OU-~ 
 
 P 2-V 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
WILEY AND PUTNAM'S 
 
 LIBRARY OF 
 
 CHOICE READING 
 
 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
SARTOR RESARTUS 
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE AND OPINIONS 
 
 /far o ( 
 
 OF 
 
 
 HERR TEUFELSDROCKH 
 
 IN THREE BOOKS. 
 
 SQJetn QScrm&djtnip, »te foerrtid) weil unt> Orcit! 
 *Dic 3tftt ift mctn S3ctmacl)tntp, mcin 2Ccfcr t ft fcie 3cit. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 WILEY AND PUTNAM, 161 BROADWAY. 
 
 1846. 
 
IMPRIMATUR. 
 
 This Book, "Sartor Resartus," I have read over and revised into 
 a correct state for Messrs. Wiley & Putnam, of New York, who are 
 hereby authorised, they and they only, so far as I can authorise them, 
 to print and vend the same in the United States. 
 
 x3S^S^^9 THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 London, June 18. 1846. ^ 
 
 O. A. ALVORU, PRINTER, T. B. SMITH, STEREOTYPKR, 
 
 COR. JOHN AND DUTCH 8TS. 316 WILLIAM STREET. 
 
TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Taster to Bookseller. — " The Author of Teufelsdrookh 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 ajeu d> esprit of that kind, it is too long ; it 
 would have suited better as an essay or article than as a volume. The 
 Author has no great tact : his wit is frequently heavy ; and reminds one of 
 the German Baron who took to leaping on tables, and answered that he was 
 learning to be lively. Is the work a translation V 
 
 Bookseller to Editor. — u Allow me to say that such a writer requires only 
 a little more tact to produce a popular as well as an able work. . Directly 
 on receiving your permission, I sent your MS. to a gentleman in the highest 
 class of men of letters, and an accomplished German scholar ; I now enclose 
 you his opinion, which, you may rely upon it, is a just one ; and I have too 
 high an opinion of your good sense to" &c. &c. — MS. (penes nos), London, 
 llth September, 1831. 
 
 II. Critic of the Sun. 
 
 "Fraser's Magazine exhibits the usual brilliancy, and also the" &c. 
 " Sartor Resartus is what old Dennis used to call l a heap of clotted non- 
 sense,' mixed, however, here and there, with passages marked by thought 
 and striking poetic vigour. But what does the writer mean by 'Baphometic 
 fire-baptism V Why cannot he lay aside his pedantry, and write so as to 
 make himself generally intelligible 1 We quote by way of curiosity a sen- 
 tence from the Sartor Resartus; which may be read either backwards or 
 forwards, for it is equally intelligible either way. Indeed, by beginning at 
 the tail, and so working up to the head, we think the reader will stand the 
 fairest chance of getting at its meaning : c The fire-baptised 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 remain- 
 ing dominions, not indeed without hard battering, will doubtless by degrees 
 be conquered and pacificated.' Here is a" — .... — Sim Newspaper, 1st 
 April, 1834. 
 
TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. 
 
 III. North American Reviewer. 
 
 . . . . c: After a careful survey of the whole ground, our belief is that 
 no such persons as Professor Teufelsdrockh or Counsellor Heuschrecke 
 ever existed ; that the six Paper-bags, with their China-ink inscriptions and 
 multifarious contents, are a mere figment of the brain ; that the 'present 
 Editor 7 is the only person who has ever written upon the Philosophy of 
 Clothes : and that the Sartor Resartus is the only treatise that has yet ap- 
 peared upon that subject; — in short, that the whole account of the origin 
 of the work before us, which the supposed Editor relates with so much 
 gravity, and of which we have given a brief abstract, is, in plain English, 
 a hum. 
 
 u Without troubling our readers at any great length with our reasons for 
 entertaining these suspicions, we may remark, that the absence of all other 
 information on the subject, except what is contained in the work, is itself a 
 fact of a most significant character. The whole German press, as well as 
 the particular one where the work purports to have been printed, seems 
 to be under the control of Stillschweigen and Cosnie-^ — Silence and Com- 
 pany. 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 our- 
 selves 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 ' exten- 
 sive close-printed close-meditated volume,' which forms the subject of this 
 pretended commentary. Again, we would respectfully inquire of the -pre- 
 sent Editor' upon what part of the map of Germany are we to look for the 
 city of WassmchtmOj — ' Know-not-whcrc. ; at which place the work is sup- 
 posed to have been printed and the Author to have resided. It has been 
 oar fortune to visit several portions of the German territory, and to ex- 
 amine pretty carefully, at different times and for various purposes, maps of 
 the whole ; but we have no recollection of any such place. We suspect that 
 the city of Know-not-rohere might be (-ailed, with at least as much propriety. 
 Nobody-knoros-nhere i and is to be found in the kingdom of Nowhere, Again, 
 the village of Ent> pfulrf. — ' Duck-pond,' where the supposed Author of the 
 work is said to have passed his youth, and that of Hinterschiagj 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 vil- 
 snominated Duok-pond is to us altogether terra incognita. The names 
 of the personages are not Less singular than those of the places. Who can 
 refrain from a smile ,,t the yoking together of such a pair of appellatives as 
 
TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Diogenes Teufelsdrockh ? The supposed bearer of this strange title is re- 
 presented 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 SubscribersMists, Militia-rolls, 
 and other Name-catalogues,' but had nowhere been able to find ' the name 
 Teufelsdrockh, except as appended to his own person.' We can readily be- 
 lieve this, and we doubt very much whether any Christian parent would 
 think of condemning a son to carry through life the burden of so unpleasant 
 a title. That of Counsellor Heuschrecke, — Grasshopper, though not of- 
 fensive, looks much more like a piece of fancy-work than a ' fair business 
 transaction.' The same may be said of Bhemme, — Flower Goddess, the he- 
 roine 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 be- 
 fore us, and its pretended German original. Both purport, as we have 
 seen, to be upon the subject of Clothes, or dress. Clothes, their Origin and 
 Influence, is the title of the supposed German treatise of Professor Teufels- 
 drockh, and the rather odd name of Sartor Resartus, — the Tailor Patched, 
 — which the present Editor has affixed to his pretended commentary, seems 
 to look the same way. But though there is a good deal of remark through- 
 out 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 Teu- 
 felsdrockh 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 trea- 
 tise 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 every where the very great majority, the subject of dress 
 is one of intense and paramount importance. An author who treats it ap- 
 peals, like the poet, to the young men and maidens — virginibus puerisqne, — 
 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, ex- 
 pecting to find in it some particular instruction in regard to the tying of 
 
TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. 
 
 their neckcloths, or the cut of their corsets, and meet with nothing better 
 than a dissertation on Things in General, they will, — to use the mildest term, 
 — not be in very good humour. If the last improvements in legislation, 
 which we have made in this country, should have found their way to Eng- 
 land, the author we think would stand some chance of being Lynched. 
 Whether his object in this piece of super cherie 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 tenour of which we should be dis- 
 posed 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 pur- 
 ports 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, vigour, 
 and at times a sort of singular felicity of expression, but very strongly 
 tinged throughout with the peculiar idiom of the German language. This 
 quality in the style, however, may be. a mere result of a great familiarity 
 with German literature, and we cannot, therefore, look upon it as in itself 
 decisive, still less as outweighing so much evidence of an opposite character." 
 — North American Review, No. 89, October, 1835. 
 
 IV. New-England Editors. 
 
 " The Editors have been induced, by the expressed desire of many per- 
 sons, to collect the following sheets out of the ephemeral pamphlets* in 
 which they first appeared, under the conviction that they contain in them- 
 selves the assurance of a longer date. 
 
 " The Editors have no expectation that this little Work will have a sud- 
 den 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 humour 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 im- 
 agination 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 ; ami that the foreign dross 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 ec- 
 
 * " Fraser's (London) Magazine, 1833-4." 
 
TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. 
 
 centricity of his genius, not only by frequent bursts of pure splendour 
 but by the wit and sense which never fail him. 
 
 " But what will chiefly commend the Book to the discerning reader is the 
 manifest design of the work, which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit of the 
 Age, — we had almost said, of the hour, in which we live ; exhibiting in the 
 most just and novel light the present aspects of Religion, Politics, Litera- 
 ture, Arts, and Social Life. Under all his gaiety the Writer has an earnest 
 meaning, and discovers an insight into the manifold wants and tendencies 
 of human nature, which is very rare among our popular authors. The 
 philanthropy and the purity of moral sentiment, which inspire the work, 
 will find their way to the heart of every lover of virtue." — Preface to Sar- 
 tor Resartus : Boston, 1836, 1837. 
 
 Sunt, Fuerunt vel Fuere. 
 London, 30th June, 1838. 
 
\ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Preliminary .1 
 
 II. Editorial Difficulties . 6 
 
 III. Reminiscences 10 
 
 V. Characteristics 20 
 
 V. The World in Clothes ' 26 
 
 VI. Aprons 32 
 
 VII. Miscellaneous-historical 35 
 
 VIII. The Worl d out of Clothes 39 
 
 IX. Adamitism 45 
 
 X. Pure Reason 50 
 
 XI. Prospective ... 55 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 I. Genesis . 65 
 
 V II. Idyllic 72 
 
 k/tlT. Pedagogy 80 
 
 IV. Getting under Way 94 
 
 V. Romance 105 
 
 VVI. Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh 110 
 
 / \ IlfrThe everlasting No 125 
 
 HI. «Centre of Indifference 132 « 
 
 IX.y The everlasting Yea 142 
 
 X. Pause .... 153 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 I II LP, PAGE 
 
 [. Incident in Modern History 163 
 
 II. Church-Clothes 168 
 
 [II, Symbols 171 
 
 IV. Helotage 178 
 
 V. The Phoenix 1S2 
 
 VI. Old Clothes 1SS 
 
 VII. Organic Filaments 192 
 
 VIII. Natural Supernaturalism 200 
 
 IX. Circumspective . . 210 
 
 X. The Dandiacal Body 214 
 
 XI. Tailors . 226 
 
 XII. Farewell .... 229 
 
LIB] 
 
 University of California. 
 
 VANCH 
 
 -*-we week! ; or 
 
 •>h 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
SARTOR RESARTUS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how 
 the Torch of Science has now been brandished and borne about, 
 with more or less effect, for five thousand years and upwards ; 
 how, in these times especially, not only the Torch still burns, and 
 perhaps more fiercely than ever, but innumerable Rust-lights, 
 and Sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, are also glancing in every 
 direction, so that not the smallest cranny or doghole in Nature 
 or Art can remain unilluminated. — it might strike the reflective 
 mind with some surprise that hitherto little or nothing of a fun- 
 damental character, whether in the way of Philosophy or History, 
 has been written on the jmJjgccJLof 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 for ever ; 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 
 labours 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, f 
 there have been miuds to whom the question, How the Apples 
 icere got in, presented difficulties. . Why mention our disquisi- 
 
 2 
 
SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 tions on the Social Contract, on the Standard of Taste, on the 
 Migrations of the Herring ? Then, have we not a Doctrine of 
 Bent, 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 scientifi- 
 cally decomposed : our spiritual Faculties, of which it appears 
 there are not a few, have their Stewarts, Cousins, Eoyer Col- 
 lards : every cellular, vascular, muscular Tissue glories in its 
 Lawrences, Majendies, Bichats. 
 
 How, then, comes it, may the reflective mind repeat, that the 
 grand Tissue of all Tissues, the only real Tissue, should have been 
 quite overlooked by Science. — the vestural Tissue, namely, of wool- 
 len or other clofii ; which Man's Soul wears as its outmost wrap- 
 page 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 bro- 
 ken-winged thinker has cast an owl's glance into this obscure 
 ; ii. the most have soared over it altogether heedless : regard- 
 ed Clothes as a property, not an accident, as quite natural and 
 spontaneous, like the leaves of trees, like the plumage of birds. 
 In all speculations they have tacitly figured man as a Clothed 
 Animal; whereas he is by nature a Naked Animal : and only in 
 unstances, by purpose and device, masks himself in 
 Clothes. Shakspeare says, we are creatures that look before 
 •^ and after : the more surprising that we do no; look round a little, 
 and see what is passing under our very c\ 
 
 But here, as in so many other eases, Qtefi Lany, learned, inde- 
 fatigable, 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 
 English ear, the German can stand peaceful on his scientific 
 watch-tower; and. to the raging, struggling multitude here and 
 •lemnly, from hour, to hour, with preparatory blasl 
 of oowhorn, emit his Horei 
 
PRELIMINARY. 
 
 ill 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, 
 
 1 By_geometric scale 
 Doth take the size of pots of ale ;' 
 
 fftill more, of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seen 
 vigorously enough thrashing mere straw, there can nothing de- 
 fensive be said. In so far as the Germans are chargeable with 
 such, let them take the consequence. Nevertheless be it re- 
 marked, that even a Russian steppe has tumuli and gold orna- 
 ments ; 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 impassible barriers, for the mind 
 of man ? It is written, l Many shall run to and fro, and know- 
 ledge shall be increased.' Surely the plain rule is, Let_each con- 
 siderate 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 wan- 
 derer light on some outlying, neglected, yet vitally momentous 
 province ; the hidden treasures of which he first discovered, and 
 kept proclaiming till the general eye and effort were directed 
 thither, and the conquest was completed ; — thereby, in these his 
 seemingly so aimless rambles, planting new standards, founding 
 new habitable colonies, in the immeasurable circumambient realm 
 of Nothingness and Night ? Wise man was he who counselled 
 that Speculation should have free course, and look fearlessly to- 
 wards all the thirty-two points of the compass, whithersoever and 
 howsoever it listed. 
 
SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Perhaps it is proof of the stinted condition in which pure 
 Science, especially pure moral Science, languishes among us Eng- 
 lish ; and how our mercantile greatness, and invaluable Consti- 
 tution, impressing a political or other immediately practical ten- 
 dency on all English culture and endeavour, cramps the free 
 flight of Thought, — that this, not Philosophy of Clothes, but re- 
 cognition 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_iish— ie 
 
 all manner of waters, with all manner of nets, it seems probable 
 enougH, this abstruse Inquiry might, in spite of the results it 
 leads to, have continued dormant for indefinite periods. The Edi- 
 tor of these sheets, though otherwise boasting himself a man of 
 confirmed speculative habits, and perhaps discursive enough, is 
 free to confess, that never, till these last months, did the above 
 very plain considerations, on our total want of a Philosophy of 
 Clothes, occur to him : and then, by quite foreign suggestion. By 
 the arrival, namely, of a new Book from Professor Teufelsdrockh 
 \ of Weissnichtwo ; treating expressly of this subject ; and in a 
 ' style which, whether understood or not, could not even by the 
 blindest be overlooked. In the present Editor's way of thought, 
 this remarkable Treatise, with its Doctrines, whether as judicially 
 acceded to, or judicially denied, has not remained without effect. 
 1 Die Kinder, ihr Werden und Wirken (Clothes, their Origin 
 'and Influence): von JJiog. Teufelsdrockh. J. U. 1). etc. Still- 
 1 schweigen und Co= nie - Weissnichtwo, 1831. 
 
 ' Here,' says the Weissnichtwo' sche Anzeiger, • comes a Volume 
 ' of that extensive, close-printed, close-meditated sort, which be it • 
 'spoken with pride, is seen only in Germany, perhaps only in 
 ' Weissnichtwo. Issuing from the hitherto irreproachable Firm 
 'of Stillschweigen and Company, with every external further- 
 ' ance, it is of such internal quality as to set Neglect at de- 
 
 ' fiance.' * * * * 'A work,' concludes the well nigh enthusias- 
 tic Reviewer, ' interesting alike to the antiquary, the historian, 
 ' and the philosophic thinker ; a masterpiece of boldness, lynx- 
 ' eyed acuteness, and rugged independent Germanism and Phi 
 
PRELIMINARY. 
 
 ' lanthropy (derbcn Kerndeutschhcit unci Menschenliebe) ; which will 
 i not, assuredly, pass current without opposition in high places : 
 ' but must and will exalt the almost new name of Teufelsdrockh 
 ' to the first rank of Philosophy, in our German Temple of 
 c Honour.' 
 
 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 re- 
 hearse ; yet without indicated wish or hope of any kind, except 
 what may be implied in the concluding phrase : Mochte es (this 
 remarkable Treatise) audi im Brittischen Boden gedeihen! 
 
SARTOR EESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 If for a speculative man, 'whose seedfield,' in the sublime 
 words of the Poet, ' is Time,' no conquest is important but that 
 of new ideas, then might the arrival of Professor Teufelsdrockh's 
 Book be marked with chalk in the Editor's calendar. It is in- 
 deed an ' extensive Volume,' of boundless, almost formless con- 
 tents, 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 in- 
 spection, it became apparent that here a quite new Branch of 
 Philosophy, leading to as yet undescried ulterior results, was dis- 
 J closed ; farther, what seemed scarcely less interesting, a quite 
 new human Individuality, an almost unexampled personal charac- 
 ter, that, namely, "1" Professor Teufelsdrockh the Discloser. Of 
 both which novelties, as far as might be possible, we resolved to 
 master the significance. But as man is emphatically a Prosely- 
 tising creature, no sooner was such mastery even fairly attempted, 
 than the new Question arose: How might this acquired good he 
 imparted to others, perhaps in equal need thereof: how could the 
 Philosophy of Clothes, and the Author of Buch Philosophy, be 
 brought home, in any measure, to the business and bosoms of 
 our own English nation ? For if i id to burn 
 
 the pockets till it be cast forth into circulation, much more 
 new Truth. 
 
 Here, however, difficulties occurred. The first thought natu- 
 rally was to publish Article after Article on this remarkable Vol- 
 ume, in BUCh widely circulating Critical Journals as the Editor 
 might stand connected with, or by money or love procure a 
 to. But, on the other hand, was it not clear that such matter as 
 
EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 must here be revealed and treated of might endanger the Circu- 
 lation of any Journal extant ? If, indeed, the whole parties of 
 the State could have been abolished, Whig, Tory, and Radical. 
 embracing in discrepant union ; and the whole Journals of the 
 Nation could have been jumbled into one Journal, and the Phi- 
 losophy of Clothes poured forth in incessant torrents therefV 
 the attempt had seemed possible. But, alas, what vehicle of I 
 sort have we, except Fraser's Magazine ? A vehicle all strewed 
 (figuratively speaking) with the maddest Waterloo-Crackers, ex- 
 ploding distinctively 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" Philoso- 
 pher, the idea^rof Teufelsdrockh without something of his per-J 
 sonality, was if not to insure both of entire misapprehension ?f 
 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 
 
 I them, not without disquietude, in the dark depths of his own 
 
 r mind. 
 
 80 had it lasted for some months; and now the Volume on 
 Clothes, read and again read, was in several points becoming 
 lucid and lucent ; the personality of its Author more and more 
 surprising, but, in spite of all that memory and conjecture could 
 do, more and more enigmatic ; whereby the old disquietude 
 seemed fast settling into fixed discontent, — when altogether un- 
 expectedly 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 
 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 W r ork on Professor 
 
SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Teufelsdrockh 'were undoubtedly welcome to the Family, the 
 • National, or any other of those patriotic Libraries, at present the 
 1 glory of British Literature ;' might work revolutions in Thought ; 
 and so forth : — in conclusion, intimating not obscurely, that Bhould 
 the present Editor feel disposed to undertake a Biography of 
 Teufelsdrockh, he, Hofrath Ilcuschrcckc. had it in his power to 
 furnish the requisite Documents. 
 
 As in some chemical mixture, that has stood long evaporating, 
 but would not crystallise, instantly when the wire or other fixed 
 substance is introduced, crystallisation commences, and rapidly 
 proceeds till the whole is finished, so was it with the Editor's 
 mind and this offer of Hcusehrecke'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, inter- 
 views with that singular man have taken place ; with more of 
 11 ranee on our side, with less of satire (at least of open satire) 
 on his. than we anticipated ; — for the rest, with sueh issue as 
 is now visible. As to those same ' patriotic JLibrariesf the Ho- 
 frath's counsel could only be viewed with silent amazement; but 
 with his offer of Documents we joyfully and almost instantane- 
 ously closed. Thus, too, in the sure expectation of these, we 
 ilready see our task begun ; and this our Sartor Resartus, which 
 - properly a ■ Life and Opinions of Iierr Teufelsdrockh/ hourly 
 advancing. 
 
 Of our fitness for the Enterprise, to which we have such title 
 and vocation, it were \ nrhaps uninteresting to Bay more. Let the 
 British reader study and enjoy, in simplicity bf 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 whal such Editor 
 
EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 may be, must remain conjectural, and even insignificant:* it is a 
 voice publishing tidings of the Philosophy of Clothes ; undoubt- 
 edly a Spirit addressing Spirits: whcso hath ears let him hear. 
 
 On one other point the Editor thinks it needful to give warn- 
 ing : 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 Jto 
 divert the current of Innovation, such a Volume as Teufels- 
 drockh's, if cunningly planted down, were no despicable pile, or 
 floodgate, in the Logical wear. 
 
 For the rest, be it no wise apprehended, that any personal con- 
 nexion of ours with Teufelsdrockh, Heuschrecke, or this Philo- 
 sophy of Clothes, can pervert our judgment, or sway us to exten- 
 uate 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 Grods, 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 mea- 
 ure ! But what then 1 Amicus Plato, magis arnica Veritas ; 
 Teufelsdrockh is our friend, Truth is our divinity. <^ln our his- 
 torical and critical capacity, we hope we are strangers to all the 
 world ; have feud or favour with no one, — save indeed the Devil, 
 with whom, as with the Prince of Lies and Darkness, we do at 
 all times wage internecine war^ This assurance, at an epoch 
 when Pjif£exy and Quackery hate reached a height unexampled 
 in the annals of mankind, and even English Editors, like Chinese 
 Shopkeepers, must write on their door-lintels, No cheating here, — 
 we thought it good to premise. 
 
 * With us even he still communicates in some sort of mask, or muffler ; 
 and, we have reason to think, under a feigned name ! — O. Y. 
 
 2* 
 
10 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 / 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 To the Author's private circle the appearance of this singular 
 Work on Clothes must have occasioned little less surprise than it 
 has to the rest of the world. For ourselves, at least, few things 
 have been more unexpected. Professor Teufelsdrockh, at the pe- 
 riod of our acquaintance with him, seemed to lead a cpiite stil l 
 and selfrcontaincd life : a man devoted to the higher Philoso- 
 phies, 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, witli an Argument 
 that cannot but exasperate and divide. Not, that we can remem- 
 ber, 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 nmst Political, and towards a certain prospective, and for 
 the present quite speculative, Radicalism ; as indeed some corres- 
 pondence, on his part, with Herr Oken of Jena was now and then 
 suspected ; though his special contributions to the Isis could 
 never be more than surmised at. (\But, at all events, nothing 
 Moral, still less any thing Didaetico-lleligious, was looked for 
 from himy 
 
 Well do we recollect the last words he spoke in our hearing ; 
 which indeed, with the Night they were uttered in, are to be for 
 ever remembered. Lifting his huge tumbler of Ghdtgvkf and 
 for a moment lowering his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full coffee- 
 house (it was Zi/ni Grunen Gunse^ the largest in AYeissnichtwo, 
 where all the Virtuosity, and nearly all the Intellect, of the place 
 
 * Gukguk is unhappily only an academical — beer. 
 
REMINISCENCES. n 
 
 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 he dubious, proposed this toast: Die 
 SacJic dcr Armenin Gotlcs unci Teufcls Namcn (The Cause of the 
 
 Poor in Heaven's name and 's) ! One full shout, breaking 
 
 the leaden silence ; then a gurgle of innumerable emptying 
 bumpers, again followed by universal cheering, returned him loud 
 acclaim. It was the finale of the night : resuming their pipes ; 
 in the highest enthusiasm, amid volumes of tobacco-smoke ; tri- 
 umphant, cloudcapt without and within, the assembly broke up, 
 each to his thoughtful pillow. Bleibt clock ein eckter Spass-und 
 Galgen-vogcl, said several ; meaning thereby thaly one .day, he 
 would probably be hanged for his democratic sentiments. Wo 
 steckt der Sclialk ? added they, looking round : but Teufelsdrockh 
 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 Teufelsdrockh, who could tell what lurked in thee 1 
 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 
 ui ost busy bra in. In thy eyes too, deep under their shaggy 
 brows, and looking out so still and dreamy, have we not noticed 
 gleams of an ethereal or else a diabolic fire, and half fancied that 
 their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion, the sleep of a 
 spinning top ? Thy little figure, there as, in loose, ill-brushed, 
 threadbare habiliments, thou sattest, amid litter and lumber, 
 whole days, to l think and smoke tobacco,' held in it a mighty 
 heart. The secrets of man's Life were laid open to thee ; thou 
 sawest into the mystery of the Universe, farther than another ; 
 thou hadst in petto thy remarkable Volume on Clothes. Nay, 
 was there not in that clear logically-founded Transcendentalism 
 of thine ; still more, in thy meek, silent, deepseated Sansculot- 
 tjsm, 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! 
 
12 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Bow the Hofrath Heuschrecke is to furnish biographical data, 
 i:i this case, may be a curious question : the answer of which. 
 howeyer, is happily not out concern, but his. To us it appeared, 
 after repeated trial, that in Weissnichtwo, from the archives or 
 ; the best informed classes, no Biography of Teufels- 
 drockh was to l>c gathered: not so much as a false one. He 
 - a Stranger there, wafted thither by what is called the course 
 of circumstances; concerning whose parentage, birth-place, pros- 
 its, or pursuits, Curiosity had indeed made inquiries, but satis- 
 fied herself with the moat indistinct replies. For himself, he 
 y was a man so still and altogether un participating, 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 in- 
 trusions, and deter you from the like Wits spoke of him 
 nth as if he were a kind of Melchizedek, without father or 
 iicr of any kind : sometimes, with reference to his great his- 
 toric and statistic knowledge, and the vivid way he had ofex] 
 ing himself like an eye-witness of distant transactions and 
 oes, tiny called him the Ewige J:i h\ Everlasting, or as we 
 say. "Wandering J( sv. 
 
 To the most, indeed; he had become not so much a Man as a 
 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 Atigemeine Zeitang, or the domestic 
 habits of the Sun. Both wen; there and welcome ; theworld en- 
 joyed what g 1 was in them, and thought DOmoreoftBe matter. 
 
 The man Teufelsdroekh passed and repassed, 4D his little circle. 
 
 one of these originals and nondescripts, mere frequent in Ger- 
 man Universities than elsewhere; of whom, though you see them 
 alive, and feel certain enough that they must have a History, 
 History seems to be discoverable ; or only Buch as men give of 
 mountain rocks and antediluvian ruins :/'That they have keen 
 created by unknown agencies, are in a state of gradual decay, and 
 for the present reflect light ami resist pressure ; that is. are visi- 
 ble and tangible objects in this phantasm world, where so much 
 other m\ m.iy i- 
 
 It was to be remarked that though, by title and diploma. Pro- 
 
REMINISCEN&S^ 
 
 13 
 
 feasor der AUerley-Wlssenschaft^ or as we should say in English, 
 
 ' Professor of Things in General, 1 he had never delivered any 
 Course \ perhaps never been incited thereto by any public fur- 
 therance or requisition. To all appearance, the enlightened Gov- 
 ernment of Weissnichtwo, in founding their New University, im- 
 agined 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 doubt- 
 less conside red premature; on which ground too they had only es- 
 tablished the. Professorship, nowise endowed it ; so that Teufels- 
 drockh, ' recommended by the highest Names,' had been pro- 
 moted thereby to a Name merely. 
 
 Great, among the more enlightened classes, was the admira- 
 tion of this new Professorship : how an enlightened Government 
 had seen into the Want of the Age (Zeiibedfyrfniss) ; how at 
 length, instead of Denial and Destruction, we were to have a 
 s cience of Affir mation and lleconstruction ; 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 in- 
 definite 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 w r as all an expiring clutch at 
 popularity, on the part of a Minister, whom domestic embarrass- 
 ments, court intrigues, old age, and dropsy soon afterwards finally 
 drove from the helm. 
 
 As for Teufelsdrockh, except by his nightly appearances at the 
 Grimen Gaiise, 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 
 
14 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 Eng- 
 lishman, however unworthy, Teufelsdrockh opened himself per- 
 haps more than to the most. Pity only that we could not then 
 half guess his importance, and scrutinise him with due power of 
 vision ! We enjoyed, what not three men in Weissnichtwo could 
 boast of, a certain degree of access to the Professor's private domi- 
 cile. It was the attic floor of the highest house in the Wahngasse ; 
 and might truly be called the innacle 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 Ortc, or as the Scotch say, and we ought to say. Airis : 
 the Sitting room itself commanded three ; another came to view 
 in the ScMafgemach (Bed-room) at the the opposite end ; to say 
 nothing of the Kitchen, which offered two. as it were duplicates, 
 and shewing nothing new. Bo that it was in fact the speculum 
 Or watch-tower of Teufelsdrockh : wherefrom, sitting at ease, he 
 might sec the whole life-circulation of that considerable City : the 
 streets and lanes of which, with all their doing and driving ( Thiui 
 mnl Treiben), were for the most part visible then 
 
 •• I look down into all thai wasp-nest or bee-hive," have we 
 beard him say. "and witness their wax-laying and honey-making, 
 "and poison-brewing, and choking by sulphur. From the Palace 
 L - esplanade, where music plays while Serene Highness is pleased 
 u to eat his victuals, down the low lane, where in her door-sill the 
 M aged widow, knitting for a thin livelihood, sits to feel the after-* 
 M noon snn 1 1 see it all : for, except the Schlosskirche weathercock, 
 
REMINISCENCES. 15 
 
 " no 1>iped stands so high. Couriers arrive bestrapped and be- • 
 " booted, bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged up in pouches of leather ; . 
 "there, topladen, and with four swift horses, rolls in the^cmrntry^ 
 " Baronand his household ; here, on timber leg, the lamed Soldier 
 " hops painfully along, begging alms : a thousand carriages, and 
 u w r ains, and cars, come tumblingfin with Fopd, with young Hus- 
 " ticity, and oljmr^aw^Produce, inanimate or animate, and go . 
 "tumbling out again with Produce manufactured. That living 
 " flood, pouring through these streets, of all qualities and ages, 
 i; knowest thou w T hence it is coining, whither it is going ? Aus 
 " dcr Ewigkeit ) zu dcr Eicigkclt hiii : 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 1 Their jolid 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, in weaves all Being :* 
 " watch well, or it wiil be past thee, and seen no more." 
 
 " Ach-j mem Lieber /" said he once, at midnight, when he 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 j^idereaLfire I 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 \j£e^and jMisery, to prowl or to moan like night- 
 " birds, are abroad : that hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet 
 " slumber of sick Life A is heard in Heaven ! Oh, under that hid- / 
 " eous coverlet of vapours, 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[ 
 
16 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 " are being born : men are praying. — on the other side of a brick 
 " partition, men are cursing ; and around them all is the vast, 
 "void Night. The p roud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed 
 " saloons, or reposes within damask curtains ; Wn^tchedness cow- 
 " ers into truckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken into its lair of 
 " straw : in obscure cellars, £>ugc-ct-Xoir languidly emits its 
 " voicc-of-destiny to haggard hungry ViUians i while Councillor* 
 " of State sit plotting, and playing their high chess-game, where- 
 u of the pawns are Men. The Loj£r whispers his mistress that 
 " the coach is ready : and she, full of hope and fear glides down, to 
 u fly with him over the borders : the TJaii^-Rtill more" silently, sets- 
 " to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen 
 " first snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, wim supper-rooms, 
 " and dancing-rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling 
 '•hearts; but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats 
 " tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes look out through the 
 " darkness, which is around and within, for the light of a stern last 
 " morning. Six men are to be hanged on the morrow : comes no 
 " hammering from the Rabenstein ? — their gallows must even now 
 " be o'building. Upwards of five hundred thousand two-legged 
 '•animals without feathers lie round us, in horizontal position J 
 '.' 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 
 u moisten. — All these heaped and huddled together, with nothing 
 " but a little carpentry and masonry between them : — crammed 
 "in, like salted fish, in their barrel ; — or weltering, shall I say, 
 " like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed Vipers, eaeh struggling to get 
 " its head oAim the other : such work goes on under that smoke- 
 •■ counterpane ! — Bui Wi >•/!.•(•?• } sit above it all : 1 am alone 
 
 " with the St.flx«.»- 
 
 \Ye looked in his face to sec 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- 
 Ught, and far enough from the window, nothing save that old 
 calmness and fixedness was visible. 
 
 These irere the Professor's talking seasons: most commonly 
 
REMINISCENCES. 17 
 
 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, to- 
 bacco-boxes, Periodical Literature, and Blucher Boots. Old 
 Leischen (Lisekin, ; Liza). who was his bed-maker and stove- 
 lighter, his washer and wringer, cook, errand-maid, and general 
 lion's-provider, and for the rest a very orderly creature, had no 
 sovereign authority in this last citadel of Teufelsdrockh ; only 
 some once in the month, she half-forcibly made her way thither, 
 with broom and duster, and (Teufelsdrockh hastily saving his 
 manuscripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery of such 
 lumber as was not Literary. These were her E rdbebungen 
 (Earthquakes), which Teufelsdrockh dreaded worse than the 
 pestilence ; nevertheless, to such length he had been forced to 
 comply. Glad would he have been to sit here philosophising for 
 ever, or till the litter, by accumulation, drove him out of doors : 
 but Leischen was his right-arm, and spoon, and necessary of life, 
 and would not lie flatly gainsayed. We can still remember the 
 
 so silent that some thought her dumb ; deaf also 
 you would often have supposed her ; for Teufelsdrockh and 
 Teufelsdrockh only would she serve or give heed to ; and with 
 him she seemed to communicate chiefly by signs ; if it were not 
 rather by some secret divination that she guessed all his wants, 
 and supplied them. Assiduous old dame ! she scoured, and 
 sorted, and swept, in her kitchen, with the least possible violence 
 to the ear ; yet all was tight and right there : hot and black came 
 the coffee ever at the due moment ; and the speechless Leischen 
 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 
 
13 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Heuschreckc, already known, by name and expectation, to the 
 readers of these pages. To us. at that period, ^f^ JP P1 ,tf i ''] ■ Yjtf[fcp 
 seemed one of those purse-in<" <1. crane-necked, clean-brushed, 
 pacific individuals, perhaps sufficiently distinguished in society by 
 this fact, that, in dry weather or in wet, 'they never appear with- 
 out their umbrella.' Had we not known with what 'little wisdom' 
 the world is governed ; and how, in Germany as elsewhere, the 
 ninety and nine Public Men can for most part be but mute train- 
 ■ bearers to the hundredth, perhaps but stalking-horses and willing 
 ' or unwilling dupes, — it might have seemed wonderful how Ilerr 
 Heuschrecke should be named a Rath, or Councillor, and Coun- 
 sellor, even in W r eissnichtwo. What counsel to any man, or to 
 any woman, could this particular Hofrath give ; in whose loose, 
 zigzag figure ; in whose thin visage, as it went jerking to and fro, 
 in minute incessant fluctuation, — you traced rather confujdon 
 worse confounded ; at most, Timidity and physical Cold ? Some^: 
 indeed said withal, he was ' the very Spirit of Love embodied;' I 
 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 Teufels- 
 drockh's outline, who indeed handled the burin like few in these 
 cases, was probably the best: Er hat Gemuth und Geist, hat 
 Igstens gchabt, dock ohne Organ, ohnc Schicksals-gutist) isi 
 gegempartig aber halb-zerruttct. halb^rstarrtj " He has heart and 
 " talent, at least has had such, yet without fit mode of utterance. 
 " or favour of Fortune ; and so is now half-cracked, half-congeal- 
 " cd." — What the Hofrath shall think of this when he sees it, 
 readers may wonder: we, safe in the stronghold of Historical 
 Fidelity, arc carele 
 
 The main point, doubtless, for us all. is his love of Teufels- 
 droekh, 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 Teufeisdrockh treated his 
 gaunt admirer with little outward regard, as some halt-rational 
 or altogether irrational friend, and at best loved him out of grat- 
 itude and by habit. On the other hand, it was curious to ob- 
 serve with what reverent kindness, and a sort of fatherly protec- 
 
REMINISCENCES. 19 
 
 tion, our Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and as he fondly 
 imagined far more practically influential of the two, looked and 
 tended on his little Sage, whom he seemed to consider as a living 
 oracle. Let but Teufelsdrockh open his mouth, Heuschrecke's 
 also unpuckered itself into a free doorway, besides his being all 
 eye and all ear, so that nothing might be lost : and then, at 
 every pause in the harangue, he gurgled out his pursy chuckle of 
 a cough-laugh (for the machinery of laughter took some time to 
 get in motion, and seemed crank and slack), or else his twanging, 
 nasal Bravo! Das glautf ich; in either case, by way of heartiest 
 approval. In short, if Teufelsdrockh was Dalai-Lama, of which, 
 except perhaps in his.- self-seclusion, and god-like Indifference, 
 there was no symptom, then might Heuschrecke pass for his 
 chief Talapoin, to whom no dough-pill he could knead and pub- 
 lish was other than medicinal and sacred. 
 
 In such environment, social, domestic, and physical, did Teu- 
 felsdrockh, 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 solitujde^putwatching the 
 Bear, it was that the indomitable Inquirer fought all his battles 
 with Dulness and Darkness ; here, in all probability, that he 
 wrote this surprising Volume on Clothes. Additional particu- 
 lars : of his age, which was of that standing middle sort you 
 could only guess at ; of his wide surtout ; the colour of his trou- 
 sers, fashion of his broad-brimmed steeple-hat, and so forth, we 
 might report, but do not. The Wisest truly is, in these times, 
 the Greatest ; so that an enlightened curiosity, leaving Kings 
 and such like to rest very much on their own basis, turns more 
 and more to the Philosophic Class : nevertheless, what reader 
 expects that, with all our writing and reporting Teufelsdrockh 
 could be brought home to him, till once the Documents arrive ? 
 His Life, Fortunes, and Bodily Presence, aj^jisj:et hidden ton- 
 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 Doub- 
 loons ? To the soul of Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, to his opinions, 
 namely, on the ' Origin and Influence of Clothes,' we for the pre- 
 sent gladly return. 
 
20 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that tliis 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 j 
 troubled nebulosities amid its effulgence,-^, mixture of insight. 
 inspiration, with dulness, double-vision, and even utter blindn< 
 
 Without committing ourselves to those enthusiastic praises 
 and prophesyings of the Weissnichtivd 1 sche A?izciger, we admitted | 
 that the Book had in a high degree excited^ns-to self-activity) ,. 
 yliich__isJ;lie_J3(3st effect of an y b ook ; 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 it may now be declared that Professor Teufels- 
 droekh's acquirements, patience of research, philosophic and 
 even poetic vigour, are here made indisputably manifest ; and 
 unhappily no less his prolixity and tortuosity and manifold in- 
 eptitude ; 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 treat- 
 ing it betokens in the Author a rusticity and academic seclusion, ' 
 unblamable, indeed inevitable in a Gferman, but fatal to his sue- j 
 
 cess with our public. ' 
 
 .Of good societ y Teufelsdrdckh appears to have seen , JU ttle » or ' 
 
 has mostly forgot ten what he saw. He speaks out with a strange • 
 
 plainness ; calls many things by their mere dictionary names. | 
 
 To lil 1 11 the Upholsterer is no Pontiff, neither is any Drawing- I 
 
CHARACTERISTICS. 21 
 
 room a Temple, were it never so begilt and overhung : ' a wj^ole 
 I immensity of Brussels carpets, and pier-glasses, and or-moulu,' 
 as lie himself expresses it, ' cannot hide from me that such Draw- 
 ' ing room is simply a section of Infinite Space, where so many 
 1 God-created Souls do for the time meet together.' To Teufels- 
 * drockh 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 iniple- 
 1 ment, ! he says, ' in its kind ; a tag for hook ing-togei her ; and, for 
 1 the rest, was dug from the earth, and hammered on a stithy 
 'before smith's fingers.' Thus do es the Profess or look in men's 
 faces wij^a^atnuj^Jniimrtiality, a strange_ scientific freedom ; /Oj/p ,- 
 like a man unversed in the higher circles, like a man dropped T[fjr 
 thither from the Moon. Rightly considered, it is in this pecu- 
 liarity, running through his whole system of thought, that all 
 these short-comings, over-shootings, and multiform perversities, 
 take rise : if indeed they have not a second^ource, also natural 
 enough, in his Transcendental Philosophies, and humc4r of look: 
 ing 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 fashion- 
 able ranks too, if it be true, as Teufelsdrockh maintains, that 
 
 'within the most starched cravat there passes a windpipe and; 
 i 
 
 weasand, and under the thickliest embroidered waistcoat beats 
 'a heart,' — the force of that rapt earnestness may be felt, and 
 here and there an arrow of the soul pierce through. In our 
 wild Seer, shagg}~, unkempt, like a Baptist living on locusts and 
 wild honey, there is an untutored energy, a silent, as it were un- 
 conscious, strength, which, ex^e^)TlErtTie"higher walks of Litera- 
 ture, 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 I 
 what cutting words, now and then, he severs asunder the confu- ' 
 sion : sheers down, were it furlongs deep, into the true centre of / 
 the matter ; and there not only hits the nail on the head, but J 
 
22 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 mtk crushing force smites it homeland buries it-J-On the other 
 
 hand, let us be true to admit, lie is the most unequal writer 
 i 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?} 
 
 Qfjiis boundless Learning, and how all reading and literature 
 in most known tongues, from S l nchoniathon to Dr. Znjtgard, 
 from your Oriental Shasters, and Talmuds, and Korans, with Cas- 
 sini's Siamese Tables, and Laplace's Mccaniquc Celeste down to 
 Robinson Crusoe and the Be/fast Town and Country Almanack, 
 are familiar to him, — we shall say nothing : for unexampled as it 
 is with us, to the Germans such universality of study passes with- 
 out wonder, as a thing commendable, indeed, but natural, indis- 
 pensable, and there of course. A man that devotes his l ife to, 
 lejaxning. shall he not be learned? 
 
 In respect of style our Author manifests the same genial capa- 
 bility, marred too often by the same rudeness, inequality, and 
 jl apparent want of intercourse with the higher classes. Occasion- 
 ally, as above hinted, we find consummate vigor, a true inspiration ; 
 his burning Thoughts step forth in fit burning Words, like so 
 many fall 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 ter- 
 rors of a wild Imagination, wedded to the clearest Intellect, 
 alternate in beautiful vicissitude. Were it not that sheer sleep- 
 ing and soporific passages; circumlocutions, repetitions, touches 
 even of pure doting jargon, so often intervene ! On the whole, 
 Professor Teufelsdrockh is not a cultivated writer. Of his sen- 
 1 tences perhaps not more than nine tenths stand straight on their 
 | legs; the remainder arc 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 help- 
 lessly 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 Ids keynote and regulator ; now screwing itself 
 aloft as into the Song (if Spirits, or else the shrill mockery of 
 
CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Fiends ; now sinking in cadences, not without melodious hearti- 
 ness, 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 Humour , which we reckon among the very highest quali- 
 ties 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 inter- 
 course, do we still lie with regard to the ExQ£Qa&or-'s~JiioraLie.el- 
 ing. 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 s o sly and 
 still, so hnperturbably saturnine ; shews such indifference, malign 
 coolness towa rds all that men strive after ; and ever with some 
 half-visible wrinkle of a bitter sardonic humour, if indeed it be 
 not mere stolid callousness, — that you look on him almost witlna 
 shudder, as on some incarnate Mephistopheles, to whom this grec 
 terrestrial and celestial Round, after all, were but some huge fool 
 ish "Whirligig, where kings and beggars, and angels and demon^ 
 and stars and street sweepings, were chaotically whirled, iW 
 which only children could take interest. His look, as we men- 
 tioned, is probably the gravest ever seen : yet it is not of that 
 Gast^ron gravity frequent enough among our own Chancery sui- 
 tors ; 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 Tcufelsdrocldi ! Here, however, we gladly recall 
 to mind that once we saw him laugh ; once only, perhaps it was 
 the first and last time in his life; but then such a peal of 
 laughter, enough to have awakened the Seven Sleepers ! It was 
 of Jean Paul's doing : some single billow in that vast World- 
 Mahlstrom of Humour, with its heaven-kissing Coruscations) 
 which is now, alas, all congealed in the frost of Death ! The 
 
24 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 large-bodied Poet and the small, both large enough in soul, sat 
 talking miscellaneously together, the present Editor being privi- 
 leged to listen ; and now Paul, in his serious way. was giving one 
 of those inimitable ' Extra-harangues ;' and, as it chanced, On 
 the Proposal for a Cast-metal King : gradually a light kindled 
 in our Professor's eyes and face, a beaming, mantling, loveliest 
 light ; through those murky features, a radiant ever-young 
 Apollo looked ; and he burst forth like the neighing of all Tat- 
 tersall'Sj — tears streaming down his cheeks, pipe held aloft, foot 
 clutched into the air, — loud, long continuing, uncontrollable ; 
 a laugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the whole 
 man from head to heel. The present Editor, who laughed in- 
 deed, yet with measure, began to fear all was not right : however. 
 Teufelsdroekh composed himself, and sank into his old stillness ; 
 on his inscrutable countenance there was, if anything, a Bligh t 
 look of shame ; and Bichter himself could not rouse him again. 
 Readers who have any tincture *of Psychology know how much 
 J [is to be inferred from this : andithat no man who has once heart- 
 ily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably badjj 
 | How much lies in Laughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we deei- 
 jpher the whole man! .Some men wear an everlasting barren 
 I simper ; in the smile of others lies a cold glitter as of ice: the 
 I 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 eachinuation. as if they were laugh- 
 in-' through wool: of none such comes good. The man who 
 cannot laugh is not only lit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; 
 but his whole life is already B treason and a stratagem. 
 
