style, we might say, had now not a little carbonised tinder, of
Irritability; with so much nitre of latent Passion, and sulphurous
Humour enough; the whole lying in such hot neighbourhood, close by 'a
reverberating furnace of Fantasy': have we not here the components of
driest Gunpowder, ready, on occasion of the smallest spark, to
blaze-up? Neither, in this our Life-element, are sparks anywhere
wanting. Without doubt, some Angel, whereof so many hovered round,
would one day, leaving 'the outskirts of _AEsthetic Tea_,' flit nigher;
and, by electric Promethean glance, kindle no despicable firework.
Happy, if it indeed proved a Firework, and flamed-off rocketwise, in
successive beautiful bursts of splendour, each growing naturally from
the other, through the several stages of a happy Youthful Love; till
the whole were safely burnt-out; and the young soul relieved with
little damage! Happy, if it did not rather prove a Conflagration and
mad Explosion; painfully lacerating the heart itself; nay perhaps
bursting the heart in pieces (which were Death); or at best, bursting
the thin walls of your 'reverberating furnace,' so that it rage
thenceforth all unchecked among the contiguous combustibles (which
were Madness): till of the so fair and manifold internal world of our
Diogenes, there remained Nothing, or only the 'crater of an extinct
volcano!'

From multifarious Documents in this Bag _Capricornus_, and in the
adjacent ones on both sides thereof, it becomes manifest that our
philosopher, as stoical and cynical as he now looks, was heartily and
even frantically in Love: here therefore may our old doubts whether
his heart were of stone or of flesh give way. He loved once; not
wisely but too well. And once only: for as your Congreve needs a new
case or wrappage for every new rocket, so each human heart can
properly exhibit but one Love, if even one; the 'First Love which is
infinite' can be followed by no second like unto it. In more recent
years, accordingly, the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard
Teufelsdroeckh as a man not only who would never wed, but who would
never even flirt; whom the grand-climacteric itself, and _St. Martin's
Summer_ of incipient Dotage, would crown with no new myrtle-garland.
To the Professor, women are henceforth Pieces of Art; of Celestial
Art, indeed; which celestial pieces he glories to survey in galleries,
but has lost thought of purchasing.

Psychological readers are not without curios