to aspire to that fulness in God. But he does not
love enough. He despises those who follow him for the sake of his
miracles, yet he desires their worship. Moreover, the pride of knowledge
still clings to him; he cannot help thinking it higher than love; and
the two together drive him into the thought that this world must give
him satisfaction. So, he puts aside the ideal aim. But here also he is
baffled. Those who follow him as the great teacher ask of him signs. He
gives these; and he finds at Basel that he has sunk into the desire of
vulgar fame, and prostituted his knowledge; and, sick of this, beaten
back from his noble ambitions, he determines to have something at least
out of earth, and chooses at Colmar the life of sensual pleasure. "I
still aspire," he cries. "I will give the night to study, but I will
keep the day for the enjoyment of the senses. Thus, intellect and sense
woven together, I shall at least have attained something. If I do not
gain knowledge I shall have gained sensual pleasure. Man I despise and
hate, and God has deceived me. I take the world." But, even while he
says this, his ancient aspiration lives so much in him that he scorns
himself for his fall as much as he scorns the crowd.

Then comes the last scene, when, at Salzburg, he returns to find his
friend Festus, and to die. In the hour of his death he reviews his whole
life, his aims, their failure and the reason of it, and yet dies
triumphant for he has found the truth.

I pass over the pathetic delirium in which Paracelsus thinks that
Aprile is present, and cries for his hand and sympathy while Festus is
watching by the couch. At last he wakes, and knows his friend, and that
he is dying. "I am happy," he cries; "my foot is on the threshold of
boundless life; I see the whole whirl and hurricane of life behind me;
all my life passes by, and I know its purpose, to what end it has
brought me, and whither I am going. I will tell you all the meaning of
life. Festus, my friend, tell it to the world.

"There was a time when I was happy; the secret of life was in that
happiness." "When, when was that?" answers Festus, "all I hope that
answer will decide."

PAR. When, but the time I vowed myself to man?

FEST. Great God, thy judgments are inscrutable!

Then he explains. "There are men, so majestical is our nature, who,
hungry for joy and truth, win more and more of both, and know that life
is infinite progress in God. This they win b