It is here, then, that the spiritual majority of Teufelsdrockh commences: we are henceforth to see him “work in well-doing,” with the spirit and clear aims of a Man. He has discovered that the Ideal Workshop he so panted for is even this same Actual ill-furnished Workshop he has so long been stumbling in. He can say to himself: “Tools? Thou hast no Tools? Why, there is not a Man, or a Thing, now alive but has tools. The basest of created animalcules, the Spider itself, has a spinning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom7 within its head: the stupidest of Oysters8 has a Papin’s-Digester, with stone-and-lime house to hold it in: every being that can live can do something: this let him do. — Tools? Hast thou not a Brain, furnished, furnishable with some glimmerings of Light; and three fingers to hold a Pen withal? Never since Aaron’s Rod went out of practice, or even before it, was there such a wonder-working Tool: greater than all recorded miracles have been performed by Pens. For strangely in this so solid-seeming World, which nevertheless is in continual restless flux9, it is appointed that Sound, to appearance the most fleeting10, should be the most continuing of all things. The WORD is well said to be omnipotent11 in this world; man, thereby12 divine, can create as by a Fiat13. Awake, arise! Speak forth6 what is in thee; what God has given thee, what the Devil shall not take away. Higher task than that of Priesthood was allotted14 to no man: wert thou but the meanest in that sacred Hierarchy15, is it not honor enough therein to spend and be spent?
“By this Art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously degrade into a handicraft,” adds Teufelsdrockh, “have I thenceforth abidden. Writings of mine, not indeed known as mine (for what am I?), have fallen, perhaps not altogether void, into the mighty16 seedfield of Opinion; fruits of my unseen sowing gratifyingly meet me here and there. I thank the Heavens that I have now found my Calling; wherein, with or without perceptible result, I am minded diligently17 to persevere18.
“Nay19 how knowest thou,” cries he, “but this and the other pregnant Device, now grown to be a world-renowned far-working Institution; like a grain of right mustard-seed once cast into the right soil, and now stretching out strong boughs20 to the four winds, for the birds of the air to lodge21 in, — may have been properly my doing? Some one’s doing, it without doubt was; from some Idea, in some single Head, it did first of all take beginning: why not from some Idea in mine?” Does Teufelsdrockh, here glance at that “SOCIETY FOR THE CONSERVATION OF PROPERTY (Eigenthums-conservirende Gesellschaft),” of which so many ambiguous notices glide22 spectra-like through these inexpressible Paper-bags? “An Institution,” hints he, “not unsuitable to the wants of the time; as indeed such sudden extension proves: for already can the Society number, among its office-bearers or corresponding members, the highest Names, if not the highest Persons, in Germany, England, France; and contributions, both of money and of meditation23 pour in from all quarters; to, if possible, enlist24 the remaining Integrity of the world, and, defensively and with forethought, marshal it round this Palladium.” Does Teufelsdrockh mean, then, to give himself out as the originator of that so notable Eigenthums-conservirende (“Owndom-conserving”) Gesellschaft; and if so, what, in the Devil’s name, is it? He again hints: “At a time when the divine Commandment, Thou shalt not steal, wherein truly, if well understood, is comprised the whole Hebrew Decalogue, with Solon’s and Lycurgrus’s Constitutions, Justinian’s Pandects, the Code Napoleon, and all Codes, Catechisms, Divinities, Moralities whatsoever25, that man has hitherto devised (and enforced with Altar-fire and Gallows-ropes) for his social guidance: at a time, I say, when this divine Commandment has all but faded away from the general remembrance; and, with little disguise, a new opposite Commandment, Thou shalt steal, is everywhere promulgated26, — it perhaps behooved27, in this universal dotage28 and deliration, the sound portion of mankind to bestir themselves and rally. When the widest and wildest violations29 of that divine right of Property, the only divine right now extant or conceivable, are sanctioned and recommended by a vicious Press, and the world has lived to hear it asserted that we have no Property in our very Bodies, but only an accidental Possession and Life-rent, what is the issue to be looked for? Hangmen and Catchpoles may, by their noose-gins and baited fall-traps, keep down the smaller sort of vermin; but what, except perhaps some such Universal Association, can protect us against whole meat-devouring and man-devouring hosts of Boa-constrictors. If, therefore, the more sequestered30 Thinker have wondered, in his privacy, from what hand that perhaps not ill-written Program in the Public Journals, with its high Prize–Questions and so liberal Prizes, could have proceeded, — let him now cease such wonder; and, with undivided faculty31, betake himself to the Concurrenz (Competition).”
