![]() A man who seemed to be a common laborer had pointed out across the street the locality of Turner’s house, but I could not find either the number or the memorial tablet. ![]() But there were other places to see so inventing some polite excuse I moved on, and soon met with another delightful bit of London courtesy. You would be interested, sir,” he added, “to see Scots come there sometimes and sit on the stoop and shed tears about Carlyle.” I should indeed have been interested to see that, and I wondered what Carlyle’s ghost thought about it. He was pleased that I had just come from Carlyle’s house, but most kindly corrected my pronunciation of the street-name. Indeed this postman’s brain was a veritable storehouse of information about Chelsean antiquities and historic associations, and he was as ready to tell it all as the Ancient Mariner. 4), and went on to tell me of other historic houses that I wanted to see, the sometime abode of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (No. It was a great afternoon - but my story was about the street-name, and I had still other experiences with that.Ĭheyne Row opens into Cheyne Walk, and happily just as I entered the latter street a postman passed, whom I asked about the house where George Eliot died. The room of chief interest to me was, of course, the sound-proof study at the top of the house, where Carlyle could be at peace from the noise of London, and whence he would descend when he had read himself full seat himself on the floor in the sittingroom with his back against the chimneyjamb, light his pipe, and pour out, as it were molten lava from a volcano in eruption, a flood of ideas upon Mrs. The matron gave me full freedom of house and garden, for I seemed to be the only visitor that rainy August afternoon, and I could inspect at my leisure the interesting relics and mementos of the Carlyles, and read most interesting authentic documents, such as Disraeli’s autograph letter offering Carlyle the Grand Cross of the Bath and the latter’s dignified but grateful answer declining it. But the guard was puzzled till I said I was seeking Carlyle’s House, then he said, “ Oh, Chī-ne Row! ” He let me off at the right place, and I was soon at my goal. Anyhow the policeman put me on the right ’bus the rest was simple: I needed now only to be asked to set down at the nearest point to Chīne Row. He, too, was a Carlylean, and had read Sartor seventeen times, carrying it around with him, when a young Methodist circuit-rider, in the breast-pocket of his coat, - doubtless to keep it safe from the eyes of his presiding elder. It was a long distance from my room in the neighborhood of the British Museum but who minds riding on the top of a ’bus through London streets, where “every step is history,” and who does n’t like to ask directions of a London policeman ? The policeman at Trafalgar Square, whom I asked for a ’bus to Cheyne ( Shāyne) Row, was at a loss for a moment, but when I mentioned “Carlyle’s house,” he said, “Oh, you mean Chīne Row.” I was a bit surprised, for I had my pronunciation from one who had got his in London, he said. I AM an admirer of Thomas Carlyle, and on my last visit to London made a pilgrimage to Cheyne Row. ![]()
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