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The Candidate.
‘Father, who travels onr road so late ! ’
‘Hush, my child ! 'tis the candidate !
Fit example of human woes,
Early he comes and late he goes !
He greets the women with courtly grace;
He kisses the baby’s dirty face;
He calls to the fence the farmer at work;
He bores the merchant, he bores the clerk;
The blacksmith, while his anvil rings.
He greets, and this is the song he sings:
■Howdy, Howdy, how d’ye do
How is your wife and how are you ?
Ah, it fits my fist as no other can,
The horny hand of the workingman.’
‘Husband, who is that at the gate ? ’
‘Hide, my love, it’s the candidate ! ’
‘Husband, why can’t he work like you ?
Has he nothing at all at home to do?’
•My dear, whenever a man is down,
No cash at home and no credit in town,
Too plain to preach and too proud to beg,
Too timid to rob, and too lazy to dig,
Then over his horse his legs he flings,
And to the dear people this song he sings:
‘Howdy, Howdv how d’ye do ?
How is your wife and how are you ?
Ah, it fits my fist as no other can,
The horny hand of the workingman.’
Brothers, who work early and late,
Ask these things of the candidate:
What is his record ? How does he stand
At home? No matter about his hand,
Be it hard or soft, so it is not prone
To close over money not his own.
Has he in view no thieving plan ?
Is he honest and capable ?—he’s your man !
Cheer such a man till the welkin rings !
Join in the chorus while he sings:
‘Howdy, Howdy, how d’ye do?
How is your wife and how are you?
Ah, it tits my fists as no other can,
The honest hand of the workingman ! ’
—OR —
The Vial of Chloral.
BY T. C. HARBAUGH.
CHAPTER I.
Lindsay Halsingham walked the tessellated
floor of his library, ill at ease.
He was a proud young man, who had not
passed his twenty-fifth year, and there was a
cloud on his countenance that lovely mid-sum
mer day. The light winds that came up from
the park stirred the leaves of various plants in
the window, and filled the room with fragrant
odors peculiar to the season. Even and anon
the man would glance anxiously from the win
dow, never pausing in his walk.
For a long time he was the sole occupant of
the lofty chamber. When the door opened and
admitted a liveried servant, he started forward.
‘Well, Cyrus?' fell from his lips. ‘Was she
there again ?’
‘She was,’ replied the man in a harsh grating
voica ‘I met her by the dead oak. She wore
that same dark dress, and rode the black horse.
I came upon her suddenly, and when I politely
touched my hat, she said: ‘‘How is your master
to-day?” ’
•Hid sfle speak with a sneer ? asked Halsing-
ham with eagerness.
T do not think she did; but her words seemed
as hard as iron.’
‘And did you ask what brought her to Eng
land—to my home ?’
-Aye, master ! Then she smiled and said it
was a useless question—she said that you know
what brought her here.’
Halsingham’s face grew pale, and his fine lip
trembled.
‘Is she handsome, Cyrns?’ he asked in a low
toDe and so curiously that the servant smiled.
‘Yes, but very dark. In all my life, master,
I never saw such eyes; they are the prettiest I
have ever seen.’
‘Do not judge too hastily; there be pretty
eyes over the Dee.’
‘Yes, but not so pretty as hers, I think. What
shall I do now, master?’
‘Nothing, save to depart. Return within an
hour. I will send a message across the river.’
Cyrus, the servant, bowed himself from the
library, and Halsingham was alone again. ‘I
know her,' he said, locking the door and drop
ping into an arm-chair. Yes, I know this dark
syren, who rides among my trees at odd times;
but she shall not succeed in her mission.
Never!’ and the next moment he had sprung
from the chair and was standing in the centre of
the room clenching his hands like a madman.
'I swear by all that man holds sacred, Coralie
Deprez, that you shall not accomplish your pur
pose. I fell into your snare once; but escaped
after a short captivity. What would I want with
you here? Why, there are English women who
seek the hand of Halsingham, as you sought it
in Cuba. Do not feast yourself on the thought
that you are going to wreak upon me the ven
geance of your hot heart. If money could buy
you off I might offer it; but you seek actual re
venge. Diamond must cut diamond now. Be
ware, Coralie Deprez ! when I speak the word,
a woman must step from Linsay Halsingham’s j
path.’ _ . j
A few moments later Cyrus returned, and his j
master hastily indited a few lines, which he j
sealed and entrusted to his care.
