6

6

or Magician and Wizard to lead us hellward. Nay, even for the basest Sensualist, what is Sense but the implement of Fantasy; 'the vessel it drinks out of? Ever in the dullest existence there ' is a sheen either of Inspiration or of Madness (thou partly hast it in thy choice, which of the two), that gleams-in from the circumambient Eternity, and colours with its own hues our little 'islet of Time. The Understanding is indeed thy window, too 'clear thou canst not make it; but Fantasy is thy eye, with its colour-giving retina, healthy or diseased. Have not I myself 'known five-hundred living soldiers sabred into crows'-meat for a piece of glazed cotton, which they called their Flag; which, had 'you sold it at any market-cross, would not have brought above three groschen? Did not the whole Hungarian Nation rise, like some tumultuous moon-stirred Atlantic, when Kaiser Joseph pocketed their Iron Crown; an implement, as was sagaciously observed, in size and commercial value little differing from a horse-shoe? It is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being: those ages, moreover, are accounted the noblest which can the best recognise symbolical worth, and prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revela'tion of the Godlike?

6

6

6

6

6

6

6

6

6

6

6

6

6

Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that they have both an 'extrinsic and intrinsic value; oftenest the former only. What, for instance, was in that clouted Shoe, which the Peasants bore aloft with them as ensign in their Bauernkrieg (Peasants' War)? 'Or in the Wallet-and-staff round which the Netherland Gueux, glorying in that nickname of Beggars, heroically rallied and prevailed, though against King Philip himself? Intrinsic significance these had none: only extrinsic; as the accidental Standards of multitudes more or less sacredly uniting together; in ' which union itself, as above noted, there is ever something mystical and borrowing of the Godlike. Under a like category too, stand, or stood, the stupidest heraldic Coats-of-arms; military Banners everywhere; and generally all national or other sectarian ⚫ Costumes and Customs: they have no intrinsic, necessary divineness, or even worth; but have acquired an extrinsic one. Nevertheless through all these there glimmers something of a Divine Idea; as through military Banners themselves, the Divine Idea of Duty, of heroic Daring; in some instances of Freedom, of Right. Nay, the highest ensign that men ever met and embraced 'under, the Cross itself, had no meaning save an accidental ex'trinsic one.

'Another matter it is, however, when your Symbol has intrinsic

6

meaning, and is of itself fit that men should unite round it. Let 'but the Godlike manifest itself to Sense; let but Eternity look, more or less visibly, through the Time-Figure (Zeitbild)! Then is it fit that men unite there; and worship together before such Symbol; and so from day to day, and from age to age, superadd 'to it new divineness.

6

'Of this latter sort are all true Works of Art: in them (if thou 'know a Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity looking through Time; the Godlike rendered visible. 'Here too may an extrinsic value gradually superadd itself: thus ' certain Iliads, and the like, have, in three-thousand years, attained quite new significance. But nobler than all in this kind are the 'Lives of heroic god-inspired Men; for what other Work of Art is so divine? In Death too, in the Death of the Just, as the last 'perfection of a Work of Art, may we not discern symbolic mean'ing? In that divinely transfigured Sleep, as of Victory, resting over the beloved face which now knows thee no more, read (if 'thou canst for tears) the confluence of Time with Eternity, and some gleam of the latter peering through.

'Highest of all Symbols are those wherein the Artist or Poet ' has risen into Prophet, and all men can recognise a present God, ' and worship the same: I mean religious Symbols. Various enough have been such religious Symbols, what we call Religions; as men stood in this stage of culture or the other, and could worse ' or better body-forth the Godlike: some Symbols with a transient 'intrinsic worth; many with only an extrinsic. If thou ask to ' what height man has carried it in this manner, look on our di'vinest Symbol: on Jesus of Nazareth, and his Life, and his Biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has the human Thought not yet reached: this is Christianity and Christendom; a Symbol of quite perennial, infinite character; whose significance will ever demand to be anew inquired into, and anew made ' manifest.

'But, on the whole, as Time adds much to the sacredness of Symbols, so likewise in his progress he at length defaces, or even 'desecrates them; and Symbols, like all terrestrial Garments, wax 'old. Homer's Epos has not ceased to be true; yet it is no longer our Epos, but shines in the distance, if clearer and clearer, yet also smaller and smaller, like a receding Star. It needs a scientific telescope, it needs to be reinterpreted and artificially brought near us, before we can so much as know that it was a Sun. So ' likewise a day comes when the Runic Thor, with his Eddas, must ' withdraw into dimness; and many an African Mumbo-Jumbo and 'Indian Pawaw be utterly abolished. For all things, even Celes

'tial Luminaries, much more atmospheric meteors, have their rise, ⚫ their culmination, their decline.'

