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 rest
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 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; than to descend, as
he has here done, into the angry noisy Forum, with an Argument 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
anything 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 _Zur Grunen Gans_, 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 und
Teufels Namen_ (The 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 followed by universal cheering, returned him loud
acclaim. It was the finale of the night: resuming their pipes; in the
highest enthusiasm, amid volumes of tobacco-smoke; triumphant, cloud-capt
without and within, the assembly broke up, each to his thoughtful pillow.
_Bleibt doch ein echter Spass_- _und Galgen-vogel_, said several; meaning
thereby that, one day, he would probably be hanged for his democratic
sentiments. _Wo steckt doch der Schalk_? added they, looking round: but
Teufelsdrockh had retired by private alleys, and the Compiler of these
pages 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 brave
Teufelsdrockh, who could tell what lurked in thee? 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 half fancied
that their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion, the _sleep_ of a
spinning-top? Thy little figure, 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, was there not in that clear logically founded
Transcendentalism 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
unknown, 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 biographical data, in this case,
may be a curious question; the answer of which, however, is happily not our
concern, but his. To us it appeared, after repeated 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; concerning whose parentage, birthplace, prospects, or
pursuits, curiosity had indeed made inquiries, but satisfied herself with
the most indistinct replies. For himself, he was a man so still and
altogether unparticipating, 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 knowledge, and the vivid way he had of expressing himself like an
eye-witness of distant transactions 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; 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
_Allgemeine 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 antediluvian
ruins: That they have been created by unknown 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
Allerley-Wissenschaft_, 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
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 considered premature; on which ground
too they had only established the Professorship, nowise endowed it; so that
Teufelsdrockh, "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 enlightened 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 Affirmation and Reconstruction; and Germany
and Weissnichtwo 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 occasion 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 popularity, 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 appearances at the _Grune
Gans_, Weissnichtwo saw little of him, felt little of him. Here, over his
tumbler of Gukguk, he sat reading Journals; sometimes contemplatively
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 Coffee-house would hush itself into silence, as if sure to hear
something noteworthy. 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 enthusiastic 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
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 the four _Orte_
or as the Scotch say, and we ought to say, _Airts_: the sitting room
itself commanded three; another came to view in the _Schlafgemach_
(bedroom) at the opposite end; to say nothing of the kitchen, which offered
two, as it were, _duplicates_, showing nothing new. So that it was in fact
the speculum or watch-tower 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 Treiben_),
were for the most part visible there.
"I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive," we have 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 Schlosskirche
weather-cock, no biped stands so high. Couriers arrive bestrapped and
bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged up in pouches of leather: there,
top-laden, and with four swift horses, rolls in the country Baron and his
household; here, on timber-leg, the lamed Soldier hops painfully along,
begging alms: a thousand carriages, and wains, cars, come tumbling 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? _Aus der Ewigkeit, zu der
Ewigkeit hin_: From Eternity, onwards to Eternity! These are Apparitions:
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 overran 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 we had returned from
the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, "it is a true sublimity to dwell
here. These fringes of lamplight, 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 lain 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 nightbirds, are abroad: that hum, I say, like the stertorous,
unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard in Heaven! 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 are being 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 proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed
saloons, or reposes within damask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into
buckle-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 Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and
bloodshot eyes look out through the darkness, 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. Upwards of five hundred thousand two-legged animals
without feathers lie round 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 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 utterance 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 calmness 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 Literature, and Blucher Boots. Old Lieschen (Lisekin, 'Liza),
who was his bed-maker and stove-lighter, his washer and wringer, cook,
errand-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 manuscripts)
effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery of 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 would he have been to sit here philosophizing
forever, or till the litter, by accumulation, drove him out of doors: but
Lieschen was his right-arm, and spoon, and necessary of life, and would not
be flatly gainsayed. 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 divination 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 Lieschen 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 Heuschrecke, already
known, 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 sufficiently
distinguished 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 as elsewhere,
the ninety-and-nine Public Men can for most part be but mute train-bearers
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. Nevertheless
friend Teufelsdrockh's outline, who indeed handled the burin like few in
these cases, was probably the best: _Er hat Gemuth und Geist, hat
wenigstens gehabt, doch ohne Organ, ohne Schicksals-Gunst; ist gegenwartig
aber halb-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 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 Heuschrecke himself.
We are enabled to assert that he hung on the Professor with the fondness 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 loved him out of
gratitude and by habit. On the other hand, it was curious to observe with
what reverent 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' ich_; in either case, by way of heartiest approval. In short, if
Teufelsdrockh was Dalai-Lama, of which, except perhaps in his
self-seclusion, and godlike indifference, there was no symptom, then might
Heuschrecke pass for his chief Talapoin, to whom no dough-pill he could
knead and 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 watch-tower, and often, in solitude,
outwatching the Bear, it was that 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 middle sort you could only guess at; of his wide
surtout; 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.