So have we endeavored, from the enormous, amorphous Plum-pudding, more
like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdrockh had kneaded for
his fellow-mortals, to pick out the choicest Plums, and present them
separately on a cover of our own. A laborious, perhaps a thankless
enterprise; in which, however, something of hope has occasionally
cheered us, and of which we can now wash our hands not altogether
without satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morsel
of spiritual nourishment have been added to the scanty ration of our
beloved British world, what nobler recompense could the Editor desire?
If it prove otherwise, why should he murmur? Was not this a Task which
Destiny, in any case, had appointed him; which having now done with, he
sees his general Day's-work so much the lighter, so much the shorter?
Of Professor Teufelsdrockh, it seems impossible to take leave without
a mingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude, and disapproval. Who will
not regret that talents, which might have profited in the higher
walks of Philosophy, or in Art itself, have been so much devoted to a
rummaging among lumber-rooms; nay too often to a scraping in kennels,
where lost rings and diamond-necklaces are nowise the sole conquests?
Regret is unavoidable; yet censure were loss of time. To cure him of his
mad humors British Criticism would essay in vain: enough for her if she
can, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among ourselves. What
a result, should this piebald, entangled, hyper-metaphorical style of
writing, not to say of thinking, become general among our Literary men!
As it might so easily do. Thus has not the Editor himself, working over
Teufelsdrockh's German, lost much of his own English purity? Even as
the smaller whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and made to whirl along
with it, so has the lesser mind, in this instance, been forced to become
portion of the greater, and, like it, see all things figuratively: which
habit time and assiduous effort will be needed to eradicate.
Nevertheless, wayward as our Professor shows himself, is there any
reader that can part with him in declared enmity? Let us confess, there
is that in the wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting man, which almost
attaches us. His attitude, we will hope and believe, is that of a man
who had said to Cant, Begone; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst not
be; and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me: a man who had
manfully defied the "Time-Prince," or Devil, to his face; nay perhaps,
Hannibal-like, was mysteriously consecrated from birth to that warfare,
and now stood minded to wage the same, by all weapons, in all places,
at all times. In such a cause, any soldier, were he but a Polack
Scythe-man, shall be welcome.
Still the question returns on us: How could a man occasionally of keen
insight, not without keen sense of propriety, who had real Thoughts to
communicate, resolve to emit them in a shape bordering so closely on the
absurd? Which question he were wiser than the present Editor who should
satisfactorily answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been, that
perhaps Necessity as well as Choice was concerned in it. Seems it
not conceivable that, in a Life like our Professor's, where so much
bountifully given by Nature had in Practice failed and misgone,
Literature also would never rightly prosper: that striving with his
characteristic vehemence to paint this and the other Picture, and ever
without success, he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of all
colors, against the canvas, to try whether it will paint Foam? With all
his stillness, there were perhaps in Teufelsdrockh desperation enough
for this.
A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is, that
Teufelsdrockh, is not without some touch of the universal feeling, a
wish to proselytize. How often already have we paused, uncertain whether
the basis of this so enigmatic nature were really Stoicism and Despair,
or Love and Hope only seared into the figure of these! Remarkable,
moreover, is this saying of his: "How were Friendship possible? In
mutual devotedness to the Good and True: otherwise impossible; except
as Armed Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. A man, be the Heavens
ever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, united in
Love, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand singly would fail
in. Infinite is the help man can yield to man." And now in conjunction
therewith consider this other: "It is the Night of the World, and still
long till it be Day: we wander amid the glimmer of smoking ruins, and
the Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as if blotted out for a season;
and two immeasurable Phantoms, HYPOCRISY and ATHEISM, with the Ghoul,
SENSUALITY, stalk abroad over the Earth, and call it theirs: well at
ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream."
But what of the awe-struck Wakeful who find it a Reality? Should not
these unite; since even an authentic Spectre is not visible to Two?--In
which case were this Enormous Clothes-Volume properly an enormous
Pitch-pan, which our Teufelsdrockh in his lone watch-tower had
kindled, that it might flame far and wide through the Night, and many
a disconsolately wandering spirit be guided thither to a Brother's
bosom!--We say as before, with all his malign Indifference, who knows
what mad Hopes this man may harbor?
Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmonizes ill with
such conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdrockh made like other
men, might as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while the
Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it; that
no pilgrim could now ask him: Watchman, what of the Night? Professor
Teufelsdrockh, be it known, is no longer visibly present at
Weissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in space! Some time ago,
the Hofrath Heuschrecke was pleased to favor us with another copious
Epistle; wherein much is said about the "Population-Institute;" much
repeated in praise of the Paper-bag Documents, the hieroglyphic nature
of which our Hofrath still seems not to have surmised; and, lastly,
the strangest occurrence communicated, to us for the first time, in the
following paragraph:--
"_Ew. Wohlgeboren_ will have seen from the Public Prints, with what
affectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo regards the
disappearance of her Sage. Might but the united voice of Germany prevail
on him to return; nay could we but so much as elucidate for ourselves
by what mystery he went away! But, alas, old Lieschen experiences or
affects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance: in the
Wahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up; the Privy Council itself
can hitherto elicit no answer.
"It had been remarked that while the agitating news of those
Parisian Three Days flew from mouth to month, and dinned every ear
in Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdrockh was not known, at the _Gans_ or
elsewhere, to have spoken, for a whole week, any syllable except once
these three: _Es geht an_ (It is beginning). Shortly after, as _Ew.
Wohlgeboren_ knows, was the public tranquillity here, as in
Berlin, threatened by a Sedition of the Tailors. Nor did there want
Evil-wishers, or perhaps mere desperate Alarmists, who asserted that the
closing Chapter of the Clothes-Volume was to blame. In this appalling
crisis, the serenity of our Philosopher was indescribable: nay, perhaps
through one humble individual, something thereof might pass into the
_Rath_ (Council) itself, and so contribute to the country's deliverance.
The Tailors are now entirely pacificated.--
"To neither of these two incidents can I attribute our loss: yet still
comes there the shadow of a suspicion out of Paris and its Politics. For
example, when the _Saint-Simonian Society_ transmitted its Propositions
hither, and the whole _Gans_ was one vast cackle of laughter,
lamentation and astonishment, our Sage sat mute; and at the end of the
third evening said merely: 'Here also are men who have discovered, not
without amazement, that Man is still Man; of which high, long-forgotten
Truth you already see them make a false application.' Since then, as has
been ascertained by examination of the Post-Director, there passed at
least one Letter with its Answer between the Messieurs Bazard-Enfantin
and our Professor himself; of what tenor can now only be conjectured. On
the fifth night following, he was seen for the last time!
"Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the hostile Sects that
convulse our Era, been spirited away by certain of their emissaries; or
did he go forth voluntarily to their head-quarters to confer with them,
and confront them? Reason we have, at least of a negative sort, to
believe the Lost still living; our widowed heart also whispers that ere
long he will himself give a sign. Otherwise, indeed, his archives must,
one day, be opened by Authority; where much, perhaps the _Palingenesie_
itself, is thought to be reposited."
Thus far the Hofrath; who vanishes, as is his wont, too like an Ignis
Fatuus, leaving the dark still darker.
So that Teufelsdrockh's public History were not done, then, or reduced
to an even, unromantic tenor; nay, perhaps the better part thereof were
only beginning? We stand in a region of conjectures, where substance has
melted into shadow, and one cannot be distinguished from the other. May
Time, which solves or suppresses all problems, throw glad light on this
also! Our own private conjecture, now amounting almost to certainty, is
that, safe-moored in some stillest obscurity, not to lie always still,
Teufelsdrockh, is actually in London!
