{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20585/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20585","id":"gutenberg_20585","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20585","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Clothing and dress -- Fiction","Conduct of life -- Fiction","Didactic fiction","Germany -- Fiction","Heroes","Philosophers -- Fiction","Satire"],"text":"Produced by Jason Isbell, Barbara Tozier and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n                          EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY\n\n                 Founded 1906 by J. M. Dent (d. 1926)\n                   Edited by Ernest Rhys (d. 1946)\n\n\n                       ESSAYS & BELLES-LETTRES\n\n\n                   SARTOR RESARTUS _and_ ON HEROES\n\n                   BY THOMAS CARLYLE . INTRODUCTION\n\n                      BY PROFESSOR W. H. HUDSON\n\n\n\n\n    THOMAS CARLYLE, born in 1795 at Ecclefechan, the son of a\n    stonemason. Educated at Edinburgh University. Schoolmaster for\n    a short time, but decided on a literary career, visiting Paris\n    and London. Retired in 1828 to Dumfriesshire to write. In 1834\n    moved to Cheyne Row, Chelsea, and died there in 1881.\n\n\n\n\n                           SARTOR RESARTUS\n\n                              ON HEROES\n\n                             HERO WORSHIP\n\n\n                            THOMAS CARLYLE\n\n\n                    LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.\n                  NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. INC.\n\n\n\n\n                         _All rights reserved\n                        Made in Great Britain\n                    at The Temple Press Letchworth\n                                 for\n                        J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.\n                   Aldine House Bedford St. London\n                 First published in this edition 1908\n                         Last reprinted 1948_\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nOne of the most vital and pregnant books in our modern literature,\n\"Sartor Resartus\" is also, in structure and form, one of the most\ndaringly original. It defies exact classification. It is not a\nphilosophic treatise. It is not an autobiography. It is not a romance.\nYet in a sense it is all these combined. Its underlying purpose is to\nexpound in broad outline certain ideas which lay at the root of\nCarlyle's whole reading of life. But he does not elect to set these\nforth in regular methodic fashion, after the manner of one writing a\nsystematic essay. He presents his philosophy in dramatic form and in a\npicturesque human setting. He invents a certain Herr Diogenes\nTeufelsdroeckh, an erudite German professor of \"Allerley-Wissenschaft,\"\nor Things in General, in the University of Weissnichtwo, of whose\ncolossal work, \"Die Kleider, Ihr Werden und Wirken\" (On Clothes: Their\nOrigin and Influence), he represents himself as being only the student\nand interpreter. With infinite humour he explains how this prodigious\nvolume came into his hands; how he was struck with amazement by its\nencyclopaedic learning, and the depth and suggestiveness of its\nthought; and how he determined that it was his special mission to\nintroduce its ideas to the British public. But how was this to be\ndone? As a mere bald abstract of the original would never do, the\nwould-be apostle was for a time in despair. But at length the happy\nthought occurred to him of combining a condensed statement of the main\nprinciples of the new philosophy with some account of the\nphilosopher's life and character. Thus the work took the form of a\n\"Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdroeckh,\" and as such it was offered\nto the world. Here, of course, we reach the explanation of its\nfantastic title--\"Sartor Resartus,\" or the Tailor Patched: the tailor\nbeing the great German \"Clothes-philosopher,\" and the patching being\ndone by Carlyle as his English editor.\n\nAs a piece of literary mystification, Teufelsdroeckh and his treatise\nenjoyed a measure of the success which nearly twenty years before had\nbeen scored by Dietrich Knickerbocker and his \"History of New York.\"\nThe question of the professor's existence was solemnly discussed in at\nleast one important review; Carlyle was gravely taken to task for\nattempting to mislead the public; a certain interested reader actually\nwrote to inquire where the original German work was to be obtained.\nAll this seems to us surprising; the more so as we are now able to\nunderstand the purposes which Carlyle had in view in devising his\ndramatic scheme. In the first place, by associating the\nclothes-philosophy with the personality of its alleged author (himself\none of Carlyle's splendidly living pieces of characterisation), and by\npresenting it as the product and expression of his spiritual\nexperiences, he made the mystical creed intensely human. Stated in the\nabstract, it would have been a mere blank _-ism_; developed in its\nintimate relations with Teufelsdroeckh's character and career, it is\nfilled with the hot life-blood of natural thought and feeling.\nSecondly, by fathering his own philosophy upon a German professor\nCarlyle indicates his own indebtedness to German idealism, the\nultimate source of much of his own teaching. Yet, deep as that\nindebtedness was, and anxious as he might be to acknowledge it, he was\nas a humourist keenly alive to certain glaring defects of the great\nGerman writers; to their frequent tendency to lose themselves among\nthe mere minutiae of erudition, and thus to confuse the unimportant and\nthe important; to their habit of rising at times into the clouds\nrather than above the clouds, and of there disporting themselves in\nregions \"close-bordering on the impalpable inane;\" to their too\nconspicuous want of order, system, perspective. The dramatic machinery\nof \"Sartor Resartus\" is therefore turned to a third service. It is\nmade the vehicle of much good-humoured satire upon these and similar\ncharacteristics of Teutonic scholarship and speculation; as in the\nmany amusing criticisms which are passed upon Teufelsdroeckh's volume\nas a sort of \"mad banquet wherein all courses have been confounded;\"\nin the burlesque parade of the professor's \"omniverous reading\"\n(_e.g._, Book I, Chap. V); and in the whole amazing episode of the\n\"six considerable paper bags,\" out of the chaotic contents of which\nthe distracted editor in search of \"biographic documents\" has to make\nwhat he can. Nor is this quite all. Teufelsdroeckh is further utilised\nas the mouthpiece of some of Carlyle's more extravagant speculations\nand of such ideas as he wished to throw out as it were tentatively,\nand without himself being necessarily held responsible for them. There\nis thus much point as well as humour in those sudden turns of the\nargument, when, after some exceptionally wild outburst on his\n_eidolon's_ part, Carlyle sedately reproves him for the fantastic\ncharacter or dangerous tendency of his opinions.\n\nIt is in connection with the dramatic scheme of the book that the\nthird element, that of autobiography, enters into its texture, for the\nstory of Teufelsdroeckh is very largely a transfigured version of the\nstory of Carlyle himself. In saying this, I am not of course thinking\nmainly of Carlyle's outer life. This, indeed, is in places freely\ndrawn upon, as the outer lives of Dickens, George Eliot, Tolstoi are\ndrawn upon in \"David Copperfield,\" \"The Mill on the Floss,\" \"Anna\nKarenina.\" Entepfuhl is only another name for Ecclefechan; the picture\nof little Diogenes eating his supper out-of-doors on fine summer\nevenings, and meanwhile watching the sun sink behind the western\nhills, is clearly a loving transcript from memory; even the idyllic\nepisode of Blumine may be safely traced back to a romance of Carlyle's\nyouth. But to investigate the connection at these and other points\nbetween the mere externals of the two careers is a matter of little\nmore than curious interest. It is because it incorporates and\nreproduces so much of Carlyle's inner history that the story of\nTeufelsdroeckh is really important. Spiritually considered, the whole\nnarrative is, in fact, a \"symbolic myth,\" in which the writer's\npersonal trials and conflicts are depicted with little change save in\nsetting and accessories. Like Teufelsdroeckh, Carlyle while still a\nyoung man had broken away from the old religious creed in which he had\nbeen bred; like Teufelsdroeckh, he had thereupon passed into the\n\"howling desert of infidelity;\" like Teufelsdroeckh, he had known all\nthe agonies and anguish of a long period of blank scepticism and\ninsurgent despair, during which, turn whither he would, life responded\nwith nothing but negations to every question and appeal. And as to\nTeufelsdroeckh in the Rue Saint-Thomas de l'Enfer in Paris, so to\nCarlyle in Leith Walk, Edinburgh, there had come a moment of sudden\nand marvellous illumination, a mystical crisis from which he had\nemerged a different man. The parallelism is so obvious and so close as\nto leave no room for doubt that the story of Teufelsdroeckh is\nsubstantially a piece of spiritual autobiography.\n\nThis admitted, the question arises whether Carlyle had any purpose,\nbeyond that of self-expression, in thus utilising his own experiences\nfor the human setting of his philosophy. It seems evident that he had.\nAs he conceived them, these experiences possessed far more than a\nmerely personal interest and meaning. He wrote of himself because he\nsaw in himself a type of his restless and much-troubled epoch; because\nhe knew that in a broad sense his history was the history of thousands\nof other young men in the generation to which he belonged. The age\nwhich followed upon the vast upheaval of the Revolution was one of\nwidespread turmoil and perplexity. Men felt themselves to be wandering\naimlessly \"between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be\nborn.\" The old order had collapsed in shapeless ruin; but the promised\nUtopia had not been realised to take its place. In many directions the\nforces of reaction were at work. Religion, striving to maintain itself\nupon the dogmatic creeds of the past, was rapidly petrifying into a\nmere \"dead Letter of Religion,\" from which all the living spirit had\nfled; and those who could not nourish themselves on hearsay and\ninherited formula knew not where to look for the renewal of faith and\nhope. The generous ardour and the splendid humanitarian enthusiasms\nwhich had been stirred by the opening phases of the revolutionary\nmovement, had now ebbed away; revulsion had followed, and with it the\nmood of disillusion and despair. The spirit of doubt and denial was\nfelt as a paralysing power in every department of life and thought,\nand the shadow of unbelief lay heavy on many hearts.\n\nIt was for the men of this \"sad time\" that Carlyle wrote\nTeufelsdroeckh's story; and he wrote it not merely to depict the\nfar-reaching consequences of their pessimism but also to make plain to\nthem their true path out of it. He desired to exhibit to his age the\nreal nature of the strange malady from which it was suffering in order\nthat he might thereupon proclaim the remedy.\n\nWhat, then, is the moral significance of Carlyle's \"symbolic myth\"?\nWhat are the supreme lessons which he uses it to convey?\n\nWe must begin by understanding his diagnosis. For him, all the evils\nof the time could ultimately be traced back to their common source in\nwhat may be briefly described as its want of real religion. Of churches\nand creeds there were plenty; of living faith little or nothing was\nleft. Men had lost all vital sense of God in the world; and because of\nthis, they had taken up a fatally wrong attitude to life. They looked\nat it wholly from the mechanical point of view, and judged it by\nmerely utilitarian standards. The \"body-politic\" was no longer\ninspired by any \"soul-politic.\" Men, individually and in the mass,\ncared only for material prosperity, sought only outward success, made\nthe pursuit of happiness the end and aim of their being. The divine\nmeaning of virtue, the infinite nature of duty, had been forgotten,\nand morality had been turned into a sort of ledger-philosophy, based\nupon calculations of profit and loss.\n\nIt was thus that Carlyle read the signs of the times. In such\ncircumstances what was needed? Nothing less than a spiritual rebirth.\nMen must abandon their wrong attitude to life, and take up the right\nattitude. Everything hinged on that. And that they might take up this\nright attitude it was necessary first that they should be convinced of\nlife's essential spirituality, and cease in consequence to seek its\nmeaning and test its value on the plane of merely material things.\n\nCarlyle thus throws passionate emphasis upon religion as the only\nsaving power. But it must be noted that he does not suggest a return\nto any of the dogmatic creeds of the past. Though once the expression\nof a living faith, these were now for him mere lifeless formulas. Nor\nhas he any new dogmatic creed to offer in their place. That mystical\ncrisis which had broken the spell of the Everlasting No was in a\nstrict sense--he uses the word himself--a conversion. But it was not a\nconversion in the theological sense, for it did not involve the\nacceptance of any specific articles of faith. It was simply a complete\nchange of front; the protest of his whole nature, in a suddenly\naroused mood of indignation and defiance, against the \"spirit which\ndenies;\" the assertion of his manhood against the cowardice which had\nso long kept him trembling and whimpering before the facts of\nexistence. But from that change of front came presently the vivid\napprehension of certain great truths which his former mood had thus\nfar concealed from him; and in these truths he found the secret of\nthat right attitude to life in the discovery of which lay men's only\nhope of salvation from the unrest and melancholy of their time.\n\nFrom this point of view the burden of Carlyle's message to his\ngeneration will be readily understood. Men were going wrong because\nthey started with the thought of self, and made satisfaction of self\nthe law of their lives; because, in consequence, they regarded\nhappiness as the chief object of pursuit and the one thing worth\nstriving for; because, under the influence of the current rationalism,\nthey tried to escape from their spiritual perplexities through logic\nand speculation. They had, therefore, to set themselves right upon all\nthese matters. They had to learn that not self-satisfaction but\nself-renunciation is the key to life and its true law; that we have no\nprescriptive claim to happiness and no business to quarrel with the\nuniverse if it withholds it from us; that the way out of pessimism\nlies, not through reason, but through honest work, steady adherence to\nthe simple duty which each day brings, fidelity to the right as we\nknow it. Such, in broad statement, is the substance of Carlyle's\nreligious convictions and moral teaching. Like Kant he takes his stand\non the principles of ethical idealism. God is to be sought, not\nthrough speculation, or syllogism, or the learning of the schools, but\nthrough the moral nature. It is the soul in action that alone finds\nGod. And the finding of God means, not happiness as the world\nconceives it, but blessedness, or the inward peace which passes\nunderstanding.\n\nThe connection between the transfigured autobiography which serves to\nintroduce the directly didactic element of the book and that element\nitself, will now be clear. Stripped of its whimsicalities of\nphraseology and its humorous extravagances, Carlyle's philosophy\nstands revealed as essentially idealistic in character. Spirit is the\nonly reality. Visible things are but the manifestations, emblems, or\nclothings of spirit. The material universe itself is only the vesture\nor symbol of God; man is a spirit, though he wears the wrappings of\nthe flesh; and in everything that man creates for himself he merely\nattempts to give body or expression to thought. The science of\nCarlyle's time was busy proclaiming that, since the universe is\ngoverned by natural laws, miracles are impossible and the supernatural\nis a myth. Carlyle replies that the natural laws are themselves only\nthe manifestation of Spiritual Force, and that thus miracle is\neverywhere and all nature supernatural. We, who are the creatures of\ntime and space, can indeed apprehend the Absolute only when He weaves\nabout Him the visible garments of time and space. Thus God reveals\nHimself to sense through symbols. But it is as we regard these symbols\nin one or other of two possible ways that we class ourselves with the\nfoolish man or with the wise. The foolish man sees only the symbol,\nthinks it exists for itself, takes it for the ultimate fact, and\ntherefore rests in it. The wise man sees the symbol, knows that it is\nonly a symbol, and penetrates into it for the ultimate fact or\nspiritual reality which it symbolises.\n\nRemote as such a doctrine may at first sight seem to be from the\nquestions with which men are commonly concerned, it has none the less\nmany important practical bearings. Since \"all Forms whereby Spirit\nmanifests itself to sense, whether outwardly or in the imagination,\nare Clothes,\" civilisation and everything belonging to it--our\nlanguages, literatures and arts, our governments, social machinery and\ninstitutions, our philosophies, creeds and rituals--are but so many\nvestments woven for itself by the shaping spirit of man. Indispensable\nthese vestments are; for without them society would collapse in\nanarchy, and humanity sink to the level of the brute. Yet here again\nwe must emphasise the difference, already noted, between the foolish\nman and the wise. The foolish man once more assumes that the vestments\nexist for themselves, as ultimate facts, and that they have a value of\ntheir own. He, therefore, confuses the life with its clothing; is even\nwilling to sacrifice the life for the sake of the clothing. The wise\nman, while he, too, recognises the necessity of the vestments, and\nindeed insists upon it, knows that they have no independent\nimportance, that they derive all their potency and value from the\ninner reality which they were fashioned to represent and embody, but\nwhich they often misrepresent and obscure. He therefore never confuses\nthe life with the clothing, and well understands how often the\nclothing has to be sacrificed for the sake of the life. Thus, while\nthe utility of clothes has to be recognised to the full, it is still\nof the essence of wisdom to press hard upon the vital distinction\nbetween the outer wrappings of man's life and that inner reality which\nthey more or less adequately enfold.\n\nThe use which Carlyle makes of this doctrine in his interpretation of\nthe religious history of the world and of the crisis in thought of his\nown day, will be anticipated. All dogmas, forms and ceremonials, he\nteaches, are but religious vestments--symbols expressing man's deepest\nsense of the divine mystery of the universe and the hunger and thirst\nof his soul for God. It is in response to the imperative necessities\nof his nature that he moulds for himself these outward emblems of his\nideas and aspirations. Yet they are only emblems; and since, like all\nother human things, they partake of the ignorance and weakness of the\ntimes in which they were framed, it is inevitable that with the growth\nof knowledge and the expansion of thought they must presently be\noutgrown. When this happens, there follows what Carlyle calls the\n\"superannuation of symbols.\" Men wake to the fact that the creeds and\nformulas which have come down to them from the past are no longer\nliving for them, no longer what they need for the embodiment of their\nspiritual life. Two mistakes are now possible, and these are, indeed,\ncommonly made together. On the one hand, men may try to ignore the\ngrowth of knowledge and the expansion of thought, and to cling to the\noutgrown symbols as things having in themselves some mysterious\nsanctity and power. On the other hand, they may recklessly endeavour\nto cast aside the reality symbolised along with the discredited symbol\nitself. Given such a condition of things, and we shall find religion\ndegenerating into formalism and the worship of the dead letter, and,\nside by side with this, the impatient rejection of all religion, and\nthe spread of a crude and debasing materialism. Religious symbols,\nthen, must be renewed. But their renewal can come only from within.\nForm, to have any real value, must grow out of life and be fed by it.\n\nThe revolutionary quality in the philosophy of \"Sartor Resartus\"\ncannot, of course, be overlooked. Everything that man has woven for\nhimself must in time become merely \"old clothes\"; the work of his\nthought, like that of his hands, is perishable; his very highest\nsymbols have no permanence or finality. Carlyle cuts down to the\nessential reality beneath all shows and forms and emblems: witness his\namazing vision of a naked House of Lords. Under his penetrating gaze\nthe \"earthly hulls and garnitures\" of existence melt away. Men's habit\nis to rest in symbols. But to rest in symbols is fatal, since they are\nat best but the \"adventitious wrappages\" of life. Clothes \"have made\nmen of us\"--true; but now, so great has their influence become that\n\"they are threatening to make clothes-screens of us.\" Hence \"the\nbeginning of all wisdom is to look fixedly on clothes ... till they\nbecome transparent.\" The logical tendency of such teaching may seem to\nbe towards utter nihilism. But that tendency is checked and qualified\nby the strong conservative element which is everywhere prominent in\nCarlyle's thought. Upon the absolute need of \"clothes\" the stress is\nagain and again thrown. They \"have made men of us.\" By symbols alone\nman lives and works. By symbols alone can he make life and work\neffective. Thus even the world's \"old clothes\"--its discarded forms\nand creeds--should be treated with the reverence due to whatever has\nonce played a part in human development. Thus, moreover, we must be on\nour guard against the impetuosity of the revolutionary spirit and all\nrash rupture with the past. To cast old clothes aside before new\nclothes are ready--this does not mean progress, but sansculottism, or\na lapse into nakedness and anarchy.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe lectures \"On Heroes and Hero-Worship,\" here printed with \"Sartor\nResartus,\" contain little more than an amplification, through a series\nof brilliant character-studies, of those fundamental ideas of history\nwhich had already figured among Teufelsdroeckh's social speculations.\nSimple in statement and clear in doctrine, this second work needs no\nformal introduction. It may, however, be of service just to indicate\none or two points at which, apart from its set theses, it expresses or\nimplies certain underlying principles of all Carlyle's thought.\n\nIn the first place, his philosophy of history rests entirely on \"the\ngreat man theory.\" \"Universal History, the history of what man has\naccomplished in the world,\" is for him \"at bottom the History of the\nGreat Men who have worked here.\" This conception, of course, brings\nhim into sharp conflict with that scientific view of history which was\nalready gaining ground when \"Heroes and Hero-Worship\" was written, and\nwhich since then has become even more popular under the powerful\ninfluence of the modern doctrine of evolution. A scientific historian,\nlike Buckle or Taine, seeks to explain all changes in thought, all\nmovements in politics and society, in terms of general laws; his habit\nis, therefore, to subordinate, if not quite to eliminate, the\nindividual; the greatest man is treated as in a large measure the\nproduct and expression of the \"spirit of the time.\" For Carlyle,\nindividuality is everything. While, as he is bound to admit, \"no one\nworks save under conditions,\" external circumstances and influences\ncount little. The Great Man is supreme. He is not the creature of his\nage, but its creator; not its servant, but its master. \"The History of\nthe World is but the Biography of Great Men.\"\n\nAnti-scientific in his reading of history, Carlyle is also\nanti-democratic in the practical lessons he deduces from it. He\nteaches that our right relations with the Hero are discipular\nrelations; that we should honestly acknowledge his superiority, look\nup to him, reverence him. Thus on the personal side he challenges that\ntendency to \"level down\" which he believed to be one alarming result\nof the fast-spreading spirit of the new democracy. But more than this.\nHe insists that the one hope for our distracted world of to-day lies\nin the strength and wisdom of the few, not in the organised unwisdom\nof the many. The masses of the people can never be safely trusted to\nsolve for themselves the intricate problems of their own welfare. They\nneed to be guided, disciplined, at times even driven, by those great\nleaders of men, who see more deeply than they see into the reality of\nthings, and know much better than they can ever know what is good for\nthem, and how that good is to be attained. Political machinery, in\nwhich the modern world had come to put so much faith, is only another\ndelusion of a mechanical age. The burden of history is for him always\nthe need of the Able Man. \"I say, Find me the true _Koenning_, King,\nAble Man, and he _has_ a divine right over me.\" Carlyle thus throws\ndown the gauntlet at once to the scientific and to the democratic\nmovements of his time. His pronounced antagonism to the modern spirit\nin these two most important manifestations must be kept steadily in\nmind in our study of him.\n\nFinally, we have to remember that in the whole tone and temper of his\nteaching Carlyle is fundamentally the Puritan. The dogmas of\nPuritanism he had indeed outgrown; but he never outgrew its ethics.\nHis thought was dominated and pervaded to the end, as Froude rightly\nsays, by the spirit of the creed he had dismissed. By reference to\nthis one fact we may account for much of his strength, and also for\nmost of his limitations in outlook and sympathy. Those limitations the\nreader will not fail to notice for himself. But whatever allowance has\nto be made for them, the strength remains. It is, perhaps, the secret\nof Carlyle's imperishable greatness as a stimulating and uplifting\npower that, beyond any other modern writer, he makes us feel with him\nthe supreme claims of the moral life, the meaning of our own\nresponsibilities, the essential spirituality of things, the\nindestructible reality of religion. If he had thus a special message\nfor his own generation, that message has surely not lost any of its\nvalue for ours. \"Put Carlyle in your pocket,\" says Dr. Hal to Paul\nKelver on his starting out in life. \"He is not all the voices, but he\nis the best maker of men I know.\" And as a maker of men, Carlyle's\nappeal to us is as great as ever.\n\nWILLIAM HENRY HUDSON.\n\n\n    _Life of Schiller_ (_Lond. Mag._, 1823-4), 1825, 1845.\n    (Supplement published in the People's Edition, 1873). _Wilhelm\n    Meister Apprenticeship_, 1824. _Elements of Geometry and\n    Trigonometry_ (from the French of Legendre), 1824. _German\n    Romance_, 1827. _Sartor Resartus_ (_Fraser's Mag._, 1833-4),\n    1835 (Boston), 1838. _French Revolution_, 1837, 1839.\n    _Critical and Miscellaneous Essays_, 1839, 1840, 1847, 1857.\n    (In these were reprinted Articles from _Edinburgh Review_,\n    _Foreign Review_, _Foreign Quarterly Review_, _Fraser's\n    Magazine_, _Westminster Review_, _New Monthly Magazine_,\n    _London and Westminster Review_, _Keepsake Proceedings of the\n    Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, _Times_). _Chartism_,\n    1840. _Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History_, 1841.\n    _Past and Present_, 1843. _Oliver Cromwell's Letters and\n    Speeches: with Elucidations_, 1845. _Thirty-five Unpublished\n    Letters of Oliver Cromwell_, 1847 (Fraser). _Original\n    Discourses on the Negro Question_ (Fraser, 1849), 1853.\n    _Latter-day Pamphlets_, 1850. _Life of John Sterling_, 1851.\n    _History of Friedrich II. of Prussia_, 1858-65. _Inaugural\n    Address at Edinburgh_, 1866. _Shooting Niagara: and After?_\n    1867 (from \"Macmillan\"). _The Early Kings of Norway; also an\n    Essay on the Portraits of John Knox_, 1875.\n\n    There were also contributions to Brewster's _Edinburgh\n    Encyclopaedia_, vols. xiv., xv., and xvi.; to _New Edinburgh\n    Review_, 1821, 1822; _Fraser's Magazine_, 1830, 1831; _The\n    Times_, 19 June, 1844 (\"Mazzini\"); 28 November, 1876; 5 May,\n    1877; _Examiner_, 1848; _Spectator_, 1848.\n\n    First Collected Edition of Works, 1857-58 (16 vols.).\n\n    _Reminiscences_, ed. by Froude in 1881, but superseded by C.\n    E. Norton's edition of 1887. Norton has also edited two\n    volumes of _Letters_ (1888), and Carlyle's correspondence with\n    Emerson (1883) and with Goethe (1887). Other volumes of\n    correspondence are _New Letters_ (1904), _Carlyle Intime_\n    (1907), _Love Letters_ (1909), _Letters to Mill, Sterling, and\n    Browning_ (1923), all ed. by Alexander Carlyle. See also _Last\n    Words of Carlyle_, 1892.\n\n    The fullest _Life_ is that by D. A. Wilson. The first of six\n    volumes appeared in 1923, and by 1934 only one remained to be\n    published.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nSARTOR RESARTUS\n\n\nBOOK I\n\n  CHAP.                                                     PAGE\n     I. PRELIMINARY                                            1\n    II. EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES                                 5\n   III. REMINISCENCES                                          9\n    IV. CHARACTERISTICS                                       20\n     V. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES                                  25\n    VI. APRONS                                                31\n   VII. MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL                              34\n  VIII. THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES                              37\n    IX. ADAMITISM                                             43\n     X. PURE REASON                                           47\n    XI. PROSPECTIVE                                           52\n\nBOOK II\n\n     I. GENESIS                                               61\n    II. IDYLLIC                                               68\n   III. PEDAGOGY                                              76\n    IV. GETTING UNDER WAY                                     90\n     V. ROMANCE                                              101\n    VI. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROeCKH                             112\n   VII. THE EVERLASTING NO                                   121\n  VIII. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE                               128\n    IX. THE EVERLASTING YEA                                  138\n     X. PAUSE                                                149\n\nBOOK III\n\n     I. INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY                           156\n    II. CHURCH-CLOTHES                                       161\n   III. SYMBOLS                                              163\n    IV. HELOTAGE                                             170\n     V. THE PHOENIX                                          174\n    VI. OLD CLOTHES                                          179\n   VII. ORGANIC FILAMENTS                                    183\n  VIII. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM                              191\n    IX. CIRCUMSPECTIVE                                       201\n     X. THE DANDIACAL BODY                                   204\n    XI. TAILORS                                              216\n   XII. FAREWELL                                             219\n\nAPPENDIX--TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS                             225\n\nSUMMARY                                                      231\n\n\nON HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP, AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY\n\nLECTURE I\nTHE HERO AS DIVINITY. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian\nMythology                                                    239\n\nLECTURE II\nTHE HERO AS PROPHET. Mahomet: Islam                          277\n\nLECTURE III\nTHE HERO AS POET. Dante; Shakspeare                          311\n\nLECTURE IV\nTHE HERO AS PRIEST. Luther; Reformation: Knox; Puritanism    346\n\nLECTURE V\nTHE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns         383\n\nLECTURE VI\nTHE HERO AS KING. Cromwell, Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism   422\n\n\nINDEX                                                        469\n\n\n\n\nSARTOR RESARTUS\n\n\n\n\nBOOK FIRST\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nPRELIMINARY\n\n\nConsidering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch\nof Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less\neffect, 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 Rush-lights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled\nthereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest\ncranny or doghole 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\nor History, 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\nendure forever; Laplace, still more cunningly, even guesses that it\ncould not have been made on any other scheme. Whereby, at least, our\nnautical Logbooks can be better kept; and water-transport of all kinds\nhas grown more commodious. Of Geology and Geognosy we know enough:\nwhat with the labours of our Werners and Huttons, what with the ardent\ngenius of their disciples, it has come about that now, to many a Royal\nSociety, the Creation of a World is little more mysterious than the\ncooking of a dumpling; concerning which last, indeed, there have been\nminds to whom the question, _How the apples were got in_, presented\ndifficulties. Why mention our disquisitions on the Social Contract, on\nthe Standard of Taste, on the Migrations of the Herring? Then, have we\nnot a Doctrine of Rent, a Theory of Value; Philosophies of Language,\nof History, of Pottery, of Apparitions, of Intoxicating Liquors? Man's\nwhole life and environment have been laid open and elucidated;\nscarcely a fragment or fibre of his Soul, Body, and Possessions, but\nhas been probed, dissected, distilled, desiccated, and scientifically\ndecomposed: our spiritual Faculties, of which it appears there are not\na few, have their Stewarts, Cousins, Royer Collards: every cellular,\nvascular, muscular Tissue glories in its Lawrences, Majendies,\nBichats.\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\noverall; wherein his whole other Tissues are included and screened,\nhis whole Faculties work, his whole Self lives, moves, and has its\nbeing? For if, now and then, some straggling, broken-winged thinker\nhas cast an owl's-glance into this obscure region, the most have\nsoared over it altogether heedless; regarding Clothes as a property,\nnot an accident, as quite natural and spontaneous, like the leaves of\ntrees, like the plumage of birds. In all speculations they have\ntacitly figured man as a _Clothed Animal_; whereas he is by nature a\n_Naked Animal_; and only in certain circumstances, by purpose and\ndevice, masks himself in Clothes. Shakespeare says, we are creatures\nthat look before and after: the more surprising that we do not look\nround a little, and see what is passing under 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\npeaceful on his scientific watch-tower; and, to the raging, struggling\nmultitude here and elsewhere, solemnly, from hour to hour, with\npreparatory blast of cowhorn, emit his _Hoeret ihr Herren und lasset's\nEuch sagen_; in other words, tell the Universe, which so often forgets\nthat fact, what o'clock it really is. Not unfrequently the Germans\nhave been blamed for an unprofitable diligence; as if they struck into\ndevious courses, where nothing was to be had but the toil of a rough\njourney; as if, forsaking the gold-mines of finance and that political\nslaughter of fat oxen whereby a man himself grows fat, they were apt\nto run goose-hunting into regions of bilberries and crowberries, and\nbe swallowed up at last in remote peat-bogs. Of that unwise science,\nwhich, as our Humorist expresses 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 tumuli and gold ornaments; also many a scene that looks desert and\nrock-bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited, into\nrare 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\nadventurous, and perhaps much-censured wanderer light on some\nout-lying, neglected, yet vitally-momentous province; the hidden\ntreasures of which he first discovered, and kept proclaiming till the\ngeneral eye and effort were directed thither, and the conquest was\ncompleted;--thereby, in these his seemingly so aimless rambles,\nplanting new standards, founding new habitable colonies, in the\nimmeasurable circumambient realm of Nothingness and Night! Wise man\nwas he who counselled that Speculation should have free course, and\nlook fearlessly towards all the thirty-two points of the compass,\nwhithersoever and howsoever it listed.\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 endeavour, 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\nfish in all manner of waters, with all manner of nets, it seems\nprobable enough, this abstruse Inquiry might, in spite of the results\nit leads to, have continued dormant for indefinite periods. The Editor\nof these sheets, though otherwise boasting himself a man of confirmed\nspeculative habits, and perhaps discursive enough, is free to confess,\nthat never, till these last months, did the above very plain\nconsiderations, on our total want of a Philosophy of Clothes, occur to\nhim; and then, by quite foreign suggestion. By the arrival, namely, of\na new Book from Professor Teufelsdroeckh of Weissnichtwo; treating\nexpressly of this subject, and in a style which, whether understood or\nnot, could not even by the blindest be overlooked. In the present\nEditor's way of thought, this remarkable Treatise, with its Doctrines,\nwhether as judicially acceded to, or judicially denied, has not\nremained without effect.\n\n'_Die Kleider, ihr Werden und Wirken_ (Clothes, their Origin and\nInfluence): _von Diog. Teufelsdroeckh, J.U.D. etc._ _Stillschweigen und\nCo^{gnie}._ _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\nwith pride, is seen only in Germany, perhaps only in Weissnichtwo.\nIssuing from the hitherto irreproachable Firm of Stillschweigen and\nCompany, with every external furtherance, it is of such internal\nquality as to set Neglect at defiance.' * * * * 'A work,' concludes\nthe wellnigh enthusiastic Reviewer, 'interesting alike to the\nantiquary, the historian, and the philosophic thinker; a masterpiece\nof boldness, lynx-eyed acuteness, and rugged independent Germanism and\nPhilanthropy (_derber Kerndeutschheit und Menschenliebe_); which will\nnot, assuredly, pass current without opposition in high places; but\nmust and will exalt the almost new name of Teufelsdroeckh to the first\nranks of Philosophy, in our German Temple of Honour.'\n\nMindful of old friendship, the distinguished Professor, in this the\nfirst blaze of his fame, which however does not dazzle him, sends\nhither a Presentation-copy of his Book; with compliments and encomiums\nwhich modesty forbids the present Editor to rehearse; yet without\nindicated wish or hope of any kind, except what may be implied in the\nconcluding phrase: _Moechte es_ (this remarkable Treatise) _auch im\nBrittischen Boden gedeihen_!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nEDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES\n\n\nIf for a speculative man, 'whose seedfield,' in the sublime words of\nthe Poet, 'is Time,' no conquest is important but that of new ideas,\nthen might the arrival of Professor Teufelsdroeckh's Book be marked\nwith chalk in the Editor's calendar. It is indeed an 'extensive\nVolume,' of boundless, almost formless contents, a very Sea of\nThought; neither calm nor clear, if you will; yet wherein the toughest\npearl-diver may dive to his utmost depth, and return not only with\nsea-wreck but with true orients.\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 Teufelsdroeckh the Discloser. Of both which\nnovelties, as far as might be possible, we resolved to master the\nsignificance. But as man is emphatically a proselytising 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\nAuthor of such Philosophy, be brought home, in any measure, to the\nbusiness and bosoms of our own English Nation? For if new-got gold is\nsaid to burn the pockets till it be cast forth into circulation, much\nmore may new truth.\n\nHere, however, difficulties occurred. The first thought naturally was\nto publish Article after Article on this remarkable Volume, in such\nwidely-circulating Critical Journals as the Editor might stand\nconnected with, or by money or love procure access to. But, on the\nother hand, was it not clear that such matter as must here be revealed,\nand treated of, might endanger the circulation of any Journal extant?\nIf, indeed, all party-divisions in the State could have been abolished,\nWhig, Tory, and Radical, embracing in discrepant union; and all the\nJournals of the Nation could have been jumbled into one Journal, and\nthe Philosophy of Clothes poured forth in incessant torrents therefrom,\nthe attempt had seemed possible. But, alas, what vehicle of that sort\nhave we, except _Fraser's Magazine_? A vehicle all strewed\n(figuratively speaking) with the maddest Waterloo-Crackers, exploding\ndistractively and destructively, wheresoever the mystified passenger\nstands or sits; nay, in any case, understood to be, of late years, a\nvehicle full to overflowing, and inexorably shut! Besides, to state the\nPhilosophy of Clothes without the Philosopher, the ideas of\nTeufelsdroeckh without something of his personality, was it not to\ninsure both of entire misapprehension? Now for Biography, had it been\notherwise admissible, there were no adequate documents, no hope of\nobtaining such, but rather, owing to circumstances, a special despair.\nThus did the Editor see himself, for the while, shut out from all\npublic utterance of these extraordinary Doctrines, and constrained to\nrevolve them, not without disquietude, in the dark depths of his own\nmind.\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\nall that memory and conjecture could do, more and more enigmatic;\nwhereby the old disquietude seemed fast settling into fixed\ndiscontent,--when altogether unexpectedly arrives a Letter from Herr\nHofrath Heuschrecke, our Professor's chief friend and associate in\nWeissnichtwo, with whom we had not previously corresponded. The\nHofrath, after much quite extraneous matter, began dilating largely on\nthe 'agitation and attention' which the Philosophy of Clothes was\nexciting in its own German Republic of Letters; on the deep\nsignificance and tendency of his Friend's Volume; and then, at length,\nwith great circumlocution, hinted at the practicability of conveying\n'some knowledge of it, and of him, to England, and through England to\nthe distant West': a work on Professor Teufelsdroeckh 'were undoubtedly\nwelcome to the _Family_, the _National_, or any other of those\npatriotic _Libraries_, at present the glory of British Literature';\nmight work revolutions in Thought; and so forth;--in conclusion,\nintimating not obscurely, that should the present Editor feel disposed\nto undertake a Biography of Teufelsdroeckh, he, Hofrath Heuschrecke,\nhad it in his power to furnish the requisite Documents.\n\nAs in some chemical mixture, that has stood long evaporating, but\nwould not crystallise, instantly when the wire or other fixed\nsubstance is introduced, crystallisation commences, and rapidly\nproceeds till the whole is finished, so was it with the Editor's mind\nand this offer of Heuschrecke's. Form rose out of void solution and\ndiscontinuity; like united itself with like in definite arrangement:\nand soon either in actual vision and possession, or in fixed\nreasonable hope, the image of the whole Enterprise had shaped itself,\nso to speak, into a solid mass. Cautiously yet courageously, through\nthe twopenny post, application to the famed redoubtable OLIVER YORKE\nwas now made: an interview, interviews with that singular man have\ntaken place; with more of assurance on our side, with less of satire\n(at least of open satire) on his, than we anticipated;--for the rest,\nwith such issue as is now visible. As to those same 'patriotic\n_Libraries_,' the Hofrath's counsel could only be viewed with silent\namazement; but with his offer of Documents we joyfully and almost\ninstantaneously closed. Thus, too, in the sure expectation of these,\nwe already see our task begun; and this our _Sartor Resartus_, which\nis properly a 'Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdroeckh,' hourly\nadvancing.\n\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\nhe is 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. Who\nor what such Editor may be, must remain conjectural, and even\ninsignificant:[1] it is a voice publishing tidings of the Philosophy\nof Clothes; undoubtedly a Spirit addressing Spirits: whoso hath ears,\nlet him hear.\n\n    [1] 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:\nnamely, that he is animated with a true though perhaps a feeble\nattachment to the Institutions of our Ancestors; and minded to defend\nthese, according to ability, at all hazards; nay, it was partly with a\nview to such defence that he engaged in this undertaking. To stem, or\nif that be impossible, profitably to divert the current of Innovation,\nsuch a Volume as Teufelsdroeckh's, if cunningly planted down, were no\ndespicable pile, or floodgate, in the logical wear.\n\nFor the rest, be it nowise apprehended, that any personal connexion of\nours with Teufelsdroeckh, Heuschrecke, or this Philosophy of Clothes\ncan pervert our judgment, or sway us to extenuate or exaggerate.\nPowerless, we venture to promise, are those private Compliments\nthemselves. Grateful they may well be; as generous illusions of\nfriendship; as fair mementos of bygone unions, of those nights and\nsuppers of the gods, when, lapped in the symphonies and harmonies of\nPhilosophic Eloquence, though with baser accompaniments, the present\nEditor revelled in that feast of reason, never since vouchsafed him in\nso full measure! But what then? _Amicus Plato, magis amica veritas_;\nTeufelsdroeckh is our friend, Truth is our divinity. In our historical\nand critical capacity, we hope we are strangers to all the world; have\nfeud or favour with no one,--save indeed the Devil, with whom, as with\nthe Prince of Lies and Darkness, we do at all times wage internecine\nwar. This assurance, at an epoch when puffery and quackery have\nreached a height unexampled in the annals of mankind, and even English\nEditors, like Chinese Shopkeepers, must write on their door-lintels\n_No cheating here_,--we thought it good to premise.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nREMINISCENCES\n\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 Teufelsdroeckh, 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\nof whom, strangely enough, he included under a common ban; than to\ndescend, as he has here done, into the angry noisy Forum, with an\nArgument that cannot but exasperate and divide. Not, that we can\nremember, the Philosophy of Clothes once touched upon between us. If\nthrough the high, silent, meditative Transcendentalism of our Friend\nwe detected any practical tendency whatever, it was at most Political,\nand towards a certain prospective, and for the present quite\nspeculative, Radicalism; as indeed some correspondence, on his part,\nwith Herr Oken of Jena was now and then suspected; though his special\ncontribution to the _Isis_ could never be more than surmised at. But,\nat all events, nothing Moral, still less anything Didactico-Religious,\nwas 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_,[2] and for a moment\nlowering his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full Coffee-house (it was\n_Zur Gruenen Gans_, the largest in Weissnichtwo, where all the\nVirtuosity, and nearly all the Intellect of the place assembled of an\nevening); and there, with low, soul-stirring tone, and the look truly\nof an angel, though whether of a white or of a black one might be\ndubious, proposed this toast: _Die Sache der Armen in Gottes und\nTeufels Namen_ (The Cause of the Poor, in Heaven's name and ----'s)!\nOne full shout, breaking the leaden silence; then a gurgle of\ninnumerable emptying bumpers, again followed by universal cheering,\nreturned him loud acclaim. It was the finale of the night: resuming\ntheir pipes; in the highest enthusiasm, amid volumes of tobacco-smoke;\ntriumphant, cloud-capt without and within, the assembly broke up, each\nto his thoughtful pillow. _Bleibt doch ein echter Spass- und\nGalgen-vogel_, said several; meaning thereby that, one day, he would\nprobably be hanged for his democratic sentiments. _Wo steckt doch der\nSchalk?_ added they, looking round: but Teufelsdroeckh had retired by\nprivate alleys, and the Compiler of these pages beheld him no more.\n\n    [2] Gukguk is unhappily only an academical-beer.\n\nIn such scenes has it been our lot to live with this Philosopher, such\nestimate to form of his purposes and powers. And yet, thou brave\nTeufelsdroeckh, who could tell what lurked in thee? Under those thick\nlocks of thine, so long and lank, overlapping roof-wise the gravest\nface we ever in this world saw, there dwelt a most busy brain. In thy\neyes too, deep under their shaggy brows, and looking out so still and\ndreamy, have we not noticed gleams of an ethereal or else a diabolic\nfire, and half-fancied that their stillness was but the rest of\ninfinite motion, the _sleep_ of a spinning-top? Thy little figure,\nthere as, in loose, ill-brushed threadbare habiliments, thou sattest,\namid litter and lumber, whole days, to 'think and smoke tobacco,' held\nin it a mighty heart. The secrets of man's Life were laid open to\nthee; thou sawest into the mystery of the Universe, farther than\nanother; thou hadst _in petto_ thy remarkable Volume on Clothes. Nay,\nwas there not in that clear logically-founded Transcendentalism of\nthine; still more, in thy meek, silent, deep-seated Sansculottism,\ncombined with a true princely Courtesy of inward nature, the visible\nrudiments of such speculation? But great men are too often unknown, or\nwhat is worse, misknown. Already, when we dreamed not of it, the warp\nof thy remarkable Volume lay on the loom; and silently, mysterious\nshuttles were putting in the woof!\n\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 Teufelsdroeckh was to be\ngathered; not so much as a false one. He was a stranger there, wafted\nthither by what is called the course of circumstances; concerning\nwhose parentage, birthplace, prospects, or pursuits, curiosity had\nindeed made inquiries, but satisfied herself with the most indistinct\nreplies. For himself, he was a man so still and altogether\nunparticipating, that to question him even afar off on such\nparticulars was a thing of more than usual delicacy: besides, in his\nsly way, he had ever some quaint turn, not without its satirical edge,\nwherewith to divert such intrusions, and deter you from the like. Wits\nspoke of him secretly as if he were a kind of Melchizedek, without\nfather or mother of any kind; sometimes, with reference to his great\nhistoric and statistic knowledge, and the vivid way he had of\nexpressing himself like an eye-witness of distant transactions and\nscenes, they called him the _Ewige Jude_, Everlasting, or as we say,\nWandering 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\ntheir daily _Allgemeine Zeitung_, or the domestic habits of the Sun.\nBoth were there and welcome; the world enjoyed what good was in them,\nand thought no more of the matter. The man Teufelsdroeckh passed and\nrepassed, in his little circle, as one of those originals and\nnondescripts, more frequent in German Universities than elsewhere; of\nwhom, though you see them alive, and feel certain enough that they\nmust have a History, no History seems to be discoverable; or only such\nas men give of mountain rocks and antediluvian ruins: That they may\nhave been created by unknown agencies, are in a state of gradual\ndecay, and for the present reflect light and resist pressure; that is,\nare visible and tangible objects in this phantasm world, where so much\nother mystery is.\n\nIt was to be remarked that though, by title and diploma, _Professor\nder Allerley-Wissenschaft_, or as we should say in English, 'Professor\nof Things in General,' he had never delivered any Course; perhaps\nnever been incited thereto by any public furtherance or requisition.\nTo all appearance, the enlightened Government of Weissnichtwo, in\nfounding their New University, imagined they had done enough, if 'in\ntimes like ours,' as the half-official Program expressed it, 'when all\nthings are, rapidly or slowly, resolving themselves into Chaos, a\nProfessorship of this kind had been established; whereby, as occasion\ncalled, the task of bodying somewhat forth again from such Chaos might\nbe, even slightly, facilitated.' That actual Lectures should be held,\nand Public Classes for the 'Science of Things in General,' they\ndoubtless considered premature; on which ground too they had only\nestablished the Professorship, nowise endowed it; so that\nTeufelsdroeckh, 'recommended by the highest Names,' had been promoted\nthereby 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\nWant of the Age (_Zeitbeduerfniss_); 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\nbe, in the vanguard of the world. Considerable also was the wonder at\nthe new Professor, dropt opportunely enough into the nascent\nUniversity; so able to lecture, should occasion call; so ready to hold\nhis peace for indefinite periods, should an enlightened Government\nconsider that occasion did not call. But such admiration and such\nwonder, being followed by no act to keep them living, could last only\nnine days; and, long before our visit to that scene, had quite died\naway. The more cunning heads thought it was all an expiring clutch at\npopularity, on the part of a Minister, whom domestic embarrassments,\ncourt intrigues, old age, and dropsy soon afterwards finally drove\nfrom the helm.\n\nAs for Teufelsdroeckh, except by his nightly appearances at the _Gruene\nGans_, Weissnichtwo saw little of him, felt little of him. Here, over\nhis 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;\non which occasions the whole Coffee-house would hush itself into\nsilence, as if sure to hear something noteworthy. Nay, perhaps to hear\na whole series and river of the most memorable utterances; such as,\nwhen once thawed, he would for hours indulge in, with fit audience:\nand the more memorable, as issuing from a head apparently not more\ninterested in them, not more conscious of them, than is the sculptured\nstone head of some public fountain, which through its brass mouth-tube\nemits water to the worthy and the unworthy; careless whether it be for\ncooking victuals or quenching conflagrations; indeed, maintains the\nsame earnest assiduous look, whether any water be flowing or not.\n\nTo the Editor of these sheets, as to a young enthusiastic Englishman,\nhowever unworthy, Teufelsdroeckh opened himself perhaps more than to\nthe most. Pity only that we could not then half guess his importance,\nand scrutinise him with due power of vision! We enjoyed, what not\nthree men in Weissnichtwo could boast of, a certain degree of access\nto the Professor's private domicile. It was the attic floor of the\nhighest house 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\nto say, _Airts_: the sitting-room itself commanded three; another came\nto view in the _Schlafgemach_ (bedroom) at the opposite end; to say\nnothing of the kitchen, which offered two, as it were, _duplicates_,\nand showing nothing new. So that it was in fact the speculum or\nwatch-tower of Teufelsdroeckh; wherefrom, sitting at ease, he might see\nthe whole life-circulation of that considerable City; the streets and\nlanes of which, with all their doing and driving (_Thun und Treiben_),\nwere for the most part visible there.\n\n\"I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive,\" have we heard him\nsay, \"and witness their wax-laying and honey-making, and\npoison-brewing, and choking by sulphur. From the Palace esplanade,\nwhere music plays while Serene Highness is pleased to eat his\nvictuals, down to the low lane, where in her door-sill the aged widow,\nknitting for a thin livelihood, sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see\nit all; for, except the Schlosskirche weathercock, no biped stands so\nhigh. Couriers arrive bestrapped and bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow\nbagged-up in pouches of leather: there, top-laden, and with four swift\nhorses, rolls-in the country Baron and his household; here, on\ntimber-leg, the lamed Soldier hops painfully along, begging alms: a\nthousand carriages, and wains, and cars, come tumbling-in with Food,\nwith young Rusticity, and other Raw Produce, inanimate or animate, and\ngo tumbling out again with Produce manufactured. That living flood,\npouring through these streets, of all qualities and ages, knowest thou\nwhence it is coming, whither it is going? _Aus der Ewigkeit, zu der\nEwigkeit hin_: From Eternity, onwards to Eternity! These are\nApparitions: what else? Are they not Souls rendered visible: in\nBodies, that took shape and will lose it, melting into air? Their\nsolid Pavement is a picture of the Sense; they walk on the bosom of\nNothing, blank Time is behind them and before them. Or fanciest thou,\nthe red and yellow Clothes-screen yonder, with spurs on its heels and\nfeather in its crown, is but of Today, without a Yesterday or a\nTomorrow; and had not rather its Ancestor alive when Hengst and Horsa\noverran thy Island? Friend, thou seest here a living link in that\nTissue of History, which inweaves all Being: watch well, or it will be\npast 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\nto dwell here. These fringes of lamplight, struggling up through smoke\nand thousandfold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of\nNight, what thinks Booetes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over\nthe Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of\nMidnight, when Traffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels\nof Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are\nbearing her to Halls roofed-in, and lighted to the due pitch for her;\nand only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to moan like nightbirds, are\nabroad: that hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick\nLife, is heard in Heaven! Oh, under that hideous covelet of vapours,\nand putrefactions, and unimaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies\nsimmering and hid! The joyful and the sorrowful are there; men are\ndying there, men are being born; men are praying,--on the other side\nof a brick partition, men are cursing; and around them all is the\nvast, void Night. The proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed\nsaloons, or reposes within damask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into\ntruckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken into its lair of straw: in\nobscure cellars, _Rouge-et-Noir_ languidly emits its voice-of-destiny\nto haggard hungry Villains; while Councillors of State sit plotting,\nand playing their high chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The\nLover whispers his mistress that the coach is ready; and she, full of\nhope and fear, glides down, to fly with him over the borders: the\nThief, still more silently, sets-to his picklocks and crowbars, or\nlurks in wait till the watchmen first snore in their boxes. Gay\nmansions, with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, are full of light and\nmusic and high-swelling hearts; but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse\nof life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes look-out through\nthe darkness, which is around and within, for the light of a stern\nlast morning. Six men are to be hanged on the morrow: comes no\nhammering from the _Rabenstein_?--their gallows must even now be o'\nbuilding. Upwards of five-hundred-thousand two-legged animals without\nfeathers lie round us, in horizontal positions; their heads all in\nnightcaps, and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and\nstaggers and swaggers in his rank dens of shame; and the Mother, with\nstreaming hair, kneels over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked\nlips only her tears now moisten.--All these heaped and huddled\ntogether, with nothing but a little carpentry and masonry between\nthem;--crammed in, like salted fish in their barrel;--or weltering,\nshall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each struggling\nto get its _head above_ the others: _such_ work goes on under that\nsmoke-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\nwith the light we had, which indeed was only a single tallow-light,\nand far enough from the window, nothing save that old calmness and\nfixedness was visible.\n\nThese were the Professor's talking seasons: most commonly he spoke in\nmere 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\nhimself away. It was a strange apartment; full of books and tattered\npapers, and miscellaneous shreds of all conceivable substances,\n'united in a common element of dust.' Books lay on tables, and below\ntables; here fluttered a sheet of manuscript, there a torn\nhandkerchief, or nightcap hastily thrown aside; ink-bottles alternated\nwith bread-crusts, coffee-pots, tobacco-boxes, Periodical Literature,\nand Bluecher Boots. Old Lieschen (Lisekin, 'Liza), who was his\nbed-maker and stove-lighter, his washer and wringer, cook,\nerrand-maid, and general lion's-provider, and for the rest a very\norderly creature, had no sovereign authority in this last citadel of\nTeufelsdroeckh; only some once in the month she half-forcibly made her\nmay thither, with broom and duster, and (Teufelsdroeckh hastily saving\nhis manuscripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery of such\nlumber as was not literary. These were her _Erdbeben_ (earthquakes),\nwhich Teufelsdroeckh dreaded worse than the pestilence; nevertheless,\nto such length he had been forced to comply. Glad would he have been\nto sit here philosophising 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.\nWe can still remember the ancient woman; so silent that some thought\nher dumb; deaf also you would often have supposed her; for\nTeufelsdroeckh, and Teufelsdroeckh only, would she serve or give heed\nto; and with him she seemed to communicate chiefly by signs; if it\nwere not rather by some secret divination that she guessed all his\nwants, and supplied them. Assiduous old dame! she scoured, and sorted,\nand swept, in her kitchen, with the least possible violence to the\near; yet all was tight and right there: hot and black came the coffee\never at the due moment; and the speechless Lieschen herself looked out\non you, from under her clean white coif with its lappets, through her\nclean withered face and wrinkles, with a look of helpful intelligence,\nalmost of benevolence.\n\nFew strangers, as above hinted, had admittance hither: the only one we\never saw there, ourselves excepted, was the Hofrath Heuschrecke,\nalready known, by name and expectation, to the readers of these pages.\nTo us, at that period, Herr Heuschrecke seemed one of those\npurse-mouthed, crane-necked, clean-brushed, pacific individuals,\nperhaps sufficiently distinguished in society by this fact, that, in\ndry weather or in wet, 'they never appear without their umbrella.' Had\nwe not known with what 'little wisdom' the world is governed; and how,\nin Germany as elsewhere, the ninety-and-nine Public Men can for most\npart be but mute train-bearers to the hundredth, perhaps but\nstalking-horses and willing or unwilling dupes,--it might have seemed\nwonderful how Herr Heuschrecke should be named a Rath, or Councillor,\nand Counsellor, even in Weissnichtwo. What counsel to any man, or to\nany woman, could this particular Hofrath give; in whose loose, zigzag\nfigure; in whose thin visage, as it went jerking to and fro, in minute\nincessant fluctuation,--you traced rather confusion worse confounded;\nat most, Timidity and physical Cold? Some indeed said withal, he was\n'the very Spirit of Love embodied': blue earnest eyes, full of sadness\nand kindness; purse ever open, and so forth; the whole of which, we\nshall now hope, for many reasons, was not quite groundless.\nNevertheless friend Teufelsdroeckh's outline, who indeed handled the\nburin like few in these cases, was probably the best: _Er hat Gemueth\nund Geist, hat wenigstens gehabt, doch ohne Organ, ohne\nSchicksals-Gunst; ist gegenwaertig aber halb-zerruettet, halb-erstarrt_,\n\"He has heart and talent, at least has had such, yet without fit mode\nof utterance, or favour of Fortune; and so is now half-cracked,\nhalf-congealed.\"--What the Hofrath shall think of this when he sees\nit, readers may wonder: we, safe in the stronghold of Historical\nFidelity, are careless.\n\nThe main point, doubtless, for us all, is his love of Teufelsdroeckh,\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\nthe fondness of a Boswell for his Johnson. And perhaps with the like\nreturn; for Teufelsdroeckh treated his gaunt admirer with little\noutward regard, as some half-rational or altogether irrational friend,\nand at best loved him out of gratitude and by habit. On the other\nhand, it was curious to observe with what reverent kindness, and a\nsort of fatherly protection, our Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and\nas he fondly imagined far more practically influential of the two,\nlooked and tended on his little Sage, whom he seemed to consider as a\nliving oracle. Let but Teufelsdroeckh open his mouth, Heuschrecke's\nalso unpuckered itself into a free doorway, besides his being all eye\nand all ear, so that nothing might be lost: and then, at every pause\nin the harangue, he gurgled-out his pursy chuckle of a cough-laugh\n(for the machinery of laughter took some time to get in motion, and\nseemed crank and slack), or else his twanging nasal, _Bravo! Das\nglaub' ich_; in either case, by way of heartiest approval. In short,\nif Teufelsdroeckh was Dalai-Lama, of which, except perhaps in his\nself-seclusion, and god-like indifference, there was no symptom, then\nmight Heuschrecke pass for his chief Talapoin, to whom no dough-pill\nhe could knead and publish was other than medicinal and sacred.\n\nIn such environment, social, domestic, physical, did Teufelsdroeckh, 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\noften, in 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 colour 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 suchlike\nto rest very much on their own basis, turns more and more to the\nPhilosophic Class: nevertheless, what reader expects that, with all\nour writing and reporting, Teufelsdroeckh could be brought home to him,\ntill once the Documents arrive? His Life, Fortunes, and Bodily\nPresence, are as yet hidden from us, or matter only of faint\nconjecture. But, on the other hand, does not his Soul lie enclosed in\nthis remarkable Volume, much more truly than Pedro Garcia's did in the\nburied Bag of Doubloons? To the soul of Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh, to his\nopinions, namely, on the 'Origin and Influence of Clothes,' we for the\npresent gladly return.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCHARACTERISTICS\n\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\na new mine-shaft, wherein the whole world of Speculation might\nhenceforth dig to unknown depths. More especially it may now be\ndeclared that Professor Teufelsdroeckh's acquirements, patience of\nresearch, philosophic and even poetic vigour, are here made\nindisputably manifest; and unhappily no less his prolixity and\ntortuosity and manifold ineptitude; that, on the whole, as in opening\nnew mine-shafts is not unreasonable, there is much rubbish in his\nBook, though likewise specimens of almost invaluable ore. A paramount\npopularity in England we cannot promise him. Apart from the choice of\nsuch a topic as Clothes, too often the manner of treating it betokens\nin the Author a rusticity and academic seclusion, unblamable, indeed\ninevitable in a German, but fatal to his success with our public.\n\nOf good society Teufelsdroeckh appears to have seen little, or has\nmostly forgotten what he saw. He speaks-out with a strange plainness;\ncalls many things by their mere dictionary names. To him the\nUpholsterer is no Pontiff, neither is any Drawing-room a Temple, were\nit never so begilt and overhung: 'a whole immensity of Brussels\ncarpets, and pier-glasses, and or-molu,' as he himself expresses it,\n'cannot hide from me that such Drawing-room is simply a section of\nInfinite Space, where so many God-created Souls do for the time meet\ntogether.' To Teufelsdroeckh the highest Duchess is respectable, is\nvenerable; but nowise for her pearl bracelets and Malines laces: in\nhis eyes, the star of a Lord is little less and little more than the\nbroad button of Birmingham spelter in a Clown's smock; 'each is an\nimplement,' he says, 'in its kind; a tag for _hooking-together_; and,\nfor the rest, was dug from the earth, and hammered on a smithy before\nsmith's fingers.' Thus does the Professor look in men's faces with a\nstrange impartiality, a strange scientific freedom; like a man\nunversed in the higher circles, like a man dropped thither from the\nMoon. Rightly considered, it is in this peculiarity, running through\nhis whole system of thought, that all these short-comings,\nover-shootings, and multiform perversities, take rise: if indeed they\nhave not a second source, also natural enough, in his Transcendental\nPhilosophies, and humour of looking at all Matter and Material things\nas Spirit; whereby truly his case were but the more hopeless, the more\nlamentable.\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\ntrue, as Teufelsdroeckh maintains, that 'within the most starched\ncravat there passes a windpipe and weasand, and under the thickliest\nembroidered waistcoat beats a heart,'--the force of that rapt\nearnestness may be felt, and here and there an arrow of the soul\npierce through? In our wild Seer, shaggy, unkempt, like a Baptist\nliving on locusts and wild honey, there is an untutored energy, a\nsilent, as it were unconscious, strength, which, except in the higher\nwalks of Literature, must be rare. Many a deep glance, and often with\nunspeakable precision, has he cast into mysterious Nature, and the\nstill more mysterious Life of Man. Wonderful it is with what cutting\nwords, now and then, he severs asunder the confusion; shears down,\nwere it furlongs deep, into the true centre of the matter; and there\nnot only hits the nail on the head, but with crushing force smites it\nhome, and buries it.--On the other hand, let us be free to admit, he\nis the most unequal writer breathing. Often after some such feat, he\nwill play truant for long pages, and go dawdling and dreaming, and\nmumbling and maundering the merest commonplaces, as if he were asleep\nwith 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\nOriental _Shasters_, and _Talmuds_, and _Korans_, with Cassini's\n_Siamese Tables_, and Laplace's _Mecanique Celeste_, down to _Robinson\nCrusoe_ and the _Belfast Town and Country Almanack_, are familiar to\nhim,--we shall say nothing: for unexampled as it is with us, to the\nGermans such universality of study passes without wonder, as a thing\ncommendable, indeed, but natural, indispensable, and there of course.\nA man that devotes 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\nof intercourse with the higher classes. Occasionally, as above hinted,\nwe find consummate vigour, a true inspiration; his burning thoughts\nstep forth in fit burning words, like so many full-formed Minervas,\nissuing amid flame and splendour from Jove's head; a rich, idiomatic\ndiction, picturesque allusions, fiery poetic emphasis, or quaint\ntricksy turns; all the graces and terrors of a wild Imagination,\nwedded to the clearest Intellect, alternate in beautiful vicissitude.\nWere it not that sheer sleeping and soporific passages;\ncircumlocutions, repetitions, touches even of pure doting jargon, so\noften intervene! On the whole, Professor Teufelsdroeckh is not a\ncultivated writer. Of his sentences perhaps not more than nine-tenths\nstand straight on their legs; the remainder are in quite angular\nattitudes, buttressed-up by props (of parentheses and dashes), and\never with this or the other tagrag hanging from them; a few even\nsprawl-out helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and\ndismembered. Nevertheless, in almost his very worst moods, there lies\nin him a singular attraction. A wild tone pervades the whole utterance\nof the man, like its keynote and regulator; now screwing itself aloft\nas into the Song of Spirits, or else the shrill mockery of Fiends; now\nsinking in cadences, not without melodious heartiness, though\nsometimes abrupt enough, into the common pitch, when we hear it only\nas a monotonous hum; of which hum the true character is extremely\ndifficult to fix. Up to this hour we have never fully satisfied\nourselves whether it is a tone and hum of real Humour, which we reckon\namong the very highest qualities of genius, or some echo of mere\nInsanity and Inanity, which 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\nan ethereal 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 humour, 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\ngreat terrestrial and celestial Round, after all, were but some huge\nfoolish Whirligig, where kings and beggars, and angels and demons, and\nstars and street-sweepings, were chaotically whirled, in which only\nchildren could take interest. His look, as we mentioned, is probably\nthe gravest ever seen: yet it is not of that cast-iron gravity\nfrequent enough among our own Chancery suitors; but rather the gravity\nas of some silent, high-encircled mountain-pool, perhaps the crater of\nan extinct volcano; into whose black deeps you fear to gaze: those\neyes, those lights that sparkle in it, may indeed be reflexes of the\nheavenly Stars, but perhaps also glances from the region of Nether\nFire!\n\nCertainly a most involved, self-secluded, altogether enigmatic nature,\nthis of Teufelsdroeckh! Here, however, we gladly recall to mind that\nonce we saw him _laugh_; once only, perhaps it was the first and last\ntime in his life; but then such a peal of laughter, enough to have\nawakened the Seven Sleepers! It was of Jean Paul's doing: some single\nbillow in that vast World-Mahlstrom of Humour, with its heaven-kissing\ncoruscations, which is now, alas, all congealed in the frost of death!\nThe large-bodied Poet and the small, both large enough in soul, sat\ntalking miscellaneously together, the present Editor being privileged\nto listen; and now Paul, in his serious way, was giving one of those\ninimitable 'Extra-harangues'; and, as it chanced, On the Proposal for\na _Cast-metal King_: gradually a light kindled in our Professor's eyes\nand face, a beaming, mantling, loveliest light; through those murky\nfeatures, a radiant, ever-young Apollo looked; and he burst forth like\nthe neighing of all Tattersall's,--tears streaming down his cheeks,\npipe held aloft, foot clutched into the air,--loud, long-continuing,\nuncontrollable; a laugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the\nwhole man from head to heel. The present Editor, who laughed indeed,\nyet with measure, began to fear all was not right: however,\nTeufelsdroeckh composed himself, and sank into his old stillness; on\nhis inscrutable countenance there was, if anything, a slight look of\nshame; and Richter himself could not rouse him again. Readers who have\nany tincture of Psychology know how much is to be inferred from this;\nand that no man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be\naltogether irreclaimably bad. How much lies in Laughter: the\ncipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man! Some men wear an\neverlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies a cold glitter\nas of ice: the fewest are able to laugh, what can be called laughing,\nbut only sniff and titter and snigger from the throat outwards; or at\nbest, produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, as if they were\nlaughing through wool: of none such comes good. The man who cannot\nlaugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; but his\nwhole life is already a treason and a stratagem.\n\nConsidered as an Author, Herr Teufelsdroeckh has one scarcely\npardonable fault, doubtless his worst: an almost total want of\narrangement. In this remarkable Volume, it is true, his adherence to\nthe mere course of Time produces, through the Narrative portions, a\ncertain show of outward method; but of true logical method and\nsequence there is too little. Apart from its multifarious sections and\nsubdivisions, the Work naturally falls into two Parts; a\nHistorical-Descriptive, and a Philosophical-Speculative: but falls,\nunhappily, by no firm line of demarcation; in that labyrinthic\ncombination, each Part overlaps, and indents, and indeed runs quite\nthrough the other. Many sections are of a debatable rubric or even\nquite nondescript and unnameable; whereby the Book not only loses in\naccessibility, but too often distresses us like some mad banquet,\nwherein all courses had been confounded, and fish and flesh, soup and\nsolid, oyster-sauce, lettuces, Rhine-wine and French mustard, were\nhurled into one huge tureen or trough, and the hungry Public invited\nto help itself. To bring what order we can out of this Chaos shall be\npart of our endeavour.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE WORLD IN CLOTHES\n\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 Lois_,\nproperly 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 endeavours,\nan Architectural Idea will be found lurking; his Body and the Cloth\nare the site and materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice,\nof a 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 Colour! From the soberest\ndrab to the high-flaming scarlet, spiritual idiosyncrasies unfold\nthemselves in choice of Colour: if the Cut betoken Intellect and\nTalent, so does the Colour betoken Temper and Heart. In all which,\namong nations as among individuals, there is an incessant,\nindubitable, though infinitely complex working of Cause and Effect:\nevery snip of the Scissors has been regulated and prescribed by\never-active Influences, which doubtless to Intelligences of a superior\norder are neither invisible 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,\nsuch Philosophies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough. Nay,\nwhat is your Montesquieu himself but a clever infant spelling Letters\nfrom a hieroglyphical prophetic Book, the lexicon of which lies in\nEternity, in Heaven?--Let any Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain,\nnot why I wear such and such a Garment, obey such and such a Law; but\neven why _I_ am _here_, to wear and obey anything!--Much, therefore,\nif not the whole, of that same _Spirit of Clothes_ I shall suppress,\nas hypothetical, ineffectual, and even impertinent: naked Facts, and\nDeductions drawn therefrom in quite another than that omniscient\nstyle, are my humbler and proper province.'\n\nActing on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdroeckh 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\ntime, in its results and delineations, it is much more likely to\ninterest the Compilers of some _Library_ of General, Entertaining,\nUseful, or even Useless Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of\nthese pages. Was it this Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had in\nview, when he recommended us to that joint-stock vehicle of\npublication, 'at present the glory of British Literature'? If so, the\nLibrary Editors are welcome to dig in it for their own behoof.\n\nTo the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig-leaves, and\nleads us into interminable disquisitions of a mythological,\nmetaphorical, cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we\nshall content ourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still\nless have we to do with 'Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, according to\nthe Talmudists, he had before Eve, and who bore him, in that wedlock,\nthe whole progeny of aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial Devils,'--very\nneedlessly, we think. On this portion of the Work, with its profound\nglances into the _Adam-Kadmon_, or Primeval Element, here strangely\nbrought into relation with the _Nifl_ and _Muspel_ (Darkness and\nLight) of the antique North, it may be enough to say, that its\ncorrectness of deduction, and depth of Talmudic and Rabbinical lore\nhave filled perhaps not the worst Hebraist in Britain with something\nlike astonishment.\n\nBut, quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdroeckh hastens from the\nTower of Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the whole\nhabitable and habilable globe. Walking by the light of Oriental,\nPelasgic, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient and Modern\nresearches of every conceivable kind, he strives to give us in\ncompressed shape (as the Nuernbergers give an _Orbis Pictus_) an _Orbis\nVestitus_; or view of the costumes of all mankind, in all countries,\nin all times. It is here that to the Antiquarian, to the Historian, we\ncan triumphantly say: Fall to! Here is learning: an irregular\nTreasury, if you will; but inexhaustible as the Hoard of King\nNibelung, which twelve wagons in twelve days, at the rate of three\njourneys a day, could not carry off. Sheepskin cloaks and wampum\nbelts; phylacteries, stoles, albs; chlamydes, togas, Chinese silks,\nAfghaun shawls, trunk-hose, leather breeches, Celtic philibegs (though\nbreeches, as the name _Gallia Braccata_ indicates, are the more\nancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets, ruffs, fardingales, are\nbrought vividly before us,--even the Kilmarnock nightcap is not\nforgotten. For most part, too, we must admit that the Learning,\nheterogeneous as it is, and tumbled-down quite pell-mell, is true\nconcentrated and purified Learning, the drossy parts smelted out and\nthrown 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\nhim like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick\nnatural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on\nwild-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\ndeadly unerring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge\nonce satisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration (_Putz_).\nWarmth he found in the toils of the chase; or amid dried leaves, in\nhis hollow tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto: but for\nDecoration he must have Clothes. Nay, among wild people we find\ntattooing and painting even prior to Clothes. The first spiritual want\nof a barbarous man is Decoration, as indeed we still see among the\nbarbarous classes in civilised countries.\n\n'Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer; loftiest Serene\nHighness; nay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rose-bloom Maiden, worthy\nto glide sylphlike almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest as a\ndivine Presence, which, indeed, symbolically taken, she is,--has\ndescended, like thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint-hurling\nAboriginal Anthropophagus! Out of the eater cometh forth meat; out of\nthe strong cometh forth sweetness. What changes are wrought, not by\ntime, yet in Time! For not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or\nbeholds, is in continual growth, regenesis and self-perfecting\nvitality. Cast forth thy Act, thy Word, into the ever-living,\never-working Universe: it is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed\nto-day (says one), it will be found flourishing as a Banyan-grove\n(perhaps, alas, as a Hemlock-forest!) after a thousand years.\n\n'He who first shortened the labour 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\ncountry till he got it bartered for corn or oil,--to take a piece of\nLeather, and thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure of an Ox (or\n_Pecus_); put it in his pocket, and call it _Pecunia_, Money. Yet\nhereby did Barter grow Sale, the Leather Money is now Golden and\nPaper, and all miracles have been out-miracled: for there are\nRothschilds and English National Debts; and whoso has sixpence is\nsovereign (to the length of sixpence) over all men; commands cooks to\nfeed him, philosophers to teach him, kings to mount guard over\nhim,--to the length of sixpence.--Clothes too, which began in\nfoolishest love of Ornament, what have they not become! Increased\nSecurity and pleasurable Heat soon followed: but what of these? Shame,\ndivine 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\nus; they 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,\nof some half-square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his\nlegs, lest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three\nquintals are a crushing load for him; the steer of the meadow tosses\nhim aloft, like a waste rag. Nevertheless he can use Tools, can devise\nTools: with these the granite mountain melts into light dust before\nhim; he kneads glowing iron, as if it were soft paste; seas are his\nsmooth highway, winds and fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you\nfind him without Tools; without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is\nall.'\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,\nof all that Animal-sort, considerably the precisest and best? Man is\ncalled a Laughing Animal: but do not the apes also laugh, or attempt\nto do it; and is the manliest man the greatest and oftenest laugher?\nTeufelsdroeckh himself, as we said, laughed only once. Still less do we\nmake of that other French Definition of the Cooking Animal; which,\nindeed, for rigorous scientific purposes, is as good as useless. Can a\nTartar be said to cook, when he only readies his steak by riding on\nit? Again, what Cookery does the Greenlander use, beyond stowing-up\nhis whale-blubber, as a marmot, in the like case, might do? Or how\nwould Monsieur Ude prosper among those Orinocco Indians, who,\naccording to Humboldt, lodge in crow-nests, on the branches of trees;\nand, for half the year, have no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole\ncountry being under water? But, on the other hand, show us the human\nbeing, of any period or climate, without his Tools: those very\nCaledonians, as we saw, had their Flint-ball, and Thong to it, such as\nno brute has or can have.\n\n'Man is a Tool-using Animal,' concludes Teufelsdroeckh 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\nman, and those Liverpool Steam-carriages, or the British House of\nCommons, we shall note what progress he has made. He digs up certain\nblack stones from the bosom of the earth, and says to them, _Transport\nme and this luggage at the rate of five-and-thirty miles an hour_; and\nthey do it: he collects, apparently by lot, six-hundred and\nfifty-eight miscellaneous individuals, and says to them, _Make this\nnation toil for us, bleed for us, hunger and sorrow and sin for us_;\nand they do it.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nAPRONS\n\n\nOne of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Volume is that on\n_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\nshe would catch her husband's head in her Apron, rather than he should\nlie and be a bishop'; what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, with many\nother Apron worthies,--figure here? An idle wire-drawing spirit,\nsometimes even a tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire,\nis too clearly discernible. What, for example, are we to make of such\nsentences as 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 Nuernberg Workboxes and Toyboxes,\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-coloured,\niron-fastened Apron, wherein Society works (uneasily enough); guarding\nitself from some soil and stithy-sparks, in this Devil's-smithy\n(_Teufelsschmiede_) of a world? But of all Aprons the most puzzling to\nme hitherto has been the Episcopal or Cassock. Wherein consists the\nusefulness of this Apron? The Overseer (_Episcopus_) of Souls, I\nnotice, has tucked-in the corner of it, as if his day's work were\ndone: what does he shadow forth thereby?' &c. &c.\n\nOr again, has it often been the lot of our readers to read such stuff\nas we 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\nit without 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 our\nLiterature, exuberant as it is.--Teufelsdroeckh 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\nthe Laystall; and annually, after being macerated, hot-pressed,\nprinted-on, and sold,--returned thither; filling so many hungry mouths\nby the way? Thus is the Laystall, especially with its Rags or\nClothes-rubbish, the grand Electric Battery, and Fountain-of-motion,\nfrom which and to which the Social Activities (like vitreous and\nresinous Electricities) circulate, in larger or smaller circles,\nthrough the mighty, billowy, storm-tost Chaos of Life, which they keep\nalive!'--Such passages fill us, who love the man, and partly esteem\nhim, with a very mixed feeling.\n\nFarther down we meet with this: 'The Journalists are now the true\nKings and Clergy: henceforth Historians, unless they are fools, must\nwrite not of Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs; but of\nStamped Broad-sheet Dynasties, and quite new successive Names,\naccording as this or the other Able Editor, or Combination of Able\nEditors, gains the world's ear. Of the British Newspaper Press,\nperhaps the most important of all, and wonderful enough in its secret\nconstitution and procedure, a valuable descriptive History already\nexists, in that language, under the title of _Satan's Invisible World\nDisplayed_; which, however, by search in all the Weissnichtwo\nLibraries, I have not yet succeeded in procuring (_vermoechte nicht\naufzutreiben_).'\n\nThus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus does\nTeufelsdroeckh, 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\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nMISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL\n\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\nhere that the Antiquary and Student of Modes comes upon his richest\nharvest. Fantastic garbs, beggaring all fancy of a Teniers or a\nCallot, succeed each other, like monster devouring monster in a Dream.\nThe whole too in brief authentic strokes, and touched not seldom with\nthat breath of genius which makes even old raiment live. Indeed, so\nlearned, precise, graphical, and everyway interesting have we found\nthese Chapters, that it may be thrown-out as a pertinent question for\nparties concerned, Whether or not a good English Translation thereof\nmight henceforth be profitably incorporated with Mr. Merrick's\nvaluable Work _On Ancient Armour_? Take, by way of example, the\nfollowing sketch; as authority for which Paulinus's _Zeitkuerzende\nLust_ (ii. 678) is, with seeming confidence, referred to:\n\n'Did we behold the German fashionable dress of the Fifteenth Century,\nwe might smile; as perhaps those bygone Germans, were they to rise\nagain, and see our haberdashery, would cross themselves, and invoke\nthe Virgin. But happily no bygone German, or man, rises again; thus\nthe Present is not needlessly trammelled with the Past; and only grows\nout of it, like a Tree, whose roots are not intertangled with its\nbranches, but lie peaceably underground. Nay it is very mournful, yet\nnot useless, to see and know, how the Greatest and Dearest, in a short\nwhile, would find his place quite filled-up here, and no room for him;\nthe very Napoleon, the very Byron, in some seven years, has become\nobsolete, and were now a foreigner to his Europe. Thus is the Law of\nProgress secured; and in Clothes, as in all other external things\nwhatsoever, no fashion will continue.\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\nhas acquired somewhat of a sign-post character,--I shall here say\nnothing: the civil and pacific classes, less touched upon, are\nwonderful enough for us.\n\n'Rich men, I find, have _Teusinke_' (a perhaps untranslateable\narticle); 'also a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells; so that\nwhen a man walks, it is with continual jingling. Some few, of musical\nturn, have a whole chime of bells (_Glockenspiel_) fastened there;\nwhich, especially in sudden whirls, and the other accidents of\nwalking, has a grateful effect. Observe too how fond they are of\npeaks, and Gothic-arch intersections. The male world wears peaked\ncaps, an ell long, which hang bobbing over the side (_schief_): their\nshoes are peaked in front, also to the length of an ell, and laced on\nthe side with tags; even the wooden shoes have their ell-long noses:\nsome also clap bells on the peak. Further, according to my authority,\nthe men have breeches without seat (_ohne Gesaess_): these they fasten\npeakwise to their shirts; and the long round doublet must overlap\nthem.\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\nheadgear 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 (_Kragenmaentel_).\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 hath humour himself or not, manifests a\ncertain feeling of the Ludicrous, a sly observance of it, which, could\nemotion of any kind be confidently predicated of so still a man, we\nmight call a real love. None of those bell-girdles, bushel-breeches,\ncornuted shoes, or other the like phenomena, of which the History of\nDress offers so many, escape him: more especially the mischances, or\nstriking adventures, incident to the wearers of such, are noticed with\ndue fidelity. Sir Walter Raleigh's fine mantle, which he spread in the\nmud under 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\nparchment dyed in verdigris, would have done the same.\n\nThus too, treating of those enormous habiliments, that were not only\nslashed and galooned, but artificially swollen-out on the broader\nparts of the body, by introduction of Bran,--our Professor fails not\nto comment on that luckless Courtier, who having seated himself on a\nchair with some projecting nail on it, and therefrom rising, to pay\nhis _devoir_ on the entrance of Majesty, instantaneously emitted\nseveral pecks of dry wheat-dust: and stood there diminished to a\nspindle, his galoons and slashes dangling sorrowful and flabby round\nhim. Whereupon the 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\na turkey; and this ill-starred individual by a rent in his\nbreeches,--for no Memoirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits him. Vain was\nthe prayer of Themistocles for a talent of Forgetting: my Friends,\nyield cheerfully to Destiny, and read since it is written.'--Has\nTeufelsdroeckh to be put in mind that, nearly related to the impossible\ntalent of Forgetting, stands that talent of Silence, which even\ntravelling 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\nCavalry, in the late Columbian wars. A square Blanket, twelve feet in\ndiagonal, is provided (some were wont to cut-off the corners, and make\nit circular): in the centre a slit is effected eighteen inches long;\nthrough this the mother-naked Trooper introduces his head and neck:\nand so rides shielded from all weather, and in battle from many\nstrokes (for he rolls it about his left arm); and not only dressed,\nbut harnessed and draperied.'\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\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES\n\n\nIf in the Descriptive-Historical portion of this Volume,\nTeufelsdroeckh, discussing merely the _Werden_ (Origin and successive\nImprovement) of Clothes, has astonished many a reader, much more will\nhe in the Speculative-Philosophical portion, which treats of their\n_Wirken_, or Influences. It is here that the present Editor first\nfeels the pressure of his task; for here properly the higher and new\nPhilosophy of Clothes commences: an untried, almost inconceivable\nregion, or chaos; in venturing upon which, how difficult, yet how\nunspeakably important is it to know what course, of survey and\nconquest, is the true one; where the footing is firm substance and\nwill bear us, where it is hollow, or mere cloud, and may engulf us!\nTeufelsdroeckh undertakes no less than to expound the moral, political,\neven religious Influences of Clothes; he undertakes to make manifest,\nin its thousandfold bearings, this grand Proposition, that Man's\nearthly interests 'are all hooked and buttoned together, and held up,\nby Clothes.' He says in so many words, 'Society is founded upon\nCloth'; and again, 'Society sails through the Infinitude on Cloth, as\non a Faust's Mantle, or rather like the Sheet of clean and unclean\nbeasts in the Apostle's Dream; and without such Sheet or Mantle, would\nsink to endless depths, or mount to inane limboes, and in either case\nbe 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\nof common school Logic, where the truths all stand in a row, each\nholding by the skirts of the other; but at best that of practical\nReason, proceeding by large Intuition over whole systematic groups and\nkingdoms; whereby, we might say, a noble complexity, almost like that\nof Nature, reigns in his Philosophy, or spiritual Picture of Nature: a\nmighty maze, yet, as faith whispers, not without a plan. Nay we\ncomplained above, that a certain ignoble complexity, what we must call\nmere confusion, was also discernible. Often, also, we have to exclaim:\nWould to Heaven those same Biographical Documents were come! For it\nseems as if the demonstration lay much in the Author's individuality;\nas if it were not Argument that had taught him, but Experience. At\npresent it is only in local glimpses, and by significant fragments,\npicked often at wide-enough intervals from the original Volume, and\ncarefully collated, that we can hope to impart some outline or\nforeshadow of this Doctrine. Readers of any intelligence are once more\ninvited to favour us with their most concentrated attention: let\nthese, after intense consideration, and not till then, pronounce,\nWhether on the utmost verge of our actual horizon there is not a\nlooming as of Land; a promise of new Fortunate Islands, perhaps whole\nundiscovered Americas, for such as have canvas to sail thither?--As\nexordium to the whole, stand here the following long citation:\n\n'With men of a speculative turn,' writes Teufelsdroeckh, 'there come\nseasons, meditative, sweet, yet awful hours, when in wonder and fear\nyou ask yourself that unanswerable question: Who am _I_; the thing\nthat can say \"I\" (_das Wesen das sich_ ICH _nennt_)? The world, with\nits loud trafficking, retires into the distance; and, through the\npaper-hangings, and stone-walls, and thick-plied tissues of Commerce\nand Polity, and all the living and lifeless integuments (of Society\nand a Body), wherewith your Existence sits surrounded,--the sight\nreaches forth into the void Deep, and you are alone with the Universe,\nand silently commune with it, as one mysterious Presence with another.\n\n'Who am I; what is this ME? A Voice, a Motion, an Appearance;--some\nembodied, visualised Idea in the Eternal Mind? _Cogito, ergo sum._\nAlas, poor Cogitator, this takes us but a little way. Sure enough, I\nam; and lately was not: but Whence? How? Whereto? The answer lies\naround, written in all colours and motions, uttered in all tones of\njubilee and wail, in thousand-figured, thousand-voiced, harmonious\nNature: but where is the cunning eye and ear to whom that God-written\nApocalypse will yield articulate meaning? We sit as in a boundless\nPhantasmagoria and Dream-grotto; boundless, for the faintest star, the\nremotest century, lies not even nearer the verge thereof: sounds and\nmany-coloured visions flit round our sense; but Him, the Unslumbering,\nwhose work both Dream and Dreamer are, we see not; except in rare\nhalf-waking moments, suspect not. Creation, says one, lies before us,\nlike a glorious Rainbow; but the Sun that made it lies behind us,\nhidden from us. Then, in that strange Dream, how we clutch at shadows\nas if they were substances; and sleep deepest while fancying ourselves\nmost awake! Which of your Philosophical Systems is other than a\ndream-theorem; a net quotient, confidently given out, where divisor\nand dividend are both unknown? What are all your national Wars, with\ntheir Moscow Retreats, and sanguinary hate-filled Revolutions, but the\nSomnambulism of uneasy Sleepers? This Dreaming, this Somnambulism is\nwhat we on Earth call Life; wherein the most indeed undoubtingly\nwander, as if they knew right hand from left; yet they only are wise\nwho 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\na vacuum_: how exceedingly false and calumnious! Again, _Nothing can\nact but where it is_: with all my heart; only, WHERE is it? Be not the\nslave of Words: is not the Distant, the Dead, while I love it, and\nlong for it, and mourn for it, Here, in the genuine sense, as truly as\nthe floor I stand on? But that same WHERE, with its brother WHEN, are\nfrom the first the master-colours of our Dream-grotto; say rather, the\nCanvas (the warp and woof thereof) whereon all our Dreams and\nLife-visions are painted! Nevertheless, has not a deeper meditation\ntaught certain of every climate and age, that the WHERE and WHEN, so\nmysteriously inseparable from all our thoughts, are but superficial\nterrestrial adhesions to thought; that the Seer may discern them where\nthey mount up out of the celestial EVERYWHERE and FOREVER: have not\nall nations conceived their God as Omnipresent and Eternal; as\nexisting in a universal HERE, an everlasting NOW? Think well, thou too\nwilt find that Space is but a mode of our human Sense, so likewise\nTime; there _is_ no Space and no Time: WE are--we know not\nwhat;--light-sparkles floating in the aether of Deity!\n\n'So that this so solid-seeming World, after all, were but an\nair-image, our ME the only reality: and Nature, with its thousandfold\nproduction and destruction, but the reflex of our own inward Force,\nthe \"phantasy of our Dream\"; or what the Earth-Spirit in _Faust_ names\nit, _the living visible 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\nthe noble creature is his own sempster and weaver and spinner; nay his\nown bootmaker, 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\nalso have been considered, and frills and fringes, with gay variety of\ncolour, featly appended, and ever in the right place, are not wanting.\nWhile I--good Heaven!--have thatched myself over with the dead fleeces\nof sheep, 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\nmore slowly! Day after day, I must thatch myself anew; day after day,\nthis despicable thatch must lose some film of its thickness; some film\nof it, frayed away by tear and wear, must be brushed-off into the\nAshpit, into the Laystall; till by degrees the whole has been brushed\nthither, and I, the dust-making, patent Rag-grinder, get new material\nto grind down. O subter-brutish! vile! most vile! For have not I too a\ncompact all-enclosing Skin, whiter or dingier? Am I a botched mass of\ntailors' and cobblers' shreds, then; or a tightly-articulated,\nhomogeneous little Figure, 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,\nlive at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is,\nand was always, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and\ndigest, than to think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to\nhate, is his absolute lawgiver; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him\nby the nose; thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of\nthe World happen _twice_, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be\nnoteworthy, or noticeable. Perhaps not once in a lifetime does it\noccur to your ordinary biped, of any country or generation, be he\ngold-mantled Prince or russet-jerkined Peasant, that his Vestments and\nhis Self are not one and indivisible; that _he_ is naked, without\nvestments, till he buy or steal such, and by forethought sew and\nbutton them.\n\n'For my own part, these considerations, of our Clothes-thatch, and\nhow, reaching inwards even to our heart of hearts, it tailorises and\ndemoralises 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\ngreat in the moment when a man first strips himself of adventitious\nwrappages; and sees indeed that he is naked, and, as Swift has it, \"a\nforked straddling animal with bandy legs\"; yet also a Spirit, and\nunutterable Mystery of Mysteries.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nADAMITISM\n\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 Teufelsdroeckh, what benefits unspeakable all\nages and sexes derive from Clothes. For example, when thou thyself, a\nwatery, pulpy, slobbery freshman and new-comer in this Planet, sattest\nmuling and puking in thy nurse's arms; sucking thy coral, and looking\nforth into the world in the blankest manner, what hadst thou been\nwithout thy blankets, and bibs, and other nameless hulls? A terror to\nthyself and mankind! Or hast thou forgotten the day when thou first\nreceivedst breeches, and thy long clothes became short? The village\nwhere thou livedst was all apprised of the fact; and neighbour after\nneighbour kissed thy pudding-cheek, and gave thee, as handsel, silver\nor copper coins, on that the first gala-day of thy existence. Again,\nwert not thou, at one period of life, a Buck, or Blood, or Macaroni,\nor Incroyable, or Dandy, or by whatever name, according to year and\nplace, such phenomenon is distinguished? In that one word lie included\nmysterious volumes. Nay, now when the reign of folly is over, or\naltered, and thy clothes are not for triumph but for defence, hast\nthou always worn them perforce, and as a consequence of Man's Fall;\nnever rejoiced in them as in a warm movable House, a Body round thy\nBody, wherein that strange THEE of thine sat snug, defying all\nvariations of Climate? Girt with thick double-milled kerseys;\nhalf-buried under shawls and broad-brims, and overalls and mud-boots,\nthy very fingers cased in doeskin and mittens, thou hast bestrode that\n'Horse I ride'; and, though it were in wild winter, dashed through the\nworld, glorying in it as if thou wert its lord. In vain did the sleet\nbeat round thy temples; it lighted only on thy impenetrable, felted or\nwoven, case of wool. In vain did the winds howl,--forests sounding and\ncreaking, deep calling unto deep,--and the storms heap themselves\ntogether into one huge Arctic whirlpool: thou flewest through the\nmiddle thereof, striking fire from the highway; wild music hummed in\nthy 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:\nhere truly was the victory of Art over Nature. A thunderbolt indeed\nmight have pierced thee; all short of this thou couldst defy.\n\nOr, cries the courteous reader, has your Teufelsdroeckh forgotten what\nhe said lately about 'Aboriginal Savages,' and their 'condition\nmiserable indeed'? Would he have all this unsaid; and us betake\nourselves again to the 'matted cloak,' and go sheeted in a 'thick\nnatural 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 tailorise and demoralise us,' have they no\nredeeming value; can they not be altered to serve better; must they of\nnecessity be thrown to the dogs? The truth is, Teufelsdroeckh, 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 might\ncall 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\nanatomised\"; 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\ncan act but where it is_? Red has no physical hold of Blue, no\n_clutch_ of him, is nowise in _contact_ with him: neither are those\nministering Sheriffs and Lord-Lieutenants and Hangmen and Tipstaves so\nrelated to commanding Red, that he can tug them hither and thither;\nbut each stands distinct within his own skin. Nevertheless, as it is\nspoken, so is it done: the articulated Word sets all hands in Action;\nand Rope and Improved-drop perform their work.\n\n'Thinking reader, the reason seems to me twofold: First, that _Man is\na Spirit_, and bound by invisible bonds to _All Men_; secondly, that\n_he wears Clothes_, which are the visible emblems of that fact. Has\nnot your Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins, and a\nplush-gown; whereby all mortals know that he is a JUDGE?--Society,\nwhich the more I think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon\nCloth.\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\nremote privacy, to form a clear picture of that solemnity,--on a\nsudden, as by some enchanter's wand, the--shall I speak it?--the\nClothes fly-off the whole dramatic corps; and Dukes, Grandees,\nBishops, Generals, Anointed Presence itself, every mother's son of\nthem, stand straddling there, not a shirt on them; and I know not\nwhether to laugh or weep. This physical or psychical infirmity, in\nwhich perhaps I am not singular, I have, after hesitation, thought\nright to publish, for the solace of those afflicted 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\nhis Morning Newspaper without a shudder? Hypochondriac men, and all\nmen are to a certain extent hypochondriac, should be more gently\ntreated. With what readiness our fancy, in this shattered state of the\nnerves, follows out the consequences which Teufelsdroeckh, with a\ndevilish coolness, goes on to draw:\n\n'What would Majesty do, could such an accident befall in reality;\nshould the buttons all simultaneously start, and the solid wool\nevaporate, in very Deed, as here in Dream? _Ach Gott!_ How each skulks\ninto the 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\nthem, the whole fabric of Government, Legislation, Property, Police,\nand Civilised 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 Teufelsdroeckh, 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 re-impart) incurably\ninfect therewith! Art thou the malignest of Sansculottists, or only\nthe maddest?\n\n'It will remain to be examined,' adds the inexorable Teufelsdroeckh,\n'in how far the SCARECROW, as a Clothed Person, is not also entitled\nto benefit of clergy, and English trial by jury: nay perhaps,\nconsidering his high function (for is not he too a Defender of\nProperty, and Sovereign armed with the _terrors_ of the Law?), to a\ncertain royal Immunity and Inviolability; which, however, misers and\nthe meaner class of persons are not always voluntarily disposed to\ngrant him.' * * *\n\n* * * 'O my Friends, we are (in Yorick Sterne's words) but as \"turkeys\ndriven with a stick and red clout, to the market\": or if some drivers,\nas they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas in it, the\nrattle thereof terrifies the boldest!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nPURE REASON\n\n\nIt must now be apparent enough that our Professor, as above hinted, is\na speculative Radical, and of the very darkest tinge; acknowledging,\nfor most part, in the solemnities and paraphernalia of civilised Life,\nwhich we make so much of, nothing but so many Cloth-rags,\nturkey-poles, and 'bladders with dried peas.' To linger among such\nspeculations, longer than mere Science requires, a discerning public\ncan have no wish. For our purposes the simple fact that such a _Naked\nWorld_ is possible, nay actually exists (under the Clothed one), will\nbe sufficient. Much, therefore, we omit about 'Kings wrestling naked\non the green with Carmen,' and the Kings being thrown: 'dissect them\nwith scalpels,' says Teufelsdroeckh; 'the same viscera, tissues,\nlivers, lights, and other life-tackle are there: examine their\nspiritual mechanism; the same great Need, great Greed, and little\nFaculty; nay ten to one but the Carman, who understands\ndraught-cattle, the rimming of wheels, something of the laws of\nunstable and stable equilibrium, with other branches of wagon-science,\nand has actually put forth his hand and operated on Nature, is the\nmore cunningly gifted of the two. Whence, then, their so unspeakable\ndifference? From Clothes.' Much also we shall omit about confusion of\nRanks, and Joan and My Lady, and how it would be everywhere 'Hail\nfellow well met,' and Chaos were come again: all which to any one that\nhas once fairly pictured-out the grand mother-idea, _Society in a\nstate 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 Teufelsdroeckh; at\nworst, one knows not whether to hate or to love him. For though, in\nlooking at the fair tapestry of human Life, with its royal and even\nsacred figures, he dwells not on the obverse alone, but here chiefly\non the reverse; and indeed turns out the rough seams, tatters, and\nmanifold thrums of that unsightly wrong-side, with an almost diabolic\npatience and indifference, which must have sunk him in the estimation\nof most readers,--there is that within which unspeakably distinguishes\nhim from all other past and present Sansculottists. The grand\nunparalleled peculiarity of Teufelsdroeckh is, that with all this\nDescendentalism, he combines a Transcendentalism, no less superlative;\nwhereby if on the one hand he degrade man below most animals, except\nthose jacketed Gouda Cows, he, on the other, exalts him beyond the\nvisible Heavens, almost to an equality with the Gods.\n\n'To the eye of vulgar Logic,' says he, 'what is man? An omnivorous\nBiped that wears Breeches. To the eye of Pure Reason what is he? A\nSoul, a Spirit, 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 and\nColours 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, with\nhis 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\nin our fellow-man?'\n\nIn such passages, unhappily too rare, the high Platonic Mysticism of\nour Author, which is perhaps the fundamental element of his nature,\nbursts forth, as it were, in full flood: and, through all the vapour\nand tarnish of what is often so perverse, so mean in his exterior and\nenvironment, we seem to look into a whole inward Sea of Light and\nLove;--though, alas, the grim coppery clouds soon roll together again,\nand hide it from view.\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 Gipsy-Blanket, he finds Prose,\nDecay, Contemptibility; there is in each sort Poetry also, and a\nreverend Worth. For Matter, were it never so despicable, is Spirit,\nthe manifestation of Spirit: were it never so honourable, can it be\nmore? The thing Visible, nay the thing Imagined, the thing in any way\nconceived as Visible, what is it but a Garment, a Clothing of the\nhigher, celestial Invisible, 'unimaginable, formless, dark with excess\nof bright'? Under which point of view the following passage, so\nstrange in purport, so strange in phrase, seems characteristic enough:\n\n'The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes, or even\nwith armed eyesight, till they become _transparent_. \"The\nPhilosopher,\" says the wisest of this age, \"must station himself in\nthe middle\": how true! The Philosopher is he to whom the Highest has\ndescended, and the Lowest has mounted up; who is the equal and kindly\nbrother 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\nour imagination? Or, on the other hand, what is there that we cannot\nlove; since 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\ninscrutable venerable Mystery, in the meanest Tinker that sees with\neyes!'\n\nFor the rest, as is natural to a man of this kind, he deals much in\nthe feeling of Wonder; insists on the necessity and high worth of\nuniversal Wonder; which he holds to be the only reasonable temper for\nthe denizen of so singular a Planet as ours. 'Wonder,' says he, 'is\nthe basis of Worship: the reign of wonder is perennial, indestructible\nin Man; only at certain stages (as the present), it is, for some short\nseason, a reign _in partibus infidelium_.' That progress of Science,\nwhich is to destroy Wonder, and in its stead substitute Mensuration\nand Numeration, finds small favour with Teufelsdroeckh, much as he\notherwise venerates these two latter processes.\n\n'Shall your Science,' exclaims he, 'proceed in the small\nchink-lighted, or even oil-lighted, underground workshop of Logic\nalone; and man's mind become an Arithmetical Mill, whereof Memory is\nthe Hopper, and mere Tables of Sines and Tangents, Codification, and\nTreatises of what you call Political Economy, are the Meal? And what\nis that Science, which the scientific head alone, were it screwed off,\nand (like the Doctor's in the Arabian Tale) set in a basin to keep it\nalive, could prosecute without shadow of a heart,--but one other of\nthe mechanical and menial handicrafts, for which the Scientific Head\n(having a Soul in it) is too noble an organ? I mean that Thought\nwithout Reverence is barren, perhaps poisonous; at best, dies like\ncookery with the day that called it forth; does not live, like sowing,\nin successive tilths and wider-spreading harvests, bringing food and\nplenteous increase to all Time.'\n\nIn such wise does Teufelsdroeckh 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\ngoslings round their Capitol, on any alarm, or on none; nay who often,\nas illuminated Sceptics, walk abroad into peaceable society, in full\nday-light, 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\nepitome of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in\nhis single head,--is but a Pair of Spectacles behind which there is no\nEye. Let those 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,\nor believe nothing of it? Nay, thou wilt attempt laughter; whoso\nrecognises the unfathomable, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is\neverywhere under our feet and among our hands; to whom the Universe is\nan Oracle and Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattlestall,--he shall\nbe a delirious Mystic; to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt\nprotrusively proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as one injured, when\nhe kicks his foot through it?--_Armer Teufel!_ Doth not thy cow calve,\ndoth not thy bull gender? Thou thyself, wert thou not born, wilt thou\nnot die? \"Explain\" me all this, or do one of two things: Retire into\nprivate places with thy foolish cackle; or, what were better, give it\nup, and weep, not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's world\nall disembellished and prosaic, but that thou hitherto art a\nDilettante and sandblind Pedant.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nPROSPECTIVE\n\n\nThe Philosophy of Clothes is now to all readers, as we predicted it\nwould do, unfolding itself into new boundless expansions, of a\ncloudclapt, almost chimerical aspect, yet not without azure loomings\nin the far distance, and streaks as of an Elysian brightness; the\nhighly questionable purport and promise of which it is becoming more\nand more important for us to ascertain. Is that a real Elysian\nbrightness, cries many a timid wayfarer, or the reflex of Pandemonian\nlava? Is it of a truth leading us into beatific Asphodel meadows, or\nthe yellow-burning marl of a Hell-on-Earth?\n\nOur Professor, like other Mystics, whether delirious or inspired,\ngives an Editor enough to do. Ever higher and dizzier are the heights\nhe leads us to; more piercing, all-comprehending, all-confounding are\nhis views and glances. For example, this of Nature being not an\nAggregate but a Whole:\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\nthe world where at least FORCE is not? The drop which thou shakest\nfrom thy wet hand, rests not where it falls, but to-morrow thou\nfindest it swept away; already on the wings of the Northwind, it is\nnearing the Tropic of Cancer. How came it to evaporate, and not lie\nmotionless? Thinkest thou there is aught motionless; without Force,\nand utterly dead?