Surgery In Edinburgh

1855 found John a wealthy widower, having to come to terms with his loss, and now responsible for three step-sons. To add to his worries he fell ill, with what his brother called a ‘boil in a bad place,’ presumably a perineal abscess. It wa severe enough to require surgery, and John, loyal to his medical school, and seeking the best surgeon for the task, travelled to Edinburgh to be operated upon by Dr James Syme, the Profesor of Clinical Surgery, who had published a book on Stricture of the Urethra and Fistula in Perineo in 1849, so clearly was the man for the job.

The operation took place in late April, and was a success. John went to Scotbrig to convalesce for a week, and then appeared back in Chelsea unannounced, ‘as good as cured.’ He went to his Chelsea lodgings; despite his age and his wealth he had no home of his own. When not at school , the three boys lodged with him there and travelled with him when he went north to Scotbrig.

The two brothers saw each other almost every evenings. Despite what he had been through, he did not complain, and kept busy that Spring, reading widely, letter-writing, paying calls on his large circle of friends, and spending much time with lawyers attending to his step-sons’ affairs. By June Thomas concluded that ‘he seems perfectly tranquil, cheerful, and is now, I think, in good health.’ His reading was wide: Thomas was asked to search for copies of Cobbet’s Rural Rides, and an Italian History.

John as Stepfather

In June he took two of his three step-sons with him to Scotbrig for their school holidays. The third and eldest son, Tom, had been sent to a school in Hamburg, which specialised in rigorous discipline for badly-behaved boys. This son had fallen into that category for some years and had quarrelled violently with his mother in the past. In August Thomas confided his views to brother Alex in Canada:

‘Poor fellow, he makes a business out of guardianing these poor boys (to which post he has been appointed by Chancery, with plenty of money); he writes, travels, etc, etc, and fills his time, to some satisfaction, with it. Which is pathetic to look upon, and yet a kindly aspect of this world’s destinies. There is not one of us so capable of finding interest for himself, out of next to nothing, as he.’…..’He is far the happiest of the family I do believe ……I often look at him, poor fellow, and his head (6years younger than mine) now old and utterly gray, with a tender and wondering feeling. He has a great deal of superior intellect running waste, and yielding no adequate crop at all, that is the worst of it: but that is nothing like the worst of bads in this world, among the outcomes of human lives! He and I never have any cross words now; for I have long since recognised that rebuking him is of no use, that Nature is stronger than any argument against Nature, and that my poor Jack is even made so, and might have been infinitely worse made….. He is a truly loving Brother; and from me he has forgiven innumerable provocations, and superficial irritations from an old date!’

John’s restlessness was unabated; he was seldom in one place for long. In September he set off for the continent via Edinburgh and Leith, and sailed to Hamburg, where he visited the oldest boy and made 'a personal survey of his affairs.' He then travelled to Berlin before going to stay with an old friend from his Rome days, now resident in Coethen. he hoped to visit Weimar for its Goethe connections while there. In subsequent years he followed a similar pattern, dividing his time between London and Scotland, cheerful and busy, if not with projects that would be worthwhile in the eyes of his brother, who thought John could was capable ‘of finding interest for himself out of next to nothing. In October 1856 he was in London sending the badly behaved boy to sea as an apprentice. Thomas thought that that Jack was making ‘a business out of “guardianing” Phoebe’s children.’

At the end of the year he made another visit to London, this time to dispose profitably of shares in a ship he had inherited. At that time his brother wrote to their sister Jean (5/12/55):

'It must be said that he takes his perverse situation with a praiseworthy quietness (little imitable by some of us!) and is one of the best-natured of mortals.'

But from now on he spent most of his years in Scotland. In 1857 he spent the first seven months at Scotbrig. He made a visit to Chester to sell off old libraries that had been bequeathed to him. He wrote frequent letters to his four wards. It was clear that he was now very wealthy indeed, and talked a great deal about setting up house, but never seemed to get round to doing so. Thomas regularly commented on the difference in personality between the two of them; John was placid and sanguine, always looking on the ‘suuny side of his cloud’ as their mother had often said. He concluded that John had a much more satisfied life than many members of the family!

The years went by. John was often consulted about Jane’s ill-health, being asked to comment on her chest pains, and to suggest suitable physicians; but he spent less and less time in London. In 1859 he spent much of the year in lodgings in Edinburgh.

