Nothing could well be more curious than the look and costume of Carlyle. He had been living in London nearly forty years, yet he had the untamed aspect of one just arrived from Ecclefechan. He wore “an old experienced coat,” such as Thoreau attributes to his Scotch fisherman,--one having that unreasonably high collar of other days, in which the head was sunk; his hair was coarse and stood up at its own will; his bushy whiskers were thrust into prominence by one of those stiff collars which the German students call “father-killers,” from a tradition that the sharp points once pierced the jugular vein of a parent during an affectionate embrace. In this guise, with a fur cap and a stout walking-stick, he accompanied Froude and myself on our walk. I observed that near his Chelsea home the passers-by regarded him with a sort of familiar interest, farther off with undisguised curiosity, and at Hyde Park, again, with a sort of recognition, as of an accustomed figure. At one point on our way some poor children were playing on a bit of rough ground