\n\n'As I rode through the Schwarzwald, I said to myself: That little fire\nwhich grows star-like across the dark-growing (_nachtende_) moor,\nwhere the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace\nthy lost horse-shoe,--is it a detached, separated speck, cut-off from\nthe whole Universe; or indissolubly joined to the whole? Thou fool,\nthat smithy-fire was (primarily) kindled at the Sun; is fed by air\nthat circulates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dogstar;\ntherein, with Iron Force, and Coal Force, and the far stranger Force\nof Man, are cunning affinities and battles and victories of Force\nbrought about; it is a little ganglion, or nervous centre, in the\ngreat vital system of Immensity. Call it, if thou wilt, an unconscious\nAltar, kindled on the bosom of the All; whose iron sacrifice, whose\niron smoke and influence reach quite through the All; whose dingy\nPriest, not by word, yet by brain and sinew, preaches forth the\nmystery of Force; nay preaches forth (exoterically enough) one little\ntextlet from the Gospel of Freedom, the Gospel of Man's Force,\ncommanding, 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\nwithered leaf, works together with all; is borne forward on the\nbottomless, shoreless flood of Action, and lives through perpetual\nmetamorphoses. The withered leaf is not dead and lost, there are\nForces in it and around it, though working in inverse order; else how\ncould it _rot_? Despise not the rag from which man makes Paper, or the\nlitter from which the earth makes Corn. Rightly viewed no meanest\nobject is insignificant; all objects are as windows, through which the\nphilosophic eye looks into Infinitude 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\nhand-woven: must not the Imagination weave Garments, visible Bodies,\nwherein the else invisible creations and inspirations of our Reason\nare, like Spirits, revealed, and first become all-powerful;--the\nrather if, as we often see, the Hand too aid her, and (by wool Clothes\nor otherwise) reveal 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\nMan himself, 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\nher stuff: examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive\nelements (of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognised\nas such, or no longer recognised; still fluid and florid, or now\nsolid-grown and colourless? If those same primitive elements are the\nosseous fixtures in the Flesh-Garment, Language,--then are Metaphors\nits muscles and tissues and living integuments. An unmetaphorical\nstyle you shall in vain seek for: is not your very _Attention_ a\n_Stretching-to_? The difference lies here: some styles are lean,\nadust, wiry, the muscle itself seems osseous; some are even quite\npallid, hunger-bitten and dead-looking; while others again glow in the\nflush of health and vigorous self-growth, sometimes (as in my own\ncase) not without an apoplectic tendency. Moreover, there are sham\nMetaphors, which overhanging that same Thought's-Body (best naked),\nand deceptively bedizening, or bolstering it out, may be called its\nfalse stuffings, superfluous show-cloaks (_Putz-Maentel_), and tawdry\nwoollen rags: whereof he that runs and reads may gather whole\nhampers,--and burn them.'\n\nThan which paragraph on Metaphors did the reader ever chance to see a\nmore 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\nshall fade away like a Vesture; which indeed they are: the\nTime-vesture of the Eternal. Whatsoever sensibly exists, whatsoever\nrepresents Spirit to Spirit, is properly a Clothing, a suit of\nRaiment, put on for a season, and to be laid off. Thus in this one\npregnant subject of CLOTHES, rightly understood, is included all that\nmen have thought, dreamed, done, and been: the whole External Universe\nand what it holds is but Clothing; and the essence of all Science lies\nin the PHILOSOPHY OF CLOTHES.'\n\nTowards these dim infinitely-expanded regions, close-bordering on the\nimpalpable 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\nexpected Aid of Hofrath Heuschrecke; which daystar, however, melts\nnow, not into the red of morning, but into a vague, gray half-light,\nuncertain whether dawn of day or dusk of utter darkness. For the last\nweek, these so-called Biographical Documents are in his hand. By the\nkindness of a Scottish Hamburg Merchant, whose name, known to the\nwhole mercantile world, he must not mention; but whose honourable\ncourtesy, now and often before spontaneously manifested to him, a mere\nliterary stranger, he cannot soon forget,--the bulky Weissnichtwo\nPacket, with all its Custom-house seals, foreign hieroglyphs, and\nmiscellaneous tokens of Travel, arrived here in perfect safety, and\nfree of cost. The reader shall now fancy with what hot haste it was\nbroken up, with what breathless expectation glanced over; and, alas,\nwith what unquiet disappointment it has, since then, been often thrown\ndown, and again taken 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 know well already: that\nhowever 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 (_Gemueth_), and equally speaks\nthereto, can attain its significance till the Character itself is\nknown and seen; 'till the Author's View of the World (_Weltansicht_),\nand how he actively and passively came by such view, are clear: in\nshort till a Biography of him has been philosophico-poetically\nwritten, and philosophico-poetically read.' 'Nay,' adds he, 'were the\nspeculative scientific Truth even known, you still, in this inquiring\nage, ask yourself, Whence came it, and Why, and How?--and rest not,\ntill, if no better may be, Fancy have shaped-out an answer; and either\nin the authentic lineaments of Fact, or the forged ones of Fiction, a\ncomplete picture and Genetical History of the Man and his spiritual\nEndeavour lies before you. But why,' says the Hofrath, and indeed say\nwe, 'do I dilate on the uses of our Teufelsdroeckh's Biography? The\ngreat Herr Minister von Goethe has penetratingly remarked that \"Man is\nproperly the _only_ object that interests man\": thus I too have noted,\nthat in Weissnichtwo our whole conversation is little or nothing else\nbut Biography or Auto-Biography; ever humano-anecdotical\n(_menschlich-anekdotisch_). Biography is by nature the most\nuniversally profitable, universally pleasant of all things: especially\nBiography of distinguished individuals.\n\n'By this time, _mein Verehrtester_ (my Most Esteemed),' continues he,\nwith an eloquence which, unless the words be purloined from\nTeufelsdroeckh, or some trick of his, as we suspect, is well-nigh\nunaccountable, 'by this time you are fairly plunged (_vertieft_) in\nthat mighty forest of Clothes-Philosophy; and looking round, as all\nreaders do, with astonishment enough. Such portions and passages as\nyou have already mastered, and brought to paper, could not but awaken\na strange curiosity touching the mind they issued from; the perhaps\nunparalleled psychical mechanism, which manufactured such matter, and\nemitted it to the light of day. Had Teufelsdroeckh also a father and\nmother; did he, at one time, wear drivel-bibs, and live on spoon-meat?\nDid he ever, in rapture and tears, clasp a friend's bosom to his;\nlooks he also wistfully into the long burial-aisle of the Past, where\nonly winds, and their low harsh moan, give inarticulate answer? Has he\nfought duels;--good Heaven! how did he comport himself when in Love?\nBy what singular stair-steps, in short, and subterranean passages, and\nsloughs of Despair, and steep Pisgah hills, has he reached this\nwonderful prophetic Hebron (a true Old-Clothes Jewry) where he now\ndwells?\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\nTraveller from a far Country; more or less footsore and travel-soiled;\nhas parted with road-companions; fallen among thieves, been poisoned\nby bad cookery, blistered with bug-bites; nevertheless at every stage\n(for they have let him pass), has had the Bill to discharge. But the\nwhole particulars of his Route, his Weather-observations, the\npicturesque Sketches he took, though all regularly jotted down (in\nindelible sympathetic-ink by an invisible interior Penman), are these\nnowhere forthcoming? Perhaps quite lost: one other leaf of that mighty\nVolume (of human Memory) left to fly abroad, unprinted, unpublished,\nunbound up, 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 favour you stand in with our Sage, send not a Biography\nonly, but an Autobiography: at least the materials for such;\nwherefrom, if I misreckon not, your perspicacity will draw fullest\ninsight: and so the whole Philosophy and Philosopher of Clothes will\nstand clear to the wondering eyes of England, nay thence, through\nAmerica, through Hindostan, and the antipodal New Holland, finally\nconquer (_einnehmen_) great part of this terrestrial Planet!'\n\nAnd now let the sympathising 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\nmiscellaneous masses of Sheets, and oftener Shreds and Snips, written\nin Professor Teufelsdroeckh's scarce legible _cursiv-schrift_; and\ntreating of all imaginable things under the Zodiac and above it, but\nof his own personal history only at rare intervals, and then in the\nmost 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\nloosely on separate slips, like Sibylline leaves. Interspersed also\nare long purely Autobiographical delineations; yet without connexion,\nwithout recognisable coherence; so unimportant, so superfluously\nminute, they almost remind us of 'P.P. Clerk of this Parish.' Thus\ndoes famine of intelligence alternate with waste. Selection, order,\nappears to be unknown to the Professor. In all Bags the same\nimbroglio; only perhaps in the Bag _Capricorn_, and those near it, the\nconfusion a little worse confounded. Close by a rather eloquent Oration,\n'On receiving the Doctor's-Hat,' lie washbills, marked _bezahlt_\n(settled). His Travels are indicated by the Street-Advertisements of\nthe various cities he has visited; of which Street-Advertisements, in\nmost living tongues, here is perhaps 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\nwhich by intermixture will farther volatilise and discompose it! As we\nshall perhaps see it our duty ultimately to deposit these Six\nPaper-Bags in the British Museum, farther description, and all\nvituperation of them, may be spared. Biography or Autobiography of\nTeufelsdroeckh there is, clearly enough, none to be gleaned here: at\nmost some sketchy, shadowy fugitive likeness of him may, by unheard-of\nefforts, partly of intellect, partly of imagination, on the side of\nEditor and of Reader; rise up between them. Only as a gaseous-chaotic\nAppendix to that aqueous-chaotic Volume can the contents of the Six\nBags hover round us, and portions thereof be incorporated with our\ndelineation 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\nthe weltering deep, and down from the simmering air, here one mass,\nthere another, and cunningly cemented, while the elements boil\nbeneath: nor is there any supernatural force to do it with; but simply\nthe Diligence and feeble thinking Faculty of an English Editor,\nendeavouring to evolve printed Creation out of a German printed and\nwritten Chaos, wherein, as he shoots to and fro in it, gathering,\nclutching, piercing the Why to the far-distant Wherefore, his whole\nFaculty and Self are like to be swallowed up.\n\nPatiently, under these incessant toils and agitations, does the\nEditor, dismissing all anger, see his otherwise robust health\ndeclining; some fraction of his allotted natural sleep nightly leaving\nhim, and little but an inflamed nervous-system to be looked for. What\nis the use of health, or of life, if not to do some work therewith?\nAnd what work nobler than transplanting foreign Thought into the\nbarren domestic soil; except indeed planting Thought of your own,\nwhich the fewest are privileged to do? Wild as it looks, this\nPhilosophy of Clothes, can we ever reach its real meaning, promises to\nreveal new-coming Eras, the first dim rudiments and already-budding\ngerms of a nobler Era, in Universal History. Is not such a prize worth\nsome striving? Forward with us, courageous reader; be it towards\nfailure, or towards success! The latter thou sharest with us; the\nformer also is not all our own.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK SECOND\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nGENESIS\n\n\nIn a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable whether\nfrom birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinised 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\nof Public Entry he made, are with utmost completeness rendered\nmanifest. To the Genesis of our Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this\nFirst Chapter consecrated. Unhappily, indeed, he seems to be of quite\nobscure extraction; uncertain, we might almost say, whether of any: so\nthat this Genesis of his can properly be nothing but an Exodus (or\ntransit out of Invisibility into Visibility); whereof the preliminary\nportion is nowhere forthcoming.\n\n'In the village of Entepfuhl,' thus writes he, in the Bag _Libra_, on\nvarious 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\nSergeant, and even regimental Schoolmaster under Frederick the Great;\nbut now, quitting the halbert and ferule for the spade and\npruning-hook, cultivated 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 neighbours that\nwould listen about the Victory of Rossbach; and how Fritz the Only\n(_der Einzige_) had once with his own royal lips spoken to him, had\nbeen pleased to say, when Andreas as camp-sentinel demanded the\npass-word, \"_Schweig Hund_ (Peace, hound)!\" before any of his\nstaff-adjutants could answer. \"_Das nenn' ich mir einen Koenig_, There\nis what I call a King,\" would Andreas exclaim: \"but the smoke of\nKunersdorf was still smarting his 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\n(_wer kann die Weiberchen dressiren_)\": nevertheless she at heart\nloved him both for valour and wisdom; to her a Prussian grenadier\nSergeant and Regiment's Schoolmaster was little other than a Cicero\nand Cid: what you see, yet cannot see over, is as good as infinite.\nNay, was not Andreas in very deed a man of order, courage,\ndownrightness (_Geradheit_); that understood Buesching's _Geography_,\nhad been in the victory of Rossbach, and left for dead in the camisade\nof Hochkirch? The good Gretchen, for all her fretting, watched over\nhim and hovered round him as only a true housemother can: assiduously\nshe cooked and sewed and scoured for him; so that not only his old\nregimental sword and grenadier-cap, but the whole habitation and\nenvironment, where on pegs of honour they hung, looked ever trim and\ngay: a roomy painted Cottage, embowered in fruit-trees and\nforest-trees, evergreens and honeysuckles; rising many-coloured from\namid shaven grass-plots, flowers struggling-in through the very\nwindows; under its long projecting eaves nothing but garden-tools in\nmethodic piles (to screen them from rain), and seats where, especially\non summer nights, a King might have wished to sit and smoke, and call\nit his. Such a _Bauergut_ (Copyhold) had Gretchen given her veteran;\nwhose sinewy arms, and long-disused gardening talent, had made it what\nyou saw.\n\n'Into this umbrageous Man's-nest, one meek yellow evening or dusk,\nwhen the Sun, hidden indeed from terrestrial Entepfuhl, did\nnevertheless journey visible and radiant along the celestial Balance\n(_Libra_), it was that a Stranger of reverend aspect entered; and,\nwith grave salutation, stood before the two rather astonished\nhousemates. He was close-muffled in a wide mantle; which without\nfurther parley unfolding, he deposited therefrom what seemed some\nBasket, overhung with green Persian silk; saying only: _Ihr lieben\nLeute, hier bringe ein unschaetzbares Verleihen; nehmt es in aller\nAcht, sorgfaeltigst benuetzt es: mit hohem Lohn, oder wohl mit schweren\nZinsen, wird's einst zurueckgefordert._ \"Good Christian people, here\nlies for you an invaluable Loan; take all heed thereof, in all\ncarefulness employ it: with high recompense, or else with heavy\npenalty, will it one day be required back.\" Uttering which singular\nwords, in a clear, bell-like, forever memorable tone, the Stranger\ngracefully withdrew; and before Andreas or his wife, gazing in\nexpectant wonder, had time to fashion either question or answer, was\nclean gone. Neither out of doors could aught of him be seen or heard;\nhe had vanished in the thickets, in the dusk; the Orchard-gate stood\nquietly closed: the Stranger was gone once and always. So sudden had\nthe whole transaction been, in the autumn stillness and twilight, so\ngentle, noiseless, that the Futterals could have fancied it all a\ntrick of Imagination, or some visit from an authentic Spirit. Only\nthat the green-silk Basket, such as neither Imagination nor authentic\nSpirits are wont to carry, still stood visible and tangible on their\nlittle parlour-table. Towards this the astonished couple, now with lit\ncandle, hastily turned their attention. Lifting the green veil, to see\nwhat invaluable it hid, they descried there, amid down and rich white\nwrappages, no Pitt Diamond or Hapsburg Regalia, but, in the softest\nsleep, a little red-coloured Infant! Beside it, lay a roll of gold\nFriedrichs, the exact amount of which was never publicly known; also a\n_Taufschein_ (baptismal certificate), wherein unfortunately nothing\nbut 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 neighbouring Town in coach-and-four, be connected\nwith this Apparition, except in the way of gratuitous surmise.\nMeanwhile, for Andreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was:\nWhat to do with this little sleeping red-coloured Infant? Amid\namazements and curiosities, which had to die away without external\nsatisfying, they resolved, as in such circumstances charitable prudent\npeople needs must, on nursing it, though with spoon-meat, into\nwhiteness, and if possible into manhood. The Heavens smiled on their\nendeavour: thus has that same mysterious Individual ever since had a\nstatus for himself in this visible Universe, some modicum of victual\nand lodging and parade-ground; and now expanded in bulk, faculty and\nknowledge of good and evil, he, as HERR DIOGENES TEUFELSDROeCKH,\nprofesses or is ready to profess, perhaps not altogether without\neffect, in the new University of Weissnichtwo, the new Science of\nThings in General.'\n\nOur Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should think he well\nmight, that these facts, first communicated, by the good Gretchen\nFutteral, in his twelfth year, 'produced on the boyish heart and fancy\na quite indelible impression. Who this Reverend Personage,' he says,\n'that glided into the Orchard Cottage when the Sun was in Libra, and\nthen, as on spirit's wings, glided out again, might be? An\ninexpressible desire, full of love and of sadness, has often since\nstruggled within me to shape an answer. Ever, in my distresses and my\nloneliness, has Fantasy turned, full of longing (_sehnsuchtsvoll_), to\nthat unknown Father, who perhaps far from me, perhaps near, either way\ninvisible, might have taken me to his paternal bosom, there to lie\nscreened from many a woe. Thou beloved Father, dost thou still, shut\nout from me only by thin penetrable curtains of earthly Space, wend to\nand fro among the crowd of the living? Or art thou hidden by those far\nthicker curtains of the Everlasting Night, or rather of the\nEverlasting Day, through which my mortal eye and outstretched arms\nneed not strive to reach? Alas, I know not, and in vain vex myself to\nknow. More than once, heart-deluded, have I taken for thee this and\nthe other noble-looking Stranger; and approached him wistfully, with\ninfinite regard; but he too had to repel me; 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\npap-fed thee there, whom thou namest Father and Mother; these were,\nlike mine, but thy nursing-father and nursing-mother: thy true\nBeginning and Father is in Heaven, whom with the bodily eye thou shalt\nnever behold, but only with the spiritual.'\n\n'The little green veil,' adds he, among much similar moralising, and\nembroiled discoursing, 'I yet keep; still more inseparably the Name,\nDiogenes Teufelsdroeckh. From the veil can nothing be inferred: a piece\nof now quite faded Persian silk, like thousands of others. On the Name\nI have many times meditated and conjectured; but neither in this lay\nthere any clue. That it was my unknown Father's name I must hesitate\nto believe. To no purpose have I searched through all the Herald's\nBooks, in and without the German Empire, and through all manner of\nSubscriber-Lists (_Praenumeranten_), Militia-Rolls, and other\nName-catalogues; extraordinary names as we have in Germany, the name\nTeufelsdroeckh, 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\nshadow-forth my future destiny, or his own present malign humour?\nPerhaps the latter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starred Parent, who like an\nOstrich hadst to leave thy ill-starred offspring to be hatched into\nself-support by the mere sky-influences of Chance, can thy pilgrimage\nhave been a smooth one? Beset by Misfortune thou doubtless hast been;\nor indeed by the worst figure of Misfortune, by Misconduct. Often have\nI fancied how, in thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot at, and slung\nat, wounded, hand-fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten and bedevilled by\nthe Time-Spirit (_Zeitgeist_) in thyself and others, till the good\nsoul first given thee was seared into grim rage; and thou hadst\nnothing for it but to leave in me an indignant appeal to the Future,\nand living speaking Protest against the Devil, as that same Spirit not\nof the Time only, but of Time itself, is well named! Which Appeal and\nProtest, may I now modestly add, was not perhaps quite lost in air.\n\n'For indeed, as Walter Shandy often insisted, there is much, nay\nalmost all, in Names. The Name is the earliest Garment you wrap round\nthe earth-visiting ME; to which it thenceforth cleaves, more\ntenaciously (for there are Names that have lasted nigh thirty\ncenturies) than the very skin. And now from without, what mystic\ninfluences does it not send inwards, even to the centre; especially in\nthose plastic first-times, when the whole soul is yet infantine, soft,\nand the invisible seedgrain will grow to be an all overshadowing tree!\nNames? Could I unfold the influence of Names, which are the most\nimportant of all Clothings, I were a second greater Trismegistus. Not\nonly all common Speech, but Science, Poetry itself is no other, if\nthou consider it, than a right _Naming_. Adam's first task was giving\nnames to natural Appearances: what is ours still but a continuation of\nthe same; be the Appearances exotic-vegetable, organic, mechanic,\nstars or starry movements (as in Science); or (as in Poetry) passions,\nvirtues, calamities, God-attributes, Gods?--In a very plain sense the\nProverb says, _Call one a thief, and he will steal_; in an almost\nsimilar sense may we not perhaps say, _Call one Diogenes\nTeufelsdroeckh, and he will open the Philosophy of Clothes?_'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all ignorant of his\nWhy, his How or Whereabout, was opening his eyes to the kind Light;\nsprawling-out his ten fingers and toes; listening, tasting, feeling;\nin a word, by all his Five Senses, still more by his Sixth Sense of\nHunger, and a whole infinitude of inward, spiritual, half-awakened\nSenses, endeavouring daily to acquire for himself some knowledge of\nthis strange Universe where he had arrived, be his task therein what\nit might. Infinite was his progress; thus in some fifteen months, he\ncould perform the miracle of--Speech! To breed a fresh Soul, is it not\nlike brooding a fresh (celestial) Egg; wherein as yet all is formless,\npowerless; yet by degrees organic elements and fibres shoot through\nthe watery albumen; and out of vague Sensation grows Thought, grows\nFantasy and Force, and we have Philosophies, Dynasties, nay Poetries\nand Religions!\n\n'Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such diminutive had\nthey 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\nthat he was a grand-nephew; the orphan of some sister's daughter,\nsuddenly deceased, in Andreas's distant Prussian birthland; of whom,\nas of her indigent sorrowing widower, little enough was known at\nEntepfuhl. Heedless of all which, the Nurseling took to his\nspoon-meat, and throve. I have heard him noted as a still infant, that\nkept his mind much to himself; above all, that seldom or never cried.\nHe already felt that time was precious; that he had other work cut-out\nfor him than whimpering.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSuch, after utmost painful search and collation among these\nmiscellaneous Paper-masses, is all the notice we can gather of Herr\nTeufelsdroeckh's genealogy. More imperfect, more enigmatic it can seem\nto few readers than to us. The Professor, in whom truly we more and\nmore discern a certain satirical turn, and deep undercurrents of\nroguish whim, for the present stands pledged in honour, so we will not\ndoubt him: but seems it not conceivable that, by the 'good Gretchen\nFutteral,' or some other perhaps interested party, he has himself been\ndeceived? Should these sheets, translated or not, ever reach the\nEntepfuhl Circulating Library, some cultivated native of that district\nmight feel called to afford explanation. Nay, since Books, like\ninvisible scouts, permeate the whole habitable globe, and Timbuctoo\nitself is not safe from British Literature, may not some Copy find out\neven the mysterious basket-bearing Stranger, who in a state of extreme\nsenility perhaps still exists; and gently force even him to disclose\nhimself; to claim openly a son, in whom any father may feel pride?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nIDYLLIC\n\n\n'Happy season of Childhood!' exclaims Teufelsdroeckh: 'Kind Nature,\nthat art to all a bountiful mother; that visitest the poor man's hut\nwith auroral radiance; and for thy Nurseling hast provided, a soft\nswathing of Love, and infinite Hope, wherein he waxes and slumbers,\ndanced-round (_umgaukelt_) by sweetest Dreams! If the paternal Cottage\nstill shuts us in, its roof still screens us; with a Father we have as\nyet a prophet, priest and king, and an Obedience that makes us free.\nThe young spirit has awakened out of Eternity, and knows not what we\nmean by Time; as yet Time is no fast-hurrying stream, but a sportful\nsunlit ocean; years to the child are as ages: ah! the secret of\nVicissitude, of that slower or quicker decay and ceaseless\ndown-rushing of the universal World-fabric, from the granite mountain\nto the man or day-moth, is yet unknown; and in a motionless Universe,\nwe taste, what afterwards in this quick-whirling Universe is forever\ndenied us, the balm of Rest. Sleep on, thou fair Child, for thy long\nrough journey is at hand! A little while, and thou too shalt sleep no\nmore, but thy very dreams shall be mimic battles; thou too, with old\nArnauld, wilt have to say in stern patience: \"Rest? Rest? Shall I not\nhave all Eternity to rest in?\" Celestial Nepenthe! though a Pyrrhus\nconquer empires, and an Alexander sack the world, he finds thee not;\nand thou hast once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on the eyelids,\non the heart of every mother's child. For as yet, sleep and waking are\none: the fair Life-garden rustles infinite around, and everywhere is\ndewy fragrance, and the budding of Hope; which budding, if in youth,\ntoo frostnipt, it grow to flowers, will in manhood yield no fruit, but\na prickly, bitter-rinded stone-fruit, of which the fewest can find the\nkernel.'\n\nIn such rose-coloured light does our Professor, as Poets are wont,\nlook back on his childhood; the historical details of which (to say\nnothing of much other vague oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells\non with an almost wearisome minuteness. We hear of Entepfuhl standing\n'in trustful derangement' among the woody slopes; the paternal Orchard\nflanking it as extreme out-post from below; the little Kuhbach gushing\nkindly by, among beech-rows, through river after river, into the\nDonau, into the Black Sea, into the Atmosphere and Universe; and how\n'the brave old Linden,' stretching like a parasol of twenty ells in\nradius, overtopping all other rows and clumps, towered-up from the\ncentral _Agora_ and _Campus Martius_ of the Village, like its Sacred\nTree; and how the old men sat talking under its shadow (Gneschen often\ngreedily listening), and the wearied labourers reclined, and the\nunwearied children sported, and the young men and maidens often danced\nto flute-music. 'Glorious summer twilights,' cries Teufelsdroeckh,\n'when the Sun, like a proud Conqueror and Imperial Taskmaster, turned\nhis back, with his gold-purple emblazonry, and all his fireclad\nbody-guard (of Prismatic Colours); and the tired brickmakers of this\nclay Earth might steal a little frolic, and those few meek Stars would\nnot 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\nas yet miniature Philosopher's achievements under that 'brave old\nLinden'? Or even where is the use of such practical reflections as the\nfollowing? 'In all the sports of Children, were it only in their\nwanton breakages and defacements, you shall discern a creative\ninstinct (_schaffenden Trieb_): the Mankin feels that he is a born\nMan, that his vocation is to work. The choicest present you can make\nhim is a Tool; be it knife or pen-gun, for construction or for\ndestruction; either way it is for Work, for Change. In gregarious\nsports of skill or strength, the Boy trains himself to Cooeperation,\nfor war or peace, as governor or governed: the little Maid again,\nprovident of her domestic destiny, takes with preference to Dolls.'\n\nPerhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, considering who it is\nthat relates it: 'My first short-clothes were of yellow serge; or\nrather, I should say, my first short-cloth, for the vesture was one\nand indivisible, reaching from neck to ankle, a mere body with four\nlimbs: of which fashion how little could I then divine the\narchitectural, how much 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\nrelish, my evening meal. Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of\nWorld's expectation as Day died, were still a Hebrew Speech for me;\nnevertheless I was looking at the fair illuminated Letters, and had an\neye for their gilding.'\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\nmorning, the Swineherd's horn; and know that so many hungry happy\nquadrupeds were, on all sides, starting in hot haste to join him, for\nbreakfast on the Heath. Or to see them at eventide, all marching-in\nagain, with short squeak, almost in military order; and each,\ntopographically correct, trotting-off in succession to the right or\nleft, through its own lane, to its own dwelling; till old Kunz, at the\nVillage-head, now left alone, blew his last blast, and retired for the\nnight. We are wont to love the Hog chiefly in the form of Ham; yet did\nnot these bristly thick-skinned beings here manifest intelligence,\nperhaps humour of character; at any rate, a touching, trustful\nsubmissiveness to Man,--who, were he but a Swineherd, in darned\ngabardine, and leather breeches more resembling slate or\ndiscoloured-tin breeches, is still the Hierarch of this lower world?'\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\nfavourable influences accompany him through life, especially through\nchildhood, and expand him, while others lie closefolded and continue\ndunces. Herein, say they, consists the whole difference between an\ninspired Prophet and a double-barrelled Game-preserver: the inner man\nof the one has been fostered into generous development; that of the\nother, crushed-down perhaps by vigour of animal digestion, and the\nlike, has exuded and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably\nstagnant at the bottom of his stomach. 'With which opinion,' cries\nTeufelsdroeckh, 'I should as soon agree as with this other, that an\nacorn might, by favourable or unfavourable influences of soil and\nclimate, be nursed into a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into an oak.\n\n'Nevertheless,' continues he, 'I too acknowledge the all-but\nomnipotence of early culture and nurture: hereby we have either a\ndoddered dwarf bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree; either a\nsick yellow cabbage, or an edible luxuriant green one. Of a truth, it\nis the duty of all men, especially of all philosophers, to note-down\nwith accuracy the characteristic circumstances of their Education,\nwhat furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified it: to which\nduty, nowadays so pressing for many a German Autobiographer, I also\nzealously address myself.'--Thou rogue! Is it by short-clothes of\nyellow serge, and swineherd horns, that an infant of genius is\neducated? And yet, as usual, it ever remains doubtful whether he is\nlaughing in his sleeve at these Autobiographical times of ours, or\nwriting from the abundance of his own fond ineptitude. For he\ncontinues: 'If among the ever-streaming currents of Sights, Hearings,\nFeelings for Pain or Pleasure, whereby, as in a Magic Hall, young\nGneschen went about environed, I might venture to select and specify,\nperhaps 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 gay austere yet hearty patriarchal aspect,\ncould not but appear another Ulysses and \"much-enduring Man.\" Eagerly\nI hung upon his tales, when listening neighbours enlivened the hearth;\nfrom these perils and these travels, wild and far almost as Hades\nitself, a dim world of Adventure expanded itself within me.\nIncalculable also was the knowledge I acquired in standing by the Old\nMen under the Linden-tree: the whole of Immensity was yet new to me;\nand had not these reverend seniors, talkative enough, been employed in\npartial surveys thereof for nigh fourscore years? With amazement I\nbegan to discover that Entepfuhl stood in the middle of a Country, of\na World; that there was such a thing as History, as Biography; to\nwhich I also, one day, by hand 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\nour Village: northwards, truly, in the dead of night; yet southwards\nvisibly at eventide. Not till my eighth year did I reflect that this\nPostwagen could be other than some terrestrial Moon, rising and\nsetting by mere Law of Nature, like the heavenly one; that it came on\nmade highways, from far cities towards far cities; weaving them like a\nmonstrous shuttle into closer and closer union. It was then that,\nindependently of Schiller's _Wilhelm Tell_, I made this not quite\ninsignificant reflection (so true also in spiritual things): _Any\nroad, this simple Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the\nworld!_\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 May,\nsnug-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,\nI chiefly, 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 neighbourly\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, where\nas 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\nunspeakable hurly-burly. Nutbrown maids and nutbrown men, all\nclear-washed, loud-laughing, bedizened and beribanded; who came for\ndancing, for treating, and if possible, for happiness. Topbooted\nGraziers from the North; Swiss Brokers, Italian Drovers, also\ntopbooted, from the South; these with their subalterns in leather\njerkins, leather skull-caps, and long oxgoads; shouting in\nhalf-articulate speech, amid the inarticulate barking and bellowing.\nApart stood Potters from far Saxony, with their crockery in fair rows;\nNuernberg Pedlars, in booths that to me seemed richer than Ormuz\nbazaars; Showmen from the Lago Maggiore; detachments of the _Wiener\nSchub_ (Offscourings of Vienna) vociferously superintending games of\nchance. Ballad-singers brayed, Auctioneers grew hoarse; cheap New Wine\n(_heuriger_) flowed like water, still worse confounding the confusion;\nand high over all, vaulted, in ground-and-lofty tumbling, a\nparticoloured Merry-Andrew, like the genius of the place and of Life\nitself.\n\n'Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence; under the deep heavenly\nFirmament; waited-on by the four golden Seasons, with their\nvicissitudes of contribution, for even grim Winter brought its\nskating-matches and shooting-matches, its snow-storms and\nChristmas-carols,--did the Child sit and learn. These things were the\nAlphabet, whereby in aftertime he was to syllable and partly read the\ngrand Volume of the World; what matters it whether such Alphabet be in\nlarge gilt letters or in small ungilt ones, so you have an eye to read\nit? For Gneschen, eager to learn, the very act of looking thereon was\na blessedness that gilded all: his existence was a bright, soft\nelement of Joy; out of which, as in Prospero's Island, wonder after\nwonder bodied itself forth, to teach by 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 colours that glowed on my horizon, lay\neven in childhood a dark ring of Care, as yet no thicker than a\nthread, and often quite overshone; yet always it reappeared, nay ever\nwaxing broader and broader; till in after-years it almost\nover-shadowed my whole canopy, and threatened to engulf me in final\nnight. It was the ring of Necessity whereby we are all begirt; happy\nhe for whom a kind heavenly Sun brightens it into a ring of Duty, and\nplays round it with beautiful prismatic diffractions; yet ever, as\nbasis and as bourne for our whole being, it is there.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'For the first few years of our terrestrial Apprenticeship, we have\nnot much work to do; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are set down\nmostly to look about us over the workshop, and see others work, till\nwe have understood the tools a little, and can handle this and that.\nIf good Passivity alone, and not good Passivity and good Activity\ntogether, were the thing wanted, then was my early position favourable\nbeyond the most. In all that respects openness of Sense, affectionate\nTemper, ingenuous Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more\ncould I have wished? On the other side, however, things went not so\nwell. My Active Power (_Thatkraft_) was unfavourably hemmed-in; of\nwhich misfortune how many traces yet abide with me! In an orderly\nhouse, where the litter of children's sports is hateful enough, your\ntraining is too stoical; rather to bear and forbear than to make and\ndo. I was forbid much: wishes in any measure bold I had to renounce;\neverywhere a strait bond of Obedience inflexibly held me down. Thus\nalready Freewill often came in painful collision with Necessity; so\nthat my tears flowed, and at seasons the Child itself might taste that\nroot of bitterness, wherewith the whole fruitage of our life is\nmingled 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,\neveryway unscientific: yet in that very strictness and domestic\nsolitude might there not lie the root of deeper earnestness, of the\nstem from which all noble fruit must grow? Above all, how unskilful\nsoever, it was loving, it was well-meant, honest; whereby every\ndeficiency was helped. My kind Mother, for as such I must ever love\nthe good Gretchen, did me one altogether invaluable service: she\ntaught me, less indeed by word than by act and daily reverent look and\nhabitude, her own simple version of the Christian Faith. Andreas too\nattended Church; yet more like a parade-duty, for which he in the\nother world expected pay with arrears,--as, I trust, he has received;\nbut my Mother, with a true woman's heart, and fine though uncultivated\nsense, was in the strictest acceptation Religious. How indestructibly\nthe Good grows, and propagates itself, even among the weedy\nentanglements of Evil! The highest whom I knew on Earth I here saw\nbowed down, with awe unspeakable, before a Higher in Heaven: such\nthings, especially in infancy, reach inwards to the very core of your\nbeing; mysteriously does a Holy of Holies build itself into visibility\nin the mysterious deeps; and Reverence, the divinest in man, springs\nforth undying from its mean envelopment of Fear. Wouldst thou rather\nbe a peasant's son that knew, were it never so rudely, there was a God\nin Heaven and in Man; or a duke's son that only knew there were\ntwo-and-thirty quarters on the family-coach?'\n\nTo which last question we must answer: Beware, O Teufelsdroeckh, of\nspiritual pride!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nPEDAGOGY\n\n\nHitherto we see young Gneschen, in his indivisible case of yellow\nserge, borne forward mostly on the arms of kind Nature alone; seated,\nindeed, and much to his mind, in the terrestrial workshop; but (except\nhis soft hazel eyes, which we doubt not already gleamed with a still\nintelligence) called upon for little voluntary movement there.\nHitherto, accordingly, his aspect is rather generic, that of an\nincipient Philosopher and Poet in the abstract; perhaps it would\ntrouble Herr Heuschrecke himself to say wherein the special Doctrine\nof Clothes is as yet foreshadowed or betokened. For with Gneschen, as\nwith others, the Man may indeed stand pictured in the Boy (at least\nall the pigments are there); yet only some half of the Man stands in\nthe Child, or young Boy, namely, his Passive endowment, not his\nActive. The more impatient are we to discover what figure he cuts in\nthis latter capacity; how when, to use his own words, 'he understands\nthe tools a little, and can handle this or that,' he will proceed to\nhandle 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\ncharacter: nay perhaps in that so well-fostered and everyway excellent\n'Passivity' of his, which, with no free development of the antagonist\nActivity, distinguished his childhood, we may detect the rudiments of\nmuch that, in after days, and still in these present days, astonishes\nthe world. For the shallow-sighted, Teufelsdroeckh is oftenest a man\nwithout Activity of any kind, a No-man; for the deep-sighted, again, a\nman with Activity almost superabundant, yet so spiritual,\nclose-hidden, enigmatic, that no mortal can foresee its explosions, or\neven when it has exploded, so much as ascertain its significance. A\ndangerous, difficult temper for the modern European; above all,\ndisadvantageous in the hero of a Biography! Now as heretofore it will\nbehove the Editor of these pages, were it never so unsuccessfully, to\ndo his endeavour.\n\nAmong the earliest tools of any complicacy which a man, especially a\nman of letters, gets to handle, are his Class-books. On this portion\nof his History, Teufelsdroeckh looks down professedly as indifferent.\nReading he 'cannot remember ever to have learned'; so perhaps had it\nby nature. He says generally: 'Of the insignificant portion of my\nEducation, which depended on Schools, there need almost no notice be\ntaken. I learned what others learn; and kept it stored-by in a corner\nof my head, seeing as yet no manner of use in it. My Schoolmaster, a\ndownbent, brokenhearted, underfoot martyr, as others of that guild\nare, did little for me, except discover that he could do little: he,\ngood soul, pronounced me a genius, fit for the learned professions;\nand that I must be sent to the Gymnasium, and one day to the\nUniversity. Meanwhile, what printed thing soever I could meet with I\nread. My very copper pocket-money I laid-out on stall-literature;\nwhich, as it accumulated, I with my own hands sewed into volumes. By\nthis means was the young head furnished with a considerable miscellany\nof things and shadows of things: History in authentic fragments lay\nmingled with Fabulous chimeras, wherein also was reality; and the\nwhole not as dead stuff, but as living pabulum, tolerably nutritive\nfor 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,\nthere may have been manifest an inward vivacity that promised much;\nsymptoms of a spirit singularly open, thoughtful, almost poetical.\nThus, to say nothing of his Suppers on the Orchard-wall, and other\nphenomena of that earlier period, have many readers of these pages\nstumbled, in their twelfth year, on such reflections as the following?\n'It struck me much, as I sat by the Kuhbach, one silent noontide, and\nwatched it flowing, gurgling, to think how this same streamlet had\nflowed and gurgled, through all changes of weather and of fortune,\nfrom beyond the earliest date of History. Yes, probably on the morning\nwhen Joshua forded Jordan; even as at the midday when Caesar, doubtless\nwith difficulty, swam the Nile, yet kept his _Commentaries_ dry,--this\nlittle Kuhbach, assiduous as Tiber, Eurotas or Siloa, was murmuring on\nacross the wilderness, as yet unnamed, unseen: here, too, as in the\nEuphrates and the Ganges, is a vein or veinlet of the grand\nWorld-circulation of Waters, which, with its atmospheric arteries, has\nlasted and lasts simply with the World. Thou fool! Nature alone is\nantique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that idle crag thou sittest on\nis six-thousand years of age.' In which little thought, as in a little\nfountain, may there not lie the beginning of those well-nigh\nunutterable meditations on the grandeur and mystery of TIME, and its\nrelation to ETERNITY, which play such a part in this Philosophy of\nClothes?\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\nstill remember the red sunny Whitsuntide morning, when, trotting full\nof hope by the side of Father Andreas, I entered the main street of\nthe place, and saw its steeple-clock (then striking Eight) and\n_Schuldthurm_ (Jail), and the aproned or disaproned Burghers moving-in\nto breakfast: a little dog, in mad terror, was rushing past; for some\nhuman imps had tied a tin-kettle to its tail; thus did the agonised\ncreature, loud-jingling, career through the whole length of the\nBorough, and become notable enough. Fit emblem of many a Conquering\nHero, to whom Fate (wedding Fantasy to Sense, as it often elsewhere\ndoes) has malignantly appended a tin-kettle of Ambition, to chase him\non; which the faster he runs, urges him the faster, the more loudly\nand more foolishly! Fit emblem also of much that awaited myself, in\nthat mischievous Den; as in the World, whereof it was a portion and\nepitome!\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\nalone.' His schoolfellows, as is usual, persecuted him: 'They were\nBoys,' he says, 'mostly rude Boys, and obeyed the impulse of rude\nNature, which bids the deerherd fall upon any stricken hart, the\nduck-flock put to death any broken-winged brother or sister, and on\nall hands the strong tyrannise over the weak.' He admits, that though\n'perhaps in an unusual degree morally courageous,' he succeeded ill in\nbattle, and would fain have avoided it; a result, as would appear,\nowing less to his small personal stature (for in passionate seasons he\nwas 'incredibly nimble'), than to his 'virtuous principles': 'if it\nwas disgraceful to be beaten,' says he, 'it was only a shade less\ndisgraceful to have so much as fought; thus was I drawn two ways at\nonce, and in this important element of school-history, the\nwar-element, had little but sorrow.' On the whole, that same excellent\n'Passivity,' so notable in Teufelsdroeckh's childhood, is here visibly\nenough again getting nourishment. 'He wept often; indeed to such a\ndegree that he was nicknamed _Der Weinende_ (the Tearful), which\nepithet, till towards his thirteenth year, was indeed not quite\nunmerited. Only at rare intervals did the young soul burst-forth into\nfire-eyed rage, and, with a stormfulness (_Ungestuem_) under which the\nboldest quailed, assert that he too had Rights of Man, or at least of\nMankin.' In all which, who does not discern a fine flower-tree and\ncinnamon-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'\ntaught; Hebrew scarce even mechanically; much else which they called\nHistory, Cosmography, Philosophy, and so forth, no better than not at\nall. So that, except inasmuch as Nature was still busy; and he himself\n'went about, as was of old his wont, among the Craftsmen's workshops,\nthere learning 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\nthe Professor has not yet learned to look upon with any contentment.\nIndeed, throughout the whole of this Bag _Scorpio_, where we now are,\nand often in the following Bag, he shows himself unusually animated on\nthe matter of Education, and not without some touch of what we might\npresume to be anger.\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\nquarterly account-books. Innumerable dead Vocables (no dead Language,\nfor they themselves knew no Language) they crammed into us, and called\nit fostering the growth of mind. How can an inanimate, mechanical\nGerund-grinder, the like of whom will, in a subsequent century, be\nmanufactured at Nuernberg out of wood and leather, foster the growth of\nanything; much more of Mind, which grows, not like a vegetable (by\nhaving its roots littered with etymological compost), but like a\nspirit, by mysterious contact of Spirit; Thought kindling itself at\nthe fire of living Thought? How shall _he_ give kindling, in whose own\ninward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt-out to a dead\ngrammatical cinder? The Hinterschlag Professors knew syntax enough;\nand of the human soul thus much: that it had a faculty called Memory,\nand could be acted-on through the muscular integument by appliance of\nbirch-rods.\n\n'Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be; till the Hodman is\ndischarged, or reduced to hodbearing, and an Architect is hired, and\non all hands fitly encouraged: till communities and individuals\ndiscover, not without surprise, that fashioning the souls of a\ngeneration by Knowledge can rank on a level with blowing their bodies\nto pieces by Gunpowder; that with Generals and Fieldmarshals for\nkilling, there should be world-honoured Dignitaries, and were it\npossible, true God-ordained Priests, for teaching. But as yet, though\nthe Soldier wears openly, and even parades, his butchering-tool,\nnowhere, far as I have travelled, did the Schoolmaster make show of\nhis instructing-tool: nay, were he to walk abroad with birch girt on\nthigh, as if he therefrom expected honour, would there not, among the\nidler class, perhaps a certain levity be excited?'\n\nIn the third year of this Gymnasic period, Father Andreas seems to\nhave died: the young Scholar, otherwise so maltreated, saw himself for\nthe first time clad outwardly in sables, and inwardly in quite\ninexpressible melancholy. 'The dark bottomless Abyss, that lies under\nour feet, had yawned open; the pale kingdoms of Death, with all their\ninnumerable silent nations and generations, stood before him; the\ninexorable word, NEVER! now first showed its meaning. My Mother wept,\nand her sorrow got vent; but in my heart there lay a whole lake of\ntears, pent-up in silent desolation. Nevertheless the unworn Spirit is\nstrong; Life is so healthful that it even finds nourishment in Death:\nthese stern experiences, planted down by Memory in my Imagination,\nrose there to a whole cypress-forest, sad but beautiful; waving, with\nnot unmelodious sighs, in dark luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine,\nthrough long years of youth:--as in manhood also it does, and will do;\nfor I have now pitched my tent under a Cypress-tree; the Tomb is now\nmy inexpugnable Fortress, ever close by the gate of which I look upon\nthe hostile armaments, and pains and penalties of tyrannous Life\nplacidly enough, and listen to its loudest threatenings with a still\nsmile. O ye loved ones, that already sleep in the noiseless Bed of\nRest, whom in life I could only weep for and never help; and ye, who\nwide-scattered still toil lonely in the monster-bearing Desert, dyeing\nthe flinty ground with your blood,--yet a little while, and we shall\nall meet THERE, and our Mother's bosom will screen us all; and\nOppression's harness, and Sorrow's fire-whip, and all the Gehenna\nBailiffs that patrol and inhabit ever-vexed Time, cannot thenceforth\nharm us any more!'\n\nClose by which rather beautiful apostrophe, lies a laboured Character\nof the deceased Andreas Futteral; of his natural ability, his deserts\nin life (as Prussian Sergeant); with long historical inquiries into\nthe genealogy of the Futteral Family, here traced back as far as Henry\nthe Fowler: the whole of which we pass over, not without astonishment.\nIt only 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\nway already known to us. 'Thus was I doubly orphaned,' says he;\n'bereft not only of Possession, but even of Remembrance. Sorrow and\nWonder, here suddenly united, could not but produce abundant fruit.\nSuch a disclosure, in such a season, struck its roots through my whole\nnature: ever till the years of mature manhood, it mingled with my\nwhole thoughts, was as the stem whereon all my day-dreams and\nnight-dreams grew. A certain poetic elevation, yet also a\ncorresponding civic depression, it naturally imparted: _I was like no\nother_; in which fixed-idea, leading sometimes to highest, and oftener\nto frightfullest results, may there not lie the first spring of\nTendencies, which in my Life have become remarkable enough? As in\nbirth, so in action, speculation, and social position, my fellows are\nperhaps not numerous.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the Bag _Sagittarius_, as we at length discover, Teufelsdroeckh has\nbecome a University man; though, how, when, or of what quality, will\nnowhere disclose itself with the smallest certainty. Few things, in\nthe way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, can now surprise\nour readers; not even the total want of dates, almost without parallel\nin a Biographical work. So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always found,\nand must always look to find, these scattered Leaves. In\n_Sagittarius_, however, Teufelsdroeckh begins to show himself even more\nthan usually Sibylline: fragments of all sorts; scraps of regular\nMemoir, College-Exercises, Programs, Professional Testimoniums,\nMilkscores, torn Billets, sometimes to appearance of an amatory cast;\nall blown together as if by merest chance, henceforth bewilder the\nsane Historian. To combine any picture of these University, and the\nsubsequent, years; much more, to decipher therein any illustrative\nprimordial elements of the Clothes-Philosophy, becomes such a problem\nas 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\nthrough Childhood, less happily yet still vigorously through Boyhood,\nnow at length perfect in 'dead vocables,' and set down, as he hopes,\nby the living Fountain, there to superadd Ideas and Capabilities. From\nsuch Fountain he draws, diligently, thirstily, yet never or seldom\nwith his whole heart, for the water nowise suits his palate;\ndiscouragements, entanglements, aberrations are discoverable or\nsupposable. Nor perhaps are even pecuniary distresses wanting; for\n'the good Gretchen, who in spite of advices from not disinterested\nrelatives has sent him hither, must after a time withdraw her willing\nbut too feeble hand.' Nevertheless in an atmosphere of Poverty and\nmanifold Chagrin, the Humour of that young Soul, what character is in\nhim, first decisively reveals itself; and, like strong sunshine in\nweeping skies, gives out variety of colours, some of which are\nprismatic. Thus, with the aid of Time and of what Time brings, has the\nstripling Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh waxed into manly stature; and into so\nquestionable an aspect, that we ask with new eagerness, How he\nspecially came by it, and regret anew that there is no more explicit\nanswer. Certain of the intelligible and partially significant\nfragments, which are few in number, shall be extracted from that Limbo\nof a Paper-bag, and presented with the usual preparation.\n\nAs if, in the Bag _Scorpio_, Teufelsdroeckh had not already\nexpectorated his antipedagogic spleen; as if, from the name\n_Sagittarius_, he had thought himself called upon to shoot arrows, we\nhere again fall-in with such matter as this: 'The University where I\nwas educated still stands vivid enough in my remembrance, and I know\nits name well; which name, however, I, from tenderness to existing\ninterests and persons, shall in nowise divulge. It is my painful duty\nto say that, out of England and Spain, ours was the worst of all\nhitherto discovered Universities. This is indeed a time when right\nEducation is, as nearly as may be, impossible: however, in degrees of\nwrongness there is no limit: nay, I can conceive a worse system than\nthat of the Nameless itself; as poisoned victual may be worse than\nabsolute hunger.\n\n'It is written, When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into\nthe ditch: wherefore, in such circumstances, may it not sometimes be\nsafer, if both leader and led simply--sit still? Had you, anywhere in\nCrim Tartary; 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 minor\nBranches 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\nand Shoeblacking, are realised by actual Instruction and actual jet\nPolish; what 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\nhigh even as at One to a Hundred (which, considering the Wages of a\nPope, Russian Autocrat, or English Game-Preserver, is probably not far\nfrom the mark),--what almost prodigious saving may there not be\nanticipated, as the _Statistics of Imposture_ advances, and so the\nmanufacturing of Shams (that of Realities rising into clearer and\nclearer distinction therefrom) gradually declines, and at length\nbecomes all but wholly unnecessary!\n\n'This for the coming golden ages. What I had to remark, for the\npresent brazen one, is, that in several provinces, as in Education,\nPolity, Religion, where so much is wanted and indispensable, and so\nlittle can as yet be furnished, probably Imposture is of sanative,\nanodyne nature, and man's Gullibility not his worst blessing. Suppose\nyour sinews of war quite broken; I mean your military chest insolvent,\nforage all but exhausted; and that the whole army is about to mutiny,\ndisband, and cut your and each other's throat,--then were it not well\ncould you, as if by miracle, pay them in any sort of fairy-money, feed\nthem on coagulated water, or mere imagination of meat; whereby, till\nthe real supply came up, they might be kept together and quiet? Such\nperhaps was the aim of Nature, who does nothing without aim, in\nfurnishing her favourite, Man, with this his so omnipotent or rather\nomnipatient Talent of being Gulled.\n\n'How beautifully it works, with a little mechanism; nay, almost makes\nmechanism for itself! These Professors in the Nameless lived with\nease, with safety, by a mere Reputation, constructed in past times,\nand then too with no great effort, by quite another class of persons.\nWhich Reputation, like a strong, brisk-going undershot wheel, sunk\ninto the general current, bade fair, with only a little annual\nrepainting on their part, to hold long together, and of its own accord\nassiduously grind for them. Happy that it was so, for the Millers!\nThey themselves needed not to work; their attempts at working, at what\nthey called Educating, now when I look back on it, filled me with a\ncertain mute admiration.\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\ninto a state of windy argumentativeness; whereby the better sort had\nsoon to end in sick, impotent Scepticism; the worser sort explode\n(_crepiren_) in finished Self-conceit, and to all spiritual intents\nbecome dead.--But this too is portion of mankind's lot. If our era is\nthe Era of Unbelief, why murmur under it; is there not a better\ncoming, nay come? As in long-drawn Systole and long-drawn Diastole,\nmust the period of Faith alternate with the period of Denial; must the\nvernal growth, the summer luxuriance of all Opinions, Spiritual\nRepresentations and Creations, be followed by, and again follow, the\nautumnal decay, the winter dissolution. For man lives in Time, has his\nwhole earthly being, endeavour and destiny shaped for him by Time:\nonly in the transitory Time-Symbol is the ever-motionless Eternity we\nstand on made manifest. And yet, in such winter-seasons of Denial, it\nis for the nobler-minded perhaps a comparative misery to have been\nborn, and to be awake and work; and for the duller a felicity, if,\nlike hibernating animals, safe-lodged in some Salamanca University, or\nSybaris City, or other superstitious or voluptuous Castle of\nIndolence, they can slumber-through, in stupid dreams, and only awaken\nwhen the loud-roaring hailstorms have all done their work, and to our\nprayers and martyrdoms the new Spring has been vouchsafed.'\n\nThat in the environment, here mysteriously enough shadowed forth,\nTeufelsdroeckh 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,\na certain polish was communicated; by instinct and happy accident, I\ntook less to rioting (_renommiren_), than to thinking and reading,\nwhich latter also I was free to do. Nay from the chaos of that\nLibrary, I succeeded in fishing-up more books perhaps than had been\nknown to the very keepers thereof. The foundation of a Literary Life\nwas hereby laid : I learned, on my own strength, to read fluently in\nalmost all cultivated languages, on almost all subjects and sciences;\nfarther, as man is ever the prime object to man, already it was my\nfavourite employment to read character in speculation, and from the\nWriting to construe the Writer. A certain groundplan of Human Nature\nand Life began to fashion itself in me; wondrous enough, now when I\nlook back on it; for my whole Universe, physical and spiritual, was as\nyet a Machine! However, such a conscious, recognised groundplan, the\ntruest I had, _was_ beginning to be there, and by additional\nexperiments might be corrected and indefinitely extended.'\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.\nNevertheless a desert this was, waste, and howling with savage\nmonsters. Teufelsdroeckh gives us long details of his 'fever-paroxysms\nof Doubt'; his Inquiries concerning Miracles, and the Evidences of\nreligious Faith; and how 'in the silent night-watches, still darker in\nhis heart than over sky and earth, he has cast himself before the\nAll-seeing, and with audible prayers cried vehemently for Light, for\ndeliverance from Death and the Grave. Not till after long years, and\nunspeakable agonies, did the believing heart surrender; sink into\nspell-bound sleep, under the night-mare, Unbelief; and, in this\nhag-ridden dream, mistake God's fair living world for a pallid, vacant\nHades and extinct Pandemonium. But through such Purgatory pain,'\ncontinues he, 'it is appointed us to pass; first must the dead Letter\nof Religion own itself dead, and drop piecemeal into dust, if the\nliving Spirit of Religion, freed from this its charnel-house, is to\narise on us, newborn of Heaven, and with new healing 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\nseason of youth, so exaggerated in imagining, so boundless in desires,\nyet here so poor in means,--do we not see a strong incipient spirit\noppressed and overloaded from without and from within; the fire of\ngenius struggling-up among fuel-wood of the greenest, and as yet with\nmore of bitter vapour than of clear flame?\n\nFrom various fragments of Letters and other documentary scraps, it is\nto be inferred that Teufelsdroeckh, isolated, shy, retiring as he was,\nhad not altogether escaped notice: certain established men are aware\nof his existence; and, if stretching-out no helpful hand, have at\nleast their eyes on him. He appears, though in dreary enough humour,\nto be addressing himself to the Profession of Law;--whereof, indeed,\nthe world has since seen him a public graduate. But omitting these\nbroken, unsatisfactory thrums of Economical relation, let us present\nrather the following small thread of Moral relation; and therewith,\nthe reader for himself weaving it in at the right place, conclude our\ndim arras-picture of these University 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,\nby blood and hospitality, with the Counts von Zaehdarm, in this quarter\nof Germany; to which noble Family I likewise was, by his means, with\nall friendliness, brought near. Towgood had a fair talent, unspeakably\nill-cultivated; with considerable humour of character: and, bating his\ntotal ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing and a little\nGrammar, showed less of that aristocratic impassivity, and silent\nfury, than for most part belongs to Travellers of his nation. To him I\nowe my first practical knowledge of the English and their ways;\nperhaps also something of the partiality with which I have ever since\nregarded that singular people. Towgood was not without an eye, could\nhe have come at any light. Invited doubtless by the presence of the\nZaehdarm Family, he had travelled hither, in the almost frantic hope of\nperfecting his studies; he, whose studies had as yet been those of\ninfancy, hither to a University where so much as the notion of\nperfection, not to say the effort after it, no longer existed! Often\nwe would condole over the hard destiny of the Young in this era: how,\nafter all our toil, we were to be turned-out into the world, with\nbeards on our chins indeed, but with few other attributes of manhood;\nno existing thing that we were trained to Act on, nothing that we\ncould so much as Believe. \"How has our head on the outside a polished\nHat,\" would Towgood exclaim, \"and in the inside Vacancy, or a froth of\nVocables and Attorney-Logic! At a small cost men are educated to make\nleather into shoes; but at a great cost, what am I educated to make?\nBy Heaven, Brother! what I have already eaten and worn, as I came thus\nfar, would endow a considerable Hospital of Incurables.\"--\"Man,\nindeed,\" I would answer, \"has a Digestive Faculty, which must be kept\nworking, were it even partly by stealth. But as for our Mis-education,\nmake not bad worse; waste not the time yet ours, in trampling on\nthistles because they have yielded us no figs. _Frisch zu, Bruder!_\nHere are Books, and we have brains to read them; here is a whole Earth\nand a whole Heaven, and we have eyes to look on them: _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 once\nharlequins 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\nwarmhearted, strongheaded and wrongheaded Herr Towgood I was even near\nexperiencing the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship. Yes, foolish\nHeathen that I was, I felt that, under certain conditions, I could\nhave loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and been his brother\nonce and always. By degrees, however, I understood the new time, and\nits wants. If man's _Soul_ is indeed, as in the Finnish Language, and\nUtilitarian Philosophy, a kind of _Stomach_, what else is the true\nmeaning of Spiritual Union but an Eating together? Thus we, instead of\nFriends, are Dinner-guests; and here as elsewhere have cast away\nchimeras.'\n\nSo ends, abruptly as is usual, and enigmatically, this little\nincipient romance. What henceforth becomes of the brave Herr Towgood,\nor Toughgut? He has dived-under, in the Autobiographical Chaos, and\nswims we see not where. Does any reader 'in the interior parts of\nEngland' know of such a man?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nGETTING UNDER WAY\n\n\n'Thus, nevertheless,' writes our autobiographer, apparently as\nquitting College, 'was there realised Somewhat; namely, I, Diogenes\nTeufelsdroeckh: 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.\nCapabilities there were in me to give battle, in some small degree,\nagainst the great Empire of Darkness: does not the very Ditcher and\nDelver, with his spade, extinguish many a thistle and puddle; and so\nleave a little Order, where he found the opposite? Nay your very\nDaymoth has capabilities in this kind; and ever organises something\n(into its own Body, if no otherwise), which was before Inorganic; and\nof mute dead air makes living music, though only of the faintest, by\nhumming.\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\ndays, witness some. Of the Poet's and Prophet's inspired Message, and\nhow it makes and unmakes whole worlds, I shall forbear mention: but\ncannot the dullest hear Steam-engines clanking around him? Has he not\nseen the Scottish Brassmith's IDEA (and this but a mechanical one)\ntravelling on fire-wings round the Cape, and across two Oceans; and\nstronger than any other Enchanter's Familiar, on all hands unweariedly\nfetching and carrying: at home, not only weaving Cloth, but rapidly\nenough overturning the whole old system of Society; and, for Feudalism\nand Preservation of the Game, preparing us, by indirect but sure\nmethods, Industrialism and the Government of the Wisest? Truly a\nThinking Man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can have; every\ntime such a one announces himself, I doubt not, there runs a shudder\nthrough the Nether Empire; and new Emissaries are trained, with new\ntactics, to, if possible, entrap him, and hoodwink and handcuff him.\n\n'With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of the Universe, been\ncalled. 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 (_Zeitfuerst_), or Devil, and all his\nDominions, your coronation-ceremony costs such trouble, your sceptre\nis so difficult to get at, or even to get eye on!'\n\nBy which last wiredrawn similitude does Teufelsdroeckh mean no more\nthan that young men find obstacles in what we call 'getting under\nway'? 'Not what I Have,' continues he, 'but what I Do is my Kingdom.\nTo each is given a certain inward Talent, a certain outward\nEnvironment of Fortune; to each, by wisest combination of these two, a\ncertain maximum of Capability. But the hardest problem were ever this\nfirst: To find by study of yourself, and of the ground you stand on,\nwhat your combined inward and outward Capability specially is. For,\nalas, our young soul is all budding with Capabilities, and we see not\nyet which is the main and true one. Always too the new man is in a new\ntime, under new conditions; his course can be the _fac-simile_ of no\nprior one, but is by its nature original. And then how seldom will the\noutward Capability fit the inward: though talented wonderfully enough,\nwe are poor, unfriended, dyspeptical, bashful; nay what is worse than\nall, we are foolish. Thus, in a whole imbroglio of Capabilities, we go\nstupidly groping about, to grope which is ours, and often clutch the\nwrong one: in this mad work must several years of our small term be\nspent, till the purblind Youth, by practice, acquire notions of\ndistance, and become a seeing Man. Nay, many so spend their whole\nterm, and in ever-new expectation, ever-new disappointment, shift from\nenterprise to enterprise, and from side to side: till at length, as\nexasperated striplings of threescore-and-ten, they shift into their\nlast 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\nof time. Nay even in matters spiritual, since the spiritual artist too\nis born blind, and does not, like certain other creatures, receive\nsight in nine days, but far later, sometimes never,--is it not well\nthat there should be what we call Professions, or Bread-studies\n(_Brodzwecke_), pre-appointed us? Here, circling like the gin-horse,\nfor whom partial or total blindness is no evil, the Bread-artist can\ntravel contentedly round and round, still fancying that it is forward\nand forward; and realise much: for himself victual; for the world an\nadditional horse's power in the grand corn-mill or hemp-mill of\nEconomic Society. For me too had such a leading-string been provided;\nonly that it proved a neck-halter, and had nigh throttled me, till I\nbroke it off. Then, in the words of Ancient Pistol, did the world\ngenerally become mine oyster, which I, by strength or cunning, was to\nopen, as I would and could. Almost had I deceased (_fast waer ich\numgekommen_), so obstinately did it continue 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\ndisastrous details, through this Bag _Pisces_, and those that follow.\nA young man of high talent, and high though still temper, like a young\nmettled colt, 'breaks-off his neck-halter,' and bounds forth, from his\npeculiar manger, into the wide world; which, alas, he finds all\nrigorously fenced-in. Richest clover-fields tempt his eye; but to him\nthey are forbidden pasture: either pining in progressive starvation,\nhe must stand; or, in mad exasperation, must rush to and fro, leaping\nagainst sheer stone-walls, which he cannot leap over, which only\nlacerate and lame him; till at last, after thousand attempts and\nendurances, he, as if by miracle, clears his way; not indeed into\nluxuriant and luxurious clover, yet into a certain bosky wilderness\nwhere existence is still possible, and Freedom, though waited on by\nScarcity, is not without sweetness. In a word, Teufelsdroeckh having\nthrown-up his legal Profession, finds himself without landmark of\noutward guidance; whereby his previous want of decided Belief, or\ninward guidance, is frightfully aggravated. Necessity urges him on;\nTime will not stop, neither can he, a Son of Time; wild passions\nwithout solacement, wild faculties without employment, ever vex and\nagitate him. He too must enact that stern Monodrama, _No Object and no\nRest_; must front its successive destinies, work through to its\ncatastrophe, 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\ncapital, as he emerges from its Nameless University, we can discern\nwell that it was far from enviable. His first Law-Examination he has\ncome through triumphantly; and can even boast that the _Examen\nRigorosum_ need not have frightened him: but though he is hereby 'an\n_Auscultator_ of respectability,' what avails it? There is next to no\nemployment to be had. Neither, for a youth without connexions, is the\nprocess of Expectation very hopeful in itself; nor for one of his\ndisposition much cheered from without. 'My fellow Auscultators,' he\nsays, 'were Auscultators: they dressed, and digested, and talked\narticulate words; other vitality showed they almost none. Small\nspeculation in those eyes, that they did glare withal! Sense neither\nfor the high nor for the deep, nor for aught human or divine, save\nonly for the faintest scent of coming Preferment.' In which words,\nindicating a total estrangement on the part of Teufelsdroeckh, may\nthere not also lurk traces of a bitterness as from wounded vanity?\nDoubtless these prosaic Auscultators may have sniffed at him, with his\nstrange ways; and tried to hate, and what was much more impossible, to\ndespise him. Friendly communion, in any case, there could not be:\nalready has the young Teufelsdroeckh left the other young geese; and\nswims apart, though as yet uncertain whether he himself is cygnet or\ngosling.\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\npassive Auscultatorship, towards any active Assessorship, is evidently\nof the slowest. By degrees, those same established men, once partially\ninclined to patronise him, seem to withdraw their countenance, and\ngive him up as 'a man of genius': against which procedure he, in these\nPapers, loudly protests. 'As if,' says he, 'the higher did not\npresuppose the lower; as if he who can fly into heaven, could not also\nwalk post if he resolved on it! But the world is an old woman, and\nmistakes any gilt farthing for a gold coin; whereby being often\ncheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing 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\nGretchen seems to have vanished from the scene, perhaps from the\nEarth; other Horn of Plenty, or even of Parsimony, nowhere flows for\nhim; so that 'the prompt nature of Hunger being well known,' we are\nnot without our anxiety. From private Tuition, in never so many\nlanguages and sciences, the aid derivable is small; neither, to use\nhis own words, 'does the young Adventurer hitherto suspect in himself\nany literary gift; but at best earns bread-and-water wages, by his\nwide faculty of Translation. Nevertheless,' continues he, 'that I\nsubsisted is clear, for you find me even now alive.' Which fact,\nhowever, except upon the principle of our true-hearted, kind old\nProverb, that 'there is always life for a living one,' we must profess\nourselves 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\nan independent Hearth-holder, if not House-holder, paid his way. Here\nalso occur, among many others, two little mutilated Notes, which\nperhaps throw light on his condition. The first has now no date, or\nwriter's name, but a huge Blot; and runs to this effect: 'The\n(_Inkblot_), tied-down by previous promise, cannot, except by best\nwishes, forward the Herr Teufelsdroeckh's views on the Assessorship in\nquestion; and sees himself under the cruel necessity of forbearing,\nfor the present, what were otherwise his duty and joy, to assist in\nopening the career for a man of genius, on whom far higher triumphs\nare yet waiting.' The other is on gilt paper; and interests us like a\nsort of epistolary mummy now dead, yet which once lived and\nbeneficently worked. We give it in the original: '_Herr Teufelsdroeckh\nwird von der Frau Graefinn, auf Donnerstag, zum_ AESTHETISCHEN THEE\n_schoenstens 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\nof quite fluid _AEsthetic Tea!_ How Teufelsdroeckh, now at actual\nhandgrips with Destiny herself, may have comported himself among these\nMusical and Literary Dilettanti of both sexes, like a hungry lion\ninvited to a feast of chickenweed, we can only conjecture. Perhaps in\nexpressive silence, and abstinence: otherwise if the lion, in such\ncase, is to feast at all, it cannot be on the chickenweed, but only on\nthe chickens. For the rest, as this Frau Graefinn dates from the\n_Zaehdarm House_, she can be no other than the Countess and mistress of\nthe same; whose intellectual tendencies, and good-will to\nTeufelsdroeckh, whether on the footing of Herr Towgood, or on his own\nfooting, are hereby manifest. That some sort of relation, indeed,\ncontinued, for a time, to connect our Autobiographer, though perhaps\nfeebly enough, with this noble House, we have elsewhere express\nevidence. Doubtless, if he expected patronage, it was in vain; enough\nfor him if he here obtained occasional glimpses of the great world,\nfrom which we at one time fancied him to have been always excluded.\n'The Zaehdarms,' says he, 'lived in the soft, sumptuous garniture of\nAristocracy; whereto Literature and Art, attracted and attached from\nwithout, were to serve as the handsomest fringing. It was to the\n_Gnaedigen Frau_ (her Ladyship) that this latter improvement was due:\nassiduously she gathered, dextrously she fitted-on, what fringing was\nto be had; lace or cobweb, as the place yielded.' Was Teufelsdroeckh\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\nhonour to converse; chiefly on general affairs, and the aspect of the\nworld, which he, though now past middle life, viewed in no\nunfavourable light; finding indeed, except the Outrooting of\nJournalism (_die auszurottende Journalistik_), little to desiderate\ntherein. On some points, as his _Excellenz_ was not uncholeric, I\nfound it more pleasant to keep silence. Besides, his occupation being\nthat of Owning Land, there might be faculties enough, which, as\nsuperfluous for such use, were little developed in him.'\n\nThat to Teufelsdroeckh the aspect of the world was nowise so faultless,\nand many things besides 'the Outrooting of Journalism' might have\nseemed improvements, we can readily conjecture. With nothing but a\nbarren Auscultatorship from without, and so many mutinous thoughts and\nwishes from within, his position was no easy one. 'The Universe,' he\nsays, 'was as a mighty Sphinx-riddle, which I knew so little of, yet\nmust rede, or be devoured. In red streaks of unspeakable grandeur, yet\nalso in the blackness of darkness, was Life, to my too-unfurnished\nThought, unfolding itself. A strange contradiction lay in me; and I as\nyet knew not the solution of it; knew not that spiritual music can\nspring only from discords set in harmony; that but for Evil there were\nno Good, as victory 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\nunder barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to\nfollow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder\nand wiser, at the age of twenty-five. With which suggestion, at least\nas considered in the light of a practical scheme, I need scarcely say\nthat I nowise coincide. Nevertheless it is plausibly urged that, as\nyoung ladies (_Maedchen_) are, to mankind, precisely the most\ndelightful in those years; so young gentlemen (_Buebchen_) do then\nattain their maximum of detestability. Such gawks (_Gecken_) are they;\nand foolish peacocks, and yet with such a vulturous hunger for\nself-indulgence; so obstinate, obstreperous, vainglorious; in all\nsenses, so froward and so forward. No mortal's endeavour or attainment\nwill, in the smallest, content the as yet unendeavouring, unattaining\nyoung gentleman; but he could make it all infinitely better, were it\nworthy of him. Life everywhere is the most manageable matter, simple\nas a question in the Rule-of-Three: multiply your second and third\nterm together, divide the product by the first, and your quotient will\nbe the answer,--which you are but an ass if you cannot come at. The\nbooby has not yet found-out, by any trial, that, do what one will,\nthere is ever a cursed fraction, oftenest a decimal repeater, and no\nnet integer quotient so much as to be thought of.'\n\nIn which passage does not there lie an implied confession that\nTeufelsdroeckh himself, besides his outward obstructions, had an\ninward, still greater, to contend with; namely, a certain temporary,\nyouthful, yet still afflictive derangement of head? Alas, on the\nformer side alone, his case was hard enough. 'It continues ever true,'\nsays he, 'that Saturn, or Chronos, or what we call TIME, devours all\nhis Children: only by incessant Running, by incessant Working, may you\n(for some threescore-and-ten years) escape him; and you too he devours\nat last. 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\nright direction. Are not our Bodies and our Souls in continual\nmovement, whether we will or not; in a continual Waste, requiring a\ncontinual Repair? Utmost satisfaction of our whole outward and inward\nWants were but satisfaction for a space of Time; thus, whatso we have\ndone, is done, and for us annihilated, and ever must we go and do\nanew. O Time-Spirit, how hast thou environed and imprisoned us, and\nsunk us so deep in thy troublous dim Time-Element, that only in lucid\nmoments can so much as glimpses of our upper Azure Home be revealed to\nus! Me, however, as a Son of Time, unhappier than some others, was\nTime threatening to eat quite prematurely; for, strive as I might,\nthere was no good Running, so obstructed was the path, so gyved were\nthe feet.' That is to say, we presume, speaking in the dialect of this\nlower world, that Teufelsdroeckh's whole duty and necessity was, like\nother men's, 'to work,--in the right direction,' and that no work was\nto be had; whereby he became wretched enough. As was natural: with\nhaggard Scarcity threatening him in the distance; and so vehement a\nsoul languishing in restless inaction, and forced thereby, like Sir\nHudibras's sword by rust,\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 characterises our\nProfessor; and perhaps, in faint rudiments, the origin of the\nClothes-Philosophy itself? Already the attitude he has assumed towards\nthe World is too defensive; not, as would have been desirable, a bold\nattitude of attack. 'So far hitherto,' he says, 'as I had mingled with\nmankind, I was notable, if for anything, for a certain stillness of\nmanner, which, as my friends often rebukingly declared, did but ill\nexpress the keen ardour of my feelings. I, in truth, regarded men with\nan excess both of love and of fear. The mystery of a Person, indeed,\nis ever divine to him that has a sense for the God-like. Often,\nnotwithstanding, was I blamed, and by half-strangers hated, for my\nso-called Hardness (_Haerte_), my Indifferentism towards men; and the\nseemingly ironic tone I had adopted, as my favourite dialect in\nconversation. Alas, the panoply of Sarcasm was but as a buckram case,\nwherein I had striven to envelop myself; that so my own poor Person\nmight live safe there, and in all friendliness, being no longer\nexasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the\nlanguage of the Devil; for which reason I have long since as good as\nrenounced 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.\nHave we not seen persons of weight and name coming forward, with\ngentlest indifference, to tread such a one out of sight, as an\ninsignificancy and worm, start ceiling-high (_balkenhoch_), and thence\nfall shattered and supine, to be borne home on shutters, not without\nindignation, when he proved 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 Teufelsdroeckh too admits,\nis '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 connexion he had ever succeeded in forming, his connexion\nwith the Zaehdarm Family, seems to have been paralysed, for all\npractical uses, by the death of the 'not uncholeric' old Count. This\nfact stands recorded, quite incidentally, in a certain _Discourse on\nEpitaphs_, huddled into the present Bag, among so much else; of which\nEssay the learning and curious penetration are more to be approved of\nthan the spirit. His grand principle is, that lapidary inscriptions, of\nwhat sort soever, should be Historical rather than Lyrical. 'By request\nof that worthy Nobleman's survivors,' says he, 'I undertook to compose\nhis Epitaph; 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\n               PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMINE MAGNUS,\n\n                          ZAEHDARMI COMES,\n                        EX IMPERII CONCILIO,\n         VELLERIS AUREI, PERISCELIDIS, NECNON VULTURIS NIGRI\n                                EQUES.\n\n                      QUI DUM SUB LUNA AGEBAT,\n\n                      QUINQUIES MILLE PERDICES\n\n                          PLUMBO CONFECIT:\n\n                             VARII CIBI\n\n                CENTUMPONDIA MILLIES CENTENA MILLIA,\n            PER SE, PERQUE SERVOS QUADRUPEDES BIPEDESVE\n                    HAUD SINE TUMULTU DEVOLVENS,\n\n                             IN STERCUS\n\n                          PALAM CONVERTIT.\n\n                    NUNC A LABORE REQUIESCENTEM\n                          OPERA SEQUUNTUR.\n\n                       SI MONUMENTUM QUAERIS,\n                          FIMETUM ADSPICE.\n\n    PRIMUM IN ORBE DEJECIT [_sub dato_]; POSTREMUM [_sub dato_].\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nROMANCE\n\n\n'For long years,' writes Teufelsdroeckh, '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\nwhat might, I resolved to try.'\n\nThus then are we to see him in a new independent capacity, though\nperhaps far from an improved one. Teufelsdroeckh 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 Teufelsdroeckh! 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,\nwherein, by mutual guidance, by all manner of loans and borrowings,\neach could manifoldly aid the other? How wilt thou sail in unknown\nseas; and for thyself find that shorter North-west Passage to thy fair\nSpice-country of a Nowhere?--A solitary rover, on such a voyage, with\nsuch nautical tactics, will meet with adventures. Nay, as we forthwith\ndiscover, a certain Calypso-Island detains him at the very outset; and\nas it were falsifies and oversets his whole reckoning.\n\n'If in youth,' writes he once, 'the Universe is majestically\nunveiling, and everywhere Heaven revealing itself on Earth, nowhere to\nthe Young Man does this Heaven on Earth so immediately reveal itself\nas in the Young Maiden. Strangely enough, in this strange life of\nours, it has been so appointed. On the whole, as I have often said, a\nPerson (_Persoenlichkeit_) is ever holy to us: a certain orthodox\nAnthropomorphism connects my _Me_ with all _Thees_ in bonds of Love:\nbut it is in this approximation of the Like and Unlike, that such\nheavenly attraction, as between Negative and Positive, first burns-out\ninto a flame. Is the pitifullest mortal Person, think you, indifferent\nto us? Is it not rather our heartfelt wish to be made one with him; to\nunite him to us, by gratitude, by admiration, even by fear; or failing\nall these, unite ourselves to him? But how much more, in this case of\nthe Like-Unlike! Here is conceded us the higher mystic possibility of\nsuch a union, the highest in our Earth; thus, in the conducting medium\nof Fantasy, flames-forth that _fire_-development of the universal\nSpiritual Electricity, which, as unfolded between man and woman, we\nfirst emphatically denominate LOVE.\n\n'In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there already\nblooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some fairest Eve;\nnor, in the stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage of that Garden,\nis a Tree of Knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst thereof,\nwanting. Perhaps too the whole is but the lovelier, if Cherubim and a\nFlaming Sword divide it from all footsteps of men; and grant him, the\nimaginative stripling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season\nof virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable celestial\nbarrier; and the sacred air-cities of Hope have not shrunk into the\nmean clay-hamlets of Reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite\nand free!\n\n'As for our young Forlorn,' continues Teufelsdroeckh, evidently meaning\nhimself, 'in his secluded way of life, and with his glowing Fantasy,\nthe more fiery that it burnt under cover, as in a reverberating\nfurnace, his feeling towards the Queens of this Earth was, and indeed\nis, altogether unspeakable. A visible Divinity dwelt in them; to our\nyoung Friend all women were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw\nthem flitting past, in their many-coloured angel-plumage; or hovering\nmute and inaccessible on the outskirts of _AEsthetic Tea_: all of air\nthey were, all Soul and Form; so lovely, like mysterious priestesses,\nin whose hand was the invisible Jacob's-ladder, whereby man might\nmount into very Heaven. That he, our poor Friend, should ever win for\nhimself one of these Gracefuls (_Holden_)--_Ach Gott!_ how could he\nhope it; should he not have died under it? There was a certain\ndelirious 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\nof true Sky-born, who visibly and audibly hovered round him whereso he\nwent; and they had that religious worship in his thought, though as\nyet it was by their mere earthly and trivial name that he named them.\nBut now, if on a soul so circumstanced, some actual Air-maiden,\nincorporated into tangibility and reality, should cast any electric\nglance of kind eyes, saying thereby, \"Thou too mayest love and be\nloved\"; and so kindle him,--good Heaven, what a volcanic,\nearthquake-bringing, all-consuming fire 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;\nas indeed how could it fail? A nature, which, in his own figurative\nstyle, we might say, had now not a little carbonised tinder, of\nIrritability; with so much nitre of latent Passion, and sulphurous\nHumour enough; the whole lying in such hot neighbourhood, close by 'a\nreverberating furnace of Fantasy': have we not here the components of\ndriest Gunpowder, ready, on occasion of the smallest spark, to\nblaze-up? Neither, in this our Life-element, are sparks anywhere\nwanting. Without doubt, some Angel, whereof so many hovered round,\nwould one day, leaving 'the outskirts of _AEsthetic Tea_,' flit nigher;\nand, by electric Promethean glance, kindle no despicable firework.\nHappy, if it indeed proved a Firework, and flamed-off rocketwise, in\nsuccessive beautiful bursts of splendour, each growing naturally from\nthe other, through the several stages of a happy Youthful Love; till\nthe whole were safely burnt-out; and the young soul relieved with\nlittle damage! Happy, if it did not rather prove a Conflagration and\nmad Explosion; painfully lacerating the heart itself; nay perhaps\nbursting the heart in pieces (which were Death); or at best, bursting\nthe 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\nhis heart were of stone or of flesh give way. He loved once; not\nwisely but too well. And once only: for as your Congreve needs a new\ncase or wrappage for every new rocket, so each human heart can\nproperly exhibit but one Love, if even one; the 'First Love which is\ninfinite' can be followed by no second like unto it. In more recent\nyears, accordingly, the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard\nTeufelsdroeckh as a man not only who would never wed, but who would\nnever even flirt; whom the grand-climacteric itself, and _St. Martin's\nSummer_ of incipient Dotage, would crown with no new myrtle-garland.\nTo the Professor, women are henceforth Pieces of Art; of Celestial\nArt, indeed; which celestial pieces he glories to survey in galleries,\nbut has lost thought of purchasing.\n\nPsychological readers are not without curiosity to see how\nTeufelsdroeckh, in this for him unexampled predicament, demeans\nhimself; with what specialties of successive configuration, splendour\nand colour, his Firework blazes-off. Small, as usual, is the\nsatisfaction that such can meet with here. From amid these confused\nmasses of Eulogy and Elegy, with their mad Petrarchan and Werterean\nware lying madly scattered among all sorts of quite extraneous matter,\nnot so much as the fair one's name can be deciphered. For, without\ndoubt, the title _Blumine_, whereby she is here designated, and which\nmeans simply Goddess of Flowers, must be fictitious. Was her real name\nFlora, then? But what was her surname, or had she none? Of what\nstation in Life was she; of what parentage, fortune, aspect?\nSpecially, by what Pre-established Harmony of occurrences did the\nLover and the Loved meet one another in so wide a world; how did they\nbehave in such meeting? To all which questions, not unessential in a\nBiographic work, mere Conjecture must for most part return answer. 'It\nwas appointed,' says our Philosopher, 'that the high celestial orbit\nof Blumine should intersect the low sublunary one of our Forlorn; that\nhe, looking in her empyrean eyes, should fancy the upper Sphere of\nLight was come down into this nether sphere of Shadows; and finding\nhimself mistaken, make noise enough.'\n\nWe seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, beautiful, and some\none's Cousin; highborn, and of high spirit; but unhappily dependent\nand insolvent; living, perhaps, on the not-too-gracious bounty of\nmonied relatives. But how came 'the Wanderer' into her circle? Was it\nby the humid vehicle of _AEsthetic Tea_, or by the arid one of mere\nBusiness? Was it on the hand of Herr Towgood; or of the Gnaedige Frau,\nwho, as 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\never saw thee, were it even an absolved Auscultator, officially\nbearing in his pocket the last _Relatio ex Actis_ he would ever write,\nbut must have paused to wonder! Noble Mansion! There stoodest thou, in\ndeep Mountain Amphitheatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene\nsolitude; stately, massive, all of granite; glittering in the western\nsunbeams, like a palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious metal.\nBeautiful rose up, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills;\nof the greenest was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of\ncrag, or spotted by some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. To\nthe unconscious Wayfarer thou wert also as an Ammon's Temple, in the\nLibyan Waste; where, for joy and woe, the tablet of his Destiny lay\nwritten. Well might he pause and gaze; in that glance of his were\nprophecy and nameless forebodings.'\n\nBut now let us conjecture that the so presentient Auscultator has\nhanded-in his _Relatio ex Actis_; been invited to a glass of\nRhine-wine; and so, instead of returning dispirited and athirst to his\ndusty Town-home, is ushered into the Gardenhouse, where sit the\nchoicest party of dames and cavaliers: if not engaged in AEsthetic Tea,\nyet in trustful evening conversation, and perhaps Musical Coffee, for\nwe hear of 'harps and pure voices making the stillness live.'\nScarcely, it would seem, is the Gardenhouse inferior in respectability\nto the noble Mansion itself. 'Embowered amid rich foliage,\nrose-clusters, and the hues and odours of thousand flowers, here sat\nthat brave company; in front, from the wide-opened doors, fair outlook\nover blossom and bush, over grove and velvet green, stretching,\nundulating onwards to the remote Mountain peaks: so bright, so mild,\nand everywhere the melody of birds and happy creatures: it was all as\nif man had stolen a shelter from the Sun in the bosom-vesture of\nSummer herself. How came it that the Wanderer advanced thither with\nsuch forecasting heart (_ahndungsvoll_), by the side of his gay host?\nDid he feel that to these soft influences his hard bosom ought to be\nshut; that here, once more, Fate had it in view to try him; to mock\nhim, and see whether there were Humour in him?\n\n'Next moment he finds himself presented to the party; and especially\nby name to--Blumine! Peculiar among all dames and damosels glanced\nBlumine, there in her modesty, like a star among earthly lights.\nNoblest maiden! whom he bent to, in body and in soul; yet scarcely\ndared look at, for the presence filled him with painful yet sweetest\nembarrassment.\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\nvague colourings of Rumour, from the censures no less than from the\npraises, had our friend painted for himself a certain imperious Queen\nof Hearts, and blooming warm Earth-angel, much more enchanting than\nyour mere white Heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins\ncirculates too little naphtha-fire. Herself also he had seen in public\nplaces; that light yet so stately form; those dark tresses, shading a\nface where smiles and sunlight played over earnest deeps: but all this\nhe had seen only as a magic vision, for him inaccessible, almost\nwithout reality. Her sphere was too far from his; how should she ever\nthink of him; O Heaven! how should they so much as once meet together?\nAnd now that Rose-goddess sits in the same circle with him; the light\nof _her_ eyes has smiled on him; if he speak, she will hear it! Nay,\nwho knows, since the heavenly Sun looks into lowest valleys, but\nBlumine herself might have aforetime noted the so unnotable; perhaps,\nfrom his very gainsayers, as he had from hers, gathered wonder,\ngathered favour for him? Was the attraction, the agitation mutual,\nthen; pole and pole trembling towards contact, when once brought into\nneighbourhood? Say rather, heart swelling in presence of the Queen of\nHearts; like the Sea swelling when once near its Moon! With the\nWanderer it was even so: as in heavenward gravitation, suddenly as at\nthe touch of a Seraph's wand, his whole soul is roused from its\ndeepest recesses; and all that was painful and that was blissful\nthere, dim images, vague feelings of a whole Past and a whole Future,\nare 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 (_Daemon_) 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\non new-found wings of victory, moves so calmly, even because so\nrapidly, so irresistibly. Always must the Wanderer remember, with a\ncertain satisfaction and surprise, how in this case he sat not silent,\nbut struck adroitly into the stream of conversation; which\nthenceforth, to speak with an apparent not a real vanity, he may say\nthat he continued to lead. Surely, in those hours, a certain\ninspiration was imparted him, such inspiration as is still possible in\nour late era. The self-secluded unfolds himself in noble thoughts, in\nfree, glowing words; his soul is as one sea of light, the peculiar\nhome of Truth and Intellect; wherein also Fantasy bodies-forth form\nafter form, radiant with all prismatic hues.'\n\nIt appears, in this otherwise so happy meeting, there talked one\n'Philistine'; who even now, to the general weariness, was dominantly\npouring-forth Philistinism (_Philistriositaeten_); little witting what\nhero was here entering to demolish him! We omit the series of\nSocratic, or rather Diogenic utterances, not unhappy in their way,\nwhereby the monster, 'persuaded into silence,' seems soon after to\nhave withdrawn for the night. 'Of which dialectic marauder,' writes\nour hero, 'the discomfiture was visibly felt as a benefit by most: but\nwhat were all applauses to the glad smile, threatening every moment to\nbecome a laugh, wherewith Blumine herself repaid the victor? He\nventured to address her, she answered with attention: nay what if\nthere were a slight tremor in that silver voice; what if the red glow\nof evening were hiding a transient 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. Gaily in\nlight, graceful abandonment, the friendly talk played round that\ncircle; for the burden was rolled from every heart; the barriers of\nCeremony, which are indeed the laws of polite living, had melted as\ninto vapour; and the poor claims of _Me_ and _Thee_, no longer parted\nby rigid fences, now flowed softly into one another; and Life lay all\nharmonious, many-tinted, like some fair royal champaign, the sovereign\nand owner of which were Love only. Such music springs from kind\nhearts, in a kind environment of place and time. And yet as the light\ngrew more aerial on the mountain-tops, and the shadows fell longer\nover the valley, some faint tone of sadness may have breathed through\nthe heart; and, in whispers more or less audible, reminded every one\nthat as this bright day was drawing towards its close, so likewise\nmust the Day of Man's Existence decline into dust and darkness; and\nwith all its sick toilings, and joyful and mournful noises sink in the\nstill 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\ngrass; all better feelings in his soul seemed to whisper: It is good\nfor us to be here. At parting, the Blumine's hand was in his: in the\nbalmy twilight, with the kind stars above them, he spoke something of\nmeeting again, which was not contradicted; he pressed gently those\nsmall soft fingers, and it seemed as if they were not hastily, not\nangrily withdrawn.'\n\nPoor Teufelsdroeckh! 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 and\nspell-bound thee. 'Love is not altogether a Delirium,' says he elsewhere;\n'yet has it many points in common therewith. I call it rather a\ndiscerning of the Infinite in the Finite, of the Idea made Real; which\ndiscerning 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\nso petty 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 (_Zeitbuehne_), whereon thick-streaming influences from\nboth 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\nwill not suffice. Witness your Pyrrhus conquering the world, yet\ndrinking no better red wine than he had before.' Alas! witness also\nyour Diogenes, flame-clad, scaling the upper Heaven, and verging\ntowards Insanity, for prize of a 'high-souled Brunette,' as if the\nearth held but one and not several of these!\n\nHe says that, in Town, they met again: 'day after day, like his\nheart's sun, the blooming Blumine shone on him. Ah! a little while\nago, and he was yet in all darkness; him what Graceful (_Holde_) would\never love? Disbelieving all things, the poor youth had never learned\nto believe in himself. Withdrawn, in proud timidity, within his own\nfastnesses; solitary from men, yet baited by night-spectres enough, he\nsaw himself, with a sad indignation, constrained to renounce the\nfairest hopes of existence. And now, O now! \"She looks on thee,\" cried\nhe: \"she the fairest, noblest; do not her dark eyes tell thee, thou\nart not despised? The Heaven's-Messenger! All Heaven's blessings be\nhers!\" Thus did soft melodies flow through his heart; tones of an\ninfinite gratitude; sweetest intimations that he also was a man, that\nfor him also unutterable joys had been provided.\n\n'In free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent glances, laughter,\ntears, and often with the inarticulate mystic speech of Music: such\nwas the element they now lived in; in such a many-tinted, radiant\nAurora, and by this fairest of Orient Light-bringers must our Friend\nbe blandished, and the new Apocalypse of Nature unrolled to him.\nFairest Blumine! And, even as a Star, all Fire and humid Softness, a\nvery Light-ray incarnate! Was there so much as a fault, a \"caprice,\"\nhe could have dispensed with? Was she not to him in very deed a\nMorning-Star; did not her presence bring with it airs from Heaven? As\nfrom AEolian Harps in the breath of dawn, as from the Memnon's Statue\nstruck by the rosy finger of Aurora, unearthly music was around him,\nand lapped him into untried balmy Rest. Pale Doubt fled away to the\ndistance; Life bloomed-up with happiness and hope. The past, then, was\nall a haggard dream; he had been in the Garden of Eden, then, and\ncould not discern it! But lo now! the black walls of his prison melt\naway; the captive is alive, is free. If he loved his Disenchantress?\n_Ach Gott!_ His whole heart and soul and life were hers, but never had\nhe named it Love: existence was all a Feeling, not yet shaped into a\nThought.'\n\nNevertheless, into a Thought, nay into an Action, it must be shaped;\nfor neither Disenchanter nor Disenchantress, mere 'Children of Time,'\ncan abide by Feeling alone. The Professor knows not, to this day, 'how\nin her 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,\nfrom the first, faintly approved of.' We, even at such distance, can\nexplain it without necromancy. Let the Philosopher answer this one\nquestion: What figure, at that period, was a Mrs. Teufelsdroeckh likely\nto make in polished society? Could she have driven so much as a\nbrass-bound Gig, or even a simple iron-spring one? Thou foolish\n'absolved Auscultator,' before whom lies no prospect of capital, will\nany yet known 'religion of young hearts' keep the human kitchen warm?\nPshaw! thy divine Blumine when she 'resigned herself to wed some\nricher,' shows more philosophy, though but 'a woman of genius,' than\nthou, a pretended man.\n\nOur readers have witnessed the origin of this Love-mania, and with\nwhat royal splendour it waxes, and rises. Let no one ask us to unfold\nthe glories 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 organised? Besides, of what profit were it? We view,\nwith a lively pleasure, the gay silk Montgolfier start from the\nground, and shoot upwards, cleaving the liquid deeps, till it dwindle\nto a luminous star: but what is there to look longer on, when once, by\nnatural elasticity, 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 that\nTeufelsdroeckh 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 Teufelsdroeckh'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.\nAlas, no longer a Morning-star, but a troublous skyey Portent,\nannouncing that the Doomsday had dawned! She said, in a tremulous\nvoice, They were to meet no more.' The thunder-struck Air-sailor is\nnot wanting to himself in this dread hour: but what avails it? We omit\nthe passionate expostulations, entreaties, indignations, since all was\nvain, and not even an explanation was conceded him; and hasten to the\ncatastrophe. '\"Farewell, then, Madam!\" said he, not without sternness,\nfor his stung pride helped him. She put her hand in his, she looked in\nhis face, tears started to her eyes: in wild audacity he clasped her\nto his bosom; their lips were joined, their two souls, like two\ndew-drops, rushed into one,--for the first time, and for the last!'\nThus was Teufelsdroeckh made immortal by a kiss. And then? Why,\nthen--'thick curtains of Night rushed over his soul, as rose the\nimmeasurable Crash of Doom; and through the ruins as of a shivered\nUniverse was he falling, falling, towards the Abyss.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nSORROWS OF TEUFELSDROeCKH\n\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 demeanour.\n\nTo our less philosophical readers, for example, it is now clear that\nthe so passionate Teufelsdroeckh, precipitated through 'a shivered\nUniverse' in this extraordinary way, has only one of three things\nwhich he can next do: Establish himself in Bedlam; begin writing\nSatanic Poetry; or blow-out his brains. In the progress towards any of\nwhich consummations, do not such readers anticipate extravagance\nenough; breast-beating, brow-beating (against walls), lion-bellowings\nof blasphemy and the like, stampings, smitings, breakages of\nfurniture, if not arson itself?\n\nNowise so does Teufelsdroeckh 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,\nin this matter of the Flower-goddess, is talked of as a real Doomsday\nand Dissolution of Nature, in which light doubtless it partly appeared\nto himself, his own nature is nowise dissolved thereby; but rather is\ncompressed 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 phial: but no sooner are your magic appliances withdrawn, than\nthe strange casket of a heart springs-to again; and perhaps there is\nnow no key extant that will open it; for a Teufelsdroeckh, as we\nremarked, will not love a second time. Singular Diogenes! No sooner\nhas that heart-rending occurrence fairly taken place, than he affects\nto regard it as a thing natural, of which there is nothing more to be\nsaid. 'One highest hope, seemingly legible in the eyes of an Angel,\nhad recalled him as out of Death-shadows into celestial Life: but a\ngleam of Tophet passed-over the face of his Angel; he was rapt away in\nwhirlwinds, and heard the laughter of Demons. It was a Calenture,'\nadds he, 'whereby the Youth saw green Paradise-groves in the waste\nOcean-waters: a lying vision, yet not wholly a lie, for _he_ saw it.'\nBut what things soever passed in him, when he ceased to see it; what\nragings and despairings soever Teufelsdroeckh's soul was the scene of,\nhe has the goodness to conceal under a quite opaque cover of Silence.\nWe know it well; the first mad paroxysm past, our brave Gneschen\ncollected his dismembered philosophies, and buttoned himself together;\nhe was meek, silent, or spoke of the weather and the Journals: only by\na transient knitting of those shaggy brows, by some deep flash of\nthose eyes, glancing one knew not whether with tear-dew or with fierce\nfire,--might you have guessed what a Gehenna was within; that a whole\nSatanic School were spouting, though inaudibly, there. To consume your\nown choler, as some chimneys consume their own smoke; to keep a whole\nSatanic School spouting, if it must spout, inaudibly, is a negative\nyet no slight virtue, nor one of the 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;\nwhereof indeed the actual condition of these Documents in\n_Capricornus_ and _Aquarius_ is no bad emblem. His so unlimited\nWanderings, toilsome enough, are without assigned or perhaps\nassignable aim; internal Unrest seems his sole guidance; he wanders,\nwanders, as if that curse of the Prophet had fallen on him, and he\nwere 'made like unto a wheel.' Doubtless, too, the chaotic nature of\nthese Paper-bags aggravates our obscurity. Quite without note of\npreparation, for example, we come upon the following slip: 'A peculiar\nfeeling it is that will rise in the Traveller, when turning some\nhill-range in his desert road, he descries lying far below, embosomed\namong its groves and green natural bulwarks, and all diminished to a\ntoybox, the fair Town, where so many souls, as it were seen and yet\nunseen, are driving their multifarious traffic. Its white steeple is\nthen truly a starward-pointing finger; the canopy of blue smoke seems\nlike a sort of Life-breath: for always, of its own unity, the soul\ngives unity to whatsoever it looks on with love; thus does the little\nDwelling place of men, in itself a congeries of houses and huts,\nbecome for us an individual, almost a person. But what thousand other\nthoughts unite thereto, if the place has to ourselves been the arena\nof joyous or mournful experiences; if perhaps the cradle we were\nrocked in still stands there, if our Loving ones still dwell there, if\nour Buried ones there slumber!' Does Teufelsdroeckh, as the wounded\neagle 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,\ntowards his native Entepfuhl; but reflecting that there no help awaits\nhim, take but one wistful look from the distance, and then wend\nelsewhither?\n\nLittle happier seems to be his next flight: into the wilds of Nature;\nas if in her mother-bosom he would seek healing. So at least we\nincline to interpret the following Notice, separated from the former\nby some considerable 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, is\nhere tempered by a singular airiness of form, and softness of\nenvironment: in a climate favourable to vegetation, the gray cliff,\nitself covered with lichens, shoots-up through a garment of foliage or\nverdure; and white, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster round the\neverlasting granite. In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates with\nGrandeur: you ride through stony hollows, along straight passes,\ntraversed by torrents, overhung by high walls of rock; now winding\namid broken shaggy chasms, and huge fragments; now suddenly emerging\ninto some emerald valley, where the streamlet collects itself into a\nLake, and man has again found a fair dwelling, and it seems as if\nPeace had established 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\nthe future is wholly a Stygian Darkness, spectre-bearing. Reasonably\nmight the Wanderer exclaim to himself: Are not the gates of this\nworld's happiness inexorably shut against thee; hast thou a hope that\nis not mad? Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, or in the\noriginal Greek if that suit better: \"Whoso can look on Death will\nstart at no shadows.\"\n\n'From such meditations is the Wanderer's attention called outwards;\nfor now the Valley closes-in abruptly, intersected by a huge mountain\nmass, the stony water-worn ascent of which is not to be accomplished\non horseback. Arrived aloft, he finds himself again lifted into the\nevening sunset light; and cannot but pause, and gaze round him, some\nmoments there. An upland irregular expanse of wold, where valleys in\ncomplex branchings are suddenly or slowly arranging their descent\ntowards every quarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are beneath your\nfeet, and folded together: only the loftier summits look down here and\nthere as on a second plain; lakes also lie clear and earnest in their\nsolitude. No trace of man now visible; unless indeed it were he who\nfashioned that little visible link of Highway, here, as would seem,\nscaling the inaccessible, to unite Province with Province. But\nsunwards, lo you! how it towers sheer up, a world of Mountains, the\ndiadem and centre of the mountain region! A hundred and a hundred\nsavage peaks, in the last light of Day; all glowing, of gold and\namethyst, like giant spirits of the wilderness; there in their\nsilence, in their solitude, even as on the night when Noah's Deluge\nfirst dried! Beautiful, nay solemn, was the sudden aspect to our\nWanderer. He gazed over those stupendous masses with wonder, almost\nwith longing desire; never till this hour had he known Nature, that\nshe was One, that she was his Mother, and divine. And as the ruddy\nglow was fading into clearness in the sky, and the Sun had now\ndeparted, 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\nif the Earth were not dead, as if the Spirit of the Earth had its\nthrone in that splendour, and his own spirit were therewith holding\ncommunion.\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 postillions wore\nwedding-favours: that happy pair, then, had found each other, it was\ntheir marriage evening! Few moments brought them near: _Du Himmel!_ It\nwas Herr Towgood and--Blumine! With slight unrecognising salutation\nthey passed me; plunged down amid the neighbouring thickets, onwards,\nto Heaven, and to England; and I, in my friend Richter's words, _I\nremained alone, 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 the\nspiritual sort on Europe: I mean the epidemic, now endemical, of\nView-hunting. Poets of old date, being privileged with Senses, had\nalso enjoyed external Nature; but chiefly as we enjoy the crystal cup\nwhich holds good or bad liquor for us; that is to say, in silence, or\nwith slight incidental commentary: never, as I compute, till after the\n_Sorrows of Werter_, was there man found who would say: Come let us\nmake a Description! Having drunk the liquor, come let us eat the\nglass! Of which endemic the Jenner is unhappily still to seek.' Too\ntrue!\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.\nThat Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have\nwithered-up what little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in\nhim: Life has become wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through long\nyears, our Friend, flying from spectres, has to stumble about at\nrandom, and naturally with more haste than progress.\n\nFoolish were it in us to attempt following him, even from afar, in\nthis extraordinary world-pilgrimage of his; the simplest record of\nwhich, were clear record possible, would fill volumes. Hopeless is the\nobscurity, unspeakable the confusion. He glides from country to\ncountry, from condition to condition; vanishing and reappearing, no\nman can calculate how or where. Through all quarters of the world he\nwanders, and apparently through all circles of society. If in any\nscene, perhaps difficult to fix geographically, he settles for a time,\nand forms connexions, be sure he will snap them abruptly asunder. Let\nhim sink out of sight as Private Scholar (_Privatisirender_), living\nby the grace of God in some European capital, you may next find him as\nHadjee in the neighbourhood of Mecca. It is an inexplicable\nPhantasmagoria, capricious, quick-changing; as if our Traveller,\ninstead of limbs and high-ways, had transported himself by some\nwishing-carpet, or Fortunatus' Hat. The whole, too, imparted\nemblematically, in dim multifarious tokens (as that collection of\nStreet-Advertisements); with only some touch of direct historical\nnotice sparingly interspersed: little light-islets in the world of\nhaze! So that, from this point, the Professor is more of an enigma\nthan ever. In figurative language, we might say he becomes, not indeed\na spirit, yet spiritualised, vaporised Fact unparalleled in Biography:\nThe river of his History, which we have traced from its tiniest\nfountains, and hoped to see flow onward, with increasing current, into\nthe ocean, here dashes itself over that terrific Lover's Leap; and, as\na mad-foaming cataract, flies wholly into tumultuous clouds of spray!\nLow down it indeed collects again into pools and plashes; yet only at\na great distance, and with difficulty, if at all, into a general\nstream. To cast a glance into certain of those pools and plashes, and\ntrace whither they run, must, for a chapter or two, form the limit of\nour endeavour.\n\nFor which end doubtless those direct historical Notices, where they\ncan be met with, are the best. Nevertheless, of this sort too there\noccurs much, which, with our present light, it were questionable to\nemit. Teufelsdroeckh, vibrating everywhere between the highest and the\nlowest levels, comes into contact with public History itself. For\nexample, those conversations and relations with illustrious Persons,\nas Sultan Mahmoud, the Emperor Napoleon, and others, are they not as\nyet rather of a diplomatic character than of a biographic? The Editor,\nappreciating the sacredness of crowned heads, nay perhaps suspecting\nthe possible trickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew this\nprovince for the present; a new time may bring new insight and a\ndifferent duty.\n\nIf we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for there was none,\nyet with what immediate outlooks; at all events, in what mood of mind,\nthe Professor undertook and prosecuted this world-pilgrimage,--the\nanswer is more distinct than favourable. 'A nameless Unrest,' says he,\n'urged me forward; to which the outward motion was some momentary\nlying solace. Whither should I go? My Loadstars were blotted out; in\nthat canopy of grim fire shone no star. Yet forward must I; the ground\nburnt under me; there was no rest for the sole of my foot. I was\nalone, alone! Ever too the strong inward longing shaped Fantasms for\nitself: towards these, one after the other, must I fruitlessly wander.\nA feeling I had, that for my fever-thirst there was and must be\nsomewhere a healing Fountain. To many fondly imagined Fountains, the\nSaints' Wells of these days, did I pilgrim; to great Men, to great\nCities, to great Events: but found there no healing. In strange\ncountries, as in the well-known; in savage deserts, as in the press of\ncorrupt civilisation, it was ever the same: how could your Wanderer\nescape from--_his own Shadow_? Nevertheless still Forward! I felt as\nif in great haste; to do I saw not what. From the depths of my own\nheart, it called to me, Forwards! The winds and the streams, and all\nNature sounded to me, Forwards! _Ach Gott_, I was even, once for all,\na 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\nhad ever with me, often as my sole rational companion; and regret to\nmention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling.' Thou foolish\nTeufelsdroeckh! How could it else? Hadst thou not Greek enough to\nunderstand thus much: _The end of Man is an Action, and not a\nThought_, though it were the noblest?\n\n'How I lived?' writes he once: 'Friend, hast thou considered the\n\"rugged all-nourishing Earth,\" as Sophocles well names her; how she\nfeeds the sparrow on the house-top, much more her darling, man? While\nthou stirrest and livest, thou hast a probability of victual. My\nbreakfast of tea has been cooked by a Tartar woman, with water of the\nAmur, who wiped her earthen kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted\nwild-eggs in the sand of Sahara; I have awakened in Paris _Estrapades_\nand Vienna _Malzleins_, with no prospect of breakfast beyond elemental\nliquid. That I had my Living to seek saved me from Dying,--by suicide.\nIn our busy Europe, is there not an everlasting demand for Intellect,\nin the chemical, mechanical, political, religious, educational,\ncommercial departments? In Pagan countries, cannot one write Fetishes?\nLiving! Little knowest thou what alchemy is in an inventive Soul; how,\nas with its little finger, it can create provision enough for the body\n(of a Philosopher); and then, as with both hands, create quite other\nthan provision; namely, spectres to torment itself withal.'\n\nPoor Teufelsdroeckh! 