Fear of the evils which lie in wait for us and against which we can make no provision render life insupportable. Faust’s frame of mind as described in these lines recalls Schopenhauer, who was always afraid of something; fear, sometimes of thieves, sometimes of diseases, tormented him. He would never go to a barber’s to be shaved, and always carried his own drinking cup with him.
“Is it not better to end such a life, and to kill oneself, even if it mean annihilation?” asked Faust. He took up the poisoned goblet and put it to his lips, but, arrested by singing and the sound of bells outside, he refrained, and life laid hold of him. Not religious faith, however, but memories of childhood, “the happy sports of youth and the gay festivals of spring” were the agencies that recalled Faust to the earth. He went out of doors, mingled with the crowd, tried to amuse himself amongst men, and savoured the beauty of the new-born spring, but all these could not make him forget the evil of life. He met his pupil, talked with him, and again displayed his pessimism.
O happy he, who still renews
The hope, from Error’s deeps to rise for ever!
That which one does not know, one needs to use;
And what one knows, one uses never.[202]
Then follows the celebrated monologue of Faust over which so many commentators have lost their heads and wasted oceans of ink.
Two souls, alas! reside within my breast,
And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.
One with tenacious organs holds in love