Jane Welsh Carlyle

What others thought

Menu

Introduction and Site Guide

Biography

What Jane Thought

Personality

HEALTH:

1 The Lady Harriet Years

‘One of the rare Victorian wives who are of literary interest in their own right…..to be remembered as one of the great letter writers (in some respects her husband’s superior) of the nineteenth century is glory beyond the dreams of avarice.’ G B Tennyson, 1973

‘The most wonderful letter writer in the English language.’ Leslie Stephen to his daughter, Virginia Woolf.

‘Could I give you some agreeable occupation to fill your whole mind, it would do more for you than all the medicine in existence.’ Dr John Carlyle, her brother-in-law, c 1833.

‘I find I cannot by any exertion get up the due amount of admiration for Mrs Carlyle; I don’t know whether you find it so, but I am not able to understand half the words she speaks, from her Scotch pronunciation. She certainly is very far from natural; or to use the expression Hensleigh so often quotes, she is not an unconscious person.’ Charles Darwin, 1839.

‘A sensible woman.’ Crabb Robinson in his diary after first meeting her, 1840.

‘Mrs Carlyle is still young; she is not beautiful and she is not plain; her eyes are dark, and her hair…is as dark as mine. She is tall, thin, vivacious, but of very delicate health, suffering terribly from headaches and other ailments.’ Giuseppe Mazzini, 1840.

‘The remains of a fine woman.’ Matthew Allen, psychiatrist, 1840, when Jane was 35 years of age.

‘If it were merely “eternal smart” with her, it would be very tiresome, but she is a woman as well as a clever person.’ John Sterling, c 1842, quoted in Caroline Fox, Journals

‘Little lady, plain and rather sallow, but with beautiful dark eyes, and the most expressive of countenances.’ Her accent ‘as marked as I afterwards found her husbands to be’. Francis Espinasse, 1893 – of meeting her in 1843

Jane Carlyle, 1857

‘She is one of the most natural, unaffected, fascinating women I ever encountered…..She is no longer handsome, but full of intellect and kindness blended gracefully and lovingly together…..She bantered the philosopher [TC] in the most charming manner on his style and opinions, but philosophers, I fear, do not like to be bantered. Gavan Duffy, Irish Politician, later Australian Prime Minister, 1845

‘A very ugly woman with a broad Scotch accent, and Mr Carlyle the same, but they are both overflowing with intelligence, and stores of agreeable conversation…….There is something dreary in both their faces…but they have really something heroic about them.’ Ellen Twistleton,1852

‘My poor little protectress.’ Thomas Carlyle, 2 9 55 (letter to Jane)

‘Her fun is beyond any, tho’ it is sometimes rather bitter.’ Ellen Twistleton, 1856

‘Mrs Carlyle – the wife of Mr Carlyle the distinguished philosopher and herself a very distinguished woman although she is not aware of it.’ Lady Russell, 1863, introducing Jane to a friend. Jane thought this a delicate compliment, ‘investing me with an admirable modesty to my own eyes!'

Robert Browning ‘always thought her a hard and unlovable woman, and …little liking was lost between them.’ Mrs S Orr, Life and letters of Robert Browning.

‘Jane is not at all strong, sleeps very ill…but she is very tough, and a bit of good stuff too.. I often wonder how she holds out, and braves many things, with so thin a skin.’ Thomas Carlyle.

‘In her bright existence she had more sorrows than are common; but also a soft invincibility, a clearness of discernment, and a noble loyalty of heart, which are rare.. For forty years she was the true and ever-loving helpmate of her husband, and by act and word unweariedly forwarded him, as none else could, in all that he did and attempted.' Thomas Carlyle.

She died at London, 21^st April, 1866, suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his life, as if gone out.’ Thomas Carlyle, inscription on her tombstone at St Mary’s, Haddington.