Mrs Carlyle proved an admirable hostess; Jeffrey became a frequent visitor at Comely Bank, and they discovered 'mutual old cousinships' by the maternal side. Jeffrey's friendship was an immense acquisition to Carlyle, and everybody regarded it as his highest good fortune. The _literati_ of Edinburgh came to see her, and 'listen to her husband's astonishing monologues.' To Carlyle's regret, Jeffrey would not talk in their frequent rambles of his experiences in the world, 'nor of things concrete and current,' but was 'theoretic generally'; and seemed bent on converting Carlyle from his 'German mysticism,' back merely, as the latter could perceive, into 'dead Edinburgh Whiggism, scepticism, and materialism'; 'what I felt,' says Carlyle, 'to be a forever impossible enterprise.' They had long discussions, 'parryings, and thrustings,' which 'I have known continue night after night,' relates Carlyle, 'till two or three in the morning (when I was his guest at Craigcrook, as once or twice happened in coming years); there he went on in brisk logical exercise with all the rest of the house asleep, and parted usually in good humour, though after a game which was hardly worth the candle. I found him infinitely witty, ingenious, sharp of fence, but not in any sense deep; and used without difficulty to hold my own with him.' Jeffrey did everything in his power to further Carlyle's prospects and projects. He tried to obtain for him the professorship of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews University, vacated by Dr Chalmers. Testimonials were given by Irving, Brewster, Buller, Wilson, Jeffrey, and Goethe. They failed, however, in consequence of the opposition of the Principal, Dr Nicol. To Carlyle, doubtless, the most memorable incidents of the Edinburgh period was his correspondence with Goethe. The magnetic spell thrown over Carlyle by Goethe will ever remain a mystery. Between the two men there was no intellectual affinity. One would have expected Goethe the Pagan to have repelled Carlyle the Puritan, unless we have recourse to the philosophy of opposites, and conclude that the tumultuous soul of Carlyle found congenial repose in the Greek-like restfulness of Goethe. The great German had been deeply impressed by the profound grasp which Carlyle was displaying of German literature. After reading a letter which he had received from Walter Scott, Goethe remarked to Eckermann: 'I almost wonder that Walter Scott does not say a word about Carlyle, who has so decided a German tendency that he must certainly be known to him. It is admirable in Carlyle, that, in his judgment of our German authors, he has especially in view the _mental and moral core_ as that which is really influential. Carlyle is a _moral force of great importance_; there is in him much for the future and we cannot foresee what he will produce and effect.' FOOTNOTES: [1] _Reminiscences_, vol. i. p. 141. [2] _Reminiscences_, vol. i. p. 142. [3] _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 69.