the whole chain, extending to the
remotest posterity, and then sink beneath the terrible survey. Did I not
once tell thee that man is much more rash in his decisions and in his
vengeance, than the Devil is in the accomplishment of wickedness?"

Faustus opened his haggard eyes, and looked towards heaven.

_Devil_. It is deaf to thee. Be proud of having lived a moment when thy
atrocity was so great that it almost made the deeds of the devils
themselves forgotten. I speak of that moment when thou didst command me
to withdraw the veil which concealed the Eternal from thy sight. The
angel whose charge it was to register thy sins averted his face, and
struck thy name from the Book of Life.

_Faustus_ (_springing up_). Cursed be thou; cursed be myself; cursed be
the hour of my birth; cursed be he who begot me; cursed be the breast
which I sucked!

_Devil_. O the delightful moment! Precious reward of my toils! Hell
rejoices at thy curses, and expects a yet more frightful one from thee.
Fool! wast thou not born free? Didst thou not bear in thy breast, like
all who live in flesh, the instinct of good as well as of evil? Why
didst thou transgress, with so much temerity, the bounds which had been
prescribed to thee? Why didst thou endeavour to try thy strength with
and against Him who is not to be reached? Did not God create you in such
a manner, that you were as much elevated above the devils as above the
beasts of the earth? Did he not grant you the perceptive faculty of good
and evil? Were not your will and choice free? We wretches are without
choice, without will; we are the slaves of evil and of imperious
necessity; constrained and condemned to all eternity to wish nothing but
evil, we are the instruments of revenge and punishment upon you. Ye are
kings of the creation, free beings, masters of your destiny, which ye fix
yourselves; masters of the future, which only depends upon your actions.
It is on account of these prerogatives that we detest you, and rejoice
when, by your follies, your impatience, and your crimes, you cease to be
masters of yourselves. It is only in resignation, Faustus, that present
or future happiness consists. Hadst thou remained what thou wast, and
had not doubt, pride, vanity, and voluptuousness torn thee out of the
happy and limited sphere for which thou wast born, thou mightst have
followed an honourable employment, and have supported thy wife and
children; and thy family, whic