Carlylian Image Of The Politician Seeking Popularity

Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets, No. V., Stump-Orator, May 1, 1850:

Such a soul, though to the eye he still keeps tumbling about in the Parliamentary element, and makes "motions," and passes bills, for aught I know,—are we to define him as a living one, or as a dead? Partridge the Almanac-Maker, whose "Publications" still regularly appear, is known to be dead! The dog that was drowned last summer, and that floats up and down the Thames with ebb and flood ever since,—is it not dead? Alas, in the hot months, you meet here and there such a floating dog; and at length, if you often use the river steamers, get to know him by sight. "There he is again, still astir there in his quasi-stygian element!" you dejectedly exclaim (perhaps reading your Morning Newspaper at the moment); and reflect, with a painful oppression of nose and imagination, on certain completed professors of parliamentary eloquence in modern times. Dead long since, but not resting; daily doing motions in that Westminster region still,—daily from Vauxhall to Blackfriars, and back again; and cannot get away at all! Daily (from Newspaper or river steamer) you may see him at some point of his fated course, hovering in the eddies, stranded in the ooze, or rapidly progressing with flood or ebb; and daily the odor of him is getting more intolerable: daily the condition of him appeals more tragically to gods and men.