Here, however, can the present Editor, with an ambrosial joy as of
over-weariness falling into sleep, lay down his pen. Well does he know,
if human testimony be worth aught, that to innumerable British readers
likewise, this is a satisfying consummation; that innumerable British
readers consider him, during these current months, but as an uneasy
interruption to their ways of thought and digestion; and indicate so
much, not without a certain irritancy and even spoken invective. For
which, as for other mercies, ought not he to thank the Upper Powers? To
one and all of you, O irritated readers, he, with outstretched arms and
open heart, will wave a kind farewell. Thou too, miraculous Entity,
who namest thyself YORKE and OLIVER, and with thy vivacities and
genialities, with thy all too Irish mirth and madness, and odor of
palled punch, makest such strange work, farewell; long as thou canst,
_fare-well_! Have we not, in the course of Eternity, travelled some
months of our Life-journey in partial sight of one another; have we not
existed together, though in a state of quarrel?
APPENDIX.
This questionable little Book was undoubtedly written among the mountain
solitudes, in 1831; but, owing to impediments natural and accidental,
could not, for seven years more, appear as a Volume in England;--and had
at last to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit by
bit, in some courageous _Magazine_ that offered. Whereby now, to
certain idly curious readers, and even to myself till I make study, the
insignificant but at last irritating question, What its real history and
chronology are, is, if not insoluble, considerably involved in haze.
To the first English Edition, 1838, which an American, or two American
had now opened the way for, there was slightingly prefixed, under the
title, "_Testimonies of Authors_," some straggle of real documents,
which, now that I find it again, sets the matter into clear light and
sequence:--and shall here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks and
nugatory guessings from the path of every reader, be reprinted as it
stood. (_Author's Note, of_ 1868.)
TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS.
I. HIGHEST CLASS, BOOKSELLER'S TASTER.
_Taster to Bookseller_.--"The Author of _Teufelsdrockh_ is a person of
talent; his work displays here and there some felicity of thought and
expression, considerable fancy and knowledge: but whether or not it
would take with the public seems doubtful. For a _jeu d'esprit_ of that
kind it is too long; it would have suited better as an essay or article
than as a volume. The Author has no great tact; his wit is frequently
heavy; and reminds one of the German Baron who took to leaping on
tables and answered that he was learning to be lively. _Is_ the work a
translation?"
_Bookseller to Editor_.--"Allow me to say that such a writer requires
only a little more tact to produce a popular as well as an able work.
Directly on receiving your permission, I sent your MS. to a gentleman in
the highest class of men of letters, and an accomplished German scholar:
I now enclose you his opinion, which, you may rely upon it, is a just
one; and I have too high an opinion of your good sense to" &c. &c.--_Ms.
(penes nos), London, 17th September_, 1831.
II. CRITIC OF THE SUN.
"_Fraser's Magazine_ exhibits the usual brilliancy, and also the" &c.
"_Sartor Resartus_ is what old Dennis used to call 'a heap of clotted
nonsense,' mixed however, here and there, with passages marked by
thought and striking poetic vigor. But what does the writer mean by
'Baphometic fire-baptism'? Why cannot he lay aside his pedantry, and
write so as to make himself generally intelligible? We quote by way
of curiosity a sentence from the _Sartor Resartus_; which may be read
either backwards or forwards, for it is equally intelligible either
way: indeed, by beginning at the tail, and so working up to the head,
we think the reader will stand the fairest chance of getting at its
meaning: 'The fire-baptized soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven,
here feels its own freedom; which feeling is its Baphometic baptism:
the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus gained by assault, and
will keep inexpugnable; outwards from which the remaining dominions, not
indeed without hard battering, will doubtless by degrees be conquered
and pacificated.' Here is a"...--_Sun Newspaper, 1st April_, 1834.
III. NORTH--AMERICAN REVIEWER.
... "After a careful survey of the whole ground, our belief is that no
such persons as Professors Teufelsdrockh or Counsellor Heuschrecke ever
existed; that the six Paper-bags, with their China-ink inscriptions
and multifarious contents, are a mere figment of the brain; that the
'present Editor' is the only person who has ever written upon the
Philosophy of Clothes; and that the _Sartor Resartus_ is the only
treatise that has yet appeared upon that subject;--in short, that the
whole account of the origin of the work before us, which the supposed
Editor relates with so much gravity, and of which we have given a brief
abstract, is, in plain English, a _hum_.
