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.