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 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
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 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: JAMES KAY, JUN. & BROTHER. 
 
 PITTSBURGH : JOHN I. KAY & CO. 
 
 MDCCCXXXVII. 
 

 
 X 
 
 fl 
 
 -p. 
 
 
9L 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 3/ 
 
 OF THE AMERICAN EDITORS. 
 
 The Editors have been induced, by the expressed 
 desire of many persons, to collect the following 
 sheets out of the ephemeral pamphlets* in which 
 they first appeared, under the conviction that 
 they contain in themselves the assurance of a 
 longer date. 
 
 The Editors have no expectation that this little 
 work will have a sudden and general popularity. 
 They will not undertake, as there is no need, to 
 justify the gay costume in which the Author de- 
 lights to dress his thoughts, or the German idioms 
 with which he has sportively sprinkled his pages. 
 It is his humor to advance the gravest speculations 
 upon the gravest topics in a quaint and burlesque 
 style. If his masquerade offend any of his audience, 
 to that degree that they will not hear what he has 
 to say, it may chance to draw others to listen to his 
 wisdom ; and what work of imagination can hope to 
 please all ? But we will venture to remark that 
 the distaste excited by these peculiarities, in some 
 
 * Fraser's (London) Magazine, 1833-4. 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 readers, is greatest at first, and is soon forgotten ; 
 and that the foreign dress and aspect of the work 
 are quite superficial, and cover a genuine Saxon 
 heart. We believe, no book has been published 
 for many years, written in a more sincere style of 
 idiomatic English, or which discovers an equal 
 mastery over all the riches of the language. The 
 author makes ample amends for the occasional 
 eccentricity of his genius, not only by frequent 
 bursts of pure splendor, but by the wit and sense 
 which never fail him. 
 
 But what will chiefly commend the book to the 
 discerning reader is the manifest design of the 
 work, which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit of the 
 Age, — we had almost said, of the hour, in which 
 we live ; exhibiting, in the most just and novel 
 light, the present aspects of Religion, Politics, 
 Literature, Arts, and Social Life. Under all his 
 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. 
 
 Boston, March, 1836. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 
 
 
 Page 
 Chap. I. — Preliminary . . , . . . 7 
 
 Chap. II. — Editorial Difficulties 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 Chap. III. — Reminiscences 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 Chap. IV. — Characteristics 
 
 
 
 32. 
 
 Chap. V.— The World in Clothes 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Chap. VI. — Aprons .... 
 
 
 
 47 
 
 Chap. VII. — Miscellaneous-Historical . 
 
 
 
 51 
 
 Chap. VIII.— The World out of Clothes 
 
 
 
 56 
 
 Chap. IX. — Adamitism 
 
 
 
 63 
 
 Chap. X. — Pure Reason .... 
 
 
 
 68 
 
 Chap. XL — Prospective .... 
 
 
 
 75 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Chap. I. — Genesis ....... 86 
 
 Chap. II.— Idyllic 95 
 
 Chap. III.— Pedagogy 106 
 
 Chap. IV. — Getting under Way . . . .125 
 
 Chap. V. — Romance ....... 140 
 
 1* 
 
6 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Chap. 
 
 VI. — Sorrows of Teufelsdrdckh . . . 155 
 
 Chap. 
 
 VII.— The Everlasting No 
 
 
 
 167 
 
 Chap. 
 
 VIII. — Centre of Indifference 
 
 
 
 176 
 
 Chap. 
 
 IX.— The Everlasting Yea 
 
 
 
 189 
 
 Chap. 
 
 X. — Pause .... 
 
 
 
 203 
 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Chap. 
 
 I. — Incident in Modern History . . . 212 
 
 Chap. 
 
 II.— Church Clothes 
 
 
 
 218 
 
 Chap. 
 
 III.— Symbols 
 
 
 
 . 222 
 
 Chap. 
 
 IV.— Helotage 
 
 
 
 • 230 
 
 Chap. 
 
 V.— The Phenix 
 
 
 
 . 235 
 
 Chap. 
 
 VI.— Old Clothes 
 
 
 
 . 242 
 
 Chap. 
 
 VII. — Organic Filaments . 
 
 
 
 . 248 
 
 Chap. 
 
 VIII. — Natural Supernaturalism 
 
 
 
 . 258 
 
 Chap. 
 
 IX. — Circumspective 
 
 
 
 271 
 
 Chap. 
 
 X.— The Dandiacal Body 
 
 
 
 . 275 
 
 Chap. 
 
 XL— Tailors .... 
 
 
 
 . 289 
 
 Chap. 
 
 XII.— Farewell 
 
 
 
 . 296 
 
SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 CHAPTER J. 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 Considering our present advanced state of culture, 
 and how the torch of science has now been brand- 
 ished 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 rush-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 fundamental character, 
 whether in the way of philosophy or history, has been 
 written on the subject of Clothes. 
 
 Our Theory of Gravitation is as good as perfect. 
 Lagrange, it is well known, has proved that the plane- 
 tary 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. 
 
8 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Whereby, at least, our nautical logbooks can be better 
 kept ; and water- transport of all kinds has grown more 
 commodious. Of Geology and Geognosy we know 
 enough. What with the labors of our Werners 
 and Huttons, what with the ardent genius of their 
 disciples, it has come about that now, to many a Royal 
 Society, the creation of a world is little more myste- 
 rious than the cooking of a dumpling ; concerning 
 which last, indeed, there have been minds to whom 
 the question, How the apples were got in, presented 
 difficulties. Why mention our disquisitions on the 
 Social Contract, on the Standard of Taste, on the 
 Migrations of the Herring? Then, have we not a 
 Doctrine of Rent, a Theory of Value; Philosophies 
 of Language, of History, of Pottery, of Apparitions, 
 of Intoxicating Liquors? Man's whole life and envi- 
 ronment have been laid open and elucidated ; scarcely 
 a fragment or fibre of his soul, body, and possessions, 
 but has been probed, dissected, distilled, desiccated, 
 and scientifically decomposed ; our spiritual faculties, 
 of which it appears there are not a few, have their 
 Stewarts, Cousins, Royer Collards; every cellular, 
 vascular, muscular tissue glories in its Lawrences, 
 Majendies, Bichats. 
 
 How, then, comes it, may the reflective mind repeat, 
 that the grand Tissue of all Tissues, the only real 
 Tissue, should have been quite overlooked by Science 
 — The vestural Tissue, namely, of woollen or other 
 Cloth ; which man's Soul wears as its outmost 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 
 
PRELIMINARY. 9 
 
 if, now and then, some straggling broken- winged 
 thinker has cast an owl's glance into this obscure 
 region, the most have soared over it altogether heed- 
 less ; regarding Clothes as a property, not an accident, 
 as quite natural and spontaneous, like the leaves of 
 trees, like the plumage of birds. In all speculations 
 they have tacitly figured man as a Clothed Animal; 
 whereas he is by nature a Naked Animal ; and only 
 in certain circumstances, by purpose and device, masks 
 himself in Clothes. Shakspeare says, we are creatures 
 that look before and after ; the more surprising that 
 we do not look round a little, and see what is passing 
 under our very eyes. 
 
 But here, as in so many other cases, Germany, 
 learned, indefatigable, deep-thinking Germany comes 
 to our aid. It is, after all, a blessing that,»in these 
 revolutionary times, there should be one country where 
 abstract Thought can still take shelter; that while 
 the din and frenzy of Catholic Emancipations, and 
 Rotten Boroughs, and Revolts of Paris, deafen every 
 French and every English ear, the German can stand 
 peaceful on his scientific watchtower; and, to the 
 raging, struggling multitude here and elsewhere, sol- 
 emnly from hour to hour, with preparatory blast of 
 cowhorn, emit his Horet ihr Her r en und lassefs Euch 
 sagen ; in other words, tell the universe, which so 
 often forgets that fact, what o'clock it really is. Not 
 unfrequently the Germans have been blamed for an 
 unprofitable diligence; as if they struck into devious 
 courses, where nothing was to be had but the toil of a 
 rough journey; as if, forsaking the gold-mines of 
 finance, and that political slaughter of fat oxen 
 
10 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 whereby a man himself grows fat, they were apt to 
 run goose-hunting into regions of bilberries and crow- 
 berries, and be swallowed up at last in remote peat- 
 bogs. Of that unwise science, which, as our Humorist 
 expresses it, 
 
 " By geometric scale 
 Doth take the size of pots of ale," 
 
 still more, of that altogether misdirected industry, 
 which is seen vigorously enough thrashing mere straw, 
 there can nothing defensive be said. In so far as the 
 Germans are chargeable with such, let them take the 
 consequence. Nevertheless be it remarked, that even 
 a Russian steppe has tumuli and gold ornaments : 
 also many a scene that looks desert and rock-bound 
 from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited, into 
 rare valleys. Nay, in any case, would Criticism erect 
 not only fingerposts and turnpikes, but spiked gates 
 and impassable barriers, for the mind of man ! It is 
 written, " Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge 
 shall be increased." Surely the plain rule is, Let 
 each considerate person have his way, and see what it 
 will lead to. For not this man and that man, but all 
 men make up mankind, and their united tasks the 
 task of mankind. How often have we seen some such 
 adventurous, and perhaps much censured wanderer 
 light on some outlying, neglected, yet vitally momen- 
 tous 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 aim- 
 less rambles, planting new standards, founding new 
 habitable colonies, in the immeasurable circumam- 
 
PRELIMINARY. 1 1 
 
 bient realm of Nothingness and Night ! Wise man 
 was he who counselled that Speculation should have 
 free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty- 
 two points of the compass, whithersoever and how- 
 soever it listed. 
 
 Perhaps it is proof of the stinted condition in which 
 pure science, especially pure moral science, lan- 
 guishes among us English ; and how our mercantile 
 greatness, and invaluable Constitution, impressing a 
 political or other immediately practical tendency on 
 all English culture and endeavour, cramp the free 
 flight of Thought, — that this, not Philosophy of 
 Clothes, but recognition even that we have no such 
 Philosophy, stands here for the first time published in 
 our language. What English intellect could have 
 chosen such a topic, or by chance stumbled on it? 
 But for that same unshackled and even sequestered 
 condition of the German Learned, which permits and 
 induces them to fish in all manner of waters, with 
 all manner of nets, it seems probable enough, this ab- 
 struse Inquiry might, in spite of the results it leads to, 
 have continued dormant for indefinite periods. The 
 Editor of these sheets, though otherwise boasting 
 himself a man of confirmed speculative habits, and 
 perhaps discussive 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 ; treat- 
 ing expressly of this subject; and in a style which, 
 
12 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 ac6eded to, or judicially denied, 
 has not remained without effect. 
 
 "Die Kleider ihr Werden und Wirken (Clothes, 
 their Origin and Influence) : von Diog. Teufelsdrockh, 
 J. U. JD. etc. Stillschweigen und Cos nie - Weissnicht- 
 wo, 1833. 
 
 " Here," says the TVeissnichtwo' sche Anzeiger, 
 "comes a volume, of that extensive, close-printed, 
 elose-meditated sort, which, be it spoken with pride, 
 is seen only in Germany, perhaps only in Weissnicht- 
 wo ; issuing from the hitherto irreproachable firm of 
 Stillschweigen and Company, with every external 
 furtherance, it is of such internal quality as to set 
 neglect at defiance." »...*■-♦ "A work," 
 concludes the well nigh enthusiastic Reviewer, " in- 
 teresting alike to the antiquary, the historian, and the 
 philosophic thinker; a masterpiece of boldness, lynx- 
 eyed acuteness, and rugged, independent Germanism 
 and philanthropy (derben Kerndeutscheit und Men- 
 schenliebe) ; which will not, assuredly, pass current 
 without opposition in high places ; but must and will 
 exalt the almost new name of Teufelsdrockh to the 
 first ranks of philosophy, in our German Temple of 
 Honor." 
 
 Mindful of old friendship, the distinguished Profes- 
 sor, 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 
 modestly forbids the present Editor to rehearse ; yet 
 
EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 13 
 
 without indicated wish or hope of any kind, except 
 what may be implied in the concluding phrase ; Mochte 
 es (this remarkable treatise) auch im Brittischen 
 JBoden gedeihen ! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 If for a speculative man, " whose seedfield," in the 
 sublime words of the Poet, "is Time," no conquest 
 is important but that of new Ideas, then might the 
 arrival of Professor Teufelsdrockh's book be marked 
 with chalk in the Editor's calendar. It is indeed an 
 "extensive volume," of boundless, almost formless 
 contents, a very Sea of Thought; neither calm nor 
 clear, if you will ; yet wherein the toughest pearl-diver 
 may dive to his utmost depth, and return not only with 
 seawreck but with true orients. 
 
 Directly on the first perusal, almost on the first 
 deliberate inspection, it became apparent that here a 
 quite new branch of philosophy, leading to as yet 
 undescried ulterior results, was disclosed; farther, 
 what seemed scarcely less interesting, a quite new 
 human individuality, an almost unexampled personal 
 character, that, namely, of Professor Teufelsdrockh, 
 the discloser. Of both which novelties, as far as 
 might be possible, we resolved to master the signifi- 
 cance. But as man is emphatically a proselytising 
 creature, no sooner was such mastery even fairly 
 
 2 
 
14 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 attempted, than the new question arose: How might 
 this acquired good be imparted to others, perhaps in 
 equal need thereof; how could the Philosophy of 
 Clothes and the author of such Philosophy be brought 
 home, in any measure, to the business and bosoms of 
 our own English nation? For if new-got gold is said 
 to burn the pockets till it be cast forth into circulation, 
 much more may new truth. 
 
 Here, however, difficulties occurred. The first 
 thought naturally was to publish article after article 
 on this remarkable volume, in such widely circulating 
 critical journals as the Editor might stand connected 
 with, or by money or love procure access to. But, 
 on the other hand, was it not clear that such matter as 
 must here be revealed and treated of might endanger 
 the circulation of any journal extant? If, indeed, 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 Philoso- 
 phy of Clothes poured forth in incessant torrents there- 
 from, the attempt had seemed possible. But, alas, 
 what vehicle of that sort have we, except Fraser's 
 Magazine; a vehicle all strewed (figuratively speak- 
 ing) with the maddest Waterloo-Crackers, exploding 
 distractively and destructively, wheresoever the mysti- 
 fied passenger stands or sits ; nay, in any case, under- 
 stood to be, of late years, a vehicle full to overflowing, 
 and inexorably shut ? Besides, to state the Philosophy 
 of Clothes without the Philosopher, the ideas of 
 Teufelsdrochk without something of his personality, 
 was it not to insure both of entire misapprehension ? 
 
EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 15 
 
 Now for biography, had it been otherwise admissible, 
 there were no adequate documents, no hope of obtain- 
 ing such, but rather, owing to circumstances, a special 
 despair. Thus did the Editor see himself, for the 
 while, shut out from all public utterance of these 
 extraordinary doctrines, and constrained to revolve 
 them, not without disquietude, in the dark depths of 
 his own mind. 
 
 So had it lasted for some months ; and now the 
 volume on Clothes, read and again read, was in 
 several points becoming lucid and lucent ; the per- 
 sonality 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 disquie- 
 tude seemed fast settling into fixed discontent,—- when 
 altogether unexpectedly arrives a letter from Herr 
 Hofrath Heuschrecke, our Professor's chief friend and 
 associate in Weissnichtwo, with whom we had not 
 previously corresponded. The Hofrath, after much 
 quite extraneous matter, began dilating largely on the 
 " agitation and attention" which the Philosophy of 
 Clothes was exciting in its own German Republic of 
 Letters ; on the deep significance and tendency of his 
 friend's volume ; and then, at length, with great 
 circumlocution, hinted at the practicability of convey- 
 ing "some knowledge of it, and of him, to England, 
 and through England to the distant West ;" a work 
 on Professor Teufelsdrockh " were undoubtedly wel- 
 come to the Family, the National, or any other of 
 those patriotic Libraries, at present the glory of Brit- 
 ish literature ;" might work revolutions in Thought ; 
 and so forth ; — in conclusion, intimating not ob- 
 
16 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 scurely, that, should the present Editor feel disposed to 
 undertake a biography of Teufelsdr6ckh, he, Hofrath 
 Heuschrecke, had it in his power to furnish the requi- 
 site documents. 
 
 As in some chemical mixture, that has stood long 
 evaporating, but would not crystallize, instantly when 
 the wire or other fixed substance is introduced, crys- 
 tallization commences, and rapidly proceeds till the 
 whole is finished, so was it with the Editor's mind and 
 this offer of Heuschrecke's. Form rose out of void 
 solution and discontinuity ; like united itself with 
 like in definite arrangement ; and soon, either in ac- 
 tual 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 cour- 
 ageously, through the twopenny post, application to 
 the famed, redoubtable Oliver Yorke was now made ; 
 an interview, interviews with that singular man have 
 taken place ; with more of assurance on our side, 
 with less of satire (at least of open satire) on his, than 
 we anticipated — for the rest, with such issue as is 
 now visible. As to those same "patriotic Libraries," 
 the Hofrath's counsel could only be viewed with silent 
 amazement ; but with his offer of documents we 
 joyfully and almost instantaneously closed. Thus, 
 too, in the sure expectation of these, we already see 
 our task begun ; and this our Sartor Besartus, which 
 is properly a " Life and Opinions of Herr Teufels- 
 drockh," hourly advancing. 
 
 Of our fitness for the enterprise to which we have 
 such title and vocation, it were perhaps uninteresting 
 
EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 17 
 
 to say more. Let the British reader study and enjoy, 
 in simplicity of heart, what is here presented him, and 
 with whatever metaphysical acumen, and talent for 
 meditation he is possessed of. Let him strive to keep 
 a free, open sense; cleared from the mists of preju- 
 dice, above all from the paralysis of cant ; and directed 
 rather to the book itself than to the Editor of the 
 book. Who or what such Editor may be must re- 
 main conjectural, and even insignificant;* it is a 
 Voice publishing tidings of the Philosophy of Clothes ; 
 undoubtedly a Spirit addressing Spirits ; whoso hath 
 ears let him hear. 
 
 On one other point the Editor thinks it needful to 
 give warning : namely, that he is animated with a true 
 though perhaps a feeble attachment to the institutions 
 of our ancestors ; and minded to defend these, ac- 
 cording 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, pro- 
 fitably to divert the current of innovation, such a 
 volume as Teufelsdrdckh's, if cunningly planted 
 down, were no despicable pile, or floodgate, in the 
 logical wear. 
 
 For the rest, be it nowise apprehended that any 
 personal connexion of ours with Teufelsdrockh, Heu- 
 schrecke, or this Philosophy of Clothes, can pervert 
 our judgment, or sway us to extenuate or exaggerate. 
 Powerless, we venture to promise, are those private 
 
 * 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* 
 
18 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 compliments themselves. Grateful they may well be; 
 as generous illusions of friendship ; as fair mementos 
 of by-gone unions, of those nights and suppers of the 
 gods, when, lapped in the symphonies and harmonies 
 of philosophic eloquence, though with baser accom- 
 paniments, the present Editor revelled in that feast of 
 reason, never since vouchsafed him in so full measure ! 
 But what then ? Amicus Plato, magis arnica Veritas ; 
 Teufelsdrockh is our friend, Truth is our divinity. 
 In our historical and critical capacity, we hope, we 
 are strangers to all the world ; have feud or favor with 
 no one, — save indeed the Devil, with whom, as with 
 the Prince of Lies and Darkness, we do at all times 
 wage internecive war. This assurance, at an epoch 
 when puffery and quackery have reached a height 
 unexampled in the annals of mankind, and even En- 
 glish editors like Chinese shopkeepers, must write 
 on their door-lintels, No cheating here, — we thought 
 it good to premise. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 To the Author's private circle the appearance of 
 this singular work on Clothes must have occasioned 
 little less surprise than it has to the lest of the world. 
 For ourselves, at least, few things have been more 
 unexpected. Professor Teufelsdrockh, at the period 
 of our acquaintance with him, seemed to lead a quite 
 still and self-contained life ; a man devoted to the 
 
REMINISCENCES. 19 
 
 1 
 
 higher philosophies indeed ; yet more likely, if he 
 published at all, to publish a refutation of Hegel and 
 Bardili (both of whom, strangely enough, he included 
 under a common ban), then to descend, as he has 
 here done, into the angry, noisy forum, with an argu- 
 ment that cannot but exasperate and divide. Not, 
 that we can remember, was the Philosophy of Clothes 
 once touched upon between us. If through the high, 
 silent, meditative transcendentalism of our friend 
 we detected any practical tendency whatever, it was 
 at most political, and towards a certain prospective, 
 and for the present quite speculative, radicalism ; as, 
 indeed, some correspondence, on his part, with Herr 
 Oken of Jena was now and then suspected ; though 
 his special contributions to the Isis could never be 
 more than surmised at. But, at all events, nothing 
 moral, still less any thing didactico-religious, was 
 looked for from him. 
 
 Well do we recollect the last words he spoke in our 
 hearing ; which, indeed, with the night they were 
 uttered in, are to be forever remembered. Lifting 
 his huge tumbler of Gukguk, * and for a moment 
 lowering his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full coffee- 
 house (it was Zurn Grtinen Game, the largest in 
 Weissnichtwo, where all the virtuosity, and nearly all 
 the intellect of the place assembled of an evening) ; 
 and there, with low, soul-stirring tone, and the look 
 truly of an angel, though whether of a white or of a 
 black one might be dubious, proposed this toast: Die 
 Sache der Armen in Gottes unci Teufels Namen (The 
 
 * Gukguk is, unhappily, only an academical — Beer. 
 
20 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 I 
 
 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 fol- 
 lowed by universal cheering, returned him loud ac- 
 claim. It was the finale of the night ; resuming their 
 pipes ; in the highest enthusiasm, amid volumes of 
 tobacco-smoke ; triumphant, cloudcapt without and 
 within, the assembly broke up, each to his thoughtful 
 pillow. Bleibt dock ein echter Spass- und Galgen- 
 vogel, said several ; meaning thereby that, one day, 
 he would probably be hanged for his democratic sen- 
 timents. Wo steckt der Schalk? added they, looking 
 round ; but Teufelsdruckh had retired by private alleys, 
 and the compiler of these pages beheld him no more. 
 
 In such scenes has it been our lot 4o 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 most busy brain. In thy eyes, too, deep under their 
 shaggy brows, and looking out so still and dreamy? 
 have we not noticed gleams of an ethereal or else a 
 diabolic fire, and have fancied that their stillness was 
 but the rest of infinite motion, the sleep of a spinning- 
 top ? Thy little finger, there as in loose, ill-brushed, 
 threadbare habiliments thou sattest, amid litter and 
 lumber, whole days, to " think, and smoke tobacco," 
 held in it a mighty heart. The. secrets of man's life 
 were laid open to thee ; thou sawest into the mystery 
 of the universe farther than another ; thou hadst in 
 petto thy remarkable volume on Clothes. Nay, were 
 
REMINISCENCES. 21 
 
 there not in that clear, logically founded transcenden- 
 talism of thine; still more, in thy meek, silent, deep- 
 seated Sansculottism, combined with a true princely 
 courtesy of inward nature, the visible rudiments of 
 such speculation? But great men are too often un- 
 known, or, what is worse, misknown. Already, when 
 we dreamed not of it, the warp of thy remarkable 
 volume lay on the loom ; and silently, mysterious 
 shuttles were putting in the woof! 
 
 How the Hofrath Heuschrecke is to furnish bio- 
 graphical data, in this case, may be a curious ques- 
 tion ; the answer of which, however, is happily not 
 our concern, but his. To us it appeared, after re- 
 peated trial, that in Weissnichtwo, from the archives 
 or memories of the best informed classes, no biography 
 of Teufelsdrockh was to be gathered ; not so much as 
 a false one. He was a stranger there, wafted thither 
 by what is called the course of circumstances ; con- 
 cerning whose parentage, birthplace, prospects, or 
 pursuits, curiosity has indeed made inquiries, but 
 satisfied herself with the most indistinct replies. For 
 himself, he was a man so still and altogether unpar- 
 ticipating, that to question him even afar off on such 
 particulars was a thing of more than usual delicacy ; 
 besides, in his sly way, he had ever some quaint turn, 
 not without its satirical edge, wherewith to divert such 
 intrusions, and deter you from the like. Wits spoke 
 of him secretly as if he were a kind of Melchizedek, 
 without father or mother of any kind; sometimes, 
 with reference to his great historic and statistic know- 
 ledge, and the vivid way he had of expressing himself 
 like an eyewitness of distant transactions and scenes, 
 
22 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 they called him the Ewige Jude, Everlasting, or, as 
 we say, Wandering Jew. 
 
 To the most, indeed, he had become not so much a 
 man as a thing ; which thing doubtless they were 
 accustomed to see, and with satisfaction ; but no more 
 thought of accounting for than for the fabrication of 
 their daily Jlllgemeine Zeitung, or the domestic habits 
 of the sun. Both were there and welcome ; the 
 world enjoyed what good was in them, and thought 
 no more of the matter. The man Teufelsdrockh 
 passed and repassed, in his little circle, as one of those 
 originals and nondescripts, more frequent in German 
 universities than elsewhere; of whom, though you 
 see them alive, and feel certain enough that they must 
 have a history, no history seems to be discoverable ; 
 or only such as men give of mountain rocks and ante- 
 diluvian ruins ; that they have been created by un- 
 known agencies, are in a state of gradual decay, and 
 for the present reflect light and resist pressure; that 
 is, are visible and tangible objects in this phantasm 
 world, where so much other mystery is. 
 
 It was to be remarked that though, by title and 
 diploma, Professor der Jlllerley-Wissenscliaft, or, as 
 we should say in English, "Professor of Things in 
 General," he had never delivered any course; perhaps 
 never been incited thereto by any public furtherance 
 or requisition. To all appearance, the enlightened 
 government of Weissnichtwo, in founding their new 
 university, imagined they had done enough, if, " in 
 times like ours," as the half-official program expressed 
 it, " when all things are, rapidly or slowly, resolving 
 themselves into chaos, a professorship of this kind had 
 
REMINISCENCES. 23 
 
 been established; whereby, as occasion called, the 
 task of bodying somewhat forth again from such chaos 
 might be, even slightly, facilitated." That actual 
 lectures should be held, and public classes for the 
 " science of things in general," they doubtless con- 
 sidered premature; on which ground too they had 
 only established the professorship, nowise endowed it; 
 so that Teufelsdrochk, "recommended by the highest 
 names," had been promoted thereby to a name merely. 
 
 Great, among the more enlightened classes, was the 
 admiration of this new professorship ; how an enlight- 
 ened government had seen into the want of the age 
 (Zeitbedurfniss) ; how, at length, instead of denial 
 and destruction, we were to have a science of affirma- 
 tion and reconstruction ; and Germany and Weiss- 
 nichtwo were, where they should be, in the vanguard 
 of the world. Considerable also was the wonder at 
 the new Professor, dropt opportunely enough into the 
 nascent university; so able to lecture, should occasion 
 call ; so ready to hold his peace for indefinite periods, 
 should an enlightened government consider that occa- 
 sion did not call. But such admiration and such 
 wonder, being followed by no act to keep them living, 
 could last only nine days; and, long before our visit 
 to that scene, had quite died away. The more cunning 
 heads thought it was all an expiring clutch at popu- 
 larity, on the part of a minister, whom domestic 
 embarrassments, court intrigues, old age, and dropsy 
 soon afterwards finally drove from the helm. 
 
 As for Teufelsdrockh, except by his nightly appear- 
 ances at the Gfunen Game, Weissnichtwo saw little 
 of him, felt little of him. Here, over his tumbler of 
 
24 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Gukguk, he sat reading journals; sometimes contem- 
 platively looking into the clouds of his tobacco-pipe, 
 without other visible employment; always, from his 
 mild ways, an agreeable phenomenon there ; more 
 especially when he opened his lips for speech ; on 
 which occasions the whole cofTee-house would hush 
 itself into silence, as if sure to hear something note- 
 worthy ; 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 enthu- 
 siastic Englishman, however unworthy, Teufelsdrockh 
 opened himself perhaps more than to the most. Pity 
 only that we could not then half guess his importance, 
 and scrutinize him with due power of vision ! We 
 enjoyed, what not three men in Weissnichtwo could 
 boast of, a certain degree of access to the Professor's 
 private domicile. It was the attic floor of the highest 
 house in the Wahngasse ; and might truly be called 
 the pinnacle of Weissnichtwo, for it rose sheer up 
 above the contiguous roofs, themselves rising from 
 elevated ground. Moreover, with its windows, it 
 looked towards all ihe four Orte, or, as the Scotch 
 
- REMINISCENCES. 25 
 
 say, and we ought to say, Mrts; the sitting-room 
 itself commanded three ; another came to view in the 
 ScMqfgemach (Bedroom) at the opposite end; to say 
 nothing of the kitchen, which offered two, as it were 
 duplicates, and showing nothing new. So that it was, 
 in fact, the speculum or watchtower of Teufelsdrockh ; 
 wherefrom, sitting at ease, he might see the whole 
 life-circulation of that considerable city; the streets 
 and lanes of which, with all their doing and driving 
 (Thun und Treiberi), were for most part visible there. 
 " I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive," 
 have we heard him say, " and witness their wax-laying, 
 and honey-making, and poison-brewing, and choking 
 by sulphur. From the palace esplanade, where music 
 plays while Serene Highness is pleased to eat his 
 victuals, down to the low lane, where in her door-sill 
 the aged widow, knitting for a thin livelihood, sits to 
 feel the afternoon sun, I see it all ; for, except the 
 Schlosskirche weathercock, no biped stands so high. 
 Couriers arrive bestrapped and bebooted, bearing joy 
 and sorrow bagged up in pouches of leather; there, 
 topladen, and with four swift horses, rolls in the coun- 
 try baron and his household ; here, on timber leg, the 
 lamed soldier hops painfully along, begging alms ; a 
 thousand carriages, and wains, and cars, come tum- 
 bling in with food, with young rusticity, and other raw 
 produce, inanimate or animate, and go tumbling out 
 again with produce manufactured. That living flood, 
 pouring through these streets, of all qualities and ages, 
 knowest thou whence it is coming, whither it is going ; 
 JLus der Ewigkeit, zu der Ewigkeit hin $ From eter- 
 nity, onwards to eternity ! These are apparitions ; 
 
 3 
 
26 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 what else ? Are they not souls rendered visible ; in 
 bodies, that took shape, and will lose it, melting into 
 air? Their solid pavement is a picture of the sense: 
 they walk on the bosom of nothing; blank time is 
 behind them and before them. Or fanciest thou, the 
 red and yellow Clothes-screen yonder, with spurs on 
 its heels, and feather in its crown, is but of to-day, 
 without a yesterday or a to-morrow; and had not 
 rather its ancestor alive when Hengst and Horsa over- 
 ran thy island ? Friend, thou seest here a living link 
 in that tissue of history which inweaves all being; 
 watch well, or it will be past thee, and seen no more." 
 " Ach mein Lieber!" said he once, at midnight, 
 when he had returned from the coffee-house in rather 
 earnest talk, "it is a true sublimity to dwell here. 
 These fringes of lamp-light, struggling up through 
 smoke and thousand-fold exhalation, some fathoms 
 into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks Bootes 
 of them, as he leads his hunting-dogs over the zenith 
 in their leash of sidereal fire ? That stifled hum of 
 midnight, — when traffic has laid down to rest, and the 
 chariot-wheels of vanity, still rolling here and there 
 through distant streets, are bearing her to halls roofed 
 in and lighted to the due pitch for her, and only vice 
 and misery, to prowl or to moan like night-birds, are 
 abroad, — that hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet 
 slumber of sick life, is hoard in heaven ! Oh, under 
 that hideous coverlid of vapors, and putrefactions, 
 and unimaginable gases, what a fermenting-vat lies 
 simmering and hid! The joyful and the sorrowful 
 are there ; men are dying there, men are being born ; 
 men are praying — on the other side of a brick parti- 
 
REMINISCENCES, 27 
 
 tion men are cursing; and around them all is the 
 vast, void Night. The proud grandee still lingers in 
 his perfumed saloons, or reposes within damask cur- 
 tains; wretchedness cowers into truckle-beds, or 
 shivers hunger-stricken into its lair of straw. In 
 obscure cellars, Rouge-et-Noir languidly emits its 
 voice of destiny to haggard, hungry villains; while 
 councillors of state sit plotting, and playing their high 
 chess-game, whereof the pawns are men. The lover 
 whispers his mistress that the coach is ready; and 
 she, full of hope and fear, glides down, to fly with him 
 over the borders ; the thief, still more silently, sets to 
 his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the 
 watchmen first snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, 
 with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, are full of light 
 and music, and high-swelling hearts ; but, in the con- 
 demned cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous and 
 faint, and bloodshot eyes look out through the dark- 
 ness, 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. Up- 
 wards of five hundred thousand two-legged animals 
 without feathers lie around us, in horizontal position ; 
 their heads all in nightcaps, and full of the foolishest 
 dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers 
 in his rank dens of shame ; and the mother, with 
 streaming hair, kneels over her pallid, dying infant, 
 whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten. — All 
 these heaped and huddled together, with nothing 
 but a little carpentry and masonry between them ; 
 crammed in, like salted fish, in their barrel ; or 
 
28 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 weltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of 
 tamed vipers, each struggling to get its head above 
 the others ; — such work goes on under that smoke- 
 counterpane ! — But I, mein Werther, sit above it all; 
 I am alone with the stars." 
 
 We looked in his face to see whether, in the utter- 
 ance of such extraordinary night-thoughts, no feeling 
 might be traced there : but with the light we had, 
 which, indeed, was only a single tallow light, and far 
 enough from the window, nothing save that old calm- 
 ness and fixedness was visible. 
 
 These were the Professor's talking seasons ; most 
 commonly he spoke in mere monosyllables, or sat 
 altogether silent, and smoked ; while the visitor had 
 liberty either to say what he listed, receiving for 
 answer an occasional grunt ; or to look round for a 
 space, and then take himself away. It was a strange 
 apartment; full of books and tattered papers, and 
 miscellaneous shreds of all conceivable substances, 
 " united in a common element of dust." Books lay 
 on tables, and below tables ; here fluttered a sheet of 
 manuscript, there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap 
 hastily thrown aside ; ink-bottles alternated with bread- 
 crusts, coffee-pots, tobacco-boxes, periodical litera- 
 ture, and Bliicher boots. Old Leischen (Lisekin, 
 'Liza), who was his bed^maker and stove-lighter, his 
 washer and wringer, cook, enand-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 manu- 
 
REMINISCENCES. 29 
 
 scripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery of 
 such lumber as was not literary. These were her 
 Erdbebungen (Earthquakes), which Teufelsdrockh 
 dreaded worse than the pestilence ; nevertheless, to 
 such length he had been forced to comply. Glad 
 would he have been to sit here philosophizing forever, 
 or till the litter, by accumulation, drove him out of 
 doors ; but Leischen was his right arm, and spoon, 
 and necessary of life, and would not be flatly gain- 
 sayed. We can still remember the ancient woman ; 
 so silent that some thought her dumb ; deaf also you 
 would often have supposed her ; for Teufelsdrockh 
 and Teufelsdrockh only would she serve or give heed 
 to ; and with him she seemed to communicate chiefly 
 by signs ; if it were not rather by some secret divina- 
 tion 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 Heuschreeke, already 
 known, by name and expectation, to the readers of 
 these pages. To us, at that period, Herr Heu- 
 schreeke seemed one of those purse-mouthed, crane- 
 necked, clean-brushed, pacific individuals, perhaps 
 sufficiently distinguished in society by this fact, that, 
 
 3* 
 
30 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 in dry weather or in wet, " they never appear without 
 their umbrella. " Had we not known with what 
 " little wisdom " the world is governed ; and how, in 
 Germany as elsewhere, the ninety and nine public 
 men can for most part be but mute trainbearers to 
 the hundredth, perhaps but stalking-horses and willing 
 or unwilling dupes, — it might have seemed wonderful 
 how Herr Heuschrecke should be named a Rath, or 
 councillor, and counsellor, even in Weissnichtwo. 
 What counsel to any man, or to any woman, could 
 this particular Hofrath give ; in whose loose zigzag 
 figure ; in whose thin visage, as it went jerking to 
 and fro, in minute incessant fluctuation, — you traced 
 rather confusion worse confounded ; at most, timidity 
 and physical cold? Some, indeed, said withal, he 
 was " the very spirit of love embodied ;" blue, earnest 
 eyes, full of sadness and kindness ; purse ever open, 
 and so forth : the whole of which, we shall now hope 
 for many reasons was not quite groundless. Never- 
 theless, friend Teufelsdrockh's outline, who, indeed, 
 handled the burine like few in these cases, was pro- 
 bably the best : Er hat Gemuth und Geist, hat wenig- 
 stens gehabt, dpch ohne Organ, ohne Schicksah-gunst ; 
 ist gegenw'drtig aberhalb-zerruttet, halb-erstarrt, " He 
 has heart and talent, at least has had such, yet without 
 fit mode of utterance, or favor of fortune ; and so is 
 now half-cracked, half-congealed." — What the Hofrath 
 shall think of this, when he sees it, readers may won- 
 der ; we, safe in the stronghold of historical fidelity, 
 are careless. 
 
 The main point, doubtless, for us all, is his love of 
 Teufelsdrockh, which, indeed, was also by far the most 
 
REMINISCENCES. 31 
 
 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 per- 
 haps with the like return ; for Teufelsdrockh treated 
 his gaunt admirer with little outward regard, as some 
 half rational or altogether irrational friend, and, at best, 
 loved him out of gratitude and by habit. On the 
 other hand, it was curious to observe with what reve- 
 rent kindness, and a sort of fatherly protection, our 
 Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and, as he fondly 
 imagined, far more practically influential of the two, 
 looked and tended on his little sage, whom he seemed 
 to consider as a living oracle. Let but Teufelsdrockh 
 open his mouth, Heuschrecke's also unpuckered itself 
 into a free doorway, besides his being all eye and all 
 ear, so that nothing might be lost ; and then, at every 
 pause in the harangue, he gurgled out his pursy chuckle 
 of a cough-laugh (for the machinery of laughter took 
 some time to get in motion, and seemed crank and 
 slack), or else his twanging, nasal Bravo ! Das 
 glaub 1 ich; in either case, by way of heartiest ap- 
 proval. 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 kneatUand publish was other than 
 medicinal and sacred. 
 
 In such environment, social, domestic, physical, 
 did Teufelsdrockh, at the time of our acquaintance, 
 and most likely does he still, live and meditate. Here, 
 perched up in his high Wahngasse watchtower, and 
 often, in solitude, outwatching the bear, it was that 
 
32 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 the indomitable inquirer fought all his battles with 
 dulness and darkness ; here, in all probability, that he 
 wrote this surprising volume on Clothes. Additional 
 particulars ; of his age, which was of that standing, mid- 
 dle sort you could only guess at ; of his wide surtout ; 
 I the color of his trousers, fashion of his broad-brimmed 
 steeple hat, and so forth, we might report, but do not. 
 The wisest truly is, in these times, the greatest ; so that 
 an enlightened curiosity, leaving kings and such like 
 to rest very much on their own basis, turns more and 
 more to the philosophic class ; nevertheless, what 
 reader expects that, with all our writing and reporting, 
 Teufelsdrockh could be brought home to him, till once 
 the documents arrive ? His life, fortunes, and bodily 
 presence, are as yet hidden from us, or matter only 
 of faint conjecture. But, on the other hand, does 
 not his soul lie enclosed in this remarkable volume, 
 much more truly than Pedro Garcia's did in the 
 buried bag of doubloons ? To the soul of Diogenes 
 Teufelsdrockh, to his opinions, namely, on the " Origin 
 and Influence of Clothes," we for the present gladly 
 return. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this 
 work on Clothes entirely contents us ; that it is not, — 
 like all works of genius, like the very sun, which, 
 
CHARACTERISTICS. 33 
 
 though the highest published creation, or work of 
 genius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled 
 nebulosities amid its effulgence, — a mixture of in- 
 sight, inspiration, with dulness, double vision, and 
 even utter blindness. 
 
 Without committing ourselves to those enthusiastic 
 praises and prophesyings of the Weissnichtwo 'sche 
 Jlnzeiger, we admitted that the book had in a high 
 degree excited us to self-activity, which is the best 
 effect of any book ; that it had even operated changes 
 in our way of thought ; nay, that it promised to prove, 
 as it were, the opening of a new mine-shaft, wherein 
 the whole world of speculation might henceforth dig 
 to unknown depths. More specially it may now be 
 declared that Professor Teufelsdrockh's acquirements, 
 patience of research, philosophic and even poetic 
 vigor, are here made indisputably manifest ; and, un- 
 happily, no less his prolixity and tortuosity and mani- 
 fold inaptitude ; 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 German, 
 but fatal to his success with our public. 
 
 Of good society Teufelsdrockh appears to have seen 
 little, or has mostly forgotten what he saw. He speaks 
 out with a strange plainness ; calls many things by 
 their mere dictionary names. To him the upholsterer 
 is no pontiff, neither is any drawingroom a temple, 
 
34 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 were it never so begilt and overhung; "A whole 
 immensity of Brussels carpets, and pier-glasses, and 
 or-molu," as he himself expresses it, " cannot hide 
 from me that such drawingroom is simply a section 
 of infinite space, where so many God-created souls do 
 for the time meet together." To Teufelsdrockh the 
 highest duchess is respectable, is venerable ; but 
 nowise for her pearl-bracelets, and Malines laces. In 
 his eyes, the star of a lord is little less and little more 
 than the broad button of Birmingham spelter in a 
 clown's smock ; " Each is an implement," he says, 
 "in its kind; a tag for hooking together ; and, for the 
 rest, was dug from the earth, and hammered on a 
 stithy before smiths' fingers." Thus does the Profes- 
 sor look in men's face with a strange impartiality, a 
 strange, scientific freedom; like a man unversed in 
 the higher circles, like a man dropped thither from 
 the moon. Rightly considered, it is in this peculi- 
 arity, running through his whole system of thought, 
 that all these short-comings overshootings, and multi- 
 form perversities, take rise ; if, indeed, they have not a 
 second source, also natural enough, in his transcen- 
 dental philosophies, and humor of looking at all matter 
 and material things as spirit ; whereby truly his case 
 were but the more hopeless, the more lamentable. 
 
 To the thinkers of this nation, however, of which 
 class it is firmly believed there are individuals yet 
 extant, we can safely recommend the work ; nay, who 
 knows but among the fashionable ranks too, if it be 
 true, as Teufelsdrockh maintains, that, "within the 
 most starched cravat there passes a windpipe and 
 wesand, and under the thickliest embroidered waist* 
 
CHARACTERISTICS*, 35 
 
 coat beats a heart," — the force of that rapt earnest- 
 ness may be felt, and here and there an arrow of the 
 soul pierce through? In our wild seer, shaggy, un- 
 kempt, like a Baptist living on locusts and wild honey, 
 there is an untutored energy, a silent, as it were un- 
 conscious strength,, which, except in the higher walks 
 of literature, must be rare. Many a deep glance, and 
 often with unspeakable precision, has he cast into 
 mysterious Nature, and the still more mysterious life 
 of man. Wonderful it is with what cutting words, 
 now and then, he severs asunder the confusion ; sheers 
 down, were it furlongs deep, into the true centre of 
 the matter; and there not only hits the nail on the 
 head, but with crushing force smites it home, and 
 buries it. — On the other hand, let us be free to 
 admit, he is the most unequal writer breathing. 
 Often, after some such feat, he will play truant for 
 long pages, and go dawdling and dreaming, and mum- 
 bling and maundering the merest common-places, as if 
 he were asleep with eyes open, which indeed he is. 
 
 Of his boundless learning, and how all reading and 
 literature in most known tongues, from Sanchoniathon 
 to Dr. Lingard, from your oriental Shasters, and 
 Talmuds, and Korans, with Cassini's Siamese Tables, 
 and Laplace's Mecanique Celeste, down to Robinson 
 Crusoe, and the Belfast Town and Country Almanac, 
 are familiar to him, — we shall say nothing; for unex- 
 ampled as it is with us, to the Germans such univer- 
 sality of study passes without wonder, as a thing 
 commendable, indeed, but natural, indispensable, and 
 there of course. A man that devotes his life to learn- 
 ing, shall he not be learned ? 
 
36 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 In respect of style our Author manifests the same 
 genial capability, marred too often by the same rude- 
 ness, inequality, and apparent want of intercourse 
 with the higher classes. Occasionally, as above 
 hinted, we find consummate vigor, a true inspiration ; 
 his burning thoughts step forth in fit burning words, 
 like so many full-formed Minervas, issuing amid flame 
 and splendor from Jove's head ; a rich, idiomatic dic- 
 tion, picturesque allusions, fiery poetic emphasis, or 
 quaint, tricksy turns ; all the graces and terrors of a 
 wild imagination, wedded to the clearest intellect, 
 alternate in beautiful vicissitude. Were it not that 
 sheer sleeping and soporific passages ; circumlocu- 
 tions, repetitions, touches even of pure doting jargon, 
 so often intervene ! On the whole, Professor Teufels- 
 drockh is not a cultivated writer. Of his sentences, 
 perhaps not more than nine-tenths stand straight on 
 their legs; the remainder are in quite angular atti- 
 tudes, buttressed up by props (of parentheses and 
 dashes), and ever with this or the other tag-rag hang- 
 ing from them ; a few even sprawl cut helplessly on 
 all sides, quite broken-backed and dismembered. 
 Nevertheless, in almost his very worst moods, there 
 lies in him a singular attraction. A wild tone per- 
 vades the whole utterance of the man, like its key- 
 note and regulator ; now screwing itself aloft, as into 
 the song of spirits, or else the shrill mockery of 
 fiends ; now sinking in cadences, not without melodi- 
 ous heartiness, though sometimes abrupt enough, into 
 the common pitch, when we hear it only as a monoto- 
 nous hum; of which hum the true character is ex- 
 tremely difficult to fix. Up to this hour we have never 
 
CHARACTERISTICS. 37 
 
 fully satisfied ourselves whether it is a tone and hum 
 of real humor, which we reckon among the very- 
 highest qualities of genius, or some remote echo of 
 mere insanity and inanity, which doubtless ranks below 
 the very lowest. 
 
 Under a like difficulty, in spite even of our personal 
 intercourse, do we still lie with regard to the Profes- 
 sor's moral feeling. Gleams of an ethereal love burst 
 forth from him, soft wailings of infinite pity; he could 
 clasp the whole universe into his bosom, and keep it 
 warm ; it seems as if under that rude exterior there 
 dwelt a very seraph. Then again he is so sly and 
 still, so imperturbably saturnine ; shows such indiffer- 
 ence, malign coolness towards all that men strive 
 after; and ever with some half-visible wrinkle of a 
 bitter, sardonic humor, if, indeed, it be not mere stolid 
 callousness, — that you look on him almost with a 
 shudder, as on some incarnate Mephistopheles, to 
 whom this great terrestrial and celestial round, after 
 all, were but some huge, foolish whirligig, where kings 
 and beggars, and angels and demons, and stars and 
 street-sweepings, were chaotically whirled; in which 
 only children could take interest. His look, as we 
 mentioned, is probably the gravest ever seen ; yet it 
 is not of that cast-iron gravity, frequent enough among 
 our own chancery suitors ; but rather the gravity as 
 of some silent, high-encircled mountain-pool, perhaps 
 the crater of an extinct volcano, into whose black 
 deeps you fear to gaze ; those eyes, those lights that 
 sparkle in it, may indeed be reflexes of the heavenly 
 stars, but perhaps also glances from the region of 
 nether fire ! 
 
 4 
 
38 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Certainly a most involved, self-secluded, altogether 
 enigmatic nature, this of Teufelsdrb'ckh ! Here, how- 
 ever, we gladly recall to mind that once we saw him 
 laugh; once only, perhaps it was the first and last 
 time in his life ; but then such a peal of laughter, 
 enough to have awakened the seven sleepers ! It was 
 of Jean Paul's doing ; some single billow in that vast 
 world-mahlstrom of humor, with its heaven-kissing 
 coruscations, which is now, alas, all congealed in the 
 frost of death ! The large bodied poet and the small, 
 both large enough in soul, sat talking miscellaneously 
 together, the present Editor being privileged to listen. 
 And now Paul, in his serious way, was giving one of 
 those inimitable " extra harangues ; " and, as it 
 chanced, on the proposal for a cast-metal king. 
 Gradually a light kindled in our Professor's eyes and 
 face, a beaming, mantling, loveliest light; through 
 those murky features, a radiant, ever young Apollo 
 looked; and he burst forth like the neighing of all 
 Tattersall's, — tears streaming down his cheeks, pipe 
 held aloft, foot clutched into the air, — loud, long- 
 continuing, uncontrollable ; a laugh not of the face 
 and diaphragm only, but of the whole man from head 
 to heel. The present Editor, who laughed indeed, 
 yet with measure, began to fear all was not right; 
 however, Teufelsdrockh composed himself, and sank 
 into his old stillness ; on his inscrutable countenance 
 there was, if any thing, a slight look of shame ; and 
 Richter himself could not rouse him again. Readers 
 who have any tincture of psychology know how much 
 is to be inferred from this; and that no man who has 
 once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether 
 
CHARACTERISTICS. 39 
 
 irreclaimably bad. How much lies in laughter ; the 
 cipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man ! 
 Some men wear an everlasting barren simper ; in the 
 smile of others lies a cold glitter as of ice ; the fewest 
 are able to laugh what can be called laughing, but 
 only sniff, and titter, and snigger from the throat out- 
 wards ; or, at best, produce some whiffling, husky 
 cachinnation, as if they were laughing through wool ; 
 of none such comes good. The man who cannot 
 laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and 
 spoils ; but his whole life is already a treason and a 
 stratagem. 
 
 Considered as an author, Herr Teufelsdrockh has 
 one scarcely pardonable fault, doubtless his worst; 
 an almost total want of arrangement. In this remark- 
 able volume, it is true, his adherence to the mere 
 course of time produces, through the narrative por- 
 tions, a certain show of outward method ; but of true 
 logical method and sequence there is too little. Apart 
 from its multifarious sections and subdivisions, the 
 work naturally falls into two parts ; a historical de- 
 scriptive, and a philosophical speculative; but falls, 
 unhappily, by no firm line of demarcation; in that 
 labyrinthic combination, each part overlaps, and in- 
 dents, and indeed runs quite through the other. Many 
 sections are of a debatable rubric, or even quite non- 
 descript and unnamable ; whereby the book not only 
 loses in accessibility, but too often distresses us, like 
 some mad banquet, wherein all courses had been con- 
 founded, 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 
 
40 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 public invited to help itself. To bring what order we 
 can out of this chaos shall be part of our endeavour. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 
 
 "As Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Laws" ob- 
 serves our Professor, "so could I write a Spirit of 
 Clothes; thus, with an Esprit des Loix, properly an 
 Esprit des Coutumes, we should have an Esprit des 
 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 habilitory endeavours an architec- 
 tural idea will be found lurking; his body and the 
 cloth are the site and materials whereon and whereby 
 his beautiful edifice, of a person, is to be built. 
 Whether he flow gracefully out in folded mantles, 
 based on light sandals ; tower up in high headgear, 
 from amid peaks, spangles, and bell-girdles ; swell out 
 in starched ruffs, buckram stuffings, and monstrous 
 tuberosities; or girth himself into separate sections, 
 and front the world an agglomeration of four limbs,— 
 will depend on the nature of such architectural idea; 
 whether Grecian, Gothic, Later-Gothic, or altogether 
 Modern, and Parisian or Anglo-dandiacal. Again, 
 what meaning lies in color ! From the soberest drab 
 to the high-flaming scarlet, spiritual idiosyncrasies 
 unfold themselves in choice of color; if the cut 
 
THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 41 
 
 betoken intellect and talent, so does the color betoken 
 temper and heart. In all which, among nations as 
 among individuals, there is an incessant, indubitable, 
 though infinitely complex working of cause and effect ; 
 every snip of the scissors has been regulated and pre- 
 scribed by ever-active influences, which, doubtless to 
 intelligences of a superior order are neither invisible 
 nor illegible. 
 
 " For such superior intelligences a Cause-and-Effect 
 Philosophy of Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a 
 comfortable winter-evening entertainment; neverthe- 
 less, for inferior intelligences, like men, such philoso- 
 phies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough. 
 Nay, what is your Montesquieu himself but a clever 
 infant spelling letters from a hieroglyphical prophetic 
 book, the lexicon of which lies in eternity, in heaven 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 
 facts, and deductions drawn therefrom in quite another 
 than that omniscient style, are my humbler and proper 
 province. " 
 
 Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh 
 has nevertheless contrived to take in a well nigh 
 boundless extent of field ; at least the boundaries too 
 often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being 
 indispensable, we shall here glance over his first part 
 only in the most cursory manner. This first part is, 
 no doubt, distinguished by omnivorous learning, and 
 
 4* 
 
42 SARTOR RESARTUS, 
 
 utmost patience and fairness ; at the same time, in its 
 results and delineations, it is much more likely to 
 interest the compilers of some Library of general, 
 entertaining, useful, or even useless knowledge than 
 the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was it this 
 part of the book which Heuschrecke had in view, when 
 he recommended us to that joint-stock vehicle of pub- 
 lication, " at present the glory of British literature?" 
 If so the Library Editors are welcome to dig in it for 
 their own behoof. 
 
