The full metaphysical drift of thought and meaning in Goethe's poem, however, can be but faintly indicated in a play. It is more distinctly indicated in Mr. Wills's play, which is used by Mr. Irving, than in any other play upon this subject that has been presented. This result, an approximate fidelity to the original, is due in part to the preservation of the witch scenes, in part to Mr. Irving's subtle and significant impersonation of Mephistopheles, and in part to a weird investiture of spiritual mystery with which he has artfully environed the whole production. The substance of the piece is the love story of Faust and Margaret, yet beyond this is a background of infinity, and over and around this is a poetic atmosphere charged with suggestiveness of supernatural agency in the fate of man. If the gaze of the observer be concentrated upon the mere structure of the piece, the love story is what he will find; and that is all he will find. Faust makes his compact with the Fiend. He is rejuvenated and he begins a new life. In "the Witch's Kitchen" his passions are intensified, and then they are ignited, so that he may be made the slave of desire and afterward if possible imbruted by sensuality. He is artfully brought into contact with Margaret, whom he instantly loves, who presently loves him, whom he wins, and upon whom, since she becomes a mother out of wedlock, his inordinate and reckless love imposes the burden of pious contrition and worldly shame. Then, through the puissant wickedness and treachery of Mephistopheles, he is made to predominate over her vengeful brother, Valentine, whom he kills in a street fray. Thus his desire to experience in his own person the most exquisite bliss that humanity can enjoy and equally the most exquisite torture that it can suffer, becomes fulfilled. He is now the agonised victim of love and of remorse. Orestes pursued by the Furies was long ago selected as the typical image of supreme anguish and immitigable suffering; but Orestes is less a lamentable figure than Faust--fortified though he is, and because he is, with the awful but malign, treacherous, and now impotent sovereignty of hell. To deaden his sensibility, destroy his conscience, and harden him in evil the Fiend leads him into a mad revel of boundless profligacy and bestial riot--denoted by the beautiful and terrible scene upon the Brocken--and poor Margaret is abandoned to her shame, her wandering, her despair, her frenzy, her crime, and her punishment. This desertion, though, is procured by a stratagem of the Fiend and does not proceed from the design of her lover. The expedient of Mephistopheles, to lull his prey by dissipations, is a failure. Faust finds them "tasteless," and he must return to Margaret. He finds her in prison, crazed and dying, and he strives in vain to set her free. There is a climax, whereat, while her soul is borne upward by angels he--whose destiny must yet be fulfilled--is summoned by the terrible voice of Satan. This is