they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward endeavor are one: when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, that with heaven-made Implement conquers Heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, have Guidance, Freedom, Immortality?—These two, in all their degrees, I honor: all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it listeth.

"Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendor of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light shining in great darkness."

And again: "It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor: we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which is worse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is hungry and athirst, but for him also there is food and drink he is heavy-laden and weary; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of the deepest; in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelopes him, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn over is that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him; but, only in the haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and Indignation. Alas, while the Body stands so broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupified, almost annihilated! Alas, was this too a Breath of God: bestowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded!-That there should one Man die Ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The miserable fraction of Science which united mankind in a wide Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted to all ?”

Quite in an opposite strain is the following: "The old Spartans had a wiser method; and went out and hunted down their Helots, and speared and spitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved fashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, now after the invention of fire-arms, and standing armies, how much easier were such a hunt! Perhaps in the most thickly-peopled country, some three days annually might suffice to shoot all the able-bodied Paupers that had accumulated within the year. Let Governments think of this. The expense were trifling: nay, the very carcasses would pay it. Have them salted and barrelled; could not you victual therewith, if not Army and Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers, in work-houses and elsewhere, as enlightened Charity, dreading no evil of them, might see good to keep alive?"

"And yet," writes he farther on, "there must be something wrong. A full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as high as two hundred Friedrichs d'or: such is his worth to the world. A fullformed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world could afford him a round sum would he simply engage to go and hang himself. Nevertheless, which of the two was the more cunningly-devised article, even as an Engine? Good Heavens! A white European Man, standing on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his shackle-bones, and miraculous Head on his shoulders, is worth, I should say, from fifty to a hundred Horses !"

"True, thou Gold-Hofrath," cries the Professor elsewhere: "too crowded indeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable

terraqueous Globe have ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no more? How thick stands your Population in the Pampas and Savannas of America; round ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on both slopes of the Altaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia; in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man, in one year, as I have understood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed himself and nine others. Alas, where now are the Hengsts and Alarics of our still glowing, still expanding Europe; who, when their home is grown too narrow, will enlist and, like Firepillars, guide onwards those superfluous masses of indomitable living Valour; equipped, not now with the battle-axe and war-chariot, but with the steam-engine and ploughsharc ? -Where are they ?-Preserving their Game!"

CHAPTER V.

THE PHENIX.

PUTTING which four singular Chapters together, and alongside of them numerous hints, and even direct utterances, scattered over these Writings of his, we come upon the startling yet not quite unlooked-for conclusion, that Teufelsdröckh is one of those who consider Society, properly so called, to be as good as extinct; and that only the Gregarious feelings, and old inherited habitudes, at this juncture, hold us from Dispersion, and universal national, civil, domestic and personal war! He says expressly: "For the last three centuries, above all, for the last three quarters of a century, that same Peri-cardial Nervous Tissue (as we named it) of Religion, where lies the Life-essence of Society, has been smote at and perforated, needfully and needlessly; till now it is quite rent into shreds; and Society, long pining, diabetic, consumptive, can be regarded as defunct; for those spasmodic, galvanic sprawlings are not life; neither indeed will they endure, galvanise as you may, beyond two days."

"Call ye that a Society," cries he again," where there is no longer any Social Idea extant; not so much as the Idea of a common Home, but only of a common, over-crowded Lodging-house? Where each, isolated, regardless of his neighbor, turned against his neighbor, clutches what he can get, and criesMine!' and calls it Peace, because, in the cut-purse and cut-throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cunninger sort, can be employed? Where Friendship, Communion, has become an incredible tradition; and your holiest Sacramental Supper is a smoking Tavern Dinner, with Cook for Evangelist? Where your Priest has no tongue but for plate-licking: and your high Guides and Governors cannot guide; but on all hands hear it passionately proclaimmed: Laissez faire; Leave us alone of your guidance, such light is darker than darkness; eat your wages, and sleep!

"Thus, too," continues he, "must an observant eye discern everywhere that saddest spectacle: The Poor perishing, like neglected, foundered Draught-Cattle, of Hunger and Overwork; the Rich, still more wretchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, and Overgrowth. The Highest in rank, at length, without honor from the Lowest; scarcely, with a little mouthhonor, as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in the bill. Once sacred Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof men grudge even the expense; a world becoming dismantled in one word, the CHURCH fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy; the STATE shrunk into a Police Office, straitened to get its pay!"

