Arthur Conan Doyle

“ A poor medallion with a profile head of him had been clumsily let into the wall. Several worn steps led to the thin high door with an old-fashioned fanlight above it. Frank rang the bell, and a buxom cheerful matron came at the call.
‘Names in this book, sir - and address, if you please,’ said the cheery matron. ‘One shilling each - thank you, sir. First door to the left, sir! This was the dining-room, sir - ’
But Frank had come to a dead stop in the dim, dull, wood-panelled hall. In front of them rose the stairs with old-fashioned banisters, cracked, warped, and dusty. ”

“ The matron smiled complacently in the superior wisdom of the Shorter Catechism. ‘There is neither marriage nor giving in marriage,’ said she, shaking her head. ‘This is the spare bedroom, sir, where Mr. Emerson slept when he was here. And now if you will step this way I will show you the study.’
It was the singular room which Carlyle had constructed in the hopes that he could shut out all the noises of the universe, the crowing of cocks, and the jingling of a young lady’s five-finger exercise in particular. ”

“ The first, that he was a Scotchman, who are of all men the least likely to wear their hearts upon their sleeves; the other, that his mind was always grappling with some far-away subject which made him forget the smaller things close by him.’
‘But the smaller things are everything to a woman,’ said Maude. ‘If ever you forget those smaller things, sir, to be as courteous to your wife as you would be to any other lady, to be loving and thoughtful and sympathetic, it will be no consolation to me to know that you have written the grandest book that ever was. ”

“ There was repose, and something of surprise also, in the features - also a very subtle serenity and dignity.
‘The distance from the ear to the forehead is said to be only equalled by Napoleon and by Gladstone. That’s what they say,’ said the matron, with Scotch caution.
‘It’s the face of a noble man when all is said and done,’ said Frank. ‘I believe that the true Thomas Carlyle without the dyspepsia, and the true Jane Welsh without the nerves, are knowing and loving each other in some further life.’
‘It is sweet to think so,’ cried Maude. ‘Oh, I do hope that it is so! ”

“ Poor souls, dwellers in the gloom, working so hard for others, so bitterly reviled when by chance some weakness of humanity comes to break, for an instant, the routine of their constant labour, so limited in their hopes and in their pleasures, they are of all folk upon this planet those for whom a man’s heart may most justly soften. ”

“ But it was not to admire it that the cabman had halted.
‘I beg your pardin’, sir,’ said he, in the softly insinuating way of the Cockney, ‘but I thought that maybe the lidy would like to see Mr. Carlyle’s statue. That’s ’im, sir, a-sittin’ in the overcoat with the book in ’is ’and.’
Frank and Maude got out and entered the small railed garden, in the centre of which the pedestal rose. It was very simple and plain - an old man in a dressing-gown, with homely wornout boots, a book upon his knee, his eyes and thoughts far away. No more simple statue in all London, but human to a surprising degree. ”

“ And why should he be so proud of his work, unless work was a new and wondrous thing to him. To paint part of the windows also sounds like the amateur and not the workman. So I repeat that it was the first achievement of the son of the house.’
‘Well, indeed, I dare say you are right, though I never thought of it before,’ said the matron. ‘Now this, up here, is Carlyle’s own room, in which he slept for forty-seven years. In the case is a cast of his head taken after death.’
It was strange and rather ghastly to see a plaster head in this room where the head of flesh had so often lain. ”

“ Carlyle’s mother,’ the matron explained. ‘It’s the same bed that Mrs. Carlyle talks about in her letters when she says how she pulled it to pieces.’
‘Why did she pull it to pieces?’ asked Maude.
‘Better not inquire, dear.’
‘Indeed you’re right, sir. If you get them into these old houses, it is very hard to get them out. A cleaner woman than Mrs. Carlyle never came out of Scotland. This little room behind was his dressing-room. There’s his stick in the corner. Look what’s written upon the window!’
Decidedly it was a ghostly house. ”

“ Would you like to visit it?’
‘I don’t think there is anything I should like more.’
‘Why, Maude, we are getting quite a distinguished circle of acquaintances. Mr. Pepys last month - and now the Carlyles. Well, we could not spend a Saturday afternoon better, so if you will meet me to-morrow at Charing Cross, we shall have a cosy little lunch together at Gatti’s, and then go down to Chelsea.’
Maude was a rigid economist, and so was Frank in his way, for with the grand self-respect of the middle classes the thought of debt was unendurable to them. ”

“ By Jove, it is splendid!’ Frank had enough of the true artist to be able to feel that rush of enthusiasm which adequate work should cause. That old man, with his head shamefully defiled by birds, was a positive joy to him. ”

“ It is a delightful thing to snuggle up in, is a hansom; but in order to be really trim and comfortable one has to put one’s arm round one’s companion’s waist. No one can observe it there, for the vehicle is built upon intelligent principles. ”