me what in these
days he notes from the Wahngasse of Weissnichtwo, where our
London fashions seem to be in full vogue. Let us hear the Herr
Teufelsdrockh again, were it but the smallest word!

'Democracy, which means despair of finding any Heroes to govern
you, and contented putting up with the want of them,--alas, thou
too, _mein Lieber,_ seest well how close it is of kin to
_Atheism,_ and other sad _Isms:_ he who discovers no God
whatever, how shall he discover Heroes, the visible Temples of
God?--Strange enough meanwhile it is, to observe with what
thoughtlessness, here in our rigidly Conservative Country, men
rush into Democracy with full cry. Beyond doubt, his Excellenz
the Titular-Herr Ritter Kauderwalsch von Pferdefuss-Quacksalber,
he our distinguished Conservative Premier himself, and all but
the thicker-headed of his Party, discern Democracy to be
inevitable as death, and are even desperate of delaying it much!

'You cannot walk the streets without beholding Democracy announce
itself: the very Tailor has become, if not properly
Sansculottic, which to him would be ruinous, yet a Tailor
unconsciously symbolising, and prophesying with his scissors, the
reign of Equality. What now is our fashionable coat? A thing of
superfinest texture, of deeply meditated cut; with Malineslace
cuffs; quilted with gold; so that a man can carry, without
difficulty, an estate of land on his back? _Keineswegs,_ By no
manner of means! The Sumptuary Laws have fallen into such a
state of desuetude as was never before seen. Our fashionable
coat is an amphibium between barn-sack and drayman's doublet.
The cloth of it is studiously coarse; the colour a speckled
sootblack or rust-brown grey;--the nearest approach to a
Peasant's. And for shape,--thou shouldst see it! The last
consummation of the year now passing over us is definable as
Three Bags: a big bag for the body, two small bags for the arms,
and by way of collar a hem! The first Antique Cheruscan who, of
felt-cloth or bear's-hide, with bone or metal needle, set about
making himself a coat, before Tailors had yet awakened out of
Nothing,--did not he make it even so? A loose wide poke for
body, with two holes to let out the arms; this was his original
coat: to which holes it was soon visible that two small loose
pokes, or sleeves, easily appended, would be an improvement.

'Thus has the Tailor-art, so to speak, overset itself, like most
other things; changed it