Enter Wagner in night-gown and night-cap; a lamp in his hand.
Wagner.
Your pardon, sir, I heard your voice declaiming,
No doubt some old Greek drama, and I came in,
To profit by your learned recitation;
For in these days the art of declamation
Is held in highest estimation;
And I have heard asserted that a preacher
Might wisely have an actor for his teacher.
Faust.
Yes; when our parsons preach to make grimaces,
As here and there a not uncommon case is.
Wagner.
Alack! when a poor wight is so confined
Amid his books, shut up from all mankind,
And sees the world scarce on a holiday,
As through a telescope and far away,
How may he hope, with nicely tempered skill,
To bend the hearts he knows not to his will?
Faust.
What you don’t feel, you’ll hunt to find in vain.
It must gush from the soul, possess the brain,
And with an instinct kindly force compel
All captive hearts to own the grateful spell;
Go to! sit o’er your books, and snip and glue
Your wretched piece-work, dressing your ragout
From others’ feasts, your piteous flames still blowing
From sparks beneath dull heaps of ashes glowing;
Vain wonderment of children and of apes,
If with such paltry meed content thou art;
The human heart to heart he only shapes,
Whose words flow warm from human heart to heart.
Wagner.
But the delivery is a chief concern
In Rhetoric; and alas! here I have much to learn.
Faust.
Be thine to seek the honest gain,
No shallow-tinkling fool!
Sound sense finds utterance for itself,
Without the critic’s rule.
If clear your thought, and your intention true,
What need to hunt for words with much ado?
The trim orations your fine speaker weaves,
Crisping light shreds of thought for shallow minds,
Are unrefreshing as the foggy winds
That whistle through the sapless autumn leaves.
Wagner.
Alas! how long is art,
And human life how short!
I feel at times with all my learned pains,
