for
Faust it is too noble. His morbid gloom has enervated him, and the call
of the splendid earth is beyond him. So there comes, instead of it, a
figure as much poorer than that of Worldly Wiseman as the _Erdgeist_ is
richer. Wagner represents the poor commonplace world of the wholly
unideal. It is infinitely beneath the soul of Faust, and yet for the
time it conquers him, being nearer to his mood. Thus Mephistopheles
finds his opportunity. The scholar, embittered with the sense that
knowledge is denied to him, will take to mere action; and the action
will not be great like that which the _Erdgeist_ would have prompted,
but poor and unsatisfying to any nobler spirit than that of Wagner.

The third incident which we may quote is that of _Walpurgis-Night_. Some
critics would omit this part, which, they say, "has naught of interest
in bearing on the main plot of the poem." Nothing could be more mistaken
than such a judgment. In the _Walpurgis-Night_ we have the play ending
in that sheer paganism which is the counterpart to Easter Day at the
beginning. Walpurgis has a strange history in German folklore. It is
said that Charlemagne, conquering the German forests for the Christian
faith, drove before him a horde of recalcitrant pagans, who took a last
shelter among the trees of the Brocken. There, on the pagan May-day, in
order to celebrate their ancient rites unmolested, they dressed
themselves in all manner of fantastic and bestial masks, so as to
frighten off the Christianising invaders from the revels. The Walpurgis
of _Faust_ exhibits paganism at its lowest depths. Sir Mammon is the
host who invites his boisterous guests to the riot of his festive night.
The witches arrive on broomsticks and pitchforks; singing, not without
significance, the warning of woe to all climbers--for here aspiration of
any sort is a dangerous crime. The Crane's song reveals the fact that
pious men are here, in the Blocksberg, united with devils; introducing
the same cynical and desperate disbelief in goodness which Nathaniel
Hawthorne has told in similar fashion in his tale of _Young Goodman
Brown_; and the most horrible touch of all is introduced when Faust in
disgust leaves the revel, because out of the mouth of the witch with
whom he had been dancing there had sprung a small red mouse. Throughout
the whole play the sense of holy and splendid ideals shines at its
brightest in lurid contrast with the hopeless and sordid dark of the
pagan eart