lie to the north, turn southward and look over the
wide expanse of land and water to the Cumbrian mountains, then, should
he be fortunate enough to see the landscape in stormy and unsettled
weather, he may realize why the land was so dear to its most famous son
that he could return to it from year to year throughout his life and
could there at all times soothe his most unquiet moods. Through all his
years in London he remained a lowland Scot and was most at home in
Annandale. With this district his fame is still bound up, as that of
Walter Scott with the Tweed, or that of Wordsworth with the Lakes.

In this humble household Thomas Carlyle first learnt what is meant by
work, by truthfulness, and by reverence, lessons which he never forgot.
He learnt to revere authority, to revere worth, and to revere something
yet higher and more mysterious--the Unseen. In _Sartor Resartus_ he
describes how his hero was impressed by his parents' observance of
religious duties. 'The highest whom I knew on earth I here saw bowed
down with awe unspeakable before a Higher in Heaven; such things
especially in infancy, reach inwards to the very core of your being.'
His father was a man of unusual force of character and gifted with a
wonderful power of speech, flashing out in picturesque metaphor, in
biting satire, in humorous comment upon life. He had, too, the Scotch
genius for valuing education; and it was he who decided that Tom, whose
character he had observed, should have every chance that schooling could
give him. His mother was a most affectionate, single-hearted, and
religious woman; labouring for her family, content with her lot, her
trust for her son unfailing, her only fear for him lest in his new
learning he might fall away from the old Biblical faith which she held
so firmly herself.

Reading with his father or mother, lending a hand at housework when
needed, nourishing himself on the simple oatmeal and milk which
throughout life remained his favourite food, submitting himself
instinctively to the stern discipline of the home, he passed, happily on
the whole, through his childhood and soon outstripped his comrades in
the village school. His success there led to his going in his tenth year
to the grammar school at Annan; and before he reached his fourteenth
year he trudged off on foot to Edinburgh to begin his studies at the
university.

Instead of young men caught up by express trains and deposited, by the
aid of cabmen and por