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                            The Treasure of
                              the Humble

                       _By_ Maurice Maeterlinck

                     _Translated by_ Alfred Sutro

                 With _Introduction by_ A. B. Walkley


                 London: George Allen, _Ruskin House_

                   156 Charing Cross Road      mcmv




 _First Edition, March 1897. Reprinted October 1897; September 1901;
 January 1903; May 1904; November 1905._


                  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
                        At the Ballantyne Press




                                =_TO_=

                      _MADAME GEORGETTE LEBLANC_




                      The Treasure of the Humble

[Illustration: LOGO]




                            CONTENTS


  INTRODUCTION                                _Page_    ix

  SILENCE                                                1

  THE AWAKENING OF THE SOUL                             23

  THE PRE-DESTINED                                      43

  MYSTIC MORALITY                                       59

  ON WOMEN                                              75

  THE TRAGICAL IN DAILY LIFE                            95

  THE STAR                                             121

  THE INVISIBLE GOODNESS                               147

  THE DEEPER LIFE                                      169

  THE INNER BEAUTY                                     197




INTRODUCTION


WITH M. Maeterlinck as a dramatist the world is pretty well acquainted.
This little volume presents him in the new character of a philosopher
and an æsthetician. And it is in some sort an ‘apology’ for his
theatre, the one being to the other as theory to practice. Reversing
the course prescribed by Mr. Squeers for his pupils, M. Maeterlinck,
having cleaned w-i-n-d-e-r, winder, now goes and spells it. He began
by visualising and synthetising his ideas of life; here you shall find
him trying to analyse these ideas and consumed with anxiety to tell
us the truth that is in him. It is not a truth for all markets; he is
at no pains to conceal that. He appeals, as every mystic must, to the
elect; M. Anatole France would say, to the _âmes bien nées_. If we are
not sealed of the tribe of Plotinus, he warns us to go elsewhere. ‘If,
plunging thine eyes into thyself—it is this same Plotinus that he is
quoting—‘thou dost not feel the charm of beauty, it is in vain that,
thy disposition being such, thou shouldst seek the charm of beauty; for
thou wouldst seek it only with that which is ugly and impure. Therefore
it is that the discourse we hold here is not addressed to all men.’ If
we are to follow him in his expedition to a philosophic Ultima Thule,
we must have the mind for that adventure. ‘We are here,’ as he tells
us elsewhere of the ‘stiff’ but, it seems, ‘admirable’ Ruysbroeck,
‘all of a sudden on the borderland of human thought and far across the
Arctic circle of the spirit. There is no ordinary cold, no ordinary
dark there, and yet you shall find there naught but flames and light.
But to those who arrive without having trained their minds to these new
perceptions, the light and the flames are as dark and as cold as though
they were painted.’ This means that the intelligence, the reason, will
not suffice of themselves; we must have faith. There are passages in
the book which may provoke a sniff from Mr. Worldly Wiseman; but we
must beware of the Voltairean spirit, or this will be a closed book
to us. ‘We live by admiration, hope, and love,’ said Wordsworth. And
we understand by them, M. Maeterlinck would add. I fear we are not
all of us found worthy of the mystical frame of mind. But it is a
psychological fact, like another; and if we can only examine it from
the outside, we can at least bring patience and placidity to the task.
The point is: has M. Maeterlinck anything to say? It will be found, I
think, that he has.

All men, the world has long been assured, are born Aristotelians or
Platonists. There cannot be a doubt about M. Maeterlinck’s philosophic
birthright. He may say, as Paul Verlaine sang:

  Moi, j’allais rêvant du divin Platon,
  Sous l’œil clignotant des bleus becs de gaz.

More strictly, he is a Neo-Platonist. His remark about the Admirable
Ruysbroeck’s idea is equally true of his own. ‘I fancy that all those
who have not