For which end doubtless those direct historical Notices, where they can be met with, are the best.  Nevertheless, of this sort too there occurs much, which, with our present light, it were questionable to emit.  Teufelsdrockh vibrating everywhere between the highest and the lowest levels, comes into contact with public History itself.  For example, those conversations and relations with illustrious Persons, as Sultan Mahmoud, the Emperor Napoleon, and others, are they not as yet rather of a diplomatic character than of a biographic?  The Editor, appreciating the sacredness of crowned heads, nay perhaps suspecting the possible trickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew this province for the present; a new time may bring new insight and a different duty.

If we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for there was none, yet with what immediate outlooks; at all events, in what mood of mind, the Professor undertook and prosecuted this world-pilgrimage,—­the answer is more distinct than favorable.  “A nameless Unrest,” says he, “urged me forward; to which the outward motion was some momentary lying solace.  Whither should I go?  My Loadstars were blotted out; in that canopy of grim fire shone no star.  Yet forward must I; the ground burnt under me; there was no rest for the sole of my foot.  I was alone, alone!  Ever too the strong inward longing shaped Phantasms for itself:  towards these, one after the other, must I fruitlessly wander.  A feeling I had, that for my fever-thirst there was and must be somewhere a healing Fountain.  To many fondly imagined Fountains, the Saints’ Wells of these days, did I pilgrim; to great Men, to great Cities, to great Events:  but found there no healing.  In strange countries, as in the well-known; in savage deserts, as in the press of corrupt civilization, it was ever the same:  how could your Wanderer escape from—­his own Shadow?  Nevertheless still Forward!  I felt as if in great haste; to do I saw not what.  From the depths of my own heart, it called to me, Forwards!  The winds and the streams, and all Nature sounded to me, Forwards! Ach Gott, I was even, once for all, a Son of Time.”

From which is it not clear that the internal Satanic School was still active enough?  He says elsewhere:  “The Enchiridion of Epictetus I had ever with me, often as my sole rational companion; and regret to mention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling.”  Thou foolish Teufelsdrockh How could it else?  Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus much:  The end of Man is an Action, and not a Thought, though it were the noblest?