 Considered as an Author. Herr Teufelsdroekh has one scarcely 
 pardonable fault, doubtless his worst : an almost total want of 
 arrangement. In this remarkable Volume, it is true, his adhe- 
 rence to the mere course of Time produces, through the Nar- 
 rative portions, a certain shew of outward method : but of true 
 logical method and setpience there is too little. Apart from 
 its multifarious sections and subdivisions, the Work naturally 
 falls into two Parts j a His torical-Descriptive, and a Philos ophic 
 cal Speculative but falls, unhappily, by no firm line of demar- 
 cation ; in that labyrinthic combination, each Tart overlaps, and 
 
CHARACTERISTICS. 25 
 
 indents, and indeed runs quite through the other. Many sec- 
 tions are of a debatable rubric, or even quite nondescript and un- 
 nanieable ; 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 endeavour. 
 
26 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 
 
 1 As Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Laws, 1 observes our Profes- 
 sor, ' so could I write a Spirit, nf n/nthrs ; thus, with an Esprit 
 ' cles Loix, properly an Esprit de Coutumes, we should have an 
 ' Esprit de Costumes. For neither in tailoring nor in legislating 
 ' does man proceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided 
 ' on by mysterious operations of the mind. In all his Modes, 
 '- and habilatory endeavours, an Architectural Idea will be found 
 '• lurking jjhis Body and the Cloth are the site and materials 
 '• whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, of a Person, is to 
 ' be built.')) Whether he flows gracefully out in folded mantles, 
 ' based on light sandals ; tower up in high headgear, from amid 
 ' peaks, spangles and bell-girdles ; swell out in starch ruffs, buck- 
 ' ram stuffings and monstrous tuberosities ; or gi^tli himself into 
 ' separate sections, and front the world an Agglomeration of four 
 ' limbs, — will depend on the nature of such xirchitectural Idea : 
 ' whether Grecian, Gothic, Later-Gothic, or altogether Modern, 
 'and Parisian or Anglo-Dandieal. | Again, what meaning lies in 
 1 Colour ! From the soberest drab to the high-flaming scarlet, 
 s.-il i diosyncrasi es unfold themselves in choice of Colour: 
 'if t lie Cut be I 1 T.ileriVs o doBS ^-tho. -Lktkmf 
 
 ' hptnl-pr^JTem per and Hea rt. 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 bees regulated and prescribed by ever-activii 
 Influences, which doubtless to Intelligences of a superior order. 
 
 I nil LlV^Ll^t/O, IWIH II UUUUUCOT HJ XLll 
 
 ; are neither invisible uor illegible. 
 
 'For such superior Intelligences a Camse-and-Efiect Philoso-. 
 ' phy of Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter-. 
 ' evening entertainment: nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, 
 
THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 27 
 
 like men, such Philosophies have always seemed to me unin- 
 
 structive 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 1 — 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 
 
 ' /am here, to wear and obey any thing ! — Much, therefore, if not 
 
 ' the whole, of that same Spirit of Clothes I shall suppress, as 
 
 ' hypothetical, ineffectual, and even impertinent : naked Pacts, 
 
 'and Deductions drawn therefrom in quite another than that 
 
 ' omniscient style, are my humbler and proper province.' 
 
 Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh has never- 
 theless contrived to take in a well-nigh boundless extent of field ; «■ 
 at least, the boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. *" 
 Selection being indispensable, we shall here glance over his First 
 Part only in the most cursory manner. This First Part is, no 
 doubt, distinguished by omnivorous learning, and utmost patience 
 and fairness : at the same time, in its results and delineations, it 
 is much more likely to interest the Compilers of some Library 
 of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even Useless Knowledge 
 than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was it this Par; 
 of the Book which Heuschrecke had in view, when he recom- 
 mended us to that joint-stock vehicle of publication, ' at present ~ 
 the glory of British Literature V 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-leave.-, 
 and leads us into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, 
 metaphorical, cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we 
 shall content ourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. 
 Still less have we to do with ' Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, 
 'according to the Talmudists, he had before Eve, and who bore 
 ' him, in that wedlock, the whole progeny of aerial, aquatic, and 
 ' terrestrial Devils.' — very needlessly, we think. On this portion 
 of the Work, with its profound glances into the Adam-Kadmon, 
 or P_rimeval_Elei!ieiit. here strangely brought into relation with 
 the Nifl and Muspel (Darkness and Light) of the antique North, 
 it may be enough to say that its correctness of deduction, and 
 
28 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 depth of Talmudic and Babbinieal lore have filled perhaps not 
 the worst Hebraist in Britain with something like astonishment. 
 
 But quitting this twilight region, Tcufelsdrockh hastens from 
 the Tower of Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the 
 whole habitable and habjlaj^e globe. Walking by the light of 
 Oriental, Pelasgic, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient 
 and Modern researches of every conceivable kind, he strives to 
 give us in compressed shape (as the Nurnbergers give an Orbis 
 Pidus) an Orbis Vestitus A\pr view of the costumes of all mankind, 
 in all countries, in all timesS\ 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 ; 
 chlamides, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, trunk-hose, leather 
 breeches, Celtic philibegs (though breeches, as the name Gallia 
 Braccata indicates, are the more ancient), Hussar cloaks, Van- 
 dyke tippets, ruffs, fardingales, are brought vividly before us, — 
 even the Kilmarnock nightcap is not forgotten. For most part 
 too we must admit that the Learning, heterogeneous as it is, and 
 tumbled down quite pell-mell, is true concentrated and purified 
 Learning, the drossy parts smelted out and thrown aside. 
 
 Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes touching pic- 
 tures 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 ;i matted clonk : the rest of 
 'his body Bheeted in its thick natural fell. lie loitered in the 
 
 'sunny glades of the forest, living on wild Bruits; or. as the an- 
 ' cient 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 de- 
 ■ l'< Qoe might Dot be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited 
 k thongSj thereby recovering as will as hurling it with deadly un- 
 ' erring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of 1 1 unger and l\evenge_once 
 
THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 29 
 
 i * satisfi^ J Jiisjig^L£aX£- was-iiot Camioi^L^Si^ggU^Jl^Jlutz ) . £ 
 
 * Warmth he found in the toils of the chase : or amid dried leaves 
 1 in his hollow tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto : but for 
 1 Decoration he must have Clothes. Nay, among wild people, we 
 1 find tattooing and painting even prior to Clothes. The first 
 ' spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration, as indeed we 
 i still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries. 
 
 ' Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer : loftiest Se- 
 { rene Highness : nay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rosebloom 
 1 Maiden, worthy to glide sylphlike almost on air, whom thou 
 1 lovest, worshippest as a divine Presence, which, indeed, symboli- 
 1 cally taken, she is — has descended, like thyself, from that same 
 ' hair-mantled, flint-hurling Aboriginal Anthropophagus ! Out 
 1 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 
 1 beholds, is in continual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vi- 
 ' talify. Cast forth thy Act, thy Word, into the ever-living, ever- 
 ' working Universe : it is a seed-grain that cannot die ; unnoticed 
 f ' to-day (says one), it will be found flourishing as a Banyan-grove 
 ( l (perhaps, alas, as a Hemlock-forest!) after a thousand years. 
 
 ' He who first shortened the labour of Copyists by device of 
 ' Movable Types was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering 
 i 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 
 1 pestel through the ceiling: what will the last do? Achieve the 
 ' final undisputed prostration of Force under Thought, of Animal 
 ' courage under Spiritual. A simple invention it was in the old- 
 
 * world Grazier, — sick of lugging his slow Ox about the country 
 1 till he got it bartered for corn or oil, — to take a piece of Lea- 
 ' ther, and thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure of an Ox 
 1 (or Pecus) ; put it in his pocket, and call it Pecunia, Money. 
 ' Yet hereby did Barter grow Sale, the Leather Money is now 
 1 Golden and Paper, and all miracles have been out-miracled : 
 'for there are Rothschilds and English National Debts; and,! 
 c whoso has sixpence is Sovereign (to the length of sixpence) over f 
 ' all men ; commands Cooks to feed him, Philosophers to teach j 
 
30 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 i hiin, Kings to mount guard over him, — to the length of six- 
 ' pence. — C lothes t oo, which began in foolishest love of Orna- 
 ' nient, what have they not become ! Increased Security, and 
 ' pleasurable Heat soon followed : but what of these ? Shame, 
 — ' divine Shame [Schaam, Modesty), as yet a stranger to the Anthro- 
 ' pophagous bosom, arose there mysteriously under Clothes ; a 
 1 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 
 
 • <>f US. 
 
 1 But on the whole,' continues our eloquent Professor, \ Man is 
 | } ' a Tool-using Animal (Hanthicr cades Thicr). Weak in himself, 
 1 and of small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flat- 
 ' test-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. Never- 
 ' theless he can use Tools, can devise Tools : with these the gra- 
 1 nite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glow- 
 ' ing iron, as if it were soft paste ; seas are his smooth highway, 
 1 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 Ora- 
 tory with a remark that this Definition of the Tool-using Animal, 
 appears to us, of all that Animal-sort, considerably the precisest 
 and best ? Man is called a Laughing Animal : but do not the 
 apes also laugh, or attempt to do it ; and is the manliest man the 
 ' greatest and oftenest laugher? Teufelsdrockh himself, as we 
 said, laughed only once. Still less do we make of that other 
 French Definition of the Cooking Animal; which, indeed, for 
 rigorous scientific purposes, is as good as useless. Can a Tartar 
 be said to oook, 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 Orinocco In- 
 dians who, according to Humboldt, lodge in crow-nests, on the 
 branches of trees; and, for half the year, have no victuals but 
 V pipeclay, the whole country being under water? But on the 
 
THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 31 
 
 other hand, shew us the human being, of any period or climate, 
 without his Tools : those very Caledonians, as we saw, had their 
 Flint-ball, and Thong to it, such as no brute has or can have. 
 
 ' Man is a Tool-using animal,' concludes Teufelsdrockh in his ^X 
 1 abrupt way ; ' of which truth Clothes are but one example : and 
 1 surely if we consider the interval between the first wooden 
 A Dibble fashioned by man, and those Liverpool Steam-carriages, 
 1 or the British House of Commons, we shall note what progress 
 ' he has made. He digs up certain black stones from the bosom 
 1 of the Earth, and says to them, Transport me and this luggage, ^ 
 c at the rate of five-and-thirty mites an hour; and they doit: he / 
 1 collects, apparently by lot, six hundred and fifty-eight miscella- 
 1 neous individuals, and says to them, Make this nation toll for us, 
 1 bleed for us. hunger and sorrow, and sin for us ; and tliey do it.' 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
32 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 APRONS. 
 
 \? 
 
 ' v One of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Volume 
 is that on Aprons. What though stout old Gao, the Persian Black- 
 smith, 'whose Apron, now indeed hidden under jewels, because 
 ' raised in revolt which proved, successful, is still the royal stand- 
 ' ard of that country ;' what though John Knox's Daughter, 
 'who threatened Sovereign Majesty that she would catch her 
 .nd's head in her Apron, rather than he should lie and b^ 
 ' a bishop ;' what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, with many 
 other Apron worthies, — figure here ? An idle wire-drawing spirit, 
 sometimes even a tone of levity, approaching to conventional 
 satire, is too clearly discernible. What, for example, are we to 
 make of such sentences as the following? 
 
 'Aprons are Defences \ against injury to cleanliness, to safety, 
 c !o modesty, sometimes to roguer} r . From the thin slip of 
 ' notched sill: (as it were, the Emblem and beatified Ghost of an 
 
 • Apron), which some highest-bred housewife, sitting at Niimberg 
 'Workboxes and Toyboxes, 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 siaeit in their smelt-furnace. — is there not 
 ' range enough in the fashion ami hm's of this Vestment .' How 
 
 I i ii QOncealedj how much has boon defended in 
 Aprons! Nay. rightly considered, what is your whole Military 
 
 • and Police Establishment, charged at oncalculated millions, but 
 'a \\\y_n> Bcarlet-coloured, iron-fastened Apron, wherein Society 
 
 (uneasily enough) ; guarding itself from some soil and 
 sparks, in this Devil's-smithy ( Teufels-schmiede) of a \ 
 1 l>ut of all Aprons the most puzzling to me. hitherto has been the 
 
APRONS. 33 
 
 1 Episcopal or Cassock. Wherein consists the usefulness of this 
 
 - Apron 1 The Overseer (Episcopus) of Souls, I notice, has 
 ' tucked-in the corner of it, as if his day's work were done : what 
 ' does he shadow forth thereby V &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 j, 
 1 Cooks, as a new vent, though a slight one, for Typography; ft^ 
 ' therefore as an encouragement to modern Literature, and de- 
 
 - serving of approval : nor is it without satisfaction that I hear of 
 
 - a celebrated London Firm having in view to introduce the same 
 ' fashion, with important extensions, in England.' — We who are 
 on the spot hear of no such thing ; and indeed have reason to be 
 thankful that hitherto there are other vents for our Literature, 
 exuberant as it is. — Teufelsdrockh continues : ' If such supply of 
 • printed Paper should rise so far as to choke up the highways 
 
 - and public thoroughfares, new means must of necessity be had 
 1 recourse to. In a world existing by Industry, we grudge to em- 
 
 - ploy fire as a destroying element, and not as a creating one. 
 
 - However, Heaven is omnipotent, and will find us an outlet. In 
 1 the meanwhile, is it not beautiful to see five million quintals of 
 c Rags picked annually from the Laystall ; and annually, after 
 
 - being macerated, hot-pressed, printed on, and sold, — returned 
 
 - thither ; filling so many hungry mouths by the way % Thus is 
 
 - the Laystall, especially with its Rags or Clothes-rubbish, the 
 
 ' grand Electric Battery, and Fountain-of-motion, from which and 
 
 - to which the Social Activities (like vitreous and resinous Elec- 
 
 - tricities) circulate, in larger or smaller circles, through the 
 ' mighty, billowy, stormtost Chaos of Life, which they keep alive !' 
 — Such passages fill us, who love the man, and partly esteem him, 
 with a very mixed feeling. 
 
 Farther down we meet with this : - The Journalists are now 
 ' the true Kings and Clergy : henceforth Historians, unless they 
 
 - are fools, must write not of Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and 
 ' Hapsburgs ; but of j^tajnjaeiL Broadsheet Dynasties, and quite 
 1 new successive Names, according as this or the other Able 
 4 Editor, or Combination of Able Editors, gains the world's ear. 
 1 Of the British Newspaper Press, perhaps the most important of 
 
34 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' all, and wonderful enough in its secret constitution and proce- 
 ' dure, a valuable descriptive History already exists, in that lan- 
 ' guage, under the title of Satan 's Invisible World Displayed ; 
 ' which, however, by search in all the Weissnichtwo Libraries, 
 'I have not yet succeeded in procuring (vermochte nickt 
 ' aufzutreiben)? 
 
 Thus docs the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus 
 does Teufelsdrockh, wandering in regions where he had little 
 business, confound the old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder, 
 with a new, spurious, imaginary Historian of the Brittische Jour- 
 nalistik ; and so stumble on perhaps the most egregious blunder 
 in Modern Literature ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 35 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 
 
 Happier is our Professor, and more purely scientific and his- 
 toric, when he reaches the Middle Aa^es 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 hence- 
 forth be profitably incorporated with Mr. Merrick's valuable 
 Work On Ancient Armour 1 Take, by way of example, the fol- 
 lowing sketch ; as authority for which Paulinus's Zeitkurzende 
 Lust (ii. 678) is, with seeming confidence, referred to : 
 
 ' Did we behold the German fashionable dress of the Fifteenth 
 ' Century, we might smile ; as perhaps those bygone Germans, 
 1 were they to rise again, and see our haberdashery, would cross 
 ' themselves, and invoke the Virgin. But happily no bygone 
 i 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 inter tangled with its branches, but 
 ' lie peaceably under ground. 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 
 1 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 i» the Law of Progress seoured ; and in 
 
36 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 Clothes, as in all other external things whatsoever, no fashion 
 1 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 Ro- 
 1 mance, till the whole has acquired somewhat of a sign-post 
 ' character, — I shall here say nothing : the civil and pacific 
 4 classes, less touched upon, are wonderful enough for us. 
 
 ' Rich men, I find, have Teusinke 1 (a perhaps untranslateable 
 article) ; ' also a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells ; so that 
 ' when a man walks it is with continual jingling. Some few, of 
 ' musical turn, have a whole chime of bells ( Glockenspiel) fastened 
 ' there : which especially, in sudden whirls, and the other acci- 
 \' dents of walking, has a grateful eifect. Observe too how fond 
 ' they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch intersections. The male 
 ' world wears peaked caps, an ell long, which hang bobbing over 
 ' the side (schief) : their shoes are peaked in front, also to the 
 ' length of an ell, and laced on the side with tags ; even the 
 * wooden shoes have their ell-long noses ; some also clap bells on 
 ' the peak. Further, according to my authority, the men have 
 ; breeches without seat (ohnc Gesdss) : these they fasten peakwisc 
 ' to their shirts ; and the long round doublet must overlap 
 ' them. 
 
 ' Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped out be- 
 ' hind and before, so that back and breast are almost bare. Wives 
 1 of quality, on the other hand, have train -gowns four or five ells 
 { in length ; which trains there are boys to carry. Brave Oleo- 
 ' patras, sailing in their silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for 
 1 steersman ! Consider their welts, a handbreadth thick, which 
 ' waver round them by way of hem; the long flood of silver but- 
 ' tons, 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 (Flcwwien), that is, sparkling hair-drops: but of their 
 'mother's headgear 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 handbroad 
 
MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 
 
 ' welts ; all ending atop in a thick well-starched Ruff, some 
 ' twenty inches broad : these are their Ruff-mantles (Kragen- 
 ' mantel). 
 
 i 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 (mil Teig zusammengekleislert), 
 1 which create protuberance enough. Thus do the tw£_ .sexes vie 
 ' with each other in the art of Decoration ; and as usual the 
 • stronger carries it.' 
 
 Our Professor, whether he have Humour himself or not, ^nani-_ 
 fests 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, cornuted shoes or other the like phenomena, of 
 which the History of Dress offers so many, escape him ; more es- 
 pecially the mischances, or striking adventures, incident to the 
 wearers of such, are noticed with due fidelity. Sir Walter Ra- 
 leigh'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 
 1 tirewomen, when from spleen and wrinkles she would no longer 
 1 look in any glass, were wont to serve her V We can answer that 
 Sir Walter knew well what he was doing, and had the Maiden 
 Queen been stuffed parchment died in verdigris, would have done 
 the same. 
 
 Thus too, treating of those enormous habiliments, that were not 
 only slashed and galooned, but artificially swollen out on the 
 broader parts of the body, by introduction of Bran, — our Profes- 
 
 sor fails not to comment on that luckless Courtier, who having: 
 seated himself on a chair with some projecting nail on it, and 
 therefrom rising, to pay his devoir on the entrance of Majesty, in- 
 stantaneously emitted several pecks of dry wheat-dust : and stood 
 there diminished to a spindle, his galoons and slashes dangling 
 sorrowful and flajpby round him. Whereupon the Professor pub- 
 lishes this reflection : 
 
 ' By what strange chances do we live in History ! Erostra- 
 ' tus by a torch ; Milo by a bullock ; Henry Darnley, an unfledged 
 
3S SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 'booby and bustard; by bis limbs.] most Kings and Queens by 
 ' being born under such and such a bed-tester; Boileau Des- 
 I preaux (according to Helvetius) by the peck of a turkey ; and 
 ' this ill-starred individual by a rent in his breeches, — for no Me- 
 ' moirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits him. Vain was the prayer 
 < of Themistocles for a talent of Forgetting : my Friends, yield 
 'cheerfully to Destiny, and read since it is written.' — Has Teu- 
 fclsdroekh to be put in mind that, nearly related to the impossi- 
 ble talent of Forgetting, stands that talent of Silence, which even 
 travelling Englishmen manifest % 
 
 1 The simplest costume,' observes our Professor, ' which I any- 
 ' where find alluded to in History, is that used as regimental, by 
 ' Bolivar's Cavalry, in the late Columbian wars. A square 
 f Blanket, twelve feet in diagonal, is provided (some were wont to 
 1 cut off the corners, and make it circular) : in the centre a slit is 
 ' effected eighteen inches long ; through this the mother-naked 
 1 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 singu- 
 larity, and Old-Roman contempt of the superfluous, we shall quit 
 this part of our subject. 
 
 15* ■ 
 
THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 
 
 If in the Descriptive-Historical Portion of this Volume, Teuf- 
 elsdrockh, discussing merely the Werden (Origin and successive 
 Improvement) of Clothes, has astonished many a reader, much 
 more will he in the Speculative-Philosophical Portion, which 
 treats of their Wirken or Influences..- It is here that the present 
 Editor first feels the pressure of his task ; for here properly the 
 higher and new Philosophy of Clothes commences : an 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 foot- 
 ing is firm substance and will bear us, where it is hollow, or mere 
 cloud, and may engulf us ! Teufelsdrockh undertakes no less 
 than to expound the moral, political, even religious Influences of 
 Clothes; he undertakes to make manifest, in its thousandfold 
 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 limboes, and in 
 ' either case be no more.' 
 
 By what chains, or indeed infinitely complected tissues, of Med- 
 itation 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 
 
40 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 whole systematic groups and kingdoms ; whereby, we might say, 
 an ob i c complexity, almost like that of Nature^ reigns in his Phi- 
 losophy; or spiritual Picture of Nature: a mighty maze, yet as 
 faith whispers, not vritnout a glafi; Nay we complained above,'* 
 that a certain ignoble complexity, what we must call mere con-fi 
 fusion, 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 
 favour 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 un- 
 discovered Americas, for such as have canvass to sail thither ? — 
 As exordium to the whole, stand here the following long cita- 
 tion : 
 
 ' With men of a speculative turn,' writes Teufelsdrockh, ' there 
 ' come seasons, meditative, sweet, yet awful hours, when in wonder 
 ' and fear you ask yourself that unanswerable question : Who am 
 ' / ; the thing that can say •• I (das TVcsen das sich Ich nenrU)? 
 
 \ l The world, with its loud trafficking, retires into the distance ; 
 
 , j'and through the paper-hangings, and stone-walls, and thick-plied 
 
 S tissues of Commerce and Polity, and all the living and lifeless 
 integuments (of Society and a Body), wherewith your Existence 
 ; sits surrounded, — the Bight reaches forth into the void Deep, 
 'and you are alone with the Universe, and silently commune with 
 • ir as one mysterious Presence with another. 
 
 • Who am I; what is this Me? A Voice, a Motion, an Ap- 
 { pearance ; — some embodied, visualised Idea in the Eternal 
 ' Mind 1 Cogilo, ergo sum. Alas, poor Cogitator, this takes us 
 ' but a little way. Sure enough I am ; and lately was not : but 
 'Whence'? [low? Wb The answer lies around, writter 
 
 ' in all colours and motions, uttered in all tones of jubilee anc 
 
THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 41 
 
 wail, in thousand-figured. thousand-voiced v harmonious Nature: 
 
 but where is the gunning eye anil 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 * L & 
 
 thereof: sounds and many-coloured visions flit around ourfl^f* 
 
 sense ; but Him, the Unslumbering, whose work both Dream 
 
 and Dreamer are, we see not ; ^except in rare halt-waking mo- 4J ^jL* 
 
 My 
 
 merits. "inspect not. Xlreation, 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 cjuotient. confi- 
 dently 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 We" most" indeed nndoubtingly 
 wander, as if they knew right hand from left : _yet they o nlyjire 
 wise who " know that they know nothing. 
 
 1 Pity that all Metaphysics had hitherto proved so inexpressi- 
 bly unproductive ! The secret of Man's Being is still like the 
 Sphinx's secret : a riddle that he cannot rede ; and for igno- 
 rance of . which he suffers death, the worst death, a spiritual. 
 What are your Axioms, and Categories, and Systems, and 
 Aphorisms? Words , w ords . High Air -castles are cunningly 
 built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good Logic-mor- 
 tar : wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge. The 
 whokis greater than the part': how exceedingly true ! JYaliire 
 a vacuum: how exceedingly false and calumnious ! Again. 
 Nothing caii 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 1 j/But that same 
 Where, with its brother, When, are from the first the master- 
 colours of our Dream-grotto; say rather, the Canvass (the warp 
 and woof thereof) whereon all our Dreams and Life-visions are 
 
42 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 [ 
 
 ' painted. Nevertheless, has not a deeper meditation taught cer- 
 ' tain of every climate and age, that the Where and When, so ' 
 ' mysteriously inseparable from all our thoughts, are but super- j 
 ' ficial terrestrial adhesions to thought ; that the Seer may dis- 
 ' cern them where they mount up out of the celestial Every- 
 ' where 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 ; 
 1 there is no Space and no Time : We are — we know not what ; 
 
 -light-sparkles floating in tlie aether of Deity ! 
 
 ' So that tjria go so^id-se eniing ^Vorld . after all, were but an air- '< 
 ' image, our Me the only reality: and Nature, with its thousand- ; 
 < fold production and destruction, but the reflex of our own in- ■ 
 'ward Force, the "phantasy of our Dream ;" or what the Earth^"' 
 1 Spirit in Faust names it, t he living visible Ga rment of God : 
 
 ' " In Being's floods, in Action's storm, 
 I walk and work, above, beneath. 
 Work and weave in endless motion ! 
 Birth and Death, 
 An infinite ocean ; 
 A seizing and giving 
 The fire of the Living : 
 'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, 
 And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by." 
 
 ' Of twenty millions that have read and spouted this <thunder- 
 ' speech of the Erdgeist, arc there yet twenty units of us that 
 ' have learned the meaning thereof ? 
 
 ' It was in some such mood, when wearied and foredone 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 bootmaker, 
 'jeweller, and man-milliner ; he bounds free through the valleys, 
 ' with a perennial rainproof court suit on his body ; wherein 
 ' warmth and easiness of fit have reached perfection ; nay, tho 
 
 

 THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 13 
 
 ^lAltfl 
 
 ' graces also have been considered, and frills and fringes, with gay 
 ' variety of colour, featly appended, and ever in the right place, 
 ' are not wanting. While I — good Heaven ! — have thatched my- / 
 c self 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, over- \ ■ 
 1 heaped 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 
 1 into the Ashpit, into the Laystall ; till by degrees the whole has 
 'been brushed thither, and I, the dust-making, patent Rag- 
 ' grinder, get new material to grind down. 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-kin d 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 hap- 
 ' pen twice, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy, or 
 ' noticeable. Perhaps not once in a lifetime does it occur to your 
 ' ordinary biped, of any country or generation, be he gold- 
 ' mantled Prince or russet-jerkined Peasant, that his Vestments 
 'and his Self are not one and indivisible ; that he is naked, with- 
 ' out vestments, till he buy or steal such, and by forethought sew 
 ' and button them. 
 
 ' For my own part, these considerations, of our Clothes-thatchj 
 ' and how, reaching inwards even to our heart of hearts, it tailor- 
 ' ises and demoralises us, fill me with a certain horror at myself 
 ' and mankind ; almost as one feels at those Dutch Cows, which, 
 1 during the wet season, you see grazing deliberately with jackets 
 
SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 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 
 1 indeed that he is naked, and, as Swift has it, " a forked strad- 
 i dling animal with bandy legs ;" yet also a Spirit, and unutter- 
 ' able Mystery of Mysteries.' 
 
ADAMITISM. 45 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ADAMITISM. 
 
 Let no courteous reader take offence at the opinions broached 
 in the conclusion of the last Chapter. The Editor himself, on 
 first glancing over that singular passage, was inclined to exclaim : 
 What, have we got not only a Sansculottistj but an enemy to 
 Clothes in the abstract ? A new T X^niite~m this century, which 
 flaiier-sitself that it is the Nineteenth, and destructive both to 
 Superstition and Enthusiasm ? 
 
 Consider, thou foolish Teufelsdrockh, what benefits unspeak- 
 able all ages and sexes derive from Clothes. For example, when 
 thou thyself, a watery, pulpy, slobbery freshman and new-comer * j) 
 in this Planet, sattest muling and puking in thy nurse's arms j^SVt^^^ 
 sucking thy coral, and looking forth into the world in the blank- 
 est 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 apprized of the fact ; and neighbour after 
 neighbour kissed thy pudding-cheek, and gave thee, as hansel, 
 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 per- 
 force, 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 
 
46 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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. Ini 
 vain did the slcvot beat round thy temples ; it lighted only on thy J 
 impenetrable, felted or woven, case of wool. In vain did the! 
 winds howl, — forests sounding and creaking, deep calling unto ] 
 deep, — and the storms heap themselves together into one huge! 
 Arctic whirlpool ; thou newest through the middle thereof, strik-1 
 ing fire from the highway ; wild music hummed in thy ears, thou 
 too wert as a ' sailor of the air :' the wreck of matter and the 
 crash of worlds was thy element and propitiously wafting tide. 
 Without Clothes, without bit or saddle, what hadst thou been : 
 what had thy fleet quadruped been ? — Nature is good, but she is ] 
 nut the best ; here truly was the victory of Art over Nature. A ' 
 thunderbolt indeed might have pierced thee : all short of this 
 thou couldst defy. 
 
 Or, cries the courteous reader, has your Teufelsdrockh forgot- 
 ten what he said lately about ' Aboriginal Savages,' and their 
 1 condition miserable indeed V 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 tailorise and demoralise us,' have 
 they no redeeming value: can they not lie altered to serve better ; 
 must they of necessity be thrown to the dogs? The truth is, 
 Teufelsdrockh, though a Sansculottist, is no Adamite : and much 
 perhaps as he might wish to go forth before this degenerate age, 
 'as ;t 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 < nudities, what we might call the 
 omnipotent virtue of Clothes, such as was never before vouch' 
 
 tied to any man. For example: 
 
 ' You sec two individuals,' he writes, ' one dressed in fine Bed, 
 
 he other in coarse threadbare Blue: lied says to Blue, " Bo 
 
ADAAIITI-SAI. 47 
 
 'hanged and anatomised;" Blue hears with a shudder, and (0 
 'wonder of wonders!) marches sorrowfully to the gallows ; is there 
 ' noosed up, vibrates his hour, and the surgeons dissect him, and 
 ' fit his bones into a skeleton for medical purposes. How is this ; 
 ' or what make ye of your Nothing can ad but ivhere it is? Red has 
 ' no physical hold of Blue, no clutch of him, is nowise in contact 
 c with him : neither are those ministering Sheriffs and Lord- 
 
 * Lieutenants and Hangmen and Tipstaves so related to command- 
 ' ing Bed. that he can tug them hither and thither ; but each 
 5 stands distinct within his own skin. Nevertheless, as it is 
 1 spoken, so it is done : the articulated Word sets all hands in 
 ' Action; and Bope and Improved-drop perform their work. 
 
 ' Thinking reader, the reason seems to me twofold: First, thai; 
 ''Man is a Spirit, and bound -by invisible bonds to AH Men; 
 ' Secondly, that he wears Clothes, which are the visible emblems of 
 ' thatjafiL Has not your Bed hanging-individual a horsehair wig, 
 1 squirrel-skins, and a plush gown ; whereby all mortals know that 
 ' he is a Judge ? — Societ y, 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 cere- 
 
 * monials, FrankfortDoronations, Boyal Drawing-rooms, Levees, 
 1 Couchees ; and how the ushers and rnacers and pursuivants are 
 1 all in waiting ; how Duke this is presented by Archduke that, 
 ' and Colonel A by General B, and innumerable Bishops, Adini- 
 ' rals, and miscellaneous Functionaries, are advancing gallantly to 
 4 the Anointed Presence ; and I strive, in my remote privacy, to 
 ' form a clear picture of that solemnity, — on a sudden, as by some 
 
 1 enchanter's wand, the — shall I speak it? — the Clothes fly off the t/ 
 1 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 
 1 to laugh or weep. This physical or psychical infirmity, in which 
 ' perhaps I am not singular, I have, after hesitation, thought 
 f 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? 
 
48 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 FTyjMichouclriac men, and all men are to a certain extent hypo- 
 chondriac, should be more gently treated. With what readiness 
 our fancy, in this shattered state of the nerves, follows out the 
 consequences which Teufelsdrockh, with a devilish coolness, goes 
 on to draw : 
 
 'What would Majesty do, could such an accident befall in 
 
 * reality; should the buttons all simultaneously start, and the solid 
 c wool evaporate, in very Deed, as here in Dream 1 Ach Gott I 
 
 * How each skulks into the nearest hiding-place ; their high State 
 Tragedy (Havpl-und Staats- Action) becomes a Pickleherring 
 
 ' Farce to weep at, which is the worst kind of Farce ; the tables 
 (according to Horace), and with them, the whole fabric of Govern- 
 / y ment, Legislation, Property, Police, and Civilized Society, are 
 c 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 pic- 
 ture. The Woolsack, the Ministerial, the Opposition Benches — 
 infandum ! infanduml And yet why is the thing impossible? 
 Was not every soul, or rather everybody, of these Guardians of 
 our Liberties, naked, or nearly so, last night ; ' a forked Radish 
 with a head fantastically carved 1 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 Ra- 
 dishes, hold a Bed of Justice ? ' Solace of those afflicted with the 
 like !' Unhappy Teufelsdrockh, had man ever such a ' physical 
 or psychical infirmity' before ? And now how many, perhaps, 
 may thy unparalleled confession (which we, even to the sounder 
 British world, and goaded on by Critical and Biographical duty, 
 grudge to re-impart) incurably infect therewith ! Art thou the 
 malignest of Sausculottists, or only the maddest 1 
 
 1 It will remain to be examined,' adds the inexorable Teufels- 
 drockh, l in how far the Scarecrow, as a Clothed Person, is not 
 ' also entitled to benefit of clergy, and English trial by jury : nay 
 1 perhaps, considering his high function (for is not he too a De- 
 1 fender of Property, and Sovereign armed with the terrors of the 
 \ Law?), to a certain royal Immunity and Inviolability; which, 
 
x 
 
 ADAMITITISM. 49. 
 
 1 however, misers and the meaner class of persons are not always 
 ' voluntarily disposed to grant him.' * * 
 
 * * ' my friends, we are (in Yoriek Sterne's words) but I 
 ' as " turkeys driven, with a stick and red clout, to the market ; ; ' I 
 
 • or if some driveqkas they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder 
 
 • and put peas in it/rhe rattle thereof terrifies the boldest !' 
 
 4 
 
50 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PURE REASON. 
 
 ^ 
 
 It must now be apparent enough that our Professor, as above 
 • hinted, is a speculative Radical, and of the very darkest tinge ; 
 | acknowledging, for most part, in the solemnities and parapherna- 
 ; lia of civilised 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 re- 
 quires, a discerning public can have no wish. For our purposes ■ 
 the simple fact that such a Naked World is possible, nay actually 
 ( exists (under the Clothed one), will be sufficient. Much, there- 
 fore, we omit about ' Kings wrestling naked on the green with 
 ' Carmen,' and the Kings being thrown : '• dissect them with scal- 
 .'pels,' says Teufelsdroekh ; 'the same viscera, tissues, livers, 
 'lights, and other Life-tackle are there : examine their spiritual 
 ' mechanism ; the same great Need, great Greed, and little 
 1 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 lias actually put forth liis 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 every where 'Hail fellow well met." and 
 Chaos were come again : all which to any one that has once fairly 
 pictured out the grand mother-idea, Society in a staL ha ss i 
 
 will spontaneously suggest itself. Should some sceptical indi- 
 vidual still entertain doubts whether in a world without Clothes, 
 the smallest Politeness, Polity, pr even Police, could exist, let 
 him turn to the original Volume, and view there the boundless 
 I Serbonian Bogs of Sansculottism. stretching sour and pestilential : 
 
51 
 
 over which we have lightly flown ; where not only whole armies 
 but whole nations might sink ! If indeed the following argument, 
 in its brief riveting emphasis, be not of itself incontrovertible and 
 final : 
 
 ' Are we Opossums ; have we natural Pouches, like the Kan- 
 ' garoo ? 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 V 
 
 Nevertheless it is impossible to hate Professor Teufelsdrockh ; 
 at worst, one knows not whether to hate or to love him. For 
 though in looking at the fair tapestry of. human Life, with its 
 royal and even sacred figures, he dwells not on the obverse alone, 
 but here chiefly on the reverse ; and indeed turns out the rough 
 seams, tatters, and manifold thrums of that unsightly wrong-side, 
 with an almost diabolic patience and indifference, which must 
 have sunk him in the estimation of most readers, — there is that 
 within which unspeakably distinguishes him from all other past 
 and present Sansculottists. The grand unparalleled peculi- 
 arity of Teufelsdrockh is, that with all this Descendentalism, he 
 combines a Transcendentalism, no less superlative ; whereby if 
 on the one EancTlie 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 
 1 Heason what is he ? A soul, a Spirit, and divine Apparition. 
 1 Bound 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 
 1 them in Union and Division ; and sees and fashions for him- 
 ' self a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces, and long Thousands 
 1 of Years. Deep-hidden is he under that strange Garment ; amid 
 1 Sounds and Colours and Forms, as it were, swathed in, and in- 
 ' extricably over shrouded : yet it is sky woven, and worthy of a 
 ( God. Stands he not thereby in the centre of Immensities, in 
 1 the conflux of Eternities % He feels ; power has been given him 
 ' to know, to believe ; nay does*nbTthe spirit of Love, free in its 
 1 celestial primeval brightness, even here, though but for moments, 
 
■oS 
 
 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 look through ? Well said Saint Chrysostorn, with his lips of 
 ' gold, " the true Shekinah is Man :' ! where else i ; i.i :.'- 
 • PiiKSExi i: manifested not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, 
 ' as in our fellow man V 
 
 In such passages, unhappily too rare, the high Platonic Mysti- 
 cism of our Author, which is perhaps the fundamental element of 
 his nature, bursts forth, as it were, in full flood ; and, through all 
 the vapour and tarnish of what is often so perverse, so mean in 
 his exterior and environment, we seem to look into a whole in- 
 ward Sea of Light and Love ; — though, alas, the grim coppery 
 clouds soon roll together again, and hide it from view. 
 
 Such tendency to Mysticism is everywhere traceable in this 
 man ; and indeed, to attentive readers, must have been long ago 
 apparent. Nothing that he sees but has more than a common 
 meaning, but has two meanings : thus, if in the highest Imperial 
 Sceptre and Charlemagne-Mantle, as well as in the poorest Ox- 
 goad and Gipsy-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 honourable, can it be more ? The thing 
 Visible, nay the thing Imagined, the thing in any way con- 
 ceived as Visible, what is it but a Garment, a Clothing of the 
 higher, celestial Invisible, ' unimaginable, formless, dark with ex- 
 cess of bright?' Under which point of view the following 
 passage, so strange in purport, so strange in phrase, seems charac- 
 teristic enough : 
 
 ' The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Cloth. 
 even with armed eyesight, till they become 1 ra n spare nt. ■■ The 
 Philosopher," says the wisest of this age, u 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 
 18 the equal and kindly brother of all. 
 
 ' Shall w r e tremble before clothweba and cobwebs, whether 
 
 woven in Arkwright looms, or by the silent Arachnes that weave 
 
 nnrestingly in our Imagination? Or, on the other hand, what 
 
 is there that we cannot love ; since all was created by God? 
 
 L Happy he who can look through the Clothes of a Man (the 
 
 'woollen, and fleshly, and official Bank-paper, and State-paper 
 
PURE REASON. 03 
 
 ' Clothes), mtoJhe^M^Jiimself ; and discern, it may be, in this 
 ! or the other Dread Potentate, a more or less incompetent Diges- 
 ' tive-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. ' Won- 
 ' der,' says he, ' is the basis of Worship : the reign of wonder is 
 * perennial, indestructible in Man ; only at certain stages (as the 
 1 present), it is, for some short season, a reign in partibus infidc- 
 1 Hum.'' That progress of Science, which is to destroy Wonder, 
 and in its stead substitute Mensuration and Numeration, finds 
 small favour with Teufelsdrockh, much as he otherwise venerates 
 these two latter processes. 
 
 1 Shall your Science,' exclaims he, l 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 
 1 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 
 1 it screwed off, and (like the Doctor's in the Arabian Tale) set 
 c in a basin, to keep it alive, could persecute without shadow of a 
 
 ' heart, — but one other of the mechanical and menial handicrafts, 
 ' for which the Scientific Head (having a Soul in it) is too noble 
 'an organ ? I mean that Thought without Reverence is barren, 
 ' perhaps poisonous ; at best, dies like cookery with the day that 
 1 called it forth ; does not live, like sowing, in successive tilths 
 ' and wider-spreading harvests, bringing food and plenteous in- 
 \ crease to all Time.' 
 
 In such wise does Teufelsdrockh deal hits, harder or softer, 
 according to ability ; yet ever, as we would fain persuade our- 
 selves, with charitable intent. xAbove all, that class of ' Logic- 
 ' choppers, and treble-pipe Scoffers, and professed Enemies to 
 ' Wonder ; who, in these days, so numerously patrol as night-con- 
 \ stables about the Mechanics' Institu-te 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. 
 
54 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' walk abroad into peaceable society, in full daylight, with rattle 
 1 and lantern, and insist on guiding you and guardiDg you there- 
 ' with, though the Sun is shining, and the street populous with 
 'mere justice-loving men:' that whole class is inexpressibly 
 wearisome to him. Hear with what uncommon animation he 
 perorates : 
 
 ' The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder 
 ' (and worship), were he President of innumerable Royal So- 
 ' cieties, and carried the whole Mccanique Cdcde and Hegel's Phi- 
 ' losophy, and the epitome of all Laboratories and Observatories 
 1 with their results, in his single head, — is but a Pair of Spec- 
 ' tacles behind which there. is no Eye. j 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 ? Xay. thou wilt 
 1 attempt laughter ; whoso recognizes the unfathomable, all-per- 
 ' vading domain of Mystery, which is everywhere under our feet 
 ' and among our hands ; to whom the Universe is an Oracle and 
 ' Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall, — he shall be a 
 ' delirious Mystic ; to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt pro- 
 1 trusively proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as one injured, 
 ' when he kicks his foot through it 1 — Armcr 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 discinbel- 
 • lished and prosaic, but that thou hitherto art a Dilettante and 
 1 sandblind Pedant.' 
 I 
 
PROSPECTIVE. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 PROSPECTIVE. 
 
