Where the restless wave Undulates ever — Under and over Their toiling strife, I mingle and hover, Hear the murmuring wheel of time, unawed, FAUSTUS. Spirit, whose presence circles the wide earth, SPIRIT. Man, thou art like those beings which thy mind 'S death, 'tis this pupil lad of mine - [A knock. [Enter Wagner in his dressing-gown and night-cap a lamp in his hand. Faustus turns round, displeased. WAGNER. Forgive me, but I thought you were declaiming. FAUSTUS. Yes! when your parson is himself an actor; WAGNER. Oh! if a man shuts himself up for ever In his dull study; if he sees the world FAUSTUS. If feeling does not prompt, in vain you strive; Of hearers, with communicated power, In vain you strive — in vain you study earnestly. Toil on for ever; piece together fragments; Cook up your broken scraps of sentences, And blow, with puffing breath, a struggling light, By words which come not native from the heart! WAGNER. EXPRESSION, graceful utterance, is the first And best acquirement of the orator. This do I feel, and feel my want of it! FAUSTUS. Dost thou seek genuine and worthy fame? Of utterance ask no toil of elocution; And when you speak in earnest, do you need And twist into a thousand idle shapes, These filigree ornaments are good for nothing, In autumn, 'mong the dry and wrinkled leaves. WAGNER. The search of knowledge is a weary one, And life how short! Ars longa, Vita brevis! FAUSTUS. Are mouldy records, then, the holy springs, A draught restorative, That welled not from the depths of his own soul! Pardon me WAGNER. but you will at least confess That 'tis delightful to transfuse yourself Into the spirit of the ages past; To see how wise men thought in olden time, And how far we outstep their march in knowledge. FAUSTUS. Oh yes! as far as from the earth to heaven! This study of thine, at the first glance we fly it. Furnished with all approved court-precedents, Facts dramatised say rather action—plot — Of consequence, by those grave chroniclers, And wise old saws, learned at the puppet-shows. WAGNER. But then the world, man's heart and mind, are things Of which 'twere well that each man had some knowledge. |