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\title{Sartor Resartus, by Thomas Carlyle}

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\title{Sartor Resartus\\
{\large The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh}}


\author{Thomas Carlyle}

\maketitle
\vspace*{\stretch{1}}

\noindent This public-domain (U.S.) text was scanned and proofed by
Ron Burkey. The Project Gutenberg edition ({}``srtrs10'') was subsequently
converted to \LaTeX{} using \textbf{GutenMark} software and re-edited
with \textbf{lyx} software. The frontispiece, which was not included
in the Project Gutenberg edition, has been restored. Report problems
to info@sandroid.org. Revision B1 differs from B0a in that {}``----''
has everywhere been replaced by {}``---''.

\noindent \begin{center}Revision: B1\\
Date: 01/29/2008\end{center}

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\frontmatter

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\mainmatter



\part*{BOOK I}

\addcontentsline{toc}{part}{BOOK I.}


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER I.\\
PRELIMINARY.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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,\mbox{---}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, \textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{a Clothed Animal}; whereas he is by nature
a \textit{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 \textit{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, \begin{flushleft}\begin{verse}\footnotesize

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``By geometric scale\\*

Doth take the size of pots of ale;'' 

\end{verse}\end{flushleft} 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;\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh 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.

{}``\textit{Die Kleider, ihr Werden und Wirken} (Clothes, their Origin
and Influence): \textit{von Diog. Teufelsdröckh, J.\ U.\ D.\ etc.
Still\-schweigen und Cognie. Weissnichtwo}, 1831.

{}``Here,'' says the \textit{Weissnichtwo'sche An\-zeig\-er},
{}``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\ldots{}.
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 (\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh
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: \textit{Mochte es} (this remarkable Treatise)
\textit{auch im Brittischen Boden gedeihen}!


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER II. EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER II.\\
EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 Teufelsdröckh'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
Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh
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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh {}``were undoubtedly welcome to
the \textit{Family}, the \textit{National}, or any other of those
patriotic \textit{Libraries}, at present the glory of British Literature;''
might work revolutions in Thought; and so forth;\mbox{---}in conclusion,
intimating not obscurely, that should the present Editor feel disposed
to undertake a Biography of Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{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 \textit{Sartor Resartus}, which is properly
a {}``Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh,'' 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:%
\footnote{\textit{\emph{With us even he still communicates in some sort of mask,
or muffler; and, we have reason to think, under a feigned name!\mbox{---}O.
Y.}} %
} it is a voice publishing tidings of the Philosophy of Clothes; undoubtedly
a Spirit addressing Spirits: whoso hath ears, let him hear.

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 Teufelsdröckh'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 Teufelsdröckh, 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?
\textit{Amicus Plato, magis amica veritas}; Teufelsdröckh 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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{No cheating
here},\mbox{---}we thought it good to premise.


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER III. REMINISCENCES.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER III.\\
REMINISCENCES.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{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 \textit{Gukguk},%
\footnote{\textit{\emph{Gukguk is unhappily only an academical-beer.}} %
} and for a moment lowering his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full Coffee-house
(it was \textit{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: \textit{Die Sache der Armen in Gottes
und Teufels Namen} (The Cause of the Poor, in Heaven's name and \mbox{------}'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. \textit{Bleibt doch ein echter Spass}- \textit{und
Galgen-vogel}, said several; meaning thereby that, one day, he would
probably be hanged for his democratic sentiments.\  \textit{Wo steckt
doch der Schalk}?\ added they, looking round: but Teufelsdröckh had
retired by private alleys, and the Compiler of these pages beheld
him no more.

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
Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh
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, \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh,
{}``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 (\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh, except by his nightly appearances at the \textit{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, Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{Orte} or as the Scotch say,
and we ought to say, \textit{Airts}: the sitting room itself commanded
three; another came to view in the \textit{Schlafgemach} (bedroom)
at the opposite end; to say nothing of the kitchen, which offered
two, as it were, \textit{duplicates}, showing nothing new. So that
it was in fact the speculum or watch-tower of Teufelsdröckh; 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
(\textit{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? \textit{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.''

{}``\textit{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,\mbox{---}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, \textit{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 \textit{Rabenstein}?\mbox{---}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.\mbox{---}
All these heaped and huddled together, with nothing but a little carpentry
and masonry between them;\mbox{---}crammed in, like salted fish in
their barrel;\mbox{---}or weltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian
pitcher of tamed vipers, each struggling to get its \textit{head above}
the others: \textit{such} work goes on under that smoke-counterpane!\mbox{---}But
I, \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh; only some once in the month
she half-forcibly made her way thither, with broom and duster, and
(Teufelsdröckh hastily saving his manuscripts) effected a partial
clearance, a jail-delivery of such lumber as was not Literary. These
were her \textit{Erdbeben} (earthquakes), which Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh, and Teufelsdröckh 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,\mbox{---}it might have seemed wonderful
how Herr Heuschrecke should be named a \textit{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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh's outline,
who indeed handled the burin like few in these cases, was probably
the best: \textit{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.''\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh,
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 Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh 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, \textit{Bravo!
Das glaub' ich}; in either case, by way of heartiest approval. In
short, if Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh,
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 \textit{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, Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh, to his opinions,
namely, on the {}``Origin and Influence of Clothes,'' we for the
present gladly return.


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER IV. CHARACTERISTICS.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IV.\\
CHARACTERISTICS.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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,\mbox{---}a mixture of insight, inspiration,
with dulness, double-vision, and even utter blindness.