 The Philosophy of Clothes is now to all readers, as we predi- 
 cated it would do, unfolding itself into new boundless expansions, 
 of a cloudcapt, fimost chimerical aspec t, yet not without azure "huzz 
 loomings.in the far distance, and streaks as of an Elysian bright- 
 ness ; 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, '^ike other Mystics'} whether delirious or in- 
 spired, gives an Editor enough to do. Ever higher and dizzier 
 
 are the heights he leads US tO ; mnrp pWr-n-)^ r)n-rnmprPh,PTirljn{y 
 
 all-confounding are his views and glances. For example, this of. 
 Nature being not an Aggregate but a T^.liQ le,: 
 
 1 Well sang the Hebrew Psalmist : " If I take the wings of the 
 c morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the universe, God 
 1 is there." Thou too, cultivated reader, who too probably art 
 1 no Psalmist, but a Prosaist, knowing God only by tradition, 
 ' knowest thou any corner of the world where at least Force is 
 1 not 1 The drop which thou shakest from thy wet hand, rests 
 ' not where it falls, but to-morrow thou findest it swe.pt away ; 
 ' already, on the wings of the Northwind', it is nearing the Tropic 
 ' of Cancer. How came it to evaporate, and not lie moticmless 1 
 ' Thinkest thou there is aitght motionless ; without Force and 
 1 utterly dead ? 
 
 c As I rode through the Sehwarzwald, I said to myself : That 
 
 ' little fire which glows star-like across the dark-growing (nach- 
 
 le) moor, where the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and 
 
X 
 
 SG SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' thou hopest to replace thy lost horse-shoe, — is it a detached, : 
 1 separated speck, cut oif from the whole Universe ; or indis- , 
 ' solubly joined to the whole ? Thou fool, that smithy-fire was [• 
 ' (primarily) kindled at the Sun ; is fed by air that circulates c 
 ' from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dogstar : therein, " 
 ' with Iron Force, and Coal Force, and the far stranger Force ot>V 
 ' Man, are cunning affinities and battles and victories of Force; 
 ' brought about ; it is a little ganglion, or nervous centre, in the l 
 1 great vital system of Immensity. Call it, if thou wilt, an un- ! 
 ' conscious Altar, kindled on the bosom of the All ; whose iron ' 
 1 sacrifice, whose iron smoke and influence reach quite through ; 
 1 the All ; whose Dingy Priest, not by word, yet by brain and ' 
 ' sinew, preaches forth the mystery of Force ; nay preaches forth l 
 ' (exoterically enough) one little textlet from the Gospel of Free- | 
 ' dom, 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 , wor e it, 1 
 'only a withered Wf ? w^rks together with all; is borne forward 
 'on the bottomless, shoreless flood of Action, and lives through ; 
 'perpetual metamorphoses. The withered leaf is not dead andl' 
 : lost, there are Forces in it and around it, though working in in- 
 ' verse order ; else how could it rot? Despise not the rag from i 
 'which man makes Paper, or the litter from which the Earth i 
 ' makes Corn. \\Kightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant ; 
 ' all objects are as windows, through which the philosophic eye 
 ' looks into Infinitude itself* 
 
 Again, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald Smithy- Altar, what 
 vacant, high-sailing air-ships are these, and whither will they sail ' 
 with us? 
 
 ' All visible things arc Emblems : what thou seest is not there 
 c OB its own account; strictly taken, is not there at all: Matter 
 ' exists only spiritually, and to represent some [dea, and body it* 1 
 'forth. Hence Clothes, as despicable as we think them, are Bd 
 ' unspeakably significant. Clothes, from the King's mantle down- 
 ' wards, are Emblematic, not of want only, but of a manifold 
 ' cunning Victory over Want. On the other hand, all Emblem-^) 
 'atic things are proper!) Clothes, thought-woven or hand-woven: 
 
PROSPECTIVE. 57 
 
 'must not the Imagination veuve Garments, visible Bodies, 
 ' wherein the else invisible creations and inspirations of our Rea- 
 son 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 
 I 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 $r visible Garment for that divine Me of 
 \ his, cast hither, like a lignVparticle, down from Heaven? Thus 
 ' is he said also to be clotEecTwith a Body. 
 
 I ' Language is called the r^nwjjLpf Thought.: however, it 
 1 should rather be, Language is the Flesh-Garment, the Body, of 
 
 J Thought. I said that Imagination wove this Flesh-Garment ; 
 ; and does she not ? Metaphors are her stuff : examine Lan- 
 ' guage ; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of 
 S natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognised as such, 
 I or no longer recognised : still fluid and florid, or now solid- 
 I grown and colourless 1 If those same- primitive elements are 
 1 the osseou s fixtures i n the Flesh-Garment, Language, — then are 
 ! Metaphors its muscles and tissues and living integuments. An 
 | unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek for : is not your very 
 | Attention a Stretching-to ? The difference lies here : some styles 
 1 are lean, adust, wiry, the muscle itself seems osseous : some are 
 1 even quite pallid, hunger-bitten, and dead-looking ; while others 
 j again glow in the flush of health and vigorous self-growth, sonie- 
 1 times (as in my own case) not without an apoplectic tendency. 
 ! Moreover, there are sham Metaphors, which overhanging that 
 I same Thought's-Body (best naked), and deceptively bedizening, 
 ' or bolstering it out, may be called its false stuffings, superfluous 
 1 show-cloaks (Putz-Md/itel), and tawdry woolen rags : whereof 
 I he that runs and reads may gather whole hampers, — and burn 
 c them.' 
 
 Than which paragraph on Metaphors did the reader ever 
 chance to see a more surprisingly metaphorical % However, that 
 is not our chief grievance ; the Professor continues : 
 
 ; Why multiply instances ? It is written, the Heavens and 
 
 4* 
 
53 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' the Earth shall fade away like a Vesture • which indeed they 
 
 are 
 
 _. — v _ M ^ . w „„.w, . ^j 
 
 (t he Time-vesture o f t he Eternal. \ ffi hatsoever 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 
 
 J Philosophy of Clothes.' 
 
 Towards these dim infinitely-expanded regions, close-bordering 
 on the impalpable Inane, it is not without apprehension, and per- 
 petual 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 Heuschreeke ; which day- 
 star, 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 Ham- 
 burgh Merchant, whose name, known to the whole mercantile 
 world, he must not mention ; but whose honourable courtesy, 
 now and often before spontaneously manifested to him, a mere 
 literary stranger, he cannot soon forget, — the bulky Weissnichtwo 
 Packet, with all its Customhouse 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 Heuschreeke, in a too long-winded Letter, full of 
 compliments, Weissnichtwo politics, dinners, dining repartees, 
 and other ephemeral trivialities, proceeds to remind us .of what 
 we knew well already : that however it may be with Metaphysics, 
 and other abstract Science originating in the Head ( Verstand) 
 alone, no Life Philosophy (Lebensphilosophie), such as this of 
 Clothes pretends to be, which originates equally in the Character 
 
 . (GV ////(///), and equally speaks thereto, can attain its significance 
 till the Character itself is known and seen ; ' till the Author's 
 ' View of the World ( WeHcmsicht), and how he actively and pas- 
 
 G 
 
PROSPECTIVE. ^ V KS 59 
 
 \ sively came by such view, are clear : in short till a Biography 
 
 I of bini has been philosophico-poetically written, and philosophico- • i.< 
 
 ' poetically read.' ' Nay,' adds he, ' were the speculative scineitfic 
 
 1 Truth even known, you still, in this inquiring age, ask yourself, 
 
 'Whence came it, and Why, and How? — and rest not, till, if no 
 
 ' better may be, Fancy have shaped out an answer ; and either 
 
 f in the authentic lineaments of Fact, or the forged ones of Fic- 
 
 ' tion, a complete picture and Genetical History of the Man and 
 
 ' his spiritual Endeavour lies before, you. But why,' says the 
 
 ' Hofrath, and indeed say we, ' do r~dilate on the uses of our 
 
 \ Teufelsdro-ckh's Biography 1 The great Herr Minister von 
 
 1 G-oethe has penetratingly remarked that '-'• Man is properly the 
 
 ( onjv object that int e / qsts man :" thus I too have noted, that 
 
 'Inueissnichtwo our whole conversation is little or nothing else 
 
 ! but Biography or Autobiography ; ever humano-anecdotical 
 
 ' (menschlich-anecdotisch). Biography is by nature the most uni- 
 
 f versally profitable, universally pleasant of all things : especially 
 
 S Biography of distinguished individuals. 
 
 ' By this time, mein Verehrtester (my Most Esteemed),' con- 
 tinues he, with an eloquence which, unless the words be purloined 
 from Teufelsdrockh, or some trick of his, as we suspect, is welll 
 nigh unaccountable, ' by this time you are fairly plunged (verteift) 
 ' 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 ■ 
 1 mechanism, which manufactured such matter, and emitted it to 
 ' the light of day. Had Teufelsdrockh also a father and mother ; 
 ' did he, at one time, wear drivel-bibs, and live on spoon-meat ? 
 1 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 1 Has he fought duels ; — good Heaven ! how did he 
 ' comport himself when in Love 1 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 ? 
 
CO SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' To all these natural questions the voice of Public History 
 ' is as yet silent. Certain only that he has been, and is, a Pil- 
 ' grim, 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 
 ' bugbites ; 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 
 ' lie took, though all regularly jotted down (in indelible sym- 
 ' pathetic-ink by an invisible Ulterior Penman), are these nowhere 
 'forthcoming? Perhaps quite lost: one other leaf of thatf 
 ' mighty Volume (of human Memory) left to fly abroad, imprinted. 
 ' unpublished, unbound up, as waste paper ; and rot, the sport of 
 ' rainy winds ? 
 
 'No, verehrlester TIerr Herausgebcr, in no wise! I here, by the 
 ' unexampled favour 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 : ajid so the whole Philosophy and Philoso- 
 ' pher of Clothes will stand clear to the wondering eyes of Eng- 
 ' land, nay thence, through America, through Iiindostan, and the 
 1 antipodal New Holland, finally conquer (emnehmm) great part 
 ' of this terrestrial Planet!' 
 
 And now let the sympathising reader judge of our feeling 
 |whcn, in place of this same Autobiography with ' fullest insight.' 
 We find — Six considerable Paper Bags, carefully sealed, and 
 narked successively, in gilt China-ink, with the symbols of the 
 Six southern Zodiacal Signs, beginning at Libra; in the inside 
 of which scaled Bags lie miscellaneous masses of Sheets, and 
 oftener Shreds and Snips, written in Professor Teufclsdroekh's 
 
 rce legible cwrsiv-schrift, ; and treating of all imaginable things 
 u^ider 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 Metaphy- 
 sico-theological Disquisition. l Detached Thoughts on the Steam- 
 engine,' or, 'The continued Possibility of Prophecy,' we shall 
 

 PROSPECTIVE. fil 
 
 meet with some quite private, not unimportant Biographical fact. 
 On certain sheets stand Dreams, authentic or not, while the cir- 
 cumjacent 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 Autobio- 
 graphical delineations ; yet without connexion, without recognisa- 
 ble coherence ; so unimportant, so superfluously minute, they 
 almost. remind us of 'P.P. Clerk of this Parish.' Thus does 
 famine of intelligence alternate with waste. Selection, order 
 appears to be unknown to the Professor. In all Bags the same 
 imbroglio ; only perhaps in the Bag Capricorn, and those near 
 it, the confusion a little worse confounded. Close by a rather 
 eloquent Oration, ' On receiving the Doctor's Hat,' lie wash-bills 
 marked bezahlt (settled). His Travels are indicated by the 
 Street-Advertisements of the various cities he has visited; of 
 which Street-Advertisements, in most living tongues, here is per- 
 haps 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 further volatilise and dis- 
 compose 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. Biog- 
 raphy or autobiography of Teufelsdrockh there is, clearly enough, 
 none to be gleaned here : at most some sketchy, shadowy fugitive 
 likeness of him may, by unheard-of-efforts, partly of intellect, 
 partly of imagination, on the side of Editor and of Header, rise 
 up between them. Only as a gaseous-chaotic Appendix to that j 
 aqueous-chaotic Volume can the contents of the Six Bags hover \ 
 round us, and portions thereof be incorporated with our delinea- v 
 tion of it. 
 
 Daily and nightly does the Editor sit (with green spectacles) 
 deciphering these unimaginable Documents from their perplexed 
 cursiv-schrift ; collating them with the almost equally unimagina- 
 ble Volume, which stands in legible print. Over such a univer- 
 sal 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 I 
 a firm Bridge for British travellers. Never perhaps since our 
 
62 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 first Bridge-builders, Sin and Death, built that stupendous Arc 
 from Hell-gate to the Earth, did any Pontifex, or Pontiff, unde 
 take such a task as the present Editor. For in this Arch to 
 leading, as we humbly presume, far otherwards than that gran 
 primeval one, the materials are to be fished up from the welter 
 ing deep, and down from the simmering air, here one mass, there 
 another, and cunningly cemented, while the elements boil be- 
 neath ; nor is there any supernatural force to do it with ; but 
 simply the Diligence and feeble thinking Faculty of an English 
 Editor, endeavouring to evolve printed Creation out of a Ger- 
 man printed and written Chaos, wherein, as he shoots to and 
 fro in it, gathering, clutching, piecing the Wiry 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 transplant- 
 ing foreign Thought into the barren domestic soil ; except in- 
 deed planting Thought of your own, which the fewest are privi- 
 leged to do 1 Wild as it looks, this Philosophy of Clothes, can 
 we ever reach its real meaning, promises to reveal new-coming 
 Eras, the first dim rudiments and already budding germs of a 
 nobler Era, in Universal History. Is not such a prize worth 
 some striving ? Forward with us, courageous reader ; be it 
 towards failure, or towards success ! The latter thou sharest 
 with us, the former also is not all our own. 
 
BOOK II. 
 

 I 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 In a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable 
 whether from birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinised soever, 
 much insight is to be gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenom- 
 enon the Beginning remains always the most notable moment ; 
 so, with regard to any great man, we rest not till, for our scien- 
 tific 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 Gen- 
 esis of his can properly be nothing but an Exodus (or transit out 
 of Invisibility into Visibility) : whereof the preliminary portion 
 is nowhere forthcoming. 
 
 ' In the village of Entepfuhl,' thus writes he, in the Bag Libra, 
 on various Papers, which we arrange with difficulty, l dwelt An- 
 ' dreas Futteral and his wife ; childless, in still seclusion, and 
 'cheerful though now verging towards old age. Andreas had 
 1 been grenadier Sergeant, and even regimental Schoolmaster 
 ' under Frederick the Great ; but now, quitting the halbert and 
 ' ferule for the spade and pruniug-hook, cultivated a little Or- 
 ' chard, on the produce of which, he Cincirmatus-like, lived not with- 
 ; out 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 
 1 regimental Schoolmaster), and talked to neighbours that would 
 'listen about the Victory of Ptossbach ; and how Fritz the Only 
 ''{dcr Einzige) had once with his own royal lips spoken to him 
 ' had been pleased to say, when Andreas as camp-sentinel de- 
 
66 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' inauded the pass-word, " Schweig 1 Hund (Peace hound) ! "before 
 ' any of his staff-adjutants could answer. " Das nenn 1 ich mir einen 
 ' Kpnig, There is what I call a King/' would Andreas exclaim: 
 c " 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 wo- 
 ' mankind will not drill (icer kann die Wciberchen dressircn):" never- 
 ' theless she at heart loved him both for valour and wisdom ; to her 
 ' a Prussian grenadier Sergeant and Regiment's Schoolmaster was 
 'little other than a Cicero and D id : 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 ( Gcradhcit) ; that under- 
 " stood Biisching's Geography, had been in the victory of Rossbach, 
 ' and left for deadln the camisade of Hochkirch 1 The good Gretch- 
 ' en, for all her fretting, watched over him and hovered around 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 honour they hung, loo ked ever trim and gay; a 
 ' roomy painted Cottage, embowered in fruit-trees and forest-trees. 
 ' evergreens and honeysuckles ; rising many-coloured from amid 
 ' shaven grass-plots, flowers struggling in through the very win- 
 ' dows ; under its long projecting eaves nothing but garden-tools 
 'in methodic piles (to screen them from rain), an where, 
 
 ' especially on summer nights, a King might have wished to sit 
 ' and smoke, and call it his. Such a JBauergut (Copyhold) had 
 ' Gretchen given her veteran ; whose sinewy arms, and long-dis- 
 'used gardening talent, had made it what you saw. 
 
 'Into this umbrageous Man's nest, one meek yellow evening or 
 'dusk, when the Sun, hidden indeed from terrestrial Entepfuhl, 
 ' did nevertheless journey visible and radiant along the celestial 
 * Balance (Libra), it was that a Stranger of reverend aspect en- 
 ' tered ; and, with grave salutation, stood before the two rather 
 ' astonished housemates. He was close-muffled in a wide mantle : 
 : which without farther parley unfolding, he deposited therefrom 
 'what seemed some Basket, overhung with green Persian silk; 
 'saying only: Ihr lieben Leute, hier bring* em unschatzbarei !•• 
 
GENESIS. 67 
 
 ' Iciheii ; nchmi es in- allcr Acht, sorgfdltigst bcniUzt es : mit kohem 
 ' Lohn. odcr ivohl mit schiccren Zi?isen, wircPs cinst zuruckgefordert. 
 1 u Good Christian people, here lies for you an invaluable Loan ; 
 | take all heed thereof, in all carefulness employ it : with high 
 1 recompense, or else with heavy penalty, will it one day be re-, 
 j quired back " Uttering which singular words, in a clear, bell- 
 ! like, forever memorable tone, the Stranger gracefully withdrew ; 
 1 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 
 j had vanished in the thickets, in the dusk ; the Orchard-gate 
 j stood quietly closed : the Stranger was gone once and always. 
 
 1 So sudden had the whole transaction been, in the autumn still- 
 4 ness 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 
 I neither Imagination nor authentic Spirits are wont to carry, still 
 j stood visible and tangible on their little parlour-table. Towards 
 1 this the astonished couple, now with lit candle, hastily turned 
 ' their attention. Lifting the green veil, to see what invaluable it 
 j hid, they descried there amid down and rich white wrappages, 
 * no Pitt Diamond or Hapsburg Eegalia, but in the softest sleep, 
 ' a little red-coloured Infant ! Beside it, lay a roll of gold Fried- 
 { richs the exact amount of which was never publicly known ; also 
 ' a Taufschein (baptismal certificate), wherein unfortunately noth- 
 ' ing but the Name was decipherable ; other documents or indica- 
 \ tion none whatever. 
 
 ' To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then and always 
 | thenceforth.. Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next 
 j day, did tidings transpire of any such figure as the Stranger ; 
 ' nor could the Traveller, who had passed through the neighbour- 
 ! ing Town in coach-and-four, be connected with this Apparition, 
 ' except in the way of gratuitous surmise. Meanwhile, for An- 
 ' dreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was : What to 
 ' do with this little sleeping red-coloured Infant ? Amid amaze- 
 ' ments and curiosities, which had to die away without external 
 X satisfying, they resolved, as in such circumstances charitable 
 \ prudent people needs must, on nursing it, though with spoon- 
 
68 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' meat, into whiteness, and if possible into manhood. The Heav- \ 
 1 ens smiled on their endeavour : thus has that same mysterious < 
 ' Individual ever since had a status for himself in this visible Uni- 
 ' verse, some modicum of victual and lodging and parade-ground ; 
 ' and now expanded in bulk, faculty, and knowledge of good and ! 
 ' evil, he, as Here. Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, professes or is 
 ' ready to profess, perhaps not altogether without effect, in the 
 ' new University of Weisgnichtwo, the new Science of Things 
 1 in General. 
 
 Our Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should think he 
 well might, that these. -£ac_ts, first communicated, by the good 
 Gretchen Futteral, in his twelfth year, ' produced on the boyish 
 ' heart and fancy a quite indelible impression. Who this rever- 
 ' end Personage,' he says, ' that glided into the Orchard Cottage 
 ' when the Sun was in Libra, and then, as on spirit's wings, glided 
 j out again, might be? An inexpressible desire, full of love and 
 ' of sadness, has often since struggled within me to shape an an- 
 ' swer. Ever, in my distresses and my loneliness, lias Fantasy"" 
 < turned, full of longing (sehnsuchtsvoll^) to that unknown Father, 
 ' who perhaps far from me, perhaps near, either way invisible, 
 ' might have taken me to his paternal bosom, there to lie screened 
 ' from many a woe. Thou beloved Father, dost thou still, shut 
 ' out from me only by thin penetrable curtains of earthly Space, \ 
 ' wend to and fro among the crowd of the living ? Or art thou 
 ' hidden by those far thicker curtains of the Everlasting Night, 
 1 or rather of the Everlasting Day, through which my mortal eye 
 I and outstretched arms need not strive to reach ? Alas ! I know 
 ' not, and in vain vex myself to know. More than once, heart- 
 1 deluded, have I taken for thee this and the other noble-looking 
 1 Stranger ; and approached him wistfully, with infinite regard ; 
 1 but he too had to repel me, he too was not thou. 
 
 ' And yet, Man born of Woman,' cries the Autobiographer, I 
 with one of his sudden whirls, ' wherein is my case peculiar ? 
 ' lladst thou, any more than I, a Father whom thou knowest ? 
 1 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'naniest Father and Mother ; these were, like mine, but thy 
 ' nursing-father and nursing-mother : thy true Beginning ami 
 
GENESIS. 69 
 
 ' Father is in Heaven, whom with the bodily eye thou shalt never 
 ; behold, but only with the spiritual.' 
 
 ■ The little green veil,' adds lie. among much similar moral- 
 ising, and embroiled discoursing, ' I yet keep ; still more insepa- 
 1 rably the Name, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh. From the veil can 
 ' nothing be inferred : a piece of now quite faded Persian silk, 
 | like thousands of others. On the name I have many times 
 1 meditated and conjectured ; but neither in this lay there any 
 ( clue. 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 (Prdnwmeranten), Mili- 
 tia-Rolls, and other Name-catalogues ; extraordinary names as 
 we have in Germany, the name Teufelsdrockh, except as ap- 
 pended 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 sha- 
 dow forth my future destiny, or his own present malign hu- 
 mour ? Perhaps the latter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starre d' 
 Parent, who like an Ostrich hadst to leave thy ill-starred off- 
 spring to be hatched into self-support by the mere sky -influences 
 of Chance, can thy pilgrimage have been a smooth one 1 Beset 
 I 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, 
 1 hand-fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten and bedevilled, by the 
 Time-Spirit (Zeitgeist) in thyself and others, till the good soul 
 first given thee was seared into grim rage ; and thou hadst no- 
 1 thing for it but to leave in me an indignant appeal to the Fu- 
 ture, 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 J^Biud^ 
 nay almost all, in Names. The Name is tke£arlie*t Uja4unj j^ 
 you wrap round the Earth-visiting Me : to which it thenceforth 
 cleaves, more tenaciously (for there are Names that have lasted 
 nigh thirty centuries) than the very skin. And now from with- 
 
 \ 
 
70 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 out, what mystic influences does it not send inwards, even to 
 ' the centre ; especially in those plastic lirst-times, when the 
 ' whole soul is yet infantine, soft, and the invisible seed-grain will 
 '•grow to be an all-overshadowing tree ! Names? Could I un- 
 ' fold the influence of Names, which are the most important of 
 1 all clothings, I were a second greater TTrijmegistus. Not only 
 • all common Speech, but Science, Poetry itself is no other, if 
 ' thou consider it, than a right Naming. Adam's first task was 
 ' giving names to natural Appearances : what is ours still but a 
 'continuation of the same ; be the appearances exotic-vegetaUe,,, 
 ' organic, mechanic, stars, or starry movements (as in Science) ; . 
 ' or (as in Poetry) passions, virtues, calamities, God-attributes, 
 ' Gods ? — In a very plain sense the Proverb says, Call one a thief ^ 
 ' and he will steal ; in an almost similar sense, may we not per- 
 ' haps say, Call one Diogenes Teufehdrockh, and he will open the 
 ' Philosophy of Clothes. 1 ^^ 
 
 ■ Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all ignorant of 
 ' Iiis "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, endeavouring 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"' 
 ' his progress ; thus in some fifteen months, he could perform the 
 *' the miracle of — Speech ! To breed a fresh Soul, is jt not like 
 ' brooding a fresh (celestial) Egg ; wherein as yet all is formless : 
 'powerless; yet by degrees organic elements and fibres shooj 
 ' through the watery albumen : and out of vague Sensation] 
 grows Thought, grows Fantasy and Force, and we have Fhilosol 
 
 t 
 
 1 phies, Dynasties, nay Poetries and Religions I 
 
 'Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such 
 ' diminutive had they in their fondness named him, travelled fori 
 1 ward to those high consummations, by quick yet easy stages. 
 k The Futterals, to avoid vain talk, and moreover keep the roll of- 
 'gold Friedriehs safe, gave out that he was a grand-nephew : the 
 c orphan of some sister's daughter, suddenly deceased, in An- 
 1 dreas's distant Prussian birth-land ; of whom, as of her indi- 
 
 /* 
 
GENESIS. 
 
 | gent sorrowing widower, little enough was known at Entep- 
 1 fuhl. Heedless of all which, the Nurseling took to his spoon- 
 f 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 
 1 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 Teufelsdrockk's genealogy. More imperfect, more enig- 
 matic 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 honour, so we will not doubt him : but seems it not 
 conceivable that, by the I good Gretchen Futteral,' or some other 
 perhaps interested party, he has himself been deceived ? Should 
 these sheets, translated or not, ever reach the Entepfuhl Circu- 
 lating-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 Tombuctoo itself 
 is not safe from Britith 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 % 
 
 AR\ 
 
 University of California. 
 
 
 
72 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IDYLLIC. 
 
 c Happy season of Childhood !' exclaims Teufelsdrockh : ' Kind 
 ( Nature, that art to all a bountiful mother ; that Yisitest the poor 
 
 * man's hut with auroral radiance^ and for thy Nurseling hast 
 1 provided a soft swathing of Love' and infinite Hope, wherein he 
 1 waxes and slumbers, danced-round (umgdukdt) by sweetest 
 c 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 
 i king, and an Obedience that makes us Free. The young spirit 
 i 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 
 i Vicissitude, of that slower or quicker decay and ceaseless down- 
 1 rushing of the universal World-fabric, from the granite moun- 
 1 tain to the man or day-moth, is yet unknown ; and in a motion- 
 Less Universe, we taste, what afterwards in this quick-whirling 
 
 ' Universe is forever denied us, t he balm of Res t. Sleep on, thou 
 c 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 In' mimic battles : thou too, with old Arnauld, wilt have to 
 'say in stern patience: " Host 1 llest ? 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 falleu 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 
 1 around, and everywhere is dewy fragrance, and the budding of 
 
 * Hope; which budding, if in youth, too frostnipt, it grows to 
 j flowers, will in manhood yield no fruit, but a prickly, bitter- 
 c rinded stone-fruit, of which the fewest can find the kernel.' 
 
IDYLLIC. 73 
 
 In such rose-coloured 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 ac- 
 cordingly dwells on, with an almost wearisome minuteness. W« 
 hear of Entepfuhl standing ' in trustful derangement' among the 
 woody slopes : the paternal Orchard flanking it as extreme out- 
 post 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 ra- 
 dius, overtopping all other rows and clumps, towered up from the 
 central Agora and Campus Martins of the Village, l^ke its Sacred 
 Tree ; and how the old man sat talking under its shadow (Gne- 
 schen often greedily listening), and the wearied labourers reclined, 
 and the unwearied children spotted, and the young men and 
 maidens often danced to flute-n^usie. ' Glorious summer twi- 
 I lights,' cries Teufelsdrockh, l when the Sun like a proud Con- 
 I queror and Imperial Taskmaster 'turned his back, with his gold- 
 I purple emblazonry, and all his fire-clad bodyguard (of Prismatic 
 'Colours); 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 Weinlescn (Vintage), the Har- 
 vest-Home, Christmas, and so forth ; with a whole cycle of the 
 Entepfuhl Children's-games, differing apparently by mere super- 
 ficial 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 ' bravo old Linden V Or even where is the use of such 
 practical reflections as the following % \ In all the sports of Chil- 
 * dren, were it only in their wanton breakages and defacements. 
 ' you shall discern a creative instinet [schaffecleu Trieb) : the Man 
 ' kin feels that he is a born 3Ian. that his vocation is to Work. 
 ' The choicest present you can ma£e Tnn~Ts'~a^o^i^5e"^'t JI '"fnii T e 
 •' or pen-gun, for construction or for destruction ; either wa y.iiLJg 
 ' for Work, for Change. In gregarious sports of skill or strength, 
 1 fche Boy trains himself to Co-operation, for war or peace, as gov- 
 
SARTOR RESARTUS 
 
 1 ernor or governed : the little Maid again, provident of her do- 
 
 niestic 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 cven- 
 ' ings I was wont to carry forth my supper (bread-crumb boiled 
 1 in milk), and eat it out of doors. On the coping of the Or- 
 ' chard wall, which I could reach by climbing, or still more easily 
 ' if Father Andreas would set up the pruning ladder, my porrin- 
 ' ger 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 Sp eecM 
 ; ' for me ; nevertheless I was looking at the fair illuminated Let- 
 ' terSj 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 Docu- 
 
 3, such a piece as this : ' Impressive enough (be 
 'was it to hear, in early morning, the Swineherd's horn: and 
 ' know that so many hungry happy quadrupeds v 11 sides, 
 
 'starting in hot haste to join him, for breakfast on the Heath. 
 ' Or to sec them, at eventide, all marching in again, with short 
 :ik. almost in military order; and eaeh. topographically COW 
 ' rect, trotting off in succession to the right or left, through its 
 'own lane, to its own dwelling: till old Kunz. at the Village 
 
 bead, now left alone, blew his last blast, and retired for the 
 
 'night. We are wont to love the Bog chiefly in the form of 
 
 ' !Iam : yet did not these bristly thick-skinned beings here mani- 
 
 perhaps humour of character ; at any rate, a 
 
 i fnl Bubmi -who wei 
 
 rd 2 in, darn* line, and leal!,' 
 
IDYLLIC. 
 
 k sembling slate or discoloured tin breeches, is still the Hierarch 
 ' of this lower world V 
 
 It is maintained, by Hclvetius and his set, that an infant of 
 geajius is quite the same as any other infant, only that certain 
 surprisingly favourable 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-bar- 
 relled Game-preserver : the inner man of the one has been fos- 
 tered into generous development : that of the other, crushed 
 down perhaps by vigour of animal digestion, and the like, has ex- 
 uded and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably stag- 
 nant at the bottom of his stomach. ' With which opinion,' cries 
 Teufelsdrockk, ' I should as soon agree as with this other, that an 
 
 ■ acorn might, by favourable or unfavourable influences of soil and 
 
 ■ climate, be nursed into a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into an 
 
 • oak. 
 
 ' Nevertheless,' continues he, ' I too acknowledge the ail-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 philoso- 
 phers, to note down with accuracy the characteristic circum- 
 stances of their Education, what furthered, what hindered, what 
 in any way modified it : to which duty, now-adays so pressing for 
 'many a German Autobiographer, I also zealously address myself.' 
 — Thou rogue ! Is it by short clothes of yellow serge, and swine- 
 herd 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 Sighs, Hearings, Feel- 
 
 • ings 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 : 
 
76 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 who, with his battle-reminiscences, and grey austere yet hearty- 
 'patriarchal aspect, could not but appear another Ulysses and 
 ' " Mueh-enduring Man." Eagerly I hung upon his tales, when 
 ' listening neighbours 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 Hktory, as Biography ; to which I also, one day, by 
 1 hand and tongue, might contribute. 
 
 ' In a like sense worked the Postwagcn (Stage-Coach), which, 
 j' slow-rolling under its mountains of men and luggage, wended 1 
 I' through our Village: northwards, truly in the dead of night; 
 1 yet southwards visibly at eventide. Not till my eighth year, did 
 ' I reflect that this Postwagon could be other than some terrestrial 
 ( Moon, rising and setting by mere Law of Nature, like the hea-jj 
 f venly one ; that it came on made highways, from far cities to- . 
 'wards far cities ; weaving them like a monstrous shuttle into-< 
 ' closer and closer union. It was then that, independently of i 
 ' Schiller's WUhdm Tell, I made this not quite insignificant f 
 1 reflection (so true also in spiritual things) : Any rood, this 
 1 simple Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the Worlds 
 
 ' Why mention our Swallows, which, out of fair 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 hos- 1 
 • pitable Father (for cleanliness' sake) had fixed a little bracket,^ 
 k 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, al- 
 ' most social policy? For if, by ill chance, and when time 
 ' pressed, your House fell, have I not Been live neighbourly Kelp 
 ' ers appear next lav: and swashing to and fro. with animated 
 
 
IDYLLIC. 77 
 
 ' 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 con- 
 ' centrated and simultaneously poured down on us, was the annual 
 
 • Cattle-fair. Here, assembling from all the four winds, came 
 ' the elements of an unspeakable hurly-burly. Nutbrown maids 
 ' and nutbrown men, all clear-washed, loud-laughing, bedizened 
 ' and beribanded ; who came for dancing, for treating, and if pos- 
 ' sible 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 ; Niirnberg Ped- 
 ' lars, in booths that to me seemed richer than Ormuz bazaars ; 
 ' Showmen from the Lago Maggiore ; detachments of the Wiener 
 ' Schub (Offscourings of Vienna) vociferously superintending 
 'games of chance. Ballad-singers brayed, Auctioneers grew 
 ' hoarse ; cheap New Wine (heuriger) flowed like water, still 
 ' worse confounding the confusion ; and high over all, vaulted, in 
 ' ground-and-lofty tumbling, a particoloured Merry Andrew, like 
 
 1 the genius of the place and of Life itself. 
 
 'Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence; under the deep 
 ' heavenly FirmamentTwaited on by the four golden Seasons, 
 ' with their vicissitudes of contribution, for even grim Winter 
 'brought its skating-matches and shooting-matches, its snow- 
 ' storms and Christmas carols, — did the Child sit and learn. 
 ' These things were the Alphabet, whereby in after-time 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 ele- 
 'nient 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 
 
... 
 
 78 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' then my felicity was perfect. I had. once for all. come down 
 ' from Heaven into the Earth. Among the rainbow colours 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; 
 1 till in after-years it almost overshadowed my whole canopy, and. 
 ' threatened to engulf me in final night. It was the ring of Ne- : 
 1 cessity, whereby we are all begirt ; happy he for whom a kind 
 c heavenly Sun brightens it into a ring of Duty, and plays round 
 1 it with beautiful prismatic diffractions ; yet ever, as basis and as 
 ' bourne 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 
 c handle this and that. If good Passivity alone, and not good' 
 ' Passjyjjty__and good Activity togethe r, were tbe"tl iin:: wanted, 
 r t hen was my early position favou rable 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 (Thatkrafi) was unfavourably 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 beat and forbear 
 1 than to make and do. I was forbid much: wishes in any niea- 
 
 * sure bold I had to renounce ; everywhere a strait bond o\: ( >l>e- 
 c dience inflexibly held me down. Thus already Freewill often 
 - came in painful collision with Necessity: so that my tears ih.wed, 
 'and at seasons the Child Itself mighi taste that root of bitten 
 
 • ness, wherewith the whole fruitage of our life is mingled and 
 ' tempered. 
 
 'In which habituation to Obedience, truly, it was beyond mea- 
 ' sure 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 
 1 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 
 
IDYLLIC. 79 
 
 i 
 
 f Shall Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly Discretion, 
 'nay, of Morality itself. Let me not quarrel with my upbring- 
 ' »g ! It was rigorous, too frugal, compressively secluded, every 
 ay unscientific : yet in that very strictness and domestic soli- 
 tude might there not lie the root of deeper earnestness, of the 
 1 stem from which all noble fruit must grow T\ Above all, how un- 
 ' skilful 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 invalu- 
 ' able service : she taught me, less indeed by word than by act and 
 1 daily reverent look and habitude, her own simple version of the 
 1 Christian Faith. Andreas too attended Church ; yet more like 
 * a parade duty, for which he in the other world expected pay with 
 ' arrears, — as, I trust, he has received ; but my Mother, with a 
 ' true woman's heart, and fine though uncultivated sense, was in 
 ' the strictest acceptation Religious. ^How indestructibly the 
 ' Good grows, and propagates itself, even among the weedy entan- 
 1 glements of Evil ! The highest whom I knew on Earth I here 
 : saw bowed down, with awe unspeakable, before a Higher in Hea- 
 ' ven : 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 
 f divinest in man, springs forth undying from its mean envelop- 
 .' ment of Fear. Wouldst thou rather be a peasant's son that 
 I ; 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, Teufels- 
 rockh, of spiritual pride ! 
 
80 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 V 
 
 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 Gneschcn, 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, qj 
 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 han- 
 dle 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-wav 
 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 pre- 
 sent days, astonishes the world. For the shallow-sighted Teufels- 
 drdekh is oftenest a man without Activity of any kind, a No-man ; 
 for the deep-sighted, again, a man with Activity almost supera* 
 bundant, yei 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 
 
PEDAGOGY. 81 
 
 modern European ; above all, disadvantageous in the /nero jof a 
 Biography ! Now as heretofore it will behove the Editiwio^these 
 pages, were it never so unsuccessfully, to do his endeavour. 
 
 Among the earliest tools of any complicacy which a man, espe- 
 cially a man of letters, gets to handle, are his Class-books. On 
 this portion of his History, Teufelsdrockh looks down professedly 
 as indifferent. Reading he 'cannot remember ever to have 
 learned ;' so perhaps had it by nature. He says generally : ' Of 
 ' the insignificant portion of my Education, which depended on 
 ' Schools, there need almost no notice be taken. I learned what 
 ' others learnt ; and kept it stored by in a corner of my head, 
 j seeing as yet no manner of use in it. My Schoolmaster, a down- 
 ' bent, brokenhearted, 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 profes- 
 ' sions ; and that I must be sent to the Gymnasium, and one day 
 j to the University. Meanwhile, what printed thing soever I could 
 \ meet with I read. My very copper pocket-money I laid out on 
 j stall literature ; which, as it accumulated, I with my own hands 
 ' sewed into volumes. By this means was the young head fur- 
 J nished with a considerable miscellany of things and shadows of 
 ' things : History in authentic fragments lay mingled with Fabu- 
 ' lous chimeras, wherein also was reality ; and the whole not as 
 ' dead stuff, but as living pabulum, tolerably nutritive for a mind 
 \ not 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 gur- 
 j gled. 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 
 
 5* 
 
SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 } 
 
 ' doubtless with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet kept his Commenta- 
 ' rics dry. — this little Kuhbach, assiduous as Tiber, Eurotas or 
 ' Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilderness, as yet unnamed, 
 ' unseen ; here, too, as in the Euphrates and the Ganges, is a vein 
 * or veinlet of the grand World-circulation of Waters, which, with 
 ' its atmospheric arteries, has lasted and lasts simply with the 
 < World. Thou fool ! Nature alone is a.nthme. ainLlhn-flldest Art. 
 1 a mushro om ; 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{ wel_l-nigh unut terable medita- 
 tions on the grandeur and mystery of Time, andifs relation to 
 EteknitYj which play such a part in this Philosophy of Clothes '? 
 
 Over his Gymnastic 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 
 1 Whitsuntide morning, when trotting full of hope, by the side of 
 1 Father Andreas, I entered the main street of the place, and sail 
 'its steeple clock (then striking Eight) and Schuldthurm (Jail), 
 ' and the aproned or disaproned Burghers moving in to break- 
 ' fast : a little dog, in mad terror, was rushing past : for some 
 ' human imps had tied a tin kettle to its tail ; thus did the 
 agonised creature, loud jingling, career through the whole length 
 ' of the Borough, and become notable enough. (Xjj'it 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 JmJ 
 runs, urges liini the faster, the more loudly and more foolishlvj) 
 Fit emblem also of much that awaited myself, in that mischie- 
 
 ■ vous \)cn ; as in the world, whereof it was a portion and 
 ' epitome ! 
 
 • Alas, the kind beech-rows of Entepfuhl were hidden in the 
 'distance: 1 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, ner 
 seeutodhim : ' They were Boys,' he says, -mostly rude Boys, an 
 
PEDAGOGY. S3 
 
 ' obejrejjbhe impulse of rude Nature, which bids the deerherd 
 ( fall upon any stricken hart, the duck-flock put to death any 
 'broken-winged brother or sister, and on all hands the stron g 
 ' t yrannise over the wea k.' He admits that though ' perhaps in 
 1 an unusual degree morally courageous,' he succeeded ill in bat- 
 tle, and would fain have avoided it ; a result, as it 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 Teufelsdrock's childhood, 
 is here visibly enough again getting nourishment. ' He wept 
 ' often ; indeed to such a degree that he was nicknamed Der 
 ' JVrincndc (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-e}^ed rage, and, with a 
 ' Stormfulness ( Ungestum) under which the boldest quailed, 
 ' assert that he too had Eights of Man, or at least of Mankin.' 
 In all which, who does not discern a fine flower-tree and cinna- 
 mon-tree (of genius) nigh choked among pumpkins, reedgrass, 
 and ignoble shrubs : and forced, if it would live, to struggle 
 upwards only, and not outwards ; into a height quite sickly, and 
 clisproportioned to its breadth ? ^ ■: 
 
 We find, moreover, that his Greek and Latin were ' mechanic- 1 
 ally' taught : Hebrew scarce even mechanically ; much else which 
 they call History, Cosmography, Philosophy, and so forth, 0m 
 better than not at all. So that, except inasmuch as Nature was 
 still busy ; and he himself ' went about, as was of old his wont, 
 among the Craftsmen's workshops, there learning many things ;' 
 and farther lighted on some small store of curious reading, in 
 Hans Wachtel the Cooper's house, where he lodged, — his time, it 
 would appear, was utterly wasted. "Which facts the Professor 
 had not yet learned to look upon with any contentment. Indeed, 
 throughout the whole of this Bag Scorpio, where we now are, and 
 often in the following Bag, he shews himself unusually animated 
 
S4 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 on the matter of E ducation, and nut without some touch of what 
 wc 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 Vo- 
 cables (no dead Language, for they themselves knew no Lan- 
 guage) 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 manufac- 
 : tured at Nurnberg out of wood and leather, foster the growth 
 ' of anything ; much more of Mind, which grows, not like a vege- 
 ' table (by having its roots littered with etymological compost), 
 'but like a Spirit, by mysterious contact of Spirit; Thought 
 ' kindling itself at the lire of living Thought ? How shall he 
 ' give kindling, in whose own inward man there is no live eoal, 
 j but all is burnt out to a dead grammatical cinder 1 The Hin- 
 ' terschlag Professors knew Syntax enough ; and of the human 
 soul thus much : that it had a faculty called Memory, and could 
 acted on through the muscular integument by appliance of 
 birch rods. 
 
 ' Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be : till the Ilodnian 
 •is discharged, or reduced to Ilodbearing : 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 
 f blowing their bodies to pieces by Gunpowder ; that witli Gene- 
 /' nils and Field-marshals for killing, there should be world-ho- 
 'muirrd Dignitaries, and were it possible, true God-ordained 
 'rirricsts, 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 instruct- 
 ' ing-tool : nay were he to walk abroad with lurch girt on thigh, 
 ' as if he therefrom expected honour, would there not, among the 
 ' idler class, perhaps a certain levity be excited V 
 
 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 in- 
 wardly in quite inexpressible melancholy ' The dark bottomless 
 
 'tei 
 
PEDAGOGY. 85 
 
 ' Abyss, that lies under our feet, had yawned open ; the pale 
 ' kingdoms of Death, with all their innumerable silent nations 
 ' and generations stood before him ; the inexorable word, Never ! 
 J now first shewed its meaning. My Mother wept, and her sor- 
 1 row 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 
 j beautiful ; waving, with not unmelodious sighs, in dark luxu- 
 ' riance, in the hottest sunshine, through long years of youth : — as 
 ' in manhood also it does, and will do ; for I have now pitched 
 ' my tent under a Cypress-tree ; the Tomb is now my inexpugna- 
 1 ble 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. ye loved ones, that already sleep in the noise- 
 ' less Bed of Rest, whom in life I could only weep for and never 
 ' help ; and ye, who wide-scattered still toil lonely in the mon- 
 ' ster bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground with your blood, 
 ' — yet a little while, and we shall all meet there, and our 
 ' Mother's bosom will screen us all : and Oppression's harness, 
 ' and Sorrow's fire-whip, and all the Gehenna Bailiffs that patrol 
 ' and inhabit ever-vexed Time, cannot thenceforth harm us any 
 ' more !' 
 
