CARLYLE OVER HIS PROOFS.

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but when on the fifth day she came up into my room, and spoke like an unaffected Highland girl, that Lady Ashburton won my heart; she spoke so freely and unguardedly about persons and things; most people in that station so guarded and careful.' ”

January, 1860. "Annie called on Mrs. Carlyle, whose husband was in great misery over his proofs; always is; alters and re-alters always, and won't let them alone. Mrs. Carlyle reads them, and suggests alterations. Carlyle begins by calling her a fool, and so on, and ends often, after a few days, by saying he thinks he shall strike out so and so.' This time the proofs seemed to Mrs. Carlyle to hang fire; the story not to progress. 'A great deal about 'our melancholy friend' which impeded the progress. One passage in particular, justifying 'torture.' The world has ceased to care for 'justice.' 'If Mr. Carlyle had had space to go more into it, he might have made. good his position; but as it was, the impression would simply be Mr. Carlyle regrets the abolition of torture.' He at first angry with her. She, like the rest of the world, did not care about justice, did not see the distinction between the guilty and the innocent. The first day Mr. Carlyle came down very cross, in the evening, saying that he had done nothing all day; hang it! had spent all the afternoon trying to alter that paragraph of her's, and he couldn't. The second day uneasy, the third day more so; the fourth sent L. in post-haste to recall the proofs, that he might strike out the whole of our melancholy friend's' remarks.' Mrs. Carlyle sorry to find fault, and not to seem pleased,

as he is always dispirited himself at first, and wants encouraging.

"Carlyle writes best when he is obliged to write fast. One of his best things (in Mrs. Carlyle's opinion), the 'Johnson,' so written. A commission, and he tied to time. Notwithstanding all Carlyle has written, he still writes with difficulty, with labour, as he always has written. 'A mistake, Carlyle's writing such long works; gets tired out before he has done; the end gets feeble.'

"Annie asked what Mrs. Carlyle thought her husband's best work? The French Revolution' her favourite, though perhaps Cromwell the best written book.'

'Mr. Carlyle never complains of serious things; but if his finger cut, the house turned upside down; one must hold it and another get plaster.'

"When staying at the Grange, Monckton Milnes read aloud in an impressive dramatic way, Tennyson's Poem in Macmillan. [Sea Dreams.] Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle kept laughing: Monckton would say, 'Now do listen ; you should listen; it's beautiful.'

"Annie called upon Mrs. Carlyle, who has been in great trouble. Her dog Nero killed by the doctor, last week, who had kindly offered some days before to administer poison, and put him out of his misery 'old age.' Has been quite upset.' Carlyle that evening cried like a child. On Sunday evening told her he could not rebuke her; he felt so wretched himself.

"Some time ago Mrs. Carlyle read aloud the account

PRIVATE BIOGRAPHIES.

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of the Italian's execution-Buranelli's. The tears rolled down Carlyle's cheeks-he, who talks of shooting Irishmen who will not work.

"Mrs. Carlyle asked Annie various questions as to how she first met me, etc., etc., to all of which Annie naïvely replied in full. Mem :-This is how Mrs. Carlyle gets possessed of the private biographies of half London.”

When staying away from six Great Cheyne Row, Alexander Gilchrist received a lively letter from Jane Carlyle :

"31st July, 1861. 5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea. "MY DEAR MR. GILCHRIST : A thousand thanks for your kind thought about us!-tho' fated to remain 'a devout imagination' on your part! We are no longer on the Farm-House quest,' anything Bur!' (as my maid says.) In fact Mr. Carlyle is become so enamoured of the retirement he enjoys-beside the water-barrel, under that ten shillingsworth of calicothat I don't think a farm-house even within a stone cast of the sea, warranted free from cocks, dogs, and donkies, would tempt his imagination! And certainly on the principle of 'letting WELL be'-letting sleeping Dogs lie' --and that sort of thing, for nothing in the world would I unsettle him, when he is so peaceable!-Just come and see; the next time you are up! For myself the backcourt is by no means country. . . . I am speculating about going with Geraldine Jewsbury for three days to Ramsgate! I do so need a change?

"Your house seems to be taken most perfect care of but! Oh the noise of that stumping wooden leg!—it

gets up so early too! [An old soldier acting as caretaker at number six.]

"My kind love to your wife when you see her or write to her I miss her dreadfully.

"I went to see Fechter the other night and found myself between Lewes and Miss Evans!-by Destiny and not by my own Deserving. At least Destiny in the shape of Frederick Chapman who arranged the thing. Poor soul! there never was a more absurd miscalculation than her constituting herself an improper woman. She looks Propriety personified! Oh so slow! Yours very truly,

JANE CARLYLE."

A

CHAPTER IX.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

[1861. AGE 33.]

LEXANDER GILCHRIST met D. G. Rossetti in the spring of 1861; correspondence began over the "Life of William Blake."

The poet-artist took a keen interest in the illustrations for the Life; he writes about them April 20.

"MY DEAR GILCHRIST: I have been thinking that if you are still unprovided with a satisfactory copyist (or a sufficiency of such) for the Blakes,— Mrs. Edward [Burne] Jones would be very likely to succeed. This occurred to me shortly after seeing you the other day, but I did not see her till to-day, when I mentioned the matter to her. I hope I did not do wrong, but she is too intimate a friend to make it awkward for me if you and Linton cannot entertain the idea. She says she would be happy to try-is very diffident, but I believe in her capabilities fully, as she really draws heads with feeling, and could give the expression-besides, Jones would be there to give help without trouble to himself.

"My great anxiety about my wife lasts still. She has