Without committing ourselves to those enthusiastic praises and prophesyings
of the \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh'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 Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh maintains, that {}``within the most starched
cravat there passes a windpipe and weasand, and under the thickliest
embroidered waistcoat beats a heart,''\mbox{---}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.\mbox{---}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 \textit{Sanchoniathon} to \textit{Dr.\ Lingard},
from your Oriental \textit{Shasters}, and \textit{Talmuds}, and \textit{Korans},
with Cassini's \textit{Siamese fables}, and Laplace's \textit{Mecanique
Celeste}, down to \textit{Robinson Crusoe} and the \textit{Belfast
Town and Country Almanack}, are familiar to him,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, 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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh! Here, however, we gladly recall to mind that
once we saw him \textit{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 \textit{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,\mbox{---}tears
streaming down his cheeks, pipe held aloft, foot clutched into the
air,\mbox{---}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, Teufelsdröckh, 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 Teufelsdröckh 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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER V. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER V.\\
THE WORLD IN CLOTHES.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{THE WORLD IN CLOTHES}

{}``As Montesquieu wrote a \textit{Spirit of Laws},'' observes our
Professor, {}``so could I write a \textit{Spirit of Clothes}; thus,
with an \textit{Esprit des Lois}, properly an \textit{Esprit de Coutumes},
we should have an \textit{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,\mbox{---}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?\mbox{---}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 \textit{here}, to wear and obey anything!\mbox{---}
Much, therefore, if not the whole, of that same \textit{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, Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{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,''\mbox{---}very needlessly,
we think. On this portion of the Work, with its profound glances into
the \textit{Adam-Kadmon}, or Primeval Element, here strangely brought
into relation with the \textit{Nifl} and \textit{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, Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{Orbis Pictus}) an \textit{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 \textit{Gallia
Braccata} indicates, are the more ancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyke
tippets, ruffs, fardingales, are brought vividly before us,\mbox{---}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 (\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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,\mbox{---}sick of lugging his slow Ox
about the country till he got it bartered for corn or oil,\mbox{---}to
take a piece of Leather, and thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure
of an Ox (or \textit{Pecus}); put it in his pocket, and call it \textit{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,\mbox{---}to the length of sixpence.\mbox{---}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 (\textit{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 (\textit{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? Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh, 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, \textit{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, \textit{Make this nation
toil for us, bleed for us, hunger and, sorrow and sin for us}; and
they do it.''


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER VI. APRONS.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VI.\\
APRONS.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{APRONS}

One of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Volume is that
on \textit{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,\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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 (\textit{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 (\textit{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.''\mbox{---}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.\mbox{---}Teufelsdröckh
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,\mbox{---}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!''\mbox{---}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 \textit{Satan's Invisible World Displayed};
which, however, by search in all the Weissnichtwo Libraries, I have
not yet succeeded in procuring (\textit{vermochte night aufzutreiben}).''

Thus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus does Teufelsdröckh,
wandering in regions where he had little business, confound the old
authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, spurious, imaginary
Historian of the \textit{Brittische Journalistik}; and so stumble
on perhaps the most egregious blunder in Modern Literature!


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER VII. MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VII.\\
MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 \textit{On Ancient Armor}? Take, by way of example,
the following sketch; as authority for which Paulinus's \textit{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,\mbox{---}I
shall here say nothing: the civil and pacific classes, less touched
upon, are wonderful enough for us.

{}``Rich men, I find, have \textit{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 (\textit{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 (\textit{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 (\textit{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
(\textit{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 (\textit{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 (\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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:\mbox{---}

{}``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,\mbox{---}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.''\mbox{---}Has
Teufelsdröckh, 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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER VIII. THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VIII.\\
THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES}

If in the Descriptive-Historical portion of this Volume, Teufelsdröckh,
discussing merely the \textit{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 \textit{Wirken},
or Influences. It is here that thc 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! Teufelsdröckh 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?\mbox{---}As exordium to the whole, stand here the
following long citation:\mbox{---}

{}``With men of a speculative turn,'' writes Teufelsdröckh, {}``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' (\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{me}? A Voice, a Motion, an Appearance;\mbox{---}some
embodied, visualized Idea in the Eternal Mind? \textit{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.\  \textit{The
whole is greater than the part}: how exceedingly true! \textit{Nature
abhors a vacuum}: how exceedingly false and calumnious! Again, \textit{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 \textit{is} no Space and no Time: WE are\mbox{---}we know not
what;\mbox{---}light-sparkles floating in the ether of Deity!

{}``So that this so solid-seeming World, after all, were but an air-image,
our \textit{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 \textit{Faust}
names it, \textit{the living visible Garment of God}:\mbox{---}\begin{flushleft}\addtolength{\parindent}{0.15in}\footnotesize\ \\

`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,\\*

\mbox{And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.'}\\

\ 

\end{flushleft} Of twenty millions that have read and spouted this thunder-speech
of the \textit{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\mbox{---}good Heaven!\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 \textit{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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER IX. ADAMITISM.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IX.\\
ADAMITISM.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 Teufelsdröckh, 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,\mbox{---}forests sounding and creaking,
deep calling unto deep,\mbox{---}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?\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh 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, Teufelsdröckh,
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:\mbox{---}

{}``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 \textit{Nothing
can act but where it is}? Red has no physical hold of Blue, no \textit{clutch}
of him, is nowise in \textit{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
\textit{Man is a Spirit}, and bound by invisible bonds to \textit{All
Men}; secondly, that \textit{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?\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}on
a sudden, as by some enchanter's wand, the\mbox{---}shall I speak
it?\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, with a devilish
coolness, goes on to draw:\mbox{---}