‘Now,’ said the master, ‘I will go down to the j
fountain. I promised to meet him there to- |
night.’
The servant, with the message in his bosom,
mounted a horse and rode towards the Dee, j
whose waters washed a portion of the estate. |
His master left the house and crossed the beau- j
Cdful garden to a grove of magnificent trees. In- i
terspersed throughout the tract were groups of I sought his couch, hi
statuary and antique vases that looked weirdly | a guilty man, he tos
beautiful in the moonlight. He saw them, but i and the little puffs of
Yici not seem to notice their loveliness. He did
not pause till he reached a fountain that flowed
from the mouth of a massive lion head held down
by Hercules.
The silence about him seemed palpable, and
the broken branch that a bird dropped at his
feet startled him, and brought a pallor to his
face.
If he was waiting for some one he was not com
pelled to wait long, for shortly after his arrival
at the fountain, a dark figure crept around the
lion and confronted him.
‘Good-night!’ were the words that saluted
Linsay Halsingham, and he echoed them in a
low, strange tone.
The new comer was a man of his own age, but
more strongly built and several inches taller.
Y'ou see I have kept my part of the appoint
ment,’ continued Halsingham. ‘I cannot re-
main’here long. Will you please tell me why I
have been summoned here?’
•Yes sir,’ and the other came nearer Halsing
ham. ' ‘I want to know if you still seek the hand
of Arietta Comlen ?’
•What is that to you? cried Halsingham quick-
lv ‘I keep my own secrets; keep yours, Tom
Jewett and we will never have any difficulties.
Ifel did not come here to-night to hear such ques-
CPtions.’
‘But I came here to ask them,’ was the stern
reply, and Halsingham saw a pistol in the speak
er’s baud.
Then he regretted having left his own weap
ons in the library.
‘Now answer me,’ said -Jewett. ‘Do you in
tend to force Arietta Comlen to an abhorrent
bridal ?’
‘I intend to make ber my wife !’ said Halsing
ham, looking into bis interrogator's eyes. YVhat
is it to you ?’
Tom Jewett smiled.
‘Nothing of interest, I will say,’ he said; ‘but
I will tell you that bigamy in England is a hein
ous crime.’
‘Bigamy ! Tom Jewett what are you talking
about ?'
Jewett laughed outright.
‘You may discover in time. I dare you to
make Arietta your wife.’
‘Dare me?’
Y'es, listen to me. I love that beautiful wo
man. Long ago I sought her hp.nd and received
it. The promise is still valid, she loves me to
day instead of you, Halsingham. Her father
hates mine—an old family feud, von see. He
drove me from his estate, and I struck him in a
tit of passion. When I cross the Dee at the
Ghost's Ford, I tread forbidden ground. You
are welcome there, while I am outlawed. The
old man has given her to you. Linsay Halsing
ham, if you have the heart of a man you will re
lease her from the engagement of marriage, and
let her wed in time one who holds her love sa
cred and pure. I know yon, sir,’ the speaker
went on, touching Halsingham’s arm; ‘I know
that you do not love her as I do; and I ask you
to relinquish your intentions. Give her to me; j
do not buy ber sorrowed life with your gold and
broad acres.’
‘You do not know Linsay Halsingham !’ was !
the proud reply. ‘Tom Jewett, I am going to i
wed the girl; she gave me her hand of her own j
free will. .She has forgotten you. And I tell I
you here that I want no interference. I want
no threats. Such will not cause me to swerve
one inch from the path I have marked out. She
j is mine by promise fair; the marriage agreement
has been properly drawn and signed. There !
are you satisfied !’
jewels in rich cases on the stand, and their glit
ter almost blinded ber. Bracelets, necklaces,
ear-rings and brooches greeted her vision when
ever she looked up—out of the windows of her
reverie.
‘To-morrow,’ she said at last, moving her
chair and taking up a brilliant brooch, to-mor
row I am to wear these gewgaws purchased with
‘Where did he live?’ she asked, scarcely above
a whisper.
‘At Halsingham House.’
Couilen’s child started from the Southern wo
man with a cry of incredulity.
‘No ! no ! no !’
