Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in HistoryCarlyle, Thomas
Philosophy
Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
Carlyle, Thomas
Clothing and dress -- Fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Germany -- Fiction; Heroes; Philosophers -- Fiction; Satire
But, quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdroeckh hastens from the
Tower of Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the whole
habitable and habilable globe. Walking by the light of Oriental,
Pelasgic, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient and Modern
researches of every conceivable kind, he strives to give us in
compressed shape (as the Nuernbergers give an _Orbis Pictus_) an _Orbis
Vestitus_; or view of the costumes of all mankind, in all countries,
in all times. It is here that to the Antiquarian, to the Historian, we
can triumphantly say: Fall to! Here is learning: an irregular
Treasury, if you will; but inexhaustible as the Hoard of King
Nibelung, which twelve wagons in twelve days, at the rate of three
journeys a day, could not carry off. Sheepskin cloaks and wampum
belts; phylacteries, stoles, albs; chlamydes, togas, Chinese silks,
Afghaun shawls, trunk-hose, leather breeches, Celtic philibegs (though
breeches, as the name _Gallia Braccata_ indicates, are the more
ancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets, ruffs, fardingales, are
brought vividly before us,--even the Kilmarnock nightcap is not
forgotten. For most part, too, we must admit that the Learning,
heterogeneous as it is, and tumbled-down quite pell-mell, is true
concentrated and purified Learning, the drossy parts smelted out and
thrown aside.
Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes touching pictures
of human life. Of this sort the following has surprised us. The first
purpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth or
decency, but ornament. 'Miserable indeed,' says he, 'was the condition
of the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of
hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round
him like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick
natural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on
wild-fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonian, squatted himself in
morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements,
without arms, save the ball of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole
possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord
of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with
deadly unerring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge
once satisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration (_Putz_).
Warmth he found in the toils of the chase; or amid dried leaves, in
his hollow tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto: but for
Decoration he must have Clothes. Nay, among wild people we find
tattooing and painting even prior to Clothes. The first spiritual want
of a barbarous man is Decoration, as indeed we still see among the
barbarous classes in civilised countries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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