९ 'alas, old Lieschen experiences or affects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance: in the Wahngasse 'all lies swept, silent, sealed up; the Privy Council itself can hitherto elicit no answer. It had been remarked that while the agitating news of 5 'those Parisian Three Days flew from mouth to mouth, 'and dinned every ear in Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufels'dröckh was not known, at the Gans or elsewhere, to 'have spoken, for a whole week, any syllable except once 'these three: Es geht an (It is beginning). Shortly after, 10 as Ew. Wohlgeboren knows, was the public tranquillity 'here, as in Berlin, threatened by a Sedition of the Tailors. Nor did there want Evil-wishers, or perhaps. 'mere desperate Alarmists, who asserted that the closing Chapter of the Clothes-Volume was to blame. In this 15 'appalling crisis, the serenity of our Philosopher was indescribable: nay, perhaps, through one humble individ'ual, something thereof might pass into the Rath (Coun'cil) itself, and so contribute to the country's deliverance. 'The Tailors are now entirely pacificated. 20 To neither of these two incidents can I attribute our 'loss: yet still comes there the shadow of a suspicion out 'of Paris and its Politics. For example, when the Saint'Simonian Society transmitted its Propositions hither, and 'the whole Gans was one vast cackle of laughter, lamenta- 25 'tion and astonishment, our Sage sat mute; and at the end 'of the third evening, said merely: "Here also are men 'who have discovered, not without amazement, that Man 'is still Man; of which high, long-forgotten Truth you 'already see them make a false application." Since 30 'then, as has been ascertained by examination of the Post-Director, there passed at least one Letter with its 'Answer between the Messieurs Bazard-Enfantin and our 'Professor himself; of what tenor can now only be con 'jectured. On the fifth night following, he was seen for 'the last time ! 'Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the 'hostile Sects that convulse our Era, been spirited away 5 by certain of their emissaries; or did he go forth volun'tarily to their head-quarters to confer with them, and 'confront them? Reason we have, at least of a negative 'sort, to believe the Lost still living: our widowed heart 'also whispers that ere long he will himself give a sign. 10 Otherwise, indeed, his archives must, one day, be opened 'by Authority; where much, perhaps the Palingenesie 'itself, is thought to be reposited.' 15 ९ Thus far the Hofrath; who vanishes, as is his wont, too like an Ignis Fatuus, leaving the dark still darker. So that Teufelsdröckh's public History were not done, then, or reduced to an even, unromantic tenor; nay, perhaps, the better part thereof were only beginning? We stand in a region of conjectures, where substance has melted into shadow, and one cannot be distinguished 20 from the other. May Time, which solves or suppresses all problems, throw glad light on this also! Our own private conjecture, now amounting almost to certainty, is that, safe-moored in some stillest obscurity, not to lie always still, Teufelsdröckh is actually in London ! 25 Here, however, can the present Editor, with an ambrosial joy as of over-weariness falling into sleep, lay down his pen. Well does he know, if human testimony be worth aught, that to innumerable British readers likewise, this is a satisfying consummation; that innumerable 30 British readers consider him, during these current months, but as an uneasy interruption to their ways of thought and digestion; and indicate so much, not without a certain irritancy and even spoken invective. For which, as for other mercies, ought he not to thank the Upper Powers? To one and all of you, O irritated readers, he, with outstretched arms and open heart, will wave a kind farewell. Thou, too, miraculous Entity, who namest thyself YORKE and OLIVER, and with thy vivaci- 5 ties and genialities, with thy all-too Irish mirth and madness, and odour of palled punch, makest such strange work, farewell; long as thou canst, fare-well! Have we not, in the course of Eternity, travelled some months of our Life-journey in partial sight of one another; have we 10 not existed together, though in a state of quarrel? |