Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh Read online

  CHAPTER V. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES.

  "As Montesquieu wrote a _Spirit of Laws_," observes our Professor, "socould I write a _Spirit of Clothes_; thus, with an _Esprit desLois_, properly an _Esprit de Coutumes_, we should have an _Esprit deCostumes_. For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does manproceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided on by mysteriousoperations of the mind. In all his Modes, and habilatory endeavors, anArchitectural Idea will be found lurking; his Body and the Cloth arethe site and materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, ofa Person, is to be built. Whether he flow gracefully out in foldedmantles, based on light sandals; tower up in high headgear, from amidpeaks, spangles and bell-girdles; swell out in starched ruffs, buckramstuffings, and monstrous tuberosities; or girth himself into separatesections, and front the world an Agglomeration of four limbs,--willdepend on the nature of such Architectural Idea: whether Grecian,Gothic, Later Gothic, or altogether Modern, and Parisian orAnglo-Dandiacal. Again, what meaning lies in Color! From the soberestdrab to the high-flaming scarlet, spiritual idiosyncrasies unfoldthemselves in choice of Color: if the Cut betoken Intellect and Talent,so does the Color betoken Temper and Heart. In all which, among nationsas among individuals, there is an incessant, indubitable, thoughinfinitely complex working of Cause and Effect: every snip of theScissors has been regulated and prescribed by ever-active Influences,which doubtless to Intelligences of a superior order are neitherinvisible nor illegible.

  "For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and-Effect Philosophy ofClothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter-eveningentertainment: nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, suchPhilosophies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough. Nay, whatis your Montesquieu himself but a clever infant spelling Letters from ahieroglyphical prophetic Book, the lexicon of which lies in Eternity,in Heaven?--Let any Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain, not why I wearsuch and such a Garment, obey such and such a Law; but even why I am_here_, to wear and obey anything!--Much, therefore, if not the whole,of that same _Spirit of Clothes_ I shall suppress, as hypothetical,ineffectual, and even impertinent: naked Facts, and Deductions drawntherefrom in quite another than that omniscient style, are my humblerand proper province."

  Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh, has neverthelesscontrived to take in a well-nigh boundless extent of field; at least,the boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection beingindispensable, we shall here glance over his First Part only in themost cursory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished byomnivorous learning, and utmost patience and fairness: at the same time,in its results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest theCompilers of some _Library_ of General, Entertaining, Useful, or evenUseless Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was itthis Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had in view, when he recommendedus to that joint-stock vehicle of publication, "at present the glory ofBritish Literature"? If so, the Library Editors are welcome to dig in itfor their own behoof.

  To the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig-leaves, and leadsus into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, metaphorical,cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we shall contentourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still less have we to dowith "Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, according to the Talmudists, hehad before Eve, and who bore him, in that wedlock, the whole progeny ofaerial, aquatic, and terrestrial Devils,"--very needlessly, we think.On this portion of the Work, with its profound glances into the_Adam-Kadmon_, or Primeval Element, here strangely brought into relationwith the _Nifl_ and _Muspel_ (Darkness and Light) of the antique North,it may be enough to say, that its correctness of deduction, and depth ofTalmudic and Rabbinical lore have filled perhaps not the worst Hebraistin Britain with something like astonishment.

  But, quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdrockh hastens from the Towerof Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the whole habitableand habilable globe. Walking by the light of Oriental, Pelasgic,Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient and Modern researches ofevery conceivable kind, he strives to give us in compressed shape (asthe Nurnbergers give an _Orbis Pictus_) an _Orbis Vestitus_; or view ofthe costumes of all mankind, in all countries, in all times. It is herethat to the Antiquarian, to the Historian, we can triumphantly say:Fall to! Here is learning: an irregular Treasury, if you will; butinexhaustible as the Hoard of King Nibelung, which twelve wagons intwelve days, at the rate of three journeys a day, could not carryoff. Sheepskin cloaks and wampum belts; phylacteries, stoles, albs;chlamydes, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, trunk-hose, leatherbreeches, Celtic hilibegs (though breeches, as the name _GalliaBraccata_ indicates, are the more ancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyketippets, ruffs, fardingales, are brought vividly before us,--even theKilmarnock nightcap is not forgotten. For most part, too, we mustadmit that the Learning, heterogeneous as it is, and tumbled down quitepell-mell, is true concentrated and purified Learning, the drossy partssmelted out and thrown aside.

  Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes touching picturesof human life. Of this sort the following has surprised us. The firstpurpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth ordecency, but ornament. "Miserable indeed," says he, "was the conditionof the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece ofhair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round himlike a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thicknatural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, livingon wild-fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonian, squatted himself inmorasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements,without arms, save the ball of heavy Flint, to which, that his solepossession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cordof plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadlyunerring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge oncesatisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration (_Putz_). Warmthhe found in the toils of the chase; or amid dried leaves, in his hollowtree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto: but for Decoration he musthave Clothes. Nay, among wild people, we find tattooing and paintingeven prior to Clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous manis Decoration, as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes incivilized countries.

  "Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer; loftiest Serene Highness;nay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rosebloom Maiden, worthy to glidesylph-like almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest as a divinePresence, which, indeed, symbolically taken, she is,--has descended,like thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint-hurling AboriginalAnthropophagus! Out of the eater cometh forth meat; out of the strongcometh forth sweetness. What changes are wrought, not by Time, yet inTime! For not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or beholds, is incontinual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vitality. Cast forththy Act, thy Word, into the ever-living, ever-working Universe: it isa seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day (says one), it willbe found flourishing as a Banyan-grove (perhaps, alas, as aHemlock-forest!) after a thousand years.

  "He who first shortened the labor of Copyists by device of _MovableTypes_ was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering most Kings andSenates, and creating a whole new Democratic world: he had inventedthe Art of Printing. The first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, andCharcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling: what willthe last do? Achieve the final undisputed prostration of Force underThought, of Animal courage under Spiritual. A simple invention it wasin the old-world Grazier,--sick of lugging his slow Ox about the countrytill he got it bartered for corn or oil,--to take a piece of Leather,and thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure of an Ox (or _Pecus_); putit in his pocket, and call it _Pecunia_, Money. Yet hereby did Bartergrow Sale, the Leather Money is now Golden and Paper, and all miracleshave been out-miracled: for there are Rothschilds and English NationalDebts; and whoso has sixpence is sovereign (to the length of sixpence)over all men; commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him,kings to mount guard over him,--to the length of sixpen
ce.--Clothes too,which began in foolishest love of Ornament, what have they not become!Increased Security and pleasurable Heat soon followed: but what ofthese? Shame, divine Shame (_Schaam_, Modesty), as yet a stranger to theAnthropophagous bosom, arose there mysteriously under Clothes; amystic grove-encircled shrine for the Holy in man. Clothes gave usindividuality, distinctions, social polity; Clothes have made Men of us;they are threatening to make Clothes-screens of us.

  "But, on the whole," continues our eloquent Professor, "Man is aTool-using Animal (_Handthierendes Thier_). Weak in himself, and ofsmall stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, ofsome half-square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs,lest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals area crushing load for him; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft, likea waste rag. Nevertheless he can use Tools; can devise Tools: with thesethe granite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowingiron, as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, windsand fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without Tools;without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all."

  Here may we not, for a moment, interrupt the stream of Oratory with aremark, that this Definition of the Tool-using Animal appears to us, ofall that Animal-sort, considerably the precisest and best? Man is calleda Laughing Animal: but do not the apes also laugh, or attempt to do it;and is the manliest man the greatest and oftenest laugher? Teufelsdrockhhimself, as we said, laughed only once. Still less do we make of thatother French Definition of the Cooking Animal; which, indeed, forrigorous scientific purposes, is as good as useless. Can a Tartar besaid to cook, when he only readies his steak by riding on it?Again, what Cookery does the Greenlander use, beyond stowing up hiswhale-blubber, as a marmot, in the like case, might do? Or how wouldMonsieur Ude prosper among those Orinoco Indians who, according toHumboldt, lodge in crow-nests, on the branches of trees; and, for halfthe year, have no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole country being underwater? But, on the other hand, show us the human being, of any period orclimate, without his Tools: those very Caledonians, as we saw, had theirFlint-ball, and Thong to it, such as no brute has or can have.

  "Man is a Tool-using Animal," concludes Teufelsdrockh, in his abruptway; "of which truth Clothes are but one example: and surely if weconsider the interval between the first wooden Dibble fashioned by man,and those Liverpool Steam-carriages, or the British House of Commons,we shall note what progress he has made. He digs up certain black stonesfrom the bosom of the earth, and says to them, _Transport me and thisluggage at the rate of file-and-thirty miles an hour_; and they doit: he collects, apparently by lot, six hundred and fifty-eightmiscellaneous individuals, and says to them, _Make this nation toil forus, bleed for us, hunger and, sorrow and sin for us_; and they do it."