A fortnight after Carlyle's death Froude's co-executor, Mr.Justice Stephen, had a personal interview with Mrs.Alexander Carlyle, in the presence of her husband, and of Mr.Ouvry, who was acting as solicitor for all parties.

On this occasion Mrs.Carlyle said that Froude had promised her the whole profits of the Reminiscences, that her uncle had approved of this arrangement, and that she would not take less.
Thus the first difference between Froude and the Carlyle family related to money.

Mrs.Carlyle did not know that the memoirs of her aunt would be among the reminiscences, and the sum which had promised her was the speculative value of an American edition, which was never in fact realised.
In lieu of this he offered half the English profits, and brought out the Reminiscences, "Jane Welsh Carlyle" being among them.

They were eagerly read, not merely by all lovers of good literature, but by all lovers of gossip, good or bad.

Carlyle's pen, like Dante's, "bit into the live man's flesh for parchment." He had a Tacitean power of drawing a portrait with a phrase which haunted the memory.