Dante now? For him also I am sad; and surely he has deserved gratitude in these last years from us all.'[28] When he returned to London, Carlyle lived in strict seclusion, making repeated efforts at work on what he called 'the unexecutable book,' _Frederick_. In the spring of 1854, tidings reached Carlyle of the death of Professor Wilson. Between them there had never been any cordial relation, says Froude. 'They had met in Edinburgh in the old days; on Carlyle's part there had been no backwardness, and Wilson was not unconscious of Carlyle's extraordinary powers. But he had been shy of Carlyle, and Carlyle had resented it, and now this April the news came that Wilson was gone, and Carlyle had to write his epitaph. 'I knew his figure well,' wrote Carlyle in his journal on April 29; 'remember well first seeing him in Princes Street on a bright April afternoon--probably 1814--exactly forty years ago.... A tall ruddy figure, with plenteous blonde hair, with bright blue eyes, fixed, as if in haste towards some distant object, strode rapidly along, clearing the press to the left of us, close by the railings, near where Blackwood's shop now is. Westward he in haste; we slowly eastward. Campbell whispered me, "That is Wilson of the _Isle of Palms_," which poem I had not read, being then quite mathematical, scientific, &c., for extraneous reasons, as I now see them to have been. The broad-shouldered stately bulk of the man struck me; his flashing eye, copious, dishevelled head of hair, and rapid, unconcerned progress, like that of a plough through stubble. I really liked him, but only from the distance, and thought no more of him. It must have been fourteen years later before I once saw his figure again, and began to have some distant straggling acquaintance of a personal kind with him. Glad could I have been to be better and more familiarly acquainted; but though I liked much in him, and he somewhat in me, it would not do. He was always very kind to me, but seemed to have a feeling I should--could--not become wholly his, in which he was right, and that on other terms he could not have me; so we let it so remain, and for many years--indeed, even after quitting Edinburgh--I had no acquaintance with him; occasionally got symptoms of his ill-humour with me--ink-spurts in _Blackwood_, read or heard of, which I, in a surly, silent manner, strove to consider _flattering_ rather.... So far as I can recollect, he was once in my house (Comely Bank, with a testimonial, poor fellow!), and I once in his, De Quincey, &c., a little while one afternoon.'[29]