 1817 the mother had a severe illness, by which her mind was affected. It was necessary to place her for a few weeks under restraint away from home-a step no doubt just and necessary, but which she never wholly forgave, but resented in her own humorous way to the end of her life. The disorder passed off, however, and never returned.

Meanwhile Carlyle was less completely contented with his position at Kirkcaldy than he had let his mother suppose. For one thing he hated schoolmastering; he would, or thought he would, have preferred to work with his hands, and except Irving he had scarcely a friend in the place for whom he cared. His occupation shut him out from the best kind of society, which there, as elsewhere, had its exclusive rules. He was received, for Irving's sake, in the family of Mr. Martin, the minister, and was in some degree of intimacy there, liking Martin himself, and to some extent, but not much, his wife and daughters, to one of whom Irving had perhaps too precipitately become engaged. There were others also-Mr. Swan, a Kirkcaldy merchant, particularly -for whom he had a grateful remembrance; but it is clear, both from Irving's letters to him and from his own confession, that he was not popular either there or anywhere. Shy and reserved at one moment, at another sarcastically self-asserting, with forces working in him which he did not himself understand, and which still less could be understood by others, he could neither properly accommodate himself to the tone of Scotch provincial drawing-rooms, nor even to the business which he had specially to do. A man of genius can do the lowest work as well as the highest; but genius in the process of developing, combined with an irritable nervous system and a fiercely impatient temperament, was not happily occupied in teaching stupid lads the elements of Latin and arithmetic. Nor were matters mended when the Town Corporation, who were his masters, took upon them, as sometimes happened, to instruct or rebuke him.

Life, however, even under these hard circumstances, was not without its romance. I borrow a passage from the Reminiscences:—

The Kirkcaldy people were a pleasant, solid, honest kind of fellow mortals, something of quietly fruitful, of good old Scotch in their works and ways, more vernacular, peaceably fixed and almost genial in their mode of life, than I had been used to in the border home land. Fife generally we liked. Those ancient little burghs and sea villages, with their poor little havens, 'salt-pans and weatherbeaten bits of Cyclopean breakwaters, and rude innocent machineries, are still kindly to me to think of. Kirkcaldy itself had many looms, had Baltic trade, whale fishery, &c., and was a solidly diligent and yet by no means a panting, puffing, or in any way gambling Lang Town.' Its flax-mill machinery, I remember, was turned mainly by wind; and curious blue-painted wheels with oblique vans rose from many roofs for that end. We all, I in particular, always rather liked the people, though from the distance chiefly, chagrined and discouraged by the sad trade one had. Some hospitable human friends I found, and these were at intervals a fine little element; but in general we were but onlookers, the one

real society our books and our few selves. Not even with the bright young ladies (which was a sad feature) were we generally on speaking terms. By far the brighest and cleverest, however, an ex-pupil of Irving's, and genealogically and otherwise, being poorish and well-bred, rather an alien in Kirckcaldy, I did at last make some acquaintance with—at Irving's first, I think, though she rarely came thither-and it might easily have been more, had she and her aunt and our economics and other circumstances liked. She was of the fair-complexioned, softly elegant, softly grave, witty and comely type, and had a good deal of gracefulness, intelligence, and other talent. Irving, too, it was sometimes thought, found her very interesting, could the Miss Martin bonds have allowed, which they never would. To me, who had only known her for a few months, and who within a twelve or fifteen months saw the last of her, she continued, for perhaps three years, a figure hanging more or less in my fancy, on the usual romantic, or latterly quite elegiac and silent terms, and to this day there is in me a good will to her, a candid and gentle pity, if needed at all. She was of the Aberdeenshire Gordons. Margaret Gordon, born I think in New Brunswick, where her father, probably in some official post, had died young and poor; but her accent was prettily English, and her voice very fine.

An aunt (widow in Fife, childless with limited resources, but of frugal cultivated turn; a lean proud elderly dame, once a Miss Gordon herself; sang Scotch songs beautifully, and talked shrewd Aberdeenish in accent and otherwise) had adopted her and brought her hither over seas; and here, as Irving's ex-pupil, she now, cheery though with dim outlooks, was. Irving saw her again in Glasgow one summer's touring, &c.; he himself accompanying joyfully-not joining, so I understood, in the retinue of suitors or potential suitors; rather perhaps indicating gently 'No, I must not.' A year or so after we heard the fair Margaret had married some rich insignificant Mr. Something, who afterwards got into Parliament, thence out to 'Nova Scotia' (or so) as governor, and I heard of her no more, except that lately she was still living childless as the 'dowager lady,' her Mr. Something having got knighted before dying. Poor Margaret! I saw her recognisable to me here in her London time, 1840 or so, twice; once with her maid in Piccadilly promenading-little altered; a second time that same year, or next, on horseback both of us, and meeting in the gate of Hyde Park, when her eyes (but that was all) said to me almost touchingly, yes, yes, that is you.

Margaret Gordon was the original, so far as there was an original, of Blumine in Sartor Resartus. Two letters from her remain among Carlyle's papers, which show that on both sides their regard for each other had found expression. Circumstances, however, and the unpromising appearance of Carlyle's situation and prospects, forbade an engagement between them, and acquit the aunt of needless harshness in peremptorily putting an end to their acquaintance. Miss Gordon took leave of him as a 'sister' in language of affectionate advice. A single passage may be quoted to show how the young unknown Kirkcaldy schoolmaster appeared in the eyes of the high-born lady who had thus for a moment crossed his path.

And now, my dear friend, a long long adieu; one advice, and as a parting one consider, value it. Cultivate the milder dispositions of your heart. Subdue the more extravagant visions of the brain. In time your abilities must be known. Among your acquaintance they are already beheld with wonder and delight. By those whose opinion will be valuable, they hereafter will be appreciated. Genius will render you great. May virtue render you beloved! Remove the awful distance between you and ordinary men by kind and gentle manners. Deal gently