again, and I will try to be
Less disagreeable than I was to-night.

[_Brander goes out._

OLDHAM

I'll bet he takes an arc-light for a star!

FAUST

He is warm-hearted; I am fond of him.
But Midge!... However, one can say no more....

OLDHAM

He's a good fellow; but he tires me
Sometimes.

FAUST

Dear boy, I envy him.

OLDHAM

Of course,
And so do I; but I would not exchange
Heads for a kingdom.

FAUST

Are you so fond, then,
Of what's in yours?

OLDHAM

No, but at least I have
A certain faint perception of the gilded
And quite preposterous crudeness of our days--
The sordid sickness of his life, and ours;
And that is something to be thankful for.

FAUST

Gratitude is a graceful gift.

OLDHAM

Come, come!
What snake has bitten you, that to your lips
A poisoned irony so bitter springs
To-night?

FAUST

I am revolving in my brain
This serious question: whether 'tis not best
That one turn humorist. The mind that seeks
Holiness, finds it seldom; who pursues
Beauty perhaps shall in a lengthened life
Find it perfected only once or twice.
But if one's quest were humor--what rich stores,
What tropic jungles of it, lie to hand
At every moment, everywhere one turns--
What luscious meadows for the humorist!

OLDHAM

No--for the satirist! There is no humor
In what you see and I see when we look
On this crude world wherein our lives are spent--
This sordid sphere where we are but spectators--
This crass grim modern spectacle of lives
Torn with consuming lust of one desire--
Gold, gold, forever gold-- Or do you find
Humor in that?

FAUST

It might be found, perhaps:
The joke's on someone!

OLDHAM

There's no joke in it!
It is the waste, the pitiful waste of life!
Men--slaves to gather gold--become then slaves
Beneath its gathered weight. For this one hope,
All finer longings perish at their birth.
Men's eyes to-day envy no sage or seer
Or conqueror except his triumphs be
In this base sphere of commerce. The stars go out
In factory smoke; the spirit wanes and pales
In poisoned air of greed. It is an age
Of traders and of tricksters; all the high
And hounded malefactors of great wealth
Differ from the masses, in their wealth, indeed;
But in their malefaction, not at all.
Your grocer and my butcher have at heart