CHAPTER V. ROMANCE.
"For long years," writes Teufelsdrockh, "had the poor Hebrew, in thisEgypt of an Auscultatorship, painfully toiled, baking bricks withoutstubble, before ever the question once struck him with entire force:For what?--_Beym Himmel_! For Food and Warmth! And are Food and Warmthnowhere else, in the whole wide Universe, discoverable?--Come of it whatmight, I resolved to try."
Thus then are we to see him in a new independent capacity, thoughperhaps far from an improved one. Teufelsdrockh is now a man withoutProfession. Quitting the common Fleet of herring-busses and whalers,where indeed his leeward, laggard condition was painful enough, hedesperately steers off, on a course of his own, by sextant and compassof his own. Unhappy Teufelsdrockh! Though neither Fleet, nor Traffic,nor Commodores pleased thee, still was it not _a Fleet_, sailing inprescribed track, for fixed objects; above all, in combination, wherein,by mutual guidance, by all manner of loans and borrowings, each couldmanifoldly aid the other? How wilt thou sail in unknown seas; and forthyself find that shorter Northwest Passage to thy fair Spice-countryof a Nowhere?--A solitary rover, on such a voyage, with such nauticaltactics, will meet with adventures. Nay, as we forthwith discover, acertain Calypso-Island detains him at the very outset; and as it werefalsifies and oversets his whole reckoning.
"If in youth," writes he once, "the Universe is majestically unveiling,and everywhere Heaven revealing itself on Earth, nowhere to the YoungMan does this Heaven on Earth so immediately reveal itself as in theYoung Maiden. Strangely enough, in this strange life of ours, ithas been so appointed. On the whole, as I have often said, aPerson (_Personlichkeit_) is ever holy to us; a certain orthodoxAnthropomorphism connects my _Me_ with all _Thees_ in bonds of Love: butit is in this approximation of the Like and Unlike, that such heavenlyattraction, as between Negative and Positive, first burns out into aflame. Is the pitifullest mortal Person, think you, indifferent to us?Is it not rather our heartfelt wish to be made one with him; to unitehim to us, by gratitude, by admiration, even by fear; or failing allthese, unite ourselves to him? But how much more, in this case of theLike-Unlike! Here is conceded us the higher mystic possibility of sucha union, the highest in our Earth; thus, in the conducting medium ofFantasy, flames forth that fire-development of the universal SpiritualElectricity, which, as unfolded between man and woman, we firstemphatically denominate LOVE.
"In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there alreadyblooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some fairest Eve; nor,in the stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage of that Garden, is aTree of Knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst thereof, wanting.Perhaps too the whole is but the lovelier, if Cherubim and a FlamingSword divide it from all footsteps of men; and grant him, theimaginative stripling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season ofvirtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable celestial barrier; andthe sacred air-cities of Hope have not shrunk into the mean clay-hamletsof Reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free!
"As for our young Forlorn," continues Teufelsdrockh evidently meaninghimself, "in his secluded way of life, and with his glowing Fantasy, themore fiery that it burnt under cover, as in a reverberating furnace, hisfeeling towards the Queens of this Earth was, and indeed is, altogetherunspeakable. A visible Divinity dwelt in them; to our young Friend allwomen were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw them flitting past, intheir many-colored angel-plumage; or hovering mute and inaccessible onthe outskirts of _AEsthetic Tea_: all of air they were, all Soul andForm; so lovely, like mysterious priestesses, in whose hand was theinvisible Jacob's-ladder, whereby man might mount into very Heaven. Thathe, our poor Friend, should ever win for himself one of these Gracefuls(_Holden_)--_Ach Gott_! how could he hope it; should he not have diedunder it? There was a certain delirious vertigo in the thought.
"Thus was the young man, if all-sceptical of Demons and Angels such asthe vulgar had once believed in, nevertheless not unvisited by hosts oftrue Sky-born, who visibly and audibly hovered round him wheresoever hewent; and they had that religious worship in his thought, though as yetit was by their mere earthly and trivial name that he named them. Butnow, if on a soul so circumstanced, some actual Air-maiden, incorporatedinto tangibility and reality, should cast any electric glance of kindeyes, saying thereby, 'Thou too mayest love and be loved;' and so kindlehim,--good Heaven, what a volcanic, earthquake-bringing, all-consumingfire were probably kindled!"
