It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes entirely¹ contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like the very Sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of genius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled nebulosities amid its effulgence², — a mixture of insight, inspiration, with dulness, double-vision, and even utter blindness.

Without committing ourselves to those enthusiastic praises and prophesyings of the Weissnichtwo’sche Anzeiger, we admitted that the Book had in a high degree excited us to self-activity, which is the best effect of any book; that it had even operated changes in our way of thought; nay³, that it promised to prove, as it were, the opening of a new mine-shaft, wherein the whole world of Speculation⁴ might henceforth dig to unknown depths. More specially⁶ may it now be declared that Professor Teufelsdrockh’s acquirements, patience of research, philosophic⁷ and even poetic⁸ vigor⁹, are here made indisputably manifest; and unhappily no less his prolixity¹⁰ and tortuosity¹¹ and manifold ineptitude¹²; that, on the whole, as in opening new mine-shafts is not unreasonable¹³, there is much rubbish in his Book, though likewise

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