morbid love of offensive tattle. Froude describes himself as a
witness for six years, at Cheyne Row, "of the enactment of a
tragedy as stern and real as the story of Oedipus." According to
his own account:

I stood by, consenting to the slow martyrdom of a woman whom I
have described as bright and sparkling and tender, and I uttered
no word of remonstrance. I saw her involved in a perpetual
blizzard, and did nothing to shelter her.

But it is not upon his own observations that Froude relies for his
most sinister evidence against his friend. To him comes Miss
Jewsbury with a lengthy tale to tell. It is well to know what Mrs.
Carlyle thought of this lady. She wrote:

It is her besetting sin, and her trade of novelist has aggravated
it--the desire of feeling and producing violent emotions. ...
Geraldine has one besetting weakness; she is never happy unless
she has a grande passion on hand.

There were strange manifestations on the part of Miss Jewsbury
toward Mrs. Carlyle. At one time, when Mrs. Carlyle had shown some
preference for another woman, it led to a wild outburst of what
Miss Jewsbury herself called "tiger jealousy." There are many
other instances of violent emotions in her letters to Mrs.
Carlyle. They are often highly charged and erotic. It is unusual
for a woman of thirty-two to write to a woman friend, who is
forty-three years of age, in these words, which Miss Jewsbury used
in writing to Mrs. Carlyle: