Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh
prophetico-satiric; no clear logical Picture. "How paint to the sensual
eye," asks he once, "what passes in the Holy-of-Holies of Man's Soul;
in what words, known to these profane times, speak even afar-off of the
unspeakable?" We ask in turn: Why perplex these times, profane as
they are, with needless obscurity, by omission and by commission? Not
mystical only is our Professor, but whimsical; and involves himself, now
more than ever, in eye-bewildering _chiaroscuro_. Successive glimpses,
here faithfully imparted, our more gifted readers must endeavor to
combine for their own behoof.
He says: "The hot Harmattan wind had raged itself out; its howl went
silent within me; and the long-deafened soul could now hear. I paused in
my wild wanderings; and sat me down to wait, and consider; for it was
as if the hour of change drew nigh. I seemed to surrender, to renounce
utterly, and say: Fly, then, false shadows of Hope; I will chase you no
more, I will believe you no more. And ye too, haggard spectres of Fear,
I care not for you; ye too are all shadows and a lie. Let me rest here:
for I am way-weary and life-weary; I will rest here, were it but to
die: to die or to live is alike to me; alike insignificant."--And again:
"Here, then, as I lay in that CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE; cast, doubtless by
benignant upper Influence, into a healing sleep, the heavy dreams rolled
gradually away, and I awoke to a new Heaven and a new Earth. The first
preliminary moral Act, Annihilation of Self (_Selbst-todtung_), had
been happily accomplished; and my mind's eyes were now unsealed, and its
hands ungyved."
Might we not also conjecture that the following passage refers to his
Locality, during this same "healing sleep;" that his Pilgrim-staff lies
cast aside here, on "the high table-land;" and indeed that the repose is
already taking wholesome effect on him? If it were not that the tone,
in some parts, has more of riancy, even of levity, than we could have
expected! However, in Teufelsdrockh, there is always the strangest
Dualism: light dancing, with guitar-music, will be going on in the
fore-court, while by fits from within comes the faint whimpering of woe
and wail. We transcribe the piece entire.
"Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey Tent, musing and
meditating; on the high table-land, in front of the Mountains; over me,
as roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for walls, four azure-flowing
curtains,--namely, of the Four azure Winds, on whose bottom-fringes
also I have seen gilding. And then to fancy the fair Castles that stood
sheltered in these Mountain hollows; with their green flower-lawns,
and white dames and damosels, lovely enough: or better still, the
straw-roofed Cottages, wherein stood many a Mother baking bread, with
her children round her:--all hidden and protectingly folded up in the
valley-folds; yet there and alive, as sure as if I beheld them. Or to
see, as well as fancy, the nine Towns and Villages, that lay round my
mountain-seat, which, in still weather, were wont to speak to me (by
their steeple-bells) with metal tongue; and, in almost all weather,
proclaimed their vitality by repeated Smoke-clouds; whereon, as on a
culinary horologe, I might read the hour of the day. For it was the
smoke of cookery, as kind housewives at morning, midday, eventide, were
boiling their husbands' kettles; and ever a blue pillar rose up into the
air, successively or simultaneously, from each of the nine, saying, as
plainly as smoke could say: Such and such a meal is getting ready
here. Not uninteresting! For you have the whole Borough, with all its
love-makings and scandal-mongeries, contentions and contentments, as
in miniature, and could cover it all with your hat.--If, in my wide
Way-farings, I had learned to look into the business of the World in
its details, here perhaps was the place for combining it into general
propositions, and deducing inferences therefrom.
"Often also could I see the black Tempest marching in anger through the
Distance: round some Schreckhorn, as yet grim-blue, would the eddying
vapor gather, and there tumultuously eddy, and flow down like a mad
witch's hair; till, after a space, it vanished, and, in the clear
sunbeam, your Schreckhorn stood smiling grim-white, for the vapor
had held snow. How thou fermentest and elaboratest, in thy great
fermenting-vat and laboratory of an Atmosphere, of a World, O
Nature!--Or what is Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee GOD? Art not thou
the 'Living Garment of God'? O Heavens, is it, in very deed, HE, then,
that ever speaks through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives
and loves in me?
"Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendors, of that Truth, and
Beginning of Truths, fell mysteriously over my soul. Sweeter than
Dayspring to the Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla; ah, like the mother's voice
to her little child that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown tumults;
like soft streamings of celestial music to my too-exasperated
heart, came that Evangel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a
charnel-house with spectres; but godlike, and my Father's!