Such a fire, it afterwards appears, did actually burst forth, withexplosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner man of Herr Diogenes; asindeed how could it fail? A nature, which, in his own figurative style,we might say, had now not a little carbonized tinder, of Irritability;with so much nitre of latent Passion, and sulphurous Humor enough; thewhole lying in such hot neighborhood, close by "a reverberating furnaceof Fantasy:" have we not here the components of driest Gunpowder, ready,on occasion of the smallest spark, to blaze up? Neither, in this ourLife-element, are sparks anywhere wanting. Without doubt, some Angel,whereof so many hovered round, would one day, leaving "the outskirtsof _AEsthetic Tea_," flit higher; and, by electric Promethean glance,kindle no despicable firework. Happy, if it indeed proved a Firework,and flamed off rocket-wise, in successive beautiful bursts of splendor,each growing naturally from the other, through the several stages of ahappy Youthful Love; till the whole were safely burnt out; and the youngsoul relieved with little damage! Happy, if it did not rather prove aConflagration and mad Explosion; painfully lacerating the heart itself;nay perhaps bursting the heart in pieces (which were Death); or at best,bursting the thin walls of your "reverberating furnace," so that it ragethenceforth all unchecked among the contiguous combustibles (whichwere Madness): till of the so fair and manifold internal world of ourDiogenes, there remained Nothing, or only the "crater of an extinctvolcano"!
From multifarious Documents in this Bag _Capricornus_, and in theadjacent ones on both sides thereof, it becomes manifest that ourphilosopher, as stoical and cynical as he now looks, was heartily andeven frantically in Love: here therefore may our old doubts whether hisheart were of stone or of flesh give way. He loved once; not wiselybut too well. And once only: for as your Congreve needs a new case orwrappage for every new rocket, so each human heart can properly exhibitbut one Love, if even one; the "First Love which is infinite" can befollowed by no second like unto it. In more recent years, accordingly,the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard Teufelsdrockh as a mannot only who would never wed, but who would never even flirt; whom thegrand-climacteric itself, and _St. Martin's Summer_ of incipient Dotage,would crown with no new myrtle-garland. To the Professor, women arehenceforth Pieces of Art; of Celestial Art, indeed, which celestialpieces he glories to survey in galleries, but has lost thought ofpurchasing.
Psychological readers are not without curiosity to see how Teufelsdrockhin this for him unexampled predicament, demeans himself; with whatspecialties of successive configuration, splendor and color, hisFirework blazes off. Small, as usual, is the satisfaction that such canmeet with here. From amid these confused masses of Eulogy and Elegy,with their mad Petrarchan and Werterean ware lying madly scattered amongall sorts of quite extraneous matter, not so much as the fair one's namecan be deciphered. For, without doubt, the title _Blumine_, whereby sheis here designated, and which means simply Goddess of Flowers, must befictitious. Was her real name Flora, then? But what was her surname,or had she none? Of what station in Life was she; of what parentage,fortune, aspect? Specially, by what Pre-established Harmony ofoccurrences did the Lover and the Loved meet one another in so wide aworld; how did they behave in such meeting? To all which questions, notunessential in a Biographic work, mere Conjecture must for most partreturn answer. "It was appointed," says our Philosopher, "that the highcelestial orbit of Blumine should intersect the low sublunary one of ourForlorn; that he, looking in her empyrean eyes, should fancy the upperSphere of Light was come down into this nether sphere of Shadows; andfinding himself mistaken, make noise enough."
We seem to gather
that she was young, hazel-eyed, beautiful, and someone's Cousin; high-born, and of high spirit; but unhappily dependent andinsolvent; living, perhaps, on the not too gracious bounty of moneyedrelatives. But how came "the Wanderer" into her circle? Was it by thehumid vehicle of _AEsthetic Tea_, or by the arid one of mere Business?Was it on the hand of Herr Towgood; or of the Gnadige Frau, who, asan ornamental Artist, might sometimes like to promote flirtation,especially for young cynical Nondescripts? To all appearance, it waschiefly by Accident, and the grace of Nature.
"Thou fair Waldschloss," writes our Autobiographer, "what stranger eversaw thee, were it even an absolved Auscultator, officially bearing inhis pocket the last _Relatio ex Actis_ he would ever write, but musthave paused to wonder! Noble Mansion! There stoodest thou, in deepMountain Amphitheatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene solitude;stately, massive, all of granite; glittering in the western sunbeams,like a palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious metal. Beautiful roseup, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills; of the greenestwas their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, or spottedby some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. To the unconsciousWayfarer thou wert also as an Ammon's Temple, in the Libyan Waste;where, for joy and woe, the tablet of his Destiny lay written. Wellmight he pause and gaze; in that glance of his were prophecy andnameless forebodings."
