This we shall briefly review, but the gist of the book is in
what we have already found. To most readers the quotations must have
been old and well-remembered friends. Yet they will pardon the
reappearance of them here, for they have been amongst the most powerful
of all winged words spoken in England for centuries. The reason for the
popularity of the book is that these biographical chapters are the
record of normal and typical human experience. This, or something like
this, will repeat itself so long as human nature lasts; and men, grown
discouraged with the mystery and bewilderment of life, will find heart
from these chapters to start "once more on their adventure, brave and
new."
This, then, is Teufelsdroeckh's reconstruction of the world; and the
world of each one of us requires some such reconstruction. For life is
full of deceptive outward appearances, from which it is the task of
every man to come back in his own way to the realities within. The
shining example of such reconstruction is that of George Fox, who sewed
himself a suit of leather and went out to the woods with it--"Every
stitch of his needle pricking into the heart of slavery, and
world-worship, and the Mammon god.
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