'long years of suffering and fasting: nevertheless, to these also comes an end. Yes, to me also was given, if not Victory, yet 'the consciousness of Battle, and the resolve to persevere therein 'while life or faculty is left. To me also, entangled in the en'chanted forests, demon-peopled, doleful of sight and of sound, it 'was given, after weariest wanderings, to work out my way into 'the higher sunlit slopes-of that Mountain which has no sum'mit, or whose summit is in Heaven only!'

He says elsewhere, under a less ambitious figure; as figures are, once for all, natural to him: 'Has not thy Life been that of 'most sufficient men (tüchtigen Männer) thou hast known in this 'generation? An outflush of foolish young Enthusiasm, like the 'first fallow-crop, wherein are as many weeds as valuable herbs : 'this all parched away, under the Droughts of practical and 'spiritual Unbelief; as Disappointment, in thought and act, ' often-repeated gave rise to Doubt, and Doubt gradually settled 'into Denial! If I have had a second-crop, and now see the peren'nial greensward, and sit under umbrageous cedars, which defy 'all Drought (and Doubt); herein too, be the Heavens praised, I ' am not without examples, and even exemplars.'

So that, for Teufelsdröckh also, there has been a 'glorious revolution' these mad shadow-hunting and shadow-hunted Pilgrimings of his were but some purifying 'Temptation in the Wilderness,' before his apostolic work (such as it was) could begin; which Temptation is now happily over, and the Devil once more worsted! Was 'that high moment in the Rue de l'Enfer,' then, properly the turning point of the battle; when the Fiend said, Worship me, or be torn in shreds, and was answered valiantly with an Apage Satana?-Singular Teufelsdröckh, would thou hadst told thy singular story in plain words! But it is fruitless to look there, in those Paper-bags, for such. Nothing but inuendoes, figurative crotchets a typical Shadow, fitfully wavering, prophetico-satiric; no clear logical Picture. 'How 'paint to the sensual eye,' asks he once, 'what passes in the Holy'of-Holies of Man's Soul; in what words, known to these profane times, speak even afar off of the unspeakable?' We ask in turn: Why perplex these times, profane as they are, with needless obscurity, by omission and by commission? Not mystical only

is our Professor, but whimsical; and involves himself, now more than ever, in eye-bewildering chiaroscuro. Successive glimpses, here faithfully imparted, our more gifted readers must endeavour to combine for their own behoof.

6

He says: The hot Harmattan-wind had raged itself out: its 'howl went silent within me; and the long-deafened soul could 'now hear. I paused in my wild wanderings; and sat me down 'to wait, and consider; for it was as if the hour of change drew 'nigh. I seemed to surrender, to renounce utterly, and say: 'Fly, then, false shadows of Hope; I will chase you no more, I 'will believe you no more. And ye too haggard spectres of Fear, 'I care not for you; ye too are all shadows and a lie. Let me 'rest here: for I am way-weary and life weary; I will rest here, 'were it but to die: to die or to live is alike to me; alike insig'nificant.'—And again: 'Here, then, as I lay in that CENTRE OF 'INDIFFERENCE; cast, doubtless by benignant upper Influence, in'to a healing sleep, the heavy dreams rolled gradually away, and 'I awoke to a new Heaven and a new Earth. The first prelimi'nary moral Act, Annihilation of Self (Sebst-tödtung), had been 'happily accomplished; and my minds' eyes were now unsealed, 'and its hands ungyved.'

Might we not also conjecture that the following passage refers to his Locality, during this same healing sleep;' that his Pilgrim-staff lies cast aside here on 'the high table-land;' and indeed that the repose is already taking wholesome effect on him? If it were not that the tone, in some parts, has more of riancy, even of levity, than we could have expected! However, in Teufelsdröckh, there is always the strangest Dualism: light dancing, with guitar-music, will be going on in the fore-court, while by fits from within comes the faint whimpering of woe and wail. We transcribe the piece entire:

'Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey Tent, musing and 'meditating; on the high table-land, in front of the Mountains; ( over me, as roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for walls, four azure flowing curtains,—namely, of the Four azure Winds, on 'whose bottom-fringes also I have seen gilding. And then to 'fancy the fair Castles, that stood sheltered in these Mountain 'hollows; with their green flower lawns, and white dames and

'damosels, lovely enough: or better still, the straw-roofed Cot6 tages, wherein stood many a Mother baking bread, with her chil'dren round her :-all hidden and protectingly folded up in the : valley-folds; yet there and alive, as sure as if I beheld them. • Or to see, as well as fancy, the nine Towns and Villages, that lay round my mountain-seat, which in still weather, were wont 'to speak to me (by their steeple-bells) with metal tongue; and, in almost all weather, proclaimed their vitality by repeated 'Smoke-clouds; whereon, as on a culinary horologe, I might read 'the hour of the day For it was the smoke of cookery, as kind ⚫ housewives at morning, midday, eventide, were boiling their husbands' kettles; and ever a blue pillar rose up into the air, succes'sively or simultaneously, from each of the nine, saying, as plain'ly as smoke could say: Such and such a meal is getting ready 'here. Not uninteresting! For you have the whole Borough, 'with all its love-makings and scandal-mongeries, contentions and เ contentments, as in miniature, and could cover it ali with your 'hat. If, in my wide Wayfarings, I had learned to look into the 'business of the World in its details, here perhaps was the place 'for combining it into general propositions, and deducing in

'ferences therefrom.

