45 9. inane limboes. See Orlando Furioso, Cant. xxxiv., the Limbo of Vanity.

Deep in a vale, conducted by his guide,

Where rose a mountain steep on either side,

He came and saw (a wonder to relate)
Whate'er was wasted in our earthly state
Here safely treasured: each neglected good;
Time squander'd, or occasion ill-bestow'd.

Hoole's Translation, 11. 562-567.

45 22. a mighty maze.

Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man ;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.

POPE, Essay on Man, i. 5 f.

45 26. Biographical Documents. See 23 18, n.

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.

46 12. das Wesen. For an example of an 'Ich' naming itself, see Essays, II, 177.

46 23. Cogito. The famous phrase of Descartes (1596–1650): 'Ac proinde haec cognitio, ego cogito, ergo sum, est omnium prima et certissima, quae cuilibet ordine philosophanti occurrat.' Principia Philosophiae, I, 7 and 10. Amsterdam, 1650.

46 31. Dream-grotto. Apparently an allusion to the famous cave of Plato. Republic, Bk. VII.

47 3. Creation says. See Essays, Richter, II, 224.

47 9. a net quotient.

116 24, and n.; also 173 28.

For similar mathematical figure, see

47 11. Moscow Retreats. In 1811-12, Napoleon invaded Russia with 600,000 men, reached Moscow, and by the destruction of the city was compelled to retreat in the midst of winter. The consequent suffering and loss of life were terrible.

47 17. right hand. See Jonah iv. 11.

47 20. the Sphinx's secret. "The riddle proposed by the Sphinx ran in these terms: What creature is it that moves on four

feet in the morning, on two feet at noonday, and on three towards the going down of the sun?' Edipus, after some consideration, answered that the creature was MAN, who creeps on the ground with hands and feet when an infant, walks upright in the vigor of manhood, and leans upon a staff in old age. Immediately the dreadful Sphinx confessed the truth of his solution by throwing herself headlong from a point of rock into the sea; her power being overthrown as soon as her secret had been detected." De Quincey, The Sphinx's Riddle, Collected Works, vol. XX. Boston, 1856.

47 29. nothing can act. See also 48 15, n. 48 14. no Space and no Time. Carlyle is among the first to popularize German philosophy in England. His own exposition is of the clearest.

"The Idealist, again, boasts that his Philosphy is Transcendental, that is, 'ascending beyond the senses'; which, he asserts, all Philosophy, properly so-called, by its nature is and must be: and in this way he is led to various unexpected conclusions. To a Transcendentalist, Matter has an existence, but only as a Phenomenon were we not there, neither would it be there; it is a mere Relation, or rather the result of a Relation between our living Souls and the great First Cause; and depends for its apparent qualities on our bodily and mental organs; having itself no intrinsic qualities; being, in the common sense of that word, Nothing. The tree is green and hard, not of its own natural virtue, but simply because my eye and my hand are fashioned so as to discern such and such appearances under such and such conditions. Nay, as an Idealist might say, even on the most popular grounds, must it not be so? Bring a sentient Being with eyes a little different, with fingers ten times harder than mine; and to him that Thing which I call Tree shall be yellow and soft, as truly as to me it is green and hard. Form his Nervous-structure in all points the reverse of mine, and this same Tree shall not be combustible or heat-producing, but dissoluble and cold-producing, not high and convex, but deep and concave; shall simply have all properties exactly the reverse of those I attribute to it. There is, in fact, says Fichte, no Tree there ; but only a Manifestation of Power from something which is not I. The same is true of material Nature at large, of the whole visible Universe, with all its movements, figures, accidents and qualities; all are Impressions produced on me by something different from me. This, we suppose, may be the foundation of what Fichte means by his far-famed Ich and Nicht-Ich (I and Not-I);

Bk. I, Cap. VIII.] WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. of clothes.

309

words which, taking lodging (to use the Hudibrastic phrase) in certain 'heads that were to be let unfurnished' occasioned a hollow echo, as of Laughter from the empty Apartments; though the words are in themselves quite harmless, and may represent the basis of a metaphysical Philosophy as fitly as any other words. But farther, and what is still stranger than such Idealism, according to these Kantean systems, the organs of the Mind too, what is called the Understanding, are of no less arbitrary and, as it were, accidental character than those of the Body. Time and Space themselves are not external but internal entities: they have no outward existence; there is no Time and no Space out of the mind; they are mere forms of man's spiritual being, laws under which his thinking nature is constituted to act. This seems the hardest conclusion of all, but it is an important one with Kant; and is not given forth as a dogma but carefully deduced in his Critik der Reinen Vernunft with great precision, and the strictest form of argument." Novalis, II, 103 f.

Essays,

48 15. light-sparkles. See De Quincey, Analects from Richter, Dream on the Universe, XIII, 138. Edin., 1863. "Nothing can act but where it is? True-if you will only where is it? Is not the distant, the dead, whom I love and sorrow for, HERE, in the genuine spiritual sense, as really as the table I now write on? Space is a mode of our sense, so is time (this I only half understand); we are we know not what — light sparkles floating in the aether of the Divinity!" Journal, June 8, 1830, C. E. L., II, 85; cp. 47 29. 48 20. 'phantasy of our Dream.' Cp. 46 31, n.

