{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1051/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1051","id":"gutenberg_1051","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1051","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Clothing and dress -- Fiction","Conduct of life -- Fiction","Didactic fiction","Germany -- Fiction","Humorous stories","Philosophers -- Fiction","Satire"],"text":"SARTOR RESARTUS:\n\nThe Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh\n\nBy Thomas Carlyle.\n\n1831\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY.\n\nConsidering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch\nof Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or\nless effect, for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these times\nespecially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely\nthan ever, but innumerable Rushlights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled\nthereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest\ncranny or dog-hole in Nature or Art can remain unilluminated,--it might\nstrike the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little or\nnothing of a fundamental character, whether in the way of Philosophy or\nHistory, has been written on the subject of Clothes.\n\nOur Theory of Gravitation is as good as perfect: Lagrange, it is well\nknown, has proved that the Planetary System, on this scheme, will endure\nforever; Laplace, still more cunningly, even guesses that it could not\nhave been made on any other scheme. Whereby, at least, our nautical\nLogbooks can be better kept; and water-transport of all kinds has grown\nmore commodious. Of Geology and Geognosy we know enough: what with the\nlabors of our Werners and Huttons, what with the ardent genius of their\ndisciples, it has come about that now, to many a Royal Society, the\nCreation of a World is little more mysterious than the cooking of a\ndumpling; concerning which last, indeed, there have been minds to whom\nthe question, _How the apples were got in_, presented difficulties. Why\nmention our disquisitions on the Social Contract, on the Standard of\nTaste, on the Migrations of the Herring? Then, have we not a Doctrine\nof Rent, a Theory of Value; Philosophies of Language, of History, of\nPottery, of Apparitions, of Intoxicating Liquors? Man's whole life and\nenvironment have been laid open and elucidated; scarcely a fragment\nor fibre of his Soul, Body, and Possessions, but has been probed,\ndissected, distilled, desiccated, and scientifically decomposed: our\nspiritual Faculties, of which it appears there are not a few, have their\nStewarts, Cousins, Royer Collards: every cellular, vascular, muscular\nTissue glories in its Lawrences, Majendies, Bichats.\n\nHow, then, comes it, may the reflective mind repeat, that the grand\nTissue of all Tissues, the only real Tissue, should have been quite\noverlooked by Science,--the vestural Tissue, namely, of woollen or\nother cloth; which Man's Soul wears as its outmost wrappage and overall;\nwherein his whole other Tissues are included and screened, his whole\nFaculties work, his whole Self lives, moves, and has its being? For if,\nnow and then, some straggling broken-winged thinker has cast an owl's\nglance into this obscure region, the most have soared over it altogether\nheedless; regarding Clothes as a property, not an accident, as quite\nnatural and spontaneous, like the leaves of trees, like the plumage of\nbirds. In all speculations they have tacitly figured man as _a Clothed\nAnimal_; whereas he is by nature a _Naked Animal_; and only in certain\ncircumstances, by purpose and device, masks himself in Clothes.\nShakespeare says, we are creatures that look before and after: the more\nsurprising that we do not look round a little, and see what is passing\nunder our very eyes.\n\nBut here, as in so many other cases, Germany, learned, indefatigable,\ndeep-thinking Germany comes to our aid. It is, after all, a blessing\nthat, in these revolutionary times, there should be one country where\nabstract Thought can still take shelter; that while the din and frenzy\nof Catholic Emancipations, and Rotten Boroughs, and Revolts of Paris,\ndeafen every French and every English ear, the German can stand peaceful\non his scientific watch-tower; and, to the raging, struggling multitude\nhere and elsewhere, solemnly, from hour to hour, with preparatory blast\nof cow-horn, emit his _Horet ihr Herren und lasset's Euch sagen_; in\nother words, tell the Universe, which so often forgets that fact, what\no'clock it really is. Not unfrequently the Germans have been blamed for\nan unprofitable diligence; as if they struck into devious courses, where\nnothing was to be had but the toil of a rough journey; as if, forsaking\nthe gold-mines of finance and that political slaughter of fat oxen\nwhereby a man himself grows fat, they were apt to run goose-hunting into\nregions of bilberries and crowberries, and be swallowed up at last\nin remote peat-bogs. Of that unwise science, which, as our Humorist\nexpresses it,\n\n                   \"By geometric scale\n     Doth take the size of pots of ale;\"\n\nstill more, of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seen\nvigorously thrashing mere straw, there can nothing defensive be said.\nIn so far as the Germans are chargeable with such, let them take the\nconsequence. Nevertheless be it remarked, that even a Russian steppe\nhas tumult and gold ornaments; also many a scene that looks desert and\nrock-bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited,\ninto rare valleys. Nay, in any case, would Criticism erect not only\nfinger-posts and turnpikes, but spiked gates and impassable barriers,\nfor the mind of man? It is written, \"Many shall run to and fro, and\nknowledge shall be increased.\" Surely the plain rule is, Let each\nconsiderate person have his way, and see what it will lead to. For not\nthis man and that man, but all men make up mankind, and their united\ntasks the task of mankind. How often have we seen some such adventurous,\nand perhaps much-censured wanderer light on some out-lying, neglected,\nyet vitally momentous province; the hidden treasures of which he first\ndiscovered, and kept proclaiming till the general eye and effort were\ndirected thither, and the conquest was completed;--thereby, in these\nhis seemingly so aimless rambles, planting new standards, founding\nnew habitable colonies, in the immeasurable circumambient realm of\nNothingness and Night! Wise man was he who counselled that Speculation\nshould have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-two\npoints of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed.\n\n\nPerhaps it is proof of the stunted condition in which pure Science,\nespecially pure moral Science, languishes among us English; and how\nour mercantile greatness, and invaluable Constitution, impressing a\npolitical or other immediately practical tendency on all English\nculture and endeavor, cramps the free flight of Thought,--that this,\nnot Philosophy of Clothes, but recognition even that we have no such\nPhilosophy, stands here for the first time published in our language.\nWhat English intellect could have chosen such a topic, or by chance\nstumbled on it? But for that same unshackled, and even sequestered\ncondition of the German Learned, which permits and induces them to fish\nin all manner of waters, with all manner of nets, it seems probable\nenough, this abtruse Inquiry might, in spite of the results it leads\nto, have continued dormant for indefinite periods. The Editor of these\nsheets, though otherwise boasting himself a man of confirmed speculative\nhabits, and perhaps discursive enough, is free to confess, that never,\ntill these last months, did the above very plain considerations, on our\ntotal want of a Philosophy of Clothes, occur to him; and then, by quite\nforeign suggestion. By the arrival, namely, of a new Book from Professor\nTeufelsdrockh of Weissnichtwo; treating expressly of this subject,\nand in a style which, whether understood or not, could not even by the\nblindest be overlooked. In the present Editor's way of thought, this\nremarkable Treatise, with its Doctrines, whether as judicially acceded\nto, or judicially denied, has not remained without effect.\n\n\"_Die Kleider, ihr Werden und Wirken_ (Clothes, their Origin and\nInfluence): _von Diog. Teufelsdrockh, J. U. D. etc. Stillschweigen und\nCognie. Weissnichtwo_, 1831.\n\n\"Here,\" says the _Weissnichtwo'sche Anzeiger_, \"comes a Volume of that\nextensive, close-printed, close-meditated sort, which, be it spoken with\npride, is seen only in Germany, perhaps only in Weissnichtwo. Issuing\nfrom the hitherto irreproachable Firm of Stillschweigen and Company,\nwith every external furtherance, it is of such internal quality as\nto set Neglect at defiance.... A work,\" concludes the well-nigh\nenthusiastic Reviewer, \"interesting alike to the antiquary, the\nhistorian, and the philosophic thinker; a masterpiece of boldness,\nlynx-eyed acuteness, and rugged independent Germanism and Philanthropy\n(_derber Kerndeutschheit und Menschenliebe_); which will not, assuredly,\npass current without opposition in high places; but must and will exalt\nthe almost new name of Teufelsdrockh to the first ranks of Philosophy,\nin our German Temple of Honor.\"\n\nMindful of old friendship, the distinguished Professor, in this the\nfirst blaze of his fame, which however does not dazzle him, sends hither\na Presentation-copy of his Book; with compliments and encomiums which\nmodesty forbids the present Editor to rehearse; yet without indicated\nwish or hope of any kind, except what may be implied in the concluding\nphrase: _Mochte es_ (this remarkable Treatise) _auch im Brittischen\nBoden gedeihen_!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES.\n\nIf for a speculative man, \"whose seedfield,\" in the sublime words of the\nPoet, \"is Time,\" no conquest is important but that of new ideas, then\nmight the arrival of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Book be marked with\nchalk in the Editor's calendar. It is indeed an \"extensive Volume,\" of\nboundless, almost formless contents, a very Sea of Thought; neither calm\nnor clear, if you will; yet wherein the toughest pearl-diver may dive\nto his utmost depth, and return not only with sea-wreck but with true\norients.\n\nDirectly on the first perusal, almost on the first deliberate\ninspection, it became apparent that here a quite new Branch of\nPhilosophy, leading to as yet undescried ulterior results, was\ndisclosed; farther, what seemed scarcely less interesting, a quite new\nhuman Individuality, an almost unexampled personal character, that,\nnamely, of Professor Teufelsdrockh the Discloser. Of both which\nnovelties, as far as might be possible, we resolved to master the\nsignificance. But as man is emphatically a proselytizing creature, no\nsooner was such mastery even fairly attempted, than the new question\narose: How might this acquired good be imparted to others, perhaps in\nequal need thereof; how could the Philosophy of Clothes, and the Author\nof such Philosophy, be brought home, in any measure, to the business and\nbosoms of our own English Nation? For if new-got gold is said to burn\nthe pockets till it be cast forth into circulation, much more may new\ntruth.\n\nHere, however, difficulties occurred. The first thought naturally was to\npublish Article after Article on this remarkable Volume, in such widely\ncirculating Critical Journals as the Editor might stand connected with,\nor by money or love procure access to. But, on the other hand, was it\nnot clear that such matter as must here be revealed, and treated of,\nmight endanger the circulation of any Journal extant? If, indeed, all\nparty-divisions in the State could have been abolished, Whig, Tory,\nand Radical, embracing in discrepant union; and all the Journals of the\nNation could have been jumbled into one Journal, and the Philosophy of\nClothes poured forth in incessant torrents therefrom, the attempt had\nseemed possible. But, alas, what vehicle of that sort have we, except\n_Fraser's Magazine_? A vehicle all strewed (figuratively speaking)\nwith the maddest Waterloo-Crackers, exploding distractively and\ndestructively, wheresoever the mystified passenger stands or sits;\nnay, in any case, understood to be, of late years, a vehicle full to\noverflowing, and inexorably shut! Besides, to state the Philosophy of\nClothes without the Philosopher, the ideas of Teufelsdrockh without\nsomething of his personality, was it not to insure both of entire\nmisapprehension? Now for Biography, had it been otherwise admissible,\nthere were no adequate documents, no hope of obtaining such, but rather,\nowing to circumstances, a special despair. Thus did the Editor see\nhimself, for the while, shut out from all public utterance of these\nextraordinary Doctrines, and constrained to revolve them, not without\ndisquietude, in the dark depths of his own mind.\n\nSo had it lasted for some months; and now the Volume on Clothes, read\nand again read, was in several points becoming lucid and lucent; the\npersonality of its Author more and more surprising, but, in spite of all\nthat memory and conjecture could do, more and more enigmatic; whereby\nthe old disquietude seemed fast settling into fixed discontent,--when\naltogether unexpectedly arrives a Letter from Herr Hofrath Heuschrecke,\nour Professor's chief friend and associate in Weissnichtwo, with whom\nwe had not previously corresponded. The Hofrath, after much quite\nextraneous matter, began dilating largely on the \"agitation and\nattention\" which the Philosophy of Clothes was exciting in its own\nGerman Republic of Letters; on the deep significance and tendency of his\nFriend's Volume; and then, at length, with great circumlocution, hinted\nat the practicability of conveying \"some knowledge of it, and of him, to\nEngland, and through England to the distant West:\" a work on Professor\nTeufelsdrockh \"were undoubtedly welcome to the _Family_, the _National_,\nor any other of those patriotic _Libraries_, at present the glory\nof British Literature;\" might work revolutions in Thought; and so\nforth;--in conclusion, intimating not obscurely, that should the present\nEditor feel disposed to undertake a Biography of Teufelsdrockh, he,\nHofrath Heuschrecke, had it in his power to furnish the requisite\nDocuments.\n\nAs in some chemical mixture, that has stood long evaporating, but would\nnot crystallize, instantly when the wire or other fixed substance is\nintroduced, crystallization commences, and rapidly proceeds till the\nwhole is finished, so was it with the Editor's mind and this offer of\nHeuschrecke's. Form rose out of void solution and discontinuity; like\nunited itself with like in definite arrangement: and soon either in\nactual vision and possession, or in fixed reasonable hope, the image of\nthe whole Enterprise had shaped itself, so to speak, into a solid mass.\nCautiously yet courageously, through the twopenny post, application\nto the famed redoubtable OLIVER YORKE was now made: an interview,\ninterviews with that singular man have taken place; with more of\nassurance on our side, with less of satire (at least of open satire)\non his, than we anticipated; for the rest, with such issue as is now\nvisible. As to those same \"patriotic _Libraries_,\" the Hofrath's counsel\ncould only be viewed with silent amazement; but with his offer of\nDocuments we joyfully and almost instantaneously closed. Thus, too, in\nthe sure expectation of these, we already see our task begun; and this\nour _Sartor Resartus_, which is properly a \"Life and Opinions of Herr\nTeufelsdrockh,\" hourly advancing.\n\n\nOf our fitness for the Enterprise, to which we have such title and\nvocation, it were perhaps uninteresting to say more. Let the British\nreader study and enjoy, in simplicity of heart, what is here presented\nhim, and with whatever metaphysical acumen and talent for meditation he\nis possessed of. Let him strive to keep a free, open sense; cleared\nfrom the mists of prejudice, above all from the paralysis of cant; and\ndirected rather to the Book itself than to the Editor of the Book.\nWho or what such Editor may be, must remain conjectural, and even\ninsignificant: [*] it is a voice publishing tidings of the Philosophy of\nClothes; undoubtedly a Spirit addressing Spirits: whoso hath ears, let\nhim hear.\n\n     * With us even he still communicates in some sort of mask,\n     or muffler; and, we have reason to think, under a feigned\n     name!--O. Y.\n\nOn one other point the Editor thinks it needful to give warning: namely,\nthat he is animated with a true though perhaps a feeble attachment to\nthe Institutions of our Ancestors; and minded to defend these, according\nto ability, at all hazards; nay, it was partly with a view to such\ndefence that he engaged in this undertaking. To stem, or if that be\nimpossible, profitably to divert the current of Innovation, such a\nVolume as Teufelsdrockh's, if cunningly planted down, were no despicable\npile, or floodgate, in the logical wear.\n\nFor the rest, be it nowise apprehended, that any personal connection of\nours with Teufelsdrockh, Heuschrecke or this Philosophy of Clothes, can\npervert our judgment, or sway us to extenuate or exaggerate. Powerless,\nwe venture to promise, are those private Compliments themselves.\nGrateful they may well be; as generous illusions of friendship; as fair\nmementos of bygone unions, of those nights and suppers of the gods,\nwhen, lapped in the symphonies and harmonies of Philosophic Eloquence,\nthough with baser accompaniments, the present Editor revelled in that\nfeast of reason, never since vouchsafed him in so full measure! But what\nthen? _Amicus Plato, magis amica veritas_; Teufelsdrockh is our friend,\nTruth is our divinity. In our historical and critical capacity, we hope\nwe are strangers to all the world; have feud or favor with no one,--save\nindeed the Devil, with whom, as with the Prince of Lies and Darkness, we\ndo at all times wage internecine war. This assurance, at an epoch when\npuffery and quackery have reached a height unexampled in the annals of\nmankind, and even English Editors, like Chinese Shopkeepers, must\nwrite on their door-lintels _No cheating here_,--we thought it good to\npremise.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. REMINISCENCES.\n\nTo the Author's private circle the appearance of this singular Work on\nClothes must have occasioned little less surprise than it has to the\nrest of the world. For ourselves, at least, few things have been more\nunexpected. Professor Teufelsdrockh, at the period of our acquaintance\nwith him, seemed to lead a quite still and self-contained life: a man\ndevoted to the higher Philosophies, indeed; yet more likely, if he\npublished at all, to publish a refutation of Hegel and Bardili, both of\nwhom, strangely enough, he included under a common ban; than to descend,\nas he has here done, into the angry noisy Forum, with an Argument that\ncannot but exasperate and divide. Not, that we can remember, was the\nPhilosophy of Clothes once touched upon between us. If through the\nhigh, silent, meditative Transcendentalism of our Friend we detected\nany practical tendency whatever, it was at most Political, and towards a\ncertain prospective, and for the present quite speculative, Radicalism;\nas indeed some correspondence, on his part, with Herr Oken of Jena was\nnow and then suspected; though his special contributions to the _Isis_\ncould never be more than surmised at. But, at all events, nothing Moral,\nstill less anything Didactico-Religious, was looked for from him.\n\nWell do we recollect the last words he spoke in our hearing; which\nindeed, with the Night they were uttered in, are to be forever\nremembered. Lifting his huge tumbler of _Gukguk_, [*] and for a moment\nlowering his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full Coffee-house (it was _Zur\nGrunen Gans_, the largest in Weissnichtwo, where all the Virtuosity,\nand nearly all the Intellect of the place assembled of an evening); and\nthere, with low, soul-stirring tone, and the look truly of an angel,\nthough whether of a white or of a black one might be dubious, proposed\nthis toast: _Die Sache der Armen in Gottes und Teufels Namen_ (The Cause\nof the Poor, in Heaven's name and--'s)! One full shout, breaking the\nleaden silence; then a gurgle of innumerable emptying bumpers, again\nfollowed by universal cheering, returned him loud acclaim. It was the\nfinale of the night: resuming their pipes; in the highest enthusiasm,\namid volumes of tobacco-smoke; triumphant, cloud-capt without and\nwithin, the assembly broke up, each to his thoughtful pillow. _Bleibt\ndoch ein echter Spass_- _und Galgen-vogel_, said several; meaning\nthereby that, one day, he would probably be hanged for his democratic\nsentiments. _Wo steckt doch der Schalk_? added they, looking round: but\nTeufelsdrockh had retired by private alleys, and the Compiler of these\npages beheld him no more.\n\n     * Gukguk is unhappily only an academical-beer.\n\nIn such scenes has it been our lot to live with this Philosopher,\nsuch estimate to form of his purposes and powers. And yet, thou brave\nTeufelsdrockh, who could tell what lurked in thee? Under those thick\nlocks of thine, so long and lank, overlapping roof-wise the gravest face\nwe ever in this world saw, there dwelt a most busy brain. In thy eyes\ntoo, deep under their shaggy brows, and looking out so still and dreamy,\nhave we not noticed gleams of an ethereal or else a diabolic fire, and\nhalf fancied that their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion,\nthe _sleep_ of a spinning-top? Thy little figure, there as, in loose\nill-brushed threadbare habiliments, thou sattest, amid litter and\nlumber, whole days, to \"think and smoke tobacco,\" held in it a mighty\nheart. The secrets of man's Life were laid open to thee; thou sawest\ninto the mystery of the Universe, farther than another; thou hadst _in\npetto_ thy remarkable Volume on Clothes. Nay, was there not in that\nclear logically founded Transcendentalism of thine; still more, in thy\nmeek, silent, deep-seated Sansculottism, combined with a true princely\nCourtesy of inward nature, the visible rudiments of such speculation?\nBut great men are too often unknown, or what is worse, misknown.\nAlready, when we dreamed not of it, the warp of thy remarkable Volume\nlay on the loom; and silently, mysterious shuttles were putting in the\nwoof.\n\n\nHow the Hofrath Heuschrecke is to furnish biographical data, in this\ncase, may be a curious question; the answer of which, however, is\nhappily not our concern, but his. To us it appeared, after repeated\ntrial, that in Weissnichtwo, from the archives or memories of the\nbest-informed classes, no Biography of Teufelsdrockh was to be gathered;\nnot so much as a false one. He was a stranger there, wafted thither by\nwhat is called the course of circumstances; concerning whose parentage,\nbirthplace, prospects, or pursuits, curiosity had indeed made inquiries,\nbut satisfied herself with the most indistinct replies. For himself, he\nwas a man so still and altogether unparticipating, that to question\nhim even afar off on such particulars was a thing of more than usual\ndelicacy: besides, in his sly way, he had ever some quaint turn, not\nwithout its satirical edge, wherewith to divert such intrusions, and\ndeter you from the like. Wits spoke of him secretly as if he were a kind\nof Melchizedek, without father or mother of any kind; sometimes, with\nreference to his great historic and statistic knowledge, and the\nvivid way he had of expressing himself like an eye-witness of distant\ntransactions and scenes, they called him the _Ewige Jude_, Everlasting,\nor as we say, Wandering Jew.\n\nTo the most, indeed, he had become not so much a Man as a Thing; which\nThing doubtless they were accustomed to see, and with satisfaction;\nbut no more thought of accounting for than for the fabrication of their\ndaily _Allgemeine Zeitung_, or the domestic habits of the Sun. Both were\nthere and welcome; the world enjoyed what good was in them, and thought\nno more of the matter. The man Teufelsdrockh passed and repassed, in his\nlittle circle, as one of those originals and nondescripts, more frequent\nin German Universities than elsewhere; of whom, though you see them\nalive, and feel certain enough that they must have a History, no History\nseems to be discoverable; or only such as men give of mountain rocks and\nantediluvian ruins: That they have been created by unknown agencies,\nare in a state of gradual decay, and for the present reflect light\nand resist pressure; that is, are visible and tangible objects in this\nphantasm world, where so much other mystery is.\n\nIt was to be remarked that though, by title and diploma, _Professor der\nAllerley-Wissenschaft_, or as we should say in English, \"Professor of\nThings in General,\" he had never delivered any Course; perhaps never\nbeen incited thereto by any public furtherance or requisition. To all\nappearance, the enlightened Government of Weissnichtwo, in founding\ntheir New University, imagined they had done enough, if \"in times like\nours,\" as the half-official Program expressed it, \"when all things are,\nrapidly or slowly, resolving themselves into Chaos, a Professorship of\nthis kind had been established; whereby, as occasion called, the task\nof bodying somewhat forth again from such Chaos might be, even slightly,\nfacilitated.\" That actual Lectures should be held, and Public Classes\nfor the \"Science of Things in General,\" they doubtless considered\npremature; on which ground too they had only established the\nProfessorship, nowise endowed it; so that Teufelsdrockh, \"recommended by\nthe highest Names,\" had been promoted thereby to a Name merely.\n\nGreat, among the more enlightened classes, was the admiration of this\nnew Professorship: how an enlightened Government had seen into the Want\nof the Age (_Zeitbedurfniss_); how at length, instead of Denial\nand Destruction, we were to have a science of Affirmation and\nReconstruction; and Germany and Weissnichtwo were where they should be,\nin the vanguard of the world. Considerable also was the wonder at the\nnew Professor, dropt opportunely enough into the nascent University; so\nable to lecture, should occasion call; so ready to hold his peace for\nindefinite periods, should an enlightened Government consider that\noccasion did not call. But such admiration and such wonder, being\nfollowed by no act to keep them living, could last only nine days;\nand, long before our visit to that scene, had quite died away. The more\ncunning heads thought it was all an expiring clutch at popularity, on\nthe part of a Minister, whom domestic embarrassments, court intrigues,\nold age, and dropsy soon afterwards finally drove from the helm.\n\nAs for Teufelsdrockh, except by his nightly appearances at the _Grune\nGans_, Weissnichtwo saw little of him, felt little of him. Here,\nover his tumbler of Gukguk, he sat reading Journals; sometimes\ncontemplatively looking into the clouds of his tobacco-pipe, without\nother visible employment: always, from his mild ways, an agreeable\nphenomenon there; more especially when he opened his lips for speech; on\nwhich occasions the whole Coffee-house would hush itself into silence,\nas if sure to hear something noteworthy. Nay, perhaps to hear a whole\nseries and river of the most memorable utterances; such as, when once\nthawed, he would for hours indulge in, with fit audience: and the more\nmemorable, as issuing from a head apparently not more interested in\nthem, not more conscious of them, than is the sculptured stone head of\nsome public fountain, which through its brass mouth-tube emits water to\nthe worthy and the unworthy; careless whether it be for cooking\nvictuals or quenching conflagrations; indeed, maintains the same earnest\nassiduous look, whether any water be flowing or not.\n\nTo the Editor of these sheets, as to a young enthusiastic Englishman,\nhowever unworthy, Teufelsdrockh opened himself perhaps more than to the\nmost. Pity only that we could not then half guess his importance, and\nscrutinize him with due power of vision! We enjoyed, what not three\nmen Weissnichtwo could boast of, a certain degree of access to the\nProfessor's private domicile. It was the attic floor of the highest\nhouse in the Wahngasse; and might truly be called the pinnacle\nof Weissnichtwo, for it rose sheer up above the contiguous roofs,\nthemselves rising from elevated ground. Moreover, with its windows it\nlooked towards all the four _Orte_ or as the Scotch say, and we ought to\nsay, _Airts_: the sitting room itself commanded three; another came to\nview in the _Schlafgemach_ (bedroom) at the opposite end; to say nothing\nof the kitchen, which offered two, as it were, _duplicates_, showing\nnothing new. So that it was in fact the speculum or watch-tower of\nTeufelsdrockh; wherefrom, sitting at ease he might see the whole\nlife-circulation of that considerable City; the streets and lanes of\nwhich, with all their doing and driving (_Thun und Treiben_), were for\nthe most part visible there.\n\n\"I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive,\" we have heard him\nsay, \"and witness their wax-laying and honey-making, and poison-brewing,\nand choking by sulphur. From the Palace esplanade, where music plays\nwhile Serene Highness is pleased to eat his victuals, down to the\nlow lane, where in her door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thin\nlivelihood sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see it all; for, except\nSchlosskirche weather-cock, no biped stands so high. Couriers arrive\nbestrapped and bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged up in pouches\nof leather: there, top-laden, and with four swift horses, rolls in the\ncountry Baron and his household; here, on timber-leg, the lamed Soldier\nhops painfully along, begging alms: a thousand carriages, and wains,\ncars, come tumbling in with Food, with young Rusticity, and other Raw\nProduce, inanimate or animate, and go tumbling out again with produce\nmanufactured. That living flood, pouring through these streets, of all\nqualities and ages, knowest thou whence it is coming, whither it is\ngoing? _Aus der Ewigkeit, zu der Ewigkeit hin_: From Eternity, onwards\nto Eternity! These are Apparitions: what else? Are they not Souls\nrendered visible: in Bodies, that took shape and will lose it, melting\ninto air? Their solid Pavement is a Picture of the Sense; they walk\non the bosom of Nothing, blank Time is behind them and before them. Or\nfanciest thou, the red and yellow Clothes-screen yonder, with spurs\non its heels and feather in its crown, is but of To-day, without a\nYesterday or a To-morrow; and had not rather its Ancestor alive when\nHengst and Horsa overran thy Island? Friend, thou seest here a living\nlink in that Tissue of History, which inweaves all Being: watch well, or\nit will be past thee, and seen no more.\"\n\n\"_Ach, mein Lieber_!\" said he once, at midnight, when we had returned\nfrom the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, \"it is a true sublimity to\ndwell here. These fringes of lamplight, struggling up through smoke and\nthousand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night,\nwhat thinks Bootes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the Zenith\nin their leash of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, when\nTraffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still\nrolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to\nHalls roofed in, and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only Vice\nand Misery, to prowl or to moan like nightbirds, are abroad: that hum,\nI say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard in\nHeaven! Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapors, and putrefactions,\nand unimaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid!\nThe joyful and the sorrowful are there; men are dying there, men are\nbeing born; men are praying,--on the other side of a brick partition,\nmen are cursing; and around them all is the vast, void Night. The proud\nGrandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within\ndamask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into buckle-beds, or shivers\nhunger-stricken into its lair of straw: in obscure cellars,\n_Rouge-et-Noir_ languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry\nVillains; while Councillors of State sit plotting, and playing their\nhigh chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The Lover whispers his\nmistress that the coach is ready; and she, full of hope and fear, glides\ndown, to fly with him over the borders: the Thief, still more silently,\nsets to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen\nfirst snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and\ndancing-rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling hearts;\nbut, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous and\nfaint, and bloodshot eyes look out through the darkness, which is around\nand within, for the light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be\nhanged on the morrow: comes no hammering from the _Rabenstein_?--their\ngallows must even now be o' building. Upwards of five hundred thousand\ntwo-legged animals without feathers lie round us, in horizontal\nposition; their heads all in nightcaps, and full of the foolishest\ndreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his rank dens of\nshame; and the Mother, with streaming hair, kneels over her pallid dying\ninfant, whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten.--All these heaped\nand huddled together, with nothing but a little carpentry and masonry\nbetween them;--crammed in, like salted fish in their barrel;--or\nweltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each\nstruggling to get its _head above_ the others: _such_ work goes on under\nthat smoke-counterpane!--But I, _mein Werther_, sit above it all; I am\nalone with the stars.\"\n\nWe looked in his face to see whether, in the utterance of such\nextraordinary Night-thoughts, no feeling might be traced there; but with\nthe light we had, which indeed was only a single tallow-light, and far\nenough from the window, nothing save that old calmness and fixedness was\nvisible.\n\nThese were the Professor's talking seasons: most commonly he spoke\nin mere monosyllables, or sat altogether silent and smoked; while the\nvisitor had liberty either to say what he listed, receiving for answer\nan occasional grunt; or to look round for a space, and then take himself\naway. It was a strange apartment; full of books and tattered papers, and\nmiscellaneous shreds of all conceivable substances, \"united in a common\nelement of dust.\" Books lay on tables, and below tables; here fluttered\na sheet of manuscript, there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap hastily\nthrown aside; ink-bottles alternated with bread-crusts, coffee-pots,\ntobacco-boxes, Periodical Literature, and Blucher Boots. Old Lieschen\n(Lisekin, 'Liza), who was his bed-maker and stove-lighter, his washer\nand wringer, cook, errand-maid, and general lion's-provider, and for the\nrest a very orderly creature, had no sovereign authority in this last\ncitadel of Teufelsdrockh; only some once in the month she half-forcibly\nmade her way thither, with broom and duster, and (Teufelsdrockh hastily\nsaving his manuscripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery\nof such lumber as was not Literary. These were her _Erdbeben_\n(earthquakes), which Teufelsdrockh dreaded worse than the pestilence;\nnevertheless, to such length he had been forced to comply. Glad would\nhe have been to sit here philosophizing forever, or till the litter, by\naccumulation, drove him out of doors: but Lieschen was his right-arm,\nand spoon, and necessary of life, and would not be flatly gainsayed. We\ncan still remember the ancient woman; so silent that some thought her\ndumb; deaf also you would often have supposed her; for Teufelsdrockh,\nand Teufelsdrockh only, would she serve or give heed to; and with him\nshe seemed to communicate chiefly by signs; if it were not rather by\nsome secret divination that she guessed all his wants, and supplied\nthem. Assiduous old dame! she scoured, and sorted, and swept, in her\nkitchen, with the least possible violence to the ear; yet all was tight\nand right there: hot and black came the coffee ever at the due moment;\nand the speechless Lieschen herself looked out on you, from under her\nclean white coif with its lappets, through her clean withered face and\nwrinkles, with a look of helpful intelligence, almost of benevolence.\n\nFew strangers, as above hinted, had admittance hither: the only one we\never saw there, ourselves excepted, was the Hofrath Heuschrecke, already\nknown, by name and expectation, to the readers of these pages. To us,\nat that period, Herr Heuschrecke seemed one of those purse-mouthed,\ncrane-necked, clean-brushed, pacific individuals, perhaps sufficiently\ndistinguished in society by this fact, that, in dry weather or in wet,\n\"they never appear without their umbrella.\" Had we not known with what\n\"little wisdom\" the world is governed; and how, in Germany as\nelsewhere, the ninety-and-nine Public Men can for most part be but mute\ntrain-bearers to the hundredth, perhaps but stalking-horses and willing\nor unwilling dupes,--it might have seemed wonderful how Herr Heuschrecke\nshould be named a _Rath_, or Councillor, and Counsellor, even in\nWeissnichtwo. What counsel to any man, or to any woman, could this\nparticular Hofrath give; in whose loose, zigzag figure; in whose\nthin visage, as it went jerking to and fro, in minute incessant\nfluctuation,--you traced rather confusion worse confounded; at most,\nTimidity and physical Cold? Some indeed said withal, he was \"the\nvery Spirit of Love embodied:\" blue earnest eyes, full of sadness and\nkindness; purse ever open, and so forth; the whole of which, we shall\nnow hope, for many reasons, was not quite groundless. Nevertheless\nfriend Teufelsdrockh's outline, who indeed handled the burin like few\nin these cases, was probably the best: _Er hat Gemuth und Geist,\nhat wenigstens gehabt, doch ohne Organ, ohne Schicksals-Gunst; ist\ngegenwartig aber halb-zerruttet, halb-erstarrt_, \"He has heart and\ntalent, at least has had such, yet without fit mode of utterance, or\nfavor of Fortune; and so is now half-cracked, half-congealed.\"--What\nthe Hofrath shall think of this when he sees it, readers may wonder; we,\nsafe in the stronghold of Historical Fidelity, are careless.\n\nThe main point, doubtless, for us all, is his love of Teufelsdrockh,\nwhich indeed was also by far the most decisive feature of Heuschrecke\nhimself. We are enabled to assert that he hung on the Professor with the\nfondness of a Boswell for his Johnson. And perhaps with the like return;\nfor Teufelsdrockh treated his gaunt admirer with little outward regard,\nas some half-rational or altogether irrational friend, and at best loved\nhim out of gratitude and by habit. On the other hand, it was curious to\nobserve with what reverent kindness, and a sort of fatherly protection,\nour Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and as he fondly imagined far\nmore practically influential of the two, looked and tended on his\nlittle Sage, whom he seemed to consider as a living oracle. Let but\nTeufelsdrockh open his mouth, Heuschrecke's also unpuckered itself into\na free doorway, besides his being all eye and all ear, so that nothing\nmight be lost: and then, at every pause in the harangue, he gurgled out\nhis pursy chuckle of a cough-laugh (for the machinery of laughter took\nsome time to get in motion, and seemed crank and slack), or else his\ntwanging nasal, _Bravo! Das glaub' ich_; in either case, by way of\nheartiest approval. In short, if Teufelsdrockh was Dalai-Lama, of which,\nexcept perhaps in his self-seclusion, and godlike indifference, there\nwas no symptom, then might Heuschrecke pass for his chief Talapoin, to\nwhom no dough-pill he could knead and publish was other than medicinal\nand sacred.\n\nIn such environment, social, domestic, physical, did Teufelsdrockh, at\nthe time of our acquaintance, and most likely does he still, live and\nmeditate. Here, perched up in his high Wahngasse watch-tower, and often,\nin solitude, outwatching the Bear, it was that the indomitable\nInquirer fought all his battles with Dulness and Darkness; here, in\nall probability, that he wrote this surprising Volume on _Clothes_.\nAdditional particulars: of his age, which was of that standing middle\nsort you could only guess at; of his wide surtout; the color of his\ntrousers, fashion of his broad-brimmed steeple-hat, and so forth, we\nmight report, but do not. The Wisest truly is, in these times, the\nGreatest; so that an enlightened curiosity leaving Kings and such\nlike to rest very much on their own basis, turns more and more to the\nPhilosophic Class: nevertheless, what reader expects that, with all our\nwriting and reporting, Teufelsdrockh could be brought home to him, till\nonce the Documents arrive? His Life, Fortunes, and Bodily Presence, are\nas yet hidden from us, or matter only of faint conjecture. But, on the\nother hand, does not his Soul lie enclosed in this remarkable Volume,\nmuch more truly than Pedro Garcia's did in the buried Bag of Doubloons?\nTo the soul of Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, to his opinions, namely, on the\n\"Origin and Influence of Clothes,\" we for the present gladly return.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. CHARACTERISTICS.\n\nIt were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes\nentirely contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like\nthe very Sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of\ngenius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled nebulosities amid\nits effulgence,--a mixture of insight, inspiration, with dulness,\ndouble-vision, and even utter blindness.\n\nWithout committing ourselves to those enthusiastic praises and\nprophesyings of the _Weissnichtwo'sche Anzeiger_, we admitted that the\nBook had in a high degree excited us to self-activity, which is the\nbest effect of any book; that it had even operated changes in our way\nof thought; nay, that it promised to prove, as it were, the opening of a\nnew mine-shaft, wherein the whole world of Speculation might henceforth\ndig to unknown depths. More specially may it now be declared that\nProfessor Teufelsdrockh's acquirements, patience of research,\nphilosophic and even poetic vigor, are here made indisputably manifest;\nand unhappily no less his prolixity and tortuosity and manifold\nineptitude; that, on the whole, as in opening new mine-shafts is\nnot unreasonable, there is much rubbish in his Book, though likewise\nspecimens of almost invaluable ore. A paramount popularity in England\nwe cannot promise him. Apart from the choice of such a topic as Clothes,\ntoo often the manner of treating it betokens in the Author a rusticity\nand academic seclusion, unblamable, indeed inevitable in a German, but\nfatal to his success with our public.\n\nOf good society Teufelsdrockh appears to have seen little, or has mostly\nforgotten what he saw. He speaks out with a strange plainness; calls\nmany things by their mere dictionary names. To him the Upholsterer is no\nPontiff, neither is any Drawing-room a Temple, were it never so begilt\nand overhung: \"a whole immensity of Brussels carpets, and pier-glasses,\nand ormolu,\" as he himself expresses it, \"cannot hide from me that\nsuch Drawing-room is simply a section of Infinite Space, where so many\nGod-created Souls do for the time meet together.\" To Teufelsdrockh the\nhighest Duchess is respectable, is venerable; but nowise for her pearl\nbracelets and Malines laces: in his eyes, the star of a Lord is little\nless and little more than the broad button of Birmingham spelter in a\nClown's smock; \"each is an implement,\" he says, \"in its kind; a tag\nfor _hooking-together_; and, for the rest, was dug from the earth, and\nhammered on a stithy before smith's fingers.\" Thus does the Professor\nlook in men's faces with a strange impartiality, a strange scientific\nfreedom; like a man unversed in the higher circles, like a man dropped\nthither from the Moon. Rightly considered, it is in this peculiarity,\nrunning through his whole system of thought, that all these\nshortcomings, over-shootings, and multiform perversities, take rise:\nif indeed they have not a second source, also natural enough, in his\nTranscendental Philosophies, and humor of looking at all Matter and\nMaterial things as Spirit; whereby truly his case were but the more\nhopeless, the more lamentable.\n\nTo the Thinkers of this nation, however, of which class it is firmly\nbelieved there are individuals yet extant, we can safely recommend the\nWork: nay, who knows but among the fashionable ranks too, if it be true,\nas Teufelsdrockh maintains, that \"within the most starched cravat there\npasses a windpipe and weasand, and under the thickliest embroidered\nwaistcoat beats a heart,\"--the force of that rapt earnestness may be\nfelt, and here and there an arrow of the soul pierce through? In our\nwild Seer, shaggy, unkempt, like a Baptist living on locusts and wild\nhoney, there is an untutored energy, a silent, as it were unconscious,\nstrength, which, except in the higher walks of Literature, must be rare.\nMany a deep glance, and often with unspeakable precision, has he cast\ninto mysterious Nature, and the still more mysterious Life of Man.\nWonderful it is with what cutting words, now and then, he severs asunder\nthe confusion; sheers down, were it furlongs deep; into the true centre\nof the matter; and there not only hits the nail on the head, but with\ncrushing force smites it home, and buries it.--On the other hand, let us\nbe free to admit, he is the most unequal writer breathing. Often after\nsome such feat, he will play truant for long pages, and go dawdling and\ndreaming, and mumbling and maundering the merest commonplaces, as if he\nwere asleep with eyes open, which indeed he is.\n\nOf his boundless Learning, and how all reading and literature in most\nknown tongues, from _Sanchoniathon_ to _Dr. Lingard_, from your Oriental\n_Shasters_, and _Talmuds_, and _Korans_, with Cassini's _Siamese\nfables_, and Laplace's _Mecanique Celeste_, down to _Robinson Crusoe_\nand the _Belfast Town and Country Almanack_, are familiar to him,--we\nshall say nothing: for unexampled as it is with us, to the Germans such\nuniversality of study passes without wonder, as a thing commendable,\nindeed, but natural, indispensable, and there of course. A man that\ndevotes his life to learning, shall he not be learned?\n\nIn respect of style our Author manifests the same genial capability,\nmarred too often by the same rudeness, inequality, and apparent want of\nintercourse with the higher classes. Occasionally, as above hinted, we\nfind consummate vigor, a true inspiration; his burning thoughts step\nforth in fit burning words, like so many full-formed Minervas, issuing\namid flame and splendor from Jove's head; a rich, idiomatic diction,\npicturesque allusions, fiery poetic emphasis, or quaint tricksy turns;\nall the graces and terrors of a wild Imagination, wedded to the clearest\nIntellect, alternate in beautiful vicissitude. Were it not that sheer\nsleeping and soporific passages; circumlocutions, repetitions, touches\neven of pure doting jargon, so often intervene! On the whole, Professor\nTeufelsdrockh, is not a cultivated writer. Of his sentences perhaps not\nmore than nine-tenths stand straight on their legs; the remainder are\nin quite angular attitudes, buttressed up by props (of parentheses and\ndashes), and ever with this or the other tagrag hanging from them; a\nfew even sprawl out helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and\ndismembered. Nevertheless, in almost his very worst moods, there lies in\nhim a singular attraction. A wild tone pervades the whole utterance of\nthe man, like its keynote and regulator; now screwing itself aloft as\ninto the Song of Spirits, or else the shrill mockery of Fiends; now\nsinking in cadences, not without melodious heartiness, though sometimes\nabrupt enough, into the common pitch, when we hear it only as a\nmonotonous hum; of which hum the true character is extremely difficult\nto fix. Up to this hour we have never fully satisfied ourselves whether\nit is a tone and hum of real Humor, which we reckon among the very\nhighest qualities of genius, or some echo of mere Insanity and Inanity,\nwhich doubtless ranks below the very lowest.\n\nUnder a like difficulty, in spite even of our personal intercourse, do\nwe still lie with regard to the Professor's moral feeling. Gleams of an\nethereal love burst forth from him, soft wailings of infinite pity;\nhe could clasp the whole Universe into his bosom, and keep it warm; it\nseems as if under that rude exterior there dwelt a very seraph. Then\nagain he is so sly and still, so imperturbably saturnine; shows such\nindifference, malign coolness towards all that men strive after; and\never with some half-visible wrinkle of a bitter sardonic humor, if\nindeed it be not mere stolid callousness,--that you look on him almost\nwith a shudder, as on some incarnate Mephistopheles, to whom this great\nterrestrial and celestial Round, after all, were but some huge foolish\nWhirligig, where kings and beggars, and angels and demons, and stars and\nstreet-sweepings, were chaotically whirled, in which only children could\ntake interest. His look, as we mentioned, is probably the gravest ever\nseen: yet it is not of that cast-iron gravity frequent enough among\nour own Chancery suitors; but rather the gravity as of some silent,\nhigh-encircled mountain-pool, perhaps the crater of an extinct volcano;\ninto whose black deeps you fear to gaze: those eyes, those lights that\nsparkle in it, may indeed be reflexes of the heavenly Stars, but perhaps\nalso glances from the region of Nether Fire.\n\nCertainly a most involved, self-secluded, altogether enigmatic nature,\nthis of Teufelsdrockh! Here, however, we gladly recall to mind that once\nwe saw him _laugh_; once only, perhaps it was the first and last time in\nhis life; but then such a peal of laughter, enough to have awakened the\nSeven Sleepers! It was of Jean Paul's doing: some single billow in that\nvast World-Mahlstrom of Humor, with its heaven-kissing coruscations,\nwhich is now, alas, all congealed in the frost of death! The\nlarge-bodied Poet and the small, both large enough in soul, sat talking\nmiscellaneously together, the present Editor being privileged to listen;\nand now Paul, in his serious way, was giving one of those inimitable\n\"Extra-Harangues;\" and, as it chanced, On the Proposal for a _Cast-metal\nKing_: gradually a light kindled in our Professor's eyes and face, a\nbeaming, mantling, loveliest light; through those murky features, a\nradiant ever-young Apollo looked; and he burst forth like the neighing\nof all Tattersall's,--tears streaming down his cheeks, pipe held aloft,\nfoot clutched into the air,--loud, long-continuing, uncontrollable; a\nlaugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the whole man from head\nto heel. The present Editor, who laughed indeed, yet with measure, began\nto fear all was not right: however, Teufelsdrockh, composed himself, and\nsank into his old stillness; on his inscrutable countenance there was,\nif anything, a slight look of shame; and Richter himself could not rouse\nhim again. Readers who have any tincture of Psychology know how much\nis to be inferred from this; and that no man who has once heartily and\nwholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. How much lies in\nLaughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man! Some men\nwear an everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies a cold\nglitter as of ice: the fewest are able to laugh, what can be called\nlaughing, but only sniff and titter and snigger from the throat\noutwards; or at best, produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, as if\nthey were laughing through wool: of none such comes good. The man who\ncannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; but\nhis whole life is already a treason and a stratagem.\n\nConsidered as an Author, Herr Teufelsdrockh has one scarcely pardonable\nfault, doubtless his worst: an almost total want of arrangement. In this\nremarkable Volume, it is true, his adherence to the mere course of Time\nproduces, through the Narrative portions, a certain show of outward\nmethod; but of true logical method and sequence there is too little.\nApart from its multifarious sections and subdivisions, the Work\nnaturally falls into two Parts; a Historical-Descriptive, and a\nPhilosophical-Speculative: but falls, unhappily, by no firm line of\ndemarcation; in that labyrinthic combination, each Part overlaps, and\nindents, and indeed runs quite through the other. Many sections are of\na debatable rubric, or even quite nondescript and unnamable; whereby the\nBook not only loses in accessibility, but too often distresses us like\nsome mad banquet, wherein all courses had been confounded, and fish and\nflesh, soup and solid, oyster-sauce, lettuces, Rhine-wine and French\nmustard, were hurled into one huge tureen or trough, and the hungry\nPublic invited to help itself. To bring what order we can out of this\nChaos shall be part of our endeavor.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES.\n\n\"As Montesquieu wrote a _Spirit of Laws_,\" observes our Professor, \"so\ncould I write a _Spirit of Clothes_; thus, with an _Esprit des\nLois_, properly an _Esprit de Coutumes_, we should have an _Esprit de\nCostumes_. For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man\nproceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided on by mysterious\noperations of the mind. In all his Modes, and habilatory endeavors, an\nArchitectural Idea will be found lurking; his Body and the Cloth are\nthe site and materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, of\na Person, is to be built. Whether he flow gracefully out in folded\nmantles, based on light sandals; tower up in high headgear, from amid\npeaks, spangles and bell-girdles; swell out in starched ruffs, buckram\nstuffings, and monstrous tuberosities; or girth himself into separate\nsections, and front the world an Agglomeration of four limbs,--will\ndepend on the nature of such Architectural Idea: whether Grecian,\nGothic, Later Gothic, or altogether Modern, and Parisian or\nAnglo-Dandiacal. Again, what meaning lies in Color! From the soberest\ndrab to the high-flaming scarlet, spiritual idiosyncrasies unfold\nthemselves in choice of Color: if the Cut betoken Intellect and Talent,\nso does the Color betoken Temper and Heart. In all which, among nations\nas among individuals, there is an incessant, indubitable, though\ninfinitely complex working of Cause and Effect: every snip of the\nScissors has been regulated and prescribed by ever-active Influences,\nwhich doubtless to Intelligences of a superior order are neither\ninvisible nor illegible.\n\n\"For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and-Effect Philosophy of\nClothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter-evening\nentertainment: nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, such\nPhilosophies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough. Nay, what\nis your Montesquieu himself but a clever infant spelling Letters from a\nhieroglyphical prophetic Book, the lexicon of which lies in Eternity,\nin Heaven?--Let any Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain, not why I wear\nsuch and such a Garment, obey such and such a Law; but even why I am\n_here_, to wear and obey anything!--Much, therefore, if not the whole,\nof that same _Spirit of Clothes_ I shall suppress, as hypothetical,\nineffectual, and even impertinent: naked Facts, and Deductions drawn\ntherefrom in quite another than that omniscient style, are my humbler\nand proper province.\"\n\nActing on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh, has nevertheless\ncontrived to take in a well-nigh boundless extent of field; at least,\nthe boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being\nindispensable, we shall here glance over his First Part only in the\nmost cursory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by\nomnivorous learning, and utmost patience and fairness: at the same time,\nin its results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the\nCompilers of some _Library_ of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even\nUseless Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was it\nthis Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had in view, when he recommended\nus to that joint-stock vehicle of publication, \"at present the glory of\nBritish Literature\"? If so, the Library Editors are welcome to dig in it\nfor their own behoof.\n\nTo the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig-leaves, and leads\nus into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, metaphorical,\ncabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we shall content\nourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still less have we to do\nwith \"Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, according to the Talmudists, he\nhad before Eve, and who bore him, in that wedlock, the whole progeny of\naerial, aquatic, and terrestrial Devils,\"--very needlessly, we think.\nOn this portion of the Work, with its profound glances into the\n_Adam-Kadmon_, or Primeval Element, here strangely brought into relation\nwith the _Nifl_ and _Muspel_ (Darkness and Light) of the antique North,\nit may be enough to say, that its correctness of deduction, and depth of\nTalmudic and Rabbinical lore have filled perhaps not the worst Hebraist\nin Britain with something like astonishment.\n\nBut, quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdrockh hastens from the Tower\nof Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the whole habitable\nand habilable globe. Walking by the light of Oriental, Pelasgic,\nScandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient and Modern researches of\nevery conceivable kind, he strives to give us in compressed shape (as\nthe Nurnbergers give an _Orbis Pictus_) an _Orbis Vestitus_; or view of\nthe costumes of all mankind, in all countries, in all times. It is here\nthat to the Antiquarian, to the Historian, we can triumphantly say:\nFall to! Here is learning: an irregular Treasury, if you will; but\ninexhaustible as the Hoard of King Nibelung, which twelve wagons in\ntwelve days, at the rate of three journeys a day, could not carry\noff. Sheepskin cloaks and wampum belts; phylacteries, stoles, albs;\nchlamydes, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, trunk-hose, leather\nbreeches, Celtic hilibegs (though breeches, as the name _Gallia\nBraccata_ indicates, are the more ancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyke\ntippets, ruffs, fardingales, are brought vividly before us,--even the\nKilmarnock nightcap is not forgotten. For most part, too, we must\nadmit that the Learning, heterogeneous as it is, and tumbled down quite\npell-mell, is true concentrated and purified Learning, the drossy parts\nsmelted out and thrown aside.\n\nPhilosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes touching pictures\nof human life. Of this sort the following has surprised us. The first\npurpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth or\ndecency, but ornament. \"Miserable indeed,\" says he, \"was the condition\nof the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of\nhair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round him\nlike a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick\nnatural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living\non wild-fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonian, squatted himself in\nmorasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements,\nwithout arms, save the ball of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole\npossession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord\nof plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly\nunerring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge once\nsatisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration (_Putz_). Warmth\nhe found in the toils of the chase; or amid dried leaves, in his hollow\ntree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto: but for Decoration he must\nhave Clothes. Nay, among wild people, we find tattooing and painting\neven prior to Clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man\nis Decoration, as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in\ncivilized countries.\n\n\"Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer; loftiest Serene Highness;\nnay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rosebloom Maiden, worthy to glide\nsylph-like almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest as a divine\nPresence, which, indeed, symbolically taken, she is,--has descended,\nlike thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint-hurling Aboriginal\nAnthropophagus! Out of the eater cometh forth meat; out of the strong\ncometh forth sweetness. What changes are wrought, not by Time, yet in\nTime! For not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or beholds, is in\ncontinual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vitality. Cast forth\nthy Act, thy Word, into the ever-living, ever-working Universe: it is\na seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day (says one), it will\nbe found flourishing as a Banyan-grove (perhaps, alas, as a\nHemlock-forest!) after a thousand years.