E-grāmata: Early Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle: Together With a Few of Later Years and Some of Thomas Carlyle

IT was in the beginning of last October that I first saw any of the following letters. Most of them are addressed to Eliza Stodart, my great-aunt. I knew of the existence of letters from Mrs. Carlyle to her, but until they came into the hands of my mother and myself I could not know that it would seem a duty to English literature to make them public. The desire to do so might have been overbalanced by other con siderations, had not the private life of Mr. And Mrs. Carlyle been already so much exposed to the general gaze; but since the case has, so to speak, come before the court (whether rightly or wrongly I need not dis cuss), it is only fair that important evidence should not be withheld. It will be noticed that nearly four fifths of these letters belong to the years before 1834, the date at which the letters published by Mr. Froude in Letters and jvlemorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle begin so that here, for the first time, may be read an account, brief and yet abounding in detail, of the earlier years of Jane Welsh, from her father's death till her mar riage, and of the life at Craigenputtoch, as seen from her own point of View and described in her own words. Ihave, indeed, the less hesitation in publishing these letters, because of the pleasing light in which, on the whole, they show both Carlyle and his wife; and, in saying this, I would call attention to the fact, that all the letters to Eliza Stodart are printed without omis sions. Any omission, even of what might be thought.