SECOND NOTE BOOK. BEGUN IN LONDON. August 4th 1831. Left Craigenputtock,1 and my kind little wife, Alick2 driving me, at 2 o'clock in the morning. Shipped at Glencaple 3: hazy day : saw Esbie 4 in the steerage; talked mysticism with him during six weary hours we had to stay at Whitehaven. Reimbarkment there, amid bellowing and tumult and fiddling unutter able: all like a spectral vision 'she is [not] there.' St. Bees Head. Man with the Nose. Sleep in the steamboat cabin: confusion worse confounded. Morning: views of Cheshire, the Rock, Liverpool and steamboats. Boy-Man. 1 For a long contemplated visit to London in the hope of finding a publisher for Sartor Resartus, which had just been completed. 2 His brother. 3 Five miles beyond Dumfries. 4 An old acquaintance, described in a letter of 27 Nov., 1818, to Mr. Robert Mitchell, as a 'double-refined travelling tutor."-Early Letters, i. 191. V 5th 71⁄2 in the morning. Land at Liverpool: all abed at Maryland street.1 Boy Alick 2 accompanies me over Liverpool. Exchange-Dome: dim view there. Dust, toil; cotton-bags, hampers, repairing ships, disloading stones. Carson 3 a hash. Melancholy body of the name of Sloan. Wifekin's assiduity in caring for me.4 6th (Saturday) taken to one Johnstone a Frenchified Lockerby man, who leads me to 'Change; place in 'the Independent Tallyho, Sir!' - See George Johnstone, Surgeon, whom I had unearthed the night before. Patient of his. He dines with Walk on the Terrace near the Cemetery. Have seen the Steam-coaches 5 in the morning. Liverpool a dismembered aggregate of streets and sandpits. Market-hubbub. us. 1 Home of Mrs. Carlyle's uncle, Mr. John Welsh, "a most munificent, affectionate and nobly honorable kind of man." Reminiscences i. 156; see also pp. 166–168. 2 Son of Mr. John Welsh. 3 A Liverpool doctor. See Letters, ii. 367. 4 "Delightful it was" Carlyle writes to his wife on August II, 'on opening my trunk to find everywhere traces of my good 'coagitor's' [coadjutor's] care and love. Heaven reward thee, my clear-headed, warmhearted, dearest little Screamikin!" Life, ii. 165. 5 The Steam-coaches were still novelties; the first experimental trip with a steam engine was on the Liverpool & Manchester railway in October, 1829. The celebration of the opening of the road for regular steam travel and traffic was on Sept. 15, 1830, a memorable event made tragic by the death of Mr. Huskisson. 8th 1 Oleum ricini. Go out to find Esbie: he calls on me. Confused family dinner; do. tea. G. Johnstone again. Talk: to bed. 9th Off on Monday morning. Shipped thro' the Mersey; coached thro' Eastham, Chester, Overton (in Wales) Ellesmere, Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, Birmingham: attempt at tea there. Discover (not without laughter) the villainy of the Liverpool CoachBookers. Henley in Arden; Stratford on Avon (horses lost there); get in to sleep. Oxford at 3 in the morning. Out again there: chill but pleasant. Henley, Maidenhead &c. Arrive full of sulphur at the Wh[ite] Horse Cellar, Piccadilly: dismount at the Regent Circus, and am wheeled (not whirled) hither,2 about half past 10; poor Jack waiting all the while at the Angel, Islington. Talk together when he returns; dine at an Eatinghouse among Frenchmen, one of whom ceases eating to hear me talk of the St. Simonians. Leave my card at the Lord Advocate's,3 with promise to call next morning. Sulphurous enough. 1 The dates from the 8th to the 14th inclusive are wrong by a day in advance. 2 To 6 Woburn Buildings, Tavistock Square, the dwelling of Edward Irving's brother George, where Dr. John Carlyle lodged. 3 Jeffrey. |