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A woman's form, in beauty shining!
Can woman, then, so lovely be?

And must I find her body, there reclining; Of all the heavens, the bright epitome? Can Earth with such a thing be mated?1 Discontent with life, sense of the insufficiency of human knowledge and the most gloomy pessimism lead to the passion of love which, eventually, after many devious paths, throws Faust into the arms of Marguerite. The story is one of the world's great romances and everyone knows it. Faust all unconsciously was following the prescription of Brown-Séquard. Brain-fatigue had made the continuation of the study which caused it impossible. The condition is plainly stated in the following lines :—

The thread of Thought at last is broken,

And knowledge brings disgust unspoken.
Let us the sensual deeps explore.❜

The brain has refused to work, and blind instinct, in the guise of dreams, whispers that there is in the organism something that can restore the intellectual forces. This something, however, is what is called sin, and much courage is needed to plunge into it. Without this evil, life cannot last. Faust has to choose between love and death, and chooses love.

The end of the romance of Goethe and Frederique was bad, and that of Faust and Marguerite was still worse. The poet painted it in the most sombre colours. Marguerite killed her child, poisoned her mother, became crazy, and was beheaded. Faust's cup of misery was filled to the brim; he blamed his evil genius, he made desperate efforts to save the poor woman, and cried "O that I had never been born."

To sum up in the first Part, Faust is a young, learned man who expects too much from science and life, and whose 2 Op. cit., p. 51.

Op. cit., p. 71.

genius requires extra-conjugal love as a stimulant; he is unbalanced and inevitably pessimistic. It is not surprising that his life goes badly, and that his conduct leaves him much to repent of. But although, at first, a vague general discontent nearly drives him to suicide, later on the terrible evil which he had wrought on a poor creature he loved passionately did no more than plunge him into misery that was bitter but far from mortal. His mind had developed The crisis through which

far in the direction of optimism.

he passed, serious as it was, ended by his return to a life of

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V

THE OLD AGE OF FAUST

The second Part of Faust is in the main a description of
senile love-Amorous passion of the old man-Humble atti-
tude of the old Faust-Platonic love for Helena-The old
Faust's conception of life-His optimism-The general idea
of the play

THE first Part of Faust was acclaimed by the world almost as soon as it appeared, but the second Part met a very cold reception. Everyone knows and reads the first Part; the second Part has few readers, and these chiefly poets and dramatists. No doubt it has more effect on the stage than when it is read, but this is due to subsidiary features in which it resembles a fine ballet. There is general agreement that the real meaning of the second Part is obscure, complex and difficult to interpret. Many literary critics have racked their brains in the effort to discover the author's central idea. When Eckermann, who persuaded Goethe to revise and finish the second Part, asked what was the meaning of some of the scenes in it, Goethe evaded the question and played the sphinx. Thus, with regard to the famous "mothers" Goethe answered, with a mysterious air:-"You have the manuscript; study it, and see what you can make of it" (January 10, 1830). G. H. Lewes, although one of Goethe's most resolute admirers, admitted the impossibility of grasping

the sense of the second Part. The Wanderjahre and the second Part of Faust were arsenals of symbols, and it pleased the old poet to see acute critics labouring to interpret them whilst he was silent and refused to help them. Lewes thought that Goethe, so far from showing the smallest wish to clear up their difficulties, took a pleasure in giving them new problems to puzzle over. Lewes himself thought that the second. Part was poor in idea and execution, and admitted that he had failed after repeatedly trying to get a conception of it that would reveal its beauties. In writing about it, he contented himself with giving a summary of it. Now this second Part, although its general lines had been laid down for long, was actually written during several years in the last period of the poet's life. The fact that it was composed out of the regular sequence of the Acts and Scenes gives us an important clue. The third Act and then the second Part of the fifth Act were put on paper first. Next followed the first Act and part of the second; the classical Walpurgis night was written in 1830, the fourth Act in 1831, and last of all the beginning of the fifth Act.

As the second Part of Faust is a crowded motley, containing many subjects, obviously of minor importance, such as the volcanic theory of the earth and the disquisition on paper-money, the key-note may be found in the portions which were first composed. Now Act III. contains the story of Helena, and the second part of Act V. Faust's activity for the general welfare.

Setting out from the conception that the works of Goethe reflect the acts and incidents of his own life, I shall try to explain on that basis the meaning of the most obscure of his writings.

I have already stated that love was the stimulus of

Goethe's activity in youth and age; it is the scarlet thread running through his history. There was no difficulty in his using his love for Frederique as material for a play; that a young man should love a young girl was natural enough. The story of an old man enamoured of a young beauty was quite another matter. It was said that one of the reasons that prevented his marriage with Ulrique de Lewetzow was the fear of ridicule (Lewes, op. cit., ii, p. 345), a fear that plays a large part in human affairs. It is easy to understand that the old poet was in a difficulty when he came to write of senile love. Faust's love for Helena was not that of a supposed old man who became young by doffing his beard and changing his cloak, but of a real old man whom no mystery nor magic was to make young again. And yet old Faust's love was a true passion, and Goethe has written no finer lines than those describing it.

When the second Part begins, Faust has passed through the terrible crisis of the first Part. Wearied and restless, he seeks a new mode of life.

Life's pulses now with fresher force awaken
To greet the mild ethereal twilight o'er me;
This night, thou, Earth! hast also stood unshaken,
And now thou breathest, new-refreshed before me,
And now beginnest, all thy gladness granting,

A vigorous resolution to restore me,

To seek that higher life for which I'm panting.1

The invoked image of the most beautiful woman in the history of the world transforms Faust's desire of love into an overwhelming passion.

Have I still eyes? Deep in my being springs
The fount of Beauty, in a torrent pouring!

A heavenly gain my path of terror brings.
The world was void, and shut to my exploring,—

1 Op. cit., p. 151.

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