Thomas Carlyle

PREFATORY NOTE

Produced by Jayam Subramanian, Robert Connal, and PG

THOMAS CARLYLE - CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY

CHAPTER II - ECCLEFECHAN AND EDINBURGH

Book II. of Sartor is an acknowledged fragment of autobiography, mainly a record of the author's inner life, but with numerous references to his environment. There is not much to identify the foster parents of Teufelsdröckh, and the dramatic drollery of the child's advent takes the place of ancestry: Entepfuhl is obviously Ecclefechan, where the ducks are paddling in the ditch that has to pass muster for a stream, to-day as a century gone: the severe frugality which (as in the case of Wordsworth and Carlyle himself) survived the need for it, is clearly recalled; also the discipline of the Roman-like domestic law, "In an orderly house, where the litter of children's sports is hateful, your training is rather to bear than to do. I was forbid much, wishes in any measure bold I had to renounce; everywhere a strait bond of obedience inflexibly held me down. It was not a joyful life, yet … a wholesome one." The following oft-quoted passage is characteristic of his early love of nature and the humorous touches by which he was wont to relieve his fits of sentiment:—

CHAPTER III - CRAIGENPUTTOCK

CHAPTER IV - CHEYNE ROW

CHAPTER V - CHEYNE ROW

CHAPTER VI - THE MINOTAUR

T. CARLYLE.