my triumphing with my whole soul. Dust shall he eat, and with a relish, like my cousin, the renowned snake. THE LORD. There also you are free to act as you like. I have never hated the like of you. Of all the spirits that deny, the scoffer is the least offensive to me. Man's activity is all too prone to slumber he soon gets fond of unconditional repose; I therefore willingly allow him a companion, who stirs and works, and must, as devil, produce. But ye, the true children of heaven, rejoice in the living profusion of beauty. The creative essence, which works and lives through all time, embrace you within the happy bounds of love; and what hovers in changeful seeming, do ye fix firm with everlasting thoughts. (Heaven closes, the Archangels disperse.) MEPHISTOPHELES alone. I like to see the Ancient One occasionally, and take care not to break with him. It is really fine of so great a Lord, to speak so kindly with the Devil himself. FAUST. NIGHT. FAUST in a high-vaulted narrow Gothic chamber, seated restless at his desk. FAUST. I HAVE now, alas, by zealous exertion, thoroughly studied philosophy, jurisprudence and medicine,—and, to my sorrow, theology too. Here I stand, poor fool that İ am, just as wise as before. I am called Master, aye, and Doctor, and have now for ten years been leading my pupils about-up and down, crossways and crooked ways-by the nose; and see that we can know nothing! This it is that cuts me to the heart. True, I am cleverer than all the solemn triflers-doctors, masters, writers and priests. No doubts nor scruples of any sort trouble me; I fear neither hell nor the Devil. But for this very reason is all joy torn from me. I no longer fancy I know any thing worth knowing; I no longer fancy I could teach anything to better and convert mankind. Then I have neither land nor money, nor honour nor worldly rank. A dog would spurn such a life. I have therefore devoted myself to magic, to try whether, through the power and voice of the Spirit, many a mystery might not become known to me; that I may no longer, with bitter sweat, pant to utter what I do not know; that I may learn what it is that holds the world together in its inmost core; see all the springs and seeds of production at work, and drive no longer a paltry traffic in words. Oh! would that thou, radiant moonlight, wert shining for the last time upon my misery; thou, whom I have sat watching so many a midnight at this desk; then, over books and papers, melancholy friend, didst thou appear to me! Oh! that I might wander on the mountain-tops in thy loved light, hover with spirits round the mountain caves, flit over the fields in thy glimmer, and escaped from all the fumes of knowledge, bathe, re-invigorated, in thy dew! Woe is me! am I still penned up in this dungeonthis accursed, musty walled-hole-where the precious light of heaven itself glimmers mournfully through painted panes, broken and stinted by this heap of books, worm-eaten, dust-begrimed, and encompassed by a smoke-smeared paper reaching up to the very top of the vault; with glasses and boxes ranged round, instruments piled up on all sides, ancestral lumber stuffed in with the rest? This is thy world, and a precious world it is! And dost thou still ask, why thy heart flutters so confinedly in thy bosom? Why a vague aching deadens within thee every stirring principle of life?-Instead of the animated nature, for which God made man, thou hast nought around thee but beasts' skeletons and dead mens' bones, in smoke and mould. Up! away! out into the wide world! And this mysterious book, from Nostradamus' own hand, is it not company enough for thee? Thou wilt then know the course of the stars, and, with nature for thy instructress, the soul's essence will rise before thee, as one spirit speaks to another. Vain! that the holy signs are here expounded to thee by dull poring. Spirits, ye are hovering near answer me, if you hear! (He opens the book and contemplates the sign of the Macrocosm.) Ah! what rapture thrills through all my senses at the sight. I feel a fresh hallowed enjoyment of life glowing anew through nerve and vein. Was it a god that traced these signs?—which still the storm within, fill my poor heart with gladness, and, by a mystical inspiration, unveil the powers of nature to my view. Am I a god? All seems so bright. I see, in these pure features, nature herself working in my soul's presence. |