Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

'292 LETTEES OF JANE WELSH CAKLYLE TOastounding truth, that it was all his labour since hereturned from Scotland that had been there sent up*the vent, in smoke ! He had discovered over nighthe said * that he must take up the damnable thingon quite a new tack ! ' Oh a very damnable thingindeed ! I tell you in secret, I begin to be seriouslyafraid that his * Life of Cromwell ' is going to havethe same strange fate as the child of a certain Frenchmarchioness that I once read of, which never couldget itself born^ tho' carried about in her for twentyyears till she died ! A wit is said to have once askedthis poor woman if Madame was not thinking of'swallowing a tutor for her son ? ' So one might askCarlyle if he is not thinking of swallowing a publisherfor his book ? Only that he is too miserable, poorfellow, without the addition of being laughed at. Inlamenting his slow progress, or rather non-progress,he said to me one day with a naivete altogethertouching, Well ' ! They may tivaddle as they likeabout the miseries of a bad conscience : but I shouldlike to know whether Judas Iscariot was moremiserable than Thomas Carlyle who never did anythingcriminal, so far as lie remembers ! Ah my'dear, this is all very amusing to ivrite about, but totransact ? God help us well thro' it ! And, asthe Kilmarnock preacher prayed, ' give us all a goodconceit of ourselves,' for this is what is chieflywanted here at present ! If my husband had halfthe conceit of himself which shines so conspicuous in