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SARTOR RESARTUS

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS

OF

HERR TEUFELSDROCKH

IN THREE BOOKS

Mein Vermächtniß, wie herrlich weit und breit!

Die Zeit ist mein Vermächtniß,

mein

Acker ist die Zeit.

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TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS.

I. HIGHEST CLASS, BOOKSELLER'S TASTER.

Taster to Bookseller.- -"The Author of Teufelsdröckh is a person of talent; his work displays here and there some felicity of thought and expression, considerable fancy and knowledge: but whether or not it would take with the public seems doubtful. For a jeu d'esprit of that kind, it is too long; it would have suited better as an essay or article than as a volume. The Author has no great tact: his wit is frequently heavy; and reminds one of the German Baron who took to leaping on tables, and answered that he was learning to be lively. Is the work a translation ?”

Bookseller to Editor.-" Allow me to say that such a writer requires only a little more tact to produce a popular as well as an able work. Directly on receiving your permission, I sent your MS. to a gentleman in the highest class of men of letters, and an accomplished German scholar; I now enclose you his opinion, which, you may rely upon it, is a just one; and I have too high an opinion of your good sense to" &c. &c.—MS. (penes nos), London, 17th September, 1831.

II. CRITIC OF THE SUN.

"Fraser's Magazine exhibits the usual brilliancy, and also the " &c. "Sartor Resartus is what old Dennis used to call 'a heap of clotted nonsense,' mixed however, here and there, with passages marked by thought and striking poetic vigour. But what does the writer mean by Baphometic fire-baptism? Why cannot he lay aside his pedantry, and write so as to make himself generally intelligible? We quote by way of curiosity a sentence from the Sartor Resartus; which may be read either backwards or forwards, for it is equally intelligible either way. Indeed, by beginning at the tail, and so working up to the head, we think the reader will stand the fairest chance of getting at its meaning: The fire-baptised soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven, here feels its own freedom; which feeling is its Baphometic baptism: the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus gained by assault, and will keep inexpugnable; outwards from which the remaining dominions, not indeed without hard battering, will doubtless by degrees be conquered and pacificated.' Here s a"-Sun Newspaper, 1st April, 1834.

III. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEWER.

"After a careful survey of the whole ground, our belief is that no such persons as Professor Teufelsdröckh or Counsellor Heuschrecke ever existed; that the six Paper-bags, with their China-ink scriptions and multifarious contents, are a mere figment of the brain; that the 'present Editor' is the only person who has ever written upon the Philosophy of Clothes; and that the Sartor Resartus is the only treatise that has yet appeared upon that subject;— in short, that the whole account of the origin of the work before us, which the supposed Editor relates with so much gravity, and of which we have given a brief abstract, is, in plain English, a hum.

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