There are two ways in which a reader may deal with 'Faust.' He may choose for his own delight a fragment, detach it and disregard the rest; he may view this fragment, if he pleases, as a whole, as a rounded work of art. Such a reader will refuse to pass beyond the First Part of the vast encyclopædic poem. To do this is legitimate. The earliest form in which we possess the drama, that of the transcript made by Fräulein von Göchhausen, is a tragedy which might be named 'The Tragedy of Margaret.' Possibilities of further development lay in the subject, were indeed required by the subject, and Goethe had probably already conceived certain of them; yet the stadium in the progress of Faust's history included in 'The Tragedy of Margaret' had a unity in itself. But a reader may approach 'Faust' otherwise; he may view it as expressing the complete mind of Goethe on some of the deepest problems of human life. Viewing it thus, he must accept the whole work as Goethe has given it; he must hold in abeyance, at least for a time, his own particular likings and dislikes. While keeping his mind open to all the poetry of Faust, he will soon discover that here is something more than a poem. It may be unfortunate for the work of art that it belongs, certainly in its execution, possibly even in the growth of its conception, to far sundered periods of its author's career, when his feelings respecting art were different, when his capacity for rendering his ideas was now more and now less adequate. Such a reader, however, would part with nothing: in what is admirable he finds the master's hand; in what is feeble he discovers the same hand, but faltering, and pathetic in its infirmity. He is interested in 'Faust' not solely or chiefly as 'The Tragedy of Margaret': he finds in it the intellect, the character, the life of Goethe; it is a repository of the deepest thoughts and feelings concerning human existence of a wise seer, a repository in which he laid by those thoughts and feelings during sixty years of his mortal wayfaring.