{}``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? \textit{Ach Gott}! How each skulks
into the nearest hiding-place; their high State Tragedy (\textit{Haupt-
und Staats-Action}) becomes a Pickleherring-Farce to weep at, which
is the worst kind of Farce; \textit{the tables} (according to Horace),
and with them, the whole fabric of Government, Legislation, Property,
Police, and Civilized Society, \textit{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\mbox{---}\textit{infandum!}\ \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh, 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 Teufelsdröckh,
{}``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 \textit{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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER X. PURE REASON.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER X.\\
PURE REASON.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh; {}``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, \textit{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:\mbox{---}

{}``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 Teufelsdröckh; 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,\mbox{---}there is that within which unspeakably
distinguishes him from all other past and present Sansculottists.
The grand unparalleled peculiarity of Teufelsdröckh 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;\mbox{---}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:\mbox{---}

{}``The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes, or
even with armed eyesight, till they become \textit{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 \textit{in partibus infidelium}.''
That progress of Science, which is to destroy Wonder, and in its stead
substitute Mensuration and Numeration, finds small favor with Teufelsdröckh,
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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh 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:\mbox{---}

{}``The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and
worship), were he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried
the whole \textit{Mecanique Celeste} and \textit{Hegel's Philosophy},
and the epitome of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results,
in his single head,\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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?\mbox{---}\textit{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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER XI. PROSPECTIVE.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XI.\\
PROSPECTIVE.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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:\mbox{---}

{}``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 \textit{god} only by tradition, knowest thou any
corner of the world where at least \textit{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 (\textit{nachtende})
moor, where the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest
to replace thy lost horse-shoe,\mbox{---}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 Schwarz\-wald 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 \textit{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 \textit{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,\mbox{---}then are Metaphors its muscles
and tissues and living integuments. An unmetaphorical style you shall
in vain seek for: is not your very \textit{Attention} a \textit{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
(\textit{Putz-Mantel}), and tawdry woollen rags: whereof he that runs
and reads may gather whole hampers,\mbox{---}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:\mbox{---}

{}``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,\mbox{---}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 (\textit{Verstand}) alone, no Life-Philosophy
(\textit{Lebensphilosophie}), such as this of Clothes pretends to
be, which originates equally in the Character (\textit{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
(\textit{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\ldots{}. 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?\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh's Biography? The great Herr Minister von Goethe
has penetratingly remarked that Man is properly the \textit{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 (\textit{menschlich-anekdotisch}).
Biography is by nature the most universally profitable, universally
pleasant of all things: especially Biography of distinguished individuals.

{}``By this time, \textit{mein Verehrtester} (my Most Esteemed),''
continues he, with an eloquence which, unless the words be purloined
from Teufelsdröckh, or some trick of his, as we suspect, is well-nigh
unaccountable, {}``by this time you are fairly plunged (\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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;\mbox{---}good Heaven!\ how did he comport
him\-self 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, \textit{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 (\textit{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\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh's scarce legible \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{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.


\part*{BOOK II.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{part}{BOOK II.}


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER I. GENESIS.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER I.\\
GENESIS.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 \textit{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 (\textit{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, `\textit{Schweig
Hund} (Peace, hound)!'\ before any of his staff-adjutants could answer.
`\textit{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 (\textit{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 (\textit{Geradheit}); that understood Busching's \textit{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 (\textit{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: \textit{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 \textit{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 TEUFELSDR\"{O}CKH, 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 (\textit{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\ldots{}.

{}``The little green veil,'' adds he, among much similar moralizing,
and embroiled discoursing, {}``I yet keep; still more inseparably
the Name, Diogenes Teufelsdröckh. 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 (\textit{Pranumeranten}), Militia-Rolls,
and other Name-catalogues; extraordinary names as we have in Germany,
the name Teufelsdröckh, 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 (\textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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?\mbox{---}In a very plain sense
the Proverb says, \textit{Call one a thief, and he will steal}; in
an almost similar sense may we not perhaps say, \textit{Call one Diogenes
Teufelsdröckh, 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\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh'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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER II. IDYLLIC.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER II.\\
IDYLLIC.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{IDYLLIC}

{}``\textit{Happy} season of Childhood!''\ exclaims Teu\-f\-els\-dröckh:
{}``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 (\textit{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 \textit{Agora} and \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh, {}``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 \textit{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 (\textit{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 (\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, {}``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.''\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 \textit{Wilhelm Tell}, I made
this not quite insignificant reflection (so true also in spiritual
things): \textit{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 \textit{Wiener Schub} (Offscourings of Vienna) vociferously
superintending games of chance. Ballad-singers brayed, Auctioneers
grew hoarse; cheap New Wine (\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 (\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, of
spiritual pride!


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER III. PEDAGOGY.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER III.\\
PEDAGOGY.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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, Teufelsdröckh 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, Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{Commentaries}
dry,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh's childhood, is here visibly enough again
getting nourishment. {}``He wept often; indeed to such a degree that
he was nicknamed \textit{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 (\textit{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 \textit{height} quite sickly, and disproportioned
to its \textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 \textit{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, \textit{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:\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}yet a little while,
and we shall all meet \textit{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: \textit{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 \textit{Sagittarius}, as we at length discover, Teufelsdröckh
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 \textit{Sagittarius},
however, Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh
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 \textit{Scorpio}, Teufelsdröckh had not already
expectorated his antipedagogic spleen; as if, from the name \textit{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\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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:\mbox{---}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),\mbox{---}what almost prodigious saving may
there not be anticipated, as the \textit{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,\mbox{---}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
(\textit{erepiren}) in finished Self-conceit, and to all spiritual
intents become dead.\mbox{---}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,
Teufelsdröckh 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 (\textit{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, \textit{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. Teufelsdröckh
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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, 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;\mbox{---}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 (\textit{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.'\mbox{---}`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.\  \textit{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: \textit{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 \textit{Soul} is indeed, as in the Finnish
Language, and Utilitarian Philosophy, a kind of \textit{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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER IV. GETTING UNDER WAY.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IV.\\
GETTING UNDER WAY.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{GETTING UNDER WAY}

