old disquietude seemed fast settling into fixed discontent,--when
altogether unexpectedly arrives a Letter from Herr Hofrath Heuschrecke, our
Professor's chief friend and associate in Weissnichtwo, with whom we had
not previously corresponded. The Hofrath, after much quite extraneous
matter, began dilating largely on the "agitation and attention" which the
Philosophy of Clothes was exciting in its own German Republic of Letters;
on the deep significance and tendency of his Friend's Volume; and then, at
length, with great circumlocution, hinted at the practicability of
conveying "some knowledge of it, and of him, to England, and through
England to the distant West:" a work on Professor Teufelsdrockh "were
undoubtedly welcome to the _Family_, the _National_, or any other of those
patriotic _Libraries_, at present the glory of British Literature;" might
work revolutions in Thought; and so forth;--in conclusion, intimating not
obscurely, that should the present Editor feel disposed to undertake a
Biography of Teufelsdrockh, he, Hofrath Heuschrecke, had it in his power to
furnish the requisite Documents.

As in some chemical mixture, that has stood long evaporating, but would not
crystallize, instantly when the wire or other fixed substance is
introduced, crystallization commences, and rapidly proceeds till the whole
is finished, so was it with the Editor's mind and this offer of
Heuschrecke's. Form rose out of void solution and discontinuity; like
united itself with like in definite arrangement: and soon either in actual
vision and possession, or in fixed reasonable hope, the image of the whole
Enterprise had shaped itself, so to speak, into a solid mass. Cautiously
yet courageously, through the twopenny post, application to the famed
redoubtable OLIVER YORKE was now made: an interview, interviews with that
singular man have taken place; with more of assurance on our side, with
less of satire (at least of open satire) on his, than we anticipated; for
the rest, with such issue as is now visible. As to those same "patriotic