Y'es ! yes ! yes !’ said the creole. ‘Halsingham
was my husband. He was Mortvn Mortyn
TOW 1 ft III LU Wrtu iucoo t | * a* J •/
his money. I wonder why he wants me then? Cuba, and under that name wedded me. My
Can he not wait another fortnight? Here he
sends his Cyrus over with a letter asking that I
wed him to-morrow. He says that it is impera
tive that I should, and I have consented. Fath
er said I must obey, and obedience, as his child,
I have ever owned. Tom, to-morrow the river
between us is to be effectually bridged. Noth
ing can now intervene between this and the fa-
tafhour. His wife? the mistress of Halsingham
Rouse ? I prefer to be the mistress of llosebank;
1jut I am not my own chooser.’
Thus talked Arietta Comlen to herself of the
coming day.
The contents of the letter with which the read
er has seen Halsingham’s servant leave his pres
ence, she has just disclosed.
Bv proper appointment, the wedding-day was
yet a fortnight distant; but Halsingham now de
manded an immediate marriage. In the letter
he assigned no reasons for such a sudden change,
of course; his words were deeply mysterious,
and the girl felt that some calamity hovered over
her head. She would have shrunk trom the hasty
marriage; but her father's voice was hard, and
Cyrus went back to E£alsingh..ai House with the
tidings for his master.
Tom -Jewett, Arietta’s earliest lover, was a
man of considerable means, hut untitled. He
lived near Westwood, a little town not far from
the two estates. He told the truth to Lindsay
Halsingham at the fountain when he said that
the curse of Saltobam Comlen was upon his
head. The old man loved the riches of the
worid, and when he saw that Halsingham sought
his child’s hand, he forced a quarrel with the
young gentleman which culminated in an angry
altercation at Brushwood, the mansion of Com
len estate.
From that hour Halsingham was a welcome
guest there, and he availed himself of the piiv-
and came often. The master of Brush-
blood was up when I entered his house to-night,
and I carried a dagger. I might have killed
him; just think of it, girl. But his own hands
has worked my revenge.’
‘Why, I was to wed him to-morrow,’ said Ari
etta.
‘Poor, poor child ! Did you love him too ?'
‘No ! I gave my love away before I knew him.’
‘I lived to love him,' said the Cuban. ‘Say
nothing of me. I am going back to my old
home now; he is past my revenge.’
It brought the author the name of the ‘Clothes
Philosopher.’ It pretends to be extracts from
the ‘Philosphy of Clothes,’ written by one
Diogones Teufelsdrockh (Godbour Devilsoffal)
hailing from Eutepfuhl (Duckpuddle) and
educated at the University of Wessnichtwo)
Don’t know where. ) The doctrine brought for
ward by ‘Dr. Teufelsdrockh’ was that all the
creeds, lorrns aDd institutions of the world are
but the clothes—the garments in which man
has clothed himself in past and present ages.
He holds that these garments are sadly worn
out or badly patched and need putting off alto
gether, for the most part, though he neglects to
give us any pattern for a new outfit, and would
leave the world (pursuing his own figure of
clothes,) in the condition of Miss Flora Mc-
Flimsy, ‘with nothing to wear.’
The London booksellers stupidly enough
failed to see any merit in the Sartor ’ Resartus.
cheeks—a tear for the man who had won her
love to desert her.
She kissed Arietta ere she was let out of the
house; she told her that she had confided her
know that the young man had fallen beneath
his own pistol in the hands of young Halsing
ham.
Quite early the next morning the death at Hal-
singham House was discovered. The empty
chloral vial disclosed the manner of his taking
oft', and the people said it was suicide. But the
reader believes if, indeed, he does not know
that the master administered too much of the
medicine to himself. It quieted his nerves for
ever.
While the people flocked to Halsingham
House, Tom Jewett crossed the threshold. There
was a red furrow along his temple—the track of
his pistol's ball.
Halsingham had not slain him in the grove,
and be lived to lead Arietta to the altar, for
death, shortly after the tragedy at Halsingham
House, removed her father.
He proved himself worthy of his fair bride’s
love, and happiness crowned two lives.
Coralie, the Cuban wife, returned to Havana
and died in her father's arms.
THOMAS CARLISLE,
THE
Lion of Chelsea.
