Shadows of the Stage | Page 7

shall ever (which is an idle and futile supposition) be so sweet that his
heart shall desire it to linger, then, indeed, he will surrender himself
eternally to this at present preposterous Mephistopheles, whom his
mood, his magic, and the revulsion of his moral nature have evoked:--
"Then let the death-bell chime the token! Then art thou from thy
service free! The clock may stop, the hand be broken, And time be
finished unto me."
Such an hour, it is destined, shall arrive, after many long and miserable
years, when, aware of the beneficence of living for others and in the
imagined prospect of leading, guiding, and guarding a free people upon
a free land, Faust shall be willing to say to the moment: "Stay, thou art
so fair"; and Mephistopheles shall harshly cry out: "The clock stands
still"; and the graybeard shall sink in the dust; and the holy angels shall
fly away with his soul, leaving the Fiend baffled and morose, to gibe at
himself over the failure of all his infernal arts. But, meanwhile, it
remains true of the man that no pleasure satisfies him and no happiness

contents, and "death is desired, and life a thing unblest."
The man who puts out his eyes must become blind. The sin of Faust is
a spiritual sin, and the meaning of all his subsequent terrible experience
is that spiritual sin must be--and will be--expiated. No human soul can
ever be lost. In every human soul the contest between good and evil
must continue until the good has conquered and the evil is defeated and
eradicated. Then, when the man's spirit is adjusted to its environment in
the spiritual world, it will be at peace--and not till then. And if this
conflict is not waged and completed now and here, it must be and it
will be fought out and finished hereafter and somewhere else. It is the
greatest of all delusions to suppose that you can escape from yourself.
Judgment and retribution proceed within the soul and not from sources
outside of it. That is the philosophic drift of the poet's thought
expressed and implied in his poem. It was Man, in his mortal
ordeal--the motive, cause, and necessity of which remain a
mystery--whom he desired and aimed to portray; it was not merely the
triumph of a mocking devil, temporarily victorious through
ministration to animal lust and intellectual revolt, over the weakness of
the carnal creature and the embittered bewilderment of the baffled mind.
Mr. Irving may well say, as he is reported to have said, that he will
consider himself to have accomplished a good work if his production of
Faust should have the effect of invigorating popular interest in Goethe's
immortal poem and bringing closer home to the mind of his public a
true sense of its sublime and far-reaching signification.
The full metaphysical drift of thought and meaning in Goethe's poem,
however, can be but faintly indicated in a play. It is more distinctly
indicated in Mr. Wills's play, which is used by Mr. Irving, than in any
other play upon this subject that has been presented. This result, an
approximate fidelity to the original, is due in part to the preservation of
the witch scenes, in part to Mr. Irving's subtle and significant
impersonation of Mephistopheles, and in part to a weird investiture of
spiritual mystery with which he has artfully environed the whole
production. The substance of the piece is the love story of Faust and
Margaret, yet beyond this is a background of infinity, and over and
around this is a poetic atmosphere charged with suggestiveness of

supernatural agency in the fate of man. If the gaze of the observer be
concentrated upon the mere structure of the piece, the love story is what
he will find; and that is all he will find. Faust makes his compact with
the Fiend. He is rejuvenated and he begins a new life. In "the Witch's
Kitchen" his passions are intensified, and then they are ignited, so that
he may be made the slave of desire and afterward if possible imbruted
by sensuality. He is artfully brought into contact with Margaret, whom
he instantly loves, who presently loves him, whom he wins, and upon
whom, since she becomes a mother out of wedlock, his inordinate and
reckless love imposes the burden of pious contrition and worldly shame.
Then, through the puissant wickedness and treachery of
Mephistopheles, he is made to predominate over her vengeful brother,
Valentine, whom he kills in a street fray. Thus his desire to experience
in his own person the most exquisite bliss that humanity can enjoy and
equally the most exquisite torture that it can suffer, becomes fulfilled.
He is now the agonised victim of love and of remorse. Orestes pursued
by