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2013

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#	Year	Text	Linked Data
1	1823-1862	Carlyle, Thomas. The collected letters. Letter from Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle ; 18 Jan. 1823. I have finished William Tell—and mean to commence Turandot on Monday. [Schiller's translation of Carlo Gozzi's Turandot, Princess of China]. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Alexander Carlyle ; 10 Febr. 1824. The younkers and I lived in great harmony tho' rather in a hugger-mugger style of accommodation, our only servant being a boy of seventeen, as awkward as a cub, and who I think must have impoverished Mrs B. considerably by his breakages of china and glass-ware. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Henry Crabb Robinson ; 14 May 1827. I have got wedded since I wrote last: my wife also is a reader and a lover of German; and we have a pleasant Cottage here with China roses and the like, and the towers of Edinr peering thro' the branches of our tree, at a safe distance. Letter from John A. Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle ; 26 May 1831. Did I tell you that Church had written me a very kind letter & sent along with it Duncan's lancet case of Carved tortoise shell & silver which had been made for him in China? Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Welsh Carlyle ; 21 May 1834. You are to address every package (after the art of packing has done its utmost) to me, “London”; marking the packages by Numbers (No 1, 2, &c), and adding any note such as “Glass,” “China,” “This side uppermost” &c of course, in the legiblest hand. Letter from Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle ; 22 May 1834. The two small mahogany tables and the two half circular ends— The writing table—winecooler packed with crystal—the stone and china and glass— Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Margaret A. Carlyle ; 12 June 1834. I have a large drawing-room (up one pair of stairs) for my “study” (where if I don't write well, it will not be the room's fault); there are two dining-rooms (which can be made one, by folding doors) below, with the “most delightful china-closet”; and under all (in the sunk story) a fore and a back kitchen, with cellars, “copper” (that is, washing Boiler; which the Bricklayer is now setting anew), a Pump of clear hard water within the house, and a water-barrel for soft without it. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle ; 17 June 1834. There are three floors, besides the sunk kitchen-floor; three rooms on every floor, the backmost, narrow one, being a “delightful” china-closet on the ground-floor, and in each of the two other floors a delightful dressing-room. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to John Sterling ; 25. Dec., 1837. I read the Rückert Translations from the Chinese [Rückert, Friedrich. Schi-king ID D4634] last week : they are very interesting, very beautiful : harvest-songs, drinking-songs, songs of household calamity and felicity; an authentic melodious human voice from the distance of the Yellow Sea, from the time of Quang-fu-tchee [Confucius] and the Prophet Ezekiel! Authentic sincere: there is almost no other merit for me in written things. The sacred Scripture itself is sacred and divine because it is more sincere than any other Book. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Wilson ; 10 April, 1840. I have a China Pamphlet for you; I shall have Prospectuses in a day or two. [Several pamphlets were pbd. about hostilities with China because of the current but long-standing dispute over the opium trade]. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Geraldine E. Jewsbury ; 21 Oct. 1840. All prophecy about our future destiny seems to me, by the nature of it, futile, and at this epoch of the world, worthless: but an indestructible boundless hope about it seems permitted and sanctioned.— On the whole, I find I have great sympathy with the Chinese religion too; that worship of their Dead Fathers practiced there. This so far as one can see is probably the chief worship they have. God, they say, is “that blue sky,” is “that Immensity all round there”; about Him we know little: but our Loved Ones that lie buried, are not they as Gods to us,—deified; do not our hearts overflow in sacred pity, in solemn reverence for them! We offer these oblations at their tomb;—our mute voice towards them, expressive of what no words will speak!— Alas, what a wretched thing were Life, if there were no Death in it. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle ; 16 Nov. 1840. I know Davies on the Chinese; readable, tho' a considerable of a blockhead. [Davis, John Francis. The Chinese [ID D2017]. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Alexander Carlyle ; 18 Nov. 1840. I found Pickford's Waggon drawn up at the door; and the Annandale Barrel getting itself lodged in a place they call the “china closet Letter from Thomas Carlyle to John Sterling ; 3 Jan. 1842. Ay de mi, I wonder how people can ring bells at this season: I could rather chaunt Litanies; or go, like the Chinese, to “the grave of my Fathers,” and sit silent there. God is great, and man is little and mean, and a fool! Coeur-de-lion shall be deposited duly where you have bidden. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Welsh Carlyle ; 16 April 1842. The hardware things or rather the iron and metal things are all in one little barrel, scuttle, kettle, jelly-pan &c the glass and china are in two little boxes, packed with M'C's best skill, and new-roped by us on friday. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to James Carlyle ; 30 Nov. 1842. The time is fearful in all parts of this country. No improvement in trade is yet visible, tho' some hope this grand Chinese Pacification [Treaty of Nanjing] may do more or less. For my share I expect no steady improvement, till Corn-Laws and many other ‘Laws’ go to the place they belong to! Letter from Thomas Carlyle Jeannie Welsh ; 8 Dec. 1842. As one of my chinese verses says “Alas that he should abandon what sense he had and place himself in the situation of a wooden puppet”! accordingly tho Carlyle tells me he has written to him seriously about this pain in my side which has been plaguing me very much all the last week. