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These are lines from Goethe's Faust:




(A young moldable student approached Dr. Faust to learn to speak well)


Wagner: Forgive me, But I thought you were declaiming. Been reciting some Greek tragedy, no doubt; I wish to improve myself in this same art; 'Tis a most useful one. I've heard it said, An actor might give lessons to a priest.

Faust: Yes! when your priest's an actor, as may happen.

Wagner: Oh! if a man shuts himself up forever in his dull study; if one sees the world never, unless on some chance holyday, looks at it from a distance, through a telescope, how can we learn to sway the minds of men by eloquence? to rule them, or persuade?

Faust: If feeling does not prompt, in vain you strive, If from the soul the language does not come, but its own impulse, to impel the hearts of hearers, with communicated power, in vain you strive -- in vain you study earnestly. Toil on forever; piece together fragments; Cook up your broken scraps of sentences, and blow, with puffing breath, and struggling light, glimmering confusedly now, now cold in ashes; startle the school-boys with your metaphors; and, if such food may suit your appetite, win the vain wonder of applauding children! But never hope to stir the hearts of men, and mold the souls into one, by words which come not native from the heart.

Wagner: graceful utterance, is the first and best acquirement of the orator. This do I feel, and feel my want of it!

Faust: Be honest, if you would be eloquent; be not a chiming fool with cap and bells; reason and genuine feeling want no arts of utterance -- ask no toil of elocution; and when you are in earnest, do you need a search for words? Oh! these fine holyday phrases, in which you robe your worn-out common-places, these scraps of paper which you crimp and curl, and twist into a thousand idle shapes, these filigree ornaments are good for nothing, cost time and pains, please few, impose on no one; are unrefreshing, as the wind that whistles, in autumn, 'mong the dry and wrinkled leaves.

Wagner: The search of knowledge is a weary one, and life how short! Ars longa, Vita brevis! How often have the heart and brain, o'er-tasked, shrunk back despairing from inquiries vain? Oh! with what difficulty are the means acquired, that lead us to the springs of knowledge! And when the path is found, ere we have trod half the long way -- poor wretches! we must die!

Faust: Are moldy records, then, the holy springs, whose healing waters still the thirst within? Oh! never yet hath mortal drunk a draught restorative, that welled not from the depths of his own soul!

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