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 Teufelsdroeckh_; 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\ndescries himself (about the age of twenty) in a world such as ours,\nricher than usual in two things, in Truths grown obsolete, and Trades\ngrown obsolete,--what can the fool think but that it is all a Den of\nLies, wherein whoso will not speak Lies and act Lies, must stand idle\nand despair? Whereby it happens that, for your nobler minds, the\npublishing of some such Work of Art, in one or the other dialect,\nbecomes almost a necessity. For what is it properly but an Altercation\nwith the Devil, before you begin honestly Fighting him? Your Byron\npublishes his _Sorrows of Lord George_, in verse and in prose, and\ncopiously otherwise: your Bonaparte represents his _Sorrows of\nNapoleon_ Opera, in an all-too stupendous style; with music of\ncannon-volleys, and murder-shrieks of a world; his stage-lights are\nthe fires of Conflagration; his rhyme and recitative are the tramp of\nembattled Hosts and the sound of falling Cities.--Happier is he who,\nlike our Clothes-Philosopher, can write such matter, since it must be\nwritten, on the insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles only; and also\nsurvive the writing thereof!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE EVERLASTING NO\n\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 into\naimless 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\nis sickly; and, to attain his new beak, must harshly dash-off the old\none upon rocks. What Stoicism soever our Wanderer, in his individual\nacts and 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\nmight desire and pray for has been denied; nay, as in the last worst\ninstance, offered and then snatched away. Ever an 'excellent\nPassivity'; but of useful, reasonable Activity, essential to the\nformer as Food to Hunger, nothing granted: till at length, in this\nwild Pilgrimage, he must forcibly seize for himself an Activity,\nthough useless, unreasonable. Alas, his cup of bitterness, which had\nbeen filling drop by drop, ever since that first 'ruddy morning' in\nthe Hinterschlag Gymnasium, was at the very lip; and then with that\npoison-drop, of the Towgood-and-Blumine business, it runs over, and\neven hisses over in a deluge of foam.\n\nHe himself says once, with more justice than originality: 'Man is,\nproperly speaking, based upon Hope, he has no other possession but\nHope; this world of his is emphatically the Place of Hope.' What,\nthen, was our Professor's possession? We see him, for the present,\nquite shut-out from Hope; looking not into the golden orient, but\nvaguely all round into a dim copper firmament, pregnant with\nearthquake and tornado.\n\nAlas, shut-out from Hope, in a deeper sense than we yet dream of! For,\nas he wanders wearisomely through this world, he has now lost all\ntidings 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\ninto Unbelief,' says he; 'shade after shade goes grimly over your\nsoul, till you have the fixed, starless, Tartarean black.' To such\nreaders as have reflected, what can be called reflecting, on man's\nlife, and happily discovered, in contradiction to much Profit-and-loss\nPhilosophy, speculative and practical, that Soul is _not_ synonymous\nwith Stomach; who understand, therefore, in our Friend's words, 'that,\nfor man's well-being, Faith is properly the one thing needful; how,\nwith it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and\nthe cross; and without it, worldlings puke-up their sick existence, by\nsuicide, in the midst of luxury': to such it will be clear that, for a\npure moral nature, the loss of his religious Belief was the loss of\neverything. Unhappy young man! All wounds, the crush of long-continued\nDestitution, the stab of false Friendship and of false Love, all\nwounds in thy so genial heart, would have healed again, had not its\nlife-warmth been withdrawn. Well might he exclaim, in his wild way:\n'Is there no God, then; but at best an absentee God, sitting idle,\never since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe, and\n_see_ing it go? Has the word Duty no meaning; is what we call Duty no\ndivine Messenger and Guide, but a false earthly Fantasm, made-up of\nDesire and Fear, of emanations from the Gallows and from Dr. Graham's\nCelestial-Bed? Happiness of an approving Conscience! Did not Paul of\nTarsus, whom admiring men have since named Saint, feel that _he_ was\n\"the chief of sinners\"; and Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit\n(_wohlgemuth_), spend much of his time in fiddling? Foolish\nWord-monger and Motive-grinder, who in thy Logic-mill hast an earthly\nmechanism for the Godlike itself, and wouldst fain grind me out Virtue\nfrom the husks of Pleasure,--I tell thee, Nay! To the unregenerate\nPrometheus Vinctus of a man, it is ever the bitterest aggravation of\nhis wretchedness that he is conscious of Virtue, that he feels himself\nthe victim not of suffering only, but of injustice. What then? Is the\nheroic inspiration we name Virtue but some Passion; some bubble of the\nblood, bubbling in the direction others _profit_ by? I know not: only\nthis I know, If what thou namest Happiness be our true aim, then are\nwe all astray. With Stupidity and sound Digestion man may front much.\nBut what, in these dull unimaginative days, are the terrors of\nConscience to the diseases of the Liver! Not on Morality, but on\nCookery, let us build our stronghold: there brandishing our\nfrying-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 rainproof,\ncrumble down; and men ask now: Where is the Godhead; our eyes never\nsaw 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\nera of his life was he more decisively the Servant of Goodness, the\nServant of God, than even now when doubting God's existence. 'One\ncircumstance I note,' says he: 'after all the nameless woe that\nInquiry, which for me, what it is not always, was genuine Love of\nTruth, had wrought me, I nevertheless still loved Truth, and would\nbate no jot of my allegiance to her. \"Truth\"! I cried, \"though the\nHeavens crush me for following her: no Falsehood! though a whole\ncelestial Lubberland were the price of Apostasy.\" In conduct it was\nthe same. Had a divine Messenger from the clouds, or miraculous\nHandwriting on the wall, convincingly proclaimed to me _This thou\nshalt do_, with what passionate readiness, as I often thought, would I\nhave done it, had it been leaping into the infernal Fire. Thus, in\nspite of all Motive-grinders, and Mechanical Profit-and-Loss\nPhilosophies, with the sick ophthalmia and hallucination they had\nbrought on, was the Infinite nature of Duty still dimly present to me:\nliving 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\nHis heaven-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 in\nus; which only our Works can render articulate and decisively\ndiscernible. Our Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees\nits natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible\nPrecept, _Know thyself_; till it be translated into this partially\npossible one, _Know what thou canst work-at_.\n\n'But for me, so strangely unprosperous had I been, the net-result of\nmy Workings amounted as yet simply to--Nothing. How then could I\nbelieve in my Strength, when there was as yet no mirror to see it in?\nEver did this agitating, yet, as I now perceive, quite frivolous\nquestion, remain to me insoluble: Hast thou a certain Faculty, a\ncertain Worth, such even as the most have not; or art thou the\ncompletest Dullard of these modern times? Alas! the fearful Unbelief\nis unbelief in yourself; and how could I believe? Had not my first,\nlast Faith in myself, when even to me the Heavens seemed laid open,\nand I dared to love, been all-too cruelly belied? The speculative\nMystery of Life grew ever more mysterious to me: neither in the\npractical Mystery had I made the slightest progress, but been\neverywhere buffeted, foiled, and contemptuously cast-out. A feeble\nunit in the middle of a threatening Infinitude, I seemed to have\nnothing given me but eyes, whereby to discern my own wretchedness.\nInvisible yet impenetrable walls, as of Enchantment, divided me from\nall living: was there, in the wide world, any true bosom I could press\ntrustfully to mine? O Heaven, No, there was none! I kept a lock upon\nmy lips: why should I speak much with that shifting variety of\nso-called Friends, in whose withered, vain and too-hungry souls\nFriendship was but an incredible tradition? In such cases, your\nresource is to talk little, and that little mostly from the\nNewspapers. Now when I look back, it was a strange isolation I then\nlived in. The men and women around me, even speaking with me, were but\nFigures; I had, practically, forgotten that they were alive, that they\nwere not merely automatic. In midst of their crowded streets and\nassemblages, I walked solitary; and (except as it was my own heart,\nnot another's, that I kept devouring) savage also, as the tiger in his\njungle. Some comfort it would have been, could I, like a Faust, have\nfancied myself tempted and tormented of the Devil; for a Hell, as I\nimagine, without Life, though only diabolic Life, were more frightful:\nbut in our age of Down-pulling and Disbelief, the very Devil has been\npulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me the\nUniverse 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. O, the vast,\ngloomy, 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\nTeufelsdroeckh threaten to fail? We conjecture that he has known\nsickness; and, in spite of his locomotive habits, perhaps sickness of\nthe chronic sort. Hear this, for example: 'How beautiful to die of\nbroken-heart, on Paper! Quite another thing in practice; every window\nof your Feeling, even of your Intellect, as it were, begrimed and\nmud-bespattered, so that no pure ray can enter; a whole Drugshop in\nyour inwards; the fordone soul drowning slowly in quagmires of\nDisgust!'\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 aftershine (_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\nnow, at the turning of that corner, blow thee suddenly out of Space,\ninto the other World, or other No-World, by pistol-shot,--how were it?\nOn which ground, too, I have often, in sea-storms and sieged cities\nand other death-scenes, exhibited an imperturbability, which passed,\nfalsely enough, 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 dewdrop, 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\nDeathsong, that wild _Selig der den er im Siegesglanze findet_ (Happy\nwhom _he_ finds in Battle's splendour), and thought that of this last\nFriend even I was not forsaken, that Destiny itself could not doom me\nnot to die. Having no hope, neither had I any definite fear, were it\nof Man or of Devil: nay, I often felt as if it might be solacing,\ncould the Arch-Devil himself, though in Tartarean terrors, but rise to\nme, that I might tell him a little of my mind. And yet, strangely\nenough, I lived in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous,\npusillanimous, apprehensive of I knew not what: it seemed as if all\nthings in the Heavens above and the Earth beneath would hurt me; as if\nthe Heavens and the Earth were but boundless jaws of a devouring\nmonster, wherein I, palpitating, waited to be devoured.\n\n'Full of such humour, and perhaps the miserablest man in the whole\nFrench Capital or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dog-day, after much\nperambulation, toiling along the dirty little _Rue Saint-Thomas de\nl'Enfer_, among civic rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere, and over\npavements hot as Nebuchadnezzar's Furnace; whereby doubtless my\nspirits were little cheered; when, all at once, there rose a Thought\nin me, and I asked myself: \"What _art_ thou afraid of? Wherefore, like\na coward, dost thou forever pip and whimper, and go cowering and\ntrembling? Despicable biped! what is the sum-total of the worst that\nlies before thee? Death? Well, Death; and say the pangs of Tophet too,\nand all that the Devil and Man may, will or can do against thee! Hast\nthou not a heart; canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a\nChild of Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy\nfeet, while it consumes thee? Let it come, then; I will meet it and\ndefy it!\" And as I so thought, there rushed like a stream of fire over\nmy whole soul; and I shook base Fear away from me forever. I was\nstrong, of unknown strength; a spirit, almost a god. Ever from that\ntime, the temper of my misery was changed: not Fear or whining Sorrow\nwas it, but Indignation and grim fire-eyed Defiance.\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\nin Life, may that same Indignation and Defiance, in a psychological\npoint of view, be fitly called. The Everlasting No had said: \"Behold,\nthou are fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine (the Devil's)\";\nto which my whole Me now made answer: \"_I_ am not thine, but Free, and\nforever hate 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\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE\n\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\nfixed centre to revolve round. For the fire-baptised soul, long so\nscathed and thunder-riven, here feels its own Freedom, which feeling\nis its Baphometic Baptism: the citadel of its whole kingdom it has\nthus gained by assault, and will keep inexpugnable; outwards from\nwhich the remaining dominions, not indeed without hard battling, will\ndoubtless by degrees be conquered and pacificated. Under another\nfigure, we might say, if in that great moment, in the _Rue\nSaint-Thomas de l'Enfer_, the old inward Satanic School was not yet\nthrown out of doors, it received peremptory judicial notice to\nquit;--whereby, for the rest, its howl-chantings, Ernulphus-cursings,\nand rebellious gnashings of teeth, might, in the meanwhile, become\nonly the more tumultuous, and difficult to keep secret.\n\nAccordingly, if we scrutinise these Pilgrimings well, there is perhaps\ndiscernible henceforth a certain incipient method in their madness.\nNot wholly as a Spectre does Teufelsdroeckh now storm through the\nworld; at worst as a spectre-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\nministered. In a word, he is now, if not ceasing, yet intermitting to\n'eat his own heart'; and clutches round him outwardly on the NOT-ME\nfor wholesomer food. Does not the following glimpse exhibit him in a\nmuch more natural state?\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!\nand the far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then also put\ndown there; and still miraculously burns and spreads; and the smoke\nand ashes 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\nmanipulating Nature: all these things, as indispensable and priceless\nas they are, cannot in any way be fixed under lock and key, but must\nflit, spirit-like, on impalpable vehicles, from Father to Son; if you\ndemand sight of them, they are nowhere to be met with. Visible\nPloughmen and Hammermen there have been, ever from Cain and Tubalcain\ndownwards: but where does your accumulated Agricultural, Metallurgic,\nand other Manufacturing SKILL lie warehoused? It transmits itself on\nthe atmospheric air, on the sun's rays (by Hearing and by Vision); it\nis a thing aeriform, impalpable, of quite spiritual sort. In like\nmanner, ask me not, Where are the LAWS; where is the GOVERNMENT? In\nvain wilt thou go to Schoenbrunn, to Downing Street, to the Palais\nBourbon: thou findest nothing there but brick or stone houses, and\nsome bundles of Papers tied with tape. Where, then, is that same\ncunningly-devised almighty GOVERNMENT of theirs to be laid hands on?\nEverywhere, yet nowhere: seen only in its works, this too is a thing\naeriform, invisible; or if you will, mystic and miraculous. So\nspiritual (_geistig_) is our whole daily Life: all that we do springs\nout of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force; only like a little\nCloud-image, or Armida's Palace, air-built, does the Actual body\nitself 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\nBridges may belong; and thirdly----Books. In which third truly, the\nlast invented, lies a worth far surpassing that of the two others.\nWondrous indeed is the virtue of a true Book. Not like a dead city of\nstones, yearly crumbling, yearly needing repair; more like a tilled\nfield, but then a spiritual field: like a spiritual tree, let me\nrather say, it stands from year to year, and from age to age (we have\nBooks that already number some hundred-and-fifty human ages); and\nyearly comes its new produce of leaves (Commentaries, Deductions,\nPhilosophical, Political Systems; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets,\nJournalistic Essays), every one of which is talismanic and\nthaumaturgic, for it can persuade men. O thou who art able to write a\nBook, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted\nto do, envy not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly\npity him whom they name Conqueror or City-burner! Thou too art a\nConqueror and Victor: but of the true sort, namely over the Devil:\nthou too hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a\nwonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and Seminary and Prophetic\nMount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim.--Fool! why\njourneyest thou wearisomely, in thy antiquarian fervour, to gaze on\nthe stone pyramids of Geeza, or the clay ones of Sacchara? These stand\nthere, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, looking over the Desert,\nfoolishly enough, for the last three-thousand years: but canst thou\nnot open thy Hebrew BIBLE, then, or even Luther's Version thereof?'\n\nNo less satisfactory is his sudden appearance not in Battle, yet on\nsome Battle-field; which, we soon gather, must be that of Wagram; so\nthat here, for once, is a certain approximation to distinctness of\ndate. Omitting 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\nstill remaining not so much as buried. And those red mould heaps: ay,\nthere lie the Shells of Men, out of which all the Life and Virtue has\nbeen blown; and now are they swept together, and crammed-down out of\nsight, like blown Egg-shells!--Did Nature, when she bade the Donau\nbring down his mould-cargoes from the Carinthian and Carpathian\nHeights, and spread them out here into the softest, richest\nlevel,--intend thee, O Marchfeld, for a corn-bearing Nursery, whereon\nher children might be nursed; or for a Cockpit, wherein they might the\nmore commodiously be throttled and tattered? Were thy three broad\nHighways, meeting here from the ends of Europe, made for\nAmmunition-wagons, then? Were thy Wagrams and Stillfrieds but so many\nready-built Casemates, wherein the house of Hapsburg might batter with\nartillery, and with artillery be battered? Koenig Ottokar, amid yonder\nhillocks, dies under Rodolf's truncheon; here Kaiser Franz falls\na-swoon under Napoleon's: within which five centuries, to omit the\nothers, how has thy breast, fair Plain, been defaced and defiled! The\ngreensward is torn-up and trampled-down; man's fond care of it, his\nfruit-trees, hedgerows, and pleasant dwellings, blown-away with\ngunpowder; and the kind seedfield lies a desolate, hideous Place of\nSculls.--Nevertheless, Nature is at work; neither shall these\nPowder-Devilkins with their utmost devilry gainsay her: but all that\ngore and carnage will be shrouded-in, absorbed into manure; and next\nyear 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\nfor the 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\neven trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build,\nanother hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone\navoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are\nselected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at the public charges,\nsome two-thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed\nthere till wanted. And now to that same spot, in the south of Spain,\nare thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like\nmanner wending: till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties\ncome into actual juxtaposition; and Thirty stands fronting Thirty,\neach with a gun in his hand. Straightway the word \"Fire!\" is given:\nand they blow the souls out of one another; and in place of sixty\nbrisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses, which it\nmust bury, and anew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as\nthe Devil is, not the smallest! They lived far enough apart; were the\nentirest strangers; nay, in so wide a Universe, there was even,\nunconsciously, by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How\nthen? Simpleton! their Governors had fallen-out; and, instead of\nshooting one another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads\nshoot.--Alas, so is it in Deutschland, and hitherto in all other\nlands; still as of old, \"what devilry soever Kings do, the Greeks must\npay the piper!\"--In that fiction of the English Smollet, it is true,\nthe final Cessation of War is perhaps prophetically shadowed forth;\nwhere the two Natural Enemies, in person, take each a Tobacco-pipe,\nfilled with Brimstone; light the same, and smoke in one another's\nfaces, till the weaker gives in: but from such predicted Peace-Era,\nwhat blood-filled trenches, and contentious centuries, may still\ndivide us!'\n\nThus can the Professor, at least in lucid intervals, look away from\nhis own sorrows, over the many-coloured world, and pertinently enough\nnote what is passing there. We may remark, indeed, that for the matter\nof spiritual 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,\nfavourable to Meditation, might help him rather than hinder.\nExternally, again, as he wanders to and fro, there are, if for the\nlonging heart little substance, yet for the seeing eye sights enough:\nin these so boundless Travels of his, granting that the Satanic School\nwas even partially kept down, what an incredible knowledge of our\nPlanet, and its Inhabitants and their Works, that is to say, of all\nknowable things, might not Teufelsdroeckh 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\nrepertory, the Air, by my organ of Hearing; Statistics, Geographics,\nTopographics came, through the Eye, almost of their own accord. The\nways of Man, how he seeks food, and warmth, and protection for\nhimself, in most regions, are ocularly known to me. Like the great\nHadrian, I meted-out much of the terraqueous Globe with a pair of\nCompasses that belonged to myself only.\n\n'Of great Scenes why speak? Three summer days, I lingered reflecting,\nand even composing (_dichtete_), by the Pinechasms 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\nWorld well lost; oftener than once a hundred-thousand individuals shot\n(by each other) in one day. All kindreds and peoples and nations\ndashed together, and shifted and shovelled into heaps, that they might\nferment there, and in time unite. The birth-pangs of Democracy,\nwherewith convulsed Europe was groaning in cries that reached Heaven,\ncould not escape me.\n\n'For great Men I have ever had the warmest predilection; and can\nperhaps boast that few such in this era have wholly escaped me. Great\nMen are the inspired (speaking and acting) Texts of that divine BOOK\nOF REVELATIONS, whereof a Chapter is completed from epoch to epoch,\nand by some named HISTORY; to which inspired Texts your numerous\ntalented men, and your innumerable untalented men, are the better or\nworse exegetic Commentaries, and wagonload of too-stupid, heretical or\northodox, weekly Sermons. For my study the inspired Texts themselves!\nThus did not I, in very early days, having disguised me as\ntavern-waiter, stand behind the field-chairs, under that shady Tree at\nTreisnitz by the Jena Highway; waiting upon the great Schiller and\ngreater Goethe; and hearing what I have not forgotten. For----'\n\n----But at this point the Editor recalls his principle of caution,\nsome time ago laid down, and must suppress much. Let not the\nsacredness of Laurelled, still more, of Crowned Heads, be tampered\nwith. Should we, at a future day, find circumstances altered, and the\ntime come for Publication, then may these glimpses into the privacy of\nthe Illustrious be conceded; which for the present were little better\nthan treacherous, perhaps traitorous Eavesdroppings. Of Lord Byron,\ntherefore, of Pope Pius, Emperor Tarakwang, and the 'White\nWater-roses' (Chinese Carbonari) with their mysteries, no notice here!\nOf Napoleon himself we shall only, glancing from afar, remark that\nTeufelsdroeckh's relation to him seems to have been of very varied\ncharacter. At first we find our poor Professor on the point of being\nshot as a spy; then taken into private conversation, even pinched on\nthe ear, yet presented with no money; at last indignantly dismissed,\nalmost thrown out of doors, as an 'Ideologist.' 'He himself,' says the\nProfessor, 'was among the completest Ideologists, at least\nIdeopraxists: in the Idea (_in der Idee_) he lived, moved and fought.\nThe man was a Divine Missionary, though unconscious of it; and\npreached, through the cannon's throat, that great doctrine, _La\ncarriere ouverte aux talens_ (The Tools to him that can handle them),\nwhich is our ultimate Political Evangel, wherein alone can liberty\nlie. Madly enough he preached, it is true, as Enthusiasts and first\nMissionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance, amid much frothy\nrant; yet as articulately perhaps as the case admitted. Or call him,\nif you will, an American Backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated\nforests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely\nforbear strong liquor, rioting, and even theft; whom, notwithstanding,\nthe peaceful Sower will follow, and, as he cuts the boundless harvest,\nbless.'\n\nMore legitimate and decisively authentic is Teufelsdroeckh'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 Arctic\nlatitudes, 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\nhide itself under my feet. In such moments, Solitude also is\ninvaluable; for who would speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies\nall Europe and Africa, fast asleep, except the watchmen; and before\nhim the silent Immensity, and Palace of the Eternal, whereof our Sun\nis but a porch-lamp?\n\n'Nevertheless, in this solemn moment comes a man, or monster,\nscrambling from among the rock-hollows; and, shaggy, huge as the\nHyperborean Bear, hails me in Russian speech: most probably,\ntherefore, a Russian Smuggler. With courteous brevity, I signify my\nindifference to contraband trade, my humane intentions, yet strong\nwish to be private. In vain: the monster, counting doubtless on his\nsuperior stature, and minded to make sport for himself, or perhaps\nprofit, were it with murder, continues to advance; ever assailing me\nwith his importunate train-oil breath; and now has advanced, till we\nstand both on the verge of the rock, the deep Sea rippling greedily\ndown below. What argument will avail? On the thick Hyperborean,\ncherubic reasoning, seraphic eloquence were lost. Prepared for such\nextremity, I, deftly enough, whisk aside one step; draw out, from my\ninterior reservoirs, a sufficient Birmingham Horse-pistol, and say,\n\"Be so obliging as retire, Friend (_Er ziehe sich zurueck, Freund_),\nand with promptitude!\" This logic even the Hyperborean understands;\nfast enough, with apologetic, petitionary growl, he sidles off; and,\nexcept for suicidal as well as homicidal 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\nthis so surprising world, strike me with more surprise. Two little\nvisual Spectra of men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the\nmidst of the UNFATHOMABLE, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very\nsoon,--make pause at the distance of twelve paces asunder; whirl\nround; and, simultaneously by the cunningest mechanism, explode one\nanother into Dissolution; and off-hand become Air, and Non-extant!\nDeuce on it (_verdammt_), the little spitfires!--Nay, I think with old\nHugo von Trimberg: \"God must needs laugh outright, could such a thing\nbe, to see his wondrous Manikins here below.\"'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut amid these specialties, let us not forget the great generality,\nwhich is our chief quest here: How prospered the inner man of\nTeufelsdroeckh 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 Teufelsdroeckh 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,\n'I was what you might name calcined. Pray only that it be not rather,\nas is the more frequent issue, reduced to a _caput-mortuum_! But in\nany case, by mere dint of practice, I had grown familiar with many\nthings. Wretchedness was still wretched; but I could now partly see\nthrough it, and despise it. Which highest mortal, in this inane\nExistence, had I not found a Shadow-hunter, or Shadow-hunted; and,\nwhen I looked through his brave garnitures, miserable enough? Thy\nwishes have all been sniffed aside, thought I: but what, had they even\nbeen all granted! Did not the Boy Alexander weep because he had not\ntwo Planets to conquer; or a whole Solar System; or after that, a\nwhole Universe? _Ach Gott_, when I gazed into these Stars, have they\nnot looked down on me as if with pity, from their serene spaces; like\nEyes glistening with heavenly tears over the little lot of man!\nThousands of human generations, all as noisy as our own, have been\nswallowed-up of Time, and there remains no wreck of them any more; and\nArcturus and Orion and Sirius and the Pleiades are still shining in\ntheir courses, clear and young, as when the Shepherd first noted them\nin the plain of Shinar. Pshaw! what is this paltry little Dog-cage of\nan Earth; what art thou that sittest whining there? Thou art still\nNothing, Nobody: true; but who, then, is Something, Somebody? For thee\nthe 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 Teufelsdroeckh! Yet surely his bands are loosening; one\nday he will hurl the burden far from him, and bound forth free and\nwith a 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\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE EVERLASTING YEA\n\n\n'Temptations in the Wilderness!' exclaims Teufelsdroeckh: 'Have we not\nall to be tried with such? Not so easily can the old Adam, lodged in\nus by birth, be dispossessed. Our Life is compassed round with\nNecessity; yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedom,\nthan Voluntary Force: thus have we a warfare; in the beginning,\nespecially, a hard-fought battle. For the God-given mandate, _Work\nthou in Welldoing_, lies mysteriously written, in Promethean Prophetic\nCharacters, in our hearts; and leaves us no rest, night or day, till\nit be deciphered and obeyed; till it burn forth, in our conduct, a\nvisible, acted Gospel of Freedom. And as the clay-given mandate, _Eat\nthou and be filled_, at the same time persuasively proclaims itself\nthrough every nerve,--must not there be a confusion, a contest, before\nthe better Influence 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 natural\nDesert of rocks and sands, or in the populous moral Desert of\nselfishness and baseness,--to such Temptation are we all called.\nUnhappy if we are not! Unhappy if we are but Half-men, in whom that\ndivine handwriting has never blazed forth, all-subduing, in true\nsun-splendour; but quivers dubiously amid meaner lights: or smoulders,\nin dull pain, in darkness, under earthly vapours!--Our Wilderness is\nthe wide World in an Atheistic Century; our Forty Days are long years\nof suffering and fasting: nevertheless, to these also comes an end.\nYes, to me also was given, if not Victory, yet the consciousness of\nBattle, and the resolve to persevere therein while life or faculty is\nleft. To me also, entangled in the enchanted forests, demon-peopled,\ndoleful of sight and of sound, it was given, after weariest\nwanderings, to work out my way into the higher sunlit slopes--of that\nMountain which has no summit, or whose 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\nsufficient men (_tuechtigen Maenner_) thou hast known in this\ngeneration? An out-flush of foolish young Enthusiasm, like the first\nfallow-crop, wherein are as many weeds as valuable herbs: this all\nparched away, under the Droughts of practical and spiritual Unbelief,\nas Disappointment, in thought and act, often-repeated gave rise to\nDoubt, and Doubt gradually settled into Denial! If I have had a\nsecond-crop, and now see the perennial greensward, and sit under\numbrageous cedars, which defy all Drought (and Doubt); herein too, be\nthe Heavens praised, I am not without examples, and even exemplars.'\n\nSo that, for Teufelsdroeckh 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\nin the _Rue de l'Enfer_,' then, properly the turning-point of the\nbattle; when the Fiend said, _Worship me or be torn in shreds_; and\nwas answered valiantly with an _Apage Satana_?--Singular\nTeufelsdroeckh, would thou hadst told thy singular story in plain\nwords! But it is fruitless to look there, in those Paper-bags, for\nsuch. Nothing but innuendoes, figurative crotchets: a typical Shadow,\nfitfully wavering, prophetico-satiric; no clear logical Picture. 'How\npaint to the sensual eye,' asks he once, 'what passes in the\nHoly-of-Holies of Man's Soul; in what words, known to these profane\ntimes, speak even afar-off of the unspeakable?' We ask in turn: Why\nperplex these times, profane as they are, with needless obscurity, by\nomission and by commission? Not mystical only is our Professor, but\nwhimsical; and involves himself, now more than ever, in\neye-bewildering _chiaroscuro_. Successive glimpses, here faithfully\nimparted, our more gifted readers must endeavour to combine for their\nown 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\nin my wild wanderings; and sat me down to wait, and consider; for it\nwas as if the hour of change drew nigh. I seemed to surrender, to\nrenounce utterly, and say: Fly, then, false shadows of Hope; I will\nchase you no more, I will believe you no more. And ye too, haggard\nspectres of Fear, I care not for you; ye too are all shadows and a\nlie. Let me rest here: for I am way-weary and life-weary; I will rest\nhere, were it but to die: to die or to live is alike to me; alike\ninsignificant.'--And again: 'Here, then, as I lay in that CENTRE OF\nINDIFFERENCE; cast, doubtless by benignant upper Influence, into a\nhealing sleep, the heavy dreams rolled gradually away, and I awoke to\na new Heaven and a new Earth. The first preliminary moral Act,\nAnnihilation of Self (_Selbst-toedtung_), had been happily\naccomplished; and my mind's eyes were now unsealed, and its hands\nungyved.'\n\nMight we not also conjecture that the following passage refers to his\nLocality, during this same 'healing sleep'; that his Pilgrim-staff\nlies cast aside here, on 'the high table-land'; and indeed that the\nrepose is already taking wholesome effect on him? If it were not that\nthe tone, in some parts, has more of riancy, even of levity, than we\ncould have expected! However, in Teufelsdroeckh, there is always the\nstrangest Dualism: light dancing, with guitar-music, will be going on\nin the fore-court, while by fits from within comes the faint\nwhimpering of woe and 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\nme, as roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for walls, four\nazure-flowing curtains,--namely, of the Four azure winds, on whose\nbottom-fringes also I have seen gilding. And then to fancy the fair\nCastles that stood sheltered in these Mountain hollows; with their\ngreen flower-lawns, and white dames and damosels, lovely enough: or\nbetter still, the straw-roofed Cottages, wherein stood many a Mother\nbaking bread, with her children round her:--all hidden and\nprotectingly folded-up in the valley-folds; yet there and alive, as\nsure as if I beheld them. Or to see, as well as fancy, the nine Towns\nand Villages, that lay round my mountain-seat, which, in still\nweather, were wont to speak to me (by their steeple-bells) with metal\ntongue; and, in almost all weather, proclaimed their vitality by\nrepeated Smoke-clouds; whereon, as on a culinary horologe, I might\nread the hour of the day. For it was the smoke of cookery, as kind\nhousewives at morning, midday, eventide, were boiling their husbands'\nkettles; and ever a blue pillar rose up into the air, successively or\nsimultaneously, from each of the nine, saying, as plainly as smoke\ncould say: Such and such a meal is getting ready here. Not\nuninteresting! 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\nWayfarings, 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\nthe Distance: round some Schreckhorn, as yet grim-blue, would the\neddying vapour gather, and there tumultuously eddy, and flow down like\na mad witch's hair; till, after a space, it vanished, and, in the\nclear sunbeam, your Schreckhorn stood smiling grim-white, for the\nvapour had held snow. How thou fermentest and elaboratest, in thy\ngreat fermenting-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\nthou the \"Living Garment of God\"? O Heavens, is it, in very deed, HE,\nthen, that ever speaks through thee; that lives and loves in thee,\nthat lives and loves in me?\n\n'Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendours, 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\nvoice to her little child that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown\ntumults; like 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 fellow man; with an\ninfinite Love, an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, wayward man! Art\nthou not tired, and beaten with stripes, even as I am? Ever, whether\nthou bear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, art thou not so\nweary, so heavy-laden; and thy Bed of Rest is but a Grave. O my\nBrother, my Brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe\naway all tears from thy eyes! Truly, the din of many-voiced Life,\nwhich, in this solitude, with the mind's organ, I could hear, was no\nlonger a maddening discord, but a melting one; like inarticulate\ncries, and sobbings of a dumb creature, which in the ear of Heaven are\nprayers. The poor Earth, with her poor joys, was now my needy Mother,\nnot my cruel Stepdame; Man, with his so mad Wants and so mean\nEndeavours, had become the dearer to me; and even for his sufferings\nand his sins, I now first named him Brother. Thus was I standing in\nthe porch of that \"_Sanctuary of Sorrow_;\" by strange, steep ways had\nI too been guided thither; and ere long its sacred gates would open,\nand the \"_Divine Depth of Sorrow_\" lie disclosed 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\npresent called Origin of Evil, or some such thing, arises in every\nsoul, since the beginning of the world; and in every soul, that would\npass from idle Suffering into actual Endeavouring, must first be put\nan end to. The most, in our time, have to go content with a simple,\nincomplete enough Suppression of this controversy; to a few some\nSolution of it is indispensable. In every new era, too, such Solution\ncomes-out in different terms; and ever the Solution of the last era\nhas become obsolete, and is found unserviceable. For it is man's\nnature to change his Dialect from century to century; he cannot help\nit though he would. The authentic _Church-Catechism_ of our present\ncentury has not yet fallen into my hands: meanwhile, for my own\nprivate behoof, I attempt to elucidate the matter so. Man's\nUnhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because\nthere is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot\nquite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers and\nUpholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake, in\njointstock 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 your\nocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better\nvintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets\nto quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares\nhimself the most maltreated of men.--Always there is a black spot in\nour sunshine: 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\nof average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and\nof indefeasible right. It is simple payment of our wages, of our\ndeserts; requires neither thanks nor complaint; only such _overplus_\nas there may be do we account Happiness; any _deficit_ again is\nMisery. Now consider that we have the valuation of our own deserts\nourselves, and what a fund of Self-conceit there is in each of us,--do\nyou wonder that the balance should so often dip the wrong way, and\nmany a Blockhead cry: See there, what a payment; was ever worthy\ngentleman so used!--I tell thee, Blockhead, it all comes of thy\nVanity; of what thou _fanciest_ those same deserts of thine to be.\nFancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely), thou wilt\nfeel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that thou deservest to be\nhanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to die in hemp.\n\n'So true is it, what I then say, 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,\n_Unity_ itself divided by _Zero_ will give _Infinity_. Make thy claim\nof wages a zero, then; thou hast the world under thy feet. Well did\nthe Wisest of our time write: \"It is only with Renunciation\n(_Entsagen_) that Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin.\"\n\n'I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, thou\nhast been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-tormenting, on\naccount of? Say it in a word: is it not because thou art not HAPPY?\nBecause the THOU (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honoured,\nnourished, soft-bedded, and lovingly cared for? Foolish soul! What Act\nof Legislature 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\nnot given 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\npreach-forth this same HIGHER that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the\nPriest, in all times, have spoken and suffered; bearing testimony,\nthrough life and through death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how\nin the Godlike only has he Strength and Freedom? Which God-inspired\nDoctrine art thou also honoured to be taught; O Heavens! and broken\nwith manifold merciful Afflictions, even till thou become contrite,\nand learn it! O, thank thy Destiny for these; thankfully bear what yet\nremain: thou hadst need of them; the Self in thee needed to be\nannihilated. By benignant fever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the\ndeep-seated chronic Disease, and triumphs over Death. On the roaring\nbillows of Time, thou art not engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure\nof Eternity. Love not Pleasure; love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA,\nwherein all contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it\nis 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\nlove the Earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures\nthee; for this a Greater than Zeno was needed, and he too was sent.\nKnowest thou that \"_Worship of Sorrow_\"? The Temple thereof, founded\nsome eighteen centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle,\nthe habitation of doleful creatures: nevertheless, venture forward; in\na low crypt, arched out of falling fragments, thou findest the Altar\nstill there, and its 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 on\nReligion, yet not without bursts of splendour; on the 'perennial\ncontinuance of Inspiration;' on Prophecy; that there are 'true\nPriests, as well as Baal-Priests, in our own day:' with more of the\nlike sort. We select some fractions, by way of finish to this farrago.\n\n'Cease, my much-respected Herr von Voltaire,' thus apostrophises 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\nsince on the same subject, all needed to convince us of so little! But\nwhat next? Wilt thou help us to embody the divine Spirit of that\nReligion in a new Mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that our\nSouls, otherwise too like perishing, may live? What! thou hast no\nfaculty in that kind? Only a torch for burning, no hammer for\nbuilding? Take our thanks, then, and--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\nsay whether it is of God! This is Belief; all else is Opinion,--for\nwhich latter whoso will let him worry and be worried.'\n\n'Neither,' observes he elsewhere, 'shall ye tear-out one another's\neyes, struggling over \"Plenary Inspiration,\" and suchlike: try rather\nto get a little even Partial Inspiration, each of you for himself. One\nBIBLE I know, of whose Plenary Inspiration doubt is not so much as\npossible; nay with my own eyes I saw the God's-Hand writing it:\nthereof all other Bibles are but leaves,--say, in Picture-Writing to\nassist the weaker faculty.'\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\ninternecine warfare with the Time-spirit, other warfare seems\nquestionable. Hast thou in any way a Contention with thy brother, I\nadvise thee, think well what the meaning thereof is. If thou gauge it\nto the bottom, it is simply this: \"Fellow, see! thou art taking more\nthan thy share of Happiness in the world, something from _my_ share:\nwhich, by the Heavens, thou shall not; nay I will fight thee\nrather.\"--Alas, and the whole lot to be divided is such a beggarly\nmatter, truly a \"feast of shells,\" for the substance has been spilled\nout: not enough to quench one Appetite; and the collective human\nspecies clutching at them!--Can we not, in all such cases, rather say:\n\"Take it, thou too-ravenous individual; take that pitiful additional\nfraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but which thou so wantest;\ntake it with a blessing: would to Heaven I had enough for thee!\"--If\nFichte's _Wissenschaftslehre_ be, \"to a certain extent, Applied\nChristianity,\" surely to a still greater extent, so is this. We have\nhere not a Whole Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely the Passive\nhalf: 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\npossible till then; inasmuch as all Speculation is by nature endless,\nformless, a vortex amid vortices: only by a felt indubitable certainty\nof Experience does it find any centre to revolve round, and so fashion\nitself into a system. Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that\n\"Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by Action.\" On which\nground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain\nlight, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this\nother precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service:\n\"_Do the Duty which lies nearest thee_,\" which thou knowest to be a\nDuty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer.\n\n'May we not say, however, that the hour of Spiritual Enfranchisement\nis even this: When your Ideal World, wherein the whole man has been\ndimly struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes\nrevealed, and thrown open; and you discover, with amazement enough,\nlike the Lothario in _Wilhelm Meister_, that your \"America is here or\nnowhere\"? The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never\nyet occupied by man. Yes here, in this poor, miserable, hampered,\ndespicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is\nthy Ideal: work it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free.\nFool! the Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself: thy\nCondition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of:\nwhat matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the Form\nthou give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou that pinest in the\nimprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a\nkingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth: the thing\nthou seekest is already with thee, \"here or nowhere,\" couldst thou\nonly 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 and\nleast. 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\nits everlasting Luminaries above: instead of a dark wasteful Chaos, we\nhave a blooming, fertile, heaven-encompassed World.\n\n'I too could now say to myself: Be no longer a Chaos, but a World, or\neven Worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest\ninfinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name! 'Tis\nthe utmost thou hast in thee: out with it, then. Up, up! Whatsoever\nthy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is\ncalled Today; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can work.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nPAUSE\n\n\nThus have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily as, in such\ncircumstances, might be, followed Teufelsdroeckh 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;\n'rejoice rather that such a word, signifying such a thing, has come to\nlight in our modern Era, though hidden from the wisest Ancients. The\nOld World knew nothing of Conversion; instead of an _Ecce Homo_, they\nhad only some _Choice of Hercules_. It was a new-attained progress in\nthe Moral Development of man: hereby has the Highest come home to the\nbosoms of the most Limited; what to Plato was but a hallucination, and\nto Socrates a chimera, is now clear and certain to your Zinzendorfs,\nyour Wesleys, and the poorest of their Pietists and Methodists.'\n\nIt is here, then, that the spiritual majority of Teufelsdroeckh\ncommences: we are henceforth to see him 'work in well-doing,' with the\nspirit 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,\nfurnished, furnishable with some glimmerings of Light; and three\nfingers to hold a Pen withal? Never since Aaron's Rod went out of\npractice, or even before it, was there such a wonder-working Tool:\ngreater than all recorded miracles have been performed by Pens. For\nstrangely in this so solid-seeming World, which nevertheless is in\ncontinual restless flux, it is appointed that _Sound_, to appearance\nthe most fleeting, should be the most continuing of all things. The\nWORD is well said to be omnipotent in this world; man, thereby divine,\ncan create as by a _Fiat_. Awake, arise! Speak forth what is in thee;\nwhat God has given thee, what the Devil shall not take away. Higher\ntask than that of Priesthood was allotted to no man: wert thou but the\nmeanest in that sacred Hierarchy, is it not honour enough therein to\nspend and be spent?\n\n'By this Art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously degrade into a\nhandicraft,' adds Teufelsdroeckh, 'have I thenceforth abidden. Writings\nof mine, not indeed known as mine (for what am _I_?), have fallen,\nperhaps not altogether void, into the mighty seed-field of Opinion;\nfruits of my unseen sowing gratifyingly meet me here and there. I\nthank the Heavens that I have now found my Calling; wherein, with or\nwithout perceptible result, 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,\nit without doubt was; from some Idea, in some single Head, it did\nfirst of all take beginning: why not from some Idea in mine?' Does\nTeufelsdroeckh here glance at that 'SOCIETY FOR THE CONSERVATION OF\nPROPERTY (_Eigenthums-conservirende Gesellschaft_),' of which so many\nambiguous notices glide spectre-like through these inexpressible\nPaper-bags? 'An Institution,' hints he, 'not unsuitable to the wants\nof the time; as indeed such sudden extension proves: for already can\nthe Society number, among its office-bearers or corresponding members,\nthe highest Names, if not the highest Persons, in Germany, England,\nFrance; and contributions, both of money and of meditation, pour-in\nfrom all quarters; to, if possible, enlist the remaining Integrity of\nthe world, and, defensively and with forethought, marshal it round\nthis Palladium.' Does Teufelsdroeckh mean, then, to give himself out as\nthe originator of that so notable _Eigenthums-conservirende_\n('Owndom-conserving') _Gesellschaft_; and if so, what, in the Devil's\nname, is it? He again hints: 'At a time when the divine Commandment,\n_Thou shalt not steal_, wherein truly, if well understood, is\ncomprised the whole Hebrew Decalogue, with Solon's and Lycurgus's\nConstitutions, Justinian's Pandects, the Code Napoleon, and all Codes,\nCatechisms, Divinities, Moralities whatsoever, that man has hitherto\ndevised (and enforced with Altar-fire and Gallows-ropes) for his\nsocial guidance: at a time, I say, when this divine Commandment has\nall-but faded away from the general remembrance; and, with little\ndisguise, a new opposite Commandment, _Thou shalt steal_, is\neverywhere promulgated,--it perhaps behooved, in this universal dotage\nand deliration, the sound portion of mankind to bestir themselves and\nrally. When the widest and wildest violations of that divine right of\nProperty, the only divine right now extant or conceivable, are\nsanctioned and recommended by a vicious Press, and the world has lived\nto hear it asserted that _we have no Property in our very Bodies, but\nonly an accidental Possession and Life-rent_, what is the issue to be\nlooked for? Hangmen and Catchpoles may, by their noose-gins and baited\nfall-traps, keep-down the smaller sort of vermin; but what, except\nperhaps some such Universal Association, can protect us against whole\nmeat-devouring and man-devouring hosts of Boa-constrictors? If,\ntherefore, the more sequestered Thinker have wondered, in his privacy,\nfrom what hand that perhaps not ill-written _Program_ in the Public\nJournals, with its high _Prize-Questions_ and so liberal _Prizes_,\ncould have proceeded,--let him now cease such wonder; and, with\nundivided faculty, betake himself to the _Concurrenz_ (Competition).'\n\nWe ask: Has this same 'perhaps not ill-written _Program_,' or any\nother authentic Transaction of that Property-conserving Society,\nfallen under the eye of the British Reader, in any Journal foreign or\ndomestic? If so, what are those _Prize-Questions_; what are the terms\nof Competition, and when and where? No printed Newspaper-leaf, no\nfarther light of any sort, to be met with in these Paper-bags! Or is\nthe whole business one other of those whimsicalities and perverse\ninexplicabilities, whereby Herr Teufelsdroeckh, meaning much or\nnothing, is pleased so often to play fast-and-loose with us?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere, indeed, at length, must the Editor give utterance to a painful\nsuspicion, which, through late Chapters, has begun to haunt him;\nparalysing any little enthusiasm that might still have rendered his\nthorny Biographical task a labour of love. It is a suspicion grounded\nperhaps on trifles, yet confirmed almost into certainty by the more\nand more discernible humoristico-satirical tendency of Teufelsdroeckh,\nin whom underground humours 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 a\nso-called Fact were little better than a Fiction; if here we had no\ndirect Camera-obscura Picture of the Professor's History; but only\nsome more or less fantastic Adumbration, symbolically, perhaps\nsignificantly enough, shadowing-forth the same! Our theory begins to\nbe that, in receiving as literally authentic what was but\nhieroglyphically so, Hofrath Heuschrecke, whom in that case we scruple\nnot to name Hofrath Nose-of-Wax, was made a fool of, and set adrift to\nmake fools of others. Could it be expected, indeed, that a man so\nknown for impenetrable reticence as Teufelsdroeckh, would all at once\nfrankly unlock his private citadel to an English Editor and a German\nHofrath; and not rather deceptively _in_lock both Editor and Hofrath\nin the labyrinthic tortuosities and covered-ways of said citadel\n(having enticed them thither), to see, in his half-devilish way, how\nthe 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 notice, and with effort decipher, the\nfollowing: 'What are your historical Facts; still more your\nbiographical? Wilt thou know a Man, above all a Mankind, by\nstringing-together beadrolls of what thou namest Facts? The Man is the\nspirit he worked in; not what he did, but what he became. Facts are\nengraved Hierograms, for which the fewest have the key. And then how\nyour Blockhead (_Dummkopf_) studies not their Meaning; but simply\nwhether they are well or ill cut, what he calls Moral or Immoral!\nStill worse is it with your Bungler (_Pfuscher_): such I have seen\nreading some Rousseau, with pretences of interpretation; and mistaking\nthe ill-cut Serpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous reptile.' Was\nthe Professor apprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the present\nboasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdroeckh Serpent-of-Eternity in\nlike manner? For which reason it was to be altered, not without\nunderhand satire, into a plainer Symbol? Or is this merely one of his\nhalf-sophisms, half-truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a\nFigure, he cares not whither it gallop? We say not with certainty; and\nindeed, so strange is the Professor, can never say. If our suspicion\nbe wholly unfounded, let his own questionable ways, not our necessary\ncircumspectness, bear the 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\nit suffice that we know of Teufelsdroeckh, so far, if 'not what he did,\nyet what he became:' the rather, as his character has now taken its\nultimate bent, and no new revolution, of importance, is to be looked\nfor. The imprisoned Chrysalis is now a winged Psyche: and such,\nwheresoever be its flight, it will continue. To trace by what complex\ngyrations (flights or involuntary waftings) through the mere external\nLife element, Teufelsdroeckh 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\neven unsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a false and\nimpossible one. His outward Biography, therefore, which, at the\nBlumine Lover's-Leap, we saw churned utterly into spray-vapour, may\nhover in that condition, for aught that concerns us here. Enough that\nby survey of certain 'pools and plashes,' we have ascertained its\ngeneral direction; do we not already know that, by one way and other,\nit _has_ long since rained-down again into a stream; and even now, at\nWeissnichtwo, flows deep and still, fraught with the _Philosophy of\nClothes_, and visible to whoso will cast eye thereon? Over much\ninvaluable matter, that lies scattered, like jewels among\nquarry-rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs we may have occasion to\nglance back, and somewhat will demand insertion at the right place:\nmeanwhile 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\nthey drift straggling on the Flood; how far they will reach, when once\nthe chains are straightened and fastened, can, at present, only be\nmatter of conjecture.\n\nSo much we already calculate: Through many a little loop-hole, we have\nhad glimpses into the internal world of Teufelsdroeckh; 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\nsomewhat peculiar view of Nature, the decisive Oneness he ascribes to\nNature. How all Nature and Life are but one _Garment_, a 'Living\nGarment,' woven and ever a-weaving in the 'Loom of Time;' is not here,\nindeed, the outline of a whole _Clothes-Philosophy_; at least the\narena it is to work in? Remark, too, that the Character of the Man,\nnowise without meaning in such a matter, becomes less enigmatic: amid\nso much tumultuous obscurity, almost like diluted madness, do not a\ncertain indomitable Defiance and yet a boundless Reverence seem to\nloom-forth, as the two mountain-summits, on whose rock-strata all the\nrest were based and built?\n\nNay further, may we not say that Teufelsdroeckh's Biography, allowing\nit even, as suspected, only a hieroglyphical truth, exhibits a man, as\nit were preappointed for Clothes-Philosophy? To look through the Shows\nof things into Things themselves he is led and compelled. The\n'Passivity' given him by birth is fostered by all turns of his\nfortune. Everywhere cast out, like oil out of water, from mingling in\nany Employment, in any public Communion, he has no portion but\nSolitude, and a life of Meditation. The whole energy of his existence\nis directed, through long years, on one task: that of enduring pain,\nif he cannot cure it. Thus everywhere do the Shows of things oppress\nhim, withstand him, threaten him with fearfullest destruction: only by\nvictoriously penetrating into Things themselves can he find peace and\na stronghold. But is not this same looking through the Shows, or\nVestures, into the Things, even the first preliminary to a _Philosophy\nof Clothes_? Do we not, in all this, discern some beckonings towards\nthe true higher purport of such a Philosophy; and what shape it must\nassume with such a man, in such an era?\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-Grottoes through which, as is our lot with\nTeufelsdroeckh, he must wander, will there be wanting between whiles\nsome twinkling of a steady Polar Star.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THIRD\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY\n\n\nAs a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teufelsdroeckh, from an\nearly part of this Clothes-Volume, has more and more exhibited\nhimself. Striking it was, amid all his perverse cloudiness, with what\nforce of vision and of heart he pierced into the mystery of the World;\nrecognising 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\nhis Greek-fire into the general Wardrobe of the Universe; what such,\nmore or less complete, rending and burning of Garments throughout the\nwhole compass of Civilized Life and Speculation, should lead to; the\nrather as he was no Adamite, in any sense, and could not, like\nRousseau, recommend either bodily or intellectual Nudity, and a return\nto the savage state: all this our readers are now bent to discover;\nthis is, in fact, properly the gist and purport of Professor\nTeufelsdroeckh's Philosophy of Clothes.\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\nstand-out here and there; which for the critical eye, that looks both\nwidely and narrowly, shape themselves into some ground-scheme of a\nWhole: to select these with judgment, so that a leap from one to the\nother be possible, and (in our old figure) by chaining them together,\na passable Bridge be effected: this, as heretofore, continues our only\nmethod. Among such light-spots, the following, floating in much wild\nmatter about _Perfectibility_, has seemed worth clutching at:\n\n'Perhaps the most remarkable incident in Modern History,' says\nTeufelsdroeckh, '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\ndegree of ridicule by others: namely, George Fox's making to himself a\nsuit of Leather. This man, the first of the Quakers, and by trade a\nShoemaker, was one of those, to whom, under ruder or purer form, the\nDivine Idea of the Universe is pleased to manifest itself; and, across\nall the hulls of Ignorance and earthly Degradation, shine through, in\nunspeakable Awfulness, unspeakable Beauty, on their souls: who\ntherefore are rightly accounted Prophets, God-possessed; or even Gods,\nas in some periods it has chanced. Sitting in his stall; working on\ntanned hides, amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a\nnameless flood of rubbish, this youth had, nevertheless, a Living\nSpirit belonging to him; also an antique Inspired Volume, through\nwhich, as through a window, it could look upwards, and discern its\ncelestial Home. The task of a daily pair of shoes, coupled even with\nsome prospect of victuals, and an honourable Mastership in\nCordwainery, and perhaps the post of Thirdborough in his hundred, as\nthe crown of long faithful sewing,--was nowise satisfaction enough to\nsuch a mind: but ever amid the boring and hammering came tones from\nthat far country, came Splendours and Terrors; for this poor\nCordwainer, as we said, was a Man; and the Temple of Immensity,\nwherein as Man he had been sent to minister, was full of holy mystery\nto him.\n\n'The Clergy of the neighbourhood, the ordained Watchers and\nInterpreters of that same holy mystery, listened with unaffected\ntedium to his consultations, and advised him, as the solution of such\ndoubts, to \"drink beer and dance with the girls.\" Blind leaders of the\nblind! For what end were their tithes levied and eaten; for what were\ntheir shovel-hats scooped-out, and their surplices and cassock-aprons\ngirt-on; and such a church-repairing, and chaffering, and organing,\nand other racketing, held over that spot of God's Earth,--if Man were\nbut a Patent Digester, and the Belly with its adjuncts the grand\nReality? Fox turned from them, with tears and a sacred scorn, back to\nhis Leather-parings and his Bible. Mountains of encumbrance, higher\nthan AEtna, had been heaped over that Spirit: but it was a Spirit, and\nwould not lie buried there. Through long days and nights of silent\nagony, it struggled and wrestled, with a man's force, to be free: how\nits prison-mountains heaved and swayed tumultuously, as the giant\nspirit shook them to this hand and that, and emerged into the light of\nHeaven! That Leicester shoe-shop, had men known it, was a holier place\nthan any Vatican or Loretto-shrine.--\"So bandaged, and hampered, and\nhemmed in,\" groaned he, \"with thousand requisitions, obligations,\nstraps, tatters, and tagrags, I can neither see nor move: not my own\nam I, but the World's; and Time flies fast, and Heaven is high, and\nHell is deep: Man! bethink thee, if thou hast power of Thought! Why\nnot; what binds me here? Want, want!--Ha, of what? Will all the\nshoe-wages under the Moon ferry me across into that far Land of Light?\nOnly Meditation can, and devout Prayer to God. I will to the woods:\nthe hollow of a tree will lodge me, wild-berries feed me; and for\nClothes, cannot I stitch myself one perennial suit of Leather!\"\n\n'Historical Oil-painting,' continues Teufelsdroeckh, 'is one of the\nArts I never practised; therefore shall I not decide whether this\nsubject were easy of execution on the canvas. Yet often has it seemed\nto me as if such first outflashing of man's Freewill, to lighten, more\nand more into Day, the Chaotic Night that threatened to engulf him in\nits hindrances and its horrors, were properly the only grandeur there\nis in History. Let some living Angelo or Rosa, with seeing eye and\nunderstanding heart, picture George Fox on that morning, when he\nspreads-out his cutting-board for the last time, and cuts cowhides by\nunwonted patterns, and stitches them together into one continuous\nall-including Case, the farewell service of his awl! Stitch away, thou\nnoble Fox: every prick of that little instrument is pricking into the\nheart of Slavery, and World-worship, and the Mammon-god. Thy elbows\njerk, and in strong swimmer-strokes, and every stroke is bearing thee\nacross the Prison-ditch, within which Vanity holds her Workhouse and\nRagfair, into lands of true Liberty; were the work done, there is in\nbroad Europe one Free Man, and thou art he!\n\n'Thus from the lowest depth there is a path to the loftiest height;\nand for the Poor also a Gospel has been published. Surely if, as\nD'Alembert asserts, my illustrious namesake, Diogenes, was the\ngreatest man of Antiquity, only that he wanted Decency, then by\nstronger reason is George Fox the greatest of the Moderns; and greater\nthan Diogenes himself: for he too stands on the adamantine basis of\nhis Manhood, casting aside all props and shoars; yet not, in\nhalf-savage Pride, undervaluing the Earth; valuing it rather, as a\nplace to yield him warmth and food, he looks Heavenward from his\nEarth, and dwells in an element of Mercy and Worship, with a still\nStrength, such as the Cynic's Tub did nowise witness. Great, truly,\nwas that Tub; a temple from which man's dignity and divinity was\nscornfully preached abroad: but greater is the Leather Hull, for the\nsame sermon was preached there, and not in Scorn but in Love.'\n\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 the\n_Perfectibility of Society_, reproduce it now? Not out of blind\nsectarian partisanship: Teufelsdroeckh 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 at\nthe 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 Teufelsdroeckh\nanticipate that, in this age of refinement, any considerable class of\nthe community, by way of testifying against the 'Mammon-god,' and\nescaping from what he calls 'Vanity's Workhouse and Ragfair,' where\ndoubtless 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\nsecond-skin of tanned hide? By which change Huddersfield and\nManchester, and Coventry and Paisley, and the Fancy-Bazaar, were\nreduced to hungry solitudes; and only Day and Martin could profit. For\nneither would Teufelsdroeckh's mad daydream, here as we presume\ncovertly intended, of levelling Society (_levelling_ it indeed with a\nvengeance, into one huge drowned marsh!), and so attaining the\npolitical effects of Nudity without its frigorific or other\nconsequences,--be thereby realised. Would not the rich man purchase a\nwaterproof suit of Russia Leather; and the high-born Belle step-forth\nin red or azure morocco, lined with shamoy: the black cowhide being\nleft to the Drudges and Gibeonites of the world; and so all the old\nDistinctions be re-established?\n\nOr has the Professor his own deeper intention; and laughs in his\nsleeve at our strictures and glosses, which indeed are but a part\nthereof?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHURCH-CLOTHES\n\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\nmore than Cassocks and Surplices; and do not at all mean the mere\nhaberdasher Sunday Clothes that men go to Church in. Far from it!\nChurch-Clothes are, in our vocabulary, the Forms, the _Vestures_,\nunder which men have at various periods embodied and represented for\nthemselves the Religious Principle; that is to say, invested The\nDivine Idea of the World with a sensible and practically active Body,\nso that it might dwell among them as 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\nsay, by that wonder of wonders, SOCIETY; for it is still only when\n\"two or three are gathered together,\" that Religion, spiritually\nexistent, and indeed indestructible, however latent, in each, first\noutwardly manifests itself (as with \"cloven tongues of fire\"), and\nseeks to be embodied in a visible Communion and Church Militant.\nMystical, more than magical, is that Communing of Soul with Soul, both\nlooking heavenward: here properly Soul first speaks with Soul; for\nonly in looking heavenward, take it in what sense you may, not in\nlooking earthward, does what we can call Union, mutual Love, Society,\nbegin to be possible. How true is that of Novalis: \"It is certain my\nBelief gains quite _infinitely_ the moment I can convince another mind\nthereof\"! Gaze thou in the face of thy Brother, in those eyes where\nplays the lambent fire of Kindness, or in those where rages the lurid\nconflagration of Anger; feel how thy own so quiet Soul is straightway\ninvoluntarily kindled with the like, and ye blaze and reverberate on\neach other, till it is all one limitless confluent flame (of embracing\nLove, or of deadly-grappling Hate); and then say what miraculous\nvirtue goes out of man into man. But if so, through all the\nthick-plied hulls of our Earthly Life; how much more when it is of the\nDivine Life we speak, and inmost ME is, as it were, brought into\ncontact 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\nand present, may well be figured as properly and wholly a Church, in\none or other of these three predicaments: an audibly preaching and\nprophesying Church, which is the best; second, a Church that struggles\nto preach and prophesy, but cannot as yet, till its Pentecost come;\nand third and worst, a Church gone dumb with old age, or which only\nmumbles delirium prior to dissolution. Whoso fancies that by Church is\nhere meant Chapterhouses and Cathedrals, or by preaching and\nprophesying, mere speech and chanting, let him,' says the oracular\nProfessor, 'read on, light of heart (_getrosten Muthes_).\n\n'But with regard to your Church proper, and the Church-Clothes\nspecially recognised as Church-Clothes, I remark, fearlessly enough,\nthat without such Vestures and sacred Tissues Society has not existed,\nand will not exist. For if Government is, so to speak, the outward SKIN\nof the Body Politic, holding the whole together and protecting it; and\nall your Craft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of hand or of\nhead, are the Fleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tissues (lying\n_under_ such SKIN), whereby Society stands and works;--then is Religion\nthe inmost Pericardial and Nervous Tissue, which ministers Life and\nwarm Circulation to the whole. Without which Pericardial Tissue the\nBones and Muscles (of Industry) were inert, or animated only by a\nGalvanic vitality; the SKIN would become a shrivelled pelt, or\nfast-rotting raw-hide; and Society itself a dead carcass,--deserving to\nbe buried. Men were no longer Social, but Gregarious; which latter\nstate also could not continue, but must gradually issue in universal\nselfish discord, hatred, savage isolation, and dispersion;--whereby, as\nwe might continue to say, the very dust and dead body of Society would\nhave evaporated and become abolished. Such, and so all-important,\nall-sustaining, are the Church-Clothes to civilised or even to rational\nmen.\n\n'Meanwhile, in our era of the World, those same Church-Clothes have\ngone sorrowfully out-at-elbows; nay, far worse, many of them have\nbecome mere hollow Shapes, or Masks, under which no living Figure or\nSpirit any longer dwells; but only spiders and unclean beetles, in\nhorrid accumulation, drive their trade; and the mask still glares on\nyou with its glass-eyes, in ghastly affectation of Life,--some\ngeneration-and-half after Religion has quite withdrawn from it, and in\nunnoticed nooks is weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewith to\nreappear, 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\nit doubtful that his Canonicals, were they Popes' Tiaras, will one day\nbe torn from him, to make bandages for the wounds of mankind; or even\nto burn 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 of\nSpiritual Tissues, or Garments, forms, properly speaking, the\nTranscendental or ultimate Portion of this my work _on Clothes_, and\nis already in a state of forwardness.'\n\nAnd herewith, no farther exposition, note, or commentary being added,\ndoes Teufelsdroeckh, and must his Editor now, terminate the singular\nchapter on Church-Clothes!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nSYMBOLS\n\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 God-like;' and how 'Man thereby,\nthough based, to all seeming, on the small Visible, does nevertheless\nextend down into the infinite deeps of the Invisible, of which\nInvisible, indeed, his Life is properly the bodying forth.' Let us,\nomitting these high transcendental aspects of the matter, study to\nglean (whether from the Paper-bags or the Printed Volume) what little\nseems logical and practical, and cunningly arrange it into such degree\nof coherence as it will assume. By way of proem, take the following\nnot injudicious remarks:\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,\ninto the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Not\nWilliam the Silent only, but all the considerable men I have known,\nand the most undiplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore to babble\nof what they were creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own mean\nperplexities, do thou thyself but _hold thy tongue for one day_: on\nthe morrow, how much clearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck\nand rubbish have those mute workmen within thee swept away, when\nintrusive noises were shut out! Speech is too often not, as the\nFrenchman defined it, the art of concealing Thought; but of quite\nstifling and suspending Thought, so that there is none to conceal.\nSpeech too is great, but not the greatest. As the Swiss Inscription\nsays: _Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden_ (Speech is silvern,\nSilence is golden); or as I might rather express it: Speech is of\nTime, Silence is of Eternity.\n\n'Bees will not work except in darkness; Thought will not work except\nin Silence; neither will Virtue work except in Secrecy. Let not thy\nleft hand know what thy right hand doeth! Neither shalt thou prate\neven to thy own heart of \"those secrets known to all.\" Is not Shame\n(_Schaam_) the soil of all Virtue, of all good manners and good\nmorals? Like other plants, Virtue will not grow unless its root be\nhidden, buried from the eye of the sun. Let the sun shine on it, nay\ndo but look at it privily thyself, the root withers, and no flower\nwill glad thee. O my Friends, when we view the fair clustering flowers\nthat over-wreathe, for example, the Marriage-bower, and encircle man's\nlife with the fragrance and hues of Heaven, what hand will not smite\nthe foul plunderer that grubs them up by the roots, and with grinning,\ngrunting satisfaction, shows us the dung they flourish in! Men speak\nmuch of the Printing-Press with its Newspapers: _du Himmel!_ what are\nthese to Clothes and the Tailor's Goose?'\n\n'Of kin to the so incalculable influences of Concealment, and\nconnected with still greater things, is the wondrous agency of\n_Symbols_. In a Symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here\ntherefore, by Silence and by Speech acting together, comes a double\nsignificance. And if both the Speech be itself high, and the Silence\nfit and noble, how expressive will their union be! Thus in many a\npainted Device, or simple Seal-emblem, the commonest Truth stands-out\nto us proclaimed with quite new 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\nthe Symbol proper, what we can call a Symbol, there is ever, more or\nless distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the\nInfinite; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to\nstand visible, and as it were, attainable there. By Symbols,\naccordingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched.\nHe everywhere finds himself encompassed with Symbols, recognised as\nsuch or not recognised: the Universe is but one vast Symbol of God;\nnay if thou wilt have it, what is man himself but a Symbol of God; is\nnot all that he does symbolical; a revelation to Sense of the mystic\ngod-given force that is in him; a \"Gospel of Freedom,\" which he, the\n\"Messias of Nature,\" preaches, as he can, by act and word? Not a Hut\nhe builds but is the visible embodiment of a Thought; but bears\nvisible record of invisible things; but is, in the transcendental\nsense, 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\nhimself to be most things, down even to an animated heap of Glass; but\nto fancy himself a dead Iron-Balance for weighing Pains and Pleasures\non, was reserved for this his latter era. There stands he, his\nUniverse one huge Manger, filled with hay and thistles to be weighed\nagainst each other; and looks long-eared enough. Alas, poor devil!\nspectres are appointed to haunt him: one age he is hag-ridden,\nbewitched; the next, priestridden, befooled; in all ages, bedevilled.\nAnd now the Genius of Mechanism smothers him worse than any Nightmare\ndid; till the Soul is nigh choked out of him, and only a kind of\nDigestive, Mechanic life remains. In Earth and in Heaven he can see\nnothing but Mechanism; has fear for nothing else, hope in nothing\nelse: the world would indeed grind him to pieces; but cannot he fathom\nthe Doctrine of Motives, and cunningly compute these, and mechanise\nthem 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,\nwas it hitherto that man's history, or the history of any man, went on\nby calculated or calculable \"Motives\"? What make ye of your\nChristianities, and Chivalries, and Reformations, and Marseillese\nHymns, and Reigns of Terror? Nay, has not perhaps the Motive-grinder\nhimself been _in Love_? Did he never stand so much as a contested\nElection? Leave him to Time, and 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; our Magician and Wizard\nto lead us hellward. Nay, even for the basest Sensualist, what is\nSense but the implement of Fantasy; the vessel it drinks out of? Ever\nin the dullest existence there is a sheen either of Inspiration or of\nMadness (thou partly hast it in thy choice, which of the two), that\ngleams-in from the circumambient Eternity, and colours with its own\nhues our little islet of Time. The Understanding is indeed thy window,\ntoo clear thou canst not make it; but Fantasy is thy eye, with its\ncolour-giving retina, healthy or diseased. Have not I myself known\nfive-hundred living soldiers sabred into crows'-meat for a piece of\nglazed cotton, which they called their Flag; which, had you sold it at\nany market-cross, would not have brought above three groschen? Did not\nthe whole Hungarian Nation rise, like some tumultuous moon-stirred\nAtlantic, when Kaiser Joseph pocketed their Iron Crown; an Implement,\nas was sagaciously observed, in size and commercial value little\ndiffering from a horse-shoe? It is in and through _Symbols_ that man,\nconsciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being: those\nages, moreover, are accounted the noblest which can the best recognise\nsymbolical worth, and prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol ever,\nto him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the\nGodlike?\n\n'Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that they have both an\nextrinsic and intrinsic value; oftenest the former only. What, for\ninstance, was in that clouted Shoe, which the Peasants bore aloft with\nthem as ensign in their _Bauernkrieg_ (Peasants' War)? Or in the\nWallet-and-staff round which the Netherland _Gueux_, glorying in that\nnickname of Beggars, heroically rallied and prevailed, though against\nKing Philip himself? Intrinsic significance these had none: only\nextrinsic; as the accidental Standards of multitudes more or less\nsacredly uniting together; in which union itself, as above noted,\nthere is ever something mystical and borrowing of the Godlike. Under a\nlike category, too, stand, or stood, the stupidest heraldic\nCoats-of-arms; military Banners everywhere; and generally all national\nor other Sectarian Costumes and Customs: they have no intrinsic,\nnecessary divineness, or even worth; but have acquired an extrinsic\none. Nevertheless through all these there glimmers something of a\nDivine Idea; as through military Banners themselves, the Divine Idea\nof Duty, of heroic Daring; in some instances of Freedom, of Right.\nNay, 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\nmeaning, and is of itself _fit_ that men should unite round it. Let\nbut the Godlike manifest itself to Sense; let but Eternity look, more\nor less visibly, through the Time-Figure (_Zeitbild_)! Then is it fit\nthat men unite there; and worship together before such Symbol; and so\nfrom day to day, 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\na Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity\nlooking through Time; the Godlike rendered visible. Here too may an\nextrinsic value gradually superadd itself: thus certain _Iliads_, and\nthe like, have, in three-thousand years, attained quite new\nsignificance. But nobler than all in this kind, are the Lives of\nheroic god-inspired Men; for what other Work of Art is so divine? In\nDeath too, in the Death of the Just, as the last perfection of a Work\nof Art, may we not discern symbolic meaning? In that divinely\ntransfigured Sleep, as of Victory, resting over the beloved face which\nnow knows thee no more, read (if thou canst for tears) the confluence\nof Time with Eternity, and some gleam 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 recognise a present God, and worship the\nsame: I mean religious Symbols. Various enough have been such\nreligious Symbols, what we call _Religions_; as men stood in this\nstage of culture or the other, and could worse or better body-forth\nthe Godlike: some Symbols with a transient intrinsic worth; many with\nonly an extrinsic. If thou ask to what height man has carried it in\nthis manner, look on our divinest Symbol: on Jesus of Nazareth, and\nhis Life, and his Biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has\nthe human Thought not yet reached: this is Christianity and\nChristendom; a Symbol of quite perennial, infinite character: whose\nsignificance will ever demand to be anew inquired into, and anew made\nmanifest.\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\nthe distance, if clearer and clearer, yet also smaller and smaller,\nlike a receding Star. It needs a scientific telescope, it needs to be\nreinterpreted and artificially brought near us, before we can so much\nas know 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,\neven Celestial Luminaries, much more atmospheric meteors, have their\nrise, their culmination, their decline.'\n\n'Small is this which thou tellest me, that the Royal Sceptre is but a\npiece of gilt-wood; that the Pyx has become a most foolish box, and\ntruly, as Ancient Pistol thought, \"of little price.\" A right Conjuror\nmight I name thee, couldst thou conjure back into these wooden tools\nthe divine 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\nshallow superficial faculties, his Self-love and Arithmetical\nUnderstanding, what will grow there. A Hierarch, therefore, and\nPontiff of the World will we call him, the Poet and inspired Maker;\nwho, Prometheus-like, can shape new Symbols, and bring new Fire from\nHeaven to fix it there. Such too will not always be wanting; neither\nperhaps now are. Meanwhile, as the average of matters goes, we account\nhim Legislator and wise who can so much as tell when a Symbol has\ngrown old, and gently remove it.\n\n'When, as the last English Coronation[3] was preparing,' concludes\nthis wonderful Professor, 'I read in their Newspapers that the\n\"Champion of England,\" he who has to offer battle to the Universe for\nhis new King, had brought it so far that he could now \"mount his horse\nwith little assistance,\" I said to myself: Here also we have a Symbol\nwell-nigh superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the\ntatters and rags of superannuated worn-out symbols (in this Ragfair of\na World) dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether\nyou; nay, if you shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and\nperhaps produce suffocation?'\n\n    [3] That of George IV.--ED.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nHELOTAGE\n\n\nAt this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting,\nto a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled _Institute for\nthe Repression of Population_; which lies, dishonourable enough (with\ntorn leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed into\nthe Bag _Pisces_. Not indeed for the sake of the Tract itself, which\nwe admire little; but of the marginal Notes, evidently in\nTeufelsdroeckh's hand, which rather copiously fringe it. A few of these\nmay be in their right place here.\n\nInto the Hofrath's _Institute_, with its extraordinary schemes, and\nmachinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall not so much\nas glance. Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple\nof Malthus; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his zeal almost\nliterally eats him up. A deadly fear of Population possesses the\nHofrath; something like a fixed-idea; undoubtedly akin to the more\ndiluted forms of Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual\nworld, is there light; nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger; open\nmouths opening wider and wider; a world to terminate by the\nfrightfullest consummation: by its too dense inhabitants, famished\ninto delirium, universally eating one another. To make air for himself\nin which strangulation, choking enough to a benevolent heart, the\nHofrath founds, or proposes to found, this _Institute_ of his, as the\nbest he can do. It is only with our Professor's comments thereon that\nwe concern ourselves.\n\nFirst, then, remark that Teufelsdroeckh, as a speculative Radical, has\nhis own notions about human dignity; that the Zaehdarm palaces and\ncourtesies have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. On\nthe blank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract we find the following\nindistinctly engrossed:\n\n'Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toil-worn 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 the\nSceptre of this Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all\nweather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is the\nface of a Man living manlike. O, but the more venerable for thy\nrudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee!\nHardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy\nstraight limbs and fingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on\nwhom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in\nthee too lay a god-created Form, but it was not to be unfolded;\nencrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of\nLabour: and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. Yet toil\non, toil on: _thou_ art in thy duty, be out of it who may; thou\ntoilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread.\n\n'A second man I honour, 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; endeavouring towards inward Harmony;\nrevealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavours,\nbe they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward\nendeavour 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\nhonour: 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\nunited; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants,\nis also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know\nI nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with.\nSuch a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the\nsplendour of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth,\nlike a light shining 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\nhungry and a-thirst; but for him also there is food and drink: he is\nheavy-laden and weary; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of\nthe deepest; in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelops\nhim, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do\nmourn over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of\nheavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him; but only, in\nthe haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and Indignation bear him\ncompany. Alas, while the Body stands so broad and brawny, must the\nsoul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, almost annihilated! Alas, was\nthis too a Breath of God; bestowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be\nunfolded!--That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for\nKnowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty\ntimes in the minute, as by some computations it does. The miserable\nfraction of Science which our united Mankind, in a wide Universe of\nNescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted\nto 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\nand spitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved\nfashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, now after the invention of\nfire-arms, and standing-armies, how much easier were such a hunt!\nPerhaps in the most thickly-peopled country, some three days annually\nmight suffice to shoot all the able-bodied Paupers that had\naccumulated within the year. Let Governments think of this. The\nexpense were trifling: nay the very carcasses would pay it. Have them\nsalted and barrelled; could not you victual therewith, if not Army and\nNavy, yet richly such infirm Paupers, in workhouses and elsewhere, as\nenlightened Charity, dreading no evil of them, might see good to keep\nalive?'\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 as\ntwo-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,\nstanding on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his\nshackle-bones, and miraculous Head on his shoulders, is worth, I\nshould say, from fifty to a hundred Horses!'\n\n'True, thou Gold-Hofrath,' cries the Professor elsewhere: 'too crowded\nindeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous\nGlobe have ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no more?\nHow thick stands your Population in the Pampas and Savannas of\nAmerica; round ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on\nboth slopes of the Altaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia; in\nSpain, Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man,\nin one year, as I have understood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed\nhimself and nine others. Alas, where now are the Hengsts and Alarics\nof our still-glowing, still-expanding Europe; who, when their home is\ngrown too narrow, will enlist, and, like Fire-pillars, guide onwards\nthose superfluous masses of indomitable living Valour; equipped, not\nnow with the battle-axe and war-chariot, but with the steam-engine and\nploughshare? Where are they?--Preserving their Game!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE PHOENIX\n\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 Teufelsdroeckh 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,\nhold us from Dispersion, and universal national, civil, domestic and\npersonal war! He says expressly: 'For the last three centuries, above\nall for the last three quarters of a century, that same Pericardial\nNervous Tissue (as we named it) of Religion, where lies the\nLife-essence of Society, has been smote-at and perforated, needfully\nand needlessly; till now it is quite rent into shreds; and Society,\nlong pining, diabetic, consumptive, can be regarded as defunct; for\nthose spasmodic, galvanic sprawlings are not life; neither indeed will\nthey endure, galvanise as you may, beyond two days.'\n\n'Call ye that a Society,' cries he again, 'where there is no longer\nany Social Idea extant; not so much as the Idea of a common Home, but\nonly of a common over-crowded Lodging-house? Where each, isolated,\nregardless of his neighbour, turned against his neighbour, clutches\nwhat he can get, and cries \"Mine!\" and calls it Peace, because, in the\ncut-purse and cut-throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far\ncunninger sort, can be employed? Where Friendship, Communion, has\nbecome an incredible tradition; and your holiest Sacramental Supper is\na smoking Tavern Dinner, with Cook for Evangelist? Where your Priest\nhas no tongue but for plate-licking: and your high Guides and\nGovernors cannot guide; but on all hands hear it passionately\nproclaimed: _Laissez faire_; Leave us alone of _your_ guidance, such\nlight is darker than darkness; eat you your 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 Over-work; the Rich, still more\nwretchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, and Over-growth. The Highest in\nrank, at length, without honour from the Lowest; scarcely, with a\nlittle mouth-honour, as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in\nthe bill. Once-sacred Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof\nmen grudge even the expense; a World becoming dismantled: in one word,\nthe CHURCH fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy; the STATE\nshrunken into a Police-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 is\nit only from the mystic elevation of a German _Wahngasse_ that such\nwonders are visible? Teufelsdroeckh 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? For\nsome half century, it has been the thing you name \"Independence.\"\nSuspicion of \"Servility,\" of reverence for Superiors, the very dogleech\nis anxious to disavow. Fools! Were your Superiors worthy to govern, and\nyou 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 Teufelsdroeckh, '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\nmost, the venerable Corpse is to be burnt. Or, in plain words, that\nthese men, Liberals, Utilitarians, or whatsoever they are called, will\nultimately carry their point, and dissever and destroy most existing\nInstitutions of Society, seems a thing which has some time ago ceased\nto 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 Mechanisers are\na sect 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,\nwithin the last fifty years? If now in all countries, except perhaps\nEngland, it has ceased to flourish, or indeed to exist, among\nThinkers, and sunk to Journalists and the popular mass,--who sees not\nthat, as hereby it no longer preaches, so the reason is, it now needs\nno Preaching, but is in full universal Action, the doctrine everywhere\nknown, and enthusiastically laid to heart? The fit pabulum, in these\ntimes, for a certain rugged workshop intellect and heart, nowise\nwithout their corresponding workshop strength and ferocity, it\nrequires but to be stated in such scenes to make proselytes\nenough.--Admirably calculated for destroying, only not for rebuilding!\nIt spreads like a sort of Dog-madness; till the whole World-kennel\nwill be rabid: then woe to the Huntsmen, with or without their whips!\nThey should have given the quadrupeds water,' adds he; 'the water,\nnamely, of Knowledge and of Life, while it was yet time.'\n\nThus, if Professor Teufelsdroeckh can be relied on, we are at this hour\nin a most critical condition; beleaguered by that boundless 'Armament\nof Mechanisers' and Unbelievers, threatening to strip us bare! 'The\nworld,' says he, 'as it needs must, is under a process of devastation\nand waste, which, whether by silent assiduous corrosion, or open\nquicker combustion, as the case chances, will effectually enough\nannihilate the past Forms of Society; replace them with what it may.\nFor the present, it is contemplated that when man's whole Spiritual\nInterests are once _divested_, these innumerable stript-off Garments\nshall mostly be burnt; but the sounder Rags among them be quilted\ntogether into one huge Irish watchcoat for the defence of the Body\nonly!'--This, we think, is but Job's-news to the humane reader.\n\n'Nevertheless,' cries Teufelsdroeckh, 'who can hinder it; who is there\nthat can clutch into the wheel-spokes of Destiny, and say to the\nSpirit of the Time: Turn back, I command thee?--Wiser were it that we\nyielded to the Inevitable and Inexorable, and accounted even this the\nbest.'\n\nNay, might not an attentive Editor, drawing his own inferences from\nwhat stands written, conjecture that Teufelsdroeckh individually had\nyielded to this same 'Inevitable and Inexorable' heartily enough; and\nnow sat waiting the issue, with his natural diabolico-angelical\nIndifference, if not even Placidity? Did we not hear him complain that\nthe World was a 'huge Ragfair,' and the 'rags and tatters of old\nSymbols' were raining-down everywhere, like to drift him in, and\nsuffocate him? What with those 'unhunted Helots' of his; and the\nuneven _sic-vos-non-vobis_ pressure and hard-crashing collision he is\npleased to discern in existing things; what with the so hateful 'empty\nMasks,' full of beetles and spiders, yet glaring out on him, from\ntheir glass eyes, 'with a ghastly affectation of life,'--we feel\nentitled to conclude him even willing that much should be thrown to\nthe Devil, so it were but done gently! Safe himself in that 'Pinnacle\nof Weissnichtwo,' he would consent, with a tragic solemnity, that the\nmonster UTILITARIA, held back, indeed, and moderated by nose-rings,\nhalters, foot-shackles, and every conceivable modification of rope,\nshould go forth to do her work;--to tread down old ruinous Palaces\nand Temples with her broad hoof, till the whole were trodden down,\nthat new and better might be built! Remarkable in this point of view\nare 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 and\nfairer 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\nstupendous structures, overspreading this little Globe, and reaching\nupwards to Heaven and downwards to Gehenna: for always, under one or\nthe other figure, it has two authentic Revelations, of a God and of a\nDevil; the Pulpit, namely, and the Gallows.'\n\nIndeed, we already heard him speak of 'Religion, in unnoticed nooks,\nweaving for herself new Vestures';--Teufelsdroeckh himself being one of\nthe loom-treadles? Elsewhere he quotes without censure that strange\naphorism of Saint-Simon's, concerning which and whom so much were to\nbe said: _L'age d'or, qu'une aveugle tradition a place jusqu'ici dans\nle passe, est devant nous_; The golden age, which a blind tradition\nhas hitherto placed in the Past, is Before us.'--But listen again:\n\n'When the Phoenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not be\nsparks flying! Alas, some millions of men, and among them such as a\nNapoleon, have already been licked into that high-eddying Flame, and\nlike moths consumed there. Still also have we to fear that incautious\nbeards will get 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 old\nhouse 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\nsacredness had evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what time\nthe Phoenix Death-Birth itself will require, depends on unseen\ncontingencies.--Meanwhile, would Destiny offer Mankind, that after,\nsay two centuries of convulsion and conflagration, more or less vivid,\nthe fire-creation should be accomplished, and we too find ourselves\nagain in a Living Society, and no longer fighting but working,--were\nit not perhaps prudent in Mankind to strike the bargain?'\n\nThus is Teufelsdroeckh content that old sick Society should be\ndeliberately burnt (alas! with quite other fuel than spicewood); in\nthe faith 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\nProfessor in a University, and man to whom hitherto, for his services,\nSociety, bad as she is, has given not only food and raiment (of a\nkind), but books, tobacco and gukguk, we expected more gratitude to\nhis benefactress; and less of a blind trust in the future, which\nresembles that rather of a philosophical Fatalist and Enthusiast, than\nof a solid householder paying scot-and-lot in a Christian country.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nOLD CLOTHES\n\n\nAs mentioned above, Teufelsdroeckh, though a sansculottist, is in\npractice probably the politest man extant: his whole heart and life\nare penetrated and informed with the spirit of politeness; a noble\nnatural Courtesy shines through him, beautifying his vagaries; like\nsunlight, making a rosy-fingered, rainbow-dyed Aurora out of mere\naqueous clouds; nay brightening London-smoke itself into gold vapour,\nas from the crucible of an alchemist. Hear in what earnest though\nfantastic wise he expresses 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 connexion 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\nhis post, and worth anything when there, this, with so much else,\nwould be reformed. Nay, each man were then also his neighbour's\nschoolmaster; till at length a rude-visaged, unmannered Peasant could\nno more be met with, than a Peasant unacquainted with botanical\nPhysiology, or who felt not that the clod he broke was created in\nHeaven.\n\n'For whether thou bear a sceptre or a sledgehammer, art thou not\nALIVE; is not this thy brother ALIVE? \"There is but one temple in the\nworld,\" says Novalis, \"and that temple is the Body of Man. Nothing is\nholier than this high Form. Bending before men is a reverence done to\nthis Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our hands\non a human 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\nno hat whatever. Is not he a Temple, then; the visible Manifestation\nand Impersonation of the Divinity? And yet, alas, such indiscriminate\nbowing serves not. For there is a Devil dwells in man, as well as a\nDivinity; and too often the bow is but pocketed by the _former_. It\nwould go to the pocket of Vanity (which is your clearest phasis of the\nDevil, in these 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\nEmpty, or even to Cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to Clothes that most\nmen do reverence: to the fine frogged broadcloth, nowise to the\n\"straddling animal with bandy legs\" which it holds, and makes a\nDignitary of? Who ever saw any Lord my-lorded in tattered blanket\nfastened with wooden skewer? Nevertheless, I say, there is in such\nworship a shade of hypocrisy, a practical deception: for how often\ndoes the Body appropriate what was meant for the Cloth only! Whoso\nwould avoid falsehood, which is the essence of all Sin, will perhaps\nsee good to take a different course. That reverence which cannot act\nwithout obstruction and perversion when the Clothes are full, may have\nfree course when they are empty. Even as, for Hindoo Worshippers, the\nPagoda is not less sacred than the God; so do I too worship the hollow\ncloth Garment with equal fervour, as when it contained the Man: nay,\nwith more, for I now fear no deception, of myself or of others.\n\n'Did not King _Toomtabard_, or, in other words, John Baliol, reign\nlong over Scotland; the man John Baliol being quite gone, and only the\n\"Toom Tabard\" (Empty Gown) remaining? What still dignity dwells in a\nsuit of Cast Clothes! How meekly it bears its honours! No haughty\nlooks, no scornful gesture: silent and serene, it fronts the world;\nneither demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The Hat still\ncarries the physiognomy of its Head: but the vanity and the stupidity,\nand goose-speech which was the sign of these two, are gone. The\nCoat-arm is stretched out, but not to strike; the Breeches, in modest\nsimplicity, depend at ease, and now at last have a graceful flow; the\nWaistcoat hides no evil passion, no riotous desire; hunger or thirst\nnow dwells not in it. Thus all is purged from the grossness of sense,\nfrom the carking cares and foul vices of the World; and rides there,\non its Clothes-horse; as, on a Pegasus, might some skyey Messenger, or\npurified Apparition, visiting our low Earth.\n\n'Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tuberosity of Civilised\nLife, the Capital of England; and meditated, and questioned Destiny,\nunder that ink-sea of vapour, black, thick, and multifarious as\nSpartan broth; and was one lone soul amid those grinding\nmillions;--often have I turned into their Old-Clothes Market to\nworship. With awe-struck heart I walk through that Monmouth Street,\nwith its empty Suits, as through a Sanhedrim of stainless Ghosts.\nSilent are they, but expressive in their silence: the past witnesses\nand instruments of Woe and Joy, of Passions, Virtues, Crimes, and all\nthe fathomless tumult of Good and Evil in \"the Prison men call Life.\"\nFriends! trust not the heart of that man for whom Old Clothes are not\nvenerable. Watch, too, with reverence, that bearded Jewish\nHigh-priest, who with hoarse voice, like some Angel of Doom, summons\nthem from the four winds! On his head, like the Pope, he has three\nHats,--a real triple tiara; on either hand are the similitude of\nwings, whereon the summoned Garments come to alight; and ever, as he\nslowly cleaves the air, sounds forth his deep fateful note, as if\nthrough 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\nshall reappear. O, let him in whom the flame of Devotion is ready to\ngo out, who has never worshipped, and knows not what to worship, pace\nand repace, with austerest thought, the pavement of Monmouth Street,\nand say whether his heart and his eyes still continue dry. If Field\nLane, with its long fluttering rows of yellow handkerchiefs, be a\nDionysius' Ear, where, in stifled jarring hubbub, we hear the\nIndictment which Poverty and Vice bring against lazy Wealth, that it\nhas left them there cast-out and trodden under foot of Want, Darkness\nand the Devil,--then is Monmouth Street a Mirza's Hill, where, in\nmotley vision, the whole Pageant of Existence passes awfully before\nus; with its wail and jubilee, mad loves and mad hatreds, church-bells\nand gallows-ropes, farce-tragedy, beast-godhood,--the Bedlam of\nCreation!'\n\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 that\nChurch, and importune the worshipper with merely secular proposals.\nWhereas Teufelsdroeckh might be in that happy middle state, which\nleaves to the Clothes-broker no hope either of sale or of purchase,\nand so be allowed to linger there without molestation.--Something we\nwould have given to see the little philosophical figure, with its\nsteeple-hat and loose flowing skirts, and eyes in a fine frenzy,\n'pacing and repacing in austerest thought' that foolish Street; which\nto him was a true Delphic avenue, and supernatural Whispering-gallery,\nwhere the 'Ghosts of Life' rounded strange secrets in his ear. O thou\nphilosophic Teufelsdroeckh, that listenest while others only gabble,\nand with thy quick tympanum hearest 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 the\nClothes-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\nhow early the significance of Clothes had dawned on the now so\ndistinguished Clothes-Professor. Might we but fancy it to have been\neven in Monmouth Street, at the bottom of our own English 'ink-sea,'\nthat this remarkable Volume first took being, and shot forth its\nsalient point in his soul,--as in Chaos did the Egg of Eros, one day\nto be hatched into a Universe!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nORGANIC FILAMENTS\n\n\nFor us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning herself,\nand burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdroeckh 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,\n'change is wont to be gradual: thus, while the serpent sheds its old\nskin, the new is already formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the\nburning of a World-Phoenix, who fanciest that she must first burn-out,\nand lie as a dead cinereous heap; and therefrom the young one start-up\nby miracle, and fly heavenward. Far otherwise! In that Fire-whirlwind,\nCreation and Destruction proceed together; ever as the ashes of the\nOld are blown about, do organic filaments of the New mysteriously spin\nthemselves: and amid the rushing and the waving of the\nWhirlwind-Element come tones of a melodious Deathsong, which end not\nbut in tones of a more melodious Birthsong. Nay, look into the\nFire-whirlwind with thy own eyes, and thou wilt see.' Let us actually\nlook, then: to poor individuals, who cannot expect to live two\ncenturies, those same organic filaments, mysteriously spinning\nthemselves, will be the best part of the spectacle. First, therefore,\nthis of Mankind in general:\n\n'In vain thou deniest it,' says the Professor; 'thou _art_ my Brother.\nThy very Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish lies thou tellest of me\nin thy splenetic humour: what is all this but an inverted Sympathy?\nWere I a Steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of\nme? Not thou! I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well.\n\n'Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by\nthe soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we\nlike to choose it. More than once have I said to myself, of some\nperhaps whimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical\nthoughts: \"Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered-up within\nthe largest imaginable Glass-bell,--what a thing it were, not for\nthyself only, but for the world! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all\nthe four winds, impinge against thy Glass walls, but have to drop\nunread: neither from within comes there question or response into any\nPostbag; thy Thoughts fall into no friendly ear or heart, thy\nManufacture into no purchasing hand: thou art no longer a circulating\nvenous-arterial Heart, that, taking and giving, circulatest through\nall Space and all Time: there has a Hole fallen-out in the\nimmeasurable, universal World-tissue, which must be darned-up again!\"\n\n'Such venous-arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal Messages, paper\nand other Packages, going out from him and coming in, are a\nblood-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\ncursing: all this you cannot see, but only imagine. I say, there is\nnot a red Indian, hunting by Lake Winnipic, can quarrel with his\nsquaw, but the whole world must smart for it: will not the price of\nbeaver rise? It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble\nfrom my hand alters the centre of gravity of the Universe.\n\n'If now an existing generation of men stand so woven together, not\nless indissolubly does generation with generation. Hast thou ever\nmeditated on that word, Tradition: how we inherit not Life only, but\nall the garniture and form of Life; and work, and speak, and even\nthink and feel, as our Fathers, and primeval grandfathers, from the\nbeginning, have given it us?--Who printed thee, for example, this\nunpretending Volume on the Philosophy of Clothes? Not the Herren\nStillschweigen and Company; but Cadmus of Thebes, Faust of Mentz, and\ninnumerable others whom thou knowest not. Had there been no\nMoesogothic Ulfila, there had been no English Shakspeare, or a\ndifferent one. Simpleton! it was Tubalcain that made thy very Tailor's\nneedle, and sewed that court-suit of thine.\n\n'Yes, truly; if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much\nmore is Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without\nwhich Nature were not. As palpable life-streams in that wondrous\nIndividual Mankind, among so many life-streams that are not palpable,\nflow on those main-currents of what we call Opinion; as preserved in\nInstitutions, Polities, Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is\nto understand and know that a Thought did never yet die; that as thou,\nthe originator thereof, hast gathered it and created it from the whole\nPast, so thou wilt transmit it to the whole Future. It is thus that\nthe heroic heart, the seeing eye of the first times, still feels and\nsees in us of the latest; that the Wise Man stands ever encompassed,\nand spiritually embraced, by a cloud of witnesses and brothers; and\nthere is a living, literal _Communion of Saints_, wide as the World\nitself, and as the History of the World.\n\n'Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this same\nIndividual, wilt thou find his subdivision into Generations.\nGenerations are as the Days of toilsome Mankind: Death and Birth are\nthe vesper and the matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to\nrise refreshed for new advancement. What the Father has made, the Son\ncan make and enjoy; but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus\nall things wax, and roll onwards; Arts, Establishments, Opinions,\nnothing is completed, but ever completing. Newton has learned to see\nwhat Kepler saw; but there is also a fresh heaven-derived force in\nNewton; he must mount to still higher points of vision. So too the\nHebrew Lawgiver is, in due time, followed by an Apostle of the\nGentiles. In the business of Destruction, as this also is from time to\ntime a necessary work, thou findest a like sequence and perseverance:\nfor Luther it was as yet hot enough to stand by that burning of the\nPope's Bull; Voltaire could not warm himself at the glimmering ashes,\nbut required quite other fuel. Thus likewise, I note, the English Whig\nhas, in the second generation, become an English Radical; who, in the\nthird again, it is to be hoped, will become an English Rebuilder. Find\nMankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in living movement, in\nprogress faster or slower: the Phoenix soars aloft, hovers with\noutstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or, as now, she\nsinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she\nmay 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 Teufelsdroeckh, 'how all high\nTitles of Honour come hitherto from fighting. Your _Herzog_ (Duke,\n_Dux_) is Leader of Armies; your Earl (_Jarl_) is Strong Man; your\nMarshal cavalry Horse-shoer. A Millennium, or reign of Peace and\nWisdom, having from of old been prophesied, and becoming now daily\nmore and more indubitable, may it not be apprehended that such\nFighting-titles will cease to be palatable, and new and higher need to\nbe devised?\n\n'The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace eternity, is that of\nKing. _Koenig_ (King), anciently _Koenning_, means Ken-ning (Cunning),\nor which is the same thing, Can-ning. Ever must the Sovereign of\nMankind be fitly entitled King.'\n\n'Well, also,' says he elsewhere, 'was it written by Theologians: a\nKing rules by divine right. He carries in him an authority from God,\nor man will never give it him. Can I choose my own King? I can choose\nmy own King Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him:\nbut he who is to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will,\nwas chosen for me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to the\nHeaven-chosen is Freedom so much as conceivable.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Editor will here admit that, among all the wondrous provinces of\nTeufelsdroeckh's spiritual world, there is none he walks in with such\nastonishment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the Political. How,\nwith our English love of Ministry and Opposition, and that generous\nconflict of Parties, mind warming itself against mind in their mutual\nwrestle for the Public Good, by which wrestle, indeed, is our\ninvaluable Constitution kept warm and alive; how shall we domesticate\nourselves in this spectral Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead\nand of the Unborn, where the Present seems little other than an\ninconsiderable Film dividing the Past and the Future? In those dim\nlongdrawn expanses, all is so immeasurable; much so disastrous,\nghastly; your very radiances and straggling light-beams have a\nsupernatural character. And then with such an indifference, such a\nprophetic peacefulness (accounting the inevitably coming as already\nhere, to him all one whether it be distant by centuries or only by\ndays), does he sit;--and live, you would say, rather in any other age\nthan in his own! It is our painful duty to announce, or repeat, that,\nlooking into this man, we discern a deep, silent, slow-burning,\ninextinguishable Radicalism, such as fills us with shuddering\nadmiration.\n\nThus, for example, he appears to make little even of the Elective\nFranchise; at least so we interpret the following: 'Satisfy\nyourselves,' he says, 'by universal, indubitable experiment, even as\nye are now doing or will do, whether FREEDOM, heavenborn and leading\nheavenward, and so vitally essential for us all, cannot peradventure\nbe mechanically hatched and brought to light in that same Ballot-Box\nof yours; or at worst, in some other discoverable or devisable Box,\nEdifice, or Steam-mechanism. It were a mighty convenience; and beyond\nall feats of manufacture witnessed hitherto.' Is Teufelsdroeckh\nacquainted with the British Constitution, even slightly?--He says,\nunder another figure: 'But after all, were the problem, as indeed it\nnow everywhere is, To rebuild your old House from the top downwards\n(since you must live in it the while), what better, what other, than\nthe Representative Machine will serve your turn? Meanwhile, however,\nmock me not with the name of Free, \"when you have but knit-up my\nchains into ornamental festoons.\"'--Or what will any member of the\nPeace Society make of such an assertion as this: 'The lower people\neverywhere desire War. Not so unwisely; there is then a demand for\nlower people--to be shot!'\n\nGladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul-confusing labyrinths\nof speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer regions. Here,\nlooking round, as was our hest, for 'organic filaments,' we ask, may\nnot this, touching 'Hero-worship,' be of the number? It seems of a\ncheerful character; yet so quaint, so mystical, one knows not what, or\nhow little, may lie under it. Our readers shall look with their own\neyes:\n\n'True is it that, in these days, man can do almost all things, only\nnot obey. True likewise that whoso cannot obey cannot be free, still\nless bear rule; he that is the inferior of nothing, can be the\nsuperior of nothing, the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe not\nthat man has lost his faculty of Reverence; that if it slumber in him,\nit has gone dead. Painful for man is that same rebellious\nIndependence, when it has become inevitable; only in loving\ncompanionship with his fellows does he feel safe; only in reverently\nbowing down before the Higher does he feel himself exalted.\n\n'Or what if the character of our so troublous Era lay even in this:\nthat man had forever cast away Fear, which is the lower; but not yet\nrisen into 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\nthere a 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\nTeufelsdroeckh is looking at? He exclaims, 'Or hast thou forgotten\nParis and Voltaire? How the aged, withered man, though but a Sceptic,\nMocker, and millinery Court-poet, yet because even he seemed the\nWisest, Best, could drag mankind at his chariot-wheels, so that\nprinces coveted a smile from him, and the loveliest of France would\nhave laid their hair beneath his feet! All Paris was one vast Temple\nof Hero-worship; though their Divinity, moreover, was of feature too\napish.\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 at\nbest 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 clodpole, show\nthe haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher than himself is\nactually here; were his knees stiffened into brass, he must down and\nworship.'\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 new\nClergy of the Mendicant Orders, some bare-footed, some almost\nbare-backed, fashion itself into shape, and teach and preach,\nzealously enough, for copper alms and the love of God. These break in\npieces the ancient idols; and, though themselves too often reprobate,\nas idol-breakers are wont to be, mark out the sites of new Churches,\nwhere the true God-ordained, that are to follow, may find audience,\nand minister. Said I not, Before the old skin was shed, the new had\nformed itself 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?\nNone to whom the God-like had revealed itself, through all meanest and\nhighest forms of the Common; and by him been again prophetically\nrevealed: in whose inspired melody, even in these rag-gathering and\nrag-burning days, Man's Life again begins, were it but afar off, to be\ndivine? Knowest thou 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\nwe not of a Communion of Saints, unseen, yet not unreal, accompanying\nand brother-like embracing thee, so thou be worthy? Their heroic\nSufferings rise up melodiously together to Heaven, out of all lands,\nand out of all times, as a sacred _Miserere_; their heroic Actions\nalso, as a boundless everlasting Psalm of Triumph. Neither say that\nthou hast now no Symbol of the Godlike. Is not God's Universe a Symbol\nof the Godlike; is not Immensity a Temple; is not Man's History, and\nMen's History, a perpetual Evangel? Listen, and for organ-music thou\nwilt ever, as of old, hear the Morning Stars sing together.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nNATURAL SUPERNATURALISM\n\n\nIt is in his stupendous Section, headed _Natural Supernaturalism_,\nthat the Professor first becomes a Seer; and, after long effort, such\nas we 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\nhe courageously pierce through. Nay, worst of all, two quite\nmysterious, world-embracing Phantasms, TIME and SPACE, have ever\nhovered round him, perplexing and bewildering: but with these also he\nnow resolutely grapples, these also he victoriously rends asunder. In\na word, he has looked fixedly on Existence, till, one after the other,\nits earthly hulls and garnitures have all melted away; and now, to his\nrapt vision, the 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\nbe considered as beginning. 'Courage, then!' may our Diogenes exclaim,\nwith better right than Diogenes the First once did. This stupendous\nSection we, after long painful meditation, have found not to be\nunintelligible; but, on the contrary, to grow clear, nay radiant, and\nall-illuminating. Let the reader, turning on it what utmost force of\nspeculative intellect is in him, do his part; as we, by judicious\nselection and adjustment, shall 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_,\nor shut 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\nviolation of these Laws, but a confirmation; were some far deeper Law,\nnow first penetrated into, and by Spiritual Force, even as the rest\nhave all been, brought 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 he\ncan teach Religion? To us, truly, of the Nineteenth Century, such\ndeclaration were inept enough; which nevertheless to our fathers, of\nthe First 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\nmove by unalterable rules?\" Probable enough, good friends: nay I, too,\nmust believe that the God, whom ancient inspired men assert to be\n\"without variableness or shadow of turning,\" does indeed never change;\nthat Nature, 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\naccumulated records of Man's Experience?--Was Man with his Experience\npresent at the Creation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any\ndeepest scientific individuals yet dived-down to the foundations of the\nUniverse, and gauged everything there? Did the Maker take them into His\ncounsel; that they read His groundplan of the incomprehensible All; and\ncan say, This stands marked therein, and no more than this? Alas, not\nin anywise! These scientific individuals have been nowhere but where we\nalso are; have seen some handbreadths deeper than we see into the Deep\nthat is infinite, without bottom as without shore.\n\n'Laplace's Book on the Stars, wherein he exhibits that certain\nPlanets, with their Satellites, gyrate round our worthy Sun, at a rate\nand in a course, which, by greatest good fortune, he and the like of\nhim have succeeded in detecting,--is to me as precious as to another.\nBut is this what thou namest \"Mechanism of the Heavens,\" and \"System\nof the World\"; this, wherein Sirius and the Pleiades, and all\nHerschel's Fifteen-thousand Suns per minute, being left out, some\npaltry handful of Moons, and inert Balls, had been--looked at,\nnicknamed, and marked in the Zodiacal Way-bill; so that we can now\nprate of their Whereabout; their How, their Why, their What, being hid\nfrom 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\nand measured square-miles. The course of Nature's phases, on this our\nlittle fraction of a Planet, is partially known to us: but who knows\nwhat deeper courses these depend on; what infinitely larger Cycle (of\ncauses) our little Epicycle revolves on? To the Minnow every cranny\nand pebble, and quality and accident, of its little native Creek may\nhave become familiar: but does the Minnow understand the Ocean Tides\nand periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's\nEclipses; by all which the condition of its little Creek is regulated,\nand may, from time to time (_un_miraculously enough), be quite overset\nand reversed? Such a Minnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth; his\nOcean the immeasurable All; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the\nmysterious Course of Providence 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\nSolar Systems, and Thousands of Years, we shall not try thee. It is a\nVolume written in celestial hieroglyphs, in the true Sacred-writing;\nof which even Prophets are happy that they can read here a line and\nthere a line. As for your Institutes, and Academies of Science, they\nstrive bravely; and, from amid the thick-crowded, inextricably\nintertwisted hieroglyphic writing, pick-out, by dextrous combination,\nsome Letters in the vulgar Character, and therefrom put together this\nand the other economic Recipe, of high avail in Practice. That Nature\nis more than some boundless Volume of such Recipes, or huge, well-nigh\ninexhaustible Domestic-Cookery Book, of which the whole secret will in\nthis manner one day evolve itself, the fewest dream.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\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,\nfrom the first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it;\nthat our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are\noftenest simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay,\nwhat is Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against Custom;\nan ever-renewed effort to _transcend_ the sphere of blind Custom, and\nso become Transcendental?\n\n'Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of Custom: but\nof all these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that\nthe Miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be Miraculous. True,\nit is by this means we live; for man must work as well as wonder: and\nherein is Custom so far a kind nurse, guiding him to his true benefit.\nBut she is a fond foolish nurse, or rather we are false foolish\nnurslings, when, in our resting and reflecting hours, we prolong the\nsame deception. Am I to view the Stupendous with stupid indifference,\nbecause I have seen it twice, or two-hundred, or two-million times?\nThere is no reason in Nature or in Art why I should: unless, indeed, I\nam a mere Work-Machine, for whom the divine gift of Thought were no\nother than the terrestrial gift of Steam is to the Steam-engine; a\npower whereby Cotton might be spun, and money and money's worth\nrealised.\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,\nwonder-hiding Garments. Witchcraft, and all manner of Spectre-work,\nand Demonology, we have now named Madness and Diseases of the Nerves.\nSeldom reflecting that still the new question comes upon us: What is\nMadness, what are Nerves? Ever, as before, does Madness remain a\nmysterious-terrific, altogether _infernal_ boiling-up of the Nether\nChaotic Deep, through this fair-painted Vision of Creation, which\nswims thereon, which we name the Real. Was Luther's Picture of the\nDevil less a Reality, whether it were formed within the bodily eye, or\nwithout it? In every the wisest Soul lies a whole world of internal\nMadness, an authentic Demon Empire; out of which, indeed, his world of\nWisdom has been creatively built together, and now rests there, as on\nits dark foundations does a habitable flowery Earth-rind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Wonder, as for\nmany other ends, are your two grand fundamental world-enveloping\nAppearances, SPACE and TIME. These, as spun and woven for us from\nbefore Birth itself, to clothe our celestial ME for dwelling here, and\nyet to blind it,--lie all embracing, as the universal canvas, or warp\nand woof, whereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence,\nweave and paint themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you\nendeavour to strip them off; you can, at best, but rend them asunder\nfor moments, and look through.\n\n'Fortunatus had a wishing Hat, which when he put on, and wished\nhimself Anywhere, behold he was There. By this means had Fortunatus\ntriumphed over Space, he had annihilated Space; for him there was no\nWhere, but all was Here. Were a Hatter to establish himself, in the\nWahngasse of Weissnichtwo, and make felts of this sort for all\nmankind, what a world we should have of it! Still stranger, should, on\nthe opposite side of the street, another Hatter establish himself; and\nas his fellow-craftsman made Space-annihilating Hats, make\nTime-annihilating! Of both would I purchase, were it with my last\ngroschen; but chiefly of this latter. To clap-on your felt, and,\nsimply by wishing that you were Any_where_, straightway to be _There_!\nNext to clap-on your other felt, and, simply by wishing that you were\nAny_when_, straightway to be _Then_! This were indeed the grander:\nshooting at will from the Fire-Creation of the World to its\nFire-Consummation; here historically present in the First Century,\nconversing face to face with Paul and Seneca; there prophetically in\nthe Thirty-first, conversing also face to face with other Pauls and\nSenecas, who as yet stand hidden in the depth of 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 Tomorrow roll up; but Yesterday and Tomorrow both\n_are_. Pierce through the Time-element, glance into the Eternal.\nBelieve what thou findest written in the sanctuaries of Man's Soul,\neven as all Thinkers, in all ages, have devoutly read it there: that\nTime and Space are not God, but creations of God: that with God as it\nis a universal HERE, 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\nleft behind us there, which rises in the distance, like a pale,\nmournfully receding Milestone, to tell how many toilsome uncheered\nmiles we have journeyed on alone,--but a pale spectral Illusion! Is\nthe lost Friend still mysteriously Here, even as we are Here\nmysteriously, with God!--Know of a truth that only the Time-shadows\nhave perished, or are perishable; that the real Being of whatever was,\nand whatever is, and whatever will be, _is_ even now and forever.\nThis, should it unhappily seem new, thou mayest ponder at thy leisure;\nfor the next twenty years, or the next twenty centuries: believe it\nthou must; understand it thou canst 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 imagines or imaginings,--seems\naltogether 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\nthou wilt, 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\nmy hand and clutch the Sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my\nhand and therewith clutch many a thing, and swing it hither and\nthither. Art thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the Miracle lies\nin miles of distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to\nsee that the true inexplicable God-revealing Miracle lies in this,\nthat I can stretch forth my hand at all; that I have free Force to\nclutch aught therewith? Innumerable other of this sort are the\ndeceptions, and wonder-hiding stupefactions, which Space practises on\nus.\n\n'Still worse is it with regard to Time. Your grand anti-magician, and\nuniversal wonder-hider, is this same lying Time. Had we but the\nTime-annihilating Hat, to put on for once only, we should see\nourselves in a World of Miracles, wherein all fabled or authentic\nThaumaturgy, and feats of Magic, were outdone. But unhappily we have\nnot such a Hat; and man, poor fool that he is, can seldom and scantily\nhelp himself without one.\n\n'Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Orpheus, or Amphion, built\nthe walls of Thebes by the mere sound of his Lyre? Yet tell me, Who\nbuilt these walls of Weissnichtwo; summoning-out all the sandstone\nrocks, to dance along from the _Steinbruch_ (now a huge Troglodyte\nChasm, with frightful green-mantled pools); and shape themselves into\nDoric and Ionic pillars, squared ashlar houses and noble streets? Was\nit not the still higher Orpheus, or Orpheuses, who, in past centuries,\nby the divine Music of Wisdom, succeeded in civilising Man? Our\nhighest Orpheus walked in Judea, eighteen hundred years ago: his\nsphere-melody, flowing in wild native tones, took captive the ravished\nsouls of men; and, being of a truth sphere-melody, still flows and\nsounds, though now with thousandfold accompaniments, and rich\nsymphonies, through all our hearts; and modulates, and divinely leads\nthem. Is that a wonder, which happens in two hours; and does it cease\nto be wonderful if happening in two million? Not only was Thebes built\nby the music of an Orpheus; but without the music of some inspired\nOrpheus was no city ever built, no work that man glories-in ever done.\n\n'Sweep away the Illusion of Time; glance, if thou hast eyes, from the\nnear 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? O,\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\nthou that this fair Universe, were it in the meanest province thereof,\nis in very deed the star-domed City of God; that through every star,\nthrough every grass-blade, and most through every Living Soul, the\nglory of a present God still beams. But Nature, which is the\nTime-vesture of God, and reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the\nfoolish.\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\nhuman Life 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 side.\nOnce more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time; compress the\nthreescore years into three minutes: what else was he, what else are\nwe? Are we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an\nAppearance; and that fade-away again into air and Invisibility? This\nis no metaphor, it is a simple scientific _fact_: we start out of\nNothingness, take figure, and are Apparitions; round us, as round the\nveriest spectre, is Eternity; and to Eternity minutes are as years and\naeons. Come there not tones of Love and Faith, as from celestial\nharp-strings, like the Song of beautified Souls? And again, do not we\nsqueak and jibber (in our discordant, screech-owlish debatings and\nrecriminatings); and glide bodeful, and feeble, and fearful; or uproar\n(_poltern_), and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead,--till the scent\nof the morning air summons us to our still Home; and dreamy Night\nbecomes awake and Day? Where now is Alexander of Macedon: does the\nsteel Host, that yelled in fierce battle-shouts at Issus and Arbela,\nremain behind him; or have they all vanished utterly, even as\nperturbed Goblins must? Napoleon too, and his Moscow Retreats and\nAusterlitz Campaigns! Was it all other than the veriest Spectre-hunt;\nwhich has now, with its howling tumult that made Night hideous,\nflitted away?--Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand-million walking the\nEarth openly at noontide; some half-hundred have vanished from it,\nsome 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\nwith its burning Passion? They are dust and shadow; a Shadow-system\ngathered round our ME; wherein, through some moments or years, the\nDivine Essence is to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior on his\nstrong war-horse, fire flashes through his eyes; force dwells in his\narm and heart: but warrior and war-horse are a vision; a revealed\nForce, nothing more. Stately they tread the Earth, as if it were a\nfirm substance: fool! the earth is but a film; it cracks in twain, and\nwarrior and war-horse sink beyond plummet's sounding. Plummet's?\nFantasy herself will not follow them. A little while ago, they were\nnot; a little while, and they are not, their very ashes are not.\n\n'So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to the end.\nGeneration after generation takes to itself the Form of a Body; and\nforth-issuing from Cimmerian Night, on Heaven's mission APPEARS. What\nForce and Fire is in each he expends: one grinding in the mill of\nIndustry; one hunter-like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of\nScience; one madly dashed in pieces on the rocks of Strife, in war\nwith his fellow:--and then the Heaven-sent is recalled; his earthly\nVesture falls away, and soon even to Sense becomes a vanished Shadow.\nThus, like some wild-flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's\nArtillery, does this mysterious MANKIND thunder and flame, in\nlong-drawn, quick-succeeding grandeur, through the unknown Deep. Thus,\nlike a God-created, fire-breathing Spirit-host, we emerge from the\nInane; haste stormfully across the astonished Earth; then plunge again\ninto the Inane. Earth's mountains are levelled, and her seas filled\nup, in our passage: can the Earth, which is but dead and a vision,\nresist Spirits which have reality and are alive? On the hardest\nadamant some footprint of us is stamped-in; the last Rear of the host\nwill read traces of the earliest Van. But whence?--O Heaven, whither?\nSense knows not; Faith knows not; only that it is through Mystery to\nMystery, 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\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nCIRCUMSPECTIVE\n\n\nHere, then, arises the so momentous question: Have many British\nReaders actually arrived with us at the new promised country; is the\nPhilosophy of Clothes now at last opening around them? Long and\nadventurous has the journey been: from those outmost vulgar, palpable\nWoollen-Hulls of Man; through his wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his\nwondrous Social Garnitures; inwards to the Garments of his very Soul's\nSoul, to Time and Space themselves! And now does the Spiritual,\neternal Essence of Man, and of Mankind, bared of such wrappages, begin\nin any measure to reveal itself? Can many readers discern, as through\na glass darkly, in huge wavering outlines, some primeval rudiments of\nMan's Being, what is changeable divided from what is unchangeable?\nDoes that Earth-Spirit's speech in _Faust_,--\n\n  ''Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply,\n  And weave for God the Garment thou see'st Him by';\n\nor that other thousand-times repeated speech of the Magician,\nShakspeare,--\n\n  'And like the baseless fabric of this vision,\n  The cloudcapt 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, by\nHeaven'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\nthereon. Alas, and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a\nbreakneck character; the darkness, the nature of the element, all was\nagainst us!\n\nNevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, provided with\na discursiveness of intellect rare in our day, have cleared the\npassage, in spite of all? Happy few! little band of Friends! be\nwelcome, be of courage. By degrees, the eye grows accustomed to its\nnew Whereabout; the hand can stretch itself forth to work there: it is\nin this grand and indeed highest work of Palingenesia that ye shall\nlabour, each according to ability. New labourers will arrive; new\nBridges will be built; nay, may not our own poor rope-and-raft Bridge,\nin your passings and repassings, be mended in many a point, till it\ngrow quite firm, passable even 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\nno longer 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\nnow swim weltering in the Chaos-flood, some towards this shore, some\ntowards that. To these also a helping hand should be held out; at\nleast some word of encouragement be said.\n\nOr, to speak without metaphor, with which mode of utterance\nTeufelsdroeckh unhappily has somewhat infected us,--can it be hidden\nfrom the Editor that many a British Reader sits reading quite\nbewildered in head, and afflicted rather than instructed by the\npresent Work? Yes, long ago has many a British Reader been, as now,\ndemanding with something like a snarl: Whereto does all this lead; or\nwhat use is in it?\n\nIn the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise aiding thy\ndigestive faculty, O British Reader, it leads to nothing, and there is\nno use in it; but rather the reverse, for it costs thee somewhat.\nNevertheless, if through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufelsdroeckh,\nand we by means of him, have led thee into the true Land of Dreams;\nand through the Clothes-screen, as through a magical _Pierre-Pertuis_,\nthou lookest, even for moments, into the region of the Wonderful, and\nseest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with Wonder, and based\non Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are Miracles,--then art\nthou profited beyond money's worth; and hast a thankfulness towards\nour Professor; nay, perhaps in many a literary Tea-circle wilt open\nthy kind lips, and audibly 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\nsacredness of Majesty, and all inferior Worships (Worthships) are\nproperly a Vesture and Raiment; and the Thirty-nine Articles\nthemselves are articles of wearing-apparel (for the Religious Idea)?\nIn which case, must it not also be admitted that this Science of\nClothes is a high one, and may with infinitely deeper study on thy\npart yield richer fruit: that it takes scientific rank beside\nCodification, and Political Economy, and the Theory of the British\nConstitution; nay rather, from its prophetic height looks down on all\nthese, as on so many weaving-shops and spinning-mills, where the\nVestures which _it_ has to fashion, and consecrate and distribute,\nare, too often by haggard hungry operatives who see no farther than\ntheir nose, mechanically woven and 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\nGesellschaft_ (Newbirth of Society),--we humbly suggest that no\nprovince of Clothes-Philosophy, even the lowest, is without its direct\nvalue, but that innumerable inferences of a practical nature may be\ndrawn therefrom. To say nothing of those pregnant considerations,\nethical, political, symbolical, which crowd on the Clothes-Philosopher\nfrom the very threshold of his Science; nothing even of those\n'architectural ideas,' which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of\nall Modes, and will one day, better unfolding themselves, lead to\nimportant revolutions,--let us glance for a moment, and with the\nfaintest light of Clothes-Philosophy, on what may be called the\nHabilatory Class of our fellow-men. Here too overlooking, where so\nmuch were to be looked on, the million spinners, weavers, fullers,\ndyers, washers, and wringers, that puddle and muddle in their dark\nrecesses, to make us Clothes, and die that we may live,--let us but\nturn the reader's attention upon two small divisions of mankind, who,\nlike moths, may be regarded as Cloth-animals, creatures that live,\nmove and have their being in Cloth: we 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\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE DANDIACAL BODY\n\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\nTeufelsdroeckh would call a 'Divine Idea of Cloth' is born with him;\nand this, like other such Ideas, will express itself outwardly, or\nwring his heart asunder with unutterable throes.\n\nBut, like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes his\nIdea an Action; shows himself in peculiar guise to mankind; walks\nforth, a witness and living Martyr to the eternal worth of Clothes. We\ncalled him a Poet: is not his body the (stuffed) parchment-skin\nwhereon he writes, with cunning Huddersfield dyes, a Sonnet to his\nmistress' eyebrow? Say, rather, an Epos, and _Clotha Virumque cano_,\nto the whole world, in Macaronic verses, which he that runs may read.\nNay, if you grant, what seems to be admissible, that the Dandy has a\nThinking-principle in him, and some notions of Time and Space, is\nthere not in this Life-devotedness to Cloth, in this so willing\nsacrifice of the Immortal to the Perishable, something (though in\nreverse order) of that blending and identification of Eternity with\nTime, which, as we have seen, constitutes the Prophetic character?\n\nAnd now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even\nProphecy, what is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may\nsay, that you would recognise his existence; would admit him to be a\nliving object; or even failing this, a visual object, or thing that\nwill reflect rays of light. Your silver or your gold (beyond what the\nniggardly Law has already secured him) he solicits not; simply the\nglance of your eyes. Understand his mystic significance, or altogether\nmiss and misinterpret it; do but look at him, and he is contented. May\nwe not well cry shame on an ungrateful world, which refuses even this\npoor boon; which will waste its optic faculty on dried Crocodiles, and\nSiamese Twins; and over the domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a\nlive Dandy, glance with hasty indifference, and a scarcely concealed\ncontempt! Him no Zoologist classes among the Mammalia, no Anatomist\ndissects with care: when did we see any injected Preparation of the\nDandy in our Museums; any specimen of him preserved in spirits? Lord\nHerringbone may dress himself in a snuff-brown suit, with snuff-brown\nshirt and shoes: it skills not; the undiscerning public, occupied with\ngrosser wants, passes by regardless on 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\nthat lies in him, cannot always remain hidden under laughable and\nlamentable hallucination. The following long Extract from Professor\nTeufelsdroeckh may set the matter, if not in its true light, yet in the\nway towards such. It is to be regretted, however, that here, as so\noften elsewhere, the Professor's keen philosophic perspicacity is\nsomewhat marred by a certain mixture of almost owlish purblindness, or\nelse of some perverse, ineffectual, ironic tendency; our readers shall\njudge which:\n\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\ndisembodied soul seeking its terrestrial organisation,--into how many\nstrange shapes, of Superstition and Fanaticism, does it not\ntentatively and errantly cast itself! The higher Enthusiasm of man's\nnature is for the while without Exponent; yet does it continue\nindestructible, unweariedly active, and work blindly in the great\nchaotic deep: thus Sect after Sect, and Church after Church, bodies\nitself forth, and melts again into new 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\ncountry, one of the most notable, and closely connected with our\npresent subject, is that of the _Dandies_; concerning which, what\nlittle information I have 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 plainly\nenough 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, Mohamed, 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\nobjection.\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\nsome notices were given in the earlier part of this Volume); likewise,\nso far 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\nfrom the 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\nHighpriests and Highpriestesses, who, however, do not continue for\nlife. The rites, by some supposed to be of the Menadic sort, or\nperhaps with an Eleusinian or Cabiric character, are held strictly\nsecret. Nor are Sacred Books wanting to the Sect; these they call\n_Fashionable Novels_: however, the Canon is not completed, and some\nare canonical and others 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\nan Inquirer into Clothes, set to interpret and study them. But wholly\nto no purpose: that tough faculty of reading, for which the world will\nnot refuse me credit, was here for the first time foiled and set at\nnaught. In vain that I summoned my whole energies (_mich weidlich\nanstrengte_), and did my very utmost; at the end of some short space,\nI was uniformly seized with not so much what I can call a drumming in\nmy ears, as a kind of infinite, unsufferable, Jews-harping and\nscrannel-piping there; to which the frightfullest species of Magnetic\nSleep soon supervened. And if I strove to shake this away, and\nabsolutely would not yield, there came a hitherto unfelt sensation, as\nof _Delirium Tremens_, and a melting into total deliquium: till at\nlast, by order of the Doctor, dreading ruin to my whole intellectual\nand bodily faculties, and a general breaking-up of the constitution, I\nreluctantly but determinedly forbore. Was there some miracle at work\nhere; like those Fire-balls, and supernal and infernal prodigies,\nwhich, in the case of the Jewish Mysteries, have also more than once\nscared-back the Alien? Be this as it may, such failure on my part,\nafter best efforts, must excuse the imperfection of this sketch;\naltogether incomplete, yet the completest I could give of a Sect too\nsingular 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 blaetter_), by way of interior wrappage: into these the\nClothes-Philosopher, with a certain Mohamedan reverence even for\nwaste-paper, where curious knowledge will sometimes hover, disdains\nnot to cast his eye. Readers may judge of his astonishment when on\nsuch a defaced stray-sheet, probably the outcast fraction of some\nEnglish Periodical, such as they name _Magazine_, appears something\nlike a Dissertation on this very subject of _Fashionable Novels_! It\nsets out, indeed, chiefly from a Secular point of view; directing\nitself, not without asperity, against some to me unknown individual\nnamed _Pelham_, who seems to be a Mystagogue, and leading Teacher and\nPreacher of the Sect; so that, what indeed otherwise was not to be\nexpected in such a fugitive fragmentary sheet, the true secret, the\nReligious physiognomy and physiology of the Dandiacal Body, is nowise\nlaid fully open there. Nevertheless, scattered lights do from time to\ntime sparkle out, whereby I have endeavoured to profit. Nay, in one\npassage selected from the Prophecies, or Mythic Theogonies, or\nwhatever they are (for the style seems very mixed) of this Mystagogue,\nI find what appears to be a Confession of Faith, or Whole Duty of Man,\naccording to the tenets of that Sect. Which Confession or Whole Duty,\ntherefore, as proceeding from a source so authentic, I shall here\narrange under Seven distinct Articles, and in very abridged shape lay\nbefore the German world; therewith taking leave of this matter.\nObserve also, that to avoid possibility of error, I, as far as may be,\nquote literally from the Original:\n\n\n'ARTICLES 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,\nand slightly rolled.\n\n'\"3. No license of fashion can allow a man of delicate taste to adopt\nthe posterial 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\nthan in 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\nmodestly but 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\nBooks, it remains to me in the same state of obscurity as the\nDandiacal, which has published Books that the unassisted human\nfaculties are inadequate to read. The members appear to be designated\nby a considerable diversity of names, according to their various\nplaces of establishment: in England they are generally called the\n_Drudge_ Sect; also, unphilosophically enough, the _White Negroes_;\nand, chiefly in scorn by those of other communions, the\n_Ragged-Beggar_ Sect. In Scotland, again, I find them entitled\n_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\nperplexing multiplicity of designations, such as _Bogtrotters_,\n_Redshanks_, _Ribbonmen_, _Cottiers_, _Peep-of-Day Boys_, _Babes of\nthe Wood_, _Rockites_, _Poor-Slaves_; which last, however, seems to be\nthe primary and generic name; whereto, probably enough, the others are\nonly subsidiary species, or slight varieties; or, at most, propagated\noffsets from the parent stem, whose minute subdivisions, and shades of\ndifference, it were here loss of time to dwell on. Enough for us to\nunderstand, what seems indubitable, that the original Sect is that of\nthe _Poor-Slaves_; whose doctrines, practices, and fundamental\ncharacteristics pervade and animate the whole Body, howsoever\ndenominated 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,\nirrevocably consecrated thereto, even _before_ birth. That the third\nMonastic Vow, of Chastity, is rigidly enforced among them, I find no\nground to conjecture.\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 and\nirregular wings, of all cloths and of all colours; 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\nuppermost, like 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\nlive in dark dwellings; often even breaking their glass-windows, where\nthey find 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 outbreakings of an\nenthusiasm rising to ferocity; and burn men, if not in wicker idols,\nyet in 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\ncondiment or relish of any kind, save an unknown condiment named\n_Point_, into the meaning of which I have vainly inquired; the victual\n_Potatoes-and-Point_ not appearing, at least not with specific\naccuracy of description, in any European Cookery-Book whatever. For\ndrink, they use, with an almost epigrammatic counterpoise of taste,\nMilk, which is the mildest of liquors, and _Potheen_, which is the\nfiercest. This latter I have tasted, as well as the English\n_Blue-Ruin_, and the Scotch _Whisky_, analogous fluids used by the\nSect in those countries: it evidently contains some form of alcohol,\nin the highest state of concentration, though disguised with acrid\noils; and is, on the whole, the most pungent substance known to\nme,--indeed, a perfect liquid fire. In all their Religious\nSolemnities, Potheen is said to be an indispensable requisite, and\nlargely 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 the\nfollowing sketch of a domestic establishment, the inmates whereof,\nthough such is not stated expressly, appear to have been of that\nFaith. Thereby shall my German readers now behold an Irish Poor-Slave,\nas it were with their own eyes; and even see him at meat. Moreover, in\nthe so-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\nbeen a species of Innkeeper. I quote from the original:\n\n\n_Poor-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;\nand the space below was divided by a hurdle into two Apartments; the\none for their cow and pig, the other for themselves and guests. On\nentering the house we discovered the family, eleven in number, at\ndinner: the father sitting at the top, the mother at the bottom, the\nchildren on each side, of a large oaken Board, which was scooped-out\nin the middle, like a trough, to receive the contents of their Pot of\nPotatoes. Little holes were cut at equal distances to contain Salt;\nand a bowl of Milk stood on the table: all the luxuries of meat and\nbeer, bread, knives and dishes were dispensed with.\" The Poor-Slave\nhimself our Traveller found, as he says, broad-backed, black-browed,\nof great personal strength, and mouth from ear to ear. His Wife was a\nsun-browned but well-featured woman; and his young ones, bare and\nchubby, had the appetite of ravens. Of their Philosophical or\nReligious 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\n_Dandiacal Household_\n\n'\"A Dressing-room splendidly furnished; violet-coloured curtains,\nchairs and ottomans of the same hue. Two full-length Mirrors are\nplaced, one on each side of a table, which supports the luxuries of\nthe Toilet. Several Bottles of Perfumes, arranged in a peculiar\nfashion, stand upon a smaller table of mother-of-pearl: opposite to\nthese are placed the appurtenances of Lavation richly wrought in\nfrosted silver. A wardrobe of Buhl is on the left; the doors of which,\nbeing partly open, discover a profusion of Clothes; Shoes of a\nsingularly small size monopolise the lower shelves. Fronting the\nwardrobe a door ajar gives some slight glimpse of a Bathroom.\nFolding-doors in the background.--Enter the Author,\" our Theogonist in\nperson, \"obsequiously preceded by a French Valet, in white silk Jacket\nand cambric Apron.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'Such are the two Sects which, at this moment, divide the more\nunsettled portion of the British People; and agitate that ever-vexed\ncountry. To the eye of the political Seer, their mutual relation,\npregnant with the elements of discord and hostility, is far from\nconsoling. These two principals of Dandiacal Self-worship or\nDemon-worship, and Poor-Slavish or Drudgical Earth-worship, or\nwhatever that same Drudgism may be, do as yet indeed manifest\nthemselves under distant and nowise considerable shapes: nevertheless,\nin their roots and subterranean ramifications, they extend through the\nentire structure of Society, and work unweariedly in the secret depths\nof English national Existence; striving to separate and isolate it\ninto two contradictory, uncommunicating masses.\n\n'In numbers, and even individual strength, the Poor-Slaves or Drudges,\nit would seem, are hourly increasing. The Dandiacal, again, is by\nnature no proselytising Sect; but it boasts of great hereditary\nresources, and is strong by union; whereas the Drudges, split into\nparties, have as yet no rallying-point; or at best only co-operate by\nmeans of partial secret affiliations. If, indeed, there were to arise\na _Communion of Drudges_, as there is already a Communion of Saints,\nwhat strangest effects would follow therefrom! Dandyism as yet affects\nto look-down on Drudgism: but perhaps the hour of trial, when it will\nbe practically seen which ought to look down, and which up, is not so\ndistant.\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\nManicheans, with the host of Dandyising Christians, will form one\nbody: the Drudges, gathering round them whosoever is Drudgical, be he\nChristian or Infidel Pagan; sweeping-up likewise all manner of\nUtilitarians, Radicals, refractory Potwallopers, and so forth, into\ntheir general mass, will form another. I could liken Dandyism and\nDrudgism to two bottomless boiling Whirlpools that had broken-out on\nopposite quarters of the firm land: as yet they appear only\ndisquieted, foolishly bubbling wells, which man's art might cover-in;\nyet mark them, their diameter is daily widening: they are hollow Cones\nthat boil-up from the infinite Deep, over which your firm land is but\na thin crust or rind! Thus daily is the intermediate land\ncrumbling-in, daily the empire of the two Buchan-Bullers extending;\ntill now there is but a foot-plank, a mere film of Land between them;\nthis too is washed away: and then--we have the true Hell of Waters,\nand Noah's Deluge is outdeluged!\n\n'Or better, I might call them two boundless, and indeed unexampled\nElectric Machines (turned by the \"Machinery of Society\"), with\nbatteries of opposite quality; Drudgism the Negative, Dandyism the\nPositive: one attracts hourly towards it and appropriates all the\nPositive Electricity of the nation (namely, the Money thereof); the\nother is equally busy with the Negative (that is to say the Hunger),\nwhich is equally potent. Hitherto you see only partial transient\nsparkles and sputters: but wait a little, till the entire nation is in\nan electric state; till your whole vital Electricity, no longer\nhealthfully Neutral, is cut into two isolated portions of Positive and\nNegative (of Money and of Hunger); and stands there bottled-up in two\nWorld-Batteries! The stirring of a child's finger brings the two\ntogether; and then--What then? The Earth is but shivered into\nimpalpable smoke by that Doom's-thunderpeal; the Sun misses one of his\nPlanets in Space, and thenceforth there are no eclipses of the\nMoon.--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 Teufelsdroeckh 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\nshould have decisively answered in the affirmative; but with a\nTeufelsdroeckh there ever hovers some shade of doubt. In the mean\nwhile, if satire were actually intended, the case is little better.\nThere are not wanting men who will answer: Does your Professor take us\nfor simpletons? His irony has overshot itself; we see through it, and\nperhaps through him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nTAILORS\n\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\nlatter our opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teufelsdroeckh\nhimself, as expressed in the concluding page of his Volume, to whom,\ntherefore, we willingly give place. Let him speak his own last words,\nin his own way:\n\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, and\nthrones be hurled on altars like Pelion on Ossa, and the Moloch of\nIniquity 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\na distinct species in Physiology, not Men, but fractional Parts of a\nMan. Call any one a _Schneider_ (Cutter, Tailor), is it not, in our\ndislocated, hood-winked, and indeed delirious condition of Society,\nequivalent to defying his perpetual fellest enmity? The epithet\n_schneider-maessig_ (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\nnor man could be injured; her Regiment, namely, of Tailors on Mares?\nThus everywhere 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\nhis Clothes, the Tailor has bones and viscera, and other muscles than\nthe sartorious? Which function of manhood is the Tailor not\nconjectured to perform? Can he not arrest for debt? Is he not in most\ncountries a tax-paying 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\nor Divinity. Of Franklin it was said, that \"he snatched the Thunder\nfrom Heaven and the Sceptre from Kings\": but which is greater, I would\nask, he that lends, or he that snatches? For, looking away from\nindividual cases, and how a Man is by the Tailor new-created into a\nNobleman, and clothed not only with Wool but with Dignity and a Mystic\nDominion,--is not the fair fabric of Society itself, with all its\nroyal mantles and pontifical stoles, whereby, from nakedness and\ndismemberment, we are organised into Polities, into nations, and a\nwhole co-operating Mankind, the creation, as has here been often\nirrefragably evinced, of the Tailor alone?--What too are all Poets and\nmoral Teachers, but a species of Metaphorical Tailors? Touching which\nhigh Guild the greatest living Guild-brother has triumphantly asked\nus: \"Nay if thou wilt have it, who but the Poet first made Gods for\nmen; brought them down to us; and raised 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\nman! Look up, thou much-injured one, look up with the kindling eye of\nhope, and prophetic bodings of a noble better time. Too long hast thou\nsat there, on crossed legs, wearing thy ankle-joints to horn; like\nsome sacred 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\nwas scoffed at will be worshipped; the Fraction will become not an\nInteger only, but a Square and Cube. With astonishment the world will\nrecognise that the Tailor is its Hierophant and Hierarch, or even its\nGod.\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,\nwhich the Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I thought within\nmyself: How many other Unholies has your covering Art made holy,\nbesides this Arabian Whinstone!\n\n'Still more touching was it when, turning the corner of a lane, in the\nScottish 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\nPortion may here find its conclusion.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nFAREWELL\n\n\nSo have we endeavoured, from the enormous, amorphous Plum-pudding,\nmore like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdroeckh 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,\nhe sees his general Day's-work so much the lighter, so much the\nshorter?\n\nOf Professor Teufelsdroeckh it seems impossible to take leave without a\nmingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude and disapproval. Who will\nnot regret that talents, which might have profited in the higher walks\nof 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\nhis mad humours British Criticism would essay in vain: enough for her\nif she can, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among\nourselves. What a result, should this piebald, entangled,\nhyper-metaphorical style of writing, not to say of thinking, become\ngeneral among our Literary men! As it might so easily do. Thus has not\nthe Editor himself, working over Teufelsdroeckh's German, lost much of\nhis own English purity? Even as the smaller whirlpool is sucked into\nthe larger, and made to whirl along with it, so has the lesser mind,\nin this instance, been forced to become portion of the greater, and\nlike it, see all things figuratively: which habit time and assiduous\neffort 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,\nthere is that in the wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting man, which\nalmost attaches us. His attitude, we will hope and believe, is that of\na man who had said to Cant, Begone; and to Dilettantism, Here thou\ncanst not be; and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me: a man who\nhad manfully defied the 'Time-prince,' or Devil, to his face; nay\nperhaps, Hannibal-like, was mysteriously consecrated from birth to\nthat warfare, and now stood minded to wage the same, by all weapons,\nin all places, at all times. In such a cause, any soldier, were he but\na Polack Scythe-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\nthe absurd? Which question he were wiser than the present Editor who\nshould satisfactorily answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been, that\nperhaps Necessity as well as Choice was concerned in it. Seems it not\nconceivable 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\ncolours, against the canvas, to try whether it will paint Foam? With\nall his stillness, there were perhaps in Teufelsdroeckh desperation\nenough for this.\n\nA second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is, that\nTeufelsdroeckh is not without some touch of the universal feeling, a\nwish to proselytise. How often already have we paused, uncertain\nwhether the basis of this so enigmatic nature were really Stoicism and\nDespair, or Love and Hope only seared into the figure of these!\nRemarkable, moreover, is this saying of his: 'How were Friendship\npossible? In mutual devotedness to the Good and True: otherwise\nimpossible; except as Armed Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. A\nman, be the Heavens ever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were\nten men, united in Love, capable of being and of doing what ten\nthousand singly would fail in. Infinite is the help man can yield to\nman.' And now in conjunction therewith consider this other: 'It is the\nNight of the World, and still long till it be Day: we wander amid the\nglimmer of smoking ruins, and the Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as\nif blotted out for a season; and two immeasurable Phantoms, HYPOCRISY\nand ATHEISM, with the Gowl, SENSUALITY, stalk abroad over the Earth,\nand call it theirs: well at ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence\nis a shallow Dream.'\n\nBut what of the awestruck Wakeful who find it a Reality? Should not\nthese unite; since even an authentic Spectre is not visible to\nTwo?--In which case were this enormous Clothes-Volume properly an\nenormous Pitchpan, which our Teufelsdroeckh 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 harbour?\n\nMeanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmonises ill\nwith such conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdroeckh 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 no\npilgrim could now ask him: Watchman, what of the Night? Professor\nTeufelsdroeckh, be it known is no longer visibly present at\nWeissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in space! Some time\nago, the Hofrath Heuschrecke was pleased to favour us with another\ncopious Epistle; wherein much is said about the\n'Population-Institute'; much repeated in praise of the Paper-bag\nDocuments, the hieroglyphic nature of which our Hofrath still seems\nnot to have surmised; and, lastly, the strangest occurrence\ncommunicated, to us for the first time, in the following paragraph:\n\n'_Ew. Wohlgeboren_ will have seen from the public Prints, with what\naffectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo regards\nthe disappearance of her Sage. Might but the united voice of Germany\nprevail on him to return; nay, could we but so much as elucidate for\nourselves by what mystery he went away! But, alas, old Lieschen\nexperiences or affects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest\nignorance: in the Wahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up; the\nPrivy Council itself can hitherto elicit no answer.\n\n'It had been remarked that while the agitating news of those Parisian\nThree Days flew from mouth to mouth, and dinned every ear in\nWeissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdroeckh 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 Berlin,\nthreatened by a Sedition of the Tailors. Nor did there want\nEvil-wishers, or perhaps mere desperate Alarmists, who asserted that\nthe closing Chapter of the Clothes-Volume was to blame. In this\nappalling crisis, the serenity of our Philosopher was indescribable;\nnay, perhaps through one humble individual, something thereof might\npass into the _Rath_ (Council) itself, and so contribute to the\ncountry's deliverance. The 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.\nFor example, when the _Saint-Simonian Society_ transmitted its\nPropositions hither, and the whole _Gans_ was one vast cackle of\nlaughter, lamentation and astonishment, our Sage sat mute; and at the\nend of the third evening said merely: \"Here also are men who have\ndiscovered, not without amazement, that Man is still Man; of which\nhigh, long-forgotten Truth you already see them make a false\napplication.\" Since then, as has been ascertained by examination of\nthe Post-Director, there passed at least one Letter with its Answer\nbetween the Messieurs Bazard-Enfantin and our Professor himself; of\nwhat tenor can now only be conjectured. On the fifth night following,\nhe was seen for the last time!\n\n'Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the hostile Sects\nthat convulse our Era, been spirited away by certain of their\nemissaries; or did he go forth voluntarily to their head-quarters to\nconfer with them and confront them? Reason we have, at least of a\nnegative sort, to believe the Lost still living; our widowed heart\nalso whispers that ere long he will himself give a sign. Otherwise,\nindeed, his archives must, one day, be opened by Authority; where\nmuch, perhaps the _Palingenesie_ itself, is thought to be reposited.'\n\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 Teufelsdroeckh's public History were not done, then, or reduced\nto an even, unromantic tenor; nay, perhaps the better part thereof\nwere only beginning? We stand in a region of conjectures, where\nsubstance has melted into shadow, and one cannot be distinguished from\nthe other. May Time, which solves or suppresses all problems, throw\nglad light on this also! Our own private conjecture, now amounting\nalmost to certainty, is that, safe-moored in some stillest obscurity,\nnot to lie always still, Teufelsdroeckh 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\nknow, if human testimony be worth aught, that to innumerable British\nreaders likewise, this is a satisfying consummation; that innumerable\nBritish readers consider him, during these current months, but as an\nuneasy interruption to their ways of thought and digestion; and\nindicate so much, not without a certain irritancy and even spoken\ninvective. For which, as for other mercies, ought not he to thank the\nUpper Powers? To one and all of you, O irritated readers, he, with\noutstretched arms and open heart, will wave a kind farewell. Thou too,\nmiraculous Entity, who namest thyself YORKE and OLIVER, and with thy\nvivacities and genialities, with thy all-too Irish mirth and madness,\nand odour of palled punch, makest such strange work, farewell; long as\nthou canst, fare-_well!_ Have we not, in the course of Eternity,\ntravelled some months of our Life-journey in partial sight of one\nanother; have we not existed together, though in a state of quarrel?\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n\nTESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS\n\n    This questionable little Book was undoubtedly written among\n    the mountain solitudes, in 1831; but, owing to impediments\n    natural and accidental, could not, for seven years more,\n    appear as a Volume in England;--and had at last to clip itself\n    in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit by bit, in some\n    courageous _Magazine_ that offered. Whereby now, to certain\n    idly curious readers, and even to myself till I make study,\n    the insignificant but at last irritating question, What its\n    real history and chronology are, is, if not insoluble,\n    considerably involved in haze.\n\n    To the first English Edition, 1838, which an American, or two\n    American had now opened the way for, there was slightingly\n    prefixed, under the title '_Testimonies of Authors_,' some\n    straggle of real documents, which, now that I find it again,\n    sets the matter into clear light and sequence;--and shall\n    here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks and nugatory\n    guessings from the path of every reader, be reprinted as it\n    stood. (_Author's Note of 1868._)\n\n\nTESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS\n\n\nI. HIGHEST CLASS, BOOKSELLER'S TASTER\n\n_Taster to Bookseller._--\"The Author of _Teufelsdroeckh_ 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\nthat kind it is too long; it would have suited better as an essay or\narticle than as a volume. The Author has no great tact; his wit is\nfrequently heavy; and reminds one of the German Baron who took to\nleaping on tables, and answered that he was learning to be lively.\n_Is_ the work a translation?\"\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\ngentleman in the highest class of men of letters, and an accomplished\nGerman scholar: I now inclose you his opinion, which, you may rely\nupon it, is a just one; and I have too high an opinion of your good\nsense to\" &c. &c.--_MS._ (_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\"_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 vigour. 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 of\ncuriosity 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-baptised 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,\nnot indeed without hard battering, will doubtless by degrees be\nconquered and pacificated.' Here is a\"--....--_Sun Newspaper_, _1st\nApril 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 Professor Teufelsdroeckh 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\nbrief abstract, is, in plain English, a _hum_.\n\n\"Without troubling our readers at any great length with our reasons\nfor entertaining these suspicions, we may remark, that the absence of\nall other information on the subject, except what is contained in the\nwork, is itself a fact of a most significant character. The whole\nGerman press, as well as the particular one where the work purports to\nhave been printed, seems to be under the control of _Stillschweigen\nand Co._,--Silence and Company. If the Clothes-Philosophy and its\nauthor are making so great a sensation throughout Germany as is\npretended, how happens it that the only notice we have of the fact is\ncontained in a few numbers of a monthly Magazine published at London?\nHow happens it that no intelligence about the matter has come out\ndirectly to this country? We pique ourselves here in New England upon\nknowing at least as much of what is going on in the literary way in\nthe old Dutch Mother-land as our brethren of the fast-anchored Isle;\nbut thus far we have no tidings whatever of the 'extensive\nclose-printed close-meditated volume,' which forms the subject of this\npretended commentary. Again, we would respectfully inquire of the\n'present Editor' upon what part of the map of Germany we are to look\nfor the city of _Weissnichtwo_,--'Know-not-where,'--at which place the\nwork is supposed to have been printed, and the Author to have resided.\nIt has been our fortune to visit several portions of the German\nterritory, and to examine pretty carefully, at different times and for\nvarious purposes, maps of the whole; but we have no recollection of\nany such place. We suspect that the city of _Know-not-where_ might be\ncalled, with at least as much propriety, _Nobody-knows-where_, and is\nto be found in the kingdom of _Nowhere_. Again, the village of\n_Entepfuhl_--'Duck-pond,' where the supposed Author of the work is\nsaid to have passed his youth, and that of _Hinterschlag_, where he\nhad his education, are equally foreign to our geography. Duck-ponds\nenough there undoubtedly are in almost every village in Germany, as\nthe traveller in that country knows too well to his cost, but any\nparticular village denominated Duck-pond is to us altogether _terra\nincognita_. The names of the personages are not less singular than\nthose of the places. Who can refrain from a smile at the yoking\ntogether of such a pair of appellatives as Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh? The\nsupposed bearer of this strange title is represented as admitting, in his\npretended autobiography, that 'he had searched to no purpose through all\nthe Heralds' books in and without the German empire, and through all\nmanner of Subscribers'-lists, Militia-rolls, and other Name-catalogues,'\nbut had nowhere been able to find the 'name Teufelsdroeckh, 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 son to\ncarry through life the burden of so unpleasant a title. That of Counsellor\nHeuschrecke--'Grasshopper,' though not offensive, looks much more like a\npiece of fancy work than a 'fair business transaction.' The same may be\nsaid of _Blumine_--'Flower-Goddess'--the heroine of the fable; and so\nof the rest.\n\n\"In short, our private opinion is, as we have remarked, that the whole\nstory 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 much\nfoundation in truth as the late entertaining account of Sir John\nHerschel's discoveries in the moon. Fictions of this kind are,\nhowever, not uncommon, and ought not, perhaps, to be condemned with\ntoo much severity; but we are not sure that we can exercise the same\nindulgence in regard to the attempt, which seems to be made to mislead\nthe public as to the substance of the work before us, and its\npretended German original. Both purport, as we have seen, to be upon\nthe subject of Clothes, or dress. _Clothes, their Origin and\nInfluence_, is the title of the supposed German treatise of Professor\nTeufelsdroeckh, and the rather odd name of _Sartor Resartus_--the\nTailor Patched,--which the present Editor has affixed to his pretended\ncommentary, seems to look the same way. But though there is a good\ndeal of remark throughout the work in a half-serious, half-comic style\nupon dress, it seems to be in reality a treatise upon the great\nscience of Things in General, which Teufelsdroeckh is supposed to have\nprofessed at the university of Nobody-knows-where. Now, without\nintending to adopt a too rigid standard of morals, we own that we\ndoubt a little the propriety of offering to the public a treatise on\nThings in General, under the name and in the form of an Essay on\nDress. For ourselves, advanced as we unfortunately are in the journey\nof life, far beyond the period when dress is practically a matter of\ninterest, we have no hesitation in saying, that the real subject of\nthe work is to us more attractive than the ostensible one. But this is\nprobably not the case with the mass of readers. To the younger portion\nof the community, which constitutes everywhere the very great\nmajority, the subject of dress is one of intense and paramount\nimportance. An author who treats it appeals, like the poet, to the\nyoung men and maidens--_virginibus puerisque_,--and calls upon them,\nby all the motives which habitually operate most strongly upon their\nfeelings, to buy his book. When, after opening their purses for this\npurpose, they have carried home the work in triumph, expecting to find\nin it some particular instruction in regard to the tying of their\nneckcloths, or the cut of their corsets, and meet with nothing better\nthan a dissertation on Things in General, they will,--to use the\nmildest term--not be in very good humour. If the last improvements in\nlegislation, which we have made in this country, should have found\ntheir way to England, the author, we think, would stand some chance of\nbeing _Lynched_. Whether his object in this piece of _supercherie_ be\nmerely pecuniary profit, or whether he takes a malicious pleasure in\nquizzing the Dandies, we shall not undertake to say. In the latter\npart of the work, he devotes a separate chapter to this class of\npersons, from the tenour of which we should be disposed to conclude,\nthat he would consider any mode of divesting them of their property\nvery 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, vigour, and at times a sort of singular felicity of expression,\nbut very strongly tinged throughout with the peculiar idiom of the German\nlanguage. This quality in the style, however, may be a mere result of\na great familiarity with German literature, and we cannot, therefore,\nlook upon it as in itself decisive, still less as outweighing so much\nevidence of an opposite character.\"--_North-American Review_, _No. 89_,\n_October 1835_.\n\n\nIV. NEW ENGLAND EDITORS\n\n\"The Editors have been induced, by the express desire of many persons,\nto collect the following sheets out of the ephemeral pamphlets[4] in\nwhich they first appeared, under the conviction that they contain in\nthemselves the assurance of a longer date.\n\n    [4] _Fraser's_ (London) _Magazine_, 1833-4.\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 dress\nhis thoughts, or the German idioms with which he has sportively\nsprinkled his pages. It is his humour to advance the gravest\nspeculations upon the gravest topics in a quaint and burlesque style.\nIf his masquerade offend any of his audience, to that degree that they\nwill not hear what he has to say, it may chance to draw others to\nlisten to his wisdom; and what work of imagination can hope to please\nall? But we will venture to remark that the distaste excited by these\npeculiarities in some readers is greatest at first, and is soon\nforgotten; and that the foreign dress and aspect of the Work are quite\nsuperficial, and cover a genuine Saxon heart. We believe, no book has\nbeen published for many years, written in a more sincere style of\nidiomatic English, or which discovers an equal mastery over all the\nriches of the language. The Author makes ample amends for the\noccasional eccentricity of his genius, not only by frequent bursts of\npure splendour, but by the wit and sense which never fail him.\n\n\"But what will chiefly commend the Book to the discerning reader is\nthe manifest design of the work, which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit\nof the Age,--we had almost said, of the hour,--in which we live;\nexhibiting in the most just and novel light the present aspects of\nReligion, Politics, Literature, Arts, and Social Life. Under all his\ngaiety the Writer has an earnest meaning, and discovers an insight\ninto the manifold wants and tendencies of human nature, which is very\nrare among our popular authors. The philanthropy and the purity of\nmoral sentiment, which inspire the work, will find their way to the\nheart of every lover of virtue.\"--_Preface to Sartor Resartus_:\n_Boston_, 1836, 1837.\n\n\n                      SUNT, FUERUNT VEL FUERE.\n\nLONDON, _30th June 1838_.\n\n\n\n\nSUMMARY\n\n\nBOOK I\n\nCHAP. I. _Preliminary_\n\n    No Philosophy of Clothes yet, notwithstanding all our Science.\n    Strangely forgotten that Man is by nature a _naked_ animal.\n    The English mind all-too practically absorbed for any such\n    inquiry. Not so, deep-thinking Germany. Advantage of\n    Speculation having free course. Editor receives from Professor\n    Teufelsdroeckh his new Work on Clothes (p. 1).\n\nCHAP. II. _Editorial Difficulties_\n\n    How to make known Teufelsdroeckh and his Book to English\n    readers; especially _such_ a book? Editor receives from the\n    Hofrath Heuschrecke a letter promising Biographic Documents.\n    Negotiations with Oliver Yorke. _Sartor Resartus_ conceived.\n    Editor's assurances and advice to his British reader (p. 5).\n\nCHAP. III. _Reminiscences_\n\n    Teufelsdroeckh at Weissnichtwo. Professor of Things in General\n    at the University there: Outward aspect and character;\n    memorable coffee-house utterances; domicile and watch-tower:\n    Sights thence of City-life by day and by night; with\n    reflections thereon. Old 'Liza and her ways. Character of\n    Hofrath Heuschrecke, and his relation to Teufelsdroeckh (p. 9).\n\nCHAP. IV. _Characteristics_\n\n    Teufelsdroeckh and his Work on Clothes: Strange freedom of\n    speech: transcendentalism; force of insight and expression;\n    multifarious learning: Style poetic, uncouth:\n    Comprehensiveness of his humour and moral feeling. How the\n    Editor once saw him laugh. Different kinds of Laughter and\n    their significance (p. 20).\n\nCHAP. V. _The World in Clothes_\n\n    Futile cause-and-effect Philosophies. Teufelsdroeckh's Orbis\n    Vestitus. Clothes first invented for the sake of Ornament.\n    Picture of our progenitor, the Aboriginal Savage. Wonders of\n    growth and progress in mankind's history. Man defined as a\n    Tool-using Animal (p. 25).\n\nCHAP. VI. _Aprons_\n\n    Divers Aprons in the world with divers uses. The Military and\n    Police Establishment Society's working Apron. The Episcopal\n    Apron with its corner tucked in. The Laystall. Journalists now\n    our only Kings and Clergy (p. 31).\n\nCHAP. VII. _Miscellaneous-Historical_\n\n    How Men and Fashions come and go. German Costume in the\n    fifteenth century. By what strange chances do we live in\n    History! The costume of Bolivar's Cavalry (p. 34).\n\nCHAP. VIII. _The World out of Clothes_\n\n    Teufelsdroeckh's Theorem, \"Society founded upon Cloth\"; his\n    Method, Intuition quickened by Experience.--The mysterious\n    question, Who am I? Philosophic systems, all at fault: A\n    deeper meditation has always taught, here and there an\n    individual, that all visible things are appearances only; but\n    also emblems and revelations of God. Teufelsdroeckh first\n    comes upon the question of Clothes: Baseness to which Clothing\n    may bring us (p. 37).\n\nCHAP. IX. _Adamatism_\n\n    The universal utility of Clothes, and their higher mystic\n    virtue, illustrated. Conception of Mankind stripped naked; and\n    immediate consequent dissolution of civilised Society (p. 43).\n\nCHAP. X. _Pure Reason_\n\n    A Naked World possible, nay actually exists, under the clothed\n    one. Man, in the eye of Pure Reason, a visible God's Presence.\n    The beginning of all wisdom, to look fixedly on Clothes till\n    they become transparent. Wonder, the basis of Worship:\n    Perennial in man. Modern Sciolists who cannot wonder:\n    Teufelsdroeckh's contempt for, and advice to them (p. 47).\n\nCHAP. XI. _Prospective_\n\n    Nature not an Aggregate, but a Whole. All visible things are\n    emblems, Clothes; and exist for a time only. The grand scope\n    of the Philosophy of Clothes.--Biographic Documents arrive.\n    Letter from Heuschrecke on the importance of Biography.\n    Heterogeneous character of the documents: Editor sorely\n    perplexed; but desperately grapples with his work (p. 52).\n\n\nBOOK II\n\nCHAP. I. _Genesis_\n\n    Old Andreas Futteral and Gretchen his wife: their quiet home.\n    Advent of a mysterious stranger, who deposits with them a\n    young infant, the future Herr Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh.\n    After-yearnings of the youth for his unknown Father. Sovereign\n    power of Names and Naming. Diogenes a flourishing Infant (p.\n    61).\n\nCHAP. II. _Idyllic_\n\n    Happy Childhood! Entepfuhl: Sights, hearings and experiences\n    of the boy Teufelsdroeckh; their manifold teaching. Education;\n    what it can do, what cannot. Obedience our universal duty and\n    destiny. Gneschen sees the good Gretchen pray (p. 68).\n\nCHAP. III. _Pedagogy_\n\n    Teufelsdroeckh's School. His Education. How the ever-flowing\n    Kuhbach speaks of Time and Eternity. The Hinterschlag\n    Gymnasium; rude Boys; and pedant Professors. The need of true\n    Teachers, and their due recognition. Father Andreas dies: and\n    Teufelsdroeckh learns the secret of his birth: His reflections\n    thereon. The Nameless University. Statistics of Imposture much\n    wanted. Bitter fruits of Rationalism: Teufelsdroeckh's\n    religious difficulties. The young Englishman Herr Towgood.\n    Modern Friendship (p. 76).\n\nCHAP. IV. _Getting under Way_\n\n    The grand thaumaturgic Art of Thought. Difficulty in fitting\n    Capability to Opportunity, or of getting underway. The\n    advantage of Hunger and Bread-Studies. Teufelsdroeckh has to\n    enact the stern mono-drama of _No object and no rest_.\n    Sufferings as Auscultator. Given up as a man of genius,\n    Zaehdarm House. Intolerable presumption of young men. Irony\n    and its consequences. Teufelsdroeckh's Epitaph on Count\n    Zaehdarm (p. 90).\n\nCHAP. V. _Romance_\n\n    Teufelsdroeckh gives up his Profession. The heavenly mystery\n    of Love. Teufelsdroeckh's feeling of worship towards women.\n    First and only love. Blumine. Happy hearts and free tongues.\n    The infinite nature of Fantasy. Love's joyful progress; sudden\n    dissolution; and final catastrophe (p. 101).\n\nCHAP. VI. _Sorrows of Teufelsdroeckh_\n\n    Teufelsdroeckh's demeanour thereupon. Turns pilgrim. A last\n    wistful look on native Entepfuhl: Sunset amongst primitive\n    Mountains. Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four. Thoughts\n    on View-hunting. Wanderings and Sorrowings (p. 112).\n\nCHAP. VII. _The Everlasting No_\n\n    Loss of Hope, and of Belief. Profit-and-Loss Philosophy,\n    Teufelsdroeckh in his darkness and despair still clings to\n    Truth and follows Duty. Inexpressible pains and fears of\n    Unbelief. Fever-crisis: Protest against the Everlasting No:\n    Baphometic Fire-baptism (p. 121).\n\nCHAP. VIII. _Centre of Indifference_\n\n    Teufelsdroeckh turns now outwardly to the _Not-me_; and finds\n    wholesomer food. Ancient Cities: Mystery of their origin and\n    growth: Invisible inheritances and possessions. Power and\n    virtue of a true Book. Wagram Battlefield: War. Great Scenes\n    beheld by the Pilgrim: Great Events, and Great Men. Napoleon,\n    a divine missionary, preaching _La carriere ouverte aux\n    talens_. Teufelsdroeckh at the North Cape: Modern means of\n    self-defence. Gunpowder and duelling. The Pilgrim, despising\n    his miseries, reaches the Centre of Indifference (p. 128).\n\nCHAP. IX. _The Everlasting Yea_\n\n    Temptations in the Wilderness: Victory over the Tempter.\n    Annihilation of Self. Belief in God, and love to Man. The\n    origin of Evil, a problem ever requiring to be solved anew:\n    Teufelsdroeckh's solution. Love of Happiness a vain whim: A\n    Higher in man than Love of Happiness. The Everlasting Yea.\n    Worship of Sorrow. Voltaire: his task now finished. Conviction\n    worthless, impossible, without Conduct. The true Ideal, the\n    Actual: Up and work! (p. 138).\n\nCHAP. X. _Pause_\n\n    Conversion; a spiritual attainment peculiar to the modern Era.\n    Teufelsdroeckh accepts Authorship as his divine calling. The\n    scope of the command _Thou shalt not steal_.--Editor begins to\n    suspect the authenticity of the Biographical documents; and\n    abandons them for the great Clothes volume. Result of the\n    preceding ten Chapters: Insight into the character of\n    Teufelsdroeckh: His fundamental beliefs, and how he was forced\n    to seek and find them (p. 149).\n\n\nBOOK III\n\nCHAP. I. _Incident in Modern History_\n\n    Story of George Fox the Quaker; and his perennial suit of\n    Leather. A man God-possessed, witnessing for spiritual freedom\n    and manhood (p. 156).\n\nCHAP. II. _Church-Clothes_\n\n    Church-Clothes defined; the Forms under which the Religious\n    principle is temporarily embodied. Outward Religion originates\n    by Society: Society becomes possible by Religion. The\n    condition of Church-Clothes in our time (p. 161).\n\nCHAP. III. _Symbols_\n\n    The benignant efficacies of Silence and Secrecy. Symbols;\n    revelations of the Infinite in the Finite: Man everywhere\n    encompassed by them; lives and works by them. Theory of\n    Motive-millwrights, a false account of human nature. Symbols\n    of an extrinsic value; as Banners, Standards: Of intrinsic\n    value; as Works of Art, Lives and Deaths of Heroic men.\n    Religious Symbols; Christianity. Symbols hallowed by Time; but\n    finally defaced and desecrated. Many superannuated Symbols in\n    our time, needing removal (p. 163).\n\nCHAP. IV. _Helotage_\n\n    Heuschrecke's Malthusian Tract, and Teufelsdroeckh's marginal\n    notes thereon. The true workman, for daily bread, or spiritual\n    bread, to be honoured; and no other. The real privation of the\n    Poor not poverty or toil, but ignorance. Over-population: With\n    a world like ours and wide as ours, can there be too many men?\n    Emigration (p. 170).\n\nCHAP. V. _The Phoenix_\n\n    Teufelsdroeckh considers Society as _dead_; its soul\n    (Religion) gone, its body (existing Institutions) going.\n    Utilitarianism, needing little farther preaching, is now in\n    full activity of Destruction.--Teufelsdroeckh would yield to\n    the Inevitable, accounting that the best: Assurance of a\n    fairer Living Society, arising, Phoenix-like, out of the ruins\n    of the old dead one. Before that Phoenix death-birth is\n    accomplished, long time, struggle, and suffering must\n    intervene (p. 174).\n\nCHAP. VI. _Old Clothes_\n\n    Courtesy due from all men to all men: The Body of Man a\n    Revelation in the Flesh. Teufelsdroeckh's respect for Old\n    Clothes, as the 'Ghosts of Life.' Walk in Monmouth Street, and\n    meditations there (p. 179).\n\nCHAP. VII. _Organic Filaments_\n\n    Destruction and Creation ever proceed together; and organic\n    filaments of the Future are even now spinning. Wonderful\n    connection of each man with all men; and of each generation\n    with all generations, before and after: Mankind is One.\n    Sequence and progress of all human work, whether of creation\n    or destruction, from age to age.--Titles, hitherto derived\n    from Fighting, must give way to others. Kings will remain and\n    their title. Political Freedom, not to be attained by any\n    mechanical contrivance. Hero-worship, perennial amongst men;\n    the cornerstone of polities in the Future. Organic filaments\n    of the New Religion: Newspapers and Literature. Let the\n    faithful soul take courage! (p. 183).\n\nCHAP. VIII. _Natural Supernaturalism_\n\n    Deep significance of Miracles. Littleness of human Science:\n    Divine incomprehensibility of Nature. Custom blinds us to the\n    miraculousness of daily-recurring miracles; so do Names. Space\n    and Time, appearances only; forms of human Thought: A glimpse\n    of Immortality. How Space hides from us the wondrousness of\n    our commonest powers; and Time, the divinely miraculous course\n    of human history (p. 191).\n\nCHAP. IX. _Circumspective_\n\n    Recapitulation. Editor congratulates the few British readers\n    who have accompanied Teufelsdroeckh through all his\n    speculations. The true use of the _Sartor Resartus_, to\n    exhibit the Wonder of daily life and common things; and to\n    show that all Forms are but Clothes, and temporary. Practical\n    inferences enough will follow (p. 201).\n\nCHAP. X. _The Dandiacal Body_\n\n    The Dandy defined. The Dandiacal Sect a new modification of\n    the primeval superstition Self-worship: How to be\n    distinguished. Their Sacred Books (Fashionable Novels)\n    unreadable. Dandyism's Articles of Faith.--Brotherhood of\n    Poor-Slaves: vowed to perpetual Poverty; worshippers of Earth;\n    distinguished by peculiar costume and diet. Picture of a\n    Poor-Slave Household; and of a Dandiacal. Teufelsdroeckh fears\n    these two Sects may spread, till they part all England between\n    them, and then frightfully collide (p. 204).\n\nCHAP. XI. _Tailors_\n\n    Injustice done to Tailors, actual and metaphorical. Their rights\n    and great services will one day be duly recognised (p. 216).\n\nCHAP. XII. _Farewell_\n\n    Teufelsdroeckh's strange manner of speech, but resolute,\n    truthful character: His purpose seemingly to proselytise, to\n    unite the wakeful earnest in these dark times. Letter from\n    Hofrath Heuschrecke announcing that Teufelsdroeckh has\n    disappeared from Weissnichtwo. Editor guesses he will appear\n    again, Friendly Farewell (p. 219).\n\n\n\n\nON HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP, AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I\n\nTHE HERO AS DIVINITY. ODIN. PAGANISM: SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY\n\n[_Tuesday, 5th May 1840_]\n\n\nWe have undertaken to discourse here for a little on Great Men, their\nmanner of appearance in our world's business, how they have shaped\nthemselves in the world's history, what ideas men formed of them, what\nwork they did;--on Heroes, namely, and on their reception and\nperformance; what I call Hero-worship and the Heroic in human affairs.\nToo evidently this is a large topic; deserving quite other treatment\nthan we can expect to give it at present. A large topic; indeed, an\nillimitable one; wide as Universal History itself. For, as I take it,\nUniversal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this\nworld, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.\nThey were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modellers,\npatterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass\nof men contrived to do or to attain; all things that we see standing\naccomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the\npractical realisation and embodiment, of Thoughts that dwelt in the\nGreat Men sent into the world: the soul of the whole world's history,\nit may justly be considered, were the history of these. Too clearly it\nis a topic we shall do no justice to in this place!\n\nOne comfort is, that Great Men, taken up in any way, are profitable\ncompany. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man,\nwithout gaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain,\nwhich it is good and pleasant to be near. The light which enlightens,\nwhich has enlightened the darkness of the world; and this not as a\nkindled lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary shining by the\ngift of Heaven; a flowing light-fountain, as I say, of native original\ninsight, of manhood and heroic nobleness;--in whose radiance all souls\nfeel that it is well with them. On any terms whatsoever, you will not\ngrudge to wander in such neighbourhood for a while. These Six classes\nof Heroes, chosen out of widely-distant countries and epochs, and in\nmere external figure differing altogether, ought, if we look\nfaithfully at them, to illustrate several things for us. Could we see\n_them_ well, we should get some glimpses into the very marrow of the\nworld's history. How happy, could I but, in any measure, in such times\nas these, make manifest to you the meanings of Heroism; the divine\nrelation (for I may well call it such) which in all times unites a\nGreat Man to other men; and thus, as it were, not exhaust my subject,\nbut so much as break ground on it! At all events, I must make the\nattempt.\n\nIt is well said, in every sense, that a man's religion is the chief\nfact with regard to him. A man's, or a nation of men's. By religion I\ndo not mean here the church-creed which he professes, the articles of\nfaith which he will sign and, in words or otherwise, assert; not this\nwholly, in many cases not this at all. We see men of all kinds of\nprofessed creeds attain to almost all degrees of worth or\nworthlessness under each or any of them. This is not what I call\nreligion, this profession and assertion; which is often only a\nprofession and assertion from the outworks of the man, from the mere\nargumentative region of him, if even so deep as that. But the thing a\nman does practically believe (and this is often enough _without_\nasserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man\ndoes practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his\nvital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny\nthere, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively\ndetermines all the rest. That is his _religion_; or it may be, his\nmere scepticism and _no-religion_: the manner it is in which he feels\nhimself to be spiritually related to the Unseen World or No-World; and\nI say, if you tell me what that is, you tell me to a very great extent\nwhat the man is, what the kind of things he will do is. Of a man or of\na nation we inquire, therefore, first of all, What religion they had?\nWas it Heathenism,--plurality of gods, mere sensuous representation of\nthis Mystery of Life, and for chief recognised element therein\nPhysical Force? Was it Christianism; faith in an Invisible, not as\nreal only, but as the only reality; Time, through every meanest moment\nof it, resting on Eternity; Pagan empire of Force displaced by a\nnobler supremacy, that of Holiness? Was it Scepticism, uncertainty and\ninquiry whether there was an Unseen World, any Mystery of Life except\na mad one;--doubt as to all this, or perhaps unbelief and flat denial?\nAnswering of this question is giving us the soul of the history of the\nman or nation. The thoughts they had were the parents of the actions\nthey did; their feelings were parents of their thoughts: it was the\nunseen and spiritual in them that determined the outward and\nactual;--their religion, as I say, was the great fact about them. In\nthese Discourses, limited as we are, it will be good to direct our\nsurvey chiefly to that religious phasis of the matter. That once known\nwell, all is known. We have chosen as the first Hero in our series,\nOdin the central figure of Scandinavian Paganism; an emblem to us of a\nmost extensive province of things. Let us look for a little at the\nHero as Divinity, the oldest primary form of Heroism.\n\nSurely it seems a very strange-looking thing this Paganism; almost\ninconceivable to us in these days. A bewildering, inextricable jungle\nof delusions, confusions, falsehoods and absurdities, covering the\nwhole field of Life! A thing that fills us with astonishment, almost,\nif it were possible, with incredulity,--for truly it is not easy to\nunderstand that sane men could ever calmly, with their eyes open,\nbelieve and live by such a set of doctrines. That men should have\nworshipped their poor fellow-man as a God, and not him only, but\nstocks and stones, and all manner of animate and inanimate objects;\nand fashioned for themselves such a distracted chaos of hallucinations\nby way of Theory of the Universe: all this looks like an incredible\nfable. Nevertheless it is a clear fact that they did it. Such hideous\ninextricable jungle of misworships, misbeliefs, men, made as we are,\ndid actually hold by, and live at home in. This is strange. Yes, we\nmay pause in sorrow and silence over the depths of darkness that are\nin man; if we rejoice in the heights of purer vision he has attained\nto. Such things were and are in man; in all men; in us too.\n\nSome speculators have a short way of accounting for the Pagan\nreligion: mere quackery, priestcraft, and dupery, say they; no sane\nman ever did believe it,--merely contrived to persuade other men, not\nworthy of the name of sane, to believe it! It will be often our duty\nto protest against this sort of hypothesis about men's doings and\nhistory; and I here, on the very threshold, protest against it in\nreference to Paganism, and to all other _isms_ by which man has ever\nfor a length of time striven to walk in this world. They have all had\na truth in them, or men would not have taken them up. Quackery and\ndupery do abound; in religions, above all in the more advanced\ndecaying stages of religions, they have fearfully abounded: but\nquackery was never the originating influence in such things; it was\nnot the health and life of such things, but their disease, the sure\nprecursor of their being about to die! Let us never forget this. It\nseems to me a most mournful hypothesis, that of quackery giving birth\nto any faith even in savage men. Quackery gives birth to nothing;\ngives death to all things. We shall not see into the true heart of\nanything, or if we look merely at the quackeries of it; if we do not\nreject the quackeries altogether; as mere diseases, corruptions, with\nwhich our and all men's sole duty is to have done with them, to sweep\nthem out of our thoughts as out of our practice. Man everywhere is the\nborn enemy of lies. I find Grand Lamaism itself to have a kind of\ntruth in it. Read the candid, clear-sighted, rather sceptical Mr\nTurner's _Account of his Embassy_ to that country, and see. They have\ntheir belief, these poor Thibet people, that Providence sends down\nalways an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some\nbelief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, belief that there is\na _Greatest_ Man; that _he_ is discoverable; that, once discovered, we\nought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds! This is\nthe truth of Grand Lamaism; the 'discoverability' is the only error\nhere. The Thibet priests have methods of their own of discovering what\nMan is Greatest, fit to be supreme over them. Bad methods: but are\nthey so much worse than our methods,--of understanding him to be\nalways the eldest born of a certain genealogy? Alas, it is a difficult\nthing to find good methods for!--We shall begin to have a chance of\nunderstanding Paganism, when we first admit that to its followers it\nwas, at one time, earnestly true. Let us consider it very certain that\nmen did believe in Paganism; men with open eyes, sound senses, men\nmade altogether like ourselves; that we, had we been there, should\nhave believed in it. Ask now, What Paganism could have been?\n\nAnother theory, somewhat more respectable, attributes such things to\nAllegory. It was a play of poetic minds, say these theorists; a\nshadowing-forth, in allegorical fable, in personification and visual\nform, of what such poetic minds had known and felt of this Universe.\nWhich agrees, add they, with a primary law of human nature, still\neverywhere observably at work, though in less important things, That\nwhat a man feels intensely, he struggles to speak-out of him, to see\nrepresented before him in visual shape, and as if with a kind of life\nand historical reality in it. Now doubtless there is such a law, and\nit is one of the deepest in human nature; neither need we doubt that\nit did operate fundamentally in this business. The hypothesis which\nascribes Paganism wholly or mostly to this agency, I call a little\nmore respectable; but I cannot yet call it the true hypothesis. Think,\nwould _we_ believe, and take with us as our life-guidance, an\nallegory, a poetic sport? Not sport but earnest is what we should\nrequire. It is a most earnest thing to be alive in this world; to die\nis not sport for a man. Man's life never was a sport to him; it was a\nstern reality, altogether a serious matter to be alive!\n\nI find, therefore, that though these Allegory theorists are on the way\ntowards truth in this matter, they have not reached it either. Pagan\nReligion is indeed an Allegory, a Symbol of what men felt and knew\nabout the Universe; and all Religions are Symbols of that, altering\nalways as that alters: but it seems to me a radical perversion, and\neven _in_version, of the business, to put that forward as the origin\nand moving cause, when it was rather the result and termination. To\nget beautiful allegories, a perfect poetic symbol, was not the want of\nmen; but to know what they were to believe about this Universe, what\ncourse they were to steer in it; what, in this mysterious Life of\ntheirs, they had to hope and to fear, to do and to forbear doing. The\n_Pilgrim's Progress_ is an Allegory, and a beautiful, just and serious\none: but consider whether Bunyan's Allegory could have _preceded_ the\nFaith it symbolises! The Faith had to be already there, standing\nbelieved by everybody;--of which the Allegory could _then_ become a\nshadow; and, with all its seriousness, we may say a _sportful_ shadow,\na mere play of the Fancy, in comparison with that awful Fact and\nscientific certainty which it poetically strives to emblem. The\nAllegory is the product of the certainty, not the producer of it; not\nin Bunyan's, nor in any other case. For Paganism, therefore, we have\nstill to inquire, Whence came that scientific certainty, the parent of\nsuch a bewildered heap of allegories, errors and confusions? How was\nit, what was it?\n\nSurely it were a foolish attempt to pretend 'explaining,' in this\nplace, or in any place, such a phenomenon as that far-distant\ndistracted cloudy imbroglio of Paganism,--more like a cloudfield than\na distant continent of firm land and facts! It is no longer a reality,\nyet it was one. We ought to understand that this seeming cloudfield\nwas once a reality; that not poetic allegory, least of all that dupery\nand deception was the origin of it. Men, I say, never did believe idle\nsongs, never risked their soul's life on allegories; men in all times,\nespecially in early earnest times, have had an instinct for detecting\nquacks, for detesting quacks. Let us try if, leaving out both the\nquack theory and the allegory one, and listening with affectionate\nattention to that far-off confused rumour of the Pagan ages, we cannot\nascertain so much as this at least, That there was a kind of fact at\nthe heart of them; that they too were not mendacious and distracted,\nbut in their own poor way true and sane!\n\nYou remember that fancy of Plato's, of a man who had grown to maturity\nin some dark distance, and was brought on a sudden into the upper air\nto see the sun rise. What would his wonder be, his rapt astonishment\nat the sight we daily witness with indifference! With the free open\nsense of a child, yet with the ripe faculty of a man, his whole heart\nwould be kindled by that sight, he would discern it well to be\nGodlike, his soul would fall down in worship before it. Now, just such\na childlike greatness was in the primitive nations. The first Pagan\nThinker among rude men, the first man that began to think, was\nprecisely this child-man of Plato's. Simple, open as a child, yet with\nthe depth and strength of a man. Nature had as yet no name to him; he\nhad not yet united under a name the infinite variety of sights,\nsounds, shapes and motions, which we now collectively name Universe,\nNature, or the like,--and so with a name dismiss it from us. To the\nwild deep-hearted man all was yet new, not veiled under names or\nformulas; it stood naked, flashing-in on him there, beautiful, awful,\nunspeakable. Nature was to this man, what to the Thinker and Prophet\nit forever is, _preter_natural. This green flowery rock-built earth,\nthe trees, the mountains, rivers, many-sounding seas;--that great deep\nsea of azure that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the\nblack cloud fashioning itself together, now pouring out fire, now hail\nand rain; what _is_ it? Ay, what? At bottom we do not yet know; we can\nnever know at all. It is not by our superior insight that we escape\nthe difficulty; it is by our superior levity, our inattention, our\n_want_ of insight. It is by _not_ thinking that we cease to wonder at\nit. Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form, is a\nwrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere _words_. We call that fire of\nthe black thundercloud 'electricity,' and lecture learnedly about it,\nand grind the like of it out of glass and silk: but _what_ is it? What\nmade it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it? Science has done much for\nus; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great deep\nsacred infinitude of Nescience, whither we can never penetrate, on\nwhich all science swims as a mere superficial film. This world, after\nall our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful,\ninscrutable, _magical_ and more, to whosoever will _think_ of it.\n\nThat great mystery of TIME, were there no other: the illimitable,\nsilent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift,\nsilent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the\nUniverse swim like exhalations, like apparitions which _are_, and then\n_are not_: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike\nus dumb,--for we have no word to speak about it. This Universe, ah\nme--what could the wild man know of it; what can we yet know? That it\nis a Force, and thousandfold Complexity of Forces; a Force which is\n_not we_. That is all; it is not we, it is altogether different from\n_us_. Force, Force, everywhere Force; we ourselves a mysterious Force\nin the centre of that. 'There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but\nhas Force in it: how else could it rot?' Nay surely, to the Atheistic\nThinker, if such a one were possible, it must be a miracle too, this\nhuge illimitable whirlwind of Force, which envelops us here;\nnever-resting whirlwind, high as Immensity, old as Eternity. What is\nit? God's creation, the religious people answer; it is the Almighty\nGod's! Atheistic science babbles poorly of it, with scientific\nnomenclatures, experiments and what-not, as if it were a poor dead\nthing, to be bottled up in Leyden jars and sold over counters: but the\nnatural sense of man, in all times, if he will honestly apply his\nsense, proclaims it to be a living thing,--ah, an unspeakable, godlike\nthing; towards which the best attitude for us, after never so much\nscience, is awe, devout prostration and humility of soul; worship if\nnot in words, then in silence.\n\nBut now I remark farther: What in such a time as ours it requires a\nProphet or Poet to teach us, namely, the stripping-off of those poor\nundevout wrappages, nomenclatures and scientific hearsays,---this, the\nancient earnest soul, as yet unencumbered with these things, did for\nitself. The world, which is now divine only to the gifted, was then\ndivine to whosoever would turn his eye upon it. He stood bare before\nit face to face. 'All was Godlike or God:'--Jean Paul still finds it\nso; the giant Jean Paul, who has power to escape out of hearsays: but\nthere then were no hearsays. Canopus shining-down over the desert,\nwith its blue diamond brightness (that wild blue spirit-like\nbrightness, far brighter than we ever witness here), would pierce into\nthe heart of the wild Ishmaelitish man, whom it was guiding through\nthe solitary waste there. To his wild heart, with all feelings in it,\nwith no _speech_ for any feeling, it may seem a little eye, that\nCanopus, glancing-out on him from the great deep Eternity; revealing\nthe inner Splendour to him. Cannot we understand how these men\n_worshipped_ Canopus; became what we call Sabeans, worshipping the\nstars? Such is to me the secret of all forms of Paganism. Worship is\ntranscendent wonder; wonder for which there is now no limit or\nmeasure; that is worship. To these primeval men, all things and\neverything they saw exist beside them were an emblem of the Godlike,\nof some God.\n\nAnd look what perennial fibre of truth was in that. To us also,\nthrough every star, through every blade of grass, is not a God made\nvisible, if we will open our minds and eyes? We do not worship in that\nway now: but is it not reckoned still a merit, proof of what we call a\n'poetic nature,' that we recognise how every object has a divine\nbeauty in it; how every object still verily is 'a window through which\nwe may look into Infinitude itself'? He that can discern the\nloveliness of things, we call him Poet, Painter, Man of Genius,\ngifted, lovable. These poor Sabeans did even what he does,--in their\nown fashion. That they did it, in what fashion soever, was a merit:\nbetter than what the entirely stupid man did, what the horse and camel\ndid,--namely, nothing!\n\nBut now if all things whatsoever that we look upon are emblems to us\nof the Highest God, I add that more so than any of them is man such an\nemblem. You have heard of St. Chrysostom's celebrated saying in\nreference to the Shekinah, or Ark of Testimony, visible Revelation of\nGod, among the Hebrews: \"The true Shekinah is Man!\" Yes, it is even\nso: this is no vain phrase; it is veritably so. The essence of our\nbeing, the mystery in us that calls itself \"I,\"--ah, what words have\nwe for such things?--is a breath of Heaven; the Highest Being reveals\nhimself in _man_. This body, these faculties, this life of ours, is it\nnot all as a vesture for that Unnamed? 'There is but one Temple in the\nUniverse,' says the devout Novalis, 'and that is the Body of Man.\nNothing is holier than that high form. Bending before men is a\nreverence done to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven when\nwe lay our hand on a human body!' This sounds much like a mere\nflourish of rhetoric; but it is not so. If well meditated, it will\nturn out to be a scientific fact; the expression, in such words as can\nbe had, of the actual truth of the thing. _We_ are the miracle of\nmiracles,--the great inscrutable mystery of God. We cannot understand\nit, we know not how to speak of it; but we may feel and know, if we\nlike, that it is verily so.\n\nWell; these truths were once more readily felt than now. The young\ngenerations of the world, who had in them the freshness of young\nchildren, and yet the depth of earnest men, who did not think that\nthey had finished-off all things in Heaven and Earth by merely giving\nthem scientific names, but had to gaze direct at them there, with awe\nand wonder: they felt better what of divinity is in man and\nNature;--they, without being mad, could _worship_ Nature, and man more\nthan anything else in Nature. Worship, that is, as I said above,\nadmire without limit: this, in the full use of their faculties, with\nall sincerity of heart, they could do. I consider Hero-worship to be\nthe grand modifying element in that ancient system of thought. What I\ncalled the perplexed jungle of Paganism sprang, we may say, out of\nmany roots: every admiration, adoration of a star or natural object,\nwas a root or fibre of a root; but Hero-worship is the deepest root of\nall; the tap-root, from which in a great degree all the rest were\nnourished and grown.\n\nAnd now if worship even of a star had some meaning in it, how much\nmore might that of a Hero! Worship of a Hero is transcendent\nadmiration of a Great Man. I say great men are still admirable; I say\nthere is, at bottom, nothing else admirable! No nobler feeling than\nthis of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of\nman. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in\nman's life. Religion I find stand upon it; not Paganism only, but far\nhigher and truer religions,--all religion hitherto known.\nHero-worship, heartfelt prostrate admiration, submission, burning,\nboundless, for a noblest godlike Form of Man,--is not that the germ of\nChristianity itself? The greatest of all Heroes is One--whom we do not\nname here! Let sacred silence meditate that sacred matter; you will\nfind it the ultimate perfection of a principle extant throughout man's\nwhole history on earth.\n\nOr coming into lower, less _un_speakable provinces, is not all Loyalty\nakin to religious Faith also? Faith is loyalty to some inspired\nTeacher, some spiritual Hero. And what therefore is loyalty proper,\nthe life-breath of all society, but an effluence of Hero-worship,\nsubmissive admiration for the truly great? Society is founded on\nHero-worship. All dignities of rank, on which human association rests,\nare what we may call a _Hero_archy (Government of Heroes),--or a\nHierarchy, for it is 'sacred' enough withal! The Duke means _Dux_,\nLeader; King is _Koen-ning_, _Kan-ning_, Man that _knows_ or _cans_.\nSociety everywhere is some representation, not _in_supportably\ninaccurate, of a graduated Worship of Heroes;--reverence and obedience\ndone to men really great and wise. Not _in_supportably inaccurate, I\nsay! They are all as bank-notes, these social dignitaries, all\nrepresenting gold;--and several of them, alas, always are _forged_\nnotes. We can do with some forged false notes; with a good many even;\nbut not with all, or the most of them forged! No: there have to come\nrevolutions then; cries of Democracy, Liberty, and Equality, and I\nknow not what:--the notes being all false, and no gold to be had for\n_them_, people take to crying in their despair that there is no gold,\nthat there never was any!--'Gold,' Hero-worship, _is_ nevertheless, as\nit was always and everywhere, and cannot cease till man himself\nceases.\n\nI am well aware that in these days Hero-worship, the thing I call\nHero-worship, professes to have gone out, and finally ceased. This,\nfor reasons which it will be worth while some time to inquire into, is\nan age that as it were denies the existence of great men; denies the\ndesirableness of great men. Show our critics a great man, a Luther for\nexample, they begin to what they call 'account' for him; not to\nworship him, but take the dimensions of him,--and bring him out to be\na little kind of man! He was the 'creature of the Time,' they say; the\nTime called him forth, the Time did everything, he nothing--but what\nwe the little critic could have done too! This seems to me but\nmelancholy work. The Time call forth? Alas, we have known Times _call_\nloudly enough for their great man; but not find him when they called!\nHe was not there; Providence had not sent him; the Time, _calling_ its\nloudest, had to go down to confusion and wreck because he would not\ncome when called.\n\nFor if we will think of it, no Time need have gone to ruin, could it\nhave _found_ a man great enough, a man wise and good enough: wisdom to\ndiscern truly what the Time wanted, valour to lead it on the right\nroad thither; these are the salvation of any Time. But I liken common\nlanguid Times, with their unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their\nlanguid doubting characters and embarrassed circumstances, impotently\ncrumbling-down into ever worse distress towards final ruin;--all this\nI liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for the lightning out of Heaven that\nshall kindle it. The great man, with his free force direct out of\nGod's own hand, is the lightning. His word is the wise healing word\nwhich all can believe in. All blazes round him now, when he has once\nstruck on it, into fire like his own. The dry mouldering sticks are\nthought to have called him forth. They did want him greatly; but as to\ncalling him forth--!--Those are critics of small vision, I think, who\ncry: \"See, is it not the sticks that made the fire?\" No sadder proof\ncan be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great\nmen. There is no sadder symptom of a generation than such general\nblindness to the spiritual lightning, with faith only in the heap of\nbarren dead fuel. It is the last consummation of unbelief. In all\nepochs of the world's history, we shall find the Great Man to have\nbeen the indispensable saviour of his epoch;--the lightning, without\nwhich the fuel never would have burnt. The History of the World, I\nsaid already, was the Biography of Great Men.\n\nSuch small critics do what they can to promote unbelief and universal\nspiritual paralysis; but happily they cannot always completely\nsucceed. In all times it is possible for a man to arise great enough\nto feel that they and their doctrines are chimeras and cobwebs. And\nwhat is notable, in no time whatever can they entirely eradicate out\nof living men's hearts a certain altogether peculiar reverence for\nGreat Men; genuine admiration, loyalty, adoration, however dim and\nperverted it may be. Hero-worship endures for ever while man endures.\nBoswell venerates his Johnson, right truly even in the Eighteenth\ncentury. The unbelieving French believe in their Voltaire; and\nburst-out round him into very curious Hero-worship, in that last act\nof his life when they 'stifle him under roses.' It has always seemed\nto me extremely curious this of Voltaire. Truly, if Christianity be\nthe highest instance of Hero-worship, then we may find here in\nVoltaireism one of the lowest! He whose life was that of a kind of\nAntichrist, does again on this side exhibit a curious contrast. No\npeople ever were so little prone to admire at all as those French of\nVoltaire. _Persiflage_ was the character of their whole mind;\nadoration had nowhere a place in it. Yet see! The old man of Ferney\ncomes up to Paris; an old, tottering, infirm man of eighty-four years.\nThey feel that he too is a kind of Hero; that he has spent his life in\nopposing error and injustice, delivering Calases, unmasking hypocrites\nin high places;--in short that _he_ too, though in a strange way, has\nfought like a valiant man. They feel withal that, if _persiflage_ be\nthe great thing, there never was such a _persifleur_. He is the\nrealised ideal of every one of them; the thing they are all wanting to\nbe; of all Frenchmen the most French. _He_ is properly their\ngod,--such god as they are fit for. Accordingly all persons, from the\nQueen Antoinette to the Douanier at the Porte St. Denis, do they not\nworship him? People of quality disguise themselves as tavern-waiters.\nThe Maitre de Poste, with a broad oath, orders his Postillion, \"_Va\nbon train_; thou art driving M. de Voltaire.\" At Paris his carriage is\n'the nucleus of a comet, whose train fills whole streets.' The ladies\npluck a hair or two from his fur, to keep it as a sacred relic. There\nwas nothing highest, beautifulest, noblest in all France, that did not\nfeel this man to be higher, beautifuler, nobler.\n\nYes, from Norse Odin to English Samuel Johnson, from the divine\nFounder of Christianity to the withered Pontiff of Encyclopedism, in\nall times and places, the Hero has been worshipped. It will ever be\nso. We all love great men; love, venerate, and bow down submissive\nbefore great men: nay can we honestly bow down to anything else? Ah,\ndoes not every true man feel that he is himself made higher by doing\nreverence to what is really above him? No nobler or more blessed\nfeeling dwells in man's heart. And to me it is very cheering to\nconsider that no sceptical logic, or general triviality, insincerity\nand aridity of any Time and its influences can destroy this noble\ninborn loyalty and worship that is in man. In times of unbelief, which\nsoon have to become times of revolution, much down-rushing, sorrowful\ndecay and ruin is visible to everybody. For myself in these days, I\nseem to see in this indestructibility of Hero-worship the everlasting\nadamant lower than which the confused wreck of revolutionary things\ncannot fall. The confused wreck of things crumbling and even crashing\nand tumbling all round us in these revolutionary ages, will get down\nso far; _no_ farther. It is an eternal corner-stone, from which they\ncan begin to build themselves up again. That man, in some sense or\nother, worships Heroes; that we all of us reverence and must ever\nreverence Great Men: this is, to me, the living rock amid all\nrushings-down whatsoever;--the one fixed point in modern revolutionary\nhistory, otherwise as if bottomless and shoreless.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo much of truth, only under an ancient obsolete vesture, but the\nspirit of it still true, do I find in the Paganism of old nations.\nNature is still divine, the revelation of the workings of God; the\nHero is still worshipable: this, under poor cramped incipient forms,\nis what all Pagan religions have struggled, as they could, to set\nforth. I think Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting\nthan any other. It is, for one thing, the latest; it continued in\nthese regions of Europe till the eleventh century: eight-hundred years\nago the Norwegians were still worshippers of Odin. It is interesting\nalso as the creed of our fathers; the men whose blood still runs in\nour veins, whom doubtless we still resemble in so many ways. Strange:\nthey did believe that, while we believe so differently. Let us look a\nlittle at this poor Norse creed, for many reasons. We have tolerable\nmeans to do it; for there is another point of interest in these\nScandinavian mythologies: that they have been preserved so well.\n\nIn that strange island Iceland,--burst-up, the geologists say, by fire\nfrom the bottom of the sea; a wild land of barrenness and lava;\nswallowed many months of every year in black tempests, yet with a wild\ngleaming beauty in summer-time; towering up there, stern and grim, in\nthe North Ocean; with its snow jokuls, roaring geysers, sulphur-pools\nand horrid volcanic chasms, like the waste chaotic battle-field of\nFrost and Fire;--where of all places we least looked for Literature or\nwritten memorials, the record of these things was written down. On the\nseaboard of this wild land is a rim of grassy country, where cattle\ncan subsist, and men by means of them and of what the sea yields; and\nit seems they were poetic men these, men who had deep thoughts in\nthem, and uttered musically their thoughts. Much would be lost, had\nIceland not been burst-up from the sea, not been discovered by the\nNorthmen! The old Norse Poets were many of them natives of Iceland.\n\nSaemund, one of the early Christian Priests there, who perhaps had a\nlingering fondness for Paganism, collected certain of their old Pagan\nsongs, just about becoming obsolete then,--Poems or Chants of a\nmythic, prophetic, mostly all of a religious character: that is what\nNorse critics call the _Elder_ or Poetic _Edda_. _Edda_, a word of\nuncertain etymology, is thought to signify _Ancestress_. Snorro\nSturleson, an Iceland gentleman, an extremely notable personage,\neducated by this Saemund's grandson, took in hand next, near a century\nafterwards, to put together, among several other books he wrote, a\nkind of Prose Synopsis of the whole Mythology; elucidated by new\nfragments of traditionary verse. A work constructed really with great\ningenuity, native talent, what one might call unconscious art;\naltogether a perspicuous clear work, pleasant reading still: this is\nthe _Younger_ or Prose _Edda_. By these and the numerous other\n_Sagas_, mostly Icelandic, with the commentaries, Icelandic or not,\nwhich go on zealously in the North to this day, it is possible to gain\nsome direct insight even yet; and see that old Norse system of Belief,\nas it were, face to face. Let us forget that it is erroneous Religion;\nlet us look at it as old Thought, and try if we cannot sympathise with\nit somewhat.\n\nThe primary characteristic of this old Northland Mythology I find to\nbe Impersonation of the visible workings of Nature. Earnest simple\nrecognition of the workings of Physical Nature, as a thing wholly\nmiraculous, stupendous and divine. What we now lecture of as Science,\nthey wondered at, and fell down in awe before, as Religion. The dark\nhostile powers of Nature they figure to themselves as '_Joetuns_,'\nGiants, huge shaggy beings of a demonic character. Frost, Fire,\nSea-tempest; these are Joetuns. The friendly powers again, as\nSummer-heat, the Sun, are Gods. The empire of this Universe is divided\nbetween these two; they dwell apart, in perennial internecine feud.\nThe Gods dwell above in Asgard, the Garden of the Asen, or Divinities;\nJoetunheim, a distant dark chaotic land, is the home of the Joetuns.\n\nCurious all this; and not idle or inane, if we will look at the\nfoundation of it! The power of _Fire_, or _Flame_, for instance, which\nwe designate by some trivial chemical name, thereby hiding from\nourselves the essential character of wonder that dwells in it as in\nall things, is with these old Northmen, Loke, a most swift subtle\n_Demon_, of the brood of the Joetuns. The savages of the Ladrones\nIslands too (say some Spanish voyagers) thought Fire, which they never\nhad seen before, was a devil or god, that bit you sharply when you\ntouched it, and that lived upon dry wood. From us too no Chemistry, if\nit had not Stupidity to help it, would hide that Flame is a wonder.\nWhat _is_ Flame?--_Frost_ the old Norse Seer discerns to be a\nmonstrous hoary Joetun, the Giant _Thrym_, _Hrym_: or _Rime_, the old\nword now nearly obsolete here, but still used in Scotland to signify\nhoar-frost. _Rime_ was not then as now a dead chemical thing, but a\nliving Joetun or Devil; the monstrous Joetun _Rime_ drove home his\nHorses at night, sat 'combing their manes,'--which Horses were\n_Hail-Clouds_, or fleet _Frost-Winds_. His Cows--No, not his, but a\nkinsman's, the Giant Hymir's Cows are _Icebergs_: this Hymir 'looks at\nthe rocks' with his devil-eye, and they _split_ in the glance of it.\n\nThunder was not then mere Electricity, vitreous or resinous; it was\nthe God Donner (Thunder) or Thor,--God also of beneficent Summer-heat.\nThe thunder was his wrath; the gathering of the black clouds is the\ndrawing down of Thor's angry brows; the fire-bolt bursting out of\nHeaven is the all-rending Hammer flung from the hand of Thor: he urges\nhis loud chariot over the mountain-tops,--that is the peal: wrathful\nhe 'blows in his red beard,'--that is the rustling storm-blast before\nthe thunder begin. Balder again, the White God, the beautiful, the\njust and benignant (whom the early Christian Missionaries found to\nresemble Christ), is the Sun--beautifulest of visible things; wondrous\ntoo, and divine still, after all our Astronomies and Almanacs! But\nperhaps the notablest god we hear tell-of is one of whom Grimm the\nGerman Etymologist finds trace: the God _Wuensch_, or Wish. The God\n_Wish_; who could give us all that we _wished_! Is not this the\nsincerest yet rudest voice of the spirit of man? The _rudest_ ideal\nthat man ever formed; which still shows itself in the latest forms of\nour spiritual culture. Higher considerations have to teach us that the\nGod _Wish_ is not the true God.\n\nOf the other Gods or Joetuns I will mention only for etymology's sake,\nthat Sea-tempest is the Joetun _Aegir_, a very dangerous Joetun;--and\nnow to this day, on our river Trent, as I learn, the Nottingham\nbargemen, when the River is in a certain flooded state (a kind of\nback-water, or eddying swirl it has, very dangerous to them), call it\n_Eager_; they cry out, \"Have a care, there is the _Eager_ coming!\"\nCurious; that word surviving, like the peak of a submerged world! The\n_oldest_ Nottingham bargemen had believed in the God Aegir. Indeed,\nour English blood too in good part is Danish, Norse; or rather, at\nbottom, Danish and Norse and Saxon have no distinction, except a\nsuperficial one,--as of Heathen and Christian, or the like. But all\nover our Island we are mingled largely with Danes proper,--from the\nincessant invasions there were: and this, of course, in a greater\nproportion along the east coast; and greatest of all, as I find, in\nthe North Country. From the Humber upwards, all over Scotland, the\nSpeech of the common people is still in a singular degree Icelandic;\nits Germanism has still a peculiar Norse tinge. They too are\n'Normans,' Northmen,--if that be any great beauty!--\n\nOf the chief god, Odin, we shall speak by and by. Mark at present so\nmuch; what the essence of Scandinavian and indeed of all Paganism is:\na recognition of the forces of Nature as godlike, stupendous, personal\nAgencies,--as Gods and Demons. Not inconceivable to us. It is the\ninfant Thought of man opening itself, with awe and wonder, on this\never-stupendous Universe. To me there is in the Norse System something\nvery genuine, very great and manlike. A broad simplicity, rusticity,\nso very different from the light gracefulness of the old Greek\nPaganism, distinguishes this Scandinavian System. It is Thought; the\ngenuine Thought of deep, rude, earnest minds, fairly opened to the\nthings about them; a face-to-face and heart-to-heart inspection of the\nthings,--the first characteristic of all good Thought in all times.\nNot graceful lightness, half-sport, as in the Greek Paganism; a\ncertain homely truthfulness and rustic strength, a great rude\nsincerity, discloses itself here. It is strange, after our beautiful\nApollo statues and clear smiling mythuses, to come down upon the Norse\nGods 'brewing ale' to hold their feast with Aegir, the Sea-Joetun;\nsending out Thor to get the caldron for them in the Joetun country;\nThor, after many adventures, clapping the Pot on his head, like a huge\nhat, and walking off with it,--quite lost in it, the ears of the Pot\nreaching down to his heels! A kind of vacant hugeness, large awkward\ngianthood, characterises that Norse System; enormous force, as yet\naltogether untutored, stalking helpless with large uncertain strides.\nConsider only their primary mythus of the Creation. The Gods, having\ngot the Giant Ymer slain, a Giant made by 'warm wind,' and much\nconfused work, out of the conflict of Frost and Fire,--determined on\nconstructing a world with him. His blood made the sea; his flesh was\nthe Land, the Rocks his bones; of his eyebrows they formed Asgard\ntheir Gods'-dwelling; his skull was the great blue vault of Immensity,\nand the brains of it became the Clouds. What a Hyper-Brobdignagian\nbusiness! Untamed Thought, great, giantlike, enormous;--to be tamed in\ndue time into the compact greatness, not giant-like, but godlike and\nstronger than gianthood, of the Shakspeares, the Goethes!--Spiritually\nas well as bodily these men are our progenitors.\n\nI like, too, that representation they have of the Tree Igdrasil. All\nLife is figured by them as a Tree. Igdrasil, the Ash-tree of\nExistence, has its roots deep-down in the kingdoms of Hela or Death;\nits trunk reaches up heaven-high, spreads its boughs over the whole\nUniverse: it is the Tree of Existence. At the foot of it, in the\nDeath-kingdom, sit three _Nornas_, Fates,--the Past, Present, Future;\nwatering its roots from the Sacred Well. Its 'boughs,' with their\nbuddings and disleafings,--events, things suffered, things done,\ncatastrophes,--stretch through all lands and times. Is not every leaf\nof it a biography, every fibre there an act or word? Its boughs are\nHistories of Nations. The rustle of it is the noise of Human\nExistence, onwards from of old. It grows there, the breath of Human\nPassion rustling through it;--or stormtost, the stormwind howling\nthrough it like the voice of all the gods. It is Igdrasil, the Tree of\nExistence. It is the past, the present, and the future; what was done,\nwhat is doing, what will be done; 'the infinite conjugation of the\nverb _To do_.' Considering how human things circulate, each\ninextricably in communion with all,--how the word I speak to you\nto-day is borrowed, not from Ulfila the Moesogoth only, but from all\nmen since the first man began to speak,--I find no similitude so true\nas this of a Tree. Beautiful; altogether beautiful and great. The\n'_Machine_ of the Universe,'--alas, do but think of that in contrast!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWell, it is strange enough this old Norse view of Nature; different\nenough from what we believe of Nature. Whence it specially came, one\nwould not like to be compelled to say very minutely! One thing we may\nsay: It came from the thoughts of Norse men;--from the thought, above\nall, of the _first_ Norse man who had an original power of thinking.\nThe First Norse 'man of genius,' as we should call him! Innumerable\nmen had passed by, across this Universe, with a dumb vague wonder,\nsuch as the very animals may feel; or with a painful, fruitlessly\ninquiring wonder, such as men only feel;--till the great Thinker came,\nthe _original_ man, the Seer; whose shaped spoken Thought awakes the\nslumbering capability of all into Thought. It is ever the way with the\nThinker, the spiritual Hero. What he says, all men were not far from\nsaying, were longing to say. The Thoughts of all start up, as from\npainful enchanted sleep, round his Thought; answering to it, Yes, even\nso! Joyful to men as the dawning of day from night; _is_ it not,\nindeed, the awakening for them from no-being into being, from death\ninto life? We still honour such a man; call him Poet, Genius, and so\nforth: but to these wild men he was a very magician, a worker of\nmiraculous unexpected blessing for them; a Prophet, a God!