©Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

128 FAUST
The best thing that the case affords
Is-stick to some one doctor's words :
Ma.intain his dootrines out and out,
Admit no qualifying doubt;
But stick to words at any rate,
Their magio bids the temple gate
Of Certainty fly safely ope-
Words, words alone, are your best hope.
STUDENT. But in each word must be a thought-­
MEPIDSTOPHELES. There is, or we may so assume,­
Not always found, nor always sought,
While words-mere words, supply its room.
Words answer well, when men enlist 'em,
In building up a favourite system;
With words men dogmatize, deceive;
With words dispute, on words believe;
And be the meaning much or little,
The Word can lose nor jot nor tittle.
STUDENT. Pardon-I feel my questions tease
you.
Jnst for a moment more-one word
On Medicine, so please you.
With but three years for it, it were absurd
For one like me, without a guide,
To enter on a. course so wide;
And your experience may suggest,
In suoh a field, what path is best.
MEPIDSTOPHELES (aside). I'm sick of this pedantio
tone,
Too long assumed. Now for my own !
(Aloud.) The trade of medicine 's easiest of all:
'Tis but to study all things-everywhere-
Na.ture and man-the grea.t world and the small­
Then lea.ve them at haphazard still to fare.
lt is, you see, plainly impossible
That one man should be skilled in every science­
Who learns the little that he can, does well:
The secret of the art is self·reliance.
A man oan learn but what he oan;
Who hits the moment is the man.
©Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia