tres, has to stumble about at random, and naturach it w more

haste than progress.

Foolish were it in us to attempt following him, even from afar, in this extraordinary world-pilgrimage of his; the simplest record of which, were clear record possible, would fill volumes. Hopeess is the obscurity, unspeakable the confusion. He glides from country to country, from condition to condition; vanishi, and re-appearing, no man can calculate how or where. Through all quarters of the world he wanders, and apparently through all circles of society. If in any scene, perhaps difficult to fix geographically, he settles for a time, and forms connexions, be sure he will snap them abruptly asunder. Let him sink out of sight as Private Scholar (Privatisirender), living by the grace of God, in some European capital, you may next find him as Hadjee in the neighbourhood of Mecca. It is an inexplicable Phantasmagoria, capricious, quick-changing; as if our Traveller, instead of limbs and highways, had transported himself by some wishing carpet, or Fortunatus' Hat. The whole, too, imparted emblematically, in dim multifarious tokens (as that collection of StreetAdvertisements); with only some touch of direct historical notice sparingly interspersed: little light-islets in the world of haze! So that, from this point, the Professor is more of an enigma than ever. In figurative language, we might say he becomes, not indeed a spirit, yet spiritualised, vaporised. Fact unparalleled in Biography: The river of his History, which we have traced from its tiniest fountains, and hoped to see flow onward, with increasing current, into the ocean, here dashes itself over that terrific Lover's Leap; and, as a mad-foaming cataract, flies wholly into tumultuous clouds of spray! Low down it indeed collects again into pools and plashes; yet only at a great distance, and with difficulty, if at all, into a general stream. To cast a glance into certain of those pools and plashes, and trace whither they run, must, for a chapter or two, form the limit of our endeavour.

For which end doubtless those direct historical Notices, where they can be met with, are the best. Nevertheless, of this sort too there occurs much, which, with our present light, it were questionable to emit. Teufelsdröckh, vibrating everywhere between the highest and the lowest levels, comes into contact with public

History itself. For example, those conversations and relations with illustrious Persons, as Sultan Mahmoud, the Emperor Na. poleon, and others, are they not as yet rather of a diplomatic character than of a biographic? The Editor, appreciating the sacredness of crowned heads, nay perhaps suspecting the possible trickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew this province for the present a new time may bring new insight and a different duty.

(

If we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for there was none, yet with what immediate outlooks; at all events, in what mood of mind, the Professor undertook and prosecuted this world-pilgrimage,—the answer is more distinct than favourable. 'A nameless Unrest,' says he, 'urged me forward; to 'which the outward motion was some momentary lying solace. 'Whither should I go? My Loadstars were blotted out; in that canopy of grim fire shone no star. Yet forward must I; the ground burnt under me; there was no rest for the sole of my 'foot. I was alone, alone! Ever too the strong inward longing 'shaped Fantasms for itself: towards these, one after the other, 'must I fruitlessly wander. A feeling I had that, for my fever'thirst, there was and must be somewhere a healing Fountain. 'To many fondly imagined Fountains, the Saints' Wells of these days, did I pilgrim; to great Men, to great Cities, to great Events: but found there no healing. In strange countries, as ' in the well-known; in savage deserts, as in the press of corrupt 'civilisation, it was ever the same: how could your Wanderer escape from his own Shadow? Nevertheless still Forward! 'I felt as if in great haste; to do I saw not what. From the depths of my own heart, it called to me, Forwards! The winds ' and the streams, and all Nature sounded to me, Forwards! Ach Gott, I was even, once for all, a Son of Time.'

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From which is it not clear that the internal Satanic School was still active enough? He says elsewhere; The Enchiridion of 'Epictetus I had ever with me, often as my sole rational com'panion; and regret to mention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling.' Thou foolish Teufelsdröckh! How could it else? Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus much: The

end of Man is an Action, and not a Thought, though it were the noblest ?

