Dr. John Aitken Carlyle

Travelling Physician (4)

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Thomas Carlyle

Jane Welsh Carlyle

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The Irish Patient

1839 was the last year of John’s continental travels with patients, but not of his career as a travelling physician. John had a new offer on the 1^st of January, 1840, the year that introduced the penny post and would make John’s communication with his family cheaper and more efficient. He was offered £500 per annum to care for a William Ogilvie of Pellipar House, near Dungiven in County Londonderry. Thomas wrote to Jean Aitken with the details, half-pleased, half censorious. John, he had heard, was to be physician:

‘to some infirm sort of hypochondriacal young gentleman of great wealth, seemingly in the North of Ireland. One’s prophecy would be that Jack would accept. He is doing nothing at present or as good as nothing; - which in general for a man grown to years of discretion will mean less than nothing! I predict for some time back that he will never get to “practice” on his own footing: this kind of thing is lucrative, is reputable, a man finds himself grown old in it, but with a very comfortable halfpay to sit down upon, by and by.’

John accepted the post and on the 1^st of February set off by train to Birmingham and took the mail steamer to Dublin. He planned to stay there for a few days before starting the post for a month’s trial. He was to have £50 if he decided not to continue. John wrote over the following weeks but gave little information about his patient, to Tom’s irritation. He spoke of outings to the Giant‘s Causeway, and said that ‘my presence is of a very distinct advantage to my patient, but his case demands manifold treatment and takes nearly all my time.’ In March he arrived in London, looking fatter and healthier, bringing Ogilvie with him. Thomas met him and his patient, and heard the details of the case, which he gave to his brother James:

‘His (John’s) situation too I could now better understand and appreciate. I find it preferable to what I had supposed. In the first place an Aunt of the Patient’s stays always with them, travels always with them; shares the responsibility: this is a considerable point. The Patient himself is really an inoffensive, almost an amiable interesting kind of man: he seemed to me by no means insane, not at all, rather a clever man even and polite and mild to a degree; his disease seems chiefly an excess of timid sensitiveness: Jack brought him down hither, the first forenoon, and I talked with him again in their Hotel: you would have said, it was an interesting delicate-minded man, much oppressed with blateness and entirely distrustful of himself; this was all. I believe it is all; and, alas, enough.’

Thomas believed that if Jack left and no one else took on the job, the patient would soon get into such a state of ‘nervous tremour and excitement’ that he would be submitted to investigation by a jury, be sent into Bedlam, and have his enormous wealth given over to others to manage. Jack seemed to like and to pity his patient; Thomas believed Ogilvie would be well if he had no money and had to work ; much the same advice that Jane received at times from John! John had now taken the post, with the proviso that he could leave at any time giving a month’s notice.

When the couple appeared at Cheyne Row Jack was wearing ‘a dark surtout, double-breasted, a shawl waistcoat, massive wool trowsers, longish hair and a broad-brimmed hat.’ Ogilvie was 29, short and plump, and already had a few grey hairs. While in Ireland John had kept Ogilvie busy, riding in the daytime, playing billiards after dinner, and reading German , Latin, and French with him when he could be persuaded to . He had also been involved in troublesome correspondence with Ogilvie’s relatives, doubtless over his charge’s sanity and ability to manage his affairs. In the Spring of 1840 he set off travelling with his patient. They travelled to Glasgow and in June and July they were based at Oban, where they bathed, and visited Inverary. They talked of a visit to Orkney but instead continued touring the Highlands, returning south by Loch Tay, Dunkeld, Perth, Stirling, Fife, Edinburgh, Berwickshire and Ayrshire. They continued south by Liverpool and through Wales. In October they were at Beaumaris, a town in the Island of Anglesey, and by November had moved to Ryde, and the southwest coast of England where Ogilvie had relatives, and were planning to visit the Isle of Wight. John was lonely, and there was little to do at Ryde but ride ponies through the mud, but at the end of the year John had decided to stay in the post. He was enjoying the large income, knowing that he could leave at any time. He was now an investor. He had bought £1700 of American bonds two years earlier and the 5% interest was bringing in £85 annually.

The beginning of 1841, found the doctor back in London with his patient, who liked the city and was giving little trouble. They often rolled up at Chelsea in a one-horse chaise, which they called a ‘cab’, a new word to Thomas. Jack had a sore arm and was wearing a sling. He had little to do, and found that he could persuade his patient to travel anywhere John wished; and, whatever the choice, Ogilvie felt the better for it. John talked often of going to the Isle of Wight but they spent most of the first half of the year in London. He was now earning £1000 per annum plus his keep in London, and seemed to be willing to keep the job until he had amassed enough capital to be independent.

His frequent visits irked Jane. She regarded him as useful when she was alone, but generally found him boring, and relished John Sterling’s description of him as ‘an accursed Vegetable…not a man at all , but a walking Cabbage.’ In April she wrote to Thomas complaining that he ‘staid till after dinner – more demoralized I think than ever – repeating the same words six times over, and absolutely not hearing any thing one says to him unless it concerns his own personality.’ This last interest had led him to consult a phrenologist, highly fashionable at the time. and a major interest of Dickens and others. Jane told her husband gleefully that he had been told he was ‘capable of anything. But not capable of turning his ability to account.’

By June John had been eighteen months with Ogilvie. Thomas, who saw the pair often, thought the patient had improved but that his timidity and shyness – his ‘constitutional blateness’ – would never change. He knew Jack found the work dull but thought he would continue it until he had a ‘good purse of money.’

With one or both of these patients he continued his duties during 1842, spending most of the time in London and seeing Thomas and Jane at least weekly, but by 1843 he had abandoned medicine. He turned down an invitation to become physician to Lady Holland after he had been recommended to her by Lord Jeffrey, helpful as ever; but Thomas said she was ‘a wretched, unreasonable, tyrannous old creature,' and advised him against it. He even toyed with the prospect of returning to Italy when he heard that Lady Clare’s brother might ask for his services, but that too came to nothing.

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