It would have been easy for him to make money by writing what people wanted to read.

He was determined that if they read anything of his, they should read what would do them good.

His isolation was complete.

His wife encouraged him and believed in him.
Nobody could help him.
-- * I need hardly say that this was long before Froude's connection with Fraser.
-- Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, And hope without an object cannot live.
Carlyle, unlike Coleridge, was a real moralist, and it was duty, not hope, that guided his pen.

Health he had, though he never would admit it, and with excellent sense he invested his first savings in a horse.