Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh
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CHAPTER IX. CIRCUMSPECTIVE.
Here, then, arises the so momentous question: Have many British Readersactually arrived with us at the new promised country; is the Philosophyof Clothes now at last opening around them? Long and adventurous has thejourney been: from those outmost vulgar, palpable Woollen Hulls of Man;through his wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his wondrous Social Garnitures;inwards to the Garments of his very Soul's Soul, to Time and Spacethemselves! And now does the spiritual, eternal Essence of Man, and ofMankind, bared of such wrappages, begin in any measure to reveal itself?Can many readers discern, as through a glass darkly, in huge waveringoutlines, some primeval rudiments of Man's Being, what is changeabledivided from what is unchangeable? Does that Earth-Spirit's speech in_Faust_,--
"'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by; "
or that other thousand-times repeated speech of the Magician,Shakespeare,--
"And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces, The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself, And all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And like this unsubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a wrack behind;"
begin to have some meaning for us? In a word, do we at length standsafe in the far region of Poetic Creation and Palingenesia, where thatPhoenix Death-Birth of Human Society, and of all Human Things, appearspossible, is seen to be inevitable?
Along this most insufficient, unheard-of Bridge, which the Editor,by Heaven's blessing, has now seen himself enabled to conclude if notcomplete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope,that many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, overspanningthe Impassable with paved highway, could the Editor construct; only,as was said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon.Alas, and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneckcharacter; the darkness, the nature of the element, all was against us!
Nevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, provided with adiscursiveness of intellect rare in our day, have cleared the passage,in spite of all? Happy few! little band of Friends! be welcome, be ofcourage. By degrees, the eye grows accustomed to its new Whereabout;the hand can stretch itself forth to work there: it is in this grand andindeed highest work of Palingenesia that ye shall labor, each accordingto ability. New laborers will arrive; new Bridges will be built;nay, may not our own poor rope-and-raft Bridge, in your passings andrepassings, be mended in many a point, till it grow quite firm, passableeven for the halt?
Meanwhile, of the innumerable multitude that started with us, joyousand full of hope, where now is the innumerable remainder, whom we see nolonger by our side? The most have recoiled, and stand gazing afaroff, in unsympathetic astonishment, at our career: not a few, pressingforward with more courage, have missed footing, or leaped short; and nowswim weltering in the Chaos-flood, some towards this shore, some towardsthat. To these also a helping hand should be held out; at least someword of encouragement be said.
Or, to speak without metaphor, with which mode of utteranceTeufelsdrockh unhappily has somewhat infected us,--can it be hidden fromthe Editor that many a British Reader sits reading quite bewildered inhead, and afflicted rather than instructed by the present Work?Yes, long ago has many a British Reader been, as now, demanding withsomething like a snarl: Whereto does all this lead; or what use is init?
In the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise aiding thy digestivefaculty, O British Reader, it leads to nothing, and there is no use init; but rather the reverse, for it costs thee somewhat. Nevertheless,if through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufelsdrockh, and we by meansof him, have led thee into the true Land of Dreams; and through theClothes-Screen, as through a magical _Pierre-Pertuis_, thou lookest,even for moments, into the region of the Wonderful, and seest andfeelest that thy daily life is girt with Wonder, and based on Wonder,and thy very blankets and breeches are Miracles,--then art thou profitedbeyond money's worth; and hast a thankfulness towards our Professor;nay, perhaps in many a literary Tea-circle wilt open thy kind lips, andaudibly express that same.
Nay farther, art not thou too perhaps by this time made aware that allSymbols are properly Clothes; that all Forms whereby Spirit manifestsitself to sense, whether outwardly or in the imagination, are Clothes;and thus not only the parchment Magna Charta, which a Tailor was nighcutting into measures, but the Pomp and Authority of Law, the sacrednessof Majesty, and all inferior Worships (Worth-ships) are properlya Vesture and Raiment; and the Thirty-nine Articles themselves arearticles of wearing-apparel (for the Religious Idea)? In which case,must it not also be admitted that this Science of Clothes is a high one,and may with infinitely deeper study on thy part yield richer fruit:that it takes scientific rank beside Codification, and PoliticalEconomy, and the Theory of the British Constitution; nay rather,from its prophetic height looks down on all these, as on so manyweaving-shops and spinning-mills, where the Vestures which _it_ hasto fashion, and consecrate, and distribute, are, too often by haggardhungry operatives who see no farther than their nose, mechanically wovenand spun?
But omitting all this, much more all that concerns NaturalSupernaturalism, and indeed whatever has reference to the Ulterior orTranscendental portion of the Science, or bears never so remotely onthat promised Volume of the _Palingenesie der menschlichen Gesellschaft_(Newbirth of Society),--we humbly suggest that no province ofClothes-Philosophy, even the lowest, is without its direct value,but that innumerable inferences of a practical nature may be drawntherefrom. To say nothing of those pregnant considerations, ethical,political, symbolical, which crowd on the Clothes-Philosopher from thevery threshold of his Science; nothing even of those "architecturalideas," which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of all Modes,and will one day, better unfolding themselves, lead to importantrevolutions,--let us glance for a moment, and with the faintest lightof Clothes-Philosophy, on what may be called the Habilatory Class of ourfellow-men. Here too overlooking, where so much were to be looked on,the million spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, washers, and wringers,that puddle and muddle in their dark recesses, to make us Clothes, anddie that we may live,--let us but turn the reader's attention upontwo small divisions of mankind, who, like moths, may be regarded asCloth-animals, creatures that live, move and have their being in Cloth:we mean, Dandies and Tailors.
In regard to both which small divisions it may be asserted withoutscruple, that the public feeling, unenlightened by Philosophy, is atfault; and even that the dictates of humanity are violated. As willperhaps abundantly appear to readers of the two following Chapters.