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OF

JANE WELSH CARLYLE

PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION BY

THOMAS CARLYLE

EDITED BY

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE

VOL. I.

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1894

[All rights reserved]

34590

ny •C192

PREFACE.

THE LETTERS which form these volumes were placed in my hands by Mr. CARLYLE in 1871. They are annotated throughout by himself. The few additional observations occasionally required are marked with my initials.

I have not thought it necessary to give an introductory narrative of Mrs. Carlyle's previous history, the whole of it being already related in my account of the 'first forty years ' of her husband's life. To this I must ask the reader who wishes for information to be so good as to refer.

Mr. Carlyle did not order the publication of these Letters, though he anxiously desired it. He left the decision to Mr. Forster, Mr. John Carlyle, and myself. Mr. Forster and Mr. John

Carlyle having both died in Mr. Carlyle's lifetime, the responsibility fell entirely upon me. Mr. Carlyle asked me, a few months before his end, what I meant to do. I told him that, when the 'Reminiscences' had been published, I had decided that the Letters might and should be published also.

Mr. Carlyle requested in his will that my judgment in the matter should be accepted as his own.

5 ONSLOW GARDENS :
February 28, 1883.

J. A. FROUDE.

LETTERS AND MEMORIALS

OF

JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

LETTER I.

'TUESDAY, June 10, 1834,' it appears, was the date of our alighting, amid heaped furniture, in this house, where we were to continue for life. I well remember bits of the drive from Ampton Street; what damp-clouded kind of sky it was; how, in crossing Belgrave Square, Chico, her little canary-bird, whom she had brought from Craigenputtock in her lap, burst out into singing, which we all ('Bessy Barnet,' our romantic maid, sat with us in the old hackneycoach) strove to accept as a promising omen. The business of sorting and settling, with two or three good carpenters, &c., already on the ground, was at once gone into, with boundless alacrity, and (under such management as hers) went on at a mighty rate; even the three or four days of quasi-camp life, or gypsy life, had a kind of gay charm to us; and hour by hour we saw the confusion abating, growing into victorious order. Leigh Hunt was continually sending us notes; most probably would in person step across before bedtime, and give us an hour of the prettiest melodious discourse. In about a week (it seems to me) all was swept and garnished, fairly habitable; and continued incessantly to get itself polished, civilised, and beautified to a degree that surprised one. I have elsewhere alluded to all that, and to my little Jeannie's conduct of it: heroic, lovely, pathetic, mournfully beautiful, as in the light of eternity, that little scene of time now looks to me. From birth upwards she had lived in opulence; and now, for my sake, had become poor-so nobly poor. Truly, her pretty little brag (in this letter) was well founded. No such house, for beautiful thrift, quiet, VOL. I.-1

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