Chapter I: Preface

It is not an easy task to write the life of a man who is still living. If the biographer is hostile to his subject, the slaughtering may be an exciting spectacle; if he wishes, not to lay a victim out, but to pay a tribute of admiration tempered by criticism, he has to run the risk of offending the man he admires, and all those whose admiration is in the nature of blind hero-worship. If he is conscientious, the only thing he can do is to give an honest expression of his own views, or a mosaic of the views of others which seem to him correct, knowing that he may be wrong, and that his authorities may be wrong, but challenging contradiction, and caring only for the truth as it appears to him.

So much for the tone of the book; there are difficulties, too, when the lion is alive, in setting up a true record of his movements. If the lion is a raging lion, how easy it is to write a tale of adventure; but if the lion is a tame specimen of his kind, you have either to _imagine_ exploits, making mountains out of molehills, or you have to give a page or so of facts, and for the rest occupy yourself with what is really essential.

When the lion is as tame as Maeterlinck is (or rather as Maeterlinck chooses to appear), the case is peculiarly difficult. The events in Maeterlinck's life are his books; and these are not, like Strindberg's books, for instance, so inspired by personality that they in themselves form a fascinating biography. They reveal little of the sound man of business Maeterlinck is; they do not show us what faults or passions he may have; they tell us little of his personal relations--in short, Maeterlinck's books are practically impersonal.

The biographer cannot take handfuls of life out of Maeterlinck's own books; and it is not much he can get out of what has been written about him, very little of which is based on personal knowledge. Maeterlinck has always been hostile to collectors of "copy," those great purveyors of the stuff that books are made of. Huret made him talk, or says he did, when Maeterlinck took him into the beer-shop; and a few words of that interview will pass into every biography. That was at a time when he hated interviews. He wrote to a friend on the 4th of October, 1890:

"I beg you _in all sincerity, in all sincerity_, if you can stop
the interviews you tell me of, for the love of God stop them. I am
beginning to get frightfully tired of all this. Yesterday, while I
was at dinner, two reporters from ... fell into my soup. I am going
to leave for London, I am sick of all that is happening to me. So
if you can't stop the interviews they will interview my
servant."[1]

This is not a man who would chatter himself away,[2] not even to Mr Frank Harris, who found him aggressive (and no wonder either if the Englishman said by word of mouth what he says in print, namely that _The Treasure of the Humble_ was written "at length" after _The Life of the Bee_, _Monna Vanna_, and the translation of _Macbeth_![3]). The fact is, there is very little printed matter easily available on the biography proper of Maeterlinck. It is true we have several accounts of him by his wife in a style singularly like his own; we have gossip; we have delightful portraits of the houses he lives in--but we have no bricks for building with.

A future biographer may have at his hands what the present lacks; but I for my part have no other ambition for this book than that it should be a running account of Maeterlinck's works, with some suggestions as to their interpretation and value.

JETHRO BITHELL.

Hammerfield,

Nr. Hemel Hempstead,

31st January, 1913.

[1] Gérard Harry, _Maeterlinck_, p. 18.

[2] "Monsieur Maeterlinck being as all the world knows, hermetically mute."--(Grégoire Le Roy), _Le Masque_ (Brussels), Série ii, No. 5 (1912).

[3] "_La Vie des Abeilles_ brought us from the tiptoe of expectance to a more reasonable attitude, and _Monna Vanna_ and the translation of _Macbeth_ keyed our hopes still lower; but at length in _Le Trésor des Humbles_ Maeterlinck returned to his early inspiration."--_Academy_, 15th June, 1912.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

Maeterlinck born, August 29th, 1862; his family; meaning of his name; his father; residence at Oostacker; atmosphere of Ghent; educated at the Collège de Sainte-Barbe; his hatred of the Jesuits; his schoolfellows; subscribes to "La Jeune Belgique"; his first poem printed; his religious nature; his wish to study medicine; studies law at the University of Ghent; practises for a time as _avocat_; stay in Paris; influence of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam and Barbey d'Aurevilly; introduced by Grégoire Le Roy to the founders of "La Pléiade"; contributes "Le Massacre des Innocents"; influence on him of Flemish painting; other early efforts; influence of Charles van Lerberghe; meets Mallarmé; the symbolists; the birth of the _vers libre_; influence of Walt Whitman

CHAPTER II.

Return to Belgium; residence at Ghent and Oostacker; introduced by Georges Rodenbach to the directors of "La Jeune Belgique"; contributes to this review, and to "Le Parnasse de la Jeune Belgique"; beginnings of the Belgian renaissance at Louvain and Brussels; "La Wallonie" founded; Belgian realism; the banquet to Lemonnier; reaction against naturalism; influence of Rodenbach

CHAPTER III.

