The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-28
MAETERLINCK VISITED.
THE GREAT FLEMISH SYMBOLISI
 POET.

At His Home i'm Ghent-How He Looks
 and What Ills Writings Aim At.
 To find Maeterincks real environ
 ment one has to travel from the high
 way of pleasure and business to Ghent
 an old haunt of the mystics, where
 earth's sounds are faint upon the
 streets, although the cobblestones in the pavements have been placed with the noisest and most pointed part to-
 ward the sky. How little honor Mae | terlinck has in his own country is
 proved by the fact that his photograph
 could not be found in any art store of
 his country, and, still greater oblivion, he is not immortalized on a souvenir
 postal card. This last mournful fact
 only recent continental travellers can
 appreciate.
 After exhausting my small stock of
 Flemish and of change, I found the
 house, which turns its most prosaic, | WhiteWashed side streetward, and
 which, like the true mystic, has all it's
 beauty within. Glimpses of green, a
 ripple of falling water, patches of gay
 autumn color. birds and bees, the clip
 clap of wooden shoes worn by the ser
 vants-these were Maeterlinck's envi-
 ronment, into which he was born in
 1862
 His parents were pious Roman Cath
 olics, and in the old spirit-haunted ca- . tba oF ha f,ct
 wing and flew far far away from the l padres sermon and the monotonous l Hail Marys! Expectations neighbors
 said, "The boy has the second sight"
 and although he did not begin life as
 mystic philosopher, but as a plain, re- alistic lawyer, the superstitious neigh l bors for once had guessed the truth. Not even in sleepy Brabant has silent
 mystic much chance of succeeding in the law, and so the business fell upon a brother and cousin. who are now on the road to wealth and political fame Instead of reading his Flemish Black stone, Maeterlinck read the English Shakespeare and the American Elmer son, so that these two authors are much to blame for the fact that Bedgi um is rid of poor lawyer and the world the possessor of a dramatist of the highest rank and a philosopher who has kindled torch which leads men from blatant noise to wholesome si-
 ence and from weariness to rest
 I was startled to hear him say the very words spoken to me by many men so different from him: Emerson was my guide and teacher" Tolstoi, Metz hA Theoy sni the same thing, wherever I come into strange lands as hero worshiper, the greatest men have turned my eyes to- ward Concord, and have uttered the name of Emerson with the reverence of disciples and the gratitude of schol- ars.
 Maet erlinck reflects in his works the international character of his country Belgium belongs as much to England as to France, and no less to Germany for not only is the money of these countries current among the people but their ideas also; and so 1t happens that Maet erlinck has all the glow and fervor of the Roman, the keen human | insight of the Anglo-Saxon, and that | peculiar religious mysticism which Is a | Germanic quality exemplified by Swe- 1 denborg, Lavater. Jacob Boehme and | by his own noble oountryman Johann Ruysbrock, to whom Maetertinck has given, not unjustly the title of Dr. Ec- staticus.
 Maeterlinck's cousin. who guided me the house, showed me the li- brary shelves upon which are crowded the different editions and translations ba,.'s IT ig in ntprnCf inp to know that the smallest number of editions was printed in France, that Eneland and America rank first, while Germany is slightly ahead of the coun- try in whose language the books were written.
 The smallest book Is his first work, of poems which he called Hot house Plants" very French in form and spirit disclosing but little original ity, and which, like many others who have achieved greatness, he wishes he had never printed. Tn 1889 he pub lished his first drama, Princess Ma Ieine," which, like all those that follow It, is wrapped in fatalistic gloom, the power of the over-simple action lyong in suggestions of coming peril. in fear of the impending something, be It life or death, and in displaying the sledge- hammer of destiny and holding ts victims under 1t.
 Only few times have his shadowy pictures passed over the stage, then disappeared forever for not even a German audience could stand having it's nerve strings pulled Or two hours almost to the breaking point, without being able to say to it. self, "why is this thus" Much of this ntense power is due to the phoenetic , means employed the repetition of words senseless and meaningless to the superficial reader, falling upon the ear ike heavy rhythmic raindrops before a storm, while wind and wave are ex- pressed by speech rather than by the rick machinery of the etage. Maeterlinck considers his next two { lramas his best; one of them is called S The Blind" the other "The Uncalled."