I  attempt  nothing  more. As  there  is  nothing  which  I
so  much  detest  as  failure  where  I  have  ivilled,  so  I
take  precious  care  never  to  will  anything  as  to  which
I  have  a  presentiment  of  failing. My  husband  is
more  imprudent,  he  goes  on  still  willing  to  write  this
*  Life  of  Cromwell '  under  the  most  desperate  appre-
hension that  it  will  *  never  come  to  anything ' — and
as  if  people  had  the  use  of  their  faculties  in  all  states
of  the  atmosphere  !  And  so  he  does  himself  a  deal
of  harm  and  nobody  any  good. He  came  into  this
room  the  other  morning  when  I  was  sitting  peaceably
darning  his  stockings,  and  laid  a  great  bundle  of
papers  on  my  fire,  enough  to  have  kindled  the
chimney,  if  it  had  not  been,  providentially,  swept
quite  lately — the  kindling  of  a  chimney  (as  you  in
your  German  ignorance  may  perhaps  not  be  aware)
subjecting  one  here  in  London  to  the  awful  visitation
of  three  fire-engines  !  besides  a  fine  of  five  pounds !
I  fancied  it  the  contents  of  his  waste-paper-basket
that  he  was  ridding  himself  of  by  this  summary
process. But  happening  to  look  up  at  his  face,  I
saw  in  its  grim   concentrated  self-complacency  the


292        LETTEES  OF  JANE  WELSH  CAKLYLE  TO

astounding  truth,  that  it  was  all  his  labour  since  he
returned  from  Scotland  that  had  been  there  sent  up
the  vent,  in  smoke  !  *  He  had  discovered  over  night '
he  said  *  that  he  must  take  up  the  damnable  thing
on  quite  a  new  tack  ! '  Oh  a  very  damnable  thing
indeed  !  I  tell  you  in  secret,  I  begin  to  be  seriously
afraid  that  his  *  Life  of  Cromwell '  is  going  to  have
the  same  strange  fate  as  the  child  of  a  certain  French
marchioness  that  I  once  read  of,  which  never  could
get  itself  born^  tho'  carried  about  in  her  for  twenty
years  till  she  died  !  A  wit  is  said  to  have  once  asked
this  poor  woman  if  '  Madame  was  not  thinking  of
swallowing  a  tutor  for  her  son  ? '  So  one  might  ask
Carlyle  if  he  is  not  thinking  of  swallowing  a  publisher
for  his  book  ?  Only  that  he  is  too  miserable,  poor
fellow,  without  the  addition  of  being  laughed  at. 