cles have been wrought thereby, and
henceforth innumerable will be wrought; whereof we, even in these
days, witness some. Of the Poet's and Prophet's inspired Message, and
how it makes and unmakes whole worlds, I shall forbear mention: but
cannot the dullest hear Steam-engines clanking around him? Has he not
seen the Scottish Brassmith's IDEA (and this but a mechanical one)
travelling on fire-wings round the Cape, and across two Oceans; and
stronger than any other Enchanter's Familiar, on all hands unweariedly
fetching and carrying: at home, not only weaving Cloth, but rapidly
enough overturning the whole old system of Society; and, for Feudalism
and Preservation of the Game, preparing us, by indirect but sure
methods, Industrialism and the Government of the Wisest? Truly a
Thinking Man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can have; every
time such a one announces himself, I doubt not, there runs a shudder
through the Nether Empire; and new Emissaries are trained, with new
tactics, to, if possible, entrap him, and hoodwink and handcuff him.

'With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of the Universe, been
called. Unhappy it is, however, that though born to the amplest
Sovereignty, in this way, with no less than sovereign right of Peace
and War against the Time-Prince (_Zeitfuerst_), or Devil, and all his
Dominions, your coronation-ceremony costs such trouble, your sceptre
is so difficult to get at, or even to get eye on!'

By which last wiredrawn similitude does Teufelsdroeckh mean no more
than that young men find obstacles in what we call 'getting under
way'? 'Not what I Have,' continues he, 'but what I Do is my Kingdom.
To each is given a certain inward Talent, a certain outward
Environment of Fortune; to each, by wisest combination of these two, a
certain maximum of Capability. But the hardest problem were ever this
first: To find by study of yourself, and of the ground you stand on,
what your combined inward and outward Capability specially is. For,
alas, our young soul is all budding with Capabilities, and we see not
yet which is the main and true one. Always too the new man is in a new
time, under new conditions; his course can be the _fac-simile_ of no
prior one, but is by its nature original. And then how seldom will the
outward Capability fit the inward: though talented wonderfully enough,
we are poor, unfriended, dyspeptical, bashful; nay what is worse than
all, we are foolish. Thus, in a whole imbro