Macaulay used to call the "lining of the trunkmaker's boxes," or, still more, into the pulp that fills the papermaker's vats. We will not say, however, that even the departed periodical has been a total loss. Even the lost Pleiad was once a point of beauty. No one would be so rash as to suppose that “Salmagundi," although short-lived, was without its power in developing Irving and Halleck, and of still greater power in pointing out, to later publishers and editors, the quicksands that bring certain shipwreck. There is not a periodical now existing, in Europe or this country, that is not built up on the graves of the dead. Wisdom has come from experiment. This very Quarterly is not the product of the year that gave it apparent birth, or even of the "Methodist Magazine,” that ran from 1818 to 1828. Its real origin must be found in that earlier "Methodist Magazine," published in Philadelphia by John Dickins, which died in 1798, after the issue of the second volume, and in that still earlier "Arminian Magazine," with Asbury and Coke as sponsors, which came to its death with the close of the second volume, in 1790. The popular magazines of our country, such as "Harper's Monthly," the "Century," and the "Atlantic Monthly," are the ripe fruit of failures. Publishers have learned wherein the failure of their predecessors lay, while editors have learned good lessons from the earlier occupants of editorial sancta. Hence we say, of the flourishing periodicals of to-day, that the living live on the no longer living. ART. IV.-LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle. Prepared for publication by THOMAS CARLYLE. Edited by JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. Two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1883. Of late years the press has teemed with anecdotes, personal reminiscences, and memorial sketches relative to the life and work of Thomas Carlyle. Yet, unique as is the character of this cynical Scotchman, grand as is his work, that as historian and prose-poet at once putting him in the foremost rank of English writers, it may fairly be questioned whether, in Froude's "Life of Carlyle," the most extensive as well as the most authentic to be had, and to which, together with the "Reminiscences," we are to look for the history of Mrs. Carlyle's early life, Mr. Carlyle or his wife be the more interesting figure; for, as Lady William Russell put it: "Mr. Carlyle a great man? Yes; but Mrs. Carlyle, let me inform you, is no less great as a woman." History Mr. Froude was unsparingly censured for portraying the real Mr. Carlyle so admirably as he has done in his “ of the First Forty Years" of his life, a biography after Carlyle's own method, and as happily executed as if by the hand. of that prince of biographers himself, the preacher of truth being unable to paint us a truer picture of himself. Now, again, the critics are lamenting Froude's obtuseness and indiscretion in giving us Mrs. Carlyle's letters just as annotated by her husband, confessedly a suitable person, recommending as a chivalrous deed the expunction of all passages relating to the petty details of home-life; maintaining, strange to say, that "unconscious autobiography, though interesting, is seldom fair and adequate." True, we were all startled by the novelty of the procedure, and somewhat shocked to find Carlyle so much of a bear, and his wife so menial a slave; for, had we known such to be the case, we should little have expected to find it chronicled here. It is equally probable that we might not have realized how completely Carlyle was wrapped up in what he conceived to be his mission, and how toilsome, so almost beyond expression, was the execution of it; how deep, pathetic a feeling he had for man and beast; nor have divined the ex. quisite delicacy and refinement of that spirituelle being that, for so many years, shed a halo of almost supernal brightness over his rocky pathway. And, to use the figure of the aforementioned critic, we are only too glad to believe that, had this ransacked house possessed the direst secrets to reveal, every door and shutter would have been flung wide open, "from kitchen to parlor." Had Mr. Froude acted on these suggestions of his censors, especially with regard to the latter book, the chief merit of his work would have been lost, and the letters, dull and insipid, like wine without sparkle or flavor; not the letters of a woman, least of all of this woman. Woman, as Mrs. Carlyle well knew, has a knack for letterwriting, though it is not so certain that she understood the philosophy of it. "My dear,' said Geraldine, 'how is it that women who don't write books write always so much nicer letters than those who do?' I told her it was, I supposed, because they did not write in the valley of the shadow of their future biographer, but wrote what they had to say frankly and naturally." But authors are few, even among men, and it can hardly be claimed for the ladies that they are more frank and natural than men, or that there is such a vast difference, in this respect, between authoresses and their less fortunate sisters. The almost universal superiority of a woman's letter over that of a man is, I suspect, largely attributable to a difference in the cast of mind-the imaginative faculty predominating in woman as the reflective in man, a plan fruitful of so far-reaching and beneficent results as to be nothing less than providential, as has been capitally shown by Mr. Buckle. This gives woman a wonderful start over her prosy brother; for "the imagination is the strongest virtue to keep a book alive," and liveliness is what we look for in a letter. The fact remains, anyhow; and Mrs. Carlyle seems to have had a clearer idea of the purpose of letter-writing and, certainly, a greater