{}``Thus nevertheless,'' writes our Autobiographer, apparently as
quitting College, {}``was there realized Somewhat; namely, I, Diogenes
Teufelsdröckh: a visible Temporary Figure (\textit{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 \textit{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 (\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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
\textit{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,\mbox{---}is it
not well that there should be what we call Professions, or Bread-studies
(\textit{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 (\textit{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 \textit{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, Teufelsdröckh 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, \textit{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 \textit{Examen
Rigorosum} need not have frightened him: but though he is hereby {}``an
\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh 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 (\textit{Inkblot}),
tied down by previous promise, cannot, except by best wishes, forward
the Herr Teufelsdröckh'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: {}``\textit{Herr Teufelsdröckh wird von der Frau
Grafinn, auf Donnerstag, zum ÆSTHETISCHEN 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 \textit{Æsthetic Tea}! How Teufelsdröckh, 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
\textit{Zahdarm House}, she can be no other than the Countess and
mistress of the same; whose intellectual tendencies, and good-will
to Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{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
Teufelsdröckh also a fringe, of lace or cobweb; or promising to be
such? {}``With his \textit{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 (\textit{die auszurottende Journalistik}), little to
desiderate therein. On some points, as his \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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 (\textit{Madchen}) are, to mankind, precisely
the most delightful in those years; so young gentlemen (\textit{Bubchen})
do then attain their maximum of detestability. Such gawks (\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh
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 \textit{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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh's whole duty and necessity was,
like other men's, {}``to work,\mbox{---}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, \begin{flushleft}\begin{verse}\footnotesize

``To eat into itself, for lack\\*

Of something else to hew and hack;''

\end{verse}\end{flushleft}

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
(\textit{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
(\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh too admits,
is {}``to unite yourself with some one, and with somewhat (\textit{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
\textit{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;''\mbox{---}wherein, we may predict, there is
more than the Latinity that will surprise an English reader:

\noindent \begin{center}\emph{\scriptsize HIC JACET}\\
\emph{\footnotesize PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMINE MAGNUS,}\\
\emph{\scriptsize ZAEHDARMI COMES,}\\
\emph{\scriptsize EX IMPERII CONCILIO,}\\
\emph{\scriptsize VELLERIS AUREI, PERISCELIDIS,}\\
\emph{\scriptsize NECNON VULTURIS NIGRI EQUES.}\\
\emph{\scriptsize QUI DUM SUB LUNA AGEBAT,}\\
\emph{\scriptsize QUINQUIES MILLE PERDICES PLUMBO CONFECIT:}\\
\emph{\scriptsize VARII CIBI CENTUMPONDIA MILLIES CENTENA MILLIA,}\\
\emph{\scriptsize PER SE, PERQUE SERVOS QUADRUPEDES BIPEDESVE,}\\
\emph{\scriptsize HAUD SINE TUMULT DEVOLVENS,}\\
\emph{\scriptsize IN STERCUS PALAM CONVERTIT.}\\
\emph{\scriptsize NUNC A LABORE REQUIESCENTEM OPERA SEQUUNTUR.}\\
\emph{\scriptsize SI MONUMENTUM QUAERIS,}\\
\emph{\scriptsize FIMETUM ADSPICE.}\\
\emph{\scriptsize PRIMUM IN ORBE DEJECIT {[}}{\scriptsize sub dato}\emph{\scriptsize {]};
}\\
\emph{\scriptsize POSTREMUM {[}}{\scriptsize sub dato}\emph{\scriptsize {]}.}\end{center}{\scriptsize \par}


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER V. ROMANCE.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER V.\\
ROMANCE.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{ROMANCE}

{}``For long years,'' writes Teufelsdröckh, {}``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?\mbox{---}\textit{Beym Himmel}! For Food and Warmth!
And are Food and Warmth nowhere else, in the whole wide Universe,
dis\-co\-v\-er\-ab\-le?\mbox{---}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. Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh! Though neither Fleet, nor Traffic,
nor Commodores pleased thee, still was it not \textit{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?\mbox{---}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 (\textit{Personlichkeit}) is ever holy to us; a certain orthodox
Anthropomorphism connects my \textit{Me} with all \textit{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{\AE{}sthetic 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 (\textit{Holden})\mbox{---}\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{\AE{}sthetic 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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh as a man
not only who would never wed, but who would never even flirt; whom
the grand-climacteric itself, and \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh
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 \textit{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 \textit{\AE{}sthetic 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 \textit{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 \textit{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 \AE{}sthetic
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
(\textit{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\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 (\textit{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 (\textit{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 \textit{Me} and \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh!\ 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 (\textit{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 (\textit{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 \AE{}olian
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? \textit{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.\ Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh's have been, with
a fire-heart, and for a nonpareil Blumine! We glance merely at the
final scene:\mbox{---}

{}``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,\mbox{---}for the first time and for the last!''
Thus was Teufelsdröckh made immortal by a kiss. And then? Why, then\mbox{---}{}``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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER VI. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDRÖCKH.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VI.\\
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDRÖCKH.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{SORROWS OF TEUFELSDRÖCKH}

