Chapter II: Part 2

I dreamed of playing "I-spy" through Kenilworth Castle with Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Mary Ann Evans and a youth I used to know in boyhood by the name of Bill Hursey. We chased each other across the drawbridge, through the portcullis, down the slippery stones into the donjon-keep, around the moat, and up the stone steps to the topmost turret of the towers. Finally Shakespeare was "it," but he got mad and refused to play. Walter Scott said it was "no fair," and Bill Hursey thrust out the knuckle of one middle finger in a very threatening way and offered to "do" the boy from Stratford. Then Mary Ann rushed in to still the tempest. There's no telling what would have happened had not the landlady just then rapped at my door and asked if I had called. I awoke with a start and with the guilty feeling that I had been shouting in my sleep. I saw it was morning. "No--that is, yes; my shaving-water, please."

After breakfast the landlady's boy offered for five shillings to take me in his donkey-cart to the birthplace of George Eliot. He explained that the house was just seven miles north; but Baalam's express is always slow, so I concluded to walk. At Coventry a cab-owner proposed to show me the house, which he declared was near Kenilworth, for twelve shillings. The advantages of seeing Kenilworth at the same time were dwelt upon at great length by cabby, but I harkened not to the voice of the siren. I got a good lunch at the hotel, and asked the innkeeper if he could tell me where George Eliot was born. He did not know, but said he could show me a house around the corner where a family of Eliots lived.

Then I walked on to Nuneaton. A charming walk it was; past quaint old houses, some with straw-thatched roofs, others tile--roses clambering over the doors and flowering hedgerows white with hawthorn-flowers.

Occasionally, I met a farmer's cart drawn by one of those great, fat, gentle Shire horses that George Eliot has described so well. All spoke of peace and plenty, quiet and rest. The green fields and the flowers, the lark-song and the sunshine, the dipping willows by the stream, and the arch of the old stone bridge as I approached the village--all these I had seen and known and felt before from "Mill on the Floss."

I found the house where they say the novelist was born. A plain, whitewashed, stone structure, built two hundred years ago; two stories, the upper chambers low, with gable-windows; a little garden at the side bright with flowers, where sweet marjoram vied with onions and beets; all spoke of humble thrift and homely cares. In front was a great chestnut-tree, and in the roadway near were two ancient elms where saucy crows were building a nest.

Here, after her mother died, Mary Ann Evans was housekeeper. Little more than a child--tall, timid, and far from strong--she cooked and scrubbed and washed, and was herself the mother to brothers and sisters. Her father was a carpenter by trade and agent for a rich landowner. He was a stern man--orderly, earnest, industrious, studious. On rides about the country he would take the tall, hollow-eyed girl with him, and at such times he would talk to her of the great outside world where wondrous things were done. The child toiled hard, but found time to read and question--and there is always time to think. Soon she had outgrown some of her good father's beliefs, and this grieved him greatly; so much, indeed, that her extra-loving attention to his needs, in a hope to neutralize his displeasure, only irritated him the more. And if there is soft, subdued sadness in much of George Eliot's writing we can guess the reason. The onward and upward march ever means sad separation.

When Mary Ann was blossoming into womanhood her father moved over near Coventry, and here the ambitious girl first found companionship in her intellectual desires. Here she met men and women, older than herself, who were animated, earnest thinkers. They read and then they discussed, and then they spoke the things that they felt were true. Those eight years at Coventry transformed the awkward country girl into a woman of intellect and purpose. She knew somewhat of all sciences, all philosophies, and she had become a proficient scholar in German and French. How did she acquire this knowledge? How is any education acquired if not through effort prompted by desire?

She had already translated Strauss's "Life of Jesus" in a manner that was acceptable to the author. When Ralph Waldo Emerson came to Coventry to lecture, he was entertained at the same house where Miss Evans was stopping. Her brilliant conversation pleased him, and when she questioned the wisdom of a certain passage in one of his essays the gentle philosopher turned, smiled, and said that he had not seen it in that light before; perhaps she was right.

"What is your favorite book?" asked Emerson.

"Rousseau's 'Confessions,'" answered Mary instantly.

It was Emerson's favorite, too; but such honesty from a young woman! It was queer.

Mr. Emerson never forgot Miss Evans of Coventry, and ten years after, when a zealous reviewer proclaimed her the greatest novelist in England, the sage of Concord said something that sounded like "I told you so."

Miss Evans had made visits to London from time to time with her Coventry friends. When twenty-eight years old, after one such visit to London, she came back to the country tired and weary, and wrote this most womanly wish: "My only ardent desire is to find some feminine task to discharge; some possibility of devoting myself to some one and making that one purely and calmly happy."

But now her father was dead and her income was very scanty. She did translating, and tried the magazines with articles that generally came back respectfully declined.

Then an offer came as sub-editor of the "Westminster Review." It was steady work and plenty of it, and this was what she desired. She went to London and lived in the household of her employer, Mr. Chapman. Here she had the opportunity of meeting many brilliant people: Carlyle and his "Jeannie Welsh," the Martineaus, Grote, Mr. and Mrs. Mill, Huxley, Mazzini, Louis Blanc. Besides these were two young men who must not be left out when we sum up the influences that evolved this woman's genius.

She was attracted to Herbert Spencer at once. He was about her age, and their admiration for each other was mutual. Miss Evans, writing to a friend in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two, says, "Spencer is kind, he is delightful, and I always feel better after being with him, and we have agreed together that there is no reason why we should not see each other as often as we wish." And then later she again writes: "The bright side of my life, after the affection for my old friends, is the new and delightful friendship which I have found in Herbert Spencer. We see each other every day, and in everything we enjoy a delightful comradeship. If it were not for him my life would be singularly arid."

But about this time another man appeared on the scene, and were it not for this other man, who was introduced to Miss Evans by Spencer, the author of "Synthetic Philosophy" might not now be spoken of in the biographical dictionaries as having been "wedded to science."

It was not love at first sight, for George Henry Lewes made a decidedly unfavorable impression on Miss Evans at their first meeting. He was small, his features were insignificant, he had whiskers like an anarchist and a mouthful of crooked teeth; his personal habits were far from pleasant. It was this sort of thing, Dickens said, that caused his first wife to desert him and finally drove her into insanity.

But Lewes had a brilliant mind. He was a linguist, a scientist, a novelist, a poet and a wit. He had written biography, philosophy and a play. He had been a journalist, a lecturer and even an actor. Thackeray declared that if he should see Lewes perched on a white elephant in Piccadilly he should not be in the least surprised.

After having met Miss Evans several times, Mr. Lewes saw the calm depths of her mind and he asked her to correct proofs for him. She did so and discovered that there was merit in his work. She corrected more proofs, and when a woman begins to assist a man the danger-line is being approached. Close observers noted that a change was coming over the bohemian Lewes. He had his whiskers trimmed, his hair was combed, and the bright yellow necktie had been discarded for a clean one of modest brown, and, sometimes, his boots were blacked. In July, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four, Mr. Chapman received a letter from his sub-editor resigning her position, and Miss Evans notified some of her closest friends that hereafter she wished to be considered the wife of Mr. Lewes. She was then in her thirty-sixth year.

The couple disappeared, having gone to Germany.

Many people were shocked. Some said, "We knew it all the time," and when Herbert Spencer was informed of the fact he exclaimed, "Goodness me!" and said--nothing.

After six months spent at Weimar and other literary centers, Mr. and Mrs. Lewes returned to England and began housekeeping at Richmond. Any one who views their old quarters there will see how very plainly and economically they were forced to live. But they worked hard, and at this time the future novelist's desire seemed only to assist her husband. That she developed the manly side of his nature none can deny. They were very happy, these two, as they wrote, and copied, and studied, and toiled.

Three years passed, and Mrs. Lewes wrote to a friend:

"I am very happy; happy with the greatest happiness that life can give--the complete sympathy and affection of a man whose mind stimulates mine and keeps up in me a wholesome activity."

Mr. Lewes knew the greatness of his helpmeet. She herself did not. He urged her to write a story; she hesitated, and at last attempted it. They read the first chapter together and cried over it. Then she wrote more and always read her husband the chapters as they were turned off. He corrected, encouraged, and found a publisher. But why should I tell about it here? It's all in the "Britannica"--how the gentle beauty and sympathetic insight of her work touched the hearts of great and lowly alike, and of how riches began flowing in upon her. For one book she received forty thousand dollars, and her income after fortune smiled upon her was never less than ten thousand dollars a year.

Lewes was her secretary, her protector, her slave and her inspiration. He kept at bay the public that would steal her time, and put out of her reach, at her request, all reviews, good or bad, and shielded her from the interviewer, the curiosity-seeker, and the greedy financier.

The reason why she at first wrote under a nom de plume is plain. To the great, wallowing world she was neither Miss Evans nor Mrs. Lewes, so she dropped both names as far as title-pages were concerned and used a man's name instead--hoping better to elude the pack.

When "Adam Bede" came out, a resident of Nuneaton purchased a copy and at once discovered local earmarks. The scenes described, the flowers, the stone walls, the bridges, the barns, the people--all was Nuneaton. Who wrote it? No one knew, but it was surely some one in Nuneaton. So they picked out a Mr. Liggins, a solemn-faced preacher, who was always about to do something great, and they said "Liggins." Soon all London said "Liggins." As for Liggins, he looked wise and smiled knowingly. Then articles began to appear in the periodicals purporting to have been written by the author of "Adam Bede." A book came out called "Adam Bede, Jr.," and to protect her publisher, the public and herself, George Eliot had to reveal her identity.

Many men have written good books and never tasted fame; but few, like Liggins of Nuneaton, have become famous by doing nothing. It only proves that some things can be done as well as others. This breed of men has long dwelt in Warwickshire; Shakespeare had them in mind when he wrote, "There be men who do a wilful stillness entertain with purpose to be dressed in an opinion of wisdom, gravity and profound conceit."

Lord Acton in an able article in the "Nineteenth Century" makes this statement:

"George Eliot paid high for happiness with Lewes. She forfeited freedom of speech, the first place among English women, and a tomb in Westminster Abbey."

The original dedication in "Adam Bede" reads thus:

"To my dear husband, George Henry Lewes, I give the manuscript of a work which would never have been written but for the happiness which his love has conferred on my life."

Lord Acton of course assumes that this book would have been written, dedication and all, just the same had Miss Evans never met Mr. Lewes.

