Soon after Carlyle died I went to Ecclefechan and stood by his grave.
It was not a day that I would have chosen for such an errand, for it was
cold, grey, and hard, and towards the afternoon it rained a slow,
persistent, wintry rain. The kirkyard in Ecclefechan was dismal and
depressing, but my thoughts were not there. I remembered what Carlyle
was to the young men of thirty or forty years ago, in the days of that
new birth, which was so strange a characteristic of the time. His books
were read with excitement, with tears of joy, on lonely hills, by the
seashore and in London streets, and the readers were thankful that it
was their privilege to live when he also was alive. All that excitement
has vanished, but those who knew what it was are the better for it.
Carlyle now is almost nothing, but his day will return, he will be put
in his place as one of the greatest souls who have been born amongst us,
and his message will be considered as perhaps the most important which
has ever been sent to us. This is what I thought as I stood in
Ecclefechan kirkyard, and as I lingered I almost doubted if Carlyle
COULD be dead. Was it possible that such as he could altogether die?
Some touch, some turn, I could not tell what or how, seemed all that was
necessary to enable me to see and to hear him. It was just as if I were
perplexed and baffled by a veil which prevented recognition of him,
although I was sure he was behind it.



EARLY MORNING IN JANUARY



A warm, still morning, with a clear sky and stars. At first the hills