 Close by which rather beautiful apostrophe, lies a laboured 
 Character of the deceased Andreas Futteral ; of his natural 
 ability, his deserts in life (as Prussian Sergeant) ; with long his- 
 torical 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 al- 
 ready known to us. ' Thus was I doubly orphaned,' says he ; 
 bereftJiaLoil]j of Possession, but even of Remembrance. Sor- 
 row and Wonder, here suddenly united, could not but produce 
 abandoned fruit. Such a disclosure, in such a season, struck its 
 
SO SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 
 roots through my whole nature : ever till the years of mature 
 manhood, it mingled with my whole thoughts, was as the stem j 
 whereon all my day-dreams and night-dreams grew. A certain : 
 p< etio elevation, yet also a corresponding civic depression, it na- 
 turally imparted : I was like no ot her : in which fixed-idea, lead- j 
 ing sometimes to highest, and oftener to frightfulest results, : 
 may there not lie the first spring of Tendencies, which in my ' 
 
 • Life have become remarkable enough? As in birth, so in ac- ' 
 ' ' tion, speculation, and social position, my fellows are perhaps not 
 
 ' numerous.' 
 
 In the Bag Sagittarius, as we at length discover, Teufelsdrockh 
 lias become a University man ; though how, when, or of what qual- / 
 ity, will nowhere disclose itself with the smallest certainty. Few 
 tilings, in the way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, can ; 
 now surprise our readers ; not even the total want of dates, al- 
 most without parallel in a Biographical work. So enigmatic, so 
 chaotic we have always found, and must always look to find, these 
 scattered Leaves. In Sagittarius, however. Teufelsdrockh begins 
 to shew himself even more than usually Sibylline; fragments of 
 all sorts; scraps of regular Memoir, College Exercises, Programs,-' 
 Professional Testimonials, Milkscores, torn Billets, sometimes to 
 appearance of an amatory cast ; all blown together as if by mer- 
 chance, henceforth bewilder the sane Historian. To com-i 
 bine any picture of these University, and the subsequent, years ; 
 much more, to decipher therein any illustrative primordial ele- 
 ments of the Clothes-Philosophy, becomes such a problem as the 
 render may imagine. 
 
 So mueli we can see ; darkly, as through the foliage of seme 
 wavering thicket: a youth of no common endowment, who has 
 passed happily through Childhood, less happily yet still vigour 
 OUsly through Boyhood, now at length perfect in 'dead vocables/, 
 and set down, as he hopes, by the living Fountain, there to super 
 add Ideas and Capabilities. From such Fountain he draws, dili 
 gently, thirstily, yd unwise with his whole heart, for the water 
 nowise suits his palate j discouragements, entanglements, aberra- 
 tions are discoverable or Bupposable. Nor perhaps are even pej. 
 cuniary distresses wanting : for ' the good Gretchen, who in spite 
 
PEDAGOGY. S7 
 
 1 of advices from not disinterested relatives has sent him hither, 
 1 must after a time withdraw her willing hut too feeble hand.' 
 Nevertheless in an atmosphere of Poverty and manifold Cha- 
 grin, the Humour of that young Soul, what character is in 
 him, first decisively reveals itself; and, like strong sunshine 
 in weeping skies, gives out variety of colours, some of which 
 are prismatic. Thus with the aid of Time, and of what Time 
 brings, has the stripling Diogenes Teufelsdrockh waxed into 
 manly stature ; and into so questionable an aspect, that we ask 
 / with new eagerness How he specially came by it. and regret anew 
 that there is no more explicit answer. Certain of the intelligible 
 and partially significant fragments, which are few in number, 
 shall be extracted from that Limbo of a Paper-bag, and presented 
 with the usual preparation. 
 
 As if, in the Bag Scorpio, Teufelsdrockh had not already ex- 
 pectorated his antipedagogic spleen ; as if, from the name Sagit- 
 tarius, 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 remem- 
 ' brance, and I know its name well ; which name, however, I, 
 1 from tenderness to existing interests and persons, shall in no 
 ' wise divulge. It is my painful duty to say that, out of England 
 1 and Spain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered Univer- 
 1 sities. This is indeed a time when right Education is, as nearly 
 1 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 jjitcji ; wherefore, in sueR circumstances, may it not 
 ' sometimes be safer, if both leader and led simply — sit still % 
 1 Had you, anywhere in Crim Tartary, walled-in a square enclo- 
 ' sure ; furnished it with a small, ill-chosen Library ; and then 
 1 turned loose into it eleven hundred Christian striplings, to tum- 
 ' ble about as they listed, from three to seven years : certain per- 
 ' sons, under the title of Professors, being stationed at the gates, 
 ' to declare aloud that it was a University, and exact considerable 
 1 admission-fees, — you had, not indeed in mechanical structure, 
 
88 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 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 c orrupt Eur o- 
 ' pean city, full of smoke and sin ; moreover, in the middle of a 
 ' Public, which, without far costlier apparatus, than that of the 
 L S inare Enclosure, and Declaration aloud, you could not be sure 
 ' 01 gulling. » 
 
 ' Gullible, however, by fit apparatus, all Publics are ; and 
 ' gulled, w r ith the most surprising profit. Towards any thing 
 ' like a Statistics of Imposture] indeed, little as yet has been done : 
 1 with a strange indifference, our Economists, nigh buried under 
 ' Tables for minor Branches of Industry, have altogether over- 
 ' looked 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 Shoe- 
 1 blacking, are realized by actual Instruction and actual jet Pol- 
 ' ish ; what by fictitious-persuasive Proclamation of such : speei- 
 ' fying, in distinct items, the distributions, circulations, disburse- 
 1 mcnts, incomings of said moneys, with the smallest approach to 
 ' accuracy ? But to ask, How for, in all the several infinitely 
 ' complected departments of social business, in government, educa- 
 1 tion, in manual, commercial, intellectual fabrication of every 
 1 sort, man's "Want is supplied by true Ware ; how far by the 
 ' mere Appearance of true Ware : — in other words, To what ex- 
 ' tent, by what methods, with what effects, in various times and 
 1 countries, Deception takes the place and wages of Performance; 
 ' hoc truly is an Inquiry big with results for the future time, but 
 L to which hitherto only the vaguest answer can be given. If for 
 1 the present, in our Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to, 
 ' Appearance of Ware so high even as at One to a Hundred 
 ' (which, considering the Wages of a Pope, Russian Autocrat, or 
 ' English Game-Preserver, is probably not far from the mark), — 
 'what almost prodigious Baring may there not be anticipated, as 
 ■ the Statistics of Imposture advances. ;ind so the manufacturing 
 ' of Shams (that of Realities rising into clearer and clearer dis- 
 
PEDAGOGY. 89 
 
 c tinction 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 Edu- 
 ' cation, Polity, Religion, where so much is wanted and indispen- 
 l - sable, 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 
 1 1 mean your military chest insolvent, forage all but exhausted ; 
 ' and that the whole army is about to mutiny, disband, and cut 
 ' your and each other's throat. — then were it not well could you, 
 ' as if by miracle, pay them in any sort of fairy-money, feed them 
 ' on coagulated water, or mere imagination of meat ; whereby, till 
 ' the real supply came up, they might be kept together, and quiet ? *^~ 
 ' Such perhaps was the aim of Nature, who does nothing without 
 ' aim, in furnishing her favourite, Man, with this his so omnipo- 
 ' tent or rather omnipatient Talent of being Gulled. 
 
 ' How beautifully it works, with a little mechanism ; nay, al- 
 ' most makes mechanism for itself ! These Professors in the 
 1 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 cur- 
 '- rent, bade fair, with only a little annual repainting on their 
 ' part, to hold long together, and of its own accord assiduously 
 1 grind for tliem. ' 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. 
 
 1 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 J 
 quickly enough blown out into a state of windy argumentative- 1 y^ 
 ness ; whereby the better sort had soon to end in sick, impotent 1 
 Scepticism ; the worser sort explode (crepiren) in finished Self- ' 
 conceit, and to all spiritual intents become dead. — But this too 
 • is portion of mankind's lot. If our era is the Era of Unbelief, 
 
90 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ^why murmur under it ; is there not a better coming, nay come? 
 j As in longdrawn Systole and longdrawn Diastole, must the p3j 
 A riod of Faith alternate with the period of Denial : must the 
 I* 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 
 1 Time, has his whole earthly being, endeavour, and destinj 
 ' shaped for him by Time : only in the transitory Time-Symbol If 
 1 is the ever-motionless Eternity we stand on made manifest. 
 1 And yet, in such winter-seasons of Denial, it is for the nobler- 
 c minded perhaps a comparative misery to have been born, and to 
 ' be awake, and work ; and for the duller a felicity, if like hiber- 
 c nating animals, safe-lodged in some Salamanca University, or 
 ' Sybaris City* or other superstitious or voluptuous Castle of In- 
 ' dolence, they can slumber through, in stupid dreams, and only 
 ' awaken when the loud-roaring hailstorms have all done their i 
 j work, and to our prayers and martyrdoms the new Spring has 
 ( been vouchsafed.' 
 
 That in the environment, here mysteriously enough shadowed 
 
 forth, Teufelsdrockh must have felt ill at ease, cannot be doubt- 
 
 . ful. ' The hungry young,' he says, l looked up to their spiritual 
 
 I Nurses ; and, for food, were bidden eat the east wind. "What 
 \ vain jargon of controversial Metaphysic, Etymology, and me- 
 ' chanical Manipulation falsely named Science, was current there, 
 ' I indeed learned, better perhaps than the most. Among eleven 
 • hundred < Ihristian youths, there will not be wanting some eleven 
 - eager to learn. By collision with such, a certain warmth, a cer- 
 
 ' tain polish was communicated : by instinct and happy accident, c 
 
 I I took less to rioting (renommiren), than to thinking and read- 
 
 ' ing, which latter also I was free to do. Nay from the chaos of tj 
 ' that Library, I succeeded in fishing up more books perhaps than 
 k had been known to the very keepers thereof. The foundation 
 f of a Literary Life was hereby laid : I learned, on my own,\ 
 L 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 mj favourite employment to 
 read character in speculation, and from the Writing to construe' 
 'the Writer. A certa in groundplan of Human Nature and LiftM 
 
 
PEDAGOGY. 91 
 
 ' began to fashion itself in me ; wondrous enough, now when I 
 1 look back on it ; for my whole Universe, physical and spiritual, 
 ' was as yet a Machine \ However, such a conscious, recognized 
 1 groundplan, the truest I had, was beginning to be there, and by 
 'additional experiment^- 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 wifn^savage" 
 monsters. Teufelsdrockh gives us long details of his ' fever-par- 
 oxysms of Doubt ;' his Inquiries concerning Miracles, and the 
 Evidences of religious Faith ; and how ' in the silent night- 
 1 watches, still darker in his heart than over sky and earth, he 
 i has cast himself before the All-seeing, and with audible prayers, 
 j cried vehemently for Light, for deliverance from Death and the 
 ' Grave. Not till after long years, and unspeakable agoniefc, did 
 1 the believing heart surrender ; sink into spell-bound sleep, 
 ' under the nightmare, Unbelief : and, in this hag-ridden dream, 
 1 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 
 I Letter of Religion own itself dead, and drop piecemeal into 
 I dust, if the living Spirit of Religion, freed from this its charnel- 
 I house, is to arise on us, newborn of Heaven, and with new heal- 
 I ing under its wings.' , , 
 
 To which Purgatory pains, seemingly severe enough, if we add 
 a liberal measure of Earthly distresses, want of practical gui- 
 dance, want of sympathy, want of money, want of hope : and all 
 this in the fervid season of youth, so exaggerated in imagining, 
 so boundless in desires, yet here so poor in means, — do we not 
 see a strong incipient spirit oppressed and overloaded from with- 
 out and from within ; the fire of genius struggling up among fuel- 
 wood of the greenest, and as yet with more of bitter vapour than 
 of clear flame. 
 
 From various fragments of Letters and other documentary 
 scraps, it is to be inferred that Teufelsdrockh, isolated, shy, re- 
 tiring as he was, had not altogether escaped notice : certain 
 
92 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 established men are aware of his existence ; and, if stretching 
 out no helpful hand, have at least their eyes upon him. He 
 appears, though in dreary enough humour, to be addressing him- 
 self to the Profession of Law ; — whereof, indeed, the world has 
 since seen him a public graduate. But omitting these broken, 
 unsatisfactory thrums of Economical relation, let us present 
 rather the following small thread of Moral relation ; and there- 
 with, the reader for himself weaving it in at the right place, con- 
 clude our dim arras picture of these University years. 
 
 ' Here also it was that I formed acquaintance with Ilerr Tow- 
 1 good, or, as it is perhaps better written, Herr Toughgut ; a 
 'young person of quality (von Add), from the interior parts of 
 1 England. He stood connected, by blood and hospitality, with 
 ' the Counts von Zahdarm, in this quarter of Germany ; to whichx 
 ' noble Family I likewise was, by his means, with all friendliness, 
 { brought near. Towgood had a fair talent, unspeakably ill-culti- 
 ' vated ; with considerable humour of character : and, bating hisL 1 ' 
 ' total ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing and a little ' 
 
 • Grammar, shewed less of that aristocratic-impassivity, and sjjent^ ' 
 . ' fury, than for most part belongs fy) 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 lie have come at any light. Invited ' 
 ' doubtless by the presence of the Zahdarm Family, he had tra- ,' 
 ' veiled hither, in the almost frantic hope of perfecting his studies ; 
 
 < he, whose studies had as yet been those of infancy, hither to- a 3 
 ' University where so much as the notion of perfection, not to say r 
 ' the effort after it, no longer, existed! Often we would condole s 
 '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 wo 
 
 [ could so much as Believe. " How has our head on the outside ; 
 •a polished Hat." would Towgood exclaim, ''and in the inside 
 1 Vacancy, or a froth of Vocables and Attorney Logic! At a 
 •small cost men are educated to make le ather into shoes; butTSt 
 •a great cost, what ;im T educated to make? By Heaven. Bro- . 
 
 I 
 
PEDAGOGY. 93 
 
 * ther ! what I have already eaten and worn, as I came thus far, 
 'would endow a considerable Hospital of Incurables." — " Man, 
 1 indeed," I would answer, " has a Digestive JFacul t v . which must 
 ' be kept working, were it even paruyT^stealtn^jJut as for our\ 
 ' Miseducation, make not bad worse ; waste not the time yet y 
 ' ours, in trampling on thistles because they have yielded us no V 
 ' figs. Frisch zu Bruder ! Here are Books, and we have brains 
 ' to read them ; here is a whole Earth and a whole Heaven, andV 
 ' we have eyes to look on them : Frisch zu /" 
 
 ' Often also our talk was gay ; not without brilliancy, and even 
 1 fire. We looked out on Life, with its strange scaffolding, where 
 ' all at once harlequins dance, and men are beheaded and quar- 
 1 tered : motley, not unterrific was the aspect ; but we looked on 
 1 it like brave youths. For myself, these were perhaps my most 
 ' genial hours. Towards this young warmhearted, strongheaded 
 ' and wrongheaded Herr Towgood, I was even near experiencing 
 ' the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship. Yes, foolish Heathen 
 j that I was, I felt that, under certain conditions, I could have 
 1 loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and been his bro- 
 ' ther once and always. By degrees, however, I understood the 
 1 new time, and its wants. If man's Soul is indeed, as in the Fin- 
 1 nish Language, and Utilitarian Philosophy, a kind of Stomach, 
 ' what else is the true meaning of Spiritual Union but an Eating 
 { together ? Thus we, instead of Friends, are Dinner-guests ; and 
 j here as elsewhere have cast away chimeras.' 
 
 So ends, abruptly as is usual, and enigmatically, this little in- 
 cipient romance. What henceforth becomes of the brave Herr 
 Towgood, or Toughgut ? He has dived under, in the Autobio- 
 graphical Chaos, and swims we see not where. Does any reader 
 • in the interior parts of England' know of such a man ? 
 
94 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY. 
 
 '- Tims nevertheless,' writes our Autobiographer, apparently as 
 quitting College, ' was there realised Somewhat ; namely, I, 
 . c Diogenes Teufelsdrockh : a visible Temporary Figure (Zeitbild), 
 ^r ' 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, belong- 
 1 ing to that mystery, a Man. Capabilities there were in me to 
 1 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 Daymnth 
 ' has capabilities in this kind ; and ever organises something (into 
 ' its own Body, if no otherwise), which was before Inorganic ; and 
 ' of mute dead air makes living music, though only of the faint- 
 ' est, by humming. 
 
 ' How much more, one whose capabilities are spiritual ; who 
 ' has learned, or begun learning, the grand tMumaturgic art of 
 ' Thought! Thaumaturgic I name it; for hitherto all Miracles 
 1 have been wrought thereby, and henceforth innumerable will M 
 ' 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 hi 
 • not seen the Scottish Brassmith's Idea (and this but a mechani- 
 ' cal our) travelling on fire-wings round the Cape, and across two 
 '• Oceans: and stronger than any other Enchanter's Familiar, on 
 ' all hands nnweariedly 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 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 95 
 
 Game, preparing us, by indirect but sure methods, Industrial- 
 ism 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 hood- 
 wink and handcuff him. 
 
 ' With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of the Uni- 
 verse, been called. Unhappy it is, however, that though born 
 to the amplest Sovereignty, in this way, with no less than sove- 
 reign right of Peace and War against the Time-Prince (Zeil- 
 furst), 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 wiredrawn similitude, does Teufelsdrockh mean 
 io more than that ycjingnien find obstacles in what we call '- get-- 
 ^ing under way V ' £{ot what I Have,' continues he, : but what 
 I.,T)n is my Kingdom. IVTach is given a certain inward Tal- 
 ent, a certain outward Environment of Fortune ; to each, by 
 wisest combination of these two, a certain maximum of Capa- 
 bility. 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 l 
 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 facsimile of no prior one, b«fc4s-&y^ii&.nutuj^-ei4«inaX And 
 then how seldom will the outward Capability fit the inward : 
 though talented wonderfully enough, we are poor, unfriendly, 
 dyspeptical, bashful ; nay what is worse than all, we are foolish. 
 Thus, in a whole imbroglio of Capabilities, we go stupidly grop- 
 ing 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 disappoint- i 
 aaent, shift from enterprise to enterprise, and from side to side : 
 
96 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 c 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 ophtlialniie, would be the 
 1 general fate ; were it not that one thing saves us : our Hunger. "' 
 4 For on this ground, as the prompt nature of Hunger is welLj' 
 ' known, must a prompt choice be made : hence have we, with 
 ' wise foresight, Indentures and Apprenticeships for our irra- ^ 
 ' tional young ; whereby, in due season, the vag ue univer sality 
 1 of a Man shall find himself ready-moulded into a specific Crafts 
 'man; 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 art- ' 
 1 ist too is born blind, and does not, like certain other creatures, ) 
 1 receive sight in nine days, but far later, sometimes never, — is it ' 
 ' not well that there should be what we call professions, or Bread- ' 
 1 studies (BrodtzwecJce), 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, till fancy- ' 
 ' ing that it is forward and forward ; and realize much : for him- 
 ' self 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 1 
 ' a neck-halter, and had nigh throttled me, till I broke it. Then, 
 ' in the words of Ancient Pistol, did the World generally become 
 ' mine oyster, which I, by strength of cunning, was to open, as I 
 \ ' would and could. Almost had I deceased (fast war ich umgc- 
 .' kommen), 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, iu 
 dim disastrous details, through this Bag Pisces : and those that 
 follow. |j A young man of high talent, and high though still tem- 
 per, 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 iu progressive starvation, he must stand; or, in 
 mad exasperation, must rush to and fro. leaping against sheer I 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 97 
 
 stone walls, which he cannot leap over, which only lacerate and 
 lame him : till at last, after thousand attempts and endurances, 
 he, as if by miracle, clears his way : not indeed into luxuriant 
 and luxurious clover, yet into a certain bosky wilderness where 
 existence is still possible, and Freedom though waited on by 
 Scarcity is not without sweetness. In a word, Teufelsdrockh 
 having thrown up his legal Profession, finds himself without land- 
 mark 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 employ- 
 ment, ever vex and agitate him. He too must enact that stern 
 Monodrama, No Object and no Rest ; must front its successive 
 destinies, work through to its catastrophe, and deduce therefrom 
 what moral he can. 
 
 Yet let us be just to him, let us admit that his ' neck-halter' 
 sat nowise easy on him ; that he was in some degree forced to 
 break it off. If we look at the young man's civic position, in 
 this Nameless Capital, as he emerges from its Nameless Univer- 
 sity, we can discern well that it was far from enviable. His first 
 Law-Examination he has come through triumphantly ; and can 
 even boast that the Examen Rigorosum need not have frightened 
 him : but though he is hereby ' an Auscultator of respectability' 
 what avails it? There is next to no employment to be had. 
 Neither, for a youth without connexions, is the process of Expec- 
 tation very hopeful in itself ; nor for one of his disposition much 
 cheered from without. 'My fellow Auscultators,' he says, < were 
 I Auscultators : they dressed, and digested, and talked articulate 
 ' words ; other vitality shewed they almost none. Small specu- 
 I lation in those eyes, that they did glare withal ! Sense neither 
 I 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 Teu- 
 felsdrockh, 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 com- 
 municnf, in any case, there could not be : already has the young 
 
 6 
 
9S SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Teufelsdrockk left the other young geese ; and swims apart, 
 though as yet uncertain whether he himself is cygnet or gos- 
 ling. 
 
 Perhaps too what little employment he had was performed ill, 
 at best unpleasantly. ' Great practical method and expertuess' 
 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 % l Like a 
 very }'Oung person, I imagined it was with Work alone, and not 
 ' also with Folly and Sin, in myself and others, that I have been 
 i appointed to struggle.' Be this as it may, his progress from the 
 passive Auscultatorship, towards any active Assessorship, is evi- 
 dently of the slowest. By degrees, those same established men, 
 once partially inclined to patronise 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 ! 
 
 (f But the world is an old woman, and mistakes any gilt farthing , 
 ' for a gold coin ; whereby being often cheated she will thence- 
 1 forth trust nothing but the common copper. 
 
 How our winged sky-messenger, unaccepted as a terrestrial 
 runner, contrived, in the meanwhile, to keep himself from flying 
 skyward without return, is not too clear from these Documents. 
 Good old (iretchen seems to have vanished from the scene, per- 
 haps from the Earth ; other Horn of Plenty, or even of Parsi- 
 mony, nowkere flows for him; so that -the prompt nature of 
 Hunger being well known. ; we are not without our anxiety. 
 From private Tuition, in never bo many languages and sciences, 
 the aid derivable is small : neither, to use his own words, • does 
 1 the young Adventurer hitherto suspect in himself any literary 
 'gift; but at besl earns bread-and-water wages, by his wide fac- 
 ' ulty of Translation. Nevertheless,' continues he, ' that I sub- 
 
 isted is clear, for you find me even now alive. 5 Which fact, 
 however, except upon the principle of our true-hearted, kind >ld 
 
 > 
 
:j 
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY. 99 
 
 Proverb, that l there is always life for a living one,' we must pro- 
 fess ourselves unable to explain. 
 
 Certain Landlords' Bills, and other economic Documents, bear- 
 ing 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 condi- 
 tion. The first has now no date, or writer's name, but a huge 
 Blot ; and runs to this effect : ' The (Inkblot), tied down by pre- 
 'vious promise, cannot, except by best wishes, forward the Herr 
 | Teufelsdrockh's views on the Assessorship in question ; and sees 
 ' himself under the cruel necessity of forbearing, for the present, 
 ' what were otherwise his duty and joy, to assist in opening the 
 I career for a man of genius, on whom far higher triumphs are 
 1 yet waiting.' The other is on gilt paper ; and interests us like a 
 sort of epistolary mummy now dead, yet which once lived and 
 beneficently worked. We give it in the original : ' Herr Teufcls- 
 1 drockh wird von der Frau Grcifinn, auf Donnerstag, zum ^Esthe- 
 1 tischen Thee, schonstens ein^eladen. 1 
 
 Thus in answer to a cry for solid pudding, whereof there is 
 the most urgent need, comes epigrammatically enough, the invi- 
 tation to a wash of quite fluid JEsthetic Tea! How Teufels- 
 drockh, now at actual handgrips 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 ab- 
 stinence : 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 Zdhdarm House, 
 she can be no other than the Countess and mistress of the same ; 
 whose intellectual tendencies, and good will to Teufelsdrockh, 
 whether on the footing of Herr Towgood, or on his own footing, 
 are hereby manifest. That some sort of relation, indeed, con- 
 tinued, for a time, to connect our Autobiographer, though per- 
 haps 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 
 
100 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 G/idiigc/i Fran (her 
 ' Ladyship) that this latter improvement was due : assiduously 
 ' she gathered, dexterously she fitted on, what fringing was to be 
 c had ; lace or cobweb, as the place yielded.' "Was Teufels- 
 drockh also a fringe, of lace or cobweb ; or promising to be such ? 
 ' With his Excellenz (the Count),' continues he, ' I have more 
 ' than once had the honour to converse ; chiefly on general affairs, 
 1 and the aspect of the world, which he, though now past middle 
 ' life, viewed in no unfavourable light ; finding indeed, except the 
 ' Outroeting of Journalism (die auszurottende Journalist ik), little 
 'to desiderate therein. On some points, as his Excellenz was 
 1 not uncholeric, I found it more pleasant to keep silence. Be- 
 ' sides, his occupation being- that of Owning Land, there might 
 ' be faculties enough, which, as superfluous for such use, were lit] 
 ' tie developed in him. 
 
 That to Teufelsdrockk 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 Avas 
 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 black- 
 ' ness of darkness, was Life, to my too-unfurnished Thought, un- 
 ' folding 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 unison : 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 unpliilanthropic 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 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 101 
 
 'emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five. With 
 ' which suggestion, at least as considered in the light of a practi- 
 ' cal scheme, I need scarcely say that I nowise coincide. Never- 
 1 theless it is plausibly urged that, as young ladies (Mddche?i) 
 '' are, to mankind, precisely the most delightful in those years ; 
 ' so young gentlemen (Biibcheii) do then attain their maximum 
 'of detestability. Such gawks (Gecken) are they, and foolish 
 ' peacocks, and yet with such a vulturous hunger for self-indul- 
 ' gence : so obstinate, obstreperous, vain-glorious ; in all senses, 
 ' so froward and so forward / No mortal's endeavour or attain- 
 ' ment will, in the smallest, content the as yet unendeavouring, 
 ' unattaining young gentleman ; but he could make it all infi- 
 ' nitely better, were it worthy of him. Life every where is the 
 ' most manageable matter, simply as a question in the Rule of 
 ' Three : multiply your second and third term together, divide 
 ' the product by the first, and your quotient will be the answer, 
 ' — which you are but an ass if you cannot come at. The booby 
 ' has not yet found out, by any trial, that, do what one will, there 
 ' is ever a cursed fraction, oftenest a decimal repeater, and no 
 ' net integer quotient so much as to be thought of.' 
 
 In which passage does there not lie an implied confession that 
 
 Teufelsdrockh himself, besides his outward obstructions, had an : 
 
 inward, still greater, to contend with ; namely, a certain tempo- 1 
 
 rary, youthful, yet still afflictive derangement of head ? Alas ! ' 
 
 on the former side alone, his case was hard enough. ' It contin- 
 
 i bes ever true,' says he, ' that Saturn, or Chronos, or what we 
 
 ' call Time, devours all his Children : only by incessant Running, 
 
 by incessant Working, may you (for some threescore and ten 
 
 years) escape him ; and you too he devours at last. Can any 
 
 Sovereign, or Holy Alliance of Sovereigns, bid Time stand still ; 
 
 even in thought, shake themselves free of Time ? Our wholes 
 
 terrestrial being is based on Time, and built of Time ; it is 
 
 wholly a Movement, a Time-impulse ; Time is the author of it, 
 
 I the material of it. Hence also our Whole Duty, which is to 
 
 j move, to work, — in the right direction. Are not our Bodies and 
 
 ' our Souls in continual movement, whether we will or not ; in a 
 
 I continual Waste, requiring a continual Repair ? Utmost satis- 
 
^ 
 
 102 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' faction of our whole outward and inward Wants were but satis- 
 ' faction for a space of Time ; thus, whatso we have done, is done, 
 ' and for us annihilated, and ever must we go and do anew. 
 c Time-Spirit, how hast thou environed and imprisoned us, and 
 1 sunk us so deep in thy troublous dim Time-Element, that, only 
 1 in lucid moments, can so much as glimpses of our upper Azure 
 ' Home be revealed to us ! Me, however, as a Son of Time; un- 
 ' happier 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 
 ^7 /fTeufelsdrockh's whole duty and necessity was, like other men's, 
 (X l to work, — in the right direction,' and that no work was to be 
 •had ; whereby he became wretched enough. As was natural : 
 with haggard Scarcity threatening him in the distance ; and so 
 vehement a soul languishing in restless inaction, and forced 
 thereby, like Sir Hudibras's sword by rust, 
 
 Of something else to hew and hack ! 
 
 But on the whole, that same ' excellent Passivity,' as it has all 
 along done, is here again vigorously flourishing ; in which circum- 
 stance, may we not trace the beginnings of much that now charac- 
 terises 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 
 Bays, w as I had mingled with mankind. I was notable, if for any 
 ' thing, for a certain stillness of manner, which, as my friends 
 •often rebukingly declared, did but ill express the keen ardour 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, notwith- 
 standing, was I blamed, and by half-strangers haled tor my so- 
 • railed Hardness ( IFtirlr). my 1 mlitl'erentism towards men; and 
 ' the seemingly ironic tone I had adopted, as my favourite dia- 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 103 
 
 'lect in conversation. Alas, the panoply of Sarcasm was but as 
 'a buckram case, wherein I had striven to envelope myself; that 
 1 so my own poor Person might live safe there, and in all friendli- 
 ' ness, being no longer exasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I now 
 ' see to be, in general, the language of the Devil ; for which reason 
 ' 1 have, long since, as good as renounced it. But how many 
 I 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. 
 1 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 (balkenhoch), 
 'and thence fall shattered and supine, to be borne home on 
 ' shutters, not without indignation, when he proved electric and 
 1 a torpedo !' 
 
 x\las, how can a man with this devilishness of temper make 
 way for himself in Life ; where the first problem, as Teufels- 
 drockh too admits, is 'to unite yourself with some one, and 
 with somewhat (sick anzuschliessen) V 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 connexion he 
 had ever succeeded in forming, his connexion with the Zah- 
 darin Family, seems to have been paralysed, for all practical uses, 
 by the death of the ' not uncholeric' old Count. This fact stands 
 recorded, quite incidentally, in a certain Discourse on Epitaphs, 
 huddled into the present Bag, among so much else ; of which 
 Essay the learning and curious penetration are more to be 
 approved of than the spirit. His grand principle is, that lapidary 
 inscriptions, of what sort soever, should be Historical rather than 
 Lyrical. ' By request of that worthy Nobleman's survivors,' says^^^ 
 he, ' I undertook to compose his Epitaph ; and not unmindful or^^^ 
 ' my own rules, produced the following ; which, however, for an 
 } alleged defect of Latinity, a defect never yet fully visible to 
 'myself, still remains unengraven ;' — wherein, we may pre- 
 dict, there is more than the Latinity that will surprise an Eng- 
 lish reader : 
 
 (UNIVERSITY 
 
104 * SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 IIIC JACET 
 
 PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMINE MAGNUS, 
 
 Zaehdarmi Comes, 
 
 ex imperii concilio, 
 
 velleris aurei, periscelidis, necnon vulturis nigri 
 
 EQUES. 
 QUI DUM SUB LUNA AGEBAT, 
 
 QUINQUIES MILLE PERDRICES 
 
 PLUMB O CONFECIT I 
 
 VARII CIBI 
 
 CENTUMPONDIA MILLIES CENTENA MILLIA, 
 
 PER SE, PERQUE SERVOS QUADRUPEDES BIPEDESVE, 
 
 HAUD SINE TUMULTU DEVOLVENS, 
 
 IN STERCUS 
 
 PALAM CONVERTIT. 
 
 NUNC A LABORE REQUIESCENTEM 
 OPERA SEQUUNTUR. 
 
 SI MONUMENTUM QUiERIS, 
 FIMETUM ADSPICE. 
 
 PRIMUM IN ORBE DEJECIT [sub dato] ) TOSTREMUM [SM& dalo]. 
 
 
 
ROMANCE. 105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ROMANCE. 
 
 ' For long years,' writes Teufelsdrockh, l had the poor Hebrew, 
 1 in this Egypt of an Auscultatorship, painfully toiled, baking 
 ' bricks without stubble, before ever the question once struck him 
 ' with entire force : For what ? — Beym Himmel ! For Food and 
 ! Warmth ! And are Food and Warmth nowhere else, in the 
 ' whole wide Universe, discoverable ? — Come of it what might, I 
 /' resolved to try.' 
 
 Thus then are we to see him in a new independent capacity, 
 though perhaps far from an improved one. Teufelsdrockh is now 
 a man without Profession. Quitting the common Fleet of her- 
 ring-busses and whalers, where indeed his leeward, laggard con- 
 dition was painful enough, he desperately steers off, on a course of 
 his own, by sextant and compass of his own. Unhappy Teufels- 
 drockh ! Though neither Fleet, nor Traffic, nor Commodores 
 pleased thee, still was it not a Fleet, sailing in prescribed track, for 
 fixed objects ; above all, in combination, wherein, by mutual guid- 
 ance, by all manner of loans and borrowings, each could manifold- 
 ly aid the other ? How wilt thou sail in unknown seas ; and for 
 thyself find that shorter North-west Passage to thy fair Spice-coun- 
 try of a Nowhere ? — A solitary rover on such a voyage, with such 
 nautical tactics, will meet with adventures. Nay, as we forth- 
 with discover, a certain Calypso-Island detains him at the verjf 
 outset ; and as it were falsifies and oversets his whole reckoning. 
 
 ' If in youth^' .writes he once, : the Universe is majestically un- 
 ' veiling, and everywhere Heaven revealing itself on Earth, no- 
 ' where to the Young Man does this Heaven on Earth so imme- 
 ' diately 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 ( Personlir.hke.it) is 
 
 6* 
 
106 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ■ ~tt ■ 
 
 1 ever holy to us ; a certain orthodox Anthropomorphism connects 
 ' my Me with all Thees in bonds of Love : but it is in this approx- 
 ' imation of the Like and Unlike, that such heavenly attraction, 
 ' as between Negative aud Positive, first burns out into a flame. 
 Ms the pitifulest 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 
 1 mystic possibility of such a union, the highest in our Earth ; 
 1 thus, in the conducting medium of Fantasy, flames forth that 
 ' /^-development of the universal Spiritual Electricity, which, as 
 1 unfolded between man and woman. we~fiFst~emphatically denom- 
 ' inate Love. 
 ; ' In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there al- 
 
 • ready blooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some 
 j ' 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 
 ; u 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, 
 c when Shame is still an impassable celestial barrier ; and the sa- 
 ' cred air-cities of Hope have not shrunk into the mean clay-ham- 
 ' lets of Reality ; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free ! 
 ' As for our young Forlorn,' continues Teufelsdrockh, evident- 
 ly meaning himself, k 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-coloured angel-plumage ; or hovering mute and inac< 
 i cessible on the outskirts of JEsthetic 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 Graeefuls ( Holden) Ach Goti ! how could 
 
ROMANCE. 107 
 
 1 he hope it ; should he not have died under it 1 There was a 
 1 certain delirious vertigo in the thought. 
 
 ' Thus was the young man, if all sceptical of Demons and An- 
 ' gels such as the vulgar had once believed in, nevertheless not 
 i unvisited by hosts of true Sky-born, who visibly and audibly 
 ' hovered round him whereso he went ; and they had that reTi- 
 ( gious worship in his thought, though as yet it was by their mere 
 1 earthly and trivial name that he named them. But now, if on a 
 1 soul so circumstanced, some actual Air-maiden, incorporated into 
 1 tangibility and reality, should cast any electric glance of kind 
 c eyes, saying thereby, a Thou too mayest love and be loved ;" and 
 ' so kindle him, — good Heaven, what a volcanic, earthquake-bring- 
 1 ing, 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 Di- 
 ogenes ; as indeed how could it fail ? A nature, which, in his 
 own figurative style, we might say, had now not a little carbon- 
 ised tinder, of Irritability ; with so much nitre of latent Passion, 
 and sulphurous Humour enough ; the whole lying in such hot 
 neighbourhood, 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 1 Neither, in this our 
 Life-element, are sparks anywhere wanting. Without doubt, 
 some Angel, whereof so many hovered round, would one day, 
 leaving i the outskirts of JEsthetic Tea,'' flit nigher ; and, by elec- 
 tric Promethean glance, kindle no despicable firework. Happy, 
 if it indeed proved a Firework, and flamed off rocket-wise, in suc- 
 cessive beautiful bursts of splendour, 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 Confla- 
 gration and mad Explosion : painfully lacerating the heart itself : 
 nay perhaps bursting the heart in pieces (which were Death) ; or 
 I 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 mani- 
 fold internal world of our Diogenes, there remained Nothing, or 
 only the ' crater of an extinct volcano !' 
 
108 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 From multifarious Documents in this Bag Cajjriconius, and in 
 the adjacent ones on both sides thereof, it becomes manifest that 
 our Philosopher, as stoical and cynical as he now looks, was hearti- 
 ly and even franticly in Love : here therefore may our old doubts 
 whether his heart were of stone or of flesh give way. Hej oved 
 it wi^J^kut-ioawell. And once only : for as your Con- 
 greve needs a new case or wrappage for every new rocket, so each 
 human heart can properly exhibit but one Love, if even one ; the 
 1 First Love which is infinite' can be followed by no second like 
 unto it. In more recent years, accordingly, the Editor of these 
 Sheets was led to regard Teufelsdrockh as a man not only who 
 would never wed, but who would never even flirt ; whom the 
 grand-climacteric itself, and St. Martin's Summer of incipient 
 Dotage, would crown with no new myrtle garland. To the Pro- 
 fessor, women are henceforth Pieces of Art ; of Celestial Art. in- 
 deed ; which celestial pieces he glories to survey in galleries, but 
 has lost thought of purchasing. 
 
 Psychological readers are not without curiosity to see how Teu- 
 felsdrockh, in this for him unexampled predicament, demeans 
 himself; with what specialities of successive configuration, splen- 
 dour and colour, 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 Blumjne, whereby 
 she is here designated, and which means simply Goddess of Flow- 
 ers, 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, i 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 
 
ROMANCE. 109 
 
 1 sphere of Shadows ; arid finding himself mistaken, make noise 
 f enough.' 
 
 We seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, beautiful, 
 and some one's Cousin : highborn and of high spirits ; but un- 
 happily dependent and insolvent ; living, perhaps, on the not too 
 gracious bounty of monied relatives. But how came ' the Wan- 
 derer' into her circle ? Was it by the humid vehiele of JEsthctic 
 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. 
 
 1 Thou fair Waldschloss,' writes our Autobiographer, ' what 
 ' stranger ever saw thee, were it even an absolved Auscultator, 
 ' officially bearing in his pocket the last Relatio ex Actis he would 
 ' ever write ; but must have paused to wonder ! Noble Mansion ! 
 ' There stoodest thou, in deep Mountain Amphitheatre, on urn- 
 < brageous lawns, in thy serene solitude ; stately, massive, all of 
 1 granite : glittering in the western sunbeams, like a palace of El 
 1 Doredo, overlaid with precious metal. Beautiful rose up, in 
 ' wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills : of the green- 
 ' est was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, 
 1 or spotted by some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. To 
 ' the unconscious Wayfarer thou wert also as an Ammon's Tem- 
 c pie, 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 Relaiio 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 Gardenhouse, where sit 
 the choicest party of dames and cavaliers ; if not engaged in ^Es- 
 thetic 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 Gardenhouse infe- 
 rior in respectability to the noble Mansion itself. ' Embowered 
 ' amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the hues and odours of thou- 
 ' sand flowers, here sat that brave company ; in front, from the 
 
110 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' wide-opened doors, fair outlook over blossom and bush, over j 
 ' 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 Sun in the bosom-vesture of Summer I 
 ' herself. How came it that the Wanderer advanced thither with | 
 ' such forecasting heart (ahndungsvoll), by the side of his gay 
 ' host % Did he feel that to these soft influences his hard bosom 
 f ought to be shut ; that here, once more, Fate had it in view to 
 ' try him ; to mock him, and see whether there were Humour in ' 
 4 him? • 
 
 ' Next moment he finds himself presented to the party ; and 
 ' especially by name to — Blumine ! Peculiar among all dames 
 ' and damosels, glanced Blumine, there in her modesty, like a star 
 ' amo^ig earthly lights. Noblest maiden ! whom he bent to, in 
 1 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 colourings of Rumour, from the censures ■ 
 'no less than from the praises, had our Friend painted for him- • 
 ' self a certain imperious Queen of Hearts, and blooming warm i 
 ' 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 : butt 
 1 all this be had ^cen 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; Heaven ! how should they so| 
 ' much as once meet together? And now that Rose-goddess sits j 
 L in the same circle with him ; the light of her eyes has smiled oni 
 ' 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 
 'favour for him? Was the attraction, the agitation mutual,. 
 ' then ; pole and pole trembling towards contact, when oncel 
 
ROMANCE. ill 
 
 ' brought into neighbourhood ? * Say rather, heart swelling in 
 c presence of the Queen of Hearts ; like the Sea swelling when 
 
 • once near its Moon ! With the Wanderer it was even so : as in 
 1 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 un- 
 ; quiet eddies within him. 
 
 ' Often, in far less agitating scenes, had our still Friend shrunk 
 ' forcibly together : and shrouded up his tremours 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 1 It was his guid- 
 ' ing Genius [Damon) that inspired him : he must go forth and 
 ' meet his Destiny. Shew thyself now, whispered it, or be for- 
 ' ever 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, 
 1 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 pris- 
 { matic hues.' 
 
 It appears, in this otherwise so happy meeting, there talked 
 one ' Philistine ;' who even now, to the general weariness, was 
 dominantly pouring forth Philistinism [PhilistriouicUen) ; 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 
 
112 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' dialectic marauder,' writes our hero, ' the discomfiture was visibly 
 1 felt as a benefit by most : but what were all applauses to the 
 ' glad smile, threatening every moment to become a laugh, where- 
 ' with Blumine herself repaid the victor ? He ventured to 
 ' address her, she answered with attention : nay, what if there 
 ' were a slight tremour in that silver voice ; what if the red glow 
 ' of evening were hiding a transient blush ! 
 
 1 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. Gaily 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 
 1 laws of polite living, had melted as into vapour ; and the poor 
 ' claims of Me and Thee, no longer parted by rigid fences, now 
 ' flowed softly into one another ; and Life lay all harmonious, 
 1 many-tinted, like some fair royal champaign, the sovereign and 
 1 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 mountain-tops, and the shadows 
 ' fell longer over the valley, some faint tone of sadness may have 
 1 breathed through the heart ; and, in whispers more or less au- 
 ' dible, reminded every one that as this bright day was drawing to- 
 ' wards its close, so likewise must the Day of Man's Existence 
 1 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 Blu- 
 ' mine's hand was in his : in the balmy twilight, with the kind 
 ' stars above them, he spoke something of meeting again, which 
 ' was not contradicted ; he pressed gently those small soft fingers, 
 : and it seemed as if they were not hastily, not angrily withdrawn.' 
 
