The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-06-14
THE CARLYLE SCANDAL.

WHEN InOudS OdIlyle married Jane
Welsh, their friends agreed that each
was taking a terrible risk The most
favorable opinion expressed of the ven.
ture was Tennyson's, that, if Thomas and
Jane must marry, it was well that they
should marry one another; that would
make only two unhappy persons, while
their marrying separately would make
four. 1t IS no derogation of Carlyle's
intellectual character to say that he was
not q person one would choose to live
with, and we have but to read the let
ters of Mrs. Carlyle to feel that the bit
ing humor which gives them their attrac-
ton might become, when not TO be es-
capped from, an irritation 20 a much more
amiable person than Thomas ever pre-
tended to be.
The wonder is not that these two peo-
pie were unhappy, but that they were
generally as happy as they appear to
have been. There is no question of
their mutual respect and deep Affection
but neither of them had the domestic
vocation, nor did the interests of their
lives or their intellectual activities per-
NIT OF that dumb acquiescence that in
commonplace people often passes for tran
quality. That there should be frequent
'fiare-ups" was inevitable, and was no
body's business but their own. But whei.
his wife died Carlyle - that a great
treasure had gone out of his life, and
he set himself to work to gather and
arrange her letters and to annotate them
with just those fierce reflections and de-
nunciations of himself that he would
have bestowed upon any other subject Of
a biography in which he had become abb
sorbed.
\, 4en these papers by Carlyle's win,
came into Froude's hands, he had sense
enough to perceive that they were not
a temperate exposition of life history,
and, being himself a writer of construc-
tive imagination ratner than mere his
torian, he proceeded to edit the CORE
spondence and to reconstruct the drama
in way that he conceived would best
carry out Carlyle's wish Of dealing kindly
with the woman in the case by suppress
ing most of her letters, while not obscur-
ing the impression of Carlyle's own
crabbedness. He would have done better,
no doubt, to have Disseminated less, but
that was not Froude's way. Carlyle's
friends attacked him, and his friends
had attacked Forster, calling him by many
bad names; but no serious harm result
ed. The controversy had quite died
away, when the nephews of Carlyle were
sufficiently i'll advised to publish the
whole of Mrs Carlyle's letters, with an
introduction by distinguished physician,
to the general effect that she was a
crazy woman and her complaints were hal
lucinations, while her affection for Car
lyle was profound and well deserved and
his for her marvel of unseifsh tender
ness.
The offense in this publication il not in
the letters, many of which are worth
preserving, though more of them Froude
was right to disregard, but IN an avowed
controversial spirit, which has inevitably
opened up the whole forgotten scandal
AS natural result, there Is now published
a paper which Froude wrote in his own
defense, but decently withheld, in which
we have further revelations" and scam
dalous insinuations, which will set the par
tisans of each side by the ears Moth
ing moro indecent has occurred in liter
airy history. The matter in truth, has
lost all relation to literature. What lit
erary quality the letters may possess Is
rot considered; they are read and dis
eussed only as they minister to prurient
curiosity and contain personal details with
which the public has no reasonable con-
Germ. We could wish that Carlyle were
himself alive to express his execration
of the whole affair, with "a plague on
both your houses Philadelphia Public
Ledger.