A i*ir<!’s Eye (•lam*) 1 sit liis Life iiiul
liis hooks.
BY MARY E. BRYAN.
Coralie, the Cuban.
Tom Jewett bit his lip and stepped back. ‘If
you are,’ he said, ‘I will probably see her to
night. May I not carrv a message from you?'
‘See whom?’ cried Halsingham, noticing the
emphasis, and the next moment he faced Jewett
with clenched hands and crimson face. ‘Ans
wer me, Tom Jewett!’
‘I mean your wife,’ was the reply.
‘I have no wife!'
‘This will not do, Linsay Halsingham, Cora
lie is here. I have seen her and will see her
again before the sun burnishes the waves of the
Dee. You were in Cuba five years ago; they knew
you as Mortyn Mortyn: there you met Coralie
Deprez, and married her. Ha ! you thought I
knew nothing of this !’
‘A pack of lies that shall go for naught!’ cried
Halsingham. ‘I spurn them and the tongue
that has given them to the winds.’
The response to this was a laugh, and Tom
Jewett turned his back upon the angry man.
An instant later Halsingham sprang forward,
and struck the man who, having heard his ejac
ulation of rage, was turning to confront him.
Jewett reeled under the blow, which was given
with great force, and the pistol dropped from
his hands.
Another second and a loud report cleft the
summer air, and Halsingham flung a smoking
psstol into the basin of the fountain.
Tom Jewett lay on the verdant carpet of na
ture, still, like a weary man asleep. His enemy
cast a look at his pale face as he walked by, and
the vicinity of the fouatain saw no living being
for a long time.
‘One is out oi my road,’ said Halsingham, find
ing himself in the library agaiD. ‘I can easily
manage Coralie if she remains about bore. I re
peat my vow that she shall not accomplish her
purpose. The heiiess of Brushwood is mine by
promise, and mine by the laws oi church and
State she shall be !’
Then he disrobed in the mellow moonlight
that streamed through the silken curtains, and
sought his couch. But he could not sleep. Like
tossed restlessly on the bed,
puffs of night wind that rustled the
loose papers on his table, made him nervous.
He rose, walked the floor, and sought the pillows
again, but not to sleep.
At last, with a curse on his lips, he sprang
from the bed, and took a phial labeled ‘hydrate
of chloral' from the desk.
‘Thinking kills men,’ he murmured, prepar
ing the sorporifie medicine. ‘I must sleep if it
be the sleep ol death.’
Then he took the potion and retired for the
tenth time—to sleep !
By-and-by he ceased to toss about on the bed,
his heavy eyelids drooped, and the moonbeams
fell on his face white and death-like.
CHAPTER II.
While Lindsay Halsingham slept under the
influence of the medicine he had swallowed,
Arietta Comlen sat in an arm-chair in her bou
doir, wide awake.
She was a beautiful girl, whose blue eyes and
golden hair had made her an object of adrnira-
tien to all who knew her. The lamp burned
brilliantly on the table, and the mellow light,
as beautiful as her tresses, fell on her face. The
delicate gold watch she could have touched with
her hand denoted the hour of eleven, and found
the pillows of her couch unpressed. There were
wood broke the way for him, and when he asked
him for his daughter’s hand, he received the
promise.
But what had influenced Halsingham into the
demand lor immediate marriage?
Was it the presence on his estate of the Cuban
woman called Coralie? The reader, taking ev
erything into consideration, would naturally ar
rive at such a conclusion.
Five years before Linsay Halsingham made a
tour of Cuba, and it was reported in England
before he returned, that he had taken a Cuban
bride to his heart. But when he returned alone
and denied the report, rumor was silenced, and
he settled down to life on his wide extending
lands.
Arietta Comlen wa3 handling the jewels—
weighing them on her fingers and admiring their
flashings, when she heard a tapping on the win
dow sill.
Starting with a light ejaculation of affright,
she dropped the diamonds, and beheld a face at
the window.
It was the dark, handsome face of a woman
whose jaunty black hat was crowned with a white
feather.
Arietta, wondering how the woman could
have reached the balcony, rose and started for
ward.
‘Good-night!’ the strange one said, with a
smiie. ‘I hope you will pardon me for intrud
ing here. I clambered up the vines to the dem
olition of many bunches ot emerald grapes; but
I saw your light, and then I want to see you.
