r regardless company could hardly be. Dinner was always served at
two o'clock, and about six o'clock the toastmaster and the gentlemen
drew off, when the ladies returned, and his grace awoke and called for
his tea. Tea being over, he played two rubbers at sixpenny whist. Supper
was served soon after nine, and he drank another bottle of claret, and
could not be got to go to bed till one in the morning. I stayed over
Sunday and preached to his grace. The ladies told me that I had pleased
him, which gratified me not a little, as without him no preferment could
be obtained in Scotland.

It was after this that I wrote what was called the "Militia Pamphlet,"
which had a great and unexpected success; it hit the tone of the
country, which was irritated at the refusal to allow the establishment
of a militia in Scotland.

The year 1760 was the most important of my life, for before the end of
it I was united with the most valuable friend and companion that any
mortal ever possessed. I owed my good fortune to the friendship of John
Home, who pointed out the young lady to me as a proper object of suit,
without which I should never have attempted it, for she was then just
past seventeen, when I was thirty-eight. With a superior understanding
and great discernment for her age, she had an ease and propriety of
manners which made her much distinguished in every company. She had not
one selfish corner in her whole soul, and was willing to sacrifice her
life for those she loved.

* * * * *

THOMAS CARLYLE

Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell

Thomas Carlyle, the celebrated literary moralist, was born at
Ecclefechan, Scotland, Dec. 4, 1795. He was educated at the
village school and at the Annan Grammar School, proceeding to
Edinburgh University in 1809. The breakdown of his dogmatic
beliefs made it impossible for him to enter the clerical
profession, and neither school-teaching nor the study of law
attracted him. Supporting himself by private teaching, Carlyle
made the beginnings of a literary connection. He fought his
way under great difficulties; he was hard to govern; he was a
painfully slow writer; and ignorance and rusticity mar his
work to the very end. Yet a fiery revolt against impostures,
an ardent sympathy for humanity, a worship of the heroic, an
immutable confidence in the eternal verities, and occasionally