On the Choice of Books | Page 5

all the matters familiar to his discourse.
'Blackwood's' was the 'sand magazine;' 'Fraser's' nearer approach to
possibility of life was the 'mud magazine;' a piece of road near by that
marked some failed enterprise was 'the grave of the last sixpence.'
When too much praise of any genius annoyed him, he professed hugely
to admire the talent shewn by his pig. He had spent much time and
contrivance in confining the poor beast to one enclosure in his pen, but
pig, by great strokes of judgment, had found out how to let a board
down, and had foiled him. For all that, he still thought man the most
plastic little fellow in the planet, and he liked Nero's death, 'Qualis
artifex pereo!' better than most history. He worships a man that will
manifest any truth to him. At one time he had inquired and read a good
deal about America. Landor's principle was mere rebellion, and that he
feared was the American principle. The best thing he knew of that
country was, that in it a man can have meat for his labour. He had read
in Stewart's book, that when he inquired in a New York hotel for the
Boots, he had been shown across the street, and had found Mungo in
his own house dining on roast turkey.
"We talked of books. Plato he does not read, and he disparaged
Socrates; and, when pressed, persisted in making Mirabeau a hero.
Gibbon he called the splendid bridge from the old world to the new.
His own reading had been multifarious. Tristram Shandy was one of his
first books after Robinson Crusoe, and Robertson's America an early
favourite. Rousseau's Confessions had discovered to him that he was
not a dunce; and it was now ten years since he had learned German, by
the advice of a man who told him he would find in that language what
he wanted.
"He took despairing or satirical views of literature at this moment;

recounted the incredible sums paid in one year by the great booksellers
for puffing. Hence it comes that no newspaper is trusted now, no books
are bought, and the booksellers are on the eve of bankruptcy.
"He still returned to English pauperism, the crowded country, the
selfish abdication by public men of all that public persons should
perform. 'Government should direct poor men what to do. Poor Irish
folk come wandering over these moors. My dame makes it a rule to
give to every son of Adam bread to eat, and supplies his wants to the
next house. But here are thousands of acres which might give them all
meat, and nobody to bid these poor Irish go to the moor and till it. They
burned the stacks, and so found a way to force the rich people to attend
to them.'
"We went out to walk over long hills, and looked at Criffel, then
without his cap, and down into Wordsworth's country. There we sat
down, and talked of the immortality of the soul. It was not Carlyle's
fault that we talked on that topic, for he had the natural disinclination of
every nimble spirit to bruise itself against walls, and did not like to
place himself where no step can be taken. But he was honest and true,
and cognizant of the subtile links that bind ages together, and saw how
every event affects all the future. 'Christ died on the tree: that built
Dunscore kirk yonder: that brought you and me together. Time has only
a relative existence.'
"He was already turning his eyes towards London with a scholar's
appreciation. London is the heart of the world, he said, wonderful only
from the mass of human beings. He liked the huge machine. Each
keeps its own round. The baker's boy brings muffins to the window at a
fixed hour every day, and that is all the Londoner knows, or wishes to
know, on the subject. But it turned out good men. He named certain
individuals, especially one man of letters, his friend, the best mind he
knew, whom London had well served."[A]
[Footnote A: "English Traits," by R.W. Emerson. First Visit to
England.]
"Carlyle," says Emerson, "was already turning his eyes towards
London," and a few months after the interview just described he did
finally fix his residence there, in a quiet street in Chelsea, leading down
to the river-side. Here, in an old-fashioned house, built in the reign of
Queen Anne, he and his wife settled down in the early summer of 1834;

here they continued to live together until she died; and here Carlyle
afterwards lived on alone till the end of his life.
With another man, of whom he now became the neighbour--Leigh
Hunt--he had already formed a slight acquaintance, which soon ripened
into a warm