第98章 TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS.(1)

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'