radical philosopher. Godwin's household was a strange one. There was
Fanny Imlay, a child born out of wedlock, the offspring of Gilbert
Imlay, an American merchant, and of Mary Wollstonecraft, whom Godwin had
subsequently married. There was also a singularly striking girl who
then styled herself Mary Jane Clairmont, and who was afterward known
as Claire Clairmont, she and her brother being the early children of
Godwin's second wife.
One day in 1814, Shelley called on Godwin, and found there a beautiful
young girl in her seventeenth year, "with shapely golden head, a
face very pale and pure, a great forehead, earnest hazel eyes, and an
expression at once of sensibility and firmness about her delicately
curved lips." This was Mary Godwin--one who had inherited her mother's
power of mind and likewise her grace and sweetness.
From the very moment of their meeting Shelley and this girl were fated
to be joined together, and both of them were well aware of it. Each felt
the other's presence exert a magnetic thrill. Each listened eagerly
to what the other said. Each thought of nothing, and each cared for
nothing, in the other's absence. It was a great compelling elemental
force which drove the two together and bound them fast. Beside this
marvelous experience, how pale and pitiful and paltry seemed the
affectations of Harriet Westbrook!
In little more than a month from the time of their first meeting,
Shelley and Mary Godwin and Miss Clairmont left Godwin's house at four
o 'clock in the morning, and hurried across the Channel to Calais. They
wandered almost like vagabonds across France, eating black bread and
the coarsest fare, walking on the highways when they could not afford to
ride, and putting up with every possible inconvenience. Yet it is worth
noting that neither then nor at any other time did either Shelley or
Mary regret what they had done. To the very end of the poet's brief
career they were inseparable.
Later he was able to pension Harriet, who, being of a morbid
disposition, ended her life by drowning--not, it may be said, because
of grief for Shelley. It has been told that Fanny Imlay, Mary's sister,
likewise committed suicide because Shelley did not care for her, but
this has also been disproved. There was really nothing to mar the inner
happiness of the poet and the woman who, at the very end, became his
wife. Living, as they did, in Italy and Switzerland, they saw much of
their own countrymen, such as Landor and Leigh Hunt and Byron, to whose
fascinations poor Miss Clairmont yielded, and became the mother of the
little girl Allegra.
But there could have been no truer union than this of Shelley's with
the woman whom nature had intended for him. It was in his love-life, far
more than in his poetry, that he attained completeness. When he died
by drowning, in 1822, and his body was burned in the presence of Lord
Byron, he was truly mourned by the one whom he had only lately made his
wife. As a poet he never reached the same perfection; for his genius was
fitful and uncertain, rare in its flights, and mingled always with that
which disappoints.
As the lover and husband of Mary Godwin, there was nothing left to wish.
In his verse, however, the truest word concerning him will always be
that exquisite sentence of Matthew Arnold:
"A beautiful and ineffectual angel beating his luminous wings against
the void in vain."
THE STORY OF THE CARLYLES
To most persons, Tennyson was a remote and romantic figure. His homes in
the Isle of Wight and at Aldworth had a dignified seclusion about them
which was very appropriate to so great a poet, and invested him with a
certain awe through which the multitude rarely penetrated. As a matter
of fact, however, he was an excellent companion, a ready talker, and
gifted with so much wit that it is a pity that more of his sayings have
not been preserved to us.
One of the best known is that which was drawn from him after he and a
number of friends had been spending an hour in company with Mr. and Mrs.
Carlyle. The two Carlyles were unfortunately at their worst, and gave a
superb specimen of domestic "nagging." Each caught up whatever the other
said, and either turned it into ridicule, or tried to make the author of
it an object of contempt.
This was, of course, exceedingly uncomfortable for such strangers as
were present, and it certainly gave no pleasure to their friends. On
leaving the house, some one said to Tennyson:
"Isn't it a pity that such a couple ever married?"
"No, no," said Tennyson, with a sort of smile under his rough beard.
"It's much better that two people should be made unhappy than four."