'Often also could I see the black Tempest marching in anger : through the Distance: around some Schreckhorn, as yet grim'blue, would the eddying vapour gather, and there tumultuously eddy, and flow down like a mad witch's hair; till, after a space, 'it vanished, and, in the clear sunbeam, your Schreckhorn stood 'smiling grim-white, for the vapour had held snow. How thou

fermentest and elaboratest in thy great fermenting-vat and la'boratory of an Atmosphere, of a World, O Nature-Or what 'is nature? Ha! why do I not name thee GOD? Art thou not "the "Living Garment of God?" O Heavens, is it, in very 'deed, HE then that ever speaks through thee; that lives and loves in thec, that lives and loves in me?

'Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendours, of that Truth, 'and Beginning of Truths, fell mysteriously over my soul. 'Sweeter than Dayspring to the Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla; 'ah! like the mother's voice to her little child that strays bewil'dered, weeping, in unknown tumults; like soft streamings of

'celestial music to my too exasperated heart, came that Evangel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a charnel-house with 'spectres but godlike, and my Father's!

With other eyes, too, could I now look upon my fellow man; 'with an infinite Love, an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, way'ward man! Art thou not tried, and beaten with stripes, even as I am? Ever, whether thou bear the royal mantle or the 'beggar's gabardine; art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden; and 'thy Bed of Rest is but a grave. O my Brother, my Brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all tears 'from thy eyes!-Truly, the din of many-voiced Life, which in 'this solitude, with the mind's organ, I could hear, was no longer 'a maddening discord, but a melting one: like inarticulate cries, 'and sobbings of a dumb creature, which in the ear of Heaven are prayers. The poor Earth, with her poor joys, was now my 'needy Mother, not my cruel Stepdame; Man, with his so mad 'Wants and so mean Endeavours, had become the dearer to me; 'and even for his sufferings and his sins, I now first named him 'brother. Thus was I standing in the porch of that "Sanctuary of Sorrow;" by strange, steep ways, had I too been guided 'thither; and ere long its sacred gates would open, and the ""Divine Depth of Sorrow" lie disclosed to me.'

The Professor says, he here first got eye on the Knot that had been strangling him, and straightway could unfasten it, and was free. A vain interminable controversy,' writes he, 'touching 'what is at present called Origin of Evil, or some such thing, 'arises in every soul, since the beginning of the world; and in ' every soul, that would pass from idle Suffering into actual Endeavouring, must first be put an end to. The most, in our time, 'have to go content with a simple, incomplete enough Suppression ' of this controversy; to a few some Solution of it is indispensa'ble. In every new era, too, such Solution comes out in different ' terms; and ever the Solution of the last era has become obso'lete, and is found unserviceable. For it is man's nature to 'change his Dialect from century to century; he cannot help it though he would. The authentic Church-Catechism of our 'present century has not yet fallen into my hands: meanwhile, 'for my own private behoof, I attempt to elucidate the matter so.

'Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is 'because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning 'he cannot quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance 'Ministers and Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe 'undertake, in joint-stock company, to make one Shoeblack 'HAPPY? They cannot accomplish it, above an hour or two; for 'the Shoeblack also has a Soul quite other than his Stomach: ' and would require, if you consider it, for his permanent satisfac'tion and saturation, simply this allotment, no more, and no less: 'God's infinite Universe altogether to himself, therein to enjoy infi'nitely, and fill every wish as fast as it rose. Oceans of Hoch'heimer, a Throat like that of Ophiuchus: speak not of them; to 'the infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is your เ ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better 'vintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, 'he sets to quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and 'declares himself the most maltreated of men.--Always there is 6 a black spot in our sunshine: it is even, as I said, the Shadow of Ourselves.

'But the whim we have of Happiness is somewhat thus. By 'certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come 6 upon some sort of average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs 'to us by nature, and of indefeasible right. It is simple pay'ment of our wages, of our deserts; requires neither thanks nor 'complaint: only such overplus as there may be do we account 'Happiness; any deficit again is Misery. Now consider that wo ' have the valuation of our own deserts ourselves, and what a fund ' of Self-conceit there is in each of us,-do you wonder that the balance should so often dip the wrong way, and many a Block'head cry: See there, what a payment; was ever worthy gentleman so used !—I tell thee, Blockhead, it all comes of thy Vanity; of what thou fanciest those same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely), 'thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that thou 'deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to 'die in hemp.

'So true it is, what I then said, that the Fraction of Life can be ' increased in value not so much by increasing your Numerator as by