Works Cited

That I am the Man in the Cloak. In other words, I am by no manner of means the Man of the Cloak, or the Man under the Cloak. The Germans call me "Der Mensch mit dent Mantel", the Man with the Cloak. This is a deplorable error in the nomenclature of that otherwise intelligent people; and I am speechless with astonishment that they should have fallen into it. Why? Because my cloak is not part and parcel of myself. The cloak is outside, and the man is inside, as Goldsmith said of the World and the Prisoner; but each is a distinct entity; of that I am satisfied; on that point I, as the Persians would say, tighten the girdle of assurance round the waist of my understanding, though, perhaps, there is no waste of my understanding whatever. I admit that you may say, "The Man with the Greasy Countenance," or "The Chap with the Swivel Eye;" thus, also, Slawkeiivbergina (vide Tristram Shandy) calls his hero ''The Stranger with the Nose," and reasonably enough; for, although it was at one period conjectured that the nose in question might extend to five hundred and seventy-five geometrical feet in longitude, not even the most incredulous amongst the Faculty of Strasburgh were found to advance an opinion that the nose was not an integral portion of the individual. With me the case is a horse of another colour. I do not put my cloak on and off, I grant, but I can do so when I please by a mere exercise of volition and muscle; and therefore it is obvious to the meanest capacity (I like original tours de phrase) that I am just the Man in the Cloak, and no mistake.

James Clarence Mangan, My Bugle and How I Blow It