--Thought\nonce awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of\nThought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation,--till\nits full stature is reached, and _such_ System of Thought can grow no\nfarther, but must give place to another.\n\nFor the Norse people, the Man now named Odin, and Chief Norse God, we\nfancy, was such a man. A Teacher, and Captain of soul and of body; a\nHero, of worth _im_measurable; admiration for whom, transcending the\nknown bounds, became adoration. Has he not the power of articulate\nThinking; and many other powers, as yet miraculous? So, with boundless\ngratitude, would the rude Norse heart feel. Has he not solved for them\nthe sphinx-enigma of this Universe; given assurance to them of their\nown destiny there? By him they know now what they have to do here,\nwhat to look for hereafter. Existence has become articulate, melodious\nby him; he first has made Life alive!--We may call this Odin, the\norigin of Norse Mythology: Odin, or whatever name the First Norse\nThinker bore while he was a man among men. His view of the Universe\nonce promulgated, a like view starts into being in all minds; grows,\nkeeps ever growing, while it continues credible there. In all minds it\nlay written, but invisibly, as in sympathetic ink; at his word it\nstarts into visibility in all. Nay, in every epoch of the world, the\ngreat event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker\nin the world!--\n\nOne other thing we must not forget; it will explain, a little, the\nconfusion of these Norse Eddas. They are not one coherent System of\nThought; but properly the _summation_ of several successive systems.\nAll this of the old Norse Belief which is flung-out for us, in one\nlevel of distance in the Edda, like a picture painted on the same\ncanvas, does not at all stand so in the reality. It stands rather at\nall manner of distances and depths, of successive generations since\nthe Belief first began. All Scandinavian thinkers, since the first of\nthem, contributed to the Scandinavian System of Thought; in ever-new\nelaboration and addition, it is the combined work of them all. What\nhistory it had, how it changed from shape to shape, by one thinker's\ncontribution after another, till it got to the full final shape we see\nit under in the _Edda_, no man will now ever know: _its_ Councils of\nTrebisond, Councils of Trent, Athanasiuses, Dantes, Luthers, are sunk\nwithout echo in the dark night! Only that it had such a history we can\nall know. Wheresoever a thinker appeared, there in the thing he\nthought-of was a contribution, accession, a change or revolution made.\nAlas, the grandest 'revolution' of all, the one made by the man Odin\nhimself, is not this too sunk for us like the rest! Of Odin what\nhistory? Strange rather to reflect that he _had_ a history! That this\nOdin, in his wild Norse vesture, with his wild beard and eyes, his\nrude Norse speech and ways, was a man like us; with our sorrows, joys,\nwith our limbs, features;--intrinsically all one as we: and did such a\nwork! But the work, much of it, has perished; the worker, all to the\nname. \"_Wednes_day,\" men will say to-morrow; Odin's day! Of Odin there\nexists no history; no document of it; no guess about it worth\nrepeating.\n\nSnorro indeed, in the quietest manner, almost in a brief business\nstyle, writes down, in his _Heimskringla_, how Odin was a heroic\nPrince, in the Black-Sea region, with Twelve Peers, and a great people\nstraitened for room. How he led these _Asen_ (Asiatics) of his out of\nAsia; settled them in the North parts of Europe, by warlike conquest;\ninvented Letters, Poetry and so forth,--and came by and by to be\nworshipped as Chief God by these Scandinavians, his Twelve Peers made\ninto Twelve Sons of his own, Gods like himself: Snorro has no doubt of\nthis. Saxo Grammaticus, a very curious Northman of that same century,\nis still more unhesitating; scruples not to find out a historical fact\nin every individual mythus, and writes it down as a terrestrial event\nin Denmark or elsewhere. Torfaeus, learned and cautious, some centuries\nlater, assigns by calculation a _date_ for it: Odin, he says, came\ninto Europe about the Year 70 before Christ. Of all which, as grounded\non mere uncertainties, found to be untenable now, I need say nothing.\nFar, very far beyond the Year 70! Odin's date, adventures, whole\nterrestrial history, figure and environment are sunk from us forever\ninto unknown thousands of years.\n\nNay Grimm, the German Antiquary, goes so far as to deny that any man\nOdin ever existed. He proves it by etymology. The word _Wuotan_, which\nis the original form of _Odin_, a word spread, as name of their chief\nDivinity, over all the Teutonic Nations everywhere; this word, which\nconnects itself, according to Grimm, with the Latin _vadere_, with the\nEnglish _wade_ and suchlike,--means primarily _Movement_, Source of\nMovement, Power; and is the fit name of the highest god, not of any\nman. The word signifies Divinity, he says, among the old Saxon, German\nand all Teutonic Nations; the adjectives formed from it all signify\n_divine_, _supreme_, or something pertaining to the chief god. Like\nenough! We must bow to Grimm in matters etymological. Let us consider\nit fixed that _Wuotan_ means _Wading_, force of _Movement_. And now\nstill, what hinders it from being the name of a Heroic Man and\n_Mover_, as well as of a god? As for the adjectives, and words formed\nfrom it,--did not the Spaniards in their universal admiration for\nLope, get into the habit of saying 'a Lope flower,' a 'Lope _dama_,'\nif the flower or woman were of surpassing beauty? Had this lasted,\n_Lope_ would have grown, in Spain, to be an adjective signifying\n_godlike_ also. Indeed, Adam Smith, in his _Essay on Language_,\nsurmises that all adjectives whatsoever were formed precisely in that\nway: some very green thing chiefly notable for its greenness, got the\nappellative name _Green_, and then the next thing remarkable for that\nquality, a tree for instance, was named the _green_ tree,--as we still\nsay 'the _steam coach_,' 'four-horse coach,' or the like. All primary\nadjectives, according to Smith, were formed in this way; were at first\nsubstantives and things. We cannot annihilate a man for etymologies\nlike that! Surely there was a First Teacher and Captain; surely there\nmust have been an Odin, palpable to the sense at one time; no\nadjective, but a real Hero of flesh and blood! The voice of all\ntradition, history or echo of history, agrees with all that thought\nwill teach one about it, to assure us of this.\n\nHow the man Odin came to be considered a _god_, the chief god?--that\nsurely is a question which nobody would wish to dogmatise upon. I have\nsaid, his people knew no _limits_ to their admiration of him; they had\nas yet no scale to measure admiration by. Fancy your own generous\nheart's-love of some greatest man expanding till it _transcended_ all\nbounds, till it filled and overflowed the whole field of your thought!\nOr what if this man Odin,--since a great deep soul, with the afflatus\nand mysterious tide of vision and impulse rushing on him he knows not\nwhence, is ever an enigma, a kind of terror and wonder to\nhimself,--should have felt that perhaps _he_ was divine; that _he_ was\nsome effluence of the 'Wuotan,' '_Movement_,' Supreme Power and\nDivinity, of whom to his rapt vision all Nature was the awful\nFlame-image; that some effluence of _Wuotan_ dwelt here in him! He was\nnot necessarily false; he was but mistaken, speaking the truest he\nknew. A great soul, any sincere soul, knows not _what_ he\nis,--alternates between the highest height and the lowest depth; can,\nof all things, the least measure--Himself! What others take him for,\nand what he guesses that he may be; these two items strangely act on\none another, help to determine one another. With all men reverently\nadmiring him; with his own wild soul full of noble ardours and\naffections, of whirlwind chaotic darkness and glorious new light; a\ndivine Universe bursting all into godlike beauty round him, and no man\nto whom the like ever had befallen, what could he think himself to be?\n\"Wuotan?\" All men answered, \"Wuotan!\"--\n\nAnd then consider what mere Time will do in such cases; how if a man\nwas great while living, he becomes tenfold greater when dead. What an\nenormous _camera-obscura_ magnifier is Tradition! How a thing grows in\nthe human Memory, in the human Imagination, when love, worship and all\nthat lies in the human Heart, is there to encourage it. And in the\ndarkness, in the entire ignorance; without date or document, no book,\nno Arundel-marble; only here and there some dumb monumental cairn.\nWhy, in thirty or forty years, were there no books, any great man\nwould grow _mythic_, the contemporaries who had once seen him, being\nall dead. And in three-hundred years, and three-thousand years--!--To\nattempt _theorising_ on such matters would profit little: they are\nmatters which refuse to be _theoremed_ and diagramed; which Logic\nought to know that she _cannot_ speak of. Enough for us to discern,\nfar in the uttermost distance, some gleam as of a small real light\nshining in the centre of that enormous camera-obscura image; to\ndiscern that the centre of it all was not a madness and nothing, but a\nsanity and something.\n\nThis light, kindled in the great dark vortex of the Norse mind, dark\nbut living, waiting only for light; this is to me the centre of the\nwhole. How such light will then shine out, and with wondrous\nthousandfold expansion spread itself, in forms and colours, depends\nnot on _it_, so much as on the National Mind recipient of it. The\ncolours and forms of your light will be those of the _cut-glass_ it\nhas to shine through.--Curious to think how, for every man, any the\ntruest fact is modelled by the nature of the man! I said, The earnest\nman, speaking to his brother men, must always have stated what seemed\nto him a _fact_, a real Appearance of Nature. But the way in which\nsuch Appearance or fact shaped itself,--what sort of _fact_ it became\nfor him,--was and is modified by his own laws of thinking; deep,\nsubtle, but universal, ever-operating laws. The world of Nature, for\nevery man, is the Phantasy of Himself; this world is the multiplex\n'Image of his own Dream.' Who knows to what unnameable subtleties of\nspiritual law all these Pagan Fables owe their shape! The number\n_Twelve_, divisiblest of all, which could be halved, quartered, parted\ninto three, into six, the most remarkable number,--this was enough to\ndetermine the _Signs of the Zodiac_, the number of Odin's _Sons_, and\ninnumerable other Twelves. Any vague rumour of number had a tendency\nto settle itself into Twelve. So with regard to every other matter.\nAnd quite unconsciously too,--with no notion of building-up\n'Allegories'! But the fresh clear glance of those First Ages would be\nprompt in discerning the secret relations of things, and wholly open\nto obey these. Schiller finds in the _Cestus of Venus_ an everlasting\naesthetic truth as to the nature of all Beauty; curious:--but he is\ncareful not to insinuate that the old Greek Mythists had any notion of\nlecturing about the 'Philosophy of Criticism'!----On the whole we must\nleave those boundless regions. Cannot we conceive that Odin was a\nreality? Error indeed, error enough: but sheer falsehood, idle fables,\nallegory aforethought,--we will not believe that our Fathers believed\nin these.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOdin's _Runes_ are a significant feature of him. Runes, and the\nmiracles of 'magic' he worked by them, make a great feature in\ntradition. Runes are the Scandinavian Alphabet; suppose Odin to have\nbeen the inventor of Letters, as well as 'magic,' among that people!\nIt is the greatest invention man has ever made, this of marking down\nthe unseen thought that is in him by written characters. It is a kind\nof second speech, almost as miraculous as the first. You remember the\nastonishment and incredulity of Atahualpa the Peruvian King; how he\nmade the Spanish Soldier who was guarding him scratch _Dios_ on his\nthumb-nail, that he might try the next soldier with it, to ascertain\nwhether such a miracle was possible. If Odin brought Letters among his\npeople, he might work magic enough!\n\nWriting by Runes has some air of being original among the Norsemen:\nnot a Phoenician Alphabet, but a native Scandinavian one. Snorro tells\nus farther that Odin invented Poetry; the music of human speech, as\nwell as that miraculous runic marking of it. Transport yourselves into\nthe early childhood of nations; the first beautiful morning-light of\nour Europe, when all yet lay in fresh young radiance as of a great\nsunrise, and our Europe was first beginning to think, to be! Wonder,\nhope; infinite radiance of hope and wonder, as of a young child's\nthoughts, in the hearts of these strong men! Strong sons of Nature;\nand here was not only a wild Captain and Fighter; discerning with his\nwild flashing eyes what to do, with his wild lion-heart daring and\ndoing it; but a Poet too, all that we mean by a Poet, Prophet, great\ndevout Thinker and Inventor,--as the truly Great Man ever is. A Hero\nis a Hero at all points; in the soul and thought of him first of all.\nThis Odin, in his rude semi-articulate way, had a word to speak. A\ngreat heart laid open to take in this great Universe, and man's Life\nhere, and utter a great word about it. A Hero, as I say, in his own\nrude manner; a wise, gifted, noble-hearted man. And now, if we still\nadmire such a man beyond all others, what must these wild Norse souls,\nfirst awakened into thinking, have made of him! To them, as yet\nwithout names for it, he was noble and noblest; Hero, Prophet, God;\n_Wuotan_, the greatest of all. Thought is Thought, however it speak or\nspell itself. Intrinsically, I conjecture, this Odin must have been of\nthe same sort of stuff as the greatest kind of men. A great thought in\nthe wild deep heart of him! The rough words he articulated, are they\nnot the rudimental roots of those English words we still use? He\nworked so, in that obscure element. But he was as a _light_ kindled in\nit; a light of Intellect, rude Nobleness of heart, the only kind of\nlights we have yet; a Hero, as I say: and he had to shine there, and\nmake his obscure element a little lighter,--as is still the task of us\nall.\n\nWe will fancy him to be the Type Norseman; the finest Teuton whom that\nrace had yet produced. The rude Norse heart burst-up into _boundless_\nadmiration round him; into adoration. He is as a root of so many great\nthings; the fruit of him is found growing, from deep thousands of\nyears, over the whole field of Teutonic Life. Our own Wednesday, as I\nsaid, is it not still Odin's Day? Wednesbury, Wansborough, Wanstead,\nWandsworth: Odin grew into England too, these are still leaves from\nthat root! He was the Chief God to all the Teutonic Peoples; their\nPattern Norseman;--in such way did _they_ admire their Pattern\nNorseman; that was the fortune he had in the world.\n\nThus if the man Odin himself have vanished utterly, there is this huge\nShadow of him which still projects itself over the whole History of\nhis People. For this Odin once admitted to be God, we can understand\nwell that the whole Scandinavian Scheme of Nature, or dim No-scheme,\nwhatever it might before have been, would now begin to develop itself\naltogether differently, and grow thenceforth in a new manner. What\nthis Odin saw into, and taught with his runes and his rhymes, the\nwhole Teutonic People laid to heart and carried forward. His way of\nthought became their way of thought:--such, under new conditions, is\nthe history of every great thinker still. In gigantic confused\nlineaments, like some enormous camera-obscura shadow thrown upwards\nfrom the dead deeps of the Past, and covering the whole Northern\nHeaven, is not that Scandinavian Mythology in some sort the\nPortraiture of this man Odin? The gigantic image of _his_ natural\nface, legible or not legible there, expanded and confused in that\nmanner! Ah, Thought, I say, is always Thought. No great man lives in\nvain. The History of the world is but the Biography of great men.\n\nTo me there is something very touching in this primeval figure of\nHeroism; in such artless, helpless, but hearty entire reception of a\nHero by his fellow-men. Never so helpless in shape, it is the noblest\nof feelings, and a feeling in some shape or other perennial as man\nhimself. If I could show in any measure, what I feel deeply for a long\ntime now, That it is the vital element of manhood, the soul of man's\nhistory here in our world,--it would be the chief use of this\ndiscoursing at present. We do not now call our great men Gods, nor\nadmire _without_ limit; ah, no, _with_ limit enough! But if we have no\ngreat men, or do not admire at all,--that were a still worse case.\n\nThis poor Scandinavian Hero-worship, that whole Norse way of looking\nat the Universe, and adjusting oneself there, has an indestructible\nmerit for us. A rude childlike way of recognising the divineness of\nNature, the divineness of Man; most rude, yet heartfelt, robust,\ngiantlike; betokening what a giant of a man this child would grow\nto!--It was a truth, and is none. Is it not as the half-dumb stifled\nvoice of the long-buried generations of our own Fathers, calling out\nof the depths of ages to us, in whose veins their blood still runs:\n\"This then, this is what _we_ made of the world: this is all the image\nand notion we could form to ourselves of this great mystery of a Life\nand Universe. Despise it not. You are raised high above it, to large\nfree scope of vision; but you too are not yet at the top. No, your\nnotion too, so much enlarged, is but a partial, imperfect one: that\nmatter is a thing no man will ever, in time or out of time,\ncomprehend; after thousands of years of ever-new expansion, man will\nfind himself but struggling to comprehend again a part of it: the\nthing is larger than man, not to be comprehended by him; an Infinite\nthing!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all Pagan Mythologies,\nwe found to be recognition of the divineness of Nature; sincere\ncommunion of man with the mysterious invisible Powers visibly seen at\nwork in the world round him. This, I should say, is more sincerely\ndone in the Scandinavian than in any Mythology I know. Sincerity is\nthe great characteristic of it. Superior sincerity (far superior)\nconsoles us for the total want of old Grecian grace. Sincerity, I\nthink, is better than grace. I feel that these old Northmen were\nlooking into Nature with open eye and soul: most earnest, honest;\nchildlike, and yet manlike; with a great-hearted simplicity and depth\nand freshness, in a true, loving, admiring, unfearing way. A right\nvaliant, true old race of men. Such recognition of Nature one finds to\nbe the chief element of Paganism: recognition of Man, and his Moral\nDuty, though this too is not wanting, comes to be the chief element\nonly in purer forms of religion. Here, indeed, is a great distinction\nand epoch in Human Beliefs; a great landmark in the religious\ndevelopment of Mankind. Man first puts himself in relation with Nature\nand her Powers, wonders and worships over those; not till a later\nepoch does he discern that all Power is Moral, that the grand point is\nthe distinction for him of Good and Evil, of _Thou shalt_ and _Thou\nshalt not_.\n\nWith regard to all these fabulous delineations in the _Edda_, I will\nremark, moreover, as indeed was already hinted, that most probably\nthey must have been of much newer date; most probably, even from the\nfirst, were comparatively idle for the old Norsemen, and as it were a\nkind of Poetic sport. Allegory and Poetic Delineation, as I said\nabove, cannot be religious Faith; the Faith itself must first be\nthere, then Allegory enough will gather round it, as the fit body\nround its soul. The Norse Faith, I can well suppose, like other\nFaiths, was most active while it lay mainly in the silent state, and\nhad not yet much to say about itself, still less to sing.\n\nAmong those shadowy _Edda_ matters, amid all that fantastic congeries\nof assertions, and traditions, in their musical Mythologies, the main\npractical belief a man could have was probably not much more than\nthis: of the _Valkyrs_ and the _Hall of Odin_; of an inflexible\n_Destiny_; and that the one thing needful for a man was _to be brave_.\nThe _Valkyrs_ are Choosers of the Slain: a Destiny inexorable, which\nit is useless trying to bend or soften, has appointed who is to be\nslain; this was a fundamental point for the Norse believer;--as indeed\nit is for all earnest men everywhere, for a Mahomet, a Luther, for a\nNapoleon too. It lies at the basis this for every such man; it is the\nwoof out of which his whole system of thought is woven. The _Valkyrs_;\nand then that these _Choosers_ lead the brave to a heavenly _Hall of\nOdin_; only the base and slavish being thrust elsewhither, into the\nrealms of Hela the Death-goddess: I take this to have been the soul of\nthe whole Norse Belief. They understood in their heart that it was\nindispensable to be brave; that Odin would have no favour for them,\nbut despise and thrust them out, if they were not brave. Consider too\nwhether there is not something in this! It is an everlasting duty,\nvalid in our day as in that, the duty of being brave. _Valour_ is\nstill _value_. The first duty of a man is still that of subduing\n_Fear_. We must get rid of Fear; we cannot act at all till then. A\nman's acts are slavish, not true but specious: his very thoughts are\nfalse, he thinks too as a slave and coward, till he have got Fear\nunder his feet. Odin's creed, if we disentangle the real kernel of it,\nis true to this hour. A man shall and must be valiant; he must march\nforward, and quit himself like a man--trusting imperturbably in the\nappointment and _choice_ of the upper Powers; and, on the whole, not\nfear at all. Now and always, the completeness of his victory over Fear\nwill determine how much of a man he is.\n\nIt is doubtless very savage that kind of valour of the old Northmen.\nSnorro tells us they thought it a shame and misery not to die in\nbattle; and if natural death seemed to be coming on, they would cut\nwounds in their flesh, that Odin might receive them as warriors slain.\nOld kings, about to die, had their body laid into a ship; the ship\nsent forth, with sails set and slow fire burning it; that, once out at\nsea, it might blaze-up in flame, and in such manner bury worthily the\nold hero, at once in the sky and in the ocean! Wild bloody valour; yet\nvalour of its kind; better, I say, than none. In the old Sea-kings\ntoo, what an indomitable rugged energy! Silent, with closed lips, as I\nfancy them, unconscious that they were specially brave; defying the\nwild ocean with its monsters, and all men and things;--progenitors of\nour own Blakes and Nelsons! No Homer sang these Norse Sea-kings; but\nAgamemnon's was a small audacity, and of small fruit in the world, to\nsome of them;--to Hrolf's of Normandy, for instance! Hrolf, or Rollo\nDuke of Normandy, the wild Sea-king, has a share in governing England\nat this hour.\n\nNor was it altogether nothing, even that wild sea-roving and battling,\nthrough so many generations. It needed to be ascertained which was the\n_strongest_ kind of men; who were to be ruler over whom. Among the\nNorthland Sovereigns, too, I find some who got the title\n_Wood-cutter_; Forest-felling Kings. Much lies in that. I suppose at\nbottom many of them were forest-fellers as well as fighters, though\nthe Skalds talk mainly of the latter,--misleading certain critics not\na little; for no nation of men could ever live by fighting alone;\nthere could not produce enough come out of that! I suppose the right\ngood fighter was oftenest also the right good forest-feller,--the\nright good improver, discerner, doer and worker in every kind; for\ntrue valour, different enough from ferocity, is the basis of all. A\nmore legitimate kind of valour that; showing itself against the\nuntamed Forests and dark brute Powers of Nature, to conquer Nature for\nus. In the same direction have not we their descendants since carried\nit far? May such valour last forever with us!\n\nThat the man Odin, speaking with a Hero's voice and heart, as with an\nimpressiveness out of Heaven, told his People the infinite importance\nof Valour, how man thereby became a god; and that his People, feeling\na response to it in their own hearts, believed this message of his,\nand thought it a message out of Heaven, and him a Divinity for telling\nit them: this seems to me the primary seed-grain of the Norse\nReligion, from which all manner of mythologies, symbolic practices,\nspeculations, allegories, songs and sagas would naturally grow.\nGrow,--how strangely! I called it a small light shining and shaping in\nthe huge vortex of Norse darkness. Yet the darkness itself was\n_alive_; consider that. It was the eager inarticulate uninstructed\nMind of the whole Norse People, longing only to become articulate, to\ngo on articulating ever farther! The living doctrine grows,\ngrows;--like a Banyan-tree; the first _seed_ is the essential thing:\nany branch strikes itself down into the earth, becomes a new root; and\nso, in endless complexity, we have a whole wood, a whole jungle, one\nseed the parent of it all. Was not the whole Norse Religion,\naccordingly, in some sense, what we called 'the enormous shadow of\nthis man's likeness'? Critics trace some affinity in some Norse\nmythuses, of the Creation and suchlike, with those of the Hindoos. The\nCow Adumbla, 'licking the rime from the rocks,' has a kind of Hindoo\nlook. A Hindoo Cow, transported into frosty countries. Probably\nenough; indeed we may say undoubtedly, these things will have a\nkindred with the remotest lands, with the earliest times. Thought does\nnot die, but only is changed. The first man that began to think in\nthis Planet of ours, he was the beginner of all. And then the second\nman, and the third man:--nay, every true Thinker to this hour is a\nkind of Odin, teaches men _his_ way of thought, spreads a shadow of\nhis own likeness over sections of the History of the World.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf the distinctive poetic character or merit of this Norse Mythology I\nhave not room to speak; nor does it concern us much. Some wild\nProphecies we have, as the _Voeluspa_ in the _Elder Edda_; of a rapt,\nearnest, sibylline sort. But they were comparatively an idle adjunct\nof the matter, men who as it were but toyed with the matter, these\nlater Skalds; and it is _their_ songs chiefly that survive. In later\ncenturies, I suppose, they would go on singing, poetically\nsymbolising, as our modern Painters paint, when it was no longer from\nthe innermost heart, or not from the heart at all. This is everywhere\nto be well kept in mind.\n\nGray's fragments of Norse Lore, at any rate, will give one no notion\nof it;--any more than Pope will of Homer. It is no square-built gloomy\npalace of black ashlar marble, shrouded in awe and horror, as Gray\ngives it us: no; rough as the North Rocks, as the Iceland deserts, it\nis; with a heartiness, homeliness, even a tint of good humour and\nrobust mirth in the middle of these fearful things. The strong old\nNorse heart did not go upon theatrical sublimities; they had not time\nto tremble. I like much their robust simplicity; their veracity,\ndirectness of conception. Thor 'draws down his brows' in a veritable\nNorse rage; 'grasps his hammer till the _knuckles grow white_.'\nBeautiful traits of pity too, an honest pity. Balder 'the white God'\ndies; the beautiful, benignant; he is the Sungod. They try all Nature\nfor a remedy; but he is dead. Frigga, his mother, sends Hermoder to\nseek or see him: nine days and nine nights he rides through gloomy\ndeep valleys, a labyrinth of gloom; arrives at the Bridge with its\ngold roof: the Keeper says, \"Yes, Balder did pass here; but the\nKingdom of the Dead is down yonder, far towards the North.\" Hermoder\nrides on; leaps Hell-gate, Hela's gate: does see Balder, and speak\nwith him: Balder cannot be delivered. Inexorable! Hela will not, for\nOdin or any God, give him up. The beautiful and gentle has to remain\nthere. His Wife had volunteered to go with him, to die with him. They\nshall forever remain there. He sends his ring to Odin; Nanna his wife\nsends her _thimble_ to Frigga, as a remembrance--Ah me!--\n\nFor indeed Valour is the fountain of Pity too;--of Truth, and all that\nis great and good in man. The robust homely vigour of the Norse heart\nattaches one much, in these delineations. Is it not a trait of right\nhonest strength, says Uhland, who has written a fine _Essay_ on Thor,\nthat the Old Norse heart finds its friend in the Thunder-god? That it\nis not frightened away by his thunder; but finds that Summer-heat, the\nbeautiful noble summer, must and will have thunder withal! The Norse\nheart _loves_ this Thor and his hammer-bolt; sports with him. Thor is\nSummer-heat; the god of Peaceable Industry as well as Thunder. He is\nthe Peasant's friend; his true henchman and attendant is Thialfi,\n_Manual Labour_. Thor himself engages in all manner of rough manual\nwork, scorns no business for its plebeianism; is ever and anon\ntravelling to the country of the Joetuns, harrying those chaotic\nFrost-monsters, subduing them, at least straitening and damaging them.\nThere is a great broad humour in some of these things.\n\nThor, as we saw above, goes to Joetun-land, to seek Hymir's Caldron,\nthat the Gods may brew beer. Hymir the huge Giant enters, his grey\nbeard all full of hoar-frost; splits pillars with the very glance of\nhis eye; Thor, after much rough tumult, snatches the Pot, claps it on\nhis head; the 'handles of it reach down to his heels.' The Norse Skald\nhas a kind of loving sport with Thor. This is the Hymir whose cattle,\nthe critics have discovered, are Icebergs. Huge untutored Brobdignag\ngenius,--needing only to be tamed-down; into Shakspeares, Dantes,\nGoethes! It is all gone now, that old Norse work,--Thor the\nThunder-god changed into Jack the Giant-killer: but the mind that made\nit is here yet. How strangely things grow, and die, and do not die!\nThere are twigs of that great world-tree of Norse Belief still\ncuriously traceable. This poor Jack of the Nursery, with his\nmiraculous shoes of swiftness, coat of darkness, sword of sharpness,\nhe is one. _Hynde Etin_, and still more decisively _Red Etin of\nIreland_, in the Scottish Ballads, these are both derived from\nNorseland; _Etin_ is evidently a _Joetun_. Nay, Shakspeare's _Hamlet_\nis a twig too of this same world-tree; there seems no doubt of that.\nHamlet, _Amleth_, I find, is really a mythic personage; and his\nTragedy, of the poisoned Father, poisoned asleep by drops in his ear,\nand the rest, is a Norse mythus! Old Saxo, as his wont was, made it a\nDanish history; Shakspeare, out of Saxo, made it what we see. That is\na twig of the world-tree that has _grown_, I think;--by nature or\naccident that one has grown!\n\nIn fact, these old Norse songs have a _truth_ in them, an inward\nperennial truth and greatness,--as, indeed, all must have that can\nvery long preserve itself by tradition alone. It is a greatness not of\nmere body and gigantic bulk, but a rude greatness of soul. There is a\nsublime uncomplaining melancholy traceable in these old hearts. A\ngreat free glance into the very deeps of thought. They seem to have\nseen, these brave old Northmen, what Meditation has taught all men in\nall ages, That this world is after all but a show,--a phenomenon or\nappearance, no real thing. All deep souls see into that,--the Hindoo\nMythologist, the German Philosopher,--the Shakspeare, the earnest\nThinker, wherever he may be:\n\n  'We are such stuff as Dreams are made of!'\n\nOne of Thor's expeditions, to Utgard (the _Outer_ Garden, central seat\nof Joetun-land), is remarkable in this respect. Thialfi was with him,\nand Loke. After various adventures they entered upon Giant-land;\nwandered over plains, wild uncultivated places, among stones and\ntrees. At nightfall they noticed a house; and as the door, which\nindeed formed one whole side of the house, was open, they entered. It\nwas a simple habitation; one large hall, altogether empty. They stayed\nthere. Suddenly in the dead of the night loud noises alarmed them.\nThor grasped his hammer; stood in the door, prepared for fight. His\ncompanions within ran hither and thither in their terror, seeking some\noutlet in that rude hall; they found a little closet at last, and took\nrefuge there. Neither had Thor any battle: for, lo, in the morning it\nturned-out that the noise had been only the _snoring_ of a certain\nenormous but peaceable Giant, the Giant Skrymir, who lay peaceably\nsleeping near by; and this that they took for a house was merely his\n_Glove_, thrown aside there; the door was the Glove-wrist; the little\ncloset they had fled into was the Thumb! Such a glove;--I remark too\nthat it had not fingers as ours have, but only a thumb, and the rest\nundivided: a most ancient, rustic glove!\n\nSkrymir now carried their portmanteau all day; Thor, however, had his\nown suspicions, did not like the ways of Skrymir; determined at night\nto put an end to him as he slept. Raising his hammer, he struck down\ninto the Giant's face a right thunderbolt blow, of force to rend\nrocks. The Giant merely awoke; rubbed his cheek, and said, Did a leaf\nfall? Again Thor struck, so soon as Skrymir again slept; a better blow\nthan before: but the Giant only murmured, Was that a grain of sand?\nThor's third stroke was with both his hands (the 'knuckles white' I\nsuppose), and seemed to dint deep into Skrymir's visage; but he merely\nchecked his snore, and remarked, There must be sparrows roosting in\nthis tree, I think; what is that they have dropt?--At the gate of\nUtgard, a place so high that you had to 'strain your neck bending back\nto see the top of it,' Skrymir went his ways. Thor and his companions\nwere admitted; invited to take share in the games going on. To Thor,\nfor his part, they handed a drinking-horn; it was a common feat, they\ntold him, to drink this dry at one draught. Long and fiercely, three\ntimes over, Thor drank; but made hardly any impression. He was a weak\nchild, they told him; could he lift that Cat he saw there? Small as\nthe feat seemed, Thor with his whole godlike strength could not; he\nbent-up the creature's back, could not raise its feet off the ground,\ncould at the utmost raise one foot. Why, you are no man, said the\nUtgard people; there is an Old Woman that will wrestle you! Thor,\nheartily ashamed, seized this haggard Old Woman; but could not throw\nher.\n\nAnd now, on their quitting Utgard, the Chief Joetun, escorting them\npolitely a little way, said to Thor: \"You are beaten then:--yet be not\nso much ashamed; there was deception of appearance in it. That Horn\nyou tried to drink was the _Sea_: you did make it ebb; but who could\ndrink that, the bottomless! The Cat you would have lifted,--why, that\nis the _Midgard-snake_, the Great World-serpent, which, tail in mouth,\ngirds and keeps-up the whole created world; had you torn that up, the\nworld must have rushed to ruin! As for the Old Woman, she was _Time_,\nOld Age, Duration; with her what can wrestle? No man nor no god with\nher; gods or men, she prevails over all! And then those three strokes\nyou struck,--look at these _three valleys_; your three strokes made\nthese!\" Thor looked at his attendant Joetun: it was Skrymir;--it was,\nsay Norse critics, the old chaotic rocky _Earth_ in person, and that\nglove-_house_ was some Earth-cavern! But Skrymir had vanished; Utgard\nwith its skyhigh gates, when Thor grasped his hammer to smite them,\nhad gone to air; only the Giant's voice was heard mocking: \"Better\ncome no more to Joetunheim!\"--\n\nThis is of the allegoric period, as we see, and half play, not of the\nprophetic and entirely devout: but as a mythus is there not real\nantique Norse gold in it? More true metal, rough from the Mimerstithy,\nthan in many a famed Greek Mythus _shaped_ far better! A great broad\nBrobdignag grin of true humour is in this Skrymir; mirth resting on\nearnestness and sadness, as the rainbow on black tempest: only a right\nvaliant heart is capable of that. It is the grim humour of our own Ben\nJonson, rare old Ben; runs in the blood of us, I fancy; for one\ncatches tones of it, under a still other shape, out of the American\nBackwoods.\n\nThat is also a very striking conception, that of the _Ragnaroek_,\nConsummation, or _Twilight of the Gods_. It is in the _Voeluspa_ Song;\nseemingly a very old, prophetic idea. The Gods and Joetuns, the divine\nPowers and the chaotic brute ones, after long contest and partial\nvictory by the former, meet at last in universal world-embracing\nwrestle and duel; World-serpent against Thor, strength against\nstrength; mutually extinctive; and ruin, 'twilight' sinking into\ndarkness, swallows the created Universe. The old Universe with its\nGods is sunk; but it is not final death: there is to be a new Heaven\nand a new Earth; a higher supreme God, and Justice to reign among men.\nCurious: this law of mutation, which also is a law written in man's\ninmost thought, had been deciphered by these old earnest Thinkers in\ntheir rude style; and how, though all dies, and even gods die, yet all\ndeath is but a phoenix fire-death, and new-birth into the Greater and\nthe Better! It is the fundamental Law of Being for a creature made of\nTime, living in this Place of Hope. All earnest men have seen into it;\nmay still see into it.\n\nAnd now, connected with this, let us glance at the _last_ mythus of\nthe appearance of Thor; and end there. I fancy it to be the latest in\ndate of all these fables; a sorrowing protest against the advance of\nChristianity,--set forth reproachfully by some Conservative Pagan.\nKing Olaf has been harshly blamed for his over-zeal in introducing\nChristianity; surely I should have blamed him far more for an\nunder-zeal in that! He paid dear enough for it; he died by the revolt\nof his Pagan people, in battle, in the year 1033, at Stickelstad, near\nthat Drontheim, where the chief Cathedral of the North has now stood\nfor many centuries, dedicated gratefully to his memory as _Saint_\nOlaf. The mythus about Thor is to this effect. King Olaf, the\nChristian Reform King, is sailing with fit escort along the shore of\nNorway, from haven to haven; dispensing justice, or doing other royal\nwork: on leaving a certain haven, it is found that a stranger, of\ngrave eyes and aspect, red beard, of stately robust figure, has stept\nin. The courtiers address him; his answers surprise by their\npertinency and depth: at length he is brought to the King. The\nstranger's conversation here is not less remarkable, as they sail\nalong the beautiful shore; but after some time, he addresses King Olaf\nthus: \"Yes, King Olaf, it is all beautiful, with the sun shining on it\nthere; green, fruitful, a right fair home for you, and many a sore day\nhad Thor, many a wild fight with the rock Joetuns, before he could make\nit so. And now you seem minded to put away Thor. King Olaf, have a\ncare!\" said the stranger, drawing-down his brows;--and when they\nlooked again, he was nowhere to be found.--This is the last appearance\nof Thor on the stage of this world!\n\nDo we not see well enough how the Fable might arise, without\nunveracity on the part of any one? It is the way most Gods have come\nto appear among men: thus, if in Pindar's time 'Neptune was seen once\nat the Nemean Games,' what was this Neptune too but a 'stranger of\nnoble grave aspect,' _fit_ to be 'seen'! There is something pathetic,\ntragic for me in this last voice of Paganism. Thor is vanished, the\nwhole Norse world has vanished; and will not return ever again. In\nlike fashion to that pass away the highest things. All things that\nhave been in this world, all things that are or will be in it, have to\nvanish, we have our sad farewell to give them.\n\nThat Norse Religion, a rude but earnest, sternly impressive\n_Consecration of Valour_ (so we may define it), sufficed for these old\nvaliant Northmen. Consecration of Valour is not a _bad_ thing! We will\ntake it for good, so far as it goes. Neither is there no use in\n_knowing_ something about this old Paganism of our Fathers.\nUnconsciously, and combined with higher things, it is in _us_ yet,\nthat old Faith withal! To know it consciously, brings us into closer\nand clearer relation with the Past--with our own possessions in the\nPast. For the whole Past, as I keep repeating, is the possession of\nthe Present; the Past had always something _true_, and is a precious\npossession. In a different time, in a different place, it is always\nsome other _side_ of our common Human Nature that has been developing\nitself. The actual True is the _sum_ of all these; not any one of them\nby itself, constitutes what of Human Nature is hitherto developed.\nBetter to know them all than misknow them. \"To which of these Three\nReligions do you specially adhere?\" inquires Meister of his Teacher.\n\"To all the Three!\" answers the other: \"To all the Three: for they by\ntheir union first constitute the True Religion.\"\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II\n\nTHE HERO AS PROPHET. MAHOMET: ISLAM\n\n[_Friday, 8th May 1840_]\n\n\nFrom the first rude times of Paganism among the Scandinavians in the\nNorth, we advance to a very different epoch of religion, among a very\ndifferent people: Mahometanism among the Arabs. A great change; what a\nchange and progress is indicated here, in the universal condition and\nthoughts of men!\n\nThe Hero is not now regarded as a God among his fellowmen; but as one\nGod-inspired, as a prophet. It is the second phasis of Hero-worship;\nthe first or oldest, we may say, has passed away without return; in\nthe history of the world there will not again be any man, never so\ngreat, whom his fellowmen will take for a god. Nay we might rationally\nask, Did any set of human beings ever really think the man they _saw_\nthere standing beside them a god, the maker of this world? Perhaps\nnot: it was usually some man they remembered, or _had_ seen. But\nneither can this any more be. The Great Man is not recognised\nhenceforth as a god any more.\n\nIt was a rude gross error, that of counting the Great Man a god. Yet\nlet us say that it is at all times difficult to know _what_ he is, or\nhow to account of him and receive him! The most significant feature in\nthe history of an epoch is the manner it has of welcoming a Great Man.\nEver, to the true instincts of men, there is something godlike in him.\nWhether they shall take him to be a god, to be a prophet, or what they\nshall take him to be? that is ever a grand question; by their way of\nanswering that, we shall see, as through a little window, into the\nvery heart of these men's spiritual condition. For at bottom the Great\nMan, as he comes from the hand of nature, is ever the same kind of\nthing: Odin, Luther, Johnson, Burns; I hope to make it appear that\nthese are all originally of one stuff; that only by the world's\nreception of them, and the shapes they assume, are they so\nimmeasurably diverse. The worship of Odin astonishes us--to fall\nprostrate before the Great Man, into _deliquium_ of love and wonder\nover him, and feel in their hearts that he was a denizen of the skies,\na god! This was imperfect enough: but to welcome, for example, a Burns\nas we did, was that what we can call perfect? The most precious gift\nthat Heaven can give to the Earth; a man of 'genius' as we call it:\nthe Soul of a Man actually sent down from the skies with a\nGod's-message to us--this we waste away as an idle artificial\nfirework, sent to amuse us a little, and sink it into ashes, wreck and\nineffectuality: _such_ reception of a Great Man I do not call very\nperfect either! Looking into the heart of the thing, one may perhaps\ncall that of Burns a still uglier phenomenon, betokening still sadder\nimperfections in mankind's ways, than the Scandinavian method itself!\nTo fall into mere unreasoning _deliquium_ of love and admiration, was\nnot good; but such unreasoning, nay irrational supercilious no-love at\nall is perhaps still worse!--It is a thing forever changing, this of\nHero-worship: different in each age, difficult to do well in any age.\nIndeed, the heart of the whole business of the age, one may say, is to\ndo it well.\n\nWe have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent Prophet, but as the one\nwe are freest to speak of. He is by no means the truest of Prophets;\nbut I do esteem him a true one. Farther, as there is no danger of our\nbecoming, any of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him I\njustly can. It is the way to get at his secret: let us try to\nunderstand what _he_ meant with the world; what the world meant and\nmeans with him, will then be a more answerable question. Our current\nhypotheses about Mahomet, that he was a scheming Impostor, a Falsehood\nincarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity,\nbegins really to be now untenable to any one. The lies, which\nwell-meaning zeal has heaped round this man, are disgraceful to\nourselves only. When Pococke inquired of Grotius, Where the proof was\nof that story of the pigeon, trained to pick peas from Mahomet's ear,\nand pass for an angel dictating to him? Grotius answered that there\nwas no proof! It is really time to dismiss all that. The word this man\nspoke has been the life-guidance now of a hundred-and-eighty millions\nof men these twelve-hundred years. These hundred-and-eighty millions\nwere made by God as well as we. A greater number of God's creatures\nbelieve in Mahomet's word at this hour than in any other word\nwhatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual\nlegerdemain, this which so many creatures of the Almighty have lived\nby and died by? I, for my part, cannot form any such supposition. I\nwill believe most things sooner than that. One would be entirely at a\nloss what to think of this world at all, if quackery so grew and were\nsanctioned here.\n\nAlas, such theories are very lamentable. If we would attain to\nknowledge of anything in God's true Creation, let us disbelieve them\nwholly! They are the product of an Age of Scepticism; they indicate\nthe saddest spiritual paralysis, and mere death-life of the souls of\nmen: more godless theory, I think, was never promulgated in this\nEarth. A false man found a religion? Why, a false man cannot build a\nbrick house! If he do not know and follow _truly_ the properties of\nmortar, burnt clay and what else he works in, it is no house that he\nmakes, but a rubbish-heap. It will not stand for twelve centuries, to\nlodge a hundred-and-eighty millions; it will fall straightway. A man\nmust conform himself to Nature's laws, _be_ verily in communion with\nNature and the truth of things, or Nature will answer him, No, not at\nall! Speciosities are specious--ah, me!--a Cagliostro, many\nCagliostros, prominent world-leaders, do prosper by their quackery,\nfor a day. It is like a forged bank-note; they get it passed out of\n_their_ worthless hands: others, not they, have to smart for it.\nNature bursts-up in fire-flame, French Revolutions and suchlike,\nproclaiming with terrible veracity that forged notes are forged.\n\nBut of a Great Man especially, of him I will venture to assert that it\nis incredible he should have been other than true. It seems to me the\nprimary foundation of him, and of all that can lie in him, this. No\nMirabeau, Napoleon, Burns, Cromwell, no man adequate to do anything,\nbut is first of all in right earnest about it; what I call a sincere\nman. I should say _sincerity_, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is\nthe first characteristic of all men in any way heroic. Not the\nsincerity that calls itself sincere; ah, no, that is a very poor\nmatter indeed;--a shallow braggart conscious sincerity; oftenest\nself-conceit mainly. The Great Man's sincerity is of the kind he\ncannot speak of, is not conscious of: nay, I suppose, he is conscious\nrather of _in_sincerity; for what man can walk accurately by the law\nof truth for one day? No, the Great Man does not boast himself\nsincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I\nwould say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot\nhelp being sincere! The great Fact of Existence is great to him. Fly\nas he will, he cannot get out of the awful presence of this Reality.\nHis mind is so made; he is great by that, first of all. Fearful and\nwonderful, real as Life, real as death, is this Universe to him.\nThough all men should forget its truth, and walk in a vain show, he\ncannot. At all moments the Flame-image glares-in upon him; undeniable,\nthere, there!--I wish you to take this as my primary definition of a\nGreat Man. A little man may have this, it is competent to all men that\nGod has made: but a Great Man cannot be without it.\n\nSuch a man is what we call an _original_ man: he comes to us at\nfirst-hand. A messenger he, sent from the Infinite Unknown with\ntidings to us. We may call him Poet, Prophet, God;--in one way or\nother, we all feel that the words he utters are as no other man's\nwords. Direct from the Inner Fact of things;--he lives, and has to\nlive, in daily communion with that. Hearsays cannot hide it from him;\nhe is blind, homeless, miserable, following hearsays; _it_ glares-in\nupon him. Really his utterances, are they not a kind of\n'revelation;'--what we must call such for want of some other name? It\nis from the heart of the world that he comes; he is portion of the\nprimal reality of things. God has made many revelations: but this man\ntoo, has not God made him, the latest and newest of all? The\n'inspiration of the Almighty giveth _him_ understanding:' we must\nlisten before all to him.\n\nThis Mahomet, then, we will in no wise consider as an Inanity and\nTheatricality, a poor conscious ambitious schemer; we cannot conceive\nhim so. The rude message he delivered was a real one withal; an\nearnest confused voice from the unknown Deep. The man's words were not\nfalse, nor his workings here below; no Inanity and Simulacrum; a fiery\nmass of Life cast-up from the great bosom of Nature herself. To\n_kindle_ the world; the world's Maker had ordered it so. Neither can\nthe faults, imperfections, insincerities even, of Mahomet, if such\nwere never so well proved against him, shake this primary fact about\nhim.\n\nOn the whole, we make too much of faults; the details of the business\nhide the real centre of it. Faults? The greatest of faults, I should\nsay, is to be conscious of none. Readers of the Bible above all, one\nwould think, might know better. Who is called there 'the man according\nto God's own heart'? David, the Hebrew King, had fallen into sins\nenough; blackest crimes; there was no want of sins. And thereupon the\nunbelievers sneer and ask, Is this your man according to God's own\nheart? The sneer, I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are\nfaults, what are the outward details of a life; if the inner secret of\nit, the remorse, temptations, true, often-baffled, never-ended\nstruggle of it, be forgotten? 'It is not in man that walketh to direct\nhis steps.' Of all acts, is not, for a man, _repentance_ the most\ndivine? The deadliest sin, I say, were that same supercilious\nconsciousness of no sin;--that is death; the heart so conscious is\ndivorced from sincerity, humility and fact; is dead: it is 'pure' as\ndead dry sand is pure. David's life and history, as written for us in\nthose Psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given of\na man's moral progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will\never discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul\ntowards what is good and best. Struggle often baffled, sore baffled,\ndown as into entire wreck; yet a struggle never ended; ever, with\ntears, repentance, true unconquerable purpose, begun anew. Poor human\nnature! Is not a man's walking, in truth, always that: 'a succession\nof falls'? Man can do no other. In this wild element of a Life, he has\nto struggle onwards; now fallen, deep-abased; and ever, with tears,\nrepentance, with bleeding heart, he has to rise again, struggle again\nstill onwards. That his struggle _be_ a faithful unconquerable one:\nthat is the question of questions. We will put-up with many sad\ndetails, if the soul of it were true. Details by themselves will never\nteach us what it is. I believe we misestimate Mahomet's faults even as\nfaults: but the secret of him will never be got by dwelling there. We\nwill leave all this behind us; and assuring ourselves that he did mean\nsome true thing, ask candidly what it was or might be.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese Arabs Mahomet was born among are certainly a notable people.\nTheir country itself is notable; the fit habitation for such a race.\nSavage inaccessible rock-mountains, great grim deserts, alternating\nwith beautiful strips of verdure: wherever water is, there is\ngreenness, beauty; odoriferous balm-shrubs, date-trees,\nfrankincense-trees. Consider that wide waste horizon of sand, empty,\nsilent, like a sand-sea, dividing habitable place from habitable. You\nare all alone there, left alone with the Universe; by day a fierce sun\nblazing down on it with intolerable radiance; by night the great deep\nHeaven with its stars. Such a country is fit for a swift-handed,\ndeep-hearted race of men. There is something most agile, active, and\nyet most meditative, enthusiastic in the Arab character. The Persians\nare called the French of the East, we will call the Arabs Oriental\nItalians. A gifted noble people; a people of wild strong feelings, and\nof iron restraint over these: the characteristic of noblemindedness,\nof genius. The wild Bedouin welcomes the stranger to his tent, as one\nhaving right to all that is there; were it his worst enemy, he will\nslay his foal to treat him, will serve him with sacred hospitality for\nthree days, will set him fairly on his way;--and then, by another law\nas sacred, kill him if he can. In words too, as in action. They are\nnot a loquacious people, taciturn rather; but eloquent, gifted when\nthey do speak. An earnest truthful kind of men. They are, as we know,\nof Jewish kindred: but with that deadly terrible earnestness of the\nJews they seem to combine something graceful, brilliant, which is not\nJewish. They had 'Poetic contests' among them before the time of\nMahomet. Sale says, at Ocadh, in the South of Arabia, there were\nyearly fairs, and there, when the merchandising was done, Poets sang\nfor prizes:--the wild people gathered to hear that.\n\nOne Jewish quality these Arabs manifest; the outcome of many or of all\nhigh qualities; what we may call religiosity. From of old they had\nbeen zealous workers, according to their light. They worshipped the\nstars, as Sabeans; worshipped many natural objects,--recognised them\nas symbols, immediate manifestations, of the Maker of Nature. It was\nwrong; and yet not wholly wrong. All God's works are still in a sense\nsymbols of God. Do we not, as I urged, still account it a merit to\nrecognise a certain inexhaustible significance, 'poetic beauty' as we\nname it, in all natural objects whatsoever? A man is a poet, and\nhonoured, for doing that, and speaking or singing it,--a kind of\ndiluted worship. They had many Prophets, these Arabs; Teachers each to\nhis tribe, each according to the light he had. But indeed, have we not\nfrom of old the noblest of proofs, still palpable to every one of us,\nof what devoutness and noblemindedness had dwelt in these rustic\nthoughtful peoples? Biblical critics seem agreed that our own _Book of\nJob_ was written in that region of the world. I call that, apart from\nall theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with\npen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew; such a noble\nuniversality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns\nin it. A noble Book; all men's Book! It is our first, oldest statement\nof the never-ending Problem,--man's destiny, and God's ways with him\nhere in this earth. And all in such free flowing outlines; grand in\nits sincerity, in its simplicity; in its epic melody, and repose of\nreconcilement. There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding\nheart. So _true_ everywhere; true eyesight and vision for all things;\nmaterial things no less than spiritual; the Horse,--'hast thou clothed\nhis neck with _thunder_?'--he '_laughs_ at the shaking of the spear!'\nSuch living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime\nreconciliation: oldest choral melody as of the heart of mankind;--so\nsoft, and great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas\nand stars! There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of\nit, of equal literary merit.--\n\nTo the idolatrous Arabs one of the most ancient universal objects of\nworship was that Black Stone, still kept in the building called Caabah\nat Mecca. Diodorus Siculus mentions this Caabah in a way not to be\nmistaken, as the oldest, most honoured temple in his time; that is,\nsome half-century before our Era. Silvestre de Sacy says there is some\nlikelihood that the Black Stone is an aerolite. In that case, some one\nmight _see_ it fall out of Heaven! It stands now beside the Well\nZemzem; the Caabah is built over both. A Well is in all places a\nbeautiful affecting object, gushing out like life from the hard\nearth;--still more so in these hot dry countries, where it is the\nfirst condition of being. The Well Zemzem has its name from the\nbubbling sound of the waters, _zem-zem_; they think it is the Well\nwhich Hagar found with her little Ishmael in the wilderness: the\naerolite and it have been sacred now, and had a Caabah over them, for\nthousands of years. A curious object, that Caabah! There it stands at\nthis hour, in the black cloth-covering the Sultan sends it yearly;\n'twenty-seven cubits high;' with circuit, with double circuit of\npillars, with festoon-rows of lamps and quaint ornaments: the lamps\nwill be lighted again _this_ night,--to glitter again under the stars.\nAn authentic fragment of the oldest Past. It is the _Keblah_ of all\nMoslem: from Delhi all onwards to Morocco, the eyes of innumerable\npraying men are turned towards _it_, five times, this day and all\ndays: one of the notablest centres in the Habitation of Men.\n\nIt had been from the sacredness attached to this Caabah Stone and\nHagar's Well, from the pilgrimings of all tribes of Arabs thither,\nthat Mecca took its rise as a Town. A great town once, though much\ndecayed now. It has no natural advantage for a town; stands in a sandy\nhollow amid bare barren hills, at a distance from the sea; its\nprovisions, its very bread, have to be imported. But so many pilgrims\nneeded lodgings: and then all places of pilgrimage do, from the first,\nbecome places of trade. The first day pilgrims meet, merchants have\nalso met: where men see themselves assembled for one object, they find\nthat they can accomplish other objects which depend on meeting\ntogether. Mecca became the Fair of all Arabia. And thereby indeed the\nchief staple and warehouse of whatever Commerce there was between the\nIndian and Western countries, Syria, Egypt, even Italy. It had at one\ntime a population of 100,000; buyers, forwarders of those Eastern and\nWestern products; importers for their own behoof of provisions and\ncorn. The government was a kind of irregular aristocratic republic,\nnot without a touch of theocracy. Ten Men of a chief tribe, chosen in\nsome rough way, were Governors of Mecca, and Keepers of the Caabah.\nThe Koreish were the chief tribe in Mahomet's time; his own family was\nof that tribe. The rest of the Nation, fractioned and cut-asunder by\ndeserts, lived under similar rude patriarchal governments by one or\nseveral: herdsmen, carriers, traders, generally robbers too; being\noftenest at war one with another, or with all: held together by no\nopen bond, if it were not this meeting at the Caabah, where all forms\nof Arab Idolatry assembled in common adoration;--held mainly by the\n_inward_ indissoluble bond of a common blood and language. In this way\nhad the Arabs lived for long ages, unnoticed by the world: a people of\ngreat qualities, unconsciously waiting for the day when they should\nbecome notable to all the world. Their Idolatries appear to have been\nin a tottering state; much was getting into confusion and fermentation\namong them. Obscure tidings of the most important Event ever\ntransacted in this world, the Life and Death of the Divine Man in\nJudea, at once the symptom and cause of immeasurable change to all\npeople in the world, had in the course of centuries reached into\nArabia too; and could not but, of itself, have produced fermentation\nthere.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was among this Arab people, so circumstanced, in the year 570 of\nour Era, that the man Mahomet was born. He was of the family of\nHashem, of the Koreish tribe as we said; though poor, connected with\nthe chief persons of his country.\n\nAlmost at his birth he lost his Father; at the age of six years his\nMother too, a woman noted for her beauty, her worth and sense: he fell\nto the charge of his Grandfather, an old man, a hundred years old. A\ngood old man: Mahomet's Father, Abdallah, had been his youngest\nfavourite son. He saw in Mahomet, with his old life-worn eyes, a\ncentury old, the lost Abdallah come back again, all that was left of\nAbdallah. He loved the little orphan Boy greatly; used to say, They\nmust take care of that beautiful little Boy, nothing in their kindred\nwas more precious than he. At his death, while the boy was still but\ntwo years old, he left him in charge to Abu Thaleb the eldest of the\nUncles, as to him that now was head of the house. By this Uncle, a\njust and rational man as everything betokens, Mahomet was brought-up\nin the best Arab way.\n\nMahomet, as he grew up, accompanied his Uncle on trading journeys and\nsuchlike; in his eighteenth year one finds him a fighter following his\nUncle in war. But perhaps the most significant of all his journeys is\none we find noted as of some years' earlier date: a journey to the\nFairs of Syria. The young man here first came in contact with a quite\nforeign world,--with one foreign element of endless moment to him: the\nChristian Religion. I know not what to make of that 'Sergius, the\nNestorian Monk,' whom Abu Thaleb and he are said to have lodged with;\nor how much any monk could have taught one still so young. Probably\nenough it is greatly exaggerated, this of the Nestorian Monk. Mahomet\nwas only fourteen; had no language but his own: much in Syria must\nhave been a strange unintelligible whirlpool to him. But the eyes of\nthe lad were open; glimpses of many things would doubtless be\ntaken-in, and lie very enigmatic as yet, which were to ripen in a\nstrange way into views, into beliefs and insights one day. These\njourneys to Syria were probably the beginning of much to Mahomet.\n\nOne other circumstance we must not forget: that he had no\nschool-learning; of the thing we call school-learning none at all. The\nart of writing was but just introduced into Arabia; it seems to be the\ntrue opinion that Mahomet never could write! Life in the Desert, with\nits experiences, was all his education. What of this infinite Universe\nhe, from his dim place, with his own eyes and thoughts, could take in,\nso much and no more of it was he to know. Curious, if we will reflect\non it, this of having no books. Except by what he could see for\nhimself, or hear of by uncertain rumour of speech in the obscure\nArabian Desert, he could know nothing. The wisdom that had been before\nhim or at a distance from him in the world, was in a manner as good as\nnot there for him. Of the great brother souls, flame-beacons through\nso many lands and times, no one directly communicates with this great\nsoul. He is alone there, deep down in the bosom of the Wilderness; has\nto grow up so,--alone with Nature and his own Thoughts.\n\nBut, from an early age, he had been remarked as a thoughtful man. His\ncompanions named him '_Al Amin_, The Faithful.' A man of truth and\nfidelity; true in what he did, in what he spake and thought. They\nnoted that _he_ always meant something. A man rather taciturn in\nspeech; silent when there was nothing to be said; but pertinent, wise,\nsincere, when he did speak; always throwing light on the matter. This\nis the only sort of speech _worth_ speaking! Through life we find him\nto have been regarded as an altogether solid, brotherly, genuine man.\nA serious, sincere character; yet amiable, cordial, companionable,\njocose even;--a good laugh in him withal: there are men whose laugh is\nas untrue as anything about them; who cannot laugh. One hears of\nMahomet's beauty: his fine sagacious honest face, brown florid\ncomplexion, beaming black eyes;--I somehow like too that vein on the\nbrow, which swelled-up black when he was in anger: like the\n'_horse-shoe_ vein' in Scott's _Redgauntlet_. It was a kind of feature\nin the Hashem family, this black swelling vein in the brow; Mahomet\nhad it prominent, as would appear. A spontaneous, passionate, yet\njust, true-meaning man! Full of wild faculty, fire and light: of wild\nworth, all uncultured; working out his life-task in the depths of the\nDesert there.\n\nHow he was placed with Kadijah, a rich Widow, as her Steward, and\ntravelled in her business, again to the Fairs of Syria; how he managed\nall, as one can well understand, with fidelity, adroitness; how her\ngratitude, her regard for him grew: the story of their marriage is\naltogether a graceful intelligible one, as told us by the Arab\nauthors. He was twenty-five; she forty, though still beautiful. He\nseems to have lived in a most affectionate, peaceable, wholesome way\nwith this wedded benefactress; loving her truly, and her alone. It\ngoes greatly against the impostor theory, the fact that he lived in\nthis entirely unexceptionable, entirely quiet and commonplace way,\ntill the heat of his years was done. He was forty before he talked of\nany mission from Heaven. All his irregularities, real and supposed,\ndate from after his fiftieth year, when the good Kadijah died. All his\n'ambition,' seemingly, had been, hitherto, to live an honest life; his\n'fame,' the mere good opinion of neighbours that knew him, had been\nsufficient hitherto. Not till he was already getting old, the prurient\nheat of his life all burnt out, and _peace_ growing to be the chief\nthing this world could give him, did he start on the 'career of\nambition;' and, belying all his past character and existence, set-up\nas a wretched empty charlatan to acquire what he could now no longer\nenjoy! For my share, I have no faith whatever in that.\n\nAh no: this deep-hearted Son of the Wilderness, with his beaming black\neyes and open social deep soul, had other thoughts in him than\nambition. A silent great soul; he was one of those who cannot _but_ be\nin earnest; whom Nature herself has appointed to be sincere. While\nothers walk in formulas and hearsays, contented enough to dwell there,\nthis man could not screen himself in formulas; he was alone with his\nown soul and the reality of things. The great Mystery of Existence, as\nI said, glared-in upon him, with its terrors, with its splendours; no\nhearsays could hide that unspeakable fact, \"Here am I!\" Such\n_sincerity_, as we named it, has in very truth something of divine.\nThe word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature's own Heart. Men\ndo and must listen to that as to nothing else;--all else is wind in\ncomparison. From of old, a thousand thoughts, in his pilgrimings and\nwanderings, had been in this man: What am I? What _is_ this\nunfathomable Thing I live in, which men name Universe? What is Life;\nwhat is Death? What am I to believe? What am I to do? The grim rocks\nof Mount Hara, of Mount Sinai, the stern sandy solitudes answered not.\nThe great Heaven rolling silent overhead, with its blue-glancing\nstars, answered not. There was no answer. The man's own soul, and what\nof God's inspiration dwelt there, had to answer!\n\nIt is the thing which all men have to ask themselves; which we too have\nto ask, and answer. This wild man felt it to be of _infinite_ moment;\nall other things of no moment whatever in comparison. The jargon of\nargumentative Greek Sects, vague traditions of Jews, the stupid routine\nof Arab Idolatry, there was no answer in these. A Hero, as I repeat,\nhas this first distinction, which indeed we may call first and last,\nthe Alpha and Omega of his whole Heroism, That he looks through the\nshows of things into _things_. Use and wont, respectable hearsay,\nrespectable formula: all these are good, or are not good. There is\nsomething behind and beyond all these, which all these must correspond\nwith, be the image of, or they are--_Idolatries_: 'bits of black wood\npretending to be God;' to the earnest soul a mockery and abomination.\nIdolatries never so gilded, waited on by heads of the Koreish, will do\nnothing for this man. Though all men walk by them, what good is it? The\ngreat Reality stands glaring there upon _him_. He there has to answer\nit, or perish miserably. Now, even now, or else through all Eternity\nnever! Answer it; _thou_ must find an answer.--Ambition? What could all\nArabia do for this man; with the crown of Greek Heraclius, of Persian\nChosroes, and all crowns in the Earth;--what could they all do for him?\nIt was not of the Earth he wanted to hear tell; it was of the Heaven\nabove and of the Hell beneath. All crowns and sovereignties whatsoever,\nwhere would _they_ in a few brief years be? To be Sheik of Mecca or\nArabia, and have a bit of gilt wood put into your hand,--will that be\none's salvation? I decidedly think, not. We will leave it altogether,\nthis impostor hypothesis, as not credible; not very tolerable even,\nworthy chiefly of dismissal by us.\n\nMahomet had been wont to retire yearly, during the month Ramadhan,\ninto solitude and silence; as indeed was the Arab custom; a\npraiseworthy custom, which such a man, above all, would find natural\nand useful. Communing with his own heart, in the silence of the\nmountains; himself silent; open to the 'small still voices:' it was a\nright natural custom! Mahomet was in his fortieth year, when having\nwithdrawn to a cavern in Mount Hara, near Mecca, during this Ramadhan,\nto pass the month in prayer, and meditation on those great questions,\nhe one day told his wife Kadijah, who with his household was with him\nor near him this year, That by the unspeakable special favour of\nHeaven he had now found it all out; was in doubt and darkness no\nlonger, but saw it all. That all these Idols and Formulas were\nnothing, miserable bits of wood; that there was One God in and over\nall; and we must leave all Idols, and look to Him. That God is great;\nand that there is nothing else great! He is the Reality. Wooden Idols\nare not real; He is real. He made us at first, sustains us yet; we and\nall things are but the shadow of Him; a transitory garment veiling the\nEternal Splendour. '_Allah akbar_, God is great;'--and then also\n'_Islam_,' That we must _submit_ to God. That our whole strength lies\nin resigned submission to Him, whatsoever He do to us. For this world,\nand for the other! The thing He sends to us, were it death and worse\nthan death, shall be good, shall be best; we resign ourselves to\nGod.--'If this be _Islam_,' says Goethe, 'do we not all live in\n_Islam_?' Yes, all of us that have any moral life; we all live so. It\nhas ever been held the highest wisdom for a man not merely to submit\nto Necessity,--Necessity will make him submit,--but to know and\nbelieve well that the stern thing which Necessity had ordered was the\nwisest, the best, the thing wanted there. To cease his frantic\npretension of scanning this great God's-World in his small fraction of\na brain; to know that it _had_ verily, though deep beyond his\nsoundings, a Just Law, that the soul of it was Good;--that his part in\nit was to conform to the Law of the Whole, and in devout silence\nfollow that; not questioning it, obeying it as unquestionable.\n\nI say, this is yet the only true morality known. A man is right and\ninvincible, virtuous and on the road towards sure conquest, precisely\nwhile he joins himself to the great deep Law of the World, in spite of\nall superficial laws, temporary appearances, profit-and-loss\ncalculations; he is victorious while he cooeperates with that great\ncentral Law, not victorious otherwise:--and surely his first chance of\ncooeperating with it, or getting into the course of it, is to know with\nhis whole soul that it _is_; that it is good, and alone good! This is\nthe soul of Islam; it is properly the soul of Christianity;--for Islam\nis definable as a confused form of Christianity; had Christianity not\nbeen, neither had it been. Christianity also commands us, before all,\nto be resigned to God. We are to take no counsel with flesh-and-blood;\ngive ear to no vain cavils, vain sorrows and wishes: to know that we\nknow nothing; that the worst and cruelest to our eyes is not what it\nseems; that we have to receive whatsoever befalls us as sent from God\nabove, and say, It is good and wise, God is great! \"Though He slay me,\nyet will I trust in Him.\" Islam means in its way Denial of Self,\nAnnihilation of Self. This is yet the highest Wisdom that Heaven has\nrevealed to our Earth.\n\nSuch light had come, as it could, to illuminate the darkness of this\nwild Arab soul. A confused dazzling, splendour as of life and Heaven,\nin the great darkness which threatened to be death: he called it\nrevelation and the angel Gabriel;--who of us yet can know what to call\nit? It is the 'inspiration of the Almighty that giveth us\nunderstanding.' To _know_; to get into the truth of anything, is ever\na mystic act,--of which the best Logics can but babble on the surface.\n'Is not Belief the true god-announcing Miracle?' says Novalis.--That\nMahomet's whole soul, set in flame with this grand Truth vouchsafed\nhim, should feel as if it were important and the only important thing,\nwas very natural. That Providence had unspeakably honoured _him_ by\nrevealing it, saving him from death and darkness; that he therefore\nwas bound to make known the same to all creatures: this is what was\nmeant by 'Mahomet is the Prophet of God;' this too is not without its\ntrue meaning.--\n\nThe good Kadijah, we can fancy, listened to him with wonder, with\ndoubt: at length she answered: Yes, it was _true_ this that he said.\nOne can fancy too the boundless gratitude of Mahomet; and how of all\nthe kindnesses she had done him, this of believing the earnest\nstruggling word he now spoke was the greatest. 'It is certain,' says\nNovalis, 'my Conviction gains infinitely, the moment another soul will\nbelieve in it.' It is a boundless favour.--He never forgot this good\nKadijah. Long afterwards, Ayesha his young favourite wife, a woman who\nindeed distinguished herself among the Moslem, by all manner of\nqualities, through her whole long life; this young brilliant Ayesha\nwas, one day, questioning him: \"Now am not I better than Kadijah? She\nwas a widow; old, and had lost her looks: you love me better than you\ndid her?\"--\"No, by Allah!\" answered Mahomet: \"No, by Allah! She\nbelieved in me when none else would believe. In the whole world I had\nbut one friend, and she was that!\"--Seid, his Slave, also believed in\nhim; these with his young Cousin Ali, Abu Thaleb's son, were his first\nconverts.\n\nHe spoke of his Doctrine to this man and that; but the most treated it\nwith ridicule, with indifference; in three years, I think, he had\ngained but thirteen followers. His progress was slow enough. His\nencouragement to go on, was altogether the usual encouragement that\nsuch a man in such a case meets. After some three years of small\nsuccess, he invited forty of his chief kindred to an entertainment;\nand there stood-up and told them what his pretension was: that he had\nthis thing to promulgate abroad to all men; that it was the highest\nthing, the one thing: which of them would second him in that? Amid the\ndoubt and silence of all, young Ali, as yet a lad of sixteen,\nimpatient of the silence, started-up, and exclaimed in passionate\nfierce language, That he would! The assembly, among whom was Abu\nThaleb, Ali's Father, could not be unfriendly to Mahomet; yet the\nsight there, of one unlettered elderly man, with a lad of sixteen,\ndeciding on such an enterprise against all mankind, appeared\nridiculous to them; the assembly broke-up in laughter. Nevertheless it\nproved not a laughable thing; it was a very serious thing! As for this\nyoung Ali, one cannot but like him. A noble-minded creature, as he\nshows himself, now and always afterwards; full of affection, of fiery\ndaring. Something chivalrous in him; brave as a lion; yet with a\ngrace, a truth and affection worthy of Christian knighthood. He died\nby assassination in the Mosque at Bagdad; a death occasioned by his\nown generous fairness, confidence in the fairness of others: he said,\nIf the wound proved not unto death, they must pardon the Assassin; but\nif it did, then they must slay him straightway, that so they two in\nthe same hour might appear before God, and see which side of that\nquarrel was the just one!\n\nMahomet naturally gave offence to the Koreish, Keepers of the Caabah,\nsuperintendents of the Idols. One or two men of influence had joined\nhim: the thing spread slowly, but it was spreading. Naturally, he gave\noffence to everybody: Who is this that pretends to be wiser than we\nall; that rebukes us all, as mere fools and worshippers of wood! Abu\nThaleb the good Uncle spoke with him: Could he not be silent about all\nthat; believe it all for himself, and not trouble others, anger the\nchief men, endanger himself and them all, talking of it? Mahomet\nanswered: If the Sun stood on his right hand and the Moon on his left,\nordering him to hold his peace, he could not obey! No: there was\nsomething in this Truth he had got which was of Nature herself; equal\nin rank to Sun, or Moon, or whatsoever thing Nature had made. It would\nspeak itself there, so long as the Almighty allowed it, in spite of\nSun and Moon, and all Koreish and all men and things. It must do that,\nand could do no other. Mahomet answered so; and, they say, 'burst into\ntears.' Burst into tears: he felt that Abu Thaleb was good to him;\nthat the task he had got was no soft, but a stern and great one.\n\nHe went on speaking to who would listen to him; publishing his\nDoctrine among the pilgrims as they came to Mecca; gaining adherents\nin this place and that. Continual contradiction, hatred, open or\nsecret danger attended him. His powerful relations protected Mahomet\nhimself; but by and by, on his own advice, all his adherents had to\nquit Mecca, and seek refuge in Abyssinia over the sea. The Koreish\ngrew ever angrier; laid plots, and swore oaths among them, to put\nMahomet to death with their own hands. Abu Thaleb was dead, the good\nKadijah was dead. Mahomet is not solicitous of sympathy from us; but\nhis outlook at this time was one of the dismalest. He had to hide in\ncaverns, escape in disguise; fly hither and thither; homeless, in\ncontinual peril of his life. More than once it seemed all-over with\nhim; more than once it turned on a straw, some rider's horse taking\nfright or the like, whether Mahomet and his Doctrine had not ended\nthere, and not been heard of at all. But it was not to end so.\n\nIn the thirteenth year of his mission, finding his enemies all banded\nagainst him, forty sworn men, one out of every tribe, waiting to take\nhis life, and no continuance possible at Mecca for him any longer,\nMahomet fled to the place then called Yathreb, where he had gained\nsome adherents; the place they now call Medina, or '_Medinat al Nabi_,\nthe City of the Prophet,' from that circumstance. It lay some 200\nmiles off, through rocks and deserts; not without great difficulty, in\nsuch mood as we may fancy, he escaped thither, and found welcome. The\nwhole East dates its era from this Flight, _Hegira_ as they name it:\nthe Year 1 of this Hegira is 622 of our Era, the fifty-third of\nMahomet's life. He was now becoming an old man; his friends sinking\nround him one by one: his path desolate, encompassed with danger:\nunless he could find hope in his own heart, the outward face of things\nwas but hopeless for him. It is so with all men in the like case.\nHitherto Mahomet had professed to publish his Religion by the way of\npreaching and persuasion alone. But now, driven foully out of his\nnative country, since unjust men had not only given no ear to his\nearnest Heaven's-message, the deep cry of his heart, but would not\neven let him live if he kept speaking it,--the wild Son of the Desert\nresolved to defend himself, like a man and Arab. If the Koreish will\nhave it so, they shall have it. Tidings, felt to be of infinite moment\nto them and all men, they would not listen to these; would trample\nthem down by sheer violence, steel and murder: well, let steel try it\nthen! Ten years more this Mahomet had: all of fighting, of breathless\nimpetuous toil and struggle; with what result we know.\n\nMuch has been said of Mahomet's propagating his Religion by the sword.\nIt is no doubt far nobler what we have to boast of the Christian\nReligion, that it propagated itself peaceably in the way of preaching\nand conviction. Yet withal, if we take this for an argument of the\ntruth or falsehood of a religion, there is a radical mistake in it.\nThe sword indeed: but where will you get your sword! Every new\nopinion, at its starting, is precisely in a _minority of one_. In one\nman's head alone, there it dwells as yet. One man alone of the whole\nworld believes it; there is one man against all men. That _he_ take a\nsword, and try to propagate with that, will do little for him. You\nmust first get your sword! On the whole, a thing will propagate itself\nas it can. We do not find, of the Christian Religion either, that it\nalways disdained the sword, when once it had got one. Charlemagne's\nconversion of the Saxons was not by preaching. I care little about the\nsword: I will allow a thing to struggle for itself in this world, with\nany sword or tongue or implement it has, or can lay hold of. We will\nlet it preach, and pamphleteer, and fight, and to the uttermost bestir\nitself, and do, beak and claws, whatsoever is in it; very sure that it\nwill, in the long-run, conquer nothing which does not deserve to be\nconquered. What is better than itself, it cannot put away, but only\nwhat is worse. In this great Duel, Nature herself is umpire, and can\ndo no wrong: the thing which is deepest-rooted in Nature, what we call\n_truest_, that thing and not the other will be found growing at last.\n\nHere however, in reference to much that there is in Mahomet and his\nsuccess, we are to remember what an umpire Nature is; what a\ngreatness, composure of depth and tolerance there is in her. You take\nwheat to cast into the Earth's bosom: your wheat may be mixed with\nchaff, chopped straw, barn-sweepings, dust and all imaginable rubbish;\nno matter: you cast it into the kind just Earth; she grows the\nwheat,--the whole rubbish she silently absorbs, shrouds _it_ in, says\nnothing of the rubbish. The yellow wheat is growing there; the good\nEarth is silent about all the rest,--has silently turned all the rest\nto some benefit too, and makes no complaint about it! So everywhere in\nNature! She is true and not a lie; and yet so great, and just, and\nmotherly in her truth. She requires of a thing only that it _be_\ngenuine of heart; she will protect it if so; will not, if not so.\nThere is a soul of truth in all the things she ever gave harbour to.\nAlas, is not this the history of all highest Truth that comes or ever\ncame into the world? The _body_ of them all is imperfection, an\nelement of light _in_ darkness: to us they have to come embodied in\nmere Logic, in some merely _scientific_ Theorem of the Universe; which\n_cannot_ be complete; which cannot but be found, one day, incomplete,\nerroneous, and so die and disappear. The body of all Truth dies; and\nyet in all, I say, there is a soul which never dies; which in new and\never-nobler embodiment lives immortal as man himself! It is the way\nwith Nature. The genuine essence of Truth never dies. That it be\ngenuine, a voice from the great Deep of Nature, there is the point at\nNature's judgment-seat. What _we_ call pure or impure, is not with her\nthe final question. Not how much chaff is in you; but whether you have\nany wheat. Pure? I might say to many a man: Yes, you are pure; pure\nenough; but you are chaff,--insincere hypothesis, hearsay, formality;\nyou never were in contact with the great heart of the Universe at all;\nyou are properly neither pure nor impure; you _are_ nothing, Nature\nhas no business with you.\n\nMahomet's Creed we called a kind of Christianity; and really, if we\nlook at the wild rapt earnestness with which it was believed and laid\nto heart, I should say a better kind than that of those miserable\nSyrian Sects, with their vain janglings about _Homoiousion_ and\n_Homoousion_, the head full of worthless noise, the heart empty and\ndead! The truth of it is embedded in portentous error and falsehood;\nbut the truth of it makes it be believed, not the falsehood: it\nsucceeded by its truth. A bastard kind of Christianity, but a living\nkind; with a heart-life in it: not dead, chopping barren logic merely!\nOut of all that rubbish of Arab idolatries, argumentative theologies,\ntraditions, subtleties, rumours and hypotheses of Greeks and Jews,\nwith their idle wire-drawings, this wild man of the Desert, with his\nwild sincere heart, earnest as death and life, with his great flashing\nnatural eyesight, had seen into the kernel of the matter. Idolatry is\nnothing: these Wooden Idols of yours, 'ye rub them with oil and wax,\nand the flies stick on them,'--these are wood, I tell you! They can do\nnothing for you; they are an impotent blasphemous pretence; a horror\nand abomination, if ye knew them. God alone is; God alone has power;\nHe made us, He can kill us and keep us alive: '_Allah akbar_, God is\ngreat.' Understand that His will is the best for you; that howsoever\nsore to flesh-and-blood, you will find it the wisest, best: you are\nbound to take it so; in this world and in the next, you have no other\nthing that you can do!\n\nAnd now if the wild idolatrous men did believe this, and with their\nfiery hearts laid hold of it to do it, in what form soever it came to\nthem, I say it was well worthy of being believed. In one form or the\nother, I say it is still the one thing worthy of being believed by all\nmen. Man does hereby become the high-priest of this Temple of a World.\nHe is in harmony with the Decrees of the Author of this World;\ncooeperating with them, not vainly withstanding them: I know, to this\nday, no better definition of Duty than that same. All that is _right_\nincludes itself in this of cooeperating with the real Tendency of the\nWorld; you succeed by this (the World's Tendency will succeed), you\nare good, and in the right course there. _Homoiousion_, _Homoousion_,\nvain logical jangle, then or before or at any time, may jangle itself\nout, and go whither and how it likes: this is the _thing_ it all\nstruggles to mean, if it would mean anything. If it do not succeed in\nmeaning this, it means nothing. Not that Abstractions, logical\nPropositions, be correctly worded or incorrectly; but that living\nconcrete Sons of Adam do lay this to heart: that is the important\npoint. Islam devoured all these vain jangling Sects; and I think had\nright to do so. It was a Reality, direct from the great Heart of\nNature once more. Arab idolatries, Syrian formulas, whatsoever was not\nequally real, had to go up in flame,--mere dead _fuel_, in various\nsenses, for this which was _fire_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was during these wild warfarings and strugglings, especially after\nthe Flight to Mecca, that Mahomet dictated at intervals his Sacred\nBook, which they name _Koran_, or _Reading_, 'Thing to be read.' This\nis the Work he and his disciples made so much of, asking all the\nworld, Is not that a miracle? The Mahometans regard their Koran with a\nreverence which few Christians pay even to their Bible. It is admitted\neverywhere as the standard of all law and all practice; the thing to\nbe gone-upon in speculation and life: the message sent direct out of\nHeaven, which this Earth has to conform to, and walk by; the thing to\nbe read. Their Judges decide by it; all Moslem are bound to study it,\nseek in it for the light of their life. They have mosques where it is\nall read daily; thirty relays of priests take it up in succession, get\nthrough the whole each day. There, for twelve-hundred years, has the\nvoice of this Book, at all moments, kept sounding through the ears and\nthe hearts of so many men. We hear of Mahometan Doctors that had read\nit seventy-thousand times!\n\nVery curious: if one sought for 'discrepancies of national taste,'\nhere surely were the most eminent instance of that! We also can read\nthe Koran; our Translation of it, by Sale, is known to be a very fair\none. I must say, it is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook. A\nwearisome confused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations,\nlong-windedness, entanglement; most crude, incondite;--insupportable\nstupidity, in short! Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any\nEuropean through the Koran. We read in it, as we might in the\nState-Paper Office, unreadable masses of lumber, that perhaps we may\nget some glimpses of a remarkable man. It is true we have it under\ndisadvantages: the Arabs see more method in it than we. Mahomet's\nfollowers found the Koran lying all in fractions, as it had been\nwritten-down at first promulgation; much of it, they say, on\nshoulder-blades of mutton, flung pellmell into a chest: and they\npublished it, without any discoverable order as to time or\notherwise;--merely trying, as would seem, and this not very strictly,\nto put the longest chapters first. The real beginning of it, in that\nway, lies almost at the end: for the earliest portions were the\nshortest. Read in its historical sequence it perhaps would not be so\nbad. Much of it, too, they say, is rhythmic; a kind of wild chanting\nsong, in the original. This may be a great point; much perhaps has\nbeen lost in the Translation here. Yet with every allowance, one feels\nit difficult to see how any mortal ever could consider this Koran as a\nBook written in Heaven, too good for the Earth; as a well-written\nbook, or indeed as a _book_ at all; and not a bewildered rhapsody;\n_written_, so far as writing goes, as badly as almost any book ever\nwas. So much for national discrepancies, and the standard of taste.\n\nYet I should say, it was not unintelligible how the Arabs might so\nlove it. When once you get this confused coil of a Koran fairly off\nyour hands, and have it behind you at a distance, the essential type\nof it begins to disclose itself; and in this there is a merit quite\nother than the literary one. If a book come from the heart, it will\ncontrive to reach other hearts; all art and authorcraft are of small\namount to that. One would say the primary character of the Koran is\nthat of its _genuineness_, of its being a _bona-fide_ book. Prideaux,\nI know, and others have represented it as a mere bundle of juggleries;\nchapter after chapter got-up to excuse and varnish the author's\nsuccessive sins, forward his ambitions and quackeries: but really it\nis time to dismiss all that. I do not assert Mahomet's continual\nsincerity: who is continually sincere? But I confess I can make\nnothing of the critic, in these times, who would accuse him of deceit\n_prepense_; of conscious deceit generally, or perhaps at all;--still\nmore, of living in a mere element of conscious deceit, and writing\nthis Koran as a forger and juggler would have done! Every candid eye,\nI think, will read the Koran far otherwise than so. It is the confused\nferment of a great rude human soul; rude, untutored, that cannot even\nread; but fervent, earnest, struggling vehemently to utter itself in\nwords. With a kind of breathless intensity he strives to utter\nhimself; the thoughts crowd on him pellmell: for very multitude of\nthings to say, he can get nothing said. The meaning that is in him\nshapes itself into no form of composition, is stated in no sequence,\nmethod, or coherence;--they are not _shaped_ at all, these thoughts of\nhis; flung-out unshaped, as they struggle and tumble there, in their\nchaotic inarticulate state. We said 'stupid:' yet natural stupidity is\nby no means the character of Mahomet's Book; it is natural\nuncultivation rather. The man has not studied speaking; in the haste\nand pressure of continual fighting, has not time to mature himself\ninto fit speech. The panting breathless haste and vehemence of a man\nstruggling in the thick of battle for life and salvation; this is the\nmood he is in! A headlong haste; for very magnitude of meaning, he\ncannot get himself articulated into words. The successive utterances\nof a soul in that mood, coloured by the various vicissitudes of\nthree-and-twenty years; now well uttered, now worse: this is the\nKoran.\n\nFor we are to consider Mahomet, through these three-and-twenty years,\nas the centre of a world wholly in conflict. Battles with the Koreish\nand Heathen, quarrels among his own people, backslidings of his own\nwild heart; all this kept him in a perpetual whirl, his soul knowing\nrest no more. In wakeful nights, as one may fancy, the wild soul of\nthe man, tossing amid these vortices, would hail any light of a\ndecision for them as a veritable light from Heaven; _any_ making-up of\nhis mind, so blessed, indispensable for him there, would seem the\ninspiration of a Gabriel. Forger and juggler? No, no! This great fiery\nheart, seething, simmering like a great furnace of thoughts, was not a\njuggler's. His life was a Fact to him; this God's Universe an awful\nFact and Reality. He has faults enough. The man was an uncultured\nsemi-barbarous Son of Nature, much of the Bedouin still clinging to\nhim: we must take him for that. But for a wretched Simulacrum, a\nhungry Impostor without eyes or heart, practising for a mess of\npottage such blasphemous swindlery, forgery of celestial documents,\ncontinual high-treason against his Maker and Self, we will not and\ncannot take him.\n\nSincerity, in all senses, seems to me the merit of the Koran; what had\nrendered it precious to the wild Arab men. It is, after all, the first\nand last merit in a book; gives rise to merits of all kinds,--nay, at\nbottom, it alone can give rise to merit of any kind. Curiously,\nthrough these incondite masses of tradition, vituperation, complaint,\nejaculation in the Koran, a vein of true direct insight, of what we\nmight almost call poetry, is found straggling. The body of the Book is\nmade-up of mere tradition, and as it were vehement enthusiastic\nextempore preaching. He returns forever to the old stories of the\nProphets as they went current in the Arab memory: how Prophet after\nProphet, the Prophet Abraham, the Prophet Hud, the Prophet Moses,\nChristian and other real and fabulous Prophets, had come to this Tribe\nand to that, warning men of their sin; and been received by them even\nas he Mahomet was,--which is a great solace to him. These things he\nrepeats ten, perhaps twenty times; again and ever again with wearisome\niteration; has never done repeating them. A brave Samuel Johnson, in\nhis forlorn garret, might con-over the Biographies of Authors in that\nway! This is the great staple of the Koran. But curiously, through all\nthis, comes ever and anon some glance as of the real thinker and seer.\nHe has actually an eye for the world, this Mahomet: with a certain\ndirectness and rugged vigour, he brings home still, to our heart, the\nthing his own heart has been opened to. I make but little of his\npraises of Allah, which many praise; they are borrowed I suppose\nmainly from the Hebrew, at least they are far surpassed there. But the\neye that flashes direct into the heart of things, and _sees_ the truth\nof them; this is to me a highly interesting object. Great Nature's own\ngift; which she bestows on all; but which only one in the thousand\ndoes not cast sorrowfully away: it is what I call sincerity of vision;\nthe test of a sincere heart.\n\nMahomet can work no miracles; he often answers impatiently: I can work\nno miracles. I? 'I am a Public Preacher;' appointed to preach this\ndoctrine to all creatures. Yet the world, as we can see, had really\nfrom of old been all one great miracle to him. Look over the world,\nsays he; is it not wonderful, the work of Allah; wholly 'a sign to\nyou,' if your eyes were open! This Earth, God made it for you:\n'appointed paths in it;' you can live in it, go to and fro on it.--The\nclouds in the dry country of Arabia, to Mahomet they are very\nwonderful: Great clouds, he says, born in the deep bosom of the Upper\nImmensity, where do they come from! They hang there, the great black\nmonsters; pour-down their rain deluges 'to revive a dead earth,' and\ngrass springs, and tall leafy palm-trees with their date-clusters\nhanging round. Is not that a sign?' Your cattle too,--Allah made them;\nserviceable dumb creatures; they change the grass into milk; you have\nyour clothing from them, very strange creatures; they come ranking\nhome at evening-time, 'and,' adds he, 'and are a credit to you!' Ships\nalso,--he talks often about ships: Huge moving mountains, they\nspread-out their cloth wings, go bounding through the water there,\nHeaven's wind driving them; anon they lie motionless, God has\nwithdrawn the wind, they lie dead, and cannot stir! Miracles? cries\nhe; what miracle would you have? Are not you yourselves there? God\nmade _you_, 'shaped you out of a little clay.' Ye were small once; a\nfew years ago ye were not at all. Ye have beauty, strength, thoughts,\n'ye have compassion on one another.' Old age comes-on you, and gray\nhairs; your strength fades into feebleness; ye sink down, and again\nare not. 'Ye have compassion on one another:' this struck me much:\nAllah might have made you having no compassion on one another,--how\nhad it been then! This is a great direct thought, a glance at\nfirst-hand into the very fact of things. Rude vestiges of poetic\ngenius, of whatsoever is best and truest, are visible in this man. A\nstrong untutored intellect: eyesight, heart; a strong wild man,--might\nhave shaped himself into Poet, King, Priest, any kind of Hero.\n\nTo his eyes it is forever clear that this world wholly is miraculous.\nHe sees what, as we said once before, all great thinkers, the rude\nScandinavians themselves, in one way or other, have contrived to see:\nThat this so solid-looking material world is, at bottom, in very deed,\nNothing; is a visual and tactual Manifestation of God's power and\npresence,--a shadow hung-out by Him on the bosom of the void Infinite;\nnothing more. The Mountains, he says, these great rock-mountains, they\nshall dissipate themselves 'like clouds;' melt into the Blue as clouds\ndo, and not be! He figures the Earth, in the Arab fashion, Sale tells\nus, as an immense Plain or flat Plate of ground, the mountains are set\non that to _steady_ it. At the Last Day they shall disappear 'like\nclouds;' the whole Earth shall go spinning, whirl itself off into\nwreck, and as dust and vapour vanish in the Inane. Allah withdraws his\nhand from it, and it ceases to be. The universal empire of Allah,\npresence everywhere of an unspeakable Power, a Splendour, and a Terror\nnot to be named, as the true force, essence and reality, in all things\nwhatsoever, was continually clear to this man. What a modern talks-of\nby the name, Forces of Nature, Laws of Nature; and does not figure as\na divine thing; not even as one thing at all, but as a set of things,\nundivine enough,--saleable, curious, good for propelling steamships!\nWith our Sciences and Cyclopaedias, we are apt to forget the\n_divineness_, in these laboratories of ours. We ought not to forget\nit! That once well forgotten, I know not what else were worth\nremembering. Most sciences, I think, were then a very dead thing;\nwithered, contentious, empty;--a thistle in late autumn. The best\nscience, without this, is but as the dead _timber_; it is not the\ngrowing tree and forest,--which gives ever-new timber, among other\nthings! Man cannot _know_ either, unless he can _worship_ in some way.\nHis knowledge is a pedantry, and dead thistle, otherwise.\n\nMuch has been said and written about the sensuality of Mahomet's\nReligion; more than was just. The indulgences, criminal to us, which\nhe permitted, were not of his appointment; he found them practised,\nunquestioned from immemorial time in Arabia; what he did was to\ncurtail them, restrict them, not on one but on many sides. His\nReligion is not an easy one: with rigorous fasts, lavations, strict\ncomplex formulas, prayers five times a day, and abstinence from wine,\nit did not 'succeed by being an easy religion.' As if indeed any\nreligion, or cause holding of religion, could succeed by that! It is a\ncalumny on men to say that they are roused to heroic action by ease,\nhope of pleasure, recompense,--sugar-plums of any kind, in this world\nor the next! In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler. The\npoor swearing soldier, hired to be shot, has his 'honour of a\nsoldier,' different from drill-regulations and the shilling a day. It\nis not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true things, and\nvindicate himself under God's Heaven as a god-made Man, that the\npoorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the\ndullest daydrudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say\nhe is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death\nare the _allurements_ that act on the heart of man. Kindle the inner\ngenial life of him, you have a flame that burns-up all lower\nconsiderations. Not happiness, but something higher: one sees this\neven in the frivolous classes, with their 'point of honour' and the\nlike. Not by flattering our appetites; no, by awakening the Heroic\nthat slumbers in every heart, can any Religion gain followers.\n\nMahomet himself, after all that can be said about him, was not a\nsensual man. We shall err widely if we consider this man as a common\nvoluptuary, intent mainly on base enjoyments,--nay on enjoyments of\nany kind. His household was of the frugalest; his common diet\nbarley-bread and water: sometimes for months there was not a fire once\nlighted on his hearth. They record with just pride that he would mend\nhis own shoes, patch his own cloak. A poor, hard-toiling, ill-provided\nman; careless of what vulgar men toil for. Not a bad man, I should\nsay; something better in him than _hunger_ of any sort,--or these wild\nArab men, fighting and jostling three-and-twenty years at his hand, in\nclose contact with him always, would not have reverenced him so! They\nwere wild men, bursting ever and anon into quarrel, into all kinds of\nfierce sincerity; without right worth and manhood, no man could have\ncommanded them. They called him Prophet, you say? Why, he stood there\nface to face with them; bare, not enshrined in any mystery; visibly\nclouting his own cloak, cobbling his own shoes; fighting, counselling,\nordering in the midst of them: they must have seen what kind of a man\nhe _was_, let him be _called_ what you like! No emperor with his\ntiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak of his own clouting. During\nthree-and-twenty years of rough actual trial. I find something of a\nveritable Hero necessary for that, of itself.\n\nHis last words are a prayer; broken ejaculations of a heart\nstruggling-up, in trembling hope, towards its Maker. We cannot say\nthat his religion made him _worse_; it made him better; good, not bad.\nGenerous things are recorded of him: when he lost his Daughter, the\nthing he answers is, in his own dialect, everyway sincere, and yet\nequivalent to that of Christians, 'The Lord giveth, and the Lord\ntaketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' He answered in like\nmanner of Seid, his emancipated well-beloved Slave, the second of the\nbelievers. Seid had fallen in the War of Tabuc, the first of Mahomet's\nfightings with the Greeks. Mahomet said, It was well; Seid had done\nhis Master's work, Seid had now gone to his Master: it was all well\nwith Seid. Yet Seid's daughter found him weeping over the body;--the\nold gray-haired man melting in tears! \"What do I see?\" said she.--\"You\nsee a friend weeping over his friend.\"--He went out for the last time\ninto the mosque, two days before his death; asked, If he had injured\nany man? Let his own back bear the stripes. If he owed any man? A\nvoice answered, \"Yes, me three drachms,\" borrowed on such an occasion.\nMahomet ordered them to be paid: \"Better be in shame now,\" said he,\n\"than at the Day of Judgment.\"--You remember Kadijah, and the \"No, by\nAllah!\" Traits of that kind show us the genuine man, the brother of us\nall, brought visible through twelve centuries,--the veritable Son of\nour common Mother.\n\nWithal I like Mahomet for his total freedom from cant. He is a rough\nself-helping son of the wilderness; does not pretend to be what he is\nnot. There is no ostentatious pride in him; but neither does he go\nmuch upon humility: he is there as he can be, in cloak and shoes of\nhis own clouting; speaks plainly to all manner of Persian Kings, Greek\nEmperors, what it is they are bound to do; knows well enough, about\nhimself, 'the respect due unto thee.' In a life-and-death war with\nBedouins, cruel things could not fail; but neither are acts of mercy,\nof noble natural pity and generosity wanting. Mahomet makes no apology\nfor the one, no boast of the other. They were each the free dictate of\nhis heart; each called-for, there and then. Not a mealy-mouthed man! A\ncandid ferocity, if the case call for it, is in him; he does not mince\nmatters! The War of Tabuc is a thing he often speaks of: his men\nrefused, many of them, to march on that occasion: pleaded the heat of\nthe weather, the harvest, and so forth; he can never forget that. Your\nharvest? It lasts for a day. What will become of your harvest through\nall Eternity? Hot weather? Yes, it was hot; 'but Hell will be hotter!'\nSometimes a rough sarcasm turns-up: He says to the unbelievers, Ye\nshall have the just measure of your deeds at that Great Day. They will\nbe weighed-out to you; ye shall not have short weight!--Everywhere he\nfixes the matter in his eye; he _sees_ it: his heart, now and then, is\nas if struck dumb by the greatness of it. 'Assuredly,' he says: that\nword, in the Koran, is written-down sometimes as a sentence by itself:\n'Assuredly.'\n\nNo _Dilettantism_ in this Mahomet; it is a business of Reprobation and\nSalvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in deadly earnest\nabout it! Dilettantism, hypothesis, speculation, a kind of\namateur-search for Truth, toying and coquetting with Truth: this is\nthe sorest sin. The root of all other imaginable sins. It consists in\nthe heart and soul of the man never having been _open_ to\nTruth;--'living in a vain show.' Such a man not only utters and\nproduces falsehoods, but _is_ himself a falsehood. The rational moral\nprinciple, spark of the Divinity, is sunk deep in him, in quiet\nparalysis of life-death. The very falsehoods of Mahomet are truer than\nthe truths of such a man. He is the insincere man: smooth-polished,\nrespectable in some times and places: inoffensive, says nothing harsh\nto anybody; most _cleanly_,--just as carbonic acid is, which is death\nand poison.\n\nWe will not praise Mahomet's moral precepts as always of the\nsuperfinest sort; yet it can be said that there is always a tendency\nto good in them; that they are the true dictates of a heart aiming\ntowards what is just and true. The sublime forgiveness of\nChristianity, turning of the other cheek when the one has been\nsmitten, is not here: you _are_ to revenge yourself, but it is to be\nin measure, not overmuch, or beyond justice. On the other hand, Islam,\nlike any great Faith, and insight into the essence of man, is a\nperfect equaliser of men: the soul of one believer outweighs all\nearthly kingships; all men, according to Islam too, are equal. Mahomet\ninsists not on the propriety of giving alms, but on the necessity of\nit; he marks-down by law how much you are to give, and it is at your\nperil if you neglect. The tenth part of a man's annual income,\nwhatever that may be, is the _property_ of the poor, of those that are\nafflicted and need help. Good all this: the natural voice of humanity,\nof pity and equity dwelling in the heart of this wild Son of Nature\nspeaks _so_.\n\nMahomet's Paradise is sensual, his Hell sensual: true; in the one and\nthe other there is enough that shocks all spiritual feeling in us. But\nwe are to recollect that the Arabs already had it so; that Mahomet, in\nwhatever he changed of it, softened and diminished all this. The worst\nsensualities, too, are the work of doctors, followers of his, not his\nwork. In the Koran there is really very little said about the joys of\nParadise; they are intimated rather than insisted on. Nor is it\nforgotten that the highest joys even there shall be spiritual; the\npure Presence of the Highest, this shall infinitely transcend all\nother joys. He says, 'Your salutation shall be, Peace.' _Salam_, Have\nPeace!--the thing that all rational souls long for, and seek, vainly\nhere below, as the one blessing. 'Ye shall sit on seats, facing one\nanother: all grudges shall be taken away out of your hearts.' All\ngrudges! Ye shall love one another freely; for each of you, in the\neyes of his brothers, there will be Heaven enough!\n\nIn reference to this of the sensual Paradise and Mahomet's sensuality,\nthe sorest chapter of all for us, there were many things to be said;\nwhich it is not convenient to enter upon here. Two remarks only I\nshall make, and therewith leave it to your candour. The first is\nfurnished me by Goethe; it is a casual hint of his which seems well\nworth taking note of. In one of his Delineations, in _Meister's\nTravels_ it is, the hero comes-upon a Society of men with very strange\nways, one of which was this: \"We require,\" says the Master, \"that each\nof our people shall restrict himself in one direction,\" shall go right\nagainst his desire in one matter, and _make_ himself do the thing he\ndoes not wish, \"should we allow him the greater latitude on all other\nsides.\" There seems to me a great justness in this. Enjoying things\nwhich are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our\nmoral self to slavery by them that is. Let a man assert withal that he\nis king over his habitudes; that he could and would shake them off, on\ncause shown: this is an excellent law. The Month Ramadhan for the\nMoslem, much in Mahomet's Religion, much in his own Life, bears in\nthat direction; if not by forethought, or clear purpose of moral\nimprovement on his part, then by a certain healthy manful instinct,\nwhich is as good.\n\nBut there is another thing to be said about the Mahometan Heaven and\nHell. This namely, that, however gross and material they may be, they\nare an emblem of an everlasting truth, not always so well remembered\nelsewhere. That gross sensual Paradise of his; that horrible flaming\nHell; the great enormous Day of Judgment he perpetually insists on:\nwhat is all this but a rude shadow, in the rude Bedouin imagination,\nof that grand spiritual Fact, and Beginning of Facts, which it is ill\nfor us too if we do not all know and feel: the Infinite Nature of\nDuty? That man's actions here are of _infinite_ moment to him, and\nnever die or end at all; that man, with his little life, reaches\nupwards high as Heaven, downwards low as Hell, and in his threescore\nyears of Time holds an Eternity fearfully and wonderfully hidden: all\nthis had burnt itself, as in flame-characters, into the wild Arab\nsoul. As in flame and lightning, it stands written there; awful,\nunspeakable, ever present to him. With bursting earnestness, with a\nfierce savage sincerity, halt, articulating, not able to articulate,\nhe strives to speak it, bodies it forth in that Heaven and that Hell.\nBodied forth in what way you will, it is the first of all truths. It\nis venerable under all embodiments. What is the chief end of man here\nbelow? Mahomet has answered this question, in a way that might put\nsome of _us_ to shame! He does not, like a Bentham, a Paley, take\nRight and Wrong, and calculate the profit and loss, ultimate pleasure\nof the one and of the other; and summing all up by addition and\nsubtraction into a net result, ask you, Whether on the whole the Right\ndoes not preponderate considerably? No, it is not _better_ to do the\none than the other; the one is to the other as life is to death,--as\nHeaven is to Hell. The one must in nowise be done, the other in nowise\nleft undone. You shall not measure them; they are incommensurable: the\none is death eternal to a man, the other is life eternal. Benthamee\nUtility, virtue by Profit and Loss; reducing this God's-world to a\ndead brute Steam-engine, the infinite celestial Soul of Man to a kind\nof Hay-balance for weighing hay and thistles on, pleasures and pains\non:--If you ask me which gives, Mahomet or they, the beggarlier and\nfalser view of Man and his Destinies in this Universe, I will answer,\nIt is not Mahomet!----\n\nOn the whole, we will repeat that this Religion of Mahomet's is a kind\nof Christianity; has a genuine element of what is spiritually highest\nlooking through it, not to be hidden by all its imperfections. The\nScandinavian God _Wish_, the god of all rude men,--this has been\nenlarged into a Heaven by Mahomet; but a Heaven symbolical of sacred\nDuty, and to be earned by faith and welldoing, by valiant action, and\na divine patience which is still more valiant. It is Scandinavian\nPaganism, and a truly celestial element superadded to that. Call it\nnot false; look not at the falsehood of it, look at the truth of it.\nFor these twelve centuries, it has been the religion and life-guidance\nof the fifth part of the whole kindred of Mankind. Above all things,\nit has been a religion heartily _believed_. These Arabs believe their\nreligion, and try to live by it! No Christians, since the early ages,\nor only perhaps the English Puritans in modern times, have ever stood\nby their Faith as the Moslem do by theirs,--believing it wholly,\nfronting Time with it, and Eternity with it. This night the watchman\non the streets of Cairo when he cries \"Who goes?\" will hear from the\npassenger, along with his answer, \"There is no God but God.\" _Allah\nakbar, Islam_, sounds through the souls, and whole daily existence, of\nthese dusky millions. Zealous missionaries preach it abroad among\nMalays, black Papuans, brutal Idolaters;--displacing what is worse,\nnothing that is better or good.\n\nTo the Arab Nation it was as a birth from darkness into light; Arabia\nfirst became alive by means of it. A poor shepherd people, roaming\nunnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the world: a\nHero-Prophet was sent down to them with a word they could believe:\nsee, the unnoticed becomes world-notable, the small has grown\nworld-great; within one century afterwards, Arabia is at Grenada on\nthis hand, at Delhi on that;--glancing in valour and splendour and the\nlight of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a great section\nof the world. Belief is great, life-giving. The history of a Nation\nbecomes fruitful, soul-elevating, great, so soon as it believes. These\nArabs, the man Mahomet, and that one century,--is it not as if a spark\nhad fallen, one spark, on a world of what seemed black unnoticeable\nsand; but lo, the sand proves explosive powder, blazes heaven-high\nfrom Delhi to Grenada! I said, the Great Man was always as lightning\nout of Heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel, and then they\ntoo would flame.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III\n\nTHE HERO AS POET. DANTE; SHAKSPEARE.\n\n[_Tuesday, 12th May 1840_]\n\n\nThe Hero as Divinity, the Hero as Prophet, are productions of old\nages; not to be repeated in the new. They presuppose a certain\nrudeness of conception, which the progress of mere scientific\nknowledge puts an end to. There needs to be, as it were, a world\nvacant, or almost vacant of scientific forms, if men in their loving\nwonder are to fancy their fellow-man either a god or one speaking with\nthe voice of a god. Divinity and Prophet are past. We are now to see\nour Hero in the less ambitious, but also less questionable, character\nof Poet; a character which does not pass. The Poet is a heroic figure\nbelonging to all ages; whom all ages possess, when once he is\nproduced, whom the newest age as the oldest may produce;--and will\nproduce, always when Nature pleases. Let Nature send a Hero-soul; in\nno age is it other than possible that he may be shaped into a Poet.\n\nHero, Prophet, Poet,--many different names, in different times and\nplaces, do we give to Great Men; according to varieties we note in\nthem, according to the sphere in which they have displayed themselves!\nWe might give many more names, on this same principle. I will remark\nagain, however, as a fact not unimportant to be understood, that the\ndifferent _sphere_ constitutes the grand origin of such distinction;\nthat the Hero can be Poet, Prophet, King, Priest or what you will,\naccording to the kind of world he finds himself born into. I confess,\nI have no notion of a truly great man that could not be _all_ sorts of\nmen. The Poet who could merely sit on a chair, and compose stanzas,\nwould never make a stanza worth much. He could not sing the Heroic\nwarrior, unless he himself were at least a Heroic warrior too. I fancy\nthere is in him the Politician, the Thinker, Legislator,\nPhilosopher;--in one or the other degree, he could have been, he is\nall these. So too I cannot understand how a Mirabeau, with that great\nglowing heart, with the fire that was in it, with the bursting tears\nthat were in it, could not have written verses, tragedies, poems,\ntouched all hearts in that way, had his course of life and education\nled him thitherward. The grand fundamental character is that of Great\nMan; that the man be great. Napoleon has words in him which are like\nAusterlitz Battles. Louis Fourteenth's Marshals are a kind of poetical\nmen withal; the things Turenne says are full of sagacity and\ngeniality, like sayings of Samuel Johnson. The great heart, the clear\ndeep-seeing eye: there it lies; no man whatever, in what province\nsoever, can prosper at all without these. Petrarch and Boccaccio did\ndiplomatic messages, it seems, quite well: one can easily believe it;\nthey had done things a little harder than these! Burns, a gifted\nsong-writer, might have made a still better Mirabeau. Shakspeare,--one\nknows not what _he_ could not have made, in the supreme degree.\n\nTrue, there are aptitudes of Nature too. Nature does not make all\ngreat men, more than all other men, in the self-same mould. Varieties\nof aptitude doubtless; but infinitely more of circumstance; and far\noftenest it is the _latter_ only that are looked to. But it is as with\ncommon men in the learning of trades. You take any man, as yet a vague\ncapability of a man, who could be any kind of craftsman; and make him\ninto a smith, a carpenter, a mason: he is then and thenceforth that\nand nothing else. And if, as Addison complains, you sometimes see a\nstreet-porter staggering under his load on spindle-shanks, and near at\nhand a tailor with the frame of a Samson handling a bit of cloth and\nsmall Whitechapel needle,--it cannot be considered that aptitude of\nNature alone has been consulted here either!--The Great Man also, to\nwhat shall he be bound apprentice? Given your Hero, is he to become\nConqueror, King, Philosopher, Poet? It is an inexplicably complex\ncontroversial-calculation between the world and him! He will read the\nworld and its laws; the world with its laws will be there to be read.\nWhat the world, on _this_ matter, shall permit and bid is, as we said,\nthe most important fact about the world.--\n\n * * * * *\n\nPoet and Prophet differ greatly in our loose modern notions of them.\nIn some old languages, again, the titles are synonymous; _Vates_ means\nboth Prophet and Poet: and indeed at all times, Prophet and Poet, well\nunderstood, have much kindred of meaning. Fundamentally indeed they\nare still the same; in this most important respect especially, That\nthey have penetrated both of them into the sacred mystery of the\nUniverse; what Goethe calls 'the open secret.' \"Which is the great\nsecret?\" asks one.--\"The _open_ secret,\"--open to all, seen by almost\nnone! That divine mystery, which lies everywhere in all Beings, 'the\nDivine Idea of the World, that which lies at the bottom of\nAppearance,' as Fichte styles it; of which all Appearance, from the\nstarry sky to the grass of the field, but especially the Appearance of\nMan and his work, is but the _vesture_, the embodiment that renders it\nvisible. This divine mystery _is_ in all times and in all places;\nveritably is. In most times and places it is greatly overlooked; and\nthe Universe, definable always in one or the other dialect, as the\nrealised Thought of God, is considered a trivial, inert, commonplace\nmatter,--as if, says the Satirist, it were a dead thing, which some\nupholsterer had put together! It could do no good at present, to\n_speak_ much about this; but it is a pity for every one of us if we do\nnot know it, live ever in the knowledge of it. Really a most mournful\npity;--a failure to live at all, if we live otherwise!