Life of John Sterling · Thomas Carlyle
CHAPTER I. CLIFTON.
_To his Mother_. "_December 21st_, 1839.--The Tin box came quite safe, with all its miscellaneous contents. I suppose we are to thank you for the _Comic Almanac_, which, as usual, is very amusing; and for the Book on _Watt_, which disappointed me. The scientific part is no doubt very good, and particularly clear and simple; but there is nothing remarkable in the account of Watt's character; and it is an absurd piece of French impertinence in Arago to say, that England has not yet learnt to appreciate men like Watt, because he was not made a peer; which, were our peerage an institution like that of France, would have been very proper. "I have now finished correcting the proofs of my little Volume of Poems. It has been a great plague to me, and one that I would not have incurred, had I expected to be laid up as I have been; but the matter was begun before I had any notion of being disabled by such an illness,--the severest I have suffered since I went to the West Indies. The Book will, after all, be a botched business in many respects; and I much doubt whether it will pay its expenses: but I try to consider it as out of my hands, and not to fret myself about it. I shall be very curious to see Carlyle's Tractate on _Chartism_; which"--But we need not enter upon that.
Sterling's little Book was printed at his own expense; [23] published by Moxon in the very end of this year. It carries an appropriate and pretty Epigraph:-- "Feeling, Thought, and Fancy be Gentle sister Graces three: If these prove averse to me, They will punish,--pardon Ye!" He had dedicated the little Volume to Mr. Hare;--and he submitted very patiently to the discouraging neglect with which it was received by the world; for indeed the "Ye" said nothing audible, in the way of pardon or other doom; so that whether the "sister Graces" were averse or not, remained as doubtful as ever.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.