The Love Letters of Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh; Edited by Alexander
JANK WELSH AS A GIRL THE LOVE LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE AND JANE WELSH EDITED BY ALEXANDER CARLYLE, M.A. WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS TWO IN COLOUR. TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMIX Copyright in U.S.A., 1908 By JOHN LANE COMPANY . SECOND EDITION 4-4*3 V-l Set up and Electrotyped by . THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, Mass., U.S.A. Printed by THE BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh PREFACE CARLYLE'S injunction against the publication of the Letters which passed between himself and Miss Welsh before their marriage having been already violated, it has seemed to me to be no longer prohibitive : the holy of holies having been sacrilegiously forced, dese- crated, and polluted, and its sacred relics defaced, besmirched, and held up to ridicule, any further intrusion therein for the purpose of cleansing and admitting the purifying air and light of heaven can now be attended, in the long run, by nothing but good results. If entrance into the sacred pre- cincts, with this object, be an act of sacrilege, it is at worst a very venial one ! Had there been no previous intrusion no infraction of Carlyle's inter- dict I need hardly say that nothing in the world or beneath it would have induced me to intrude therein. But what would have been rank sacri- lege at one time has now, in the altered circum- stances, become a pious duty. I offer no apology, therefore, for publishing these Letters, for in my judgment none is needed. I should rather be in- clined to apologise for not having performed so obvious a duty long ere now.
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