Of you
he spoke with hearty kindness; and he told, with beautiful feeling, a
story of some poor farmer, or artisan, in the country, who on Sunday
lays aside the cark and care of that dirty English world, and sits
reading the Essays, and looking upon the sea.
I left him that night, intending to go out very often to their
house. I assure you there never was anything so witty as Carlyle's
description of ---- ----. It was enough to kill one with laughing.
I, on my side, contributed a story to his fund of anecdote on this
subject, and it was fully appreciated. Carlyle is worth a thousand of
you for that;--he is not ashamed to laugh, when he is amused, but goes
on in a cordial human fashion.
The second time, Mr. C. had a dinner-party, at which was a witty,
French, flippant sort of man, author of a History of Philosophy, and
now writing a Life of Goethe, a task for which he must be as unfit as
irreligion and sparkling shallowness can make him. But he told stories
admirably, and was allowed sometimes to interrupt Carlyle a little,
of which one was glad, for, that night, he was in his more acrid
mood; and, though much more brilliant than on the former evening,
grew wearisome to me, who disclaimed and rejected almost everything he
said.
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