Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh

by Thomas Carlyle

  CHAPTER III. REMINISCENCES.

  To the Author's private circle the appearance of this singular Work onClothes must have occasioned little less surprise than it has to therest of the world. For ourselves, at least, few things have been moreunexpected. Professor Teufelsdrockh, at the period of our acquaintancewith him, seemed to lead a quite still and self-contained life: a mandevoted to the higher Philosophies, indeed; yet more likely, if hepublished at all, to publish a refutation of Hegel and Bardili, both ofwhom, strangely enough, he included under a common ban; than to descend,as he has here done, into the angry noisy Forum, with an Argument thatcannot but exasperate and divide. Not, that we can remember, was thePhilosophy of Clothes once touched upon between us. If through thehigh, silent, meditative Transcendentalism of our Friend we detectedany practical tendency whatever, it was at most Political, and towards acertain prospective, and for the present quite speculative, Radicalism;as indeed some correspondence, on his part, with Herr Oken of Jena wasnow 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 anything Didactico-Religious, was looked for from him.

  Well do we recollect the last words he spoke in our hearing; whichindeed, with the Night they were uttered in, are to be foreverremembered. Lifting his huge tumbler of _Gukguk_, [*] and for a momentlowering his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full Coffee-house (it was _ZurGrunen Gans_, the largest in Weissnichtwo, where all the Virtuosity,and nearly all the Intellect of the place assembled of an evening); andthere, 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, proposedthis toast: _Die Sache der Armen in Gottes und Teufels Namen_ (The Causeof the Poor, in Heaven's name and--'s)! One full shout, breaking theleaden silence; then a gurgle of innumerable emptying bumpers, againfollowed by universal cheering, returned him loud acclaim. It was thefinale of the night: resuming their pipes; in the highest enthusiasm,amid volumes of tobacco-smoke; triumphant, cloud-capt without andwithin, the assembly broke up, each to his thoughtful pillow. _Bleibtdoch ein echter Spass_- _und Galgen-vogel_, said several; meaningthereby that, one day, he would probably be hanged for his democraticsentiments. _Wo steckt doch der Schalk_? added they, looking round: butTeufelsdrockh had retired by private alleys, and the Compiler of thesepages beheld him no more.

  * Gukguk is unhappily only an academical-beer.

  In such scenes has it been our lot to live with this Philosopher,such estimate to form of his purposes and powers. And yet, thou braveTeufelsdrockh, who could tell what lurked in thee? Under those thicklocks of thine, so long and lank, overlapping roof-wise the gravest facewe ever in this world saw, there dwelt a most busy brain. In thy eyestoo, 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, andhalf fancied that their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion,the _sleep_ of a spinning-top? Thy little figure, there as, in looseill-brushed threadbare habiliments, thou sattest, amid litter andlumber, whole days, to "think and smoke tobacco," held in it a mightyheart. The secrets of man's Life were laid open to thee; thou sawestinto the mystery of the Universe, farther than another; thou hadst _inpetto_ thy remarkable Volume on Clothes. Nay, was there not in thatclear logically founded Transcendentalism of thine; still more, in thymeek, silent, deep-seated Sansculottism, combined with a true princelyCourtesy of inward nature, the visible rudiments of such speculation?But great men are too often unknown, or what is worse, misknown.Already, when we dreamed not of it, the warp of thy remarkable Volumelay on the loom; and silently, mysterious shuttles were putting in thewoof.

  How the Hofrath Heuschrecke is to furnish biographical data, in thiscase, may be a curious question; the answer of which, however, ishappily not our concern, but his. To us it appeared, after repeatedtrial, that in Weissnichtwo, from the archives or memories of thebest-informed classes, no Biography of Teufelsdrockh was to be gathered;not so much as a false one. He was a stranger there, wafted thither bywhat is called the course of circumstances; concerning whose parentage,birthplace, prospects, or pursuits, curiosity had indeed made inquiries,but satisfied herself with the most indistinct replies. For himself, hewas a man so still and altogether unparticipating, that to questionhim even afar off on such particulars was a thing of more than usualdelicacy: besides, in his sly way, he had ever some quaint turn, notwithout its satirical edge, wherewith to divert such intrusions, anddeter you from the like. Wits spoke of him secretly as if he were a kindof Melchizedek, without father or mother of any kind; sometimes, withreference to his great historic and statistic knowledge, and thevivid way he had of expressing himself like an eye-witness of distanttransactions and scenes, 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; whichThing doubtless they were accustomed to see, and with satisfaction;but no more thought of accounting for than for the fabrication of theirdaily _Allgemeine Zeitung_, or the domestic habits of the Sun. Both werethere and welcome; the world enjoyed what good was in them, and thoughtno more of the matter. The man Teufelsdrockh passed and repassed, in hislittle circle, as one of those originals and nondescripts, more frequentin German Universities than elsewhere; of whom, though you see themalive, and feel certain enough that they must have a History, no Historyseems to be discoverable; or only such as men give of mountain rocks andantediluvian ruins: That they have been created by unknown agencies,are in a state of gradual decay, and for the present reflect lightand resist pressure; that is, are visible and tangible objects in thisphantasm world, where so much other mystery is.

