since then, been often thrown
down, and again taken up.

Hofrath Heuschrecke, in a too long-winded Letter, full of compliments,
Weissnichtwo politics, dinners, dining repartees, and other ephemeral
trivialities, proceeds to remind us of what we know well already: that
however it may be with Metaphysics, and other abstract Science
originating in the Head (_Verstand_) alone, no Life-Philosophy
(_Lebensphilosophie_), such as this of Clothes pretends to be, which
originates equally in the Character (_Gemueth_), and equally speaks
thereto, can attain its significance till the Character itself is
known and seen; 'till the Author's View of the World (_Weltansicht_),
and how he actively and passively came by such view, are clear: in
short till a Biography of him has been philosophico-poetically
written, and philosophico-poetically read.' 'Nay,' adds he, 'were the
speculative scientific Truth even known, you still, in this inquiring
age, ask yourself, Whence came it, and Why, and How?--and rest not,
till, if no better may be, Fancy have shaped-out an answer; and either
in the authentic lineaments of Fact, or the forged ones of Fiction, a
complete picture and Genetical History of the Man and his spiritual
Endeavour lies before you. But why,' says the Hofrath, and indeed say
we, 'do I dilate on the uses of our Teufelsdroeckh's Biography? The
great Herr Minister von Goethe has penetratingly remarked that "Man is
properly the _only_ object that interests man": thus I too have noted,
that in Weissnichtwo our whole conversation is little or nothing else
but Biography or Auto-Biography; ever humano-anecdotical
(_menschlich-anekdotisch_). Biography is by nature the most
universally profitable, universally pleasant of all things: especially
Biography of distinguished individuals.

'By this time, _mein Verehrtester_ (my Most Esteemed),' continues he,
with an eloquence which, unless the words be purloined from
Teufelsdroeckh, or some trick of his, as we suspect, is well-nigh
unaccountable, 'by this time you are fairly plunged (_vertieft_) in
that mighty forest of Clothes-Philosophy; and looking round, as all
readers do, with astonishment enough. Such portions and passages as
you have already mastered, and brought to paper, could not but awaken
a strange curiosity touching the mind they issued from; the perhaps
unparalleled psychical mechanism, which manufactured such matter, and
emitted it to the light of day. Had Teufelsdroeckh also a f