ural ability, his deserts
in life (as Prussian Sergeant); with long historical inquiries into
the genealogy of the Futteral Family, here traced back as far as Henry
the Fowler: the whole of which we pass over, not without astonishment.
It only concerns us to add, that now was the time when Mother Gretchen
revealed to her foster-son that he was not at all of this kindred, or
indeed of any kindred, having come into historical existence in the
way already known to us. 'Thus was I doubly orphaned,' says he;
'bereft not only of Possession, but even of Remembrance. Sorrow and
Wonder, here suddenly united, could not but produce abundant fruit.
Such a disclosure, in such a season, struck its roots through my whole
nature: ever till the years of mature manhood, it mingled with my
whole thoughts, was as the stem whereon all my day-dreams and
night-dreams grew. A certain poetic elevation, yet also a
corresponding civic depression, it naturally imparted: _I was like no
other_; in which fixed-idea, leading sometimes to highest, and oftener
to frightfullest results, may there not lie the first spring of
Tendencies, which in my Life have become remarkable enough? As in
birth, so in action, speculation, and social position, my fellows are
perhaps not numerous.'

* * * * *

In the Bag _Sagittarius_, as we at length discover, Teufelsdroeckh has
become a University man; though, how, when, or of what quality, will
nowhere disclose itself with the smallest certainty. Few things, in
the way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, can now surprise
our readers; not even the total want of dates, almost without parallel
in a Biographical work. So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always found,
and must always look to find, these scattered Leaves. In
_Sagittarius_, however, Teufelsdroeckh begins to show himself even more
than usually Sibylline: fragments of all sorts; scraps of regular
Memoir, College-Exercises, Programs, Professional Testimoniums,
Milkscores, torn Billets, sometimes to appearance of an amatory cast;
all blown together as if by merest chance, henceforth bewilder the
sane Historian. To combine any picture of these University, and the
subsequent, years; much more, to decipher therein any illustrative
primordial elements of the Clothes-Philosophy, becomes such a problem
as the reader may imagine.

So much we can see; darkly, as through the foliage of some wavering
thicket: a youth of no common endo