A POOR BARBER.

65

flax and clapped it on his head.—Burnt his shins with sitting close to the fire (as Carlyle remembers seeing many old people's shins marbled): contrived some kind of shield, which he called shin-covers! The Duke of Manchester took Emerson up; got him to come and live with him;-offered him a seat in his carriage. Emerson asked, what did the Duke want with that whim-wham? He would walk. The country people thought him a soothsayer. An old woman came to ask what had become of her husband (long gone away), she wishful perhaps to be free. He has been in hell these three years past.'

"Emerson was a free-thinker, who looked on his neighbour the parson as a humbug. He seemed to have defended himself in silence the best way he could against the noisy clamour and unreal stuff going on around; retreating to his mechanics and fluxions, which he knew to be real.'

or essay.

"Carlyle spoke of Arkwright as worthy a biography 'None good hitherto. A wonderful man— rather of wonderful results to England. A poor barber, who bethought himself of the loom, the threads then shifted by hand. This great invention so simple, a wonder no one had thought of it before.' Carlyle minutely described the loom, using his hands freely to do so. He also told how the weavers set upon Arkwright, "You son of Belial! will you not let us live?" and drove him out of the village :-how his wife destroyed his model one night when he was asleep, thinking he ought to attend to his razors and suds, as the more profitable; how he told her to be off and sent her

F

adrift out of his house, for fear of a worse thing; probably giving her a licking first.

"Strutt, a neighbouring yeoman, found money for the first weaving mill: he was grandfather of the present Lord Belper. Carlyle had seen the mill-deserted and not at work then. Strutt showed the ability of a Frederick in ordering his men and economising their labour; his descendants immensely wealthy, worth millions . .

Anne Gilchrist, encouraged by her husband, began to ply her pen. "A Glance at the Vegetable Kingdom," a short paper printed in Chambers (1857), was soon followed by "Electricity," an essay which was accepted by the editor of Once a Week. She also wrote to Alexander's dictation, which together with housewifely duties fully occupied her time.

Mrs. Watson (Gillman's grand - daughter) spent many happy afternoons and evenings at Chelsea. Mrs. Gilchrist was one of those wonderful women one reads of, for she combined high intellectual attainments with careful attention to domestic duties. As a girl I used to be struck with the charm of her manner and conversation-the result of a cultivated mind and varied reading; her ready sympathy with the studies or occupations of others; and a persistent kindness in endeavours to be useful to her friends. I remember Mr. Gilchrist saying to me, "I can rarely persuade Annie to take a holiday or to go into society; "the wife's bright smile is before me as she replied, "Oh, yes! I do go out as much as I wish; but I do not need rest as some do; a change of work or occupation is rest for me."'

JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

67

On the 16th of January, 1859, Anne Gilchrist brought into the world her youngest child, Grace. The mother experienced a serious (though temporary) relapse, as we shall see from Jane Carlyle's letter :—

"DEAR MR. GILCHRIST: Your note has shocked and grieved us both extremely. We hadn't a notion of this! Every time I have sent to ask for your wife, the answer has been that she was doing nicely' or that she was 'better' or had had a better night,' except once, when Charlotte brought back word of her 'having been very poorly the day before, but that she had had a better night.'

"I trust in God you will soon be out of anxiety about her; nature doing for her restoration what the Drs. don't know to do!

"Meanwhile, depend on my taking all possible pains to keep things quiet. I have tied up our knocker, and the dog shall be carried out and in-Indeed it is only his master that has no authority over him to stop his barking. I had been fearing that he might annoy your wife; without knowing how ill she was, and have several times run down to pick him up-after the mischief was done-But he shall be carried quite out of the street.

"If I can be of the least use to you in any wayTaking charge of the children—when the servants are busy-going to shops-or anything-I should really take it kind of you to tell me. I have, you know, a great debt of gratitude to your poor wife for very much kindness and help to myself in sickness.

Yours very sincerely

JANE W. CARLYLE"

CHAPTER VII.

LETTER FROM JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

1859.-AGE 31.

Humber-Aberdour, Fife. Summer of 1859.

"M

Y DEAR MRS. GILCHRIST: I don't remember whether I engaged to write to you or not; but anyhow the spirit moves me to write--and exactly at the wrong moment! when I have the softest pen and the thickest ink that has fallen in my way since

I left home!

"I suppose you are long removed to your country quarters and have derived I hope, more benefit from the change' than I have done as yet. I suppose the dreadfully fatiguing journey knocked me up to such an extent, that it has taken all this time of pure air,' ' quiet' and C new milk and rum' to overcome the bad consequences. Certainly, between ourselves, I am not sensible of having gained an atom of strength, either bodily or mental, since I left Chelsea! And yet; what a difference between the dead-wall one looks out on in Cheyne Row, and the 'view' from our windows here, unsurpassed I am sure by the Bay of Naples or any other view on Earth! and between the exhalations