Thomas Carlyle letter to Mrs. Montague, June 3, 1830

              Craigenputtoch, 3rd June, 1830-



My Dear Madam,


Having a vacant hour at present, I may as well devote it to a duty which has long been in waiting; more especially as it is also a real pleasure for me. This is a kind of vacation, or interlude between two fits of scribbling; wherein I am wont to transact all manner of miscellaneous business, from the pruning of trees, and trimming of flower borders, up  to writing letters to my Friends; among whom those of Bedford Square, so long as there is any heart or sense left in me, cannot be forgotten.



You are too well acquainted with the ways of mankind to fancy that Letters or the want of Letters give much insight into the state of our feelings towards each other: one is often so involved among the trivialities and mean prosaic drudgeries of this world, that, even as it were to save our Friends from desecration, we remove their images back out of that vulgar hurlyburly, into some more inward shrine, thinking surely to commune with them in truth and love, were the day of peace come, which however lingers strangely. This, I believe, is wrong; for Friendship, like every other noble thing, must dwell even on the common clay soil of life, and make its poverty rich; or it will find no dwelling-place. But again, you may be so stranded on some uninhabited shore, as I am here, that your daily Biography belongs not to the world's History at all, is even unintelligible to the world, and the loudest incident of your day is when the clock sounds noon or midnight thro' the wilder-



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