practical solitude. He was to think and write, and make for
himself a beginning of real fame; while she was to hover over him
and watch his minor comforts.

It seemed to many of their friends that the project was quixotic
to a degree. Mrs. Carlyle delicate health, her weak chest, and the
beginning of a nervous disorder, made them think that she was
unfit to dwell in so wild and bleak a solitude. They felt, too,
that Carlyle was too much absorbed with his own thought to be
trusted with the charge of a high-spirited woman.

However, the decision had been made, and the newly married couple
went to Craigenputtock, with wagons that carried their household
goods and those of Carlyle's brother, Alexander, who lived in a
cottage near by. These were the two redeeming features of their
lonely home--the presence of Alexander Carlyle, and the fact that,
although they had no servants in the ordinary sense, there were
several farmhands and a dairy-maid.

Before long there came a period of trouble, which is easily
explained by what has been already said. Carlyle, thinking and
writing some of the most beautiful things that he ever thought or
wrote, could not make allowance for his wife's high spirit and
physical weakness. She, on her side--nervous, fitful, and hard to
please--thought herself a slave, the servant of a harsh and brutal
master. She screamed at him when her nerves were too unstrung; and
then, with a natural reaction, she called herself "a devil who
could never be good enough for him." But most of her letters were
harsh and filled with bitterness, and, no doubt, his conduct to
her was at times no better than her own.