Social Scientists & Scholars, Historical Biography - Britain, Historiography, British & Irish Literary Biography

Guide to Carlyle : Volume One

Name: Guide to Carlyle : Volume One
Author: Augustus Ralli
ISBN: 9781410223258

by Augustus Ralli

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This is an OCR edition with typos.
Excerpt from book:
CHAPTER II THE WELSH FAMILY—BULLER TUTORSHIP- FIRST VISIT TO LONDON—HODDAM HILL 1821-5 1821 The five years of Carlyle's life, from the spring of 1821 to the autumn of 1826, are still to be reckoned as probationary, though we may trace in them the settling of his mind into the form which it was afterwards to retain. We see the stilling of theological doubt; the fixing of his mental attitude towards his task ; the convergence of various paths of occupation, including literary- hack work, into the broad road of original composition , and, above all, the entrance into his life of Jane Welsh. The Welsh family had lived for many generations in Dumfriesshire, ranking as small gentry ; their family estate being Craigenputtock—a name that has become famous in Carlyle history. Craigenputtock had formerly been encumbered, but was repurchased from his father by the successful Dr. Welsh, medical practitioner at Haddington. His only child, Jane Baillie Welsh, was born on July 14, 1801, and from earliest years she displayed the " intellectual vivacity" which has since been called her predominating trait. Among the many stories of her childhood we may select the following as illustrating her inborn thirst for knowledge. Some difference of opinion existed between her parents as to the desirability of including Latin in her studies ; whereupon one night, after bedtime, she concealed herself beneath the table, and during a moment's pause in the conversation, began to decline a noun which she had succeeded in learning— " Penna,apen ; pennae, of a pen," etc. : after which she emerged, and approaching her father, said : " I want to learn Latin ; please let me be a boy." ' 1 Reminiscences, i. 55. She was soon after sent to Haddington school, and therefore in j 811 came under the tutor...