  It was to be remarked that though, by title and diploma, _Professor derAllerley-Wissenschaft_, or as we should say in English, "Professor ofThings in General," he had never delivered any Course; perhaps neverbeen incited thereto by any public furtherance or requisition. To allappearance, the enlightened Government of Weissnichtwo, in foundingtheir New University, imagined they had done enough, if "in times likeours," as the half-official Program expressed it, "when all things are,rapidly or slowly, resolving themselves into Chaos, a Professorship ofthis kind had been established; whereby, as occasion called, the taskof bodying somewhat forth again from such Chaos might be, even slightly,facilitated." That actual Lectures should be held, and Public Classesfor the "Science of Things in General," they doubtless consideredpremature; on which ground too they had only established theProfessorship, nowise endowed it; so that Teufelsdrockh, "recommended bythe highest Names," had been promoted thereby to a Name merely.

  Great, among the more enlightened classes, was the admiration of thisnew Professorship: how an enlightened Government had seen into the Wantof the Age (_Zeitbedurfniss_); how at length, instead of Denialand Destruction, we were to have a science of Affirmation andReconstruction; and Germany and Weissnichtwo were where they should be,in the vanguard of the world. Considerable also was the wonder at thenew Professor, dropt opportunely enough into the nascent University; soable to lecture, should occasion call; so ready to hold his peace forindefinite periods, should an enlightened Government consider thatoccasion did not call. But such admiration and such wonder, beingfollowed 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 morecunning heads thought it was all an expiring clutch at popularity, onthe 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 appearances at the _GruneGans_, Weissnichtwo saw little of him, felt little of him. Here,over his tumbler of Gukguk, he sat reading Journals; sometimescontemplatively looking into the clouds of his tobacco-pipe, withoutother visible employment: always, from his mild ways, an agreeablephenomenon there; more especially when he opened his lips for speech; onwhich occasions the whole Coffee-house would hush itself into silence,as if sure to hear something notewor
thy. Nay, perhaps to hear a wholeseries and river of the most memorable utterances; such as, when oncethawed, he would for hours indulge in, with fit audience: and the morememorable, as issuing from a head apparently not more interested inthem, not more conscious of them, than is the sculptured stone head ofsome public fountain, which through its brass mouth-tube emits water tothe worthy and the unworthy; careless whether it be for cookingvictuals or quenching conflagrations; indeed, maintains the same earnestassiduous look, whether any water be flowing or not.

  To the Editor of these sheets, as to a young enthusiastic Englishman,however unworthy, Teufelsdrockh opened himself perhaps more than to themost. Pity only that we could not then half guess his importance, andscrutinize him with due power of vision! We enjoyed, what not threemen Weissnichtwo could boast of, a certain degree of access to theProfessor's private domicile. It was the attic floor of the highesthouse in the Wahngasse; and might truly be called the pinnacleof Weissnichtwo, for it rose sheer up above the contiguous roofs,themselves rising from elevated ground. Moreover, with its windows itlooked towards all the four _Orte_ or as the Scotch say, and we ought tosay, _Airts_: the sitting room itself commanded three; another came toview in the _Schlafgemach_ (bedroom) at the opposite end; to say nothingof the kitchen, which offered two, as it were, _duplicates_, showingnothing new. So that it was in fact the speculum or watch-tower ofTeufelsdrockh; wherefrom, sitting at ease he might see the wholelife-circulation of that considerable City; the streets and lanes ofwhich, with all their doing and driving (_Thun und Treiben_), were forthe most part visible there.

