[-45-]
CHAPTER V
CARLYLE'S HOUSE
(1895)
THE Centenary of Thomas Carlyle was appropriately celebrated,
both in London and at Ecclefechan, December 5th, a final disposition of the
historic house in Cheyne Row having been made at that time. It had been
purchased and turned over to the Trustees, Americans, as is usual in such cases,
being liberal subscribers to the fund. It has always been somewhat difficult to
comprehend the American worship of Carlyle. He had no great love for us, and
seldom let an opportunity pass to show his dislike. There are many well
authenticated stories of his incivility toward citizens of the republic, a
goodly number of whom no doubt intruded unjustifiably upon his privacy, but he
was somewhat too impartial in his attitude, rebuffing those who brought to him
letters that should have commanded his toleration, had he not been remarkably
deficient in this quality. A little more than $8,000 was paid for the house, a
very plain, old-fashioned London residence of three stories, and rather dismal
within and without. The numbers of the houses in Cheyne Row have been changed
since the death of Carlyle, but, as is the London custom under such
circumstances, instead of obliterating the historic "No. 5," a black
line has been simply painted across the numeral. A medallion - a rather
imperfect bas-relief - has been set in the wall, and any fine day during the
tourist season a crowd of adoring Americans can be seen standing in front of it,
paying silent [-46-] homage to the memory of
Carlyle, a very small proportion of whom, it probably would be found, really
knew much of the man or of his works. At Ecclefechan, on the anniversary, the
school children had had a holiday; there was a gathering of the survivors of the
Carlyle family and a wreath of immortelles was placed upon the grave by Mr. John
Carlyle, a farmer now living at Langholm. It was supposed that the wreath was
the gift of the Emperor of Germany, as a tribute to the biographer of his great
ancestor. In London a meeting was held in the Southwest Polytechnic Institute,
Chelsea, at which Mr. John Morley presided. His speech, which was brilliant and
able, was strikingly characteristic-an example of plain-speaking of especial
value in an age prone to superlatives. He warmly commended the custom, rapidly
growing in London, of distinguishing houses that had been occupied by great men
and women with commemorative tablets, such as had been placed upon the house
where Carlyle once lived, and he pronounced Carlyle the foremost figure of his
time in English literature, although he objected to the title that had been
given him- "The Sage of Chelsea." "Sage" was a term which
might be truthfully accorded Goethe, Emerson, or Wordsworth, but Carlyle, he
said, was far too tempestuous a spirit to justify such a title. He might be
considered rightfully enough a poet, an artist, a prophet or a preacher; but not
a sage. Contrasting him with Emerson and Wordsworth, the speaker said: "Far
from him was their radiant sanity and their serene humanity."
Touching upon Carlyle's domestic life, which had been so
widely and so minutely criticized, he thought that point had been well dealt
with by his distinguished friend, Frederick Harrison. He had put one aspect of
it in exactly the right way when he had said that everything that had happened
in the little house, so far as the past was [-47-] concerned,
should be regarded as something that had happened in Brobdingnag, and that we
should resort to the scale of Brobdingnag in order to form a moral judgment.
There was a giant living in it; husband and wife railed at each other like a
giant and giantess in a fairy tale; the cocks and hens, of which readers knew so
much, were as large as ostriches and screamed and crowed with the power of a
steam whistle, and the smallest creature in the bed was as big as a hedge-hog.
Mr. Harrison could not have put the aspect of that case more truly; but it was
to be remembered that when we were estranged and alienated for the moment by
these so-called revelations, we were dealing with a man and also with a woman
who were not ordinary persons, who used very strenuous language, and experienced
very profound emotions on what most people would have considered ordinary
occasions calling for no display. That Carlyle was not a patient man and thought
ill of his age and considered many of his contemporaries-even eminent
contemporaries-really poor creatures, were things that we all knew. He said that
Carlyle did not resemble Emerson, and upon the particular points raised by the
biographers it would no doubt have been better had he taken a piece of advice
which Emerson gave, and for which all people would be better if they followed:
that "one topic is peremptorily forbidden to all rational mortals; namely,
their distempers."