facility for realizing that ideal, than most women. Decidedly I was meant to have been a subaltern of the daily press, not a 'penny-lady,' (almoner,) but a pennya-liner; for it is not only a faculty with me, but a necessity of my nature, to make a great deal out of nothing." Or, if you please, what she surely meant, to invest every-day topics with such beauty and dignity as their frequent recurrence and a cultivated sensibility demand and justify. If this seem to you of small moment, only remember that, as Lowell says, "The true poet is he that detects the divine in the casual." So imbued was Mrs. Carlyle with this poetic sensibility that, with Wordsworth, she might well have sung: "To me the meanest flower that blows can give How true this is of Mrs. Carlyle one has but to read these letters to know. The record of the simplest occurrences, under her treatment, interests, nay, charms, us. Whether she be relating an adventure with a lost child, a visit to a decrepit old woman, or a scene with a servant; or humorously detailing her exploits against dogs, cocks, etc., for a deliverance from all which disturbers of the peace she would insert a special prayer in the litany, the result is the same, a story as beautiful and engaging as any fairy tale, woven out of details seemingly the most prosaic. Readers of the "First Forty Years" must remember Carlyle's thundering anathemas against the whole canine race. Mrs. Carlyle, it seems, had something of the same antipathy for the howl of a dog, acquired, no doubt, through association with her husband. A noisy cur had, as they thought, been silenced. But no. She writes Carlyle: The other night the candles were lit, and I had set myself with my feet on the fender to enjoy the happiness of being let alone, and to bid myself "consider." "Bow-wow-wow" roared the dog, "Bow-wow-wow "and dashed the cup of fame from my brow!" again and again, till the whole universe seemed turned into one great dog-kennel! I hid my face in my hands and groaned inwardly, "O destiny accursed! what use of scrubbing? All this availeth me nothing, so long as the dog sitteth at the washerman's gate!" I could have burst into tears, but I did not! I ran for ink and paper, and wrote: "DEAR GAMBARDELLA: You once offered to shoot some cocks for me; that service I was enabled to dispense with: but now I accept your devotion. Come, if you value my sanity, and-" But he could not take aim without scaling the high wall, in doing which he would certainly be seized by the police; so I threw away that first sibylline leaf, and wrote another-to the washerman! Once more I offered him "any price for that horrible dog-to hang it," offered "to settle a yearly income on it if it would hold its accursed tongue." I implored, threatened, imprecated, and ended by proposing that, in case he could not come to an immediate final resolution, he should in the interim "make the dog dead drunk with a bottle of whisky, which I sent for the purpose!" Helen was sent off with the note and bottle of whisky; and I sat all concentrated, awaiting her return, as if the fate of nations had depended on my di plomacy; and so it did, to a certain extent! Would not the inspirations of the "first man in Europe" be modified, for the next six months at least, by the fact who should come off victorious-I or the dog! Ah, it is curious to think how the first men in Europe, and first women, too, are acted upon by the inferior animals! We can best interest those with whom we can, in some sort, sympathize: Shakespeare is a general favorite because of his myriad mindedness: on his stage every class is represented, from king to cobbler. Jane Welsh Carlyle is myriad souled, with enough intelligence to make it beautifully apparent on all occasions. An aristocrat herself, she takes no little pleas ure in communing with plebeians; the best of scholars, she is at home in the company of the illiterate; a mover in the highest social circles, she counts it not a condescension to speak a word of cheer or do a deed of kindness to the lowest of her fallen brothers and sisters. From this universal love of others came the universal esteem in which she was held, the German servant declaring to Mrs. Carlyle that "a many, many peoples love you very dear." So bewitching was her influence over others, one would think she had recourse to a fairy's wand. From first sight one swore eternal friendship, and ever afterward rendered her unqualified adoration, the commons clamoring to become her servants, and countesses, kneeling beside the sofa, embracing her feet and kissing her hands to express their admiration. On one of her journeys Mrs. Carlyle inadvertently left her parasol in the coach, which misfortune she related to the landlady on entering the way-side inn. A gentleman present, a total stranger to Mrs. Carlyle, hearing this, bolted off, overtook the coach, and recovering the parasol, hastened back with it-all, he said, "for the pleasure of presenting it to Mrs. Carlyle." As contrasted with Mr. Carlyle's writings how different the spirit. Every-where throughout Carlyle's works we meet with jeremiads on the ills of this "vile-spotted" world, he (in the "Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson") more than once declaring that Emerson's is the only "human" voice that reaches his ear. Woe is the world! Numberless were the voices that reached Mrs. Carlyle, each articulating something human, too. Carlyle's attitude is that of a spoiled babe, who would rectify the world by chronic censoriousness; Mrs. Carlyle's, that of a true mother, who dares all and hopes all. The one is a pessimist, the other an optimist, as clearly set forth in the two following sonnets, the former by Carlyle, the latter by his wife: CUI BONO? What is Hope? a smiling rainbow |