Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/48

32 become a Feast of the Lapithæ! This Jacobins Club, which at first shone resplendent, and was thought to be a new celestial Sun for enlightening the Nations, had, as things all have, to work through its appointed phases: it burned unfortunately more and more lurid, more sulphurous, distracted;—and swam at last, through the astonished Heaven, like a Tartarean Portent, and lurid-burning Prison of Spirits in Pain.

Its style of eloquence? Rejoice, Reader, that thou knowest it not, that thou canst never perfectly know. The Jacobins published a Journal of Debates, where they that have the heart may examine: impassioned, dull-droning Patriotic eloquence; implacable, unfertile—save for Destruction, which was indeed its work: most wearisome, though most deadly. Be thankful that Oblivion covers so much; that all carrion is by and by buried in the green Earth's bosom, and even makes her grow the greener. The Jacobins are buried; but their work is not; it continues 'making the tour of the world,' as it can. It might be seen lately, for instance, with bared bosom and death-defiant eye, as far on as Greek Missolonghi; strange enough, old slumbering Hellas was resuscitated, into somnambulism which will become clear wakefulness, by a voice from the Rue St. Honoré! All dies, as we often say; except the spirit of man, of what man does. Thus has not the very House of the Jacobins vanished: scarcely lingering in a few old men's memories? The St. Honoré Market has brushed it away, and now where dull-droning eloquence, like a Trump of Doom, once shook the world, there is pacific chaffering for poultry and greens. The sacred National Assembly Hall itself has become common ground; President's platform permeable to wain and dustcart; for the Rue de Rivoli runs there. Verily, at Cockcrow (of this Cock or the other), all Apparitions do melt and dissolve in space.

The Paris Jacobins became the 'Mother Society, Société Mère'; and had as many as 'three hundred' shrill-tongued daughters in 'direct correspondence' with her. Of indirectly corresponding, what we may call grand-daughters and minute