Sartor Resartus (Oxford World's Classics) (44 page)

Faust’s Deathsong
: Goethe’s
Faust
, 1. iv. 1573.

Rue Saint Thomas de I’Enfer
: ‘St Thomas Hell Street.’

Baphometic Fire-baptism
: a phrase of uncertain meaning; perhaps ‘baptism of wisdom’. Baphomet is the idol that the medieval Knights Templars were accused of worshipping.

Centre of Indifference
: literally, the point midway between the two poles of a magnet, at which the attractive force is stable; see the final sentence of this chapter.

required
: ‘acquired’ in later editions.

Armida’s Palace
: in Tasso’s
Jerusalem Delivered
(1580–1), book 16, the palace of an enchantress.

Dumdrudge
: Carlyle’s invention, from ‘dumb drudgery’.

fiction of the English Smollett
: Tobias Smollett’s
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom
(1753), ch. xli.

Berlin-and-Milan Customhouse-officers
: alluding to Napoleon’s Berlin and Milan decrees of 1806–7, ordering the seizure of British exports, which the kings of Europe were obliged to enforce.

La carrière ouverte aux talens
: literally, the career open to those with talent.

caput-mortuum
: ‘death’s-head.’ An old chemical term denoting the residuum after distillation or sublimation; here, a worthless residue.

Apage Satanas
: ‘Get thee hence, Satan’ (Matthew 4: 10).

Hochheimer … Ophiuchus
: Rhine wine from Hochheim near Mainz; the throat of the serpent borne by
Ophiuchus
the Serpent Bearer, one of the constellations.

Wisest of our time … begin
: Goethe in
Wilhelm Meister’s Travels
, ch. xiv.

opened
: ‘founded’ in later editions.

Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre
: ‘The Theory of Knowledge’ (1794) by Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

Whole Duty of Man
: an anonymous devotional work (1659).

a wise man … Action
: Goethe in
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
(v. xvi).

Do the Duty … nearest thee
:
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
(VII.
i).

Lothario … nowhere
:
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
(VII. iii).

Ecce Homo … Choice of Hercules
: ‘Behold the man’ (i.e. Christ), John 19: 5; proverbial choice between Virtue and Vice.

Code Napoléon
: compilation of the laws of France, drawn up under Napoleon in 1802–8, which still forms the basis of the French legal system.

deliration
: delirium.

Diet of Worms … Peterloo
: at the Diet of Worms, Austria, in 1521, Luther was summoned (but refused) to retract his heresies. At the battles of Austerlitz and Waterloo, 1805 and 1815, Napoleon won his greatest victory and suffered his final defeat. At St Peter’s
Field, Manchester, ironically named ‘Peterloo’ after Waterloo, an assembly of protesting workers was attacked by the military in 1819.

Thirdborough in his Hundred
: constable in his district.

Fancy-Bazaar … Day and Martin
: the Soho bazaar in London; manufacturers of blacking.

man
: ‘men’ in later editions.

the Frenchman … Thought
: Voltaire,
Dialogue
xiv.

right hand … left hand
: ‘left hand … right hand’ in later editions, as in Matthew 6: 3.

Shame
: ‘Shame (
Schaam
)’ in later editions; the only occasion on which a German word has been added to the text.

Motive-Millwrights
: Utilitarians.

long-eared enough
: the sophism known as Buridan’s Ass; if an ass stands between two equally attractive bundles of hay and chooses one, it has free will. If we deny the existence of free will, the ass must starve.

Marseillese Hymns, and Reigns of Terror
: i.e. the French Revolutionary marching song ‘La Marseillaise’, and the climax of bloodshed during the Revolution, 1793–4.

groschen
: German coin of small value.

Peasants’ War
: uprising of the peasants in Germany, 1524–5; their symbol was a ‘clouted Shoe’.

Wau-Wau
: corrected in later editions to ‘pawaw’ (i.e. powow), the medicine man of North American Indians.

Ancient Pistol … little price
:
Henry V
, 111. vi. 47.

Champion of England
: coronation official who appears in full armour to challenge anyone who might dispute the sovereign’s right of succession. At the coronation of George IV in 1821, the aged Champion mounted his horse with difficulty.