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 Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh deport him. He quietly lifts his \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{he} saw it.'' But what
things soever passed in him, when he ceased to see it; what ragings
and despairings soever Teufelsdröckh'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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{Capricornus}
and \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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,\mbox{---}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: \textit{Du
Himmel}! It was Herr Towgood and\mbox{---}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, \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 (\textit{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. Teufelsdröckh 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,\mbox{---}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\mbox{---}\textit{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! \textit{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh How could it else? Hadst thou not Greek
enough to understand thus much: \textit{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
\textit{Estrapades} and Vienna \textit{Malzleins}, with no prospect
of breakfast beyond elemental liquid. That I had my Living to seek
saved me from Dying,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh! 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,\mbox{---}save only that he
feels himself not guilty and but suffering the pains of guilt,\mbox{---}wend
to and fro with aimless speed. Thus must he, over the whole surface
of the Earth (by footprints), write his \textit{Sorrows of Teufelsdröckh};
even as the great Goethe, in passionate words, had to write his \textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{Sorrows of Lord George}, in
verse and in prose, and copiously otherwise: your Bonaparte represents
his \textit{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.\mbox{---}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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER VII. THE EVERLASTING NO.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VII.\\
THE EVERLASTING NO.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 \textit{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 \textit{he}
was `the chief of sinners;' and Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit (\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 (\textit{was thut's})?'' cries he: {}``it is but the common lot
in this era. Not having come to spiritual majority prior to the \textit{Siecle
de Louis Quinze}, and not being born purely a Loghead (\textit{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 \textit{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 (\textit{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, \textit{Know thyself}; till it be translated into this partially
possible one, \textit{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\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh
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
(\textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{Selig der den er im Siegesglanze
findet} (Happy whom \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 (\textit{das ewige Nein}) pealed
authoritatively through all the recesses of my Being, of my ME; and
then was it that my whole \textit{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: `\textit{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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER VIII. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VIII.\\
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 \textit{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;\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{not}-\textit{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 (\textit{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\mbox{---}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.\mbox{---} 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:\mbox{---}

{}``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!\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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.\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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.\mbox{---}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!'\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh 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 (\textit{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.\mbox{---}Great Events, also, have not I witnessed? Kings
sweated down (\textit{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\mbox{---}''

---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 Teufelsdröckh'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 (\textit{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, \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh'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 (\textit{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 \textit{Mind}, though all but no \textit{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,\mbox{---}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 (\textit{verdammt}), the little spitfires!\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh,
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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{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? \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh! 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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER IX. THE EVERLASTING YEA.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IX.\\
THE EVERLASTING YEA.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{THE EVERLASTING YEA}

{}``Temptations in the Wilderness!''\ exclaims Teufelsdröckh, {}``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, \textit{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, \textit{Eat
thou and be filled}, at the same time persuasively proclaims itself
through every nerve,\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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!\mbox{---}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\mbox{---}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 (\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{Rue de l'Enfer},'' then, properly the turning-point
of the battle; when the Fiend said, \textit{Worship me, or be torn
in shreds}; and was answered valiantly with an \textit{Apage Satana}?\mbox{---}Singular
Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{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.''\mbox{---}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 (\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh, 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,\mbox{---}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:\mbox{---}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.\mbox{---}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!\mbox{---}Or
what is Nature? Ha!\ why do I not name thee \textit{god}? Art not
thou the `Living Garment of God'? O Heavens, is it, in very deed,
\textit{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!\mbox{---}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 `\textit{Sanctuary of Sorrow};' by strange, steep
ways had I too been guided thither; and ere long its sacred gates
would open, and the `\textit{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 \textit{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
\textit{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: \textit{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.\mbox{---}Always
there is a black spot in our sunshine: it is even, as I said, the
\textit{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 \textit{overplus}
as there may be do we account Happiness; any \textit{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,\mbox{---}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!\mbox{---}I tell thee, Blockhead, it all comes of thy Vanity;
of what thou \textit{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 \textit{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, \textit{Unity} itself divided by \textit{Zero} will give \textit{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
(\textit{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 \textit{happy}?
Because the \textit{thou} (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honored,
nourished, soft-bedded, and lovingly cared for? Foolish soul! What
Act of Legislature was there that \textit{thou} shouldst be Happy?
A little while ago thou hadst no right to \textit{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 \textit{eat}; and shrieking dolefully
because carrion enough is not given thee? Close thy \textit{Byron};
open thy \textit{Goethe}.''

{}``\textit{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 `\textit{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\mbox{---}thyself away.

{}``Meanwhile what are antiquated Myth\-uses 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 `\textit{Worship of
Sorrow}' ascribe what origin and genesis thou pleasest, \textit{has}
not that Worship originated, and been generated; is it not \textit{here}?
Feel it in thy heart, and then say whether it is of God! This is Belief;
all else is Opinion,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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,\mbox{---}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:\mbox{---}

{}``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.'\mbox{---}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!\mbox{---}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!'\mbox{---}If
Fichte's \textit{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: `\textit{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 \textit{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\mbox{---}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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER X. PAUSE.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER X.\\
PAUSE.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{PAUSE}

Thus have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily as, in such circumstances,
might be, followed Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{Ecce Homo}, they
had only some \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{do}.\mbox{---} 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 \textit{Sound}, to appearance the most
fleeting, should be the most continuing of all things. The \textit{word}
is well said to be omnipotent in this world; man, thereby divine,
can create as by a \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh, {}``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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, here glance at that {}``SOCIETY FOR
THE CONSERVATION OF PROPERTY (\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh mean, then,
to give himself out as the originator of that so notable \textit{Eigenthums-conservirende}
({}``Owndom-conserving'') \textit{Gesellschaft}; and if so, what,
in the Devil's name, is it? He again hints: {}``At a time when the
divine Commandment, \textit{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, \textit{Thou shalt steal}, is
everywhere promulgated,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 \textit{Program}
in the Public Journals, with its high \textit{Prize-Questions} and
so liberal \textit{Prizes}, could have proceeded,\mbox{---}let him
now cease such wonder; and, with undivided faculty, betake himself
to the \textit{Concurrenz} (Competition).''

