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diff --git a/old/1051.txt b/old/1051.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed12511 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1051.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8308 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sartor Resartus, by Thomas Carlyle + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sartor Resartus + The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh + +Author: Thomas Carlyle + +Posting Date: August 5, 2008 [EBook #1051] +Release Date: September, 1997 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARTOR RESARTUS *** + + + + +Produced by Ron Burkey + + + + + +SARTOR RESARTUS: + +The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh + +By Thomas Carlyle. + +1831 + + + + +BOOK I. + + + +CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY. + +Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch +of Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or +less effect, for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these times +especially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely +than ever, but innumerable Rushlights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled +thereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest +cranny or dog-hole in Nature or Art can remain unilluminated,--it might +strike the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little or +nothing of a fundamental character, whether in the way of Philosophy or +History, has been written on the subject of Clothes. + +Our Theory of Gravitation is as good as perfect: Lagrange, it is well +known, has proved that the Planetary System, on this scheme, will endure +forever; Laplace, still more cunningly, even guesses that it could not +have been made on any other scheme. Whereby, at least, our nautical +Logbooks can be better kept; and water-transport of all kinds has grown +more commodious. Of Geology and Geognosy we know enough: what with the +labors of our Werners and Huttons, what with the ardent genius of their +disciples, it has come about that now, to many a Royal Society, the +Creation of a World is little more mysterious than the cooking of a +dumpling; concerning which last, indeed, there have been minds to whom +the question, _How the apples were got in_, presented difficulties. Why +mention our disquisitions on the Social Contract, on the Standard of +Taste, on the Migrations of the Herring? Then, have we not a Doctrine +of Rent, a Theory of Value; Philosophies of Language, of History, of +Pottery, of Apparitions, of Intoxicating Liquors? Man's whole life and +environment have been laid open and elucidated; scarcely a fragment +or fibre of his Soul, Body, and Possessions, but has been probed, +dissected, distilled, desiccated, and scientifically decomposed: our +spiritual Faculties, of which it appears there are not a few, have their +Stewarts, Cousins, Royer Collards: every cellular, vascular, muscular +Tissue glories in its Lawrences, Majendies, Bichats. + +How, then, comes it, may the reflective mind repeat, that the grand +Tissue of all Tissues, the only real Tissue, should have been quite +overlooked by Science,--the vestural Tissue, namely, of woollen or +other cloth; which Man's Soul wears as its outmost wrappage and overall; +wherein his whole other Tissues are included and screened, his whole +Faculties work, his whole Self lives, moves, and has its being? For if, +now and then, some straggling broken-winged thinker has cast an owl's +glance into this obscure region, the most have soared over it altogether +heedless; regarding Clothes as a property, not an accident, as quite +natural and spontaneous, like the leaves of trees, like the plumage of +birds. In all speculations they have tacitly figured man as _a Clothed +Animal_; whereas he is by nature a _Naked Animal_; and only in certain +circumstances, by purpose and device, masks himself in Clothes. +Shakespeare says, we are creatures that look before and after: the more +surprising that we do not look round a little, and see what is passing +under our very eyes. + +But here, as in so many other cases, Germany, learned, indefatigable, +deep-thinking Germany comes to our aid. It is, after all, a blessing +that, in these revolutionary times, there should be one country where +abstract Thought can still take shelter; that while the din and frenzy +of Catholic Emancipations, and Rotten Boroughs, and Revolts of Paris, +deafen every French and every English ear, the German can stand peaceful +on his scientific watch-tower; and, to the raging, struggling multitude +here and elsewhere, solemnly, from hour to hour, with preparatory blast +of cow-horn, emit his _Horet ihr Herren und lasset's Euch sagen_; in +other words, tell the Universe, which so often forgets that fact, what +o'clock it really is. Not unfrequently the Germans have been blamed for +an unprofitable diligence; as if they struck into devious courses, where +nothing was to be had but the toil of a rough journey; as if, forsaking +the gold-mines of finance and that political slaughter of fat oxen +whereby a man himself grows fat, they were apt to run goose-hunting into +regions of bilberries and crowberries, and be swallowed up at last +in remote peat-bogs. Of that unwise science, which, as our Humorist +expresses it, + + "By geometric scale + Doth take the size of pots of ale;" + +still more, of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seen +vigorously thrashing mere straw, there can nothing defensive be said. +In so far as the Germans are chargeable with such, let them take the +consequence. Nevertheless be it remarked, that even a Russian steppe +has tumult and gold ornaments; also many a scene that looks desert and +rock-bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited, +into rare valleys. Nay, in any case, would Criticism erect not only +finger-posts and turnpikes, but spiked gates and impassable barriers, +for the mind of man? It is written, "Many shall run to and fro, and +knowledge shall be increased." Surely the plain rule is, Let each +considerate person have his way, and see what it will lead to. For not +this man and that man, but all men make up mankind, and their united +tasks the task of mankind. How often have we seen some such adventurous, +and perhaps much-censured wanderer light on some out-lying, neglected, +yet vitally momentous province; the hidden treasures of which he first +discovered, and kept proclaiming till the general eye and effort were +directed thither, and the conquest was completed;--thereby, in these +his seemingly so aimless rambles, planting new standards, founding +new habitable colonies, in the immeasurable circumambient realm of +Nothingness and Night! Wise man was he who counselled that Speculation +should have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-two +points of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed. + + +Perhaps it is proof of the stunted condition in which pure Science, +especially pure moral Science, languishes among us English; and how +our mercantile greatness, and invaluable Constitution, impressing a +political or other immediately practical tendency on all English +culture and endeavor, cramps the free flight of Thought,--that this, +not Philosophy of Clothes, but recognition even that we have no such +Philosophy, stands here for the first time published in our language. +What English intellect could have chosen such a topic, or by chance +stumbled on it? But for that same unshackled, and even sequestered +condition of the German Learned, which permits and induces them to fish +in all manner of waters, with all manner of nets, it seems probable +enough, this abtruse Inquiry might, in spite of the results it leads +to, have continued dormant for indefinite periods. The Editor of these +sheets, though otherwise boasting himself a man of confirmed speculative +habits, and perhaps discursive enough, is free to confess, that never, +till these last months, did the above very plain considerations, on our +total want of a Philosophy of Clothes, occur to him; and then, by quite +foreign suggestion. By the arrival, namely, of a new Book from Professor +Teufelsdrockh of Weissnichtwo; treating expressly of this subject, +and in a style which, whether understood or not, could not even by the +blindest be overlooked. In the present Editor's way of thought, this +remarkable Treatise, with its Doctrines, whether as judicially acceded +to, or judicially denied, has not remained without effect. + +"_Die Kleider, ihr Werden und Wirken_ (Clothes, their Origin and +Influence): _von Diog. Teufelsdrockh, J. U. D. etc. Stillschweigen und +Cognie. Weissnichtwo_, 1831. + +"Here," says the _Weissnichtwo'sche Anzeiger_, "comes a Volume of that +extensive, close-printed, close-meditated sort, which, be it spoken with +pride, is seen only in Germany, perhaps only in Weissnichtwo. Issuing +from the hitherto irreproachable Firm of Stillschweigen and Company, +with every external furtherance, it is of such internal quality as +to set Neglect at defiance.... A work," concludes the well-nigh +enthusiastic Reviewer, "interesting alike to the antiquary, the +historian, and the philosophic thinker; a masterpiece of boldness, +lynx-eyed acuteness, and rugged independent Germanism and Philanthropy +(_derber Kerndeutschheit und Menschenliebe_); which will not, assuredly, +pass current without opposition in high places; but must and will exalt +the almost new name of Teufelsdrockh to the first ranks of Philosophy, +in our German Temple of Honor." + +Mindful of old friendship, the distinguished Professor, in this the +first blaze of his fame, which however does not dazzle him, sends hither +a Presentation-copy of his Book; with compliments and encomiums which +modesty forbids the present Editor to rehearse; yet without indicated +wish or hope of any kind, except what may be implied in the concluding +phrase: _Mochte es_ (this remarkable Treatise) _auch im Brittischen +Boden gedeihen_! + + + +CHAPTER II. EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. + +If for a speculative man, "whose seedfield," in the sublime words of the +Poet, "is Time," no conquest is important but that of new ideas, then +might the arrival of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Book be marked with +chalk in the Editor's calendar. It is indeed an "extensive Volume," of +boundless, almost formless contents, a very Sea of Thought; neither calm +nor clear, if you will; yet wherein the toughest pearl-diver may dive +to his utmost depth, and return not only with sea-wreck but with true +orients. + +Directly on the first perusal, almost on the first deliberate +inspection, it became apparent that here a quite new Branch of +Philosophy, leading to as yet undescried ulterior results, was +disclosed; farther, what seemed scarcely less interesting, a quite new +human Individuality, an almost unexampled personal character, that, +namely, of Professor Teufelsdrockh the Discloser. Of both which +novelties, as far as might be possible, we resolved to master the +significance. But as man is emphatically a proselytizing creature, no +sooner was such mastery even fairly attempted, than the new question +arose: How might this acquired good be imparted to others, perhaps in +equal need thereof; how could the Philosophy of Clothes, and the Author +of such Philosophy, be brought home, in any measure, to the business and +bosoms of our own English Nation? For if new-got gold is said to burn +the pockets till it be cast forth into circulation, much more may new +truth. + +Here, however, difficulties occurred. The first thought naturally was to +publish Article after Article on this remarkable Volume, in such widely +circulating Critical Journals as the Editor might stand connected with, +or by money or love procure access to. But, on the other hand, was it +not clear that such matter as must here be revealed, and treated of, +might endanger the circulation of any Journal extant? If, indeed, all +party-divisions in the State could have been abolished, Whig, Tory, +and Radical, embracing in discrepant union; and all the Journals of the +Nation could have been jumbled into one Journal, and the Philosophy of +Clothes poured forth in incessant torrents therefrom, the attempt had +seemed possible. But, alas, what vehicle of that sort have we, except +_Fraser's Magazine_? A vehicle all strewed (figuratively speaking) +with the maddest Waterloo-Crackers, exploding distractively and +destructively, wheresoever the mystified passenger stands or sits; +nay, in any case, understood to be, of late years, a vehicle full to +overflowing, and inexorably shut! Besides, to state the Philosophy of +Clothes without the Philosopher, the ideas of Teufelsdrockh without +something of his personality, was it not to insure both of entire +misapprehension? Now for Biography, had it been otherwise admissible, +there were no adequate documents, no hope of obtaining such, but rather, +owing to circumstances, a special despair. Thus did the Editor see +himself, for the while, shut out from all public utterance of these +extraordinary Doctrines, and constrained to revolve them, not without +disquietude, in the dark depths of his own mind. + +So had it lasted for some months; and now the Volume on Clothes, read +and again read, was in several points becoming lucid and lucent; the +personality of its Author more and more surprising, but, in spite of all +that memory and conjecture could do, more and more enigmatic; whereby +the old disquietude seemed fast settling into fixed discontent,--when +altogether unexpectedly arrives a Letter from Herr Hofrath Heuschrecke, +our Professor's chief friend and associate in Weissnichtwo, with whom +we had not previously corresponded. The Hofrath, after much quite +extraneous matter, began dilating largely on the "agitation and +attention" which the Philosophy of Clothes was exciting in its own +German Republic of Letters; on the deep significance and tendency of his +Friend's Volume; and then, at length, with great circumlocution, hinted +at the practicability of conveying "some knowledge of it, and of him, to +England, and through England to the distant West:" a work on Professor +Teufelsdrockh "were undoubtedly welcome to the _Family_, the _National_, +or any other of those patriotic _Libraries_, at present the glory +of British Literature;" might work revolutions in Thought; and so +forth;--in conclusion, intimating not obscurely, that should the present +Editor feel disposed to undertake a Biography of Teufelsdrockh, he, +Hofrath Heuschrecke, had it in his power to furnish the requisite +Documents. + +As in some chemical mixture, that has stood long evaporating, but would +not crystallize, instantly when the wire or other fixed substance is +introduced, crystallization commences, and rapidly proceeds till the +whole is finished, so was it with the Editor's mind and this offer of +Heuschrecke's. Form rose out of void solution and discontinuity; like +united itself with like in definite arrangement: and soon either in +actual vision and possession, or in fixed reasonable hope, the image of +the whole Enterprise had shaped itself, so to speak, into a solid mass. +Cautiously yet courageously, through the twopenny post, application +to the famed redoubtable OLIVER YORKE was now made: an interview, +interviews with that singular man have taken place; with more of +assurance on our side, with less of satire (at least of open satire) +on his, than we anticipated; for the rest, with such issue as is now +visible. As to those same "patriotic _Libraries_," the Hofrath's counsel +could only be viewed with silent amazement; but with his offer of +Documents we joyfully and almost instantaneously closed. Thus, too, in +the sure expectation of these, we already see our task begun; and this +our _Sartor Resartus_, which is properly a "Life and Opinions of Herr +Teufelsdrockh," hourly advancing. + + +Of our fitness for the Enterprise, to which we have such title and +vocation, it were perhaps uninteresting to say more. Let the British +reader study and enjoy, in simplicity of heart, what is here presented +him, and with whatever metaphysical acumen and talent for meditation he +is possessed of. Let him strive to keep a free, open sense; cleared +from the mists of prejudice, above all from the paralysis of cant; and +directed rather to the Book itself than to the Editor of the Book. +Who or what such Editor may be, must remain conjectural, and even +insignificant: [*] it is a voice publishing tidings of the Philosophy of +Clothes; undoubtedly a Spirit addressing Spirits: whoso hath ears, let +him hear. + + * With us even he still communicates in some sort of mask, + or muffler; and, we have reason to think, under a feigned + name!--O. Y. + +On one other point the Editor thinks it needful to give warning: namely, +that he is animated with a true though perhaps a feeble attachment to +the Institutions of our Ancestors; and minded to defend these, according +to ability, at all hazards; nay, it was partly with a view to such +defence that he engaged in this undertaking. To stem, or if that be +impossible, profitably to divert the current of Innovation, such a +Volume as Teufelsdrockh's, if cunningly planted down, were no despicable +pile, or floodgate, in the logical wear. + +For the rest, be it nowise apprehended, that any personal connection of +ours with Teufelsdrockh, Heuschrecke or this Philosophy of Clothes, can +pervert our judgment, or sway us to extenuate or exaggerate. Powerless, +we venture to promise, are those private Compliments themselves. +Grateful they may well be; as generous illusions of friendship; as fair +mementos of bygone unions, of those nights and suppers of the gods, +when, lapped in the symphonies and harmonies of Philosophic Eloquence, +though with baser accompaniments, the present Editor revelled in that +feast of reason, never since vouchsafed him in so full measure! But what +then? _Amicus Plato, magis amica veritas_; Teufelsdrockh is our friend, +Truth is our divinity. In our historical and critical capacity, we hope +we are strangers to all the world; have feud or favor with no one,--save +indeed the Devil, with whom, as with the Prince of Lies and Darkness, we +do at all times wage internecine war. This assurance, at an epoch when +puffery and quackery have reached a height unexampled in the annals of +mankind, and even English Editors, like Chinese Shopkeepers, must +write on their door-lintels _No cheating here_,--we thought it good to +premise. + + + +CHAPTER III. REMINISCENCES. + +To the Author's private circle the appearance of this singular Work on +Clothes must have occasioned little less surprise than it has to the +rest of the world. For ourselves, at least, few things have been more +unexpected. Professor Teufelsdrockh, at the period of our acquaintance +with him, seemed to lead a quite still and self-contained life: a man +devoted to the higher Philosophies, indeed; yet more likely, if he +published at all, to publish a refutation of Hegel and Bardili, both of +whom, strangely enough, he included under a common ban; than to descend, +as he has here done, into the angry noisy Forum, with an Argument that +cannot but exasperate and divide. Not, that we can remember, was the +Philosophy of Clothes once touched upon between us. If through the +high, silent, meditative Transcendentalism of our Friend we detected +any practical tendency whatever, it was at most Political, and towards a +certain prospective, and for the present quite speculative, Radicalism; +as indeed some correspondence, on his part, with Herr Oken of Jena was +now and then suspected; though his special contributions to the _Isis_ +could never be more than surmised at. But, at all events, nothing Moral, +still less anything Didactico-Religious, was looked for from him. + +Well do we recollect the last words he spoke in our hearing; which +indeed, with the Night they were uttered in, are to be forever +remembered. Lifting his huge tumbler of _Gukguk_, [*] and for a moment +lowering his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full Coffee-house (it was _Zur +Grunen Gans_, the largest in Weissnichtwo, where all the Virtuosity, +and nearly all the Intellect of the place assembled of an evening); and +there, with low, soul-stirring tone, and the look truly of an angel, +though whether of a white or of a black one might be dubious, proposed +this toast: _Die Sache der Armen in Gottes und Teufels Namen_ (The Cause +of the Poor, in Heaven's name and--'s)! One full shout, breaking the +leaden silence; then a gurgle of innumerable emptying bumpers, again +followed by universal cheering, returned him loud acclaim. It was the +finale of the night: resuming their pipes; in the highest enthusiasm, +amid volumes of tobacco-smoke; triumphant, cloud-capt without and +within, the assembly broke up, each to his thoughtful pillow. _Bleibt +doch ein echter Spass_- _und Galgen-vogel_, said several; meaning +thereby that, one day, he would probably be hanged for his democratic +sentiments. _Wo steckt doch der Schalk_? added they, looking round: but +Teufelsdrockh had retired by private alleys, and the Compiler of these +pages beheld him no more. + + * Gukguk is unhappily only an academical-beer. + +In such scenes has it been our lot to live with this Philosopher, +such estimate to form of his purposes and powers. And yet, thou brave +Teufelsdrockh, who could tell what lurked in thee? Under those thick +locks of thine, so long and lank, overlapping roof-wise the gravest face +we ever in this world saw, there dwelt a most busy brain. In thy eyes +too, deep under their shaggy brows, and looking out so still and dreamy, +have we not noticed gleams of an ethereal or else a diabolic fire, and +half fancied that their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion, +the _sleep_ of a spinning-top? Thy little figure, there as, in loose +ill-brushed threadbare habiliments, thou sattest, amid litter and +lumber, whole days, to "think and smoke tobacco," held in it a mighty +heart. The secrets of man's Life were laid open to thee; thou sawest +into the mystery of the Universe, farther than another; thou hadst _in +petto_ thy remarkable Volume on Clothes. Nay, was there not in that +clear logically founded Transcendentalism of thine; still more, in thy +meek, silent, deep-seated Sansculottism, combined with a true princely +Courtesy of inward nature, the visible rudiments of such speculation? +But great men are too often unknown, or what is worse, misknown. +Already, when we dreamed not of it, the warp of thy remarkable Volume +lay on the loom; and silently, mysterious shuttles were putting in the +woof. + + +How the Hofrath Heuschrecke is to furnish biographical data, in this +case, may be a curious question; the answer of which, however, is +happily not our concern, but his. To us it appeared, after repeated +trial, that in Weissnichtwo, from the archives or memories of the +best-informed classes, no Biography of Teufelsdrockh was to be gathered; +not so much as a false one. He was a stranger there, wafted thither by +what is called the course of circumstances; concerning whose parentage, +birthplace, prospects, or pursuits, curiosity had indeed made inquiries, +but satisfied herself with the most indistinct replies. For himself, he +was a man so still and altogether unparticipating, that to question +him even afar off on such particulars was a thing of more than usual +delicacy: besides, in his sly way, he had ever some quaint turn, not +without its satirical edge, wherewith to divert such intrusions, and +deter you from the like. Wits spoke of him secretly as if he were a kind +of Melchizedek, without father or mother of any kind; sometimes, with +reference to his great historic and statistic knowledge, and the +vivid way he had of expressing himself like an eye-witness of distant +transactions and scenes, they called him the _Ewige Jude_, Everlasting, +or as we say, Wandering Jew. + +To the most, indeed, he had become not so much a Man as a Thing; which +Thing doubtless they were accustomed to see, and with satisfaction; +but no more thought of accounting for than for the fabrication of their +daily _Allgemeine Zeitung_, or the domestic habits of the Sun. Both were +there and welcome; the world enjoyed what good was in them, and thought +no more of the matter. The man Teufelsdrockh passed and repassed, in his +little circle, as one of those originals and nondescripts, more frequent +in German Universities than elsewhere; of whom, though you see them +alive, and feel certain enough that they must have a History, no History +seems to be discoverable; or only such as men give of mountain rocks and +antediluvian ruins: That they have been created by unknown agencies, +are in a state of gradual decay, and for the present reflect light +and resist pressure; that is, are visible and tangible objects in this +phantasm world, where so much other mystery is. + +It was to be remarked that though, by title and diploma, _Professor der +Allerley-Wissenschaft_, or as we should say in English, "Professor of +Things in General," he had never delivered any Course; perhaps never +been incited thereto by any public furtherance or requisition. To all +appearance, the enlightened Government of Weissnichtwo, in founding +their New University, imagined they had done enough, if "in times like +ours," as the half-official Program expressed it, "when all things are, +rapidly or slowly, resolving themselves into Chaos, a Professorship of +this kind had been established; whereby, as occasion called, the task +of bodying somewhat forth again from such Chaos might be, even slightly, +facilitated." That actual Lectures should be held, and Public Classes +for the "Science of Things in General," they doubtless considered +premature; on which ground too they had only established the +Professorship, nowise endowed it; so that Teufelsdrockh, "recommended by +the highest Names," had been promoted thereby to a Name merely. + +Great, among the more enlightened classes, was the admiration of this +new Professorship: how an enlightened Government had seen into the Want +of the Age (_Zeitbedurfniss_); how at length, instead of Denial +and Destruction, we were to have a science of Affirmation and +Reconstruction; and Germany and Weissnichtwo were where they should be, +in the vanguard of the world. Considerable also was the wonder at the +new Professor, dropt opportunely enough into the nascent University; so +able to lecture, should occasion call; so ready to hold his peace for +indefinite periods, should an enlightened Government consider that +occasion did not call. But such admiration and such wonder, being +followed by no act to keep them living, could last only nine days; +and, long before our visit to that scene, had quite died away. The more +cunning heads thought it was all an expiring clutch at popularity, on +the part of a Minister, whom domestic embarrassments, court intrigues, +old age, and dropsy soon afterwards finally drove from the helm. + +As for Teufelsdrockh, except by his nightly appearances at the _Grune +Gans_, Weissnichtwo saw little of him, felt little of him. Here, +over his tumbler of Gukguk, he sat reading Journals; sometimes +contemplatively looking into the clouds of his tobacco-pipe, without +other visible employment: always, from his mild ways, an agreeable +phenomenon there; more especially when he opened his lips for speech; on +which occasions the whole Coffee-house would hush itself into silence, +as if sure to hear something noteworthy. Nay, perhaps to hear a whole +series and river of the most memorable utterances; such as, when once +thawed, he would for hours indulge in, with fit audience: and the more +memorable, as issuing from a head apparently not more interested in +them, not more conscious of them, than is the sculptured stone head of +some public fountain, which through its brass mouth-tube emits water to +the worthy and the unworthy; careless whether it be for cooking +victuals or quenching conflagrations; indeed, maintains the same earnest +assiduous look, whether any water be flowing or not. + +To the Editor of these sheets, as to a young enthusiastic Englishman, +however unworthy, Teufelsdrockh opened himself perhaps more than to the +most. Pity only that we could not then half guess his importance, and +scrutinize him with due power of vision! We enjoyed, what not three +men Weissnichtwo could boast of, a certain degree of access to the +Professor's private domicile. It was the attic floor of the highest +house in the Wahngasse; and might truly be called the pinnacle +of Weissnichtwo, for it rose sheer up above the contiguous roofs, +themselves rising from elevated ground. Moreover, with its windows it +looked towards all the four _Orte_ or as the Scotch say, and we ought to +say, _Airts_: the sitting room itself commanded three; another came to +view in the _Schlafgemach_ (bedroom) at the opposite end; to say nothing +of the kitchen, which offered two, as it were, _duplicates_, showing +nothing new. So that it was in fact the speculum or watch-tower of +Teufelsdrockh; wherefrom, sitting at ease he might see the whole +life-circulation of that considerable City; the streets and lanes of +which, with all their doing and driving (_Thun und Treiben_), were for +the most part visible there. + +"I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive," we have heard him +say, "and witness their wax-laying and honey-making, and poison-brewing, +and choking by sulphur. From the Palace esplanade, where music plays +while Serene Highness is pleased to eat his victuals, down to the +low lane, where in her door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thin +livelihood sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see it all; for, except +Schlosskirche weather-cock, no biped stands so high. Couriers arrive +bestrapped and bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged up in pouches +of leather: there, top-laden, and with four swift horses, rolls in the +country Baron and his household; here, on timber-leg, the lamed Soldier +hops painfully along, begging alms: a thousand carriages, and wains, +cars, come tumbling in with Food, with young Rusticity, and other Raw +Produce, inanimate or animate, and go tumbling out again with produce +manufactured. That living flood, pouring through these streets, of all +qualities and ages, knowest thou whence it is coming, whither it is +going? _Aus der Ewigkeit, zu der Ewigkeit hin_: From Eternity, onwards +to Eternity! These are Apparitions: what else? Are they not Souls +rendered visible: in Bodies, that took shape and will lose it, melting +into air? Their solid Pavement is a Picture of the Sense; they walk +on the bosom of Nothing, blank Time is behind them and before them. Or +fanciest thou, the red and yellow Clothes-screen yonder, with spurs +on its heels and feather in its crown, is but of To-day, without a +Yesterday or a To-morrow; and had not rather its Ancestor alive when +Hengst and Horsa overran thy Island? Friend, thou seest here a living +link in that Tissue of History, which inweaves all Being: watch well, or +it will be past thee, and seen no more." + +"_Ach, mein Lieber_!" said he once, at midnight, when we had returned +from the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, "it is a true sublimity to +dwell here. These fringes of lamplight, struggling up through smoke and +thousand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, +what thinks Bootes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the Zenith +in their leash of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, when +Traffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still +rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to +Halls roofed in, and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only Vice +and Misery, to prowl or to moan like nightbirds, are abroad: that hum, +I say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard in +Heaven! Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapors, and putrefactions, +and unimaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid! +The joyful and the sorrowful are there; men are dying there, men are +being born; men are praying,--on the other side of a brick partition, +men are cursing; and around them all is the vast, void Night. The proud +Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within +damask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into buckle-beds, or shivers +hunger-stricken into its lair of straw: in obscure cellars, +_Rouge-et-Noir_ languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry +Villains; while Councillors of State sit plotting, and playing their +high chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The Lover whispers his +mistress that the coach is ready; and she, full of hope and fear, glides +down, to fly with him over the borders: the Thief, still more silently, +sets to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen +first snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and +dancing-rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling hearts; +but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous and +faint, and bloodshot eyes look out through the darkness, which is around +and within, for the light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be +hanged on the morrow: comes no hammering from the _Rabenstein_?--their +gallows must even now be o' building. Upwards of five hundred thousand +two-legged animals without feathers lie round us, in horizontal +position; their heads all in nightcaps, and full of the foolishest +dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his rank dens of +shame; and the Mother, with streaming hair, kneels over her pallid dying +infant, whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten.--All these heaped +and huddled together, with nothing but a little carpentry and masonry +between them;--crammed in, like salted fish in their barrel;--or +weltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each +struggling to get its _head above_ the others: _such_ work goes on under +that smoke-counterpane!--But I, _mein Werther_, sit above it all; I am +alone with the stars." + +We looked in his face to see whether, in the utterance of such +extraordinary Night-thoughts, no feeling might be traced there; but with +the light we had, which indeed was only a single tallow-light, and far +enough from the window, nothing save that old calmness and fixedness was +visible. + +These were the Professor's talking seasons: most commonly he spoke +in mere monosyllables, or sat altogether silent and smoked; while the +visitor had liberty either to say what he listed, receiving for answer +an occasional grunt; or to look round for a space, and then take himself +away. It was a strange apartment; full of books and tattered papers, and +miscellaneous shreds of all conceivable substances, "united in a common +element of dust." Books lay on tables, and below tables; here fluttered +a sheet of manuscript, there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap hastily +thrown aside; ink-bottles alternated with bread-crusts, coffee-pots, +tobacco-boxes, Periodical Literature, and Blucher Boots. Old Lieschen +(Lisekin, 'Liza), who was his bed-maker and stove-lighter, his washer +and wringer, cook, errand-maid, and general lion's-provider, and for the +rest a very orderly creature, had no sovereign authority in this last +citadel of Teufelsdrockh; only some once in the month she half-forcibly +made her way thither, with broom and duster, and (Teufelsdrockh hastily +saving his manuscripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery +of such lumber as was not Literary. These were her _Erdbeben_ +(earthquakes), which Teufelsdrockh dreaded worse than the pestilence; +nevertheless, to such length he had been forced to comply. Glad would +he have been to sit here philosophizing forever, or till the litter, by +accumulation, drove him out of doors: but Lieschen was his right-arm, +and spoon, and necessary of life, and would not be flatly gainsayed. We +can still remember the ancient woman; so silent that some thought her +dumb; deaf also you would often have supposed her; for Teufelsdrockh, +and Teufelsdrockh only, would she serve or give heed to; and with him +she seemed to communicate chiefly by signs; if it were not rather by +some secret divination that she guessed all his wants, and supplied +them. Assiduous old dame! she scoured, and sorted, and swept, in her +kitchen, with the least possible violence to the ear; yet all was tight +and right there: hot and black came the coffee ever at the due moment; +and the speechless Lieschen herself looked out on you, from under her +clean white coif with its lappets, through her clean withered face and +wrinkles, with a look of helpful intelligence, almost of benevolence. + +Few strangers, as above hinted, had admittance hither: the only one we +ever saw there, ourselves excepted, was the Hofrath Heuschrecke, already +known, by name and expectation, to the readers of these pages. To us, +at that period, Herr Heuschrecke seemed one of those purse-mouthed, +crane-necked, clean-brushed, pacific individuals, perhaps sufficiently +distinguished in society by this fact, that, in dry weather or in wet, +"they never appear without their umbrella." Had we not known with what +"little wisdom" the world is governed; and how, in Germany as +elsewhere, the ninety-and-nine Public Men can for most part be but mute +train-bearers to the hundredth, perhaps but stalking-horses and willing +or unwilling dupes,--it might have seemed wonderful how Herr Heuschrecke +should be named a _Rath_, or Councillor, and Counsellor, even in +Weissnichtwo. What counsel to any man, or to any woman, could this +particular Hofrath give; in whose loose, zigzag figure; in whose +thin visage, as it went jerking to and fro, in minute incessant +fluctuation,--you traced rather confusion worse confounded; at most, +Timidity and physical Cold? Some indeed said withal, he was "the +very Spirit of Love embodied:" blue earnest eyes, full of sadness and +kindness; purse ever open, and so forth; the whole of which, we shall +now hope, for many reasons, was not quite groundless. Nevertheless +friend Teufelsdrockh's outline, who indeed handled the burin like few +in these cases, was probably the best: _Er hat Gemuth und Geist, +hat wenigstens gehabt, doch ohne Organ, ohne Schicksals-Gunst; ist +gegenwartig aber halb-zerruttet, halb-erstarrt_, "He has heart and +talent, at least has had such, yet without fit mode of utterance, or +favor of Fortune; and so is now half-cracked, half-congealed."--What +the Hofrath shall think of this when he sees it, readers may wonder; we, +safe in the stronghold of Historical Fidelity, are careless. + +The main point, doubtless, for us all, is his love of Teufelsdrockh, +which indeed was also by far the most decisive feature of Heuschrecke +himself. We are enabled to assert that he hung on the Professor with the +fondness of a Boswell for his Johnson. And perhaps with the like return; +for Teufelsdrockh treated his gaunt admirer with little outward regard, +as some half-rational or altogether irrational friend, and at best loved +him out of gratitude and by habit. On the other hand, it was curious to +observe with what reverent kindness, and a sort of fatherly protection, +our Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and as he fondly imagined far +more practically influential of the two, looked and tended on his +little Sage, whom he seemed to consider as a living oracle. Let but +Teufelsdrockh open his mouth, Heuschrecke's also unpuckered itself into +a free doorway, besides his being all eye and all ear, so that nothing +might be lost: and then, at every pause in the harangue, he gurgled out +his pursy chuckle of a cough-laugh (for the machinery of laughter took +some time to get in motion, and seemed crank and slack), or else his +twanging nasal, _Bravo! Das glaub' ich_; in either case, by way of +heartiest approval. In short, if Teufelsdrockh was Dalai-Lama, of which, +except perhaps in his self-seclusion, and godlike indifference, there +was no symptom, then might Heuschrecke pass for his chief Talapoin, to +whom no dough-pill he could knead and publish was other than medicinal +and sacred. + +In such environment, social, domestic, physical, did Teufelsdrockh, at +the time of our acquaintance, and most likely does he still, live and +meditate. Here, perched up in his high Wahngasse watch-tower, and often, +in solitude, outwatching the Bear, it was that the indomitable +Inquirer fought all his battles with Dulness and Darkness; here, in +all probability, that he wrote this surprising Volume on _Clothes_. +Additional particulars: of his age, which was of that standing middle +sort you could only guess at; of his wide surtout; the color of his +trousers, fashion of his broad-brimmed steeple-hat, and so forth, we +might report, but do not. The Wisest truly is, in these times, the +Greatest; so that an enlightened curiosity leaving Kings and such +like to rest very much on their own basis, turns more and more to the +Philosophic Class: nevertheless, what reader expects that, with all our +writing and reporting, Teufelsdrockh could be brought home to him, till +once the Documents arrive? His Life, Fortunes, and Bodily Presence, are +as yet hidden from us, or matter only of faint conjecture. But, on the +other hand, does not his Soul lie enclosed in this remarkable Volume, +much more truly than Pedro Garcia's did in the buried Bag of Doubloons? +To the soul of Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, to his opinions, namely, on the +"Origin and Influence of Clothes," we for the present gladly return. + + + +CHAPTER IV. CHARACTERISTICS. + +It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes +entirely contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like +the very Sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of +genius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled nebulosities amid +its effulgence,--a mixture of insight, inspiration, with dulness, +double-vision, and even utter blindness. + +Without committing ourselves to those enthusiastic praises and +prophesyings of the _Weissnichtwo'sche Anzeiger_, we admitted that the +Book had in a high degree excited us to self-activity, which is the +best effect of any book; that it had even operated changes in our way +of thought; nay, that it promised to prove, as it were, the opening of a +new mine-shaft, wherein the whole world of Speculation might henceforth +dig to unknown depths. More specially may it now be declared that +Professor Teufelsdrockh's acquirements, patience of research, +philosophic and even poetic vigor, are here made indisputably manifest; +and unhappily no less his prolixity and tortuosity and manifold +ineptitude; that, on the whole, as in opening new mine-shafts is +not unreasonable, there is much rubbish in his Book, though likewise +specimens of almost invaluable ore. A paramount popularity in England +we cannot promise him. Apart from the choice of such a topic as Clothes, +too often the manner of treating it betokens in the Author a rusticity +and academic seclusion, unblamable, indeed inevitable in a German, but +fatal to his success with our public. + +Of good society Teufelsdrockh appears to have seen little, or has mostly +forgotten what he saw. He speaks out with a strange plainness; calls +many things by their mere dictionary names. To him the Upholsterer is no +Pontiff, neither is any Drawing-room a Temple, were it never so begilt +and overhung: "a whole immensity of Brussels carpets, and pier-glasses, +and ormolu," as he himself expresses it, "cannot hide from me that +such Drawing-room is simply a section of Infinite Space, where so many +God-created Souls do for the time meet together." To Teufelsdrockh the +highest Duchess is respectable, is venerable; but nowise for her pearl +bracelets and Malines laces: in his eyes, the star of a Lord is little +less and little more than the broad button of Birmingham spelter in a +Clown's smock; "each is an implement," he says, "in its kind; a tag +for _hooking-together_; and, for the rest, was dug from the earth, and +hammered on a stithy before smith's fingers." Thus does the Professor +look in men's faces with a strange impartiality, a strange scientific +freedom; like a man unversed in the higher circles, like a man dropped +thither from the Moon. Rightly considered, it is in this peculiarity, +running through his whole system of thought, that all these +shortcomings, over-shootings, and multiform perversities, take rise: +if indeed they have not a second source, also natural enough, in his +Transcendental Philosophies, and humor of looking at all Matter and +Material things as Spirit; whereby truly his case were but the more +hopeless, the more lamentable. + +To the Thinkers of this nation, however, of which class it is firmly +believed there are individuals yet extant, we can safely recommend the +Work: nay, who knows but among the fashionable ranks too, if it be true, +as Teufelsdrockh maintains, that "within the most starched cravat there +passes a windpipe and weasand, and under the thickliest embroidered +waistcoat beats a heart,"--the force of that rapt earnestness may be +felt, and here and there an arrow of the soul pierce through? In our +wild Seer, shaggy, unkempt, like a Baptist living on locusts and wild +honey, there is an untutored energy, a silent, as it were unconscious, +strength, which, except in the higher walks of Literature, must be rare. +Many a deep glance, and often with unspeakable precision, has he cast +into mysterious Nature, and the still more mysterious Life of Man. +Wonderful it is with what cutting words, now and then, he severs asunder +the confusion; sheers down, were it furlongs deep; into the true centre +of the matter; and there not only hits the nail on the head, but with +crushing force smites it home, and buries it.--On the other hand, let us +be free to admit, he is the most unequal writer breathing. Often after +some such feat, he will play truant for long pages, and go dawdling and +dreaming, and mumbling and maundering the merest commonplaces, as if he +were asleep with eyes open, which indeed he is. + +Of his boundless Learning, and how all reading and literature in most +known tongues, from _Sanchoniathon_ to _Dr. Lingard_, from your Oriental +_Shasters_, and _Talmuds_, and _Korans_, with Cassini's _Siamese +fables_, and Laplace's _Mecanique Celeste_, down to _Robinson Crusoe_ +and the _Belfast Town and Country Almanack_, are familiar to him,--we +shall say nothing: for unexampled as it is with us, to the Germans such +universality of study passes without wonder, as a thing commendable, +indeed, but natural, indispensable, and there of course. A man that +devotes his life to learning, shall he not be learned? + +In respect of style our Author manifests the same genial capability, +marred too often by the same rudeness, inequality, and apparent want of +intercourse with the higher classes. Occasionally, as above hinted, we +find consummate vigor, a true inspiration; his burning thoughts step +forth in fit burning words, like so many full-formed Minervas, issuing +amid flame and splendor from Jove's head; a rich, idiomatic diction, +picturesque allusions, fiery poetic emphasis, or quaint tricksy turns; +all the graces and terrors of a wild Imagination, wedded to the clearest +Intellect, alternate in beautiful vicissitude. Were it not that sheer +sleeping and soporific passages; circumlocutions, repetitions, touches +even of pure doting jargon, so often intervene! On the whole, Professor +Teufelsdrockh, is not a cultivated writer. Of his sentences perhaps not +more than nine-tenths stand straight on their legs; the remainder are +in quite angular attitudes, buttressed up by props (of parentheses and +dashes), and ever with this or the other tagrag hanging from them; a +few even sprawl out helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and +dismembered. Nevertheless, in almost his very worst moods, there lies in +him a singular attraction. A wild tone pervades the whole utterance of +the man, like its keynote and regulator; now screwing itself aloft as +into the Song of Spirits, or else the shrill mockery of Fiends; now +sinking in cadences, not without melodious heartiness, though sometimes +abrupt enough, into the common pitch, when we hear it only as a +monotonous hum; of which hum the true character is extremely difficult +to fix. Up to this hour we have never fully satisfied ourselves whether +it is a tone and hum of real Humor, which we reckon among the very +highest qualities of genius, or some echo of mere Insanity and Inanity, +which doubtless ranks below the very lowest. + +Under a like difficulty, in spite even of our personal intercourse, do +we still lie with regard to the Professor's moral feeling. Gleams of an +ethereal love burst forth from him, soft wailings of infinite pity; +he could clasp the whole Universe into his bosom, and keep it warm; it +seems as if under that rude exterior there dwelt a very seraph. Then +again he is so sly and still, so imperturbably saturnine; shows such +indifference, malign coolness towards all that men strive after; and +ever with some half-visible wrinkle of a bitter sardonic humor, if +indeed it be not mere stolid callousness,--that you look on him almost +with a shudder, as on some incarnate Mephistopheles, to whom this great +terrestrial and celestial Round, after all, were but some huge foolish +Whirligig, where kings and beggars, and angels and demons, and stars and +street-sweepings, were chaotically whirled, in which only children could +take interest. His look, as we mentioned, is probably the gravest ever +seen: yet it is not of that cast-iron gravity frequent enough among +our own Chancery suitors; but rather the gravity as of some silent, +high-encircled mountain-pool, perhaps the crater of an extinct volcano; +into whose black deeps you fear to gaze: those eyes, those lights that +sparkle in it, may indeed be reflexes of the heavenly Stars, but perhaps +also glances from the region of Nether Fire. + +Certainly a most involved, self-secluded, altogether enigmatic nature, +this of Teufelsdrockh! Here, however, we gladly recall to mind that once +we saw him _laugh_; once only, perhaps it was the first and last time in +his life; but then such a peal of laughter, enough to have awakened the +Seven Sleepers! It was of Jean Paul's doing: some single billow in that +vast World-Mahlstrom of Humor, with its heaven-kissing coruscations, +which is now, alas, all congealed in the frost of death! The +large-bodied Poet and the small, both large enough in soul, sat talking +miscellaneously together, the present Editor being privileged to listen; +and now Paul, in his serious way, was giving one of those inimitable +"Extra-Harangues;" and, as it chanced, On the Proposal for a _Cast-metal +King_: gradually a light kindled in our Professor's eyes and face, a +beaming, mantling, loveliest light; through those murky features, a +radiant ever-young Apollo looked; and he burst forth like the neighing +of all Tattersall's,--tears streaming down his cheeks, pipe held aloft, +foot clutched into the air,--loud, long-continuing, uncontrollable; a +laugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the whole man from head +to heel. The present Editor, who laughed indeed, yet with measure, began +to fear all was not right: however, Teufelsdrockh, composed himself, and +sank into his old stillness; on his inscrutable countenance there was, +if anything, a slight look of shame; and Richter himself could not rouse +him again. Readers who have any tincture of Psychology know how much +is to be inferred from this; and that no man who has once heartily and +wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. How much lies in +Laughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man! Some men +wear an everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies a cold +glitter as of ice: the fewest are able to laugh, what can be called +laughing, but only sniff and titter and snigger from the throat +outwards; or at best, produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, as if +they were laughing through wool: of none such comes good. The man who +cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; but +his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem. + +Considered as an Author, Herr Teufelsdrockh has one scarcely pardonable +fault, doubtless his worst: an almost total want of arrangement. In this +remarkable Volume, it is true, his adherence to the mere course of Time +produces, through the Narrative portions, a certain show of outward +method; but of true logical method and sequence there is too little. +Apart from its multifarious sections and subdivisions, the Work +naturally falls into two Parts; a Historical-Descriptive, and a +Philosophical-Speculative: but falls, unhappily, by no firm line of +demarcation; in that labyrinthic combination, each Part overlaps, and +indents, and indeed runs quite through the other. Many sections are of +a debatable rubric, or even quite nondescript and unnamable; whereby the +Book not only loses in accessibility, but too often distresses us like +some mad banquet, wherein all courses had been confounded, and fish and +flesh, soup and solid, oyster-sauce, lettuces, Rhine-wine and French +mustard, were hurled into one huge tureen or trough, and the hungry +Public invited to help itself. To bring what order we can out of this +Chaos shall be part of our endeavor. + + + +CHAPTER V. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. + +"As Montesquieu wrote a _Spirit of Laws_," observes our Professor, "so +could I write a _Spirit of Clothes_; thus, with an _Esprit des +Lois_, properly an _Esprit de Coutumes_, we should have an _Esprit de +Costumes_. For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man +proceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided on by mysterious +operations of the mind. In all his Modes, and habilatory endeavors, an +Architectural Idea will be found lurking; his Body and the Cloth are +the site and materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, of +a Person, is to be built. Whether he flow gracefully out in folded +mantles, based on light sandals; tower up in high headgear, from amid +peaks, spangles and bell-girdles; swell out in starched ruffs, buckram +stuffings, and monstrous tuberosities; or girth himself into separate +sections, and front the world an Agglomeration of four limbs,--will +depend on the nature of such Architectural Idea: whether Grecian, +Gothic, Later Gothic, or altogether Modern, and Parisian or +Anglo-Dandiacal. Again, what meaning lies in Color! From the soberest +drab to the high-flaming scarlet, spiritual idiosyncrasies unfold +themselves in choice of Color: if the Cut betoken Intellect and Talent, +so does the Color betoken Temper and Heart. In all which, among nations +as among individuals, there is an incessant, indubitable, though +infinitely complex working of Cause and Effect: every snip of the +Scissors has been regulated and prescribed by ever-active Influences, +which doubtless to Intelligences of a superior order are neither +invisible nor illegible. + +"For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and-Effect Philosophy of +Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter-evening +entertainment: nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, such +Philosophies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough. Nay, what +is your Montesquieu himself but a clever infant spelling Letters from a +hieroglyphical prophetic Book, the lexicon of which lies in Eternity, +in Heaven?--Let any Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain, not why I wear +such and such a Garment, obey such and such a Law; but even why I am +_here_, to wear and obey anything!--Much, therefore, if not the whole, +of that same _Spirit of Clothes_ I shall suppress, as hypothetical, +ineffectual, and even impertinent: naked Facts, and Deductions drawn +therefrom in quite another than that omniscient style, are my humbler +and proper province." + +Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh, has nevertheless +contrived to take in a well-nigh boundless extent of field; at least, +the boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being +indispensable, we shall here glance over his First Part only in the +most cursory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by +omnivorous learning, and utmost patience and fairness: at the same time, +in its results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the +Compilers of some _Library_ of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even +Useless Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was it +this Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had in view, when he recommended +us to that joint-stock vehicle of publication, "at present the glory of +British Literature"? If so, the Library Editors are welcome to dig in it +for their own behoof. + +To the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig-leaves, and leads +us into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, metaphorical, +cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we shall content +ourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still less have we to do +with "Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, according to the Talmudists, he +had before Eve, and who bore him, in that wedlock, the whole progeny of +aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial Devils,"--very needlessly, we think. +On this portion of the Work, with its profound glances into the +_Adam-Kadmon_, or Primeval Element, here strangely brought into relation +with the _Nifl_ and _Muspel_ (Darkness and Light) of the antique North, +it may be enough to say, that its correctness of deduction, and depth of +Talmudic and Rabbinical lore have filled perhaps not the worst Hebraist +in Britain with something like astonishment. + +But, quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdrockh hastens from the Tower +of Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the whole habitable +and habilable globe. Walking by the light of Oriental, Pelasgic, +Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient and Modern researches of +every conceivable kind, he strives to give us in compressed shape (as +the Nurnbergers give an _Orbis Pictus_) an _Orbis Vestitus_; or view of +the costumes of all mankind, in all countries, in all times. It is here +that to the Antiquarian, to the Historian, we can triumphantly say: +Fall to! Here is learning: an irregular Treasury, if you will; but +inexhaustible as the Hoard of King Nibelung, which twelve wagons in +twelve days, at the rate of three journeys a day, could not carry +off. Sheepskin cloaks and wampum belts; phylacteries, stoles, albs; +chlamydes, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, trunk-hose, leather +breeches, Celtic hilibegs (though breeches, as the name _Gallia +Braccata_ indicates, are the more ancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyke +tippets, ruffs, fardingales, are brought vividly before us,--even the +Kilmarnock nightcap is not forgotten. For most part, too, we must +admit that the Learning, heterogeneous as it is, and tumbled down quite +pell-mell, is true concentrated and purified Learning, the drossy parts +smelted out and thrown aside. + +Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes touching pictures +of human life. Of this sort the following has surprised us. The first +purpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth or +decency, but ornament. "Miserable indeed," says he, "was the condition +of the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of +hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round him +like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick +natural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living +on wild-fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonian, squatted himself in +morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements, +without arms, save the ball of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole +possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord +of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly +unerring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge once +satisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration (_Putz_). Warmth +he found in the toils of the chase; or amid dried leaves, in his hollow +tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto: but for Decoration he must +have Clothes. Nay, among wild people, we find tattooing and painting +even prior to Clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man +is Decoration, as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in +civilized countries. + +"Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer; loftiest Serene Highness; +nay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rosebloom Maiden, worthy to glide +sylph-like almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest as a divine +Presence, which, indeed, symbolically taken, she is,--has descended, +like thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint-hurling Aboriginal +Anthropophagus! Out of the eater cometh forth meat; out of the strong +cometh forth sweetness. What changes are wrought, not by Time, yet in +Time! For not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or beholds, is in +continual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vitality. Cast forth +thy Act, thy Word, into the ever-living, ever-working Universe: it is +a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day (says one), it will +be found flourishing as a Banyan-grove (perhaps, alas, as a +Hemlock-forest!) after a thousand years. + +"He who first shortened the labor of Copyists by device of _Movable +Types_ was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering most Kings and +Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic world: he had invented +the Art of Printing. The first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and +Charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling: what will +the last do? Achieve the final undisputed prostration of Force under +Thought, of Animal courage under Spiritual. A simple invention it was +in the old-world Grazier,--sick of lugging his slow Ox about the country +till he got it bartered for corn or oil,--to take a piece of Leather, +and thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure of an Ox (or _Pecus_); put +it in his pocket, and call it _Pecunia_, Money. Yet hereby did Barter +grow Sale, the Leather Money is now Golden and Paper, and all miracles +have been out-miracled: for there are Rothschilds and English National +Debts; and whoso has sixpence is sovereign (to the length of sixpence) +over all men; commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him, +kings to mount guard over him,--to the length of sixpence.