pains of guilt,--wend to and fro with
aimless speed. Thus must he, over the whole surface of the Earth (by
footprints), write his _Sorrows of Teufelsdroeckh_; even as the great
Goethe, in passionate words, had to write his _Sorrows of Werter_,
before the spirit freed herself, and he could become a Man. Vain truly
is the hope of your swiftest Runner to escape 'from his own Shadow'!
Nevertheless, in these sick days, when the Born of Heaven first
descries himself (about the age of twenty) in a world such as ours,
richer than usual in two things, in Truths grown obsolete, and Trades
grown obsolete,--what can the fool think but that it is all a Den of
Lies, wherein whoso will not speak Lies and act Lies, must stand idle
and despair? Whereby it happens that, for your nobler minds, the
publishing of some such Work of Art, in one or the other dialect,
becomes almost a necessity. For what is it properly but an Altercation
with the Devil, before you begin honestly Fighting him? Your Byron
publishes his _Sorrows of Lord George_, in verse and in prose, and
copiously otherwise: your Bonaparte represents his _Sorrows of
Napoleon_ Opera, in an all-too stupendous style; with music of
cannon-volleys, and murder-shrieks of a world; his stage-lights are
the fires of Conflagration; his rhyme and recitative are the tramp of
embattled Hosts and the sound of falling Cities.--Happier is he who,
like our Clothes-Philosopher, can write such matter, since it must be
written, on the insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles only; and also
survive the writing thereof!

CHAPTER VII

THE EVERLASTING NO

Under the strange nebulous envelopment, wherein our Professor has now
shrouded himself, no doubt but his spiritual nature is nevertheless
progressive, and growing: for how can the 'Son of Time,' in any case,
stand still? We behold him, through those dim years, in a state of
crisis, of transition: his mad Pilgrimings, and general solution into
aimless Discontinuity, what is all this but a mad Fermentation;
wherefrom, the fiercer it is, the clearer product will one day evolve
itself?

Such transitions are ever full of pain: thus the Eagle when he moults
is sickly; and, to attain his new beak, must harshly dash-off the old
one upon rocks. What Stoicism soever our Wanderer, in his individual
acts and motions, may affect, it is clear that there is a hot fever of
anarchy and misery raging within; coruscations of which flash out: as,
indeed, how co