the coming of Shiloh, should be seeking seats in a
Gentile legislature.' Froude asked what the Baron said to that. 'Why,'
said Carlyle, 'he seemed to think the coming of Shiloh was a dubious
business, and that meanwhile, etc., etc.'

On February 9, 1848, Carlyle wrote in his journal: 'Chapman's money
[Chapman & Hall were his publishers] all paid, lodged now in the
Dumfries Bank. New edition of "Sartor" to be wanted soon. My poor books
of late have yielded me a certain fluctuating annual income; at all
events, I am quite at my ease as to money, and that on such low terms. I
often wonder at the luxurious ways of the age. Some L1500, I think, is
what has accumulated in the bank. Of fixed income (from Craigenputtock)
L150 a year. Perhaps as much from my books may lie fixed amid the huge
fluctuation (last year, for instance, it was L800: the year before,
L100; the year before that, about L700; this year, again, it is like to
be L100; the next perhaps nothing--very fluctuating indeed)--some L300
in all, and that amply suffices me. For my wife is the best of
housewives; noble, too, in reference to the property, which is _hers_,
which she has never once in the most distant way seemed to know to be
hers. Be this noted and remembered; my thrifty little lady--every inch a
lady--ah me! In short, I authentically feel indifferent to money; would
not go this way or that to gain more money.'[20]

The Revolution of February 24th at Paris surprised Carlyle less than
most of his contemporaries, as it confirmed what he had been saying for
years. He did not believe, we are told, in immediate convulsion in
England; but he did believe that, unless England took warning and mended
her ways, her turn would come. The excitement in London was intense, and
leading men expressed themselves freely, but Carlyle's general thoughts
were uttered in a lengthy letter to Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, for
whom he entertained a warm regard. On March 14 he met Macaulay at Lord
Mahon's at breakfast; 'Niagara of eloquent commonplace talk,' he says,
'from Macaulay. "Very good-natured man"; man cased in official mail of
proof; stood my impatient fire-explosions with much patience, merely
hissing a little steam up, and continued his Niagara--supply and demand;
power ruinous to powerful himself; _im_possibility of Government doing
more than keep the peace; suicidal distraction of new French Republic,
etc. Essentially irremediable, commonplace nature of the man; all