CIRCUMSPECTIVE.
Here, then, arises the so momentous question: Have many British Readers
actually arrived with us at the new promised country; is the Philosophy of
Clothes now at last opening around them? Long and adventurous has the
journey been: from those outmost vulgar, palpable Woollen Hulls of Man;
through his wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his wondrous Social Garnitures;
inwards to the Garments of his very Soul's Soul, to Time and Space
themselves! And now does the spiritual, eternal Essence of Man, and of
Mankind, bared of such wrappages, begin in any measure to reveal itself?
Can many readers discern, as through a glass darkly, in huge wavering
outlines, some primeval rudiments of Man's Being, what is changeable
divided from what is unchangeable? Does that Earth-Spirit's speech in
_Faust_,--
"'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply,
And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by; "
or that other thousand-times repeated speech of the Magician,
Shakespeare,--
"And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces,
The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself,
And all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wrack behind;"
begin to have some meaning for us? In a word, do we at length stand safe
in the far region of Poetic Creation and Palingenesia, where that Phoenix
Death-Birth of Human Society, and of all Human Things, appears possible, is
seen to be inevitable?
Along this most insufficient, unheard-of Bridge, which the Editor, by
Heaven's blessing, has now seen himself enabled to conclude if not
complete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope, that
many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, overspanning the
Impassable with paved highway, could the Editor construct; only, as was
said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. Alas, and
the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneck character; the
darkness, the nature of the element, all was against us!
Nevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, provided with a
discursiveness of intellect rare in our day, have cleared the passage, in
spite of all? Happy few! little band of Friends! be welcome, be of
courage. By degrees, the eye grows accustomed to its new Whereabout; the
hand can stretch itself forth to work there: it is in this grand and
indeed highest work of Palingenesia that ye shall labor, each according to
ability. New laborers will arrive; new Bridges will be built; nay, may not
our own poor rope-and-raft Bridge, in your passings and repassings, be
mended in many a point, till it grow quite firm, passable even for the
halt?
Meanwhile, of the innumerable multitude that started with us, joyous and
full of hope, where now is the innumerable remainder, whom we see no longer
by our side? The most have recoiled, and stand gazing afar off, in
unsympathetic astonishment, at our career: not a few, pressing forward
with more courage, have missed footing, or leaped short; and now swim
weltering in the Chaos-flood, some towards this shore, some towards that.
To these also a helping hand should be held out; at least some word of
encouragement be said.
Or, to speak without metaphor, with which mode of utterance Teufelsdrockh
unhappily has somewhat infected us,-- can it be hidden from the Editor that
many a British Reader sits reading quite bewildered in head, and afflicted
rather than instructed by the present Work? Yes, long ago has many a
British Reader been, as now, demanding with something like a snarl:
Whereto does all this lead; or what use is in it?
In the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise aiding thy digestive
faculty, O British Reader, it leads to nothing, and there is no use in it;
but rather the reverse, for it costs thee somewhat. Nevertheless, if
through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufelsdrockh, and we by means of him,
have led thee into the true Land of Dreams; and through the Clothes-Screen,
as through a magical _Pierre-Pertuis_, thou lookest, even for moments, into
the region of the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is
girt with Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches
are Miracles,-- then art thou profited beyond money's worth; and hast a
thankfulness towards our Professor; nay, perhaps in many a literary
Tea-circle wilt open thy kind lips, and audibly express that same.
Nay farther, art not thou too perhaps by this time made aware that all
Symbols are properly Clothes; that all Forms whereby Spirit manifests
itself to sense, whether outwardly or in the imagination, are Clothes; and
thus not only the parchment Magna Charta, which a Tailor was nigh cutting
into measures, but the Pomp and Authority of Law, the sacredness of
Majesty, and all inferior Worships (Worth-ships) are properly a Vesture and
Raiment; and the Thirty-nine Articles themselves are articles of
wearing-apparel (for the Religious Idea)? In which case, must it not also
be admitted that this Science of Clothes is a high one, and may with
infinitely deeper study on thy part yield richer fruit: that it takes
scientific rank beside Codification, and Political Economy, and the Theory
of the British Constitution; nay rather, from its prophetic height looks
down on all these, as on so many weaving-shops and spinning-mills, where
the Vestures which _it_ has to fashion, and consecrate, and distribute,
are, too often by haggard hungry operatives who see no farther than their
nose, mechanically woven and spun?
But omitting all this, much more all that concerns Natural Supernaturalism,
and indeed whatever has reference to the Ulterior or Transcendental portion
of the Science, or bears never so remotely on that promised Volume of the
_Palingenesie der menschlichen Gesellschaft_ (Newbirth of Society),--we
humbly suggest that no province of Clothes-Philosophy, even the lowest, is
without its direct value, but that innumerable inferences of a practical
nature may be drawn therefrom. To say nothing of those pregnant
considerations, ethical, political, symbolical, which crowd on the
Clothes-Philosopher from the very threshold of his Science; nothing even of
those "architectural ideas," which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of
all Modes, and will one day, better unfolding themselves, lead to important
revolutions,--let us glance for a moment, and with the faintest light of
Clothes-Philosophy, on what may be called the Habilatory Class of our
fellow-men. Here too overlooking, where so much were to be looked on, the
million spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, washers, and wringers, that
puddle and muddle in their dark recesses, to make us Clothes, and die that
we may live,--let us but turn the reader's attention upon two small
divisions of mankind, who, like moths, may be regarded as Cloth-animals,
creatures that live, move and have their being in Cloth: we mean, Dandies
and Tailors.
In regard to both which small divisions it may be asserted without scruple,
that the public feeling, unenlightened by Philosophy, is at fault; and even
that the dictates of humanity are violated. As will perhaps abundantly
appear to readers of the two following Chapters.