Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

208 LETTERS WEITTEN BY THOMAS CARLYLE TOLondon (owing to that outer stupidity ' ' of theEnghsh) has now brought about some begmning ofits own remedy. What I meant to say was, that thegenerous Varnhagen need not send me any morebooks, because any good book, German or other, hasnow become attainable here. Some two years ago,after sufficiently lamenting and even sometimes execratingsuch a state of matters, it struck me, Couldstnot thou, even thou there, try to mend it ? Theresult, after much confused difficulty, is a democraticinstitution called London Library,' where * all men,on payment of a small annual sum, can now borrowbooks ; a thing called here ' Subscription Library,'which in such a city as London, appetite growing bywhat it feeds on, may well become by-and-by one ofthe best libraries extant. We are democratic, as Isaid, or rather we mean to be ; for as yet only theelect of the j^ublic could be interested in the scheme.Prince Albert, good youth, is patron, by his own freeoffer ; has given fifty pounds of money, and promises*a stock of German books.' Varnhagen's are alreadythere. Faustum sit.You give an altogether melancholy account of yourhealth ; m which, alas, I can too well sympathise !It seems to me often the one misery in this world.But the supreme powers send it : we are to workunder such condition ; we cannot alter that condition.Perhaps there is even much good in it : I often feelBO.Your response to the poor pam]3hlet Chartism is