It is the
Night of the World, and still long till it be Day: we wander amid the
glimmer of smoking ruins, and the Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as
if blotted out for a season; and two immeasurable Phantoms, HYPOCRISY
and ATHEISM, with the Gowl, SENSUALITY, stalk abroad over the Earth,
and call it theirs: well at ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence
is a shallow Dream.'

But what of the awestruck Wakeful who find it a Reality? Should not
these unite; since even an authentic Spectre is not visible to
Two?--In which case were this enormous Clothes-Volume properly an
enormous Pitchpan, which our Teufelsdroeckh in his lone watch-tower had
kindled, that it might flame far and wide through the Night, and many
a disconsolately wandering spirit be guided thither to a Brother's
bosom!--We say as before, with all his malign Indifference, who knows
what mad Hopes this man may harbour?

Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmonises ill
with such conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdroeckh made like other
men, might as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while the
Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it; that no
pilgrim could now ask him: Watchman, what of the Night? Professor
Teufelsdroeckh, be it known is no longer visibly present at
Weissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in space! Some time
ago, the Hofrath Heuschrecke was pleased to favour us with another
copious Epistle; wherein much is said about the
'Population-Institute'; much repeated in praise of the Paper-bag
Documents, the hieroglyphic nature of which our Hofrath still seems
not to have surmised; and, lastly, the strangest occurrence
communicated, to us for the first time, in the following paragraph:

'_Ew. Wohlgeboren_ will have seen from the public Prints, with what
affectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo regards
the disappearance of her Sage. Might but the united voice of Germany
prevail on him to return; nay, could we but so much as elucidate for
ourselves by what mystery he went away! But, alas, old Lieschen
experiences or affects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest
ignorance: in the Wahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up; the
Privy Council itself can hitherto elicit no answer.

'It had been remarked that while the agitating news of those Parisian
Three Days flew from mouth to mouth, and dinned every ear in
Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdroeckh was not known, at the _Gans_