onsecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes
wisely and well: so that as others dress to live, he lives to dress.
The all-importance of Clothes, which a German Professor, of unequalled
learning and acumen, writes his enormous Volume to demonstrate, has
sprung up in the intellect of the Dandy without effort, like an
instinct of genius; he is inspired with Cloth, a Poet of Cloth. What
Teufelsdrockh would call a "Divine Idea of Cloth" is born with him; and
this, like other such Ideas, will express itself outwardly, or wring his
heart asunder with unutterable throes.

But, like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes his Idea
an Action; shows himself in peculiar guise to mankind; walks forth, a
witness and living Martyr to the eternal worth of Clothes. We called him
a Poet: is not his body the (stuffed) parchment-skin whereon he writes,
with cunning Huddersfield dyes, a Sonnet to his mistress' eyebrow? Say,
rather, an Epos, and _Clotha Virumque cano_, to the whole world, in
Macaronic verses, which he that runs may read. Nay, if you grant, what
seems to be admissible, that the Dandy has a Thinking-principle in
him, and some notions of Time and Space, is there not in this
life-devotedness to Cloth, in this so willing sacrifice of the Immortal
to the Perishable, something (though in reverse order) of that blending
and identification of Eternity with Time, which, as we have seen,
constitutes the Prophetic character?

And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even Prophecy,
what is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you
would recognize his existence; would admit him to be a living object; or
even failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays
of light. Your silver or your gold (beyond what the niggardly Law has
already secured him) he solicits not; simply the glance of your eyes.
Understand his mystic significance, or altogether miss and misinterpret
it; do but look at him, and he is contented. May we not well cry shame
on an ungrateful world, which refuses even this poor boon; which will
waste its optic faculty on dried Crocodiles, and Siamese Twins; and
over the domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a live Dandy, glance with
hasty indifference, and a scarcely concealed contempt! Him no Zoologist
classes among the Mammalia, no Anatomist dissects with care: when did we
see any injected Preparation of the Dandy in our Museums; any specimen
of him prese