Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/63

1790] in the deepest privacy, writes her Narrative of it in Champagneux's Courrier de LyonsCourrier de Lyon [sic]; a piece which 'circulates to the extent of sixty thousand'; which one would like now to read.

But on the whole, Paris, we may see, will have little to devise; will only have to borrow and apply. And then as to the day, what day of all the calendar is fit, if the Bastille Anniversary be not? The particular spot too, it is easy to see, must be the Champ-de-Mars; where many a Julian the Apostate has been lifted on bucklers, to France's or the world's sovereignty; and iron Franks, loud-clanging, have responded to the voice of a Charlemagne; and from of old mere sublimities have been familiar.

natural, in all decisive circumstances, is Symbolic Representation to all kinds of men! Nay, what is man's whole terrestrial Life but a Symbolic Representation, and making visible, of the Celestial invisible Force that is in him? By act and word he strives to do it; with sincerity, if possible; failing that, with theatricality, which latter also may have its meaning. An Almacks Masquerade is not nothing; in more genial ages, your Christmas Guisings, Feasts of the Ass, Abbots of Unreason, were a considerable something: sincere sport they were; as Almacks may still be sincere wish for sport. But what, on the other hand, must not sincere earnest have been; say, a Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles have been! A whole Nation gathered, in the name of the Highest, under the eye of the Highest; imagination herself flagging under the reality; and all noblest Ceremony as yet not grown ceremonial, but solemn, significant to the outmost fringe! Neither, in modern private life, are theatrical scenes, of tearful women wetting whole ells of cambric in concert, of