She pours out her bitter grief in the agony of prayer to the Mother of Margaret's grief. God, the Mother of Sorrows: Her brother, Valentine, surprises Faust and Mephisto beneath her window, attacks them, and falls, cursing his sister with his dying breath; Valentine's death. Mephisto drags Faust away from the danger of arrest. In the cathedral scene, which follows as a mass for Valentine's soul, Margaret is crazed with grief; she falls completely crushed with remorse and despair, as the voice of her conscience mingles with the solemn tones of the organ Margaret in and the awful lines of the "Dies Ira " to her the voice of doom: Faust has been hurried away by Mephisto into "the maddening whirl the church. The Witches' The prison scene. of the Witches' Sabbath and into excesses, which in his deeper being he despises." It is a weird, uncanny scene, ghastly in its lurid, unearthly light, symbolic, perhaps, of the wild confusion in his own soul. Though he has stumbled and fallen, he struggles up again, he is not depraved, no libertine who finds happiness in sensuality; his better self still lives and reasserts itself. He turns from the temptations about him, as remorsestricken conscience shows him a vision of Margaret, foreboding her fate: Mephisto, seest thou there, Faust. Alone and far, a girl most pale and fair As if with fettered feet that stay her going. I must confess, it seems to me As if my kindly Margaret were she. No broader than a knife-blade seeming! In the mad agony of grief and fear, he demands to be taken back to her, to make all possible atonement, and will not be denied. They find that Gretchen, insane from her wretchedness, has drowned her child and is in prison under sentence of death. This prison scene, the last of Part I., is perhaps the most impressive in all dramatic literature; it has a tragic power that cannot be described-it is simply heart-rending. While the jailer sleeps Faust enters to find Margaret cowering on a pallet of straw, like Ophelia singing wild snatches of old folk songs,- her reason gone, a wreck of her once fair self. She takes him for the jailer come to lead her to death and begs him to wait a little. It is agony to Faust to see her suffering and without one word of blame for him, who has wrecked her life; on his knees he unlocks her chains and begs her to escape with him, but she thinks it is the jailer wishing to pray with her and kneels to implore the saints to save her. In despair Faust, forgetting all prudence, calls her name aloud. At the sound of the loved voice, her staggering reason stands firm for a moment; her child-like heart forgets her sin, her sorrow, her chains; she leaps to her lover's breast, her thought flies back to the past: She is hurt that, instead of returning her caresses, he insists upon their escape; with the thought of flight her madness returns, she sees again her brother slain, sees the child she has drowned still struggling in the water, sees her mother: Unable to persuade her to flee, Faust tries to take her away by force, but she resists him desperately. Even in her madness she feels that she must make atonement for her guilt with her life, that without it there is no hope nor peace for her, even though she should escape earthly The atonement. punishment. Her death then is not the penalty of her sin but a voluntary sacrifice of herself, her love, her future, her all-in expiation of it. That means that, though her sin be as scarlet, she may be forgiven, for her soul is yet clean. In humble penitence and trusting faith she lifts her heart to God and yields herself up to His infinite justice: Margaret. Judgment of God! myself I give to thee. Thine am I, Father! rescue me! Ye angels, holy cohorts, guard me, Henry! I shudder to think of thee. On earth she is judged, but a Voice from above cries, as in answer to her prayer: "She is saved!"-in heaven. Morning breaks, Mephisto drags Faust away, while Margaret's heart goes out to him in yearning compassion: "Henry! Henry!" "Her anxious, compassionate call," says Vischer," expands into the voice of the vast invisible chorus, without, of countless sympathetic human hearts; it becomes the symbol of the many anxious queries with which we follow the guilt-laden man into the great and important career, which still lies before him." Though he End of Part I. has sinned, he has suffered and bitterly repented; he has no longer the purity of sinless innocence, but Mephisto has not yet depraved him; he has been tried by fire-and now, lifting himself up on the wings of strong resolve, he turns toward the new and larger life that awaits him in Part II. End of Required "Goethe and Schiller," by H. H. Boyesen (Scribner). (This volume contains also a com- Bibliography. mentary on "Faust"). Bayard Taylor's translation of “Faust" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co). "Life of Goethe," by G. H. Lewes. "Life of Goethe," by James Sime (Great Writers 1. Why is Goethe considered the master of poets? 2. How was he fortunate in his Review Questions. parents? 3. Give the main facts of his life. 4. What were the remarkable characteristics of his times? 5. What varied talents did he show in early life? 6. What are his chief works? 7. What position did he occupy at Weimar? 8. How do Lewes and Carlyle estimate his greatness? 9. Why is "Faust" the "Divine Comedy" of Germany? 10. Why does the play of "Faust" possess such intense interest? 11. What forms had the Faust legend taken previous to Goethe's use of it? 12. Describe the threefold introduction to Goethe's "Faust." 13. Describe the opening of Part I. 14. How and why is Faust rejuvenated? 15. How does Margaret expiate her wrong? 16. How does Faust's behavior show that Mephisto has not yet enslaved him? 17. How does Part I. prepare the way for Part II.? CHAUTAUQUA READING COURSE FOR HOUSEWIVES. CONDUCTED BY MARTHA VAN RENSSELAER. (Editor Women's Reading Course, Cornell University.) 