Jane Welsh Carlyle

Instead of boiling up individuals into the species, I would draw a chalk circle round every individuality, and preach to it to keep within that, and preserve and cultivate its identity.

Jane Welsh Carlyle (January 14 1801 – April 21 1866) was the wife of Thomas Carlyle and a well-known writer of letters.

Sourced

• If they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank in creation than the words: "Byron is dead!"
  • Letter to Thomas Carlyle (1824-05-20)

• A positive engagement to marry a certain person at a certain time, at all haps and hazards, I have always considered the most ridiculous thing on earth.
  • Letter to Thomas Carlyle (January 1825)

• In spite of the honestest efforts to annihilate my I-ity, or merge it in what the world doubtless considers my better half, I still find myself a self-subsisting, and, alas! self-seeking me.
  • Letter to John Sterling (1835-06-15)

• Oh Lord! If you but knew what a brimstone of a creature I am behind all this beautiful amiability!
  • Letter to Eliza Stodart (1836-02-29)

• Instead of boiling up individuals into the species, I would draw a chalk circle round every individuality, and preach to it to keep within that, and preserve and cultivate its identity.
  • Letter to John Sterling (1845-08-05)

• I can see that the Lady has a genius for ruling, whilst I have a genius for not being ruled.
  • Letter to Thomas Carlyle (1845-09-28)

• The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope.
  • Journal entry (August 1849)

• When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.
  • Journal entry (1855-11-25)

• Not a hundredth part of the thoughts in my head have ever been or ever will be spoken or written — as long as I keep my senses, at least.
  • Journal entry (1858-07-16)

• The triumphal-procession-air which, in our manners and customs, is given to marriage at the outset — that singing of Te Deum before the battle has begun.
  • Letter to Miss Barnes (1859-08-24)

External links

• Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle