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 4 in which they first appeared, under the conviction that they contain in themselves the assurance of a longer date.
4 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.
