2 December 1878 – 8 December 1878

To Carlyle's. Found Browning in the drawing-room, talking earnestly to him — 'and here's AUingham '—talk. Lord Beaconsfield. Browning — ' I met him at dinner last spring, and he was got up to look as much like a young man as he could.' I. — ' Had you any talk with him ? ' B. — ' Oh yes ; he came up and said, " I daresay you don't recollect me " ; I assured him I did. ' Then he said, " Oh yes, I remember you did me the honour to introduce yourself to me at the Academy dinner." ' I said, " I beg your pardon, it was you who did me that honour." ' Decejnber 4. — Carlyle's birthday. Helen and I went down about 2.30., and met the carriage, which pulled up and allowed us to shake hands. Mary, Mrs. Lecky and Mr. Graham were with him. He does not like more than just a greeting on his birthday.

Carlyle, Mary and I in carriage — drove along the Embankment and stopped to see Cleopatra's Needle. C. put his head out of window and took one look, then leaned back, 'Ah yes — old Egyptian hands made that a long time ago.' We drove to Tower Hill. I asked him a question to-day I had often wished to ask : ' Do your thoughts ever turn to another life .'* ' He answered : ' Oh, every day and every hour.' Then he went on to say, in slow semi-soliloquy, ' We know nothing. All is, and must be, utterly incomprehensible. Annihilation would be preferable to me to this state I am in. But I hold with Goethe ' (and he repeated the verses in his own translation) — /The Future hides in it Gladness and sorrow ; We press still thorow. Nought that abides in it Daunting us, — onward. And solemn before us, Veiled, the dark Portal, Goal of all mortal : — Stars silent rest o'er us, Graves under us silent ! 'That is very fine,' he said, giving these two lines again — Stars silent rest o'er us, Graves under us silent ! Then went on- While earnest thou gazest, Comes boding of terror, Come phantasm and error. Perplexes the bravest With doubt and misgiving. But heard are the Voices, — Heard are the Sages, The Worlds and the Ages : ' Choose well ; your choice is Brief and yet endless. Here eyes do regard you, In Eternity's stillness ; Here is all fulness, / Ye brave, to reward you ; Work, and despair not.' The last seven lines he gave with special distinctness. Meanwhile we were driving slowly, with frequent stops, through the dingy crowded Minories and Leadenhall Street. By and by he said, ' A thought that bewilders me sometimes is the prodigious number of human beings who have come and gone.' W. A. — ' Against this we can set the immeasurable Space around us and its innumerable Worlds.' C. — ' I care very little about the stars. I look round upon my fellow-creatures.' W. A. — ' But the multitude of mighty Globes is a physical fact, as much as any other.' C. — ' Yes ' (letting the subject drop). Again he resumed. ' One thing Browning told me the other day was a saying of Huxley's, " In the beginning was hydrogen." Any man who spoke thus in my presence I would request to be silent — " No more of that stuff, sir, to me ! (angrily). If you persevere I will take means, such as are in my power, to get quit of you without delay." ' To Carlyle's. Mr. Paul Friedmann. We three drove out. Talk on Prussian affairs, and especially Bismarck, whom F. thinks a despot. I was surprised at C.'s not coming forward to defend the Chancellor, but he seems to have got fresh lights on B.'s character lately. He remarked, ' I hear he is a terrible fellow at eating and drinking.' F. confirmed this, adding ' he says himself he never gets drunk, but his friends do not say so.' The book of conversations with B.'s secretary, just pubhshed, was mentioned. I asked, ' was it authentic ^ ' ' Oh yes, it could not have been published without B.'s full consent. His object is to keep himself before the public' We then spoke of Morganatic marriages, on which F. gave copious and apparently accurate information. He said the ceremony is in no way peculiar, (he never heard of the left hand being used) nor the status of the wife : the only difference being in the succession of the children. C. and F. entirely agreed with me as to the absurdity of writing histories of centuries, or of treating those artificial sections as real. The practice is very modern. Histories of reigns, of great wars, or of famous person- ages, were the usual forms of writing. C. often declared that the driver was going wrong — at last thrust his head suddenly out of the window, and roared ' Where in the Devil's Grandmother's name are you going ? ' Carlyle has allowed Helen to sketch him as he reads in his drawing-room from 12 to 2.30, and she has had six sittings up to December 9. Helen writes — ' The first morning I went at Mary's invitation ; after shaking hands with me C. left the room ; when he returned I had arranged my things on the sofa, and M. then called his attention to " our special artist." He said " What ? " and added, when he understood, " I'll have nothing to do with any sketching." ' At last M. persuaded him to let me stay, and he sat down before the fire to read a translation of a Russian poem (lent by Madame de Novikoff^ ; he called the poet a " blathering blellum." ' He often expressed a weariness of life, and wished to be out of it ; and one day taking leave said, " Well, ma'am, I wish you all prosperity, and that you may not live to be seventy-two " (meaning eighty-two). * One day he said, " As far as I can make out, the best portrait-painter who ever lived was one Cooper, in Cromwell's time. When painting Cromwell, Cromwell told llim to put in the wart, and he did. I have spent much time in studying Cromwell's physiognomy." ' ' Every day he asked after " AUingham and the bairns." '