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But there seemed to be nothing ahead, except two matinées a week with him at the Lyceum, to be followed by a provincial tour in which I was only to play twice a week, as Henry's chief attraction was to be "Faust." This sort of "dowager" engagement did not tempt me. Besides, I hated the idea of drawing a large salary and doing next to no work. So when Mr. Tree proposed that I should play Mrs.

She grew ill, and all efforts of her physicians to arouse her from her melancholy were in vain. Her death was a severe shock to poor Scheffer. For some months friends feared for his sanity, for he would only busy his brush with scenes from Faust, or religious subjects that bordered on morbidity.

On the whole, he made the most of himself, and stands before the world a notable instance of a complete life. He would do the work which was given him to do. He would not die till the second part of "Faust" was brought to its predetermined close. By sheer force of will he lived till that work was done. Smitten at fourscore by the death of his son, and by deaths all around, he kept to his task.

The infinite, the insatiable desire of the human soul, which can never be wholly satisfied, which can never reach its term, this is the passion which possesses Faust, this is the rock upon which the hopes of the poor devil are shipwrecked, the poor devil who in the limitation of the merely critical and negative temper cannot understand that Faust can never be satisfied, will never say to the moment, 'Verweile doch, du bist zu schön. For the drama of Faust is not a drama of damnation, but of redemption, and though the breadth and scope of the whole conception pass beyond all presentation in complete and rounded form, the great tragedy of Gretchen takes us from the splendid but abstract world of ideas into the simplest experience of human life, where Faust becomes human through love itself, but too slowly, too late to avert the tragedy.

"We come like water, and like wind we go." But how few of the visions are realized. Faust sums up the whole of life in the twice-repeated word versagen, renounce, and history tells a similar story.

Fortunately, however, the path my story assumes is of such a nature, that in order to effect this object, I shall never have to desert, and scarcely again even to linger by, the way. Every one knows the magnificent moral of Goethe's "Faust!"

I cannot report from either place what I should wish and, in spite of all, still hope to report. With wranglings and trifles I do not care to trouble you. Stop; one thing I forgot to write to you: your "Tristan" is a splendid idea; it may become a glorious work. Do not abandon it. You were quite right in arranging a new score of your "Faust" overture.

"I want you to back The Dutchman to win fifty thousand for me over the Brooklyn Derby," the latter said. "But there's no winner book on it," objected Faust. "That's just where your cleverness will come in," suavely answered Crane. "There's no hurry, and there are always people looking for foolish money. There's one such in Chicago, O'Leary; and I fancy they could even be found in New York.

In the visible shaft of brilliantly lit stage he could see the back of the head and the plump shoulders and tournure of a singer rendering in bravura fashion the Jewel Song from "Faust." The stillness whence arose this single flood of sound seemed almost uncanny.

More free, flexible, and melodious than Spontini and Halévy, measuring his work by a conception of art more lofty and ideal than that of Meyerbeer, and in creative power and originality by far their superior, Gounod's genius, as shown in the one opera of "Faust," suffices to stamp his great mastership. But he had many years of struggle yet before this end was to be achieved.