\n\n\"He who first shortened the labor of Copyists by device of _Movable\nTypes_ was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering most Kings and\nSenates, and creating a whole new Democratic world: he had invented\nthe Art of Printing. The first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and\nCharcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling: what will\nthe last do? Achieve the final undisputed prostration of Force under\nThought, of Animal courage under Spiritual. A simple invention it was\nin the old-world Grazier,--sick of lugging his slow Ox about the country\ntill he got it bartered for corn or oil,--to take a piece of Leather,\nand thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure of an Ox (or _Pecus_); put\nit in his pocket, and call it _Pecunia_, Money. Yet hereby did Barter\ngrow Sale, the Leather Money is now Golden and Paper, and all miracles\nhave been out-miracled: for there are Rothschilds and English National\nDebts; and whoso has sixpence is sovereign (to the length of sixpence)\nover all men; commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him,\nkings to mount guard over him,--to the length of sixpence.--Clothes too,\nwhich began in foolishest love of Ornament, what have they not become!\nIncreased Security and pleasurable Heat soon followed: but what of\nthese? Shame, divine Shame (_Schaam_, Modesty), as yet a stranger to the\nAnthropophagous bosom, arose there mysteriously under Clothes; a\nmystic grove-encircled shrine for the Holy in man. Clothes gave us\nindividuality, distinctions, social polity; Clothes have made Men of us;\nthey are threatening to make Clothes-screens of us.\n\n\"But, on the whole,\" continues our eloquent Professor, \"Man is a\nTool-using Animal (_Handthierendes Thier_). Weak in himself, and of\nsmall stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of\nsome half-square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs,\nlest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are\na crushing load for him; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft, like\na waste rag. Nevertheless he can use Tools; can devise Tools: with these\nthe granite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowing\niron, as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds\nand fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without Tools;\nwithout Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all.\"\n\nHere may we not, for a moment, interrupt the stream of Oratory with a\nremark, that this Definition of the Tool-using Animal appears to us, of\nall that Animal-sort, considerably the precisest and best? Man is called\na Laughing Animal: but do not the apes also laugh, or attempt to do it;\nand is the manliest man the greatest and oftenest laugher? Teufelsdrockh\nhimself, as we said, laughed only once. Still less do we make of that\nother French Definition of the Cooking Animal; which, indeed, for\nrigorous scientific purposes, is as good as useless. Can a Tartar be\nsaid to cook, when he only readies his steak by riding on it?\nAgain, what Cookery does the Greenlander use, beyond stowing up his\nwhale-blubber, as a marmot, in the like case, might do? Or how would\nMonsieur Ude prosper among those Orinoco Indians who, according to\nHumboldt, lodge in crow-nests, on the branches of trees; and, for half\nthe year, have no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole country being under\nwater? But, on the other hand, show us the human being, of any period or\nclimate, without his Tools: those very Caledonians, as we saw, had their\nFlint-ball, and Thong to it, such as no brute has or can have.\n\n\"Man is a Tool-using Animal,\" concludes Teufelsdrockh, in his abrupt\nway; \"of which truth Clothes are but one example: and surely if we\nconsider the interval between the first wooden Dibble fashioned by man,\nand those Liverpool Steam-carriages, or the British House of Commons,\nwe shall note what progress he has made. He digs up certain black stones\nfrom the bosom of the earth, and says to them, _Transport me and this\nluggage at the rate of file-and-thirty miles an hour_; and they do\nit: he collects, apparently by lot, six hundred and fifty-eight\nmiscellaneous individuals, and says to them, _Make this nation toil for\nus, bleed for us, hunger and, sorrow and sin for us_; and they do it.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. APRONS.\n\nOne of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Volume is that\non _Aprons_. What though stout old Gao, the Persian Blacksmith, \"whose\nApron, now indeed hidden under jewels, because raised in revolt which\nproved successful, is still the royal standard of that country;\" what\nthough John Knox's Daughter, \"who threatened Sovereign Majesty that she\nwould catch her husband's head in her Apron, rather than he should lie\nand be a bishop;\" what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, with many other\nApron worthies,--figure here? An idle wire-drawing spirit, sometimes\neven a tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire, is too\nclearly discernible. What, for example, are we to make of such sentences\nas the following?\n\n\"Aprons are Defences; against injury to cleanliness, to safety, to\nmodesty, sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of notched silk (as\nit were, the emblem and beatified ghost of an Apron), which some\nhighest-bred housewife, sitting at Nurnberg Work-boxes and Toy-boxes,\nhas gracefully fastened on; to the thick-tanned hide, girt round him\nwith thongs, wherein the Builder builds, and at evening sticks his\ntrowel; or to those jingling sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise\nhalf-naked Vulcans hammer and smelt in their smelt-furnace,--is there\nnot range enough in the fashion and uses of this Vestment? How much\nhas been concealed, how much has been defended in Aprons! Nay, rightly\nconsidered, what is your whole Military and Police Establishment,\ncharged at uncalculated millions, but a huge scarlet-colored,\niron-fastened Apron, wherein Society works (uneasily enough); guarding\nitself from some soil and stithy-sparks, in this Devil's-smithy\n(_Teufels-schmiede_) of a world? But of all Aprons the most puzzling\nto me hitherto has been the Episcopal or Cassock. Wherein consists the\nusefulness of this Apron? The Overseer (_Episcopus_) of Souls, I notice,\nhas tucked in the corner of it, as if his day's work were done: what\ndoes he shadow forth thereby?\" &c. &c.\n\nOr again, has it often been the lot of our readers to read such stuff as\nwe shall now quote?\n\n\"I consider those printed Paper Aprons, worn by the Parisian Cooks, as\na new vent, though a slight one, for Typography; therefore as an\nencouragement to modern Literature, and deserving of approval: nor is it\nwithout satisfaction that I hear of a celebrated London Firm having\nin view to introduce the same fashion, with important extensions, in\nEngland.\"--We who are on the spot hear of no such thing; and indeed\nhave reason to be thankful that hitherto there are other vents for\nour Literature, exuberant as it is.--Teufelsdrockh continues: \"If such\nsupply of printed Paper should rise so far as to choke up the highways\nand public thoroughfares, new means must of necessity be had recourse\nto. In a world existing by Industry, we grudge to employ fire as a\ndestroying element, and not as a creating one. However, Heaven is\nomnipotent, and will find us an outlet. In the mean while, is it not\nbeautiful to see five million quintals of Rags picked annually from the\nLaystall; and annually, after being macerated, hot-pressed, printed on,\nand sold,--returned thither; filling so many hungry mouths by the way?\nThus is the Laystall, especially with its Rags or Clothes-rubbish, the\ngrand Electric Battery, and Fountain-of-motion, from which and to\nwhich the Social Activities (like vitreous and resinous Electricities)\ncirculate, in larger or smaller circles, through the mighty, billowy,\nstorm-tost chaos of Life, which they keep alive!\"--Such passages fill\nus, who love the man, and partly esteem him, with a very mixed feeling.\n\nFarther down we meet with this: \"The Journalists are now the true Kings\nand Clergy: henceforth Historians, unless they are fools, must write\nnot of Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs; but of Stamped\nBroad-sheet Dynasties, and quite new successive Names, according as\nthis or the other Able Editor, or Combination of Able Editors, gains the\nworld's ear. Of the British Newspaper Press, perhaps the most important\nof all, and wonderful enough in its secret constitution and procedure, a\nvaluable descriptive History already exists, in that language, under the\ntitle of _Satan's Invisible World Displayed_; which, however, by search\nin all the Weissnichtwo Libraries, I have not yet succeeded in procuring\n(_vermochte night aufzutreiben_).\"\n\nThus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus does\nTeufelsdrockh, wandering in regions where he had little business,\nconfound the old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new,\nspurious, imaginary Historian of the _Brittische Journalistik_; and so\nstumble on perhaps the most egregious blunder in Modern Literature!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL.\n\nHappier is our Professor, and more purely scientific and historic,\nwhen he reaches the Middle Ages in Europe, and down to the end of the\nSeventeenth Century; the true era of extravagance in Costume. It is here\nthat the Antiquary and Student of Modes comes upon his richest harvest.\nFantastic garbs, beggaring all fancy of a Teniers or a Callot, succeed\neach other, like monster devouring monster in a Dream. The whole too\nin brief authentic strokes, and touched not seldom with that breath of\ngenius which makes even old raiment live. Indeed, so learned, precise,\ngraphical, and every way interesting have we found these Chapters, that\nit may be thrown out as a pertinent question for parties concerned,\nWhether or not a good English Translation thereof might henceforth be\nprofitably incorporated with Mr. Merrick's valuable Work _On Ancient\nArmor_? Take, by way of example, the following sketch; as authority\nfor which Paulinus's _Zeitkurzende Lust_ (ii. 678) is, with seeming\nconfidence, referred to:\n\n\"Did we behold the German fashionable dress of the Fifteenth Century, we\nmight smile; as perhaps those bygone Germans, were they to rise again,\nand see our haberdashery, would cross themselves, and invoke the Virgin.\nBut happily no bygone German, or man, rises again; thus the Present is\nnot needlessly trammelled with the Past; and only grows out of it, like\na Tree, whose roots are not intertangled with its branches, but lie\npeaceably underground. Nay it is very mournful, yet not useless, to see\nand know, how the Greatest and Dearest, in a short while, would find his\nplace quite filled up here, and no room for him; the very Napoleon, the\nvery Byron, in some seven years, has become obsolete, and were now a\nforeigner to his Europe. Thus is the Law of Progress secured; and in\nClothes, as in all other external things whatsoever, no fashion will\ncontinue.\n\n\"Of the military classes in those old times, whose buff-belts,\ncomplicated chains and gorgets, huge churn-boots, and other riding and\nfighting gear have been bepainted in modern Romance, till the whole has\nacquired somewhat of a sign-post character,--I shall here say nothing:\nthe civil and pacific classes, less touched upon, are wonderful enough\nfor us.\n\n\"Rich men, I find, have _Teusinke_ [a perhaps untranslatable article];\nalso a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells; so that when a man\nwalks, it is with continual jingling. Some few, of musical turn, have a\nwhole chime of bells (_Glockenspiel_) fastened there; which, especially\nin sudden whirls, and the other accidents of walking, has a grateful\neffect. Observe too how fond they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch\nintersections. The male world wears peaked caps, an ell long, which hang\nbobbing over the side (_schief_): their shoes are peaked in front,\nalso to the length of an ell, and laced on the side with tags; even\nthe wooden shoes have their ell-long noses: some also clap bells on the\npeak. Further, according to my authority, the men have breeches without\nseat (_ohne Gesass_): these they fasten peakwise to their shirts; and\nthe long round doublet must overlap them.\n\n\"Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped out behind and\nbefore, so that back and breast are almost bare. Wives of quality, on\nthe other hand, have train-gowns four or five ells in length; which\ntrains there are boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras, sailing in their\nsilk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for steersman! Consider their welts, a\nhandbreadth thick, which waver round them by way of hem; the long\nflood of silver buttons, or rather silver shells, from throat to shoe,\nwherewith these same welt-gowns are buttoned. The maidens have bound\nsilver snoods about their hair, with gold spangles, and pendent flames\n(_Flammen_), that is, sparkling hair-drops: but of their mother's\nhead-gear who shall speak? Neither in love of grace is comfort\nforgotten. In winter weather you behold the whole fair creation (that\ncan afford it) in long mantles, with skirts wide below, and, for hem,\nnot one but two sufficient hand-broad welts; all ending atop in a\nthick well-starched Ruff, some twenty inches broad: these are their\nRuff-mantles (_Kragenmantel_).\n\n\"As yet among the womankind hoop-petticoats are not; but the men have\ndoublets of fustian, under which lie multiple ruffs of cloth, pasted\ntogether with batter (_mit Teig zusammengekleistert_), which create\nprotuberance enough. Thus do the two sexes vie with each other in the\nart of Decoration; and as usual the stronger carries it.\"\n\nOur Professor, whether he have humor himself or not, manifests a certain\nfeeling of the Ludicrous, a sly observance of it which, could emotion\nof any kind be confidently predicated of so still a man, we might call\na real love. None of those bell-girdles, bushel-breeches, counted shoes,\nor other the like phenomena, of which the History of Dress offers\nso many, escape him: more especially the mischances, or striking\nadventures, incident to the wearers of such, are noticed with due\nfidelity. Sir Walter Raleigh's fine mantle, which he spread in the mud\nunder Queen Elizabeth's feet, appears to provoke little enthusiasm\nin him; he merely asks, Whether at that period the Maiden Queen \"was\nred-painted on the nose, and white-painted on the cheeks, as her\ntire-women, when from spleen and wrinkles she would no longer look in\nany glass, were wont to serve her\"? We can answer that Sir Walter knew\nwell what he was doing, and had the Maiden Queen been stuffed parchment\ndyed in verdigris, would have done the same.\n\nThus too, treating of those enormous habiliments, that were not only\nslashed and gallooned, but artificially swollen out on the broader\nparts of the body, by introduction of Bran,--our Professor fails not to\ncomment on that luckless Courtier, who having seated himself on a\nchair with some projecting nail on it, and therefrom rising, to pay his\n_devoir_ on the entrance of Majesty, instantaneously emitted several\npecks of dry wheat-dust: and stood there diminished to a spindle, his\ngalloons and slashes dangling sorrowful and flabby round him. Whereupon\nthe Professor publishes this reflection:--\n\n\"By what strange chances do we live in History? Erostratus by a torch;\nMilo by a bullock; Henry Darnley, an unfledged booby and bustard, by\nhis limbs; most Kings and Queens by being born under such and such a\nbed-tester; Boileau Despreaux (according to Helvetius) by the peck of a\nturkey; and this ill-starred individual by a rent in his breeches,--for\nno Memoirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits him. Vain was the prayer of\nThemistocles for a talent of Forgetting: my Friends, yield cheerfully to\nDestiny, and read since it is written.\"--Has Teufelsdrockh, to be put in\nmind that, nearly related to the impossible talent of Forgetting, stands\nthat talent of Silence, which even travelling Englishmen manifest?\n\n\"The simplest costume,\" observes our Professor, \"which I anywhere find\nalluded to in History, is that used as regimental, by Bolivar's Cavalry,\nin the late Colombian wars. A square Blanket, twelve feet in diagonal,\nis provided (some were wont to cut off the corners, and make it\ncircular): in the centre a slit is effected eighteen inches long;\nthrough this the mother-naked Trooper introduces his head and neck; and\nso rides shielded from all weather, and in battle from many strokes (for\nhe rolls it about his left arm); and not only dressed, but harnessed and\ndraperied.\"\n\nWith which picture of a State of Nature, affecting by its singularity,\nand Old-Roman contempt of the superfluous, we shall quit this part of\nour subject.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES.\n\nIf in the Descriptive-Historical portion of this Volume, Teufelsdrockh,\ndiscussing merely the _Werden_ (Origin and successive Improvement)\nof Clothes, has astonished many a reader, much more will he in the\nSpeculative-Philosophical portion, which treats of their _Wirken_, or\nInfluences. It is here that the present Editor first feels the pressure\nof his task; for here properly the higher and new Philosophy of Clothes\ncommences: all untried, almost inconceivable region, or chaos; in\nventuring upon which, how difficult, yet how unspeakably important is it\nto know what course, of survey and conquest, is the true one; where the\nfooting is firm substance and will bear us, where it is hollow, or\nmere cloud, and may engulf us! Teufelsdrockh undertakes no less than to\nexpound the moral, political, even religious Influences of Clothes; he\nundertakes to make manifest, in its thousand-fold bearings, this grand\nProposition, that Man's earthly interests \"are all hooked and buttoned\ntogether, and held up, by Clothes.\" He says in so many words, \"Society\nis founded upon Cloth;\" and again, \"Society sails through the Infinitude\non Cloth, as on a Faust's Mantle, or rather like the Sheet of clean and\nunclean beasts in the Apostle's Dream; and without such Sheet or Mantle,\nwould sink to endless depths, or mount to inane limbos, and in either\ncase be no more.\"\n\nBy what chains, or indeed infinitely complected tissues, of Meditation\nthis grand Theorem is here unfolded, and innumerable practical\nCorollaries are drawn therefrom, it were perhaps a mad ambition to\nattempt exhibiting. Our Professor's method is not, in any case, that of\ncommon school Logic, where the truths all stand in a row, each holding\nby the skirts of the other; but at best that of practical Reason'\nproceeding by large Intuition over whole systematic groups and kingdoms;\nwhereby, we might say, a noble complexity, almost like that of Nature,\nreigns in his Philosophy, or spiritual Picture of Nature: a mighty maze,\nyet, as faith whispers, not without a plan. Nay we complained above,\nthat a certain ignoble complexity, what we must call mere confusion, was\nalso discernible. Often, also, we have to exclaim: Would to Heaven\nthose same Biographical Documents were come! For it seems as if the\ndemonstration lay much in the Author's individuality; as if it were not\nArgument that had taught him, but Experience. At present it is only\nin local glimpses, and by significant fragments, picked often at\nwide-enough intervals from the original Volume, and carefully collated,\nthat we can hope to impart some outline or foreshadow of this Doctrine.\nReaders of any intelligence are once more invited to favor us with their\nmost concentrated attention: let these, after intense consideration,\nand not till then, pronounce, Whether on the utmost verge of our actual\nhorizon there is not a looming as of Land; a promise of new Fortunate\nIslands, perhaps whole undiscovered Americas, for such as have canvas to\nsail thither?--As exordium to the whole, stand here the following long\ncitation:--\n\n\"With men of a speculative turn,\" writes Teufelsdrockh, \"there come\nseasons, meditative, sweet, yet awful hours, when in wonder and fear you\nask yourself that unanswerable question: Who am I; the thing that can\nsay 'I' (_das Wesen das sich ICH nennt_)? The world, with its loud\ntrafficking, retires into the distance; and, through the paper-hangings,\nand stonewalls, and thick-plied tissues of Commerce and Polity, and all\nthe living and lifeless integuments (of Society and a Body), wherewith\nyour Existence sits surrounded,--the sight reaches forth into the void\nDeep, and you are alone with the Universe, and silently commune with it,\nas one mysterious Presence with another.\n\n\"Who am I; what is this ME? A Voice, a Motion, an Appearance;--some\nembodied, visualized Idea in the Eternal Mind? _Cogito, ergo sum_. Alas,\npoor Cogitator, this takes us but a little way. Sure enough, I am;\nand lately was not: but Whence? How? Whereto? The answer lies around,\nwritten in all colors and motions, uttered in all tones of jubilee and\nwail, in thousand-figured, thousand-voiced, harmonious Nature: but where\nis the cunning eye and ear to whom that God-written Apocalypse will\nyield articulate meaning? We sit as in a boundless Phantasmagoria and\nDream-grotto; boundless, for the faintest star, the remotest century,\nlies not even nearer the verge thereof: sounds and many-colored visions\nflit round our sense; but Him, the Unslumbering, whose work both Dream\nand Dreamer are, we see not; except in rare half-waking moments, suspect\nnot. Creation, says one, lies before us, like a glorious Rainbow; but\nthe Sun that made it lies behind us, hidden from us. Then, in that\nstrange Dream, how we clutch at shadows as if they were substances;\nand sleep deepest while fancying ourselves most awake! Which of your\nPhilosophical Systems is other than a dream-theorem; a net quotient,\nconfidently given out, where divisor and dividend are both unknown? What\nare all your national Wars, with their Moscow Retreats, and sanguinary\nhate-filled Revolutions, but the Somnambulism of uneasy Sleepers? This\nDreaming, this Somnambulism is what we on Earth call Life; wherein the\nmost indeed undoubtingly wander, as if they knew right hand from left;\nyet they only are wise who know that they know nothing.\n\n\"Pity that all Metaphysics had hitherto proved so inexpressibly\nunproductive! The secret of Man's Being is still like the Sphinx's\nsecret: a riddle that he cannot rede; and for ignorance of which he\nsuffers death, the worst death, a spiritual. What are your Axioms, and\nCategories, and Systems, and Aphorisms? Words, words. High Air-castles\nare cunningly built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good\nLogic-mortar; wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge. _The\nwhole is greater than the part_: how exceedingly true! _Nature abhors a\nvacuum_: how exceedingly false and calumnious! Again, _Nothing can act\nbut where it is_: with all my heart; only, WHERE is it? Be not the slave\nof Words: is not the Distant, the Dead, while I love it, and long for\nit, and mourn for it, Here, in the genuine sense, as truly as the floor\nI stand on? But that same WHERE, with its brother WHEN, are from the\nfirst the master-colors of our Dream-grotto; say rather, the Canvas\n(the warp and woof thereof) whereon all our Dreams and Life-visions are\npainted. Nevertheless, has not a deeper meditation taught certain\nof every climate and age, that the WHERE and WHEN, so mysteriously\ninseparable from all our thoughts, are but superficial terrestrial\nadhesions to thought; that the Seer may discern them where they mount\nup out of the celestial EVERYWHERE and FOREVER: have not all nations\nconceived their God as Omnipresent and Eternal; as existing in a\nuniversal HERE, an everlasting Now? Think well, thou too wilt find that\nSpace is but a mode of our human Sense, so likewise Time; there _is_ no\nSpace and no Time: WE are--we know not what;--light-sparkles floating in\nthe ether of Deity!\n\n\"So that this so solid-seeming World, after all, were but an air-image,\nour ME the only reality: and Nature, with its thousand-fold production\nand destruction, but the reflex of our own inward Force, the 'phantasy\nof our Dream;' or what the Earth-Spirit in _Faust_ names it, _the living\nvisible Garment of God_:--\n\n    \"'In Being's floods, in Action's storm,\n    I walk and work, above, beneath,\n    Work and weave in endless motion!\n          Birth and Death,\n          An infinite ocean;\n          A seizing and giving\n          The fire of Living:\n    'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply,\n    And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.'\n\nOf twenty millions that have read and spouted this thunder-speech of\nthe _Erdgeist_, are there yet twenty units of us that have learned the\nmeaning thereof?\n\n\"It was in some such mood, when wearied and fordone with these high\nspeculations, that I first came upon the question of Clothes. Strange\nenough, it strikes me, is this same fact of there being Tailors and\nTailored. The Horse I ride has his own whole fell: strip him of the\ngirths and flaps and extraneous tags I have fastened round him, and the\nnoble creature is his own sempster and weaver and spinner; nay his\nown boot-maker, jeweller, and man-milliner; he bounds free through the\nvalleys, with a perennial rain-proof court-suit on his body; wherein\nwarmth and easiness of fit have reached perfection; nay, the graces also\nhave been considered, and frills and fringes, with gay variety of color,\nfeatly appended, and ever in the right place, are not wanting. While\nI--good Heaven!--have thatched myself over with the dead fleeces of\nsheep, the bark of vegetables, the entrails of worms, the hides of\noxen or seals, the felt of furred beasts; and walk abroad a moving\nRag-screen, overheaped with shreds and tatters raked from the\nCharnel-house of Nature, where they would have rotted, to rot on me more\nslowly! Day after day, I must thatch myself anew; day after day, this\ndespicable thatch must lose some film of its thickness; some film of it,\nfrayed away by tear and wear, must be brushed off into the Ashpit, into\nthe Laystall; till by degrees the whole has been brushed thither, and I,\nthe dust-making, patent Rag-grinder, get new material to grind down.\nO subter-brutish! vile! most vile! For have not I too a compact\nall-enclosing Skin, whiter or dingier? Am I a botched mass of tailors'\nand cobblers' shreds, then; or a tightly articulated, homogeneous little\nFigure, automatic, nay alive?\n\n\"Strange enough how creatures of the human-kind shut their eyes to\nplainest facts; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, live\nat ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is, and was\nalways, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than\nto think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his\nabsolute lawgiver; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him by the nose;\nthus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World\nhappen _twice_, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy,\nor noticeable. Perhaps not once in a lifetime does it occur to your\nordinary biped, of any country or generation, be he gold-mantled Prince\nor russet-jerkined Peasant, that his Vestments and his Self are not one\nand indivisible; that _he_ is naked, without vestments, till he buy or\nsteal such, and by forethought sew and button them.\n\n\"For my own part, these considerations, of our Clothes-thatch, and\nhow, reaching inwards even to our heart of hearts, it tailorizes and\ndemoralizes us, fill me with a certain horror at myself and mankind;\nalmost as one feels at those Dutch Cows, which, during the wet season,\nyou see grazing deliberately with jackets and petticoats (of striped\nsacking), in the meadows of Gouda. Nevertheless there is something great\nin the moment when a man first strips himself of adventitious wrappages;\nand sees indeed that he is naked, and, as Swift has it, 'a forked\nstraddling animal with bandy legs;' yet also a Spirit, and unutterable\nMystery of Mysteries.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. ADAMITISM.\n\nLet no courteous reader take offence at the opinions broached in the\nconclusion of the last Chapter. The Editor himself, on first glancing\nover that singular passage, was inclined to exclaim: What, have we got\nnot only a Sansculottist, but an enemy to Clothes in the abstract? A\nnew Adamite, in this century, which flatters itself that it is the\nNineteenth, and destructive both to Superstition and Enthusiasm?\n\nConsider, thou foolish Teufelsdrockh, what benefits unspeakable all ages\nand sexes derive from Clothes. For example, when thou thyself, a watery,\npulpy, slobbery freshman and new-comer in this Planet, sattest muling\nand puking in thy nurse's arms; sucking thy coral, and looking forth\ninto the world in the blankest manner, what hadst thou been without thy\nblankets, and bibs, and other nameless hulls? A terror to thyself and\nmankind! Or hast thou forgotten the day when thou first receivedst\nbreeches, and thy long clothes became short? The village where thou\nlivedst was all apprised of the fact; and neighbor after neighbor kissed\nthy pudding-cheek, and gave thee, as handsel, silver or copper coins, on\nthat the first gala-day of thy existence. Again, wert not thou, at one\nperiod of life, a Buck, or Blood, or Macaroni, or Incroyable, or Dandy,\nor by whatever name, according to year and place, such phenomenon is\ndistinguished? In that one word lie included mysterious volumes. Nay,\nnow when the reign of folly is over, or altered, and thy clothes are not\nfor triumph but for defence, hast thou always worn them perforce, and as\na consequence of Man's Fall; never rejoiced in them as in a warm movable\nHouse, a Body round thy Body, wherein that strange THEE of thine sat\nsnug, defying all variations of Climate? Girt with thick double-milled\nkerseys; half buried under shawls and broadbrims, and overalls and\nmudboots, thy very fingers cased in doeskin and mittens, thou hast\nbestrode that \"Horse I ride;\" and, though it were in wild winter, dashed\nthrough the world, glorying in it as if thou wert its lord. In vain did\nthe sleet beat round thy temples; it lighted only on thy impenetrable,\nfelted or woven, case of wool. In vain did the winds howl,--forests\nsounding and creaking, deep calling unto deep,--and the storms heap\nthemselves together into one huge Arctic whirlpool: thou flewest through\nthe middle thereof, striking fire from the highway; wild music hummed\nin thy ears, thou too wert as a \"sailor of the air;\" the wreck of matter\nand the crash of worlds was thy element and propitiously wafting tide.\nWithout Clothes, without bit or saddle, what hadst thou been; what had\nthy fleet quadruped been?--Nature is good, but she is not the best: here\ntruly was the victory of Art over Nature. A thunderbolt indeed might\nhave pierced thee; all short of this thou couldst defy.\n\nOr, cries the courteous reader, has your Teufelsdrockh forgotten what he\nsaid lately about \"Aboriginal Savages,\" and their \"condition miserable\nindeed\"? Would he have all this unsaid; and us betake ourselves again to\nthe \"matted cloak,\" and go sheeted in a \"thick natural fell\"?\n\nNowise, courteous reader! The Professor knows full well what he is\nsaying; and both thou and we, in our haste, do him wrong. If Clothes,\nin these times, \"so tailorize and demoralize us,\" have they no redeeming\nvalue; can they not be altered to serve better; must they of\nnecessity be thrown to the dogs? The truth is, Teufelsdrockh, though a\nSansculottist, is no Adamite; and much perhaps as he might wish to go\nforth before this degenerate age \"as a Sign,\" would nowise wish to do\nit, as those old Adamites did, in a state of Nakedness. The utility of\nClothes is altogether apparent to him: nay perhaps he has an insight\ninto their more recondite, and almost mystic qualities, what we\nmight call the omnipotent virtue of Clothes, such as was never before\nvouchsafed to any man. For example:--\n\n\"You see two individuals,\" he writes, \"one dressed in fine Red, the\nother in coarse threadbare Blue: Red says to Blue, 'Be hanged and\nanatomized;' Blue hears with a shudder, and (O wonder of wonders!)\nmarches sorrowfully to the gallows; is there noosed up, vibrates his\nhour, and the surgeons dissect him, and fit his bones into a skeleton\nfor medical purposes. How is this; or what make ye of your _Nothing can\nact but where it is_? Red has no physical hold of Blue, no _clutch_\nof him, is nowise in _contact_ with him: neither are those ministering\nSheriffs and Lord-Lieutenants and Hangmen and Tipstaves so related to\ncommanding Red, that he can tug them hither and thither; but each stands\ndistinct within his own skin. Nevertheless, as it is spoken, so is\nit done: the articulated Word sets all hands in Action; and Rope and\nImproved-drop perform their work.\n\n\"Thinking reader, the reason seems to me twofold: First, that _Man is a\nSpirit_, and bound by invisible bonds to _All Men_; secondly, that _he\nwears Clothes_, which are the visible emblems of that fact. Has not\nyour Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins, and a\nplush-gown; whereby all mortals know that he is a JUDGE?--Society, which\nthe more I think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon Cloth.\n\n\"Often in my atrabiliar moods, when I read of pompous ceremonials,\nFrankfort Coronations, Royal Drawing-rooms, Levees, Couchees; and how\nthe ushers and macers and pursuivants are all in waiting; how Duke\nthis is presented by Archduke that, and Colonel A by General B, and\ninnumerable Bishops, Admirals, and miscellaneous Functionaries, are\nadvancing gallantly to the Anointed Presence; and I strive, in my remote\nprivacy, to form a clear picture of that solemnity,--on a sudden, as by\nsome enchanter's wand, the--shall I speak it?--the Clothes fly off the\nwhole dramatic corps; and Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, Anointed\nPresence itself, every mother's son of them, stand straddling there, not\na shirt on them; and I know not whether to laugh or weep. This physical\nor psychical infirmity, in which perhaps I am not singular, I have,\nafter hesitation, thought right to publish, for the solace of those\nafflicted with the like.\"\n\nWould to Heaven, say we, thou hadst thought right to keep it secret!\nWho is there now that can read the five columns of Presentations in his\nMorning Newspaper without a shudder? Hypochondriac men, and all men are\nto a certain extent hypochondriac, should be more gently treated. With\nwhat readiness our fancy, in this shattered state of the nerves, follows\nout the consequences which Teufelsdrockh, with a devilish coolness, goes\non to draw:--\n\n\"What would Majesty do, could such an accident befall in reality; should\nthe buttons all simultaneously start, and the solid wool evaporate,\nin very Deed, as here in Dream? _Ach Gott_! How each skulks into\nthe nearest hiding-place; their high State Tragedy (_Haupt- und\nStaats-Action_) becomes a Pickleherring-Farce to weep at, which is the\nworst kind of Farce; _the tables_ (according to Horace), and with them,\nthe whole fabric of Government, Legislation, Property, Police, and\nCivilized Society, _are dissolved_, in wails and howls.\"\n\nLives the man that can figure a naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a\nnaked House of Lords? Imagination, choked as in mephitic air, recoils\non itself, and will not forward with the picture. The Woolsack, the\nMinisterial, the Opposition Benches--_infandum! infandum_! And yet why\nis the thing impossible? Was not every soul, or rather every body, of\nthese Guardians of our Liberties, naked, or nearly so, last night; \"a\nforked Radish with a head fantastically carved\"? And why might he not,\ndid our stern fate so order it, walk out to St. Stephen's, as well as\ninto bed, in that no-fashion; and there, with other similar Radishes,\nhold a Bed of Justice? \"Solace of those afflicted with the like!\"\nUnhappy Teufelsdrockh, had man ever such a \"physical or psychical\ninfirmity\" before? And now how many, perhaps, may thy unparalleled\nconfession (which we, even to the sounder British world, and goaded on\nby Critical and Biographical duty, grudge to reimpart) incurably\ninfect therewith! Art thou the malignest of Sansculottists, or only the\nmaddest?\n\n\"It will remain to be examined,\" adds the inexorable Teufelsdrockh,\n\"in how far the SCARECROW, as a Clothed Person, is not also entitled to\nbenefit of clergy, and English trial by jury: nay perhaps, considering\nhis high function (for is not he too a Defender of Property, and\nSovereign armed with the _terrors_ of the Law?), to a certain royal\nImmunity and Inviolability; which, however, misers and the meaner class\nof persons are not always voluntarily disposed to grant him.\"\n\n\"O my Friends, we are [in Yorick Sterne's words] but as 'turkeys driven,\nwith a stick and red clout, to the market:' or if some drivers, as\nthey do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas in it, the rattle\nthereof terrifies the boldest!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. PURE REASON.\n\nIt must now be apparent enough that our Professor, as above hinted, is\na speculative Radical, and of the very darkest tinge; acknowledging, for\nmost part, in the solemnities and paraphernalia of civilized Life, which\nwe make so much of, nothing but so many Cloth-rags, turkey-poles, and\n\"bladders with dried peas.\" To linger among such speculations, longer\nthan mere Science requires, a discerning public can have no wish. For\nour purposes the simple fact that such a _Naked World_ is possible,\nnay actually exists (under the Clothed one), will be sufficient. Much,\ntherefore, we omit about \"Kings wrestling naked on the green with\nCarmen,\" and the Kings being thrown: \"dissect them with scalpels,\" says\nTeufelsdrockh; \"the same viscera, tissues, livers, lights, and other\nlife-tackle, are there: examine their spiritual mechanism; the same\ngreat Need, great Greed, and little Faculty; nay ten to one but the\nCarman, who understands draught-cattle, the rimming of wheels, something\nof the laws of unstable and stable equilibrium, with other branches\nof wagon-science, and has actually put forth his hand and operated on\nNature, is the more cunningly gifted of the two. Whence, then, their\nso unspeakable difference? From Clothes.\" Much also we shall omit about\nconfusion of Ranks, and Joan and My Lady, and how it would be everywhere\n\"Hail fellow well met,\" and Chaos were come again: all which to any one\nthat has once fairly pictured out the grand mother-idea, _Society in\na state of Nakedness_, will spontaneously suggest itself. Should some\nsceptical individual still entertain doubts whether in a world without\nClothes, the smallest Politeness, Polity, or even Police, could exist,\nlet him turn to the original Volume, and view there the boundless\nSerbonian Bog of Sansculottism, stretching sour and pestilential: over\nwhich we have lightly flown; where not only whole armies but whole\nnations might sink! If indeed the following argument, in its brief\nriveting emphasis, be not of itself incontrovertible and final:--\n\n\"Are we Opossums; have we natural Pouches, like the Kangaroo? Or how,\nwithout Clothes, could we possess the master-organ, soul's seat, and\ntrue pineal gland of the Body Social: I mean, a PURSE?\"\n\nNevertheless it is impossible to hate Professor Teufelsdrockh; at worst,\none knows not whether to hate or to love him. For though, in looking at\nthe fair tapestry of human Life, with its royal and even sacred figures,\nhe dwells not on the obverse alone, but here chiefly on the reverse; and\nindeed turns out the rough seams, tatters, and manifold thrums of that\nunsightly wrong-side, with an almost diabolic patience and indifference,\nwhich must have sunk him in the estimation of most readers,--there is\nthat within which unspeakably distinguishes him from all other past\nand present Sansculottists. The grand unparalleled peculiarity of\nTeufelsdrockh is, that with all this Descendentalism, he combines a\nTranscendentalism, no less superlative; whereby if on the one hand he\ndegrade man below most animals, except those jacketed Gouda Cows, he, on\nthe other, exalts him beyond the visible Heavens, almost to an equality\nwith the Gods.\n\n\"To the eye of vulgar Logic,\" says he, \"what is man? An omnivorous Biped\nthat wears Breeches. To the eye of Pure Reason what is he? A Soul, a\nSpirit, and divine Apparition. Round his mysterious ME, there\nlies, under all those wool-rags, a Garment of Flesh (or of Senses),\ncontextured in the Loom of Heaven; whereby he is revealed to his like,\nand dwells with them in UNION and DIVISION; and sees and fashions for\nhimself a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces, and long Thousands of\nYears. Deep-hidden is he under that strange Garment; amid Sounds\nand Colors and Forms, as it were, swathed in, and inextricably\nover-shrouded: yet it is sky-woven, and worthy of a God. Stands he not\nthereby in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities? He\nfeels; power has been given him to know, to believe; nay does not the\nspirit of Love, free in its celestial primeval brightness, even here,\nthough but for moments, look through? Well said Saint Chrysostom,\nwith his lips of gold, 'the true SHEKINAH is Man:' where else is the\nGOD'S-PRESENCE manifested not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as in\nour fellow-man?\"\n\nIn such passages, unhappily too rare, the high Platonic Mysticism of our\nAuthor, which is perhaps the fundamental element of his nature, bursts\nforth, as it were, in full flood: and, through all the vapor and tarnish\nof what is often so perverse, so mean in his exterior and environment,\nwe seem to look into a whole inward Sea of Light and Love;--though,\nalas, the grim coppery clouds soon roll together again, and hide it from\nview.\n\nSuch tendency to Mysticism is everywhere traceable in this man; and\nindeed, to attentive readers, must have been long ago apparent. Nothing\nthat he sees but has more than a common meaning, but has two meanings:\nthus, if in the highest Imperial Sceptre and Charlemagne-Mantle, as\nwell as in the poorest Ox-goad and Gypsy-Blanket, he finds Prose, Decay,\nContemptibility; there is in each sort Poetry also, and a reverend\nWorth. For Matter, were it never so despicable, is Spirit, the\nmanifestation of Spirit: were it never so honorable, can it be more? The\nthing Visible, nay the thing Imagined, the thing in any way conceived as\nVisible, what is it but a Garment, a Clothing of the higher, celestial\nInvisible, \"unimaginable formless, dark with excess of bright\"? Under\nwhich point of view the following passage, so strange in purport, so\nstrange in phrase, seems characteristic enough:--\n\n\"The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes, or even with\narmed eyesight, till they become _transparent_. 'The Philosopher,' says\nthe wisest of this age, 'must station himself in the middle:' how true!\nThe Philosopher is he to whom the Highest has descended, and the Lowest\nhas mounted up; who is the equal and kindly brother of all.\n\n\"Shall we tremble before clothwebs and cobwebs, whether woven in\nArkwright looms, or by the silent Arachnes that weave unrestingly in our\nImagination? Or, on the other hand, what is there that we cannot love;\nsince all was created by God?\n\n\"Happy he who can look through the Clothes of a Man (the woollen, and\nfleshly, and official Bank-paper and State-paper Clothes) into the Man\nhimself; and discern, it may be, in this or the other Dread Potentate,\na more or less incompetent Digestive-apparatus; yet also an inscrutable\nvenerable Mystery, in the meanest Tinker that sees with eyes!\"\n\nFor the rest, as is natural to a man of this kind, he deals much in the\nfeeling of Wonder; insists on the necessity and high worth of universal\nWonder; which he holds to be the only reasonable temper for the denizen\nof so singular a Planet as ours. \"Wonder,\" says he, \"is the basis of\nWorship: the reign of wonder is perennial, indestructible in Man; only\nat certain stages (as the present), it is, for some short season, a\nreign _in partibus infidelium_.\" That progress of Science, which is to\ndestroy Wonder, and in its stead substitute Mensuration and Numeration,\nfinds small favor with Teufelsdrockh, much as he otherwise venerates\nthese two latter processes.\n\n\"Shall your Science,\" exclaims he, \"proceed in the small chink-lighted,\nor even oil-lighted, underground workshop of Logic alone; and man's\nmind become an Arithmetical Mill, whereof Memory is the Hopper, and mere\nTables of Sines and Tangents, Codification, and Treatises of what you\ncall Political Economy, are the Meal? And what is that Science, which\nthe scientific head alone, were it screwed off, and (like the Doctor's\nin the Arabian Tale) set in a basin to keep it alive, could prosecute\nwithout shadow of a heart,--but one other of the mechanical and menial\nhandicrafts, for which the Scientific Head (having a Soul in it) is too\nnoble an organ? I mean that Thought without Reverence is barren, perhaps\npoisonous; at best, dies like cookery with the day that called it forth;\ndoes not live, like sowing, in successive tilths and wider-spreading\nharvests, bringing food and plenteous increase to all Time.\"\n\nIn such wise does Teufelsdrockh deal hits, harder or softer, according\nto ability; yet ever, as we would fain persuade ourselves, with\ncharitable intent. Above all, that class of \"Logic-choppers, and\ntreble-pipe Scoffers, and professed Enemies to Wonder; who, in these\ndays, so numerously patrol as night-constables about the Mechanics'\nInstitute of Science, and cackle, like true Old-Roman geese and goslings\nround their Capitol, on any alarm, or on none; nay who often, as\nilluminated Sceptics, walk abroad into peaceable society, in full\ndaylight, with rattle and lantern, and insist on guiding you and\nguarding you therewith, though the Sun is shining, and the street\npopulous with mere justice-loving men:\" that whole class is\ninexpressibly wearisome to him. Hear with what uncommon animation he\nperorates:--\n\n\"The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and\nworship), were he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried\nthe whole _Mecanique Celeste_ and _Hegel's Philosophy_, and the epitome\nof all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in his single\nhead,--is but a Pair of Spectacles behind which there is no Eye. Let\nthose who have Eyes look through him, then he may be useful.\n\n\"Thou wilt have no Mystery and Mysticism; wilt walk through thy world\nby the sunshine of what thou callest Truth, or even by the hand-lamp\nof what I call Attorney-Logic; and 'explain' all, 'account' for all, or\nbelieve nothing of it? Nay, thou wilt attempt laughter; whoso recognizes\nthe unfathomable, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is everywhere\nunder our feet and among our hands; to whom the Universe is an Oracle\nand Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall,--he shall be a\ndelirious Mystic; to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt protrusively\nproffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as one injured, when he kicks his\nfoot through it?--_Armer Teufel_! Doth not thy cow calve, doth not\nthy bull gender? Thou thyself, wert thou not born, wilt thou not die?\n'Explain' me all this, or do one of two things: Retire into private\nplaces with thy foolish cackle; or, what were better, give it up,\nand weep, not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's world all\ndisembellished and prosaic, but that thou hitherto art a Dilettante and\nsand-blind Pedant.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI. PROSPECTIVE.\n\nThe Philosophy of Clothes is now to all readers, as we predicted\nit would do, unfolding itself into new boundless expansions, of a\ncloud-capt, almost chimerical aspect, yet not without azure loomings in\nthe far distance, and streaks as of an Elysian brightness; the highly\nquestionable purport and promise of which it is becoming more and more\nimportant for us to ascertain. Is that a real Elysian brightness, cries\nmany a timid wayfarer, or the reflex of Pandemonian lava? Is it of a\ntruth leading us into beatific Asphodel meadows, or the yellow-burning\nmarl of a Hell-on-Earth?\n\nOur Professor, like other Mystics, whether delirious or inspired, gives\nan Editor enough to do. Ever higher and dizzier are the heights he leads\nus to; more piercing, all-comprehending, all-confounding are his views\nand glances. For example, this of Nature being not an Aggregate but a\nWhole:--\n\n\"Well sang the Hebrew Psalmist: 'If I take the wings of the morning\nand dwell in the uttermost parts of the Universe, God is there.' Thou\nthyself, O cultivated reader, who too probably art no Psalmist, but a\nProsaist, knowing GOD only by tradition, knowest thou any corner of the\nworld where at least FORCE is not? The drop which thou shakest from thy\nwet hand, rests not where it falls, but to-morrow thou findest it swept\naway; already on the wings of the North-wind, it is nearing the Tropic\nof Cancer. How came it to evaporate, and not lie motionless? Thinkest\nthou there is aught motionless; without Force, and utterly dead?\n\n\"As I rode through the Schwarzwald, I said to myself: That little fire\nwhich glows star-like across the dark-growing (_nachtende_) moor, where\nthe sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace thy\nlost horse-shoe,--is it a detached, separated speck, cut off from the\nwhole Universe; or indissolubly joined to the whole? Thou fool, that\nsmithy-fire was (primarily) kindled at the Sun; is fed by air that\ncirculates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dog-star; therein,\nwith Iron Force, and Coal Force, and the far stranger Force of Man, are\ncunning affinities and battles and victories of Force brought about; it\nis a little ganglion, or nervous centre, in the great vital system of\nImmensity. Call it, if thou wilt, an unconscious Altar, kindled on the\nbosom of the All; whose iron sacrifice, whose iron smoke and influence\nreach quite through the All; whose dingy Priest, not by word, yet by\nbrain and sinew, preaches forth the mystery of Force; nay preaches forth\n(exoterically enough) one little textlet from the Gospel of Freedom, the\nGospel of Man's Force, commanding, and one day to be all-commanding.\n\n\"Detached, separated! I say there is no such separation: nothing\nhitherto was ever stranded, cast aside; but all, were it only a withered\nleaf, works together with all; is borne forward on the bottomless,\nshoreless flood of Action, and lives through perpetual metamorphoses.\nThe withered leaf is not dead and lost, there are Forces in it and\naround it, though working in inverse order; else how could it rot?\nDespise not the rag from which man makes Paper, or the litter from which\nthe earth makes Corn. Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant;\nall objects are as windows, through which the philosophic eye looks into\nInfinitude itself.\"\n\nAgain, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald Smithy-Altar, what vacant,\nhigh-sailing air-ships are these, and whither will they sail with us?\n\n\"All visible things are emblems; what thou seest is not there on its\nown account; strictly taken, is not there at all: Matter exists only\nspiritually, and to represent some Idea, and _body_ it forth. Hence\nClothes, as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably significant.\nClothes, from the King's mantle downwards, are emblematic, not of want\nonly, but of a manifold cunning Victory over Want. On the other hand,\nall Emblematic things are properly Clothes, thought-woven or hand-woven:\nmust not the Imagination weave Garments, visible Bodies, wherein the\nelse invisible creations and inspirations of our Reason are, like\nSpirits, revealed, and first become all-powerful; the rather if, as\nwe often see, the Hand too aid her, and (by wool Clothes or otherwise)\nreveal such even to the outward eye?\n\n\"Men are properly said to be clothed with Authority, clothed with\nBeauty, with Curses, and the like. Nay, if you consider it, what is Man\nhimself, and his whole terrestrial Life, but an Emblem; a Clothing\nor visible Garment for that divine ME of his, cast hither, like a\nlight-particle, down from Heaven? Thus is he said also to be clothed\nwith a Body.\n\n\"Language is called the Garment of Thought: however, it should rather\nbe, Language is the Flesh-Garment, the Body, of Thought. I said that\nImagination wove this Flesh-Garment; and does not she? Metaphors are her\nstuff: examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements\n(of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such,\nor no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and\ncolorless? If those same primitive elements are the osseous fixtures in\nthe Flesh-Garment, Language,--then are Metaphors its muscles and tissues\nand living integuments. An unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek\nfor: is not your very _Attention_ a _Stretching-to_? The difference\nlies here: some styles are lean, adust, wiry, the muscle itself seems\nosseous; some are even quite pallid, hunger-bitten and dead-looking;\nwhile others again glow in the flush of health and vigorous self-growth,\nsometimes (as in my own case) not without an apoplectic tendency.\nMoreover, there are sham Metaphors, which overhanging that same\nThought's-Body (best naked), and deceptively bedizening, or bolstering\nit out, may be called its false stuffings, superfluous show-cloaks\n(_Putz-Mantel_), and tawdry woollen rags: whereof he that runs and reads\nmay gather whole hampers,--and burn them.\"\n\nThan which paragraph on Metaphors did the reader ever chance to see\na more surprisingly metaphorical? However, that is not our chief\ngrievance; the Professor continues:--\n\n\"Why multiply instances? It is written, the Heavens and the Earth shall\nfade away like a Vesture; which indeed they are: the Time-vesture of\nthe Eternal. Whatsoever sensibly exists, whatsoever represents Spirit to\nSpirit, is properly a Clothing, a suit of Raiment, put on for a season,\nand to be laid off. Thus in this one pregnant subject of CLOTHES,\nrightly understood, is included all that men have thought, dreamed,\ndone, and been: the whole External Universe and what it holds is but\nClothing; and the essence of all Science lies in the PHILOSOPHY OF\nCLOTHES.\"\n\nTowards these dim infinitely expanded regions, close-bordering on\nthe impalpable Inane, it is not without apprehension, and perpetual\ndifficulties, that the Editor sees himself journeying and struggling.\nTill lately a cheerful daystar of hope hung before him, in the expected\nAid of Hofrath Heuschrecke; which daystar, however, melts now, not into\nthe red of morning, but into a vague, gray half-light, uncertain\nwhether dawn of day or dusk of utter darkness. For the last week, these\nso-called Biographical Documents are in his hand. By the kindness of\na Scottish Hamburg Merchant, whose name, known to the whole mercantile\nworld, he must not mention; but whose honorable courtesy, now and often\nbefore spontaneously manifested to him, a mere literary stranger,\nhe cannot soon forget,--the bulky Weissnichtwo Packet, with all its\nCustom-house seals, foreign hieroglyphs, and miscellaneous tokens of\nTravel, arrived here in perfect safety, and free of cost. The reader\nshall now fancy with what hot haste it was broken up, with what\nbreathless expectation glanced over; and, alas, with what unquiet\ndisappointment it has, since then, been often thrown down, and again\ntaken up.\n\nHofrath Heuschrecke, in a too long-winded Letter, full of compliments,\nWeissnichtwo politics, dinners, dining repartees, and other ephemeral\ntrivialities, proceeds to remind us of what we knew well already:\nthat however it may be with Metaphysics, and other abstract Science\noriginating in the Head (_Verstand_) alone, no Life-Philosophy\n(_Lebensphilosophie_), such as this of Clothes pretends to be, which\noriginates equally in the Character (_Gemuth_), and equally speaks\nthereto, can attain its significance till the Character itself is known\nand seen; \"till the Author's View of the World (_Weltansicht_), and how\nhe actively and passively came by such view, are clear: in short till\na Biography of him has been philosophico-poetically written, and\nphilosophico-poetically read.... Nay,\" adds he, \"were the speculative\nscientific Truth even known, you still, in this inquiring age, ask\nyourself, Whence came it, and Why, and How?--and rest not, till, if\nno better may be, Fancy have shaped out an answer; and either in the\nauthentic lineaments of Fact, or the forged ones of Fiction, a complete\npicture and Genetical History of the Man and his spiritual Endeavor lies\nbefore you. But why,\" says the Hofrath, and indeed say we, \"do I dilate\non the uses of our Teufelsdrockh's Biography? The great Herr Minister\nvon Goethe has penetratingly remarked that Man is properly the _only_\nobject that interests man:' thus I too have noted, that in Weissnichtwo\nour whole conversation is little or nothing else but Biography or\nAutobiography; ever humano-anecdotical (_menschlich-anekdotisch_).\nBiography is by nature the most universally profitable, universally\npleasant of all things: especially Biography of distinguished\nindividuals.\n\n\"By this time, _mein Verehrtester_ (my Most Esteemed),\" continues\nhe, with an eloquence which, unless the words be purloined from\nTeufelsdrockh, or some trick of his, as we suspect, is well-nigh\nunaccountable, \"by this time you are fairly plunged (_vertieft_) in that\nmighty forest of Clothes-Philosophy; and looking round, as all readers\ndo, with astonishment enough. Such portions and passages as you have\nalready mastered, and brought to paper, could not but awaken a strange\ncuriosity touching the mind they issued from; the perhaps unparalleled\npsychical mechanism, which manufactured such matter, and emitted it to\nthe light of day. Had Teufelsdrockh also a father and mother; did he,\nat one time, wear drivel-bibs, and live on spoon-meat? Did he ever,\nin rapture and tears, clasp a friend's bosom to his; looks he also\nwistfully into the long burial-aisle of the Past, where only winds,\nand their low harsh moan, give inarticulate answer? Has he fought\nduels;--good Heaven! how did he comport himself when in Love? By what\nsingular stair-steps, in short, and subterranean passages, and sloughs\nof Despair, and steep Pisgah hills, has he reached this wonderful\nprophetic Hebron (a true Old-Clothes Jewry) where he now dwells?\n\n\"To all these natural questions the voice of public History is as yet\nsilent. Certain only that he has been, and is, a Pilgrim, and Traveller\nfrom a far Country; more or less footsore and travel-soiled; has\nparted with road-companions; fallen among thieves, been poisoned by bad\ncookery, blistered with bug-bites; nevertheless, at every stage (for\nthey have let him pass), has had the Bill to discharge. But the whole\nparticulars of his Route, his Weather-observations, the picturesque\nSketches he took, though all regularly jotted down (in indelible\nsympathetic-ink by an invisible interior Penman), are these nowhere\nforthcoming? Perhaps quite lost: one other leaf of that mighty Volume\n(of human Memory) left to fly abroad, unprinted, unpublished, unbound\nup, as waste paper; and to rot, the sport of rainy winds?\n\n\"No, _verehrtester Herr Herausgeber_, in no wise! I here, by the\nunexampled favor you stand in with our Sage, send not a Biography only,\nbut an Autobiography: at least the materials for such; wherefrom, if I\nmisreckon not, your perspicacity will draw fullest insight: and so the\nwhole Philosophy and Philosopher of Clothes will stand clear to\nthe wondering eyes of England, nay thence, through America, through\nHindostan, and the antipodal New Holland, finally conquer (_einnehmen_)\ngreat part of this terrestrial Planet!\"\n\nAnd now let the sympathizing reader judge of our feeling when, in\nplace of this same Autobiography with \"fullest insight,\" we find--Six\nconsiderable PAPER-BAGS, carefully sealed, and marked successively, in\ngilt China-ink, with the symbols of the Six southern Zodiacal Signs,\nbeginning at Libra; in the inside of which sealed Bags lie miscellaneous\nmasses of Sheets, and oftener Shreds and Snips, written in Professor\nTeufelsdrockh's scarce legible _cursiv-schrift_; and treating of all\nimaginable things under the Zodiac and above it, but of his own personal\nhistory only at rare intervals, and then in the most enigmatic manner.\n\nWhole fascicles there are, wherein the Professor, or, as he here,\nspeaking in the third person, calls himself, \"the Wanderer,\" is not once\nnamed. Then again, amidst what seems to be a Metaphysico-theological\nDisquisition, \"Detached Thoughts on the Steam-engine,\" or, \"The\ncontinued Possibility of Prophecy,\" we shall meet with some quite\nprivate, not unimportant Biographical fact. On certain sheets stand\nDreams, authentic or not, while the circumjacent waking Actions are\nomitted. Anecdotes, oftenest without date of place or time, fly loosely\non separate slips, like Sibylline leaves. Interspersed also are long\npurely Autobiographical delineations; yet without connection, without\nrecognizable coherence; so unimportant, so superfluously minute, they\nalmost remind us of \"P.P. Clerk of this Parish.