f having a message to
deliver to mankind, and his comrades, he thought, were making literature
a trade instead of a vocation, and prostituting their talents to
frivolous journalism. He went once to see Coleridge, who was then
delivering his oracular utterances at Highgate, and the only result was
the singularly vivid portrait given in a famous chapter in his life of
Sterling. Coleridge seemed to him to be ineffectual as a philosopher,
and personally to be a melancholy instance of genius running to waste.
Carlyle, conscious of great abilities, and impressed by such instances
of the deleterious effects of the social atmosphere of London, resolved
to settle in his native district. There he could live frugally and
achieve some real work. He could, for one thing, be the interpreter of
Germany to England. A friendly letter from Goethe, acknowledging the
translation of _Wilhelm Meister_, reached him at the end of 1824 and
greatly encouraged him. Goethe afterwards spoke warmly of the life of
Schiller, and desired it to be translated into German. Letters
occasionally passed between them in later years, which were edited by
Professor Charles Eliot Norton in 1887. Goethe received Carlyle's homage
with kind complacency. The gift of a seal to Goethe on his birthday in
1831 "from fifteen English friends," including Scott and Wordsworth, was
suggested and carried out by Carlyle. The interest in German, which
Carlyle did so much to promote, suggested to him other translations and
reviews during the next few years, and he made some preparations for a
history of German literature. British curiosity, however, about such
matters seems to have been soon satisfied, and the demand for such work
slackened.

Carlyle was meanwhile passing through the most important crisis of his
personal history. Jane Baillie Welsh, born 1801, was the only child of
Dr Welsh of Haddington. She had shown precocious talent, and was sent to
the school at Haddington where Edward Irving (q.v.) was a master. After
her father's death in 1819 she lived with her mother, and her wit and
beauty attracted many admirers. Her old tutor, Irving, was now at
Kirkcaldy, where he became engaged to a Miss Martin. He visited
Haddington occasionally in the following years, and a strong mutual
regard arose between him and Miss Welsh. They contemplated a marriage,
and Irving endeavoured to obtain a release from his previous engagement.
The Martin family held him to his word, and he took