My relations with carlyle

Abstract

IN making facts public on which Mr. Froude had, after long and anxious consideration, decided to be silent, we are fully aware of the responsibility we are taking on ourselves. For the re-opening of the controversy, however, we are not to blame. The following private account, written by Mr. Froude himself, of his own relations with Mr. Carlyle would never have been given to the world had not the production of the' New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle,' with the serious charges contained in the Introduction and Footnotes, appeared to us to demand its publication. In the face of such charges, we feel that we should not be doing our duty as Mr. Froude's representatives if we failed to use the means which we possess of vindicating his memory. It seems to us best that Mr. Froude should speak in his own words, even though they may not be those which he himself might finally have chosen, had he been now living, and had he consented at last to speak in his own defence. The history of the Notes is given on a subsequent page. As the style itself shows, they have received no literary revision; and n.one has been attempted by ourselves. We have corrected a few clerical errors; we have omitted a few passages, cont.aining intimate reflections and recollections, unconnected with the point at issue; and ·two passages, dealing not with Mr. Carlyle but with certain business complications which arose out of the publication of his Memoirs, we have transferred in e:.ctenso to the Appendix. With the Notes we publish, by permission of Sir Herbert Stephen, a letter from Sir James Stephen to Mr. Froude, which was printed in 1886 for private circulation only, and in which reference is made to the above business matter. The letter is evidence which cannot be disputed as to Sir James Stephen'li) opinion of his co-executor's conduct, throughout a difficult and most painful business, and it shows incidentally the complications which resulted from Mr. Carlyle's changes of purpose.