 Poor Teufelsdrockh ! it is clear to demonstration thou art 
 sniit : 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 Pe- 
 
ROMANCE. 113 
 
 lirium,' says lie elsewhere , ' yet has it many points in common 
 therewith. I call it rather a discerning of the Infinite in the 
 
 -.w 
 
 ; Finite, of the Idea made Real ; which discerning again may be 
 ' ertFer 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 do- 
 'niain of the Actual plants its Archimedes-lever, whereby to 
 ' move at will the infinite Spiritual. Fantasy I might call the 
 i true Heaven-gate and Hell-gate of man : his sensuous life is but 
 ' the small temporary stage (Ze lib uh?ie) vthereon 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. Wit- 
 ' ness your Pyrrhus conquering the world, yet drinking no better 
 'red wine than he had before. 5 Alas! witness also your Dio- 
 
 * genes, 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 
 c Graceful (Holde) would ever love 1 Disbelieving all things^ tha 
 1 p oor youth had never learned to , believe^ in ^himself. "With- 
 \ drawn 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 
 j of existence. And now, 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 | 
 t-provided. 
 
 ' In free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent glances, laugh- 
 1 ter, 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 
 
114 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 must our Friend be blandished, and the new Apocalypse of Na- 
 c ture unrolled to him. Fairest Blumine ! And. even as a Star, 
 1 all Fire and humid Softness, a very Light-ray incarnate ! Was i 
 c 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 j 
 1 not her presence bring with it airs from Heaven ? As from j 
 ' iEolean Harps in the breath of dawn, as from the Memnon's P 
 1 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 happi- ' 
 ' ness and hope. The Past, then, was all a haggard dream ; he i 
 * had been in the Garden of Eden, then, and could not discern it ! 
 c But lo now ! the black walls of his prison melt away ; the cap- } 
 c tive is alive, is free. If he loved his Disenchantress ? Ach i 
 ' Gott ! His whole heart and soul and life were hers, but never I 
 1 had he named it Love : existence was all a Feeling, not yet I 
 1 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 best of Necessity, to cut asunder 
 1 these so blissful bounds.' He even appears surprised at the 
 ' Duenna Cousin,' whoever she may have been, ' in whose meagre, 
 i hunger-bitten philosophy, the religion of young hearts was, from 
 1 the first, faintly approved of We, even at such distance, can ! 
 explain it without nirnmiancy. Let the Philosopher answer this 
 one question : What fi gure, at that period, was a Mrs. leufels- 
 drockh likely to make in polished society? Could she have 
 driven so much as a brass-bound Big, or eyen a simple iron- 
 spring one? Thou foolish 'absolved Auscultatory before whom 
 lies no prospect ofjca.pjtal, will any yet known 'religion of young 
 hearts 1 keep the human kitchen warm? Pshaw! thy divine 
 1 Blumine, when she ' resigned herself to wed some richer,' shews 
 more philosophy, though but ' a woman of genius." than thou, a 
 pretended man. 
 
 Our readers have witnessed the origin of this Love-mania, and 
 witli what royal splendour it waxes, and rises. Let no one ask us 
 
 
ROMANCE. 115 
 
 to unfold the glories of its dominant state ; much less the hor- 
 rors of its almost instantaneous dissolution. How from such in- 
 organic masses, henceforth madder than ever, as lie in these Bags, 
 can even fragments of a living delineation be organised ? Be- 
 sides, 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 1 A hapless air-navigator, 
 plunging, amid torn parachutes, sand-bags, and confused wreck, 
 fast enough into the jaws of the Devil ! Suffice it to know that 
 Teufelsdrockh rose into the highest regions of the Empyrean, by 
 a natural parabolic track, and returned thence in a quick perpen- 
 dicular one. For the rest, let any feeling reader, who has been 
 unhappy enough to do the like, paint it out for himself: consid- 
 ering only that if he, for his perhaps comparatively insignificant 
 mistress, underwent such agonies and frenzies, what must Teufels- 
 drockh's have been, with a fire-heart, and for a nonpareil Blumine ! 
 We glance merely at the final scene : 
 
 ■j ' One morning, he found his Morning-star all dimmed and 
 ' dusky-red ; the fair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to 
 I have been weeping. Alas, no longer a Morning-star, but a troub- 
 I lous skyey Portent, announcing that the Doomsday had dawned ! 
 ' She said, in a tremulous voice, They were to meet no more.' 
 The thunderstruck Air-sailor is not wanting to himself in this 
 dread hour: but what avails it? We omit the passionate expos- 
 tulations, entreaties, indignations, since all was vain, and not even 
 an explanation was conceded him ; and hasten to the catastrophe. 
 I " Farewell, then, Madam !" said he, not without sternness, for his 
 1 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 
 1 dew-drops, rushed into one, — for the first time, and for the last !' 
 Thus was Teufelsdrockh made immortal by a kiss. And then ? 
 Why, then — ' thick curtains of Night rushed over his soul, as rose 
 ' the immeasurable Crash of Doom ; and through the ruins as of a 
 ' shivered Universe was he falling, falling, towards the Abyss.' 
 
116 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 \ 
 
 T 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 
 
 We have long felt that, with a man like our Professor, matters , 
 must often be expected to take a course of their own ; that in so ,' 
 multiplex, intricate a nature, there might be channels, both for [ 
 admitting and emitting, such as the Psychologist had seldom i 
 noted : in short, that on no grand occasion and convulsion, neither ' 
 in the joy-storm nor in the woe-storm, could you predict his de- | 
 meanour. 
 
 To our less philosophical readers, for example, it is now clear ! 
 that the so passionate Teufelsdrockh, precipitated through ' a il 
 shivered Universe' in this extraordinary way, has only one of three 
 things which he can next do: Establish himself in Bedlam: begij 
 writing Satanic Poetry : or blow out his brains. In the progress • 
 towards any of which consummations, do not such readers antici- - 
 pate extravagance enough ; breast-beating, brow-beating (against 
 walls), lion-bellowings of blasphemy and the like, stampings, . 
 smitings, breakages of furniture, if not arson itself? 
 
 Nowise so does Teufelsdrockh deport him. He quietly lifts his 
 Pilgerstab (Pilgrim-staff), ' old business being soon wound up;' 
 and begins a perambulation and circumambulation of the terra- 
 queous globe ! Curious it is, indeed, how with such vivacity of 
 conception, such intensity of feeling ; above all, with those uncon- 
 scionable habits of Exaggeration in speech, he combines that won- 
 derful stillness of his, that stoicism in external procedure. Thus, 
 if his sudden bereavement, in this matter of the Flower-goddess, I 
 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 tilings rush out 
 
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 117 
 
 tumultuous, boundless, like genii enfranchised from their glass 
 phial : but no sooner are your magic appliances withdrawn, than 
 the strange casket of a heart springs-to again ; and perhaps there 
 is now no key extant that will open it : for a Teufelsdrockh, as we 
 remarked, will not love a second time. Singular Diogenes ! No 
 sooner has that heart-rending occurrence fairly taken place, than 
 he affects to regard it as a thing natural, of which there is nothing 
 more to be said. ' One highest hope, seemingly legible in the 
 1 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 
 1 Angel ; he was rapt away in whirlwinds, and heard the laughter 
 ' of Demons. It was a Calenture,' adds he, • whereby the Youth 
 ' saw green Paradise-groves in the waste Ocean-waters : a lying 
 ' vision, yet not wholly a lie, for he saw it.' But what things 
 soever passed in him, when he ceased to see it ; what ragings and 
 despairings soever Teufelsdrockh's soul was the scene of, he has 
 the goodness to conceal under a quite opaque cover of Silence. 
 We know it well ; the first mad paroxysm past, our brave Gneschen 
 collected his dismembered philosophies, and buttoned himself 'nr 
 together ; he was meek, silent, or spoke of the weather, and the 
 Journals : only by a transient knitting of those shaggy brows, by 
 some deep flash of those eyes, glancing one knew not whether 
 with tear-dew or with fierce fire, — might you have guessed what a 
 Gehenna was within ; that a whole Satanic School were spouting, 
 though inaudibly, there. To consume your own choler, as some 
 chimneys consume their own smoke ; to keep a whole Satanic 
 School spouting, if it must spout, inaudibly, is a negative yet no 
 slight virtue, nor one of the commonest in these times. 
 
 Nevertheless, we will not take upon us to say, that in the 
 strange measure he fell upon, there was not a touch of latent 
 Insanity ; whereof indeed the actual condition of these Documents 
 in Capricomus and Aquarius is no bad emblem. His so unlimited 
 Wanderings, toilsome enough, are whliou^a£sign^dj3r__perJiaps 
 .assignable aim : internal Unrest seems his sole guidance : he wan- 
 ders, wanders, as if that curse of the Prophet had fallen on him, 
 and he were 'made like unto a wheel.' Doubtless, too, the cha- 
 otic nature of these Paperbags aggravates our obscurity. Quite 
 without note of preparation, for example, we come upon the fol- 
 
' 
 
 US SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 lowing slip : ' A peculiar feeling it is that will rise in the Travel* 
 i ler, when turning some hill-range in his desert road, he descries 
 ' lying far below, embosomed among its groves and green natural 1 
 ' bulwarks, and all diminished to a toybox. the fair Town, where 
 1 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 ■ 
 ' Life-breath :^for always, of its own unity, the soul gives unity to ' 
 ' whatso it looks on with love ; thus does the little Dwelling-place 
 
 1 of men, in itself a congeries of houses and huts, become for us an | 
 4 individual, almost a person. But what thousand other thoughts ? 
 ' unite thereto, if the place has to ourselves been the arena of joy- ; 
 1 ous or mournful experiences ; if perhaps the cradle we were I 
 ' rocked in still stands there, if our Loving ones still dwell there, 
 'if our Buried ones there slumber!' Does Tcufelsdrockh, as the j 
 wounded eagle is said to make for its own eyrie, and indeed mili- ' 
 tary deserters, and all hunted outcast creatures, turn as if by 
 instinct in the direction of their birth-land, — fly first, in this • 
 extremity, towards his native Entepfuhl; but reflecting that there 
 no help awaits him, take but 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 I 
 the former by some considerable space, wherein, however, is • 
 nothing note-worthy : 
 
 ' Mountains were not new to him ; but rarely are Mountains 
 c seen in such combined majesty and grace as here. The rocks 
 i are of that sort called Primitive by the mineralogists, which 
 'always arrange themselves in masses of a rugged, gigantic cha 
 
 • raeter: which ruggedness, however, is here tempered by a singm 
 ■ lar airiness of form, and softness of environment : in a climate 
 
 favourable 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; 
 
 von ride, through Stony hollows, along strait passes, traversed by 
 ' torrents, overhung by high walls of rock 1 now winding amid 
 
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 119 
 
 ' broken shaggy chasnis, 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 
 1 Strength. 
 
 ' To Peace, however, in this vortex of existence, can the Son 
 1 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 : 
 1 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 better : " Whoso can look on Death will start at no 
 j shadows." 
 
 1 From such meditations is the Wanderer's attention called out- 
 1 wards ; for now the Valley closes in abruptly, intersected by a 
 ' huge mountain mass, the stony waterworn ascent of which is V 
 1 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 np- 
 ' land irregular expanse of wold, where valleys in complex branch- 
 'ings are suddenly or slowly arranging their descent towards 
 1 every quarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are beneath 
 1 your feet, and folded together : only the loftier summits look 
 ' down here and there as on a second plain ; lakes also lie clear 
 1 and earnest in their solitude. Ncr trace of man now visible ; un- 
 1 less indeed it were he who fashioneoTKaOittie 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 \va 
 
 ■ with longing desire ; n^verjbiUjhi.s, UguxJiad he known Nature,. ^ 
 
 ■ that she was One. that she was his Mother and divine. And as 
 
 '■) 
 
120 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 'the ruddy glow was fading into clearness in the sky, and tin 
 ' 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 t 
 ' the Spirit of the Earth had its throne in that splendour, and hi* 
 ( own spirit were therewith holding communion. 
 
 ' The spell was broken by a sound of carriage-wheels. Emerg-J 
 '■ ing from the hidden Northward, to sink soon into the hidden;, 
 ' Southward, came a gay barouche-and-four : it was open ; s 
 ' vants and postilions wore wedding-favours : that happy pair. 
 ' then, had found each other, it was their marriage evening ! Few. 
 ' moments brought them near : Du Himmel ! It was Herr Tow-t 
 
 'good and Blumine ! With slight unrecognising saluta-j 
 
 ' tion they passed me ; plunged down amid the neighbouring | 
 ' thickets, onwards, to Heaven, and to England ; and I, in my , 
 'friend Eichter's words, 1 remained alo?ie, behind them, with the 
 ' Night: 
 
 Were it not cruel in these circumstances, here might be the«, 
 place to insert an observation, gleaned long ago from the great : 
 Clothes- Voluvie, where it stands with quite other intent : ' Some 
 
 I' 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 Yi^rklUiiiiig. 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 
 1 liquor for us ; that is to say, in silence, or with slight incidental !: 
 ' commentary : never, as I compute, till after the Sorrows of 
 c M'er/er, was there man found who would say: Come let us make 
 ' a Description ! Having drunk the liquor, come let as eat the 
 ' glass ! Of which endemic the Jenner is unhappily still to seek.'- 
 Too true ! 
 
 We reckon it more important to remark that the Profefi 
 Wanderings, so far as his stoical and cynical envelopment admits 
 us to char insight, here first take their permanent character, 
 fatuous or not. That Basilisk-glance of the Barouche -ami-four 
 serins to have withered up what little remnant of a purpose may 
 have still lurked in him: Life has become wholly a dark laby- 
 rinth ; wherein, through long years, our Friend, flying from spec- 
 
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 121 
 
 tres, hasjho 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. Hope - 
 less_isjb h< e_ obscuri ty. iirispp.a.k,ap1ft the, ot fusion. He glides from 
 country to country, from condition to condition ; vanishing and 
 re-appearing, 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 geo- 
 graphically, he settles for a time, and forms connexions, be sure 
 he will snap them abruptly asunder. Let him sink out of sight 
 as Private Scholar (Privatisimider), living by the grace of God, 
 in some European capital, you may next find him as Hadjee in 
 the neighbourhood of Mecca. It is an inexplicable Phantasma- 
 goria, 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 emblem- 
 atically, 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 in- 
 deed a spirit, yet spiritualised, vaporised. Fact unparalleled in 
 Biography : The river of his History, which we have traced from 
 its tiniest fountains, and hoped to see flow onward, with increas- 
 ing 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 endeavour. 
 
 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 ques- 
 tionable to emit. Teufelsdrockh, vi brating eve rywhere between 
 the highes t and the lowest levels, comes into contact with public 
 
122 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 History itself. For example, those conversations and relations 
 with illustrious Persons, as Sultan Mahmoud, the Emperor Na- 
 poleon, and others, are they not as yet rather of a diplomatic 
 character than of a biographic ? The Editor, appreciating the 
 sacredness of crowned heads', nay perhaps suspecting the possible 
 trickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew this province for 
 the present : a new time may bring new insight and a different 
 duty. 
 
 If we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for 
 there was none, yet with what immediate outlooks : at all events, 
 in what mood of mind, the Professor undertook and prosecuted 
 this world-pilgrimage, — the answer is more distinct than favour- ' 
 able. ' A nameless JJnrest,' 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. Ijgas alone^ jdkmg ! Ever too the strong inward longing 
 ' shaped Fantasms for itself : towards these, one after the other, 
 ' must I fruitlessly wander. A feeling I had that, for my fever- 
 i thirst, there was and must be somewhere a healing Fountain. 
 i To many fondly imagined Fountains, the Saints' Wells of these 
 'days, did I pilgrim juto great Men, to great Cities, to great— 
 i Events : but found there no healing\\ In strange countries, as 
 1 in the well-known ; in savage deserts, as in the press of corrupt ' 
 < civilisation, it was ever the same: how could your "Wanderer y 
 1 escape from — his own Shadow f\ Nevertheless still Forward! 
 ' I felt as if in great haste; to do I saw not what. From the 
 ' depths of my own heart, it called to me, Forwards ! The winds 
 
 • and the streams, and all Nature sounded to me, Forwards! Ach 
 ' Grott, I was even, once for all, a Son of Time.' 
 
 From which is it not clear that the internal Satanic School was 
 still active enough? He says elsewhere) 'The Enchiridion of 
 i Epidetus I had ever with me. often as my sole rational com- 
 ' pan ion ; and regret to mention that the nourishment it yielded 
 
 • was trifling.' Thou foolish Teufelsdrockh ! How could it else I 
 Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus much: The ^ 
 
 
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 123 
 
 end of Man is an Action, and no\ g Thought^ though it were the 
 noblest? 
 
 ' How I lived V writes he once : ' Friend, hast thou considered 
 { the " rugged ali-nourishing Earth," as Sophocles well names 
 1 her ; how she feeds the sparrow on the house-top, much more 
 1 her darling, man 1 While thou stirrest and livest, thou hast a 
 ' probability of victual. 31 y breakfast of tea has been cooked by 
 ' a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who wiped her earth- 
 ' en-kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted wild eggs in the sand 
 ' of Sahara ; I have awakened in Paris Estrapades and Vienna 
 Malzleins. with no prospect of breakfast beyond elemental 
 liquid. That I had my living to seek saved me from Dying, — 
 '• by suicide. In our busy Europe, is there not an everlasting de- 
 mand for Intellect, in the chemical, mechanical, political, reli- 
 gious, educational, commercial departments % In Pagan coun- 
 ' tries, cannot one write Fetishes 1 Li yvnffl Little knowe > 
 t hou what alchemy is i n an inventive Soul |_ how, as with its lit- ) 
 * tie'nnger, it can create provision enough for the body (of a Phi- f 
 I losopher) ; and then, as with both hands, create quite other than S 
 c provision ; namely, spectres to torment itself withal.' 
 
 Poor Teufelsdrockh ! Flying with Hunger always parallel to 
 him ; and a whojlejnfexnal Chas& 4n- his . roar ; so that thftjn mn- 
 t enance of Bungei; is comparatively a friend's ! Thus must he, 
 in the temper of ancient Cain, or of the modern Wandering Jew, 
 save only that he feels himself not guilty and but suffering the 
 pains of guilt, — wend to and fro with aimless speed. Thus must 
 he, over the whole surface of the Earth (by foot-prints), write his 
 Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh ; even as the great Goethe, in passionate 
 words, had to write his Sorrows of Werter, before the spirit freed 
 herself, and he could become a Man. Vain truly is the hope of 
 your swiftest Runner to escape ' from his own Shadow !' Never- 
 theless, in these sick days, when the Born of Heaven first de- 
 scries himself (about the age of twenty) in a world such as ours, 
 richer than usual in two things, in Truths grown obsolete, and 
 Trades grown obsolete, — what can the fool think but that it is all 
 a Den of Lies, wherein whoso will not speak Lies and act Lies,| 
 must stand idle and despair? Whereby it happens that, for 
 your nobler minds, the publishing of some such Work of Art, in 
 
124 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 
 J one or the other dialect, becomes almost a necessity. For what 
 _ / is it properly but an Altercation with the Devil, before you begin 
 J honestly Fighting him 1 Your Byron publishes his Sorrows of 
 Lord George, in verse and in prose, and copiously otherwise : 
 your Bonaparte represents his Sorrows of Napoleon Opera, in an 
 ail-too stupendous style ; with music of cannon-volleys, and mur- 
 der-shrieks of a world ; his stage-lights are the fires of Conflagra- 
 tion ; his rhyme and recitative are the tramp of embattled Hosts 
 and the sound of falling Cities. — Happier is he who, like our 
 Clothes-Philosopher, can write such matter, since it must be writ- 
 ten, on the insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles only ; and also 
 survive the writing thereof! 
 
 
THE EVERLASTING NO. 125 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE EVERLASTING NO. 
 
 I 
 
 Under the strange nebulous envelopment, wherein our Pro- 
 fessor has now shrouded himself, no doubt but his spiritual na - 
 ture is ne vertheless progressiyA_jtn^^awkig : for how can the) 
 ' Son of Time,' in any case, stand still ? We behold him, througbr 
 those dim years, in a_^tajte_fif_jcrisis r ^f transition : his mad PilS 
 grimings, and general solution into aimless Discontinuity, what is\ 
 all this but a mad Fermentation ; wherefrom, the fiercer it is, the I 
 clearer product will one day evolve itself? 
 
 Such transitions are ever full of pain j 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 raving within ; corus 
 cations of which flash out : as, indeed, how could there be other 7 
 Have we not seen him disappointed, bemocked of Destiny, throug 
 long years ? AlHhai the young heart might desire, and pray to 
 has been denied : nay. as in the last worst instance,, offered andl 
 then snatched agaj. Ever an -.excellent Passivity ;' but of use- 
 ful., reasonable Activity, essential to the former as Food to Hun- 
 ger, nothing granted : till at length, in this wild Pilgrimage, he 
 must forcibly seize for himself an Activity, though useless, un- 
 reasonable* Alas ! his cup of bitterness, which had been filling 
 drop by drop, ever since that first i ruddy morning' in the Hin- 
 terschlag 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 : 
 
 Olan is, properly speaking, based upon Hope, lie Las no other 
 
 possession but Hope ; this world of his is emphatically the Place 
 
126 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 around into a dim copper fir- 
 mament, pregnant with earthquake and tornado. 
 
 Alas, shut out from Hope, in a deeper sense than we yet 
 dream of! For as he wander s weariso mely through this world, 
 he has now lost all tidings of another and higher.- Full of reli- 
 gion, or at least of religiosity, as our Friend has since exhibited 
 himself, he hides not that in those days, he was wholly irrelig ious : 
 / Doubt had darkened into UjibeHe^Lsays he ; ' shade after shade 
 r goes grimly over your soul, till you have the fixed, starless. Tar- 
 y tarean black.' To such readers as have reflected, what can be 
 called reflecting, on man's life, and happily discovered, in con- 
 tradiction to much Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, speculative and 
 practical, that Soul is not synonymous with Stomach : who under- 
 
 ftand, therefore, in our Friend's words, ' that, for man's well be- 
 ing, Faith is properly the one thing needful : how. with it. Mar- 
 
 • 1 3 i b, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the 
 'cross; and without it. Wordlings 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 every thing. Unhappy young man! All wouuds, the 
 crush of long-continued Destitution, the stab of false Friendship, 
 and of false Lo\ e. 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 Sab- 
 " 'bath, at the outside of his Universe, and .swing it go? Has the 
 
 • word Duty no meaning; is what we call Duty no divine Mes- 
 
 i and <iui'le. bul a false earthly Fantasm, made up of De- 
 
 /' sire and Fear, of emanations from the (fallows and from Doc- 
 
 L^tor Graham's Celestial-bed .- Happiness of an approving Con- 
 
 -■ience! Did not Paul of Tarsus, whom admiring nun have 
 
 since named Saint, feel that he was •• the chief of sinners :" and 
 
 • Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit [tjoohlgemuth)^ spend much of his 
 1 time in fiddling? Foolish Word-monger, and Motive-grinder, 
 'who in thy Logic-mill hast an earthly mechanism for the God- 
 1 like itself, and wouldst fain grind me out Virtue from the In 
 
THE EVERLASTING NO. 127 
 
 ' of Pleasure, — I tell thee, Nay ! To the unregenerate Prome- 
 ' theus 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 Pas- 
 ' sion ; some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction others 
 
 1 profit by ? I know not : only this I know, If what thpu name^l-., 
 ' Happiness be our true aim, then are we all astray. With Stu- 
 ' pfdity 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 v 
 < let us build our stronghold : there brandishing our fryingpan, ) 
 1 as censer, let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and live at ease j 
 ' on the fat things he has provided for his Elect !' 
 
 Thus has the bewildered Wanderer to stand, as so many have i 
 done, shouting question after question into the Sibyl-cave of Des- 
 tiny, and receive no Answe r but an Echo . It is all a grim Des- 
 ert, this once fair world of his ; wherein is heard only the howl- 
 ing of wild beasts, or the shrieks of despairing, hate-filled men ; 
 and no Pillar of Cloud by day, and no Pillar of Fire by night, 
 any longer guides the Pilgrim. To such length has the spirit of 
 Inquiry carried him. ' But what boots it {was thuts)V cries he ; 
 1 it is but the common lot in this era. Not having come to spirit- 
 1 ual majority prior to the Steele de Louis Quinze, and not being 
 ' born purely a Loghead (Du?nmkopf), thou hadst no other out- 
 
 * look. The whole world is, like thee, sold to Unbelief; their oldl 
 j Temples of the Godhead, which for long have not been rain- J \ 
 ' proof, crumble down ; and men ask now : Where is the God- 
 j head ; 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 Good- 
 ness, the Servant of God, than even now when doubting God's 
 existence. ' One circumstance I note,' says he : ' after all the 
 ' nameless woe thatjjaquiry, 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 / 
 
 i 
 
 .( u 
 
' 128 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 + 
 
 ' her : no Falsehood ! though a whole celestial Lubberland were 
 ' tbc price of Apostacy." In conduct it was the same. Had a 
 ' divine Messenger from the clouds, or miraculous Handwriting 
 'on the wall, convincingly proclaimed to me This thou shall 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 
 t had brought on, was the Infini te nature of D uty 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 I 
 
 stood legible and sacred there.' 
 
 Meanwhile, under all these tribulations, and temporal and 
 spiritual destitutions, what must the Wanderer, in his silent soul, 
 have endured ! ' The painfullest feeling,' writes he, ' is that of 
 ' your own Feebleness ( Unkraft) ; ever as the English Milton 
 ' says, to be weak is the true misery. And yet of your Strength 
 'there is and can be no clear feeling. . save by what you have 
 'prospered in, by what you have done/ //Between vague wavering 
 ' Capability and fixed indubitable Performance, what a differ- 
 ' ence ! A certain inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells dimly 
 'in us ; which only our Works can render articulate and de- 
 'cisively discernible.nl Our Works are the mirror wherein the 
 ' spirit first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of 
 ' that impossible Precept, Know thyself; till it be translated into 
 
 this partially possible one, Know what thou canst work at\\ 
 ' But for me, so strangely unprosperous had I been, the net 
 'result of my Workings amounted as yet simplj to — Nothing. 
 1 How then could I believe in my Strength, when there was as 
 'yet no mirror to see it in ? Ever did this agitating, vet. 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 Pullard of these 
 ; , V modern times ? Alas ! the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in your- 
 t\ self ; and how could I believe ? Had not my first, last Faith in 
 i myself, when even to me the Heavens seemed laid open, and I 
 
THE EVERLASTING NO. 129 
 
 1 dared to love, been ail-too cruelly belied 1 The speculative 
 1 Mystery of Life grew ever more mysterious to mej__neither in 
 * t]ie practical Mystery had I made the slightest progress, but 
 1 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 Enchant- 
 ment, divided me from all living : was there, in the wide world, 
 any true bosom I could press trustfully to mine ? 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 
 j an incredible tradition 1 In such cases, your resource is to talk 
 
 I little, and that little mostly from the Newspapers. Now when 
 
 I I look back, it was a ^TajageJgflIa,t,ion ... I then lived in. The 
 1 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 midst of their crowded 
 I streets, and assemblages, I walked solitary ; and (except as it 
 f was my own heart, not another's, that I kept devouring) savage 
 j also, as the tiger in his jungle. Some comfort it would have 
 1 been, could I. like a Faust, have fancied myself tempted and 
 ' tormented of the Devil ; for a Hell, as I imagine, without Life, 
 1 though only diabolic Life, were more frightful : but in our age 
 1 of Downpulling and Disbelief, the very Devil has been pulled 
 'down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me thej 
 ' Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of 
 
 f Hostility : it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, 
 ' rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. 
 ' the vast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death ! "Why 
 | was the Living banished thither companionless, conscious 1 
 \ Why if there is no Devil ; nay, unless the Devil is your God V 
 
 A prey incessantly to such corrosions, might not, moreover, as 
 the worst aggravation to them, the iron constitution even of a 
 Teufelsdrockh threaten to fail ? We conjecture that he has known 
 sickness ; and, in spite of his locomotive habits, perhaps sickness 
 of the chronic sort. Hear this, for example : ' How beautiful to 
 [ die of broken-heart, on Paper ! Quite another thing in Prac- 
 
130 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 __ . . j 
 
 ' tice ; every window of your Feeling, even of your Intellect, as 
 ' it were, begrimed and mud-bespattered, so that no pure ray canj 
 ' enter ; a whole Drugshop in your inwards ; the foredone 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 Profes- 
 ' sor's still vein, significance enough? ' From Suicide a certain 
 ' after-shine (Nachschein) of Christianity withheld me : perhaps 
 'also a certain indolence of character ; for, was not that a remedy 
 ' I had at any time within reach 1 Often, however, was there a 
 ' question present to me : Should some one now, at the turning 
 ' of that corner, blow thee suddenly out of Space, into the other 
 ' World, or other No-world, by pistol-shot, — how were it ? On 
 ' which ground, too, I have often, in sea-storms and sieged cities 
 'and other death-scenes, exhibited an imperturbability, which 
 ' passed, falsely enough, for courage.' 
 
 ' So had it lasted,' concludes the Wanderer, ' so had it lasted, 
 ' as in bitter protracted Death-agony, through long years The 
 I' heart within me, unvisited by any heavenly dewdrop, was 
 V 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 Deathsong, that wild 
 ' Sclig dcr den er im Sieges-glanze findct (Happy whom he finds in 
 ' Battle's splendour), 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. palpita- 
 k ting, waited to be devoured. 
 
 f 'Full of such humour, and perhaps the miscrablest man in the 
 ' whole French Capital or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dogday, 
 4 after much perambulation, toiling along the dirty little Rue 
 
THE EVERLASTING NO. 131 
 
 1 Saint-Thomas de VEnfer, among civic rubbish enough, in a close 
 ( atmosphere, and over pavements hot as Nebuchadnezzar's Fur- 
 'nace; whereby doubtless my spirits were little cheered ; when, 
 i all at once, there rose a Thought in me, and I asked myself: 
 1 u What art thou afra joLpXi Wherefore, like a coward, dost thou 
 ' for ever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling 1 
 1 Despicable biped ! what is the simi-total of the worst that lies 
 ' before thee % Death ? Well, Death ; and say the pangs of 
 j 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 
 ' whatso it be ; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, tram- 
 j pie Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee 1 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 for ever. I was strong, 
 of unknown strength : a spirit, almost a god. Ever from that 
 time, the Jemper of my misery was changed : not Fear or whin- 
 ; ^g_Sorrow wasji, but..Injdig»ati^ii and grim fire-eyed Defiance. 
 Thus had the Everlasting No (das ewige Nein) pealed 
 authoritatively through all the recesses of my Being, of my Me ; 
 * and then was it that my whole Me stood up, in native God- 
 J created majesty, and with emphasis recorded its Protest. Such 
 f a Protest, the most important transactr6Til^Llie^may that same 
 f 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: " / am not thine, but 
 ' Free, and forever hate thee !" 
 
 ' It is from this hour that I incline to date my Spir^aLJiejs^ 
 'bir_tb, or Baphometic Fire-baptism; perhaps I directly there- 
 ' upon began to be a Man.' a 
 
 i 
 
 
132 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 
 
 Though, after this 'Baphonietic Fire-baptism' of his, our 
 Wanderer signifies that his Unrest was but increased ; as, indeed, 
 1 Indignation and Defiance,' especially against things in general, 
 arejiot 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-baptised soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven, here 
 feels its own Freedom, which feeling is its Baphometic Baptism: 
 the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus gained by assault, 
 and will keep inexpugnable ; outwards from which the remaining 
 dominions, not indeed without hard battling, will doubtless by 
 degrees be conquered and pacificated. Under another figure, we 
 might say, if in that great moment, in the Rue Saint-Thomas de 
 I'Enfer, the old inward Satanic School was not yet thrown out of 
 doors, it received peremptory judicial notice to quit ; — whereby, 
 for the rest, its howl-chantings, Ernulphus-cursings, and rebel- 
 lious gnashing of teeth, might, in the mean while, become only the 
 more tumultuous, and difiicult to keep secret. 
 
 Accordingly, if we scrutinize these Pilgrimings well, there is 
 perhaps discernible henceforth a certain incipient method in their 
 m adnes s. Not wholly as a Spectre does Teufelsdrockh now 
 storm through the world ; at worst as a spectre-fighting Man, 
 nay who will one day be a Spectre-queller. If pilgrimiug rest- 
 lessly 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 Nqt-me for wholcsomer 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 133 
 
 fooxL Does not the following glimpse exhibit him in a much 
 more natural state 1 
 
 1 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 
 1 the Present, and set before your eyes ! There, in that old City, 
 ' was a live ember of Culinary Fire put down, say only two thou- 
 ' sand 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 audi 
 ' Churchyards), and its bellows-engines (in these Churches), thou] t^ 
 ' still seest : and its flame, looking out from every kind counte- 1 » 
 ' nance, and every hateful one, still warms thee or scorches thee.j 
 
 'Of Man's Activity and Attainment the chief results are 
 ' aeriform, 'mystic^and preserved in Tradition only: such are his 
 'T'orms 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 required 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 Hammer- 
 ' men there have been, ever from Cain and Tubalcain 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 1 Every- 
 
A 
 
 ,34 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 I 
 
 ' where, yet nowhere : seen only in its works, this too is a thing I 
 aeriform, invisible ; or if you will, mystic and miraculous. So ! 
 1 spiritual (geislig) 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 j 
 ' 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 
 1 Arsenals ; then tU^ejO^ields^ to either or to both of which divi- 
 
 1 sions Roads with their Bridges may belong ; and thirdly 
 
 1 Books. In which third truly, the last-invented, lies a worth far 
 1 surpassing that of the two others. Wondro us indeed is the vir- 
 ' tue of a true Book. Not like a dead city of stones, yearly 
 1 (rumbling, yearly needing repair ; more like a tilled field, but 
 1 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 
 1 yearly comes its new T produce of leaves (Commentaries, Deduc- 
 ' tions, Philosophical, Political Systems ; or were it only Ser- 
 ' mons, Pamphlets, Journalistic Essays), every one of which is 
 
 * talismanic and thauuiaturgic, for it can persuade men. thou 
 1 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 Vic- 
 ' tor ; but of the true sort, namely over the Devil : thou too hast 
 ' built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder- 
 
 v bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and Seminary and Pro- 
 I phetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim. — 
 
 * Fool ! why journeyest thou wearisomely, in thy antiquarian fer- 
 1 vour, 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 
 4 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 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 135 
 
 distinctness of date. Omitting much, let us impart what fol- 
 lows : 
 
 • Horrible enough ! A whole Marchfield strewed with shell- 
 splinters, cannon shot, ruined tumbrils, and dead men and hor- 
 I ; ses ; stragglers still remaining not so much as buried. And 
 1 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 
 r they swept together, and crammed down out of sight, like blown 
 / ' Egg-shells ! — Did Nature, when she bade the Donau bring 
 c down his mould cargoes from the Carinthian and Carpathian 
 ' Heights, and spread them out here into the softest, richest 
 ' level, — intend thee, Marchfield, 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 1 
 ' Were thy three broad highways, meeting here from the ends of 
 1 Europe, made for Ammunition-wagons then % Were thy Wa- 
 f grams and Stillfrieds but so many ready-built Casemates, 
 1 wherein the house of Hapsburg might batter with artillery, and 
 1 with artillery be battered 1 Konig Ottokar, amid yonder hil- 
 ' locks, 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 dwell- 
 ' ings, blown away with gunpowder ; and the kind seedfield lies 
 ' a desolate, hideous Place of Sculls. — Nevertheless, Nature is at 
 f 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 March- 
 ' field will be green, nay, greener. Thrifty unwearied Nature, 
 1 ever out of our great waste educing some little profit of thy 
 ' own, — how dost thou, from the very carcass of the Killer, bring 
 ' Life for the Living. — — _» r _ ,„_,_,. ... . 
 
 ' What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net pur- 
 ' port and upshot of war 1 To my own knowledge, for example, 
 '"there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, 
 1 usually some five hundred souls. From these, by certain " Na- 
 ' tural Enemies" of the French, there are successively selected, 
 
136 SARTOR RES^RTUS. 
 
 ' during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men : Duin- 
 ' drudge, 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 up to crafts, so that one can weave, ano-. 
 ' ther 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 simi- j 
 ' lar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner 
 ' wending : till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties 
 ' come into actual juxta-position ; and Thirty stands fronting 
 ' Thirty, each with a gun in his hand. Straightway the word 
 ' " Fire ! : ' is given : and they blow the souls out of one another ; 
 i and in place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty 
 'dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew shed tears for. 
 I J lad these men any quarrel ? Busy as the Devil is, not the 
 k smallest ! They lived far enough apart ; were the entirest 
 ' strangers ; nay, in so wide a Universe, there was even, uncon- 
 ' sciously, by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. 
 'How then? Simpleton! their Governors had fallen out; and, 
 ' instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to make these 
 'poor blockheads shoot. -#- Alas, so is it in Deutchsland, and 
 ' hitherto in all other lands ; still as of old, " what devilry soever 
 ' Kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper !" — In that fiction of 
 * the English Smollet, it is true, the final Cessation of War is 
 'perhaps prophetically shadowed forth; where the two Natural 
 1 Enemies, in person, take each a Tobacco-pipe, filled with Brim- 
 ' stone ; 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 di- 
 ' vide us !^\ 
 
 Thus can the Professor, at least in lucid intervals, look away 
 from his own sorrows, over the many-coloured world, and perti- 
 nently 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, 
 
CENTRE 0# INDIFFERENCE. 137 
 
 ■ ; ; ; V~; 7 
 
 there is the most momentous instructive Course of Practical Phi- 
 losophy, with Experiments; going on ; towards the right compre- 
 hension of which his Peripatetic habits, favourable ip Meditation, 
 might help him rath«r" 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, grafting that the Satanic School was 
 even partially kept down^what an incredible Knowledge of our 
 Planet, and its Inhabitants and their "Works, that is to say, of all 
 knowable things, might not Teufelsdrockh acquire ! 
 
 ' I have read in most Public Libraries,' says he, ' including 
 ' those of Constantinople and Samarcand : in most Colleges, 
 4 except the Chinese Mandarin ones, I have studied, or seen that 
 1 there was no studying. Unknown Languages have I oftenest 
 ' gathered from their natural repertory, the Air, by my organ of 
 ' Hearing ; Statistics, Geographies, Topographies came, through 
 4 the Eye, almost of their own accord. The ways of Man, how he 
 1 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 Com- 
 I passes that belonged to myself only. 
 
 ' Of great Scenes, why speak 1 Three summer days, I lingered 
 ' reflecting, and even composing (dichtete), by the Pine-chasms of 
 1 Vaucluse ; and in that clear Lakelet moistened my bread. I 
 ' have sat under the palm-trees of Tadmor ; smoked a pipe among 
 1 the ruins of Babylon. The great Wall of China I have seen ; 
 1 and can testify that it is of grey brick, coped and covered with 
 ' granite, and shews only second-rate masonry. — Great Events, 
 ' also, have I not witnessed ? Kings sweated down (ausgcmergelt) 
 4 into Berlin-and-Milan Customhouse-officers ; the World well 
 i won, and the world well lost ; oftener than once a hundred 
 1 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 
 c time unite. The birth-pangs of Democracy, wherewith convulsed 
 * Europe was groaning in cries that reached Heaven, could not 
 c escape me. 
 
 c For great Men I have ever had the warmest predilection ; 
 
138 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 and can perhaps boast that few such in this era have wholly 
 4 escaped me. Great Men are the inspired (speaking and acting) 
 1 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 exegetio 
 ' Commentaries, and wagonload of too-stupid, heretical or ortho- 
 ' dox, weekly Sermons. For my study, the inspired Texts them- 
 ' selves ! Thus did I not, 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 for- 
 
 < gotten. For ' 
 
 But at this point the Editor recalls his principle of cau- 
 tion, some time ago laid down, and must suppress much. Let 
 .not the sacredness of Laurelled, still more, of Crowned Heads, bo 
 
 i tampered with. Should we, at a future day, find circumstances l\ 
 altered, and the time come for Publication, then may thesa^ 
 glimpses into the privacy of the Illustrious be conceded,;_whicli 
 for the present were little better than treacherous, perhaps traitor- ' 
 ous Eavesdroppings. Of Lord Byron, therefore, of Pope Pius, 
 Emperor Tarakwang, and the ' White Water roses' (Chinese Car- 
 bonari) with their mysteries, no notice here ! Of Napoleon him- 
 self we shall only, glancing from afar, remark that Teufelsdrocklrs 
 relation to him seems to have been of very varied character. At 
 first we find our poor Professor on the point of being shot as a ! 
 spy ; then taken into private conversation, even pinched on the 
 ear, yet presented with no money ; at last indignantly dismissed, 
 almost thrown out of doors as an ' Ideologist.' ' He himself,' says 
 the Professor, ' was among the completest Ideologists, at least 
 ' Ideopraxists : in the Idea [in der Idee) he lived, moved, and 
 ' fought. The man was a Divine Missionary, though unconscious 
 'of it ; and preached, through the cannon's throat, that great . 
 ' doctrine, La carriere ouverte aux talnisWThc Tools to him that 
 'can handle them)} which is our ultimate Political Evangel, 
 ' wherein alone can Liberty lie. Madly enough he preached, it is 
 1 true, as Enthusiasts and first Missionaries are wont, with imper- 
 • feet utterance, amid much frothy rant; yet as articulately per- 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 139 
 
 haps as the case admitted. Or call him, if you will, an American 
 Backwoodsman, who had to fell impenetrated 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 har- 
 vest, bless.' 
 
 More legitimate and decisively authentic is Teufelsdrockh's ap- 
 •earance and emergence (we know not well whence) in the soli- 
 ude of the North Cape, on that June Midnight. He has a 
 light-blue Spanish cloak' hanging round him, as his ' most com- 
 nodious, principal, indeed sole upper-garment ;' and stands there, 
 »n the World-promontory, looking over the infinite Brine, like a 
 ittle blue Belfry (as we figure), now motionless indeed, yet ready, 
 f stirred to ring quaintest changes. 
 
 f 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 mon- 
 ster, 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 hu- 
 mane 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 mur- 
 der, continues to advance : ever assailing me with his importu- 
 nate train-oil breath : and now has advanced, till we stand both 
 on the verge of the rock, the deep Sea rippling greedily down 
 
140 
 
 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 'below. What argument will avail? On the thick Hyperb<" 
 ' rean, cherubic reasoning, seraphic eloquence were lost. Prt| 
 ' pared for such extremity, I, deftly enough, whisk aside one step j 
 ' draw out, from my interior reservoirs, a sufficient Birmingham 
 'Horse-pistol, and say, "Be so obliging as retire, Friend (E . 
 ' ziehe sick zuriick, Freund), and with promptitude !" This logi' 
 'even the Hyperborean understands: fast enough, with ajiolo 1 
 ' getic, petitionary growl, he sidles off ; and, except for suicida f 
 1 as well as homicidal purposes, need not return. 
 
 ' Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gunpowder : that ii 
 ' makes all men alike tall. Nay, if thou be cooler, cleverer thai 
 1 1, if thou have more Mind, though all but no Body whatever I 
 ' then canst thou kill me first, and art the taller. Hereby, a,\\ 
 ' last, is the Goliath powerless, and the David resistless ; savage 1 
 ' Animalism is nothing, inventive Spiritualism is all. 
 