 To the first chapter, which turns on Paradise and 
 Fig-leaves, and leads us into interminable disquisitions, 
 of a mythological, metaphorical, cabalistico-sartorial, 
 and quite antediluvian cast, we shall content ourselves 
 with giving an unconcerned approval. Still less have 
 we to do with " Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, accord- 
 ing 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 Mam-Kadmon, or primeval element, 
 here strangely brought into relation with the Nifl and 
 Muspel (Darkness and Light) of the antique North, it 
 may be enough to say that its correctness of deduction, 
 and depth of Talmudic and Rabbinical lore have filled 
 perhaps not the worst Hebraist in Britain with some- 
 thing like astonishment. 
 
 But quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdrockh 
 hastens from the Tower of Babel, to follow the Dis- 
 persion of Mankind over the whole habitable and 
 habilibie globe. Walking by the light of Oriental, 
 Pelasgie, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient 
 
THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 43 
 
 and Modern researches of every conceivable kind, he 
 strives to give us in compressed shape (as the Niirn- 
 bergers give an Orbis Pictus) an Orbis Vestitus ; or 
 view of the costumes of all mankind, in all countries, 
 in all times. It is here that to the antiquarian, to the 
 historian, we can triumphantly say : Fall to ! Here is 
 learning ; an irregular treasury, if you will ; but inex- 
 haustible 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 wam- 
 pum belts ; phylacteries, stoles, albs ; chlamides, togas, 
 Chinese silks, Afghann shawls, trunk-hose, leather 
 breeches, Celtic philibegs (though breeches, as the 
 name Gallia Braccata indicates, are the more ancient), 
 Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets, ruffs, fardingales, are 
 brought vividly before us, — even the Kilmarnock night- 
 cap 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 dropsy parts smelted out 
 and thrown aside. 
 
 Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes 
 touching pictures of human life. Of this sort the 
 following has surprised us. The first purpose of 
 Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth 
 or decency, but ornament. " Miserable indeed," says 
 he, " was the condition of the aboriginal savage, 
 glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, which 
 with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung 
 round him like a matted cloak ; the rest of his body 
 sheeted in its thick natural fell. He loitered in the 
 sunny glades of the forest, living on wild fruits ; or, as 
 
44 SARTOR RESARTIJS. 
 
 the ancient Caledonian squatted himself in morasses, 
 lurking for his bestial or human prey ; without. imple- 
 ments, without arms, save the ball of the heavy flint, 
 to which, that his sole possession and defence might 
 not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited 
 thongs ; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with 
 deadly unerring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of 
 hunger and revenge once satisfied, his next care was, 
 not comfort, but decoration (Putz). Warmth he found 
 in the toils of the chase ; or amid dried leaves, in his 
 hollow tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto ; but for 
 decoration he must have Clothes. Nay, among wild 
 people, we find tattooing and painting even prior to 
 Clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man 
 is decoration ; as, indeed, we still see among the bar- 
 barous classes in civilized countries. 
 
 " Reader, the heaven-inspired, melodious singer ; 
 loftiest Serene Highness ; nay, thy own amber-locked, 
 snow-and-rose-bloom maiden, worthy to glide sylph- 
 like almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest as 
 a divine presence, which, indeed, symbolically taken, 
 she is, — has descended, like thyself, from that same 
 hair-mantled, flint-hurling aboriginal Anthropophagus ! 
 Out of the eater cometh forth meat; and out of 
 the strong cometh forth sweetness. What changes 
 are wrought, not by time, yet in time ! For not 
 mankind only, but all that mankind does or beholds, 
 is in continual growth, regenesis, and self-perfecting 
 vitality. Cast forth thy act, thy word, into the 
 ever-living, ever-working universe ; it is a seed- 
 grain that cannot die ; unnoticed to-day (says one), 
 it will be found flourishing as a banyan-grove 
 
THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 45 
 
 (perhaps, alas, as a hemlock-forest !) after a thousand 
 years. 
 
 "He who first shortened the labor of copyists by 
 device of movable types was disbanding hired armies, 
 and cashiering most kings and senates, and creating 
 a whole new democratic world ; he had invented the 
 Art of Printing. The first giound handfull of nitre, 
 sulphur, and charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle 
 through the ceiling ; what will the last do ? Achieve 
 the final, undisputed prostration of force under thought, 
 of animal courage under spiritual. A simple invention 
 was it in the old-world grazier, — sick of lugging his 
 slow ox about the country till he got it bartered for 
 corn or oil, — to take a piece of leather, and thereon 
 scratch or stamp the mere figure of an ox (or Pecus) ; 
 put it in his pocket, and call it Pecunia, money. 
 Yet hereby did barter grow sale, and the leather 
 money is now golden and paper, and all miracles have 
 been out-miracled ; for there are Rothschilds and 
 English National Debts ; and whoso has sixpence is 
 sovereign (to the length of sixpence) over all men ; 
 commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach 
 him, kings to mount guard over him, — to the length 
 of sixpence,- — Clothes, too, which began in foolishest 
 love of ornament, what have they not become! In- 
 creased security and pleasurable heat soon followed; 
 but what of these? Shame, divine shame (Schaam, 
 Modesty), as yet a stranger to the anthropophagous 
 bosom, arose there mysteriously under Clothes ; a 
 mystic grove-encircled shrine for the holy in man. 
 Clothes gave us individuality, distinctions, social polity. 
 Clothes have made men of us ; they are threatening to 
 make clothes-screens of us. 
 
46 ( SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 " But, on the whole," continues our eloquent Pro- 
 fessor, " man is a tool-using animal (Hanthierendes 
 Thier). Weak in himself, and of small stature, he 
 stands on a basis, at most, for the flattest-soled, of some 
 half square-foot, insecurely enough ; has to straddle 
 out his legs, lest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest 
 of bipeds ! Three quintals are a crushing load for 
 him ; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft, like a 
 waste rag. Nevertheless he can use tools, can devise 
 tools. With these the granite mountain melts into 
 light dust before him ; he kneads glowing iron, as if it 
 were soft paste ; seas are his smooth highway, winds 
 and fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find 
 him without tools ; without tools he is nothing, with 
 tools he is all." 
 
 Here may we not, for a moment, interrupt the 
 stream of oratory with a remark that this definition of 
 the tool-using animal appears to us, of all that animal- 
 sort, considerably the precisest and best? Man is 
 called a laughing animal; but do not the apes also 
 laugh, or attempt to do it; and is the manliest man 
 the greatest and oftenest laugher? Teufelsdrockh 
 himself, as we said, laughed only once. Still 
 less do we make of that other French definition of 
 the cooking animal; which, indeed, for rigorous, 
 scientific purposes, is as good as useless. Can a 
 Tartar be said to cook, when he only readies his 
 steak by riding on it? * Again, what cookery does 
 the Greenlander use, beyond stowing up his whale- 
 blubber, as a marmot, in the like case, might do? 
 Or how would Monsieur Ude prosper among- those 
 Orinoco Indians who, according to Humboldt, lodge. 
 
APRONS* 47 
 
 in crow-nests, on the branches of trees ; and, for half 
 the year, have no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole 
 country being under water? But, on the other hand, 
 show us the human being, of any period or climate, 
 without his tools ; those very Caledonians, as we saw, 
 had their flint-ball, and thong to it, such as no brute 
 has or can have. 
 
 "Man is a tool-using animal," concludes Teufels- 
 drockh in his abrupt way; "of which truth Clothes 
 are but one example. And surely, if we consider the 
 interval between the first wooden dibble fashioned by 
 man, and those Liverpool steam-carriages, or the 
 British House of Commons, we shall note what 
 progress he has made. He digs up certain black 
 stones from the bosom of the earth, and says to them, 
 Transport me, and this luggage, at the rate of five- 
 and-thirty miles an hour ; and they do it. He collects, 
 apparently by lot, six hundred and fifty-eight miscel- 
 laneous individuals, and says to them, Make this 
 nation toil for us, bleed for us, hunger, and sorrow, 
 and sin for us; and they do it." 
 
 CHAPTER VI, 
 
 APRONS. 
 
 One of the most unsatisfactory sections in the whole 
 volume is that on aprons. What though stout old 
 Gao, the Persian blacksmith, " whose apron, now, 
 indeed, hidden under jewels, because raised in revolt 
 
48 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 which proved successful, is still the royal standard 
 of that country ;" what though John Knox's daughter, 
 "who threatened Sovereign Majesty that she would 
 catch her husband's head in her apron, rather than he 
 should lie and be a bishop;" what though the Land- 
 gravine Elizabeth, with many other apron worthies, 
 —figure here? An idle, wiredrawing spirit, some- 
 times even a tone of levity, approaching to conven- 
 tional satire, is too clearly discernible. What, for 
 example, are we to make of such sentences as the 
 following ? 
 
 "Aprons are defences; against injury to cleanli- 
 ness, to safety, to modesty, sometimes to roguery. 
 From the thin slip of notched silk (as it were, the 
 emblem and beautified ghost of an apron) which 
 some highestbred house wife, sitting at Niirnberg 
 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 half-naked Vulcans hammer and smelt in 
 their smelt-furnace, — is there not range enough in the 
 fashion and uses of this vestment? How much has been 
 concealed, how much has been defended in aprons ! 
 Nay, rightly considered, what is your whole military 
 and police establishment, charged at uncalculated mil- 
 lions, but a huge, scarlet-colored, iron-fastened apron, 
 wherein society works (uneasily enough) ; guarding 
 itself from some soil and stithy-sparks, in this Devil's 
 smithy (Teufeh-schmeide) of a world? But of all 
 aprons the most puzzling to me hitherto has been 
 the Episcopal, or Cassock. Wherein consists the 
 
APRONS. 49 
 
 usefulness of this apron ? The Overseer (Episcopus) 
 of Souls, I notice, has tucked in the corner of it, as if 
 his day's work were done ; what does he shadow forth 
 thereby?" &c. &c. 
 
 Or again, has it often been the lot of our readers to 
 read such stuff as we shall now quote ? 
 
 "I consider those printed paper aprons, worn by 
 the Parisian cooks, as a new vent, though a slight 
 one, for typography; therefore as an encouragement 
 to modern literature, and deserving of approval ; nor 
 is it without satisfaction that I hear of a celebrated 
 ^London firm having in view to introduce the same 
 fashion, with important extensions, in England." 
 — We who are on the spot hear of no such thing; 
 and, indeed, have reason to be thankful that hitherto 
 there are other vents for our literature, exuberant 
 as it i«. — Teufelsdrockh continues: "If such supply 
 of printed paper should rise so far as to choke up the 
 highways and public thoroughfares, new means must 
 of necessity be had recourse to. In a world existing 
 by industry, we grudge to employ fire as a destroying 
 element, and not as a creating one. However, Heaven 
 is omnipotent, and will find us an outlet. In the mean 
 while, is it not beautiful to see five million quintals 
 of rags picked annually from the laystall ; and 
 annually, after being macerated, hot-pressed, printed 
 on, and sold, — returned thither ; filling so many 
 hungry mouths by the way? Thus is the laystall, 
 especially with its rags or clothes-rubbish, the grand 
 electric battery, and fountain of motion, from which 
 and to which the social activities (like vitreous and 
 resinous electricities) circulate, in larger or smaller 
 
 5 
 
50 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 circles, through the mighty, billowy, storm-tost chaos 
 of life, which they keep alive!" Such passages fill 
 us who love the man, and partly esteem him, with a 
 very mixed feeling. 
 
 Farther down we meet with this : " The journalists 
 are now the true kings and clergy. Henceforth 
 historians, unless they are fools, must write, not of 
 Bourbon dynasties, and Tudors, and Hapsburgs ; but 
 of stamped, broad-sheet dynasties, and quite new 
 successive names, according to this or the other able 
 editor, or combination of able editors, gains the 
 world's ear. Of the British newspaper press, perhaps 
 the most important of all, and wonderful enough in its 
 secret constitution and procedure, a valuable descrip- 
 tive history already exists, in that language, under the 
 title of Satan's Invisible World Displayed; which, 
 however, by search in all the Weissnichtwo Libraries, 
 I have not yet succeeded in procuring (yermocht nicht 
 aufzutreiben)." 
 
 Thus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. 
 Thus does Teufelsdrockh, wandering in regions where 
 he had little business, confound the old, authentic, 
 Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, spurious, im- 
 aginary historian of the Brittische Journalistik ; and 
 so stumble on perhaps the most egregious blunder in 
 modern literature ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 51 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 
 
 Happier is our Professor, and more purely scientific 
 and historic, when he reaches the middle ages in Eu- 
 rope, 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 C allot, succeed each other, like mon- 
 ster devouring monster in a dream. The whole too in 
 brief, authentic strokes, and touched not seldom with 
 that breath of genius which makes even old raiment 
 live. Indeed, so learned, precise, graphical, and every 
 way interesting have we found these chapters, that 
 it may be thrown out as a pertinent question for 
 parties concerned, whether or not a good English 
 translation thereof might henceforth be profitably 
 incorporated with Mr. Merrick's valuable work On 
 Ancient Armor. Take, by way of example, the fol- 
 lowing sketeh ; as authority for whieh Paulinus's 
 Zeitkurzende Lust (n. 678) is, with seeming con- 
 fidence, referred to : 
 
 " Did we behold the German fashionable dress of 
 the fifteenth eentury, we might smile ; as perhaps 
 those by-gone Germans, were they to rise again, and 
 see our haberdashery, would cross themselves, and 
 invoke the Virgin. But happily no by-gone German, 
 or man, rises again. Thus the present is not needlessly 
 trammelled with the past ; and only giows out of it, 
 
52 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 like a tree whose roots are not intertangled 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 room for him ; the 
 very Napoleon, the very Byron, in some seven years, 
 has become obsolete, and were now a foreigner to his 
 Europe. Thus is the law of progress secured ; and 
 in Clothes, as in all other external things whatsoever, 
 no fashion will continue. 
 
 M Of the military classes in those old times, whose 
 buff belts, complicated chains and gorgets, huge churn- 
 boots, and other riding and fighting gear have been 
 bepainted in modern romance, till the whole has 
 acquired somewhat of a signpost character, I shall 
 here say nothing; the civil and pacific classes, less 
 touched upon, are wonderful enough for us. 
 
 " Rich men, I find, have Teusinke" (a perhaps un- 
 translatable article); "also a silver girdle, whereat 
 hang little bells ; so that when a man walks it is with 
 continual jingling. Some few, of musical turn, have 
 a whole chime of bells {Glockenspiel) fastened there; 
 which especially, in sudden whirls, and the other 
 accidents of walking, has a grateful effect. Observe 
 too how fond they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch in- 
 tersections. The male world wears peaked caps, an 
 ell long, which hang bobbing over the side (schief) ; 
 their shoes are peaked in front, also to the length of 
 an ell (and laced on the side with tags); even the 
 wooden shoes have their ell-long noses ; some also 
 clap bells on the peak. Further, according to my 
 authority, the men have breeches without seat (ohne 
 
MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 53 
 
 Gesciss) ; these they fasten peakwise to their shirts ; 
 and the long, round doublet must overlap them. 
 
 u Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scol- 
 loped out behind and before, so that back and breast 
 are almost bare. Wives of quality, on the other hand, 
 have train-gowns four or five ells in length ; which 
 trains there are boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras 
 sailing in their silk-cloth galley, with a Cupid for 
 steersman ! Consider their welts, a handbreadth thick, 
 which waver round them by way of hem ; the long 
 flood of silver buttons, or rather silver shells, from 
 throat to shoe, wherewith these same welt-gowns are 
 buttoned. The maidens have bound silver snoods 
 about their hair, with gold spangles, and pendent 
 flames (Flammen), that is, sparkling hair-drops ; but of 
 their mother's 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 
 welts ; all ending atop in a thick, well starched ruff, 
 some twenty inches broad ; these are their ruff-mantles 
 [Kragenm'dntel). 
 
 " As yet among the womankind hoop-petticoats are 
 not ; but the men have doublets of fustian, under 
 which lie multiple ruffs of cloth, pasted together with 
 batter (mit Teig zusammengekleistert), which create 
 protuberance enough. Thus do the two sexes vie 
 with each other in the art of decoration ; and, as usual, 
 the stronger carries it." 
 
 Our Professor, whether he have humor himself or 
 not, manifests a certain feeling of the ludicrous, a sly 
 
 5* 
 
54 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 especially, the mischances, or striking 
 adventures, incident to the wearers of such, are 
 noticed with due fidelity. Sir Walter Raleigh's fine 
 mantle, which he spread in the mud under Queen 
 Elizabeth's feet, appears to provoke little enthusiasm 
 in him ; he merely asks, Whether at that period the 
 Maiden Queen " was red-painted on the nose, and 
 white-painted on the cheeks, as her tirewomen, when 
 from spleen and wrinkles she would no longer look in 
 any glass, were wont to serve her?" We can answer 
 that Sir Walter knew well what he was doing, and 
 had the Maiden Queen been stuffed parchment dyed 
 in verdigris, would have done the same. 
 
 Thus too, treating of those enormous habiliments, 
 that were not only slashed and gallooned, but artifi- 
 cially swollen out on the broader parts of the body, by 
 introduction of bran, — our Professor fails not to com- 
 ment on that luckless courtier, who, having seated 
 himself on a chair with some projecting nail on it, and 
 therefrom rising to pay his devoir on the entrance of 
 Majesty, instantaneously emitted several pecks of dry 
 wheat-dust ; and stood there diminished to a spindle, 
 his galloons and slashes dangling sorrowful and flabby 
 round him. Whereupon the Professor publishes this 
 reflection : 
 
 " By what strange chances do we live in history ! 
 Erostratus by a torch ; Milo by a bullock ; Henry 
 
MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 55 
 
 Darnley, an unfledged booby and bustard, by his 
 limbs ; most kings and queens by being born under 
 such and such a bedtester ; Boileau Despreaux (ac- 
 cording to Helvetius) by the peck of a turkey ; and 
 this ill-starred individual by a rent in his breeches, — 
 for no memoirist of Kaiser Otto's court omits him. 
 Vain was the prayer of Themistocles for a talent of 
 forgetting. My friends, yield cheerfully to destiny, 
 and read since it is written." — Has Teufelsdrockh to 
 be put in mind that, nearly related to the impossible 
 talent of forgetting, stands that talent of silence, which 
 even travelling Englishmen manifest ? 
 
 " The simplest costume," observes our "Professor, 
 " which I anywhere find alluded to in history, is that 
 used as regimental by Bolivar's cavalry, in the late 
 Colombian wars. A square blanket, twelve feet in 
 diagonal, is provided (some were wont to cut off the 
 corners, and make it circular) ; in the centre a slit is 
 effected, eighteen inches long ; through this the mother- 
 naked trooper introduces his head and neck ; and so 
 rides shielded from all weather, and in battle from 
 many strokes (for he rolls it about his left arm) ; and 
 not only dressed, but harnessed and draperied." 
 
 With which picture of a state of nature, affecting by 
 its singularity, and Old-Roman contempt of the super- 
 fluous, we shall quit this part of our subject. 
 
56 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 
 
 If in the descriptive-historical portion of his volume, 
 Teufelsdrockh, discussing merely the Werden (origin 
 and successive improvement) of Clothes, has astonished 
 many a reader, much more will he in the speculative- 
 philosophical portion, which treats of their Wirken, 
 or influences. It is here that the present Editor first 
 feels the pressure of his task ; for here properly the 
 higher and new philosophy of Clothes commences ; 
 an untried, almost inconceivable region, or chaos ; in 
 venturing upon which, how difficult, yet how unspeak- 
 ably important is it to know what course of survey 
 and conquest is the true one ; where the footing is 
 firm substance and will bear us, where it is hollow, 
 or mere cloud, and may engulf us t 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 
 limbos, and in either case be no more." 
 
 By what chains, or, indeed, infinitely complected 
 tissues of meditation this grand theorem is here 
 
THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 57 
 
 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 stand all in a row, each holding by the skirts 
 of the other; but, at best, that of practical reason, 
 proceeding by large intuition over whole systematic 
 groups and kingdoms ; whereby we might say a noble 
 complexity, almost like that of nature, reigns in his 
 philosophy, or spiritual picture of nature; a mighty 
 maze, yet, as faith whispers, not without a plan. Nay, 
 we complained above, that a certain ignoble com- 
 plexity, what we must call mere confusion, was also 
 discernible. Often, too, must we 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 argu- 
 ment that had taught him, but experience. At present 
 it is only in local glimpses, and by significant frag- 
 ments, picked often at wide enough intervals from 
 the original volume, and carefully collated, that we 
 can hope to impart some outline or foreshadow of this 
 doctrine. Readers of any intelligence are once more 
 invited to favor us with their most concentrated atten- 
 tion. 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, stands here the 
 following long citation : 
 
58 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 " With men of a speculative turn," writes Teufels- 
 drockh, " there come seasons, meditative, sweet, 
 yet awful hours, when in wonder and fear you ask 
 yourself that unanswerable question : Who am I; 
 the thing that can say * I ' (das Wesen das sich Ich 
 nennt)? The world, with its loud trafficking, retires 
 into the distance; and through the paper-hangings, 
 and stone-walls, and thick-piled tissues of commerce 
 and polity, and all the living and lifeless integuments 
 (of society and a body), wherewith your existence sits 
 surrounded,—- the sight reaches forth into the void 
 deep, and you are alone with the universe, and silently 
 commune with it, as one mysterious presence with 
 another. 
 
 " Who am I ; what is this Me ? A voice, a motion, 
 an appearance ; — some embodied, visualized idea in 
 the Eternal Mind? Cogito, ergo sum. Alas, poor 
 cogitator, this takes us but a little way. Sure enough, 
 I am ; and lately was not. But whence ? How ? 
 Whereto ? The answer lies around, written in all 
 colors and motions, uttered in all tones of jubilee and 
 wail, in thousand-figured, thousand-voiced, harmonious 
 nature ; but where is the cunning eye and ear to 
 whom that God-written apocalypse will yield articulate 
 meaning ? We sit as in a boundless phantasmagoria 
 and dream-grotto ; boundless, for the faintest star, the 
 remotest century, lies not even nearer the verge 
 thereof. Sounds and many-colored visions flit round 
 our sense ; but Him, the Unslumbering, whose work 
 both dream and dreamer are, we see not ; except in 
 rare, half^waking moments, suspect not. Creation, 
 says one, lies before us like a glorious rainbow ; but 
 
THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 59 
 
 the sun that made it lies behind us, hidden from us. 
 Then in that strange dream, how we clutch at sha- 
 dows as if they were substances ; and sleep deepest 
 while fancying ourselves most awake ! Which of 
 your philosophical systems is other than a dream 
 theorem ; a net quotient, confidently given out, where 
 divisor and dividend are both unknown ? What are 
 all your national wars, with their Moscow retreats, 
 and sanguinary, hate-filled revolutions, but the som- 
 nambulism of uneasy sleepers ? This dreaming, this 
 somnambulism is what we on earth call life ; wherein 
 the most, indeed, undoubtingly wander, as if they knew 
 right hand from left ; yet they only are wise who know 
 that they know nothing. 
 
 " Pity that all metaphysics had hitherto proved so in- 
 expressibly unproductive ! The secret of man's being 
 is still like the Sphinx's secret : a riddle that he cannot 
 rede ; and for ignorance of which he suffers death, the 
 worse death, a spiritual. What are your axioms, and 
 categories, and systems, and aphorisms ? Words, words. 
 High air-castles are cunningly built of words, the 
 words well bedded also in good logic-mortar; wherein, 
 however, no knowledge will come to lodge. The 
 whole is greater than the part: how exceedingly tiue! 
 Nature abhors a vacuum: how exceedingly false and 
 calumnious ! Again, Nothing can act but where it is: 
 with all my heart; only where is it? Be not the 
 slave of words ; is not the distant, the dead, while I 
 love it, and long for it, and mourn for it, here, in the 
 genuine sense, as truly as the floor I stand on ? But 
 that same where, with its brother when, are from 
 the first the master-colors of our dream-grotto; say 
 
60 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 rather, the canvass (the warp and woof thereof) 
 
 whereon all our dreams and life-visions are painted. 
 
 Nevertheless, has not a deeper meditation taught 
 
 certain of every climate and age, that the wherb and 
 
 when, so mysteriously inseparable from all our 
 
 thoughts, are but superficial terrestrial, adhesions to 
 
 thought; that the seer may discern them where they 
 
 mount up out of the celestial everywhere and 
 
 forever? Have not all nations conceived their God 
 
 as Omnipresent and Eternal ; as existing in a universal 
 
 here, and everlasting now? Think well, thou too 
 
 wilt find that space is but a mode of our human sense, 
 
 so likewise time ; there is no space and no time ; we 
 
 are — we know not what; — light sparkles floating in 
 
 the aether of Deity! 
 
 " So that this so solid-seeming world, after all, were 
 but an air image, our me the only reality ; and nature, 
 with its thousandfold production and destruction, but 
 the reflex of our own inward force, the ' phantasy of 
 our dream ;' or what the Earth-spirit in Faust names 
 it, the living, visible garment of God : 
 
 1 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, are there yet twenty 
 units of us that have learned the meaning thereof?" 
 
THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 61 
 
 "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 crea- 
 ture is his own sempster and weaver and spinner, nay, 
 his own boot-maker, jeweller, and man-milliner; he 
 bounds free through the valleys, with a perennial rain- 
 proof court-suit on his body ; wherein warmth and 
 easiness of fit have reached perfection ; nay, the 
 graces also have been considered, and frills and 
 fringes, with gay variety of color, featly appended, 
 and ever in the right place, are not wanting. While 
 I — good heaven! — have thatched myself over with 
 the dead fleeces of sheep, the bark of vegetables, the 
 entrails of worms, the hides of oxen or seals, the felt 
 of furred beasts ; and walk abroad a moving rag-screen, 
 overheaped with shreds and tatters raked from the 
 charnel-house of nature, where they would have rotted, 
 to rot on me more slowly ! Day after day, I must 
 thatch myself anew; day after day, this despicable 
 thatch must lose some film of its thickness ; some film 
 of it, frayed away by tear and wear, must be brushed 
 off into the ashpit, into the laystall ; till by degrees 
 the whole has been brushed thither, and I, the dust- 
 making, patent rag-grinder, get new material to grind 
 down. O subter-brutish ! vile ! most vile ! For have 
 not I, too, a compact, all-enclosing skin, whiter or 
 dingier ? Am I a botched mass of tailors' and cobblers' 
 
 6 
 
62 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 shreds, then; or a tightly-articulated, homogeneous 
 little figure, automatic, nay, alive ? 
 
 " Strange enough how creatures of the human-kind 
 shut their eyes to plainest facts ; and, by the mere 
 inertia of oblivion and stupidity, live at ease in the 
 midst of wonders and terrors ! But, indeed, man is, 
 and was always, a blockhead and dullard ; much 
 readier to feel and digest than to think and consider. 
 Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his absolute 
 lawgiver; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him 
 by the nose ; thus, let but a rising of the sun, let but 
 a creation of the world happen twice, and it ceases to 
 be marvellous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable. Per- 
 haps not once in a life-time does it occur to your 
 ordinary biped, of any country or generation, be he 
 gold-mantled prince or russet-jerkined peasant, that his 
 vestments and his self are not one and indivisible ; that 
 he is naked, without vestments, till he buy or steal such, 
 and by forethought sew and button them. 
 
 "For my own part, these considerations, of our 
 Clothesthatch, and how, reaches inwards even to our 
 heart of hearts, it tailorizes and demoralizes us, fill me 
 with a certain horror at myself and mankind ; almost 
 as one feels at those Dutch cows, which, during the 
 wet season, you see grazing deliberately with jackets 
 and petticoats (of striped sacking), in the meadows of 
 Gouda. Nevertheless there is something great in the 
 moment when a man first strips himself of adventitious 
 wrappages ; and sees indeed that he is naked, and, as 
 Swift has it, ' a forked, straddling animal, with bandy 
 legs ;' yet also a spirit, and unutterable mystery of 
 mysteries." 
 
ADAMITISM. 63 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ADAMITISM. 
 
 Let no courteous reader take offence at the opin- 
 ions broached in the conclusion of the last chapter. 
 The Editor himself, on first glancing over that singu- 
 lar passage, was inclined to exclaim : What, have we 
 got not only a Sansculottist, but an enemy to Clothes 
 in the abstract ; a new Adamite, in this century, which 
 flatters itself that it is the nineteenth, and destructive 
 both to superstition and enthusiasm ? 
 
 Consider thou foojish Teufelsdrockh, what benefits 
 unspeakable all ages and sexes derive from Clothes. 
 For example when thou thyself, a watery, pulpy, 
 slobbery freshman and new comer in this planet, 
 sattest muling and puking in thy nurse's arms ; suck- 
 ing thy coral, and looking forth into the world in the 
 blankest manner, what hadst thou been, without thy 
 blankets, and bibs, and other nameless hulls? A ter- 
 ror 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 handsel, silver or copper coins, on that the 
 first gala-day of thy existence. Again, wert not thou, 
 at one period of life, a buck, or blood, or macaroni, or 
 incroyable, or dandy, or by whatever name, according 
 to year and place, such phenomenon is distinguished ? 
 In that one word lie included mysterious volumes. 
 
64 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Nay, now when the reign of folly is over, or altered, 
 and thy clothes are not for triumph but for defence, hast 
 thou always worn them perforce, and as a consequence 
 of man's fall : never rejoiced in them, as in a warm, 
 moveable house, a body round thy body, wherein that 
 strange thee of thine sat snug, defying all variations 
 of climate ? Girt with thick double-milled kerseys ; 
 half buried under shawls and broadbrims, and overalls 
 and mudboots, thy very fingers cased in doeskin and 
 mittens, thou hast bestrode that "horse I ride;" and 
 though it were in wild winter, dashed through the 
 world, glorying in it as if thou wert its lord. In vain 
 did the sleet beat round they temples ; it lighted only 
 on thy impenetrable, felted or woven, case of wool. 
 In vain did the winds howl, — forests sounding and 
 creaking, deep calling unto deep, — and the storms 
 heap themselves together into one huge arctic whirl- 
 pool ; thou newest through the middle thereof, striking 
 fire from the highway ; wild music hummed in thy 
 ears, thou too wert as a " sailor of the air ;" the wreck 
 of matter and the crash of worlds were thy element and 
 propitiously wafting tide. Without Clothes, without 
 bit or saddle, what hadst thou been ; what had thy 
 fleet quadruped been ? — Nature is good, but she is not 
 the best ; here, truly, was the victory of art over nature. 
 A thunderbolt, indeed, might have pierced thee ; all 
 short of this thou couldst defy. 
 
 Or, cries the courteous reader, has your Teufels- 
 drockh forgotten what he said lately about " aboriginal 
 savages," and their " condition miserable indeed" ? 
 Would he have all this unsaid ; and us betake our- 
 selves again to the " matted cloak," and go sheeted in 
 a " thick natural fell ?" 
 
ADAMITISM. 65 
 
 Nowise, courteous reader! The Professor knows 
 full well what he is saying ; and both thou and we, in 
 our haste, do him wrong. If Clothes in these times, 
 "so tailorize and demoralize us," have they no 
 redeeming value; can they not be altered to serve 
 better ; must they of necessity be thrown to the dogs ? 
 The truth is, Teufelsdrockh, though a Sansculottist, 
 is no Adamite ; and much perhaps as he might wish 
 to go forth before this degenerate age "as a sign," 
 would nowise wish to do it, as those old Adamites did, 
 in a state of nakedness. The utility of Clothes is 
 altogether apparent to him ; nay, perhaps he has an 
 insight into their more recondite, and almost mystic 
 qualities, what we might call the omnipotent virtue of 
 Clothes, such as was never before vouchsafed to any 
 man. For example : 
 
 " You see two individuals," he writes, " one dressed 
 in fine red, the other in coarse threadbare blue. Red 
 says to blue, ' be hanged and anatomized.' Blue hears 
 with a shudder, and.(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 act bitf 
 where it is? Red has no physical hold of blue, no 
 clutch of him, is nowise in contact with him. Neither 
 are those ministering sheriffs and lord-lieutenants and 
 hangmen and tipstaves so related to commanding red, 
 that he can tug them hither and thither; but each 
 stands distinct within his own skin. Nevertheless, as 
 it is spoken, so is it done ; the articulate word sets all 
 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 hands in action ; and rope and improved drop perform 
 their work. 
 
 " Thinking reader, the reason seems to me twofold : 
 First, that man is a spirit, and bound by invisible bonds 
 to all men; Secondly, that he wears clothes, which are 
 the visible emblems of that fact. Has not your red 
 hanging individual, a horsehair wig, squirrel skins, and 
 a plush gown ; whereby all mortals know that he is a 
 Judge ? — Society, which the more I think of it aston- 
 ishes me the more, is founded upon cloth. 
 
 Often in my atribiliar moods, when I read of pom- 
 pous ceremonials, Frankfort coronations, royal draw- 
 ingrooms, levees, couchees ; and how the ushers and 
 macers and pursuivants are all in waiting ; how Duke 
 this is presented by Archduke that, and Colonel A 
 by General B ; and innumerable bishops, admirals, 
 and miscellaneous functionaries, are advancing gallantly 
 to the Anointed Presence ; and I strive, in my remote 
 privacy, to form a clear picture of that solemnity, — 
 on a sudden, as by some enchanter's wand, the — 
 shall I speak it ? — the Clothes fly off the whole dra- 
 matic corps ; and dukes, grandees, bishops, generals, 
 Anointed Presence itself, every mother's son of them, 
 stand straddling there, not a shirt on them ; and I know 
 not whether to laugh or weep. This physical or 
 psychical infirmity, in which perhaps I am not singular, 
 T have, after hesitation, thought right to publish, for 
 the solace of those afflicted with the like." 
 
 Would to heaven, say we, thou hadst thought right 
 to keep it secret ! Who is there now that can read 
 the five columns of presentations in his morning news- 
 paper without a shudder ? Hypochondriac men, and 
 
ADAMITISM. 67 
 
 all men are to a certain extent hypochondriac, should 
 be more gently treated. With what readiness our 
 fancy, in this shattered state of the nerves, follows out 
 the consequences which Teufelsdrockh, with a devilish 
 coolness, goes on to draw : 
 
 "What would Majesty do, could such an accident 
 befall in reality ; should the buttons all simultaneously 
 start, and the solid wool evaporate, in very deed, as 
 here in dream ? Ach Gott! How each skulks into the 
 nearest hiding-place ! Their high state tragedy (Haupt- 
 und St aats- Action) becomes a pickleherring-farce to 
 weep at, which is the worst kind of farce. The tables 
 (according to Horace), and with them, the whole fabric 
 of government, legislation, property, police, and civil- 
 ized society, are dissolved, in wails and howls." 
 
 Lives the man that can figure a naked Duke of 
 Windlestraw addressing a naked House of Lords? 
 Imagination, choked as in mephitic air, recoils on 
 itself, and will not forward with the picture. The 
 woolsack, the ministerial, the opposition benches — 
 infandum! infandum! And yet why is the thing 
 impossible ? t Was not every soul, or rather every 
 body of these guardians of our liberties, naked, or 
 nearly so, last night; "a forked radish, with ahead 
 fantastically carved ?" And why might he not, did 
 our stern fate so order it, walk out to St. Stephen's, 
 as well as into bed, in that no-fashion; and there, 
 with other similar radishes, hold a bed of justice? 
 " Solace of those afflicted with the like !" Unhappy 
 Teufelsdrockh, had man ever such a " physical or 
 psychical infirmity" before ? And now how many, 
 perhaps, may thy unparalleled confession (which we, 
 
68 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 
 Sansculottists, or only the maddest ! 
 
 " It will remain to be examined," adds the inexora- 
 ble Teufelsdrockh, in how far the scarecrow, as a 
 clothed person, is not also entitled to benefit of 
 clergy, and English trial by jury ; nay, perhaps, con- 
 sidering his high function (for is not he, too, a defender 
 of property, and sovereign armed with the terrors of 
 the law ?), to a certain royal immunity and inviola- 
 bility ; which however, misers and the meaner class 
 of persons are not always voluntarily disposed to grant 
 him." ********* 
 * * a o my friends, we are (in Yorick 
 
 Sterne's words) but as * turkeys driven, with a stiek 
 and red clout, to the market;' or if some drivers, as 
 they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas 
 in it, the rattle thereof terrifies the boldest !" 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PURE REASON. 
 
 It must now be apparent enough that our Professor, 
 as above hinted, is a speculative radical, and of the 
 very darkest tinge; acknowledging, for most part, in 
 the solemnities and paraphernalia of civilized life, 
 which we make so much of, nothing but so many 
 cloth-rags, turkey-poles, and " bladders with dried 
 
PURE REASON. 69 
 
 peas." To linger among such speculations, longer 
 than mere science requires, a discerning public can 
 have no wish. For our purposes, the simple fact that 
 such a naked world is possible, nay, actually exists 
 (under the clothed one), will be sufficient. Much, 
 therefore, we omit about " kings wrestling naked on 
 the green with carmen," and the kings being thrown. 
 " Dissect them with scalpels," says Teufelsdrockh, 
 "the same viscera, tissues, livers, lights, and other 
 life-tackle are there; examine their spiritual mechan- 
 ism, the same great need, great greed, and little 
 faculty; nay, ten to one but the carmen, who under- 
 stands draught-cattle, the rimming of wheels, some- 
 thing of the laws of unstable and stable equilibrium, 
 with other branches of wagon-science, and has actually 
 put forth his hand and operated on nature, is the more 
 cunningly gifted of the two. Whence, then, their so 
 unspeakable difference ? From Clothes." Much, also, 
 we shall omit about confusion of ranks, and Joan and 
 my lady, and how it would be everywhere "hail- 
 fellow well met," and chaos were come again; all 
 which, to any one that has once fairly pictured out the* 
 grand mother-idea, society in a state of nakedness t 
 will spontaneously suggest itself. Should some skep- 
 tical individual still entertain doubts whether, in a world 
 without Clothes, the smallest politeness, polity, or even 
 police, could exist, let him turn to the original volume, 
 and view there the boundless Serbonian bogs of Sans- 
 culottism, stretching sour and pestilential ; over which 
 we have lightly flown ; where not only whole armies, 
 but whole nations might sink ! If, indeed, the follow- 
 ing argument, in its brief, riveting emphasis, be not of 
 itself incontrovertible and final : 
 
 
70 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 "Are we opossums? have we natural pouches, like 
 the kangaroo? Or how, without Clothes, could we 
 possess the master-organ, soul's-seat, and true pineal 
 gland of the body social: I mean a purse?" 
 
 Nevertheless it is impossible to hate Professor 
 Teufelsdrockh; at worst, one knows not whether to 
 hate or to love him. For though in looking at the 
 fair tapestry of human life, with its royal and 
 even sacred figures, he dwells not on the obverse 
 alone, but here chiefly on the reverse; and, indeed, 
 turns out the rough seams, tatters, and manifold 
 thrums of that unsightly wrong-side with an almost 
 diabolical patience and indifference, which must have 
 sunk him in the estimation of most readers,-— there 
 is that within which unspeakably distinguishes him 
 from all other past and present Sansculottists. The 
 grand, unparalleled peculiarity of Teufelsdrockh, is 
 that with this deseendentalism he combines a trans- 
 cendentalism no less superlative ; whereby if, on the 
 one hand, he degrade man below most animals, except 
 those jacketed Gouda cows, he, on the other, exalts 
 him beyond the visible heavens, almost to an equality 
 with the gods. 
 
 " To the eye of vulgar logic," says he, " what is 
 man? An omnivorous biped that wears breeches. 
 To the eye of pure reason what is he? A soul, a 
 spirit, and divine apparition. Round his mysterious 
 me, there lies, under all those wool-rags, a garment of 
 flesh (or of senses), contextured in the loom of heaven ; 
 whereby he is revealed to his like, and dwells with 
 them in union and division; and sees and fashions 
 for himself a universe, with azure, starry spaces, and 
 
PURE REASON. 71 
 
 long thousands of years. Deep hidden is he under 
 that strange garment; amid sounds and colors and 
 forms ; as it were, swathed in, and inextricably over- 
 shrouded ; yet is it sky-woven, and worthy of a God. 
 Stands he not thereby in the centre of immensities, in 
 the conflux of eternities ? He feels ; power has been 
 given him to know, to believe ; nay, does not the spirit 
 of love, free in its celestial, primeval brightness, even 
 here, though but for moments, look through? Well 
 said Saint Chrysostom, with his lips of gold, ' the true 
 siiEKiNAH is man ;' where else is the God's-presence 
 manifested, not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as 
 in our fellow-man?" 
 
 In such passages, unhappily too rare, the high 
 Platonic mysticism of our author, which is perhaps 
 the fundamental element of his nature, bursts forth, as 
 it were, in full flood ; and through all the vapor and 
 tarnish of what is often so perverse, so mean in his 
 exterior and environment, we seem to look into a whole 
 inward sea of light and love ; though alas, the grim, 
 coppery clouds soon roll together again, and hide it 
 from view. 
 
 Such tendency to mysticism is everywhere tra6e- 
 able 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, con- 
 temptibility ; there is in each sort poetry also, and a 
 reverend worth. For matter, were it never so des- 
 picable, is spirit, the manifestation of spirit ; were it 
 
72 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 never so honorable, can it be more ? The thing visi- 
 ble, nay, the thing imagined, the thing in any way 
 conceived as visible, what, is it but a garment, a 
 clothing of the higher, celestial, invisible, "unimag- 
 inable, formless, dark with excess of bright?" Under 
 which point of view the following passage, so strange 
 in purport, so strange in phrase, seems characteristic 
 enough : 
 
 " The beginning of all wisdom is to look fixedly on 
 Clothes, or even with armed eyesight, till they become 
 transparent. 'The philosopher,' says the wisest of 
 this age, « must station himself in the middle.' How 
 true ! The philosopher is he to whom the highest has. 
 descended, and the lowest has mounted up; who is the 
 equal and kindly brother of all. 
 
 "Shall we tremble before clothwebs and cobwebs, 
 whether woven in Arkwright looms, or by the silent 
 Arachnes that weave unrestingly in our imagination? 
 Or on the other hand, what is there that we cannot 
 love ; since all was created by God ? 
 
 "Happy he who can look through the Clothes of a 
 man (the woollen, and fleshly, and official bank-paper 
 and state-paper Clothes), into the man himself; and 
 discern, it may be, in this or the other dread potentate, 
 a moie or less incompetent digestive apparatus ; yet also 
 an inscrutable, venerable mystery, in the meanest tinker 
 that sees with eyes !" 
 
 For the rest, as is natuial to a man of this kind, he 
 deals much in the feeling of wonder ; insists on the 
 necessity and high worth of universal wonder, which he 
 holds to be the only reasonable temper for the denizen 
 of so singular a planet as ours. " Wonder," says he, 
 
PURE REASON. 73 
 
 " is the basis of worship. The reign of wonder is peren- 
 nial, indestructible in man; only at certain stages (as 
 the present), it is, for some short season, a reign in 
 partibus infidelium" That progress of science, which 
 is to destroy wonder, and in its stead substitute men- 
 suration and numeration, finds small favor with Teu- 
 -felsdrockh, much as he otherwise venerates these two 
 latter processes. 
 
 " Shall your science," exclaims he, " proceed in 
 the small, chink-lighted, or even oil-lighted, under- 
 ground workshop of logic alone ; and man's mind 
 become an arithmetical mill, whereof memory is the 
 hopper, and mere tables of sines and tangents, codi- 
 fication, and treatises of what you call political econo- 
 my, are the meal ? And what is that science, which 
 the scientific head alone, were it screwed off, and (like 
 the Doctor's in the Arabian Tale) set in a basin to keep 
 it alive, could prosecute without shadow of a heart, — 
 but one other of the mechanical and menial handi- 
 crafts, for which the scientific head (having a soul 
 in it) is too noble an organ ? I mean that thought 
 without reverence is barren, perhaps poisonous ; at best, 
 dies, like cookery, with the day that called it forth ; 
 does not live, like sowing, in successive tilths and 
 wider-spreading harvests, bringing food and plenteous 
 increase to all time." 
 
 In such wise does Teufelsdrockh deal hits, harder 
 or softer, according to ability ; yet ever, as we would 
 fain persuade ourselves, with charitable intent. Above 
 all, that class of "logic-choppers, and treble-pipe scof- 
 fers, and professed enemies to wonder; who, in these 
 days, so numerously patrol as night-constables about 
 
 7 
 
74 SARTOR RESARTUS_. 
 
 the Mechanics' Institute of Science, and cackle, like 
 true Old-Roman geese and goslings round their Capi- 
 tol, on any alarm, or on none ; nay, who often as illu- 
 minated skeptics, walk abroad into peaceable society, 
 in full day-light, with rattle and lantern, and insist on 
 guiding you and guarding you therewith, though the 
 sun is shining, and the street populous with mere jus- 
 tice-loving men :" that whole class is inexpressibly 
 wearisome to him. Hear with what uncommon anima- 
 tion he perorates : 
 
 " The man who cannot wonder, who does not 
 habitually wonder (and worship), were he president of 
 innumerable Royal Societies, and cairied the whole 
 Mecanique Celeste and HegeVs Philosophy, and the 
 epitome of all laboratories and observatories with 
 their results, in his single head, — is but a pair of 
 spectacles behind which there is no eye. Let those 
 who have eyes look through him, then he may be 
 useful. 
 
 " Thou wilt have no mystery and mysticism ; wilt 
 walk through thy world by the sunshine of what thou 
 callest truth, or even by the handlamp of what I call 
 attorney-logic ; and * explain' all, ' account' for all, 
 or believe nothing of it ? Nay, thou wilt attempt 
 laughter ; whoso recognises the unfathomable, all- 
 pervading domain of mystery, which is everywhere 
 under our feet and among our hands ; to whom the 
 universe is an oiacle and temple, as well as a kitchen 
 and cattle-stall,' — he shall be a (delirious) mystic ; 
 to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt protrusively 
 proffer thy handlamp, and shriek, as one injured, when 
 he kicks his foot through it? Armer Teufel! Doth not 
 
PROSPECTIVE. 75 
 
 thy cow calve, doth not thy bull gender ? Thou, thy- 
 self, 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 ieign of wonder is 
 done, and God's world all disembellished and prosaic, 
 but that thou hitherto art a dilettante and sandblind 
 pedant." 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PROSPECTIVE. 
 
 The Philosophy of Clothes is now to all readers, as 
 we predicted it would do, unfolding itself into new, 
 boundless expansions, of a cloudcapt, almost chi- 
 merical aspect, yet not without azure 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 aspho- 
 del meadows, or the yellow-burning marl of a hell on 
 earth ? 
 
 Our Professor, like other mystics, whether delirious 
 or inspired, gives an editor enough to do. Ever higher 
 and dizzier are the heights he leads us to ; more pierc- 
 ing, all-comprehending, all-confounding are his views 
 and glances. For example, this, of nature being not an 
 ■aggregate, but a whole : 
 
76 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 " Well sang the Hebrew Psalmist ; ' If I take the 
 wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts 
 of the universe, God is there !' Thou too, O cultivated 
 reader, who too probably art no psalmist, but a 
 prosaist, knowing God only by tradition, knowest 
 thou any corner of the world where at least force is 
 not ? The drop, which thou shakest from thy wet 
 hand, rests not where it falls, but to-morrow thou 
 findest it swept away ; already, on the wings of the 
 north wind, it is nearing the tropic of Cancer. How 
 came it to evaporate, and not lie motionless ? Thinkest 
 thou there is aught motionless, without force, and ut- 
 terly dead ? 
 
 "As I rode through the Schwarzwald, I said to 
 myself : That little fire, which glows star-like across 
 the dark-growing (nachtende) moor, where the sooty 
 smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to re- 
 place thy lost horseshoe, — is it a detached, separated 
 speck, cut off from the whole universe ; or indissolubly 
 joined to the whole ? Thou fool, that smithy-fire was 
 (primarily) kindled at the sun ; is fed by air that cir- 
 culates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the 
 dogstar ; therein, with iron force, and coal force, and 
 the far stronger force of man, are cunning affinities 
 and battles and victories of force brought about ; it is 
 a little ganglion, or nervous centre, in the great vital 
 system of immensity. Call it, if thou wilt, an uncon- 
 scious altar, kindled on the bosom of the All ; whose 
 iron sacrifice, whose iron smoke and influence reach 
 quite through the All ; whose dingy priest, not by word, 
 yet by brain and sinew, preaches forth the mystery of 
 force ; nay preaches forth (exoterically enough) one 
 
PROSPECTIVE. 77 
 
 little textlet from the gospel of freedom, the gospel of 
 man's force, commanding, and one day to be all-com- 
 manding. 
 
 " Detached, separated! I say there is no such 
 separation. Nothing hitherto was ever stranded, cast 
 aside; but all, were it only a withered leaf, works 
 together with all ; is borne forward on the bottomless, 
 shoreless flood of action, and lives through perpetual 
 metamorphoses. The withered leaf is not dead and 
 lost ; there are forces in it and around it, though work- 
 ing in inverse order ; else how could it rot ? Despise 
 not the rag from which man makes paper, or the litter 
 from which the earth makes corn. Rightly viewed, 
 no meanest object is insignificant; all objects are as 
 windows, through which the philosophic eye looks into 
 infinitude itself." 
 
 Again, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald smithy- 
 altar, what vacant, high-sailing air-ships are these, and 
 whither will they sail with us ? 
 
 " All visible things are emblems ; what thou seest 
 is not there on its own account; strictly taken, is not 
 there at all ; matter exists only spiritually, and to 
 represent some idea, and body it forth. Hence Clothes, 
 as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably 
 significant. Clothes, from the king's mantle down- 
 wards, are emblematic, not of want only, but of a 
 manifold cunning victory over want. On the other 
 hand, all emblematic things are properly Clothes, 
 thought-woven or hand-woven. Must not the imagina- 
 tion weave garments, visible bodies, wherein the else 
 invisible creations and inspirations of our reason are, 
 like spirits, revealed, and first become all-powerful ; — 
 
 
78 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 the rather if, as we often see, the hand, too, aid her, 
 and (by wool-clothes or otherwise) reveal such even 
 to the outward eye ? 
 
 44 Men are properly said to be clothed with authority, 
 clothed with beauty, with curses, and the like. Nay, 
 if you consider it, what is man himself, and his whole 
 terrestrial life, but an emblem ; a clothing or visible gar- 
 ment for that divine me of his, cast hither, like a light 
 particle, down from heaven ? Thus is he said, also, to 
 be clothed with a body. 
 
 " Language is called the garment of thought ; how- 
 ever, it should rather be, language is the flesh-garment, 
 the body, of thought. I said' that imagination wove 
 this flesh-garment ; and does she not ? Metaphors are 
 her stuff. Examine language; what, if you except 
 some few primitive elements (of natural sound), what 
 is it all but metaphors, recognised as such, or no 
 longer recognised ; still fluid and florid, or now solid- 
 grown and colorless ? If those same primitive ele- 
 ments are the osseous fixtures in the flesh-garment, 
 language, — then are metaphors its muscles and tissues 
 and living integuments. An unmetaphorical style 
 you shall in vain seek for ; is not your very attention 
 a siretching-to ? The difference lies here : some 
 styles are lean, adust, wiry, the muscle itself seems 
 osseous ; some are even quite pallid, hunger-bitten, 
 and dead-looking ; while others, again, glow in the 
 flush of health and vigorous self-growth, sometimes 
 (as in my own case) not without an apoplectic ten- 
 dency. Moreover there are sham metaphors, which, 
 overhanging that same thought's-body (best naked,) 
 and deceptively bedizening or bolstering it out, may 
 
PROSPECTIVE. 7U 
 
 be called its false stuffings, superfluous show-cloaks 
 (Putz Mantel), and tawdry woollen rags; whereof he 
 that runs and reads may gather whole hampers, — and 
 burn them." 
 
 Than which paragraph on metaphors did the reader 
 ever chance to see a more surprisingly metaphorical? 
 However, that is not our chief grievance ; the Professor 
 continues : 
 
 " Why multiply instances ? It is written, ' The hea- 
 vens and the earth shall fade away like a vesture ; ' 
 which, indeed, they are ; the time-vesture of the Eter- 
 nal. Whatsoever sensibly exists, whatsoever repre- 
 sents 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 un- 
 derstood, is included all that men have thought, dream- 
 ed, done, and been; the whole external universe and 
 w r hat it holds is but clothing; and the essence of all 
 science lies in the Philosophy of Clothes." 
 
 Towards these dim, infinitely expanded regions, 
 close bordering on the impalpable Inane, it is not 
 without apprehension, and perpetual difficulties, that 
 the Editor sees himself journeying and struggling. 
 Till lately a cheerful daystar of hope hung- before him, 
 in the expected aid of Hofrath Heuschrecke ; which 
 daystar, however, melts now, not into the red of 
 morning, but into a vague, gray, half-light^ uncertain 
 whether dawn of day or dusk of utter darkness. For 
 the last week, these so called biographical docu- 
 ments are in his hand. By the kindness of a Scottish' 
 Hamburgh merchant, whose name, known to the 
 whole mercantile world, he must not mention; but 
 
80 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 whose honorable courtesy, now and often before spon- 
 taneously manifested to him, a mere literary stranger, 
 he cannot soon forget, — the bulky Weissnichtwo 
 packet, with all its custom-house seals, foreign hiero- 
 glyphs, and miscellaneous tokens of travail, arrived 
 here in perfect safety, and free of cost. The reader 
 shall now fancy with what hot haste it was broken up, 
 with what breathless expectation glanced over; and, 
 alas, with what unquiet disappointment it has, since 
 then, been often thrown down, and again taken up. 
 