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Alexander Carlyle ; 28 Dec. 1842. James Stewart of Gillenbie was here about three weeks ago: he had come mainly to see one Jardine, an enormous Laird from Applegarth Parish and China, and a very good man; who is understood to be dangerously ill at present. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jeannie Welsh ; 3 May 1843. Poor fellow! I trust in heaven that this “emanation from the Moon” (as the Chinese call a beautiful woman) is one who will do him good—not harm— Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jeannie Welsh ; 9 March 1843. Geraldine who had got on her end, and always bursts out of sleep into volubility—poured forth a torrent of words a[bout] “the poor creature having been to that confounded Chinese exhibition &c &c”—but she was cut short by Garnier's uplifting his two hands, and saying to me with an affectation of dismay— Letter from Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle ; 23 Aug. 1843. then I fell to painting the wardrobe in the china closet—which had a badd effect Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jeannie Welsh ; 23 April 1844. I have been taking a considerable quantity of most dutiful amusement in the last week—one evening I accompanied Carlyle and the Helpses to the Chinese exhibition which it was distinctly Carlyle's duty to see, and which he could not muster force of volition to go by himself Having been reduced to a shilling, and some thing called the Feast of Lanterns going on in it at present, it was crowded to a degree which made it impossible to see the tools and other particulars which alone deserved the notice of Literary gentlemen; so we came away in a short while, “heavy and displeased”. Letter from Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle ; 15 Sept. 1845. But there is the tower or “rook” on the shore under repair, and, “for to let” when finished—it consits of two little half octogon rooms; and three bed rooms—less I thought than our china-closet—decidely a place one could pig into for a month or too in fine weather with satisfaction. Letter from Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle ; 7 Oct. 1845. I have been all day giving the last finish to the China-closet and am shocked this moment by the town clock striking four—before my letter is well begun— Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Welsh Carlyle ; 3 Oct. 1847. James Stewart, as you know, was not there; only the Wife, a large good woman, good with all her “ladyhood,” and very much afflicted still, poor woman, for the son they lost last year in China. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Welsh Carlyle ; 4 Oct. 1850. The House is like a china tea-tray for cleanness and perfection of arrangt: but Oh, there is a want of Goody, at every turn such a want!— Letter from Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle ; 8 Oct. 1850. The only place where I think you may chance to find it is in the bottom of the wardrobe in the china-closet—or amongst the portfolios in the china closet—there is at least one book there I am sure wrapt up, but whether it is Farie's or John Welsh's astronomical thing I can't say— Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Welsh Carlyle ; 25 Aug. 1852. I find my Fairy-Brae well has been rained into, and the white of the china cup I stationed there is dimmed with sediment; but the water itself is quite a piece of morality, and indeed agrees excellently with me, better than most spas would. Letter from Thomas Taylor Meadows to Thomas Carlyle ; 4 April 1856. Meadows left Carlyle a copy of his book The Chinese and their rebellions [ID D4620]. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Welsh Carlyle ; 25 July 1857. It is a thot of mine many British Interests besides India are on a baddish road of late! [Britain was still engaged in the continuing war with China. The Times, warmly supporting the British merchants in China, warned against French interference in British plans for expansion: “We have been injured, our flag insulted, our Plenipotentiary refused justice and our fellow citizens shot, strangled and poisoned by a set of barbarians and their chiefs. … Should the occupation of Chuan, or any point on the mainland, conduce to the attainment of the objects of war, we see no reason why it should not be occupied” (8 July)]. Letter from Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle ; 30 Aug. 1857. But how I wish now, I had my long journey safely over! If I could only like “the Princess of China” (in the Arabian Nights) be carried thro the air, asleep in my bed, and set down on the roof of my own house ! Letter from Thomas Carlyle to William Dods ; 15 April 1861. And perhaps that will do me good! and tomorrow Mrs Jackson (Catherine Cecil of Alderstone in old time) is to spend the day with me, to instruct me in the art of making Dresden China out of leather and paint (!); and who knows how enlivening that may prove! Certainly I know no happier looking woman, of the tranquilly happy sort, than just Mrs Jackson; since she took to making Dresden China of leather,—for Roman Catholic Bazzaars, How the China-making answers without the Roman Catholicism; I hope to be able to tell some weeks hence. Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Lady Ashburton ; 12 Aug. 1862. As one never scolds, or professes to never scold the servant who breaks one's china provided she tells! Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Thomas Woolner ; 30 Nov. 1862. Pirates are fair game on all waters, on the part of all men. But does Captn Osborn know for certain that the Taepings require to be shot? One Mr. [Thomas Taylor] Meadows, a very ingenious man, who had been 12 years in China, and is gone back, had, when I saw him, the idea that the Taepings were intrinsically in the right; and that it was the unworthy Phantasm of an “Emperor” and his yellow Cousins who got hopelessly out of square!	Person: Carlyle, Thomas