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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
Then, directing his attack still personally, dropping the crowd, the manager says that as to glory it depends not upon the audience, but upon the poet. The more he gives the more he wins of fame. The writing of this play is opportunity; and now what has the poet to say?
For reply the poet bursts into passionate speech. He bids the manager go elsewhere for obedience to a low demand. What! he cries; shall he use his gift of nature, the highest gift to man, the very utmost of human expression—shall he degrade this gift for the enriching of the manager’s purse? In his earnest words we hear the voice of Goethe himself—the voice of the artist speaking for his noble birthright, for the privilege of a high holding of his poet power.
He is not speaking arrogantly, but with the loyalty of true reverence for a power which he felt was given. Accepting the poetic gift as from above, Goethe stands like the East Indian, who in earliest centuries looked upward and rejoiced in the downward flight of song; and while the drift of this entire scene, taken as a whole, is to reconcile all degrees of life in human action, it is evident that, both by the appeal of the manager to him as the only man who could do that great work, as well as by the poet’s first feeling against it, Goethe meant to give utterance to his recognition of the beauty of the great gift of poetry. The poet continues: From whence comes his empire over human hearts? How does he conquer the elements of life? Is it not because of the secret accordant power of his own heart, which passes with its great beating pulse to the utmost confines of life, to know, to feel it all and to express it? When even nature’s threads grow strained or slackened, when all creation is out of harmony, when her myriad voices jangle together, when depression and confusion reign—who then has power to touch again the order of existence, to recall wandering forces of life and bid them move once more with rythmical vibration under the central fire of life above?
“ Who is it,” he cries, “wakens the heart of man at will?
Who scatters every fairest April blossom Along the strewing path of love?
Who braids the plain green leaves to crowns, requiting Desert, with Fame in Action’s every field?”
Who is it brings the very gods to earth in unity with man but he, himself—the poet.
The passion of his words have filled the air. The jester, wise man that he is, comprehending that it is at once justice to the poet and to the people, and success for the manager to work with nature, and not against the laws of things, now accepts the poet as he shows himself, and, uniting himself harmoniously to this ardent soul, without yielding in the least to the principle for which he, with his young man, has been pleading, now begins a diplomatic reply. Still leading to the manager’s desire, and urging the writing of the play, he says: since these things are so, as the fine forces of life do act together to result in expression; since they are far-reaching and come by inspiration—if poetry comes, like love, unsought, then let this poet power be acknowledged; let it express itself, and let that expression be their play.
“ Let us, then,” he says, “ such a drama give.” Let the poet be true to himself; let him reach out after that life universal, which it is so given him to feel, and let what he can grasp and bring be the play of which they are in need.
The audience will find itself reflected in such a writing; each will select from the whole the part to which it can respond, and though “ Few may comprehend, where’er you touch there’s interest without end,” the people will be moved to “weeping or to laughter,” and without knowing why will still “ enjoy the show they see.”
The jester ends contentedly, for having met and accepted the poet’s own estimation of himself, he feels that the case is won, the play will be written, and here, argument and persuasion being at an end, he yields to himself, falls into a bit of philosophy, and gives to the reader another of the vital threads upon which the Faust