"Carlyle in America": An Unpublished Short Story by Sarah Orne Jewett

Abstract

SARAH Orne Jewett's selection of Thomas Carlyle as a subject for a short story does, indeed, seem odd. What possible interest could a New England fictionist have in a Scottish essayist? Her thoughts are like a Turner landscape, quiet and subdued; his roar across the page like giant bolts of lightning, powerful and unpredictable. Yet this incongruity simply testifies to the enigma of Carlyle and American letters. We are becoming increasingly aware of his pervasive influence upon Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, and Whitman. And, although it has been less documented, female writers of the period came likewise under his sway. Feminists like Margaret Fuller found his brand of transcendentalism superior to that of Emerson; parlor novelists like Louisa May Alcott quoted liberally from his works, especially Sartor Resartus; and poets like Emily Dickinson were quite willing to adopt parts of his style as well as his philosophy. In fact, from the mid-eighteen-thirties to the end of the century, Carlyle remained a potent force in American literature. Thus, it is not surprising that Jewett found him appealing as a subject, not just for her own sake, but also for the impact he had upon her countrymen. What is surprising, however, is that Jewett should display such interest in both Thomas and Jane Carlyle, while at the same time barely mentioning them in her correspondence. In a letter to Annie Fields dated early in I883, she hints at her developing admiration, I have been reading Carlyle's Reminiscences-the Jane Welsh Carlyle, as you may suppose. How could people have made such a