Once there was a child called Romola. She said to her father one day, as she sat on his knee: "Papa, who would take care of me--give me my bath and put me to bed nights--if you had never happened to meet Mamma?"

* * * * *

The days I spent in Warwickshire were very pleasant.

The serene beauty of the country and the kindly courtesy of the people impressed me greatly. Having beheld the scenes of George Eliot's childhood, I desired to view the place where her last days were spent. It was a fine May day when I took the little steamer from London Bridge for Chelsea.

A bird-call from the dingy brick building where Turner died, and two blocks from the old home of Carlyle, is Cheyne Walk--a broad avenue facing the river. The houses are old, but they have a look of gracious gentility that speaks of ease and plenty. High iron fences are in front, but they do not shut off from view the climbing clematis and clusters of roses that gather over the windows and doors.

I stood at the gate of Number 4 Cheyne Walk and admired the pretty flowers, planted in such artistic carelessness as to beds and rows; then I rang the bell--an old pull-out affair with polished knob.

Presently a butler opened the door--a pompous, tall and awful butler in serious black and with side-whiskers. He approached; came down the walk swinging a bunch of keys, looking me over as he came, to see what sort of wares I had to sell.

"Did George Eliot live here?" I asked through the bars.

"Mrs. Cross lived 'ere and died 'ere, sir," came the solemn and rebuking answer.

"I mean Mrs. Cross," I added meekly; "I only wished to see the little garden where she worked."

Jeemes was softened. As he unlocked the gate he said:

"We 'ave many wisiters, sir; a great bother, sir; still, I always knows a gentleman when I sees one. P'r'aps you would like to see the 'ouse, too, sir. The missus does not like it much, but I will take 'er your card, sir."

I gave him the card and slipped a shilling into his hand as he gave me a seat in the hallway.

He disappeared upstairs and soon returned with the pleasing information that I was to be shown the whole house and garden. So I pardoned him the myth about the missus, happening to know that at that particular moment she was at Brighton, sixty miles away.

A goodly, comfortable house, four stories, well kept, and much fine old carved oak in the dining-room and hallways; fantastic ancient balusters, and a peculiar bay window in the second-story rear that looked out over the little garden. Off to the north could be seen the green of Kensington Gardens and wavy suggestions of Hyde Park. This was George Eliot's workshop. There was a table in the center of the room and three low bookcases with pretty ornaments above. In the bay window was the most conspicuous object in the room--a fine marble bust of Goethe. This, I was assured, had been the property of Mrs. Cross, as well as all the books and furniture in the room. In one corner was a revolving case containing a set of the "Century Dictionary" which Jeemes assured me had been purchased by Mr. Cross as a present for his wife a short time before she died. This caused my faith to waver a trifle and put to flight a fine bit of literary frenzy that might have found form soon in a sonnet.

In the front parlor, I saw a portrait of the former occupant that showed "the face that looked like a horse." But that is better than to have the face of any other animal of which I know. Surely one would not want to look like a dog! Shakespeare hated dogs, but spoke forty-eight times in his plays in terms of respect and affection for a horse. Who would not resent the imputation that one's face was like that of a sheep or a goat or an ox, and much gore has been shed because men have referred to other men as asses--but a horse! God bless you, yes!

No one has ever accused George Eliot of being handsome, but this portrait tells of a woman of fifty: calm, gentle, and the strong features speak of a soul in which to confide.

At Highgate, by the side of the grave of Lewes, rests the dust of this great and loving woman. As the pilgrim enters that famous old cemetery, the first imposing monument seen is a pyramid of rare, costly porphyry. As you draw near, you read this inscription:

To the memory of
ANN JEWSON CRISP
Who departed this life
Deeply lamented, Jan. 20, 1889.
Also,
Her dog, Emperor.

Beneath these tender lines is a bas-relief of as vicious-looking a cur as ever evaded the dog-tax.

Continuing up the avenue, past this monument just noted, the kind old gardener will show you another that stands amid others much more pretentious--a small gray-granite column, and on it, carved in small letters, you read:

"Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence."

Here rests the body of
"GEORGE ELIOT"
(MARY ANN CROSS)
Born 22 November, 1819.
Died 22 December, 1880.

THOMAS CARLYLE

One comfort is that great men taken up in any way are profitable
company. We can not look, however imperfectly, upon a great man
without gaining something by it. He is the living fountain of
life, which it is pleasant to be near. On any terms whatsoever
you will not grudge to wander in his neighborhood for a while.

--_Heroes and Hero-Worship_

While on my way to Dumfries I stopped overnight at Gretna Green, which, as all fair maidens know, is in Scotland just over the border from England.

To my delight I found that the coming of runaway couples to Gretna Green was not entirely a matter of the past, for the very evening I arrived a blushing pair came to the inn and inquired for a "meenister." The ladye faire was a little stout and the worthy swain several years older than my fancy might have wished, but still I did not complain.

The landlord's boy was dispatched to the rectory around the corner and soon returned with the reverend gentleman.

I was an uninvited guest in the little parlor, but no one observed that my wedding-garment was only a cycling costume, and I was not challenged.

After the ceremony, the several other witnesses filed past the happy couple, congratulating them and kissing the bride.

I did likewise, and was greeted with a resounding smack which surprised me a bit, but I managed to ask, "Did you run away?"