  "I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive," we have heard himsay, "and witness their wax-laying and honey-making, and poison-brewing,and choking by sulphur. From the Palace esplanade, where music playswhile Serene Highness is pleased to eat his victuals, down to thelow lane, where in her door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thinlivelihood sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see it all; for, exceptSchlosskirche weather-cock, no biped stands so high. Couriers arrivebestrapped and bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged up in pouchesof leather: there, top-laden, and with four swift horses, rolls in thecountry Baron and his household; here, on timber-leg, the lamed Soldierhops painfully along, begging alms: a thousand carriages, and wains,cars, come tumbling in with Food, with young Rusticity, and other RawProduce, inanimate or animate, and go tumbling out again with producemanufactured. That living flood, pouring through these streets, of allqualities and ages, knowest thou whence it is coming, whither it isgoing? _Aus der Ewigkeit, zu der Ewigkeit hin_: From Eternity, onwardsto Eternity! These are Apparitions: what else? Are they not Soulsrendered visible: in Bodies, that took shape and will lose it, meltinginto air? Their solid Pavement is a Picture of the Sense; they walkon the bosom of Nothing, blank Time is behind them and before them. Orfanciest thou, the red and yellow Clothes-screen yonder, with spurson its heels and feather in its crown, is but of To-day, without aYesterday or a To-morrow; and had not rather its Ancestor alive whenHengst and Horsa overran thy Island? Friend, thou seest here a livinglink in that Tissue of History, which inweaves all Being: watch well, orit will be past thee, and seen no more."

  "_Ach, mein Lieber_!" said he once, at midnight, when we had returnedfrom the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, "it is a true sublimity todwell here. These fringes of lamplight, struggling up through smoke andthousand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night,what thinks Bootes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the Zenithin their leash of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, whenTraffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, stillrolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her toHalls roofed in, and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only Viceand Misery, to prowl or to moan like nightbirds, are abroad: that hum,I say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard inHeaven! Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapors, and putrefactions,and unimaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid!The joyful and the sorrowful are there; men are dying there, men arebeing born; men are praying,--on the other side of a brick partition,men are cursing; and around them all is the vast, void Night. The proudGrandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes withindamask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into buckle-beds, or shivershunger-stricken into its lair of straw: in obscure cellars,_Rouge-et-Noir_ languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungryVillains; while Councillors of State sit plotting, and playing theirhigh chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The Lover whispers hismistress that the coach is ready; and she, full of hope and fear, glidesdown, to fly with him over the borders: the Thief, still more silently,sets to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmenfirst snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms anddancing-rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling hearts;but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous andfaint, and bloodshot eyes look out through the darkness, which is aroundand within, for the light of a stern last morning. Six men are to behanged on the morrow: comes no hammering from the _Rabenstein_?--theirgallows must even now be o' building. Upwards of five hundred thousandtwo-legged animals without feathers lie round us, in horizontalposition; their heads all in nightcaps, and full of the foolishestdreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his rank dens ofshame; and the Mother, with streaming hair, kneels over her pallid dyinginfant, whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten.--All these heapedand huddled together, with nothing but a little carpentry and masonrybetween them;--crammed in, like salted fish in their barrel;--orweltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, eachstruggling to get its _head above_ the others: _such_ work goes on underthat smoke-counterpane!--But I, _mein Werther_, sit above it all; I amalone with the stars."

  We looked in his face to see whether, in the utterance of suchextraordinary Night-thoughts, no feeling might be traced there; but withthe light we had, which indeed was only a single tallow-light, and farenough from the window, nothing save that old calmness and fixedness wasvisible.

  These were the Professor's talking seasons: most commonly he spokein mere monosyllables, or sat altogether silent and smoked; while thevisitor had liberty either to say what he listed, receiving for answeran occasional grunt; or to look round for a space, and then take himselfaway. It was a strange apartment; full of books and tattered papers, andmiscellaneous shreds of all conceivable substances, "united in a commonelement of dust." Books lay on tables, and below tables; here fluttereda sheet of manuscript, there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap hastilythrown aside; ink-bottles alternated with bread-crusts, coffee-pots,tobacco-boxes, Periodical Literature, and Blucher Boots. Old Lieschen(Lisekin, 'Liza), who was his bed-maker and stove-lighter, his washerand wringer, cook, errand-maid, and general lion's-provider, and for therest a very orderly creature, had no sovereign authority in this lastcitadel of Teufelsdrockh; only some once in the month she half-forciblymade her way thither, with broom and duster, and (Teufelsdrockh hastilysaving his manuscripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-deliveryof such lumber as was not Literary. These were her _Erdbeben_(earthquakes), which Teufelsdrockh dreaded worse than the pestilence;nevertheless, to such length he had been forced to comply. Glad wouldhe have been to sit here philosophizing forever, or till the litter, byaccumulation, drove him out of doors: but Lieschen was his right-arm,and spoon, and necessary of life, and would not be flatly gainsayed. Wecan still remember the ancient woman; so silent that some thought herdumb; deaf also you would often have supposed her; for Teufelsdrockh,and Teufelsdrockh only, would she serve or give heed to; and with himshe seemed to communicate chiefly by signs; if it were not rather bysome secret divination that she guessed all his wants, and suppliedthem. Assiduous old dame! she scoured, and sorted, and swept, in herkitchen, with the least possible violence to the ear; yet all was tightand right there: hot and black came the coffee ever at the due moment;and the speechless Lieschen herself looked out on you, from under herclean white coif with its lappets, through her clean withered
face andwrinkles, with a look of helpful intelligence, almost of benevolence.