The world has pretty nearly come around to the verdict of the poet
laureate. It is not probable that Thomas Carlyle would have made any
woman happy as his wife, or that Jane Baillie Welsh would have made any
man happy as her husband.
This sort of speculation would never have occurred had not Mr. Froude,
in the early eighties, given his story about the Carlyles to the world.
Carlyle went to his grave, an old man, highly honored, and with no
trail of gossip behind him. His wife had died some sixteen years before,
leaving a brilliant memory. The books of Mr. Froude seemed for a moment
to have desecrated the grave, and to have shed a sudden and sinister
light upon those who could not make the least defense for themselves.
For a moment, Carlyle seemed to have been a monster of harshness,
cruelty, and almost brutish feeling. On the other side, his wife took
on the color of an evil-speaking, evil-thinking shrew, who tormented the
life of her husband, and allowed herself to be possessed by some demon
of unrest and discontent, such as few women of her station are ever
known to suffer from.
Nor was it merely that the two were apparently ill-mated and unhappy
with each other. There were hints and innuendos which looked toward some
hidden cause for this unhappiness, and which aroused the curiosity of
every one. That they might be clearer, Froude afterward wrote a book,
bringing out more plainly--indeed, too plainly--his explanation of the
Carlyle family skeleton. A multitude of documents then came from every
quarter, and from almost every one who had known either of the Carlyles.
Perhaps the result to-day has been more injurious to Froude than to the
two Carlyles.
Many persons unjustly speak of Froude as having violated the confidence
of his friends in publishing the letters of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. They
take no heed of the fact that in doing this he was obeying Carlyle's
express wishes, left behind in writing, and often urged on Froude while
Carlyle was still alive. Whether or not Froude ought to have accepted
such a trust, one may perhaps hesitate to decide. That he did so is
probably because he felt that if he refused, Carlyle might commit the
same duty to another, who would discharge it with less delicacy and less
discretion.
As it is, the blame, if it rests upon any one, should rest upon Carlyle.
He collected the letters. He wrote the lines which burn and scorch with
self-reproach. It is he who pressed upon the reluctant Froude the duty
of printing and publishing a series of documents which, for the most
part, should never have been published at all, and which have done equal
harm to Carlyle, to his wife, and to Froude himself.
Now that everything has been written that is likely to be written by
those claiming to possess personal knowledge of the subject, let us
take up the volumes, and likewise the scattered fragments, and seek to
penetrate the mystery of the most ill-assorted couple known to modern
literature.
It is not necessary to bring to light, and in regular order, the
external history of Thomas Carlyle, or of Jane Baillie Welsh, who
married him. There is an extraordinary amount of rather fanciful gossip
about this marriage, and about the three persons who had to do with it.
Take first the principal figure, Thomas Carlyle. His life until that
time had been a good deal more than the life of an ordinary country-man.
Many persons represent him as a peasant; but he was descended from the
ancient lords of a Scottish manor. There was something in his eye, and
in the dominance of his nature, that made his lordly nature felt. Mr.
Froude notes that Carlyle's hand was very small and unusually well
shaped. Nor had his earliest appearance as a young man been commonplace,
in spite of the fact that his parents were illiterate, so that his
mother learned to read only after her sons had gone away to Edinburgh,
in order that she might be able to enjoy their letters.
At that time in Scotland, as in Puritan New England, in each family the
son who had the most notable "pairts" was sent to the university that
he might become a clergyman. If there were a second son, he became an
advocate or a doctor of medicine, while the sons of less distinction
seldom went beyond the parish school, but settled down as farmers,
horse-dealers, or whatever might happen to come their way.
In the case of Thomas Carlyle, nature marked him out for something
brilliant, whatever that might be. His quick sensibility, the way in
which he acquired every sort of learning, his command of logic, and,
withal, his swift, unerring gift of language, made it certain from the
very first that he must be sent to the university as soon as he had
finished school, and could afford to go.