"Without troubling our readers at any great length with our reasons for
entertaining these suspicions, we may remark, that the absence of all
other information on the subject, except what is contained in the work,
is itself a fact of a most significant character. The whole German
press, as well as the particular one where the work purports to have
been printed, seems to be under the control of _Stillschweigen and Co.
_--Silence and Company. If the Clothes-Philosophy and its author are
making so great a sensation throughout Germany as is pretended, how
happens it that the only notice we have of the fact is contained in a
few numbers of a monthly Magazine published at London! How happens it
that no intelligence about the matter has come out directly to this
country? We pique ourselves here in New England upon knowing at least
as much of what is going on in the literary way in the old Dutch
Mother-land as our brethren of the fast-anchored Isle; but thus far
we have no tidings whatever of the 'extensive close-printed,
close-meditated volume,' which forms the subject of this pretended
commentary. Again, we would respectfully inquire of the 'present Editor'
upon what part of the map of Germany we are to look for the city of
_Weissnichtwo_--'Know-not-where'--at which place the work is supposed
to have been printed, and the Author to have resided. It has been
our fortune to visit several portions of the German territory, and to
examine pretty carefully, at different times and for various purposes,
maps of the whole; but we have no recollection of any such place. We
suspect that the city of _Know-not-where_ might be called, with at
least as much propriety, _Nobody-knows-where_, and is to be
found in the kingdom of _Nowhere_. Again, the village of
_Entepfuhl_--'Duck-pond'--where the supposed Author of the work is said
to have passed his youth, and that of _Hinterschlag_, where he had his
education, are equally foreign to our geography. Duck-ponds enough there
undoubtedly are in almost every village in Germany, as the traveller
in that country knows too well to his cost, but any particular village
denominated Duck-pond is to us altogether _terra incognita_. The names
of the personages are not less singular than those of the places.
Who can refrain from a smile at the yoking together of such a pair of
appellatives as Diogenes Teufelsdrockh? The supposed bearer of
this strange title is represented as admitting, in his pretended
autobiography, that 'he had searched to no purpose through all the
Heralds' books in and without the German empire, and through all manner
of Subscribers'-lists, Militia-rolls, and other Name-catalogues,'
but had nowhere been able to find 'the name Teufelsdrockh, except as
appended to his own person.' We can readily believe this, and we doubt
very much whether any Christian parent would think of condemning a
son to carry through life the burden of so unpleasant a title. That of
Counsellor Heuschrecke--'Grasshopper'--though not offensive, looks much
more like a piece of fancy-work than a 'fair business transaction.'
The same may be said of _Blumine_--'Flower-Goddess'--the heroine of the
fable; and so of the rest.
"In short, our private opinion is, as we have remarked, that the
whole story of a correspondence with Germany, a university of
Nobody-knows-where, a Professor of Things in General, a Counsellor
Grasshopper, a Flower-Goddess Blumine, and so forth, has about as
much foundation in truth as the late entertaining account of Sir John
Herschel's discoveries in the moon. Fictions of this kind are, however,
not uncommon, and ought not, perhaps, to be condemned with too much
severity; but we are not sure that we can exercise the same indulgence
in regard to the attempt, which seems to be made to mislead the public
as to the substance of the work before us, and its pretended German
original. Both purport, as we have seen, to be upon the subject of
Clothes, or dress. _Clothes, their Origin and Influence_, is the title
of the supposed German treatise of Professor Teufelsdrockh and the
rather odd name of _Sartor Resartus_--the Tailor Patched--which the
present Editor has affixed to his pretended commentary, seems to look
the same way. But though there is a good deal of remark throughout the
work in a half-serious, half-comic style upon dress, it seems to be in
reality a treatise upon the great science of Things in General, which
Teufelsdrockh, is supposed to have professed at the university of
Nobody-knows-where. Now, without intending to adopt a too rigid standard
of morals, we own that we doubt a little the propriety of offering to
the public a treatise on Things in General, under the name and in the
form of an Essay on Dress. For ourselves, advanced as we unfortunately