\" Thus does famine of\nintelligence alternate with waste. Selection, order, appears to be\nunknown to the Professor. In all Bags the same imbroglio; only perhaps\nin the Bag _Capricorn_, and those near it, the confusion a little\nworse confounded. Close by a rather eloquent Oration, \"On receiving the\nDoctor's-Hat,\" lie wash-bills, marked _bezahlt_ (settled). His Travels\nare indicated by the Street-Advertisements of the various cities he has\nvisited; of which Street-Advertisements, in most living tongues, here is\nperhaps the completest collection extant.\n\nSo that if the Clothes-Volume itself was too like a Chaos, we have now\ninstead of the solar Luminary that should still it, the airy Limbo which\nby intermixture will farther volatilize and discompose it! As we shall\nperhaps see it our duty ultimately to deposit these Six Paper-Bags in\nthe British Museum, farther description, and all vituperation of them,\nmay be spared. Biography or Autobiography of Teufelsdrockh there is,\nclearly enough, none to be gleaned here: at most some sketchy,\nshadowy fugitive likeness of him may, by unheard-of efforts, partly of\nintellect, partly of imagination, on the side of Editor and of Reader,\nrise up between them. Only as a gaseous-chaotic Appendix to that\naqueous-chaotic Volume can the contents of the Six Bags hover round us,\nand portions thereof be incorporated with our delineation of it.\n\nDaily and nightly does the Editor sit (with green spectacles)\ndeciphering these unimaginable Documents from their perplexed\n_cursiv-schrift_; collating them with the almost equally unimaginable\nVolume, which stands in legible print. Over such a universal medley of\nhigh and low, of hot, cold, moist and dry, is he here struggling (by\nunion of like with like, which is Method) to build a firm Bridge for\nBritish travellers. Never perhaps since our first Bridge-builders, Sin\nand Death, built that stupendous Arch from Hell-gate to the Earth, did\nany Pontifex, or Pontiff, undertake such a task as the present Editor.\nFor in this Arch too, leading, as we humbly presume, far otherwards\nthan that grand primeval one, the materials are to be fished up from the\nweltering deep, and down from the simmering air, here one mass, there\nanother, and cunningly cemented, while the elements boil beneath: nor is\nthere any supernatural force to do it with; but simply the Diligence\nand feeble thinking Faculty of an English Editor, endeavoring to evolve\nprinted Creation out of a German printed and written Chaos, wherein, as\nhe shoots to and fro in it, gathering, clutching, piecing the Why to\nthe far-distant Wherefore, his whole Faculty and Self are like to be\nswallowed up.\n\nPatiently, under these incessant toils and agitations, does the Editor,\ndismissing all anger, see his otherwise robust health declining; some\nfraction of his allotted natural sleep nightly leaving him, and little\nbut an inflamed nervous-system to be looked for. What is the use of\nhealth, or of life, if not to do some work therewith? And what work\nnobler than transplanting foreign Thought into the barren domestic\nsoil; except indeed planting Thought of your own, which the fewest are\nprivileged to do? Wild as it looks, this Philosophy of Clothes, can we\never reach its real meaning, promises to reveal new-coming Eras, the\nfirst dim rudiments and already-budding germs of a nobler Era, in\nUniversal History. Is not such a prize worth some striving? Forward with\nus, courageous reader; be it towards failure, or towards success! The\nlatter thou sharest with us; the former also is not all our own.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. GENESIS.\n\nIn a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable whether\nfrom birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinized soever, much insight\nis to be gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenomenon the Beginning\nremains always the most notable moment; so, with regard to any great\nman, we rest not till, for our scientific profit or not, the whole\ncircumstances of his first appearance in this Planet, and what manner of\nPublic Entry he made, are with utmost completeness rendered manifest.\nTo the Genesis of our Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this First Chapter\nconsecrated. Unhappily, indeed, he seems to be of quite obscure\nextraction; uncertain, we might almost say, whether of any: so that this\nGenesis of his can properly be nothing but an Exodus (or transit out\nof Invisibility into Visibility); whereof the preliminary portion is\nnowhere forthcoming.\n\n\"In the village of Entepfuhl,\" thus writes he, in the Bag _Libra_,\non various Papers, which we arrange with difficulty, \"dwelt Andreas\nFutteral and his wife; childless, in still seclusion, and cheerful\nthough now verging towards old age. Andreas had been grenadier Sergeant,\nand even regimental Schoolmaster under Frederick the Great; but\nnow, quitting the halbert and ferule for the spade and pruning-hook,\ncultivated a little Orchard, on the produce of which he,\nCincinnatus-like, lived not without dignity. Fruits, the peach, the\napple, the grape, with other varieties came in their season; all which\nAndreas knew how to sell: on evenings he smoked largely, or read (as\nbeseemed a regimental Schoolmaster), and talked to neighbors that would\nlisten about the Victory of Rossbach; and how Fritz the Only (_der\nEinzige_) had once with his own royal lips spoken to him, had been\npleased to say, when Andreas as camp-sentinel demanded the pass-word,\n'_Schweig Hund_ (Peace, hound)!' before any of his staff-adjutants could\nanswer. '_Das nenn' ich mir einen Konig_, There is what I call a King,'\nwould Andreas exclaim: 'but the smoke of Kunersdorf was still smarting\nhis eyes.'\n\n\"Gretchen, the housewife, won like Desdemona by the deeds rather than\nthe looks of her now veteran Othello, lived not in altogether military\nsubordination; for, as Andreas said, 'the womankind will not drill (_wer\nkann die Weiberchen dressiren_):' nevertheless she at heart loved him\nboth for valor and wisdom; to her a Prussian grenadier Sergeant and\nRegiment's Schoolmaster was little other than a Cicero and Cid: what you\nsee, yet cannot see over, is as good as infinite. Nay, was not Andreas\nin very deed a man of order, courage, downrightness (_Geradheit_); that\nunderstood Busching's _Geography_, had been in the victory of Rossbach,\nand left for dead in the camisade of Hochkirch? The good Gretchen, for\nall her fretting, watched over him and hovered round him as only a true\nhouse-mother can: assiduously she cooked and sewed and scoured for him;\nso that not only his old regimental sword and grenadier-cap, but the\nwhole habitation and environment, where on pegs of honor they hung,\nlooked ever trim and gay: a roomy painted Cottage, embowered in\nfruit-trees and forest-trees, evergreens and honeysuckles; rising\nmany-colored from amid shaven grass-plots, flowers struggling in\nthrough the very windows; under its long projecting eaves nothing but\ngarden-tools in methodic piles (to screen them from rain), and seats\nwhere, especially on summer nights, a King might have wished to sit and\nsmoke, and call it his. Such a Bauergut (Copyhold) had Gretchen given\nher veteran; whose sinewy arms, and long-disused gardening talent, had\nmade it what you saw.\n\n\"Into this umbrageous Man's-nest, one meek yellow evening or dusk, when\nthe Sun, hidden indeed from terrestrial Entepfuhl, did nevertheless\njourney visible and radiant along the celestial Balance (_Libra_),\nit was that a Stranger of reverend aspect entered; and, with grave\nsalutation, stood before the two rather astonished housemates. He was\nclose-muffled in a wide mantle; which without farther parley unfolding,\nhe deposited therefrom what seemed some Basket, overhung with\ngreen Persian silk; saying only: _Ihr lieben Leute, hier bringe ein\nunschatzbares Verleihen; nehmt es in aller Acht, sorgfaltigst benutzt\nes: mit hohem Lohn, oder wohl mit schweren Zinsen, wird's einst\nzuruckgefordert_. 'Good Christian people, here lies for you an\ninvaluable Loan; take all heed thereof, in all carefulness employ it:\nwith high recompense, or else with heavy penalty, will it one day be\nrequired back.' Uttering which singular words, in a clear, bell-like,\nforever memorable tone, the Stranger gracefully withdrew; and before\nAndreas or his wife, gazing in expectant wonder, had time to fashion\neither question or answer, was clean gone. Neither out of doors could\naught of him be seen or heard; he had vanished in the thickets, in the\ndusk; the Orchard-gate stood quietly closed: the Stranger was gone once\nand always. So sudden had the whole transaction been, in the autumn\nstillness and twilight, so gentle, noiseless, that the Futterals could\nhave fancied it all a trick of Imagination, or some visit from an\nauthentic Spirit. Only that the green-silk Basket, such as neither\nImagination nor authentic Spirits are wont to carry, still stood visible\nand tangible on their little parlor-table. Towards this the astonished\ncouple, now with lit candle, hastily turned their attention. Lifting\nthe green veil, to see what invaluable it hid, they descried there, amid\ndown and rich white wrappages, no Pitt Diamond or Hapsburg Regalia, but,\nin the softest sleep, a little red-colored Infant! Beside it, lay a roll\nof gold Friedrichs, the exact amount of which was never publicly known;\nalso a _Taufschein_ (baptismal certificate), wherein unfortunately\nnothing but the Name was decipherable, other document or indication none\nwhatever.\n\n\"To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then and always thenceforth.\nNowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next day, did tidings transpire\nof any such figure as the Stranger; nor could the Traveller, who had\npassed through the neighboring Town in coach-and-four, be connected with\nthis Apparition, except in the way of gratuitous surmise. Meanwhile, for\nAndreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was: What to do\nwith this little sleeping red-colored Infant? Amid amazements and\ncuriosities, which had to die away without external satisfying, they\nresolved, as in such circumstances charitable prudent people needs must,\non nursing it, though with spoon-meat, into whiteness, and if possible\ninto manhood. The Heavens smiled on their endeavor: thus has that\nsame mysterious Individual ever since had a status for himself in this\nvisible Universe, some modicum of victual and lodging and parade-ground;\nand now expanded in bulk, faculty and knowledge of good and evil, he, as\nHERR DIOGENES TEUFELSDROCKH, professes or is ready to profess, perhaps\nnot altogether without effect, in the new University of Weissnichtwo,\nthe new Science of Things in General.\"\n\nOur Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should think he well might,\nthat these facts, first communicated, by the good Gretchen Futteral,\nIn his twelfth year, \"produced on the boyish heart and fancy a quite\nindelible impression. Who this reverend Personage,\" he says, \"that\nglided into the Orchard Cottage when the Sun was in Libra, and then, as\non spirit's wings, glided out again, might be? An inexpressible desire,\nfull of love and of sadness, has often since struggled within me to\nshape an answer. Ever, in my distresses and my loneliness, has Fantasy\nturned, full of longing (_sehnsuchtsvoll_), to that unknown Father,\nwho perhaps far from me, perhaps near, either way invisible, might have\ntaken me to his paternal bosom, there to lie screened from many a woe.\nThou beloved Father, dost thou still, shut out from me only by thin\npenetrable curtains of earthly Space, wend to and fro among the crowd\nof the living? Or art thou hidden by those far thicker curtains of the\nEverlasting Night, or rather of the Everlasting Day, through which my\nmortal eye and outstretched arms need not strive to reach? Alas, I know\nnot, and in vain vex myself to know. More than once, heart-deluded,\nhave I taken for thee this and the other noble-looking Stranger; and\napproached him wistfully, with infinite regard; but he too had to repel\nme, he too was not thou.\n\n\"And yet, O Man born of Woman,\" cries the Autobiographer, with one of\nhis sudden whirls, \"wherein is my case peculiar? Hadst thou, any more\nthan I, a Father whom thou knowest? The Andreas and Gretchen, or the\nAdam and Eve, who led thee into Life, and for a time suckled and pap-fed\nthee there, whom thou namest Father and Mother; these were, like mine,\nbut thy nursing-father and nursing-mother: thy true Beginning and Father\nis in Heaven, whom with the bodily eye thou shalt never behold, but only\nwith the spiritual....\n\n\"The little green veil,\" adds he, among much similar moralizing, and\nembroiled discoursing, \"I yet keep; still more inseparably the Name,\nDiogenes Teufelsdrockh. From the veil can nothing be inferred: a piece\nof now quite faded Persian silk, like thousands of others. On the Name I\nhave many times meditated and conjectured; but neither in this lay\nthere any clew. That it was my unknown Father's name I must hesitate to\nbelieve. To no purpose have I searched through all the Herald's\nBooks, in and without the German Empire, and through all manner\nof Subscriber-Lists (_Pranumeranten_), Militia-Rolls, and other\nName-catalogues; extraordinary names as we have in Germany, the name\nTeufelsdrockh, except as appended to my own person, nowhere occurs.\nAgain, what may the unchristian rather than Christian 'Diogenes' mean?\nDid that reverend Basket-bearer intend, by such designation, to shadow\nforth my future destiny, or his own present malign humor? Perhaps the\nlatter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starred Parent, who like an Ostrich hadst\nto leave thy ill-starred offspring to be hatched into self-support by\nthe mere sky-influences of Chance, can thy pilgrimage have been a smooth\none? Beset by Misfortune thou doubtless hast been; or indeed by the\nworst figure of Misfortune, by Misconduct. Often have I fancied how,\nin thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot at, and slung at, wounded,\nhand-fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten and bedevilled by the Time-Spirit\n(_Zeitgeist_) in thyself and others, till the good soul first given thee\nwas seered into grim rage, and thou hadst nothing for it but to leave\nin me an indignant appeal to the Future, and living speaking Protest\nagainst the Devil, as that same Spirit not of the Time only, but of Time\nitself, is well named! Which Appeal and Protest, may I now modestly add,\nwas not perhaps quite lost in air.\n\n\"For indeed, as Walter Shandy often insisted, there is much, nay almost\nall, in Names. The Name is the earliest Garment you wrap round the\nearth-visiting ME; to which it thenceforth cleaves, more tenaciously\n(for there are Names that have lasted nigh thirty centuries) than the\nvery skin. And now from without, what mystic influences does it not send\ninwards, even to the centre; especially in those plastic first-times,\nwhen the whole soul is yet infantine, soft, and the invisible seedgrain\nwill grow to be an all overshadowing tree! Names? Could I unfold the\ninfluence of Names, which are the most important of all Clothings, I\nwere a second greater Trismegistus. Not only all common Speech, but\nScience, Poetry itself is no other, if thou consider it, than a right\n_Naming_. Adam's first task was giving names to natural Appearances:\nwhat is ours still but a continuation of the same; be the Appearances\nexotic-vegetable, organic, mechanic, stars, or starry movements (as\nin Science); or (as in Poetry) passions, virtues, calamities,\nGod-attributes, Gods?--In a very plain sense the Proverb says, _Call\none a thief, and he will steal_; in an almost similar sense may we not\nperhaps say, _Call one Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, and he will open the\nPhilosophy of Clothes_?\"\n\n\n\"Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all ignorant of his Why,\nhis How or Whereabout, was opening his eyes to the kind Light; sprawling\nout his ten fingers and toes; listening, tasting, feeling; in a word,\nby all his Five Senses, still more by his Sixth Sense of Hunger, and a\nwhole infinitude of inward, spiritual, half-awakened Senses, endeavoring\ndaily to acquire for himself some knowledge of this strange Universe\nwhere he had arrived, be his task therein what it might. Infinite was\nhis progress; thus in some fifteen months, he could perform the miracle\nof--Speech! To breed a fresh Soul, is it not like brooding a fresh\n(celestial) Egg; wherein as yet all is formless, powerless; yet by\ndegrees organic elements and fibres shoot through the watery albumen;\nand out of vague Sensation grows Thought, grows Fantasy and Force, and\nwe have Philosophies, Dynasties, nay Poetries and Religions!\n\n\"Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such diminutive\nhad they in their fondness named him, travelled forward to those high\nconsummations, by quick yet easy stages. The Futterals, to avoid vain\ntalk, and moreover keep the roll of gold Friedrichs safe, gave out that\nhe was a grandnephew; the orphan of some sister's daughter, suddenly\ndeceased, in Andreas's distant Prussian birthland; of whom, as of\nher indigent sorrowing widower, little enough was known at Entepfuhl.\nHeedless of all which, the Nursling took to his spoon-meat, and throve.\nI have heard him noted as a still infant, that kept his mind much to\nhimself; above all, that seldom or never cried. He already felt\nthat time was precious; that he had other work cut out for him than\nwhimpering.\"\n\n\nSuch, after utmost painful search and collation among these\nmiscellaneous Paper-masses, is all the notice we can gather of Herr\nTeufelsdrockh's genealogy. More imperfect, more enigmatic it can seem\nto few readers than to us. The Professor, in whom truly we more and more\ndiscern a certain satirical turn, and deep under-currents of roguish\nwhim, for the present stands pledged in honor, so we will not doubt him:\nbut seems it not conceivable that, by the \"good Gretchen Futteral,\"\nor some other perhaps interested party, he has himself been deceived?\nShould these sheets, translated or not, ever reach the Entepfuhl\nCirculating Library, some cultivated native of that district might feel\ncalled to afford explanation. Nay, since Books, like invisible scouts,\npermeate the whole habitable globe, and Timbuctoo itself is not safe\nfrom British Literature, may not some Copy find out even the mysterious\nbasket-bearing Stranger, who in a state of extreme senility perhaps\nstill exists; and gently force even him to disclose himself; to claim\nopenly a son, in whom any father may feel pride?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. IDYLLIC.\n\n\"HAPPY season of Childhood!\" exclaims Teufelsdrockh: \"Kind Nature, that\nart to all a bountiful mother; that visitest the poor man's hut with\nauroral radiance; and for thy Nursling hast provided a soft swathing\nof Love and infinite Hope, wherein he waxes and slumbers, danced round\n(_umgaukelt_) by sweetest Dreams! If the paternal Cottage still shuts us\nin, its roof still screens us; with a Father we have as yet a prophet,\npriest and king, and an Obedience that makes us free. The young spirit\nhas awakened out of Eternity, and knows not what we mean by Time; as yet\nTime is no fast-hurrying stream, but a sportful sunlit ocean; years to\nthe child are as ages: ah! the secret of Vicissitude, of that slower or\nquicker decay and ceaseless down-rushing of the universal World-fabric,\nfrom the granite mountain to the man or day-moth, is yet unknown; and in\na motionless Universe, we taste, what afterwards in this quick-whirling\nUniverse is forever denied us, the balm of Rest. Sleep on, thou fair\nChild, for thy long rough journey is at hand! A little while, and thou\ntoo shalt sleep no more, but thy very dreams shall be mimic battles;\nthou too, with old Arnauld, wilt have to say in stern patience: 'Rest?\nRest? Shall I not have all Eternity to rest in?' Celestial Nepenthe!\nthough a Pyrrhus conquer empires, and an Alexander sack the world, he\nfinds thee not; and thou hast once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on\nthe eyelids, on the heart of every mother's child. For as yet, sleep\nand waking are one: the fair Life-garden rustles infinite around, and\neverywhere is dewy fragrance, and the budding of Hope; which budding, if\nin youth, too frost-nipt, it grow to flowers, will in manhood yield no\nfruit, but a prickly, bitter-rinded stone-fruit, of which the fewest can\nfind the kernel.\"\n\nIn such rose-colored light does our Professor, as Poets are wont, look\nback on his childhood; the historical details of which (to say nothing\nof much other vague oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells on with an\nalmost wearisome minuteness. We hear of Entepfuhl standing \"in trustful\nderangement\" among the woody slopes; the paternal Orchard flanking it as\nextreme outpost from below; the little Kuhbach gushing kindly by, among\nbeech-rows, through river after river, into the Donau, into the Black\nSea, into the Atmosphere and Universe; and how \"the brave old Linden,\"\nstretching like a parasol of twenty ells in radius, overtopping all\nother rows and clumps, towered up from the central _Agora_ and _Campus\nMartius_ of the Village, like its Sacred Tree; and how the old men sat\ntalking under its shadow (Gneschen often greedily listening), and the\nwearied laborers reclined, and the unwearied children sported, and the\nyoung men and maidens often danced to flute-music. \"Glorious summer\ntwilights,\" cries Teufelsdrockh, \"when the Sun, like a proud Conqueror\nand Imperial Taskmaster, turned his back, with his gold-purple\nemblazonry, and all his fireclad bodyguard (of Prismatic Colors); and\nthe tired brickmakers of this clay Earth might steal a little frolic,\nand those few meek Stars would not tell of them!\"\n\nThen we have long details of the _Weinlesen_ (Vintage), the\nHarvest-Home, Christmas, and so forth; with a whole cycle of the\nEntepfuhl Children's-games, differing apparently by mere superficial\nshades from those of other countries. Concerning all which, we shall\nhere, for obvious reasons, say nothing. What cares the world for our as\nyet miniature Philosopher's achievements under that \"brave old Linden \"?\nOr even where is the use of such practical reflections as the following?\n\"In all the sports of Children, were it only in their wanton breakages\nand defacements, you shall discern a creative instinct (_schaffenden\nTrieb_): the Mankin feels that he is a born Man, that his vocation is\nto work. The choicest present you can make him is a Tool; be it knife or\npen-gun, for construction or for destruction; either way it is for Work,\nfor Change. In gregarious sports of skill or strength, the Boy trains\nhimself to Co-operation, for war or peace, as governor or governed:\nthe little Maid again, provident of her domestic destiny, takes with\npreference to Dolls.\"\n\nPerhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, considering who it is that\nrelates it: \"My first short-clothes were of yellow serge; or rather,\nI should say, my first short-cloth, for the vesture was one and\nindivisible, reaching from neck to ankle, a mere body with four limbs:\nof which fashion how little could I then divine the architectural, how\nmuch less the moral significance!\"\n\nMore graceful is the following little picture: \"On fine evenings I was\nwont to carry forth my supper (bread-crumb boiled in milk), and eat it\nout-of-doors. On the coping of the Orchard-wall, which I could reach\nby climbing, or still more easily if Father Andreas would set up the\npruning-ladder, my porringer was placed: there, many a sunset, have I,\nlooking at the distant western Mountains, consumed, not without relish,\nmy evening meal. Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of World's\nexpectation as Day died, were still a Hebrew Speech for me; nevertheless\nI was looking at the fair illuminated Letters, and had an eye for their\ngilding.\"\n\nWith \"the little one's friendship for cattle and poultry\" we shall not\nmuch intermeddle. It may be that hereby he acquired a \"certain deeper\nsympathy with animated Nature:\" but when, we would ask, saw any man,\nin a collection of Biographical Documents, such a piece as this:\n\"Impressive enough (_bedeutungsvoll_) was it to hear, in early morning,\nthe Swineherd's horn; and know that so many hungry happy quadrupeds\nwere, on all sides, starting in hot haste to join him, for breakfast on\nthe Heath. Or to see them at eventide, all marching in again, with short\nsqueak, almost in military order; and each, topographically correct,\ntrotting off in succession to the right or left, through its own lane,\nto its own dwelling; till old Kunz, at the Village-head, now left alone,\nblew his last blast, and retired for the night. We are wont to love the\nHog chiefly in the form of Ham; yet did not these bristly thick-skinned\nbeings here manifest intelligence, perhaps humor of character; at any\nrate, a touching, trustful submissiveness to Man,--who, were he but a\nSwineherd, in darned gabardine, and leather breeches more resembling\nslate or discolored-tin breeches, is still the Hierarch of this lower\nworld?\"\n\nIt is maintained, by Helvetius and his set, that an infant of genius\nis quite the same as any other infant, only that certain surprisingly\nfavorable influences accompany him through life, especially through\nchildhood, and expand him, while others lie close-folded and continue\ndunces. Herein, say they, consists the whole difference between an\ninspired Prophet and a double-barrelled Game-preserver: the inner man of\nthe one has been fostered into generous development; that of the other,\ncrushed down perhaps by vigor of animal digestion, and the like, has\nexuded and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably stagnant at\nthe bottom of his stomach. \"With which opinion,\" cries Teufelsdrockh,\n\"I should as soon agree as with this other, that an acorn might, by\nfavorable or unfavorable influences of soil and climate, be nursed into\na cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into an oak.\n\n\"Nevertheless,\" continues he, \"I too acknowledge the all-but omnipotence\nof early culture and nurture: hereby we have either a doddered dwarf\nbush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree; either a sick yellow\ncabbage, or an edible luxuriant green one. Of a truth, it is the duty of\nall men, especially of all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the\ncharacteristic circumstances of their Education, what furthered, what\nhindered, what in any way modified it: to which duty, nowadays so\npressing for many a German Autobiographer, I also zealously address\nmyself.\"--Thou rogue! Is it by short clothes of yellow serge, and\nswineherd horns, that an infant of genius is educated? And yet, as\nusual, it ever remains doubtful whether he is laughing in his sleeve at\nthese Autobiographical times of ours, or writing from the abundance of\nhis own fond ineptitude. For he continues: \"If among the ever-streaming\ncurrents of Sights, Hearings, Feelings for Pain or Pleasure, whereby, as\nin a Magic Hall, young Gneschen went about environed, I might venture to\nselect and specify, perhaps these following were also of the number:\n\n\"Doubtless, as childish sports call forth Intellect, Activity, so the\nyoung creature's Imagination was stirred up, and a Historical tendency\ngiven him by the narrative habits of Father Andreas; who, with his\nbattle-reminiscences, and gray austere yet hearty patriarchal aspect,\ncould not but appear another Ulysses and 'much-enduring Man.' Eagerly I\nhung upon his tales, when listening neighbors enlivened the hearth; from\nthese perils and these travels, wild and far almost as Hades itself, a\ndim world of Adventure expanded itself within me. Incalculable also\nwas the knowledge I acquired in standing by the Old Men under the\nLinden-tree: the whole of Immensity was yet new to me; and had not these\nreverend seniors, talkative enough, been employed in partial surveys\nthereof for nigh fourscore years? With amazement I began to discover\nthat Entepfuhl stood in the middle of a Country, of a World; that there\nwas such a thing as History, as Biography to which I also, one day, by\nhand and tongue, might contribute.\n\n\"In a like sense worked the _Postwagen_ (Stage-coach), which,\nslow-rolling under its mountains of men and luggage, wended through our\nVillage: northwards, truly, in the dead of night; yet southwards visibly\nat eventide. Not till my eighth year did I reflect that this Postwagen\ncould be other than some terrestrial Moon, rising and setting by mere\nLaw of Nature, like the heavenly one; that it came on made highways,\nfrom far cities towards far cities; weaving them like a monstrous\nshuttle into closer and closer union. It was then that, independently\nof Schiller's _Wilhelm Tell_, I made this not quite insignificant\nreflection (so true also in spiritual things): _Any road, this simple\nEntepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the World_!\n\n\"Why mention our Swallows, which, out of far Africa, as I learned,\nthreading their way over seas and mountains, corporate cities and\nbelligerent nations, yearly found themselves with the month of\nMay, snug-lodged in our Cottage Lobby? The hospitable Father (for\ncleanliness' sake) had fixed a little bracket plumb under their nest:\nthere they built, and caught flies, and twittered, and bred; and all, I\nchiefly, from the heart loved them. Bright, nimble creatures, who\ntaught you the mason-craft; nay, stranger still, gave you a masonic\nincorporation, almost social police? For if, by ill chance, and when\ntime pressed, your House fell, have I not seen five neighborly\nHelpers appear next day; and swashing to and fro, with animated, loud,\nlong-drawn chirpings, and activity almost super-hirundine, complete it\nagain before nightfall?\n\n\"But undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl child's culture,\nwhere as in a funnel its manifold influences were concentrated and\nsimultaneously poured down on us, was the annual Cattle-fair. Here,\nassembling from all the four winds, came the elements of an unspeakable\nhurry-burly. Nut-brown maids and nut-brown men, all clear-washed,\nloud-laughing, bedizened and beribanded; who came for dancing, for\ntreating, and if possible, for happiness. Topbooted Graziers from the\nNorth; Swiss Brokers, Italian Drovers, also topbooted, from the South;\nthese with their subalterns in leather jerkins, leather skull-caps, and\nlong ox-goads; shouting in half-articulate speech, amid the inarticulate\nbarking and bellowing. Apart stood Potters from far Saxony, with their\ncrockery in fair rows; Nurnberg Pedlers, in booths that to me seemed\nricher than Ormuz bazaars; Showmen from the Lago Maggiore; detachments\nof the _Wiener Schub_ (Offscourings of Vienna) vociferously\nsuperintending games of chance. Ballad-singers brayed, Auctioneers\ngrew hoarse; cheap New Wine (_heuriger_) flowed like water, still\nworse confounding the confusion; and high over all, vaulted, in\nground-and-lofty tumbling, a particolored Merry-Andrew, like the genius\nof the place and of Life itself.\n\n\"Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence; under the deep heavenly\nFirmament; waited on by the four golden Seasons, with their vicissitudes\nof contribution, for even grim Winter brought its skating-matches and\nshooting-matches, its snow-storms and Christmas-carols,--did the Child\nsit and learn. These things were the Alphabet, whereby in aftertime\nhe was to syllable and partly read the grand Volume of the World: what\nmatters it whether such Alphabet be in large gilt letters or in small\nungilt ones, so you have an eye to read it? For Gneschen, eager to\nlearn, the very act of looking thereon was a blessedness that gilded\nall: his existence was a bright, soft element of Joy; out of which, as\nin Prospero's Island, wonder after wonder bodied itself forth, to teach\nby charming.\n\n\"Nevertheless, I were but a vain dreamer to say, that even then my\nfelicity was perfect. I had, once for all, come down from Heaven into\nthe Earth. Among the rainbow colors that glowed on my horizon, lay even\nin childhood a dark ring of Care, as yet no thicker than a thread, and\noften quite overshone; yet always it reappeared, nay ever waxing broader\nand broader; till in after-years it almost overshadowed my whole canopy,\nand threatened to engulf me in final night. It was the ring of Necessity\nwhereby we are all begirt; happy he for whom a kind heavenly Sun\nbrightens it into a ring of Duty, and plays round it with beautiful\nprismatic diffractions; yet ever, as basis and as bourn for our whole\nbeing, it is there.\n\n\"For the first few years of our terrestrial Apprenticeship, we have not\nmuch work to do; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are set down mostly\nto look about us over the workshop, and see others work, till we have\nunderstood the tools a little, and can handle this and that. If good\nPassivity alone, and not good Passivity and good Activity together, were\nthe thing wanted, then was my early position favorable beyond the most.\nIn all that respects openness of Sense, affectionate Temper, ingenuous\nCuriosity, and the fostering of these, what more could I have wished?\nOn the other side, however, things went not so well. My Active Power\n(_Thatkraft_) was unfavorably hemmed in; of which misfortune how many\ntraces yet abide with me! In an orderly house, where the litter of\nchildren's sports is hateful enough, your training is too stoical;\nrather to bear and forbear than to make and do. I was forbid much:\nwishes in any measure bold I had to renounce; everywhere a strait bond\nof Obedience inflexibly held me down. Thus already Freewill often came\nin painful collision with Necessity; so that my tears flowed, and at\nseasons the Child itself might taste that root of bitterness, wherewith\nthe whole fruitage of our life is mingled and tempered.\n\n\"In which habituation to Obedience, truly, it was beyond measure safer\nto err by excess than by defect. Obedience is our universal duty and\ndestiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break: too early and too\nthoroughly we cannot be trained to know that Would, in this world of\nours, is as mere zero to Should, and for most part as the smallest of\nfractions even to Shall. Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly\nDiscretion, nay of Morality itself. Let me not quarrel with my\nupbringing. It was rigorous, too frugal, compressively secluded, every\nway unscientific: yet in that very strictness and domestic solitude\nmight there not lie the root of deeper earnestness, of the stem from\nwhich all noble fruit must grow? Above all, how unskilful soever, it was\nloving, it was well-meant, honest; whereby every deficiency was helped.\nMy kind Mother, for as such I must ever love the good Gretchen, did me\none altogether invaluable service: she taught me, less indeed by word\nthan by act and daily reverent look and habitude, her own simple version\nof the Christian Faith. Andreas too attended Church; yet more like\na parade-duty, for which he in the other world expected pay with\narrears,--as, I trust, he has received; but my Mother, with a true\nwoman's heart, and fine though uncultivated sense, was in the strictest\nacceptation Religious. How indestructibly the Good grows, and propagates\nitself, even among the weedy entanglements of Evil! The highest whom\nI knew on Earth I here saw bowed down, with awe unspeakable, before a\nHigher in Heaven: such things, especially in infancy, reach inwards to\nthe very core of your being; mysteriously does a Holy of Holies build\nitself into visibility in the mysterious deeps; and Reverence, the\ndivinest in man, springs forth undying from its mean envelopment of\nFear. Wouldst thou rather be a peasant's son that knew, were it never so\nrudely, there was a God in Heaven and in Man; or a duke's son that only\nknew there were two-and-thirty quarters on the family-coach?\"\n\nTo which last question we must answer: Beware, O Teufelsdrockh, of\nspiritual pride!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. PEDAGOGY.\n\nHitherto we see young Gneschen, in his indivisible case of yellow serge,\nborne forward mostly on the arms of kind Nature alone; seated, indeed,\nand much to his mind, in the terrestrial workshop, but (except his\nsoft hazel eyes, which we doubt not already gleamed with a still\nintelligence) called upon for little voluntary movement there. Hitherto,\naccordingly, his aspect is rather generic, that of an incipient\nPhilosopher and Poet in the abstract; perhaps it would puzzle Herr\nHeuschrecke himself to say wherein the special Doctrine of Clothes is\nas yet foreshadowed or betokened. For with Gneschen, as with others, the\nMan may indeed stand pictured in the Boy (at least all the pigments are\nthere); yet only some half of the Man stands in the Child, or young Boy,\nnamely, his Passive endowment, not his Active. The more impatient are we\nto discover what figure he cuts in this latter capacity; how, when, to\nuse his own words, \"he understands the tools a little, and can handle\nthis or that,\" he will proceed to handle it.\n\nHere, however, may be the place to state that, in much of our\nPhilosopher's history, there is something of an almost Hindoo character:\nnay perhaps in that so well-fostered and every way excellent \"Passivity\"\nof his, which, with no free development of the antagonist Activity,\ndistinguished his childhood, we may detect the rudiments of much that,\nin after days, and still in these present days, astonishes the world.\nFor the shallow-sighted, Teufelsdrockh is oftenest a man without\nActivity of any kind, a No-man; for the deep-sighted, again, a man\nwith Activity almost superabundant, yet so spiritual, close-hidden,\nenigmatic, that no mortal can foresee its explosions, or even when\nit has exploded, so much as ascertain its significance. A dangerous,\ndifficult temper for the modern European; above all, disadvantageous in\nthe hero of a Biography! Now as heretofore it will behoove the Editor of\nthese pages, were it never so unsuccessfully, to do his endeavor.\n\nAmong the earliest tools of any complicacy which a man, especially a man\nof letters, gets to handle, are his Class-books. On this portion of his\nHistory, Teufelsdrockh looks down professedly as indifferent. Reading he\n\"cannot remember ever to have learned;\" so perhaps had it by nature.\nHe says generally: \"Of the insignificant portion of my Education, which\ndepended on Schools, there need almost no notice be taken. I learned\nwhat others learn; and kept it stored by in a corner of my head,\nseeing as yet no manner of use in it. My Schoolmaster, a down-bent,\nbroken-hearted, underfoot martyr, as others of that guild are, did\nlittle for me, except discover that he could do little: he, good soul,\npronounced me a genius, fit for the learned professions; and that I must\nbe sent to the Gymnasium, and one day to the University. Meanwhile,\nwhat printed thing soever I could meet with I read. My very copper\npocket-money I laid out on stall-literature; which, as it accumulated,\nI with my own hands sewed into volumes. By this means was the young\nhead furnished with a considerable miscellany of things and shadows\nof things: History in authentic fragments lay mingled with Fabulous\nchimeras, wherein also was reality; and the whole not as dead stuff, but\nas living pabulum, tolerably nutritive for a mind as yet so peptic.\"\n\nThat the Entepfuhl Schoolmaster judged well, we now know. Indeed,\nalready in the youthful Gneschen, with all his outward stillness, there\nmay have been manifest an inward vivacity that promised much; symptoms\nof a spirit singularly open, thoughtful, almost poetical. Thus, to say\nnothing of his Suppers on the Orchard-wall, and other phenomena of that\nearlier period, have many readers of these pages stumbled, in their\ntwelfth year, on such reflections as the following? \"It struck me much,\nas I sat by the Kuhbach, one silent noontide, and watched it flowing,\ngurgling, to think how this same streamlet had flowed and gurgled,\nthrough all changes of weather and of fortune, from beyond the earliest\ndate of History. Yes, probably on the morning when Joshua forded Jordan;\neven as at the mid-day when Caesar, doubtless with difficulty, swam the\nNile, yet kept his _Commentaries_ dry,--this little Kuhbach, assiduous\nas Tiber, Eurotas or Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilderness, as\nyet unnamed, unseen: here, too, as in the Euphrates and the Ganges, is\na vein or veinlet of the grand World-circulation of Waters, which, with\nits atmospheric arteries, has lasted and lasts simply with the World.\nThou fool! Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that\nidle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age.\" In which little\nthought, as in a little fountain, may there not lie the beginning of\nthose well-nigh unutterable meditations on the grandeur and mystery\nof TIME, and its relation to ETERNITY, which play such a part in this\nPhilosophy of Clothes?\n\nOver his Gymnasic and Academic years the Professor by no means lingers\nso lyrical and joyful as over his childhood. Green sunny tracts there\nare still; but intersected by bitter rivulets of tears, here and there\nstagnating into sour marshes of discontent. \"With my first view of the\nHinterschlag Gymnasium,\" writes he, \"my evil days began. Well do I still\nremember the red sunny Whitsuntide morning, when, trotting full of hope\nby the side of Father Andreas, I entered the main street of the place,\nand saw its steeple-clock (then striking Eight) and _Schuldthurm_\n(Jail), and the aproned or disaproned Burghers moving in to breakfast:\na little dog, in mad terror, was rushing past; for some human imps\nhad tied a tin kettle to its tail; thus did the agonized creature,\nloud-jingling, career through the whole length of the Borough, and\nbecome notable enough. Fit emblem of many a Conquering Hero, to\nwhom Fate (wedding Fantasy to Sense, as it often elsewhere does) has\nmalignantly appended a tin kettle of Ambition, to chase him on; which\nthe faster he runs, urges him the faster, the more loudly and more\nfoolishly! Fit emblem also of much that awaited myself, in that\nmischievous Den; as in the World, whereof it was a portion and epitome!\n\n\"Alas, the kind beech-rows of Entepfuhl were hidden in the distance: I\nwas among strangers, harshly, at best indifferently, disposed towards\nme; the young heart felt, for the first time, quite orphaned and alone.\"\nHis school-fellows, as is usual, persecuted him: \"They were Boys,\" he\nsays, \"mostly rude Boys, and obeyed the impulse of rude Nature, which\nbids the deer-herd fall upon any stricken hart, the duck-flock put to\ndeath any broken-winged brother or sister, and on all hands the strong\ntyrannize over the weak.\" He admits that though \"perhaps in an unusual\ndegree morally courageous,\" he succeeded ill in battle, and would fain\nhave avoided it; a result, as would appear, owing less to his small\npersonal stature (for in passionate seasons he was \"incredibly nimble\"),\nthan to his \"virtuous principles:\" \"if it was disgraceful to be beaten,\"\nsays he, \"it was only a shade less disgraceful to have so much as\nfought; thus was I drawn two ways at once, and in this important element\nof school-history, the war-element, had little but sorrow.\" On the\nwhole, that same excellent \"Passivity,\" so notable in Teufelsdrockh's\nchildhood, is here visibly enough again getting nourishment. \"He wept\noften; indeed to such a degree that he was nicknamed _Der Weinende_ (the\nTearful), which epithet, till towards his thirteenth year, was indeed\nnot quite unmerited. Only at rare intervals did the young soul burst\nforth into fire-eyed rage, and, with a stormfulness (_Ungestum_) under\nwhich the boldest quailed, assert that he too had Rights of Man, or at\nleast of Mankin.\" In all which, who does not discern a fine flower-tree\nand cinnamon-tree (of genius) nigh choked among pumpkins, reed-grass and\nignoble shrubs; and forced if it would live, to struggle upwards only,\nand not outwards; into a _height_ quite sickly, and disproportioned to\nits _breadth_?\n\nWe find, moreover, that his Greek and Latin were \"mechanically\" taught;\nHebrew scarce even mechanically; much else which they called History,\nCosmography, Philosophy, and so forth, no better than not at all. So\nthat, except inasmuch as Nature was still busy; and he himself \"went\nabout, as was of old his wont, among the Craftsmen's workshops, there\nlearning many things;\" and farther lighted on some small store\nof curious reading, in Hans Wachtel the Cooper's house, where he\nlodged,--his time, it would appear, was utterly wasted. Which facts the\nProfessor has not yet learned to look upon with any contentment. Indeed,\nthroughout the whole of this Bag _Scorpio_, where we now are, and often\nin the following Bag, he shows himself unusually animated on the matter\nof Education, and not without some touch of what we might presume to be\nanger.\n\n\"My Teachers,\" says he, \"were hide-bound Pedants, without knowledge of\nman's nature, or of boy's; or of aught save their lexicons and quarterly\naccount-books. Innumerable dead Vocables (no dead Language, for they\nthemselves knew no Language) they crammed into us, and called it\nfostering the growth of mind. How can an inanimate, mechanical\nGerund-grinder, the like of whom will, in a subsequent century, be\nmanufactured at Nurnberg out of wood and leather, foster the growth\nof anything; much more of Mind, which grows, not like a vegetable (by\nhaving its roots littered with etymological compost), but like a spirit,\nby mysterious contact of Spirit; Thought kindling itself at the fire of\nliving Thought? How shall _he_ give kindling, in whose own inward\nman there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead grammatical\ncinder? The Hinterschlag Professors knew syntax enough; and of the human\nsoul thus much: that it had a faculty called Memory, and could be acted\non through the muscular integument by appliance of birch-rods.\n\n\"Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be; till the Hod-man is\ndischarged, or reduced to hod-bearing; and an Architect is hired, and on\nall hands fitly encouraged: till communities and individuals discover,\nnot without surprise, that fashioning the souls of a generation by\nKnowledge can rank on a level with blowing their bodies to pieces by\nGunpowder; that with Generals and Field-marshals for killing, there\nshould be world-honored Dignitaries, and were it possible, true\nGod-ordained Priests, for teaching. But as yet, though the Soldier wears\nopenly, and even parades, his butchering-tool, nowhere, far as I have\ntravelled, did the Schoolmaster make show of his instructing-tool: nay,\nwere he to walk abroad with birch girt on thigh, as if he therefrom\nexpected honor, would there not, among the idler class, perhaps a\ncertain levity be excited?\"\n\nIn the third year of this Gymnasic period, Father Andreas seems to have\ndied: the young Scholar, otherwise so maltreated, saw himself for the\nfirst time clad outwardly in sables, and inwardly in quite inexpressible\nmelancholy. \"The dark bottomless Abyss, that lies under our feet, had\nyawned open; the pale kingdoms of Death, with all their innumerable\nsilent nations and generations, stood before him; the inexorable word,\nNEVER! now first showed its meaning. My Mother wept, and her sorrow got\nvent; but in my heart there lay a whole lake of tears, pent up in\nsilent desolation. Nevertheless the unworn Spirit is strong; Life is\nso healthful that it even finds nourishment in Death: these stern\nexperiences, planted down by Memory in my Imagination, rose there to a\nwhole cypress-forest, sad but beautiful; waving, with not unmelodious\nsighs, in dark luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine, through long years\nof youth:--as in manhood also it does, and will do; for I have now\npitched my tent under a Cypress-tree; the Tomb is now my inexpugnable\nFortress, ever close by the gate of which I look upon the hostile\narmaments, and pains and penalties of tyrannous Life placidly enough,\nand listen to its loudest threatenings with a still smile. O ye loved\nones, that already sleep in the noiseless Bed of Rest, whom in life I\ncould only weep for and never help; and ye, who wide-scattered still\ntoil lonely in the monster-bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground with\nyour blood,--yet a little while, and we shall all meet THERE, and\nour Mother's bosom will screen us all; and Oppression's harness, and\nSorrow's fire-whip, and all the Gehenna Bailiffs that patrol and inhabit\never-vexed Time, cannot thenceforth harm us any more!\"\n\nClose by which rather beautiful apostrophe, lies a labored Character of\nthe deceased Andreas Futteral; of his natural ability, his deserts in\nlife (as Prussian Sergeant); with long historical inquiries into the\ngenealogy of the Futteral Family, here traced back as far as Henry the\nFowler: the whole of which we pass over, not without astonishment. It\nonly concerns us to add, that now was the time when Mother Gretchen\nrevealed to her foster-son that he was not at all of this kindred; or\nindeed of any kindred, having come into historical existence in the way\nalready known to us. \"Thus was I doubly orphaned,\" says he; \"bereft not\nonly of Possession, but even of Remembrance. Sorrow and Wonder,\nhere suddenly united, could not but produce abundant fruit. Such a\ndisclosure, in such a season, struck its roots through my whole\nnature: ever till the years of mature manhood, it mingled with my whole\nthoughts, was as the stem whereon all my day-dreams and night-dreams\ngrew. A certain poetic elevation, yet also a corresponding civic\ndepression, it naturally imparted: _I was like no other_; in which\nfixed idea, leading sometimes to highest, and oftener to frightfullest\nresults, may there not lie the first spring of tendencies, which in\nmy Life have become remarkable enough? As in birth, so in action,\nspeculation, and social position, my fellows are perhaps not numerous.\"\n\n\nIn the Bag _Sagittarius_, as we at length discover, Teufelsdrockh has\nbecome a University man; though how, when, or of what quality, will\nnowhere disclose itself with the smallest certainty. Few things, in the\nway of confusion and capricious indistinctness, can now surprise our\nreaders; not even the total want of dates, almost without parallel in\na Biographical work. So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always found,\nand must always look to find, these scattered Leaves. In _Sagittarius_,\nhowever, Teufelsdrockh begins to show himself even more than\nusually Sibylline: fragments of all sorts: scraps of regular Memoir,\nCollege-Exercises, Programs, Professional Testimoniums, Milkscores, torn\nBillets, sometimes to appearance of an amatory cast; all blown together\nas if by merest chance, henceforth bewilder the sane Historian. To\ncombine any picture of these University, and the subsequent, years; much\nmore, to decipher therein any illustrative primordial elements of the\nClothes-Philosophy, becomes such a problem as the reader may imagine.\n\nSo much we can see; darkly, as through the foliage of some wavering\nthicket: a youth of no common endowment, who has passed happily through\nChildhood, less happily yet still vigorously through Boyhood, now at\nlength perfect in \"dead vocables,\" and set down, as he hopes, by the\nliving Fountain, there to superadd Ideas and Capabilities. From such\nFountain he draws, diligently, thirstily, yet never or seldom with his\nwhole heart, for the water nowise suits his palate; discouragements,\nentanglements, aberrations are discoverable or supposable. Nor perhaps\nare even pecuniary distresses wanting; for \"the good Gretchen, who in\nspite of advices from not disinterested relatives has sent him\nhither, must after a time withdraw her willing but too feeble hand.\"\nNevertheless in an atmosphere of Poverty and manifold Chagrin, the Humor\nof that young Soul, what character is in him, first decisively reveals\nitself; and, like strong sunshine in weeping skies, gives out variety of\ncolors, some of which are prismatic. Thus, with the aid of Time and of\nwhat Time brings, has the stripling Diogenes Teufelsdrockh waxed into\nmanly stature; and into so questionable an aspect, that we ask with new\neagerness, How he specially came by it, and regret anew that there is\nno more explicit answer. Certain of the intelligible and partially\nsignificant fragments, which are few in number, shall be extracted from\nthat Limbo of a Paper-bag, and presented with the usual preparation.\n\nAs if, in the Bag _Scorpio_, Teufelsdrockh had not already expectorated\nhis antipedagogic spleen; as if, from the name _Sagittarius_, he had\nthought himself called upon to shoot arrows, we here again fall in with\nsuch matter as this: \"The University where I was educated still stands\nvivid enough in my remembrance, and I know its name well; which name,\nhowever, I, from tenderness to existing interests and persons, shall in\nnowise divulge. It is my painful duty to say that, out of England and\nSpain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered Universities.\nThis is indeed a time when right Education is, as nearly as may be,\nimpossible: however, in degrees of wrongness there is no limit: nay,\nI can conceive a worse system than that of the Nameless itself; as\npoisoned victual may be worse than absolute hunger.\n\n\"It is written, When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the\nditch: wherefore, in such circumstances, may it not sometimes be safer,\nif both leader and led simply--sit still? Had you, anywhere in Crim\nTartary, walled in a square enclosure; furnished it with a small,\nill-chosen Library; and then turned loose into it eleven hundred\nChristian striplings, to tumble about as they listed, from three to\nseven years: certain persons, under the title of Professors, being\nstationed at the gates, to declare aloud that it was a University, and\nexact considerable admission-fees,--you had, not indeed in mechanical\nstructure, yet in spirit and result, some imperfect resemblance of our\nHigh Seminary. I say, imperfect; for if our mechanical structure was\nquite other, so neither was our result altogether the same: unhappily,\nwe were not in Crim Tartary, but in a corrupt European city, full of\nsmoke and sin; moreover, in the middle of a Public, which, without far\ncostlier apparatus than that of the Square Enclosure, and Declaration\naloud, you could not be sure of gulling.\n\n\"Gullible, however, by fit apparatus, all Publics are; and gulled,\nwith the most surprising profit. Towards anything like a _Statistics\nof Imposture_, indeed, little as yet has been done: with a strange\nindifference, our Economists, nigh buried under Tables for\nminor Branches of Industry, have altogether overlooked the grand\nall-overtopping Hypocrisy Branch; as if our whole arts of Puffery, of\nQuackery, Priestcraft, Kingcraft, and the innumerable other crafts and\nmysteries of that genus, had not ranked in Productive Industry at all!\nCan any one, for example, so much as say, What moneys, in Literature and\nShoeblacking, are realized by actual Instruction and actual jet Polish;\nwhat by fictitious-persuasive Proclamation of such; specifying,\nin distinct items, the distributions, circulations, disbursements,\nincomings of said moneys, with the smallest approach to accuracy? But\nto ask, How far, in all the several infinitely complected departments\nof social business, in government, education, in manual, commercial,\nintellectual fabrication of every sort, man's Want is supplied by true\nWare; how far by the mere Appearance of true Ware:--in other words, To\nwhat extent, by what methods, with what effects, in various times and\ncountries, Deception takes the place of wages of Performance: here\ntruly is an Inquiry big with results for the future time, but to which\nhitherto only the vaguest answer can be given. If for the present, in\nour Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to Appearance of Ware so high\neven as at One to a Hundred (which, considering the Wages of a Pope,\nRussian Autocrat, or English Game-Preserver, is probably not far from\nthe mark),--what almost prodigious saving may there not be anticipated,\nas the _Statistics of Imposture_ advances, and so the manufacturing of\nShams (that of Realities rising into clearer and clearer distinction\ntherefrom) gradually declines, and at length becomes all but wholly\nunnecessary!\n\n\"This for the coming golden ages. What I had to remark, for the present\nbrazen one, is, that in several provinces, as in Education, Polity,\nReligion, where so much is wanted and indispensable, and so little can\nas yet be furnished, probably Imposture is of sanative, anodyne nature,\nand man's Gullibility not his worst blessing. Suppose your sinews of\nwar quite broken; I mean your military chest insolvent, forage all but\nexhausted; and that the whole army is about to mutiny, disband, and cut\nyour and each other's throat,--then were it not well could you, as if\nby miracle, pay them in any sort of fairy-money, feed them on coagulated\nwater, or mere imagination of meat; whereby, till the real supply came\nup, they might be kept together and quiet? Such perhaps was the aim of\nNature, who does nothing without aim, in furnishing her favorite,\nMan, with this his so omnipotent or rather omnipatient Talent of being\nGulled.\n\n\"How beautifully it works, with a little mechanism; nay, almost makes\nmechanism for itself! These Professors in the Nameless lived with ease,\nwith safety, by a mere Reputation, constructed in past times, and then\ntoo with no great effort, by quite another class of persons. Which\nReputation, like a strong brisk-going undershot wheel, sunk into the\ngeneral current, bade fair, with only a little annual re-painting on\ntheir part, to hold long together, and of its own accord assiduously\ngrind for them. Happy that it was so, for the Millers! They themselves\nneeded not to work; their attempts at working, at what they called\nEducating, now when I look back on it, fill me with a certain mute\nadmiration.\n\n\"Besides all this, we boasted ourselves a Rational University; in the\nhighest degree hostile to Mysticism; thus was the young vacant mind\nfurnished with much talk about Progress of the Species, Dark Ages,\nPrejudice, and the like; so that all were quickly enough blown out into\na state of windy argumentativeness; whereby the better sort had soon to\nend in sick, impotent Scepticism; the worser sort explode (_crepiren_)\nin finished Self-conceit, and to all spiritual intents become dead.--But\nthis too is portion of mankind's lot. If our era is the Era of Unbelief,\nwhy murmur under it; is there not a better coming, nay come? As in\nlong-drawn systole and long-drawn diastole, must the period of Faith\nalternate with the period of Denial; must the vernal growth, the summer\nluxuriance of all Opinions, Spiritual Representations and Creations,\nbe followed by, and again follow, the autumnal decay, the winter\ndissolution. For man lives in Time, has his whole earthly being,\nendeavor and destiny shaped for him by Time: only in the transitory\nTime-Symbol is the ever-motionless Eternity we stand on made manifest.\nAnd yet, in such winter-seasons of Denial, it is for the nobler-minded\nperhaps a comparative misery to have been born, and to be awake and\nwork; and for the duller a felicity, if, like hibernating animals,\nsafe-lodged in some Salamanca University or Sybaris City, or other\nsuperstitious or voluptuous Castle of Indolence, they can slumber\nthrough, in stupid dreams, and only awaken when the loud-roaring\nhailstorms have all alone their work, and to our prayers and martyrdoms\nthe new Spring has been vouchsafed.\"\n\nThat in the environment, here mysteriously enough shadowed forth,\nTeufelsdrockh must have felt ill at ease, cannot be doubtful. \"The\nhungry young,\" he says, \"looked up to their spiritual Nurses; and, for\nfood, were bidden eat the east-wind. What vain jargon of controversial\nMetaphysic, Etymology, and mechanical Manipulation falsely named\nScience, was current there, I indeed learned, better perhaps than the\nmost. Among eleven hundred Christian youths, there will not be wanting\nsome eleven eager to learn. By collision with such, a certain warmth, a\ncertain polish was communicated; by instinct and happy accident, I took\nless to rioting (_renommiren_), than to thinking and reading, which\nlatter also I was free to do. Nay from the chaos of that Library, I\nsucceeded in fishing up more books perhaps than had been known to the\nvery keepers thereof. The foundation of a Literary Life was hereby laid:\nI learned, on my own strength, to read fluently in almost all cultivated\nlanguages, on almost all subjects and sciences; farther, as man is ever\nthe prime object to man, already it was my favorite employment to read\ncharacter in speculation, and from the Writing to construe the Writer.\nA certain groundplan of Human Nature and Life began to fashion itself in\nme; wondrous enough, now when I look back on it; for my whole Universe,\nphysical and spiritual, was as yet a Machine! However, such a conscious,\nrecognized groundplan, the truest I had, _was_ beginning to be there,\nand by additional experiments might be corrected and indefinitely\nextended.\"\n\nThus from poverty does the strong educe nobler wealth; thus in the\ndestitution of the wild desert does our young Ishmael acquire for\nhimself the highest of all possessions, that of Self-help. Nevertheless\na desert this was, waste, and howling with savage monsters.