Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and IrelandTatlow, Joseph
History
Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland
Tatlow, Joseph
Railroads -- Great Britain -- History
subject and modes of treatment. It has a number of sweet Scottish
verses, plaintive or pawky. It has some strains of a higher mood,
reminding us of Keats in their imagination. But the highest effort, if
not also the most decided success, is his series of sonnets, entitled,
'In Rome.' And certainly this is a remarkable series." A remarkable man
he was indeed; simple and earnest in manner, with a fine eye, a full dark
beard and sunburnt face. Tiring, however, of a labourer's life and of
the pick and shovel, he left the railway and became assistant librarian
of Edinburgh University, and three years afterwards Secretary to the
Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh. He afterwards became Chief
Librarian to the Edinburgh University. He died in the summer of 1909. He
stayed with me in Glasgow once for a week-end, and on the Sunday
afternoon we together visited a friend of his who lived near, a literary
man, who then was engaged in writing a series of lives of the Poets for
some publishing house. An interesting part of our conversation was about
Carlyle with whom this friend was intimate, had in fact just returned
from visiting him at Chelsea. He told us many interesting stories of the
sage. I remember one. He was staying with the Carlyles, when Mrs.
Carlyle was alive. One evening at tea, a copper kettle, with hot water,
stood on the hob. Mrs. Carlyle made a movement as if to rise, with her
eye directed to the kettle; the friend, divining her wish, rose and
handed her the kettle. She thanked him, and, with a pathetic and wistful
gaze at Carlyle, added, "Ay, Tam, ye never did the like o' that!"
My first trip abroad was in 1883, and my companion, G. G. We went to
Paris via Newhaven, Dieppe and Rouen, and at Rouen stayed a day and a
night, and spent about a fortnight in Paris. We were accompanied from
London by a friend I have not yet named, one who was well known in the
railway world, Tony Visinet, the British Engineering and Commercial Agent
of the Western Railway of France; a delightful companion always, full of
the charm and vivacity that belong to his country. He took us to see his
mother at Rouen, who lived in an old-fashioned house retired from the
road, in a pleasant court-yard; a charming old lady, with whom G. G. was
able to converse, but I was not. Tony Visinet's life was full of
movement and variety. He had lodgings in London, and a flat in Paris,
traversed the Channel continually, and I remember his proudly celebrating
his fifteen hundredth crossing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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