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CARLYLE'S LOVES AND LETTERS 95
high romance. She never makes great things
small by declamation ; she prefers to make
small things great by insinuation. Her friend
is assumed to be interested in all that concerns
herself, so she is not afraid to be intimate ;
and a correspondent both clever and intimate
is one of those things that make life precious.
In a word, her letters (which, to our dismay,
besides occupying a bare third of the two
volumes, are towards the end disastrously
affected by the style
of her lover) succeed in
giving a whimsical view of her ordinary and
external life, viewed from standpoints above
and beyond the reach of externals the head
and the heart. Her account of the affair
with Mr. Dugald G is, in its way, a little
masterpiece, but too long for quotation.
We select a shorter specimen of her : style
" Such a week I spent in Galloway ! There
was no amusement within doors, and the
weather precluded the chance of finding any
'
without. Ccelebs in Search of a Wife '
was
the only book in the house, and even that was
monopolized by a young lady who came to
my Uncle's (I strongly suspect) on Cceleb's
errand. The rest of us had no weapon of
any sort to combat time with, and for four
whole days I sat counting the drops of rain
that fell from the ceiling into a bowl beneath,