\nTeufelsdrockh gives us long details of his \"fever-paroxysms of Doubt;\"\nhis Inquiries concerning Miracles, and the Evidences of religious Faith;\nand how \"in the silent night-watches, still darker in his heart than\nover sky and earth, he has cast himself before the All-seeing, and with\naudible prayers cried vehemently for Light, for deliverance from Death\nand the Grave. Not till after long years, and unspeakable agonies, did\nthe believing heart surrender; sink into spell-bound sleep, under the\nnightmare, Unbelief; and, in this hag-ridden dream, mistake God's fair\nliving world for a pallid, vacant Hades and extinct Pandemonium. But\nthrough such Purgatory pain,\" continues he, \"it is appointed us to\npass; first must the dead Letter of Religion own itself dead, and drop\npiecemeal into dust, if the living Spirit of Religion, freed from this\nits charnel-house, is to arise on us, new-born of Heaven, and with new\nhealing under its wings.\"\n\nTo which Purgatory pains, seemingly severe enough, if we add a liberal\nmeasure of Earthly distresses, want of practical guidance, want of\nsympathy, want of money, want of hope; and all this in the fervid season\nof youth, so exaggerated in imagining, so boundless in desires, yet here\nso poor in means,--do we not see a strong incipient spirit oppressed and\noverloaded from without and from within; the fire of genius struggling\nup among fuel-wood of the greenest, and as yet with more of bitter vapor\nthan of clear flame?\n\nFrom various fragments of Letters and other documentary scraps, it is to\nbe inferred that Teufelsdrockh, isolated, shy, retiring as he was, had\nnot altogether escaped notice: certain established men are aware of his\nexistence; and, if stretching out no helpful hand, have at least their\neyes on him. He appears, though in dreary enough humor, to be addressing\nhimself to the Profession of Law;--whereof, indeed, the world has since\nseen him a public graduate. But omitting these broken, unsatisfactory\nthrums of Economical relation, let us present rather the following small\nthread of Moral relation; and therewith, the reader for himself weaving\nit in at the right place, conclude our dim arras-picture of these\nUniversity years.\n\n\"Here also it was that I formed acquaintance with Herr Towgood, or, as\nit is perhaps better written, Herr Toughgut; a young person of quality\n(_von Adel_), from the interior parts of England. He stood connected, by\nblood and hospitality, with the Counts von Zahdarm, in this quarter of\nGermany; to which noble Family I likewise was, by his means, with all\nfriendliness, brought near. Towgood had a fair talent, unspeakably\nill-cultivated; with considerable humor of character: and, bating his\ntotal ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing and a little Grammar,\nshowed less of that aristocratic impassivity, and silent fury, than for\nmost part belongs to Travellers of his nation. To him I owe my first\npractical knowledge of the English and their ways; perhaps also\nsomething of the partiality with which I have ever since regarded that\nsingular people. Towgood was not without an eye, could he have come at\nany light. Invited doubtless by the presence of the Zahdarm Family,\nhe had travelled hither, in the almost frantic hope of perfecting his\nstudies; he, whose studies had as yet been those of infancy, hither to\na University where so much as the notion of perfection, not to say the\neffort after it, no longer existed! Often we would condole over the hard\ndestiny of the Young in this era: how, after all our toil, we were to be\nturned out into the world, with beards on our chins indeed, but with few\nother attributes of manhood; no existing thing that we were trained to\nAct on, nothing that we could so much as Believe. 'How has our head on\nthe outside a polished Hat,' would Towgood exclaim, 'and in the inside\nVacancy, or a froth of Vocables and Attorney-Logic! At a small cost men\nare educated to make leather into shoes; but at a great cost, what am\nI educated to make? By Heaven, Brother! what I have already eaten\nand worn, as I came thus far, would endow a considerable Hospital of\nIncurables.'--'Man, indeed,' I would answer, 'has a Digestive Faculty,\nwhich must be kept working, were it even partly by stealth. But as for\nour Miseducation, make not bad worse; waste not the time yet ours, in\ntrampling on thistles because they have yielded us no figs. _Frisch\nzu, Bruder_! Here are Books, and we have brains to read them; here is\na whole Earth and a whole Heaven, and we have eyes to look on them:\n_Frisch zu_!'\n\n\"Often also our talk was gay; not without brilliancy, and even fire.\nWe looked out on Life, with its strange scaffolding, where all at\nonce harlequins dance, and men are beheaded and quartered: motley, not\nunterrific was the aspect; but we looked on it like brave youths. For\nmyself, these were perhaps my most genial hours. Towards this young\nwarm-hearted, strong-headed and wrong-headed Herr Towgood I was even\nnear experiencing the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship. Yes, foolish\nHeathen that I was, I felt that, under certain conditions, I could have\nloved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and been his brother once and\nalways. By degrees, however, I understood the new time, and its wants.\nIf man's _Soul_ is indeed, as in the Finnish Language, and Utilitarian\nPhilosophy, a kind of _Stomach_, what else is the true meaning of\nSpiritual Union but an Eating together? Thus we, instead of Friends, are\nDinner-guests; and here as elsewhere have cast away chimeras.\"\n\nSo ends, abruptly as is usual, and enigmatically, this little incipient\nromance. What henceforth becomes of the brave Herr Towgood, or Toughgut?\nHe has dived under, in the Autobiographical Chaos, and swims we see not\nwhere. Does any reader \"in the interior parts of England\" know of such a\nman?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. GETTING UNDER WAY.\n\n\"Thus nevertheless,\" writes our Autobiographer, apparently as\nquitting College, \"was there realized Somewhat; namely, I, Diogenes\nTeufelsdrockh: a visible Temporary Figure (_Zeitbild_), occupying some\ncubic feet of Space, and containing within it Forces both physical and\nspiritual; hopes, passions, thoughts; the whole wondrous furniture, in\nmore or less perfection, belonging to that mystery, a Man. Capabilities\nthere were in me to give battle, in some small degree, against the\ngreat Empire of Darkness: does not the very Ditcher and Delver, with\nhis spade, extinguish many a thistle and puddle; and so leave a\nlittle Order, where he found the opposite? Nay your very Day-moth has\ncapabilities in this kind; and ever organizes something (into its own\nBody, if no otherwise), which was before Inorganic; and of mute dead air\nmakes living music, though only of the faintest, by humming.\n\n\"How much more, one whose capabilities are spiritual; who has learned,\nor begun learning, the grand thaumaturgic art of Thought! Thaumaturgic\nI name it; for hitherto all Miracles have been wrought thereby, and\nhenceforth innumerable will be wrought; whereof we, even in these days,\nwitness some. Of the Poet's and Prophet's inspired Message, and how it\nmakes and unmakes whole worlds, I shall forbear mention: but cannot\nthe dullest hear Steam-engines clanking around him? Has he not seen the\nScottish Brass-smith's IDEA (and this but a mechanical one) travelling\non fire-wings round the Cape, and across two Oceans; and stronger than\nany other Enchanter's Familiar, on all hands unweariedly fetching\nand carrying: at home, not only weaving Cloth; but rapidly enough\noverturning the whole old system of Society; and, for Feudalism and\nPreservation of the Game, preparing us, by indirect but sure methods,\nIndustrialism and the Government of the Wisest? Truly a Thinking Man is\nthe worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can have; every time such a one\nannounces himself, I doubt not, there runs a shudder through the\nNether Empire; and new Emissaries are trained, with new tactics, to, if\npossible, entrap him, and hoodwink and handcuff him.\n\n\"With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of the Universe,\nbeen called. Unhappy it is, however, that though born to the amplest\nSovereignty, in this way, with no less than sovereign right of Peace\nand War against the Time-Prince (_Zeitfurst_), or Devil, and all his\nDominions, your coronation-ceremony costs such trouble, your sceptre is\nso difficult to get at, or even to get eye on!\"\n\nBy which last wire-drawn similitude does Teufelsdrockh mean no more than\nthat young men find obstacles in what we call \"getting under way\"? \"Not\nwhat I Have,\" continues he, \"but what I Do is my Kingdom. To each is\ngiven a certain inward Talent, a certain outward Environment of Fortune;\nto each, by wisest combination of these two, a certain maximum of\nCapability. But the hardest problem were ever this first: To find by\nstudy of yourself, and of the ground you stand on, what your combined\ninward and outward Capability specially is. For, alas, our young soul is\nall budding with Capabilities, and we see not yet which is the main and\ntrue one. Always too the new man is in a new time, under new conditions;\nhis course can be the _fac-simile_ of no prior one, but is by its\nnature original. And then how seldom will the outward Capability fit\nthe inward: though talented wonderfully enough, we are poor, unfriended,\ndyspeptical, bashful; nay what is worse than all, we are foolish. Thus,\nin a whole imbroglio of Capabilities, we go stupidly groping about, to\ngrope which is ours, and often clutch the wrong one: in this mad work\nmust several years of our small term be spent, till the purblind Youth,\nby practice, acquire notions of distance, and become a seeing Man. Nay,\nmany so spend their whole term, and in ever-new expectation, ever-new\ndisappointment, shift from enterprise to enterprise, and from side to\nside: till at length, as exasperated striplings of threescore-and-ten,\nthey shift into their last enterprise, that of getting buried.\n\n\"Such, since the most of us are too ophthalmic, would be the general\nfate; were it not that one thing saves us: our Hunger. For on this\nground, as the prompt nature of Hunger is well known, must a prompt\nchoice be made: hence have we, with wise foresight, Indentures and\nApprenticeships for our irrational young; whereby, in due season, the\nvague universality of a Man shall find himself ready-moulded into a\nspecific Craftsman; and so thenceforth work, with much or with little\nwaste of Capability as it may be; yet not with the worst waste, that of\ntime. Nay even in matters spiritual, since the spiritual artist too is\nborn blind, and does not, like certain other creatures, receive sight\nin nine days, but far later, sometimes never,--is it not well that there\nshould be what we call Professions, or Bread-studies (_Brodzwecke_),\npreappointed us? Here, circling like the gin-horse, for whom partial\nor total blindness is no evil, the Bread-artist can travel contentedly\nround and round, still fancying that it is forward and forward; and\nrealize much: for himself victual; for the world an additional horse's\npower in the grand corn-mill or hemp-mill of Economic Society. For\nme too had such a leading-string been provided; only that it proved a\nneck-halter, and had nigh throttled me, till I broke it off. Then, in\nthe words of Ancient Pistol, did the world generally become mine oyster,\nwhich I, by strength or cunning, was to open, as I would and could.\nAlmost had I deceased (_fast war ich umgekommen_), so obstinately did it\ncontinue shut.\"\n\nWe see here, significantly foreshadowed, the spirit of much that was\nto befall our Autobiographer; the historical embodiment of which, as\nit painfully takes shape in his Life, lies scattered, in dim disastrous\ndetails, through this Bag _Pisces_, and those that follow. A young man\nof high talent, and high though still temper, like a young mettled\ncolt, \"breaks off his neck-halter,\" and bounds forth, from his peculiar\nmanger, into the wide world; which, alas, he finds all rigorously fenced\nin. Richest clover-fields tempt his eye; but to him they are forbidden\npasture: either pining in progressive starvation, he must stand; or,\nin mad exasperation, must rush to and fro, leaping against sheer\nstone-walls, which he cannot leap over, which only lacerate and lame\nhim; till at last, after thousand attempts and endurances, he, as if by\nmiracle, clears his way; not indeed into luxuriant and luxurious clover,\nyet into a certain bosky wilderness where existence is still possible,\nand Freedom, though waited on by Scarcity, is not without sweetness.\nIn a word, Teufelsdrockh having thrown up his legal Profession, finds\nhimself without landmark of outward guidance; whereby his previous\nwant of decided Belief, or inward guidance, is frightfully aggravated.\nNecessity urges him on; Time will not stop, neither can he, a Son\nof Time; wild passions without solacement, wild faculties without\nemployment, ever vex and agitate him. He too must enact that stern\nMonodrama, _No Object and no Rest_; must front its successive destinies,\nwork through to its catastrophe, and deduce therefrom what moral he can.\n\nYet let us be just to him, let us admit that his \"neck-halter\" sat\nnowise easy on him; that he was in some degree forced to break it off.\nIf we look at the young man's civic position, in this Nameless capital,\nas he emerges from its Nameless University, we can discern well that\nit was far from enviable. His first Law-Examination he has come through\ntriumphantly; and can even boast that the _Examen Rigorosum_ need\nnot have frightened him: but though he is hereby \"an _Auscultator_ of\nrespectability,\" what avails it? There is next to no employment to\nbe had. Neither, for a youth without connections, is the process of\nExpectation very hopeful in itself; nor for one of his disposition\nmuch cheered from without. \"My fellow Auscultators,\" he says, \"were\nAuscultators: they dressed, and digested, and talked articulate words;\nother vitality showed they almost none. Small speculation in those eyes,\nthat they did glare withal! Sense neither for the high nor for the\ndeep, nor for aught human or divine, save only for the faintest scent of\ncoming Preferment.\" In which words, indicating a total estrangement on\nthe part of Teufelsdrockh may there not also lurk traces of a bitterness\nas from wounded vanity? Doubtless these prosaic Auscultators may have\nsniffed at him, with his strange ways; and tried to hate, and what was\nmuch more impossible, to despise him. Friendly communion, in any case,\nthere could not be: already has the young Teufelsdrockh left the other\nyoung geese; and swims apart, though as yet uncertain whether he himself\nis cygnet or gosling.\n\nPerhaps, too, what little employment he had was performed ill, at best\nunpleasantly. \"Great practical method and expertness\" he may brag of;\nbut is there not also great practical pride, though deep-hidden, only\nthe deeper-seated? So shy a man can never have been popular. We figure\nto ourselves, how in those days he may have played strange freaks with\nhis independence, and so forth: do not his own words betoken as much?\n\"Like a very young person, I imagined it was with Work alone, and not\nalso with Folly and Sin, in myself and others, that I had been\nappointed to struggle.\" Be this as it may, his progress from the passive\nAuscultatorship, towards any active Assessorship, is evidently of the\nslowest. By degrees, those same established men, once partially inclined\nto patronize him, seem to withdraw their countenance, and give him up\nas \"a man of genius\" against which procedure he, in these Papers, loudly\nprotests. \"As if,\" says he, \"the higher did not presuppose the lower; as\nif he who can fly into heaven, could not also walk post if he resolved\non it! But the world is an old woman, and mistakes any gilt farthing\nfor a gold coin; whereby being often cheated, she will thenceforth trust\nnothing but the common copper.\"\n\nHow our winged sky-messenger, unaccepted as a terrestrial runner,\ncontrived, in the mean while, to keep himself from flying skyward\nwithout return, is not too clear from these Documents. Good old Gretchen\nseems to have vanished from the scene, perhaps from the Earth; other\nHorn of Plenty, or even of Parsimony, nowhere flows for him; so that\n\"the prompt nature of Hunger being well known,\" we are not without our\nanxiety. From private Tuition, in never so many languages and sciences,\nthe aid derivable is small; neither, to use his own words, \"does the\nyoung Adventurer hitherto suspect in himself any literary gift; but at\nbest earns bread-and-water wages, by his wide faculty of Translation.\nNevertheless,\" continues he, \"that I subsisted is clear, for you find me\neven now alive.\" Which fact, however, except upon the principle of our\ntrue-hearted, kind old Proverb, that \"there is always life for a living\none,\" we must profess ourselves unable to explain.\n\nCertain Landlords' Bills, and other economic Documents, bearing the\nmark of Settlement, indicate that he was not without money; but, like an\nindependent Hearth-holder, if not House-holder, paid his way. Here also\noccur, among many others, two little mutilated Notes, which perhaps\nthrow light on his condition. The first has now no date, or writer's\nname, but a huge Blot; and runs to this effect: \"The (_Inkblot_), tied\ndown by previous promise, cannot, except by best wishes, forward the\nHerr Teufelsdrockh's views on the Assessorship in question; and sees\nhimself under the cruel necessity of forbearing, for the present, what\nwere otherwise his duty and joy, to assist in opening the career for a\nman of genius, on whom far higher triumphs are yet waiting.\" The other\nis on gilt paper; and interests us like a sort of epistolary mummy now\ndead, yet which once lived and beneficently worked. We give it in\nthe original: \"_Herr Teufelsdrockh wird von der Frau Grafinn, auf\nDonnerstag, zum AESTHETISCHEN THEE schonstens eingeladen_.\"\n\nThus, in answer to a cry for solid pudding, whereof there is the most\nurgent need, comes, epigrammatically enough, the invitation to a wash of\nquite fluid _AEsthetic Tea_! How Teufelsdrockh, now at actual hand-grips\nwith Destiny herself, may have comported himself among these Musical and\nLiterary dilettanti of both sexes, like a hungry lion invited to a feast\nof chickenweed, we can only conjecture. Perhaps in expressive silence,\nand abstinence: otherwise if the lion, in such case, is to feast at all,\nit cannot be on the chickenweed, but only on the chickens. For the rest,\nas this Frau Grafinn dates from the _Zahdarm House_, she can be no\nother than the Countess and mistress of the same; whose intellectual\ntendencies, and good-will to Teufelsdrockh, whether on the footing of\nHerr Towgood, or on his own footing, are hereby manifest. That some\nsort of relation, indeed, continued, for a time, to connect our\nAutobiographer, though perhaps feebly enough, with this noble House, we\nhave elsewhere express evidence. Doubtless, if he expected patronage, it\nwas in vain; enough for him if he here obtained occasional glimpses\nof the great world, from which we at one time fancied him to have been\nalways excluded. \"The Zahdarms,\" says he, \"lived in the soft, sumptuous\ngarniture of Aristocracy; whereto Literature and Art, attracted and\nattached from without, were to serve as the handsomest fringing. It was\nto the _Gnadigen Frau_ (her Ladyship) that this latter improvement was\ndue: assiduously she gathered, dexterously she fitted on, what fringing\nwas to be had; lace or cobweb, as the place yielded.\" Was Teufelsdrockh\nalso a fringe, of lace or cobweb; or promising to be such? \"With his\n_Excellenz_ (the Count),\" continues he, \"I have more than once had the\nhonor to converse; chiefly on general affairs, and the aspect of the\nworld, which he, though now past middle life, viewed in no unfavorable\nlight; finding indeed, except the Outrooting of Journalism (_die\nauszurottende Journalistik_), little to desiderate therein. On some\npoints, as his _Excellenz_ was not uncholeric, I found it more pleasant\nto keep silence. Besides, his occupation being that of Owning Land,\nthere might be faculties enough, which, as superfluous for such use,\nwere little developed in him.\"\n\nThat to Teufelsdrockh the aspect of the world was nowise so faultless,\nand many things besides \"the Outrooting of Journalism\" might have seemed\nimprovements, we can readily conjecture. With nothing but a barren\nAuscultatorship from without, and so many mutinous thoughts and wishes\nfrom within, his position was no easy one. \"The Universe,\" he says, \"was\nas a mighty Sphinx-riddle, which I knew so little of, yet must rede,\nor be devoured. In red streaks of unspeakable grandeur, yet also in\nthe blackness of darkness, was Life, to my too-unfurnished Thought,\nunfolding itself. A strange contradiction lay in me; and I as yet knew\nnot the solution of it; knew not that spiritual music can spring only\nfrom discords set in harmony; that but for Evil there were no Good, as\nvictory is only possible by battle.\"\n\n\"I have heard affirmed (surely in jest),\" observes he elsewhere, \"by\nnot unphilanthropic persons, that it were a real increase of human\nhappiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under\nbarrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their\nlawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the\nage of twenty-five. With which suggestion, at least as considered in the\nlight of a practical scheme, I need scarcely say that I nowise coincide.\nNevertheless it is plausibly urged that, as young ladies (_Madchen_)\nare, to mankind, precisely the most delightful in those years; so young\ngentlemen (_Bubchen_) do then attain their maximum of detestability.\nSuch gawks (_Gecken_) are they, and foolish peacocks, and yet with such\na vulturous hunger for self-indulgence; so obstinate, obstreperous,\nvain-glorious; in all senses, so froward and so forward. No mortal's\nendeavor or attainment will, in the smallest, content the as yet\nunendeavoring, unattaining young gentleman; but he could make it all\ninfinitely better, were it worthy of him. Life everywhere is the most\nmanageable matter, simple as a question in the Rule-of-Three: multiply\nyour second and third term together, divide the product by the first,\nand your quotient will be the answer,--which you are but an ass if you\ncannot come at. The booby has not yet found out, by any trial, that,\ndo what one will, there is ever a cursed fraction, oftenest a decimal\nrepeater, and no net integer quotient so much as to be thought of.\"\n\nIn which passage does not there lie an implied confession that\nTeufelsdrockh himself, besides his outward obstructions, had an inward,\nstill greater, to contend with; namely, a certain temporary, youthful,\nyet still afflictive derangement of head? Alas, on the former side\nalone, his case was hard enough. \"It continues ever true,\" says\nhe, \"that Saturn, or Chronos, or what we call TIME, devours all his\nChildren: only by incessant Running, by incessant Working, may you (for\nsome threescore-and-ten years) escape him; and you too he devours at\nlast. Can any Sovereign, or Holy Alliance of Sovereigns, bid Time\nstand still; even in thought, shake themselves free of Time? Our whole\nterrestrial being is based on Time, and built of Time; it is wholly a\nMovement, a Time-impulse; Time is the author of it, the material of\nit. Hence also our Whole Duty, which is to move, to work,--in the right\ndirection. Are not our Bodies and our Souls in continual movement,\nwhether we will or not; in a continual Waste, requiring a continual\nRepair? Utmost satisfaction of our whole outward and inward Wants were\nbut satisfaction for a space of Time; thus, whatso we have done,\nis done, and for us annihilated, and ever must we go and do anew. O\nTime-Spirit, how hast thou environed and imprisoned us, and sunk us so\ndeep in thy troublous dim Time-Element, that only in lucid moments\ncan so much as glimpses of our upper Azure Home be revealed to us!\nMe, however, as a Son of Time, unhappier than some others, was Time\nthreatening to eat quite prematurely; for, strive as I might, there was\nno good Running, so obstructed was the path, so gyved were the feet.\"\nThat is to say, we presume, speaking in the dialect of this lower world,\nthat Teufelsdrockh's whole duty and necessity was, like other men's, \"to\nwork,--in the right direction,\" and that no work was to be had; whereby\nhe became wretched enough. As was natural: with haggard Scarcity\nthreatening him in the distance; and so vehement a soul languishing\nin restless inaction, and forced thereby, like Sir Hudibras's sword by\nrust,\n\n     \"To eat into itself, for lack\n     Of something else to hew and hack;\"\n\nBut on the whole, that same \"excellent Passivity,\" as it has all along\ndone, is here again vigorously flourishing; in which circumstance may\nwe not trace the beginnings of much that now characterizes our Professor\nand perhaps, in faint rudiments, the origin of the Clothes-Philosophy\nitself? Already the attitude he has assumed towards the World is too\ndefensive; not, as would have been desirable, a bold attitude of attack.\n\"So far hitherto,\" he says, \"as I had mingled with mankind, I was\nnotable, if for anything, for a certain stillness of manner, which, as\nmy friends often rebukingly declared, did but ill express the keen ardor\nof my feelings. I, in truth, regarded men with an excess both of love\nand of fear. The mystery of a Person, indeed, is ever divine to him that\nhas a sense for the Godlike. Often, notwithstanding, was I blamed,\nand by half-strangers hated, for my so-called Hardness (_Harte_), my\nIndifferentism towards men; and the seemingly ironic tone I had adopted,\nas my favorite dialect in conversation. Alas, the panoply of Sarcasm was\nbut as a buckram case, wherein I had striven to envelop myself; that so\nmy own poor Person might live safe there, and in all friendliness, being\nno longer exasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I now see to be, in general,\nthe language of the Devil; for which reason I have long since as good\nas renounced it. But how many individuals did I, in those days, provoke\ninto some degree of hostility thereby! An ironic man, with his sly\nstillness, and ambuscading ways, more especially an ironic young man,\nfrom whom it is least expected, may be viewed as a pest to society. Have\nwe not seen persons of weight and name coming forward, with gentlest\nindifference, to tread such a one out of sight, as an insignificancy and\nworm, start ceiling-high (_balkenhock_), and thence fall shattered and\nsupine, to be borne home on shutters, not without indignation, when he\nproved electric and a torpedo!\"\n\nAlas, how can a man with this devilishness of temper make way for\nhimself in Life; where the first problem, as Teufelsdrockh too\nadmits, is \"to unite yourself with some one, and with somewhat (_sich\nanzuschliessen_)\"? Division, not union, is written on most part of his\nprocedure. Let us add too that, in no great length of time, the only\nimportant connection he had ever succeeded in forming, his connection\nwith the Zahdarm Family, seems to have been paralyzed, for all practical\nuses, by the death of the \"not uncholeric\" old Count. This fact stands\nrecorded, quite incidentally, in a certain _Discourse on Epitaphs_,\nhuddled into the present Bag, among so much else; of which Essay the\nlearning and curious penetration are more to be approved of than the\nspirit. His grand principle is, that lapidary inscriptions, of what sort\nsoever, should be Historical rather than Lyrical. \"By request of that\nworthy Nobleman's survivors,\" says he, \"I undertook to compose his\nEpitaph; and not unmindful of my own rules, produced the following;\nwhich however, for an alleged defect of Latinity, a defect never yet\nfully visible to myself, still remains unengraven;\"--wherein, we may\npredict, there is more than the Latinity that will surprise an English\nreader:\n\n     HIC JACET\n     PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMINE MAGNUS,\n     ZAEHDARMI COMES,\n     EX IMPERII CONCILIO,\n     VELLERIS AUREI, PERISCELIDIS, NECNON VULTURIS NIGRI\n     EQUES.\n     QUI DUM SUB LUNA AGEBAT,\n     QUINQUIES MILLE PERDICES\n     PLUMBO CONFECIT:\n     VARII CIBI\n     CENTUMPONDIA MILLIES CENTENA MILLIA,\n     PER SE, PERQUE SERVOS QUADRUPEDES BIPEDESVE,\n     HAUD SINE TUMULT DEVOLVENS,\n     IN STERCUS\n     PALAM CONVERTIT.\n     NUNC A LABORE REQUIESCENTEM\n     OPERA SEQUUNTUR.\n     SI MONUMENTUM QUAERIS,\n     FIMETUM ADSPICE.\n     PRIMUM IN ORBE DEJECIT [_sub dato_]; POSTREMUM [_sub dato_].\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. ROMANCE.\n\n\"For long years,\" writes Teufelsdrockh, \"had the poor Hebrew, in this\nEgypt of an Auscultatorship, painfully toiled, baking bricks without\nstubble, before ever the question once struck him with entire force:\nFor what?--_Beym Himmel_! For Food and Warmth! And are Food and Warmth\nnowhere else, in the whole wide Universe, discoverable?--Come of it what\nmight, I resolved to try.\"\n\nThus then are we to see him in a new independent capacity, though\nperhaps far from an improved one. Teufelsdrockh is now a man without\nProfession. Quitting the common Fleet of herring-busses and whalers,\nwhere indeed his leeward, laggard condition was painful enough, he\ndesperately steers off, on a course of his own, by sextant and compass\nof his own. Unhappy Teufelsdrockh! Though neither Fleet, nor Traffic,\nnor Commodores pleased thee, still was it not _a Fleet_, sailing in\nprescribed track, for fixed objects; above all, in combination, wherein,\nby mutual guidance, by all manner of loans and borrowings, each could\nmanifoldly aid the other? How wilt thou sail in unknown seas; and for\nthyself find that shorter Northwest Passage to thy fair Spice-country\nof a Nowhere?--A solitary rover, on such a voyage, with such nautical\ntactics, will meet with adventures. Nay, as we forthwith discover, a\ncertain Calypso-Island detains him at the very outset; and as it were\nfalsifies and oversets his whole reckoning.\n\n\"If in youth,\" writes he once, \"the Universe is majestically unveiling,\nand everywhere Heaven revealing itself on Earth, nowhere to the Young\nMan does this Heaven on Earth so immediately reveal itself as in the\nYoung Maiden. Strangely enough, in this strange life of ours, it\nhas been so appointed. On the whole, as I have often said, a\nPerson (_Personlichkeit_) is ever holy to us; a certain orthodox\nAnthropomorphism connects my _Me_ with all _Thees_ in bonds of Love: but\nit is in this approximation of the Like and Unlike, that such heavenly\nattraction, as between Negative and Positive, first burns out into a\nflame. Is the pitifullest mortal Person, think you, indifferent to us?\nIs it not rather our heartfelt wish to be made one with him; to unite\nhim to us, by gratitude, by admiration, even by fear; or failing all\nthese, unite ourselves to him? But how much more, in this case of the\nLike-Unlike! Here is conceded us the higher mystic possibility of such\na union, the highest in our Earth; thus, in the conducting medium of\nFantasy, flames forth that fire-development of the universal Spiritual\nElectricity, which, as unfolded between man and woman, we first\nemphatically denominate LOVE.\n\n\"In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there already\nblooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some fairest Eve; nor,\nin the stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage of that Garden, is a\nTree of Knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst thereof, wanting.\nPerhaps too the whole is but the lovelier, if Cherubim and a Flaming\nSword divide it from all footsteps of men; and grant him, the\nimaginative stripling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season of\nvirtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable celestial barrier; and\nthe sacred air-cities of Hope have not shrunk into the mean clay-hamlets\nof Reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free!\n\n\"As for our young Forlorn,\" continues Teufelsdrockh evidently meaning\nhimself, \"in his secluded way of life, and with his glowing Fantasy, the\nmore fiery that it burnt under cover, as in a reverberating furnace, his\nfeeling towards the Queens of this Earth was, and indeed is, altogether\nunspeakable. A visible Divinity dwelt in them; to our young Friend all\nwomen were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw them flitting past, in\ntheir many-colored angel-plumage; or hovering mute and inaccessible on\nthe outskirts of _AEsthetic Tea_: all of air they were, all Soul and\nForm; so lovely, like mysterious priestesses, in whose hand was the\ninvisible Jacob's-ladder, whereby man might mount into very Heaven. That\nhe, our poor Friend, should ever win for himself one of these Gracefuls\n(_Holden_)--_Ach Gott_! how could he hope it; should he not have died\nunder it? There was a certain delirious vertigo in the thought.\n\n\"Thus was the young man, if all-sceptical of Demons and Angels such as\nthe vulgar had once believed in, nevertheless not unvisited by hosts of\ntrue Sky-born, who visibly and audibly hovered round him wheresoever he\nwent; and they had that religious worship in his thought, though as yet\nit was by their mere earthly and trivial name that he named them. But\nnow, if on a soul so circumstanced, some actual Air-maiden, incorporated\ninto tangibility and reality, should cast any electric glance of kind\neyes, saying thereby, 'Thou too mayest love and be loved;' and so kindle\nhim,--good Heaven, what a volcanic, earthquake-bringing, all-consuming\nfire were probably kindled!\"\n\nSuch a fire, it afterwards appears, did actually burst forth, with\nexplosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner man of Herr Diogenes; as\nindeed how could it fail? A nature, which, in his own figurative style,\nwe might say, had now not a little carbonized tinder, of Irritability;\nwith so much nitre of latent Passion, and sulphurous Humor enough; the\nwhole lying in such hot neighborhood, close by \"a reverberating furnace\nof Fantasy:\" have we not here the components of driest Gunpowder, ready,\non occasion of the smallest spark, to blaze up? Neither, in this our\nLife-element, are sparks anywhere wanting. Without doubt, some Angel,\nwhereof so many hovered round, would one day, leaving \"the outskirts\nof _AEsthetic Tea_,\" flit higher; and, by electric Promethean glance,\nkindle no despicable firework. Happy, if it indeed proved a Firework,\nand flamed off rocket-wise, in successive beautiful bursts of splendor,\neach growing naturally from the other, through the several stages of a\nhappy Youthful Love; till the whole were safely burnt out; and the young\nsoul relieved with little damage! Happy, if it did not rather prove a\nConflagration and mad Explosion; painfully lacerating the heart itself;\nnay perhaps bursting the heart in pieces (which were Death); or at best,\nbursting the thin walls of your \"reverberating furnace,\" so that it rage\nthenceforth all unchecked among the contiguous combustibles (which\nwere Madness): till of the so fair and manifold internal world of our\nDiogenes, there remained Nothing, or only the \"crater of an extinct\nvolcano\"!\n\nFrom multifarious Documents in this Bag _Capricornus_, and in the\nadjacent ones on both sides thereof, it becomes manifest that our\nphilosopher, as stoical and cynical as he now looks, was heartily and\neven frantically in Love: here therefore may our old doubts whether his\nheart were of stone or of flesh give way. He loved once; not wisely\nbut too well. And once only: for as your Congreve needs a new case or\nwrappage for every new rocket, so each human heart can properly exhibit\nbut one Love, if even one; the \"First Love which is infinite\" can be\nfollowed by no second like unto it. In more recent years, accordingly,\nthe Editor of these Sheets was led to regard Teufelsdrockh as a man\nnot only who would never wed, but who would never even flirt; whom the\ngrand-climacteric itself, and _St. Martin's Summer_ of incipient Dotage,\nwould crown with no new myrtle-garland. To the Professor, women are\nhenceforth Pieces of Art; of Celestial Art, indeed, which celestial\npieces he glories to survey in galleries, but has lost thought of\npurchasing.\n\nPsychological readers are not without curiosity to see how Teufelsdrockh\nin this for him unexampled predicament, demeans himself; with what\nspecialties of successive configuration, splendor and color, his\nFirework blazes off. Small, as usual, is the satisfaction that such can\nmeet with here. From amid these confused masses of Eulogy and Elegy,\nwith their mad Petrarchan and Werterean ware lying madly scattered among\nall sorts of quite extraneous matter, not so much as the fair one's name\ncan be deciphered. For, without doubt, the title _Blumine_, whereby she\nis here designated, and which means simply Goddess of Flowers, must be\nfictitious. Was her real name Flora, then? But what was her surname,\nor had she none? Of what station in Life was she; of what parentage,\nfortune, aspect? Specially, by what Pre-established Harmony of\noccurrences did the Lover and the Loved meet one another in so wide a\nworld; how did they behave in such meeting? To all which questions, not\nunessential in a Biographic work, mere Conjecture must for most part\nreturn answer. \"It was appointed,\" says our Philosopher, \"that the high\ncelestial orbit of Blumine should intersect the low sublunary one of our\nForlorn; that he, looking in her empyrean eyes, should fancy the upper\nSphere of Light was come down into this nether sphere of Shadows; and\nfinding himself mistaken, make noise enough.\"\n\nWe seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, beautiful, and some\none's Cousin; high-born, and of high spirit; but unhappily dependent and\ninsolvent; living, perhaps, on the not too gracious bounty of moneyed\nrelatives. But how came \"the Wanderer\" into her circle? Was it by the\nhumid vehicle of _AEsthetic Tea_, or by the arid one of mere Business?\nWas it on the hand of Herr Towgood; or of the Gnadige Frau, who, as\nan ornamental Artist, might sometimes like to promote flirtation,\nespecially for young cynical Nondescripts? To all appearance, it was\nchiefly by Accident, and the grace of Nature.\n\n\"Thou fair Waldschloss,\" writes our Autobiographer, \"what stranger ever\nsaw thee, were it even an absolved Auscultator, officially bearing in\nhis pocket the last _Relatio ex Actis_ he would ever write, but must\nhave paused to wonder! Noble Mansion! There stoodest thou, in deep\nMountain Amphitheatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene solitude;\nstately, massive, all of granite; glittering in the western sunbeams,\nlike a palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious metal. Beautiful rose\nup, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills; of the greenest\nwas their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, or spotted\nby some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. To the unconscious\nWayfarer thou wert also as an Ammon's Temple, in the Libyan Waste;\nwhere, for joy and woe, the tablet of his Destiny lay written. Well\nmight he pause and gaze; in that glance of his were prophecy and\nnameless forebodings.\"\n\nBut now let us conjecture that the so presentient Auscultator has handed\nin his _Relatio ex Actis_; been invited to a glass of Rhine-wine; and\nso, instead of returning dispirited and athirst to his dusty Town-home,\nis ushered into the Garden-house, where sit the choicest party of dames\nand cavaliers: if not engaged in AEsthetic Tea, yet in trustful evening\nconversation, and perhaps Musical Coffee, for we hear of \"harps and\npure voices making the stillness live.\" Scarcely, it would seem, is the\nGarden-house inferior in respectability to the noble Mansion itself.\n\"Embowered amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the hues and odors\nof thousand flowers, here sat that brave company; in front, from the\nwide-opened doors, fair outlook over blossom and bush, over grove and\nvelvet green, stretching, undulating onwards to the remote Mountain\npeaks: so bright, so mild, and everywhere the melody of birds and happy\ncreatures: it was all as if man had stolen a shelter from the SUIT\nin the bosom-vesture of Summer herself. How came it that the Wanderer\nadvanced thither with such forecasting heart (_ahndungsvoll_), by the\nside of his gay host? Did he feel that to these soft influences his hard\nbosom ought to be shut; that here, once more, Fate had it in view to try\nhim; to mock him, and see whether there were Humor in him?\n\n\"Next moment he finds himself presented to the party; and especially by\nname to--Blumine! Peculiar among all dames and damosels glanced Blumine,\nthere in her modesty, like a star among earthly lights. Noblest maiden!\nwhom he bent to, in body and in soul; yet scarcely dared look at, for\nthe presence filled him with painful yet sweetest embarrassment.\n\n\"Blumine's was a name well known to him; far and wide was the fair one\nheard of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices: from all which vague\ncolorings of Rumor, from the censures no less than from the praises, had\nour friend painted for himself a certain imperious Queen of Hearts, and\nblooming warm Earth-angel, much more enchanting than your mere white\nHeaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins circulates too little\nnaphtha-fire. Herself also he had seen in public places; that light yet\nso stately form; those dark tresses, shading a face where smiles and\nsunlight played over earnest deeps: but all this he had seen only as a\nmagic vision, for him inaccessible, almost without reality. Her sphere\nwas too far from his; how should she ever think of him; O Heaven! how\nshould they so much as once meet together? And now that Rose-goddess\nsits in the same circle with him; the light of _her_ eyes has smiled on\nhim; if he speak, she will hear it! Nay, who knows, since the heavenly\nSun looks into lowest valleys, but Blumine herself might have aforetime\nnoted the so unnotable; perhaps, from his very gainsayers, as he had\nfrom hers, gathered wonder, gathered favor for him? Was the attraction,\nthe agitation mutual, then; pole and pole trembling towards contact,\nwhen once brought into neighborhood? Say rather, heart swelling in\npresence of the Queen of Hearts; like the Sea swelling when once\nnear its Moon! With the Wanderer it was even so: as in heavenward\ngravitation, suddenly as at the touch of a Seraph's wand, his whole soul\nis roused from its deepest recesses; and all that was painful and that\nwas blissful there, dim images, vague feelings of a whole Past and a\nwhole Future, are heaving in unquiet eddies within him.\n\n\"Often, in far less agitating scenes, had our still Friend shrunk\nforcibly together; and shrouded up his tremors and flutterings, of\nwhat sort soever, in a safe cover of Silence, and perhaps of seeming\nStolidity. How was it, then, that here, when trembling to the core of\nhis heart, he did not sink into swoons, but rose into strength, into\nfearlessness and clearness? It was his guiding Genius (_Damon_) that\ninspired him; he must go forth and meet his Destiny. Show thyself now,\nwhispered it, or be forever hid. Thus sometimes it is even when your\nanxiety becomes transcendental, that the soul first feels herself able\nto transcend it; that she rises above it, in fiery victory; and borne on\nnew-found wings of victory, moves so calmly, even because so rapidly,\nso irresistibly. Always must the Wanderer remember, with a certain\nsatisfaction and surprise, how in this case he sat not silent but struck\nadroitly into the stream of conversation; which thenceforth, to speak\nwith an apparent not a real vanity, he may say that he continued to\nlead. Surely, in those hours, a certain inspiration was imparted him,\nsuch inspiration as is still possible in our late era. The self-secluded\nunfolds himself in noble thoughts, in free, glowing words; his soul is\nas one sea of light, the peculiar home of Truth and Intellect; wherein\nalso Fantasy bodies forth form after form, radiant with all prismatic\nhues.\"\n\nIt appears, in this otherwise so happy meeting, there talked one\n\"Philisitine;\" who even now, to the general weariness, was dominantly\npouring forth Philistinism (_Philistriositaten_.); little witting what\nhero was here entering to demolish him! We omit the series of Socratic,\nor rather Diogenic utterances, not unhappy in their way, whereby the\nmonster, \"persuaded into silence,\" seems soon after to have withdrawn\nfor the night. \"Of which dialectic marauder,\" writes our hero, \"the\ndiscomfiture was visibly felt as a benefit by most: but what were all\napplauses to the glad smile, threatening every moment to become a laugh,\nwherewith Blumine herself repaid the victor? He ventured to address her\nshe answered with attention: nay what if there were a slight tremor\nin that silver voice; what if the red glow of evening were hiding a\ntransient blush!\n\n\"The conversation took a higher tone, one fine thought called forth\nanother: it was one of those rare seasons, when the soul expands with\nfull freedom, and man feels himself brought near to man. Gayly in light,\ngraceful abandonment, the friendly talk played round that circle; for\nthe burden was rolled from every heart; the barriers of Ceremony, which\nare indeed the laws of polite living, had melted as into vapor; and the\npoor claims of _Me_ and _Thee_, no longer parted by rigid fences,\nnow flowed softly into one another; and Life lay all harmonious,\nmany-tinted, like some fair royal champaign, the sovereign and owner\nof which were Love only. Such music springs from kind hearts, in a kind\nenvironment of place and time. And yet as the light grew more aerial\non the mountaintops, and the shadows fell longer over the valley, some\nfaint tone of sadness may have breathed through the heart; and, in\nwhispers more or less audible, reminded every one that as this bright\nday was drawing towards its close, so likewise must the Day of Man's\nExistence decline into dust and darkness; and with all its sick\ntoilings, and joyful and mournful noises, sink in the still Eternity.\n\n\"To our Friend the hours seemed moments; holy was he and happy: the\nwords from those sweetest lips came over him like dew on thirsty grass;\nall better feelings in his soul seemed to whisper, It is good for us\nto be here. At parting, the Blumine's hand was in his: in the balmy\ntwilight, with the kind stars above them, he spoke something of meeting\nagain, which was not contradicted; he pressed gently those small\nsoft fingers, and it seemed as if they were not hastily, not angrily\nwithdrawn.\"\n\nPoor Teufelsdrockh! it is clear to demonstration thou art smit: the\nQueen of Hearts would see a \"man of genius\" also sigh for her; and\nthere, by art-magic, in that preternatural hour, has she bound\nand spell-bound thee. \"Love is not altogether a Delirium,\" says he\nelsewhere; \"yet has it many points in common therewith. I call it rather\na discerning of the Infinite in the Finite, of the Idea made Real;\nwhich discerning again may be either true or false, either seraphic or\ndemoniac, Inspiration or Insanity. But in the former case too, as in\ncommon Madness, it is Fantasy that superadds itself to sight; on the so\npetty domain of the Actual plants its Archimedes-lever, whereby to\nmove at will the infinite Spiritual. Fantasy I might call the true\nHeaven-gate and Hell-gate of man: his sensuous life is but the small\ntemporary stage (_Zeitbuhne_), whereon thick-streaming influences\nfrom both these far yet near regions meet visibly, and act tragedy and\nmelodrama. Sense can support herself handsomely, in most countries, for\nsome eighteenpence a day; but for Fantasy planets and solar-systems will\nnot suffice. Witness your Pyrrhus conquering the world, yet drinking no\nbetter red wine than he had before.\" Alas! witness also your Diogenes,\nflame-clad, scaling the upper Heaven, and verging towards Insanity, for\nprize of a \"high-souled Brunette,\" as if the Earth held but one and not\nseveral of these!\n\nHe says that, in Town, they met again: \"day after day, like his heart's\nsun, the blooming Blumine shone on him. Ah! a little while ago, and he\nwas yet in all darkness: him what Graceful (_Holde_) would ever love?\nDisbelieving all things, the poor youth had never learned to believe\nin himself. Withdrawn, in proud timidity, within his own fastnesses;\nsolitary from men, yet baited by night-spectres enough, he saw himself,\nwith a sad indignation, constrained to renounce the fairest hopes of\nexistence. And now, O now! 'She looks on thee,' cried he: 'she the\nfairest, noblest; do not her dark eyes tell thee, thou art not despised?\nThe Heaven's-Messenger! All Heaven's blessings be hers!' Thus did\nsoft melodies flow through his heart; tones of an infinite gratitude;\nsweetest intimations that he also was a man, that for him also\nunutterable joys had been provided.\n\n\"In free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent glances, laughter, tears,\nand often with the inarticulate mystic speech of Music: such was the\nelement they now lived in; in such a many-tinted, radiant Aurora, and by\nthis fairest of Orient Light-bringers must our Friend be blandished, and\nthe new Apocalypse of Nature enrolled to him. Fairest Blumine! And, even\nas a Star, all Fire and humid Softness, a very Light-ray incarnate! Was\nthere so much as a fault, a 'caprice,' he could have dispensed with? Was\nshe not to him in very deed a Morning-star; did not her presence bring\nwith it airs from Heaven? As from AEolian Harps in the breath of\ndawn, as from the Memnon's Statue struck by the rosy finger of Aurora,\nunearthly music was around him, and lapped him into untried balmy Rest.\nPale Doubt fled away to the distance; Life bloomed up with happiness and\nhope. The past, then, was all a haggard dream; he had been in the Garden\nof Eden, then, and could not discern it! But lo now! the black walls\nof his prison melt away; the captive is alive, is free. If he loved his\nDisenchantress? _Ach Gott_! His whole heart and soul and life were hers,\nbut never had he named it Love: existence was all a Feeling, not yet\nshaped into a Thought.\"\n\nNevertheless, into a Thought, nay into an Action, it must be shaped; for\nneither Disenchanter nor Disenchantress, mere \"Children of Time,\" can\nabide by Feeling alone. The Professor knows not, to this day, \"how in\nher soft, fervid bosom the Lovely found determination, even on hest\nof Necessity, to cut asunder these so blissful bonds.\" He even appears\nsurprised at the \"Duenna Cousin,\" whoever she may have been, \"in whose\nmeagre hunger-bitten philosophy, the religion of young hearts was, from\nthe first, faintly approved of.\" We, even at such distance, can explain\nit without necromancy. Let the Philosopher answer this one question:\nWhat figure, at that period, was a Mrs. Teufelsdrockh likely to make in\npolished society? Could she have driven so much as a brass-bound Gig,\nor even a simple iron-spring one? Thou foolish \"absolved Auscultator,\"\nbefore whom lies no prospect of capital, will any yet known \"religion\nof young hearts\" keep the human kitchen warm? Pshaw! thy divine Blumine,\nwhen she \"resigned herself to wed some richer,\" shows more philosophy,\nthough but \"a woman of genius,\" than thou, a pretended man.\n\nOur readers have witnessed the origin of this Love-mania, and with what\nroyal splendor it waxes, and rises. Let no one ask us to unfold the\nglories of its dominant state; much less the horrors of its almost\ninstantaneous dissolution. How from such inorganic masses, henceforth\nmadder than ever, as lie in these Bags, can even fragments of a living\ndelineation be organized? Besides, of what profit were it? We view, with\na lively pleasure, the gay silk Montgolfier start from the ground, and\nshoot upwards, cleaving the liquid deeps, till it dwindle to a luminous\nstar: but what is there to look longer on, when once, by natural\nelasticity, or accident of fire, it has exploded? A hapless\nair-navigator, plunging, amid torn parachutes, sand-bags, and confused\nwreck, fast enough into the jaws of the Devil! Suffice it to know\nthat Teufelsdrockh rose into the highest regions of the Empyrean, by a\nnatural parabolic track, and returned thence in a quick perpendicular\none. For the rest, let any feeling reader, who has been unhappy enough\nto do the like, paint it out for himself: considering only that if he,\nfor his perhaps comparatively insignificant mistress, underwent such\nagonies and frenzies, what must Teufelsdrockh's have been, with a\nfire-heart, and for a nonpareil Blumine! We glance merely at the final\nscene:--\n\n\"One morning, he found his Morning-star all dimmed and dusky-red; the\nfair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to have been weeping. Alas,\nno longer a Morning-star, but a troublous skyey Portent, announcing that\nthe Doomsday had dawned! She said, in a tremulous voice, They were to\nmeet no more.\" The thunder-struck Air-sailor is not wanting to\nhimself in this dread hour: but what avails it? We omit the passionate\nexpostulations, entreaties, indignations, since all was vain, and not\neven an explanation was conceded him; and hasten to the catastrophe.\n\"'Farewell, then, Madam!' said he, not without sternness, for his stung\npride helped him. She put her hand in his, she looked in his face, tears\nstarted to her eyes; in wild audacity he clasped her to his bosom;\ntheir lips were joined, their two souls, like two dew-drops, rushed into\none,--for the first time and for the last!\" Thus was Teufelsdrockh made\nimmortal by a kiss. And then? Why, then--\"thick curtains of Night rushed\nover his soul, as rose the immeasurable Crash of Doom; and through the\nruins as of a shivered Universe was he falling, falling, towards the\nAbyss.\"\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH.\n\nWe have long felt that, with a man like our Professor, matters must\noften be expected to take a course of their own; that in so multiplex,\nintricate a nature, there might be channels, both for admitting and\nemitting, such as the Psychologist had seldom noted; in short, that on\nno grand occasion and convulsion, neither in the joy-storm nor in the\nwoe-storm could you predict his demeanor.\n\nTo our less philosophical readers, for example, it is now clear that the\nso passionate Teufelsdrockh precipitated through \"a shivered Universe\"\nin this extraordinary way, has only one of three things which he can\nnext do: Establish himself in Bedlam; begin writing Satanic Poetry; or\nblow out his brains. In the progress towards any of which consummations,\ndo not such readers anticipate extravagance enough; breast-beating,\nbrow-beating (against walls), lion-bellowings of blasphemy and the like,\nstampings, smitings, breakages of furniture, if not arson itself?\n\nNowise so does Teufelsdrockh deport him. He quietly lifts his\n_Pilgerstab_ (Pilgrim-staff), \"old business being soon wound up;\" and\nbegins a perambulation and circumambulation of the terraqueous Globe!\nCurious it is, indeed, how with such vivacity of conception, such\nintensity of feeling, above all, with these unconscionable habits of\nExaggeration in speech, he combines that wonderful stillness of his,\nthat stoicism in external procedure. Thus, if his sudden bereavement, in\nthis matter of the Flower-goddess, is talked of as a real Doomsday and\nDissolution of Nature, in which light doubtless it partly appeared\nto himself, his own nature is nowise dissolved thereby; but rather\nis compressed closer. For once, as we might say, a Blumine by magic\nappliances has unlocked that shut heart of his, and its hidden things\nrush out tumultuous, boundless, like genii enfranchised from their\nglass vial: but no sooner are your magic appliances withdrawn, than the\nstrange casket of a heart springs to again; and perhaps there is now no\nkey extant that will open it; for a Teufelsdrockh as we remarked,\nwill not love a second time. Singular Diogenes! No sooner has that\nheart-rending occurrence fairly taken place, than he affects to regard\nit as a thing natural, of which there is nothing more to be said. \"One\nhighest hope, seemingly legible in the eyes of an Angel, had recalled\nhim as out of Death-shadows into celestial Life: but a gleam of Tophet\npassed over the face of his Angel; he was rapt away in whirlwinds, and\nheard the laughter of Demons. It was a Calenture,\" adds he, \"whereby\nthe Youth saw green Paradise-groves in the waste Ocean-waters: a lying\nvision, yet not wholly a lie, for _he_ saw it.\" But what things soever\npassed in him, when he ceased to see it; what ragings and despairings\nsoever Teufelsdrockh's soul was the scene of, he has the goodness to\nconceal under a quite opaque cover of Silence. We know it well; the\nfirst mad paroxysm past, our brave Gneschen collected his dismembered\nphilosophies, and buttoned himself together; he was meek, silent, or\nspoke of the weather and the Journals: only by a transient knitting of\nthose shaggy brows, by some deep flash of those eyes, glancing one knew\nnot whether with tear-dew or with fierce fire,--might you have guessed\nwhat a Gehenna was within: that a whole Satanic School were spouting,\nthough inaudibly, there. To consume your own choler, as some chimneys\nconsume their own smoke; to keep a whole Satanic School spouting, if it\nmust spout, inaudibly, is a negative yet no slight virtue, nor one of\nthe commonest in these times.\n\nNevertheless, we will not take upon us to say, that in the strange\nmeasure he fell upon, there was not a touch of latent Insanity; whereof\nindeed the actual condition of these Documents in _Capricornus_ and\n_Aquarius is_ no bad emblem. His so unlimited Wanderings, toilsome\nenough, are without assigned or perhaps assignable aim; internal Unrest\nseems his sole guidance; he wanders, wanders, as if that curse of\nthe Prophet had fallen on him, and he were \"made like unto a wheel.\"\nDoubtless, too, the chaotic nature of these Paper-bags aggravates our\nobscurity. Quite without note of preparation, for example, we come upon\nthe following slip: \"A peculiar feeling it is that will rise in the\nTraveller, when turning some hill-range in his desert road, he descries\nlying far below, embosomed among its groves and green natural bulwarks,\nand all diminished to a toy-box, the fair Town, where so many souls, as\nit were seen and yet unseen, are driving their multifarious traffic. Its\nwhite steeple is then truly a starward-pointing finger; the canopy\nof blue smoke seems like a sort of Lifebreath: for always, of its own\nunity, the soul gives unity to whatsoever it looks on with love; thus\ndoes the little Dwelling-place of men, in itself a congeries of houses\nand huts, become for us an individual, almost a person. But what\nthousand other thoughts unite thereto, if the place has to ourselves\nbeen the arena of joyous or mournful experiences; if perhaps the cradle\nwe were rocked in still stands there, if our Loving ones still dwell\nthere, if our Buried ones there slumber!\" Does Teufelsdrockh as the\nwounded eagle is said to make for its own eyrie, and indeed military\ndeserters, and all hunted outcast creatures, turn as if by instinct in\nthe direction of their birthland,--fly first, in this extremity, towards\nhis native Entepfuhl; but reflecting that there no help awaits him, take\nonly one wistful look from the distance, and then wend elsewhither?\n\nLittle happier seems to be his next flight: into the wilds of Nature; as\nif in her mother-bosom he would seek healing. So at least we incline\nto interpret the following Notice, separated from the former by some\nconsiderable space, wherein, however, is nothing noteworthy:--\n\n\"Mountains were not new to him; but rarely are Mountains seen in such\ncombined majesty and grace as here. The rocks are of that sort called\nPrimitive by the mineralogists, which always arrange themselves in\nmasses of a rugged, gigantic character; which ruggedness, however,\nis here tempered by a singular airiness of form, and softness of\nenvironment: in a climate favorable to vegetation, the gray cliff,\nitself covered with lichens, shoots up through a garment of foliage\nor verdure; and white, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster round\nthe everlasting granite. In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates with\nGrandeur: you ride through stony hollows, along strait passes, traversed\nby torrents, overhung by high walls of rock; now winding amid broken\nshaggy chasms, and huge fragments; now suddenly emerging into some\nemerald valley, where the streamlet collects itself into a Lake, and\nman has again found a fair dwelling, and it seems as if Peace had\nestablished herself in the bosom of Strength.\n\n\"To Peace, however, in this vortex of existence, can the Son of Time\nnot pretend: still less if some Spectre haunt him from the Past; and the\nFuture is wholly a Stygian Darkness, spectre-bearing. Reasonably might\nthe Wanderer exclaim to himself: Are not the gates of this world's\nhappiness inexorably shut against thee; hast thou a hope that is not\nmad? Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, or in the original\nGreek if that suit thee better: 'Whoso can look on Death will start at\nno shadows.'