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mentary and inconsecutive method, how such wisdom, when imparted by the inner soul to the outward, may serve to render a man master (the mastery, like much else, is somewhat vaguely qualified) of that impersonal force embodied in outward circumstances and designated by the term of la destinée extérieure, with its main crises, love and death. In his dramas he has depicted that same destiny and that same wisdom in their action upon human emotions, contending, if the word may be used with reference to that principle of passive spiritual majesty the soul, for sovereignty with varied and fluctuating results. But while it is more or less essential, for any clear comprehension of M. Maeterlinck's dramatic intentions, to preface the study of his dramas with the study of his prose, it must be remembered that in order of publication the dramas are antecedent to the essays, and that between the earliest and latest works the literary growth, or, more accurately, the literary transitions, are manifest in a marked variation of mental attitude-a transference not so much of thought as of accent. Almost it would appear that the imaginative emotional impulses constituting the dominant motive of his early lyrics may be taken as exemplifying the besetting but passive form of the malady of life. In the earlier dramas the same malady, in its more active developements of human misery, is still the theme, and although the existence of possible remedies is dimly apparent, while here and there the soul works its miracles of healing, the malady, in the aggregate, prevails. But in the prose works attention is confessedly directed to the reverse aspect of the maladies of humanity, to serene contemplations of the interior and persistent wisdom of all souls, and to the manner after which, radiating from within to without, it may refashion sorrows into joys, ills into benedictions, and fever into peace. So regarded the relation borne by 'Serres Chaudes' to his latest volume, La Sagesse et la 'Destinée,' might be defined as the relationship-a true one-necessarily existing between poison and antidote. Yet however and in whatsoever order we read, whether we take the action of his dramas as the interpretation of his mode of thought or his thoughts as the interpretation of his dramatic method, it is from his prose works we may best gather a clear idea of the standpoint from which he views life-the life of earth-existence as a whole, as a universal

* ' Serres Chaudes,' Bruxelles.

VOL. CXCIII. NO. CCCXCVI.

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condition of being, governed by general laws, subject to inevitable influences, and outstretched between two blank infinities.

With respect to life M. Maeterlinck's point of view differs necessarily from that of the mysticism of the past. For the Catholic mystic not only was the doctrine of the intuitive certitudes of divine Truth closely, if not inseparably, bound up with the principles of the ascetic life, with the practice of obedience, of abstinence, of humility and mortification, l'abnégation stérile, la pudeur, la chasteté arbitraire, le renoncement aveugle, la soumission obscure, 'l'esprit de pénitence,' and the other parasite virtues' of M. Maeterlinck's catalogue, but life itself bore one sole aspect, that of a probation and a pilgrimage. Man, to the medieval Christian, was an exile; earth, his place of banishment; the body, a hindrance if not an enemy; and unregenerated human nature, an inheritance of certain perdition. For him, whatever had been their primary virtue, the Fall (even mystically interpreted) had radically contaminated the natural and physical instincts of humanity, and mysticism found its recruits mainly amongst those men and women who, steeped in the heroic traditions of the ascetic life, repudiated not only those indulgences generally prohibited by all Christians, but likewise the most innocent of earthly affections and secular joys, repressing, with the strenuous endeavours of their will, every craving, every need of manhood and womanhood of which God might not be claimed as the source, the centre, and the goal. In the religious philosophy of German Protestantism, mysticism, retaining its associations with the moral laws of Christianity, made its first descent from the ascetic life, and, discarding the purely religious garb, entered upon a more varied and secular, and, as it were, a more domestic phase. It assumed, with Novalis, so far as the life of earth was concerned, a more human aspect. A sunny friendliness is the general characteristic of his references to all growths of the earth. Nature around is sacred to him in her unfathomable mysteries, dear to him as healing and solace, the home whose doors always stand open for who will to enter. Men, like spoilt children fearing their father, may turn to her and seek un refuge près de leur mère.' In the half-fantastic language of his romance he has made his old gardener-sage the spokesman of that earth love which is so clear a feature in art when present in its spontaneous sincerity, and shows so poor a countenance when forced and counterfeit. The plants are for him the

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direct speech of the earth; each new leaf, each marvellous blossom, is some secret upspringing, which, as it cannot quicken to love and desire, as it cannot transmute itself into words, becomes a mute, tranquil plant.

'If in some solitary place one finds such a flower is it not as if it illuminated all around, and is it not there where the small, winged voices most willingly abide? Well might he that sees weep for joy, and, severed from the world, set hands and feet in the earth to strike root there, and never more abandon that happy companionship. . . . Over the whole dry land this green coverlet of love is outspread. With each spring it is renewed, and its strange inscription is read only by the Beloved. . . . Ever he reads, and is not satiated with reading and daily beholds therein new revelations.'

This eternal joy is the hidden spell which the earth's surface holds for the feet of men, while it solves the riddle of life, and men henceforth divine whence the road comes and whither it goes.

And this riddle of the whence and the whither, the question of the before and after, comes to Novalis as a doubt, it may be, but a doubt undarkened by fear, and tinted with the rainbow colours of his own hopeful moods. It is difficult not to believe that, in spite of all its reverses, life, in his own phrase, was for him 'le commencent d'un roman sans 'fin. And death was but the passage of life to life. Is it not possible, he asks, that some nativities are but the dyings of the pre-existent spirit? N'y aurait-il pas aussi une mort 'de l'autre côté, dont le résultat serait la naissance 'terrestre ?' Birth he conceives of asun choix primitif,' and, once terrestrialised, life, with its winged desires, in his often-quoted sentence is not a dream, but may become ' one.'

