Page:Sartor resartus; and, On heroes, hero-worship and the heroic in history.djvu/9

 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

a letter from Carlyle to his mother, written in February 1841, there occurs a pleasant reference to the two books here reprinted. 'I have bargained,' he writes, 'with Fraser for my lectures. They are now at press; that kept me so very busy. He would give me only £75—the dog—but then he undertakes a new edition of Sartor too (the former being sold), and gives me another £75 for that too. It is not so bad, £150 of ready money—at least money without risk. I did not calculate on getting anything at present for Teufelsdroeckh. Poor Teufelsdröeckh, it seems very curious money should lie even in him. They trampled him into the gutters at his first appearance, but he rises up again—finds money bid for him.'

Thus Carlyle, with obvious pleasure, in 1841, and the pleasure must have been all the keener from its contrast with the humiliation which for many years was the chief harvest his most characteristic book brought him. Begun before October 1830 as a magazine article, and at first called 'Teufelsdreck,' it was in that month found to be too long, except it were divided into two, and already sometimes looked as if it would swell into a book. As a magazine article it had been refused, and in July 1831, when it was nearing completion in book form, Carlyle already foreboded an ill reception for it. 'I am struggling