\n\nBut now, I say, whoever may forget this divine mystery, the _Vates_,\nwhether Prophet or Poet, has penetrated into it; is a man sent hither\nto make it more impressively known to us. That always is his message;\nhe is to reveal that to us,--that sacred mystery which he more than\nothers lives ever present with. While others forget it, he knows\nit;--I might say, he has been driven to know it; without consent asked\nof _him_, he finds himself living in it, bound to live in it. Once\nmore, here is no Hearsay, but a direct Insight and Belief; this man\ntoo could not help being a sincere man! Whosoever may live in the\nshows of things, it is for him a necessity of nature to live in the\nvery fact of things. A man once more, in earnest with the Universe,\nthough all others were but toying with it. He is a _Vates_, first of\nall, in virtue of being sincere. So far Poet and Prophet,\nparticipators in the 'open secret,' are one.\n\nWith respect to their distinction again: The _Vates_ Prophet, we might\nsay, has seized that sacred mystery rather on the moral side, as Good\nand Evil, Duty and Prohibition; the _Vates_ Poet on what the Germans\ncall the aesthetic side, as Beautiful, and the like. The one we may\ncall a revealer of what we are to do, the other of what we are to\nlove. But indeed these two provinces run into one another, and cannot\nbe disjoined. The Prophet too has his eye on what we are to love: how\nelse shall he know what it is we are to do? The highest Voice ever\nheard on this earth said withal, \"Consider the lilies of the field;\nthey toil not, neither do they spin: yet Solomon in all his glory was\nnot arrayed like one of these.\" A glance, that, into the deepest deep\nof Beauty. 'The lilies of the field,'--dressed finer than earthly\nprinces, springing-up there in the humble furrow-field; a beautiful\n_eye_ looking-out on you, from the great inner Sea of Beauty! How\ncould the rude Earth make these, if her Essence, rugged as she looks\nand is, were not inwardly Beauty? In this point of view, too, a saying\nof Goethe's, which has staggered several, may have meaning: 'The\nBeautiful,' he intimates, 'is higher than the Good: the Beautiful\nincludes in it the Good.' The _true_ Beautiful; which however, I have\nsaid somewhere, 'differs from the _false_ as Heaven does from\nVauxhall!' So much for the distinction and identity of Poet and\nProphet.--\n\nIn ancient and also in modern periods we find a few Poets who are\naccounted perfect; whom it were a kind of treason to find fault with.\nThis is noteworthy; this is right: yet in strictness it is only an\nillusion. At bottom, clearly enough, there is no perfect Poet! A vein\nof Poetry exists in the hearts of all men; no man is made altogether\nof Poetry. We are all poets when we _read_ a poem well. The\n'imagination that shudders at the Hell of Dante,' is not that the same\nfaculty, weaker in degree, as Dante's own? No one but Shakspeare can\nembody, out of _Saxo Grammaticus_, the story of _Hamlet_ as Shakspeare\ndid: but every one models some kind of story out of it; every one\nembodies it better or worse. We need not spend time in defining. Where\nthere is no specific difference, as between round and square, all\ndefinition must be more or less arbitrary. A man that has _so_ much\nmore of the poetic element developed in him as to have become\nnoticeable, will be called Poet by his neighbours. World-Poets too,\nthose whom we are to take for perfect Poets, are settled by critics in\nthe same way. One who rises _so_ far above the general level of Poets\nwill, to such and such critics, seem a Universal Poet; as he ought to\ndo. And yet it is, and must be, an arbitrary distinction. All Poets,\nall men, have some touches of the Universal; no man is wholly made of\nthat. Most Poets are very soon forgotten: but not the noblest\nShakspeare or Homer of them can be remembered _forever_;--a day comes\nwhen he too is not!\n\nNevertheless, you will say, there must be a difference between true\nPoetry and true Speech not poetical: what is the difference? On this\npoint many things have been written, especially by late German\nCritics, some of which are not very intelligible at first. They say,\nfor example, that the Poet has an _infinitude_ in him; communicates an\n_Unendlichkeit_, a certain character of 'infinitude,' to whatsoever he\ndelineates. This, though not very precise, yet on so vague a matter is\nworth remembering: if well meditated, some meaning will gradually be\nfound in it. For my own part, I find considerable meaning in the old\nvulgar distinction of Poetry being _metrical_, having music in it,\nbeing a Song. Truly, if pressed to give a definition, one might say\nthis as soon as anything else: If your delineation be authentically\n_musical_, musical, not in word only, but in heart and substance, in\nall the thoughts and utterances of it, in the whole conception of it,\nthen it will be poetical; if not, not.--Musical: how much lies in\nthat! A _musical_ thought is one spoken by a mind that has penetrated\ninto the inmost heart of the thing; detected the inmost mystery of it,\nnamely the _melody_ that lies hidden in it; the inward harmony of\ncoherence which is its soul, whereby it exists, and has a right to be,\nhere in this world. All inmost things, we may say, are melodious;\nnaturally utter themselves in Song. The meaning of Song goes deep. Who\nis there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on\nus? A kind of inarticulate unfathomable speech, which leads us to the\nedge of the Infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that!\n\nNay all speech, even the commonest speech, has something of song in\nit: not a parish in the world but has its parish-accent;--the rhythm\nor _tune_ to which the people there _sing_ what they have to say!\nAccent is a kind of chanting; all men have accent of their\nown,--though they only _notice_ that of others. Observe too how all\npassionate language does of itself become musical,--with a finer music\nthan the mere accent; the speech of a man even in zealous anger\nbecomes a chant, a song. All deep things are Song. It seems somehow\nthe very central essence of us, Song; as if all the rest were but\nwrappages and hulls! The primal element of us; of us, and of all\nthings. The Greeks fabled of Sphere-Harmonies; it was the feeling they\nhad of the inner structure of Nature; that the soul of all her voices\nand utterances was perfect music. Poetry, therefore, we will call\n_musical Thought_. The Poet is he who _thinks_ in that manner. At\nbottom, it turns still on power of intellect; it is a man's sincerity\nand depth of vision that makes him a Poet. See deep enough, and you\nsee musically; the heart of Nature _being_ everywhere music, if you\ncan only reach it.\n\nThe _Vates_ Poet, with his melodious Apocalypse of Nature, seems to\nhold a poor rank among us, in comparison with the _Vates_ Prophet; his\nfunction, and our esteem of him for his function, alike slight. The\nHero taken as Divinity; the Hero taken as Prophet; then next the Hero\ntaken only as Poet: does it not look as if our estimate of the Great\nMan, epoch after epoch, were continually diminishing? We take him\nfirst for a god, then for one god-inspired; and now in the next stage\nof it, his most miraculous word gains from us only the recognition\nthat he is a Poet, beautiful verse-maker, man of genius, or\nsuchlike!--It looks so; but I persuade myself that intrinsically it is\nnot so. If we consider well, it will perhaps appear that in man still\nthere is the _same_ altogether peculiar admiration for the Heroic\nGift, by what name soever called, that there at any time was.\n\nI should say, if we do not now reckon a Great Man literally divine, it\nis that our notions of God, of the supreme unattainable Fountain of\nSplendour, Wisdom and Heroism, are ever rising _higher_; not\naltogether that our reverence for these qualities, as manifested in\nour like, is getting lower. This is worth taking thought of. Sceptical\nDilettantism, the curse of these ages, a curse which will not last\nforever, does indeed in this the highest province of human things, as\nin all provinces, make sad work; and our reverence for great men, all\ncrippled, blinded, paralytic as it is, comes out in poor plight,\nhardly recognisable. Men worship the shows of great men; the most\ndisbelieve that there is any reality of great men to worship. The\ndreariest, fatalest faith; believing which, one would literally\ndespair of human things. Nevertheless look, for example, at Napoleon!\nA Corsican lieutenant of artillery; that is the show of _him_: yet is\nhe not obeyed, _worshipped_ after his sort, as all the Tiaraed and\nDiademed of the world put together could not be? High Duchesses, and\nostlers of inns, gather round the Scottish rustic, Burns;--a strange\nfeeling dwelling in each that they had never heard a man like this;\nthat, on the whole, this is the man! In the secret heart of these\npeople it still dimly reveals itself, though there is no accredited\nway of uttering it at present, that this rustic, with his black brows\nand flashing sun-eyes, and strange words moving laughter and tears, is\nof a dignity far beyond all others, incommensurable with all others.\nDo not we feel it so? But now, were Dilettantism, Scepticism,\nTriviality, and all that sorrowful brood, cast-out of us,--as, by\nGod's blessing, they shall one day be; were faith in the shows of\nthings entirely swept-out, replaced by clear faith in the _things_, so\nthat a man acted on the impulse of that only, and counted the other\nnon-extant; what a new livelier feeling towards this Burns were it!\n\nNay here in these pages, such as they are, have we not two mere Poets,\nif not deified, yet we may say beatified? Shakspeare and Dante are\nSaints of Poetry; really, if we will think of it, _canonised_, so that\nit is impiety to meddle with them. The unguided instinct of the world,\nworking across all these perverse impediments, has arrived at such\nresult. Dante and Shakspeare are a peculiar Two. They dwell apart, in\na kind of royal solitude; none equal, none second to them: in the\ngeneral feeling of the world, a certain transcendentalism, a glory as\nof complete perfection, invests these two. They _are_ canonised,\nthough no Pope or Cardinals took hand in doing it! Such, in spite of\nevery perverting influence, in the most unheroic times, is still our\nindestructible reverence for heroism.--We will look a little at these\nTwo, the Poet Dante and the Poet Shakspeare: what little it is\npermitted us to say here of the Hero as Poet will most fitly arrange\nitself in that fashion.\n\n * * * * *\n\nMany volumes have been written by way of commentary on Dante and his\nBook; yet, on the whole, with no great result. His Biography is, as it\nwere, irrecoverably lost for us. An unimportant, wandering,\nsorrowstricken man, not much note was taken of him while he lived; and\nthe most of that has vanished, in the long space that now intervenes.\nIt is five centuries since he ceased writing and living here. After\nall commentaries, the Book itself is mainly what we know of him. The\nBook;--and one might add that Portrait commonly attributed to Giotto,\nwhich, looking on it, you cannot help inclining to think genuine,\nwhoever did it. To me it is a most touching face; perhaps of all faces\nthat I know, the most so. Lonely there, painted as on vacancy, with\nthe simple laurel wound round it; the deathless sorrow and pain, the\nknown victory which is also deathless;--significant of the whole\nhistory of Dante! I think it is the mournfulest face that ever was\npainted from reality; an altogether tragic, heart-affecting face.\nThere is in it, as foundation of it, the softness, tenderness, gentle\naffection as of a child; but all this is as if congealed into sharp\ncontradiction, into abnegation, isolation, proud hopeless pain. A soft\nethereal soul looking-out so stern, implacable, grim-trenchant, as\nfrom imprisonment of thick-ribbed ice! Withal it is a silent pain too,\na silent scornful one: the lip is curled in a kind of godlike disdain\nof the thing that is eating-out his heart,--as if it were withal a\nmean insignificant thing, as if he whom it had power to torture and\nstrangle were greater than it. The face of one wholly in protest, and\nlife-long unsurrendering battle, against the world. Affection all\nconverted into indignation: an implacable indignation; slow, equable,\nsilent, like that of a god! The eye too, it looks-out as in a kind of\n_surprise_, a kind of inquiry, Why the world was of such a sort? This\nis Dante: so he looks, this 'voice of ten silent centuries,' and sings\nus 'his mystic unfathomable song.'\n\nThe little that we know of Dante's Life corresponds well enough with\nthis Portrait and this Book. He was born at Florence, in the upper\nclass of society, in the year 1265. His education was the best then\ngoing; much school-divinity, Aristotelean logic, some Latin\nclassics,--no inconsiderable insight into certain provinces of things:\nand Dante, with his earnest intelligent nature, we need not doubt,\nlearned better than most all that was learnable. He has a clear\ncultivated understanding, and of great subtlety; the best fruit of\neducation he had contrived to realise from these scholastics. He knows\naccurately and well what lies close to him; but, in such a time,\nwithout printed books or free intercourse, he could not know well what\nwas distant: the small clear light, most luminous for what is near,\nbreaks itself into singular _chiaroscuro_ striking on what is far off.\nThis was Dante's learning from the schools. In life, he had gone\nthrough the usual destinies; been twice out campaigning as a soldier\nfor the Florentine State, been on embassy; had in his thirty-fifth\nyear, by natural gradation of talent and service, become one of the\nChief Magistrates of Florence. He had met in boyhood a certain\nBeatrice Portinari, a beautiful little girl of his own age and rank,\nand grown-up thenceforth in partial sight of her, in some distant\nintercourse with her. All readers know his graceful affecting account\nof this; and then of their being parted; of her being wedded to\nanother, and of her death soon after. She makes a great figure in\nDante's Poem; seems to have made a great figure in his life. Of all\nbeings it might seem as if she, held apart from him, far apart at last\nin the dim Eternity, were the only one he had ever with his whole\nstrength of affection loved. She died: Dante himself was wedded; but\nit seems not happily, far from happily. I fancy, the rigorous earnest\nman, with his keen excitabilities, was not altogether easy to make\nhappy.\n\nWe will not complain of Dante's miseries: had all gone right with him\nas he wished it, he might have been Prior, Podesta, or whatsoever they\ncall it, of Florence, well accepted among neighbours,--and the world\nhad wanted one of the most notable words ever spoken or sung. Florence\nwould have had another prosperous Lord Mayor; and the ten dumb\ncenturies continued voiceless, and the ten other listening centuries\n(for there will be ten of them and more) had no _Divina Commedia_ to\nhear! We will complain of nothing. A nobler destiny was appointed for\nthis Dante; and he, struggling like a man led towards death and\ncrucifixion, could not help fulfilling it. Give _him_ the choice of\nhis happiness! He knew not, more than we do, what was really happy,\nwhat was really miserable.\n\nIn Dante's Priorship, the Guelf-Ghibelline, Bianchi-Neri, or some\nother confused disturbance rose to such a height, that Dante, whose\nparty had seemed the stronger, was with his friends cast unexpectedly\nforth into banishment; doomed thenceforth to a life of woe and\nwandering. His property was all confiscated and more; he had the\nfiercest feeling that it was entirely unjust, nefarious in the sight\nof God and man. He tried what was in him to get reinstated; tried even\nby warlike surprisal, with arms in his hand: but it would not do; bad\nonly had become worse. There is a record, I believe, still extant in\nthe Florence Archives, dooming this Dante, wheresoever caught, to be\nburnt alive. Burnt alive; so it stands, they say: a very curious civic\ndocument. Another curious document, some considerable number of years\nlater, is a Letter of Dante's to the Florentine Magistrates, written\nin answer to a milder proposal of theirs, that he should return on\ncondition of apologising and paying a fine. He answers, with fixed\nstern pride: \"If I cannot return without calling myself guilty, I will\nnever return, _nunquam revertar_.\"\n\nFor Dante there was now no home in this world. He wandered from patron\nto patron, from place to place; proving in his own bitter words, 'How\nhard is the path, _Come e duro calle_.' The wretched are not cheerful\ncompany. Dante, poor and banished, with his proud earnest nature, with\nhis moody humours, was not a man to conciliate men. Petrarch reports\nof him that being at Can della Scala's court, and blamed one day for\nhis gloom and taciturnity, he answered in no courtier-like way. Della\nScala stood among his courtiers, with mimes and buffoons (_nebulones\nac histriones_) making him heartily merry; when turning to Dante, he\nsaid: \"Is it not strange, now, that this poor fool should make himself\nso entertaining; while you, a wise man, sit there day after day, and\nhave nothing to amuse us with at all?\" Dante answered bitterly: \"No,\nnot strange; your Highness is to recollect the Proverb, _Like to\nLike_;\"--given the amuser, the amusee must also be given! Such a man,\nwith his proud silent ways, with his sarcasms and sorrows, was not\nmade to succeed at court. By degrees, it came to be evident to him\nthat he had no longer any resting-place, or hope of benefit, in this\nearth. The earthly world had cast him forth, to wander, wander; no\nliving heart to love him now; for his sore miseries there was no\nsolace here.\n\nThe deeper naturally would the Eternal World impress itself on him;\nthat awful reality over which, after all, this Time-world, with its\nFlorences and banishments, only flutters as an unreal shadow. Florence\nthou shalt never see: but Hell and Purgatory and Heaven thou shalt\nsurely see! What is Florence, Can della Scala, and the World and Life\naltogether? ETERNITY: thither, of a truth, not elsewhither, art thou\nand all things bound! The great soul of Dante, homeless on earth, made\nits home more and more in that awful other world. Naturally his\nthoughts brooded on that, as on the one fact important for him. Bodied\nor bodiless, it is the one fact important for all men:--but to Dante,\nin that age, it was bodied in fixed certainty of scientific shape; he\nno more doubted of that _Malebolge_ Pool, that it all lay there with\nits gloomy circles, with its _alti guai_, and that he himself should\nsee it, than we doubt that we should see Constantinople if we went\nthither. Dante's heart, long filled with this, brooding over it in\nspeechless thought and awe, bursts forth at length into 'mystic\nunfathomable song;' and this his _Divine Comedy_, the most remarkable\nof all modern Books, is the result.\n\nIt must have been a great solacement to Dante, and was, as we can see,\na proud thought for him at times, That he, here in exile, could do\nthis work; that no Florence, nor no man or men, could hinder him from\ndoing it, or even much help him in doing it. He knew too, partly, that\nit was great; the greatest a man could do. 'If thou follow thy star,\n_Se tu segui tua stella_,'--so could the Hero, in his forsakenness, in\nhis extreme need, still say to himself: \"Follow thou thy star, thou\nshalt not fail of a glorious haven!\" The labour of writing, we find,\nand indeed could know otherwise, was great and painful for him; he\nsays, This Book, 'which has made me lean for many years.' Ah yes, it\nwas won, all of it, with pain and sore toil,--not in sport, but in\ngrim earnest. His Book, as indeed most good Books are, has been\nwritten, in many senses, with his heart's blood. It is his whole\nhistory, this Book. He died after finishing it; not yet very old, at\nthe age of fifty-six;--broken-hearted rather, as is said. He lies\nburied in his death-city Ravenna: _Hic claudor Dantes patriis extorris\nab oris._ The Florentines begged back his body, in a century after;\nthe Ravenna people would not give it. \"Here am I Dante laid, shut-out\nfrom my native shores.\"\n\nI said, Dante's Poem was a Song: it is Tieck who calls it 'a mystic\nunfathomable Song;' and such is literally the character of it.\nColeridge remarks very pertinently somewhere, that wherever you find a\nsentence musically worded, of true rhythm and melody in the words,\nthere is something deep and good in the meaning too. For body and\nsoul, word and idea, go strangely together here as everywhere. Song:\nwe said before, it was the Heroic of Speech! All _old_ Poems, Homer's\nand the rest, are authentically Songs. I would say, in strictness,\nthat all right Poems are; that whatsoever is not _sung_ is properly no\nPoem, but a piece of Prose cramped into jingling lines,--to the great\ninjury of the grammar, to the great grief of the reader, for most\npart! What we want to get at is the _thought_ the man had, if he had\nany: why should he twist it into jingle, if he _could_ speak it out\nplainly? It is only when the heart of him is rapt into true passion of\nmelody, and the very tones of him, according to Coleridge's remark,\nbecome musical by the greatness, depth and music of his thoughts, that\nwe can give him right to rhyme and sing; that we call him a Poet, and\nlisten to him as the Heroic of Speakers,--whose speech _is_ Song.\nPretenders to this are many; and to an earnest reader, I doubt, it is\nfor most part a very melancholy, not to say an insupportable business,\nthat of reading rhyme! Rhyme that had no inward necessity to be\nrhymed;--it ought to have told us plainly, without any jingle, what it\nwas aiming at. I would advise all men who _can_ speak their thought,\nnot to sing it; to understand that, in a serious time, among serious\nmen, there is no vocation in them for singing it. Precisely as we love\nthe true song, and are charmed by it as by something divine, so shall\nwe hate the false song, and account it a mere wooden noise, a thing\nhollow, superfluous, altogether an insincere and offensive thing.\n\nI give Dante my highest praise when I say of his _Divine Comedy_ that\nit is, in all senses, genuinely a Song. In the very sound of it there\nis a _canto fermo_; it proceeds as by a chant. The language, his\nsimple _terza rima_, doubtless helped him in this. One reads along\nnaturally with a sort of _lilt_. But I add, that it could not be\notherwise; for the essence and material of the work are themselves\nrhythmic. Its depth, and rapt passion and sincerity, makes its\nmusical;--go _deep_ enough, there is music everywhere. A true inward\nsymmetry, what one calls an architectural harmony, reigns in it,\nproportionates it all: architectural; which also partakes of the\ncharacter of music. The three kingdoms, _Inferno_, _Purgatorio_,\n_Paradiso_, look-out on one another like compartments of a great\nedifice; a great supernatural world-cathedral, piled-up there, stern,\nsolemn, awful; Dante's World of Souls! It is, at bottom, the\n_sincerest_ of all Poems; sincerity, here too, we find to be the\nmeasure of worth. It came deep out of the author's heart of hearts;\nand it goes deep, and through long generations, into ours. The people\nof Verona, when they saw him on the streets, used to say, \"_Eccovi l'\nuom ch' e stato all' Inferno_, See, there is the man that was in\nHell!\" Ah, yes, he had been in Hell;--in Hell enough, in long severe\nsorrow and struggle; as the like of him is pretty sure to have been.\nCommedias that come-out _divine_ are not accomplished otherwise.\nThought, true labour of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it not the\ndaughter of Pain? Born as out of the black whirlwind;--true _effort_,\nin fact, as of a captive struggling to free himself: that is Thought.\nIn all ways we are 'to become perfect through _suffering_.'--But, as I\nsay, no work known to me is so elaborated as this of Dante's. It has\nall been as if molten, in the hottest furnace of his soul. It had made\nhim 'lean' for many years. Not the general whole only; every\ncompartment of it is worked-out, with intense earnestness, into truth,\ninto clear visuality. Each answers to the other; each fits in its\nplace, like a marble stone accurately hewn and polished. It is the\nsoul of Dante, and in this the soul of the middle ages, rendered\nforever rhythmically visible there. No light task; a right intense\none: but a task which is _done_.\n\nPerhaps one would say, _intensity_, with the much that depends on it,\nis the prevailing character of Dante's genius. Dante does not come\nbefore us as a large catholic mind; rather as a narrow and even\nsectarian mind: it is partly the fruit of his age and position, but\npartly too of his own nature. His greatness has, in all senses,\nconcentered itself into fiery emphasis and depth. He is world-great\nnot because he is world-wide, but because he is world-deep. Through\nall objects he pierces as it were down into the heart of Being. I know\nnothing so intense as Dante. Consider, for example, to begin with the\noutermost development of his intensity, consider how he paints. He has\na great power of vision; seizes the very type of a thing; presents\nthat and nothing more. You remember that first view he gets of the\nHall of Dite: _red_ pinnacle, redhot cone of iron glowing through the\ndim immensity of gloom;--so vivid, so distinct, visible at once and\nforever! It is as an emblem of the whole genius of Dante. There is a\nbrevity, an abrupt precision in him: Tacitus is not briefer, more\ncondensed; and then in Dante it seems a natural condensation,\nspontaneous to the man. One smiting word; and then there is silence,\nnothing more said. His silence is more eloquent than words. It is\nstrange with what a sharp decisive grace he snatches the true likeness\nof a matter: cuts into the matter as with a pen of fire. Plutus, the\nblustering giant, collapses at Virgil's rebuke; it is 'as the sails\nsink, the mast being suddenly broken.' Or that poor Brunetto Latini,\nwith the _cotto aspetto_, 'face _baked_,' parched brown and lean; and\nthe 'fiery snow,' that falls on them there, a 'fiery snow without\nwind,' slow, deliberate, never-ending! Or the lids of those Tombs;\nsquare sarcophaguses, in that silent dim-burning Hall, each with its\nSoul in torment; the lids laid open there; they are to be shut at the\nDay of Judgment, through Eternity. And how Farinata rises; and how\nCavalcante falls--at hearing of his Son, and the past tense '_fue_'!\nThe very movements in Dante have something brief; swift, decisive,\nalmost military. It is of the inmost essence of his genius this sort\nof painting. The fiery, swift Italian nature of the man, so silent,\npassionate, with its quick abrupt movements, its silent 'pale rages,'\nspeaks itself in these things.\n\nFor though this of painting is one of the outermost developments of a\nman, it comes like all else from the essential faculty of him; it is\nphysiognomical of the whole man. Find a man whose words paint you a\nlikeness, you have found a man worth something; mark his manner of\ndoing it, as very characteristic of him. In the first place, he could\nnot have discerned the object at all, or seen the vital type of it,\nunless he had, what we may call, _sympathised_ with it,--had sympathy\nin him to bestow on objects. He must have been _sincere_ about it too;\nsincere and sympathetic: a man without worth cannot give you the\nlikeness of any object; he dwells in vague outwardness, fallacy and\ntrivial hearsay, about all objects. And indeed may we not say that\nintellect altogether expresses itself in this power of discerning what\nan object is? Whatsoever of faculty a man's mind may have will come\nout here. Is it even of business, a matter to be done? The gifted man\nis he who _sees_ the essential point, and leaves all the rest aside as\nsurplusage: it is his faculty too, the man of business's faculty, that\nhe discern the true _likeness_, not the false superficial one, of the\nthing he has got to work in. And how much of _morality_ is in the kind\nof insight we get of anything; 'the eye seeing in all things what it\nbrought with it the faculty of seeing'! To the mean eye all things are\ntrivial, as certainly as to the jaundiced they are yellow. Raphael,\nthe Painters tell us, is the best of all Portrait-painters withal. No\nmost gifted eye can exhaust the significance of any object. In the\ncommonest human face there lies more than Raphael will take-away with\nhim.\n\nDante's painting is not graphic only, brief, true, and of a vividness\nas of fire in dark night; taken on the wider scale, it is everyway\nnoble, and the outcome of a great soul. Francesca and her Lover, what\nqualities in that! A thing woven as out of rainbows, on a ground of\neternal black. A small flute-voice of infinite wail speaks there, into\nour very heart of hearts. A touch of womanhood in it too; _della bella\npersona, che mi fu tolta_; and how, even in the Pit of woe, it is a\nsolace that _he_ will never part from her! Saddest tragedy in these\n_alti guai_. And the racking winds, in that _aer bruno_, whirl them\naway again, to wail forever!--Strange to think: Dante was the friend\nof this poor Francesca's father; Francesca herself may have sat upon\nthe Poet's knee, as a bright innocent little child. Infinite pity, yet\nalso infinite rigour of law: it is so Nature is made; it is so Dante\ndiscerned that she was made. What a paltry notion is that of his\n_Divine Comedy's_ being a poor splenetic impotent terrestrial libel;\nputting those into Hell whom he could not be avenged-upon on earth! I\nsuppose if ever pity, tender as a mother's, was in the heart of any\nman, it was in Dante's. But a man who does not know rigour cannot pity\neither. His very pity will be cowardly, egoistic,--sentimentality, or\nlittle better. I know not in the world an affection equal to that of\nDante. It is a tenderness, a trembling, longing, pitying love: like\nthe wail of AEolean harps, soft, soft; like a child's young heart;--and\nthen that stern, sore-saddened heart! These longings of his towards\nhis Beatrice; their meeting together in the _Paradiso_; his gazing in\nher pure transfigured eyes, her that had been purified by death so\nlong, separated from him so far:--one likens it to the song of angels;\nit is among the purest utterances of affection, perhaps the very\npurest, that ever came out of a human soul.\n\nFor the _intense_ Dante is intense in all things; he has got into the\nessence of all. His intellectual insight as painter, on occasion too\nas reasoner, is but the result of all other sorts of intensity.\nMorally great, above all, we must call him; it is the beginning of\nall. His scorn, his grief are as transcendent as his love;--as indeed,\nwhat are they but the _inverse_ or _converse_ of his love? '_A Dio\nspiacenti ed a' nemici sui_, Hateful to God and to the enemies of\nGod:' lofty scorn, unappeasable silent reprobation and aversion; '_Non\nragionam di lor_, We will not speak of _them_, look only and pass.' Or\nthink of this; 'They have not the _hope_ to die, _Non han speranza di\nmorte_.' One day, it had risen sternly benign on the scathed heart of\nDante, that he, wretched, never-resting, worn as he was, would full\nsurely _die_; 'that Destiny itself could not doom him not to die.'\nSuch words are in this man. For rigour, earnestness and depth, he is\nnot to be paralleled in the modern world; to seek his parallel we must\ngo into the Hebrew Bible, and live with the antique Prophets there.\n\nI do not agree with much modern criticism, in greatly preferring the\n_Inferno_ to the two other parts of the Divine _Commedia_. Such\npreference belongs, I imagine, to our general Byronism of taste, and\nis like to be a transient feeling. The _Purgatorio_ and _Paradiso_,\nespecially the former, one would almost say, is even more excellent\nthan it. It is a noble thing that _Purgatorio_, 'Mountain of\nPurification'; an emblem of the noblest conception of that age. If Sin\nis so fatal, and Hell is and must be so rigorous, awful, yet in\nRepentance too is man purified; Repentance is the grand Christian act.\nIt is beautiful how Dante works it out. The _tremolar dell' onde_ that\n'trembling' of the ocean-waves, under the first pure gleam of morning,\ndawning afar on the wandering Two, is as the type of an altered mood.\nHope has now dawned; never-dying Hope, if in company still with heavy\nsorrow. The obscure sojourn of daemons and reprobate is underfoot; a\nsoft breathing of penitence mounts higher and higher, to the Throne of\nMercy itself. \"Pray for me,\" the denizens of that Mount of Pain all\nsay to him. \"Tell my Giovanna to pray for me,\" my daughter Giovanna;\n\"I think her mother loves me no more!\" They toil painfully up by that\nwinding steep, 'bent-down like corbels of a building,' some of\nthem,--crushed-together so 'for the sin of pride'; yet nevertheless in\nyears, in ages and aeons, they shall have reached the top, which is\nHeaven's gate, and by Mercy shall have been admitted in. The joy too\nof all, when one has prevailed; the whole Mountain shakes with joy,\nand a psalm of praise rises, when one soul has perfected repentance\nand got its sin and misery left behind! I call all this a noble\nembodiment of a true noble thought.\n\nBut indeed the Three compartments mutually support one another, are\nindispensable to one another. The _Paradiso_, a kind of inarticulate\nmusic to me, is the redeeming side of the _Inferno_; the _Inferno_\nwithout it were untrue. All three make-up the true Unseen World, as\nfigured in the Christianity of the Middle Ages; a thing forever\nmemorable, forever true in the essence of it, to all men. It was\nperhaps delineated in no human soul with such depth of veracity as in\nthis of Dante's; a man _sent_ to sing it, to keep it long memorable.\nVery notable with what brief simplicity he passes out of the every-day\nreality, into the Invisible one; and in the second or third stanza, we\nfind ourselves in the World of Spirits; and dwell there, as among\nthings palpable, indubitable! To Dante they _were_ so; the real world,\nas it is called, and its facts, was but the threshold to an infinitely\nhigher Fact of a World. At bottom, the one was as _preter_-natural as\nthe other. Has not each man a soul? He will not only be a spirit, but\nis one. To the earnest Dante it is all one visible Fact; he believes\nit, sees it; is the Poet of it in virtue of that. Sincerity, I say\nagain, is the saving merit, now as always.\n\nDante's Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, are a symbol withal, an emblematic\nrepresentation of his Belief about this Universe:--some Critic in a\nfuture age, like those Scandinavian ones the other day, who has ceased\naltogether to think as Dante did, may find this too all an 'Allegory,'\nperhaps an idle Allegory! It is a sublime embodiment, or sublimest, of\nthe soul of Christianity. It expresses, as in huge worldwide\narchitectural emblems, how the Christian Dante felt Good and Evil to\nbe the two polar elements of this Creation, on which it all turns;\nthat these two differ not by _preferability_ of one to the other, but\nby incompatibility absolute and infinite; that the one is excellent\nand high as light and Heaven, the other hideous, black as Gehenna and\nthe Pit of Hell! Everlasting Justice, yet with Penitence, with\neverlasting Pity,--all Christianism, as Dante and the Middle Ages had\nit, is emblemed here. Emblemed: and yet, as I urged the other day,\nwith what entire truth of purpose; how unconscious of any embleming!\nHell, Purgatory, Paradise: these things were not fashioned as emblems;\nwas there, in our Modern European Mind, any thought at all of their\nbeing emblems? Were they not indubitable awful facts; the whole heart\nof man taking them for practically true, all Nature everywhere\nconfirming them? So is it always in these things. Men do not believe\nan Allegory. The future Critic, whatever his new thought may be, who\nconsiders this of Dante to have been all got-up as an Allegory, will\ncommit one sore mistake!--Paganism we recognised as a veracious\nexpression of the earnest awe-struck feeling of man towards the\nUniverse; veracious, true once, and still not without worth for us.\nBut mark here the difference of Paganism and Christianism; one great\ndifference. Paganism emblemed chiefly the Operations of Nature; the\ndestinies, efforts, combinations, vicissitudes of things and men in\nthis world; Christianism emblemed the Law of Human Duty, the Moral Law\nof Man. One was for the sensuous nature: a rude helpless utterance of\nthe _first_ Thought of men,--the chief recognised virtue, Courage,\nSuperiority to Fear. The other was not for the sensuous nature, but\nfor the moral. What a progress is here, if in that one respect only!--\n\n * * * * *\n\nAnd so in this Dante, as we said, had ten silent centuries, in a very\nstrange way, found a voice. The _Divina Commedia_ is of Dante's\nwriting; yet in truth _it_ belongs to ten Christian centuries, only\nthe finishing of it is Dante's. So always. The craftsman there, the\nsmith with that metal of his, with these tools, with these cunning\nmethods,--how little of all he does is properly _his_ work! All past\ninventive men work there with him;--as indeed with all of us, in all\nthings. Dante is the spokesman of the Middle Ages; the Thought they\nlived by stands here in everlasting music. These sublime ideas of his,\nterrible and beautiful, are the fruit of the Christian Meditation of\nall the good men who had gone before him. Precious they; but also is\nnot he precious? Much, had not he spoken, would have been dumb; not\ndead, yet living voiceless.\n\nOn the whole, is it not an utterance, this Mystic Song, at once of one\nof the greatest human souls, and of the highest thing that Europe had\nhitherto realised for itself? Christianism, as Dante sings it, is\nanother than Paganism in the rude Norse mind; another than 'Bastard\nChristianism' half-articulately spoken in the Arab Desert\nseven-hundred years before!--The noblest _idea_ made _real_ hitherto\namong men, is sung, and emblemed-forth abidingly, by one of the\nnoblest men. In the one sense and in the other, are we not right glad\nto possess it? As I calculate, it may last yet for long thousands of\nyears. For the thing that is uttered from the inmost parts of a man's\nsoul, differs altogether from what is uttered by the outer part. The\nouter is of the day, under the empire of mode; the outer passes away,\nin swift endless changes; the inmost is the same yesterday, today and\nforever. True souls, in all generations of the world, who look on this\nDante, will find a brotherhood in him; the deep sincerity of his\nthoughts, his woes and hopes, will speak likewise to their sincerity;\nthey will feel that this Dante too was a brother. Napoleon in\nSaint-Helena is charmed with the genial veracity of old Homer. The\noldest Hebrew Prophet, under a vesture the most diverse from ours,\ndoes yet, because he speaks from the heart of man, speak to all men's\nhearts. It is the one sole secret of continuing long memorable. Dante,\nfor depth of sincerity, is like an antique Prophet too; his words,\nlike theirs, come from his very heart. One need not wonder if it were\npredicted that his Poem might be the most enduring thing our Europe\nhas yet made; for nothing so endures as a truly spoken word. All\ncathedrals, pontificalities, brass and stone, and outer arrangement\nnever so lasting, are brief in comparison to an unfathomable\nheart-song like this: one feels as if it might survive, still of\nimportance to men, when these had all sunk into new irrecognisable\ncombinations, and had ceased individually to be. Europe has made much;\ngreat cities, great empires, encyclopaedias, creeds, bodies of opinion\nand practice: but it has made little of the class of Dante's Thought.\nHomer yet _is_, veritably present face to face with every open soul of\nus; and Greece, where is _it_? Desolate for thousands of years; away,\nvanished; a bewildered heap of stones and rubbish, the life and\nexistence of it all gone. Like a dream; like the dust of King\nAgamemnon! Greece was; Greece, except in the _words_ it spoke, is not.\n\nThe uses of this Dante? We will not say much about his 'uses.' A human\nsoul who has once got into that primal element of _Song_, and\nsung-forth fitly somewhat therefrom, has worked in the _depths_ of our\nexistence; feeding through long times the life-_roots_ of all\nexcellent human things whatsoever,--in a way that 'utilities' will not\nsucceed well in calculating! We will not estimate the Sun by the\nquantity of gas-light it saves us; Dante shall be invaluable, or of no\nvalue. One remark I may make: the contrast in this respect between the\nHero-Poet and the Hero-Prophet. In a hundred years, Mahomet, as we\nsaw, had his Arabians at Grenada and at Delhi; Dante's Italians seem\nto be yet very much where they were. Shall we say, then, Dante's\neffect on the world was small in comparison? Not so: his arena is far\nmore restricted: but also it is far nobler, clearer;--perhaps not less\nbut more important. Mahomet speaks to great masses of men, in the\ncoarse dialect adapted to such; a dialect filled with inconsistencies,\ncrudities, follies: on the great masses alone can he act, and there\nwith good and with evil strangely blended. Dante speaks to the noble,\nthe pure and great, in all times and places. Neither does he grow\nobsolete, as the other does. Dante burns as a pure star, fixed there\nin the firmament, at which the great and the high of all ages kindle\nthemselves: he is the possession of all the chosen of the world for\nuncounted time. Dante, one calculates, may long survive Mahomet. In\nthis way the balance may be made straight again.\n\nBut, at any rate, it is not by what is called their effect on the\nworld by what _we_ can judge of their effect there, that a man and his\nwork are measured. Effect? Influence? Utility? Let a man _do_ his\nwork; the fruit of it is the care of Another than he. It will grow its\nown fruit; and whether embodied in Caliph Thrones and Arabian\nConquests, so that it 'fills all Morning and Evening Newspapers,' and\nall Histories, which are a kind of distilled Newspapers; or not\nembodied so at all;--what matters that? That is not the real fruit of\nit! The Arabian Caliph, in so far only as he did something, was\nsomething. If the great Cause of Man, and Man's work in God's Earth,\ngot no furtherance from the Arabian Caliph, then no matter how many\nscimetars he drew, how many gold piasters pocketed, and what uproar\nand blaring he made in this world--he was but a loud-sounding inanity\nand futility; at bottom, he _was_ not at all. Let us honour the great\nempire of _Silence_, once more! The boundless treasury which we do\n_not_ jingle in our pockets, or count up and present before men! It is\nperhaps, of all things, the usefulest for each of us to do, in these\nloud times.----\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs Dante, the Italian man, was sent into our world to embody musically\nthe Religion of the Middle Ages, the Religion of our Modern Europe,\nits Inner Life; so Shakspeare, we may say, embodies for us the Outer\nLife of our Europe as developed then, its chivalries, courtesies,\nhumours, ambitions, what practical way of thinking, acting, looking at\nthe world, men then had. As in Homer we may still construe Old Greece;\nso in Shakspeare and Dante, after thousands of years, what our modern\nEurope was, in Faith and in Practice, will still be legible. Dante has\ngiven us the Faith or soul; Shakspeare, in a not less noble way, has\ngiven us the Practice or body. This latter also we were to have: a man\nwas sent for it, the man Shakspeare. Just when that chivalry way of\nlife had reached its last finish, and was on the point of breaking\ndown into slow or swift dissolution, as we now see it everywhere, this\nother sovereign Poet, with his seeing eye, with his perennial singing\nvoice, was sent to take note of it, to give long-enduring record of\nit. Two fit men: Dante, deep, fierce as the central fire of the world;\nShakspeare, wide, placid, far-seeing, as the Sun, the upper light of\nthe world. Italy produced the one world-voice; we English had the\nhonour of producing the other.\n\nCurious enough how, as it were by mere accident, this man came to us.\nI think always, so great, quiet, complete and self-sufficing is this\nShakspeare, had the Warwickshire Squire not prosecuted him for\ndeer-stealing, we had perhaps never heard of him as a Poet! The woods\nand skies, the rustic Life of Man in Stratford there, had been enough\nfor this man! But indeed that strange outbudding of our whole English\nExistence, which we call the Elizabethan Era, did not it too come as\nof its own accord? The 'Tree Igdrasil' buds and withers by its own\nlaws,--too deep for our scanning. Yet it does bud and wither, and\nevery bough and leaf of it is there, by fixed eternal laws; not a Sir\nThomas Lucy but comes at the hour fit for him. Curious, I say, and not\nsufficiently considered: how everything does cooeperate with all; not a\nleaf rotting on the highway but is indissoluble portion of solar and\nstellar systems; no thought, word or act of man but has sprung withal\nout of all men, and works sooner or later, recognisably or\nirrecognisably, on all men! It is all a Tree: circulation of sap and\ninfluences, mutual communication of every minutest leaf with the\nlowest talon of a root, with every other greatest and minutest portion\nof the whole. The Tree Igdrasil, that has its roots down in the\nKingdoms of Hela and Death, and whose boughs overspread the highest\nHeaven!--\n\nIn some sense it may be said that this glorious Elizabethan Era with\nits Shakspeare, as the outcome and flowerage of all which had preceded\nit, is itself attributable to the Catholicism of the Middle Ages. The\nChristian Faith, which was the theme of Dante's Song, had produced\nthis Practical Life which Shakspeare was to sing. For Religion then,\nas it now and always is, was the soul of Practice; the primary vital\nfact in men's life. And remark here, as rather curious, that\nMiddle-Age Catholicism was abolished, so far as Acts of Parliament\ncould abolish it, before Shakspeare, the noblest product of it, made\nhis appearance. He did make his appearance nevertheless. Nature at her\nown time, with Catholicism or what else might be necessary, sent him\nforth; taking small thought of Acts of Parliament. King-Henrys,\nQueen-Elizabeths go their way; and Nature too goes hers. Acts of\nParliament, on the whole, are small, notwithstanding the noise they\nmake. What Act of Parliament, debate at St. Stephen's, on the hustings\nor elsewhere, was it that brought this Shakspeare into being? No\ndining at Freemasons' Tavern, opening subscription-lists, selling of\nshares, and infinite other jangling and true or false endeavouring!\nThis Elizabethan Era, and all its nobleness and blessedness, came\nwithout proclamation, preparation of ours. Priceless Shakspeare was\nthe free gift of Nature; given altogether silently;--received\naltogether silently, as if it had been a thing of little account. And\nyet, very literally, it is a priceless thing. One should look at that\nside of matters too.\n\nOf this Shakspeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one sometimes hears a\nlittle idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the right one; I think the\nbest judgment not of this country only, but of Europe at large, is\nslowly pointing to the conclusion, That Shakspeare is the chief of all\nPoets hitherto; the greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has\nleft record of himself in the way of Literature. On the whole, I know\nnot such a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all\nthe characters of it, in any other man. Such a calmness of depth;\nplacid joyous strength; all things imaged in that great soul of his so\ntrue and clear, as in a tranquil unfathomable sea! It has been said,\nthat in the constructing of Shakspeare's Dramas there is, apart from\nall other 'faculties' as they are called, an understanding manifested,\nequal to that in Bacon's _Novum Organum_. That is true; and it is not\na truth that strikes every one. It would become more apparent if we\ntried, any of us for himself, how, out of Shakspeare's dramatic\nmaterials, _we_ could fashion such a result! The built house seems all\nso fit,--everyway as it should be, as if it came there by its own law\nand the nature of things,--we forget the rude disorderly quarry it was\nshaped from. The very perfection of the house, as if Nature herself\nhad made it, hides the builder's merit. Perfect, more perfect than any\nother man, we may call Shakspeare in this: he discerns, knows as by\ninstinct, what condition he works under, what his materials are, what\nhis own force and its relation to them is. It is not a transitory\nglance of insight that will suffice; it is deliberate illumination of\nthe whole matter; it is a calmly _seeing_ eye; a great intellect, in\nshort. How a man, of some wide thing that he has witnessed, will\nconstruct a narrative, what kind of picture and delineation he will\ngive of it,--is the best measure you could get of what intellect is in\nthe man. Which circumstance is vital and shall stand prominent; which\nunessential, fit to be suppressed; where is the true _beginning_, the\ntrue sequence and ending? To find out this, you task the whole force\nof insight that is in the man. He must _understand_ the thing;\naccording to the depth of his understanding, will the fitness of his\nanswer be. You will try him so. Does like join itself to like; does\nthe spirit of method stir in that confusion, so that its embroilment\nbecomes order? Can the man say, _Fiat lux_, Let there be light; and\nout of chaos make a world? Precisely as there is _light_ in himself,\nwill he accomplish this.\n\nOr indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting,\ndelineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakspeare is\ngreat. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is\nunexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakspeare.\nThe thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its\ninmost heart, and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light\nbefore him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative,\nwe said: poetic creation, what is this too but _seeing_ the thing\nsufficiently? The _word_ that will describe the thing, follows of\nitself from such clear intense sight of the thing. And is not\nShakspeare's _morality_, his valour, candour, tolerance, truthfulness;\nhis whole victorious strength and greatness, which can triumph over\nsuch obstructions, visible there too? Great as the world! No\n_twisted_, poor convex-concave mirror, reflecting all objects with its\nown convexities and concavities; a perfectly _level_ mirror;--that is\nto say withal, if we will understand it, a man justly related to all\nthings and men, a good man. It is truly a lordly spectacle how this\ngreat soul takes-in all kinds of men and objects, a Falstaff, an\nOthello, a Juliet, a Coriolanus; sets them all forth to us in their\nround completeness; loving, just, the equal brother of all. _Novum\nOrganum_, and all the intellect you will find in Bacon, is of a quite\nsecondary order; earthly, material, poor in comparison with this.\nAmong modern men, one finds, in strictness, almost nothing of the same\nrank. Goethe alone, since the days of Shakspeare, reminds me of it. Of\nhim too you say that he _saw_ the object; you may say what he himself\nsays of Shakspeare: 'His characters are like watches with dial-plates\nof transparent crystal; they show you the hour like others, and the\ninward mechanism also is all visible.'\n\nThe seeing eye! It is this that discloses the inner harmony of things;\nwhat Nature meant, what musical idea Nature has wrapped-up in these\noften rough embodiments. Something she did mean. To the seeing eye\nthat something were discernible. Are they base, miserable things? You\ncan laugh over them, you can weep over them; you can in some way or\nother genially relate yourself to them;--you can, at lowest, hold your\npeace about them, turn away your own and others' face from them, till\nthe hour come for practically exterminating and extinguishing them! At\nbottom, it is the Poet's first gift, as it is all men's, that he have\nintellect enough. He will be a Poet if he have: a Poet in word; or\nfailing that, perhaps still better, a Poet in act. Whether he write at\nall; and if so, whether in prose or in verse, will depend on\naccidents: who knows on what extremely trivial accidents,--perhaps on\nhis having had a singing-master, on his being taught to sing in his\nboyhood! But the faculty which enables him to discern the inner heart\nof things, and the harmony that dwells there (for whatsoever exists\nhas a harmony in the heart of it, or it would not hold together and\nexist), is not the result of habits or accidents, but the gift of\nNature herself; the primary outfit for a Heroic Man in what sort\nsoever. To the Poet, as to every other, we say first of all, _See_. If\nyou cannot do that, it is of no use to keep stringing rhymes together,\njingling sensibilities against each other, and _name_ yourself a Poet;\nthere is no hope for you. If you can, there is, in prose or verse, in\naction or speculation, all manner of hope. The crabbed old\nSchoolmaster used to ask, when they brought him a new pupil, \"But are\nye sure he's _not a dunce_?\" Why, really one might ask the same thing\nin regard to every man proposed for whatsoever function; and consider\nit as the one inquiry needful: Are ye sure he's not a dunce? There is,\nin this world, no other entirely fatal person.\n\nFor, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man is a\ncorrect measure of the man. If called to define Shakspeare's faculty,\nI should say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all\nunder that. What indeed are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they\nwere distinct, things separable; as if a man had intellect,\nimagination, fancy, &c, as he has hands, feet and arms. That is a\ncapital error. Then again, we hear of a man's 'intellectual nature,'\nand of his 'moral nature,' as if these again were divisible, and\nexisted apart. Necessities of language do perhaps prescribe such forms\nof utterance; we must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are to\nspeak at all. But words ought not to harden into things for us. It\nseems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, for the most part,\nradically falsified thereby. We ought to know withal, and to keep for\never in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but _names_; that\nman's spiritual nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is\nessentially one and indivisible; that what we call imagination, fancy,\nunderstanding, and so forth, are but different figures of the same\nPower of Insight, all indissolubly connected with each other,\nphysiognomically related; that if we knew one of them, we might know\nall of them. Morality itself, what we call the moral quality of a man,\nwhat is this but another _side_ of the one vital Force whereby he is\nand works? All that a man does is physiognomical of him. You may see\nhow a man would fight, by the way in which he sings; his courage, or\nwant of courage, is visible in the word he utters, in the opinion he\nhas formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes. He is _one_; and\npreaches the same Self abroad in all these ways.\n\nWithout hands a man might have feet, and could still walk: but,\nconsider it,--without morality, intellect were impossible for him; a\nthoroughly immoral _man_ could not know anything at all! To know a\nthing, what we can call knowing, a man must first _love_ the thing,\nsympathise with it: that is, be _virtuously_ related to it. If he have\nnot the justice to put down his own selfishness at every turn, the\ncourage to stand by the dangerous-true at every turn, how shall he\nknow? His virtues, all of them, will lie recorded in his knowledge.\nNature, with her truth, remains to the bad, to the selfish and the\npusillanimous forever a sealed book: what such can know of Nature is\nmean, superficial, small; for the uses of the day merely.--But does\nnot the very Fox know something of Nature? Exactly so: it knows where\nthe geese lodge! The human Reynard, very frequent everywhere in the\nworld, what more does he know but this and the like of this? Nay, it\nshould be considered, too, that if the Fox had not a certain vulpine\n_morality_, he could not even know where the geese were, or get at the\ngeese! If he spent his time in splenetic atrabiliar reflections on his\nown misery, his ill usage by Nature, Fortune and other Foxes, and so\nforth; and had not courage, promptitude, practicality, and other\nsuitable vulpine gifts and graces, he would catch no geese. We may say\nof the Fox too, that his morality and insight are of the same\ndimensions; different faces of the same internal unity of vulpine\nlife!--These things are worth stating; for the contrary of them acts\nwith manifold very baleful perversion, in this time: what limitations,\nmodifications they require, your own candour will supply.\n\nIf I say, therefore, that Shakspeare is the greatest of Intellects, I\nhave said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakspeare's\nintellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an unconscious\nintellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of.\nNovalis beautifully remarks of him, that those Dramas of his are\nProducts of Nature too, deep as Nature herself. I find a great truth\nin this saying. Shakspeare's Art is not Artifice; the noblest worth of\nit is not there by plan or precontrivance. It grows-up from the deeps\nof Nature, through this noble sincere soul, who is a voice of Nature.\nThe latest generations of men will find new meanings in Shakspeare,\nnew elucidations of their own human being; 'new harmonies with the\ninfinite structure of the Universe; concurrences with later ideas,\naffinities with the higher powers and senses of man.' This well\ndeserves meditating. It is Nature's highest reward to a true simple\ngreat soul, that he get thus to be a _part of herself_. Such a man's\nworks, whatsoever he with utmost conscious exertion and forethought\nshall accomplish, grow up withal unconsciously, from the unknown deeps\nin him;--as the oak-tree grows from the Earth's bosom, as the\nmountains and waters shape themselves; with a symmetry grounded on\nNature's own laws, conformable to all Truth whatsoever. How much in\nShakspeare lies hid; his sorrows, his silent struggles known to\nhimself; much that was not known at all, not speakable at all; like\n_roots_, like sap and forces working underground! Speech is great; but\nSilence is greater.\n\nWithal the joyful tranquillity of this man is notable. I will not\nblame Dante for his misery: it is as battle without victory; but true\nbattle,--the first, indispensable thing. Yet I call Shakspeare greater\nthan Dante, in that he fought truly, and did conquer. Doubt it not, he\nhad his own sorrows: those _Sonnets_ of his will even testify\nexpressly in what deep waters he had waded, and swum struggling for\nhis life;--as what man like him ever failed to have to do? It seems to\nme a heedless notion, our common one, that he sat like a bird on the\nbough; and sang forth, free and offhand, never knowing the troubles of\nother men. Not so; with no man is it so. How could a man travel\nforward from rustic deer-poaching to such tragedy-writing, and not\nfall-in with sorrows by the way? Or, still better, how could a man\ndelineate a Hamlet, a Coriolanus, a Macbeth, so many suffering heroic\nhearts, if his own heroic heart had never suffered?--And now, in\ncontrast with all this, observe his mirthfulness, his genuine\noverflowing love of laughter! You would say, in no point does he\n_exaggerate_ but only in laughter. Fiery objurgations, words that\npierce and burn, are to be found in Shakspeare; yet he is always in\nmeasure here; never what Johnson would remark as a specially 'good\nhater.' But his laughter seems to pour from him in floods; he heaps\nall manner of ridiculous nicknames on the butt he is bantering,\ntumbles and tosses him in all sorts of horse-play; you would say, with\nhis whole heart laughs. And then, if not always the finest, it is\nalways a genial laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty;\nnever. No man who _can_ laugh, what we call laughing, will laugh at\nthese things. It is some poor character only _desiring_ to laugh, and\nhave the credit of wit, that does so. Laughter means sympathy; good\nlaughter is not 'the crackling of thorns under the pot.' Even at\nstupidity and pretension this Shakspeare does not laugh otherwise than\ngenially. Dogberry and Verges tickle our very hearts; and we dismiss\nthem covered with explosions of laughter: but we like the poor fellows\nonly the better for our laughing; and hope they will get on well\nthere, and continue Presidents of the City-watch. Such laughter, like\nsunshine on the deep sea, is very beautiful to me.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe have no room to speak of Shakspeare's individual works; though\nperhaps there is much still waiting to be said on that head. Had we,\nfor instance, all his plays reviewed as _Hamlet_, in _Wilhelm\nMeister_, is! A thing which might, one day, be done. August Wilhelm\nSchlegel has a remark on his Historical Plays, _Henry Fifth_ and the\nothers, which is worth remembering. He calls them a kind of National\nEpic. Marlborough, you recollect, said, he knew no English History but\nwhat he had learned from Shakspeare. There are really, if we look to\nit, few as memorable Histories. The great salient points are admirably\nseized; all rounds itself off, into a kind of rhythmic coherence; it\nis, as Schlegel says, _epic_;--as indeed all delineation by a great\nthinker will be. There are right beautiful things in those Pieces,\nwhich indeed together form one beautiful thing. That battle of\nAgincourt strikes me as one of the most perfect things, in its sort,\nwe anywhere have of Shakspeare's. The description of the two hosts:\nthe worn-out, jaded English; the dread hour, big with destiny, when\nthe battle shall begin; and then that deathless valour: \"Ye good\nyeomen, whose limbs were made in England!\" There is a noble Patriotism\nin it,--far other than the 'indifference' you sometimes hear ascribed\nto Shakspeare. A true English heart breathes, calm and strong, through\nthe whole business; not boisterous, protrusive; all the better for\nthat. There is a sound in it like the ring of steel. This man too had\na right stroke in him, had it come to that!\n\nBut I will say, of Shakspeare's works generally, that we have no full\nimpress of him there; even as full as we have of many men. His works\nare so many windows, through which we see a glimpse of the world that\nwas in him. All his works seem, comparatively speaking, cursory,\nimperfect, written under cramping circumstances; giving only here and\nthere a note of the full utterance of the man. Passages there are that\ncome upon you like splendour out of Heaven; bursts of radiance,\nilluminating the very heart of the thing: you say, \"That is _true_,\nspoken once and forever; wheresoever and whensoever there is an open\nhuman soul, that will be recognised as true!\" Such bursts, however,\nmake us feel that the surrounding matter is not radiant; that it is,\nin part, temporary, conventional. Alas, Shakspeare had to write for\nthe Globe Play-house: his great soul had to crush itself, as it could,\ninto that and no other mould. It was with him, then, as it is with us\nall. No man works save under conditions. The sculptor cannot set his\nown free Thought before us; but his Thought as he could translate it\ninto the stone that was given, with the tools that were given.\n_Disjecta membra_ are all that we find of any Poet, or of any man.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhoever looks intelligently at this Shakspeare may recognise that he\ntoo was a _Prophet_, in his way; of an insight analogous to the\nProphetic, though he took it up in another strain. Nature seemed to\nthis man also divine; unspeakable, deep as Tophet, high as Heaven: 'We\nare such stuff as Dreams are made of!' That scroll in Westminster\nAbbey, which few read with understanding, is of the depth of any seer.\nBut the man sang; did not preach, except musically. We called Dante\nthe melodious Priest of Middle-Age Catholicism. May we not call\nShakspeare the still more melodious Priest of a _true_ Catholicism,\nthe 'Universal Church' of the Future and of all times? No narrow\nsuperstition, harsh asceticism, intolerance, fanatical fierceness or\nperversion: a Revelation, so far as it goes, that such a thousandfold\nhidden beauty and divineness dwells in all Nature; which let all men\nworship as they can! We may say without offence, that there rises a\nkind of universal Psalm out of this Shakspeare too; not unfit to make\nitself heard among the still more sacred Psalms. Not in disharmony\nwith these, if we understood them, but in harmony!--I cannot call this\nShakspeare a 'Sceptic,' as some do; his indifference to the creeds and\ntheological quarrels of his time misleading them. No: neither\nunpatriotic, though he says little about his Patriotism; nor sceptic,\nthough he says little about his Faith. Such 'indifference' was the\nfruit of his greatness withal: his whole heart was in his own grand\nsphere of worship (we may call it such): these other controversies,\nvitally important to other men, were not vital to him.\n\nBut call it worship, call it what you will, is it not a right glorious\nthing, and set of things, this that Shakspeare has brought us? For\nmyself, I feel that there is actually a kind of sacredness in the fact\nof such a man being sent into this Earth. Is he not an eye to us all;\na blessed heaven-sent Bringer of Light?--And, at bottom, was it not\nperhaps far better that this Shakspeare, everyway an unconscious man,\nwas _conscious_ of no Heavenly message? He did not feel, like Mahomet,\nbecause he saw into those internal Splendours, that he specially was\nthe 'Prophet of God:' and was he not greater than Mahomet in that?\nGreater; and also, if we compute strictly, as we did in Dante's case,\nmore successful. It was intrinsically an error that notion of\nMahomet's, of his supreme Prophethood: and has come down to us\ninextricably involved in error to this day; dragging along with it\nsuch a coil of fables, impurities, intolerances, as makes it a\nquestionable step for me here and now to say, as I have done, that\nMahomet was a true Speaker at all, and not rather an ambitious\ncharlatan, perversity and simulacrum; no Speaker, but a Babbler! Even\nin Arabia, as I compute, Mahomet will have exhausted himself and\nbecome obsolete, while this Shakspeare, this Dante may still be\nyoung;--while this Shakspeare may still pretend to be a Priest of\nMankind, of Arabia as of other places, for unlimited periods to come!\n\nCompared with any speaker or singer one knows, even with AEschylus or\nHomer, why should he not, for veracity and universality, last like\nthem? He is _sincere_ as they; reaches deep down like them, to the\nuniversal and perennial. But as for Mahomet, I think it had been\nbetter for him _not_ to be so conscious! Alas, poor Mahomet; all that\nhe was _conscious_ of was a mere error; a futility and triviality,--as\nindeed such ever is. The truly great in him too was the unconscious:\nthat he was a wild Arab lion of the desert, and did speak-out with\nthat great thunder-voice of his, not by words which he _thought_ to be\ngreat, but by actions, by feelings, by a history which _were_ great!\nHis Koran has become a stupid piece of prolix absurdity; we do not\nbelieve, like him, that God wrote that! The Great Man here too, as\nalways, is a Force of Nature: whatsoever is truly great in him\nsprings-up from the inarticulate deeps.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWell: this is our poor Warwickshire Peasant, who rose to be Manager of\na Playhouse, so that he could live without begging; whom the Earl of\nSouthampton cast some kind glances on; whom Sir Thomas Lucy, many\nthanks to him, was for sending to the Treadmill! We did not account\nhim a god, like Odin, while he dwelt with us;--on which point there\nwere much to be said. But I will say rather, or repeat: In spite of\nthe sad state Hero-worship now lies in, consider what this Shakspeare\nhas actually become among us. Which Englishman we ever made, in this\nland of ours, which million of Englishmen, would we not give-up rather\nthan the Stratford Peasant? There is no regiment of highest\nDignitaries that we would sell him for. He is the grandest thing we\nhave yet done. For our honour among foreign nations, as an ornament to\nour English Household, what item is there that we would not surrender\nrather than him? Consider now, if they asked us, Will you give-up your\nIndian Empire or your Shakspeare, you English; never have had any\nIndian Empire, or never have had any Shakspeare? Really it were a\ngrave question. Official persons would answer doubtless in official\nlanguage; but we, for our part too, should not we be forced to answer:\nIndian Empire, or no Indian Empire; we cannot do without Shakspeare!\nIndian Empire will go, at any rate, some day; but this Shakspeare does\nnot go, he lasts forever with us; we cannot give-up our Shakspeare!\n\nNay, apart from spiritualities; and considering him merely as a real,\nmarketable, tangibly-useful possession. England, before long, this\nIsland of ours, will hold but a small fraction of the English: in\nAmerica, in New Holland, east and west to the very Antipodes, there\nwill be a Saxondom covering great spaces of the Globe. And now, what\nis it that can keep all these together into virtually one Nation, so\nthat they do not fall-out and fight, but live at peace, in brotherlike\nintercourse, helping one another? This is justly regarded as the\ngreatest practical problem, the thing all manner of sovereignties and\ngovernments are here to accomplish: what is it that will accomplish\nthis? Acts of Parliament, administrative prime-ministers cannot.\nAmerica is parted from us, so far as Parliament could part it. Call it\nnot fantastic, for there is much reality in it: Here, I say, is an\nEnglish King, whom no time or chance, Parliament or combination of\nParliaments, can dethrone! This King Shakspeare, does not he shine, in\ncrowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet\nstrongest of rallying-signs; indestructible; really more valuable in\nthat point of view than any other means or appliance whatsoever? We\ncan fancy him as radiant aloft over all the Nations of Englishmen, a\nthousand years hence. From Paramatta, from New York, wheresoever,\nunder what sort of Parish-Constable soever, English men and women are,\nthey will say to one another: \"Yes, this Shakspeare is ours; we\nproduced him, we speak and think by him; we are of one blood and kind\nwith him.\" The most common-sense politician too, if he pleases, may\nthink of that.\n\nYes, truly, it is a great thing for a Nation that it get an articulate\nvoice; that it produce a man who will speak-forth melodiously what the\nheart of it means! Italy, for example, poor Italy lies dismembered,\nscattered asunder, not appearing in any protocol or treaty as a unity\nat all; yet the noble Italy is actually _one_: Italy produced its\nDante; Italy can speak! The Czar of all the Russias, he is strong,\nwith so many bayonets, Cossacks and cannons; and does a great feat in\nkeeping such a tract of Earth politically together; but he cannot yet\nspeak. Something great in him, but it is a dumb greatness. He has had\nno voice of genius, to be heard of all men and times. He must learn to\nspeak. He is a great dumb monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks\nwill all have rusted into nonentity, while that Dante's voice is still\naudible. The Nation that has a Dante is bound together as no dumb\nRussia can be.--We must here end what we had to say of the\n_Hero-Poet_.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV\n\nTHE HERO AS PRIEST. LUTHER; REFORMATION: KNOX; PURITANISM.\n\n[_Friday, 15th May 1840_]\n\n\nOur present discourse is to be of the Great Man as Priest. We have\nrepeatedly endeavoured to explain that all sorts of Heroes are\nintrinsically of the same material; that given a great soul, open to\nthe Divine Significance of Life, then there is given a man fit to\nspeak of this, to sing of this, to fight and work for this, in a\ngreat, victorious, enduring manner; there is given a Hero,--the\noutward shape of whom will depend on the time and the environment he\nfinds himself in. The priest too, as I understand it, is a kind of\nProphet; in him too there is required to be a light of inspiration, as\nwe must name it. He presides over the worship of the people; is the\nUniter of them with the Unseen Holy. He is the spiritual Captain of\nthe people; as the Prophet is their spiritual King with many captains:\nhe guides them heavenward, by wise guidance through this Earth and its\nwork. The ideal of him is, that he too be what we can call a voice\nfrom the unseen Heaven; interpreting, even as the Prophet did, and in\na more familiar manner unfolding the same to men. The unseen\nHeaven,--the 'open secret of the Universe,'--which so few have an eye\nfor! He is the Prophet shorn of his more awful splendour; burning with\nmild equable radiance, as the enlightener of daily life. This, I say,\nis the ideal of a Priest. So in old times; so in these, and in all\ntimes. One knows very well that, in reducing ideals to practice, great\nlatitude of tolerance is needful; very great. But a Priest who is not\nthis at all, who does not any longer aim or try to be this, is a\ncharacter--of whom we had rather not speak in this place.\n\nLuther and Knox were by express vocation Priests, and did faithfully\nperform that function in its common sense. Yet it will suit us better\nhere to consider them chiefly in their historical character, rather as\nReformers than Priests. There have been other Priests perhaps equally\nnotable, in calmer times, for doing faithfully the office of a Leader\nof Worship; bringing down, by faithful heroism in that kind, a light\nfrom Heaven into the daily life of their people; leading them forward,\nas under God's guidance, in the way wherein they were to go. But when\nthis same _way_ was a rough one, of battle, confusion and danger, the\nspiritual Captain, who led through that, becomes, especially to us who\nlive under the fruit of his leading, more notable than any other. He\nis the warfaring and battling Priest; who led his people, not to quiet\nfaithful labour as in smooth times, but to faithful valorous conflict,\nin times all violent, dismembered: a more perilous service, and a more\nmemorable one, be it higher or not. These two men we will account our\nbest Priests, inasmuch as they were our best Reformers. Nay I may ask,\nIs not every true Reformer, by the nature of him, a _Priest_ first of\nall? He appeals to Heaven's invisible justice against Earth's visible\nforce; knows that it, the invisible, is strong and alone strong. He is\na believer in the divine truth of things; a _seer_, seeing through the\nshows of things; a worshipper, in one way or the other, of the divine\ntruth of things; a Priest, that is. If he be not first a Priest, he\nwill never be good for much as a Reformer.\n\nThus, then, as we have seen Great Men, in various situations, building\nup Religions, heroic Forms of human Existence in this world, Theories\nof Life worthy to be sung by a Dante, Practices of Life by a\nShakspeare,--we are now to see the reverse process; which also is\nnecessary, which also may be carried on in the Heroic manner. Curious\nhow this should be necessary; yet necessary it is. The mild shining of\nthe Poet's light has to give place to the fierce lightning of the\nReformer: unfortunately the Reformer too is a personage that cannot\nfail in History! The Poet indeed, with his mildness, what is he but\nthe product and ultimate adjustment of Reform, or Prophecy with its\nfierceness? No wild Saint Dominics and Thebaid Eremites, there had\nbeen no melodious Dante; rough Practical Endeavour, Scandinavian and\nother, from Odin to Walter Raleigh, from Ulfila to Cranmer, enabled\nShakspeare to speak. Nay the finished Poet, I remark sometimes, is a\nsymptom that his epoch itself has reached perfection and is finished;\nthat before long there will be a new epoch, new Reformers needed.\n\nDoubtless it were finer, could we go along always in the way of\n_music_; be tamed and taught by our Poets, as the rude creatures were\nby their Orpheus of old. Or failing this rhythmic _musical_ way, how\ngood were it could we get so much as into the _equable_ way; I mean,\nif _peaceable_ Priests, reforming from day to day, would always\nsuffice us! But it is not so; even this latter has not yet been\nrealised. Alas, the battling Reformer too is, from time to time, a\nneedful and inevitable phenomenon. Obstructions are never wanting: the\nvery things that were once indispensable furtherances become\nobstructions; and need to be shaken off, and left behind us,--a\nbusiness often of enormous difficulty. It is notable enough, surely,\nhow a Theorem or spiritual Representation, so we may call it, which\nonce took in the whole Universe, and was completely satisfactory in\nall parts of it to the highly-discursive acute intellect of Dante, one\nof the greatest in the world,--had in the course of another century\nbecome dubitable to common intellects; become deniable; and is now, to\nevery one of us, flatly incredible, obsolete as Odin's Theorem! To\nDante, human Existence, and God's ways with men, were all well\nrepresented by those _Malebolges_, _Purgatorios_; to Luther not well.\nHow was this? Why could not Dante's Catholicism continue; but Luther's\nProtestantism must needs follow? Alas, nothing will _continue_.\n\nI do not make much of 'Progress of the Species,' as handled in these\ntimes of ours; nor do I think you would care to hear much about it.\nThe talk on that subject is too often of the most extravagant,\nconfused sort. Yet I may say, the fact itself seems certain enough;\nnay we can trace out the inevitable necessity of it in the nature of\nthings. Every man, as I have stated somewhere, is not only a learner\nbut a doer: he learns with the mind given him what has been; but with\nthe same mind he discovers farther, he invents and devises somewhat of\nhis own. Absolutely without originality there is no man. No man\nwhatever believes, or can believe, exactly what his grandfather\nbelieved: he enlarges somewhat, by fresh discovery, his view of the\nUniverse, and consequently his Theorem of the Universe,--which is an\n_infinite_ Universe, and can never be embraced wholly or finally by\nany view or Theorem, in any conceivable enlargement: he enlarges\nsomewhat, I say; finds somewhat that was credible to his grandfather\nincredible to him, false to him, inconsistent with some new thing he\nhas discovered or observed. It is the history of every man; and in the\nhistory of Mankind we see it summed-up into great historical\namounts,--revolutions, new epochs. Dante's Mountain of Purgatory does\n_not_ stand 'in the ocean of the other Hemisphere,' when Columbus has\nonce sailed thither! Men find no such thing extant in the other\nHemisphere. It is not there. It must cease to be believed to be there.\nSo with all beliefs whatsoever in this world,--all Systems of Belief,\nand Systems of Practice that spring from these.\n\nIf we add now the melancholy fact, that when Belief waxes uncertain,\nPractice too becomes unsound, and errors, injustices and miseries\neverywhere more and more prevail, we shall see material enough for\nrevolution. At all turns, a man who will _do_ faithfully, needs to\nbelieve firmly. If he have to ask at every turn the world's suffrage;\nif he cannot dispense with the world's suffrage, and make his own\nsuffrage serve, he is a poor eye-servant; the work committed to him\nwill be _mis_done. Every such man is a daily contributor to the\ninevitable downfall. Whatsoever work he does, dishonestly, with an eye\nto the outward look of it, is a new offence, parent of new misery to\nsomebody or other. Offences accumulate till they become insupportable;\nand are then violently burst through, cleared off as by explosion.\nDante's sublime Catholicism, incredible now in theory, and defaced\nstill worse by faithless, doubting and dishonest practice, has to be\ntorn asunder by a Luther; Shakspeare's noble feudalism, as beautiful\nas it once looked and was, has to end in a French Revolution. The\naccumulation of offences is, as we say, too literally _exploded_,\nblasted asunder volcanically; and there are long troublous periods\nbefore matters come to a settlement again.\n\nSurely it were mournful enough to look only at this face of the\nmatter, and find in all human opinions and arrangements merely the\nfact that they were uncertain, temporary, subject to the law of death!\nAt bottom, it is not so: all death, here too we find, is but of the\nbody, not of the essence or soul; all destruction, by violent\nrevolution or howsoever it be, is but new creation on a wider scale.\nOdinism was _Valour_; Christianism was _Humility_, a nobler kind of\nValour. No thought that ever dwelt honestly as true in the heart of\nman but _was_ an honest insight into God's truth on man's part, and\n_has_ an essential truth in it which endures through all changes, an\neverlasting possession for us all. And, on the other hand, what a\nmelancholy notion is that, which has to represent all men, in all\ncountries and times except our own, as having spent their life in\nblind condemnable error, mere lost Pagans, Scandinavians, Mahometans,\nonly that we might have the true ultimate knowledge! All generations\nof men were lost and wrong, only that this present little section of a\ngeneration might be saved and right. They all marched forward there,\nall generations since the beginning of the world, like the Russian\nsoldiers into the ditch of Schweidnitz Fort, only to fill-up the ditch\nwith their dead bodies, that we might march-over and take the place!\nIt is an incredible hypothesis.\n\nSuch incredible hypothesis we have seen maintained with fierce\nemphasis; and this or the other poor individual man, with his sect of\nindividual men, marching as over the dead bodies of all men, towards\nsure victory: but when he too, with his hypothesis and ultimate\ninfallible credo, sank into the ditch, and became a dead body, what\nwas to be said?--Withal, it is an important fact in the nature of man,\nthat he tends to reckon his own insight as final, and goes upon it as\nsuch. He will always do it, I suppose, in one or the other way; but it\nmust be in some wider, wiser way than this. Are not all true men that\nlive, or that ever lived, soldiers of the same army, enlisted, under\nHeaven's captaincy, to do battle against the same enemy, the Empire of\nDarkness and Wrong? Why should we misknow one another, fight not\nagainst the enemy but against ourselves, from mere difference of\nuniform? All uniforms shall be good, so they hold in them true valiant\nmen. All fashions of arms, the Arab turban and swift scimetar, Thor's\nstrong hammer smiting down _Joetuns_, shall be welcome. Luther's\nbattle-voice, Dante's march-melody, all genuine things are with us,\nnot against us. We are all under one Captain, soldiers of the same\nhost.--Let us now look a little at this Luther's fighting; what kind\nof battle it was, and how he comported himself in it. Luther too was\nof our spiritual Heroes; a Prophet to his country and time.\n\nAs introductory to the whole, a remark about Idolatry will perhaps be\nin place here. One of Mahomet's characteristics, which indeed belongs\nto all Prophets, is unlimited implacable zeal against Idolatry. It is\nthe grand theme of Prophets: Idolatry, the worshipping of dead Idols\nas the Divinity, is a thing they cannot away-with, but have to\ndenounce continually, and brand with inexpiable reprobation; it is the\nchief of all the sins they see done under the sun. This is worth\nnoting. We will not enter here into the theological question about\nIdolatry. Idol is _Eidolon_, a thing seen, a symbol. It is not God,\nbut a Symbol of God; and perhaps one may question whether any the most\nbenighted mortal ever took it for more than a Symbol. I fancy, he did\nnot think that the poor image his own hands had made _was_ God; but\nthat God was emblemed by it, that God was in it some way or another.\nAnd now in this sense, one may ask, Is not all worship whatsoever a\nworship by Symbols, by _eidola_, or things seen? Whether _seen_,\nrendered visible as an image or picture to the bodily eye; or visible\nonly to the inward eye, to the imagination, to the intellect: this\nmakes a superficial, but no substantial difference. It is still a\nThing Seen, significant of Godhead; an Idol. The most rigorous Puritan\nhas his Confession of Faith, and intellectual Representation of Divine\nthings, and worships thereby; thereby is worship first made possible\nfor him. All creeds, liturgies, religious forms, conceptions that\nfitly invest religious feelings, are in this sense _eidola_, things\nseen. All worship whatsoever must proceed by Symbols, by Idols:--we\nmay say, all Idolatry is comparative, and the worst Idolatry is only\n_more_ idolatrous.\n\nWhere, then, lies the evil of it? some fatal evil must lie in it, or\nearnest prophetic men would not on all hands so reprobate it. Why is\nIdolatry so hateful to Prophets? It seems to me as if, in the worship\nof those poor wooden symbols, the thing that had chiefly provoked the\nProphet, and filled his inmost soul with indignation and aversion, was\nnot exactly what suggested itself to his own thought, and came out of\nhim in words to others, as the thing. The rudest heathen that\nworshipped Canopus, or the Caabah Black-Stone, he, as we saw, was\nsuperior to the horse that worshipped nothing at all! Nay there was a\nkind of lasting merit in that poor act of his; analogous to what is\nstill meritorious in Poets: recognition of a certain endless _divine_\nbeauty and significance in stars and all natural objects whatsoever.\nWhy should the Prophet so mercilessly condemn him? The poorest mortal\nworshipping his Fetish, while his heart is full of it, may be an\nobject of pity, of contempt and avoidance, if you will; but cannot\nsurely be an object of hatred. Let his heart _be_ honestly full of it,\nthe whole space of his dark narrow mind illuminated thereby; in one\nword, let him entirely _believe_ in his Fetish,--it will then be, I\nshould say, if not well with him, yet as well as it can readily be\nmade to be, and you will leave him alone, unmolested there.\n\nBut here enters the fatal circumstance of Idolatry, that, in the era\nof the Prophets, no man's mind _is_ any longer honestly filled with\nhis Idol or Symbol. Before the Prophet can arise who, seeing through\nit, knows it to be mere wood, many men must have begun dimly to doubt\nthat it was little more. Condemnable Idolatry is _insincere_ Idolatry.\nDoubt has eaten-out the heart of it: a human soul is seen clinging\nspasmodically to an Ark of the Covenant, which it half-feels now to\nhave become a Phantasm. This is one of the balefulest sights. Souls\nare no longer _filled_ with their Fetish; but only pretend to be\nfilled, and would fain make themselves feel that they are filled. \"You\ndo not believe,\" said Coleridge; \"you only believe that you believe.\"\nIt is the final scene in all kinds of Worship and Symbolism; the sure\nsymptom that death is now nigh. It is equivalent to what we call\nFormulism, and Worship of Formulas, in these days of ours. No more\nimmoral act can be done by a human creature; for it is the beginning\nof all immorality, or rather it is the impossibility henceforth of any\nmorality whatsoever: the innermost moral soul is paralysed thereby,\ncast into fatal magnetic sleep! Men are no longer _sincere_ men. I do\nnot wonder that the earnest man denounces this, brands it, prosecutes\nit with unextinguishable aversion. He and it, all good and it, are at\ndeath-feud. Blamable Idolatry is _Cant_, and even what one may call\nSincere-Cant. Sincere-Cant: that is worth thinking of! Every sort of\nWorship ends with this phasis.\n\nI find Luther to have been a Breaker of Idols, no less than any other\nProphet. The wooden gods of the Koreish, made of timber and bees-wax,\nwere not more hateful to Mahomet than Tetzel's Pardons of Sin, made of\nsheepskin and ink, were to Luther. It is the property of every Hero,\nin every time, in every place and situation, that he come back to\nreality; that he stand upon things, and not shows of things. According\nas he loves, and venerates, articulately or with deep speechless\nthought, the awful realities of things, so will the hollow shows of\nthings, however regular, decorous, accredited by Koreishes or\nConclaves, be intolerable and detestable to him. Protestantism too is\nthe work of a Prophet: the prophet-work of that sixteenth century. The\nfirst stroke of honest demolition to an ancient thing grown false and\nidolatrous; preparatory afar off to a new thing, which shall be true,\nand authentically divine!--\n\nAt first view it might seem as if Protestantism were entirely\ndestructive to this that we call Hero-worship, and represent as the\nbasis of all possible good, religious or social, for mankind. One\noften hears it said that Protestantism introduced a new era, radically\ndifferent from any the world had ever seen before: the era of 'private\njudgment,' as they call it. By this revolt against the Pope, every man\nbecame his own Pope; and learnt, among other things, that he must\nnever trust any Pope, or spiritual Hero-captain, any more! Whereby, is\nnot spiritual union, all hierarchy and subordination among men,\nhenceforth an impossibility? So we hear it said.--Now I need not deny\nthat Protestantism was a revolt against spiritual sovereignties, Popes\nand much else. Nay I will grant that English Puritanism, revolt\nagainst earthly sovereignties, was the second act of it; that the\nenormous French Revolution itself was the third act, whereby all\nsovereignties earthly and spiritual were, as might seem, abolished or\nmade sure of abolition. Protestantism is the grand root from which our\nwhole subsequent European History branches out. For the spiritual will\nalways body itself forth in the temporal history of men; the spiritual\nis the beginning of the temporal. And now, sure enough, the cry is\neverywhere for Liberty and Equality, Independence and so forth:\ninstead of _Kings_, Ballot-boxes and Electoral suffrages; it seems\nmade out that any Hero-sovereign, or loyal obedience of men to a man,\nin things temporal or things spiritual, has passed away forever from\nthe world. I should despair of the world altogether, if so. One of my\ndeepest convictions is, that it is not so. Without sovereigns, true\nsovereigns, temporal and spiritual, I see nothing possible but an\nanarchy: the hatefulest of things. But I find Protestantism, whatever\nanarchic democracy it have produced, to be the beginning of new\ngenuine sovereignty and order. I find it to be a revolt against\n_false_ sovereigns; the painful but indispensable first preparative\nfor _true_ sovereigns getting place among us! This is worth explaining\na little.\n\nLet us remark, therefore, in the first place, that this of 'private\njudgment' is, at bottom, not a new thing in the world, but only new at\nthat epoch of the world. There is nothing generically new or peculiar\nin the Reformation; it was a return to Truth and Reality in opposition\nto Falsehood and Semblance, as all kinds of Improvement and genuine\nTeaching are and have been. Liberty of private judgment, if we will\nconsider it, must at all times have existed in the world. Dante had\nnot put-out his eyes, or tied shackles on himself; he was at home in\nthat Catholicism of his, a free-seeing soul in it, if many a poor\nHogstraten, Tetzel and Dr. Eck had now become slaves in it. Liberty of\njudgment? No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever\ncompel the soul of a man to believe or to disbelieve: it is his own\nindefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign, and believe\nthere, by the grace of God alone! The sorriest sophistical Bellarmine,\npreaching sightless faith and passive obedience, must first, by some\nkind of _conviction_, have abdicated his right to be convinced. His\n'private judgment' indicated that, as the advisablest step _he_ could\ntake. The right of private judgment will subsist, in full force,\nwherever true men subsist. A true man _believes_ with his whole\njudgment, with all the illumination and discernment that is in him,\nand has always so believed. A false man, only struggling to 'believe\nthat he believes,' will naturally manage it in some other way.\nProtestantism said to this latter, Woe! and to the former, Well done!\nAt bottom, it was no new saying; it was a return to all old sayings\nthat ever had been said. Be genuine, be sincere: that was, once more,\nthe meaning of it. Mahomet believed with his whole mind; Odin with his\nwhole mind,--he, and all _true_ Followers of Odinism. They, by their\nprivate judgment, had 'judged'--_so_.\n\nAnd now, I venture to assert, that the exercise of private judgment,\nfaithfully gone about, does by no means necessarily end in selfish\nindependence, isolation; but rather ends necessarily in the opposite\nof that. It is not honest inquiry that makes anarchy; but it is error,\ninsincerity, half-belief and untruth that make it. A man protesting\nagainst error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men that\nbelieve in truth. There is no communion possible among men who believe\nonly in hearsays. The heart of each is lying dead; has no power of\nsympathy even with _things_,--or he would believe _them_ and not\nhearsays. No sympathy even with things; how much less with his\nfellow-men! He cannot unite with men; he is an anarchic man. Only in a\nworld of sincere men is unity possible;--and there, in the longrun, it\nis as good as _certain_.\n\nFor observe one thing, a thing too often left out of view, or rather\naltogether lost sight of, in this controversy: That it is not\nnecessary a man should himself have _discovered_ the truth he is to\nbelieve in, and never so _sincerely_ to believe in. A Great Man, we\nsaid, was always sincere, as the first condition of him. But a man\nneed not be great in order to be sincere; that is not the necessity of\nNature and all Time, but only of certain corrupt unfortunate epochs of\nTime. A man can believe, and make his own, in the most genuine way,\nwhat he has received from another;--and with boundless gratitude to\nthat other! The merit of _originality_ is not novelty; it is\nsincerity. The believing man is the original man; whatsoever he\nbelieves, he believes it for himself, not for another. Every son of\nAdam can become a sincere man, an original man, in this sense; no\nmortal is doomed to be an insincere man. Whole ages, what we call ages\nof Faith, are original; all men in them, or the most of men in them,\nsincere. These are the great and fruitful ages: every worker, in all\nspheres, is a worker not on semblance but on substance; every work\nissues in a result: the general sum of such work is great; for all of\nit, as genuine, tends towards one goal; all of it is _additive_, none\nof it subtractive. There is true union, true kingship, loyalty, all\ntrue and blessed things, so far as the poor Earth can produce\nblessedness for men.\n\nHero-worship? Ah me, that a man be self-subsistent, original, true, or\nwhat we call it, is surely the farthest in the world from indisposing\nhim to reverence and believe other men's truth! It only disposes,\nnecessitates and invincibly compels him to disbelieve other men's dead\nformulas, hearsays and untruths. A man embraces truth with his eyes\nopen, and because his eyes are open: does he need to shut them before\nhe can love his Teacher of truth? He alone can love, with a right\ngratitude and genuine loyalty of soul, the Hero-Teacher who has\ndelivered him out of darkness into light. Is not such a one a true\nHero and Serpent-queller; worthy of all reverence! The black monster,\nFalsehood, our one enemy in this world, lies prostrate by his valour;\nit was he that conquered the world for us!--See, accordingly, was not\nLuther himself reverenced as a true Pope, or Spiritual Father, _being_\nverily such? Napoleon, from amid boundless revolt of Sansculottism,\nbecame a King. Hero-worship never dies, nor can die. Loyalty and\nSovereignty are everlasting in the world:--and there is this in them,\nthat they are grounded not on garnitures and semblances, but on\nrealities and sincerities. Not by shutting your eyes, your 'private\njudgment;' no, but by opening them, and by having something to see!\nLuther's message was deposition and abolition to all false Popes and\nPotentates, but life and strength, though afar off, to new genuine\nones.\n\nAll this of Liberty and Equality, Electoral suffrages, Independence\nand so forth, we will take, therefore, to be a temporary phenomenon,\nby no means a final one. Though likely to last a long time, with sad\nenough embroilments for us all, we must welcome it, as the penalty of\nsins that are past, the pledge of inestimable benefits that are\ncoming. In all ways, it behoved men to quit simulacra and return to\nfact; cost what it might, that did behove to be done. With spurious\nPopes, and Believers having no private judgment,--quacks pretending to\ncommand over dupes,--what can you do? Misery and mischief only. You\ncannot make an association out of insincere men; you cannot build an\nedifice except by plummet and level,--at _right_-angles to one\nanother! In all this wild revolutionary work, from Protestantism\ndownwards, I see the blessedest result preparing itself: not abolition\nof Hero-worship, but rather what I would call a whole World of Heroes.\nIf Hero mean _sincere man_, why may not every one of us be a Hero? A\nworld all sincere, a believing world: the like has been; the like will\nagain be,--cannot help being. That were the right sort of Worshippers\nfor Heroes: never could the truly Better be so reverenced as where all\nwere True and Good!--But we must hasten to Luther and his Life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLuther's birthplace was Eisleben in Saxony; he came into the world\nthere on the 10th of November 1483. It was an accident that gave this\nhonour to Eisleben. His parents, poor mine-labourers in a village of\nthat region, named Mohra, had gone to the Eisleben Winter-Fair: in the\ntumult of this scene the Frau Luther was taken with travail, found\nrefuge in some poor house there, and the boy she bore was named MARTIN\nLUTHER. Strange enough to reflect upon it. This poor Frau Luther, she\nhad gone with her husband to make her small merchandisings; perhaps to\nsell the lock of yarn she had been spinning, to buy the small\nwinter-necessaries for her narrow hut or household; in the whole\nworld, that day, there was not a more entirely unimportant-looking\npair of people than this Miner and his Wife. And yet what were all\nEmperors, Popes and Potentates, in comparison? There was born here,\nonce more, a Mighty Man; whose light was to flame as the beacon over\nlong centuries and epochs of the world; the whole world and its\nhistory was waiting for this man. It is strange, it is great. It leads\nus back to another Birth-hour, in a still meaner environment, Eighteen\nHundred years ago,--of which it is fit that we _say_ nothing, that we\nthink only in silence; for what words are there! The Age of Miracles\npast? The Age of Miracles is forever here!--\n\nI find it altogether suitable to Luther's function in this Earth, and\ndoubtless wisely ordered to that end by the Providence presiding over\nhim and us and all things, that he was born poor, and brought-up poor,\none of the poorest of men. He had to beg, as the schoolchildren in\nthose times did; singing for alms and bread, from door to door.\nHardship, rigorous Necessity was the poor boy's companion; no man nor\nno thing would put-on a false face to flatter Martin Luther. Among\nthings, not among the shows of things, had he to grow. A boy of rude\nfigure, yet with weak health, with his large greedy soul, full of all\nfaculty and sensibility, he suffered greatly. But it was his task to\nget acquainted with _realities_, and keep acquainted with them, at\nwhatever cost: his task was to bring the whole world back to reality,\nfor it had dwelt too long with semblance! A youth nursed-up in wintry\nwhirlwinds, in desolate darkness and difficulty, that he may\nstep-forth at last from his stormy Scandinavia, strong as a true man,\nas a god: a Christian Odin,--a right Thor once more, with his\nthunder-hammer, to smite asunder ugly enough _Joetuns_ and\nGiant-monsters!\n\nPerhaps the turning incident of his life, we may fancy, was that death\nof his friend Alexis, by lightning, at the gate of Erfurt. Luther had\nstruggled-up through boyhood, better and worse; displaying, in spite\nof all hindrances, the largest intellect, eager to learn: his father\njudging doubtless that he might promote himself in the world, set him\nupon the study of Law. This was the path to rise; Luther, with little\nwill in it either way, had consented: he was now nineteen years of\nage. Alexis and he had been to see the old Luther people at Mansfeldt;\nwere got back again near Erfurt, when a thunderstorm came on; the bolt\nstruck Alexis, he fell dead at Luther's feet. What is this Life of\nours?--gone in a moment, burnt-up like a scroll, into the blank\nEternity! What are all earthly preferments, Chancellorships,\nKingships? They lie shrunk together--there! The Earth has opened on\nthem; in a moment they are not, and Eternity is. Luther, struck to the\nheart, determined to devote himself to God and God's service alone. In\nspite of all dissuasions from his father and others, he became a Monk\nin the Augustine Convent at Erfurt.\n\nThis was probably the first light-point in the history of Luther, his\npurer will now first decisively uttering itself; but, for the present,\nit was still as one light-point in an element all of darkness. He says\nhe was a pious monk, _ich bin ein frommer Moench gewesen_; faithfully,\npainfully struggling to work-out the truth of this high act of his;\nbut it was to little purpose. His misery had not lessened; had rather,\nas it were, increased into infinitude. The drudgeries he had to do, as\nnovice in his Convent, all sorts of slave-work, were not his\ngrievance: the deep earnest soul of the man had fallen into all manner\nof black scruples, dubitations; he believed himself likely to die\nsoon, and far worse than die. One hears with a new interest for poor\nLuther that, at this time, he lived in terror of the unspeakable\nmisery; fancied that he was doomed to eternal reprobation. Was it not\nthe humble sincere nature of the man? What was he, that he should be\nraised to Heaven! He that had known only misery, and mean slavery: the\nnews was too blessed to be credible. It could not become clear to him\nhow, by fasts, vigils, formalities and mass-work, a man's soul could\nbe saved. He fell into the blackest wretchedness; had to wander\nstaggering as on the verge of bottomless Despair.\n\nIt must have been a most blessed discovery, that of an old Latin Bible\nwhich he found in the Erfurt Library about this time. He had never\nseen the Book before. It taught him another lesson than that of fasts\nand vigils. A brother monk too, of pious experience, was helpful.\nLuther learned now that a man was saved not by singing masses, but by\nthe infinite grace of God: a more credible hypothesis. He gradually\ngot himself founded, as on the rock. No wonder he should venerate the\nBible, which had brought this blessed help to him. He prized it as the\nWord of the Highest must be prized by such a man. He determined to\nhold by that; as through life and to death he firmly did.\n\nThis, then, is his deliverance from darkness, his final triumph over\ndarkness, what we call his conversion; for himself the most important\nof all epochs. That he should now grow daily in peace and clearness;\nthat, unfolding now the great talents and virtues implanted in him, he\nshould rise to importance in his Convent, in his country, and be found\nmore and more useful in all honest business of life, is a natural\nresult. He was sent on missions by his Augustine Order, as a man of\ntalent and fidelity fit to do their business well: the Elector of\nSaxony, Friedrich, named the Wise, a truly wise and just prince, had\ncast his eye on him as a valuable person; made him Professor in his\nnew University of Wittenberg, Preacher too at Wittenberg; in both\nwhich capacities, as in all duties he did, this Luther, in the\npeaceable sphere of common life, was gaining more and more esteem with\nall good men.\n\nIt was in his twenty-seventh year that he first saw Rome; being sent\nthither, as I said, on mission from his Convent. Pope Julius the\nSecond, and what was going-on at Rome, must have filled the mind of\nLuther with amazement. He had come as to the Sacred City, throne of\nGod's Highpriest on Earth; and he found it--what we know! Many\nthoughts it must have given the man; many which we have no record of,\nwhich perhaps he did not himself know how to utter. This Rome, this\nscene of false priests, clothed not in the beauty of holiness, but in\nfar other vesture, is _false_: but what is it to Luther? A mean man\nhe, how shall he reform a world? That was far from his thoughts. A\nhumble, solitary man, why should he at all meddle with the world? It\nwas the task of quite higher men than he. His business was to guide\nhis own footsteps wisely through the world. Let him do his own obscure\nduty in it well; the rest, horrible and dismal as it looks, is in\nGod's hand, not in his.\n\nIt is curious to reflect what might have been the issue, had Roman\nPopery happened to pass this Luther by; to go on in its great wasteful\norbit, and not come athwart his little path, and force him to assault\nit! Conceivable enough that, in this case, he might have held his\npeace about the abuses of Rome; left Providence, and God on high, to\ndeal with them! A modest quiet man; not prompt he to attack\nirreverently persons in authority. His clear task, as I say, was to do\nhis own duty; to walk wisely in this world of confused wickedness, and\nsave his own soul alive. But the Roman Highpriesthood did come athwart\nhim: afar off at Wittenberg he, Luther, could not get lived in honesty\nfor it; he remonstrated, resisted, came to extremity; was struck-at,\nstruck again, and so it came to wager of battle between them! This is\nworth attending to in Luther's history. Perhaps no man of so humble,\npeaceable a disposition ever filled the world with contention. We\ncannot but see that he would have loved privacy, quiet diligence in\nthe shade; that it was against his will he ever became a notoriety.\nNotoriety: what would that do for him? The goal of his march through\nthis world was the Infinite Heaven; an indubitable goal for him: in a\nfew years, he should either have attained that, or lost it forever! We\nwill say nothing at all, I think, of that sorrowfulest of theories, of\nits being some mean shopkeeper grudge, of the Augustine Monk against\nthe Dominican, that first kindled the wrath of Luther, and produced\nthe Protestant Reformation. We will say to the people who maintain it,\nif indeed any such exist now: Get first into the sphere of thought by\nwhich it is so much as possible to judge of Luther, or of any man like\nLuther, otherwise than distractedly; we may then begin arguing with\nyou.\n\nThe Monk Tetzel, sent out carelessly in the way of trade, by Leo\nTenth,--who merely wanted to raise a little money, and for the rest\nseems to have been a Pagan rather than a Christian, so far as he was\nanything,--arrived at Wittenberg, and drove his scandalous trade\nthere. Luther's flock bought Indulgences: in the confessional of his\nChurch, people pleaded to him that they had already got their sins\npardoned. Luther, if he would not be found wanting at his own post, a\nfalse sluggard and coward at the very centre of the little space of\nground that was his own and no other man's, had to step-forth against\nIndulgences, and declare aloud that _they_ were a futility and\nsorrowful mockery, that no man's sins could be pardoned by _them_. It\nwas the beginning of the whole Reformation. We know how it went;\nforward from this first public challenge of Tetzel, on the last day of\nOctober 1517, through remonstrance and argument;--spreading ever\nwider, rising ever higher; till it became unquenchable, and enveloped\nall the world. Luther's heart's-desire was to have this grief and\nother griefs amended; his thought was still far other than that of\nintroducing separation in the Church, or revolting against the Pope,\nFather of Christendom.--The elegant Pagan Pope cared little about this\nMonk and his doctrines; wished, however, to have done with the noise\nof him: in a space of some three years, having tried various softer\nmethods, he thought good to end it by _fire_. He dooms the Monk's\nwritings to be burnt by the hangman, and his body to be sent bound to\nRome,--probably for a similar purpose. It was the way they had ended\nwith Huss, with Jerome, the century before. A short argument, fire.\nPoor Huss: he came to that Constance Council, with all imaginable\npromises and safe-conducts; an earnest, not rebellious kind of man:\nthey laid him instantly in a stone dungeon 'three-feet wide, six-feet\nhigh, seven-feet long;' _burnt_ the true voice of him out of this\nworld; choked it in smoke and fire. That was _not_ well done!\n\nI, for one, pardon Luther for now altogether revolting against the\nPope. The elegant Pagan, by this fire-decree of his, had kindled into\nnoble just wrath the bravest heart then living in this world. The\nbravest, if also one of the humblest, peaceablest; it was now kindled.\nThese words of mine, words of truth and soberness, aiming faithfully,\nas human inability would allow, to promote God's truth on Earth, and\nsave men's souls, you, God's vicegerent on earth, answer them by the\nhangman and fire? You will burn me and them, for answer to the\nGod's-message they strove to bring you? _You_ are not God's\nvicegerent; you are another's than his, I think I take your Bull, as\nan emparchmented Lie, and burn _it_. You will do what you see good\nnext: this is what I do.--It was on the 10th of December 1520, three\nyears after the beginning of the business, that Luther, 'with a great\nconcourse of people,' took this indignant step of burning the Pope's\nfire-decree 'at the Elster-Gate of Wittenberg.' Wittenberg looked on\n'with shoutings;' the whole world was looking on. The Pope should not\nhave provoked that 'shout'! It was the shout of the awakening of\nnations. The quiet German heart, modest, patient of much, had at\nlength got more than it could bear. Formulism, Pagan Popeism, and\nother Falsehood and corrupt Semblance had ruled long enough: and here\nonce more was a man found who durst tell all men that God's world\nstood not on semblances but on realities; that Life was a truth, and\nnot a lie!\n\nAt bottom, as was said above, we are to consider Luther as a Prophet\nIdol-breaker; a bringer-back of men to reality. It is the function of\ngreat men and teachers. Mahomet said, These idols of yours are wood;\nyou put wax and oil on them, the flies stick on them: they are not\nGod, I tell you, they are black wood! Luther said to the Pope, This\nthing of yours that you call a Pardon of Sins, it is a bit of\nrag-paper with ink. It _is_ nothing else; it, and so much like it, is\nnothing else. God alone can pardon sins. Popeship, spiritual\nFatherhood of God's Church, is that a vain semblance, of cloth and\nparchment? It is an awful fact. God's Church is not a semblance,\nHeaven and Hell are not semblances. I stand on this, since you drive\nme to it. Standing on this, I a poor German monk am stronger than you\nall. I stand solitary, friendless, but on God's Truth; you with your\ntiaras, triple-hats, with your treasuries and armories, thunders\nspiritual and temporal, stand on the Devil's Lie, and are not so\nstrong!--\n\nThe Diet of Worms, Luther's appearance there on the 17th of April\n1521, may be considered as the greatest scene in Modern European\nHistory; the point, indeed, from which the whole subsequent history of\ncivilisation takes its rise. After multiplied negotiations,\ndisputations, it had come to this. The young Emperor Charles Fifth,\nwith all the Princes of Germany, Papal nuncios, dignitaries spiritual\nand temporal, are assembled there: Luther is to appear and answer for\nhimself, whether he will recant or not. The world's pomp and power\nsits there on this hand: on that, stands-up for God's Truth, one man,\nthe poor miner Hans Luther's Son. Friends had reminded him of Huss,\nadvised him not to go; he would not be advised. A large company of\nfriends rode-out to meet him, with still more earnest warnings; he\nanswered, \"Were there as many Devils in Worms as there are roof-tiles,\nI would on.\" The people, on the morrow, as he went to the Hall of the\nDiet, crowded the windows and housetops, some of them calling out to\nhim, in solemn words, not to recant: \"Whosoever denieth me before\nmen!\" they cried to him,--as in a kind of solemn petition and\nadjuration. Was it not in reality our petition too, the petition of\nthe whole world, lying in dark bondage of soul, paralysed under a\nblack spectral Nightmare and triple-hatted Chimera, calling itself\nFather in God, and what not: \"Free us; it rests with thee; desert us\nnot!\"\n\nLuther did not desert us. His speech, of two hours, distinguished\nitself by its respectful, wise and honest tone; submissive to\nwhatsoever could lawfully claim submission, not submissive to any more\nthan that. His writings, he said, were partly his own, partly derived\nfrom the Word of God. As to what was his own, human infirmity entered\ninto it; unguarded anger, blindness, many things doubtless which it\nwere a blessing for him could he abolish altogether. But as to what\nstood on sound truth and the Word of God, he could not recant it. How\ncould he? \"Confute me,\" he concluded, \"by proofs of Scripture, or else\nby plain just arguments: I cannot recant otherwise. For it is neither\nsafe nor prudent to do ought against conscience. Here stand I; I can\ndo no other: God assist me!\"--It is, as we say, the greatest moment in\nthe Modern History of Men. English Puritanism, England and its\nParliaments, Americas, and vast work these two centuries; French\nRevolution, Europe and its work everywhere at present: the germ of it\nall lay there: had Luther in that moment done other, it had all been\notherwise! The European World was asking him: Am I to sink ever lower\ninto falsehood, stagnant putrescence, loathsome accursed death; or,\nwith whatever paroxysm, to cast the falsehoods out of me, and be cured\nand live?--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGreat wars, contentions and disunion followed out of this Reformation;\nwhich last down to our day, and are yet far from ended. Great talk and\ncrimination has been made about these. They are lamentable,\nundeniable; but after all what has Luther or his cause to do with\nthem? It seems strange reasoning to charge the Reformation with all\nthis. When Hercules turned the purifying river into King Augeas's\nstables, I have no doubt the confusion that resulted was considerable\nall around: but I think it was not Hercules's blame; it was some\nother's blame! The Reformation might bring what results it liked when\nit came, but the Reformation simply could not help coming. To all\nPopes and Popes' advocates, expostulating, lamenting and accusing, the\nanswer of the world is: Once for all, your Popehood has become untrue.\nNo matter how good it was, how good you say it is, we cannot believe\nit; the light of our whole mind, given us to walk-by from Heaven\nabove, finds it henceforth a thing unbelievable. We will not believe\nit, we will not try to believe it,--we dare not! The thing is\n_untrue_; we were traitors against the Giver of all Truth, if we durst\npretend to think it true. Away with it; let whatsoever likes come in\nthe place of it: with _it_ we can have no farther trade!--Luther and\nhis Protestantism is not responsible for wars; the false Simulacra\nthat forced him to protest, they are responsible. Luther did what\nevery man that God has made has not only the right, but lies under the\nsacred duty, to do: answered a Falsehood when it questioned him, Dost\nthou believe me?--No!--At what cost soever, without counting of costs,\nthis thing behoved to be done. Union, organisation spiritual and\nmaterial, a far nobler than, any Popedom or Feudalism in their truest\ndays, I never doubt, is coming for the world; sure to come. But on\nFact alone, not on Semblance and Simulacrum, will it be able either to\ncome, or to stand when come. With union grounded on falsehood, and\nordering us to speak and act lies, we will not have anything to do.\nPeace? A brutal lethargy is peaceable, the noisome grave is peaceable.\nWe hope for a living peace, not a dead one!\n\nAnd yet, in prizing justly the indispensable blessings of the New, let\nus not be unjust to the Old. The Old _was_ true, if it no longer is.\nIn Dante's days it needed no sophistry, self-blinding, or other\ndishonesty, to get itself reckoned true. It was good then; nay there\nis in the soul of it a deathless good. The cry of 'No Popery' is\nfoolish enough in these days. The speculation that Popery is on the\nincrease, building new chapels and so forth, may pass for one of the\nidlest ever started. Very curious: to count-up a few Popish chapels,\nlisten to a few Protestant logic-choppings,--to much dull-droning,\ndrowsy inanity that still calls itself Protestant, and say: See,\nProtestantism is _dead_; Popeism is more alive than it, will be alive\nafter it!--Drowsy inanities, not a few, that call themselves\nProtestant are dead; but _Protestantism_ has not died yet, that I hear\nof! Protestantism, if we will look, has in these days produced its\nGoethe, its Napoleon; German Literature and the French Revolution;\nrather considerable signs of life! Nay, at bottom, what else is alive\n_but_ Protestantism? The life of most else that one meets is a\ngalvanic one merely,--not a pleasant, not a lasting sort of life!\n\nPopery can build new chapels; welcome to do so, to all lengths. Popery\ncannot come back, any more than Paganism can,--_which_ also still\nlingers in some countries. But, indeed, it is with these things, as\nwith the ebbing of the sea: you look at the waves oscillating hither,\nthither on the beach; for _minutes_ you cannot tell how it is going;\nlook in half an hour where it is,--look in half a century where your\nPopehood is! Alas, would there were no greater danger to our Europe\nthan the poor old Pope's revival! Thor may as soon try to revive.--And\nwithal this oscillation has a meaning. The poor old Popehood will not\ndie away entirely, as Thor has done, for some time yet; nor ought it.\nWe may say, the Old never dies till this happen, Till all the soul of\ngood that was in it have got itself transfused into the practical New.\nWhile a good work remains capable of being done by the Romish form;\nor, what is inclusive of all, while a _pious life_ remains capable of\nbeing led by it, just so long, if we consider, will this or the other\nhuman soul adopt it, go about as a living witness of it. So long it\nwill obtrude itself on the eye of us who reject it, till we in our\npractice too have appropriated whatsoever of truth was in it. Then,\nbut also not till then, it will have no charm more for any man. It\nlasts here for a purpose. Let it last as long as it can.--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf Luther I will add now, in reference to all these wars and\nbloodshed, the noticeable fact that none of them began so long as he\ncontinued living. The controversy did not get to fighting so long as\nhe was there. To me it is proof of his greatness in all senses, this\nfact. How seldom do we find a man that has stirred-up some vast\ncommotion, who does not himself perish, swept-away in it! Such is the\nusual course of revolutionists. Luther continued, in a good degree,\nsovereign of this greatest revolution; all Protestants, of what rank\nor function soever, looking much to him for guidance: and he held it\npeaceable, continued firm at the centre of it. A man to do this must\nhave a kingly faculty: he must have the gift to discern at all turns\nwhere the true heart of the matter lies, and to plant himself\ncourageously on that, as a strong true man, that other true men may\nrally round him there. He will not continue leader of men otherwise.\nLuther's clear deep force of judgment, his force of all sorts, of\n_silence_, of tolerance and moderation, among others, are very notable\nin these circumstances.