We ask: Has this same {}``perhaps not ill-written \textit{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh, 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 Teufelsdröckh, 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 Teufelsdröckh
would all at once frankly unlock his private citadel to an English
Editor and a German Hofrath; and not rather deceptively \textit{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 (\textit{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
(\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh, 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, Teufelsdröckh, reaches his University
Professorship, and the Psyche clothes herself in civic Titles, without
altering her now fixed nature,\mbox{---}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 \textit{has} long since rained down again into a stream;
and even now, at Weissnichtwo, flows deep and still, fraught with
the \textit{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 \textit{Clothes-Volume}, we ask
what our degree of progress, during these Ten Chapters, has been,
towards right understanding of the \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh; 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 \textit{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 \textit{Garment}, a {}``Living
Garment,'' woven and ever a-weaving in the {}``Loom of Time;''
is not here, indeed, the outline of a whole \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh'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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh, he
must wander, will there be wanting between whiles some twinkling of
a steady Polar Star.


\part*{BOOK III.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{part}{BOOK III.}


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright \textit{\emph{C}}HAPTER I. INCIDENT IN MODERN
HISTORY.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\textit{\emph{C}}HAPTER I.\\
INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY.}

As a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teufelsdröckh, 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 Teufelsdröckh'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 \textit{Perfectibility}, has seemed worth clutching at:\mbox{---}

{}``Perhaps the most remarkable incident in Modern History,'' says
Teufelsdröckh, {}``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,\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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 \AE{}tna, 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.\mbox{---}`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!\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, {}``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 \textit{Perfectibility of Society}, reproduce it now? Not out
of blind sectarian partisanship: Teufelsdröckh, 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
Teufelsdröckh 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,\mbox{---}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
Teufelsdröckh's mad daydream, here as we presume covertly intended,
of levelling Society (\textit{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,\mbox{--}--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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER II. CHURCH-CLOTHES.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER II.\\
CHURCH-CLOTHES.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{CHURCH-CLOTHES}

Not less questionable is his Chapter on \textit{Church-Clothes}, which
has the farther distinction of being the shortest in the Volume. We
here translate it entire:\mbox{---}

{}``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 \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{me} is, as it
were, brought into contact with inmost \textit{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 (\textit{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 \textit{under} such SKIN), whereby Society stands and works;\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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;\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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 (\textit{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, \textit{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 \textit{Clothes}, and is already
in a state of forwardness.''

And herewith, no farther exposition, note, or commentary being added,
does Teufelsdröckh, and must his Editor now, terminate the singular
chapter on Church-Clothes!


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER III. SYMBOLS.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER III.\\
SYMBOLS.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{SYMBOLS}

Probably it will elucidate the drift of these foregoing obscure utterances,
if we here insert somewhat of our Professor's speculations on \textit{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:\mbox{---}

{}``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 \textit{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: \textit{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 (\textit{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: \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{Bauernkrieg} (Peasants' War)?
Or in the Wallet-and-staff round which the Netherland \textit{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 \textit{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 (\textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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%
\footnote{\textit{\emph{That of George IV.\mbox{---}ED.}} %
} 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?''


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER IV. HELOTAGE.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IV.\\
HELOTAGE.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{HELOTAGE}

At this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting,
to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled \textit{Institute
for the Repression of Population}; which lies, dishonorably enough
(with torn leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed
into the Bag \textit{Pisces}. Not indeed for the sake of the tract
itself, which we admire little; but of the marginal Notes, evidently
in Teufelsdröckh's hand, which rather copiously fringe it. A few of
these may be in their right place here.

Into the Hofrath's \textit{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh, 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:\mbox{---}

{}``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:
\textit{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?\mbox{---}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!\mbox{---}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?\mbox{---}Preserving their Game!''


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER V. THE PHOENIX.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER V.\\
THE PHOENIX.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 Teufelsdröckh 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: \textit{Laissez faire}; Leave us alone of \textit{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 \textit{Wahngasse}
that such wonders are visible? Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh,
{}``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,\mbox{---}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.\mbox{---}
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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{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!''\mbox{---}This, we think, is but Job's-news to the humane
reader.

{}``Nevertheless,'' cries Teufelsdröckh, {}``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?\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{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,''\mbox{---}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;\mbox{---}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;''\mbox{---}Teufelsdröckh
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: {}``\textit{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.''\mbox{---}But listen again:\mbox{---}

{}``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.\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}were it not perhaps
prudent in Mankind to strike the bargain?''

Thus is Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER VI. OLD CLOTHES.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VI.\\
OLD CLOTHES.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{OLD CLOTHES}

As mentioned above, Teufelsdröckh, 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:\mbox{---}

{}``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 \textit{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 \textit{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;\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, 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.\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, 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,\mbox{---}as in Chaos did the Egg of Eros, one day to
be hatched into a Universe!


