CHAPTER VIL

THE SECOND PART OF "FAUST."

IN the presence of this poem, I feel more embarrassment than with any other of Goethe's works. Difficult as the task has been in each instance to convey an adequate idea of the work before me, and to give expression to the opinion formed respecting it, that dif ficulty becomes complicated in the present instance by the consciousness of the opposition existing between a certain class of admirers and myself, a class not of ignorant, prejudiced, but of enlightened and ingenious intellects. These admirers speak of the Second Part of "Faust" as a work of transcendent merit, surpassing all that Goethe has written, a storehouse of profound and mystic philosophy, a miracle of execution. Others again, and these among Goethe's most loving students, declare it to be of mediocre interest, very far inferior to the First Part, and both in conception and execution an elaborate mistake. And of these I am one. I have tried to understand the work; tried to place myself at the right point of view for perfect enjoyment; but repeated trials, instead of clearing up obscurities and deepening enjoyment, as with the other works, have more and more confirmed my first impressions. Now although it needs but little experience to suggest that the fault may be wholly mine, "the most legible hand," as Goethe says, "being illegible in the twilight;" although I might learn from what I have felt, and from what others have felt about the First Part, not to be

hasty in pronouncing judgment, nevertheless I must express my real convictions, and not withhold them on the chance that future enlightenment may cause me to alter them. What Channing says of opinions generally, is applicable to critical opinions: we are answerable for their uprightness, not for their rightness.

Moreover, comparing the impressions produced by "Faust" and by the Second Part, although it is true that in both cases a sense of disappointment is created, the kind of objection made to each is entirely different. In "Faust," a want of familiarity with the work may cause it to appear fragmentary, discordant, irreverent, not sufficiently metaphysical, and so forth; but a single reading is enough to impress us with a sense of its interest, its pathos, its poetry, its strongly marked character. In other words, the substance of the work lays hold of us; it is only the execution upon which criticism exercises itself. If we think it fragmentary, the fragments are at any rate of deep significance. If we think it deficient in taste, we never reproach it with want of power. The reverse is the case with this Second Part. Our objections are not raised by the details, but by the body of the poem; it is not the execution, but the whole conception, both in respect to the story itself, and to the mode of working out that story. What is the consequence? The consequence is that familiarity with "Faust" removes our objections and intensifies our admiration; but familiarity with the Second Part confirms our objections, and discloses their source.

If we remember that all Goethe's works are biographical, are parts of his life, and expressions of the various experiences he underwent, and the various stages of culture he passed through, there will be a peculiar interest in examining this product of his old age; and at the same time the reader will see the motive which made me reserve for this chapter what

has to be said on the Second Part, instead of affixing it to the criticism of the First Part; for indeed the two poems are two, not two parts of one poem; the interval between them in conception and treatment is as wide as the interval of years between their composition. Taking up the biographical clue, we have seen in previous chapters the gradual development of a tendency toward mysticism and over-reflectiveness, which, visible as a germ in his earliest years, grew with his growth, and expanded in the later years, till its overgrowth shadowed and perplexed his more vigorous concrete tendencies, and made this clearest and most spontaneous of poets as fond of symbols as if he had been a priest of Isis. To those and they are many - who think the aim and purpose of Art is to create symbols for Philosophy, this development will be prized as true progress. Others who do not thus subordinate the artist to the thinker, must regard the encroachment of Reflection as a sign of decay. It is quite true that Modern Art, as representative of the complexity of Modern Life, demands a large admixture of Reflection; but the predominance of the reflective tendency is a sign of decay. It is true that for an organism of a certain degree of complexity, an internal osseous structure is necessary; but the increase of ossification is cause and consequence of decay of vital power.

With the two parts of "Faust we have very much the same critical questions to debate as with the earlier and later books of "Wilhelm Meister;" questions too wide and deep for thorough discussion here, and which I must content myself with indicating. One cardinal consideration must, however, be brought forward, which lies at the very basis of all arguments on the subject. It is this: If the artist desires to express certain philosophic conceptions by means of symbols, he must never forget that, Art being Representation, the symbols chosen must possess in themselves a charm inde

pendent of what they mean. The forms which are his materials, the symbols which are his language, must in themselves have a beauty, and an interest, readily appreciable by those who do not understand the occult meaning. Unless they have this they cease to be Art; they become hieroglyphs. Art is picture-painting, not picture-writing. Beethoven in his Symphonies, may have expressed grand psychological conceptions, which, for the mind that interprets them, may give them an extra charm; but if the strains in themselves do not possess a magic, if they did not sting the soul with a keen delight, then let the meaning be never so profound, it will pass unheeded, because the primary requisite of music is not that it shall present grand thoughts, but that it shall agitate the audience with musical emotions. The poet who has only profound meanings, and not the witchery which is to carry his expression of those meanings home to our hearts, has failed. The primary requisite of poetry is that it shall move us; not that it shall instruct us.

The Second Part of" Faust," if the foregoing be correct, is a failure, because it fails in the primary requisite of a poem. Whatever else it might be, no one will say it is moving. The scenes, incidents, and characters do not in themselves carry that overpowering charm which masters us in the First Part. They borrow their interest from the meanings they are supposed to symbolise. Only in proportion to your ingenuity in guessing the riddle is your interest excited by the means. Mephisto, formerly so marvellous a creation, has become a mere mouthpiece; Faust has lost all traces of humanity, every pulse of emotion. The philosophic critics will point out how this change is necessary, because in the Second Part all that was individual has become universal. But this is only a description, not a justification; it is dignifying failure with a philosophic purpose. Goethe has himself declared this to

have been his intention: "I could not help wonder. ing," he says, "that none of those who undertook a continuation and completion of my fragment should have conceived the idea, which seemed so obvious, that the Second Part must necessarily be carried into a more elevated sphere, conducting Faust into higher regions under worthier circumstances." Right enough: but in changing the ground there was no necessity for such a change of treatment; to conduct Faust into a higher region it was not necessary to displace the struggles of an individual by representative abstractions; above all, it was not necessary to forsake the real domain of Art for that of Philosophy, and sacrifice beauty to meaning. The defect of this poem does not lie in its occult meanings, but in the poverty of the life which those meanings are meant to animate. No matter how occult the meaning, so that the picture be fine. A lion may be the symbol of wakefulness, of strength, of kingliness, of solitariness, and of many other things, according to the arbitrary fancy of the artist; and it matters comparatively little whether we rightly or wrongly interpret the artist's meaning; but his lion must be finely executed, must excite our admiration as a lion, if we are to consider it a work of Art.

Respecting the philosophic meaning of the First Part, critics battle, and will battle perhaps for ever; but they are tolerably unanimous respecting its beauty. The passion, poetry, sarcasm, fancy, wisdom, and thrilling thoughts as from some higher world; the pathos and naïveté of Gretchen; the cruel coldness of Mephisto; the anguish of the restless student; these are what all understand, and, understanding, enjoy. We may baffle ourselves with the mystery; we all are enchanted with the picture. We are moved by it as children are moved while reading the "Pilgrim's Progress," believing all its allegorical persons and incidents to be real. When the child grows older, and learns to