19 July 1875 – 25 July 1875

To Cheyne Row about 10.15 ^^ the evening. Carlyle, Dr. C, Mary. My sketch of Campbell to Bell's new edition. C. praised it on the whole, but thought me ' rather stingy ' in my estimate of Campbell's poetry. Talked of Dr. Beattie : ' It was a curious thing, that shriek of joy which Beattie reports as the last thing. No one but Beattie could give any opinion as to what it meant. Probably it meant nothing at all, — was a mere physical convulsion.' ' Your poor friend PlimsoU ' — C. sympathised with him. (He often calls the selfish shipowners 'Cannibals.') Carlyle spoke with respect of sailors ; their occupa- tion brought them into close contact with the eternal verities of the universe. But, as matter of experience, is the average sailor a superior man '^. He learned smoking as a schoolboy. It is the only ' creature comfort ' that has given him any satisfaction. After working for some hours he always has ' an inter- lude of tobacco.' He smokes long clay pipes, made at Paisley, whence he gets them by the box. * No pipes good for anything can be got in England.' He likes best a new pipe, and used, when first I knew him, to smoke a new pipe every day, its predecessor being put out at night on the door-step for who would to carry away. I have more than once heard Carlyle talk about Tennyson's smoking, and also T. of Carlyle's. Each thought the other smoked too much — or at all events too strong tobacco. T. carefully dries his tobacco before putting it into the pipe, which, he says, lessens the strength, while C. asserts that this process makes it stronger. T. has a wooden frame for his pipes, I holding, I think, fourteen, which hangs over the chimney-piece of his study, and he smokes No. i to-day. No. 2 to-morrow, and so on, coming round in J a fortnight to No. i again. I Saturday, July 24. — Mr. William Black the novelist wrote to me some days ago to ask if I could take him to Carlyle — ' one of the few ambitions of my life.' I asked leave ; and to-day Mr. B. lunched with Helen and me, and I took him down to Cheyne Row. C. received him civilly, and we three walked by the Embankment, Chelsea Hospital, King's Road, Ebury Square and back to Oakley Street. The talk was mostly about Scotland. C. asked Mr. Black : * Well, sir, and when are you going to seriously set about writing a book .? ' Mr. B. afterwards sent A Princess of Thule to Cheyne Row.