sympathies. . . . A fine verse of Lucretius, which he himself cites as appropriate to his master Comte, may be applied with equal fitness to himself as one who habitually dwelt in the

"Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena."

In the autumn the Nortons young and oldwere once more established in a house in London, where friends were waiting to make the winter pass as little sadly as such a time might. In Norton's journal of this winter there is nothing of self-pity, though the shadow in which he was walking is sometimes seen upon its pages. Through its fully detailed record of his intercourse with friends, and of his constant, loving concern for his children and their interests, the activities that filled the months before the return to America may be closely followed.

CHAPTER VIII

A WINTER IN LONDON

(1872-1873)

CARLYLE wrote in his notebook on March 1, 1873: "An amiable, very friendly, sincere and cultivated Charles Norton, from Boston, is here all winter and much a favourite with me." In a letter to Curtis, December 27, 1872, Norton wrote: "I think the chief pleasure of my stay in London this year has been the frequent walks and talks I have had with Carlyle. I see him often enough to have grown familiar in some sort with him, and sincerely attached to him. He is, though seventy-seven years old, in excellent health, and vigorous for his years. Age has tempered whatever once may have been hard in him, and yet has taken from him nothing of keenness of intelligence or richness of humour and imagination. . . . He is the most striking figure in London, and when he dies there will be a bigger gap than the death of any other man could make."

Norton's journal of this period is full of the "walks and talks" with Carlyle which he enjoyed so much; but it abounds in references to other friends, and, supplemented by some of the letters, especially those to Lowell, written during the last months away from home, provides a picture-in which even details stand out of a memorable winter.

Some ten years later, Lowell, writing from England

to Norton, said, "I like London and have learned to see as I never saw before the advantage of a great capital. It establishes one set of weights and measures, moral and intellectual, for a whole country." Norton had earlier recognized the "set of weights and measures" established by London, and when he returned there in 1872 it was to the accepted and understood: this in itself brought about those immediate adjustments which lent ease to the growth of friendship.

To J. R. Lowell

33 CLEVELAND SQUARE, W., October 20, 1872.

It was very pleasant to hear from you and to know that you were getting on well in the Rue de Beaune (What a pleasant flavour the name has!) and becoming wonted to your new quarters. If you go on as you have begun, your French will, by the end of the winter, be at least as good as my English. I am glad that you are still writing poetry in English. I want very much to see the new poem, for I fear if you delay long to put it upon paper, it will turn to chanson, or roman or ballade, in your head, and I shall have to borrow a Roquefort to translate it.

I have done little work since getting here, and have not read a word of old French. There is much to do in merely settling one's-self, and orienter-ing one'sself in such a vast sunless city as this. And I have had letters to write, and arrangements to make for the other children's lessons and Eliot's school, and some few friends to see, and the week has gone since I last wrote mainly in petty and not memorable

ways. One afternoon I went to see my kind old friend Forster, (John, I mean, not William,) who is ill, and in his room met Carlyle. He was very cordial and very entertaining. His vein of humorous reminiscence ran as freely as ever, and he told a comic story of Sumner whom he dislikes as heartily as if he had been born on Beacon Street. He defined him as "the most completely nothin' of a mon that ever crossed my threshold, naught whatsoever in him or of him but wind and vanity"; and Forster capped his story with a queer reminiscence of Sumner, at the time of his first visit to England, apologizing for Slavery at a breakfast in Lincoln's Inn. I had a walk with Carlyle afterwards, and he spoke of himself in answer to my question, as very well, "perfectly healthy in every function and organ, but for the tremblin' o' me hand which hinders writin', so that now-a-days many reflections are born in me that will never find utterance. But I'm a verra old man, and for seven years now I've been sorely burdened, and I often think that the best thing that could befall me wad be to be taken from this lonesome valley." - I hope to see more of him.

One day Harry James 1 and Grace and I went to see

1 Henry James, then in London, was much with the Nortons at this time. In Norton's journal of the winter, there are some entertaining pages in the young novelist's own hand, giving an account of an expedition with the Nortons "on the 12th of March," [when] "we went by appointment with Mr. Morris to see his glasswork and tapestries and the other treasures of his shop. . . . Mr. Morris's dwelling sits side by side with his shop or fabrique, under the same roof, in Queen's Square, Bloomsbury, a remote, unfashionable quarter of the town, smelling strongly of the last century— a parallelogram of dingy respectable houses, with a narrow enclosure in the middle, containing a hoary effigy of Queen Anne."

I cared much for

the pictures at Bethnal Green. Gainsborough's little Miss Boothby with the whole moral history of English woman in her sweet prim little face and quaint nice dress; and for delightful Nelly O'Brien, whom I should have liked to paint as often, could I have done her as well, as Sir Joshua did; . . . But I was in no humour for looking at such pictures after the drive through the East End, which has long been to me the most appalling place on earth.

To J. R. Lowell

33 CLEVELAND SQUARE, W., November 3, 1872. I was very glad to get your note yesterday morning, and to hear that the days were going pleasantly with you. All continues well with us. Since I last wrote to you my life has been very quiet. I have seen few people outside of our own household. Rowse and Wright were with us almost every day while they were in London. They were both in excellent condition. . . .

One day last week I met Carlyle and Allingham,2 (who is reported to be his Boswell,) and had a long walk with them, from Brompton, through the Park, to Belgravia. Carlyle was in a pleasant humour, but with less head of talk on than usual. The chief subject of his objurgation was Herbert Spencer, and, in general, the men who, as Goethe said, waste their lives gedenkend concerning Gedenken. . . .

1 Where the National Portrait Gallery was then established.

2 William Allingham (1824-1889) whose Diary and Reminiscences contribute to the knowledge of Carlyle and his contemporaries.