Now last but one—Ed.
: ‘That of George IV in later editions.

Helotage
: Carlyle’s coinage for helotism; the system of serfdom in ancient Sparta. The Helots, slaves of the Spartans, were periodically murdered to reduce their numbers.

Indignation
: ‘Indignation bear him company’ in later editions.

united
: ‘our united’ in later editions.

dogleech
: veterinary surgeon for dogs, or medical quack.

Job’s news
: i.e. bad news.

sic-vos-non-vobis
: ‘thus you labour not for yourselves’ (Virgil); i.e. a state of unfairness.

we find
: ‘we to find’ in later editions.

Doctor Utriusque Juris
: Doctor of Civil and Canon Law.

Spartan broth
: served to the hardy Spartans as a guard against luxury.

called
: ‘men call’ in later editions.

Mirza’s Hill
: in Addison’s ‘Vision of Mirza’;
Spectator
159 (1 September 1711).

Whispering-gallery
: gallery running round the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, with an unusual capacity to carry sound.

with even
: ‘within’ in later editions.

Hebrew Lawgiver … Apostle of the Gentiles
: Moses and Paul.

Herzog … Marshall
: Herzog and
Dux
, German and Latin for duke;
Jarl
, Danish for nobleman; ‘Marshall’ (’Marshal’ in later editions) from Danish
Marskal
, horse-servant.

Popinjay
: see Scott’s
Old Mortality
(1816), ch. iv.

Ballot-Box
: demanded by the Chartists, but not introduced until 1872.

Peace Society
: founded by the Society of Friends (Quakers) in London in 1816.

Paris and Voltaire
: after an absence of twenty-eight years, Voltaire returned to Paris in triumph in 1778, three months before his death.

Hortus Siccus … Italian Gumflowers
: ‘dry garden’, i.e. a collection of dried plants for study; artificial flowers.

Miserere
: have mercy; from the fifty-first Psalm, ‘Have mercy upon me, O God’.

Diogenes the First
: when a tedious lecture was ending, Diogenes reputedly said: ‘Courage friends! I see land.’

Dutch King of Siam
: in his
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
(1690), Locke describes a Dutch ambassador telling the King of Siam about the thick ice formed in winter in Holland; the incredulous King is sure that the ambassador is lying (iv. xv).

wise
: ‘manner’ in later editions.

Luther’s Picture of the Devil
: Luther reputedly flung his inkstand at
the Devil who appeared to him while he was translating the Psalms.

imagings (not imaginings)
: ‘imagings or imaginings’ in later editions.

Orpheus
: ‘Orpheus or Amphion’ in later editions. Amphion, son of Zeus, made stones move of their own accord during the building of the walls of Thebes. Orpheus, less relevantly, tamed wild beasts with his lyre.

Steinbruch
: quarry.

truth
: ‘true’ in later editions.

English Johnson … Cock Lane
: the ‘Cock Lane Ghost’ was an imposture, produced by a girl living in Cock Lane, London. Samuel Johnson visited the girl’s house in 1762, but declared the ghost to be a fraud.

We are such stuff… sleep
:
The Tempest
, IV. i. 156–8.

And like … behind
:
The Tempest
, IV. i. 151–6.

Horn-gate
: in the
Aeneid
, VI. 893 ff., the gate of sleep that produces true dreams, opposed to the ‘Ivory-gate’ that produces false dreams.

Magna Charta … measures
: the celebrated charter of the liberties of England was signed by King John in 1215. Sir Robert Cotton (1571–1631), collector of manuscripts, reputedly rescued it from his tailor.

Thirty-nine Articles
: the doctrinal tenets of the Church of England.

Worth
: ‘World’ in later editions.

Clotha Virumque cano
: ‘Clothes and the man I sing’, parodying the opening line of the
Aeneid
, ‘Arms and the man I sing’.

Lord Herringbone
: i.e. a typical dandy, named after the herringbone stitch.

Zerdusht, Quangfoutchee, Mohamed
: Zoroaster, Confucius, and Mohammed; respective founders of the Parsee, Confucian, and Islamic religions.

Menadic … Eleusinian or Cabiric
: the Maenads were inspired female worshippers of Bacchus, the god of wine; the Eleusinians worshipped Ceres, the goddess of agriculture; the Cabiri were deities worshipped in Greece and Egypt.