\n\n\"From such meditations is the Wanderer's attention called outwards; for\nnow the Valley closes in abruptly, intersected by a huge mountain\nmass, the stony water-worn ascent of which is not to be accomplished on\nhorseback. Arrived aloft, he finds himself again lifted into the evening\nsunset light; and cannot but pause, and gaze round him, some moments\nthere. An upland irregular expanse of wold, where valleys in complex\nbranchings are suddenly or slowly arranging their descent towards every\nquarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are beneath your feet, and\nfolded together: only the loftier summits look down here and there as on\na second plain; lakes also lie clear and earnest in their solitude. No\ntrace of man now visible; unless indeed it were he who fashioned\nthat little visible link of Highway, here, as would seem, scaling the\ninaccessible, to unite Province with Province. But sunwards, lo you! how\nit towers sheer up, a world of Mountains, the diadem and centre of the\nmountain region! A hundred and a hundred savage peaks, in the last light\nof Day; all glowing, of gold and amethyst, like giant spirits of the\nwilderness; there in their silence, in their solitude, even as on the\nnight when Noah's Deluge first dried! Beautiful, nay solemn, was the\nsudden aspect to our Wanderer. He gazed over those stupendous masses\nwith wonder, almost with longing desire; never till this hour had he\nknown Nature, that she was One, that she was his Mother and divine. And\nas the ruddy glow was fading into clearness in the sky, and the Sun had\nnow departed, a murmur of Eternity and Immensity, of Death and of Life,\nstole through his soul; and he felt as if Death and Life were one, as if\nthe Earth were not dead, as if the Spirit of the Earth had its throne in\nthat splendor, and his own spirit were therewith holding communion.\n\n\"The spell was broken by a sound of carriage-wheels. Emerging from the\nhidden Northward, to sink soon into the hidden Southward, came a gay\nBarouche-and-four: it was open; servants and postilions wore wedding\nfavors: that happy pair, then, had found each other, it was their\nmarriage evening! Few moments brought them near: _Du Himmel_! It was\nHerr Towgood and--Blumine! With slight unrecognizing salutation they\npassed me; plunged down amid the neighboring thickets, onwards, to\nHeaven, and to England; and I, in my friend Richter's words, _I remained\nalone, behind them, with the Night_.\"\n\nWere it not cruel in these circumstances, here might be the place to\ninsert an observation, gleaned long ago from the great _Clothes-Volume_,\nwhere it stands with quite other intent: \"Some time before Small-pox\nwas extirpated,\" says the Professor, \"there came a new malady of\nthe spiritual sort on Europe: I mean the epidemic, now endemical, of\nView-hunting. Poets of old date, being privileged with Senses, had also\nenjoyed external Nature; but chiefly as we enjoy the crystal cup which\nholds good or bad liquor for us; that is to say, in silence, or with\nslight incidental commentary: never, as I compute, till after the\n_Sorrows of Werter_, was there man found who would say: Come let us make\na Description! Having drunk the liquor, come let us eat the glass! Of\nwhich endemic the Jenner is unhappily still to seek.\" Too true!\n\nWe reckon it more important to remark that the Professor's Wanderings,\nso far as his stoical and cynical envelopment admits us to clear\ninsight, here first take their permanent character, fatuous or not. That\nBasilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have withered up\nwhat little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in him: Life has\nbecome wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through long years, our Friend,\nflying from spectres, has to stumble about at random, and naturally with\nmore haste than progress.\n\nFoolish were it in us to attempt following him, even from afar, in this\nextraordinary world-pilgrimage of his; the simplest record of which,\nwere clear record possible, would fill volumes. Hopeless is the\nobscurity, unspeakable the confusion. He glides from country to country,\nfrom condition to condition; vanishing and reappearing, no man can\ncalculate how or where. Through all quarters of the world he wanders,\nand apparently through all circles of society. If in any scene, perhaps\ndifficult to fix geographically, he settles for a time, and forms\nconnections, be sure he will snap them abruptly asunder. Let him sink\nout of sight as Private Scholar (_Privatsirender_), living by the grace\nof God in some European capital, you may next find him as Hadjee in the\nneighborhood of Mecca. It is an inexplicable Phantasmagoria, capricious,\nquick-changing; as if our Traveller, instead of limbs and highways,\nhad transported himself by some wishing-carpet, or Fortunatus' Hat. The\nwhole, too, imparted emblematically, in dim multifarious tokens (as that\ncollection of Street-Advertisements); with only some touch of direct\nhistorical notice sparingly interspersed: little light-islets in the\nworld of haze! So that, from this point, the Professor is more of an\nenigma than ever. In figurative language, we might say he becomes, not\nindeed a spirit, yet spiritualized, vaporized. Fact unparalleled in\nBiography: The river of his History, which we have traced from its\ntiniest fountains, and hoped to see flow onward, with increasing\ncurrent, into the ocean, here dashes itself over that terrific Lover's\nLeap; and, as a mad-foaming cataract, flies wholly into tumultuous\nclouds of spray! Low down it indeed collects again into pools and\nplashes; yet only at a great distance, and with difficulty, if at all,\ninto a general stream. To cast a glance into certain of those pools and\nplashes, and trace whither they run, must, for a chapter or two, form\nthe limit of our endeavor.\n\nFor which end doubtless those direct historical Notices, where they can\nbe met with, are the best. Nevertheless, of this sort too there occurs\nmuch, which, with our present light, it were questionable to emit.\nTeufelsdrockh vibrating everywhere between the highest and the lowest\nlevels, comes into contact with public History itself. For example,\nthose conversations and relations with illustrious Persons, as Sultan\nMahmoud, the Emperor Napoleon, and others, are they not as yet rather\nof a diplomatic character than of a biographic? The Editor, appreciating\nthe sacredness of crowned heads, nay perhaps suspecting the possible\ntrickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew this province for the\npresent; a new time may bring new insight and a different duty.\n\nIf we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for there was\nnone, yet with what immediate outlooks; at all events, in what mood of\nmind, the Professor undertook and prosecuted this world-pilgrimage,--the\nanswer is more distinct than favorable. \"A nameless Unrest,\" says he,\n\"urged me forward; to which the outward motion was some momentary lying\nsolace. Whither should I go? My Loadstars were blotted out; in that\ncanopy of grim fire shone no star. Yet forward must I; the ground burnt\nunder me; there was no rest for the sole of my foot. I was alone, alone!\nEver too the strong inward longing shaped Phantasms for itself: towards\nthese, one after the other, must I fruitlessly wander. A feeling I\nhad, that for my fever-thirst there was and must be somewhere a healing\nFountain. To many fondly imagined Fountains, the Saints' Wells of these\ndays, did I pilgrim; to great Men, to great Cities, to great Events: but\nfound there no healing. In strange countries, as in the well-known; in\nsavage deserts, as in the press of corrupt civilization, it was ever\nthe same: how could your Wanderer escape from--_his own Shadow_?\nNevertheless still Forward! I felt as if in great haste; to do I saw not\nwhat. From the depths of my own heart, it called to me, Forwards! The\nwinds and the streams, and all Nature sounded to me, Forwards! _Ach\nGott_, I was even, once for all, a Son of Time.\"\n\nFrom which is it not clear that the internal Satanic School was still\nactive enough? He says elsewhere: \"The _Enchiridion of Epictetus_ I had\never with me, often as my sole rational companion; and regret to\nmention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling.\" Thou foolish\nTeufelsdrockh How could it else? Hadst thou not Greek enough to\nunderstand thus much: _The end of Man is an Action, and not a Thought_,\nthough it were the noblest?\n\n\"How I lived?\" writes he once: \"Friend, hast thou considered the 'rugged\nall-nourishing Earth,' as Sophocles well names her; how she feeds\nthe sparrow on the house-top, much more her darling, man? While thou\nstirrest and livest, thou hast a probability of victual. My breakfast of\ntea has been cooked by a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who wiped\nher earthen kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted wild eggs in\nthe sand of Sahara; I have awakened in Paris _Estrapades_ and Vienna\n_Malzleins_, with no prospect of breakfast beyond elemental liquid. That\nI had my Living to seek saved me from Dying,--by suicide. In our\nbusy Europe, is there not an everlasting demand for Intellect, in the\nchemical, mechanical, political, religious, educational, commercial\ndepartments? In Pagan countries, cannot one write Fetishes? Living!\nLittle knowest thou what alchemy is in an inventive Soul; how, as with\nits little finger, it can create provision enough for the body (of a\nPhilosopher); and then, as with both hands, create quite other than\nprovision; namely, spectres to torment itself withal.\"\n\nPoor Teufelsdrockh! Flying with Hunger always parallel to him; and a\nwhole Infernal Chase in his rear; so that the countenance of Hunger is\ncomparatively a friend's! Thus must he, in the temper of ancient Cain,\nor of the modern Wandering Jew,--save only that he feels himself not\nguilty and but suffering the pains of guilt,--wend to and fro with\naimless speed. Thus must he, over the whole surface of the Earth (by\nfootprints), write his _Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh_; even as the great\nGoethe, in passionate words, had to write his _Sorrows of Werter_,\nbefore the spirit freed herself, and he could become a Man. Vain truly\nis the hope of your swiftest Runner to escape \"from his own Shadow\"!\nNevertheless, in these sick days, when the Born of Heaven first descries\nhimself (about the age of twenty) in a world such as ours, richer\nthan usual in two things, in Truths grown obsolete, and Trades grown\nobsolete,--what can the fool think but that it is all a Den of Lies,\nwherein whoso will not speak Lies and act Lies, must stand idle and\ndespair? Whereby it happens that, for your nobler minds, the publishing\nof some such Work of Art, in one or the other dialect, becomes almost\na necessity. For what is it properly but an Altercation with the\nDevil, before you begin honestly Fighting him? Your Byron publishes\nhis _Sorrows of Lord George_, in verse and in prose, and copiously\notherwise: your Bonaparte represents his _Sorrows of Napoleon_ Opera,\nin an all-too stupendous style; with music of cannon-volleys,\nand murder-shrieks of a world; his stage-lights are the fires of\nConflagration; his rhyme and recitative are the tramp of embattled\nHosts and the sound of falling Cities.--Happier is he who, like our\nClothes-Philosopher, can write such matter, since it must be written,\non the insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles only; and also survive the\nwriting thereof!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. THE EVERLASTING NO.\n\nUnder the strange nebulous envelopment, wherein our Professor has now\nshrouded himself, no doubt but his spiritual nature is nevertheless\nprogressive, and growing: for how can the \"Son of Time,\" in any case,\nstand still? We behold him, through those dim years, in a state of\ncrisis, of transition: his mad Pilgrimings, and general solution\ninto aimless Discontinuity, what is all this but a mad Fermentation;\nwherefrom the fiercer it is, the clearer product will one day evolve\nitself?\n\nSuch transitions are ever full of pain: thus the Eagle when he moults is\nsickly; and, to attain his new beak, must harshly dash off the old one\nupon rocks. What Stoicism soever our Wanderer, in his individual acts\nand motions, may affect, it is clear that there is a hot fever of\nanarchy and misery raging within; coruscations of which flash out: as,\nindeed, how could there be other? Have we not seen him disappointed,\nbemocked of Destiny, through long years? All that the young heart might\ndesire and pray for has been denied; nay, as in the last worst instance,\noffered and then snatched away. Ever an \"excellent Passivity;\" but of\nuseful, reasonable Activity, essential to the former as Food to Hunger,\nnothing granted: till at length, in this wild Pilgrimage, he must\nforcibly seize for himself an Activity, though useless, unreasonable.\nAlas, his cup of bitterness, which had been filling drop by drop, ever\nsince that first \"ruddy morning\" in the Hinterschlag Gymnasium, was at\nthe very lip; and then with that poison-drop, of the Towgood-and-Blumine\nbusiness, it runs over, and even hisses over in a deluge of foam.\n\nHe himself says once, with more justness than originality: \"Men is,\nproperly speaking, based upon Hope, he has no other possession but Hope;\nthis world of his is emphatically the Place of Hope.\" What, then, was\nour Professor's possession? We see him, for the present, quite shut out\nfrom Hope; looking not into the golden orient, but vaguely all round\ninto a dim copper firmament, pregnant with earthquake and tornado.\n\nAlas, shut out from Hope, in a deeper sense than we yet dream of!\nFor, as he wanders wearisomely through this world, he has now lost\nall tidings of another and higher. Full of religion, or at least of\nreligiosity, as our Friend has since exhibited himself, he hides not\nthat, in those days, he was wholly irreligious: \"Doubt had darkened into\nUnbelief,\" says he; \"shade after shade goes grimly over your soul, till\nyou have the fixed, starless, Tartarean black.\" To such readers as have\nreflected, what can be called reflecting, on man's life, and happily\ndiscovered, in contradiction to much Profit-and-Loss Philosophy,\nspeculative and practical, that Soul is not synonymous with Stomach;\nwho understand, therefore, in our Friend's words, \"that, for man's\nwell-being, Faith is properly the one thing needful; how, with it,\nMartyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross;\nand without it, Worldlings puke up their sick existence, by suicide, in\nthe midst of luxury:\" to such it will be clear that, for a pure moral\nnature, the loss of his religious Belief was the loss of everything.\nUnhappy young man! All wounds, the crush of long-continued Destitution,\nthe stab of false Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in thy so\ngenial heart, would have healed again, had not its life-warmth been\nwithdrawn. Well might he exclaim, in his wild way: \"Is there no God,\nthen; but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first\nSabbath, at the outside of his Universe, and _see_ing it go? Has the\nword Duty no meaning; is what we call Duty no divine Messenger and\nGuide, but a false earthly Phantasm, made up of Desire and Fear, of\nemanations from the Gallows and from Doctor Graham's Celestial-Bed?\nHappiness of an approving Conscience! Did not Paul of Tarsus, whom\nadmiring men have since named Saint, feel that _he_ was 'the chief of\nsinners;' and Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit (_wohlgemuth_), spend much\nof his time in fiddling? Foolish Wordmonger and Motive-grinder, who in\nthy Logic-mill hast an earthly mechanism for the Godlike itself, and\nwouldst fain grind me out Virtue from the husks of Pleasure,--I tell\nthee, Nay! To the unregenerate Prometheus Vinctus of a man, it is ever\nthe bitterest aggravation of his wretchedness that he is conscious of\nVirtue, that he feels himself the victim not of suffering only, but of\ninjustice. What then? Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but some\nPassion; some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction others\n_profit_ by? I know not: only this I know, If what thou namest Happiness\nbe our true aim, then are we all astray. With Stupidity and sound\nDigestion man may front much. But what, in these dull unimaginative\ndays, are the terrors of Conscience to the diseases of the Liver! Not on\nMorality, but on Cookery, let us build our stronghold: there brandishing\nour frying-pan, as censer, let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and\nlive at ease on the fat things he has provided for his Elect!\"\n\nThus has the bewildered Wanderer to stand, as so many have done,\nshouting question after question into the Sibyl-cave of Destiny, and\nreceive no Answer but an Echo. It is all a grim Desert, this once-fair\nworld of his; wherein is heard only the howling of wild beasts, or the\nshrieks of despairing, hate-filled men; and no Pillar of Cloud by day,\nand no Pillar of Fire by night, any longer guides the Pilgrim. To such\nlength has the spirit of Inquiry carried him. \"But what boots it (_was\nthut's_)?\" cries he: \"it is but the common lot in this era. Not having\ncome to spiritual majority prior to the _Siecle de Louis Quinze_, and\nnot being born purely a Loghead (_Dummkopf_ ), thou hadst no other\noutlook. The whole world is, like thee, sold to Unbelief; their old\nTemples of the Godhead, which for long have not been rain-proof, crumble\ndown; and men ask now: Where is the Godhead; our eyes never saw him?\"\n\nPitiful enough were it, for all these wild utterances, to call our\nDiogenes wicked. Unprofitable servants as we all are, perhaps at no era\nof his life was he more decisively the Servant of Goodness, the Servant\nof God, than even now when doubting God's existence. \"One circumstance I\nnote,\" says he: \"after all the nameless woe that Inquiry, which for\nme, what it is not always, was genuine Love of Truth, had wrought me! I\nnevertheless still loved Truth, and would bate no jot of my allegiance\nto her. 'Truth!' I cried, 'though the Heavens crush me for following\nher: no Falsehood! though a whole celestial Lubberland were the price of\nApostasy.' In conduct it was the same. Had a divine Messenger from the\nclouds, or miraculous Handwriting on the wall, convincingly proclaimed\nto me _This thou shalt do_, with what passionate readiness, as I often\nthought, would I have done it, had it been leaping into the\ninfernal Fire. Thus, in spite of all Motive-grinders, and Mechanical\nProfit-and-Loss Philosophies, with the sick ophthalmia and hallucination\nthey had brought on, was the Infinite nature of Duty still dimly present\nto me: living without God in the world, of God's light I was not utterly\nbereft; if my as yet sealed eyes, with their unspeakable longing,\ncould nowhere see Him, nevertheless in my heart He was present, and His\nheaven-written Law still stood legible and sacred there.\"\n\nMeanwhile, under all these tribulations, and temporal and spiritual\ndestitutions, what must the Wanderer, in his silent soul, have endured!\n\"The painfullest feeling,\" writes he, \"is that of your own Feebleness\n(_Unkraft_); ever, as the English Milton says, to be weak is the true\nmisery. And yet of your Strength there is and can be no clear feeling,\nsave by what you have prospered in, by what you have done. Between\nvague wavering Capability and fixed indubitable Performance, what a\ndifference! A certain inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells dimly\nin us; which only our Works can render articulate and decisively\ndiscernible. Our Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its\nnatural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible Precept,\n_Know thyself_; till it be translated into this partially possible one,\n_Know what thou canst work at_.\n\n\"But for me, so strangely unprosperous had I been, the net-result of my\nWorkings amounted as yet simply to--Nothing. How then could I believe in\nmy Strength, when there was as yet no mirror to see it in? Ever did this\nagitating, yet, as I now perceive, quite frivolous question, remain to\nme insoluble: Hast thou a certain Faculty, a certain Worth, such even\nas the most have not; or art thou the completest Dullard of these modern\ntimes? Alas, the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself; and how could\nI believe? Had not my first, last Faith in myself, when even to me the\nHeavens seemed laid open, and I dared to love, been all too cruelly\nbelied? The speculative Mystery of Life grew ever more mysterious to me:\nneither in the practical Mystery had I made the slightest progress, but\nbeen everywhere buffeted, foiled, and contemptuously cast out. A feeble\nunit in the middle of a threatening Infinitude, I seemed to have nothing\ngiven me but eyes, whereby to discern my own wretchedness. Invisible yet\nimpenetrable walls, as of Enchantment, divided me from all living: was\nthere, in the wide world, any true bosom I could press trustfully to\nmine? O Heaven, No, there was none! I kept a lock upon my lips: why\nshould I speak much with that shifting variety of so-called Friends,\nin whose withered, vain and too-hungry souls Friendship was but an\nincredible tradition? In such cases, your resource is to talk little,\nand that little mostly from the Newspapers. Now when I look back, it was\na strange isolation I then lived in. The men and women around me, even\nspeaking with me, were but Figures; I had, practically, forgotten that\nthey were alive, that they were not merely automatic. In the midst of\ntheir crowded streets and assemblages, I walked solitary; and (except as\nit was my own heart, not another's, that I kept devouring) savage also,\nas the tiger in his jungle. Some comfort it would have been, could I,\nlike a Faust, have fancied myself tempted and tormented of the Devil;\nfor a Hell, as I imagine, without Life, though only diabolic Life, were\nmore frightful: but in our age of Down-pulling and Disbelief, the very\nDevil has been pulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To\nme the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of\nHostility: it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling\non, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. Oh, the\nvast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the Living\nbanished thither companionless, conscious? Why, if there is no Devil;\nnay, unless the Devil is your God?\"\n\nA prey incessantly to such corrosions, might not, moreover, as the\nworst aggravation to them, the iron constitution even of a Teufelsdrockh\nthreaten to fail? We conjecture that he has known sickness; and, in\nspite of his locomotive habits, perhaps sickness of the chronic sort.\nHear this, for example: \"How beautiful to die of broken-heart, on Paper!\nQuite another thing in practice; every window of your Feeling, even of\nyour Intellect, as it were, begrimed and mud-bespattered, so that no\npure ray can enter; a whole Drug-shop in your inwards; the fordone soul\ndrowning slowly in quagmires of Disgust!\"\n\nPutting all which external and internal miseries together, may we not\nfind in the following sentences, quite in our Professor's still vein,\nsignificance enough? \"From Suicide a certain after-shine (_Nachschein_)\nof Christianity withheld me: perhaps also a certain indolence of\ncharacter; for, was not that a remedy I had at any time within reach?\nOften, however, was there a question present to me: Should some one now,\nat the turning of that corner, blow thee suddenly out of Space, into the\nother World, or other No-world, by pistol-shot,--how were it? On which\nground, too, I have often, in sea-storms and sieged cities and other\ndeath-scenes, exhibited an imperturbability, which passed, falsely\nenough, for courage.\"\n\n\"So had it lasted,\" concludes the Wanderer, \"so had it lasted, as in\nbitter protracted Death-agony, through long years. The heart within\nme, unvisited by any heavenly dew-drop, was smouldering in sulphurous,\nslow-consuming fire. Almost since earliest memory I had shed no tear;\nor once only when I, murmuring half-audibly, recited Faust's Death-song,\nthat wild _Selig der den er im Siegesglanze findet_ (Happy whom _he_\nfinds in Battle's splendor), and thought that of this last Friend even\nI was not forsaken, that Destiny itself could not doom me not to die.\nHaving no hope, neither had I any definite fear, were it of Man or\nof Devil: nay, I often felt as if it might be solacing, could the\nArch-Devil himself, though in Tartarean terrors, but rise to me, that I\nmight tell him a little of my mind. And yet, strangely enough, I lived\nin a continual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous,\napprehensive of I knew not what: it seemed as if all things in the\nHeavens above and the Earth beneath would hurt me; as if the Heavens\nand the Earth were but boundless jaws of a devouring monster, wherein I,\npalpitating, waited to be devoured.\n\n\"Full of such humor, and perhaps the miserablest man in the whole French\nCapital or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dog-day, after much perambulation,\ntoiling along the dirty little _Rue Saint-Thomas de l'Enfer_, among\ncivic rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere, and over pavements hot\nas Nebuchadnezzar's Furnace; whereby doubtless my spirits were little\ncheered; when, all at once, there rose a Thought in me, and I asked\nmyself: 'What _art_ thou afraid of? Wherefore, like a coward, dost\nthou forever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling? Despicable\nbiped! what is the sum-total of the worst that lies before thee? Death?\nWell, Death; and say the pangs of Tophet too, and all that the Devil and\nMan may, will or can do against thee! Hast thou not a heart; canst thou\nnot suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast,\ntrample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee? Let it\ncome, then; I will meet it and defy it!' And as I so thought, there\nrushed like a stream of fire over my whole soul; and I shook base Fear\naway from me forever. I was strong, of unknown strength; a spirit,\nalmost a god. Ever from that time, the temper of my misery was changed:\nnot Fear or whining Sorrow was it, but Indignation and grim fire-eyed\nDefiance.\n\n\"Thus had the EVERLASTING NO (_das ewige Nein_) pealed authoritatively\nthrough all the recesses of my Being, of my ME; and then was it that\nmy whole ME stood up, in native God-created majesty, and with emphasis\nrecorded its Protest. Such a Protest, the most important transaction in\nLife, may that same Indignation and Defiance, in a psychological point\nof view, be fitly called. The Everlasting No had said: 'Behold, thou art\nfatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine (the Devil's);' to which\nmy whole Me now made answer: '_I_ am not thine, but Free, and forever\nhate thee!'\n\n\"It is from this hour that I incline to date my Spiritual New-birth,\nor Baphometic Fire-baptism; perhaps I directly thereupon began to be a\nMan.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE.\n\nThough, after this \"Baphometic Fire-baptism\" of his, our Wanderer\nsignifies that his Unrest was but increased; as, indeed, \"Indignation\nand Defiance,\" especially against things in general, are not the most\npeaceable inmates; yet can the Psychologist surmise that it was no\nlonger a quite hopeless Unrest; that henceforth it had at least a fixed\ncentre to revolve round. For the fire-baptized soul, long so scathed\nand thunder-riven, here feels its own Freedom, which feeling is its\nBaphometic Baptism: the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus\ngained by assault, and will keep inexpugnable; outwards from which the\nremaining dominions, not indeed without hard battling, will doubtless\nby degrees be conquered and pacificated. Under another figure, we might\nsay, if in that great moment, in the _Rue Saint-Thomas de l'Enfer_, the\nold inward Satanic School was not yet thrown out of doors, it received\nperemptory judicial notice to quit;--whereby, for the rest, its\nhowl-chantings, Ernulphus-cursings, and rebellious gnashings of teeth,\nmight, in the mean while, become only the more tumultuous, and difficult\nto keep secret.\n\nAccordingly, if we scrutinize these Pilgrimings well, there is perhaps\ndiscernible henceforth a certain incipient method in their madness. Not\nwholly as a Spectre does Teufelsdrockh now storm through the world;\nat worst as a spectra-fighting Man, nay who will one day be a\nSpectre-queller. If pilgriming restlessly to so many \"Saints' Wells,\"\nand ever without quenching of his thirst, he nevertheless finds little\nsecular wells, whereby from time to time some alleviation is ministered.\nIn a word, he is now, if not ceasing, yet intermitting to \"eat his own\nheart;\" and clutches round him outwardly on the NOT-ME for wholesomer\nfood. Does not the following glimpse exhibit him in a much more natural\nstate?\n\n\"Towns also and Cities, especially the ancient, I failed not to look\nupon with interest. How beautiful to see thereby, as through a long\nvista, into the remote Time; to have, as it were, an actual section of\nalmost the earliest Past brought safe into the Present, and set before\nyour eyes! There, in that old City, was a live ember of Culinary Fire\nput down, say only two thousand years ago; and there, burning more or\nless triumphantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, it has burnt,\nand still burns, and thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof. Ah! and\nthe far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then also put down\nthere; and still miraculously burns and spreads; and the smoke and\nashes thereof (in these Judgment-Halls and Churchyards), and its\nbellows-engines (in these Churches), thou still seest; and its flame,\nlooking out from every kind countenance, and every hateful one, still\nwarms thee or scorches thee.\n\n\"Of Man's Activity and Attainment the chief results are aeriform,\nmystic, and preserved in Tradition only: such are his Forms of\nGovernment, with the Authority they rest on; his Customs, or Fashions\nboth of Cloth-habits and of Soul-habits; much more his collective\nstock of Handicrafts, the whole Faculty he has acquired of manipulating\nNature: all these things, as indispensable and priceless as they\nare, cannot in any way be fixed under lock and key, but must flit,\nspirit-like, on impalpable vehicles, from Father to Son; if you demand\nsight of them, they are nowhere to be met with. Visible Ploughmen and\nHammermen there have been, ever from Cain and Tubal-cain downwards:\nbut where does your accumulated Agricultural, Metallurgic, and\nother Manufacturing SKILL lie warehoused? It transmits itself on the\natmospheric air, on the sun's rays (by Hearing and by Vision); it is a\nthing aeriform, impalpable, of quite spiritual sort. In like manner, ask\nme not, Where are the LAWS; where is the GOVERNMENT? In vain wilt thou\ngo to Schonbrunn, to Downing Street, to the Palais Bourbon; thou findest\nnothing there but brick or stone houses, and some bundles of Papers\ntied with tape. Where, then, is that same cunningly devised almighty\nGOVERNMENT of theirs to be laid hands on? Everywhere, yet nowhere: seen\nonly in its works, this too is a thing aeriform, invisible; or if you\nwill, mystic and miraculous. So spiritual (_geistig_) is our whole daily\nLife: all that we do springs out of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force;\nonly like a little Cloud-image, or Armida's Palace, air-built, does the\nActual body itself forth from the great mystic Deep.\n\n\"Visible and tangible products of the Past, again, I reckon up to the\nextent of three: Cities, with their Cabinets and Arsenals; then tilled\nFields, to either or to both of which divisions Roads with their Bridges\nmay belong; and thirdly--Books. In which third truly, the last invented,\nlies a worth far surpassing that of the two others. Wondrous indeed\nis the virtue of a true Book. Not like a dead city of stones, yearly\ncrumbling, yearly needing repair; more like a tilled field, but then\na spiritual field: like a spiritual tree, let me rather say, it stands\nfrom year to year, and from age to age (we have Books that already\nnumber some hundred and fifty human ages); and yearly comes its new\nproduce of leaves (Commentaries, Deductions, Philosophical, Political\nSystems; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, Journalistic Essays), every\none of which is talismanic and thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men.\nO thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries\nor oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name\nCity-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or\nCity-burner! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort,\nnamely over the Devil: thou too hast built what will outlast all marble\nand metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and\nSeminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will\npilgrim.--Fool! why journeyest thou wearisomely, in thy antiquarian\nfervor, to gaze on the stone pyramids of Geeza, or the clay ones of\nSacchara? These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, looking\nover the Desert, foolishly enough, for the last three thousand years:\nbut canst thou not open thy Hebrew BIBLE, then, or even Luther's Version\nthereof?\"\n\nNo less satisfactory is his sudden appearance not in Battle, yet on some\nBattle-field; which, we soon gather, must be that of Wagram; so that\nhere, for once, is a certain approximation to distinctness of date.\nOmitting much, let us impart what follows:--\n\n\"Horrible enough! A whole Marchfeld strewed with shell-splinters,\ncannon-shot, ruined tumbrils, and dead men and horses; stragglers still\nremaining not so much as buried. And those red mould heaps; ay, there\nlie the Shells of Men, out of which all the Life and Virtue has been\nblown; and now are they swept together, and crammed down out of sight,\nlike blown Egg-shells!--Did Nature, when she bade the Donau bring down\nhis mould-cargoes from the Carinthian and Carpathian Heights, and\nspread them out here into the softest, richest level,--intend thee, O\nMarchfeld, for a corn-bearing Nursery, whereon her children might be\nnursed; or for a Cockpit, wherein they might the more commodiously be\nthrottled and tattered? Were thy three broad Highways, meeting here from\nthe ends of Europe, made for Ammunition-wagons, then? Were thy Wagrams\nand Stillfrieds but so many ready-built Casemates, wherein the house of\nHapsburg might batter with artillery, and with artillery be battered?\nKonig Ottokar, amid yonder hillocks, dies under Rodolf's truncheon;\nhere Kaiser Franz falls a-swoon under Napoleon's: within which five\ncenturies, to omit the others, how has thy breast, fair Plain, been\ndefaced and defiled! The greensward is torn up and trampled down; man's\nfond care of it, his fruit-trees, hedge-rows, and pleasant dwellings,\nblown away with gunpowder; and the kind seedfield lies a desolate,\nhideous Place of Skulls.--Nevertheless, Nature is at work; neither shall\nthese Powder-Devilkins with their utmost devilry gainsay her: but all\nthat gore and carnage will be shrouded in, absorbed into manure; and\nnext year the Marchfeld will be green, nay greener. Thrifty unwearied\nNature, ever out of our great waste educing some little profit of thy\nown,--how dost thou, from the very carcass of the Killer, bring Life for\nthe Living!\n\n\"What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net purport and\nupshot of war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil,\nin the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls.\nFrom these, by certain 'Natural Enemies' of the French, there are\nsuccessively selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied\nmen; Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them: she\nhas, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even\ntrained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another\nhammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois.\nNevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all\ndressed in red; and shipped away, at the public charges, some two\nthousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed there till\nwanted. And now to that same spot, in the south of Spain, are thirty\nsimilar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner\nwending: till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties come\ninto actual juxtaposition; and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with\na gun in his hand. Straightaway the word 'Fire!' is given; and they\nblow the souls out of one another; and in place of sixty brisk useful\ncraftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and\nanew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the Devil\nis, not the smallest! They lived far enough apart; were the entirest\nstrangers; nay, in so wide a Universe, there was even, unconsciously,\nby Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton!\ntheir Governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one another,\nhad the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot.--Alas, so is it\nin Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands; still as of old,\n'what devilry soever Kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper!'--In that\nfiction of the English Smollett, it is true, the final Cessation of War\nis perhaps prophetically shadowed forth; where the two Natural Enemies,\nin person, take each a Tobacco-pipe, filled with Brimstone; light the\nsame, and smoke in one another's faces, till the weaker gives in:\nbut from such predicted Peace-Era, what blood-filled trenches, and\ncontentious centuries, may still divide us!\"\n\nThus can the Professor, at least in lucid intervals, look away from his\nown sorrows, over the many-colored world, and pertinently enough note\nwhat is passing there. We may remark, indeed, that for the matter of\nspiritual culture, if for nothing else, perhaps few periods of his\nlife were richer than this. Internally, there is the most momentous\ninstructive Course of Practical Philosophy, with Experiments, going\non; towards the right comprehension of which his Peripatetic habits,\nfavorable to Meditation, might help him rather than hinder. Externally,\nagain, as he wanders to and fro, there are, if for the longing heart\nlittle substance, yet for the seeing eye sights enough in these so\nboundless Travels of his, granting that the Satanic School was even\npartially kept down, what an incredible knowledge of our Planet, and\nits Inhabitants and their Works, that is to say, of all knowable things,\nmight not Teufelsdrockh acquire!\n\n\"I have read in most Public Libraries,\" says he, \"including those of\nConstantinople and Samarcand: in most Colleges, except the Chinese\nMandarin ones, I have studied, or seen that there was no studying.\nUnknown Languages have I oftenest gathered from their natural repertory,\nthe Air, by my organ of Hearing; Statistics, Geographics, Topographics\ncame, through the Eye, almost of their own accord. The ways of Man, how\nhe seeks food, and warmth, and protection for himself, in most regions,\nare ocularly known to me. Like the great Hadrian, I meted out much of\nthe terraqueous Globe with a pair of Compasses that belonged to myself\nonly.\n\n\"Of great Scenes why speak? Three summer days, I lingered reflecting,\nand even composing (_dichtete_), by the Pine-chasms of Vaucluse; and in\nthat clear Lakelet moistened my bread. I have sat under the Palm-trees\nof Tadmor; smoked a pipe among the ruins of Babylon. The great Wall of\nChina I have seen; and can testify that it is of gray brick, coped and\ncovered with granite, and shows only second-rate masonry.--Great Events,\nalso, have not I witnessed? Kings sweated down (_ausgemergelt_) into\nBerlin-and-Milan Customhouse-Officers; the World well won, and the World\nwell lost; oftener than once a hundred thousand individuals shot (by\neach other) in one day. All kindreds and peoples and nations dashed\ntogether, and shifted and shovelled into heaps, that they might ferment\nthere, and in time unite. The birth-pangs of Democracy, wherewith\nconvulsed Europe was groaning in cries that reached Heaven, could not\nescape me.\n\n\"For great Men I have ever had the warmest predilection; and can perhaps\nboast that few such in this era have wholly escaped me. Great Men\nare the inspired (speaking and acting) Texts of that divine BOOK OF\nREVELATIONS, whereof a Chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by\nsome named HISTORY; to which inspired Texts your numerous talented men,\nand your innumerable untalented men, are the better or worse exegetic\nCommentaries, and wagon-load of too-stupid, heretical or orthodox,\nweekly Sermons. For my study, the inspired Texts themselves! Thus did\nnot I, in very early days, having disguised me as tavern-waiter, stand\nbehind the field-chairs, under that shady Tree at Treisnitz by the Jena\nHighway; waiting upon the great Schiller and greater Goethe; and hearing\nwhat I have not forgotten. For--\"\n\n--But at this point the Editor recalls his principle of caution, some\ntime ago laid down, and must suppress much. Let not the sacredness of\nLaurelled, still more, of Crowned Heads, be tampered with. Should we,\nat a future day, find circumstances altered, and the time come for\nPublication, then may these glimpses into the privacy of the Illustrious\nbe conceded; which for the present were little better than treacherous,\nperhaps traitorous Eavesdroppings. Of Lord Byron, therefore, of Pope\nPius, Emperor Tarakwang, and the \"White Water-roses\" (Chinese Carbonari)\nwith their mysteries, no notice here! Of Napoleon himself we shall only,\nglancing from afar, remark that Teufelsdrockh's relation to him seems to\nhave been of very varied character. At first we find our poor\nProfessor on the point of being shot as a spy; then taken into private\nconversation, even pinched on the ear, yet presented with no money;\nat last indignantly dismissed, almost thrown out of doors, as an\n\"Ideologist.\" \"He himself,\" says the Professor, \"was among the\ncompletest Ideologists, at least Ideopraxists: in the Idea (_in der\nIdee_) he lived, moved and fought. The man was a Divine Missionary,\nthough unconscious of it; and preached, through the cannon's throat,\nthat great doctrine, _La carriere ouverte aux talens_ (The Tools to him\nthat can handle them), which is our ultimate Political Evangel,\nwherein alone can liberty lie. Madly enough he preached, it is true, as\nEnthusiasts and first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance,\namid much frothy rant; yet as articulately perhaps as the case admitted.\nOr call him, if you will, an American Backwoodsman, who had to fell\nunpenetrated forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did\nnot entirely forbear strong liquor, rioting, and even theft; whom,\nnotwithstanding, the peaceful Sower will follow, and, as he cuts the\nboundless harvest, bless.\"\n\nMore legitimate and decisively authentic is Teufelsdrockh's appearance\nand emergence (we know not well whence) in the solitude of the North\nCape, on that June Midnight. He has a \"light-blue Spanish cloak\"\nhanging round him, as his \"most commodious, principal, indeed sole\nupper-garment;\" and stands there, on the World-promontory, looking\nover the infinite Brine, like a little blue Belfry (as we figure), now\nmotionless indeed, yet ready, if stirred, to ring quaintest changes.\n\n\"Silence as of death,\" writes he; \"for Midnight, even in the\nArctic latitudes, has its character: nothing but the granite cliffs\nruddy-tinged, the peaceable gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean,\nover which in the utmost North the great Sun hangs low and lazy, as if\nhe too were slumbering. Yet is his cloud-couch wrought of crimson and\ncloth-of-gold; yet does his light stream over the mirror of waters,\nlike a tremulous fire-pillar, shooting downwards to the abyss, and hide\nitself under my feet. In such moments, Solitude also is invaluable; for\nwho would speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies all Europe and\nAfrica, fast asleep, except the watchmen; and before him the silent\nImmensity, and Palace of the Eternal, whereof our Sun is but a\nporch-lamp?\n\n\"Nevertheless, in this solemn moment comes a man, or monster, scrambling\nfrom among the rock-hollows; and, shaggy, huge as the Hyperborean\nBear, hails me in Russian speech: most probably, therefore, a Russian\nSmuggler. With courteous brevity, I signify my indifference to\ncontraband trade, my humane intentions, yet strong wish to be private.\nIn vain: the monster, counting doubtless on his superior stature,\nand minded to make sport for himself, or perhaps profit, were it with\nmurder, continues to advance; ever assailing me with his importunate\ntrain-oil breath; and now has advanced, till we stand both on the verge\nof the rock, the deep Sea rippling greedily down below. What argument\nwill avail? On the thick Hyperborean, cherubic reasoning, seraphic\neloquence were lost. Prepared for such extremity, I, deftly enough,\nwhisk aside one step; draw out, from my interior reservoirs, a\nsufficient Birmingham Horse-pistol, and say, 'Be so obliging as retire,\nFriend (_Er ziehe sich zuruck, Freund_), and with promptitude!' This\nlogic even the Hyperborean understands: fast enough, with apologetic,\npetitionary growl, he sidles off; and, except for suicidal as well as\nhomicidal purposes, need not return.\n\n\"Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gunpowder: that it makes all men\nalike tall. Nay, if thou be cooler, cleverer than I, if thou have more\n_Mind_, though all but no _Body_ whatever, then canst thou kill me\nfirst, and art the taller. Hereby, at last, is the Goliath powerless,\nand the David resistless; savage Animalism is nothing, inventive\nSpiritualism is all.\n\n\"With respect to Duels, indeed, I have my own ideas. Few things, in this\nso surprising world, strike me with more surprise. Two little visual\nSpectra of men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the midst of\nthe UNFATHOMABLE, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very soon,--make\npause at the distance of twelve paces asunder; whirl round; and,\nsimultaneously by the cunningest mechanism, explode one another into\nDissolution; and off-hand become Air, and Non-extant! Deuce on it\n(_verdammt_), the little spitfires!--Nay, I think with old Hugo von\nTrimberg: 'God must needs laugh outright, could such a thing be, to see\nhis wondrous Manikins here below.'\"\n\nBut amid these specialties, let us not forget the great generality,\nwhich is our chief quest here: How prospered the inner man of\nTeufelsdrockh, under so much outward shifting! Does Legion still lurk\nin him, though repressed; or has he exorcised that Devil's Brood? We\ncan answer that the symptoms continue promising. Experience is the\ngrand spiritual Doctor; and with him Teufelsdrockh has now been long a\npatient, swallowing many a bitter bolus. Unless our poor Friend belong\nto the numerous class of Incurables, which seems not likely, some cure\nwill doubtless be effected. We should rather say that Legion, or the\nSatanic School, was now pretty well extirpated and cast out, but next\nto nothing introduced in its room; whereby the heart remains, for the\nwhile, in a quiet but no comfortable state.\n\n\"At length, after so much roasting,\" thus writes our Autobiographer, \"I\nwas what you might name calcined. Pray only that it be not rather, as is\nthe more frequent issue, reduced to a _caput-mortuum_! But in any\ncase, by mere dint of practice, I had grown familiar with many things.\nWretchedness was still wretched; but I could now partly see through it,\nand despise it. Which highest mortal, in this inane Existence, had I not\nfound a Shadow-hunter, or Shadow-hunted; and, when I looked through his\nbrave garnitures, miserable enough? Thy wishes have all been sniffed\naside, thought I: but what, had they even been all granted! Did not the\nBoy Alexander weep because he had not two Planets to conquer; or a whole\nSolar System; or after that, a whole Universe? _Ach Gott_, when I gazed\ninto these Stars, have they not looked down on me as if with pity, from\ntheir serene spaces; like Eyes glistening with heavenly tears over the\nlittle lot of man! Thousands of human generations, all as noisy as our\nown, have been swallowed up of Time, and there remains no wreck of them\nany more; and Arcturus and Orion and Sirius and the Pleiades are still\nshining in their courses, clear and young, as when the Shepherd first\nnoted them in the plain of Shinar. Pshaw! what is this paltry little\nDog-cage of an Earth; what art thou that sittest whining there? Thou art\nstill Nothing, Nobody: true; but who, then, is Something, Somebody? For\nthee the Family of Man has no use; it rejects thee; thou art wholly as a\ndissevered limb: so be it; perhaps it is better so!\"\n\nToo-heavy-laden Teufelsdrockh! Yet surely his bands are loosening; one\nday he will hurl the burden far from him, and bound forth free and with\na second youth.\n\n\"This,\" says our Professor, \"was the CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE I had now\nreached; through which whoso travels from the Negative Pole to the\nPositive must necessarily pass.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. THE EVERLASTING YEA.\n\n\"Temptations in the Wilderness!\" exclaims Teufelsdrockh, \"Have we not\nall to be tried with such? Not so easily can the old Adam, lodged in us\nby birth, be dispossessed. Our Life is compassed round with Necessity;\nyet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary\nForce: thus have we a warfare; in the beginning, especially,\na hard-fought battle. For the God-given mandate, _Work thou in\nWell-doing_, lies mysteriously written, in Promethean Prophetic\nCharacters, in our hearts; and leaves us no rest, night or day, till it\nbe deciphered and obeyed; till it burn forth, in our conduct, a visible,\nacted Gospel of Freedom. And as the clay-given mandate, _Eat thou and\nbe filled_, at the same time persuasively proclaims itself through every\nnerve,--must not there be a confusion, a contest, before the better\nInfluence can become the upper?\n\n\"To me nothing seems more natural than that the Son of Man, when such\nGod-given mandate first prophetically stirs within him, and the Clay\nmust now be vanquished or vanquish,--should be carried of the spirit\ninto grim Solitudes, and there fronting the Tempter do grimmest battle\nwith him; defiantly setting him at naught till he yield and fly. Name\nit as we choose: with or without visible Devil, whether in the\nnatural Desert of rocks and sands, or in the populous moral Desert of\nselfishness and baseness,--to such Temptation are we all called. Unhappy\nif we are not! Unhappy if we are but Half-men, in whom that divine\nhandwriting has never blazed forth, all-subduing, in true sun-splendor;\nbut quivers dubiously amid meaner lights: or smoulders, in dull pain, in\ndarkness, under earthly vapors!--Our Wilderness is the wide World in\nan Atheistic Century; our Forty Days are long years of suffering and\nfasting: nevertheless, to these also comes an end. Yes, to me also was\ngiven, if not Victory, yet the consciousness of Battle, and the\nresolve to persevere therein while life or faculty is left. To me also,\nentangled in the enchanted forests, demon-peopled, doleful of sight and\nof sound, it was given, after weariest wanderings, to work out my way\ninto the higher sunlit slopes--of that Mountain which has no summit, or\nwhose summit is in Heaven only!\"\n\nHe says elsewhere, under a less ambitious figure; as figures are, once\nfor all, natural to him: \"Has not thy Life been that of most sufficient\nmen (_tuchtigen Manner_) thou hast known in this generation? An outflush\nof foolish young Enthusiasm, like the first fallow-crop, wherein are as\nmany weeds as valuable herbs: this all parched away, under the Droughts\nof practical and spiritual Unbelief, as Disappointment, in thought and\nact, often-repeated gave rise to Doubt, and Doubt gradually settled\ninto Denial! If I have had a second-crop, and now see the perennial\ngreensward, and sit under umbrageous cedars, which defy all Drought (and\nDoubt); herein too, be the Heavens praised, I am not without examples,\nand even exemplars.\"\n\nSo that, for Teufelsdrockh, also, there has been a \"glorious\nrevolution:\" these mad shadow-hunting and shadow-hunted Pilgrimings of\nhis were but some purifying \"Temptation in the Wilderness,\" before his\napostolic work (such as it was) could begin; which Temptation is now\nhappily over, and the Devil once more worsted! Was \"that high moment in\nthe _Rue de l'Enfer_,\" then, properly the turning-point of the battle;\nwhen the Fiend said, _Worship me, or be torn in shreds_; and was\nanswered valiantly with an _Apage Satana_?--Singular Teufelsdrockh,\nwould thou hadst told thy singular story in plain words! But it is\nfruitless to look there, in those Paper-bags, for such. Nothing but\ninnuendoes, figurative crotchets: a typical Shadow, fitfully wavering,\nprophetico-satiric; no clear logical Picture. \"How paint to the sensual\neye,\" asks he once, \"what passes in the Holy-of-Holies of Man's Soul;\nin what words, known to these profane times, speak even afar-off of the\nunspeakable?\" We ask in turn: Why perplex these times, profane as\nthey are, with needless obscurity, by omission and by commission? Not\nmystical only is our Professor, but whimsical; and involves himself, now\nmore than ever, in eye-bewildering _chiaroscuro_. Successive glimpses,\nhere faithfully imparted, our more gifted readers must endeavor to\ncombine for their own behoof.\n\nHe says: \"The hot Harmattan wind had raged itself out; its howl went\nsilent within me; and the long-deafened soul could now hear. I paused in\nmy wild wanderings; and sat me down to wait, and consider; for it was\nas if the hour of change drew nigh. I seemed to surrender, to renounce\nutterly, and say: Fly, then, false shadows of Hope; I will chase you no\nmore, I will believe you no more. And ye too, haggard spectres of Fear,\nI care not for you; ye too are all shadows and a lie. Let me rest here:\nfor I am way-weary and life-weary; I will rest here, were it but to\ndie: to die or to live is alike to me; alike insignificant.\"--And again:\n\"Here, then, as I lay in that CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE; cast, doubtless by\nbenignant upper Influence, into a healing sleep, the heavy dreams rolled\ngradually away, and I awoke to a new Heaven and a new Earth. The first\npreliminary moral Act, Annihilation of Self (_Selbst-todtung_), had\nbeen happily accomplished; and my mind's eyes were now unsealed, and its\nhands ungyved.\"\n\nMight we not also conjecture that the following passage refers to his\nLocality, during this same \"healing sleep;\" that his Pilgrim-staff lies\ncast aside here, on \"the high table-land;\" and indeed that the repose is\nalready taking wholesome effect on him? If it were not that the tone,\nin some parts, has more of riancy, even of levity, than we could have\nexpected! However, in Teufelsdrockh, there is always the strangest\nDualism: light dancing, with guitar-music, will be going on in the\nfore-court, while by fits from within comes the faint whimpering of woe\nand wail. We transcribe the piece entire.\n\n\"Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey Tent, musing and\nmeditating; on the high table-land, in front of the Mountains; over me,\nas roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for walls, four azure-flowing\ncurtains,--namely, of the Four azure Winds, on whose bottom-fringes\nalso I have seen gilding. And then to fancy the fair Castles that stood\nsheltered in these Mountain hollows; with their green flower-lawns,\nand white dames and damosels, lovely enough: or better still, the\nstraw-roofed Cottages, wherein stood many a Mother baking bread, with\nher children round her:--all hidden and protectingly folded up in the\nvalley-folds; yet there and alive, as sure as if I beheld them. Or to\nsee, as well as fancy, the nine Towns and Villages, that lay round my\nmountain-seat, which, in still weather, were wont to speak to me (by\ntheir steeple-bells) with metal tongue; and, in almost all weather,\nproclaimed their vitality by repeated Smoke-clouds; whereon, as on a\nculinary horologe, I might read the hour of the day. For it was the\nsmoke of cookery, as kind housewives at morning, midday, eventide, were\nboiling their husbands' kettles; and ever a blue pillar rose up into the\nair, successively or simultaneously, from each of the nine, saying, as\nplainly as smoke could say: Such and such a meal is getting ready\nhere. Not uninteresting! For you have the whole Borough, with all its\nlove-makings and scandal-mongeries, contentions and contentments, as\nin miniature, and could cover it all with your hat.--If, in my wide\nWay-farings, I had learned to look into the business of the World in\nits details, here perhaps was the place for combining it into general\npropositions, and deducing inferences therefrom.\n\n\"Often also could I see the black Tempest marching in anger through the\nDistance: round some Schreckhorn, as yet grim-blue, would the eddying\nvapor gather, and there tumultuously eddy, and flow down like a mad\nwitch's hair; till, after a space, it vanished, and, in the clear\nsunbeam, your Schreckhorn stood smiling grim-white, for the vapor\nhad held snow. How thou fermentest and elaboratest, in thy great\nfermenting-vat and laboratory of an Atmosphere, of a World, O\nNature!--Or what is Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee GOD? Art not thou\nthe 'Living Garment of God'? O Heavens, is it, in very deed, HE, then,\nthat ever speaks through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives\nand loves in me?\n\n\"Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendors, of that Truth, and\nBeginning of Truths, fell mysteriously over my soul. Sweeter than\nDayspring to the Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla; ah, like the mother's voice\nto her little child that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown tumults;\nlike soft streamings of celestial music to my too-exasperated\nheart, came that Evangel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a\ncharnel-house with spectres; but godlike, and my Father's!\n\n\"With other eyes, too, could I now look upon my fellowman: with an\ninfinite Love, an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, wayward man! Art thou\nnot tried, and beaten with stripes, even as I am? Ever, whether thou\nbear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, art thou not so weary,\nso heavy-laden; and thy Bed of Rest is but a Grave. O my Brother, my\nBrother, why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all tears\nfrom thy eyes!--Truly, the din of many-voiced Life, which, in this\nsolitude, with the mind's organ, I could hear, was no longer a maddening\ndiscord, but a melting one; like inarticulate cries, and sobbings of a\ndumb creature, which in the ear of Heaven are prayers. The poor Earth,\nwith her poor joys, was now my needy Mother, not my cruel Stepdame; Man,\nwith his so mad Wants and so mean Endeavors, had become the dearer to\nme; and even for his sufferings and his sins, I now first named him\nBrother. Thus was I standing in the porch of that '_Sanctuary of\nSorrow_;' by strange, steep ways had I too been guided thither; and ere\nlong its sacred gates would open, and the '_Divine Depth of Sorrow_' lie\ndisclosed to me.\"\n\nThe Professor says, he here first got eye on the Knot that had been\nstrangling him, and straightway could unfasten it, and was free. \"A\nvain interminable controversy,\" writes he, \"touching what is at present\ncalled Origin of Evil, or some such thing, arises in every soul, since\nthe beginning of the world; and in every soul, that would pass from\nidle Suffering into actual Endeavoring, must first be put an end to. The\nmost, in our time, have to go content with a simple, incomplete enough\nSuppression of this controversy; to a few some Solution of it is\nindispensable. In every new era, too, such Solution comes out in\ndifferent terms; and ever the Solution of the last era has become\nobsolete, and is found unserviceable. For it is man's nature to change\nhis Dialect from century to century; he cannot help it though he would.\nThe authentic _Church-Catechism_ of our present century has not yet\nfallen into my hands: meanwhile, for my own private behoof I attempt to\nelucidate the matter so. Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his\nGreatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his\ncunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance\nMinisters and Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake,\nin joint-stock company, to make one Shoeblack HAPPY? They cannot\naccomplish it, above an hour or two: for the Shoeblack also has a Soul\nquite other than his Stomach; and would require, if you consider it,\nfor his permanent satisfaction and saturation, simply this allotment,\nno more, and no less: _God's infinite Universe altogether to himself_,\ntherein to enjoy infinitely, and fill every wish as fast as it rose.\nOceans of Hochheimer, a Throat like that of Ophiuchus: speak not of\nthem; to the infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is\nyour ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better\nvintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to\nquarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself\nthe most maltreated of men.--Always there is a black spot in our\nsunshine: it is even, as I said, the _Shadow of Ourselves_.\n\n\"But the whim we have of Happiness is somewhat thus. By certain\nvaluations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of\naverage terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of\nindefeasible right. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts;\nrequires neither thanks nor complaint; only such _overplus_ as there may\nbe do we account Happiness; any _deficit_ again is Misery. Now consider\nthat we have the valuation of our own deserts ourselves, and what a fund\nof Self-conceit there is in each of us,--do you wonder that the balance\nshould so often dip the wrong way, and many a Blockhead cry: See\nthere, what a payment; was ever worthy gentleman so used!