"Noo," said the groom; "noo, her was a widdie--we just coom over fram Ecclefechan"; then, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, "We're goin' baack on the morrow. It's cheaper thaan to ha' a big, spread weddin'."

This answer banished all tender sentiment from me and made useless my plans for a dainty love-story, but I seized upon the name of the place whence they came.

"Ecclefechan! Ecclefechan! Why that's where Carlyle was born!"

"Aye, sir, and he's buried there; a great mon he was--but an infideel."

Ten miles beyond Gretna Green is Ecclefechan--a little village of stucco houses all stretched out on one street. Plain, homely, rocky and unromantic is the country round about, and plain, homely and unromantic is the little house where Carlyle was born. The place is shown the visitor by a good old dame who takes one from room to room, giving a little lecture meanwhile in a mixture of Gaelic and English which was quite beyond my ken. Several relics of interest are shown, and although the house is almost precisely like all others in the vicinity, imagination throws round it all a roseate wreath of fancies.

It has been left on record that up to the year when Carlyle was married, his "most pleasurable times were those when he enjoyed a quiet pipe with his mother."

To few men indeed is this felicity vouchsafed. But for those who have eaten oatmeal porridge in the wayside cottages of bonny Scotland, or who love to linger over "The Cotter's Saturday Night," there is a touch of tender pathos in the picture. The stone floor, the bare, whitewashed walls, the peat smoldering on the hearth, sending out long, fitful streaks that dance among the rafters overhead, and the mother and son sitting there watching the coal--silent. The woman takes a small twig from a bundle of sticks, reaches over, lights it, applies it to her pipe, takes a few whiffs and passes the light to her son. Then they talk in low, earnest tones of man's duty to man and man's duty to God.

And it was this mother who first applied the spark that fired Carlyle's ambition; it was from her that he got the germ of those talents which have made his name illustrious.

Yet this woman could barely read and did not learn to write until her firstborn had gone away from the home nest. Then it was that she sharpened a gray goose-quill and labored long and patiently, practising with this instrument (said to be mightier than the sword) and with ink she herself had mixed--all that she might write a letter to her boy; and how sweetly, tenderly homely, and loving are these letters as we read them today!

James Carlyle with his own hands built, in Seventeen Hundred Ninety, this house at Ecclefechan. The same year he married an excellent woman, a second cousin, by name Janet Carlyle. She lived but a year. The poor husband was heartbroken, and declared, as many men under like conditions had done before and have done since, that his sorrow was inconsolable. And he vowed that he would walk through life and down to his death alone.

But it is a matter for congratulation that he broke his vow.

In two years he married Margaret Aitken--a serving-woman. She bore nine children. Thomas was the eldest and the only one who proved recreant to the religious faith of his fathers.

One of the brothers moved to Shiawassee County, Michigan, where I had the pleasure of calling on him, some years ago. A hard-headed man, he was: sensible, earnest, honest, with a stubby beard and a rich brogue. He held the office of school trustee, also that of pound-master, and I was told that he served his township loyally and well.

This worthy man looked with small favor on the literary pretensions of his brother Tammas, and twice wrote him long letters expostulating with him on his religious vagaries. "I knew no good could come of it," sorrowfully said he, and so I left him.

But I inquired of several of the neighbors what they thought of Thomas Carlyle, and I found that they did not think of him at all. And I mounted my beast and rode away.

Thomas Carlyle was educated for the Kirk, and it was a cause of much sorrow to his parents that he could not accept its beliefs. He has been spoken of as England's chief philosopher, yet he subscribed to no creed, nor did he formulate one. However, in "Latter-Day Pamphlets" he partially prepares a catechism for a part of the brute creation. He supposes that all swine of superior logical powers have a "belief," and as they are unable to express it he essays the task for them.

The following are a few of the postulates in this creed of The Brotherhood of Latter-Day Swine:

"Question. Who made the Pig?

"Answer. The Pork-Butcher.

"Question. What is the Whole Duty of Pigs?

"Answer. It is the mission of Universal Pighood; and the duty of
all Pigs, at all times, is to diminish the quantity of attainable
swill and increase the unattainable. This is the Whole Duty of
Pigs.

"Question. What is Pig Poetry?

"Answer. It is the universal recognition of Pig's wash and ground
barley, and the felicity of Pigs whose trough has been set in
order and who have enough.

"Question, What is justice in Pigdom?

"Answer. It is the sentiment in Pig nature sometimes called
revenge, indignation, etc., which if one Pig provoke, another
comes out in more or less destructive manner; hence laws are
necessary--amazing quantities of laws--defining what Pigs shall
not do.

"Question. What do you mean by equity?

"Answer. Equity consists in getting your share from the
Universal Swine-Trough, and part of another's.

"Question. What is meant by 'your share'?"

"Answer. My share is getting whatever I can contrive to seize
without being made up into Side-Meat."

I have slightly abridged this little extract and inserted it here to show the sympathy which Mr. Carlyle had for the dumb brute.

One of America's great men, in a speech delivered not long ago, said, "From Scotch manners, Scotch religion and Scotch whisky, good Lord deliver us!"

My experience with these three articles has been somewhat limited; but Scotch manners remind me of chestnut-burs--not handsome without, but good within. For when you have gotten beyond the rough exterior of Sandy you generally find a heart warm, tender and generous.

