Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh

by Thomas Carlyle

  CHAPTER XII. FAREWELL.

  So have we endeavored, from the enormous, amorphous Plum-pudding, morelike a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdrockh had kneaded forhis fellow-mortals, to pick out the choicest Plums, and present themseparately on a cover of our own. A laborious, perhaps a thanklessenterprise; in which, however, something of hope has occasionallycheered us, and of which we can now wash our hands not altogetherwithout satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morselof spiritual nourishment have been added to the scanty ration of ourbeloved British world, what nobler recompense could the Editor desire?If it prove otherwise, why should he murmur? Was not this a Task whichDestiny, in any case, had appointed him; which having now done with, hesees his general Day's-work so much the lighter, so much the shorter?

  Of Professor Teufelsdrockh, it seems impossible to take leave withouta mingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude, and disapproval. Who willnot regret that talents, which might have profited in the higherwalks of Philosophy, or in Art itself, have been so much devoted to arummaging 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 hismad humors British Criticism would essay in vain: enough for her if shecan, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among ourselves. Whata result, should this piebald, entangled, hyper-metaphorical style ofwriting, not to say of thinking, become general among our Literary men!As it might so easily do. Thus has not the Editor himself, working overTeufelsdrockh's German, lost much of his own English purity? Even asthe smaller whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and made to whirl alongwith it, so has the lesser mind, in this instance, been forced to becomeportion of the greater, and, like it, see all things figuratively: whichhabit time and assiduous effort will be needed to eradicate.

  Nevertheless, wayward as our Professor shows himself, is there anyreader that can part with him in declared enmity? Let us confess, thereis that in the wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting man, which almostattaches us. His attitude, we will hope and believe, is that of a manwho had said to Cant, Begone; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst notbe; and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me: a man who hadmanfully 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 PolackScythe-man, shall be welcome.

  Still the question returns on us: How could a man occasionally of keeninsight, not without keen sense of propriety, who had real Thoughts tocommunicate, resolve to emit them in a shape bordering so closely on theabsurd? Which question he were wiser than the present Editor who shouldsatisfactorily answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been, thatperhaps Necessity as well as Choice was concerned in it. Seems itnot conceivable that, in a Life like our Professor's, where so muchbountifully given by Nature had in Practice failed and misgone,Literature also would never rightly prosper: that striving with hischaracteristic vehemence to paint this and the other Picture, and everwithout success, he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of allcolors, against the canvas, to try whether it will paint Foam? With allhis stillness, there were perhaps in Teufelsdrockh desperation enoughfor this.

  A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is, thatTeufelsdrockh, is not without some touch of the universal feeling, awish to proselytize. How often already have we paused, uncertain whetherthe 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? Inmutual devotedness to the Good and True: otherwise impossible; exceptas Armed Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. A man, be the Heavensever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, united inLove, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand singly would failin. Infinite is the help man can yield to man." And now in conjunctiontherewith consider this other: "It is the Night of the World, and stilllong till it be Day: we wander amid the glimmer of smoking ruins, andthe 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 atease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream."

  But what of the awe-struck Wakeful who find it a Reality? Should notthese unite; since even an authentic Spectre is not visible to Two?--Inwhich case were this Enormous Clothes-Volume properly an enormousPitch-pan, which our Teufelsdrockh in his lone watch-tower hadkindled, that it might flame far and wide through the Night, and manya disconsolately wandering spirit be guided thither to a Brother'sbosom!--We say as before, with all his malign Indifference, who knowswhat mad Hopes this man may harbor?

  Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmonizes ill withsuch conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdrockh made like othermen, might as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while theBeacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it; thatno pilgrim could now ask him: Watchman, what of the Night? ProfessorTeufelsdrockh, be it known, is no longer visibly present atWeissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in space! Some time ago,the Hofrath Heuschrecke was pleased to favor us with another copiousEpistle; wherein much is said about the "Population-Institute;" muchrepeated in praise of the Paper-bag Documents, the hieroglyphic natureof which our Hofrath still seems not to have surmised; and, lastly,the strangest occurrence communicated, to us for the first time, in thefollowing paragraph:--

  "_Ew. Wohlgeboren_ will have seen from the Public Prints, with whataffectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo regards thedisappearance of her Sage. Might but the united voice of Germany prevailon him to return; nay could we but so much as elucidate for ourselvesby what mystery he went away! But, alas, old Lieschen experiences oraffects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance: in theWahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up; the Privy Council itselfcan hitherto elicit no answer.

