yles. Mr. C. came to see me at once, and appointed an evening to
be passed at their house. That first time, I was delighted with him.
He was in a very sweet humour,--full of wit and pathos, without being
overbearing or oppressive. I was quite carried away with the rich flow
of his discourse, and the hearty, noble earnestness of his personal
being brought back the charm which once was upon his writing, before I
wearied of it. I admired his Scotch, his way of singing his great full
sentences, so that each one was like the stanza of a narrative ballad.
He let me talk, now and then, enough to free my lungs and change my
position, so that I did not get tired. That evening, he talked of the
present state of things in England, giving light, witty sketches
of the men of the day, fanatics and others, and some sweet, homely
stories he told of things he had known of the Scotch peasantry.

"Of you he spoke with hearty kindness; and he told, with beautiful
feeling, a story of some poor farmer, or artisan in the country, who
on Sunday lays aside the cark and care of that dirty English world,
and sits reading the Essays, and looking upon the sea.

"I left him that night, intending to go out very often to their
house. I assure you there never was anything so witty as Carlyle's
description of ---- ----. It was enough to kill one with laughing.
I, on my side, contributed a story to his fund of anecdote on this
subject, and it was fully appreciated. Carlyle is worth a thousand of
you for that;--he is not ashamed to laugh when he is amused, but goes
on in a cordial, human fashion.

"The second time Mr. C. had a dinner-party, at which was a witty,
French, flippant sort of man, author of a History of Philosophy,[A]
and now writing a Life of Goethe, a task for which he must be as unfit
as irreligion and sparkling shallowness can make him. But he told
stories admirably, and was allowed sometimes to interrupt Carlyle a
little, of which one was glad, for that night he was in his more acrid
mood, and though much more brilliant than on the former evening, grew
wearisome to me, who disclaimed and rejected almost everything he
said.

[Footnote A: George Henry Lewes.]

"For a couple of hours he was talking about poetry, and the whole
harangue was one eloquent proclamation of the defects in his own mind.
Tennyson wrote in verse because the schoolmasters had taught him that
it was great to do so, and had thus, unfortunately, been turned from
the