CHAPTER I. GENESIS. IN a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable whether from birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinised soever, much insight is to be gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenomenon the Beginning remains always the most notable moment; so, with regard to any great man, we rest not till, for our scientific profit or not, the whole circumstances of his first appearance in this Planet, and what manner of Public Entry he made, are with utmost completeness rendered manifest. To the Genesis of our Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this First Chapter consecrated. Unhappily, indeed, he seems to be of quite obscure extraction; X? uncertain, we might almost say, whether of any so that this Genesis of his can properly be nothing but an Exodus (or transit out of Invisibility into Visibility); whereof the preliminary portion is nowhere forthcoming. 'In the village of Entepfuhl,' thus writes he, in the Bag Libra, on various Papers, which we arrange with difficulty, 'dwelt Andreas Futteral and his wife; childless, in still seclusion, and 'cheerful though now verging towards old age. Andreas had 'been grenadier Sergeant, and even regimental Schoolmaster 'under Frederick the Great; but now, quitting the halbert and 'ferule for the spade and pruning-hook, cultivated a little Or'chard, on the produce of which, he Cincinnatus-like, lived not without dignity. Fruits, the peach, the apple, the grape, with other 'varieties came in their season; all which Andreas knew how 'to sell on evenings he smoked largely, or read (as beseemed a 'regimental Schoolmaster), and talked to neighbours that would 'listen about the Victory of Rossbach; and how Fritz the Only '(der Einzige) had once with his own royal lips spoken to him 'had been pleased to say, when Andreas as camp-sentinel de 6 'manded the pass-word, "Schweig' Hund (Peace hound)! "before 'any of his staff-adjutants could answer. "Das nenn' ich mir einen König, There is what I call a King," would Andreas exclaim : "but the smoke of Kunersdorf was still smarting his 6 6 eyes." 'Gretchen, the housewife, won like Desdemona by the deeds 'rather than the looks of her now veteran Othello, lived not in 'altogether military subordination; for, as Andreas said, “the wo'mankind will not drill (wer kann die Weiberchen dressiren):” nevertheless she at heart loved him both for valour and wisdom; to her a Prussian grenadier Sergeant and Regiment's Schoolmaster was little other than a Cicero and Cid what you see, yet cannot see 'over, is as good as infinite. Nay, was not Andreas in very deed a 'man of order, courage, downrightness (Geradheit); that under"stood Büsching's Geography, had been in the victory of Rossbach, ' and left for dead in the camisade of Hochkirch? The good Gretchen, for all her fretting, watched over him and hovered around him, as only a true house-mother can: assiduously she cooked and sewed 'and scoured for him; so that not only his old regimental sword and 'grenadier-cap, but the whole habitation and environment, where on pegs of honour they hung, looked ever trim and gay; a 'roomy painted Cottage, embowered in fruit-trees and forest-trees. 'evergreens and honeysuckles; rising many-coloured from amid 'shaven grass-plots, flowers struggling in through the very win'dows; under its long projecting eaves nothing but garden-tools ' in methodic piles (to screen them from rain), and seats where, 'especially on summer nights, a King might have wished to sit ' and smoke, and call it his. Such a Bauergut (Copyhold) had 'Gretchen given her veteran; whose sinewy arms, and long-dis'used gardening talent, had made it what you saw. 'Into this umbrageous Man's-nest, one meek yellow evening or 'dusk, when the Sun, hidden indeed from terrestrial Entepfuhl, 'did nevertheless journey visible and radiant along the celestial Balance (Libra), it was that a Stranger of reverend aspect entered; and, with grave salutation, stood before the two rather ' astonished housemates. He was close-muffled in a wide mantle; 'which without farther parley unfolding, he deposited therefrom 'what seemed some Basket, overhung with green Persian silk; 'saying only: Ihr lieben Leute, hier bringe ein unschätzbares Ver he 'leihen; nehmt es in aller Acht, sorgfältigst benützt es: mit hohem 'Lohn, oder wohl mit schweren Zinsen, wird's einst zurückgefordert. "“Good Christian people, here lies for you an invaluable Loan; ‘take all heed thereof, in all carefulness employ it: with high 'recompense, or else with heavy penalty, will it one day be re'quired back" Uttering which singular words, in a clear, bell'like, forever memorable tone, the Stranger gracefully withdrew; 'and before Andreas or his wife, gazing in expectant wonder, had ́time to fashion either question or answer, was clean gone. 'Neither out of doors could aught of him be seen or heard; 'had vanished in the thickets, in the dusk; the Orchard-gate 'stood quietly closed: the Stranger was gone once and always. 