This questionable little Book was undoubtedly written among the mountain
solitudes, in 1831; but, owing to impediments natural and accidental, could
not, for seven years more, appear as a Volume in England;--and had at last
to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit by bit, in
some courageous _Magazine_ that offered. Whereby now, to certain idly
curious readers, and even to myself till I make study, the insignificant
but at last irritating question, What its real history and chronology are,
is, if not insoluble, considerably involved in haze.
To the first English Edition, 1838, which an American, or two American had
now opened the way for, there was slightingly prefixed, under the title,
"_Testimonies of Authors_," some straggle of real documents, which, now
that I find it again, sets the matter into clear light and sequence:--and
shall here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks and nugatory guessings
from the path of every reader, be reprinted as it stood. (_Author's Note,
of_ 1868.)
TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS.
I. HIGHEST CLASS, BOOKSELLER'S TASTER.
_Taster to Bookseller_.--"The Author of _Teufelsdrockh_ is a person of
talent; his work displays here and there some felicity of thought and
expression, considerable fancy and knowledge: but whether or not it would
take with the public seems doubtful. For a _jeu d'esprit_ of that kind it
is too long; it would have suited better as an essay or article than as a
volume. The Author has no great tact; his wit is frequently heavy; and
reminds one of the German Baron who took to leaping on tables and answered
that he was learning to be lively. _Is_ the work a translation?"
_Bookseller to Editor_.--"Allow me to say that such a writer requires only
a little more tact to produce a popular as well as an able work. Directly
on receiving your permission, I sent your MS. to a gentleman in the highest
class of men of letters, and an accomplished German scholar: I now enclose
you his opinion, which, you may rely upon it, is a just one; and I have too
high an opinion of your good sense to" &c. &c.--_Ms. (penes nos), London,
17th September_, 1831.
II. CRITIC OF THE SUN.
"_Fraser's Magazine_ exhibits the usual brilliancy, and also the" &c.
"_Sartor Resartus_ is what old Dennis used to call 'a heap of clotted
nonsense,' mixed however, here and there, with passages marked by thought
and striking poetic vigor. But what does the writer mean by 'Baphometic
fire-baptism'? Why cannot he lay aside his pedantry, and write so as to
make himself generally intelligible? We quote by way of curiosity a
sentence from the _Sartor Resartus_; which may be read either backwards or
forwards, for it is equally intelligible either way: indeed, by beginning
at the tail, and so working up to the head, we think the reader will stand
the fairest chance of getting at its meaning: 'The fire-baptized soul,
long so scathed and thunder-riven, here feels its own freedom; which
feeling is its Baphometic baptism: the citadel of its whole kingdom it has
thus gained by assault, and will keep inexpugnable; outwards from which the
remaining dominions, not indeed without hard battering, will doubtless by
degrees be conquered and pacificated.' Here is a"...--_Sun Newspaper, 1st
April_, 1834.
III. NORTH--AMERICAN REVIEWER.
... "After a careful survey of the whole ground, our belief is that no such
persons as Professors Teufelsdrockh or Counsellor Heuschrecke ever existed;
that the six Paper-bags, with their China-ink inscriptions and multifarious
contents, are a mere figment of the brain; that the 'present Editor' is the
only person who has ever written upon the Philosophy of Clothes; and that
the _Sartor Resartus_ is the only treatise that has yet appeared upon that
subject;--in short, that the whole account of the origin of the work before
us, which the supposed Editor relates with so much gravity, and of which we
have given a brief abstract, is, in plain English, a _hum_.
"Without troubling our readers at any great length with our reasons for
entertaining these suspicions, we may remark, that the absence of all other
information on the subject, except what is contained in the work, is itself
a fact of a most significant character. The whole German press, as well as
the particular one where the work purports to have been printed, seems to
be under the control of _Stillschweigen and Co. _--Silence and Company. If
the Clothes-Philosophy and its author are making so great a sensation
throughout Germany as is pretended, how happens it that the only notice we
have of the fact is contained in a few numbers of a monthly Magazine
published at London! How happens it that no intelligence about the matter
has come out directly to this country? We pique ourselves here in New
England upon knowing at least as much of what is going on in the literary
way in the old Dutch Mother-land as our brethren of the fast-anchored Isle;
but thus far we have no tidings whatever of the 'extensive close-printed,
close-meditated volume,' which forms the subject of this pretended
commentary. Again, we would respectfully inquire of the 'present Editor'
upon what part of the map of Germany we are to look for the city of
_Weissnichtwo_--'Know-not-where'--at which place the work is supposed to
have been printed, and the Author to have resided. It has been our fortune
to visit several portions of the German territory, and to examine pretty
carefully, at different times and for various purposes, maps of the whole;
but we have no recollection of any such place. We suspect that the city of
_Know-not-where_ might be called, with at least as much propriety,
_Nobody-knows-where_, and is to be found in the kingdom of _Nowhere_.
Again, the village of _Entepfuhl_--'Duck-pond'--where the supposed Author
of the work is said to have passed his youth, and that of _Hinterschlag_,
where he had his education, are equally foreign to our geography.
Duck-ponds enough there undoubtedly are in almost every village in Germany,
as the traveller in that country knows too well to his cost, but any
particular village denominated Duck-pond is to us altogether _terra
incognita_. The names of the personages are not less singular than those
of the places. Who can refrain from a smile at the yoking together of such
a pair of appellatives as Diogenes Teufelsdrockh? The supposed bearer of
this strange title is represented as admitting, in his pretended
autobiography, that 'he had searched to no purpose through all the Heralds'
books in and without the German empire, and through all manner of
Subscribers'-lists, Militia-rolls, and other Name-catalogues,' but had
nowhere been able to find 'the name Teufelsdrockh, except as appended to
his own person.' We can readily believe this, and we doubt very much
whether any Christian parent would think of condemning a son to carry
through life the burden of so unpleasant a title. That of Counsellor
Heuschrecke--'Grasshopper'-- though not offensive, looks much more like a
piece of fancy-work than a 'fair business transaction.' The same may be
said of _Blumine_--'Flower-Goddess'--the heroine of the fable; and so of
the rest.