We ask: Has this same “perhaps not ill-written Program,” or any other authentic32 Transaction of that Property-conserving Society, fallen under the eye of the British Reader, in any Journal foreign or domestic? If so, what are those Prize–Questions; what are the terms of Competition, and when and where? No printed Newspaper-leaf, no farther light of any sort, to be met with in these Paper-bags! Or is the whole business one other of those whimsicalities and perverse33 inexplicabilities, whereby Herr Teufelsdrockh, meaning much or nothing, is pleased so often to play fast-and-loose with us?
Here, indeed, at length, must the Editor give utterance34 to a painful suspicion, which, through late Chapters, has begun to haunt him; paralyzing any little enthusiasm that might still have rendered his thorny35 Biographical task a labor36 of love. It is a suspicion grounded perhaps on trifles, yet confirmed almost into certainty by the more and more discernible humoristico-satirical tendency of Teufelsdrockh, in whom underground humors and intricate sardonic37 rogueries, wheel within wheel, defy all reckoning: a suspicion, in one word, that these Autobiographical Documents are partly a mystification! What if many a so-called Fact were little better than a Fiction; if here we had no direct Camera-obscura Picture of the Professor’s History; but only some more or less fantastic Adumbration38, symbolically39, perhaps significantly enough, shadowing forth the same! Our theory begins to be that, in receiving as literally40 authentic what was but hieroglyphically42 so, Hofrath Heuschrecke, whom in that case we scruple43 not to name Hofrath Nose-of-Wax, was made a fool of, and set adrift to make fools of others. Could it be expected, indeed, that a man so known for impenetrable reticence44 as Teufelsdrockh would all at once frankly45 unlock his private citadel46 to an English Editor and a German Hofrath; and not rather deceptively inlock both Editor and Hofrath in the labyrinthic tortuosities and covered-ways of said citadel (having enticed47 them thither), to see, in his half-devilish way, how the fools would look?
Of one fool, however, the Herr Professor will perhaps find himself short. On a small slip, formerly48 thrown aside as blank, the ink being all but invisible, we lately noticed, and with effort decipher, the following: “What are your historical Facts; still more your biographical? Wilt49 thou know a Man, above all a Mankind, by stringing together bead-rolls of what thou namest Facts? The Man is the spirit he worked in; not what he did, but what he became. Facts are engraved50 Hierograms, for which the fewest have the key. And then how your Blockhead (Dummkopf) studies not their Meaning; but simply whether they are well or ill cut, what he calls Moral or Immoral51! Still worse is it with your Bungler52 (Pfuscher): such I have seen reading some Rousseau, with pretences53 of interpretation54; and mistaking the ill-cut Serpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous reptile55.” Was the Professor apprehensive56 lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? For which reason it was to be altered, not without underhand satire57, into a plainer Symbol? Or is this merely one of his half-sophisms, half-truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a Figure, he cares not whither it gallop59? We say not with certainty; and indeed, so strange is the Professor, can never say. If our suspicion be wholly unfounded, let his own questionable60 ways, not our necessary circumspectness bear the blame.
But be this as it will, the somewhat exasperated61 and indeed exhausted62 Editor determines here to shut these Paper-bags for the present. Let it suffice that we know of Teufelsdrockh, so far, if “not what he did, yet what he became:” the rather, as his character has now taken its ultimate bent63, and no new revolution, of importance, is to be looked for. The imprisoned64 Chrysalis is now a winged Psyche65: and such, wheresoever be its flight, it will continue. To trace by what complex gyrations (flights or involuntary waftings) through the mere58 external Life-element, Teufelsdrockh, reaches his University Professorship, and the Psyche clothes herself in civic66 Titles, without altering her now fixed67 nature, — would be comparatively an unproductive task, were we even unsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a false and impossible one. His outward Biography, therefore, which, at the Blumine Lover’s-Leap, we saw churned utterly68 into spray-vapor, may hover69 in that condition, for aught that concerns us here. Enough that by survey of certain “pools and plashes,” we have ascertained70 its general direction; do we not already know that, by one way and other, it has long since rained down again into a stream; and even now, at Weissnichtwo, flows deep and still, fraught71 with the Philosophy of Clothes, and visible to whoso will cast eye thereon? Over much invaluable72 matter, that lies scattered73, like jewels among quarry-rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs, we may have occasion to glance back, and somewhat will demand insertion at the right place: meanwhile be our tiresome74 diggings therein suspended.
