Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/574

566 and of Goethe in particular is drawing near at last; that its influence has for some time been felt is proved, among other things, by that paraphrastic imitation of "Faust," Bailey's "Festus."

That a poem like "Faust" could not at first be generally understood is not unnatural. Various interpretations of its seeming riddles have been attempted; and if the volumes of German "Goethe-Literature" are numerous enough to form a small library, those of the "Faust- Literature" may be computed to form the fourth part of it. To the English reader we cannot recommend highly enough, for the full comprehension of "Faust," the commentary on this poem which Mr. Lewes gives in his "Life of Goethe," as perhaps the most excellent portion of that excellent work. Goethe himself has given many a hint on his own conception, and as to how far it was the reflex of his own soul. "The puppet-show-fable of 'Faust,'" he says, "murmured with many voices in my soul. I, too, had wandered into every department of knowledge, and had returned disgusted, and convinced of the vanity of science. And life, too, I had tried under various aspects, and had always come back sorrowing and unsatisfied." "Faust's character," he says in another place, "at the height to which the modern elaboration (Ausbildung) of the old, crude, popular tale has raised it, represents a man, who, feeling impatient and uncomfortable within the general limits of earth, esteems the possession of the highest knowledge, the enjoyment of the fairest worldly goods, inadequate to satisfy his longings even in the least degree, a mind which, turning to every side in search of this satisfaction, ever recedes into itself with increased unhappiness."—He remarks, too, that "the approbation which this poem has met with, far and near, may be owing to the rare peculiarity, that it fixes permanently the developing process of a human mind, which by everything that torments humanity is also pained, by all that troubles it is also agitated, by what it condemns is likewise enthralled, and by what it desires is also made happy."

If this article were devoted to Goethe's "Faust," instead of the popular legend of Faustus, of which the former is only the most eminent apprehension, if would be easy to add to these reasons for the universal "approbation" which it has won still others, founded on the great genius of the poet. This, however, would by far exceed our limits.

Hendrik on the Hudson, fifty miles from New York, there was, winter before last, a certain "patent seamless."—

But a hooped skirt with a history, touching and teaching, is no theme for flippancy; so, by your leave, I will unwind my story tenderly, and with reverential regard for its smooth turns of sequence.

The Wimples, of whom Sally is the last, were among the oldest and most respectable of Hendrik families. Sally's father, Mr. Paul Wimple, had been a publisher in good standing, and formerly did a flourishing business in New York; but seven years ago he failed, and so, quite penniless, his health sadly broken, his cheerfulness and energy all gone with his fortunes, without heart for any new beginning, he returned to Hendrik, his native place.

There, the friends of his youth,