 Hofrath Heuschrecke, in a too long-winded letter, 
 full of compliments, Weissnichtwo politics, dinners, 
 dining repartees, and other ephemeral trivialities, pro- 
 ceeds to remind us of what we knew well already : 
 that, however it may be with metaphysics, and other 
 abstract science originating in the head (V&rstand) 
 alone, no life-philosophy (Lebensphilosophie), such as 
 this of Clothes pretends to be, which originates equally 
 in the character (Gesnutk), and equally speaks thereto, 
 can attain its significance till the character itself is 
 known and seen ; " till the Author's view of the 
 world (JVeltansicht), and how he actively and pas- 
 sively came by such view, are clear ; in short, till a 
 biography of him has been philosophico-poetically 
 written, and philosophico-poetically read." " Nay," 
 adds he, " were the speculative, scientific truth even 
 known, you still, in this inquiring age, ask yourself, 
 Whence came it, and Why, and How? — and rest 
 not, till, if no better may be, fancy have shaped out 
 an answer ; and, either in the authentic lineaments of 
 fact, or the forged ones of fiction, a complete picture 
 and genetical history of the man and his spiritual 
 
PROSPECTIVE. 81 
 
 endeavour lies before you. But why," says the Hofrath, 
 and, indeed, say we, "do I dilate on the uses of our 
 Teufelsdrockh's biography ? The great Herr Minister 
 von Goethe has penetratingly remarked that * man is 
 properly the only object that interests man;' thus I 
 too have noted, that in Weissnichtwo our whole con- 
 versation is little or nothing else but biography or 
 autobiography; ever humano-anecdotical (menschlich- 
 anecdotisch). Biography is by nature the most univer- 
 sally profitable, universally pleasant of all things ; 
 especially biography of distinguished individual's. 
 
 " By this time, mein Verehrtester (my most es- 
 teemed)," continues he, with an eloquence which, 
 unless the words be purloined from Teufelsdrockh, or 
 some trick of his, as we suspect, is well nigh unac- 
 countable, "by this time, you are fairly plunged 
 (vertieft) in that mighty forest of Clothes-Philosophy ; 
 and looking round, as all readers do, with astonish- 
 ment enough. Such portions and passages as you 
 have already mastered, and brought to paper, could 
 not but awaken a strange curiosity touching the mind 
 they issued from ; the perhaps unparalleled psychical 
 mechanism, which manufactured such matter, and 
 emitted it to the light of day. Had Teufelsdrockh 
 also a father and mother? Did he, at one time, wear 
 drivel-bibs, and live on spoon-meat ? Did he ever, in 
 rapture and tears, clasp a friend's bosom to his ? Looks 
 he also wistfully into the long burial-aisle of the past, 
 where only winds, and their low, harsh moan, give 
 inarticulate answer ? Has he fought duels ? Good 
 Heaven ! how did he comport himself when in love ? 
 By what singular stairsteps, in short, and subterranean 
 
82 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 1 
 
 " To all these natural questions the voice of public 
 history is as yet silent. Certain only that he has been, 
 and is, a pilgrim and traveller from a far country; 
 more or less foot-sore 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 he took, though all regularly 
 jotted down (in indelible, sympathetic ink, by an in- 
 visible, interior penman,) are these nowhere forth- 
 coming? Perhaps quite lost; one other leaf of that 
 mighty volume (of human memory) left to fly abroad, 
 unprinted, unpublished, unbound up, as waste paper; 
 and rot, the sport of rainy winds ? 
 
 " No, verehrtester Herr Herausgeber, in no wise ! 
 I here, by the unexampled favor you stand in with our 
 sage, send, not a biography only, but an autobiography ; 
 at least the materials for such; wherefrom, if I mis- 
 reckon not, your perspicacity will draw fullest insight ; 
 and so the whole Philosophy and Philosopher of 
 Clothes stand clear to the wondering eyes of England ; 
 nay, thence, through America, through Hindostan, 
 and the antipodal New Holland, finally conquer (ein- 
 nehmen) great part of this terrestrial planet!" 
 
 And now let the sympathising reader judge of our 
 feeling, when, in place of this same autobiography 
 with "fullest insight," we find— six considerable 
 
PROSPECTIVE. 83 
 
 Paper-bags, carefully sealed, and marked successively, 
 in gilt China ink, with the symbols of the six southern 
 zodiacal signs, beginning at Libra ; in the inside of 
 which sealed bags lie miscellaneous masses of sheets, 
 and oftener shreds and snips, written in Professor 
 Teufelsdrockh's scarce legible cursiv-schrift ; and treat- 
 ing of all imaginable things under the zodiac and above 
 it, but of his own personal history only at rare intervals, 
 and then in the most enigmatic manner ! 
 
 Whole fascicles there are, wherein the Professor, 
 or, as he here, speaking in the third person, calls 
 himself, " the Wanderer," is not once named. Then 
 again, amidst what seems to be a metaphysico-theo- 
 logical disquisition, " detached thoughts on the steam- 
 engine," or " the continued possibility of prophecy," 
 we shall meet with some quite private, not unim- 
 portant biographical fact. On certain sheets stand 
 dreams, authentic or not, while the circumjacent wak- 
 ing actions are omitted. Anecdotes, oftenest without 
 date of place or time, fly loosely on separate slips, like 
 Sibylline leaves. Interspersed also are long, purely 
 autobiographical delineations, yet without connexion, 
 without recognisable coherence ; so unimportant, so 
 superfluously minute, they almost remind us of " P. 
 P. Clerk of this Parish." Thus does famine of intel- 
 ligence 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 washbills marked bezahlt (settled). 
 His travels are indicated by the street-advertisements 
 
 
84 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 of the various cities he has visited ; of which street- 
 advertisements, in most living tongues, here is perhaps 
 the completest collection extant. 
 
 So that if the Clothes-volume itself was too like a 
 chaos, we have now, instead of the solar luminary that 
 should still it, the airy Limbo which by intermixture 
 will farther volatilize and discompose it ! As we shall 
 perhaps see it our duty ultimately to deposit these six 
 paper bags in the British Museum, farther description, 
 and all vituperation of them, may be spared. Biogra- 
 phy or autobiography of Teufelshrockh there is, clear- 
 ly 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 imagina- 
 tion, on the side of editor and of reader, rise up between 
 them. Only as a gaseous-chaotic appendix to that aque- 
 ous-chaotic volume can the contents of the six bags 
 hover round us, and portions thereof be incorporated 
 with our delineation of it. 
 
 Daily and nightly does the Editor sit (with green 
 spectacles) deciphering these unimaginable documents 
 from their perplexed cursiv-schrift ; collating them 
 with the almost equally unimaginable volume, which 
 stands in legible print. Over such a universal medley 
 of high and low, of hot, cold, moist, and dry, is he 
 here struggling (by union of like with like, which is 
 method) to build a firm bridge for British travellers. 
 Never, perhaps, since our first bridge-builders, sin and 
 death, built that stupendous arch from hell-gate to the 
 earth, did any pontifex, or pontiff, undertake such a, 
 task as the present Editor. For in this arch, too, lead- 
 ing as we humbly presume, far otherwards than that 
 
PROSPECTIVE. 85 
 
 grand, primeval one, the materials are to be fished up 
 from the weltering deep, and down from the simmering 
 air, here one mass, there another, and cunningly ce- 
 mented, while the elements boil beneath. Nor is there 
 any supernatural force to do it with ; but simply the dili- 
 gence 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 Why 
 to the far-distant Wherefore, his whole faculty and self 
 are like to be swallowed up. 
 
 Patiently, under these incessant toils and agitations, 
 does the Editor, dismissing all anger, see his otherwise 
 robust health declining ; some fraction of his allotted 
 natural sleep nightly leaving him, and little but an in- 
 flamed nervous system to be looked for. What is the 
 use of health, or of life, if not to do some work there- 
 with ? And what work nobler than transplanting foreign 
 thought into the barren domestic soil ; except, indeed, 
 planting thought of your own, which the fewest are 
 privileged to do ? Wild as it looks, this Philosophy 
 of Clothes, can we ever reach its real meaning, promises 
 to reveal new coming eras, the first dim rudiments and 
 already-budding germs of a nobler era, in universal his- 
 tory. Is not such a prize worth some striving ? For- 
 ward with us, courageous reader ; be it towards failure, 
 oi towards success ! The latter thou sharest with us, 
 the former also is not all our own. 
 
 8 
 
86 SARTOR RESARTUS* 
 
 BOOK II. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 In a psychological point of view, it is perhaps 
 questionable whether from birth and genealogy, how 
 closely scrutinized soever, much insight is to be 
 gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenomenon the 
 beginning remains always the most notable moment ; 
 so, with regard to any great man, we rest not till, for 
 our scientific profit or not, the whole circumstances of 
 his first appearance in this planet, and what manner 
 of public entry he made, are with utmost complete- 
 ness rendered manifest. To the Genesis of our Clothes- 
 Philosopher, then, be this first chapter consecrated. 
 Unhappily, indeed, he seems to be of quite obscure 
 extraction; uncertain, we might almost say, whether 
 of any ; so that this Genesis of his can properly be 
 nothing but an Exodus (or transit out of invisibility 
 into visibility); whereof the preliminary portion is no* 
 where forthcoming. 
 
 " In the village of Entepfuhl," thus writes he, in 
 the bag Libra, on various papers, which we arrange 
 with difficulty, " dwelt Andreas Futteral and his wife; 
 childless, in still seclusion, and cheerful though now 
 verging towards old age. Andreas had been grenadier 
 sergeant, and even regimental schoolmaster, under 
 Frederick the Great ; but now, quitting the halbert 
 
GENESIS. 87 
 
 and ferule for the spade and pruninghook, cultivated 
 a little orchard, on the produce of which he, Cin- 
 cinnatus-like, lived not without dignity. Fruits, the 
 peach, the apple, the grape, with other varieties, came 
 in their season ; all which Andreas knew how to sell. 
 On evenings he smoked largely, or read (as beseemed 
 a regimental schoolmaster), and talked to neighbours 
 that would listen about the victory of Rossbach ; and 
 how Fritz the only (der Einzige) had once with his 
 own royal lips spoken to him, had been pleased to say, 
 when Andreas as camp-sentinel demanded the pass- 
 word, Schweig Du Hund (Peace, hound!) before any 
 of his staff-adjutants could answer. " Das nenn'ich 
 mir einen Konig, there is what I call a king," would 
 Andreas exclaim ; * but the smoke of Kunersdorf was 
 still smarting his eyes.' 
 
 " Gretchen, the housewife, won like Desdemona by 
 the deeds rather than the looks of her now veteran 
 Othello, lived not in altogether military subordination ; 
 for, as Andreas said, « The womankind will not drill 
 (wer kann die Weiber chert dressiren).' Nevertheless 
 she at least loved him both for valor and wisdom; to 
 her a Prussian grenadier sergeant and regiment's 
 schoolmaster was little other than a Cicero and Cid ; 
 what you see, yet cannot see over, is as good as infi- 
 nite. Nay, was not Andreas, in very deed, a man of 
 order, courage, downrightness (Geradheit) ; that under- 
 stood Biisching's Geography, had been in the victory 
 of Rossbach, and left for dead in the camisade of 
 Hochkirch ? The good Gretchen, for all her fretting, 
 watched over him and hovered round him, as only a 
 true housemother can. Assiduously she cooked and 
 
OO SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 sewed and scoured for him ; so that not only his old 
 regimental sword and grenadier-cap, but the whole 
 habitation and environment, where, on pegs of honor, 
 they hung, looked ever trim and gay ; a roomy, painted 
 cottage, embowered in fruit-trees and forest-trees, 
 evergreens and honeysuckles ; rising many-colored 
 from amid shaven grass-plots, flowers struggling in 
 through the very windows ; under its long, projecting 
 eaves nothing but garden-tools in methodic piles (to 
 screen them from rain), and seats, where, especially 
 on summer nights, a king might have wished to sit 
 and smoke and call it his. Such a Bauergut (copy- 
 hold) had Gretchen given her veteran ; whose sinewy 
 arms, and long-disused gardening talent, had made it 
 what you saw. 
 
 "Into this umbrageous man's-nest, one meek yellow 
 evening or dusk, when the sun, hidden indeed from 
 terrestrial Entepfuhl, did nevertheless journey visible 
 and radiant along the celestial balance (Libra), it was 
 that a stranger of reverend aspect entered ; and, with 
 grave salutation, stood before the two rather astonished 
 housemates. He was close-muffled in a wide mantle ; 
 which without farther parley unfolding, he deposited 
 therefrom what seemed some basket, overhung with 
 green Persian silk; saying only: Jhr lieben Leute, 
 hier bringe ein uns elicit zb ares Verheilen ; nehmt es in 
 oiler Acht, sorgfaltigst beniitzt es ; mit hohem Lohn, 
 oder wohlwiit schiverem Zinsen, wird's einst zuruck- 
 gefordert : * Good Christian people, here lies for you 
 an invaluable loan ; take all heed thereof, in all careful- 
 ness employ it ; with high recompense, or else with 
 heavy penalty, will it one day be required back/ 
 
GENESIS. 89 
 
 Uttering which singular words, in a clear, bell-like, 
 forever memorable tone, the stranger gracefully with- 
 drew ; and before Andreas or his wife, gazing in ex- 
 pectant wonder, had time to fashion either question or 
 answer, was clean gone. Neither out of doors could 
 aught of him be seen or heard ; he had vanished in 
 the thickets, in the dusk; the orchard-gate stood 
 quietly closed ; the stranger was gone once and always. 
 So sudden had the whole transaction been, in the 
 autumn stillness and twilight, so gentle, noiseless, that 
 the Futterals could have fancied it all a trick of imagi- 
 nation, or some visit from an authentic spirit. Only 
 that the green silk basket, such as neither imagina- 
 tion nor authentic spirits are wont to carry, still stood 
 visible and tangible on their little parlour-table. To- 
 wards this the astonished couple, now with lit candle, 
 hastily turned their attention. Lifting the green veil, 
 to- see what invaluable it hid, they descried there, 
 amicl down and rich white, wrappages, no Pitt Diamond 
 or Hapsburg Regalia, but, in the softest sleep, a little 
 red-colored infant! Beside it lay a roll of gold 
 Friedrichs, the exact amount of which was never 
 publicly known ; also a Taufschein (baptismal certifi- 
 cate), wherein unfortunately nothing but the name, 
 was decipherable ; other document or indication none 
 whatever. 
 
 " To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then 
 and always thenceforth. Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on 
 the morrow or next day, did tidings transpire of any 
 such figure as the stranger; nor could the traveller, 
 who had passed through the neighbouring town in 
 coach and four, be connected with this apparition, 
 
 8* 
 
90 SARTOR RESARTTJS. 
 
 except in the way of gratuitous surmise. Meanwhile, 
 for Andreas and his wife, the grand practical problem 
 was : Wha to do with this little, sleeping, red-colored 
 infant? Amid amazements and curiosities, which had 
 to die away without external satisfying, they resolved, 
 as in such circumstances charitable, prudent people 
 needs must, on nuising it, though with spoon-meat, 
 into whiteness, and if possible into manhood. The 
 heavens smiled on their endeavour. Thus has that 
 same mysterious individual ever since had a status for 
 himself, in this visible universe, some modicum of 
 victual and lodging and parade ground ; and now ex- 
 panded in bulk, faculty, and knowledge of good and 
 evil, he, as Herr Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, professes 
 or is ready to profess, perhaps not altogether without 
 effect, in the new University of Weissnichtwo, the new 
 science of things in general. " 
 
 Our Philosopher declares here, as, indeed, we should 
 think he well might, that these facts, first communi- 
 cated, by the good Gretchen Futteral, in his twelfth 
 year, "produced on the boyish heart and fancy a quite 
 indelible impression. Who this reverend personage," 
 he says, " that glided into the orchard cottage when 
 the sun was in Libra, and then, as on spirit's wings, 
 glided out again, might be? An inexpressible desire, 
 full of love and of sadness, has often since struggled 
 within me to shape an answer. Ever, in my dis- 
 tresses and my loneliness, has fantasy turned, full of 
 longing (sehnsuchtsvoll), to that unknown father, who, 
 perhaps far from me, perhaps near, either way invisi- 
 ble, might have taken me to his paternal bosom, there 
 to lie screened from many a woe. Thou beloved 
 
GENESIS. 91 
 
 father, dost thou still, shut out from me only by thin, 
 penetrable curtains of earthly space, wend to and fro 
 among the crowd of the living ? Or art thou hidden by 
 those far thicker curtains of the everlasting night, or 
 rather of the everlasting day, through which my mortal 
 eye and outstretched arms need not strive to reach ? 
 Alas ! I know not, and in vain vex myself to know- 
 More than once, heart-deluded, have I taken for thee 
 this and the other noble looking stranger ; and ap- 
 proached him wistfully, with infinite regard ; but he too 
 must repel me, he too was not thou. 
 
 " And yet, O man born of woman," cries the auto- 
 biographer, with one of his sudden whirls, " wherein 
 is my case peculiar ? Hadst thou, any more than I, a 
 father whom thou knowest? The Andreas and Gret- 
 chen, or the Adam and Eve, who led thee into life, 
 and for a time suckled and pap-fed thee there, whom 
 thou namest father and mother ; these were, like mine, 
 but thy nursing father and nursing mother ; thy true 
 Beginning and Father is in heaven, whom with the 
 bodily eye thou shalt never behold, but only with the 
 spiritual." 
 
 " The little green veil," adds he, among much 
 similar moralizing and embroiled discoursing, " I yet 
 keep ; still more inseparably the name, Diogenes 
 Teufelsdrockh. From the veil can nothing be in- 
 feried ; a piece of now quite faded Persian silk, like 
 thousands of others. On the name I have many times 
 meditated and conjectured; but neither in this lay 
 there any clue. That is 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 with- 
 
92 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 out the German Empire, and through all manner of 
 subscriber-lists (Pranumeranten,) militia rolls, and 
 other name-catalogues ; extraordinary names as we 
 have in Germany, the name Teufelsdrockh, except as 
 appended to my own person, nowhere occurs. Again, 
 what may the unchristian rather than Christian • Dio- 
 genes' mean ? Did that reverend basket-bearer in- 
 tend by such designation, to shadow forth my future 
 destiny, or his own present malign humor ? Perhaps 
 the latter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starred parent t who 
 like an ostrich must leave thy ill-starred offspring to 
 be hatched into self-support by the mere sky-influence s 
 of chance, can thy pilgrimage have been a smooth 
 one ? Beset by misfortune thou doubtless hast been ; 
 or, indeed, by the worst figure of misfortune, by mis- 
 conduct. Often have I fancied how, in thy hard life- 
 battle, thou wert shot at and slung at, wounded, hand- 
 fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten, and bedevilled, by 
 the time-spirit (Zeitgeist) in thyself and others, till 
 the good soul first given thee was seared into grim 
 rage ; and thou hadst nothing for it but to leave in me 
 an indignant appeal to the future, and living, speaking 
 protest against the devil, as that same spirit, not of the 
 time only, but of time itself, is well named ! Which 
 appeal and protest, may I now modestly add, was not 
 perhaps quite lost in air. 
 
 " For, indeed, as Walter Shandy often insisted, there 
 is much, nay, almost all, in names. The name is the 
 earliest garment you wrap round the earth^visiting me ; 
 to which it thenceforth cleaves more tenaciously (for 
 there are names that have lasted nigh thirty cen- 
 turies) than the very skin. And know from without 
 
GENESIS. 93 
 
 what mystic influences does it not send inwards, even 
 to the centre ; especially in those plastic first times, 
 when the whole soul is yet infantine, soft, and the 
 invisible seed-grain will grow to be an all-overshadow- 
 ing tree ! Names ! Could I unfold the influence of 
 names, which are the most important of all Clothings, 
 I were a second greater Trismegistus. Not only all 
 common speech, but science, poetry itself, is no other, 
 if thou consider it, than a right naming. Adam's 
 first task was giving names to natural appearances. 
 What is ours still but a continuation of the same ; be 
 the appearances exotic-vegetable, organic, mechanic, 
 stars, or starry movements (as in science) ; or, (as in 
 poetry) passions, virtues, calamities, god-attributes, 
 gods? — In a very plain sense the proverb says, Call 
 one a thief \ and he will steal; in an almost similar 
 sense, may we not perhaps say, Call one Diogenes 
 Teufelsdrockh, and he will open the Philosophy of 
 Clothes." 
 
 " Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all 
 ignorant of his Why, his How, or Whereabout, was 
 opening his eyes to the kind light ; sprawling out his 
 ten fingers and toes ; listening, tasting, feeling ; in a 
 word, by all his five senses, still more by his sixth 
 sense of hunger, and a whole infinitude of inward, 
 spiritual, half-awakened senses, 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 progress ; thus, in 
 some fifteen months, he could perform the miracle of 
 — speech ! To breed a fresh soul is it not like brood- 
 ing a fresh (celestial) egg ; wherein as yet all is form- 
 
94 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 less, powerless ; yet by degrees organic elements and 
 fibres shoot through the watery albumen ; and out of 
 vague sensation, grows thought, grows fantasy and 
 force, and we have philosophies, dynasties, nay, poe- 
 tries and religions ! 
 
 " Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for 
 by such diminutive had they in their fondness named 
 him, travelled forward to those high consummations, 
 by quick, yet easy stages. The Futterals, to avoid vain 
 talk, and moreover keep the roll of gold Friedrichs safe, 
 gave out that he was a grand-nephew ; the orphan of 
 some sister's daughter, suddenly deceased, in Andreas's 
 distant Prussian birth-land ; of whom, as of her indi- 
 gent, sorrowing widower, little enough was known at 
 Entepfuhl. Heedless of all which, the nursling took to 
 his spoon-meat, and throve. I have heard him noted 
 as a still infant, that kept his mind much to himself; 
 above all, that seldom or never cried. He already felt 
 that time was precious ; that he had other work cut out 
 for him than whimpering." 
 
 Such, after utmost painful search and collation 
 among these miscellaneous paper-masses, is all the 
 notice we can gather of Herr Teufelsdrockh's gene- 
 alogy. More imperfect, more enigmatic it can seem 
 to few readers than to us. The Professor, in whom 
 truly we more and more discern a certain satirical turn, 
 and deep under-currents of roguish whim, for the 
 present stands pledged in honor, so we will not doubt 
 him. But seems it not conceivable that, by the " good 
 Gretchen Futteral," or some other perhaps interested 
 party, he has himself been deceived ? Should these 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 IDYLLIC. 
 
 "Happy season of childhood!" exclaims Teufels- 
 drockh. "Kind [nature, that art to all a bountiful 
 mother ; that visitest the poor man's hut with auroral 
 radiance; and for thy nursling hath provided a soft 
 swathing of love and infinite hope, wherein he waxes 
 and slumbers, danced round (umgaukelt) by sweetest 
 dreams ! If the paternal cottage still shuts us in, its 
 roof still screens us ; with a father we have as yet a 
 prophet, priest, and king, and an obedience that makes 
 us free. The young spirit has awakened out of eter- 
 nity, and knows not what we mean by time ; as yet 
 time is no fast-hurrying stream, but a sportful, sunlit 
 ocean ; years to the child are as ages. Ah ! the secret 
 of vicissitude, of that slower or quicker decay and 
 ceaseless down-rushing of the universal world-fabric, 
 
 • 
 
 IDYLLIC 95 
 
 sheets, translated or not, ever reach the Entepfuhl 
 Circulating Library, some cultivated native of that dis- 
 trict might feel called to afford explanation. Nay, 
 since books, like invisible scouts, permeate the whole 
 habitable globe, and Tf&nbuctoo itself is not safe from £* 
 British literature, may not some copy find out even 
 the mysterious, basket-bearing stranger, who in a state 
 of extreme senility perhaps still exists ; and gently force 
 even him to disclose himself; to claim openly a son, in 
 whom any father may feel pride ? 
 
96 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 from the granite mountain to the man or day '■moth, is 
 yet unknown ; and in a motionless universe, we taste, 
 what afterwards in this quick-whirling universe is for- 
 ever denied us, the balm of rest. Sleep on, thou fair 
 child, for thy long, rough journey is at hand! A little 
 while, and thou too shalt sleep no more, but thy very 
 dreams shall be mimic battles ; thou too, with old 
 Arnauld, must say, in stern patience: 'Rest? rest? 
 Shall I not have all eternity to rest in ? Celestial 
 Nepenthe ! though a Pyrrhus conquer empires, and an 
 Alexander sack the world, he finds thee not; and thou 
 hast once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on the eye- 
 lids, on the heart of every mother's child. For as yet 
 sleep and waking are one ; the fair life-garden rustles 
 infinite around, and everywhere is dewy fragrance, and 
 the budding of hope ; which budding, if in youth, too 
 frost-nipt, it grow to flowers, will in manhood yield no 
 fruit, but a prickly, bitter-rinded stone-fruit, of which 
 the fewest can find the kernel."' 
 
 In such rose-colored light does our Professor, as 
 poets are wont, look back on his childhood ; the his- 
 torical details of which (to say nothing of much other 
 vague, oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells on, 
 with an almost wearisome minuteness. We hear of 
 Entepfuhl standing " in trustful derangement" among 
 the woody slopes ; the paternal orchard flanking it as 
 extreme outpost from below ; the little Kuhbach gush- 
 ing kindly by, among beech-rows, through river after 
 river, into the Donau, into the Black Sea, into the 
 atmosphere and universe; and how "the brave old 
 linden," stretching like a parasol of twenty ells in 
 radius, overtopping all other rows and clumps, towered 
 
IDYLLIC, 97 
 
 up from the central Agora and Campus Martius of 
 the village, like its sacred tree ; and how the old men 
 sat talking under its shadow (Gneschen often greedily 
 listening), and the wearied laborers reclined, and the 
 unwearied children sported, and the young men and 
 maidens often danced to flute-music. " Glorious sum- 
 mer twilights," cries Teufelsdrockh, "when the sun, 
 like a proud conqueror and imperial taskmaster, turned 
 his back, with his gold-purple emblazonry, and all his 
 fire-clad body-guard (of prismatic colors); and the 
 tired brickmakers ©f this clay earth might steal a little 
 frolic, and those few meek stars would not tell of 
 them!" 
 
 Then we have long details of the Weinlesen (vin- 
 tage), the harvest-home, Christmas, and so forth ; with 
 a whole cycle of the Entepfuhl children's games, dif- 
 fering apparently by mere superficial shade from those 
 of other countries. Concerning all which we shall 
 here, for obvious raasons, say nothing. What cares 
 the world for our as yet miniature Philosopher's achieve- 
 ments under that "brave old linden V 9 Or even 
 where is the use of such practical reflections as the 
 following? "In all the sports of children, where it 
 only in their wanton breakages and defacements, you 
 shall discern a creative instinct (schaffenden Trieb) ; 
 the mankin feels that he is a born man, that his vo- 
 cation is to work. The choicest present you can 
 make him is a tool; be it knife or pengun, for con- 
 struction or for destruction ; either way it is for work, 
 for change. In gregarious sports of skill or strength 
 the boy trains himself to cooperation, for war or peace, 
 as governor or governed ; the little maid, again, provi- 
 
 9 
 
9B SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 dent of her domestic destiny, takes with preference to 
 dolls." 
 
 Perhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, con- 
 sidering 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 indi- 
 visible, reaching from neck to ancle, a mere body with 
 four limbs; of which fashion how4ittle could I then 
 divine the architectural, how much less the moral sig- 
 nificance !" 
 
 More graceful is the following little picture: "On 
 fine evenings I was wont to carry forth my supper 
 (bread-crumb boiled in milk), and eat it out of doors. 
 On the coping of the orchard-wall, which I could 
 reach by climbing, or still more easily if father An- 
 dreas would set up the pruning-ladder, my porringer 
 was placed ; there, many a sunset, have I, looking at 
 the distant western mountains, consumed, not without 
 relish, my evening meal. Those hues of gold and 
 azure, that hush of world's expectation as day died, 
 were still a Hebrew speech for me ; nevertheless I was 
 looking at the fair, illuminated letters, and had an eye 
 for their gilding." 
 
 With " the little one's friendship for the cattle and 
 poultry" we shall not much intermeddle. It may be 
 that hereby he acquired " a certain deeper sympathy 
 with animated nature ;" but when, we would ask, saw 
 any man, in a collection of biographical documents, 
 such a piece as this? "Impressive enough (bedeut- 
 ungsvoll) was it to hear, in early morning, the swine- 
 herd's horn ; and know that so many hungry, happy 
 quadrupeds were on all sides starting in hot haste to 
 
IDYLLIC. 99 
 
 join him, for breakfast on the heath. Or to see them, 
 at eventide, all marching in again, with short squeak, 
 almost in military order; and each, topographically 
 correct, trotting off in succession to the right or left, 
 through its own lane, to its own dwelling ; till old 
 Kunz, at the village-head, now left alone, blew his last 
 blast, and retired for the night. We are wont to love 
 the hog chiefly in the form of ham ; yet did not these 
 bristly, thick-skinned beings here manifest intelligence, 
 perhaps humor of character ; at any rate, a touching, 
 trustful submissiveness to man, — who, were he but a 
 swineherd, in darned gabardine, and leather breeches 
 more resembling slate or discolored tin breeches, is still 
 the hierarch of this lower world ?" 
 
 It is maintained, by Helvetius and his set, that an 
 infant of genius is quite the same as any other infant, 
 only that certain surprisingly favorable influences ac- 
 company him through life, especially through child- 
 hood, and expand him, while others lie close-folded 
 and continue dunces. Herein, say they, consists the 
 whole difference between an inspired prophet and a 
 double-barrelled game-preserver ; the inner man of the 
 one has been fostered into genorous development ; that 
 of the other, crushed down perhaps by vigor of animal 
 digestion, and the like, has exuded and evaporated, or 
 at best sleeps now irresuscitably stagnant at the bottom 
 of his stomach. "With which opinion," cries Teu- 
 felsdrockh, " I should as soon agree as with this other, 
 that an acorn might, by favorable or unfavorable influ- 
 ences of soil and climate, be nursed into a cabbage, or 
 the cabbage-seed into an oak. 
 
 LofC. 
 
100 SARTUS RESARTUS. 
 
 " Nevertheless," continues he, "I, too, acknowledge 
 the all but omnipotence of early culture and nurture ; 
 hereby we have either a doddered, dwarf bush, or a 
 high-towering, wide-shadowing tree ; either a sick, yel- 
 low 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 
 circumstances of their education, what furthered, what 
 hindered, what in any way modified it ; to which duty, 
 now-a-days, so pressing for many a German autobio- 
 grapher, I also zealously address myself." — Thou 
 rogue ! Is it by short clothes of yellow serge, and 
 swineherd horns, that an infant of genius is educated ? 
 And yet, as usual, it ever remains doubtful whether 
 he is laughing in his sleeve at these autobiographical 
 times of ours, or writing from the abundance of his own 
 fond ineptitude. For he continues : "If, among the 
 ever-streaming currents of sights, hearings, feelings for 
 pain or pleasure, whereby, as in a magic hall, young 
 Gneschen went about environed, I might venture to 
 select and specify, perhaps these following were also of 
 the number : — 
 
 " Doubtless, as childish sports call forth intellect, 
 activity, so the young creature's imagination was stir- 
 red up, and a historical tendency given him by the 
 narrative habits of father Andreas ; who, with his 
 battle-reminiscences, and gray, austere, yet hearty, 
 patriarchal aspect, could not but appear another Ulysses 
 and l much-enduring man.* Eagerly I hung upon his 
 tales when listening neighbours enlivened the hearth. 
 From these perils and these travels, wild and far al- 
 most as Hades itself, a dim world of adventure ex- 
 
IDYLLIC. 101 
 
 panded itself, within me. Incredible also was the 
 knowledge I acquired in standing by the old men un- 
 der the linden-tree. The whole of immensity was yet 
 new to me ; and had not these reverend seniors, talka- 
 tive enough, been employed in partial surveys thereof 
 for nigh fourscore years ? With amazement I began to 
 discover that Entepfuhl stood in the middle of a country, 
 of a world ; that there was such a thing as history, as 
 biography ; to which I also, one day, by hand and 
 tongue, might contribute. 
 
 " In a like sense worked the Post-wagen (stage- 
 coach), which, slow-rolling under its mountains of 
 men and luggage, wended through our village ; north- 
 wards, truly, in the dead of night; yet southwards 
 visibly at eventide. Not till my eighth year, did I 
 reflect that this Post-wagen could be other than some 
 terrestrial moon, rising and setting by mere law of 
 nature, like the heavenly one ; that it came on made 
 highways, from far cities towards far cities ; weaving 
 them, like a monstrous shuttle, into closer and closer 
 union. It was then that, independently of Schiller's 
 Wilhelm Tell, I made this not quite insignificant re- 
 flection (so true also in spiritual things) ; Any road, 
 this simple Entepfulh road, will lead you to the end of 
 the world I 
 
 " Why mention our swallows, which, out of far 
 Africa, as I learned, threading their way over seas and 
 mountains, corporate cities and belligerent nations, 
 yearly found themselves, with the month of May, snug- 
 lodged in our cottage lobby ? The hospitable father 
 (for cleanliness' sake) had fixed a little bracket, plumb 
 under their nest. There they built, and caught flies, and 
 
 9* 
 
102 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 twittered, and bred ; and all, I chiefly, from the heart 
 loved them. Bright, nimble creatures, who taught you 
 the mason-craft ; nay, stranger still, gave you a masonic 
 incorporation, almost social police? For if, by ill 
 chance, and when time pressed, your house fell, have 
 I not seen five neighbourly helpers appear next day ; 
 and swashing to and fro, with animated, loud, long- 
 drawn chirpings, and activity almost super-hirundine, 
 complete it again before nightfall ? 
 
 " But undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl 
 child's-culture, where as in a funnel its manifold in- 
 fluences were concentrated and simultaneously poured 
 down on us, was the annual cattle-fair. Here, assem- 
 bling from all the four winds, came the elements of 
 an unspeakable hurly-burly. Nutbrown maids and 
 nutbrown men, all clear-washed, loud-laughing, bedi- 
 zened and be-ribanded ; who came for dancing, for 
 treating, and, if possible, for happiness. Top-booted 
 graziers from the north ; Swiss brokers, Italian dro- 
 vers, also top-booted, from the south ; these with their 
 subalterns in leather jerkins, leather skullcaps, and 
 long oxgoads ; shouting in half-articulate speech, amid 
 the inarticulate barking and bellowing. Apart stood 
 potters from far Saxony, with their crockery in fair 
 rows ; Niirnberg pedlars, in booths that to me seemed 
 richer than Ormuz bazaars ; showmen from the 
 Lago Maggiore ; detachments of the Wiener Schitb 
 (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 
 
IDYLLIC. 103 
 
 parti-colored merry-andrew, like the genius of the place 
 and of life itself , 
 
 " Thus encircled by the mystery of existence ; under 
 the deep heavenly firmament; waited on by the four 
 golden seasons, with their vicissitudes of contribution, 
 — for even grim winter brought its skating-matches 
 and shooting-matches, its snow-storms and Christmas 
 carols, — did the child sit and learn. These things 
 were the alphabet, whereby in 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 element of joy ; out of 
 which, as in Prospero's Island, wonder after wonder 
 bodied itself forth, to teach by charming. 
 
 "Nevertheless I were but a vain dreamer, to say, 
 that even then my felicity was perfect. I had, once 
 for all, come down from heaven into the earth. Among 
 the rainbow colors that glowed on my horizon, lay 
 even in childhood a dark ring of care, as yet no thicker 
 than a thread, and often quite overshone ; yet always 
 it reappeared, nay, ever waxing broader and broader ; 
 till in after-years it almost overshadowed my whole 
 canopy, and threatened to engulf me in final night. It 
 was the ring of necessity, whereby we are all begirt. 
 Happy he for whom a kind heavenly sun brightens it 
 into a ring of duty, and plays round it with beautiful 
 prismatic diffractions ; yet ever, as basis and as bourne 
 for our whole being, it is there. 
 
104 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 " For the first few years of our terrestrial appren- 
 ticeship, we have not much work to do ; but, boarded 
 and lodged gratis, are set down mostly to look about 
 us over the workshop, and see others work, till we 
 have understood the tools a little, and can handle this 
 and that. If good passivity alone, and not good pas- 
 sivity and good activity together, were the thing want- 
 ed, then was my early position favorable beyond the 
 most. In all that respects openness of sense, affection- 
 ate temper, ingenuous curiosity, and the fostering of 
 these, what more could I have wished? On the other 
 side, however, things went not so well. My active 
 power (Thatkraft) was unfavorably hemmed in; of 
 which misfortune how many traces yet abide with me ! 
 In an orderly house, where the litter of children's sports 
 is hateful enough, your training is too stoical ; rather to 
 bear and forbear than to make and do. I was forbid 
 much ; wishes in any measure bold I had to renounce ; 
 everywhere a strait bond of obedience inflexibly held 
 me down. Thus already freewill often came in painful 
 collision with necessity ; so that my tears flowed, and 
 at seasons the child itself might taste that root of bitter- 
 ness, wherewith the whole fruitage of our life is 
 mingled and tempered. 
 
 " In which habituation to obedience, truly it was 
 beyond measure safer to err by excess than by defect. 
 Obedience is our universal duty and destiny; wherein 
 whoso will not bend must break. Too early arid too 
 thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that Would, 
 in this world of ours, is as mere zero to Should, and 
 for most part as the smallest of fractions even to Shall. 
 Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly discretion, 
 
IDYLLIC. 105 
 
 nay, of morality itself. Let me not quarrel with my 
 upbringing ! It was rigorous, too frugal, compressively 
 secluded, every way unscientific; yet in that very 
 strictness and domestic solitude might there not lie 
 the root of deeper earnestness, of the stem from which 
 all noble fruit must grow 1 Above all, how unskilful 
 soever, it was loving, it was well-meant, honest; 
 whereby every deficiency was helped. My kind 
 mother, for as such I must ever love the good Gret- 
 chen, did me one altogether invaluable service ; she 
 taught me, less indeed by word than by act and daily 
 reverent look and habitude, her own simple version of 
 the Christian faith. Andreas, too, attended church; 
 yet more like a parade-duty, for which he in the other 
 world expected pay with arrears, — as, I trust, he has 
 received ; but my mother, with a true woman's heart, 
 and fine though uncultivated sense, was in the strictest 
 acceptation religious. How indestructibly the good 
 grows, and propagates itself, even among the weedy 
 entanglements of evil ! The highest whom I knew on 
 earth I here saw bowed down, with awe unspeakable, 
 before a Higher in heaven. Such things, especially in 
 infancy, reach inwards to the very core of your being ; 
 mysteriously does a holy of holies build itself into 
 visibility in the mysterious deeps ; and reverence, the 
 divinest in man, springs forth undying from its mean 
 envelopment of fear. Wouldst thou rather be a pea- 
 sant's son that knew, were it never so rudely, there was 
 a God in heaven and in man ; or a duke's son that 
 only knew there were two and thirty quarters on the 
 family-coach ?" 
 
106 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 To which last question we must answer: Beware 
 O Teufelsdrockh, of spiritual pride ! 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Hitherto we see young Gneschen, in his indivisi- 
 ble ease 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 philoso- 
 pher 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 beto- 
 kened. For with Gneschen, as with others, the man 
 may indeed stand pictured in the boy (at least, all the 
 pigments are there) ; yet only some half of the man 
 stands in the child, or young boy, namely, his passive 
 endowment, not his active. The more impatient are 
 we to discover what figure he cuts in this latter capa- 
 city; how, when, to use his own words, "he under- 
 stands the tools a little, and can handle this or that," 
 he will proceed to handle it. 
 
 Here, however, may be the place to state that, in 
 much of our Philosopher's history, there is something 
 of an almost Hindoo character; nay, perhaps in that 
 
TEDAGOGY. 107 
 
 so well fostered and every-way-excellent "passivity" 
 of his, which, with no free development of the antag- 
 onist activity, distinguished his childhood, we may 
 detect the rudiments of much that, in after-days, and 
 still in these present days, astonishes the world. For 
 the shallow-sighted, Teufelsdrockh is oftenest a man 
 without activity of any kind, a No-man; for the deep- 
 sighted, again, a man with activity almost superabun- 
 dant, yet so spiritual, close-hidden, enigmatic, that no 
 mortal can foresee its explosions, or, even when it has 
 exploded, so much as ascertain its significance. A 
 dangerous, difficult temper for the modern European ; 
 above all, disadvantageous in the hero of a biography ! 
 Now, as heretofore, it will behove the Editor of these 
 pages, were it never so unsuccessfully, to do his en- 
 deavour. 
 
 Among the earliest tools of any complicacy which 
 a man, especially a man of letters, gets to handle, 
 are his class-books. On this portion of his history 
 Teufelsdrockh looks down professedly as indifferent. 
 Reading he " cannot remember ever to have learned ;" 
 so perhaps had it by nature. He says generally; " Of 
 the insignificant portion of my education which de- 
 pended on schools, there need almost no notice be 
 taken. I learned what others learn ; and kept it 
 stored by in a corner of my head, seeing as yet no 
 manner of use in it. My schoolmaster, a downbent, 
 brokenhearted, underfoot martyr, as others of that 
 guild are, did little for me, except discover that he 
 could do little. He, good soul, pronouced me a 
 genius, fit for the learned professions ; and that I 
 
108 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 must be sent to the gymnasium, and one day to the 
 university. Meanwhile, what printed thing soever I 
 could meet with I read. My very copper pocket- 
 money I laid out on stall-literature ; which, as it accu- 
 mulated, I with my own hands sewed into volumes. 
 By this means was the young head furnished with a 
 considerable miscellany of things and shadows of 
 things. History in authentic fragments lay mingled 
 with fabulous chimeras, wherein also was reality ; and 
 the whole, not as dead stuff, but as living pabulum, 
 tolerably nutritive for a mind as yet so peptic." 
 
 That the Entepfuhl schoolmaster judged well we 
 now know. Indeed, already in the youthful Gneschen, 
 with all his outward stillness, there may have been 
 manifest an inward vivacity that promised much; 
 symptoms of a spirit singularly open, thoughtful, 
 almost poetical. Thus, to say nothing of his suppers 
 on the orchard-wall, and other phenomena of that 
 earlier period, have many readers of these pages stum- 
 bled, 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 its flowing, 
 gurgling, to think how this same streamlet had flowed 
 and gurgled, through all changes of weather and of 
 fortune, from beyond the earliest date of history. 
 Yes, probably on the morning when Joshua forded 
 Jordan ; even as at the mid-day when Caesar, doubt- 
 less with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet kept his Com- 
 mentaries 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 
 
PEDAGOGY. 109 
 
 of the grand world-circulation of waters, which, with 
 its atmospheric arteries, has lasted and lasts simply with 
 the world. Thou fool ! Nature alone is antique, and 
 the oldest art a mushroom ; that idle crag thou sittest 
 on is six thousand years of age." In which little 
 thought, as in a little fountain, may there not lie the 
 beginning of those well-nigh unutterable meditations 
 on the grandeur and the mystery of Time, and its 
 relation to Eternity, which play such a part in this 
 Philosophy of Clothes ? 
 
 Over his gymnasic and academic years the Profes- 
 sor 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 gymna- 
 sium," writes he, " my evil days began. Well do I 
 still remember the red, sunny, Whitsuntide morning, 
 when, trotting full of hope by the side of Father 
 Andreas, I entered the main street of the place, and 
 saw its steeple-clock (then striking eight), and Schuld- 
 thurm (Jail), and the aproned or disaproned burghers 
 moving in to breakfast. A little dog, in mad terror, 
 was rushing past; for some human imps had tied a 
 tin kettle to its tail ; thus did the agonized creature, 
 loud-jingling, career through the whole length of the 
 borough, and became notable enough. Fit emblem of 
 many a conquering hero, to whom Fate (wedding fan- 
 tasy to sense, as it often elsewhere does) has malig- 
 nantly appended a tin kettle of ambition, to chase 
 him on ; which, the faster he runs, urges him the 
 faster, the more loudly and more foolishly ! Fit em- 
 
 10 
 
1 10 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 blem also of much that awaited myself in that mis- 
 chievous den ; as in the world, whereof it was a portion 
 and epitome ! 
 
 4 'Alas, the kind beech-rows of Entepfuhl were 
 hidden in the distance. I was among strangers, 
 harshly, at best indifferently, disposed towards me ; 
 the young heart felt, for the first time, quite orphaned 
 and alone," His school-fellows, as is usual, perse- 
 cuted him. " They were boys," he says, " mostly 
 rude boys, and obeyed the impulse of rude nature, 
 which bids the deer-herd fall upon any stricken hart, 
 the duck flock put to death any bioken-winged brother 
 or sister, and on all hands the strong tyrannize over 
 the weak." He admits that, though "perhaps in an 
 unusual degree morally courageous," he succeeded ill 
 in battle, and would fain have avoided it ; a result, as 
 would appear, owing less to his small personal stature 
 
 tor in passionate seasons he was " incredibly nim- 
 ble"), 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 
 4i passivity," so notably in Teufelsdrockh's childhood, 
 is here visibly enough again getting nourishment. 
 
 • He wept often ; indeed to such a degree, that he 
 was nicknamed Der Weinende (the Tearful), which 
 epithet, till towards his thirteenth year, was indeed 
 hot quite unmerited. Only at rare intervals did the 
 young soul burst forth into fire-eyed rage, and, with a 
 stonnfulness (Ungestiim) under which the boldest 
 
PEDAGOGY. Ill 
 
 quailed, assert that he too had Rights of Man, or at 
 least of Mankin." In all which, who does not discern 
 a fine flower-tree and cinnamon-tree (of genius) nigh 
 choked among pumpkins, reed-grass, and ignoble 
 shrubs ; and forced, if it would live, to struggle up- 
 wards only, and not outwards ; into a height quite 
 sickly and dispioportioned to its breadth ! 
 
 We find, moreover, that his Greek and Latin were 
 " mechanically" taught ; Hebrew scarce even mechan- 
 ically ; much else which they called History, Cosmo- 
 graphy, Philosophy, and so forth, no better than not 
 at all. So that, except inasmuch as Nature was still 
 busy ; and he himself " went about, as was of old his 
 wont, among the craftsmen's workshops, there learn- 
 ing many things ;" and farther lighted on some small 
 store of curious reading, in Hans Wachtel the cooper's 
 house, where he lodged, — his time, it would appear, 
 was utterly wasted ; which facts the Professor has not 
 yet learned to look upon with any contentment. In- 
 deed, throughout the whole of this bag Scorpio, where 
 we now are, and often in the following bag, he shows 
 himself unusually animated on the matter of education, 
 and not without some touch of what we might presume 
 to be anger. 
 
 " My teachers," says he, " were hide-bound pedants, 
 without knowledge of man's nature or of boy's ; or 
 of aught save their lexicons and quarterly account- 
 books. Innumerable dead vocables (no dead lan- 
 guage, for they themselves knew no language) they 
 crammed into us, and called it fostering the growth of 
 mind. How can an inanimate, mechanical gerund- 
 grinder, the like of whom will, in a subsequent cen- 
 
112 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 tury, be manufactured at NUrnberg out of wood and 
 leather, foster the growth of anything; much more 
 j of mind, which grows, not like a vegetable (by having 
 / its roots littered with etymological compost), but like 
 a spirit, by mysterious contact of spirit; thought 
 kindling itself at the fire of living thought? How 
 shall he give kindling, in whose own inward man there 
 is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead grammati- 
 cal cinder ? The Hinterschlag professors knew syntax 
 enough ; and of the human soul thus much : that it 
 had a faculty called memory, and could be acted on 
 through the muscular integument by appliance of birch 
 rods. 
 
 "Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be ; till 
 the hodman is discharged, or reduced to hodbearing ; 
 and an architect is hired, and on all hands fitly en- 
 couraged ; till communities and individuals discover, 
 not without surprise, that fashioning the souls of a 
 generation by knowledge can rank on a level with 
 blowing their bodies to pieces by gunpowder ; that 
 with generals and field-marshals for killing, there 
 should be world-honoured dignitaries, and, were it pos- 
 sible, true God-ordained priests, for teaching. But 
 as yet, though the soldier wears openly, and even 
 parades, his butchering-tool, nowhere, far as I have 
 travelled, did the schoolmaster make show of his 
 instructing-tool ; nay, were he to walk abroad with 
 birch girt on thigh, as if he therefrom expected honour, 
 would not, among the idler class, a certain levity be 
 excited ?" 
 
 In the third year of this gymnastic period, Father 
 Andreas seems to have died. The young scholar, 
 
PEDAGOGY. 113 
 
 otherwise so maltreated, saw himself for the first time 
 clad outwardly in sables, and inwardly in quite inex- 
 pressible melancholy. " The dark, boundless 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 inexor- 
 able word, Never ! now first showed its meaning. My 
 mother wept, and her sorrow got vent; but in my heart 
 there lay a whole lake of tears, pent up in silent deso- 
 lation. Nevertheless, the unworn spirit is strong; life 
 is so healthful that it even finds nourishment in death ; 
 these stern experiences, planted down by memory in 
 my imagination, rose there to a whole cypress-forest, 
 sad but beautiful; waving, with notunmelodious sighs, 
 in dark luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine, through 
 long years of youth; — as in manhood also it does, 
 and will do ; for I have now pitched my tent under a 
 cypress-tree ; the tomb is now my inexpugnable fort- 
 ress, 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 threaten- 
 ings with a still smile. ye loved ones, that already 
 sleep in the noiseless bed of rest, whom in life I could 
 only weep for and never help ; and ye, who wide-scat- 
 tered still toil lonely in the monster-bearing desert, 
 dyeing the flinty ground with your blood, — yet a little 
 while, and we shall all meet There, and our mother's 
 bosom will screen us all ; and oppression's harness, and 
 sorrow's fire-whip, and all the Gehenna bailiffs that 
 patrol and inhabit ever-vexed time, cannot thenceforth 
 harm us any more !" 
 
 10* 
 
114 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Close by which rather beautiful apostrophe lies a 
 labored character of the deceased Andreas Futteral ; of 
 his natural ability, his deserts in life (as Prussian ser- 
 geant) ; with long historical inquiries into the genea- 
 logy of the Futteral family, here traced back as far as 
 Henry the Fowler ; the whole of which we pass over, 
 not without astonishment. It only concerns us to add 
 that now was the time when mother Gretchen revealed 
 to her foster-son that he was not at all of this kindred ; 
 or indeed of any kindred, having come into historical 
 existence in the way already known to us. " Thus 
 was I doubly orphaned," says he ; " bereft not only of 
 possession, but even of remembrance. Sorrow and 
 wonder, here suddenly united, could not but produce 
 abundant fruit. Such a disclosure, in such a season, 
 struck its roots through my whole nature ; ever till the 
 years of mature manhood it mingled with my whole 
 thoughts, was as the stem whereon all my day-dreams 
 and night-dreams grew. A certain poetic elevation, yet 
 also a corresponding civic depression, it naturally im- 
 parted ; / was like no other ; in which fixed idea, lead- 
 ing sometimes to highest, and oftener to frightfullest re- 
 sults, may there not lie the first spring of tendencies, 
 that in my life have become remarkable enough ? As 
 in birth, so in action, speculation, and social position, 
 my fellows are perhaps not numerous." 
 
 In the bag Sagittarius,, as we at length discover, 
 Teufelsdrockh has become a university man ; though 
 how, when, or of what quality, will nowhere disclose 
 itself with the smallest certainty. Few things, in the 
 way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, can 
 
PEDAGOGY. 115 
 
 now surprise our readers ; not even the total want of 
 dates, almost without parallel in a biographical work. 
 So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always found, and 
 must always look to find, these scattered leaves. In 
 Sagittarius, however, Teufelsdrockh begins to show 
 himself even more than usually Sibylline: fragments 
 of all sorts ; scraps of regular memoir, college exer- 
 cises, programs, professional testimoniums, milk- 
 scores, torn billets, sometimes to appearance of an 
 amatory cast; all blown together as if by merest 
 chance, henceforth bewilder the same historian. To 
 combine any picture of this university, and the sub- 
 sequent, years ; much more, to decipher therein any 
 illustrative primordial elements of the Clothes-Philo- 
 sophy, becomes such a problem as the reader may im- 
 agine. 
 
 So much we can see ; darkly, as through the foliage 
 of some wavering thicket : a youth of no common en- 
 dowment, that has passed happily through childhood, 
 less happily, yet still vigorously, through boyhood, 
 now at length perfect in "dead vocables." and set 
 down, as he hopes, by the living fountain, there to 
 superadd ideas and capabilities. From such fountain 
 he draws, diligently, thirstily, yet nowise with his whole 
 heart, for the water nowise suits his palate ; discourage- 
 ments, entanglements, aberrations are discoverable or 
 supposable. Nor perhaps are even pecuniary distresses 
 wanting; for "the good Gretchen, who, in spite of ad- 
 vice from not disinterested relatives, has sent him 
 hither, must after a time withdraw her willing but too 
 feeble hand." Nevertheless in an atmosphere of 
 poverty and manifold chagrin, the humor of that 
 
116 
 
 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 young soul, what character is in him, first decisively 
 reveals itself; and like strong sunshine in weeping 
 skies, gives out variety of colors, some of which are 
 prismatic. Thus with the aid of time, and of what 
 time brings, has the stripling Diogenes Teufelsdrockh 
 waxed into manly stature ; and into so questionable 
 an aspect, that we ask with new eagerness how he 
 specially came by it, and regret anew that there is no 
 more explicit answer. Certain of the intelligible and 
 partially significant fragments, which are few in num- 
 ber, shall be extracted from that Limbo of a paper-bag, 
 and presented with the usual preparation. 
 