--Clothes too, +which began in foolishest love of Ornament, what have they not become! +Increased Security and pleasurable Heat soon followed: but what of +these? Shame, divine Shame (_Schaam_, Modesty), as yet a stranger to the +Anthropophagous bosom, arose there mysteriously under Clothes; a +mystic grove-encircled shrine for the Holy in man. Clothes gave us +individuality, distinctions, social polity; Clothes have made Men of us; +they are threatening to make Clothes-screens of us. + +"But, on the whole," continues our eloquent Professor, "Man is a +Tool-using Animal (_Handthierendes Thier_). Weak in himself, and of +small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of +some half-square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs, +lest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are +a crushing load for him; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft, like +a waste rag. Nevertheless he can use Tools; can devise Tools: with these +the granite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowing +iron, as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds +and fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without Tools; +without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all." + +Here may we not, for a moment, interrupt the stream of Oratory with a +remark, that this Definition of the Tool-using Animal appears to us, of +all that Animal-sort, considerably the precisest and best? Man is called +a Laughing Animal: but do not the apes also laugh, or attempt to do it; +and is the manliest man the greatest and oftenest laugher? Teufelsdrockh +himself, as we said, laughed only once. Still less do we make of that +other French Definition of the Cooking Animal; which, indeed, for +rigorous scientific purposes, is as good as useless. Can a Tartar be +said to cook, when he only readies his steak by riding on it? +Again, what Cookery does the Greenlander use, beyond stowing up his +whale-blubber, as a marmot, in the like case, might do? Or how would +Monsieur Ude prosper among those Orinoco Indians who, according to +Humboldt, lodge in crow-nests, on the branches of trees; and, for half +the year, have no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole country being under +water? But, on the other hand, show us the human being, of any period or +climate, without his Tools: those very Caledonians, as we saw, had their +Flint-ball, and Thong to it, such as no brute has or can have. + +"Man is a Tool-using Animal," concludes Teufelsdrockh, in his abrupt +way; "of which truth Clothes are but one example: and surely if we +consider the interval between the first wooden Dibble fashioned by man, +and those Liverpool Steam-carriages, or the British House of Commons, +we shall note what progress he has made. He digs up certain black stones +from the bosom of the earth, and says to them, _Transport me and this +luggage at the rate of file-and-thirty miles an hour_; and they do +it: he collects, apparently by lot, six hundred and fifty-eight +miscellaneous individuals, and says to them, _Make this nation toil for +us, bleed for us, hunger and, sorrow and sin for us_; and they do it." + + + +CHAPTER VI. APRONS. + +One of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Volume is that +on _Aprons_. What though stout old Gao, the Persian Blacksmith, "whose +Apron, now indeed hidden under jewels, because raised in revolt which +proved successful, is still the royal standard of that country;" what +though John Knox's Daughter, "who threatened Sovereign Majesty that she +would catch her husband's head in her Apron, rather than he should lie +and be a bishop;" what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, with many other +Apron worthies,--figure here? An idle wire-drawing spirit, sometimes +even a tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire, is too +clearly discernible. What, for example, are we to make of such sentences +as the following? + +"Aprons are Defences; against injury to cleanliness, to safety, to +modesty, sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of notched silk (as +it were, the emblem and beatified ghost of an Apron), which some +highest-bred housewife, sitting at Nurnberg Work-boxes and Toy-boxes, +has gracefully fastened on; to the thick-tanned hide, girt round him +with thongs, wherein the Builder builds, and at evening sticks his +trowel; or to those jingling sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise +half-naked Vulcans hammer and smelt in their smelt-furnace,--is there +not range enough in the fashion and uses of this Vestment? How much +has been concealed, how much has been defended in Aprons! Nay, rightly +considered, what is your whole Military and Police Establishment, +charged at uncalculated millions, but a huge scarlet-colored, +iron-fastened Apron, wherein Society works (uneasily enough); guarding +itself from some soil and stithy-sparks, in this Devil's-smithy +(_Teufels-schmiede_) of a world? But of all Aprons the most puzzling +to me hitherto has been the Episcopal or Cassock. Wherein consists the +usefulness of this Apron? The Overseer (_Episcopus_) of Souls, I notice, +has tucked in the corner of it, as if his day's work were done: what +does he shadow forth thereby?" &c. &c. + +Or again, has it often been the lot of our readers to read such stuff as +we shall now quote? + +"I consider those printed Paper Aprons, worn by the Parisian Cooks, as +a new vent, though a slight one, for Typography; therefore as an +encouragement to modern Literature, and deserving of approval: nor is it +without satisfaction that I hear of a celebrated London Firm having +in view to introduce the same fashion, with important extensions, in +England."--We who are on the spot hear of no such thing; and indeed +have reason to be thankful that hitherto there are other vents for +our Literature, exuberant as it is.--Teufelsdrockh continues: "If such +supply of printed Paper should rise so far as to choke up the highways +and public thoroughfares, new means must of necessity be had recourse +to. In a world existing by Industry, we grudge to employ fire as a +destroying element, and not as a creating one. However, Heaven is +omnipotent, and will find us an outlet. In the mean while, is it not +beautiful to see five million quintals of Rags picked annually from the +Laystall; and annually, after being macerated, hot-pressed, printed on, +and sold,--returned thither; filling so many hungry mouths by the way? +Thus is the Laystall, especially with its Rags or Clothes-rubbish, the +grand Electric Battery, and Fountain-of-motion, from which and to +which the Social Activities (like vitreous and resinous Electricities) +circulate, in larger or smaller circles, through the mighty, billowy, +storm-tost chaos of Life, which they keep alive!"--Such passages fill +us, who love the man, and partly esteem him, with a very mixed feeling. + +Farther down we meet with this: "The Journalists are now the true Kings +and Clergy: henceforth Historians, unless they are fools, must write +not of Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs; but of Stamped +Broad-sheet Dynasties, and quite new successive Names, according as +this or the other Able Editor, or Combination of Able Editors, gains the +world's ear. Of the British Newspaper Press, perhaps the most important +of all, and wonderful enough in its secret constitution and procedure, a +valuable descriptive History already exists, in that language, under the +title of _Satan's Invisible World Displayed_; which, however, by search +in all the Weissnichtwo Libraries, I have not yet succeeded in procuring +(_vermochte night aufzutreiben_)." + +Thus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus does +Teufelsdrockh, wandering in regions where he had little business, +confound the old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, +spurious, imaginary Historian of the _Brittische Journalistik_; and so +stumble on perhaps the most egregious blunder in Modern Literature! + + + +CHAPTER VII. MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. + +Happier is our Professor, and more purely scientific and historic, +when he reaches the Middle Ages in Europe, and down to the end of the +Seventeenth Century; the true era of extravagance in Costume. It is here +that the Antiquary and Student of Modes comes upon his richest harvest. +Fantastic garbs, beggaring all fancy of a Teniers or a Callot, succeed +each other, like monster devouring monster in a Dream. The whole too +in brief authentic strokes, and touched not seldom with that breath of +genius which makes even old raiment live. Indeed, so learned, precise, +graphical, and every way interesting have we found these Chapters, that +it may be thrown out as a pertinent question for parties concerned, +Whether or not a good English Translation thereof might henceforth be +profitably incorporated with Mr. Merrick's valuable Work _On Ancient +Armor_? Take, by way of example, the following sketch; as authority +for which Paulinus's _Zeitkurzende Lust_ (ii. 678) is, with seeming +confidence, referred to: + +"Did we behold the German fashionable dress of the Fifteenth Century, we +might smile; as perhaps those bygone Germans, were they to rise again, +and see our haberdashery, would cross themselves, and invoke the Virgin. +But happily no bygone German, or man, rises again; thus the Present is +not needlessly trammelled with the Past; and only grows out of it, like +a Tree, whose roots are not intertangled with its branches, but lie +peaceably underground. Nay it is very mournful, yet not useless, to see +and know, how the Greatest and Dearest, in a short while, would find his +place quite filled up here, and no room for him; the very Napoleon, the +very Byron, in some seven years, has become obsolete, and were now a +foreigner to his Europe. Thus is the Law of Progress secured; and in +Clothes, as in all other external things whatsoever, no fashion will +continue. + +"Of the military classes in those old times, whose buff-belts, +complicated chains and gorgets, huge churn-boots, and other riding and +fighting gear have been bepainted in modern Romance, till the whole has +acquired somewhat of a sign-post character,--I shall here say nothing: +the civil and pacific classes, less touched upon, are wonderful enough +for us. + +"Rich men, I find, have _Teusinke_ [a perhaps untranslatable article]; +also a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells; so that when a man +walks, it is with continual jingling. Some few, of musical turn, have a +whole chime of bells (_Glockenspiel_) fastened there; which, especially +in sudden whirls, and the other accidents of walking, has a grateful +effect. Observe too how fond they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch +intersections. The male world wears peaked caps, an ell long, which hang +bobbing over the side (_schief_): their shoes are peaked in front, +also to the length of an ell, and laced on the side with tags; even +the wooden shoes have their ell-long noses: some also clap bells on the +peak. Further, according to my authority, the men have breeches without +seat (_ohne Gesass_): these they fasten peakwise to their shirts; and +the long round doublet must overlap them. + +"Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped out behind and +before, so that back and breast are almost bare. Wives of quality, on +the other hand, have train-gowns four or five ells in length; which +trains there are boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras, sailing in their +silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for steersman! Consider their welts, a +handbreadth thick, which waver round them by way of hem; the long +flood of silver buttons, or rather silver shells, from throat to shoe, +wherewith these same welt-gowns are buttoned. The maidens have bound +silver snoods about their hair, with gold spangles, and pendent flames +(_Flammen_), that is, sparkling hair-drops: but of their mother's +head-gear who shall speak? Neither in love of grace is comfort +forgotten. In winter weather you behold the whole fair creation (that +can afford it) in long mantles, with skirts wide below, and, for hem, +not one but two sufficient hand-broad welts; all ending atop in a +thick well-starched Ruff, some twenty inches broad: these are their +Ruff-mantles (_Kragenmantel_). + +"As yet among the womankind hoop-petticoats are not; but the men have +doublets of fustian, under which lie multiple ruffs of cloth, pasted +together with batter (_mit Teig zusammengekleistert_), which create +protuberance enough. Thus do the two sexes vie with each other in the +art of Decoration; and as usual the stronger carries it." + +Our Professor, whether he have humor himself or not, manifests a certain +feeling of the Ludicrous, a sly observance of it which, could emotion +of any kind be confidently predicated of so still a man, we might call +a real love. None of those bell-girdles, bushel-breeches, counted shoes, +or other the like phenomena, of which the History of Dress offers +so many, escape him: more especially the mischances, or striking +adventures, incident to the wearers of such, are noticed with due +fidelity. Sir Walter Raleigh's fine mantle, which he spread in the mud +under Queen Elizabeth's feet, appears to provoke little enthusiasm +in him; he merely asks, Whether at that period the Maiden Queen "was +red-painted on the nose, and white-painted on the cheeks, as her +tire-women, when from spleen and wrinkles she would no longer look in +any glass, were wont to serve her"? We can answer that Sir Walter knew +well what he was doing, and had the Maiden Queen been stuffed parchment +dyed in verdigris, would have done the same. + +Thus too, treating of those enormous habiliments, that were not only +slashed and gallooned, but artificially swollen out on the broader +parts of the body, by introduction of Bran,--our Professor fails not to +comment on that luckless Courtier, who having seated himself on a +chair with some projecting nail on it, and therefrom rising, to pay his +_devoir_ on the entrance of Majesty, instantaneously emitted several +pecks of dry wheat-dust: and stood there diminished to a spindle, his +galloons and slashes dangling sorrowful and flabby round him. Whereupon +the Professor publishes this reflection:-- + +"By what strange chances do we live in History? Erostratus by a torch; +Milo by a bullock; Henry Darnley, an unfledged booby and bustard, by +his limbs; most Kings and Queens by being born under such and such a +bed-tester; Boileau Despreaux (according to Helvetius) by the peck of a +turkey; and this ill-starred individual by a rent in his breeches,--for +no Memoirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits him. Vain was the prayer of +Themistocles for a talent of Forgetting: my Friends, yield cheerfully to +Destiny, and read since it is written."--Has Teufelsdrockh, to be put in +mind that, nearly related to the impossible talent of Forgetting, stands +that talent of Silence, which even travelling Englishmen manifest? + +"The simplest costume," observes our Professor, "which I anywhere find +alluded to in History, is that used as regimental, by Bolivar's Cavalry, +in the late Colombian wars. A square Blanket, twelve feet in diagonal, +is provided (some were wont to cut off the corners, and make it +circular): in the centre a slit is effected eighteen inches long; +through this the mother-naked Trooper introduces his head and neck; and +so rides shielded from all weather, and in battle from many strokes (for +he rolls it about his left arm); and not only dressed, but harnessed and +draperied." + +With which picture of a State of Nature, affecting by its singularity, +and Old-Roman contempt of the superfluous, we shall quit this part of +our subject. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. + +If in the Descriptive-Historical portion of this Volume, Teufelsdrockh, +discussing merely the _Werden_ (Origin and successive Improvement) +of Clothes, has astonished many a reader, much more will he in the +Speculative-Philosophical portion, which treats of their _Wirken_, or +Influences. It is here that the present Editor first feels the pressure +of his task; for here properly the higher and new Philosophy of Clothes +commences: all untried, almost inconceivable region, or chaos; in +venturing upon which, how difficult, yet how unspeakably important is it +to know what course, of survey and conquest, is the true one; where the +footing is firm substance and will bear us, where it is hollow, or +mere cloud, and may engulf us! Teufelsdrockh undertakes no less than to +expound the moral, political, even religious Influences of Clothes; he +undertakes to make manifest, in its thousand-fold bearings, this grand +Proposition, that Man's earthly interests "are all hooked and buttoned +together, and held up, by Clothes." He says in so many words, "Society +is founded upon Cloth;" and again, "Society sails through the Infinitude +on Cloth, as on a Faust's Mantle, or rather like the Sheet of clean and +unclean beasts in the Apostle's Dream; and without such Sheet or Mantle, +would sink to endless depths, or mount to inane limbos, and in either +case be no more." + +By what chains, or indeed infinitely complected tissues, of Meditation +this grand Theorem is here unfolded, and innumerable practical +Corollaries are drawn therefrom, it were perhaps a mad ambition to +attempt exhibiting. Our Professor's method is not, in any case, that of +common school Logic, where the truths all stand in a row, each holding +by the skirts of the other; but at best that of practical Reason' +proceeding by large Intuition over whole systematic groups and kingdoms; +whereby, we might say, a noble complexity, almost like that of Nature, +reigns in his Philosophy, or spiritual Picture of Nature: a mighty maze, +yet, as faith whispers, not without a plan. Nay we complained above, +that a certain ignoble complexity, what we must call mere confusion, was +also discernible. Often, also, we have to exclaim: Would to Heaven +those same Biographical Documents were come! For it seems as if the +demonstration lay much in the Author's individuality; as if it were not +Argument that had taught him, but Experience. At present it is only +in local glimpses, and by significant fragments, picked often at +wide-enough intervals from the original Volume, and carefully collated, +that we can hope to impart some outline or foreshadow of this Doctrine. +Readers of any intelligence are once more invited to favor us with their +most concentrated attention: let these, after intense consideration, +and not till then, pronounce, Whether on the utmost verge of our actual +horizon there is not a looming as of Land; a promise of new Fortunate +Islands, perhaps whole undiscovered Americas, for such as have canvas to +sail thither?--As exordium to the whole, stand here the following long +citation:-- + +"With men of a speculative turn," writes Teufelsdrockh, "there come +seasons, meditative, sweet, yet awful hours, when in wonder and fear you +ask yourself that unanswerable question: Who am I; the thing that can +say 'I' (_das Wesen das sich ICH nennt_)? The world, with its loud +trafficking, retires into the distance; and, through the paper-hangings, +and stonewalls, and thick-plied tissues of Commerce and Polity, and all +the living and lifeless integuments (of Society and a Body), wherewith +your Existence sits surrounded,--the sight reaches forth into the void +Deep, and you are alone with the Universe, and silently commune with it, +as one mysterious Presence with another. + +"Who am I; what is this ME? A Voice, a Motion, an Appearance;--some +embodied, visualized Idea in the Eternal Mind? _Cogito, ergo sum_. Alas, +poor Cogitator, this takes us but a little way. Sure enough, I am; +and lately was not: but Whence? How? Whereto? The answer lies around, +written in all colors and motions, uttered in all tones of jubilee and +wail, in thousand-figured, thousand-voiced, harmonious Nature: but where +is the cunning eye and ear to whom that God-written Apocalypse will +yield articulate meaning? We sit as in a boundless Phantasmagoria and +Dream-grotto; boundless, for the faintest star, the remotest century, +lies not even nearer the verge thereof: sounds and many-colored visions +flit round our sense; but Him, the Unslumbering, whose work both Dream +and Dreamer are, we see not; except in rare half-waking moments, suspect +not. Creation, says one, lies before us, like a glorious Rainbow; but +the Sun that made it lies behind us, hidden from us. Then, in that +strange Dream, how we clutch at shadows as if they were substances; +and sleep deepest while fancying ourselves most awake! Which of your +Philosophical Systems is other than a dream-theorem; a net quotient, +confidently given out, where divisor and dividend are both unknown? What +are all your national Wars, with their Moscow Retreats, and sanguinary +hate-filled Revolutions, but the Somnambulism of uneasy Sleepers? This +Dreaming, this Somnambulism is what we on Earth call Life; wherein the +most indeed undoubtingly wander, as if they knew right hand from left; +yet they only are wise who know that they know nothing. + +"Pity that all Metaphysics had hitherto proved so inexpressibly +unproductive! The secret of Man's Being is still like the Sphinx's +secret: a riddle that he cannot rede; and for ignorance of which he +suffers death, the worst death, a spiritual. What are your Axioms, and +Categories, and Systems, and Aphorisms? Words, words. High Air-castles +are cunningly built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good +Logic-mortar; wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge. _The +whole is greater than the part_: how exceedingly true! _Nature abhors a +vacuum_: how exceedingly false and calumnious! Again, _Nothing can act +but where it is_: with all my heart; only, WHERE is it? Be not the slave +of Words: is not the Distant, the Dead, while I love it, and long for +it, and mourn for it, Here, in the genuine sense, as truly as the floor +I stand on? But that same WHERE, with its brother WHEN, are from the +first the master-colors of our Dream-grotto; say rather, the Canvas +(the warp and woof thereof) whereon all our Dreams and Life-visions are +painted. Nevertheless, has not a deeper meditation taught certain +of every climate and age, that the WHERE and WHEN, so mysteriously +inseparable from all our thoughts, are but superficial terrestrial +adhesions to thought; that the Seer may discern them where they mount +up out of the celestial EVERYWHERE and FOREVER: have not all nations +conceived their God as Omnipresent and Eternal; as existing in a +universal HERE, an everlasting Now? Think well, thou too wilt find that +Space is but a mode of our human Sense, so likewise Time; there _is_ no +Space and no Time: WE are--we know not what;--light-sparkles floating in +the ether of Deity! + +"So that this so solid-seeming World, after all, were but an air-image, +our ME the only reality: and Nature, with its thousand-fold production +and destruction, but the reflex of our own inward Force, the 'phantasy +of our Dream;' or what the Earth-Spirit in _Faust_ names it, _the living +visible Garment of God_:-- + + "'In Being's floods, in Action's storm, + I walk and work, above, beneath, + Work and weave in endless motion! + Birth and Death, + An infinite ocean; + A seizing and giving + The fire of Living: + 'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, + And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.' + +Of twenty millions that have read and spouted this thunder-speech of +the _Erdgeist_, are there yet twenty units of us that have learned the +meaning thereof? + +"It was in some such mood, when wearied and fordone with these high +speculations, that I first came upon the question of Clothes. Strange +enough, it strikes me, is this same fact of there being Tailors and +Tailored. The Horse I ride has his own whole fell: strip him of the +girths and flaps and extraneous tags I have fastened round him, and the +noble creature is his own sempster and weaver and spinner; nay his +own boot-maker, jeweller, and man-milliner; he bounds free through the +valleys, with a perennial rain-proof court-suit on his body; wherein +warmth and easiness of fit have reached perfection; nay, the graces also +have been considered, and frills and fringes, with gay variety of color, +featly appended, and ever in the right place, are not wanting. While +I--good Heaven!--have thatched myself over with the dead fleeces of +sheep, the bark of vegetables, the entrails of worms, the hides of +oxen or seals, the felt of furred beasts; and walk abroad a moving +Rag-screen, overheaped with shreds and tatters raked from the +Charnel-house of Nature, where they would have rotted, to rot on me more +slowly! Day after day, I must thatch myself anew; day after day, this +despicable thatch must lose some film of its thickness; some film of it, +frayed away by tear and wear, must be brushed off into the Ashpit, into +the Laystall; till by degrees the whole has been brushed thither, and I, +the dust-making, patent Rat-grinder, get new material to grind down. +O subter-brutish! vile! most vile! For have not I too a compact +all-enclosing Skin, whiter or dingier? Am I a botched mass of tailors' +and cobblers' shreds, then; or a tightly articulated, homogeneous little +Figure, automatic, nay alive? + +"Strange enough how creatures of the human-kind shut their eyes to +plainest facts; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, live +at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is, and was +always, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than +to think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his +absolute lawgiver; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him by the nose; +thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World +happen _twice_, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy, +or noticeable. Perhaps not once in a lifetime does it occur to your +ordinary biped, of any country or generation, be he gold-mantled Prince +or russet-jerkined Peasant, that his Vestments and his Self are not one +and indivisible; that _he_ is naked, without vestments, till he buy or +steal such, and by forethought sew and button them. + +"For my own part, these considerations, of our Clothes-thatch, and +how, reaching inwards even to our heart of hearts, it tailorizes and +demoralizes us, fill me with a certain horror at myself and mankind; +almost as one feels at those Dutch Cows, which, during the wet season, +you see grazing deliberately with jackets and petticoats (of striped +sacking), in the meadows of Gouda. Nevertheless there is something great +in the moment when a man first strips himself of adventitious wrappages; +and sees indeed that he is naked, and, as Swift has it, 'a forked +straddling animal with bandy legs;' yet also a Spirit, and unutterable +Mystery of Mysteries." + + + +CHAPTER IX. ADAMITISM. + +Let no courteous reader take offence at the opinions broached in the +conclusion of the last Chapter. The Editor himself, on first glancing +over that singular passage, was inclined to exclaim: What, have we got +not only a Sansculottist, but an enemy to Clothes in the abstract? A +new Adamite, in this century, which flatters itself that it is the +Nineteenth, and destructive both to Superstition and Enthusiasm? + +Consider, thou foolish Teufelsdrockh, what benefits unspeakable all ages +and sexes derive from Clothes. For example, when thou thyself, a watery, +pulpy, slobbery freshman and new-comer in this Planet, sattest muling +and puking in thy nurse's arms; sucking thy coral, and looking forth +into the world in the blankest manner, what hadst thou been without thy +blankets, and bibs, and other nameless hulls? A terror to thyself and +mankind! Or hast thou forgotten the day when thou first receivedst +breeches, and thy long clothes became short? The village where thou +livedst was all apprised of the fact; and neighbor after neighbor kissed +thy pudding-cheek, and gave thee, as handsel, silver or copper coins, on +that the first gala-day of thy existence. Again, wert not thou, at one +period of life, a Buck, or Blood, or Macaroni, or Incroyable, or Dandy, +or by whatever name, according to year and place, such phenomenon is +distinguished? In that one word lie included mysterious volumes. Nay, +now when the reign of folly is over, or altered, and thy clothes are not +for triumph but for defence, hast thou always worn them perforce, and as +a consequence of Man's Fall; never rejoiced in them as in a warm movable +House, a Body round thy Body, wherein that strange THEE of thine sat +snug, defying all variations of Climate? Girt with thick double-milled +kerseys; half buried under shawls and broadbrims, and overalls and +mudboots, thy very fingers cased in doeskin and mittens, thou hast +bestrode that "Horse I ride;" and, though it were in wild winter, dashed +through the world, glorying in it as if thou wert its lord. In vain did +the sleet beat round thy temples; it lighted only on thy impenetrable, +felted or woven, case of wool. In vain did the winds howl,--forests +sounding and creaking, deep calling unto deep,--and the storms heap +themselves together into one huge Arctic whirlpool: thou flewest through +the middle thereof, striking fire from the highway; wild music hummed +in thy ears, thou too wert as a "sailor of the air;" the wreck of matter +and the crash of worlds was thy element and propitiously wafting tide. +Without Clothes, without bit or saddle, what hadst thou been; what had +thy fleet quadruped been?--Nature is good, but she is not the best: here +truly was the victory of Art over Nature. A thunderbolt indeed might +have pierced thee; all short of this thou couldst defy. + +Or, cries the courteous reader, has your Teufelsdrockh forgotten what he +said lately about "Aboriginal Savages," and their "condition miserable +indeed"? Would he have all this unsaid; and us betake ourselves again to +the "matted cloak," and go sheeted in a "thick natural fell"? + +Nowise, courteous reader! The Professor knows full well what he is +saying; and both thou and we, in our haste, do him wrong. If Clothes, +in these times, "so tailorize and demoralize us," have they no redeeming +value; can they not be altered to serve better; must they of +necessity be thrown to the dogs? The truth is, Teufelsdrockh, though a +Sansculottist, is no Adamite; and much perhaps as he might wish to go +forth before this degenerate age "as a Sign," would nowise wish to do +it, as those old Adamites did, in a state of Nakedness. The utility of +Clothes is altogether apparent to him: nay perhaps he has an insight +into their more recondite, and almost mystic qualities, what we +might call the omnipotent virtue of Clothes, such as was never before +vouchsafed to any man. For example:-- + +"You see two individuals," he writes, "one dressed in fine Red, the +other in coarse threadbare Blue: Red says to Blue, 'Be hanged and +anatomized;' Blue hears with a shudder, and (O wonder of wonders!) +marches sorrowfully to the gallows; is there noosed up, vibrates his +hour, and the surgeons dissect him, and fit his bones into a skeleton +for medical purposes. How is this; or what make ye of your _Nothing can +act but where it is_? Red has no physical hold of Blue, no _clutch_ +of him, is nowise in _contact_ with him: neither are those ministering +Sheriffs and Lord-Lieutenants and Hangmen and Tipstaves so related to +commanding Red, that he can tug them hither and thither; but each stands +distinct within his own skin. Nevertheless, as it is spoken, so is +it done: the articulated Word sets all hands in Action; and Rope and +Improved-drop perform their work. + +"Thinking reader, the reason seems to me twofold: First, that _Man is a +Spirit_, and bound by invisible bonds to _All Men_; secondly, that _he +wears Clothes_, which are the visible emblems of that fact. Has not +your Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins, and a +plush-gown; whereby all mortals know that he is a JUDGE?--Society, which +the more I think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon Cloth. + +"Often in my atrabiliar moods, when I read of pompous ceremonials, +Frankfort Coronations, Royal Drawing-rooms, Levees, Couchees; and how +the ushers and macers and pursuivants are all in waiting; how Duke +this is presented by Archduke that, and Colonel A by General B, and +innumerable Bishops, Admirals, and miscellaneous Functionaries, are +advancing gallantly to the Anointed Presence; and I strive, in my remote +privacy, to form a clear picture of that solemnity,--on a sudden, as by +some enchanter's wand, the--shall I speak it?--the Clothes fly off the +whole dramatic corps; and Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, Anointed +Presence itself, every mother's son of them, stand straddling there, not +a shirt on them; and I know not whether to laugh or weep. This physical +or psychical infirmity, in which perhaps I am not singular, I have, +after hesitation, thought right to publish, for the solace of those +afflicted with the like." + +Would to Heaven, say we, thou hadst thought right to keep it secret! +Who is there now that can read the five columns of Presentations in his +Morning Newspaper without a shudder? Hypochondriac men, and all men are +to a certain extent hypochondriac, should be more gently treated. With +what readiness our fancy, in this shattered state of the nerves, follows +out the consequences which Teufelsdrockh, with a devilish coolness, goes +on to draw:-- + +"What would Majesty do, could such an accident befall in reality; should +the buttons all simultaneously start, and the solid wool evaporate, +in very Deed, as here in Dream? _Ach Gott_! How each skulks into +the nearest hiding-place; their high State Tragedy (_Haupt- und +Staats-Action_) becomes a Pickleherring-Farce to weep at, which is the +worst kind of Farce; _the tables_ (according to Horace), and with them, +the whole fabric of Government, Legislation, Property, Police, and +Civilized Society, _are dissolved_, in wails and howls." + +Lives the man that can figure a naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a +naked House of Lords? Imagination, choked as in mephitic air, recoils +on itself, and will not forward with the picture. The Woolsack, the +Ministerial, the Opposition Benches--_infandum! infandum_! And yet why +is the thing impossible? Was not every soul, or rather every body, of +these Guardians of our Liberties, naked, or nearly so, last night; "a +forked Radish with a head fantastically carved"? And why might he not, +did our stern fate so order it, walk out to St. Stephen's, as well as +into bed, in that no-fashion; and there, with other similar Radishes, +hold a Bed of Justice? "Solace of those afflicted with the like!" +Unhappy Teufelsdrockh, had man ever such a "physical or psychical +infirmity" before? And now how many, perhaps, may thy unparalleled +confession (which we, even to the sounder British world, and goaded on +by Critical and Biographical duty, grudge to reimpart) incurably +infect therewith! Art thou the malignest of Sansculottists, or only the +maddest? + +"It will remain to be examined," adds the inexorable Teufelsdrockh, +"in how far the SCARECROW, as a Clothed Person, is not also entitled to +benefit of clergy, and English trial by jury: nay perhaps, considering +his high function (for is not he too a Defender of Property, and +Sovereign armed with the _terrors_ of the Law?), to a certain royal +Immunity and Inviolability; which, however, misers and the meaner class +of persons are not always voluntarily disposed to grant him." + +"O my Friends, we are [in Yorick Sterne's words] but as 'turkeys driven, +with a stick and red clout, to the market:' or if some drivers, as +they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas in it, the rattle +thereof terrifies the boldest!" + + + +CHAPTER X. PURE REASON. + +It must now be apparent enough that our Professor, as above hinted, is +a speculative Radical, and of the very darkest tinge; acknowledging, for +most part, in the solemnities and paraphernalia of civilized Life, which +we make so much of, nothing but so many Cloth-rags, turkey-poles, and +"bladders with dried peas." To linger among such speculations, longer +than mere Science requires, a discerning public can have no wish. For +our purposes the simple fact that such a _Naked World_ is possible, +nay actually exists (under the Clothed one), will be sufficient. Much, +therefore, we omit about "Kings wrestling naked on the green with +Carmen," and the Kings being thrown: "dissect them with scalpels," says +Teufelsdrockh; "the same viscera, tissues, livers, lights, and other +life-tackle, are there: examine their spiritual mechanism; the same +great Need, great Greed, and little Faculty; nay ten to one but the +Carman, who understands draught-cattle, the rimming of wheels, something +of the laws of unstable and stable equilibrium, with other branches +of wagon-science, and has actually put forth his hand and operated on +Nature, is the more cunningly gifted of the two. Whence, then, their +so unspeakable difference? From Clothes." Much also we shall omit about +confusion of Ranks, and Joan and My Lady, and how it would be everywhere +"Hail fellow well met," and Chaos were come again: all which to any one +that has once fairly pictured out the grand mother-idea, _Society in +a state of Nakedness_, will spontaneously suggest itself. Should some +sceptical individual still entertain doubts whether in a world without +Clothes, the smallest Politeness, Polity, or even Police, could exist, +let him turn to the original Volume, and view there the boundless +Serbonian Bog of Sansculottism, stretching sour and pestilential: over +which we have lightly flown; where not only whole armies but whole +nations might sink! If indeed the following argument, in its brief +riveting emphasis, be not of itself incontrovertible and final:-- + +"Are we Opossums; have we natural Pouches, like the Kangaroo? Or how, +without Clothes, could we possess the master-organ, soul's seat, and +true pineal gland of the Body Social: I mean, a PURSE?" + +Nevertheless it is impossible to hate Professor Teufelsdrockh; at worst, +one knows not whether to hate or to love him. For though, in looking at +the fair tapestry of human Life, with its royal and even sacred figures, +he dwells not on the obverse alone, but here chiefly on the reverse; and +indeed turns out the rough seams, tatters, and manifold thrums of that +unsightly wrong-side, with an almost diabolic patience and indifference, +which must have sunk him in the estimation of most readers,--there is +that within which unspeakably distinguishes him from all other past +and present Sansculottists. The grand unparalleled peculiarity of +Teufelsdrockh is, that with all this Descendentalism, he combines a +Transcendentalism, no less superlative; whereby if on the one hand he +degrade man below most animals, except those jacketed Gouda Cows, he, on +the other, exalts him beyond the visible Heavens, almost to an equality +with the Gods. + +"To the eye of vulgar Logic," says he, "what is man? An omnivorous Biped +that wears Breeches. To the eye of Pure Reason what is he? A Soul, a +Spirit, and divine Apparition. Round his mysterious ME, there +lies, under all those wool-rags, a Garment of Flesh (or of Senses), +contextured in the Loom of Heaven; whereby he is revealed to his like, +and dwells with them in UNION and DIVISION; and sees and fashions for +himself a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces, and long Thousands of +Years. Deep-hidden is he under that strange Garment; amid Sounds +and Colors and Forms, as it were, swathed in, and inextricably +over-shrouded: yet it is sky-woven, and worthy of a God. Stands he not +thereby in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities? He +feels; power has been given him to know, to believe; nay does not the +spirit of Love, free in its celestial primeval brightness, even here, +though but for moments, look through? Well said Saint Chrysostom, +with his lips of gold, 'the true SHEKINAH is Man:' where else is the +GOD'S-PRESENCE manifested not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as in +our fellow-man?" + +In such passages, unhappily too rare, the high Platonic Mysticism of our +Author, which is perhaps the fundamental element of his nature, bursts +forth, as it were, in full flood: and, through all the vapor and tarnish +of what is often so perverse, so mean in his exterior and environment, +we seem to look into a whole inward Sea of Light and Love;--though, +alas, the grim coppery clouds soon roll together again, and hide it from +view. + +Such tendency to Mysticism is everywhere traceable in this man; and +indeed, to attentive readers, must have been long ago apparent. Nothing +that he sees but has more than a common meaning, but has two meanings: +thus, if in the highest Imperial Sceptre and Charlemagne-Mantle, as +well as in the poorest Ox-goad and Gypsy-Blanket, he finds Prose, Decay, +Contemptibility; there is in each sort Poetry also, and a reverend +Worth. For Matter, were it never so despicable, is Spirit, the +manifestation of Spirit: were it never so honorable, can it be more? The +thing Visible, nay the thing Imagined, the thing in any way conceived as +Visible, what is it but a Garment, a Clothing of the higher, celestial +Invisible, "unimaginable formless, dark with excess of bright"? Under +which point of view the following passage, so strange in purport, so +strange in phrase, seems characteristic enough:-- + +"The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes, or even with +armed eyesight, till they become _transparent_. 'The Philosopher,' says +the wisest of this age, 'must station himself in the middle:' how true! +The Philosopher is he to whom the Highest has descended, and the Lowest +has mounted up; who is the equal and kindly brother of all. + +"Shall we tremble before clothwebs and cobwebs, whether woven in +Arkwright looms, or by the silent Arachnes that weave unrestingly in our +Imagination? Or, on the other hand, what is there that we cannot love; +since all was created by God? + +"Happy he who can look through the Clothes of a Man (the woollen, and +fleshly, and official Bank-paper and State-paper Clothes) into the Man +himself; and discern, it may be, in this or the other Dread Potentate, +a more or less incompetent Digestive-apparatus; yet also an inscrutable +venerable Mystery, in the meanest Tinker that sees with eyes!" + +For the rest, as is natural to a man of this kind, he deals much in the +feeling of Wonder; insists on the necessity and high worth of universal +Wonder; which he holds to be the only reasonable temper for the denizen +of so singular a Planet as ours. "Wonder," says he, "is the basis of +Worship: the reign of wonder is perennial, indestructible in Man; only +at certain stages (as the present), it is, for some short season, a +reign _in partibus infidelium_." That progress of Science, which is to +destroy Wonder, and in its stead substitute Mensuration and Numeration, +finds small favor with Teufelsdrockh, much as he otherwise venerates +these two latter processes. + +"Shall your Science," exclaims he, "proceed in the small chink-lighted, +or even oil-lighted, underground workshop of Logic alone; and man's +mind become an Arithmetical Mill, whereof Memory is the Hopper, and mere +Tables of Sines and Tangents, Codification, and Treatises of what you +call Political Economy, are the Meal? And what is that Science, which +the scientific head alone, were it screwed off, and (like the Doctor's +in the Arabian Tale) set in a basin to keep it alive, could prosecute +without shadow of a heart,--but one other of the mechanical and menial +handicrafts, for which the Scientific Head (having a Soul in it) is too +noble an organ? I mean that Thought without Reverence is barren, perhaps +poisonous; at best, dies like cookery with the day that called it forth; +does not live, like sowing, in successive tilths and wider-spreading +harvests, bringing food and plenteous increase to all Time." + +In such wise does Teufelsdrockh deal hits, harder or softer, according +to ability; yet ever, as we would fain persuade ourselves, with +charitable intent. Above all, that class of "Logic-choppers, and +treble-pipe Scoffers, and professed Enemies to Wonder; who, in these +days, so numerously patrol as night-constables about the Mechanics' +Institute of Science, and cackle, like true Old-Roman geese and goslings +round their Capitol, on any alarm, or on none; nay who often, as +illuminated Sceptics, walk abroad into peaceable society, in full +daylight, with rattle and lantern, and insist on guiding you and +guarding you therewith, though the Sun is shining, and the street +populous with mere justice-loving men:" that whole class is +inexpressibly wearisome to him. Hear with what uncommon animation he +perorates:-- + +"The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and +worship), were he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried +the whole _Mecanique Celeste_ and _Hegel's Philosophy_, and the epitome +of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in his single +head,--is but a Pair of Spectacles behind which there is no Eye. Let +those who have Eyes look through him, then he may be useful. + +"Thou wilt have no Mystery and Mysticism; wilt walk through thy world +by the sunshine of what thou callest Truth, or even by the hand-lamp +of what I call Attorney-Logic; and 'explain' all, 'account' for all, or +believe nothing of it? Nay, thou wilt attempt laughter; whoso recognizes +the unfathomable, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is everywhere +under our feet and among our hands; to whom the Universe is an Oracle +and Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall,--he shall be a +delirious Mystic; to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt protrusively +proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as one injured, when he kicks his +foot through it?--_Armer Teufel_! Doth not thy cow calve, doth not +thy bull gender? Thou thyself, wert thou not born, wilt thou not die? +'Explain' me all this, or do one of two things: Retire into private +places with thy foolish cackle; or, what were better, give it up, +and weep, not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's world all +disembellished and prosaic, but that thou hitherto art a Dilettante and +sand-blind Pedant." + + + +CHAPTER XI. PROSPECTIVE. + +The Philosophy of Clothes is now to all readers, as we predicted +it would do, unfolding itself into new boundless expansions, of a +cloud-capt, almost chimerical aspect, yet not without azure loomings in +the far distance, and streaks as of an Elysian brightness; the highly +questionable purport and promise of which it is becoming more and more +important for us to ascertain. Is that a real Elysian brightness, cries +many a timid wayfarer, or the reflex of Pandemonian lava? Is it of a +truth leading us into beatific Asphodel meadows, or the yellow-burning +marl of a Hell-on-Earth? + +Our Professor, like other Mystics, whether delirious or inspired, gives +an Editor enough to do. Ever higher and dizzier are the heights he leads +us to; more piercing, all-comprehending, all-confounding are his views +and glances. For example, this of Nature being not an Aggregate but a +Whole:-- + +"Well sang the Hebrew Psalmist: 'If I take the wings of the morning +and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Universe, God is there.' Thou +thyself, O cultivated reader, who too probably art no Psalmist, but a +Prosaist, knowing GOD only by tradition, knowest thou any corner of the +world where at least FORCE is not? The drop which thou shakest from thy +wet hand, rests not where it falls, but to-morrow thou findest it swept +away; already on the wings of the North-wind, it is nearing the Tropic +of Cancer. How came it to evaporate, and not lie motionless? Thinkest +thou there is aught motionless; without Force, and utterly dead? + +"As I rode through the Schwarzwald, I said to myself: That little fire +which glows star-like across the dark-growing (_nachtende_) moor, where +the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace thy +lost horse-shoe,--is it a detached, separated speck, cut off from the +whole Universe; or indissolubly joined to the whole? Thou fool, that +smithy-fire was (primarily) kindled at the Sun; is fed by air that +circulates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dog-star; therein, +with Iron Force, and Coal Force, and the far stranger Force of Man, are +cunning affinities and battles and victories of Force brought about; it +is a little ganglion, or nervous centre, in the great vital system of +Immensity. Call it, if thou wilt, an unconscious Altar, kindled on the +bosom of the All; whose iron sacrifice, whose iron smoke and influence +reach quite through the All; whose dingy Priest, not by word, yet by +brain and sinew, preaches forth the mystery of Force; nay preaches forth +(exoterically enough) one little textlet from the Gospel of Freedom, the +Gospel of Man's Force, commanding, and one day to be all-commanding. + +"Detached, separated! I say there is no such separation: nothing +hitherto was ever stranded, cast aside; but all, were it only a withered +leaf, works together with all; is borne forward on the bottomless, +shoreless flood of Action, and lives through perpetual metamorphoses. +The withered leaf is not dead and lost, there are Forces in it and +around it, though working in inverse order; else how could it rot? +Despise not the rag from which man makes Paper, or the litter from which +the earth makes Corn. Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant; +all objects are as windows, through which the philosophic eye looks into +Infinitude itself." + +Again, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald Smithy-Altar, what vacant, +high-sailing air-ships are these, and whither will they sail with us? + +"All visible things are emblems; what thou seest is not there on its +own account; strictly taken, is not there at all: Matter exists only +spiritually, and to represent some Idea, and _body_ it forth. Hence +Clothes, as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably significant. +Clothes, from the King's mantle downwards, are emblematic, not of want +only, but of a manifold cunning Victory over Want. On the other hand, +all Emblematic things are properly Clothes, thought-woven or hand-woven: +must not the Imagination weave Garments, visible Bodies, wherein the +else invisible creations and inspirations of our Reason are, like +Spirits, revealed, and first become all-powerful; the rather if, as +we often see, the Hand too aid her, and (by wool Clothes or otherwise) +reveal such even to the outward eye? + +"Men are properly said to be clothed with Authority, clothed with +Beauty, with Curses, and the like. Nay, if you consider it, what is Man +himself, and his whole terrestrial Life, but an Emblem; a Clothing +or visible Garment for that divine ME of his, cast hither, like a +light-particle, down from Heaven? Thus is he said also to be clothed +with a Body. + +"Language is called the Garment of Thought: however, it should rather +be, Language is the Flesh-Garment, the Body, of Thought. I said that +Imagination wove this Flesh-Garment; and does not she? Metaphors are her +stuff: examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements +(of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such, +or no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and +colorless? If those same primitive elements are the osseous fixtures in +the Flesh-Garment, Language,--then are Metaphors its muscles and tissues +and living integuments. An unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek +for: is not your very _Attention_ a _Stretching-to_? The difference +lies here: some styles are lean, adust, wiry, the muscle itself seems +osseous; some are even quite pallid, hunger-bitten and dead-looking; +while others again glow in the flush of health and vigorous self-growth, +sometimes (as in my own case) not without an apoplectic tendency. +Moreover, there are sham Metaphors, which overhanging that same +Thought's-Body (best naked), and deceptively bedizening, or bolstering +it out, may be called its false stuffings, superfluous show-cloaks +(_Putz-Mantel_), and tawdry woollen rags: whereof he that runs and reads +may gather whole hampers,--and burn them." + +Than which paragraph on Metaphors did the reader ever chance to see +a more surprisingly metaphorical? However, that is not our chief +grievance; the Professor continues:-- + +"Why multiply instances? It is written, the Heavens and the Earth shall +fade away like a Vesture; which indeed they are: the Time-vesture of +the Eternal. Whatsoever sensibly exists, whatsoever represents Spirit to +Spirit, is properly a Clothing, a suit of Raiment, put on for a season, +and to be laid off. Thus in this one pregnant subject of CLOTHES, +rightly understood, is included all that men have thought, dreamed, +done, and been: the whole External Universe and what it holds is but +Clothing; and the essence of all Science lies in the PHILOSOPHY OF +CLOTHES." + +Towards these dim infinitely expanded regions, close-bordering on +the impalpable Inane, it is not without apprehension, and perpetual +difficulties, that the Editor sees himself journeying and struggling. +Till lately a cheerful daystar of hope hung before him, in the expected +Aid of Hofrath Heuschrecke; which daystar, however, melts now, not into +the red of morning, but into a vague, gray half-light, uncertain +whether dawn of day or dusk of utter darkness. For the last week, these +so-called Biographical Documents are in his hand. By the kindness of +a Scottish Hamburg Merchant, whose name, known to the whole mercantile +world, he must not mention; but whose honorable courtesy, now and often +before spontaneously manifested to him, a mere literary stranger, +he cannot soon forget,--the bulky Weissnichtwo Packet, with all its +Custom-house seals, foreign hieroglyphs, and miscellaneous tokens of +Travel, arrived here in perfect safety, and free of cost. The reader +shall now fancy with what hot haste it was broken up, with what +breathless expectation glanced over; and, alas, with what unquiet +disappointment it has, since then, been often thrown down, and again +taken up. + +Hofrath Heuschrecke, in a too long-winded Letter, full of compliments, +Weissnichtwo politics, dinners, dining repartees, and other ephemeral +trivialities, proceeds to remind us of what we knew well already: +that however it may be with Metaphysics, and other abstract Science +originating in the Head (_Verstand_) alone, no Life-Philosophy +(_Lebensphilosophie_), such as this of Clothes pretends to be, which +originates equally in the Character (_Gemuth_), and equally speaks +thereto, can attain its significance till the Character itself is known +and seen; "till the Author's View of the World (_Weltansicht_), and how +he actively and passively came by such view, are clear: in short till +a Biography of him has been philosophico-poetically written, and +philosophico-poetically read.... Nay," adds he, "were the speculative +scientific Truth even known, you still, in this inquiring age, ask +yourself, Whence came it, and Why, and How?