We might ask, are there many "observant eyes," belonging to Practical

men, in England or elsewhere, which have descried these phenomena; or is it only from the mystic elevation of a German Wahngasse that such wonders are visible? Teufelsdröckh contends that the aspect of a deceased or expiring Society," fronts us everywhere, so that whoso runs may read. "What, for example,” says he, "is the universally-arrogated Virtue, almost the sole remaining Catholic Virtue, of these days? For some half century, it has been the thing you name, 'Independence.' Suspicion of Servility,' of reverence for Superiors the very dogleech is anxious to disavow. Fools! Were your Superiors worthy to govern, and you worthy to obey, reverence for them were even your only possible freedom. Independence, in all kinds, is rebellion; if unjust rebellion, why parade it and everywhere prescribe it?"

But what then? Are we returning, as Rousseau prayed, to the state of Nature? "The Soul Politic having departed," says Teufelsdröckh, "what can follow but that the Body Politic be decently interred, to avoid putrescence? Liberals, Economists, Utilitarians enough I see marching with its bier, and chanting loud pæans, towards the funeral-pile, where, amid wailings from some, and saturnalian revelries from the most, the venerable Corpse is to be burnt. Or, in plain words, that these men, Liberals, Utilitarians, or whatsoever they are called, will ultimately carry their point, and dissever and destroy most existing Institutions of Society, seems a thing which has some time ago ceased to be doubtful.

"Do we not see a little subdivision of the grand Utilitarian Armament come to light even in insulated England? A living nucleus, that will attract and grow, does at length appear there also; and under curious phasis; properly as the inconsiderable fag-end, and so far in the rear of the others as to fancy itself the van. Our European Mechanizers are a sect of boundless diffusion, activity, and co-operative spirit: has not Utilitarianism flourished in high places of Thought, here among ourselves, and in every European country, at some time or other, within the last fifty years? If now in all countries, except perhaps England, it has ceased to flourish, or indeed to exist, among Thinkers, and sunk to Journalists and the popular mass,-who sees not that, as hereby it no longer preaches, so the reason is, it now needs no preaching, but is in full universal Action, the doctrine everywhere known and enthusiastically laid to heart? The fit pabulum, in these times, for a certain rugged workshopintellect and heart, nowise without their corresponding workshop-strength and ferocity, it requires but to be stated in such scenes to make proselytes enough.-Admirably calculated for destroying, only not for rebuilding! It spreads like a sort of Dog-madness; till the whole World-kennel will be rabid: then wo to the Huntsmen, with or without their whips! They should have given the quadrupeds water," adds he, "the water, namely, of Knowledge and of Life, while it was yet time."

Thus, if Professor Teufelsdröckh can be relied on, we are at this hour in a most critical condition; beleaguered by that boundless "Armament of Mechanizers" and Unbelievers, threatening to strip us bare! "The World," says he, " as it needs must, is under a process of devastation and waste, which, whether by silent assiduous corrosion, or open quicker combustion, as the case chances, will effectually enough annihilate the past Forms of Society; replace them with what it may. For the present, it is contemplated that when man's whole Spiritual Interests are once divested, these innumerable stript-off Garments shall mostly be burnt, but the sounder Rags among them be quilted together into one huge Irish watch-coat for the defence of the Body only !"-This, we think, is but Job's news to the humane reader.

"Nevertheless," cries Teufelsdröckh, "who can hinder it; who is there that can clutch into the wheel-spokes of Destiny, and say to the

Spirit of the Time: Turn back, I command thee ?-Wiser were it that we yielded to the Inevitable and Inexorable, and accounted even this the best." Nay, might not an attentive Editor, drawing his own inferences from what stands written, conjecture that Teufelsdröckh, individually, had yielded to this same "Inevitable and Inexorable" heartily enough; and now sat waiting the issue, with his natural diabolico-angelical Indifference, if not even Placidity? Did we not hear him complain that the World was a "huge Ragfair," and the "rags and tatters of old Symbols" were raining down everywhere, like to drift him in, and suffocate him? What with those "unhunted Helots" of his; and the uneven sic-vos-nonvobis pressure, and hard crashing collision he is pleased to discern in existing things; what with the so hateful "empty Masks," full of beetles and spiders, yet glaring out on him, from their glass-eyes, "with a ghastly affectation of life," we feel entitled to conclude him even willing that much should be thrown to the Devil, so it were but done gently! Safe himself in that "Pinnacle of Weissnichtwo," he would consent, with a tragic solemnity, that the monster UTILITARIA, held back, indeed, and moderated by nose-rings, halters, foot-shackles, and every conceivable modification of rope, should go forth to do her work ;-to tread down old ruinous Palaces and Temples, with her broad hoof, till the whole were trodden down, that new and better might be built! Remarkable in this point of view are the following sentences.

