Thomas Carlyle, A Biography

Thomas Carlyle, A Biography
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Title: Thomas Carlyle Biography
Author: John Nichol
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THOMAS CARLYLE
BY
JOHN NICHOL, LL. D, M.A., BALLIOL, OXON
1904

PREFATORY NOTE
The following record of the leading events of Carlyle's life and attempt
to estimate his genius rely on frequently renewed study of his work, on
slight personal impressions--"vidi tantum"--and on information
supplied by previous narrators. Of these the great author's chosen
literary legatee is the most eminent and, in the main, the most reliable.
Every critic of Carlyle must admit as constant obligations to Mr.
Froude as every critic of Byron to Moore or of Scott to Lockhart. The
works of these masters in biography remain the ample storehouses from
which every student will continue to draw. Each has, in a sense, made
his subject his own, and each has been similarly arraigned.
I must here be allowed to express a feeling akin to indignation at the
persistent, often virulent, attacks directed against a loyal friend,
betrayed, it may be, by excess of faith and the defective reticence that
often belongs to genius, to publish too much about his hero. But Mr.
Froude's quotation, in defence, from the essay on Sir Walter Scott
requires no supplement: it should be remembered that he acted with
explicit authority; that the restrictions under which he was at first
entrusted with the MSS. of the Reminiscences and the Letters and
Memorials (annotated by Carlyle himself, as if for publication) were
withdrawn; and that the initial permission to select finally approached a

practical injunction to communicate the whole. The worst that can be
said is that, in the last years of Carlyle's career, his own judgment as to
what should be made public of the details of his domestic life may have
been somewhat obscured; but, if so, it was a weakness easily hidden
from a devotee.
My acknowledgments are due to several of the Press comments which
appeared shortly after Carlyle's death, more especially that of the _St.
James's Gazette_, giving the most philosophical brief summary of his
religious views which I have seen; and to the kindness of Dr. Eugene
Oswald, President of the Carlyle Society, in supplying me with
valuable hints on matters relating to German History and Literature. I
have also to thank the Editor of the Manchester Guardian for
permitting me to reproduce the substance of my article in its columns
of February 1881. That article was largely based on a contribution on
the same subject, in 1859, to Mackenzie's Imperial Dictionary of
Biography.
I may add that in the distribution of material over the comparatively
short space at my command, I have endeavoured to give prominence to
facts less generally known, and passed over slightly the details of
events previously enlarged on, as the terrible accident to Mrs. Carlyle
and the incidents of her death. To her inner history I have only referred
in so far as it had a direct bearing on her husband's life. As regards the
itinerary of Carlyle's foreign journeys, it has seemed to me that it might
be of interest to those travelling in Germany to have a short record of
the places where the author sought his "studies" for his greatest work.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY
CHAPTER II
1795-1826 ECCLEFECHAN AND EDINBURGH
CHAPTER III
1826-1834 CRAIGENPUTTOCK (from Marriage to London)
CHAPTER IV
1834-1842 CHEYNE ROW--(To death of Mrs. Welsh)
CHAPTER V

1842-1853 CHEYNE ROW--(To death of Carlyle's Mother)
CHAPTER VI
1853-1866 THE MINOTAUR--(To death of Mrs. Carlyle)
CHAPTER VII
1866-1881 DECADENCE
CHAPTER VIII
CARLYLE AS MAN OF LETTERS,