 As if, in the bag Scorpio, Teufelsdrockh had not 
 already expectorated his antipedagogic spleen ; as if, 
 from the name Sagittarius, he had thought himself 
 called upon to shoot arrows, we here again fall in with 
 such matter as this: "The university where I was 
 educated still stands vivid enough in my remembrance, 
 and I know its name well; which name, however, I, 
 from tenderness to existing interests and persons, shall 
 in nowise divulge. It is my painful duty to say that, 
 out of England and Spain, ours was the worst of all 
 hitherto discovered universities. This is indeed a time 
 when right education is f as nearly as may be, impossi- 
 ble; however, in degrees of wrongness there is no 
 limit; nay, I can conceive a worse system than that of 
 the Nameless itself; as poisoned victual may be worse 
 than absolute hunger. 
 
 "It is written, When the blind lead the blind, both 
 shall fall into the ditch; wherefore, in such circumstan- 
 ces, may it not sometimes be safer, if both leader and 
 led simply — sit still? Had you anywhere in Crim 
 
PEDAGOGY. 117 
 
 Tartary walled in a square enclosure; furnished it 
 with a small, ill-chosen library ; and then turned loose 
 into it eleven hundred Christian striplings, to tumble 
 about as they listed, from three to seven years ; cer- 
 tain persons, under the title of professors, being sta- 
 tioned at the gates, to declare aloud that it was a uni- 
 versity, and exact considerable admission-fees, — you 
 had, not indeed in mechanical structure, yet in spirit 
 and result, some imperfect resemblance of our high 
 seminary. I say, imperfect; for if our mechanical 
 structure was quite other, so neither was our result alto- 
 gether the same. Unhappily, we were not in Crim 
 Tartary, but in a corrupt European city, full of smoke 
 and sin ; moreover, in the middle of a public, which, 
 without far costlier apparatus than that of the square 
 enclosure, and declaration aloud, you could not be sure 
 of gulling. 
 
 " Gullible, however, by fit apparatus, all publics 
 are; and gulled, with the most surprising, profit. 
 Towards anything like a Statistics of Imposture, in- 
 deed, little as yet has been done. 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, priest- 
 craft, 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-blacking, 
 are realized by actual instruction and actual jet polish; 
 what by fictitious-persuasive proclamation of such : 
 specifying, in distinct items, the distributions, circu- 
 
118 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 lations, disbursements, incomings of said moneys, with 
 the smallest approach to accuracy ? But to ask how 
 far, in all the several infinitely complected departments 
 of social business, in government, education, in man- 
 ual, commercial, intellectual fabrication of every sort, 
 man's want is supplied by true ware ; how far by the 
 mere appearance of true ware; — in other words, to 
 what extent, by what methods, with what effects in 
 various times and countries deception takes the place 
 and wages of performance ; — here, truly, is an inquiry, 
 big with results for the future time, but to which hi- 
 therto only the vaguest answer can be given. If for the 
 present, in our Europe, we estimate the ratio of ware 
 to appearance of ware so high even as at one to a 
 hundred (which, considering the wages of a pope, 
 Russian'autocrat, or English game-preserver, is proba- 
 bly not far from the mark), — what almost prodigious 
 saving may there not be anticipated, as the Statistics 
 of Imposture advances, and so the manufacturing of 
 shams (that of realities rising into clearer and clearer 
 distinction therefrom) gradually declines, and at length 
 becomes all but wholly unnecessary ! 
 
 "This for the coming golden ages. What I had to 
 remark, for the present brazen one, is, that in several 
 provinces, as in education, polity, religion, where so 
 much is wanted in indispensable, and so little can as 
 yet be furnished, probably imposture is of sanative, 
 anodyne nature, and man's gullibility not his worst 
 blessing. Suppose your sinews of war quite broken. 
 I mean your military chest insolvent, forage all but 
 exhausted ; aud that the whole army is about to mu- 
 tiny, disband, and cut your and each other's throat, — • 
 
 
PEDAGOGY. 119 
 
 theft were it not well, could you, as if by miracle, pay 
 them in any sort of fairy-money, feed them on coagu- 
 lated water, or mere imagination of meat ; whereby, 
 till the real supply came up, they might be kept to- 
 gether, and quiet 1 Such perhaps was the aim of Na- 
 ture, who does nothing without aim, in furnishing her 
 favourite, man, with this his so omnipotent or rather 
 omni-patient talent of being gulled. 
 
 " How beautifully it works, with a little mechanism ; 
 nay, almost makes mechanism for itself! These pro- 
 fessors in the Nameless lived with ease, with safety, 
 by a mere reputation, constructed in past times, and 
 then too with no great effort, by quite another class of 
 persons ; which reputation, like a strong, brisk-going, 
 undershot-wheel, sunk into the general current, bade 
 fair, with only a little annual repainting on their part, 
 to hold long together, and of its own accord assidu- 
 ously grind for them. Happy that it was so for the 
 millers ! They themselves needed not to work ; their 
 attempts at working, at what they called educating, 
 now when I look back on it, rill me with a certain mute 
 admiration. 
 
 " Besides all this, we boasted ourselves a rational 
 university ; in the highest degree, hostile to mysti- 
 cism. Thus was the young vacant mind furnished 
 with much talk about progress of the species, dark 
 ages, prejudice, and the like ; so that all were quickly 
 enough blown out into a state of windy argumenta- 
 tiveness ; whereby the better sort must soon end in 
 sick, impotent skepticism ; the worser sort explode 
 (crepiren) in finished self conceit, and to spiritual 
 intents become dead. — But this, too, is portion of 
 
120 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 mankind's lot. If our era is the era of unbelief, why 
 murmur under it ; is there not a better coming, nay 
 come ? As in long-drawn systole and long-drawn dias- 
 tole, must the period of faith alternate with the period 
 of denial ; must the vernal growth, the summer luxuri- 
 ance of all opinions, spiritual representations, and cre- 
 ations, be followed by, and again follow, the autumnal 
 decay, the winter dissolution. For man lives in time, 
 has his whole earthly being, endeavour, and destiny 
 shaped for him by time ; only in the transitory time- 
 symbol is the ever-motionless eternity we stand on 
 made manifest. And yet, in such winter-seasons of 
 denial, it is for the nobler minded, perhaps, a compa- 
 ratively misery to have been born, and to be awake, 
 and work ; and for the duller a felicity, if, like hiber- 
 nating animals, safe-lodged in some Salamanca univer- 
 sity, or Sybaris city, or other superstitious or voluptu- 
 ous Castle of Indolence, they can slumber through, in 
 stupid dreams, and only awaken when the loud roar- 
 ing hailstorms have all done their work, and to our 
 prayers and martyrdoms the new spring has been 
 vouchsafed." 
 
 That in the environment, here mysteriously enough 
 shadowed forth, Teufelsdrockh must have felt ill at 
 ease, cannot be doubtful. " The hungry young," he 
 says, " looked up to their spiritual nurses ; and, for 
 food, were bidden eat the east wind. What vain jar- 
 gon of controversial metaphysic, etymology, and me- 
 chanical manipulation, falsely named science, was cur- 
 rent there, I indeed learned, better perhaps than the 
 most. Among eleven hundred Christian youths, there 
 will not be wanting some eleven eager to learn. By 
 
PEDAGOGY. 121 
 
 collision with such, a certain warmth, a certain polish 
 was communicated ; by instinct and happy accident, I 
 took less to rioting (renommireri) , than to thinking and 
 reading, which latter also I was free to do. Nay, from 
 the chaos of that liberty, I succeeded in fishing up 
 more books, perhaps, than had been known to the very 
 keepers thereof. The foundation of a literary life was 
 hereby laid. I learned on my own strength, to read 
 fluently in almost all cultivated languages, on almost 
 all subjects, and sciences ; farther, as man is ever the 
 prime object to man, already it was my favourite em- 
 ployment to read character in speculation, and from the 
 writing to construe the writer. A certain ground-plan 
 of human nature and life began to fashion itself in me ; 
 wondrous enough, now when I look back on it; for my 
 whole universe, physical and spiritual, was as yet a 
 machine ! However, such a conscious, recognised 
 ground-plan, the truest I had, was beginning to be 
 there, and by additional experiments might be corrected 
 and indefinitely extended." 
 
 Thus from poverty does the strong educe nobler 
 wealth ; thus in the destitution of the wild desert, does 
 our young Ishmael acquire for himself the highest of 
 all possessions, that of self-help. Nevertheless a desert 
 this was, waste, and howling with savage monsters. 
 Teufelsdrockh gives us long details of his " fever-pa- 
 roxysms of doubt;" his inquiries concerning miracles, 
 and the evidences of religious faith ; and how " in the 
 silent night-watches, still darker in his heart than over 
 sky and earth, he has cast himself before the All-see- 
 ing, and with audible prayers cried vehemently for 
 light, for deliverance from death and the grave. Not 
 
 11 
 
122 SARTOR RESAKTIJS. 
 
 till after long years, and unspeakable agonies, did the 
 believing heart surrender ; sink into spell-bound sleep, 
 under the nightmare, unbelief; and, in this hag-ridden 
 dream, mistake God's fair, living world for a palid, 
 vacant Hades and extinct Pandemonium. But through 
 such Purgatory pain," continues he, " it is appointed 
 us to pass. First must the dead letter of religion own 
 itself dead, and drop piecemeal into dust, if the living 
 spirit of religion, freed from this its charnal-house, is 
 to arise on us, newborn of heaven, and with new heal- 
 ing under its wings." 
 
 To which Purgatory pains, seemingly severe enough, 
 if we add a liberal measure of earthly distresses, want 
 of practical guidance, want of sympathy, want of 
 money, want of hope ; and all this in the fervid season 
 of youth, so exaggerated in imagining, so boundless in 
 desires, yet here so poor in means, — do we not see a 
 strong incipient spirit oppressed and overloaded from 
 without and from within ; the fire of genius struggling 
 up among fuel-wood of the greenest, and as yet with 
 more of bitter vapor than of cleai flame ? 
 
 From various fragments of letters and other doc- 
 umentary scraps, it is to be inferred that Teufels- 
 drockh, isolated, shy, retiring as he was, had not alto- 
 gether escaped notice. Certain established men are 
 aware of his existence ; and, if stretching out no help- 
 ful hand, have at least their eyes on him. He appears, 
 though in dreary enough humor, 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 eco- 
 nomical relation, let us present rather the following 
 
PEDAGOGY. 123 
 
 small thread of moral relation ; and therewith, the 
 reader for himself weaving it in at the right place, 
 conclude our dim arras-picture of these university 
 years. 
 
 " Here also it was that I formed acquaintance with 
 Herr Towgood, or, as it is perhaps better written, 
 Herr Toughgut; a young person of quality (von 
 Mel), from the interior parts of England. He stood 
 connected, by blood and hospitality, with the Counts 
 von Zahdarm, in this quarter of Germany ; to which 
 noble family I likewise was, by his means, with all 
 friendliness brought near. Towgood had a fair 
 talent, unspeakably ill-cultivated; with considerable 
 humor of character ; and, bating his total ignorance, 
 for he knew nothing except boxing and a little gram- 
 mar, showed less of that aristocratic impassivity and 
 silent fury than for most part belongs to travellers of 
 his nation. To him I owe my first practical know- 
 ledge of the English] and their ways ; perhaps also 
 something of the partiality with which I have ever 
 since regarded that singular people. Towgood was 
 not without an eye, could he have come at any light. 
 Invited, doubtless, by the presence of the Zahdarm 
 family, he had travelled hither, in the almost frantic 
 hope of perfecting his studies ; he, whose studies had 
 been as yet those of infancy, hither to a university 
 where so much as the notion of perfection, not to say 
 the effort after it, no longer existed ! Often we would 
 condole over the hard destiny of the young in this 
 era; how, after all our toil, we were to be turned out 
 into the world, with beards on jour chins, indeed, but 
 with few other attributes of manhood; no existing 
 
124 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 thing that we were trained to act on, nothing that we 
 could so much as believe. * How has our head on 
 the outside a polished hat,' would Towgood exclaim, 
 ' and in the inside vacancy, or a froth of vocables and 
 attorney-logic ! At a small cost men are educated 
 to make leather into shoes ; but, at a great cost, what 
 am I educated to make 1 By Heaven, brother ! what 
 I have already eaten and worn, as I came thus far, 
 would endow a considerable Hospital of Incurables.' 
 — 'Man, indeed,' I would answer, 'has a digestive 
 faculty, which must be kept working, were it even 
 partly by stealth. But as for our miseducation, make 
 not bad worse ; waste not the time, yet ours, in tramp- 
 ling on thistles because they have yielded us no figs. 
 Frisch zu, Bruder! Here are books, and we have 
 brains to read them; here is a whole earth and a 
 whole heaven, and we have eyes to look on them ; 
 Frisch zuP 
 
 " Often also our talk was gay ; not without bril- 
 liancy, and even fire. We looked out on life, with 
 its strange scaffolding, where all at once harlequins 
 dance, and men are beheaded and quartered ; motley, 
 not unterrific was the aspect; but we looked on it 
 like brave youths. For myself, these were perhaps 
 my most genial hours. Towards this young, warm- 
 hearted, strong-headed, and wrong-headed Herr Tow- 
 good, I was even near experiencing the now obsolete 
 sentiment of friendship. Yes, foolish heathen that 
 I was, I felt that, under certain conditions, I could 
 have loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and 
 been his brother once and always. By degrees, how- 
 ever, I understood the new time, and its wants. If 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 125 
 
 man's soul is indeed, as in the Finnish language, and 
 utilitarian philosophy, a kind of stomach, what else is 
 the true meaning of spiritual union but an eating 
 together? Thus we, instead of friends, are dinner- 
 guests ; and here, as elsewhere, have cast away chime- 
 ras." 
 
 So ends, abruptly as is usual, and enigmatically, 
 this little incipient romance. What henceforth becomes 
 of the brave Herr Towgood, or Toughgut? He has 
 dived under, in the autobiographical chaos, and swims 
 we see not where. Does any reader " in the interior 
 parts of England" know of such a man? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY. 
 
 " Thus nevertheless," writes our autobiographer, 
 apparently as quitting college, " was there realized 
 somewhat ; namely, I, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh ; a 
 visible, temporary figure (Zeitbild), occupying some 
 cubit feet of space, and containing within its forces 
 both physical and spiritual ; hopes, passions, thoughts; 
 the whole wondrous furniture, in more or less perfec- 
 tion, belonging to that mystery, a man. Capabilities 
 there were in me to give battle, in some small degree, 
 against the great empire of darkness. Does not the 
 very ditcher and delver, with his spade, extinguish 
 many a thistle and puddle ; and so leave a little order y 
 where he found the opposite ? Nay, your very day- 
 
 11* 
 
126 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 moth has capabilities in this kind ; and ever organizes 
 something (into its own body, if no otherwise), which 
 was before inorganic; and of mnte, dead air makes 
 living music, though only of the faintest, by humming. 
 
 " How much more, one whose capabilities are 
 spiritual; who has learned or begun learning the 
 grand thaumaturgic art of thought! Thaumaturgic, 
 I name it; for hitheito all miracles have been wrought 
 thereby, and henceforth innumerable will be wrought ; 
 whereof we, even in these days, witness some. Of 
 the poet's and prophet's inspired message, and how it 
 makes and unmakes whole worlds, I shall forbear 
 mention; but cannot the dullest hear steam-engines 
 clanking around him ? Has he not seen the Scottish 
 brass-smith's Idea (and this but a mechanical one) 
 travelling on fire-wings round the cape, and across two 
 oceans ; and stronger than any other enchanter's 
 familiar, on all hands unweariedly fetching and carry- 
 ing; at home, not only weaving cloth; but rapidly 
 enough overturning the whole old system of society; 
 and, for feudalism and preservation of the game, pre- 
 paring us, by indirect but sure methods, industrialism 
 and the government of the wisest. Truly, a thinking 
 man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can 
 have ; every time such a one announces himself, I 
 doubt not, there runs a shudder through the nether 
 empire ; and new emissaries are trained, with new 
 tactics, to, if possible, entrap him, and hoodwink and 
 handcuff him. 
 
 " With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of 
 the universe, been called. Unhappily it is, however, 
 that, though born to the amplest sovereignty, in this 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 127 
 
 way, with no less than sovereign right of peace and 
 war against the Time-Prince (Zeitfurst), or Devil, and 
 all his dominions, your coronation ceremony costs 
 such trouble, your sceptre is so difficult to get at, or 
 even to get eye on !" 
 
 By which last wiredrawn similitude, does Teufels- 
 drockh mean no more than that young men find obsta- 
 cles in what we call "getting under way?" "Not 
 what I have," continues he, "but what I do is my 
 kingdom. To each is given a certain inward talent, 
 a certain outward environment of fortune; to each, 
 by wisest combination of these two, a certain maxi- 
 mum of capability. But the hardest problem were 
 ever this first: To find, by study of yourself, and of 
 the ground you stand on, what your combined inward 
 and outward capability specially is. For, alas, our 
 young soul is all budding with capabilities, and we 
 see not yet which is the main and true one. Always, 
 too, the new man is in a new time, under new condi- 
 tions ; his course can be the facsimile of no prior 
 one, but is by its nature original. And then how 
 seldom will the outward capability fit the inward! 
 though talented wonderfully enough, we are poor, 
 unfriended, dyspeptical, bashful; nay, what is worse 
 than all, we are foolish. Thus, in a whole imbroglio 
 of capabilities, we go stupidly groping about, to grope 
 which is ours, and often clutch the wrong one. In 
 this mad work must several years of our small term 
 be spent, till the purblind youth, by practice, acquire 
 notions of distance, and become a seeing man. Nay, 
 many so spend their whole term, and in ever new ex- 
 pectation, ever new disappointment, shift from enter- 
 
128 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 prise to enterprise, and from side to side; till, at 
 length, as exasperated striplings of threescore and 
 ten, they shift into their last enterprise, that of getting 
 buried. 
 
 " Such, since the most of us are too ophthalmic, 
 would be the general fate; were it not that one 
 thing saves us ; our hunger. For on this ground, as 
 the prompt nature of hunger is well known, must a 
 prompt choice be made. Hence have we, with wise 
 foresight, indentures and apprenticeships for our irra- 
 tional young; whereby, in due season, the vague 
 universality of a man shall find himself ready-moulded 
 into a specific craftsman; and so thenceforth work, 
 with much or with little waste of capability, as it may 
 be ; yet not with the worst waste, that of time. Nay, 
 even in matters spiritual, since the spiritual artist, too, 
 is born blind, and does not, like certain other crea- 
 tures, receive sight in nine days, but far later, some- 
 times never, — is it not well that there should be what 
 we call professions, or bread-studies (Brodtzwecke), 
 preappointed us? Here, circling like the gin-horse, 
 for whom partial or total blindness is no evil, the 
 bread-artist can travel contentedly round and round, 
 still fancying that it is forward and forward, and 
 realize much ; for himself victual ; for the world an 
 additional horse's power in the grand corn-mill or 
 hemp-mill of Economic Society. For me, too, had 
 such a leading-string been provided; only that it 
 proved a neck-halter, and had nigh throttled me, till 
 I broke it off. Then, in the words of Ancient Pistol, 
 did the world generally become mine oyster, which I, 
 by strength or cunning, was to open, as I would and 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 129 
 
 could. Almost had I deceased {fast war ich umge- 
 kommen), so obstinately did it continue shut." 
 
 We see here, significantly foreshadowed, the spirit 
 of much that was to befall our Autobiographer ; the 
 historical embodyment of which, as it painfully takes 
 shape in this life, lies scattered, in dim, disastrous 
 details, through this bag Pisces, and those that follow. 
 A young man of high talent, and high though still 
 temper, like a young mettled colt, " breaks off his 
 neck-halter," and bounds forth, from his peculiar man- 
 ger, into the wide world ; which alas, he finds all 
 rigorously fenced in. Richest clover-fields tempt his 
 eye ; but to him they are forbidden pasture ; either 
 pining in progressive starvation, he must stand ; or, 
 in mad exasperation, must rush to and fro, leaping 
 against sheer stonewalls, 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 luxuri- 
 ous clover, yet into a certain bosky wilderness, where 
 existence is still possible, and freedom, though waited 
 on by scarcity, is not without sweetness. In a word, 
 Teufelsdrockh, having thrown up his legal profession, 
 finds himself without landmark of outward guidance ; 
 whereby his previous want of decided belief, or in- 
 ward guidance, is frightfully aggravated. Necessity 
 urges him on ; time will not stop, neither can he, a son 
 of time ; wild passions without solacement, wild facul- 
 ties without employment ever vex and agitate him. 
 He, too, must enact that stern monodrama, No Object 
 and no Best ; must front its successive destinies, work 
 
130 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 capi- 
 tal, as he emerges from its nameless university, we can 
 discern well that it was far from enviable. His first 
 law examination he has come through triumphantly ; 
 and can even boast that the Examen Rigorosum 
 need not have frightened him. But though he is hereby 
 "an Auscultator of respectability," what avails it? 
 There is next to no employment to be had. Neither, 
 for a youth without connexions, is the process of ex- 
 pectation very hopeful in itself; nor for one of his 
 disposition much cheered from without. " My fellow 
 Auscultators," he says, " were Auscultators ; they 
 dressed, and digested, and talked articulate words ; 
 other vitality showed they almost none. Small specu- 
 lation in those eyes, that they did glare withal ! Sense 
 neither for the high nor for the deep, nor for ought 
 human or divine, save only for the faintest scent of 
 coming preferment." In which words, indicating a 
 total estrangement on the part of Teufelsdrockh, may 
 there not also lurk traces of a bitterness as from wounded 
 vanity ? Doubtless, these prosaic Auscultators may 
 have sniffed at him, with his strange ways ; and tried 
 to hate, and, what was much more impossible, to des- 
 pise him. Friendly communion, in any case, there 
 could not be ; already has the young Teufelsdrockh left 
 the other young geese ; and swims apart, though as yet 
 uncertain whether he himself is cygnet or gosling. 
 
GETTING tNDER WAY. 131 
 
 Perhaps, too, what little employment he had was 
 performed ill, at best unpleasantly. " Great practical 
 method and expertness" he may brag of; but is there 
 not also great practical pride, though deep-hidden, 
 only the deeper-seated ? So shy a man can never have 
 been popular. We figure to ourselves how in those 
 days he may have played strange freaks with his inde- 
 pendence, and so forth ; do not his own words betoken 
 as much ? " Like a very young person, I imagined it 
 was with work alone, and not also with folly and sin, 
 in myself and others, that I had been appointed to 
 struggle." Be this as it may, his progress from the 
 passive Auscultatorship, towards any active Asses- 
 sorship, is evidently of the slowest. By degrees, 
 those same established men, once partially inclined to 
 patronize him, seem to withdraw their countenance, and 
 give him up as " a nian of genius;" against which pro- 
 cedure he in these papers loudly protests. " As if," 
 says he, "the higher did not presuppose the lower; as 
 if he who can fly into heaven, could not also walk post 
 if he resolved on it ! But the world is an old woman, 
 and mistakes any gilt farthing for a gold coin ; whereby 
 being often cheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing 
 but the common copper." 
 
 How our winged sky-messenger, unaccepted as a 
 terrestrial runner, contrived, in the meanwhile, to keep 
 himself from flying skyward without return, is not 
 too clear from these documents. Good old Gretchen 
 seems to have vanished from the scene, perhaps from 
 the earth. Other Horn of Plenty, or even of Parsi- 
 mony, nowhere flows for him ; so that, " the prompt 
 nature of hunger being well known," we are not with- 
 
132 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 out our anxiety. From private tuition, in never so 
 many languages and sciences, the aid derivable is 
 small ; neither, to use his own words, " does the 
 young adventurer hitherto suspect in himself any lite- 
 rary gift ; but, at best, earns bread and water wages by 
 his wide faculty of translation. Nevertheless," con- 
 tinues he, " that I subsisted is clear, for you find me 
 even now alive." Which fact, however, except upon 
 the principle of our true-hearted, kind old proverb, that 
 " there is ever life for the living," we must profess 
 ourselves unable to explain. 
 
 Certain landlords' bills, and other economic docu- 
 ments, bearing the mark of settlement, indicate that 
 he was not without money ; but, like an independent 
 hearth-holder, if not house-holder, paid his way. 
 Here also occur, among many others, two little muti- 
 lated 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 previous promise, cannot, 
 except by best wishes, forward the Herr Teufels- 
 drockh's views on the Assessorship in question; and 
 sees himself under the cruel necessity of forbearing 
 for the present, what were otherwise his duty and 
 joy, to assist in opening the career for a man of genius, 
 on whom far higher triumphs are yet waiting." The 
 other is on gilt paper ; and interests us like a sort of 
 epistolary mummy now dead, yet which once lived 
 and beneficently worked. We give it in the original : 
 " Herr Teufelsdrockh wirdvon der Frau Grajinn, atif 
 Donnerstagi zum JEsthetischen Thee, schonstens 
 eingeladen." 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 133 
 
 Thus, in answer to a cry For solid pudding, whereof 
 there is the most urgent need, comes, epigrammati- 
 cally enough, the invitation to a wash of quite fluid 
 JEsthetic Tea ! How Teufelsdrockh, 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 abstinence; otherwise, if the 
 lion, in such case, is to feast at all, it cannot be on 
 the chickenweed, but only on the chickens. For the 
 rest, as this Frau Grafinn dates from the Zahdarm 
 House, she can be no other than the countess and 
 mistress of the same; whose intellectual tendencies, 
 and good-will to Teufelsdrockh, whether on the foot- 
 ing of Herr Towgood, or on his own footing, are 
 hereby manifest. That some sort of relation, indeed, 
 continued, for a time, to connect our Autobiographer, 
 though perhaps feebly enough, with this noble house, 
 We have elsewhere express evidence. Doubtless, if 
 he expected patronage, it was in vain ; enough for him 
 if he here obtained occasional glimpses of the great 
 world, from which we at one time fancied him to have 
 been always excluded. "The Zahdarms," says he, 
 "lived in the soft, sumptuous garniture of aristocracy ; 
 whereto literature and art, attracted and attached 
 from without, must serve as the handsomest fringing. 
 It was to the Gnadigen Frau (her ladyship) that 
 this latter improvement was due; assiduously she 
 gathered, dexterously she fitted on, what fringing was 
 to be had ; lace or cobweb, as the place yielded." 
 Was Teufelsdrockh also a fringe, of lace or cobweb ; 
 
 12 
 
134 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 or promising to be such? "With His JExcellenz 
 (the Count)," continues he, "I have more than once 
 had the honor to converse ; chiefly on general affairs, 
 and the aspect of the world, which he, though now 
 past middle life, viewed in no unfavorable light ; 
 finding, indeed, except the outrooting of journalism 
 {die auszurottende Journalistic), little to desiderate 
 therein. On some points, as his Excellenz was not 
 uncholeric, I found it more pleasant to keep silence. 
 Besides, his occupation being that of owning land, 
 there might be faculties enough, which, as superfluous 
 for such use, were little developed in him." 
 
 That to Teufelsdrockh the aspect of the world was 
 nowise so faultless, and many things, besides " the 
 outrooting of journalism," might have seemed im- 
 provements, we can readily conjecture. With nothing 
 but a barren Auscultatorship from without, and so 
 many mutinous thoughts and wishes from within, his 
 position was no easy one. " The universe," he says, 
 "was as a mighty Sphinx-riddle, which I knew so 
 little of, yet must rede, or be devoured. In red streaks 
 of unspeakable grandeur, yet also in the blackness of 
 darkness, was life, to my too unfurnished thought, 
 unfolding itself. A strange contradiction lay in me ; 
 and I as yet knew not the solution of it ; knew not 
 that spiritual music can spring only from discords set 
 in 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 nnphilanthropic persons, that it 
 were a real increase of human happiness, could all 
 young men from the age of nineteen be covered under 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 135 
 
 barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible ; and there left 
 to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they 
 emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five ; 
 with which suggestion, at least as considered in the 
 light of a practical scheme, I need scarcely say that 
 I nowise coincide. Nevertheless it is plausibly urged 
 that, as young ladies, (Madchen) are to mankind pre- 
 cisely the most delightful in those years; so young 
 gentlemen (Biibchen) do then attain their maximum 
 of detestability. Such gawks (Gecken) are they, and 
 foolish peaeocks, and yet with such a vulturous hunger 
 for self-indulgence ; so obstinate, obstreperous, vain- 
 glorious ; in all senses, so froward and so forward : no 
 mortal's endeavour or attainment will, in the smallest 
 content the as yet unendeavouring, unattaining young 
 gentleman ; but he could make it all infinitely better, 
 were it worthy of him. Life everywhere is the most 
 manageable matter, simple as a question in the Rule 
 of Three; multiply your second and third term to- 
 gether, divide the product by the first, and your quo- 
 tient 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 Teufelsdrb'ckh himself, besides his 
 outward obstructions, had an inward, still greater, to 
 contend with ; namely, a certain temporary, youthful, 
 yet still afflictive derangement of head ? Alas ! on 
 the former side alone, his case was hard enough. " It 
 continues ever true," says he, "that Saturn, or Chro- 
 
136 SARTOR RESARTUS, 
 
 nos, or what we call Time, devours all his children ; 
 only by incessant running, by incessant working, may 
 you (for some threescore and ten years) escape him ; 
 and you, too, he devours at last. Can any sovereign, 
 or holy alliance of sovereigns, bid time stand still; 
 even in thought, shake themselves free of time? Our 
 whole terrestrial being is based on time, and built of 
 time ; it is wholly a movement, a time impulse ; time 
 is the author of it, the material of it* Hence also our 
 whole duty, which is to move, to work, — in the right 
 direction. Are not our bodies and our souls in contin- 
 ual movement, whether we will or not; in a continual 
 waste, requiring a continual repair 1 Utmost satisfac- 
 tion of our whole outward and inward wants weie but 
 satisfaction for a space of time ; thus whatso we have 
 done is done, and for us annihilated, and ever must 
 we go and do anew. O Time-Spirit ; how hast thou 
 environed and imprisoned us, and sunk us so deep in 
 tl>y troublous, dim time-element, that, only in lucid 
 moments, can so much as glimpses of our upper azure 
 home be revealed to us ! Me, however, as a son of 
 time, unhappier than some others, was time threaten- 
 ing 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 Teu- 
 felsdrockh's whole duty and necessity were, like other 
 men's "to work, — in the right direction," and that 
 no work was to be had ; whereby he became wretched 
 enough. As was natural ; wkh haggard scarcity threat- 
 ening him in the distance; and so vehement a soul Ian- 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 137 
 
 guishing in restless inaction, and forced thereby, like 
 Sir Hudibras's sword by rust, 
 
 To eat into itself, for lack 
 
 Of something else to hew and hack ! 
 
 But on the whole, that same "excellent passivity," 
 as it has all along done, is here again vigorously 
 flourishing ; in which circumstance, may we not trace 
 the beginnings of much that now characterizes our 
 Professor ; and perhaps, in faint rudiments, the origin 
 of the Clothes-Philosophy itself? Already the attitude 
 he has assumed towards the world is too defensive ; 
 not, as would have been desirable, a bold attitude 
 of attack. "So far, hitherto," he says, "as I had 
 mingled with mankind, I was notable, if for anything, 
 for a certain stillness of manner, which, as my friends 
 often rebukingly declared, did but ill express the keen 
 ardor of my feelings. I, in truth, regarded men with 
 an excess both of love and of fear. The mystery of 
 a person, indeed, is ever divine, to him that has a 
 sense for the godlike. Often, notwithstanding, was 
 I blamed, and by half-strangers hated, for my so- 
 called hardness (Htirte), my indirTerentism towards 
 men, and the seemingly ironic tone I had adopted, as 
 my favorite dialect in conversation. Alas, the panoply 
 of sarcasm was but as a buckram-case, wherein I had 
 striven to envelop myself; that so my own poor 
 person might live safe there ; and in all friendliness, 
 being no longer exasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I 
 now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; 
 for which reason I have, long since, as good as re- 
 nounced it. But how many individuals did I, in those 
 days, provoke into some degree of hostility thereby ! 
 
 12* 
 
138 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 An ironic man, with his sly stillness, and ambuscading 
 ways, more especially an ironic young man, from 
 whom it is least expected, may be viewed as a pest to 
 society. Have we not seen persons of weight and 
 name, coming forward, with gentlest indifference, to 
 tread such a one out of sight, as an insignificancy and 
 worm, start ceiling-high (balkenhoch), and thence fall 
 shattered and supine, to be borne home on shutters, 
 not without indignation, when he proved electric and a 
 torpedo !" 
 
 Alas, how can a man with this devilishness of tem- 
 per make way for himself in life; where the first 
 problem, as Teufelsdrockh, too, admits, is "to unite 
 yourself with some one and with somewhat (sich 
 anzuschliessen) ?" Division, not union, is written on 
 most part of his procedure. Let us add, too, that, in 
 no great length of time, the only important connexion 
 he had ever succeeded in foiming, his connexion with 
 the Zahdarm family, seems to have been paralyzed, 
 for all practical uses, by the death of the "not unchol- 
 eric" old Count. This fact stands recorded, quit© 
 incidentally, in a certain Discourse on Epitaphs, hud- 
 dled 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 un- 
 dertook to compose his epitaph; and, not unmindful 
 of my own rules, produced the following; which, 
 however, for an alleged defect of Latinity, a defect 
 never yet fully visible to myself, still remains unen- 
 
GETTING UNDER WAY. 139 
 
 graven;" — wherein, we may predict, there is more 
 than the Latinity that will surprise an English reader. 
 
 HIC JACET 
 
 PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMINE MAGNUS, 
 
 Zaehdabmi Comes, 
 
 ex impebii concilio, 
 
 ye1eebis aubei, pebiscexidis, necnon ytretubis nigri 
 
 EQ.17ES. 
 Q.TTI DUM StTB XTTBiA AGEBAT, 
 
 QUINQUIES MILLE PERDICES 
 
 PXTTMBO CONFECIT : 
 
 VARII CIBI 
 
 CENTUMPONBIA MIEEIES CENTE3JA MII1IA, 
 
 PER SE, PEBQJTE SeBYOS Q.l T ADBTTPEBES BIPEBESYE, 
 
 HATJB SIJfE TUMULTU DEVOLYEH'S, 
 
 IN STERCUS 
 
 PALAM CONYEBTIT. 
 
 NVTSC A EABOBE BEaUIESCEKTEltf 
 OPEBA SEaTTUNTTJB. 
 
 SI MONTTMEKTUM QJJiEBIS 
 FIMETUM ADSPICE. 
 
 PRIMUM IX OBBE DEJECIT [S7tb ddto] ', 
 POSTEEMUM [sub ddto]. 
 
140 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ROMANCE. 
 
 " For long years," writes Teufelsdrockh, " had the 
 poor Hebrew, in this Egypt of an Auscultatorship, 
 painfully toiled, baking bricks without stubble, before 
 ever the question once struck him with entire force : 
 For what? — Beym Himmel! For food and warmth! 
 And are food and warmth nowhere ^else, in the whole 
 wide universe, discoverable ? — Come of it what might, 
 I resolved to try." 
 
 Thus, then, are we to see him in a new, independent 
 capacity, though, perhaps, far from an improved one. 
 Teufelsdrockh is now a man without profession. 
 Quitting the common fleet of herring-busses and 
 whalers, where, indeed, his leeward, laggard condition 
 was painful enough, he desperately steers off, on a 
 course of his own, by sextant and compass of his own. 
 Unhappy Teufelsdrockh ! Though neither fleet, nor 
 traffic, nor commodores pleased thee, still was it not 
 a Jleet, 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 manifoldly aid the other? How wilt thou sail 
 in unknown seas; and for thyself find that shorter, 
 northwest passage to thy fair spice-country of a No- 
 where?— A solitary rover, on such a voyage, with 
 such nautical tactics, will meet with adventures. Nay, 
 as we forthwith discover, a certain Calypso-Island 
 detains him at the very outset; and, as it were, falsi- 
 fies and oversets his whole reckoning. 
 
ROMANCE. 141 
 
 " If in youth," writes he once, " the universe is 
 majestically unveiling, and everywhere heaven re- 
 vealing itself on earth, nowhere to the young man 
 does this heaven on earth so immediately reveal itself 
 as in the young maiden. Strangely enough, in this 
 strange life of ours, it has been so appointed. On 
 the whole, as I have often said, a Person (Person- 
 lichkeit) is ever holy to us ; a certain orthodox An- 
 thropomorphism connects my Me with all Thees in 
 bonds of love ; but it is in this approximation of the 
 like and unlike, that such heavenly attraction, as be- 
 tween negative and positive, first burns out into a 
 flame. Is the pitifullest mortal person, think you, 
 indifferent to us ? Is it not rather our heartfelt wish 
 to be made one with him ; to unite him to us, by 
 gratitude, by admiration, even by fear ; or, failing all 
 these, unite ourselves to him ? But how much more, 
 in this case of the like-unlike ! Here is conceded us 
 the higher mystic possibility of such a union, the 
 highest in our earth ; thus, in the conducting medium 
 of fantasy, flames forth that ^re-development of the 
 universal spiritual electricity, which, as unfolded 
 between man and woman, we first emphatically de- 
 nominate Love. 
 
 " In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjec- 
 ture, there already blooms a certain prospective Para- 
 dise, cheered by some fairest Eve. Nor in the stately 
 vistas, and flowerage, and foliage of that Garden, is a 
 Tree of Knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst 
 thereof, wanting. Perhaps, too, the whole is but the 
 lovelier if Cherubim and a Flaming Sword divide it 
 from all footsteps of men, and grant him, the imagi- 
 
142 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 native stripling, only the view, not the entrance. 
 Happy season of virtuous youth, when shame is still 
 an impassable, celestial barrier ; and the sacred air- 
 cities of hope have not shrunk into the mean clay-ham- 
 lets of reality ; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite 
 and free ! 
 
 "As for our young Forlorn," continues Teufels- 
 drockh, evidently meaning himself, " in his secluded 
 way of life, and with his glowing fantasy, the more 
 fiery that it burnt under cover, as in a reverberating 
 furnace, his feeling towards the queens of this earth 
 was, and indeed is, altogether unspeakable. A visible 
 divinity dwelt in them ; to our young friend all women 
 were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw them 
 flitting past, in their many-colored angel-plumage ; or 
 hovering mute and inaccessible on the outskirts of 
 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 graee- 
 fuls (Holderi) — Ach GottJ how could he hope it; 
 should he not have died under it ? There was a cer- 
 tain delirious vertigo in the thought. 
 
 " Thus was the young man, if all-skeptical of 
 demonds and angels, such as the vulgar had once 
 believed in, nevertheless not unvisited by hosts of true 
 skyborn, who visibly and audibly hovered round him, 
 whereso he went ; and they had that religious worship 
 in his thought, though as yet it was by their mere 
 earthly and trivial name that he named them. But 
 now, if on a soul so circumstanced, some actual air- 
 
ROMANCE. 143 
 
 maiden, incorporated into tangibility and reality, 
 should cast any electric glance of kind eyes, saying 
 thereby, * Thou, too, mayest love and be loved ;' and 
 so kindle him, — good Heaven, what a volcanic, 
 earthquake-bringing, all-consuming fire were probably 
 kindled I" 
 
 Such a fire, it afterwards appears, did actually burst 
 forth, with explosions more or less Vesuvian, in the 
 inner man of Herr Diogenes ; as, indeed, how could it 
 fail? A nature, which, in his own figurative style, 
 we might say, had now not a little carbonized tinder 
 of irritability ; with so much nitre of latent passion, 
 and sulphurous humor enough ; the whole lying in such 
 hot 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? Neither, in this our life-element, 
 are sparks anywhere wanting. Without doubt, some 
 angel, whereof so many hovered round, must one day, 
 leaving " the" outskirts of ^Esthetic Tea, flit nigher ; 
 and, by electric, Promethean glance, kindle no despi- 
 cable firework. Happy, if it indeed proved a firework, 
 and flamed off rocket-wise, in successive beautiful 
 bursts of splendor, each growing naturally from the 
 other, through the several stages of a happy youthful 
 love ; till the whole were safely burnt out ; and the 
 young soul relieved, with little damage ! Happy, if it 
 did not rather prove a conflagration and mad explo- 
 sion ; painfully lacerating the heart itself ; nay, per- 
 haps bursting the heart in pieces (which were death); 
 or, at best, bursting the thin walls of your " reverbera- 
 ting furnace," so that it rage thenceforth all unchecked 
 
144 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 among the contiguous combustibles (which were mad- 
 ness); till of the so fair and manifold internal world 
 of our Diogenes, there remained nothing, or only the 
 "crater of an extinct volcano !" 
 
 From multifarious documents in this bag Capricor- 
 nus, and in the adjacent ones on both sides thereof, 
 it becomes manifest that our Philosopher, as stoical 
 and cynical as he now looks, was heartily and even 
 franticly in love ; here, therefore, may our old doubts, 
 whether his heart were of stone or of flesh, give way. 
 He loved once ; not wisely, but too well. And once 
 only. For as your Congreve needs a new case or 
 wrappage for # every new rocket, so each human heart 
 can properly exhibit but one love, if even one ; the 
 '* first love, which is infinite," can be followed by no 
 second like unto it. In more recent years, accord- 
 ingly, 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 incipi- 
 ent dotage, would crown with no new myrtle garland. 
 To the Professor, women are henceforth pieces of 
 art ; of celestial art, indeed ; which celestial pieces he 
 glories to survey in galleries, but has lost thought of 
 purchasing. 
 
 Psychological readers are not without curiosity to 
 see how Teufelsdrockh, in this for him unexampled 
 predicament, demeans himself; with what specialties 
 of successive configuration, splendor, and color, his 
 firework blazes ofT. Small, as usual, is the satisfac- 
 tion that such can meet with here. From amid these 
 confused masses of eulogy, and elegy, with their mad 
 
ROMANCE. 145 
 
 Petrarchan and Werterean ware lying madly scattered 
 among all sorts of quite extraneous matter, not so 
 much as the fair one's name can be deciphered. For, 
 without doubt, the title Blumine, whereby she is here 
 designated, and which means simply Goddess of 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 preestablished 
 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 appoint- 
 ed," says our Philosopher, "that the high, celestial 
 orbit of Blumine should intersect the low, subluminary 
 one of our Frolorn ; that he, looking in her empyrean 
 eyes, should fancy the upper sphere of light was come 
 down into this nether sphere of shadows ; and finding 
 himself mistaken, make noise enough." 
 
 We seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, 
 beautiful, and some one's cousin; highborn, and of 
 high spirit ; but, unhappily, dependent and insolvent ; 
 living, perhaps, on the not too gracious bounty of 
 moneyed relatives. But how came " the Wanderer" into 
 her circle ? Was it by the humid vehicle of JEsthetic 
 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 aitist, might sometimes like to 
 promote flirtation, especially for young, cynical nonde- 
 scripts ? To all appearance, it was chiefly by accident, 
 and the grace of nature. 
 
 "Thou fair Waldschloss," writes our Autobiogra- 
 
 13 
 
146 SARTOR RESAKTUS. 
 
 pher, " what stranger ever saw thee, were it even ail 
 absolved Auscultator, officially bearing in his pocket 
 the last Relatio ex Jlctis he would ever write ; but 
 must have paused to wonder? Noble mansion ! There 
 stoodest thou, in deep mountain amphitheatre, on um- 
 brageous lawns, in thy serene solitude ; stately, mas- 
 sive, all of granite ; glittering in the western sunbeams, 
 like a palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious 
 metal. Beautiful rose up, in wavy curvature, the slope 
 of thy guardian hills ; of the greenest was their sward, 
 embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, or spotted 
 by some spreading, solitary tree and its shadow. To 
 the unconscious wayfarer thou wert also as an Am* 
 mon's temple, in the Libyan waste ; where, for joy and 
 wo, the tablet of his destiny lay written. Well might 
 he pause and gaze ; in that glance of his were prophe- 
 cy and nameless forebodings. 
 
 But now let us conjecture that the so presentient 
 Auscultator has handed in his Relatio ex Actis ; been 
 invited to a glass of Rhine-wine ; and so, instead of 
 returning dispirited and athirst to his dusty town-home, 
 is ushered into the garden-house, where sits the 
 choicest party of dames and cavaliers ; if not engaged 
 in ^Esthetic Tea, yet in trustful evening conversation, 
 and perhaps Musical Coffee, for we hear of " harps 
 and pure voices making the stillness live." Scarcely, 
 it would seem, is the garden-house inferior in respec- 
 tability to the noble mansion itself. " Embowered 
 amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the hues and 
 odors of thousand flowers, here sat that brave com- 
 pany ; in front, from the wide-opened doors, fair out- 
 look over blossom and bush, over grove and velvet 
 green, stretching, undulating onwards to the remote 
 
ROMANCE. 147 
 
 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 herself. How came it that the 
 Wanderer advanced thither with such forecasting 
 heart (ahnimgsvoU), by the side of his gay host? 
 Did he feel that to these soft influences his hard bosom 
 ought to be shut; that here, once more, Fate had it in 
 view to try him, to mock him, and see whether there 
 were humor in him ? 
 
 " Next moment he finds himself presented to the 
 party ; and specially by name to . Blumine ! Pecu- 
 liar among all dames and damosels, glanced Blumine, 
 there in her modesty, like a star among earthly 
 lights. Noblest maiden ! whom he bent to, in body 
 and in soul ; yet scarcely dared look at, for the pres- 
 ence filled him with painful yet sweetest embarrass- 
 ment. . 
 
 "Blumine's was a name well known to him; far 
 and wide, was the fair one heard of, for her gifts, her 
 graces, her caprices ; from all which vague colorings 
 of rumor, from the censures no less than from the 
 praises, had our friend painted for himself a certain 
 imperious queen of hearts, and blooming, warm earth- 
 angel, much more enchanting than your mere, white 
 heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins 
 circulates too little naphtha-fire. Herself also he had 
 seen in public places ; that light, yet so stately form ; 
 those dark tresses, shading a face where smiles and 
 sunlight played over earnest deeps ; but all this he 
 had seen only as a magic vision, for him inaccessible, 
 almost without reality. Her sphere was too far from 
 his ; how should she ever think of him ; heaven ! 
 
148 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 how should they so much as once meet together ? And 
 now that rose-goddess sits in the same circle with him ; 
 the light of her eyes has smiled on him ; if he speak, 
 she will hear it ! Nay, who knows, since the heaven- 
 ly 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, gather- 
 ed wonder, gathered favor for him ? Was the attrac- 
 tion, the agitation mutual, then ; pole and pole trem- 
 bling towards contact, when once brought into 
 neighbourhood ? Say rather, heart swelling in pres- 
 ence of the queen of hearts; like the sea swelling 
 when once near its moon ! With the .Wanderer it was 
 even so ; as in heavenward gravitation, suddenly, as at 
 the touch of a seraph's wand, his whole soul is roused 
 from its deepest recesses ; and all that was painful and 
 that was blissful there, dim images, vague feelings of a 
 whole Past and a whole Future are heaving in unquiet 
 eddies within him. 
 
 " Often, in far less agitating scenes, had our still 
 friend shrunk forcibly together ; and shrouded up his 
 tremors and flutterings, of what sort soever, in a safe 
 cover of silence, and perhaps of seeming stolidity. 
 How was it, then, that here, when trembling to the 
 core of his heart, he did not sink into swoons, but 
 rose into strength, into fearlessness and clearness? It 
 was his guiding genius {Damon) that inspired him ; 
 he must go forth and meet his destiny. * Show thyself 
 now,' whispered it, ' or be forever hid.' Thus some- 
 times it is, even when your anxiety becomes transcen- 
 dental, 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 
 
ROMANCE. 149 
 
 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 thence- 
 forth, to speak with an apparent, not a real vanity, he 
 may say that he continued to lead. Surely, in those 
 hours, a certain inspiration was imparted him, such 
 inspiration as is still possible in our late era. The 
 Self-secluded unfolds himself in noble thoughts, in 
 free, glowing words ; his soul is as one sea of light, 
 the peculiar home of truth and intellect ; wherein also 
 fantasy bodies forth form after form, radiant with all 
 prismatic hues." 
 
 It appears, in this otherwise so happy meeting, there 
 talked one "Philistine;" who even now, to the gen- 
 eral weariness, was dominantly pouring forth Philis- 
 tinism (Philistriositaten) ; little witting what hero 
 was here entering to demolish him ! We omit the 
 series of Socratic, or rather Diogenic utterances, not 
 unhappy in their way, whereby the monster, "per- 
 suaded into silence," seems soon after to have with- 
 drawn for the night. " Of which dialectic marauder," 
 writes our hero, "the discomfiture was visibly felt 
 as a benefit by most; but what were all applauses, to 
 the glad smile, threatening every moment to become 
 a laugh, wherewith Blumine herself repaid the victor? 
 He ventured to address her, she answered with at- 
 tention; nay, what if there were a slight tremor in 
 that silver voice; what if the red glow of evening 
 were hiding a transient blush! 
 
 "The conversation took a higher tone; one fine 
 thought called forth another. It was one of those rare 
 seasons, when the soul expands with full freedom, and 
 
 13* 
 
150 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 laws of polite living, had melted as into vapor ; and 
 the poor claims of Me and Thee, no longer parted by 
 rigid fences, now flowed softly into one another ; and 
 life lay all-harmonious, many-tinted, like some fair 
 royal champaign, the sovereign and owner of which 
 were Love only. Such music springs from kind 
 hearts, in a kind environment of place and time. And 
 yet, as the light grew more aerial on the mountain-tops, 
 and the shadows fell longer over the valley, some faint 
 tone of sadness may have breathed through the heart; 
 and, in whispers more or less audible, reminded every 
 one that, as this bright day was drawing towards its 
 close, so likewise must the day of man's existence 
 decline into dusk and darkness ; and with all its sick 
 
 7 ok. 
 
 toilings, and joyful and mournful noises, sink in the 
 still eternity. 
 
 "To our friend the hours seemed moments; holy 
 was he and happy; the words from those sweetest lips 
 came over him like dew on thirsty grass ; all better 
 feelings in his soul seemed to whisper, ' It is good for 
 us to be here.' At parting, the Blumine's hand was in 
 his; in the balmy twilight, with the kind stars above 
 them, he spoke something of meeting again, which was 
 not contradicted; he pressed gently those small, soft 
 lingers, and it seemed as if they were not hastily, not 
 angrily withdrawn." 
 
 Poor Teufelsdrockh ! it is clear to demonstration 
 thou art smit; the queen of hearts would see a "man 
 of genius" also sigh for her; and there, by art magic, 
 
ROMANCE. 151 
 
 in that preternatural hour, has she bound and spell- 
 bound thee. " Love is not altogether a delirium," 
 says he elsewhere; "yet has it many points in com- 
 mon therewith. I call it rather a discerning of the 
 Infinite in the Finite, of the Idea made Real; which 
 discerning, again, may be either true or false, either 
 seraphic or demoniac, inspiration or insanity. But 
 in the former case, too, as in common madness, it is 
 fantasy that superadds itself to sight ; on the so petty 
 domain of the Actual, plants its Archimedes'-lever, 
 whereby to move at will the infinite Spiritual. Fan- 
 tasy I might call the true heaven-gate and hell-gate 
 of man; his sensuous life is but the small temporary 
 stage (Zeitbiihne), whereon thick-streaming influen- 
 ces from both these far yet near regions meet visibly 
 and act tragedy and melodrama. Sense can support 
 herself handsomely, in most countries, for some eigh- 
 teen pence a day ; but for fantasy planets and solar 
 systems will not suffice. Witness your Pyrrhus con- 
 quering the world, yet drinking no better red wine 
 than he had before." Alas, witness also your Diogenes, 
 flame-clad, scaling the upper heaven, and verging 
 towards insanity, for prize of a "high-souled bru- 
 nette," 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 all 
 in darkness : him what Graceful (Holde) would ever 
 love ? Disbelieving all things, the poor youth had 
 never learned to believe in himself. Withdrawn, in 
 proud timidity, within his own fastnesses ; solitary 
 
152 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 from men, yet baited by night-spectres enough, he 
 saw himself, with a sad indignation, constrained to 
 renounce the fairest hopes of existence. And now, 
 O now ! ' She looks on thee,' cried he; 'she, the 
 fairest, noblest ; do not her dark eyes tell thee, thou art 
 not despised ? The heaven's-messenger ! All heaven's 
 blessings be hers !' Thus did soft melodies flow 
 through his heart ; tones of an infinite gratitude ; 
 sweetest intimations that he also was a man, that for 
 him also unutterable joys had been provided. 
 