Editing a History of Scottish Poetry

He became interested in Dr David Irving’s History of Scottish Poetry, which he edited for posthumous publication in 1861, the author having died aged 82 the previous year. John wrote in the Advertisement that the manuscript had been put in his hands the previous June: ‘After due consideration I recommended the publication of it – both because there is no other work of the kind, and because it contains a great deal of accurate and solid information….As to my Editorship, since no-one else was ready to undertake it, I consulted – chiefly from love of the subject and respect for the memory of the Author – to superintend the last proof-sheets, and very speedily became entangled in the business.’ He goes on to describe how he ensured that the text was printed exactly as written, verified all the texts from their sources, and added a brief Glossary with cognate words in Anglo-Saxon, German and old French.

He and his brother, now the wealthy members of the family, were good to their siblings, in particular to Alec’s children in Canada. John corresponded regularly with them over the years, and he and Thomas helped them set up in farming there.

The Hill and the Aitkens

In 1863, his sister Jean Aitken and her husband had a house built in Dumfries: ‘The Hill,’ on the Lochmaben road and handy for the railway station. It survives today as a small hotel. John moved in with them when it was completed in the Spring of 1863. He had lived mainly in Edinburgh from 1859, but moved to join his sister’s family at The Hill when it was completed .

When the brothers did meet, they spent much time planning holidays together. Their planning was enjoyable but rarely came to fruition, although John travelled extensively as he had always done.

John and Jane

In 1863 Jane became seriously ill after a traffic accident, and John was involved in her management, but at times was less than helpful . By 1864 she was more incapacitated than anyone had ever seen her and profoundly depressed. She moved temporarily to St Leonards with friends while Carlyle remained in London, preoccupied with his writing and with his own comfort

His brother John escorted her to Scotland when she suddenly decided to go there. They travelled by rail and Jane wrote on arrival:

‘I drank four glasses of champagne in the night! And took a good breakfast at Carlisle. John was dreadfully ill-tempered: we quarrelled incessantly, but he had the grace to be ashamed of himself after, and apologise.’

John continued to annoy her. As he had done in the past he told her that if she had ‘ever done anything in her life this would not have been; that no poor woman with work to mind had ever such an ailment as this of mine since the world began.’ Thomas said that she never could forget what John had said. But despite her brother she seemed to make a miraculous recovery.

In the following year Thomas spent much of the summer in Dumfriesshire. He wrote to Jane in London telling her that he had not enjoyed the company of his sister and brother when they visited him at Scotbrig and the Gill, and he was glad that the visits were short. John, writing to his brother Alec in Canada, seemed oblivious of these undercurrents, saying that Thomas looked much the better for his holiday and ‘has no disease upon him except age, and it seems to me wonderful that he got through his 12 years of hard, unremitting labour without any other injury than immense fatigue.’ He sent £100 to help with Alec’s boys; both with their education and setting up in farming. He reports Jane’s recovery, apart from an attack of what he calls ‘rheumatic gout’ in her right arm, now ‘wellnigh gone.’ (JAC-AC 31 8 65)

The Edinburgh Rectorial and Jane's Death

1866 started well. Thomas was to give the rectorial address at Edinburgh University and John would be able to receive him there and introduce him to his friends. Jane had decided not to come, and in what would prove to be one of her last letters, written after Thomas had left for Scotland, she mentioned the suicide of the daughter of Betty Smail, one of her old servants at Craigenputtoch: ‘what does Dr Carlyle make of such a case as that? No idleness, nor luxury, nor novel-reading to make it all plain!’ She had neither forgotten nor forgiven John’s past criticisms.

In the event John and the rest of the family had inferior seats at the Rectorial, but otherwise it went well and John posted off the Scotsman newspaper account of the day. Carlyle had stayed on in Scotland, and was in Dumfriesshire when he heard of his wife’s sudden death on 21^st April, while she was driving in Hyde Park. John immediately took the only Sunday train from Edinburgh to Lockerbie to be with his brother, and accompanied him back to London. He escorted him to the funeral at Haddington, respecting the silence that Thomas wished on the long journey; and wrote to Alec with an account of the tragedy, adding as a postscript: ‘The infinite number of letters of condolence has been the most troublesome to me especially, as I have had to acknowledge most of them.’

