CRAIGENPUTTOCK--LITERARY EFFORTS
Carlyle was feeling the force of Scott's remark that literature was a
bad crutch--his prospects being far from bright. The Carlyles had been a
little over eighteen months at Comely Bank, when their extensive circle
of friends were surprised to hear of their intended withdrawal to
Craigenputtock. Efforts were made to dissuade Carlyle from pursuing what
at the time appeared a suicidal course. He was the intimate associate of
the brilliant Jeffrey; he was within the charmed circle of Edinburgh
Reviewers; he had laid the foundation of a literary reputation.
Outwardly all seemed well with Carlyle; but 'the step,' himself says,
'had been well meditated, saw itself to be founded on irrefragable
considerations of health, _finance_, &c., &c., unknown to bystanders,
and could not be forborne or altered.' Next to his marriage with Miss
Welsh, Carlyle's retirement to the howling wilds of Craigenputtock at
that juncture was the most momentous step in his long life. He was
conscious of his own powers, and he clearly discerned how those powers
could best be utilised and developed. Hence his determination to bid
adieu to Edinburgh. And in that resolve he was fortified by the loyal
support of his wife.
Jeffrey promised to visit the Carlyles at Craigenputtock as soon as they
got settled. Meanwhile, they stayed a week at his own house in Moray
Place, after their furniture was on the road, and they were waiting till
it should arrive and 'render a new home possible amid the moors and the
mountains.' 'Of our history at Craigenputtock,' says Carlyle, 'there
might a great deal be written which might amuse the curious; for it was
in fact a very singular scene and arena for such a pair as my Darling
and me, with such a Life ahead.... It is a History I by no means intend
to write, with such or with any object. To me there is a _sacredness_ of
interest in it consistent only with _silence_. It was the field of
endless nobleness and beautiful talent and virtue in Her who is now
gone; also of good industry, and many loving and blessed thoughts in
myself, while living there by her side. Poverty and mean Obstruction had
given origin to it, and continued to preside over it, but were
transformed by human valour of various sorts into a kind of victory and
royalty: something of high and great dwelt in it, though nothing could
be smaller and lower than very many of the details.'[7]
The Jeffreys were not slow in appearing at Craigenputtock. Their 'big
Carriage,' narrates the humorous host, 'climbed our rugged Hill-roads,
landed the Three Guests--young Charlotte ("Sharlie"), with Pa and
Ma--and the clever old Valet maid that waited on them; ... but I
remember nothing so well as the consummate art with which my Dear One
played the domestic field-marshal, and spread out our exiguous
resources, without fuss or bustle; to cover everything with a coat of
hospitality and even elegance and abundance. I have been in houses ten
times, nay, a hundred times, as rich, where things went not so well.
Though never bred to this, but brought up in opulent plenty by a mother
that could bear no partnership in housekeeping, she, finding it become
necessary, loyally applied herself to it, and soon surpassed in it all
the women I have ever seen.'[8] Of Mrs Carlyle's frankness her husband
gives this amusing glimpse: 'One day at dinner, I remember, Jeffrey
admired the fritters or bits of pancake he was eating, and she let him
know, not without some vestige of shock to him, that she had made them.
"What, you! twirl up the frying-pan, and catch them in the air?" Even
so, my high friend, and you may turn it over in your mind!' When the
Jeffreys were leaving, 'I remarked,' says Carlyle, that they 'carried
off our little temporary paradise; ... to which bit of pathos Jeffrey
answered by a friendly little sniff of quasi-mockery or laughter
through the nose, and rolled prosperously away.'