\n\nTolerance, I say; a very genuine kind of tolerance: he distinguishes\nwhat is essential, and what is not; the unessential may go very much\nas it will. A complaint comes to him that such and such a Reformed\nPreacher, 'will not preach without a cassock.' Well, answers Luther,\nwhat harm will a cassock do the man? 'Let him have a cassock to preach\nin; let him have three cassocks if he find benefit in them!' His\nconduct in the matter of Karlstadt's wild image-breaking; of the\nAnabaptists; of the Peasants' War, shows a noble strength, very\ndifferent from spasmodic violence. With sure prompt insight he\ndiscriminates what is what: a strong just man, he speaks-forth what is\nthe wise course, and all men follow him in that. Luther's Written\nWorks give similar testimony of him. The dialect of these speculations\nis now grown obsolete for us; but one still reads them with a singular\nattraction. And indeed the mere grammatical diction is still legible\nenough; Luther's merit in literary history is of the greatest; his\ndialect became the language of all writing. They are not well written,\nthese Four-and-twenty Quartos of his; written hastily, with quite\nother than literary objects. But in no Books have I found a more\nrobust, genuine, I will say noble faculty of a man than in these. A\nrugged honesty, homeliness, simplicity; a rugged sterling sense and\nstrength. He flashes-out illumination from him; his smiting idiomatic\nphrases seem to cleave into the very secret of the matter. Good humour\ntoo, nay tender affection, nobleness, and depth: this man could have\nbeen a Poet too! He had to _work_ an Epic Poem, not write one. I call\nhim a great Thinker; as indeed his greatness of heart already betokens\nthat.\n\nRichter says of Luther's words, 'his words are half-battles.' They may\nbe called so. The essential quality of him was, that he could fight\nand conquer; that he was a right piece of human Valour. No more\nvaliant man, no mortal heart to be called _braver_, that one has\nrecord of, ever lived in that Teutonic Kindred, whose character is\nvalour. His defiance of the 'Devils' in Worms was not a mere boast, as\nthe like might be if now spoken. It was a faith of Luther's that there\nwere Devils, spiritual denizens of the Pit, continually besetting men.\nMany times, in his writings, this turns-up; and a most small sneer has\nbeen grounded on it by some. In the room of the Wartburg where he sat\ntranslating the Bible, they still show you a black spot on the wall;\nthe strange memorial of one of these conflicts. Luther sat translating\none of the Psalms; he was worn-down with long labour, with sickness,\nabstinence from food: there rose before him some hideous indefinable\nImage, which he took for the Evil One, to forbid his work: Luther\nstarted-up, with fiend-defiance; flung his inkstand at the spectre,\nand it disappeared! The spot still remains there; a curious monument\nof several things. Any apothecary's apprentice can now tell us what we\nare to think of this apparition, in a scientific sense: but the man's\nheart that dare rise defiant, face to face, against Hell itself, can\ngive no higher proof of fearlessness. The thing he will quail before\nexists not on this Earth or under it.--Fearless enough! 'The Devil is\naware,' writes he on one occasion, 'that this does not proceed out of\nfear in me. I have seen and defied innumerable Devils. Duke George,'\nof Leipzig, a great enemy of his, 'Duke George is not equal to one\nDevil,'--far short of a Devil! 'If I had business at Leipzig, I would\nride into Leipzig, though it rained Duke-Georges for nine days\nrunning.' What a reservoir of Dukes to ride into!--\n\nAt the same time, they err greatly who imagine that this man's courage\nwas ferocity, mere coarse disobedient obstinacy and savagery, as many\ndo. Far from that. There may be an absence of fear which arises from\nthe absence of thought or affection, from the presence of hatred and\nstupid fury. We do not value the courage of the tiger highly! With\nLuther it was far otherwise; no accusation could be more unjust than\nthis of mere ferocious violence brought against him. A most gentle\nheart withal, full of pity and love, as indeed the truly valiant heart\never is. The tiger before a _stronger_ foe--flies: the tiger is not\nwhat we call valiant, only fierce and cruel. I know few things more\ntouching than those soft breathings of affection, soft as a child's or\na mother's, in this great wild heart of Luther. So honest,\nunadulterated with any cant; homely, rude in their utterance; pure as\nwater welling from the rock. What, in fact, was all that downpressed\nmood of despair and reprobation, which we saw in his youth, but the\noutcome of pre-eminent thoughtful gentleness, affections too keen and\nfine? It is the course such men as the poor Poet Cowper fall into.\nLuther to a slight observer might have seemed a timid, weak man;\nmodesty, affectionate shrinking tenderness the chief distinction of\nhim. It is a noble valour which is roused in a heart like this, once\nstirred-up into defiance, all kindled into a heavenly blaze.\n\nIn Luther's _Table-Talk_, a posthumous Book of anecdotes and sayings\ncollected by his friends, the most interesting now of all the Books\nproceeding from him, we have many beautiful unconscious displays of\nthe man, and what sort of nature he had. His behaviour at the deathbed\nof his little Daughter, so still, so great and loving, is among the\nmost affecting things. He is resigned that his little Magdalene should\ndie, yet longs inexpressibly that she might live;--follows, in\nawe-struck thought, the flight of her little soul through those\nunknown realms. Awe-struck; most heartfelt, we can see; and\nsincere,--for after all dogmatic creeds and articles, he feels what\nnothing it is that we know, or can know: His little Magdalene shall be\nwith God, as God wills; for Luther too that is all; _Islam_ is all.\n\nOnce, he looks-out from his solitary Patmos, the Castle of Coburg, in\nthe middle of the night: The great vault of Immensity, long flights of\nclouds sailing through it,--dumb, gaunt, huge:--who supports all that?\n\"None ever saw the pillars of it; yet it is supported.\" God supports\nit. We must know that God is great, that God is good; and trust, where\nwe cannot see.--Returning home from Leipzig once, he is struck by the\nbeauty of the harvest-fields: How it stands, that golden yellow corn,\non its fair taper stem, its golden head bent, all rich and waving\nthere,--the meek Earth, at God's kind bidding, has produced it once\nagain; the bread of man!--In the garden at Wittenburg one evening at\nsunset, a little bird was perched for the night: That little bird,\nsays Luther, above it are the stars and deep Heaven of worlds; yet it\nhas folded its little wings; gone trustfully to rest there as in its\nhome: the Maker of it has given it too a home!--Neither are mirthful\nturns wanting: there is a great free human heart in this man. The\ncommon speech of him has a rugged nobleness, idiomatic, expressive,\ngenuine; gleams here and there with beautiful poetic tints. One feels\nhim to be a great brother man. His love of Music, indeed, is not this,\nas it were, the summary of all these affections in him? Many a wild\nunutterability he spoke-forth from him in the tones of his flute. The\nDevils fled from his flute, he says. Death-defiance on the one hand,\nand such love of music on the other; I could call these the two\nopposite poles of a great soul; between these two all great things had\nroom.\n\nLuther's face is to me expressive of him; in Kranach's best portraits\nI find the true Luther. A rude plebeian face; with its huge crag-like\nbrows and bones, the emblem of rugged energy; at first, almost a\nrepulsive face. Yet in the eyes especially there is a wild silent\nsorrow; an unnamable melancholy, the element of all gentle and fine\naffections; giving to the rest the true stamp of nobleness. Laughter\nwas in this Luther, as we said; but tears also were there. Tears also\nwere appointed him; tears and hard toil. The basis of his life was\nSadness, Earnestness. In his latter days, after all triumphs and\nvictories, he expresses himself heartily weary of living; he considers\nthat God alone can and will regulate the course things are taking, and\nthat perhaps the Day of Judgment is not far. As for him, he longs for\none thing: that God would release him from his labour, and let him\ndepart and be at rest. They understand little of the man who cite this\nin _dis_credit of him!--I will call this Luther a true Great Man;\ngreat in intellect, in courage, affection and integrity; one of our\nmost lovable and precious men. Great, not as a hewn obelisk; but as an\nAlpine mountain,--so simple, honest, spontaneous, not setting-up to be\ngreat at all; there for quite another purpose than being great! Ah\nyes, unsubduable granite, piercing far and wide into the Heavens; yet\nin the clefts of it fountains, green beautiful valleys with flowers! A\nright Spiritual Hero and Prophet; once more, a true Son of Nature and\nFact, for whom these centuries, and many that are to come yet, will be\nthankful to Heaven.\n\nThe most interesting phasis which the Reformation anywhere assumes,\nespecially for us English, is that of Puritanism. In Luther's own\ncountry Protestantism soon dwindled into a rather barren affair: not a\nreligion or faith, but rather now a theological jangling of argument,\nthe proper seat of it not the heart; the essence of it sceptical\ncontention: which indeed has jangled more and more, down to\nVoltaireism itself,--through Gustavus-Adolphus contentions onward to\nFrench-Revolution ones! But in our Island there arose a Puritanism,\nwhich even got itself established as a Presbyterianism and National\nChurch among the Scotch; which came forth as a real business of the\nheart; and has produced in the world very notable fruit. In some\nsenses, one may say it is the only phasis of Protestantism that ever\ngot to the rank of being a Faith, a true heart-communication with\nHeaven, and of exhibiting itself in History as such. We must spare a\nfew words for Knox; himself a brave and remarkable man; but still more\nimportant as Chief Priest and Founder, which one may consider him to\nbe, of the Faith that became Scotland's, New England's, Oliver\nCromwell's. History will have something to say about this, for some\ntime to come!\n\nWe may censure Puritanism as we please; and no one of us, I suppose,\nbut would find it a very rough defective thing. But we, and all men,\nmay understand that it was a genuine thing; for Nature has adopted it,\nand it has grown, and grows. I say sometimes, that all goes by\nwager-of-battle in this world; that _strength_, well understood, is\nthe measure of all worth. Give a thing time; if it can succeed, it is\na right thing. Look now at American Saxondom; and at that little Fact\nof the sailing of the Mayflower, two hundred years ago, from Delft\nHaven in Holland! Were we of open sense as the Greeks were, we had\nfound a Poem here; one of Nature's own Poems; such as she writes in\nbroad facts over great continents. For it was properly the beginning\nof America: there were straggling settlers in America before, some\nmaterial as of a body was there; but the soul of it was first this.\nThese poor men, driven-out of their country, not able well to live in\nHolland, determine on settling in the New World. Black untamed forests\nare there, and wild savage creatures; but not so cruel as Starchamber\nhangmen. They thought the Earth would yield them food, if they tilled\nhonestly; the everlasting heaven would stretch there too, overhead;\nthey should be left in peace, to prepare for Eternity by living well\nin this world of Time; worshipping in what they thought the true, not\nthe idolatrous way. They clubbed their small means together; hired a\nship, the little ship Mayflower, and made ready to set sail.\n\nIn Neal's _History of the Puritans_[5] is an account of the ceremony\nof their departure: solemnity, we might call it rather, for it was a\nreal act of worship. Their minister went down with them to the beach,\nand their brethren whom they were to leave behind; all joined in\nsolemn prayer, That God would have pity on His poor children, and _go_\nwith them into that waste wilderness, for He also had made that, He\nwas there also as well as here.--Hah! These men, I think, had a work!\nThe weak thing, weaker than a child, becomes strong one day, if it be\na true thing. Puritanism was only despicable, laughable then; but\nnobody can manage to laugh at it now. Puritanism has got weapons and\nsinews; it has fire-arms, war-navies; it has cunning in its ten\nfingers, strength in its right arm; it can steer ships, fell forests,\nremove mountains;--it is one of the strongest things under the sun at\npresent!\n\n    [5] Neal (London, 1755), i. 490.\n\nIn the history of Scotland, too, I can find properly but one epoch: we\nmay say it contains nothing of world-interest at all but this\nReformation by Knox. A poor barren country, full of continual broils,\ndissensions, massacrings; a people in the last state of rudeness and\ndestitution, little better perhaps than Ireland at this day. Hungry\nfierce barons, not so much as able to form any arrangement with each\nother _how to divide_ what they fleeced from these poor drudges; but\nobliged, as the Columbian Republics are at this day, to make of every\nalteration a revolution; no way of changing a ministry but by hanging\nthe old ministers on gibbets: this is a historical spectacle of no\nvery singular significance! 'Bravery' enough, I doubt not; fierce\nfighting in abundance: but not braver or fiercer than that of their\nold Scandinavian Sea-king ancestors; _whose_ exploits we have not\nfound worth dwelling on! It is a country as yet without a soul:\nnothing developed in it but what is rude, external, semi-animal. And\nnow at the Reformation, the internal life is kindled, as it were,\nunder the ribs of this outward material death. A cause, the noblest of\ncauses kindles itself, like a beacon set on high; high as Heaven, yet\nattainable from Earth;--whereby the meanest man becomes not a Citizen\nonly, but a Member of Christ's visible Church; a veritable Hero, if he\nprove a true man!\n\nWell; this is what I mean by a whole 'nation of heroes;' a _believing_\nnation. There needs not a great soul to make a hero; there needs a\ngod-created soul which will be true to its origin; that will be a\ngreat soul! The like has been seen, we find. The like will be again\nseen, under wider forms than the Presbyterian: there can be no lasting\ngood done till then.--Impossible! say some. Possible? Has it not\n_been_, in this world, as a practised fact? Did Hero-worship fail in\nKnox's case? Or are we made of other clay now? Did the Westminster\nConfession of Faith add some new property to the soul of man? God made\nthe soul of man. He did not doom any soul of man to live as a\nHypothesis and Hearsay, in a world filled with such, and with the\nfatal work and fruit of such!----\n\nBut to return: This that Knox did for his Nation, I say, we may really\ncall a resurrection as from death. It was not a smooth business; but\nit was welcome surely, and cheap at that price, had it been far\nrougher. On the whole, cheap at any price;--as life is. The people\nbegan to _live_: they needed first of all to do that, at what cost and\ncosts soever. Scotch Literature and Thought, Scotch Industry; James\nWatt, David Hume, Walter Scott, Robert Burns: I find Knox and the\nReformation acting in the heart's core of every one of these persons\nand phenomena; I find that without the Reformation they would not have\nbeen. Or what of Scotland? The Puritanism of Scotland became that of\nEngland, of New England. A tumult in the High Church of Edinburgh\nspread into a universal battle and struggle over all these\nrealms;--there came out, after fifty years' struggling, what we call\nthe '_Glorious_ Revolution,' a _Habeas-Corpus_ Act, Free Parliaments,\nand much else!--Alas, is it not too true what we said, That many men\nin the van do always, like Russian soldiers, march into the ditch of\nSchweidnitz, and fill it up with their dead bodies, that the rear may\npass over them dry-shod and gain the honour? How many earnest rugged\nCromwells, Knoxes, poor Peasant Covenants, wrestling, battling for\nvery life, in rough miry places, have to struggle, and suffer, and\nfall, greatly censured, _bemired_,--before a beautiful Revolution of\nEighty-eight can step-over them in official pumps and silk-stockings,\nwith universal three-times-three!\n\nIt seems to me hard measure that this Scottish man, now after\nthree-hundred years, should have to plead like a culprit before the\nworld; intrinsically for having been, in such way as it was then\npossible to be, the bravest of all Scotchmen! Had he been a poor\nHalf-and-half, he could have crouched into the corner, like so many\nothers; Scotland had not been delivered; and Knox had been without\nblame. He is the one Scotchman to whom, of all others, his country and\nthe world owe a debt. He has to plead that Scotland would forgive him\nfor having been worth to it any million 'unblamable' Scotchmen that\nneed no forgiveness! He bared his breast to the battle; had to row in\nFrench galleys, wander forlorn in exile, in clouds and storms; was\ncensured, shot-at through his windows; had a right sore fighting life:\nif this world were his place of recompense, he had made but a bad\nventure of it. I cannot apologise for Knox. To him it is very\nindifferent, these two-hundred-and-fifty years or more, what men say\nof him. But we, having got above all those details of his battle, and\nliving now in clearness on the fruits of his victory, we, for our own\nsake, ought to look through the rumours and controversies enveloping\nthe man, into the man himself.\n\nFor one thing, I will remark that this post of Prophet to his Nation\nwas not of his seeking; Knox had lived forty years quietly obscure,\nbefore he became conspicuous. He was the son of poor parents; had got\na college education; become a Priest; adopted the Reformation, and\nseemed well content to guide his own steps by the light of it, nowise\nunduly intruding it on others. He had lived as Tutor in gentlemen's\nfamilies; preaching when any body of persons wished to hear his\ndoctrine: resolute he to walk by the truth, and speak the truth when\ncalled to do it; not ambitious of more; not fancying himself capable\nof more. In this entirely obscure way he had reached the age of forty;\nwas with the small body of Reformers who were standing siege in St\nAndrew's Castle,--when one day in their chapel, the Preacher after\nfinishing his exhortation to these fighters in the forlorn hope, said\nsuddenly, That there ought to be other speakers, that all men who had\na priest's heart and gift in them ought now to speak;--which gifts and\nheart one of their own number, John Knox the name of him, had: Had he\nnot? said the Preacher, appealing to all the audience: what then is\n_his_ duty? The people answered affirmatively; it was a criminal\nforsaking of his post, if such a man held the word that was in him\nsilent. Poor Knox was obliged to stand-up; he attempted to reply; he\ncould say no word;--burst into a flood of tears, and ran out. It is\nworth remembering, that scene. He was in grievous trouble for some\ndays. He felt what a small faculty was his for this great work. He\nfelt what a baptism he was called to be baptised withal. He 'burst\ninto tears.'\n\nOur primary characteristic of a Hero, that he is sincere, applies\nemphatically to Knox. It is not denied anywhere that this, whatever\nmight be his other qualities or faults, is among the truest of men.\nWith a singular instinct he holds to the truth and fact; the truth\nalone is there for him, the rest a mere shadow and deceptive\nnonentity. However feeble, forlorn the reality may seem, on that and\nthat only _can_ he take his stand. In the Galleys of the River Loire,\nwhither Knox and the others, after their Castle of St Andrew's was\ntaken, had been sent as Galley-slaves,--some officer or priest, one\nday, presented them an Image of the Virgin Mother, requiring that\nthey, the blasphemous heretics, should do it reverence. Mother? Mother\nof God? said Knox, when the turn came to him: This is no Mother of\nGod: this is 'a _pented bredd_,'--a piece of wood, I tell you, with\npaint on it! She is fitter for swimming, I think, than for being\nworshipped, added Knox, and flung the thing into the river. It was not\nvery cheap jesting there: but come of it what might, this thing to\nKnox was and must continue nothing other than the real truth; it was a\n_pented bredd_; worship it he would not.\n\nHe told his fellow-prisoners, in this darkest time, to be of courage;\nthe Cause they had was the true one, and must and would prosper; the\nwhole world could not put it down. Reality is of God's making; it is\nalone strong. How many _pented bredds_, pretending to be real, are\nfitter to swim than to be worshipped!--This Knox cannot live but by\nfact: he clings to reality as the shipwrecked sailor to the cliff. He\nis an instance to us how a man, by sincerity itself, becomes heroic:\nit is the grand gift he has. We find in Knox a good honest\nintellectual talent, no transcendent one;--a narrow, inconsiderable\nman, as compared with Luther: but in heartfelt instinctive adherence\nto truth, in _sincerity_, as we say, he has no superior; nay, one\nmight ask, What equal he has? The heart of him is of the true Prophet\ncast. \"He lies there,\" said the Earl of Morton at his grave, \"who\nnever feared the face of man.\" He resembles, more than any of the\nmoderns, an Old-Hebrew Prophet. The same inflexibility, intolerance,\nrigid narrow-looking adherence to God's truth, stern rebuke in the\nname of God to all that forsake truth: an Old-Hebrew Prophet in the\nguise of an Edinburgh Minister of the Sixteenth Century. We are to\ntake him for that; not require him to be other.\n\nKnox's conduct to Queen Mary, the harsh visits he used to make in her\nown palace, to reprove her there, have been much commented upon. Such\ncruelty, such coarseness fills us with indignation. On reading the\nactual narrative of the business, what Knox said, and what Knox meant,\nI must say one's tragic feeling is rather disappointed. They are not\nso coarse, these speeches; they seem to me about as fine as the\ncircumstances would permit! Knox was not there to do the courtier; he\ncame on another errand. Whoever, reading these colloquies of his with\nthe Queen, thinks they are vulgar insolences of a plebeian priest to a\ndelicate high lady, mistakes the purport and essence of them\naltogether. It was unfortunately not possible to be polite with the\nQueen of Scotland, unless one proved untrue to the Nation and Cause of\nScotland. A man who did not wish to see the land of his birth made a\nhunting-field for intriguing ambitious Guises, and the Cause of God\ntrampled underfoot of Falsehoods, Formulas and the Devil's Cause, had\nno method of making himself agreeable! \"Better that women weep,\" said\nMorton, \"than that bearded men be forced to weep.\" Knox was the\nconstitutional opposition-party in Scotland: the Nobles of the\ncountry, called by their station to take that post, were not found in\nit; Knox had to go or no one. The hapless Queen;--but the still more\nhapless Country, if _she_ were made happy! Mary herself was not\nwithout sharpness enough, among her other qualities: \"Who are you,\"\nsaid she once, \"that presume to school the nobles and sovereign of\nthis realm?\"--\"Madam, a subject born within the same,\" answered he.\nReasonably answered! If the 'subject' have truth to speak, it is not\nthe 'subject's' footing that will fail him here.--\n\nWe blame Knox for his intolerance. Well, surely it is good that each\nof us be as tolerant as possible. Yet, at bottom, after all the talk\nthere is and has been about it, what is tolerance? Tolerance has to\ntolerate the _un_essential; and to see well what that is. Tolerance\nhas to be noble, measured, just in its very wrath, when it can\ntolerate no longer. But, on the whole, we are not altogether here to\ntolerate! We are here to resist, to control and vanquish withal. We do\nnot 'tolerate' Falsehoods, Thieveries, Iniquities, when they fasten on\nus; we say to them, Thou art false, thou art not tolerable! We are\nhere to extinguish Falsehoods, and put an end to them, in some wise\nway! I will not quarrel so much with the way; the doing of the thing\nis our great concern. In this sense Knox was, full surely, intolerant.\n\nA man sent to row in French Galleys, and suchlike, for teaching the\nTruth in his own land, cannot always be in the mildest humour! I am\nnot prepared to say that Knox had a soft temper; nor do I know that he\nhad what we call an ill-temper. An ill nature he decidedly had not.\nKind honest affections dwell in the much-enduring, hard-worn,\never-battling man. That he _could_ rebuke Queens, and had such weight\namong those proud turbulent Nobles, proud enough whatever else they\nwere; and could maintain to the end a kind of virtual Presidency and\nSovereignty in that wild realm, he who was only 'a subject born within\nthe same:' this of itself will prove to us that he was found, close at\nhand, to be no mean acrid man; but at heart a healthful, strong,\nsagacious man. Such alone can bear rule in that kind. They blame him\nfor pulling-down cathedrals, and so forth, as if he were a seditious\nrioting demagogue: precisely the reverse is seen to be the fact, in\nregard to cathedrals and the rest of it, if we examine! Knox wanted no\npulling-down of stone edifices; he wanted leprosy and darkness to be\nthrown out of the lives of men. Tumult was not his element; it was the\ntragic feature of his life that he was forced to dwell so much in\nthat. Every such man is the born enemy of Disorder; hates to be in it:\nbut what then? Smooth Falsehood is not Order; it is the general\nsum-total of _Dis_order. Order is _Truth_,--each thing standing on the\nbasis that belongs to it: Order and Falsehood cannot subsist together.\n\nWithal, unexpectedly enough, this Knox has a vein of drollery in him;\nwhich I like much, in combination with his other qualities. He has a\ntrue eye for the ridiculous. His _History_, with its rough\nearnestness, is curiously enlivened with this. When the two Prelates,\nentering Glasgow Cathedral, quarrel about precedence; march rapidly\nup, take to hustling one another, twitching one another's rochets, and\nat last flourishing their crosiers like quarter-staves, it is a great\nsight for him everyway! Not mockery, scorn, bitterness alone; though\nthere is enough of that too. But a true, loving, illuminating laugh\nmounts-up over the earnest visage; not a loud laugh; you would say, a\nlaugh in the _eyes_ most of all. An honest-hearted, brotherly man;\nbrother to the high, brother also to the low; sincere in his sympathy\nwith both. He has his pipe of Bourdeaux too, we find, in that old\nEdinburgh house of his; a cheery social man, with faces that loved\nhim! They go far wrong who think this Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic,\nshrieking fanatic. Not at all: he is one of the solidest of men.\nPractical, cautious-hopeful, patient; a most shrewd, observing,\nquietly discerning man. In fact, he has very much the type of\ncharacter we assign to the Scotch at present: a certain sardonic\ntaciturnity is in him; insight enough; and a stouter heart than he\nhimself knows of. He has the power of holding his peace over many\nthings which do not vitally concern him,--\"They? what are they?\" But\nthe thing which does vitally concern him, that thing he will speak of;\nand in a tone the whole world shall be made to hear: all the more\nemphatic for his long silence.\n\nThis Prophet of the Scotch is to me no hateful man!--He had a sore\nfight of an existence: wrestling with Popes and Principalities; in\ndefeat, contention, life-long struggle; rowing as a galley-slave,\nwandering as an exile. A sore fight: but he won it. \"Have you hope?\"\nthey asked him in his last moment, when he could no longer speak. He\nlifted his finger, 'pointed upwards with his finger,' and so died.\nHonour to him! His works have not died. The letter of his work dies,\nas of all men's; but the spirit of it never.\n\nOne word more as to the letter of Knox's work. The unforgivable\noffence in him is, that he wished to set-up Priests over the head of\nKings. In other words he strove to make the Government of Scotland a\n_Theocracy_. This indeed is properly the sum of his offences, the\nessential sin; for which what pardon can there be? It is most true, he\ndid, at bottom, consciously or unconsciously, mean a Theocracy, or\nGovernment of God. He did mean that Kings and Prime Ministers, and all\nmanner of persons, in public or private, diplomatising or whatever\nelse they might be doing, should walk according to the Gospel of\nChrist, and understand that this was their Law, supreme over all laws.\nHe hoped once to see such a thing realised; and the Petition, _Thy\nKingdom come_, no longer an empty word. He was sore grieved when he\nsaw greedy worldly Barons clutch hold of the Church's property; when\nhe expostulated that it was not secular property, that it was\nspiritual property, and should be turned to _true_ churchly uses,\neducation, schools, worship;--and the Regent Murray had to answer,\nwith a shrug of the shoulders, \"It is a devout imagination!\" This was\nKnox's scheme of right and truth; this he zealously endeavoured after,\nto realise it. If we think this scheme of truth was too narrow, was\nnot true, we may rejoice that he could not realise it; that it\nremained after two centuries of effort, unrealisable, and is a 'devout\nimagination' still. But how shall we blame _him_ for struggling to\nrealise it? Theocracy, Government of God, is precisely the thing to be\nstruggled for! All Prophets, zealous Priests, are there for that\npurpose. Hildebrand wished a Theocracy; Cromwell wished it, fought for\nit; Mahomet attained it. Nay, is it not what all zealous men, whether\ncalled Priests, Prophets, or whatsoever else called, do essentially\nwish, and must wish? That right and truth, or God's Law, reign supreme\namong men, this is the Heavenly Ideal (well named in Knox's time, and\nnamable in all times, a revealed 'Will of God') towards which the\nReformer will insist that all be more and more approximated. All true\nReformers, as I said, are by the nature of them Priests, and strive\nfor a Theocracy.\n\nHow far such Ideals can ever be introduced into Practice, and at what\npoint our impatience with their non-introduction ought to begin, is\nalways a question. I think we may say safely, Let them introduce\nthemselves as far as they can contrive to do it! If they are the true\nfaith of men, all men ought to be more or less impatient always where\nthey are not found introduced. There will never be wanting Regent\nMurrays enough to shrug their shoulders, and say, \"A devout\nimagination!\" We will praise the Hero-priest, rather, who does what is\nin _him_ to bring them in; and wears out, in toil, calumny,\ncontradiction, a noble life, to make a God's Kingdom of this Earth.\nThe Earth will not become too godlike!\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V\n\nTHE HERO AS A MAN OF LETTERS. JOHNSON, ROUSSEAU, BURNS.\n\n[_Tuesday, 19th May 1840_]\n\n\nHero-gods, Prophets, Poets, Priests are forms of Heroism that belong\nto the old ages, make their appearance in the remotest times; some of\nthem have ceased to be possible long since, and cannot any more show\nthemselves in this world. The Hero as _Man of Letters_, again, of\nwhich class we are to speak today, is altogether a product of these\nnew ages; and so long as the wondrous art of _Writing_, or of\nReady-writing which we call _Printing_, subsists, he may be expected\nto continue, as one of the main forms of Heroism for all future ages.\nHe is, in various respects, a very singular phenomenon.\n\nHe is new, I say; he has hardly lasted above a century in the world\nyet. Never, till about a hundred years ago, was there seen any figure\nof a Great Soul living apart in that anomalous manner; endeavouring to\nspeak-forth the inspiration that was in him by Printed Books, and find\nplace and subsistence by what the world would please to give him for\ndoing that. Much had been sold and bought, and left to make its own\nbargain in the marketplace; but the inspired wisdom of a Heroic Soul\nnever till then, in that naked manner. He, with his copy-rights and\ncopy-wrongs, in his squalid garret, in his rusty coat; ruling (for\nthis is what he does), from his grave, after death, whole nations and\ngenerations who would, or would not, give him bread while living,--is\na rather curious spectacle! Few shapes of Heroism can be more\nunexpected.\n\nAlas, the Hero from of old has had to cramp himself into strange\nshapes: the world knows not well at any time what to do with him, so\nforeign is his aspect in the world! It seemed absurd to us, that men,\nin their rude admiration, should take some wise great Odin for a god,\nand worship him as such, some wise great Mahomet for one god-inspired,\nand religiously follow his Law for twelve centuries: but that a wise\ngreat Johnson, a Burns, a Rousseau, should be taken for some idle\nnon-descript, extant in the world to amuse idleness, and have a few\ncoins and applauses thrown in, that he might live thereby; _this_\nperhaps, as before hinted, will one day seem a still absurder phasis\nof things!--Meanwhile, since it is the spiritual always that\ndetermines the material, this same Man-of-Letters Hero must be\nregarded as our most important modern person. He, such as he may be,\nis the soul of all. What he teachers, the whole world will do and\nmake. The world's manner of dealing with him is the most significant\nfeature of the world's general position. Looking well at his life, we\nmay get a glance, as deep as is readily possible for us, into the life\nof those singular centuries which have produced him, in which we\nourselves live and work.\n\nThere are genuine Men of Letters, and not genuine; as in every kind\nthere is a genuine and a spurious. If _Hero_ be taken to mean genuine,\nthen I say the Hero as Man of Letters will be found discharging a\nfunction for us which is ever honourable, ever the highest; and was\nonce well known to be the highest. He is uttering-forth, in such a way\nas he has, the inspired soul of him; all that a man, in any case, can\ndo. I say _inspired_; for what we call 'originality,' 'sincerity,'\n'genius,' the heroic quality we have no good name for, signifies that.\nThe Hero is he who lives in the inward sphere of things, in the True,\nDivine and Eternal, which exists always, unseen to most, under the\nTemporary, Trivial: his being is in that; he declares that abroad, by\nact or speech as it may be, in declaring himself abroad. His life, as\nwe said before, is a piece of the everlasting heart of Nature herself:\nall men's life is,--but the weak many know not the fact, and are\nuntrue to it, in most times; the strong few are strong, heroic,\nperennial, because it cannot be hidden from them. The Man of Letters,\nlike every Hero, is there to proclaim this in such sort as he can.\nIntrinsically it is the same function which the old generations named\na man Prophet, Priest, Divinity for doing; which all manner of Heroes,\nby speech or by act, are sent into the world to do.\n\nFichte the German Philosopher delivered, some forty years ago at\nErlangen, a highly remarkable Course of Lectures on this subject:\n'_Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten_, On the Nature of the Literary Man.'\nFichte, in conformity with the Transcendental Philosophy, of which he\nwas a distinguished teacher, declares first: That all things which we\nsee or work with in this Earth, especially we ourselves and all\npersons, are as a kind of vesture or sensuous Appearance: that under\nall there lies, as the essence of them, what he calls the 'Divine Idea\nof the World;' this is the Reality which 'lies at the bottom of all\nAppearance.' To the mass of men no such Divine Idea is recognisable in\nthe world; they live merely, says Fichte, among the superficialities,\npracticalities and shows of the world, not dreaming that there is\nanything divine under them. But the Man of Letters is sent hither\nspecially that he may discern for himself, and make manifest to us,\nthis same Divine Idea: in every new generation it will manifest itself\nin a new dialect; and he is there for the purpose of doing that. Such\nis Fichte's phraseology; with which we need not quarrel. It is his way\nof naming what I here, by other words, am striving imperfectly to\nname; what there is at present no name for: The unspeakable Divine\nSignificance, full of splendour, of wonder and terror, that lies in\nthe being of every man, of every thing,--the Presence of the God who\nmade every man and thing. Mahomet taught this in his dialect; Odin in\nhis: it is the thing which all thinking hearts, in one dialect or\nanother, are here to teach.\n\nFichte calls the Man of Letters, therefore, a Prophet, or as he\nprefers to phrase it, a Priest, continually unfolding the Godlike to\nmen: Men of Letters are a perpetual Priesthood, from age to age,\nteaching all men that a God is still present in their life; that all\n'Appearance,' whatsoever we see in the world, is but as a vesture for\nthe 'Divine Idea of the World,' for 'that which lies at the bottom of\nAppearance.' In the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged\nor not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the\nworld's Priest:--guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark\npilgrimage through the waste of Time. Fichte discriminates with sharp\nzeal the _true_ Literary Man, what we here call the _Hero_ as Man of\nLetters, from multitudes of false unheroic. Whoever lives not wholly\nin this Divine Idea, or living partially in it, struggles not, as for\nthe one good, to live wholly in it,--he is, let him live where else he\nlike, in what pomps and prosperities he like, no Literary Man; he is,\nsays Fichte, a 'Bungler, _Stuemper_.' Or at best, if he belong to the\nprosaic provinces, he may be a 'Hodman;' Fichte even calls him\nelsewhere a 'Nonentity,' and has in short no mercy for him, no wish\nthat _he_ should continue happy among us! This is Fichte's notion of\nthe Man of Letters. It means, in its own form, precisely what we here\nmean.\n\nIn this point of view, I consider that, for the last hundred years, by\nfar the notablest of all Literary Men is Fichte's countryman, Goethe.\nTo that man too, in a strange way, there was given what we may call a\nlife in the Divine Idea of the World; vision of the inward divine\nmystery: and strangely, out of his Books, the world rises imaged once\nmore as godlike, the workmanship and temple of a God. Illuminated all,\nnot in fierce impure fire-splendour as of Mahomet, but in mild\ncelestial radiance;--really a Prophecy in these most unprophetic\ntimes; to my mind, by far the greatest, though one of the quietest,\namong all the great things that have come to pass in them. Our chosen\nspecimen of the Hero as Literary Man would be this Goethe. And it were\na very pleasant plan for me here to discourse of his heroism: for I\nconsider him to be a true Hero; heroic in what he said and did, and\nperhaps still more in what he did not say and did not do; to me a\nnoble spectacle: a great heroic ancient man, speaking and keeping\nsilence as an ancient Hero, in the guise of a most modern, high-bred,\nhigh-cultivated Man of Letters! We have had no such spectacle; no man\ncapable of affording such, for the last hundred-and-fifty years.\n\nBut at present, such is the general state of knowledge about Goethe,\nit were worse than useless to attempt speaking of him in this case.\nSpeak as I might, Goethe, to the great majority of you would remain\nproblematic, vague; no impression but a false one could be realised.\nHim we must leave to future times. Johnson, Burns, Rousseau, three\ngreat figures from a prior time, from a far inferior state of\ncircumstances, will suit us better here. Three men of the Eighteenth\nCentury; the conditions of their life far more resemble what those of\nours still are in England, than what Goethe's in Germany were. Alas,\nthese men did not conquer like him; they fought bravely, and fell.\nThey were not heroic bringers of the light, but heroic seekers of it.\nThey lived under galling conditions; struggling as under mountains of\nimpediment, and could not unfold themselves into clearness, or\nvictorious interpretation of that 'Divine Idea.' It is rather the\n_Tombs_ of three Literary Heroes that I have to show you. There are\nthe monumental heaps, under which three spiritual giants lie buried.\nVery mournful, but also great and full of interest for us. We will\nlinger by them for a while.\n\nComplaint is often made, in these times, of what we call the\ndisorganised condition of society: how ill many arranged forces of\nsociety fulfil their work; how many powerful forces are seen working\nin a wasteful, chaotic, altogether unarranged manner. It is too just a\ncomplaint, as we all know. But perhaps if we look at this of Books and\nthe Writers of Books, we shall find here, as it were, the summary of\nall other disorganisation;--a sort of _heart_, from which, and to\nwhich, all other confusion circulates in the world! Considering what\nBook-writers do in the world, and what the world does with\nBook-writers, I should say, It is the most anomalous thing the world\nat present has to show.--We should get into a sea far beyond sounding,\ndid we attempt to give account of this: but we must glance at it for\nthe sake of our subject. The worst element in the life of these three\nLiterary Heroes was, that they found their business and position such\na chaos. On the beaten road there is tolerable travelling; but it is\nsore work, and many have to perish, fashioning a path through the\nimpassable!\n\nOur pious Fathers, feeling well what importance lay in the speaking of\nman to men, founded churches, made endowments, regulations; everywhere\nin the civilised world there is a Pulpit, environed with all manner of\ncomplex dignified appurtenances and furtherances, that therefrom a man\nwith the tongue may, to best advantage, address his fellow-men. They\nfelt that this was the most important thing; that without this there\nwas no good thing. It is a right pious work, that of theirs; beautiful\nto behold! But now with the art of Writing, with the art of Printing,\na total change has come over that business. The Writer of a Book, is\nnot he a Preacher preaching not to this parish or that, on this day or\nthat, but to all men in all times and places? Surely it is of the last\nimportance that _he_ do his work right, whoever do it wrong;--that the\n_eye_ report not falsely, for then all the other members are astray!\nWell; how he may do his work, whether he do it right or wrong, or do\nit at all, is a point which no man in the world has taken the pains to\nthink of. To a certain shopkeeper, trying to get some money for his\nbooks, if lucky, he is of some importance; to no other man of any.\nWhence he came, whither he is bound, by what ways he arrived, by what\nhe might be furthered on his course, no one asks. He is an accident in\nsociety. He wanders like a wild Ishmaelite, in a world of which he is\nas the spiritual light, either the guidance or the misguidance!\n\nCertainly the art of writing is the most miraculous of all things man\nhas devised. Odin's _Runes_ were the first form of the work of a Hero;\n_Books_, written words, are still miraculous _Runes_, of the latest\nform! In Books lies the _soul_ of the whole Past Time; the articulate\naudible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it\nhas altogether vanished like a dream. Mighty fleets and armies,\nharbours and arsenals, vast cities, high-domed, many-engined,--they\nare precious, great: but what do they become? Agamemnon, the many\nAgamemnons, Pericleses, and their Greece; all is gone now to some\nruined fragments, dumb mournful wrecks and blocks: but the Books of\nGreece! There Greece, to every thinker, still very literally lives;\ncan be called-up again into life. No magic _Rune_ is stranger than a\nBook. All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying\nas in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen\npossession of men.\n\nDo not Books still accomplish _miracles_ as _Runes_ were fabled to do?\nThey persuade men. Not the wretchedest circulating-library novel,\nwhich foolish girls thumb and con in remote villages but will help to\nregulate the actual practical weddings and households of those foolish\ngirls. So 'Celia' felt, so 'Clifford' acted: the foolish Theorem of\nLife, stamped into those young brains, comes out as a solid Practice\none day. Consider whether any _Rune_ in the wildest imagination of\nMythologist ever did such wonders as, on the actual firm Earth, some\nBooks have done! What built St Paul's Cathedral? Look at the heart of\nthe matter, it was that divine Hebrew BOOK,--the word partly of the\nman Moses, an outlaw tending his Midianitish herds, four thousand\nyears ago, in the wildernesses of Sinai! It is the strangest of\nthings, yet nothing is truer. With the art of Writing, of which\nPrinting is a simple, an inevitable and comparatively insignificant\ncorollary, the true reign of miracles for mankind commenced. It\nrelated, with a wondrous new contiguity and perpetual closeness, the\nPast and Distant with the Present in time and place; all times and all\nplaces with this our actual Here and Now. All things were altered for\nmen; all modes of important work of men: teaching, preaching,\ngoverning, and all else.\n\nTo look at Teaching, for instance. Universities are a notable,\nrespectable product of the modern ages. Their existence too is\nmodified, to the very basis of it, by the existence of Books.\nUniversities arose while there were yet no Books procurable; while a\nman, for a single Book, had to give an estate of land. That, in those\ncircumstances, when a man had some knowledge to communicate, he should\ndo it by gathering the learners round him, face to face, was a\nnecessity for him. If you wanted to know what Abelard knew, you must\ngo and listen to Abelard. Thousands, as many as thirty-thousand, went\nto hear Abelard and that metaphysical theology of his. And now for any\nother teacher who had something of his own to teach, there was a great\nconvenience opened: so many thousands eager to learn were already\nassembled yonder; of all places the best place for him was that. For\nany third teacher it was better still; and grew ever the better, the\nmore teachers there came. It only needed now that the King took notice\nof this new phenomenon; combined or agglomerated the various schools\ninto one school; gave it edifices, privileges, encouragements, and\nnamed it _Universitas_, or School of all Sciences: the University of\nParis, in its essential characters, was there. The model of all\nsubsequent Universities; which down even to these days, for six\ncenturies now, have gone on to found themselves. Such, I conceive, was\nthe origin of Universities.\n\nIt is clear, however, that with this simple circumstance, facility of\ngetting Books, the whole conditions of the business from top to bottom\nwere changed. Once invent Printing, you metamorphosed all\nUniversities, or superseded them! The Teacher needed not now to gather\nmen personally round him, that he might _speak_ to them what he knew:\nprint it in a Book, and all learners far and wide, for a trifle, had\nit each at his own fireside, much more effectually to learn\nit!--Doubtless there is still peculiar virtue in Speech; even writers\nof Books may still, in some circumstances, find it convenient to speak\nalso,--witness our present meeting here! There _is_, one would say,\nand must ever remain while man has a tongue, a distinct province for\nSpeech as well as for Writing and Printing. In regard to all things\nthis must remain; to Universities among others. But the limits of the\ntwo have nowhere yet been pointed out, ascertained; much less put in\npractice: the University which would completely take-in that great new\nfact, of the existence of Printed Books, and stand on a clear footing\nfor the Nineteenth Century as the Paris one did for the Thirteenth,\nhas not yet come into existence. If we think of it, all that a\nUniversity, or final highest School can do for us, is still but what\nthe first School began doing,--teach us to _read_. We learn to _read_,\nin various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and\nletters of all manner of Books. But the place where we go to get\nknowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves! It\ndepends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done\ntheir best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection\nof Books.\n\nBut to the Church itself, as I hinted already, all is changed, in its\npreaching, in its working, by the introduction of Books. The Church is\nthe working recognised Union of our Priests or Prophets, of those who\nby wise teaching guide the souls of men. While there was no Writing,\neven while there was no Easy-writing or _Printing_, the preaching of\nthe voice was the natural sole method of performing this. But now with\nBooks!--He that can write a true Book, to persuade England, is not he\nthe Bishop and Archbishop, the Primate of England and of All England?\nI many a time say, the writers of Newspapers, Pamphlets, Poems, Books,\nthese _are_ the real working effective Church of a modern country. Nay\nnot only our preaching, but even our worship, is not it too\naccomplished by means of Printed Books? The noble sentiment which a\ngifted soul has clothed for us in melodious words, which brings melody\ninto our hearts,--is not this essentially, if we will understand it,\nof the nature of worship? There are many, in all countries, who, in\nthis confused time, have no other method of worship. He who, in any\nway, shows us better than we knew before that a lily of the fields is\nbeautiful, does he not show it us as an effluence of the Fountain of\nall Beauty; as the _handwriting_, made visible there, of the great\nMaker of the Universe? He has sung for us, made us sing with him, a\nlittle verse of a sacred Psalm. Essentially so. How much more he who\nsings, who says, or in any way brings home to our heart the noble\ndoings, feelings, darings and endurances of a brother man! He has\nverily touched our hearts as with a live coal _from the altar_.\nPerhaps there is no worship more authentic.\n\nLiterature, so far as it is Literature, is an 'apocalypse of Nature,'\na revealing of the 'open secret.' It may well enough be named, in\nFichte's style; a 'continuous revelation' of the Godlike in the\nTerrestrial and Common. The Godlike does ever, in very truth, endure\nthere; is brought out, now in this dialect, now in that, with various\ndegrees of clearness: all true gifted Singers and Speakers are,\nconsciously or unconsciously, doing so. The dark stormful indignation\nof a Byron, so wayward and perverse, may have touches of it; nay the\nwithered mockery of a French sceptic,--his mockery of the False, a\nlove and worship of the True. How much more the sphere-harmony of a\nShakspeare, of a Goethe; the cathedral-music of a Milton! They are\nsomething too, those humble genuine lark-notes of a Burns,--skylark,\nstarting from the humble furrow, far overhead into the blue depths,\nand singing to us so genuinely there! For all true singing is of the\nnature of worship; as indeed all true _working_ may be said to\nbe,--whereof such _singing_ is but the record, and fit melodious\nrepresentation, to us. Fragments of a real 'Church Liturgy' and 'Body\nof Homilies,' strangely disguised from the common eye, are to be found\nweltering in that huge froth-ocean of Printed Speech we loosely call\nLiterature! Books are our Church too.\n\nOr turning now to the Government of men. Witenagemote, old Parliament,\nwas a great thing. The affairs of the nation were there deliberated\nand decided; what we were to _do_ as a nation. But does not, though\nthe name Parliament subsists, the parliamentary debate go on now,\neverywhere and at all times, in a far more comprehensive way, _out_ of\nParliament altogether? Burke said there were Three Estates in\nParliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a _Fourth\nEstate_ more important far than they all. It is not a figure of\nspeech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact,--very momentous to us\nin these times. Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which\ncomes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to\nDemocracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. Writing brings\nPrinting; brings universal every-day extempore Printing, as we see at\npresent. Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes\na power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in\nlaw-making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has,\nwhat revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is, that he have a\ntongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is\nrequisite. The nation is governed by all that has tongue in the\nnation: Democracy is virtually _there_. Add only, that whatsoever\npower exists will have itself, by and by, organised; working secretly\nunder bandages, obscurations, obstructions, it will never rest till it\nget to work free, unencumbered, visible to all. Democracy virtually\nextant will insist on becoming palpably extant.--\n\nOn all sides, are we not driven to the conclusion that, of the things\nwhich man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous,\nwonderful and worthy are the things we call Books! Those poor bits of\nrag-paper with black ink on them;--from the Daily Newspaper to the\nsacred Hebrew BOOK, what have they not done, what are they not\ndoing!--For indeed, whatever be the outward form of the thing (bits of\npaper, as we say, and black ink), is it not verily, at bottom, the\nhighest act of man's faculty that produces a Book? It is the _Thought_\nof man; the true thaumaturgic virtue; by which man works all things\nwhatsoever. All that he does, and brings to pass, is the vesture of a\nThought. This London City, with all its houses, palaces,\nsteam-engines, cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic and tumult,\nwhat is it but a Thought, but millions of Thoughts made into One;--a\nhuge immeasurable Spirit of a THOUGHT, embodied in brick, in iron,\nsmoke, dust, Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks,\nand the rest of it! Not a brick was made but some man had to _think_\nof the making of that brick.--The thing we called 'bits of paper with\ntraces of black ink,' is the _purest_ embodiment a Thought of man can\nhave. No wonder it is, in all ways, the activest and noblest.\n\nAll this, of the importance and supreme importance of the Man of\nLetters in modern Society, and how the Press is to such a degree\nsuperseding the Pulpit, the Senate, the _Senatus Academicus_ and much\nelse, has been admitted for a good while; and recognised often enough,\nin late times, with a sort of sentimental triumph and wonderment. It\nseems to me, the Sentimental by and by will have to give place to the\nPractical. If Men of Letters _are_ so incalculably influential,\nactually performing such work for us from age to age, and even from\nday to day, then I think we may conclude that Men of Letters will not\nalways wander like unrecognised unregulated Ishmaelites among us!\nWhatsoever thing, as I said above, has virtual unnoticed power will\ncastoff its wrappages, bandages, and step-forth one day with palpably\narticulated, universally visible power. That one man wear the clothes,\nand take the wages, of a function which is done by quite another:\nthere can be no profit in this; this is not right, it is wrong. And\nyet, alas, the _making_ of it right,--what a business, for long times\nto come! Sure enough, this that we call Organisation of the Literary\nGuild is still a great way off, encumbered with all manner of\ncomplexities. If you asked me what were the best possible organisation\nfor the Men of Letters in modern society; the arrangement of\nfurtherance and regulation, grounded the most accurately on the actual\nfacts of their position and of the world's position,--I should beg to\nsay that the problem far exceeded my faculty! It is not one man's\nfaculty; it is that of many successive men turned earnestly upon it,\nthat will bring-out even an approximate solution. What the best\narrangement were, none of us could say. But if you ask, Which is the\nworst? I answer: This which we now have, that Chaos should sit umpire\nin it; this is the worst. To the best, or any good one, there is yet a\nlong way.\n\nOne remark I must not omit, That royal or parliamentary grants of\nmoney are by no means the chief thing wanted! To give our Men of\nLetters stipends, endowments and all furtherance of cash, will do\nlittle towards the business. On the whole, one is weary of hearing\nabout the omnipotence of money. I will say rather that, for a genuine\nman, it is no evil to be poor; that there ought to be Literary Men\npoor,--to show whether they are genuine or not! Mendicant Orders,\nbodies of good men doomed to _beg_, were instituted in the Christian\nChurch; a most natural and even necessary development of the spirit of\nChristianity. It was itself founded on Poverty, on Sorrow,\nContradiction, Crucifixion, every species of worldly Distress and\nDegradation. We may say, that he who has not known those things, and\nlearned from them the priceless lessons they have to teach, has missed\na good opportunity of schooling. To beg, and go barefoot, in coarse\nwoollen cloak with a rope round your loins, and be despised of all the\nworld, was no beautiful business;--nor an honourable one in any eye,\ntill the nobleness of those who did so had made it honoured of some!\n\nBegging is not in our course at the present time: but for the rest of\nit, who will say that a Johnson is not perhaps the better for being\npoor? It is needful for him, at all rates, to know that outward\nprofit, that success of any kind is _not_ the goal he has to aim at.\nPride, vanity, ill-conditioned egoism of all sorts, are bred in his\nheart, as in every heart; need, above all, to be cast-out of his\nheart,--to be, with whatever pangs, torn-out of it, cast-forth from\nit, as a thing worthless. Byron, born rich and noble, made-out even\nless than Burns, poor and plebeian. Who knows but, in that same 'best\npossible organisation' as yet far off, Poverty may still enter as an\nimportant element? What if our Men of Letters, Men setting-up to be\nSpiritual Heroes, were still _then_, as they now are, a kind of\n'involuntary monastic order;' bound still to this same ugly\nPoverty,--till they had tried what was in it too, till they had\nlearned to make it too do for them! Money, in truth, can do much, but\nit cannot do all. We must know the province of it, and confine it; and\neven spurn it back, when it wishes to get farther.\n\nBesides, were the money-furtherances, the proper season for them, the\nfit assigner of them, all settled,--how is the Burns to be recognised\nthat merits these? He must pass through the ordeal, and prove himself.\n_This_ ordeal; this wild welter of a chaos which is called Literary\nLife; this too is a kind of ordeal! There is clear truth in the idea\nthat a struggle from the lower classes of society, towards the upper\nregions and rewards of society, must ever continue. Strong men are\nborn there, who ought to stand elsewhere than there. The manifold,\ninextricably complex, universal struggle of these constitutes, and\nmust constitute, what is called the progress of society. For Men of\nLetters, as for all other sorts of men. How to regulate that struggle?\nThere is the whole question. To leave it as it is, at the mercy of\nblind Chance; a whirl of distracted atoms, one cancelling the other;\none of the thousand arriving saved, nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine lost\nby the way; your royal Johnson languishing inactive in garrets, or\nharnessed to the yoke of Printer Cave; your Burns dying broken-hearted\nas a Gauger; your Rousseau driven into mad exasperation, kindling\nFrench Revolutions by his paradoxes: this, as we said, is clearly\nenough the _worst_ regulation. The _best_, alas, is far from us!\n\nAnd yet there can be no doubt but it is coming; advancing on us, as\nyet hidden in the bosom of centuries: this is a prophecy one can risk.\nFor so soon as men get to discern the importance of a thing, they do\ninfallibly set about arranging it, facilitating, forwarding it; and\nrest not till, in some approximate degree, they have accomplished\nthat. I say, of all Priesthoods, Aristocracies, Governing Classes at\npresent extant in the world, there is no class comparable for\nimportance to that Priesthood of the Writers of Books. This is a fact\nwhich he who runs may read,--and draw inferences from. \"Literature\nwill take care of itself,\" answered Mr Pitt, when applied-to for some\nhelp for Burns. \"Yes,\" adds Mr Southey, \"it will take care of itself;\n_and of you too_, if you do not look to it!\"\n\nThe result to individual Men of Letters is not the momentous one; they\nare but individuals, an infinitesimal fraction of the great body; they\ncan struggle on, and live or else die, as they have been wont. But it\ndeeply concerns the whole society, whether it will set its _light_ on\nhigh places, to walk thereby; or trample it under foot, and scatter it\nin all ways of wild waste (not without conflagration), as heretofore!\nLight is the one thing wanted for the world. Put wisdom in the head of\nthe world, the world will fight its battle victoriously, and be the\nbest world man can make it. I call this anomaly of a disorganic\nLiterary Class the heart of all other anomalies, at once product and\nparent; some good arrangement for that would be as the _punctum\nsaliens_ of a new vitality and just arrangement for all. Already, in\nsome European countries, in France, in Prussia, one traces some\nbeginnings of an arrangement for the Literary Class; indicating the\ngradual possibility of such. I believe that it is possible; that it\nwill have to be possible.\n\nBy far the most interesting fact I hear about the Chinese is one on\nwhich we cannot arrive at clearness, but which excites endless\ncuriosity even in the dim state: this namely, that they do attempt to\nmake their Men of Letters their Governors! It would be rash to say,\none understood how this was done, or with what degree of success it\nwas done. All such things must be very unsuccessful; yet a small\ndegree of success is precious; the very attempt how precious! There\ndoes seem to be, all over China, a more or less active search\neverywhere to discover the men of talent that grow up in the young\ngeneration. Schools there are for every one: a foolish sort of\ntraining, yet still a sort. The youths who distinguish themselves in\nthe lower school are promoted into favourable stations in the higher,\nthat they may still more distinguish themselves,--forward and forward:\nit appears to be out of these that the Official Persons, and incipient\nGovernors, are taken. These are they whom they _try_ first, whether\nthey can govern or not. And surely with the best hope: for they are\nthe men that have already shown intellect. Try them: they have not\ngoverned or administered as yet; perhaps they cannot; but there is no\ndoubt they _have_ some Understanding, without which no man can!\nNeither is Understanding a _tool_, as we are too apt to figure; 'it is\na _hand_ which can handle any tool.' Try these men: they are of all\nothers the best worth trying.--Surely there is no kind of government,\nconstitution, revolution, social apparatus or arrangement, that I know\nof in this world, so promising to one's scientific curiosity as this.\nThe man of intellect at the top of affairs: this is the aim of all\nconstitutions and revolutions, if they have any aim. For the man of\ntrue intellect, as I assert and believe always, is the noblehearted\nman withal, the true, just, humane and valiant man. Get _him_ for\ngovernor, all is got; fail to get him, though you had Constitutions\nplentiful as blackberries, and a Parliament in every village, there is\nnothing yet got!--\n\nThese things look strange, truly; and are not such as we commonly\nspeculate upon. But we are fallen into strange times; these things\nwill require to be speculated upon; to be rendered practicable, to be\nin some way put in practice. These and many others. On all hands of\nus, there is the announcement, audible enough, that the old Empire of\nRoutine has ended; that to say a thing has long been, is no reason for\nits continuing to be. The things which have been are fallen into\ndecay, are fallen into incompetence; large masses of mankind, in every\nsociety of our Europe, are no longer capable of living at all by the\nthings which have been. When millions of men can no longer by their\nutmost exertion gain food for themselves, and 'the third man for\nthirty-six weeks each year is short of third-rate potatoes,' the\nthings which have been must decidedly prepare to alter themselves!--I\nwill now quit this of the organisation of Men of Letters.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAlas, the evil that pressed heaviest on those Literary Heroes of ours\nwas not the want of organisation for Men of Letters, but a far deeper\none; out of which, indeed, this and so many other evils for the\nLiterary Man, and for all men, had, as from their fountain, taken\nrise. That our Hero as Man of Letters had to travel without highway,\ncompanionless, through an inorganic chaos,--and to leave his own life\nand faculty lying there, as a partial contribution towards _pushing_\nsome highway through it: this, had not his faculty itself been so\nperverted and paralysed, he might have put up with, might have\nconsidered to be but the common lot of Heroes. His fatal misery was\nthe _spiritual paralysis_, so we may name it, of the Age in which his\nlife lay; whereby his life too, do what he might, was half-paralysed!\nThe Eighteenth was a _Sceptical_ Century; in which little word there\nis a whole Pandora's Box of miseries. Scepticism means not\nintellectual Doubt alone, but moral Doubt; all sorts of _in_fidelity,\ninsincerity, spiritual paralysis. Perhaps, in few centuries that one\ncould specify since the world began, was a life of Heroism more\ndifficult for a man. That was not an age of Faith,--an age of Heroes!\nThe very possibility of Heroism had been, as it were, formally\nabnegated in the minds of all. Heroism was gone forever; Triviality,\nFormulism and Commonplace were come forever. The 'age of miracles' had\nbeen, or perhaps had not been; but it was not any longer. An effete\nworld; wherein Wonder, Greatness, Godhood could not now dwell;--in one\nword, a godless world!\n\nHow mean, dwarfish are their ways of thinking, in this time,--compared\nnot with the Christian Shakspeares and Miltons, but with the old Pagan\nSkalds, with any species of believing men! The living TREE Igdrasil,\nwith the melodious prophetic waving of its world-wide boughs,\ndeep-rooted as Hela, has died-out into the clanking of a\nWorld-MACHINE. 'Tree' and 'Machine': contrast these two things. I, for\nmy share, declare the world to be no machine! I say that it does not\ngo by wheel-and-pinion 'motives,' self-interests, checks, balances;\nthat there is something far other in it than the clank of\nspinning-jennies, and parliamentary majorities; and, on the whole,\nthat it is not a machine at all!--The old Norse Heathen had a truer\nnotion of God's-world than these poor Machine-Sceptics: the old\nHeathen Norse were _sincere_ men. But for these poor Sceptics there\nwas no sincerity, no truth. Half-truth and hearsay was called truth.\nTruth, for most men, meant plausibility; to be measured by the number\nof votes you could get. They had lost any notion that sincerity was\npossible, or of what sincerity was. How many Plausibilities asking,\nwith unaffected surprise and the air of offended virtue, What! am not\nI sincere? Spiritual Paralysis, I say, nothing left but a Mechanical\nlife, was the characteristic of that century. For the common man,\nunless happily he stood _below_ his century and belonged to another\nprior one, it was impossible to be a Believer, a Hero; he lay buried,\nunconscious, under these baleful influences. To the strongest man,\nonly with infinite struggle and confusion was it possible to work\nhimself half-loose; and lead as it were, in an enchanted, most\ntragical way, a spiritual death-in-life, and be a Half-Hero!\n\nScepticism is the name we give to all this; as the chief symptom, as\nthe chief origin of all this. Concerning which so much were to be\nsaid! It would take many Discourses, not a small fraction of one\nDiscourse, to state what one feels about that Eighteenth Century and\nits ways. As indeed this, and the like of this, which we now call\nScepticism, is precisely the black malady and life-foe, against which\nall teaching and discoursing since man's life began has directed\nitself: the battle of Belief against Unbelief is the never-ending\nbattle! Neither is it in the way of crimination that one would wish to\nspeak. Scepticism, for that century, we must consider as the decay of\nold ways of believing, the preparation afar off for new better and\nwider ways,--an inevitable thing. We will not blame men for it; we\nwill lament their hard fate. We will understand that destruction of\nold _forms_ is not destruction of everlasting _substances_; that\nScepticism, as sorrowful and hateful as we see it, is not an end but a\nbeginning.\n\nThe other day speaking, without prior purpose that way, of Bentham's\ntheory of man and man's life, I chanced to call it a more beggarly one\nthan Mahomet's. I am bound to say, now when it is once uttered, that\nsuch is my deliberate opinion. Not that one would mean offence against\nthe man Jeremy Bentham, or those who respect and believe him. Bentham\nhimself, and even the creed of Bentham, seems to me comparatively\nworthy of praise. It is a determinate _being_ what all the world, in a\ncowardly, half-and-half manner, was tending to be. Let us have the\ncrisis; we shall either have death or the cure. I call this gross,\nsteam-engine Utilitarianism an approach towards new Faith. It was a\nlaying down of cant; a saying to oneself: \"Well then, this world is a\ndead iron machine, the god of it Gravitation and selfish Hunger; let\nus see what, by checking and balancing, and good adjustment of tooth\nand pinion, can be made of it!\" Benthamism has something complete,\nmanful, in such fearless committal of itself to what it finds true;\nyou may call it Heroic, though a Heroism with its _eyes_ put out! It\nis the culminating point, and fearless ultimatum, of what lay in the\nhalf-and-half state, pervading man's whole existence in that\nEighteenth Century. It seems to me, all deniers of Godhood, and all\nlip-believers of it, are bound to be Benthamites, if they have courage\nand honesty. Benthamism is an _eyeless_ Heroism: the Human Species,\nlike a hapless blinded Samson grinding in the Philistine Mill, clasps\nconvulsively the pillars of its Mill; brings huge ruin down, but\nultimately deliverance withal. Of Bentham I meant to say no harm.\n\nBut this I do say, and would wish all men to know and lay to heart,\nthat he who discerns nothing but Mechanism in the Universe has in the\nfatalest way missed the secret of the Universe altogether. That all\nGodhood should vanish out of men's conception of this Universe seems\nto me precisely the most brutal error,--I will not disparage\nHeathenism by calling it a Heathen error,--that men could fall into.\nIt is not true; it is false at the very heart of it. A man who thinks\nso will think _wrong_ about all things in the world; this original sin\nwill vitiate all other conclusions he can form. One might call it the\nmost lamentable of delusions,--not forgetting Witchcraft itself!\nWitchcraft worshipped at least a living Devil: but this worships a\ndead iron Devil; no God, not even a Devil!--Whatsoever is noble,\ndivine, inspired, drops thereby out of life. There remains everywhere\nin life a despicable _caput-mortuum_; the mechanical hull, all soul\nfled out of it. How can a man act heroically? The 'Doctrine of\nMotives' will teach him that it is, under more or less disguise,\nnothing but a wretched love of Pleasure, fear of Pain; that Hunger, of\napplause, of cash, of whatsoever victual it may be, is the ultimate\nfact of man's life. Atheism, in brief;--which does indeed frightfully\npunish itself. The man, I say, is become spiritually a paralytic man;\nthis god-like Universe a dead mechanical steam-engine, all working by\nmotives, checks, balances, and I know not what; wherein, as in the\ndetestable belly of some Phalaris'-Bull of his own contriving, he the\npoor Phalaris sits miserably dying!\n\nBelief I define to be the healthy act of a man's mind. It is a mysterious\nindescribable process, that of getting to believe;--indescribable, as\nall vital acts are. We have our mind given us, not that it may cavil\nand argue, but that it may see into something, give us clear belief\nand understanding about something, whereon we are then to proceed to\nact. Doubt, truly, is not itself a crime. Certainly we do not rush\nout, clutch-up the first thing we find, and straightway believe that!\nAll manner of doubt, inquiry, [Greek: skepsis] as it is named, about\nall manner of objects, dwells in every reasonable mind. It is the\nmystic working of the mind, on the object it is _getting_ to know and\nbelieve. Belief comes out of all this, above ground, like the tree\nfrom its hidden _roots_. But now if, even on common things, we require\nthat a man keep his doubts _silent_, and not babble of them till they\nin some measure become affirmations or denials; how much more in\nregard to the highest things, impossible to speak of in words at all!\nThat a man parade his doubt, and get to imagine that debating and\nlogic (which means at best only the manner of _telling_ us your\nthought, your belief or disbelief, about a thing) is the triumph and\ntrue work of what intellect he has: alas, this is as if you should\n_overturn_ the tree, and instead of green boughs, leaves, and fruits,\nshow us ugly taloned roots turned-up into the air,--and no growth,\nonly death and misery going on!\n\nFor the Scepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; It is moral\nalso; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by\nbelieving something; not by debating and arguing about many things. A\nsad case for him when all that he can manage to believe is something\nhe can button in his pocket, and with one or the other organ eat and\ndigest! Lower than that he will not get. We call those ages in which\nhe gets so low the mournfulest, sickest, and meanest of all ages. The\nworld's heart is palsied, sick: how can any limb of it be whole?\nGenuine Acting ceases in all departments of the world's work; dextrous\nSimilitude of Acting begins. The world's wages are pocketed, the\nworld's work is not done. Heroes have gone out; quacks have come in.\nAccordingly, what Century, since the end of the Roman world, which\nalso was a time of scepticism, simulacra and universal decadence, so\nabounds with Quacks as that Eighteenth! Consider them, with their\ntumid sentimental vapouring about virtue, benevolence,--the wretched\nQuack-squadron, Cagliostro at the head of them! Few men were without\nquackery; they had got to consider it a necessary ingredient and\namalgam for truth. Chatham, our brave Chatham himself, comes down to\nthe House, all wrapt and bandaged; he 'has crawled out in great bodily\nsuffering,' and so on;--_forgets_, says Walpole, that he is acting the\nsick man; in the fire of debate, snatches his arm from the sling, and\noratorically swings and brandishes it! Chatham himself lives the\nstrangest mimetic life, half hero, half quack, all along. For indeed\nthe world is full of dupes; and you have to gain the _world's_\nsuffrage! How the duties of the world will be done in that case, what\nquantities of error, which means failure, which means sorrow and\nmisery, to some and to many, will gradually accumulate in all\nprovinces of the world's business, we need not compute.\n\nIt seems to me, you lay your finger here on the heart of the world's\nmaladies, when you call it a Sceptical World. An insincere world; a\ngodless untruth of a world! It is out of this, as I consider, that the\nwhole tribe of social pestilences, French Revolutions, Chartisms, and\nwhat not, have derived their being, their chief necessity to be. This\nmust alter. Till this alter, nothing can beneficially alter. My one\nhope of the world, my inexpugnable consolation in looking at the\nmiseries of the world, is that this is altering. Here and there one\ndoes now find a man who knows, as of old, that this world is a Truth,\nand no Plausibility and Falsity; that he himself is alive, not dead or\nparalytic; and that the world is alive, instinct with Godhood,\nbeautiful and awful, even as in the beginning of days! One man once\nknowing this, many men, all men, must by and by come to know it. It\nlies there clear, for whosoever will take the _spectacles_ off his\neyes and honestly look, to know! For such a man, the Unbelieving\nCentury, with its unblessed Products, is already past: a new century\nis already come. The old unblessed Products and Performances, as solid\nas they look, are Phantasms, preparing speedily to vanish. To this and\nthe other noisy, very great-looking Simulacrum with the whole world\nhuzzahing at its heels, he can say, composedly stepping aside: Thou\nart not _true_; thou art not extant, only semblant; go thy way!--Yes,\nhollow Formulism, gross Benthamism, and other unheroic atheistic\nInsincerity is visibly and even rapidly declining. An unbelieving\nEighteenth Century is but an exception,--such as now and then occurs.\nI prophesy that the world will once more become _sincere_; a believing\nworld: with _many_ Heroes in it, a heroic world! It will then be a\nvictorious world; never till then!\n\nOr indeed what of the world and its victories? Men speak too much\nabout the world. Each one of us here, let the world go how it will,\nand be victorious or not victorious, has he not a Life of his own to\nlead? One Life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no\nsecond chance to us forevermore! It were well for _us_ to live not as\nfools and simulacra, but as wise and realities. The world's being\nsaved will not save us; nor the world's being lost destroy us. We\nshould look to ourselves: there is great merit here in the 'duty of\nstaying at home'! And, on the whole, to say truth, I never heard of\n'worlds' being 'saved' in any other way. That mania of saving worlds\nis itself a piece of the Eighteenth Century with its windy\nsentimentalism. Let us not follow it too far. For the saving of the\n_world_ I will trust confidently to the Maker of the world; and look a\nlittle to my own saving, which I am more competent to!--In brief, for\nthe world's sake, and for our own, we will rejoice greatly that\nScepticism, Insincerity, Mechanical Atheism, with all their\npoison-dews, are going, and as good as gone.--\n\nNow it was under such conditions, in those times of Johnson, that our\nMen of Letters had to live. Times in which there was properly no truth\nin life. Old truths had fallen nigh dumb; the new lay yet hidden, not\ntrying to speak. That Man's Life here below was a Sincerity and Fact,\nand would forever continue such, no new intimation, in that dusk of\nthe world, had yet dawned. No intimation; not even any French\nRevolution,--which we define to be a Truth once more, though a Truth\nclad in hellfire! How different was the Luther's Pilgrimage, with its\nassured goal, from the Johnson's, girt with mere traditions,\nsuppositions, grown now incredible, unintelligible! Mahomet's Formulas\nwere of 'wood waxed and oiled,' and could be _burnt_ out of one's way:\npoor Johnson's were far more difficult to burn.--The strong man will\never find _work_, which means difficulty, pain, to the full measure of\nhis strength. But to make-out a victory, in those circumstances of our\npoor Hero as Man of Letters, was perhaps more difficult than in any.\nNot obstruction, disorganisation, Bookseller Osborne and\nFourpence-halfpenny a day; not this alone; but the light of his own\nsoul was taken from him. No landmark on the Earth; and, alas, what is\nthat to having no loadstar in the Heaven! We need not wonder that none\nof those Three men rose to victory. That they fought truly is the\nhighest praise. With a mournful sympathy we will contemplate, if not\nthree living victorious Heroes, as I said, the Tombs of three fallen\nHeroes! They fell for us too; making a way for us. There are the\nmountains which they hurled abroad in their confused War of the\nGiants; under which, their strength and life spent, they now lie\nburied.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have already written of these three Literary Heroes, expressly or\nincidentally; what I suppose is known to most of you; what need not be\nspoken or written a second time. They concern us here as the singular\n_Prophets_ of that singular age; for such they virtually were; and the\naspect they and their world exhibit, under this point of view, might\nlead us into reflections enough! I call them, all three, Genuine Men\nmore or less; faithfully, for most part unconsciously, struggling to\nbe genuine, and plant themselves on the everlasting truth of things.\nThis to a degree that eminently distinguishes them from the poor\nartificial mass of their contemporaries; and renders them worthy to be\nconsidered as Speakers, in some measure, of the everlasting truth, as\nProphets in that age of theirs. By Nature herself, a noble necessity\nwas laid on them to be so. They were men of such magnitude that they\ncould not live on unrealities,--clouds, froth and all inanity gave-way\nunder them: there was no footing for them but on firm earth; no rest\nor regular motion for them, if they got not footing there. To a\ncertain extent, they were Sons of Nature once more in an age of\nArtifice; once more, Original Men.\n\nAs for Johnson, I have always considered him to be, by nature, one of\nour great English souls. A strong and noble man; so much left\nundeveloped in him to the last: in a kindlier element what might he\nnot have been,--Poet, Priest, sovereign Ruler! On the whole, a man\nmust not complain of his 'element,' of his 'time,' or the like; it is\nthriftless work doing so. His time is bad: well then, he is there to\nmake it better!--Johnson's youth was poor, isolated, hopeless, very\nmiserable. Indeed, it does not seem possible that, in any the\nfavourablest outward circumstances, Johnson's life could have been\nother than a painful one. The world might have had more of profitable\n_work_ out of him, or less; but his _effort_ against the world's work\ncould never have been a light one. Nature, in return for his\nnobleness, had said to him, Live in an element of diseased sorrow.\nNay, perhaps the sorrow and the nobleness were intimately and even\ninseparably connected with each other. At all events, poor Johnson had\nto go about girt with continual hypochondria, physical and spiritual\npain. Like a Hercules with the burning Nessus'-shirt on him, which\nshoots-in on him dull incurable misery: the Nessus'-shirt not to be\nstript-off, which is his own natural skin! In this manner _he_ had to\nlive. Figure him there, with his scrofulous diseases, with his great\ngreedy heart, and unspeakable chaos of thoughts; stalking mournful as\na stranger in this Earth; eagerly devouring what spiritual thing he\ncould come at: school-languages and other merely grammatical stuff, if\nthere were nothing better! The largest soul that was in all England;\nand provision made for it of 'fourpence-halfpenny a day.' Yet a giant\ninvincible soul; a true man's. One remembers always that story of the\nshoes at Oxford: the rough, seamy-faced, rawboned College Servitor\nstalking about, in winter-season, with his shoes worn-out; how the\ncharitable Gentleman Commoner secretly places a new pair at his door;\nand the rawboned Servitor, lifting them, looking at them near, with\nhis dim eyes, with what thoughts,--pitches them out of window! Wet\nfeet, mud, frost, hunger or what you will; but not beggary: we cannot\nstand beggary! Rude stubborn self-help here; a whole world of squalor,\nrudeness, confused misery and want, yet of nobleness and manfulness\nwithal. It is a type of the man's life, this pitching-away of the\nshoes. An original man;--not a secondhand, borrowing or begging man.\nLet us stand on our own basis, at any rate! On such shoes as we\nourselves can get. On frost and mud, if you will, but honestly on\nthat;--on the reality and substance which Nature gives _us_, not on\nthe semblance, on the thing she has given another than us!--\n\nAnd yet with all this rugged pride of manhood and self-help was there\never soul more tenderly affectionate, loyally submissive to what was\nreally higher than he? Great souls are always loyally submissive,\nreverent to what is over them; only small mean souls are otherwise. I\ncould not find a better proof of what I said the other day, That the\nsincere man was by nature the obedient man; that only in a World of\nHeroes was there loyal Obedience to the Heroic. The essence of\n_originality_ is not that it be _new_: Johnson believed altogether in\nthe old; he found the old opinions credible for him, fit for him; and\nin a right heroic manner lived under them. He is well worth study in\nregard to that. For we are to say that Johnson was far other than a\nmere man of words and formulas; he was a man of truths and facts. He\nstood by the old formulas; the happier was it for him that he could so\nstand: but in all formulas that _he_ could stand by, there needed to\nbe a most genuine substance. Very curious how, in that poor Paper-age,\nso barren, artificial, thick-quilted with Pedantries, Hearsays, the\ngreat Fact of this Universe glared in, forever wonderful, indubitable,\nunspeakable, divine-infernal, upon this man too! How he harmonised his\nFormulas with it, how he managed at all under such circumstances: that\nis a thing worth seeing. A thing 'to be looked at with reverence, with\npity, with awe.' That Church of St. Clement Danes, where Johnson still\n_worshipped_ in the era of Voltaire, is to me a venerable place.\n\nIt was in virtue of his _sincerity_, of his speaking still in some\nsort from the heart of Nature, though in the current artificial\ndialect, that Johnson was a Prophet. Are not all dialects\n'artificial'? Artificial things are not all false;--nay every true\nProduct of Nature will infallibly _shape_ itself; we may say all\nartificial things are, at the starting of them, _true_. What we call\n'Formulas' are not in their origin bad; they are indispensably good.\nFormula is _method_, habitude; found wherever man is found. Formulas\nfashion themselves as Paths do, as beaten Highways, leading towards\nsome sacred or high object, whither many men are bent. Consider it.\nOne man, full of heartfelt earnest impulse, finds-out a way of doing\nsomewhat,--were it of uttering his soul's reverence for the Highest,\nwere it but of fitly saluting his fellow-man. An inventor was needed\nto do that, a _poet_; he has articulated the dim-struggling thought\nthat dwelt in his own and many hearts. This is his way of doing that;\nthese are his footsteps, the beginning of a 'Path.' And now see: the\nsecond man travels naturally in the footsteps of his foregoer, it is\nthe _easiest_ method. In the footsteps of his foregoer; yet with\nimprovements, with changes where such seem good; at all events with\nenlargements, the Path ever _widening_ itself as more travel it;--till\nat last there is a broad Highway whereon the whole world may travel\nand drive. While there remains a City or Shrine, or any Reality to\ndrive to, at the farther end, the Highway shall be right welcome! When\nthe City is gone, we will forsake the Highway. In this manner all\nInstitutions, Practices, Regulated Things in the world have come into\nexistence, and gone out of existence. Formulas all begin by being\n_full_ of substance; you may call them the _skin_, the articulation\ninto shape, into limbs and skin, of a substance that is already there:\n_they_ had not been there otherwise. Idols, as we said, are not\nidolatrous till they become doubtful, empty for the worshipper's\nheart. Much as we talk against Formulas, I hope no one of us is\nignorant withal of the high significance of _true_ Formulas; that they\nwere, and will ever be, the indispensablest furniture of our\nhabitation in this world.----\n\nMark, too, how little Johnson boasts of his 'sincerity.' He has no\nsuspicion of his being particularly sincere,--of his being\nparticularly anything! A hard-struggling, weary-hearted man, or\n'scholar' as he calls himself, trying hard to get some honest\nlivelihood in the world, not to starve, but to live--without stealing!\nA noble unconsciousness is in him. He does not 'engrave _Truth_ on his\nwatch-seal;' no, but he stands by truth, speaks by it, works and lives\nby it. Thus it ever is. Think of it once more. The man whom Nature has\nappointed to do great things is, first of all, furnished with that\nopenness to Nature which renders him incapable of being _in_sincere!\nTo his large, open, deep-feeling heart Nature is a Fact: all hearsay\nis hearsay; the unspeakable greatness of this Mystery of Life, let him\nacknowledge it or not, nay even though he seem to forget it or deny\nit, is ever present to _him_,--fearful and wonderful, on this hand and\non that. He has a basis of sincerity; unrecognised, because never\nquestioned or capable of question. Mirabeau, Mahomet, Cromwell,\nNapoleon: all the Great Men I ever heard-of have this as the primary\nmaterial of them. Innumerable commonplace men are debating, are\ntalking everywhere their commonplace doctrines, which they have\nlearned by logic, by rote, at secondhand: to that kind of man all this\nis still nothing. He must have truth; truth which _he_ feels to be\ntrue. How shall he stand otherwise? His whole soul, at all moments, in\nall ways, tells him that there is no standing. He is under the noble\nnecessity of being true. Johnson's way of thinking about this world is\nnot mine, any more than Mahomet's was: but I recognise the everlasting\nelement of heart-_sincerity_ in both; and see with pleasure how\nneither of them remains ineffectual. Neither of them is as _chaff_\nsown; in both of them is something which the seed-field will _grow_.\n\nJohnson was a Prophet to his people; preached a Gospel to them,--as\nall like him always do. The highest Gospel he preached we may describe\nas a kind of Moral Prudence: 'in a world where much is to be done, and\nlittle is to be known,' see how you will _do_ it! A thing well worth\npreaching. 'A world where much is to be done, and little is to be\nknown:' do not sink yourselves in boundless bottomless abysses of\nDoubt, of wretched god-forgetting Unbelief;--you were miserable then,\npowerless, mad: how could you _do_ or work at all? Such Gospel Johnson\npreached and taught;--coupled, theoretically and practically, with\nthis other great Gospel, 'Clear your mind of Cant!' Have no trade with\nCant: stand on the cold mud in the frosty weather, but let it be in\nyour own _real_ torn shoes: 'that will be better for you,' as Mahomet\nsays! I call this, I call these two things _joined together_, a great\nGospel, the greatest perhaps that was possible at that time.\n\nJohnson's Writings, which once had such currency and celebrity, are\nnow, as it were, disowned by the young generation. It is not\nwonderful; Johnson's opinions are fast becoming obsolete: but his\nstyle of thinking and of living, we may hope, will never become\nobsolete. I find in Johnson's Books the indisputablest traces of a\ngreat intellect and great heart:--ever welcome, under what\nobstructions and perversions soever. They are _sincere_ words, those\nof his; he means things by them. A wondrous buckram style,--the best\nhe could get to then; a measured grandiloquence, stepping or rather\nstalking along in a very solemn way, grown obsolete now; sometimes a\ntumid _size_ of phraseology not in proportion to the contents of it:\nall this you will put-up with. For the phraseology, tumid or not, has\nalways _something within it_. So many beautiful styles and books, with\n_nothing_ in them;--a man is a _male_factor to the world who writes\nsuch! _They_ are the avoidable kind!--Had Johnson left nothing but his\n_Dictionary_, one might have traced there a great intellect, a genuine\nman. Looking to its clearness of definition, its general solidity,\nhonesty, insight, and successful method, it may be called the best of\nall Dictionaries. There is in it a kind of architectural nobleness; it\nstands there like a great solid square-built edifice, finished,\nsymmetrically complete: you judge that a true Builder did it.\n\nOne word, in spite of our haste, must be granted to poor Bozzy. He\npasses for a mean, inflated, gluttonous creature; and was so in many\nsenses. Yet the fact of his reverence for Johnson will ever remain\nnoteworthy. The foolish conceited Scotch Laird, the most conceited man\nof his time, approaching in such awestruck attitude the great dusty\nirascible Pedagogue in his mean garret there: it is a genuine reverence\nfor Excellence; a _worship_ for Heroes, at a time when neither Heroes\nnor worship were surmised to exist. Heroes, it would seem exist always,\nand a certain worship of them! We will also take the liberty to deny\naltogether that of the witty Frenchman, that no man is a Hero to his\nvalet-de-chambre. Or if so, it is not the Hero's blame, but the\nValet's: that his soul, namely, is a mean _valet_-soul! He expects his\nHero to advance in royal stage-trappings, with measured step, trains\nborne behind him, trumpets sounding before him. It should stand rather,\nNo man can be a _Grand-Monarque_ to his valet-de-chambre. Strip your\nLouis Quatorze of his king-gear, and there _is_ left nothing but a poor\nforked radish with a head fantastically carved;--admirable to no valet.\nThe Valet does not know a Hero when he sees him! Alas, no: it requires\na kind of _Hero_ to do that;--and one of the world's wants, in _this_\nas in other senses, is for the most part want of such.\n\nOn the whole, shall we not say, that Boswell's admiration was well\nbestowed; that he could have found no soul in all England so worthy of\nbending down before? Shall we not say, of this great mournful Johnson\ntoo, that he guided his difficult confused existence wisely; led it\n_well_, like a right-valiant man? That waste chaos of Authorship by\ntrade; that waste chaos of Scepticism in religion and politics, in\nlife-theory and life-practice; in his poverty, in his dust and\ndimness, with the sick body and the rusty coat: he made it do for him,\nlike a brave man. Not wholly without a loadstar in the Eternal; he had\nstill a loadstar, as the brave all need to have: with his eye set on\nthat, he would change his course for nothing in these confused\nvortices of the lower sea of Time. 'To the Spirit of Lies, bearing\ndeath and hunger, he would in no wise strike his flag.' Brave old\nSamuel: _ultimus Romanorum_!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf Rousseau and his Heroism I cannot say so much. He is not what I\ncall a strong man. A morbid, excitable, spasmodic man; at best,\nintense rather than strong. He had not 'the talent of Silence,' an\ninvaluable talent; which few Frenchmen, or indeed men of any sort in\nthese times, excel in! The suffering man ought really 'to consume his\nown smoke;' there is no good in emitting _smoke_ till you have made it\ninto _fire_,--which, in the metaphorical sense too, all smoke is\ncapable of becoming! Rousseau has not depth or width, not calm force\nfor difficulty; the first characteristic of true greatness. A\nfundamental mistake to call vehemence and rigidity strength! A man is\nnot strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him\nthen. He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering,\nhe is the strong man. We need forever, especially in these\nloud-shrieking days, to remind ourselves of that. A man who cannot\n_hold his peace_, till the time come for speaking and acting, is no\nright man.\n\nPoor Rousseau's face is to me expressive of him. A high but narrow\ncontracted intensity in it: bony brows; deep, straight-set eyes, in\nwhich there is something bewildered-looking,--bewildered, peering with\nlynx-eagerness. A face full of misery, even ignoble misery, and also\nof the antagonism against that; something mean, plebeian there,\nredeemed only by _intensity_: the face of what is called a Fanatic,--a\nsadly _contracted_ Hero! We name him here because, with all his\ndrawbacks, and they are many, he has the first and chief\ncharacteristic of a Hero: he is heartily _in earnest_. In earnest, if\never man was; as none of these French Philosophes were. Nay, one would\nsay, of an earnestness too great for his otherwise sensitive, rather\nfeeble nature; and which indeed in the end drove him into the\nstrangest incoherences, almost delirations. There had come, at last,\nto be a kind of madness in him: his Ideas _possessed_ him like demons;\nhurried him so about, drove him over steep places!--\n\nThe fault and misery of Rousseau was what we easily name by a single\nword _Egoism_; which is indeed the source and summary of all faults\nand miseries whatsoever. He had not perfected himself into victory\nover mere Desire; a mean hunger, in many sorts, was still the motive\nprinciple of him. I am afraid he was a very vain man; hungry for the\npraises of men. You remember Genlis's experience of him. She took Jean\nJacques to the Theatre; he bargaining for a strict incognito,--\"_He_\nwould not be seen there for the world!\" The curtain did happen\nnevertheless to be drawn aside: the Pit recognised Jean Jacques, but\ntook no great notice of him! He expressed the bitterest indignation;\ngloomed all evening, spake no other than surly words. The glib\nCountess remained entirely convinced that his anger was not at being\nseen, but at not being applauded when seen. How the whole nature of\nthe man is poisoned; nothing but suspicion, self-isolation, fierce\nmoody ways! He could not live with anybody. A man of some rank from\nthe country, who visited him often, and used to sit with him,\nexpressing all reverence and affection for him, comes one day, finds\nJean Jacques full of the sourest unintelligible humour. \"Monsieur,\"\nsaid Jean Jacques, with flaming eyes, \"I know why you come here. You\ncome to see what a poor life I lead; how little is in my poor pot that\nis boiling there. Well, look into the pot! There is half a pound of\nmeat, one carrot and three onions; that is all: go and tell the whole\nworld that, if you like, Monsieur!\"--A man of this sort was far gone.\nThe whole world got itself supplied with anecdotes for light laughter,\nfor a certain theatrical interest, from these perversions and\ncontortions of poor Jean Jacques. Alas, to him they were not laughing\nor theatrical; too real to him! The contortions of a dying gladiator:\nthe crowded amphitheatre looks-on with entertainment; but the\ngladiator is in agonies and dying.\n\nAnd yet this Rousseau, as we say, with his passionate appeals to\nMothers, with his _Contrat-social_, with his celebrations of Nature,\neven of savage life in Nature, did once more touch upon Reality,\nstruggle towards Reality; was doing the function of a Prophet to his\nTime. As _he_ could, and as the Time could! Strangely through all that\ndefacement, degradation and almost madness, there is in the inmost\nheart of poor Rousseau a spark of real heavenly fire. Once more, out\nof the element of that withered mocking Philosophism, Scepticism and\nPersiflage, there has arisen in that man the ineradicable feeling and\nknowledge that this Life of ours is _true_; not a Scepticism, Theorem,\nor Persiflage, but a Fact, an awful Reality. Nature had made that\nrevelation to him; had ordered him to speak it out. He got it spoken\nout; if not well and clearly, then ill and dimly,--as clearly as he\ncould. Nay what are all errors and perversities of his, even those\nstealings of ribbons aimless confused miseries and vagabondisms, if we\nwill interpret them kindly, but the blinkard dazzlements and\nstaggerings to and fro of a man sent on an errand he is too weak for,\nby a path he cannot yet find? Men are led by strange ways. One should\nhave tolerance for a man, hope of him; leave him to try yet what he\nwill do. While life lasts, hope lasts for every man.\n\nOf Rousseau's literary talents, greatly celebrated still among his\ncountrymen, I do not say much. His Books, like himself, are what I\ncall unhealthy; not the good sort of Books. There is a sensuality in\nRousseau. Combined with such an intellectual gift as his, it makes\npictures of a certain gorgeous attractiveness: but they are not\ngenuinely poetical. Not white sunlight: something _operatic_; a kind\nof rosepink, artificial bedizenment. It is frequent, or rather it is\nuniversal, among the French since his time. Madame de Stael has\nsomething of it; St. Pierre; and down onwards to the present\nastonishing convulsionary 'Literature of Desperation,' it is\neverywhere abundant. That same _rosepink_ is not the right hue. Look\nat a Shakspeare, at a Goethe, even at a Walter Scott! He who has once\nseen into this, has seen the difference of the True from the\nSham-True, and will discriminate them ever afterwards.\n\nWe had to observe in Johnson how much good a Prophet, under all\ndisadvantages and disorganisations, can accomplish for the world. In\nRousseau we are called to look rather at the fearful amount of evil\nwhich, under such disorganisation, may accompany the good.\nHistorically it is a most pregnant spectacle, that of Rousseau.\nBanished into Paris garrets, in the gloomy company of his own Thoughts\nand Necessities there; driven from post to pillar; fretted,\nexasperated till the heart of him went mad, he had grown to feel\ndeeply that the world was not his friend nor the world's law. It was\nexpedient, if anyway possible, that such a man should _not_ have been\nset in flat hostility with the world. He could be cooped into garrets,\nlaughed at as a maniac, left to starve like a wild beast in his\ncage;--but he could not be hindered from setting the world on fire.\nThe French Revolution found its Evangelist in Rousseau. His\nsemi-delirious speculations on the miseries of civilised life, the\npreferability of the savage to the civilised, and suchlike, helped\nwell to produce a whole delirium in France generally. True, you may\nwell ask, What could the world, the governors of the world, do with\nsuch a man? Difficult to say what the governors of the world could do\nwith him! What he could do with them is unhappily clear\nenough,--_guillotine_ a great many of them! Enough now of Rousseau.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was a curious phenomenon, in the withered, unbelieving, secondhand\nEighteenth Century, that of a Hero starting up, among the artificial\npasteboard figures and productions, in the guise of a Robert Burns.\nLike a little well in the rocky desert places,--like a sudden\nsplendour of Heaven in the artificial Vauxhall! People knew not what\nto make of it. They took it for a piece of the Vauxhall fire-work;\nalas, it _let_ itself be so taken, though struggling half-blindly, as\nin bitterness of death, against that! Perhaps no man had such a false\nreception from his fellow-men. Once more a very wasteful life-drama\nwas enacted under the sun.\n\nThe tragedy of Burns's life is known to all of you. Surely we may say,\nif discrepancy between place held and place merited constitute\nperverseness of lot for a man, no lot could be more perverse than\nBurns's. Among those secondhand acting-figures, _mimes_ for most part,\nof the Eighteenth Century, once more a giant Original man; one of\nthose men who reach down to the perennial Deeps, who take rank with\nthe Heroic among men: and he was born in a poor Ayrshire hut. The\nlargest soul of all the British lands came among us in the shape of a\nhard-handed Scottish Peasant.\n\nHis Father, a poor toiling man, tried various things; did not succeed\nin any; was involved in continual difficulties. The Steward, Factor as\nthe Scotch call him, used to send letters and threatenings, Burns says,\n'which threw us all into tears.' The brave, hard-toiling,\nhard-suffering Father, his brave heroine of a wife; and those children,\nof whom Robert was one! In this Earth, so wide otherwise, no shelter\nfor _them_. The letters 'threw us all into tears:' figure it. The brave\nFather, I say always;--a _silent_ Hero and Poet; without whom the son\nhad never been a speaking one! Burns's Schoolmaster came afterwards to\nLondon, learnt what good society was; but declares that in no meeting\nof men did he ever enjoy better discourse than at the hearth of this\npeasant. And his poor 'seven acres of nursery-ground,'--not that, nor\nthe miserable patch of clay-farm, nor anything he tried to get a living\nby, would prosper with him; he had a sore unequal battle all his days.\nBut he stood to it valiantly; a wise, faithful, unconquerable\nman;--swallowing-down how many sore sufferings daily into silence;\nfighting like an unseen Hero,--nobody publishing newspaper paragraphs\nabout his nobleness; voting pieces of plate to him! However, he was not\nlost: nothing is lost. Robert is there; the outcome of him,--and indeed\nof many generations of such as him.\n\nThis Burns appears under every disadvantage: uninstructed, poor, born\nonly to hard manual toil; and writing, when it came to that, in a\nrustic special dialect, known only to a small province of the country\nhe lived in. Had he written, even what he did write, in the general\nlanguage of England, I doubt not he had already become universally\nrecognised as being, or capable to be, one of our greatest men. That\nhe should have tempted so many to penetrate through the rough husk of\nthat dialect of his, is proof that there lay something far from common\nwithin it. He has gained a certain recognition, and is continuing to\ndo so over all quarters of our wide Saxon world: wheresoever a Saxon\ndialect is spoken, it begins to be understood, by personal inspection\nof this and the other, that one of the most considerable Saxon men of\nthe Eighteenth century was an Ayrshire Peasant named Robert Burns.\nYes, I will say, here too was a piece of the right Saxon stuff: strong\nas the Harz-rock, rooted in the depths of the world;--rock, yet with\nwells of living softness in it! A wild impetuous whirlwind of passion\nand faculty slumbered quiet there; such heavenly _melody_ dwelling in\nthe heart of it. A noble rough genuineness; homely, rustic, honest;\ntrue simplicity of strength: with its lightning-fire, with its soft\ndewy pity;--like the old Norse Thor, the Peasant-god!--\n\nBurns's Brother Gilbert, a man of much sense and worth, has told me\nthat Robert, in his young days, in spite of their hardship, was\nusually the gayest of speech; a fellow of infinite frolic, laughter,\nsense and heart; far pleasanter to hear there, stript cutting peats in\nthe bog, or suchlike, than he ever afterwards knew him. I can well\nbelieve it. This basis of mirth ('_fond gaillard_,' as old Marquis\nMirabeau calls it), a primal-element of sunshine and joyfulness,\ncoupled with his other deep and earnest qualities, is one of the most\nattractive characteristics of Burns. A large fund of Hope dwells in\nhim; spite of his tragical history, he is not a mourning man. He\nshakes his sorrows gallantly aside; bounds forth victorious over them.\nIt is as the lion shaking 'dew-drops from his mane;' as the\nswift-bounding horse, that _laughs_ at the shaking of the spear.--But\nindeed, Hope, Mirth, of the sort like Burns's, are they not the\noutcome properly of warm generous affection,--such as is the beginning\nof all to every man?\n\nYou would think it strange if I called Burns the most gifted British\nsoul we had in all that century of his: and yet I believe the day is\ncoming when there will be little danger in saying so. His writings,\nall that he _did_ under such obstructions, are only a poor fragment of\nhim. Professor Stewart remarked very justly, what indeed is true of\nall Poets good for much, that his poetry was not any particular\nfaculty; but the general result of a naturally vigorous original mind\nexpressing itself in that way. Burns's gifts, expressed in\nconversation, are the theme of all that ever heard him. All kinds of\ngifts: from the gracefulest utterances of courtesy, to the highest\nfire of passionate speech; loud floods of mirth, soft wailings of\naffection, laconic emphasis, clear piercing insight; all was in him.\nWitty duchesses celebrate him as a man whose speech 'led them off\ntheir feet.' This is beautiful: but still more beautiful that which\nMr. Lockhart has recorded, which I have more than once alluded to, How\nthe waiters and ostlers at inns would get out of bed, and come\ncrowding to hear this man speak! Waiters and ostlers:--they too were\nmen, and here was a man! I have heard much about his speech; but one\nof the best things I ever heard of it was, last year, from a venerable\ngentleman long familiar with him. That it was speech distinguished by\nalways _having something in it_. \"He spoke rather little than much,\"\nthis old man told me; \"sat rather silent in those early days, as in\nthe company of persons above him; and always when he did speak, it was\nto throw new light on the matter.\" I know not why any one should ever\nspeak otherwise!--But if we look at his general force of soul, his\nhealthy _robustness_ everyway, the rugged down-rightness, penetration,\ngenerous valour and manfulness that was in him,--where shall we\nreadily find a better-gifted man?\n\nAmong the great men of the Eighteenth Century, I sometimes feel as if\nBurns might be found to resemble Mirabeau more than any other. They\ndiffer widely in vesture; yet look at them intrinsically. There is the\nsame burly thick-necked strength of body as of soul;--built, in both\ncases, on what the old Marquis calls a _fond gaillard_. By nature, by\ncourse of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of\nbluster; a noisy, forward, unresting man. But the characteristic of\nMirabeau too is veracity and sense, power of true _insight_,\nsuperiority of vision. The thing that he says is worth remembering. It\nis a flash of insight into some object or other: so do both these men\nspeak. The same raging passions; capable too in both of manifesting\nthemselves as the tenderest noble affections. Wit, wild laughter,\nenergy, directness, sincerity: these were in both. The types of the\ntwo men are not dissimilar. Burns too could have governed, debated in\nNational Assemblies; politicised, as few could. Alas, the courage\nwhich had to exhibit itself in capture of smuggling schooners in the\nSolway Frith; in keeping _silence_ over so much, where no good speech,\nbut only inarticulate rage was possible: this might have bellowed\nforth Ushers de Breze and the like; and made itself visible to all\nmen, in managing of kingdoms, in ruling of great ever-memorable\nepochs! But they said to him reprovingly, his Official Superiors said,\nand wrote: 'You are to work, not think.' Of your _thinking_-faculty,\nthe greatest in this land, we have no need; you are to gauge beer\nthere; for that only are _you_ wanted. Very notable;--and worth\nmentioning, though we know what is to be said and answered! As if\nThought, Power of Thinking, were not, at all times, in all places and\nsituations of the world, precisely the thing that _was_ wanted. The\nfatal man, is he not always the _un_thinking man, the man who cannot\nthink and _see_; but only grope, and hallucinate, and _mis_see the\nnature of the thing he works with? He missees it, mis_takes_ it as we\nsay; takes it for one thing, and it _is_ another thing,--and leaves\nhim standing like a Futility there! He is the fatal man; unutterably\nfatal, put in the high places of men.--\"Why complain of this?\" say\nsome: \"Strength is mournfully denied its arena; that was true from of\nold.\" Doubtless; and the worse for the _arena_, answer I!\n_Complaining_ profits little; stating of the truth may profit. That a\nEurope, with its French Revolution just breaking out, finds no need of\na Burns except for gauging beer,--is a thing I, for one, cannot\n_rejoice_ at!--\n\nOnce more we have to say here, that the chief quality of Burns is the\n_sincerity_ of him. So in his Poetry, so in his Life. The Song he\nsings is not of fantasticalities; it is of a thing felt, really there;\nthe prime merit of this, as of all in him, and of his Life generally,\nis truth. The Life of Burns is what we may call a great tragic\nsincerity. A sort of savage sincerity,--not cruel, far from that; but\nwild, wrestling naked with the truth of things. In that sense, there\nis something of the savage in all great men.\n\nHero-worship,--Odin, Burns? Well; these Men of Letters too were not\nwithout a kind of Hero-worship: but what a strange condition has that\ngot into now! The waiters and ostlers of Scotch inns, prying about the\ndoor, eager to catch any word that fell from Burns, were doing\nunconscious reverence to the Heroic. Johnson had his Boswell for\nworshipper. Rousseau had worshippers enough; princes calling on him in\nhis mean garret; the great, the beautiful doing reverence to the poor\nmoonstruck man. For himself a most portentous contradiction; the two\nends of his life not to be brought into harmony. He sits at the tables\nof grandees; and has to copy music for his own living. He cannot even\nget his music copied. \"By dint of dining out,\" says he, \"I run the\nrisk of dying by starvation at home.\" For his worshippers too a most\nquestionable thing! If doing Hero-worship well or badly be the test of\nvital wellbeing or illbeing to a generation, can we say that _these_\ngenerations are very first-rate?--And yet our heroic Men of Letters do\nteach, govern, are kings, priests, or what you like to call them;\nintrinsically there is no preventing it by any means whatever. The\nworld _has_ to obey him who thinks and sees in the world. The world\ncan alter the manner of that; can either have it as blessed continuous\nsummer sunshine, or as unblessed black thunder and tornado,--with\nunspeakable difference of profit for the world! The manner of it is\nvery alterable; the matter and fact of it is not alterable by any\npower under the sky. Light; or, failing that, lightning: the world can\ntake its choice. Not whether we call an Odin god, prophet, priest, or\nwhat we call him; but whether we believe the word he tells us: there\nit all lies. If it be a true word, we shall have to believe it;\nbelieving it, we shall have to do it. What _name_ or welcome we give\nhim or it, is a point that concerns ourselves mainly. _It_, the new\nTruth, new deeper revealing of the Secret of this Universe, is verily\nof the nature of a message from on high; and must and will have itself\nobeyed.--\n\nMy last remark is on that notablest phasis of Burns's history,--his\nvisit to Edinburgh. Often it seems to me as if his demeanour there\nwere the highest proof he gave of what a fund of worth and genuine\nmanhood was in him. If we think of it, few heavier burdens could be\nlaid on the strength of a man. So sudden; all common _Lionism_, which\nruins innumerable men, was as nothing to this. It is as if Napoleon\nhad been made a King of, not gradually, but at once from the Artillery\nLieutenancy in the Regiment La Fere. Burns, still only in his\ntwenty-seventh year, is no longer even a ploughman; he is flying to\nthe West Indies to escape disgrace and a jail. This month he is a\nruined peasant, his wages seven pounds a year, and these gone from\nhim: next month he is in the blaze of rank and beauty, handing down\njewelled Duchesses to dinner; the cynosure of all eyes! Adversity is\nsometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity,\nthere are a hundred that will stand adversity. I admire much the way\nin which Burns met all this. Perhaps no man one could point out, was\never so sorely tried, and so little forgot himself. Tranquil,\nunastonished; not abashed, not inflated, neither awkwardness nor\naffectation: he feels that _he_ there is the man Robert Burns; that\nthe 'rank is but the guinea-stamp;' that the celebrity is but the\ncandle-light, which will show _what_ man, not in the least make him a\nbetter or other man! Alas, it may readily, unless he look to it, make\nhim a _worse_ man; a wretched inflated wind-bag,--inflated till he\n_burst_ and become a _dead_ lion; for whom, as some one has said,\n'there is no resurrection of the body;' worse than a living\ndog!--Burns is admirable here.\n\nAnd yet, alas, as I have observed elsewhere, these Lion-hunters were\nthe ruin and death of Burns. It was they that rendered it impossible\nfor him to live! They gathered round him in his Farm; hindered his\nindustry; no place was remote enough from them. He could not get his\nLionism forgotten, honestly as he was disposed to do so. He falls into\ndiscontents, into miseries, faults; the world getting ever more\ndesolate for him; health, character, peace of mind all gone;--solitary\nenough now. It is tragical to think of! These men came but to _see_\nhim; it was out of no sympathy with him, nor no hatred to him. They\ncame to get a little amusement: they got their amusement;--and the\nHero's life went for it!\n\nRichter says, in the Island of Sumatra, there is a kind of\n'Light-chafers,' large Fire-flies, which people stick upon spits, and\nilluminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus\ntravel with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honour\nto the Fire-flies! But--!--\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI\n\nTHE HERO AS KING. CROMWELL, NAPOLEON: MODERN REVOLUTIONISM.\n\n[_Friday, 22nd May 1840_]\n\n\nWe come now to the last form of Heroism; that which we call Kingship.\nThe Commander over men; he to whose will our wills are to be\nsubordinated, and loyally surrender themselves, and find their welfare\nin doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men. He is\npractically the summary for us of _all_ the various figures of\nHeroism; Priest, Teacher, whatsoever of earthly or of spiritual\ndignity we can fancy to reside in a man, embodies itself here, to\n_command_ over us, to furnish us with constant practical teaching, to\ntell us for the day and hour what we are to _do_. He is called _Rex_,\nRegulator, _Roi_: our own name is still better; King, _Koenning_, which\nmeans _Can_-ning, Ableman.\n\nNumerous considerations, pointing towards deep, questionable, and\nindeed unfathomable regions, present themselves here: on the most of\nwhich we must resolutely for the present forbear to speak at all. As\nBurke said that perhaps fair _Trial by Jury_ was the Soul of\nGovernment, and that all legislation, administration, parliamentary\ndebating, and the rest of it, went on, in 'order to bring twelve\nimpartial men into a jury-box;'--so, by much stronger reason, may I\nsay here, that the finding of your _Ableman_ and getting him invested\nwith the _symbols of ability_, with dignity, worship (_worth_-ship),\nroyalty, kinghood, or whatever we call it, so that _he_ may actually\nhave room to guide according to his faculty of doing it,--is the\nbusiness, well or ill accomplished, of all social procedure whatsoever\nin this world! Hustings-speeches, Parliamentary motions, Reform Bills,\nFrench Revolutions, all mean at heart this; or else nothing. Find in\nany country the Ablest Man that exists there; raise _him_ to the\nsupreme place, and loyally reverence him: you have a perfect\ngovernment for that country; no ballot-box, parliamentary eloquence,\nvoting, constitution-building, or other machinery whatsoever can\nimprove it a whit. It is in the perfect state: an ideal country. The\nAblest Man; he means also the truest-hearted, justest, the Noblest\nMan: what he _tells us to do_ must be precisely the wisest, fittest,\nthat we could anywhere or anyhow learn;--the thing which it will in\nall ways behove us, with right loyal thankfulness, and nothing\ndoubting, to do! Our _doing_ and life were then, so far as government\ncould regulate it, well regulated; that were the ideal of\nconstitutions.\n\nAlas, we know very well that Ideals can never be completely embodied\nin practice. Ideals must ever lie a very great way off; and we will\nright thankfully content ourselves with any not intolerable\napproximation thereto! Let no man, as Schiller says, too querulously\n'measure by a scale of perfection the meagre product of reality' in\nthis poor world of ours. We will esteem him no wise man; we will\nesteem him a sickly, discontented, foolish man. And yet, on the other\nhand, it is never to be forgotten that Ideals do exist; that if they\nbe not approximated to at all, the whole matter goes to wreck!\nInfallibly. No bricklayer builds a wall _perfectly_ perpendicular,\nmathematically this is not possible; a certain degree of\nperpendicularity suffices him; and he, like a good bricklayer, who\nmust have done with his job, leaves it so. And yet if he sway _too\nmuch_ from the perpendicular; above all, if he throw plummet and level\nquite away from him, and pile brick on brick heedless, just as it\ncomes to hand--! Such bricklayer, I think, is in a bad way. _He_ has\nforgotten himself: but the Law of Gravitation does not forget to act\non him; he and his wall rush-down into confused welter of ruin!--\n\nThis is the history of all rebellions, French Revolutions, social\nexplosions in ancient or modern times. You have put the too _Un_able\nman at the head of affairs! The too ignoble, unvaliant, fatuous man.