But now let us conjecture that the so presentient Auscultator has handedin his _Relatio ex Actis_; been invited to a glass of Rhine-wine; andso, instead of returning dispirited and athirst to his dusty Town-home,is ushered into the Garden-house, where sit the choicest party of damesand cavaliers: if not engaged in AEsthetic Tea, yet in trustful eveningconversation, and perhaps Musical Coffee, for we hear of "harps andpure voices making the stillness live." Scarcely, it would seem, is theGarden-house inferior in respectability to the noble Mansion itself."Embowered amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the hues and odorsof thousand flowers, here sat that brave company; in front, from thewide-opened doors, fair outlook over blossom and bush, over grove andvelvet green, stretching, undulating onwards to the remote Mountainpeaks: so bright, so mild, and everywhere the melody of birds and happycreatures: it was all as if man had stolen a shelter from the SUITin the bosom-vesture of Summer herself. How came it that the Wandereradvanced thither with such forecasting heart (_ahndungsvoll_), by theside of his gay host? Did he feel that to these soft influences his hardbosom ought to be shut; that here, once more, Fate had it in view to tryhim; to mock him, and see whether there were Humor in him?
"Next moment he finds himself presented to the party; and especially byname to--Blumine! Peculiar among all dames and damosels glanced Blumine,there in her modesty, like a star among earthly lights. Noblest maiden!whom he bent to, in body and in soul; yet scarcely dared look at, forthe presence filled him with painful yet sweetest embarrassment.
"Blumine's was a name well known to him; far and wide was the fair oneheard of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices: from all which vaguecolorings of Rumor, from the censures no less than from the praises, hadour friend painted for himself a certain imperious Queen of Hearts, andblooming warm Earth-angel, much more enchanting than your mere whiteHeaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins circulates too littlenaphtha-fire. Herself also he had seen in public places; that light yetso stately form; those dark tresses, shading a face where smiles andsunlight played over earnest deeps: but all this he had seen only as amagic vision, for him inaccessible, almost without reality. Her spherewas too far from his; how should she ever think of him; O Heaven! howshould they so much as once meet together? And now that Rose-goddesssits in the same circle with him; the light of _her_ eyes has smiled onhim; if he speak, she will hear it! Nay, who knows, since the heavenlySun looks into lowest valleys, but Blumine herself might have aforetimenoted the so unnotable; perhaps, from his very gainsayers, as he hadfrom hers, gathered wonder, gathered favor for him? Was the attraction,the agitation mutual, then; pole and pole trembling towards contact,when once brought into neighborhood? Say rather, heart swelling inpresence of the Queen of Hearts; like the Sea swelling when oncenear its Moon! With the Wanderer it was even so: as in heavenwardgravitation, suddenly as at the touch of a Seraph's wand, his whole soulis roused from its deepest recesses; and all that was painful and thatwas blissful there, dim images, vague feelings of a whole Past and awhole Future, are heaving in unquiet eddies within him.
"Often, in far less agitating scenes, had our still Friend shrunkforcibly together; and shrouded up his tremors and flutterings, ofwhat sort soever, in a safe cover of Silence, and perhaps of seemingStolidity. How was it, then, that here, when trembling to the core ofhis heart, he did not sink into swoons, but rose into strength, intofearlessness and clearness? It was his guiding Genius (_Damon_) thatinspired him; he must go forth and meet his Destiny. Show thyself now,whispered it, or be forever hid. Thus sometimes it is even when youranxiety becomes transcendental, that the soul first feels herself ableto transcend it; that she rises above it, in fiery victory; and borne onnew-found wings of victory, moves so calmly, even because so rapidly,so irresistibly. Always must the Wanderer remember, with a certainsatisfaction and surprise, how in this case he sat not silent but struckadroitly into the stream of conversation; which thenceforth, to speakwith an apparent not a real vanity, he may say that he continued tolead. Surely, in those hours, a certain inspiration was imparted him,such inspiration as is still possible in our late era. The self-secludedunfolds himself in noble thoughts, in free, glowing words; his soul isas one sea of light, the peculiar home of Truth and Intellect; whereinalso Fantasy bodies forth form after form, radiant with all prismatichues."
It appears, in this otherwise so happy meeting, there talked one"Philisitine;" who even now, to the general weariness, was dominantlypouring forth Philistinism (_Philistriositaten_.); little witting whathero was here entering to demolish him! We omit the series of Socratic,or rather Diogenic utterances, not unhappy in their way, whereby themonster, "persuaded into silence," seems soon after to have withdrawnfor the night. "Of which dialectic marauder," writes our hero, "thediscomfiture was visibly felt as a benefit by most: but what were allapplauses to the glad smile, threatening every moment to become a laugh,wherewith Blumine herself repaid the victor? He ventured to address hershe answered with attention: nay what if there were a slight tremorin that silver voice; what if the red glow of evening were hiding atransient blush!
