The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-28

and indefinabe emotions. Ihe latt , Richard Hovey's translation of his
 dramas will give the English reader
 fair idea of their mystic grandeur, put
 depending largely upon the power o1
 euphony as they do, much Of their mys'
 terious strength is lost.
 As formless as are his dramas are
 also his essays, in which peculiarly
 alone we would discover the dlsclp4e ol
 Emerson. "Out of one subject have
 grown two or three," he says; and
 was tempted to add, "Ad inf1n1tum.
 The step from the dramas. to the es-
 says was a step from sickness to health.
 In his Treasure of the Humble,'
 bok of 13 essays, one feels the health
 coming back. though somewhat slowly.
 On every page one feels the struggling
 desire of a great power to HOW pack
 into it's own soul, and then to express
 itself about the ineXpresslple.
 His eyes have not the vague look or
 the clairvoyant and spiritualist, but
 they seem to say, "We have seen," al-
 though the lips of this man cannot con-
 vey to you just what. Much more
 clearly these lips spoke in his last VOL
 ume of essays, "Wisdom and Destiny" /"
 Here he shows himself the victor over | the dark fatalism in which he was being engulfed, leaning much more closely on Emerson, whose optimism is good virus
 for sluggish spirit"
 Tt is not so far from Wisdom and | Destiny to The Life of the Bee as you think" this was said to me in Paris,
 where the author is now living an en-
 vironment detrimental to soul quiet and introspection. Here, where so many
 bees kiss the flowers without bringing
 home the honey, Maeterlinck has
 brought his queens' from their Iatllan domains, and surrounded them in true
 cosmopolitan style by courtters, work
 CTS and idlers from many lands. Every
 book written about the bee passed be- 1 fore him, and for the first time in ms riper years Maeterlinck saw the things 1 that are, and, with an unsuspected pa | tience, watched his bees day and night as they passed through the window into the flower market by the Made e ne and | back again with their load of sweetness. | Thus the dramatist and philosopher be- 1 came an atural scientist; and nowhere have these three characters been so ] beautifully blended as in this most de- 1 lightful book, in which the tragedy of ! the lowly life has received masterful | interpretation, the wisdom of the guid- l ing hand of God is so clearly seen and understood, and the minutest action of a multitude of insects Is so perfectly re- corded.
 Maeterlinck does not make the bee speak; you can always hear his own a1a ba hIy bia own eye, and his reflections are Ike prism -hashings here and there. was to discuss this book with the author. But there is nothing to discuss" he pleaded, so I was merciful to my vic tim, and looked upon his health -gl wing face and into h's deep, far-seeing eyes, feeling anew the "eloquence of silence" This I learned in that quiet moment that Maeterlinck's second sight has be- come clearer still, that his heart has grown quiet, that he sees order in the universe, and the whole world 'shot through with righteousness"
 One question l had come to ask-a question which, with its interro sation point. had stuck in my brain ever since I had read'his most impressive of all dramas "The Blind
 A host of despairing, stupefied men walk aimlessly through a forest. They are blind, shaken by the cold, and have lost their way; they want to return to the asylum and they call piteously af- ter their father and guide-an aged priest who had led them out and now has disappeared. Around them the ocean roars angrily, the storm is beat Ing about their heads, and snow, like funeral pall is falling about them.
 The priest is among them, but a corpse, and in their terror they cry, but no one answers. A dog Is among them, but he knows not the way: poet gath CTS flowers, and shares not their woe; at last the babe of an insane woman leads them by its cry. The significance of the drama was rightly guessed by 1 me.
 The Blind" is the symbol of a world | which has lost its ancient guide the | priest, and Is now wandering through | the forest of unfaith to the brink of the sea. Nothing can replace the lost guide; the animal instinct which is symbolized by the dog will lead them far astray, the poetic fancy will not reach the depth of woe; nothing can waken the dead priest. nothing can keep death from men and from institu- tions; but "a little child shall lead them' The question I had come all the way to Paris to ask was this: Mir did the child lead the blind back to the asylums?" The reply was unsatisfactory. Each man will answer that question according to his own faith. What is your answer?"
 No" I said; ''the child does not lead them back to the asylums, but it leads them to small and unquiet harbor, and upon large ship" And then?" And then they sal on toward the light" The poet smiled his approval of the answer, and the nameless disturber who had carried question across the Atlantic and then answered it himself passed on into deserved oblivion.-Ed- ward A. Steinert in The Outlook.