Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh
flame. Is the pitifullest mortal Person, think you, indifferent to us?
Is it not rather our heartfelt wish to be made one with him; to unite
him to us, by gratitude, by admiration, even by fear; or failing all
these, unite ourselves to him? But how much more, in this case of the
Like-Unlike! Here is conceded us the higher mystic possibility of such
a union, the highest in our Earth; thus, in the conducting medium of
Fantasy, flames forth that fire-development of the universal Spiritual
Electricity, which, as unfolded between man and woman, we first
emphatically denominate LOVE.
"In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there already
blooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some fairest Eve; nor,
in the stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage of that Garden, is a
Tree of Knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst thereof, wanting.
Perhaps too the whole is but the lovelier, if Cherubim and a Flaming
Sword divide it from all footsteps of men; and grant him, the
imaginative stripling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season of
virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable celestial barrier; and
the sacred air-cities of Hope have not shrunk into the mean clay-hamlets
of Reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free!
"As for our young Forlorn," continues Teufelsdrockh evidently meaning
himself, "in his secluded way of life, and with his glowing Fantasy, the
more fiery that it burnt under cover, as in a reverberating furnace, his
feeling towards the Queens of this Earth was, and indeed is, altogether
unspeakable. A visible Divinity dwelt in them; to our young Friend all
women were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw them flitting past, in
their many-colored angel-plumage; or hovering mute and inaccessible on
the outskirts of _AEsthetic Tea_: all of air they were, all Soul and
Form; so lovely, like mysterious priestesses, in whose hand was the
invisible Jacob's-ladder, whereby man might mount into very Heaven. That
he, our poor Friend, should ever win for himself one of these Gracefuls
(_Holden_)--_Ach Gott_! how could he hope it; should he not have died
under it? There was a certain delirious vertigo in the thought.
"Thus was the young man, if all-sceptical of Demons and Angels such as
the vulgar had once believed in, nevertheless not unvisited by hosts of
true Sky-born, who visibly and audibly hovered round him wheresoever he
went; and they had that religious worship in his thought, though as yet
it was by their mere earthly and trivial name that he named them. But
now, if on a soul so circumstanced, some actual Air-maiden, incorporated
into tangibility and reality, should cast any electric glance of kind
eyes, saying thereby, 'Thou too mayest love and be loved;' and so kindle
him,--good Heaven, what a volcanic, earthquake-bringing, all-consuming
fire were probably kindled!"
Such a fire, it afterwards appears, did actually burst forth, with
explosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner man of Herr Diogenes; as
indeed 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; the
whole lying in such hot neighborhood, close by "a reverberating furnace
of Fantasy:" have we not here the components of driest Gunpowder, ready,
on occasion of the smallest spark, to blaze up? Neither, in this our
Life-element, are sparks anywhere wanting. Without doubt, some Angel,
whereof so many hovered round, would one day, leaving "the outskirts
of _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 a
happy Youthful Love; till the whole were safely burnt out; and the young
soul relieved with little damage! Happy, if it did not rather prove a
Conflagration 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 rage
thenceforth all unchecked among the contiguous combustibles (which
were Madness): till of the so fair and manifold internal world of our
Diogenes, there remained Nothing, or only the "crater of an extinct
volcano"!
From multifarious Documents in this Bag _Capricornus_, and in the
adjacent ones on both sides thereof, it becomes manifest that our
philosopher, as stoical and cynical as he now looks, was heartily and
even frantically in Love: here therefore may our old doubts whether his
heart were of stone or of flesh give way. He loved once; not wisely
but too well. And once only: for as your Congreve needs a new case or
wrappage for every new rocket, so each human heart can properly exhibit
but one Love, if even one; the "First Love which is infinite" can be
followed by no second like unto it. In more recent years, accordingly,
the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard Teufelsdrockh as a man
not only who would never wed, but who would never even flirt; whom the
grand-climacteric itself, and _St. Martin's Summer_ of incipient Dotage,
would crown with no new myrtle-garland. To the Professor, women are
henceforth Pieces of Art; of Celestial Art, indeed, which celestial
pieces he glories to survey in galleries, but has lost thought of
purchasing.