He left Thomas briefly in July for a ten day trip to Jersey for the marriage of his youngest ward William Watt, now an officer of dragoons. From there he went directly to Dumfries, feeling that Thomas would get on ‘quite as well or perhaps better without me for a time.’ (JAC-AC 4 7 66) He reported on the widower’s activities to Alec: ‘….every forenoon he occupies himself some hours with writing that he says nothing of, and reads diligently in the evening;’ but he noticed that Thomas had written as few letters as possible since Jane’s death.

Brothers Together - but not for long

He had proposed to Thomas that they try living together. Thomas was persuaded to have a holiday at Menton, and John was in London to greet him on his return, at his brother’s request. But they agreed after a few months together that they could not live happily under the same roof, and parted amicably, with John returning to his usual pursuits in Dumfries and Edinburgh.

Thomas wrote at the time

‘I felt that in the practical substance of the thing you are probably right. Noises are not the rock it need split upon. Everything might be peaceably deafened, if that were all; but it is certain you and I have given one another considerable annoyance, and have never yet been able to do together. That is the nature of the two beasts. They cannot change that ….’

John was magnanimous:

‘Your readiness and eagerness at all times to be of help to me, you may depend upon it, is a thing I am always well aware of, at the bottom of all my impatiences and discontents.’

In 1867 a second edition of his Inferno was published, and he talked vaguely of completing the translation, but never did so. The brothers kept in touch and Thomas came to Dumfries for a holiday and stayed at The Hill for some ten weeks: it was not a success. He found Jean Aitken’s house excellent, but the life there lonely and dreary, and could not sleep well for the whistles of the trains at the neighbouring railway station.

Latter Days

As the years go by. news of John, and of Thomas comes only from brief reports from one or the other writing to Alec or his children in Canada. In 1871 ‘the Doctor,’ as Carlyle continued to call him, had been six weeks in Edinburgh at the beginning of the year, ‘seemingly with both satisfaction and profit,’ but was now (28 2 71 TC-AC) returning ‘to resume his solitary habits, his Books and his old rural walks at Dumfries….He is is usually very solitary there and cultivates hardly any company, but what the walls of the house contain for him.’

There was another death. Jean Aitken’s son James was killed in a London omnibus accident, the second of her three sons to die young. And when his niece Mary Aitken moved to London the following year to work, and to help Thomas with his writing, John was shocked. He could not see why she should go ‘out to find her livelihood’ and urged Thomas to provide for her.

He still had his holidays and his travelling. He was in France in 1872 and later went with Thomas to the south coast of Devonshire where they stayed in a cottage of Lady Ashburtons, walked, and even bathed in the sea. John stayed in Chelsea for some weeks on their return, then returned to Dumfries. At the end of the year he was in Edinburgh for five weeks. According to Thomas: ‘..in Edinburgh he is extremely popular; dines out almost every day, and complains rather of too much society than of anything else.’ He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Edinburgh University, and gifted £1600 to the university to found two medical bursaries of £25 for one year. At the same time Thomas bequeathed Craigenputtoch to the university.

Death

Over the next years his health deteriorated slowly. Gloomy reports of his health reached Chelsea in 1978, and for some time before he had not been well enough to visit London. He wrote to Thomas at the beginning of December 1878, telling him that he was worse rather than better. Thomas replied that he he too was deteriorating, that they both faced death, and that they must summon all their virtue and quit themselves ‘like men and not like fools.’ John died in 1879, aged 78. There is some confusion about the date, but the gravestone gives 15th September, 1879. His estate was valued at £25,383. Thomas was distressed at his brother dying before him. He had been sure that he would die first, and had made him chief executor of his will saying : ‘I wish him to be regarded as my second self, my surviving self.’ Thomas lived on for eighteen months, and was buried at John’s side.

Froude, his brother’s friend and biographer, wrote in the Life that: ‘John Carlyle would have been remembered as a distinguished man if he had not been overshadowed by his greater brother.’ Pointing out his many faults, especially his lack of energy, he pays a warm tribute to a man he knew well, describing him as ‘frank, kind-hearted, generous; entirely free from all selfishness or ambition; simple as his brother in his personal habits, and ready always with money, time, or professional assistance, wherever his help was needed.’

The entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, written by Francis Espinnase, said that his friends thought him ‘a man of amiable and tranquil disposition, as well of ability and accomplishment.’ Kinder words than his family sometimes used about him over the years, and perhaps truer.

In death the two brothers are united in Ecclefechan churchyard, as they both had wished.

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