the world. And
finally this tragic Doctor, tortured with our torture, meets Helen, who,
although no doubt Marlowe never suspected it, is none other than
renascent Culture. And in Marlowe's _Faust_ there is a scene that is
worth the whole of the second part of the _Faust_ of Goethe. Faust says
to Helen: "Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss"--and he kisses
her--

Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies!
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for Helen is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.

Give me my soul again!--the cry of Faust, the Doctor, when, after having
kissed Helen, he is about to be lost eternally. For the primitive Faust
has no ingenuous Margaret to save him. This idea of his salvation was
the invention of Goethe. And is there not a Faust whom we all know, our
own Faust? This Faust has studied Philosophy, Jurisprudence, Medicine,
and even Theology, only to find that we can know nothing, and he has
sought escape in the open country (_hinaus ins weite Land_) and has
encountered Mephistopheles, the embodiment of that force which, ever
willing evil, ever achieves good in its own despite. This Faust has been
led by Mephistopheles to the arms of Margaret, child of the
simple-hearted people, she whom Faust, the overwise, had lost. And
thanks to her--for she gave herself to him--this Faust is saved,
redeemed by the people that believes with a simple faith. But there was
a second part, for that Faust was the anecdotical Faust and not the
categorical Faust of Goethe, and he gave himself again to Culture, to
Helen, and begot Euphorion upon her, and everything ends among mystical
choruses with the discovery of the eternal feminine. Poor Euphorion!

And this Helen is the spouse of the fair Menelaus, the Helen whom Paris
bore away, who was the cause of the war of Troy, and of whom the ancient
Trojans said that no one should be incensed because men fought for a
woman who bore so terrible a likeness to the immortal gods. But I
rather think that Faust's Helen was that other Helen who accompanied
Simon Magus, and whom he declared to be the divine wisdom. And Faust can
say to her: Give me my soul again!

For Helen with her kisses takes away our soul. And what we long for and
have need of is soul--soul of bulk and substance.

But the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Revolution came, bringing
Helen to us, or, rather, urged on by Helen, and now they talk