"The conversation took a higher tone, one fine thought called forthanother: it was one of those rare seasons, when the soul expands withfull freedom, and man feels himself brought near to man. Gayly in light,graceful abandonment, the friendly talk played round that circle; forthe burden was rolled from every heart; the barriers of Ceremony, whichare indeed the laws of polite living, had melted as into vapor; and thepoor claims of _Me_ and _Thee_, no longer parted by rigid fences,now flowed softly into one another; and Life lay all harmonious,many-tinted, like some fair royal champaign, the sovereign and ownerof which were Love only. Such music springs from kind hearts, in a kindenvironment of place and time. And yet as the light grew more aerialon the mountaintops, and the shadows fell longer over the valley, somefaint tone of sadness may have breathed through the heart; and, inwhispers more or less audible, reminded every one that as this brightday was drawing towards its close, so likewise must the Day of Man'sExistence decline into dust and darkness; and with all its sicktoilings, and joyful and mournful noises, sink in the still Eternity.
"To our Friend the hours seemed moments; holy was he and happy: thewords from those sweetest lips came over him like dew on thirsty grass;all better feelings in his soul seemed to whisper, It is good for usto be here. At parting, the Blumine's hand was in his: in the balmytwilight, with the kind stars above them, he spoke something of meetingagain, which was not contradicted; he pressed gently those smallsoft fingers, and it seemed as if they were not hastily, not angrilywithdrawn."
Poor Teufelsdrockh! it is clear to demonstration thou art smit: theQueen of Hearts would see a "
man of genius" also sigh for her; andthere, by art-magic, in that preternatural hour, has she boundand spell-bound thee. "Love is not altogether a Delirium," says heelsewhere; "yet has it many points in common therewith. I call it rathera discerning of the Infinite in the Finite, of the Idea made Real;which discerning again may be either true or false, either seraphic ordemoniac, Inspiration or Insanity. But in the former case too, as incommon Madness, it is Fantasy that superadds itself to sight; on the sopetty domain of the Actual plants its Archimedes-lever, whereby tomove at will the infinite Spiritual. Fantasy I might call the trueHeaven-gate and Hell-gate of man: his sensuous life is but the smalltemporary stage (_Zeitbuhne_), whereon thick-streaming influencesfrom both these far yet near regions meet visibly, and act tragedy andmelodrama. Sense can support herself handsomely, in most countries, forsome eighteenpence a day; but for Fantasy planets and solar-systems willnot suffice. Witness your Pyrrhus conquering the world, yet drinking nobetter red wine than he had before." Alas! witness also your Diogenes,flame-clad, scaling the upper Heaven, and verging towards Insanity, forprize of a "high-souled Brunette," as if the Earth held but one and notseveral of these!
He says that, in Town, they met again: "day after day, like his heart'ssun, the blooming Blumine shone on him. Ah! a little while ago, and hewas yet in all darkness: him what Graceful (_Holde_) would ever love?Disbelieving all things, the poor youth had never learned to believein himself. Withdrawn, in proud timidity, within his own fastnesses;solitary from men, yet baited by night-spectres enough, he saw himself,with a sad indignation, constrained to renounce the fairest hopes ofexistence. And now, O now! 'She looks on thee,' cried he: 'she thefairest, noblest; do not her dark eyes tell thee, thou art not despised?The Heaven's-Messenger! All Heaven's blessings be hers!' Thus didsoft melodies flow through his heart; tones of an infinite gratitude;sweetest intimations that he also was a man, that for him alsounutterable joys had been provided.
"In free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent glances, laughter, tears,and often with the inarticulate mystic speech of Music: such was theelement they now lived in; in such a many-tinted, radiant Aurora, and bythis fairest of Orient Light-bringers must our Friend be blandished, andthe new Apocalypse of Nature enrolled to him. Fairest Blumine! And, evenas a Star, all Fire and humid Softness, a very Light-ray incarnate! Wasthere so much as a fault, a 'caprice,' he could have dispensed with? Wasshe not to him in very deed a Morning-star; did not her presence bringwith it airs from Heaven? As from AEolian Harps in the breath ofdawn, as from the Memnon's Statue struck by the rosy finger of Aurora,unearthly music was around him, and lapped him into untried balmy Rest.Pale Doubt fled away to the distance; Life bloomed up with happiness andhope. The past, then, was all a haggard dream; he had been in the Gardenof Eden, then, and could not discern it! But lo now! the black wallsof his prison melt away; the captive is alive, is free. If he loved hisDisenchantress? _Ach Gott_! His whole heart and soul and life were hers,but never had he named it Love: existence was all a Feeling, not yetshaped into a Thought."
