186 THE WIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLE. real and exhausting misery to the poor lady whose dyspej> tic of genius had to be guarded from every breath of domestic disturbance. She had servants who stole, servants who drank, servants who brought upon the house the horror of bugs, servants who were incompetent, ser- vants who were insolent. One, while her mistress was ill upstairs, entertained people of evil character in the kitchen and terrified her fellow-servant into keeping silence ; another was found dead-drunk upon the kitchen floor with a whisky bottle by her side, surrounded (having overturned the table in her fall) by a quantity of broken crockery that filled a clothes-basket when gathered up. All this she had to bear and set right without help, and with much hindrance from her husband's irritable temper. " I should not be at all afraid," she once wrote to her beloved friend, Mrs. Russell, " that after a few weeks my new maid would do well enough if it weren't for Mr. C.'s frightful impatience with any new servant untrained to his ways, which would drive a woman out of the house with her hair on end if allowed to act directly upon her ! So that I have to stand between them, and imitate in a small, humble way the Roman soldier who gathered his arms full of the enemy's spears, and received them all into his own breast. It is this which makes a change of servants, even when for the better, a terror to me in prospect, and an agony in realization — for a time." Carlyle, collecting and reading over his wife's letters after her death, added to this one — " Oh Heavens, the comparison ! It was too true." Even when all was going well and the household in perfect running order, he could not spare her, and, much as her health demanded change of scene, rest, and the careful attendance of friends, she dared make no visits. " Ah, my dear," she wrote to Mrs. Russell, "your kind- ness goes to my heart, and makes me like to cry, because
