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CARLYLE'S LOVES AND LETTERS 93
degree like it the gift of Nature, is in a far
higher degree the fruit of art, and so languishes
more irretrievably by want of culture," etc.
Even when writing to a lady with whom one
is on the most delicate terms such austerity
is excessive, especially when it runs into a
dozen pages. Carlyle is at his best when
describing people, and it is to be regretted
that his editor, out of respect for the memory
of Campbell's widow and others long since
deceased, has felt obliged to suppress more
than one passage in which contemporaries are
handled. He is at his worst when
freely
writing, and generally complaining, about
himself ; and, like the majority of people
who take themselves very seriously, most
amusing when unconsciously so. In the
October of 1824 he visited Paris and told
Miss Welsh just what he thought of it :
" [I am] daily growing more and more
contemptuous of Paris, and the manihe tfetre
of its people. Poor fellows ! I feel alter-
nately titillated into laughter
and shocked to
the verge of horror at the hand they make of
Life. . . . Their houses are not houses, but
places where they sleep and dress ; they live
in cafes and promenades and theatres ; and
ten thousand dice are set a-rattling every night
in every quarter of their city. Every thing