 "In free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent 
 glances, laughter, tears, and often with the inarticu" 
 late, mystic speech of music ; such was the element 
 they now lived in ; in such a many-tinted, radiant 
 Aurora ; and by this fairest of orient light-bringers 
 must our friend be blandished, and the new Apoca- 
 lypse of nature unrolled to him. Fairest Blumine ! 
 And, even as a star, all fire and humid softness, a very 
 light-ray incarnate ! Was there so much as a fault, a 
 ' caprice,' he could have dispensed with ? Was she 
 not to him, in very deed, a morning-star ; did not her 
 presence bring with it airs from heaven ? As from 
 iEolian harps in the breath of dawn, as from the 
 Memnon's statue struck by the rosy finger of Aurora, 
 unearthly music was around him, and lapped him into 
 untried, balmy rest. Pale doubt fled away to the dis- 
 tance ; life bloomed up with happiness and hope. 
 The past, then, was all a haggard dream ; he had 
 been in the garden of Eden, then, and could not dis- 
 cern it ! But lo, now ! the black walls of his prison 
 melt away ; the captive is alive, is free. If he loved 
 his disenchantress ? Ach Gott J His whole heart 
 and soul and life were hers, but never had he named 
 
ROMANCE. 153 
 
 it Love ; existence was all a feeling, not yet shaped into 
 a thought." 
 
 Nevertheless, into a thought, nay into an action, it 
 must be shaped ; for neither disenchanter nor disen- 
 chantress, mere " children of time," can abide by 
 feeling alone. The Professor knows not, to this day, 
 " how, in her soft, fervid bosom, the Lovely found 
 determination, even on hest of necessity, to cut asunder 
 these so blissful bonds." He even appears surprised 
 at the " Duenna cousin," whoever she may have 
 been, "in whose meagre, hunger-bitten philosophy, 
 the religion of young hearts was, from the first, faintly 
 approved of." We, even at such distance, can explain 
 it without necromancy. Let the Philosopher answer 
 this one question : What figure," at that period, was 
 a Mrs. Teufelsdrockh likely to make in polished 
 society ? Could she have driven so much as a brass- 
 bound gig, or even a simple iron-spring one ? Thou 
 foolish, " absolved Auscultator," before whom lies no 
 prospect of capital, will any yet known " religion of 
 young hearts" keep the human kitchen warm ? 
 Pshaw! thy divine Blumine, when she "resigned 
 herself to wed some richer," shows more philosophy, 
 though but " a woman of genius," than thou, a pre- 
 tended man. 
 
 Our readers have witnessed the origin of this love- 
 mania, and with what royal splendor it waxes and 
 rises. Let no one ask us to unfold the glories of its 
 dominant state ; much less the horrors of its almost 
 instantaneous dissolution. How, from such inorganic 
 masses, henceforth madder than ever, as lie in these 
 bags, can even fragments of a living delineation be 
 organized ? Besides, of what profit were it ? We 
 view, with a lively pleasure, the gay silk Montgolfier 
 
154 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 start from the ground, and shoot upwards, cleaving 
 the liquid deeps, till it dwindle to a luminous star ; 
 but what is there to look longer on, when once, by 
 natural elasticity, or accident of fire, it has exploded ? 
 A hapless air-navigator, plunging, amid torn para- 
 chutes, sandbags, and confused wreck, fast enough, 
 into the jaws of the Devil! Suffice it to know that 
 Teufelsdrockh rose into the highest regions of the 
 empyrean, by a natural, parabolic track, and returned 
 thence in a quick, perpendicular one. For the rest, 
 let any feeling reader, who has been unhappy enough 
 to do the like, paint it out for himself; considering 
 only that if he, for his perhaps comparatively insigni- 
 ficant mistress, underwent such agonies and frenzies, 
 what must Teufelsdrockh's have been, with a fire-heart, 
 and for a nonpareil Blumine! We glance merely at 
 the final scene :- — 
 
 " One morning, he found his morning-star all 
 dimmed and dusky-red ; the fair creature was silent, 
 absent ; she seemed to have been weeping. Alas, no 
 longer a morning-star, but a troublous, skyey portent, 
 announcing that the Doomsday had dawned ! She 
 said in a tremulous voice, they were to meet no 
 more." The thunderstruck air-sailor is not wanting 
 to himself in this dread hour ; but what avails it ? 
 We omit the passionate expostulations, entreaties, 
 indignations, since all was vain, and not even an 
 explanation was conceded him ; and hasten to the 
 catastrophe. " Farefell, then, madam! said he, not 
 without sternness, for his stung pride helped him. 
 She put her hand in his, she looked in his face, tears 
 started to her eyes ; in wild audacity he clasped her 
 to his bosom ; their lips were joined, their two souls, 
 
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 155 
 
 like two dewdrops, rushed into one, — for the first 
 time, and for the last?" Thus was Teufelsdrockh 
 made immortal by a kiss. And then? Why, then — 
 " thick curtains of night rushed over his soul, as rose 
 the immeasurable crash of doom ; and through the 
 ruins, as of a shivered universe, was he falling, falling 
 towards the abyss. 
 
 CHAPTER VI, 
 
 SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 
 
 We have long felt that, with a man like our Profes- 
 sor, 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 emit- 
 ting, such as the psychologist had seldom noted; in 
 short, that, on no grand occasion and convulsion, neither 
 in the joy-storm nor in the wo-storm, could you pre- 
 dict his demeanour. 
 
 To our less philosophical readers, for example, it is 
 now clear that the so passionate Teufelsdrockh, pre- 
 cipitated through " a shivered universe" in this extra- 
 ordinary way, has only one of three things which 
 he can next do : Establish himself in Bedlam ; begin 
 writing Satanic poetry ; or blow out his brains. In 
 the progress towards any of which consummations, 
 do not such readers anticipate extravagance enough ; 
 breast-beating, brow-beating (against walls), lion-bel- 
 lowings of blasphemy and the like, stampings, smitings, 
 breakages of furniture, if not arson itself? 
 
156 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Nowise so does Teufelsdrockh deport him. He 
 quietly lifts his Pilgerstab (Pilgrim-staff), " old busi- 
 ness being soon wound up;" and begins a perambu- 
 lation and circumambulation of the terraqueous globe ! 
 Curious it is, indeed, how, with such vivacity of con- 
 ception, such intensity of feeling, above all, with 
 these unconscionable habits of exaggeration in speech, 
 he combines that wonderful stillness of his, that 
 stoicism in external procedure. Thus, if his sudden 
 bereavement, in this matter of the flower-goddess, is 
 talked of as a real Dooms-day 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 un- 
 locked that shut heart of his, and its hidden things 
 rush out 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 occur- 
 rence fairly taken place, than he affects to regard it 
 as a thing natural, of which there is nothing more to 
 be said. " One highest hope, seemingly legible in 
 the eyes of an angel, had recalled him as out of death' 
 shadows into celestial life ; but a gleam of Tophet 
 passed over the face of his angel ; he was rapt away 
 in whirlwinds, and heard the laughter of demons. It 
 was a calenture," adds he, " whereby the youth saw 
 green Paradise-groves in the waste ocean-waters ; 
 a lying vision, yet not wholly a lie, for he saw it." 
 
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 157 
 
 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 until a quite opaque cover of 
 silence. We know it well; the first mad paroxysm 
 past our brave Gneschen collected his dismembered 
 philosophies, and buttoned himself together ; he was 
 meek, silent, or spoke of the weather, and the jour- 
 nals ; only by a transient knitting of those shaggy 
 brows, by some deep flash of those eyes, glancing one 
 knew not whither 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 chimnies consume their own smoke ; to keep a 
 whole Satanic school spouting, if it must spout, inau- 
 dibly, is a negative yet no slight virtue, nor one of the 
 commonest in these times. 
 
 Nevertheless, we will not take upon us to say, that, 
 in the strange measure he fell upon, there was not a 
 touch of latent insanity ; whereof, indeed, the actual 
 condition of these documents in Capricornus and 
 Aquarius is no bad emblem. His so unlimited 
 wanderings, toilsome enough, are without assigned or 
 perhaps assignable aim; internal unrest seems his sole 
 guidance ; he wanders, wanders, as if that curse of 
 the Prophet had fallen on him, and he were " made 
 like unto a wheel." Doubtless, too, the chaotic na- 
 ture of these paper-bags aggravates our obscurity. 
 Quite without note of preparation, for example, we 
 come upon the following slip : "A peculiar feeling is 
 it that will rise in the traveller, when turning some 
 hill-range in his desert road, he descries, lying far 
 
 14 
 
158 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 below embosomed among its groves and green natural 
 bulwarks, and all diminished to a toybox, the- fair 
 town where so many souls, as it were seen and yet 
 unseen, are driving their multifarious traffic. Its white 
 steeple is then truly a starward-pointing finger; the 
 canopy of blue smoke seems like a sort of 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 of men, in itself a congeries of houses 
 and huts, become for us an individual, almost a per- 
 son. But what thousand other thoughts unite thereto, 
 if the place has to ourselves been the arena of joyous 
 or mournful experiences ; if, perhaps, the cradle we 
 were rocked in still stands there, if our loving ones 
 still dwell there, if our buried ones there slumber ! " 
 Does Teufelsdrb'ckh,' — as the wounded eagle is said to 
 make for its own eyrie, and indeed military deserters, 
 and all hunted outcast creatures, turn as if by instinct 
 in the direction of their birthland, — fly first, in this 
 extremity, towards his native Entepfuhl; but reflecting 
 that there no help awaits him, take 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 the former by some 
 considerable space, wherein, however, is nothing note- 
 worthy : — 
 
 " Mountains were not new to him ; but rarely are 
 mountains seen in such combined majesty and grace 
 as here. The rocks are of that sort called primitive 
 by the mineralogists, which always arrange themselves 
 in masses of a rugged, gigantic character; which 
 
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 159 
 
 ruggedness, however, is here tempered by a singular 
 airiness of form, and softness of environment ; in a 
 climate favorable to vegetation, the gray cliff, itself 
 eovered with lichens, shoots up through a garment of 
 foliage or verdure ; and white, bright cottages, tree- 
 shaded, cluster round the everlasting granite. In-fine 
 vicissitude, beauty alternates with grandeur; you ride 
 through stony hollows, along strait passes, traversed 
 by torrents, oyerhung by high walls of rock; now 
 winding amid broken, shaggy chasms and huge frag- 
 ments ; now suddenly emerging into some emerald 
 valley, where the streamlet collects itself into a lake, 
 and man has again found a fair dwelling, and it seems 
 as if peace had established herself in the bosom of 
 strength. 
 
 ** To peace, however, in this vortex of existence, 
 can the son of time not pretend ; still less if some 
 spectre haunt him from the past ; and the future is 
 wholly a Stygian darkness, spectre-bearing. Reason- 
 ably might the Wanderer exclaim to himself: 'Are 
 not the gates of this world's happiness inexorably shut 
 against thee ; hast thou a hope that is not mad V Never- 
 theless, one may still murmur audibly, or in the original 
 Greek, if that suit better, ' Whoso can look on death 
 will start at shadows V 
 
 " From such meditations is the Wanderer's atten- 
 tion called outwards ; for now the valley closes in ab- 
 ruptly, intersected by a huge mountain-mass, the stony, 
 water-worn ascent of which is not to be accomplished 
 on horseback. Arrived aloft, he finds himself again 
 lifted into the evening, sunset light ; and cannot but 
 pause, and gaze round him, some moments there. An 
 upland, irregular expanse of world, where valleys in 
 
160 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 complex branchings are suddenly or slowly arranging 
 their descent towards every quarter of the sky. The 
 mountain-ranges are beneath your feet, and folded 
 together ; only the loftier summits look down here and 
 there as on a second plain ; lakes also lie clear and 
 earnest in their solitude. No trace of man now visi- 
 ble ; unless, indeed, it were he who fashioned that little, 
 visible link of highway, here, as would seem, scaling 
 the inaccessible to unite province with province. But 
 sunwards, lo you ! how it towers sheer up, a world of 
 mountains, the diadem and centre of the mountain- 
 region ! A hundred and a hundred savage peaks, in 
 the last light of day ; all glowing of gold and ame- 
 thyst, like giant spirits of the wilderness ; there in 
 their silence, in their solitude, even as on the night 
 when Noah's deluge first dried! Beautiful, nay, 
 solemn, was the sudden aspect to our Wanderer. He 
 gazed over those stupendous masses with wonder, 
 almost with longing desire ; never till this hour had 
 he known Nature, that she was one, that she was his 
 mother, and divine. And as the ruddy glow was 
 fading into clearness in the sky, and the sun had now 
 departed, a murmur of eternity and immensity, of death 
 and of life, stole through his soul ; and he felt as 
 if death and life weie one, as if the earth were not 
 dead, as if the spirit of the earth had its throne in 
 that splendor, and his own spirit were therewith hold- 
 ing communion. 
 
 " The spell was broken by a sound of carriage- 
 wheels. Emerging from the hidden Northward, to 
 sink soon into the hidden Southward, came a gay 
 barouche-and-four. It was open. Servants and postil- 
 ions wore wedding-favors. That happy pair, ttyfcn, had 
 
SORROWS OF TJEUFELSDROCKH. 161 
 
 found each other; it was their marriage evening ! Few 
 moments brought them near. Du Himmel! It was 
 
 Herr Towgood and Blumine ! With slight, un- 
 
 recognising salutation they passed me ; plunged down 
 amid the neighbouring thickets, onwards, to heaven, 
 and to England ; and I, in my friend Richter's words, 
 I remained alone, behind them, with the night.'''' 
 
 Were it not cruel in these circumstances, here might 
 be the place to insert an observation, gleaned long ago 
 from the great Clothes-Volume, where it stands with 
 quite other intent : " Some time before small-pox was 
 extirpated," says the Professor, " there came a new 
 malady of the spiritual sort on Europe ; I mean the 
 epidemic, now endemical, of view-hunting. Poets of 
 old date, being privileged with senses, had also enjoyed 
 external nature ; but chiefly as we enjoy the crystal 
 cup which holds good or bad liquor for us ; that is to 
 say, in silence, or with slight incidental commentary. 
 Never, as I compute, till after the Sorrows of Werter, 
 was there man found who would say : Come, let us 
 make a description ! Having drunk the liquor, come, 
 let us eat the glass ! Of which endemic the Jenner is 
 unhappily still to seek." Too true ! 
 
 We reckon it more important to remark that the 
 Professor's wanderings, so far as his stoical and cyni- 
 cal envelopment admits us to clear insight, here first 
 take their permanent character, fatuous or not. That 
 basilisk glance of the barouche-and-four seems to have 
 withered up what little remnant of a purpose may 
 have still lurked in him. Life has become wholly a 
 dark labyrinth ; wherein, through long years* our friend, 
 flying from spectres, must stumble about at random, 
 and naturally with more haste than progress. 
 
 14* 
 
162 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Foolish were it in us to attempt following him, even 
 from afar, in this extraordinary world-pilgrimage of 
 his ; the simplest record of which, were clear record 
 possible, would fill volumes. Hopeless is the obscu- 
 rity, unspeakable the confusion. He glides from coun- 
 try to country, from condition to condition ; vanishing 
 and reappearing, no man can calculate how or where. 
 Through all quarters of the world he wanders, and 
 apparently through all circles of society. If in any 
 scene, perhaps difficult to fix geographically, he settles 
 for a time, and forms connexions, be sure he will snap 
 them abruptly asunder. Let him sink out of sight, as 
 private scholar (Privatisirender'), 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 phantasmagoria, capricious, quick- 
 changing ; as if our traveller, instead of limbs and 
 highways, had transported himself by some wishing- 
 carpet, or Fortunatus's hat. The whole, too, imparted 
 emblematically, in dim, multifarious tokens (as that 
 collection of Street-Advertisements) ; with only some 
 touch of direct, historical notice sparingly interspersed ; 
 little light-islets in the world of haze ! So that from 
 this point, the Professor is more of an enigma than 
 ever. In figurative language, we might say he be- 
 comes, not indeed a spirit, yet spiritualized, vaporized. 
 Fact unparalleled in biography ! The river of his 
 history, which we have traced from its tiniest foun- 
 tains, and hoped to see flow onward, with increasing 
 current, into the ocean, here dashes itself over that 
 terrific lover's leap ; and, as a mad-foaming cataract, 
 flies wholly into tumultuous clouds of spray ! Low 
 down it indeed collects again into pools and plashes ; 
 
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 163 
 
 yet only at a great distance, and with difficulty, if at 
 all, into a general stream. To cast a glance into 
 certain of these 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 questionable to 
 emit. Teufelsdrockh, vibrating everywhere between 
 the highest and the lowest levels, comes in contact 
 with public history itself. For example, these conver- 
 sions and relations with illustrious persons, as Sultan 
 Mai:moud, the Emperor Napoleon, and others, are 
 they not as yet rather of a diplomatic character, than 
 of a biographic ? The Editor, appreciating the sacred- 
 ness 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 pur- 
 pose, for there was none, yet with what immediate 
 outlooks ; at all events, in what mood of mind, the 
 Professor undertook and prosecuted this world-pilgrim- 
 age, — the answer is more distinct and favourable. 
 " A nameless unrest," says he, "urged me forward; 
 to which the outward motion was some momentary, 
 lying solace. Whither should I go 1 My loadstars 
 were blotted out ; in that canopy of grim fire shone 
 no star. Yet forward must I ; the ground burnt 
 under me ; there was no rest for the sole of my foot. 
 I was alone ! alone ! Ever, too, the strong inward 
 longing shaped fantasms for itself; towards these, one 
 
164 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 after the other, must I fruitlessly wander. A feeling 
 I had that, for ray fever-thirst, there was and must be 
 somewhere a healing fountain. To many fondly ima- 
 gined fountains, the Saints' Wells of these days, did 
 I pilgrim ; to great men, to great cities, to great 
 events ; but found there no healing. In strange coun- 
 tries, as in the well-known ; in savage deserts, as in 
 the press of corrupt civilization, it was ever the same ; 
 how could your Wanderer escape from — his own sha- 
 dow ? 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, For- 
 wards ! Ach Gott ! I was even once for all, a son of 
 time." 
 
 From which is it not clear that the internal Satanic 
 school was still active enough ? He says elsewhere ; 
 " The Enchiridion of Epictetus I had ever with me, 
 often as my sole, rational companion ; and regret to 
 mention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling." 
 Thou foolish Teufelsdroekh ! How could it else ? 
 Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus 
 much : The end of man is an action, and not a thought, 
 though it were the noblest ? 
 
 "How I lived?" writes he once: "Friend, hast 
 thou considered the 'rugged, all-nourishing Earth,' as 
 Sophocles well names her ; how she feeds the sparrow 
 on the housetop, much more her darling man? While 
 thou stirrest and livest, thou hast a probability of 
 victual. My breakfast of tea has been cooked by 
 a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who wiped 
 her earthen kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted 
 wild eggs in the sands of Sahara ; I have awakened 
 
SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 165 
 
 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 ever- 
 lasting demand for intellect, in the chemical, mechani- 
 cal, political, religious, educational, commercial de- 
 partments ? In Pagan countries, cannot one write 
 Fetishes ? Living ! Little knowest thou what alchemy 
 is in inventive soul ; how, as with its little finger, 
 it can create provision enough for the body (of a 
 philosopher) ; and then, as with both hands, create 
 quite other than provision ; namely, spectres to tor- 
 ment itself withal." 
 
 Poor Teufelsdrockh ! Flying with hunger always 
 parallel to him ; and a whole infernal chase in his 
 rear; so that the countenance of hunger is compara- 
 tively 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 passion- 
 ate words, must write his Sorrows of Werter, before 
 the spirit freed herself, and he could become a man. 
 Vain, truly, is the hope of your swiftest runner " to 
 escape from his own shadow!" Nevertheless, in 
 these sick days, when the Born of heaven first descries 
 himself (about the age of twenty) in a world such as 
 ours, richer than usual in two things; in truths grown 
 obsolete, and trades grown obsolete, — what can the 
 fool think, but that it is all a den of lies, wherein who- 
 so will not speak lies and act lies must stand idle and 
 
166 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 despair? Whereby it happens that, for your nobler 
 minds, the publishing of some such work of art, in 
 one or the other dialect, becomes almost a necessity. 
 For what is it properly but an altercation with the 
 Devil, before you begin honestly fighting him ? Your 
 Byron publishes his Sorrows of Lord George, in verse 
 and in prose, and copiously otherwise ; your Bonaparte 
 represents his Sorrows of Napoleon opera in an ail-too 
 stupendous style, with music of cannon-vollies, and 
 murder-shrieks of a world ; his stage-lights are the 
 fires of conflagration ; his rhyme and recitative are the 
 tramp of embattled hosts and the sound of falling cities. 
 — Happier is he who, like our Clothes-Philosopher, 
 can write such matter, since it must be written on the 
 insensible earth, with his shoe-soles only ; and also 
 survive the writing thereof I 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE EVERLASTING NO. 
 
 Under the strange nebulous envelopment, wherein 
 our Professor has now shrouded himself, no doubt but 
 his spritual nature is nevertheless progressive, and 
 growing : for how can the " son of time," in any case, 
 stand still? We behold him, through those dim years, 
 in a state of crisis, of transition; his new pilgrim- 
 ings, and general solution into aimless discontinuity, 
 what is all this but a mad fermentation ; wherefrom 
 the fiercer it is, the clearer product will one day evolve 
 itself? 
 
THE EVERLASTING NO. 16t 
 
 Such transitions are ever full of pain. Thus the 
 eagle, when he moults, is sickly ; and, to attain his 
 new beak, must harshly dash off the old one upon 
 rocks. What stoicism soever our Wanderer in his 
 individual acts and motions may affect, it is clear that 
 there is a hot fever of anarchy and misery raging 
 within ; coruscations of which flash out ; as, indeed, 
 how could there be other? Have we not seen him dis- 
 appointed, bemocked of Destiny, through long years ? 
 All that the young heart might desire and pray for has 
 been denied; nay, as in the last, worst instance, of- 
 fered and then snatched away. Ever an " excellent 
 passivity;" but of useful, reasonable activity, essential 
 to the former as food to hunger, nothing granted ; till 
 at length, in this wild pilgrimage, he must forcibly 
 seize for himself an activity, though useless, unreason- 
 able. Alas ! his cup of bitterness, which had been 
 filling drop by drop, ever since that first " ruddy morn- 
 ing" in the Hinterschlag Gymnasium, was at the very 
 lip ; and then with that poison-drop, of the Towgood- 
 and-Blumine business, it runs over, and even hisses 
 over in a deluge of foam. 
 
 He himself says once, with more justness than 
 originality: " Man is, properly speaking, based upon 
 hope ; he has no other possession but hope ; this world 
 of his is emphatically the place of hope." What, 
 then, was our Professor's possession 1 We see him, 
 for the present, quite shut out from hope ; looking not 
 into the golden orient, but vaguely all round into a 
 dim, copper firmament, pregnant with earthquake and 
 tornado. 
 
 Alas, shut out from hope, in a deeper sense than 
 we yet dream of! For as he wanders wearisomely 
 
168 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 through this world, he has now lost all tidings of 
 another and higher. Full of religion, or at least of 
 religiosity, as our friend has since exhibited himself, 
 he hides not that, in those days, he was wholly irre- 
 ligious : "Doubt had. darkened into unbelief," says 
 he ; " shade after shade goes grimly over your soul, 
 till you have the fixed, starless, Tartarean black." 
 To such readers as have reflected, what can be called 
 reflecting, on man's life, and happily discovered, in 
 contradiction to much profit-and-loss philosophy, spec* 
 ulative and practical, that soul is not synonymous 
 with stomach; who understand, therefore, in our 
 friend's words, " that, for man's well-being, faith is 
 properly the one thing needful ; how, with it, martyrs, 
 otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and 
 the cross ; and, without it, worldlings puke up their 
 sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxury ;" 
 to such it will be clear that, for a pure moral nature, 
 the loss of his religious belief was the loss of every 
 thing. Unhappy young man 1 All wounds, the crush 
 of long-continued destitution, the stab of false friend- 
 ship, and of false love, all wounds in thy so genial 
 heart would have healed again, had not its life-warmth 
 been withdrawn. Well might he exclaim, in his wild 
 way: " Is there no God, then; but, at best, an ab- 
 sentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, 
 at the outside of his universe, and seeing it go ? Has 
 the word Duty no meaning? Is what we call Duty no 
 divine messenger and guide ; but a false, earthly fan- 
 tasm, made up of desire and fear, of emanations from 
 the gallows and from Doctor Graham's celestial-bed ? 
 Happiness of an approving concience ! Did not Paul 
 of Tarsus, whom admiring men have since named 
 
THE EVERLASTING NO. 169 
 
 Saint, feel that he was ' the chief of sinners ;' and 
 Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit {Wohlgemuth), spend 
 much of his time in fiddling ? Foolish word-monger, 
 and motive grinder, that in thy logic-mill hast an 
 earthly mechanism, for the Godlike itself, and wouldst 
 fain grind me out virtue from the husks of pleasure* 
 — I tell thee, nay ! To the unregenerate Prometheus 
 Vinctus of a man, it is even 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 inspira* 
 tion we name virtue but some passion, some bubble 
 of the blood, bubbling in the direction others profit 
 by? I know not; only this I know, If what thou 
 namest happiness be our true aim, then are we all 
 astray. With stupidity and sound digestion man may 
 front much. But what, in these dull, unimaginative 
 days, are the terrors of conscience, to the diseases of 
 the liver ? Not on morality, but on cookery, let us 
 build our strong hold ; there brandishing our frying-pan, 
 as censer, let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and 
 live at ease on the fat things which he has provided for 
 his elect!" 
 
 Thus must the bewildered Wanderer stand, as so 
 many have done, shouting question after question into 
 the Sibyl-cave of Destiny, and receive no answer but 
 an echo. It is all a grim desert, this once fair world 
 of his ; wherein is heard only the howling of wild 
 beasts, or the shrieks of despairing, hate-filled men ; 
 and no pillar of cloud by day, and no pillar of fire 
 by night, any longer guides the pilgrim. To such 
 length has the spirit of inquiry carried him. "But 
 what recks it (was thuts)V cries he; " it is but the 
 
 15 
 
170 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 common lot in this era. Not having come to spiritual 
 majority prior to the Siecle de Louis Quinze, and not 
 being born purely a loghead (Dummkopf), thou hadst 
 no other outlook. The whole world is, like thee, sold 
 to unbelief; their old temples of the Godhead, which 
 for long have not been rain -proof, crumble down ; and 
 men ask now : Where is the Godhead ? our eyes never 
 saw him !" 
 
 Pitiful enough were it, for all these wild utterances, 
 to call our Diogenes wicked. Unprofitable servants 
 as we all are, perhaps at no period of his life was he 
 more decisively the servant of goodness, the servant of 
 God, than even now when doubting God's existence. 
 "One circumstance I note," says he; "after all the 
 nameless wo that inquiry, which for me, what it is not 
 always, was genuine lova of truth, had wrought me, I 
 nevertheless still loved truth, and would bate no jot of 
 my allegiance to her. ' Truth !' I cried, * though the 
 heavens crush me for following her ; no falsehood ! 
 though a whole, celestial Lubberland were the price of 
 apostacy.' In conduct it was the same. Had a divine 
 messenger from the clouds, or miraculous hand-writing 
 on the wall, convincingly proclaimed to me, This 
 shall thou do, with what passionate readiness, as I 
 often thought, would I have done it, had it been leap- 
 ing into the infernal fire ! Thus, in spite of all 
 motive-grinders, and mechanical profit-and-loss phi- 
 losophies, with the sick ophthalmia and hallucination 
 they had brought on, was the infinite nature of duty 
 still dimly present to me. Living without God in the 
 world, of God's light I was not utterly bereft ; if my 
 as yet sealed eyes, with their unspeakable longing, 
 could nowhere see Him, nevertheless in my heart He 
 
THE EVERLASTING NO. 17 I 
 
 was present, and His heaven-written law still stood 
 legible and sacred there." 
 
 Meanwhile, under all these tribulations, and tem- 
 poral and spiritual destitutions, what must the Wan- 
 derer, 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, indu- 
 bitable performance, what a difference ! A certain 
 inarticulate self-consciousness dwells dimly in us ; 
 which only our works can render articulate and de- 
 cisively discernible. Our works are the mirror wherein 
 the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, 
 the folly of that impossible precept, Know thyself; till 
 it be translated into this partially possible one, Know 
 what thou canst work at. 
 
 "-But for me, so strangely unprosperous had I been, 
 the net result of my workings amounted as yet simply 
 to — nothing. How, then, eould I believe in my 
 strength, when there was as yet no mirror to see it in ? 
 Ever did this agitating, yet, as I now perceive, quite 
 frivolous question remain to me insoluble: Hast 
 thou a certain faculty, a certain worth, such even as 
 the most have not ; or art thou the completest dullard 
 of these modern times? Alas! the fearful unbelief 
 is unbelief in yourself. And how could I believe? 
 Had not my first, last faith in myself, when even to 
 me the heavens seemed laid open, and I dared to 
 love, been all too cruelly belied? The speculative 
 mystery of life grew even more mysterious to me ; 
 
172 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 neither in the practical mystery had I made the 
 slightest progress, but been everywhere buffeted, 
 foiled, and contemptuously cast out. A- feeble unit 
 in the middle of a threatening infinitude, T seemed to 
 have nothing given me but eyes, whereby to discern 
 my own wretchedness. Invisible, yet impenetrable 
 walls, as of enchantment, divided me from all living. 
 Was there, in the wide world, any true bosom I could 
 press trustfully to mine ? O heaven, no there was 
 none ! I kept a lock upon my lips. Why should I 
 speak much with that shifting variety of so-called 
 friends, in whose withered, vain, and too-hungry souls, 
 friendship was but an incredible tradition? In such 
 cases, your resource is to talk little, and that little 
 mostly from the newspapers. Now when I look back, 
 it was a strange isolation I then lived in. The men 
 and women round 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 streets and assemblages, I 
 walked solitary ; and (except as it was my own heart, 
 not another's, that I kept devouring) savage also as 
 the tiger in his jungle. Some comfort it would have 
 been, could I, like a Faust, have fancied myself 
 tempted and tormented of the Devil ; for a hell, as I 
 imagine, without life, though only diabolic life, were 
 more frightful; but in our age of downpulling and 
 disbelief, the very Devil has been pulled down, you 
 cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me the 
 universe was all void of life, of purpose, of volition, 
 even of hostility ; it was one huge, dead, immeasura- 
 ble steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, 
 to grind me limb from limb. O the vast, gloomy, 
 
THE EVERLASTING NO. 173 
 
 solitary Golgotha, and mill of death ! Why was the 
 living banished thither companionless, conscious ? 
 Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is 
 your God ?" 
 
 A prey incessantly to such corrosions, might not, 
 moreover, as the worst aggravation to them, the iron 
 constitution even of a Teufelsdrockh threaten to fail ? 
 We conjecture that he has known sickness ; and, in 
 spite of his locomotive habits, perhaps sickness of the 
 chronic sort. Hear this, for example. " How beau- 
 tiful to die of broken-heart, on paper ! Quite another 
 thing in practice ; every window of your feeling, even 
 of your intellect, as it were, begrimed and mud- 
 bespattered, so that no pure ray can enter; a whole 
 drug-shop in your inwards ; the foredone soul drown- 
 ing slowly in quagmires of disgust !" 
 
 Putting all which external and internal miseries 
 together, may we not find in the following sentences, 
 quite in our Professor's still vein, significance enough ? 
 "From suicide a certain after-shine (Nachschein) 
 of Christianity withheld me ; perhaps also a certain 
 indolence of character; for was not that a remedy I 
 had at any time within reach ? Often, however, was 
 there a question present to me : should some one 
 now, at the turning of that corner, blow thee suddenly 
 out of space, into the other world, or other no-world, 
 by pistol-shot — how were it? On which ground, too, 
 I have often, in sea-storms and sieged cities and other 
 death-scenes, exhibited an impurturbability, which 
 passed, falsely enough, for courage." 
 
 "So had it lasted," concludes the Wanderer, "so 
 had it lasted, as in bitter, protracted death-agony, 
 
 15* 
 
174 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 through long years. The heart within me, unvis- 
 ited by any heavenly dew-drop, was smouldering 
 in sulphurous, slow-consuming tire. Almost since 
 earliest memory I had shed no tear; or once only, 
 when I, murmuring half-audibly, recited Faust's 
 Deathsong, that wild Selig der den er im Siegesglanze 
 findet (Happy whom he finds in battle's splendor), 
 and thought that of this last friend even I was not 
 forsaken, that destiny itself could not doom me not to 
 die. Having no hope, neither had I any definite 
 fear, were it of man or of devil; nay, I often felt as if 
 it might be solacing, could the Arch-Devil himself, 
 though in Tartarean terrors, but rise to me, that I 
 might tell him a little of my mind. And yet, strangely 
 enough, I lived in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; 
 tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive of I knew not 
 what ; it seemed as if all things in the heavens above 
 and the earth beneath would hurt me; as if the hea- 
 vens and the earth were but boundless jaws of a> 
 devouring monster, wherein I, palpitating, waited to 
 be devoured. 
 
 "Full of such humor, and perhaps the miserablest 
 man in the whole French capkal or suburbs, was I> 
 one sultry dogday, after much perambulation, toiling 
 along the dirty little Rue Saint Thomas d l'Enfer, 
 among civic rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere, 
 and over pavements hot as Nebuchadnezzar's furnace ; 
 whereby, doubtless, my spirits were little cheered ; 
 when, all at once, there rose a thought in me, and I 
 asked myself: What art thou afraid of? Where- 
 fore, like a coward, dost thou forever pip and 
 whimper, and go cowering and trembling ! Despi- 
 cable biped ! What is the sum-total of the worst that 
 
THE EVERLASTING NO. 175 
 
 lies before thee ? Death ? Well, death ; and say the 
 pangs of Tophet too, and all that the Devil and man 
 may, will, or can do against thee ! Hast thou not a 
 heart ; canst thou not suffer whatso it be ; and, as a 
 child of freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet 
 itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee ? Let it 
 come, then ; I will meet it and defy it ! And as I so 
 thought, there rushed like a stream of fire over my 
 whole soul ; and I shook base fear away from me for- 
 ever. I was strong of unknown strength; a spirit, 
 almost a god. Ever from that time, the temper of my 
 misery was changed ; not fear or whining sorrow was 
 it, but indignation, and grim, fire-eyed defiance. 
 
 " Thus had the Everlasting No (das Ewige Nein) 
 pealed authoritatively through all the recesses of my 
 being, of my Me ; and then was it that my whole Me 
 stood up; in native, God-created majesty, and with em- 
 phasis recorded its protest. Such a protest, the most 
 important transaction in life, may that same indigna- 
 tion and defiance, in a pyschological point of view, be 
 fitly called. The Everlasting No has 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 
 spiritual new-birth, or Baphometic fir e^baptism ; per- 
 haps I directly thereupon began to be a man." 
 
176 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 
 
 Though* after this " Baphometic fire-baptism" of 
 his, our Wanderer signifies that his unrest was but 
 increased, — as, indeed, "indignation and defiance," 
 especially against things in general, are not the most 
 peaceable inmates, — yet can the psychologist surmise 
 that it was no longer a quite hopeless unrest ; that 
 henceforth it had at least a fixed centre to revolve 
 round. For the fire-baptized soul, long so scathed 
 and thunder-riven, here feels its own freedom, which 
 feeling is its Baphometic baptism ; the citadel of its 
 whole kingdom it has thus gained by assault, and will 
 keep inexpungable ; outwards from which the remain- 
 ing 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 St. Thomas de V 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-chauntings, Ernulphus- 
 cursings, and rebellious gnashings of teeth, might in 
 the meanwhile, become only the most tumultuous, and 
 difficult to keep secret. 
 
 Accordingly, if we scrutinize these pilgrims well, 
 there is perhaps discernable henceforth a certain in- 
 cipient method in their madness. Not wholly as a 
 spectre does Teufelsdrockh now storm through the 
 world ; at worst, as a spectre-fighting man, nay, that 
 will be done by a spectre queller. If pilgriming 
 restlessly to so many " Saints' Wells," and ever with- 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 177 
 
 out quenching of his thirst, he nevertheless finds little 
 secular wells, whereby from time to time some alle- 
 viation is ministered. In a word, he is now, if not 
 ceasing, yet intermitting to " eat his own heart;" and 
 clutches round him outwardly, on the Not-Me, for 
 wholesomer food. Does not the following glimpse 
 exhibit him in a much more natural state ? 
 
 " Towns also and cities, especially the ancient, I 
 failed not to look upon with interest. How beauti- 
 ful to see thereby, as through a long vista, into the 
 remote time ; to have, as it were, an actual section of 
 almost the earliest past brought safe into the present, 
 and set before your eyes ! There, in that old city 
 was a live ember of culinary fire put down, say only 
 two thousand years ago ; and there, burning more or 
 less triumphantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, 
 it has burnt, and still burns, and thou thyself seest 
 the very smoke thereof. Ah ! and the far more mys- 
 terious live ember of vital fire was then also put down 
 there ; and still miraculously burns and spreads ; and 
 the smoke and ashes thereof (in these judgment-halls 
 and church-yards), and its bellows-engines (in these 
 churches), thou still seest ; and its flame, looking out 
 from every kind countenance, and every hateful one, 
 still warms thee or scorches thee. 
 
 " Of man's activity and attainment the chief results 
 are aeriform, mystic, and preserved in tradition only; 
 such are his foims 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 indispen- 
 sable and priceless as they are, cannot in any way be 
 
1 78 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 fixed under lock and key, but must flit, spirit-like, on 
 impalpable vehicles, from father to son ; if you de- 
 mand sight of them, they are nowhere to be met 
 with. Visible ploughmen and hammermen there have 
 been, ever from Cain and Tubalcain downwards ; but 
 where does your accumulated agricultural, metallur- 
 gic, 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 Gov- 
 ernment ? In vain wilt thou go to Schonbrunn, to 
 Downing street, to the Palais Bourbon ; thou findest 
 nothing there, but brick or stone houses, and some 
 bundles of papers tied with tape. Where, then, is that 
 same cunningly-devised, almighty Government of 
 theirs to be laid hands on? Everywhere, yet now- 
 here. Seen only in its works, this too, is a thing 
 aeriform, invisible ; or, if you will, mystic and miracu- 
 lous. So spiritual (geistig) is our whole daily life ; all 
 that we do springs out of mystery, spirit, invisible force; 
 only like a little cloud-image, or Armida's palace, air- 
 built, does the Actual body itself forth from the great 
 mystic deep. 
 
 " Visible and tangible products of the past, again, 
 I reckon up to the extent of three : Cities, with their 
 cabinets and arsenals ; their tilled fields, to either or 
 to both of which divisions roads with their bridges 
 
 may belong; and thirdly books. In which third, 
 
 truly, the last invented, lies a worth far surpassing 
 that of the two others. Wondrous indeed is the 
 virtue of a true book ! Not like a dead city of stones, 
 yearly crumbling, yearly needing repair ; more like a 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 179 
 
 tilled field, but then a spiritual field ; like a spiritual 
 tree, let me rather say, it stands from year to year, 
 and from age to age (we have books that already 
 number some hundred and fifty human age3) ; and 
 yearly comes its new produce of leaves (commenta- 
 ries, deductions, philosophical, political systems ; or 
 were it only sermons, pamphlets, journalistic essays), 
 every one of which is talismanic and thaumaturgic, 
 for it can persuade men.. O thou who art able to 
 write a book, which once in the two centuries or 
 oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him 
 whom they name city-builder, and inexpressibly pity 
 him whom they name conqueror or city-burner ! 
 Thou, too, art a conqueror and victor; but of the tiue 
 sort, namely, over the Devil. Thou, too, hast built 
 what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder- 
 bringing city of the mind, a temple and seminary and 
 prophetic mount, whereto all kindreds of the earth 
 will pilgrim. — Fool! why journeyest thou weari- 
 somely, in thy antiquarian fervour, to gaze on the 
 stone pyramids of Geeza, or the clay ones of Sacchara ? 
 These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, 
 looking over the desert, foolishly enough, for the last 
 three thousand years ; but canst thou not open thy 
 Hebrew Bible, then, or even Luther's version 
 thereof?" 
 
 No less satisfactory is his sudden appearance, not in 
 battle, yet on some battle-field ; which, we soon gather, 
 must be that of Wagram ; so that here, for once is a 
 certain approximation to distinctness of date. Omit- 
 ting much, let us impart what follows : 
 
 " Horrible enough ! A whole Marchfeld strewed 
 with shell-splinters, cannon-shot, ruined tumbrils, and 
 
180 SARTOR RESARTtfS. 
 
 dead men and horses ; stragglers still remaining not 
 so much as buried. And those red mould heaps : 
 aye, there lie the shells <rf men, out of which all the 
 life and virtue has been blown; and now are they 
 swept together, and crammed down out of sight, like 
 blown eggshells ! — Did Nature, when she bade the 
 Donau bring down his mould-cargoes from the Carin- 
 thian and Carpathian heights, and spread them out 
 here into the softest, richest level,' — intend thee, O 
 Marchfeld, for a corn-bearing nursery, whereon her 
 children might be nursed; or for a cock-pit, wherein 
 they might the more commodiously be throttled and 
 tattered? Were thy three broad highways, meeting 
 here from the ends of Europe, made for ammunition- 
 wagons, then ? Were thy Wagrams and Stillfrieds 
 but so many ready-built casemates, wherein the house 
 of Hapsburg might batter with artillery, and with 
 artillery be battered ? Konig Ottokar, amid yonder 
 hillocks, dies under Rodolf 's truncheon ; here Kaiser 
 Franz falls a-swoon under Napoleon's ; within which 
 five centuries, to omit the others, how has thy breast, 
 fair plain, been defaced and defiled ! The greensward 
 is torn up and trampled down ; man's fond care of it, 
 his fruit-tiees, hedgerows, and pleasant dwellings, 
 blown away with gunpowder ; and the kind seedfield 
 lies as a desolate, hideous Place-of-Sculls. — Never- 
 theless, Nature is at work ; neither shall these povv- 
 der-devilkins with their utmost devilry gainsay her ; 
 but all that gore and carnage will be shrouded in, 
 absorbed into manure ; and next year the Marchfeld 
 will be green, nay, greener. Thrifty, unwearied Na- 
 ture, ever out of our great waste educing some little 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 181 
 
 profit of thy own, — how dost thou, from the very 
 carcass of the killer, bring life for the living ! 
 
 " What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the 
 net purport and upshot of war ? To my own know- 
 ledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in the British 
 village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. 
 From these, by certain * natural enemies' of the French, 
 there are successively selected, during the French war, 
 say thirty ablebodied men. Dumdrudge, at her own 
 expense, has suckled and nursed them ; she has, not 
 without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, 
 and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, 
 another build, another hammer, and the weakest can 
 stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, 
 amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected ; 
 all dressed in red, and shipped away, at the public 
 charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the 
 south of Spain; and fed there till wanted. And now, 
 to that same spot in the south of Spain, are thirty 
 similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in 
 like manner wending ; till at length, after infinite effort, 
 the two parties come into actual juxta-position ; and 
 thirty stands fronting thirty, each with a gun in his 
 hand. Straightway the word ' Fire !' is given ; rnd 
 they blow the souls out of one another ; and in place 
 of sixty brisk, useful craftsmen, the world has sixty 
 dead carcasses, which it must buiy, and anew shed 
 tears for. Had these men any quarrel ? Busy as the 
 Devil is, not the smallest ! They lived far enough 
 apart ; were the entirest strangers ; nay, in so wide a 
 universe, there was even, unconsciously, by commerce, 
 some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? 
 Simpleton ! their governors had fallen out ; and, instead 
 >■ 16 
 
182 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 of shooting one another, had the cunning- to make these 
 poor blockheads shoot. — Alas, so it is in Deutschland, 
 and hitherto in all other lands ; still, as of old, ' what 
 devilry soever kings do, the Greeks must pay the 
 piper !'— In that fiction of the English Smollett, it is 
 true, the final cessation of war is perhaps prophetically 
 shadowed forth; where the two natural enemies, in 
 person take each a tobacco-pipe, filled with brimstone ; 
 light the same, and smoke in one another's faces, till 
 the weaker gives in. But from such predicted peace- 
 era, what blood-filled trenches, and contentious centu- 
 ries, may still divide us!" 
 
 Thus can the Professor, at least in lucid intervals, 
 look away from his own sorrows, over the many-colored 
 world, and pertinently enough note what is passing 
 there. We may remark, indeed, that for the matter 
 of spiritual culture, if for nothing else, perhaps few 
 periods of his life were richer than this. Internally, 
 there is the most momentous, instructive course of 
 practical philosophy, with experiments, going on ; to- 
 wards the right comprehension of which his peripa- 
 tetic habits, favourable to meditation, might help him 
 rather than hinder. Externally, again, as he wanders 
 to and fro, there are, if for the longing heart little sub- 
 stance, yet for the seeing eye sights enough ; in these 
 so boundless travels of his, granting that the Satanic 
 school was even partially kept down, what an incredi- 
 ble 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 ; 
 inmost colleges, except the Chinese Mandarin ones, 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 183 
 
 I have studied, or seen that there was no studying. 
 Unknown languages have I oftenest gathered from 
 their natural repertory, the air, by my organ of hear- 
 ing; Statistics, Geographies, Topographies came, 
 through the eye, almost of their own accord. The 
 ways of man, how he seeks food and warmth and pro- 
 tection for himself, in most regions, are ocularly known 
 to me. Like the great Hadrian, I meted out much of 
 the terraqueous globe with a pair of compasses that 
 belonged to myself only. 
 
 "Of great scenes, why speak? Three summer 
 days, I lingered reflecting, and even composing (dich- 
 tete), by the pine-chasms of Vaucluse; and in that 
 clear lakelet moistened my bread. I have set under 
 the palm-trees of Tadmor ; smoked a pipe among the 
 ruins of Babylon. The great wall of China I have 
 seen ; and can testify that it is of gray brick, coped 
 and covered with granite, and shows only second-rate 
 masonry. — Great events, also, have I not witnessed ? 
 Kings sweated down (ausgemergelt) into Berlin-and- 
 Milan customhouse-officers ; the world well won, and 
 the world well lost ; oftener than once a hundred thou- 
 sand 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 fer- 
 ment there, and in time unite. The birth-pangs of 
 democracy, wherewith convulsed Europe was groan- 
 ing in cries that reached heaven, could not escape me. 
 
 " For great men I have ever had the warmest pre- 
 dilection ; and can perhaps boast that few such in 
 this era have wholly escaped me. Great men are the 
 inspired (speaking and acting) texts of that divine 
 Book of Revelations, whereof a chapter is comple- 
 
184 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 ted from epoch to epoch, and by some named His- 
 tory ; to which inspired texts your numerous talented 
 men, and your innumerable untalented men, are the 
 better or worse exegetie commentaries, and wagon- 
 load of too-stupid, heretical or orthodox, weekly ser- 
 mons. For my study, the inspired texts themselves ! 
 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 high- 
 way ; waiting upon the great Schiller and greater 
 Goethe ; and hearing what I have not forgotten 1 
 
 For " 
 
 But at this point the Editor recalls his prin- 
 
 ciple of caution, some time ago laid down, and must 
 suppress much. Let not the sacredness of laurelled, 
 still more of crowned heads, be tampered with. Should 
 we, at a future day, find circumstances altered, and 
 the time come for publication, then may these glimp- 
 ses into the privacy of the illustrious be conceded ; 
 which for the present, were little better than treacher- 
 ous, perhaps traitorous, eavesdroppings. Of Lord 
 Byron, therefore, of Pope Pius, Emperor Tarakwang, 
 and the " White Water-roses" (Chinese Carbonari), 
 with their mysteries, no notice here ! Of Napolean 
 himself we shall only, glancing from afar, remark 
 that Teufelsdrockh's relation to him seems to have 
 been of very varied character. At first we find our 
 poor Professor on the point of being shot as a spy ; 
 then taken into private conversation, even pinched on 
 the ear, yet presented with no money ; at last indig- 
 nantly dismissed, almost thrown out of doors, as an 
 " Idelogist." " He himself," says the Professor, " was 
 among the" completest Ideologists, at least Ideoprax- 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 185 
 
 ists ; 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 can- 
 non's throat, that great doctrine, La carriere ouverte 
 aux talens (the tools to him that can handle them), 
 which is our ultimate political Evangile, wherein alone 
 can liberty lie. Madly enough he preached, it is true, 
 as enthusiasts and first missionaries are wont, with 
 imperfect utterance, amid much frothy rant ; yet as 
 articulately perhaps as the case admitted. Or call 
 him, if you will, an American Backwoodsman, who 
 had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle with innu- 
 merable wolves, and did not entirely forbear strong 
 liquor, rioting, and even theft ; whom, not withstand- 
 ing, the peaceful sower will follow, and, as he cuts the 
 boundless harvest, bless." 
 
 More legitimate and decisively authentic is Teufels- 
 drockh's appearance and emergence (we know not 
 well whence) in the solitude of the North Cape, on 
 that June midnight. He has a " light-blue Spanish 
 cloak" hanging round him, as his " most commodious, 
 principal, indeed sole upper-garment ;" and stands 
 there, on the world-promontory, looking over the 
 infinite brine, like a little, blue belfry (as we figure), 
 now motionless, indeed, yet ready, if stirred, to ring' 
 quaintest changes* 
 
 " Silence as of death," writes he ; " for midnight, 
 even in the Arctic latitudes, has its character ; nothing 
 but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged, the peaceable gurgle 
 of that slow-heaving Polar ocean, over which in the 
 utmost North the great sun hangs low and lazy, as if he, 
 too, were slumbering. Yet is his cloud-couch wrought 
 of crimson and cloth of gold ; yet 'does his light stream 
 
 16* 
 
186 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 over the mirror of waters, like a tremulous fire pillar, 
 shooting downwards to the abyss, and hide itself un- 
 der my feet. In such moments, solitude also is in- 
 valuable ; 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 im- 
 mensity, and palace of the Eternal, whereof our sun 
 is but a porch-lamp. 
 
 " Nevertheless, in this solemn moment, comes a 
 man or monster, scrambling from among the rock- 
 hollows ; and, shaggy, huge as the Hyperborean bear, 
 hails me in Russian speech ; most probably, therefore, 
 a Russian smuggler. With courteous brevity, I sig- 
 nify my indifference to contraband trade, my humane 
 intentions, yet strong wish to be private. In vain ; 
 the monster, counting doubtless on his superior stature, 
 and minded to make sport for himself, or perhaps 
 profit, were it with murder, continues to advance ; 
 ever assailing me with his importunate, train-oil 
 breath ; and now has advanced, till we stand both 
 on the verge of the rock, the deep sea rippling gree- 
 dily down below. What argument will avail ? On 
 the thick Hyperborean, cherubic, reasoning, seraphic 
 eloquence was lost. Prepared for such extremity, I, 
 deftly enough, whisk aside one step ; draw out, from 
 my interior reservoirs, a sufficient Birmingham horse- 
 pistol, and say : ' Be so obliging as retire, friend (Er 
 ziche sich zuriick, Freund), and with promptitude ! ' 
 This logic even the Hyperborean understands ; fast 
 enough, with apologetic, petitionary growl, he sidles 
 off; and, except for suicidal, as well as homicidal pur- 
 poses, need not return. 
 
 " Such I hold to be the genuine use of gunpowder? 
 
CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 187 
 
 that it makes all men alike tall. Nay, if thou be cooler, 
 cleverer than I, if thou have more mind, though all but 
 no body whatever, then canst thou kill me first, and art 
 the taller. Hereby, at least, is the Goliath powerless, 
 and the David resistless ; savage animalism is nothing, 
 inventive spiritualism is all. 
 
 " With respect to duels, indeed, I have my own 
 ideas. Few things, in this so surprising world, strike 
 me with more surprise. Two little visual spectra of 
 men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the 
 midst of the Unfathomable, and to dissolve therein, 
 at any rate, very soon, — make pause at the distance 
 of twelve paces asunder ; whirl round ; and simulta- 
 neously, by the cunningest mechanism, explode one 
 another into dissolution ; and off-hand become air, 
 and non-extant ! Deuce on it (yerdammty. the little 
 spitfires ! — Nay, I think, with old Hugo von Trim- 
 berg : ' God must needs laugh outright, could such 
 a thing be, to see his wondrous mannikins here be- 
 low.' " 
 
 But amid these specialities, let us not forget the 
 great generality, which is our chief quest here : How 
 prospered the inner man of Teufelsdrockh under so 
 much outward shifting ? Does Legion still lurk in 
 him, though repressed; or has he exorcised that 
 Devil's brood ? We can answer that the symptoms 
 continue promising. Experience is the grand spir- 
 itual doctor ; and with him Teufelsdrockh has now 
 been long a patient, swallowing many a bitter bolus. 
 Unless our poor friend belong to the numerous class of 
 incurables, which seems not likely,, some cure will 
 doubtless be effected. We should rather say that 
 
188 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Legion or the Satanic school, was now pretty well 
 extirpated and cast out, but next to nothing introduced 
 in its room ; whereby the heart remains, for the while, 
 in a quiet, but no comfortable state. 
 
 " At length, after so much roasting," thus writes 
 our Autobiographer, " I was what you might name 
 calcined. Pray only that it be not rather, as is the 
 more frequent issue, reduced to a caput-mortuum I 
 But in any case, by mere dint of practice, I had grown 
 familiar with many things. Wretchedness was still 
 wretched ; but I could now partly see through it, and 
 despise it. Which highest mortal, in this inane exist- 
 ence, had I not found a shadow-hunter or shadow- 
 hunted ; and, when I looked through his brave garni- 
 tures, miserable enough ? Thy wishes have all been 
 sniffed aside, thought I; but what, had they even been 
 all granted ! Did not the boy Alexander weep because 
 he had not two planets to conquer ; or a whole solar 
 system ; or, after that, a whole universe ? Ach Gott J 
 when I gazed into these stars, have they not looked 
 down on me, as if with pity, from their serene spaces; 
 like eyes glistening with heavenly tears over the little 
 lot of man? Thousands of human generations, all as 
 noisy as our own, have been swallowed up of time, and 
 there remains no wreck of them any more ; and Arc- 
 turus 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- 
 thing, somebody? For thee the family of man has no 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 189 
 
 use ; it rejects thee ; thou art wholly as a dissevered, 
 limb. So be it ; perhaps it is better so !" 
 
