Mr. Faust.
by Arthur Davison Ficke.
INTRODUCTION
Through all the work of Arthur Davison Ficke runs a note of bigness that compels attention even when one feels that he is still groping both for form and thought. In "Mr. Faust" this note has a.s.sumed commanding proportions, while at the same time the uncertainty manifest in some of the earlier work has almost wholly disappeared.
Intellectually as well as artistically, this play shows a surprising maturity. It impresses me, for one, as the expression of a well-rounded and very profound philosophy of life--and this philosophy stands in logical and sympathetic relationship to what the western world to-day regards as its most advanced thought. The evolutionary conception of life is the foundation of that philosophy, which, however, has little or nothing in common with the materialistic and dogmatic evolutionism of the last century. The work sprung from that philosophy is full of the new sense of mystery, which makes the men of to-day realize that the one att.i.tude leading nowhere is that of denial. Faith and doubt walk hand in hand, each one being to the other check and goad alike. And with this new freedom to believe as well as to question, man becomes once more the centre of his known universe.
But there he stands, humbly proud, not as the arrogant master of a "dead" world, but merely as the foremost servant of a life-principle which a.s.serts itself in the grain of sand as in the brain of man.
Yet "Mr. Faust" is by no means a philosophical or moral tract. It is, first of all and throughout, a living, breathing work of art, instinct with beauty and faithful in its every line to the principle laid down by its author in the preface to one of his earlier volumes: "Poetical imagination must fail altogether if it descends from its natural sphere and a.s.sumes work which is properly that of economic or political experience. Nor can it usefully urge its own peculiar intuitions as things of practical validity."
Mr. Ficke was born in 1883 at Davenport, Iowa, and there he is still living, although I understand that he has since then been wandering in so many other regions, physical and spiritual, that he can hardly call it his home. He graduated from Harvard in 1904 and spent the next travelling in all sorts of strange and poetic places--j.a.pan, India, the Greek mountains, the Aegean Islands. Returning to the United States, he studied law and was admitted to the Bar in 1908. While studying, he taught English for a year at the University of Iowa, lecturing on the history of the Arthurian Legends.
He was a mere boy when he began to write, turning from the first to the metrical form of expression and remaining faithful to it in most of his subsequent efforts. His poems and essays have been printed in almost all the leading magazines. So far he has published five volumes of verse: "From the Isles," a series of lyrics of the Aegean Sea; "The Happy Princess," a romantic narrative poem; "The Earth Pa.s.sion," a series of poems which may be characterized as the effort of a star-gazer to find satisfaction in the things of the earth; "The Breaking of Bonds," a Sh.e.l.leyan drama of social unrest, where he has tried to formulate a hope for our final emergence from the maelstrom of cla.s.s-conflict; and "Twelve j.a.panese Painters," a group of poems expressive of the peculiar and alluring charm of the great j.a.panese painters and their world of remote beauty.
EDWIN BJoRKMAN.
INSCRIPTION
Pale Goethe, Marlowe, Lessing--calm your fears!
None plots to steal your laurel wreaths away.
Approach; take tickets: you shall witness here The unromantic Faustus of to-day--
A Faustus whom no mystic choirs sustain, No wizard fiends blind with prodigious spell.
The mortal earth shall serve him as domain Whether he mount to Heaven or sink to h.e.l.l.
Yet, mount or sink, your lights around him shine.
And there shall flow, bubbling with woe or mirth, From these new bottles your familiar wine, As ancient as man"s rule upon the earth.
MR. FAUST
THE FIRST ACT
_The scene is the library of John Faust, a large handsome room panelled in dark oak and lined with rows of books in open book-shelves. On the right is a carved white stone fireplace, with deep chairs before it. In the far left corner of the room, on a pedestal, stands a stiff bust of George Washington. Near it hangs a wonderful t.i.tian portrait, a thing of another world. The furniture looks as if it were, and probably is, plunder from the palace of some prince of the Renaissance._
_A fire is burning in the fireplace; it, and several shaded lights, make a subdued brilliancy in the room. Before the fire sits John Faust. Brander and Oldham, both in evening dress, lounge comfortably in chairs near Faust. All three are smoking, and tall highball gla.s.ses stand within their reach._
BRANDER
You are a thorn to me, a thorn in the flesh.
Contagiously you bring to me mistrust Of all my landmarks, when, as here to-night, Out of the midst of every pleasant gift The world can offer you, you raise your voice In scoffing irony against each face, Form, action, motive, that together make Your life, and ours.
FAUST
Dear man, I did not mean To send my poor jokes burrowing like a mole Beneath your prized foundations.
BRANDER
Not alone Your att.i.tude to-night; you always seem As if withholding from all days and deeds Moving around you--from our life and yours-- Your full a.s.sent.
FAUST
Dear Brander! Is it true I am as bad as that? Well, though I were, Why should it trouble you? If you find sport In this strange game, this fevered interplay, This hodge-podge crazy-quilt which we are pleased To call our life--why, like it! And say: d.a.m.ned Be all who are not with me!
BRANDER
Are not you?
FAUST
I claim the criminal"s privilege, and decline To answer.
OLDHAM
Faust, might I presume so far As to suggest that I should like a drink Before you two start breaking furniture Over this matter?
FAUST
Certainly; I beg Your pardon; I neglected you.
(_He busies himself with the gla.s.ses_)
No, no, We won"t wage combat over this. You"re right, Doubtless, as usual, Brander. I have not Your fortunate placidity of mind, And I get grumpy.
Come, fill up your gla.s.s; And let us drink to the glories of the world.
Down with the cynic!
BRANDER
Down with him, indeed!
And may he cease to trouble you. The world Is pretty glorious when a man is young, As we are, and so many splendid choices Lie all around him. There have never been Such opportunities as now are spread Before us. Men are doing mighty things To-day. A critic tells me that last night Wullf at the opera sang "_La ci darem_"
With an artistic brilliancy of tone That never has been heard on any stage Anywhere in the world. You moped at home, Doubtless; but it was wonderful, on my word.
OLDHAM
Whom did you go with?
BRANDER
Midge.