--I tell thee,\nBlockhead, it all comes of thy Vanity; of what thou _fanciest_ those\nsame deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as\nis most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that\nthou deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to die\nin hemp.\n\n\"So true is it, what I then said, that _the Fraction of Life can be\nincreased in value not so much by increasing your Numerator as by\nlessening your Denominator_. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive me, _Unity_\nitself divided by _Zero_ will give _Infinity_. Make thy claim of wages\na zero, then; thou hast the world under thy feet. Well did the Wisest\nof our time write: 'It is only with Renunciation (_Entsagen_) that Life,\nproperly speaking, can be said to begin.'\n\n\"I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, thou hast\nbeen fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-tormenting, on account\nof? Say it in a word: is it not because thou art not HAPPY? Because\nthe THOU (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honored, nourished,\nsoft-bedded, and lovingly cared for? Foolish soul! What Act of\nLegislature was there that _thou_ shouldst be Happy? A little while\nago thou hadst no right to _be_ at all. What if thou wert born and\npredestined not to be Happy, but to be Unhappy! Art thou nothing other\nthan a Vulture, then, that fliest through the Universe seeking after\nsomewhat to _eat_; and shrieking dolefully because carrion enough is not\ngiven thee? Close thy _Byron_; open thy _Goethe_.\"\n\n\"_Es leuchtet mir ein_, I see a glimpse of it!\" cries he elsewhere:\n\"there is in man a HIGHER than Love of Happiness: he can do without\nHappiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness! Was it not to preach\nforth this same HIGHER that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest,\nin all times, have spoken and suffered; bearing testimony, through life\nand through death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the Godlike\nonly has he Strength and Freedom? Which God-inspiredd Doctrine art thou\nalso honored to be taught; O Heavens! and broken with manifold merciful\nAfflictions, even till thou become contrite and learn it! Oh, thank thy\nDestiny for these; thankfully bear what yet remain: thou hadst need\nof them; the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By benignant\nfever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Disease,\nand triumphs over Death. On the roaring billows of Time, thou art not\nengulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not Pleasure;\nlove God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA, wherein all contradiction is\nsolved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him.\"\n\nAnd again: \"Small is it that thou canst trample the Earth with its\ninjuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee: thou canst love\nthe Earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for\nthis a Greater than Zeno was needed, and he too was sent. Knowest thou\nthat '_Worship of Sorrow_'? The Temple thereof, founded some eighteen\ncenturies ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habitation\nof doleful creatures: nevertheless, venture forward; in a low crypt,\narched out of falling fragments, thou findest the Altar still there, and\nits sacred Lamp perennially burning.\"\n\nWithout pretending to comment on which strange utterances, the Editor\nwill only remark, that there lies beside them much of a still more\nquestionable character; unsuited to the general apprehension; nay\nwherein he himself does not see his way. Nebulous disquisitions\non Religion, yet not without bursts of splendor; on the \"perennial\ncontinuance of Inspiration;\" on Prophecy; that there are \"true Priests,\nas well as Baal-Priests, in our own day:\" with more of the like sort. We\nselect some fractions, by way of finish to this farrago.\n\n\"Cease, my much-respected Herr von Voltaire,\" thus apostrophizes the\nProfessor: \"shut thy sweet voice; for the task appointed thee seems\nfinished. Sufficiently hast thou demonstrated this proposition,\nconsiderable or otherwise: That the Mythus of the Christian Religion\nlooks not in the eighteenth century as it did in the eighth. Alas,\nwere thy six-and-thirty quartos, and the six-and-thirty thousand other\nquartos and folios, and flying sheets or reams, printed before and since\non the same subject, all needed to convince us of so little! But what\nnext? Wilt thou help us to embody the divine Spirit of that Religion in\na new Mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that our Souls, otherwise\ntoo like perishing, may live? What! thou hast no faculty in that kind?\nOnly a torch for burning, no hammer for building? Take our thanks, then,\nand--thyself away.\n\n\"Meanwhile what are antiquated Mythuses to me? Or is the God present,\nfelt in my own heart, a thing which Herr von Voltaire will dispute out\nof me; or dispute into me? To the '_Worship of Sorrow_' ascribe what\norigin and genesis thou pleasest, _has_ not that Worship originated,\nand been generated; is it not _here_? Feel it in thy heart, and then say\nwhether it is of God! This is Belief; all else is Opinion,--for which\nlatter whoso will, let him worry and be worried.\"\n\n\"Neither,\" observes he elsewhere, \"shall ye tear out one another's eyes,\nstruggling over 'Plenary Inspiration,' and such like: try rather to get\na little even Partial Inspiration, each of you for himself. One BIBLE I\nknow, of whose Plenary Inspiration doubt is not so much as possible;\nnay with my own eyes I saw the God's-Hand writing it: thereof all other\nBibles are but Leaves,--say, in Picture-Writing to assist the weaker\nfaculty.\"\n\nOr, to give the wearied reader relief, and bring it to an end, let him\ntake the following perhaps more intelligible passage:--\n\n\"To me, in this our life,\" says the Professor, \"which is an internecine\nwarfare with the Time-spirit, other warfare seems questionable. Hast\nthou in any way a contention with thy brother, I advise thee, think\nwell what the meaning thereof is. If thou gauge it to the bottom, it\nis simply this: 'Fellow, see! thou art taking more than thy share of\nHappiness in the world, something from my share: which, by the Heavens,\nthou shalt not; nay I will fight thee rather.'--Alas, and the whole lot\nto be divided is such a beggarly matter, truly a 'feast of shells,' for\nthe substance has been spilled out: not enough to quench one Appetite;\nand the collective human species clutching at them!--Can we not, in all\nsuch cases, rather say: 'Take it, thou too-ravenous individual; take\nthat pitiful additional fraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but\nwhich thou so wantest; take it with a blessing: would to Heaven I had\nenough for thee!'--If Fichte's _Wissenschaftslehre_ be, 'to a certain\nextent, Applied Christianity,' surely to a still greater extent, so is\nthis. We have here not a Whole Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely the\nPassive half: could we but do it, as we can demonstrate it!\n\n\"But indeed Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless till\nit convert itself into Conduct. Nay properly Conviction is not possible\ntill then; inasmuch as all Speculation is by nature endless, formless, a\nvortex amid vortices, only by a felt indubitable certainty of Experience\ndoes it find any centre to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a\nsystem. Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that 'Doubt of any\nsort cannot be removed except by Action.' On which ground, too, let\nhim who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays\nvehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well\nto heart, which to me was of invaluable service: '_Do the Duty which\nlies nearest thee_,' which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty\nwill already have become clearer.\n\n\"May we not say, however, that the hour of Spiritual Enfranchisement is\neven this: When your Ideal World, wherein the whole man has been dimly\nstruggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes revealed, and\nthrown open; and you discover, with amazement enough, like the Lothario\nin _Wilhelm Meister_, that your 'America is here or nowhere'? The\nSituation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet occupied by\nman. Yes here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual,\nwherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal: work it\nout therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is\nin thyself, the impediment too is in thyself: thy Condition is but the\nstuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of: what matters whether\nsuch stuff be of this sort or that, so the Form thou give it be heroic,\nbe poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and\ncriest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create,\nknow this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee, 'here\nor nowhere,' couldst thou only see!\n\n\"But it is with man's Soul as it was with Nature: the beginning of\nCreation is--Light. Till the eye have vision, the whole members are in\nbonds. Divine moment, when over the tempest-tost Soul, as once over\nthe wild-weltering Chaos, it is spoken: Let there be Light! Ever to\nthe greatest that has felt such moment, is it not miraculous and\nGod-announcing; even as, under simpler figures, to the simplest\nand least. The mad primeval Discord is hushed; the rudely jumbled\nconflicting elements bind themselves into separate Firmaments: deep\nsilent rock-foundations are built beneath; and the skyey vault with its\neverlasting Luminaries above: instead of a dark wasteful Chaos, we have\na blooming, fertile, heaven-encompassed World.\n\n\"I too could now say to myself: Be no longer a Chaos, but a World,\nor even Worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest\ninfinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name! 'Tis the\nutmost thou hast in thee: out with it, then. Up, up! Whatsoever thy\nhand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called\nTo-day; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can work.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. PAUSE.\n\nThus have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily as, in such\ncircumstances, might be, followed Teufelsdrockh, through the various\nsuccessive states and stages of Growth, Entanglement, Unbelief, and\nalmost Reprobation, into a certain clearer state of what he himself\nseems to consider as Conversion. \"Blame not the word,\" says he; \"rejoice\nrather that such a word, signifying such a thing, has come to light in\nour modern Era, though hidden from the wisest Ancients. The Old World\nknew nothing of Conversion; instead of an _Ecce Homo_, they had only\nsome _Choice of Hercules_. It was a new-attained progress in the Moral\nDevelopment of man: hereby has the Highest come home to the bosoms of\nthe most Limited; what to Plato was but a hallucination, and to Socrates\na chimera, is now clear and certain to your Zinzendorfs, your Wesleys,\nand the poorest of their Pietists and Methodists.\"\n\nIt is here, then, that the spiritual majority of Teufelsdrockh\ncommences: we are henceforth to see him \"work in well-doing,\" with\nthe spirit and clear aims of a Man. He has discovered that the Ideal\nWorkshop he so panted for is even this same Actual ill-furnished\nWorkshop he has so long been stumbling in. He can say to himself:\n\"Tools? Thou hast no Tools? Why, there is not a Man, or a Thing, now\nalive but has tools. The basest of created animalcules, the Spider\nitself, has a spinning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom within\nits head: the stupidest of Oysters has a Papin's-Digester, with\nstone-and-lime house to hold it in: every being that can live can do\nsomething: this let him _do_.--Tools? Hast thou not a Brain, furnished,\nfurnishable with some glimmerings of Light; and three fingers to hold a\nPen withal? Never since Aaron's Rod went out of practice, or even before\nit, was there such a wonder-working Tool: greater than all recorded\nmiracles have been performed by Pens. For strangely in this so\nsolid-seeming World, which nevertheless is in continual restless flux,\nit is appointed that _Sound_, to appearance the most fleeting, should\nbe the most continuing of all things. The WORD is well said to be\nomnipotent in this world; man, thereby divine, can create as by a\n_Fiat_. Awake, arise! Speak forth what is in thee; what God has given\nthee, what the Devil shall not take away. Higher task than that of\nPriesthood was allotted to no man: wert thou but the meanest in that\nsacred Hierarchy, is it not honor enough therein to spend and be spent?\n\n\"By this Art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously degrade into a\nhandicraft,\" adds Teufelsdrockh, \"have I thenceforth abidden. Writings\nof mine, not indeed known as mine (for what am I?), have fallen, perhaps\nnot altogether void, into the mighty seedfield of Opinion; fruits of my\nunseen sowing gratifyingly meet me here and there. I thank the Heavens\nthat I have now found my Calling; wherein, with or without perceptible\nresult, I am minded diligently to persevere.\n\n\"Nay how knowest thou,\" cries he, \"but this and the other pregnant\nDevice, now grown to be a world-renowned far-working Institution; like\na grain of right mustard-seed once cast into the right soil, and now\nstretching out strong boughs to the four winds, for the birds of the\nair to lodge in,--may have been properly my doing? Some one's doing, it\nwithout doubt was; from some Idea, in some single Head, it did first of\nall take beginning: why not from some Idea in mine?\" Does Teufelsdrockh,\nhere glance at that \"SOCIETY FOR THE CONSERVATION OF PROPERTY\n(_Eigenthums-conservirende Gesellschaft_),\" of which so many ambiguous\nnotices glide spectra-like through these inexpressible Paper-bags? \"An\nInstitution,\" hints he, \"not unsuitable to the wants of the time; as\nindeed such sudden extension proves: for already can the Society number,\namong its office-bearers or corresponding members, the highest Names, if\nnot the highest Persons, in Germany, England, France; and contributions,\nboth of money and of meditation pour in from all quarters; to, if\npossible, enlist the remaining Integrity of the world, and, defensively\nand with forethought, marshal it round this Palladium.\" Does\nTeufelsdrockh mean, then, to give himself out as the originator of\nthat so notable _Eigenthums-conservirende_ (\"Owndom-conserving\")\n_Gesellschaft_; and if so, what, in the Devil's name, is it? He again\nhints: \"At a time when the divine Commandment, _Thou shalt not steal_,\nwherein truly, if well understood, is comprised the whole Hebrew\nDecalogue, with Solon's and Lycurgrus's Constitutions, Justinian's\nPandects, the Code Napoleon, and all Codes, Catechisms, Divinities,\nMoralities whatsoever, that man has hitherto devised (and enforced with\nAltar-fire and Gallows-ropes) for his social guidance: at a time, I say,\nwhen this divine Commandment has all but faded away from the general\nremembrance; and, with little disguise, a new opposite Commandment,\n_Thou shalt steal_, is everywhere promulgated,--it perhaps behooved, in\nthis universal dotage and deliration, the sound portion of mankind to\nbestir themselves and rally. When the widest and wildest violations\nof that divine right of Property, the only divine right now extant or\nconceivable, are sanctioned and recommended by a vicious Press, and the\nworld has lived to hear it asserted that _we have no Property in our\nvery Bodies, but only an accidental Possession and Life-rent_, what\nis the issue to be looked for? Hangmen and Catchpoles may, by their\nnoose-gins and baited fall-traps, keep down the smaller sort of vermin;\nbut what, except perhaps some such Universal Association, can protect\nus against whole meat-devouring and man-devouring hosts of\nBoa-constrictors. If, therefore, the more sequestered Thinker have\nwondered, in his privacy, from what hand that perhaps not ill-written\n_Program_ in the Public Journals, with its high _Prize-Questions_ and so\nliberal _Prizes_, could have proceeded,--let him now cease such\nwonder; and, with undivided faculty, betake himself to the _Concurrenz_\n(Competition).\"\n\nWe ask: Has this same \"perhaps not ill-written _Program_,\" or any other\nauthentic Transaction of that Property-conserving Society, fallen under\nthe eye of the British Reader, in any Journal foreign or domestic? If\nso, what are those _Prize-Questions_; what are the terms of Competition,\nand when and where? No printed Newspaper-leaf, no farther light of any\nsort, to be met with in these Paper-bags! Or is the whole business one\nother of those whimsicalities and perverse inexplicabilities, whereby\nHerr Teufelsdrockh, meaning much or nothing, is pleased so often to play\nfast-and-loose with us?\n\n\nHere, indeed, at length, must the Editor give utterance to a painful\nsuspicion, which, through late Chapters, has begun to haunt him;\nparalyzing any little enthusiasm that might still have rendered his\nthorny Biographical task a labor of love. It is a suspicion grounded\nperhaps on trifles, yet confirmed almost into certainty by the more and\nmore discernible humoristico-satirical tendency of Teufelsdrockh, in\nwhom underground humors and intricate sardonic rogueries, wheel\nwithin wheel, defy all reckoning: a suspicion, in one word, that these\nAutobiographical Documents are partly a mystification! What if many\na so-called Fact were little better than a Fiction; if here we had no\ndirect Camera-obscura Picture of the Professor's History; but only some\nmore or less fantastic Adumbration, symbolically, perhaps significantly\nenough, shadowing forth the same! Our theory begins to be that, in\nreceiving as literally authentic what was but hieroglyphically so,\nHofrath Heuschrecke, whom in that case we scruple not to name Hofrath\nNose-of-Wax, was made a fool of, and set adrift to make fools of others.\nCould it be expected, indeed, that a man so known for impenetrable\nreticence as Teufelsdrockh would all at once frankly unlock his private\ncitadel to an English Editor and a German Hofrath; and not rather\ndeceptively _in_lock both Editor and Hofrath in the labyrinthic\ntortuosities and covered-ways of said citadel (having enticed them\nthither), to see, in his half-devilish way, how the fools would look?\n\nOf one fool, however, the Herr Professor will perhaps find himself\nshort. On a small slip, formerly thrown aside as blank, the ink being\nall but invisible, we lately noticed, and with effort decipher,\nthe following: \"What are your historical Facts; still more your\nbiographical? Wilt thou know a Man, above all a Mankind, by stringing\ntogether bead-rolls of what thou namest Facts? The Man is the spirit\nhe worked in; not what he did, but what he became. Facts are engraved\nHierograms, for which the fewest have the key. And then how your\nBlockhead (_Dummkopf_) studies not their Meaning; but simply whether\nthey are well or ill cut, what he calls Moral or Immoral! Still worse\nis it with your Bungler (_Pfuscher_): such I have seen reading some\nRousseau, with pretences of interpretation; and mistaking the ill-cut\nSerpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous reptile.\" Was the Professor\napprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself,\nmight mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? For\nwhich reason it was to be altered, not without underhand satire, into\na plainer Symbol? Or is this merely one of his half-sophisms,\nhalf-truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a Figure, he cares\nnot whither it gallop? We say not with certainty; and indeed, so strange\nis the Professor, can never say. If our suspicion be wholly unfounded,\nlet his own questionable ways, not our necessary circumspectness bear\nthe blame.\n\nBut be this as it will, the somewhat exasperated and indeed exhausted\nEditor determines here to shut these Paper-bags for the present. Let it\nsuffice that we know of Teufelsdrockh, so far, if \"not what he did, yet\nwhat he became:\" the rather, as his character has now taken its ultimate\nbent, and no new revolution, of importance, is to be looked for. The\nimprisoned Chrysalis is now a winged Psyche: and such, wheresoever\nbe its flight, it will continue. To trace by what complex gyrations\n(flights or involuntary waftings) through the mere external\nLife-element, Teufelsdrockh, reaches his University Professorship, and\nthe Psyche clothes herself in civic Titles, without altering her now\nfixed nature,--would be comparatively an unproductive task, were we even\nunsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a false and impossible one.\nHis outward Biography, therefore, which, at the Blumine Lover's-Leap, we\nsaw churned utterly into spray-vapor, may hover in that condition, for\naught that concerns us here. Enough that by survey of certain \"pools and\nplashes,\" we have ascertained its general direction; do we not already\nknow that, by one way and other, it _has_ long since rained down again\ninto a stream; and even now, at Weissnichtwo, flows deep and still,\nfraught with the _Philosophy of Clothes_, and visible to whoso will\ncast eye thereon? Over much invaluable matter, that lies scattered,\nlike jewels among quarry-rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs, we may have\noccasion to glance back, and somewhat will demand insertion at the right\nplace: meanwhile be our tiresome diggings therein suspended.\n\nIf now, before reopening the great _Clothes-Volume_, we ask what our\ndegree of progress, during these Ten Chapters, has been, towards right\nunderstanding of the _Clothes-Philosophy_, let not our discouragement\nbecome total. To speak in that old figure of the Hell-gate Bridge over\nChaos, a few flying pontoons have perhaps been added, though as yet they\ndrift straggling on the Flood; how far they will reach, when once the\nchains are straightened and fastened, can, at present, only be matter of\nconjecture.\n\nSo much we already calculate: Through many a little loophole, we have\nhad glimpses into the internal world of Teufelsdrockh; his strange\nmystic, almost magic Diagram of the Universe, and how it was gradually\ndrawn, is not henceforth altogether dark to us. Those mysterious ideas\non TIME, which merit consideration, and are not wholly unintelligible\nwith such, may by and by prove significant. Still more may his somewhat\npeculiar view of Nature, the decisive Oneness he ascribes to Nature. How\nall Nature and Life are but one _Garment_, a \"Living Garment,\" woven and\never a-weaving in the \"Loom of Time;\" is not here, indeed, the outline\nof a whole _Clothes-Philosophy_; at least the arena it is to work in?\nRemark, too, that the Character of the Man, nowise without meaning\nin such a matter, becomes less enigmatic: amid so much tumultuous\nobscurity, almost like diluted madness, do not a certain indomitable\nDefiance and yet a boundless Reverence seem to loom forth, as the two\nmountain-summits, on whose rock-strata all the rest were based and\nbuilt?\n\nNay further, may we not say that Teufelsdrockh's Biography, allowing it\neven, as suspected, only a hieroglyphical truth, exhibits a man, as it\nwere preappointed for Clothes-Philosophy? To look through the Shows of\nthings into Things themselves he is led and compelled. The \"Passivity\"\ngiven him by birth is fostered by all turns of his fortune. Everywhere\ncast out, like oil out of water, from mingling in any Employment, in\nany public Communion, he has no portion but Solitude, and a life of\nMeditation. The whole energy of his existence is directed, through long\nyears, on one task: that of enduring pain, if he cannot cure it. Thus\neverywhere do the Shows of things oppress him, withstand him, threaten\nhim with fearfullest destruction: only by victoriously penetrating into\nThings themselves can he find peace and a stronghold. But is not this\nsame looking through the Shows, or Vestures, into the Things, even the\nfirst preliminary to a _Philosophy of Clothes_? Do we not, in all\nthis, discern some beckonings towards the true higher purport of such\na Philosophy; and what shape it must assume with such a man, in such an\nera?\n\nPerhaps in entering on Book Third, the courteous Reader is not utterly\nwithout guess whither he is bound: nor, let us hope, for all the\nfantastic Dream-Grottos through which, as is our lot with Teufelsdrockh,\nhe must wander, will there be wanting between whiles some twinkling of a\nsteady Polar Star.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\n\nCHAPTER I. INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY.\n\nAs a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teufelsdrockh, from an\nearly part of this Clothes-Volume, has more and more exhibited himself.\nStriking it was, amid all his perverse cloudiness, with what force\nof vision and of heart he pierced into the mystery of the World;\nrecognizing in the highest sensible phenomena, so far as Sense went,\nonly fresh or faded Raiment; yet ever, under this, a celestial Essence\nthereby rendered visible: and while, on the one hand, he trod the old\nrags of Matter, with their tinsels, into the mire, he on the other\neverywhere exalted Spirit above all earthly principalities and powers,\nand worshipped it, though under the meanest shapes, with a true\nPlatonic mysticism. What the man ultimately purposed by thus casting his\nGreek-fire into the general Wardrobe of the Universe; what such, more\nor less complete, rending and burning of Garments throughout the whole\ncompass of Civilized Life and Speculation, should lead to; the rather as\nhe was no Adamite, in any sense, and could not, like Rousseau, recommend\neither bodily or intellectual Nudity, and a return to the savage\nstate: all this our readers are now bent to discover; this is, in fact,\nproperly the gist and purport of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Philosophy of\nClothes.\n\nBe it remembered, however, that such purport is here not so much\nevolved, as detected to lie ready for evolving. We are to guide our\nBritish Friends into the new Gold-country, and show them the mines;\nnowise to dig out and exhaust its wealth, which indeed remains for all\ntime inexhaustible. Once there, let each dig for his own behoof, and\nenrich himself.\n\nNeither, in so capricious inexpressible a Work as this of the\nProfessor's, can our course now more than formerly be straightforward,\nstep by step, but at best leap by leap. Significant Indications stand\nout here and there; which for the critical eye, that looks both widely\nand narrowly, shape themselves into some ground-scheme of a Whole: to\nselect these with judgment, so that a leap from one to the other be\npossible, and (in our old figure) by chaining them together, a passable\nBridge be effected: this, as heretofore, continues our only method.\nAmong such light-spots, the following, floating in much wild matter\nabout _Perfectibility_, has seemed worth clutching at:--\n\n\"Perhaps the most remarkable incident in Modern History,\" says\nTeufelsdrockh, \"is not the Diet of Worms, still less the Battle of\nAusterlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other Battle; but an incident\npassed carelessly over by most Historians, and treated with some degree\nof ridicule by others: namely, George Fox's making to himself a suit of\nLeather. This man, the first of the Quakers, and by trade a Shoemaker,\nwas one of those, to whom, under ruder or purer form, the Divine Idea of\nthe Universe is pleased to manifest itself; and, across all the hulls\nof Ignorance and earthly Degradation, shine through, in unspeakable\nAwfulness, unspeakable Beauty, on their souls: who therefore are rightly\naccounted Prophets, God-possessed; or even Gods, as in some periods\nit has chanced. Sitting in his stall; working on tanned hides, amid\npincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a nameless flood of\nrubbish, this youth had, nevertheless, a Living Spirit belonging to him;\nalso an antique Inspired Volume, through which, as through a window, it\ncould look upwards, and discern its celestial Home. The task of a daily\npair of shoes, coupled even with some prospect of victuals, and\nan honorable Mastership in Cordwainery, and perhaps the post of\nThirdborough in his hundred, as the crown of long faithful sewing,--was\nnowise satisfaction enough to such a mind: but ever amid the boring and\nhammering came tones from that far country, came Splendors and Terrors;\nfor this poor Cordwainer, as we said, was a Man; and the Temple of\nImmensity, wherein as Man he had been sent to minister, was full of holy\nmystery to him.\n\n\"The Clergy of the neighborhood, the ordained Watchers and Interpreters\nof that same holy mystery, listened with un-affected tedium to his\nconsultations, and advised him, as the solution of such doubts, to\n'drink beer, and dance with the girls.' Blind leaders of the blind!\nFor what end were their tithes levied and eaten; for what were their\nshovel-hats scooped out, and their surplices and cassock-aprons girt\non; and such a church-repairing, and chaffering, and organing, and other\nracketing, held over that spot of God's Earth,--if Man were but a Patent\nDigester, and the Belly with its adjuncts the grand Reality? Fox turned\nfrom them, with tears and a sacred scorn, back to his Leather-parings\nand his Bible. Mountains of encumbrance, higher than AEtna, had been\nheaped over that Spirit: but it was a Spirit, and would not lie buried\nthere. Through long days and nights of silent agony, it struggled and\nwrestled, with a man's force, to be free: how its prison-mountains\nheaved and swayed tumultuously, as the giant spirit shook them to this\nhand and that, and emerged into the light of Heaven! That Leicester\nshoe-shop, had men known it, was a holier place than any Vatican or\nLoretto-shrine.--'So bandaged, and hampered, and hemmed in,' groaned he,\n'with thousand requisitions, obligations, straps, tatters, and tagrags,\nI can neither see nor move: not my own am I, but the World's; and Time\nflies fast, and Heaven is high, and Hell is deep: Man! bethink thee,\nif thou hast power of Thought! Why not; what binds me here? Want,\nwant!--Ha, of what? Will all the shoe-wages under the Moon ferry me\nacross into that far Land of Light? Only Meditation can, and devout\nPrayer to God. I will to the woods: the hollow of a tree will lodge\nme, wild berries feed me; and for Clothes, cannot I stitch myself one\nperennial suit of Leather!'\n\n\"Historical Oil-painting,\" continues Teufelsdrockh, \"is one of the Arts\nI never practiced; therefore shall I not decide whether this subject\nwere easy of execution on the canvas. Yet often has it seemed to me as\nif such first outflashing of man's Freewill, to lighten, more and\nmore into Day, the Chaotic Night that threatened to engulf him in its\nhindrances and its horrors, were properly the only grandeur there is\nin History. Let some living Angelo or Rosa, with seeing eye and\nunderstanding heart, picture George Fox on that morning, when he spreads\nout his cutting-board for the last time, and cuts cowhides by unwonted\npatterns, and stitches them together into one continuous all-including\nCase, the farewell service of his awl! Stitch away, thou noble Fox:\nevery prick of that little instrument is pricking into the heart of\nSlavery, and World-worship, and the Mammon-god. Thy elbows jerk, as\nin strong swimmer-strokes, and every stroke is bearing thee across the\nPrison-ditch, within which Vanity holds her Workhouse and Ragfair, into\nlands of true Liberty; were the work done, there is in broad Europe one\nFree Man, and thou art he!\n\n\"Thus from the lowest depth there is a path to the loftiest height; and\nfor the Poor also a Gospel has been published. Surely if, as D'Alembert\nasserts, my illustrious namesake, Diogenes, was the greatest man of\nAntiquity, only that he wanted Decency, then by stronger reason is\nGeorge Fox the greatest of the Moderns, and greater than Diogenes\nhimself: for he too stands on the adamantine basis of his Manhood,\ncasting aside all props and shoars; yet not, in half-savage Pride,\nundervaluing the Earth; valuing it rather, as a place to yield him\nwarmth and food, he looks Heavenward from his Earth, and dwells in an\nelement of Mercy and Worship, with a still Strength, such as the Cynic's\nTub did nowise witness. Great, truly, was that Tub; a temple from which\nman's dignity and divinity was scornfully preached abroad: but greater\nis the Leather Hull, for the same sermon was preached there, and not in\nScorn but in Love.\"\n\n\nGeorge Fox's \"perennial suit,\" with all that it held, has been worn\nquite into ashes for nigh two centuries: why, in a discussion on\nthe _Perfectibility of Society_, reproduce it now? Not out of blind\nsectarian partisanship: Teufelsdrockh, himself is no Quaker; with all\nhis pacific tendencies, did not we see him, in that scene at the North\nCape, with the Archangel Smuggler, exhibit fire-arms?\n\nFor us, aware of his deep Sansculottism, there is more meant in this\npassage than meets the ear. At the same time, who can avoid smiling\nat the earnestness and Boeotian simplicity (if indeed there be not an\nunderhand satire in it), with which that \"Incident\" is here brought\nforward; and, in the Professor's ambiguous way, as clearly perhaps as\nhe durst in Weissnichtwo, recommended to imitation! Does Teufelsdrockh\nanticipate that, in this age of refinement, any considerable class\nof the community, by way of testifying against the \"Mammon-god,\" and\nescaping from what he calls \"Vanity's Workhouse and Ragfair,\"\nwhere doubtless some of them are toiled and whipped and hoodwinked\nsufficiently,--will sheathe themselves in close-fitting cases of\nLeather? The idea is ridiculous in the extreme. Will Majesty lay aside\nits robes of state, and Beauty its frills and train-gowns, for a second\nskin of tanned hide? By which change Huddersfield and Manchester, and\nCoventry and Paisley, and the Fancy-Bazaar, were reduced to hungry\nsolitudes; and only Day and Martin could profit. For neither would\nTeufelsdrockh's mad daydream, here as we presume covertly intended, of\nlevelling Society (_levelling_ it indeed with a vengeance, into one\nhuge drowned marsh!), and so attaining the political effects of Nudity\nwithout its frigorific or other consequences,--be thereby realized.\nWould not the rich man purchase a waterproof suit of Russia Leather;\nand the high-born Belle step forth in red or azure morocco, lined with\nshamoy: the black cowhide being left to the Drudges and Gibeonites of\nthe world; and so all the old Distinctions be re-established?\n\nOr has the Professor his own deeper intention; and laughs in his sleeve\nat our strictures and glosses, which indeed are but a part thereof?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. CHURCH-CLOTHES.\n\nNot less questionable is his Chapter on _Church-Clothes_, which has\nthe farther distinction of being the shortest in the Volume. We here\ntranslate it entire:--\n\n\"By Church-Clothes, it need not be premised that I mean infinitely more\nthan Cassocks and Surplices; and do not at all mean the mere haberdasher\nSunday Clothes that men go to Church in. Far from it! Church-Clothes\nare, in our vocabulary, the Forms, the _Vestures_, under which men have\nat various periods embodied and represented for themselves the Religious\nPrinciple; that is to say, invested the Divine Idea of the World with a\nsensible and practically active Body, so that it might dwell among them\nas a living and life-giving WORD.\n\n\"These are unspeakably the most important of all the vestures and\ngarnitures of Human Existence. They are first spun and woven, I may say,\nby that wonder of wonders, SOCIETY; for it is still only when 'two or\nthree are gathered together,' that Religion, spiritually existent,\nand indeed indestructible, however latent, in each, first outwardly\nmanifests itself (as with 'cloven tongues of fire'), and seeks to be\nembodied in a visible Communion and Church Militant. Mystical, more than\nmagical, is that Communing of Soul with Soul, both looking heavenward:\nhere properly Soul first speaks with Soul; for only in looking\nheavenward, take it in what sense you may, not in looking earthward,\ndoes what we can call Union, mutual Love, Society, begin to be possible.\nHow true is that of Novalis: 'It is certain, my Belief gains quite\n_infinitely_ the moment I can convince another mind thereof'! Gaze thou\nin the face of thy Brother, in those eyes where plays the lambent fire\nof Kindness, or in those where rages the lurid conflagration of Anger;\nfeel how thy own so quiet Soul is straightway involuntarily kindled with\nthe like, and ye blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is all\none limitless confluent flame (of embracing Love, or of deadly-grappling\nHate); and then say what miraculous virtue goes out of man into man. But\nif so, through all the thick-plied hulls of our Earthly Life; how much\nmore when it is of the Divine Life we speak, and inmost ME is, as it\nwere, brought into contact with inmost ME!\n\n\"Thus was it that I said, the Church Clothes are first spun and woven\nby Society; outward Religion originates by Society, Society becomes\npossible by Religion. Nay, perhaps, every conceivable Society, past and\npresent, may well be figured as properly and wholly a Church, in one or\nother of these three predicaments: an audibly preaching and prophesying\nChurch, which is the best; second, a Church that struggles to preach\nand prophesy, but cannot as yet, till its Pentecost come; and third and\nworst, a Church gone dumb with old age, or which only mumbles delirium\nprior to dissolution. Whoso fancies that by Church is here meant\nChapter-houses and Cathedrals, or by preaching and prophesying, mere\nspeech and chanting, let him,\" says the oracular Professor, \"read on,\nlight of heart (_getrosten Muthes_).\n\n\"But with regard to your Church proper, and the Church-Clothes specially\nrecognized as Church-Clothes, I remark, fearlessly enough, that without\nsuch Vestures and sacred Tissues Society has not existed, and will not\nexist. For if Government is, so to speak, the outward SKIN of the Body\nPolitic, holding the whole together and protecting it; and all your\nCraft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of hand or of head, are the\nFleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tissues (lying _under_ such\nSKIN), whereby Society stands and works;--then is Religion the\ninmost Pericardial and Nervous Tissue, which ministers Life and warm\nCirculation to the whole. Without which Pericardial Tissue the Bones\nand Muscles (of Industry) were inert, or animated only by a Galvanic\nvitality; the SKIN would become a shrivelled pelt, or fast-rotting\nrawhide; and Society itself a dead carcass,--deserving to be buried. Men\nwere no longer Social, but Gregarious; which latter state also could not\ncontinue, but must gradually issue in universal selfish discord, hatred,\nsavage isolation, and dispersion;--whereby, as we might continue to say,\nthe very dust and dead body of Society would have evaporated and\nbecome abolished. Such, and so all-important, all-sustaining, are the\nChurch-Clothes to civilized or even to rational men.\n\n\"Meanwhile, in our era of the World, those same Church-Clothes have gone\nsorrowfully out-at-elbows; nay, far worse, many of them have become\nmere hollow Shapes, or Masks, under which no living Figure or Spirit\nany longer dwells; but only spiders and unclean beetles, in horrid\naccumulation, drive their trade; and the mask still glares on you\nwith its glass eyes, in ghastly affectation of Life,--some\ngeneration-and-half after Religion has quite withdrawn from it, and\nin unnoticed nooks is weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewith\nto reappear, and bless us, or our sons or grandsons. As a Priest, or\nInterpreter of the Holy, is the noblest and highest of all men, so is\na Sham-priest (_Schein-priester_) the falsest and basest; neither is it\ndoubtful that his Canonicals, were they Popes' Tiaras, will one day be\ntorn from him, to make bandages for the wounds of mankind; or even to\nburn into tinder, for general scientific or culinary purposes.\n\n\"All which, as out of place here, falls to be handled in my Second\nVolume, _On the Palingenesia, or Newbirth of Society_; which volume,\nas treating practically of the Wear, Destruction, and Retexture\nof Spiritual Tissues, or Garments, forms, properly speaking, the\nTranscendental or ultimate Portion of this my work on _Clothes_, and is\nalready in a state of forwardness.\"\n\nAnd herewith, no farther exposition, note, or commentary being added,\ndoes Teufelsdrockh, and must his Editor now, terminate the singular\nchapter on Church-Clothes!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. SYMBOLS.\n\nProbably it will elucidate the drift of these foregoing obscure\nutterances, if we here insert somewhat of our Professor's speculations\non _Symbols_. To state his whole doctrine, indeed, were beyond our\ncompass: nowhere is he more mysterious, impalpable, than in this of\n\"Fantasy being the organ of the Godlike;\" and how \"Man thereby, though\nbased, to all seeming, on the small Visible, does nevertheless extend\ndown into the infinite deeps of the Invisible, of which Invisible,\nindeed, his Life is properly the bodying forth.\" Let us, omitting these\nhigh transcendental aspects of the matter, study to glean (whether from\nthe Paper-bags or the Printed Volume) what little seems logical and\npractical, and cunningly arrange it into such degree of coherence as\nit will assume. By way of proem, take the following not injudicious\nremarks:--\n\n\"The benignant efficacies of Concealment,\" cries our Professor, \"who\nshall speak or sing? SILENCE and SECRECY! Altars might still be raised\nto them (were this an altar-building time) for universal worship.\nSilence is the element in which great things fashion themselves\ntogether; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into\nthe daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Not William\nthe Silent only, but all the considerable men I have known, and the most\nundiplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore to babble of what they\nwere creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own mean perplexities, do\nthou thyself but _hold thy tongue for one day_: on the morrow, how much\nclearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck and rubbish have those\nmute workmen within thee swept away, when intrusive noises were shut\nout! Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of\nconcealing Thought; but of quite stifling and suspending Thought,\nso that there is none to conceal. Speech too is great, but not the\ngreatest. As the Swiss Inscription says: _Sprechen ist silbern,\nSchweigen ist golden_ (Speech is silvern, Silence is golden); or as I\nmight rather express it: Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.\n\n\"Bees will not work except in darkness; Thought will not work except in\nSilence: neither will Virtue work except in Secrecy. Let not thy left\nhand know what thy right hand doeth! Neither shalt thou prate even to\nthy own heart of 'those secrets known to all.' Is not Shame (_Schaam_)\nthe soil of all Virtue, of all good manners and good morals? Like other\nplants, Virtue will not grow unless its root be hidden, buried from the\neye of the sun. Let the sun shine on it, nay do but look at it privily\nthyself, the root withers, and no flower will glad thee. O my Friends,\nwhen we view the fair clustering flowers that overwreathe, for example,\nthe Marriage-bower, and encircle man's life with the fragrance and hues\nof Heaven, what hand will not smite the foul plunderer that grubs them\nup by the roots, and, with grinning, grunting satisfaction, shows us\nthe dung they flourish in! Men speak much of the Printing Press with\nits Newspapers: _du Himmel_! what are these to Clothes and the Tailor's\nGoose?\n\n\"Of kin to the so incalculable influences of Concealment, and connected\nwith still greater things, is the wondrous agency of _Symbols_. In\na Symbol there is concealment and yet revelation; here therefore, by\nSilence and by Speech acting together, comes a double significance. And\nif both the Speech be itself high, and the Silence fit and noble, how\nexpressive will their union be! Thus in many a painted Device, or simple\nSeal-emblem, the commonest Truth stands out to us proclaimed with quite\nnew emphasis.\n\n\"For it is here that Fantasy with her mystic wonderland plays into the\nsmall prose domain of Sense, and becomes incorporated therewith. In the\nSymbol proper, what we can call a Symbol, there is ever, more or less\ndistinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite;\nthe Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible,\nand as it were, attainable there. By Symbols, accordingly, is man guided\nand commanded, made happy, made wretched: He everywhere finds himself\nencompassed with Symbols, recognized as such or not recognized: the\nUniverse is but one vast Symbol of God; nay if thou wilt have it, what\nis man himself but a Symbol of God; is not all that he does symbolical;\na revelation to Sense of the mystic god-given force that is in him; a\n'Gospel of Freedom,' which he, the 'Messias of Nature,' preaches, as he\ncan, by act and word? Not a Hut he builds but is the visible embodiment\nof a Thought; but bears visible record of invisible things; but is, in\nthe transcendental sense, symbolical as well as real.\"\n\n\"Man,\" says the Professor elsewhere, in quite antipodal contrast with\nthese high-soaring delineations, which we have here cut short on the\nverge of the inane, \"Man is by birth somewhat of an owl. Perhaps, too,\nof all the owleries that ever possessed him, the most owlish, if we\nconsider it, is that of your actually existing Motive-Millwrights.\nFantastic tricks enough man has played, in his time; has fancied himself\nto be most things, down even to an animated heap of Glass: but to fancy\nhimself a dead Iron-Balance for weighing Pains and Pleasures on, was\nreserved for this his latter era. There stands he, his Universe one huge\nManger, filled with hay and thistles to be weighed against each other;\nand looks long-eared enough. Alas, poor devil! spectres are appointed to\nhaunt him: one age he is hag-ridden, bewitched; the next, priest-ridden,\nbefooled; in all ages, bedevilled. And now the Genius of Mechanism\nsmothers him worse than any Nightmare did; till the Soul is nigh choked\nout of him, and only a kind of Digestive, Mechanic life remains. In\nEarth and in Heaven he can see nothing but Mechanism; has fear for\nnothing else, hope in nothing else: the world would indeed grind him\nto pieces; but cannot he fathom the Doctrine of Motives, and cunningly\ncompute these, and mechanize them to grind the other way?\n\n\"Were he not, as has been said, purblinded by enchantment, you had but\nto bid him open his eyes and look. In which country, in which time, was\nit hitherto that man's history, or the history of any man, went on by\ncalculated or calculable 'Motives'? What make ye of your Christianities,\nand Chivalries, and Reformations, and Marseillaise Hymns, and Reigns of\nTerror? Nay, has not perhaps the Motive-grinder himself been in _Love_?\nDid he never stand so much as a contested Election? Leave him to Time,\nand the medicating virtue of Nature.\"\n\n\"Yes, Friends,\" elsewhere observes the Professor, \"not our Logical,\nMensurative faculty, but our Imaginative one is King over us; I might\nsay, Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward; or Magician and Wizard to\nlead us hellward. Nay, even for the basest Sensualist, what is Sense\nbut the implement of Fantasy; the vessel it drinks out of? Ever in the\ndullest existence there is a sheen either of Inspiration or of Madness\n(thou partly hast it in thy choice, which of the two), that gleams in\nfrom the circumambient Eternity, and colors with its own hues our little\nislet of Time. The Understanding is indeed thy window, too clear thou\ncanst not make it; but Fantasy is thy eye, with its color-giving\nretina, healthy or diseased. Have not I myself known five hundred living\nsoldiers sabred into crows'-meat for a piece of glazed cotton, which\nthey called their Flag; which, had you sold it at any market-cross,\nwould not have brought above three groschen? Did not the whole Hungarian\nNation rise, like some tumultuous moon-stirred Atlantic, when Kaiser\nJoseph pocketed their Iron Crown; an implement, as was sagaciously\nobserved, in size and commercial value little differing from a\nhorse-shoe? It is in and through _Symbols_ that man, consciously or\nunconsciously, lives, works, and has his being: those ages, moreover,\nare accounted the noblest which can the best recognize symbolical worth,\nand prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes\nfor it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the Godlike?\n\n\"Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that they have both an extrinsic\nand intrinsic value; oftenest the former only. What, for instance, was\nin that clouted Shoe, which the Peasants bore aloft with them as ensign\nin their _Bauernkrieg_ (Peasants' War)? Or in the Wallet-and-staff round\nwhich the Netherland _Gueux_, glorying in that nickname of Beggars,\nheroically rallied and prevailed, though against King Philip himself?\nIntrinsic significance these had none: only extrinsic; as the accidental\nStandards of multitudes more or less sacredly uniting together; in\nwhich union itself, as above noted, there is ever something mystical and\nborrowing of the Godlike. Under a like category, too, stand, or stood,\nthe stupidest heraldic Coats-of-arms; military Banners everywhere; and\ngenerally all national or other sectarian Costumes and Customs: they\nhave no intrinsic, necessary divineness, or even worth; but have\nacquired an extrinsic one. Nevertheless through all these there glimmers\nsomething of a Divine Idea; as through military Banners themselves, the\nDivine Idea of Duty, of heroic Daring; in some instances of Freedom, of\nRight. Nay the highest ensign that men ever met and embraced under, the\nCross itself, had no meaning save an accidental extrinsic one.\n\n\"Another matter it is, however, when your Symbol has intrinsic meaning,\nand is of itself _fit_ that men should unite round it. Let but the\nGodlike manifest itself to Sense, let but Eternity look, more or less\nvisibly, through the Time-Figure (_Zeitbild_)! Then is it fit that men\nunite there; and worship together before such Symbol; and so from day to\nday, and from age to age, superadd to it new divineness.\n\n\"Of this latter sort are all true Works of Art: in them (if thou know a\nWork of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity looking\nthrough Time; the Godlike rendered visible. Here too may an extrinsic\nvalue gradually superadd itself: thus certain _Iliads_, and the like,\nhave, in three thousand years, attained quite new significance. But\nnobler than all in this kind are the Lives of heroic god-inspired Men;\nfor what other Work of Art is so divine? In Death too, in the Death of\nthe Just, as the last perfection of a Work of Art, may we not discern\nsymbolic meaning? In that divinely transfigured Sleep, as of Victory,\nresting over the beloved face which now knows thee no more, read (if\nthou canst for tears) the confluence of Time with Eternity, and some\ngleam of the latter peering through.\n\n\"Highest of all Symbols are those wherein the Artist or Poet has risen\ninto Prophet, and all men can recognize a present God, and worship the\nSame: I mean religious Symbols. Various enough have been such religious\nSymbols, what we call _Religions_; as men stood in this stage of culture\nor the other, and could worse or better body forth the Godlike: some\nSymbols with a transient intrinsic worth; many with only an extrinsic.\nIf thou ask to what height man has carried it in this manner, look\non our divinest Symbol: on Jesus of Nazareth, and his Life, and his\nBiography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has the human Thought\nnot yet reached: this is Christianity and Christendom; a Symbol of quite\nperennial, infinite character; whose significance will ever demand to be\nanew inquired into, and anew made manifest.\n\n\"But, on the whole, as Time adds much to the sacredness of Symbols, so\nlikewise in his progress he at length defaces, or even desecrates them;\nand Symbols, like all terrestrial Garments, wax old. Homer's Epos has\nnot ceased to be true; yet it is no longer our Epos, but shines in the\ndistance, if clearer and clearer, yet also smaller and smaller, like\na receding Star. It needs a scientific telescope, it needs to be\nreinterpreted and artificially brought near us, before we can so much as\nknow that it _was_ a Sun. So likewise a day comes when the Runic\nThor, with his Eddas, must withdraw into dimness; and many an African\nMumbo-Jumbo and Indian Pawaw be utterly abolished. For all things, even\nCelestial Luminaries, much more atmospheric meteors, have their rise,\ntheir culmination, their decline.\n\n\"Small is this which thou tellest me, that the Royal Sceptre is but\na piece of gilt wood; that the Pyx has become a most foolish box, and\ntruly, as Ancient Pistol thought, 'of little price.' A right Conjurer\nmight I name thee, couldst thou conjure back into these wooden tools the\ndivine virtue they once held.\n\n\"Of this thing, however, be certain: wouldst thou plant for Eternity,\nthen plant into the deep infinite faculties of man, his Fantasy and\nHeart; wouldst thou plant for Year and Day, then plant into his shallow\nsuperficial faculties, his Self-love and Arithmetical Understanding,\nwhat will grow there. A Hierarch, therefore, and Pontiff of the World\nwill we call him, the Poet and inspired Maker; who, Prometheus-like, can\nshape new Symbols, and bring new Fire from Heaven to fix it there. Such\ntoo will not always be wanting; neither perhaps now are. Meanwhile, as\nthe average of matters goes, we account him Legislator and wise who can\nso much as tell when a Symbol has grown old, and gently remove it.\n\n\"When, as the last English Coronation [*] I was preparing,\" concludes this\nwonderful Professor, \"I read in their Newspapers that the 'Champion of\nEngland,' he who has to offer battle to the Universe for his new King,\nhad brought it so far that he could now 'mount his horse with little\nassistance,' I said to myself: Here also we have a Symbol well-nigh\nsuperannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters\nand rags of superannuated worn-out Symbols (in this Ragfair of a World)\ndropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you; nay, if\nyou shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and perhaps produce\nsuffocation?\"\n\n     * That of George IV.--ED.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. HELOTAGE.\n\nAt this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting,\nto a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled _Institute for the\nRepression of Population_; which lies, dishonorably enough (with torn\nleaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed into the Bag\n_Pisces_. Not indeed for the sake of the tract itself, which we admire\nlittle; but of the marginal Notes, evidently in Teufelsdrockh's hand,\nwhich rather copiously fringe it. A few of these may be in their right\nplace here.\n\nInto the Hofrath's _Institute_, with its extraordinary schemes, and\nmachinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall not so much as\nglance. Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple of\nMalthus; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his zeal almost literally\neats him up. A deadly fear of Population possesses the Hofrath;\nsomething like a fixed idea; undoubtedly akin to the more diluted forms\nof Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual world, is there\nlight; nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger; open mouths opening wider\nand wider; a world to terminate by the frightfullest consummation: by\nits too dense inhabitants, famished into delirium, universally eating\none another. To make air for himself in which strangulation, choking\nenough to a benevolent heart, the Hofrath founds, or proposes to found,\nthis _Institute_ of his, as the best he can do. It is only with our\nProfessor's comments thereon that we concern ourselves.\n\nFirst, then, remark that Teufelsdrockh, as a speculative Radical,\nhas his own notions about human dignity; that the Zahdarm palaces and\ncourtesies have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. On the\nblank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract we find the following indistinctly\nengrossed:--\n\n\"Two men I honor, and no third. First, the toilworn Craftsman that\nwith earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes\nher man's. Venerable to me is the hard Hand; crooked, coarse; wherein\nnotwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of\nthe Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all\nweather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is the face\nof a Man living manlike. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness,\nand even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated\nBrother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and\nfingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and\nfighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee too lay a god-created\nForm, but it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with the\nthick adhesions and defacements of Labor: and thy body, like thy soul,\nwas not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on: _thou_ art in thy duty,\nbe out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for\ndaily bread.\n\n\"A second man I honor, and still more highly: Him who is seen toiling\nfor the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, but the bread of\nLife. Is not he too in his duty; endeavoring towards inward Harmony;\nrevealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavors,\nbe they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward\nendeavor are one: when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsman\nonly, but inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers\nHeaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, must not\nthe high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, have\nGuidance, Freedom, Immortality?--These two, in all their degrees, I\nhonor: all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it\nlisteth.\n\n\"Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united;\nand he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also\ntoiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing\nthan a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one\nwill take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendor of\nHeaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light\nshining in great darkness.\"\n\nAnd again: \"It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor:\nwe must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which is\nworse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is hungry\nand athirst; but for him also there is food and drink: he is heavy-laden\nand weary; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of the deepest;\nin his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelops him; and fitful\nglitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn over is, that\nthe lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of heavenly, or even of\nearthly knowledge, should visit him; but only, in the haggard darkness,\nlike two spectres, Fear and Indignation bear him company. Alas, while\nthe Body stands so broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed,\nstupefied, almost annihilated! Alas, was this too a Breath of God;\nbestowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded!--That there\nshould one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call\na tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by\nsome computations it does. The miserable fraction of Science which our\nunited Mankind, in a wide Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why is\nnot this, with all diligence, imparted to all?\"\n\nQuite in an opposite strain is the following: \"The old Spartans had a\nwiser method; and went out and hunted down their Helots, and speared and\nspitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved fashions\nof hunting, Herr Hofrath, now after the invention of fire-arms, and\nstanding armies, how much easier were such a hunt! Perhaps in the most\nthickly peopled country, some three days annually might suffice to shoot\nall the able-bodied Paupers that had accumulated within the year. Let\nGovernments think of this. The expense were trifling: nay the very\ncarcasses would pay it. Have them salted and barrelled; could not you\nvictual therewith, if not Army and Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers,\nin workhouses and elsewhere, as enlightened Charity, dreading no evil of\nthem, might see good to keep alive?\"\n\n\"And yet,\" writes he farther on, \"there must be something wrong. A\nfull-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as high\nas two hundred Friedrichs d'or: such is his worth to the world. A\nfull-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world\ncould afford him a round sum would he simply engage to go and hang\nhimself. Nevertheless, which of the two was the more cunningly devised\narticle, even as an Engine? Good Heavens! A white European Man, standing\non his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his shackle-bones,\nand miraculous Head on his shoulders, is worth, I should say, from fifty\nto a hundred Horses!