"With other eyes, too, could I now look upon my fellowman: with an
infinite Love, an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, wayward man! Art thou
not tried, and beaten with stripes, even as I am? Ever, whether thou
bear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, art thou not so weary,
so heavy-laden; and thy Bed of Rest is but a Grave. O my Brother, my
Brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all tears
from thy eyes!--Truly, the din of many-voiced Life, which, in this
solitude, with the mind's organ, I could hear, was no longer a maddening
discord, but a melting one; like inarticulate cries, and sobbings of a
dumb creature, which in the ear of Heaven are prayers. The poor Earth,
with her poor joys, was now my needy Mother, not my cruel Stepdame; Man,
with his so mad Wants and so mean Endeavors, had become the dearer to
me; and even for his sufferings and his sins, I now first named him
Brother. Thus was I standing in the porch of that '_Sanctuary of
Sorrow_;' by strange, steep ways had I too been guided thither; and ere
long its sacred gates would open, and the '_Divine Depth of Sorrow_' lie
disclosed to me."
The Professor says, he here first got eye on the Knot that had been
strangling him, and straightway could unfasten it, and was free. "A
vain interminable controversy," writes he, "touching what is at present
called Origin of Evil, or some such thing, arises in every soul, since
the beginning of the world; and in every soul, that would pass from
idle Suffering into actual Endeavoring, must first be put an end to. The
most, in our time, have to go content with a simple, incomplete enough
Suppression of this controversy; to a few some Solution of it is
indispensable. In every new era, too, such Solution comes out in
different terms; and ever the Solution of the last era has become
obsolete, and is found unserviceable. For it is man's nature to change
his Dialect from century to century; he cannot help it though he would.
The authentic _Church-Catechism_ of our present century has not yet
fallen into my hands: meanwhile, for my own private behoof I attempt to
elucidate the matter so. Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his
Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his
cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance
Ministers and Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake,
in joint-stock company, to make one Shoeblack HAPPY? They cannot
accomplish it, above an hour or two: for the Shoeblack also has a Soul
quite other than his Stomach; and would require, if you consider it,
for his permanent satisfaction and saturation, simply this allotment,
no more, and no less: _God's infinite Universe altogether to himself_,
therein to enjoy infinitely, and fill every wish as fast as it rose.
Oceans of Hochheimer, a Throat like that of Ophiuchus: speak not of
them; to the infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is
your ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better
vintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to
quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself
the most maltreated of men.--Always there is a black spot in our
sunshine: it is even, as I said, the _Shadow of Ourselves_.
"But the whim we have of Happiness is somewhat thus. By certain
valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of
average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of
indefeasible right. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts;
requires neither thanks nor complaint; only such _overplus_ as there may
be do we account Happiness; any _deficit_ again is Misery. Now consider
that we have the valuation of our own deserts ourselves, and what a fund
of Self-conceit there is in each of us,--do you wonder that the balance
should so often dip the wrong way, and many a Blockhead cry: See
there, what a payment; was ever worthy gentleman so used!--I tell thee,
Blockhead, it all comes of thy Vanity; of what thou _fanciest_ those
same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as
is most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that
thou deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to die
in hemp.
"So true is it, what I then said, that _the Fraction of Life can be
increased in value not so much by increasing your Numerator as by
lessening your Denominator_. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive me, _Unity_
itself divided by _Zero_ will give _Infinity_. Make thy claim of wages
a zero, then; thou hast the world under thy feet. Well did the Wisest
of our time write: 'It is only with Renunciation (_Entsagen_) that Life,
properly speaking, can be said to begin.'
"I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, thou hast
been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-tormenting, on account
of? Say it in a word: is it not because thou art not HAPPY? Because
the THOU (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honored, nourished,
soft-bedded, and lovingly cared for? Foolish soul! What Act of
Legislature was there that _thou_ shouldst be Happy? A little while
ago thou hadst no right to _be_ at all. What if thou wert born and
predestined not to be Happy, but to be Unhappy! Art thou nothing other
than a Vulture, then, that fliest through the Universe seeking after
somewhat to _eat_; and shrieking dolefully because carrion enough is not
given thee? Close thy _Byron_; open thy _Goethe_."
"_Es leuchtet mir ein_, I see a glimpse of it!" cries he elsewhere:
"there is in man a HIGHER than Love of Happiness: he can do without
Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness! Was it not to preach
forth this same HIGHER that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest,
in all times, have spoken and suffered; bearing testimony, through life
and through death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the Godlike
only has he Strength and Freedom? Which God-inspiredd Doctrine art thou
also honored to be taught; O Heavens! and broken with manifold merciful
Afflictions, even till thou become contrite and learn it! Oh, thank thy
Destiny for these; thankfully bear what yet remain: thou hadst need
of them; the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By benignant
fever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Disease,
and triumphs over Death. On the roaring billows of Time, thou art not
engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not Pleasure;
love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA, wherein all contradiction is
solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him."
And again: "Small is it that thou canst trample the Earth with its