 Too heavy-laden Teufelsdrockh ! Yet surely his 
 bands are loosening ; one day he will hurl the burden 
 far from him, and bound forth free, and with a second 
 youth. 
 
 " This," says our Professor, " was the Centre of 
 Indifference I had now reached; through which 
 whoso travels from the negative pole to the positive 
 must necessarily pass.'* 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 the everlasting yea. 
 
 " Temptations in the wilderness !" exclaims Teu- 
 felsdrockh; "have we not all to be tried with such ? 
 Not so easily can the old Adam, lodged in us by birth, 
 be dispossessed. Our life is compassed round with 
 necessity ; yet is the meaning of life itself no other 
 than freedom, than voluntary force; thus have we a 
 warfare ; in the beginning, especially, a hard-fought 
 battle. For the God-given mandate, Work thou in 
 well-doing, lies mysteriously written, in Promethean, 
 prophetic characters, in our hearts ; and leaves us no 
 rest night or day, till it be deciphered and obeyed; 
 till it burn forth, in our conduct, a visible, acted gospel 
 of freedom. And as the clay-given mandate, Eat thou 
 and be filled, at the same time persuasively proclaims 
 itself through every nerve, — must there not be a con- 
 
190 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 fusion, a contest, before the better influence can become 
 the upper ? 
 
 " To me nothing seems more natural than that the 
 son of man, when such God-given mandate first pro- 
 phetically stirs within him, and the clay must now be 
 vanquished or vanquish, — should be carried of the 
 spirit into grim solitudes, and there fronting the 
 tempter do grimmest battle with him ; defiantly setting 
 him at nought, till he yield and fly. Name it as we 
 choose ; with or without visible Devil, whether in the 
 natural desert of rocks and sands, or in the populous, 
 moral desert of selfishness and baseness, — to such 
 temptation are we all called. Unhappy if we are not ! 
 Unhappy if we are but half menu in whom that divine 
 handwriting has never blazed forth, all-subduing, in 
 true sun-splendor ; but quivers dubiously amid meaner 
 lights ; or smoulders, in dull pain, in darkness, under 
 earthly vapors ! — Our wilderness is the wide world 
 in an atheistic century ; our forty days are long years 
 of suffering and fasting ; nevertheless, to these also 
 comes an end. Yes, to me also was given, if not 
 victory, yet the consciousness of battle, and the re- 
 solve to persevere therein while life or faculty is left. 
 To me also, entangled in the enchanted forests, 
 demon-peopled, doleful of sight and of sound, it was 
 given, after weariest wanderings, to work out my way 
 into the higher, sunlit slopes — of that mountain 
 which has no summit, or whose summit is in heaven 
 only!" 
 
 He says elsewhere, under a less ambitious figure ; — 
 as figures are, once for all, natural to him ; " Has not 
 thy life been that of most sufficient men (tuchtigen 
 Manner) thou hast known in this generation ? An 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 191 
 
 outflush of foolish, young enthusiasm, like the first 
 fallow-crop, wherein are as many weeds as valuable 
 herbs ! This all parched away, under the droughts of 
 practical and spiritual unbelief; as disappointment, in 
 thought and act, often repeated, gave rise to doubt, 
 and doubt gradually settled into denial ! If I have 
 had a second crop, and now see the perennial green- 
 sward, and sit under umbrageous cedars, which defy 
 all drought (and doubt) ; herein, too, be the heavens 
 praised, I am not without examples, and even exem- 
 plars." 
 
 So that for Teufelsdrockh also there has been a 
 "glorious revolution;" these mad shadow-hunting 
 and shadow-hunted pilgrimings of his were but some 
 purifying " Temptation in the Wilderness," before 
 his apostolic work (such as it was) could begin ; 
 which temptation is now happily over, and the Devil 
 once more worsted ! Was " that high moment in the 
 Rue de VEnfer" 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 
 Satanas ? — 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 typi- 
 cal shadow, fitfully wavering, prophetico-satiric ; no 
 clear, logical picture. "How paint to the sensual 
 eye," asks he once, "what passes in the holy-of-holies 
 of man's soul ; in what words, known to these profane 
 times, speak even afar off of the unspeakable?" We 
 ask, in turn: Why perplex these times, profane as 
 they are, with needless obscurity, by omission and by 
 commission ? Not mystical only is our Professor, but 
 
192 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 con- 
 sider ; for it was as if the hour of change drew nigh. 
 I seemed to surrender, to denounce utterly, and say : 
 Fly, then, false shadows of hope ; I will chase you no 
 more, I will believe you no more. And ye, too, hag- 
 gard spectres of fear, I care not for you ; ye, too, are 
 all shadows and a lie. Let me rest here ; for I am 
 way-weary and life-weary ; I will rest here, were it 
 but to die : to die or to live is alike to me ; alike insig- 
 nificant." — And again : " Here, then, as I lay, in that 
 Centre of Indifference ; cast, doubtless, by benig- 
 nant upper influence, into a healing sleep, the heavy 
 dreams rolled gradually away, and I awoke to a new 
 heaven and a new earth. The first preliminary moral 
 act, annihilation of self (Selbst-todtung), had been 
 happily accomplished ; and my mind's eyes were now 
 unsealed, and its hands ungyved." 
 
 Might we not also conjecture that the following 
 passage refers to his locality, during this same " heal- 
 ing sleep ;" that his pilgrim-staff lies cast aside here, 
 on " the high table-land ;" and, indeed, that the repose 
 is already taking wholesome effect on him ; were it 
 not that the tone, in some parts, has more of riancy, 
 even of levity, than we could have expected ? How- 
 ever, in Teufelsdrockh there is always the strangest 
 dualism ; light dancing, with guitar-music, will be 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 193 
 
 going on in the fore-court, while by fits from within 
 comes the faint whimpering of wo and wail. We 
 transcribe the piece entire : 
 
 " Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey tent, 
 musing and meditating; on the high table-land, in 
 front of the mountains ; over me, as roof, the azure 
 dome ; and around me, for walls, four azure flowing 
 curtains, — namely, of the four azure winds, on whose 
 bottom-fringes also I have seen gilding. And then 
 to fancy the fair castles that stood sheltered in these 
 mountain hollows ; with their green flower-lawns, and 
 white dames and damosels, lovely enough; or, better 
 still, the straw-roofed cottages, wherein stood many a 
 mother baking bread, with her children round her ; 
 — all hidden and protectingly folded up in the valley- 
 folds ; yet there and alive, as sure as if I beheld them. 
 Or to see, as well as fancy, the nine towns and vil- 
 lages, that lay round my mountain-seat, which, in still 
 weather, were wont to speak to me (by their steeple- 
 bells) with metal tongue ; and, in almost all weather, 
 proclaimed their vitality by repeated smoke-clouds ; 
 whereon, as on a culinary horologe, I might read the 
 hour of the day. For it was the smoke of cookery, as 
 kind housewives, at morning, midday, eventide, were 
 boiling their husbands' kettles ; and ever a blue pillar 
 rose up into the air, successively or simultaneously, 
 from each of the nine, saying, as plainly as smoke 
 could say : Such and such a meal is getting ready 
 here. Not uninteresting! For you have the whole 
 borough, with all its love-makings and scandal-monge- 
 ries, contentions and contentments, as in miniature, and 
 could cover it all with your hat. — If, in my wide way- 
 farings, I had learned to look into the business of the 
 
 17 
 
194 
 
 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 world in its details, here perhaps was the place for com- 
 bining it into general propositions, and deducing infer- 
 ences therefrom. 
 
 " Often also could I see the black tempest marching 
 in anger through the distance ; round some Schreck- 
 horn, as yet grim-blue, would the eddying vapor 
 gather, and there tumultuously eddy, and flow down 
 like a mad witch's hair; till, after a space, it vanished, 
 and in the clear sunbeam your Schreckhorn stood 
 smiling grim-white, for the vapor had held snow. How 
 thou fermentest and elaboratest, in thy great fermenting- 
 vat and laboratory of an atmosphere, of a world, O 
 Nature! — Or what is Nature? Ha! why do I not 
 name thee God ? Art thou not the 'Living Garment of 
 God V 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 ? 
 
 " Foreshadows, call them rather fore-splendors, of 
 that truth, and beginning of truths, fell mysteriously 
 over my soul. Sweeter than dayspring to the ship- 
 wrecked in Nova Zembla ; ah ! like the mother's 
 voice to her little child, that strays bewildered, weep- 
 ing in unknown tumults ; like soft streamings of 
 celestial music to my too exasperated heart, came that. 
 Evangile. 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 ; with an infinite love, an infinite pity. 
 Poor, wandering, wayward man ! Art thou not tried, 
 and beaten with stripes, even as I am ? Ever, whether 
 thou bear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, 
 art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden ? And thy bed 
 of rest is but a grave. O my brother, my brother ! why 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 195 
 
 cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all 
 tears from thy eyes ? — Truly, the din of many-voiced 
 life, which, in this solitude, with the mind's organ, I 
 could hear, was no longer a maddening discord, but a 
 melting one ; like inarticulate cries, and sobbings of 
 a dumb creature, which in the ear of Heaven are 
 prayers. The poor earth, with her poor joys, was now 
 my needy mother, not my cruel stepdame ; man, with 
 his so mad wants and so mean endeavours, had become 
 the dearer to me ; and even for his sufferings and his 
 sins I now first named him Brother. Thus was I 
 standing in the porch of that ' Sanctuary of Sorrow ;' 
 by strange, steep ways, had I, too, been guided thither ; 
 and ere long its sacred gates would open, and the ' Di- 
 vine Depth of Sorrow'' lie disclosed to me." 
 
 The Professor says, he here first got eye on the 
 knot that had been strangling him, and straightway 
 could unfasten it, and was free. " A vain intermina- 
 ble controversy," writes he, " touching what is at 
 present called Origin of Evil, or some such thing, 
 arises in every soul, since the beginning of the world ; 
 and in every soul, that would pass from idle suffering 
 into actual endeavouring, must first be put an end to. 
 The most, in our time, have to go content with a 
 simple, incomplete enough suppression of this con- 
 troversy ; to a few some solution of it is indispensable. 
 In every new era, too, such solution comes out in 
 different terms ; and ever the solution of the last era 
 has become obsolete, and is found unserviceable. 
 For it is man's nature to change his dialect from 
 century to century ; he cannot help it though he 
 would. The authentic Church- Catechism of our pres- 
 ent century has not yet fallen into my hands ; mean- 
 
196 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 while, for my own private behoof, I attempt to eluci- 
 date the matter so : Man's unhappiness, as I construe, 
 comes of his greatness ; it is because there is an In- 
 finite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot 
 quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole finance- 
 ministers and upholsterers and confectioners of modern 
 Europe undertake, in joint-stock company, to make 
 one shoeblack happy ? They cannot accomplish it 
 above an hour or two ; for the shoeblack also has a 
 soul quite other than his stomach ; and would require, 
 if you consider it, for his permanent satisfaction and 
 saturation, simply this allotment, no more, and no 
 less : God's infinite universe altogether to himself, 
 therein to enjoy infinitely, and fill every wish as fast 
 as it rose. Oceans of Hochheimer, a throat like 
 that of Ophiuchus ! speak not of them ; to the infi- 
 nite 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 uni- 
 verse, of an omnipotence, he sets to quarrelling with 
 the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself 
 the most maltreated of men. — Always there is a black 
 spot in our sunshine ; it is even, as I said, the shadow 
 of ourselves. 
 
 " But the whim we have of happiness is somewhat 
 thus : By certain valuations, and averages, of our 
 own striking, we come upon some sort of average 
 terrestrial lot ; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, 
 and of indefeasible right. It is simple payment of our 
 wages, of our deserts ; requires neither thanks nor 
 complaint ; only such overplus as there may be do we 
 account happiness ; any deficit, again, is misery. Now 
 consider that we have the valuation of our own de- 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 197 
 
 serts ourselves, and what a fund of self-conceit there 
 is in each of us, — do you wonder that the balance 
 should so often dip the wrong way, and many a block- 
 head cry : See there, what a payment ! was ever wor- 
 thy gentleman so used ? — I tell thee, blockhead, it all 
 comes of thy vanity ; of what thou fanciest those 
 same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deserv- 
 est to be hanged (as is most likely), thou wilt feel it 
 happiness to be only shot ; fancy that thou deservest 
 to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to die 
 in hemp. 
 
 " So true is it, what I then said, that the fraction of 
 life can be increased in value, not so much by increas- 
 ing your numerator , as by lessening your denominator. 
 Nay, unless my algebra deceive me, unity itself di- 
 vided by zero will give infinity. Make thy claim of 
 wages a zero, then ; thou hast the world under thy 
 feet. Well did the wisest of our time write : ' It is 
 only with renunciation {Entsageri) that life, properly 
 speaking, can be said to begin.'" 
 
 "I asked myself: What is this that, ever since 
 earliest years, thou hast been fretting and fuming, and 
 lamenting and self-tormenting, on account of? Say 
 it in a word ; is it not because thou art not hafpy ? 
 Because the Thou (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently 
 honored, nourished, soft-bedded, and lovingly cared 
 for ? Foolish soul ! What Act of Legislature was 
 there that thou shouldst be happy ? A little while ago 
 thou hadst no right to be at all. What if thou wert 
 born and predestined not to be happy, but to be un- 
 happy ? Art thou nothing other than a vulture, then, 
 that fliest through the universe, seeking after some- 
 what to eat ; and shrieking dolefully because carrion 
 
 17* 
 
198 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 enough is not given thee ? Close thy Byron ; open 
 thy Goethe. 1 " 
 
 "JSs leuchtet mir ein, I see a glimpse of it !" cries 
 he elsewhere ; " there is in man a Higher than love 
 of happiness ; he can do without happiness, and in- 
 stead 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 suf- 
 fered ; bearing testimony, through life and through 
 death, of the godlike that is in man, and how in the 
 godlike only has he strength and freedom 1 Which 
 God-inspired doctrine art thou too honored to be taught ; 
 O heavens ! and broken with manifold merciful afflic- 
 tions, even till thou become contrite, and learn it ! O 
 thank thy destiny for these ; thankfully bear what yet 
 remain ; thou hast need of them ; the self in thee 
 needed to be annihilated. By benignant fever-parox- 
 ysms is life rooting out the deep-seated chronic disease, 
 and triumphs over death. On the roaring billows of 
 time, thou art not engulfed, but born aloft into the 
 azure of eternity. Love not pleasure ; love God. This 
 is the Everlasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is 
 solved ; wherein whoso walks and works, it is well 
 with him." 
 
 And again : " Small is it that thou canst trample 
 the earth with its injuries under thy feet, as old Greek 
 Zeno trained thee ; thou canst love the earth while it 
 injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for 
 this a Greater than Zeno was needed, and He, too, 
 was sent. Knowest thou that * Worship of Sorrow ?' 
 The temple thereof, opened some eighteen centuries 
 ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the 
 habitation of doleful creatures. Nevertheless, venture 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 199 
 
 forward; in a low crypt, arched out of falling frag- 
 ments, thou findest the altar still there, and its sacred 
 lamp perennially burning." 
 
 Without pretending to comment on which strange 
 utterances, the Editor will only remark that there lies 
 beside them much of a still more questionable char- 
 acter ; unsuited to the general apprehension ; nay, 
 wherein he himself does not see his way. Nebulous 
 disquisitions on religion, yet not without bursts of 
 splendor; on the "perennial continuance of inspira- 
 tion ;" on prophecy ; that there are " true priests, as 
 well as Baal-priests, in our own day ;" with more of 
 the like sort. We select some fractions, by way of 
 finish to this farrago. 
 
 " Cease, my much-respected Herr von Voltaire," 
 thus apostrophizes the Professor ; " shut thy sweet 
 voice ; for the task appointed thee seems finished. 
 Sufficiently hast thou demonstrated this proposition, 
 considerable or otherwise : That the Mythus of the 
 Christian religion looks not in the eighteenth century 
 as it did in the eighth. Alas, were thy six-and-thirty 
 quartos, and the six-and-thirty thousand other quartos 
 and folios, and flying sheets or reams, printed before 
 and since on the 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 My- 
 thus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that our souls, 
 otherwise too like perishing, may live ? What ! thou 
 hast no faculty in that kind ? Only a torch for burn- 
 ing, no hammer for building ? Take our thanks, then, 
 and thyself away. 
 
 " Meanwhile what are antiquated Mythuses to me ? 
 Or is the God present, felt in my own heart, a thing 
 
200 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 which Herr von Voltaire will dispute out of me ; or 
 dispute into me ? To the « Worship of Sorrow 1 
 ascribe what origin and genesis thou pleasest, has 
 not that worship originated, and been generated ; is it 
 not here ? Feel it in thy heart, and then say whether 
 it is of God! This is belief; all else is opinion, — 
 for which latter, whoso will, let him worry and be 
 worried." 
 
 " Neither," observes he elsewhere, " shall ye tear 
 out one another's eyes, struggling over ' plenary in- 
 spiration,' and such like ; try rather to get a little even 
 partial inspiration, each of you for himself. One 
 Bible I know, of whose plenary inspiration doubt is 
 not so much as possible ; nay, with my own eyes I 
 saw the God's-hand writing it ; thereof all other 
 Bibles are but leaves, — say, in picture-writing to assist 
 the weaker faculty." 
 
 Or, to give the wearied reader relief, and bring it to 
 an end, let him take the following perhaps more intel- 
 ligible passage : 
 
 " To me, in this our life," says the Professor, 
 " which is an internecive warfare with the Time- 
 spirit, other warfare seems questionable. Hast thou 
 in any way a contention with thy brother, I advise 
 thee, think well what the meaning thereof is. If thou 
 gauge it to the bottom, it is simply this : ' Fellow, 
 see ! thou art taking more than thy share of happiness 
 in the world, something from my share ; which, by 
 the heavens, thou shalt not ; nay, I will fight thee 
 rather.' — Alas ! and the whole lot to be divided is 
 such a beggarly matter ; truly a « feast of shells,' for 
 the substance has been spilled out ; not enough to 
 quench one appetite ; and the collective human species 
 
THE EVERLASTING YEA. 201 
 
 clutching at them ! — Can we not, in all such cases, 
 rather say : ' Take it, thou too-ravenous individual ; 
 take that pitiful additional fraction of a share, which I 
 reckoned mine, but which thou so wantest; take it 
 with a blessing ; would to heaven I had enough for 
 thee !' — If Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre be, ' to a cer- 
 tain extent, Applied Christianity,' surely to a still 
 greater extent, so is this. We have here not a Whole 
 Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely, the passive half; 
 could we but do it, as we can demonstrate it ! 
 
 ** But, indeed, conviction, were it never so excellent, 
 is worthless till it convert itself into conduct. Nay, 
 properly, conviction is not possible till then, inasmuch 
 as all speculation is by nature endless, formless, a 
 vortex amid vortices ; only by a felt, indubitable cer- 
 tainty of experience, does it find any centre to revolve 
 round, and so fashion itself into a system. Most true 
 is it, as a wise man teaches us, that ' doubt of any 
 sort cannot be removed except by action.' On which 
 ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness 
 or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the 
 dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well 
 to heart, which to me was of invaluable service : ' Do 
 the duty which lies nearest thee,' which thou knowest 
 to be a duty ! Thy second duty will already have be- 
 come clearer. 
 
 " May we not say, however, that the hour of spirit- 
 ual enfranchisement is even this : when your ideal 
 world, wherein the whole man has been dimly strug- 
 gling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes 
 revealed, and thrown open ; and you discover, with 
 amazement enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm 
 Meister, that your ' America is here or nowhere' ? 
 
202 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 The situation that has not its duty, its Ideal, was 
 never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, 
 miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, wherein thou 
 even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal ; work 
 it out therefrom ; and working, believe, live, be free. 
 Fool ! the Ideal is in thyself, the impediment, too, is in 
 thyself; thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape 
 that same Ideal out of; what matters whether such 
 stuff be of this sort or of that, so the form thou give 
 it be heroic, be poetic ? O thou, that pinest in the 
 imprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the 
 gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know 
 this of a truth : the thing thou seekest is already with 
 thee, l here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see ! 
 
 "But it is with man's soul as it was with nature; 
 the beginning of creation is — light. Till the eye 
 have vision, the whole members are in bonds. Divine 
 moment, when over the tempest-tost soul, as once 
 over the wild-weltering Chaos, it is spoken : ' Let there 
 be light!' Ever to the greatest that has felt such 
 moment, is it not miraculous and God-announcing ; 
 even as, under simpler figures, to the simplest and 
 least ? The mad primeval discord is hushed ; the 
 rudely jumbled, conflicting elements bind themselves 
 into separate firmaments ; deep, silent rock-founda- 
 tions are built beneath ; and the skyey vault with 
 its everlasting luminaries above ; instead of a dark, 
 wasteful chaos, we have a blooming, fertile, heaven- 
 encompassed world. 
 
 " I, too, could now say to myself: Be no longer a 
 chaos, but a world, or even worldkin. Produce ! Pro- 
 duce ! Were it but the pitifullest, infinitesimal fraction 
 of a product, produce it, in God's name ! 'T is the 
 
PAUSE. 203 
 
 utmost thou hast in thee ; out with it, then. Up, up ! 
 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy 
 whole might. Work while it is called to-day, for the 
 night cometh wherein no man can work." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAUSE. 
 
 Thus have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily 
 as in such circumstances might be> followed Teufels- 
 drockh through the various successive states and 
 stages of growth, entanglement, unbelief, and almost 
 reprobation, into a certain clearer state of what he 
 himself seems to consider as Conversion. " Blame 
 not the word," says he, "rejoice rather that such a 
 word, signifying such a thing, has come to light in 
 our modern era, though hidden from the wisest 
 ancients. The old world knew nothing of Conver- 
 sion ; instead of an Ecce Homo, they had only some 
 Choice of Hercules. It was a new-attained progress 
 in the moral development of man ; hereby has the 
 highest come home to the bosoms of the most limited ; 
 what 1o Plato was but a hallucination, and to Socrates 
 a chimera, is now clear and certain to your Zinzen- 
 dorfs, your Wesleys, and the poorest of their Pietists 
 and Methodists." 
 
 It is here, then, that the spiritual majority of Teufels- 
 drockh commences ; we are henceforth to [see him 
 " work in well-doing," with the spirit and clear aims 
 of a man. He has discovered that the ideal workshop, 
 
204 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 he so panted for, is even this same actual, ill-furnished 
 workshop he has so long been stumbling in. He can 
 Say to himself: "Tools ? Thou hast no tools ? Why, 
 there is not a man, or a thing, now alive, but has tools. 
 The basest of created animalcules, the spider itself, has 
 a spinning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom, 
 within its head ; the stupidest of oysters has a Papin's 
 digester, with stone and-lime house to hold it in ; every 
 being that can live can do something; this let him 
 do. — Tools ? Hast thou not a brain, furnished, fur- 
 nishable with some glimmerings of light; and three 
 fingers to hold a pen withal ? Never, since Aaron's 
 rod went out of practice, or even before it, was there 
 such a wonder-working tool ; greater than all recorded 
 miracles have been performed by pens. For strangely 
 in this so solid-seeming world, which nevertheless is 
 in continual, restless flux, it is appointed that sound, 
 to appearance the most fleeting, should be the most 
 continuing of all things. The Word is well said to 
 be omnipotent in this world ; man, thereby divine, can 
 create as by a Fiat. Awake, arise ! Speak forth 
 what is in thee ; what God has given thee ; what the 
 Devil shall not take away. Higher task than that of 
 priesthood was allotted to no man ; wert thou but the 
 meanest in that sacred hierarchy, is it not honor 
 enough therein to spend and be spent ? 
 
 " By this art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously 
 degrade into a handicraft," adds Teufelsdrockh, "have 
 I thenceforth abidden. Writings of mine, not, indeed, 
 known as mine (for what am I?) 9 have fallen, perhaps 
 not altogether void, into the mighty seedfield of opin- 
 ion ; fruits of my unseen sowing gratifyingly meet me 
 here and there. I thank the heavens that I have now 
 
PAUSE. 205 
 
 found my calling ; wherein, with or without percepti- 
 ble result, I am minded diligently to persevere. 
 
 " Nay, how knowest thou," cries he, " but this and 
 the other pregnant device, now grown to be a world- 
 renowned, far-working institution ; like a grain of 
 right mustard-seed once cast into the right soil, and 
 now stretching out strong boughs to the four winds, 
 for the birds of the air to lodge in, — may have been 
 properly my doing ? Some one's doing it without 
 doubt was ; from some idea in some single head it did 
 first of all take beginning : why not from some idea 
 in mine ?" Does Teufelsdrockh here glance at that 
 " Society for the Conservation of Property 
 (EigenthumS'ConservirendeGesellschaft)" of which so 
 many ambiguous notices glide spectre-like through 
 these inexpressible paper-bags ? " An institution," 
 hints he, " not unsuitable to the wants of the time ; 
 as, indeed, such sudden extension proves ; for already 
 can the society number, among its office-bearers or 
 corresponding members, the highest names, if not the 
 highest persons, in Germany, England, France ; and 
 contributions, both of money and of meditation, pour 
 in from all quarters ; to, if possible, enlist the re- 
 maining integrity of the world, and, defensively and 
 with forethought, marshal it round this palladium." 
 Does Teufelsdrockh mean, then, to give himself out 
 as the originator of that so notable Eigenthums-con- 
 servirende. (" Owndom-conserving") Gesellschaft ; 
 and, if so, what, in the Devil's name, is it? He again 
 hints : "At a time when the divine commandment, 
 Thou shalt not steal, wherein, truly, if well understood, 
 is comprised the whole Hebrew Decalogue, with 
 Solon's and Lycurgus's Constitutions, Justinian's 
 
 18 
 
206 SARTOR RESARTtfS, 
 
 Pandects, the Code Napoleon, and all Codes, Cate- 
 chisms, Divinities, Moralities whatsoever, that man 
 hath hitherto devised (and enforced with altar-fire and 
 gallows-ropes) for his social guidance : at a time, I 
 say, when this divine commandment has all but faded 
 away from the general remembrance ; and, with little 
 disguise, a new, opposite commandment, Thou shalt 
 steal, is every where promulgated, — it perhaps be- 
 hoved, in this universal dotage and deliration, the 
 sound portion of mankind to bestir themselves and 
 rally. When the widest and wildest violations of that 
 divine right of property, the only divine right now 
 extant or conceivable, are sanctioned and recom- 
 mended by a vicious press, and the world has lived to 
 hear it asserted that we have no property in oar very 
 bodies, but only an accidental possession, and life-rent, 
 what is the issue to be looked for ? Hangmen and 
 catchpoles may, by their noose-gins and baited fall- 
 traps, keep down the smaller sort of vermin ; but 
 what, except perhaps some such universal association, 
 can protect us against the whole meat-devouring and 
 man-devouring hosts of boa constrictors 1 If, there- 
 fore, the most sequestered thinker have wondered, in 
 his privacy, from what hand that perhaps not ill-written 
 program in the public journals, with its high prize- 
 questions and so liberal prizes, could have proceeded, 
 — let him now cease such wonder; and, with undi- 
 vided faculty, betake himself to the Concurrenz (Com- 
 petition)." 
 
 We ask : Has this same " perhaps not ill- written 
 program," or any other authentic transaction of that 
 Property-conserving Society, fallen under the eye of 
 the British reader, in any journal, foreign or domestic? 
 
PAUSE. 207 
 
 If so, what arc those prize-questions ; what are the 
 terms of competition, and when, and where 1 No 
 printed newspaper-leaf, no farther light of any sort, 
 to be met with in these paper-bags ! Or is the whole 
 business one other of those whimsicalities, and per- 
 verse inexplieabilities, whereby Herr Teufelsdrockh, 
 meaning much or nothing, is pleased so often to play 
 fast and loose with us ? 
 
 Here, indeed, at length, must the Editor give utter- 
 ance to a painful suspicion, which, through late chap- 
 ters, has begun to haunt him ; paralyzing any little 
 enthusiasm that might still have rendered his thorny 
 biographical task a labor of love. It is a suspicion 
 grounded perhaps on trifles, yet confirmed almost into 
 certainty by the more and more discernible humoris- 
 tico-satirical tendency of Teufelsdrockh, in whom 
 under-ground humors, and intricate, sardonic rogueries, 
 wheel within wheel, defy all reckoning; a suspicion, 
 in one word, that these autobiographical documents 
 are partly a mystification ! What if many a so-called 
 fact were little better than a fiction ; if here we had 
 no direet camera-obscuia picture of the Professor's 
 history ; but only some more or less fantastic adum- 
 bration, symbolically, perhaps significally enough, 
 shadowing forth the same ! Our theory begins to be 
 that, in receiving as literally authentic what was but 
 hieroglyphically so, Hofrath Heuschrecke, whom in 
 that case we scruple not to name Hofrath Nose-of- 
 Wax, was made a fool of, and set adrift to make fools 
 of others. Could it be expected, indeed, that a man, 
 so known for impenetrable reticence as Teufelsdrockh, 
 would all at once frankly unlock his private citadel to 
 
208 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 an English Editor and a German Hofrath ; and not 
 rather deceptively inlock both Editor and Hofrath, in 
 the labyrinthic tortuosities and covered ways of said 
 citadel (having enticed them thither), to see, in his 
 half-devilish way, how the fools would look ? 
 
 Of one fool, however, the%Herr Professor will per- 
 haps 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 follow- 
 ing : " What are your historical facts ; still more your 
 biographical ? Wilt thou know a man, above all, a 
 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 the fewest have the 
 key. And then how your blockhead (Dummkopf) 
 studies not their meaning ; but simply whether they 
 are well or ill cut, what he calls moral or immoral! 
 Still worse is it with your bungler (Pfiischer) ; such 
 I have seen reading some Rousseau, with pretences of 
 interpretation ; and mistaking the ill-cut Serpent-of- 
 Eternity for a common poisonous reptile." Was the 
 Professor apprehensive, lest an Editor, selected as the 
 present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufels- 
 drockh Serpent of Eternity in like manner? For 
 which reason it was to be altered, not without under- 
 hand satire, into a plainer symbol ? Or is this merely 
 one of his half-sophisms, half-truisms, which if he can 
 but set on the back of a figure, he cares not whither 
 it gallop ? We say not with certainty ; and indeed, so 
 strange is the Professor, can never say. If our sus- 
 picion be "wholly unfounded, let his own questionable 
 ways, not our necessary circumspectness, bear the 
 blame. 
 
PAUSE. 209 
 
 But be this as it will, the somewhat exasperated 
 and, indeed, exhausted Editor determines here to shut 
 these paper-bags, for the present. Let it suffice that 
 we know of Teufelsdrockh, so far, if " not what he 
 did, yet what he became ;" the rather, as his charac- 
 ter has now taken its ultimate bent, and no new revo- 
 lution, of importance, is to be looked for. The 
 imprisoned chrysalis is now a winged Psyche ; and 
 such, wheresover by its flight, it will continue. To 
 trace by what complex gyrations (flights or involun- 
 tary waftings) through the mere external life-ele- 
 ment, Teufelsdrockh reaches his university professor- 
 ship, and the Psyche clothes herself in civic titles, 
 without altering her now fixed nature, — would be 
 comparatively an unproductive task ; were we even 
 unsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a false and 
 impossible one. His outward biography, therefore, 
 which, at the Blumine Lover' s-Leap, we saw churned 
 utterly into spray-vapor, may hover in that condition, 
 for aught that concerns us here. Enough that by 
 survey of certain " pools and plashes," we have as- 
 certained its general direction. Do we not already 
 know that, by one way and other, it has long since 
 rained down again into a stream ; and even now, at 
 Weissnichtwo, flows deep and still, fraught with the 
 Philosophy of Clothes, and visible to whoso will cast 
 eye thereon ? Over much invaluable matter that lies 
 scattered, like jewels among quarry-rubbish, in those 
 paper-catacombs, we may have occasion to glance 
 back, and somewhat will demand insertion at the right 
 place. Meanwhile, be our toilsome diggings therein 
 suspended. 
 
 If now, before reopening the great Clothes- Volume, 
 
 18* 
 
210 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 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 per- 
 haps been added, though as yet they drift straggling 
 on the flood ; how far they will reach, when once the 
 chains are straightened and fastened, can, at present, 
 only be matter of conjecture. 
 
 So much we already calculate. Through many a 
 little loophole we have had glimpses into the internal 
 world of Teufelsdrockh ; his strange, mystic, almost 
 magic diagram of the universe, and how it was gradu- 
 ally drawn, is not hencefoith altogether dark to us. 
 Those mysterious ideas on Time, which merit consid- 
 eration, and are not wholly unintelligible with such, 
 may by and by prove significant. Still more may his 
 somewhat peculiar view of Nature ; the decisive One- 
 ness he ascribes to Nature. How all Nature and Life 
 are but one Garment, a "living garment," woven and 
 ever a-weaving in the " Loom of Time." Is not here, 
 indeed, the outline of a whole Clothes-Philosophy ; at 
 least the arena it is to work in ? Remark, too, that the 
 character of the man, nowise without meaning in such 
 a matter, becomes less enigmatic. Amid so much 
 tumultuous obscurity, almost like diluted madness, do 
 not a certain indomitable defiance and yet a boundless 
 reverence seem to loom forth, as the two mountain- 
 summits on whose rock-strata all the rest were based 
 and built ? 
 
 Nay, farther, may we not say that Teufelsdrockh'a 
 biography, allowing it even, as suspected, only a hiero- 
 glyphical truth, exhibits a man, as it were pre'ap- 
 
PAUSE. 211 
 
 pointed for Chothes-Philosophy ? To look through 
 the shows of things into things themselves, he is led 
 and compelled. The " passivity" given him by birth 
 is fostered by all turns of his fortune. Everywhere 
 cast out, like oil out of water, from mingling in any 
 employment, in any public communion, he has no por- 
 tion but solitude, and a life of meditation. The whole 
 energy of his existence is directed, through long years, 
 on one task : that of enduring pain, if he cannot cure 
 it. Thus everywhere do the shows of things oppress 
 him, withstand him, threaten him with fearfullest de- 
 struction. 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 Philoso- 
 phy 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 between whiles 
 some twinkling of a polar star. 
 
21*2 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 As a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teu- 
 felsdrockh, from an early part of this Clothes-Volume, 
 has more and more exhibited himself. Striking it 
 was, amid all his perverse cloudiness, with what force 
 of vision and of heart he pierced into the mystery of 
 the world; recognising in the highest sensible phe- 
 nomena, so far as sense went, only fresh or faded 
 raiment ; yet ever, under this, a celestial essence there- 
 by rendered visible ; and while, on the one hand, he 
 trod the old rags of matter, with their tinsels, into the 
 mire, he, on the other, everywhere exalted spirit above 
 all earthly principalities and powers, and worshipped 
 it, though under the meanest shapes, with a true Pla- 
 tonic mysticism. What the man ultimately purposed 
 by thus casting the Greek-fire into the general ward- 
 robe of the universe ; what such more or less com- 
 plete rending and burning of garments throughout the 
 whole compass of civilized life and speculation should 
 lead to ; the rather as he was no Adamite, in any 
 sense, and could not, like Rousseau, recommend 
 either bodily or intellectual nudity, and a return to 
 the savage state; — all this our readers are now bent 
 to discover ; this is, in fact, properly the gist and 
 purport of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Philosophy of 
 Clothes. 
 
INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 213 
 
 Be it remembered, however, that such purport is 
 here not so much evolved as detected to lie ready for 
 evolving. We aie to guide our British friends into 
 the new gold-country, and show them the mines ; no- 
 wise 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-forward, step by step, but at best 
 leap by leap. Significant indications stand out here 
 and there ; which, for the critical eye, that looks both 
 widely and narrowly, shape themselves into some 
 ground-scheme of a whole. To select these with 
 judgment, so that a leap from one to the other be 
 possible, and, (in our old figure) by chaining them 
 together, a passable bridge be effected ; this, as here- 
 tofore, continues our only method. Among such light- 
 spots, the following, floating in much wild matter about 
 Perfectibility, has seemed worth clutching at. 
 
 "Perhaps the most remarkable incident in modern 
 history," says Teufelsdrockh, " is not the Diet of 
 Worms, still less the battle of Austerlitz, Waterloo, 
 Peterloo, or any other battle ; but an incident passed 
 carelessly over by most historians, and treated with 
 some degree of ridicule by others ; namely, George 
 Fox's making to himself a suit of leather. This man, 
 the first of the Quakers, and by trade a shoemaker, 
 was one of those to whom, under ruder or purer form, 
 the Divine Idea of the Universe is pleased to manifest 
 itself ; and, across all the hulls of ignorance and earthly 
 degradation, shine through, in unspeakable awfulness, 
 unspeakable beauty, on their souls ; who therefore are 
 
214 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 rightly accounted prophets, God-possessed; or even 
 gods, as in some periods it has chanced. Sitting in 
 his stall, working on tanned hides, amid pincers, paste- 
 horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a nameless flood of 
 rubbish, this youth had nevertheless a living spirit 
 belonging to him; also an antique, inspired volume, 
 through which, as through a window, it could look up- 
 wards, and discern its celestial home. The task of a 
 daily pair of shoes, coupled even with some prospect 
 of victuals, and an honorable, mastership in eord- 
 wainery, and perhaps the post of Thirdborough in his 
 Hundred, as the crown of long faithful sewing, — was 
 nowise satisfaction enough to such a mind ; but ever, 
 amid the boring and hammering, came tones from that 
 far country, came splendors and terrors ; for this poor 
 cordwainer, as we said, was a man ; and the temple of 
 immensity, wherein as man he had been sent to 
 minister, was full of holy mystery to him. 
 
 "The clergy of the neighbourhood, the ordained 
 watchers and interpreters of that same holy mystery, 
 listened with unaffected tedium to his consultations, 
 and advised him, as the solution of such doubts, to 
 ' drink beer, and dance with the girls.' Blind leaders 
 of the blind ! For what end were their tithes levied 
 and eaten ; for what were their shovel-hats scooped 
 out, and their surplices and cassock-aprons girt on ; 
 and such a church-repairing, and chaffering, and or- 
 ganing, and other racketing, held over that spot of 
 God's earth, — if man were but a patent digester, 
 and the belly with its adjuncts the grand reality ? 
 Fox turned from them, with tears and a sacred scorn, 
 back to his leather-parings and his Bible. Mountains 
 of encumbrance, higher than iEtna, had been heaped 
 
INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 215 
 
 over that spirit ; but it was a spirit, and would not lie 
 buried there. Through long days and nights of silent 
 agony, it struggled and wrestled, with a man's force, 
 to be free. How its prison-mountains heaved and 
 swayed tumultuously, as the giant spirit shook them 
 to this hand and that, and emerged into the light of 
 heaven ! That Leicester shoe-shop, had men known 
 it, was a holier place than any Vatican or Loretto- 
 shrine. — 'So bandaged, and hampered, and hemmed 
 in,' groaned he, * with thousand requisitions, obliga- 
 tions, straps, tatters, and tag-rags, I can neither see 
 nor move. Not my own am I, but the world's ; and 
 time flies fast, and heaven is high, and hell is deep. 
 Man ! bethink thee, if thou hast power of thought ! 
 Why not ; what binds me here 1 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 Teufelsdroch, 
 ** is one of the arts I never practised ; therefore shall I 
 not decide whether this subject were easy of execution 
 on the canvass. Yet often has it seemed to me as if 
 such first outfl ashing of man's free-will, to lighten, more 
 and more into day, the chaotic night that threatened 
 to engulf him in its hindrances and its horrors, were 
 properly the only grandeur there is in history. Let 
 some living Angelo or Rosa, with seeing eye and un- 
 derstanding heart, picture George Fox, on that morning, 
 when he spreads out his cutting-board for the last time, 
 and cuts cow-hides by unwonted patterns, and stitches 
 
216 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 them together into one continuous, all-including case, 
 the farewell service of his all ! Stitch away, thou noble 
 Fox ; every prick of that little instrument is pricking 
 into the heart of slavery, and world-worship, and the 
 Mammon-god ! Thy elbows jerk, as in strong swimmer- 
 strokes, and every stroke is bearing thee across the 
 prison-ditch, within which vanity holds her workhouse 
 and rag-fair, into lands of true liberty ; were the work 
 done, there is in broad Europe one free man, and thou 
 art he ! 
 
 " Thus from the lowest depth there is a path to the 
 loftiest height; and for the poor also a gospel has been 
 published. Surely, if, as D'Alembert asserts, my 
 illustrious namesake, Diogenes, was the greatest man 
 of antiquity, only that he wanted decency, then by 
 stronger reason is George Fox the greatest of the 
 moderns; and greater than Diogenes himself; for he, 
 too, stands on the adamantine basis of his manhood, 
 casting aside all props and shores ; yet not, in half- 
 savage pride, undervaluing the earth ; valuing it rather, 
 as a place to yield him warmth and food, he looks 
 heavenward from his earth, and dwells in an element 
 of mercy and worship, with a still strength, such as 
 the Cynic's tub did nowise witness. Great, truly, was 
 that tub ; a temple from which man's dignity and 
 divinity were scornfully preached abroad ; but greater 
 is the leather hull, for the same sermon was preached 
 there, and not in scorn, but in love." 
 
 George Fox's " perennial suit," with all that it held, 
 has been worn quite into ashes for nigh two centuries. 
 Why, in a discussion on the Perfectibility of Society, 
 reproduce it now ? Not out of blind sectarian parti- 
 
incident: in modern history. 217 
 
 sanship ; 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 earnest- 
 ness and Boeotian simplicity, (if, indeed, there be not 
 an underhand satire in it), with which that "incident" 
 is here brought forward ; and, in the Professor's 
 ambiguous way, as clearly perhaps as he durst in 
 Weissnichtwo, recommended to imitation ? Does 
 Teufelsdrockh anticipate that, in this age of refine- 
 ment, any considerable class of the community, by 
 way of testifying against the " Mammon-god," and 
 escaping from what he calls " Vanity's Workhouse 
 and Rag-fair," — where, doubtless, some of chem are 
 toiled and whipped and hoodwinked sufficiently, — 
 will sheathe themselves in close-fitting cases of leather ? 
 The idea is ridiculous in the extreme. Will Majesty 
 lay aside its robes of state, and Beauty its frills and 
 train-gowns, for a second-skin of tanned hide? By 
 which change Huddersfield and Manchester, and 
 Coventry and Paisley, and the Fancy-Bazaar, weie 
 reduced to hungry solitudes; and only Day and 
 Martin could profit. For neither would Teufels- 
 drockh's mad day-dream, 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 real* 
 ized. Would not the rich man purchase a water- 
 proof suit of Russia leather ; and the highborn belle 
 
 19 
 
218 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 step forth in red or azure morocco, lined with shamoy ; 
 the black cow-hide being left to the drudges and 
 Gibeonites of the world ; and so all the old distinctions 
 reestablished? 
 
 Or has the Professor his own deeper intention ; and 
 laughs in his sleeve at our strictures and glosses, 
 which, indeed, are but a part thereof? 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHURCH CLOTHES. 
 
 Not less questionable is his chapter on Church 
 Clothes, which has the farther distinction of being the 
 shortest in the volume. We here translate it entire : 
 
 " By Church Clothes, it need not be premised that 
 I mean infinitely more than cassocks and surplices ; 
 and do not at all mean the mere haberdasher Sunday 
 clothes that men go to church in. Far from it! 
 Church Clothes are, in our vocabulary, the forms, the 
 vestures, under which men have at various periods 
 embodied and represented for themselves the religious 
 principle \ that is to say, invested the Divine Idea of 
 the World with a sensible and practically active body, 
 so that it might dwell among them as a living and life- 
 giving Word. 
 
 " These are unspeakably the most important of all 
 the vestures and garnitures of human existence. 
 They are first spun and woven, I may say, by that 
 wonder of wonders, Society ; for it is still only when 
 * two or three are gathered together,' that religion, 
 spiritually existent, and indeed indestructible, however 
 
CHURCH CLOTHES. 219 
 
 latent, in eaeh, first outwardly manifests itself (as 
 with ' cloven tongues of fire'), and seeks to be em- 
 bodied in a visible communion and church militant. 
 Mystical, more than magical, is that communing of 
 soul with soul, both looking heavenward. Here pro- 
 perly soul first speaks with soul ; for only in looking 
 heavenward, take it in what sense you may, not in 
 looking earthward, does what we can call union, 
 mutual love, society, begin to be possible. How true 
 is that of Novalis : ' It is certain, my belief gains 
 quite infinitely, the moment I can convince another 
 mind thereof!' Gaze thou in the face of thy brother, 
 in those eyes where plays the lambent fire of kindness, 
 or in those where rages the lurid conflagration of anger ; 
 feel how thy own so quiet soul is straightway involun- 
 tary kindled with the like, and ye blaze and reverberate 
 on each other, till it is all one limitless confluent flame 
 (of embracing love or of deadly-grappling hate); and 
 then say what miraculous virtue goes out of man into 
 man. But if so, through all the thick-plied hulls of our 
 earthly life ; how much more when it is of the Divine 
 life we speak, and inmost Me is, as it were, brought 
 into contact with inmost Me ! 
 
 " Thus was it that I said, the Church Clothes are 
 first spun and woven by society ; outward religion ori- 
 ginates by society; society becomes possible by reli- 
 gion. Nay, perhaps every conceivable society, past 
 and present, may well be figured as properly and 
 wholly a church, in one or other of these three predi- 
 caments : 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 Pente- 
 cost come ; and third and worst, a church gone dumb 
 
220 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 with old age, or which only mumbles delirium prior to 
 dissolution. Whoso fancies that by Church is here 
 meant chapter-houses and catherals, or by Preaching 
 and Prophesying, mere speech and chanting, let him," 
 says the oracular Professor, " read on, light of heart 
 (getrosten Muthes). 
 
 "But with regard to your Church proper, and 
 the Church Clothes specially recognised as Church 
 Clothes, I remark, fearlessly enough, that without 
 such vestures and sacred tissues society has not ex- 
 isted, and will not exist. For if government is, so to 
 speak, the outward skin of the body politic, holding 
 the whole together and protecting it ; and all your 
 craft-guilds, and associations for industry, of hand or 
 of head, are the fleshly Clothes, the muscular and 
 osseous tissues (lying under such skin), whereby 
 society stands and works; — then is leligion the in- 
 most pericardial and nervous tissue, which ministers 
 life and warm circulation to the whole. Without 
 which pericardial tissue the bones and muscles (of 
 industry) were inert, or animated only by a Galvanic 
 vitality ; the skin would become a shrivelled pelt, or 
 fast-rotting law-hide ; and society itself a dead car- 
 cass, — deserving to be buried. Men were no longer 
 social, but gregarious ; which latter state also could 
 not continue, but must gradually issue in universal 
 selfish discord, hatred, savage isolation, and disper- 
 sion ; — whereby, as we might continue to say, the 
 very dust and dead body of society would have evapo- 
 rated and become abolished. Such, and so all-important, 
 all-sustaining, are the Church Clothes, to civilized or 
 even to rational man. 
 
 " Meanwhile, in our era of the world, those same 
 
CHURCH CLOTHES. 221 
 
 Church Clothes have gone sorrowfully out at elbows ; 
 nay, far worse, many of them have become mere 
 hollow shapes, or masks, under which no living figure 
 or spirit any longer dwells ; but only spiders and 
 unclean beetles, in horrid accumulation, drive their 
 trade ; and the mask still glares on you with its glass- 
 eyes, in ghastly affectation of life, — some generation 
 and half after religion has quite withdrawn from it, 
 and in unnoticed nooks is weaving for herself new 
 vestures, wherewith to reappear, and bless us, or our 
 sons, or grandsons. As a priest, or interpreter of the 
 Holy, is the noblest and highest of all men, so is a 
 sham-priest (Scheinpriester) the falsest and basest. 
 Neither is it doubtful that his canonicals, were they 
 popes' tiaras, will one day be torn from him, to make 
 bandages for the wounds of mankind ; or even to 
 burn into tinder, for general scientific or culinary 
 purposes. 
 
 " All which, as out of place here, falls to be handled 
 in my second volume, On the Palingenesia, or New 
 Birth of Society ; which volume, as treating practi- 
 cally of the wear, destruction, and re-texture of spir- 
 itual tissues, or garments, forms, properly speaking, 
 the transcendental or ultimate portion of this my 
 work on Clothes, and is already in a state of forward- 
 ness." 
 
 And herewith, no farther exposition, note, or com- 
 mentary being added, does Teufelsdrockh, and must 
 his Editor now, terminate the singular chapter on 
 
 Church Clothes ! 
 
 19* 
 
222 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SYMBOLS. 
 
 Probably it will elucidate the drift of these fore- 
 going obscure utterances, if we here insert somewhat 
 of our Professor's speculations on Symbols. To state 
 his whole doctrine, indeed, were beyond our compass, 
 Nowhere is he more mysterious, impalpable, than in 
 this of "Fantasy being the organ of the Godlike;" 
 and how " Man thereby, though based, to all seeming, 
 on the small Visible, does novertheless extend down 
 into the infinite deeps of the Invisible, of which Invisi- 
 ble, indeed, his life is properly the bodying forth." Let 
 us, omitting these high transcendental aspects of the 
 matter, study to glean (whether from the paper-bags or 
 the printed volume) what little seems logical and prac- 
 tical, and cunningly arrange it into such degree of co- 
 herence as it will assume. By way of proem, take the 
 following noHnjudicious 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 wor- 
 ship. Silence is the element in which great things 
 fashion themselves together ; that at length they may 
 emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of 
 life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Not William 
 the Silent only, but all the considerable men I have 
 known, and the most undiplomatic and unstrategic of 
 these, forbore to babble of what they were creating and 
 projecting. Nay, in thy own mean perplexities, do 
 
SYMBOLS. 223 
 
 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 
 denned it, the art of concealing thought ; but of quite 
 stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none 
 to conceal. Speech, too, is great, but not the greatest. 
 As the Swiss Inscription says : Sprechen ist silbern, 
 Schweigen ist golden (Speech is silvern, Silence is 
 golden) ; or, as I might rather express it : Speech is of 
 Time, Silence is of Eternity. 
 
 " Bees will not work except in darkness ; thought 
 will not work except in silence ; neither will virtue 
 work except in secrecy. Let not thy right hand know 
 what thy left hand doeth ! Neither 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 manners, 
 and good morals ? Like other plants, virtue will not 
 grow unless its root be hidden, buried from the eye of 
 the sun. Let the sun shine on it, nay, do but look at 
 it privily thyself, the root withers, and no flower will 
 glad thee. O my friends, when we view the fair clus- 
 tering flowers that over-wreathe, for example, the mar- 
 riage-bower, and encircle man's life with the fragrance 
 and hues of heaven, what hand will not smite the foul 
 plunderer that grubs them up by the roots, and, with 
 grinning, grunting satisfaction, shows us the dung they 
 nourish in ! Men speak much of the printing-press 
 with its newspapers ; duHimmel! what are these to 
 Clothes and the tailor's goose ?" 
 
 " Of kin to the so incalculable influences of con- 
 cealment, and connected with still greater things, is the 
 
224 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 wondrous agency of Symbols. In a symbol there is 
 concealment, and yet revelation ; here, therefore, by 
 silence and by speech acting together, comes 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 pro- 
 claimed with quite new emphasis. 
 
 " For it is here that Fantasy, with her mystic won- 
 der-land, plays into the small prose domain of Sense, 
 and becomes incorporated therewith. In the symbol 
 proper, what we can call a symbol, there is ever, more 
 or less distinctly and directly, some embodyment and 
 revelation of the Infinite ; the Infinite is made to 
 blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it 
 were attainable, there. By symbols, accordingly, is 
 man guided and commanded, made happy, made 
 wretched. He everywhere finds himself encompassed 
 with symbols, 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 ; 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 embodyment of a 
 thought ; but bears visible record of invisible things ; 
 but is, in the transcendental sense, symbolical as well 
 as real." 
 
 "Man," says the Professor elsewhere, in quite 
 antipodal contrast with these high-soaring delinea- 
 tions, which we have here cut short on the verge of 
 the Inane, " man is by birth somewhat of an owl. 
 
SYMBOLS. 225 
 
 Perhaps, too, of all the owleries that ever possessed 
 him the most owlish, if we consider it, is that of your 
 actually existing motive-millwrights. Fantastic tricks 
 enough has man played in his time ; has fancied him- 
 self to be most things, down even to an animated 
 heap of glass; but to fancy himself a dead iron- 
 balance for weighing pains and pleasures on was 
 reserved for this his latter era. There stands he, his 
 universe one huge manger, filled with hay and thistles 
 to be weighed against each other ; and looks long- 
 eared enough. Alas, poor devil ! spectres are ap- 
 pointed to haunt him. One age, he is hag-ridden, 
 bewitched; the next, priestridden, befooled; in all 
 ages, bedevilled. And now the Genius of Mechanism 
 smothers him worse than any nightmare did ; till the 
 soul is nigh choked out of him, and only a kind of 
 digestive, mechanic life remains. In earth and in 
 heaven he can see nothing but mechanism ; has fear 
 for nothing else, hope in nothing else. The world 
 would, indeed, grind him to pieces; but cannot he 
 fathom the Doctrine of Motives, and cunningly 
 compute these, and mechanize them to grind the other 
 way ? 
 