Nevertheless, into a Thought, nay into an Action, it must be shaped; forneither Disenchanter nor Disenchantress, mere "Children of Time," canabide by Feeling alone. The Professor knows not, to this day, "how inher soft, fervid bosom the Lovely found determination, even on hestof Necessity, to cut asunder these so blissful bonds." He even appearssurprised at the "Duenna Cousin," whoever she may have been, "in whosemeagre hunger-bitten philosophy, the religion of young hearts was, fromthe first, faintly approved of." We, even at such distance, can explainit without necromancy. Let the Philosopher answer this one question:What figure, at that period, was a Mrs. Teufelsdrockh likely to make inpolished society? Could she have driven so much as a brass-bound Gig,or even a simple iron-spring one? Thou foolish "absolved Auscultator,"before whom lies no prospect of capital, will any yet known "religionof young hearts" keep the human kitchen warm? Pshaw! thy divine Blumine,when she "resigned herself to wed some richer," shows more philosophy,though but "a woman of genius," than thou, a pretended man.
Our readers have witnessed the origin of this Love-mania, and with whatroyal splendor it waxes, and rises. Let no one ask us to unfold theglories of its dominant state; much less the horrors of its almostinstantaneous dissolution. How from such inorganic masses, henceforthmadder than ever, as lie in these Bags, can even fragments of a livingdelineation be organized? Besides, of what profit were it? We view, witha lively pleasure, the gay silk Montgolfier start from the ground, andshoot upwards, cleaving the liquid deeps, till it dwindle to a luminousstar: but what is there to look longer on, when once, by naturalelasticity, or accident of fire, it has exploded? A haplessair-navigator, plunging, amid torn parachutes, sand-bags, and confusedwreck, fast enough into the jaws of the Devil! Suffice it to knowthat Teufelsdrockh rose into the highest regions of the Empyrean, by anatural parabolic track, and returned thence in a quick perpendicularone. For the rest, let any feeling reader, who has been unhappy enoughto do the like, paint it out for himself: considering only that if he,for his perhaps comparatively insignificant mistress, underwent suchagonies and frenzies, what must Teufelsdrockh's have been, with afire-heart, and for a nonpareil Blumine! We glance merely at the finalscene:--
"One morning, he found his Morning-star all dimmed and dusky-red; thefair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to have been weeping. Alas,no longer a Morning-star, but a troublous skyey Portent, announcing thatthe Doomsday had dawned! She said, in a tremulous voice, They were tomeet no more." The thunder-struck Air-sailor is not wanting tohimself in this dread hour: but what avails it? We omit the passionateexpostulations, entreaties, indignations, since all was vain, and noteven an explanation was conceded him; and hasten to the catastrophe."'Farewell, then, Madam!' said he, not without sternness, for his stungpride helped him. She put her hand in his, she looked in his face, tearsstarted to her eyes; in wild audacity he clasped her to his bosom;their lips were joined, their two souls, like two dew-drops, rushed intoone,--for the first time and for the last!" Thus was Teufelsdrockh madeimmortal by a kiss. And then? Why, then--"thick curtains of Night rushedover his soul, as rose the immeasurable Crash of Doom; and through theruins as of a shivered Universe was he falling, falling, towards theAbyss."
CHAPTER VI. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH.
We have long felt that, with a man like our Professor, matters mustoften be expected to take a course of their own; that in so multiplex,intricate a nature, there might be channels, both for admitting andemitting, such as the Psychologist had seldom noted; in short, that onno grand occasion and convulsion, neither in the joy-storm nor in thewoe-storm could you predict his demeanor.
To our less philosophical readers, for example, it is now clear that theso passionate Teufelsdrockh precipitated through "a shivered Universe"in this extraordinary way, has only one of three things which he cannext do: Establish himself in Bedlam; begin writing Satanic Poetry; orblow out his brains. In the progress towards any of which consummations,do not such readers anticipate extravagance enough; breast-beating,brow-beating (against walls), lion-bellowings of blasphemy and the like,stampings, smitings, breakages of furniture, if not arson itself?