She spoke English with a beautiful Spanish
accent, which won Arietta to her at once, and
she invited her in.
With a smile, the creole stepped oyer the sill,
and stood in the blaze of the argand burner.
.she had a form taller and not so plump as
Arietta’s aud her hair was long and dark as the
raven’s plumage. A pair A passionate eyes
burned beneath long silken lashes, and daintily
gloved hands compelled the heiress’ attention.
‘Do you want to see me? asked Arietta. ‘I
never saw you before.’
‘But I have seen you,’ was the strange reply.
‘Listen to me. My name is Mortyn by marriage,
Deprez, by CubaD birth. I lelt Ever laithtul j
Isle to find the man who years ago led me to the
altar, in my father’s mansion. I first met him
in Havana, and there loved him—there I became
his bride. My folks called me the English Cu
ban, and my husband seemed to adore me till
one morn, when I awoke and made a terrible
discovery. He had fled ! while 1 read the letter
he left behind, he was sailing to this land.
‘To England?’ cried Arietta.
‘To this country ! More than once I have met
him here when he did not know me. 1'o-night.
I made bold to seek him in his own house. I
entered, the doors being unlocked. lo bis
chamber I made my way, and on his couch tound
the man I sought. He is dead now.
Saltobam Couilen’s daughter started towards
the Cuban with pallid tace.
YVhat! did you slay him ? she cried. ‘Did
you strike him while he slept-he your lawfully
wedded husband ?’ _ .
‘No ^ replied Coralie, quietly, but with a taint
smile." ‘I found him dead. On his desk sat
a bottle of medicine that makes people sleep for
ever. Oh ! I wonder if he took it to put himself
out of the world.’ . . , „ _ , ,
Arietta was silent, looking into the Cuban s
face.
Arietta saw a tear steal down the Cuban's j It was a new departure they were shy of. They
‘ ‘ ‘ could not appreciate the bold originality, keen
statire and sublime thought that gowed through
all the grotesque comparisons, the rugged, in
volved style which Carlyle had now begun to
search to Tom Jewett; but the woman did not | usp. This twisted, bewildering form of expres-
‘ ' " 1 sion afterwards became one of his idiosyncra
sies.
At last, Sartor had to be published in Fraser’s
Magazine, for the publishers would not touch
it, until after it became famous and was more
widely read, perhaps, than any of his books.
These books now followed fast on each other.
On the heels of Sartor came the History of the
I rench Revolution—a series of the most vivid,
graphic pictures that pen ever sketched—tilled
out too, with a pre-raphaelite fidelity of de
tail, for Carlyle, like Waiter Scott, neglected no
study that would enable him to describe with
minute truthfulness of detail. In the ‘French
Revolution’ the gifted dyspeptic reiterated his
mastiff growl that the world was a world of shams
and men and women were maskers and moral
cowards and hypocrites. But it is a grand book.
It came near never seeing the light. A careless
servant kindled the fires with the carefully pre
pared copy and the poor philosopher found that
all his brain-labor had vanished up the chim
ney in smoke.
He vowed that the history was all gone out of
his head; he neither could nor would re-write
a line of it. He shut himself in his study in
the indigo gloom of ‘blues:’ The dyspepsia
reigned malignant, the deepest jaundice stain
ed the Thunderer’s out-look. But relief came.
A lady friend braved the lion in his den, brought
a pile of novels and won from him a promise to
peep into them. He did so; the cure wa3 effect
ed. The novels cleared away the vapors, toned
up the intellectual man,and the maid’s mischief
was repaired; the ‘French Revolution’ was re
written.
It was followed by numerous works, minor in
point ot size,but some of them literary diamonds
of the first water. ‘Heroes and Hero Worship,’
■Past and Present,' ‘Count Cagliosto,’ ‘the Dia
mond Necklace,’ and the famous, trenchant
‘Latter Day Pamphlets,’ which earned him the
title ot the ‘Thunderer’ and the Lion of Chelsea
which he had now made his home. Later, he
wrote the‘Life of Sterling.’ When this noble
biography appeared, it had been expected it
would be an out-pouring of the author’s hete
rodox opinions and bitter denunciations of so
cial and religious shams. The philosopher’s
many foes stood ready to transfix it on their
critical spears, but it took them by surprise. It
was broad indeed and strong, but calm, it was
even pathetic, tender. The heart of the wri
ter glowed under his sketch of the bright
evanescent, lovable life and character of his
friend as in no other of his works that I have
read. Even Gilfillan, his detractor, exclaims
in wonder that Carlyle ‘must have been in love
when he wote the Life of Sterling. There is
hardlv a growl in it ‘Th° ! • n rn ■ :r. g "' / as
the sucking dove.’
