leasure, thought, passion, and have only succeeded in
finding a deep and empty grave in my own heart!

I have indeed learned to know most things by their names--the feelings,
for example; but I _feel_ nothing, neither desires, faith, nor love. Two
dim forebodings alone stir in the desert of my soul--the one, that my
son is hopelessly blind; the other, that the society in which I have
grown up is in the pangs of dissolution; I suffer as God enjoys, in
myself only, and for myself alone....

VOICE OF THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. Love the sick, the hungry, the wretched!
Love thy neighbor, thy poor neighbor, as thyself, and thou shalt be
redeemed!

THE MAN. Who speaks?

MEPHISTOPHILES. Your humble servant. I often astonish travellers by my
marvellous natural gifts: I am a ventriloquist.

THE MAN. I have certainly seen a face like that before in an engraving.

MEPHISTOPHILES (_aside_). The count has truly a good memory.

THE MAN. Blessed be Christ Jesus!

MEPHISTOPHILES. Forever and ever, amen!--(_Muttering as he disappears
behind a rock_:) Curses on thee, and thy stupidity!

THE MAN. My poor son! through the sins of thy father and the madness of
thy mother, thou art doomed to perpetual darkness--blind! Living only in
dreams and visions, thou art never destined to attain maturity! Thou art
but the shadow of a passing angel, flitting rapidly over the earth, and
melting into the infinite of ...

Ha! what an immense eagle that is fluttering just there where the
stranger disappeared behind the rocks!

THE EAGLE. Hail! I greet thee! hail!

THE MAN. He is as black as night; he flies nearer; the whirring of his
vast wings stirs me like the whistling hail of bullets in the fight.

THE EAGLE. Draw the sword of thy fathers, and combat for their power,
their fame!

THE MAN. His wide wings spread above me; he gazes into my eyes with the
charm of the rattlesnake--Ha! I understand thee!

THE EAGLE. Despair not! Yield not now, nor ever! Thy enemies, thy
miserable enemies, will fall to dust before thee!

THE MAN. Going?... Farewell, then, among the rocks, behind which thou
vanishest!... Whatever thou mayst be, delusion or truth, victory or
ruin, I trust in thee, herald of fame, harbinger of glory!

Spirit of the mighty Past, come to my aid! and even if thou hast already
returned to the bosom of God, quit it--and come to me! Inspire me with
the ancient heroism! Become in me, force, thought, action!

Stooping to the ground, h