  "It had been remarked that while the agitating news of thoseParisian Three Days flew from mouth to month, and dinned every earin Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdrockh was not known, at the _Gans_ orelsewhere, to have spoken, for a whole week, any syllable except oncethese three: _Es geht an_ (It is beginning). Shortly after, as _Ew.Wohlgeboren_ knows, was the public tranquillity here, as inBerlin, threatened by a Sedition of the Tailors. Nor did there wantEvil-wishers, or perhaps mere desperate Alarmists, who asserted that theclosing Chapter of the Clothes-Volume was to blame. In this appallingcrisis, the serenity of our Philosopher was indescribable: nay, perhapsthrough 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 stillcomes there the shadow of a suspicion out of Paris and its Politics. Forexample, when the _Saint-Simonian Society_ transmitted its Propositionshither, and the whole _Gans_ was one vast cackle of laughter,lamentation and astonishment, our Sage sat mute; and at the end of thethird evening said merely: 'Here also are men who have discovered, notwithout amazement, that Man is still Man; of which high, long-forgottenTruth you already see them make a false application.' Since then, as hasbeen ascertained by examination of the Post-Director, there passed atleast one Letter with its Answer between the Messieurs Bazard-Enfantinand our Professor himself; of what tenor can now only be conjectured. Onthe fifth night following, he was seen for the last time!

  "Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the hostile Sects thatconvulse our Era, been spirited away by certain of their emissaries; ordid he go forth voluntarily to their head-quarters to confer with them,and confront them? Reason we have, at least of a negative sort, tobelieve the Lost still living; our widowed heart also whispers that erelong he will himself give a sign. Otherwise, indeed, his archives must,one day, be opened by Aut
hority; where much, perhaps the _Palingenesie_itself, is thought to be reposited."

  Thus far the Hofrath; who vanishes, as is his wont, too like an IgnisFatuus, leaving the dark still darker.

  So that Teufelsdrockh's public History were not done, then, or reducedto an even, unromantic tenor; nay, perhaps the better part thereof wereonly beginning? We stand in a region of conjectures, where substance hasmelted into shadow, and one cannot be distinguished from the other. MayTime, which solves or suppresses all problems, throw glad light on thisalso! Our own private conjecture, now amounting almost to certainty, isthat, 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 ofover-weariness falling into sleep, lay down his pen. Well does he know,if human testimony be worth aught, that to innumerable British readerslikewise, this is a satisfying consummation; that innumerable Britishreaders consider him, during these current months, but as an uneasyinterruption to their ways of thought and digestion; and indicate somuch, not without a certain irritancy and even spoken invective. Forwhich, as for other mercies, ought not he to thank the Upper Powers? Toone and all of you, O irritated readers, he, with outstretched arms andopen heart, will wave a kind farewell. Thou too, miraculous Entity,who namest thyself YORKE and OLIVER, and with thy vivacities andgenialities, with thy all too Irish mirth and madness, and odor ofpalled punch, makest such strange work, farewell; long as thou canst,_fare-well_! Have we not, in the course of Eternity, travelled somemonths of our Life-journey in partial sight of one another; have we notexisted together, though in a state of quarrel?

  APPENDIX.

  This questionable little Book was undoubtedly written among the mountainsolitudes, in 1831; but, owing to impediments natural and accidental,could not, for seven years more, appear as a Volume in England;--and hadat last to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit bybit, in some courageous _Magazine_ that offered. Whereby now, tocertain idly curious readers, and even to myself till I make study, theinsignificant but at last irritating question, What its real history andchronology are, is, if not insoluble, considerably involved in haze.

  To the first English Edition, 1838, which an American, or two Americanhad now opened the way for, there was slightingly prefixed, under thetitle, "_Testimonies of Authors_," some straggle of real documents,which, now that I find it again, sets the matter into clear light andsequence:--and shall here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks andnugatory guessings from the path of every reader, be reprinted as itstood. (_Author's Note, of_ 1868.)

  TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS.