  Few strangers, as above hinted, had admittance hither: the only one weever saw there, ourselves excepted, was the Hofrath Heuschrecke, alreadyknown, by name and expectation, to the readers of these pages. To us,at that period, Herr Heuschrecke seemed one of those purse-mouthed,crane-necked, clean-brushed, pacific individuals, perhaps sufficientlydistinguished in society by this fact, that, in dry weather or in wet,"they never appear without their umbrella." Had we not known with what"little wisdom" the world is governed; and how, in Germany aselsewhere, the ninety-and-nine Public Men can for most part be but mutetrain-bearers to the hundredth, perhaps but stalking-horses and willingor unwilling dupes,--it might have seemed wonderful how Herr Heuschreckeshould be named a _Rath_, or Councillor, and Counsellor, even inWeissnichtwo. What counsel to any man, or to any woman, could thisparticular Hofrath give; in whose loose, zigzag figure; in whosethin visage, as it went jerking to and fro, in minute incessantfluctuation,--you traced rather confusion worse confounded; at most,Timidity and physical Cold? Some indeed said withal, he was "thevery Spirit of Love embodied:" blue earnest eyes, full of sadness andkindness; purse ever open, and so forth; the whole of which, we shallnow hope, for many reasons, was not quite groundless. Neverthelessfriend Teufelsdrockh's outline, who indeed handled the burin like fewin these cases, was probably the best: _Er hat Gemuth und Geist,hat wenigstens gehabt, doch ohne Organ, ohne Schicksals-Gunst; istgegenwartig aber halb-zerruttet, halb-erstarrt_, "He has heart andtalent, at least has had such, yet without fit mode of utterance, orfavor of Fortune; and so is now half-cracked, half-congealed."--Whatthe Hofrath shall think of this when he sees it, readers may wonder; we,safe in the stronghold of Historical Fidelity, are careless.

  The main point, doubtless, for us all, is his love of Teufelsdrockh,which indeed was also by far the most decisive feature of Heuschreckehimself. We are enabled to assert that he hung on the Professor with thefondness of a Boswell for his Johnson. And perhaps 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 lovedhim out of gratitude and by habit. On the other hand, it was curious toobserve with what reverent kindness, and a sort of fatherly protection,our Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and as he fondly imagined farmore practically influential of the two, looked and tended on hislittle Sage, whom he seemed to consider as a living oracle. Let butTeufelsdrockh open his mouth, Heuschrecke's also unpuckered itself intoa free doorway, besides his being all eye and all ear, so that nothingmight be lost: and then, at every pause in the harangue, he gurgled outhis pursy chuckle of a cough-laugh (for the machinery of laughter tooksome time to get in motion, and seemed crank and slack), or else histwanging nasal, _Bravo! Das glaub' ich_; in either case, by way ofheartiest approval. In short, if Teufelsdrockh was Dalai-Lama, of which,except perhaps in his self-seclusion, and godlike indifference, therewas no symptom, then might Heuschrecke pass for his chief Talapoin, towhom no dough-pill he could knead and publish was other than medicinaland sacred.

  In such environment, social, domestic, physical, did Teufelsdrockh, atthe time of our acquaintance, and most likely does he still, live andmeditate. Here, perched up in his high Wahngasse watch-tower, and often,in solitude, outwatching the Bear, it was that the indomitableInquirer fought all his battles with Dulness and Darkness; here, inall probability, that he wrote this surprising Volume on _Clothes_.Additional particulars: of his age, which was of that standing middlesort you could only guess at; of his wide surtout; the color of histrousers, fashion of his broad-brimmed steeple-hat, and so forth, wemight report, but do not. The Wisest truly is, in these times, theGreatest; so that an enlightened curiosity leaving Kings and suchlike to rest very much on their own basis, turns more and more to thePhilosophic Class: nevertheless, what reader expects that, with all ourwriting and reporting, Teufelsdrockh could be brought home to him, tillonce the Documents arrive? His Life, Fortunes, and Bodily Presence, areas yet hidden from us, or matter only of faint conjecture. But, on theother 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.