The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-04-01
them bread and water, has suddenly died

tnem Dread ana water, has suddenly died
sitting near them on a stone.
Maeterlinck, with his Wisdom and
Destiny and his Life of the Bee,"
caused the detractors who had called him
degenerate to apologize. For the first
time he revealed that he had been bee
keeper for twenty years. With poets
imagination and a poets diction he pre-
scented the bee to the world. -
His idea of the queen bees wedding Is
interesting enough to quote: =
"She scars to height, a luminous zone,
that other bees attain at no period OF
their life. ;. She, drunk with her,
wings, obeying magnificent law OF the
race that chooses her lover, and enacts
that the strongest alone shall attain in
the solitude of the other, she rises still.
re The feeble, intirm, the aged,
unwelcome, ill-fed, who have flown from
inactive or impoverished cities-tnese re-
nounce the pursuit and disappear in the
void. Only small, indefatigable clus-
ter remains suspended in infinite opal.
/ She summons her wings for one final eff
fort, and now the chosen of incompre-
hensfble forces has reached her, has
seized her, and, bounding aloft with
united impetus, the ascending spiral Of
their intertwined fight whirls for one
second in the hostile madness of love-
Hope of Friends.
In spite of his detractors there is alb
solutely nothing Of the decadent about
Maeterlinck's appearance. He Is tall and
vigorous, with fine blue eyes, full of ex-
preston; his hair he wears trimmed In
the latest French fashion; he has a heavy
mustache, which he has carefully curled
at the ends. showing in that and in his
clothes that he does not hold the admira-
ton Of the public in contempt.
q rl11A is axtrpma1y rI1iat A
stranger calling upon him said: "The
first moments spent in his company are
distressing. They are broken by long and
agonizing pauses during which Maeter-
linck stares abstractedly out into space,
and his visitor falls to wondering If the
silence Is not symbolic hint that the
time has come to take his hat and be off.
He has the air Of having forgotten that
you are in the room, but actually he is
wildly conscious of your presence and is
thinking what to say next
His admirers say that ''he must let his
ideas ripen before he formulates them in
order to retain only those which are
worth ut tering.'
When Maeterlinck travels he carries
about with him representations of the
ideal woman Of the English painter,
Leblanc, in her ripe maturity, tall and
blond, dressing always in towering drap-
cry, recalls them wildly
OF late Maeterlinck has been heard fire.
quently to discuss the regeneration Of the
Species "A movement is on foot" he
said, just before his engagement was an
nounced, (which only the blind refuse to
see The soul is beginning to reveal it.
self, as well as everyt hing that depends
on 1t. We are beginning to understand
that there is something higher and more
Important than mere vulgar existence.
The only true philosophy is that
transcendant philosophy which is direct
~ concerned with the relation Of one soul
to another, and has absolutely no rela-
ton with elementary philosophy whose
reign, thank God, is rapidly passing
away It is such thoughts as these ut
tered recently by Maeterlinck that have
left people unprepared for his choice of
wife. 1t seems unsuitable that he should
marry Georgette Leblanc. It is predicted
that, having won her, he may tire of
her.
He said once: 81 like my pieces only
before I begin to write them; love them
only while I am carrying them in my
hand. Yet never give I'D the
chase till the game is brought to bag"
In these words the friends of Maeter
linek have placed their hopes. They be-
lieve that possibly his infatuatton for
Geofgette Leblanc will die when the game
is bagged.