--and rest not, till, if +no better may be, Fancy have shaped out an answer; and either in the +authentic lineaments of Fact, or the forged ones of Fiction, a complete +picture and Genetical History of the Man and his spiritual Endeavor lies +before you. But why," says the Hofrath, and indeed say we, "do I dilate +on the uses of our Teufelsdrockh's Biography? The great Herr Minister +von Goethe has penetratingly remarked that Man is properly the _only_ +object that interests man:' thus I too have noted, that in Weissnichtwo +our whole conversation is little or nothing else but Biography or +Autobiography; ever humano-anecdotical (_menschlich-anekdotisch_). +Biography is by nature the most universally profitable, universally +pleasant of all things: especially Biography of distinguished +individuals. + +"By this time, _mein Verehrtester_ (my Most Esteemed)," continues +he, with an eloquence which, unless the words be purloined from +Teufelsdrockh, or some trick of his, as we suspect, is well-nigh +unaccountable, "by this time you are fairly plunged (_vertieft_) in that +mighty forest of Clothes-Philosophy; and looking round, as all readers +do, with astonishment enough. Such portions and passages as you have +already mastered, and brought to paper, could not but awaken a strange +curiosity touching the mind they issued from; the perhaps unparalleled +psychical mechanism, which manufactured such matter, and emitted it to +the light of day. Had Teufelsdrockh also a father and mother; did he, +at one time, wear drivel-bibs, and live on spoon-meat? Did he ever, +in rapture and tears, clasp a friend's bosom to his; looks he also +wistfully into the long burial-aisle of the Past, where only winds, +and their low harsh moan, give inarticulate answer? Has he fought +duels;--good Heaven! how did he comport himself when in Love? By what +singular stair-steps, in short, and subterranean passages, and sloughs +of Despair, and steep Pisgah hills, has he reached this wonderful +prophetic Hebron (a true Old-Clothes Jewry) where he now dwells? + +"To all these natural questions the voice of public History is as yet +silent. Certain only that he has been, and is, a Pilgrim, and Traveller +from a far Country; more or less footsore and travel-soiled; has +parted with road-companions; fallen among thieves, been poisoned by bad +cookery, blistered with bug-bites; nevertheless, at every stage (for +they have let him pass), has had the Bill to discharge. But the whole +particulars of his Route, his Weather-observations, the picturesque +Sketches he took, though all regularly jotted down (in indelible +sympathetic-ink by an invisible interior Penman), are these nowhere +forthcoming? Perhaps quite lost: one other leaf of that mighty Volume +(of human Memory) left to fly abroad, unprinted, unpublished, unbound +up, as waste paper; and to rot, the sport of rainy winds? + +"No, _verehrtester Herr Herausgeber_, in no wise! I here, by the +unexampled favor you stand in with our Sage, send not a Biography only, +but an Autobiography: at least the materials for such; wherefrom, if I +misreckon not, your perspicacity will draw fullest insight: and so the +whole Philosophy and Philosopher of Clothes will stand clear to +the wondering eyes of England, nay thence, through America, through +Hindostan, and the antipodal New Holland, finally conquer (_einnehmen_) +great part of this terrestrial Planet!" + +And now let the sympathizing reader judge of our feeling when, in +place of this same Autobiography with "fullest insight," we find--Six +considerable PAPER-BAGS, carefully sealed, and marked successively, in +gilt China-ink, with the symbols of the Six southern Zodiacal Signs, +beginning at Libra; in the inside of which sealed Bags lie miscellaneous +masses of Sheets, and oftener Shreds and Snips, written in Professor +Teufelsdrockh's scarce legible _cursiv-schrift_; and treating of all +imaginable things under the Zodiac and above it, but of his own personal +history only at rare intervals, and then in the most enigmatic manner. + +Whole fascicles there are, wherein the Professor, or, as he here, +speaking in the third person, calls himself, "the Wanderer," is not once +named. Then again, amidst what seems to be a Metaphysico-theological +Disquisition, "Detached Thoughts on the Steam-engine," or, "The +continued Possibility of Prophecy," we shall meet with some quite +private, not unimportant Biographical fact. On certain sheets stand +Dreams, authentic or not, while the circumjacent waking Actions are +omitted. Anecdotes, oftenest without date of place or time, fly loosely +on separate slips, like Sibylline leaves. Interspersed also are long +purely Autobiographical delineations; yet without connection, without +recognizable coherence; so unimportant, so superfluously minute, they +almost remind us of "P.P. Clerk of this Parish." Thus does famine of +intelligence alternate with waste. Selection, order, appears to be +unknown to the Professor. In all Bags the same imbroglio; only perhaps +in the Bag _Capricorn_, and those near it, the confusion a little +worse confounded. Close by a rather eloquent Oration, "On receiving the +Doctor's-Hat," lie wash-bills, marked _bezahlt_ (settled). His Travels +are indicated by the Street-Advertisements of the various cities he has +visited; of which Street-Advertisements, in most living tongues, here is +perhaps the completest collection extant. + +So that if the Clothes-Volume itself was too like a Chaos, we have now +instead of the solar Luminary that should still it, the airy Limbo which +by intermixture will farther volatilize and discompose it! As we shall +perhaps see it our duty ultimately to deposit these Six Paper-Bags in +the British Museum, farther description, and all vituperation of them, +may be spared. Biography or Autobiography of Teufelsdrockh there is, +clearly enough, none to be gleaned here: at most some sketchy, +shadowy fugitive likeness of him may, by unheard-of efforts, partly of +intellect, partly of imagination, on the side of Editor and of Reader, +rise up between them. Only as a gaseous-chaotic Appendix to that +aqueous-chaotic Volume can the contents of the Six Bags hover round us, +and portions thereof be incorporated with our delineation of it. + +Daily and nightly does the Editor sit (with green spectacles) +deciphering these unimaginable Documents from their perplexed +_cursiv-schrift_; collating them with the almost equally unimaginable +Volume, which stands in legible print. Over such a universal medley of +high and low, of hot, cold, moist and dry, is he here struggling (by +union of like with like, which is Method) to build a firm Bridge for +British travellers. Never perhaps since our first Bridge-builders, Sin +and Death, built that stupendous Arch from Hell-gate to the Earth, did +any Pontifex, or Pontiff, undertake such a task as the present Editor. +For in this Arch too, leading, as we humbly presume, far otherwards +than that grand primeval one, the materials are to be fished up from the +weltering deep, and down from the simmering air, here one mass, there +another, and cunningly cemented, while the elements boil beneath: nor is +there any supernatural force to do it with; but simply the Diligence +and feeble thinking Faculty of an English Editor, endeavoring to evolve +printed Creation out of a German printed and written Chaos, wherein, as +he shoots to and fro in it, gathering, clutching, piecing the Why to +the far-distant Wherefore, his whole Faculty and Self are like to be +swallowed up. + +Patiently, under these incessant toils and agitations, does the Editor, +dismissing all anger, see his otherwise robust health declining; some +fraction of his allotted natural sleep nightly leaving him, and little +but an inflamed nervous-system to be looked for. What is the use of +health, or of life, if not to do some work therewith? And what work +nobler than transplanting foreign Thought into the barren domestic +soil; except indeed planting Thought of your own, which the fewest are +privileged to do? Wild as it looks, this Philosophy of Clothes, can we +ever reach its real meaning, promises to reveal new-coming Eras, the +first dim rudiments and already-budding germs of a nobler Era, in +Universal History. Is not such a prize worth some striving? Forward with +us, courageous reader; be it towards failure, or towards success! The +latter thou sharest with us; the former also is not all our own. + + + + +BOOK II. + + + +CHAPTER I. GENESIS. + +In a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable whether +from birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinized soever, much insight +is to be gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenomenon the Beginning +remains always the most notable moment; so, with regard to any great +man, we rest not till, for our scientific profit or not, the whole +circumstances of his first appearance in this Planet, and what manner of +Public Entry he made, are with utmost completeness rendered manifest. +To the Genesis of our Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this First Chapter +consecrated. Unhappily, indeed, he seems to be of quite obscure +extraction; uncertain, we might almost say, whether of any: so that this +Genesis of his can properly be nothing but an Exodus (or transit out +of Invisibility into Visibility); whereof the preliminary portion is +nowhere forthcoming. + +"In the village of Entepfuhl," thus writes he, in the Bag _Libra_, +on various Papers, which we arrange with difficulty, "dwelt Andreas +Futteral and his wife; childless, in still seclusion, and cheerful +though now verging towards old age. Andreas had been grenadier Sergeant, +and even regimental Schoolmaster under Frederick the Great; but +now, quitting the halbert and ferule for the spade and pruning-hook, +cultivated a little Orchard, on the produce of which he, +Cincinnatus-like, lived not without dignity. Fruits, the peach, the +apple, the grape, with other varieties came in their season; all which +Andreas knew how to sell: on evenings he smoked largely, or read (as +beseemed a regimental Schoolmaster), and talked to neighbors that would +listen about the Victory of Rossbach; and how Fritz the Only (_der +Einzige_) had once with his own royal lips spoken to him, had been +pleased to say, when Andreas as camp-sentinel demanded the pass-word, +'_Schweig Hund_ (Peace, hound)!' before any of his staff-adjutants could +answer. '_Das nenn' ich mir einen Konig_, There is what I call a King,' +would Andreas exclaim: 'but the smoke of Kunersdorf was still smarting +his eyes.' + +"Gretchen, the housewife, won like Desdemona by the deeds rather than +the looks of her now veteran Othello, lived not in altogether military +subordination; for, as Andreas said, 'the womankind will not drill (_wer +kann die Weiberchen dressiren_):' nevertheless she at heart loved him +both for valor and wisdom; to her a Prussian grenadier Sergeant and +Regiment's Schoolmaster was little other than a Cicero and Cid: what you +see, yet cannot see over, is as good as infinite. Nay, was not Andreas +in very deed a man of order, courage, downrightness (_Geradheit_); that +understood Busching's _Geography_, had been in the victory of Rossbach, +and left for dead in the camisade of Hochkirch? The good Gretchen, for +all her fretting, watched over him and hovered round him as only a true +house-mother can: assiduously she cooked and sewed and scoured for him; +so that not only his old regimental sword and grenadier-cap, but the +whole habitation and environment, where on pegs of honor they hung, +looked ever trim and gay: a roomy painted Cottage, embowered in +fruit-trees and forest-trees, evergreens and honeysuckles; rising +many-colored from amid shaven grass-plots, flowers struggling in +through the very windows; under its long projecting eaves nothing but +garden-tools in methodic piles (to screen them from rain), and seats +where, especially on summer nights, a King might have wished to sit and +smoke, and call it his. Such a Bauergut (Copyhold) had Gretchen given +her veteran; whose sinewy arms, and long-disused gardening talent, had +made it what you saw. + +"Into this umbrageous Man's-nest, one meek yellow evening or dusk, when +the Sun, hidden indeed from terrestrial Entepfuhl, did nevertheless +journey visible and radiant along the celestial Balance (_Libra_), +it was that a Stranger of reverend aspect entered; and, with grave +salutation, stood before the two rather astonished housemates. He was +close-muffled in a wide mantle; which without farther parley unfolding, +he deposited therefrom what seemed some Basket, overhung with +green Persian silk; saying only: _Ihr lieben Leute, hier bringe ein +unschatzbares Verleihen; nehmt es in aller Acht, sorgfaltigst benutzt +es: mit hohem Lohn, oder wohl mit schweren Zinsen, wird's einst +zuruckgefordert_. 'Good Christian people, here lies for you an +invaluable Loan; take all heed thereof, in all carefulness employ it: +with high recompense, or else with heavy penalty, will it one day be +required back.' Uttering which singular words, in a clear, bell-like, +forever memorable tone, the Stranger gracefully withdrew; and before +Andreas or his wife, gazing in expectant wonder, had time to fashion +either question or answer, was clean gone. Neither out of doors could +aught of him be seen or heard; he had vanished in the thickets, in the +dusk; the Orchard-gate stood quietly closed: the Stranger was gone once +and always. So sudden had the whole transaction been, in the autumn +stillness and twilight, so gentle, noiseless, that the Futterals could +have fancied it all a trick of Imagination, or some visit from an +authentic Spirit. Only that the green-silk Basket, such as neither +Imagination nor authentic Spirits are wont to carry, still stood visible +and tangible on their little parlor-table. Towards this the astonished +couple, now with lit candle, hastily turned their attention. Lifting +the green veil, to see what invaluable it hid, they descried there, amid +down and rich white wrappages, no Pitt Diamond or Hapsburg Regalia, but, +in the softest sleep, a little red-colored Infant! Beside it, lay a roll +of gold Friedrichs, the exact amount of which was never publicly known; +also a _Taufschein_ (baptismal certificate), wherein unfortunately +nothing but the Name was decipherable, other document or indication none +whatever. + +"To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then and always thenceforth. +Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next day, did tidings transpire +of any such figure as the Stranger; nor could the Traveller, who had +passed through the neighboring Town in coach-and-four, be connected with +this Apparition, except in the way of gratuitous surmise. Meanwhile, for +Andreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was: What to do +with this little sleeping red-colored Infant? Amid amazements and +curiosities, which had to die away without external satisfying, they +resolved, as in such circumstances charitable prudent people needs must, +on nursing it, though with spoon-meat, into whiteness, and if possible +into manhood. The Heavens smiled on their endeavor: thus has that +same mysterious Individual ever since had a status for himself in this +visible Universe, some modicum of victual and lodging and parade-ground; +and now expanded in bulk, faculty and knowledge of good and evil, he, as +HERR DIOGENES TEUFELSDROCKH, professes or is ready to profess, perhaps +not altogether without effect, in the new University of Weissnichtwo, +the new Science of Things in General." + +Our Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should think he well might, +that these facts, first communicated, by the good Gretchen Futteral, +In his twelfth year, "produced on the boyish heart and fancy a quite +indelible impression. Who this reverend Personage," he says, "that +glided into the Orchard Cottage when the Sun was in Libra, and then, as +on spirit's wings, glided out again, might be? An inexpressible desire, +full of love and of sadness, has often since struggled within me to +shape an answer. Ever, in my distresses and my loneliness, has Fantasy +turned, full of longing (_sehnsuchtsvoll_), to that unknown Father, +who perhaps far from me, perhaps near, either way invisible, might have +taken me to his paternal bosom, there to lie screened from many a woe. +Thou beloved Father, dost thou still, shut out from me only by thin +penetrable curtains of earthly Space, wend to and fro among the crowd +of the living? Or art thou hidden by those far thicker curtains of the +Everlasting Night, or rather of the Everlasting Day, through which my +mortal eye and outstretched arms need not strive to reach? Alas, I know +not, and in vain vex myself to know. More than once, heart-deluded, +have I taken for thee this and the other noble-looking Stranger; and +approached him wistfully, with infinite regard; but he too had to repel +me, he too was not thou. + +"And yet, O Man born of Woman," cries the Autobiographer, with one of +his sudden whirls, "wherein is my case peculiar? Hadst thou, any more +than I, a Father whom thou knowest? The Andreas and Gretchen, or the +Adam and Eve, who led thee into Life, and for a time suckled and pap-fed +thee there, whom thou namest Father and Mother; these were, like mine, +but thy nursing-father and nursing-mother: thy true Beginning and Father +is in Heaven, whom with the bodily eye thou shalt never behold, but only +with the spiritual.... + +"The little green veil," adds he, among much similar moralizing, and +embroiled discoursing, "I yet keep; still more inseparably the Name, +Diogenes Teufelsdrockh. From the veil can nothing be inferred: a piece +of now quite faded Persian silk, like thousands of others. On the Name I +have many times meditated and conjectured; but neither in this lay +there any clew. That it was my unknown Father's name I must hesitate to +believe. To no purpose have I searched through all the Herald's +Books, in and without the German Empire, and through all manner +of Subscriber-Lists (_Pranumeranten_), Militia-Rolls, and other +Name-catalogues; extraordinary names as we have in Germany, the name +Teufelsdrockh, except as appended to my own person, nowhere occurs. +Again, what may the unchristian rather than Christian 'Diogenes' mean? +Did that reverend Basket-bearer intend, by such designation, to shadow +forth my future destiny, or his own present malign humor? Perhaps the +latter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starred Parent, who like an Ostrich hadst +to leave thy ill-starred offspring to be hatched into self-support by +the mere sky-influences of Chance, can thy pilgrimage have been a smooth +one? Beset by Misfortune thou doubtless hast been; or indeed by the +worst figure of Misfortune, by Misconduct. Often have I fancied how, +in thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot at, and slung at, wounded, +hand-fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten and bedevilled by the Time-Spirit +(_Zeitgeist_) in thyself and others, till the good soul first given thee +was seered into grim rage, and thou hadst nothing for it but to leave +in me an indignant appeal to the Future, and living speaking Protest +against the Devil, as that same Spirit not of the Time only, but of Time +itself, is well named! Which Appeal and Protest, may I now modestly add, +was not perhaps quite lost in air. + +"For indeed, as Walter Shandy often insisted, there is much, nay almost +all, in Names. The Name is the earliest Garment you wrap round the +earth-visiting ME; to which it thenceforth cleaves, more tenaciously +(for there are Names that have lasted nigh thirty centuries) than the +very skin. And now from without, what mystic influences does it not send +inwards, even to the centre; especially in those plastic first-times, +when the whole soul is yet infantine, soft, and the invisible seedgrain +will grow to be an all overshadowing tree! Names? Could I unfold the +influence of Names, which are the most important of all Clothings, I +were a second greater Trismegistus. Not only all common Speech, but +Science, Poetry itself is no other, if thou consider it, than a right +_Naming_. Adam's first task was giving names to natural Appearances: +what is ours still but a continuation of the same; be the Appearances +exotic-vegetable, organic, mechanic, stars, or starry movements (as +in Science); or (as in Poetry) passions, virtues, calamities, +God-attributes, Gods?--In a very plain sense the Proverb says, _Call +one a thief, and he will steal_; in an almost similar sense may we not +perhaps say, _Call one Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, and he will open the +Philosophy of Clothes_?" + + +"Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all ignorant of his Why, +his How or Whereabout, was opening his eyes to the kind Light; sprawling +out his ten fingers and toes; listening, tasting, feeling; in a word, +by all his Five Senses, still more by his Sixth Sense of Hunger, and a +whole infinitude of inward, spiritual, half-awakened Senses, endeavoring +daily to acquire for himself some knowledge of this strange Universe +where he had arrived, be his task therein what it might. Infinite was +his progress; thus in some fifteen months, he could perform the miracle +of--Speech! To breed a fresh Soul, is it not like brooding a fresh +(celestial) Egg; wherein as yet all is formless, powerless; yet by +degrees organic elements and fibres shoot through the watery albumen; +and out of vague Sensation grows Thought, grows Fantasy and Force, and +we have Philosophies, Dynasties, nay Poetries and Religions! + +"Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such diminutive +had they in their fondness named him, travelled forward to those high +consummations, by quick yet easy stages. The Futterals, to avoid vain +talk, and moreover keep the roll of gold Friedrichs safe, gave out that +he was a grandnephew; the orphan of some sister's daughter, suddenly +deceased, in Andreas's distant Prussian birthland; of whom, as of +her indigent sorrowing widower, little enough was known at Entepfuhl. +Heedless of all which, the Nursling took to his spoon-meat, and throve. +I have heard him noted as a still infant, that kept his mind much to +himself; above all, that seldom or never cried. He already felt +that time was precious; that he had other work cut out for him than +whimpering." + + +Such, after utmost painful search and collation among these +miscellaneous Paper-masses, is all the notice we can gather of Herr +Teufelsdrockh's genealogy. More imperfect, more enigmatic it can seem +to few readers than to us. The Professor, in whom truly we more and more +discern a certain satirical turn, and deep under-currents of roguish +whim, for the present stands pledged in honor, so we will not doubt him: +but seems it not conceivable that, by the "good Gretchen Futteral," +or some other perhaps interested party, he has himself been deceived? +Should these sheets, translated or not, ever reach the Entepfuhl +Circulating Library, some cultivated native of that district might feel +called to afford explanation. Nay, since Books, like invisible scouts, +permeate the whole habitable globe, and Timbuctoo itself is not safe +from British Literature, may not some Copy find out even the mysterious +basket-bearing Stranger, who in a state of extreme senility perhaps +still exists; and gently force even him to disclose himself; to claim +openly a son, in whom any father may feel pride? + + + +CHAPTER II. IDYLLIC. + +"HAPPY season of Childhood!" exclaims Teufelsdrockh: "Kind Nature, that +art to all a bountiful mother; that visitest the poor man's hut with +auroral radiance; and for thy Nursling hast provided a soft swathing +of Love and infinite Hope, wherein he waxes and slumbers, danced round +(_umgaukelt_) by sweetest Dreams! If the paternal Cottage still shuts us +in, its roof still screens us; with a Father we have as yet a prophet, +priest and king, and an Obedience that makes us free. The young spirit +has awakened out of Eternity, and knows not what we mean by Time; as yet +Time is no fast-hurrying stream, but a sportful sunlit ocean; years to +the child are as ages: ah! the secret of Vicissitude, of that slower or +quicker decay and ceaseless down-rushing of the universal World-fabric, +from the granite mountain to the man or day-moth, is yet unknown; and in +a motionless Universe, we taste, what afterwards in this quick-whirling +Universe is forever denied us, the balm of Rest. Sleep on, thou fair +Child, for thy long rough journey is at hand! A little while, and thou +too shalt sleep no more, but thy very dreams shall be mimic battles; +thou too, with old Arnauld, wilt have to say in stern patience: 'Rest? +Rest? Shall I not have all Eternity to rest in?' Celestial Nepenthe! +though a Pyrrhus conquer empires, and an Alexander sack the world, he +finds thee not; and thou hast once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on +the eyelids, on the heart of every mother's child. For as yet, sleep +and waking are one: the fair Life-garden rustles infinite around, and +everywhere is dewy fragrance, and the budding of Hope; which budding, if +in youth, too frost-nipt, it grow to flowers, will in manhood yield no +fruit, but a prickly, bitter-rinded stone-fruit, of which the fewest can +find the kernel." + +In such rose-colored light does our Professor, as Poets are wont, look +back on his childhood; the historical details of which (to say nothing +of much other vague oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells on with an +almost wearisome minuteness. We hear of Entepfuhl standing "in trustful +derangement" among the woody slopes; the paternal Orchard flanking it as +extreme outpost from below; the little Kuhbach gushing kindly by, among +beech-rows, through river after river, into the Donau, into the Black +Sea, into the Atmosphere and Universe; and how "the brave old Linden," +stretching like a parasol of twenty ells in radius, overtopping all +other rows and clumps, towered up from the central _Agora_ and _Campus +Martius_ of the Village, like its Sacred Tree; and how the old men sat +talking under its shadow (Gneschen often greedily listening), and the +wearied laborers reclined, and the unwearied children sported, and the +young men and maidens often danced to flute-music. "Glorious summer +twilights," cries Teufelsdrockh, "when the Sun, like a proud Conqueror +and Imperial Taskmaster, turned his back, with his gold-purple +emblazonry, and all his fireclad bodyguard (of Prismatic Colors); and +the tired brickmakers of this clay Earth might steal a little frolic, +and those few meek Stars would not tell of them!" + +Then we have long details of the _Weinlesen_ (Vintage), the +Harvest-Home, Christmas, and so forth; with a whole cycle of the +Entepfuhl Children's-games, differing apparently by mere superficial +shades from those of other countries. Concerning all which, we shall +here, for obvious reasons, say nothing. What cares the world for our as +yet miniature Philosopher's achievements under that "brave old Linden "? +Or even where is the use of such practical reflections as the following? +"In all the sports of Children, were it only in their wanton breakages +and defacements, you shall discern a creative instinct (_schaffenden +Trieb_): the Mankin feels that he is a born Man, that his vocation is +to work. The choicest present you can make him is a Tool; be it knife or +pen-gun, for construction or for destruction; either way it is for Work, +for Change. In gregarious sports of skill or strength, the Boy trains +himself to Co-operation, for war or peace, as governor or governed: +the little Maid again, provident of her domestic destiny, takes with +preference to Dolls." + +Perhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, considering who it is that +relates it: "My first short-clothes were of yellow serge; or rather, +I should say, my first short-cloth, for the vesture was one and +indivisible, reaching from neck to ankle, a mere body with four limbs: +of which fashion how little could I then divine the architectural, how +much less the moral significance!" + +More graceful is the following little picture: "On fine evenings I was +wont to carry forth my supper (bread-crumb boiled in milk), and eat it +out-of-doors. On the coping of the Orchard-wall, which I could reach +by climbing, or still more easily if Father Andreas would set up the +pruning-ladder, my porringer was placed: there, many a sunset, have I, +looking at the distant western Mountains, consumed, not without relish, +my evening meal. Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of World's +expectation as Day died, were still a Hebrew Speech for me; nevertheless +I was looking at the fair illuminated Letters, and had an eye for their +gilding." + +With "the little one's friendship for cattle and poultry" we shall not +much intermeddle. It may be that hereby he acquired a "certain deeper +sympathy with animated Nature:" but when, we would ask, saw any man, +in a collection of Biographical Documents, such a piece as this: +"Impressive enough (_bedeutungsvoll_) was it to hear, in early morning, +the Swineherd's horn; and know that so many hungry happy quadrupeds +were, on all sides, starting in hot haste to join him, for breakfast on +the Heath. Or to see them at eventide, all marching in again, with short +squeak, almost in military order; and each, topographically correct, +trotting off in succession to the right or left, through its own lane, +to its own dwelling; till old Kunz, at the Village-head, now left alone, +blew his last blast, and retired for the night. We are wont to love the +Hog chiefly in the form of Ham; yet did not these bristly thick-skinned +beings here manifest intelligence, perhaps humor of character; at any +rate, a touching, trustful submissiveness to Man,--who, were he but a +Swineherd, in darned gabardine, and leather breeches more resembling +slate or discolored-tin breeches, is still the Hierarch of this lower +world?" + +It is maintained, by Helvetius and his set, that an infant of genius +is quite the same as any other infant, only that certain surprisingly +favorable influences accompany him through life, especially through +childhood, and expand him, while others lie close-folded and continue +dunces. Herein, say they, consists the whole difference between an +inspired Prophet and a double-barrelled Game-preserver: the inner man of +the one has been fostered into generous development; that of the other, +crushed down perhaps by vigor of animal digestion, and the like, has +exuded and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably stagnant at +the bottom of his stomach. "With which opinion," cries Teufelsdrockh, +"I should as soon agree as with this other, that an acorn might, by +favorable or unfavorable influences of soil and climate, be nursed into +a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into an oak. + +"Nevertheless," continues he, "I too acknowledge the all-but omnipotence +of early culture and nurture: hereby we have either a doddered dwarf +bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree; either a sick yellow +cabbage, or an edible luxuriant green one. Of a truth, it is the duty of +all men, especially of all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the +characteristic circumstances of their Education, what furthered, what +hindered, what in any way modified it: to which duty, nowadays so +pressing for many a German Autobiographer, I also zealously address +myself."--Thou rogue! Is it by short clothes of yellow serge, and +swineherd horns, that an infant of genius is educated? And yet, as +usual, it ever remains doubtful whether he is laughing in his sleeve at +these Autobiographical times of ours, or writing from the abundance of +his own fond ineptitude. For he continues: "If among the ever-streaming +currents of Sights, Hearings, Feelings for Pain or Pleasure, whereby, as +in a Magic Hall, young Gneschen went about environed, I might venture to +select and specify, perhaps these following were also of the number: + +"Doubtless, as childish sports call forth Intellect, Activity, so the +young creature's Imagination was stirred up, and a Historical tendency +given him by the narrative habits of Father Andreas; who, with his +battle-reminiscences, and gray austere yet hearty patriarchal aspect, +could not but appear another Ulysses and 'much-enduring Man.' Eagerly I +hung upon his tales, when listening neighbors enlivened the hearth; from +these perils and these travels, wild and far almost as Hades itself, a +dim world of Adventure expanded itself within me. Incalculable also +was the knowledge I acquired in standing by the Old Men under the +Linden-tree: the whole of Immensity was yet new to me; and had not these +reverend seniors, talkative enough, been employed in partial surveys +thereof for nigh fourscore years? With amazement I began to discover +that Entepfuhl stood in the middle of a Country, of a World; that there +was such a thing as History, as Biography to which I also, one day, by +hand and tongue, might contribute. + +"In a like sense worked the _Postwagen_ (Stage-coach), which, +slow-rolling under its mountains of men and luggage, wended through our +Village: northwards, truly, in the dead of night; yet southwards visibly +at eventide. Not till my eighth year did I reflect that this Postwagen +could be other than some terrestrial Moon, rising and setting by mere +Law of Nature, like the heavenly one; that it came on made highways, +from far cities towards far cities; weaving them like a monstrous +shuttle into closer and closer union. It was then that, independently +of Schiller's _Wilhelm Tell_, I made this not quite insignificant +reflection (so true also in spiritual things): _Any road, this simple +Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the World_! + +"Why mention our Swallows, which, out of far Africa, as I learned, +threading their way over seas and mountains, corporate cities and +belligerent nations, yearly found themselves with the month of +May, snug-lodged in our Cottage Lobby? The hospitable Father (for +cleanliness' sake) had fixed a little bracket plumb under their nest: +there they built, and caught flies, and twittered, and bred; and all, I +chiefly, from the heart loved them. Bright, nimble creatures, who +taught you the mason-craft; nay, stranger still, gave you a masonic +incorporation, almost social police? For if, by ill chance, and when +time pressed, your House fell, have I not seen five neighborly +Helpers appear next day; and swashing to and fro, with animated, loud, +long-drawn chirpings, and activity almost super-hirundine, complete it +again before nightfall? + +"But undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl child's culture, +where as in a funnel its manifold influences were concentrated and +simultaneously poured down on us, was the annual Cattle-fair. Here, +assembling from all the four winds, came the elements of an unspeakable +hurry-burly. Nut-brown maids and nut-brown men, all clear-washed, +loud-laughing, bedizened and beribanded; who came for dancing, for +treating, and if possible, for happiness. Topbooted Graziers from the +North; Swiss Brokers, Italian Drovers, also topbooted, from the South; +these with their subalterns in leather jerkins, leather skull-caps, and +long ox-goads; shouting in half-articulate speech, amid the inarticulate +barking and bellowing. Apart stood Potters from far Saxony, with their +crockery in fair rows; Nurnberg Pedlers, in booths that to me seemed +richer than Ormuz bazaars; Showmen from the Lago Maggiore; detachments +of the _Wiener Schub_ (Offscourings of Vienna) vociferously +superintending games of chance. Ballad-singers brayed, Auctioneers +grew hoarse; cheap New Wine (_heuriger_) flowed like water, still +worse confounding the confusion; and high over all, vaulted, in +ground-and-lofty tumbling, a particolored Merry-Andrew, like the genius +of the place and of Life itself. + +"Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence; under the deep heavenly +Firmament; waited on by the four golden Seasons, with their vicissitudes +of contribution, for even grim Winter brought its skating-matches and +shooting-matches, its snow-storms and Christmas-carols,--did the Child +sit and learn. These things were the Alphabet, whereby in aftertime +he was to syllable and partly read the grand Volume of the World: what +matters it whether such Alphabet be in large gilt letters or in small +ungilt ones, so you have an eye to read it? For Gneschen, eager to +learn, the very act of looking thereon was a blessedness that gilded +all: his existence was a bright, soft element of Joy; out of which, as +in Prospero's Island, wonder after wonder bodied itself forth, to teach +by charming. + +"Nevertheless, I were but a vain dreamer to say, that even then my +felicity was perfect. I had, once for all, come down from Heaven into +the Earth. Among the rainbow colors that glowed on my horizon, lay even +in childhood a dark ring of Care, as yet no thicker than a thread, and +often quite overshone; yet always it reappeared, nay ever waxing broader +and broader; till in after-years it almost overshadowed my whole canopy, +and threatened to engulf me in final night. It was the ring of Necessity +whereby we are all begirt; happy he for whom a kind heavenly Sun +brightens it into a ring of Duty, and plays round it with beautiful +prismatic diffractions; yet ever, as basis and as bourn for our whole +being, it is there. + +"For the first few years of our terrestrial Apprenticeship, we have not +much work to do; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are set down mostly +to look about us over the workshop, and see others work, till we have +understood the tools a little, and can handle this and that. If good +Passivity alone, and not good Passivity and good Activity together, were +the thing wanted, then was my early position favorable beyond the most. +In all that respects openness of Sense, affectionate Temper, ingenuous +Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more could I have wished? +On the other side, however, things went not so well. My Active Power +(_Thatkraft_) was unfavorably hemmed in; of which misfortune how many +traces yet abide with me! In an orderly house, where the litter of +children's sports is hateful enough, your training is too stoical; +rather to bear and forbear than to make and do. I was forbid much: +wishes in any measure bold I had to renounce; everywhere a strait bond +of Obedience inflexibly held me down. Thus already Freewill often came +in painful collision with Necessity; so that my tears flowed, and at +seasons the Child itself might taste that root of bitterness, wherewith +the whole fruitage of our life is mingled and tempered. + +"In which habituation to Obedience, truly, it was beyond measure safer +to err by excess than by defect. Obedience is our universal duty and +destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break: too early and too +thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that Would, in this world of +ours, is as mere zero to Should, and for most part as the smallest of +fractions even to Shall. Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly +Discretion, nay of Morality itself. Let me not quarrel with my +upbringing. It was rigorous, too frugal, compressively secluded, every +way unscientific: yet in that very strictness and domestic solitude +might there not lie the root of deeper earnestness, of the stem from +which all noble fruit must grow? Above all, how unskilful soever, it was +loving, it was well-meant, honest; whereby every deficiency was helped. +My kind Mother, for as such I must ever love the good Gretchen, did me +one altogether invaluable service: she taught me, less indeed by word +than by act and daily reverent look and habitude, her own simple version +of the Christian Faith. Andreas too attended Church; yet more like +a parade-duty, for which he in the other world expected pay with +arrears,--as, I trust, he has received; but my Mother, with a true +woman's heart, and fine though uncultivated sense, was in the strictest +acceptation Religious. How indestructibly the Good grows, and propagates +itself, even among the weedy entanglements of Evil! The highest whom +I knew on Earth I here saw bowed down, with awe unspeakable, before a +Higher in Heaven: such things, especially in infancy, reach inwards to +the very core of your being; mysteriously does a Holy of Holies build +itself into visibility in the mysterious deeps; and Reverence, the +divinest in man, springs forth undying from its mean envelopment of +Fear. Wouldst thou rather be a peasant's son that knew, were it never so +rudely, there was a God in Heaven and in Man; or a duke's son that only +knew there were two-and-thirty quarters on the family-coach?" + +To which last question we must answer: Beware, O Teufelsdrockh, of +spiritual pride! + + + +CHAPTER III. PEDAGOGY. + +Hitherto we see young Gneschen, in his indivisible case of yellow serge, +borne forward mostly on the arms of kind Nature alone; seated, indeed, +and much to his mind, in the terrestrial workshop, but (except his +soft hazel eyes, which we doubt not already gleamed with a still +intelligence) called upon for little voluntary movement there. Hitherto, +accordingly, his aspect is rather generic, that of an incipient +Philosopher and Poet in the abstract; perhaps it would puzzle Herr +Heuschrecke himself to say wherein the special Doctrine of Clothes is +as yet foreshadowed or betokened. For with Gneschen, as with others, the +Man may indeed stand pictured in the Boy (at least all the pigments are +there); yet only some half of the Man stands in the Child, or young Boy, +namely, his Passive endowment, not his Active. The more impatient are we +to discover what figure he cuts in this latter capacity; how, when, to +use his own words, "he understands the tools a little, and can handle +this or that," he will proceed to handle it. + +Here, however, may be the place to state that, in much of our +Philosopher's history, there is something of an almost Hindoo character: +nay perhaps in that so well-fostered and every way excellent "Passivity" +of his, which, with no free development of the antagonist Activity, +distinguished his childhood, we may detect the rudiments of much that, +in after days, and still in these present days, astonishes the world. +For the shallow-sighted, Teufelsdrockh is oftenest a man without +Activity of any kind, a No-man; for the deep-sighted, again, a man +with Activity almost superabundant, yet so spiritual, close-hidden, +enigmatic, that no mortal can foresee its explosions, or even when +it has exploded, so much as ascertain its significance. A dangerous, +difficult temper for the modern European; above all, disadvantageous in +the hero of a Biography! Now as heretofore it will behoove the Editor of +these pages, were it never so unsuccessfully, to do his endeavor. + +Among the earliest tools of any complicacy which a man, especially a man +of letters, gets to handle, are his Class-books. On this portion of his +History, Teufelsdrockh looks down professedly as indifferent. Reading he +"cannot remember ever to have learned;" so perhaps had it by nature. +He says generally: "Of the insignificant portion of my Education, which +depended on Schools, there need almost no notice be taken. I learned +what others learn; and kept it stored by in a corner of my head, +seeing as yet no manner of use in it. My Schoolmaster, a down-bent, +broken-hearted, underfoot martyr, as others of that guild are, did +little for me, except discover that he could do little: he, good soul, +pronounced me a genius, fit for the learned professions; and that I must +be sent to the Gymnasium, and one day to the University. Meanwhile, +what printed thing soever I could meet with I read. My very copper +pocket-money I laid out on stall-literature; which, as it accumulated, +I with my own hands sewed into volumes. By this means was the young +head furnished with a considerable miscellany of things and shadows +of things: History in authentic fragments lay mingled with Fabulous +chimeras, wherein also was reality; and the whole not as dead stuff, but +as living pabulum, tolerably nutritive for a mind as yet so peptic." + +That the Entepfuhl Schoolmaster judged well, we now know. Indeed, +already in the youthful Gneschen, with all his outward stillness, there +may have been manifest an inward vivacity that promised much; symptoms +of a spirit singularly open, thoughtful, almost poetical. Thus, to say +nothing of his Suppers on the Orchard-wall, and other phenomena of that +earlier period, have many readers of these pages stumbled, in their +twelfth year, on such reflections as the following? "It struck me much, +as I sat by the Kuhbach, one silent noontide, and watched it flowing, +gurgling, to think how this same streamlet had flowed and gurgled, +through all changes of weather and of fortune, from beyond the earliest +date of History. Yes, probably on the morning when Joshua forded Jordan; +even as at the mid-day when Caesar, doubtless with difficulty, swam the +Nile, yet kept his _Commentaries_ dry,--this little Kuhbach, assiduous +as Tiber, Eurotas or Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilderness, as +yet unnamed, unseen: here, too, as in the Euphrates and the Ganges, is +a vein or veinlet of the grand World-circulation of Waters, which, with +its atmospheric arteries, has lasted and lasts simply with the World. +Thou fool! Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that +idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age." In which little +thought, as in a little fountain, may there not lie the beginning of +those well-nigh unutterable meditations on the grandeur and mystery +of TIME, and its relation to ETERNITY, which play such a part in this +Philosophy of Clothes? + +Over his Gymnasic and Academic years the Professor by no means lingers +so lyrical and joyful as over his childhood. Green sunny tracts there +are still; but intersected by bitter rivulets of tears, here and there +stagnating into sour marshes of discontent. "With my first view of the +Hinterschlag Gymnasium," writes he, "my evil days began. Well do I still +remember the red sunny Whitsuntide morning, when, trotting full of hope +by the side of Father Andreas, I entered the main street of the place, +and saw its steeple-clock (then striking Eight) and _Schuldthurm_ +(Jail), and the aproned or disaproned Burghers moving in to breakfast: +a little dog, in mad terror, was rushing past; for some human imps +had tied a tin kettle to its tail; thus did the agonized creature, +loud-jingling, career through the whole length of the Borough, and +become notable enough. Fit emblem of many a Conquering Hero, to +whom Fate (wedding Fantasy to Sense, as it often elsewhere does) has +malignantly appended a tin kettle of Ambition, to chase him on; which +the faster he runs, urges him the faster, the more loudly and more +foolishly! Fit emblem also of much that awaited myself, in that +mischievous Den; as in the World, whereof it was a portion and epitome! + +"Alas, the kind beech-rows of Entepfuhl were hidden in the distance: I +was among strangers, harshly, at best indifferently, disposed towards +me; the young heart felt, for the first time, quite orphaned and alone." +His school-fellows, as is usual, persecuted him: "They were Boys," he +says, "mostly rude Boys, and obeyed the impulse of rude Nature, which +bids the deer-herd fall upon any stricken hart, the duck-flock put to +death any broken-winged brother or sister, and on all hands the strong +tyrannize over the weak." He admits that though "perhaps in an unusual +degree morally courageous," he succeeded ill in battle, and would fain +have avoided it; a result, as would appear, owing less to his small +personal stature (for in passionate seasons he was "incredibly nimble"), +than to his "virtuous principles:" "if it was disgraceful to be beaten," +says he, "it was only a shade less disgraceful to have so much as +fought; thus was I drawn two ways at once, and in this important element +of school-history, the war-element, had little but sorrow." On the +whole, that same excellent "Passivity," so notable in Teufelsdrockh's +childhood, is here visibly enough again getting nourishment. "He wept +often; indeed to such a degree that he was nicknamed _Der Weinende_ (the +Tearful), which epithet, till towards his thirteenth year, was indeed +not quite unmerited. Only at rare intervals did the young soul burst +forth into fire-eyed rage, and, with a stormfulness (_Ungestum_) under +which the boldest quailed, assert that he too had Rights of Man, or at +least of Mankin." In all which, who does not discern a fine flower-tree +and cinnamon-tree (of genius) nigh choked among pumpkins, reed-grass and +ignoble shrubs; and forced if it would live, to struggle upwards only, +and not outwards; into a _height_ quite sickly, and disproportioned to +its _breadth_? + +We find, moreover, that his Greek and Latin were "mechanically" taught; +Hebrew scarce even mechanically; much else which they called History, +Cosmography, Philosophy, and so forth, no better than not at all. So +that, except inasmuch as Nature was still busy; and he himself "went +about, as was of old his wont, among the Craftsmen's workshops, there +learning many things;" and farther lighted on some small store +of curious reading, in Hans Wachtel the Cooper's house, where he +lodged,--his time, it would appear, was utterly wasted. Which facts the +Professor has not yet learned to look upon with any contentment. Indeed, +throughout the whole of this Bag _Scorpio_, where we now are, and often +in the following Bag, he shows himself unusually animated on the matter +of Education, and not without some touch of what we might presume to be +anger. + +"My Teachers," says he, "were hide-bound Pedants, without knowledge of +man's nature, or of boy's; or of aught save their lexicons and quarterly +account-books. Innumerable dead Vocables (no dead Language, for they +themselves knew no Language) they crammed into us, and called it +fostering the growth of mind. How can an inanimate, mechanical +Gerund-grinder, the like of whom will, in a subsequent century, be +manufactured at Nurnberg out of wood and leather, foster the growth +of anything; much more of Mind, which grows, not like a vegetable (by +having its roots littered with etymological compost), but like a spirit, +by mysterious contact of Spirit; Thought kindling itself at the fire of +living Thought? How shall _he_ give kindling, in whose own inward +man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead grammatical +cinder? The Hinterschlag Professors knew syntax enough; and of the human +soul thus much: that it had a faculty called Memory, and could be acted +on through the muscular integument by appliance of birch-rods. + +"Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be; till the Hod-man is +discharged, or reduced to hod-bearing; and an Architect is hired, and on +all hands fitly encouraged: till communities and individuals discover, +not without surprise, that fashioning the souls of a generation by +Knowledge can rank on a level with blowing their bodies to pieces by +Gunpowder; that with Generals and Field-marshals for killing, there +should be world-honored Dignitaries, and were it possible, true +God-ordained Priests, for teaching. But as yet, though the Soldier wears +openly, and even parades, his butchering-tool, nowhere, far as I have +travelled, did the Schoolmaster make show of his instructing-tool: nay, +were he to walk abroad with birch girt on thigh, as if he therefrom +expected honor, would there not, among the idler class, perhaps a +certain levity be excited?" + +In the third year of this Gymnasic period, Father Andreas seems to have +died: the young Scholar, otherwise so maltreated, saw himself for the +first time clad outwardly in sables, and inwardly in quite inexpressible +melancholy. "The dark bottomless Abyss, that lies under our feet, had +yawned open; the pale kingdoms of Death, with all their innumerable +silent nations and generations, stood before him; the inexorable word, +NEVER! now first showed its meaning. My Mother wept, and her sorrow got +vent; but in my heart there lay a whole lake of tears, pent up in +silent desolation. Nevertheless the unworn Spirit is strong; Life is +so healthful that it even finds nourishment in Death: these stern +experiences, planted down by Memory in my Imagination, rose there to a +whole cypress-forest, sad but beautiful; waving, with not unmelodious +sighs, in dark luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine, through long years +of youth:--as in manhood also it does, and will do; for I have now +pitched my tent under a Cypress-tree; the Tomb is now my inexpugnable +Fortress, ever close by the gate of which I look upon the hostile +armaments, and pains and penalties of tyrannous Life placidly enough, +and listen to its loudest threatenings with a still smile. O ye loved +ones, that already sleep in the noiseless Bed of Rest, whom in life I +could only weep for and never help; and ye, who wide-scattered still +toil lonely in the monster-bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground with +your blood,--yet a little while, and we shall all meet THERE, and +our Mother's bosom will screen us all; and Oppression's harness, and +Sorrow's fire-whip, and all the Gehenna Bailiffs that patrol and inhabit +ever-vexed Time, cannot thenceforth harm us any more!" + +Close by which rather beautiful apostrophe, lies a labored Character of +the deceased Andreas Futteral; of his natural ability, his deserts in +life (as Prussian Sergeant); with long historical inquiries into the +genealogy of the Futteral Family, here traced back as far as Henry the +Fowler: the whole of which we pass over, not without astonishment. It +only concerns us to add, that now was the time when Mother Gretchen +revealed to her foster-son that he was not at all of this kindred; or +indeed of any kindred, having come into historical existence in the way +already known to us. "Thus was I doubly orphaned," says he; "bereft not +only of Possession, but even of Remembrance. Sorrow and Wonder, +here suddenly united, could not but produce abundant fruit. Such a +disclosure, in such a season, struck its roots through my whole +nature: ever till the years of mature manhood, it mingled with my whole +thoughts, was as the stem whereon all my day-dreams and night-dreams +grew. A certain poetic elevation, yet also a corresponding civic +depression, it naturally imparted: _I was like no other_; in which +fixed idea, leading sometimes to highest, and oftener to frightfullest +results, may there not lie the first spring of tendencies, which in +my Life have become remarkable enough? As in birth, so in action, +speculation, and social position, my fellows are perhaps not numerous." + + +In the Bag _Sagittarius_, as we at length discover, Teufelsdrockh has +become a University man; though how, when, or of what quality, will +nowhere disclose itself with the smallest certainty. Few things, in the +way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, can now surprise our +readers; not even the total want of dates, almost without parallel in +a Biographical work. So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always found, +and must always look to find, these scattered Leaves. In _Sagittarius_, +however, Teufelsdrockh begins to show himself even more than +usually Sibylline: fragments of all sorts: scraps of regular Memoir, +College-Exercises, Programs, Professional Testimoniums, Milkscores, torn +Billets, sometimes to appearance of an amatory cast; all blown together +as if by merest chance, henceforth bewilder the sane Historian. To +combine any picture of these University, and the subsequent, years; much +more, to decipher therein any illustrative primordial elements of the +Clothes-Philosophy, becomes such a problem as the reader may imagine. + +So much we can see; darkly, as through the foliage of some wavering +thicket: a youth of no common endowment, who has passed happily through +Childhood, less happily yet still vigorously through Boyhood, now at +length perfect in "dead vocables," and set down, as he hopes, by the +living Fountain, there to superadd Ideas and Capabilities. From such +Fountain he draws, diligently, thirstily, yet never or seldom with his +whole heart, for the water nowise suits his palate; discouragements, +entanglements, aberrations are discoverable or supposable. Nor perhaps +are even pecuniary distresses wanting; for "the good Gretchen, who in +spite of advices from not disinterested relatives has sent him +hither, must after a time withdraw her willing but too feeble hand." +Nevertheless in an atmosphere of Poverty and manifold Chagrin, the Humor +of that young Soul, what character is in him, first decisively reveals +itself; and, like strong sunshine in weeping skies, gives out variety of +colors, some of which are prismatic. Thus, with the aid of Time and of +what Time brings, has the stripling Diogenes Teufelsdrockh waxed into +manly stature; and into so questionable an aspect, that we ask with new +eagerness, How he specially came by it, and regret anew that there is +no more explicit answer. Certain of the intelligible and partially +significant fragments, which are few in number, shall be extracted from +that Limbo of a Paper-bag, and presented with the usual preparation. + +As if, in the Bag _Scorpio_, Teufelsdrockh had not already expectorated +his antipedagogic spleen; as if, from the name _Sagittarius_, he had +thought himself called upon to shoot arrows, we here again fall in with +such matter as this: "The University where I was educated still stands +vivid enough in my remembrance, and I know its name well; which name, +however, I, from tenderness to existing interests and persons, shall in +nowise divulge. It is my painful duty to say that, out of England and +Spain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered Universities. +This is indeed a time when right Education is, as nearly as may be, +impossible: however, in degrees of wrongness there is no limit: nay, +I can conceive a worse system than that of the Nameless itself; as +poisoned victual may be worse than absolute hunger. + +"It is written, When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the +ditch: wherefore, in such circumstances, may it not sometimes be safer, +if both leader and led simply--sit still? Had you, anywhere in Crim +Tartary, walled in a square enclosure; furnished it with a small, +ill-chosen Library; and then turned loose into it eleven hundred +Christian striplings, to tumble about as they listed, from three to +seven years: certain persons, under the title of Professors, being +stationed at the gates, to declare aloud that it was a University, and +exact considerable admission-fees,--you had, not indeed in mechanical +structure, yet in spirit and result, some imperfect resemblance of our +High Seminary. I say, imperfect; for if our mechanical structure was +quite other, so neither was our result altogether the same: unhappily, +we were not in Crim Tartary, but in a corrupt European city, full of +smoke and sin; moreover, in the middle of a Public, which, without far +costlier apparatus than that of the Square Enclosure, and Declaration +aloud, you could not be sure of gulling. + +"Gullible, however, by fit apparatus, all Publics are; and gulled, +with the most surprising profit. Towards anything like a _Statistics +of Imposture_, indeed, little as yet has been done: with a strange +indifference, our Economists, nigh buried under Tables for +minor Branches of Industry, have altogether overlooked the grand +all-overtopping Hypocrisy Branch; as if our whole arts of Puffery, of +Quackery, Priestcraft, Kingcraft, and the innumerable other crafts and +mysteries of that genus, had not ranked in Productive Industry at all! +Can any one, for example, so much as say, What moneys, in Literature and +Shoeblacking, are realized by actual Instruction and actual jet Polish; +what by fictitious-persuasive Proclamation of such; specifying, +in distinct items, the distributions, circulations, disbursements, +incomings of said moneys, with the smallest approach to accuracy? But +to ask, How far, in all the several infinitely complected departments +of social business, in government, education, in manual, commercial, +intellectual fabrication of every sort, man's Want is supplied by true +Ware; how far by the mere Appearance of true Ware:--in other words, To +what extent, by what methods, with what effects, in various times and +countries, Deception takes the place of wages of Performance: here +truly is an Inquiry big with results for the future time, but to which +hitherto only the vaguest answer can be given. If for the present, in +our Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to Appearance of Ware so high +even as at One to a Hundred (which, considering the Wages of a Pope, +Russian Autocrat, or English Game-Preserver, is probably not far from +the mark),--what almost prodigious saving may there not be anticipated, +as the _Statistics of Imposture_ advances, and so the manufacturing of +Shams (that of Realities rising into clearer and clearer distinction +therefrom) gradually declines, and at length becomes all but wholly +unnecessary! + +"This for the coming golden ages. What I had to remark, for the present +brazen one, is, that in several provinces, as in Education, Polity, +Religion, where so much is wanted and indispensable, and so little can +as yet be furnished, probably Imposture is of sanative, anodyne nature, +and man's Gullibility not his worst blessing. Suppose your sinews of +war quite broken; I mean your military chest insolvent, forage all but +exhausted; and that the whole army is about to mutiny, disband, and cut +your and each other's throat,--then were it not well could you, as if +by miracle, pay them in any sort of fairy-money, feed them on coagulated +water, or mere imagination of meat; whereby, till the real supply came +up, they might be kept together and quiet? Such perhaps was the aim of +Nature, who does nothing without aim, in furnishing her favorite, +Man, with this his so omnipotent or rather omnipatient Talent of being +Gulled. + +"How beautifully it works, with a little mechanism; nay, almost makes +mechanism for itself! These Professors in the Nameless lived with ease, +with safety, by a mere Reputation, constructed in past times, and then +too with no great effort, by quite another class of persons. Which +Reputation, like a strong brisk-going undershot wheel, sunk into the +general current, bade fair, with only a little annual re-painting on +their part, to hold long together, and of its own accord assiduously +grind for them. Happy that it was so, for the Millers! They themselves +needed not to work; their attempts at working, at what they called +Educating, now when I look back on it, fill me with a certain mute +admiration. + +"Besides all this, we boasted ourselves a Rational University; in the +highest degree hostile to Mysticism; thus was the young vacant mind +furnished with much talk about Progress of the Species, Dark Ages, +Prejudice, and the like; so that all were quickly enough blown out into +a state of windy argumentativeness; whereby the better sort had soon to +end in sick, impotent Scepticism; the worser sort explode (_crepiren_) +in finished Self-conceit, and to all spiritual intents become dead.