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 assumed 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 attitude 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 asserts 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 assumes 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—Japan, 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 Passion," 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 Shelleyan drama of social unrest, where he has tried to formulate a hope for our final emergence from the maelstrom of class-conflict; and "Twelve Japanese Painters," a group of poems expressive of the peculiar and alluring charm of the great Japanese painters and their world of remote beauty.
Edwin Björkman.
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 Titian 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 glasses 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 attitude to-night; you always seem
As if withholding from all days and deeds
Moving around you—from our life and yours—
Your full assent.
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: Damned
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 glasses)
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 glass;
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.
OLDHAM
Ah, Midge again!
I thought so....
BRANDER
Well, I don't know why I shouldn't.
OLDHAM
Those rosy-toned remarks gave you away.
Perhaps 'twas not "Don Juan" that last night
Was at its best, but Midge. Where did you sit?
BRANDER
Up in the gallery.
OLDHAM
The top one?
BRANDER
Yes.
OLDHAM
Once more, I thought so. You and Midge would look
Nice in a box! Yes, I will pay for one
If you will take it.
BRANDER
Oh, leave me alone!
FAUST
Who is this "Midge" you speak of?
OLDHAM
Midge, dear Faust,
Is short for Margaret; which, you may guess,
Describes a lady of the female sex;
Said person being serviceably employed
As maid-of-all-work for some ancient dame
In Brander's own apartment house. She has,
Beside what other virtues I know not,
A most bewitching ankle and a taste
For opera. And dear Brander's kindly heart
Is so moved by the sight of these combined,
He sometimes sneaks, by lonely alley-ways,
With his fair Midge, and in the gallery
High out of sight of all of us enjoys
Her and the opera.
FAUST
I did not know
You had a lady-love.
BRANDER
It's hardly that!
But she's a mighty jolly little thing.
FAUST
What sort of girl is she?
BRANDER
A mighty nice one!
Full of all kinds of happiness; but shy.
I'd like to see some rounder try to speak
To her on Broadway. She looks like a lady!
FAUST
That is too bad.
BRANDER
Oh, pshaw! Don't lecture me;
I'm not a saint; in fact, few of us are.
FAUST
Unfortunately not. I least of all.
And yet I wonder if.... However, I
Do not presume to lecture you. Remember
One thing, though, as my friend. Your Midge has deeps
Not pleasant under her if you let go.
BRANDER
Oh, I will not let go!... Not yet, at least.
OLDHAM
Faust really means it, strange as it may seem.
Of late he has turned moralist.
FAUST
Not quite:
But just a little tired of pursuits
That end regretfully.
OLDHAM
Well, don't pursue....
BRANDER
(Goes to the window and raises the shade)
See, what a night it is! The stars are out
As if a bucketful of them had spilled
Across the sky. And here we sit like owls,
Blinking and staring at a little fire
When heaven is burning! I'm afraid it's time
For me to leave this owlish parliament;
And I shall probably knock holes in half
The windows of the town as I walk home
Star-gazingly. And here it's after twelve!
I might have guessed it from the fatal fact
That we'd begun to talk philosophy:
No sane man ever does, except in hours
When by all rights he should be sound asleep.
Good night to both of you. And don't stay up
Talking till morning.
OLDHAM
Well, good night.
FAUST
Good night,
Brander, I'm sorry you must go: come in
Quite soon again, and I will try to be
Less disagreeable than I was to-night.
[Brander goes out.
OLDHAM
I'll bet he takes an arc-light for a star!
FAUST
He is warm-hearted; I am fond of him.
But Midge!... However, one can say no more....
OLDHAM
He's a good fellow; but he tires me
Sometimes.
FAUST
Dear boy, I envy him.
OLDHAM
Of course,
And so do I; but I would not exchange
Heads for a kingdom.
FAUST
Are you so fond, then,
Of what's in yours?
OLDHAM
No, but at least I have
A certain faint perception of the gilded
And quite preposterous crudeness of our days—
The sordid sickness of his life, and ours;
And that is something to be thankful for.
FAUST
Gratitude is a graceful gift.
OLDHAM
Come, come!
What snake has bitten you, that to your lips
A poisoned irony so bitter springs
To-night?
FAUST
I am revolving in my brain
This serious question: whether 'tis not best
That one turn humorist. The mind that seeks
Holiness, finds it seldom; who pursues
Beauty perhaps shall in a lengthened life
Find it perfected only once or twice.
But if one's quest were humor—what rich stores,
What tropic jungles of it, lie to hand
At every moment, everywhere one turns—
What luscious meadows for the humorist!
OLDHAM
No—for the satirist! There is no humor
In what you see and I see when we look
On this crude world wherein our lives are spent—
This sordid sphere where we are but spectators—
This crass grim modern spectacle of lives
Torn with consuming lust of one desire—
Gold, gold, forever gold— Or do you find
Humor in that?
FAUST
It might be found, perhaps:
The joke's on someone!
OLDHAM
There's no joke in it!
It is the waste, the pitiful waste of life!
Men—slaves to gather gold—become then slaves
Beneath its gathered weight. For this one hope,
All finer longings perish at their birth.