 ' With respect to JPttels^indeed, I have my own ideas. Few 
 ' things, in this so surprising world, strike me with more surprise.! 
 ' Too little visual Spectra of men, hovering with insecure enough 
 ' cohesion in the midst of the Unfathomable, and to dissolve- 
 ' therein, at any rate, very soon, — make pause at the distance off 
 ' twelve paces asunder ; whirl round ; and, simultaneously by the 
 ' cunningest mechanism, explode one another into Dissolution ; 
 'and off-hand become Air, and Non-extant ! Deuse on it (nr- 
 ' dam ml), the little spitfires ! — Nay, I think with old Hugo von: 
 ' Trimberg : u God must needs laugh outright, could such a thing 
 ' be, to see his wondrous Manikins here below." ' 
 
 But amid these specialities, let us not forget the great general* 
 ity, which is our chief (pest here: How prospered the inner 
 man of Teufelsdrockh under sq much outward shifting ? Dofl 
 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 Docto r ; and with 
 him Teufelsdrockh has now been long a patient, swallowing many 
 a bitter bolus. Unless our poor Friend belong to the numerous 
 class of Incurables, which seems not likely, some cure will doubt- 
 less be effected. We should rather say that Legion, or the Satanic 
 School, was now pretty well extirpated and cast out, but next to " 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 141 
 
 .nothing introduced in its room ; whereby the heart remains, for 
 tEe" while, in a quiet but no comfortable .state. 
 
 ' At length, after so much roasting,' thus writes our Autobiog- 
 
 rapher, ' I was what you might name calcined. Pray only that 
 
 it be not rather, as is the more frequent issue, reduced to a 
 
 capul-hiorHiMtf ''"^ut 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 J) 
 
 a Shadow-hunter, or Shadow-hunted ; and, when I looked C___ 
 
 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 f 
 
 after that, a whole Universe 1 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 genera- 
 
 1 tions, 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 Some- 
 
 1 thing, Somebody ? For thee the Family of Man has no use ; it 
 
 ' rejects thee ; thou art wholly as a dissevered limb : so be it ; 
 
 ' perhaps it is better so !' 
 
 Too heavy-laden Teufelsdrockh ! Yet surely his bands are 
 loosening ; one day he will hurl the burden far from him, and 
 bound forth free, and with a second youth. 
 
 ' This,' says our Professor, ' was the Centre of Indifference 
 ' I had now reached ; through which whoso travels from the 
 ' Negative Pole to the Positive must necessarily pass.' 
 
142 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE EVERLASTING YEA. 
 
 * Temptations in the Wilderness!' exclaims Teufelsdrockh ( 
 ; Have we not all to be Tried with such ] Not so easily can the' 
 ( old Adam,, lodged in us by birth, be dispossessed. Our Life ig ' 
 '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 bat- 
 tle. For the God-given mandate, Work thou in Welldoing, 
 i lies mysteriously written, in Promethean. Prophetic Characters, 
 in our hearts : and leaves us no rest, night or day, till it be 
 1 deciphered and obeyed ; till it burn forth, in our conduct, a 
 ' visible, acted Gospel of Freedom. And as the clay -given man- 
 <date, Eat thou and be filled, at the same time persuasively 
 ' proclaims itself through every nerve, — must there not be a con- l 
 < fusion, a contest, before the better Influence can become the ~ 
 upper ? 
 ' To me nothing seems more natural than that the Son of Man, 
 1 when such God-given mandate first prophetically stirs within 
 ' him, and the Clay must bow be vanquished or vanquish, — should 
 be carried of the spirit into grim Solitudes, and there fronting 
 1 the Tempter do grimmest battle with him : defiantly setting him 
 at naught, till he yield and fly. Nana' it as we ohoose : with or \ 
 without visible Devil, whether in the natural Desert of rocks ani 
 sands, or in the populous moral Desert of selfishness and baseness, 
 — to such Temptation arc we all called. Unhappy if we are not. 
 1 Unhappy if we are but Half-men. in whom that divine handwrit- 
 ing has never blazed forth, all-subduing, in true sun-splendour; 
 'but quivers dubiously amid meaner lights: oi smoulders, in dull 
 'pain, in darkness, under earthly vapours ! — Our Wild erness is 
 'the. wide World in an Atheistic Century ; our For 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 143 
 
 long years of suffering and fasting : nevertheless, to these also 
 'comes an end. Yes, to me also was given, if not Victory, yet 
 ' jjie consciousness of Batt le, and the resolve to persevere therein 
 
 • while life or faculty is left. To me also, entangled in the en- 
 k chanted forests, demon-peopled, doleful of sight and of sound, it 
 'was given, after weariest wanderings, to work out my way into 
 ' the higher sunlit slopes — of that Mountain which has no sum- 
 
 ' mit, 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 {i'itchtigen 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 I 
 ' into Denial ! If 'I have had a second-crop, and now see the peren-' 
 1 nial greensward, and sit under umbrageous cedars, which defy' 
 'all Drought (and Doubt) ; herein too, be the Heavens praised^I 
 ' am not without examples, and even exemplars.' ^ 
 
 So that, for Teufelsdrockh also, there has been a ' glorious, 
 revolution :' these mad shadow-hunting and shadow-hunted Pil-| 
 grimings of his were but some purifying ' Temptation in the. 
 Wilderness,' before his apostolic work (such as it was) could 
 begin ; which Temptation is now happily over, and the Devil | 
 once more worsted ! Was ' that high moment in the Rue de \ 
 VEnferJ then, properly the turning point of the battle ; when the 
 Fiend said, Worship me, or be torn in shreds, and was answered 
 valiantly with an Apage Satana ? — Singular Teufelsdrockh, would 
 thou hadst told thy singular story in plain words ! But it is 
 fruitless to look there, in those Paper-bags, for such. .. Nothing 
 but inuendoes. 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 V We ask in turn : 
 Why perplex these times, profane as they are, with needless 
 obscurity, by omission and by commission ? / Not mystical only 
 
Ul SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 is our Professor, but whimsical ; and involves himself, now more 
 than ever, in eye-bewildering chiaroscuro. Successive glimpses.! 
 here faithfully imparted, our more gifted readers must endeavour: 
 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, Ij 
 ' 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. LetTme I 
 ' 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 insig- 
 ' nificant.' — And again : l\ Here, then, as I lay in that Centre of 
 ' Indifference ; cast, doubtless by benignant upper Influence, in- |i 
 ' to a healing sleep, the heavy dreams rolled gradually away, and 
 ' I awoke to a new Heaven and a new Earth. The first prelimi- 
 'nary moral Act, Annihilation of Self (Sebst-toJtu/ip), had been 
 1 happily accomplished ; and my minds' 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 Pil- 
 grim-staff lies cast aside here on ' the high table-land;' and in- 
 deed that the repose is already taking wholesome effect on him? 
 If it were not that the tone, in some parts, lias more of riancy, 
 even of levity, than we could have expected ! However, in Teu- 
 felsdrockh, 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 : 
 
 1 Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey Tent, musing and 
 ' meditating; on the high table-land, in front of the Mountains] 
 1 over me. as roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for walls, four 
 ' azure flowing curtains, — namely, of the Four azure Winds, on 
 
 • whose bottom-fringes also I have seen gilding. And then to 
 
 • fancy the fair Castles, that stood sheltered in these Mountain 
 'hollows; with their green flower Lawns, and white dames and 
 
 1 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 115 
 
 1 daniosels, lovely enough : or better still, the straw-roofed Cot- 
 
 * tages, wherein stood many a Mother baking bread, with her chil- 
 ' dren round her : — all hidden and protectingly folded up in the 
 ' valley-folds ; yet there and alive, as sure as if I beheld them. 
 I Or to see, as well as fancy, the nine Towns and Villages, that 
 1 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 
 j Smoke-clouds ; whereon, as on a culinary horologe, I might read 
 1 the hour of the day. For it was the smoke of cookery, as kind 
 ' housewives at morning, midday, eventide, were boiling their hus- 
 ( bands' kettles : and ever a blue pillar rose up into the air, succes- 
 ( sively or simultaneously, from each of the nine, saying, as plain- 
 ' ly as smoke could say : Such and such a meal is getting ready 
 i here. Not uninteresting ! For you have the whole Borough, 
 [ with all its love-makings and scandal-mongeries, contentions and 
 f contentments, as in miniature, and could cover it all with your 
 1 hat. — If, in my wide Wayfarings, 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 in-^ 
 'ferences therefrom. 
 
 1 Often also could I see the black Tempest marching in anger 
 i through the Distance : around some Schreekhorn, as yet grini- 
 ; blue, would the eddying vapour 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 Schreekhorn stood 
 : smiling grim-white, for the vapour had held snow. How thou 
 : fermentest and elaboratest in thy great fermenting-vat and la- 
 : boratory of an Atmosphere, of a World, Nature ! — Or what 
 
 • is nature ? Ha ! why do I not name thee God % Art thou not 
 ' the " Living Garment of God ?" O Heavens, is it, in very 
 -deed, He then that ever speaks through thee; that lives and* 
 ; loves in thee, that lives and loves in me 1 \L 
 
 1 Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendours, of that Truth,f 
 
 - and Beginning of Traths, fell mysteriously over my soul. I 
 Sweeter than Dayspring to the Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla ;* 
 ah ! like the mother's voice to her little child that strays bewil- 
 
 - dered, weeping, in unknown tumults ; like soft streamings of 
 
146 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 *oty 
 
 i 
 
 ' 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 fellow man ; I 
 ' with an infinite Love , ajx infinite P ijy. Poor, wandering, way- 
 ' ward 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 I 
 ' thy Bed of Rest, is but a grave, my Brother, my Brother, 
 ' why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all tears 
 ' from thy eyes ! — Truly, the din of many-voiced Life, which in i 
 ' this solitude, with the mind's organ, I could hear, was no longer I 
 ' 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 j 
 ' needy Mother, not my cruel Stepdame ; Man, with his so mad I 
 Wants and so mean Endeavours, had become the dearer to me ; j 
 and even for his sufferings and his sins, I now first named him 
 brother. Thus was I standing in the porch of that c; Sanctuary 
 of Sorrow;" by strange, steep ways, had I too been guided 1, 
 thither ; and ere long its sacred gates would open, and the | 
 "Divine Depth of Sorrow" lie disclosed to me.' 
 
 The Professor says, he here first got eye on the Knot that had I 
 been strangling him, and straightway could unfasten it. and was 
 T free. ' A vain interminable controversy,' writes he, ' touching | 
 ' what is at present called Qrigin_of_Evil, or some such thing, j 
 'arises in every soul, since the beginning of the world; and in j 
 • every soul, that would pass from idle Suffering into actual En- 
 ' deavouring. must first be put an end to. The most, in our time, 
 ' have to go content with a simple, incomplete enough Suppression 
 4 of this controversy ; to a few some Solution of it is indispensa£ 
 'ble. In every new era, too, such Solution comes out in different 
 1 terms ; and ever the Solution of the last era has become obso- j 
 'lcte, and is found unserviceable. For it is man's nature to ^ 
 1 change his Dialect from century to century j he cannot help it 
 'though lie would. The authentic Chwrch- Catechism of our 
 'present century has not yet fallen into my hands : meanwhile, 
 1 Cor in) own private behoof, 1 attempt to elucidate the matter 90. 
 
 • 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 147 
 
 ' Man's Unk appjness, as I construe^ comes ^>f 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 
 'haity ? 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 satisfac- 
 tion and saturation, simply this allotment, no more, and no less : 
 '- GocVs infinite Universe altogether to himself, therein to enjoy infi- 
 ' nitely, and fill every wish as fast as it rose. Oceans of Hoch- 
 
 • heimer, a Throat like that of Ophiuchus : speak not of them : to 
 ' the infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is your 
 - ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better 
 : vintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, 
 ' he sets to quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and 
 ' declares himself the most maltreated of men. — Always there is 
 
 : a mac k s P ot m our ,j u ^_ mLie : ^ * s even j as I sa ^j tne Shadow 
 
 • of Ourselves. 
 
 "Tfcut 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 pay' 
 ' ment of our wages, of our deserts ; requires neither thanks nor 
 ' complaint : only such overplus as there may be do we account 
 
 • Happiness ; any deficit again is Misery. Now consider that we 
 ' have the valuation of our own deserts ourselves, and what a fund 
 ' of Self-conceit there is in each of us, — do you wonder that the 
 w balance should so often dip the wrong way, and many a Block- 
 [ head cry : See there, what a payment ; was ever worthy gentle- 
 man so used ! — I tell thee, Blockhead, it all comes of thy Vani- 
 ty ; of what thou fanciest those same deserts of thine to be. 
 Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely), 
 thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot : fancy that thou 
 deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to 
 die in hemp. 
 
 ! So true it is, what I then said, that the Fraction of Life can be 
 increased in value not so muck by increasing your Numerator aTEy 
 
-*1 
 
 r 148 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 r 
 
 N lessening your Denom inator. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive 
 f me, Unit// itself divided by Z# 'o wi ll give Infinity. Makejhy 
 
 ! claim i f wages a zero, then ; thou hast the world under thy feet. 
 Well did the Wisest of our time write : u It is only with Ren un- 
 ' eiation (E/ilsa»en) that Life, properly speaking, can be said to i 
 •begin/' 
 
 I 'I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, ■ 
 ' thou hast been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-tor- ' 
 ' menting, on account of? Say it in a word : is it not because- 
 ( thou art not happy ? Because the Thou (sweet gentleman) is 
 ' not sufficiently honoured, nourished, soft-bedded, and lovingly- ' 
 v' cared for ? Foolish soul ! What Act of Legislature was there 
 ' that thou shouldst be Happy ? A little while ago thou hadst no 
 ' right to be at all. What if thou wert born and predestined 
 ' not to be Happy, but to be Unhappy! Art thou nothing other 
 ' than a Vulture, then, that fliest through the Universe seeking 
 ' after somewhat to eat ; and shrieking dolefully because carrion 
 ' enough is not given thee'? Close thy JSyro n- ; open thy _Gocihe. i 
 ' Es leuchtet mir ein. I see a glimpse ofitT 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 God- 
 ' like that is in Man, and how in the Godlike only has he 
 c Strength and Freedom ? Which God-inspired Doctrine art thou 
 1 also honoured to be taught ; Heavens ! and broken with 
 1 manifold merciful Afflictions, even till thou become contrite, 
 ' and learn it! thank thy Destiny -for these; thankfully bear 
 'what yet remain : thou hadst need of them; th e Self jn_thee 
 
 • needed to be annihilated. By benignant fever-paroxysms is 
 k Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Disease, and triumphs 
 ' over Death. On the roaring billows of Time, thou art not en- 
 
 * gulphcd, but borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not 
 ( Pleasure : love God . This is the Everlasting Yea, wherein j 
 ■ all contradiction i& solved; wherein whoso walks and works, it 
 
 • J is well with him.' 
 
 And again : ( Small is it that thou canst trample the Earth 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 149 
 
 ' with its injuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee : 
 ' thou canst love the Earth while it injures thee, and even because 
 'it injures thee: for this a Greater than Zeno was needed, and 
 'he too was sent. Knowest thou that " Worship of Sorrow ?" 
 ' The Temple thereof, founded some eighteen centuries ago, now 
 1 lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habitation of doleful 
 ' creatures : nevertheless, venture forward ; in a low crypt, arched 
 1 out of falling fragments, thou findest the Altar still there, and 
 I 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 ap- 
 prehension ; nay wherein he himself does not see his way. Ne- 
 bulous disquisitions on Religion, yet not without bursts of splen- 
 dour ; 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 apostro- 
 phises the Professor : ' shut thy sweet voice ; for the task appoint- 
 I ed 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 
 1 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 vesturejthat our Souls, other-j 
 ' wise too like perishing, may live ? What ! thou hast no faculty 
 ' in that kind ? Only a torch for burning, no hammer for build- 
 'ing I Take our thanks, then, and thyself away. 
 
 ' Meanwhile what are antiquated Mythuses to me ?//Or is the 
 1 God present, felt in my own heart, a thing which Herr yon Vol- 
 1 taire will dispute out of me ; or dispute into me ? / To the 
 ' " Worship of Sorrow" ascribe what origin and genesis thou pleas- - 
 c est, has not that Worship originated, and been generated 
 1 not here ? Feel it in thy heart, and then say whether 
 
 iu pleas-~7 
 id ; is itj 
 it is or 
 
*$ t 
 
 v 150 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 «si 
 
 2< God ! This is Belief ; all else is Opinion, — for which latter 
 'whoso will let him worry and be worried.' 
 
 ' Neither.' observes he elsewhere, ' shall ye tear out one an- 
 •' other's eyes, struggling over " Plenary Inspiration," and such 
 ' like : try rather to get a little even Partial Inspiration, each of 
 ' you for himself. One Bible I know, of whose Plenary Inspira- 
 1 tion doubt is not so much as possible : nay with my own eyes I 
 : saw the God's-Hand writing it : thereof all other Bibles are but 
 ' Leaves, — say, in Picture-Writing to assist the weaker faculty.' 
 
 Or to give the wearied reader relief, and bring it to an end, 
 let him take the following perhaps more intelligible passage : 
 
 ' To me, in this our Life,' says the Professor, ' which is an in- 
 ' ternecine warfare with the Time-spirit, other warfare seems 
 ' questionable. Hast thou in any way a Contention with thy 
 1 brother, I advise thee, think well what the meaning thereof is. 
 1 If thou gauge it to the bottom, it is simply this :/' Fellow, see ! 
 1 thou art taking more than thy share of Happiness in the world, 
 1 something from my share : which, by the Heavens, thou shalt 
 
 • not ; nay I will fight thee rather/' — Alas ! and the whole lot to 
 ; be divided is such a beggarly matter, truly a '• feast of shells," 
 ' for the substance has been spilled out : not enough to quench 
 4 one Appetite ; and the collective human species clutching at 
 1 them ! — Can we not, in all such cases, rather say : " Take it, 
 ' thou too-ravenous individual : take that pitiful additional frac- 
 
 ' tion of a share, which I reckoned mine, but which thou so want- j 
 1 est : take it with a blessing : would to Heaven I had enough 
 1 for thee!" — If Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre be, '• to a certain ex- 
 ' tent, Applied Christianity," surely to a still greater extent, so 
 is this. We have here not a Whole Duty of Man. yet a Half 
 1 Duty, namely the Passive half: could we but do it. as we can 
 ' demonstrate it ! 
 v/V ' But indeed Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless 
 till it convert itself into Conduct. Xay properly Conviction is 
 not possible till then : inasmuch as all Speculation L8 by nature 
 
 • endless, formless, a vortex amid vortices : onlj by a felt indu- 
 
 • bitable certainty of Experience does it find any centre to revolve 
 
 • round, and BO fashion itself into a Bystem. Most true is it, a^a 
 ' wise man teaches us, that " Doubt of auy sort cannot be reniov- 
 
THE ETERLASTING YEA. 151 
 
 ' ed except by Action." f On which ground too let him who gropes 
 'painfully in darkness oFuncertain light, and prays vehemently 
 ' that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to 
 'heart, which to me was of invaluable service: " Do the Duty y 
 
 * which Itfs nearest thee,^ which thou knpwest to he n. "Duty ! Thy 
 ' sec^ndJittty--wiU-4ilr€ady have become clearer. 
 
 ' May we not say, however, that the hour of Spiritual lEnfran- 
 ' chisement is even this : When your Ideal World, wherein the 
 ' whole man has been dimly struggling and inexpressibly lan- 
 ' guishing to work, becomes revealed and thrown open ; and you 
 ' discover, with amazement enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm 
 1 Meister, that your " America is here or nowhere V The Situa- 
 ' tion 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 1 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 ! 
 
 1 Butit is with man's Soul as it was with Nature : the begin- 1 
 ' ning of Creation is — Light. Till the eye have^yisioa^the whole / 
 ' members^ rej^honds^ Divine" moment, ^wnlmover 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 mo- / 
 ' ment, 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 roc;:- 
 ' 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. 
 X ' I too could now say to myself : Be no longer a Chaos, but a 
 
 * World, or even Worldkin. Prjoj^eJ^Eroducji.! Were it but 
 
152 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ^L 
 
 : 
 
 the pitifulest infinitesimal fraction of a Prodaefcy produce it in 
 God's name ! ; T is the utmost thou hast in thee^ .out with it 
 
 'then. ZUp, up ! Whatsoejgj^iiyJiand-An d c th to ^,---dtrrtrwitir 
 ' thy whole might. Work while it is called To-day. for the Night 
 ' cometh wherein no man can work.' m 
 
 
PAUSE. 153 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAUSE. 
 
 Thus have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily as, in such 
 circumstances, might be, followed Teufelsdrockh through the va- 
 rious successive states and stages of Gtr^wth^Eiitanglement, 
 Unbelief, and almost Reprobation, into a certain clearer state of 
 what he himself seems to consider as Conversion. ' Blame not 
 : the word,' says he ; i rejoice rather that such a word, signifying 
 I such a thing, has come to light in our Modern Era, though 
 1 hidden from the wisest Ancients. The Old World knew no- 
 ( thing of Conversion : instead of an Ecce Homo, they had only 
 1 some Choice of Hercules. It was a new-attained progress in the 
 ' Moral Development of man : hereby has the Highest come home 
 * to the bosoms of the most Limited ; what to Plato was but a 
 1 hallucination, and to Socrates a chimera, is now clear and cer- 
 I tain to your Zinzendorfs, your Wesleys, and the poorest of their 
 1 Pietists and Methodists.' 
 
 It is here then that the spiritual majority of Teufelsdrockh 
 commences : we are henceforth to see him ' work in well-doing,' 
 with the spirit and clear aims of a Man. He has discovered 
 that t]^..IdeiLL.Workshop^he so panted for, is even this same Ac- 
 tual ill-furnished Workshop he has so long been stumbling in. He 
 can say" to himself: ' Tools ? Thou hast no Tools? Why, there 
 i&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 stupid- 
 est of Oysters has a Papin's-Digester, with stotfe-and-lime house 
 1 to hold it in : every being that can live can do something ; this 
 ' let him do. Tools ? Hast thou not a Brain, furnished, furnish- 
 1 able with some glimmerings of Light ; and three fingers to hold 
 i a Pen withal ? Never since Aaron's Rod went out of prac- 
 
 8* 
 
154 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 c tice, 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 neverthe- 
 1 less is in continual restless flux, it is appointed that Sound ? tc 
 'appearance the most fleeting, should be the most continuing of, 
 ' all things. The Word is well said to be omnipotent in thisi 
 'world; man, thereby divine, can create as by & 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 honour enough therein to spend! 
 ' and be spent 1 
 
 ' By this Art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously degrade into 
 ' a handicraft,' adds Teufelsdrockh, ' have I thenceforth abidden. 
 ' Writings of mine, not indeed known as mine (for what am I?), 
 ' have fallen, perhaps not altogether void, into the mighty seed- 
 ' field of Opinion ; fruits of my unseen sowing gratifyingly meet 
 ' me here and there. I thank the Heavens that I have now found i 
 1 ffly Call ing '■> wherein, with or without perceptible result, I am i 
 ' minded diligently to persevere. 
 
 ' Nay how knowest thou,' cries he, ' but this and the other I 
 ' pregnant Device, now grown to be a world-renowned far-work- 
 ' ing Institution; like a grain of right mustard-seed once castt 
 ' into the right soil, and now stretching out strong boughs to the 
 ' four winds, for the birds of the air to lodge in, — may have been ' 
 ' properly my doing ? Some one's doing it without doubt was ; 
 ' from some Idea, in some single Head, it did first of all take be- 
 ' ginning: why not from some Idea in mine?' Does Teufels- 
 drockh here glance at that ' Society for the Conservation 
 of Property (Eigenthwns-conservirende Gesdlschqfl)} of which 
 so many ambiguous notices glide spectre-like through these inex- 
 pressible Paperbags ? ' An Institution,' hints he, ' not unsuita- 
 ' ble 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 ( J crmany, England, France ; and con- 
 1 tributions, both of money and of meditation, pour in from all 
 'quarters; to. if possible, enlist the remaining Integrity of the 
 
PAUSE. 155 
 
 'world, and, defensively and with forethought, marshal it round 
 'this Palladium.' Does Teufelsdrockh mean, then, to give him- 
 self out as the originator of that so notable Eigent hums-come rri- 
 rende (' Owndom-conscrving') Gcsellschaft ; and, if so, what, in the 
 Devil's name, is it % He again hints : ' At a time when the di- 
 i vine Commandment, Thou shall not steal, wherein truly, if well 
 ' understood, is comprised the whole Hebrew Decalogue, with 
 1 Solon's and Lycurgus's Constitutions, Justinian's Pandects, the 
 ' Code Napoleon, and all Codes, Catechisms, Divinities, Moral- 
 ' ities whatsoever, that man has hitherto devised (and enforced 
 ' with Altar-fire and Gallows-ropes) for his social guidance : at a 
 ' time, I say, when this divine Commandment has all but faded 
 [ away from the general remembrance ; and. with little disguise, 
 ■ a new opposite Commandment, Thou shall steal, is everywhere 
 ' promulgated, — it perhaps behoved in this universal dotage and 
 ' deliration the sound portion of mankind to bestir themselves 
 'and rally. When the widest and wildest violations of that di- 
 ' vine right of Property, the only divine right now extant or con- 
 \ ceivable, are sanctioned and recommended by a vicious Press, ' 
 ' and the world has lived to hear it asserted that we have no Prop- 
 ' erty in our very Bodies but only an accidental Possession, and Life- 
 c rent, what is the issue to be looked for 1 Hangmen and Catch- 
 ' poles 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- 
 i devouring and man-devouring hosts of Boa-constrictors ? If, 
 ' therefore, the more sequestered Thinker have wondered, in his 
 1 privacy, from what hand that perhaps not ill-written Program in 
 ' the Public Journals, with its high Prize- Questions and so lib- 
 1 era! Prizes, could have proceeded, — let him now cease such 
 ' wonder ; and, with undivided faculty, betake himself to the 
 ' Concurrenz (Competition).' 
 
 We ask : Has this same ' perhaps not ill-written Program, 1 or 
 any other authentic Transaction of that Property-conserving So- 
 ciety, fallen under the eye of the British Reader, in any Journal, 
 foreign or domestic? If so, what are those Prize- Questions ; 
 what are the terms of Competition, and when and where ? No 
 printed Newspaper leaf, no farther light of any sort, to be met + 
 
156 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 with in these Paperbags ! Or is the whole business one other of 
 those whimsicalities, and perverse inexplicabilities, whereby Herr 
 Teufelsdrockh, meaning much or nothing, is pleased so often to 
 play fast and loose with us 1 
 
 Here, indeed, at length, must the Editor give utterance to a 
 painful suspicion which, through late Chapters, has begun to 
 haunt him ; paralysing any little enthusiasm, that might still 
 have rendered his thorny Biographical task a labour of love. It 
 is a suspicion grounded perhaps on trifles, yet confirmed almost 
 into certainty by the more and more discernible humoristico-sat- 
 irical tendency of Teufelsdrockh, in whom underground humours, 
 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 be- 
 gins 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 adriffr to make fools of others. Could it be expected, in- 
 deed, that a man so known for impenetrable reticence as Teufels- 
 drockh, would all at once frankly unlock his private citadel to 
 an English Editor and a German Hofrath ; and not rather de- 
 ceptively i/dock both Editor and Hofrath, in the labyrinthic tor- 
 tuosities 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 notice, and with effort 
 decipher, the following : ' What are your historical Facts ; still 
 ' more your biographical \ Wilt thou know a Man, above all, a 
 1 Mankind, by stringing together beadrolls 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 
 
 \ 
 
PAUSE. 157 
 
 j the fewest have the key. And then how your Blockhead {Dumm- 
 l kopf) studies not their Meaning ; but simply whether they are 
 I well or ill cut, what he calls Moral or Immoral ! Still worse is 
 * it with your Bungler (Pfascher) : such I have seen reading some 
 j Rousseau, with pretences of interpretation ; and mistaking the 
 ' ill-cut Serpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous Reptile.' 
 Was the Professor apprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the 
 present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent- 
 of-Eternity in like manner ? For which reason it was to be al- 
 tered, 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 gal- 
 lop ? 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 Paperbags, for 
 the present. Let it suffice that we know of Teufelsdrockh, so far, 
 if ' not what he did, yet what he became ;' the rather, as his cha- 
 racter 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 con- 
 tinue. To trace by what complex gyrations (flights or involun- 
 tary waftings) through the mere external Life-element, Teufels- 
 drockh reaches his University Professorship, and the Psyche 
 clothes himself in civic Titles, without altering her now fixed 
 nature, — would be comparatively an unproductive task, were we 
 even unsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a false and impossi- 
 ble one. His outward Biography, therefore, which, at the Blu- 
 mine Lover's-Leap, we saw churned utterly into spray-vapour, 
 may hover in that condition, for aught that concerns us here. 
 Enough that, by survey of certain l pools and plashes,' we have 
 ascertained its general direction : do we not already know that, 
 by one way and other, it has long since rained down again into a 
 stream ; and even now, at Weissnichtwo, flows deep and still, 
 fraught with the Philosophy of Clothes, and visible to whoso will 
 cast eye thereon ? Over much invaluable matter that lies scat- 
 
158 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 tered, like jewels among quarry-rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs, 
 we may have occasion to glance back, and somewhat will demand 
 insertion at the right place : meanwhile, be our tiresome diggings 
 therein suspended. 
 
 If now, before reopening the great Clothes- Volume, we ask what 
 our degree of progress, during these Ten Chapters, has been, 
 towards right understanding of the Clothes-Philosophy, let not our 
 discouragement become total. To speak in that old figure of the 
 Hell-gate Bridge over Chaos, a few flying pontoons have perhaps 
 been added, though as yet they drift straggling on the Flood ; how 
 far they will reach, when once the chains are straightened and 
 fastened, can, at present, only be matter of conjecture. 
 
 So much we already calculate : Through many a little loop- 
 hole, we have had glimpses into the internal world of Teufels- 
 drockh ; his strange mystic, almost magic Diagram of the Uni- 
 verse, and how it was gradually drawn, is not henceforth alto- 
 gether dark to us. Those mysterious ideas on Time, which merit 
 consideration, and are not wholly unintelligible with such, may by 
 and by prove significant. Still more may his somewhat peculiar 
 
 •w of Natur e ; the decisive Oneness he ascribes to Nature. 
 Mow all Nature and Life are but one Garment, a ' Living (iar- 
 ment,' woven and ever a-weaving in the ' Loom of Time ;' is not 
 here, indeed, the outline of a whole Clothes-Philosophy ; at least 
 the arena it is to work inf) 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 Pefi.ij eg and yet a bound-, 
 less Reverence seem to loom forth, as the two mountain-summits, 
 on whose rock-strata all the rest were based and built 1 
 
 Nay, further, may we not say that Teufelsdrockh's Biography, 
 allowing it even, as suspected, only a hieroglyphical truth, exhibits 
 a man as it were preappointed for Clothes-Philosophy ? To look 
 through tlm Shows of things into Things themselves he is led and 
 compelled. \jThe ' 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 
 
PAUSE. 159 
 
 task ; that of enduring pain, if he cannot cure it. Thus everywhere 
 do the Shows of things oppress him. withstand him, threaten him 
 with fearfulest destruction ; only by victoriously penetrating into 
 Things themselves, can he find peace and a stronghold.//' But is 
 not this same looking through the Shows, or Vestures, into the 
 Things, even the first preliminary to a Philosophy of Clothes ? Do 
 we not, in all this, discern some beckonings towards the true 
 higher purport of such a Philosophy ; and what shape it must 
 assume with such a man, in such an era? 
 
 Perhaps in entering on Book Third, the courteous Reader is 
 not utterly without guess whither he is bound : nor, let us hope, 
 for all the fantastic Dream-Grottoes through which, as is our lot 
 with Teufelsdrockh, he must wander, will there be wanting be- 
 tween whiles some twinkling of a steady Polar Star. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 As a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teufelsdrockh, 
 from an early part of his Clothes-Volume, has more and more ex- 
 hibited himself. Striking it was, amid all his perverse cloudi- 
 ness, with what force of vision and of heart he pierced into the 
 mystery of the World : recognising in the highest sensible phe- 
 nomena, 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. J;he old rags of Matter, with 
 their tinsels, into the mire, he on the other everywhere exal ted 
 Spirit above all earthly principalities and powers, and worshipped 
 it, though under the meanest shapes, with a true Platonic Mys- 
 ticism. 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 intel- 
 lectual Nudity, and a return to the savage state : all this our 
 readers are now bent to discover : this is, in fact, properly the 
 gist and purport of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Philosophy of 
 Clothes. 
 
 Be it remembered, however, that such purport is here not so 
 much evolved as detected to lie ready for evolving. We are to 
 guide our British Friends into the new Gold-country, and shew 
 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 straight- 
 
 
164 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 forward, step by step, but at best leap by leap. Significant Indi 
 cations 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 : 't 
 this, as heretofore, continues our only method. Among such ■ 
 light-spots, the following, floating in much wild matter about \ 
 F erf edibility, has seemed worth clutching at : 
 
 ' Perhaps the most remarkable incident in Modern History,' [ 
 says Teufelsdrockh, 'is not the Diet of Worms, still less the 
 1 Battle of Austerlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other Battle ; 
 ' but an incident passed carelessly over by most Historians, and 
 1 treated with some degree of ridicule by others.: namely, ^Qfgfc' 
 ' Fox's jna king to himself a su it o f Leather. This man, the firs t 
 ' of th ejQuakers, and by trade a Shoemaker, was one of those, to < 
 ' whom, under ruder or purer form, the Diviue Idea of the Uni- 
 ' yerse is pleased to manifest itself ; and, across all the hulls of 
 ' Ignorance and earthly Degradation, shine through, in unspeak- 
 ' able Awfulness, unspeakable Beauty, on their souls ; who there- 
 1 fore are rightly accounted prophets, God-possessed ; or even i 
 ' Gods, as in some periods it has chanced^ Sitting in his stall ; 
 f ( working on tanned hides, amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine- 
 ' bristles, and a nameless flood of rubbish, this youth had never- 
 ' theless a Living Spirit belonging to him ; also an antique In- 
 ' spired Volume, through which, as through a window, it could 
 1 look upwards, and discern its celestial Home. The task of a 
 1 daily pair of shoes, coupled even with some prospect of victuals, 
 ' and an honourable Mastership in Cordwaincry, and perhaps the 
 'post of Thirdborough in his Hundred, as the crown of long 
 ' faithful sewing, — was nowise satisfaction enough to such a mind: 
 ' but ever amid the boring and hammering came tones from that 
 ' far country, came Splendours and Terrors ; for this poor Cord- 
 ' wainer, 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 neighbourhood, the ordained Watchers and 
 ' Interpreters of that same holy mystery, listened with unaffected 
 
INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 165 
 
 • 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-repair- 
 1 ing, and chaffering, and organing, and other racketing, held 
 ' over that spot of God's Earth. — if Man were but a Patent Di- 
 ' gester, and the Belly with its adjuncts the grand Reality ? Fox 
 
 • turned-irom- them, with tears and a sacred scorn, back to his 
 
 • Leather-parings and his Bible. Mountains of encumbrance, 
 
 ■ higher than JEtna, had been heaped over that Spirit : but it 
 1 was a Spirit, and would not lie buried there. Through long 
 
 ■ days and nights of silent agony, it struggladLand wrestled, with 
 ; a man's force, to„Jbe_£r££-: how its prison-mountains heaved and 
 ' swayed tumultuously, as the giant spirit shook them to this 
 ' hand and that, and emerged into the light of Heaven ! __That 
 ! Leicester shoe-shop, had men known it, was a holier place than 
 ' any Vatican or Loretto-shrine.-^" So bandaged, and hampered, 
 ' and hemmed in." groaned he^ ri with thousand requisitions, obli- 
 ' gations, straps, tatters, and tagrags, I can neither see nor move : 
 i not my own am I, but the World's ; and Time flies fast, and 
 ' Heaven is high, and Hell is deep : Man ! bethink thee, if thou 
 ' hast power of Thought ! Why not ; what binds me here ? 
 ! Want, want ! — Ha, of what ? Will all the shoe-wages under 
 ' the Moon ferry me across into that far Land of Light ? Only 
 ' Meditation can, and devout Prayer to God. I will to the woods : 
 ' the hollow of a tree will lodge me, wild berries feed me ; and for 
 \ Clothes, cannot I stitch myself one perennial suit of Leather." 
 
 ' Historical Oil-painting,' continues Teufelsdrockh, ' is one of 
 ' the Arts I never practised ; therefore shall I not decide whether j 
 ' this subject were easy of execution on the canvass. Yet often j 
 ' has it seemed to me as if such first outflashing of man's Free- j 
 ' will, to lighten, more and more into Day, the Chaotic Night that 
 'threatened to engulph him in its hindrances and its horrors, J 
 
 • were properly the only grandeur there is in History. Let some | 
 1 living Angelo or Rosa, with seeing eye and understanding heart, 
 
 c picture George Fox on that morning, when he spreads out his 
 ' cutting-board for the last time, and cuts cow-hides by unwonted 
 
166 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 'patterns, and stitches them together into one continuous all- 
 ' including Case, the farewell service of his awl ! Stitch away, 
 1 thou noble Fox : every prick of that little instrument is prick- 
 'ing into the heart of Slavery, and World-worship, and the 31am- 
 'nion^od. 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 
 1 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 
 'h eight^ and for the Poor also a Gospel has been published. 
 ' Surely, if, as D' Alembert asserts, my illustrious namesake, Dio- 
 ' genes, was the greatest man of Antiquity, only that he wanted 
 1 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, undervalu- 
 ' ing 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 scorn- 
 ' fully 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 discus- 
 sion on the Perfectibility of Society, reproduce it now ? Not out 
 of blind sectarian partisanship : Teufelsdrockh himself is no 
 Quaker ; with all his pacific tendencies, did we not 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 • Inci- 
 dent' is here brought forward ; and, in the Professor's ambiguous 
 way, as clearly perhaps as he durst in Weissnichtwo, recommended 
 
INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 167 
 
 to imitation ! Does Teufelsdrockh anticipate that, in this age of 
 refinement, any considerable class of the community, by way of 
 testifying against the ' Mammon-god,' and escaping from what he 
 calls ' Vanity's Workhouse and Ragfair,' where doubtless some 
 of them are toiled and whipped and hoodwinked sufficiently, — 
 will sheathe themselves in close-fitting cases of Leather 1 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 1 By which change Huddersfield and Man- 
 chester, and Coventry and Paisley, and the Fancy-Bazaar, were 
 reduced to hungry solitudes ; and only Day and Martin could 
 profit. For neither would Teufelsdrockh's mad daydream, here 
 as we presume covertly intended, of .levelling Society, {levelling it 
 indeed with a vengeance, into one huge drowned marsh !), and so 
 attaining the political effects of Nudity without its frigorific or 
 other consequences, — be thereby realised. 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 iu 
 his sleeve at our strictures and glosses, which indeed are but a 
 part thereof? 
 
 
168 SARTOR RES ART US. 
 
 - 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CHURCH-CLOTHES. 
 
 Not less questionable is his Chapter on Church- Clothes, which 
 has the farther distinction of being the shortest in the Volume. 
 We here translate it entire : 
 
 ' By Church Clothes, it need not be premised, that I mean 
 ' infinitely more than Cassocks and Surplices ; and do not at all 
 'mean the mere haberdasher Sunday Clothes that men go to 
 ' Church in. Far from it ! Church-Clothes are, in our vocabu- 
 ' lary, the Forms, the Vestures, under which men have at various 
 1 periods embodied and represented for themselves the Religious 
 1 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. 
 
 1 These are unspeakably the most important of all tke, 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 Commu- 
 'nion, 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 earth- 
 ' ward, does what we can call Union, mutual Love, Society, begin 
 ' to be possible. How true is that of Novalis : " It is certain, my 
 ' Belief gains quite infinitely the moment I can convince another 
 ' mind thereof!" Gaze thou in the face of thy Brother, in those 
 ' eyes where plays the lambent fire of Kindness, or in those where 
 1 rages the lurid conflagration of Anger ; feel how thy own so 
 
CHURCH-CLOTHES. 169 
 
 ' 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-grap- 
 ' pling Hate) ; and then say what miraculous virtue goes out of 
 ' man into man. But if so, through all the thick-plied hull of 
 
 * our Earthly Life ; how much more when it is of the Divine Life 
 1 we speak, and inmost Me is, as it were, brought into contact 
 1 with inmost Me ! 
 
 ' Thus was it that I said, the Church-Clothes are first spun 
 ' and woven by Society ; outward Religion originates by , Society., n 
 1 Sofiiftt.y hftf-ftflffig, pnpaiMp ^.p.pHgmw. Nay, perhaps every con- 
 ! ceivable Society, past and present, may well be figured as pro- 
 'perly and wholly a Church, in one or other of these three 
 f 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 
 c 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 Chapterhouses and Cathedrals, or 
 1 by preaching and prophesying, mere speech and chaunting, let 
 r him,' says the oracular Professor, ' read on, light of heart 
 (getroste/i Muthes). 
 
 i But with regard to your Church proper, and the Church- 
 Clothes specially recognised as Church-Clothes, I remark, fear- 
 lessly 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 widen 
 
 <■ such skin), whereby Society stands and works ; — then ^JRelu.i 
 ' gion the inmost Pericardial and Nervous Tissue, which ministers 
 [ Life and warm Circulation to the whole. Without which 
 1 Pericardial Tissue the Bones and Muscles (of Industry) were 
 [ inert, or animated only by a Galvanic vitality ; the skin would 
 c become a shrivelled pelt, or fast-rotting raw-hide ; a nd Society.. 
 
 * itself a dead carcass, — deserving to be buried. Men were no 
 'longer Social, but Gregarious ; which latter state also could not 
 
 9 
 
170 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 continue, but must gradually issue in universal selfish discord, 
 ' hatred, savage isolation, and dispersion : — whereby, as we might 
 ' continue to say, the very dust and dead body of Society would 
 ' have evaporated and become abolished. Such, and so all-impor- 
 ' tant, all-sustaining, are the Church-Clothes, to civilised or even 
 ' to rational man. 
 
 • Meanwhile, in qiit era of the World, those same Church- 
 c 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 duetts -;- -but_ 
 ' only spiders and unclean beetles, in horrid accumulation, drive 
 ' their trade ; and the Mask still glares on you with its glass-eyes, 
 t in ghastly affectation of Life, — some generation and half after 
 ' Religion has quite withdrawn from it, and in unnoticed nooks 
 ' is weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewith to reappear, and 
 ' bless us, or our sons or grandsons. As a Priest, or Interpreter 
 ' of the Holy, is the noblest and highest of all men, so is a Sham- 
 ' priest (Schchi-priestci) the falsest and basest: neither is it doubt- v 
 ' ful that his Canonicals, were they Popes' Tiaras, will one day - 
 1 be torn from him, to make bandages for the wounds of man- 
 • kind ; or even to burn into tinder, for general scientific or 
 ' culinary purposes. 
 
 ' All which, as out of place here, falls to be handled in my 
 ' Second Volume, On the Palingmesia, or Newbirth of Sot id y ; 
 ' which volume, as treating practically of the Wear. Destruction, 
 ' and Be texture of Spiritual Tissues, or Garments, forms, pro- 
 ' perly speaking, the Transcendental or ultimate Portion of this 
 ' my Work on Clothes, and is already in a state of forwardness.' 
 
 And herewith, no farther exposition, note, or commentary be- 
 ing added, does Teufelsdrockh. and must his Editor now, termi- 
 nate the singular chapter on Church-Clothes ! 
 
SYMBOLS. 171 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SYMBOLS. 
 
