ADAMITISM.

Let no courteous reader take offence at the opinions broached in the
conclusion of the last Chapter. The Editor himself, on first glancing over
that singular passage, was inclined to exclaim: What, have we got not only
a Sansculottist, but an enemy to Clothes in the abstract? A new Adamite,
in this century, which flatters itself that it is the Nineteenth, and
destructive both to Superstition and Enthusiasm?

Consider, thou foolish Teufelsdrockh, what benefits unspeakable all ages
and sexes derive from Clothes. For example, when thou thyself, a watery,
pulpy, slobbery freshman and new-comer in this Planet, sattest muling and
puking in thy nurse's arms; sucking thy coral, and looking forth into the
world in the blankest manner, what hadst thou been without thy blankets,
and bibs, and other nameless hulls? A terror to thyself and mankind! Or
hast thou forgotten the day when thou first receivedst breeches, and thy
long clothes became short? The village where thou livedst was all apprised
of the fact; and neighbor after neighbor kissed thy pudding-cheek, and gave
thee, as handsel, silver or copper coins, on that the first gala-day of thy
existence. Again, wert not thou, at one period of life, a Buck, or Blood,
or Macaroni, or Incroyable, or Dandy, or by whatever name, according to
year and place, such phenomenon is distinguished? In that one word lie
included mysterious volumes. Nay, now when the reign of folly is over, or
altered, and thy clothes are not for triumph but for defence, hast thou
always worn them perforce, and as a consequence of Man's Fall; never
rejoiced in them as in a warm movable House, a Body round thy Body, wherein
that strange THEE of thine sat snug, defying all variations of Climate?
Girt with thick double-milled kerseys; half buried under shawls and
broadbrims, and overalls and mudboots, thy very fingers cased in doeskin
and mittens, thou hast bestrode that "Horse I ride;" and, though it were in
wild winter, dashed through the world, glorying in it as if thou wert its
lord. In vain did the sleet beat round thy temples; it lighted only on thy
impenetrable, felted or woven, case of wool. In vain did the winds
howl,--forests sounding and creaking, deep calling unto deep,--and the
storms heap themselves together into one huge Arctic whirlpool: thou
flewest through the middle thereof, striking fire from the highway; wild
music hummed in thy ears, thou too wert as a "sailor of the air;" the wreck
of matter and the crash of worlds was thy element and propitiously wafting
tide. Without Clothes, without bit or saddle, what hadst thou been; what
had thy fleet quadruped been?--Nature is good, but she is not the best:
here truly was the victory of Art over Nature. A thunderbolt indeed might
have pierced thee; all short of this thou couldst defy.

Or, cries the courteous reader, has your Teufelsdrockh forgotten what he
said lately about "Aboriginal Savages," and their "condition miserable
indeed"? Would he have all this unsaid; and us betake ourselves again to
the "matted cloak," and go sheeted in a "thick natural fell"?

Nowise, courteous reader! The Professor knows full well what he is saying;
and both thou and we, in our haste, do him wrong. If Clothes, in these
times, "so tailorize and demoralize us," have they no redeeming value; can
they not be altered to serve better; must they of necessity be thrown to
the dogs? The truth is, Teufelsdrockh, though a Sansculottist, is no
Adamite; and much perhaps as he might wish to go forth before this
degenerate age "as a Sign," would nowise wish to do it, as those old
Adamites did, in a state of Nakedness. The utility of Clothes is
altogether apparent to him: nay perhaps he has an insight into their more
recondite, and almost mystic qualities, what we might call the omnipotent
virtue of Clothes, such as was never before vouchsafed to any man. For
example:--

"You see two individuals," he writes, "one dressed in fine Red, the other
in coarse threadbare Blue: Red says to Blue, 'Be hanged and anatomized;'
Blue hears with a shudder, and (O wonder of wonders!) marches sorrowfully
to the gallows; is there noosed up, vibrates his hour, and the surgeons
dissect him, and fit his bones into a skeleton for medical purposes. How
is this; or what make ye of your _Nothing can act but where it is_? Red
has no physical hold of Blue, no _clutch_ of him, is nowise in _contact_
with him: neither are those ministering Sheriffs and Lord-Lieutenants and
Hangmen and Tipstaves so related to commanding Red, that he can tug them
hither and thither; but each stands distinct within his own skin.
Nevertheless, as it is spoken, so is it done: the articulated Word sets
all hands in Action; and Rope and Improved-drop perform their work.