Scotch religion is only another chestnut-bur, but then you need not eat the shuck if you fear it will not agree with your inward state. Nevertheless, if the example of royalty is of value, the fact can be stated that Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India, is a Presbyterian. That is, she is a Presbyterian about one-half the time--when she is in Scotland, for she is the head of the Scottish Kirk. When in England, of course she is an Episcopalian. We have often been told that religion is largely a matter of geography, and here is a bit of something that looks like proof.

Of Scotch whisky I am not competent to speak, so that subject must be left to the experts. But a Kentucky colonel at my elbow declares that it can not be compared with the Blue-Grass article; though I trust that no one will be prejudiced against it on that account.

Scotch intellect, however, is worthy of our serious consideration. It is a bold, rocky headland, standing out into the tossing sea of the Unknown. Assertive? Yes. Stubborn? Most surely. Proud? By all means. Twice as many pilgrims visit the grave of Burns as that of Shakespeare. Buckle declares Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" has had a greater influence on civilization than any other book ever writ--save none; and the average Scotchman knows his Carlyle a deal better than the average American knows his Emerson: in fact, four times as many of Carlyle's books have been printed.

When Carlyle took time to bring the ponderous machinery of his intellect to bear on a theme, he saw it through and through. The vividness of his imagination gives us a true insight into times long since gone by; it shows virtue her own feature, vice her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. In history he goes beyond the political and conventional--showing us the thought, the hope, the fear, the passion of the soul.

His was the masculine mind. The divination and subtle intuitions which are to be found scattered through his pages, like violets growing among the rank swale of the prairies--all these sweet, odorous things came from his wife. She gave him of her best thought, and he greedily absorbed it and unconsciously wrote it down as his own.

There are those who blame and berate; volumes have been written to show the inconsiderateness of this man toward the gentle lady who was his intellectual comrade. But they know not life who do this thing.

It is a fact that Carlyle never rushed to pick up Jeannie's handkerchief. I admit that he could not bow gracefully; that he could not sing tenor, nor waltz, nor tell funny stories, nor play the mandolin; and if I had been his neighbor I would not have attempted to teach him any of these accomplishments.

Once he took his wife to the theater; and after the performance he accidentally became separated from her in the crowd and trudged off home alone and went to bed forgetting all about her---but even for this I do not indict him. Mrs. Carlyle never upbraided him for this forgetfulness, neither did she relate the incident to any one, and for these things I to her now reverently lift my hat.

Jeannie Welsh Carlyle had capacity for pain, as it seems all great souls have. She suffered--but then suffering is not all suffering and pain is not all pain.

Life is often dark, but then there are rifts in the clouds when we behold the glorious deep blue of the sky. Not a day passes but that the birds sing in the branches, and the tree-tops poise backward and forward in restful, rhythmic harmony, and never an hour goes by but that hope bears us up on her wings as the eagle does her young. And ever just before the year dies and the frost comes, the leaves take on a gorgeous hue and the color of the flowers then puts to shame for brilliancy all the plainer petals of Springtime.

And I know Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle were happy, so happy, at times, that they laughed and cried for joy. Jeannie gave all, and she saw her best thought used--carried further, written out and given to the world as that of another--but she uttered no protest.

Xantippe lives in history only because she sought to worry a great philosopher; we remember the daughter of Herodias because she demanded the head (not the heart) of a good man; Goneril and Regan because they trod upon the withered soul of their sire; Lady Macbeth because she lured her liege to murder; Charlotte Corday for her dagger-thrust; Lucrezia Borgia for her poison; Sapphira for her untruth; Jael because she pierced the brain of Sisera with a rusty nail (instead of an idea); Delilah for the reason that she deprived Samson of his source of strength; and in the "Westminster Review" for May, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-four, Ouida makes the flat statement that for every man of genius who has been helped by a woman, ten have been dragged down.

But Jeannie Welsh Carlyle lives in the hearts of all who reverence the sweet, the gentle, the patient, the earnest, the loving spirit of the womanly woman: lives because she ministered to the needs of a great man.

She was ever a frail body. Several long illnesses kept her to her bed for weeks, but she recovered from these, even in spite of the doctors, who thoroughly impressed both herself and her husband with the thought of her frailty.

On April the Twenty-first, Eighteen Hundred Sixty-six, she called her carriage, as was her custom, and directed the driver to go through the park. She carried a book in her hands, and smiled a greeting to a friend as the brougham moved away from the little street where they lived. The driver drove slowly--drove for an hour--two. He got down from his box to receive the orders of his mistress, touched his hat as he opened the carriage-door, but no kindly eyes looked into his. She sat back in the corner as if resting; the shapely head a little thrown forward, the book held gently in the delicate hands, but the fingers were cold and stiff--Jeannie Welsh was dead--and Thomas Carlyle was alone.

* * * * *

Along the Thames, at Chelsea, opposite the rows of quiet and well-kept houses of Cheyne Walk, is the "Embankment." A parkway it is of narrow green, with graveled walks, bushes and trees, that here and there grow lush and lusty as if to hide the unsightly river from the good people who live across the street.

Following this pleasant bit of breathing space, with its walks that wind in and out among the bushes, one comes unexpectedly upon a bronze statue. You need not read the inscription: a glance at that shaggy head, the grave, sober, earnest look, and you exclaim under your breath, "Carlyle!"

