"6reat Writer*." LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK BY THE SAME AUTHOR The Minnesingers. Vol. I. Translations Longmans, Green & Co. 55. net Contemporary German Poetry " " Canterbury Poets Series, is. Contemporary Belgian Poetry " " Canterbury Poets Series, is. Contemporary French Poetry "Canterbury Poets" Series, is. W. B. Yeats. Traduction de Franz Hellens. Brussels : H. Lamertin, 2 fr. Turandot, Princess of China (Plays of To-day and To-morrow) Fisher Unwin. 2s. 6d. net. Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck BY JETHRO BTTHELL Condon and ?ellina=on=pne : THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE (All rights reserved) 1.635 TO ALBERT MOCKEL, THE PENETRATING CRITIC, THE SUBTLE POET " Maurice Maeterlinck. II debuta . dans La Pleiade par un chef-d'oeuvre : Le Massacre des Innocents. Albert Mockel devint plus tard son patient et infatigable apotre a Paris. C'est lui qui nous fit connaitre Les Serres Chaudes et surtout cette Princess* Maleine qui formula definitive- ment 1'ideal des Symbolistes au theatre." STUART MERRILL, Le Masque, Srie ii, No. 9 and 10. 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 contra- vii viii PREFACE diction, 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 adven- ture; but if the lion is a tame specimen of his kind, you have either to imagine exploits, making moun- tains 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 Strind- berg's books, for instance, so inspired by person- ality 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 PREFACE ix 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 knowl- edge. 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 in all in all if beg you .sincerity, sincerityt 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 inter- view my servant. ' ' 1 1 Gerard Harry, Maeterlinck, p. 18. x PREFACE This is not a man who would chatter himself 1 away, 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 Mac- 1 beth! ). 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 1 " Monsieur Maeterlinck being- as all the world knows, hermetically mute." (Gre"goire Le Roy), Lc Masque (Brussels), Se>ie ii, No. 5 (1912). a " 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 Tresor des Humbles "- Maeterlinck returned to his early inspiration. Academy, i$th June, 1912. PREFACE xi 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, 3ist January, 1913. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PACE Maeterlinck born, August 2gth, 1862; his family; father residence at meaning of his name ; his ; Oostacker; atmosphere of Ghent; educated at the hatred of the College de Sainte-Barbe ; his Jesuits ; " to Bel- his schoolfellows ; subscribes La Jeune " his first his gique ; poem printed ; religious studies law at nature ; his wish to study medicine ; the University of Ghent; practises for a time as in influence of Villiers de avocat ; stay Paris ; L'Isle-Adam and Barbey d'Aurevilly ; introduced " by Gregoire Le Roy to the founders of La " " Pleiade ; contributes Le Massacre des Inno- cents"; influence on him of Flemish painting; Ler- other early efforts ; influence of Charles van the the birth berghe ; meets Mallarme ; symbolists ; vers Itbre influence of Walt Whitman . i of the ; CHAPTER II. to at Return Belgium ; residence Ghent and Oosta- to the cker ; introduced by Georges Rodenbach " " to directors of La Jeune Belgique ; contributes " this review, and to Le Parnasse de la Jeune Bel- " of renaissance at gique ; beginnings the Belgian Brussels " La Wallonie " founded Louvain and ; ; to Belgian realism ; the banquet Lemonnier ; of reaction against naturalism ; influence Roden- bach . .18 xiii xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER III. " " Series Chaudes published ; Ghent scandalised ; de- cadent poetry; Maeterlinck refused a post by the Belgian Government; Maeterlinck always healthy, " " the appearance of disease in Serres Chaudes critical estimates due to fashion ; the new poetry ; of Maeterlinck as a lyrist 23 CHAPTER IV. of the Influence of German pessimism ; the forerunners new or futurism, of Maeterlinck and optimism, " " La Princesse Maleine hailed as a Verhaeren ; work of the first rank; influence of the Pre- elements Raphaelites and of Shakespeare ; the new or in the book ; Maeterlinck's invention, adapta- tion from Ibsen, of interior dialogue ; Maeter- linck's methods of suggesting mystery ; the help- in of lessness of man the power Fate ; the questions of characterisation and of action 2g CHAPTER V. of or A new idea tragedy ; the unknown powers, mys- influence of steries Fate, Love, and Death ; Plato; "The Intruder"; "The Sightless"; Maeterlinck's irony ; Charles van Lerberghe's " " " " at Les Flaireurs ; The Intruder performed Paris. .... CHAPTER VI. Influence of Maeterlinck's Jesuit training; translation the of Ruysbroeck ; Maeterlinck and mystics ; "Les Sept Princesses" not understood by the of " critics ; scenery the early dramas ; Pelleas and " of the soul in Melisanda ; the question adultery ; of exile ; Maeterlinck and dramaturgy ; influence Walter Crane's picture-books . CONTENTS xv PAGE CHAPTER VII. " of the term Dramas for marionettes ; meaning ; " first "Alladine and Palomides ; Maeterlinck's the soul woman ; the irradiation of ; emancipated " " Interior " The Death the doctrine of reality ; ; " the closed door . 68 of Tintagiles ; CHAPTER VIII. : " tfanslation of Maeterlinck's Annabella ; Noyalis ; dramatic theories; the doctrine of "correspon- " of Emerson " The Treasure of dences ; influence ; " of the doctrine of the Humble ; influence Carlyle ; silence; dramatic possibilities of same; "the soul's " " " les avertis ; ; woman-worship ; awakening " interior fatalism ; Maeterlinck and Christianity ; " " " and ; the beauty ; Aglavaine Selysette prob- " 81 lem of mafriage ; Douze Chansons" CHAPTER IX. " Vlaeterlinck settles in Paris ; Georgette Leblanc ; Wis- dom and Destiny"; Maeterlinck's new philosophy; life, not death ; anti-Christian teaching ; Maeter- linck's evolution coincides partially with that of salvation love Nietzsche and Dehmel ; by ; Maeterlinck and Verhaeren ; the shores of serenity ; " " The Life of the Bee cerebralism futurism . 100 ; ; CHAPTER X. ' " Ardiane and Bluebeard inspired by Georgette Le- blanc flesh ; feminism ; emancipation of the ; "Sister Beatrice"; quietism again; Maeterlinck's version of the legend compared with that of Gottfried " Keller life ; family and religious prejudice ; The Buried " Temple ; heredity and morality ; poverty and socialism; the aims of Nature; vegetarianism; " " Monna Vanna banned by the censor in Eng- land ; Ibsen's idea of absolute truth in marriage ; xvi CONTENTS PAGE idea of the honour ; Maeterlinck and Browning ; " " the of life Joyzelle ; instinct and designs ; " sensual and intellectual love ; The Miracle