Froude’s Carlyle Biography; which has (quite contrary to expectation also) not only made me honour Carlyle more, but even love him, which I had never taken into account before. In the Biography, Froude seems to me to treat his man with Candour and Justice: even a little too severe in attributing to systematic Selfishness what seems to me rather unreflecting neglect, Carlyle’s relations to his Wife, whom, so far as we read, he loved. Of his Love for his own Family, his Generosity to them, and his own sturdy refusal of help from others, one cannot doubt.
To C. E. Norton.
Woodbridge. Dec. 20, [1882].
My dear Norton,
. . . You may have read somewhere of an ‘Ajax’ at our Cambridge over here. Thirty years ago did I tell the Greek Professor (now Master of Trinity), ‘Have a Greek Tragedy in (what you call) your Senate-house.’ But I was not sufficiently important to stir up the ‘Dons.’ Cowell invited me to see and hear ‘Ajax’; but I remained here, content to snuff at it from the Athenæum of England, not of Attica. And on the very day that Ajax fretted his hour on the stage, my two old Housekeepers were celebrating their Fiftieth, or Golden, wedding over a Bottle of Port wine in the adjoining room, though in that happier Catastrophe I did not further join.
Now, to end with myself; I have hitherto escaped any severe assault from my ‘Bosom-Enemy,’ Bronchitis, though he occasionally intimates that he is all safe in his Closet, and will reappear with the Butterflies, I dare say. ‘Dici Beatus’ let no one in this country boast till May be over.
What you put off, and what you put on,
Never change till May be gone,
says an old Suffolk Proverb concerning our Clothing. Five of my friendly contemporaries have been struck with Paralysis during this 1882: and here am I with only Bronchitis to complain of.
Woodbridge. March 7/83.
My dear Norton,