The marriage of dour but brilliant historian Thomas Carlyle and the spirited Jane Baillie Welsh was a meeting of minds, if not temperaments. While Carlyle made his name as the foremost historian of his generation, Jane acted as a behind-the-scenes administrator, secretary and hostess. Her letters and other writing show her abundant talent for description and wit. Here she describes doing battle with the tax inspectors in London on her husband’s behalf.
Mr C. said ‘the voice of honour seemed to call on him to go himself.’ But either it did not call loud enough, or he would not listen to that charmer. I went in a cab, to save all my breath for appealing. Set down at 30 Hornton Street, I found a dirty private-like house, only with Tax Office painted on the door. A dirty woman-servant opened the door, and told me the Commissioners would not be there for half an hour, but I might walk up. There were already some half-score men assembled in the waiting-room, among whom I saw the man who cleans our clocks, and a young apothecary of Cheyne Walk. All the others, to look at them, could not have been suspected for an instant, I should have said, of making a hundred a year …
‘First-come lady,’ called the clerk, opening a small side-door, and I stept forward into a grand peut-eˆtre. There was an instant of darkness while the one door was shut behind and the other opened in front; and there I stood in a dim room where three men sat round a large table spread with papers. One held a pen ready over an open ledger; another was taking snuff, and had taken still worse in his time, to judge by his shaky, clayed appearance. The third, who was plainly cock of that dung-heap, was sitting for Rhadamanthus – a Rhadamanthus without the justice.
‘Name,’ said the horned-owl-looking individual holding the pen.
‘Carlyle.’
‘What?’
‘Carlyle.’
Seeing he still looked dubious, I spelt it for him.
‘Ha!’ cried Rhadamanthus, a big, bloodless-faced, insolent-looking fellow. ‘What is this? why is Mr Carlyle not come himself? Didn’t he get a letter ordering him to appear? Mr Carlyle wrote some nonsense about being exempted from coming, and I desired an answer to be sent that he must come, must do as other people.’
‘Then, sir,’ I said, ‘your desire has been neglected, it would seem, my husband having received no such letter; and I was told by one of your fellow Commissioners that Mr Carlyle’s personal appearance was not indispensable.’
‘Huffgh! Huffgh! what does Mr Carlyle mean by saying he has no income from his writings, when he himself fixed it in the beginning at a hundred and fifty?’
‘It means, sir, that, in ceasing to write, one ceases to be paid for writing, and Mr Carlyle has published nothing for several years.’
‘Huffgh! Huffgh! I understand nothing about that.’
‘I do,’ whispered the snuff-taking Commissioner at my ear. ‘I can quite understand a literary man does not always make money. I would take it off, for my share, but (sinking his voice still lower) I am only one voice here, and not the most important.’
‘There,’ said I, handing to Rhadamanthus Chapman and Hall’s account; ‘that will prove Mr Carlyle’s statement.’
‘What am I to make of that? Huffgh! We should have Mr Carlyle here to swear to this before we believe it.’
‘If a gentleman’s word of honour written at the bottom of that paper is not enough, you can put me on my oath: I am ready to swear to it.’ ‘You! you, indeed! No, no! we can do nothing with your oath.’ ‘But, sir, I understand my husband’s affairs fully, better than he does himself.’
‘That I can well believe; but we can make nothing of this’ – flinging my document contemptuously on the table. The horned owl picked it up, glanced over it while Rhadamanthus was tossing papers about and grumbling about ‘people that wouldn’t conform to rules’; then handed it back to him, saying deprecatingly, ‘But, sir, this is a very plain statement.’ ‘Then what has Mr Carlyle to live upon? You don’t mean to tell me he lives on that?’ – pointing to the document.
‘Heaven forbid, sir! but I am not here to explain what Mr Carlyle has to live on, only to declare his income from literature during the last three years.’
‘True! true!’ mumbled the not-most-important voice at my elbow.
‘Mr Carlyle, I believe, has landed income?’
‘Of which,’ said I haughtily, for my spirit was up, ‘I have fortunately no account to render in this kingdom and to this board.’
‘Take off fifty pounds, say a hundred – take off a hundred pounds,’ said Rhadamanthus to the horned owl. ‘If we write Mr Carlyle down a hundred and fifty he has no reason to complain, I think. There, you may go, Mr Carlyle has no reason to complain.’
Second-come woman was already introduced, and I was motioned to the door; but I could not depart without saying that ‘at all events there was no use in complaining, since they had the power to enforce their decision.’ On stepping out, my first thought was, what a mercy Carlyle didn’t come himself! For the rest, though it might have gone better, I was thankful it had not gone worse.