I told him I had just come from the land of Burns, and that the old man at the native cottage of the poet had drunk himself to death by drinking to the memory of Burns.
At this Carlyle laughed loudly, and remarked: "Was that the end of him?
Ah, a wee bit drap will send a mon a lang way." He then told me that when he was a lad he used to go into the Kirkyard at Dumfries and, hunting out the poet's tomb, he loved to stand and just read over the name--"Rabbert Burns"-- "Rabbert Burns." He pronounced the name with deep reverence.

That picture of the country lad in his earliest act of hero-worship at the grave of Burns would have been a good subject for the pencil of Millais or of Holman Hunt.

At the corner of Hyde Park I parted from Mr.Carlyle, and watched him striding away, as if, like the De'il in "Tam O'Shanter," he had "business on his hand." Thirty years afterwards, in June, 1872, I felt an irrepressible desire to see the grand old man once more, and I accordingly addressed him a note requesting the favor of a few minutes' interview.

His reply was, perhaps, the briefest letter ever written.

It was simply: "Three P.M.
T.C." He told me afterwards that his hand had become so tremulous that he seldom touched a pen.