Chapters, has been, towards right understanding of the Clothes-Philosophy, let not our discouragement become total. To speak in that old figure of the Hell-gate Bridge over Chaos, a few flying pontoons have perhaps been added, though as yet they drift straggling on the Flood; how far they will reach, when once the chains are straightened and fastened, can, at present, only be matter of conjecture.

So much we already calculate. Through many a little loophole, we have had glimpses into the internal world. of Teufelsdröckh: his strange mystic, almost magic Diagram of the Universe, and how it was gradually drawn, is not henceforth altogether dark to us. Those mysterious ideas on TIME, which merit consideration, and are not wholly unintelligible with such, may by and by prove significant. Still more may his somewhat peculiar view of Nature; the decisive Oneness he ascribes to Nature. How all Nature and Life are but one Garment, a' Living Garment,' woven and ever a-weaving in the Loom of Time:' is not here, indeed, the outline of a whole Clothes-Philosophy; at least the arena it is to work in? Remark too that the Character of the man, nowise without meaning in such a matter, becomes less enigmatic amid so much tumultuous obscurity, almost like diluted madness, do not a certain indomitable Defiance and yet a boundless Reverence seem to loom forth as the two mountain summits, on whose rock-strata all the rest were based and built?

Nay, further, may we not say that Teufelsdröckh's. Biography, allowing it even, as suspected, only a hieroglyphical truth, exhibits a man, as it were preappointed for Clothes-Philosophy? To look through the Shows

of things into Things themselves he is led and compelled. The 'Passivity' given him by birth is fostered by all turns of his fortune. Everywhere cast out, like oil out of water, from mingling in any Employment, in any public Communion, he has no portion but Solitude, and a life of Meditation. The whole energy of his existence is directed, through long years, on one task: that of enduring pain, if he cannot cure it. Thus everywhere do the Shows of things oppress him, withstand him, threaten him with fearfullest destruction: only by victoriously penetrating into Things themselves can he find peace and a stronghold. But is not this same looking through the Shows or Vestures into the Things even the first preliminary to a Philosophy of Clothes? Do we not, in all this, discern some beckonings towards the true higher purport of such a Philosophy; and what shape it must assume with such a man, in such an era?

Perhaps in entering on Book Third, the courteous Reader is not utterly without guess whither he is bound : nor, let us hope, for all the fantastic Dream-Grottoes through which, as is our lot with Teufelsdröckh, he must wander, will there be wanting between whiles some twinkling of a steady Polar Star.

19*

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY.

As a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teufelsdröckh, from an early part of this 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 Civilised 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 Goldcountry, 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 straightforward, 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,

6

was one of those, to whom, under ruder or purer form, 'the Divine Idea of the Universe is pleased to manifest ' itself; and, across all the hulls of Ignorance and earthly 'Degradation, shine through, in unspeakable Awfulness, ' unspeakable Beauty, on their souls: who therefore 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, pastehorns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a nameless flood of rubbish, this youth had nevertheless a Living Spirit belonging to him; also an antique Inspired 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 Cord'wainery, 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 Cordwainer, 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.

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The Clergy of the neighbourhood, the ordained 'Watchers and Interpreters of that same holy mystery, 'listened with unaffected tedium to his consultations, ' and advised him, as the solution of such doubts, to "drink beer, and dance with the girls." Blind leaders ' of the blind! For what end were their tithes levied and eaten; for what were their shovel-hats scooped out, and their surplices and cassock-aprons girt on; and such a church-repairing, and chaffering, and organing,