GOETHE. Pyramidal! My friend, but you are splendid. Now, have you shown the manuscript to Colvin? MARLOWE. He is a scholar, and a ripe and good one, And far too tolerant of modern poets. ALEXANDER. One of your lines strike my familiar spirit. Surely, that does not come from Stephen Phillips. MARLOWE. No matter; I may quote from whom I will. Shakespeare himself was not immaculate, And borrowed freely from a barren past. GOETHE. What thinks Herr Sidney Colvin of your work? S. P. That he will tell you when he sees it played. ACT I. _Scene: Faust's Studio_. SERVANT. Well, if you have no further use for me, I will go make our preparation. FAUST. If anybody calls, say I am out; I must have time to see how I will act. As to the form in which I shall be written, I must decide whether in prose or verse. My thoughts I'll bend. Give me at once the _Times_: Walkley I always find inspiriting-- And really I learn much about the drama (Even the German drama) from his pen, More curious than that of Paracelsus. (_Reads_) 'Sic vos non vobis, Bernard Shaw might say, Dieu et mon droit. Ich dien. Et taceat Femina in ecclesia. Ellen Terry, La plus belle femme de toutes les femmes Du monde.' Archer, I have observed, Writes no more for the World, but for himself. Then I forgot; he's writing for the _Leader_, That highly independent Liberal paper. [FAUST _muses_. _Bell heard_. The Elixir of Life, is it a play Which runs a thousand nights? Is it a dream Precipitated into some alembic Or glass retort by Ex-ray Lankester? _Enter_ SERVANT. SERVANT. A gentleman has called. FAUST. Say I am out. SERVANT. He will take no denial. FAUST. Show him in. Most probably 'tis Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Who long has planned a play of Doctor Faustus. _Enter_ MEPHISTOPHELES. MEPHISTOPHELES. Ah! my dear Doctor, here we are again! Micawber-like, I never will desert you. How do you feel? Your house I see myself In perfect order. Ah! how much has past Since those Lyceum days when you and I Climbed up the Brocken on Walpurgis night. That times have changed I realise myself; No longer through the chimney I descend; I enter like a super from the side. Widowers' Houses dramas have become; Morals and sentiment and Clement Scott No more seem adjuncts of the English stage. FAUST. Oh, Mephistopheles, you come in time To save the English drama from a deadlock! Like Mahmud's coffin hung 'twixt Heaven and Earth, It falters up to verse and down to prose. Tell us, then, how to act, how consummate The aspirations of our Stephen Phillips! MEPHISTO. Ah, Alexander Faustus! young as ever, Still unabashed by Paolo and Francesca, You long for plays with literary motives, Plots oft attempted both in prose and rhyme. FAUST. As ever, you are timid and old-fashioned.