  I. HIGHEST CLASS, BOOKSELLER'S TASTER.

  _Taster to Bookseller_.--"The Author of _Teufelsdrockh_ is a person oftalent; his work displays here and there some felicity of thought andexpression, considerable fancy and knowledge: but whether or not itwould take with the public seems doubtful. For a _jeu d'esprit_ of thatkind it is too long; it would have suited better as an essay or articlethan as a volume. The Author has no great tact; his wit is frequentlyheavy; and reminds one of the German Baron who took to leaping ontables and answered that he was learning to be lively. _Is_ the work atranslation?"

  _Bookseller to Editor_.--"Allow me to say that such a writer requiresonly 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 inthe 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 justone; 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 clottednonsense,' mixed however, here and there, with passages marked bythought and striking poetic vigor. But what does the writer mean by'Baphometic fire-baptism'? Why cannot he lay aside his pedantry, andwrite so as to make himself generally intelligible? We quote by wayof curiosity a sentence from the _Sartor Resartus_; which may be readeither backwards or forwards, for it is equally intelligible eitherway: 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 itsmeaning: '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, andwill keep inexpugnable; outwards from which the remaining dominions, notindeed without hard battering, will doubtless by degrees be conqueredand 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 nosuch persons as Professors Teufelsdrockh or Counsellor Heuschrecke everexisted; that the six Paper-bags, with their China-ink inscriptionsand multifarious contents, are a mere figment of the brain; that the'present Editor' is the only person who has ever written upon thePhilosophy of Clothes; and that the _Sartor Resartus_ is the onlytreatise that has yet appeared upon that subject;--in short, that thewhole account of the origin of the work before us, which the supposedEditor relates with so much gravity, and of which we have given a briefabstract, is, in plain English, a _hum_.

  "Without troubling our readers at any great length with our reasons forentertaining these suspicions, we may remark, that the absence of allother information on the subject, except what is contained in the work,is itself a fact of a most significant character. The whole Germanpress, as well as the particular one where the work purports to havebeen printed, seems to be under the control of _Stillschweigen and Co._--Silence and Company. If the Clothes-Philosophy and its author aremaking so great a sensation throughout Germany as is pretended, howhappens it that the only notice we have of the fact is contained in afew numbers of a monthly Magazine published at London! How happens itthat no intelligence about the matter has come out directly to thiscountry? We pique ourselves here in New England upon knowing at leastas much of what is going on in the literary way in the old DutchMother-land as our brethren of the fast-anchored Isle; but thus farwe have no tidings whatever of the 'extensive close-printed,close-meditated volume,' which forms the subject of this pretendedcommentary. 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 supposedto have been printed, and the Author to have resided. It has beenour fortune to visit several portions of the German territory, and toexamine pretty carefully, at different times and for various purposes,maps of the whole; but we have no recollection of any such place. Wesuspect that the city of _Know-not-where_ might be called, with atleast as much propriety, _Nobody-knows-where_, and is to befound in the kingdom of _Nowhere_. Again, the village of_Entepfuhl_--'Duck-pond'--where the supposed Author of the work is saidto have passed his youth, and that of _Hinterschlag_, where he had hiseducation, are equally foreign to our geography. Duck-ponds enough thereundoubtedly are in almost every village in Germany, as the travellerin that country knows too well to his cost, but any particular villagedenominated Duck-pond is to us altogether _terra incognita_. The namesof 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 ofappellatives as Diogenes Teufelsdrockh? The supposed bearer ofthis strange title is represented as admitting, in his pretendedautobiography, that 'he had searched to no purpose through all theHeralds' books in and without the German empire, and through all mannerof Subscribers'-lists, Militia-rolls, and other Name-catalogues,'but had nowhere been able to find 'the name Teufelsdrockh, except asappended to his own person.' We can readily believe this, and we doubtvery much whether any Christian parent would think of condemning ason to carry through life the burden of so unpleasant a title. That ofCounsellor Heuschrecke--'Grasshopper'--though not offensive, looks muchmore like a piece
of fancy-work than a 'fair business transaction.'The same may be said of _Blumine_--'Flower-Goddess'--the heroine of thefable; and so of the rest.

