APRONS.
One of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Volume is that on
_Aprons_. What though stout old Gao, the Persian Blacksmith, "whose Apron,
now indeed hidden under jewels, because raised in revolt which proved
successful, is still the royal standard of that country;" what though John
Knox's Daughter, "who threatened Sovereign Majesty that she would catch her
husband's head in her Apron, rather than he should lie and be a bishop;"
what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, with many other Apron
worthies,--figure here? An idle wire-drawing spirit, sometimes even a tone
of levity, approaching to conventional satire, is too clearly discernible.
What, for example, are we to make of such sentences as the following?
"Aprons are Defences; against injury to cleanliness, to safety, to modesty,
sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of notched silk (as it were, the
emblem and beatified ghost of an Apron), which some highest-bred housewife,
sitting at Nurnberg Work-boxes and Toy-boxes, has gracefully fastened on;
to the thick-tanned hide, girt round him with thongs, wherein the Builder
builds, and at evening sticks his trowel; or to those jingling sheet-iron
Aprons, wherein your otherwise half-naked Vulcans hammer and smelt in their
smelt-furnace,--is there not range enough in the fashion and uses of this
Vestment? How much has been concealed, how much has been defended in
Aprons! Nay, rightly considered, what is your whole Military and Police
Establishment, charged at uncalculated millions, but a huge
scarlet-colored, iron-fastened Apron, wherein Society works (uneasily
enough); guarding itself from some soil and stithy-sparks, in this
Devil's-smithy (_Teufels-schmiede_) of a world? But of all Aprons the most
puzzling to me hitherto has been the Episcopal or Cassock. Wherein
consists the usefulness of this Apron? The Overseer (_Episcopus_) of
Souls, I notice, has tucked in the corner of it, as if his day's work were
done: what does he shadow forth thereby?" &c. &c.
Or again, has it often been the lot of our readers to read such stuff as we
shall now quote?
"I consider those printed Paper Aprons, worn by the Parisian Cooks, as a
new vent, though a slight one, for Typography; therefore as an
encouragement to modern Literature, and deserving of approval: nor is it
without satisfaction that I hear of a celebrated London Firm having in view
to introduce the same fashion, with important extensions, in England."--We
who are on the spot hear of no such thing; and indeed have reason to be
thankful that hitherto there are other vents for our Literature, exuberant
as it is.--Teufelsdrockh continues: "If such supply of printed Paper
should rise so far as to choke up the highways and public thoroughfares,
new means must of necessity be had recourse to. In a world existing by
Industry, we grudge to employ fire as a destroying element, and not as a
creating one. However, Heaven is omnipotent, and will find us an outlet.
In the mean while, is it not beautiful to see five million quintals of Rags
picked annually from the Laystall; and annually, after being macerated,
hot-pressed, printed on, and sold,--returned thither; filling so many
hungry mouths by the way? Thus is the Laystall, especially with its Rags
or Clothes-rubbish, the grand Electric Battery, and Fountain-of-motion,
from which and to which the Social Activities (like vitreous and resinous
Electricities) circulate, in larger or smaller circles, through the mighty,
billowy, storm-tost chaos of Life, which they keep alive!"--Such passages
fill us, who love the man, and partly esteem him, with a very mixed
feeling.
Farther down we meet with this: "The Journalists are now the true Kings
and Clergy: henceforth Historians, unless they are fools, must write not
of Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs; but of Stamped Broad-sheet
Dynasties, and quite new successive Names, according as this or the other
Able Editor, or Combination of Able Editors, gains the world's ear. Of the
British Newspaper Press, perhaps the most important of all, and wonderful
enough in its secret constitution and procedure, a valuable descriptive
History already exists, in that language, under the title of _Satan's
Invisible World Displayed_; which, however, by search in all the
Weissnichtwo Libraries, I have not yet succeeded in procuring (_vermochte
night aufzutreiben_)."
Thus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus does Teufelsdrockh,
wandering in regions where he had little business, confound the old
authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, spurious, imaginary
Historian of the _Brittische Journalistik_; and so stumble on perhaps the
most egregious blunder in Modern Literature!