Magnetic Sleep
: from ‘animal magnetism’, an early term for hypnotism.

deliquium
: melting or liquefaction.

Fire-balls … Alien
: balls of fire which reputedly prevented Julian the Apostate’s attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem, in defiance of the Christians.

Stillschweigen’sche Buchhandlung
: ‘Silence Bookshop.’

Mohamedan reverence even for waste paper
: because, according to the
Spectator
, no. 85, it ‘may contain some piece of their Alcoran’.

Pelham
: a novel by Bulwer Lytton, published in 1828. The seven ‘Articles of Faith’ that follow are based on passages in
Pelham
which were omitted or altered in later editions.

Hallanshakers
: Scotch for beggars.

Bogtrotters, Redshanks, Ribbonmen, Cottiers, Peep-of-day Boys, Babes of the Wood, Rockites
: Irish terms for, respectively, peasants, the bare-legged, members of the Catholic Ribbon Society (opponents of the Protestant Orangemen), cottage dwellers, Protestant insurgents, outlaws, and revolutionaries of 1812, signing their notices ‘Captain Rock’.

irrevocably enough
: ‘irrevocably’ in later editions.

seemed indescribable
: ‘did not seem describable’ in later editions.

Brahminical feeling
: Brahmins oppose the killing of animals.

Potatoes-and-Point
: i.e. nothing but potatoes, from the Irish joke of eating potatoes while pointing to something else saved for a future meal.

The late John Bernard
: English actor and writer (1756–1828), whose
Retrospections of the Stage
was published posthumously in 1830. The excerpt ‘from the original’ is from 1. xi. 349–50.

original
: in later editions, the heading ‘Poor-Slave Household’ is here inserted.

abode
: in later editions, the heading ‘Dandiacal Household’ is here inserted.

A Dressing-room … Apron
: the passage is from Bulwer Lytton’s Introduction to
The Disowned
(1828).

Potwallopers
: i.e. householders; those who boiled their own pots.

Pelion on Ossa
: the mythological Titans attempted to reach heaven by piling Mount Pelion on Mount Ossa (
Odyssey
, xi. 305 ff.).

Hans Sachs … Schneider mit dem Panier
: German poet (1494–1576), one of whose songs is entitled ‘The Tailor with the Banner’.

Taming of the Shrew
: an anonymous tailor appears in IV. iii.

sartorius
: thigh muscle used to produce the tailor’s cross-legged sitting position.

Swift … Divinity
: referring to the tailor-worshipping sect in Swift’s
A Tale of a Tub
(1704), sec. ii.

Franklin … Kings
: the words quoted are inscribed in Latin on a bust of Benjamin Franklin (1706–90), American statesman and author, who discovered that lightning was an electric charge.

greatest living Guild-Brother
: Goethe; the quotation is from
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
(11. ii).

Sic itur ad astra
: ‘This is the way to the stars’ (
Aeneid
, xi. 641).

being
: ‘having’ in later editions.

brush
: ‘sponge’ in later editions.

Gowle
: ghoul; ‘gowl’ in later editions.

Ew. Wohlgeboren
: ‘Your Honour.’

it
: ‘this’ in later editions.

lived
: ‘existed’ in later editions.

Reform hurlyburly
: agitation leading to the Reform Bill of 1832.

title
: Carlyle first refers to the work as
Sartor Resartus
in a letter of 18 July 1833 to John Stuart Mill.

Eight sheets of Fraser
: Carlyle’s estimate proved correct; the work was published in eight instalments.

five persons
: the five readers cannot be precisely identified, but probably include William Glen, John Stuart Mill, and Henry Inglis. The sixth, William Fraser, was James Fraser’s brother and editor of the
Foreign Review
.

“O. Y.’s”
: notes spuriously attributed to ‘Oliver Yorke’, pseudonym of William Maginn, the editor of
Fraser’s Magazine
.

Bayle in voce
: the reader is referred to Pierre Bayle’s
Dictionnaire
historique et critique
(1695–7),
sub voce
(under the heading) Oppian, the name of two Greek poets of the second century
AD.

donner-und-blitzenizing
: thundering and lightning.