  "In short, our private opinion is, as we have remarked, that thewhole story of a correspondence with Germany, a university ofNobody-knows-where, a Professor of Things in General, a CounsellorGrasshopper, a Flower-Goddess Blumine, and so forth, has about asmuch foundation in truth as the late entertaining account of Sir JohnHerschel's discoveries in the moon. Fictions of this kind are, however,not uncommon, and ought not, perhaps, to be condemned with too muchseverity; but we are not sure that we can exercise the same indulgencein regard to the attempt, which seems to be made to mislead the publicas to the substance of the work before us, and its pretended Germanoriginal. Both purport, as we have seen, to be upon the subject ofClothes, or dress. _Clothes, their Origin and Influence_, is the titleof the supposed German treatise of Professor Teufelsdrockh and therather odd name of _Sartor Resartus_--the Tailor Patched--which thepresent Editor has affixed to his pretended commentary, seems to lookthe same way. But though there is a good deal of remark throughout thework in a half-serious, half-comic style upon dress, it seems to be inreality a treatise upon the great science of Things in General, whichTeufelsdrockh, is supposed to have professed at the university ofNobody-knows-where. Now, without intending to adopt a too rigid standardof morals, we own that we doubt a little the propriety of offering tothe public a treatise on Things in General, under the name and in theform of an Essay on Dress. For ourselves, advanced as we unfortunatelyare in the journey of life, far beyond the period when dress ispractically a matter of interest, we have no hesitation in saying,that the real subject of the work is to us more attractive than theostensible one. But this is probably not the case with the mass ofreaders. To the younger portion of the community, which constituteseverywhere the very great majority, the subject of dress is one ofintense and paramount importance. An author who treats it appeals, likethe poet, to the young men end maddens--_virginibus puerisque_--andcalls upon them, by all the motives which habitually operate moststrongly upon their feelings, to buy his book. When, after opening theirpurses for this purpose, they have carried home the work in triumph,expecting to find in it some particular instruction in regard to thetying of their neckcloths, or the cut of their corsets, and meet withnothing better than a dissertation on Things in General, theywill--to use the mildest term--not be in very good humor. If the lastimprovements in legislation, which we have made in this country, shouldhave found their way to England, the author, we think, would standsome chance of being _Lynched_. Whether his object in this pieceof _supercherie_ be merely pecuniary profit, or whether he takes amalicious pleasure in quizzing the Dandies, we shall not undertake tosay. In the latter part of the work, he devotes a separate chapter tothis class of persons, from the tenor of which we should be disposedto conclude, that he would consider any mode of divesting them of theirproperty very much in the nature of a spoiling of the Egyptians.

  "The only thing about the work, tending to prove that it is what itpurports to be, a commentary on a real German treatise, is the style,which is a sort of Babylonish dialect, not destitute, it is true, ofrichness, vigor, and at times a sort of singular felicity of expression,but very strongly tinged throughout with the peculiar idiom of theGerman language. This quality in the style, however, may be a mereresult of a great familiarity with German literature; and we cannot,therefore, look upon it as in itself decisive, still less as outweighingso 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 [*] inwhich they first appeared, under the conviction that they contain inthemselves the assurance of a longer date.

  * _Fraser's_ (London) _Magazine_, 1833-34.

  "The Editors have no expectation that this little Work will have asudden and general popularity. They will not undertake, as there is noneed, to justify the gay costume in which the Author delights todress his thoughts, or the German idioms with which he has sportivelysprinkled his pages. It is his humor to advance the gravest speculationsupon the gravest topics in a quaint and burlesque style. If hismasquerade offend any of his audience, to that degree that they will nothear what he has to say, it may chance to draw others to listen to hiswisdom; and what work of imagination can hope to please all! But we willventure to remark that the distaste excited by these peculiarities insome readers is greatest at first, and is soon forgotten; and that theforeign dress and aspect of the Work are quite superficial, and covera genuine Saxon heart. We believe, no book has been published for manyyears, written in a more sincere style of idiomatic English, or whichdiscovers an equal mastery over all the riches of the language. TheAuthor makes ample amends for the occasional eccentricity of his genius,not only by frequent bursts of pure splendor, but by the wit and sensewhich never fail him.

  "But what will chiefly commend the Book to the discerning reader is themanifest design of the work, which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit ofthe Age--we had almost said, of the hour--in which we live; exhibitingin the most just and novel light the present aspects of Religion,Politics, Literature, Arts, and Social Life. Under all his gayetythe Writer has an earnest meaning, and discovers an insight into themanifold wants and tendencies of human nature, which is very rare amongour popular authors. The philanthropy and the purity of moral sentiment,which inspire the work, will find their way to the heart of every loverof 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 theprinted text. Italicized phrases are delimited by _underscores_.Footnotes (there are only four) have been placed at the ends of theparagraphs referencing them.