Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

294 LETTERS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE TOKobertson, who you may remember I told you ravedabout those same eyes—to a weariness ! My virtuousmarried-woman-indignantblushes had been entirelythrown away ! It was too ridiculous ! But couldyou have conceived of such stupidity— even amongauthors—as this of beginning a letter to one womanwith an apostrophe to the eyes of another ?My German friend has returned from Germanysafe and sound, and brought me thence a highlycurious gage d'amour, which is causing a sort ofgeneral panic among my admirers. Old Sterlingin particular is furious at it and likens it to theDevil's tail(where he saw the Devil's tail, whether atthe*Times ' newspaper-office, or in what otherunholy place, I did not like to ask). The thing isthe most splendid, most fantastical, altogether inconceivable—bell-rope! Made for me by the hands ofPlattnauer's countess-sister. A countless number oflittle Chinese pagodas, of scarlet network festoonedwith white bugles, are threaded on a scarlet rope,ending in a * voluptuous ' scarlet tassel, which againsplits itself away into six little bugle-tassels ! Forthree days and three nights I was inthe dreadfuUestperplexity what to do with it ! To ring up one's onemaidservant with such a bell-rope would have been anact of inconsistency all too glaring ! besides I shouldhave been always fearing when I pulled it that Ishould bring a shower of bugles about my ears ! SoI decided finally to give it a smecitre-place beside the