\"\n\n\"True, thou Gold-Hofrath,\" cries the Professor elsewhere: \"too crowded\nindeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous Globe\nhave ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no more? How thick\nstands your Population in the Pampas and Savannas of America; round\nancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on both slopes of the\nAltaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia; in Spain, Greece, Turkey,\nCrim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man, in one year, as I have\nunderstood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed himself and nine others.\nAlas, where now are the Hengsts and Alarics of our still-glowing,\nstill-expanding Europe; who, when their home is grown too narrow, will\nenlist, and, like Fire-pillars, guide onwards those superfluous masses\nof indomitable living Valor; equipped, not now with the battle-axe\nand war-chariot, but with the steam engine and ploughshare? Where are\nthey?--Preserving their Game!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. THE PHOENIX.\n\nPutting which four singular Chapters together, and alongside of them\nnumerous hints, and even direct utterances, scattered over these\nWritings of his, we come upon the startling yet not quite unlooked-for\nconclusion, that Teufelsdrockh is one of those who consider Society,\nproperly so called, to be as good as extinct; and that only the\ngregarious feelings, and old inherited habitudes, at this juncture, hold\nus from Dispersion, and universal national, civil, domestic and personal\nwar! He says expressly: \"For the last three centuries, above all for the\nlast three quarters of a century, that same Pericardial Nervous Tissue\n(as we named it) of Religion, where lies the Life-essence of Society,\nhas been smote at and perforated, needfully and needlessly; till now\nit is quite rent into shreds; and Society, long pining, diabetic,\nconsumptive, can be regarded as defunct; for those spasmodic, galvanic\nsprawlings are not life; neither indeed will they endure, galvanize as\nyou may, beyond two days.\"\n\n\"Call ye that a Society,\" cries he again, \"where there is no longer any\nSocial Idea extant; not so much as the Idea of a common Home, but only\nof a common over-crowded Lodging-house? Where each, isolated, regardless\nof his neighbor, turned against his neighbor, clutches what he can get,\nand cries 'Mine!' and calls it Peace, because, in the cut-purse and\ncut-throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cunninger sort,\ncan be employed? Where Friendship, Communion, has become an incredible\ntradition; and your holiest Sacramental Supper is a smoking Tavern\nDinner, with Cook for Evangelist? Where your Priest has no tongue but\nfor plate-licking: and your high Guides and Governors cannot guide; but\non all hands hear it passionately proclaimed: _Laissez faire_; Leave us\nalone of _your_ guidance, such light is darker than darkness; eat you\nyour wages, and sleep!\n\n\"Thus, too,\" continues he, \"does an observant eye discern everywhere\nthat saddest spectacle: The Poor perishing, like neglected, foundered\nDraught-Cattle, of Hunger and Overwork; the Rich, still more wretchedly,\nof Idleness, Satiety, and Overgrowth. The Highest in rank, at length,\nwithout honor from the Lowest; scarcely, with a little mouth-honor,\nas from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in the bill. Once-sacred\nSymbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof men grudge even the\nexpense; a World becoming dismantled: in one word, the STATE fallen\nspeechless, from obesity and apoplexy; the STATE shrunken into a\nPolice-Office, straitened to get its pay!\"\n\nWe might ask, are there many \"observant eyes,\" belonging to practical\nmen in England or elsewhere, which have descried these phenomena; or\nis it only from the mystic elevation of a German _Wahngasse_ that\nsuch wonders are visible? Teufelsdrockh contends that the aspect of a\n\"deceased or expiring Society\" fronts us everywhere, so that whoso runs\nmay read. \"What, for example,\" says he, \"is the universally arrogated\nVirtue, almost the sole remaining Catholic Virtue, of these days?\nFor some half-century, it has been the thing you name 'Independence.'\nSuspicion of 'Servility,' of reverence for Superiors, the very dog-leech\nis anxious to disavow. Fools! Were your Superiors worthy to govern,\nand you worthy to obey, reverence for them were even your only possible\nfreedom. Independence, in all kinds, is rebellion; if unjust rebellion,\nwhy parade it, and everywhere prescribe it?\"\n\nBut what then? Are we returning, as Rousseau prayed, to the state of\nNature? \"The Soul Politic having departed,\" says Teufelsdrockh, \"what\ncan follow but that the Body Politic be decently interred, to avoid\nputrescence? Liberals, Economists, Utilitarians enough I see marching\nwith its bier, and chanting loud paeans, towards the funeral pile,\nwhere, amid wailings from some, and saturnalian revelries from the most,\nthe venerable Corpse is to be burnt. Or, in plain words, that these men,\nLiberals, Utilitarians, or whatsoever they are called, will ultimately\ncarry their point, and dissever and destroy most existing Institutions\nof Society, seems a thing which has some time ago ceased to be doubtful.\n\n\"Do we not see a little subdivision of the grand Utilitarian Armament\ncome to light even in insulated England? A living nucleus, that will\nattract and grow, does at length appear there also; and under curious\nphasis; properly as the inconsiderable fag-end, and so far in the rear\nof the others as to fancy itself the van. Our European Mechanizers are a\nsect of boundless diffusion, activity, and co-operative spirit: has\nnot Utilitarianism flourished in high places of Thought, here among\nourselves, and in every European country, at some time or other, within\nthe last fifty years? If now in all countries, except perhaps England,\nit has ceased to flourish, or indeed to exist, among Thinkers, and sunk\nto Journalists and the popular mass,--who sees not that, as hereby it no\nlonger preaches, so the reason is, it now needs no Preaching, but is\nin full universal Action, the doctrine everywhere known, and\nenthusiastically laid to heart? The fit pabulum, in these times, for\na certain rugged workshop intellect and heart, nowise without their\ncorresponding workshop strength and ferocity, it requires but to be\nstated in such scenes to make proselytes enough.--Admirably calculated\nfor destroying, only not for rebuilding! It spreads like a sort of\nDog-madness; till the whole World-kennel will be rabid: then woe to\nthe Huntsmen, with or without their whips! They should have given the\nquadrupeds water,\" adds he; \"the water, namely, of Knowledge and of\nLife, while it was yet time.\"\n\nThus, if Professor Teufelsdrockh can be relied on, we are at this hour\nin a most critical condition; beleaguered by that boundless \"Armament of\nMechanizers\" and Unbelievers, threatening to strip us bare! \"The World,\"\nsays he, \"as it needs must, is under a process of devastation and\nwaste, which, whether by silent assiduous corrosion, or open quicker\ncombustion, as the case chances, will effectually enough annihilate the\npast Forms of Society; replace them with what it may. For the present,\nit is contemplated that when man's whole Spiritual Interests are once\n_divested_, these innumerable stript-off Garments shall mostly be burnt;\nbut the sounder Rags among them be quilted together into one huge Irish\nwatch-coat for the defence of the Body only!\"--This, we think, is but\nJob's-news to the humane reader.\n\n\"Nevertheless,\" cries Teufelsdrockh, \"who can hinder it; who is there\nthat can clutch into the wheelspokes of Destiny, and say to the Spirit\nof the Time: Turn back, I command thee?--Wiser were it that we yielded\nto the Inevitable and Inexorable, and accounted even this the best.\"\n\nNay, might not an attentive Editor, drawing his own inferences from what\nstands written, conjecture that Teufelsdrockh, individually had yielded\nto this same \"Inevitable and Inexorable\" heartily enough; and now sat\nwaiting the issue, with his natural diabolico-angelical Indifference,\nif not even Placidity? Did we not hear him complain that the World was\na \"huge Ragfair,\" and the \"rags and tatters of old Symbols\" were raining\ndown everywhere, like to drift him in, and suffocate him? What with\nthose \"unhunted Helots\" of his; and the uneven _sic vos non vobis_\npressure and hard-crashing collision he is pleased to discern in\nexisting things; what with the so hateful \"empty Masks,\" full of beetles\nand spiders, yet glaring out on him, from their glass eyes, \"with a\nghastly affectation of life,\"--we feel entitled to conclude him even\nwilling that much should be thrown to the Devil, so it were but done\ngently! Safe himself in that \"Pinnacle of Weissnichtwo,\" he would\nconsent, with a tragic solemnity, that the monster UTILITARIA, held\nback, indeed, and moderated by nose-rings, halters, foot-shackles,\nand every conceivable modification of rope, should go forth to do her\nwork;--to tread down old ruinous Palaces and Temples with her broad\nhoof, till the whole were trodden down, that new and better might be\nbuilt! Remarkable in this point of view are the following sentences.\n\n\"Society,\" says he, \"is not dead: that Carcass, which you call dead\nSociety, is but her mortal coil which she has shuffled off, to assume\na nobler; she herself, through perpetual metamorphoses, in fairer\nand fairer development, has to live till Time also merge in Eternity.\nWheresoever two or three Living Men are gathered together, there is\nSociety; or there it will be, with its cunning mechanisms and stupendous\nstructures, overspreading this little Globe, and reaching upwards to\nHeaven and downwards to Gehenna: for always, under one or the other\nfigure, it has two authentic Revelations, of a God and of a Devil; the\nPulpit, namely, and the Gallows.\"\n\nIndeed, we already heard him speak of \"Religion, in unnoticed nooks,\nweaving for herself new Vestures;\"--Teufelsdrockh himself being one\nof the loom-treadles? Elsewhere he quotes without censure that strange\naphorism of Saint Simon's, concerning which and whom so much were to be\nsaid: \"_L'age d'or, qu'une aveugle tradition a place jusqu'ici dans le\npasse, est devant nous_; The golden age, which a blind tradition has\nhitherto placed in the Past, is Before us.\"--But listen again:--\n\n\"When the Phoenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not be sparks\nflying! Alas, some millions of men, and among them such as a Napoleon,\nhave already been licked into that high-eddying Flame, and like moths\nconsumed there. Still also have we to fear that incautious beards will\nget singed.\n\n\"For the rest, in what year of grace such Phoenix-cremation will be\ncompleted, you need not ask. The law of Perseverance is among the\ndeepest in man: by nature he hates change; seldom will he quit his\nold house till it has actually fallen about his ears. Thus have I seen\nSolemnities linger as Ceremonies, sacred Symbols as idle Pageants, to\nthe extent of three hundred years and more after all life and sacredness\nhad evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what time the\nPhoenix Death-Birth itself will require, depends on unseen\ncontingencies.--Meanwhile, would Destiny offer Mankind, that after, say\ntwo centuries of convulsion and conflagration, more or less vivid, the\nfire-creation should be accomplished, and we to find ourselves again\nin a Living Society, and no longer fighting but working,--were it not\nperhaps prudent in Mankind to strike the bargain?\"\n\nThus is Teufelsdrockh, content that old sick Society should be\ndeliberately burnt (alas, with quite other fuel than spice-wood); in the\nfaith that she is a Phoenix; and that a new heaven-born young one\nwill rise out of her ashes! We ourselves, restricted to the duty of\nIndicator, shall forbear commentary. Meanwhile, will not the judicious\nreader shake his head, and reproachfully, yet more in sorrow than in\nanger, say or think: From a _Doctor utriusque Juris_, titular Professor\nin a University, and man to whom hitherto, for his services, Society,\nbad as she is, has given not only food and raiment (of a kind),\nbut books, tobacco and gukguk, we expected more gratitude to his\nbenefactress; and less of a blind trust in the future which resembles\nthat rather of a philosophical Fatalist and Enthusiast, than of a solid\nhouseholder paying scot-and-lot in a Christian country.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. OLD CLOTHES.\n\nAs mentioned above, Teufelsdrockh, though a Sansculottist, is in\npractice probably the politest man extant: his whole heart and life are\npenetrated and informed with the spirit of politeness; a noble natural\nCourtesy shines through him, beautifying his vagaries; like sunlight,\nmaking a rosyfingered, rainbow-dyed Aurora out of mere aqueous clouds;\nnay brightening London-smoke itself into gold vapor, as from the\ncrucible of an alchemist. Hear in what earnest though fantastic wise he\nexpresses himself on this head:--\n\n\"Shall Courtesy be done only to the rich, and only by the rich? In\nGood-breeding, which differs, if at all, from High-breeding, only as\nit gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully\ninsists on its own rights, I discern no special connection with wealth\nor birth: but rather that it lies in human nature itself, and is due\nfrom all men towards all men. Of a truth, were your Schoolmaster at his\npost, and worth anything when there, this, with so much else, would be\nreformed. Nay, each man were then also his neighbor's schoolmaster; till\nat length a rude-visaged, unmannered Peasant could no more be met with,\nthan a Peasant unacquainted with botanical Physiology, or who felt not\nthat the clod he broke was created in Heaven.\n\n\"For whether thou bear a sceptre or a sledge-hammer, art not thou ALIVE;\nis not this thy brother ALIVE? 'There is but one temple in the world,'\nsays Novalis, 'and that temple is the Body of Man. Nothing is holier\nthan this high Form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this\nRevelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our hands on a\nhuman Body.'\n\n\"On which ground, I would fain carry it farther than most do; and\nwhereas the English Johnson only bowed to every Clergyman, or man with\na shovel-hat, I would bow to every Man with any sort of hat, or with no\nhat whatever. Is not he a Temple, then; the visible Manifestation and\nImpersonation of the Divinity? And yet, alas, such indiscriminate bowing\nserves not. For there is a Devil dwells in man, as well as a Divinity;\nand too often the bow is but pocketed by the _former_. It would go to\nthe pocket of Vanity (which is your clearest phasis of the Devil, in\nthese times); therefore must we withhold it.\n\n\"The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do reverence to those Shells\nand outer Husks of the Body, wherein no devilish passion any longer\nlodges, but only the pure emblem and effigies of Man: I mean, to Empty,\nor even to Cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to Clothes that most men do\nreverence: to the fine frogged broadcloth, nowise to the 'straddling\nanimal with bandy legs' which it holds, and makes a Dignitary of? Who\never saw any Lord my-lorded in tattered blanket fastened with wooden\nskewer? Nevertheless, I say, there is in such worship a shade\nof hypocrisy, a practical deception: for how often does the Body\nappropriate what was meant for the Cloth only! Whoso would avoid\nfalsehood, which is the essence of all Sin, will perhaps see good\nto take a different course. That reverence which cannot act without\nobstruction and perversion when the Clothes are full, may have free\ncourse when they are empty. Even as, for Hindoo Worshippers, the Pagoda\nis not less sacred than the God; so do I too worship the hollow cloth\nGarment with equal fervor, as when it contained the Man: nay, with more,\nfor I now fear no deception, of myself or of others.\n\n\"Did not King _Toomtabard_, or, in other words, John Baliol, reign long\nover Scotland; the man John Baliol being quite gone, and only the 'Toom\nTabard' (Empty Gown) remaining? What still dignity dwells in a suit\nof Cast Clothes! How meekly it bears its honors! No haughty looks,\nno scornful gesture: silent and serene, it fronts the world; neither\ndemanding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The Hat still carries\nthe physiognomy of its Head: but the vanity and the stupidity, and\ngoose-speech which was the sign of these two, are gone. The Coat-arm is\nstretched out, but not to strike; the Breeches, in modest simplicity,\ndepend at ease, and now at last have a graceful flow; the Waistcoat\nhides no evil passion, no riotous desire; hunger or thirst now dwells\nnot in it. Thus all is purged from the grossness of sense, from the\ncarking cares and foul vices of the World; and rides there, on its\nClothes-horse; as, on a Pegasus, might some skyey Messenger, or purified\nApparition, visiting our low Earth.\n\n\"Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tuberosity of Civilized\nLife, the Capital of England; and meditated, and questioned Destiny,\nunder that ink-sea of vapor, black, thick, and multifarious as Spartan\nbroth; and was one lone soul amid those grinding millions;--often have I\nturned into their Old-Clothes Market to worship. With awe-struck heart\nI walk through that Monmouth Street, with its empty Suits, as through a\nSanhedrim of stainless Ghosts. Silent are they, but expressive in their\nsilence: the past witnesses and instruments of Woe and Joy, of Passions,\nVirtues, Crimes, and all the fathomless tumult of Good and Evil in 'the\nPrison men call Life.' Friends! trust not the heart of that man for whom\nOld Clothes are not venerable. Watch, too, with reverence, that bearded\nJewish High-priest, who with hoarse voice, like some Angel of Doom,\nsummons them from the four winds! On his head, like the Pope, he has\nthree Hats,--a real triple tiara; on either hand are the similitude of\nwings, whereon the summoned Garments come to alight; and ever, as\nhe slowly cleaves the air, sounds forth his deep fateful note, as\nif through a trumpet he were proclaiming: 'Ghosts of Life, come to\nJudgment!' Reck not, ye fluttering Ghosts: he will purify you in his\nPurgatory, with fire and with water; and, one day, new-created ye shall\nreappear. Oh, let him in whom the flame of Devotion is ready to go\nout, who has never worshipped, and knows not what to worship, pace and\nrepace, with austerest thought, the pavement of Monmouth Street, and say\nwhether his heart and his eyes still continue dry. If Field Lane, with\nits long fluttering rows of yellow handkerchiefs, be a Dionysius' Ear,\nwhere, in stifled jarring hubbub, we hear the Indictment which Poverty\nand Vice bring against lazy Wealth, that it has left them there cast\nout and trodden under foot of Want, Darkness and the Devil,--then is\nMonmouth Street a Mirza's Hill, where, in motley vision, the whole\nPageant of Existence passes awfully before us; with its wail and\njubilee, mad loves and mad hatreds, church-bells and gallows-ropes,\nfarce-tragedy, beast-godhood,--the Bedlam of Creation!\"\n\n\nTo most men, as it does to ourselves, all this will seem overcharged.\nWe too have walked through Monmouth Street; but with little feeling of\n\"Devotion:\" probably in part because the contemplative process is so\nfatally broken in upon by the brood of money-changers who nestle in\nthat Church, and importune the worshipper with merely secular proposals.\nWhereas Teufelsdrockh, might be in that happy middle state, which leaves\nto the Clothes-broker no hope either of sale or of purchase, and so be\nallowed to linger there without molestation.--Something we would have\ngiven to see the little philosophical figure, with its steeple-hat and\nloose flowing skirts, and eyes in a fine frenzy, \"pacing and repacing in\nausterest thought\" that foolish Street; which to him was a true Delphic\navenue, and supernatural Whispering-gallery, where the \"Ghosts of Life\"\nrounded strange secrets in his ear. O thou philosophic Teufelsdrockh,\nthat listenest while others only gabble, and with thy quick tympanum\nhearest the grass grow!\n\nAt the same time, is it not strange that, in Paper-bag Documents\ndestined for an English work, there exists nothing like an authentic\ndiary of this his sojourn in London; and of his Meditations among\nthe Clothes-shops only the obscurest emblematic shadows? Neither, in\nconversation (for, indeed, he was not a man to pester you with his\nTravels), have we heard him more than allude to the subject.\n\nFor the rest, however, it cannot be uninteresting that we here find how\nearly the significance of Clothes had dawned on the now so distinguished\nClothes-Professor. Might we but fancy it to have been even in Monmouth\nStreet, at the bottom of our own English \"ink-sea,\" that this remarkable\nVolume first took being, and shot forth its salient point in his\nsoul,--as in Chaos did the Egg of Eros, one day to be hatched into a\nUniverse!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. ORGANIC FILAMENTS.\n\nFor us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning herself,\nand burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdrockh calculates, it were a\nhandsome bargain would she engage to have done \"within two centuries,\"\nthere seems to lie but an ashy prospect. Not altogether so, however,\ndoes the Professor figure it. \"In the living subject,\" says he, \"change\nis wont to be gradual: thus, while the serpent sheds its old skin, the\nnew is already formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the burning of a\nWorld-Phoenix, who fanciest that she must first burn out, and lie as a\ndead cinereous heap; and therefrom the young one start up by miracle,\nand fly heavenward. Far otherwise! In that Fire-whirlwind, Creation and\nDestruction proceed together; ever as the ashes of the Old are blown\nabout, do organic filaments of the New mysteriously spin themselves: and\namid the rushing and the waving of the Whirlwind element come tones of\na melodious Death-song, which end not but in tones of a more melodious\nBirth-song. Nay, look into the Fire-whirlwind with thy own eyes, and\nthou wilt see.\" Let us actually look, then: to poor individuals, who\ncannot expect to live two centuries, those same organic filaments,\nmysteriously spinning themselves, will be the best part of the\nspectacle. First, therefore, this of Mankind in general:--\n\n\"In vain thou deniest it,\" says the Professor; \"thou art my Brother. Thy\nvery Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish Lies thou tellest of me in\nthy splenetic humor: what is all this but an inverted Sympathy? Were I\na Steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of me? Not\nthou! I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well.\n\n\"Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by the\nsoft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we like\nto choose it. More than once have I said to myself, of some perhaps\nwhimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical thoughts:\n'Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered up within the largest\nimaginable Glass bell,--what a thing it were, not for thyself only, but\nfor the world! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four winds,\nimpinge against thy Glass walls, but have to drop unread: neither from\nwithin comes there question or response into any Post-bag; thy Thoughts\nfall into no friendly ear or heart, thy Manufacture into no purchasing\nhand: thou art no longer a circulating venous-arterial Heart, that,\ntaking and giving, circulatest through all Space and all Time: there\nhas a Hole fallen out in the immeasurable, universal World-tissue, which\nmust be darned up again!'\n\n\"Such venous-arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal Messages,\npaper and other Packages, going out from him and coming in, are\na blood-circulation, visible to the eye: but the finer nervous\ncirculation, by which all things, the minutest that he does, minutely\ninfluence all men, and the very look of his face blesses or curses\nwhomso it lights on, and so generates ever new blessing or new cursing:\nall this you cannot see, but only imagine. I say, there is not a red\nIndian, hunting by Lake Winnipeg, can quarrel with his squaw, but the\nwhole world must smart for it: will not the price of beaver rise? It is\na mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters\nthe centre of gravity of the Universe.\n\n\"If now an existing generation of men stand so woven together, not less\nindissolubly does generation with generation. Hast thou ever meditated\non that word, Tradition: how we inherit not Life only, but all the\ngarniture and form of Life; and work, and speak, and even think and\nfeel, as our Fathers, and primeval grandfathers, from the beginning,\nhave given it us?--Who printed thee, for example, this unpretending\nVolume on the Philosophy of Clothes? Not the Herren Stillschweigen and\nCompany; but Cadmus of Thebes, Faust of Mentz, and innumerable others\nwhom thou knowest not. Had there been no Moesogothic Ulfila, there\nhad been no English Shakspeare, or a different one. Simpleton! It was\nTubal-cain that made thy very Tailor's needle, and sewed that court-suit\nof thine.\n\n\"Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much more\nis Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without which\nNature were not. As palpable lifestreams in that wondrous Individual\nMankind, among so many life-streams that are not palpable, flow on those\nmain currents of what we call Opinion; as preserved in Institutions,\nPolities, Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is to understand\nand know that a Thought did never yet die; that as thou, the originator\nthereof, hast gathered it and created it from the whole Past, so thou\nwilt transmit it to the whole Future. It is thus that the heroic heart,\nthe seeing eye of the first times, still feels and sees in us of the\nlatest; that the Wise Man stands ever encompassed, and spiritually\nembraced, by a cloud of witnesses and brothers; and there is a living,\nliteral _Communion of Saints_, wide as the World itself, and as the\nHistory of the World.\n\n\"Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this same\nIndividual, wilt thou find his subdivision into Generations. Generations\nare as the Days of toilsome Mankind: Death and Birth are the vesper and\nthe matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed for\nnew advancement. What the Father has made, the Son can make and enjoy;\nbut has also work of his own appointed him. Thus all things wax, and\nroll onwards; Arts, Establishments, Opinions, nothing is completed, but\never completing. Newton has learned to see what Kepler saw; but there\nis also a fresh heaven-derived force in Newton; he must mount to still\nhigher points of vision. So too the Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due time,\nfollowed by an Apostle of the Gentiles. In the business of Destruction,\nas this also is from time to time a necessary work, thou findest a like\nsequence and perseverance: for Luther it was as yet hot enough to stand\nby that burning of the Pope's Bull; Voltaire could not warm himself at\nthe glimmering ashes, but required quite other fuel. Thus likewise, I\nnote, the English Whig has, in the second generation, become an English\nRadical; who, in the third again, it is to be hoped, will become an\nEnglish Rebuilder. Find Mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in\nliving movement, in progress faster or slower: the Phoenix soars aloft,\nhovers with outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or, as\nnow, she sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame,\nthat she may soar the higher and sing the clearer.\"\n\nLet the friends of social order, in such a disastrous period, lay this\nto heart, and derive from it any little comfort they can. We subjoin\nanother passage, concerning Titles:--\n\n\"Remark, not without surprise,\" says Teufelsdrockh, \"how all high Titles\nof Honor come hitherto from Fighting. Your _Herzog_ (Duke, _Dux_) is\nLeader of Armies; your Earl (_Jarl_) is Strong Man; your Marshal cavalry\nHorse-shoer. A Millennium, or reign of Peace and Wisdom, having from of\nold been prophesied, and becoming now daily more and more indubitable,\nmay it not be apprehended that such Fighting titles will cease to be\npalatable, and new and higher need to be devised?\n\n\"The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace eternity is that of\nKing. _Konig_ (King), anciently _Konning_, means Ken-ning (Cunning), or\nwhich is the same thing, Can-ning. Ever must the Sovereign of Mankind be\nfitly entitled King.\"\n\n\"Well, also,\" says he elsewhere, \"was it written by Theologians: a King\nrules by divine right. He carries in him an authority from God, or man\nwill never give it him. Can I choose my own King? I can choose my own\nKing Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him: but he who\nis to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will, was chosen\nfor me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to the Heaven-chosen\nis Freedom so much as conceivable.\"\n\n\nThe Editor will here admit that, among all the wondrous provinces of\nTeufelsdrockh's spiritual world, there is none he walks in with such\nastonishment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the Political. How, with\nour English love of Ministry and Opposition, and that generous conflict\nof Parties, mind warming itself against mind in their mutual wrestle\nfor the Public Good, by which wrestle, indeed, is our invaluable\nConstitution kept warm and alive; how shall we domesticate ourselves\nin this spectral Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead and of the\nUnborn, where the Present seems little other than an inconsiderable Film\ndividing the Past and the Future? In those dim long-drawn expanses, all\nis so immeasurable; much so disastrous, ghastly; your very radiances and\nstraggling light-beams have a supernatural character. And then with\nsuch an indifference, such a prophetic peacefulness (accounting the\ninevitably coming as already here, to him all one whether it be distant\nby centuries or only by days), does he sit;--and live, you would say,\nrather in any other age than in his own! It is our painful duty to\nannounce, or repeat, that, looking into this man, we discern a deep,\nsilent, slow-burning, inextinguishable Radicalism, such as fills us with\nshuddering admiration.\n\nThus, for example, he appears to make little even of the Elective\nFranchise; at least so we interpret the following: \"Satisfy yourselves,\"\nhe says, \"by universal, indubitable experiment, even as ye are now doing\nor will do, whether FREEDOM, heaven-born and leading heavenward, and\nso vitally essential for us all, cannot peradventure be mechanically\nhatched and brought to light in that same Ballot-Box of yours; or\nat worst, in some other discoverable or devisable Box, Edifice, or\nSteam-mechanism. It were a mighty convenience; and beyond all feats of\nmanufacture witnessed hitherto.\" Is Teufelsdrockh acquainted with the\nBritish constitution, even slightly?--He says, under another figure:\n\"But after all, were the problem, as indeed it now everywhere is, To\nrebuild your old House from the top downwards (since you must live in\nit the while), what better, what other, than the Representative Machine\nwill serve your turn? Meanwhile, however, mock me not with the name\nof Free, 'when you have but knit up my chains into ornamental\nfestoons.'\"--Or what will any member of the Peace Society make of such\nan assertion as this: \"The lower people everywhere desire War. Not so\nunwisely; there is then a demand for lower people--to be shot!\"\n\nGladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul-confusing labyrinths\nof speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer regions. Here, looking\nround, as was our hest, for \"organic filaments,\" we ask, may not this,\ntouching \"Hero-worship,\" be of the number? It seems of a cheerful\ncharacter; yet so quaint, so mystical, one knows not what, or how\nlittle, may lie under it. Our readers shall look with their own eyes:--\n\n\"True is it that, in these days, man can do almost all things, only not\nobey. True likewise that whoso cannot obey cannot be free, still less\nbear rule; he that is the inferior of nothing, can be the superior of\nnothing, the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe not that man has\nlost his faculty of Reverence; that if it slumber in him, it has gone\ndead. Painful for man is that same rebellious Independence, when it has\nbecome inevitable; only in loving companionship with his fellows does he\nfeel safe; only in reverently bowing down before the Higher does he feel\nhimself exalted.\n\n\"Or what if the character of our so troublous Era lay even in this: that\nman had forever cast away Fear, which is the lower; but not yet risen\ninto perennial Reverence, which is the higher and highest?\n\n\"Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has Nature ordered it, that\nwhatsoever man ought to obey, he cannot but obey. Before no faintest\nrevelation of the Godlike did he ever stand irreverent; least of all,\nwhen the Godlike showed itself revealed in his fellow-man. Thus is there\na true religious Loyalty forever rooted in his heart; nay in all\nages, even in ours, it manifests itself as a more or less orthodox\n_Hero-worship_. In which fact, that Hero-worship exists, has existed,\nand will forever exist, universally among Mankind, mayest thou discern\nthe corner-stone of living rock, whereon all Polities for the remotest\ntime may stand secure.\"\n\nDo our readers discern any such corner-stone, or even so much as what\nTeufelsdrockh, is looking at? He exclaims, \"Or hast thou forgotten Paris\nand Voltaire? How the aged, withered man, though but a Sceptic, Mocker,\nand millinery Court-poet, yet because even he seemed the Wisest, Best,\ncould drag mankind at his chariot-wheels, so that princes coveted a\nsmile from him, and the loveliest of France would have laid their hair\nbeneath his feet! All Paris was one vast Temple of Hero-worship; though\ntheir Divinity, moreover, was of feature too apish.\n\n\"But if such things,\" continues he, \"were done in the dry tree, what\nwill be done in the green? If, in the most parched season of Man's\nHistory, in the most parched spot of Europe, when Parisian life was\nat best but a scientific _Hortus Siccus_, bedizened with some Italian\nGumflowers, such virtue could come out of it; what is to be looked for\nwhen Life again waves leafy and bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shall\nhave nothing apelike, but be wholly human? Know that there is in man a\nquite indestructible Reverence for whatsoever holds of Heaven, or even\nplausibly counterfeits such holding. Show the dullest clodpoll, show\nthe haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher than himself is actually\nhere; were his knees stiffened into brass, he must down and worship.\"\n\nOrganic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mysteriously spinning\nthemselves, some will perhaps discover in the following passage:--\n\n\"There is no Church, sayest thou? The voice of Prophecy has gone dumb?\nThis is even what I dispute: but in any case, hast thou not still\nPreaching enough? A Preaching Friar settles himself in every village;\nand builds a pulpit, which he calls Newspaper. Therefrom he preaches\nwhat most momentous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation; and dost\nnot thou listen, and believe? Look well, thou seest everywhere a\nnew Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, some barefooted, some almost\nbare-backed, fashion itself into shape, and teach and preach, zealously\nenough, for copper alms and the love of God. These break in pieces\nthe ancient idols; and, though themselves too often reprobate, as\nidol-breakers are wont to be, mark out the sites of new Churches,\nwhere the true God-ordained, that are to follow, may find audience, and\nminister. Said I not, Before the old skin was shed, the new had formed\nitself beneath it?\"\n\nPerhaps also in the following; wherewith we now hasten to knit up this\nravelled sleeve:--\n\n\"But there is no Religion?\" reiterates the Professor. \"Fool! I tell\nthee, there is. Hast thou well considered all that lies in this\nimmeasurable froth-ocean we name LITERATURE? Fragments of a genuine\nChurch-_Homiletic_ lie scattered there, which Time will assort: nay\nfractions even of a _Liturgy_ could I point out. And knowest thou no\nProphet, even in the vesture, environment, and dialect of this age? None\nto whom the Godlike had revealed itself, through all meanest and highest\nforms of the Common; and by him been again prophetically revealed: in\nwhose inspired melody, even in these rag-gathering and rag-burning days,\nMan's Life again begins, were it but afar off, to be divine? Knowest\nthou none such? I know him, and name him--Goethe.\n\n\"But thou as yet standest in no Temple; joinest in no Psalm-worship;\nfeelest well that, where there is no ministering Priest, the people\nperish? Be of comfort! Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith. Spake we\nnot of a Communion of Saints, unseen, yet not unreal, accompanying and\nbrother-like embracing thee, so thou be worthy? Their heroic Sufferings\nrise up melodiously together to Heaven, out of all lands, and out of all\ntimes, as a sacred _Miserere_; their heroic Actions also, as a boundless\neverlasting Psalm of Triumph. Neither say that thou hast now no Symbol\nof the Godlike. Is not God's Universe a Symbol of the Godlike; is not\nImmensity a Temple; is not Man's History, and Men's History, a perpetual\nEvangel? Listen, and for organ-music thou wilt ever, as of old, hear the\nMorning Stars sing together.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM.\n\nIt is in his stupendous Section, headed _Natural Supernaturalism_, that\nthe Professor first becomes a Seer; and, after long effort, such as\nwe have witnessed, finally subdues under his feet this refractory\nClothes-Philosophy, and takes victorious possession thereof. Phantasms\nenough he has had to struggle with; \"Cloth-webs and Cob-webs,\" of\nImperial Mantles, Superannuated Symbols, and what not: yet still did he\ncourageously pierce through. Nay, worst of all, two quite mysterious,\nworld-embracing Phantasms, TIME and SPACE, have ever hovered round\nhim, perplexing and bewildering: but with these also he now resolutely\ngrapples, these also he victoriously rends asunder. In a word, he has\nlooked fixedly on Existence, till, one after the other, its earthly\nhulls and garnitures have all melted away; and now, to his rapt vision,\nthe interior celestial Holy-of-Holies lies disclosed.\n\nHere, therefore, properly it is that the Philosophy of Clothes attains\nto Transcendentalism; this last leap, can we but clear it, takes us\nsafe into the promised land, where _Palingenesia_, in all senses, may be\nconsidered as beginning. \"Courage, then!\" may our Diogenes exclaim, with\nbetter right than Diogenes the First once did. This stupendous Section\nwe, after long painful meditation, have found not to be unintelligible;\nbut, on the contrary, to grow clear, nay radiant, and all-illuminating.\nLet the reader, turning on it what utmost force of speculative intellect\nis in him, do his part; as we, by judicious selection and adjustment,\nshall study to do ours:--\n\n\"Deep has been, and is, the significance of Miracles,\" thus quietly\nbegins the Professor; \"far deeper perhaps than we imagine. Meanwhile,\nthe question of questions were: What specially is a Miracle? To that\nDutch King of Siam, an icicle had been a miracle; whoso had carried\nwith him an air-pump, and vial of vitriolic ether, might have worked a\nmiracle. To my Horse, again, who unhappily is still more unscientific,\ndo not I work a miracle, and magical '_Open sesame_!_'_ every time I\nplease to pay twopence, and open for him an impassable _Schlagbaum_, or\nshut Turnpike?\n\n\"'But is not a real Miracle simply a violation of the Laws of Nature?'\nask several. Whom I answer by this new question: What are the Laws of\nNature? To me perhaps the rising of one from the dead were no violation\nof these Laws, but a confirmation; were some far deeper Law, now first\npenetrated into, and by Spiritual Force, even as the rest have all been,\nbrought to bear on us with its Material Force.\n\n\"Here too may some inquire, not without astonishment: On what ground\nshall one, that can make Iron swim, come and declare that therefore\nhe can teach Religion? To us, truly, of the Nineteenth Century, such\ndeclaration were inept enough; which nevertheless to our fathers, of the\nFirst Century, was full of meaning.\n\n\"'But is it not the deepest Law of Nature that she be constant?' cries\nan illuminated class: 'Is not the Machine of the Universe fixed to move\nby unalterable rules?' Probable enough, good friends: nay I, too, must\nbelieve that the God, whom ancient inspired men assert to be 'without\nvariableness or shadow of turning,' does indeed never change; that\nNature, that the Universe, which no one whom it so pleases can be\nprevented from calling a Machine, does move by the most unalterable\nrules. And now of you, too, I make the old inquiry: What those same\nunalterable rules, forming the complete Statute-Book of Nature, may\npossibly be?\n\n\"They stand written in our Works of Science, say you; in the accumulated\nrecords of Man's Experience?--Was Man with his Experience present at the\nCreation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any deepest scientific\nindividuals yet dived down to the foundations of the Universe, and\ngauged everything there? Did the Maker take them into His counsel; that\nthey read His ground-plan of the incomprehensible All; and can say,\nThis stands marked therein, and no more than this? Alas, not in anywise!\nThese scientific individuals have been nowhere but where we also are;\nhave seen some hand breadths deeper than we see into the Deep that is\ninfinite, without bottom as without shore.\n\n\"Laplace's Book on the Stars, wherein he exhibits that certain Planets,\nwith their Satellites, gyrate round our worthy Sun, at a rate and in\na course, which, by greatest good fortune, he and the like of him have\nsucceeded in detecting,--is to me as precious as to another. But is this\nwhat thou namest 'Mechanism of the Heavens,' and 'System of the World;'\nthis, wherein Sirius and the Pleiades, and all Herschel's Fifteen\nthousand Suns per minute, being left out, some paltry handful of Moons,\nand inert Balls, had been--looked at, nick-named, and marked in the\nZodiacal Way-bill; so that we can now prate of their Whereabout; their\nHow, their Why, their What, being hid from us, as in the signless Inane?\n\n\"System of Nature! To the wisest man, wide as is his vision, Nature\nremains of quite _infinite_ depth, of quite infinite expansion; and\nall Experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries and\nmeasured square-miles. The course of Nature's phases, on this our little\nfraction of a Planet, is partially known to us: but who knows what\ndeeper courses these depend on; what infinitely larger Cycle (of causes)\nour little Epicycle revolves on? To the Minnow every cranny and pebble,\nand quality and accident, of its little native Creek may have become\nfamiliar: but does the Minnow understand the Ocean Tides and periodic\nCurrents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses; by all\nwhich the condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may, from time\nto time (unmiraculously enough), be quite overset and reversed? Such a\nminnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth; his Ocean the immeasurable\nAll; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the mysterious Course of\nProvidence through AEons of AEons.\n\n\"We speak of the Volume of Nature: and truly a Volume it is,--whose\nAuthor and Writer is God. To read it! Dost thou, does man, so much as\nwell know the Alphabet thereof? With its Words, Sentences, and grand\ndescriptive Pages, poetical and philosophical, spread out through Solar\nSystems, and Thousands of Years, we shall not try thee. It is a Volume\nwritten in celestial hieroglyphs, in the true Sacred-writing; of which\neven Prophets are happy that they can read here a line and there a line.\nAs for your Institutes, and Academies of Science, they strive bravely;\nand, from amid the thick-crowded, inextricably intertwisted hieroglyphic\nwriting, pick out, by dexterous combination, some Letters in the vulgar\nCharacter, and therefrom put together this and the other economic\nRecipe, of high avail in Practice. That Nature is more than some\nboundless Volume of such Recipes, or huge, well-nigh inexhaustible\nDomestic-Cookery Book, of which the whole secret will in this manner one\nday evolve itself, the fewest dream.\n\n\"Custom,\" continues the Professor, \"doth make dotards of us all.\nConsider well, thou wilt find that Custom is the greatest of Weavers;\nand weaves air-raiment for all the Spirits of the Universe; whereby\nindeed these dwell with us visibly, as ministering servants, in our\nhouses and workshops; but their spiritual nature becomes, to the most,\nforever hidden. Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from\nthe first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it; that\nour very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest\nsimply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay, what\nis Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against Custom; an\never-renewed effort to _transcend_ the sphere of blind Custom, and so\nbecome Transcendental?\n\n\"Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of Custom: but of\nall these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the\nMiraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be Miraculous. True, it is\nby this means we live; for man must work as well as wonder: and herein\nis Custom so far a kind nurse, guiding him to his true benefit. But she\nis a fond foolish nurse, or rather we are false foolish nurslings, when,\nin our resting and reflecting hours, we prolong the same deception. Am I\nto view the Stupendous with stupid indifference, because I have seen\nit twice, or two hundred, or two million times? There is no reason in\nNature or in Art why I should: unless, indeed, I am a mere Work-Machine,\nfor whom the divine gift of Thought were no other than the terrestrial\ngift of Steam is to the Steam-engine; a power whereby cotton might be\nspun, and money and money's worth realized.\n\n\"Notable enough too, here as elsewhere, wilt thou find the potency of\nNames; which indeed are but one kind of such custom-woven, wonder-hiding\nGarments. Witchcraft, and all manner of Spectre-work, and Demonology,\nwe have now named Madness, and Diseases of the Nerves. Seldom reflecting\nthat still the new question comes upon us: What is Madness, what are\nNerves? Ever, as before, does Madness remain a mysterious-terrific,\naltogether _infernal_ boiling-up of the Nether Chaotic Deep, through\nthis fair-painted Vision of Creation, which swims thereon, which we name\nthe Real. Was Luther's Picture of the Devil less a Reality, whether it\nwere formed within the bodily eye, or without it? In every the wisest\nSoul lies a whole world of internal Madness, an authentic Demon-Empire;\nout of which, indeed, his world of Wisdom has been creatively built\ntogether, and now rests there, as on its dark foundations does a\nhabitable flowery Earth rind.\n\n\"But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Wonder, as for many\nother ends, are your two grand fundamental world-enveloping Appearances,\nSPACE and TIME. These, as spun and woven for us from before Birth\nitself, to clothe our celestial ME for dwelling here, and yet to blind\nit,--lie all-embracing, as the universal canvas, or warp and woof,\nwhereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave and paint\nthemselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you endeavor to strip\nthem off; you can, at best, but rend them asunder for moments, and look\nthrough.\n\n\"Fortunatus had a wishing Hat, which when he put on, and wished himself\nAnywhere, behold he was There. By this means had Fortunatus triumphed\nover Space, he had annihilated Space; for him there was no Where, but\nall was Here. Were a Hatter to establish himself, in the Wahngasse of\nWeissnichtwo, and make felts of this sort for all mankind, what a world\nwe should have of it! Still stranger, should, on the opposite side\nof the street, another Hatter establish himself; and, as his\nfellow-craftsman made Space-annihilating Hats, make Time-annihilating!\nOf both would I purchase, were it with my last groschen; but chiefly of\nthis latter. To clap on your felt, and, simply by wishing that you were\nAnywhere, straightway to be _There_! Next to clap on your other felt,\nand, simply by wishing that you were _Anywhen_, straightway to be\n_Then_! This were indeed the grander: shooting at will from the\nFire-Creation of the World to its Fire-Consummation; here historically\npresent in the First Century, conversing face to face with Paul and\nSeneca; there prophetically in the Thirty-first, conversing also face to\nface with other Pauls and Senecas, who as yet stand hidden in the depth\nof that late Time!\n\n\"Or thinkest thou it were impossible, unimaginable? Is the Past\nannihilated, then, or only past; is the Future non-extant, or only\nfuture? Those mystic faculties of thine, Memory and Hope, already\nanswer: already through those mystic avenues, thou the Earth-blinded\nsummonest both Past and Future, and communest with them, though as yet\ndarkly, and with mute beckonings. The curtains of Yesterday drop down,\nthe curtains of To-morrow roll up; but Yesterday and To-morrow both\n_are_. Pierce through the Time-element, glance into the Eternal. Believe\nwhat thou findest written in the sanctuaries of Man's Soul, even as all\nThinkers, in all ages, have devoutly read it there: that Time and Space\nare not God, but creations of God; that with God as it is a universal\nHERE, so is it an everlasting Now.\n\n\"And seest thou therein any glimpse of IMMORTALITY?--O Heaven! Is the\nwhite Tomb of our Loved One, who died from our arms, and had to be left\nbehind us there, which rises in the distance, like a pale, mournfully\nreceding Milestone, to tell how many toilsome uncheered miles we have\njourneyed on alone,--but a pale spectral Illusion! Is the lost Friend\nstill mysteriously Here, even as we are Here mysteriously, with\nGod!--know of a truth that only the Time-shadows have perished, or are\nperishable; that the real Being of whatever was, and whatever is, and\nwhatever will be, is even now and forever. This, should it unhappily\nseem new, thou mayest ponder at thy leisure; for the next twenty years,\nor the next twenty centuries: believe it thou must; understand it thou\ncanst not.\n\n\"That the Thought-forms, Space and Time, wherein, once for all, we are\nsent into this Earth to live, should condition and determine our whole\nPractical reasonings, conceptions, and imagings or imaginings,\nseems altogether fit, just, and unavoidable. But that they should,\nfurthermore, usurp such sway over pure spiritual Meditation, and blind\nus to the wonder everywhere lying close on us, seems nowise so. Admit\nSpace and Time to their due rank as Forms of Thought; nay even, if thou\nwilt, to their quite undue rank of Realities: and consider, then,\nwith thyself how their thin disguises hide from us the brightest\nGod-effulgences! Thus, were it not miraculous, could I stretch forth my\nhand and clutch the Sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my hand\nand therewith clutch many a thing, and swing it hither and thither.\nArt thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the Miracle lies in miles of\ndistance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to see that the\ntrue inexplicable God-revealing Miracle lies in this, that I can stretch\nforth my hand at all; that I have free Force to clutch aught therewith?\nInnumerable other of this sort are the deceptions, and wonder-hiding\nstupefactions, which Space practices on us.\n\n\"Still worse is it with regard to Time. Your grand anti-magician,\nand universal wonder-hider, is this same lying Time. Had we but the\nTime-annihilating Hat, to put on for once only, we should see ourselves\nin a World of Miracles, wherein all fabled or authentic Thaumaturgy, and\nfeats of Magic, were outdone. But unhappily we have not such a Hat; and\nman, poor fool that he is, can seldom and scantily help himself without\none.\n\n\"Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Orpheus, or Amphion, built the\nwalls of Thebes by the mere sound of his Lyre? Yet tell me, Who built\nthese walls of Weissnichtwo; summoning out all the sandstone rocks, to\ndance along from the _Steinbruch_ (now a huge Troglodyte Chasm, with\nfrightful green-mantled pools); and shape themselves into Doric and\nIonic pillars, squared ashlar houses and noble streets? Was it not\nthe still higher Orpheus, or Orpheuses, who, in past centuries, by the\ndivine Music of Wisdom, succeeded in civilizing Man? Our highest Orpheus\nwalked in Judea, eighteen hundred years ago: his sphere-melody, flowing\nin wild native tones, took captive the ravished souls of men; and,\nbeing of a truth sphere-melody, still flows and sounds, though now\nwith thousand-fold accompaniments, and rich symphonies, through all our\nhearts; and modulates, and divinely leads them. Is that a wonder, which\nhappens in two hours; and does it cease to be wonderful if happening in\ntwo million? Not only was Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus; but\nwithout the music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no\nwork that man glories in ever done.\n\n\"Sweep away the Illusion of Time; glance, if thou have eyes, from\nthe near moving-cause to its far distant Mover: The stroke that came\ntransmitted through a whole galaxy of elastic balls, was it less a\nstroke than if the last ball only had been struck, and sent flying? Oh,\ncould I (with the Time-annihilating Hat) transport thee direct from\nthe Beginnings, to the Endings, how were thy eyesight unsealed, and thy\nheart set flaming in the Light-sea of celestial wonder! Then sawest thou\nthat this fair Universe, were it in the meanest province thereof, is in\nvery deed the star-domed City of God; that through every star, through\nevery grass-blade, and most through every Living Soul, the glory of a\npresent God still beams. But Nature, which is the Time-vesture of God,\nand reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish.\n\n\"Again, could anything be more miraculous than an actual authentic\nGhost? The English Johnson longed, all his life, to see one; but could\nnot, though he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church-vaults, and\ntapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor! Did he never, with the mind's eye\nas well as with the body's, look round him into that full tide of human\nLife he so loved; did he never so much as look into Himself? The\ngood Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as heart could wish;\nwell-nigh a million of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his\nside. Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time; compress the\nthreescore years into three minutes: what else was he, what else are we?\nAre we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an Appearance; and\nthat fade away again into air and Invisibility? This is no metaphor, it\nis a simple scientific _fact_: we start out of Nothingness, take\nfigure, and are Apparitions; round us, as round the veriest spectre, is\nEternity; and to Eternity minutes are as years and aeons. Come there not\ntones of Love and Faith, as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song\nof beatified Souls? And again, do not we squeak and gibber (in our\ndiscordant, screech-owlish debatings and recriminatings); and glide\nbodeful, and feeble, and fearful; or uproar (_poltern_), and revel in\nour mad Dance of the Dead,--till the scent of the morning air summons us\nto our still Home; and dreamy Night becomes awake and Day? Where now\nis Alexander of Macedon: does the steel Host, that yelled in fierce\nbattle-shouts at Issus and Arbela, remain behind him; or have they all\nvanished utterly, even as perturbed Goblins must? Napoleon too, and\nhis Moscow Retreats and Austerlitz Campaigns! Was it all other than the\nveriest Spectre-hunt; which has now, with its howling tumult that made\nNight hideous, flitted away?--Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand million\nwalking the Earth openly at noontide; some half-hundred have vanished\nfrom it, some half-hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch ticks once.\n\n\"O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only\ncarry each a future Ghost within him; but are, in very deed, Ghosts!\nThese Limbs, whence had we them; this stormy Force; this life-blood with\nits burning Passion? They are dust and shadow; a Shadow-system gathered\nround our ME: wherein, through some moments or years, the Divine Essence\nis to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior on his strong war-horse,\nfire flashes through his eyes; force dwells in his arm and heart: but\nwarrior and war-horse are a vision; a revealed Force, nothing more.\nStately they tread the Earth, as if it were a firm substance: fool! the\nEarth is but a film; it cracks in twain, and warrior and war-horse sink\nbeyond plummet's sounding. Plummet's? Fantasy herself will not follow\nthem. A little while ago, they were not; a little while, and they are\nnot, their very ashes are not.\n\n\"So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to the end. Generation\nafter generation takes to itself the Form of a Body; and forth issuing\nfrom Cimmerian Night, on Heaven's mission APPEARS. What Force and\nFire is in each he expends: one grinding in the mill of Industry; one\nhunter-like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of Science; one madly\ndashed in pieces on the rocks of Strife, in war with his fellow:--and\nthen the Heaven-sent is recalled; his earthly Vesture falls away,\nand soon even to Sense becomes a vanished Shadow. Thus, like some\nwild-flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's Artillery, does this\nmysterious MANKIND thunder and flame, in long-drawn, quick-succeeding\ngrandeur, through the unknown Deep. Thus, like a God-created,\nfire-breathing Spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane; haste stormfully\nacross the astonished Earth; then plunge again into the Inane. Earth's\nmountains are levelled, and her seas filled up, in our passage: can the\nEarth, which is but dead and a vision, resist Spirits which have reality\nand are alive? On the hardest adamant some footprint of us is stamped\nin; the last Rear of the host will read traces of the earliest Van. But\nwhence?--O Heaven whither? Sense knows not; Faith knows not; only that\nit is through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to God.\n\n                        'We _are such stuff_\n     As Dreams are made of, and our little Life\n     Is rounded with a sleep!'\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. CIRCUMSPECTIVE.\n\nHere, then, arises the so momentous question: Have many British Readers\nactually arrived with us at the new promised country; is the Philosophy\nof Clothes now at last opening around them? Long and adventurous has the\njourney been: from those outmost vulgar, palpable Woollen Hulls of Man;\nthrough his wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his wondrous Social Garnitures;\ninwards to the Garments of his very Soul's Soul, to Time and Space\nthemselves! And now does the spiritual, eternal Essence of Man, and of\nMankind, bared of such wrappages, begin in any measure to reveal itself?\nCan many readers discern, as through a glass darkly, in huge wavering\noutlines, some primeval rudiments of Man's Being, what is changeable\ndivided from what is unchangeable? Does that Earth-Spirit's speech in\n_Faust_,--\n\n     \"'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply,\n     And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by; \"\n\nor that other thousand-times repeated speech of the Magician,\nShakespeare,--\n\n     \"And like the baseless fabric of this vision,\n     The cloud-capt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces,\n     The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself,\n     And all which it inherit, shall dissolve;\n     And like this unsubstantial pageant faded,\n     Leave not a wrack behind;\"\n\nbegin to have some meaning for us? In a word, do we at length stand\nsafe in the far region of Poetic Creation and Palingenesia, where that\nPhoenix Death-Birth of Human Society, and of all Human Things, appears\npossible, is seen to be inevitable?\n\nAlong this most insufficient, unheard-of Bridge, which the Editor,\nby Heaven's blessing, has now seen himself enabled to conclude if not\ncomplete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope,\nthat many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, overspanning\nthe Impassable with paved highway, could the Editor construct; only,\nas was said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon.\nAlas, and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneck\ncharacter; the darkness, the nature of the element, all was against us!