--But +this too is portion of mankind's lot. If our era is the Era of Unbelief, +why murmur under it; is there not a better coming, nay come? As in +long-drawn systole and long-drawn diastole, must the period of Faith +alternate with the period of Denial; must the vernal growth, the summer +luxuriance of all Opinions, Spiritual Representations and Creations, +be followed by, and again follow, the autumnal decay, the winter +dissolution. For man lives in Time, has his whole earthly being, +endeavor and destiny shaped for him by Time: only in the transitory +Time-Symbol is the ever-motionless Eternity we stand on made manifest. +And yet, in such winter-seasons of Denial, it is for the nobler-minded +perhaps a comparative misery to have been born, and to be awake and +work; and for the duller a felicity, if, like hibernating animals, +safe-lodged in some Salamanca University or Sybaris City, or other +superstitious or voluptuous Castle of Indolence, they can slumber +through, in stupid dreams, and only awaken when the loud-roaring +hailstorms have all alone their work, and to our prayers and martyrdoms +the new Spring has been vouchsafed." + +That in the environment, here mysteriously enough shadowed forth, +Teufelsdrockh must have felt ill at ease, cannot be doubtful. "The +hungry young," he says, "looked up to their spiritual Nurses; and, for +food, were bidden eat the east-wind. What vain jargon of controversial +Metaphysic, Etymology, and mechanical Manipulation falsely named +Science, was current there, I indeed learned, better perhaps than the +most. Among eleven hundred Christian youths, there will not be wanting +some eleven eager to learn. By collision with such, a certain warmth, a +certain polish was communicated; by instinct and happy accident, I took +less to rioting (_renommiren_), than to thinking and reading, which +latter also I was free to do. Nay from the chaos of that Library, I +succeeded in fishing up more books perhaps than had been known to the +very keepers thereof. The foundation of a Literary Life was hereby laid: +I learned, on my own strength, to read fluently in almost all cultivated +languages, on almost all subjects and sciences; farther, as man is ever +the prime object to man, already it was my favorite employment to read +character in speculation, and from the Writing to construe the Writer. +A certain groundplan of Human Nature and Life began to fashion itself in +me; wondrous enough, now when I look back on it; for my whole Universe, +physical and spiritual, was as yet a Machine! However, such a conscious, +recognized groundplan, the truest I had, _was_ beginning to be there, +and by additional experiments might be corrected and indefinitely +extended." + +Thus from poverty does the strong educe nobler wealth; thus in the +destitution of the wild desert does our young Ishmael acquire for +himself the highest of all possessions, that of Self-help. Nevertheless +a desert this was, waste, and howling with savage monsters. +Teufelsdrockh gives us long details of his "fever-paroxysms of Doubt;" +his Inquiries concerning Miracles, and the Evidences of religious Faith; +and how "in the silent night-watches, still darker in his heart than +over sky and earth, he has cast himself before the All-seeing, and with +audible prayers cried vehemently for Light, for deliverance from Death +and the Grave. Not till after long years, and unspeakable agonies, did +the believing heart surrender; sink into spell-bound sleep, under the +nightmare, Unbelief; and, in this hag-ridden dream, mistake God's fair +living world for a pallid, vacant Hades and extinct Pandemonium. But +through such Purgatory pain," continues he, "it is appointed us to +pass; first must the dead Letter of Religion own itself dead, and drop +piecemeal into dust, if the living Spirit of Religion, freed from this +its charnel-house, is to arise on us, new-born of Heaven, and with new +healing under its wings." + +To which Purgatory pains, seemingly severe enough, if we add a liberal +measure of Earthly distresses, want of practical guidance, want of +sympathy, want of money, want of hope; and all this in the fervid season +of youth, so exaggerated in imagining, so boundless in desires, yet here +so poor in means,--do we not see a strong incipient spirit oppressed and +overloaded from without and from within; the fire of genius struggling +up among fuel-wood of the greenest, and as yet with more of bitter vapor +than of clear flame? + +From various fragments of Letters and other documentary scraps, it is to +be inferred that Teufelsdrockh, isolated, shy, retiring as he was, had +not altogether escaped notice: certain established men are aware of his +existence; and, if stretching out no helpful hand, have at least their +eyes on him. He appears, though in dreary enough humor, to be addressing +himself to the Profession of Law;--whereof, indeed, the world has since +seen him a public graduate. But omitting these broken, unsatisfactory +thrums of Economical relation, let us present rather the following small +thread of Moral relation; and therewith, the reader for himself weaving +it in at the right place, conclude our dim arras-picture of these +University years. + +"Here also it was that I formed acquaintance with Herr Towgood, or, as +it is perhaps better written, Herr Toughgut; a young person of quality +(_von Adel_), from the interior parts of England. He stood connected, by +blood and hospitality, with the Counts von Zahdarm, in this quarter of +Germany; to which noble Family I likewise was, by his means, with all +friendliness, brought near. Towgood had a fair talent, unspeakably +ill-cultivated; with considerable humor of character: and, bating his +total ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing and a little Grammar, +showed less of that aristocratic impassivity, and silent fury, than for +most part belongs to Travellers of his nation. To him I owe my first +practical knowledge of the English and their ways; perhaps also +something of the partiality with which I have ever since regarded that +singular people. Towgood was not without an eye, could he have come at +any light. Invited doubtless by the presence of the Zahdarm Family, +he had travelled hither, in the almost frantic hope of perfecting his +studies; he, whose studies had as yet been those of infancy, hither to +a University where so much as the notion of perfection, not to say the +effort after it, no longer existed! Often we would condole over the hard +destiny of the Young in this era: how, after all our toil, we were to be +turned out into the world, with beards on our chins indeed, but with few +other attributes of manhood; no existing thing that we were trained to +Act on, nothing that we could so much as Believe. 'How has our head on +the outside a polished Hat,' would Towgood exclaim, 'and in the inside +Vacancy, or a froth of Vocables and Attorney-Logic! At a small cost men +are educated to make leather into shoes; but at a great cost, what am +I educated to make? By Heaven, Brother! what I have already eaten +and worn, as I came thus far, would endow a considerable Hospital of +Incurables.'--'Man, indeed,' I would answer, 'has a Digestive Faculty, +which must be kept working, were it even partly by stealth. But as for +our Miseducation, make not bad worse; waste not the time yet ours, in +trampling on thistles because they have yielded us no figs. _Frisch +zu, Bruder_! Here are Books, and we have brains to read them; here is +a whole Earth and a whole Heaven, and we have eyes to look on them: +_Frisch zu_!' + +"Often also our talk was gay; not without brilliancy, and even fire. +We looked out on Life, with its strange scaffolding, where all at +once harlequins dance, and men are beheaded and quartered: motley, not +unterrific was the aspect; but we looked on it like brave youths. For +myself, these were perhaps my most genial hours. Towards this young +warm-hearted, strong-headed and wrong-headed Herr Towgood I was even +near experiencing the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship. Yes, foolish +Heathen that I was, I felt that, under certain conditions, I could have +loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and been his brother once and +always. By degrees, however, I understood the new time, and its wants. +If man's _Soul_ is indeed, as in the Finnish Language, and Utilitarian +Philosophy, a kind of _Stomach_, what else is the true meaning of +Spiritual Union but an Eating together? Thus we, instead of Friends, are +Dinner-guests; and here as elsewhere have cast away chimeras." + +So ends, abruptly as is usual, and enigmatically, this little incipient +romance. What henceforth becomes of the brave Herr Towgood, or Toughgut? +He has dived under, in the Autobiographical Chaos, and swims we see not +where. Does any reader "in the interior parts of England" know of such a +man? + + + +CHAPTER IV. GETTING UNDER WAY. + +"Thus nevertheless," writes our Autobiographer, apparently as +quitting College, "was there realized Somewhat; namely, I, Diogenes +Teufelsdrockh: a visible Temporary Figure (_Zeitbild_), occupying some +cubic feet of Space, and containing within it Forces both physical and +spiritual; hopes, passions, thoughts; the whole wondrous furniture, in +more or less perfection, belonging to that mystery, a Man. Capabilities +there were in me to give battle, in some small degree, against the +great Empire of Darkness: does not the very Ditcher and Delver, with +his spade, extinguish many a thistle and puddle; and so leave a +little Order, where he found the opposite? Nay your very Day-moth has +capabilities in this kind; and ever organizes something (into its own +Body, if no otherwise), which was before Inorganic; and of mute dead air +makes living music, though only of the faintest, by humming. + +"How much more, one whose capabilities are spiritual; who has learned, +or begun learning, the grand thaumaturgic art of Thought! Thaumaturgic +I name it; for hitherto all Miracles have been wrought thereby, and +henceforth innumerable will be wrought; whereof we, even in these days, +witness some. Of the Poet's and Prophet's inspired Message, and how it +makes and unmakes whole worlds, I shall forbear mention: but cannot +the dullest hear Steam-engines clanking around him? Has he not seen the +Scottish Brass-smith's IDEA (and this but a mechanical one) travelling +on fire-wings round the Cape, and across two Oceans; and stronger than +any other Enchanter's Familiar, on all hands unweariedly fetching +and carrying: at home, not only weaving Cloth; but rapidly enough +overturning the whole old system of Society; and, for Feudalism and +Preservation of the Game, preparing us, by indirect but sure methods, +Industrialism and the Government of the Wisest? Truly a Thinking Man is +the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can have; every time such a one +announces himself, I doubt not, there runs a shudder through the +Nether Empire; and new Emissaries are trained, with new tactics, to, if +possible, entrap him, and hoodwink and handcuff him. + +"With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of the Universe, +been called. Unhappy it is, however, that though born to the amplest +Sovereignty, in this way, with no less than sovereign right of Peace +and War against the Time-Prince (_Zeitfurst_), or Devil, and all his +Dominions, your coronation-ceremony costs such trouble, your sceptre is +so difficult to get at, or even to get eye on!" + +By which last wire-drawn similitude does Teufelsdrockh mean no more than +that young men find obstacles in what we call "getting under way"? "Not +what I Have," continues he, "but what I Do is my Kingdom. To each is +given a certain inward Talent, a certain outward Environment of Fortune; +to each, by wisest combination of these two, a certain maximum of +Capability. But the hardest problem were ever this first: To find by +study of yourself, and of the ground you stand on, what your combined +inward and outward Capability specially is. For, alas, our young soul is +all budding with Capabilities, and we see not yet which is the main and +true one. Always too the new man is in a new time, under new conditions; +his course can be the _fac-simile_ of no prior one, but is by its +nature original. And then how seldom will the outward Capability fit +the inward: though talented wonderfully enough, we are poor, unfriended, +dyspeptical, bashful; nay what is worse than all, we are foolish. Thus, +in a whole imbroglio of Capabilities, we go stupidly groping about, to +grope which is ours, and often clutch the wrong one: in this mad work +must several years of our small term be spent, till the purblind Youth, +by practice, acquire notions of distance, and become a seeing Man. Nay, +many so spend their whole term, and in ever-new expectation, ever-new +disappointment, shift from enterprise to enterprise, and from side to +side: till at length, as exasperated striplings of threescore-and-ten, +they shift into their last enterprise, that of getting buried. + +"Such, since the most of us are too ophthalmic, would be the general +fate; were it not that one thing saves us: our Hunger. For on this +ground, as the prompt nature of Hunger is well known, must a prompt +choice be made: hence have we, with wise foresight, Indentures and +Apprenticeships for our irrational young; whereby, in due season, the +vague universality of a Man shall find himself ready-moulded into a +specific Craftsman; and so thenceforth work, with much or with little +waste of Capability as it may be; yet not with the worst waste, that of +time. Nay even in matters spiritual, since the spiritual artist too is +born blind, and does not, like certain other creatures, receive sight +in nine days, but far later, sometimes never,--is it not well that there +should be what we call Professions, or Bread-studies (_Brodzwecke_), +preappointed us? Here, circling like the gin-horse, for whom partial +or total blindness is no evil, the Bread-artist can travel contentedly +round and round, still fancying that it is forward and forward; and +realize much: for himself victual; for the world an additional horse's +power in the grand corn-mill or hemp-mill of Economic Society. For +me too had such a leading-string been provided; only that it proved a +neck-halter, and had nigh throttled me, till I broke it off. Then, in +the words of Ancient Pistol, did the world generally become mine oyster, +which I, by strength or cunning, was to open, as I would and could. +Almost had I deceased (_fast war ich umgekommen_), so obstinately did it +continue shut." + +We see here, significantly foreshadowed, the spirit of much that was +to befall our Autobiographer; the historical embodiment of which, as +it painfully takes shape in his Life, lies scattered, in dim disastrous +details, through this Bag _Pisces_, and those that follow. A young man +of high talent, and high though still temper, like a young mettled +colt, "breaks off his neck-halter," and bounds forth, from his peculiar +manger, into the wide world; which, alas, he finds all rigorously fenced +in. Richest clover-fields tempt his eye; but to him they are forbidden +pasture: either pining in progressive starvation, he must stand; or, +in mad exasperation, must rush to and fro, leaping against sheer +stone-walls, which he cannot leap over, which only lacerate and lame +him; till at last, after thousand attempts and endurances, he, as if by +miracle, clears his way; not indeed into luxuriant and luxurious clover, +yet into a certain bosky wilderness where existence is still possible, +and Freedom, though waited on by Scarcity, is not without sweetness. +In a word, Teufelsdrockh having thrown up his legal Profession, finds +himself without landmark of outward guidance; whereby his previous +want of decided Belief, or inward guidance, is frightfully aggravated. +Necessity urges him on; Time will not stop, neither can he, a Son +of Time; wild passions without solacement, wild faculties without +employment, ever vex and agitate him. He too must enact that stern +Monodrama, _No Object and no Rest_; must front its successive destinies, +work through to its catastrophe, and deduce therefrom what moral he can. + +Yet let us be just to him, let us admit that his "neck-halter" sat +nowise easy on him; that he was in some degree forced to break it off. +If we look at the young man's civic position, in this Nameless capital, +as he emerges from its Nameless University, we can discern well that +it was far from enviable. His first Law-Examination he has come through +triumphantly; and can even boast that the _Examen Rigorosum_ need +not have frightened him: but though he is hereby "an _Auscultator_ of +respectability," what avails it? There is next to no employment to +be had. Neither, for a youth without connections, is the process of +Expectation very hopeful in itself; nor for one of his disposition +much cheered from without. "My fellow Auscultators," he says, "were +Auscultators: they dressed, and digested, and talked articulate words; +other vitality showed they almost none. Small speculation in those eyes, +that they did glare withal! Sense neither for the high nor for the +deep, nor for aught human or divine, save only for the faintest scent of +coming Preferment." In which words, indicating a total estrangement on +the part of Teufelsdrockh may there not also lurk traces of a bitterness +as from wounded vanity? Doubtless these prosaic Auscultators may have +sniffed at him, with his strange ways; and tried to hate, and what was +much more impossible, to despise him. Friendly communion, in any case, +there could not be: already has the young Teufelsdrockh left the other +young geese; and swims apart, though as yet uncertain whether he himself +is cygnet or gosling. + +Perhaps, too, what little employment he had was performed ill, at best +unpleasantly. "Great practical method and expertness" he may brag of; +but is there not also great practical pride, though deep-hidden, only +the deeper-seated? So shy a man can never have been popular. We figure +to ourselves, how in those days he may have played strange freaks with +his independence, and so forth: do not his own words betoken as much? +"Like a very young person, I imagined it was with Work alone, and not +also with Folly and Sin, in myself and others, that I had been +appointed to struggle." Be this as it may, his progress from the passive +Auscultatorship, towards any active Assessorship, is evidently of the +slowest. By degrees, those same established men, once partially inclined +to patronize him, seem to withdraw their countenance, and give him up +as "a man of genius" against which procedure he, in these Papers, loudly +protests. "As if," says he, "the higher did not presuppose the lower; as +if he who can fly into heaven, could not also walk post if he resolved +on it! But the world is an old woman, and mistakes any gilt farthing +for a gold coin; whereby being often cheated, she will thenceforth trust +nothing but the common copper." + +How our winged sky-messenger, unaccepted as a terrestrial runner, +contrived, in the mean while, to keep himself from flying skyward +without return, is not too clear from these Documents. Good old Gretchen +seems to have vanished from the scene, perhaps from the Earth; other +Horn of Plenty, or even of Parsimony, nowhere flows for him; so that +"the prompt nature of Hunger being well known," we are not without our +anxiety. From private Tuition, in never so many languages and sciences, +the aid derivable is small; neither, to use his own words, "does the +young Adventurer hitherto suspect in himself any literary gift; but at +best earns bread-and-water wages, by his wide faculty of Translation. +Nevertheless," continues he, "that I subsisted is clear, for you find me +even now alive." Which fact, however, except upon the principle of our +true-hearted, kind old Proverb, that "there is always life for a living +one," we must profess ourselves unable to explain. + +Certain Landlords' Bills, and other economic Documents, bearing the +mark of Settlement, indicate that he was not without money; but, like an +independent Hearth-holder, if not House-holder, paid his way. Here also +occur, among many others, two little mutilated Notes, which perhaps +throw light on his condition. The first has now no date, or writer's +name, but a huge Blot; and runs to this effect: "The (_Inkblot_), tied +down by previous promise, cannot, except by best wishes, forward the +Herr Teufelsdrockh's views on the Assessorship in question; and sees +himself under the cruel necessity of forbearing, for the present, what +were otherwise his duty and joy, to assist in opening the career for a +man of genius, on whom far higher triumphs are yet waiting." The other +is on gilt paper; and interests us like a sort of epistolary mummy now +dead, yet which once lived and beneficently worked. We give it in +the original: "_Herr Teufelsdrockh wird von der Frau Grafinn, auf +Donnerstag, zum AESTHETISCHEN THEE schonstens eingeladen_." + +Thus, in answer to a cry for solid pudding, whereof there is the most +urgent need, comes, epigrammatically enough, the invitation to a wash of +quite fluid _AEsthetic Tea_! How Teufelsdrockh, now at actual hand-grips +with Destiny herself, may have comported himself among these Musical and +Literary dilettanti of both sexes, like a hungry lion invited to a feast +of chickenweed, we can only conjecture. Perhaps in expressive silence, +and abstinence: otherwise if the lion, in such case, is to feast at all, +it cannot be on the chickenweed, but only on the chickens. For the rest, +as this Frau Grafinn dates from the _Zahdarm House_, she can be no +other than the Countess and mistress of the same; whose intellectual +tendencies, and good-will to Teufelsdrockh, whether on the footing of +Herr Towgood, or on his own footing, are hereby manifest. That some +sort of relation, indeed, continued, for a time, to connect our +Autobiographer, though perhaps feebly enough, with this noble House, we +have elsewhere express evidence. Doubtless, if he expected patronage, it +was in vain; enough for him if he here obtained occasional glimpses +of the great world, from which we at one time fancied him to have been +always excluded. "The Zahdarms," says he, "lived in the soft, sumptuous +garniture of Aristocracy; whereto Literature and Art, attracted and +attached from without, were to serve as the handsomest fringing. It was +to the _Gnadigen Frau_ (her Ladyship) that this latter improvement was +due: assiduously she gathered, dexterously she fitted on, what fringing +was to be had; lace or cobweb, as the place yielded." Was Teufelsdrockh +also a fringe, of lace or cobweb; or promising to be such? "With his +_Excellenz_ (the Count)," continues he, "I have more than once had the +honor to converse; chiefly on general affairs, and the aspect of the +world, which he, though now past middle life, viewed in no unfavorable +light; finding indeed, except the Outrooting of Journalism (_die +auszurottende Journalistik_), little to desiderate therein. On some +points, as his _Excellenz_ was not uncholeric, I found it more pleasant +to keep silence. Besides, his occupation being that of Owning Land, +there might be faculties enough, which, as superfluous for such use, +were little developed in him." + +That to Teufelsdrockh the aspect of the world was nowise so faultless, +and many things besides "the Outrooting of Journalism" might have seemed +improvements, we can readily conjecture. With nothing but a barren +Auscultatorship from without, and so many mutinous thoughts and wishes +from within, his position was no easy one. "The Universe," he says, "was +as a mighty Sphinx-riddle, which I knew so little of, yet must rede, +or be devoured. In red streaks of unspeakable grandeur, yet also in +the blackness of darkness, was Life, to my too-unfurnished Thought, +unfolding itself. A strange contradiction lay in me; and I as yet knew +not the solution of it; knew not that spiritual music can spring only +from discords set in harmony; that but for Evil there were no Good, as +victory is only possible by battle." + +"I have heard affirmed (surely in jest)," observes he elsewhere, "by +not unphilanthropic persons, that it were a real increase of human +happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under +barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their +lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the +age of twenty-five. With which suggestion, at least as considered in the +light of a practical scheme, I need scarcely say that I nowise coincide. +Nevertheless it is plausibly urged that, as young ladies (_Madchen_) +are, to mankind, precisely the most delightful in those years; so young +gentlemen (_Bubchen_) do then attain their maximum of detestability. +Such gawks (_Gecken_) are they, and foolish peacocks, and yet with such +a vulturous hunger for self-indulgence; so obstinate, obstreperous, +vain-glorious; in all senses, so froward and so forward. No mortal's +endeavor or attainment will, in the smallest, content the as yet +unendeavoring, unattaining young gentleman; but he could make it all +infinitely better, were it worthy of him. Life everywhere is the most +manageable matter, simple as a question in the Rule-of-Three: multiply +your second and third term together, divide the product by the first, +and your quotient will be the answer,--which you are but an ass if you +cannot come at. The booby has not yet found out, by any trial, that, +do what one will, there is ever a cursed fraction, oftenest a decimal +repeater, and no net integer quotient so much as to be thought of." + +In which passage does not there lie an implied confession that +Teufelsdrockh himself, besides his outward obstructions, had an inward, +still greater, to contend with; namely, a certain temporary, youthful, +yet still afflictive derangement of head? Alas, on the former side +alone, his case was hard enough. "It continues ever true," says +he, "that Saturn, or Chronos, or what we call TIME, devours all his +Children: only by incessant Running, by incessant Working, may you (for +some threescore-and-ten years) escape him; and you too he devours at +last. Can any Sovereign, or Holy Alliance of Sovereigns, bid Time +stand still; even in thought, shake themselves free of Time? Our whole +terrestrial being is based on Time, and built of Time; it is wholly a +Movement, a Time-impulse; Time is the author of it, the material of +it. Hence also our Whole Duty, which is to move, to work,--in the right +direction. Are not our Bodies and our Souls in continual movement, +whether we will or not; in a continual Waste, requiring a continual +Repair? Utmost satisfaction of our whole outward and inward Wants were +but satisfaction for a space of Time; thus, whatso we have done, +is done, and for us annihilated, and ever must we go and do anew. O +Time-Spirit, how hast thou environed and imprisoned us, and sunk us so +deep in thy troublous dim Time-Element, that only in lucid moments +can so much as glimpses of our upper Azure Home be revealed to us! +Me, however, as a Son of Time, unhappier than some others, was Time +threatening to eat quite prematurely; for, strive as I might, there was +no good Running, so obstructed was the path, so gyved were the feet." +That is to say, we presume, speaking in the dialect of this lower world, +that Teufelsdrockh's whole duty and necessity was, like other men's, "to +work,--in the right direction," and that no work was to be had; whereby +he became wretched enough. As was natural: with haggard Scarcity +threatening him in the distance; and so vehement a soul languishing +in restless inaction, and forced thereby, like Sir Hudibras's sword by +rust, + + "To eat into itself, for lack + Of something else to hew and hack;" + +But on the whole, that same "excellent Passivity," as it has all along +done, is here again vigorously flourishing; in which circumstance may +we not trace the beginnings of much that now characterizes our Professor +and perhaps, in faint rudiments, the origin of the Clothes-Philosophy +itself? Already the attitude he has assumed towards the World is too +defensive; not, as would have been desirable, a bold attitude of attack. +"So far hitherto," he says, "as I had mingled with mankind, I was +notable, if for anything, for a certain stillness of manner, which, as +my friends often rebukingly declared, did but ill express the keen ardor +of my feelings. I, in truth, regarded men with an excess both of love +and of fear. The mystery of a Person, indeed, is ever divine to him that +has a sense for the Godlike. Often, notwithstanding, was I blamed, +and by half-strangers hated, for my so-called Hardness (_Harte_), my +Indifferentism towards men; and the seemingly ironic tone I had adopted, +as my favorite dialect in conversation. Alas, the panoply of Sarcasm was +but as a buckram case, wherein I had striven to envelop myself; that so +my own poor Person might live safe there, and in all friendliness, being +no longer exasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, +the language of the Devil; for which reason I have long since as good +as renounced it. But how many individuals did I, in those days, provoke +into some degree of hostility thereby! An ironic man, with his sly +stillness, and ambuscading ways, more especially an ironic young man, +from whom it is least expected, may be viewed as a pest to society. Have +we not seen persons of weight and name coming forward, with gentlest +indifference, to tread such a one out of sight, as an insignificancy and +worm, start ceiling-high (_balkenhock_), and thence fall shattered and +supine, to be borne home on shutters, not without indignation, when he +proved electric and a torpedo!" + +Alas, how can a man with this devilishness of temper make way for +himself in Life; where the first problem, as Teufelsdrockh too +admits, is "to unite yourself with some one, and with somewhat (_sich +anzuschliessen_)"? Division, not union, is written on most part of his +procedure. Let us add too that, in no great length of time, the only +important connection he had ever succeeded in forming, his connection +with the Zahdarm Family, seems to have been paralyzed, for all practical +uses, by the death of the "not uncholeric" old Count. This fact stands +recorded, quite incidentally, in a certain _Discourse on Epitaphs_, +huddled into the present Bag, among so much else; of which Essay the +learning and curious penetration are more to be approved of than the +spirit. His grand principle is, that lapidary inscriptions, of what sort +soever, should be Historical rather than Lyrical. "By request of that +worthy Nobleman's survivors," says he, "I undertook to compose his +Epitaph; and not unmindful of my own rules, produced the following; +which however, for an alleged defect of Latinity, a defect never yet +fully visible to myself, still remains unengraven;"--wherein, we may +predict, there is more than the Latinity that will surprise an English +reader: + + HIC JACET + PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMINE MAGNUS, + ZAEHDARMI COMES, + EX IMPERII CONCILIO, + VELLERIS AUREI, PERISCELIDIS, NECNON VULTURIS NIGRI + EQUES. + QUI DUM SUB LUNA AGEBAT, + QUINQUIES MILLE PERDICES + PLUMBO CONFECIT: + VARII CIBI + CENTUMPONDIA MILLIES CENTENA MILLIA, + PER SE, PERQUE SERVOS QUADRUPEDES BIPEDESVE, + HAUD SINE TUMULT DEVOLVENS, + IN STERCUS + PALAM CONVERTIT. + NUNC A LABORE REQUIESCENTEM + OPERA SEQUUNTUR. + SI MONUMENTUM QUAERIS, + FIMETUM ADSPICE. + PRIMUM IN ORBE DEJECIT [_sub dato_]; POSTREMUM [_sub dato_]. + + + +CHAPTER V. ROMANCE. + +"For long years," writes Teufelsdrockh, "had the poor Hebrew, in this +Egypt of an Auscultatorship, painfully toiled, baking bricks without +stubble, before ever the question once struck him with entire force: +For what?--_Beym Himmel_! For Food and Warmth! And are Food and Warmth +nowhere else, in the whole wide Universe, discoverable?--Come of it what +might, I resolved to try." + +Thus then are we to see him in a new independent capacity, though +perhaps far from an improved one. Teufelsdrockh is now a man without +Profession. Quitting the common Fleet of herring-busses and whalers, +where indeed his leeward, laggard condition was painful enough, he +desperately steers off, on a course of his own, by sextant and compass +of his own. Unhappy Teufelsdrockh! Though neither Fleet, nor Traffic, +nor Commodores pleased thee, still was it not _a Fleet_, sailing in +prescribed track, for fixed objects; above all, in combination, wherein, +by mutual guidance, by all manner of loans and borrowings, each could +manifoldly aid the other? How wilt thou sail in unknown seas; and for +thyself find that shorter Northwest Passage to thy fair Spice-country +of a Nowhere?--A solitary rover, on such a voyage, with such nautical +tactics, will meet with adventures. Nay, as we forthwith discover, a +certain Calypso-Island detains him at the very outset; and as it were +falsifies and oversets his whole reckoning. + +"If in youth," writes he once, "the Universe is majestically unveiling, +and everywhere Heaven revealing itself on Earth, nowhere to the Young +Man does this Heaven on Earth so immediately reveal itself as in the +Young Maiden. Strangely enough, in this strange life of ours, it +has been so appointed. On the whole, as I have often said, a +Person (_Personlichkeit_) is ever holy to us; a certain orthodox +Anthropomorphism connects my _Me_ with all _Thees_ in bonds of Love: but +it is in this approximation of the Like and Unlike, that such heavenly +attraction, as between Negative and Positive, first burns out into a +flame. Is the pitifullest mortal Person, think you, indifferent to us? +Is it not rather our heartfelt wish to be made one with him; to unite +him to us, by gratitude, by admiration, even by fear; or failing all +these, unite ourselves to him? But how much more, in this case of the +Like-Unlike! Here is conceded us the higher mystic possibility of such +a union, the highest in our Earth; thus, in the conducting medium of +Fantasy, flames forth that fire-development of the universal Spiritual +Electricity, which, as unfolded between man and woman, we first +emphatically denominate LOVE. + +"In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there already +blooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some fairest Eve; nor, +in the stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage of that Garden, is a +Tree of Knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst thereof, wanting. +Perhaps too the whole is but the lovelier, if Cherubim and a Flaming +Sword divide it from all footsteps of men; and grant him, the +imaginative stripling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season of +virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable celestial barrier; and +the sacred air-cities of Hope have not shrunk into the mean clay-hamlets +of Reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free! + +"As for our young Forlorn," continues Teufelsdrockh evidently meaning +himself, "in his secluded way of life, and with his glowing Fantasy, the +more fiery that it burnt under cover, as in a reverberating furnace, his +feeling towards the Queens of this Earth was, and indeed is, altogether +unspeakable. A visible Divinity dwelt in them; to our young Friend all +women were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw them flitting past, in +their many-colored angel-plumage; or hovering mute and inaccessible on +the outskirts of _AEsthetic Tea_: all of air they were, all Soul and +Form; so lovely, like mysterious priestesses, in whose hand was the +invisible Jacob's-ladder, whereby man might mount into very Heaven. That +he, our poor Friend, should ever win for himself one of these Gracefuls +(_Holden_)--_Ach Gott_! how could he hope it; should he not have died +under it? There was a certain delirious vertigo in the thought. + +"Thus was the young man, if all-sceptical of Demons and Angels such as +the vulgar had once believed in, nevertheless not unvisited by hosts of +true Sky-born, who visibly and audibly hovered round him wheresoever he +went; and they had that religious worship in his thought, though as yet +it was by their mere earthly and trivial name that he named them. But +now, if on a soul so circumstanced, some actual Air-maiden, incorporated +into tangibility and reality, should cast any electric glance of kind +eyes, saying thereby, 'Thou too mayest love and be loved;' and so kindle +him,--good Heaven, what a volcanic, earthquake-bringing, all-consuming +fire were probably kindled!" + +Such a fire, it afterwards appears, did actually burst forth, with +explosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner man of Herr Diogenes; as +indeed how could it fail? A nature, which, in his own figurative style, +we might say, had now not a little carbonized tinder, of Irritability; +with so much nitre of latent Passion, and sulphurous Humor enough; the +whole lying in such hot neighborhood, close by "a reverberating furnace +of Fantasy:" have we not here the components of driest Gunpowder, ready, +on occasion of the smallest spark, to blaze up? Neither, in this our +Life-element, are sparks anywhere wanting. Without doubt, some Angel, +whereof so many hovered round, would one day, leaving "the outskirts +of _AEsthetic Tea_," flit higher; and, by electric Promethean glance, +kindle no despicable firework. Happy, if it indeed proved a Firework, +and flamed off rocket-wise, in successive beautiful bursts of splendor, +each growing naturally from the other, through the several stages of a +happy Youthful Love; till the whole were safely burnt out; and the young +soul relieved with little damage! Happy, if it did not rather prove a +Conflagration and mad Explosion; painfully lacerating the heart itself; +nay perhaps bursting the heart in pieces (which were Death); or at best, +bursting the thin walls of your "reverberating furnace," so that it rage +thenceforth all unchecked among the contiguous combustibles (which +were Madness): till of the so fair and manifold internal world of our +Diogenes, there remained Nothing, or only the "crater of an extinct +volcano"! + +From multifarious Documents in this Bag _Capricornus_, and in the +adjacent ones on both sides thereof, it becomes manifest that our +philosopher, as stoical and cynical as he now looks, was heartily and +even frantically in Love: here therefore may our old doubts whether his +heart were of stone or of flesh give way. He loved once; not wisely +but too well. And once only: for as your Congreve needs a new case or +wrappage for every new rocket, so each human heart can properly exhibit +but one Love, if even one; the "First Love which is infinite" can be +followed by no second like unto it. In more recent years, accordingly, +the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard Teufelsdrockh as a man +not only who would never wed, but who would never even flirt; whom the +grand-climacteric itself, and _St. Martin's Summer_ of incipient Dotage, +would crown with no new myrtle-garland. To the Professor, women are +henceforth Pieces of Art; of Celestial Art, indeed, which celestial +pieces he glories to survey in galleries, but has lost thought of +purchasing. + +Psychological readers are not without curiosity to see how Teufelsdrockh +in this for him unexampled predicament, demeans himself; with what +specialties of successive configuration, splendor and color, his +Firework blazes off. Small, as usual, is the satisfaction that such can +meet with here. From amid these confused masses of Eulogy and Elegy, +with their mad Petrarchan and Werterean ware lying madly scattered among +all sorts of quite extraneous matter, not so much as the fair one's name +can be deciphered. For, without doubt, the title _Blumine_, whereby she +is here designated, and which means simply Goddess of Flowers, must be +fictitious. Was her real name Flora, then? But what was her surname, +or had she none? Of what station in Life was she; of what parentage, +fortune, aspect? Specially, by what Pre-established Harmony of +occurrences did the Lover and the Loved meet one another in so wide a +world; how did they behave in such meeting? To all which questions, not +unessential in a Biographic work, mere Conjecture must for most part +return answer. "It was appointed," says our Philosopher, "that the high +celestial orbit of Blumine should intersect the low sublunary one of our +Forlorn; that he, looking in her empyrean eyes, should fancy the upper +Sphere of Light was come down into this nether sphere of Shadows; and +finding himself mistaken, make noise enough." + +We seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, beautiful, and some +one's Cousin; high-born, and of high spirit; but unhappily dependent and +insolvent; living, perhaps, on the not too gracious bounty of moneyed +relatives. But how came "the Wanderer" into her circle? Was it by the +humid vehicle of _AEsthetic Tea_, or by the arid one of mere Business? +Was it on the hand of Herr Towgood; or of the Gnadige Frau, who, as +an ornamental Artist, might sometimes like to promote flirtation, +especially for young cynical Nondescripts? To all appearance, it was +chiefly by Accident, and the grace of Nature. + +"Thou fair Waldschloss," writes our Autobiographer, "what stranger ever +saw thee, were it even an absolved Auscultator, officially bearing in +his pocket the last _Relatio ex Actis_ he would ever write, but must +have paused to wonder! Noble Mansion! There stoodest thou, in deep +Mountain Amphitheatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene solitude; +stately, massive, all of granite; glittering in the western sunbeams, +like a palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious metal. Beautiful rose +up, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills; of the greenest +was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, or spotted +by some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. To the unconscious +Wayfarer thou wert also as an Ammon's Temple, in the Libyan Waste; +where, for joy and woe, the tablet of his Destiny lay written. Well +might he pause and gaze; in that glance of his were prophecy and +nameless forebodings." + +But now let us conjecture that the so presentient Auscultator has handed +in his _Relatio ex Actis_; been invited to a glass of Rhine-wine; and +so, instead of returning dispirited and athirst to his dusty Town-home, +is ushered into the Garden-house, where sit the choicest party of dames +and cavaliers: if not engaged in AEsthetic Tea, yet in trustful evening +conversation, and perhaps Musical Coffee, for we hear of "harps and +pure voices making the stillness live." Scarcely, it would seem, is the +Garden-house inferior in respectability to the noble Mansion itself. +"Embowered amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the hues and odors +of thousand flowers, here sat that brave company; in front, from the +wide-opened doors, fair outlook over blossom and bush, over grove and +velvet green, stretching, undulating onwards to the remote Mountain +peaks: so bright, so mild, and everywhere the melody of birds and happy +creatures: it was all as if man had stolen a shelter from the SUIT +in the bosom-vesture of Summer herself. How came it that the Wanderer +advanced thither with such forecasting heart (_ahndungsvoll_), by the +side of his gay host? Did he feel that to these soft influences his hard +bosom ought to be shut; that here, once more, Fate had it in view to try +him; to mock him, and see whether there were Humor in him? + +"Next moment he finds himself presented to the party; and especially by +name to--Blumine! Peculiar among all dames and damosels glanced Blumine, +there in her modesty, like a star among earthly lights. Noblest maiden! +whom he bent to, in body and in soul; yet scarcely dared look at, for +the presence filled him with painful yet sweetest embarrassment. + +"Blumine's was a name well known to him; far and wide was the fair one +heard of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices: from all which vague +colorings of Rumor, from the censures no less than from the praises, had +our friend painted for himself a certain imperious Queen of Hearts, and +blooming warm Earth-angel, much more enchanting than your mere white +Heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins circulates too little +naphtha-fire. Herself also he had seen in public places; that light yet +so stately form; those dark tresses, shading a face where smiles and +sunlight played over earnest deeps: but all this he had seen only as a +magic vision, for him inaccessible, almost without reality. Her sphere +was too far from his; how should she ever think of him; O Heaven! how +should they so much as once meet together? And now that Rose-goddess +sits in the same circle with him; the light of _her_ eyes has smiled on +him; if he speak, she will hear it! Nay, who knows, since the heavenly +Sun looks into lowest valleys, but Blumine herself might have aforetime +noted the so unnotable; perhaps, from his very gainsayers, as he had +from hers, gathered wonder, gathered favor for him? Was the attraction, +the agitation mutual, then; pole and pole trembling towards contact, +when once brought into neighborhood? Say rather, heart swelling in +presence of the Queen of Hearts; like the Sea swelling when once +near its Moon! With the Wanderer it was even so: as in heavenward +gravitation, suddenly as at the touch of a Seraph's wand, his whole soul +is roused from its deepest recesses; and all that was painful and that +was blissful there, dim images, vague feelings of a whole Past and a +whole Future, are heaving in unquiet eddies within him. + +"Often, in far less agitating scenes, had our still Friend shrunk +forcibly together; and shrouded up his tremors and flutterings, of +what sort soever, in a safe cover of Silence, and perhaps of seeming +Stolidity. How was it, then, that here, when trembling to the core of +his heart, he did not sink into swoons, but rose into strength, into +fearlessness and clearness? It was his guiding Genius (_Damon_) that +inspired him; he must go forth and meet his Destiny. Show thyself now, +whispered it, or be forever hid. Thus sometimes it is even when your +anxiety becomes transcendental, that the soul first feels herself able +to transcend it; that she rises above it, in fiery victory; and borne on +new-found wings of victory, moves so calmly, even because so rapidly, +so irresistibly. Always must the Wanderer remember, with a certain +satisfaction and surprise, how in this case he sat not silent but struck +adroitly into the stream of conversation; which thenceforth, to speak +with an apparent not a real vanity, he may say that he continued to +lead. Surely, in those hours, a certain inspiration was imparted him, +such inspiration as is still possible in our late era. The self-secluded +unfolds himself in noble thoughts, in free, glowing words; his soul is +as one sea of light, the peculiar home of Truth and Intellect; wherein +also Fantasy bodies forth form after form, radiant with all prismatic +hues." + +It appears, in this otherwise so happy meeting, there talked one +"Philisitine;" who even now, to the general weariness, was dominantly +pouring forth Philistinism (_Philistriositaten_.); little witting what +hero was here entering to demolish him! We omit the series of Socratic, +or rather Diogenic utterances, not unhappy in their way, whereby the +monster, "persuaded into silence," seems soon after to have withdrawn +for the night. "Of which dialectic marauder," writes our hero, "the +discomfiture was visibly felt as a benefit by most: but what were all +applauses to the glad smile, threatening every moment to become a laugh, +wherewith Blumine herself repaid the victor? He ventured to address her +she answered with attention: nay what if there were a slight tremor +in that silver voice; what if the red glow of evening were hiding a +transient blush! + +"The conversation took a higher tone, one fine thought called forth +another: it was one of those rare seasons, when the soul expands with +full freedom, and man feels himself brought near to man. Gayly in light, +graceful abandonment, the friendly talk played round that circle; for +the burden was rolled from every heart; the barriers of Ceremony, which +are indeed the laws of polite living, had melted as into vapor; and the +poor claims of _Me_ and _Thee_, no longer parted by rigid fences, +now flowed softly into one another; and Life lay all harmonious, +many-tinted, like some fair royal champaign, the sovereign and owner +of which were Love only. Such music springs from kind hearts, in a kind +environment of place and time. And yet as the light grew more aerial +on the mountaintops, and the shadows fell longer over the valley, some +faint tone of sadness may have breathed through the heart; and, in +whispers more or less audible, reminded every one that as this bright +day was drawing towards its close, so likewise must the Day of Man's +Existence decline into dust and darkness; and with all its sick +toilings, and joyful and mournful noises, sink in the still Eternity. + +"To our Friend the hours seemed moments; holy was he and happy: the +words from those sweetest lips came over him like dew on thirsty grass; +all better feelings in his soul seemed to whisper, It is good for us +to be here. At parting, the Blumine's hand was in his: in the balmy +twilight, with the kind stars above them, he spoke something of meeting +again, which was not contradicted; he pressed gently those small +soft fingers, and it seemed as if they were not hastily, not angrily +withdrawn." + +Poor Teufelsdrockh! it is clear to demonstration thou art smit: the +Queen of Hearts would see a "man of genius" also sigh for her; and +there, by art-magic, in that preternatural hour, has she bound +and spell-bound thee. "Love is not altogether a Delirium," says he +elsewhere; "yet has it many points in common therewith. I call it rather +a discerning of the Infinite in the Finite, of the Idea made Real; +which discerning again may be either true or false, either seraphic or +demoniac, Inspiration or Insanity. But in the former case too, as in +common Madness, it is Fantasy that superadds itself to sight; on the so +petty domain of the Actual plants its Archimedes-lever, whereby to +move at will the infinite Spiritual. Fantasy I might call the true +Heaven-gate and Hell-gate of man: his sensuous life is but the small +temporary stage (_Zeitbuhne_), whereon thick-streaming influences +from both these far yet near regions meet visibly, and act tragedy and +melodrama. Sense can support herself handsomely, in most countries, for +some eighteenpence a day; but for Fantasy planets and solar-systems will +not suffice. Witness your Pyrrhus conquering the world, yet drinking no +better red wine than he had before." Alas! witness also your Diogenes, +flame-clad, scaling the upper Heaven, and verging towards Insanity, for +prize of a "high-souled Brunette," as if the Earth held but one and not +several of these! + +He says that, in Town, they met again: "day after day, like his heart's +sun, the blooming Blumine shone on him. Ah! a little while ago, and he +was yet in all darkness: him what Graceful (_Holde_) would ever love? +Disbelieving all things, the poor youth had never learned to believe +in himself. Withdrawn, in proud timidity, within his own fastnesses; +solitary from men, yet baited by night-spectres enough, he saw himself, +with a sad indignation, constrained to renounce the fairest hopes of +existence. And now, O now! 'She looks on thee,' cried he: 'she the +fairest, noblest; do not her dark eyes tell thee, thou art not despised? +The Heaven's-Messenger! All Heaven's blessings be hers!' Thus did +soft melodies flow through his heart; tones of an infinite gratitude; +sweetest intimations that he also was a man, that for him also +unutterable joys had been provided. + +"In free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent glances, laughter, tears, +and often with the inarticulate mystic speech of Music: such was the +element they now lived in; in such a many-tinted, radiant Aurora, and by +this fairest of Orient Light-bringers must our Friend be blandished, and +the new Apocalypse of Nature enrolled to him. Fairest Blumine! And, even +as a Star, all Fire and humid Softness, a very Light-ray incarnate! Was +there so much as a fault, a 'caprice,' he could have dispensed with? Was +she not to him in very deed a Morning-star; did not her presence bring +with it airs from Heaven? As from AEolian Harps in the breath of +dawn, as from the Memnon's Statue struck by the rosy finger of Aurora, +unearthly music was around him, and lapped him into untried balmy Rest. +Pale Doubt fled away to the distance; Life bloomed up with happiness and +hope. The past, then, was all a haggard dream; he had been in the Garden +of Eden, then, and could not discern it! But lo now! the black walls +of his prison melt away; the captive is alive, is free. If he loved his +Disenchantress? _Ach Gott_! His whole heart and soul and life were hers, +but never had he named it Love: existence was all a Feeling, not yet +shaped into a Thought." + +Nevertheless, into a Thought, nay into an Action, it must be shaped; for +neither Disenchanter nor Disenchantress, mere "Children of Time," can +abide by Feeling alone. The Professor knows not, to this day, "how in +her soft, fervid bosom the Lovely found determination, even on hest +of Necessity, to cut asunder these so blissful bonds." He even appears +surprised at the "Duenna Cousin," whoever she may have been, "in whose +meagre hunger-bitten philosophy, the religion of young hearts was, from +the first, faintly approved of." We, even at such distance, can explain +it without necromancy. Let the Philosopher answer this one question: +What figure, at that period, was a Mrs. Teufelsdrockh likely to make in +polished society? Could she have driven so much as a brass-bound Gig, +or even a simple iron-spring one? Thou foolish "absolved Auscultator," +before whom lies no prospect of capital, will any yet known "religion +of young hearts" keep the human kitchen warm? Pshaw! thy divine Blumine, +when she "resigned herself to wed some richer," shows more philosophy, +though but "a woman of genius," than thou, a pretended man. + +Our readers have witnessed the origin of this Love-mania, and with what +royal splendor it waxes, and rises. Let no one ask us to unfold the +glories of its dominant state; much less the horrors of its almost +instantaneous dissolution. How from such inorganic masses, henceforth +madder than ever, as lie in these Bags, can even fragments of a living +delineation be organized? Besides, of what profit were it? We view, with +a lively pleasure, the gay silk Montgolfier start from the ground, and +shoot upwards, cleaving the liquid deeps, till it dwindle to a luminous +star: but what is there to look longer on, when once, by natural +elasticity, or accident of fire, it has exploded? A hapless +air-navigator, plunging, amid torn parachutes, sand-bags, and confused +wreck, fast enough into the jaws of the Devil! Suffice it to know +that Teufelsdrockh rose into the highest regions of the Empyrean, by a +natural parabolic track, and returned thence in a quick perpendicular +one. For the rest, let any feeling reader, who has been unhappy enough +to do the like, paint it out for himself: considering only that if he, +for his perhaps comparatively insignificant mistress, underwent such +agonies and frenzies, what must Teufelsdrockh's have been, with a +fire-heart, and for a nonpareil Blumine! We glance merely at the final +scene:-- + +"One morning, he found his Morning-star all dimmed and dusky-red; the +fair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to have been weeping. Alas, +no longer a Morning-star, but a troublous skyey Portent, announcing that +the Doomsday had dawned! She said, in a tremulous voice, They were to +meet no more." The thunder-struck Air-sailor is not wanting to +himself in this dread hour: but what avails it? We omit the passionate +expostulations, entreaties, indignations, since all was vain, and not +even an explanation was conceded him; and hasten to the catastrophe. +"'Farewell, then, Madam!' said he, not without sternness, for his stung +pride helped him. She put her hand in his, she looked in his face, tears +started to her eyes; in wild audacity he clasped her to his bosom; +their lips were joined, their two souls, like two dew-drops, rushed into +one,--for the first time and for the last!" Thus was Teufelsdrockh made +immortal by a kiss. And then? Why, then--"thick curtains of Night rushed +over his soul, as rose the immeasurable Crash of Doom; and through the +ruins as of a shivered Universe was he falling, falling, towards the +Abyss." + + +CHAPTER VI. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. + +We have long felt that, with a man like our Professor, matters must +often be expected to take a course of their own; that in so multiplex, +intricate a nature, there might be channels, both for admitting and +emitting, such as the Psychologist had seldom noted; in short, that on +no grand occasion and convulsion, neither in the joy-storm nor in the +woe-storm could you predict his demeanor. + +To our less philosophical readers, for example, it is now clear that the +so passionate Teufelsdrockh precipitated through "a shivered Universe" +in this extraordinary way, has only one of three things which he can +next do: Establish himself in Bedlam; begin writing Satanic Poetry; or +blow out his brains. In the progress towards any of which consummations, +do not such readers anticipate extravagance enough; breast-beating, +brow-beating (against walls), lion-bellowings of blasphemy and the like, +stampings, smitings, breakages of furniture, if not arson itself? + +Nowise so does Teufelsdrockh deport him. He quietly lifts his +_Pilgerstab_ (Pilgrim-staff), "old business being soon wound up;" and +begins a perambulation and circumambulation of the terraqueous Globe! +Curious it is, indeed, how with such vivacity of conception, such +intensity of feeling, above all, with these unconscionable habits of +Exaggeration in speech, he combines that wonderful stillness of his, +that stoicism in external procedure. Thus, if his sudden bereavement, in +this matter of the Flower-goddess, is talked of as a real Doomsday and +Dissolution of Nature, in which light doubtless it partly appeared +to himself, his own nature is nowise dissolved thereby; but rather +is compressed closer. For once, as we might say, a Blumine by magic +appliances has unlocked that shut heart of his, and its hidden things +rush out tumultuous, boundless, like genii enfranchised from their +glass vial: but no sooner are your magic appliances withdrawn, than the +strange casket of a heart springs to again; and perhaps there is now no +key extant that will open it; for a Teufelsdrockh as we remarked, +will not love a second time. Singular Diogenes! No sooner has that +heart-rending occurrence fairly taken place, than he affects to regard +it as a thing natural, of which there is nothing more to be said. "One +highest hope, seemingly legible in the eyes of an Angel, had recalled +him as out of Death-shadows into celestial Life: but a gleam of Tophet +passed over the face of his Angel; he was rapt away in whirlwinds, and +heard the laughter of Demons. It was a Calenture," adds he, "whereby +the Youth saw green Paradise-groves in the waste Ocean-waters: a lying +vision, yet not wholly a lie, for _he_ saw it." But what things soever +passed in him, when he ceased to see it; what ragings and despairings +soever Teufelsdrockh's soul was the scene of, he has the goodness to +conceal under a quite opaque cover of Silence. We know it well; the +first mad paroxysm past, our brave Gneschen collected his dismembered +philosophies, and buttoned himself together; he was meek, silent, or +spoke of the weather and the Journals: only by a transient knitting of +those shaggy brows, by some deep flash of those eyes, glancing one knew +not whether with tear-dew or with fierce fire,--might you have guessed +what a Gehenna was within: that a whole Satanic School were spouting, +though inaudibly, there. To consume your own choler, as some chimneys +consume their own smoke; to keep a whole Satanic School spouting, if it +must spout, inaudibly, is a negative yet no slight virtue, nor one of +the commonest in these times. + +Nevertheless, we will not take upon us to say, that in the strange +measure he fell upon, there was not a touch of latent Insanity; whereof +indeed the actual condition of these Documents in _Capricornus_ and +_Aquarius is_ no bad emblem. His so unlimited Wanderings, toilsome +enough, are without assigned or perhaps assignable aim; internal Unrest +seems his sole guidance; he wanders, wanders, as if that curse of +the Prophet had fallen on him, and he were "made like unto a wheel." +Doubtless, too, the chaotic nature of these Paper-bags aggravates our +obscurity. Quite without note of preparation, for example, we come upon +the following slip: "A peculiar feeling it is that will rise in the +Traveller, when turning some hill-range in his desert road, he descries +lying far below, embosomed among its groves and green natural bulwarks, +and all diminished to a toy-box, the fair Town, where so many souls, as +it were seen and yet unseen, are driving their multifarious traffic. Its +white steeple is then truly a starward-pointing finger; the canopy +of blue smoke seems like a sort of Lifebreath: for always, of its own +unity, the soul gives unity to whatsoever it looks on with love; thus +does the little Dwelling-place of men, in itself a congeries of houses +and huts, become for us an individual, almost a person. But what +thousand other thoughts unite thereto, if the place has to ourselves +been the arena of joyous or mournful experiences; if perhaps the cradle +we were rocked in still stands there, if our Loving ones still dwell +there, if our Buried ones there slumber!" Does Teufelsdrockh as the +wounded eagle is said to make for its own eyrie, and indeed military +deserters, and all hunted outcast creatures, turn as if by instinct in +the direction of their birthland,--fly first, in this extremity, towards +his native Entepfuhl; but reflecting that there no help awaits him, take +only one wistful look from the distance, and then wend elsewhither? + +Little happier seems to be his next flight: into the wilds of Nature; as +if in her mother-bosom he would seek healing. So at least we incline +to interpret the following Notice, separated from the former by some +considerable space, wherein, however, is nothing noteworthy:-- + +"Mountains were not new to him; but rarely are Mountains seen in such +combined majesty and grace as here. The rocks are of that sort called +Primitive by the mineralogists, which always arrange themselves in +masses of a rugged, gigantic character; which ruggedness, however, +is here tempered by a singular airiness of form, and softness of +environment: in a climate favorable to vegetation, the gray cliff, +itself covered with lichens, shoots up through a garment of foliage +or verdure; and white, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster round +the everlasting granite. In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates with +Grandeur: you ride through stony hollows, along strait passes, traversed +by torrents, overhung by high walls of rock; now winding amid broken +shaggy chasms, and huge fragments; now suddenly emerging into some +emerald valley, where the streamlet collects itself into a Lake, and +man has again found a fair dwelling, and it seems as if Peace had +established herself in the bosom of Strength. + +"To Peace, however, in this vortex of existence, can the Son of Time +not pretend: still less if some Spectre haunt him from the Past; and the +Future is wholly a Stygian Darkness, spectre-bearing. Reasonably might +the Wanderer exclaim to himself: Are not the gates of this world's +happiness inexorably shut against thee; hast thou a hope that is not +mad? Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, or in the original +Greek if that suit thee better: 'Whoso can look on Death will start at +no shadows.' + +"From such meditations is the Wanderer's attention called outwards; for +now the Valley closes in abruptly, intersected by a huge mountain +mass, the stony water-worn ascent of which is not to be accomplished on +horseback. Arrived aloft, he finds himself again lifted into the evening +sunset light; and cannot but pause, and gaze round him, some moments +there. An upland irregular expanse of wold, where valleys in complex +branchings are suddenly or slowly arranging their descent towards every +quarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are beneath your feet, and +folded together: only the loftier summits look down here and there as on +a second plain; lakes also lie clear and earnest in their solitude. No +trace of man now visible; unless indeed it were he who fashioned +that little visible link of Highway, here, as would seem, scaling the +inaccessible, to unite Province with Province. But sunwards, lo you! how +it towers sheer up, a world of Mountains, the diadem and centre of the +mountain region! A hundred and a hundred savage peaks, in the last light +of Day; all glowing, of gold and amethyst, like giant spirits of the +wilderness; there in their silence, in their solitude, even as on the +night when Noah's Deluge first dried! Beautiful, nay solemn, was the +sudden aspect to our Wanderer. He gazed over those stupendous masses +with wonder, almost with longing desire; never till this hour had he +known Nature, that she was One, that she was his Mother and divine. And +as the ruddy glow was fading into clearness in the sky, and the Sun had +now departed, a murmur of Eternity and Immensity, of Death and of Life, +stole through his soul; and he felt as if Death and Life were one, as if +the Earth were not dead, as if the Spirit of the Earth had its throne in +that splendor, and his own spirit were therewith holding communion. + +"The spell was broken by a sound of carriage-wheels. Emerging from the +hidden Northward, to sink soon into the hidden Southward, came a gay +Barouche-and-four: it was open; servants and postilions wore wedding +favors: that happy pair, then, had found each other, it was their +marriage evening! Few moments brought them near: _Du Himmel_! It was +Herr Towgood and--Blumine! With slight unrecognizing salutation they +passed me; plunged down amid the neighboring thickets, onwards, to +Heaven, and to England; and I, in my friend Richter's words, _I remained +alone, behind them, with the Night_." + +Were it not cruel in these circumstances, here might be the place to +insert an observation, gleaned long ago from the great _Clothes-Volume_, +where it stands with quite other intent: "Some time before Small-pox +was extirpated," says the Professor, "there came a new malady of +the spiritual sort on Europe: I mean the epidemic, now endemical, of +View-hunting. Poets of old date, being privileged with Senses, had also +enjoyed external Nature; but chiefly as we enjoy the crystal cup which +holds good or bad liquor for us; that is to say, in silence, or with +slight incidental commentary: never, as I compute, till after the +_Sorrows of Werter_, was there man found who would say: Come let us make +a Description! Having drunk the liquor, come let us eat the glass! Of +which endemic the Jenner is unhappily still to seek." Too true! + +We reckon it more important to remark that the Professor's Wanderings, +so far as his stoical and cynical envelopment admits us to clear +insight, here first take their permanent character, fatuous or not. That +Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have withered up +what little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in him: Life has +become wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through long years, our Friend, +flying from spectres, has to stumble about at random, and naturally with +more haste than progress. + +Foolish were it in us to attempt following him, even from afar, in this +extraordinary world-pilgrimage of his; the simplest record of which, +were clear record possible, would fill volumes. Hopeless is the +obscurity, unspeakable the confusion. He glides from country to country, +from condition to condition; vanishing and reappearing, no man can +calculate how or where. Through all quarters of the world he wanders, +and apparently through all circles of society. If in any scene, perhaps +difficult to fix geographically, he settles for a time, and forms +connections, be sure he will snap them abruptly asunder. Let him sink +out of sight as Private Scholar (_Privatsirender_), living by the grace +of God in some European capital, you may next find him as Hadjee in the +neighborhood of Mecca. It is an inexplicable Phantasmagoria, capricious, +quick-changing; as if our Traveller, instead of limbs and highways, +had transported himself by some wishing-carpet, or Fortunatus' Hat. The +whole, too, imparted emblematically, in dim multifarious tokens (as that +collection of Street-Advertisements); with only some touch of direct +historical notice sparingly interspersed: little light-islets in the +world of haze! So that, from this point, the Professor is more of an +enigma than ever. In figurative language, we might say he becomes, not +indeed a spirit, yet spiritualized, vaporized. Fact unparalleled in +Biography: The river of his History, which we have traced from its +tiniest fountains, and hoped to see flow onward, with increasing +current, into the ocean, here dashes itself over that terrific Lover's +Leap; and, as a mad-foaming cataract, flies wholly into tumultuous +clouds of spray! Low down it indeed collects again into pools and +plashes; yet only at a great distance, and with difficulty, if at all, +into a general stream. To cast a glance into certain of those pools and +plashes, and trace whither they run, must, for a chapter or two, form +the limit of our endeavor. + +For which end doubtless those direct historical Notices, where they can +be met with, are the best. Nevertheless, of this sort too there occurs +much, which, with our present light, it were questionable to emit. +Teufelsdrockh vibrating everywhere between the highest and the lowest +levels, comes into contact with public History itself. For example, +those conversations and relations with illustrious Persons, as Sultan +Mahmoud, the Emperor Napoleon, and others, are they not as yet rather +of a diplomatic character than of a biographic? The Editor, appreciating +the sacredness of crowned heads, nay perhaps suspecting the possible +trickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew this province for the +present; a new time may bring new insight and a different duty. + +If we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for there was +none, yet with what immediate outlooks; at all events, in what mood of +mind, the Professor undertook and prosecuted this world-pilgrimage,--the +answer is more distinct than favorable. "A nameless Unrest," says he, +"urged me forward; to which the outward motion was some momentary lying +solace. Whither should I go? My Loadstars were blotted out; in that +canopy of grim fire shone no star. Yet forward must I; the ground burnt +under me; there was no rest for the sole of my foot. I was alone, alone! +Ever too the strong inward longing shaped Phantasms for itself: towards +these, one after the other, must I fruitlessly wander. A feeling I +had, that for my fever-thirst there was and must be somewhere a healing +Fountain. To many fondly imagined Fountains, the Saints' Wells of these +days, did I pilgrim; to great Men, to great Cities, to great Events: but +found there no healing. In strange countries, as in the well-known; in +savage deserts, as in the press of corrupt civilization, it was ever +the same: how could your Wanderer escape from--_his own Shadow_? +Nevertheless still Forward! I felt as if in great haste; to do I saw not +what. From the depths of my own heart, it called to me, Forwards! The +winds and the streams, and all Nature sounded to me, Forwards! _Ach +Gott_, I was even, once for all, a Son of Time." + +From which is it not clear that the internal Satanic School was still +active enough? He says elsewhere: "The _Enchiridion of Epictetus_ I had +ever with me, often as my sole rational companion; and regret to +mention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling." Thou foolish +Teufelsdrockh How could it else? Hadst thou not Greek enough to +understand thus much: _The end of Man is an Action, and not a Thought_, +though it were the noblest? + +"How I lived?" writes he once: "Friend, hast thou considered the 'rugged +all-nourishing Earth,' as Sophocles well names her; how she feeds +the sparrow on the house-top, much more her darling, man? While thou +stirrest and livest, thou hast a probability of victual. My breakfast of +tea has been cooked by a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who wiped +her earthen kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted wild eggs in +the sand of Sahara; I have awakened in Paris _Estrapades_ and Vienna +_Malzleins_, with no prospect of breakfast beyond elemental liquid. That +I had my Living to seek saved me from Dying,--by suicide. In our +busy Europe, is there not an everlasting demand for Intellect, in the +chemical, mechanical, political, religious, educational, commercial +departments? In Pagan countries, cannot one write Fetishes? Living! +Little knowest thou what alchemy is in an inventive Soul; how, as with +its little finger, it can create provision enough for the body (of a +Philosopher); and then, as with both hands, create quite other than +provision; namely, spectres to torment itself withal." + +Poor Teufelsdrockh! Flying with Hunger always parallel to him; and a +whole Infernal Chase in his rear; so that the countenance of Hunger is +comparatively a friend's! Thus must he, in the temper of ancient Cain, +or of the modern Wandering Jew,--save only that he feels himself not +guilty and but suffering the pains of guilt,--wend to and fro with +aimless speed. Thus must he, over the whole surface of the Earth (by +footprints), write his _Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh_; even as the great +Goethe, in passionate words, had to write his _Sorrows of Werter_, +before the spirit freed herself, and he could become a Man. Vain truly +is the hope of your swiftest Runner to escape "from his own Shadow"! +Nevertheless, in these sick days, when the Born of Heaven first descries +himself (about the age of twenty) in a world such as ours, richer +than usual in two things, in Truths grown obsolete, and Trades grown +obsolete,--what can the fool think but that it is all a Den of Lies, +wherein whoso will not speak Lies and act Lies, must stand idle and +despair? Whereby it happens that, for your nobler minds, the publishing +of some such Work of Art, in one or the other dialect, becomes almost +a necessity. For what is it properly but an Altercation with the +Devil, before you begin honestly Fighting him? Your Byron publishes +his _Sorrows of Lord George_, in verse and in prose, and copiously +otherwise: your Bonaparte represents his _Sorrows of Napoleon_ Opera, +in an all-too stupendous style; with music of cannon-volleys, +and murder-shrieks of a world; his stage-lights are the fires of +Conflagration; his rhyme and recitative are the tramp of embattled +Hosts and the sound of falling Cities.--Happier is he who, like our +Clothes-Philosopher, can write such matter, since it must be written, +on the insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles only; and also survive the +writing thereof! + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE EVERLASTING NO. + +Under the strange nebulous envelopment, wherein our Professor has now +shrouded himself, no doubt but his spiritual nature is nevertheless +progressive, and growing: for how can the "Son of Time," in any case, +stand still? We behold him, through those dim years, in a state of +crisis, of transition: his mad Pilgrimings, and general solution +into aimless Discontinuity, what is all this but a mad Fermentation; +wherefrom the fiercer it is, the clearer product will one day evolve +itself? + +Such transitions are ever full of pain: thus the Eagle when he moults is +sickly; and, to attain his new beak, must harshly dash off the old one +upon rocks. What Stoicism soever our Wanderer, in his individual acts +and motions, may affect, it is clear that there is a hot fever of +anarchy and misery raging within; coruscations of which flash out: as, +indeed, how could there be other? Have we not seen him disappointed, +bemocked of Destiny, through long years? All that the young heart might +desire and pray for has been denied; nay, as in the last worst instance, +offered and then snatched away. Ever an "excellent Passivity;" but of +useful, reasonable Activity, essential to the former as Food to Hunger, +nothing granted: till at length, in this wild Pilgrimage, he must +forcibly seize for himself an Activity, though useless, unreasonable. +Alas, his cup of bitterness, which had been filling drop by drop, ever +since that first "ruddy morning" in the Hinterschlag Gymnasium, was at +the very lip; and then with that poison-drop, of the Towgood-and-Blumine +business, it runs over, and even hisses over in a deluge of foam. + +He himself says once, with more justness than originality: "Men is, +properly speaking, based upon Hope, he has no other possession but Hope; +this world of his is emphatically the Place of Hope." What, then, was +our Professor's possession? We see him, for the present, quite shut out +from Hope; looking not into the golden orient, but vaguely all round +into a dim copper firmament, pregnant with earthquake and tornado. + +Alas, shut out from Hope, in a deeper sense than we yet dream of! +For, as he wanders wearisomely through this world, he has now lost +all tidings of another and higher. Full of religion, or at least of +religiosity, as our Friend has since exhibited himself, he hides not +that, in those days, he was wholly irreligious: "Doubt had darkened into +Unbelief," says he; "shade after shade goes grimly over your soul, till +you have the fixed, starless, Tartarean black." To such readers as have +reflected, what can be called reflecting, on man's life, and happily +discovered, in contradiction to much Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, +speculative and practical, that Soul is not synonymous with Stomach; +who understand, therefore, in our Friend's words, "that, for man's +well-being, Faith is properly the one thing needful; how, with it, +Martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; +and without it, Worldlings puke up their sick existence, by suicide, in +the midst of luxury:" to such it will be clear that, for a pure moral +nature, the loss of his religious Belief was the loss of everything. +Unhappy young man! All wounds, the crush of long-continued Destitution, +the stab of false Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in thy so +genial heart, would have healed again, had not its life-warmth been +withdrawn. Well might he exclaim, in his wild way: "Is there no God, +then; but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first +Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe, and _see_ing it go? Has the +word Duty no meaning; is what we call Duty no divine Messenger and +Guide, but a false earthly Phantasm, made up of Desire and Fear, of +emanations from the Gallows and from Doctor Graham's Celestial-Bed? +Happiness of an approving Conscience! Did not Paul of Tarsus, whom +admiring men have since named Saint, feel that _he_ was 'the chief of +sinners;' and Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit (_wohlgemuth_), spend much +of his time in fiddling? Foolish Wordmonger and Motive-grinder, who in +thy Logic-mill hast an earthly mechanism for the Godlike itself, and +wouldst fain grind me out Virtue from the husks of Pleasure,--I tell +thee, Nay! To the unregenerate Prometheus Vinctus of a man, it is ever +the bitterest aggravation of his wretchedness that he is conscious of +Virtue, that he feels himself the victim not of suffering only, but of +injustice. What then? Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but some +Passion; some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction others +_profit_ by? I know not: only this I know, If what thou namest Happiness +be our true aim, then are we all astray. With Stupidity and sound +Digestion man may front much. But what, in these dull unimaginative +days, are the terrors of Conscience to the diseases of the Liver! Not on +Morality, but on Cookery, let us build our stronghold: there brandishing +our frying-pan, as censer, let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and +live at ease on the fat things he has provided for his Elect!" + +Thus has the bewildered Wanderer to stand, as so many have done, +shouting question after question into the Sibyl-cave of Destiny, and +receive no Answer but an Echo. It is all a grim Desert, this once-fair +world of his; wherein is heard only the howling of wild beasts, or the +shrieks of despairing, hate-filled men; and no Pillar of Cloud by day, +and no Pillar of Fire by night, any longer guides the Pilgrim. To such +length has the spirit of Inquiry carried him. "But what boots it (_was +thut's_)?" cries he: "it is but the common lot in this era. Not having +come to spiritual majority prior to the _Siecle de Louis Quinze_, and +not being born purely a Loghead (_Dummkopf_ ), thou hadst no other +outlook. The whole world is, like thee, sold to Unbelief; their old +Temples of the Godhead, which for long have not been rain-proof, crumble +down; and men ask now: Where is the Godhead; our eyes never saw him?" + +Pitiful enough were it, for all these wild utterances, to call our +Diogenes wicked. Unprofitable servants as we all are, perhaps at no era +of his life was he more decisively the Servant of Goodness, the Servant +of God, than even now when doubting God's existence. "One circumstance I +note," says he: "after all the nameless woe that Inquiry, which for +me, what it is not always, was genuine Love of Truth, had wrought me! I +nevertheless still loved Truth, and would bate no jot of my allegiance +to her. 'Truth!' I cried, 'though the Heavens crush me for following +her: no Falsehood! though a whole celestial Lubberland were the price of +Apostasy.' In conduct it was the same. Had a divine Messenger from the +clouds, or miraculous Handwriting on the wall, convincingly proclaimed +to me _This thou shalt do_, with what passionate readiness, as I often +thought, would I have done it, had it been leaping into the +infernal Fire. Thus, in spite of all Motive-grinders, and Mechanical +Profit-and-Loss Philosophies, with the sick ophthalmia and hallucination +they had brought on, was the Infinite nature of Duty still dimly present +to me: living without God in the world, of God's light I was not utterly +bereft; if my as yet sealed eyes, with their unspeakable longing, +could nowhere see Him, nevertheless in my heart He was present, and His +heaven-written Law still stood legible and sacred there." + +Meanwhile, under all these tribulations, and temporal and spiritual +destitutions, what must the Wanderer, in his silent soul, have endured! +"The painfullest feeling," writes he, "is that of your own Feebleness +(_Unkraft_); ever, as the English Milton says, to be weak is the true +misery. And yet of your Strength there is and can be no clear feeling, +save by what you have prospered in, by what you have done. Between +vague wavering Capability and fixed indubitable Performance, what a +difference! A certain inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells dimly +in us; which only our Works can render articulate and decisively +discernible. Our Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its +natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible Precept, +_Know thyself_; till it be translated into this partially possible one, +_Know what thou canst work at_. + +"But for me, so strangely unprosperous had I been, the net-result of my +Workings amounted as yet simply to--Nothing. How then could I believe in +my Strength, when there was as yet no mirror to see it in? Ever did this +agitating, yet, as I now perceive, quite frivolous question, remain to +me insoluble: Hast thou a certain Faculty, a certain Worth, such even +as the most have not; or art thou the completest Dullard of these modern +times? Alas, the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself; and how could +I believe? Had not my first, last Faith in myself, when even to me the +Heavens seemed laid open, and I dared to love, been all too cruelly +belied? The speculative Mystery of Life grew ever more mysterious to me: +neither in the practical Mystery had I made the slightest progress, but +been everywhere buffeted, foiled, and contemptuously cast out. A feeble +unit in the middle of a threatening Infinitude, I seemed to have nothing +given me but eyes, whereby to discern my own wretchedness. Invisible yet +impenetrable walls, as of Enchantment, divided me from all living: was +there, in the wide world, any true bosom I could press trustfully to +mine? O Heaven, No, there was none! I kept a lock upon my lips: why +should I speak much with that shifting variety of so-called Friends, +in whose withered, vain and too-hungry souls Friendship was but an +incredible tradition? In such cases, your resource is to talk little, +and that little mostly from the Newspapers. Now when I look back, it was +a strange isolation I then lived in. The men and women around me, even +speaking with me, were but Figures; I had, practically, forgotten that +they were alive, that they were not merely automatic. In the midst of +their crowded streets and assemblages, I walked solitary; and (except as +it was my own heart, not another's, that I kept devouring) savage also, +as the tiger in his jungle. Some comfort it would have been, could I, +like a Faust, have fancied myself tempted and tormented of the Devil; +for a Hell, as I imagine, without Life, though only diabolic Life, were +more frightful: but in our age of Down-pulling and Disbelief, the very +Devil has been pulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To +me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of +Hostility: it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling +on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. Oh, the +vast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the Living +banished thither companionless, conscious? Why, if there is no Devil; +nay, unless the Devil is your God?" + +A prey incessantly to such corrosions, might not, moreover, as the +worst aggravation to them, the iron constitution even of a Teufelsdrockh +threaten to fail? We conjecture that he has known sickness; and, in +spite of his locomotive habits, perhaps sickness of the chronic sort. +Hear this, for example: "How beautiful to die of broken-heart, on Paper! +Quite another thing in practice; every window of your Feeling, even of +your Intellect, as it were, begrimed and mud-bespattered, so that no +pure ray can enter; a whole Drug-shop in your inwards; the fordone soul +drowning slowly in quagmires of Disgust!" + +Putting all which external and internal miseries together, may we not +find in the following sentences, quite in our Professor's still vein, +significance enough? "From Suicide a certain after-shine (_Nachschein_) +of Christianity withheld me: perhaps also a certain indolence of +character; for, was not that a remedy I had at any time within reach? +Often, however, was there a question present to me: Should some one now, +at the turning of that corner, blow thee suddenly out of Space, into the +other World, or other No-world, by pistol-shot,--how were it? On which +ground, too, I have often, in sea-storms and sieged cities and other +death-scenes, exhibited an imperturbability, which passed, falsely +enough, for courage." + +"So had it lasted," concludes the Wanderer, "so had it lasted, as in +bitter protracted Death-agony, through long years. The heart within +me, unvisited by any heavenly dew-drop, was smouldering in sulphurous, +slow-consuming fire. Almost since earliest memory I had shed no tear; +or once only when I, murmuring half-audibly, recited Faust's Death-song, +that wild _Selig der den er im Siegesglanze findet_ (Happy whom _he_ +finds in Battle's splendor), and thought that of this last Friend even +I was not forsaken, that Destiny itself could not doom me not to die. +Having no hope, neither had I any definite fear, were it of Man or +of Devil: nay, I often felt as if it might be solacing, could the +Arch-Devil himself, though in Tartarean terrors, but rise to me, that I +might tell him a little of my mind. And yet, strangely enough, I lived +in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous, +apprehensive of I knew not what: it seemed as if all things in the +Heavens above and the Earth beneath would hurt me; as if the Heavens +and the Earth were but boundless jaws of a devouring monster, wherein I, +palpitating, waited to be devoured. + +"Full of such humor, and perhaps the miserablest man in the whole French +Capital or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dog-day, after much perambulation, +toiling along the dirty little _Rue Saint-Thomas de l'Enfer_, among +civic rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere, and over pavements hot +as Nebuchadnezzar's Furnace; whereby doubtless my spirits were little +cheered; when, all at once, there rose a Thought in me, and I asked +myself: 'What _art_ thou afraid of? Wherefore, like a coward, dost +thou forever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling? Despicable +biped! what is the sum-total of the worst that lies before thee? Death? +Well, Death; and say the pangs of Tophet too, and all that the Devil and +Man may, will or can do against thee! Hast thou not a heart; canst thou +not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, +trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee? Let it +come, then; I will meet it and defy it!' And as I so thought, there +rushed like a stream of fire over my whole soul; and I shook base Fear +away from me forever. I was strong, of unknown strength; a spirit, +almost a god. Ever from that time, the temper of my misery was changed: +not Fear or whining Sorrow was it, but Indignation and grim fire-eyed +Defiance. + +"Thus had the EVERLASTING NO (_das ewige Nein_) pealed authoritatively +through all the recesses of my Being, of my ME; and then was it that +my whole ME stood up, in native God-created majesty, and with emphasis +recorded its Protest. Such a Protest, the most important transaction in +Life, may that same Indignation and Defiance, in a psychological point +of view, be fitly called. The Everlasting No had said: 'Behold, thou art +fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine (the Devil's);' to which +my whole Me now made answer: '_I_ am not thine, but Free, and forever +hate thee!' + +"It is from this hour that I incline to date my Spiritual New-birth, +or Baphometic Fire-baptism; perhaps I directly thereupon began to be a +Man." + + + +CHAPTER VIII. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. + +Though, after this "Baphometic Fire-baptism" of his, our Wanderer +signifies that his Unrest was but increased; as, indeed, "Indignation +and Defiance," especially against things in general, are not the most +peaceable inmates; yet can the Psychologist surmise that it was no +longer a quite hopeless Unrest; that henceforth it had at least a fixed +centre to revolve round. For the fire-baptized soul, long so scathed +and thunder-riven, here feels its own Freedom, which feeling is its +Baphometic Baptism: the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus +gained by assault, and will keep inexpugnable; outwards from which the +remaining dominions, not indeed without hard battling, will doubtless +by degrees be conquered and pacificated. Under another figure, we might +say, if in that great moment, in the _Rue Saint-Thomas de l'Enfer_, the +old inward Satanic School was not yet thrown out of doors, it received +peremptory judicial notice to quit;--whereby, for the rest, its +howl-chantings, Ernulphus-cursings, and rebellious gnashings of teeth, +might, in the mean while, become only the more tumultuous, and difficult +to keep secret. + +Accordingly, if we scrutinize these Pilgrimings well, there is perhaps +discernible henceforth a certain incipient method in their madness. Not +wholly as a Spectre does Teufelsdrockh now storm through the world; +at worst as a spectra-fighting Man, nay who will one day be a +Spectre-queller. If pilgriming restlessly to so many "Saints' Wells," +and ever without quenching of his thirst, he nevertheless finds little +secular wells, whereby from time to time some alleviation is ministered. +In a word, he is now, if not ceasing, yet intermitting to "eat his own +heart;" and clutches round him outwardly on the NOT-ME for wholesomer +food. Does not the following glimpse exhibit him in a much more natural +state? + +"Towns also and Cities, especially the ancient, I failed not to look +upon with interest. How beautiful to see thereby, as through a long +vista, into the remote Time; to have, as it were, an actual section of +almost the earliest Past brought safe into the Present, and set before +your eyes! There, in that old City, was a live ember of Culinary Fire +put down, say only two thousand years ago; and there, burning more or +less triumphantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, it has burnt, +and still burns, and thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof. Ah! and +the far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then also put down +there; and still miraculously burns and spreads; and the smoke and +ashes thereof (in these Judgment-Halls and Churchyards), and its +bellows-engines (in these Churches), thou still seest; and its flame, +looking out from every kind countenance, and every hateful one, still +warms thee or scorches thee. + +"Of Man's Activity and Attainment the chief results are aeriform, +mystic, and preserved in Tradition only: such are his Forms of +Government, with the Authority they rest on; his Customs, or Fashions +both of Cloth-habits and of Soul-habits; much more his collective +stock of Handicrafts, the whole Faculty he has acquired of manipulating +Nature: all these things, as indispensable and priceless as they +are, cannot in any way be fixed under lock and key, but must flit, +spirit-like, on impalpable vehicles, from Father to Son; if you demand +sight of them, they are nowhere to be met with. Visible Ploughmen and +Hammermen there have been, ever from Cain and Tubal-cain downwards: +but where does your accumulated Agricultural, Metallurgic, and +other Manufacturing SKILL lie warehoused? It transmits itself on the +atmospheric air, on the sun's rays (by Hearing and by Vision); it is a +thing aeriform, impalpable, of quite spiritual sort. In like manner, ask +me not, Where are the LAWS; where is the GOVERNMENT? In vain wilt thou +go to Schonbrunn, to Downing Street, to the Palais Bourbon; thou findest +nothing there but brick or stone houses, and some bundles of Papers +tied with tape. Where, then, is that same cunningly devised almighty +GOVERNMENT of theirs to be laid hands on? Everywhere, yet nowhere: seen +only in its works, this too is a thing aeriform, invisible; or if you +will, mystic and miraculous. So spiritual (_geistig_) is our whole daily +Life: all that we do springs out of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force; +only like a little Cloud-image, or Armida's Palace, air-built, does the +Actual body itself forth from the great mystic Deep. + +"Visible and tangible products of the Past, again, I reckon up to the +extent of three: Cities, with their Cabinets and Arsenals; then tilled +Fields, to either or to both of which divisions Roads with their Bridges +may belong; and thirdly--Books. In which third truly, the last invented, +lies a worth far surpassing that of the two others. Wondrous indeed +is the virtue of a true Book. Not like a dead city of stones, yearly +crumbling, yearly needing repair; more like a tilled field, but then +a spiritual field: like a spiritual tree, let me rather say, it stands +from year to year, and from age to age (we have Books that already +number some hundred and fifty human ages); and yearly comes its new +produce of leaves (Commentaries, Deductions, Philosophical, Political +Systems; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, Journalistic Essays), every +one of which is talismanic and thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men. +O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries +or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name +City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or +City-burner! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort, +namely over the Devil: thou too hast built what will outlast all marble +and metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and +Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will +pilgrim.--Fool! why journeyest thou wearisomely, in thy antiquarian +fervor, to gaze on the stone pyramids of Geeza, or the clay ones of +Sacchara? These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, looking +over the Desert, foolishly enough, for the last three thousand years: +but canst thou not open thy Hebrew BIBLE, then, or even Luther's Version +thereof?" + +No less satisfactory is his sudden appearance not in Battle, yet on some +Battle-field; which, we soon gather, must be that of Wagram; so that +here, for once, is a certain approximation to distinctness of date. +Omitting much, let us impart what follows:-- + +"Horrible enough! A whole Marchfeld strewed with shell-splinters, +cannon-shot, ruined tumbrils, and dead men and horses; stragglers still +remaining not so much as buried. And those red mould heaps; ay, there +lie the Shells of Men, out of which all the Life and Virtue has been +blown; and now are they swept together, and crammed down out of sight, +like blown Egg-shells!--Did Nature, when she bade the Donau bring down +his mould-cargoes from the Carinthian and Carpathian Heights, and +spread them out here into the softest, richest level,--intend thee, O +Marchfeld, for a corn-bearing Nursery, whereon her children might be +nursed; or for a Cockpit, wherein they might the more commodiously be +throttled and tattered? Were thy three broad Highways, meeting here from +the ends of Europe, made for Ammunition-wagons, then? Were thy Wagrams +and Stillfrieds but so many ready-built Casemates, wherein the house of +Hapsburg might batter with artillery, and with artillery be battered? +Konig Ottokar, amid yonder hillocks, dies under Rodolf's truncheon; +here Kaiser Franz falls a-swoon under Napoleon's: within which five +centuries, to omit the others, how has thy breast, fair Plain, been +defaced and defiled! The greensward is torn up and trampled down; man's +fond care of it, his fruit-trees, hedge-rows, and pleasant dwellings, +blown away with gunpowder; and the kind seedfield lies a desolate, +hideous Place of Skulls.--Nevertheless, Nature is at work; neither shall +these Powder-Devilkins with their utmost devilry gainsay her: but all +that gore and carnage will be shrouded in, absorbed into manure; and +next year the Marchfeld will be green, nay greener. Thrifty unwearied +Nature, ever out of our great waste educing some little profit of thy +own,--how dost thou, from the very carcass of the Killer, bring Life for +the Living! + +"What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net purport and +upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, +in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. +From these, by certain 'Natural Enemies' of the French, there are +successively selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied +men; Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them: she +has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even +trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another +hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. +Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all +dressed in red; and shipped away, at the public charges, some two +thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed there till +wanted. And now to that same spot, in the south of Spain, are thirty +similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner +wending: till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties come +into actual juxtaposition; and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with +a gun in his hand. Straightaway the word 'Fire!' is given; and they +blow the souls out of one another; and in place of sixty brisk useful +craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and +anew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the Devil +is, not the smallest! They lived far enough apart; were the entirest +strangers; nay, in so wide a Universe, there was even, unconsciously, +by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! +their Governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one another, +had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot.--Alas, so is it +in Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands; still as of old, +'what devilry soever Kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper!'--In that +fiction of the English Smollett, it is true, the final Cessation of War +is perhaps prophetically shadowed forth; where the two Natural Enemies, +in person, take each a Tobacco-pipe, filled with Brimstone; light the +same, and smoke in one another's faces, till the weaker gives in: +but from such predicted Peace-Era, what blood-filled trenches, and +contentious centuries, may still divide us!" + +Thus can the Professor, at least in lucid intervals, look away from his +own sorrows, over the many-colored world, and pertinently enough note +what is passing there. We may remark, indeed, that for the matter of +spiritual culture, if for nothing else, perhaps few periods of his +life were richer than this. Internally, there is the most momentous +instructive Course of Practical Philosophy, with Experiments, going +on; towards the right comprehension of which his Peripatetic habits, +favorable to Meditation, might help him rather than hinder. Externally, +again, as he wanders to and fro, there are, if for the longing heart +little substance, yet for the seeing eye sights enough in these so +boundless Travels of his, granting that the Satanic School was even +partially kept down, what an incredible knowledge of our Planet, and +its Inhabitants and their Works, that is to say, of all knowable things, +might not Teufelsdrockh acquire! + +"I have read in most Public Libraries," says he, "including those of +Constantinople and Samarcand: in most Colleges, except the Chinese +Mandarin ones, I have studied, or seen that there was no studying. +Unknown Languages have I oftenest gathered from their natural repertory, +the Air, by my organ of Hearing; Statistics, Geographics, Topographics +came, through the Eye, almost of their own accord. The ways of Man, how +he seeks food, and warmth, and protection for himself, in most regions, +are ocularly known to me. Like the great Hadrian, I meted out much of +the terraqueous Globe with a pair of Compasses that belonged to myself +only. + +"Of great Scenes why speak? Three summer days, I lingered reflecting, +and even composing (_dichtete_), by the Pine-chasms of Vaucluse; and in +that clear Lakelet moistened my bread. I have sat under the Palm-trees +of Tadmor; smoked a pipe among the ruins of Babylon. The great Wall of +China I have seen; and can testify that it is of gray brick, coped and +covered with granite, and shows only second-rate masonry.--Great Events, +also, have not I witnessed? Kings sweated down (_ausgemergelt_) into +Berlin-and-Milan Customhouse-Officers; the World well won, and the World +well lost; oftener than once a hundred thousand individuals shot (by +each other) in one day. All kindreds and peoples and nations dashed +together, and shifted and shovelled into heaps, that they might ferment +there, and in time unite. The birth-pangs of Democracy, wherewith +convulsed Europe was groaning in cries that reached Heaven, could not +escape me. + +"For great Men I have ever had the warmest predilection; and can perhaps +boast that few such in this era have wholly escaped me. Great Men +are the inspired (speaking and acting) Texts of that divine BOOK OF +REVELATIONS, whereof a Chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by +some named HISTORY; to which inspired Texts your numerous talented men, +and your innumerable untalented men, are the better or worse exegetic +Commentaries, and wagon-load of too-stupid, heretical or orthodox, +weekly Sermons. For my study, the inspired Texts themselves! Thus did +not I, in very early days, having disguised me as tavern-waiter, stand +behind the field-chairs, under that shady Tree at Treisnitz by the Jena +Highway; waiting upon the great Schiller and greater Goethe; and hearing +what I have not forgotten. For--" + +--But at this point the Editor recalls his principle of caution, some +time ago laid down, and must suppress much. Let not the sacredness of +Laurelled, still more, of Crowned Heads, be tampered with. Should we, +at a future day, find circumstances altered, and the time come for +Publication, then may these glimpses into the privacy of the Illustrious +be conceded; which for the present were little better than treacherous, +perhaps traitorous Eavesdroppings. Of Lord Byron, therefore, of Pope +Pius, Emperor Tarakwang, and the "White Water-roses" (Chinese Carbonari) +with their mysteries, no notice here! Of Napoleon himself we shall only, +glancing from afar, remark that Teufelsdrockh's relation to him seems to +have been of very varied character. At first we find our poor +Professor on the point of being shot as a spy; then taken into private +conversation, even pinched on the ear, yet presented with no money; +at last indignantly dismissed, almost thrown out of doors, as an +"Ideologist." "He himself," says the Professor, "was among the +completest Ideologists, at least Ideopraxists: in the Idea (_in der +Idee_) he lived, moved and fought. The man was a Divine Missionary, +though unconscious of it; and preached, through the cannon's throat, +that great doctrine, _La carriere ouverte aux talens_ (The Tools to him +that can handle them), which is our ultimate Political Evangel, +wherein alone can liberty lie. Madly enough he preached, it is true, as +Enthusiasts and first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance, +amid much frothy rant; yet as articulately perhaps as the case admitted. +Or call him, if you will, an American Backwoodsman, who had to fell +unpenetrated forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did +not entirely forbear strong liquor, rioting, and even theft; whom, +notwithstanding, the peaceful Sower will follow, and, as he cuts the +boundless harvest, bless." + +More legitimate and decisively authentic is Teufelsdrockh's appearance +and emergence (we know not well whence) in the solitude of the North +Cape, on that June Midnight. He has a "light-blue Spanish cloak" +hanging round him, as his "most commodious, principal, indeed sole +upper-garment;" and stands there, on the World-promontory, looking +over the infinite Brine, like a little blue Belfry (as we figure), now +motionless indeed, yet ready, if stirred, to ring quaintest changes. + +"Silence as of death," writes he; "for Midnight, even in the +Arctic latitudes, has its character: nothing but the granite cliffs +ruddy-tinged, the peaceable gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean, +over which in the utmost North the great Sun hangs low and lazy, as if +he too were slumbering. Yet is his cloud-couch wrought of crimson and +cloth-of-gold; yet does his light stream over the mirror of waters, +like a tremulous fire-pillar, shooting downwards to the abyss, and hide +itself under my feet. In such moments, Solitude also is invaluable; for +who would speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies all Europe and +Africa, fast asleep, except the watchmen; and before him the silent +Immensity, and Palace of the Eternal, whereof our Sun is but a +porch-lamp? + +"Nevertheless, in this solemn moment comes a man, or monster, scrambling +from among the rock-hollows; and, shaggy, huge as the Hyperborean +Bear, hails me in Russian speech: most probably, therefore, a Russian +Smuggler. With courteous brevity, I signify my indifference to +contraband trade, my humane intentions, yet strong wish to be private. +In vain: the monster, counting doubtless on his superior stature, +and minded to make sport for himself, or perhaps profit, were it with +murder, continues to advance; ever assailing me with his importunate +train-oil breath; and now has advanced, till we stand both on the verge +of the rock, the deep Sea rippling greedily down below. What argument +will avail? On the thick Hyperborean, cherubic reasoning, seraphic +eloquence were lost. Prepared for such extremity, I, deftly enough, +whisk aside one step; draw out, from my interior reservoirs, a +sufficient Birmingham Horse-pistol, and say, 'Be so obliging as retire, +Friend (_Er ziehe sich zuruck, Freund_), and with promptitude!' This +logic even the Hyperborean understands: fast enough, with apologetic, +petitionary growl, he sidles off; and, except for suicidal as well as +homicidal purposes, need not return. + +"Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gunpowder: that it makes all men +alike tall. Nay, if thou be cooler, cleverer than I, if thou have more +_Mind_, though all but no _Body_ whatever, then canst thou kill me +first, and art the taller. Hereby, at last, is the Goliath powerless, +and the David resistless; savage Animalism is nothing, inventive +Spiritualism is all. + +"With respect to Duels, indeed, I have my own ideas. Few things, in this +so surprising world, strike me with more surprise. Two little visual +Spectra of men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the midst of +the UNFATHOMABLE, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very soon,--make +pause at the distance of twelve paces asunder; whirl round; and, +simultaneously by the cunningest mechanism, explode one another into +Dissolution; and off-hand become Air, and Non-extant! Deuce on it +(_verdammt_), the little spitfires!--Nay, I think with old Hugo von +Trimberg: 'God must needs laugh outright, could such a thing be, to see +his wondrous Manikins here below.'" + +But amid these specialties, let us not forget the great generality, +which is our chief quest here: How prospered the inner man of +Teufelsdrockh, under so much outward shifting! Does Legion still lurk +in him, though repressed; or has he exorcised that Devil's Brood? We +can answer that the symptoms continue promising. Experience is the +grand spiritual Doctor; and with him Teufelsdrockh has now been long a +patient, swallowing many a bitter bolus. Unless our poor Friend belong +to the numerous class of Incurables, which seems not likely, some cure +will doubtless be effected. We should rather say that Legion, or the +Satanic School, was now pretty well extirpated and cast out, but next +to nothing introduced in its room; whereby the heart remains, for the +while, in a quiet but no comfortable state. + +"At length, after so much roasting," thus writes our Autobiographer, "I +was what you might name calcined. Pray only that it be not rather, as is +the more frequent issue, reduced to a _caput-mortuum_! But in any +case, by mere dint of practice, I had grown familiar with many things. +Wretchedness was still wretched; but I could now partly see through it, +and despise it. Which highest mortal, in this inane Existence, had I not +found a Shadow-hunter, or Shadow-hunted; and, when I looked through his +brave garnitures, miserable enough? Thy wishes have all been sniffed +aside, thought I: but what, had they even been all granted! Did not the +Boy Alexander weep because he had not two Planets to conquer; or a whole +Solar System; or after that, a whole Universe? _Ach Gott_, when I gazed +into these Stars, have they not looked down on me as if with pity, from +their serene spaces; like Eyes glistening with heavenly tears over the +little lot of man! Thousands of human generations, all as noisy as our +own, have been swallowed up of Time, and there remains no wreck of them +any more; and Arcturus and Orion and Sirius and the Pleiades are still +shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the Shepherd first +noted them in the plain of Shinar. Pshaw! what is this paltry little +Dog-cage of an Earth; what art thou that sittest whining there? Thou art +still Nothing, Nobody: true; but who, then, is Something, Somebody? For +thee the Family of Man has no use; it rejects thee; thou art wholly as a +dissevered limb: so be it; perhaps it is better so!" + +Too-heavy-laden Teufelsdrockh! Yet surely his bands are loosening; one +day he will hurl the burden far from him, and bound forth free and with +a second youth. + +"This," says our Professor, "was the CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE I had now +reached; through which whoso travels from the Negative Pole to the +Positive must necessarily pass." + + + +CHAPTER IX. THE EVERLASTING YEA. + +"Temptations in the Wilderness!" exclaims Teufelsdrockh, "Have we not +all to be tried with such? Not so easily can the old Adam, lodged in us +by birth, be dispossessed. Our Life is compassed round with Necessity; +yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary +Force: thus have we a warfare; in the beginning, especially, +a hard-fought battle. For the God-given mandate, _Work thou in +Well-doing_, lies mysteriously written, in Promethean Prophetic +Characters, in our hearts; and leaves us no rest, night or day, till it +be deciphered and obeyed; till it burn forth, in our conduct, a visible, +acted Gospel of Freedom. And as the clay-given mandate, _Eat thou and +be filled_, at the same time persuasively proclaims itself through every +nerve,--must not there be a confusion, a contest, before the better +Influence can become the upper? + +"To me nothing seems more natural than that the Son of Man, when such +God-given mandate first prophetically stirs within him, and the Clay +must now be vanquished or vanquish,--should be carried of the spirit +into grim Solitudes, and there fronting the Tempter do grimmest battle +with him; defiantly setting him at naught till he yield and fly. Name +it as we choose: with or without visible Devil, whether in the +natural Desert of rocks and sands, or in the populous moral Desert of +selfishness and baseness,--to such Temptation are we all called. Unhappy +if we are not! Unhappy if we are but Half-men, in whom that divine +handwriting has never blazed forth, all-subduing, in true sun-splendor; +but quivers dubiously amid meaner lights: or smoulders, in dull pain, in +darkness, under earthly vapors!--Our Wilderness is the wide World in +an Atheistic Century; our Forty Days are long years of suffering and +fasting: nevertheless, to these also comes an end. Yes, to me also was +given, if not Victory, yet the consciousness of Battle, and the +resolve to persevere therein while life or faculty is left. To me also, +entangled in the enchanted forests, demon-peopled, doleful of sight and +of sound, it was given, after weariest wanderings, to work out my way +into the higher sunlit slopes--of that Mountain which has no summit, or +whose summit is in Heaven only!" + +He says elsewhere, under a less ambitious figure; as figures are, once +for all, natural to him: "Has not thy Life been that of most sufficient +men (_tuchtigen Manner_) thou hast known in this generation? An outflush +of foolish young Enthusiasm, like the first fallow-crop, wherein are as +many weeds as valuable herbs: this all parched away, under the Droughts +of practical and spiritual Unbelief, as Disappointment, in thought and +act, often-repeated gave rise to Doubt, and Doubt gradually settled +into Denial! If I have had a second-crop, and now see the perennial +greensward, and sit under umbrageous cedars, which defy all Drought (and +Doubt); herein too, be the Heavens praised, I am not without examples, +and even exemplars." + +So that, for Teufelsdrockh, also, there has been a "glorious +revolution:" these mad shadow-hunting and shadow-hunted Pilgrimings of +his were but some purifying "Temptation in the Wilderness," before his +apostolic work (such as it was) could begin; which Temptation is now +happily over, and the Devil once more worsted! Was "that high moment in +the _Rue de l'Enfer_," then, properly the turning-point of the battle; +when the Fiend said, _Worship me, or be torn in shreds_; and was +answered valiantly with an _Apage Satana_?--Singular Teufelsdrockh, +would thou hadst told thy singular story in plain words! But it is +fruitless to look there, in those Paper-bags, for such. Nothing but +innuendoes, figurative crotchets: a typical Shadow, fitfully wavering, +prophetico-satiric; no clear logical Picture. "How paint to the sensual +eye," asks he once, "what passes in the Holy-of-Holies of Man's Soul; +in what words, known to these profane times, speak even afar-off of the +unspeakable?" We ask in turn: Why perplex these times, profane as +they are, with needless obscurity, by omission and by commission? Not +mystical only is our Professor, but whimsical; and involves himself, now +more than ever, in eye-bewildering _chiaroscuro_. Successive glimpses, +here faithfully imparted, our more gifted readers must endeavor to +combine for their own behoof. + +He says: "The hot Harmattan wind had raged itself out; its howl went +silent within me; and the long-deafened soul could now hear. I paused in +my wild wanderings; and sat me down to wait, and consider; for it was +as if the hour of change drew nigh. I seemed to surrender, to renounce +utterly, and say: Fly, then, false shadows of Hope; I will chase you no +more, I will believe you no more. And ye too, haggard spectres of Fear, +I care not for you; ye too are all shadows and a lie. Let me rest here: +for I am way-weary and life-weary; I will rest here, were it but to +die: to die or to live is alike to me; alike insignificant."--And again: +"Here, then, as I lay in that CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE; cast, doubtless by +benignant upper Influence, into a healing sleep, the heavy dreams rolled +gradually away, and I awoke to a new Heaven and a new Earth. The first +preliminary moral Act, Annihilation of Self (_Selbst-todtung_), had +been happily accomplished; and my mind's eyes were now unsealed, and its +hands ungyved." + +Might we not also conjecture that the following passage refers to his +Locality, during this same "healing sleep;" that his Pilgrim-staff lies +cast aside here, on "the high table-land;" and indeed that the repose is +already taking wholesome effect on him? If it were not that the tone, +in some parts, has more of riancy, even of levity, than we could have +expected! However, in Teufelsdrockh, there is always the strangest +Dualism: light dancing, with guitar-music, will be going on in the +fore-court, while by fits from within comes the faint whimpering of woe +and wail. We transcribe the piece entire. + +"Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey Tent, musing and +meditating; on the high table-land, in front of the Mountains; over me, +as roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for walls, four azure-flowing +curtains,--namely, of the Four azure Winds, on whose bottom-fringes +also I have seen gilding. And then to fancy the fair Castles that stood +sheltered in these Mountain hollows; with their green flower-lawns, +and white dames and damosels, lovely enough: or better still, the +straw-roofed Cottages, wherein stood many a Mother baking bread, with +her children round her:--all hidden and protectingly folded up in the +valley-folds; yet there and alive, as sure as if I beheld them. Or to +see, as well as fancy, the nine Towns and Villages, that lay round my +mountain-seat, which, in still weather, were wont to speak to me (by +their steeple-bells) with metal tongue; and, in almost all weather, +proclaimed their vitality by repeated Smoke-clouds; whereon, as on a +culinary horologe, I might read the hour of the day. For it was the +smoke of cookery, as kind housewives at morning, midday, eventide, were +boiling their husbands' kettles; and ever a blue pillar rose up into the +air, successively or simultaneously, from each of the nine, saying, as +plainly as smoke could say: Such and such a meal is getting ready +here. Not uninteresting! For you have the whole Borough, with all its +love-makings and scandal-mongeries, contentions and contentments, as +in miniature, and could cover it all with your hat.--If, in my wide +Way-farings, I had learned to look into the business of the World in +its details, here perhaps was the place for combining it into general +propositions, and deducing inferences therefrom. + +"Often also could I see the black Tempest marching in anger through the +Distance: round some Schreckhorn, as yet grim-blue, would the eddying +vapor gather, and there tumultuously eddy, and flow down like a mad +witch's hair; till, after a space, it vanished, and, in the clear +sunbeam, your Schreckhorn stood smiling grim-white, for the vapor +had held snow. How thou fermentest and elaboratest, in thy great +fermenting-vat and laboratory of an Atmosphere, of a World, O +Nature!--Or what is Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee GOD? Art not thou +the 'Living Garment of God'? O Heavens, is it, in very deed, HE, then, +that ever speaks through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives +and loves in me? + +"Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendors, of that Truth, and +Beginning of Truths, fell mysteriously over my soul. Sweeter than +Dayspring to the Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla; ah, like the mother's voice +to her little child that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown tumults; +like soft streamings of celestial music to my too-exasperated +heart, came that Evangel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a +charnel-house with spectres; but godlike, and my Father's! + +"With other eyes, too, could I now look upon my fellowman: with an +infinite Love, an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, wayward man! Art thou +not tried, and beaten with stripes, even as I am? Ever, whether thou +bear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, art thou not so weary, +so heavy-laden; and thy Bed of Rest is but a Grave. O my Brother, my +Brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all tears +from thy eyes!--Truly, the din of many-voiced Life, which, in this +solitude, with the mind's organ, I could hear, was no longer a maddening +discord, but a melting one; like inarticulate cries, and sobbings of a +dumb creature, which in the ear of Heaven are prayers. The poor Earth, +with her poor joys, was now my needy Mother, not my cruel Stepdame; Man, +with his so mad Wants and so mean Endeavors, had become the dearer to +me; and even for his sufferings and his sins, I now first named him +Brother. Thus was I standing in the porch of that '_Sanctuary of +Sorrow_;' by strange, steep ways had I too been guided thither; and ere +long its sacred gates would open, and the '_Divine Depth of Sorrow_' lie +disclosed to me." + +The Professor says, he here first got eye on the Knot that had been +strangling him, and straightway could unfasten it, and was free. "A +vain interminable controversy," writes he, "touching what is at present +called Origin of Evil, or some such thing, arises in every soul, since +the beginning of the world; and in every soul, that would pass from +idle Suffering into actual Endeavoring, must first be put an end to. The +most, in our time, have to go content with a simple, incomplete enough +Suppression of this controversy; to a few some Solution of it is +indispensable. In every new era, too, such Solution comes out in +different terms; and ever the Solution of the last era has become +obsolete, and is found unserviceable. For it is man's nature to change +his Dialect from century to century; he cannot help it though he would. +The authentic _Church-Catechism_ of our present century has not yet +fallen into my hands: meanwhile, for my own private behoof I attempt to +elucidate the matter so. Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his +Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his +cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance +Ministers and Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake, +in joint-stock company, to make one Shoeblack HAPPY? They cannot +accomplish it, above an hour or two: for the Shoeblack also has a Soul +quite other than his Stomach; and would require, if you consider it, +for his permanent satisfaction and saturation, simply this allotment, +no more, and no less: _God's infinite Universe altogether to himself_, +therein to enjoy infinitely, and fill every wish as fast as it rose. +Oceans of Hochheimer, a Throat like that of Ophiuchus: speak not of +them; to the infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is +your ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better +vintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to +quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself +the most maltreated of men.--Always there is a black spot in our +sunshine: it is even, as I said, the _Shadow of Ourselves_. + +"But the whim we have of Happiness is somewhat thus. By certain +valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of +average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of +indefeasible right. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; +requires neither thanks nor complaint; only such _overplus_ as there may +be do we account Happiness; any _deficit_ again is Misery. Now consider +that we have the valuation of our own deserts ourselves, and what a fund +of Self-conceit there is in each of us,--do you wonder that the balance +should so often dip the wrong way, and many a Blockhead cry: See +there, what a payment; was ever worthy gentleman so used!--I tell thee, +Blockhead, it all comes of thy Vanity; of what thou _fanciest_ those +same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as +is most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that +thou deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to die +in hemp. + +"So true is it, what I then said, that _the Fraction of Life can be +increased in value not so much by increasing your Numerator as by +lessening your Denominator_. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive me, _Unity_ +itself divided by _Zero_ will give _Infinity_. Make thy claim of wages +a zero, then; thou hast the world under thy feet. Well did the Wisest +of our time write: 'It is only with Renunciation (_Entsagen_) that Life, +properly speaking, can be said to begin.' + +"I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, thou hast +been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-tormenting, on account +of? Say it in a word: is it not because thou art not HAPPY? Because +the THOU (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honored, nourished, +soft-bedded, and lovingly cared for? Foolish soul! What Act of +Legislature was there that _thou_ shouldst be Happy? A little while +ago thou hadst no right to _be_ at all. What if thou wert born and +predestined not to be Happy, but to be Unhappy! Art thou nothing other +than a Vulture, then, that fliest through the Universe seeking after +somewhat to _eat_; and shrieking dolefully because carrion enough is not +given thee? Close thy _Byron_; open thy _Goethe_." + +"_Es leuchtet mir ein_, I see a glimpse of it!" cries he elsewhere: +"there is in man a HIGHER than Love of Happiness: he can do without +Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness! Was it not to preach +forth this same HIGHER that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest, +in all times, have spoken and suffered; bearing testimony, through life +and through death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the Godlike +only has he Strength and Freedom? Which God-inspiredd Doctrine art thou +also honored to be taught; O Heavens! and broken with manifold merciful +Afflictions, even till thou become contrite and learn it! Oh, thank thy +Destiny for these; thankfully bear what yet remain: thou hadst need +of them; the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By benignant +fever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Disease, +and triumphs over Death. On the roaring billows of Time, thou art not +engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not Pleasure; +love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA, wherein all contradiction is +solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him." + +And again: "Small is it that thou canst trample the Earth with its +injuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee: thou canst love +the Earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for +this a Greater than Zeno was needed, and he too was sent. Knowest thou +that '_Worship of Sorrow_'? The Temple thereof, founded some eighteen +centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habitation +of doleful creatures: nevertheless, venture forward; in a low crypt, +arched out of falling fragments, thou findest the Altar still there, and +its sacred Lamp perennially burning." + +Without pretending to comment on which strange utterances, the Editor +will only remark, that there lies beside them much of a still more +questionable character; unsuited to the general apprehension; nay +wherein he himself does not see his way. Nebulous disquisitions +on Religion, yet not without bursts of splendor; on the "perennial +continuance of Inspiration;" on Prophecy; that there are "true Priests, +as well as Baal-Priests, in our own day:" with more of the like sort. We +select some fractions, by way of finish to this farrago. + +"Cease, my much-respected Herr von Voltaire," thus apostrophizes the +Professor: "shut thy sweet voice; for the task appointed thee seems +finished. Sufficiently hast thou demonstrated this proposition, +considerable or otherwise: That the Mythus of the Christian Religion +looks not in the eighteenth century as it did in the eighth. Alas, +were thy six-and-thirty quartos, and the six-and-thirty thousand other +quartos and folios, and flying sheets or reams, printed before and since +on the same subject, all needed to convince us of so little! But what +next? Wilt thou help us to embody the divine Spirit of that Religion in +a new Mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that our Souls, otherwise +too like perishing, may live? What! thou hast no faculty in that kind? +Only a torch for burning, no hammer for building? Take our thanks, then, +and--thyself away. + +"Meanwhile what are antiquated Mythuses to me? Or is the God present, +felt in my own heart, a thing which Herr von Voltaire will dispute out +of me; or dispute into me? To the '_Worship of Sorrow_' ascribe what +origin and genesis thou pleasest, _has_ not that Worship originated, +and been generated; is it not _here_? Feel it in thy heart, and then say +whether it is of God! This is Belief; all else is Opinion,--for which +latter whoso will, let him worry and be worried." + +"Neither," observes he elsewhere, "shall ye tear out one another's eyes, +struggling over 'Plenary Inspiration,' and such like: try rather to get +a little even Partial Inspiration, each of you for himself. One BIBLE I +know, of whose Plenary Inspiration doubt is not so much as possible; +nay with my own eyes I saw the God's-Hand writing it: thereof all other +Bibles are but Leaves,--say, in Picture-Writing to assist the weaker +faculty." + +Or, to give the wearied reader relief, and bring it to an end, let him +take the following perhaps more intelligible passage:-- + +"To me, in this our life," says the Professor, "which is an internecine +warfare with the Time-spirit, other warfare seems questionable. Hast +thou in any way a contention with thy brother, I advise thee, think +well what the meaning thereof is. If thou gauge it to the bottom, it +is simply this: 'Fellow, see! thou art taking more than thy share of +Happiness in the world, something from my share: which, by the Heavens, +thou shalt not; nay I will fight thee rather.'--Alas, and the whole lot +to be divided is such a beggarly matter, truly a 'feast of shells,' for +the substance has been spilled out: not enough to quench one Appetite; +and the collective human species clutching at them!--Can we not, in all +such cases, rather say: 'Take it, thou too-ravenous individual; take +that pitiful additional fraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but +which thou so wantest; take it with a blessing: would to Heaven I had +enough for thee!'--If Fichte's _Wissenschaftslehre_ be, 'to a certain +extent, Applied Christianity,' surely to a still greater extent, so is +this. We have here not a Whole Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely the +Passive half: could we but do it, as we can demonstrate it! + +"But indeed Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless till +it convert itself into Conduct. Nay properly Conviction is not possible +till then; inasmuch as all Speculation is by nature endless, formless, a +vortex amid vortices, only by a felt indubitable certainty of Experience +does it find any centre to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a +system. Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that 'Doubt of any +sort cannot be removed except by Action.' On which ground, too, let +him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays +vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well +to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: '_Do the Duty which +lies nearest thee_,' which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty +will already have become clearer. + +"May we not say, however, that the hour of Spiritual Enfranchisement is +even this: When your Ideal World, wherein the whole man has been dimly +struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes revealed, and +thrown open; and you discover, with amazement enough, like the Lothario +in _Wilhelm Meister_, that your 'America is here or nowhere'? The +Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet occupied by +man. Yes here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, +wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal: work it +out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is +in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself: thy Condition is but the +stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of: what matters whether +such stuff be of this sort or that, so the Form thou give it be heroic, +be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and +criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, +know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee, 'here +or nowhere,' couldst thou only see! + +"But it is with man's Soul as it was with Nature: the beginning of +Creation is--Light. Till the eye have vision, the whole members are in +bonds. Divine moment, when over the tempest-tost Soul, as once over +the wild-weltering Chaos, it is spoken: Let there be Light! Ever to +the greatest that has felt such moment, is it not miraculous and +God-announcing; even as, under simpler figures, to the simplest +and least. The mad primeval Discord is hushed; the rudely jumbled +conflicting elements bind themselves into separate Firmaments: deep +silent rock-foundations are built beneath; and the skyey vault with its +everlasting Luminaries above: instead of a dark wasteful Chaos, we have +a blooming, fertile, heaven-encompassed World. + +"I too could now say to myself: Be no longer a Chaos, but a World, +or even Worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest +infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name! 'Tis the +utmost thou hast in thee: out with it, then. Up, up! Whatsoever thy +hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called +To-day; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can work." + + + +CHAPTER X. PAUSE. + +Thus have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily as, in such +circumstances, might be, followed Teufelsdrockh, through the various +successive states and stages of Growth, Entanglement, Unbelief, and +almost Reprobation, into a certain clearer state of what he himself +seems to consider as Conversion. "Blame not the word," says he; "rejoice +rather that such a word, signifying such a thing, has come to light in +our modern Era, though hidden from the wisest Ancients. The Old World +knew nothing of Conversion; instead of an _Ecce Homo_, they had only +some _Choice of Hercules_. It was a new-attained progress in the Moral +Development of man: hereby has the Highest come home to the bosoms of +the most Limited; what to Plato was but a hallucination, and to Socrates +a chimera, is now clear and certain to your Zinzendorfs, your Wesleys, +and the poorest of their Pietists and Methodists." + +It is here, then, that the spiritual majority of Teufelsdrockh +commences: we are henceforth to see him "work in well-doing," with +the spirit and clear aims of a Man. He has discovered that the Ideal +Workshop he so panted for is even this same Actual ill-furnished +Workshop he has so long been stumbling in. He can say to himself: +"Tools? Thou hast no Tools? Why, there is not a Man, or a Thing, now +alive but has tools. The basest of created animalcules, the Spider +itself, has a spinning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom within +its head: the stupidest of Oysters has a Papin's-Digester, with +stone-and-lime house to hold it in: every being that can live can do +something: this let him _do_.--Tools? Hast thou not a Brain, furnished, +furnishable with some glimmerings of Light; and three fingers to hold a +Pen withal? Never since Aaron's Rod went out of practice, or even before +it, was there such a wonder-working Tool: greater than all recorded +miracles have been performed by Pens. For strangely in this so +solid-seeming World, which nevertheless is in continual restless flux, +it is appointed that _Sound_, to appearance the most fleeting, should +be the most continuing of all things. The WORD is well said to be +omnipotent in this world; man, thereby divine, can create as by a +_Fiat_. Awake, arise! Speak forth what is in thee; what God has given +thee, what the Devil shall not take away. Higher task than that of +Priesthood was allotted to no man: wert thou but the meanest in that +sacred Hierarchy, is it not honor enough therein to spend and be spent? + +"By this Art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously degrade into a +handicraft," adds Teufelsdrockh, "have I thenceforth abidden. Writings +of mine, not indeed known as mine (for what am I?), have fallen, perhaps +not altogether void, into the mighty seedfield of Opinion; fruits of my +unseen sowing gratifyingly meet me here and there. I thank the Heavens +that I have now found my Calling; wherein, with or without perceptible +result, I am minded diligently to persevere. + +"Nay how knowest thou," cries he, "but this and the other pregnant +Device, now grown to be a world-renowned far-working Institution; like +a grain of right mustard-seed once cast into the right soil, and now +stretching out strong boughs to the four winds, for the birds of the +air to lodge in,--may have been properly my doing? Some one's doing, it +without doubt was; from some Idea, in some single Head, it did first of +all take beginning: why not from some Idea in mine?" Does Teufelsdrockh, +here glance at that "SOCIETY FOR THE CONSERVATION OF PROPERTY +(_Eigenthums-conservirende Gesellschaft_)," of which so many ambiguous +notices glide spectra-like through these inexpressible Paper-bags? "An +Institution," hints he, "not unsuitable to the wants of the time; as +indeed such sudden extension proves: for already can the Society number, +among its office-bearers or corresponding members, the highest Names, if +not the highest Persons, in Germany, England, France; and contributions, +both of money and of meditation pour in from all quarters; to, if +possible, enlist the remaining Integrity of the world, and, defensively +and with forethought, marshal it round this Palladium." Does +Teufelsdrockh mean, then, to give himself out as the originator of +that so notable _Eigenthums-conservirende_ ("Owndom-conserving") +_Gesellschaft_; and if so, what, in the Devil's name, is it? He again +hints: "At a time when the divine Commandment, _Thou shalt not steal_, +wherein truly, if well understood, is comprised the whole Hebrew +Decalogue, with Solon's and Lycurgrus's Constitutions, Justinian's +Pandects, the Code Napoleon, and all Codes, Catechisms, Divinities, +Moralities whatsoever, that man has hitherto devised (and enforced with +Altar-fire and Gallows-ropes) for his social guidance: at a time, I say, +when this divine Commandment has all but faded away from the general +remembrance; and, with little disguise, a new opposite Commandment, +_Thou shalt steal_, is everywhere promulgated,--it perhaps behooved, in +this universal dotage and deliration, the sound portion of mankind to +bestir themselves and rally. When the widest and wildest violations +of that divine right of Property, the only divine right now extant or +conceivable, are sanctioned and recommended by a vicious Press, and the +world has lived to hear it asserted that _we have no Property in our +very Bodies, but only an accidental Possession and Life-rent_, what +is the issue to be looked for? Hangmen and Catchpoles may, by their +noose-gins and baited fall-traps, keep down the smaller sort of vermin; +but what, except perhaps some such Universal Association, can protect +us against whole meat-devouring and man-devouring hosts of +Boa-constrictors. If, therefore, the more sequestered Thinker have +wondered, in his privacy, from what hand that perhaps not ill-written +_Program_ in the Public Journals, with its high _Prize-Questions_ and so +liberal _Prizes_, could have proceeded,--let him now cease such +wonder; and, with undivided faculty, betake himself to the _Concurrenz_ +(Competition)." + +We ask: Has this same "perhaps not ill-written _Program_," or any other +authentic Transaction of that Property-conserving Society, fallen under +the eye of the British Reader, in any Journal foreign or domestic? If +so, what are those _Prize-Questions_; what are the terms of Competition, +and when and where? No printed Newspaper-leaf, no farther light of any +sort, to be met with in these Paper-bags! Or is the whole business one +other of those whimsicalities and perverse inexplicabilities, whereby +Herr Teufelsdrockh, meaning much or nothing, is pleased so often to play +fast-and-loose with us? + + +Here, indeed, at length, must the Editor give utterance to a painful +suspicion, which, through late Chapters, has begun to haunt him; +paralyzing any little enthusiasm that might still have rendered his +thorny Biographical task a labor of love. It is a suspicion grounded +perhaps on trifles, yet confirmed almost into certainty by the more and +more discernible humoristico-satirical tendency of Teufelsdrockh, in +whom underground humors and intricate sardonic rogueries, wheel +within wheel, defy all reckoning: a suspicion, in one word, that these +Autobiographical Documents are partly a mystification! What if many +a so-called Fact were little better than a Fiction; if here we had no +direct Camera-obscura Picture of the Professor's History; but only some +more or less fantastic Adumbration, symbolically, perhaps significantly +enough, shadowing forth the same! Our theory begins to be that, in +receiving as literally authentic what was but hieroglyphically so, +Hofrath Heuschrecke, whom in that case we scruple not to name Hofrath +Nose-of-Wax, was made a fool of, and set adrift to make fools of others. +Could it be expected, indeed, that a man so known for impenetrable +reticence as Teufelsdrockh would all at once frankly unlock his private +citadel to an English Editor and a German Hofrath; and not rather +deceptively _in_lock both Editor and Hofrath in the labyrinthic +tortuosities and covered-ways of said citadel (having enticed them +thither), to see, in his half-devilish way, how the fools would look? + +Of one fool, however, the Herr Professor will perhaps find himself +short. On a small slip, formerly thrown aside as blank, the ink being +all but invisible, we lately noticed, and with effort decipher, +the following: "What are your historical Facts; still more your +biographical? Wilt thou know a Man, above all a Mankind, by stringing +together bead-rolls of what thou namest Facts? The Man is the spirit +he worked in; not what he did, but what he became. Facts are engraved +Hierograms, for which the fewest have the key. And then how your +Blockhead (_Dummkopf_) studies not their Meaning; but simply whether +they are well or ill cut, what he calls Moral or Immoral! Still worse +is it with your Bungler (_Pfuscher_): such I have seen reading some +Rousseau, with pretences of interpretation; and mistaking the ill-cut +Serpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous reptile." Was the Professor +apprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, +might mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? For +which reason it was to be altered, not without underhand satire, into +a plainer Symbol? Or is this merely one of his half-sophisms, +half-truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a Figure, he cares +not whither it gallop? We say not with certainty; and indeed, so strange +is the Professor, can never say. If our suspicion be wholly unfounded, +let his own questionable ways, not our necessary circumspectness bear +the blame. + +But be this as it will, the somewhat exasperated and indeed exhausted +Editor determines here to shut these Paper-bags for the present. Let it +suffice that we know of Teufelsdrockh, so far, if "not what he did, yet +what he became:" the rather, as his character has now taken its ultimate +bent, and no new revolution, of importance, is to be looked for. The +imprisoned Chrysalis is now a winged Psyche: and such, wheresoever +be its flight, it will continue. To trace by what complex gyrations +(flights or involuntary waftings) through the mere external +Life-element, Teufelsdrockh, reaches his University Professorship, and +the Psyche clothes herself in civic Titles, without altering her now +fixed nature,--would be comparatively an unproductive task, were we even +unsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a false and impossible one. +His outward Biography, therefore, which, at the Blumine Lover's-Leap, we +saw churned utterly into spray-vapor, may hover in that condition, for +aught that concerns us here. Enough that by survey of certain "pools and +plashes," we have ascertained its general direction; do we not already +know that, by one way and other, it _has_ long since rained down again +into a stream; and even now, at Weissnichtwo, flows deep and still, +fraught with the _Philosophy of Clothes_, and visible to whoso will +cast eye thereon? Over much invaluable matter, that lies scattered, +like jewels among quarry-rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs, we may have +occasion to glance back, and somewhat will demand insertion at the right +place: meanwhile be our tiresome diggings therein suspended. + +If now, before reopening the great _Clothes-Volume_, we ask what our +degree of progress, during these Ten Chapters, has been, towards right +understanding of the _Clothes-Philosophy_, let not our discouragement +become total. To speak in that old figure of the Hell-gate Bridge over +Chaos, a few flying pontoons have perhaps been added, though as yet they +drift straggling on the Flood; how far they will reach, when once the +chains are straightened and fastened, can, at present, only be matter of +conjecture. + +So much we already calculate: Through many a little loophole, we have +had glimpses into the internal world of Teufelsdrockh; his strange +mystic, almost magic Diagram of the Universe, and how it was gradually +drawn, is not henceforth altogether dark to us. Those mysterious ideas +on TIME, which merit consideration, and are not wholly unintelligible +with such, may by and by prove significant. Still more may his somewhat +peculiar view of Nature, the decisive Oneness he ascribes to Nature. How +all Nature and Life are but one _Garment_, a "Living Garment," woven and +ever a-weaving in the "Loom of Time;" is not here, indeed, the outline +of a whole _Clothes-Philosophy_; at least the arena it is to work in? +Remark, too, that the Character of the Man, nowise without meaning +in such a matter, becomes less enigmatic: amid so much tumultuous +obscurity, almost like diluted madness, do not a certain indomitable +Defiance and yet a boundless Reverence seem to loom forth, as the two +mountain-summits, on whose rock-strata all the rest were based and +built? + +Nay further, may we not say that Teufelsdrockh's Biography, allowing it +even, as suspected, only a hieroglyphical truth, exhibits a man, as it +were preappointed for Clothes-Philosophy? To look through the Shows of +things into Things themselves he is led and compelled. The "Passivity" +given him by birth is fostered by all turns of his fortune. Everywhere +cast out, like oil out of water, from mingling in any Employment, in +any public Communion, he has no portion but Solitude, and a life of +Meditation. The whole energy of his existence is directed, through long +years, on one task: that of enduring pain, if he cannot cure it. Thus +everywhere do the Shows of things oppress him, withstand him, threaten +him with fearfullest destruction: only by victoriously penetrating into +Things themselves can he find peace and a stronghold. But is not this +same looking through the Shows, or Vestures, into the Things, even the +first preliminary to a _Philosophy of Clothes_? Do we not, in all +this, discern some beckonings towards the true higher purport of such +a Philosophy; and what shape it must assume with such a man, in such an +era? + +Perhaps in entering on Book Third, the courteous Reader is not utterly +without guess whither he is bound: nor, let us hope, for all the +fantastic Dream-Grottos through which, as is our lot with Teufelsdrockh, +he must wander, will there be wanting between whiles some twinkling of a +steady Polar Star. + + + + +BOOK III. + + +CHAPTER I. INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. + +As a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teufelsdrockh, from an +early part of this Clothes-Volume, has more and more exhibited himself. +Striking it was, amid all his perverse cloudiness, with what force +of vision and of heart he pierced into the mystery of the World; +recognizing in the highest sensible phenomena, so far as Sense went, +only fresh or faded Raiment; yet ever, under this, a celestial Essence +thereby rendered visible: and while, on the one hand, he trod the old +rags of Matter, with their tinsels, into the mire, he on the other +everywhere exalted Spirit above all earthly principalities and powers, +and worshipped it, though under the meanest shapes, with a true +Platonic mysticism. What the man ultimately purposed by thus casting his +Greek-fire into the general Wardrobe of the Universe; what such, more +or less complete, rending and burning of Garments throughout the whole +compass of Civilized Life and Speculation, should lead to; the rather as +he was no Adamite, in any sense, and could not, like Rousseau, recommend +either bodily or intellectual Nudity, and a return to the savage +state: all this our readers are now bent to discover; this is, in fact, +properly the gist and purport of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Philosophy of +Clothes. + +Be it remembered, however, that such purport is here not so much +evolved, as detected to lie ready for evolving. We are to guide our +British Friends into the new Gold-country, and show them the mines; +nowise to dig out and exhaust its wealth, which indeed remains for all +time inexhaustible. Once there, let each dig for his own behoof, and +enrich himself. + +Neither, in so capricious inexpressible a Work as this of the +Professor's, can our course now more than formerly be straightforward, +step by step, but at best leap by leap. Significant Indications stand +out here and there; which for the critical eye, that looks both widely +and narrowly, shape themselves into some ground-scheme of a Whole: to +select these with judgment, so that a leap from one to the other be +possible, and (in our old figure) by chaining them together, a passable +Bridge be effected: this, as heretofore, continues our only method. +Among such light-spots, the following, floating in much wild matter +about _Perfectibility_, has seemed worth clutching at:-- + +"Perhaps the most remarkable incident in Modern History," says +Teufelsdrockh, "is not the Diet of Worms, still less the Battle of +Austerlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other Battle; but an incident +passed carelessly over by most Historians, and treated with some degree +of ridicule by others: namely, George Fox's making to himself a suit of +Leather. This man, the first of the Quakers, and by trade a Shoemaker, +was one of those, to whom, under ruder or purer form, the Divine Idea of +the Universe is pleased to manifest itself; and, across all the hulls +of Ignorance and earthly Degradation, shine through, in unspeakable +Awfulness, unspeakable Beauty, on their souls: who therefore are rightly +accounted Prophets, God-possessed; or even Gods, as in some periods +it has chanced. Sitting in his stall; working on tanned hides, amid +pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a nameless flood of +rubbish, this youth had, nevertheless, a Living Spirit belonging to him; +also an antique Inspired Volume, through which, as through a window, it +could look upwards, and discern its celestial Home. The task of a daily +pair of shoes, coupled even with some prospect of victuals, and +an honorable Mastership in Cordwainery, and perhaps the post of +Thirdborough in his hundred, as the crown of long faithful sewing,--was +nowise satisfaction enough to such a mind: but ever amid the boring and +hammering came tones from that far country, came Splendors and Terrors; +for this poor Cordwainer, as we said, was a Man; and the Temple of +Immensity, wherein as Man he had been sent to minister, was full of holy +mystery to him. + +"The Clergy of the neighborhood, the ordained Watchers and Interpreters +of that same holy mystery, listened with un-affected tedium to his +consultations, and advised him, as the solution of such doubts, to +'drink beer, and dance with the girls.' Blind leaders of the blind! +For what end were their tithes levied and eaten; for what were their +shovel-hats scooped out, and their surplices and cassock-aprons girt +on; and such a church-repairing, and chaffering, and organing, and other +racketing, held over that spot of God's Earth,--if Man were but a Patent +Digester, and the Belly with its adjuncts the grand Reality? Fox turned +from them, with tears and a sacred scorn, back to his Leather-parings +and his Bible. Mountains of encumbrance, higher than AEtna, had been +heaped over that Spirit: but it was a Spirit, and would not lie buried +there. Through long days and nights of silent agony, it struggled and +wrestled, with a man's force, to be free: how its prison-mountains +heaved and swayed tumultuously, as the giant spirit shook them to this +hand and that, and emerged into the light of Heaven! That Leicester +shoe-shop, had men known it, was a holier place than any Vatican or +Loretto-shrine.--'So bandaged, and hampered, and hemmed in,' groaned he, +'with thousand requisitions, obligations, straps, tatters, and tagrags, +I can neither see nor move: not my own am I, but the World's; and Time +flies fast, and Heaven is high, and Hell is deep: Man! bethink thee, +if thou hast power of Thought! Why not; what binds me here? Want, +want!--Ha, of what? Will all the shoe-wages under the Moon ferry me +across into that far Land of Light? Only Meditation can, and devout +Prayer to God. I will to the woods: the hollow of a tree will lodge +me, wild berries feed me; and for Clothes, cannot I stitch myself one +perennial suit of Leather!' + +"Historical Oil-painting," continues Teufelsdrockh, "is one of the Arts +I never practiced; therefore shall I not decide whether this subject +were easy of execution on the canvas. Yet often has it seemed to me as +if such first outflashing of man's Freewill, to lighten, more and +more into Day, the Chaotic Night that threatened to engulf him in its +hindrances and its horrors, were properly the only grandeur there is +in History. Let some living Angelo or Rosa, with seeing eye and +understanding heart, picture George Fox on that morning, when he spreads +out his cutting-board for the last time, and cuts cowhides by unwonted +patterns, and stitches them together into one continuous all-including +Case, the farewell service of his awl! Stitch away, thou noble Fox: +every prick of that little instrument is pricking into the heart of +Slavery, and World-worship, and the Mammon-god. Thy elbows jerk, as +in strong swimmer-strokes, and every stroke is bearing thee across the +Prison-ditch, within which Vanity holds her Workhouse and Ragfair, into +lands of true Liberty; were the work done, there is in broad Europe one +Free Man, and thou art he! + +"Thus from the lowest depth there is a path to the loftiest height; and +for the Poor also a Gospel has been published. Surely if, as D'Alembert +asserts, my illustrious namesake, Diogenes, was the greatest man of +Antiquity, only that he wanted Decency, then by stronger reason is +George Fox the greatest of the Moderns, and greater than Diogenes +himself: for he too stands on the adamantine basis of his Manhood, +casting aside all props and shoars; yet not, in half-savage Pride, +undervaluing the Earth; valuing it rather, as a place to yield him +warmth and food, he looks Heavenward from his Earth, and dwells in an +element of Mercy and Worship, with a still Strength, such as the Cynic's +Tub did nowise witness. Great, truly, was that Tub; a temple from which +man's dignity and divinity was scornfully preached abroad: but greater +is the Leather Hull, for the same sermon was preached there, and not in +Scorn but in Love." + + +George Fox's "perennial suit," with all that it held, has been worn +quite into ashes for nigh two centuries: why, in a discussion on +the _Perfectibility of Society_, reproduce it now? Not out of blind +sectarian partisanship: Teufelsdrockh, himself is no Quaker; with all +his pacific tendencies, did not we see him, in that scene at the North +Cape, with the Archangel Smuggler, exhibit fire-arms? + +For us, aware of his deep Sansculottism, there is more meant in this +passage than meets the ear. At the same time, who can avoid smiling +at the earnestness and Boeotian simplicity (if indeed there be not an +underhand satire in it), with which that "Incident" is here brought +forward; and, in the Professor's ambiguous way, as clearly perhaps as +he durst in Weissnichtwo, recommended to imitation! Does Teufelsdrockh +anticipate that, in this age of refinement, any considerable class +of the community, by way of testifying against the "Mammon-god," and +escaping from what he calls "Vanity's Workhouse and Ragfair," +where doubtless some of them are toiled and whipped and hoodwinked +sufficiently,--will sheathe themselves in close-fitting cases of +Leather? The idea is ridiculous in the extreme. Will Majesty lay aside +its robes of state, and Beauty its frills and train-gowns, for a second +skin of tanned hide? By which change Huddersfield and Manchester, and +Coventry and Paisley, and the Fancy-Bazaar, were reduced to hungry +solitudes; and only Day and Martin could profit. For neither would +Teufelsdrockh's mad daydream, here as we presume covertly intended, of +levelling Society (_levelling_ it indeed with a vengeance, into one +huge drowned marsh!), and so attaining the political effects of Nudity +without its frigorific or other consequences,--be thereby realized. +Would not the rich man purchase a waterproof suit of Russia Leather; +and the high-born Belle step forth in red or azure morocco, lined with +shamoy: the black cowhide being left to the Drudges and Gibeonites of +the world; and so all the old Distinctions be re-established? + +Or has the Professor his own deeper intention; and laughs in his sleeve +at our strictures and glosses, which indeed are but a part thereof? + + + +CHAPTER II. CHURCH-CLOTHES. + +Not less questionable is his Chapter on _Church-Clothes_, which has +the farther distinction of being the shortest in the Volume. We here +translate it entire:-- + +"By Church-Clothes, it need not be premised that I mean infinitely more +than Cassocks and Surplices; and do not at all mean the mere haberdasher +Sunday Clothes that men go to Church in. Far from it! Church-Clothes +are, in our vocabulary, the Forms, the _Vestures_, under which men have +at various periods embodied and represented for themselves the Religious +Principle; that is to say, invested the Divine Idea of the World with a +sensible and practically active Body, so that it might dwell among them +as a living and life-giving WORD. + +"These are unspeakably the most important of all the vestures and +garnitures of Human Existence. They are first spun and woven, I may say, +by that wonder of wonders, SOCIETY; for it is still only when 'two or +three are gathered together,' that Religion, spiritually existent, +and indeed indestructible, however latent, in each, first outwardly +manifests itself (as with 'cloven tongues of fire'), and seeks to be +embodied in a visible Communion and Church Militant. Mystical, more than +magical, is that Communing of Soul with Soul, both looking heavenward: +here properly Soul first speaks with Soul; for only in looking +heavenward, take it in what sense you may, not in looking earthward, +does what we can call Union, mutual Love, Society, begin to be possible. +How true is that of Novalis: 'It is certain, my Belief gains quite +_infinitely_ the moment I can convince another mind thereof'! Gaze thou +in the face of thy Brother, in those eyes where plays the lambent fire +of Kindness, or in those where rages the lurid conflagration of Anger; +feel how thy own so quiet Soul is straightway involuntarily kindled with +the like, and ye blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is all +one limitless confluent flame (of embracing Love, or of deadly-grappling +Hate); and then say what miraculous virtue goes out of man into man. But +if so, through all the thick-plied hulls of our Earthly Life; how much +more when it is of the Divine Life we speak, and inmost ME is, as it +were, brought into contact with inmost ME! + +"Thus was it that I said, the Church Clothes are first spun and woven +by Society; outward Religion originates by Society, Society becomes +possible by Religion. Nay, perhaps, every conceivable Society, past and +present, may well be figured as properly and wholly a Church, in one or +other of these three predicaments: an audibly preaching and prophesying +Church, which is the best; second, a Church that struggles to preach +and prophesy, but cannot as yet, till its Pentecost come; and third and +worst, a Church gone dumb with old age, or which only mumbles delirium +prior to dissolution. Whoso fancies that by Church is here meant +Chapter-houses and Cathedrals, or by preaching and prophesying, mere +speech and chanting, let him," says the oracular Professor, "read on, +light of heart (_getrosten Muthes_). + +"But with regard to your Church proper, and the Church-Clothes specially +recognized as Church-Clothes, I remark, fearlessly enough, that without +such Vestures and sacred Tissues Society has not existed, and will not +exist. For if Government is, so to speak, the outward SKIN of the Body +Politic, holding the whole together and protecting it; and all your +Craft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of hand or of head, are the +Fleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tissues (lying _under_ such +SKIN), whereby Society stands and works;--then is Religion the +inmost Pericardial and Nervous Tissue, which ministers Life and warm +Circulation to the whole. Without which Pericardial Tissue the Bones +and Muscles (of Industry) were inert, or animated only by a Galvanic +vitality; the SKIN would become a shrivelled pelt, or fast-rotting +rawhide; and Society itself a dead carcass,--deserving to be buried. Men +were no longer Social, but Gregarious; which latter state also could not +continue, but must gradually issue in universal selfish discord, hatred, +savage isolation, and dispersion;--whereby, as we might continue to say, +the very dust and dead body of Society would have evaporated and +become abolished. Such, and so all-important, all-sustaining, are the +Church-Clothes to civilized or even to rational men. + +"Meanwhile, in our era of the World, those same Church-Clothes have gone +sorrowfully out-at-elbows; nay, far worse, many of them have become +mere hollow Shapes, or Masks, under which no living Figure or Spirit +any longer dwells; but only spiders and unclean beetles, in horrid +accumulation, drive their trade; and the mask still glares on you +with its glass eyes, in ghastly affectation of Life,--some +generation-and-half after Religion has quite withdrawn from it, and +in unnoticed nooks is weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewith +to reappear, and bless us, or our sons or grandsons. As a Priest, or +Interpreter of the Holy, is the noblest and highest of all men, so is +a Sham-priest (_Schein-priester_) the falsest and basest; neither is it +doubtful that his Canonicals, were they Popes' Tiaras, will one day be +torn from him, to make bandages for the wounds of mankind; or even to +burn into tinder, for general scientific or culinary purposes. + +"All which, as out of place here, falls to be handled in my Second +Volume, _On the Palingenesia, or Newbirth of Society_; which volume, +as treating practically of the Wear, Destruction, and Retexture +of Spiritual Tissues, or Garments, forms, properly speaking, the +Transcendental or ultimate Portion of this my work on _Clothes_, and is +already in a state of forwardness." + +And herewith, no farther exposition, note, or commentary being added, +does Teufelsdrockh, and must his Editor now, terminate the singular +chapter on Church-Clothes! + + + +CHAPTER III. SYMBOLS. + +Probably it will elucidate the drift of these foregoing obscure +utterances, if we here insert somewhat of our Professor's speculations +on _Symbols_. To state his whole doctrine, indeed, were beyond our +compass: nowhere is he more mysterious, impalpable, than in this of +"Fantasy being the organ of the Godlike;" and how "Man thereby, though +based, to all seeming, on the small Visible, does nevertheless extend +down into the infinite deeps of the Invisible, of which Invisible, +indeed, his Life is properly the bodying forth." Let us, omitting these +high transcendental aspects of the matter, study to glean (whether from +the Paper-bags or the Printed Volume) what little seems logical and +practical, and cunningly arrange it into such degree of coherence as +it will assume. By way of proem, take the following not injudicious +remarks:-- + +"The benignant efficacies of Concealment," cries our Professor, "who +shall speak or sing? SILENCE and SECRECY! Altars might still be raised +to them (were this an altar-building time) for universal worship. +Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves +together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into +the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Not William +the Silent only, but all the considerable men I have known, and the most +undiplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore to babble of what they +were creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own mean perplexities, do +thou thyself but _hold thy tongue for one day_: on the morrow, how much +clearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck and rubbish have those +mute workmen within thee swept away, when intrusive noises were shut +out! Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of +concealing Thought; but of quite stifling and suspending Thought, +so that there is none to conceal. Speech too is great, but not the +greatest. As the Swiss Inscription says: _Sprechen ist silbern, +Schweigen ist golden_ (Speech is silvern, Silence is golden); or as I +might rather express it: Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity. + +"Bees will not work except in darkness; Thought will not work except in +Silence: neither will Virtue work except in Secrecy. Let not thy left +hand know what thy right hand doeth! Neither shalt thou prate even to +thy own heart of 'those secrets known to all.' Is not Shame (_Schaam_) +the soil of all Virtue, of all good manners and good morals? Like other +plants, Virtue will not grow unless its root be hidden, buried from the +eye of the sun. Let the sun shine on it, nay do but look at it privily +thyself, the root withers, and no flower will glad thee. O my Friends, +when we view the fair clustering flowers that overwreathe, for example, +the Marriage-bower, and encircle man's life with the fragrance and hues +of Heaven, what hand will not smite the foul plunderer that grubs them +up by the roots, and, with grinning, grunting satisfaction, shows us +the dung they flourish in! Men speak much of the Printing Press with +its Newspapers: _du Himmel_! what are these to Clothes and the Tailor's +Goose? + +"Of kin to the so incalculable influences of Concealment, and connected +with still greater things, is the wondrous agency of _Symbols_. In +a Symbol there is concealment and yet revelation; here therefore, by +Silence and by Speech acting together, comes a double significance. And +if both the Speech be itself high, and the Silence fit and noble, how +expressive will their union be! Thus in many a painted Device, or simple +Seal-emblem, the commonest Truth stands out to us proclaimed with quite +new emphasis. + +"For it is here that Fantasy with her mystic wonderland plays into the +small prose domain of Sense, and becomes incorporated therewith. In the +Symbol proper, what we can call a Symbol, there is ever, more or less +distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; +the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, +and as it were, attainable there. By Symbols, accordingly, is man guided +and commanded, made happy, made wretched: He everywhere finds himself +encompassed with Symbols, recognized as such or not recognized: the +Universe is but one vast Symbol of God; nay if thou wilt have it, what +is man himself but a Symbol of God; is not all that he does symbolical; +a revelation to Sense of the mystic god-given force that is in him; a +'Gospel of Freedom,' which he, the 'Messias of Nature,' preaches, as he +can, by act and word? Not a Hut he builds but is the visible embodiment +of a Thought; but bears visible record of invisible things; but is, in +the transcendental sense, symbolical as well as real." + +"Man," says the Professor elsewhere, in quite antipodal contrast with +these high-soaring delineations, which we have here cut short on the +verge of the inane, "Man is by birth somewhat of an owl. Perhaps, too, +of all the owleries that ever possessed him, the most owlish, if we +consider it, is that of your actually existing Motive-Millwrights. +Fantastic tricks enough man has played, in his time; has fancied himself +to be most things, down even to an animated heap of Glass: but to fancy +himself a dead Iron-Balance for weighing Pains and Pleasures on, was +reserved for this his latter era. There stands he, his Universe one huge +Manger, filled with hay and thistles to be weighed against each other; +and looks long-eared enough. Alas, poor devil! spectres are appointed to +haunt him: one age he is hag-ridden, bewitched; the next, priest-ridden, +befooled; in all ages, bedevilled. And now the Genius of Mechanism +smothers him worse than any Nightmare did; till the Soul is nigh choked +out of him, and only a kind of Digestive, Mechanic life remains. In +Earth and in Heaven he can see nothing but Mechanism; has fear for +nothing else, hope in nothing else: the world would indeed grind him +to pieces; but cannot he fathom the Doctrine of Motives, and cunningly +compute these, and mechanize them to grind the other way? + +"Were he not, as has been said, purblinded by enchantment, you had but +to bid him open his eyes and look. In which country, in which time, was +it hitherto that man's history, or the history of any man, went on by +calculated or calculable 'Motives'? What make ye of your Christianities, +and Chivalries, and Reformations, and Marseillaise Hymns, and Reigns of +Terror? Nay, has not perhaps the Motive-grinder himself been in _Love_? +Did he never stand so much as a contested Election? Leave him to Time, +and the medicating virtue of Nature." + +"Yes, Friends," elsewhere observes the Professor, "not our Logical, +Mensurative faculty, but our Imaginative one is King over us; I might +say, Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward; or Magician and Wizard to +lead us hellward. Nay, even for the basest Sensualist, what is Sense +but the implement of Fantasy; the vessel it drinks out of? Ever in the +dullest existence there is a sheen either of Inspiration or of Madness +(thou partly hast it in thy choice, which of the two), that gleams in +from the circumambient Eternity, and colors with its own hues our little +islet of Time. The Understanding is indeed thy window, too clear thou +canst not make it; but Fantasy is thy eye, with its color-giving +retina, healthy or diseased. Have not I myself known five hundred living +soldiers sabred into crows'-meat for a piece of glazed cotton, which +they called their Flag; which, had you sold it at any market-cross, +would not have brought above three groschen? Did not the whole Hungarian +Nation rise, like some tumultuous moon-stirred Atlantic, when Kaiser +Joseph pocketed their Iron Crown; an implement, as was sagaciously +observed, in size and commercial value little differing from a +horse-shoe? It is in and through _Symbols_ that man, consciously or +unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being: those ages, moreover, +are accounted the noblest which can the best recognize symbolical worth, +and prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes +for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the Godlike? + +"Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that they have both an extrinsic +and intrinsic value; oftenest the former only. What, for instance, was +in that clouted Shoe, which the Peasants bore aloft with them as ensign +in their _Bauernkrieg_ (Peasants' War)? Or in the Wallet-and-staff round +which the Netherland _Gueux_, glorying in that nickname of Beggars, +heroically rallied and prevailed, though against King Philip himself? +Intrinsic significance these had none: only extrinsic; as the accidental +Standards of multitudes more or less sacredly uniting together; in +which union itself, as above noted, there is ever something mystical and +borrowing of the Godlike. Under a like category, too, stand, or stood, +the stupidest heraldic Coats-of-arms; military Banners everywhere; and +generally all national or other sectarian Costumes and Customs: they +have no intrinsic, necessary divineness, or even worth; but have +acquired an extrinsic one. Nevertheless through all these there glimmers +something of a Divine Idea; as through military Banners themselves, the +Divine Idea of Duty, of heroic Daring; in some instances of Freedom, of +Right. Nay the highest ensign that men ever met and embraced under, the +Cross itself, had no meaning save an accidental extrinsic one. + +"Another matter it is, however, when your Symbol has intrinsic meaning, +and is of itself _fit_ that men should unite round it. Let but the +Godlike manifest itself to Sense, let but Eternity look, more or less +visibly, through the Time-Figure (_Zeitbild_)! Then is it fit that men +unite there; and worship together before such Symbol; and so from day to +day, and from age to age, superadd to it new divineness. + +"Of this latter sort are all true Works of Art: in them (if thou know a +Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity looking +through Time; the Godlike rendered visible. Here too may an extrinsic +value gradually superadd itself: thus certain _Iliads_, and the like, +have, in three thousand years, attained quite new significance. But +nobler than all in this kind are the Lives of heroic god-inspired Men; +for what other Work of Art is so divine? In Death too, in the Death of +the Just, as the last perfection of a Work of Art, may we not discern +symbolic meaning? In that divinely transfigured Sleep, as of Victory, +resting over the beloved face which now knows thee no more, read (if +thou canst for tears) the confluence of Time with Eternity, and some +gleam of the latter peering through. + +"Highest of all Symbols are those wherein the Artist or Poet has risen +into Prophet, and all men can recognize a present God, and worship the +Same: I mean religious Symbols. Various enough have been such religious +Symbols, what we call _Religions_; as men stood in this stage of culture +or the other, and could worse or better body forth the Godlike: some +Symbols with a transient intrinsic worth; many with only an extrinsic. +If thou ask to what height man has carried it in this manner, look +on our divinest Symbol: on Jesus of Nazareth, and his Life, and his +Biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has the human Thought +not yet reached: this is Christianity and Christendom; a Symbol of quite +perennial, infinite character; whose significance will ever demand to be +anew inquired into, and anew made manifest. + +"But, on the whole, as Time adds much to the sacredness of Symbols, so +likewise in his progress he at length defaces, or even desecrates them; +and Symbols, like all terrestrial Garments, wax old. Homer's Epos has +not ceased to be true; yet it is no longer our Epos, but shines in the +distance, if clearer and clearer, yet also smaller and smaller, like +a receding Star. It needs a scientific telescope, it needs to be +reinterpreted and artificially brought near us, before we can so much as +know that it _was_ a Sun. So likewise a day comes when the Runic +Thor, with his Eddas, must withdraw into dimness; and many an African +Mumbo-Jumbo and Indian Pawaw be utterly abolished. For all things, even +Celestial Luminaries, much more atmospheric meteors, have their rise, +their culmination, their decline. + +"Small is this which thou tellest me, that the Royal Sceptre is but +a piece of gilt wood; that the Pyx has become a most foolish box, and +truly, as Ancient Pistol thought, 'of little price.' A right Conjurer +might I name thee, couldst thou conjure back into these wooden tools the +divine virtue they once held. + +"Of this thing, however, be certain: wouldst thou plant for Eternity, +then plant into the deep infinite faculties of man, his Fantasy and +Heart; wouldst thou plant for Year and Day, then plant into his shallow +superficial faculties, his Self-love and Arithmetical Understanding, +what will grow there. A Hierarch, therefore, and Pontiff of the World +will we call him, the Poet and inspired Maker; who, Prometheus-like, can +shape new Symbols, and bring new Fire from Heaven to fix it there. Such +too will not always be wanting; neither perhaps now are. Meanwhile, as +the average of matters goes, we account him Legislator and wise who can +so much as tell when a Symbol has grown old, and gently remove it. + +"When, as the last English Coronation [*] I was preparing," concludes this +wonderful Professor, "I read in their Newspapers that the 'Champion of +England,' he who has to offer battle to the Universe for his new King, +had brought it so far that he could now 'mount his horse with little +assistance,' I said to myself: Here also we have a Symbol well-nigh +superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters +and rags of superannuated worn-out Symbols (in this Ragfair of a World) +dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you; nay, if +you shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and perhaps produce +suffocation?" + + * That of George IV.--ED. + + + +CHAPTER IV. HELOTAGE. + +At this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting, +to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled _Institute for the +Repression of Population_; which lies, dishonorably enough (with torn +leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed into the Bag +_Pisces_. Not indeed for the sake of the tract itself, which we admire +little; but of the marginal Notes, evidently in Teufelsdrockh's hand, +which rather copiously fringe it. A few of these may be in their right +place here. + +Into the Hofrath's _Institute_, with its extraordinary schemes, and +machinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall not so much as +glance. Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple of +Malthus; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his zeal almost literally +eats him up. A deadly fear of Population possesses the Hofrath; +something like a fixed idea; undoubtedly akin to the more diluted forms +of Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual world, is there +light; nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger; open mouths opening wider +and wider; a world to terminate by the frightfullest consummation: by +its too dense inhabitants, famished into delirium, universally eating +one another. To make air for himself in which strangulation, choking +enough to a benevolent heart, the Hofrath founds, or proposes to found, +this _Institute_ of his, as the best he can do. It is only with our +Professor's comments thereon that we concern ourselves. + +First, then, remark that Teufelsdrockh, as a speculative Radical, +has his own notions about human dignity; that the Zahdarm palaces and +courtesies have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. On the +blank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract we find the following indistinctly +engrossed:-- + +"Two men I honor, and no third. First, the toilworn Craftsman that +with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes +her man's. Venerable to me is the hard Hand; crooked, coarse; wherein +notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of +the Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all +weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is the face +of a Man living manlike. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, +and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated +Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and +fingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and +fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee too lay a god-created +Form, but it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with the +thick adhesions and defacements of Labor: and thy body, like thy soul, +was not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on: _thou_ art in thy duty, +be out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for +daily bread. + +"A second man I honor, and still more highly: Him who is seen toiling +for the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, but the bread of +Life. Is not he too in his duty; endeavoring towards inward Harmony; +revealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavors, +be they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward +endeavor are one: when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsman +only, but inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers +Heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, must not +the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, have +Guidance, Freedom, Immortality?--These two, in all their degrees, I +honor: all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it +listeth. + +"Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united; +and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also +toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing +than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one +will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendor of +Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light +shining in great darkness." + +And again: "It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor: +we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which is +worse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is hungry +and athirst; but for him also there is food and drink: he is heavy-laden +and weary; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of the deepest; +in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelops him; and fitful +glitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn over is, that +the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of heavenly, or even of +earthly knowledge, should visit him; but only, in the haggard darkness, +like two spectres, Fear and Indignation bear him company. Alas, while +the Body stands so broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, +stupefied, almost annihilated! Alas, was this too a Breath of God; +bestowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded!--That there +should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call +a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by +some computations it does. The miserable fraction of Science which our +united Mankind, in a wide Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why is +not this, with all diligence, imparted to all?" + +Quite in an opposite strain is the following: "The old Spartans had a +wiser method; and went out and hunted down their Helots, and speared and +spitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved fashions +of hunting, Herr Hofrath, now after the invention of fire-arms, and +standing armies, how much easier were such a hunt! Perhaps in the most +thickly peopled country, some three days annually might suffice to shoot +all the able-bodied Paupers that had accumulated within the year. Let +Governments think of this. The expense were trifling: nay the very +carcasses would pay it. Have them salted and barrelled; could not you +victual therewith, if not Army and Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers, +in workhouses and elsewhere, as enlightened Charity, dreading no evil of +them, might see good to keep alive?" + +"And yet," writes he farther on, "there must be something wrong. A +full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as high +as two hundred Friedrichs d'or: such is his worth to the world. A +full-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world +could afford him a round sum would he simply engage to go and hang +himself. Nevertheless, which of the two was the more cunningly devised +article, even as an Engine? Good Heavens! A white European Man, standing +on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his shackle-bones, +and miraculous Head on his shoulders, is worth, I should say, from fifty +to a hundred Horses!" + +"True, thou Gold-Hofrath," cries the Professor elsewhere: "too crowded +indeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous Globe +have ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no more? How thick +stands your Population in the Pampas and Savannas of America; round +ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on both slopes of the +Altaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia; in Spain, Greece, Turkey, +Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man, in one year, as I have +understood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed himself and nine others. +Alas, where now are the Hengsts and Alarics of our still-glowing, +still-expanding Europe; who, when their home is grown too narrow, will +enlist, and, like Fire-pillars, guide onwards those superfluous masses +of indomitable living Valor; equipped, not now with the battle-axe +and war-chariot, but with the steam engine and ploughshare? Where are +they?