"In short, our private opinion is, as we have remarked, that the whole
story of a correspondence with Germany, a university of Nobody-knows-where,
a Professor of Things in General, a Counsellor Grasshopper, a
Flower-Goddess Blumine, and so forth, has about as much foundation in truth
as the late entertaining account of Sir John Herschel's discoveries in the
moon. Fictions of this kind are, however, not uncommon, and ought not,
perhaps, to be condemned with too much severity; but we are not sure that
we can exercise the same indulgence in regard to the attempt, which seems
to be made to mislead the public as to the substance of the work before us,
and its pretended German original. Both purport, as we have seen, to be
upon the subject of Clothes, or dress. _Clothes, their Origin and
Influence_, is the title of the supposed German treatise of Professor
Teufelsdrockh and the rather odd name of _Sartor Resartus_--the Tailor
Patched--which the present Editor has affixed to his pretended commentary,
seems to look the same way. But though there is a good deal of remark
throughout the work in a half-serious, half-comic style upon dress, it
seems to be in reality a treatise upon the great science of Things in
General, which Teufelsdrockh, is supposed to have professed at the
university of Nobody-knows-where. Now, without intending to adopt a too
rigid standard of morals, we own that we doubt a little the propriety of
offering to the public a treatise on Things in General, under the name and
in the form of an Essay on Dress. For ourselves, advanced as we
unfortunately are in the journey of life, far beyond the period when dress
is practically a matter of interest, we have no hesitation in saying, that
the real subject of the work is to us more attractive than the ostensible
one. But this is probably not the case with the mass of readers. To the
younger portion of the community, which constitutes everywhere the very
great majority, the subject of dress is one of intense and paramount
importance. An author who treats it appeals, like the poet, to the young
men end maddens--_virginibus puerisque_--and calls upon them, by all the
motives which habitually operate most strongly upon their feelings, to buy
his book. When, after opening their purses for this purpose, they have
carried home the work in triumph, expecting to find in it some particular
instruction in regard to the tying of their neckcloths, or the cut of their
corsets, and meet with nothing better than a dissertation on Things in
General, they will--to use the mildest term--not be in very good humor. If
the last improvements in legislation, which we have made in this country,
should have found their way to England, the author, we think, would stand
some chance of being _Lynched_. Whether his object in this piece of
_supercherie_ be merely pecuniary profit, or whether he takes a malicious
pleasure in quizzing the Dandies, we shall not undertake to say. In the
latter part of the work, he devotes a separate chapter to this class of
persons, from the tenor of which we should be disposed to conclude, that he
would consider any mode of divesting them of their property very much in
the nature of a spoiling of the Egyptians.
"The only thing about the work, tending to prove that it is what it
purports to be, a commentary on a real German treatise, is the style, which
is a sort of Babylonish dialect, not destitute, it is true, of richness,
vigor, and at times a sort of singular felicity of expression, but very
strongly tinged throughout with the peculiar idiom of the German language.
This quality in the style, however, may be a mere result of a great
familiarity with German literature; and we cannot, therefore, look upon it
as in itself decisive, still less as outweighing so much evidence of an
opposite character."-- _North-American Review, No. 89, October_, 1835.
IV. NEW ENGLAND EDITORS.
"The Editors have been induced, by the expressed desire of many persons, to
collect the following sheets out of the ephemeral pamphlets* in which they
first appeared, under the conviction that they contain in themselves the
assurance of a longer date.
*_Fraser's_ (London) _Magazine_, 1833-34.
"The Editors have no expectation that this little Work will have a sudden
and general popularity. They will not undertake, as there is no need, to
justify the gay costume in which the Author delights to dress his thoughts,
or the German idioms with which he has sportively sprinkled his pages. It
is his humor to advance the gravest speculations upon the gravest topics in
a quaint and burlesque style. If his masquerade offend any of his
audience, to that degree that they will not hear what he has to say, it may
chance to draw others to listen to his wisdom; and what work of imagination
can hope to please all! But we will venture to remark that the distaste
excited by these peculiarities in some readers is greatest at first, and is
soon forgotten; and that the foreign dress and aspect of the Work are quite
superficial, and cover a genuine Saxon heart. We believe, no book has been
published for many years, written in a more sincere style of idiomatic
English, or which discovers an equal mastery over all the riches of the
language. The Author makes ample amends for the occasional eccentricity of
his genius, not only by frequent bursts of pure splendor, but by the wit
and sense which never fail him.
"But what will chiefly commend the Book to the discerning reader is the
manifest design of the work, which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit of the
Age--we had almost said, of the hour--in which we live; exhibiting in the
most just and novel light the present aspects of Religion, Politics,
Literature, Arts, and Social Life. Under all his gayety the Writer has an
earnest meaning, and discovers an insight into the manifold wants and
tendencies of human nature, which is very rare among our popular authors.
The philanthropy and the purity of moral sentiment, which inspire the work,
will find their way to the heart of every lover of virtue."--_Preface to
Sartor Resartus: Boston_, 1835, 1837.
SUNT, FUERUNT VEL FUERE.
LONDON, 30th June, 1838.
All spelling and punctuation was kept as in the printed text.
Italicized phrases are delimited by _underscores_. Footnotes
(there are only four) have been placed at the ends of the
paragraphs referencing them.