Arizona republican., 1898-09-09
THE QUIET LIFE.

nal, and 1 was confirmed in my opinio1 1 that Rip Van Wrinkle knew what hs was talking about when he remarked
 upon the speed with which people has ten to forget us when we are gone. | The woods are full. of Phillistines
 and to them I communicate the fac,
 that Jennie Welsh Carlyle was about the best writer of English letters wh1
 ever lived, and that she was, inciden. tally, the wife of the most trying olt Scotchman who ever wore a plaid oI
 ate bowl of porridge.
 know this is true, because the Quiei i Lifers say SO. We resolved. ourselves ir.to debating society the other night
 and decided the matter. Of course ithere were no affirmative and negative sides to the question, as when Demos themes Jones gets up with his Re solved, That republican form of gov ernlnent, etc" Each one simply ex- pressed his opinion by writing name on q slip of paper and depositin:g it in the Candlestick Lady's sailor hat. and Mrs. Carlyle was the winner. with Ste ve nson a close second.
 And yet all was not charming which concerned this epistolary wonder and fascinating woman She delights me Dy her wit, her light-heartedness. her Iindefatigable sparkle, and then the aw- ful thought comes over me that she smoked. that she often lowered on the verge of profanity and sometimes tu.lbled over it; that after giving her dog bath she dried his shaggy coat with a tablecloth, that her servant Isiep: in the kitchen, and thar she de voted Nliole letters detailing her ex- pericpce with that unspeahable inse. which infests beds.
 Ana il is not well to pass censIlre upon Carlyle. Doubtless she initiated him as mrch as he did her, only he was a man, with a mans gift of holding his tOnguA to outsiders. They could not get along together and were not happy apart. It is pathetic to learn of her endeavors, usually so fruitless, to keep life serene for the dyspeptic Chelsea philosopher; Of the appealing lit.la notes she would send the neighbors, begging them to subdue the voices of their parrots and chickens; of the study which she had constructed for her husband on top of the house, and which he tore to pieces the next day, and of how she tried to mend his boots, when she would as soon, she said, have tried to stop a leak in the Great East ern.
 Carlyie's reniorse came too late. but perhaps even that he couldn't help,
 If only the dead could find out when
 To come back and be forgiven"-
 One wonders if Jennie knew how the old husband visited her grave and for gave her for allowing the neighbor's s parrot to bother him. The old sexton told tourist all about it. He was a gaunt, shaggy kind Of man," he said, and seemed surprised when the stran- ger told him that he was great as well as old. that his name was known all over the world.
 ''Oh. think, sir" the sexton said, that there be other great men lying about here" and shook his head doub,- fully when the tourist declared that there was none so great as the shaggy, old fellow who made so many pilgrim ages to woman's grave. Still he was not loath to chatter, after the manner of grave diggers-
 Mir. Carlyle himself,' said the grave digger softly, ''is to be brought here to be buried with his wife. Aye, he comes here lonesome and alone" continued the grave digger, when he visits his wife's grave. His niece keeps him company to the gate, but he leaves her tAere, and she stays there for him. The last time he was here I got sight of him, and he was bowed down under his white hairs, and he took his way up by that ruined wall of the old ca thedral, and around there and in here by the gateway, and he tottered up here to this spot" Softly spake the grave digger, and paused. Softer still, in the broad dialec. of the Lothians, he proceeded: And he stood here awhile in the grass, and then he kneeled down and stayed on his knees ct the grave; then he bent over, and I saw him kiss the ground-aye. he kissed it again and again, and he kept kneeling, and it was a long time be- fore he rose and tottered out of the cathedral and wandered through the graveyard to the gate, where his niece was waiting for him."
 Did it ever occur to you how abso- lutely alone man is? He is born aiOne, he learns alone, and works alone; he shares his pains with no one, but bears his own toothaches and mea- sles in solitude His thoughts are hid den in his own brain. Once in awhile one creeps out, but it is cautious and alert In city of million a man is in retirement. He fights out matters with his conscience-alone. He hopes and dreams and suffers and repents- alone. He measures his words, even with his nearest and dearest, choosing those to comfort or inform or reprove others, not those nearest his own heart He understands no one, sometimes not even himself, and no one understands him. He lives on an island-alone. And, so far as human companionship is concerned, he dies alone. It behooves one, then, as long as he is to be his own companion, to make sure that he is to have jovial and discreet com rade, as he tramps along the crowded highway-alo |. Stanfield in Chicago Journal.
 Mrs Ella F. Peattic of Chicago. author
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