us, he must accept the whole work as Goethe has given it;
he must hold in abeyance, at least for a time, his own particular
likings and dislikes. While keeping his mind open to all the poetry of
Faust, he will soon discover that here is something more than a poem. It
may be unfortunate for the work of art that it belongs, certainly in its
execution, possibly even in the growth of its conception, to far
sundered periods of its author's career, when his feelings respecting
art were different, when his capacity for rendering his ideas was now
more and now less adequate. Such a reader, however, would part with
nothing: in what is admirable he finds the master's hand; in what is
feeble he discovers the same hand, but faltering, and pathetic in its
infirmity. He is interested in 'Faust' not solely or chiefly as 'The
Tragedy of Margaret': he finds in it the intellect, the character, the
life of Goethe; it is a repository of the deepest thoughts and feelings
concerning human existence of a wise seer, a repository in which he laid
by those thoughts and feelings during sixty years of his mortal
wayfaring.

From early manhood to extreme old age 'Faust' was with Goethe, receiving
now and again, in Frankfort, in Weimar, in Rome, some new accession. We
can distinguish the strata or formations of youth, of manhood, and of
the closing years. We recognize by their diversities of style those
parts which were written when creation was swift and almost involuntary,
a passion and a joy, and those parts through which Goethe labored at an
old man's pace, accomplishing to-day a hand's-breadth, to-morrow perhaps
less, and binding blank pages into his manuscript, that the sight of the
gaps might irritate him to produce. What unity can such a work possess,
except that which comes from the fact that it all proceeded from a
single mind, and that some main threads of thought--for it would be rash
to speak of a ground idea--run through the several parts and bind them
together? 'Faust' has not the unity of a lake whose circuit the eye can
contemplate, a crystal set among the hills. Its unity is that of a
river, rising far away in mountain solitudes, winding below many a
mirrored cliff, passing the habitations of men, temple and mart, fields
of rural toil and fields of war, reaching it may be dull levels, and
forgetting the bright speed it had, until at last the dash of waves is
heard, and its course is accomplished; but from first to last one
stream,