"Society," says he, "is not dead: that Carcass, which you called dead Society, is but her mortal coil which she has shuffled off, to assume a nobler; she herself, through perpetual metamorphoses, in fairer and fairer development, has to live till Time also merge in Eternity. Wheresoever two or three Living Men are gathered together, there is Society; or there it will be, with its cunning mechanisms; and stupendous structures, overspreading this little Globe, and reaching upwards to Heaven and downwards to Gehenna: for always, under one or the other figure, it has two authentic Revelations, of a God and of a Devil; the Pulpit, namely, and the Gallows."

Indeed, we already heard him speak of " Religion, in unnoticed nooks, weaving for herself new Vestures;"-Teufelsdröckh himself being one of the loom-treadles? Elsewhere he quotes without censure that strange aphorism of Saint-Simon's, concerning which and whom so much were to be said: "L'age d'or qu'une aveugle tradition a placé jusqu'ici dans le passé est devant nous; The golden age which a blind tradition has hitherto placed in the Past is Before us."-But listen again :

"When the Phoenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not be sparks flying? Alas, some millions of men, and among them such as a Napoleon, have already been licked into that high-eddying Flame, and like moths, consumed there. beards will get singed.

Still also have we to fear that incautious

"For the rest, in what year of grace such Phoenix-cremation will be completed, you need not ask. The law of Perseverance is among the deepest in man: by nature he hates change; seldom will he quit his old house till it has actually fallen about his ears. Thus have I seen Solemnities linger as Ceremonies, sacred Symbols as idle Pageants, to the extent of three hundred years and more after all life and sacredness had evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what time the Phoenix DeathBirth itself will require, depends on unseen contingencies.-Meanwhile, would Destiny offer Mankind that after, say two centuries of convulsion and conflagration, more or less vivid, the fire-creation should be accomplished, and we find ourselves again in a Living Society, and no longer fighting but working,-were it not perhaps prudent in Mankind to strike the bargain ?"

Thus is Teufelsdröckh content that old sick Society should be deliber. ately burnt (alas! with quite other fuel than spice-wood): in the faith that she is a Phoenix; and that a new heavenborn young one will rise out of her ashes! We ourselves, restricted to the duty of Indicator, shall forbear commentary. Meanwhile, will not the judicious reader shake his head, and reproachfully, yet more in sorrow than in anger, say or think: From a Doctor Utriusque Juris, titular Professor in a University, and man to whom hitherto, for his services, Society, bad as she is, has given not only food and raiment (of a kind) but books, tobacco and gukguk, we expected more gratitude to his benefactress; and less of a blind Trust in the future, which resembles that rather of a philosophical Fatalist and Enthusiast, than of a solid householder paying scot and lot in a Christian country.

CHAPTER VI.

OLD CLOTHES.

As mentioned above, Teufelsdröckh, though a Sansculottist, is in practice probably the politest man extant: his whole heart and life are penetrated and informed with the spirit of Politeness; a noble natural Courtesy shines through him, beautifying his vagaries; like sun-light, making a rosy-fingered, rainbow-dyed Aurora out of mere aqueous clouds; nay, brightening London smoke itself into gold vapor, as from the crucible of an alchemist. Hear in what earnest though fantastic wise he expresses himself on this head :

"Shall Courtesy be done only to the rich, and only by the rich? (In Good-breeding, which differs, if at all, from High-breeding, only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights,) I discern no special connection with wealth and birth : but rather that it lies in human nature itself, and is due from all men towards all men. Of a truth, were your Schoolmaster at his post, and worth anything when there, this, with so much else, would be reformed. Nay, each man were then also his neighbor's schoolmaster; till at length a rude-visaged, unmannered Peasant could no more be met with, than a Peasant unacquainted with botanical Physiology, or who felt not that the clod he broke was created in Heaven.

"For whether thou bear a sceptre or a sledge-hammer, art thou not ALIVE; is not this thy brother ALIVE? 'There is but one Temple in the world,' says Novalis, and that Temple is the Body of Man. Nothing is holier than this high Form. Bending before man is a reverence done to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our hands on a human Body.'

"On which ground I would fain carry it farther than most do; and whereas the English Johnson only bowed to every Clergyman, or man with a shovel-hat, I would bow to every Man with any sort of a hat, or with no hat whatever. Is he not a Temple, then; the visible Manifestation and Impersonation of the Divinity? And yet, alas, such indiscriminate bowing serves not. For there is a Devil dwells in man, as well as a Divinity; and too often the bow is but pocketed by the former. It would go to the pocket of Vanity (which is your clearest phasis of the Devil, in these times); therefore must we withhold it.

"The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do reverence to those Shells and outer Husks of the Body, wherein no devilish passion any longer lodges, but only the pure emblem and effigies of Man: I mean, to Empty, or even to Cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to Clothes that most men do