s us to add, that now was the time when Mother Gretchen
revealed to her foster-son that he was not at all of this kindred; or
indeed of any kindred, having come into historical existence in the way
already known to us. "Thus was I doubly orphaned," says he; "bereft not
only of Possession, but even of Remembrance. Sorrow and Wonder,
here suddenly united, could not but produce abundant fruit. Such a
disclosure, in such a season, struck its roots through my whole
nature: ever till the years of mature manhood, it mingled with my whole
thoughts, was as the stem whereon all my day-dreams and night-dreams
grew. A certain poetic elevation, yet also a corresponding civic
depression, it naturally imparted: _I was like no other_; in which
fixed idea, leading sometimes to highest, and oftener to frightfullest
results, may there not lie the first spring of tendencies, which in
my Life have become remarkable enough? As in birth, so in action,
speculation, and social position, my fellows are perhaps not numerous."

In the Bag _Sagittarius_, as we at length discover, Teufelsdrockh has
become a University man; though how, when, or of what quality, will
nowhere disclose itself with the smallest certainty. Few things, in the
way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, can now surprise our
readers; not even the total want of dates, almost without parallel in
a Biographical work. So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always found,
and must always look to find, these scattered Leaves. In _Sagittarius_,
however, Teufelsdrockh begins to show himself even more than
usually Sibylline: fragments of all sorts: scraps of regular Memoir,
College-Exercises, Programs, Professional Testimoniums, Milkscores, torn
Billets, sometimes to appearance of an amatory cast; all blown together
as if by merest chance, henceforth bewilder the sane Historian. To
combine any picture of these University, and the subsequent, years; much
more, to decipher therein any illustrative primordial elements of the
Clothes-Philosophy, becomes such a problem as the reader may imagine.

So much we can see; darkly, as through the foliage of some wavering
thicket: a youth of no common endowment, who has passed happily through
Childhood, less happily yet still vigorously through Boyhood, now at
length perfect in "dead vocables," and set down, as he hopes, by the
living Fountain, there to superadd Ideas and Capabilities. From such
Fountain he draws, diligently, thirstily, yet never o