are in the journey of life, far beyond the period when dress is
practically a matter of interest, we have no hesitation in saying,
that the real subject of the work is to us more attractive than the
ostensible one. But this is probably not the case with the mass of
readers. To the younger portion of the community, which constitutes
everywhere the very great majority, the subject of dress is one of
intense and paramount importance. An author who treats it appeals, like
the poet, to the young men end maddens--_virginibus puerisque_--and
calls upon them, by all the motives which habitually operate most
strongly upon their feelings, to buy his book. When, after opening their
purses for this purpose, they have carried home the work in triumph,
expecting to find in it some particular instruction in regard to the
tying of their neckcloths, or the cut of their corsets, and meet with
nothing better than a dissertation on Things in General, they
will--to use the mildest term--not be in very good humor. If the last
improvements in legislation, which we have made in this country, should
have found their way to England, the author, we think, would stand
some chance of being _Lynched_. Whether his object in this piece
of _supercherie_ be merely pecuniary profit, or whether he takes a
malicious pleasure in quizzing the Dandies, we shall not undertake to
say. In the latter part of the work, he devotes a separate chapter to
this class of persons, from the tenor of which we should be disposed
to conclude, that he would consider any mode of divesting them of their
property very much in the nature of a spoiling of the Egyptians.
"The only thing about the work, tending to prove that it is what it
purports to be, a commentary on a real German treatise, is the style,
which is a sort of Babylonish dialect, not destitute, it is true, of
richness, vigor, and at times a sort of singular felicity of expression,
but very strongly tinged throughout with the peculiar idiom of the
German language. This quality in the style, however, may be a mere
result of a great familiarity with German literature; and we cannot,
therefore, look upon it as in itself decisive, still less as outweighing
so much evidence of an opposite character."--_North-American Review, No.
89, October_, 1835.
IV. NEW ENGLAND EDITORS.
"The Editors have been induced, by the expressed desire of many persons,
to collect the following sheets out of the ephemeral pamphlets [*] in
which they first appeared, under the conviction that they contain in
themselves the assurance of a longer date.
* _Fraser's_ (London) _Magazine_, 1833-34.
"The Editors have no expectation that this little Work will have a
sudden and general popularity. They will not undertake, as there is no
need, to justify the gay costume in which the Author delights to
dress his thoughts, or the German idioms with which he has sportively
sprinkled his pages. It is his humor to advance the gravest speculations
upon the gravest topics in a quaint and burlesque style. If his
masquerade offend any of his audience, to that degree that they will not
hear what he has to say, it may chance to draw others to listen to his
wisdom; and what work of imagination can hope to please all! But we will
venture to remark that the distaste excited by these peculiarities in
some readers is greatest at first, and is soon forgotten; and that the
foreign dress and aspect of the Work are quite superficial, and cover
a genuine Saxon heart. We believe, no book has been published for many
years, written in a more sincere style of idiomatic English, or which
discovers an equal mastery over all the riches of the language. The
Author makes ample amends for the occasional eccentricity of his genius,
not only by frequent bursts of pure splendor, but by the wit and sense
which never fail him.
"But what will chiefly commend the Book to the discerning reader is the
manifest design of the work, which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit of
the Age--we had almost said, of the hour--in which we live; exhibiting
in the most just and novel light the present aspects of Religion,
Politics, Literature, Arts, and Social Life. Under all his gayety
the Writer has an earnest meaning, and discovers an insight into the
manifold wants and tendencies of human nature, which is very rare among
our popular authors. The philanthropy and the purity of moral sentiment,
which inspire the work, will find their way to the heart of every lover
of virtue."--_Preface to Sartor Resartus: Boston_, 1835, 1837.
SUNT, FUERUNT VEL FUERE.
LONDON, 30th June, 1838.
Transcriber's Note: All spelling and punctuation was kept as in the
printed text. Italicized phrases are delimited by _underscores_.
Footnotes (there are only four) have been placed at the ends of the
paragraphs referencing them.