Nowise so does Teufelsdrockh deport him. He quietly lifts his_Pilgerstab_ (Pilgrim-staff), "old business being soon wound up;" andbegins a perambulation and circumambulation of the terraqueous Globe!Curious it is, indeed, how with such vivacity of conception, suchintensity of feeling, above all, with these unconscionable habits ofExaggeration in speech, he combines that wonderful stillness of his,that stoicism in external procedure. Thus, if his sudden bereavement, inthis matter of the Flower-goddess, is talked of as a real Doomsday andDissolution of Nature, in which light doubtless it partly appearedto himself, his own nature is nowise dissolved thereby; but ratheris compressed closer. For once, as we might say, a Blumine by magicappliances has unlocked that shut heart of his, and its hidden thingsrush out tumultuous, boundless, like genii enfranchised from theirglass vial: but no sooner are your magic appliances withdrawn, than thest
range casket of a heart springs to again; and perhaps there is now nokey extant that will open it; for a Teufelsdrockh as we remarked,will not love a second time. Singular Diogenes! No sooner has thatheart-rending occurrence fairly taken place, than he affects to regardit as a thing natural, of which there is nothing more to be said. "Onehighest hope, seemingly legible in the eyes of an Angel, had recalledhim as out of Death-shadows into celestial Life: but a gleam of Tophetpassed over the face of his Angel; he was rapt away in whirlwinds, andheard the laughter of Demons. It was a Calenture," adds he, "wherebythe Youth saw green Paradise-groves in the waste Ocean-waters: a lyingvision, yet not wholly a lie, for _he_ saw it." But what things soeverpassed in him, when he ceased to see it; what ragings and despairingssoever Teufelsdrockh's soul was the scene of, he has the goodness toconceal under a quite opaque cover of Silence. We know it well; thefirst mad paroxysm past, our brave Gneschen collected his dismemberedphilosophies, and buttoned himself together; he was meek, silent, orspoke of the weather and the Journals: only by a transient knitting ofthose shaggy brows, by some deep flash of those eyes, glancing one knewnot whether with tear-dew or with fierce fire,--might you have guessedwhat a Gehenna was within: that a whole Satanic School were spouting,though inaudibly, there. To consume your own choler, as some chimneysconsume their own smoke; to keep a whole Satanic School spouting, if itmust spout, inaudibly, is a negative yet no slight virtue, nor one ofthe commonest in these times.
Nevertheless, we will not take upon us to say, that in the strangemeasure he fell upon, there was not a touch of latent Insanity; whereofindeed the actual condition of these Documents in _Capricornus_ and_Aquarius is_ no bad emblem. His so unlimited Wanderings, toilsomeenough, are without assigned or perhaps assignable aim; internal Unrestseems his sole guidance; he wanders, wanders, as if that curse ofthe Prophet had fallen on him, and he were "made like unto a wheel."Doubtless, too, the chaotic nature of these Paper-bags aggravates ourobscurity. Quite without note of preparation, for example, we come uponthe following slip: "A peculiar feeling it is that will rise in theTraveller, when turning some hill-range in his desert road, he descrieslying far below, embosomed among its groves and green natural bulwarks,and all diminished to a toy-box, the fair Town, where so many souls, asit were seen and yet unseen, are driving their multifarious traffic. Itswhite steeple is then truly a starward-pointing finger; the canopyof blue smoke seems like a sort of Lifebreath: for always, of its ownunity, the soul gives unity to whatsoever it looks on with love; thusdoes the little Dwelling-place of men, in itself a congeries of housesand huts, become for us an individual, almost a person. But whatthousand other thoughts unite thereto, if the place has to ourselvesbeen the arena of joyous or mournful experiences; if perhaps the cradlewe were rocked in still stands there, if our Loving ones still dwellthere, if our Buried ones there slumber!" Does Teufelsdrockh as thewounded eagle is said to make for its own eyrie, and indeed militarydeserters, and all hunted outcast creatures, turn as if by instinct inthe direction of their birthland,--fly first, in this extremity, towardshis native Entepfuhl; but reflecting that there no help awaits him, takeonly one wistful look from the distance, and then wend elsewhither?
Little happier seems to be his next flight: into the wilds of Nature; asif in her mother-bosom he would seek healing. So at least we inclineto interpret the following Notice, separated from the former by someconsiderable space, wherein, however, is nothing noteworthy:--
"Mountains were not new to him; but rarely are Mountains seen in suchcombined majesty and grace as here. The rocks are of that sort calledPrimitive by the mineralogists, which always arrange themselves inmasses of a rugged, gigantic character; which ruggedness, however,is here tempered by a singular airiness of form, and softness ofenvironment: in a climate favorable to vegetation, the gray cliff,itself covered with lichens, shoots up through a garment of foliageor verdure; and white, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster roundthe everlasting granite. In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates withGrandeur: you ride through stony hollows, along strait passes, traversedby torrents, overhung by high walls of rock; now winding amid brokenshaggy chasms, and huge fragments; now suddenly emerging into someemerald valley, where the streamlet collects itself into a Lake, andman has again found a fair dwelling, and it seems as if Peace hadestablished herself in the bosom of Strength.