In this statue the artist has caught with rare skill the look of reverie and repose. One can imagine that on a certain night, as the mists and shadows of evening were gathering along the dark river, the gaunt form, wrapped in its accustomed cloak, came stalking down the little street to the park, just as he did thousands of times, and taking his seat in the big chair fell asleep. In the morning the children that came to play along the river found the form in cold, enduring bronze.

At the play we have seen the marble transformed by love into beauteous life. How much easier the reverse--here where souls stay only a day!

Cheyne Row is a little, alley-like street, running only a block, with fifteen houses on one side, and twelve on the other.

These houses are all brick and built right up to the sidewalk. On the north side they are all in one block, and one at first sees no touch of individuality in any of them.

They are old, and solid, and plain--built for revenue only. On closer view I thought one or two had been painted, and on one there was a cornice that set it off from the rest. As I stood on the opposite side and looked at this row of houses, I observed that Number Five was the dingiest and plainest of them all. For there were dark shutters instead of blinds, and these shutters were closed, all save one rebel that swung and creaked in the breeze. Over the doorway, sparrows had made their nests and were fighting and scolding. Swallows hovered above the chimney; dust, cobwebs, neglect were all about.

And as I looked there came to me the words of Ursa Thomas:

"Brief, brawling day, with its noisy phantoms, its paper crowns,
tinsel-gilt, is gone; and divine, everlasting night, with her
star diadems, with her silences and her verities, is come."

Here walked Thomas and Jeannie one fair May morning in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four. Thomas was thirty-nine, tall and swarthy, strong; with set mouth and three wrinkles on his forehead that told of care and dyspepsia. Jeannie was younger; her face winsome, just a trifle anxious, with luminous, gentle eyes, suggestive of patience, truth and loyalty. They looked like country folks, did these two. They examined the surroundings, consulted together--sixty pounds rent a year seemed very high! But they took the house, and T. Carlyle, son of James Carlyle, stone-mason, paid rent for it every month for half a century, lacking three years.

I walked across the street and read the inscription on the marble tablet inserted in the front of the house above the lower windows. It informs the stranger that Thomas Carlyle lived here from Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four to Eighteen Hundred Eighty-one, and that the tablet was erected by the Carlyle Society of London.

I ascended the stone steps and scraped my boots on the well-worn scraper, made long, long ago by a blacksmith who is now dust, and who must have been a very awkward mechanic, for I saw where he had made a misstroke with his hammer, probably as he discussed theology with a caller. Then I rang the bell and plied the knocker and waited there on the steps for Jeannie Welsh to come bid me welcome, just as she did Emerson when he, too, used the scraper and plied the knocker and stood where I did then.

And my knock was answered--answered by a very sour and peevish woman next door, who thrust her head out of the window, and exclaimed in a shrill voice:

"Look 'ere, sir, you might as well go rap on the curb-stone, don't you know; there's nobody livin' there, sir, don't you know!"

"Yes, madam, that is why I knocked!"

"Beggin' your pardon, sir, if you use your heyes you'll see there's nobody livin' there, don't you know!"

"I knocked lest offense be given. How can I get in?"

"You might go in through the keyhole, sir, or down the chimney. You seem to be a little daft, sir, don't you know! But if you must get in, perhaps it would be as well to go over to Mrs. Brown's and brang the key," and she slammed down the window.

Across the street Mrs. Brown's sign smiled at me.

Mrs. Brown keeps a little grocery and bakeshop and was very willing to show me the house. She fumbled in a black bag for the keys, all the time telling me of three Americans who came last week to see Carlyle's house, and "as how" they each gave her a shilling. I took the hint.

"Only Americans care now for Mr. Carlyle," plaintively added the old lady as she fished out the keys; "soon we will all be forgot."

We walked across the street and after several ineffectual attempts the rusty lock was made to turn. I entered. Cold, bare and bleak was the sight of those empty rooms. The old lady had a touch of rheumatism, so she waited for me on the doorstep as I climbed the stairs to the third floor. The noise-proof back room where "The French Revolution" was writ, twice over, was so dark that I had to grope my way across to the window. The sash stuck and seemed to have a will of its own, like him who so often had raised it. But at last it gave way and I flung wide the shutter and looked down at the little arbor where Teufelsdrockh sat so often and wooed wisdom with the weed brought from Virginia.

Then I stood before the fireplace, where he of the Eternities had so often sat and watched the flickering embers. Here he lived in his loneliness and cursed curses that were prayers, and here for near five decades he read and thought and dreamed and wrote. Here the spirits of Cromwell and Frederick hovered; here that pitiful and pitiable long line of ghostly partakers in the Revolution answered to his roll-call.

The wind whistled down the chimney gruesomely as my footfalls echoed through the silent chambers, and I thought I heard a sepulchral voice say:

"Thy future life! Thy fate is it, indeed! Whilst thou makest that thy chief question, thy life to me and to thyself and to thy God is worthless. What is incredible to thee thou shalt not, at thy soul's peril, pretend to believe. Elsewhither for a refuge! Away! Go to perdition if thou wilt, but not with a lie in thy mouth--by the Eternal Maker, No!!"

