8 January 1877 – 14 January 1877

With Carlyle — Christianity — age fifteen, spoke to his mother — her horror. ' Did God Almighty come down and make wheelbarrows in a shop ? ' She lay awake at night for hours praying and weeping bitterly. ' This went on about ten years. Goethe drove me out of it, taught me that the true things in Christianity survived and were eternally true ; pointed out to me the real nature of life and things — not that he did this directly ; but incidentally, and let me see it rather than told me. This gave me peace and great satisfaction.' In omnibus — ' I have a notion of a carriage for myself.' I approved — * but, oh dear ! I care little. I see nothing but the shadows of coming events and images of the past. They come back — very strange — most vividly, early things In my life. ' I am much disappointed In my reading In the Greek dramatists — now reading Aristophanes, a blackguard fellow. Disappointed with the Tragic Dramatists, too. ^schylus's Prometheus very striking. One thing struck me, the awful sense those Athenians, too, had of this Human Life of ours.' W. A.—' Alfierl— like Byron .? ' C. — ' Yes, something, more sense. Racine much the highest of the French Dramatists.' He then spoke of ' that woman too — what call you her ? Prunty ? Bronte ? they are writing in such a solemn tone about, God bless me ! I remember reading her first novel and saying " this is a woman, and very nearly mad." 'Tis in that she gives us a wooden figure in the shape of a man, that gesticulates and curses by machinery.' * Rochester ^ ' ' Ay, that's it ; not an atom of flesh and blood in it.' I told him Swinburne's verdict, * the one supreme masculine figure,' or something like that ; which amused him a little. I added that there was a good deal of real experience infused into Jane Eyre — and then let it drop. We parted at the hall door, he saying, ' I'm glad you are near me again. Come again soon.' Some consider Carlyle's Scottish dogmatic breeding to have been fortunate for him, but I cannot think so, even though he believed this himself. It was burned and branded into his youthful conscience and imagina- tion. It could not be made to fit in with ' facts ' — hence, what sufferings ! what rages ! He was con- temptuous to those who held to Christian dogmas ; he was angry with those who gave them up ; he was furious with those who attacked him. If equanimity be the mark of a Philosopher, he was, of all great-minded men, I' the least of a Philosopher.