"Thinking reader, the reason seems to me twofold: First, that _Man is a
Spirit_, and bound by invisible bonds to _All Men_; secondly, that _he
wears Clothes_, which are the visible emblems of that fact. Has not your
Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins, and a plush-gown;
whereby all mortals know that he is a JUDGE?--Society, which the more I
think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon Cloth.

"Often in my atrabiliar moods, when I read of pompous ceremonials,
Frankfort Coronations, Royal Drawing-rooms, Levees, Couchees; and how the
ushers and macers and pursuivants are all in waiting; how Duke this is
presented by Archduke that, and Colonel A by General B, and innumerable
Bishops, Admirals, and miscellaneous Functionaries, are advancing gallantly
to the Anointed Presence; and I strive, in my remote privacy, to form a
clear picture of that solemnity,--on a sudden, as by some enchanter's wand,
the--shall I speak it?--the Clothes fly off the whole dramatic corps; and
Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, Anointed Presence itself, every
mother's son of them, stand straddling there, not a shirt on them; and I
know not whether to laugh or weep. This physical or psychical infirmity,
in which perhaps I am not singular, I have, after hesitation, thought right
to publish, for the solace of those afflicted with the like."

Would to Heaven, say we, thou hadst thought right to keep it secret! Who
is there now that can read the five columns of Presentations in his Morning
Newspaper without a shudder? Hypochondriac men, and all men are to a
certain extent hypochondriac, should be more gently treated. With what
readiness our fancy, in this shattered state of the nerves, follows out the
consequences which Teufelsdrockh, with a devilish coolness, goes on to
draw:--

"What would Majesty do, could such an accident befall in reality; should
the buttons all simultaneously start, and the solid wool evaporate, in very
Deed, as here in Dream? _Ach Gott_! How each skulks into the nearest
hiding-place; their high State Tragedy (_Haupt- und Staats-Action_) becomes
a Pickleherring-Farce to weep at, which is the worst kind of Farce; _the
tables_ (according to Horace), and with them, the whole fabric of
Government, Legislation, Property, Police, and Civilized Society, _are
dissolved_, in wails and howls."

Lives the man that can figure a naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a
naked House of Lords? Imagination, choked as in mephitic air, recoils on
itself, and will not forward with the picture. The Woolsack, the
Ministerial, the Opposition Benches--_infandum! infandum_! And yet why is
the thing impossible? Was not every soul, or rather every body, of these
Guardians of our Liberties, naked, or nearly so, last night; "a forked
Radish with a head fantastically carved"? And why might he not, did our
stern fate so order it, walk out to St. Stephen's, as well as into bed, in
that no-fashion; and there, with other similar Radishes, hold a Bed of
Justice? "Solace of those afflicted with the like!" Unhappy
Teufelsdrockh, had man ever such a "physical or psychical infirmity"
before? And now how many, perhaps, may thy unparalleled confession (which
we, even to the sounder British world, and goaded on by Critical and
Biographical duty, grudge to reimpart) incurably infect therewith! Art
thou the malignest of Sansculottists, or only the maddest?

"It will remain to be examined," adds the inexorable Teufelsdrockh, "in how
far the SCARECROW, as a Clothed Person, is not also entitled to benefit of
clergy, and English trial by jury: nay perhaps, considering his high
function (for is not he too a Defender of Property, and Sovereign armed
with the _terrors_ of the Law?), to a certain royal Immunity and
Inviolability; which, however, misers and the meaner class of persons are
not always voluntarily disposed to grant him."

"O my Friends, we are [in Yorick Sterne's words] but as 'turkeys driven,
with a stick and red clout, to the market:' or if some drivers, as they do
in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas in it, the rattle thereof
terrifies the boldest!"