Of his inconsistent attitude on the question of slavery. Mr.
Morley admitted that Carlyle was no doubt to some extent against human reason,
and, he was sorry to say, in the most vital historic case of his generation,
unfortunately against human freedom; and these, no doubt, were serious flaws.
But he counseled his hearers not to be overcome by them. It had been his good
fortune to visit the illustrious man from time to time in his little home, and
he saw around him those who had shared that priv-[-48-]ilege,
who, he knew, would agree that no more courteous, cheery, considerate and
encouraging friend and counselor could be desired for any young man coming to
London and trying his literary fortune. He railed and cursed, denouncing many
things that he, the speaker, still permitted himself to value. He systematically
denounced logic, and particularly reviled political economy, which in that day
had not yet been banished to a remote planet. He was very anxious always that
one should on no account do two things, and often repeated it; on no account
should one write poetry and on no account aspire to any performance in the
direction of what he called "London wit."
In his conclusion the speaker thus referred to Carlyle's
contempt for science:
"Carlyle," he said, "flung himself across many
of the elements that push society forward, but against science he was more
resolutely antagonistic than almost any other force of his time. If he had said
that natural science and the discoveries of natural science did not cover the
whole field of human life, and that wisdom in those things is a very poor
substitute for moral wisdom, of course nobody would have been able to gainsay
him; but he was contemptuous - almost maniacally contemptuous - of the
speculations and work of that great man of science-so modest, so patient, so
untiring, so serene, who from his quiet hill-top in Kent shook the whole world
of European thought. Well as had been said by Mr. Arthur Balfour, it is now a
matter of common knowledge, belief and conviction - the common property of all
educated men - to look upon the material world in which we live from an
evolutionary standpoint - and perhaps the same standpoint was applicable to
phenomena not material, but to some moral and social phenomena.
In his summing up, however, notwithstanding these courageous
criticisms, Mr. Morley delivered an eloquent [-49-] eulogy
upon Carlyle, whom he believed to be "a mighty genius," "a power
for regeneration in character building," a seeker for that truth which he
discerned as the real force in great events and movements.
It was one more evidence of the irony of destiny that that
privacy and seclusion which was as the breath of life to the crabbed Scotchman
should have been at last invaded; and that the house from which the intruding
Philistine was so resolutely barred during his life-time should have been
converted into a museum which any one of decent manners and appearance might
visit upon payment of a shilling at the door.
The collection of relics shown was pitifully small. When I
went to look Through the house there were not more than half a dozen other
visitors present. Two of these had arrived in a splendid carriage, with
prancing, sleek-coated horses, and with groom and coachman in spick and span
livery on the box; the whole equipage was a glaring contrast to the dingy,
humble little house before whose door it was drawn up. Most of the visitors
walked about nonchalantly, fingering the weather-beaten old bath-tub and the few
other utensils and furniture upon which they could put the finger of
investigation; peeping into closets and making observations in no very reverent
spirit. The few articles of apparel shown, an old silk hat of prodigious size
among them, were pathetic evidences, if not of poverty, at least of that regard
for humble things which Carlyle inherited and which he never lost. The bare,
wooden floors were rough and uneven; the little window of the dining-room looked
out upon a tiny garden with its gravelled walk and the tree under which Carlyle
sat and read in his long, loose dressing gown with his pet cat by his side. A
photograph representing him thus was one of the most interesting of the
collection of likenesses, which included several pencil sketches and portraits
in [-50-] oil. The desk upon which most of his
books had been written stood in one corner of the dismantled drawing- room. It
was a plain, deal desk, stained and varnished, with a sloping lid. Along the
front was a brass plate with this inscription, an extract from Carlyle's will:
"And hereby give and bequeath the same writing table to
the said Sir James Fitz James Stephen. I know that he will accept it as a
distinguished mark of my esteem. He knows that it belonged to my honored
father-in-law, and his daughter, and that I have written all my books upon it,
except only Schiller, and that for fifty years and upward that are now passed I
have considered it among the most precious of my possessions."
