Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1892-12-01

LONDON, Nov. ia good sweet
book could be written about the folk
who have loved and known old Chelsea
whom we have known and loved for
what they did for the world.
Many years ago l saw one of these
folk on a London bus and had a good
hours study of him as a curious
character without knowing who lie
was. He first attracted my attention
by his generally disheveled and thrown
together appearance. When he entered
the bus he held copy Of the London
Times in one hand and dragged a very
old bit of travelling rug in the other.
He slapped the latter over his knees as
he sat down, glared at the passengers
savagely, and Immediately closed his
eyes and began peculiar motion Of his
mouth that seemed like a nervous
chewing of his neither lip.
He was scraggy and it then seemed
to me an ill-kempt man, out of sorts
with all the world. l mentally en-
deayored to place him. Perhaps he is
some one of those seedy old clerks so
wonderously pictured by Dickens,
thought l. He may be misery old
bachelor who daily tumbles out Of his
lodgings and into his work and then
back again, never knowing change,
sleeping in his clothing, mummied to
everything on earth but his ledgers and
his desk. If he have wife and family,
he cuffs the children, warns the cook,
abuses the house-maid and elbows up
his wife before leaving his habttatiOn,
and this particular morning he has
made them understand who is master
with greater vehemence than usual.
Pretty soon he seemed to awake with
start, glared again at his fellow passen-
gers, and, giving his bony knees a
vicious twist away from proximity to
an elderly fat woman who sat beside
him, plunged into his paper as though
so far he had overlooked his duty of
discovering, capturing and furnishing
some sort of sedition within. Sure
enough it was there. He scanned the
editorial page for moment, smashed
the paper together with his llnackly
hands, dropped it upon the bus floor,
and, paving it back beneath his feet,
for some time gave it nervous kind Of
pounding which plainly told his senti-
ments for the balderdQsh he had dis
covered. Then he fell to chewing again
with his eyes quite closed, and shortly
awoke with start, to lunge towards
the door and soundly bcrate the conduc-
tor for carrying him past his destina-
ton. could not hear all Of this srold-
ing; but it brought traffic on the strand
to standstill; and then the scraggy,
hairy, tumbledup, loose-jointed old
man disappeared among the cabs and
buses, a tangible, irasCible alteration
with Scotch dialect, prompting from
drivers as he passed the choicest black
guard quips and quirks thai roll from
London drivers ready tongues.
The incident left smile on nearly
every face in the omnibus. A pleasant.
faced man sitting beside me, noticing
my look of inquiry and rightly judging
my nationality, kindly solved the myS.
terry. "AIy dear sir" he said, with al
most an air Of pride, 'he's brave lit
erary man, that. He wasn't born il
England, but he's the biggest man in il
When you get back to America you car
tell the Yankee 5 you've seen old Thomas
Carlyle!"
never saw him again. But the Lon
don incident of long ago made me stu
dent OF Carlyle-une OF the most ditli
cult tasks OF my lie; and from mucl
reading after the sturdy old harrAtor ii
philosophy and religion, many pilgrim
ages to his birth and burial place, III
there in dreary Ecclefechan, ana {,
other British localities which his gtrang
personality and genius made sonctllilH
like shrines, have come to love hi
memory, and especially to have an al
lection for the place Where for half
life time he struggled, couteudea. rui,cd
assaulted, dcfemQed, suffered and ~
pented in his humble and imperial, ni4
gardly and noble career.
That place is Chelsea. [tis Londo
now. You cannot lind break IN n
the great masses OF solid structures Ira,
the densest part Of tie bur0uLl. Gut [
old Chelsea and for many miles beyond
Yet the Chelsea region Is .tflL ~:
charmingiy distinct. You know hlser
sibly wheu you come IL il, l0u f"g
without beillgtold, that Won haycr r9.s Il
its boundaries on leaving il. Wilhol
participating IN its memories, Known
none Of its history, if YOU we're dow
within it, its lovely, lcafy, somn6trnt n
has the very spirit and hush Of linyr
ing noble presences You duily and ili
upon its streets Us it wooea by tie Ii!
conscious spell Of memory, as ii laggal
from pleasant companions hip, Is if Ic
by the gentle hand Of "Reminiscences.
In the very heart Of this pleas4nte
of all London outer districts. tEApn,
aud Jane Welsh Carlyle literally batt!t
along together, from the 10Th day
October, 1884, until Mrs. Car!vle'S 5;
and strange death in her brOughan
Hyde Park, in April, 1866. Me lQnr
old soul that was lett remained, rath
than lived in the same house to the n