The Carlyles in course of time visited the Jeffreys at Craigcrook, the
last occasion being for about a fortnight. Carlyle says it was 'a
shining sort of affair, but did not in effect accomplish much for any of
us. Perhaps, for one thing, we stayed too long, Jeffrey was beginning to
be seriously incommoded in health, had bad sleep, cared not how late he
sat, and we had now more than ever a series of sharp fencing bouts,
night after night, which could decide nothing for either of us, except
our radical incompatibility in respect of World Theory, and the
incurable divergence of our opinions on the most important matters. "You
are so dreadfully in earnest!" said he to me once or oftener. Besides, I
own now I was deficient in reverence to him, and had not then, nor,
alas! have ever acquired, in my solitary and mostly silent existence,
the art of gently saying strong things, or of insinuating my dissent,
instead of uttering it right out at the risk of offence or otherwise.'
Then he adds: 'These "stormy sittings," as Mrs Jeffrey laughingly called
them, did not improve our relation to one another. But these were the
last we had of that nature. In other respects Edinburgh had been barren;
effulgences of "Edinburgh Society," big dinners, parties, we in due
measure had; but nothing there was very interesting either to _Her_ or
to me, and all of it passed away as an obliging pageant merely. Well do
I remember our return to Craigenputtock, after nightfall, amid the
clammy yellow leaves and desolate rains with the clink of Alick's stithy
alone audible of human.'[9]
It was during his first two years' residence at Craigenputtock that
Carlyle wrote his famous essay on Burns; but his principal work was upon
German literature, especially upon Goethe. His magazine writings being
his only means of support, and as he devoted much time to them, it is
not surprising that financial matters worried him. About this time
Jeffrey, to whom doubtless he confided his trouble, generously offered
to confer upon him an annuity of L100, which Carlyle declined to accept.
Jeffrey repeated the offer on two subsequent occasions, with a like
result. Carlyle in his _Reminiscences_ says that he could not doubt but
Jeffrey had intended an act of real generosity; and yet Carlyle penned
the ungracious remark, that 'perhaps there was something in the manner
of it that savoured of consciousness and of screwing one's self up to
the point; less of god-like pity for a fine fellow and his struggles,
than of human determination to do a fine action of one's own, which
might add to the promptitude of my refusal.' It is not surprising,
therefore, to find Carlyle suspecting that Jeffrey's feelings were
cooling towards him. Jeffrey had powers of penetration as well as the
friend whom he was anxious to assist.
By the month of February 1831, Carlyle's finances fell so low that he
had only L5 in his possession, and expected no more for months. Then he
borrowed L100 from Jeffrey, as his 'pitiful bits of periodical
literature incomings,' as he puts it, 'having gone awry (as they were
liable to do), but was able, I still remember with what satisfaction, to
repay punctually within a few weeks'; adding, 'and this was all of
pecuniary chivalry _we_ two ever had between us.' The chivalry was all
on the one side--of Jeffrey. The outcome of his labours at
Craigenputtock, in addition to the fragmentary articles already referred
to, was the essays which form the first three volumes of the
'Miscellanies.' They appeared chiefly in the _Edinburgh Review_, the
_Foreign Review_, and _Fraser's Magazine_. Jeffrey's resignation of the
editorship of the 'Review' was a great disappointment to Carlyle,
because it stopped a regular source of income.
German literature, of which Carlyle had begun a history, not being a
'marketable commodity,' he cut it up into articles. 'My last
considerable bit of _Writing_ at Craigenputtock,' says Carlyle, 'was
"Sartor Resartus"; done, I think, between January and August 1830; (my
sister Margaret had died while it was going on). I well remember where
and how (at Templand one morning) the _germ_ of it rose above ground.
"Nine months," I used to say, "it had cost me in writing." Had the
perpetual fluctuation, the uncertainty and unintelligible whimsicality
of Review Editors not proved so intolerable, we might have lingered
longer at Craigenputtock, perfectly left alone, and able to do _more_
work, beyond doubt, than elsewhere. But a Book did seem to promise some
_respite_ from that, and perhaps further advantages. Teufelsdroeckh was
ready; and (first days of August) I decided to make for London. Night
before going, how I still remember it! I was lying on my back on the
sofa in the drawing-room; she sitting by the table (late at night,
packing all done, I suppose); her words had a guise of sport, but were
profoundly plaintive in meaning. "About to part, who knows for how long;
and what may have come in the interim!" this was her thought, and she
was evidently much out of spirits. "Courage, Dearie, only for a month!"
