omance.
Yet in a sense it is all these combined. Its underlying purpose is to
expound in broad outline certain ideas which lay at the root of
Carlyle's whole reading of life. But he does not elect to set these
forth in regular methodic fashion, after the manner of one writing a
systematic essay. He presents his philosophy in dramatic form and in a
picturesque human setting. He invents a certain Herr Diogenes
Teufelsdroeckh, an erudite German professor of "Allerley-Wissenschaft,"
or Things in General, in the University of Weissnichtwo, of whose
colossal work, "Die Kleider, Ihr Werden und Wirken" (On Clothes: Their
Origin and Influence), he represents himself as being only the student
and interpreter. With infinite humour he explains how this prodigious
volume came into his hands; how he was struck with amazement by its
encyclopaedic learning, and the depth and suggestiveness of its
thought; and how he determined that it was his special mission to
introduce its ideas to the British public. But how was this to be
done? As a mere bald abstract of the original would never do, the
would-be apostle was for a time in despair. But at length the happy
thought occurred to him of combining a condensed statement of the main
principles of the new philosophy with some account of the
philosopher's life and character. Thus the work took the form of a
"Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdroeckh," and as such it was offered
to the world. Here, of course, we reach the explanation of its
fantastic title--"Sartor Resartus," or the Tailor Patched: the tailor
being the great German "Clothes-philosopher," and the patching being
done by Carlyle as his English editor.

As a piece of literary mystification, Teufelsdroeckh and his treatise
enjoyed a measure of the success which nearly twenty years before had
been scored by Dietrich Knickerbocker and his "History of New York."
The question of the professor's existence was solemnly discussed in at
least one important review; Carlyle was gravely taken to task for
attempting to mislead the public; a certain interested reader actually
wrote to inquire where the original German work was to be obtained.
All this seems to us surprising; the more so as we are now able to
understand the purposes which Carlyle had in view in devising his
dramatic scheme. In the first place, by associating the
clothes-philosophy with the personality of its alleged author (himself
one of Carlyle's splendidly living pieces of cha