A few years later appeared Carlyle's great
work ‘History of Frederic the Second, called
Frederic the Great.’ It is a masterly produc
tion; full of graphic power,brilliant, thougn not
always sound views, and an attention to details
of topography, local scenery and minor points,
very rare in one who swept also with wide-search
ing vision in the matter of description; though
the mind of Carlyle, it must be confessed, is
not a broad, comprehensive one. It might have
been, perhaps, but for that unfortunate liver;
but the fact remains that he was too prejudiced
for a historian and too dogmatic for a philoso
pher. Many of his thoughts and sentiments
rise into the heights or shale into the delicate
tints of poetry. Y'et, he was a firm hater of the
poetic form and he had a thorough and stroDgly
expressed contempt for any one who fettered
himself with rhyme and measure. ‘Away
with such hampering harness,’ cried the old
sage, whose thoughts refused to prance in such
traces. He could never help sneering even at
England’s poet laureate and doubtless had an
itching to strip Tennyson of what Channing
calls his ‘mild, singing clothes.’
He is alive still, in spite of his liver and his
eighty-three years —living at Chelsea and writ
ing his autobiography with the assistance of his
niece, Miss Mary Carlyle Aiken. It is still de
lightful to listen to him when he is in the mood
for talking. He is said to have excelled that
matchless monologuist, Coleridge, in conversa
tion, and his rich, spontaneous utterances are
listened to by his friends as almost oracular.
He proved a false prophet in regard to our
war. He predicted that it would break up the
Republic. He is at heart a strong monarchist,
notwithstanding some contrary utterances. He
sketched the great Federick con amore. He de
ifies the strong will, the bold hand. And yet,
he is inconsistent in his worship. He cries all
hail to Frerderic and Mahomet,and even Dan-
ton and Mirabeau and he sneers at Bonapart,
whom he calls the ‘great highway-man of histo
ry, whose habit was to clutch king or kaiser by
the throat and swear if they did no, stand and
deliver he would blow their brains out,and who
did a profitable trade at this sort ot thing until
another man, Arthur, duke of Wellington, who
had learned the trick, succeeded in clutching
him and there was an end of it.’
(SEE FEOXT PAGE ENGIiA VISG.)
Thomas Carlyle—the strong, vindictive, un
compromising old Scotch philosopher. Look
at his face: you can read marked individuality
on the brow and mouth; earnestness, insight,
tenacity of opinion, strong prejudice, these are
written in the lines of the most peculiar face.
Softer characteristics are traced there. The
trenchant satirist had a heart that his friends
found warm. His love, like his hate, is strong.
He is a decided character; no half way abo it
Thomas Carlyle. He puts his whole soul into
whatever he does. He is eighty three years old
this year of our Lord and he is as earnest as
ever, trying to clog the wheels of progress, de
nouncing the Darwinian Scientists inveighing
against electoral reform. He is no hypocrite.
His rigid old Scotch father destined him for the
church: wise men predicted heVould be a world-
famous preacher, and he would certainly have
made a stir in the religious world—a regular
r. ’.ir! • -cl. Bi-Jt Oar 1 3‘ 1 <‘ *—■«■
unless from sincerest convictions; and he had
doubts that tormented him. He peered into
the bewildering cloud-region of German meta
physics,and the doubts came thicker and faster.
In his adjective-burdened phraseology he calls
them ‘a trooping throng of phantoms dire from
the abysmal depths of nethermost perdition.’
He wrestled with them, he says, for weeks, in
strong agony of spirit, not knowing if he slept
or ate, moved or spoke. What came of the
struggle? Conviction?,No. Thomas Carlyle's re
ligious sky never cleared. But something was
developed from all these throes of spirit, all this
study, and isolation from human recreations,
namely dyspepsia—the ever present conscious
ness that he was possessed cf what he denomi
nated ‘that diabolical arrangement called a
stomach.’
