THE WIFE OP THOMAS CARLYLE. 183 At length, in 1884, they moved to London, to the now famous No. 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, their home for the rest of their lives. They were both pleased with the change, and Carlyle even enjoyed the moving in and settling down, although noise and bustle usually drove him into his worst humor. A year after the removal Mrs. Carlyle writes merrily to her mother : " I have just had a call from an old rejected lover, who has .been in India these ten years : though he has come home with more thousands of pounds than we are ever likely to have hundreds, or even scores, the sight of him did not make me doubt the wisdom of my preference. Indeed, I continue quite content with my bargain ; I could wish him a little less yellow, and a little more peaceable ; but this is all." She did not add, " and a little more practical," but she might well have done so. Throughout his life Carlyle's dismay and helplessness, when confronted with the ordi- nary necessities of existence, was something which would have been merely ludicrous had it not cast upon his brave, too generous wife, a burden she was ill able to bear. He shrank from ordering his own coats and trowsers ; she went to the tailor's for him, much to the astonishment of that functionary. If the house needed repairing, he took to flight, and enjoyed a journey to Scotland, while she remained among the dismantled rooms, superintending the labors of plumbers, plasterers, and paper-hangers. When a howling dog, a talkative parrot, a too cheerful cock, distracted him at his writing and invoked a tempest, it was she who by appealing lotters, personal persuasion, or threats of the law, induced the neighbors to abolish the nuisance, and so allayed the storm. She, too, it was who still faced and routed inquisitive visitors, who man- aged the household expenditure, who covered and remodeled ancient sofas, repainted old furniture, kept the books in