At Edinburgh, where he matriculated in his fourteenth year, he
astonished every one by the enormous extent of his reading, and by
the firm hold he kept upon it. One hesitates to credit these so-called
reminiscences which tell how he absorbed mountains of Greek and immense
quantities of political economy and history and sociology and various
forms of metaphysics, as every Scotsman is bound to do. That he read all
night is a common story told of many a Scottish lad at college. We may
believe, however, that Carlyle studied and read as most of his fellow
students did, but far beyond them, in extent.
When he had completed about half of his divinity course, he assured
himself that he was not intended for the life of a clergyman. One who
reads his mocking sayings, or what seemed to be a clever string of jeers
directed against religion, might well think that Carlyle was throughout
his life an atheist, or an agnostic. He confessed to Irving that he did
not believe in the Christian religion, and it was vain to hope that he
ever would so believe.
Moreover, Carlyle had done something which was unusual at that time.
He had taught in several local schools; but presently he came back to
Edinburgh and openly made literature his profession. It was a daring
thing to do; but Carlyle had unbounded confidence in himself--the
confidence of a giant, striding forth into a forest, certain that he can
make his way by sheer strength through the tangled meshes and the
knotty branches that he knows will meet him and try to beat him back.
Furthermore, he knew how to live on very little; he was unmarried; and
he felt a certain ardor which beseemed his age and gifts.
Through the kindness of friends, he received some commissions to write
in various books of reference; and in 1824, when he was twenty-nine
years of age, he published a translation of Legendre's Geometry. In the
same year he published, in the London Magazine, his Life of Schiller,
and also his translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. This successful
attack upon the London periodicals and reviews led to a certain
complication with the other two characters in this story. It takes us to
Jane Welsh, and also to Edward Irving.
Irving was three years older than Carlyle. The two men were friends, and
both of them had been teaching in country schools, where both of them
had come to know Miss Welsh. Irving's seniority gave him a certain
prestige with the younger men, and naturally with Miss Welsh. He had
won honors at the university, and now, as assistant to the famous Dr.
Chalmers, he carried his silk robes in the jaunty fashion of one who has
just ceased to be an undergraduate. While studying, he met Miss Welsh at
Haddington, and there became her private instructor.
This girl was regarded in her native town as something of a personage.
To read what has been written of her, one might suppose that she was
almost a miracle of birth and breeding, and of intellect as well. As a
matter of fact, in the little town of Haddington she was simply prima
inter pares. Her father was the local doctor, and while she had a
comfortable home, and doubtless a chaise at her disposal, she was
very far from the "opulence" which Carlyle, looking up at her from his
lowlier surroundings, was accustomed to ascribe to her. She was, no
doubt, a very clever girl; and, judging from the portraits taken of her
at about this time, she was an exceedingly pretty one, with beautiful
eyes and an abundance of dark glossy hair.
Even then, however, Miss Welsh had traits which might have made it
certain that she would be much more agreeable as a friend than as a
wife. She had become an intellectuelle quite prematurely--at an age, in
fact, when she might better have been thinking of other things than the
inwardness of her soul, or the folly of religious belief.
Even as a young girl, she was beset by a desire to criticize and to
ridicule almost everything and every one that she encountered. It was
only when she met with something that she could not understand, or
some one who could do what she could not, that she became comparatively
humble. Unconsciously, her chief ambition was to be herself
distinguished, and to marry some one who could be more distinguished
still.
When she first met Edward Irving, she looked up to him as her superior
in many ways. He was a striking figure in her small world. He was known
in Edinburgh as likely to be a man of mark; and, of course, he had had
a careful training in many subjects of which she, as yet, knew very
little. Therefore, insensibly, she fell into a sort of admiration
for Irving--an admiration which might have been transmuted into love.
Irving, on his side, was taken by the young girl's beauty, her vivacity,
and the keenness of her intellect. That he did not at once become her
suitor is probably due to the fact that he had already engaged himself
to a Miss Martin, of whom not much is known.