'How I lived?' writes he once: Friend, hast thou considered 'the "rugged all-nourishing Earth," as Sophocles well names 'her; how she feeds the sparrow on the house-top, much more 'her darling, man? While thou stirrest and livest, thou hast a 'probability of victual. My breakfast of tea has been cooked by ‘a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who wiped her earth'en-kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted wild eggs in the sand ' of Sahara; I have awakened in Paris Estrapades and Vienna 'Malzleins, with no prospect of breakfast beyond elemental 'liquid. That I had my living to seek saved me from Dying,— 'by suicide. In our busy Europe, is there not an everlasting de'mand for Intellect, in the chemical, mechanical, political, reli'gious, educational, commercial departments? In Pagan coun'tries, cannot one write Fetishes? Living! Little knowest thou what alchemy is in an inventive Soul; how, as with its lit'tle finger, it can create provision enough for the body (of a Phi'losopher); and then, as with both hands, create quite other than 'provision; namely, spectres to torment itself withal.'

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Poor Teufelsdröckh! Flying with Hunger always parallel to him; and a whole Infernal Chase in his rear; so that the countenance of Hunger is comparatively a friend's! Thus must he, in the temper of ancient Cain, or of the modern Wandering Jew, save only that he feels himself not guilty and but suffering the pains of guilt,-wend to and fro with aimless speed. Thus must he, over the whole surface of the Earth (by foot-prints), write his Sorrows of Teufelsdröckh; even as the great Goethe, in passionate words, had to write his Sorrows of Werter, before the spirit freed herself, and he could become a Man. Vain truly is the hope of your swiftest Runner to escape from his own Shadow!' Nevertheless, in these sick days, when the Born of Heaven first descries himself (about the age of twenty) in a world such as ours, richer than usual in two things, in Truths grown obsolete, and Trades grown obsolete,-what can the fool think but that it is all a Den of Lies, wherein whoso will not speak Lies and act Lies, must stand idle and despair? Whereby it happens that, for your nobler minds, the publishing of some such Work of Art, in

one or the other dialect, becomes almost a necessity. For what is it properly but an Altercation with the Devil, before you begin honestly Fighting him? Your Byron publishes his Sorrows of Lord George, in verse and in prose, and copiously otherwise : your Bonaparte represents his Sorrows of Napoleon Opera, in an all-too stupendous style; with music of cannon-volleys, and murder-shrieks of a world; his stage-lights are the fires of Conflagration; his rhyme and recitative are the tramp of embattled Hosts and the sound of falling Cities.-Happier is he who, like our Clothes-Philosopher, can write such matter, since it must be written, on the insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles only; and also survive the writing thereof!

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B

CHAPTER VII.

THE EVERLASTING NO.

UNDER the strange nebulous envelopment, wherein our Professor has now shrouded himself, no doubt but his spiritual nature is nevertheless progressive, and growing: for how can the 'Son of Time,' in any case, stand still? We behold him, through those dim years, in a state of crisis, of transition: his mad Pilgrimings, and general solution into aimless Discontinuity, what is all this but a mad Fermentation; wherefrom, the fiercer it is, the clearer product will one day evolve itself?

Such transitions are ever full of pain: thus the Eagle when he moults is sickly; and, to attain his new beak, must harshly dash off the old one upon rocks. What Stoicism soever our Wanderer, in his individual acts and motions, may affect, it is clear that there is a hot fever of anarchy and misery raving within; coruscations of which flash out: as, indeed, how could there be other? Have we not seen him disappointed, bemocked of Destiny, through long years? All that the young heart might desire and pray for has been denied; nay, as in the last worst instance, offered and then snatched away. Ever an 'excellent Passivity;' but of useful, reasonable Activity, essential to the former as Food to Hunger, nothing granted: till at length, in this wild Pilgrimage, he must forcibly seize for himself an Activity, though useless, unreasonable. Alas! his cup of bitterness, which had been filling drop by drop, ever since that first ruddy morning' in the Hinterschlag Gymnasium, was at the very lip; and then with that poison-drop, of the Towgood-and-Blumine business, it runs over, and even hisses over in a deluge of foam.

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He himself says once, with more justness than originality: 'Man is, properly speaking, based upon Hope, he has no other 'possession but Hope; this world of his is emphatically the Place