TAILORS.
Thus, however, has our first Practical Inference from the
Clothes-Philosophy, that which respects Dandies, been sufficiently drawn;
and we come now to the second, concerning Tailors. On this latter our
opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teufelsdrockh himself, as
expressed in the concluding page of his Volume, to whom, therefore, we
willingly give place. Let him speak his own last words, in his own way:--
"Upwards of a century," says he, "must elapse, and still the bleeding fight
of Freedom be fought, whoso is noblest perishing in the van, and thrones be
hurled on altars like Pelion on Ossa, and the Moloch of Iniquity have his
victims, and the Michael of Justice his martyrs, before Tailors can be
admitted to their true prerogatives of manhood, and this last wound of
suffering Humanity be closed.
"If aught in the history of the world's blindness could surprise us, here
might we indeed pause and wonder. An idea has gone abroad, and fixed
itself down into a wide-spreading rooted error, that Tailors are a distinct
species in Physiology, not Men, but fractional Parts of a Man. Call any
one a _Schneider_ (Cutter, Tailor), is it not, in our dislocated,
hoodwinked, and indeed delirious condition of Society, equivalent to
defying his perpetual fellest enmity? The epithet _schneidermassig_
(tailor-like) betokens an otherwise unapproachable degree of pusillanimity;
we introduce a _Tailor's-Melancholy_, more opprobrious than any Leprosy,
into our Books of Medicine; and fable I know not what of his generating it
by living on Cabbage. Why should I speak of Hans Sachs (himself a
Shoemaker, or kind of Leather-Tailor), with his _Schneider mit dem Panier_?
Why of Shakspeare, in his _Taming of the Shrew_, and elsewhere? Does it
not stand on record that the English Queen Elizabeth, receiving a
deputation of Eighteen Tailors, addressed them with a 'Good morning,
gentlemen both!' Did not the same virago boast that she had a Cavalry
Regiment, whereof neither horse nor man could be injured; her Regiment,
namely, of Tailors on Mares? Thus everywhere is the falsehood taken for
granted, and acted on as an indisputable fact.
"Nevertheless, need I put the question to any Physiologist, whether it is
disputable or not? Seems it not at least presumable, that, under his
Clothes, the Tailor has bones and viscera, and other muscles than the
sartorius? Which function of manhood is the Tailor not conjectured to
perform? Can he not arrest for debt? Is he not in most countries a
taxpaying animal?
"To no reader of this Volume can it be doubtful which conviction is mine.
Nay if the fruit of these long vigils, and almost preternatural Inquiries,
is not to perish utterly, the world will have approximated towards a higher
Truth; and the doctrine, which Swift, with the keen forecast of genius,
dimly anticipated, will stand revealed in clear light: that the Tailor is
not only a Man, but something of a Creator or Divinity. Of Franklin it was
said, that 'he snatched the Thunder from Heaven and the Sceptre from
Kings:' but which is greater, I would ask, he that lends, or he that
snatches? For, looking away from individual cases, and how a Man is by the
Tailor new-created into a Nobleman, and clothed not only with Wool but with
Dignity and a Mystic Dominion,--is not the fair fabric of Society itself,
with all its royal mantles and pontifical stoles, whereby, from nakedness
and dismemberment, we are organized into Polities, into nations, and a
whole co-operating Mankind, the creation, as has here been often
irrefragably evinced, of the Tailor alone?--What too are all Poets and
moral Teachers, but a species of Metaphorical Tailors? Touching which high
Guild the greatest living Guild-brother has triumphantly asked us: 'Nay if
thou wilt have it, who but the Poet first made Gods for men; brought them
down to us; and raised us up to them?'
"And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the hard basis of his Shopboard,
the world treats with contumely, as the ninth part of a man! Look up, thou
much-injured one, look up with the kindling eye of hope, and prophetic
bodings of a noble better time. Too long hast thou sat there, on crossed
legs, wearing thy ankle-joints to horn; like some sacred Anchorite, or
Catholic Fakir, doing penance, drawing down Heaven's richest blessings, for
a world that scoffed at thee. Be of hope! Already streaks of blue peer
through our clouds; the thick gloom of Ignorance is rolling asunder, and it
will be Day. Mankind will repay with interest their long-accumulated debt:
the Anchorite that was scoffed at will be worshipped; the Fraction will
become not an Integer only, but a Square and Cube. With astonishment the
world will recognize that the Tailor is its Hierophant and Hierarch, or
even its God.
"As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and looked upon these
Four-and-Twenty Tailors, sewing and embroidering that rich Cloth, which the
Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I thought within myself: How
many other Unholies has your covering Art made holy, besides this Arabian
Whinstone!
"Still more touching was it when, turning the corner of a lane, in the
Scottish Town of Edinburgh, I came upon a Signpost, whereon stood written
that such and such a one was 'Breeches-Maker to his Majesty;' and stood
painted the Effigies of a Pair of Leather Breeches, and between the knees
these memorable words, SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. Was not this the martyr
prison-speech of a Tailor sighing indeed in bonds, yet sighing towards
deliverance, and prophetically appealing to a better day? A day of
justice, when the worth of Breeches would be revealed to man, and the
Scissors become forever venerable.
"Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal been altogether in vain.
It was in this high moment, when the soul, rent, as it were, and shed
asunder, is open to inspiring influence, that I first conceived this Work
on Clothes: the greatest I can ever hope to do; which has already, after
long retardations, occupied, and will yet occupy, so large a section of my
Life; and of which the Primary and simpler Portion may here find its
conclusion."