er side we can not see.

As Dame Care leaves him she breathes on his eyelids and makes him
blind. But the inner light is not quenched. His hunger for life still
unabated, he summons up all his energy and orders out an army of
workmen to complete a great undertaking on which he has set his heart.
On the edge of his domain, running along the distant foot-hills, is a
miasmatic swamp which poisons the air and renders the land
uninhabitable. He proposes to drain the swamp and thus create a home
for millions yet to come.

His imagination ranges forward, picturing a free, industrious,
self-reliant people swarming on the land that he has won from the sea
and made fit for human uses. In the ecstasy of altruistic emotion he
exclaims: "Such a throng I would fain see, standing with a free people
on a free soil; I might say to the passing moment, 'Pray tarry, thou
art so fair.' The traces of my earthly life can not pass away in
eons." That same instant he sinks back to earth--dying.

Is there in all literature anything finer, grander, more nobly
conceived? What follows--the conflict of the angels and devils for the
final possession of Faust's soul--need not detain us long. We know how
that will turn out. Indeed, the shrewd old Devil, while he goes
through the form of making a stiff fight for what he pretends to think
his rights, knows from the first that his is a losing battle. While he
is watching the body of Faust to see where the soul is going to
escape, the angels appear in a glory, bearing roses as their only
weapon. With these they put the Devil and his minions to rout and bear
away the dead man's soul to the Holy Mountain, singing their
triumphal chant--

Wer immer strebend sich bemueht,
Den koennen wir erloesen.

THE TRAGEDY OF FAUST

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

_Characters in the Prologue for the Theatre_.

THE MANAGER.
THE DRAMATIC POET.
MERRYMAN.

_Characters in the Prologue in Heaven_.

THE LORD.
RAPHAEL}
GABRIEL} The Heavenly Host.
MICHAEL}
MEPHISTOPHELES.

_Characters in the Tragedy_.

FAUST.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
WAGNER, a Student.
MARGARET.
MARTHA, Margaret's Neighbor.
VALENTINE, Margaret's Brother.
OLD PEASANT.
A STUDENT.
ELIZABETH, an Acquaintance of Margaret's.
FROSCH }
BRANDER } Guests in Auerbach's Wine Cellar.
SIEBEL }
ALTMAYER }

Witches, old and young; Wizards, Will-o'-the-Wisp, Witch Peddler,
Protophantasmist, Servibilis, Monkeys, Spirits, Journeymen,
Country-folk, Citizens, Begga