Faustus

pirit had become so weak from all that he had seen and heard, that he who once dared to defy the Eternal in thought scarcely ventured now to look Satan in the face, though he still had absolute dominion over him. Hatred and contempt for men, cruel doubt, indifference to every thing which occurred around him, murmurings at the insufficiency of his moral and physical powers, were the rewards of his experience and the fruits of his life; yet he consoled himself with the idea that what he had witnessed authorised in Mm these gloomy sentiments, and confirmed him in the opinion, that there either existed on earth no connexion between man and his Creator, or that, if any did exist, such connexion ran so confusedly and equivocally through the labyrinth of life, that it was impossible for the eye of man to follow it. He yet flattered himself with the delusion, that his crimes, when added to the vast mass of earthly wickedness, would be like a drop of water falling into the ocean. The Devil willingly permitted him to repose in this dream, in order that the blow he intended for him might fall with greater violence. Faustus resembled those men of the world who abandon themselves to their pleasures without thinking of the consequences ; and at length, worn out and dejected, look morosely on the world, and judge of the human race according to their own sad experience, without reflecting that they have only trodden the worst paths of life, and seen the worst part of the creation...