a desperate flirtation with the gentleman
who brings the news. You have seen the gallant Valentin lead off the
march of that band of stalwart warriors, who seem to have somehow lost
the correct step in their weary campaigns. Your memory, even now, has a
somewhat confused impression of Frederici, moonlight, Mazzoleni,
Kermesse, Sulzer, gardens, Kellogg, churches, Himmer, flaming goblets,
Stockton, and an angelic host with well-rounded calves in pink tights,
radiant in the red light that, from some hidden regions, illuminates the
aforesaid scantily clad angels, as they hang, like Mahomet's coffin,
'twixt heaven and earth.

But I question, Madam, whether the strongest impression which your
memory retains be not exactly the one personage in the drama whom I have
omitted to mention,--the red-legged, gleaming-eyed, loud-voiced
gentleman who pulls the hidden wires which set all the other puppets in
motion,--Mr. Mephistopheles himself. Marguerite, studied, refined,
unimpassioned in the pretty Yankee girl,--simple, warm, outpouring in
the sympathetic German woman,--and Faust, gallant, ardent, winning in
the bright-eyed Italian,--thoughtful, tender, fervent in the intelligent
German,--are background figures in the picture your memory paints; while
the ubiquitous, sneering, specious, cunning, tempting, leering, unholy
Mephistopheles is a character of himself, in the foreground, whose
special interpreter you do not care to distinguish.

Ring down the curtain. Put out the lights. We will leave the mimic
scene, and return to the broad stage of life, whereon all are actors and
all are audience. There are Gretchens and Fausts everywhere,--American,
English, French, German, Italian,--of all nations and tongues,--but
there is only one Mephistopheles. They have lived and loved and fallen
and died. But he, indestructible, lives on to flash fire in the cups of
beings yet unborn, and lurk with unholy intent in hearts which have not
yet learned to beat. There is only one Mephistopheles; but he is protean
in shape. The little gentleman in black, the hero of so many strange
stories, is but the Teutonic incarnation of a spirit which takes many
forms in many lands. Out of the brain of the great German poet he steps,
in a guise which is known and recognized wherever the story of love and
betrayal finds an echo in human hearts. Poor Gretchen! She had heard of
Satan, and had been rocked to sleep by tales of the Loreley, and knew
from her Bible that