I was startled at first, but stood still listening; then I thought I saw a faint blue cloud of mist curling up in the fireplace. Watching this smoke and sitting before it in gloomy abstraction was the form of an old man. I swept my hand through the apparition, but still it stayed. My lips moved in spite of myself and I said:

"Hail! hard-headed man of granite outcrop and heather, of fen and crag, of moor and mountain, and of bleak East wind, hail! Eighty-six years didst thou live. One hundred years lacking fourteen didst thou suffer, enjoy, weep, dream, groan, pray and strike thy rugged breast! And yet methinks that in those years there was much quiet peace and sweet content; for constant pain benumbs, and worry destroys, and vain unrest summons the grim messenger of death. But thou didst live and work and love; howbeit, thy touch was not always gentle, nor thy voice low; but on thy lips was no lie, in thy thought no concealment, in thy heart no pollution. But mark! thou didst come out of poverty and obscurity: on thy battered shield there was no crest and thou didst leave all to follow truth. And verily she did lead thee a merry chase!

"Thou hadst no Past, but thou hast a Future. Thou didst say: 'Bury me in Westminster, never! where the mob surges, cursed with idle curiosity to see the graves of kings and nobodies? No! Take me back to rugged Scotland and lay my tired form to rest by the side of an honest man--my father.'

"Thou didst refuse the Knighthood offered thee by royalty, saying, 'I am not the founder of the house of Carlyle and I have no sons to be pauperized by a title,' True, thou didst leave no sons after the flesh to mourn thy loss, nor fair daughters to bedeck thy grave with garlands, but thou didst reproduce thyself in thought, and on the minds of men thou didst leave thy impress. And thy ten thousand sons will keep thy memory green so long as men shall work, and toil, and strive, and hope."

The wind still howled. I looked out and saw watery clouds scudding athwart the face of the murky sky. The shutters banged, and shut me in the dark. I made haste to find the door, reached the stairway--slid down the banisters to where Mrs. Brown was waiting for me at the threshold.

We locked the door. She went across to her little bakeshop and I stopped a passing policeman to ask the way to Westminster. He told me.

"Did you visit Carlyle's 'ouse?" he asked.

"Yes."

"With old Mrs. Brown?"

"Yes, she waited for me in the doorway--she had the rheumatism so she could not climb the stairs."

"Rheumatism? Huh!--you couldn't 'ire 'er to go inside. Why, don't you know? They say the 'ouse is 'aunted!"

JOHN RUSKIN

Put roses in their hair, put precious stones on their breasts;
see that they are clothed in purple and scarlet, with other
delights; that they also learn to read the gilded heraldry of the
sky; and upon the earth be taught not only the labors of it but
the loveliness.

--_Deucalion_

At Windermere, a good friend, told me that I must abandon all hope of seeing Mr. Ruskin; for I had no special business with him, no letters of introduction, and then the fact that I am an American made it final. Americans in England are supposed to pick flowers in private gardens, cut their names on trees, laugh boisterously at trifles, and often to make invidious comparisons. Very properly, Mr. Ruskin does not admire these things.

Then Mr. Ruskin is a very busy man. Occasionally he issues a printed manifesto to his friends requesting them to give him peace. A copy of one such circular was shown to me. It runs, "Mr. J. Ruskin is about to begin a work of great importance, and therefore begs that in reference to calls and correspondence you will consider him dead for the next two months." A similar notice is reproduced in "Arrows of the Chace," and this one thing, I think, illustrates as forcibly as anything in Mr. Ruskin's work the self-contained characteristics of the man himself.

Surely if a man is pleased to be considered "dead" occasionally, even to his kinsmen and friends, he should not be expected to receive with open arms an enemy to steal away his time. This is assuming, of course, that all individuals who pick flowers in other folks' gardens, cut their names on trees, and laugh boisterously at trifles, are enemies. I therefore decided that I would simply walk over to Brantwood, view it from a distance, tramp over its hills, row across the lake, and at nightfall take a swim in its waters. Then I would rest at the Inn for a space and go my way.

Lake Coniston is ten miles from Grasmere, and even alone the walk is not long. If, however, you are delightfully attended by "King's Daughters" with whom you sit and commune now and then on the bankside, the distance will seem to be much less. Then there is a pleasant little break in the journey at Hawkshead. Here one may see the quaint old schoolhouse where Wordsworth when a boy dangled his feet from a bench and proved his humanity by carving his initials on the seat.

The Inn at the head of Coniston Water appeared very inviting and restful when I saw it that afternoon. Built in sections from generation to generation, half-covered with ivy and embowered in climbing roses, it is an institution entirely different from the "Grand Palace Hotel" at Oshkosh. In America we have gongs that are fiercely beaten at stated times by gentlemen of color, just as they are supposed to do in their native Congo jungles. This din proclaims to the "guests" and to the public at large that it is time to come in and be fed. But this refinement of civilization is not yet in Coniston, and the Inn is quiet and homelike. You may go to bed when you are tired, get up when you choose, and eat when you are hungry.

There were no visitors about when I arrived, and I thought I would have the coffeeroom all to myself at luncheon-time; but presently there came in a pleasant-faced old gentleman in knickerbockers. He bowed to me and then took a place at the table. He said that it was a fine day and I agreed with him, adding that the mountains were very beautiful. He assented, putting in a codicil to the effect that the lake was very pretty.

Then the waiter came for our orders.

