CHAPTER X.

THE DANDIACAL BODY.

FIRST, touching Dandies, let us consider with some scientific strictness, what a Dandy specially is. A Dandy is a Clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office, and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes wisely and well: so that as others dress to live, he lives to dress. The all-importance of Clothes, which a German Professor, of unequalled learning and acumen, writes his enormous Volume to demonstrate, has sprung up in the intellect of the Dandy, without effort, like an instinct of genius; he is inspired with Cloth, a Poet of Cloth. What Teufelsdröckh would call a Divine Idea of Cloth' is born with him; and this, like other such Ideas, will express itself outwardly, or wring his heart asunder with unutterable throes.

But, like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes his Idea an Action; shows himself, in peculiar guise, to mankind; walks forth, a witness and living Martyr to the eternal Worth of Clothes. We called him a Poet is not his body the (stuffed) parchment-skin whereon he writes, with cunning Huddersfield dyes, a Sonnet to his mistress' eyebrow? Say, rather, an Epos, and Clotha Virumque cano, to the whole world, in

Macaronic verses, which he that runs may read. Nay, if you grant, what seems to be admissible, that the Dandy has a Thinking-principle in him, and some notions of Time and Space, is there not in this Life-devotedness to Cloth, in this so willing sacrifice of the Immortal to the Perishable, something (though in reverse order) of that blending and identification of Eternity with Time, which, as we have seen, constitutes the Prophetic character?

And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even Prophecy, what is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you would recognise his existence; would admit him to be a living object; or even failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays of light. Your silver or your gold (beyond what the niggardly Law has already secured him) he solicits not; simply the glance of your eyes. Understand his mystic significance, or altogether miss and misinterpret it; do but look at him, and he is contented. May we not well cry shame on an ungrateful world, that refuses even this poor boon; that will waste its optic faculty on dried Crocodiles, and Siamese Twins; and over the domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a live Dandy, glance with hasty indifference, and a scarcely concealed contempt! Him no Zoologist classes among the Mammalia, no Anatomist dissects with care: when did we see any injected Preparation of the Dandy, in our Museums; any specimen of him preserved in spirits? Lord Herringbone may dress himself in a snuff-brown suit, with snuff-brown shirt and shoes: it skills not; the undiscerning public, occupied with grosser wants, passes by regardless on the other side.

The age of Curiosity, like that of Chivalry, is indeed,

properly speaking, gone. Yet perhaps only gone to sleep : for here arises the Clothes-Philosophy to resuscitate, strangely enough, both the one and the other! Should sound views of this Science come to prevail, the essential nature of the British Dandy, and the mystic significance that lies in him, cannot always remain hidden under laughable and lamentable hallucination. The following long Extract from Professor Teufelsdröckh may set the matter, if not in its true light, yet in the way towards such. It is to be regretted however that, here as so often elsewhere, the Professor's keen philosophic perspicacity is somewhat marred by a certain mixture of almost owlish purblindness, or else of some perverse, ineffectual, ironic tendency, our readers shall judge which :

In these distracted times,' writes he, when the Religious Principle, driven out of most Churches, either 'lies unseen in the hearts of good men, looking and long

ing and silently working there towards some new Revela'tion; or else wanders homeless over the world, like a 'disembodied soul seeking its terrestrial organisation,into how many strange shapes, of Superstition and 'Fanaticism, does it not tentatively and errantly cast ' itself!

The higher Enthusiasm of man's nature is for the while without Exponent; yet must it continue in'destructible, unweariedly active, and work blindly in 'the great chaotic deep: thus Sect after Sect, and Church after Church, bodies itself forth, and melts again into 'new metamorphosis.

Chiefly is this observable in England, which, as the 'wealthiest and worst-instructed of European nations,

'offers precisely the elements (of Heat namely, and of 'Darkness), in which such moon-calves and monstrosi'ties are best generated. Among the newer Sects of that country, one of the most notable, and closely connected ' with our present subject, is that of the Dandies; con'cerning which, what little information I have been able 'to procure may fitly stand here.

'It is true, certain of the English Journalists, men 'generally without sense for the Religious Principle, or 'judgment for its manifestations, speak, in their brief 'enigmatic notices, as if this were perhaps rather a 'Secular Sect, and not a Religious one: nevertheless, to 'the psychologic eye its devotional and even sacrificial 'character plainly enough reveals itself. Whether it belongs to the class of Fetish-worships, or of Heroworships or Polytheisms, or to what other class, may ' in the present state of our intelligence remain unde'cided (schweben). A certain touch of Manicheism, not indeed in the Gnostic shape, is discernible enough: ' also (for human Error walks in a cycle, and reappears at intervals) a not inconsiderable resemblance to that 'Superstition of the Athos Monks, who by fasting from 'all nourishment, and looking intensely for a length of time into their own navels, came to discern therein the 'true Apocalypse of Nature, and Heaven Unveiled. To my own surmise, it appears as if this Dandiacal Sect were but a new modification, adapted to the new time, of that primeval Superstition, Self-Worship; which 'Zerdusht, Quang foutchee, Mohamed, and others, strove ' rather to subordinate and restrain than to eradicate; 'and which only in the purer forms of Religion has 'been altogether rejected. Wherefore, if any one chooses

'to name it revived Ahrimanism, or a new figure of Demon-Worship, I have, so far as is yet visible, no objection.

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'For the rest, these people, animated with the zeal of a new Sect, display courage and perseverance, and 'what force there is in man's nature though never so ' enslaved. They affect great purity and separatism: 'distinguish themselves by a particular costume (whereof some notices were given in the earlier part of this Volume); likewise, so far as possible, by a particular 'speech (apparently some broken Lingua-franca, or English-French); and, on the whole, strive to main'tain a true Nazarene deportment, and keep themselves 'unspotted from the world.

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'They have their Temples, whereof the chief, as the 'Jewish Temple did, stands in their metropolis; and is named Almacks, a word of uncertain etymology. They "worship principally by night; and have their High'priests and Highpriestesses, who, however, do not 'continue for life. The rites, by some supposed to be "of the Menadic sort, or perhaps with an Eleusinian or 'Cabiric character, are held strictly secret. Nor are "Sacred Books wanting to the Sect; these they call "Fashionable Novels; however, the Canon is not com'pleted, and some are canonical and others not.

Of such Sacred Books I, not without expense, pro'cured myself some samples; and in hope of true inzeal which beseems an Inquirer 'into Clothes, set to interpret and study them. "wholly to no purpose that tough faculty of reading,

sight, and with the

But

for which the world will not refuse me credit, was here

for the first time foiled and set at nought. In vain