--Preserving their Game!" + + + +CHAPTER V. THE PHOENIX. + +Putting which four singular Chapters together, and alongside of them +numerous hints, and even direct utterances, scattered over these +Writings of his, we come upon the startling yet not quite unlooked-for +conclusion, that Teufelsdrockh is one of those who consider Society, +properly so called, to be as good as extinct; and that only the +gregarious feelings, and old inherited habitudes, at this juncture, hold +us from Dispersion, and universal national, civil, domestic and personal +war! He says expressly: "For the last three centuries, above all for the +last three quarters of a century, that same Pericardial Nervous Tissue +(as we named it) of Religion, where lies the Life-essence of Society, +has been smote at and perforated, needfully and needlessly; till now +it is quite rent into shreds; and Society, long pining, diabetic, +consumptive, can be regarded as defunct; for those spasmodic, galvanic +sprawlings are not life; neither indeed will they endure, galvanize as +you may, beyond two days." + +"Call ye that a Society," cries he again, "where there is no longer any +Social Idea extant; not so much as the Idea of a common Home, but only +of a common over-crowded Lodging-house? Where each, isolated, regardless +of his neighbor, turned against his neighbor, clutches what he can get, +and cries 'Mine!' and calls it Peace, because, in the cut-purse and +cut-throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cunninger sort, +can be employed? Where Friendship, Communion, has become an incredible +tradition; and your holiest Sacramental Supper is a smoking Tavern +Dinner, with Cook for Evangelist? Where your Priest has no tongue but +for plate-licking: and your high Guides and Governors cannot guide; but +on all hands hear it passionately proclaimed: _Laissez faire_; Leave us +alone of _your_ guidance, such light is darker than darkness; eat you +your wages, and sleep! + +"Thus, too," continues he, "does an observant eye discern everywhere +that saddest spectacle: The Poor perishing, like neglected, foundered +Draught-Cattle, of Hunger and Overwork; the Rich, still more wretchedly, +of Idleness, Satiety, and Overgrowth. The Highest in rank, at length, +without honor from the Lowest; scarcely, with a little mouth-honor, +as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in the bill. Once-sacred +Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof men grudge even the +expense; a World becoming dismantled: in one word, the STATE fallen +speechless, from obesity and apoplexy; the STATE shrunken into a +Police-Office, straitened to get its pay!" + +We might ask, are there many "observant eyes," belonging to practical +men in England or elsewhere, which have descried these phenomena; or +is it only from the mystic elevation of a German _Wahngasse_ that +such wonders are visible? Teufelsdrockh contends that the aspect of a +"deceased or expiring Society" fronts us everywhere, so that whoso runs +may read. "What, for example," says he, "is the universally arrogated +Virtue, almost the sole remaining Catholic Virtue, of these days? +For some half-century, it has been the thing you name 'Independence.' +Suspicion of 'Servility,' of reverence for Superiors, the very dog-leech +is anxious to disavow. Fools! Were your Superiors worthy to govern, +and you worthy to obey, reverence for them were even your only possible +freedom. Independence, in all kinds, is rebellion; if unjust rebellion, +why parade it, and everywhere prescribe it?" + +But what then? Are we returning, as Rousseau prayed, to the state of +Nature? "The Soul Politic having departed," says Teufelsdrockh, "what +can follow but that the Body Politic be decently interred, to avoid +putrescence? Liberals, Economists, Utilitarians enough I see marching +with its bier, and chanting loud paeans, towards the funeral pile, +where, amid wailings from some, and saturnalian revelries from the most, +the venerable Corpse is to be burnt. Or, in plain words, that these men, +Liberals, Utilitarians, or whatsoever they are called, will ultimately +carry their point, and dissever and destroy most existing Institutions +of Society, seems a thing which has some time ago ceased to be doubtful. + +"Do we not see a little subdivision of the grand Utilitarian Armament +come to light even in insulated England? A living nucleus, that will +attract and grow, does at length appear there also; and under curious +phasis; properly as the inconsiderable fag-end, and so far in the rear +of the others as to fancy itself the van. Our European Mechanizers are a +sect of boundless diffusion, activity, and co-operative spirit: has +not Utilitarianism flourished in high places of Thought, here among +ourselves, and in every European country, at some time or other, within +the last fifty years? If now in all countries, except perhaps England, +it has ceased to flourish, or indeed to exist, among Thinkers, and sunk +to Journalists and the popular mass,--who sees not that, as hereby it no +longer preaches, so the reason is, it now needs no Preaching, but is +in full universal Action, the doctrine everywhere known, and +enthusiastically laid to heart? The fit pabulum, in these times, for +a certain rugged workshop intellect and heart, nowise without their +corresponding workshop strength and ferocity, it requires but to be +stated in such scenes to make proselytes enough.--Admirably calculated +for destroying, only not for rebuilding! It spreads like a sort of +Dog-madness; till the whole World-kennel will be rabid: then woe to +the Huntsmen, with or without their whips! They should have given the +quadrupeds water," adds he; "the water, namely, of Knowledge and of +Life, while it was yet time." + +Thus, if Professor Teufelsdrockh can be relied on, we are at this hour +in a most critical condition; beleaguered by that boundless "Armament of +Mechanizers" and Unbelievers, threatening to strip us bare! "The World," +says he, "as it needs must, is under a process of devastation and +waste, which, whether by silent assiduous corrosion, or open quicker +combustion, as the case chances, will effectually enough annihilate the +past Forms of Society; replace them with what it may. For the present, +it is contemplated that when man's whole Spiritual Interests are once +_divested_, these innumerable stript-off Garments shall mostly be burnt; +but the sounder Rags among them be quilted together into one huge Irish +watch-coat for the defence of the Body only!"--This, we think, is but +Job's-news to the humane reader. + +"Nevertheless," cries Teufelsdrockh, "who can hinder it; who is there +that can clutch into the wheelspokes of Destiny, and say to the Spirit +of the Time: Turn back, I command thee?--Wiser were it that we yielded +to the Inevitable and Inexorable, and accounted even this the best." + +Nay, might not an attentive Editor, drawing his own inferences from what +stands written, conjecture that Teufelsdrockh, individually had yielded +to this same "Inevitable and Inexorable" heartily enough; and now sat +waiting the issue, with his natural diabolico-angelical Indifference, +if not even Placidity? Did we not hear him complain that the World was +a "huge Ragfair," and the "rags and tatters of old Symbols" were raining +down everywhere, like to drift him in, and suffocate him? What with +those "unhunted Helots" of his; and the uneven _sic vos non vobis_ +pressure and hard-crashing collision he is pleased to discern in +existing things; what with the so hateful "empty Masks," full of beetles +and spiders, yet glaring out on him, from their glass eyes, "with a +ghastly affectation of life,"--we feel entitled to conclude him even +willing that much should be thrown to the Devil, so it were but done +gently! Safe himself in that "Pinnacle of Weissnichtwo," he would +consent, with a tragic solemnity, that the monster UTILITARIA, held +back, indeed, and moderated by nose-rings, halters, foot-shackles, +and every conceivable modification of rope, should go forth to do her +work;--to tread down old ruinous Palaces and Temples with her broad +hoof, till the whole were trodden down, that new and better might be +built! Remarkable in this point of view are the following sentences. + +"Society," says he, "is not dead: that Carcass, which you call dead +Society, is but her mortal coil which she has shuffled off, to assume +a nobler; she herself, through perpetual metamorphoses, in fairer +and fairer development, has to live till Time also merge in Eternity. +Wheresoever two or three Living Men are gathered together, there is +Society; or there it will be, with its cunning mechanisms and stupendous +structures, overspreading this little Globe, and reaching upwards to +Heaven and downwards to Gehenna: for always, under one or the other +figure, it has two authentic Revelations, of a God and of a Devil; the +Pulpit, namely, and the Gallows." + +Indeed, we already heard him speak of "Religion, in unnoticed nooks, +weaving for herself new Vestures;"--Teufelsdrockh himself being one +of the loom-treadles? Elsewhere he quotes without censure that strange +aphorism of Saint Simon's, concerning which and whom so much were to be +said: "_L'age d'or, qu'une aveugle tradition a place jusqu'ici dans le +passe, est devant nous_; The golden age, which a blind tradition has +hitherto placed in the Past, is Before us."--But listen again:-- + +"When the Phoenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not be sparks +flying! Alas, some millions of men, and among them such as a Napoleon, +have already been licked into that high-eddying Flame, and like moths +consumed there. Still also have we to fear that incautious beards will +get singed. + +"For the rest, in what year of grace such Phoenix-cremation will be +completed, you need not ask. The law of Perseverance is among the +deepest in man: by nature he hates change; seldom will he quit his +old house till it has actually fallen about his ears. Thus have I seen +Solemnities linger as Ceremonies, sacred Symbols as idle Pageants, to +the extent of three hundred years and more after all life and sacredness +had evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what time the +Phoenix Death-Birth itself will require, depends on unseen +contingencies.--Meanwhile, would Destiny offer Mankind, that after, say +two centuries of convulsion and conflagration, more or less vivid, the +fire-creation should be accomplished, and we to find ourselves again +in a Living Society, and no longer fighting but working,--were it not +perhaps prudent in Mankind to strike the bargain?" + +Thus is Teufelsdrockh, content that old sick Society should be +deliberately burnt (alas, with quite other fuel than spice-wood); in the +faith that she is a Phoenix; and that a new heaven-born young one +will rise out of her ashes! We ourselves, restricted to the duty of +Indicator, shall forbear commentary. Meanwhile, will not the judicious +reader shake his head, and reproachfully, yet more in sorrow than in +anger, say or think: From a _Doctor utriusque Juris_, titular Professor +in a University, and man to whom hitherto, for his services, Society, +bad as she is, has given not only food and raiment (of a kind), +but books, tobacco and gukguk, we expected more gratitude to his +benefactress; and less of a blind trust in the future which resembles +that rather of a philosophical Fatalist and Enthusiast, than of a solid +householder paying scot-and-lot in a Christian country. + + + +CHAPTER VI. OLD CLOTHES. + +As mentioned above, Teufelsdrockh, though a Sansculottist, is in +practice probably the politest man extant: his whole heart and life are +penetrated and informed with the spirit of politeness; a noble natural +Courtesy shines through him, beautifying his vagaries; like sunlight, +making a rosyfingered, rainbow-dyed Aurora out of mere aqueous clouds; +nay brightening London-smoke itself into gold vapor, as from the +crucible of an alchemist. Hear in what earnest though fantastic wise he +expresses himself on this head:-- + +"Shall Courtesy be done only to the rich, and only by the rich? In +Good-breeding, which differs, if at all, from High-breeding, only as +it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully +insists on its own rights, I discern no special connection with wealth +or birth: but rather that it lies in human nature itself, and is due +from all men towards all men. Of a truth, were your Schoolmaster at his +post, and worth anything when there, this, with so much else, would be +reformed. Nay, each man were then also his neighbor's schoolmaster; till +at length a rude-visaged, unmannered Peasant could no more be met with, +than a Peasant unacquainted with botanical Physiology, or who felt not +that the clod he broke was created in Heaven. + +"For whether thou bear a sceptre or a sledge-hammer, art not thou ALIVE; +is not this thy brother ALIVE? 'There is but one temple in the world,' +says Novalis, 'and that temple is the Body of Man. Nothing is holier +than this high Form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this +Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our hands on a +human Body.' + +"On which ground, I would fain carry it farther than most do; and +whereas the English Johnson only bowed to every Clergyman, or man with +a shovel-hat, I would bow to every Man with any sort of hat, or with no +hat whatever. Is not he a Temple, then; the visible Manifestation and +Impersonation of the Divinity? And yet, alas, such indiscriminate bowing +serves not. For there is a Devil dwells in man, as well as a Divinity; +and too often the bow is but pocketed by the _former_. It would go to +the pocket of Vanity (which is your clearest phasis of the Devil, in +these times); therefore must we withhold it. + +"The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do reverence to those Shells +and outer Husks of the Body, wherein no devilish passion any longer +lodges, but only the pure emblem and effigies of Man: I mean, to Empty, +or even to Cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to Clothes that most men do +reverence: to the fine frogged broadcloth, nowise to the 'straddling +animal with bandy legs' which it holds, and makes a Dignitary of? Who +ever saw any Lord my-lorded in tattered blanket fastened with wooden +skewer? Nevertheless, I say, there is in such worship a shade +of hypocrisy, a practical deception: for how often does the Body +appropriate what was meant for the Cloth only! Whoso would avoid +falsehood, which is the essence of all Sin, will perhaps see good +to take a different course. That reverence which cannot act without +obstruction and perversion when the Clothes are full, may have free +course when they are empty. Even as, for Hindoo Worshippers, the Pagoda +is not less sacred than the God; so do I too worship the hollow cloth +Garment with equal fervor, as when it contained the Man: nay, with more, +for I now fear no deception, of myself or of others. + +"Did not King _Toomtabard_, or, in other words, John Baliol, reign long +over Scotland; the man John Baliol being quite gone, and only the 'Toom +Tabard' (Empty Gown) remaining? What still dignity dwells in a suit +of Cast Clothes! How meekly it bears its honors! No haughty looks, +no scornful gesture: silent and serene, it fronts the world; neither +demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The Hat still carries +the physiognomy of its Head: but the vanity and the stupidity, and +goose-speech which was the sign of these two, are gone. The Coat-arm is +stretched out, but not to strike; the Breeches, in modest simplicity, +depend at ease, and now at last have a graceful flow; the Waistcoat +hides no evil passion, no riotous desire; hunger or thirst now dwells +not in it. Thus all is purged from the grossness of sense, from the +carking cares and foul vices of the World; and rides there, on its +Clothes-horse; as, on a Pegasus, might some skyey Messenger, or purified +Apparition, visiting our low Earth. + +"Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tuberosity of Civilized +Life, the Capital of England; and meditated, and questioned Destiny, +under that ink-sea of vapor, black, thick, and multifarious as Spartan +broth; and was one lone soul amid those grinding millions;--often have I +turned into their Old-Clothes Market to worship. With awe-struck heart +I walk through that Monmouth Street, with its empty Suits, as through a +Sanhedrim of stainless Ghosts. Silent are they, but expressive in their +silence: the past witnesses and instruments of Woe and Joy, of Passions, +Virtues, Crimes, and all the fathomless tumult of Good and Evil in 'the +Prison men call Life.' Friends! trust not the heart of that man for whom +Old Clothes are not venerable. Watch, too, with reverence, that bearded +Jewish High-priest, who with hoarse voice, like some Angel of Doom, +summons them from the four winds! On his head, like the Pope, he has +three Hats,--a real triple tiara; on either hand are the similitude of +wings, whereon the summoned Garments come to alight; and ever, as +he slowly cleaves the air, sounds forth his deep fateful note, as +if through a trumpet he were proclaiming: 'Ghosts of Life, come to +Judgment!' Reck not, ye fluttering Ghosts: he will purify you in his +Purgatory, with fire and with water; and, one day, new-created ye shall +reappear. Oh, let him in whom the flame of Devotion is ready to go +out, who has never worshipped, and knows not what to worship, pace and +repace, with austerest thought, the pavement of Monmouth Street, and say +whether his heart and his eyes still continue dry. If Field Lane, with +its long fluttering rows of yellow handkerchiefs, be a Dionysius' Ear, +where, in stifled jarring hubbub, we hear the Indictment which Poverty +and Vice bring against lazy Wealth, that it has left them there cast +out and trodden under foot of Want, Darkness and the Devil,--then is +Monmouth Street a Mirza's Hill, where, in motley vision, the whole +Pageant of Existence passes awfully before us; with its wail and +jubilee, mad loves and mad hatreds, church-bells and gallows-ropes, +farce-tragedy, beast-godhood,--the Bedlam of Creation!" + + +To most men, as it does to ourselves, all this will seem overcharged. +We too have walked through Monmouth Street; but with little feeling of +"Devotion:" probably in part because the contemplative process is so +fatally broken in upon by the brood of money-changers who nestle in +that Church, and importune the worshipper with merely secular proposals. +Whereas Teufelsdrockh, might be in that happy middle state, which leaves +to the Clothes-broker no hope either of sale or of purchase, and so be +allowed to linger there without molestation.--Something we would have +given to see the little philosophical figure, with its steeple-hat and +loose flowing skirts, and eyes in a fine frenzy, "pacing and repacing in +austerest thought" that foolish Street; which to him was a true Delphic +avenue, and supernatural Whispering-gallery, where the "Ghosts of Life" +rounded strange secrets in his ear. O thou philosophic Teufelsdrockh, +that listenest while others only gabble, and with thy quick tympanum +hearest the grass grow! + +At the same time, is it not strange that, in Paper-bag Documents +destined for an English work, there exists nothing like an authentic +diary of this his sojourn in London; and of his Meditations among +the Clothes-shops only the obscurest emblematic shadows? Neither, in +conversation (for, indeed, he was not a man to pester you with his +Travels), have we heard him more than allude to the subject. + +For the rest, however, it cannot be uninteresting that we here find how +early the significance of Clothes had dawned on the now so distinguished +Clothes-Professor. Might we but fancy it to have been even in Monmouth +Street, at the bottom of our own English "ink-sea," that this remarkable +Volume first took being, and shot forth its salient point in his +soul,--as in Chaos did the Egg of Eros, one day to be hatched into a +Universe! + + + +CHAPTER VII. ORGANIC FILAMENTS. + +For us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning herself, +and burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdrockh calculates, it were a +handsome bargain would she engage to have done "within two centuries," +there seems to lie but an ashy prospect. Not altogether so, however, +does the Professor figure it. "In the living subject," says he, "change +is wont to be gradual: thus, while the serpent sheds its old skin, the +new is already formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the burning of a +World-Phoenix, who fanciest that she must first burn out, and lie as a +dead cinereous heap; and therefrom the young one start up by miracle, +and fly heavenward. Far otherwise! In that Fire-whirlwind, Creation and +Destruction proceed together; ever as the ashes of the Old are blown +about, do organic filaments of the New mysteriously spin themselves: and +amid the rushing and the waving of the Whirlwind element come tones of +a melodious Death-song, which end not but in tones of a more melodious +Birth-song. Nay, look into the Fire-whirlwind with thy own eyes, and +thou wilt see." Let us actually look, then: to poor individuals, who +cannot expect to live two centuries, those same organic filaments, +mysteriously spinning themselves, will be the best part of the +spectacle. First, therefore, this of Mankind in general:-- + +"In vain thou deniest it," says the Professor; "thou art my Brother. Thy +very Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish Lies thou tellest of me in +thy splenetic humor: what is all this but an inverted Sympathy? Were I +a Steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of me? Not +thou! I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well. + +"Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by the +soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we like +to choose it. More than once have I said to myself, of some perhaps +whimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical thoughts: +'Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered up within the largest +imaginable Glass bell,--what a thing it were, not for thyself only, but +for the world! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four winds, +impinge against thy Glass walls, but have to drop unread: neither from +within comes there question or response into any Post-bag; thy Thoughts +fall into no friendly ear or heart, thy Manufacture into no purchasing +hand: thou art no longer a circulating venous-arterial Heart, that, +taking and giving, circulatest through all Space and all Time: there +has a Hole fallen out in the immeasurable, universal World-tissue, which +must be darned up again!' + +"Such venous-arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal Messages, +paper and other Packages, going out from him and coming in, are +a blood-circulation, visible to the eye: but the finer nervous +circulation, by which all things, the minutest that he does, minutely +influence all men, and the very look of his face blesses or curses +whomso it lights on, and so generates ever new blessing or new cursing: +all this you cannot see, but only imagine. I say, there is not a red +Indian, hunting by Lake Winnipeg, can quarrel with his squaw, but the +whole world must smart for it: will not the price of beaver rise? It is +a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters +the centre of gravity of the Universe. + +"If now an existing generation of men stand so woven together, not less +indissolubly does generation with generation. Hast thou ever meditated +on that word, Tradition: how we inherit not Life only, but all the +garniture and form of Life; and work, and speak, and even think and +feel, as our Fathers, and primeval grandfathers, from the beginning, +have given it us?--Who printed thee, for example, this unpretending +Volume on the Philosophy of Clothes? Not the Herren Stillschweigen and +Company; but Cadmus of Thebes, Faust of Mentz, and innumerable others +whom thou knowest not. Had there been no Moesogothic Ulfila, there +had been no English Shakspeare, or a different one. Simpleton! It was +Tubal-cain that made thy very Tailor's needle, and sewed that court-suit +of thine. + +"Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much more +is Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without which +Nature were not. As palpable lifestreams in that wondrous Individual +Mankind, among so many life-streams that are not palpable, flow on those +main currents of what we call Opinion; as preserved in Institutions, +Polities, Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is to understand +and know that a Thought did never yet die; that as thou, the originator +thereof, hast gathered it and created it from the whole Past, so thou +wilt transmit it to the whole Future. It is thus that the heroic heart, +the seeing eye of the first times, still feels and sees in us of the +latest; that the Wise Man stands ever encompassed, and spiritually +embraced, by a cloud of witnesses and brothers; and there is a living, +literal _Communion of Saints_, wide as the World itself, and as the +History of the World. + +"Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this same +Individual, wilt thou find his subdivision into Generations. Generations +are as the Days of toilsome Mankind: Death and Birth are the vesper and +the matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed for +new advancement. What the Father has made, the Son can make and enjoy; +but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus all things wax, and +roll onwards; Arts, Establishments, Opinions, nothing is completed, but +ever completing. Newton has learned to see what Kepler saw; but there +is also a fresh heaven-derived force in Newton; he must mount to still +higher points of vision. So too the Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due time, +followed by an Apostle of the Gentiles. In the business of Destruction, +as this also is from time to time a necessary work, thou findest a like +sequence and perseverance: for Luther it was as yet hot enough to stand +by that burning of the Pope's Bull; Voltaire could not warm himself at +the glimmering ashes, but required quite other fuel. Thus likewise, I +note, the English Whig has, in the second generation, become an English +Radical; who, in the third again, it is to be hoped, will become an +English Rebuilder. Find Mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in +living movement, in progress faster or slower: the Phoenix soars aloft, +hovers with outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or, as +now, she sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, +that she may soar the higher and sing the clearer." + +Let the friends of social order, in such a disastrous period, lay this +to heart, and derive from it any little comfort they can. We subjoin +another passage, concerning Titles:-- + +"Remark, not without surprise," says Teufelsdrockh, "how all high Titles +of Honor come hitherto from Fighting. Your _Herzog_ (Duke, _Dux_) is +Leader of Armies; your Earl (_Jarl_) is Strong Man; your Marshal cavalry +Horse-shoer. A Millennium, or reign of Peace and Wisdom, having from of +old been prophesied, and becoming now daily more and more indubitable, +may it not be apprehended that such Fighting titles will cease to be +palatable, and new and higher need to be devised? + +"The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace eternity is that of +King. _Konig_ (King), anciently _Konning_, means Ken-ning (Cunning), or +which is the same thing, Can-ning. Ever must the Sovereign of Mankind be +fitly entitled King." + +"Well, also," says he elsewhere, "was it written by Theologians: a King +rules by divine right. He carries in him an authority from God, or man +will never give it him. Can I choose my own King? I can choose my own +King Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him: but he who +is to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will, was chosen +for me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to the Heaven-chosen +is Freedom so much as conceivable." + + +The Editor will here admit that, among all the wondrous provinces of +Teufelsdrockh's spiritual world, there is none he walks in with such +astonishment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the Political. How, with +our English love of Ministry and Opposition, and that generous conflict +of Parties, mind warming itself against mind in their mutual wrestle +for the Public Good, by which wrestle, indeed, is our invaluable +Constitution kept warm and alive; how shall we domesticate ourselves +in this spectral Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead and of the +Unborn, where the Present seems little other than an inconsiderable Film +dividing the Past and the Future? In those dim long-drawn expanses, all +is so immeasurable; much so disastrous, ghastly; your very radiances and +straggling light-beams have a supernatural character. And then with +such an indifference, such a prophetic peacefulness (accounting the +inevitably coming as already here, to him all one whether it be distant +by centuries or only by days), does he sit;--and live, you would say, +rather in any other age than in his own! It is our painful duty to +announce, or repeat, that, looking into this man, we discern a deep, +silent, slow-burning, inextinguishable Radicalism, such as fills us with +shuddering admiration. + +Thus, for example, he appears to make little even of the Elective +Franchise; at least so we interpret the following: "Satisfy yourselves," +he says, "by universal, indubitable experiment, even as ye are now doing +or will do, whether FREEDOM, heaven-born and leading heavenward, and +so vitally essential for us all, cannot peradventure be mechanically +hatched and brought to light in that same Ballot-Box of yours; or +at worst, in some other discoverable or devisable Box, Edifice, or +Steam-mechanism. It were a mighty convenience; and beyond all feats of +manufacture witnessed hitherto." Is Teufelsdrockh acquainted with the +British constitution, even slightly?--He says, under another figure: +"But after all, were the problem, as indeed it now everywhere is, To +rebuild your old House from the top downwards (since you must live in +it the while), what better, what other, than the Representative Machine +will serve your turn? Meanwhile, however, mock me not with the name +of Free, 'when you have but knit up my chains into ornamental +festoons.'"--Or what will any member of the Peace Society make of such +an assertion as this: "The lower people everywhere desire War. Not so +unwisely; there is then a demand for lower people--to be shot!" + +Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul-confusing labyrinths +of speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer regions. Here, looking +round, as was our hest, for "organic filaments," we ask, may not this, +touching "Hero-worship," be of the number? It seems of a cheerful +character; yet so quaint, so mystical, one knows not what, or how +little, may lie under it. Our readers shall look with their own eyes:-- + +"True is it that, in these days, man can do almost all things, only not +obey. True likewise that whoso cannot obey cannot be free, still less +bear rule; he that is the inferior of nothing, can be the superior of +nothing, the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe not that man has +lost his faculty of Reverence; that if it slumber in him, it has gone +dead. Painful for man is that same rebellious Independence, when it has +become inevitable; only in loving companionship with his fellows does he +feel safe; only in reverently bowing down before the Higher does he feel +himself exalted. + +"Or what if the character of our so troublous Era lay even in this: that +man had forever cast away Fear, which is the lower; but not yet risen +into perennial Reverence, which is the higher and highest? + +"Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has Nature ordered it, that +whatsoever man ought to obey, he cannot but obey. Before no faintest +revelation of the Godlike did he ever stand irreverent; least of all, +when the Godlike showed itself revealed in his fellow-man. Thus is there +a true religious Loyalty forever rooted in his heart; nay in all +ages, even in ours, it manifests itself as a more or less orthodox +_Hero-worship_. In which fact, that Hero-worship exists, has existed, +and will forever exist, universally among Mankind, mayest thou discern +the corner-stone of living rock, whereon all Polities for the remotest +time may stand secure." + +Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or even so much as what +Teufelsdrockh, is looking at? He exclaims, "Or hast thou forgotten Paris +and Voltaire? How the aged, withered man, though but a Sceptic, Mocker, +and millinery Court-poet, yet because even he seemed the Wisest, Best, +could drag mankind at his chariot-wheels, so that princes coveted a +smile from him, and the loveliest of France would have laid their hair +beneath his feet! All Paris was one vast Temple of Hero-worship; though +their Divinity, moreover, was of feature too apish. + +"But if such things," continues he, "were done in the dry tree, what +will be done in the green? If, in the most parched season of Man's +History, in the most parched spot of Europe, when Parisian life was +at best but a scientific _Hortus Siccus_, bedizened with some Italian +Gumflowers, such virtue could come out of it; what is to be looked for +when Life again waves leafy and bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shall +have nothing apelike, but be wholly human? Know that there is in man a +quite indestructible Reverence for whatsoever holds of Heaven, or even +plausibly counterfeits such holding. Show the dullest clodpoll, show +the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher than himself is actually +here; were his knees stiffened into brass, he must down and worship." + +Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mysteriously spinning +themselves, some will perhaps discover in the following passage:-- + +"There is no Church, sayest thou? The voice of Prophecy has gone dumb? +This is even what I dispute: but in any case, hast thou not still +Preaching enough? A Preaching Friar settles himself in every village; +and builds a pulpit, which he calls Newspaper. Therefrom he preaches +what most momentous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation; and dost +not thou listen, and believe? Look well, thou seest everywhere a +new Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, some barefooted, some almost +bare-backed, fashion itself into shape, and teach and preach, zealously +enough, for copper alms and the love of God. These break in pieces +the ancient idols; and, though themselves too often reprobate, as +idol-breakers are wont to be, mark out the sites of new Churches, +where the true God-ordained, that are to follow, may find audience, and +minister. Said I not, Before the old skin was shed, the new had formed +itself beneath it?" + +Perhaps also in the following; wherewith we now hasten to knit up this +ravelled sleeve:-- + +"But there is no Religion?" reiterates the Professor. "Fool! I tell +thee, there is. Hast thou well considered all that lies in this +immeasurable froth-ocean we name LITERATURE? Fragments of a genuine +Church-_Homiletic_ lie scattered there, which Time will assort: nay +fractions even of a _Liturgy_ could I point out. And knowest thou no +Prophet, even in the vesture, environment, and dialect of this age? None +to whom the Godlike had revealed itself, through all meanest and highest +forms of the Common; and by him been again prophetically revealed: in +whose inspired melody, even in these rag-gathering and rag-burning days, +Man's Life again begins, were it but afar off, to be divine? Knowest +thou none such? I know him, and name him--Goethe. + +"But thou as yet standest in no Temple; joinest in no Psalm-worship; +feelest well that, where there is no ministering Priest, the people +perish? Be of comfort! Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith. Spake we +not of a Communion of Saints, unseen, yet not unreal, accompanying and +brother-like embracing thee, so thou be worthy? Their heroic Sufferings +rise up melodiously together to Heaven, out of all lands, and out of all +times, as a sacred _Miserere_; their heroic Actions also, as a boundless +everlasting Psalm of Triumph. Neither say that thou hast now no Symbol +of the Godlike. Is not God's Universe a Symbol of the Godlike; is not +Immensity a Temple; is not Man's History, and Men's History, a perpetual +Evangel? Listen, and for organ-music thou wilt ever, as of old, hear the +Morning Stars sing together." + + + +CHAPTER VIII. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. + +It is in his stupendous Section, headed _Natural Supernaturalism_, that +the Professor first becomes a Seer; and, after long effort, such as +we have witnessed, finally subdues under his feet this refractory +Clothes-Philosophy, and takes victorious possession thereof. Phantasms +enough he has had to struggle with; "Cloth-webs and Cob-webs," of +Imperial Mantles, Superannuated Symbols, and what not: yet still did he +courageously pierce through. Nay, worst of all, two quite mysterious, +world-embracing Phantasms, TIME and SPACE, have ever hovered round +him, perplexing and bewildering: but with these also he now resolutely +grapples, these also he victoriously rends asunder. In a word, he has +looked fixedly on Existence, till, one after the other, its earthly +hulls and garnitures have all melted away; and now, to his rapt vision, +the interior celestial Holy-of-Holies lies disclosed. + +Here, therefore, properly it is that the Philosophy of Clothes attains +to Transcendentalism; this last leap, can we but clear it, takes us +safe into the promised land, where _Palingenesia_, in all senses, may be +considered as beginning. "Courage, then!" may our Diogenes exclaim, with +better right than Diogenes the First once did. This stupendous Section +we, after long painful meditation, have found not to be unintelligible; +but, on the contrary, to grow clear, nay radiant, and all-illuminating. +Let the reader, turning on it what utmost force of speculative intellect +is in him, do his part; as we, by judicious selection and adjustment, +shall study to do ours:-- + +"Deep has been, and is, the significance of Miracles," thus quietly +begins the Professor; "far deeper perhaps than we imagine. Meanwhile, +the question of questions were: What specially is a Miracle? To that +Dutch King of Siam, an icicle had been a miracle; whoso had carried +with him an air-pump, and vial of vitriolic ether, might have worked a +miracle. To my Horse, again, who unhappily is still more unscientific, +do not I work a miracle, and magical '_Open sesame_!_'_ every time I +please to pay twopence, and open for him an impassable _Schlagbaum_, or +shut Turnpike? + +"'But is not a real Miracle simply a violation of the Laws of Nature?' +ask several. Whom I answer by this new question: What are the Laws of +Nature? To me perhaps the rising of one from the dead were no violation +of these Laws, but a confirmation; were some far deeper Law, now first +penetrated into, and by Spiritual Force, even as the rest have all been, +brought to bear on us with its Material Force. + +"Here too may some inquire, not without astonishment: On what ground +shall one, that can make Iron swim, come and declare that therefore +he can teach Religion? To us, truly, of the Nineteenth Century, such +declaration were inept enough; which nevertheless to our fathers, of the +First Century, was full of meaning. + +"'But is it not the deepest Law of Nature that she be constant?' cries +an illuminated class: 'Is not the Machine of the Universe fixed to move +by unalterable rules?' Probable enough, good friends: nay I, too, must +believe that the God, whom ancient inspired men assert to be 'without +variableness or shadow of turning,' does indeed never change; that +Nature, that the Universe, which no one whom it so pleases can be +prevented from calling a Machine, does move by the most unalterable +rules. And now of you, too, I make the old inquiry: What those same +unalterable rules, forming the complete Statute-Book of Nature, may +possibly be? + +"They stand written in our Works of Science, say you; in the accumulated +records of Man's Experience?--Was Man with his Experience present at the +Creation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any deepest scientific +individuals yet dived down to the foundations of the Universe, and +gauged everything there? Did the Maker take them into His counsel; that +they read His ground-plan of the incomprehensible All; and can say, +This stands marked therein, and no more than this? Alas, not in anywise! +These scientific individuals have been nowhere but where we also are; +have seen some hand breadths deeper than we see into the Deep that is +infinite, without bottom as without shore. + +"Laplace's Book on the Stars, wherein he exhibits that certain Planets, +with their Satellites, gyrate round our worthy Sun, at a rate and in +a course, which, by greatest good fortune, he and the like of him have +succeeded in detecting,--is to me as precious as to another. But is this +what thou namest 'Mechanism of the Heavens,' and 'System of the World;' +this, wherein Sirius and the Pleiades, and all Herschel's Fifteen +thousand Suns per minute, being left out, some paltry handful of Moons, +and inert Balls, had been--looked at, nick-named, and marked in the +Zodiacal Way-bill; so that we can now prate of their Whereabout; their +How, their Why, their What, being hid from us, as in the signless Inane? + +"System of Nature! To the wisest man, wide as is his vision, Nature +remains of quite _infinite_ depth, of quite infinite expansion; and +all Experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries and +measured square-miles. The course of Nature's phases, on this our little +fraction of a Planet, is partially known to us: but who knows what +deeper courses these depend on; what infinitely larger Cycle (of causes) +our little Epicycle revolves on? To the Minnow every cranny and pebble, +and quality and accident, of its little native Creek may have become +familiar: but does the Minnow understand the Ocean Tides and periodic +Currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses; by all +which the condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may, from time +to time (unmiraculously enough), be quite overset and reversed? Such a +minnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth; his Ocean the immeasurable +All; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the mysterious Course of +Providence through AEons of AEons. + +"We speak of the Volume of Nature: and truly a Volume it is,--whose +Author and Writer is God. To read it! Dost thou, does man, so much as +well know the Alphabet thereof? With its Words, Sentences, and grand +descriptive Pages, poetical and philosophical, spread out through Solar +Systems, and Thousands of Years, we shall not try thee. It is a Volume +written in celestial hieroglyphs, in the true Sacred-writing; of which +even Prophets are happy that they can read here a line and there a line. +As for your Institutes, and Academies of Science, they strive bravely; +and, from amid the thick-crowded, inextricably intertwisted hieroglyphic +writing, pick out, by dexterous combination, some Letters in the vulgar +Character, and therefrom put together this and the other economic +Recipe, of high avail in Practice. That Nature is more than some +boundless Volume of such Recipes, or huge, well-nigh inexhaustible +Domestic-Cookery Book, of which the whole secret will in this manner one +day evolve itself, the fewest dream. + +"Custom," continues the Professor, "doth make dotards of us all. +Consider well, thou wilt find that Custom is the greatest of Weavers; +and weaves air-raiment for all the Spirits of the Universe; whereby +indeed these dwell with us visibly, as ministering servants, in our +houses and workshops; but their spiritual nature becomes, to the most, +forever hidden. Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from +the first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it; that +our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest +simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay, what +is Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against Custom; an +ever-renewed effort to _transcend_ the sphere of blind Custom, and so +become Transcendental? + +"Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of Custom: but of +all these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the +Miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be Miraculous. True, it is +by this means we live; for man must work as well as wonder: and herein +is Custom so far a kind nurse, guiding him to his true benefit. But she +is a fond foolish nurse, or rather we are false foolish nurslings, when, +in our resting and reflecting hours, we prolong the same deception. Am I +to view the Stupendous with stupid indifference, because I have seen +it twice, or two hundred, or two million times? There is no reason in +Nature or in Art why I should: unless, indeed, I am a mere Work-Machine, +for whom the divine gift of Thought were no other than the terrestrial +gift of Steam is to the Steam-engine; a power whereby cotton might be +spun, and money and money's worth realized. + +"Notable enough too, here as elsewhere, wilt thou find the potency of +Names; which indeed are but one kind of such custom-woven, wonder-hiding +Garments. Witchcraft, and all manner of Spectre-work, and Demonology, +we have now named Madness, and Diseases of the Nerves. Seldom reflecting +that still the new question comes upon us: What is Madness, what are +Nerves? Ever, as before, does Madness remain a mysterious-terrific, +altogether _infernal_ boiling-up of the Nether Chaotic Deep, through +this fair-painted Vision of Creation, which swims thereon, which we name +the Real. Was Luther's Picture of the Devil less a Reality, whether it +were formed within the bodily eye, or without it? In every the wisest +Soul lies a whole world of internal Madness, an authentic Demon-Empire; +out of which, indeed, his world of Wisdom has been creatively built +together, and now rests there, as on its dark foundations does a +habitable flowery Earth rind. + +"But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Wonder, as for many +other ends, are your two grand fundamental world-enveloping Appearances, +SPACE and TIME. These, as spun and woven for us from before Birth +itself, to clothe our celestial ME for dwelling here, and yet to blind +it,--lie all-embracing, as the universal canvas, or warp and woof, +whereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave and paint +themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you endeavor to strip +them off; you can, at best, but rend them asunder for moments, and look +through. + +"Fortunatus had a wishing Hat, which when he put on, and wished himself +Anywhere, behold he was There. By this means had Fortunatus triumphed +over Space, he had annihilated Space; for him there was no Where, but +all was Here. Were a Hatter to establish himself, in the Wahngasse of +Weissnichtwo, and make felts of this sort for all mankind, what a world +we should have of it! Still stranger, should, on the opposite side +of the street, another Hatter establish himself; and, as his +fellow-craftsman made Space-annihilating Hats, make Time-annihilating! +Of both would I purchase, were it with my last groschen; but chiefly of +this latter. To clap on your felt, and, simply by wishing that you were +Anywhere, straightway to be _There_! Next to clap on your other felt, +and, simply by wishing that you were _Anywhen_, straightway to be +_Then_! This were indeed the grander: shooting at will from the +Fire-Creation of the World to its Fire-Consummation; here historically +present in the First Century, conversing face to face with Paul and +Seneca; there prophetically in the Thirty-first, conversing also face to +face with other Pauls and Senecas, who as yet stand hidden in the depth +of that late Time! + +"Or thinkest thou it were impossible, unimaginable? Is the Past +annihilated, then, or only past; is the Future non-extant, or only +future? Those mystic faculties of thine, Memory and Hope, already +answer: already through those mystic avenues, thou the Earth-blinded +summonest both Past and Future, and communest with them, though as yet +darkly, and with mute beckonings. The curtains of Yesterday drop down, +the curtains of To-morrow roll up; but Yesterday and To-morrow both +_are_. Pierce through the Time-element, glance into the Eternal. Believe +what thou findest written in the sanctuaries of Man's Soul, even as all +Thinkers, in all ages, have devoutly read it there: that Time and Space +are not God, but creations of God; that with God as it is a universal +HERE, so is it an everlasting Now. + +"And seest thou therein any glimpse of IMMORTALITY?--O Heaven! Is the +white Tomb of our Loved One, who died from our arms, and had to be left +behind us there, which rises in the distance, like a pale, mournfully +receding Milestone, to tell how many toilsome uncheered miles we have +journeyed on alone,--but a pale spectral Illusion! Is the lost Friend +still mysteriously Here, even as we are Here mysteriously, with +God!--know of a truth that only the Time-shadows have perished, or are +perishable; that the real Being of whatever was, and whatever is, and +whatever will be, is even now and forever. This, should it unhappily +seem new, thou mayest ponder at thy leisure; for the next twenty years, +or the next twenty centuries: believe it thou must; understand it thou +canst not. + +"That the Thought-forms, Space and Time, wherein, once for all, we are +sent into this Earth to live, should condition and determine our whole +Practical reasonings, conceptions, and imagings or imaginings, +seems altogether fit, just, and unavoidable. But that they should, +furthermore, usurp such sway over pure spiritual Meditation, and blind +us to the wonder everywhere lying close on us, seems nowise so. Admit +Space and Time to their due rank as Forms of Thought; nay even, if thou +wilt, to their quite undue rank of Realities: and consider, then, +with thyself how their thin disguises hide from us the brightest +God-effulgences! Thus, were it not miraculous, could I stretch forth my +hand and clutch the Sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my hand +and therewith clutch many a thing, and swing it hither and thither. +Art thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the Miracle lies in miles of +distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to see that the +true inexplicable God-revealing Miracle lies in this, that I can stretch +forth my hand at all; that I have free Force to clutch aught therewith? +Innumerable other of this sort are the deceptions, and wonder-hiding +stupefactions, which Space practices on us. + +"Still worse is it with regard to Time. Your grand anti-magician, +and universal wonder-hider, is this same lying Time. Had we but the +Time-annihilating Hat, to put on for once only, we should see ourselves +in a World of Miracles, wherein all fabled or authentic Thaumaturgy, and +feats of Magic, were outdone. But unhappily we have not such a Hat; and +man, poor fool that he is, can seldom and scantily help himself without +one. + +"Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Orpheus, or Amphion, built the +walls of Thebes by the mere sound of his Lyre? Yet tell me, Who built +these walls of Weissnichtwo; summoning out all the sandstone rocks, to +dance along from the _Steinbruch_ (now a huge Troglodyte Chasm, with +frightful green-mantled pools); and shape themselves into Doric and +Ionic pillars, squared ashlar houses and noble streets? Was it not +the still higher Orpheus, or Orpheuses, who, in past centuries, by the +divine Music of Wisdom, succeeded in civilizing Man? Our highest Orpheus +walked in Judea, eighteen hundred years ago: his sphere-melody, flowing +in wild native tones, took captive the ravished souls of men; and, +being of a truth sphere-melody, still flows and sounds, though now +with thousand-fold accompaniments, and rich symphonies, through all our +hearts; and modulates, and divinely leads them. Is that a wonder, which +happens in two hours; and does it cease to be wonderful if happening in +two million? Not only was Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus; but +without the music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no +work that man glories in ever done. + +"Sweep away the Illusion of Time; glance, if thou have eyes, from +the near moving-cause to its far distant Mover: The stroke that came +transmitted through a whole galaxy of elastic balls, was it less a +stroke than if the last ball only had been struck, and sent flying? Oh, +could I (with the Time-annihilating Hat) transport thee direct from +the Beginnings, to the Endings, how were thy eyesight unsealed, and thy +heart set flaming in the Light-sea of celestial wonder! Then sawest thou +that this fair Universe, were it in the meanest province thereof, is in +very deed the star-domed City of God; that through every star, through +every grass-blade, and most through every Living Soul, the glory of a +present God still beams. But Nature, which is the Time-vesture of God, +and reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish. + +"Again, could anything be more miraculous than an actual authentic +Ghost? The English Johnson longed, all his life, to see one; but could +not, though he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church-vaults, and +tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor! Did he never, with the mind's eye +as well as with the body's, look round him into that full tide of human +Life he so loved; did he never so much as look into Himself? The +good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as heart could wish; +well-nigh a million of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his +side. Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time; compress the +threescore years into three minutes: what else was he, what else are we? +Are we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an Appearance; and +that fade away again into air and Invisibility? This is no metaphor, it +is a simple scientific _fact_: we start out of Nothingness, take +figure, and are Apparitions; round us, as round the veriest spectre, is +Eternity; and to Eternity minutes are as years and aeons. Come there not +tones of Love and Faith, as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song +of beatified Souls? And again, do not we squeak and gibber (in our +discordant, screech-owlish debatings and recriminatings); and glide +bodeful, and feeble, and fearful; or uproar (_poltern_), and revel in +our mad Dance of the Dead,--till the scent of the morning air summons us +to our still Home; and dreamy Night becomes awake and Day? Where now +is Alexander of Macedon: does the steel Host, that yelled in fierce +battle-shouts at Issus and Arbela, remain behind him; or have they all +vanished utterly, even as perturbed Goblins must? Napoleon too, and +his Moscow Retreats and Austerlitz Campaigns! Was it all other than the +veriest Spectre-hunt; which has now, with its howling tumult that made +Night hideous, flitted away?--Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand million +walking the Earth openly at noontide; some half-hundred have vanished +from it, some half-hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch ticks once. + +"O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only +carry each a future Ghost within him; but are, in very deed, Ghosts! +These Limbs, whence had we them; this stormy Force; this life-blood with +its burning Passion? They are dust and shadow; a Shadow-system gathered +round our ME: wherein, through some moments or years, the Divine Essence +is to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior on his strong war-horse, +fire flashes through his eyes; force dwells in his arm and heart: but +warrior and war-horse are a vision; a revealed Force, nothing more. +Stately they tread the Earth, as if it were a firm substance: fool! the +Earth is but a film; it cracks in twain, and warrior and war-horse sink +beyond plummet's sounding. Plummet's? Fantasy herself will not follow +them. A little while ago, they were not; a little while, and they are +not, their very ashes are not. + +"So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to the end. Generation +after generation takes to itself the Form of a Body; and forth issuing +from Cimmerian Night, on Heaven's mission APPEARS. What Force and +Fire is in each he expends: one grinding in the mill of Industry; one +hunter-like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of Science; one madly +dashed in pieces on the rocks of Strife, in war with his fellow:--and +then the Heaven-sent is recalled; his earthly Vesture falls away, +and soon even to Sense becomes a vanished Shadow. Thus, like some +wild-flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's Artillery, does this +mysterious MANKIND thunder and flame, in long-drawn, quick-succeeding +grandeur, through the unknown Deep. Thus, like a God-created, +fire-breathing Spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane; haste stormfully +across the astonished Earth; then plunge again into the Inane. Earth's +mountains are levelled, and her seas filled up, in our passage: can the +Earth, which is but dead and a vision, resist Spirits which have reality +and are alive? On the hardest adamant some footprint of us is stamped +in; the last Rear of the host will read traces of the earliest Van. But +whence?