If now, before reopening the great Clothes–Volume, we ask what our degree of progress, during these Ten Chapters, has been, towards right understanding of the Clothes–Philosophy, let not our discouragement become total. To speak in that old figure of the Hell-gate Bridge over Chaos75, a few flying pontoons have perhaps been added, though as yet they drift straggling on the Flood; how far they will reach, when once the chains are straightened and fastened, can, at present, only be matter of conjecture76.
So much we already calculate: Through many a little loophole, we have had glimpses into the internal world of Teufelsdrockh; his strange mystic, almost magic Diagram of the Universe, and how it was gradually drawn77, is not henceforth altogether dark to us. Those mysterious ideas on TIME, which merit consideration, and are not wholly unintelligible78 with such, may by and by prove significant. Still more may his somewhat peculiar79 view of Nature, the decisive Oneness he ascribes to Nature. How all Nature and Life are but one Garment, a “Living Garment,” woven and ever a-weaving in the “Loom of Time;” is not here, indeed, the outline of a whole Clothes–Philosophy; at least the arena80 it is to work in? Remark, too, that the Character of the Man, nowise without meaning in such a matter, becomes less enigmatic: amid so much tumultuous obscurity, almost like diluted81 madness, do not a certain indomitable Defiance82 and yet a boundless83 Reverence84 seem to loom forth, as the two mountain-summits, on whose rock-strata all the rest were based and built?
Nay further, may we not say that Teufelsdrockh’s Biography, allowing it even, as suspected, only a hieroglyphical41 truth, exhibits a man, as it were preappointed for Clothes–Philosophy? To look through the Shows of things into Things themselves he is led and compelled. The “Passivity” given him by birth is fostered by all turns of his fortune. Everywhere cast out, like oil out of water, from mingling85 in any Employment, in any public Communion, he has no portion but Solitude86, and a life of Meditation. The whole energy of his existence is directed, through long years, on one task: that of enduring pain, if he cannot cure it. Thus everywhere do the Shows of things oppress him, withstand him, threaten him with fearfullest destruction: only by victoriously87 penetrating88 into Things themselves can he find peace and a stronghold. But is not this same looking through the Shows, or Vestures, into the Things, even the first preliminary to a Philosophy of Clothes? Do we not, in all this, discern some beckonings towards the true higher purport89 of such a Philosophy; and what shape it must assume with such a man, in such an era?
Perhaps in entering on Book Third, the courteous90 Reader is not utterly without guess whither he is bound: nor, let us hope, for all the fantastic Dream–Grottos through which, as is our lot with Teufelsdrockh, he must wander, will there be wanting between whiles some twinkling of a steady Polar Star.
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1
entanglement
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| n.纠缠，牵累 | |
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reprobation
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| n.斥责 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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bosoms
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| 胸部( bosom的名词复数 )； 胸怀； 女衣胸部（或胸襟）； 和爱护自己的人在一起的情形 | |
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chimera
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| n.神话怪物；梦幻 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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flux
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| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
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fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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omnipotent
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| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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fiat
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| n.命令，法令，批准；vt.批准，颁布 | |
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allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hierarchy
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| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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persevere
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| v.坚持，坚忍，不屈不挠 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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promulgated
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| v.宣扬（某事物）( promulgate的过去式和过去分词 )；传播；公布；颁布（法令、新法律等） | |
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behooved
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| v.适宜( behoove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dotage
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| n.年老体衰；年老昏聩 | |
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violations
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| 违反( violation的名词复数 )； 冒犯； 违反（行为、事例）； 强奸 | |
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sequestered
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| adj.扣押的；隐退的；幽静的；偏僻的v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的过去式和过去分词 )；扣押 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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thorny
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| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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adumbration
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| n.预示，预兆 | |
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symbolically
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| ad.象征地，象征性地 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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hieroglyphical
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| n.象形文字，象形文字的文章 | |
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hieroglyphically
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scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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enticed
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| 诱惑，怂恿( entice的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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Bungler
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| n.笨拙者，经验不够的人 | |
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pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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reptile
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| n.爬行动物；两栖动物 | |
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apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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psyche
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| n.精神；灵魂 | |
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civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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hover
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| vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫 | |
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ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fraught
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| adj.充满…的，伴有(危险等)的；忧虑的 | |
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invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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80
arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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81
diluted
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| 无力的，冲淡的 | |
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82
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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83
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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84
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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85
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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86
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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87
victoriously
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| adv.获胜地，胜利地 | |
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88
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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89
purport
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| n.意义，要旨，大要；v.意味著，做为...要旨，要领是... | |
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90
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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