the tangled meshes and the knotty branches that he knows will meet
him and try to beat him back. Furthermore, he knew how to live on
very little; he was unmarried; and he felt a certain ardor which
beseemed his age and gifts.

Through the kindness of friends, he received some commissions to
write in various books of reference; and in 1824, when he was
twenty-nine years of age, he published a translation of Legendre's
Geometry. In the same year he published, in the London Magazine,
his Life of Schiller, and also his translation of Goethe's Wilhelm
Meister. This successful attack upon the London periodicals and
reviews led to a certain complication with the other two
characters in this story. It takes us to Jane Welsh, and also to
Edward Irving.

Irving was three years older than Carlyle. The two men were
friends, and both of them had been teaching in country schools,
where both of them had come to know Miss Welsh. Irving's seniority
gave him a certain prestige with the younger men, and naturally
with Miss Welsh. He had won honors at the university, and now, as
assistant to the famous Dr. Chalmers, he carried his silk robes in
the jaunty fashion of one who has just ceased to be an
undergraduate. While studying, he met Miss Welsh at Haddington,
and there became her private instructor.

This girl was regarded in her native town as something of a
personage. To read what has been written of her, one might suppose
that she was almost a miracle of birth and breeding, and of
intellect as well. As a matter of fact, in the little town of
Haddington she was simply prima inter pares. Her father was the