Here and there truly passages recur bearing the impress of lapses into cloudier thoughts, but the simple and childlike open-handedness with which, in the depth of his own personal grief, he accepts consolation, gives the true note to his philosophy, and if more than once he allows that life is a malady' he is in the same breath eager to demonstrate that disease is itself a very important element for humanity, of which we know but imperfectly the use. Were I to become its prophet!' adds the man on whom, in very truth, its heaviest hand had been laid.

After such a fashion Novalis, profound thinker as he was, thinks his thoughts, not as a teacher severed from the herd, but as the member of a well loved fraternity of trees and four-footed beasts and birds and men. Moreover the mind of the least learned may recognise in reading the

pervading presence of that sentiment of kindly brotherhood. Human affections-purified of their dross-are with him the levers of the spiritual life. The true measure of a thing is its utmost compass' is an axiom with him, and the span of human love is the measure of infinity. Love is the knowledge of immortality, it is more- was ist die Religion als ein unendliches Einverständniss, eine ewige Vereinigung lie' bender Herzen.' And as Novalis wrote so he lived, the joys, the affections of earth reinstated as the deepest educational experiences of the soul, his own love for the child-betrothed, who was to him as Beatrice to Dante, the consecrating, stimulating, ennobling influence of a life dedicated soul and spirit-les deux lignes partent de l'homme et 'finissent en Dieu '-to the attainment of the highest.

With M. Maeterlinck mysticism in respect to life has entered upon a different phase. And although so far his attitude admits of no strictly definite analysis the uniform impression left upon the reader, despite the tranquil philosophy of the volume which we may accept as representing his latest convictions, is that of a profound, passive, and acquiescent melancholy. He deals scrupulously and at length with many of the tangled problems, the besetting questions, of existence abstract and actual. But the three great darknesses of the questioning spirit-the whence, the wherefore, and the whither-are barely indicated; and although the answer given by individual belief to the enigmas of the eternities of the past and future of the soul, although the reply to that yet more inscrutable 'why' might seem to be factors of paramount importance in the formation of that vie intérieure which absorbs his attention, he has elected to pass them by in premeditated and almost unbroken silence.

It is with the present, and emphatically with it alone, that he deals in the volume which we may fairly take as the epitome of his opinions. Life, as here interpreted, lies for him between two abysses, la destinée intérieure, the destiny intime of the soul of souls, and la destinée extérieure, a destiny which lorsqu'il est libre ne veut guère que le mal.' Allied with our instincts ('ils rodent la main dans la main") it becomes la fatalité noire,' the adversary of joy, the devastator of human happiness. Wisdom, the wisdom emanating from the secret sources of the soul, is the only mould in which the sage may recast the effects if he cannot change the course of outward events. En élargissant, en développant notre activité nous nous transformerons en fatalité,' is Novalis's succinct statement of the doctrine to

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which M. Maeterlinck gives reiterated and vivid expression. 'Si Judas sort ce soir il ira vers Judas et aura l'occasion ' de trahir. . . si Socrate ouvre sa porte il trouvera Socrate 'endormi sur le seuil et aura l'occasion d'être sage. . . . Il ' n'arrive jamais de grands événements intérieurs à ceux qui 'n'ont fait rien pour les appeler à eux.' The life of man is represented as a beleaguered city; every place which is not occupied by the force of the soul is usurped by antagonistic forces (tout vide dans le cœur ou dans l'intelligence 'devient le réservoir d'influences fatales '), forces assailing us in what is named the provisional darkness' of this world. Misery and happiness depend upon the issues of the siege, while nos aventures errent autour de nous,' like within attracting like without.

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As concerns the balance of joy and grief, there can be but little question which way it tends. Although M. Maeterlinck starts with an initial assumption that man is meant for happiness as the body for health (l'humanité est faite 'pour être heureuse') the intention of creation has proved hitherto abortive. For the moment la misère est une 'maladie de l'humanité comme la maladie est une misère de 'l'homme.' 'Le malheur est sorti de l'enfance depuis des 'centaines de siècles . . . le bonheur dort encore dans les 'langes.' And, when passing from his considerations of sagesse, destiny, calamity, and misfortune, he treats of the nature of happiness, in spite of his unfailing felicity of expression M. Maeterlinck cannot convince his readers that he is at home with his subject. Happiness, although its root-source may indeed lie in the deepest recesses of wisdom, must, by the test of general experience, find its daily aliment in little things. M. Maeterlinck's happiness ignores such irrational aliments, and in so doing divests itself of its buoyancy, its freshness, and its youth. Etre 'heureux, c'est d'avoir dépassé l'inquiétude du bonheur ' is a typical article of his creed of joy. For him happiness is resignation, it is quietude, it is consolation, it is the negation of sadness and unrest, the acquiescence that annuls the pain of disillusion, the calm of the wreck which has reached the shore. But who of the unmystic laity will call it happiness? or if happiness, well may it be said, La joie fait peur!' 'Be gay, my daughter, be gay,' was Ruysbroeck's reiterated counsel to his spiritual daughter in her life of devotion to the sick and dying. But the wisdom of later mysticism has no use for gaiety. It has no playtime, no light-heartedness, no vitality, and no promise;

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