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This most sensible advice was duly taken, and Carlyle's will, signed on the 6th of February, 1873, which nominated Forster and his own brother John as executors, contained the following passage: "My manuscript entitled 'Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle' is to me in my now bereaved state, of endless value, though of what value to others I cannot in the least clearly judge; and indeed for the last four years am imperatively forbidden to write farther on it, or even to look farther into it.
I don't know exactly what a human document is; still, I suppose I shall go to the graveyards for the sake of finding out what he means. He spoke as if I were likely to go to these places with him, and said that he would enjoy showing me Carlyle's house in Chelsea, which is "more full of the man's heart and soul than Ecclefechan is." But, of course, he said this without stopping to think.
From Mainhill the highway descends slowly to the village of Ecclefechan, the site of which is marked to the eye, a mile or more away, by the spire of the church rising up against a background of Scotch firs, which clothe a hill beyond. I soon enter the main street of the village, which in Carlyle's youth had an open burn or creek flowing through the center of it.
One was reading a book on Russia, another the life of Frederick the Great, a third was patiently droning forth Napoleon's war on Europe, while over on the window-seat the other two were racing through volumes one and two of Carlyle's French Revolution. The room was a perfect babel of sound. But the big man sat and smoked his pipe, his honor safe and the morrow secure.
I don't think Mark was very clear as to what he wanted, or, even if he had had a cool half-hour to define his wishes, that he would seriously have modified existing arrangements. But he had a passionate sort of obstinacy, and his whims took a violent character when they were crossed, and he was angry and jealous and unintelligible, reminding one of Carlyle's description of Philip Egalite a chaos.
Thus there was George Macdonald, a Scot of genius as genuine as Carlyle's; he could write fairy-tales that made all experience a fairy-tale. He could give the real sense that every one had the end of an elfin thread that must at last lead them into Paradise. It was a sort of optimist Calvinism. But such really significant fairy-tales were accidents of genius.
His view is not that human nature is so vulgar and silly a thing that it must be guided and driven; it is, on the contrary, that human nature is so chivalrous and fundamentally magnanimous a thing that even the meanest have it in them to love a leader more than themselves, and to prefer loyalty to rebellion. When he speaks of this trait in human nature Carlyle's tone invariably softens.
"'Of all the sad words of tongue or pen The saddest are these, 'It might have been. "Harold Carlyle's youthful life was blighted because he could not give up this woman who was unworthy of him. But at last repentance has come. God forgive her." Dr. Jose.
Yours ever, ROGER MIFFLIN. Roger Raids the Ice-Box Roger had just put Carlyle's Cromwell back in its proper place in the History alcove when Helen and Titania returned from the movies. Bock, who had been dozing under his master's chair, rose politely and wagged a deferential tail. "I do think Bock has the darlingest manners," said Titania.
These works were written by Carlyle, Louis Blanc, Lamartine and Michelet. Carlyle's French Revolution belongs far more to the domain of literature than to that of history. Its brilliancy may still dazzle those who are able to think of Carlyle as no more than the literary artist; it will not blind those who see foremost in him the great humanitarian.
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