hem? Long and adventurous has the
journey been: from those outmost vulgar, palpable Woollen Hulls of Man;
through his wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his wondrous Social Garnitures;
inwards to the Garments of his very Soul's Soul, to Time and Space
themselves! And now does the spiritual, eternal Essence of Man, and of
Mankind, bared of such wrappages, begin in any measure to reveal itself?
Can many readers discern, as through a glass darkly, in huge wavering
outlines, some primeval rudiments of Man's Being, what is changeable
divided from what is unchangeable? Does that Earth-Spirit's speech in
_Faust_,--

"'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply,
And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by; "

or that other thousand-times repeated speech of the Magician,
Shakespeare,--

"And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces,
The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself,
And all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wrack behind;"

begin to have some meaning for us? In a word, do we at length stand
safe in the far region of Poetic Creation and Palingenesia, where that
Phoenix Death-Birth of Human Society, and of all Human Things, appears
possible, is seen to be inevitable?

Along this most insufficient, unheard-of Bridge, which the Editor,
by Heaven's blessing, has now seen himself enabled to conclude if not
complete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope,
that many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, overspanning
the Impassable with paved highway, could the Editor construct; only,
as was said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon.
Alas, and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneck
character; the darkness, the nature of the element, all was against us!

Nevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, provided with a
discursiveness of intellect rare in our day, have cleared the passage,
in spite of all? Happy few! little band of Friends! be welcome, be of
courage. By degrees, the eye grows accustomed to its new Whereabout;
the hand can stretch itself forth to work there: it is in this grand and
indeed highest work of Palingenesia that ye shall labor, each according
to ability. New laborers will arrive; new Bridges will be built;
nay, may not our own poor rope-and-raft Bridge, in your passings and
repassings,