[Enter A SCHOLAR.]

Scholar.  I have but lately left my home,
And with profound submission come,
To hold with one some conversation
Whom all men name with veneration.

Mephistopheles. Your courtesy greatly flatters me
A man like many another you see. 
Have you made any applications elsewhere?

Scholar.  Let me, I pray, your teachings share! 
With all good dispositions I come,
A fresh young blood and money some;
My mother would hardly hear of my going;
But I long to learn here something worth knowing.

Mephistopheles.  You’ve come to the very place for it, then.

Scholar.  Sincerely, could wish I were off again: 
My soul already has grown quite weary
Of walls and halls, so dark and dreary,
The narrowness oppresses me. 
One sees no green thing, not a tree. 
On the lecture-seats, I know not what ails me,
Sight, hearing, thinking, every thing fails me.

Mephistopheles.  ’Tis all in use, we daily see. 
The child takes not the mother’s breast
In the first instance willingly,
But soon it feeds itself with zest. 
So you at wisdom’s breast your pleasure
Will daily find in growing measure.

Scholar.  I’ll hang upon her neck, a raptured wooer, But only tell me, who shall lead me to her?

Mephistopheles.  Ere you go further, give your views As to which faculty you choose?

Scholar.  To be right learn’d I’ve long desired,
And of the natural world aspired
To have a perfect comprehension
In this and in the heavenly sphere.

Mephistopheles.  I see you’re on the right track here; But you’ll have to give undivided attention.

Scholar.  My heart and soul in the work’ll be found;
Only, of course, it would give me pleasure,
When summer holidays come round,
To have for amusement a little leisure.

Mephistopheles.  Use well the precious time, it flips away so,
Yet method gains you time, if I may say so. 
I counsel you therefore, my worthy friend,
The logical leisures first to attend. 
Then is your mind well trained and cased
In Spanish boots,[18] all snugly laced,
So that henceforth it can creep ahead
On the road of thought with a cautious tread. 
And not at random shoot and strike,
Zig-zagging Jack-o’-lanthorn-like. 
Then will you many a day be taught
That what you once to do had thought
Like eating and drinking, extempore,
Requires the rule of one, two, three. 
It is, to be sure, with the fabric of thought,
As with the chef d’oeuvre by weavers wrought,
Where a thousand threads one treadle plies,
Backward and forward the shuttles keep going,
Invisibly the threads keep flowing,
One stroke a thousand fastenings ties: 
Comes the philosopher and cries: