The record-union., 1892-11-26
Especial Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright. 1921

LONDON, November Il, 1852.
A good, sweet book could be written
about the folk vino have loved and known
old Chelsea whom we have known and
loved Tor what they did for the world.
Many years ago 1 saw one Of these folk
on London bus and had good hours
study of him as a curious character with
out knowing who he was. He first at
tracted my attention by his generally
dlshevled and thrown-together appear
ance. When he entered the bus he held
copy of the London Times in one hand
and dragged very old bit of a travelling
rug in the other. lie slapped the latter
over his knees as he sat down, giared at
the passengers savagely, and Immediately
closed his eyes and began a peculiar
motion of his mouth that seemed like a
nervous man chewing Of his neither lip.
lie was a scraggy, and then it seemed to
me, an ilI-kept man, out OF sorts with all
the world. l mentally endeavored to
place him. Perhaps he Is some one of
those seedy old clerks so wondrously
pictured by Dickens, thought l. He may
be a miserly olu bachelor who daily
tumbles out Of his lodgings and into his
work ana then back again, never know
ing change, sleeping in his clothing, mum
mled To everything ON earth but his Iedg-
erS and his desk. If lie have a vile and
family he cuifs the children, warns the
cook, abuses the housemaid and 'bloWs
up" his wife before leaving his habita-
tlon, and this particular morning he has
made them understand WHO IS master
with greater Vehemence than usual.
Pretty soon lie seemed TO awake with
start, glared again 81 his fellow Dassen-
gers, ana, giving his Dony knees vicious
TWIST away from proximity 10 an elderly
lat woman who sat beside him, plunged
into his paper as though so far he had
overlooked his duty OF discovering, cap
turing and Furnishing some sort OF seui-
ton within. sure enough il was there.
He scanned the editorial page for a mo-
ment, smashed the paper together with
his knuckly hands, dropped IL upon the
bus floor, and, paving it back beneath
his feet, for some time gave it a ner> Gus
kind of pounding which plainly told his
sentiments Tor the balderdash he had dis
covered. Then he fell to chewing again
with his eyes quite closed, and shortly
awoke with a start, TO lunge toward the
door and soundly berate the conductor
for carrying him past his destination. [
could not hear all of this scolding, but it
brought traffic On the Strand to a stand
still, and then the scraggy, hairy, tum-
bled-up, lOose-jOinted Old man disap-
peared among the cabs and 'busses, a
tangible, irascible alteration with a
Scotch dialect, prompting from drivers as
he passed the choicest blackguard quips
and quirks that roll from London driv-
ers' ready tongues.
The incident left smile on nearly
every lace in the omnibus. A pleasant
laced man sitting beside me, noticing my
look of inquiry and rightly Judging nv
nationality. kindly solved the mystery
My dear sir,' he said with almost an
air Of pride, hes a brave literary man.
that. lie wasn't born in England, but
he's the biggest man in il. " hen you
get back to America you can tell the an
KEGS you've seen old Thomas Carlyle!7'
/ never saw him again. But the Lon
don incident Of long ago made me a stu
dent OF Carlyle-one OF the most difficult
tasks of my life, and, from much reading
after the sturdy Old Darrator in pniloso-
phy and religion, many pilgrimages TO
his birth ana burial place, up there in
dreary Eccleiechau, and to other British
localities which his strange personality
and genius made something ike shrines;
l have come to love his memory, and
especially to have an affection for the
place where, for half a life time, he strug-
gled. contended, rallied, assaulted, de-
tended, suffered and repented inhis hum
bic and Imperial, niggardly and noble
career.
That place is Chelsea. 1t is London
now. Nou cannot find a break in all the
great masses OF solid structures from the
densest part OF the borough out to old
Chelsea and for many miles beyond.
y ct the Chelsea region is still most
charmingly distinct. y Ou know insensi-
bly, when you come to it. \ ou feel, with
out being told, that you have crossed It's
boundaries on leaving it. Without par
ticiparing in its memories, knowing none
OF its history, II you were set down within
il, its lovely, Ieafy, sOmnOlent air has the
Gnir1f hnCh pf linnarJy1pr
presences. You daily and idle upon its
streets as if wOOed by the unconscious
spell of memory, as if laggard from
pleasant companiOnship, as il held by the
gentle hand OF reminiscence.
In the very heart of this pleasantest of
all London outer districts Thomas ana
Jane Welsh Carlyle literally battled
along together, from the 10th day Of Oc-
Jober, 1884, until Mrs. Carlyles sad
and strange death in her brougham in
Hyde Park, in April, 1866. The lonely
old soul that was lett remained, rather
than lived, in the same house to the end,
in 1881. And L somehow believe that the
forty-seven years staying of the sage OF
Ecclefechan IN No. Great Cheyne Row
has thrown more OF poetic glamor over
old Chelsea than all the other famous and
great who have come aud tarried and
gone.
Materially, Sir Thomas More ORIGIN
ally made Chelsea. Carlyle rounds ont
its fame. Vast fields of history and ro-
nance lie between. This pore house
in Chelchith," as the ancient records
speak of the house OF Sir Thomas More.
was not SO humble an habitation after
all. 1t had great porch, many fine
windows, dozens OF gables, pretty tow
or, splendid gardens for the time, and be-
sides housing the happiest family living
in England in the sixteenth century. was
so attractive place, though then far
away from London, that Queen Mary was
moved to purchase it;' the garrulous
Erasmus found it a hospitable retreat.
and King Henry VII. often came up the
Thames in his royal barge to debark and
stroll TO this first old Chelsea mansion
With his arm lovingly around the neck of
More, which his headman's AK severed
one July morning a little later on.
Living along the northern bank Of the
Thames, to the west of the city, Chelsea
proper may be said to begin on the east
at the famous Chelsea Hospital for Brit
ish pensioners. The magnificent Thames
embank ment forms the shore edge here
and near the Botanic Gardens becomes
Cheyne Walk, which continues mile or
so to Battersea Bridge. In this two or
three miles distance, about the center OF
which is the Carlyle neighborhoOd, and
extending back from the river to the
depth OF a mile or more, there are Won
drously quaint old structures, clumps OF
ancient cottages covered with vines and
embedded IN greenery, EIizabethan man
slons by the score, with mOnStrOus chin
neys ana gray old gables, winding lanes
leading from the Thames, where once
Were Hne water stairs and picturesque
hsher nuts, bits of venerable park and
mOldy gardens oyershadowed by prim
modern rows, where the aristocracv have
crowded IN upon the older haunts OF lit
erature and art, and cobwebbed inns in