Psychological readers are not without curiosity to see how Teufelsdrockh
in this for him unexampled predicament, demeans himself; with what
specialties of successive configuration, splendor and color, his
Firework blazes off. Small, as usual, is the satisfaction that such can
meet with here. From amid these confused masses of Eulogy and Elegy,
with their mad Petrarchan and Werterean ware lying madly scattered among
all sorts of quite extraneous matter, not so much as the fair one's name
can be deciphered. For, without doubt, the title _Blumine_, whereby she
is here designated, and which means simply Goddess of Flowers, must be
fictitious. 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 of
occurrences did the Lover and the Loved meet one another in so wide a
world; how did they behave in such meeting? To all which questions, not
unessential in a Biographic work, mere Conjecture must for most part
return answer. "It was appointed," says our Philosopher, "that the high
celestial orbit of Blumine should intersect the low sublunary one of our
Forlorn; that he, looking in her empyrean eyes, should fancy the upper
Sphere of Light was come down into this nether sphere of Shadows; and
finding himself mistaken, make noise enough."
We seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, beautiful, and some
one's Cousin; high-born, and of high spirit; but unhappily dependent and
insolvent; living, perhaps, on the not too gracious bounty of moneyed
relatives. But how came "the Wanderer" into her circle? Was it by the
humid 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, as
an ornamental Artist, might sometimes like to promote flirtation,
especially for young cynical Nondescripts? To all appearance, it was
chiefly by Accident, and the grace of Nature.
"Thou fair Waldschloss," writes our Autobiographer, "what stranger ever
saw thee, were it even an absolved Auscultator, officially bearing in
his pocket the last _Relatio ex Actis_ he would ever write, but must
have paused to wonder! Noble Mansion! There stoodest thou, in deep
Mountain 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 rose
up, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills; of the greenest
was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, or spotted
by some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. To the unconscious
Wayfarer thou wert also as an Ammon's Temple, in the Libyan Waste;
where, for joy and woe, the tablet of his Destiny lay written. Well
might he pause and gaze; in that glance of his were prophecy and
nameless forebodings."
But now let us conjecture that the so presentient Auscultator has handed
in his _Relatio ex Actis_; been invited to a glass of Rhine-wine; and
so, instead of returning dispirited and athirst to his dusty Town-home,
is ushered into the Garden-house, where sit the choicest party of dames
and cavaliers: if not engaged in AEsthetic Tea, yet in trustful evening
conversation, and perhaps Musical Coffee, for we hear of "harps and
pure voices making the stillness live." Scarcely, it would seem, is the
Garden-house inferior in respectability to the noble Mansion itself.
"Embowered amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the hues and odors
of thousand flowers, here sat that brave company; in front, from the
wide-opened doors, fair outlook over blossom and bush, over grove and
velvet green, stretching, undulating onwards to the remote Mountain
peaks: so bright, so mild, and everywhere the melody of birds and happy
creatures: it was all as if man had stolen a shelter from the SUIT
in the bosom-vesture of Summer herself. How came it that the Wanderer
advanced thither with such forecasting heart (_ahndungsvoll_), by the
side of his gay host? Did he feel that to these soft influences his hard
bosom ought to be shut; that here, once more, Fate had it in view to try
him; to mock him, and see whether there were Humor in him?
"Next moment he finds himself presented to the party; and especially by
name 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, for
the presence filled him with painful yet sweetest embarrassment.
"Blumine's was a name well known to him; far and wide was the fair one
heard of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices: from all which vague
colorings of Rumor, from the censures no less than from the praises, had
our friend painted for himself a certain imperious Queen of Hearts, and
blooming warm Earth-angel, much more enchanting than your mere white
Heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins circulates too little
naphtha-fire. Herself also he had seen in public places; that light yet
so stately form; those dark tresses, shading a face where smiles and
sunlight played over earnest deeps: but all this he had seen only as a
magic vision, for him inaccessible, almost without reality. Her sphere
was too far from his; how should she ever think of him; O Heaven! how
should they so much as once meet together? And now that Rose-goddess
sits in the same circle with him; the light of _her_ eyes has smiled on
him; if he speak, she will hear it! Nay, who knows, since the heavenly
Sun looks into lowest valleys, but Blumine herself might have aforetime
noted the so unnotable; perhaps, from his very gainsayers, as he had
from 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 in
presence of the Queen of Hearts; like the Sea swelling when once
near its Moon! With the Wanderer it was even so: as in heavenward
gravitation, suddenly as at the touch of a Seraph's wand, his whole soul
is roused from its deepest recesses; and all that was painful and that
was blissful there, dim images, vague feelings of a whole Past and a