of which he had previously been ignorant. He properly begged her
not to yield to the impulse without due consideration. She answered by
coming at once to his father's house, where he was staying; and the
marriage was finally settled. It took place on the 17th of October 1826.

Carlyle had now to arrange the mode of life which should enable him to
fulfil his aspiration. His wife had made over her income to her mother,
but he had saved a small sum upon which to begin housekeeping. A passing
suggestion from Mrs Carlyle that they might live with her mother was
judiciously abandoned. Carlyle had thought of occupying Craigenputtock,
a remote and dreary farm belonging to Mrs Welsh. His wife objected his
utter incapacity as a farmer; and they finally took a small house at
Comely Bank, Edinburgh, where they could live on a humble scale. The
brilliant conversation of both attracted some notice in the literary
society of Edinburgh. The most important connexion was with Francis,
Lord Jeffrey, still editor of the _Edinburgh Review_. Though Jeffrey had
no intellectual sympathy with Carlyle, he accepted some articles for the
_Review_ and became warmly attached to Mrs Carlyle. Carlyle began to be
known as leader of a new "mystic" school, and his earnings enabled him
to send his brother John to study in Germany. The public appetite,
however, for "mysticism" was not keen. In spite of support from Jeffrey
and other friends, Carlyle failed in a candidature for a professorship
at St Andrews. His brother, Alexander, had now taken the farm at
Craigenputtock, and the Carlyles decided to settle at the separate
dwelling-house there, which would bring them nearer to Mrs Welsh. They
went there in 1828, and began a hard struggle. Carlyle, indomitably
determined to make no concessions for immediate profit, wrote slowly and
carefully, and turned out some of his most finished work. He laboured
"passionately" at _Sartor Resartus_, and made articles out of fragments
originally intended for the history of German literature. The money
difficulty soon became more pressing. John, whom he was still helping,
was trying unsuccessfully to set up as a doctor in London; and
Alexander's farming failed. In spite of such drawbacks, Carlyle in later
years looked back upon the life at Craigenputtock as on the whole a
comparatively healthy and even happy period, as it was certainly one of
most strenuous and courageous endeavour. Though often absorbed in his
work and ma