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Life and Writings

of

Maurice Maeterlinck

BY

JETHRO BITHELL

London and Felling-on-Tyne:

THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD

NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE



TO

ALBERT MOCKEL,

THE PENETRATING CRITIC, THE SUBTLE POET



"Maurice Maeterlinck.--Il 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 _Princesse Maleine_ qui formula definitivement
l'ideal des Symbolistes au theatre."

STUART MERRILL,

_Le Masque_, Serie 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
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] Gerard Harry, _Maeterlinck_, p. 18.

[2] "Monsieur Maeterlinck being as all the world knows, hermetically
mute."--(Gregoire Le Roy), _Le Masque_ (Brussels), Serie 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 Tresor 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
College 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 Gregoire
Le Roy to the founders of "La Pleiade"; contributes "Le Massacre des
Innocents"; influence on him of Flemish painting; other early efforts;
influence of Charles van Lerberghe; meets Mallarme; 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