Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History

Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes,

by Thomas Carlyle

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Title: Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in
History
Author: Thomas Carlyle
Contributor: W. H. Hudson
Release Date: February 15, 2007 [EBook #20585]
Language: English
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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
Founded 1906 by J. M. Dent (d. 1926) Edited by Ernest Rhys (d. 1946)
ESSAYS & BELLES-LETTRES
SARTOR RESARTUS and ON HEROES
BY THOMAS CARLYLE · INTRODUCTION
BY PROFESSOR W. H. HUDSON

THOMAS CARLYLE, born in 1795 at Ecclefechan, the son of a
stonemason. Educated at Edinburgh University. Schoolmaster for a
short time, but decided on a literary career, visiting Paris and London.
Retired in 1828 to Dumfriesshire to write. In 1834 moved to Cheyne
Row, Chelsea, and died there in 1881.

SARTOR RESARTUS
ON HEROES
HERO WORSHIP
THOMAS CARLYLE
LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON
& CO. INC.

All rights reserved Made in Great Britain at The Temple Press
Letchworth for J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. Aldine House Bedford St.
London First published in this edition 1908 Last reprinted 1948

INTRODUCTION
One of the most vital and pregnant books in our modern literature,
"Sartor Resartus" is also, in structure and form, one of the most
daringly original. It defies exact classification. It is not a philosophic
treatise. It is not an autobiography. It is not a romance. 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 Teufelsdröckh, 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 encyclopædic
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 Teufelsdröckh,"
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, Teufelsdröckh 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 characterisation), and by
presenting it as the product and expression of his spiritual experiences,
he made the mystical creed intensely human. Stated in the abstract, it
would have been a mere blank -ism; developed in its intimate relations
with Teufelsdröckh's character and career, it is filled with the hot
life-blood of natural thought and feeling. Secondly, by fathering his
own philosophy upon a German professor Carlyle indicates his own
indebtedness to German idealism, the ultimate source of much of