that we seem to hear the voice of some real
living Gretchen, and can hardly believe that she merely exists in our
imagination. This may perhaps be asserted of other poetic creations; but
I confess that I know no other, not even in Shakespeare, that produces
on me quite the same kind of illusion. Homer's Nausicaa, the Antigone
and Electra of Sophocles, Rosalind, Miranda, Imogen, Portia,
Cordelia--all these live for me, but not quite as Gretchen. Their
presence I feel as something living, but a little visionary. Gretchen I
can see, and hear and almost touch. I need not recount at length her
story, for it is too well known. I need only recall to you memories of
certain facts and scenes: that first meeting in the street; the
mysterious presents from the unknown lover; the meeting in the
neighbour's garden and Gretchen's innocent prattlings about her home
life; Faust's growing passion, and the vain battlings of his higher
nature; the insidious promptings and cynical ridicule of his demonic
companion; the song of Gretchen at her spinning-wheel; her loving
anxiety as to Faust's religious opinions, and his celebrated confession
of faith; the sleeping draught by which Gretchen causes the death of her
mother; her shame, remorse and despair; Gretchen kneeling with her gift
of tear-sprent flowers before the Virgin's image; the return of her
brother, the young soldier, Valentin, and _his_ death--stabbed by her
lover (or rather by Mephisto) at night beneath her window, and cursing
her as he dies; the scene in the Cathedral; the pealing organ and the
solemn tones of the Dies Irae mingling with the terrible words of the
accusing spirit, till Gretchen sinks fainting to the ground.

And where is Faust? He has fled. The avengers of blood are on his track.
His selfish passion has been the cause of death to Gretchen's mother and
brother and has brought ruin on her--to end in madness, infanticide and
the block.

I have often wondered whether the limitations of art might not allow the
possibility of some drama on the same lines as _Faust_ in which he might
be saved by the purity and nobility of womanhood, as in the story of
Cyprian and Justina, instead of, as here, using the ruin of a poor girl
as a stepping-stone in his career of self-salvation. Or, what if he had
felt such horror and remorse at her fate that he had broken his compact
and freed himself from the demon? It will be said, perhaps, that this
would have been undramatic and that s