and few others more than a remote conception), to help on weary wayfarers who were beginning the journey of life, and of his unfailing kindness in clearing the difficulties and solving the doubts of correspondents entirely unknown either to him or to fame, and in extending to them a prompt and appropriate word of advice, encouragement, warning, or sympathy, wherever he had reason to believe their communications were frankly, loyally, and genuinely made. Abundant further proofs and instances of all that remain to be adduced at a later stage of our narrative. Here, meanwhile, is another letter to Thomas Aird, which we this time give entire, curious as exhibiting the first instance of an orthographical heresy, in which Carlyle persisted Program" or ever afterwards (notably in his FriedProgramme! rich) of the analogous Greek mode of spelling "Program" like anagram, monogram, epigram, telegram,-discarding the received French style o Programme (two last letters clearly a superfluity, and false to etymology). We don't know whether it is through some ludicrous involuntary association with a certain "Elijah Pogram," not unknown in fiction, which the word in its new-fangled form oddly resembles, but for ourselves, though approving of it theoretically, we have never had the courage to adopt this fashion of writing the word. But here is Carlyle's letter. "5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, "DEAR MR. Aird, Carlyle to "Accept many thanks for your long kind letter; a welcome proof of your remembrance of us. When you read the enclosed Program, and think that my day of execution (Do not hurry, good people; there can be no sport till I am there!') is fixed for Tuesday next, you will see too well the impossibility of writing any due reply. Alas, I am whirling; the sport of viewless winds! It is the humour I always get into, and cannot help it. Some way or other in four weeks more we shall be through the business; and hope not to resume it in a hurry. For lecturing, as indeed for worldly felicity in general, I want two things, or perhaps one of them, either of them would bring the other with it and suffice-health and impudence. We must do the best we can, and 'be thankful always, as an old military gentleman used to say, * Of Lectures on Heroes, HeroWorship, and the Heroic in History. No. 1, Tuesday, 5th May 1810. 'that we are not in Purgatory.' We noticed Gordon's promotion, with pleasure, in the Herald. I have never heard a word from the man himself; he will suit the business well, and the business him ;-a good honest soul as is in all Scotland or any other land. You are happy to be in green quiet places: for me, ah me! I am here in the whirlwind of every kind of smoke, dust, din, and inanity; 'I can't get out!' We shall meet if we can this summer; but it is uncertain, like all things. "Yours always, "T. CARLYLE. "P.S,-My wife is now pretty well; improving always with the progress of the sun. We had the coldest March and the hottest April I can remember." The Lectures on Heroes were published, as we have seen, early in the year after their delivery," this fourth and last Course being the only one that appeared in print. In the summer of 1841 Carlyle renewed his correspondence with Mr. Macvey Napier, who On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. Six Lectures. Reported, with Emendations and Additions. By Thomas Carlyle. London: James Fraser, 1841, pp. 393. These Lectures were delivered on Tuesday, 5th May; Friday, 8th May; Tuesday, 12th May; Friday, 15th May; Tuesday, 19th May; and Friday, 22nd May 1840. still sat on the editorial throne of the Edinburgh Review. In the following letter he suggests and offers to prepare an article on Contemporary Poetry and Fiction in France : "MY DEAR SIR, Napier. "Chelsea, June 21, 1841. "For a good while past it has occasionally seemed to me as if I might do worse than, some time or other, write an To Mr. Macvey essay on that notable phenomenon, consisting of George Sand, Abbé Lamennais, &c. with their writings; what Goethe well names the 'Literature of Desperation.' I find enormous temporary mischief, and even a radical perversion, falsity, and delirium in it, yet withal the struggle towards au indispensable ulterior good. The taste for it among Radical men, especially among Radical women, is spreading everywhere: perhaps a good word on it in these circumstances were worthy of uttering? For several reasons, especially at the present moment, your Review rather than another were the place for such a thing. I do not know of late years how you go on at all; but I think, if you gave me elbowroom, I might produce a useful and pleasant piece, not entirely discordant with your general tendencies. At all events, I will ask you to write me as soon as possible a word on this project. I hope very shortly to get away into my native region for some months: if, on closer practical inspection, the thing seemed feasible and suitable, I might take the necessary books with me, and occupy some portion of my leisure with it there. "Believe me ever, "Very truly yours, Unforeseen difficulties and impediments intervened, however, and compelled the abandoninent, as announced in the letter that follows, of a project which had been favourably enough received by the Editor to whom it was submitted. "MY DEAR SIR, "Ecclefechan, July 12, 1841. "Your courteous and obliging letter reached me before I left town. For the last To Mr. Maovey Napier. fortnight I have been wandering to and fro, and could not till a few days ago make any definite reply. Arriving here, I find myself disappointed of the house I had counted on occupying, in this native region of mine, till winter; find myself |