'So sudden had the whole transaction been, in the autumn still'ness and twilight, so gentle, noiseless, that the Futterals could ‘have fancied it all a trick of Imagination, or some visit from an 'authentic Spirit. Only that the green silk Basket, such as 'neither Imagination nor authentic Spirits are wont to carry, still 'stood visible and tangible on their little parlour-table. Towards 'this the astonished couple, now with lit candle, hastily turned 'their attention. Lifting the green veil, to see what invaluable it 'hid, they descried there amid down and rich white wrappages, 'no Pitt Diamond or Hapsburg Regalia, but in the softest sleep, 'a little red-coloured Infant! Beside it, lay a roll of gold Fried'richs the exact amount of which was never publicly known; also 'a Taufschein (baptismal certificate), wherein unfortunately noth'ing but the Name was decipherable; other documents or indica'tion none whatever. To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then and always 'thenceforth. Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next 'day, did tidings transpire of any such figure as the Stranger; 'nor could the Traveller, who had passed through the neighbour'ing Town in coach-and-four, be connected with this Apparition, 'except in the way of gratuitous surmise. Meanwhile, for An'dreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was: What to 'do with this little sleeping red-coloured Infant? Amid amaze'ments and curiosities, which had to die away without external 'satisfying, they resolved, as in such circumstances charitable 'prudent people needs must, on nursing it, though with spoon * 'meat, into whiteness, and if possible into manhood. The Heav- Our Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should think he well might, that these facts, first communicated, by the good Gretchen Futteral, in his twelfth year, produced on the boyish 'heart and fancy a quite indelible impression. Who this rever'end Personage,' he says, that glided into the Orchard Cottage 'when the Sun was in Libra, and then, as on spirit's wings, glided out again, might be? An inexpressible desire, full of love and of sadness, has often since struggled within me to shape an answer. Ever, in my distresses and my loneliness, has Fantasy ' turned, full of longing (sehnsuchtsvoll,) to that unknown Father, 'who perhaps far from me, perhaps near, either way invisible, 6 might have taken me to his paternal bosom, there to lie screened 'from many a woe. Thou beloved Father, dost thou still, shut, 'out from me only by thin penetrable curtains of earthly Space, 'wend to and fro among the crowd of the living? Or art thou 'hidden by those far thicker curtains of the Everlasting Night, 'or rather of the Everlasting Day, through which my mortal eye and outstretched arms need not strive to reach? Alas! I know 'not, and in vain vex myself to know. More than once, heartdeluded, have I taken for thee this and the other noble-looking Stranger; and approached him wistfully, with infinite regard;. 'but he too had to repel me, he too was not thou. 6 6 And yet, O Man born of Woman,' cries the Autobiographer, with one of his sudden whirls, wherein is my case peculiar ? 'Hadst thou, any more than I, a Father whom thou knowest ? 'The Andreas and Gretchen, or the Adam and Eve, who led thee 'into Life, and for a time suckled and pap-fed thee there, whom 'thou namest Father and Mother; these were, like mine, but thy 'nursing-father and nursing-mother: thy true Beginning and Father is in Heaven, whom with the bodily eye thou shalt never 'behold, but only with the spiritual.' 'The little green veil,' adds he, among much similar moralising, and embroiled discoursing, I yet keep; still more insepa'rably the Name, Diogenes Teufelsdröckh. From the veil can 'nothing be inferred a piece of now quite faded Persian silk, 'like thousands of others. On the name I have many times 'meditated and conjectured; but neither in this lay there any 'clue. That it was my unknown Father's name I must hesitate 'to believe. To no purpose have I searched through all the 'Herald's Books, in and without the German Empire, and through all manner of Subscriber-Lists (Pränumeranten), Mili-, 'tia-Rolls, and other Name-catalogues; extraordinary names as < we have in Germany, the name Teufelsdröckh, except as ap6 pended to my own person, nowhere occurs. Again what may 'the unchristian rather than Christian "Diogenes" mean? Did 'that reverend Basket-bearer intend by such designation, to sha'dow forth my future destiny, or his own present malign humour? Perhaps the latter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starred? 'Parent, who like an Ostrich hadst to leave thy ill-starred off'spring to be hatched into self-support by the mere sky-influences ' of Chance, can thy pilgrimage have been a smooth one? Beset 'by Misfortune thou doubtless hast been; or indeed by the worst 'figure of Misfortune, by Misconduct. Often have I fancied how, in thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot at and slung at, wounded, 'hand-fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten and bedevilled, by the 'Time-Spirit (Zeitgeist) in thyself and others, till the good soul 'first given thee was seared into grim rage; and thou hadst no'thing for it but to leave in me an indignant appeal to the Fu'ture, and living speaking Protest against the Devil, as that same Spirit not of the Time only, but of Time itself, is well named! 'Which Appeal and Protest, may I now modestly add, was not 'perhaps quite lost in air. For indeed as Walter Shandy often insisted, there is much 'nay almost all, in Names.. The Name is the earliest Garment you wrap round the Earth-visiting ME; to which it thenceforth cleaves, more tenaciously (for there are Names that have lasted 'nigh thirty centuries) than the very skin. And now from with |