New-York tribune., 1882-04-09


might be- and cannot be understood
without knowledge of it. Carlyle
although subsequently informed upon the subject
| never apprchended-wrapped up as he always was
in himsclf-the intensity of the feeling which had
been cxtmguishcd from hard necessity and the fres
of which long continued to shoulder IN that sweet
woman's breast. Miss Martin got her Edward IT.
| wing in about a year; he became celebrated
fashionable almost famous preacher, and then went
| mad with vanity and religious enthusiasm, and
started the crazy fantasy of the gift of tongues The
woman who had loved him so passionately said
! once, long after her own marriage: There would
| have been no tongues had Irving married me-
Alas. it was woful business for all of them ex-
cept Carlyle who was the gamer by it of an angel
in womans guise. who became his body
servant, his slave, his provldcnce-a
providence unworshipped and unthanked.
| For long time there no engagement between
them nor, indeed. in Carlyles circumstances could
there reasonably be ont: but she dominated and
fascinated by her new lovers strong personality.
| She believed that he had but TO make himself
known to rise TO fame and fortune, and rs soon as
he saw his way to this she willing to share his
life with him. Her feeling AT this time was not the
| love of woman for man. She wrote to him " |
| love you and shonld be the most unGratcful and
| nudcious of moItas if did not. But AIN not IN
lore with you the emphasis is her own, that is to
| say my love for you is not a passion which over
clouds my judgment and absOrbs all my
regards for myself and others. Poor woman,
| she knew well what that was.l 1t Is
simple honest serene affection, made up of admira-
tion and sympathy" etc. etc.-for what need to go
on fnrther' And then she adds: And now let
me ask you have you any certain livelihood to main
tain me in the manner | have been used TO live in;
any fired place in the rank of society | have been
| born and bred n!' She answers for hIm herself.
| saying no. and then she tes him to go to work and
| get "A settled income. AS the old song says
| Much ado there was. God not;
lie would kiss and she would not.
There were letters back and forth. and PROPOSE
| tions and c0unter-prOposions But all the while
| the inevitable was coming; for " the castle
that parlcys and the woman who listens
| will surrender" The eud was precipitated
BY The wcll-meant Interference of another wcman,
who worned herself into Jane Welshs confidence,
| discovered her smouldcrng passion for Irving and
then suggested to her that she ought not to marry
Carlyle because ryings present wife might die and
then he might again become her lover. In sort of
horror Jane Welsh sent the letter in which this sug
geston was made to Carlyle, and offered to become
his wife as soon as it was reasonably prudent that
she should do so And yet after this there much
| discussion and :" backing and filling" before they
| went of on their matrimonial voyage. For while,
| very little while, things went well, and with
| that wonderful faculty for loving which has
| been bestowed upon woman, she began to
| he in love with the man to whom she
had given herself, body and soul But Carlyle was
| a man to be admired i'll a certain way but not
| man TO be loved, or to love- men and women
| love- His mother, who gave him mothers love
and a womans admiration, said of him that he was
"gey i'll to live with" and her he loved better than
| he loved any other human creature Briefly, Jane
| Weshs marriage to Thomas Carlyle was the begin
ming of life of toll of priyation, of unapprcciated
sefsacricc of starvation OF heart and soul if not
what it at times was almost, starvation of the body.
She had looked forward TO being CaTycs intellec-
| tua companion. She in fact his household
| drudge She who had been daintly reared, and
had never wished in vain for anything that money
could buv, delicate we'll a dainty woman,
was obliged to work like a professional house
keeper and maid of all work combined, cooking,
| washing, securing and mending for many weary
year. And for all this she got no thanks. Carlyle
took it as a matter of course. He was absorbed in
| himself: and moreover he had seen his mother and
sisters doing the same thing. What matter then
| that his wife did it And her life was one of such
| Loneliness as is hardly known out of solitary
fnement. She did not really live, as wife lives,
| with the husband for whom she slavcd. When he
was at work he could not bear any person to be
even in the room with him; when he walked or
rode, it was alone, that his thoughts might suffer
| no Interruption The slightest noise at night
Titatel him and made him nervous; and there
| fore he required a bedroom to himself.
Thus from the very first she saw little ofhim and as
time went on less and less. And for the man who
held himself thus aoof from her. both in body and in
soul she toed and pinched and managed, and
saved IN solitude uncheered by the voice and eve
| of any creature with whom she could have sym
pathv almost without the sight or sound of other
human speech than his which she rarely heard and
which when she did hear it, was generally an out
| break of dyspeptc humOr. or a monstrous cgOism
made vocal. at Craigenpuioch, little stone farm
| house on high, bleak moor, where they lived six
wears there was not another house nor tree in
sight and months often passed without the appear
ance of another human being even the
road The moors were so still that she could hear
the sheep nbbng the grass a quarter of a mile off.
Her husband was not only not companion, but, as
she herself patheticaly tells, she rarely saw him
except when she used 10 steal into his dressing
| room in the morning when he was shaving. that she
! might have a little of his society. Probably he
thought It was pity she could not he his barber.
| And yet this man could write very admirably. and
even touchingly, about certain dOngs of hers being
beautiful as in the light of eternity; and when
| they finally went to Chelsea he writes: q" From
birth she had lived in opulence and now. for my
sake had become pOor-So nobly poor. No house
for beautiful thrift, quiet spontaneOuSnay, as ii
| were, unconscious minimum of money Tec0nciled TO
human comfort and dignity have anywhere looked
upon where | have been" And yet to hr he left
all this without thanks even acknowledgment
her he left to eat her own heart in bitter sotue
| What wonder that she exclaimed: married foI
ambition. My husband has risen beyond my high
est hopes aud am miserable" No small part OF
this wretchedness from the difference of theiI
| birth and breeding. If Carlyle had grown up under
thn sn,e sncial ntnrnces as lhnse which fnrmed his