Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh
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.
Transcriber's Note: 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.