here, then, arises the so momentous question: have many british readers actually arrived with us at the new promised country; is the philosophy of clothes now at last opening around them? long and adventurous has the journey been: from those outmost vulgar, palpable woollen hulls of man; through his wondrous flesh–garments, and his wondrous social garnitures; inwards to the garments of his very soul’s soul, to time and space themselves! and now does the spiritual, eternal essence of man, and of mankind, bared of such wrappages, begin in any measure to reveal itself? can many readers discern, as through a glass darkly, in huge wavering outlines, some primeval rudiments of man’s being, what is changeable divided from what is unchangeable? does that earth–spirit’s speech in faust, —
“’tis thus at the roaring loom of time i ply,
and weave for god the garment thou seest him by; ”
or that other thousand-times repeated speech of the magician, shakespeare, —
“and like the baseless fabric of this vision,
the cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
the solemn temples, the great globe itself,
and all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
and like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
leave not a wrack behind;”
begin to have some meaning for us? in a word, do we at length stand safe in the far region of poetic creation and palingenesia, where that phoenix death–birth of human society, and of all human things, appears possible, is seen to be inevitable?
along this most insufficient, unheard-of bridge, which the editor, by heaven’s blessing, has now seen himself enabled to conclude if not complete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope, that many have travelled without accident. no firm arch, overspanning the impassable with paved highway, could the editor construct; only, as was said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. alas, and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneck character; the darkness, the nature of the element, all was against us!
nevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, provided with a discursiveness of intellect rare in our day, have cleared the passage, in spite of all? happy few! little band of friends! be welcome, be of courage. by degrees, the eye grows accustomed to its new whereabout; the hand can stretch itself forth to work there: it is in this grand and indeed highest work of palingenesia that ye shall labor, each according to ability. new laborers will arrive; new bridges will be built; nay, may not our own poor rope-and-raft bridge, in your passings and repassings, be mended in many a point, till it grow quite firm, passable even for the halt?
meanwhile, of the innumerable multitude that started with us, joyous and full of hope, where now is the innumerable remainder, whom we see no longer by our side? the most have recoiled, and stand gazing afar off, in unsympathetic astonishment, at our career: not a few, pressing forward with more courage, have missed footing, or leaped short; and now swim weltering in the chaos-flood, some towards this shore, some towards that. to these also a helping hand should be held out; at least some word of encouragement be said.
or, to speak without metaphor, with which mode of utterance teufelsdrockh unhappily has somewhat infected us, — can it be hidden from the editor that many a british reader sits reading quite bewildered in head, and afflicted rather than instructed by the present work? yes, long ago has many a british reader been, as now, demanding with something like a snarl: whereto does all this lead; or what use is in it?
in the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise aiding thy digestive faculty, o british reader, it leads to nothing, and there is no use in it; but rather the reverse, for it costs thee somewhat. nevertheless, if through this unpromising horn-gate, teufelsdrockh, and we by means of him, have led thee into the true land of dreams; and through the clothes–screen, as through a magical pierre–pertuis, thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of the wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with wonder, and based on wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are miracles, — then art thou profited beyond money’s worth; and hast a thankfulness towards our professor; nay, perhaps in many a literary tea-circle wilt open thy kind lips, and audibly express that same.
nay farther, art not thou too perhaps by this time made aware that all symbols are properly clothes; that all forms whereby spirit manifests itself to sense, whether outwardly or in the imagination, are clothes; and thus not only the parchment magna charta, which a tailor was nigh cutting into measures, but the pomp and authority of law, the sacredness of majesty, and all inferior worships (worth-ships) are properly a vesture and raiment; and the thirty-nine articles themselves are articles of wearing-apparel (for the religious idea)? in which case, must it not also be admitted that this science of clothes is a high one, and may with infinitely deeper study on thy part yield richer fruit: that it takes scientific rank beside codification, and political economy, and the theory of the british constitution; nay rather, from its prophetic height looks down on all these, as on so many weaving-shops and spinning-mills, where the vestures which it has to fashion, and consecrate, and distribute, are, too often by haggard hungry operatives who see no farther than their nose, mechanically woven and spun?
but omitting all this, much more all that concerns natural supernaturalism, and indeed whatever has reference to the ulterior or transcendental portion of the science, or bears never so remotely on that promised volume of the palingenesie der menschlichen gesellschaft (newbirth of society), — we humbly suggest that no province of clothes–philosophy, even the lowest, is without its direct value, but that innumerable inferences of a practical nature may be drawn therefrom. to say nothing of those pregnant considerations, ethical, political, symbolical, which crowd on the clothes–philosopher from the very threshold of his science; nothing even of those “architectural ideas,” which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of all modes, and will one day, better unfolding themselves, lead to important revolutions, — let us glance for a moment, and with the faintest light of clothes–philosophy, on what may be called the habilatory class of our fellow-men. here too overlooking, where so much were to be looked on, the million spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, washers, and wringers, that puddle and muddle in their dark recesses, to make us clothes, and die that we may live, — let us but turn the reader’s attention upon two small divisions of mankind, who, like moths, may be regarded as cloth-animals, creatures that live, move and have their being in cloth: we mean, dandies and tailors.
in regard to both which small divisions it may be asserted without scruple, that the public feeling, unenlightened by philosophy, is at fault; and even that the dictates of humanity are violated. as will perhaps abundantly appear to readers of the two following chapters.