 " Were he not, as has been said, purblinded by en- 
 chantment, you had but to bid him open his eyes and 
 look. In which country, in which time, was it hith- 
 erto that man's history, or the history of any man, 
 went on by calculated or calculable ' Motives V What 
 make ye of your Christianities, and Chivalries, and 
 Reformations, and Marseillese Hymns, and Reigns of 
 Terror? .Nay, has not, perhaps, the Motive-grinder 
 himself been in love? Did he never stand so much as 
 
226 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 a contested election ? Leave him to time, and the 
 medicating virtue of nature." 
 
 " Yes, friends," elsewhere observes the Professor, 
 " not our logical, mensurative faculty, but our imagi- 
 native one is king over us ; I might say, priest and 
 prophet, to lead us heavenward ; or magician and 
 wizard, to lead us hellward. Nay, even for the basest 
 sensualist, what is sense but the implement of fan- 
 tasy ; the vessel it drinks out of? Ever in the dullest 
 existence, there is a sheen either of inspiration or of 
 madness (thou partly hast it in thy choice, which of 
 the two), that gleams in from the circumambient Eter- 
 nity, and colors with its own hues our little islet of 
 Time. The understanding is indeed thy window, too 
 clear thou canst not make it ; but fantasy is thy eye, 
 with its color-giving retina, healthy or diseased. 
 Have not I myself known five hundred living soldiers 
 sabred into crows' meat, for a piece of glazed cotton 
 which they called their flag; which, had you sold it 
 at any market-cross, would not have brought above 
 three groschen ? Did not the whole Hungarian nation 
 rise, like some tumultuous, moon-stirred Atlantic, when 
 Kaiser Joseph pocketed their Iron Crown ; an imple- 
 ment, as was sagaciously observed, in size and com- 
 mercial value, little differing from a horseshoe ? It 
 is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or 
 unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being. Those 
 ages, moreover, are accounted the noblest which can 
 the best recognise symbolical worth, and prize it the 
 highest. For is not a symbol ever, to him who has 
 eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the 
 godlike ? 
 
 " Of symbols, however, I remark farther, that they 
 
SYMBOLS. 227 
 
 have both an extrinsic and intrinsic value ; oftenest 
 the former only. What, for instance, was in that 
 clouted shoe which the Peasants bore aloft with them 
 as ensign in their Bauernkrieg (Peasants' War) ? Or 
 in the wallet-and-stafF round which the Netherland 
 Gueux, glorying in that nickname of Beggars, heroi- 
 cally rallied and prevailed, though against King Philip 
 himself ? Intrinsic significance these had none ; only 
 extrinsic ; as the accidental standards of multitudes 
 more, or less sacredly uniting together; in which union 
 itself, as above noted, there is ever something mys- 
 tical and borrowing of the godlike. Under a like 
 category, too, stand or stood, the stupidest heraldic 
 coats-of-arms ; military banners everywhere ; and gen- 
 erally, all national or other sectarian costumes and 
 customs. They have no intrinsic, necessary divineness 
 or even worth ; but have acquired an extrinsic one. 
 Nevertheless through all these there glimmers some- 
 thing of a divine idea; as through military banners 
 themselves, the divine idea of duty, of heroic daring ; 
 in some instances, of freedom, of right. Nay, the 
 highest ensign that men ever met and embraced under, 
 the Cross itself, had no meaning save an accidental, 
 extrinsic one. 
 
 " Another matter it is, however, when your symbol 
 has intrinsic meaning, and is of itself Jit that men 
 should unite round it. Let but the Godlike manifest 
 itself to sense; let but Eternity look, more or less 
 visibly, through the Time-figure (Zeitbild) ! Then is it 
 fit that men unite there, and worship together before 
 such symbol ; and so from day to day, and from age to 
 age, superadd to it new divineness. 
 
 " Of this latter sort are all true works of art ; in 
 
228 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 them (if thou know a work of art from a daub of 
 artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity looking through 
 Time ; the Godlike rendered visible. Here, too, may 
 an intrinsic value gradually superadd itself. Thus 
 certain Iliads, and the like, have, in three thousand 
 years, attained quite new significance. But nobler 
 than all in this kind are the lives of heroic, God- 
 inspired men ; for what other work of art is so divine ? 
 In death, too, in the death of the just, as the last per- 
 fection of a work of art, may we not discern symbolic 
 meaning ? In that divinely transfigured sleep, as of 
 vietory, resting over the beloved face which now knows 
 thee no more, read (if thou canst, for tears) the con- 
 fluence 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 ; I 
 mean religious symbols. Various enough have been 
 such religious symbols, what we call Religions $ as 
 men stood in this stage of culture or the other, and 
 could worse or better body forth the Godlike ; some 
 symbols with a transient intrinsic worth ; many with 
 only an extrinsic. If thou ask to what height man 
 has carried it in this matter, look on our divinest 
 symbol; on Jesus of Nazareth, and his life, and his 
 biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has 
 the human thought not yet reached. This is Chris- 
 tianity and Christendom; a symbol of quite peren- 
 nial, 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 
 
SYMBOLS. 229 
 
 sacredness of symbols, so likewise in his progress he 
 at length defaces, or even desecrates them ; and sym- 
 bols, like all terrestrial garments, wax old. Homer's 
 Epos has not ceased to be true ; yet it is no longer 
 our Epos, but shines in the distance, if clearer and 
 clearer, yet also smaller and smaller, like a receding 
 star. It needs a scientific telescope, it needs to be 
 reinterpreted and artificially brought near us, before 
 we can so much as know that it was a sun. So like- 
 wise a day comes when the Runic Thor, with his 
 Eddas, must withdraw into dimness ; and many an 
 African Mumbo-Jumbo, and Indian Wau-Wau be 
 utterly abolished. For all things, even celestial lumi- 
 naries, 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 Pis- 
 tol thought, *of little price.' Aright conjuror might 
 I name thee, couldst thou conjure back into these 
 wooden tools the divine virtue they once held." 
 
 " Of this thing, however, be certain ; wouldst thou 
 plant for eternity, then plant into the deep, infinite 
 faculties of man, his fantasy and heart ; wouldst thou 
 plant for year and day, then plant into his shallow, 
 superficial faculties, his self-love and arithmetical un- 
 derstanding, what will grow there. A hierarch, there- 
 fore, and pontiff of the world will we call him, the 
 poet and inspired maker, who, Prometheus-like, can 
 shape new symbols, and bring new fire from heaven 
 to fix it there. Such, too, will not always be wanting ; 
 neither, perhaps, now are. Meanwhile, as the aver- 
 age of matters goes, we account him legislator and 
 
 20 
 
230 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 wise who can so much as tell when a symbol has 
 grown old, and gently remove it. 
 
 " When, as the last English* coronation was pre- 
 paring," concludes this wonderful Professor, " I read 
 in their newspapers that the ' Champion of England,' 
 he who must 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 have we a symbol well nigh superannuated. 
 Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters 
 and rags of superannuated, worn-out symbols (in this 
 rag-fair of a world) dropping off everywhere, to hood- 
 wink, to halter, to tether you ; nay, if you shake them 
 not aside, threatening to accumulate, and perhaps pro- 
 duce suffocation?" 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HELOTAGE. 
 
 At this point we determine on adverting shortly, or 
 rather, reverting, to a certain tract of Hofrath Heu- 
 schrecke's, entitled Institute for the Repression of Po- 
 pulation; which lies, dishonourably enough (with torn 
 leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), 
 stuffed into the bag Pisces. Not, indeed, for sake of 
 the tract itself, which we admire little ; but of the 
 marginal notes, evidently in Teufelsdrockh's hand, 
 
 * Now, last but one. — Ed. 
 
HELOTAGE. 231 
 
 which rather copiously fringe it. A few of these may- 
 be in their right place heie. 
 
 Into the Hofrath's Institute, with its extraordinary- 
 schemes, and machinery of corresponding boards and 
 the like, we shall not so much as glance. Enough for 
 us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple of 
 Malthus ; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his 
 zeal almost literally eats him up. A deadly fear of 
 population possesses the Hofrath ; something like a 
 fixed idea; undoubtedly akin to the more diluted 
 forms of madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his 
 intellectual world, is there light ; nothing but a grim 
 shadow of hunger ; open mouths opening wider and 
 wider ; a world to terminate by the frightfullest con- 
 summation ; 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 specu- 
 lative radical, has his own notions about human 
 dignity ; that the Zahdarm palaces and courtesies 
 have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. 
 On the blank cover of Heuschrecke's tract, we find the 
 following, indistinctly engrossed : 
 
 " Two men I honor, and no third. Fiist, the toil- 
 worn craftsman, that with earth-made implement labo- 
 riously conquers the earth, and makes her man's. 
 Venerable to me is the hard hand ; crooked, coarse ; 
 wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, inde- 
 feasibly royal, as of the sceptre of this planet. Ve 
 
232 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 nerable, too, is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, 
 besoiled, with its rude intelligence ! for it is the face 
 of a man living manlike. Oh, but the more venerable 
 for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as 
 well as love thee ! Hardly-entreated brother ! For 
 us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight 
 limbs and fingers so deformed. Thou wert our con- 
 script, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles 
 wert so marred. For in thee, too, lay a God-created 
 form, but it was not to be unfolded ; encrusted must it 
 stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of 
 labor ; and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know 
 freedom. Yet toil on, toil on ; thou art in thy duty, 
 be out of it who may ; thou toilest for the altogether 
 indispensable, for daily bread. 
 
 " A second man I honor, and still more highly ; 
 him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensa- 
 ble ; not daily bread, but the bread of life. Is not he, 
 too, in his duty ; endeavouring towards inward har- 
 mony ; revealing this, by act or by word, through all 
 his outward endeavours, be they high or low ? Highest 
 of all, when his outward and his inward endeavour 
 are one ; when we can name him artist ; not earthly 
 craftsman only, but inspired thinker, that 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 we have light 
 and guidance, freedom, immortality ? — These two, in 
 all their degrees, I honor ; all else is chaff and dust, 
 which let the wind blow whither it listeth. 
 
 " Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find 
 both dignities united ; and he, that must toil outwardly 
 for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly 
 
HELOTAGE. 233 
 
 for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I 
 nothing than a peasant saint, could such now any- 
 where be met with. Such a one will take thee back to 
 Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendor of heaven 
 spring forth from the humblest depths of earth, like a 
 light shining in great darkness." 
 
 And again: "It is not because of his toils that I 
 lament for the poor. We must all toil, or steal (how- 
 soever we name our stealing), which is worse ; no 
 faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The 
 poor is hungry and athirst, but for him also there 
 is food and drink ; he is heavy-laden and weary, but 
 for him also the heavens send sleep, and of the 
 deepest. In his smoky cribs, a clear, dewy heaven of 
 rest envelops him, and fitful glitterings of cloud- 
 skirted dreams. But what I do mourn over is that the 
 lamp of his soul should go out ; that no ray of 
 heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge should visit 
 him ; but, only in the haggard darkness, like two 
 spectres, Fear and Indignation. Alas, while the body 
 stands so broad and brawny, must the soul lie blinded, 
 dwarfed, stupified, almost annihilated ? Alas, was 
 this, too, a Breath of God; bestowed in heaven, but 
 on earth never to be unfolded? — That there should 
 one man die ignorant who had capacity for knowledge, 
 this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than 
 twenty times in the minute, as by some computations 
 it does. The miserable fraction of science which 
 united mankind, in a wide universe of nescience, has 
 acquired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted 
 to all?" 
 
 Quite in an opposite strain is the following: "The 
 old Spartans had a wiser method ; and went out and 
 
 20* 
 
234 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 hunted down their Helots, and speared and spitted 
 them, when they grew too numerous. With our 
 improved fashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, now 
 after the invention of fire-arms, and standing armies, 
 how much easier were such a hunt! Perhaps in the 
 most thickly-peopled country, some three days annu- 
 ally might suffice to shoot all the ablebodied paupers 
 that had accumulated within the year. Let govern- 
 ments think of this. The expense were trifling; nay, 
 the very carcases would pay it. Have them salted 
 and barrelled ; could not you victual therewith, if not 
 army and navy, yet richly such infirm paupers, in 
 workhouses and elsewhere, as enlightened charity, 
 dreading no evil of them, might see good to keep 
 alive?" 
 
 " And yet," writes he, farther on, " there must be 
 something wrong. A full-formed horse will, in any 
 market, bring from twenty to as high as two hundred 
 Friedrichs d'or ; such is his worth to the world. A 
 full-formed man is not only worth nothing to the 
 world, but the world could afford him a round sum, 
 would he simply engage to go and hang himself. 
 Nevertheless, which of the two was the more cun- 
 ningly devised article, even as an engine? Good 
 heavens ! A white European man, standing on his 
 two legs, with his two five-fingered hands at his 
 shackle-bones, and miraculous head on his shoul- 
 ders, is worth, I should say, from fifty to a hundred 
 horses !" 
 
 "True, thou Gold-Hofrath !" cries the Professor 
 elsewhere ; " Too crowded, indeed. Meanwhile, what 
 portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous globe have 
 
THE PHENIX. 235 
 
 ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no more? 
 How thick stands your population in the Pampas and 
 Savannas of America ; round ancient Carthage, and 
 in the interior of Africa ; on both slopes of the Altaic 
 chain, in the central platform of Asia; in Spain, 
 Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kil- 
 dare ? One man, in one year, as I have understood 
 it, if you lend him earth, will feed himself and nine 
 others. Alas, where now are the Hengsts and Alarics 
 of our still glowing, still expanding Europe ; who, 
 when their home is grown too narrow, will enlist, and, 
 like fire-pillars, guide onwards those superfluous mas- 
 ses of indomitable living valor ; equipped, not now 
 with the battle-axe and war-chariot, but with the steam- 
 engine and ploughshare ? Where are they ? — Pre- 
 serving their game !" 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PHENIX. 
 
 Putting which four singular chapters together, and 
 alongside of them numerous hints, and even direct 
 utterances, scattered over these writings of his, we 
 come upon the startling, yet not quite unlooked-for 
 conclusion, that Teufelsdrockh is one of those who 
 considers society, properly so called, to be as good as 
 extinct ; and that only the gregarious feelings, and old 
 inherited habitudes, at this juncture, hold us from dis- 
 persion, and universal national, civil, domestic, and 
 personal war ! He says expressly : " For the last three 
 
236 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 centuries, above all for the last three quarters of a cen- 
 tury, 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 need- 
 lessly ; till now it is quite rent into shreds ; and soci- 
 ety, long pining, diabetic, consumptive, can be regarded 
 as defunct ; for those spasmodic, galvanic sprawlings 
 are not life, neither, indeed, will they endure, galvan- 
 ize as you may, beyond two days." 
 
 "Call ye that a society," cries he again, "where 
 there is no longer any social idea extant ; not so much 
 as the idea of a common home, but only of a common, 
 over-crowded lodging-house ? Where each, isolated, 
 regardless of his neighbour, turned against his neighbour, 
 clutches what he can get, and cries ' Mine !' and calls 
 it peace, because in the cut-purse and cut-throat scram- 
 ble, no steel-knives, but only a far cunninger sort, can 
 be employed ? Where friendship, communion, has 
 become an incredible tradition ; and your holiest Sa- 
 cramental supper is a smoking tavern-dinner, with cook 
 for Evangelist ? Where your priest has no tongue but 
 for plate-licking; and your high guides and governors 
 cannot guide; but on all hands hear it passionately 
 proclaimed : Laissez faire ; Leave us alone of your 
 guidance, such light is darker than darkness ; eat your 
 wages, and sleep ! 
 
 " Thus, too," continues he, " must an observant 
 eye discern everywhere that saddest spectacle : the 
 poor perishing, like neglected, foundered draught-cattle, 
 of hunger and overwork; the rich, still more wretched- 
 ly, of idleness, satiety, and overgrowth. The highest 
 in rank, at length, without honor from the lowest ; 
 scarcely with a little mouth-honor, as from tavern- 
 
THE PHENIX. 237 
 
 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 obe- 
 sity and apoplexy ; the State shrunken into a Police- 
 Office, straitened to get its pay !" 
 
 We might ask, Are there many "observant eyes," 
 belonging to practical men, in England or elsewhere, 
 which have descried- these phenomena ; or is it only 
 from the mystic elevation of a German Wahngasse 
 that such wonders are visible ? Teufelsdrockh eon? 
 tends that the aspect of a "deceased or expiring 
 society " fronts us everywhere, so that whoso runs 
 may read. " What, for example," says he, " is the 
 universally arrogated virtue, almost the sole remaining 
 Catholic virtue, of these days ? For some half cen- 
 tury, it has been the thing you name ' Independence.' 
 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 rebel- 
 lion ; if unjust rebellion, why parade it, and everywhere 
 prescribe it ? 
 
 But what then ? Are we returning, as Rousseau 
 prayed, to the state of nature ? " The Soul Politic 
 having departed," says Teufelsdrockh, " what can 
 follow but that the Body Politic be decently interred, 
 to avoid putrescence ? Liberals, Economists, Utilita- 
 rians enough I see marching with its bier, and chant- 
 ing 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 
 
238 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 plain words, that these men, Liberals, Utilitarians, or 
 whatsoever they are called, will ultimately carry their 
 point, and dissever and destroy most existing institu- 
 tions of society, seems a thing which has some time 
 ago ceased to be doubtful. 
 
 " Do we not see a little subdivision of the grand 
 Utilitarian armament come to light even in insulated 
 England ? A living nucleus, that will attract and 
 grow, does at length appear there also ; and under 
 curious phasis ; properly as the inconsiderable fag-end, 
 and so far in rear of the others as to fancy itself the 
 van. Our European Mechanizers are a sect of bound- 
 less diffusion, activity, and cooperative spirit. Has not 
 Utilitarianism flourished in high places of thought, 
 here among ourselves, and in every European coun- 
 try, at some time or other, within the last fifty years ? 
 If now in all countries, except perhaps England, it 
 has ceased to flourish, or indeed to exist, among 
 thinkers, and sunk to journalists and the popular 
 mass, — who sees not that, as hereby it no longer 
 preaches, so the reason is, it now needs no preaching, 
 but is in full, universal action, the doctrine every- 
 where known and enthusiastically laid to heart? The 
 fit pabulum, in these times, for a certain rugged 
 workshop-intellect and heart, nowise without their cor- 
 responding workshop-strength and ferocity, it requires 
 but to be stated in such scenes to make proselytes 
 enough. — Admirably calculated for destroying, only 
 not for rebuilding ! It spreads like a sort of dog- 
 madness ; till the whole world-kennel will be rabid ; 
 then wo to the huntsmen, with or without their whips ! 
 They should have given the quadrupeds water," adds 
 
THE PHENIX. 239 
 
 lie, «* 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 ; be- 
 leaguered by that boundless " Armament of Mechani- 
 zers" and Unbelievers, threatening to strip us bare ! 
 " The world," says he, " as it needs must, is under a 
 process of devastation and waste ; which, whether by 
 silent assiduous corrosion, or open, quicker combus- 
 tion, as the case chances, will effectually enough 
 annihilate the past forms of society; replace them 
 with what it may. For the present, it is contemplated 
 that when man's whole spiritual interests are once 
 divested, these innumerable stript-off garments shall 
 mostly be burnt ; but the sounder rags among them 
 be quilted together into one huge Irish watch-coat, for 
 the defence of the body only!" — This, we think, is 
 but Job's news to the humane reader. 
 
 " Nevertheless," cries Teufelsdrockh, " who can 
 hinder it ; who is there that can clutch into the wheel- 
 spokes of Destiny, and say to the Spirit of the Time: 
 Turn back, I command thee? — Wiser were it that we 
 yielded to the inevitable and inexorable, and accounted 
 even this the best." 
 
 Nay, might not an attentive editor, drawing his own 
 inferences from what stands written, conjecture that 
 Teufelsdrockh individually had yielded to this same 
 " Inevitable and Inexorable " heartily enough ; and 
 now sat waiting the issue, with his natural diabolico- 
 angelical indifference, if not even placidity ? Did we 
 not hear him complain that the world was a " huge 
 rag-fair," and the " rags and tatters of old symbols " 
 were raining down every where, like to drift him in, 
 
240 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 and soffaeate him? What with those "unhunted 
 Helots" of his; and the uneven sic-vos-non-vobis pres^ 
 sure, and hard, crashing collision he is pleased to 
 discern in existing things ; what with the so hateful 
 " empty masks," full of beetles and spiders, yet glar- 
 ing out on him, from their glass-eyes, " with a ghastly 
 affectation of life," — we feel entitled to conclude 
 him even willing that much should be thrown to the 
 Devil, so it were but done gently ! Safe himself in 
 that "Pinnacle of Weissnichtwo," he would consent * 
 with a tragic solemnity, that the monster UTILITA- 
 RIA, 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. Remarkable in this 
 point of view are the following sentences : 
 
 " Society," says he, " is not dead. That carcass, 
 which you call dead society, is but her mortal coil 
 which she has shuffled off, to assume a nobler ; she 
 herself, through perpetual metamorphoses, in fairer 
 and fairer development, has to live till time also merge 
 in eternity. Wheresoever two or three living men are 
 gathered together, there is society; or there it will 
 be, with its cunning mechanisms, and stupendous 
 structures, overspreading this little globe, and reaching 
 upwards to Heaven and downwards to Gehenna ; for 
 always under one or the other figure, has it two au- 
 thentic revelations, of a God and of a Devil; the pulpit, 
 namely, and the gallows." 
 
 Indeed, we already heard him speak of " Religion, 
 in unnoticed nooks, weaving for herself new ves- 
 
The phenix. 241 
 
 tures ;"— -Teufelsdrockh himself being one of the 
 loom-treadles ? Elsewhere he quotes without censure 
 that strange aphorism of Saint-Simon's, concerning 
 which and whom so much were to be said : Edge 
 d'or, qxCune aveugle tradition a place jusqu 1 ici dans 
 le passe, est devant nous ; The golden age which a 
 blind tradition has hitherto placed in the past is before 
 us. — But listen again. 
 
 " When the Phenix is fanning her funeral pyre, 
 will there not be sparks flying ? Alas, some millions 
 of men, and among them such as a Napoleon, have 
 already, been licked into that high-eddying flame, and, 
 like moths, consumed there. Still also have we to 
 fear that incautious beards will get singed. 
 
 " For the rest, in what year of grace such Phenix- 
 cremation will be completed, you need not ask. The 
 law of perseverance is among the deepest in man. By 
 nature he hates change ; seldom will he quit his old 
 house till it has actually fallen about his ears. Thus 
 have I seen solemnities linger as ceremonies, sacred 
 symbols as idle pageants, to the extent of three hun- 
 dred years and more, after all life and sacredness had 
 evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what time 
 the Phenix death-birth itself will require depends on 
 unseen contingencies. — Meanwhile, would Destiny 
 offer mankind, that after, say two centuries of convul- 
 sion and conflagration, more or less vivid, the fire-cre- 
 ation 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?" 
 
 Thus is Teufelsdrockh content that old sick society 
 
 21 
 
242 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 should be deliberately burnt (alas, with quite other 
 fuel than spice-wood !); in the faith that she is a Phe- 
 nix ; and that a new, heaven-born young one will rise 
 out of her ashes ! We ourselves, restricted to the 
 duty of indicator, shall forbear commentary. Mean- 
 while, will not the judicious reader shake his head, 
 and reproachfully, yet more in sorrow than in anger, 
 say or think : From a Doctor Utriusque Juris, titular 
 Professor in a university, and man to whom hitherto, 
 for his services, society, bad as she is, has given not 
 only food and raiment (of a kind), but books, tobacco, 
 and gukguk, we expected more gratitude to his bene- 
 factress ; and less of a blind trust in the future, which 
 resembles that rather of a philosophical fatalist and 
 enthusiast, than of a solid householder paying scot and 
 lot in a Christian country. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 As mentioned above, Teufelsdrockh, though a Sans- 
 culottist, is in practice probably the politest man 
 extant. His whole heart and life are penetrated and 
 informed with the spirit of politeness ; a noble, natu- 
 ral courtesy shines through him,, beautifying his 
 vagaries ; like sunlight, making a rosy-fingered, rain- 
 bow-dyed Aurora out of mere aqueous clouds ; nay, 
 brightening London smoke itself into gold vapor, as 
 from the crucible of an alchemist. Hear in what 
 
OLD CLOTHES. 243 
 
 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 remem- 
 bers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists 
 on its own rights, I discern no special connexion with 
 wealth or birth ; but rather that it lies in human 
 nature itself, and is due from all men towards all men. 
 Of a truth, were your schoolmaster at his post, and 
 worth anything when there, this, with so much else, 
 would be reformed. Nay, each man were then also 
 his neighbour's schoolmaster ; till, at length, a rude- 
 visaged, unman nered peasant could no more be met 
 with than a peasant unacquainted with botanical phy- 
 siology, or who felt not that the clod he broke was 
 created in heaven. 
 
 " For whether thou bear a sceptre or a sledge-ham- 
 mer, art thou not alive ; is not this thy brother alive ? 
 ; There is but one temple in the world,' says Novalis, 
 « and that temple is the body of man. Nothing is 
 holier than this high form. Bending before men is a 
 reverence done to this revelation in the flesh. We 
 touch heaven, when we lay our hands on a human 
 body.' 
 
 " On which ground, I would fain carry it farther 
 than most do ; and whereas the English Johnson only 
 bowed to every clergyman, or man with a shovel-hat, 
 I would bow to every man with any sort of hat, or 
 with no hat whatever. Is he not a temple, then ; the 
 visible manifestation and impersonation of the Divini- 
 ty ? And yet, alas, such indiscriminate bowing serves 
 not. For there is a Devil dwells in man, as well as a 
 
244 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Divinity ; and too often the how is but pocketed by the 
 former. It would go to the pocket of Vanity (which 
 is your clearest phasis of the Devil, in these times); 
 therefore must we withhold it. 
 
 " The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do 
 reverence to those shells and outer husks of the body, 
 wherein no devilish passion any longer lodges, but 
 only the pure emblem and effigies of man : I mean, 
 to empty, or even to cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to 
 Clothes that most men do reverence ; to the fine, 
 frogged broadcloth, nowise to the ' straddling animal 
 with bandy legs' which it holds, and makes a digni- 
 tary of ? Who ever saw any lord my-lorded in tat- 
 tered blanket, fastened with wooden skewer 1 Nev- 
 ertheless, I say, there is in such worship a shade of 
 hypocrisy, a practical deception ; for how often does 
 the body appropriate what was meant for the cloth 
 only ! Whoso would avoid falsehood, which is the 
 essence of all sin, will perhaps see good to take a dif- 
 ferent course. That reverence, which cannot act with- 
 out obstruction and perversion when the Clothes are 
 full, may have free course when they are empty. Even 
 as, for Hindoo worshippers, the Pagoda is not less 
 sacred than the God ; so do I, too, worship the hollow 
 cloth garment with equal fervor as when it contained 
 the man ; nay, with more, for I now fear no deception, 
 of myself or of others. 
 
 " Did not King Toomtabard, or, in other words, 
 John Balliol, reign long over Scotland ; the man 
 John Balliol being quite gone, and only the 4 Toom 
 Tabard' (Empty Gown) remaining ? What still dig- 
 nity dwells in a suit of cast clothes ! How meekly it 
 bears its honors ! No haughty looks, no scornful 
 
OLD CLOTHES. 245 
 
 gesture ; silent and serene, it fronts the world ; neither 
 demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The hat 
 still carries the physiognomy of its head; but the 
 vanity and the stupidity, and goose-speech which was 
 the sign of these two, are gone. The coat-arm is 
 stretched out, but not to strike ; the breeches, in 
 modest simplicity, depend at ease, and now, at last, 
 have a graceful flow ; the waistcoat hides no evil pas- 
 sion, no riotous desire ; hunger or thirst now dwells 
 not in it. Thus all is purged from the grossness of 
 sense, from the carking cares and foul vices of the 
 world ; and rides there, on its Clothes-horse ; as on a 
 Pegasus, might some skyey messenger, or purified 
 apparition, visiting our low earth. 
 
 " Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tube- 
 rosity of civilized life, the capital of England ; and 
 meditated, and questioned Destiny, under that ink-sea 
 of vapor, black, thick, and multifarious as Spartan 
 broth ; and was one lone soul amid those grinding 
 millions ; — often have I .turned into their Old-Clothes 
 Market to worship. With awestruck heart I walk 
 through that Monmouth Street, with its empty suits, 
 as through a Sanhedrim of stainless ghosts. Silent 
 are they, but expressive in their silence ; the past wit- 
 nesses and instruments of wo and joy, of passions, 
 virtues, crimes, and all the fathomless tumult of good 
 and evil in ' the prison called Life.' Friends ! trust 
 not the heart of that man for whom Old Clothes are 
 not venerable. Watch, too, with reverence, that 
 bearded Jewish highpriest, who with hoarse voice, 
 like some Angel of Doom, summons them from the 
 four winds ! On his head, like the Pope, he has three 
 hats, — a real triple triara. On either hand are the 
 
 21* 
 
246 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 similitude of wings, whereon the summoned garments 
 come to alight ; and ever, as he slowly cleaves the air, 
 sounds forth his deep, fateful note, as if through a 
 trumpet he were proclaiming: ' Ghosts of life, come to 
 judgment.' Reck not, ye fluttering ghosts; he will 
 purify you in his Purgatory, with fire and with water ; 
 and one day, new-created ye shall reappear. Oh ! 
 let him in whom the flame of devotion is ready to go 
 out, who has never worshipped, and knows not what 
 to worship, pace and repace, with austerest thought 
 the pavement of Monmouth Street, and say whether 
 his heart and his eyes still continue dry. If Field 
 Lane, with its long fluttering rows of yellow hand- 
 kerchiefs, be a Dionysius's 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, dark- 
 ness, and the Devil, — ■ then is Monmouth Street a 
 Mirza's Hill, where, in motley vision, the whole 
 pageant of existence passes awfully before us ; with its 
 wail and jubilee, mad loves and mad hatreds, church- 
 bells and gallows ropes, farce-tragedy, beast-godhood, 
 —- the Bedlam of creation !" 
 
 To most men, as it does to ourselves, all this will 
 seem overcharged. We, too, have walked through 
 Monmouth Street ; but with little feeling of " Devo- 
 tion ;" 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 im- 
 portune the worshipper with merely secular proposals. 
 Whereas Teufelsdrockh might be in that happy 
 middle-state, which leaves to the clothes-broker no 
 
OLD CLOTHES. 247 
 
 hope either of sale or of purchase, and so be allowed 
 to linger theie without molestation. — Something we 
 would have given to see the little philosophical figure, 
 with its steeple-hat and loose-flowing skirts, and eyes 
 in a fine frenzy, " pacing and repacing in austerest 
 thought" that foolish street; which to him was a true 
 Delphic avenue, and supernatural whispering-gallery, 
 where the " Ghosts of Life" rounded strange secrets 
 in his ear. O thou philosophic Teufelsdrockh, that 
 listenest while others only gabble, and with thy quick 
 tympanum hearest the grass grow ! 
 
 At the same time, is it not strange that, in paper- 
 bag documents, destined for an English work, there 
 exists nothing like an authentic diary of this his 
 sojourn in London; and of his meditations among the 
 Clothes-shops, only the obscurest emblematic shadows ? 
 Neither, in conversation (for, indeed, he was not a 
 man to pester you with his travels), have we heard 
 him more than allude to the subject. 
 
 For the rest, however, it cannot be uninteresting 
 that we here find how early the significanee 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 ! 
 
248 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 
 
 For us, who happen to live while the World-Phenix 
 is burning herself, and burning so slowly that, as 
 Teufelsdrockh calculates, it were a handsome bargain 
 would she engage to have done " within two centu- 
 ries," there seems to lie but an ashy prospect. Not 
 altogether so, however, does the Professor figure it. 
 "In the living subject," says he, "change is wont to 
 be gradual. Thus, while the serpent sheds its old skin, 
 the new is already formed beneath. Little knowest 
 thou of the burning of a World-Phenix, who fanciest 
 that she must first burn out, and lie as a dead cinere- 
 ous heap ; and therefrom the young one start up by 
 miracle, and fly heavenward. Far otherwise! In 
 that fire-whirlwind, creation and destruction proceed 
 together ; ever as the ashes of the old are blown about, 
 do organic filaments of the new mysteriously spin 
 themselves; and amid the rushing and the waving of 
 the whirlwind-element, come tones of a melodious 
 death-song, which end not but in tones of a more 
 melodious birth-song. Nay, look into the fire-whirl- 
 wind 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 fila- 
 ments, mysteriously spinning themselves, will be the 
 best part of the spectacle. First, therefore, this of 
 mankind in general : 
 
 "In vain thou deniest it," says the Professor; 
 " thou art my brother. Thy very hatred, thy very 
 envy, those foolish lies thou tellest of me in thy 
 
ORGAN F1LAMEMTS. 249 
 
 splenetic humor ; what is all this but an inverted sym- 
 pathy ? Were I a steam-engine, wouldst thou take the 
 trouble to tell lies of me. Not thou ! I should grind 
 all unheeded, whether badly or well. 
 
 " Wondrous, truly, are the bonds that unite us one 
 and all ; whether by the soft binding of love, or the 
 iron chaining cf necessity, as we like to choose it. 
 More than once, have I said to myself, of some per- 
 haps whimsically strutting figure, such as provokes 
 whimsical thoughts : ' Wert thou, my little brotherkin, 
 suddenly covered up with even the largest imaginable 
 glass-bell, — what a thing it were, not for thyself only, 
 but for the world ! Post letters, more or fewer, from 
 all the four winds, impinge against thy glass walls, 
 but must drop unread. Neither from within comes 
 there question or response into any post-bag; thy 
 thoughts fall into no friendly ear or heart, thy manu- 
 facture into no purchasing hand ; thou art no longer a 
 circulating venous-arterial heart, that, taking and 
 giving, circulatest through all space and all time. 
 There has a hole fallen ^out in the immeasurable, 
 universal world-tissue, which must be darned up 
 again !' 
 
 " Such venous-arterial circulation, of letters, verbal 
 messages, paper and other packages, going out from 
 him and coming in, is a blood-circulation, visible to 
 the eye ; but the finer nervous circulation, by which 
 all things, the minutest that he does, minutely influ- 
 ence all men, and the very look of his face blesses or 
 curses whomso it lights on, and so generates ever new 
 blessing or new cursing ; all this you cannot see, but 
 only imagine. I say, there is not a red Indian, hunt- 
 ing by Lake Winnipeg, can quarrel with his squaw, but 
 
250 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 the whole world must smart for it: will not the price 
 of beaver rise ? It is a mathematical fact, that the 
 casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre 
 of gravity of the universe. 
 
 "If now an existing generation of men stand so 
 woven together, not less indissolubly does generation 
 with generation. Hast thou ever meditated on that 
 word, Tradition: how we inherit not life only, but all 
 the garniture and form of life ; and work, and speak, 
 and even think and feel, as our fathers, and primeval 
 grandfathers, from the beginning, have given it us ? — 
 Who printed thee, for example, this unpretending 
 volume on the Philosophy of Clothes ? Not the Herren 
 S till schwei gen and Company; but Cadmus of Thebes, 
 Faust of Mentz, and innumerable others whom 
 thou knowest not. Had there been no Maesogothic 
 Ulfila, there had been no English Shakspeare, 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 indivisi- 
 ble whole, much more is mankind, the image that 
 reflects and creates nature, without which nature were 
 not. As palpable life-streams in that wondrous indi- 
 vidual, mankind, among so many life-streams that are 
 not palpable, flow on those main-currents of what we 
 call opinion ; as preserved in institutions, polities, 
 churches, above all in books. Beautiful it is to under- 
 stand and know that a thought did never yet die ; 
 that as thou, the originator thereof, hast gathered 
 it and created it from the whole past, so thou wilt 
 transmit it to the whole future. It is thus that the 
 heroic heart, the seeing eye, of the first times, still 
 
ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 251 
 
 feels and sees in us of the latest ; that the wise man 
 stands ever encompassed, and spiritually embraced, by 
 a cloud of witnesses and brothers ; and there is a living", 
 literal Communion of Saints, wide as the world itself, 
 and as the history of the world ! 
 
 "Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress 
 of this same individual, wilt thou find his subdivision 
 into generations. Generations are as the days of toil- 
 some mankind ; death and birth are the vesper and 
 the matin bells, that summon mankind to sleep, and 
 to rise refreshed for new advancement. "What the 
 father has made, the son can make and enjoy ; but has 
 also work of his own appointed him. Thus all things 
 wax, and roll onwards ; arts, establishments, opinions, 
 nothing is completed, but ever completing. Newton 
 has learned to see what Kepler saw ; but there is also 
 a fresh heaven-derived force in Newton. He must 
 mount to still higher points of vision. So, too, the 
 Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due time, followed by an 
 Apostle of the Gentiles. In the business of destruc- 
 tion, as this also is from time to time a necessary 
 work, thou findest a like sequence and perseverance. 
 For Luther it was as yet hot enough to stand by that 
 burning of the Pope's Bull ; Voltaire could not warm 
 himself at the glimmering ashes, but required quite 
 other fuel. Thus likewise, I note, the English Whig 
 has, in the second generation, become an English 
 Radical; who, in the third again, it is to be hoped, 
 will become an English Rebuilder. Find mankind 
 where thou wilt, thou findest it in living movement, 
 in progress faster or slower. The Phenix soars aloft, 
 hovers with outstretched wings, filling earth with her 
 music ; or, as now, she sinks, and with spheral swan- 
 
252 SARTOR RESARTtJS. 
 
 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, con- 
 cerning titles : 
 
 " Remark, not without surprise," says Teufels- 
 drockh, " how all high titles of honour come hitherto 
 from fighting. Your Herzog (Duke, Dux) is Leader 
 of Armies; your Earl (Jarl) is Strong Man; your 
 Marshal, Cavalry Horse-shoer. A millennium, or 
 reign of peace and wisdom, having from of old been 
 prophesied, and becoming now daily more and more 
 indubitable, may it not be apprehended that such fight- 
 ing-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. Kbnig (King), anciently 
 /forming, means Ken-ning (Cunning), or, which is the 
 same thing, Can-ning. Ever must the Sovereign of 
 Mankind be fitly entitled King." 
 
 " Well, also," says he elsewhere, " was it written 
 by theologians: a King rules by divine right. He 
 carries in him an authority from God, or man will 
 never give it him. Can I choose my own king? I 
 can choose my own King Popinjay, and play what 
 farce or tragedy I may with him ; but he who_is to be 
 my ruler, whose will it is to be higher than my will , wa s 
 chosen for me in heaven. Neither, except in such 
 obedience to the Heaven-chosen, is freedom so much 
 as conceivable." 
 
 The Editor will here admit that, among all the won- 
 
ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 253 
 
 drous provinces of Teufelsdrockh's spiritual world, 
 there is none he walks in with such astonishment, 
 hesitation, and even pain, as in the political. How, 
 with our English love of Ministry and Opposition, and 
 that generous conflict of parties, mind warming itself 
 against mind in their mutual wrestle for the public 
 good, by which wrestle, indeed, is our invaluable Con- 
 stitution kept warm and alive ; how shall we domesti- 
 cate ourselves in this spectral Necropolis, or rather 
 city both of the dead and of the unborn, where the 
 present seems little other than an inconsiderable film, 
 dividing the past and the future ? In those dim long- 
 drawn expanses, all is so immeasurable ; much so 
 disastrous, ghastly ; your very radiances, and strag- 
 gling light-beams, have a supernatural character. And 
 then with such an indifference, such a prophetic peace- 
 fulness (accounting the inevitably-coming as already 
 here, to him all one whether it be distant by centuries 
 or only by days), does he sit ; — and live, you would 
 say, rather in any other age than in his own ! It is 
 our painful duty to announce, or repeat, that, looking 
 into this man, we discern a deep, silent, slow-burning 
 inextinguishable radicalism, such as fills us with shud- 
 dering admiration. 
 
 Thus, for example, he appears to make little even 
 of the elective franchise ; at least, so we interpret the 
 following : " Satisfy yourselves," he says, " by universal, 
 indubitable experiment, even as ye are now doing or 
 will do, whether Freedom, heavenborn and leading 
 heavenward, and so vitally essential for us all, cannot 
 peradventure be mechanically hatched and brought to 
 light in that same ballot-box of yours ; or, at worst, in 
 some other discoverable or devisable box, edifice, or 
 
 22 
 
254 SARTOR RESARTtTS. 
 
 steam mechanism. It were a mighty convenience ; 
 and beyond all feats of manufacture witnessed hitherto." 
 Is Teufelsdrockh acquainted with the British Consti- 
 tution, even slightly ? — He says, under another figure : 
 "But after all, were the problem, as, indeed, it now 
 everywhere is, to rebuild your old house from the top 
 downwards (since you must live in it the while), what 
 better, what other, than the representative machine 
 will serve your turn ? Meanwhile, however, mock me 
 not with the name of Free, ' when you have but knit 
 up my chains into ornamental festoons.'" — Or what 
 will any member of the Peace Society make of such an 
 assertion as this? "The lower people everywhere 
 desire war. Not so unwisely ; there is, then, a demand 
 for lower people — to be shot!" 
 
 Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul- 
 confusing labyrinths of speculative radicalism, into 
 somewhat clearer regions. Here, looking round, as 
 was our hest, for " Organic Filaments," we ask, May 
 not this, touching " Hero-worship," be of the number ? 
 It seems of a cheerful character ; yet so quaint, so mys- 
 tical, one knows not what, or how little, may lie under 
 it. Our readers shall look with their own eyes : 
 
 " True is it that, in these days, man can do almost 
 all things, only not obey. True, likewise, that whoso 
 cannot obey cannot be free, still less bear rule ; he, 
 that is the inferior of nothing, can be the superior of 
 nothing, the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe 
 not that man has lost his faculty of reverence ; that, if 
 it slumber in him, it has gone dead. Painful for man 
 is that same rebellious independence, when it has 
 become inevitable ; only in loving companionship with 
 his fellows does he feel safe ; only in reverently bow- 
 
ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 255 
 
 ing down before the higher does he feel himself 
 exalted. 
 
 " Or what if the character of our so troublous era 
 lay even in this : that man had forever cast away fear, 
 which is the lower ; but not yet risen into perennial 
 reverence, which is the higher and highest? 
 
 " Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has 
 Nature ordered it, that whatsoever man ought to obey 
 he cannot but obey. Before no faintest revelation 
 of the godlike did he ever stand irreverent; least of 
 all, when the godlike showed itself revealed in his 
 fellow-man. Thus is there a true religious loyalty for- 
 ever rooted in his heart; nay, in all ages, even in ours, 
 it manifests itself as a more or less orthodox Hero- 
 tvorship. Tn which fact, that Hero-worship exists, 
 has existed, and will forever exist, universally among 
 mankind, mayest thou discern the corner-stone of living 
 rock whereon all polities for the remotest time may 
 stand secure." 
 
 Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or 
 even so much as what Teufelsdrockh is looking at ? 
 He exclaims: " Or hast thou forgotten Paris and Vol- 
 taire ? How the aged, withered man, though but a 
 skeptic mocker, and millinery court-poet, yet because 
 even he seemed the wisest, best, could drag mankind 
 at his chariot-wheels, so that princes coveted a smile 
 from him, and the loveliest of France would have laid 
 their hair beneath his feet! All Paris was one vast 
 temple of Hero-worship ; though their Divinity, more- 
 over, was of feature too apish. 
 
 " But if such things," continues he, " were done in 
 the dry tree, what will be done in the green ? If, in 
 the most parched season of man's history, in the 
 
256 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 most parched spot of Europe, when Parisian life was, 
 at best, but a scientific Hortus Siccus, bedizened with 
 some Italian gumflowers, such virtue could come out 
 of it ; what is it to be looked for when life again 
 waves leafy and bloomy, and your hero-divinity shall 
 have nothing apelike, but be wholly human ? Know 
 that there is in man a quite indestructible reverence 
 for whatsoever holds of heaven, or even plausibly 
 counterfeits such holding. Show the dullest clodpole, 
 show the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher 
 than himself is actually here ; were his knees stiffened 
 into brass, he must down and worship." 
 
 Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, myste- 
 riously spinning themselves, some will perhaps disco- 
 ver in the following passage : 
 
 " There is no Church, sayest thou ? The voice of 
 prophecy has gone dumb ? This is even what I dis- 
 pute ; but, in any case, hast thou not still preaching 
 enough ? A preaching friar settles himself in every 
 village ; and builds a pulpit, which he calls Newspaper. 
 Therefrom he preaches what most momentous doctrine 
 is in him, for man's salvation ; and dost not thou 
 listen, and believe ? Look well, thou seest everywhere 
 a new clergy, of the Mendicant Orders, some 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 
 often reprobate, as idol-breakers are wont to be, mark 
 out the sites of new churches, where the true God- 
 ordained, that are to follow, may find audience, and 
 
ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 257 
 
 minister. Said I not, before the old skin was shed, 
 the new had formed itself beneath it ?" 
 
 Perhaps, also, in the following- ; wherewith we now 
 hasten to knit up this ravelled sleeve : 
 
 " But there is no religion ?" reiterates the Profes- 
 sor. " Fool ! I tell thee, there is. Hast thou well 
 considered all that lies in this immeasurable froth- 
 ocean we name Literature 1 Fragments of a genu- 
 ine Chur ch-Homiletic lie scattered there, which time 
 will assort ; nay, fractions even of a Liturgy could I 
 point out. And knowest thou no prophet, even in 
 the vesture, environment, and dialect of this age ? 
 None to whom the godlike had revealed itself, through 
 all meanest and highest forms of the common ; and 
 by him been again prophetically revealed ; in whose 
 inspired melody, even in these rag-gathering and rag- 
 burning days, man's life again begins, were it but afar 
 off, to be divine ? Knowest thou none such ? I know 
 him, and name him— Goethe. 
 
 "But thou as yet standest in no temple ; joinest in 
 no psalm-worship ; feelest well that, where there is no 
 ministering priest, the people perish 1 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 brotherlike embracing thee, so 
 thou be worthy ? Their heroic sufferings rise up me- 
 lodiously together to heaven, out of all lands, and out 
 of all times, as a sacred Miserere; their heroic actions 
 also, as a boundless, everlasting psalm of triumph. 
 Neither say that thou hast now no symbol of the god- 
 like. Is not God's universe a symbol of the godlike ; 
 is not Immensity a temple ; is not man's history, and 
 
 22* 
 
258 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 men's history, a perpetual Evangile ? Listen, and for 
 organ-music thou wilt ever, as of old, hear the Morning 
 Stars sing together." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 
 
 It is in his stupendous section, headed Natural 
 Supernaturalism, that the Professor first becomes a 
 Seer ; and, after long effort, such as we have wit- 
 nessed, finally subdues under his feet this refractory 
 Clothes-Philosophy, and takes victorious possession 
 thereof. Phantasms enough he has had to struggle 
 with; ''Cloth-webs and Cob-webs," of imperial man- 
 tles, superannuated symbols, and what not ; yet still 
 did he courageously pierce through. Nay, worst of 
 all, two quite mysterious world-embracing phantasms, 
 Time and Space, have ever hovered round him, per- 
 plexing and bewildering ; but with these also he now 
 resolutely grapples, these also he victoriously rends 
 asunder. In a word, he has looked fixedly on exist- 
 ence, till, one after the other, its earthly hulls and 
 garnitures have all melted away ; and now to his rapt 
 vision, the interior, celestial Holy of Holies lies dis- 
 closed. 
 
 Here, therefore, properly it is that the Philosophy of 
 Clothes attains to Transcendentalism. This last leap, 
 can we but clear it, takes us safe into the Promised 
 Land, where Palingenesia, in all senses, may be con- 
 sidered as beginning. " Courage, then !" may our 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 259 
 
 Diogenes exclaim, with better right than Diogenes the 
 First once did. This stupendous section, we, after 
 long, painful meditation, have found not to be unintel- 
 ligible ; 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 mira- 
 cles," thus quietly begins the Professor; "far deeper, 
 perhaps, than we imagine. Meanwhile, the question 
 of questions were : What specially is a miracle ? To 
 that Dutch King of Siam, an icicle had been a mira- 
 cle ; whoso had carried with him an airpump, and 
 phial of vitriolic ether, might have worked a miracle. 
 To my horse, again, who unhappily is still more un- 
 scientific, do not I work a miracle, and magical ' open 
 sesame /' every time I please to pay twopence, and 
 open for him an impassable Schlagbaum, or shut- 
 turnpike ? 
 
 " ' But is not a real miracle simply a violation of the 
 laws of Nature V 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 viola- 
 tion of these laws, but a confirmation ; were some far 
 deeper law, now first penetrated into, and by spiritual 
 force, even as the rest have all been, brought to bear on 
 us with its material force. 
 
 " Here, too, may some inquire, not without astonish- 
 ment : On what ground shall one, that can make iron 
 swim, come and declare that, therefore, he can teach 
 religion ? To us, truly, of the nineteenth century, 
 such declaration were inept enough ; which, neverthe- 
 
260 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 less, to our fathers, of the first century, was full of 
 meaning. 
 
 " ' But is it not the deepest law of Nature that she 
 be constant ?' cries an illuminated class : ' Is not the 
 machine of the universe fixed to move by unalterable 
 rules ? * Probable enough, good friends ; nay, I too, 
 must believe that the God, whom ancient, inspired men 
 assert to be ' without variableness or shadow of turn- 
 ing,' does, indeed, never change ; that Nature, that the 
 universe, which no one, whom it so pleases, can be 
 prevented from calling a machine, does move by the 
 most unalterable rules. And now of you, too, I make 
 the old inquiry : What those same unalterable rules, 
 forming the complete Statute-Book of Nature, may 
 possibly be I 
 
 " They stand written in our works of science, say 
 you; in the accumulated records of man's experi- 
 ence? — Was man with his experience present at the 
 creation, then, to see how it all went on ? Have any 
 deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to the 
 foundations of the universe, and gauged every thing 
 there ? Did the Maker take them into his counsel ; 
 that they read His ground-plan of the incomprehen- 
 sible All; and can say : This stands marked therein, 
 and no more than this I Alas, not in any wise ! 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 planets, with their satellites, gyrate round 
 our worthy sun, at a rate and in a course, which, by 
 greatest good fortune, he and the like of him have 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 261 
 
 succeeded in detecting, — is to me as precious as to 
 another. But is this what thou namest ' Mechanism 
 of the Heavens,' and ' System of the World ;' this, 
 wherein Sirius and the Pleiades, and all Herschel's 
 fifteen thousand suns per minute, being left out, some 
 paltry handful of moons, and inert balls, had been — 
 looked at, nicknamed, and marked in the Zodiacal 
 Waybill ; so that we can now prate of their Wherea- 
 bout ; their How, their Why, their What, being hid 
 from us, as in the signless Inane ? 
 
 " System of Nature! To the wisest man, wide as 
 is his vision, Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of 
 quite infinite expansion; and all experience thereof 
 limits itself to some few computed centuries, and meas- 
 ured square-miles. The course of Nature's phases, 
 on this our little fraction of a planet, is partially 
 known to us ; but who knows what deeper courses 
 these depend on ; what infinitely larger cycle (of 
 causes) our little epicycle revolves on ? To the min- 
 now every cranny and pebble, and quality and accident, 
 of its little native creek may have become familiar; 
 but does the minnow understand the ocean-tides and 
 periodic currents, the trade-winds, and monsoons, and 
 moon's eclipses ; by all which the condition of its little 
 creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (un- 
 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 iEons 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 
 
262 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 grand descriptive pages, poetical and philosophical, 
 spread out through solar systems, and thousands of 
 years, we shall not try thee. It is a volume written 
 in celestial hieroglyphs, in the true sacred-writing ; 
 of which even prophets are happy that they can read 
 here a line and there a line. As for your Institutes, and 
 Academies of Science, they strive bravely; and, from 
 amid the thick-crowded, inextricably intertwisted hie- 
 roglyphic writing, pick out, by dexterous combination, 
 some letters in the vulgar character, and therefrom put 
 together this and the other economic recipe, of high 
 avail in practice. That Nature is more than some 
 boundless volume of such recipes, or huge, well-nigh 
 inexhaustible domestic-cookery-book, of which the 
 whole secret will, in this wise, one day, evolve itself, 
 the fewest dream. 
 
 " Custom," continues the Professor, " doth make 
 dotards of us all. Consider well, thou wilt find that 
 custom is the greatest of weavers ? and weaves air- 
 raiment for all the spirits of the universe ; whereby, 
 indeed, these dwell with us visibly, as ministering 
 servants, in our houses and workshops ; but their 
 spiritual nature becomes, to the most, forever hidden. 
 Philosophy complains that custom has hoodwinked 
 us, from the first ; that we do 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 tran- 
 scendental ? 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 263 
 
 "Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain 
 tricks of custom ; but of all these perhaps the clev- 
 erest is her nack of persuading us that the miracu- 
 lous, by simple repetition, ceases to be miraculous. 
 True, it is by this means we live ; for man must work, 
 as well as wonder ; and herein is custom so far a 
 kind nurse, guiding him to his true benefit. But she 
 is a fond, foolish nurse, or rather we are false, foolish 
 nurslings, when, in our resting and reflecting hours, 
 we prolong the same deception. Am I to view the 
 stupendous with stupid indifference, because I have 
 seen it twice, or two hundred, 01 two million times ? 
 There is no reason in nature or in art why I should ; 
 unless, indeed, I am a mere work-machine, for whom 
 the divine gift of thought were no other than the ter- 
 restrial gift of steam is to the steam-engine ; a power 
 whereby cotton might be spun, and money and money's 
 worth realized. 
 