I would say to her in some form or other. I went next morning
early.'[10]
Jeffrey, who was by that time Lord Advocate, Carlyle found much
preoccupied in London, but willing to assist him with Murray, the
bookseller. Jeffrey, with his wife and daughter, lived in Jermyn Street
in lodgings, 'in melancholy contrast to the beautiful tenements and
perfect equipments they had left in the north.' 'If,' says Carlyle, 'I
called in the morning, in quest perhaps of Letters (though I don't
recollect much troubling _him_ in that way), I would find the family
still at breakfast, ten A.M. or later; and have seen poor Jeffrey
emerge in flowered dressing-gown, with a most boiled and suffering
expression of face, like one who had slept miserably, and now awoke
mainly to paltry misery and bother; poor Official man! "I am made a mere
Post-Office of!" I heard him once grumble, after tearing open several
Packets, not one of which was internally for himself.'[11]
Mrs Carlyle joined her husband on the 1st of October 1831, and they took
lodgings at 4 Ampton Street, Gray's Inn Lane, with a family of the name
of Miles, belonging to Irving's congregation. Jeffrey was a frequent
visitor there, and sometimes the Carlyles called at Jermyn Street.
Carlyle says that they were at first rather surprised that Jeffrey did
not introduce him to some of his 'grand literary figures,' or try in
some way to be of help to one for whom he evidently had a value. The
explanation, Carlyle thinks, was that he himself 'expressed no trace of
aspiration that way'; that Jeffrey's 'grand literary or other figures'
were clearly by no means 'so adorable to the rustic hopelessly
Germanised soul as an introducer of one might have wished.' Besides,
Jeffrey was so 'heartily miserable,' as to think Carlyle and his other
fellow-creatures happy in comparison, and to have no care left to bestow
upon them.
Here is a characteristic outburst in the 'Reminiscences': 'The beggarly
history of poor "Sartor" _among the blockheadisms_ is not worth my
recording or remembering--least of all here! In short, finding that
whereas I had got L100 (if memory serve) for "Schiller" six or seven
years before, and for "Sartor," at least _thrice_ as good, I could not
only _not_ get L200, but even get no Murray, or the like, to publish it
on half-profits (Murray, a most stupendous object to me; tumbling about,
eyeless, with the evidently strong wish to say "yes and no"; my first
signal experience of that sad human predicament); I said, "We will make
it No, then; wrap up our MS.; wait till this Reform Bill uproar
abate."'[12]
On Tuesday, January 26th, 1832, Carlyle received tidings of the death of
his father. He departed on the Sunday morning previous 'almost without a
struggle,' wrote his favourite sister Jane. It was a heavy stroke for
Carlyle. 'Natural tears,' he exclaimed shortly afterwards, 'have come to
my relief. I can look at my dear Father, and that section of the Past
which he has made alive for me, in a certain sacred, sanctified light,
and give way to what thoughts rise in me without feeling that they are
weak and useless.' Carlyle determined that the time till the funeral was
past (Friday) should be spent with his wife only. All others were
excluded. He walked 'far and much,' chiefly in the Regent's Park, and
considered about many things, his object being to see clearly what his
calamity meant--what he lost, and what lesson that loss was to teach
him. Carlyle considered his father as one of the most interesting men he
had known. 'Were you to ask me,' he said, 'which had the greater natural
faculty,' Robert Burns or my father, 'I might, perhaps, actually pause
before replying. Burns had an infinitely wider Education, my Father a
far wholesomer. Besides, the one was a man of Musical Utterance; the
other wholly a man of Action, even with Speech subservient thereto.
