With a hocus-pocus of incantations she brews the magic draught, which Faust drinks. He is then hurried away by Mephistopheles back into the world of humanity. We have now come to the story of Margarete or Gretchen, which by many, perhaps by most, is looked upon as constituting the main subject of Goethe's _Faust_. It is doubtless the part which attracts one, which appeals to one's _heart_, more than any other, and it forms by itself a pathetic little tragedy. The story itself is merely the old sad story of passion, weakness and misery, which has been told thousands of times in all ages and all languages. It would be worse than useless to endeavour by any dissecting process to discover how by some act of creative power Goethe has inspired this little story with such wondrous vitality that there is probably in all literature scarcely any character that lives for us, that seems so real, as Gretchen. Possibly to feel this one needs a knowledge of the original poem and an acquaintance not only with that Germany which is generally known to the English visitor, but also with just that class of which Gretchen is typical, and with just those little ways and those forms of expression which are peculiar to that class and to the part of Germany to which Gretchen belonged. Every single word that she utters is so absolutely true to nature that we seem to hear the voice of some real living Gretchen, and can hardly believe that she merely exists in our imagination. This may perhaps be asserted of other poetic creations; but I confess that I know no other, not even in Shakespeare, that produces on me quite the same kind of illusion. Homer's Nausicaa, the Antigone and Electra of Sophocles, Rosalind, Miranda, Imogen, Portia, Cordelia--all these live for me, but not quite as Gretchen. Their presence I feel as something living, but a little visionary. Gretchen I can see, and hear and almost touch. I need not recount at length her story, for it is too well known. I need only recall to you memories of certain facts and scenes: that first meeting in the street; the mysterious presents from the unknown lover; the meeting in the neighbour's garden and Gretchen's innocent prattlings about her home life; Faust's growing passion, and the vain battlings of his higher nature; the insidious promptings and cynical ridicule of his demonic companion; the song of Gretchen at her spinning-wheel; her loving anxiety as to Faust's religious opinions, and his celebrated confession of faith; the sleeping draught by which Gretchen causes the death of her mother; her shame, remorse and despair; Gretchen kneeling with her gift of tear-sprent flowers before the Virgin's image; the return of her brother, the young soldier, Valentin, and _his_ death--stabbed by her lover (or rather by Mephisto) at night beneath her window, and cursing her as he dies; the scene in the Cathedral; the pealing organ and the solemn tones of the Dies Irae mingling with the terrible words of the