'Small is this which thou tellest me, that the Royal Sceptre is but a piece of gilt-wood; that the Pyx has become a most 'foolish box, and truly, as Ancient Pistol thought, "of little ' price." A right Conjuror might I name thee, couldst thou con'jure back into these wooden tools the divine virtue they once 'held.'

‘Of this thing, however, be certain: wouldst thou plant for Eternity, then plant into the deep infinite faculties of man, his Fantasy and Heart; wouldst thou plant for Year and Day, then 'plant into his shallow superficial faculties, his Self-love and Arith'metical Understanding, what will grow there. A Hierarch, there'fore, and Pontiff of the World will we call him, the Poet and inspired Maker; who, Prometheus-like, can shape new Symbols, ' and bring new Fire from Heaven to fix it there. Such too will not always be wanting; neither perhaps now are. Meanwhile, as the average of matters goes, we account him Legislator and 'wise who can so much as tell when a Symbol has grown old, and gently remove it.

4

6

When, as the last English Coronation1 was preparing,' concludes this wonderful Professor, 'I read in their Newspapers that the "Champion of England," he who has to offer battle to the Universe for his new King, had brought it so far that he could 66 now 'mount his horse with little assistance," I said to myself: Here also we have a Symbol well nigh superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters and rags of superannuated worn-out Symbols (in this Ragfair of a World) dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you; nay, if 'you shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and perhaps ' produce suffocation?'

CHAPTER IV.

HELOTAGE.

Ar this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting, to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled Institute for the Repression of Population; which lies, dishonourably enough (with torn leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed into the Bag Pisces. Not indeed for the sake of the Tract itself, which we admire little; but of the marginal Notes, evidently in

1 That of George IV.—ED.

Teufelsdröckh's hand, which rather copiously fringe it. A few of these may be in their right place here.

Into the Hofrath's Institute, with its extraordinary schemes, and machinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall not so much as glance. Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple of Malthus; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his zeal almost literally eats him up. A deadly fear of Population possesses the Hofrath; something like a fixed-idea; undoubtedly akin to the more diluted forms of Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual world, is there light; nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger; open mouths opening wider and wider; a world to terminate by the frightfullest consummation: by its too dense inhabitants, famished into delirium, universally eating one another. To make air for himself in which strangulation, choking enough to a benevolent heart, the Hofrath founds, or proposes to found, this Institute of his, as the best he can do. It is only with our Professor's comments thereon that we concern ourselves.

First, then, remark that Teufelsdröckh, as a speculative Radical, has his own notions about human dignity; that the Zähdarm palaces and courtesies have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. On the blank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract, we find the following indistinctly engrossed:

6

'Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toilworn Craftsman that with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard Hand; crooked, coarse; wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, ' indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable 'too is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude 'intelligence; for it is the face of a Man living manlike. Oh, but 'the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must 'pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee too lay a god'created Form, but it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it 'stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of Labour: and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. Yet toil on, 'toil on thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may; thou toilest 'for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread. is

6

'A second man I honour, and still more highly: Him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, but the bread of Life. Is not he too in his duty; endeavouring 'towards inward Harmony; revealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavours, be they high or low? High

'est of all, when his outward and his inward endeavour are one:

I when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsman only, but 'inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers · Heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, 'must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, have Guidance, Freedom, Immortality?—These two, ' in all their degrees, I honour: all else is chaff and dust, which let 'the wind blow whither it listeth.

'

• Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both digni'ties united; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of 'man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendour of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light shining in 'great darkness.'

And again: 'It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor: we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), 'which is worse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. 'The poor is hungry and athirst; but for him also there is food and drink: he is heavy-laden and weary; but for him also the 'Heavens send Sleep, and of the deepest; in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest énvelops him, and fitful glitterings of ' cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of heavenly, or even ' of earthly knowledge, should visit him; but only, in the haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and Indignation bear him company. Alas, while the Body stands so broad and brawny, must 'the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, almost annihilated! Alas, was this too a Breath of God; bestowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded!-That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The miserable fraction of Science ' which our united Mankind, in a wide Universe of Nescience, has ' acquired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted to all?'

6

<

Quite in an opposite strain is the following: 'The old Spartans ' had a wiser method; and went out and hunted-down their Helots, and speared and spitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved fashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, now ' after the invention of fire-arms, and standing-armies, how much 'easier were such a hunt! Perhaps in the most thickly-peopled country, some three days annually might suffice to shoot all the ' able-bodied Paupers that had accumulated within the year. Let