Never, of all the men I have seen, has one come personally in my way in
whom the endowment from Nature and the Arena from Fortune were so
utterly out of all proportion. I have said this often, and partly _know_
it. As a man of Speculation--had Culture ever unfolded him--he must have
gone wild and desperate as Burns; but he was a man of Conduct, and Work
keeps all right. What strange shapeable creatures we are!'[13] Nothing
that the elder Carlyle undertook to do but he did it faithfully, and
like a true man. 'I shall look,' said his distinguished son, 'on the
houses he built with a certain proud interest. They stand firm and sound
to the heart all over his little district. No one that comes after him
will ever say, "Here was the finger of a hollow eye-servant." They are
little texts for me of the gospel of man's free will. Nor will his deeds
and sayings in any case be found unworthy--not false and barren, but
genuine and fit. Nay, am not I also the humble James Carlyle's work? I
owe him much more than existence; I owe him a noble inspiring example
(now that I can read it in that rustic character). It was he
_exclusively_ that determined on _educating_ me; that from his small
hard-earned funds sent me to school and college, and made me whatever I
am or may become. Let me not mourn for my father, let me do worthily of
him. So shall he still live even here in me, and his worth plant itself
honourably forth into new generations.'[14] One of the wise men about
Ecclefechan told James Carlyle: 'Educate a boy, and he grows up to
despise his ignorant parents.' His father once told Carlyle this, and
added: 'Thou hast not done so; God be thanked for it.' When James
Carlyle first entered his son's house at Craigenputtock, Mrs Carlyle was
greatly struck with him, 'and still farther,' says her husband, 'opened
my eyes to the treasure I possessed in a father.'
The last time Carlyle saw his father was a few days before leaving for
London. 'He was very kind,' wrote Carlyle, 'seemed prouder of me than
ever. What he had never done the like of before, he said, on hearing me
express something which he admired, "Man, it's surely a pity that thou
should sit yonder with nothing but the eye of Omniscience to see thee,
and thou with such a gift to speak."' In closing his affectionate
tribute, Carlyle exclaims: 'Thank Heaven, I know and have known what it
is to be a _son_; to _love_ a father, as spirit can love spirit.'
The last days of March 1832 found the Carlyles back at Craigenputtock. A
new tenant occupied the farm, and their days were lonelier than ever.
Meanwhile 'Sartor Resartus' was appearing in _Fraser's Magazine_. The
Editor reported that it 'excited the most unqualified disapprobation.'
Nothing daunted, Carlyle pursued the 'noiseless tenor of his way,'
throwing off articles on various subjects. Finding that Mrs Carlyle's
health suffered from the gloom and solitude of Craigenputtock, they
removed to Edinburgh in January 1833. Jeffrey was absent in 'official
regions,' and Carlyle notes that they found a 'most dreary contemptible
kind of element' in Edinburgh. But their stay there was not without its
uses, for in the Advocates' Library Carlyle found books which had a
great effect upon his line of study. He collected materials for his
articles upon 'Cagliostro' and the 'Diamond Necklace.' At the end of
four months, the Carlyles were back again at Craigenputtock.
August was a bright month for Thomas Carlyle, for it was then that Ralph
Waldo Emerson visited him at his rural retreat. The Carlyles thought him
'one of the most lovable creatures' they had ever seen, and an unbroken
friendship of nearly fifty years was begun. As winter approached,
Carlyle's prospects were not very bright, and he once more turned his
eyes towards London, where the remainder of his life was to be spent.
Before following him thither, it may be well to turn from the outer to
the inner side of Carlyle's life, and study the forces which went to the
making of his unique personality.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 30.
[8] _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 31.
[9] _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. pp. 40, 41.
[10] _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. pp. 161, 162.
[11] _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 47.
[12] _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 162.
[13] _Reminiscences_, vol. i. p. 19.
[14] _Reminiscences_, vol. i. p. 6.