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER VII. ORGANIC FILAMENTS.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VII.\\
ORGANIC FILAMENTS.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{ORGANIC FILAMENTS}

For us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning herself,
and burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdröckh 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:\mbox{---}

{}``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,\mbox{---}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?\mbox{---}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 \textit{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:\mbox{---}

{}``Remark, not without surprise,'' says Teufelsdröckh, {}``how
all high Titles of Honor come hitherto from Fighting. Your \textit{Herzog}
(Duke, \textit{Dux}) is Leader of Armies; your Earl (\textit{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. \textit{Konig} (King), anciently \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh'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;\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh acquainted
with the British constitution, even slightly?\mbox{---}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.'''\mbox{---}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\mbox{---}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:\mbox{---}

{}``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 \textit{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
Teufelsdröckh, 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 \textit{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:\mbox{---}

{}``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:\mbox{---}

{}``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-\textit{Homiletic} lie scattered there, which Time will assort:
nay fractions even of a \textit{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\mbox{---}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 \textit{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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER VIII. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VIII.\\
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM}

It is in his stupendous Section, headed \textit{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 \textit{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:\mbox{---}

{}``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 `\textit{Open sesame}!'\ every
time I please to pay twopence, and open for him an impassable \textit{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?\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 \AE{}ons of
\AE{}ons.

{}``We speak of the Volume of Nature: and truly a Volume it is,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 \textit{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, \textit{space} and \textit{time}. These, as spun and
woven for us from before Birth itself, to clothe our celestial \textit{me}
for dwelling here, and yet to blind it,\mbox{---}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 \textit{There}! Next to clap
on your other felt, and, simply by wishing that you were \textit{Anywhen},
straightway to be \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{here}, so is it an everlasting Now.

{}``And seest thou therein any glimpse of IMMORTALITY?\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}but a pale spectral Illusion!
Is the lost Friend still mysteriously Here, even as we are Here mysteriously,
with God!\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 \textit{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 (\textit{poltern}),
and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead,\mbox{---}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?\mbox{---}
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 \textit{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:\mbox{---}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?\mbox{---}O Heaven whither? Sense knows not; Faith knows
not; only that it is through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to God.
\begin{flushleft}\begin{verse}\footnotesize

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`We \textit{are such stuff}\\*

As Dreams are made of, and our little Life\\*

Is rounded with a sleep!'\normalsize{}''

\end{verse}\end{flushleft}


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER IX. CIRCUMSPECTIVE.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IX.\\
CIRCUMSPECTIVE.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 \textit{Faust},\mbox{---}\begin{flushleft}\begin{verse}\addtolength{\parindent}{-0.25in}

\footnotesize\ \\

\mbox{``'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply,}\\*

\mbox{And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by;''}\\

\end{verse}\end{flushleft}or that other thousand-times repeated speech of the Magician, Shakespeare,\mbox{---}\begin{flushleft}\begin{verse}\addtolength{\parindent}{-0.25in}

\footnotesize\ \\

``And like the baseless fabric of this vision,\\*

\mbox{The cloud-capt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces,}\\*

\mbox{The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself,}\\*

And all which it inherit, shall dissolve;\\*

\mbox{And like this unsubstantial pageant faded,}\\*

Leave not a wrack behind;''\\

\end{verse}\end{flushleft} 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 Teufelsdröckh
unhappily has somewhat infected us,\mbox{---}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, Teufelsdröckh, and we by means
of him, have led thee into the true Land of Dreams; and through the
Clothes-Screen, as through a magical \textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 \textit{Palingenesie der menschlichen Gesellschaft}
(Newbirth of Society),\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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,\mbox{---}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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER X. THE DANDIACAL BODY.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER X.\\
THE DANDIACAL BODY.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh 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:\mbox{---}

{}``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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 (\textit{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, \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 (\textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{Stillschweigen'sche Buchhandlung}
is in the habit of importing from England, come, as is usual, various
waste printed-sheets (\textit{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 \textit{Magazine}, appears
something like a Dissertation on this very subject of \textit{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 \textit{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:\mbox{---}\pagebreak[4]

\begin{quotation}
\noindent \begin{center}ARTICLES OF FAITH.\nopagebreak[4]\end{center}
\end{quotation}
\begin{enumerate}
\item `Coats should have nothing of the triangle about them; at the same
time, wrinkles behind should be carefully avoided. 
\item `The collar is a very important point: it should be low behind, and
slightly rolled. 
\item `No license of fashion can allow a man of delicate taste to adopt
the posterial luxuriance of a Hottentot. 
\item `There is safety in a swallow-tail. 
\item `The good sense of a gentleman is nowhere more finely developed than
in his rings. 
\item `It is permitted to mankind, under certain restrictions, to wear white
waistcoats. 
\item `The trousers must be exceedingly tight across the hips.' 
\end{enumerate}
{}``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 \textit{Drudge} Sect; also,
unphilosophically enough, the \textit{White Negroes}; and, chiefly
in scorn by those of other communions, the \textit{Ragged-Beggar}
Sect. In Scotland, again, I find them entitled \textit{Hallanshakers},
or the \textit{Stook of Duds} Sect; any individual communicant is
named \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{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 \textit{Point},
into the meaning of which I have vainly inquired; the victual \textit{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 \textit{Potheen}, which is the fiercest. This latter
I have tasted, as well as the English \textit{Blue-Ruin}, and the
Scotch \textit{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,\mbox{---}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 \textit{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:\pagebreak[4]

\begin{quotation}
\noindent \begin{center}POOR-SLAVE HOUSEHOLD\emph{.\nopagebreak[4]}\end{center}

\noindent {}```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.' 
\end{quotation}
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:\mbox{---}

\begin{quotation}
\noindent \begin{center}DANDIACAL HOUSEHOLD\emph{.\nopagebreak[4]}\end{center}

\noindent {}```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.\mbox{---}Enter the Author,' our Theogonist in person,
`obsequiously preceded by a French Valet, in white silk Jacket and
cambric Apron.' 
\end{quotation}
{}``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 \textit{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\mbox{---}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\mbox{---}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.\mbox{---}Or better still, I might
liken''---