48 21. Faust. Goethe's dramatic poem, published in 1808; based on the mediaeval legend of the scholar who sold his soul for supernatural power and knowledge. See Ward's Clarendon Press edition of Doctor Faustus, Introd.

48 23. In Being's floods. See Faust, I, sc. 1, 11. 501-509.

49 5. Horse I ride. Though not a good horseman, Carlyle rode much all his life. See C. E. L., I, 331 n., II, 127; E. Lett., 275, n., 280, 285, 338; Rem., I, 201.

49 33. Strange enough. Cp. Bk. III, cap. viii. for same idea expanded.

50 13. one and indivisible. The watchword of the first French Republic. Cp. 83 4.

50 20. Dutch Cows. I find that in Carlyle's time, English graziers and 'agricultural dandies' dressed sheep in such garments. Carlyle could not have seen Gouda at this time; but must have

got the notion from some book, probably from one of Richter's. See B. H. Malkin, Classical Disquisitions and Curiosities, p. 431, Lond., 1825, who cites Sallust, ii. 47, to show that the practice was known to the ancients.

50 26. forked straddling animal. Cp. Lear, iii. 4.

51 6. Adamite. "Adamians go naked, because Adam did so in Paradise." Anatomy of Melancholy, Part 3, Sect. 4, mem. 1, sub. 3, p. 624. "One Picardus, a Frenchman, that invented a new sect of Adamites, to go naked as Adam did,” ib., Part 3, Sect. 3, mem. 4, sub. 2, p. 585. For Carlyle's reading in 1826, see C. E. L., I, 385. 51 13. sattest muling.

- At first, the infant

Mewling and puking in his nurse's arms.

As You Like It, ii. 7.

51 23. Buck or Blood. Slang names for ultra-fashionable young men at various times. The Macaroni, distinguished by a roll of hair on the top of his head, made his appearance about 1786. See Fairholt's History of Costume, I, 391; the Incroyable in the time of the Directory. The reign of the Dandies was from about 1813 to 1830. Byron and Lytton represent them among men of letters. The Fraser portrait of Count D'Orsay preserves for later ages a suggestion of their splendor. Some of these words survive in current American slang and local usage: e.g., Buck Fanshaw's Funeral, Yankee Doodle. "Buck " in the compound "country-buck" and are thoroughly understood in rural Ontario. For dress of 'buck,' see D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, I, 422. Lond., 1817. 52 6. Horse I ride. See 49 5.

"blood ""

52 12. deep calling. Ps. xlii. 7, adapted.

52 16.

'sailor of the air.'

"Und diese Wolken die nach Mittag jagen,

Sie suchen Frankreichs fernen Ozean.

Eilende Wolken, Segler der Lüfte - "

SCHILLER, Maria Stuart, iii. 1.

Cp. Carlyle, Life of Schiller, p. 134. Lond., 1874. - wreck of matter.

The soul secured in her existence smiles
At the drawn dagger and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.
Addison, Cato, i. 1.

52 25.

52 28.

'Aboriginal Savages.' Cp. 33 22.

'matted cloak.' See 33 25.

52 31. 'so tailorise.' See 50 18.

'natural fell,' ib., 26.

53 3. 'as a Sign.' Luke ii. 34, and elsewhere: "for a sign.” Carlyle often adapts unconsciously when quoting. The first Quakers in New England sometimes preached naked. See Longfellow, John Endicott, i. 1; and Proceed. Mass. Hist. Soc. xviii. 300. old Adamites. See 51 6, n.

53 4.

53 10. You see. "You see two men fronting each other. One sits dressed in red cloth, the other stands dressed in threadbare blue; the first says to the other, 'Be hanged and anatomised!' and it is forthwith put in execution till Number Two is a skeleton. Whence comes it? These men have no physical hold of each other; they are not in contact. Each of the bailiffs, etc., is in his own skin, and not hooked to any other. The reason is, Man is a Spirit. Invisible influences run through Society, and make it a mysterious whole full of life and inscrutable activities and capabilities." Journal, June 8, 1830. C. E. L., II, 85.

53 17. nothing can act. See 47 29.

53 34. founded upon Cloth.

See 45 4.

54 1. often in my atrabiliar moods. "Often when I read of pompous ceremonials, drawing-room levées, and coronations, on a sudden the clothes fly off the whole party in my fancy, and they stand there in a half ludicrous, half horrid condition." Journal, Aug. 1830. C. E. L., II, 86.

54 2. Frankfort Coronations. The coronation of Archduke Joseph at Frankfort a. M., 1764. See Goethe, Aus meinem Leben, Th. I, Bh. 5. "The opera seria of a Frankfort Coronation.” C.-Trans., II, 161.

54 2. Royal drawing-rooms. Presentation at the English court. 54 3. Levees, couchees. The formal receptions by Louis XIV. of his courtiers on rising from bed in the morning, and on retiring at night.

54 32. Haupt- und Staats-Action. A kind of drama first introduced at Dresden by Velthin in the 17th cent., corresponding to our Heroic drama of the Restoration. See Faust, sc. 1, l. 583, for the word.

54 33. Pickleherring. Clown, a word brought to Germany by the English Comedians, according to Kluge.

54 34. the tables. Solventur risu tabulae. 86. The indictment will be laughed out of court.

Hor. Sat. ii. 1.