Arrived at Herstmonceux,he had not forgotten us.One of his Letters written there soon after was the following,which much entertained me,in various ways.It turns on a poor Book of mine,called _Sartor Resartus_;which was not then even a Book,but was still hanging desolately under bibliopolic difficulties,now in its fourth or fifth year,on the wrong side of the river,as a mere aggregate of Magazine Articles;having at last been slit into that form,and lately completed _so_,and put together into legibility.I suppose Sterling had borrowed it of me.The adventurous hunter spirit which had started such a bemired _Auerochs_,or Urus of the German woods,and decided on chasing that as game,struck me not a little;--and the poor Wood-Ox,so bemired in the forests,took it as a compliment rather:--"_To Thomas Carlyle,Esq.,Chelsea,London_.
"HERSTMONCEUX near BATTLE,29th May,1835.
"MY DEAR CARLYLE,--I have now read twice,with care,the wondrous account of Teufelsdrockh and his Opinions;and I need not say that it has given me much to think of.It falls in with the feelings and tastes which were,for years,the ruling ones of my life;but which you will not be angry with me when I say that I am infinitely and hourly thankful for having escaped from.Not that I think of this state of mind as one with which I have no longer any concern.The sense of a oneness of life and power in all existence;and of a boundless exuberance of beauty around us,to which most men are well-nigh dead,is a possession which no one that has ever enjoyed it would wish to lose.When to this we add the deep feeling of the difference between the actual and the ideal in Nature,and still more in Man;and bring in,to explain this,the principle of duty,as that which connects us with a possible Higher State,and sets us in progress towards it,--we have a cycle of thoughts which was the whole spiritual empire of the wisest Pagans,and which might well supply food for the wide speculations and richly creative fancy of Teufelsdrockh,or his prototype Jean Paul.
"How then comes it,we cannot but ask,that these ideas,displayed assuredly with no want of eloquence,vivacity or earnestness,have found,unless I am much mistaken,so little acceptance among the best and most energetic minds in this country?In a country where millions read the Bible,and thousands Shakspeare;where Wordsworth circulates through book-clubs and drawing-rooms;where there are innumerable admirers of your favorite Burns;and where Coleridge,by sending from his solitude the voice of earnest spiritual instruction,came to be beloved,studied and mourned for,by no small or careless school of disciples?--To answer this question would,of course,require more thought and knowledge than I can pretend to bring to it.But there are some points on which I will venture to say a few words.
"In the first place,as to the form of composition,--which may be called,I think,the Rhapsodico-Reflective.In this the _Sartor Resartus_resembles some of the master-works of human invention,which have been acknowledged as such by many generations;and especially the works of Rabelais,Montaigne,Sterne and Swift.There is nothing Iknow of in Antiquity like it.That which comes nearest is perhaps the Platonic Dialogue.But of this,although there is something of the playful and fanciful on the surface,there is in reality neither in the language (which is austerely determined to its end),nor in the method and progression of the work,any of that headlong self-asserting capriciousness,which,if not discernible in the plan of Teufelsdrockh's Memoirs,is yet plainly to be seen in the structure of the sentences,the lawless oddity,and strange heterogeneous combination and allusion.The principle of this difference,observable often elsewhere in modern literature (for the same thing is to be found,more or less,in many of our most genial works of imagination,--_Don Quixote_,for instance,and the writings of Jeremy Taylor),seems to be that well-known one of the predominant objectivity of the Pagan mind;while among us the subjective has risen into superiority,and brought with it in each individual a multitude of peculiar associations and relations.These,as not explicable from any one _external_principle assumed as a premise by the ancient philosopher,were rejected from the sphere of his aesthetic creation:but to us they all have a value and meaning;being connected by the bond of our own personality and all alike existing in that infinity which is its arena.
"But however this may be,and comparing the Teufelsdrockhean Epopee only with those other modern works,--it is noticeable that Rabelais,Montaigne and Sterne have trusted for the currency of their writings,in a great degree,to the use of obscene and sensual stimulants.
Rabelais,besides,was full of contemporary and personal satire;and seems to have been a champion in the great cause of his time,--as was Montaigne also,--that of the right of thought in all competent minds,unrestrained by any outward authority.Montaigne,moreover,contains more pleasant and lively gossip,and more distinct good-humored painting of his own character and daily habits,than any other writer I know.Sterne is never obscure,and never moral;and the costume of his subjects is drawn from the familiar experience of his own time and country:and Swift,again,has the same merit of the clearest perspicuity,joined to that of the most homely,unaffected,forcible English.These points of difference seem to me the chief ones which bear against the success of the _Sartor_.On the other hand,there is in Teufelsdrockh a depth and fervor of feeling,and a power of serious eloquence,far beyond that of any of these four writers;and to which indeed there is nothing at all comparable in any of them,except perhaps now and then,and very imperfectly,in Montaigne.
