ten as my sole rational companion; and regret to
mention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling." Thou foolish
Teufelsdrockh How could it else? Hadst thou not Greek enough to
understand thus much: _The end of Man is an Action, and not a Thought_,
though it were the noblest?

"How I lived?" writes he once: "Friend, hast thou considered the 'rugged
all-nourishing Earth,' as Sophocles well names her; how she feeds
the sparrow on the house-top, much more her darling, man? While thou
stirrest and livest, thou hast a probability of victual. My breakfast of
tea has been cooked by a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who wiped
her earthen kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted wild eggs in
the sand of Sahara; I have awakened in Paris _Estrapades_ and Vienna
_Malzleins_, with no prospect of breakfast beyond elemental liquid. That
I had my Living to seek saved me from Dying,--by suicide. In our
busy Europe, is there not an everlasting demand for Intellect, in the
chemical, mechanical, political, religious, educational, commercial
departments? In Pagan countries, cannot one write Fetishes? Living!
Little knowest thou what alchemy is in an inventive Soul; how, as with
its little finger, it can create provision enough for the body (of a
Philosopher); and then, as with both hands, create quite other than
provision; namely, spectres to torment itself withal."

Poor Teufelsdrockh! Flying with Hunger always parallel to him; and a
whole Infernal Chase in his rear; so that the countenance of Hunger is
comparatively a friend's! Thus must he, in the temper of ancient Cain,
or of the modern Wandering Jew,--save only that he feels himself not
guilty and but suffering the 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 Teufelsdrockh_; 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 nob