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quite up to laying down 10l. of my allowance in a straightforward recognised way, without standing on my toes to it either. And what is more, I am determined upon it, will not accept more than 15l. in the present state of affairs.

There only remains to disclose the actual state of the exchequer. It is empty as a drum. (Sensation.) If I consider twenty-nine more pounds indispensable-things remaining as they are-for the coming year, beginning the 22nd of March, it is just because I have found it so in the year that is gone; and I commenced that, as I have already stated, with 10l. of arrears. You assisted me with 15l., and I have assisted myself with 10l., five last August, which I took from the Savings Bank, and the five you gave me at New Year, which I threw into the coal account. Don't suppose-' if thou's i' the habit of supposing '—that I tell you this in the undevout imagination of being repaid. By all that's sacred for methe memory of my father and mother-what else can an irreligious creature like me swear by? I would not take back that money if you offered it with the best grace, and had picked it up in the street. I tell it you simply that you may see I am not so dreadfully greedy as you have appeared to think me latterly. Setting my 10l. then against the original arrears, with 15l. in assistance from you, it would follow, from my own computation, that I should need 14l. more to clear off arrears on the weekly bills and carry me on paying my way until 22nd of March, next quarter-day. (Cries of Shame! and Turn her out!) I say only should need.' Your money is of course yours, to do as you will with, and I would like to again 'walk the causeway' carrying my head as high—as -Mr. A., the upholsterer, owing no man anything, and dearly I would like to 'at all rates let you alone of it,' if I knew who else had any business with my housekeeping, or to whom else I could properly address myself for the moment; as what with that expensive, most ill-timed dressinggown, and my cheap ill-timed chiffonnier, and my half-year's bills to Rhind and Catchpole, I have only what will serve me till June comes round.

If I was a man, I might fling the gauntlet to Society, join with a few brave fellows, and rob a diligence.' But my sex kind o' debars from that.' Mercy! to think there are women-your friend Lady A., for example ('Rumeurs!' Sensation)-I say for example; who spend not merely the additamental pounds I must make such pother about, but four times my whole income in the ball of one night, and none the worse for it, nor anyone the better. It is what shall I say?-curious,' upon my honour. But just in the same manner Mrs. Freeman might say: "To think there are women-Mrs. Carlyle, for example-who spend 3l. 148. 6d. on one dressing-gown, and I with just two loaves and eighteen pence from the parish, to live on by the week.' There is no bottom to such reflections. The only thing one is perfectly sure of is 'it will come all to the same ultimately,' and I can't say I'll regret the loss of myself, for one.-I add no more, but remain, dear Sir, your obedient humble servant, JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

Mrs. Carlyle, it must be admitted, knew how to administer a 'shrewing.' Her poor husband, it must be admitted, also knew how to bear one. He, perhaps, bore it too well, for there were parts of what she said which he might with advantage have laid to heart seriously. At any rate, he recognized instantly and without the least resentment the truth of a statement to which he had been too impatient to listen. The cleverness of it delighted him, in spite of the mockery of himself and his utterances. At the foot of the last page he wrote immediately

Excellent, my dear clever Goody, thriftiest, wittiest, and cleverest of women. I will set thee up again to a certainty, and thy 301. more shall be granted, thy bits of debts paid, and thy will be done.

Feb. 12, 1855.

T. C.

THE ECONOMIES OF CHEYNE ROW. 171

No man ever behaved better under such a chastisement. Not a trace is visible of resentment or impatience, though also less regret than a perfect husband ought to have felt that he had to a certain extent deserved it. Unfortunately, knowing that he had meant no harm and had done all that he was asked to do the instant that the facts were before him, he never could take a lesson of this kind properly to heart, and could be just as inconsiderate and just as provoking on the next occasion that arose. Poor Carlyle! Well he might complain of his loneliness! though he was himself in part the cause of it. Both he and she were noble and generous, but his was the soft heart, and hers the stern one.

Difficulties

CHAPTER XXIII.

A.D. 1854-7. ET. 59-62.

over Frederick'-Crimean war-Louis Napoleon in England-Edward Fitzgerald-Farlingay-Three weeks at Addiscombe-Mrs. Carlyle and Lady Ashburton-Scotsbrig-Kinloch Luichart-Lady Ashburton's death-Effect on Carlyle-Solitude in Cheyne Row-Riding costume-Fritz-Completion of the first two volumes of 'Frederick '-Carlyle as a historian.

Journal.

Chelsea, September 16, 1854.-The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. What a fearful word! I cannot find how to take up that miserable 'Frederick,' or what on earth to do with it. 'Hohenzollerns,' 'Sketches of German History '--something of all that I have tried, but everything breaks down from innumerable outward impediments-alas! alas! from the defect of inward fire. I am getting old, yet would grudge to depart without trying to tell a little more of my mind. This of repairing my house has been a dreadful thing, tumbling topsy-turvy all my old habits, &c. I feel as if I never could write any more in these sad, altered circumstances; as if it were like being placed on the point of a spear, and there bidden at once stand and write. That was my thought this morning when I awoke-an unjust, exaggerated thought; yet it is certain all depends on myself; and in the whole earth, probably, there is not elsewhere so lonely a soul. To work! Try to get some work done, or thou wilt go mad.

CRIMEAN WAR.

173

October 25.-I do not write here, or write at all, to say how ill I prosper, how ill I manage myself; what a sad outlook my studies, interests, and endeavours in this world continue to offer. I seem as if beaten, disgracefully vanquished, in this 'the last of my fields.' I am weak-a poor angryhearted mortal, sick, solitary, and altogether foiled. For a week or two past I have been to the State Paper Office, in hopes of getting some illumination for my dim, dreary, impossible course through the desert of Brandenburg sand.' Occasionally it has seemed promising. Neuberg has now been admitted, or will be in a day or two, to attend me there, the good man having heroically undertaken that piece of charity. Let us see; let us see. Nothing but remorse,' the sharp sting of conscience for time wasted, carries me along, or even induces such a resolution for desperate effort as could carry me along. Alas! I am not yet into the thing. Generally, it seems as if I never should or could get into it. What will become of me? Am I absolutely beaten by this and the thousand other paltry things that have gone wrong with me in these late times?

'Victory at the Alma!' fierce and bloody; forcing a passage right across fortified heights and 45,000 Russians, to begin the siege of Sebastopol-a terrible, and almost horrible operation, done altogether at the command of the newspapers. What have I to do with all that? In common, I believe, with nearly all the rational men in the country, I have all along been totally indisposed to this miserable Turk war. The windy fools alone-it is the immense majority of that class, that have done and do this last enterprise of ours. Would we were well out of it. That is all my prayer and thought in regard to that.

April 4, 1855.-Writing at something called Frederick.' The Double Marriage' at present most mournful, dreary, undoable work. All the world in emotion about Balaclava and the Turk war-too sad a fulfilment of my Latter Day' prophecies, as many now admit. I perceive it to be the beginning of bankruptcy to Constitutional England, and have in silence my own thoughts about it.

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