 Probably it will elucidate the drift of these foregoing obscure 
 utterances, if we here insert somewhat of our Professor's specu- 
 lations on Symbols. To state his whole doctrine, indeed, were 
 beyond our compass : nowhere is he more mysterious, impalpable, 
 than m this of ' Fantasy being the organ of the Grodlike ;' and 
 how 'iJMan 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 as- 
 pects of the matter, study to glean (whether from the Paperbags 
 or the Printed Volume) what little seems logical and practical, 
 and cunningly arrange it into such degree of coherence as it will 
 assume. By way of proem, take the following not injudicious 
 remarks : 
 
 ' The benignant efficacies of Concealment,' cries our Professor, 
 'who shall speak or sing? Silence and Secrecy! Altars 
 ' might still be raised to them (were this an altar-building time) 
 'for universal worship. Silence is the element in which great 
 f 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^m thy own mean per- 
 'plexities, do thou thyself but hold thy tongue for one day : on the 
 •morrow, how much clearer are thy purposes, and duties; what 
 ' wreck and rubbish have those mute workmen within thee swept 
 ' away, when intrusive noises were shut out ! Speech is too often 
 ' not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of concealing Thought ; 
 
172 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 but of quite stifling and suspending Thought, so that there is 
 ' none to conceal. Speech too is great, but not the greatest. As 
 ' the Swiss Inscription says : Sprechen ist silbern, Schiceigen 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 wi-11 Virtue work except in Secrecy. 
 1 Let not thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth ! Neither 
 1 shalt thou prate even to thy own heart of " those secrets known 
 'to all." Is not Shame the soil of all Virtue, of all good man- 
 ' ners, and good morals ? Like other plants, Virtue will not groiv 
 ' 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 
 1 we view the fair clustering flowers that .over-wreathe, for exam- 
 1 pie, the Marriage-bower, and encircle man's life with the fra- 
 ' grance and hues of Heaven, what hand will not smite the foul 
 ' plunderer that grubs them up by the roots, and. with grinning, 
 ' grunting satisfaction, shews us the dung they flourish in ! Men 
 ' speak much of the Printing Press with its Newspapers : du Him- 
 ' met ! what are these to Clothes and the Tailor's Goose V 
 
 ' Of kin to the so incalculable influences of Concealment, and 
 ' connected with still greater things, is the wondrous agency of 
 'Symbols. In a Symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: 
 ' here, therefore, by' Silence and by Speech acting together, comes 
 1 a doubled 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 
 1 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 embodi- 
 'mjgnt and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made to 
 ' blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, at- " 
 
 • tainable there. By Symbols, accordingly, is man guided and 
 ' commanded, made happy, made wretched. He everywhere finds 
 
 
SYMBOLS. 173 
 
 1 himself encompassed with Symbols, recognised as such or not 
 ' recognised : the .Universe is but one vast Symbol of God ; nay, 
 ' if thou wilt have it, what is man himself but a Symbol of God ; 
 1 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 embodi- 
 4 ment 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 con- 
 trast 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 
 1 existing Motive-Millwrights. Fantastic tricks enough has man 
 1 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 
 1 Manger, filled with hay and thistles to be weighed against each 
 1 other ; and looks long-eared enough. Alas, poor devil ! spectres 
 ' are appointed to haunt him : one age, he is hagridden, be- 
 ' witched ; the next, priestridden, befooled ; in all ages, bedevil- 
 1 led.» And now the Genius of Mechanism smothers him worse 
 ' than any Nightmare did ; till the Soul is nigh choked out of 
 ' liirn^ 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 in- 
 ' deed grind him to pieces ; but cannot he fathom the Doctrine 
 '- of Motives, and cunningly compute these, and mechanise them 
 1 to grind the other way ? 
 
 1 Were he not, as has been said, purblinded by enchantment, 
 1 you had but to bid him open his eyes and look. In which coun- 
 ' try, in which time, was it hitherto that man's history, or the his- 
 ' tory of any man, went on by calculated or calculable " Motives 2" 
 ' What make ye of your Christianities, and Chivalries, and Re- 
 1 formations, and Marseillese Hymns, and Reigns of Terror 1 
 ' Nay, has not perhaps, the Motive-grinder himself been in Love ? 
 
174 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 * 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 Lo-^ 
 1 gical, Mensurative faculty, but our Imaginative one is King over 
 1 us ; I might say, Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward ; 
 
 * or Magician and Wizard to lead us hellward. Nay, even for 
 1 the basest Sensualist, what is Sense but the implement of Fan- 
 1 tasy ; the vessel it drinks out of? Ever in the dullest exist- 
 ' ence, there is a sheen either of Inspiration or of Madness (thou 
 i partly hast it in thy choice, which of the two) that gleams in 
 1 from the circumambient Eternity, and colours with its own hues 
 1 our little islet of Time. The Understanding is indeed thy win- 
 1 dow, too clear thou canst not make it ; but Fantasy is thy eye, 
 1 with its colour-giving retina, healthy or diseased./ t * i ftave not I 
 1 myself known five hundred living soldiers sabred into crows' 
 1 meat, for a piece of glazed cotton, which they called their Flag ; 
 1 which, had you sold it at any market-cross, would not have 
 1 brought above three groschen 1 Did not the whole Hungarian 
 4 Nation rise, like some tumultuous moon-stirred Atlantic, when 
 4 Kaiser Joseph pocketed their Iron Crown ; an implement, as 
 4 was sagaciously observed, in size and commercial value, little 
 1 differing from a horse-shoe ? It is in and through Symbols that 
 4 man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his be- 
 ' ing : those ages, moreover, are accounted the noblest which can 
 1 the best recognise symbolical worth, and prize it the highest. 
 1 For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dim- 
 1 mer or clearer revelation of the Godlike ? 
 
 1 Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that they have both an 
 1 extrinsic and intrinsic value; oftenest the former only. What, 
 
 * for instance, was in that clouted Shoe, which the peasants bore 
 ' aloft with them as ensign in their Bauernkrieg (Peasants' War) I 
 1 Or in the Wallet-and-staflf round which the Netherland GucuXj 
 1 glorying in that nickname of Beggars, heroically rallied and 
 L prevailed, though against King Philip himself? Intrinsic sig- 
 1 nificancc these had none: only extrinsic ; as the accidental Stan- 
 1 dards of multitudes more or less sacredly uniting together ; in 
 ' which union itself, as above noted, there is ever something mys- 
 ' tical and borrowing of the Godlike. Under a like category too, 
 
 
SYMBOLS. 175 
 
 I stand, or stood, the stupidest heraldic Coats-of-arms ; military 
 f Banners everywhere ; and generally all national or other secta- 
 1 rian Costumes and Customs : they have no intrinsic, necessary 
 1 clivineness, 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 Di- 
 ' vine Idea of Duty, of heroic Daring ; in some instances of 
 1 Freedom, of Bight. Nay, the highest ensign that men ever 
 ( met and embraced under, the Cross itself, had no meaning save 
 ' an accidental extrinsic one. 
 
 1 Another matter it is, however, when your Symbol has intrin- 
 ' sic meaning, and is of itself fit that men should unite round it. 
 1 Let but the Godlike manifest itself to Sense ; let but Eternity 
 ' look, more or less visibly, through the Time-figure (Zeitbild) ! 
 ' Then is it fit that men unite there ; and worship together before 
 ' such Symbol ; and so from day to day, and from age to age, su- 
 ' peradd to it new divineness. 
 
 1 Of this latter sort are all true Works of Art : in them (if thou 
 c know a Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern 
 ' Eternity looking through Time ; the Godlike rendered visible. 
 ' Here too may an extrinsic value gradually superadd itself: thus 
 ' certain Iliads, and the like, have, in three thousand years, attained 
 ' quite new significance. But nobler than all in this kind are the 
 1 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 mean- 
 1 ing ? 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 recognise a present God, 
 ' and worship the same : ^J^ean__£eligious_ Symbols. Various 
 'enough have been such religious Symbols, what we call jRcli- 
 ' gions;&s men stood in this stage of culture or the other, and 
 1 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, 
 
176 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' look on our divinest Symbol : on Jesus of Nazareth, and his Life, 
 ' and his Biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has 
 4 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, 
 1 yet also smaller and smaller, like a receding Star. It needs a 
 ' scientific telescope, it needs to be reinterpreted and artificially 
 ' brought near us, before we can so much as know that it was a 
 i Sun. So likewise a day comes when the ftunic Thor, with his 
 ' Eddas, must withdraw into dimness ; and many an African 
 '-Mumbo-Junibo, 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 Conjuror might I name thee, couldst thou conjure back 
 ' into these wooden tools the divine virtue they once held.' 
 
 1 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 Sym- 
 ' bols, and bring new Fire from Heaven to fix it there. Such too 
 'will not always be wanting ; neither perhaps now are. Mean- 
 ' while as the average of matter goes, we account him Legislator 
 ' and wise who can so much as tell when a Symbol lias grown old, 
 ' and gently remove it, 
 
 ' When, as the last English Coronation* was preparing,' con 
 * That of George IV.— Ed. 
 
 
 
SYMBOLS. 177 
 
 eludes 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) I 
 1 dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you ; 
 ; nay, if you shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and \ 
 1 perhaps produce suffocation.' 
 
 • 9* 
 
 > 0* THE 
 
 DIVERSITY' 
 
178 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HELOTAGE. 
 
 At this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather 
 reverting, to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschreclfe's, entitled 
 Institute for the Repression of Population; which lies, dishonourably 
 enough (with torn leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetio 
 drugs), stuffed into the Bag Pisces. Not indeed for the sake of 
 the Tract itself, which we admire little ; but of the marginal 
 Notes, evidently in Teufelsdrockh's hand, which rather copiously 
 fringe it. A few of these may be in the right place here. 
 
 Into the Hofrath's Institute, with its extraordinary schemes, 
 and machinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall 
 not so much as glance. Enough for us to understand that Heu- 
 schrecke 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. No- 
 where, 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 frightfulest consum- 
 mation ; by its too dense inhabitants, famished into delirium, 
 universally eating one another. To make air for himself in which 
 strangulation, choking enough to a benevolent heart, the Hofrath 
 founds, or proposes to found, this Institute of his, as the best he 
 can do. It is only with our Professor's comments thereon that 
 we concern ourselves. 
 
 First, then, remark that Teufelsdrockh, as a speculative Radi- 
 cal, 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 : 
 
HELOTAGE. 179 
 
 1 Two men I honour, and no third. First. tie_±£dlwprn Crafts- 
 • man that with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the 
 t Earth, and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard 
 1 Hand ; crooked, coarse ; wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning 
 ' virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet. Ven- 
 1 erable too is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with 
 ' its rude intelligence : for it is the face of a Man living manlike. 
 1 Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because 
 1 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 
 1 lay a god-created Form, but it was not to be unfolded ; encrust- 
 ' ed must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of 
 ' Labour ; and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. 
 ' Yet toil on, toil on : thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may ; 
 1 thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread. 
 
 ' A second man I honour, 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 ; endeavour- 
 ' ing towards inward Harmony ; revealing this by act, or by word, 
 1 through all his outward endeavours, be they high or low ? High- 
 1 est of all, when his outward and his inward endeavour 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 1 — These two, 
 1 in all their degrees, I honour : all else is chaff and dust, which 
 ' let the wind blow whither it listeth. 
 
 ' Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both digni- 
 ' ties united : and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of 
 1 man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer 
 ' in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such 
 1 now any where be met with. Such a one will take thee back to 
 ' Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendour of Heaven spring 
 ' forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light shining in 
 ' great darkness.' 
 
ISO SARTOR RE3ARTUS. 
 
 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 envelopes him, and fit- 
 ' ful 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 
 1 heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him : but 
 ( only, in the haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and In- 
 4 dignation bear him company. Alas, while the Bodj r stands so 
 ' broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupified, 
 ' almost annihilated ! Alas, was this too a Breath of God ; be- 
 towed in Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded ! — That 
 there should one Man die Ignorant who had capacity for Know- 
 ledge, this I call a tragedyifwere it to happen more than twenty 
 ' times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The mis- 
 
 * erable fraction of Science which our united Mankind, in a wide 
 ' Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all 
 1 diligence, imparted to all V 
 
 Quite in an opposite strain is the following : ' Tbe old Spartans 
 c had a wiser method ; and went out and hunted down their He- 
 ' lots, and speared and spitted them, when they grew too nunier- 
 ' ous. 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- 
 1 peopled country, some three days annually might suffice to 
 ' shoot all the able-bodied , Paupers that had accumulated within 
 1 the year. Let Governments think of this. The expense were 
 ' trifling : nay, the very carcasses would pay it. Have them salt- 
 ' ed and barrelled ; could not you victual therewith, if not Army 
 1 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 V 
 
 ' 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 
 
HELOTAGE. 181 
 
 Y worth to the world. A full-formed Man is not only worth no- 
 £ thing 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, stand- 
 ' ing on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his 
 1 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 inconsidera- 
 ' ble terraqueous Globe have ye actually tilled and delved, till it 
 ' will grow no more % How thick stands your Population in the 
 f Pampas and Savannas of America ; round ancient Carthage, and 
 * in the interior of Africa ; on both slopes of the Altaic chain, in 
 i the central Platform of Asia ; in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Crim 
 ' Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare ? One man, in one year, as I 
 1 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 on- 
 ' wards those superfluous masses of indomitable living Valour ; 
 ' equipped, not now with the battle-axe and war-chariot, but with 
 ' the steam-engine and ploughshare ? Where are they ? — Pre- 
 ' serving their Game !' 
 
182 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PHCENIX. 
 
 Putting which four singular Chapters together, and alongside 
 of them numerous hints, and even direct utterances, scattered 
 over these Writings of his, we come upon the startling yet not 
 quite unlooked-for conclusion, that Teufelsdrockh is one of those 
 vim consider Society, properly so called, to be as good as extinct; 
 and that only the Gregarious feelings, and old inherited habi- 
 tudes, at this juncture, hold us from Dispersion, and universal 
 I nationa l, 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, con- 
 1 sumptive, can be regarded as defunct : for those spasmodic, gal- 
 ' vanic sprawlings are not life ; neither indeed will they endure, 
 ' galvanise as you may, beyond two days.' 
 
 ' Call ye that a Society,' cries he again, ' where tbere.-is_J02_ 
 ' 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 neighbour, 
 ' turned against his neighbour, clutches what he can get, and cries 3 
 ' " Mine !" and calls it Peace, because, in the cut-purse and cut- • 
 ' throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cunninger sort, , 
 1 can be employed ? Where Friendship, Communion, has become • 
 1 an incredible tradition ; and your holiest Sacramental Supper is « 
 ' a smoking Tavern Dinner, with Cook for Evangelist ? Where ' 
 1 your Priest has no tongue but for plate-licking : and your high t 
 1 Guides and Governors cannot guide ; but on all hands hear it ; 
 * passionately proclaimed : Laissez faire ; Leave us alone of your ■• 
 
 
THE PHCENIX. 183 
 
 1 guidance, such light is darker than darkness ; eat you your 
 
 * wages, and sleep ! 
 
 ' Thus, too,' continues he, ' does an observant eye discern every- 
 1 where that saddest spectacle : The Poor perishing, like neglect- 
 1 ed, foundered Draught-Cattle, of Hunger and Overwork ; the 
 'Rich, still more wretchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, and Over- 
 ' growth. The Highest in rank, at length, without honour from 
 
 * the Lowest ; scarcely, with a little mouth-honour, as from tavern- 
 1 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 
 ' Church fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy ; the 
 ' State shrunken into a Police-Office, straitened to get its pay!' 
 
 "We might ask, are there many ' observant eyes,' belonging to 
 Practical men, in England or elsewhere, which have descried 
 these phenomena ; or is it only from the mystic elevation of a 
 German Wahngasse that such wonders are visible? Teufels- 
 drockh 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 Vir- 
 c tue, almost the sole remaining Catholic Virtue, of these days ? 
 ' For some half century, it has been the thing you name, " Inde- 
 'jpendence." Suspicion of " Servility," of reverence for Superiors 
 ' the very dogleech 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 V - 
 
 But what then ? Are we returning, as Rousseau prayed, to 
 the state of Nature ? ' The Soul Politic having departed,' says 
 Teufelsdrockh, ' what can follow but that the Body Politic be 
 'decently interred, to avoid putrescence? Liberals, Economists, 
 1 Utilitarians enough I see marching with its bier, and chaunting 
 ' 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 ulti- 
 ' mately carry their point, and dissever and destroy most existing 
 
 ?- 
 
1S4 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 1 Institutions of Society, seems a thing which has some time ago 
 ' ceased to be doubtful. 
 
 1 Do we not see a little subdivision of the grand Utilit arian 
 1 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 
 1 fag-end, and so far in the rear of the others as to fancy itself the 
 ' van. Our European Mechanisers are a sect of boundless diffu- 
 'sion, activity, and cooperative spirit: has not Utilitarianism 
 ' nourished 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 Eng- 
 
 * land, it has ceased to flourish, or indeed to exist, among Think- 
 ' ers, and sunk to Journalists and the popular mass, — who sees 
 ' not that, as hereby it no longer preaches, so the reason is, it now 
 ' needs no Preaching, but is in full universal Action, the doctrine 
 ' everywhere known, and enthusiastically laid to heart ? The fit 
 ' pabulum, in these times, for a certain rugged workshop-intellect 
 1 and heart, nowise without their corresponding workshop-strength 
 ' and ferocity, it requires but to be stated in such scenes to make 
 'proselytes enough. — Admirably calculated for destroying, only 
 ' not for rebuilding ! It spreads like a sort of Dog-madness ; till 
 1 the whole World-kennel will be rabid : then woe to the Hunts- 
 ' men, with or without their whips ! They should have given the 
 ' quadrupeds water,' adds he ; ' the water, namely, of Knowledge 
 ' and of Life, while it was yet time.' 
 
 Thus, if Professor Teufelsdrockh can be relied on, we are at 
 this hour in a most critical condition ; beleaguered by that 
 boundless ' Armament of Mechanisers' and Unbelievers, threaten- 
 ing to strip us bare ! ' The World,' says he, ' as it needs must, is 
 ' under a process of devastation and waste, which, whether by 
 ' silent assiduous corrosion, or open quicker combustion, as the 
 
 * case chances, will effectually enough annihilate the past Forms 
 ' of Society ; replace them with what it may. For the present, 
 ' it is contemplated that when man's whole Spiritual Interests are 
 ' once divested, these innumerable stript-off Garments shall mostly 
 'be burnt; but the sounder Kags among them be quilted toge- 
 'ther into one huge Irish watch-coat for the defence of the 
 
THE PHCENIX. 185 
 
 Body only !' — This, we think, is but Job's news to the humane 
 reader. 
 
 ' Nevertheless,' cries Teufelsdrockh, ' who can hinder it ; who 
 ' is there that can clutch into the wheel-spokes of Destiny, and 
 1 say to the Spirit of the Time : Turn back, I command thee ? — ■ 
 * Wiser were it that we yielded to the Inevitable and Inexorable, 
 1 and accounted even this the best.' 
 
 Nay, might not an attentive Editor, drawing his own infer- 
 ences from what stands written, conjecture that Teufelsdrockh 
 individually had yielded to this same ' Inevitable and Inexorable' 
 heartily enough ; and now sat waiting the issue, with his natural 
 diabolico-angelical Indifference, if not even Placidity ? Did we \ 
 not hear him complain that the World was a ' huge Ragfair,' and 
 the ' rags and tatters of old Symbols' were raining down every- 
 where, like to drift him in, and suffocate him % What with those 
 \ unhunted Helots' of his ; and the uneven sic-vos-noii-vobis pres- 
 sure, and hard-crashing collision he is pleased to discern in ex- 
 isting things ; what with the so hateful ' empty Masks,' full of 
 beetles and spiders, yet glaring out on him, from their glass-eyes, 
 'with a ghastly affectation of life,' — we feel entitled to conclude 
 him even willing that much should be thrown to the Devil, so it 
 were but done gently ! Safe himself in that ' Pinnacle of Weiss- 
 nichtwo,' he would consent, with a tragic solemnity, that the 
 monster 1 UTTLITARIA, held back, indeed, and moderated by 
 nose -rings, halters, foot-shackles, and every conceivable modifica- 
 tion of rope, should go forth to do her work ; — to tread down old 
 ruinous Palaces and Temples, with her broad hoof, till the whole 
 were trodden down, that new and better might be built ! Re- 
 markable in this point of view are the following sentences. 
 
 ' Society,' says he, ' is not dead : that Carcass, which you call 
 1 dead Society, is but her mortal coil which she has shuffled off, to 
 1 assume a nobler j 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 ga- 
 1 thered together, there is Society ; or there it will be, with its cun- 
 ' ning mechanisms and stupendous structures, overspreading this 
 ' little Grlobe, and reaching upwards to Heaven and downwards 
 I to Gehenna : for always, under one or the other figure it has 
 
( " 
 
 186 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' two authentic Revelations, of a God and of a Devil ; the Pul 
 i pit, namely, and the Gallows.' 
 
 Indeed, we already heard him speak of ' Religion, in unnoticed ji 
 nooks, weaving for herself new Vestures ;' — Teufelsdrockh him- i 
 self being one of the loom-treadles ? Elsewhere he quotes with- \ 
 out censure that strange aphorism of Saint-Simon's, concerning : 
 which and whom so much were to be said : l L'agc d'or, qu'une 
 
 /| aveugle tradition a place jusqtiici dans le passe, est decant nous; 
 ' The golden age, which a blind tradition has hitherto placed in. 
 1 the Past, is Before us.' — But listen again : 
 
 When the Phoenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not J 
 be sparks flying ! Alas, some millions of men, and among them 
 1 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 
 1 be completed, you need not ask. The law of Perseverance is 
 1 among the deepest in man : by nature he hates change ; seldojj 
 'will he quit his old house till it has actually fallen about his 
 4 ears. Thus have I seen Solemnities linger as Ceremonies, sacred i 
 | 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. — Mean- 
 ' while, would Destiny offer Mankind that after, say two centuries 
 ' of convulsion and conflagration, more or less vivid, the fire-crea- 
 1 tion should be accomplished, and we find ourselves again in a, 
 ' Living Society, and no longer fighting but working, — were it not 
 '■perhaps prudent in Mankind to strike the bargain V 
 
 Thus is Teufelsdrockh content that old sick Society should be l 
 deliberately burnt (alas ! with quite other fuel than spice-wood) ," 
 in the faith that she is a Phoenix; and that a new heavenborn 
 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 Doctm 
 viriusqm Juris, titular Professor in a University, and man to whom i 
 hitherto, for his services, Society, bad as she is, has given not 
 
 III! 
 
THE PHCENIX. 187 
 
 only food and raiment (of a kind) but books, tobacco and guk- 
 guk, we expected more gratitude to his benefactress ; and less of 
 a blind trust in the future, which resembles that rather of a phi- 
 losophical Fatalist and Enthusiast, than of a solid householder 
 paying scot and lot in a Christian country. 
 
188 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 As mentioned above, Teufelsdrockh, though a Sansculottist, is 
 in practice probably the politest man extant : his whole heart and 
 life are penetrated and informed with the spirit of Politeness : a 
 noble natural Courtesy shines through him, beautifying his va- 
 garies : like sun-light, making a rosy-fingered, rainbow-dyed 
 Aurora out of mere aqueous clouds ; nay, brightening London- 
 smoke itself into gold vapour, as from the crucible of an alche- 
 mist. Hear in what earnest though fantastic wise he expresses 
 himself on this head : 
 
 ' Shall Courtesy be done only to the rich, and only by the rich? 
 ' In Good-breeding, which differs, if at all, from High-breeding, 
 'only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than 
 ' gracefully insists on its own rights, I discern no special connex- 
 ' ion 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 any thing when there, 
 ' this, with so much else, would be reformed. Nay, each man were 
 1 then also his neighbour's schoolmaster ; till at length a rude*- 
 c 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 thou 
 c not alive ; is not this thy brother, alive 2 " There is but one 
 ' Temple in the world," says Novalis, n 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 Clergy- 
 
OLD CLOTHES. 189 
 
 man, or man with a shovel-hat, I would bo w to every Man witf| 
 : anv_sprt of hat, or with no hat whatever. Is he not a Temple, 
 then ; the visible Manifestation and Impersonation of the Di- 
 vinity ? And jet, alas, such indiscriminate bowing serves not. 
 For there is a Devil dwells in man, as well as a Divinity ; and 
 too often the bow is but pocketed by the former. It would go to 
 the pocket of Vanity (which is your clearest phasis of the Devil, 
 ' in these times) ; therefore must we withhold it. 
 
 ' The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do reverence to those 
 Shells and outer Husks of the Body, wherein no devilish passion 
 ' any longer lodges, but only the pure emblem and effigies of Man : 
 I mean, to Empty, or even to Cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to 
 Clothes that most men do reverence : to the fine frogged broad- 
 cloth, 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 1 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 
 1 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 fervour, as 
 ' when it contained the Man ; nay, with more, for I now fear no 
 1 deception, of myself or of others. 
 
 ' Did not King Toomtabard, or, in other words, John Balliol, 
 1 reign long over Scotland ; the man John Balliol 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 honours ! No haughty looks, no scornful 
 1 gesture : silent and serene, it fronts the world ; neither demand- 
 ' ing worship, nor afraid to miss it. The Hat still carries the 
 1 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 grace- 
 
190 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' ful 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 Pe- 
 'gasus, might some skyey Messenger, or purified Apparition, 
 ' visiting our low Earth. 
 
 1 Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tuberosity of 
 1 Civilized Life, the Capital of England ; and meditated, and 
 ' questioned Destiny, under that ink-sea of vapour, black, thick, 
 1 and multifarious as Spartan broth ; and was one lone Soul amid 
 ' those grinding millions ; — often have I turned into their Old- 
 ' Clothes Market to worship. With awe-struck heart I walk 
 1 through that Monmouth Street, with its empty Suits, as through 
 ' a Sanhedrim of stainless Ghosts. Silent are they, but expres- 
 1 sive in their silence : the past witnesses and instruments of 
 1 Woe and Joy, of Passions, Virtues, Crimes, and all the fathom- 
 1 less 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 
 1 Jewish Highpriest, who with hoarse voice, like some Angel of 
 ' Doom, summons them from the four winds ! On his head, like 
 1 the Pope, he has three Hats, — a real triple tiara ; on either 
 ' hand, are the similitude of wings, whereon the summoned Gar- 
 ' ments come to alight ; and ever, as he slowly cleaves the air, 
 1 sounds forth his deep fearful note, as if through a trumpet he 
 1 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 eves 
 ' still continue dry. If Field Lane, with its long fluttering rows 
 'of yellow handkerchiefs, be a Dionysius' Ear, where, in stifled 
 'jarring hubbub, we hear the Indictment which Poverty and 
 ' Vice bring against lazy Wealth, that it has left them there cast 
 ' out and trodden under foot of Want, Darkness, and the Devil, — 
 'then is Monmouth Street a Mirza ? s Hill, where, in motley 
 
OLD CLOTHES. 191 
 
 £ vision, the whole Pageant of Existence passes awfully before 
 ' us ; with its wail and jubilee, mad loves and mad hatreds, 
 1 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 over- 
 charged. 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 Teufels- 
 drockh might be in that happy middle-state, which leaves to the 
 Clothes-broker no hope either of sale or of purchase, and so be 
 allowed to linger there without molestation. — Something we 
 would have given to see the little philosophical figure, with its 
 steeple-hat and loose flowing skirts, and eyes in a fine frenzy, 
 1 pacing and repacing in austerest thought' that foolish Street ; 
 which to him was a true Delphic avenue, and supernatural Whis- 
 pering gallery, where the ' Ghosts of Life' rounded strange 
 secrets in his ear. thou philosophic Teufelsdrockh, that lis- 
 ten est while others only gabble, and with thy quick tympanum 
 nearest the grass grow ! 
 
 At the same time is it not strange that, in Paperbag Docu- 
 ments 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 em- 
 blematic shadows ? Neither, in conversation (for, indeed, he was 
 not a man to pester you with his Travels), have we heard him 
 more than allude to the subject. 
 
 For the rest, however, it cannot be uninteresting that we here 
 find how early the significance of Clothes had dawned on the now 
 so distinguished Clothes-Professor. Might we but fancy it to 
 have been even in Monmouth Street, at the bottom of our own 
 English ' ink-sea,' that this remarkable Volume first took being, 
 and shot forth its salient point in his soul, — as in Chaos did the 
 Egg of Eros, one day to be hatched into a Universe ! 
 
 6 
 
192 SARTOR RESARTU3. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 
 
 For us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burn- 
 ing herself, and burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdrockh calcu- 
 lates, 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 
 1 formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the burning of a World- 
 ' Phoenix, who fanciest that she must first burn out, and lie as a 
 c 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 
 1 and the waving of the Whirlwind-Element, come tones of a me- 
 ' lodious Deathsong, which end not but in tones of a more melo- 
 ' dious Birthsong. 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 3Iankind 
 in general : 
 
 ' In vain thou deniest it,' says the Professor ; ' thou art my 
 'Brother. Thy very Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish Lies 
 1 thou tellest of me in thy splenetic humour : what is all this but 
 1 an inverted Sympathy 1 Were I a Steam-engine, wouldst thou 
 ' take the trouble to tell Lies of me ? Not thou ! I should grind 
 1 all unheeded, whether badly or well. 
 
 : Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all ; 
 
ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 193 
 
 i 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 
 1 provokes whimsical thoughts : ' ; Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, 
 1 suddenly covered up within the largest imaginable Glass-bell, — 
 ' what a thing it were, not for thyself only but for the world ! 
 c Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four winds, impinge 
 c against thy Glass walls, but have to drop unread : neither from 
 4 within comes there question or response into any Postbag ; thy 
 1 Thoughts fall into no friendly ear or heart, thy Manufacture 
 1 into no purchasing hand ; thou art no longer a circulating ve- 
 ' nous-arterial Heart, that, taking and giving, circulatest through 
 ' all Space and all Time : there has a Hole fallen out in the im- 
 
 • measurable, universal World-tissue, which must be darned up 
 i again !" 
 
 ' Such venous-arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal Messages, 
 1 paper and other Packages, going out from him and coming in, 
 1 are a blood-circulation, visible to the eye ; but the finer nervous 
 1 circulation, by which all things, the minutest that he does, mi- 
 ' nutely influence all men, and the very look of his face blesses or 
 
 * curses whomso it lights on, and so generates ever new blessing 
 1 or new cursing : all this you cannot see, but only imagine. I 
 1 say, there is not a red Indian, hunting by Lake Winnipic, can 
 L quarrel with his squaw, but the whole world must smart for it : 
 1 will not the price of beaver rise ? It is a* mathematical fact that 
 1 the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre-of- 
 i gravity of the Universe. 
 
 ' If now an existing generation of men stand so woven to- 
 1 gether, not less indissolubly does generation with generation. 
 ' Hast thou ever meditated on that word, Tradition : how we in- 
 1 herit not Life only, but all the garniture and form of Life ; and 
 1 work, and speak, and even think and feel, as our Fathers, and 
 ' primeval grandfathers, from the beginning, have given it us ? — 
 ' Who printed thee, for example, this unpretending Volume on 
 1 the Philosophy of Clothes ? Not the Herren Stillschweigen 
 1 and Company : but Cadmus of Thebes. Faust of Mentz, and 
 1 innumerable others whom thou knowest not. Had there been 
 1 no Moesogothic Ulfila, there had been no English Shakspeare, 
 
 10 
 
194 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' or a different one. Simpleton ! it was Tubalcain 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 Na- 
 ' ture, without which Nature were not. As palpable life-streams 
 ' 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, Politics, 
 ' Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is to understand and 
 ' know that a Thought did never yet die ; that as thou, the origi- 
 ' nator thereof hast gathered it and created it from the whole 
 ' Past, so thou wilt transmit it to the whole Future. It is thus 
 1 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 
 1 ever encompassed, and spiritually embraced, by a cloud of wit- 
 ' nesses and brothers ; and there is a living, literal Communion 
 A of Sai/Us, wide as the World itself, and as the History of the 
 
 ■ 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 He- 
 ' brew Lawgiver is, in due time, followed by an Apostle of the 
 ' (iuntiles. In the business of Destruction, as this also is from i 
 ' time to time a necessary work, thou findest a like sequence audi 
 ' perseverance : for Luther it was as yet hot enough to stand by 
 ' that burning of the Pope's Bull ; Voltaire could not warm him- 
 • self at the glimmering ashes, but required quite other fuel. 
 ' Thus likewise, I note, the English Whig has. in the second gen- 
 'eration, become an English Radical: who. in the third again, it 
 ' is to be hoped, will become an English Rebuilder. Find mankind ! 
 
ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 195 
 
 1 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 
 1 with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she may 
 ' soar the higher and sing the clearer.' 
 
 Let the friends of social order, in such a disastrous period, lay 
 this to heart, and derive from it any little comfort they can. We 
 subjoin another passage, concerning Titles : 
 
 ' Remark, not without surprise,' says Teufelsdrockh, ' how all 
 ' high Titles of Honour come hitherto from .Fighting. Your 
 ' Herzog (Duke, Dux) is Leader of Armies ; your Earl (Jarl) is 
 1 Strong Man ; your Marshal cavalry Horse-shoer. A Millen- 
 1 nium, or reign of Peace and Wisdom, having from of old been 
 ' prophesied, and becoming now daily more and more indubita- 
 ' ble, may it not be apprehended that such Fighting-titles will 
 * cease to be palatable, and new and higher need to be devised ? 
 
 ' The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace eternity, is 
 ' that of King. Konig (King), anciently Konning means Ken- 
 ' ning (Cunning), or which is the same thing, Can-ning. Ever 
 ' must the Sovereign of Mankind be fitly entitled King.' 
 
 ' Well, also,' says he elsewhere, ' was it written by Theologians ; 
 ' a King rules by divine right. He carries in him an authority 
 ' from God, or man will never give it him. Can I choosejny own 
 1 King 1 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 
 1 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 pro- 
 vinces of Teufelsdrockh's spiritual world, there is none he walks 
 in with such astonishment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the 
 Political. How, with our English love of Ministry and Opposi- 
 tion, 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, 
 
196 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 where the Present seems little other than an inconsiderable Film 
 dividing the Past and the Future 1 In those dim longdrawn ex- 
 panses, all is so immeasurable ; much so disastrous, ghastly : your 
 very radiances, and straggling light-beams, have a supernatural 
 character. And then with such an indifference, such a prophetic 
 peacefulness (accounting the inevitably-coming as already here, 
 to him all one whether it be distant by centuries or only by 
 days), does he sit ; — and live, you would say, rather in any other 
 age than in his own ! It in our painful duty to announce, or re- 
 peat, that, looking into this man. we discern a deep, silent, slow- 
 burning, inextinguishable Radicalism, such as fills us with shud- 
 dering admiration. 
 
 Thus, for example, he appears to make little even of the Elec- 
 tive Franchise ; at least so we interpret the following : ' Satisfy 
 1 yourselves,' he says, ' by universal, indubitable experiment, even 
 ' as ye are now doing or will do, whether Freedom, heavenborn 
 j and leading heavenward, and so vitally essential for us all, can- 
 ' not peradventure be mechanically hatched and brought to light 
 1 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 manufac- 
 * ture witnessed hitherto.' Is Teufelsdrockh acquainted with the 
 British Constitution, even slightly 1 — He says, under another 
 figure :*But after all, were the problem, as indeed it now every- 
 ' where is, To rebuild your old House from the top downwards 
 (since you must live in it the while), what better, what other, 
 j than the Representative Machine will serve your turn ? Mean- 
 while, however, mock me not with the name of Free, " when 
 you have but knit up my chains into ornamental festoons." ' — 
 Or what will any member of the Peace Society make of such an 
 assertion as this: 'The lower people everywhere desire War. 
 4 Not so unwisely ; there is then a demand for lower people — to 
 I be shot !' 
 
 Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul-confusing 
 labyrinths of speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer re- 
 gions. Here, looking round, as was our hest, for * organic fila- 
 ments,' we ask, may not this, touching ' Hero-worship,' be of the 
 number ? It seems of a cheerful character ; yet so quaint, so 
 
ORGANIC FILAMENTS 197 
 
 mystical, one knows not what, or how little, may lie under it. 
 Our readers shall look with their own eyes : 
 
 ' True is it that, in these days, man can do almost all things. 
 1 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, 
 1 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 
 1 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. 
 
 1 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. Be- 
 ' fore no faintest revelation of the Godlike did he ever stand 
 ' irreverent ; least of all, when the Godlike shewed itself revealed 
 1 in his fellow-mam Thus is there a true religious Loyalty for- 
 1 ever rooted in his heart : nay, in all ages, even in ours, it mani- 
 1 fests itself as a more or less orthodox Hero-worship. In which 
 ' fact, that Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will for ever 
 ' exist, universally among Mankind, mayest thou discern the cor- 
 ' ner-stone of living-rock, whereon all Polities for the remotest 
 ' time may stand secure.' 
 
 Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or even so much 
 as what Teufelsdrockh is looking at ? He exclaims, ' Or hast 
 ' thou forgotten Paris and Voltaire % How the aged, withered 
 ' man, though but a Sceptic, Mocker, and millinery Court-poet, 
 ' yet because even he seemed the Wisest, Best, could drag man- 
 ' kind at his chariot-wheels, so that princes coveted a smile from 
 ' him, and the loveliest of France would have laid their hair be- 
 ' neath his feet ! All Paris was one vast Temple of Hero-wor- 
 ' ship ; 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 
 
108 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 < of Man's History, in the most parched spot of Europe, when 
 1 Parisian life was at best but a scientific Hortus Siccus, bedizened 
 1 with some Italian Gumnowers, such virtue could come out of it; 
 ' what is to be looked for when Life again waves leafy and 
 1 bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shall have nothing apelike, but 
 1 be wholly human ? Know that there is in man a quite inde- 
 ' structible Reverence for whatsoever holds of Heaven, or even 
 ' plausibly counterfeits such holding. Shew the dullest clodpole. 
 ' shew the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul Higher than him- 
 ' self is actually here ; were his knees stiffened into brass, he 
 1 must down and worship.' 
 
 Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mysteriously spin- 
 ning themselves, some will perhaps discover in the following pas- 
 sage : 
 
 ' There is no Church, sayest thou ? The voice of Prophecy 
 ' has gone dumb ? This is even what I dispute : but, in any case, 
 1 has thou not still Preaching enough 1 A Preaching Friar 
 ' settles himself in every village ; and builds a pulpit, which he 
 ' calls Newspaper. Therefrom he preaches what most momen- 
 1 tous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation ; and dost not thou 
 ' listen, and believe 1 Look well, thou seest everywhere a new 
 * Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, some bare-footed, 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 
 1 often reprobate, as idol-breakers are wont to be, mark out the 
 1 sites of new Churches, where the true God-ordained, that are to 
 ' follow, may find audience, and minister. Said I not, Before the 
 1 old skin was shed, the new had formed itself beneath it V 
 
 Perhaps, also, in the following ; wherewith we now hasten to 
 knit up this ravelled sleeve : ^VaUC-S f tax 4 
 
 1 But there is no Pieligion V reiterates the Professor. ' Pool ! 
 : I tell thee, there is. Hast thou well considered all that lies in 
 'this immeasurable froth-ocean we name Literature? Frag- 
 ' ments of a genuine Church- HonilStic lie scattered there, which 
 ' Time will assort: nay fractions even of a Liturgy could I point 
 ' out. And knowest thou no Prophet, even in the vesture, en- 
 ' vironment, and dialect of this age ? None to whom the Godlike 
 
ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 199 
 
 ' had revealed itself, through all meanest and highest forms of the 
 1 Common : and by him been again prophetically revealed : in 
 ' whose inspired melody, even in these rag gathering and rag- 
 1 burning days, Man's Life again begins, were it but afar off, to be 
 ' divine 2. Knowest thou none such? I know him, and name 
 
 1 him — Goethe; 
 
 ; But thou as yet standest in no Temple ; joinest in no Psalm- 
 ' worship : feelest well that, where there is no ministering Priest, 
 1 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 ^imes, as a 
 ' sacred Miserere ; their heroic Actions also, as a boundless, ever- 
 ' lasting 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, 
 1 and Men's History, a perpetual Evangel % Listen, and for 
 * organ-music thou wilt ever, as of old, hear the Morning Stars 
 1 sing together.' 
 
200 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 
 
 It is in his stupendous Section, headed Natural Supernatural- 
 ism, 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 posses- 
 sion 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-embra- 
 cing Phantasms, Time and Space^ h ave ever hovered round him, 
 perplexing and bewildering : but with these also he now reso- 
 lutely grapples, these also he victoriously rends asnnder. In a 
 word, he has looked fixedly on Existen ce, t ill, one after the o ther, 
 i ts earthly hulls and garnitures have all meltefl . away ; , ajid now , 
 to his rapt vision, the interior celestial Holy of Holies lies dis- 
 closed. 
 
 Here therefore properly it is that the Philosophy _of f!W.hpa 
 attains t<> Transcendentalism : this last leap, can we but clear it. 
 takes us safe into the promised land, where Plmngekesta, 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 medi- 
 tation, have found not to be unintelligible ; but on the contrary 
 to grow clear, nay radiant, and all-illuminating. Let the reader, 
 turning on it what utmost force of speculative intellect is in him, 
 do his part; as we, by judicious selection and adjustment, shall 
 study to do ours ; 
 
 • Deep has been, and is, the significance of Miracles,' thus 
 quietly begins the Professor ; ' far deeper perhaps than we ima- 
 ' giue. Meanwhile, the question of questions were : What Bpe- 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 201 
 
 | cially is a Miracle ? To that Dutch King of Siam. an icicle had 
 '"been a lnlmcle ;' "wlioso had carried with him an air-pump, and 
 ' phial of vitriolic ether, might have worked a miracle. To my 
 1 horse again, who unhappily is still more unscientific, do not I 
 1 work a miracle, and magical " Open sesame /" every time I please 
 ' to pay twopence, and open for him an impassable Schlagbaum, or 
 ' shut Turnpike ? 
 
 ' " But is not a real Miracle simply a violation of the Laws of 
 ' Nature?" ask several. Whom I answer by this new question: 
 ' What are the Laws of Nature ? To me perhaps the rising of 
 ' one from the dead were no violation of these Laws, but a con- 
 f firmation : 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 de- 
 ' clare that therefore he can teach Religion ? To us, truly, of the 
 ' Nineteenth Century, such declaration were inept enough; which 
 1 nevertheless to our fathers, of the First Century, was full of 
 1 meaning. 
 
 ' " But is it not the deepest Law of Nature that she be con- 
 1 stant ?" 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 
 1 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 
 1 rules. And now of you too I make the old inquiry : What those 
 \ same unalterable rules, forming the complete Statute-Book of 
 1 Nature, may possibly be 1 
 
 1 They stand written in our Works of Science, say you ; in the 
 ' accumulated records of man's Experience ? — Was Man with his 
 1 Experience present at the Creation, then, to see how it all went 
 '.on? Have any deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to 
 1 the foundations of the Universe, and gauged every thing there? 
 ' Did the Maker take them into His counsel ; that they read His 
 1 ground-plan of the incomprehensible All ; and can say, This 
 
 10* 
 
202 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 : 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 handbreadths 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 
 1 Planets, with their Satellites, gyrate round our worthy Sun, at a 
 1 rate and in a course, which, by greatest good fortune, he and 
 ' the like of him have succeeded in detecting, — is to me as pre- 
 ' cious as to another. But is this what thou namest " Mechanism 
 ' of the Heavens," and " System of the World ;" this, wherein 
 1 Sirius and the Pleiades, and all Herschel's Fifteen thousand 
 ' Suns per minute, being left out, some paltry handful of Moons, 
 ' and inert Balls, had been — looked at, nicknamed, and marked in 
 ' the Zodiacal Waybill ; so that we can now prate of their Where- 
 1 about ; their How, their Why, their What, being hid from us as 
 ' in the signless Inane % 
 
 1 System of Nature ! To the wisest man, wide as is his vision, 
 1 Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite expan- 
 sion; and all Experience thereof limits itself to some few com- 
 •puted centuries, and measured square miles. The course of 
 ' Nature's phases, on this our little fraction of a Planet, is par- 
 
 * tially known to us: but who knows what deeper courses these 
 1 depend on : what infinitely larger Cycle (of causes) our little 
 
 • Epicycle revolves on ? To the Minnow every cranny and peb- 
 ' ble. 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, 
 1 and Moon's Eclipses ; by all which the conditiou of its little 
 ' Creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (^miraculously 
 ' 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 JEons of iEons. 
 
