“This umbrageous Man’s nest,” Carlyle styles it: and a very well-filled nest it was, too. To-day it is freely open to all comers, and many and diverse are those who come here. In the year ending August 31st, 1905, the house was visited by 1,700 people, who gazed with reverence, with curiosity, or with mere vacuity of mind—after their several sorts—upon the humble interiors.
“And is this really the room in which Carlyle was born?” asked one in that first category, a good many years ago, in an awestruck voice.
“Aye,” said the gudewife, who to be sure did not rightly comprehend the inner meaning of all this hero-worship; “an’ oor Maggie was born here, too.”
Homeric laughter, doubtless, at this, in that place where the literary immortals foregather.
IN THE BIRTHPLACE
Professor Wilson, “Christopher North,” and his fellow-contributors to the Edinburgh Review, claimed to cultivate literature on a little oatmeal, but the claim might better be made for the author of “Frederick the Great” and “Sartor Resartus.” Plain living and high-thinking, you cannot fail to see, formed his life. A very simple-living, homely man indeed, as all his intimate belongings clearly show. His plain, commonplace inkstand, with the last pen he used, his simple writing-table with its original table-cloth, his tobacco-jar, together with a tobacco-cutter with which he sliced his own tobacco, are all of the least expensive kind, and, looking upon them, I feel vicariously ashamed for the modern authors of “masterpieces” who, according to the literary journals of the day, cannot feel “inspired” unless they are lapped round with every luxury. Carlyle’s felt hat is enclosed under glass: his straw hat hangs upon the wall, and you may put it on your own head. Most people do. Prominent among the many tributes to his genius is the great laurel wreath sent in 1895 by the German Emperor to mark the centenary of his birth. It was, of course, primarily a tribute to the hero-worshipping author of “Frederick the Great.”
OLD TABLET AT ECCLEFECHAN.
Carlyle himself lies in the dour little graveyard of Ecclefechan, among his kin and away from his wife, whose grave is in the roofless nave of Haddington Abbey. Like most Scottish kirkyards, the gates of it are chained and locked.
“Entepfuhl” as Carlyle in “Sartor Resartus” styles Ecclefechan, is proud of him, largely, I suspect, because it perceives that the world beyond Annandale thinks so much of “Tam Carl.” There is a “Resartus Reading Room,” rather shabby with decrepit chairs, themselves sadly wanting reseating, or, better still, renewing altogether.