surrounds the story of the First. But even in the First Part, the happy
issue is involved in the terms of Faust's compact with the devil. Only
on the condition that Mephistopheles shall be able to satisfy Faust and
cheat him "into self-complacent pride, or sweet enjoyment," only

"If ever to the passing hour I say,
So beautiful thou art! thy flight delay"--

only then shall his soul become the prey of the tempter. But from the
first, in the scorn of Faust for this poor fiend and all he has to
bestow, we read the failure of the plot. Faust may sign a hundred such
bonds in his blood with little fear. He knows well enough that a spirit
such as his can never be satisfied with what the fiend has to give, nor
lie down in sleek contentment to enjoy the earth without afterthought.

It is the strenuous and insatiable spirit of the man that saves him. It
is true that "man errs so long as he is striving," but the great word of
the play is just this, that no such errors can ever be final. The deadly
error is that of those who have ceased to strive, and who have
complacently settled down in the acceptance of the lower life with its
gratifications and delights.

But such striving is, as Robert Browning tells us in _Rabbi ben Ezra_
and _The Statue and the Bust_, the critical and all-important point in
human character and destiny. It is this which distinguishes pagan from
idealist in the end. Faust's errors fall off from him like a discarded
robe; the essential man has never ceased to strive. He has gone indeed
to hell, but he has never made his bed there. He is saved by want of
satisfaction.