It was about this time, however, that Carlyle became acquainted with
Miss Welsh. His abundant knowledge, his original and striking manner of
commenting on it, his almost gigantic intellectual power, came to her
as a revelation. Her studies with Irving were now interwoven with her
admiration for Carlyle.
Since Irving was a clergyman, and Miss Welsh had not the slightest
belief in any form of theology, there was comparatively little that
they had in common. On the other hand, when she saw the profundities of
Carlyle, she at once half feared, and was half fascinated. Let her speak
to him on any subject, and he would at once thunder forth some striking
truth, or it might be some puzzling paradox; but what he said could
never fail to interest her and to make her think. He had, too, an
infinite sense of humor, often whimsical and shot through with sarcasm.
It is no wonder that Miss Welsh was more and more infatuated with the
nature of Carlyle. If it was her conscious wish to marry a man whom she
could reverence as a master, where should she find him--in Irving or in
Carlyle?
Irving was a dreamer, a man who, she came to see, was thoroughly
one-sided, and whose interests lay in a different sphere from hers.
Carlyle, on the other hand, had already reached out beyond the little
Scottish capital, and had made his mark in the great world of London,
where men like De Quincey and Jeffrey thought it worth their while to
run a tilt with him. Then, too, there was the fascination of his talk,
in which Jane Welsh found a perpetual source of interest:
The English have never had an artist, except in poetry; no musician; no
painter. Purcell and Hogarth are not exceptions, or only such as confirm
the rule.
Is the true Scotchman the peasant and yeoman--chiefly the former?
Every living man is a visible mystery; he walks between two eternities
and two infinitudes. Were we not blind as molea we should value
our humanity at infinity, and our rank, influence and so forth--the
trappings of our humanity--at nothing. Say I am a man, and you say all.
Whether king or tinker is a mere appendix.
Understanding is to reason as the talent of a beaver--which can build
houses, and uses its tail for a trowel--to the genius of a prophet and
poet. Reason is all but extinct in this age; it can never be altogether
extinguished.
The devil has his elect.
Is anything more wonderful than another, if you consider it maturely?
I have seen no men rise from the dead; I have seen some thousands rise
from nothing. I have not force to fly into the sun, but I have force to
lift my hand, which is equally strange.
Is not every thought properly an inspiration? Or how is one thing more
inspired than another?
Examine by logic the import of thy life, and of all lives. What is it?
A making of meal into manure, and of manure into meal. To the cui bono
there is no answer from logic.
In many ways Jane Welsh found the difference of range between Carlyle
and Irving. At one time, she asked Irving about some German works, and
he was obliged to send her to Carlyle to solve her difficulties. Carlyle
knew German almost as well as if he had been born in Dresden; and
the full and almost overflowing way in which he answered her gave her
another impression of his potency. Thus she weighed the two men who
might become her lovers, and little by little she came to think of
Irving as partly shallow and partly narrow-minded, while Carlyle loomed
up more of a giant than before.
It is not probable that she was a woman who could love profoundly.
She thought too much about herself. She was too critical. She had too
intense an ambition for "showing off." I can imagine that in the end
she made her choice quite coolly. She was flattered by Carlyle's strong
preference for her. She was perhaps repelled by Irving's engagement to
another woman; yet at the time few persons thought that she had chosen
well.
Irving had now gone to London, and had become the pastor of the
Caledonian chapel in Hatton Garden. Within a year, by the extraordinary
power of his eloquence, which, was in a style peculiar to himself, he
had transformed an obscure little chapel into one which was crowded
by the rich and fashionable. His congregation built for him a handsome
edifice on Regent Square, and he became the leader of a new cult, which
looked to a second personal advent of Christ. He cared nothing for
the charges of heresy which were brought against him; and when he was
deposed his congregation followed him, and developed a new Christian
order, known as Irvingism.
Jane Welsh, in her musings, might rightfully have compared the two men
and the future which each could give her. Did she marry Irving, she was
certain of a life of ease in London, and an association with men and
women of fashion and celebrity, among whom she could show herself to be
the gifted woman that she was. Did she marry Carlyle, she must go with
him to a desolate, wind-beaten cottage, far away from any of the things
she cared for, working almost as a housemaid, having no company save
that of her husband, who was already a dyspeptic, and who was wont to
speak of feeling as if a rat were tearing out his stomach.
