Heroes by Paul Johnson

Author:Paul Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061849992
Publisher: HarperCollins

The body part seemed so little to me…I had no idea it could mean so much to her…Quarter of a century passed before I found out how wrong I was, how mistaken, how criminally blind…It was the doctor told me, and then it was too late for anything but repentance.

Harris reinforced this by asserting that Jane’s doctor, Dr. Richard Quain, told him over dinner at the Garrick Club that when he examined her in the 1860s he found she was virgo intacta.

There is no objective evidence that either of these highly improbable conversations ever took place. It is almost certain Harris invented both. Credence was attached to them only because Froude had prepared the way by his “tragic marriage” story. Of course! Here was the missing clue! It is true Jane never had a child. That was not uncommon among Victorian couples. No doubt it was a source of sadness to her. But now we knew why—Carlyle had refused to have sex with her, being unable to do so. He was impotent. It was just like Ruskin and Effie, only worse, for Jane was too noble to seek a divorce on the grounds of non-consummation. But no wonder she hated Carlyle in consequence and sought revenge!

It is all nonsense. There is no evidence Carlyle was impotent. Or that he refused to have sex with his wife. Or that she was virgo intacta. Their sex life was, in all likelihood, normal. We might know more about it if we had the correspondence between Jane and Geraldine Jewsbury, the novelist, who at times was Jane’s best and intimate friend (they also quarreled). They certainly discussed intimate matters in their letters. Unfortunately a Mrs. Alexander Ireland, who edited the Jewsbury letters, cut them ruthlessly and then destroyed the originals. And Jane’s letters to Jewsbury were all destroyed by the recipient. Jane wrote over a thousand letters to Carlyle which sometimes made numerous criticisms of his behavior, but none involve his sexuality or lack of it. As for her taking revenge on him, in nearly ten thousand letters of his to her, “there is never a word of counter-criticism.”

So where does this leave us? What was their marriage really like? And was Jane a heroine or a martyr? The answer, provided by Carlyle’s best modern editors, Kenneth J. Fielding and David R. Sorensen, is that “The Carlyles’ lives were less a classical tragedy than an extensive patchwork rug.” And Jane was too self-reliant, combative and good tempered (as well as bad tempered) to be a martyr, though she has strong claims to heroine status. She married Carlyle after much hesitation, and repeated refusals, well knowing what she was taking on. She came from a higher social class. She was an only child (one of the keys to the whole story). She was beautiful, vivacious, witty, clever and highly articulate, “the best match in her parish.” She married Carlyle because she wanted to marry a genius, and thought he was one. And she was right.

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