With regard to Carlyle,--it is true, as claimed by Gould (_Biographic
Clinics_, 1903) that he showed every evidence of eyestrain with resulting
symptoms, particularly headache. This does not, however, preclude his
having had hypochondria also, and in view of the violent and reiterated
complaints running through his letters it seems quite credible that
Froude's estimate of his condition was not far wrong. Surely, unless
Carlyle was merely trying his pen without intending to be taken seriously,
he devoted to the question of health a degree of attention which may be
fairly adjudged undue.

The first letter I quote (from those cited by Gould in fortifying his
position) is of special interest as presenting in rather lurid terms
Carlyle's ideal of health. After reading this letter one cannot help
suspecting that the discomforts so vividly described in his other letters
were compared by him with this ideal rather than with those of the average
individual.

"In the midst of your zeal and ardor,... remember the care of health.... It
would have been a very great thing for me if I had been able to consider
that health is a thing to be attended to continually, that you are to
regard that as the very highest of all temporal things for you. There is no
kind of achievement you could make in the world that is equal to perfect
health. What to it are nuggets and millions'? The French financier said
'Why is there no sleep to be sold!' Sleep was not in the market at any
quotation.... I find that you could not get any better definition of what
'holy' really is than 'healthy.' Completely healthy; _mens sana in corpore
sano_. A man all lucid, and in equilibrium. His intellect a clear mirror
geometrically plane, brilliantly sensitive to all objects and impressions
made on it and imaging all things in their correct proportions; not twisted