 " Notable enough, too, here as elsewhere, wilt thou 
 find the potency of names; which, indeed, are but 
 one kind of such custom-woven, wonder-hiding gar- 
 ments. Witchcraft, and all manner of spectre-work, 
 and demonology, we have now named madness, and 
 diseases of the nerves. Seldom reflecting that still 
 the new question comes upon us : What is madness, 
 what are nerves ? Ever, as before, does madness re- 
 main 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 Eeal. Was Luther's picture of the Devil 
 less a reality, whether it were formed within the 
 bodily eye, or without it ? In every the wisest soul 
 lies a whole world of internal madness, an authentic 
 
264 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Demon-empire ; out of which, indeed, his world of 
 wisdom has been creatively built together, and now 
 rests there, as on its dark foundations does a habitable 
 flowery earth-rind. 
 
 " But deepest of all illusory appearances, for hiding 
 wonder, as for many other ends, are your two grand, 
 fundamental, world-enveloping appearances, Space and 
 Time. These, as spun and woven for us from before 
 birth itself, to clothe our celestial Me for dwelling here, 
 and yet to blind it, — lie all-embracing, as the universal 
 canvass, or warp and woof, whereby all minor illusions, 
 in this phantasm existence, weave and paint themselves. 
 In vain, while here on earth, shall you endeavour to 
 strip them oft*: 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, Jtie had annihilated space ; for him there was 
 no Where, but all was Here. Were a hatter to estab- 
 lish himself in the Wahngasse of Weissnichtwo, and 
 make felts of this sort for all mankind, what a world 
 we should have of it ! Still stranger, should, on the 
 opposite side of the street, another hatter establish 
 himself; and, as his fellow-craftsman made space- 
 annihilating hats, make time-annihilating! Of both 
 would. I purchase, were it with my last groschen ; but 
 chiefly of this latter. To clap on your felt, and, 
 simply by wishing that you were Anywhere, straight- 
 way to be there ! Next to clap on your other felt, 
 and, simply by wishing that you were anywhen, 
 straightway to be then.' This were, indeed, the 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 265 
 
 grander ; shooting at will from the fire-creation of the 
 world to its fire-consummation ; here historically pre- 
 sent in the first century, conversing face to face with 
 Paul and Seneca; there prophetically in the thirty- 
 first, conversing also face to face with other Pauls and 
 Senecas, who as yet stand hidden in the depth of that 
 late time ! 
 
 " Or thinkest thou it were impossible, unimagina- 
 ble ? Is the Past annihilated, then, or only past? Is 
 the Future non-extant, or only future ? Those mystic 
 faculties of thine, memory and hope, already answer ; 
 already through those mystic avenues, thou the earth- 
 blinded summonest both Past and Future* and com- 
 munest with them, though as yet dai - y, and with mute 
 beckonings. The curtains of yesterday drop down, 
 the curtains of to-morrow roll up ; but yesterday and 
 to-morrow both are. Pierce through the Time-element, 
 glance into the Eternal. Believe what thou findest 
 written in the sanctuaries of man's soul, even as all 
 thinkers, in all ages, have devoutly read it there : that 
 time and space are not God, but creations of God ; 
 that with God as it is a universal Here, so is it an 
 everlasting Now. 
 
 " And seest thou therein any glimpse of Immor- 
 tality?— O Heaven! Is the white tomb of our 
 loved one, who died from our arms, and must be left 
 behind us there, which lises in the distance, like a 
 pale, mournfully receding milestone, to tell how many 
 toilsome, uncheered miles we have journeyed on alone, 
 —but a pale, spectral illusion ? Is the lost friend still 
 mysteriously here, even as we are here mysteriously, 
 with God? — Know of a truth that only the time- 
 shadows have perished, or are perishable ; that the 
 
 23 
 
266 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 real being of whatever was, and whatever is, and 
 whatever will be, is even now and forever. This, 
 should it unhappily seem new, thou mayest ponder, 
 at thy leisure, for the next twenty years, or the next 
 twenty centuries. Believe it thou must ; understand it 
 thou canst not. 
 
 "That the thought-forms, space and time, wherein, 
 once for all, we are sent into this earth to live, should 
 condition and determine our whole practical reason- 
 ings, conceptions, and imagings (not imaginings), — 
 seems altogether fit, just, and unavoidable. But that 
 they should, farthermore, usurp such sway over pure 
 spiritual meditation, and blind us to the wonder every- 
 where lying close on us, seems nowise so. Admit 
 space and time to their due rank as forms of thought ; 
 nay, even, if thou wilt, to their quite undue rank of 
 realities ; and consider, then, with thyself, how their 
 thin disguises hide from us the brightest God-effulgen- 
 ces ! Thus, were it not miraculous, could I stretch 
 forth my hand, and clutch the sun ? Yet thou seest 
 me daily stretch forth my hand, and therewith clutch 
 many a thing, and swing it hither and thither. Art 
 thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the miracle lies 
 in miles of distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of 
 weight ; and not to see that the true, inexplicable, God- 
 revealing miracle lies in this, that I can stretch forth 
 my hand at all ; that I have free force to clutch aught 
 therewith ? Innumerable other of this sort are the de- 
 ceptions, and wonder-hiding stupefactions, which space 
 practises on us. 
 
 " Still worse is it with regard to time. Your grand 
 anti-magician, and universal wonder-hider, is this 
 same lying time. Had we but the time-annihilating 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 267 
 
 hat, to put on for once only, we should see ourselves 
 in a world of miracles, wherein all fabled or authentic 
 thaumaturgy and feats of magic were outdone. But 
 unhappily we have not such a hat ; and man, poor fool 
 that he is, can seldom and scantily help himself with- 
 out one. 
 
 " Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Orpheus 
 built the walls of Thebes by the mere sound of his 
 lyre ? Yet tell me, who built these walls of Weiss- 
 nichtwo ; summoning out all the sandstone rocks, to 
 dance along from the Steinbruch (now a huge Trog- 
 lodyte chasm, with frightful, green-mantled pools), 
 and shape themselves into Doric and Ionic pillars, 
 squared ashlar houses, and noble streets ? Was it 
 not the still higher Orpheus, or Orpheuses, who, in 
 past centuries, by the divine music of wisdom, suc- 
 ceeded in civilizing man ? Our highest Orpheus 
 walked in Judea, eighteen hundred years ago. His 
 sphere-melody, flowing in wild native tones, took cap- 
 tive the ravished souls of men ; and, being, of a truth, 
 sphere-melody, still flows and sounds, though now 
 with thousandfold accompaniments, and rich sympho- 
 nies through all our hearts ; and modulates, and 
 divinely leads them. Is that a wonder, which happens 
 in two hours ; and does it cease to be wonderful, if 
 happening in two million ? Not only was Thebes built 
 by the music of an Orpheus ; but without the music of 
 some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no work 
 that man glories in ever done. 
 
 " Sweep away the illusion of time ; glance, if thou 
 have eyes, from the near moving cause to its far 
 distant mover. The stroke that came transmitted 
 through a whole galaxy of elastic balls, was it less a 
 
268 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 stroke than if the last ball only had been struck, and 
 sent flying? Oh, could I (with the time-annihilating 
 hat) transport thee direct from the beginnings to the 
 endings, how were thy eyesight unsealed, and thy 
 heart set flaming in the light-sea of celestial wonder ! 
 Then sawest thou that this fair universe, were it in the 
 meanest province thereof, is in very deed the Slar- 
 domed City of God ; that through every star, through 
 every grass-blade, and most through every living soul, 
 the glory of a present God still beams. But Nature, 
 which is the time-vesture of God, and reveals Him to 
 the wise, hides Him from the foolish. 
 
 " Again, could anything be more miraculous than 
 an actual, authentic ghost ? The English Johnson 
 longed, all his life, to see one ; but could not, though 
 he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church- 
 vaults and tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor ! Did 
 he never, with the mind's eye as well as with the 
 body's, look round him into that full tide of human 
 life he so loved ; did he never so much as look into 
 himself? The good Doctor was a ghost, as actual 
 and authentic as heart could wish ; well nigh a million 
 of ghosts were travelling the streets by his side. 
 Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of time ; 
 compress the three-score years into three minutes. 
 What else was he, what else are we ? Are we not 
 spirits, shaped into a body, into an appearance ; and 
 that fade away again into air, and invisibility? This 
 is no metaphor, it is a simple scientific/tfc^. We start 
 out of nothingness, take figure, and are apparitions. 
 Round us, as round the veriest spectre, is eternity ; 
 and to eternity minutes are as years and aeons. Come 
 there not tones of love and faith, as from celestial 
 
NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 269 
 
 harp-strings, like the song of beatified souls ? And 
 again, do we not squeak and gibber (in our discor- 
 dant screech-owlish debatings and recriminatings) ; 
 and glide bodeful, and feeble, and fearful; or uproar 
 (poltern), and revel in our mad dance of the dead, — 
 till the scent of the morning-air summons us to our 
 still home ; and dreamy night becomes awake and 
 day ? Where now is Alexander of Macedon ; does 
 the steel host, that yelled in fierce battle-shouts at 
 Issus and Arbela, remain behind him; or have they 
 all vanished utterly, even as perturbed goblins must? 
 Napoleon, too, and his Moscow retreats, and Austerlitz 
 campaigns ! Was it all other than the veriest spectre- 
 hunt; which has now, with its howling tumult that 
 made night hideous, flitted away ? — Ghosts ! There 
 are nigh a thousand million walking the earth openly 
 at noontide ; some half-hundred have vanished from 
 it, some half-hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch 
 ticks once. 
 
 " O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider 
 that we not only carry each a future ghost within him ; 
 but are, in very deed, ghosts ! These limbs, whence 
 had we them ; this stormy force ; this life-blood with 
 its burning passion? They are dust and shadow; a 
 shadow-system gathered round our Me ; wherein, 
 through some moments or years, the Divine Essence 
 is to be revealed in the flesh. That warrior on his 
 strong war-horse, fire flashes Through his eyes ; force 
 dwells in his arm and heart ; but warrior and war- 
 horse are a vision ; a revealed force, nothing more. 
 Stately they tread the earth, as if it were a firm sub- 
 stance. Fool ! the earth is but a film ; it cracks in. 
 twain, and warrior and war-horse sink beyond plum- 
 
 23* 
 
270 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 met's sounding. Plummet's? Fantasy herself will 
 not follow them. A little while ago they were not ; a 
 little while and they are not, their very ashes are not. 
 " So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to 
 the end. Generation after generation takes to itself 
 the form of a body ; and forth issuing from Cimmerian 
 night, on Heaven's mission, appears. What force 
 and fire is in each he expends. One grinding in the 
 mill of industry; one hunter-like climbing the giddy 
 Alpine heights of science ; one madly dashed in 
 pieces on the rocks of strife, in war with his fellow ; — 
 and then the heaven-sent is recalled ; his earthly 
 vesture falls away, and soon even to sense becomes a 
 vanished shadow. Thus, like some wild-flaming, wild- 
 thundering train of Heaven's artillery, does this 
 mysterious Mankind thunder and flame, in long- 
 drawn, quick-succeeding grandeur, through the un- 
 known deep. Thus, like a God-created, fire-breathing 
 spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane; haste storm- 
 fully across the astonished earth ; then plunge again 
 into the Inane. Earth's mountains are levelled, and 
 her seas filled up, in our passage. Can the earth, which 
 is but dead and a vision, resist spirits which have 
 reality, and are alive ? On the hardest adamant some 
 foot-print of us is stamped in; the last rear of the host 
 will read traces of the earliest van. But whence ? — 
 O Heaven, whither? Sense knows not; faith knows 
 not; only that it is through mystery to mystery, from 
 God and to God. 
 
 'We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made of, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep !' " 
 
CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 271 
 
 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 out- 
 most, vulgar, palpable woollen hulls of man; through 
 his wondrous flesh-garments, and his wondrous 
 social garnitures ; inwards to the garments of his very 
 soul's soul, to time and space themselves ! And now 
 does the spiritual, eternal essence of man, and of 
 mankind, bared of such wrappages, begin in any 
 measure to reveal itself? Can many readers discern, 
 as through a glass darkly, in huge, wavering outlines, 
 some primeval rudiments of man's being, what is 
 changeable divided from what is unchangeable ? Does 
 that Earth-Spirit's speech in Faust: 
 
 " 'T is thus at the roaring loom of time I ply, 
 And weave for God the garment thou see'st him by ;" 
 
 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 wrack behind ;" «*. 
 
 begin to have some meaning for us ! In a word, do 
 we at length stand safe in the far region of Poetic 
 Creation and Palingenesia, where that Phenix Death- 
 
272 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 birth of human society, and of all human things, ap- 
 pears possible, is seen to be inevitable ? 
 
 Along this most insufficient, unheard-of bridge, 
 which the Editor, by Heaven's blessing, has now seen 
 himself enabled to conclude, if not complete, it can- 
 not be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope, 
 that many have travelled without accident. No firm 
 arch, overspanning the impassable with paved high- 
 way, could the Editor construct ; only, as was said, 
 some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously 
 thereon. Alas, and the leaps from raft to raft were 
 too often of a breakneck character ; the darkness, the 
 nature of the element, all was against us ! 
 
 Nevertheless, may not here and there one of a 
 thousand, provided with a discursiveness of intellect 
 rare in our day, have cleared the passage, in spite of 
 all ? Happy few, little band of friends, be welcome, 
 be of courage ! By degrees the eye grows accus- 
 tomed to its new Whereabout; the hand can stretch 
 itself forth to work there. It is in this grand and, 
 indeed, highest work of Palingenesia, that ye shall 
 labor, each according to ability. New laborers will 
 arrive, new bridges will be built ; nay, may not our 
 own poor rope-and-raft bridge, in your passings and 
 repassings, be mended in many a point, till it grow 
 quite firm, passable even for the halt ? 
 
 Meanwhile, of the innumerable multitude that 
 started with us, joyous and full of hope, where now 
 is the innumerable remainder, whom we see no longer 
 by our side ? The most have recoiled, and stand 
 gazing afar off, in unsympathetic astonishment at our 
 career. Not a few, pressing forward with more 
 courage, have missed footing, or leaped short ; and 
 
CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 
 
 273 
 
 now swim weltering in the chaos-flood, some towards 
 this shore, some towards that. To these also a help- 
 ing hand should be held out ; at least some word of 
 encouragement be said. 
 
 Or, to speak without metaphor, with which mode 
 of utterance Teufelsdrockh unhappily has somewhat 
 infected us, — can it be hidden from the Editor that 
 many a British reader sits reading quite bewildered in 
 head, and afflicted rather than instructed by the present 
 work ? Yes, long ago has many a British reader 
 been, as now, demanding, with something like a snarl : 
 Whereto does all this lead ; or what use is in it? 
 
 In the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise 
 aiding thy digestive faculty, O British reader, it leads 
 to nothing, and there is no use in it ; but rather the 
 reverse, for it costs thee somewhat. Nevertheless, 
 if through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufelsdrockh, 
 and we, by means of him, have led thee into the true 
 land of dreams ; and through the Clothes-screen, as 
 through a magical Pierre- Pertuis, thou lookest, even 
 for moments, into the region of the wonderful, and 
 seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with wonder, 
 and based on wonder, and thy very blankets and 
 breeches are miracles, — then art thou profited beyond 
 money's worth, and hast a thankfulness towards our 
 Professor ; nay, perhaps in. many a literary tea-circle, 
 wilt open thy kind lips, and audibly express that same. 
 
 Nay, farther, art not thou, too, perhaps, by this time, 
 made aware that all symbols are properly Clothes ; that 
 all forms, whereby spirit manifests itself to sense, 
 whether outwardly or in the imagination, are Clothes ; 
 and thus, not only the parchment Magna Charta, which 
 a tailor was nigh cutting into measures, but the pomp 
 
274 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 and authority of law, the sacredness of majesty, and 
 all inferior worships (worth-ships) are properly a ves- 
 ture and raiment ; and the Thirty-nine Articles them- 
 selves are articles of wearing apparel (for the religious 
 idea) ? In which case, must it not also be admitted 
 that this science of Clothes is a high one, and may 
 with infinitely deeper study on thy part, yield richer 
 fruit ; that it takes scientific rank beside Codification, 
 and Political Economy, and the Theory of the British 
 Constitution ; nay, rather from its prophetic height 
 looks down on all these, as on so many weaving-shops 
 and spinning-mills, where the vestures, which it has to 
 fashion, and consecrate, and distribute, are, too often, 
 by haggard, hungry operatives, who see no farther than 
 their nose, mechanically woven and spun ? 
 
 But omitting all this, much more all that concerns 
 Natural Supernaturalism, and, indeed, whatever has 
 reference to the ulterior or transcendental portion of 
 the science, or bears never so remotely on that pro- 
 mised volume of the Palingenesie der menschlichen 
 Gesellschaft (New-birth of Society), — we humbly sug- 
 gest that no province of Clothes-Philosophy, even the 
 lowest, is without its direct value, but that innumer- 
 able inferences of a practical nature may be drawn 
 therefrom. To say nothing of those pregnant consid- 
 erations, ethical, political, symbolical, which crowd on 
 the Clothes-Philosopher from the very threshold of his 
 science ; nothing even of those " architectural ideas" 
 which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of all 
 modes, and will one day, better unfolding themselves, 
 lead to important revolutions, — let us glance, for a 
 moment, and with the faintest light of Clothes-Philo- 
 sophy, on what may be called the Habilitory class of 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 275 
 
 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, crea- 
 tures that live, move, and have their being in Cloth ; 
 we mean Dandies and Tailors. 
 
 In regard to both which small divisions it may be 
 asserted without scruple that the public feeling, unen- 
 lightened by philosophy, is at fault ; and even that the 
 dictates of humanity are violated. As will, perhaps, 
 abundantly appear to readers of the two following 
 chapters. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DANDIACAL BODY. 
 
 First, touching Dandies, let us consider, with some 
 scientific strictness, what a Dandy specially is. A 
 Dandy is a Clothes-wearing man ; a man whose trade, 
 office, and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. 
 Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is 
 heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing 
 of Clothes wisely and well ; so that as others dress to 
 live, he lives to dress. The all-importance of Clothes, 
 which a German Professor of unequalled learning and 
 acumen, writes his enormous volume to demonstrate, 
 has sprung up in the intellect of the Dandy, without 
 
276 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 effort, like an instinct of genius. He is inspired with 
 Cloth, a Poet of Cloth. What Teufelsdrockh would 
 call a "Divine Idea of Cloth" is born with him; and 
 this, like other such ideas, will express itself out- 
 wardly, or wring his heart asunder with unutterable 
 throes. 
 
 But like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fear- 
 lessly makes his idea an action ; shows himself, in 
 peculiar guise, to mankind ; walks forth, a witness 
 and living martyr to the eternal worth of Clothes. 
 We called him a Poet ; is not his body the (stuffed) 
 parchment-skin whereon he writes, with cunning Hud- 
 dersfield dyes, a sonnet to his mistress' eyebrow ? 
 Say, rather, an Epos, and Clotha Virumque cano, to 
 the whole world, in Macaronic verses, which he that 
 runs may read. Nay, if you grant, what seems to be 
 admissible, that the Dandy has a thinking-principle in 
 him, and some notions of time and space, is there not 
 in this life-devotedness to Cloth, in this so willing 
 sacrifice of the immortal to the perishable, something 
 (though in reverse order) of that blending and identifi- 
 cation of Eternity with Time, which, as we have seen, 
 constitutes the prophetic character? 
 
 And now, for all this perennial martyrdom, and 
 poesy, and even prophecy, what is it that the Dandy 
 asks in return ? Solely, we may say, that you woukj 
 recognise the 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. 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 277 
 
 and he is contented. May we not well cry, Shame on 
 an ungrateful world, that refuses even this poor boon ; 
 that will waste its optic faculty on dried crocodiles, 
 and Siamese Twins ; and over the domestic, wonderful 
 wonder of wonders, a live Dandy, glance with hasty 
 indifference, and a scarcely concealed contempt ? 
 Him no zoologist classes among the Mammalia, no 
 anatomist dissects with care. When did we see any 
 injected preparation of the Dandy, in our museums; 
 any specimen of him preserved in spirits ? Lord Her- 
 ringbone may dress himself in a snuff-brown suit, with 
 snuff-brown shirt and shoes. It skills not ; the undis- 
 cerning 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 resus- 
 citate, 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 hid- 
 den under laughable and lamentable hallucination. The 
 following long extract from Professor Teufelsdrb'ckh 
 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 cer- 
 tain 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 
 
 24 
 
278 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 and longing and silently working there towards some 
 new revelation ; or else wanders homeless over the 
 world, like a disembodied soul seeking its terrestrial 
 organization, — into how many strange shapes, of 
 superstition and fanaticism, does it not tentatively and 
 errantly cast itself! The higher enthusiasm of man's 
 nature is, for the while, without exponent; yet must it 
 continue indestructible, unweariedly active, and work 
 blindly in the great chaotic deep. Thus sect after sect, 
 and church after church, bodies itself forth, and melts 
 again into new metamorphosis. 
 
 " Chiefly is this observable in England, which, as 
 the wealthiest and worst-instructed of European nations, 
 offers precisely the elements (of heat, namely, and of 
 darkness) in which such moon-calves and monstrosities 
 are best generated. Among the newer sects of that 
 country, one of the most notable, and closely connected 
 with our present subject, is that of the Dandies ; con- 
 cerning which, what little information I have been able 
 to procure may fitly stand here. 
 
 " It is true, certain of the English Journalists, men 
 generally without sense for the Religious Principle, or 
 judgment for its manifestations, speak, in their brief 
 enigmatic notices, as if this were perhaps rather a 
 secular sect, and not a religious one ; nevertheless, to 
 the psychologic eye its devotional and even sacrificial 
 character plainly enough reveals itself. Whether it 
 belongs to the class of Fetish-worships, or of Hero- 
 worships or Polytheisms, or to what other class, may 
 in the present state of our intelligence remain undecided 
 (schweben). A certain touch of Manicheism, not, 
 indeed, in the Gnostic shape, is discernible enough; 
 also (for human error walks in a cycle, and reappears 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 279 
 
 at intervals) a not inconsiderable resemblance to that 
 superstition of the Athos monks, who, by fasting from 
 all nourishment, and looking intensely for a length of 
 time into their own navels, came to discern therein 
 the true Apocalypse of Nature, and Heaven Unveiled. 
 To my own surmise, it appears as if this Dandiacal 
 sect were but a new modification, adapted to the new 
 time, of that primeval superstition, Self-Worship ; 
 which Zerdusht, Quangfoutchee, Mohammed, and 
 others, strove rather to subordinate^ and restrain than 
 to eradicate; and which only in the purer forms of 
 religion has been altogether rejected. Wherefore, if 
 any one chooses to name it revived Ahrimanism, or a 
 new figure of Demon-Worship, I have, so far as is yet 
 visible, no objection. 
 
 " For the rest, these people, animated with the zeal 
 of a new sect, display courage and perseverance, and 
 what force there is in man's nature though never so 
 enslaved. They affect great purity and separatism; 
 distinguish themselves by a particular costume (where- 
 of some notices were given in the earlier part of this 
 volume); likewise, so far as possible, by a particular 
 speech (apparently some broken Lingua-franca, or 
 English-French); and, on the whole, strive to main- 
 tain a true Nazarene deportment, and keep themselves 
 unspotted from the world. 
 
 " They have their temples, whereof the chief, as 
 the Jewish Temple did, stands in their metropolis; 
 and is named jllmacks, 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 
 
280 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Cabiric character, are held strictly secret. Nor are 
 sacred books wanting to the sect ; these they call 
 Fashionable Novels. However, the Canon is not com- 
 pleted, and some are canonical and others not. 
 
 " Of such sacred books I, not without expense, 
 procured myself some samples ; and in hope of true 
 insight, and with the zeal which beseems an inquirer 
 into Clothes, set to interpret and study them. But 
 wholly to no purpose. That tough faculty of reading, 
 for which the world will not refuse me credit, was 
 here for the first time foiled and set at nought. In 
 vain that I summoned my whole energies (inich weid- 
 lich anstrengte), and did my very utmost. At the end 
 of some short space, I was uniformly seized with not 
 so much what I can call a drumming in my ears, as a 
 kind of infinite, unsufTerable Jew's-harping and scran- 
 nel-piping there ; to which the frightfullest species of 
 magnetic sleep soon supervened. And if I strove to 
 shake this away, and absolutely would not yield, came 
 a hitherto unfelt sensation, as of delirium tremens, and 
 a melting into total deliquium ; — till at last, by order 
 of the doctor, dreading ruin to my whole intellectual 
 and bodily faculties, and a general breaking up of 
 the constitution, I reluctantly but determinedly fore- 
 bore. Was there some miracle at work here ; like 
 those fire-balls, and supernal and infernal prodigies, 
 that in the case of the Jewish Mysteries, have also 
 more than once scared back the Alien ? Be this as it 
 may, such failure on my part, after best efforts, must 
 excuse the imperfection of this sketch ; altogether 
 incomplete, yet the completest I could give of a sect 
 too singular to be omitted. 
 
 " Loving my own life and senses as I do, no power 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 281 
 
 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 Stillschwei- 
 gen'sche Buchhandlung is in the habit of importing 
 from England, come, as is usual, various waste printed 
 sheets (macalatur-blater), by way of interior wrap- 
 page. Into these the Clothes-Philosopher, with a 
 certain Mohammedan reverence even for waste paper, 
 where curious knowledge will sometimes hover, dis- 
 dains 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 Periodi- 
 cal, 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 ; directing itself, not without asperity, 
 against some to me unknown individual, named Pel- 
 ham, who seems to be a mystagogue, and leading 
 teacher and preacher of the sect ; so that, what indeed 
 otherwise was not to he expected in such a fugitive, 
 fragmentary sheet, the true secret, the religious physi- 
 ognomy and physiology of the Dandiacal body, is 
 nowise laid fully open there. Nevertheless, scattered 
 lights do from time to time sparkle out, whereby I 
 have endeavoured to profit. Nay, in one passage 
 selected from the prophecies, or Mythic Theogonies, 
 or whatever they are (for the style seems very mixed), 
 of this mystagogue, I find what appears to be a Con- 
 fession of Faith, or Whole Duty of Man, according 
 to the tenets of that sect. Which confession, or 
 whole duty, therefore, as proceeding from a source 
 
 24* 
 
282 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 so authentic, I shall here arrange under seven distinct 
 articles, and in very abridged shape lay before the 
 German world ; therewith taking leave of this matter. 
 Observe, also, that to avoid possibility of error, I, as 
 far as may be, quote literally from the original : 
 
 " ' Articles of Faith. 
 
 ' 1. Coats should have nothing of the triangle about 
 them ; at the same time, wrinkles behind should be 
 carefully avoided. 
 
 ' 2. The collar is a very important point ; it should 
 be low behind, and slightly rolled. 
 
 ' 3. No license of fashion can allow a man of deli- 
 cate taste to adopt the posterior luxuriance of a 
 Hottentot. 
 
 ' 4. There is safety in a swallow-tail. 
 
 ' 5. The good sense of a gentleman is nowhere more 
 finely developed than in his rings. 
 
 ' 6. It is permitted to mankind, under certain restric- 
 tions, to wear white waistcoats. 
 
 ' 7. The trowsers must be exceedingly tight across 
 the hips.' 
 
 " All which propositions, I, for the present, content 
 myself with modestly, but peremptorily and irrevocably, 
 denying." 
 
 " In strange contrast with this Dandiacal body 
 stands another British sect, originally, as I understand, 
 of Ireland, where its chief seat still is ; but known 
 also in the main island, and, indeed, everywhere rapid- 
 ly spreading. As this sect has hitherto emitted no 
 canonical books, it remains to me in the same state of 
 obscurity as the Dandiacal, which has published books 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 283 
 
 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, unphilosophi- 
 cally enough, the White Negroes ; and, chiefly in scorn 
 by those of other communions, the Ragged-Beggar 
 sect. In Scotland, again, I find them entitled Hallan- 
 shakers, or the Stook-of-Duds sect ; any individual 
 communicant is named Stook-of-Duds (that is, Shock 
 of Rags), in allusion, doubtless, to their professional 
 costume. While in Ireland, which, as mentioned, is 
 their grand parent hive, they go by a perplexing multi- 
 plicity of designations, such as Bo gtr otters, Red- 
 shanks, Ribbonrn en, Cottiers, Peep-of -day Boys, Babes 
 of the Wood, Rockites, Poor Slaves ; which last, 
 however, seems to be the primary and generic name ; 
 whereto, probably enough, the others are only sub- 
 sidiary species, or slight varieties ; or, at most, pro- 
 pagated offsets from the parent stem, whose minute 
 subdivisions, and shades of difference, it were here 
 loss of time to dwell on. Enough for us to under- 
 stand, what seems indubitable, that the original sect 
 is that of the Poor-Slaves ; whose doctrines, practices, 
 and fundamental characteristics, pervade and animate 
 the whole body, howsoever denominated or outwardly 
 diversified. 
 
 " The precise speculative tenets of this brother- 
 hood j how the universe, and man, and man's life, 
 picture themselves to the mind of an Irish Poor-Slave ; 
 with what feelings and opinions he looks forward on 
 the future, round on the present, back on the past, it 
 were extremely difficult to specify. Something monas- 
 
284 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 tic there appears to be in their constitution. We find 
 them bound by the two monastic vows, of Poverty and 
 Obedience ; which vows, especially the former, it is 
 said, they observe with great strictness ; nay, as I have 
 understood it, they are pledged, and be it by any solemn 
 Nazarene ordination or not, irrevocably enough con- 
 secrated thereto, even before birth. That the third 
 monastic vow, of Chastity, is rigidly enforced among 
 them, I find no ground to conjecture. 
 
 " Furthermore, they appear to imitate the Dandia- 
 cal sect in their grand principle of wearing a peculiar 
 costume. Of which Irish Poor-Slave costume no de- 
 scription will, indeed, be found in the present volume ; 
 for this reason, that by the imperfect organ of lan- 
 guage it seemed indescribable. Their raiment con- 
 sists of innumerable skirts, lappets, and irregular 
 wings, of all cloths and of all colors ; through the 
 labyrinthic intricacies of which their bodies are intro- 
 duced by some unknown process. It is fastened to- 
 gether by a multiplex combination of buttons, thrums, 
 and skewers ; to which frequently is added a girdle of 
 leather, of hempen or even of straw rope, round the 
 loins. To straw rope, indeed, they seem partial, and 
 often wear it by way of sandals. In head-dress they 
 affect a certain freedom ; hats with partial brim, with- 
 out crown, or with only a loose, hinged, or valve crown. 
 In the former case, they sometimes invert the hat, and 
 wear it brim uppermost, like a University-cap, with 
 what view is unknown. 
 
 " The name, Poor-Slaves, seems to indicate a 
 Sclavonic, Polish, or Russian origin. Not so, however, 
 the interior essence and spirit of their superstition, 
 which rather displays a Teutonic or Druidical char- 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 285 
 
 acter. One might fancy them worshippers of Hertha, 
 or the Earth ; for they dig and affectionately work 
 continually in her bosom ; or else, shut up in private 
 Oratories, meditate and manipulate the substances 
 derived from her ; seldom looking up towards the 
 heavenly luminaries, and then with comparative in- 
 difference. Like the Druids, on the other hand, they 
 live in dark dwellings ; often even breaking their glass- 
 windows, where they find such, and stuffing them up 
 with pieces of raiment, or other opaque substances, till 
 the fit obscurity is restored. Again, like all followers 
 of Nature-Worship, they are liable to out-breakings of 
 an enthusiasm rising to ferocity ; and burn men, if not 
 in wicker idols, yet in sod cottages. 
 
 " In respect of diet, they have also their observances. 
 All Poor-Slaves are Rhizophagous (or Root-eaters); 
 a few are Ichthyophagous, and use salted herrings. 
 Other animal food they abstain from ; except indeed, 
 with perhaps some strange inverted fragments 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 con- 
 diment named Point, into the meaning of which I have 
 vainly inquired ; the victual Potato es-and-Point not 
 appearing, at least not with specific accuracy of de- 
 cription, in any European cookery-book whatever. 
 For drink they use, with an almost epigrammatic 
 counterpoise of taste, milk, which is the mildest of li- 
 quors, and potheen, which is the fiercest. This latter 
 I have tasted, as well as the English blue-ruin, and 
 the Scotch whiskey, analogous fluids used by the sect 
 in those countries. It evidently contains some form 
 
286 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 of alcohol, in the highest state of concentration, though 
 disguised with acrid oils ; and is, on the whole, the 
 most pungent substance known to me — indeed, a per- 
 fect liquid fire. In all their religious solemnities, potheen 
 is said to be an indispensable requisite, and largely con- 
 sumed. 
 
 "An Irish traveller, of perhaps common veracity, 
 who presents himself under the to me unmeaning title 
 of The late John Bernard, offers the following sketch 
 of a domestic establishment, the inmates whereof, 
 though such is not stated expressly, appear to have 
 been of that faith. Thereby shall my German readers 
 now behold an Irish Poor-Slave, as it were with their 
 own eyes ; and even see him at meat. Moreover, in 
 the so precious waste-paper sheet above mentioned, I 
 have found some corresponding picture of a Dandiacal 
 household, painted by that same Dandiacal Mysta- 
 gogue, or Theogonist. This also, by way of counter- 
 part 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 : ' Tlie furniture of this Caravan- 
 sera 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. O 
 entering the house we discovered the family, eleven in 
 number, at dinner ; the father sitting at the top, the 
 mother at bottom, the children on each side of a large 
 oaken board which was scooped out in the middle, like 
 a trough, to receive the contents of their pot of potatoes* 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 287 
 
 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 dis- 
 pensed with. 1 The Poor-Slave himself our traveller 
 found, as he says, broad-backed, black-browed, of 
 great personal strength, and mouth from ear to ear. 
 His wife was a sun-browned but well-featured woman ; 
 and his young ones, bare and chubby, had the appetite 
 of ravens. Of their philosophical, or religious tenets 
 or observances, no notice or hint. 
 
 " But now, secondly, of the Dandiacal household ; 
 in which, truly, that often-mentioned Mystagogue and 
 inspired Penman himself has his abode : • A dress- 
 ing-room splendidly furnished ; violet-colored curtains, 
 chairs and ottomans of the same hue. Two full-length 
 mirrors are placed, one on each side of a table, which 
 supports the luxuries of the toilet. Several bottles of 
 perfumes, arranged in a pecidiar fashion, stand upon 
 a smaller table of mother-of-pearl ; opposite to these 
 are placed the appurtenances of lavaiion, richly 
 wrought in frosted silver. A wardrobe of buhl is on 
 the left ; the doors of which being partly open discover 
 a profusion of clothes. Shoes of a singularly s?nall 
 size monopolize the lower shelves. Fronting the ward- 
 robe, a door ajar gives some slight glimpse of a bath- 
 room. Folding-doors in the back-ground. — Enter the 
 Author (our Theogonist in person), obsequiously pre- 
 ceded by a French valet in white silk jacket and 
 cambric apron.'' 
 
 " Such are the two sects which, at this moment, 
 divide the more unsettled portion of the British peo- 
 ple, and agitate that ever-vexed country. To the eye 
 of the political seer, their mutual relation, pregnant 
 
288 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 with the elements of discord and hostility, is far 
 from consoling. These two principles of Dandiacal 
 Self-worship or Demon-worship, and Poor-Slavish 
 or Drudgical Earth-worship, or whatever that same 
 Drudgism may be, do as yet, indeed, manifest them- 
 selves under distant and nowise considerable shapes ; 
 nevertheless, in their roots and subterranean ramifi- 
 cations, they extend through the entire structure of 
 society, and work unweariedly in the secret depths of 
 English national existence ; striving to separate arid 
 isolate it into two contradictory, uncommunicating 
 masses. 
 
 " In numbers, and even individual strength, the 
 Poor-Slaves or Drudges, it would seem, are hourly 
 increasing. The Dandiacal, again, is by nature no 
 proselytizing sect ; but it boasts of great hereditary 
 resources, and is strong by union. Whereas the 
 Drudges, split into parties, have as yet no rallying 
 point; or, at best, only cooperate by means of partial 
 secret affiliations. If, indeed, there were to arise a 
 Communion of Drudges, as there is already a Com- 
 munion of Saints, what strangest effects would follow 
 therefrom ! Dandyism as yet effects to look down on 
 Drudgism. But, perhaps, the hour of trial when it 
 will be practically seen which ought to look down, 
 and which up, is not so distant. 
 
 "To me it seems probable that the two sects will 
 one day part England between them ; each recruiting 
 itself from the intermediate ranks, till there be none 
 left to enlist on either side. Those Dandiacal Mani- 
 cheans, with the host of Dandyizing Christians, will 
 form one body. The Drudges, gathering round them 
 whosoever is drudgical, be he Christian or Infidel 
 
THE DANDIACAL BODY. 289 
 
 Pagan ; sweeping up likewise all manner of utilitari- 
 ans, radicals, refractory pot-walloppers, and so forth, 
 into their general mass, will form another. I could liken 
 Dandyism and Drudgism to two bottomless boiling 
 whirlpools that had broken out on opposite quarters of 
 the firm land. As yet they appear only disquieted, 
 foolishly bubbling wells, which man's art might cover 
 in. Yet mark them, their diameter is daily widening; 
 they are hollow cones that boil up from the infinite 
 deep, over which your firm land is but a thin crust or 
 rind ! Thus daily is the intermediate land crumbling 
 in, daily the empire of the two Buchan-Bullers extend- 
 ing ; till now there is but a foot-plank, a mere film of 
 land between them ; this, too, is washed away ; and 
 then — we have the true hell of waters, and Noah's 
 Deluge is outdeluged ! 
 
 " Or better, I might call them two boundless, and, 
 indeed, unexampled electric machines (turned by the 
 ' machinery of society'), with batteries of opposite qua- 
 lity ; Drudgism the negative, Dandyism the positive. 
 One attracts hourly towards it, and appropriates all the 
 positive electricity of the nation (namely, the money 
 thereof) ; the other is equally busy with the negative 
 (that is to say, the hunger), which is equally potent. 
 Hitherto you see only partial, transient sparkles and 
 sputters ; but wait a little, till the entire nation is in 
 an electric state ; till your whole vital electricity, no 
 longer healthfully neutral, is cut into two isolated 
 portions of positive and negative (of money and of 
 hunger) ; and stands there bottled up in two world- 
 batteries ! The stirring of a child's finger brings the 
 two together ; and then — What then ? The earth 
 is but shivered into impalpable smoke by that Doom's- 
 
 25 
 
290 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 thunder-peal ; the sun misses one of his planets in 
 space, and thenceforth there are no eclipses of the 
 moon. — Or, better still, I might liken" 
 
 Oh ! enough, enough of Hkenings and similitudes ; 
 in excess of which, truly, it is hard to say whether 
 Teufelsdrockh or ourselves sin the more. 
 
 We have often blamed him for a habit of wire-draw- 
 ing and over-refining ; from of old we have been 
 familiar with his tendency to mysticism and religiosity, 
 whereby in every thing he was still scenting out reli- 
 gion ; 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 Teulfelsdrockh there 
 ever hovers some shade of doubt. In the meanwhile, 
 if satire were actually intended, the case is little 
 better. There are not wanting men who will answer : 
 Does your Professor take us for simpletons 1 His 
 irony has overshot itself; we see through it, and per- 
 haps through him. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 TAILORS. 
 
 Thus, however, has our first practical inference 
 from the Clothes-Philosophy, that which respects 
 Dandies, been sufficiently drawn ; and we come now 
 to the second, concerning Tailors. On this latter our 
 opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teufels- 
 drockh himself, as expressed in the concluding page of 
 
TAILORS. 291 
 
 his volume ; to whom, therefore, we willingly give place. 
 Let him speak his own last words, in his own way. 
 
 " Upwards of a century," says he, " must elapse, 
 and still the bleeding fight of freedom be fought, 
 whoso is noblest perishing in the van, and thrones be 
 hurled on altars like Pelion on Ossa, and the Moloch 
 of iniquity have his victims, and the Michael of justice 
 his martyrs, before Tailors can be admitted to their 
 true prerogatives of manhood, and this last wound 
 of suffering humanity be closed. 
 
 " If aught in the history of the world's blindness 
 could surprise us, here might we indeed pause and 
 wonder. An idea has gone abroad, and fixed itself 
 down into a wide-spreading, rooted error, that Tailors 
 are a distinct species in physiology, not men, but 
 fractional parts of a man. Call any one a Schneider 
 (Cutter, Tailor), is it not, in our dislocated, hood- 
 winked, and, indeed, delirious condition of society, 
 equivalent to defying his perpetual, fellest enmity ? 
 The epithet Schneidermassig (Tailor-like), betokens 
 an otherwise unapproachable degree of pusillanimity. 
 We introduce a Tailor's-Melancholy, more opprobri- 
 ous than any leprosy, into our books of medicine; 
 and fable I know not what of his generating it by 
 living on cabbage. Why should I speak of Hans 
 Sachs (himself a Shoemaker, or kind of Leather- 
 Tailor), with his Schneider mit dem Panier ? Why 
 of Shakspeare, in his Taming of the Shrew, and 
 elsewhere ? Does it not stand on record that the 
 English Queen Elizabeth, receiving a deputation of 
 eighteen Tailors, addressed them with a, * Good morn- 
 ing, gentlemen both !' Did not the same virago boast 
 that she had a cavalry regiment, whereof neither horse 
 
292 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 nor man could be injured; her regiment, namely, of 
 Tailors on mares ? Thus everywhere is the falsehood 
 taken for granted, and acted on as an indisputable fact. 
 
 " Nevertheless, need I put the question to any 
 physiologist, whether it is disputable or not? Seems 
 it not at least presumable, that, under his clothes, the 
 Tailor has bones, and viscera, and other muscles than the 
 sartorius ? Which function of manhood is the Tailor 
 not conjectured to perform ? Can he not arrest for debt ? 
 Is he not in most countries a tax-paying animal? 
 
 To no reader of this volume can it be doubtful 
 which conviction is mine. Nay, if the fruit of these 
 long vigils, and almost preternatural inquiries, is not to 
 perish utterly, the world will have approximated to- 
 wards 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 thun- 
 der from heaven and the sceptre from kings;' but 
 which is greater, I would ask, he that lends, or he 
 that snatches ? For, looking away from individual 
 cases, and how a man is by the Tailor new-created 
 into a nobleman, and clothed not only with wool, but 
 with dignity and a mystic dominion, — is not the fair 
 fabric of society itself, with all its royal mantles and 
 pontifical stoles, whereby, from nakedness and dis- 
 memberment, we are organized into polities, into 
 nations, and whole cooperating mankind, the creation, 
 as has here been often irrefragably evinced, of the 
 Tailor alone? — What, too, are all poets, and moral 
 teachers, but a species of metaphorical Tailors ? 
 Touching which high guild, the greatest living guild- 
 
TAILORS. 293 
 
 brother has triumphantly asked us : * Nay, if thou 
 wilt have it, who but the poet first made gods for men; 
 brought them down to us ; and raised us up to them?' 
 
 " And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the 
 hard basis of his shop-board, the world treats with 
 contumely, as the ninth part of a man ! Look up, 
 thou much injured one, look up with the kindling eye 
 of hope, and prophetic bodings of a noble better 
 time. Too long hast thon sat there, on ciossed legs, 
 wearing thy ankle-joints to horn; like some sacred 
 anchorite, or Catholic Fakir, doing penance, drawing 
 down Heaven's richest blessings, for a world that 
 scoffed at thee. Be of hope ! Already streaks of blue 
 peer through our clouds ; the thick gloom of igno- 
 rance is rolling asunder, and it will be day. Man- 
 kind will repay with interest their long-accumulated 
 debt ; the anchorite that was scoffed at will be wor- 
 shipped ; the fraction will become not an integer only, 
 but a square and cube. With astonishment the world 
 will recognize that the Tailor is its hierophant, and 
 hierarch, or even its God. 
 
 "As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and looked 
 upon these four-and-twenty Tailors, sewing and em- 
 broidering 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 
 
 25* 
 
294 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 words, Sic itur ad astra. Was not this the martyr 
 prison-speech of a Tailor, sighing indeed in bonds, yet 
 sighing towards deliverance ; and prophetically appeal- 
 ing to a better day; a day of justice, when the worth 
 of breeches would be revealed to man, and the scissors 
 become forever venerable? 
 
 "Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal 
 been altogether in vain. It was in this high moment, 
 when the soul, rent, as it were, and shed asunder, is 
 open to inspiring influence, that I first conceived this 
 work on Clothes ; the greatest I can ever hope to do ; 
 which has already, after long retardations, occupied, 
 and will yet occupy, so large a section of my life : 
 and of which the primary and simpler portion may 
 here find its conclusion." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FAREWELL. 
 
 Fo 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 nourishment have been 
 added to the scanty ration of our beloved British 
 world, what nobler recompense could the editor de- 
 sire ? If it prove otherwise, why should he murmur ? 
 Was not this a task which destiny, in any case, had 
 appointed him ; which being now done with, he sees 
 
FAREWELL. 295 
 
 his general day's-work so much the lighter, so much 
 the shorter? 
 
 Of Professor Teufelsdrockh it seems impossible to 
 take leave without a mingled feeling of astonishment, 
 gratitude, and disapproval. Who will not regret that 
 talents, which might have profited in the higher walks 
 of philosophy, or in art itself, have been so much de- 
 voted to a rummaging among lumber-rooms ; nay, 
 too often to a scraping in kennels, where lost rings 
 and diamond necklaces are nowise the sole conquests? 
 Regret is unavoidable ; yet censure were loss of time. 
 To cure him of his mad humors British criticism 
 would essay in vain ; enough for her if she can, by 
 vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among our- 
 selves. What a result, should this piebald, entangled, 
 hypermetaphorical 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 him- 
 self, working over Teufelsdrb'ckh's German, lost much 
 of his own English purity ? Even as the smaller 
 whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and made to whirl 
 along with it, so must the lesser mind, in this instance, 
 become portion of the greater, and, like it, see all 
 things figuratively ; which habit, time and assiduous 
 effort will be needed to eradicate. 
 
 Nevertheless, way ward as our Professor shows him- 
 self, 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 al- 
 most attaches us. His attitude, we will hope and 
 believe, is that of a man who had said to Cant, Be- 
 gone ; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst not be: 
 and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me. A 
 
296 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 man who had manfully defied the " Time-Prince," or 
 Devil, to his face ; nay, perhaps, Hannibal-like, was 
 mysteriously consecrated from birth to that warfare, and 
 now stood minded to wage the same, by all weapons, 
 in all places, at all times. In such a cause, any soldier, 
 were he but a Polack Scythe-man, shall be welcome. 
 
 Still the question returns on us : How could a man 
 occasionally of keen insight, not without keen sense 
 of propriety, who had real thoughts to communicate, 
 resolve to emit them in a shape bordering so closely 
 on the absurd ? Which question he were wiser than 
 the present Editor who should satisfactoiily answer. 
 Our conjecture has sometimes been, that perhaps ne- 
 cessity 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 brush full of all colors, against the canvass, to 
 try whether it will paint foam ? With all his still- 
 ness, there were perhaps in Teufelsdrockh desperation 
 enough for this. 
 
 A second conjecture we hazard with even less 
 warranty. It is, that Teufelsdrockh is not without 
 some touch of the universal feeling, a wish to prose- 
 lytize. 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, more- 
 over, is this saying of his : " How were friendship 
 possible ? In mutual devotedness to the good and 
 
FAREWELL. 297 
 
 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 singly would fail in. Infinite 
 is the help man can yield to man." And now in con- 
 junction 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 blotted out for a 
 season ; and two immeasurable phantoms, 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 ? — In which 
 case were this enormous Clothes-volume properly an 
 enormous pitchpan, which our Teufelsdrockh in his 
 lone watch-tower had kindled, that it might flame far 
 and wide through the night, and many a disconsolately 
 wandering spirit be guided thither to a brother's 
 bosom ! — We say as before, with all his malign indiffer- 
 ence, who knows what mad hopes this man may harbor? 
 
 Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here which 
 harmonizes ill with such conjecture ; and, indeed, 
 were Teufelsdrockh made like other men, might as 
 good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while the 
 beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the watchman had 
 quitted it ; that no pilgrim could now ask him : Watch- 
 man, what of the night ? Professor Teufelsdrockh, 
 be it known, is no longer visibly present at Weiss- 
 nichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in space ! 
 
298 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 Some time ago the Hofrath Heuschrecke was pleased 
 to favor us with another copious epistle ; wherein 
 much is said about the " Population Institute ;" much 
 repeated in praise of the Paper-bag Documents, the 
 hieroglyphic nature of which our Hofrath still seems 
 not to have surmised ; and, lastly, the strangest occur- 
 rence communicated, to us for the first time, in the 
 following paragraph : 
 
 41 Ew. TVohlgebohren will have seen, from the pub- 
 lic prints, with what affectionate and hitherto fruitless 
 solicitude Weissnichtwo regards the disappearance of 
 her sage. Might but the united voice of Germany 
 prevail on him to return ; nay, could we but so much 
 as elucidate for ourselves by what mystery he went 
 away ! But, alas, old Leischen experiences or affects 
 the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance. 
 In the Wahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up; 
 the privy council itself can hitherto elicit no answer. 
 
 "It had been remarked that while the agitating 
 news of those Parisian Three Days flew from mouth 
 to mouth, and dinned every ear in Weissnichtwo, Herr 
 Teufelsdrockh was not known, at the Ganse or else- 
 where, to have spoken, for a whole week, any syllable 
 except once these three ; Es geht cm (It is beginning). 
 Shortly after, as Ew. Wohlgebohren knows, was the 
 public tranquillity here, as in Berlin, threatened by a 
 sedition of the Tailors. Nor did there want evil- 
 wishers, or perhaps mere desperate alarmists, who 
 asserted that the closing chapter of the Clothes-volume 
 was to blame. In this appalling crisis, the serenity of 
 our Philosopher was indescribable. Nay, perhaps, 
 through one humble individual, something thereof 
 might pass into the Rath (Council) itself, and so con- 
 
FAREWELL. 299 
 
 tribute to the country's deliverance The Tailors are 
 now entirely pacificated. — To neither of these two 
 incidents can I attribute our loss. Yet still comes 
 there the shadow of a suspicion out of Paris and its 
 politics. For example, when the Saint- Simonian 
 Society transmitted its propositions hither, and the 
 whole Ganse was one vast cackle of laughter, lament- 
 ation, and astonishment, our sage sat mute ; and at 
 the end of the third evening, said merely : ' Here also 
 are men who have discovered, not without amazement, 
 that man is still man ;* of which high, long-forgotten 
 truth you already see them make a false application.' 
 Since then, as has been ascertained by examination of 
 the Post Director, there passed at least one letter with 
 its answer between the Messieurs Bazard Enfantin and 
 our Professor himself; of what tenor can now only be 
 conjectured. On the fifth night following, he was seen 
 for the last time ! 
 
 " Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of 
 the hostile sects that convulse our era, been spirited 
 away by certain of their emissaries ; or did he go 
 forth voluntarily to their head-quarters to confer with 
 them, and confront them ? Reason we have, at least 
 of a negative sort, to believe the Lost still living. Our 
 widowed heart also whispers that ere long he will 
 himself give a sign. Otherwise, indeed, must his 
 archives, one day, be opened by authority ; where 
 much, perhaps the Palingenesie itself, is thought to be 
 reposited." 
 
 Thus far the Hofrath ; who vanishes, as is his wont, 
 too, like an ignis fatuus, leaving the dark still darker. 
 — So that Teufelsdrockh's public history were not 
 done, then, or reduced to an even, unromantic tenor; 
 
300 SARTOR RESARTUS. 
 
 nay, perhaps, the better part thereof were only begin- 
 ning? 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 al- 
 most to certainty, is, that safe-moored in some stillest 
 obscurity, not to lie alway still, Teufelsdrockh is actu- 
 ally in London ! 
 
 Here, however, can the present Editor, with an 
 ambrosial joy as of over-weariness falling into sleep, 
 lay down his pen. Well does he know, if human 
 testimony be worth aught, that to innumerable British 
 readers likewise, it is a satisfying consummation ; that 
 innumerable British readers consider him, during these 
 current months, but as an uneasy interruption to their 
 ways of thought and digestion, not without a certain 
 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, O irritated readers, 
 he, with outstretched arms and open heart, will wave 
 a kind farewell. Thou, too, miraculous Entity, that 
 namest thyself Yorke and Oliver, and with thy viva- 
 cities and genialities, with thy ail-too Irish mirth and 
 madness, and odor of palled punch, makest such 
 strange work, farewellj long as thou canst, fare-well J 
 Have we not, in the course of eternity, travelled some 
 months of our life-journey in partial sight of one 
 another ; have we not lived together, though in a state 
 of quarrel ? 
 
 THE END. 
 
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