\n\nNevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, provided with a\ndiscursiveness of intellect rare in our day, have cleared the passage,\nin spite of all? Happy few! little band of Friends! be welcome, be of\ncourage. By degrees, the eye grows accustomed to its new Whereabout;\nthe hand can stretch itself forth to work there: it is in this grand and\nindeed highest work of Palingenesia that ye shall labor, each according\nto ability. New laborers will arrive; new Bridges will be built;\nnay, may not our own poor rope-and-raft Bridge, in your passings and\nrepassings, be mended in many a point, till it grow quite firm, passable\neven for the halt?\n\nMeanwhile, of the innumerable multitude that started with us, joyous\nand full of hope, where now is the innumerable remainder, whom we see no\nlonger by our side? The most have recoiled, and stand gazing afar\noff, in unsympathetic astonishment, at our career: not a few, pressing\nforward with more courage, have missed footing, or leaped short; and now\nswim weltering in the Chaos-flood, some towards this shore, some towards\nthat. To these also a helping hand should be held out; at least some\nword of encouragement be said.\n\nOr, to speak without metaphor, with which mode of utterance\nTeufelsdrockh unhappily has somewhat infected us,--can it be hidden from\nthe Editor that many a British Reader sits reading quite bewildered in\nhead, and afflicted rather than instructed by the present Work?\nYes, long ago has many a British Reader been, as now, demanding with\nsomething like a snarl: Whereto does all this lead; or what use is in\nit?\n\nIn the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise aiding thy digestive\nfaculty, O British Reader, it leads to nothing, and there is no use in\nit; but rather the reverse, for it costs thee somewhat. Nevertheless,\nif through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufelsdrockh, and we by means\nof him, have led thee into the true Land of Dreams; and through the\nClothes-Screen, as through a magical _Pierre-Pertuis_, thou lookest,\neven for moments, into the region of the Wonderful, and seest and\nfeelest that thy daily life is girt with Wonder, and based on Wonder,\nand thy very blankets and breeches are Miracles,--then art thou profited\nbeyond money's worth; and hast a thankfulness towards our Professor;\nnay, perhaps in many a literary Tea-circle wilt open thy kind lips, and\naudibly express that same.\n\nNay farther, art not thou too perhaps by this time made aware that all\nSymbols are properly Clothes; that all Forms whereby Spirit manifests\nitself to sense, whether outwardly or in the imagination, are Clothes;\nand thus not only the parchment Magna Charta, which a Tailor was nigh\ncutting into measures, but the Pomp and Authority of Law, the sacredness\nof Majesty, and all inferior Worships (Worth-ships) are properly\na Vesture and Raiment; and the Thirty-nine Articles themselves are\narticles of wearing-apparel (for the Religious Idea)? In which case,\nmust it not also be admitted that this Science of Clothes is a high one,\nand may with infinitely deeper study on thy part yield richer fruit:\nthat it takes scientific rank beside Codification, and Political\nEconomy, and the Theory of the British Constitution; nay rather,\nfrom its prophetic height looks down on all these, as on so many\nweaving-shops and spinning-mills, where the Vestures which _it_ has\nto fashion, and consecrate, and distribute, are, too often by haggard\nhungry operatives who see no farther than their nose, mechanically woven\nand spun?\n\nBut omitting all this, much more all that concerns Natural\nSupernaturalism, and indeed whatever has reference to the Ulterior or\nTranscendental portion of the Science, or bears never so remotely on\nthat promised Volume of the _Palingenesie der menschlichen Gesellschaft_\n(Newbirth of Society),--we humbly suggest that no province of\nClothes-Philosophy, even the lowest, is without its direct value,\nbut that innumerable inferences of a practical nature may be drawn\ntherefrom. To say nothing of those pregnant considerations, ethical,\npolitical, symbolical, which crowd on the Clothes-Philosopher from the\nvery threshold of his Science; nothing even of those \"architectural\nideas,\" which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of all Modes,\nand will one day, better unfolding themselves, lead to important\nrevolutions,--let us glance for a moment, and with the faintest light\nof Clothes-Philosophy, on what may be called the Habilatory Class of our\nfellow-men. Here too overlooking, where so much were to be looked on,\nthe million spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, washers, and wringers,\nthat puddle and muddle in their dark recesses, to make us Clothes, and\ndie that we may live,--let us but turn the reader's attention upon\ntwo small divisions of mankind, who, like moths, may be regarded as\nCloth-animals, creatures that live, move and have their being in Cloth:\nwe mean, Dandies and Tailors.\n\nIn regard to both which small divisions it may be asserted without\nscruple, that the public feeling, unenlightened by Philosophy, is at\nfault; and even that the dictates of humanity are violated. As will\nperhaps abundantly appear to readers of the two following Chapters.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. THE DANDIACAL BODY.\n\nFirst, touching Dandies, let us consider, with some scientific\nstrictness, what a Dandy specially is. A Dandy is a Clothes-wearing\nMan, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing\nof Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse and person is\nheroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes\nwisely and well: so that as others dress to live, he lives to dress.\nThe all-importance of Clothes, which a German Professor, of unequalled\nlearning and acumen, writes his enormous Volume to demonstrate, has\nsprung up in the intellect of the Dandy without effort, like an\ninstinct of genius; he is inspired with Cloth, a Poet of Cloth. What\nTeufelsdrockh would call a \"Divine Idea of Cloth\" is born with him; and\nthis, like other such Ideas, will express itself outwardly, or wring his\nheart asunder with unutterable throes.\n\nBut, like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes his Idea\nan Action; shows himself in peculiar guise to mankind; walks forth, a\nwitness and living Martyr to the eternal worth of Clothes. We called him\na Poet: is not his body the (stuffed) parchment-skin whereon he writes,\nwith cunning Huddersfield dyes, a Sonnet to his mistress' eyebrow? Say,\nrather, an Epos, and _Clotha Virumque cano_, to the whole world, in\nMacaronic verses, which he that runs may read. Nay, if you grant, what\nseems to be admissible, that the Dandy has a Thinking-principle in\nhim, and some notions of Time and Space, is there not in this\nlife-devotedness to Cloth, in this so willing sacrifice of the Immortal\nto the Perishable, something (though in reverse order) of that blending\nand identification of Eternity with Time, which, as we have seen,\nconstitutes the Prophetic character?\n\nAnd now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even Prophecy,\nwhat is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you\nwould recognize his existence; would admit him to be a living object; or\neven failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays\nof light. Your silver or your gold (beyond what the niggardly Law has\nalready secured him) he solicits not; simply the glance of your eyes.\nUnderstand his mystic significance, or altogether miss and misinterpret\nit; do but look at him, and he is contented. May we not well cry shame\non an ungrateful world, which refuses even this poor boon; which will\nwaste its optic faculty on dried Crocodiles, and Siamese Twins; and\nover the domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a live Dandy, glance with\nhasty indifference, and a scarcely concealed contempt! Him no Zoologist\nclasses among the Mammalia, no Anatomist dissects with care: when did we\nsee any injected Preparation of the Dandy in our Museums; any specimen\nof him preserved in spirits! Lord Herringbone may dress himself in a\nsnuff-brown suit, with snuff-brown shirt and shoes: it skills not; the\nundiscerning public, occupied with grosser wants, passes by regardless\non the other side.\n\nThe age of Curiosity, like that of Chivalry, is indeed, properly\nspeaking, gone. Yet perhaps only gone to sleep: for here arises the\nClothes-Philosophy to resuscitate, strangely enough, both the one and\nthe other! Should sound views of this Science come to prevail, the\nessential nature of the British Dandy, and the mystic significance that\nlies in him, cannot always remain hidden under laughable and lamentable\nhallucination. The following long Extract from Professor Teufelsdrockh\nmay set the matter, if not in its true light, yet in the way towards\nsuch. It is to be regretted, however, that here, as so often elsewhere,\nthe Professor's keen philosophic perspicacity is somewhat marred by a\ncertain mixture of almost owlish purblindness, or else of some perverse,\nineffectual, ironic tendency; our readers shall judge which:--\n\n\n\"In these distracted times,\" writes he, \"when the Religious Principle,\ndriven out of most Churches, either lies unseen in the hearts of good\nmen, looking and longing and silently working there towards some new\nRevelation; or else wanders homeless over the world, like a disembodied\nsoul seeking its terrestrial organization,--into how many strange\nshapes, of Superstition and Fanaticism, does it not tentatively and\nerrantly cast itself! The higher Enthusiasm of man's nature is for the\nwhile without Exponent; yet does it continue indestructible, unweariedly\nactive, and work blindly in the great chaotic deep: thus Sect after\nSect, and Church after Church, bodies itself forth, and melts again into\nnew metamorphosis.\n\n\"Chiefly is this observable in England, which, as the wealthiest and\nworst-instructed of European nations, offers precisely the elements\n(of Heat, namely, and of Darkness), in which such moon-calves and\nmonstrosities are best generated. Among the newer Sects of that country,\none of the most notable, and closely connected with our present subject,\nis that of the _Dandies_; concerning which, what little information I\nhave been able to procure may fitly stand here.\n\n\"It is true, certain of the English Journalists, men generally without\nsense for the Religious Principle, or judgment for its manifestations,\nspeak, in their brief enigmatic notices, as if this were perhaps\nrather a Secular Sect, and not a Religious one; nevertheless, to the\npsychologic eye its devotional and even sacrificial character\nplainly enough reveals itself. Whether it belongs to the class of\nFetish-worships, or of Hero-worships or Polytheisms, or to what other\nclass, may in the present state of our intelligence remain undecided\n(_schweben_). A certain touch of Manicheism, not indeed in the Gnostic\nshape, is discernible enough; also (for human Error walks in a cycle,\nand reappears at intervals) a not-inconsiderable resemblance to that\nSuperstition of the Athos Monks, who by fasting from all nourishment,\nand looking intensely for a length of time into their own navels, came\nto discern therein the true Apocalypse of Nature, and Heaven Unveiled.\nTo my own surmise, it appears as if this Dandiacal Sect were but a new\nmodification, adapted to the new time, of that primeval Superstition,\n_Self-worship_; which Zerdusht, Quangfoutchee, Mahomet, and others,\nstrove rather to subordinate and restrain than to eradicate; and which\nonly in the purer forms of Religion has been altogether rejected.\nWherefore, if any one chooses to name it revived Ahrimanism, or a new\nfigure of Demon-Worship, I have, so far as is yet visible, no objection.\n\n\"For the rest, these people, animated with the zeal of a new Sect,\ndisplay courage and perseverance, and what force there is in man's\nnature, though never so enslaved. They affect great purity and\nseparatism; distinguish themselves by a particular costume (whereof some\nnotices were given in the earlier part of this Volume); likewise, so\nfar as possible, by a particular speech (apparently some broken\n_Lingua-franca_, or English-French); and, on the whole, strive to\nmaintain a true Nazarene deportment, and keep themselves unspotted from\nthe world.\n\n\"They have their Temples, whereof the chief, as the Jewish Temple did,\nstands in their metropolis; and is named _Almack's_, a word of\nuncertain etymology. They worship principally by night; and have their\nHigh-priests and High-priestesses, who, however, do not continue for\nlife. The rites, by some supposed to be of the Menadic sort, or perhaps\nwith an Eleusinian or Cabiric character, are held strictly secret.\nNor are Sacred Books wanting to the Sect; these they call _Fashionable\nNovels_: however, the Canon is not completed, and some are canonical and\nothers not.\n\n\"Of such Sacred Books I, not without expense, procured myself some\nsamples; and in hope of true insight, and with the zeal which beseems an\nInquirer into Clothes, set to interpret and study them. But wholly to\nno purpose: that tough faculty of reading, for which the world will not\nrefuse me credit, was here for the first time foiled and set at naught.\nIn vain that I summoned my whole energies (_mich weidlich anstrengte_),\nand did my very utmost; at the end of some short space, I was uniformly\nseized with not so much what I can call a drumming in my ears, as a kind\nof infinite, unsufferable, Jew's-harping and scrannel-piping there; to\nwhich the frightfullest species of Magnetic Sleep soon supervened. And\nif I strove to shake this away, and absolutely would not yield, there\ncame a hitherto unfelt sensation, as of _Delirium Tremens_, and a\nmelting into total deliquium: till at last, by order of the Doctor,\ndreading ruin to my whole intellectual and bodily faculties, and a\ngeneral breaking up of the constitution, I reluctantly but determinedly\nforbore. Was there some miracle at work here; like those Fire-balls,\nand supernal and infernal prodigies, which, in the case of the Jewish\nMysteries, have also more than once scared back the Alien? Be this as\nit may, such failure on my part, after best efforts, must excuse the\nimperfection of this sketch; altogether incomplete, yet the completest I\ncould give of a Sect too singular to be omitted.\n\n\"Loving my own life and senses as I do, no power shall induce me, as a\nprivate individual, to open another _Fashionable Novel_. But luckily,\nin this dilemma, comes a hand from the clouds; whereby if not victory,\ndeliverance is held out to me. Round one of those Book-packages, which\nthe _Stillschweigen'sche Buchhandlung_ is in the habit of importing\nfrom England, come, as is usual, various waste printed-sheets\n(_Maculatur-blatter_), by way of interior wrappage: into these the\nClothes-Philosopher, with a certain Mahometan reverence even for\nwaste-paper, where curious knowledge will sometimes hover, disdains not\nto cast his eye. Readers may judge of his astonishment when on such\na defaced stray-sheet, probably the outcast fraction of some English\nPeriodical, such as they name _Magazine_, appears something like a\nDissertation on this very subject of _Fashionable Novels_! It sets out,\nindeed, chiefly from a Secular point of view; directing itself, not\nwithout asperity, against some to me unknown individual named _Pelham_,\nwho seems to be a Mystagogue, and leading Teacher and Preacher of the\nSect; so that, what indeed otherwise was not to be expected in such a\nfugitive fragmentary sheet, the true secret, the Religious physiognomy\nand physiology of the Dandiacal Body, is nowise laid fully open there.\nNevertheless, scattered lights do from time to time sparkle out, whereby\nI have endeavored to profit. Nay, in one passage selected from the\nProphecies, or Mythic Theogonies, or whatever they are (for the style\nseems very mixed) of this Mystagogue, I find what appears to be a\nConfession of Faith, or Whole Duty of Man, according to the tenets of\nthat Sect. Which Confession or Whole Duty, therefore, as proceeding\nfrom a source so authentic, I shall here arrange under Seven distinct\nArticles, and in very abridged shape lay before the German world;\ntherewith taking leave of this matter. Observe also, that to avoid\npossibility of error, I, as far as may be, quote literally from the\nOriginal:--\n\nARTICLES OF FAITH.\n\n'1. Coats should have nothing of the triangle about them; at the same\ntime, wrinkles behind should be carefully avoided.\n\n'2. The collar is a very important point: it should be low behind, and\nslightly rolled.\n\n'3. No license of fashion can allow a man of delicate taste to adopt the\nposterial luxuriance of a Hottentot.\n\n'4. There is safety in a swallow-tail.\n\n'5. The good sense of a gentleman is nowhere more finely developed than\nin his rings.\n\n'6. It is permitted to mankind, under certain restrictions, to wear\nwhite waistcoats.\n\n'7. The trousers must be exceedingly tight across the hips.'\n\n\"All which Propositions I, for the present, content myself with modestly\nbut peremptorily and irrevocably denying.\n\n\"In strange contrast with this Dandiacal Body stands another British\nSect, originally, as I understand, of Ireland, where its chief seat\nstill is; but known also in the main Island, and indeed everywhere\nrapidly spreading. As this Sect has hitherto emitted no Canonical Books,\nit remains to me in the same state of obscurity as the Dandiacal, which\nhas published Books that the unassisted human faculties are inadequate\nto read. The members appear to be designated by a considerable diversity\nof names, according to their various places of establishment: in England\nthey are generally called the _Drudge_ Sect; also, unphilosophically\nenough, the _White Negroes_; and, chiefly in scorn by those of other\ncommunions, the _Ragged-Beggar_ Sect. In Scotland, again, I find them\nentitled _Hallanshakers_, or the _Stook of Duds_ Sect; any individual\ncommunicant is named _Stook of Duds_ (that is, Shock of Rags), in\nallusion, doubtless, to their professional Costume. While in Ireland,\nwhich, as mentioned, is their grand parent hive, they go by a perplexing\nmultiplicity of designations, such as _Bogtrotters, Redshanks,\nRibbonmen, Cottiers, Peep-of-Day Boys, Babes of the Wood, Rockites,\nPoor-Slaves_: which last, however, seems to be the primary and generic\nname; whereto, probably enough, the others are only subsidiary species,\nor slight varieties; or, at most, propagated offsets from the parent\nstem, whose minute subdivisions, and shades of difference, it were\nhere loss of time to dwell on. Enough for us to understand, what seems\nindubitable, that the original Sect is that of the _Poor-Slaves_;\nwhose doctrines, practices, and fundamental characteristics pervade and\nanimate the whole Body, howsoever denominated or outwardly diversified.\n\n\"The precise speculative tenets of this Brotherhood: how the Universe,\nand Man, and Man's Life, picture themselves to the mind of an Irish\nPoor-Slave; with what feelings and opinions he looks forward on the\nFuture, round on the Present, back on the Past, it were extremely\ndifficult to specify. Something Monastic there appears to be in their\nConstitution: we find them bound by the two Monastic Vows, of Poverty\nand Obedience; which vows, especially the former, it is said, they\nobserve with great strictness; nay, as I have understood it, they are\npledged, and be it by any solemn Nazarene ordination or not, irrevocably\nconsecrated thereto, even _before_ birth. That the third Monastic\nVow, of Chastity, is rigidly enforced among them, I find no ground to\nconjecture.\n\n\"Furthermore, they appear to imitate the Dandiacal Sect in their grand\nprinciple of wearing a peculiar Costume. Of which Irish Poor-Slave\nCostume no description will indeed be found in the present Volume; for\nthis reason, that by the imperfect organ of Language it did not seem\ndescribable. Their raiment consists of innumerable skirts, lappets\nand irregular wings, of all cloths and of all colors; through the\nlabyrinthic intricacies of which their bodies are introduced by some\nunknown process. It is fastened together by a multiplex combination of\nbuttons, thrums and skewers; to which frequently is added a girdle of\nleather, of hempen or even of straw rope, round the loins. To straw\nrope, indeed, they seem partial, and often wear it by way of sandals.\nIn head-dress they affect a certain freedom: hats with partial brim,\nwithout crown, or with only a loose, hinged, or valve crown; in the\nformer case, they sometimes invert the hat, and wear it brim uppermost,\nlike a university-cap, with what view is unknown.\n\n\"The name Poor-Slaves seems to indicate a Slavonic, Polish, or Russian\norigin: not so, however, the interior essence and spirit of their\nSuperstition, which rather displays a Teutonic or Druidical character.\nOne might fancy them worshippers of Hertha, or the Earth: for they dig\nand affectionately work continually in her bosom; or else, shut up in\nprivate Oratories, meditate and manipulate the substances derived from\nher; seldom looking up towards the Heavenly Luminaries, and then with\ncomparative indifference. Like the Druids, on the other hand, they live\nin dark dwellings; often even breaking their glass windows, where they\nfind such, and stuffing them up with pieces of raiment, or other\nopaque substances, till the fit obscurity is restored. Again, like all\nfollowers of Nature-Worship, they are liable to out-breakings of an\nenthusiasm rising to ferocity; and burn men, if not in wicker idols, yet\nin sod cottages.\n\n\"In respect of diet, they have also their observances. All Poor-Slaves\nare Rhizophagous (or Root-eaters); a few are Ichthyophagous, and use\nSalted Herrings: other animal food they abstain from; except indeed,\nwith perhaps some strange inverted fragment of a Brahminical feeling,\nsuch animals as die a natural death. Their universal sustenance is the\nroot named Potato, cooked by fire alone; and generally without condiment\nor relish of any kind, save an unknown condiment named _Point_, into\nthe meaning of which I have vainly inquired; the victual\n_Potatoes-and-Point_ not appearing, at least not with specific accuracy\nof description, in any European Cookery-Book whatever. For drink, they\nuse, with an almost epigrammatic counterpoise of taste, Milk, which\nis the mildest of liquors, and _Potheen_, which is the fiercest. This\nlatter I have tasted, as well as the English _Blue-Ruin_, and the Scotch\n_Whiskey_, analogous fluids used by the Sect in those countries:\nit evidently contains some form of alcohol, in the highest state of\nconcentration, though disguised with acrid oils; and is, on the whole,\nthe most pungent substance known to me,--indeed, a perfect liquid\nfire. In all their Religious Solemnities, Potheen is said to be an\nindispensable requisite, and largely consumed.\n\n\"An Irish Traveller, of perhaps common veracity, who presents himself\nunder the to me unmeaning title of _The late John Bernard_, offers\nthe following sketch of a domestic establishment, the inmates whereof,\nthough such is not stated expressly, appear to have been of that Faith.\nThereby shall my German readers now behold an Irish Poor-Slave, as it\nwere with their own eyes; and even see him at meat. Moreover, in the\nso precious waste-paper sheet above mentioned, I have found some\ncorresponding picture of a Dandiacal Household, painted by that same\nDandiacal Mystagogue, or Theogonist: this also, by way of counterpart\nand contrast, the world shall look into.\n\n\"First, therefore, of the Poor-Slave, who appears likewise to have been\na species of Innkeeper. I quote from the original:\n\n\nPOOR-SLAVE HOUSEHOLD.\n\n\"'The furniture of this Caravansera consisted of a large iron Pot, two\noaken Tables, two Benches, two Chairs, and a Potheen Noggin. There was\na Loft above (attainable by a ladder), upon which the inmates slept; and\nthe space below was divided by a hurdle into two Apartments; the one for\ntheir cow and pig, the other for themselves and guests. On entering the\nhouse we discovered the family, eleven in number, at dinner: the father\nsitting at the top, the mother at the bottom, the children on each side,\nof a large oaken Board, which was scooped out in the middle, like a\ntrough, to receive the contents of their Pot of Potatoes. Little holes\nwere cut at equal distances to contain Salt; and a bowl of Milk stood on\nthe table: all the luxuries of meat and beer, bread, knives and dishes\nwere dispensed with.' The Poor-Slave himself our Traveller found, as he\nsays, broad-backed, black-browed, of great personal strength, and mouth\nfrom ear to ear. His Wife was a sun-browned but well-featured woman; and\nhis young ones, bare and chubby, had the appetite of ravens. Of their\nPhilosophical or Religious tenets or observances, no notice or hint.\n\n\"But now, secondly, of the Dandiacal Household; in which, truly, that\noften-mentioned Mystagogue and inspired Penman himself has his abode:--\n\n\nDANDIACAL HOUSEHOLD.\n\n\"'A Dressing-room splendidly furnished; violet-colored curtains, chairs\nand ottomans of the same hue. Two full-length Mirrors are placed, one on\neach side of a table, which supports the luxuries of the Toilet. Several\nBottles of Perfumes, arranged in a peculiar fashion, stand upon a\nsmaller table of mother-of-pearl: opposite to these are placed the\nappurtenances of Lavation richly wrought in frosted silver. A Wardrobe\nof Buhl is on the left; the doors of which, being partly open, discover\na profusion of Clothes; Shoes of a singularly small size monopolize\nthe lower shelves. Fronting the wardrobe a door ajar gives some slight\nglimpse of a Bath-room. Folding-doors in the background.--Enter the\nAuthor,' our Theogonist in person, 'obsequiously preceded by a French\nValet, in white silk Jacket and cambric Apron.'\n\n\"Such are the two Sects which, at this moment, divide the more unsettled\nportion of the British People; and agitate that ever-vexed country. To\nthe eye of the political Seer, their mutual relation, pregnant with\nthe elements of discord and hostility, is far from consoling. These two\nprinciples of Dandiacal Self-worship or Demon-worship, and Poor-Slavish\nor Drudgical Earth-worship, or whatever that same Drudgism may be, do\nas yet indeed manifest themselves under distant and nowise considerable\nshapes: nevertheless, in their roots and subterranean ramifications,\nthey extend through the entire structure of Society, and work\nunweariedly in the secret depths of English national Existence; striving\nto separate and isolate it into two contradictory, uncommunicating\nmasses.\n\n\"In numbers, and even individual strength, the Poor-Slaves or Drudges,\nit would seem, are hourly increasing. The Dandiacal, again, is by nature\nno proselytizing Sect; but it boasts of great hereditary resources, and\nis strong by union; whereas the Drudges, split into parties, have as yet\nno rallying-point; or at best only co-operate by means of partial secret\naffiliations. If, indeed, there were to arise a _Communion of Drudges_,\nas there is already a Communion of Saints, what strangest effects would\nfollow therefrom! Dandyism as yet affects to look down on Drudgism: but\nperhaps the hour of trial, when it will be practically seen which ought\nto look down, and which up, is not so distant.\n\n\"To me it seems probable that the two Sects will one day part England\nbetween them; each recruiting itself from the intermediate ranks, till\nthere be none left to enlist on either side. Those Dandiacal Manicheans,\nwith the host of Dandyizing Christians, will form one body: the Drudges,\ngathering round them whosoever is Drudgical, be he Christian or Infidel\nPagan; sweeping up likewise all manner of Utilitarians, Radicals,\nrefractory Pot-wallopers, and so forth, into their general mass, will\nform another. I could liken Dandyism and Drudgism to two bottomless\nboiling Whirlpools that had broken out on opposite quarters of the firm\nland: as yet they appear only disquieted, foolishly bubbling wells,\nwhich man's art might cover in; yet mark them, their diameter is daily\nwidening: they are hollow Cones that boil up from the infinite Deep,\nover which your firm land is but a thin crust or rind! Thus daily is\nthe intermediate land crumbling in, daily the empire of the two\nBuchan-Bullers extending; till now there is but a foot-plank, a mere\nfilm of Land between them; this too is washed away: and then--we have\nthe true Hell of Waters, and Noah's Deluge is out-deluged!\n\n\"Or better, I might call them two boundless, and indeed unexampled\nElectric Machines (turned by the 'Machinery of Society'), with batteries\nof opposite quality; Drudgism the Negative, Dandyism the Positive; one\nattracts hourly towards it and appropriates all the Positive Electricity\nof the nation (namely, the Money thereof); the other is equally busy\nwith the Negative (that is to say the Hunger), which is equally potent.\nHitherto you see only partial transient sparkles and sputters: but wait\na little, till the entire nation is in an electric state: till your\nwhole vital Electricity, no longer healthfully Neutral, is cut into two\nisolated portions of Positive and Negative (of Money and of Hunger);\nand stands there bottled up in two World-Batteries! The stirring of a\nchild's finger brings the two together; and then--What then? The Earth\nis but shivered into impalpable smoke by that Doom's thunder-peal; the\nSun misses one of his Planets in Space, and thenceforth there are no\neclipses of the Moon.--Or better still, I might liken\"--\n\nOh, enough, enough of likenings and similitudes; in excess of which,\ntruly, it is hard to say whether Teufelsdrockh or ourselves sin the\nmore.\n\nWe have often blamed him for a habit of wire-drawing and over-refining;\nfrom of old we have been familiar with his tendency to Mysticism and\nReligiosity, whereby in everything he was still scenting out Religion:\nbut never perhaps did these amaurosis-suffusions so cloud and distort\nhis otherwise most piercing vision, as in this of the _Dandiacal Body_!\nOr was there something of intended satire; is the Professor and Seer\nnot quite the blinkard he affects to be? Of an ordinary mortal we should\nhave decisively answered in the affirmative; but with a Teufelsdrockh\nthere ever hovers some shade of doubt. In the mean while, if satire were\nactually intended, the case is little better. There are not wanting men\nwho will answer: Does your Professor take us for simpletons? His irony\nhas overshot itself; we see through it, and perhaps through him.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI. TAILORS.\n\nThus, however, has our first Practical Inference from the\nClothes-Philosophy, that which respects Dandies, been sufficiently\ndrawn; and we come now to the second, concerning Tailors. On this latter\nour opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teufelsdrockh himself,\nas expressed in the concluding page of his Volume, to whom, therefore,\nwe willingly give place. Let him speak his own last words, in his own\nway:--\n\n\n\"Upwards of a century,\" says he, \"must elapse, and still the bleeding\nfight of Freedom be fought, whoso is noblest perishing in the van,\nand thrones be hurled on altars like Pelion on Ossa, and the Moloch\nof Iniquity have his victims, and the Michael of Justice his martyrs,\nbefore Tailors can be admitted to their true prerogatives of manhood,\nand this last wound of suffering Humanity be closed.\n\n\"If aught in the history of the world's blindness could surprise us,\nhere might we indeed pause and wonder. An idea has gone abroad, and\nfixed itself down into a wide-spreading rooted error, that Tailors are a\ndistinct species in Physiology, not Men, but fractional Parts of a\nMan. Call any one a _Schneider_ (Cutter, Tailor), is it not, in our\ndislocated, hoodwinked, and indeed delirious condition of Society,\nequivalent to defying his perpetual fellest enmity? The epithet\n_schneidermassig_ (tailor-like) betokens an otherwise unapproachable\ndegree of pusillanimity; we introduce a _Tailor's-Melancholy_, more\nopprobrious than any Leprosy, into our Books of Medicine; and fable I\nknow not what of his generating it by living on Cabbage. Why should I\nspeak of Hans Sachs (himself a Shoemaker, or kind of Leather-Tailor),\nwith his _Schneider mit dem Panier_? Why of Shakspeare, in his _Taming\nof the Shrew_, and elsewhere? Does it not stand on record that the\nEnglish Queen Elizabeth, receiving a deputation of Eighteen Tailors,\naddressed them with a 'Good morning, gentlemen both!' Did not the same\nvirago boast that she had a Cavalry Regiment, whereof neither horse nor\nman could be injured; her Regiment, namely, of Tailors on Mares? Thus\neverywhere is the falsehood taken for granted, and acted on as an\nindisputable fact.\n\n\"Nevertheless, need I put the question to any Physiologist, whether it\nis disputable or not? Seems it not at least presumable, that, under his\nClothes, the Tailor has bones and viscera, and other muscles than the\nsartorius? Which function of manhood is the Tailor not conjectured\nto perform? Can he not arrest for debt? Is he not in most countries a\ntaxpaying animal?\n\n\"To no reader of this Volume can it be doubtful which conviction is\nmine. Nay if the fruit of these long vigils, and almost preternatural\nInquiries, is not to perish utterly, the world will have approximated\ntowards a higher Truth; and the doctrine, which Swift, with the keen\nforecast of genius, dimly anticipated, will stand revealed in clear\nlight: that the Tailor is not only a Man, but something of a Creator or\nDivinity. Of Franklin it was said, that 'he snatched the Thunder from\nHeaven and the Sceptre from Kings:' but which is greater, I would ask,\nhe that lends, or he that snatches? For, looking away from individual\ncases, and how a Man is by the Tailor new-created into a Nobleman, and\nclothed not only with Wool but with Dignity and a Mystic Dominion,--is\nnot the fair fabric of Society itself, with all its royal mantles and\npontifical stoles, whereby, from nakedness and dismemberment, we are\norganized into Polities, into nations, and a whole co-operating Mankind,\nthe creation, as has here been often irrefragably evinced, of the Tailor\nalone?--What too are all Poets and moral Teachers, but a species of\nMetaphorical Tailors? Touching which high Guild the greatest living\nGuild-brother has triumphantly asked us: 'Nay if thou wilt have it,\nwho but the Poet first made Gods for men; brought them down to us; and\nraised us up to them?'\n\n\"And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the hard basis of his\nShopboard, the world treats with contumely, as the ninth part of a man!\nLook up, thou much-injured one, look up with the kindling eye of hope,\nand prophetic bodings of a noble better time. Too long hast thou sat\nthere, on crossed legs, wearing thy ankle-joints to horn; like some\nsacred Anchorite, or Catholic Fakir, doing penance, drawing down\nHeaven's richest blessings, for a world that scoffed at thee. Be of\nhope! Already streaks of blue peer through our clouds; the thick gloom\nof Ignorance is rolling asunder, and it will be Day. Mankind will\nrepay with interest their long-accumulated debt: the Anchorite that was\nscoffed at will be worshipped; the Fraction will become not an Integer\nonly, but a Square and Cube. With astonishment the world will recognize\nthat the Tailor is its Hierophant and Hierarch, or even its God.\n\n\"As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and looked upon these\nFour-and-Twenty Tailors, sewing and embroidering that rich Cloth, which\nthe Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I thought within myself:\nHow many other Unholies has your covering Art made holy, besides this\nArabian Whinstone!\n\n\"Still more touching was it when, turning the corner of a lane, in\nthe Scottish Town of Edinburgh, I came upon a Signpost, whereon stood\nwritten that such and such a one was 'Breeches-Maker to his Majesty;'\nand stood painted the Effigies of a Pair of Leather Breeches, and\nbetween the knees these memorable words, SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. Was not\nthis the martyr prison-speech of a Tailor sighing indeed in bonds, yet\nsighing towards deliverance, and prophetically appealing to a better\nday? A day of justice, when the worth of Breeches would be revealed to\nman, and the Scissors become forever venerable.\n\n\"Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal been altogether in\nvain. It was in this high moment, when the soul, rent, as it were, and\nshed asunder, is open to inspiring influence, that I first conceived\nthis Work on Clothes: the greatest I can ever hope to do; which has\nalready, after long retardations, occupied, and will yet occupy, so\nlarge a section of my Life; and of which the Primary and simpler Portion\nmay here find its conclusion.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII. FAREWELL.\n\nSo have we endeavored, from the enormous, amorphous Plum-pudding, more\nlike a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdrockh had kneaded for\nhis fellow-mortals, to pick out the choicest Plums, and present them\nseparately on a cover of our own. A laborious, perhaps a thankless\nenterprise; in which, however, something of hope has occasionally\ncheered us, and of which we can now wash our hands not altogether\nwithout satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morsel\nof spiritual nourishment have been added to the scanty ration of our\nbeloved British world, what nobler recompense could the Editor desire?\nIf it prove otherwise, why should he murmur? Was not this a Task which\nDestiny, in any case, had appointed him; which having now done with, he\nsees his general Day's-work so much the lighter, so much the shorter?\n\n\nOf Professor Teufelsdrockh, it seems impossible to take leave without\na mingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude, and disapproval. Who will\nnot regret that talents, which might have profited in the higher\nwalks of Philosophy, or in Art itself, have been so much devoted to a\nrummaging among lumber-rooms; nay too often to a scraping in kennels,\nwhere lost rings and diamond-necklaces are nowise the sole conquests?\nRegret is unavoidable; yet censure were loss of time. To cure him of his\nmad humors British Criticism would essay in vain: enough for her if she\ncan, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among ourselves. What\na result, should this piebald, entangled, hyper-metaphorical style of\nwriting, not to say of thinking, become general among our Literary men!\nAs it might so easily do. Thus has not the Editor himself, working over\nTeufelsdrockh's German, lost much of his own English purity? Even as\nthe smaller whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and made to whirl along\nwith it, so has the lesser mind, in this instance, been forced to become\nportion of the greater, and, like it, see all things figuratively: which\nhabit time and assiduous effort will be needed to eradicate.\n\nNevertheless, wayward as our Professor shows himself, is there any\nreader that can part with him in declared enmity? Let us confess, there\nis that in the wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting man, which almost\nattaches us. His attitude, we will hope and believe, is that of a man\nwho had said to Cant, Begone; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst not\nbe; and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me: a man who had\nmanfully defied the \"Time-Prince,\" or Devil, to his face; nay perhaps,\nHannibal-like, was mysteriously consecrated from birth to that warfare,\nand now stood minded to wage the same, by all weapons, in all places,\nat all times. In such a cause, any soldier, were he but a Polack\nScythe-man, shall be welcome.\n\nStill the question returns on us: How could a man occasionally of keen\ninsight, not without keen sense of propriety, who had real Thoughts to\ncommunicate, resolve to emit them in a shape bordering so closely on the\nabsurd? Which question he were wiser than the present Editor who should\nsatisfactorily answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been, that\nperhaps Necessity as well as Choice was concerned in it. Seems it\nnot conceivable that, in a Life like our Professor's, where so much\nbountifully given by Nature had in Practice failed and misgone,\nLiterature also would never rightly prosper: that striving with his\ncharacteristic vehemence to paint this and the other Picture, and ever\nwithout success, he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of all\ncolors, against the canvas, to try whether it will paint Foam? With all\nhis stillness, there were perhaps in Teufelsdrockh desperation enough\nfor this.\n\nA second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is, that\nTeufelsdrockh, is not without some touch of the universal feeling, a\nwish to proselytize. How often already have we paused, uncertain whether\nthe basis of this so enigmatic nature were really Stoicism and Despair,\nor Love and Hope only seared into the figure of these! Remarkable,\nmoreover, is this saying of his: \"How were Friendship possible? In\nmutual devotedness to the Good and True: otherwise impossible; except\nas Armed Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. A man, be the Heavens\never praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, united in\nLove, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand singly would fail\nin. Infinite is the help man can yield to man.\" And now in conjunction\ntherewith consider this other: \"It is the Night of the World, and still\nlong till it be Day: we wander amid the glimmer of smoking ruins, and\nthe Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as if blotted out for a season;\nand two immeasurable Phantoms, HYPOCRISY and ATHEISM, with the Ghoul,\nSENSUALITY, stalk abroad over the Earth, and call it theirs: well at\nease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream.\"\n\nBut what of the awe-struck Wakeful who find it a Reality? Should not\nthese unite; since even an authentic Spectre is not visible to Two?--In\nwhich case were this Enormous Clothes-Volume properly an enormous\nPitch-pan, which our Teufelsdrockh in his lone watch-tower had\nkindled, that it might flame far and wide through the Night, and many\na disconsolately wandering spirit be guided thither to a Brother's\nbosom!--We say as before, with all his malign Indifference, who knows\nwhat mad Hopes this man may harbor?\n\nMeanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmonizes ill with\nsuch conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdrockh made like other\nmen, might as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while the\nBeacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it; that\nno pilgrim could now ask him: Watchman, what of the Night? Professor\nTeufelsdrockh, be it known, is no longer visibly present at\nWeissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in space! Some time ago,\nthe Hofrath Heuschrecke was pleased to favor us with another copious\nEpistle; wherein much is said about the \"Population-Institute;\" much\nrepeated in praise of the Paper-bag Documents, the hieroglyphic nature\nof which our Hofrath still seems not to have surmised; and, lastly,\nthe strangest occurrence communicated, to us for the first time, in the\nfollowing paragraph:--\n\n\"_Ew. Wohlgeboren_ will have seen from the Public Prints, with what\naffectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo regards the\ndisappearance of her Sage. Might but the united voice of Germany prevail\non him to return; nay could we but so much as elucidate for ourselves\nby what mystery he went away! But, alas, old Lieschen experiences or\naffects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance: in the\nWahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up; the Privy Council itself\ncan hitherto elicit no answer.\n\n\"It had been remarked that while the agitating news of those\nParisian Three Days flew from mouth to month, and dinned every ear\nin Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdrockh was not known, at the _Gans_ or\nelsewhere, to have spoken, for a whole week, any syllable except once\nthese three: _Es geht an_ (It is beginning). Shortly after, as _Ew.\nWohlgeboren_ knows, was the public tranquillity here, as in\nBerlin, threatened by a Sedition of the Tailors. Nor did there want\nEvil-wishers, or perhaps mere desperate Alarmists, who asserted that the\nclosing Chapter of the Clothes-Volume was to blame. In this appalling\ncrisis, the serenity of our Philosopher was indescribable: nay, perhaps\nthrough one humble individual, something thereof might pass into the\n_Rath_ (Council) itself, and so contribute to the country's deliverance.\nThe Tailors are now entirely pacificated.--\n\n\"To neither of these two incidents can I attribute our loss: yet still\ncomes there the shadow of a suspicion out of Paris and its Politics. For\nexample, when the _Saint-Simonian Society_ transmitted its Propositions\nhither, and the whole _Gans_ was one vast cackle of laughter,\nlamentation and astonishment, our Sage sat mute; and at the end of the\nthird evening said merely: 'Here also are men who have discovered, not\nwithout amazement, that Man is still Man; of which high, long-forgotten\nTruth you already see them make a false application.' Since then, as has\nbeen ascertained by examination of the Post-Director, there passed at\nleast one Letter with its Answer between the Messieurs Bazard-Enfantin\nand our Professor himself; of what tenor can now only be conjectured. On\nthe fifth night following, he was seen for the last time!\n\n\"Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the hostile Sects that\nconvulse our Era, been spirited away by certain of their emissaries; or\ndid he go forth voluntarily to their head-quarters to confer with them,\nand confront them? Reason we have, at least of a negative sort, to\nbelieve the Lost still living; our widowed heart also whispers that ere\nlong he will himself give a sign. Otherwise, indeed, his archives must,\none day, be opened by Authority; where much, perhaps the _Palingenesie_\nitself, is thought to be reposited.\"\n\n\nThus far the Hofrath; who vanishes, as is his wont, too like an Ignis\nFatuus, leaving the dark still darker.\n\nSo that Teufelsdrockh's public History were not done, then, or reduced\nto an even, unromantic tenor; nay, perhaps the better part thereof were\nonly beginning? We stand in a region of conjectures, where substance has\nmelted into shadow, and one cannot be distinguished from the other. May\nTime, which solves or suppresses all problems, throw glad light on this\nalso! Our own private conjecture, now amounting almost to certainty, is\nthat, safe-moored in some stillest obscurity, not to lie always still,\nTeufelsdrockh, is actually in London!\n\nHere, however, can the present Editor, with an ambrosial joy as of\nover-weariness falling into sleep, lay down his pen. Well does he know,\nif human testimony be worth aught, that to innumerable British readers\nlikewise, this is a satisfying consummation; that innumerable British\nreaders consider him, during these current months, but as an uneasy\ninterruption to their ways of thought and digestion; and indicate so\nmuch, not without a certain irritancy and even spoken invective. For\nwhich, as for other mercies, ought not he to thank the Upper Powers? To\none and all of you, O irritated readers, he, with outstretched arms and\nopen heart, will wave a kind farewell. Thou too, miraculous Entity,\nwho namest thyself YORKE and OLIVER, and with thy vivacities and\ngenialities, with thy all too Irish mirth and madness, and odor of\npalled punch, makest such strange work, farewell; long as thou canst,\n_fare-well_! Have we not, in the course of Eternity, travelled some\nmonths of our Life-journey in partial sight of one another; have we not\nexisted together, though in a state of quarrel?\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nThis questionable little Book was undoubtedly written among the mountain\nsolitudes, in 1831; but, owing to impediments natural and accidental,\ncould not, for seven years more, appear as a Volume in England;--and had\nat last to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit by\nbit, in some courageous _Magazine_ that offered. Whereby now, to\ncertain idly curious readers, and even to myself till I make study, the\ninsignificant but at last irritating question, What its real history and\nchronology are, is, if not insoluble, considerably involved in haze.\n\nTo the first English Edition, 1838, which an American, or two American\nhad now opened the way for, there was slightingly prefixed, under the\ntitle, \"_Testimonies of Authors_,\" some straggle of real documents,\nwhich, now that I find it again, sets the matter into clear light and\nsequence:--and shall here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks and\nnugatory guessings from the path of every reader, be reprinted as it\nstood. (_Author's Note, of_ 1868.)\n\n\nTESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS.\n\nI. HIGHEST CLASS, BOOKSELLER'S TASTER.\n\n_Taster to Bookseller_.--\"The Author of _Teufelsdrockh_ is a person of\ntalent; his work displays here and there some felicity of thought and\nexpression, considerable fancy and knowledge: but whether or not it\nwould take with the public seems doubtful. For a _jeu d'esprit_ of that\nkind it is too long; it would have suited better as an essay or article\nthan as a volume. The Author has no great tact; his wit is frequently\nheavy; and reminds one of the German Baron who took to leaping on\ntables and answered that he was learning to be lively. _Is_ the work a\ntranslation?\"\n\n_Bookseller to Editor_.--\"Allow me to say that such a writer requires\nonly a little more tact to produce a popular as well as an able work.\nDirectly on receiving your permission, I sent your MS. to a gentleman in\nthe highest class of men of letters, and an accomplished German scholar:\nI now enclose you his opinion, which, you may rely upon it, is a just\none; and I have too high an opinion of your good sense to\" &c. &c.--_Ms.\n(penes nos), London, 17th September_, 1831.\n\n\nII. CRITIC OF THE SUN.\n\n\"_Fraser's Magazine_ exhibits the usual brilliancy, and also the\" &c.\n\n\"_Sartor Resartus_ is what old Dennis used to call 'a heap of clotted\nnonsense,' mixed however, here and there, with passages marked by\nthought and striking poetic vigor. But what does the writer mean by\n'Baphometic fire-baptism'? Why cannot he lay aside his pedantry, and\nwrite so as to make himself generally intelligible? We quote by way\nof curiosity a sentence from the _Sartor Resartus_; which may be read\neither backwards or forwards, for it is equally intelligible either\nway: indeed, by beginning at the tail, and so working up to the head,\nwe think the reader will stand the fairest chance of getting at its\nmeaning: 'The fire-baptized soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven,\nhere feels its own freedom; which feeling is its Baphometic baptism:\nthe citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus gained by assault, and\nwill keep inexpugnable; outwards from which the remaining dominions, not\nindeed without hard battering, will doubtless by degrees be conquered\nand pacificated.' Here is a\"...--_Sun Newspaper, 1st April_, 1834.\n\n\nIII. NORTH--AMERICAN REVIEWER.\n\n... \"After a careful survey of the whole ground, our belief is that no\nsuch persons as Professors Teufelsdrockh or Counsellor Heuschrecke ever\nexisted; that the six Paper-bags, with their China-ink inscriptions\nand multifarious contents, are a mere figment of the brain; that the\n'present Editor' is the only person who has ever written upon the\nPhilosophy of Clothes; and that the _Sartor Resartus_ is the only\ntreatise that has yet appeared upon that subject;--in short, that the\nwhole account of the origin of the work before us, which the supposed\nEditor relates with so much gravity, and of which we have given a brief\nabstract, is, in plain English, a _hum_.\n\n\"Without troubling our readers at any great length with our reasons for\nentertaining these suspicions, we may remark, that the absence of all\nother information on the subject, except what is contained in the work,\nis itself a fact of a most significant character. The whole German\npress, as well as the particular one where the work purports to have\nbeen printed, seems to be under the control of _Stillschweigen and Co.\n_--Silence and Company. If the Clothes-Philosophy and its author are\nmaking so great a sensation throughout Germany as is pretended, how\nhappens it that the only notice we have of the fact is contained in a\nfew numbers of a monthly Magazine published at London! How happens it\nthat no intelligence about the matter has come out directly to this\ncountry? We pique ourselves here in New England upon knowing at least\nas much of what is going on in the literary way in the old Dutch\nMother-land as our brethren of the fast-anchored Isle; but thus far\nwe have no tidings whatever of the 'extensive close-printed,\nclose-meditated volume,' which forms the subject of this pretended\ncommentary. Again, we would respectfully inquire of the 'present Editor'\nupon what part of the map of Germany we are to look for the city of\n_Weissnichtwo_--'Know-not-where'--at which place the work is supposed\nto have been printed, and the Author to have resided. It has been\nour fortune to visit several portions of the German territory, and to\nexamine pretty carefully, at different times and for various purposes,\nmaps of the whole; but we have no recollection of any such place. We\nsuspect that the city of _Know-not-where_ might be called, with at\nleast as much propriety, _Nobody-knows-where_, and is to be\nfound in the kingdom of _Nowhere_. Again, the village of\n_Entepfuhl_--'Duck-pond'--where the supposed Author of the work is said\nto have passed his youth, and that of _Hinterschlag_, where he had his\neducation, are equally foreign to our geography. Duck-ponds enough there\nundoubtedly are in almost every village in Germany, as the traveller\nin that country knows too well to his cost, but any particular village\ndenominated Duck-pond is to us altogether _terra incognita_. The names\nof the personages are not less singular than those of the places.\nWho can refrain from a smile at the yoking together of such a pair of\nappellatives as Diogenes Teufelsdrockh? The supposed bearer of\nthis strange title is represented as admitting, in his pretended\nautobiography, that 'he had searched to no purpose through all the\nHeralds' books in and without the German empire, and through all manner\nof Subscribers'-lists, Militia-rolls, and other Name-catalogues,'\nbut had nowhere been able to find 'the name Teufelsdrockh, except as\nappended to his own person.' We can readily believe this, and we doubt\nvery much whether any Christian parent would think of condemning a\nson to carry through life the burden of so unpleasant a title. That of\nCounsellor Heuschrecke--'Grasshopper'--though not offensive, looks much\nmore like a piece of fancy-work than a 'fair business transaction.'\nThe same may be said of _Blumine_--'Flower-Goddess'--the heroine of the\nfable; and so of the rest.\n\n\"In short, our private opinion is, as we have remarked, that the\nwhole story of a correspondence with Germany, a university of\nNobody-knows-where, a Professor of Things in General, a Counsellor\nGrasshopper, a Flower-Goddess Blumine, and so forth, has about as\nmuch foundation in truth as the late entertaining account of Sir John\nHerschel's discoveries in the moon. Fictions of this kind are, however,\nnot uncommon, and ought not, perhaps, to be condemned with too much\nseverity; but we are not sure that we can exercise the same indulgence\nin regard to the attempt, which seems to be made to mislead the public\nas to the substance of the work before us, and its pretended German\noriginal. Both purport, as we have seen, to be upon the subject of\nClothes, or dress. _Clothes, their Origin and Influence_, is the title\nof the supposed German treatise of Professor Teufelsdrockh and the\nrather odd name of _Sartor Resartus_--the Tailor Patched--which the\npresent Editor has affixed to his pretended commentary, seems to look\nthe same way. But though there is a good deal of remark throughout the\nwork in a half-serious, half-comic style upon dress, it seems to be in\nreality a treatise upon the great science of Things in General, which\nTeufelsdrockh, is supposed to have professed at the university of\nNobody-knows-where. Now, without intending to adopt a too rigid standard\nof morals, we own that we doubt a little the propriety of offering to\nthe public a treatise on Things in General, under the name and in the\nform of an Essay on Dress. For ourselves, advanced as we unfortunately\nare in the journey of life, far beyond the period when dress is\npractically a matter of interest, we have no hesitation in saying,\nthat the real subject of the work is to us more attractive than the\nostensible one. But this is probably not the case with the mass of\nreaders. To the younger portion of the community, which constitutes\neverywhere the very great majority, the subject of dress is one of\nintense and paramount importance. An author who treats it appeals, like\nthe poet, to the young men end maddens--_virginibus puerisque_--and\ncalls upon them, by all the motives which habitually operate most\nstrongly upon their feelings, to buy his book. When, after opening their\npurses for this purpose, they have carried home the work in triumph,\nexpecting to find in it some particular instruction in regard to the\ntying of their neckcloths, or the cut of their corsets, and meet with\nnothing better than a dissertation on Things in General, they\nwill--to use the mildest term--not be in very good humor. If the last\nimprovements in legislation, which we have made in this country, should\nhave found their way to England, the author, we think, would stand\nsome chance of being _Lynched_. Whether his object in this piece\nof _supercherie_ be merely pecuniary profit, or whether he takes a\nmalicious pleasure in quizzing the Dandies, we shall not undertake to\nsay. In the latter part of the work, he devotes a separate chapter to\nthis class of persons, from the tenor of which we should be disposed\nto conclude, that he would consider any mode of divesting them of their\nproperty very much in the nature of a spoiling of the Egyptians.\n\n\"The only thing about the work, tending to prove that it is what it\npurports to be, a commentary on a real German treatise, is the style,\nwhich is a sort of Babylonish dialect, not destitute, it is true, of\nrichness, vigor, and at times a sort of singular felicity of expression,\nbut very strongly tinged throughout with the peculiar idiom of the\nGerman language. This quality in the style, however, may be a mere\nresult of a great familiarity with German literature; and we cannot,\ntherefore, look upon it as in itself decisive, still less as outweighing\nso much evidence of an opposite character.\"--_North-American Review, No.\n89, October_, 1835.\n\n\nIV. NEW ENGLAND EDITORS.\n\n\"The Editors have been induced, by the expressed desire of many persons,\nto collect the following sheets out of the ephemeral pamphlets [*] in\nwhich they first appeared, under the conviction that they contain in\nthemselves the assurance of a longer date.\n\n     * _Fraser's_ (London) _Magazine_, 1833-34.\n\n\"The Editors have no expectation that this little Work will have a\nsudden and general popularity. They will not undertake, as there is no\nneed, to justify the gay costume in which the Author delights to\ndress his thoughts, or the German idioms with which he has sportively\nsprinkled his pages. It is his humor to advance the gravest speculations\nupon the gravest topics in a quaint and burlesque style. If his\nmasquerade offend any of his audience, to that degree that they will not\nhear what he has to say, it may chance to draw others to listen to his\nwisdom; and what work of imagination can hope to please all! But we will\nventure to remark that the distaste excited by these peculiarities in\nsome readers is greatest at first, and is soon forgotten; and that the\nforeign dress and aspect of the Work are quite superficial, and cover\na genuine Saxon heart. We believe, no book has been published for many\nyears, written in a more sincere style of idiomatic English, or which\ndiscovers an equal mastery over all the riches of the language. The\nAuthor makes ample amends for the occasional eccentricity of his genius,\nnot only by frequent bursts of pure splendor, but by the wit and sense\nwhich never fail him.\n\n\"But what will chiefly commend the Book to the discerning reader is the\nmanifest design of the work, which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit of\nthe Age--we had almost said, of the hour--in which we live; exhibiting\nin the most just and novel light the present aspects of Religion,\nPolitics, Literature, Arts, and Social Life. Under all his gayety\nthe Writer has an earnest meaning, and discovers an insight into the\nmanifold wants and tendencies of human nature, which is very rare among\nour popular authors. The philanthropy and the purity of moral sentiment,\nwhich inspire the work, will find their way to the heart of every lover\nof virtue.\"--_Preface to Sartor Resartus: Boston_, 1835, 1837.\n\n\nSUNT, FUERUNT VEL FUERE.\n\nLONDON, 30th June, 1838.\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Note: All spelling and punctuation was kept as in the\nprinted text. Italicized phrases are delimited by _underscores_.\nFootnotes (there are only four) have been placed at the ends of the\nparagraphs referencing them.","title":"Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdr\u00f6ckh","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":80196}