torso,[1] but so is the life of man. Extravagant encomium of “Faust,” such as that wherewith Hermann Grimm has marred, as with a showman’s harangue, the conclusion of his otherwise most instructive “Lectures on Goethe,” seems as out of place as applause in a cathedral. The poem is grand and profound, because the life problems it so truthfully portrays are grand and profound; in form, if you except digressions, it is sublimely simple and unassuming. Its imperfections are as open to view as is its grandeur. The doctrine of the poem may be thus briefly suggested. Here is a world wherein nature, the expression of divine intelligence, is perfect; wherein man, by the same divine wisdom, is left in darkness and confusion. The angels, who simply contemplate nature’s perfection, are the “true sons of God.” But they do nothing. They only see and think. Man is to act. By his action he is freely to create such perfection as already passively exists in nature. That is, his life is to become an harmonious whole. The postulate of the Lord is that this is possible. Mephistopheles holds the opposite opinion. The question is to be solved by the case of Faust.
Faust is a man in whom are combined all the strength and weakness of the romantic spirit. No excellence he deems of worth so long as any excellence is beyond his grasp. Therefore his despair at the sight of the great world of life. So small a part of it is his. He knows that he can
- ↑ Cf. the opinion of M. Edm. Scherer as quoted in Mr. Matthew Arnold’s essay, A French Critic on Goethe, in the Mixed Essays, p. 291.
