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

with their inferiority, and be convinced they will respect you as much and like you more. Why conceal the real goodness that flows in your heart? I have ventured this counsel from an anxiety for your future welfare, and I would enforce it with all the earnestness of the most sincere friendship. Let your light shine before men, and think them not unworthy the trouble. This exercise will prove its own reward. It must be a pleasing thing to live in the affections of others. Again adieu. Pardon the freedom I have used, and when you think of me be it as of a kind sister, to whom your happiness will always yield delight, and your griefs sorrow.

Yours, with esteem and regard,
M.

I give you not my address because I dare not promise to see you.

6

Carlyle had by this time abandoned the 'ministry' as his possible future profession--not without a struggle, for both his father's and his mother's hearts had been set upon it; but the grave prohibitive doubts' which had risen in him of their own accord had been strengthened by Gibbon, whom he had found in Irving's library and had eagerly devoured. Never at any time had he 'the least inclination' for such an office, and his father, though deeply disappointed, was too wise a man to remonstrate. The 'schoolmastering' too, after two years' experience of it, became intolerable. His disposition, at once shy and defiantly proud, had perplexed and displeased the Kirkcaldy burghers. Both he and Irving fell into unpleasant collisions with their employers, and neither of them was sufficiently docile to submit to reproof. An opposition school had been set up which drew off the pupils, and finally they both concluded that they had had enough of it—'better die than be a schoolmaster for one's living'-and would seek some other means of supporting themselves. Carlyle had passed his summer holidays as usual at Mainhill (1818), where he had perhaps talked over his prospects with his family. On his return to Kirkcaldy in September he wrote to his father explaining his situation. He had saved about 90l., on which, with his thrifty habits, he said that he could support himself in Edinburgh till he could fall into some other way of doing.' He could perhaps get a few mathematical pupils, and meantime could study for the bar. He waited only for his father's approval to send in his resignation. The letter

6

5 With me,' he says in a private note, 'it was never much in favour, though my parents silently much wished it, as I knew well. Finding I had objections, my father, with a magnanimity which I admired and admire, left me frankly to my own guidance in that matter, as did my mother, perhaps still more lovingly, though not so silently; and the theological course which could be prosecuted or kept open by appearing annually, putting down your name, but with some trifling fee, in the register, and then going your way, was, after perhaps two years of this languid form, allowed to close itself for good. I remember yet being on the street in Argyll Square, Edinburgh, probably in 1817, and come over from Kirkcaldy with some intent, the languidest possible, still to put down my name and fee. The official person, when I rung, was not at home, and my instant feeling was, "Very good, then, very good; let this be Finis in the matter," and it really was.-T. C.'

was accompanied by one of his constant presents to his mother, who was again at home, though not yet fully recovered.

John Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle.

Mainhill, September 16, 1818.

Dear Brother, We received yours, and it told us of your safe arrival at Kirkcaldy. Our mother has grown better every day since you left us. She is as steady as ever she was, has been upon haystacks three or four times, and has been at church every Sabbath since she came home, behaving always very decently. Also she has given over talking and singing, and spends some of her time consulting Ralph Erskine. She sleeps every night, and hinders no person to sleep, but can do with less than the generality of people. In fact we may conclude that she is as wise as could be expected. She has none of the hypocritical mask with which some people clothe their sentiments. One day, having met Agg Byers, she says: 'Weel, Agg, lass, I've never spoken t'ye sin ye stole our coals. I'll gie ye an advice: never steal nae more.'

Alexander Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle.

September 18, 1818.

My dear Brother,─We were glad to hear of your having arrived in safety, though your prospects were not brilliant. My father is at Ecclefechan to-day at a market, but before he went he told me to mention that with regard to his advising you, he was unable to give you any advice. He thought it might be necessary to consult Leslie before you gave up, but you might do what seemed to you good. Had my advice any weight, I would advise you to try the law. You may think you have not money enough to try that, but with what assistance we could make, and your own industry, I think there would be no fear but you would succeed. The box which contained my mother's bonnet came a day or two ago. She is very well pleased with it, though my father thought it too gaudy; but she purposes writing to you herself.

The end was, that, when December came, Carlyle and Irving "kicked the schoolmaster functions over,' removed to Edinburgh, and were adrift on the world. Irving had little to fear: he had money, friends, reputation; he had a profession, and was waiting only for 'a call' to enter on his full privileges. Carlyle was far more unfavourably situated. He was poor, unpopular, comparatively unknown, or, if known, known only to be feared and even shunned. In Edinburgh 'from my fellow-creatures,' he says, 'little or nothing but vinegar was my reception when we happened to meet or pass near each other-my own blame mainly, so proud, shy, poor, at once so insignificantlooking, and so grim and sorrowful. That in Sartor of the worm trodden on and proving a torpedo is not wholly a fable, but did actually befall once or twice, as I still with a kind of small, not ungenial, malice can remember.' He had, however, as was said, nearly a hundred pounds, which he had saved out of his earnings; he had a consciousness of integrity worth more than gold to him. had thrifty self-denying habits which made him content with the barest necessaries, and he resolutely faced his position. His family, though silently disapproving the step which he had taken, and neces