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V. The Comic
“The glory, jest and riddle of the world.”POPE. “And if I laugh at any mortal thing’T is that I may not weep.”BYRON. A taste for fun is all but universal in our species, which is the only joker in nature. The rocks, the plants, the beasts, the birds,...
VI. Quotation and Originality
Old and new put their stamp to everything in Nature. The snowflake that is now falling is marked by both. The present moment gives the motion and the color of the flake, Antiquity its form and properties. All things wear a lustre which is the gift of the pre...
VII. Progress of Culture
Address Read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, July 18, 1867. Nature spokeTo each apart, lifting her lovely showsTo spiritual lessons pointed home,And as through dreams in watches of the night,So through all creatures in their form and waysSom...
VIII. Persian Poetry
To Baron von Hammer Purgstall, who died in Vienna in 1856, we owe our best knowledge of the Persians. He has translated into German, besides the “Divan”of Hafiz, specimens of two hundred poets who wrote during a period of five and a half centuries, from A.D. 1...
IX. Inspiration
It was Watt who told King George III. that he dealt in an article of which kings were said to be fond,—Power. 'T is certain that the one thing we wish to know is, where power is to be bought. But we want a finer kind than that of commerce; and every reasonable...
X. Greatness
There is a prize which we are all aiming at, and the more power and goodness we have, so much more the energy of that aim. Every human being has a right to it, and in the pursuit we do not stand in each other's way. For it has a long scale of degrees, a wide v...
XI. Immortality
Wilt thou not ope thy heart to knowWhat rainbows teach, and sunsets show?Verdict which accumulatesFrom lengthening scroll of human fates,Voice of earth to earth returned,Prayers of saints that inly burned,—Saying, What is excellent,As God lives, is permanent...
Lecture I. The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology.
[May 5, 1840.] We have undertaken to discourse here for a little on Great Men, their manner of appearance in our world's business, how they have shaped themselves in the world's history, what ideas men formed of them, what work they did;—on Heroes, namely, an...
Lecture II. The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam.
[May 8, 1840.] From the first rude times of Paganism among the Scandinavians in the North, we advance to a very different epoch of religion, among a very different people: Mahometanism among the Arabs. A great change; what a change and progress is indicated h...
Lecture III. The Hero as Poet. Dante: Shakspeare.
[May 12, 1840.] The Hero as Divinity, the Hero as Prophet, are productions of old ages; not to be repeated in the new. They presuppose a certain rudeness of conception, which the progress of mere scientific knowledge puts an end to. There needs to be, as it w...
Lecture IV. The Hero as Priest. Luther; Reformation: Knox; Puritanism.
[May 15, 1840.] Our present discourse is to be of the Great Man as Priest. We have repeatedly endeavored to explain that all sorts of Heroes are intrinsically of the same material; that given a great soul, open to the Divine Significance of Life, then there i...
Lecture V. The Hero as Man of Letters. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns.
[May 19, 1840.] Hero-Gods, Prophets, Poets, Priests are forms of Heroism that belong to the old ages, make their appearance in the remotest times; some of them have ceased to be possible long since, and cannot any more show themselves in this world. The Hero ...
Lecture VI. The Hero as King. Cromwell, Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism.
[May 22, 1840.] We come now to the last form of Heroism; that which we call Kingship. The Commander over Men; he to whose will our wills are to be subordinated, and loyally surrender themselves, and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most imp...
Chapter 1. Preliminary.
Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch of Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less effect, for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these times especially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps ...
Chapter 2. Editorial Difficulties.
If for a speculative man, "whose seedfield," in the sublime words of the Poet, "is Time," no conquest is important but that of new ideas, then might the arrival of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Book be marked with chalk in the Editor's calendar. It is indeed an "e...
Chapter 3. Reminiscences.
To the Author's private circle the appearance of this singular Work on Clothes must have occasioned little less surprise than it has to the rest of the world. For ourselves, at least, few things have been more unexpected. Professor Teufelsdrockh, at the period...
Chapter 4. Characteristics.
It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes entirely contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like the very Sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of genius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled ...
Chapter 5. The World in Clothes.
"As Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Laws," observes our Professor, "so could I write a Spirit of Clothes; thus, with an Esprit des Lois, properly an Esprit de Coutumes, we should have an Esprit de Costumes. For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man pr...