ags for the present. Let
it suffice that we know of Teufelsdroeckh, so far, if 'not what he did,
yet what he became:' the rather, as his character has now taken its
ultimate bent, and no new revolution, of importance, is to be looked
for. The imprisoned Chrysalis is now a winged Psyche: and such,
wheresoever be its flight, it will continue. To trace by what complex
gyrations (flights or involuntary waftings) through the mere external
Life element, Teufelsdroeckh reaches his University Professorship, and
the Psyche clothes herself in civic Titles, without altering her now
fixed nature,--would be comparatively an unproductive task, were we
even unsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a false and
impossible one. His outward Biography, therefore, which, at the
Blumine Lover's-Leap, we saw churned utterly into spray-vapour, may
hover in that condition, for aught that concerns us here. Enough that
by survey of certain 'pools and plashes,' we have ascertained its
general direction; do we not already know that, by one way and other,
it _has_ long since rained-down again into a stream; and even now, at
Weissnichtwo, flows deep and still, fraught with the _Philosophy of
Clothes_, and visible to whoso will cast eye thereon? Over much
invaluable matter, that lies scattered, like jewels among
quarry-rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs we may have occasion to
glance back, and somewhat will demand insertion at the right place:
meanwhile be our tiresome diggings therein suspended.

If now, before reopening the great _Clothes-Volume_, we ask what our
degree of progress, during these Ten Chapters, has been, towards right
understanding of the _Clothes-Philosophy_, let not our discouragement
become total. To speak in that old figure of the Hell-gate Bridge over
Chaos, a few flying pontoons have perhaps been added, though as yet
they drift straggling on the Flood; how far they will reach, when once
the chains are straightened and fastened, can, at present, only be
matter of conjecture.

So much we already calculate: Through many a little loop-hole, we have
had glimpses into the internal world of Teufelsdroeckh; his strange
mystic, almost magic Diagram of the Universe, and how it was gradually
drawn, is not henceforth altogether dark to us. Those mysterious ideas
on TIME, which merit consideration, and are not wholly unintelligible
with such, may by and by prove significant. Still more may his
somewhat peculiar view of Nature, the decisi