eard him more than allude to the subject.

For the rest, however, it cannot be uninteresting that we here find
how early the significance of Clothes had dawned on the now so
distinguished Clothes-Professor. Might we but fancy it to have been
even in Monmouth Street, at the bottom of our own English 'ink-sea,'
that this remarkable Volume first took being, and shot forth its
salient point in his soul,--as in Chaos did the Egg of Eros, one day
to be hatched into a Universe!

CHAPTER VII

ORGANIC FILAMENTS

For us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning herself,
and burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdroeckh calculates, it were a
handsome bargain would she engage to have done 'within two centuries,'
there seems to lie but an ashy prospect. Not altogether so, however,
does the Professor figure it. 'In the living subject,' says he,
'change is wont to be gradual: thus, while the serpent sheds its old
skin, the new is already formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the
burning of a World-Phoenix, who fanciest that she must first burn-out,
and lie as a dead cinereous heap; and therefrom the young one start-up
by miracle, and fly heavenward. Far otherwise! In that Fire-whirlwind,
Creation and Destruction proceed together; ever as the ashes of the
Old are blown about, do organic filaments of the New mysteriously spin
themselves: and amid the rushing and the waving of the
Whirlwind-Element come tones of a melodious Deathsong, which end not
but in tones of a more melodious Birthsong. Nay, look into the
Fire-whirlwind with thy own eyes, and thou wilt see.' Let us actually
look, then: to poor individuals, who cannot expect to live two
centuries, those same organic filaments, mysteriously spinning
themselves, will be the best part of the spectacle. First, therefore,
this of Mankind in general:

'In vain thou deniest it,' says the Professor; 'thou _art_ my Brother.
Thy very Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish lies thou tellest of me
in thy splenetic humour: what is all this but an inverted Sympathy?
Were I a Steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of
me? Not thou! I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well.

'Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by
the soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we
like to choose it. More than once have I said to myself, of some
perhaps whimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical
thoughts: "Wer