To cast a glance into certain of those pools and
plashes, and trace whither they run, must, for a chapter or two, form
the limit of our endeavor.

For which end doubtless those direct historical Notices, where they can
be met with, are the best. Nevertheless, of this sort too there occurs
much, which, with our present light, it were questionable to emit.
Teufelsdrockh vibrating everywhere between the highest and the lowest
levels, comes into contact with public History itself. For example,
those conversations and relations with illustrious Persons, as Sultan
Mahmoud, the Emperor Napoleon, and others, are they not as yet rather
of a diplomatic character than of a biographic? The Editor, appreciating
the sacredness of crowned heads, nay perhaps suspecting the possible
trickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew this province for the
present; a new time may bring new insight and a different duty.

If we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for there was
none, yet with what immediate outlooks; at all events, in what mood of
mind, the Professor undertook and prosecuted this world-pilgrimage,--the
answer is more distinct than favorable. "A nameless Unrest," says he,
"urged me forward; to which the outward motion was some momentary lying
solace. Whither should I go? My Loadstars were blotted out; in that
canopy of grim fire shone no star. Yet forward must I; the ground burnt
under me; there was no rest for the sole of my foot. I was alone, alone!
Ever too the strong inward longing shaped Phantasms for itself: towards
these, one after the other, must I fruitlessly wander. A feeling I
had, that for my fever-thirst there was and must be somewhere a healing
Fountain. To many fondly imagined Fountains, the Saints' Wells of these
days, did I pilgrim; to great Men, to great Cities, to great Events: but
found there no healing. In strange countries, as in the well-known; in
savage deserts, as in the press of corrupt civilization, it was ever
the same: how could your Wanderer escape from--_his own Shadow_?
Nevertheless still Forward! I felt as if in great haste; to do I saw not
what. From the depths of my own heart, it called to me, Forwards! The
winds and the streams, and all Nature sounded to me, Forwards! _Ach
Gott_, I was even, once for all, a Son of Time."

From which is it not clear that the internal Satanic School was still
active enough? He says elsewhere: "The _Enchiridion of Epictetus_ I had
ever with me, of