Who would have said that in going with Carlyle she had made the better
choice? Any one would have said it who knew the three--Irving, Carlyle,
and Jane Welsh.
She had the penetration to be certain that whatever Irving might possess
at present, it would be nothing in comparison to what Carlyle would have
in the coming future. She understood the limitations of Irving, but to
her keen mind the genius of Carlyle was unlimited; and she foresaw that,
after he had toiled and striven, he would come into his great reward,
which she would share. Irving might be the leader of a petty sect,
but Carlyle would be a man whose name must become known throughout the
world.
And so, in 1826, she had made her choice, and had become the bride of
the rough-spoken, domineering Scotsman who had to face the world with
nothing but his creative brain and his stubborn independence. She had
put aside all immediate thought of London and its lures; she was going
to cast in her lot with Carlyle's, largely as a matter of calculation,
and believing that she had made the better choice.
She was twenty-six and Carlyle was thirty-two when, after a brief
residence in Edinburgh, they went down to Craigenputtock. Froude has
described this place as the dreariest spot in the British dominions:
The nearest cottage is more than a mile from it; the elevation, seven
hundred feet above the sea, stunts the trees and limits the garden
produce; the house is gaunt and hungry-looking. It stands, with the
scanty fields attached, as an island in a sea of morass. The landscape
is unredeemed by grace or grandeur--mere undulating hills of grass and
heather, with peat bogs in the hollows between them.
Froude's grim description has been questioned by some; yet the actual
pictures that have been drawn of the place in later years make it
look bare, desolate, and uninviting. Mrs. Carlyle, who owned it as an
inheritance from her father, saw the place for the first time in March,
1828. She settled there in May; but May, in the Scottish hills, is
almost as repellent as winter. She herself shrank from the adventure
which she had proposed. It was her husband's notion, and her own, that
they should live there in practical solitude. He was to think and write,
and make for himself a beginning of real fame; while she was to hover
over him and watch his minor comforts.
It seemed to many of their friends that the project was quixotic to a
degree. Mrs. Carlyle delicate health, her weak chest, and the beginning
of a nervous disorder, made them think that she was unfit to dwell in
so wild and bleak a solitude. They felt, too, that Carlyle was too
much absorbed with his own thought to be trusted with the charge of a
high-spirited woman.
However, the decision had been made, and the newly married couple went
to Craigenputtock, with wagons that carried their household goods and
those of Carlyle's brother, Alexander, who lived in a cottage near by.
These were the two redeeming features of their lonely home--the presence
of Alexander Carlyle, and the fact that, although they had no servants
in the ordinary sense, there were several farmhands and a dairy-maid.
Before long there came a period of trouble, which is easily explained
by what has been already said. Carlyle, thinking and writing some of
the most beautiful things that he ever thought or wrote, could not make
allowance for his wife's high spirit and physical weakness. She, on her
side--nervous, fitful, and hard to please--thought herself a slave,
the servant of a harsh and brutal master. She screamed at him when her
nerves were too unstrung; and then, with a natural reaction, she called
herself "a devil who could never be good enough for him." But most of
her letters were harsh and filled with bitterness, and, no doubt, his
conduct to her was at times no better than her own.
But it was at Craigenputtock that he really did lay fast and firm the
road to fame. His wife's sharp tongue, and the gnawings of his own
dyspepsia, were lived down with true Scottish grimness. It was here that
he wrote some of his most penetrating and sympathetic essays, which were
published by the leading reviews of England and Scotland. Here, too, he
began to teach his countrymen the value of German literature.
The most remarkable of his productions was that strange work entitled
Sartor Resartus (1834), an extraordinary mixture of the sublime and the
grotesque. The book quivers and shakes with tragic pathos, with inward
agonies, with solemn aspirations, and with riotous humor.