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5.0 out of 5 stars
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This review is from: Reminiscences (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)
When Carlyle's wife died he returned to his writing to regain a sense of purpose. The elegy was a form of writing congenial to Carlyle. After his father's death Carlyle endeavored to discover what lesson has been given to him, Thomas Carlyle. He notes his father James Carlyle was a noble inspiring example. He had admired Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS. Carlyle avers that he is proud of his peasant father.
Jane Carlyle, Thomas Carlyle's wife, had a gift for friendship. Her life was subject to Thomas's. She married genius she believed. Early in her marriage during a snowstorm she learned how to milk a cow. Carlyle is modern self-referential, but the material is so interesting a reader is able to get past the look-at-me problem associated with some contemporary memoir writers and even some novelists. Too, his REMINISCENCES were written when he was wholly mature as both a man and a writer and consequently his powers of selection and being able to weave the subjective with the objective elements of the narratives are great. The Scottish aspect to the writing causes the reader to slow down and listen to a voice reciting the true tales of jane's relatives--her Uncle John, for example. The prose is so elaborate, so decorated, it resembles poetry, and that is part of its charm. Carlyle was an egoist and knew it. When Jane was very sick, the Carlyles sought the sea air to relieve her agony. At first the sound of the sea was comforting, and then it became too loud. It was determined to move to London, but not to their own lodgings. Jane was sleepless and the move proved to be a good one. She died in 1866. The writer met Edward Irving when he visited his school. Seven years afterwards Carlyle was a schoolmaster. Later he visited Irving at Edinburgh and then at Kirkculdy. Irving's library was of great use to Carlyle. Later Irving moved from Glasgow to London by invitation. Irving and Carlyle went on a walking tour, probably in 1817. By 1819 both Irving and Carlyle were resolved to give up being schoolmasters. Carlyle's discussion of clergymen in his chapter on Edward Irving is the equal of a novel by Trollope. Irving died when he was forty-three. There was no disease. Carlyle writes of Francis Jeffrey, one of the founders of THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. Carlyle believed there was something of Voltaire in Jeffrey. (The chapter was completed in 1867.) It is noted by Carlyle that during the latter part of Wordsworth's life he saw himself as a recognized literary lion. The poet was sardonic. Carlyle says that his death was an extinction of a public light. Explanatory notes appear at the conclusion of this excellent work.
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