"To Peace, however, in this vortex of existence, can the Son of Timenot pretend: still less if some Spectre haunt him from the Past; and theFuture is wholly a Stygian Darkness, spectre-bearing. Reasonably mightthe Wanderer exclaim to himself: Are not the gates of this world'shappiness inexorably shut against thee; hast thou a hope that is notmad? Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, or in the originalGreek if that suit thee better: 'Whoso can look on Death will start atno shadows.'
"From such meditations is the Wanderer's attention called outwards; fornow the Valley closes in abruptly, intersected by a huge mountainmass, the stony water-worn ascent of which is not to be accomplished onhorseback. Arrived aloft, he finds himself again lifted into the eveningsunset light; and cannot but pause, and gaze round him, some momentsthere. An upland irregular expanse of wold, where valleys in complexbranchings are suddenly or slowly arranging their descent towards everyquarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are beneath your feet, andfolded together: only the loftier summits look down here and there as ona second plain; lakes also lie clear and earnest in their solitude. Notrace of man now visible; unless indeed it were he who fashionedthat little visible link of Highway, here, as would seem, scaling theinaccessible, to unite Province with Province. But sunwards, lo you! howit towers sheer up, a world of Mountains, the diadem and centre of themountain region! A hundred and a hundred savage peaks, in the last lightof Day; all glowing, of gold and amethyst, like giant spirits of thewilderness; there in their silence, in their solitude, even as on thenight when Noah's Deluge first dried! Beautiful, nay solemn, was thesudden aspect to our Wanderer. He gazed over those stupendous masseswith wonder, almost with longing desire; never till this hour had heknown Nature, that she was One, that she was his Mother and divine. Andas the ruddy glow was fading into clearness in the sky, and the Sun hadnow departed, a murmur of Eternity and Immensity, of Death and of Life,stole through his soul; and he felt as if Death and Life were one, as ifthe Earth were not dead, as if the Spirit of the Earth had its throne inthat splendor, and his own spirit were therewith holding communion.
"The spell was broken by a sound of carriage-wheels. Emerging from thehidden Northward, to sink soon into the hidden Southward, came a gayBarouche-and-four: it was open; servants and postilions wore weddingfavors: that happy pair, then, had found each other, it was theirmarriage evening! Few moments brought them near: _Du Himmel_! It wasHerr Towgood and--Blumine! With slight unrecognizing salutation theypassed me; plunged down amid the neighboring thickets, onwards, toHeaven, and to England; and I, in my friend Richter's words, _I remainedalone, behind them, with the Night_."
Were it not cruel in these circumstances, here might be the place toinsert an observation, gleaned long ago from the great _Clothes-Volume_,where it stands with quite other intent: "Some time before Small-poxwas extirpated," says the Professor, "there came a new malady ofthe spiritual sort on Europe: I mean the epidemic, now endemical, ofView-hunting. Poets of old date, being privileged with Senses, had alsoenjoyed external Nature; but chiefly as we enjoy the crystal cup whichholds good or bad liquor for us; that is to say, in silence, or withslight incidental commentary: never, as I compute, till after the_Sorrows of Werter_, was there man found who would say: Come let us makea Description! Having drunk the liquor, come let us eat the glass! Ofwhich endemic the Jenner is unhappily still to seek." Too true!
We reckon it more important to remark that the Professor's Wanderings,so far as his stoical and cynical envelopment admits us to clearinsight, here first take their permanent character, fatuous or not. ThatBasilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have withered upwhat little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in him: Life has
become wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through long years, our Friend,flying from spectres, has to stumble about at random, and naturally withmore haste than progress.
Foolish were it in us to attempt following him, even from afar, in thisextraordinary world-pilgrimage of his; the simplest record of which,were clear record possible, would fill volumes. Hopeless is theobscurity, unspeakable the confusion. He glides from country to country,from condition to condition; vanishing and reappearing, no man cancalculate how or where. Through all quarters of the world he wanders,and apparently through all circles of society. If in any scene, perhapsdifficult to fix geographically, he settles for a time, and formsconnections, be sure he will snap them abruptly asunder. Let him sinkout of sight as Private Scholar (_Privatsirender_), living by the graceof God in some European capital, you may next find him as Hadjee in theneighborhood 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. Thewhole, too, imparted emblematically, in dim multifarious tokens (as thatcollection of Street-Advertisements); with only some touch of directhistorical notice sparingly interspersed: little light-islets in theworld of haze! So that, from this point, the Professor is more of anenigma than ever. In figurative language, we might say he becomes, notindeed a spirit, yet spiritualized, vaporized. Fact unparalleled inBiography: The river of his History, which we have traced from itstiniest fountains, and hoped to see flow onward, with increasingcurrent, into the ocean, here dashes itself over that terrific Lover'sLeap; and, as a mad-foaming cataract, flies wholly into tumultuousclouds of spray! Low down it indeed collects again into pools andplashes; 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 andplashes, and trace whither they run, must, for a chapter or two, formthe limit of our endeavor.
