on, from "the Valley of the
Shadow"--require no annotation, save in respect of Carlyle's
own on _Deerbrook_. He might well call it "poor": it is
indeed one of the few novels by a writer of any distinction,
which one tolerably voracious novel-reader has found
incapable of being read. And this is curious: for she had
written good stories earlier.

38. TO EDWARD FITZGERALD

ADDISCOMBE FARM, CROYDON.
15th Septr. 1855

Dear Fitzgerald,

I have been here ever since the day you last heard of me; leading the
strangest life of absolute _Latrappism_; and often enough remembering
Farlingay and you. I live perfectly alone, and without speech at
all,--there being in fact nobody to speak to, except one austerely
punctual housemaid, who does her functions, like an eight-day clock,
generally without bidding. My wife comes out now and then to give the
requisite directions; but commonly withdraws again on the morrow,
leaving the monster to himself and his own ways. I have Books; a
complete Edition of _Voltaire_, for one Book, in which I read for _use_,
or for idleness oftenest,--getting into endless reflexions over it,
mostly of a sad and not very utterable nature. I find V. a 'gentleman,'
living in a world partly furnished with such; and that there are now
almost no 'gentlemen' (not quite _none_): this is one great head of my
reflexions, to which there is no visible _tail_ or finish. I have also a
Horse (borrowed from my fat Yeoman friend, who is at sea-bathing in
Sussex); and I go riding, at great lengths daily, over hill and dale;
this I believe is really the main good I am doing,--if in this either
there be much good. But it is a strange way of life to me, for the time;
perhaps not unprofitable; To let _Chaos_ say out its say, then, and
one's Evil Genius give one the very worst language he has, for a while.
It is still to last for a week or more. Today, for the first time, I
ride back to Chelsea, but mean to return hither on Monday. There is a
great circle of yellow light all the way from Shooter's Hill to Primrose
Hill, spread round my horizon every night, I see it while smoking my
pipe before bed (so bright, last night, it cast a visible shadow of me
against the white window-shutters); and this is all I have to do with
London and its _gases_ for a fortnight or more. My wife writes to me,
there was an awful jangle of bells last day she went home from this; a
Quaker asked in the railway, of some