Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/45

1789–90] not a spirit in the word of man, as in man himself, that survived the audible bodied word, and tended either godward or else devilward for evermore, why should he trouble himself much with the truth of it, or the falsehood of it, except for commercial purposes? His immortality indeed, and whether it shall last half a lifetime or a lifetime and half; is not that a very considerable thing? Immortality, mortality:—there were certain runaways whom Fritz the Great bullied back into the battle with a: 'R—, wollt ihr ewig leben, Unprintable Offscouring of Scoundrels, would ye live for ever!'

This is the Communication of Thought; how happy when there is any Thought to communicate! Neither let the simpler old methods be neglected, in their sphere. The Palais-Royal Tent, a tyrannous Patrollotism has removed; but can it remove the lungs of man? Anaxagoras Chaumette we saw mounted on bourne-stones, while Tallien worked sedentary at the sub-editorial desk. In any corner of the civilised world, a tub can be inverted, and an articulate-speaking biped mount thereon. Nay, with contrivance, a portable trestle, or folding-stool, can be procured, for love or money; this the peripatetic Orator can take in his hand, and, driven out here, set it up again there: saying mildly, with a Sage Bias, Omnia mea mecum porto.

Such is Journalism, hawked, pasted, spoken. How changed since One old Métra walked this same Tuileries Garden, in gilt cocked-hat, with Journal at his nose, or held loose-folded behind his back; and was a notability of Paris, 'Métra the Newsman'; and Louis himself was wont to say: Qu'en dit Métra? Since the first Venetian News-sheet was sold for a gazza, or farthing, and named Gazette! We live in a fertile world.