CHAPTER I. INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. As a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teufelsdröckh, from an early part of his Clothes-Volume, has more and more exhibited himself. Striking it was, amid all his perverse cloudiness, with what force of vision and of heart he pierced into the mystery of the World; recognising in the highest sensible phenomena, so far as Sense went, only fresh or faded Raiment; yet ever, under this, a celestial Essence thereby rendered visible; and while, on the one hand, he trod the old rags of Matter, with their tinsels, into the mire, he on the other everywhere exalted Spirit above all earthly principalities and powers, and worshipped it, though under the meanest shapes, with a true Platonic Mysticism. What the man ultimately purposed by thus casting his Greek-fire into the general Wardrobe of the Universe; what such, more or less complete, rending and burning of Garments throughout the whole compass of Civilized Life and Speculation, should lead to: the rather as he was no Adamite, in any sense, and could not, like Rousseau, recommend either bodily or intellectual Nudity, and a return to the savage state: all this our readers are now bent to discover; this is, in fact, properly the gist and purport of Professor Teufelsdröckh's Philosophy of Clothes. Be it remembered, however, that such purport is here not so much evolved as detected to lie ready for evolving. We are to guide our British Friends into the new Gold-country, and shew them the mines; nowise to dig out and exhaust its wealth, which indeed remains for all time inexhaustible. Once there, let each dig for his own behoof, and enrich himself. Neither, in so capricious inexpressible a Work as this of the Professor's, can our course now more than formerly be straight forward, step by step, but at best leap by leap. Significant Indications stand out here and there; which for the critical eye, that looks both widely and narrowly, shape themselves into some ground-scheme of a Whole: to select these with judgment, so that a leap from one to the other be possible, and (in our old figure) by chaining them together, a passable Bridge be effected: this, as heretofore, continues our only method. Among such light-spots, the following, floating in much wild matter about Perfectibility, has seemed worth clutching at: Perhaps the most remarkable incident in Modern History,' says Teufelsdröckh, 'is not the Diet of Worms, still less the 'Battle of Austerlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other Battle; 'but an incident passed carelessly over by most Historians, and 'treated with some degree of ridicule by others.: namely, George 'Fox's making to himself a suit of Leather. This man, the first of the Quakers, and by trade a Shoemaker, was one of those, to 'whom, under ruder or purer form, the Divine Idea of the Uni( verse is pleased to manifest itself; and, across all the hulls of Ignorance and earthly Degradation, shine through, in unspeak'able Awfulness, unspeakable Beauty, on their souls; who there'fore are rightly accounted Prophets, God-possessed; or even 'Gods, as in some periods it has chanced Sitting in his stall; 'working on tanned hides, amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine'bristles, and a nameless flood of rubbish, this youth had never'theless a Living Spirit belonging to him; also an antique In'spired Volume, through which, as through a window, it could 'look upwards, and discern its celestial Home. The task of a 'daily pair of shoes, coupled even with some prospect of victuals, ' and an honourable Mastership in Cordwainery, and perhaps the 'post of Thirdborough in his Hundred, as the crown of long 'faithful sewing, was nowise satisfaction enough to such a mind: 'but ever amid the boring and hammering came tones from that 'far country, came Splendours and Terrors; for this poor Cord'wainer, as we said, was a Man; and the Temple of Immensity, 'wherein as Man he had been sent to minister, was full of holy 'mystery to him. The Clergy of the neighbourhood, the ordained Watchers and 'Interpreters of that same holy mystery, listened with unaffected |