Teufelsdrockh's Spinning Top
". . . And yet, thou brave Teufelsdrockh, who could tell what lurked in thee? Under those thick locks of thine,
so long and lank, overlapping roof-wise the gravest face we ever in this world saw, there dwelt the most busy brain.
In thy eyes too, deep under their shaggy brows, and looking out so still and dreamy, have we not noticed gleams
of an ethereal or else a diabolic fire, and half fancied that their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion,
the sleep of a spinning-top?"
From "Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh" by Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), 1836.