In 1827 the Carlyles continued to live at Comely bank, Edinburgh, moving to Craigenputtoch in 1828, where they remained until the move to London in 1834. These were productive if unsuccessful years for Carlyle. Before leaving Edinburgh he wrote most of a novel, Wotton Reinfred, before abandoning it.
He and Jane spent six years at Craigenputtoch. Jane was healthy and well until the move; when they left six years later he had had six years of good physical health. There is scarcely a mention of dyspepsia or pill-taking in his copious correspondence, in marked contrast to the preceding years. It was Jane's health that suffered at Craigenputtoch. Froude believed 'Mrs Carlyle's health was never to recover from these years.'
His journals and correspondence at Craigenputtoch show him remaining gloomy, and with good reason, especially latterly. But he was productive, and initially had many essays published, including those on Goethe and Burns, had his first critical successes, and made some money. Later he wrote Sartor, his first and most original book, but failed to find a publisher. The market for books was poor because of economic conditions, and his style was growing increasingly original and strange. When he spent a winter in Edinburgh he found few people to interest him, and his arrogant, domineering and combative behaviour alienated many. Froude says of him then that 'Johnson himself was not more rude, disdainful and imperious.' To say that he did not suffer fools gladly would be charitable. Then, and as Sartor appeared in serial magazine form, he was regarded in Edinburgh as a promising man who had lost his way and was eccentric in his person and work to the point of near madness. He had become a prophet, and shared a prophet's fate - to be without honour in his own country. In the last days in Craigenputtoch it is sad to see him examining himself in his journal, fully conscious of all this, and criticising himself for his ambition and vanity.
What it took him many more years to realise - if he ever did - was the effect that he and Craigenputtoch had on his wife. The wild landscape of remote Craigenputtoch - his 'whinstone fastness' - suited Carlyle and helped his writing. He thrived on long periods of solitude, of uninterrupted reading and writing, and had little to say to his wife for long stretches. She had had a middle class, urban upbringing, and was thrown into the hard labour of a farm; with servants, it is true, but expected to take part in many activities she had to learn: baking, sewing, dressmaking, and farm work. She was lonely and miserable. Her friends saw it when they visited, and increasingly pointed it out to Carlyle. He was deaf to their remarks, and for many years looked back on the years there, not only as the happiest of his life, but of their marriage. Only with her death and after reading her correspondence did the truth partially dawn on him.
The letters of these years contain far fewer references to
his health. When he travels to London in 1831, seeking and failing to find a
publisher for Sartor, he writes home to Jane:
'I am for some tincture of cardamum or other bitter, for positively my inner
man is ill. Thou are not here to feed me and lead me: I am in great want of my
Wifekin; but live in hope.'
Here certain rules of the marriage have been set up: his dependence on his
wife, and the requirement that she attend to his dietary demands - such as
fresh milk, and porridge every evening an hour before bedtime.
But this ill-health is minor and inconsistent. The next month he can write to
his brother Alex:
'My health continues much what it used to be at Craigenputtoch, tolerable
enough.' And to Alex again, the following year:
'I believe myself to be getting yearly by some hardly perceptible degree
stronger in health, both inward and outward: perhaps, one day, I may triumph
over long disease, and be myself again.'
But to his doctor brother John, on 17 Oct 1832, he persists in retailing minor
complaints, although he is now willing and able to relate them to his work:
'I feel quite especially bilious and somnolent today: it is the collapse after
that Article work.......I have been sadly plagued with a humming in the right
ear (which you remember syringing with such impetus), but have cured it by
introducing a little cotton wool.'
Even to new friends, like John Stuart Mill, in February 1833, he writes of
the 'sneaking catarrh' that hangs about him, and presents himself as a sick
man:
'...but still in this, as in many respects, must reconcile myself to grave
impediments....."They are soon done who never dought" our Scotch
proverb says.' They are soon finished who were never able, who never could, he
explains to Mill, pointing out the German derivation of 'dought'.
Frequent winter colds and catarrhs plague the Carlyles from
now on. In March 1833 he tells John:
'...usual catarrhs and rheumatisms of a wet blustery March. Thus I myself have
worn a horrid plaster of Burgundy pitch on my breast for the last nine weeks,
and will not tear it off till the weather mend.' Of Jane, in the same letter:
'Her complaint seems like mine, a kind of deep-seated dyspepsia; no medicine is
of any avail, only regimen (when once one can find it out), free air, and if
that were possible cheerfulness of mind.'
In 1834 the usual and by now established complaints come and go. John is his
main confidant but his mother, who in any case read all family letters, is kept
informed of his ill-health. In March , before the move to London he tells her:
'I was in a rather bilious state, and went about in a restless uneasy pitiful
state on that account till within these two days, when (by aid of regimen and
castor) I am got to my old condition again.'
The move to Chelsea took place in the summer of 1834,
Carlyle going in advance to seek a property. Later that year he tells John in a
postscript of his health since the move:
'I had a story to tell you about my health: it is not worse health, (perhaps
ultimately far better), but quite different health. I do not understand myself;
my tendency is bilious but rather your way; I now can take too much exercise,
and in spite of not strong coffee to breakfast, might sometimes require opium
rather than aloes. I begin to suspect that water has some share in it; very
hard water. On the whole I feel better, I think, not worse; but must wait to
see. I sleep well some six hours or more.'
His health is now an ever-interesting topic and will remain so. Self medication
is routine and fairly constant. His dyspepsia is not helped by constant tea and
coffee drinking and he is a heavy smoker. Constipation is treated constantly,
probably worsening it. Letters, his journal, and events show that he is worse
when contemplating new work, and that soon after starting it he begins to feel
he will not be well until the task is completed. When it is finished he enters
an exhausted, fallow phase, and usually takes a holiday in Dumfriesshire.
He will even at times admit to feeling well! John is told in September 1834:
'My health.....still continues different; and in any free day, how light,
joyful, skilful I am!'
And to a friend in December:
'I am now generally what I call unusually well.'
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