For which end doubtless those direct historical Notices, where they canbe met with, are the best. Nevertheless, of this sort too there occursmuch, which, with our present light, it were questionable to emit.Teufelsdrockh vibrating everywhere between the highest and the lowestlevels, comes into contact with public History itself. For example,those conversations and relations with illustrious Persons, as SultanMahmoud, the Emperor Napoleon, and others, are they not as yet ratherof a diplomatic character than of a biographic? The Editor, appreciatingthe sacredness of crowned heads, nay perhaps suspecting the possibletrickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew this province for thepresent; a new time may bring new insight and a different duty.
If we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for there wasnone, yet with what immediate outlooks; at all events, in what mood ofmind, the Professor undertook and prosecuted this world-pilgrimage,--theanswer is more distinct than favorable. "A nameless Unrest," says he,"urged me forward; to which the outward motion was some momentary lyingsolace. Whither should I go? My Loadstars were blotted out; in thatcanopy of grim fire shone no star. Yet forward must I; the ground burntunder me; there was no rest for the sole of my foot. I was alone, alone!Ever too the strong inward longing shaped Phantasms for itself: towardsthese, one after the other, must I fruitlessly wander. A feeling Ihad, that for my fever-thirst there was and must be somewhere a healingFountain. To many fondly imagined Fountains, the Saints' Wells of thesedays, did I pilgrim; to great Men, to great Cities, to great Events: butfound there no healing. In strange countries, as in the well-known; insavage deserts, as in the press of corrupt civilization, it was everthe same: how could your Wanderer escape from--_his own Shadow_?Nevertheless still Forward! I felt as if in great haste; to do I saw notwhat. From the depths of my own heart, it called to me, Forwards! Thewinds and the streams, and all Nature sounded to me, Forwards! _AchGott_, I was even, once for all, a Son of Time."
From which is it not clear that the internal Satanic School was stillactive enough? He says elsewhere: "The _Enchiridion of Epictetus_ I hadever with me, often as my sole rational companion; and regret tomention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling." Thou foolishTeufelsdrockh How could it else? Hadst thou not Greek enough tounderstand 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 'ruggedall-nourishing Earth,' as Sophocles well names her; how she feedsthe sparrow on the house-top, much more her darling, man? While thoustirrest and livest, thou hast a probability of victual. My breakfast oftea has been cooked by a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who wipedher earthen kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted wild eggs inthe sand of Sahara; I have awakened in Paris _Estrapades_ and Vienna_Malzleins_, with no prospect of breakfast beyond elemental liquid. ThatI had my Living to seek saved me from Dying,--by suicide. In ourbusy Europe, is there not an everlasting demand for Intellect, in thechemical, mechanical, political, religious, educational, commercialdepartments? In Pagan countries, cannot one write Fetishes? Living!Little knowest thou what alchemy is in an inventive Soul; how, as withits little finger, it can create provision enough for the body (of aPhilosopher); and then, as with both hands, create quite other thanprovision; namely, spectres to torment itself withal."
Poor Teufelsdrockh! Flying with Hunger always parallel to him; and awhole Infernal Chase in his rear; so that the countenance of Hunger iscomparatively a friend's! Thus must he, in the temper of ancient Cain,or of the modern Wandering Jew,--save only that he feels himself notguilty and but suffering the pains of guilt,--wend to and fro withaimless speed. Thus must he, over the whole surface of the Earth (byfootprints), write his _Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh_; even as the greatGoethe, in passionate words, had to write his _Sorrows of Werter_,before the spirit freed herself, and he could become a Man. Vain trulyis the hope of your swiftest Runner to escape "from his own Shadow"!Nevertheless, in these sick days, when the Born of Heaven first descrieshimself (about the age of twenty) in a world such as ours, richerthan usual in two things, in Truths grown obsolete, and Trades grownobsolete,--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 anddespair? Whereby it happens that, for your nobler minds, the publishingof some such Work of Art, in one or the other dialect, becomes almosta necessity. For what is it properly but an Altercation with theDevil, before you begin honestly Fighting him? Your Byron publisheshis _Sorrows of Lord George_, in verse and in prose, and copiouslyotherwise: 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 ofConflagration; his rhyme and recitative are the tramp of embattledHosts and the sound of falling Cities.--Happier is he who, like ourClothes-Philosopher, can write such matter, since it must be written,on the insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles only; and also survive thewriting thereof!
Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh Page 16
