THOMAS CARLYLE 155 tered that university, travelling on foot all the way, a hundred miles, between Ecclesfechan and the Scottish capital. Except in one department, Carlyle's col- lege curriculum was not remarkable. In " the classical field " he describes him- self "truly as nothing," and learned to read Homer in the original with difficulty. He preferred Homer and iEschylus to all other classical authors, found Tacitus and Virgil " really interesting," Horace " egotistical, leichtfertig," and Cicero " a windy person, and a weariness." Nor did he take much to metaphysics or moral philosophy. In geometry, however, he excelled, perhaps because Professor (sub- sequently Sir John) Leslie, " alone of my professors had some genius in his busi- ness, and awoke a certain enthusiasm in me." But even in the mathematical class he took no prize. In 1813 Carlyle's attendance at the Arts course in Edinburgh University came to an end, and he began formal, though fitful, preparation for the ministry of the Church of Scotland by enrolling himself, on November 16th of the same year, as a student at its Divinity Hall. In the summer of 18 14 he competed suc- cessfully at Dumfries for the mathematical mastership of Annan Academy. The post was worth only between ^60 and 70 a year ; but it enabled Carlyle, who was as frugal as his parents, to relieve his father of the expense of his support, and to save a few pounds. Meanwhile he read widely, and wrote of his reading at great length, and with considerable power of satiric characterization, to some of his college friends. But he found himself " abundantly lonesome, uncomfort- able, and out of place " in Annan, and from the first disliked teaching ; while his " sentiments on the clerical profession " were " mostly of the unfavorable kind." In 1816 Carlyle accepted the post of assistant to the teacher of the parish (or grammar) school of Kirkcaldy, with " an emolument rated about a hundred a year," and all actual scholastic duties to perform. This change brought him into intimate relations with Edward Irving, who, having acquired a reputation as a teacher in Haddington, had been induced by the patrons of an adventure school, in Kirkcaldy, to undertake the management of it. The two, though professionally rivals, became fast friends, and read and made excursions into different parts of Scotland together. Carlyle was also introduced by Irving to various Kirkcaldy families, including that of Mr. Martin, the parish minister, one of whose daugh- ters his friend subsequently married. He himself became attached to an ex-pupil of Irving's, a Miss Margaret Gordon, with some of whose graces he afterward endowed the dark and fickle Blumine, of " Sartor Resartus." She reciprocated Carlyle's affection, but the aunt with whom she lived put a stop to some talk of an engagement. Carlyle found the people of Kirkcaldy more to his mind than those of Annan ; but in two years the work of teaching became altogether intolerable to him, al- though he did it conscientiously. Successful opposition sprung up to Irving and himself, moreover, in the shape of a third school. Irving resolved to leave Kirk- caldy, and, in September, 1818, Carlyle wrote to his father, who had now given up business in Ecclesfechan and taken the farm of Mainhill, about two miles distant, that, having saved about 70, he purposed removing to Edinburgh, where he