"Together, I s'pose?" remarked Thomas, inquiringly, as he halted at the door and balanced the tray on his finger-tips.

"Yes, serve lunch for us together," said the ruddy old gentleman as he looked at me and smiled; "to eat alone is bad for the digestion."

I nodded assent.

"Can you tell me how far it is to Brantwood?" I asked.

"Oh, not far--just across the lake."

He arose and flung the shutter open so I could see the old, yellow house about a mile across the water, nestling in its wealth of green on the hillside. Soon the waiter brought our lunch, and while we discussed the chops and new potatoes we talked Ruskiniana.

The old gentleman knew a deal more of "Stones of Venice" and "Modern Painters" than I; but I told him how Thoreau introduced Ruskin to America and how Concord was the first place in the New World to recognize this star in the East. And upon my saying this, the old gentleman brought his knife-handle down on the table, declaring that Thoreau and Whitman were the only two men of genius that America had produced. I begged him to make it three and include Emerson, which he finally consented to do.

By and by the waiter cleared the table preparatory to bringing in the coffee. The old gentleman pushed his chair back, took the napkin from under his double chin, brushed the crumbs from his goodly front, and remarked:

"I'm going over to Brantwood this afternoon to call on Mr. Ruskin--just to pay my respects to him, as I always do when I come here. Can't you go with me?"

I think this was about the most pleasing question I ever had asked me. I was going to request him to "come again" just for the joy of hearing the words, but I pulled my dignity together, straightened up, swallowed my coffee red-hot, pushed my chair back, flourished my napkin, and said, "I shall be very pleased to go."

So we went--we two--he in his knickerbockers and I in my checks and outing-shirt. I congratulated myself on looking no worse than he, and as for him, he never seemed to think that our costumes were not exactly what they should be; and after all it matters little how you dress when you call on one of Nature's noblemen--they demand no livery.

We walked around the northern end of Coniston Water, along the eastern edge, past Tent House, where Tennyson once lived (and found it "outrageous quiet"), and a mile farther on we came to Brantwood.

The road curves in to the back of the house--which, by the way, is the front--and the driveway is lined with great trees that form a complete archway. There is no lodge-keeper, no flowerbeds laid out with square and compass, no trees trimmed to appear like elephants, no cast-iron dogs, nor terra-cotta deer, and, strangest of all, no sign of the lawn-mower. There is nothing, in fact, to give forth a sign that the great Apostle of Beauty lives in this very old-fashioned spot. Big boulders are to be seen here and there where Nature left them, tangles of vines running over old stumps, part of the meadow cut close with a scythe, and part growing up as if the owner knew the price of hay. Then there are flowerbeds, where grow clusters of poppies and hollyhocks (purple, and scarlet, and white), prosaic gooseberry-bushes, plain Yankee pieplant (from which the English make tarts), rue and sweet marjoram, with patches of fennel, sage, thyme and catnip, all lined off with boxwood, making me think of my grandmother's garden at Roxbury.

On the hillside above the garden we saw the entrance to the cave that Mr. Ruskin once filled with ice, just to show the world how to keep its head cool at small expense. He even wrote a letter to the papers giving the bright idea to humanity--that the way to utilize caves was to fill them with ice. Then he forgot all about the matter. But the following June, when the cook, wishing to make some ice-cream as a glad surprise for the Sunday dinner, opened the natural ice-chest, she found only a pool of muddy water, and exclaimed, "Botheration!" Then they had custard instead of ice-cream.

We walked up the steps, and my friend let the brass knocker drop just once, for only Americans give a rat-a-tat-tat, and the door was opened by a white-whiskered butler, who took our cards and ushered us into the library. My heart beat a trifle fast as I took inventory of the room; for I never before had called on a man who was believed to have refused the poet-laureateship. A dimly lighted room was this library--walls painted brown, running up to mellow yellow at the ceiling, high bookshelves, with a stepladder, and only five pictures on the walls, and of these three were etchings, and two water-colors of a very simple sort; leather-covered chairs; a long table in the center, on which were strewn sundry magazines and papers, also several photographs; and at one end of the room a big fireplace, where a yew log smoldered. Here my inventory was cut short by a cheery voice behind:

"Ah! now, gentlemen, I am glad to see you."

There was no time nor necessity for a formal introduction. The great man took my hand as if he had always known me, as perhaps he thought he had. Then he greeted my friend in the same way, stirred up the fire, for it was a North of England summer day, and took a seat by the table. We were all silent for a space--a silence without embarrassment.

"You are looking at the etching over the fireplace--it was sent to me by a young lady in America," said Mr. Ruskin, "and I placed it there to get acquainted with it. I like it more and more. Do you know the scene?" I knew the scene and explained somewhat about it.

Mr. Ruskin has the faculty of making his interviewer do most of the talking. He is a rare listener, and leans forward, putting a hand behind his right ear to get each word you say. He was particularly interested in the industrial conditions of America, and I soon found myself "occupying the time," while an occasional word of interrogation from Mr. Ruskin gave me no chance to stop. I came to hear him, not to defend our "republican experiment," as he was pleased to call the United States of America. Yet Mr. Ruskin was so gentle and respectful in his manner, and so complimentary in his attitude of listener, that my impatience at his want of sympathy for our "experiment" only caused me to feel a little heated.