Carlyle moved to 5 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea in 1834, and was to live there until his death in 1881. Married, childless, leading the sedentary life of an author, these years seem superficially dull, marked only by the travails of successive books. In the summer he travelled back to stay with relatives in his native Dumfriesshire, or in later years to the country and holiday homes of rich friends. He travelled seldom otherwise: a tour of Ireland in 1846, and trips to Germany in 1852 and 1858 to find material for Frederick the Great, his last major work.
London
French Revolution
The first two years were bleak. He was despondent, 'sick and weak beyond measure', and once broke down in the park, saying he could do nothing more; but told himself that 'pain was not given thee merely to be miserable under; learn from it, turn it to
account'. He did so by writing his French Revolution, delayed by the accidental burning and complete loss of the only manuscript of the first volume. With immense fortitude he set to and rewrote it immediately. Meantime Sartor had been serialised in Fraser's magazine, but had made little impact, and remained unpublished in book form. He feared penury and thought of becoming an engineer, or of emigrating to America.
Their close friend Edward Irving, the charismatic preacher, died, but the Carlyles' social circle widened, as their fame as conversationalists spread. They met Wordsworth and Southey, and Mill, Jeffrey and Sterling became close friends.
In 1836, Sartor was published in Boston. In 1837, the year Victoria came to the throne, the French Revolution was published, and favourably reviewed. Sartor was finally published in book form in Britain in 1838. He was 42. Fame and some fortune had belatedly but suddenly arrived.
In 1837 Carlyle reluctantly decided to give public lectures, and the first series, on German literature, was well received and financially successful, despite the agonies of anxiety and indigestion he suffered preparing and delivering them. In succeeding years he was in even greater demand because of his literary success, and lectured on Literature and then on Revolutions in Modern Literature. In 1839 he published Chartism, addressing the social problems of the time, calling for better rulers, and encouraging education and emigration. Finally, in 1840, he gave his most famous series of lectures, On Heroes and Hero-worship, illustrating and developing his belief in heroic leaders with authority. His lectures and books gave him financial security for the first time, and his fame spread from England to America.
His search for heroic models led him to Oliver Cromwell, who occupied him for the next five years. The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell were published in 1845, and revised and expanded to four volumes in 1850, the cost of much research both in reading and in travel to visit battle sites and seek information. Complaints about his health were fewer in these years, although he was always distressed when starting and finishing a large scale work, and lethargic after its completion. His mother-in-law died in 1842 and he undertook all the funeral arrangements. In the same year he visited the Netherlands. The Carlyle's social circle was now large and distinguished, their friends including Browning, Tennyson, Dickens and many others. By 1846 he was thought to be the richest author in England, but continued to live frugally, and to give much of his money to his extended family and to deserving causes. They began to be invited into aristocratic circles, not without problems.
In 1849 Carlyle published an article, Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question, and the following year eight Latter-Day Pamphlets, forays into political questions which seriously diminished his reputation. The Discourse concerned the condition of ex-slaves on the West Indian sugar plantations, and suggested that they should be made to work harder. Carlyle, to whom the Protestant work ethic and obedience to leadership were all, was unable to see the effect his essay would have in the climate of the time, sixteen years after the Emancipation Act. The Latter-Day Pamphlets were equally outspoken about what he considered current ills: model prisons were contrasted with the abject poverty of the poor outside them; and the other pamphlets urged strong leadership and an obedient, dutiful population at the expense of freedom. He advocated corporal punishment, even for laziness; he regarded the Irish as feckless and lazy. The pamphlets stimulated controversy and addressed some ills, but Carlyle lost good friends, particularly J S Mill, because of them, and his reputation fell away, only to recover in his old age, when he became the Sage of Chelsea. In 1851 he wrote speedily his Life of Sterling, containing his powerful portrait of Coleridge.
In 1852 he started work on his biography of Frederick, his last and largest project, little thinking that it would occupy him for the next thirteen years.
The attic room was elaborately but ineffectively soundproofed because of his intolerance of
noise The first two volumes were published in 1858, the third in 1863, the fourth the following year, and the last two in 1865. He was 57 when he began the labour; 70 on its completion. His mother died on Christmas Day, 1853, the person in the world to whom he had been closest.. His wife grew increasingly discontented
and unwell with his neglect of her and his visits to Lady Ashburton, but improved with the latter's demise in 1857.
In 1863 Jane Carlyle fell badly in the street and suffered painful neuritis for the next year together with symptoms of anxiety and depression. Carlyle was unsympathetic, and preoccupied with his writing. By 1866 both were in better health, and Carlyle accepted the honorary post of Rector of Edinburgh University, where he gave a triumphant Inaugural Address, reiterating his views on life and work. Before he returned to London Jane was dead, her body found in her carriage as she was being driven in Hyde Park. Carlyle was grief-
and guilt-stricken. He collected and annotated her letters, helped by his niece Mary who came to keep house for him.
He met Queen Victoria in 1869 - she found him gloomy and strange. At that time he began to suffer from a shaking right hand, and soon had to dictate rather than write. In 1874 Disraeli offered him a baronetcy which he refused, although he accepted the Prussian Order of Merit from Bismarck. He produced no other important work, although he lived for another fifteen years,
often gloomy, with suicidal thoughts, and latterly wishing for death. He was to have been buried in Westminster Abbey, but his wishes were followed, and his remains lie in this simple grave in Ecclefechan churchyard, beside his doctor brother, and near the house where he was born.
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Lady Harriet Ashburton
In about 1843, Carlyle was taken up by Lady Harriet Baring, an intelligent and extremely rich society hostess, who became Lady Ashburton in 1848. He became devoted to her to the point of infatuation, and saw much of her until her sudden death in 1857. He was unable or unwilling to understand his wife's resentment and distress, which seriously affected her health during these years, and created permanent marital strains.Latter-Day Pamphlets
The 1850's and Frederick the Great
Jane's Injury, Illness and Death
Latter Days