"At the same time,how evident is the strong inward unrest,the Titanic heaving of mountain on mountain;the storm-like rushing over land and sea in search of peace.He writhes and roars under his consciousness of the difference in himself between the possible and the actual,the hoped-for and the existent.He feels that duty is the highest law of his own being;and knowing how it bids the waves be stilled into an icy fixedness and grandeur,he trusts (but with a boundless inward misgiving)that there is a principle of order which will reduce all confusion to shape and clearness.But wanting peace himself,his fierce dissatisfaction fixes on all that is weak,corrupt and imperfect around him;and instead of a calm and steady co-operation with all those who are endeavoring to apply the highest ideas as remedies for the worst evils,he holds himself aloof in savage isolation;and cherishes (though he dare not own)a stern joy at the prospect of that Catastrophe which is to turn loose again the elements of man's social life,and give for a time the victory to evil;--in hopes that each new convulsion of the world must bring us nearer to the ultimate restoration of all things;fancying that each may be the last.Wanting the calm and cheerful reliance,which would be the spring of active exertion,he flatters his own distemper by persuading himself that his own age and generation are peculiarly feeble and decayed;and would even perhaps be willing to exchange the restless immaturity of our self-consciousness,and the promise of its long throe-pangs,for the unawakened undoubting simplicity of the world's childhood;of the times in which there was all the evil and horror of our day,only with the difference that conscience had not arisen to try and condemn it.In these longings,if they are Teufelsdrockh's,he seems to forget that,could we go back five thousand years,we should only have the prospect of travelling them again,and arriving at last at the same point at which we stand now.
"Something of this state of mind I may say that I understand;for Ihave myself experienced it.And the root of the matter appears to me:
A want of sympathy with the great body of those who are now endeavoring to guide and help onward their fellow-men.And in what is this alienation grounded?It is,as I believe,simply in the difference on that point:viz.the clear,deep,habitual recognition of a one Living _Personal_God,essentially good,wise,true and holy,the Author of all that exists;and a reunion with whom is the only end of all rational beings.This belief...[_There follow now several pages on "Personal God,"and other abstruse or indeed properly unspeakable matters;these,and a general Post of qualifying purport,I will suppress;extracting only the following fractions,as luminous or slightly significant to us:_]
"Now see the difference of Teufelsdrockh's feelings.At the end of book iii.chap.8,I find these words:'But whence?O Heaven,whither?Sense knows not;Faith knows not;only that it is through mystery to mystery,from God to God.
'We _are such stuff_
As dreams are made of,and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.'
And this tallies with the whole strain of his character.What we find everywhere,with an abundant use of the name of God,is the conception of a formless Infinite whether in time or space;of a high inscrutable Necessity,which it is the chief wisdom and virtue to submit to,which is the mysterious impersonal base of all Existence,--shows itself in the laws of every separate being's nature;and for man in the shape of duty.On the other hand,I affirm,we do know whence we come and whither we go!--..."And in this state of mind,as there is no true sympathy with others,just as little is there any true peace for ourselves.There is indeed possible the unsympathizing factitious calm of Art,which we find in Goethe.But at what expense is it bought?Simply,by abandoning altogether the idea of duty,which is the great witness of our personality.And he attains his inhuman ghastly calmness by reducing the Universe to a heap of material for the idea of beauty to work on!--..."The sum of all I have been writing as to the connection of our faith in God with our feeling towards men and our mode of action,may of course be quite erroneous:but granting its truth,it would supply the one principle which I have been seeking for,in order to explain the peculiarities of style in your account of Teufelsdrockh and his writings....The life and works of Luther are the best comment I know of on this doctrine of mine.
"Reading over what I have written,I find I have not nearly done justice to my own sense of the genius and moral energy of the book;but this is what you will best excuse.--Believe me most sincerely and faithfully yours,"JOHN STERLING."Here are sufficient points of "discrepancy with agreement,"here is material for talk and argument enough;and an expanse of free discussion open,which requires rather to be speedily restricted for convenience'sake,than allowed to widen itself into the boundless,as it tends to do!--In all Sterling's Letters to myself and others,a large collection of which now lies before me,duly copied and indexed,there is,to one that knew his speech as well,a perhaps unusual likeness between the speech and the Letters;and yet,for most part,with a great inferiority on the part of these.These,thrown off,one and all of them,without premeditation,and with most rapid-flowing pen,are naturally as like his speech as writing can well be;this is their grand merit to us:but on the other hand,the want of the living tones,swift looks and motions,and manifold dramatic accompaniments,tells heavily,more heavily than common.What can be done with champagne itself,much more with soda-water,when the gaseous spirit is fled!The reader,in any specimens he may see,must bear this in mind.
Meanwhile these Letters do excel in honesty,in candor and transparency;their very carelessness secures their excellence in this respect.And in another much deeper and more essential respect I must likewise call them excellent,--in their childlike goodness,in the purity of heart,the noble affection and fidelity they everywhere manifest in the writer.This often touchingly strikes a familiar friend in reading them;and will awaken reminiscences (when you have the commentary in your own memory)which are sad and beautiful,and not without reproach to you on occasion.To all friends,and all good causes,this man is true;behind their back as before their face,the same man!--Such traits of the autobiographic sort,from these Letters,as can serve to paint him or his life,and promise not to weary the reader,I must endeavor to select,in the sequel.