The desk was lent by Lady Fitz James Stephen, to whom it
belongs, and was placed originally in the drawing-room when the Carlyles moved
to No. 5 (now No. 24) Cheyne Row, in 1834. In 1854 when Carlyle began his
"Frederick" it was removed to the famous sound-proof room at the top
of the house, where it remained until 1865, when it was returned to its old
place in the drawing-room, where it was kept during Carlyle's lifetime.
An interesting picture of the drawing-room on the ground
floor, "A Chelsea Interior in 1858," is now the property of Louisa,
Lady Ashburton, by whom it was loaned; Carlyle stands by the fire in his
dressing-gown smoking, while Mrs. Carlyle sits by the table, her little white
dog sleeping on the sofa. The floor is covered with a brilliant red and green
carpet, and while the furnishings would hardly accord with modern ideas, the
room had an air of cheerfulness and comfort which did great credit to Mrs.
Carlyle's thrifty house-keeping. There were many portraits of Mrs. Carlyle - one
as a young girl, a bright piquant face; the others, while retaining the youthful
brilliancy of expression, were remarkable for the irregularity of features, the
face as a type resembling the por-[-51-]traits of
Goldsmith. In a corner of the dining-room was the death-mask of Carlyle under
glass, the rigid face wearing an added sternness-the grim severity of the dead.
On the wall near it were two pencil sketches which were most pathetic, having a
profound mournfulness of expression ~h'ich was not apparent in the plaster.
These were made two hours after the death by Miss Allingham, to whom they still
belong; the originals from which the familiar prints have been reproduced. There
were remarkably few manuscripts and letters. One letter was addressed to some
public official and was a frank reminder that governments should honor
intellect, to which they owed their existence. In a frayed note-book, written
very indistinctly in lead pencil, was a tribute, evidently addressed to his dead
wife, and it ended thus:
"Oh, my love, where - where ?"
It was painful to have this expression of grief and regret
eyed and commented upon by the curious, who had paid their shilling, and who
came and went with the indifference of gratified curiosity. Among the books, of
which there was only a small collection, was a set of the first edition of
"Frederick the Great." In a glass case in the study - the
"sound-proof room," which was reached by a steep and narrow stair-case
- were several long stemmed clay pipes, such as Carlyle habitually used. Here
also was a very small fragment of the manuscript of the "French
Revolution," all that remains - with half a dozen closely written pages of
"Sartor Resartus," and a number of medals and seals and congratulatory
addresses of various kinds. The study had been built at a cost of £200, but it
seems strange that one could imagine any contrivance could be invented within
the thin walls of an ordinary house, that would shut out the eternal roar of
London, which is never hushed, even at night. The ceaseless roll of traffic
along the Chelsea embankment, and the [-52-] strident
cries of the costermonger in the adjacent streets could be heard distinctly. The
study was lighted by a skylight, and a front window in a recess had been cut off
by a door; otherwise it was an ordinary garret chamber. As I came away I walked
to the foot of the street, across the pretty "Carlyle Gardens," and
paused a moment to look at the fine bronze statue that had been placed there in
the midst of grass and shrubbery. It represents Carlyle sitting, clad in the
ample dressing-gown of the portrait, which had adapted itself more kindly to the
demands of plastic art than the conventional frock coat and trousers, that may
well be the despair of modern sculptors. The face was exquisitely fine and the
folded hands, long, thin and delicate, were beautiful and expressive. A wreath
of palms and immortelles, which had been placed there by the Carlyle society the
day previous, adorned the granite base. Within four months the house had been
visited by more than seventeen hundred people from all parts of the world. Why
Carlyle should have been held in such reverent memory passes comprehension, for
no man ever lived who had greater and more out-spoken contempt for the race-
most of them fools, according ·to his own estimation. Had he been a genial
optimist, with a kindly regard for mankind, he would not have been half so
highly esteemed, nor so reverently remembered.