 ' We speak of the Volume of Nature : and truly a Volume it 
 ' is, — whose Author and Writer is God. To read it ! Dost thou, 
 ' does man, so much as well know the Alphabet thereof? With 
 ' its Words, Sentences, and grand descriptive Pages, poetical and 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 203 
 
 1 philosophical, spread out through Solar Systems, aud Thousands 
 ' of Years, we shall not try thee. It is a Volume written in celes- 
 ' tial hieroglyphs, in the true Sacred-writing ; of which even Pro- 
 ' phets 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 inter- 
 1 twisted 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 Re- 
 ' cipes, 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 
 ' 3Veavers ; and weaves airy raiment for all the Spirits of the 
 ' Universe : whereby indeed these dwell with us visibly, as minis- 
 ' tering servants, in our houses and workshops ; but their spiri- 
 ' tual nature becomes, to the most, forever hidden. Philosophy 
 ' complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from the first ; that 
 ' we do every thing by Custom, even Believe by it ; that our very 
 ' Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest 
 ' simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay, 
 ' what is Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against 
 ' Custom ; an ever-renewed effort to transcend the sphere of blind 
 ' Custom, and so become Transcendental? 
 
 ' Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain tricks of Cus- 
 ' torn : but of all these perhaps the cleverest is her knack of per- 
 ' suading us that the Miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to 
 ' be Miraculous. True, it is by this means we live ; for man must 
 'work as weil as wonder: and herein is Custom so far a kind 
 ' nurse, guiding him to his true benefit. But she is a fond fool- 
 ' ish 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, 
 
204 SARTOR RES ART US. 
 
 ' indeed, I am a mere Work-Machine, for whom the divine gift 
 ' of Thought were no other than the terrestrial gift of Steam 13 
 ' to the Steam-engine ; a power whereby Cotton might be spun, 
 ' and money and money's worth realised. 
 
 - Notable enough too, here as elsewhere, wilt thou find the po-_ 
 ' tency of Names ; which indeed are but one kind 01 such Custom- 
 ' woven, wonder-hiding Garments. Witchcraft, and all manner 
 ' of Spectre-work, and Dcmonology, we have now named Mad- 
 ' ness, and Diseases of the Nerves. Seldom reflecting that still 
 ' the new question comes upon us : What is Madness, what are 
 'Nerves? Ever, as before, does Madness remain a mysterious-* 
 ' terrific, altogether infernal boiling up of the Nether Chaotic 
 ' Deep, through this fair-painted Vision of Creation, which swims 
 ' thereon, which we name the Real. Was Luther's Picture of the 
 ' Devil less a Reality, whether it were formed within the bodily 
 ' eye, or without it 1 In every the wisest soul lies a whole world 
 ' of internal Madness, an authentic Demon-Empire : out of which, 
 1 indeed, his world of Wisdom has been creatively built together, 
 1 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- 
 c enveloping Appearances, Spac e and Tlwi;. These, as spun 
 c and woven for us from before Birth itself, to clothe our celestial 
 ' Me for dwelling here, and yet to blind it, — lie all-embracing, as 
 1 the universal canvass, or warp and woof, whereby all minor Illu- 
 sions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave and paint themselves. 
 ' In vain, while here on Earth, shall you endeavour 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 Weissnicht- 
 ' wo, and make felts of this sort for all mankind, what a world 
 4 we should have of it ! Still stranger, should, on the opposite 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 205 
 
 c 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 your were Anywhere, straightway to be 
 ' There! Next to clap on your other felt, and, simply by wishing 
 ' that you were Anywhen, straightway to be Then! This were in- 
 ' deed the grander : shooting at will from the Fire-Creation of the 
 ' World to its Fire-Consummation ; here historically present in 
 1 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 
 1 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, 
 1 thou the Earth-blinded summonest both Past and Future, and 
 i communest with them, though as yet darkly, and with mute beck- 
 1 onings. The curtains of Yesterday drop down, the curtains of 
 ' Tomorrow roll up ; but Yesterday and To-morrow both are. 
 1 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 
 1 there : thaU^wm^ftnd-Apn.flg.Are. not God, bu t creations of Go dj 
 1 that with God as it is a universal Here, so is it an everlasting 
 ' Now. 
 
 'And seest thou therein any glimpse of Immortality 1 ? — O 
 1 Heaven ! Is the white Tomb of our Loved One, who died from 
 ' our arms, and had to be left behind us there, which rises in the 
 ' distance, like a pale, mournfully receding Milestone, to tell how 
 ' many toilsome uncheered miles we have journeyed on alone, — 
 ' but a pale spectral Illusion ! Is the lost Friend still myste- 
 1 riously Here, even as we are Here mysteriously, with God ! — 
 ' Know of a truth that only the Time-shadows have perished, or 
 1 are perishable ; tbaJ^nsj^aLJieJJig-^^ 
 
 ' ever is f _Mid whatever wil L be, is even _joiLw^aM_J > orey_£n- This, 
 ; should it unhappily seem new, thou mayst ponder at thy lei- 
 
206 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 
 sure ; for the next twenty years, or the next twenty centuries : 
 
 • Kplipyp it. ^linn n^jfij- ; nr.rWrtnr.rl it l.rirm canst, Tint 
 
 ' That the Thought-forms, Space and Time, wherein, once for 
 : all, we are sent into this Earth to live, should condition and de- 
 termine our whole Practical reasonings, conceptions, and imag- 
 'ings 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 ly- 
 < ing close on us, seems nowise so. Admit Space and Time to 
 ' their clue rank as Forms of Thought ; nay, even, if thou wilt, io 
 1 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 
 1 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 
 1 avoirdupois of weight ; and not to see that the true inexplicable 
 ' jjori jevealiiig-Mixacl e lies in this^jthat—I— can str etch forth my _ 
 ( hnnrl nt all-; that I have free Force to clutch aught therewith ? 
 ' Innumerable other of this sort are the deceptions, and wonder- 
 1 hiding stupefactions, which Space practices on us. 
 
 ' Still worse is it with regard to Time. Your grand anti-ma- 
 ' gician, 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 out- 
 ' done. But unhappily we have not such a Hat ; and man, poor 
 ; fool that he is, can seldom and scantily help himself without 
 1 one. 
 
 ' Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Orpheus, or Am- 
 ' phion, built the walls of Thebes by the mere sound of his Lyre? 
 ' Yet tell me, Who built these walls of Weissuichtwo ; summon- 
 ' ing out all the sandstone rocks, to dance along from the Steiii- 
 1 bruck (now a huge Troglodyte Chasm, with frightful green-man- 
 1 tied 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 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 207 
 
 ' divine Music of Wisdom, succeeded in civilising man 7 Our 
 ' highest Orpheus walked in Judca, 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 thousandfold Accompani- 
 ' ments, and rich symphonies, through all our hearts ; and modu- 
 1 lates, and divinely leads them. Is that a wonder, which hap- 
 1 pens in two hours : and does it cease to be wonderful if happen- 
 ' ing 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 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 
 1 Universe, were it in the meanest province thereof, is in very deed 
 c 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 
 1 from the foolish. 
 
 1 Again, could any thing be more miraculous than an actual 
 1 authentic Ghost ? The English Johnson longed, all his life to 
 1 see one ; but could not, though he went to Cock Lane, and 
 ' thence to the church-vaults, and tapped on coffins. Foolish Doc- 
 1 tor ! 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 : 
 1 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 1 ^xe_we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, 
 ' into an Appearance : and that fade away again into air, and In- 
 
208 'SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' visibility? This \s no me taphor, it is a sim^le_s^ientific_^d_^ 
 /'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 
 f of Love and Faith, as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song 
 ' of beatified Souls ? And again, do we not squeak and gibber (in 
 ' our discordant, screech-owlish debatings and recriminatings) ; 
 'and glide bodeful and feeble, and fearful; or uproar (polter/i), 
 ' and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead, — till the scent of the 
 ' morning-air summons us to our still Home ; and dreamy Night 
 ' becomes awake and Day ? Where now is Alexander of Mace- 
 ' don : does the steel Host, that yelled in fierce battle-shouts, at 
 ' Issus and Arbela, remain behind him ; or have they all vanish- 
 ' ed 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 ? — 
 c 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. 
 Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we 
 ly carry ench n future G hostwitliiiil um : but_a r&qiuygry 
 deepljjjrjiosts ! These Limbs, whence had we them : this stormy 
 ' Force ; this life-blood with its burning Passion ? They are 
 ' dust and shadow ; a Shadow-system gathered round our Me J 
 1 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 arc 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 sound- 
 ' ing. Plummets ? 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 ; 
 4 and forth-issuing from Cimmerian Night, on Heaven's mission 
 
 ' noijmjy 
 < deed. Gl 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 209 
 
 ' appears. What Force and Fire is in each he expends : one 
 'grinding in the mill of Industry : one hunter-like climbing the 
 t giddy Alpine heights of Science ; one madly dashed in pieces 
 ' on the rocks of Strife, in war with his fellow : — and then the 
 ' Heaven-sent is recalled ; his earthly Vesture falls away, and 
 ' soon even to Sense becomes a Vanished Shadow. Thus, like 
 ' some wild-flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's Artillery. 
 ' does this mysterious Mankind thunder and flame, in long- 
 1 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 : 
 1 then plunge again into the Inane. Earth's mountains are lev- 
 ' elled, 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 foot-print of us i 
 1 is stamped in ; the last Rear of the host will read traces of the 
 'earliest Van. But. whence? — ..Heaven, whither? Sense 
 1 knows not ; Faith knows not ; only that it is through Mystery 
 ' to Mystery, from God and to God. 
 
 u We are such stuff 
 1 As Dreams are made of, and our little Life 
 ' Is rounded with a sleep F J 
 
210 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 
 
 Here then arises the so momentous question : Have many 
 British Readers actually arrived with us at the new promised 
 country ; is the Philosophy of Clothes now at last opening around 
 them % Long and adventurous has the journey been : from those 
 outmost vulgar, palpable Woollen Hulls of Man ; through his 
 wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his wondrous Social Garnitures ; 
 inwards to the Garments of his very Soul's Soul, to Time and 
 Space themselves ! And now does the Spiritual, eternal Essence 
 of Man, and of Mankind, bared of such wrappages, begin in any 
 measure to reveal itself? Can many readers discern, as through 
 a glass darkly, in huge wavering outlines, some primeval rudi- 
 ments of Man's Being, what is changeable divided from what 
 is unchangeable % Does that Earth-Spirit's speech in Faust : 
 
 1 'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, 
 
 ' And weave for God the Garment thou see'st him by f 
 
 or that other thousand-times repeated speech of the Magician, 
 Shakspeare : 
 
 ' And like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
 ' The cloudcapt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces, 
 ' The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself, 
 'And all which it Inherit shall dissolve ;' 
 '• And like this unsubstantial pageant faded, 
 'Leave not a wr.uk behind;' 
 
 begin to have some meaning for us ? In a word, do we at length 
 stand safe in the far region of Poetic Creation and Palingenesia, 
 where that Phoenix Death-Birth of Human Society, and of all 
 Human Thirigs, appears possible, is seen to be inevitable % 
 
CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 211 
 
 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 dark- 
 ness, the nature of the element, all was against us ! 
 
 Nevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, pro- 
 vided 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; juid indeed, highest work 
 of Palingenesia that ye shall labour, each accord i ng to ability . 
 New labourers will arrive ; new Bridges will be built ; nay, may 
 not our own poor rope-and-raft Bridge, in your passings and re- 
 passings, 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 1 The most have recoiled, 
 and stand gazing afar off, in unsympathetic astonishment, at our 
 career: not a few, pressing forward with more courage, have 
 missed footing, or leaped short ; and now swim weltering in the 
 Chaos-flood, some towards this shore, some towards that. To 
 these also a helping hand should be held out ; at least some word 
 of encouragement be said. 
 
 Or, to speak without metaphor, with which mode of utterance 
 Teufelsdrockh unhappily has somewhat infected us, — can it be 
 hidden from the Editor that many a British Reader sits reading 
 quite bewildered in head, and afflicted rather than instructed by 
 the present Work ? Yes, long ago has many a British Reader 
 been, as now, demanding with something like a snarl : Whereto 
 does all this lead ; or what use is in it 1 
 
 In the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise aiding thy 
 digestive faculty, O British Reader, it leads to nothing, and there 
 
212 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 is no use in it ; but rather the reverse, fo r it costs thee s omewhat. 
 Nevertheless, if through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufels- 
 drockh, and we by means of him, have led thee into the true 
 Land of Dreams ; and through the Clothes-Screen, as through a 
 magical Pie rr e- Pertms , thou lookest, even for moments, into the 
 region of the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life 
 is girt with Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very 
 blankets and breeches are Miracles, — then art thou profited be- 
 yond money's worth ; and hast a thankfulness towards our Pro- 
 fessor ; 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.a ll Symbo l s are proper ly Clothes ; that all Forms whereby 
 Spirit manifests itself to Sense, whether outwardly or in thelm- 
 agination. 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 oaorodncot) of Majesty, and all 
 inferior Worships (Worth-ships) are properly a Vesture and Rai- 
 ment ; 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 Politi- 
 cal Economy, and the Theory of the British Constitution ; nay, 
 rather, from its prophetic height looks down on all these, as on so 
 many weaving-shops and spinning-mills, where the Vestures which 
 it has to fashion, and consecrate, and distribute, are, too often by 
 haggard hungry operatives who see no farther than their nose, 
 mechanically woven and spun ? 
 
 But omitting all this, much more all that concerns Natural 
 Supernaturalism, and indeed whatever has reference to the Ulte- 
 rior or Transcendental Portion of the Science, or bears never so 
 remotely on that promised Volume of the Palijigenesieder mensck- 
 lichen Gesellsckajl (Newbirth of Society), — we humbly suggest 
 that no province of Clothes-Philosophy, even the lowest, is with- 
 out its direct value, but that innumerable inferences of a practi- 
 cal nature may lie drawn therefrom. To Say nothing of those 
 pregnant considerations, ethical, political, symbolical, which crowd 
 
CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 213 
 
 on the Clothes-Philosopher from the very threshold of his Sci- 
 ence ; nothing even of those ' architectural ideas' which, as wc 
 have seen, lurk at the bottom of all Modes, and will one day, 
 better unfolding themselves, lead to important revolutions, — let 
 us glance for a moment, and with the faintest light of Clothes- 
 Philosophy, on what may be called the Habilatory Class of our 
 fellow-men. Here too overlooking, where so much were to be 
 looked on, the million spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, washers, 
 and wringers, that puddle and muddle in their dark recesses, to 
 make us Clothes, and die that we may live, — let us but turn the 
 reader's attention upon two small divisions of mankind, who, like 
 moths, may be regarded as Cloth-animals, j3reatures_tkat_|iye, 
 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 Phi- 
 losophy, is at fault; and even that the dictates of humanity are 
 violated. As will perhaps abundantly appear to readers of the 
 two following Chapters. 
 
214 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DANDIACAL BODY. 
 
 First, touching Dandies, let us consider, with some scientific 
 strictness, what a Dandy specially is. A Dandy is a Clothes- 
 wearing man, a Man whose trade, oifice, 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 wear- 
 ing of Clothes wisely and well: so that as others dress to live^Jie^ 
 lives to dress. The all-importance of Clothes, which a German 
 Professor, of unequalled learning and acumen, writes his enor- 
 mous Volume to demonstrate, has sprung up in the intellect of 
 the Dandy, without effort, like an instinct of genius ; he is inspired 
 with Cloth, a Poet of Cloth. What Teufelsdrockh would call a 
 1 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 ; shews himself, in peculiar guise, to mankind ; 
 walks forth, a witness and living Martyr to the eternal "Worth of 
 Clothes. We called him a Poet: is not his body the (stuffed) 
 parchment-skin whereon he writes, with cunning Huddersfield 
 dyes, a Sonnet to his mistress' eyebrow ? Say, rather, an Epos, 
 and Clotha Virumque cano, to the whole world, in Macaronic 
 verses, which he that runs may read. Nay, if you grant, what 
 seems to be admissible, that the Dandy has a Thinking-principle 
 in him, and some notions of Time and Space, is there not in this 
 Life-devotedness to Cloth, in this so willing sacrifice of the Im- 
 mortal 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 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 215 
 
 even Prophecy, what is it that the Dandy asks in return ? Solely , 
 we may say. that you would recognise 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 con- 
 cealed contempt! Him no Zoologist classes among the Mammalia, 
 no Anatomist dissects with care : when did we see any injected 
 Preparation of the Dandy, in our Museums ; any specimen of 
 him preserved in spirits % Lord Herringbone may dress himself 
 in a snuff brown suit, with snuff-brown shirt and shoes : it skills 
 not ; the undiscerning public, occupied with grosser wants, passes 
 by regardless on the other side. 
 
 The age of Curiosity, like that of Chivalry, is, indeed, properly 
 speaking, gone. Yet perhaps only gone to sleep : for here arises 
 the Clothes-Philosophy to resuscitate, strangely enough, both the 
 one and the other ! Should sound views of this Science come to 
 prevail, the essential nature of the British Dandy, and the mystic 
 significance that lies in him, cannot always remain hidden under 
 laughable and lamentable hallucination. The following long 
 Extract from Professor Teufelsdrockh may set the matter, if not 
 in its true light, yet in the way towards such. It is to be 
 regretted however that here, as so often elsewhere, the Professor's 
 keen philosophic perspicacity is somewhat marred by a certain 
 mixture of almost owlish purblindness, or else of some perverse, 
 ineffectual, ironic tendency; our readers shall judge which: 
 
 ' In these distracted times,' writes he, ' when the Religious 
 ' Principle, driven out of most Churches, either lies unseen in the 
 ' hearts of good men, looking and longing and silently working 
 1 there towards some new Revelation : or else wanders homeless 
 ' over the world, like a disembodied soul seeking its terrestrial 
 
216 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' organisation, — into how. many strange shapes, of Superstition and 
 1 Fanaticism, does it not. tentatively and errantly cast itself! The 
 1 higher Enthusiasm of man's nature is for the while without Ex- 
 1 ponent ; 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 
 1 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 suck. 
 ' moon-calves and monstrosities are best generated. Among the 
 1 newer Sects of that country, one of the most notable, and closely 
 ' connected with our present subject, is that of the J)aiuli.p.s • _g on- 
 1 cerning which, what little information I have been able to pro- 
 ' cure 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 
 1 were perhaps rather a Secular Sect, and not a Religious one : 
 ' nevertheless, to the psychologic eye its devotional and even 
 ' sacrificial character plainly enough reveals itself. Whether it 
 ' belongs to the class of Fetish-worships, or of Hero-worships or 
 ' Polytheisms, or to what other class, may in the present state of 
 ' our intelligence remain undecided [schweben). A certain touch 
 1 of Manicheism, not indeed in the Gnostic shape, is discernible 
 ' enough : also (for human Error walks in a cycle, and reappears 
 1 at intervals) a not inconsiderable resemblance to that Supersti- 
 ' tion 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, StJJ^JKaj^llill ; which Zer- 
 ' dusht, Quangfoutchee, Mohamed, 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, 
 
THE DANDIACAL DODY. 217 
 
 \ or a new figure of Demon-Worshi] 
 'ble, no objection. 
 
 ' For the rest, these people, animated wrTn^HWeal of a new 
 1 Sect, display courage and perseverance, and what force there is 
 ' in man's nature, though never so enslaved. They affect great 
 1 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 
 1 (apparently some broken IAngua-Jmnca, or English-French) ; 
 ' and. on the whole, strive to maintain a true Nazarene deport- 
 ' ment, 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 Almactfs, 
 i a word of uncertain etymology. They worship principally by 
 ' night : and have their Highpriests and Highpriestesses, who, 
 ' however, do not continue for life. The rites, by some supposed 
 ' to be of the Menadic sort, or perhaps with an Eleusinian or 
 ' Cabiric character, are held strictly secret. Nor are Sacred 
 'Books wanting to the Sect ; these they call Fashionable Xovels : 
 1 however, the Canon is not completed, and some are canonical 
 ' and others not. 
 
 ' Of such Sacred Books I, not without expense, procured my- 
 1 self some samples ; and in hope of true insight, and with the 
 ' zeal which beseems an Inquirer into Clothes, set to interpret 
 1 and study them. But wholly to no purpose : that tough faculty 
 ' of reading, for which the world will not refuse me credit, was 
 ' here for the first time foiled and set at naught In vain that I 
 ' summoned my whole energies [mich weidlich anstrengte). and did 
 ' my very utmost ; at the end of some short space, I was uni- 
 ' formly seized with not so much what I can call a drumming in 
 t my ears, as a kind of infinite, unsufferable Jew's-harping and 
 : scrannel-piping there : to which the frightfulest species of Mag- 
 ' netic Sleep soon supervened. And if I strove to shake this 
 ' away, and absolutely would not yield, came a hitherto unfelt 
 i sensation, as of Delirium. Tremens, and a melting into total deli- 
 1 quium : 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. 
 
 10 
 
218 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' Was there some miracle ^fr'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, 
 1 yet the completest I could give of a Sect too singular to be 
 ' omitted. 
 
 ' Loving my own life and senses as I do, no power shall induce 
 'me, as a private individual, to open another Fashionable Novel. 
 ' But luckily, in this dilemma, comes a hand from the clouds ; 
 ' whereby if not victory, deliverance is held out to me. Round one 
 ' of those Book-packages, which the StiUsckweigen'sche Buchhand- 
 1 lung is in the habit of importing from England, come, as is 
 ' usual, various waste printed-sheets (macalatur-bldtter), by way of 
 ' interior wrappage : into these the Clothes-Philosopher, with a 
 ' certain Mohamedan reverence even for waste paper, where curi- 
 ' ous knowledge will sometimes hover, disdains not to cast his eye. 
 ' Readers may judge of his astonishment when on such a defaced 
 ' stray sheet, probably the outcast fraction of some English 
 ' Periodical, such as they name Magazine, appears something like 
 'a Dissertation on this very subject of Fashionable Novels I It 
 ' sets out, indeed, chiefly from the Secular point of view ; direct- 
 ' ing itself, not without asperity, against some to me unknown 
 ' individual, named Pelharfy 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. Never- 
 ' theless, scattered lights do from time to time sparkle out, where- 
 ' by I have endeavoured to profit. Nay, in one passage selected 
 
 • from the Prophecies, or Mythic Theogonies, or whatever they 
 'are (tor the style seems very mixed) of this Mystagogue, I find 
 'what appears to be a Confession of Faith, or Whole Dnty 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 lav before the German world ; there- 
 •with taking leave of this matter. Observe, also, that to avoid 
 
TH£ DANDIACAL BODY. 219 
 
 ' possibility of error, I, as far as may be, quote literally from the 
 1 Original : 
 
 'articles of faith. 
 
 u 1. Coats should have nothing of the triangle about them ; at 
 ' the same time, wrinkles behind should be carefully avoided. 
 
 " 2. The collar is a very important point : it should be low be- 
 ' hind, and slightly rolled. 
 
 " 3. No license of fashion can allow a man of delicate taste to 
 ' adopt the posterial luxuriance of a Hottentot. 
 
 " 4. There is safety in a swallow-tail. 
 
 " 5. The good sense of a gentleman is nowhere more finely de- 
 { veloped than in his rings. 
 
 " 6. It is permitted to mankind, under certain restrictions, to 
 ' wear white waistcoats. 
 
 " 7. The trowsers must be exceedingly tight across the hips." 
 
 1 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 
 1 chief seat still is ; but known also in the main Island, and in- 
 ' deed everywhere rapidly spreading. As this Sect has hitherto 
 1 emitted no Canonical Books, it remains to me in the same state 
 J of obscurity as the Dandiacal, which has published Books that 
 ' the unassisted human faculties are inadequate to read. The 
 ' members appear to be designated by a considerable diversity of 
 ' names, according to their various places of establishment : in 
 ' England they are generally called the Drudge Sect ; also, un- 
 ' philosophically enough, the While Negroes ; and, chiefly in 
 i scorn by those of other communions, the Ragged- Beggar Sect. 
 ' In Scotland, again, I find them entitled Rallanshakers, or the 
 ' Slook-of-Duds Sect ; any individual communicant is named 
 ' Stook-of-Dnds (that is, Shock of Rags), in allusion, doubtless, to 
 1 their professional Costume. While in Ireland, which, as men- 
 1 tioned, is their grand parent hive, they go by a perplexing mul- 
 ' tiplicity of designations, such as Bogtrotters, Redshanks, Ribbon- 
 
220 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' men, Cottiers, Pecp-of-Day Boys, Babes in the Wood, Rockites, 
 1 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 
 1 offsets from the parent stem, whose minute subdivisions, and 
 1 shades of difference, it were here loss of time to dwell on. 
 1 Enough for us to understand, what seems indubitable, that the 
 ' original Sect is that of the Poor- blares; whose doctrines, practi- 
 ' ces, 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 the Man, and Man's Life, picture themselves to 
 ' the mind of an Irish Poor-Slave ; with what feelings and opin- 
 ' ions 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 Obe- 
 ' dience ; which Vows, especially the former, it is said, they ob- 
 ' serve with great strictness ; nay. as I have understood it, they 
 1 are pledged, and be it by any solemn Nazarene ordination or 
 
 I not, irrevocably consecrated thereto, even before birth. That the 
 ' third Monastic Vow, of Chastity, is rigidly enforced among them, 
 
 I I find no ground to conjecture. 
 
 1 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 
 1 all cloths and of all colours ; through the labyriuthic intricacies 
 1 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 
 1 with partial brim, without crown, or with only a loose, hinged, 
 1 or valve crown ; in the former case, they sometimes invert the 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 221 
 
 ' 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 con- 
 ' tinually in her bosom ; or else, shut up in private Oratories, 
 ' meditate and manipulate the substances derived from her ; sel- 
 1 dom looking up towards the Heavenly Luminaries, and then 
 1 with comparative indifference. Like the Druids, on the other 
 t hand, they live in dark dwellings ; often even breaking their 
 ' glass-windows, where they find such, and stuffing them up with 
 1 pieces of raiment, or other opaque substances, till the fit obscu- 
 1 rity is restored. Again, like all followers of Nature-Worship, 
 ' they are liable to outbreakings of an enthusiasm rising to fero- 
 1 city ; and burn men, if not in wicker idols, yet in sod cottages. 
 
 ' In respect of diet, they have also their observances. All 
 1 Poor-Slaves are Rhizophagous (or Root-eaters) ; a few are Ich- 
 ' thyophagous, and use Salted Herrings : other animal food they 
 ' abstain from ; except indeed, with perhaps some strange invert- 
 ' ed fragment of a Brahminical feeling, such animals as die a 
 ' natural death. Their universal sustenance is the root named 
 ' Potato, cooked by fire alone ; and generally without condiment 
 ' or relish of any kind, save an unknown condiment named Point, 
 '' into the meaning of which I have vainly inquired : the victual 
 ' Potatoes-and- Point not appearing, at least not with specific ac- 
 f curacy of description, in any European Cookery-Book whatever. 
 ' For drink they use, with an almost epigrammatic counterpoise 
 ' of taste, Milk, which is the mildest of liquors, and Potheen, which 
 ' is the fiercest. This latter I have tasted, as well as the English 
 ' Blue-Ruin, and the Scotch Whisky, analogous fluids used by the 
 ' Sect in those countries : it evidently contains some form of al- 
 1 cohol, in the highest state of concentration, though disguised 
 ' with acrid oils : and is, on the whole, the most pungent substance 
 ' known to me, — indeed, a perfect liquid fire. In all their Reli- 
 ' gious Solemnities, Potheen is said to be an indispensable requi- 
 ' site, and largely consumed. 
 
222 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' An Irish Traveller, of perhaps common veracity, who presents 
 < himself under the to me unmeaning title of The late John Ber- 
 ' nard, 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 
 1 picture of a Dandiacal Household, painted by that same Dandi- 
 ' acal 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 : 
 ' u 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 
 1 sitting at the top, the mother at bottom, the children on each 
 ' side of a large oaken Board which was scooped out in the mid- 
 ' die, like a Trough, to receive the contents of their Pot of Pota- 
 ' toes. Little holes were cut at equal distances to contain Salt ; 
 ' and a bowl of Milk stood on the table : all the luxuries of meat 
 ' and beer, bread, knives, and dishes were dispensed with." The 
 ' Poor-Slave himself our Traveller found, as he Bays, broad-backed. 
 'black-browed, of great personal strength, and mouth from ear to 
 1 car. 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 lleligious 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 : " A Dressing-room splendidly furnished ; 
 ' violet-coloured curtains, chairs and ottomans of the same hue. 
 ' Two full-length Mirrors are placed, one on each side of a table, 
 1 which supports the luxuries of the Toilet. Several Bottles of 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 223 
 
 1 Perfumes, arranged in a peculiar fashion, stand upon a smaller 
 ' table of mother-of-pearl : opposite to these are placed the appur- 
 ' tenances of Lavation richly wrought in frosted silver. A Ward- 
 ' robe of Buhl is on the left ; the doors of which being partly 
 ' open discover a profusion of Clothes ; Shoes of a singularly small 
 ' size monopolise the lower shelves. Fronting the wardrobe a 
 ' door ajar gives some slight glimpse of a Bath-room. Folding- 
 ' doors in the back-ground. — Enter the Author," our Theogonist 
 1 in person, " obsequiously preceded by a French Valet, in white 
 ' silk Jacket and cambric Apron." 
 
 [ SuchjysUkh&JtaJito the 
 
 1 more unsettled portion of the British People . ; and agitate that 
 ' eyer-yexed^ country. To the eye of the political Seer, their niu- 
 ' tual relation, pregnant with the elements of discord and hostil- 
 ' ity. is far from consoling. These two principles of Dandiacal 
 1 Self-worship or Demon-worship, and Poor-Slavish or Drudgical 
 1 Earth-worship, or whatever that same Drudgism may be, do as 
 ' yet indeed manifest themselves under distant and nowise con- 
 ' siderable shapes : nevertheless, in their roots and subterranean 
 ' ramifications, they extend through the entire structure of Soci- 
 ' ety, and work unweariedly in the secret depths of English na- 
 ' tional Existence ; striving to separate and isolate it into two 
 ' contradictory, uncommunicating masses. 
 
 ' In numbers, and even individual strength, the Poor-Slaves or 
 1 Drudges, it would seem, are hourly increasing. The Dandiacal, 
 ' again, is by nature no proselytising Sect ; but it boasts of great 
 1 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, 
 1 indeed, there were to arise a Communion of Drudges, as there is 
 1 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 prac- 
 1 ticaljy seen which ought to look down, and which up, is not so 
 1 dist ant. t 
 
 1 To me it seems probable that the two Sects will one day part 
 ' England between them ; each recruiting itself from the inter- 
 
224 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' mediate ranks, till there be none left to enlist on either side. 
 ; Th'ise Dandiacal Manieheans. with the host of Dandyising 
 1 Christians, wil l form on e body : the Drudges, gathering round 
 1 tbjem whosoever is Drudgical, be he Christian or Infidel Pagan ; 
 1 sweeping up likewise all manner of Utilitarians, Radicals, re- 
 ' fractory Potwalloppers, and so forth, into their general mass, 
 ' will form another. I could liken Dandyism and Drudgism to 
 1 two bottomless boiling Whirlpools that had broken out on oppo- 
 ' site quarters of the firm land : as yet they appear only disqui- 
 ' eted, foolishly bubbling wells, which man's art might cover in ; 
 ' yet mark them, their diameter is daily widening ; they arc hol- 
 ' low Cones that boil up from the infinite Deep, over which your 
 1 firm land is but a thin crust or rind ! Thus daily is the inter- 
 1 mediate 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 
 1 — we have the true Hell of Waters, and Noah's Deluge is out- 
 ' deluged ! 
 
 ' Or better, I might call them two boundless, and indeed unex- 
 'ampled Electric Machines (turned by the "Machinery of Soci- 
 ' ety,"), with batteries of opposite quality ; Drudgism the Nega- 
 ' tive, 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 
 ' Sanger); and stands there bottled ap in two World-Batteries] 
 ' The stirring of a child's finger brings the two together : and 
 ' then — What then? The Earth is but shivered into impalpable 
 ' smoke by that Doom's-thunderpeal ; the Sun misses one of his 
 1 Planets in Space, and thenceforth there are no eclipses of the 
 ' Moon. — Or better .still. 1 might liken' 
 
 Oh! enough, enough of likenings and similitudes; in excess of 
 which, truly, it is hard to say whether Teufelsdrockh or ourselves 
 sin the more. 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 225 
 
 We have often blamed him for a habit of wire-drawing and 
 over-refining : from of old we have been familiar with his ten- 
 dency to Mysticism and Religiosity, whereby in every thing he 
 was still scenting out Religion : but never perhaps did these 
 amaurosis-suffusions so cloud and distort his otherwise most 
 piercing vision, as in this of the Dandiacal Body! Or was there 
 something of intended satire : is the Professor and Seer not quite 
 the blinkard he affects to be ? Of an ordinary mortal we should 
 have decisively answered in the affirmative ; but with a Teufels- 
 drockh 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 Profes- 
 sor take us for simpletons % His irony has overshot itself ; we 
 sot \hrough it, and perhaps through him. 
 
 11* 
 
226 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 TAILORS. 
 
 Thus, however, has our first Practical Inference from the 
 Clothes-Philosophy, that which respects Dandies, been sufficiently 
 drawn ; and we come now to the second, concerning Tailors. On 
 this latter our opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teu- 
 felsdrockh himself, as expressed in the concluding page of his 
 Volume ; to whom therefore we willingly give place. Let him 
 speak his own last words, in his own way : 
 
 ' Upwards of a century,' says he, ' must elapse, and still the 
 ' bleeding fight of Freedom be fought, whoso is noblest perishing 
 ' in the van, and thrones be hurled on altars like Pelion on Ossa, 
 ' and the Moloch of Iniquity have his victims, and the Michael of 
 ' Justice his martyrs, before Tailors can be admitted to their true 
 1 prerogatives of manhood, and this last wound of suffering Hu- 
 1 manity 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 
 'but fractional Parts of a Man. Call any one a Schneider (Cut. 
 ' ter, Tailor), is it not, in our dislocated, hoodwinked, and indeed 
 'delirious condition of Society, equivalent to defying his per- 
 ' petual fellest enmity ? The epithet Schneidermdssig (Tailor-like) 
 ' betokens an otherwise unapproachable degree of pusillanimity : 
 'we introduce a Tailor's-Mela nr holy, more opprobrious than any 
 ' Leprosy, into our Books of Medicine ; and fable I know not 
 ' what of his generating it by living on Cabbage. Why should I 
 'speak of Hans Sachs (himself a Shoemaker, or kind of Leather- 
 ' Tailor), with his Schneider mit dem Panic r? Why of Shak- 
 
TAILORS. 227 
 
 ' speare, in his Taming of the Shrew, and elsewhere? Does it not 
 ' stand on record that the English Queen Elizabeth, receiving a 
 ' deputation of Eighteen Tailors, addressed them with a "Good 
 ; morning, gentlemen both !" Did not the same virago boast that 
 1 she had a Cavalry Regiment, whereof neither horse nor man 
 1 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, 
 1 whether it is disputable or not ? Seems it not at least presuma-. 
 [ ble, that, under his Clothes, the Tailor has bones, and viscera, 
 ' and other muscles than the sartorius ? Which function of man- 
 'hood is the Tailor not conjectured to perform? Can he not 
 1 arrest for debt ? Is he not in most countries a tax-paying 
 ' animal ? 
 
 1 To no reader of this Volume can it be doubtful which convic- 
 ' tion 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:' 1 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 Noble- 
 ' man, and clothed not only with Wool but with Dignity and a 
 1 Mystic Dominion, — is not the fair fabric of Society itself, with 
 1 all its royal mantles and pontifical stoles, whereby, from naked- 
 ' ness and dismemberment, we are organised into Polities, into 
 ' nations, and a whole co-operating Mankind, the creation, as has 
 ' here been often irrefragably evinced, of the Tailor alone? — 
 ' What too are all Poets, and moral Teachers, but a species of 
 ' Metaphorical Tailors ? Touching which high Guild the great- 
 ' est 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 V 1 
 
 ' And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the hard basis of 
 
228 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' Lis Shopboard, the world treats with contumely, as the ninth 
 1 part of a man ! Look up, thou much-injured one, look up with 
 1 the kindling eye of hope, and prophetic codings of a nobler bet- 
 ' ter time. Too long hast thou sat there, on crossed legs, wearing 
 ' thy ancle-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 recognise that the Tailor is its Hierophant, and Hier- 
 ' arch, 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/Si< inn ah ASTRA. Was not this the martyr prison- 
 1 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 for ever venerable. 
 
 ' Neither, perhaps, may I new say. lias his appeal been altoge- 
 ' ther 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.' 
 
FAREWELL. 229 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FAREWELL. 
 
 So have we endeavoured, from the enormous, amorphous Plum- 
 pudding, more like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdrockh 
 had kneaded for his fellow mortals, to pick out the choicest 
 Plums, and present them separately on a cover of our own. A 
 laborious, perhaps a thankless enterprise ; in which, however, 
 something of hope has occasionally cheered us, and of which we 
 can now wash our hands not altogether without satisfaction. If 
 hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morsel of spiritual nourish- 
 ment have been added to the scanty ration of our beloved British 
 world, what nobler recompense could the Editor desire ? If it 
 prove otherwise, why should he murmur ? Was not this a Task 
 which Destiny, in any case, had appointed him ; which having 
 now done with, he sees his general Day's-work so much the lighter, 
 so much the shorter ? 
 
 Of Professor Teufelsdrockh it seems impossible to take leave 
 without a mingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude and disap- 
 proval. 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 dia- 
 mond-necklaces are nowise the sole conquests ? Regret is una- 
 voidable ; yet censure were loss of time. To cure him of his mad 
 humours British Criticism would essay in vain : enough for her 
 if she can, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among our- 
 selves. What a result, should this piebald, entangled, hyper-met- 
 aphorical style of writing, not to say of thinking, become general 
 among our Literary men ! As it might so easily do. Thus has 
 not the Editor himself, working over Teufelsdrockh's German, 
 
230 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 shews 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 
 Scytheman, shall be welcome. 
 
 Still the question returns on us : How could a man occasion- 
 ally 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 charac- 
 teristic vehemence to paint this and the other Picture, and ever 
 without success, he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of 
 all colours, against the canvass, to try whether it will paint Foam? 
 With all his stillness, there were perhaps in Teufelsdrockh des- 
 peration enough for this. 
 
 A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is 
 that Teufelsdrockh is not without some touch of the universal 
 feeling, a wish to proselytise. 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 : 
 
FAREWELL. 231 
 
 1 How were Friendship possible 9 In mutual devotedness to the 
 1 Good and True : otherwise impossible ; except as Armed Neu- 
 ' trality, 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 sin- 
 'gly 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 immeas- 
 'urable Fantoms, Hypocrisy and Atheism, with the Gowle, 
 ' 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 awestruck Wakeful who find it a Reality % 
 Should not these unite ; since even an authentic Spectre is not 
 visible to Two 1 — In which case were this enormous Clothes- Vol- 
 ume properly an enormous Pitchpan, which our Teufelsdrockh 
 in his lone watchtower had kindled, that it might flame far and 
 wide through the Night, and many a disconsolately wandering 
 spirit be guided thither to a Brother's bosom ! — We say as be- 
 fore, with all his malign Indifference, who knows what mad Hopes 
 this man may harbour ? 
 
 Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmon- 
 ises ill with such conjecture ; and, indeed, were Teufelsdrockh 
 made like other men, might as good as altogether subvert it. 
 Namely, that while the Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the 
 Watchman had quitted it ; that no pilgrim could now ask him : 
 Watchman, what of the Night ? Professor Teufelsdrockh, be it 
 known, is no longer visibly present at Weissnichtwo, but again to 
 all appearance lost in Space ! Some time ago, the Hofrath Heu- 
 schrecke was pleased to favour us with another copious Epistle ; 
 wherein much is said about the ' Population-Institute ;' much re- 
 peated in praise of the Paperbag Documents, the hieroglyphic 
 nature of which our Hofrath still seems not to have surmised ; 
 and, lastly, the strangest occurrence communicated, to us for the 
 first time, in the following paragraph : 
 
 ^Ew. Wohlgebohren will have seen, from the public Prints, with 
 
232 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ' what affectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo 
 i 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 Leischen experiences or affects the pro- 
 1 foundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance : in the Wahn- 
 1 gasse 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 mouth, and dinned 
 ' every ear in Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdrockh was not known, 
 ' at the Ganse or elsewhere, to have spoken, for a whole week, 
 < any syllable except once these three : Es geht an (It is begin- 
 ' ning). Shortly after, as Eic. Wohlgebohren knows, was the pub- 
 ' lie tranquillity here, as in Berlin, threatened by a Sedition of 
 1 the Tailors. For did there want Evil-wishers, or perhaps mere 
 ' desperate Alarmist, who asserted that the closing Chapter of 
 ' the Clothes- Volume was to blame. In this appalling crisis, the 
 ' serenity of our Philosopher was indescribable : nay, perhaps, 
 ' through one humble individual, something thereof might pass 
 ' into the Rath (Council) itself, and so contribute to the country's 
 1 deliverance. The Tailors are now entirely pacificated. — To nei- 
 ' ther of these two incidents can I attribute our loss : yet still 
 ' comes there the shadow of a suspicion out of Paris and its Pol- 
 ' itics. For example, when the Saint-Stmoiiian Society transmit- 
 ' ted its Propositions hither, and the whole Ganse was one vast 
 ' cackle of laughter, lamentation, and astonishment, our Sage sat 
 ' mute ; and at the end of the third evening, said merely : " Here 
 1 also are men who have discovered, not without amazement, that 
 ' Man is still Man : of which high, long-forgotten Truth you al- 
 ' ready 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 Mes- 
 ' sieurs Bazard-Enfantin and our Professor himself; of what 
 ' tenor can now only be conjectured. On the fifth night follow- 
 ' ingj he was seen for the last time ! 
 
 1 Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the hostile 
 ' Sects that convulse our Era, been spirited away by certain of 
 
 • 
 
FAREWELL. 233 
 
 1 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, must his archives, one 
 ' day, be opened by Authority ; where much, perhaps the Pal'm- 
 ' geacsie itself, is thought to be reposited.' 
 
 Thus far the Hofrath ; who vanishes, as is his wont, too like an 
 Ignis Fatuus, leaving the dark still darker. 
 
 So that Teufelsdrockh's public History were not done, then, or 
 reduced to an even, unromantic tenor ; nay, perhaps, the better 
 part thereof were only beginning? We stand in a region of 
 conjectures, where substance has melted into shadow, and one 
 cannot be distinguished from the other. May Time, which solves 
 or suppresses all problems, throw glad light on this also ! Our 
 own private conjecture, now amounting almost to certainty, is 
 that, safe-moored in some stillest obscurity, not to lie always 
 still, Teufelsdrockh is actually in London ! 
 
 Here, however, can the present Editor, with an ambrosial joy 
 as of over-weariness falling into sleep, lay down his pen. Well 
 does he know, if human testimony be worth aught, that to innu- 
 merable British readers likewise, this is a satisfying consummation ; 
 that innumerable British readers consider him, during these cur- 
 rent months, but as an uneasy interruption to their ways of 
 thought and digestion ; and indicate so much, not without a cer- 
 tain irritancy and even spoken invective. For which, as for other 
 mercies, ought he not to thank the Upper Powers ? To one and 
 all of you, irritated readers, he, with outstretched arms and 
 open heart, will wave a kind farewell. Thou too, miraculous Enti- 
 ty, who namest thyself Yorke and Liver, and with thy vivacities 
 and genialities, with thy all too Irish mirth and madness, and 
 odour of palled punch, makest such strange work, farewell ; long 
 as thou canst, f&Te-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 1 
 

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 TO—^ 150 Main Library 642-4481 
 
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 1 DAY 
 
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 RESERVE 
 
 Books are OVERDUE if not returned or renewed by the HOUR (where indicated) 
 2 HOUR books may not be renewed by telephone. Return only to HGS. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 $0>?O'88-4PM 
 
 
 OCTl '88 -4 P 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 FORM NO. DD17A, 7m 3/78 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 
 
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