On the Choice of Books | Page 3

Reminiscences, "getting my head a

little up, translating 'Legendre's Geometry' for Brewster. I still
remember a happy forenoon in which I did a Fifth Book (or complete
'doctrine of proportion') for that work, complete really and lucid, and
yet one of the briefest ever known. It was begun and done that forenoon,
and I have (except correcting the press next week) never seen it since;
but still I feel as if it were right enough and felicitous in its kind! I only
got £50 for my entire trouble in that 'Legendre;' but it was an honest job
of work, honestly done."[A]
[Footnote A: Reminiscences by Thomas Carlyle, Edited by James
Anthony Froude. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1881, Vol. 1., pp.
198-199.]
The late Professor de Morgan--an excellent authority--pronounced a
high eulogium upon this Essay on Proportion.
In 1822 Carlyle accepted the post of tutor to Charles Buller, of whose
early death and honourable promise, two touching records remain to us,
one in verse by Thackeray, and one in prose by Carlyle.
For the next four years Carlyle devoted his attention almost exclusively
to German literature.
His Life of Schiller first appeared under the title of "Schiller's Life and
Writings," in the London Magazine.


Part I.--October, 1823.

Part II.--January, 1824.

Part III.--July, 1824.
" August, 1824. " September, 1824.
It was enlarged, and separately published by Messrs. Taylor and
Hessey, the proprietors of the Magazine, in 1825.
The translation of "Wilhelm Meister," in 1824,[A] was the first real

introduction of Goethe to the reading world of Great Britain. It
appeared without the name of the translator, but its merits were too
palpable to be overlooked, though some critics objected to the strong
infusion of German phraseology which had been imported into the
English version. This acquired idiom never left our author, even in his
original works, although the "Life of Schiller," written but a few
months before, is almost entirely free from the peculiarity. "Wilhelm
Meister," in its English dress, was better received by the English
reading public than by English critics. De Quincey, in one of his
dyspeptic fits, fell upon the book, its author, and the translator,[B] and
Lord Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, although admitting Carlyle to
be a talented person, heaped condemnation upon the work.
[Footnote A: Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. 3 Vols., Edinburgh,
1824.]
[Footnote B: Curiously enough in the very numbers of the "London
Magazine" containing the later instalments of Carlyle's Life of
Schiller.]
Carlyle's next work was a series of translations, entitled "German
Romance: Specimens of the chief Authors; with Biographical and
Critical Notices." 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1827. The Preface and
Introductions are reprinted in the second volume of Carlyle's Collected
Works: the Specimens translated from Hoffmann and La Motte Fouqué,
have not been reprinted.
"This," says Carlyle, in 1857, "was a Book of Translations, not of my
suggesting or desiring, but of my executing as honest journey-work in
defect of better. The pieces selected were the suitablest discoverable on
such terms: not quite of less than no worth (I considered) any piece of
them; nor, alas, of a very high worth any, except one only. Four of
these lots, or quotas to the adventure, Musæus's, Tieck's, Richter's,
Goethe's, will be given in the final stage of this Series; the rest we
willingly leave, afloat or stranded, as waste driftwood, to those whom
they may farther concern."
It was in 1826 that Mr. Carlyle married Miss Jane Welsh, the only child
of Dr. John Welsh, of Haddington,[A] a lineal descendant of John
Knox, and a lady fitted in every way to be the wife of such a man. For
some time after marriage he continued to reside at Edinburgh, but in
May, 1828, he took up his residence in his native county, at

Craigenputtoch--a solitary farmhouse on a small estate belonging to his
wife's mother, about fifteen miles from Dumfries, and in one of the
most secluded parts of the country. Most of his letters to Goethe were
written from this place.
[Footnote A: Her father had been dead some seven years when Carlyle
and she were married, and the life interest of her inheritance in the farm
of Craigenputtoch had been made over to her mother, who survived
until 1842, when it reverted to Carlyle.]
In one of the letters sent from Craigenputtoch to Weimar, bearing the
date of 25th September, 1828, we have a charming picture of our
author's seclusion and retired literary life at this period:--
"You inquire with such warm interest respecting our present abode and
occupations, that I feel bound to say a few words about both, while
there is still room left. Dumfries is a pleasant town, containing about
fifteen thousand inhabitants, and may be considered the centre of the
trade and judicial system of a district