"Serres Chaudes" published; Ghent scandalised; decadent poetry; Maeterlinck refused a post by the Belgian Government; Maeterlinck always healthy, the appearance of disease in "Serres Chaudes" due to fashion; the new poetry; critical estimates of Maeterlinck as a lyrist

CHAPTER IV.

Influence of German pessimism; the forerunners of the new optimism, or futurism, of Maeterlinck and Verhaeren; "La Princesse Maleine" hailed as a work of the first rank; influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and of Shakespeare; the new elements in the book; Maeterlinck's invention, or adaptation from Ibsen, of interior dialogue; Maeterlinck's methods of suggesting mystery; the helplessness of man in the power of Fate; the questions of characterisation and of action

CHAPTER V.

A new idea of tragedy; the unknown powers, or mysteries--Fate, Love, and Death; influence of Plato; "The Intruder"; "The Sightless"; Maeterlinck's irony; Charles van Lerberghe's "Les Flaireurs"; "The Intruder" performed at Paris

CHAPTER VI.

Influence of Maeterlinck's Jesuit training; translation of Ruysbroeck; Maeterlinck and the mystics; "Les Sept Princesses" not understood by the critics; scenery of the early dramas; "Pelleas and Melisanda"; the question of adultery; the soul in exile; Maeterlinck and dramaturgy; influence of Walter Crane's picture-books

CHAPTER VII.

"Dramas for marionettes"; meaning of the term; "Alladine and Palomides"; Maeterlinck's first emancipated woman; the irradiation of the soul; the doctrine of reality; "Interior"; "The Death of Tintagiles"; the closed door

CHAPTER VIII.

"Annabella"; translation of Novalis; Maeterlinck's dramatic theories; the doctrine of "correspondences"; influence of Emerson; "The Treasure of the Humble"; influence of Carlyle; the doctrine of silence; dramatic possibilities of same; "the soul's awakening"; "les avertis"; woman-worship; fatalism; Maeterlinck and Christianity; "interior beauty"; "Aglavaine and Selysette"; the problem of marriage; "Douze Chansons"

CHAPTER IX.

Maeterlinck settles in Paris; Georgette Leblanc; "Wisdom and Destiny"; Maeterlinck's new philosophy; life, not death; anti-Christian teaching; Maeterlinck's evolution coincides partially with that of Nietzsche and Dehmel; salvation by love; Maeterlinck and Verhaeren; the shores of serenity; "The Life of the Bee"; cerebralism; futurism

CHAPTER X.

"Ardiane and Bluebeard" inspired by Georgette Leblanc; feminism; emancipation of the flesh; "Sister Beatrice"; quietism again; Maeterlinck's version of the legend compared with that of Gottfried Keller; family life and religious prejudice; "The Buried Temple"; heredity and morality; poverty and socialism; the aims of Nature; vegetarianism; "Monna Vanna" banned by the censor in England; Ibsen's idea of absolute truth in marriage; the idea of honour; Maeterlinck and Browning; "Joyzelle"; instinct and the designs of life; sensual and intellectual love; "The Miracle of St Antony"

CHAPTER XI.

"The Double Garden" affords glimpses into Maeterlinck's life; the essay, "On the Death of a Little Dog"; flowers old and new, symbols of the onward march of man; the reign of matter; the modern drama; "Life and Flowers"; the doctrine of aspiration; the religion of the future; Maeterlinck's teaching midway between that of Nietzsche and Tolstoy; Maeterlinck as a boxer; the victory of socialism inevitable; "The Blue Bird"--an epitome of Maeterlinck's ideas--performed in Moscow and London; the quest of happiness; futurism again; the drama awarded the Belgian "Triennial prize for dramatic literature"; translation and performance at St Wandrille of "Macbeth"; "Mary Magdalene" banned in England; quarrel with Paul Heyse; "Death" shocks the critics; its importance lies in its discussion of immortality; Maeterlinck awarded the Nobel prize for literature; he is honoured by the City of Brussels; he founds the "Maeterlinck prize"

CHAPTER XII.

Maeterlinck at the Villa Dupont; his personal appearance; the present position of Maeterlinck in critical estimation; the question of his originality; his public; Maeterlinck a futurist; compared by Louis Dumont-Wilden with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre; compared with Goethe; Maeterlinck a poet

Index

Bibliography

MAURICE MAETERLINCK