Enter Wagner in night-gown and night-cap; a lamp in his hand.

Wagner. Your pardon, sir, I heard your voice declaiming, No doubt some old Greek drama, and I came in, To profit by your learned recitation; For in these days the art of declamation Is held in highest estimation; And I have heard asserted that a preacher Might wisely have an actor for his teacher.

Faust. Yes; when our parsons preach to make grimaces, As here and there a not uncommon case is.

Wagner. Alack! when a poor wight is so confined Amid his books, shut up from all mankind, And sees the world scarce on a holiday, As through a telescope and far away, How may he hope, with nicely tempered skill, To bend the hearts he knows not to his will?

Faust. What you don’t feel, you’ll hunt to find in vain. It must gush from the soul, possess the brain, And with an instinct kindly force compel All captive hearts to own the grateful spell; Go to! sit o’er your books, and snip and glue Your wretched piece-work, dressing your ragout From others’ feasts, your piteous flames still blowing From sparks beneath dull heaps of ashes glowing; Vain wonderment of children and of apes, If with such paltry meed content thou art; The human heart to heart he only shapes, Whose words flow warm from human heart to heart.

Wagner.

But the delivery is a chief concern In Rhetoric; and alas! here I have much to learn.

Faust.

Be thine to seek the honest gain, No shallow-tinkling fool!

Sound sense finds utterance for itself, Without the critic’s rule. If clear your thought, and your intention true, What need to hunt for words with much ado? The trim orations your fine speaker weaves, Crisping light shreds of thought for shallow minds, Are unrefreshing as the foggy winds That whistle through the sapless autumn leaves.

Wagner. Alas! how long is art, And human life how short! I feel at times with all my learned pains, As if a weight of lead were at my heart, And palsy on my brains. How high to climb up learning’s lofty stair, How hard to find the helps that guide us there; And when scarce half the way behind him lies, His glass is run, and the poor devil dies!

Faust. The parchment-roll is that the holy river, From which one draught shall slake the thirst forever? The quickening power of science only he Can know, from whose own soul it gushes free.

Wagner.

And yet the spirit of a bygone age,

To re-create may well the wise engage; To know the choicest thoughts of every ancient sage, And think how far above their best we’ve mounted high!

Faust.

O yes, I trow, even to the stars, so high!

My friend, the ages that are past

Are as a book with seven seals made fast;

And what men call the spirit of the age,

Is but the spirit of the gentlemen

Who glass their own thoughts in the pliant page,

And image back themselves. O, then, What precious stuff they dish, and call’t a book, Your stomach turns at the first look; A heap of rubbish, and a lumber room, At best some great state farce with proclamations, Pragmatic maxims, protocols, orations, Such as from puppet-mouths do fitly come!

Wagner. But then the world!—the human heart and mind! Somewhat of this to know are all inclined.

Faust. Yes! as such knowledge goes! but what man dares To call the child by the true name it bears? The noble few that something better knew, And to the gross reach of the general view, Their finer feelings bared, and insight true, From oldest times were burnt and crucified. I do beseech thee, friend—’tis getting late, ’Twere wise to put an end to our debate.

Wagner. Such learned talk to draw through all the night With Doctor Faust were my supreme delight; But on the morrow, being Easter, I Your patience with some questions more may try. With zeal I’ve followed Learning’s lofty call, Much I have learned, but fain would master all. [Exit.