Let no one smile at this as inconsequential;
Carlyle’s dispepsia had an important moral
affect. It turned the current of a great nature.
It colored the medium through which a deep
thinker looked at men and things. Henceforth
Carlyle saw with jaundiced eyes. He became a
pessimist—a chronic growler against society,
government, creeds and customs. No musing,
melancholy Jacques,but an energetic faultfinder.
And as yet he was only a youth of twentv-three.
Previously he had taught school at Kilcardy
Scotland (all philosphers, poets and politicians
seem to begin their career as pedagogues.) His
co-laborer was no less a personage than our own
Edward Irving, who had been his fellow student
at Edinburgh. A grim sort of school master,
the embryo Thunderer must have made, and
one fancies his scholarly assis-ant looking at
him often in mild deprecation.
But the ferule, no more than the pulpit-board
typed Carlyle’s mission; and, as he was not one
to wait for his vocation to hunt him up, he soon
found his work in life, which wa/to make books.
He first tried bis hand at translations. German
literature had just taken hold of his young im
agination with a power that amounted almost to
a "craze. He called on every body to worship
Goethe as the most transcendant genius of the
worid. He translated Wilhelm Meister, that
queer novel with its brilliant oases in a desert
of commonplace, and he pointed out a thousand
beauties, and saw a depth and breadth of social
wisdom and a richness of significant suggestion
in the work that no one else had discovered.
He wrote the ‘Life of Schiller,’ an able paper
published first in the Loudon Magazine. It was
the initial essay of a senes ot commentaries on
German writers as well as translations from
their works. But before he launched fully on
this sea of Tueton literature he married a lineal
descendant of John Knox, the sturdy reformer.
Miss Jane Welch must have made him an excel
lent wife; he speaks of her in his Lite ot Stir
ling iQ a manner to show his affection and
respect. She was cultivated enough to sympa
thize in his persuits—to comprehend his bent of
mind and appreciate his genius. All devotees
to literature are not so fortunate in choosing
mates. Oftenest, they labor with no such stim
ulant as intelligent companionship and appre
ciation at home. His wife’s companionship
was now almost all Carlyle allowed himself; for
he withdrew from society and towns. He went
to live on his bride’s little estate of Craigen
puttoch. A wild place it was—fifteen miles
from any town—shut round by granite hills and
bleak morasses.
It was just the place for such a mind to con-
cieye such a book as the Sartor Resartus—and
accordingly that medley of sound philosophy
and absurd conclusions, lofty eloquence and
grotesque thoughts and expression had here its
birth, bearing on it the mark of the black mo
rasses without and the disordered liver within.
The ‘Sartor Resartus,’ which being interpreted
is the ‘Sticher Restiched,’ is a criticism upon
the civilization of our day, from a pessimist
standpoint-a strange, grotesque, brilliant,
absurd book, at once fascinating and repellant.
Eighty-three years old! Well, we cannot have
him long with us, he must pass like the other
great lights of the age—like Macaulay, Dickens,
Thackeray and so many more. Our stars of the
first magnitude are all vanishing; lesser lights
take their place; less in brilliancy, greater in
numbers; thus
‘The individual withers while the world is more
and more.’
A woman's Promise.—Henry Carey, cousin to
Queen Elizibeth, after having enjoyed her
majesty’s favor for several years,lost it in the fol
lowing manner: As he was walking one day
full of thought in the garden of the palace,
under the queen’s window, she perceived him,
and said to him in a jocular manner:
YVhat does a man think of when he is think
ing of nothing?’
‘Upon a woman s promise,’ replied Carey.
‘Well done, cousin,’ answered Elizabeth.
She retired, but did not forget Carey’s
answer. Some time after he solicited the honor
of a peerage, and reminded the queen that she
had promised it to him.
‘True,’ said she, ‘but that was a woman’s
promise,’
Mrs. Langtry's beautiful nose is out of joint.
Mrs. Wheeler, another Jersey woman, only re
cently resident in the Isle of Wight, is the new
reigning beauty. She is a lady of the Langtry
and languishing type, and is said to excel even
Jersey Lily in the art of setting off her chafrms.