THE MAN. Do you see this hollow tree? PHILOSOPHE. With tufts of new leaves sprouting forth from the lower branches? THE MAN. Yes. How much longer do you think it can continue to stand? PHILOSOPHE. I cannot tell; perhaps a year or two longer. THE MAN. Its roots are rapidly rotting out, and yet it still puts forth a few green leaves. PHILOSOPHE. What inference do you deduce from that? THE MAN. Nothing--only that it is rotting out in spite of its few green leaves; falling daily into dust and ashes; and that it will not bear the tool of the moulder! And yet it is your type, the type of your followers, of your theories, of the times in which we live.... They pass on out of sight. * * * * * A mountain pass. THE MAN. I have labored many years to discover the final results of knowledge, pleasure, thought, passion, and have only succeeded in finding a deep and empty grave in my own heart! I have indeed learned to know most things by their names--the feelings, for example; but I _feel_ nothing, neither desires, faith, nor love. Two dim forebodings alone stir in the desert of my soul--the one, that my son is hopelessly blind; the other, that the society in which I have grown up is in the pangs of dissolution; I suffer as God enjoys, in myself only, and for myself alone.... VOICE OF THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. Love the sick, the hungry, the wretched! Love thy neighbor, thy poor neighbor, as thyself, and thou shalt be redeemed! THE MAN. Who speaks? MEPHISTOPHILES. Your humble servant. I often astonish travellers by my marvellous natural gifts: I am a ventriloquist. THE MAN. I have certainly seen a face like that before in an engraving. MEPHISTOPHILES (_aside_). The count has truly a good memory. THE MAN. Blessed be Christ Jesus! MEPHISTOPHILES. Forever and ever, amen!--(_Muttering as he disappears behind a rock_:) Curses on thee, and thy stupidity! THE MAN. My poor son! through the sins of thy father and the madness of thy mother, thou art doomed to perpetual darkness--blind! Living only in dreams and visions, thou art never destined to attain maturity! Thou art but the shadow of a passing angel, flitting rapidly over the earth, and melting into the infinite of ... Ha! what an immense eagle that is fluttering just there where the stranger disappeared behind the rocks! THE EAGLE. Hail! I greet thee! hail! THE MAN. He is as black as night; he flies nearer; the whirring of his vast wings stirs me like the whistling hail of bullets in the fight. THE EAGLE. Draw the sword of thy fathers, and combat for their power, their fame! THE MAN. His wide wings spread above me; he gazes into my eyes with the charm of the rattlesnake--Ha! I understand thee! THE EAGLE. Despair not! Yield not now, nor ever! Thy enemies, thy miserable enemies, will fall to dust before thee!