\nYou have forgotten that there is any rule, or natural necessity\nwhatever, of putting the Able Man there. Brick must lie on brick as it\nmay and can. Unable Simulacrum of Ability, _quack_, in a word, must\nadjust himself with quack, in all manner of administration of human\nthings;--which accordingly lie unadministered, fermenting into\nunmeasured masses of failure, of indigent misery: in the outward, and\nin the inward or spiritual, miserable millions stretch-out the hand\nfor their due supply, and it is not there. The 'law of gravitation'\nacts; Nature's laws do none of them forget to act. The miserable\nmillions burst-forth into Sansculottism, or some other sort of\nmadness; bricks and bricklayers lie as a fatal chaos!--\n\nMuch sorry stuff, written some hundred years ago or more, about the\n'Divine right of Kings,' moulders unread now in the Public Libraries\nof this country. Far be it from us to disturb the calm process by\nwhich it is disappearing harmlessly from the earth, in those\nrepositories! At the same time, not to let the immense rubbish go\nwithout leaving us, as it ought, some soul of it behind--I will say\nthat it did mean something; something true, which it is important for\nus and all men to keep in mind. To assert that in whatever man you\nchose to lay hold of (by this or the other plan of clutching at him);\nand clapt a round piece of metal on the head of, and called\nKing,--there straightway came to reside a divine virtue, so that _he_\nbecame a kind of God, and a Divinity inspired him with faculty and\nright to rule over you to all lengths: this,--what can we do with this\nbut leave it to rot silently in the Public Libraries? But I will say\nwithal, and that is what these Divine-right men meant, That in Kings,\nand in all human Authorities, and relations that men god-created can\nform among each other, there is verily either a Divine Right or else a\nDiabolic Wrong; one or the other of these two! For it is false\naltogether, what the last Sceptical Century taught us, that this world\nis a steam-engine. There is a God in this world; and a God's-sanction,\nor else the violation of such, does look-out from all ruling and\nobedience, from all moral acts of men. There is no act more moral\nbetween men than that of rule and obedience. Woe to him that claims\nobedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is!\nGod's law is in that, I say, however the Parchment-laws may run: there\nis a Divine Right or else a Diabolic Wrong at the heart of every claim\nthat one man makes upon another.\n\nIt can do none of us harm to reflect on this: in all the relations of\nlife it will concern us; in Loyalty and Royalty, the highest of these.\nI esteem the modern error, That all goes by self-interest and the\nchecking and balancing of greedy knaveries, and that, in short, there\nis nothing divine whatever in the association of men, a still more\ndespicable error, natural as it is to an unbelieving century, than\nthat of a 'divine right' in people _called_ Kings. I say, Find me the\ntrue _Koenning_, King, or Able-man, and he _has_ a divine right over\nme. That we knew in some tolerable measure how to find him, and that\nall men were ready to acknowledge his divine right when found: this is\nprecisely the healing which a sick world is everywhere, in these ages,\nseeking after! The true King, as guide of the practical, has ever\nsomething of the Pontiff in him,--guide of the spiritual, from which\nall practice has its rise. This too is a true saying, That the _King_\nis head of the _Church_.--But we will leave the Polemic stuff of a\ndead century to lie quiet on its bookshelves.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCertainly it is a fearful business, that of having your Ableman to\n_seek_, and not knowing in what manner to proceed about it! That is\nthe world's sad predicament in these times of ours. They are times of\nRevolution, and have long been. The bricklayer with his bricks, no\nlonger heedful of plummet or the law of gravitation, have toppled,\ntumbled, and it all welters as we see! But the beginning of it was not\nthe French Revolution; that is rather the _end_, we can hope. It were\ntruer to say, the _beginning_ was three centuries farther back: in the\nReformation of Luther. That the thing which still called itself\nChristian Church had become a Falsehood, and brazenly went about\npretending to pardon men's sins for metallic coined money, and to do\nmuch else which in the everlasting truth of Nature it did _not_ now\ndo: here lay the vital malady. The inward being wrong, all outward\nwent ever more and more wrong. Belief died away; all was Doubt,\nDisbelief. The builder _cast away_ his plummet; said to himself, \"What\nis gravitation? Brick lies on brick there!\" Alas, does it not still\nsound strange to many of us, the assertion that there is a God's truth\nin the business of god-created men; that all is not a kind of grimace,\nan 'expediency,' diplomacy, one knows not what!--\n\nFrom that first necessary assertion of Luther's, \"You, self-styled\n_Papa_, you are no Father in God at all; you are--a Chimera, whom I\nknow not how to name in polite language!\"--from that onwards to the\nshout which rose round Camille Desmoulins in the Palais-Royal, \"_Aux\narmes!_\" when the people had burst-up against _all_ manner of\nChimeras,--I find a natural historical sequence. That shout too, so\nfrightful, half-infernal, was a great matter. Once more the voice of\nawakened nations; starting confusedly, as out of nightmare, as out of\ndeath-sleep, into some dim feeling that Life was real; that\nGod's-world was not an expediency and diplomacy! Infernal;--yes, since\nthey would not have it otherwise. Infernal, since not celestial or\nterrestrial!--Hollowness, insincerity _has_ to cease;--sincerity of\nsome sort has to begin. Cost what it may, reigns of terror, horrors of\nFrench Revolution or what else, we have to return to truth. Here is a\nTruth, as I said: a Truth clad in hell-fire, since they would not but\nhave it so!--\n\nA common theory among considerable parties of men in England and\nelsewhere used to be, that the French Nation had, in those days, as it\nwere gone _mad_; that the French Revolution was a general act of\ninsanity, a temporary conversion of France and large sections of the\nworld into a kind of Bedlam. The Event had risen and raged; but was a\nmadness and nonentity,--gone now happily into the region of Dreams and\nthe Picturesque!--To such comfortable philosophers, the Three Days of\nJuly 1830 must have been a surprising phenomenon. Here is the French\nNation risen again, in musketry and death-struggle, out shooting and\nbeing shot, to make that same mad French Revolution good! The sons and\ngrandsons of those men, it would seem, persist in the enterprise: they\ndo not disown it; they will have it made good; will have themselves\nshot, if it be not made good! To philosophers who had made-up their\nlife-system on that 'madness' quietus, no phenomenon could be more\nalarming. Poor Niebuhr, they say, the Prussian Professor and\nHistorian, fell broken-hearted in consequence; sickened, if we can\nbelieve it, and died of the Three Days! It was surely not a very\nheroic death;--little better than Racine's, dying because Louis\nFourteenth looked sternly on him once. The world had stood some\nconsiderable shocks, in its time; might have been expected to survive\nthe Three Days too, and be found turning on its axis after even them!\nThe Three Days told all mortals that the old French Revolution, mad as\nit might look, was not a transitory ebullition of Bedlam, but a\ngenuine product of this Earth where we all live; that it was verily a\nFact, and that the world in general would do well everywhere to regard\nit as such.\n\nTruly, without the French Revolution, one would not know what to make\nof an age like this at all. We will hail the French Revolution, as\nshipwrecked mariners might the sternest rock, in a world otherwise all\nof baseless sea and waves. A true Apocalypse, though a terrible one,\nto this false withered artificial time; testifying once more that\nNature is _preter_natural; if not divine, then diabolic; that\nSemblance is not reality; that it has to become reality, or the world\nwill take-fire under it,--burn _it_ into what it is, namely Nothing!\nPlausibility has ended; empty Routine has ended; much has ended. This,\nas with a Trump of Doom, has been proclaimed to all men. They are the\nwisest who will learn it soonest. Long confused generations before it\nbe learned; peace impossible till it be! The earnest man, surrounded,\nas ever, with a world of inconsistencies, can await patiently,\npatiently strive to do _his_ work, in the midst of that. Sentence of\nDeath is written down in Heaven against all that; sentence of Death is\nnow proclaimed on the Earth against it: this he with his eyes may see.\nAnd surely, I should say, considering the other side of the matter,\nwhat enormous difficulties lie there, and how fast, fearfully fast, in\nall countries, the inexorable demand for solution of them is pressing\non,--he may easily find other work to do than labouring in the\nSansculottic province at this time of day!\n\nTo me, in these circumstances, that of 'Hero-worship' becomes a fact\ninexpressibly precious; the most solacing fact one sees in the world\nat present. There is an everlasting hope in it for the management of\nthe world. Had all traditions, arrangements, creeds, societies that\nmen ever instituted, sunk away, this would remain. The certainty of\nHeroes being sent us; our faculty, our necessity, to reverence Heroes\nwhen sent: it shines like a polestar through smoke-clouds,\ndust-clouds, and all manner of down-rushing and conflagration.\n\nHero-worship would have sounded very strange to those workers and\nfighters in the French Revolution. Not reverence for Great Men; not\nany hope or belief, or even wish, that Great Men could again appear in\nthe world! Nature, turned into a 'Machine,' was as if effete now;\ncould not any longer produce Great Men:--I can tell her, she may\ngive-up the trade altogether, then; we cannot do without Great\nMen!--But neither have I any quarrel with that of 'Liberty and\nEquality;' with the faith that, wise great men being impossible, a\nlevel immensity of foolish small men would suffice. It was a natural\nfaith then and there. \"Liberty and Equality; no Authority needed any\nlonger. Hero-worship, reverence for _such_ Authorities, has proved\nfalse, is itself a falsehood; no more of it! We have had such\n_forgeries_, we will now trust nothing. So many base plated coins\npassing in the market, the belief has now become common that no gold\nany longer exists,--and even that we can do very well without gold!\" I\nfind this, among other things, in that universal cry of Liberty and\nEquality; and find it very natural, as matters then stood.\n\nAnd yet surely it is but the _transition_ from false to true.\nConsidered as the whole truth, it is false altogether;--the product of\nentire sceptical blindness, as yet only _struggling_ to see.\nHero-worship exists forever, and everywhere: not Loyalty alone; it\nextends from divine adoration down to the lowest practical regions of\nlife. 'Bending before men,' if it is not to be a mere empty grimace,\nbetter dispensed with than practised, is Hero-worship,--a recognition\nthat there does dwell in that presence of our brother something\ndivine; that every created man, as Novalis said, is a 'revelation in\nthe Flesh.' They were Poets too, that devised all those graceful\ncourtesies which make life noble! Courtesy is not a falsehood or\ngrimace; it need not be such. And Loyalty, religious Worship itself,\nare still possible; nay still inevitable.\n\nMay we not say, moreover, while so many of our late Heroes have worked\nrather as revolutionary men, that nevertheless every Great Man, every\ngenuine man, is by the nature of him a son of Order, not of Disorder?\nIt is a tragical position for a true man to work in revolutions. He\nseems an anarchist; and indeed a painful element of anarchy does\nencumber him at every step,--him to whose whole soul anarchy is\nhostile, hateful. His mission is Order; every man's is. He is here to\nmake what was disorderly, chaotic, into a thing ruled, regular. He is\nthe missionary of Order. Is not all work of man in this world a\n_making of Order_? The carpenter finds rough trees: shapes them,\nconstrains them into square fitness, into purpose and use. We are all\nborn enemies of Disorder: it is tragical for us all to be concerned in\nimage-breaking and down-pulling; for the Great Man, _more_ a man than\nwe, it is doubly tragical.\n\nThus too all human things, maddest French Sansculottisms, do and must\nwork towards Order. I say, there is not a _man_ in them, raging in the\nthickest of the madness, but is impelled withal, at all moments,\ntowards Order. His very life means that; Disorder is dissolution,\ndeath. No chaos but it seeks a _centre_ to revolve round. While man is\nman, some Cromwell or Napoleon is the necessary finish of a\nSansculottism.--Curious: in those days when Hero-worship was the most\nincredible thing to every one, how it does come-out nevertheless, and\nassert itself practically, in a way which all have to credit. Divine\n_right_, take it on the great scale, is found to mean divine _might_\nwithal! While old false Formulas are getting trampled everywhere into\ndestruction, new genuine Substances unexpectedly unfold themselves\nindestructible. In rebellious ages, when Kingship itself seems dead\nand abolished, Cromwell, Napoleon step-forth again as Kings. The\nhistory of these men is what we have now to look at, as our last\nphasis of Heroism. The old ages are brought back to us; the manner in\nwhich Kings were made, and Kingship itself first took rise, is again\nexhibited in the history of these Two.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe have had many civil-wars in England; wars of Red and White Roses,\nwars of Simon de Montfort; wars enough, which are not very memorable.\nBut that war of the Puritans has a significance which belongs to no\none of the others. Trusting to your candour, which will suggest on the\nother side what I have not room to say, I will call it a section once\nmore of that great universal war which alone makes-up the true History\nof the World,--the war of Belief against Unbelief! The struggle of men\nintent on the real essence of things, against men intent on the\nsemblances and forms of things. The Puritans, to many, seem mere\nsavage Iconoclasts, fierce destroyers of Forms; but it were more just\nto call them haters of _untrue_ Forms. I hope we know how to respect\nLaud and his King as well as them. Poor Laud seems to me to have been\nweak and ill-starred, not dishonest; an unfortunate Pedant rather than\nanything worse. His 'Dreams' and superstitions, at which they laugh\nso, have an affectionate, lovable kind of character. He is like a\nCollege-Tutor, whose whole world is forms, College-rules; whose notion\nis that these are the life and safety of the world. He is placed\nsuddenly, with that unalterable luckless notion of his, at the head\nnot of a College but of a Nation, to regulate the most complex\ndeep-reaching interests of men. He thinks they ought to go by the old\ndecent regulations; nay that their salvation will lie in extending and\nimproving these. Like a weak man, he drives with spasmodic vehemence\ntowards his purpose; cramps himself to it, heeding no voice of\nprudence, no cry of pity: He will have his College-rules obeyed by his\nCollegians; that first; and till that, nothing. He is an ill-starred\nPedant, as I said. He would have it the world was a College of that\nkind, and the world _was not_ that. Alas, was not his doom stern\nenough? Whatever wrongs he did, were they not all frightfully avenged\non him?\n\nIt is meritorious to insist on forms; Religion and all else naturally\nclothes itself in forms. Everywhere the _formed_ world is the only\nhabitable one. The naked formlessness of Puritanism is not the thing I\npraise in the Puritans; it is the thing I pity,--praising only the\nspirit which had rendered that inevitable! All substances clothe\nthemselves in forms: but there are suitable true forms, and then there\nare untrue unsuitable. As the briefest definition, one might say,\nForms which _grow_ round a substance, if we rightly understand that,\nwill correspond to the real nature and purport of it, will be true,\ngood; forms which are consciously _put_ round a substance, bad. I\ninvite you to reflect on this. It distinguishes true from false in\nCeremonial Form, earnest solemnity from empty pageant, in all human\nthings.\n\nThere must be a veracity, a natural spontaneity in forms. In the\ncommonest meeting of men, a person making, what we call, 'set\nspeeches,' is not he an offence? In the mere drawing-room, whatsoever\ncourtesies you see to be grimaces, prompted by no spontaneous reality\nwithin, are a thing you wish to get away from. But suppose now it were\nsome matter of vital concernment, some transcendent matter (as Divine\nWorship is), about which your whole soul, struck dumb with its excess\nof feeling, knew not how to _form_ itself into utterance at all, and\npreferred formless silence to any utterance there possible,--what\nshould we say of a man coming forward to represent or utter it for you\nin the way of upholsterer-mummery? Such a man,--let him depart\nswiftly, if he love himself! You have lost your only son; are mute,\nstruck down, without even tears: an importunate man importunately\noffers to celebrate Funeral Games for him in the manner of the Greeks!\nSuch mummery is not only not to be accepted,--it is hateful,\nunendurable. It is what the old Prophets called 'Idolatry,'\nworshipping of hollow _shows_; what all earnest men do and will\nreject. We can partly understand what those poor Puritans meant. Laud\ndedicating that St. Catherine Creed's Church, in the manner we have it\ndescribed; with his multiplied ceremonial bowings, gesticulations,\nexclamations: surely it is rather the rigorous formal _Pedant_, intent\non his 'College-rules,' than the earnest Prophet, intent on the\nessence of the matter!\n\nPuritanism found _such_ forms insupportable; trampled on such\nforms;--we have to excuse it for saying, No form at all rather than\nsuch! It stood preaching in its bare pulpit, with nothing but the\nBible in its hand. Nay, a man preaching from his earnest _soul_ into\nthe earnest _souls_ of men: is not this virtually the essence of all\nChurches whatsoever? The nakedest, savagest reality, I say, is\npreferable to any semblance, however dignified. Besides, it will\nclothe itself with _due_ semblance by and by, if it be real. No fear\nof that; actually no fear at all. Given the living _man_, there will\nbe found _clothes_ for him; he will find himself clothes. But the\nsuit-of-clothes pretending that _it_ is both clothes and man--!--We\ncannot 'fight the French' by three-hundred-thousand red uniforms;\nthere must be _men_ in the inside of them! Semblance, I assert, must\nactually _not_ divorce itself from Reality. If Semblance do,--why then\nthere must be men found to rebel against Semblance, for it has become\na lie! These two Antagonisms at war here, in the case of Laud and the\nPuritans, are as old nearly as the world. They went to fierce battle\nover England in that age; and fought-out their confused controversy to\na certain length, with many results for all of us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the age which directly followed that of the Puritans, their cause\nor themselves were little likely to have justice done them. Charles\nSecond and his Rochesters were not the kind of men you would set to\njudge what the worth or meaning of such men might have been. That\nthere could be any faith or truth in the life of a man, was what these\npoor Rochesters, and the age they ushered-in, had forgotten.\nPuritanism was hung on gibbets,--like the bones of the leading\nPuritans. Its work nevertheless went on accomplishing itself. All true\nwork of a man, hang the author of it on what gibbet you like, must and\nwill accomplish itself. We have our _Habeas-Corpus_, our free\nRepresentation of the People; acknowledgment, wide as the world, that\nall men are, or else must, shall, and will become, what we call _free_\nmen;--men with their life grounded on reality and justice, not on\ntradition, which has become unjust and a chimera! This in part and\nmuch besides this, was the work of the Puritans.\n\nAnd indeed, as these things became gradually manifest, the character\nof the Puritans began to clear itself. Their memories were, one after\nanother, taken _down_ from the gibbet; nay a certain portion of them\nare now, in these days, as good as canonised. Eliot, Hampden, Pym, nay\nLudlow, Hutchinson, Vane himself, are admitted to be a kind of Heroes;\npolitical Conscript Fathers, to whom in no small degree we owe what\nmakes us a free England: it would not be safe for anybody to designate\nthese men as wicked now. Few Puritans of note but find their\napologists somewhere, and have a certain reverence paid them by\nearnest men. One Puritan, I think, and almost he alone, our poor\nCromwell, seems to hang yet on the gibbet, and find no hearty\napologist anywhere. Him neither saint nor sinner will acquit of great\nwickedness. A man of ability, infinite talent, courage, and so forth:\nbut he betrayed the Cause. Selfish ambition, dishonesty, duplicity; a\nfierce, coarse, hypocritical _Tartufe_; turning all that noble\nStruggle for constitutional Liberty into a sorry farce played for his\nown benefit: this and worse is the character they give of Cromwell.\nAnd then there come contrasts with Washington and others; above all,\nwith these noble Pyms and Hampdens, whose noble work he stole for\nhimself, and ruined into a futility and deformity.\n\nThis view of Cromwell seems to me the not unnatural product of a\ncentury like the Eighteenth. As we said of the Valet, so of the\nSceptic: He does not know a Hero when he sees him! The Valet expected\npurple mantles, gilt sceptres, body-guards and flourishes of trumpets:\nthe Sceptic of the Eighteenth century looks for regulated respectable\nFormulas, 'Principles,' or what else he may call them; a style of\nspeech and conduct which has got to seem 'respectable,' which can\nplead for itself in a handsome articulate manner, and gain the\nsuffrages of an enlightened sceptical Eighteenth century! It is, at\nbottom, the same thing that both the Valet and he expect: the\ngarnitures of some _acknowledged_ royalty, which _then_ they will\nacknowledge! The King coming to them in the rugged _un_formulistic\nstate shall be no King.\n\nFor my own share, far be it from me to say or insinuate a word of\ndisparagement against such characters as Hampden, Eliot, Pym; whom I\nbelieve to have been right worthy and useful men. I have read\ndiligently what books and documents about them I could come at;--with\nthe honestest wish to admire, to love and worship them like Heroes;\nbut I am sorry to say, if the real truth must be told, with very\nindifferent success! At bottom, I found that it would not do. They are\nvery noble men, these; step along in their stately way, with their\nmeasured euphemisms, philosophies, parliamentary eloquences,\nShip-moneys, _Monarchies of Man_; a most constitutional, unblamable,\ndignified set of men. But the heart remains cold before them; the\nfancy alone endeavours to get-up some worship of them. What man's\nheart does, in reality, break-forth into any fire of brotherly love\nfor these men? They are become dreadfully dull men! One breaks-down\noften enough in the constitutional eloquence of the admirable Pym,\nwith his 'seventhly and lastly.' You find that it may be the\nadmirablest thing in the world, but that it is heavy,--heavy as lead,\nbarren as brick-clay; that, in a word, for you there is little or\nnothing now surviving there! One leaves all these Nobilities standing\nin their niches of honour: the rugged out-cast Cromwell, he is the man\nof them all in whom one still finds human stuff. The great savage\n_Baresark_: he could write no euphemistic _Monarchy of Man_; did not\nspeak, did not work with glib regularity; had no straight story to\ntell for himself anywhere. But he stood bare, not cased in euphemistic\ncoat-of-mail; he grappled like a giant, face to face, heart to heart,\nwith the naked truth of things! That, after all, is the sort of man\nfor one. I plead guilty to valuing such a man beyond all other sorts\nof men. Smooth-shaven Respectabilities not a few one finds, that are\nnot good for much. Small thanks to a man for keeping his hands clean,\nwho would not touch the work but with gloves on!\n\nNeither, on the whole, does this constitutional tolerance of the\nEighteenth century for the other happier Puritans seem to be a very\ngreat matter. One might say, it is but a piece of Formulism and\nScepticism, like the rest. They tell us, It was a sorrowful thing to\nconsider that the foundation of our English Liberties should have been\nlaid by 'Superstition.' These Puritans came forward with Calvinistic\nincredible Creeds, Anti-Laudisms, Westminster Confessions; demanding,\nchiefly of all, that they should have liberty to _worship_ in their\nown way. Liberty to _tax_ themselves: that was the thing they should\nhave demanded! It was Superstition, Fanaticism, disgraceful Ignorance\nof Constitutional Philosophy to insist on the other thing!--Liberty to\n_tax_ oneself? Not to pay-out money from your pocket except on reason\nshown? No century, I think, but a rather barren one would have fixed\non that as the first right of man! I should say, on the contrary, A\njust man will generally have better cause than _money_ in what shape\nsoever, before deciding to revolt against his Government. Ours is a\nmost confused world; in which a good man will be thankful to see any\nkind of Government maintain itself in a not insupportable manner; and\nhere in England, to this hour, if he is not ready to pay a great many\ntaxes which _he_ can see very small reason in, it will not go well\nwith him, I think! He must try some other climate than this.\nTaxgatherer? Money? He will say: \"Take my money, since you _can_, and\nit is so desirable to you; take it,--and take yourself away with it;\nand leave me alone to my work here. _I_ am still here; can still work,\nafter all the money you have taken from me!\" But if they come to him,\nand say, \"Acknowledge a Lie; pretend to say you are worshipping God,\nwhen you are not doing it: believe not the thing that _you_ find true,\nbut the thing that I find, or pretend to find true!\" He will answer:\n\"No; by God's help, no! You may take my purse; but I cannot have my\nmoral Self annihilated. The purse is any Highwayman's who might meet\nme with a loaded pistol: but the Self is mine and God my Maker's; it\nis not yours; and I will resist you to the death, and revolt against\nyou, and, on the whole, front all manner of extremities, accusations\nand confusions, in defence of that!\"--\n\nReally, it seems to me the one reason which could justify revolting,\nthis of the Puritans. It has been the soul of all just revolts among\nmen. Not _Hunger_ alone produced even the French Revolution: no, but\nthe feeling of the insupportable all-pervading _Falsehood_ which had\nnow embodied itself in Hunger, in universal material Scarcity and\nNonentity, and thereby become _indisputably_ false in the eyes of all!\nWe will leave the Eighteenth century with its 'liberty to tax itself.'\nWe will not astonish ourselves that the meaning of such men as the\nPuritans remained dim to it. To men who believe in no reality at all,\nhow shall a _real_ human soul, the intensest of all realities, as it\nwere the Voice of this world's Maker still speaking to _us_,--be\nintelligible? What it cannot reduce into constitutional doctrines\nrelative to 'taxing,' or other the like material interest, gross,\npalpable to the sense, such a century will needs reject as an\namorphous heap of rubbish. Hampdens, Pyms, and Ship-money will be the\ntheme of much constitutional eloquence, striving to be fervid;--which\nwill glitter, if not as fire does, then as _ice_ does: and the\nirreducible Cromwell will remain a chaotic mass of 'madness,'\n'hypocrisy,' and much else.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom of old, I will confess, this theory of Cromwell's falsity has\nbeen incredible to me. Nay I cannot believe the like, of any Great Man\nwhatever. Multitudes of Great Men figure in History as false selfish\nmen; but if we will consider it, they are but _figures_ for us,\nunintelligible shadows; we do not see into them as men that could have\nexisted at all. A superficial unbelieving generation only, with no eye\nbut for the surfaces and semblances of things, could form such notions\nof Great Men. Can a great soul be possible without a _conscience_ in\nit, the essence of all _real_ souls, great or small?--No, we cannot\nfigure Cromwell as a Falsity and Fatuity; the longer I study him and\nhis career, I believe this the less. Why should we? There is no\nevidence of it. Is it not strange that, after all the mountains of\ncalumny this man has been subject to, after being represented as the\nvery prince of liars, who never, or hardly ever, spoke truth, but\nalways some cunning counterfeit of truth, there should not yet have\nbeen one falsehood brought clearly home to him? A prince of liars, and\nno lie spoken by him. Not one that I could yet get sight of. It is\nlike Pococke asking Grotius, Where is your _proof_ of Mahomet's\nPigeon? No proof!--Let us leave all these calumnious chimeras, as\nchimeras ought to be left. They are not portraits of the man; they are\ndistracted phantasms of him, the joint product of hatred and darkness.\n\nLooking at the man's life with our own eyes, it seems to me, a very\ndifferent hypothesis suggests itself. What little we know of his\nearlier obscure years, distorted as it has come down to us, does it\nnot all betoken an earnest, affectionate, sincere kind of man? His\nnervous melancholic temperament indicates rather a seriousness too\ndeep for him. Of those stories of 'Spectres;' of the white Spectre in\nbroad daylight, predicting that he should be King of England, we are\nnot bound to believe much;--probably no more than of the other black\nSpectre, or Devil in person, to whom the Officer _saw_ him sell\nhimself before Worcester Fight! But the mournful, over-sensitive,\nhypochondriac humour of Oliver, in his young years, is otherwise\nindisputably known. The Huntingdon Physician told Sir Philip Warwick\nhimself, He had often been sent for at midnight; Mr. Cromwell was full\nof hypochondria, thought himself near dying, and \"had fancies about\nthe Town-cross.\" These things are significant. Such an excitable\ndeep-feeling nature, in that rugged stubborn strength of his, is not\nthe symptom of falsehood; it is the symptom and promise of quite other\nthan falsehood!\n\nThe young Oliver is sent to study Law; falls, or is said to have\nfallen, for a little period, into some of the dissipations of youth;\nbut if so, speedily repents, abandons all this: not much above twenty,\nhe is married, settled as an altogether grave and quiet man. 'He\npays-back what money he had won at gambling,' says the story;--he does\nnot think any gain of that kind could be really _his_. It is very\ninteresting, very natural, this 'conversion,' as they well name it;\nthis awakening of a great true soul from the worldly slough, to see\ninto the awful _truth_ of things;--to see that time and its shows all\nrested on Eternity, and this poor Earth of ours was the threshold\neither of Heaven or of Hell! Oliver's life at St Ives or Ely, as a\nsober industrious Farmer, is it not altogether as that of a true and\ndevout man? He has renounced the world and its ways; _its_ prizes are\nnot the thing that can enrich him. He tills the earth; he reads his\nBible; daily assembles his servants round him to worship God. He\ncomforts persecuted ministers, is fond of preachers; nay can himself\npreach,--exhorts his neighbours to be wise, to redeem the time. In all\nthis what 'hypocrisy,' 'ambition,' 'cant,' or other falsity? The man's\nhopes, I do believe, were fixed on the other Higher World; his aim to\nget well _thither_, by walking well through his humble course in\n_this_ world. He courts no notice: what could notice here do for him?\n'Ever in his great Taskmaster's eye.'\n\nIt is striking, too, how he comes-out once into public view; he, since\nno other is willing to come: in resistance to a public grievance. I\nmean, in that matter of the Bedford Fens. No one else will go to law\nwith Authority; therefore he will. That matter once settled, he\nreturns back into obscurity, to his Bible and his Plough. 'Gain\ninfluence'? His influence is the most legitimate; derived from\npersonal knowledge of him, as a just, religious, reasonable and\ndetermined man. In this way he has lived till past forty; old age is\nnow in view of him, and the earnest portal of Death and Eternity; it\nwas at this point that he suddenly became 'ambitious'! I do not\ninterpret his Parliamentary mission in that way!\n\nHis successes in Parliament, his successes through the war, are honest\nsuccesses of a brave man; who has more resolution in the heart of him,\nmore light in the head of him than other men. His prayers to God; his\nspoken thanks to the God of Victory, who had preserved him safe, and\ncarried him forward so far, through the furious clash of a world all\nset in conflict, through desperate-looking envelopments at Dunbar;\nthrough the death-hail of so many battles; mercy after mercy; to the\n'crowning mercy' of Worcester Fight: all this is good and genuine for\na deep-hearted Calvinistic Cromwell. Only to vain unbelieving\nCavaliers, worshipping not God but their own 'lovelocks,' frivolities\nand formalities, living quite apart from contemplations of God, living\n_without_ God in the world, need it seem hypocritical.\n\nNor will his participation in the King's death involve him in\ncondemnation with us. It is a stern business killing of a King! But if\nyou once go to war with him, it lies _there_; this and all else lies\nthere. Once at war, you have made wager of battle with him: it is he\nto die, or else you. Reconciliation is problematic; may be possible,\nor, far more likely, is impossible. It is now pretty generally\nadmitted that the Parliament, having vanquished Charles First, had no\nway of making any tenable arrangement with him. The large Presbyterian\nparty, apprehensive now of the Independents, were most anxious to do\nso; anxious indeed as for their own existence; but it could not be.\nThe unhappy Charles, in those final Hampton-Court negotiations, shows\nhimself as a man fatally incapable of being dealt with. A man who,\nonce for all, could not and would not _understand_:--whose thought did\nnot in any measure represent to him the real fact of the matter; nay\nworse, whose _word_ did not at all represent his thought. We may say\nthis of him without cruelty, with deep pity rather: but it is true and\nundeniable. Forsaken there of all but the _name_ of Kingship, he\nstill, finding himself treated with outward respect as a King, fancied\nthat he might play-off party against party, and smuggle himself into\nhis old power by deceiving both. Alas, they both _discovered_ that he\nwas deceiving them. A man whose _word_ will not inform you at all what\nhe means or will do, is not a man you can bargain with. You must get\nout of that man's way, or put him out of yours! The Presbyterians, in\ntheir despair, were still for believing Charles, though found false,\nunbelievable again and again. Not so Cromwell: \"For all our fighting,\"\nsays he, \"we are to have a little bit of paper?\" No!--\n\nIn fact, everywhere we have to note the decisive practical _eye_ of\nthis man; how he drives towards the practical and practicable; has a\ngenuine insight into what _is_ fact. Such an intellect, I maintain,\ndoes not belong to a false man: the false man sees false shows,\nplausibilities, expediences: the true man is needed to discern even\npractical truth. Cromwell's advice about the Parliament's Army, early\nin the contest, How they were to dismiss their city-tapsters, flimsy\nriotous persons, and choose substantial yeomen, whose heart was in the\nwork, to be soldiers for them: this is advice by a man who _saw_. Fact\nanswers, if you see into Fact. Cromwell's _Ironsides_ were the\nembodiment of this insight of his; men fearing God; and without any\nother fear. No more conclusively genuine set of fighters ever trod the\nsoil of England, or of any other land.\n\nNeither will we blame greatly that word of Cromwell's to them; which\nwas so blamed: \"If the King should meet me in battle, I would kill the\nKing.\" Why not? These words were spoken to men who stood as before a\nHigher than Kings. They had set more than their own lives on the cast.\nThe Parliament may call it, in official language, a fighting '_for_\nthe King;' but we, for our share, cannot understand that. To us it is\nno dilettante work, no sleek officiality; it is sheer rough death and\nearnest. They have brought it to the calling-forth of _War_; horrid\ninternecine fight, man grappling with man in fire-eyed rage,--the\n_infernal_ element in man called forth, to try it by that! _Do_ that\ntherefore; since that is the thing to be done.--The successes of\nCromwell seem to me a very natural thing! Since he was not shot in\nbattle, they were an inevitable thing. That such a man, with the eye\nto see, with the heart to dare, should advance, from post to post,\nfrom victory to victory, till the Huntingdon Farmer became, by\nwhatever name you might call him, the acknowledged Strongest Man in\nEngland, virtually the King of England, requires no magic to explain\nit!--\n\nTruly it is a sad thing for a people, as for a man, to fall into\nScepticism, into dilettantism, insincerity; not to know a Sincerity\nwhen they see it. For this world, and for all worlds, what curse is so\nfatal? The heart lying dead, the eye cannot see. What intellect\nremains is merely the _vulpine_ intellect. That a true _King_ be sent\nthem is of small use; they do not know him when sent. They say\nscornfully, Is this your King? The Hero wastes his heroic faculty in\nbootless contradiction from the unworthy; and can accomplish little.\nFor himself he does accomplish a heroic life, which is much, which is\nall; but for the world he accomplishes comparatively nothing. The wild\nrude Sincerity, direct from Nature, is not glib in answering from the\nwitness-box; in your small-debt _pie-powder_ court, he is scouted as a\ncounterfeit. The vulpine intellect 'detects' him. For being a man\nworth any thousand men, the response, your Knox, your Cromwell gets,\nis an argument for two centuries, whether he was a man at all. God's\ngreatest gift to this Earth is sneeringly flung away. The miraculous\ntalisman is a paltry plated coin, not fit to pass in the shops as a\ncommon guinea.\n\nLamentable this! I say, this must be remedied. Till this be remedied\nin some measure, there is nothing remedied. 'Detect quacks'? Yes do,\nfor Heaven's sake; but know withal the men that are to be trusted!\nTill we know that, what is all our knowledge; how shall we even so\nmuch as 'detect'? For the vulpine sharpness, which considers itself to\nbe knowledge, and 'detects' in that fashion, is far mistaken. Dupes\nindeed are many: but, of all _dupes_, there is none so fatally\nsituated as he who lives in undue terror of being duped. The world\ndoes exist; the world has truth in it or it would not exist! First\nrecognise what is true, we shall _then_ discern what is false; and\nproperly never till then.\n\n'Know the men that are to be trusted:' alas, this is yet, in these\ndays, very far from us. The sincere alone can recognise sincerity. Not\na Hero only is needed, but a world fit for him; a world not of\n_Valets_;--the Hero comes almost in vain to it otherwise! Yes, it is\nfar from us: but it must come; thank God, it is visibly coming. Till\nit do come, what have we? Ballot-boxes, suffrages, French\nRevolutions:--if we are as Valets, and do not know the Hero when we\nsee him, what good are all these? A heroic Cromwell comes; and for a\nhundred-and-fifty years he cannot have a vote from us. Why, the\ninsincere, unbelieving world is the _natural property_ of the Quack,\nand of the Father of quacks and quackeries! Misery, confusion,\nunveracity are alone possible there. By ballot-boxes we alter the\n_figure_ of our Quack; but the substance of him continues. The\nValet-World _has_ to be governed by the Sham-Hero, by the King merely\n_dressed_ in King-gear. It is his; he is its! In brief, one of two\nthings: We shall either learn to know a Hero, a true Governor and\nCaptain, somewhat better, when we see him; or else go on to be forever\ngoverned by the Unheroic;--had we ballot-boxes clattering at every\nstreet-corner, there were no remedy in these.\n\nPoor Cromwell,--great Cromwell! The inarticulate Prophet; Prophet who\ncould not _speak_. Rude, confused, struggling to utter himself, with\nhis savage depth, with his wild sincerity; and he looked so strange,\namong the elegant Euphemisms, dainty little Falklands, didactic\nChillingworths, diplomatic Clarendons! Consider him. An outer hull of\nchaotic confusion, visions of the Devil, nervous dreams, almost\nsemi-madness; and yet such a clear determinate man's-energy working in\nthe heart of that. A kind of chaotic man. The ray as of pure starlight\nand fire, working in such an element of boundless hypochondria,\n_un_formed black of darkness! And yet withal this hypochondria, what\nwas it but the very greatness of the man? The depth and tenderness of\nhis wild affections: the quantity of _sympathy_ he had with\nthings,--the quantity of insight he would yet get into the heart of\nthings, the mastery he would yet get over things: this was his\nhypochondria. The man's misery, as man's misery always does, came of\nhis greatness. Samuel Johnson too is that kind of man. Sorrow-stricken,\nhalf-distracted; the wide element of mournful _black_ enveloping\nhim,--wide as the world. It is the character of a prophetic man; a man\nwith his whole soul _seeing_, and struggling to see.\n\nOn this ground, too, I explain to myself Cromwell's reputed confusion\nof speech. To himself the internal meaning was sun-clear; but the\nmaterial with which he was to clothe it in utterance was not there. He\nhad _lived_ silent; a great unnamed sea of Thought round him all his\ndays; and in his way of life little call to attempt _naming_ or\nuttering that. With his sharp power of vision, resolute power of\naction, I doubt not he could have learned to write Books withal, and\nspeak fluently enough:--he did harder things than writing of Books.\nThis kind of man is precisely he who is fit for doing manfully all\nthings you will set him on doing. Intellect is not speaking and\nlogicising; it is seeing and ascertaining. Virtue, _Vir-tus_, manhood,\n_hero_-hood, is not fair-spoken immaculate regularity; it is first of\nall, what the Germans well name it, _Tugend_ (_Taugend_, _dow_-ing or\n_Dough_-tiness), Courage and the Faculty to _do_. This basis of the\nmatter Cromwell had in him.\n\nOne understands moreover how, though he could not speak in Parliament,\nhe might _preach_, rhapsodic preaching; above all, how he might be\ngreat in extempore prayer. These are the free outpouring utterances of\nwhat is in the heart: method is not required in them; warmth, depth,\nsincerity are all that is required. Cromwell's habit of prayer is a\nnotable feature of him. All his great enterprises were commenced with\nprayer. In dark inextricable-looking difficulties, his Officers and he\nused to assemble, and pray alternately, for hours, for days, till some\ndefinite resolution rose among them, some 'door of hope,' as they\nwould name it, disclosed itself. Consider that. In tears, in fervent\nprayers, and cries to the great God, to have pity on them, to make His\nlight shine before them. They, armed Soldiers of Christ, as they felt\nthemselves to be; a little band of Christian Brothers, who had drawn\nthe sword against a great black devouring world not Christian, but\nMammonish, Devilish,--they cried to God in their straits, in their\nextreme need, not to forsake the Cause that was His. The light which\nnow rose upon them,--how could a human soul, by any means at all, get\nbetter light? Was not the purpose so formed like to be precisely the\nbest, wisest, the one to be followed without hesitation any more? To\nthem it was as the shining of Heaven's own Splendour in the\nwaste-howling darkness; the Pillar of Fire by night, that was to guide\nthem on their desolate perilous way. _Was_ it not such? Can a man's\nsoul, to this hour, get guidance by any other method than\nintrinsically by that same,--devout prostration of the earnest\nstruggling soul before the Highest, the Giver of all Light; be such\n_prayer_ a spoken, articulate, or be it a voiceless, inarticulate one?\nThere is no other method. 'Hypocrisy'? One begins to be weary of all\nthat. They who call it so, have no right to speak on such matters.\nThey never formed a purpose, what one can call a purpose. They went\nabout balancing expediences, plausibilities; gathering votes, advices;\nthey never were alone with the _truth_ of a thing at all.--Cromwell's\nprayers were likely to be 'eloquent,' and much more than that. His was\nthe heart of a man who _could_ pray.\n\nBut indeed his actual Speeches, I apprehend, were not nearly so\nineloquent, incondite, as they look. We find he was, what all speakers\naim to be, an impressive speaker, even in Parliament; one who, from\nthe first, had weight. With that rude passionate voice of his, he was\nalways understood to _mean_ something, and men wished to know what. He\ndisregarded eloquence, nay despised and disliked it; spoke always\nwithout premeditation of the words he was to use. The Reporters, too,\nin those days seem to have been singularly candid; and to have given\nthe Printer precisely what they found on their own notepaper. And\nwithal, what a strange proof is it of Cromwell's being the\npremeditative ever-calculating hypocrite, acting a play before the\nworld, That to the last he took no more charge of his Speeches! How\ncame he not to study his words a little, before flinging them out to\nthe public? If the words were true words, they could be left to shift\nfor themselves.\n\nBut with regard to Cromwell's 'lying,' we will make one remark. This,\nI suppose, or something like this, to have been the nature of it. All\nparties found themselves deceived in him; each party understood him to\nbe meaning _this_, heard him even say so, and behold he turns-out to\nhave been meaning _that_! He was, cry they, the chief of liars. But\nnow, intrinsically, is not all this the inevitable fortune, not of a\nfalse man in such times, but simply of a superior man? Such a man must\nhave _reticences_ in him. If he walk wearing his heart upon his sleeve\nfor daws to peck at, his journey will not extend far! There is no use\nfor any man's taking-up his abode in a house built of glass. A man\nalways is to be himself the judge how much of his mind he will show to\nother men; even to those he would have work along with him. There are\nimpertinent inquiries made: your rule is, to leave the inquirer\n_un_informed on that matter; not, if you can help it, _mis_informed;\nbut precisely as dark as he was! This, could one hit the right phrase\nof response, is what the wise and faithful man would aim to answer in\nsuch a case.\n\nCromwell, no doubt of it, spoke often in the dialect of small\nsubaltern parties; uttered to them a _part_ of his mind. Each little\nparty thought him all its own. Hence their rage, one and all, to find\nhim not of their party, but of his own party! Was it his blame? At all\nseasons of his history he must have felt, among such people, how, if\nhe explained to them the deeper insight he had, they must either have\nshuddered aghast at it, or believing it, their own little compact\nhypothesis must have gone wholly to wreck. They could not have worked\nin his province any more; nay perhaps they could not now have worked\nin their own province. It is the inevitable position of a great man\namong small men. Small men, most active, useful, are to be seen\neverywhere, whose whole activity depends on some conviction which to\nyou is palpably a limited one; imperfect, what we call an _error_. But\nwould it be a kindness always, is it a duty always or often, to\ndisturb them in that? Many a man, doing loud work in the world, stands\nonly on some thin traditionality, conventionality; to him indubitable,\nto you incredible: break that beneath him, he sinks to endless depths!\n\"I might have my hand full of truth,\" said Fontenelle, \"and open only\nmy little finger.\"\n\nAnd if this be the fact even in matters of doctrine, how much more in\nall departments of practice! He that cannot withal _keep his mind to\nhimself_ cannot practise any considerable thing whatever. And we call\nit 'dissimulation,' all this? What would you think of calling the\ngeneral of an army a dissembler because he did not tell every corporal\nand private soldier, who pleased to put the question, what his\nthoughts were about everything?--Cromwell, I should rather say,\nmanaged all this in a manner we must admire for its perfection. An\nendless vortex of such questioning 'corporals' rolled confusedly round\nhim through his whole course; whom he did answer. It must have been as\na great true-seeing man that he managed this too. Not one proved\nfalsehood, as I said; not one! Of what man that ever wound himself\nthrough such a coil of things will you say so much?--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut in fact there are two errors, widely prevalent, which pervert to\nthe very basis our judgments formed about such men as Cromwell; about\ntheir 'ambition,' 'falsity,' and such-like. The first is what I might\ncall substituting the _goal_ of their career for the course and\nstarting point of it. The vulgar Historian of a Cromwell fancies that\nhe had determined on being Protector of England, at the time when he\nwas ploughing the marsh lands of Cambridgeshire. His career lay all\nmapped-out: a program of the whole drama; which he then step by step\ndramatically unfolded, with all manner of cunning, deceptive\ndramaturgy, as he went on,--the hollow, scheming [Greek: Hypokrites],\nor Play-actor that he was! This is a radical perversion; all but\nuniversal in such cases. And think for an instant how different the\nfact is! How much does one of us foresee of his own life? Short way\nahead of us it is all dim; an _un_wound skein of possibilities, of\napprehensions, attemptabilities, vague-looming hopes. This Cromwell\nhad _not_ his life lying all in that fashion of Program, which he\nneeded then, with that unfathomable cunning of his, only to enact\ndramatically, scene after scene! Not so. We see it so; but to him it\nwas in no measure so. What absurdities would fall-away of themselves,\nwere this one undeniable fact kept honestly in view by History!\nHistorians indeed will tell you that they do keep it in view;--but\nlook whether such is practically the fact! Vulgar History, as in this\nCromwell's case, omits it altogether; even the best kinds of History\nonly remember it now and then. To remember it duly with rigorous\nperfection, as in the fact it _stood_, requires indeed a rare faculty;\nrare, nay impossible. A very Shakspeare for faculty; or more than\nShakspeare; who could _enact_ a brother-man's biography, see with the\nbrother-man's eyes at all points of his course what things _he_ saw;\nin short, _know_ his course and him, as few 'Historians' are like to\ndo. Half or more of all the thick-plied perversions which distort our\nimage of Cromwell, will disappear, if we honestly so much as try to\nrepresent them so; in sequence, as they _were_; not in the lump, as\nthey are thrown-down before us.\n\nBut a second error, which I think the generality commit, refers to\nthis same 'ambition' itself. We exaggerate the ambition of Great Men;\nwe mistake what the nature of it is. Great Men are not ambitious in\nthat sense; he is a small poor man that is ambitious so. Examine the\nman who lives in misery because he does not shine above other men; who\ngoes about producing himself, pruriently anxious about his gifts and\nclaims; struggling to force everybody, as it were begging everybody\nfor God's sake, to acknowledge him a great man, and set him over the\nheads of men! Such a creature is among the wretchedest sights seen\nunder this sun. A _great_ man? A poor morbid prurient empty man;\nfitter for the ward of a hospital, than for a throne among men. I\nadvise you to keep-out of his way. He cannot walk on quiet paths;\nunless you will look at him, wonder at him, write paragraphs about\nhim, he cannot live. It is the _emptiness_ of the man, not his\ngreatness. Because there is nothing in himself, he hungers and thirsts\nthat you would find something in him. In good truth, I believe no\ngreat man, not so much as a genuine man who had health and real\nsubstance in him of whatever magnitude, was ever much tormented in\nthis way.\n\nYour Cromwell, what good could it do him to be 'noticed' by noisy\ncrowds of people? God his Maker already noticed him. He, Cromwell, was\nalready there; no notice would make _him_ other than he already was.\nTill his hair was grown gray; and Life from the downhill slope was all\nseen to be limited, not infinite but finite, and all a measurable\nmatter _how_ it went,--he had been content to plough the ground, and\nread his Bible. He in his old days could not support it any longer,\nwithout selling himself to Falsehood, that he might ride in gilt\ncarriages to Whitehall, and have clerks with bundles of papers\nhaunting him, \"Decide this, decide that,\" which in utmost sorrow of\nheart no man can perfectly decide! What could gilt carriages do for\nthis man? From of old, was there not in his life a weight of meaning,\na terror and a splendour as of Heaven itself? His existence there as\nman set him beyond the need of gilding. Death, Judgment and Eternity:\nthese already lay as the background of whatsoever he thought or did.\nAll his life lay begirt as in a sea of nameless Thoughts, which no\nspeech of a mortal could name. God's Word, as the Puritan prophets of\nthat time had read it: this was great, and all else was little to him.\nTo call such a man 'ambitious,' to figure him as the prurient windbag\ndescribed above, seems to me the poorest solecism. Such a man will\nsay: \"Keep your gilt carriages and huzzaing mobs, keep your red-tape\nclerks, your influentialities, your important businesses. Leave me\nalone, leave me alone; there is _too much of life_ in me already!\" Old\nSamuel Johnson, the greatest soul in England in his day, was not\nambitious. 'Corsica Boswell' flaunted at public shows with printed\nribbons round his hat; but the great old Samuel stayed at home. The\nworld-wide soul wrapt-up in its thoughts, in its sorrows;--what could\nparadings, and ribbons in the hat, do for it?\n\nAh yes, I will say again: The great _silent_ men! Looking round on the\nnoisy inanity of the world, words with little meaning, actions with\nlittle worth, one loves to reflect on the great Empire of _Silence_.\nThe noble silent men, scattered here and there, each in his\ndepartment; silently thinking, silently working; whom no Morning\nNewspaper makes mention of! They are the salt of the Earth. A country\nthat has none or few of these is in a bad way. Like a forest which had\nno _roots_; which had all turned into leaves and boughs;--which must\nsoon wither and be no forest. Woe for us if we had nothing but what we\ncan _show_, or speak. Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher\nthan the stars; deeper than the Kingdoms of Death! It alone is great;\nall else is small.--I hope we English will long maintain our _grand\ntalent pour le silence_. Let others that cannot do without standing on\nbarrel-heads, to spout, and be seen of all the market-place, cultivate\nspeech exclusively,--become a most green forest without roots! Solomon\nsays, There is a time to speak; but also a time to keep silence. Of\nsome great silent Samuel, not urged to writing, as old Samuel Johnson\nsays he was, by _want of money_, and nothing other, one might ask,\n\"Why do not you too get up and speak; promulgate your system, found\nyour sect?\" \"Truly,\" he will answer, \"I am _continent_ of my thought\nhitherto; happily I have yet had the ability to keep it in me, no\ncompulsion strong enough to speak it. My 'system' is not for\npromulgation first of all; it is for serving myself to live by. That\nis the great purpose of it to me. And then the 'honour'? Alas,\nyes;--but as Cato said of the statue: So many statues in that Forum of\nyours, may it not be better if they ask, Where is Cato's statue?\"--\n\nBut, now, by way of counterpoise to this of Silence, let me say that\nthere are two kinds of ambition; one wholly blamable, the other\nlaudable and inevitable. Nature has provided that the great silent\nSamuel shall not be silent too long. The selfish wish to shine over\nothers, let it be accounted altogether poor and miserable. 'Seekest\nthou great things, seek them not:' this is most true. And yet, I say,\nthere is an irrepressible tendency in every man to develop himself\naccording to the magnitude which Nature has made him of; to speak-out,\nto act-out, what Nature has laid in him. This is proper, fit,\ninevitable; nay it is a duty, and even the summary of duties for a\nman. The meaning of life here on earth might be defined as consisting\nin this: To unfold your _self_, to work what thing you have the\nfaculty for. It is a necessity for the human being, the first law of\nour existence. Coleridge beautifully remarks that the infant learns to\n_speak_ by this necessity it feels.--We will say therefore: To decide\nabout ambition, whether it is bad or not, you have two things to take\ninto view. Not the coveting of the place alone, but the fitness of the\nman for the place withal: that is the question. Perhaps the place was\n_his_; perhaps he had a natural right, and even obligation, to seek\nthe place! Mirabeau's ambition to be Prime Minister, how shall we\nblame it, if he were 'the only man in France that could have done any\ngood there'? Hopefuler perhaps had he not so clearly _felt_ how much\ngood he could do! But a poor Necker, who could do no good, and had\neven felt that he could do none, yet sitting broken-hearted because\nthey had flung him out, and he was now quit of it, well might Gibbon\nmourn over him.--Nature, I say, has provided amply that the silent\ngreat man shall strive to speak withal; _too_ amply, rather!\n\nFancy, for example, you had revealed to the brave old Samuel Johnson,\nin his shrouded-up existence, that it was possible for him to do\npriceless divine work for his country and the whole world. That the\nperfect Heavenly Law might be made law on this earth; that the prayer\nhe prayed daily, 'Thy kingdom come,' was at length to be fulfilled! If\nyou had convinced his judgment of this; that it was possible,\npracticable; that he the mournful silent Samuel was called to take a\npart in it! Would not the whole soul of the man have flamed up into a\ndivine clearness, into noble utterance and determination to act;\ncasting all sorrows and misgivings under his feet, counting all\naffliction and contradiction small,--the whole dark element of his\nexistence blazing into articulate radiance of light and lightning? It\nwere a true ambition this! And think now how it actually was with\nCromwell. From of old, the sufferings of God's Church, true zealous\npreachers of the truth flung into dungeons, whipt, set on pillories,\ntheir ears cropt off, God's Gospel-cause trodden under foot of the\nunworthy: all this had lain heavy on his soul. Long years he had\nlooked upon it, in silence, in prayer; seeing no remedy on Earth;\ntrusting well that a remedy in Heaven's goodness would come,--that\nsuch a course was false, unjust, and could not last forever. And now\nbehold the dawn of it; after twelve years silent waiting, all England\nstirs itself; there is to be once more a Parliament, the Right will\nget a voice for itself: inexpressible well-grounded hope has come\nagain into the Earth. Was not such a Parliament worth being a member\nof? Cromwell threw down his ploughs and hastened thither.\n\nHe spoke there,--rugged bursts of earnestness, of a self-seen truth,\nwhere we get a glimpse of them. He worked there; he fought and strove,\nlike a strong true giant of a man, through cannon-tumult and all\nelse,--on and on, till the Cause _triumphed_, its once so formidable\nenemies all swept from before it, and the dawn of hope had become\nclear light of victory and certainty. That _he_ stood there as the\nstrongest soul of England, the undisputed Hero of all England,--what\nof this? It was possible that the law of Christ's Gospel could now\nestablish itself in the world! The Theocracy which John Knox in his\npulpit might dream of as a 'devout imagination,' this practical man,\nexperienced in the whole chaos of most rough practice, dared to\nconsider as capable of being _realised_. Those that were highest in\nChrist's Church, the devoutest wisest men, were to rule the land: in\nsome considerable degree, it might be so and should be so. Was it not\n_true_, God's truth? And if _true_, was it not then the very thing to\ndo? The strongest practical intellect in England dared to answer, Yes!\nThis I call a noble true purpose; is it not, In its own dialect, the\nnoblest that could enter into the heart of Statesman or man? For a\nKnox to take it up was something; but for a Cromwell, with his great\nsound sense and experience of what our world _was_,--History, I think,\nshows it only this once in such a degree. I account it the culminating\npoint of Protestantism; the most heroic phasis that 'Faith in the\nBible' was appointed to exhibit here below. Fancy it: that it were\nmade manifest to one of us, how we could make the Right supremely\nvictorious over Wrong, and all that we had longed and prayed for, as\nthe highest good to England and all lands, an attainable fact!\n\nWell, I must say, the _vulpine_ intellect, with its knowingness, its\nalertness and expertness in 'detecting hypocrites,' seems to me a\nrather sorry business. We have had one such Statesman in England; one\nman, that I can get sight of, who ever had in the heart of him any\nsuch purpose at all. One man, in the course of fifteen hundred years;\nand this was his welcome. He had adherents by the hundred or the ten;\nopponents by the million. Had England rallied all round him,--why,\nthen, England might have been a _Christian_ land! As it is, vulpine\nknowingness sits yet at its hopeless problem, 'Given a world of\nKnaves, to educe an Honesty from their united action;'--how cumbrous a\nproblem, you may see in Chancery Law-Courts, and some other places!\nTill at length, by Heaven's just anger, but also by Heaven's great\ngrace, the matter begins to stagnate; and this problem is becoming to\nall men a _palpably_ hopeless one.--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut with regard to Cromwell and his purposes: Hume and a multitude\nfollowing him, come upon me here with an admission that Cromwell _was_\nsincere at first; a sincere 'Fanatic' at first, but gradually became a\n'Hypocrite' as things opened round him. This of the Fanatic-Hypocrite\nis Hume's theory of it; extensively applied since,--to Mahomet and\nmany others. Think of it seriously, you will find something in it; not\nmuch, not all, very far from all. Sincere hero hearts do not sink in\nthis miserable manner. The Sun flings forth impurities, gets balefully\nincrusted with spots; but it does not quench itself, and become no Sun\nat all, but a mass of Darkness! I will venture to say that such never\nbefell a great, deep Cromwell; I think, never. Nature's own\nlion-hearted Son! Antaeus-like, his strength is got by _touching the\nEarth_, his Mother; lift him up from the Earth, lift him up into\nHypocrisy, Inanity, his strength is gone. We will not assert that\nCromwell was an immaculate man; that he fell into no faults, no\ninsincerities among the rest. He was no dilettante professor of\n'perfections,' 'immaculate conducts.' He was a rugged Orson, rending\nhis rough way through actual true _work_,--doubtless with many a\n_fall_ therein. Insincerities, faults, very many faults daily and\nhourly: it was too well known to him; known to God and him! The Sun\nwas dimmed many a time; but the Sun had not himself grown a Dimness.\nCromwell's last words, as he lay waiting for death, are those of a\nChristian heroic man. Broken prayers to God, that He would judge him\nand this Cause, He since man could not, in justice yet in pity. They\nare most touching words. He breathed out his wild great soul, its\ntoils and sins all ended now, into the presence of his Maker, in this\nmanner.\n\nI, for one, will not call the man a Hypocrite! Hypocrite, mummer, the\nlife of him a mere theatricality; empty barren quack, hungry for the\nshouts of mobs? The man had made obscurity do very well for him till\nhis head was gray; and now he _was_, there as he stood recognised\nunblamed, the virtual King of England. Cannot a man do without King's\nCoaches and Cloaks? Is it such a blessedness to have clerks forever\npestering you with bundles of papers in red tape? A simple Diocletian\nprefers planting of cabbages; a George Washington, no very\nimmeasurable man, does the like. One would say, it is what any genuine\nman could do; and would do. The instant his real work were out in the\nmatter of Kingship,--away with it!\n\nLet us remark, meanwhile, how indispensable everywhere a _King_ is, in\nall movements of men. It is strikingly shown, in this very War, what\nbecomes of men when they cannot find a Chief Man, and their enemies\ncan. The Scotch Nation was all but unanimous in Puritanism; zealous\nand of one mind about it, as in this English end of the Island was far\nfrom being the case. But there was no great Cromwell among them; poor\ntremulous, hesitating, diplomatic Argyles and suchlike; none of them\nhad a heart true enough for the truth, or durst commit himself to the\ntruth. They had no leader; and the scattered Cavalier party in that\ncountry had one: Montrose, the noblest of all the Cavaliers; an\naccomplished, gallant-hearted, splendid man; what one may call the\nHero-Cavalier. Well, look at it; on the one hand subjects without a\nKing; on the other a King without subjects! The subjects without King\ncan do nothing; the subjectless King can do something. This Montrose,\nwith a handful of Irish or Highland savages, few of them so much as\nguns in their hands, dashes at the drilled Puritan armies like a wild\nwhirlwind; sweeps them, time after time, some five times over, from\nthe field before him. He was at one period, for a short while, master\nof all Scotland. One man; but he was a man: a million zealous men, but\n_without_ the one; they against him were powerless! Perhaps of all the\npersons in that Puritan struggle, from first to last, the single\nindispensable one was verily Cromwell. To see and dare, and decide; to\nbe a fixed pillar in the welter of uncertainty;--a King among them,\nwhether they called him so or not.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPrecisely here, however, lies the rub for Cromwell. His other\nproceedings have all found advocates, and stand generally justified;\nbut this dismissal of the Rump Parliament and assumption of the\nProtectorship, is what no one can pardon him. He had fairly grown to\nbe King in England; Chief Man of the victorious party in England: but\nit seems he could not do without the King's Cloak, and sold himself to\nperdition in order to get it. Let us see a little how this was.\n\nEngland, Scotland, Ireland, all lying now subdued at the feet of the\nPuritan Parliament, the practical question arose, What was to be done\nwith it? How will you govern these Nations, which Providence in a\nwondrous way has given-up to your disposal? Clearly those hundred\nsurviving members of the Long Parliament, who sit there as supreme\nauthority, cannot continue for ever to sit. What _is_ to be done?--It\nwas a question which theoretical constitution-builders may find easy\nto answer; but to Cromwell, looking there into the real practical\nfacts of it, there could be none more complicated. He asked of the\nParliament, What it was they would decide upon? It was for the\nParliament to say. Yet the Soldiers too, however contrary to Formula,\nthey who had purchased this victory with their blood, it seemed to\nthem that they also should have something to say in it! We will not\n\"For all our fighting have nothing but a little piece of paper.\" We\nunderstand that the Law of God's Gospel, to which He through us has\ngiven the victory, shall establish itself, or try to establish itself,\nin this land!\n\nFor three years, Cromwell says, this question had been sounded in the\nears of the Parliament. They could make no answer; nothing but talk,\ntalk. Perhaps it lies in the nature of parliamentary bodies; perhaps\nno Parliament could in such case make any answer but even that of\ntalk, talk! Nevertheless the question must and shall be answered. You\nsixty men there, becoming fast odious, even despicable, to the whole\nnation, whom the nation already calls Rump Parliament, _you_ cannot\ncontinue to sit there: who or what then is to follow? 'Free\nParliament,' right of Election, Constitutional Formulas of one sort or\nthe other,--the thing is a hungry Fact coming on us, which we must\nanswer or be devoured by it! And who are you that prate of\nConstitutional Formulas, rights of Parliament? You have had to kill\nyour King, to make Pride's Purges, to expel and banish by the law of\nthe stronger whosoever would not let your Cause prosper: there are but\nfifty or three-score of you left there, debating in these days. Tell\nus what we shall do; not in the way of Formula, but of practicable\nFact!\n\nHow they did finally answer, remains obscure to this day. The diligent\nGodwin himself admits that he cannot make it out. The likeliest is,\nthat this poor Parliament still would not, and indeed could not\ndissolve and disperse; that when it came to the point of actually\ndispersing, they again, for the tenth or twentieth time, adjourned\nit,--and Cromwell's patience failed him. But we will take the\nfavourablest hypothesis ever started for the Parliament; the\nfavourablest, though I believe it is not the true one, but too\nfavourable.\n\nAccording to this version: At the uttermost crisis, when Cromwell and\nhis Officers were met on the one hand, and the fifty or sixty Rump\nMembers on the other, it was suddenly told Cromwell that the Rump in\nits despair _was_ answering in a very singular way; that in their\nsplenetic envious despair, to keep-out the army at least, these men\nwere hurrying through the House a kind of Reform Bill,--Parliament to\nbe chosen by the whole of England; equable electoral division into\ndistricts; free suffrage, and the rest of it! A very questionable, or\nindeed for _them_ an unquestionable thing. Reform Bill, free suffrage\nof Englishmen? Why, the Royalists themselves, silenced indeed but not\nexterminated, perhaps out_number_ us; the great numerical majority of\nEngland was always indifferent to our Cause, merely looked at it and\nsubmitted to it. It is in weight and force, not by counting of heads,\nthat we are the majority! And now with your Formulas and Reform Bills,\nthe whole matter, sorely won by our swords, shall again launch itself\nto sea; become a mere hope, and likelihood, _small_ even as a\nlikelihood? And it is not a likelihood; it is a certainty, which we\nhave won, by God's strength and our own right hands, and do now hold\n_here_. Cromwell walked down to these refractory Members; interrupted\nthem in that rapid speed of their Reform Bill;--ordered them to\nbegone, and talk there no more.--Can we not forgive him? Can we not\nunderstand him? John Milton, who looked on it all near at hand, could\napplaud him. The Reality had swept the Formulas away before it. I\nfancy, most men who were realities in England might see into the\nnecessity of that.\n\nThe strong daring man, therefore, has set all manner of Formulas and\nlogical superficialities against him; has dared appeal to the genuine\nfact of this England, Whether it will support him or not? It is\ncurious to see how he struggles to govern in some constitutional way;\nfind some Parliament to support him; but cannot. His first Parliament,\nthe one they call Barebones's Parliament, is, so to speak, a\n_Convocation of the Notables_. From all quarters of England the\nleading Ministers and chief Puritan Officials nominate the men most\ndistinguished by religious reputation, influence and attachment to the\ntrue Cause: these are assembled to shape-out a plan. They sanctioned\nwhat was past; shaped as they could what was to come. They were\nscornfully called _Barebones's Parliament_, the man's name, it seems,\nwas not _Barebones_, but Barbone,--a good enough man. Nor was it a\njest, their work; it was a most serious reality,--a trial on the part\nof these Puritan Notables how far the Law of Christ could become the\nLaw of this England. There were men of sense among them, men of some\nquality; men of deep piety I suppose the most of them were. They\nfailed, it seems, and broke down, endeavouring to reform the Court of\nChancery! They dissolved themselves, as incompetent; delivered-up\ntheir power again into the hands of the Lord-General Cromwell, to do\nwith it what he liked and could.\n\nWhat _will_ he do with it? The Lord-General Cromwell, 'Commander-in\nChief of all the Forces raised and to be raised;' he hereby sees\nhimself, at this unexampled juncture, as it were the one available\nAuthority left in England, nothing between England and utter Anarchy\nbut him alone. Such is the undeniable Fact of his position and\nEngland's, there and then. What will he do with it? After\ndeliberation, he decides that he will _accept_ it; will formally, with\npublic solemnity, say and vow before God and men, \"Yes, the Fact is\nso, and I will do the best I can with it!\" Protectorship, Instrument\nof Government,--these are the external forms of the thing; worked-out\nand sanctioned as they could in the circumstances be, by the Judges,\nby the leading Official people, 'Council of Officers and Persons of\ninterest in the Nation:' and as for the thing itself, undeniably\nenough, at the pass matters had now come to, there _was_ no\nalternative but Anarchy or that. Puritan England might accept it or\nnot; but Puritan England was, in real truth, saved from suicide\nthereby!--I believe the Puritan People did, in an inarticulate,\ngrumbling, yet on the whole grateful and real way, accept this\nanomalous act of Oliver's; at least, he and they together made it\ngood, and always better to the last. But in their Parliamentary\n_articulate_ way, they had their difficulties, and never knew fully\nwhat to say to it!--\n\nOliver's second Parliament, properly his _first_ regular Parliament,\nchosen by the rule laid-down in the Instrument of Government, did\nassemble, and worked;--but got, before long, into bottomless questions\nas to the Protector's _right_, as to 'usurpation,' and so forth; and\nhad at the earliest legal day to be dismissed. Cromwell's concluding\nSpeech to these men is a remarkable one. So likewise to his third\nParliament, in similar rebuke for their pedantries and obstinacies.\nMost rude, chaotic, all these Speeches are; but most earnest-looking.\nYou would say, it was a sincere helpless man; not used to _speak_ the\ngreat inorganic thought of him, but to act it rather! A helplessness\nof utterance, in such bursting fulness of meaning. He talks much about\n'births of Providence:' All these changes, so many victories and\nevents, were not forethoughts, and theatrical contrivances of men, of\n_me_ or of men; it is blind blasphemers that will persist in calling\nthem so! He insists with a heavy sulphurous wrathful emphasis on this.\nAs he well might. As if a Cromwell in that dark huge game he had been\nplaying, the world wholly thrown into chaos round him, had _foreseen_\nit all, and played it all off like a precontrived puppetshow by wood\nand wire! These things were foreseen by no man, he says; no man could\ntell what a day would bring forth: they were 'births of Providence,'\nGod's finger guided us on, and we came at last to clear height of\nvictory, God's Cause triumphant in these Nations; and you as a\nParliament could assemble together, and say in what manner all this\ncould be _organised_, reduced into rational feasibility among the\naffairs of men. You were to help with your wise counsel in doing that.\n\"You have had such an opportunity as no Parliament in England ever\nhad.\" Christ's Law, the Right and True, was to be in some measure made\nthe Law of this land. In place of that, you have got into your idle\npedantries, constitutionalities, bottomless cavillings and\nquestionings about written laws for _my_ coming here;--and would send\nthe whole matter into Chaos again, because I have no Notary's\nparchment, but only God's voice from the battle-whirlwind, for being\nPresident among you! That opportunity is gone; and we know not when it\nwill return. You have had your constitutional Logic; and Mammon's Law,\nnot Christ's Law, rules yet in this land. \"God be judge between you\nand me!\" These are his final words to them: Take you your\nconstitution-formulas in your hand; and I my _in_formal struggles,\npurposes, realities and acts; and \"God be judge between you and me!\"--\n\nWe said above what shapeless, involved chaotic things the printed\nSpeeches of Cromwell are. _Wilfully_ ambiguous, unintelligible, say\nthe most: a hypocrite shrouding himself in confused Jesuitic jargon!\nTo me they do not seem so. I will say rather, they afforded the first\nglimpses I could ever get into the reality of this Cromwell, nay into\nthe possibility of him. Try to believe that he means something, search\nlovingly what that may be: you will find a real _speech_ lying\nimprisoned in these broken rude tortuous utterances; a meaning in the\ngreat heart of this inarticulate man! You will, for the first time,\nbegin to see that he was a man; not an enigmatic chimera,\nunintelligible to you, incredible to you. The Histories and\nBiographies written of this Cromwell, written in shallow sceptical\ngenerations that could not know or conceive of a deep believing man,\nare far more _obscure_ than Cromwell's Speeches. You look through them\nonly into the infinite vague of Black and the Inane. 'Heats and\nJealousies,' says Lord Clarendon himself: 'heats and jealousies,' mere\ncrabbed whims, theories and crochets; these induced slow sober quiet\nEnglishmen to lay down their ploughs and work; and fly into red fury\nof confused war against the best-conditioned of Kings! _Try_ if you\ncan find that true. Scepticism writing about Belief may have great\ngifts; but it is really _ultra vires_ there. It is Blindness\nlaying-down the Laws of Optics.--\n\nCromwell's third Parliament split on the same rock as his second. Ever\nthe constitutional Formula: How came _you_ there? Show us some Notary\nparchment! Blind pedants:--\"Why, surely the same power which makes you\na Parliament, that, and something more, made me a Protector!\" If my\nProtectorship is nothing, what in the name of wonder is your\nParliamenteership, a reflex and creation of that?--\n\nParliaments having failed, there remained nothing but the way of\nDespotism. Military Dictators, each with his district, to _coerce_ the\nRoyalists and other gainsayers, to govern them, if not by act of\nParliament, then by the sword. Formula shall _not_ carry it, while the\nReality is here! I will go on, protecting oppressed Protestants\nabroad, appointing just judges, wise managers, at home, cherishing\ntrue Gospel ministers; doing the best I can to make England a\nChristian England, greater than old Rome, the Queen of Protestant\nChristianity; I, since you will not help me; I while God leaves me\nlife!--Why did he not give it up; retire into obscurity again, since\nthe Law would not acknowledge him? cry several. That is where they\nmistake. For him there was no giving of it up! Prime Ministers have\ngoverned countries, Pitt, Pombal, Choiseul; and their word was a law\nwhile it held: but this Prime Minister was one that _could not get\nresigned_. Let him once resign, Charles Stuart and the Cavaliers\nwaited to kill him; to kill the Cause _and_ him. Once embarked, there\nis no retreat, no return. This Prime Minister could _retire_ nowhither\nexcept into his tomb.\n\nOne is sorry for Cromwell in his old days. His complaint is incessant\nof the heavy burden Providence has laid on him. Heavy; which he must\nbear till death. Old Colonel Hutchinson, as his wife relates it,\nHutchinson, his old battle-mate, coming to see him on some\nindispensable business, much against his will,--Cromwell 'follows him\nto the door,' in a most fraternal, domestic, conciliatory style; begs\nthat he would be reconciled to him, his old brother in arms; says how\nmuch it grieves him to be misunderstood, deserted by true\nfellow-soldiers, dear to him from of old: the rigorous Hutchinson,\ncased in his republican formula, sullenly goes his way.--And the man's\nhead now white; his strong arm growing weary with its long work! I\nthink always too of his poor Mother, now very old, living in that\nPalace of his; a right brave woman: as indeed they lived all an honest\nGod-fearing Household there: if she heard a shot go off, she thought\nit was her son killed. He had to come to her at least once a day, that\nshe might see with her own eyes that he was yet living. The poor old\nMother!----What had this man gained; what had he gained? He had a life\nof sore strife and toil, to his last day. Fame, ambition, place in\nHistory? His dead body was hung in chains; his 'place in\nHistory,'--place in History forsooth!--has been a place of ignominy,\naccusation, blackness and disgrace; and here, this day, who knows if\nit is not rash in me to be among the first that ever ventured to\npronounce him not a knave and a liar, but a genuinely honest man!\nPeace to him. Did he not, in spite of all, accomplish much for us?\n_We_ walk smoothly over his great rough heroic life; step-over his\nbody sunk in the ditch there. We need not _spurn_ it, as we step on\nit!--Let the Hero rest. It was not to _men's_ judgment that he\nappealed; nor have men judged him very well.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPrecisely a century and a year after this of Puritanism had got itself\nhushed-up into decent composure, and its results made smooth in 1688,\nthere broke-out a far deeper explosion, much more difficult to\nhush-up, known to all mortals, and like to be long known, by the name\nof French Revolution. It is properly the third and final act of\nProtestantism; the explosive confused return of Mankind to Reality and\nFact, now that they were perishing of Semblance and Sham. We call our\nEnglish Puritanism the second act: \"Well then, the Bible is true; let\nus go by the Bible!\" \"In Church,\" said Luther; \"In Church and State,\"\nsaid Cromwell, \"let us go by what actually is God's Truth.\" Men have\nto return to reality; they cannot live on semblance. The French\nRevolution, or third act, we may well call the final one; for lower\nthan that savage _Sansculottism_ men cannot go. They stand there on\nthe nakedest haggard Fact, undeniable in all seasons and\ncircumstances; and may and must begin again confidently to build-up\nfrom that. The French explosion, like the English one, got its\nKing,--who had no Notary parchment to show for himself. We have still\nto glance for a moment at Napoleon, our second modern King.\n\nNapoleon does by no means seem to me so great a man as Cromwell. His\nenormous victories which reached over all Europe, while Cromwell abode\nmainly in our little England, are but as the high _stilts_ on which\nthe man is seen standing; the stature of the man is not altered\nthereby. I find in him no such _sincerity_ as In Cromwell; only a far\ninferior sort. No silent walking, through long years, with the Awful\nUnnamable of this Universe; 'walking with God,' as he called it; and\nfaith and strength in that alone: _latent_ thought and valour, content\nto lie latent, then burst out as in blaze of Heaven's lightning!\nNapoleon lived in an age when God was no longer believed; the meaning\nof all Silence, Latency, was thought to be Nonentity: he had to begin\nnot out of the Puritan Bible, but out of poor Sceptical\n_Encyclopedies_. This was the length the man carried it. Meritorious\nto get so far. His compact, prompt, everyway articulate character is\nin itself perhaps small, compared with our great chaotic inarticulate\nCromwell's. Instead of '_dumb_ Prophet struggling to speak,' we have a\nportentous mixture of the Quack withal! Hume's notion of the\nFanatic-Hypocrite, with such truth as it has, will apply much better\nto Napoleon than it did to Cromwell, to Mahomet or the like,--where\nindeed taken strictly it has hardly any truth at all. An element of\nblamable ambition shows itself, from the first, in this man; gets the\nvictory over him at last, and involves him and his work in ruin.\n\n'False as a bulletin' became a proverb in Napoleon's time. He makes\nwhat excuse he could for it: that it was necessary to mislead the\nenemy, to keep up his own men's courage, and so forth. On the whole,\nthere are no excuses. A man in no case has liberty to tell lies. It\nhad been, in the long-run, _better_ for Napoleon too if he had not\ntold any. In fact, if a man have any purpose reaching beyond the hour\nand day, meant to be found extant _next_ day, what good can it ever be\nto promulgate lies? The lies are found-out; ruinous penalty is exacted\nfor them. No man will believe the liar next time even when he speaks\ntruth, when it is of the last importance that he be believed. The old\ncry of wolf!--A Lie is _no_-thing; you cannot of nothing make\nsomething; you make _nothing_ at last, and lose your labour into the\nbargain.\n\nYet Napoleon _had_ a sincerity; we are to distinguish between what is\nsuperficial and what is fundamental in insincerity. Across these outer\nmanoeuvrings and quackeries of his, which were many and most blamable,\nlet us discern withal that the man had a certain instinctive\nineradicable feeling for reality; and did base himself upon fact, so\nlong as he had any basis. He has an instinct of Nature better than his\nculture was. His _savans_, Bourrienne tells us, in that voyage to\nEgypt were one evening busily occupied arguing that there could be no\nGod. They had proved it, to their satisfaction, by all manner of\nlogic. Napoleon looking up into the stars, answers, \"Very ingenious,\nMessieurs: but _who made_ all that?\" The Atheistic logic runs-off from\nhim like water; the great Fact stares him in the face: \"Who made all\nthat?\" So too in Practice: he, as every man that can be great, or have\nvictory in this world, sees, through all entanglements, the practical\nheart of the matter; drives straight towards that. When the steward of\nhis Tuileries Palace was exhibiting the new upholstery, with praises,\nand demonstration how glorious it was, and how cheap withal, Napoleon,\nmaking little answer, asked for a pair of scissors, clipt one of the\ngold tassels from a window-curtain, put it in his pocket, and walked\non. Some days afterwards, he produced it at the right moment, to the\nhorror of his upholstery functionary; it was not gold but tinsel! In\nSaint Helena, it is notable how he still, to his last days, insists on\nthe practical, the real. \"Why talk and complain; above all, why\nquarrel with one another? There is no _result_ in it; it comes to\nnothing that one can _do_. Say nothing, if one can do nothing!\" He\nspeaks often so, to his poor discontented followers; he is like a\npiece of silent strength in the middle of their morbid querulousness\nthere.\n\nAnd accordingly was there not what we can call a _faith_ in him,\ngenuine so far as it went? That this new enormous Democracy asserting\nitself here in the French Revolution is an insuppressible Fact, which\nthe whole world, with its old forces and institutions cannot put down;\nthis was a true insight of his, and took his conscience and enthusiasm\nalong with it,--a _faith_. And did he not interpret the dim purport of\nit well? '_La carriere ouverte aux talens_, The implements to him who\ncan handle them:' this actually is the truth, and even the whole\ntruth; it includes whatever the French Revolution, or any Revolution,\ncould mean. Napoleon, in his first period, was a true Democrat. And\nyet by the nature of him, fostered too by his military trade, he knew\nthat Democracy, if it were a true thing at all could not be an\nanarchy: the man had a heart-hatred for anarchy. On that Twentieth of\nJune (1792), Bourrienne and he sat in a coffee-house, as the mob\nrolled by: Napoleon expresses the deepest contempt for persons in\nauthority that they do not restrain this rabble. On the Tenth of\nAugust he wonders why there is no man to command these poor Swiss;\nthey would conquer if there were. Such a faith in Democracy, yet\nhatred of Anarchy, it is that carries Napoleon through all his great\nwork. Through his brilliant Italian Campaigns, onwards to the Peace of\nLeoben, one would say, his inspiration is: 'Triumph to the French\nRevolution; assertion of it against these Austrian Simulacra that\npretend to call it a Simulacrum!' Withal, however, he feels, and has a\nright to feel, how necessary a strong Authority is; how the Revolution\ncannot prosper or last without such. To bridle-in that great\ndevouring, self-devouring French Revolution; to _tame_ it, so that its\nintrinsic purpose can be made good, that it may become _organic_, and\nbe able to live among other organisms and _formed_ things, not as a\nwasting destruction alone: is not this still what he partly aimed at,\nas the true purport of his life; nay what he actually managed to do?\nThrough Wagrams, Austerlitzes; triumph after triumph,--he triumphed so\nfar. There was an eye to see in this man, a soul to dare and do. He\nrose naturally to be the King. All men saw that he _was_ such. The\ncommon soldiers used to say on the march: \"These babbling _Avocats_,\nup at Paris; all talk and no work! What wonder it runs all wrong? We\nshall have to go and put our _Petit Caporal_ there!\" They went, and\nput him there; they and France at large. Chief-consulship,\nEmperorship, victory over Europe;--till the poor Lieutenant of _La\nFere_, not unnaturally, might seem to himself the greatest of all men\nthat had been in the world for some ages.\n\nBut at this point, I think, the fatal charlatan-element got the upper\nhand. He apostatised from his old Faith in Facts: took to believing in\nSemblances; strove to connect himself with Austrian Dynasties,\nPopedoms, with the old false Feudalities which he once saw clearly to\nbe false;--considered that _he_ would found \"his Dynasty\" and so\nforth; that the enormous French Revolution meant only that! The man\nwas 'given-up to strong delusion, that he should believe a lie;' a\nfearful but most sure thing. He did not know true from false now when\nhe looked at them,--the fearfulest penalty a man pays for yielding to\nuntruth of heart. _Self_ and false ambition had now become his god:\n_self_-deception once yielded to, _all_ other deceptions follow\nnaturally more and more. What a paltry patch-work of theatrical\npaper-mantles, tinsel and mummery, had this man wrapt his own great\nreality in, thinking to make it more real thereby! His hollow\nPope's-_Concordat_, pretending to be a re-establishment of\nCatholicism, felt by himself to be the method of extirpating it, \"_la\nvaccine de la religion_:\" his ceremonial Coronations, consecrations by\nthe old Italian Chimera in Notre-Dame,--\"wanting nothing to complete\nthe pomp of it,\" as Augereau said, \"nothing but the half-million of\nmen who had died to put an end to all that\"! Cromwell's Inauguration\nwas by the Sword and Bible; what we must call a genuinely _true_ one.\nSword and Bible were borne before him, without any chimera: were not\nthese the _real_ emblems of Puritanism; its true decoration and\ninsignia? It had used them both in a very real manner, and pretended\nto stand by them now! But this poor Napoleon mistook: he believed too\nmuch in the _Dupeability_ of men; saw no fact deeper in men than\nHunger and this! He was mistaken. Like a man that should build upon\ncloud; his house and he fall down in confused wreck, and depart out of\nthe world.\n\nAlas, in all of us this charlatan-element exists; and _might_ be\ndeveloped, were the temptation strong enough. 'Lead us not into\ntemptation'! But it is fatal, I say, that it _be_ developed. The thing\ninto which it enters as a cognisable ingredient is doomed to be\naltogether transitory; and, however huge it may _look_, is in itself\nsmall. Napoleon's working, accordingly, what was it with all the noise\nit made? A flash as of gunpowder wide-spread; a blazing-up as of dry\nheath. For an hour the whole Universe seems wrapt in smoke and flame;\nbut only for an hour. It goes out: the Universe with its old mountains\nand streams, its stars above and kind soil beneath, is still there.\n\nThe Duke of Weimar told his friends always, To be of courage; this\nNapoleonism was _unjust_, a falsehood, and could not last. It is true\ndoctrine. The heavier this Napoleon trampled on the world, holding it\ntyrannously down, the fiercer would the world's recoil against him be,\none day. Injustice pays itself with frightful compound-interest. I am\nnot sure but he had better have lost his best park of artillery, or\nhad his best regiment drowned in the sea, than shot that poor German\nBookseller, Palm! It was a palpable tyrannous murderous injustice,\nwhich no man, let him paint an inch thick, could make-out to be other.\nIt burnt deep into the hearts of men, it and the like of it;\nsuppressed fire flashed in the eyes of men, as they thought of\nit,--waiting their day! Which day _came_: Germany rose round\nhim.--What Napoleon _did_ will in the long-run amount to what he did\n_justly_; what Nature with her laws will sanction. To what of reality\nwas in him; to that and nothing more. The rest was all smoke and\nwaste. _La carriere ouverte aux talens_: that great true Message,\nwhich has yet to articulate and fulfil itself everywhere, he left in a\nmost inarticulate state. He was a great _ebauche_, a rude-draught\nnever completed; as indeed what great man is other? Left in _too_ rude\na state, alas!\n\nHis notions of the world, as he expresses them there at St. Helena,\nare almost tragical to consider. He seems to feel the most unaffected\nsurprise that it has all gone so; that he is flung-out on the rock\nhere, and the World is still moving on its axis. France is great, and\nall-great; and at bottom, he is France. England itself, he says, is by\nNature only an appendage of France; \"another Isle of Oleron to\nFrance.\" So it was _by Nature_, by Napoleon-Nature; and yet look how\nin fact,--HERE AM I! He cannot understand it: inconceivable\nthat the reality has not corresponded to his program of it; that\nFrance was not all-great, that he was not France. 'Strong delusion,'\nthat he should believe the thing to be which _is_ not! The compact,\nclear-seeing, decisive Italian nature of him, strong, genuine, which\nhe once had, has enveloped itself, half-dissolved itself, in a turbid\natmosphere of French fanfaronade. The world was not disposed to be\ntrodden-down underfoot; to be bound into masses, and built together,\nas _he_ liked, for a pedestal to France and him: the world had quite\nother purposes in view! Napoleon's astonishment is extreme. But alas,\nwhat help now? He had gone that way of his; and Nature also had gone\nher way. Having once parted with Reality, he tumbles helpless in\nVacuity; no rescue for him. He had to sink there, mournfully as man\nseldom did; and break his great heart, and die,--this poor Napoleon: a\ngreat implement too soon wasted, till it was useless: our last Great\nMan!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Our_ last, in a double sense. For here finally these wide roamings of\nours through so many times and places, in search and study of Heroes,\nare to terminate. I am sorry for it: there was pleasure for me in this\nbusiness, if also much pain. It is a great subject, and a most grave\nand wide one, this which, not to be too grave about it, I have named\n_Hero-worship_. It enters deeply, as I think, into the secret of\nMankind's ways and vitalest interests in this world, and is well worth\nexplaining at present. With six months, instead of six days, we might\nhave done better. I promised to break-ground on it; I know not whether\nI have even managed to do that. I have had to tear it up in the rudest\nmanner in order to get into it at all. Often enough, with these abrupt\nutterances thrown-out isolated, unexplained, has your tolerance been\nput to the trial. Tolerance, patient candour, all-hoping favour and\nkindness, which I will not speak of at present. The accomplished and\ndistinguished, the beautiful, the wise, something of what is best in\nEngland, have listened patiently to my rude words. With many feelings,\nI heartily thank you all; and say, Good be with you all!\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nABDALLAH, father of Mahomet, 286\n\nAbelard, theology of, 389\n\nAbu Thaleb, uncle of Mahomet, 286, 387, 294\n\nAction the true end of Man, 119, 121\n\nActual, the, the true Ideal, 148, 149\n\nAdamitism, 43\n\nAfflictions, merciful, 145\n\nAgincourt, Shakspeare's battle of, 341\n\nAlexis, Luther's friend, his sudden death, 359\n\nAli, young, Mahomet's kinsman and convert, 293\n\nAllegory, the sportful shadow of earnest faith, 243, 267\n\nAmbition, Fate's appendage of, 78;\n  foolish charge of, 447;\n  laudable ambition, 449\n\nApprenticeships, 92\n\nAprons, use and significance of, 31\n\nArabia and the Arabs, 282, 310\n\nArt, all true Works of, symbolic, 163\n\n\nBALDER, the white Sungod, 255, 271\n\nBaphometic Fire-baptism, 128\n\nBarebone's Parliament, 456\n\nBattle-field, a, 131\n\nBattle, Life-, our, 65;\n  with Folly and Sin, 94, 97\n\nBeing, the boundless Phantasmagoria of, 39\n\nBelief and Opinion, 146, 147\n\nBelief, the true god-announcing miracle, 292, 311, 375, 401;\n  war of, 430.\n  _See_ Religion, Scepticism.\n\nBenthamism, 309, 400\n\nBible of Universal History, 134, 146\n\nBiography, meaning and uses of, 56;\n  significance of biographic facts, 152\n\nBlumine, 104;\n  her environment, 105;\n  character and relation to Teufelsdroeckh, 106;\n  blissful bonds rent asunder, 109;\n  on her way to England, 116\n\nBolivar's Cavalry-uniform, 37\n\nBooks, miraculous influence of, 130, 149, 388, 392;\n  our modern University, Church and Parliament, 390\n\nBoswell, his reverence for Johnson, 410\n\nBanyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, 244\n\nBurns, Gilbert, 417\n\nBurns, Robert, his birth, and humble heroic parents, 415;\n  rustic dialect of, 416;\n  the most gifted British soul of his century, 417;\n  his resemblance to Mirabeau, 418;\n  his sincerity, 419;\n  his visit to Edinburgh, 420;\n  Lion-hunters the ruin and death of, 421\n\n\nCAABAH, the, with its Black Stone and Sacred Well, 284, 285\n\nCanopus, the worship of, 247\n\nCharles I. fatally incapable of being dealt with, 439\n\nChildhood, happy season of, 68;\n  early influences and sports, 69\n\nChina, literary governors of, 397\n\nChristian Faith, a good Mother's simple version of the, 75;\n  Temple of the, now in ruins, 145;\n  Passive-half of, 147\n\nChristian Love, 143, 145\n\nChurch. _See_ Books.\n\nChurch-Clothes, 161;\n  living and dead Churches, 162;\n  the modern Church, and its Newspaper-Pulpits, 189\n\nCircumstances, influence of, 71\n\nClergy, the, with their surplices and cassock-aprons girt-on, 32, 158\n\nClothes, not a spontaneous growth of the human animal, but an\n          artificial device, 2;\n  analogy between the Costumes of the body and the Customs of the\n          spirit, 25;\n  Decoration the first purpose of Clothes, 28;\n  what Clothes have done for us, and what they threaten to do, 30, 43;\n  fantastic garbs of the Middle Ages, 34;\n  a simple costume, 35;\n  tangible and mystic influences of Clothes, 36, 45;\n  animal and human Clothing contrasted, 41;\n  a Court-Ceremonial _minus_ Clothes, 45;\n  necessity for Clothes, 47;\n  transparent Clothes, 49;\n  all Emblematic things are Clothes, 54, 203;\n  Genesis of the modern Clothes-Philosopher, 61;\n  Character and conditions needed, 153, 156;\n  George Fox's suit of Leather, 159;\n  Church-Clothes, 161;\n  Old-Clothes, 179;\n  practical inferences, 203\n\nCodification, 50\n\nCombination, value of, 101, 221\n\nCommons, British House of, 31\n\nConcealment. _See_ Secrecy.\n\nConstitution, our invaluable British, 187\n\nConversion, 149\n\nCourtesy, due to all men, 179\n\nCourtier, a luckless, 36\n\nCromwell, 430;\n  his hypochondria, 437, 442;\n  early marriage and conversion, 437;\n  an industrious farmer, 438;\n  his victories and participation in the King's death, 439;\n  practicalness of, 440;\n  his Ironsides, 440;\n  his speeches, 444, 459;\n  his 'ambition' and such-like, 446;\n  a 'Fanatic,' but gradually became a 'Hypocrite,' 452;\n  his dismissal of the Rump Parliament, 456;\n  Protectorship and Parliamentary Futilities, 457;\n  his last days, and closing sorrows, 460\n\nCustom the greatest of Weavers, 194\n\n\nDANDY, mystic significance of the, 204;\n  dandy worship, 206;\n  sacred books, 208;\n  articles of faith, 209;\n  a dandy household, 213;\n  tragically undermined by growing Drudgery, 214\n\nDante and his Book, 318;\n  biography in his Book, and Portrait, 319;\n  his birth, education and early career, 319, 320;\n  his love for Beatrice Portinari, 320;\n  unhappy marriage, 320;\n  banishment, 321;\n  uncourtier-like ways of, 321;\n  his _Divina Commedia_ genuinely a song, 322;\n  the Unseen World, as figured in the Christianity of the Middle\n          Ages, 329;\n  the 'uses' of Dante, 332\n\nDavid, the Hebrew King, 281\n\nDeath, nourishment even in, 81, 127\n\nDella Scala, the court of, 321\n\nDevil, internecine war with the, 9, 90, 128, 139;\n  cannot now so much as believe in him, 127\n\nDilettantes and Pedants, 52;\n  patrons of Literature, 96\n\nDiodorus Siculus, 284\n\nDiogenes, 159\n\nDivine Right of Kings, 424\n\nDoubt can only be removed by Action, 147.\n  _See_ Unbelief.\n\nDrudgery contrasted with Dandyism, 210;\n  'Communion of Drudges,' and what may come of it, 214\n\nDuelling, a picture of, 136\n\nDuty, no longer a divine Messenger and Guide, but a false earthly\n          Fantasm, 122, 123;\n  infinite nature of, 147, 309;\n  definition of, 267, 298;\n  sceptical spiritual paralysis, 398\n\n\nEDDA, the Scandinavian, 253\n\nEditor's first acquaintance with Teufelsdroeckh and his Philosophy of\n          Clothes, 4;\n  efforts to make known his discovery to British readers, 7;\n  admitted into the Teufelsdroeckh watch-tower, 14, 25;\n  first feels the pressure of his task, 37;\n  his bulky Weissnichtwo Packet, 55;\n  strenuous efforts to evolve some historic order out of such\n          interminable documentary confusion, 59;\n  partial success, 67, 76, 117;\n  mysterious hints, 152, 177;\n  astonishment and hesitation, 163;\n  congratulations, 201;\n  farewell, 219\n\nEducation, influence of early, 71;\n  insignificant portion depending on Schools, 77;\n  educational Architects, 79;\n  the inspired Thinker, 171\n\nEighteenth Century, the sceptical, 398, 404, 433\n\nEisleben, the birthplace of Luther, 358\n\nEliot, 433, 434\n\nElizabethan Era, the, 334\n\nEmblems, all visible things, 54\n\nEmigration, 173\n\nEternity, looking through Time, 15, 55, 168\n\nEvil, Origin of, 143\n\nEyes and Spectacles, 51\n\n\nFACTS, engraved Hierograms, for which the fewest have the key, 153\n\nFaith, the one thing needful, 122\n\nFantasy, the true Heaven-gate or Hell-gate of man, 109, 165\n\nFashionable Novels, 208\n\nFatherhood, 65\n\nFaults, his, not the criterion of any man 281\n\nFeebleness, the true misery, 124\n\nFichte's theory of literary men, 385\n\nFire, and vital fire, 53, 129;\n  miraculous nature of, 254\n\nForce, universal presence of, 53\n\nForms, necessity for, 431\n\nFortunatus' Wishing-hat, 195, 197\n\nFox's, George, heavenward aspirations and earthly independence, 159\n\n_Fraser's Magazine_, 6, 227\n\nFrederick the Great, symbolic glimpse of, 61\n\nFriendship, now obsolete, 89;\n  an incredible tradition, 125, 174;\n  how it were possible, 161, 221\n\nFrost. _See_ Fire.\n\nFutteral and his Wife, 61\n\nFuture, organic filaments of the, 183\n\n\nGENIUS, the world's treatment of, 94\n\nGerman speculative thought, 2, 9, 20, 24, 41;\n  historical researches, 26, 56\n\nGerund-grinding, 80\n\nGhost, an authentic, 198\n\nGiotto, his portrait of Dante, 319\n\nGod, the unslumbering, omnipresent, eternal, 40;\n  God's presence manifested to our eyes and hearts, 49;\n  an absentee God, 122\n\nGoethe's  inspired  melody,  190;\n  'characters,' 337;\n  notablest of literary men, 386\n\nGood, growth and propagation of, 75\n\nGraphic, secret of being, 325\n\nGray's misconception of Norse lore, 270\n\nGreat Men, 134.\n  _See_ Man.\n\nGrimm the German Antiquary, and Odin, 260\n\nGullibility, blessings of, 84\n\nGunpowder, use of, 29, 136\n\n\nHABIT, how, makes dullards of us all, 42\n\nHagar, the Well of, 284, 285\n\nHalf-men, 139\n\nHampden, 433, 434\n\nHappiness, the whim of, 144\n\nHegira, the, 295\n\nHeroes, Universal History of the united biographies of, 139, 266;\n  how 'little critics' account for great men, 250;\n  all Heroes fundamentally of the same stuff, 265, 277, 312, 346,\n          383, 418;\n  Intellect the primary outfit, 338;\n  Heroism possible to all, 358, 375;\n  no man a hero to a valet-soul, 411, 433, 441\n\nHero-worship, the corner-stone of all Society, 189;\n  the tap-root of all Religion, 248-252, 277;\n  perennial in man, 252, 317, 357, 428\n\nHeuschrecke and his biographic documents, 7;\n  his loose, zigzag, thin-visaged character, 18;\n  unaccustomed eloquence, and interminable documentary\n          superfluities, 56;\n  bewildered darkness, 223\n\nHistory, all-inweaving tissue of, 15;\n  by what strange chances do we live in, 36;\n  a perpetual Revelation, 134, 148, 190\n\nHomer's Iliad, 169\n\nHope, this world emphatically the place of, 122;\n  false shadows of, 140\n\nHorse, his own tailor, 41\n\nHutchinson and Cromwell, 433, 460\n\n\nICELAND, the home of Norse Poets, 253\n\nIdeal, the, exists only in the Actual, 148, 149\n\nIdolatry, 351;\n  criminal only when insincere, 353\n\nIgdrasil, the Life-Tree, 257, 334\n\nImagination. _See_ Fantasy.\n\nImmortality, a glimpse of, 196\n\nImposture, statistics of, 84\n\nIndependence, foolish parade of, 175, 188\n\nIndifference, centre of, 128\n\nInfant intuitions and acquirements, 68;\n  genius and dulness, 71\n\nInspiration, perennial, 147, 157, 190\n\nIntellect, the summary of man's gifts, 338, 397\n\nInvention, 29, 120\n\nInvisible, the, Nature the visible Garment of, 41;\n  invisible bonds, binding all Men together, 45;\n  the Visible and Invisible, 49, 164\n\nIrish, the, Poor-Slave, 213\n\nIslam, 291\n\nIsolation, 81\n\n\nJESUS OF NAZARETH, our divinest Symbol, 168, 171\n\nJob, the Book of, 284\n\nJohnson's difficulties, poverty, hypochondria, 405, 406;\n  rude self-help; stands genuinely by the old formulas, 406;\n  his noble unconscious sincerity, 408;\n  twofold Gospel, of Prudence and hatred of Cant, 409;\n  his _Dictionary_, 410;\n  the brave old Samuel, 411, 450\n\nJoetuns, 254, 272\n\nJulius the Second, Pope, 361\n\n\nKADIJAH, the good, Mahomet's first Wife, 288, 292\n\nKing, our true, chosen for us in Heaven, 187;\n  the, a summary of all the various figures of Heroism, 424;\n  indispensable in all movements of men, 453\n\nKingdom, a man's, 91\n\nKnow thyself, and what thou canst work at, 124\n\nKnox's influence on Scotland, 374;\n  the bravest of all Scotchmen, 376;\n  his unassuming career, 377;\n  is sent to the French Galleys, 377;\n  his colloquies with Queen Mary, 378;\n  vein of drollery, 380;\n  a brother to high and to low, 380;\n  his death, 381\n\nKoran, the, 298\n\nKoreish, the, Keepers of the Caabah, 293, 294, 354\n\nKranach's portrait of Luther, 372\n\n\nLABOUR, sacredness of, 171\n\nLadrones Islands, what the natives of, thought regarding Fire, 254\n\nLamaism, Grand, 242\n\nLand-owning, trade of, 96\n\nLanguage, the Garment of Thought, 54;\n  dead vocables, 80\n\nLaughter, significance of, 24\n\nLeo X., the elegant Pagan Pope, 363\n\nLiberty and Equality, 357, 428\n\nLieschen, 17\n\nLife, Human, picture of, 14, 115, 129, 141;\n  life-purpose, 101;\n  speculative mystery of, 125, 181, 198;\n  the most important transaction in, 128;\n  nothingness of; 138, 139\n\nLight the beginning of all Creation, 148\n\nLiterary Men, 383;\n  in China, 397\n\nLiterature, chaotic condition of, 387;\n  not our heaviest evil, 398\n\nLogic-mortar and wordy Air-Castles, 40;\n  underground workshop of Logic, 50, 166\n\nLouis XV., ungodly age of, 123\n\nLove, what we emphatically name, 102;\n  pyrotechnic phenomena of, 103, 166;\n  not altogether a delirium, 109;\n  how possible, in its highest form, 145, 161, 221\n\nLudicrous, feeling and instances of the, 36, 136\n\nLuther's birth and parentage, 358;\n  hardship and rigorous necessity;\n  death of his friend Alexis, 359;\n  becomes a monk;\n  his religious despair;\n  finds a Bible, 360;\n  his deliverance from darkness;\n  at Rome, 361;\n  Tetzel, 362;\n  burns the Pope's Bull, 363, 364;\n  at the Diet of Worms, 364;\n  King of the Reformation, 368;\n  'Duke Georges for nine days running,' 370;\n  his little daughter's deathbed;\n  his solitary Patmos, 371;\n  his Portrait, 372\n\n\nMAGNA CHARTA, 203\n\nMahomet's birth, boyhood, and youth, 286;\n  marries Kadijah, 288;\n  quiet, unambitious life, 288;\n  divine commission, 290;\n  the good Kadijah believes him, 292;\n  Seid, his slave, 293;\n  his Cousin Ali, 293;\n  his offences and sore struggles, 293;\n  flight from Mecca; being driven to take the sword, he uses it, 295;\n  the Koran, 298;\n  a veritable Hero, 305;\n  Seid's death, 306;\n  freedom from cant, 306;\n  the infinite nature of duty, 309\n\nMalthus's over-population panic, 170\n\nMan, by nature _naked_, 2, 42, 46;\n  essentially a tool-using animal, 30;\n  the true Shekinah, 49;\n  a divine Emblem, 54, 165, 167, 180, 199;\n  two men alone honourable, 171.\n  _See_ Thinking Man.\n\nMary, Queen, and Knox, 378\n\nMayflower, sailing of the, 373\n\nMecca, its rise, 285; Mahomet's flight from, 294, 295\n\nMetaphors, the stuff of Language, 54\n\nMetaphysics inexpressibly unproductive, 40, 51\n\nMiddle Ages, represented by Dante and Shakspeare, 329, 333\n\nMilton, 124\n\nMirabeau, his ambition, 450\n\nMiracles, significance of, 191, 197\n\nMonmouth Street, and its 'Ou' clo'' Angels of Doom, 181\n\nMontrose, the Hero-Cavalier, 453, 454\n\nMother's, a, religious influence, 75\n\nMotive-Millwrights, 166\n\nMountain scenery, 115\n\nMusical, all deep things, 317\n\nMystery, all-pervading domain of, 51\n\n\nNAKEDNESS and hypocritical Clothing, 42, 47;\n  a naked Court-Ceremonial, 45;\n  a naked Duke addressing a naked House of Lords, 46\n\nNames, significance and influence of, 65, 195\n\nNapoleon and his Political Evangel, 135;\n  compared with Cromwell, 461;\n  a portentous mixture of Quack and Hero, 462;\n  his instinct for the practical, 463;\n  his democratic _faith_ 463;\n  his hatred of Anarchy, 464;\n  apostatised from his old faith in Facts, and took to believing in\n          Semblances, 464, 465;\n  this Napoleonism was _unjust_, and could not last, 466\n\nNature, the God-written Apocalypse of,39, 49;\n  not an Aggregate but a Whole, 52, 116, 185, 193;\n  Nature alone antique, 79;\n  sympathy with, 115, 135;\n  the 'Living Garment of God,' 142;\n  Laws of Nature, 192;\n  all one great Miracle, 245, 302, 371;\n  a righteous umpire, 296\n\nNecessity, brightened into Duty, 74\n\nNewspaper Editors, 33;\n   our Mendicant Friars, 189, 190\n\nNothingness of life, 138, 139\n\nNottingham bargemen, 255, 256\n\nNovalis, on Man, 248;\n  on Belief, 292;\n  on Shakspeare, 339\n\n\nOBEDIENCE, the lesson of, 74, 75\n\nOdin, the first Norse 'man of genius,' 258;\n  historic rumours and guesses, 259;\n  how he came to be deified, 261;\n  invented 'runes,' 263;\n  Hero, Prophet, God, 264\n\nOlaf, King, and Thor, 275\n\nOriginal man the _sincere_ man, 280, 356\n\nOrpheus, 197\n\nOver-population, 170\n\nOwn, conservation of a man's, 151\n\n\nPAGANISM, Scandinavian, 241;\n  not mere Allegory, 243;\n  Nature-worship, 245, 266;\n  Hero-worship, 248;\n  creed of our fathers, 253, 272, 274;\n  Impersonation of the visible workings of Nature, 254;\n  contrasted with Greek Paganism, 256;\n  the first Norse Thinker, 258;\n  main practical Belief; indispensable to be brave, 267;\n  hearty, homely, rugged Mythology, 270;\n  Balder and Thor, 271;\n  Consecration of Valour, 276\n\nParadise and Fig-leaves, 27;\n  prospective Paradises, 102, 110\n\nParliaments superseded by Books, 392;\n  Cromwell's Parliaments, 454\n\nPassivity and Activity, 74, 121\n\nPast, the, inextricably linked with the Present, 129;\n  forever extant, 196;\n  the whole, the possession of the Present, 277\n\nPaupers, what to do with, 173\n\nPeace-Era, the much-predicted, 133\n\nPeasant Saint, the, 172\n\n_Pelham_, and the Whole Duty of Dandies, 209\n\nPerseverance, law of, 178\n\nPerson, mystery of a, 48, 101, 103, 179\n\nPhilosophies, Cause-and-Effect, 26\n\nPhoenix Death-birth, 178, 183, 201\n\nPitt, Mr., his reply when asked for help to Burns, 396\n\nPlato, the child-man of, 245\n\nPoet, the, and Prophet, 313, 332, 342\n\nPoetry and Prose, distinction of, 315, 323\n\nPopery, 367\n\nPoverty, advantages of, 334\n\nPriest, the true, a kind of Prophet, 346\n\nPrinting, consequences of, 392\n\nPrivate judgment, 354\n\nProgress of the Species, 349\n\nProperty, 150\n\nProse. _See_ Poetry.\n\nProselytising, 6, 221\n\nProtestantism, the root of Modern European History, 364;\n  not dead yet, 367;\n  its living fruit, 373, 425\n\nPurgatory, noble Catholic conception of, 328\n\nPuritanism, founded by Knox, 373;\n  true beginning of America, 373;\n  the one epoch of Scotland, 374;\n  Theocracy, 381;\n  Puritanism in England, 430, 432, 453\n\nPym, 433, 434\n\n\nQUACKERY originates nothing, 242, 279;\n  age of, 403;\n  Quacks and Dupes, 441\n\n\nRADICALISM, Speculative, 10, 20, 47, 188\n\nRagnaroek, 275\n\nRaleigh's, Sir Walter, fine mantle, 36\n\nRamadhan, the month of, 290\n\nRaphael, the best of Portrait-Painters, 326\n\nReformer, the true, 347\n\nReligion, dead letter and living spirit of, 87;\n  weaving new vestures, 162, 207;\n  a man's, the chief fact with regard to him, 240;\n  based on Hero-worship, 248;\n  propagating by the sword, 295;\n  cannot succeed by being 'easy,' 304\n\nReverence, early growth of, 75;\n  indispensability of, 188\n\nRevolution, 423;\n  the French, 423, 461\n\nRichter, 24, 369\n\nRight and Wrong, 309, 329\n\nRousseau, not a strong man, 411;\n  his Portrait;\n  egoism, 412;\n  his passionate appeals, 413;\n  his books, like himself, unhealthy; the Evangelist of the French\n          Revolution, 414\n\nRunes, 263, 264, 388\n\n\nSABEANS, the worship of, 247, 283\n\nSaemund, an early Christian priest, 253, 254\n\nSt. Clement Danes, Church of, 407\n\nSaints, living Communion of, 185, 190\n\nSarcasm, the panoply of, 99\n\n_Sartor Resartus_, genesis of, 7;\n  its purpose, 201\n\nSaturn or Chronos, 98\n\nSavage, the aboriginal, 28\n\nScarecrow, significance of the, 46\n\nSceptical goose-cackle, 51\n\nScepticism, a spiritual paralysis, 398-405, 433\n\nSchlegel, August Wilhelm, 341\n\nSchool education, insignificance of, 78, 80;\n  tin-kettle terrors and incitements, 78;\n  need of Soul-Architects, 80\n\nScience, the Torch of, 1;\n  the Scientific Head, 51\n\nScotland awakened into life by Knox, 374\n\nSecrecy, benignant efficacies of, 164\n\nSecret, the open, 313\n\nSeid, Mahomet's slave and friend, 293, 306\n\nSelf-activity, 20\n\nSelf-annihilation, 141\n\nShakspeare and the Elizabethan Era, 334;\n  his all-sufficing intellect, 335, 338;\n  his Characters, 337;\n  his Dramas, a part of Nature herself, 340;\n  his joyful tranquillity, and overflowing love of laughter, 340;\n  his hearty Patriotism, 342;\n  glimpses of the world that was in him, 342;\n  a heaven-sent Light-Bringer, 343;\n  a King of Saxondom, 345\n\nShame, divine, mysterious growth of, 30;\n  the soil of all Virtue, 165\n\nShekinah, Man the true, 247\n\nSilence, 135;\n  the element in which all great things fashion themselves, 164;\n  the great empires of, 333, 449\n\nSimon's, Saint-, aphorism of the golden age, 178;\n  a false application, 223\n\nSincerity, better than gracefulness, 267;\n  the first characteristic of heroism and originality, 280, 289, 356,\n          358, 384\n\nSmoke, advantage of consuming one's, 114\n\nSnorro, his description of Odin, 260, 264, 268\n\nSociety founded upon Cloth, 38, 45, 47;\n  how Society becomes possible, 162;\n  social Death and New-Birth, 163, 178, 183, 201;\n  as good as extinct, 174\n\nSolitude. _See_ Silence.\n\nSorrow-pangs of Self-deliverance, 115, 120, 121;\n  divine depths of Sorrow, 143;\n  Worship of Sorrow, 146\n\nSouthey, and Literature, 396\n\nSpace and Time, the Dream-Canvas upon which Life is imaged, 40, 49,\n          192, 195\n\nSpartan wisdom, 172\n\nSpeculative intuition, 38.\n  _See_ German.\n\nSpeech, great, but not greatest, 164\n\nSphinx-riddle, the Universe a, 97\n\nStar worship, 247, 283\n\nStealing, 151, 172\n\nStupidity, blessings of, 123\n\nStyle, varieties of, 54\n\nSuicide, 126\n\nSummary, 231\n\nSunset, 70, 116\n\nSwallows, migrations and co-operative instincts of, 72\n\nSwineherd, the, 70\n\nSymbols, 163;\n  wondrous agency of, 164;\n  extrinsic and intrinsic, 167;\n  superannuated, 169, 175\n\n\nTABUC, the War of, 306\n\nTailors, symbolic significance of, 217\n\nTemptations in the wilderness, 138\n\nTestimonies of Authors, 227\n\nTetzel, the Monk, 362, 363\n\nTeufelsdroeckh's Philosophy of Clothes, 4;\n  he proposes a toast, 10;\n  his personal aspect, and silent deep-seated Sansculottism, 11;\n  thawed into speech, 13;\n  memorable watch-tower utterances, 14;\n  alone with the Stars, 16;\n  extremely miscellaneous environment, 17;\n  plainness of speech, 21;\n  universal learning, and multiplex literary style, 22;\n  ambiguous-looking morality, 23;\n  one instance of laughter, 24;\n  almost total want of arrangement, 25;\n  feeling of the ludicrous, 36;\n  speculative Radicalism, 47;\n  a singular Character, 58;\n  Genesis properly an Exodus, 62;\n  unprecedented Name, 65;\n  infantine experience, 66;\n  Pedagogy, 76;\n  an almost Hindoo Passivity, 76;\n  schoolboy jostling, 79;\n  heterogeneous University  Life, 83;\n  fever-paroxysms of Doubt, 87;\n  first practical knowledge of the English, 88;\n  getting under way, 90;\n  ill success, 94;\n  glimpse of high life, 96;\n  casts himself on the Universe, 101;\n  reverent feeling towards Women, 102;\n  frantically in love, 104;\n  first interview with Blumine, 106;\n  inspired moments, 108;\n  short of practical kitchen-stuff, 111;\n  ideal bliss and actual catastrophe, 112;\n  sorrows and peripatetic stoicism, 113;\n  a parting glimpse of his Beloved on her way to England, 116;\n  how he overran the whole earth, 118;\n  Doubt darkened unto Unbelief, 122;\n  love of Truth, 124;\n  a feeble unit, amidst a threatening Infinitude, 125;\n  Baphometic Fire-baptism, 128;\n  placid indifference, 129;\n  a Hyperborean intruder, 136;\n  Nothingness of life, 138;\n  Temptations in the wilderness, 138;\n  dawning of a better day, 141;\n  the Ideal in the Actual, 148;\n  finds his true Calling, 149;\n  his Biography a symbolic Adumbration, significant to those who can\n          decipher it, 152;\n  a wonder-lover, seeker and worker, 156;\n  in Monmouth Street among the Hebrews, 181;\n  concluding hints, 219;\n  his public History not yet done, perhaps the better part only\n          beginning, 223\n\nTheocracy, a, striven for by all true Reformers, 382, 451\n\nThinking Man, a, the worst enemy of the Prince of Darkness, 91, 150;\n  true Thought can never die, 185\n\nThor, and his adventures, 255, 271-274;\n  his last appearance, 275\n\nThought, miraculous influence of, 258, 266, 393;\n  _musical_ Thought, 316\n\nThunder. _See_ Thor.\n\nTime, the great mystery of, 246\n\nTime-Spirit, life-battle with the, 65, 98;\n  Time, the universal wonder-hider, 197\n\nTitles of Honour, 186\n\nTolerance, true and false, 368, 379\n\nTools, influence of, 30;\n  the Pen, most miraculous of tools, 150\n\nTrial by Jury, Burke's opinion of, 422\n\nTurenne, 312\n\n\nUNBELIEF, era of, 86, 112;\n  Doubt darkening into, 121;\n  escape from, 139\n\nUniversities, 83, 389\n\nUtgard, Thor's expedition to, 273, 274\n\nUtilitarianism, 121, 176\n\n\nVALKYRS, the, 267, 268\n\nValour, the basis of all virtue, 268, 271;\n  Norse consecration of, 276;\n  Christian Valour, 351\n\n_Vates_, the, 313, 314, 317\n\nView-hunting and diseased Self-consciousness, 117\n\nVoltaire, 146;\n  the Parisian Divinity, 189;\n  Voltaire-worship, 251, 252\n\n\nWAR, 131\n\nWisdom, 50\n\nWish, the Norse god, 255;\n  enlarged into a heaven by Mahomet, 310\n\nWoman's influence, 102\n\nWonder the basis of Worship, 50;\n  region of, 51\n\nWords, slavery to, 40;\n  Word-mongering and Motive-grinding, 123\n\nWorkshop of Life, 149.\n  _See_ Labour.\n\nWorms, Luther at, 364\n\nWorship, transcendent wonder, 247.\n  _See_ Hero-worship.\n\n\nYOUNG Men and Maidens, 97\n\n\nZEMZEM, the sacred Well, 284\n\n\n\n\nTHE END","title":"Sartor Resartus, and  On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":178410}