complaint, and a remarkable power, as her
letters prove, of seeing things plainly and despising sentimental
consolations. She was childless, and had time to brood over her wrongs.
She formed a little circle of friends, attached to her rather than to
her husband; and to one of them, Giuseppe Mazzini, she confided her
troubles in 1846. He gave her admirable advice; and the alienation from
her husband, though it continued still to smoulder, led to no further
results. A journal written at the same time gives a painful record of
her sufferings, and after her death made Carlyle conscious for the first
time of their full extent. The death of Lady Ashburton in 1857 removed
this cause of jealousy; and Lord Ashburton married a second wife in
1858, who became a warm friend of both Carlyles. The cloud which had
separated them was thus at last dispersed. Meanwhile Carlyle had become
absorbed in his best and most laborious work. Soon after the completion
of the _Cromwell_ he had thought of Frederick for his next hero, and had
in 1845 contemplated a visit to Germany to collect materials. He did
not, however, settle down finally to the work till 1851. He shut himself
up in his study to wrestle with the Prussian Dryasdusts, whom he
discovered to be as wearisome as their Puritan predecessors and more
voluminous. He went to Scotland to see his mother, to whom he had always
shown the tenderest affection, on her deathbed at the end of 1853. He
returned to shut himself up in the "sound-proof room." He twice visited
Germany (1852 and 1858) to see Frederick's battlefields and obtain
materials; and he occasionally went to the Ashburtons and his relations
in Scotland. The first two volumes of _Frederick the Great_ appeared in
1858, and succeeding volumes in 1862, 1864 and 1865. The success was
great from the first, though it did little to clear up Carlyle's gloom.
The book is in some respects his masterpiece, and its merits are beyond
question. Carlyle had spared no pains in research. The descriptions of
the campaigns are admirably vivid, and show his singular eye for
scenery. These narratives are said to be used by military students in
Germany, and at least convince the non-military student that he can
understand the story. The book was declared by Emerson to be the
wittiest ever written. Many episodes, describing the society at the
Prussian court and the relations of Frederick to Voltaire, are
unsurpassable as humorous portraiture. The effort to