im. His wife had died some sixteen years
before, leaving a brilliant memory. The books of Mr. Froude seemed for
a moment to have desecrated the grave, and to have shed a sudden and
sinister light upon those who could not make the least defense for
themselves.

For a moment, Carlyle seemed to have been a monster of harshness,
cruelty, and almost brutish feeling. On the other side, his wife took
on the color of an evil-speaking, evil-thinking shrew, who tormented
the life of her husband, and allowed herself to be possessed by some
demon of unrest and discontent, such as few women of her station are
ever known to suffer from.

Nor was it merely that the two were apparently ill-mated and unhappy
with each other. There were hints and innuendos which looked toward
some hidden cause for this unhappiness, and which aroused the curiosity
of every one. That they might be clearer, Froude afterward wrote a
book, bringing out more plainly--indeed, too plainly--his explanation
of the Carlyle family skeleton. A multitude of documents then came from
every quarter, and from almost every one who had known either of the
Carlyles. Perhaps the result to-day has been more injurious to Froude
than to the two Carlyles.

Many persons unjustly speak of Froude as having violated the confidence
of his friends in publishing the letters of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. They
take no heed of the fact that in doing this he was obeying Carlyle's
express wishes, left behind in writing, and often urged on Froude while
Carlyle was still alive. Whether or not Froude ought to have accepted
such a trust, one may perhaps hesitate to decide. That he did so is
probably because he felt that if he refused, Carlyle might commit the
same duty to another, who would discharge it with less delicacy and
less discretion.

As it is, the blame, if it rests upon any one, should rest upon
Carlyle. He collected the letters. He wrote the lines which burn and
scorch with self-reproach. It is he who pressed upon the reluctant
Froude the duty of printing and publishing a series of documents which,
for the most part, should never have been published at all, and which
have done equal harm to Carlyle, to his wife, and to Froude himself.

Now that everything has been written that is likely to be written by
those claiming to possess personal knowledge of the subject, let us
take up the volumes, and likewise the scattered fragments, and seek to
penetrate the mystery of the most ill-assor