Oh, enough, enough of likenings and similitudes; in excess of which,
truly, it is hard to say whether Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{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
Teufelsdröckh 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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER XI. TAILORS.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XI.\\
TAILORS.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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 Teufelsdröckh 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:\mbox{---}

{}``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 \textit{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 \textit{schneidermassig} (tailor-like) betokens an otherwise
unapproachable degree of pusillanimity; we introduce a \textit{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 \textit{Schneider mit dem Panier}? Why of Shakspeare, in
his \textit{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,\mbox{---}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?\mbox{---}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*{\protect\raggedright CHAPTER XII. FAREWELL.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XII.\\
FAREWELL.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{FAREWELL}

So have we endeavored, from the enormous, amorphous Plum-pudding,
more like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdröckh 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 Teufelsdröckh, 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 Teufelsdröckh'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 Teufelsdröckh desperation
enough for this.

A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is, that
Teufelsdröckh, 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?\mbox{---}In
which case were this Enormous Clothes-Volume properly an enormous
Pitch-pan, which our Teufelsdröckh 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!\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh 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
Teufelsdröckh, 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:\mbox{---}

{}``\textit{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 Teufelsdröckh was not known, at the \textit{Gans} or elsewhere,
to have spoken, for a whole week, any syllable except once these three:
\textit{Es geht an} (It is beginning). Shortly after, as \textit{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 \textit{Rath}
(Council) itself, and so contribute to the country's deliverance.
The Tailors are now entirely pacificated.\mbox{---}

{}``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 \textit{Saint-Simonian Society} transmitted
its Propositions hither, and the whole \textit{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh'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, Teufelsdröckh, 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, \textit{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?


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright APPENDIX.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{APPENDIX.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{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;\mbox{---}and
had at last to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out,
bit by bit, in some courageous \textit{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, {}``\textit{Testimonies of Authors},'' some straggle
of real documents, which, now that I find it again, sets the matter
into clear light and sequence:\mbox{---}and shall here, for removal
of idle stumbling-blocks and nugatory guessings from the path of every
reader, be reprinted as it stood.\  (\textit{Author's Note, of} \emph{1868}.)


\chapter*{\protect\raggedright TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS.}

\markboth{SARTOR RESARTUS}{TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS}


\section*{\protect\raggedright I.\  HIGHEST CLASS BOOKSELLER'S TASTER.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{I.\  HIGHEST CLASS BOOKSELLER'S TASTER.}

\textit{Taster to Bookseller}.\mbox{---}{}``The Author of \textit{Teufelsdröckh}
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 \textit{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.\  \textit{Is} the work a translation?''

\textit{Bookseller to Editor}.\mbox{---}{}``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.\mbox{---}\textit{Ms.\ 
(penes nos), London, 17th September}, 1831.


\section*{\protect\raggedright II. CRITIC OF THE SUN.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{II. CRITIC OF THE SUN.}

{}``\textit{Fraser's Magazine} exhibits the usual brilliancy, and
also the'' \&c.

{}``\textit{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 \textit{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''---\textit{Sun Newspaper,} \textit{\emph{1st
April}}\emph{,} 1834.


\section*{\protect\raggedright III. NORTH\mbox{---}AMERICAN REVIEWER.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{III. NORTH\mbox{---}AMERICAN REVIEWER.}

\ldots{}{}``After a careful survey of the whole ground, our belief
is that no such persons as Professors Teufelsdröckh 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 \textit{Sartor Resartus}
is the only treatise that has yet appeared upon that subject;\mbox{---}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 \textit{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 \textit{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
\textit{Weissnichtwo}\mbox{---}`Know-not-where'\mbox{---}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 \textit{Know-not-where}
might be called, with at least as much propriety, \textit{Nobody-knows-where},
and is to be found in the kingdom of \textit{Nowhere}. Again, the
village of \textit{Entepfuhl}\mbox{---}`Duck-pond'\mbox{---}where
the supposed Author of the work is said to have passed his youth,
and that of \textit{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 \textit{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 Teufelsdröckh? 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 Teufelsdröckh, 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\mbox{---}`Grasshopper'\mbox{---}
though not offensive, looks much more like a piece of fancy-work than
a `fair business transaction.' The same may be said of \textit{Blumine}\mbox{---}`Flower-Goddess'\mbox{---}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.\  \textit{Clothes,
their Origin and Influence}, is the title of the supposed German treatise
of Professor Teufelsdröckh and the rather odd name of \textit{Sartor
Resartus}\mbox{---}the Tailor Patched\mbox{---}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 Teufelsdröckh, 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\mbox{---}\textit{virginibus
puerisque}\mbox{---}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\mbox{---}to use the mildest term\mbox{---}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 \textit{Lynched}.
Whether his object in this piece of \textit{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.''---
\textit{North-American Review, No.\  89, October}, 1835.


\section*{\protect\raggedright IV. NEW ENGLAND EDITORS.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{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%
\footnote{\emph{Fraser's} (London) \textit{Magazine}, 1833-34. %
} in which they first appeared, under the conviction that they contain
in themselves the assurance of a longer date.

{}``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\mbox{---}we had almost said, of the hour\mbox{---}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.''---\textit{Preface to
Sartor Resartus: Boston}, 1835, 1837.

\bigskip{}
\noindent \begin{center}\emph{SUNT, FUERUNT VEL FUERE}.\nopagebreak[4]\\
\textit{\noun{London}}\noun{, 30th June, 1838}. \end{center}
\end{document}
