HKB
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Often appears with: fate, destiny, and necessity · world-phoenix · winter quarters · translation and the transmission of texts · trade, markets, and merchants · siege engines · siege and fortification · progress by generations · newton and kepler · inverted sympathy · human-wisdom and man’s-invention · history and the writing of history
Usually: argument (2) · curiosity (2) · detachment (2) · narrative (1) · sudden reversal of fortune (1)
“Little knowest thou of the burning of a World-Phoenix, who fanciest that she must first burn out, and lie as a dead cinereous heap; and therefrom the young one start up by miracle, and fly heavenward.” Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufe · insight
“Beautiful it is to understand and know that a Thought did never yet die; that as thou, the originator thereof, hast gathered it and created it from the whole Past, so thou wilt transmit it to the whole Future.” Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufe · insight
Teufelsdrockh argues that change, creation, and destruction occur together like a World-Phoenix’s fire-whirlwind, linking this view to universal bonds among people and to the power of Tradition across generations.
For us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning herself, and burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdrockh calculates, it were a handsome bargain would she engage to have done "within two centuries," there seems to lie but an ashy prospect. Not altogether so, however, does the Professor figure it. "In the living subject," says he, "change is wont to be gradual: thus, while the serpent sheds its old skin, the…
The text expands the philosophy of human unity: ideas never truly die, institutions and books carry thoughts forward, and generations drive progress through succession from earlier reformers to later ones.
been no Moesogothic Ulfila, there had been no English Shakspeare, or a different one. Simpleton! It was Tubal-cain that made thy very Tailor's needle, and sewed that court-suit of thine. "Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much more is Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without which Nature were not. As palpable lifestreams in that wondrous Individual Mankind, among so ma…
After skirmishes and siege attempts with slings and battering-rams, the captains retreat to winter quarters; Shaddai’s forces introduce new allies—Tradition, Human-Wisdom, and Man’s-Invention—who are captured and repurposed by Diabolus.
several slings, and two or three battering-rams; with their slings, therefore, they battered the houses and people of the town, and with their rams they sought to break Ear-gate open. The camp and the town had several skirmishes and brisk encounters, while the captains with their engines made many brave attempts to break open or beat down the tower that was over Ear-gate, and at the said gate to make their entrance;…