Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/187

THE WIPE OP THOMAS CARLYLE. 179 and he nursed me as "well as my own mother could have done, and he never says a hard word to me unless I richly deserve it. We see great numbers of people, but are always most content alone. My husband reads then, and I read or work, or just sit and look at him, which I really find as profitable an employment as any other." Already, however, she was beginning to encounter the social and household difficulties which her husband's tem- perament rendered inevitable. He was dyspeptic, and required the simplest food, cooked with unvarying perfec- tion, storming at fate, or shrouding himself in deepest gloom if his oatmeal was scorched or his eggs not fresh. As no servant could satisfy him, Mrs. Carlyle went into the kitchen, and studied cookery. The slightest noises distracted him when he was at work ; Mrs. Carlyle was ever on the alert to* prevent doors from banging, dishes from clattering, and shoes from creaking. Visitors had to be received ; his tender epithet for them was " nauseous intruders." Mrs. Carlyle managed with such adroitness that, without offence to any, they were so winnowed and sifted that only those whose society he could enjoy or endure, reached his presence. She was a charming hostess, and even succeeded in giving small tea-parties which her gifted spouse found not unpleasant. Meanwhile, Carlyle 1 s literary and financial ventures not proving successful, he was possessed by a grow- ing restlessness and gloom, and before the first year was ended, made up his mind to leave Edinburgh and retire to Craigenputtock, a bleak, barren little moorland estate belonging to his wife, sixteen miles from the nearest town. Mrs. Carlyle, whose health was impaired, dreaded the change, and might even have refused her consent, but that her mother then lived at Nithsdale, fifteen miles from Craigenputtock. She did remonstrate, but Carlyle's mind was made up, and to Craigenputtock