A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty.  It is, that Teufelsdrockh, is not without some touch of the universal feeling, a wish to proselytize.  How often already have we paused, uncertain whether the basis of this so enigmatic nature were really Stoicism and Despair, or Love and Hope only seared into the figure of these!  Remarkable, moreover, is this saying of his:  “How were Friendship possible?  In mutual devotedness to the Good and True:  otherwise impossible; except as Armed Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League.  A man, be the Heavens ever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, united in Love, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand singly would fail in.  Infinite is the help man can yield to man.”  And now in conjunction therewith consider this other:  “It is the Night of the World, and still long till it be Day:  we wander amid the glimmer of smoking ruins, and the Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as if blotted out for a season; and two immeasurable Phantoms, HYPOCRISY and ATHEISM, with the Ghoul, SENSUALITY, stalk abroad over the Earth, and call it theirs:  well at ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream.”

But what of the awe-struck Wakeful who find it a Reality?  Should not these unite; since even an authentic Spectre is not visible to Two?—­In which case were this Enormous Clothes-Volume properly an enormous Pitch-pan, which our Teufelsdrockh in his lone watch-tower had kindled, that it might flame far and wide through the Night, and many a disconsolately wandering spirit be guided thither to a Brother’s bosom!—­We say as before, with all his malign Indifference, who knows what mad Hopes this man may harbor?

Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmonizes ill with such conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdrockh made like other men, might as good as altogether subvert it.  Namely, that while the Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it; that no pilgrim could now ask him:  Watchman, what of the Night?  Professor Teufelsdrockh, be it known, is no longer visibly present at Weissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in space!  Some time ago, the Hofrath Heuschrecke was pleased to favor us with another copious Epistle; wherein much is said about the “Population-Institute;” much repeated in praise of the Paper-bag Documents, the hieroglyphic nature of which our Hofrath still seems not to have surmised; and, lastly, the strangest occurrence communicated, to us for the first time, in the following paragraph:—­

“Ew.  Wohlgeboren will have seen from the Public Prints, with what affectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo regards the disappearance of her Sage.  Might but the united voice of Germany prevail on him to return; nay could we but so much as elucidate for ourselves by what mystery he went away!  But, alas, old Lieschen experiences or affects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance:  in the Wahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up; the Privy Council itself can hitherto elicit no answer.