TAILORS
Thus, however, has our first Practical Inference from the
Clothes-Philosophy, that which respects Dandies, been sufficiently
drawn; and we come now to the second, concerning Tailors. On this
latter our opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teufelsdröckh
himself, as expressed in the concluding page of his Volume, to whom,
therefore, we willingly give place. Let him speak his own last words,
in his own way:
* * * * *
'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
_schneider-mässig_ (tailor-like) betokens an otherwise unapproachable
degree of pusillanimity: we introduce a _Tailor's-Melancholy_, more
opprobrious than any Leprosy, into our Books of Medicine; and fable I
know not what of his generating it by living on Cabbage. Why should I
speak of Hans Sachs (himself a Shoemaker, or kind of Leather-Tailor),
with his _Schneider mit dem Panier_? Why of Shakspeare, in his _Taming
of the Shrew_, and elsewhere? Does it not stand on record that the
English Queen Elizabeth, receiving a deputation of Eighteen Tailors,
addressed them with a "Good morning, gentlemen both!" Did not the same
virago boast that she had a Cavalry Regiment, whereof neither horse
nor man could be injured; her Regiment, namely, of Tailors on Mares?
Thus everywhere is the falsehood taken for granted, and acted-on as an
indisputable fact.
'Nevertheless, need I put the question to any Physiologist, whether it
is disputable or not? Seems it not at least presumable, that, under
his Clothes, the Tailor has bones and viscera, and other muscles than
the sartorious? 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
towards a higher Truth; and the doctrine, which Swift, with the keen
forecast of genius, dimly anticipated, will stand revealed in clear
light: that the Tailor is not only a Man, but something of a Creator
or Divinity. Of Franklin it was said, that "he snatched the Thunder
from Heaven and the Sceptre from Kings": but which is greater, I would
ask, he that lends, or he that snatches? For, looking away from
individual cases, and how a Man is by the Tailor new-created into a
Nobleman, and clothed not only with Wool but with Dignity and a Mystic
Dominion,--is not the fair fabric of Society itself, with all its
royal mantles and pontifical stoles, whereby, from nakedness and
dismemberment, we are organised into Polities, into nations, and a
whole co-operating Mankind, the creation, as has here been often
irrefragably evinced, of the Tailor alone?--What too are all Poets and
moral Teachers, but a species of Metaphorical Tailors? Touching which
high Guild the greatest living Guild-brother has triumphantly asked
us: "Nay if thou wilt have it, who but the Poet first made Gods for
men; brought them down to us; and raised us up to them?"
'And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the hard basis of his
Shopboard, the world treats with contumely, as the ninth part of a
man! Look up, thou much-injured one, look up with the kindling eye of
hope, and prophetic bodings of a noble better time. Too long hast thou
sat there, on crossed legs, wearing thy ankle-joints to horn; like
some sacred Anchorite, or Catholic Fakir, doing penance, drawing down
Heaven's richest blessings, for a world that scoffed at thee. Be of
hope! Already streaks of blue peer through our clouds; the thick gloom
of Ignorance is rolling asunder, and it will be Day. Mankind will
repay with interest their long-accumulated debt: the Anchorite that
was scoffed at will be worshipped; the Fraction will become not an
Integer only, but a Square and Cube. With astonishment the world will
recognise that the Tailor is its Hierophant and Hierarch, or even its
God.
'As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and looked upon these
Four-and-Twenty Tailors, sewing and embroidering that rich Cloth,
which the Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I thought within
myself: How many other Unholies has your covering Art made holy,
besides this Arabian Whinstone!
'Still more touching was it when, turning the corner of a lane, in the
Scottish Town of Edinburgh, I came upon a Signpost, whereon stood
written that such and such a one was "Breeches-Maker to his Majesty";
and stood painted the Effigies of a Pair of Leather Breeches, and
between the knees these memorable words, SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. Was not
this the martyr prison-speech of a Tailor sighing indeed in bonds, yet
sighing towards deliverance, and prophetically appealing to a better
day? A day of justice, when the worth of Breeches would be revealed to
man, and the Scissors become forever venerable.
'Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal been altogether in
vain. It was in this high moment, when the soul, rent, as it were, and
shed asunder, is open to inspiring influence, that I first conceived
this Work on Clothes: the greatest I can ever hope to do; which has
already, after long retardations, occupied, and will yet occupy, so
large a section of my Life; and of which the Primary and simpler
Portion may here find its conclusion.'