3. Is your well so situated that the bottom is below the cesspool or outbuildings? "Yes." HE second lesson of the Housewives' The water gets warm and dirty standing in Reading Course, published in the a pail, with all dipping out of it." November CHAUTAUQUAN, was on Home Sanitation. Accompanying this lesson was a quiz containing several questions upon the subject, the answers to which, as they have been returned to us, have been full of interest. We print a few typical answers given after each question. 1. What is the source and condition of your water supply? "A dug well, and very poor. It is not deep enough and is too near the house." “Our well of pure, rich water is about three feet deep. I would not have water run through pipes and faucets, as it is impossible to keep them as pure as a granite pail and dipper." It Our cooking water is from an open well with bucket and windlass for drawing. receives no bad drainage and is near the kitchen. Our wash water is in a cistern under the kitchen, with pump and sink." "From springs on the hillside from seventy-five to one hundred feet above the house. These are never failing springs. We also have a cistern with pump in the kitchen." "The water is brought to the barn by a windmill, and in a bucket to the house for household purposes. 2. Is the school which your children attend supplied with pure drinking water? "There is no water on the school grounds and the well from which it is brought is situated at the foot of a cemetery." "Not at all times. It is generally impure. It is obtained from a well about twenty feet from a neighbor's barn door." "The water is not very good; the chil dren drink as little as possible." "The water is brought from the nearest house and the well is in a good location. 66 "No." "I don't know. I don't think much of dug wells, and we go quite a distance after our drinking water." "We carry from the spring, and expect to have a windmill in the future." "It is brought in pails by my husband." "We carry our cooking water in by pail from a well twenty feet from the kitchen, and we pump our cistern water from the cistern under the kitchen." 5. Will you suggest a mode of disposing of waste water from the kitchen? "We empty waste water into a pail and throw it around fruit trees and shrubs, never allowing it to stand on the ground." "No, but wish you would suggest some way to carry waste water from a kitchen which is situated on perfectly level ground." "A funnel drain from the kitchen connecting with a drain which carries the water off to the garden. The water from the roof of the house is conveyed into the drain, thus washing it out and furnishing water for the garden." "The sink has a trap which runs into a cesspool several rods from the house." "We use a drain in winter, and throw the waste water in all directions in summer. "Put waste water into a pail and empty it around the fruit trees. Then note the contrast between those and others not so treated." "I will have no drains of any kind about my house, for they cannot be kept perfectly pure. A judicious woman will not make the pail system a burden." 6. What effect does impure soil about a house have upon the atmosphere, and how may these impurities be remedied? "Makes the air impure and dangerous. It is improved by the use of lime." "It makes the air impure by causing dangerous germs. It may be remedied by tillage and drainage." "Impure soil calls mosquitoes, and makes a good place for bacteria. Have tillage, drainage, and sunlight." 66 'By building above the level of the ground and having the cellar cemented and properly drained." "By good cellar and yard drainage, and by having no more rooms than are used every day." 10. Do you clean your cellar as well as your living rooms? How? "Yes, I clean my cellar by sweeping the floor, brushing down all cobwebs, and laying clean papers on the shelves." "Clean out all vegetables and decaying matter, dilute lime or whitewash until it is thin enough to go through an old force pump, go over sides and ceiling with it, sprinkle dry lime on the floor, which is afterwards swept. Have a separate room, which is kept clean and whitewashed, in the cellar for the milk and food." "I certainly do, and I whitewash it every 7. What danger may exist from the collection of spring and keep it well ventilated.” dust about the rooms? "We breathe the dust into our lungs, and it fills the pores of the skin. It also floats in upon our victuals and into our drink." "It causes sickness as it is laden with bacteria which develop where there is dust and dampness." 8. Are the conditions in and about the school buildings where your children attend conducive to good health? "They are good, all except the drinking water, which is very poor." 9. How would you keep a house dry? "With plenty of sunshine and fresh air. "Have a good roof, tight about the chimneys, and a dry cellar. If water comes into the cellar, drain it or drain any that may collect in pools or come from moist ground near the house." "I consider it more important to have a clean cellar than a clean house, as foul gases from the cellar rise and are admitted to all of the rooms. "I clean the cellar, but not as well as the living rooms." "I scrub and clean my cellar, whitewash it, and hang up bags of charcoal." 11. What observations have you made upon the sanitary conditions of cellars in your vicinity? "Some of the most exquisite housekeepers are the most careless about their cellars. When the door is opened from the kitchen. to the cellar, the odor is sometimes terrible." "Most cellars in this vicinity are on a level with the kitchen to save steps. Houses are built more for convenience than health." 'Many of them are damp and unhealthy. very few have proper ventilation." 66 and 12. Give any instance which has come under your observation where sickness has been caused by bad sanitation, such as imperfect drainage, deposition of sewage on surface of ground, or contaminated water supply. "The family of a friend has had two cases of pneumonia, one of typhoid, and one of bilious fever. The trouble is supposed to "By building a fire in the grate and have come from the water supply. airing the house thoroughly." "I know of a number of cases where |
