But ah! I feel, though will thereto be stronger, Contentment flows from out my breast no longer. Why must the stream so soon run dry and fail us, And burning thirst again assail us? Therein I’ve borne so much probation![205] It is at this point that Faust addresses the Spirit “that denies” and that is called “sin” and “evil.” This spirit invokes before his eyes “the fairest images of dreams,” that is to say, a woman’s body in its beautiful nudity. Faust declares himself Too old to play with passion, Too young to be without desire.[206] Pursued by desire ... when night descends, how anxiously Upon my couch of sleep I lay me. There, also, comes no rest to me; But some wild dream is sent to fray me.[207] So that Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest. O fortunate, for whom, when victory glances, The bloody laurels on the brow he bindeth! Whom, after rapid, maddening dances, In clasping maiden-arms he findeth![208] Faust thus reached the ecstasy of passion. Soon afterwards in the Witches’ kitchen, he saw in a mirror a “heavenly form” and cried:— O lend me, Love, the swiftest of thy pinions, And bear me to her beauteous field. A woman’s form, in beauty shining! Can woman, then, so lovely be? And must I find her body, there reclining; Of all the heavens, the bright epitome? Can Earth with such a thing be mated?[209] Discontent with life, sense of the insufficiency of human knowledge and the most gloomy pessimism lead to the passion of love which, eventually, after many devious paths, throws Faust into the arms of Marguerite. The story is one of the world’s great romances and everyone knows it. Faust all unconsciously was following the prescription of Brown-Séquard. Brain-fatigue had made the continuation of the study which caused it impossible. The condition is plainly stated in the following lines:— The thread of Thought at last is broken, And knowledge brings disgust unspoken. Let us the sensual deeps explore.[210] The brain has refused to work, and blind instinct, in the guise of dreams, whispers that there is in the organism something that can restore the intellectual forces. This something, however, is what is called sin, and much courage is needed to plunge into it. Without this evil, life cannot last. Faust has to choose between love and death, and chooses love. The end of the romance of Goethe and Frederique was bad, and that of Faust and Marguerite was still worse. The poet painted it in the most sombre colours. Marguerite killed her child, poisoned her mother, became crazy, and was beheaded. Faust’s cup of misery was filled to the brim; he blamed his evil genius, he made desperate efforts to save the poor woman, and cried “O that I had never been born.”