al account of the battle between paganism and
idealism in the soul of man, than the comparison between the _Fausts_ of
Marlowe and of Goethe. But before we come to this, it may be interesting
to notice two or three points of special interest in the latter drama,
which show how entirely pagan are the temptations of Faust.

The first passage to notice is that opening one on Easter Day, where the
devil approaches Faust in the form of a dog. Choruses of women,
disciples, and angels are everywhere in the air; and although the dog
appears first in the open, yet the whole emphasis of the passage is upon
the contrast between that brilliant Easter morning with its sunshine and
its music, and the close and darkened study into which Faust has shut
himself. It is true he goes abroad, but it is not to join with the rest
in their rejoicing, but only as a spectator, with all the superiority as
well as the wistfulness of his illicit knowledge. Evidently the
impression intended is that of the wholesomeness of the crowd and the
open air. He who goes in with the rest of men in their sorrow and their
rejoicing cannot but find the meaning of Easter morning for himself. It
is a festival of earth and the spring, an earth idealised, whose spirit
is incarnate in the risen Christ. Faust longs to share in that, and on
Easter Eve tries in vain to read his Gospel and to feel its power. But
the only cure for such morbid introspectiveness as his, is to cast
oneself generously into the common life of man, and the refusal to do
this invites the pagan devil.

Another point of interest is the coming of the _Erdgeist_ immediately
after the _Weltschmerz_. The sorrow that has filled his heart with its
melancholy sense of the vanity and nothingness of life, and the
thousandfold pity and despondency which go to swell that sad condition,
are bound to create a reaction more or less violent towards that sheer
worldliness which is the essence of paganism. In Bunyan's _Pilgrim's
Progress_ it is immediately after his floundering in the Slough of
Despond that Christian is accosted by Mr. Worldly Wiseman. Precisely the
same experience is recorded here in Faust, although the story is subtler
and more complex than that of Bunyan. The _Erdgeist_ which comes to the
saddened scholar is a noble spirit, vivifying and creative. It is the
world in all its glorious fullness of meaning, quite as true an idealism
as that which is expressed in the finest spirit of the Greeks. But