The hardship of their case consisted in nothing but this: each was now possessed of a formed and fixed character, and that now had to adapt itself to a new set of conditions, requiring compromise and “give and take.” What wonder the experience was neither pleasant nor merry! Is the common lot so different?...
The wife who had so hesitatingly flung in her lot with his proved the truest and staunchest of allies. She too had all to lose. Carlyle was her all in all. His defeat meant proof of her own folly in uniting her fortunes to his, and that was too bitter a pill to swallow. One must confess it was well the case was so, for the coming conflict was to be very bitter and very prolonged.
Ten years after marriage Carlyle had his foot firmly on the ladder, but not sooner, although he had then already written and published the very cream of his intellect, works of genius as original, as brilliant, massy essays of solid gold, and had already expounded almost to its last detail his own peculiar message and creed.
Twenty years later he stands at the head of British literature, unequalled, almost unchallenged, admitted into any and every society, the valued friend and guest of peers, the acknowledged master of many of the finest spirits of the time. “My ambition has been gratified,” wrote Mrs Carlyle to John Forster, “beyond my wildest dreams, and I am miserable." Miss Welsh little knew the greatness of the man she married when she married him. That she did love him with more than usual intensity is made evident by a hundred letters. Carlyle loved her very tenderly and very deeply. Her death broke his power at one blow, and the man lingered pitifully, a lonely, sorrowful old man, whose triumph, like Johnson's had come too late. What was amiss? “No talent for the market, thought I – none; the reverse rather.” So Carlyle sorrowfully noted in his journal at this time. The entry may explain why he has always been the god of the literary young man's idolatry. Carlyle tried so hard to swim with the times consistently with his conscience, and failed so lamentably. He would have liked so well to have pleased editors, but could not. So he defied them. With a wife to support he was prepared to stretch conscience as far as ever it could honourably be stretched. There can be little doubt of that. We do not need to accept Carlyle as a fanatic on the matter of the rights of contributors. He was ready enough to please, but he could, and would, write to no man's order. Too great and original himself to be an editor, far less could he trim his sails to suit editors, study the journalistic signs of the times, and satisfy “public requirements.” He tried and failed, and young men are consoled when they learn that Carlyle suffered as they suffer, was told “his style was at fault,” and his matter literally of no importance and unadulterated rubbish! Carlyle's style was not at fault. It was a very good style, but not nearly so brilliant and picturesque as it became later. Still less was there any lack of quality in the matter.
Carlyle failed because he could not persuade editors to accept the articles he wrote. The editors were good judges, so good that they probably interpreted the time correctly in fearing it could not appreciate Carlyle. Carlyle was original, but he was consumately great; so great that these editors could not recognise he was a greater man than themselves.
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