--O Heaven whither? Sense knows not; Faith knows not; only that +it is through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to God. + + 'We _are such stuff_ + As Dreams are made of, and our little Life + Is rounded with a sleep!'" + + + +CHAPTER IX. CIRCUMSPECTIVE. + +Here, then, arises the so momentous question: Have many British Readers +actually arrived with us at the new promised country; is the Philosophy +of Clothes now at last opening around them? Long and adventurous has the +journey been: from those outmost vulgar, palpable Woollen Hulls of Man; +through his wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his wondrous Social Garnitures; +inwards to the Garments of his very Soul's Soul, to Time and Space +themselves! And now does the spiritual, eternal Essence of Man, and of +Mankind, bared of such wrappages, begin in any measure to reveal itself? +Can many readers discern, as through a glass darkly, in huge wavering +outlines, some primeval rudiments of Man's Being, what is changeable +divided from what is unchangeable? Does that Earth-Spirit's speech in +_Faust_,-- + + "'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, + And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by; " + +or that other thousand-times repeated speech of the Magician, +Shakespeare,-- + + "And like the baseless fabric of this vision, + The cloud-capt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces, + The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself, + And all which it inherit, shall dissolve; + And like this unsubstantial pageant faded, + Leave not a wrack behind;" + +begin to have some meaning for us? In a word, do we at length stand +safe in the far region of Poetic Creation and Palingenesia, where that +Phoenix Death-Birth of Human Society, and of all Human Things, appears +possible, is seen to be inevitable? + +Along this most insufficient, unheard-of Bridge, which the Editor, +by Heaven's blessing, has now seen himself enabled to conclude if not +complete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope, +that many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, overspanning +the Impassable with paved highway, could the Editor construct; only, +as was said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. +Alas, and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneck +character; the darkness, the nature of the element, all was against us! + +Nevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, provided with a +discursiveness of intellect rare in our day, have cleared the passage, +in spite of all? Happy few! little band of Friends! be welcome, be of +courage. By degrees, the eye grows accustomed to its new Whereabout; +the hand can stretch itself forth to work there: it is in this grand and +indeed highest work of Palingenesia that ye shall labor, each according +to ability. New laborers will arrive; new Bridges will be built; +nay, may not our own poor rope-and-raft Bridge, in your passings and +repassings, be mended in many a point, till it grow quite firm, passable +even for the halt? + +Meanwhile, of the innumerable multitude that started with us, joyous +and full of hope, where now is the innumerable remainder, whom we see no +longer by our side? The most have recoiled, and stand gazing afar +off, in unsympathetic astonishment, at our career: not a few, pressing +forward with more courage, have missed footing, or leaped short; and now +swim weltering in the Chaos-flood, some towards this shore, some towards +that. To these also a helping hand should be held out; at least some +word of encouragement be said. + +Or, to speak without metaphor, with which mode of utterance +Teufelsdrockh unhappily has somewhat infected us,--can it be hidden from +the Editor that many a British Reader sits reading quite bewildered in +head, and afflicted rather than instructed by the present Work? +Yes, long ago has many a British Reader been, as now, demanding with +something like a snarl: Whereto does all this lead; or what use is in +it? + +In the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise aiding thy digestive +faculty, O British Reader, it leads to nothing, and there is no use in +it; but rather the reverse, for it costs thee somewhat. Nevertheless, +if through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufelsdrockh, and we by means +of him, have led thee into the true Land of Dreams; and through the +Clothes-Screen, as through a magical _Pierre-Pertuis_, thou lookest, +even for moments, into the region of the Wonderful, and seest and +feelest that thy daily life is girt with Wonder, and based on Wonder, +and thy very blankets and breeches are Miracles,--then art thou profited +beyond money's worth; and hast a thankfulness towards our Professor; +nay, perhaps in many a literary Tea-circle wilt open thy kind lips, and +audibly express that same. + +Nay farther, art not thou too perhaps by this time made aware that all +Symbols are properly Clothes; that all Forms whereby Spirit manifests +itself to sense, whether outwardly or in the imagination, are Clothes; +and thus not only the parchment Magna Charta, which a Tailor was nigh +cutting into measures, but the Pomp and Authority of Law, the sacredness +of Majesty, and all inferior Worships (Worth-ships) are properly +a Vesture and Raiment; and the Thirty-nine Articles themselves are +articles of wearing-apparel (for the Religious Idea)? In which case, +must it not also be admitted that this Science of Clothes is a high one, +and may with infinitely deeper study on thy part yield richer fruit: +that it takes scientific rank beside Codification, and Political +Economy, and the Theory of the British Constitution; nay rather, +from its prophetic height looks down on all these, as on so many +weaving-shops and spinning-mills, where the Vestures which _it_ has +to fashion, and consecrate, and distribute, are, too often by haggard +hungry operatives who see no farther than their nose, mechanically woven +and spun? + +But omitting all this, much more all that concerns Natural +Supernaturalism, and indeed whatever has reference to the Ulterior or +Transcendental portion of the Science, or bears never so remotely on +that promised Volume of the _Palingenesie der menschlichen Gesellschaft_ +(Newbirth of Society),--we humbly suggest that no province of +Clothes-Philosophy, even the lowest, is without its direct value, +but that innumerable inferences of a practical nature may be drawn +therefrom. To say nothing of those pregnant considerations, ethical, +political, symbolical, which crowd on the Clothes-Philosopher from the +very threshold of his Science; nothing even of those "architectural +ideas," which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of all Modes, +and will one day, better unfolding themselves, lead to important +revolutions,--let us glance for a moment, and with the faintest light +of Clothes-Philosophy, on what may be called the Habilatory Class of our +fellow-men. Here too overlooking, where so much were to be looked on, +the million spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, washers, and wringers, +that puddle and muddle in their dark recesses, to make us Clothes, and +die that we may live,--let us but turn the reader's attention upon +two small divisions of mankind, who, like moths, may be regarded as +Cloth-animals, creatures that live, move and have their being in Cloth: +we mean, Dandies and Tailors. + +In regard to both which small divisions it may be asserted without +scruple, that the public feeling, unenlightened by Philosophy, is at +fault; and even that the dictates of humanity are violated. As will +perhaps abundantly appear to readers of the two following Chapters. + + + +CHAPTER X. THE DANDIACAL BODY. + +First, touching Dandies, let us consider, with some scientific +strictness, what a Dandy specially is. A Dandy is a Clothes-wearing +Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing +of Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse and person is +heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes +wisely and well: so that as others dress to live, he lives to dress. +The all-importance of Clothes, which a German Professor, of unequalled +learning and acumen, writes his enormous Volume to demonstrate, has +sprung up in the intellect of the Dandy without effort, like an +instinct of genius; he is inspired with Cloth, a Poet of Cloth. What +Teufelsdrockh would call a "Divine Idea of Cloth" is born with him; and +this, like other such Ideas, will express itself outwardly, or wring his +heart asunder with unutterable throes. + +But, like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes his Idea +an Action; shows himself in peculiar guise to mankind; walks forth, a +witness and living Martyr to the eternal worth of Clothes. We called him +a Poet: is not his body the (stuffed) parchment-skin whereon he writes, +with cunning Huddersfield dyes, a Sonnet to his mistress' eyebrow? Say, +rather, an Epos, and _Clotha Virumque cano_, to the whole world, in +Macaronic verses, which he that runs may read. Nay, if you grant, what +seems to be admissible, that the Dandy has a Thinking-principle in +him, and some notions of Time and Space, is there not in this +life-devotedness to Cloth, in this so willing sacrifice of the Immortal +to the Perishable, something (though in reverse order) of that blending +and identification of Eternity with Time, which, as we have seen, +constitutes the Prophetic character? + +And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even Prophecy, +what is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you +would recognize his existence; would admit him to be a living object; or +even failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays +of light. Your silver or your gold (beyond what the niggardly Law has +already secured him) he solicits not; simply the glance of your eyes. +Understand his mystic significance, or altogether miss and misinterpret +it; do but look at him, and he is contented. May we not well cry shame +on an ungrateful world, which refuses even this poor boon; which will +waste its optic faculty on dried Crocodiles, and Siamese Twins; and +over the domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a live Dandy, glance with +hasty indifference, and a scarcely concealed contempt! Him no Zoologist +classes among the Mammalia, no Anatomist dissects with care: when did we +see any injected Preparation of the Dandy in our Museums; any specimen +of him preserved in spirits! Lord Herringbone may dress himself in a +snuff-brown suit, with snuff-brown shirt and shoes: it skills not; the +undiscerning public, occupied with grosser wants, passes by regardless +on the other side. + +The age of Curiosity, like that of Chivalry, is indeed, properly +speaking, gone. Yet perhaps only gone to sleep: for here arises the +Clothes-Philosophy to resuscitate, strangely enough, both the one and +the other! Should sound views of this Science come to prevail, the +essential nature of the British Dandy, and the mystic significance that +lies in him, cannot always remain hidden under laughable and lamentable +hallucination. The following long Extract from Professor Teufelsdrockh +may set the matter, if not in its true light, yet in the way towards +such. It is to be regretted, however, that here, as so often elsewhere, +the Professor's keen philosophic perspicacity is somewhat marred by a +certain mixture of almost owlish purblindness, or else of some perverse, +ineffectual, ironic tendency; our readers shall judge which:-- + + +"In these distracted times," writes he, "when the Religious Principle, +driven out of most Churches, either lies unseen in the hearts of good +men, looking and longing and silently working there towards some new +Revelation; or else wanders homeless over the world, like a disembodied +soul seeking its terrestrial organization,--into how many strange +shapes, of Superstition and Fanaticism, does it not tentatively and +errantly cast itself! The higher Enthusiasm of man's nature is for the +while without Exponent; yet does it continue indestructible, unweariedly +active, and work blindly in the great chaotic deep: thus Sect after +Sect, and Church after Church, bodies itself forth, and melts again into +new metamorphosis. + +"Chiefly is this observable in England, which, as the wealthiest and +worst-instructed of European nations, offers precisely the elements +(of Heat, namely, and of Darkness), in which such moon-calves and +monstrosities are best generated. Among the newer Sects of that country, +one of the most notable, and closely connected with our present subject, +is that of the _Dandies_; concerning which, what little information I +have been able to procure may fitly stand here. + +"It is true, certain of the English Journalists, men generally without +sense for the Religious Principle, or judgment for its manifestations, +speak, in their brief enigmatic notices, as if this were perhaps +rather a Secular Sect, and not a Religious one; nevertheless, to the +psychologic eye its devotional and even sacrificial character +plainly enough reveals itself. Whether it belongs to the class of +Fetish-worships, or of Hero-worships or Polytheisms, or to what other +class, may in the present state of our intelligence remain undecided +(_schweben_). A certain touch of Manicheism, not indeed in the Gnostic +shape, is discernible enough; also (for human Error walks in a cycle, +and reappears at intervals) a not-inconsiderable resemblance to that +Superstition of the Athos Monks, who by fasting from all nourishment, +and looking intensely for a length of time into their own navels, came +to discern therein the true Apocalypse of Nature, and Heaven Unveiled. +To my own surmise, it appears as if this Dandiacal Sect were but a new +modification, adapted to the new time, of that primeval Superstition, +_Self-worship_; which Zerdusht, Quangfoutchee, Mahomet, and others, +strove rather to subordinate and restrain than to eradicate; and which +only in the purer forms of Religion has been altogether rejected. +Wherefore, if any one chooses to name it revived Ahrimanism, or a new +figure of Demon-Worship, I have, so far as is yet visible, no objection. + +"For the rest, these people, animated with the zeal of a new Sect, +display courage and perseverance, and what force there is in man's +nature, though never so enslaved. They affect great purity and +separatism; distinguish themselves by a particular costume (whereof some +notices were given in the earlier part of this Volume); likewise, so +far as possible, by a particular speech (apparently some broken +_Lingua-franca_, or English-French); and, on the whole, strive to +maintain a true Nazarene deportment, and keep themselves unspotted from +the world. + +"They have their Temples, whereof the chief, as the Jewish Temple did, +stands in their metropolis; and is named _Almack's_, a word of +uncertain etymology. They worship principally by night; and have their +High-priests and High-priestesses, who, however, do not continue for +life. The rites, by some supposed to be of the Menadic sort, or perhaps +with an Eleusinian or Cabiric character, are held strictly secret. +Nor are Sacred Books wanting to the Sect; these they call _Fashionable +Novels_: however, the Canon is not completed, and some are canonical and +others not. + +"Of such Sacred Books I, not without expense, procured myself some +samples; and in hope of true insight, and with the zeal which beseems an +Inquirer into Clothes, set to interpret and study them. But wholly to +no purpose: that tough faculty of reading, for which the world will not +refuse me credit, was here for the first time foiled and set at naught. +In vain that I summoned my whole energies (_mich weidlich anstrengte_), +and did my very utmost; at the end of some short space, I was uniformly +seized with not so much what I can call a drumming in my ears, as a kind +of infinite, unsufferable, Jew's-harping and scrannel-piping there; to +which the frightfullest species of Magnetic Sleep soon supervened. And +if I strove to shake this away, and absolutely would not yield, there +came a hitherto unfelt sensation, as of _Delirium Tremens_, and a +melting into total deliquium: till at last, by order of the Doctor, +dreading ruin to my whole intellectual and bodily faculties, and a +general breaking up of the constitution, I reluctantly but determinedly +forbore. Was there some miracle at work here; like those Fire-balls, +and supernal and infernal prodigies, which, in the case of the Jewish +Mysteries, have also more than once scared back the Alien? Be this as +it may, such failure on my part, after best efforts, must excuse the +imperfection of this sketch; altogether incomplete, yet the completest I +could give of a Sect too singular to be omitted. + +"Loving my own life and senses as I do, no power shall induce me, as a +private individual, to open another _Fashionable Novel_. But luckily, +in this dilemma, comes a hand from the clouds; whereby if not victory, +deliverance is held out to me. Round one of those Book-packages, which +the _Stillschweigen'sche Buchhandlung_ is in the habit of importing +from England, come, as is usual, various waste printed-sheets +(_Maculatur-blatter_), by way of interior wrappage: into these the +Clothes-Philosopher, with a certain Mahometan reverence even for +waste-paper, where curious knowledge will sometimes hover, disdains not +to cast his eye. Readers may judge of his astonishment when on such +a defaced stray-sheet, probably the outcast fraction of some English +Periodical, such as they name _Magazine_, appears something like a +Dissertation on this very subject of _Fashionable Novels_! It sets out, +indeed, chiefly from a Secular point of view; directing itself, not +without asperity, against some to me unknown individual named _Pelham_, +who seems to be a Mystagogue, and leading Teacher and Preacher of the +Sect; so that, what indeed otherwise was not to be expected in such a +fugitive fragmentary sheet, the true secret, the Religious physiognomy +and physiology of the Dandiacal Body, is nowise laid fully open there. +Nevertheless, scattered lights do from time to time sparkle out, whereby +I have endeavored to profit. Nay, in one passage selected from the +Prophecies, or Mythic Theogonies, or whatever they are (for the style +seems very mixed) of this Mystagogue, I find what appears to be a +Confession of Faith, or Whole Duty of Man, according to the tenets of +that Sect. Which Confession or Whole Duty, therefore, as proceeding +from a source so authentic, I shall here arrange under Seven distinct +Articles, and in very abridged shape lay before the German world; +therewith taking leave of this matter. Observe also, that to avoid +possibility of error, I, as far as may be, quote literally from the +Original:-- + +ARTICLES OF FAITH. + +'1. Coats should have nothing of the triangle about them; at the same +time, wrinkles behind should be carefully avoided. + +'2. The collar is a very important point: it should be low behind, and +slightly rolled. + +'3. No license of fashion can allow a man of delicate taste to adopt the +posterial luxuriance of a Hottentot. + +'4. There is safety in a swallow-tail. + +'5. The good sense of a gentleman is nowhere more finely developed than +in his rings. + +'6. It is permitted to mankind, under certain restrictions, to wear +white waistcoats. + +'7. The trousers must be exceedingly tight across the hips.' + +"All which Propositions I, for the present, content myself with modestly +but peremptorily and irrevocably denying. + +"In strange contrast with this Dandiacal Body stands another British +Sect, originally, as I understand, of Ireland, where its chief seat +still is; but known also in the main Island, and indeed everywhere +rapidly spreading. As this Sect has hitherto emitted no Canonical Books, +it remains to me in the same state of obscurity as the Dandiacal, which +has published Books that the unassisted human faculties are inadequate +to read. The members appear to be designated by a considerable diversity +of names, according to their various places of establishment: in England +they are generally called the _Drudge_ Sect; also, unphilosophically +enough, the _White Negroes_; and, chiefly in scorn by those of other +communions, the _Ragged-Beggar_ Sect. In Scotland, again, I find them +entitled _Hallanshakers_, or the _Stook of Duds_ Sect; any individual +communicant is named _Stook of Duds_ (that is, Shock of Rags), in +allusion, doubtless, to their professional Costume. While in Ireland, +which, as mentioned, is their grand parent hive, they go by a perplexing +multiplicity of designations, such as _Bogtrotters, Redshanks, +Ribbonmen, Cottiers, Peep-of-Day Boys, Babes of the Wood, Rockites, +Poor-Slaves_: which last, however, seems to be the primary and generic +name; whereto, probably enough, the others are only subsidiary species, +or slight varieties; or, at most, propagated offsets from the parent +stem, whose minute subdivisions, and shades of difference, it were +here loss of time to dwell on. Enough for us to understand, what seems +indubitable, that the original Sect is that of the _Poor-Slaves_; +whose doctrines, practices, and fundamental characteristics pervade and +animate the whole Body, howsoever denominated or outwardly diversified. + +"The precise speculative tenets of this Brotherhood: how the Universe, +and Man, and Man's Life, picture themselves to the mind of an Irish +Poor-Slave; with what feelings and opinions he looks forward on the +Future, round on the Present, back on the Past, it were extremely +difficult to specify. Something Monastic there appears to be in their +Constitution: we find them bound by the two Monastic Vows, of Poverty +and Obedience; which vows, especially the former, it is said, they +observe with great strictness; nay, as I have understood it, they are +pledged, and be it by any solemn Nazarene ordination or not, irrevocably +consecrated thereto, even _before_ birth. That the third Monastic +Vow, of Chastity, is rigidly enforced among them, I find no ground to +conjecture. + +"Furthermore, they appear to imitate the Dandiacal Sect in their grand +principle of wearing a peculiar Costume. Of which Irish Poor-Slave +Costume no description will indeed be found in the present Volume; for +this reason, that by the imperfect organ of Language it did not seem +describable. Their raiment consists of innumerable skirts, lappets +and irregular wings, of all cloths and of all colors; through the +labyrinthic intricacies of which their bodies are introduced by some +unknown process. It is fastened together by a multiplex combination of +buttons, thrums and skewers; to which frequently is added a girdle of +leather, of hempen or even of straw rope, round the loins. To straw +rope, indeed, they seem partial, and often wear it by way of sandals. +In head-dress they affect a certain freedom: hats with partial brim, +without crown, or with only a loose, hinged, or valve crown; in the +former case, they sometimes invert the hat, and wear it brim uppermost, +like a university-cap, with what view is unknown. + +"The name Poor-Slaves seems to indicate a Slavonic, Polish, or Russian +origin: not so, however, the interior essence and spirit of their +Superstition, which rather displays a Teutonic or Druidical character. +One might fancy them worshippers of Hertha, or the Earth: for they dig +and affectionately work continually in her bosom; or else, shut up in +private Oratories, meditate and manipulate the substances derived from +her; seldom looking up towards the Heavenly Luminaries, and then with +comparative indifference. Like the Druids, on the other hand, they live +in dark dwellings; often even breaking their glass windows, where they +find such, and stuffing them up with pieces of raiment, or other +opaque substances, till the fit obscurity is restored. Again, like all +followers of Nature-Worship, they are liable to out-breakings of an +enthusiasm rising to ferocity; and burn men, if not in wicker idols, yet +in sod cottages. + +"In respect of diet, they have also their observances. All Poor-Slaves +are Rhizophagous (or Root-eaters); a few are Ichthyophagous, and use +Salted Herrings: other animal food they abstain from; except indeed, +with perhaps some strange inverted fragment of a Brahminical feeling, +such animals as die a natural death. Their universal sustenance is the +root named Potato, cooked by fire alone; and generally without condiment +or relish of any kind, save an unknown condiment named _Point_, into +the meaning of which I have vainly inquired; the victual +_Potatoes-and-Point_ not appearing, at least not with specific accuracy +of description, in any European Cookery-Book whatever. For drink, they +use, with an almost epigrammatic counterpoise of taste, Milk, which +is the mildest of liquors, and _Potheen_, which is the fiercest. This +latter I have tasted, as well as the English _Blue-Ruin_, and the Scotch +_Whiskey_, analogous fluids used by the Sect in those countries: +it evidently contains some form of alcohol, in the highest state of +concentration, though disguised with acrid oils; and is, on the whole, +the most pungent substance known to me,--indeed, a perfect liquid +fire. In all their Religious Solemnities, Potheen is said to be an +indispensable requisite, and largely consumed. + +"An Irish Traveller, of perhaps common veracity, who presents himself +under the to me unmeaning title of _The late John Bernard_, offers +the following sketch of a domestic establishment, the inmates whereof, +though such is not stated expressly, appear to have been of that Faith. +Thereby shall my German readers now behold an Irish Poor-Slave, as it +were with their own eyes; and even see him at meat. Moreover, in the +so precious waste-paper sheet above mentioned, I have found some +corresponding picture of a Dandiacal Household, painted by that same +Dandiacal Mystagogue, or Theogonist: this also, by way of counterpart +and contrast, the world shall look into. + +"First, therefore, of the Poor-Slave, who appears likewise to have been +a species of Innkeeper. I quote from the original: + + +POOR-SLAVE HOUSEHOLD. + +"'The furniture of this Caravansera consisted of a large iron Pot, two +oaken Tables, two Benches, two Chairs, and a Potheen Noggin. There was +a Loft above (attainable by a ladder), upon which the inmates slept; and +the space below was divided by a hurdle into two Apartments; the one for +their cow and pig, the other for themselves and guests. On entering the +house we discovered the family, eleven in number, at dinner: the father +sitting at the top, the mother at the bottom, the children on each side, +of a large oaken Board, which was scooped out in the middle, like a +trough, to receive the contents of their Pot of Potatoes. Little holes +were cut at equal distances to contain Salt; and a bowl of Milk stood on +the table: all the luxuries of meat and beer, bread, knives and dishes +were dispensed with.' The Poor-Slave himself our Traveller found, as he +says, broad-backed, black-browed, of great personal strength, and mouth +from ear to ear. His Wife was a sun-browned but well-featured woman; and +his young ones, bare and chubby, had the appetite of ravens. Of their +Philosophical or Religious tenets or observances, no notice or hint. + +"But now, secondly, of the Dandiacal Household; in which, truly, that +often-mentioned Mystagogue and inspired Penman himself has his abode:-- + + +DANDIACAL HOUSEHOLD. + +"'A Dressing-room splendidly furnished; violet-colored curtains, chairs +and ottomans of the same hue. Two full-length Mirrors are placed, one on +each side of a table, which supports the luxuries of the Toilet. Several +Bottles of Perfumes, arranged in a peculiar fashion, stand upon a +smaller table of mother-of-pearl: opposite to these are placed the +appurtenances of Lavation richly wrought in frosted silver. A Wardrobe +of Buhl is on the left; the doors of which, being partly open, discover +a profusion of Clothes; Shoes of a singularly small size monopolize +the lower shelves. Fronting the wardrobe a door ajar gives some slight +glimpse of a Bath-room. Folding-doors in the background.--Enter the +Author,' our Theogonist in person, 'obsequiously preceded by a French +Valet, in white silk Jacket and cambric Apron.' + +"Such are the two Sects which, at this moment, divide the more unsettled +portion of the British People; and agitate that ever-vexed country. To +the eye of the political Seer, their mutual relation, pregnant with +the elements of discord and hostility, is far from consoling. These two +principles of Dandiacal Self-worship or Demon-worship, and Poor-Slavish +or Drudgical Earth-worship, or whatever that same Drudgism may be, do +as yet indeed manifest themselves under distant and nowise considerable +shapes: nevertheless, in their roots and subterranean ramifications, +they extend through the entire structure of Society, and work +unweariedly in the secret depths of English national Existence; striving +to separate and isolate it into two contradictory, uncommunicating +masses. + +"In numbers, and even individual strength, the Poor-Slaves or Drudges, +it would seem, are hourly increasing. The Dandiacal, again, is by nature +no proselytizing Sect; but it boasts of great hereditary resources, and +is strong by union; whereas the Drudges, split into parties, have as yet +no rallying-point; or at best only co-operate by means of partial secret +affiliations. If, indeed, there were to arise a _Communion of Drudges_, +as there is already a Communion of Saints, what strangest effects would +follow therefrom! Dandyism as yet affects to look down on Drudgism: but +perhaps the hour of trial, when it will be practically seen which ought +to look down, and which up, is not so distant. + +"To me it seems probable that the two Sects will one day part England +between them; each recruiting itself from the intermediate ranks, till +there be none left to enlist on either side. Those Dandiacal Manicheans, +with the host of Dandyizing Christians, will form one body: the Drudges, +gathering round them whosoever is Drudgical, be he Christian or Infidel +Pagan; sweeping up likewise all manner of Utilitarians, Radicals, +refractory Pot-wallopers, and so forth, into their general mass, will +form another. I could liken Dandyism and Drudgism to two bottomless +boiling Whirlpools that had broken out on opposite quarters of the firm +land: as yet they appear only disquieted, foolishly bubbling wells, +which man's art might cover in; yet mark them, their diameter is daily +widening: they are hollow Cones that boil up from the infinite Deep, +over which your firm land is but a thin crust or rind! Thus daily is +the intermediate land crumbling in, daily the empire of the two +Buchan-Bullers extending; till now there is but a foot-plank, a mere +film of Land between them; this too is washed away: and then--we have +the true Hell of Waters, and Noah's Deluge is out-deluged! + +"Or better, I might call them two boundless, and indeed unexampled +Electric Machines (turned by the 'Machinery of Society'), with batteries +of opposite quality; Drudgism the Negative, Dandyism the Positive; one +attracts hourly towards it and appropriates all the Positive Electricity +of the nation (namely, the Money thereof); the other is equally busy +with the Negative (that is to say the Hunger), which is equally potent. +Hitherto you see only partial transient sparkles and sputters: but wait +a little, till the entire nation is in an electric state: till your +whole vital Electricity, no longer healthfully Neutral, is cut into two +isolated portions of Positive and Negative (of Money and of Hunger); +and stands there bottled up in two World-Batteries! The stirring of a +child's finger brings the two together; and then--What then? The Earth +is but shivered into impalpable smoke by that Doom's thunder-peal; the +Sun misses one of his Planets in Space, and thenceforth there are no +eclipses of the Moon.--Or better still, I might liken"-- + +Oh, enough, enough of likenings and similitudes; in excess of which, +truly, it is hard to say whether Teufelsdrockh or ourselves sin the +more. + +We have often blamed him for a habit of wire-drawing and over-refining; +from of old we have been familiar with his tendency to Mysticism and +Religiosity, whereby in everything he was still scenting out Religion: +but never perhaps did these amaurosis-suffusions so cloud and distort +his otherwise most piercing vision, as in this of the _Dandiacal Body_! +Or was there something of intended satire; is the Professor and Seer +not quite the blinkard he affects to be? Of an ordinary mortal we should +have decisively answered in the affirmative; but with a Teufelsdrockh +there ever hovers some shade of doubt. In the mean while, if satire were +actually intended, the case is little better. There are not wanting men +who will answer: Does your Professor take us for simpletons? His irony +has overshot itself; we see through it, and perhaps through him. + + + +CHAPTER XI. TAILORS. + +Thus, however, has our first Practical Inference from the +Clothes-Philosophy, that which respects Dandies, been sufficiently +drawn; and we come now to the second, concerning Tailors. On this latter +our opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teufelsdrockh himself, +as expressed in the concluding page of his Volume, to whom, therefore, +we willingly give place. Let him speak his own last words, in his own +way:-- + + +"Upwards of a century," says he, "must elapse, and still the bleeding +fight of Freedom be fought, whoso is noblest perishing in the van, +and thrones be hurled on altars like Pelion on Ossa, and the Moloch +of Iniquity have his victims, and the Michael of Justice his martyrs, +before Tailors can be admitted to their true prerogatives of manhood, +and this last wound of suffering Humanity be closed. + +"If aught in the history of the world's blindness could surprise us, +here might we indeed pause and wonder. An idea has gone abroad, and +fixed itself down into a wide-spreading rooted error, that Tailors are a +distinct species in Physiology, not Men, but fractional Parts of a +Man. Call any one a _Schneider_ (Cutter, Tailor), is it not, in our +dislocated, hoodwinked, and indeed delirious condition of Society, +equivalent to defying his perpetual fellest enmity? The epithet +_schneidermassig_ (tailor-like) betokens an otherwise unapproachable +degree of pusillanimity; we introduce a _Tailor's-Melancholy_, more +opprobrious than any Leprosy, into our Books of Medicine; and fable I +know not what of his generating it by living on Cabbage. Why should I +speak of Hans Sachs (himself a Shoemaker, or kind of Leather-Tailor), +with his _Schneider mit dem Panier_? Why of Shakspeare, in his _Taming +of the Shrew_, and elsewhere? Does it not stand on record that the +English Queen Elizabeth, receiving a deputation of Eighteen Tailors, +addressed them with a 'Good morning, gentlemen both!' Did not the same +virago boast that she had a Cavalry Regiment, whereof neither horse nor +man could be injured; her Regiment, namely, of Tailors on Mares? Thus +everywhere is the falsehood taken for granted, and acted on as an +indisputable fact. + +"Nevertheless, need I put the question to any Physiologist, whether it +is disputable or not? Seems it not at least presumable, that, under his +Clothes, the Tailor has bones and viscera, and other muscles than the +sartorius? Which function of manhood is the Tailor not conjectured +to perform? Can he not arrest for debt? Is he not in most countries a +taxpaying animal? + +"To no reader of this Volume can it be doubtful which conviction is +mine. Nay if the fruit of these long vigils, and almost preternatural +Inquiries, is not to perish utterly, the world will have approximated +towards a higher Truth; and the doctrine, which Swift, with the keen +forecast of genius, dimly anticipated, will stand revealed in clear +light: that the Tailor is not only a Man, but something of a Creator or +Divinity. Of Franklin it was said, that 'he snatched the Thunder from +Heaven and the Sceptre from Kings:' but which is greater, I would ask, +he that lends, or he that snatches? For, looking away from individual +cases, and how a Man is by the Tailor new-created into a Nobleman, and +clothed not only with Wool but with Dignity and a Mystic Dominion,--is +not the fair fabric of Society itself, with all its royal mantles and +pontifical stoles, whereby, from nakedness and dismemberment, we are +organized into Polities, into nations, and a whole co-operating Mankind, +the creation, as has here been often irrefragably evinced, of the Tailor +alone?--What too are all Poets and moral Teachers, but a species of +Metaphorical Tailors? Touching which high Guild the greatest living +Guild-brother has triumphantly asked us: 'Nay if thou wilt have it, +who but the Poet first made Gods for men; brought them down to us; and +raised us up to them?' + +"And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the hard basis of his +Shopboard, the world treats with contumely, as the ninth part of a man! +Look up, thou much-injured one, look up with the kindling eye of hope, +and prophetic bodings of a noble better time. Too long hast thou sat +there, on crossed legs, wearing thy ankle-joints to horn; like some +sacred Anchorite, or Catholic Fakir, doing penance, drawing down +Heaven's richest blessings, for a world that scoffed at thee. Be of +hope! Already streaks of blue peer through our clouds; the thick gloom +of Ignorance is rolling asunder, and it will be Day. Mankind will +repay with interest their long-accumulated debt: the Anchorite that was +scoffed at will be worshipped; the Fraction will become not an Integer +only, but a Square and Cube. With astonishment the world will recognize +that the Tailor is its Hierophant and Hierarch, or even its God. + +"As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and looked upon these +Four-and-Twenty Tailors, sewing and embroidering that rich Cloth, which +the Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I thought within myself: +How many other Unholies has your covering Art made holy, besides this +Arabian Whinstone! + +"Still more touching was it when, turning the corner of a lane, in +the Scottish Town of Edinburgh, I came upon a Signpost, whereon stood +written that such and such a one was 'Breeches-Maker to his Majesty;' +and stood painted the Effigies of a Pair of Leather Breeches, and +between the knees these memorable words, SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. Was not +this the martyr prison-speech of a Tailor sighing indeed in bonds, yet +sighing towards deliverance, and prophetically appealing to a better +day? A day of justice, when the worth of Breeches would be revealed to +man, and the Scissors become forever venerable. + +"Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal been altogether in +vain. It was in this high moment, when the soul, rent, as it were, and +shed asunder, is open to inspiring influence, that I first conceived +this Work on Clothes: the greatest I can ever hope to do; which has +already, after long retardations, occupied, and will yet occupy, so +large a section of my Life; and of which the Primary and simpler Portion +may here find its conclusion." + + + +CHAPTER XII. FAREWELL. + +So have we endeavored, from the enormous, amorphous Plum-pudding, more +like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdrockh had kneaded for +his fellow-mortals, to pick out the choicest Plums, and present them +separately on a cover of our own. A laborious, perhaps a thankless +enterprise; in which, however, something of hope has occasionally +cheered us, and of which we can now wash our hands not altogether +without satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morsel +of spiritual nourishment have been added to the scanty ration of our +beloved British world, what nobler recompense could the Editor desire? +If it prove otherwise, why should he murmur? Was not this a Task which +Destiny, in any case, had appointed him; which having now done with, he +sees his general Day's-work so much the lighter, so much the shorter? + + +Of Professor Teufelsdrockh, it seems impossible to take leave without +a mingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude, and disapproval. Who will +not regret that talents, which might have profited in the higher +walks of Philosophy, or in Art itself, have been so much devoted to a +rummaging among lumber-rooms; nay too often to a scraping in kennels, +where lost rings and diamond-necklaces are nowise the sole conquests? +Regret is unavoidable; yet censure were loss of time. To cure him of his +mad humors British Criticism would essay in vain: enough for her if she +can, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among ourselves. What +a result, should this piebald, entangled, hyper-metaphorical style of +writing, not to say of thinking, become general among our Literary men! +As it might so easily do. Thus has not the Editor himself, working over +Teufelsdrockh's German, lost much of his own English purity? Even as +the smaller whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and made to whirl along +with it, so has the lesser mind, in this instance, been forced to become +portion of the greater, and, like it, see all things figuratively: which +habit time and assiduous effort will be needed to eradicate. + +Nevertheless, wayward as our Professor shows himself, is there any +reader that can part with him in declared enmity? Let us confess, there +is that in the wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting man, which almost +attaches us. His attitude, we will hope and believe, is that of a man +who had said to Cant, Begone; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst not +be; and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me: a man who had +manfully defied the "Time-Prince," or Devil, to his face; nay perhaps, +Hannibal-like, was mysteriously consecrated from birth to that warfare, +and now stood minded to wage the same, by all weapons, in all places, +at all times. In such a cause, any soldier, were he but a Polack +Scythe-man, shall be welcome. + +Still the question returns on us: How could a man occasionally of keen +insight, not without keen sense of propriety, who had real Thoughts to +communicate, resolve to emit them in a shape bordering so closely on the +absurd? Which question he were wiser than the present Editor who should +satisfactorily answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been, that +perhaps Necessity as well as Choice was concerned in it. Seems it +not conceivable that, in a Life like our Professor's, where so much +bountifully given by Nature had in Practice failed and misgone, +Literature also would never rightly prosper: that striving with his +characteristic vehemence to paint this and the other Picture, and ever +without success, he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of all +colors, against the canvas, to try whether it will paint Foam? With all +his stillness, there were perhaps in Teufelsdrockh desperation enough +for this. + +A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is, that +Teufelsdrockh, is not without some touch of the universal feeling, a +wish to proselytize. How often already have we paused, uncertain whether +the basis of this so enigmatic nature were really Stoicism and Despair, +or Love and Hope only seared into the figure of these! Remarkable, +moreover, is this saying of his: "How were Friendship possible? In +mutual devotedness to the Good and True: otherwise impossible; except +as Armed Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. A man, be the Heavens +ever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, united in +Love, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand singly would fail +in. Infinite is the help man can yield to man." And now in conjunction +therewith consider this other: "It is the Night of the World, and still +long till it be Day: we wander amid the glimmer of smoking ruins, and +the Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as if blotted out for a season; +and two immeasurable Phantoms, HYPOCRISY and ATHEISM, with the Ghoul, +SENSUALITY, stalk abroad over the Earth, and call it theirs: well at +ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream." + +But what of the awe-struck Wakeful who find it a Reality? Should not +these unite; since even an authentic Spectre is not visible to Two?--In +which case were this Enormous Clothes-Volume properly an enormous +Pitch-pan, which our Teufelsdrockh in his lone watch-tower had +kindled, that it might flame far and wide through the Night, and many +a disconsolately wandering spirit be guided thither to a Brother's +bosom!--We say as before, with all his malign Indifference, who knows +what mad Hopes this man may harbor? + +Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmonizes ill with +such conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdrockh made like other +men, might as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while the +Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it; that +no pilgrim could now ask him: Watchman, what of the Night? Professor +Teufelsdrockh, be it known, is no longer visibly present at +Weissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in space! Some time ago, +the Hofrath Heuschrecke was pleased to favor us with another copious +Epistle; wherein much is said about the "Population-Institute;" much +repeated in praise of the Paper-bag Documents, the hieroglyphic nature +of which our Hofrath still seems not to have surmised; and, lastly, +the strangest occurrence communicated, to us for the first time, in the +following paragraph:-- + +"_Ew. Wohlgeboren_ will have seen from the Public Prints, with what +affectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo regards the +disappearance of her Sage. Might but the united voice of Germany prevail +on him to return; nay could we but so much as elucidate for ourselves +by what mystery he went away! But, alas, old Lieschen experiences or +affects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance: in the +Wahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up; the Privy Council itself +can hitherto elicit no answer. + +"It had been remarked that while the agitating news of those +Parisian Three Days flew from mouth to month, and dinned every ear +in Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdrockh was not known, at the _Gans_ or +elsewhere, to have spoken, for a whole week, any syllable except once +these three: _Es geht an_ (It is beginning). Shortly after, as _Ew. +Wohlgeboren_ knows, was the public tranquillity here, as in +Berlin, threatened by a Sedition of the Tailors. Nor did there want +Evil-wishers, or perhaps mere desperate Alarmists, who asserted that the +closing Chapter of the Clothes-Volume was to blame. In this appalling +crisis, the serenity of our Philosopher was indescribable: nay, perhaps +through one humble individual, something thereof might pass into the +_Rath_ (Council) itself, and so contribute to the country's deliverance. +The Tailors are now entirely pacificated.-- + +"To neither of these two incidents can I attribute our loss: yet still +comes there the shadow of a suspicion out of Paris and its Politics. For +example, when the _Saint-Simonian Society_ transmitted its Propositions +hither, and the whole _Gans_ was one vast cackle of laughter, +lamentation and astonishment, our Sage sat mute; and at the end of the +third evening said merely: 'Here also are men who have discovered, not +without amazement, that Man is still Man; of which high, long-forgotten +Truth you already see them make a false application.' Since then, as has +been ascertained by examination of the Post-Director, there passed at +least one Letter with its Answer between the Messieurs Bazard-Enfantin +and our Professor himself; of what tenor can now only be conjectured. On +the fifth night following, he was seen for the last time! + +"Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the hostile Sects that +convulse our Era, been spirited away by certain of their emissaries; or +did he go forth voluntarily to their head-quarters to confer with them, +and confront them? Reason we have, at least of a negative sort, to +believe the Lost still living; our widowed heart also whispers that ere +long he will himself give a sign. Otherwise, indeed, his archives must, +one day, be opened by Authority; where much, perhaps the _Palingenesie_ +itself, is thought to be reposited." + + +Thus far the Hofrath; who vanishes, as is his wont, too like an Ignis +Fatuus, leaving the dark still darker. + +So that Teufelsdrockh's public History were not done, then, or reduced +to an even, unromantic tenor; nay, perhaps the better part thereof were +only beginning? We stand in a region of conjectures, where substance has +melted into shadow, and one cannot be distinguished from the other. May +Time, which solves or suppresses all problems, throw glad light on this +also! Our own private conjecture, now amounting almost to certainty, is +that, safe-moored in some stillest obscurity, not to lie always still, +Teufelsdrockh, is actually in London! + +Here, however, can the present Editor, with an ambrosial joy as of +over-weariness falling into sleep, lay down his pen. Well does he know, +if human testimony be worth aught, that to innumerable British readers +likewise, this is a satisfying consummation; that innumerable British +readers consider him, during these current months, but as an uneasy +interruption to their ways of thought and digestion; and indicate so +much, not without a certain irritancy and even spoken invective. For +which, as for other mercies, ought not he to thank the Upper Powers? To +one and all of you, O irritated readers, he, with outstretched arms and +open heart, will wave a kind farewell. Thou too, miraculous Entity, +who namest thyself YORKE and OLIVER, and with thy vivacities and +genialities, with thy all too Irish mirth and madness, and odor of +palled punch, makest such strange work, farewell; long as thou canst, +_fare-well_! Have we not, in the course of Eternity, travelled some +months of our Life-journey in partial sight of one another; have we not +existed together, though in a state of quarrel? + + + + +APPENDIX. + +This questionable little Book was undoubtedly written among the mountain +solitudes, in 1831; but, owing to impediments natural and accidental, +could not, for seven years more, appear as a Volume in England;--and had +at last to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit by +bit, in some courageous _Magazine_ that offered. Whereby now, to +certain idly curious readers, and even to myself till I make study, the +insignificant but at last irritating question, What its real history and +chronology are, is, if not insoluble, considerably involved in haze. + +To the first English Edition, 1838, which an American, or two American +had now opened the way for, there was slightingly prefixed, under the +title, "_Testimonies of Authors_," some straggle of real documents, +which, now that I find it again, sets the matter into clear light and +sequence:--and shall here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks and +nugatory guessings from the path of every reader, be reprinted as it +stood. (_Author's Note, of_ 1868.) + + +TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. + +I. HIGHEST CLASS, BOOKSELLER'S TASTER. + +_Taster to Bookseller_.--"The Author of _Teufelsdrockh_ is a person of +talent; his work displays here and there some felicity of thought and +expression, considerable fancy and knowledge: but whether or not it +would take with the public seems doubtful. For a _jeu d'esprit_ of that +kind it is too long; it would have suited better as an essay or article +than as a volume. The Author has no great tact; his wit is frequently +heavy; and reminds one of the German Baron who took to leaping on +tables and answered that he was learning to be lively. _Is_ the work a +translation?" + +_Bookseller to Editor_.--"Allow me to say that such a writer requires +only a little more tact to produce a popular as well as an able work. +Directly on receiving your permission, I sent your MS. to a gentleman in +the highest class of men of letters, and an accomplished German scholar: +I now enclose you his opinion, which, you may rely upon it, is a just +one; and I have too high an opinion of your good sense to" &c. &c.--_Ms. +(penes nos), London, 17th September_, 1831. + + +II. CRITIC OF THE SUN. + +"_Fraser's Magazine_ exhibits the usual brilliancy, and also the" &c. + +"_Sartor Resartus_ is what old Dennis used to call 'a heap of clotted +nonsense,' mixed however, here and there, with passages marked by +thought and striking poetic vigor. But what does the writer mean by +'Baphometic fire-baptism'? Why cannot he lay aside his pedantry, and +write so as to make himself generally intelligible? We quote by way +of curiosity a sentence from the _Sartor Resartus_; which may be read +either backwards or forwards, for it is equally intelligible either +way: indeed, by beginning at the tail, and so working up to the head, +we think the reader will stand the fairest chance of getting at its +meaning: 'The fire-baptized soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven, +here feels its own freedom; which feeling is its Baphometic baptism: +the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus gained by assault, and +will keep inexpugnable; outwards from which the remaining dominions, not +indeed without hard battering, will doubtless by degrees be conquered +and pacificated.' Here is a"...--_Sun Newspaper, 1st April_, 1834. + + +III. NORTH--AMERICAN REVIEWER. + +... "After a careful survey of the whole ground, our belief is that no +such persons as Professors Teufelsdrockh or Counsellor Heuschrecke ever +existed; that the six Paper-bags, with their China-ink inscriptions +and multifarious contents, are a mere figment of the brain; that the +'present Editor' is the only person who has ever written upon the +Philosophy of Clothes; and that the _Sartor Resartus_ is the only +treatise that has yet appeared upon that subject;--in short, that the +whole account of the origin of the work before us, which the supposed +Editor relates with so much gravity, and of which we have given a brief +abstract, is, in plain English, a _hum_. + +"Without troubling our readers at any great length with our reasons for +entertaining these suspicions, we may remark, that the absence of all +other information on the subject, except what is contained in the work, +is itself a fact of a most significant character. The whole German +press, as well as the particular one where the work purports to have +been printed, seems to be under the control of _Stillschweigen and Co. +_--Silence and Company. If the Clothes-Philosophy and its author are +making so great a sensation throughout Germany as is pretended, how +happens it that the only notice we have of the fact is contained in a +few numbers of a monthly Magazine published at London! How happens it +that no intelligence about the matter has come out directly to this +country? We pique ourselves here in New England upon knowing at least +as much of what is going on in the literary way in the old Dutch +Mother-land as our brethren of the fast-anchored Isle; but thus far +we have no tidings whatever of the 'extensive close-printed, +close-meditated volume,' which forms the subject of this pretended +commentary. Again, we would respectfully inquire of the 'present Editor' +upon what part of the map of Germany we are to look for the city of +_Weissnichtwo_--'Know-not-where'--at which place the work is supposed +to have been printed, and the Author to have resided. It has been +our fortune to visit several portions of the German territory, and to +examine pretty carefully, at different times and for various purposes, +maps of the whole; but we have no recollection of any such place. We +suspect that the city of _Know-not-where_ might be called, with at +least as much propriety, _Nobody-knows-where_, and is to be +found in the kingdom of _Nowhere_. Again, the village of +_Entepfuhl_--'Duck-pond'--where the supposed Author of the work is said +to have passed his youth, and that of _Hinterschlag_, where he had his +education, are equally foreign to our geography. Duck-ponds enough there +undoubtedly are in almost every village in Germany, as the traveller +in that country knows too well to his cost, but any particular village +denominated Duck-pond is to us altogether _terra incognita_. The names +of the personages are not less singular than those of the places. +Who can refrain from a smile at the yoking together of such a pair of +appellatives as Diogenes Teufelsdrockh? The supposed bearer of +this strange title is represented as admitting, in his pretended +autobiography, that 'he had searched to no purpose through all the +Heralds' books in and without the German empire, and through all manner +of Subscribers'-lists, Militia-rolls, and other Name-catalogues,' +but had nowhere been able to find 'the name Teufelsdrockh, except as +appended to his own person.' We can readily believe this, and we doubt +very much whether any Christian parent would think of condemning a +son to carry through life the burden of so unpleasant a title. That of +Counsellor Heuschrecke--'Grasshopper'--though not offensive, looks much +more like a piece of fancy-work than a 'fair business transaction.' +The same may be said of _Blumine_--'Flower-Goddess'--the heroine of the +fable; and so of the rest. + +"In short, our private opinion is, as we have remarked, that the +whole story of a correspondence with Germany, a university of +Nobody-knows-where, a Professor of Things in General, a Counsellor +Grasshopper, a Flower-Goddess Blumine, and so forth, has about as +much foundation in truth as the late entertaining account of Sir John +Herschel's discoveries in the moon. Fictions of this kind are, however, +not uncommon, and ought not, perhaps, to be condemned with too much +severity; but we are not sure that we can exercise the same indulgence +in regard to the attempt, which seems to be made to mislead the public +as to the substance of the work before us, and its pretended German +original. Both purport, as we have seen, to be upon the subject of +Clothes, or dress. _Clothes, their Origin and Influence_, is the title +of the supposed German treatise of Professor Teufelsdrockh and the +rather odd name of _Sartor Resartus_--the Tailor Patched--which the +present Editor has affixed to his pretended commentary, seems to look +the same way. But though there is a good deal of remark throughout the +work in a half-serious, half-comic style upon dress, it seems to be in +reality a treatise upon the great science of Things in General, which +Teufelsdrockh, is supposed to have professed at the university of +Nobody-knows-where. Now, without intending to adopt a too rigid standard +of morals, we own that we doubt a little the propriety of offering to +the public a treatise on Things in General, under the name and in the +form of an Essay on Dress. For ourselves, advanced as we unfortunately +are in the journey of life, far beyond the period when dress is +practically a matter of interest, we have no hesitation in saying, +that the real subject of the work is to us more attractive than the +ostensible one. But this is probably not the case with the mass of +readers. To the younger portion of the community, which constitutes +everywhere the very great majority, the subject of dress is one of +intense and paramount importance. An author who treats it appeals, like +the poet, to the young men end maddens--_virginibus puerisque_--and +calls upon them, by all the motives which habitually operate most +strongly upon their feelings, to buy his book. When, after opening their +purses for this purpose, they have carried home the work in triumph, +expecting to find in it some particular instruction in regard to the +tying of their neckcloths, or the cut of their corsets, and meet with +nothing better than a dissertation on Things in General, they +will--to use the mildest term--not be in very good humor. If the last +improvements in legislation, which we have made in this country, should +have found their way to England, the author, we think, would stand +some chance of being _Lynched_. Whether his object in this piece +of _supercherie_ be merely pecuniary profit, or whether he takes a +malicious pleasure in quizzing the Dandies, we shall not undertake to +say. In the latter part of the work, he devotes a separate chapter to +this class of persons, from the tenor of which we should be disposed +to conclude, that he would consider any mode of divesting them of their +property very much in the nature of a spoiling of the Egyptians. + +"The only thing about the work, tending to prove that it is what it +purports to be, a commentary on a real German treatise, is the style, +which is a sort of Babylonish dialect, not destitute, it is true, of +richness, vigor, and at times a sort of singular felicity of expression, +but very strongly tinged throughout with the peculiar idiom of the +German language. This quality in the style, however, may be a mere +result of a great familiarity with German literature; and we cannot, +therefore, look upon it as in itself decisive, still less as outweighing +so much evidence of an opposite character."--_North-American Review, No. +89, October_, 1835. + + +IV. NEW ENGLAND EDITORS. + +"The Editors have been induced, by the expressed desire of many persons, +to collect the following sheets out of the ephemeral pamphlets [*] in +which they first appeared, under the conviction that they contain in +themselves the assurance of a longer date. + + * _Fraser's_ (London) _Magazine_, 1833-34. + +"The Editors have no expectation that this little Work will have a +sudden and general popularity. They will not undertake, as there is no +need, to justify the gay costume in which the Author delights to +dress his thoughts, or the German idioms with which he has sportively +sprinkled his pages. It is his humor to advance the gravest speculations +upon the gravest topics in a quaint and burlesque style. If his +masquerade offend any of his audience, to that degree that they will not +hear what he has to say, it may chance to draw others to listen to his +wisdom; and what work of imagination can hope to please all! But we will +venture to remark that the distaste excited by these peculiarities in +some readers is greatest at first, and is soon forgotten; and that the +foreign dress and aspect of the Work are quite superficial, and cover +a genuine Saxon heart. We believe, no book has been published for many +years, written in a more sincere style of idiomatic English, or which +discovers an equal mastery over all the riches of the language. The +Author makes ample amends for the occasional eccentricity of his genius, +not only by frequent bursts of pure splendor, but by the wit and sense +which never fail him. + +"But what will chiefly commend the Book to the discerning reader is the +manifest design of the work, which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit of +the Age--we had almost said, of the hour--in which we live; exhibiting +in the most just and novel light the present aspects of Religion, +Politics, Literature, Arts, and Social Life. Under all his gayety +the Writer has an earnest meaning, and discovers an insight into the +manifold wants and tendencies of human nature, which is very rare among +our popular authors. The philanthropy and the purity of moral sentiment, +which inspire the work, will find their way to the heart of every lover +of virtue."--_Preface to Sartor Resartus: Boston_, 1835, 1837. + + +SUNT, FUERUNT VEL FUERE. + +LONDON, 30th June, 1838. + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: All spelling and punctuation was kept as in the +printed text. Italicized phrases are delimited by _underscores_. +Footnotes (there are only four) have been placed at the ends of the +paragraphs referencing them. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sartor Resartus, by Thomas Carlyle + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARTOR RESARTUS *** + +***** This file should be named 1051.txt or 1051.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/1051/ + +Produced by Ron Burkey + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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