The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-04-19

II YI0UootM<lOA0 VI b8o8ep s<<S~S.
matio form u, from . scribe standpoint,
amateurish. vet the unmistakable haiv Of
the born dramatist Ia present In tho
beginning Maeterlinck elected to mould
| moods; later on we shall see him moulder
Of r.en and women.
A thinker may view the visible universe
as a symbol. as the garment wherewith
the gods conceal themselves: this Goethe
did. Or this globe. upon the round OF which
move sorrowful creatures whirled through
space from an unthinkable past to an un.
thinkable future, may be apprehended
as a phantasmagoria, shot through with
misery, cage of dreams, q prison wherein
tho echoes Of what has been thought ana
done meet In cruel confluence within the
walls Of the human brain. All pessimstic
cosmogonists, poets, dramatists dwell, with
the obsession Of an idee hre upon TINS
scheme OF things terrestrial. And then
there is a De Maupassant. an eye. who photo
graphed the salient profles OF his fellow
beings; or Poe, who. suffering from an
incurable disease, felt the horror OF the
pulse-beat. the hideous drama OF mere
sentence. Charles Darwin, with pitilees
objectivity. displays q map OF life whereon
the struggle Is eternal-a struggle from
protoplasm to Over-Man (the latter only
an idea in q mad poets skull. Carlyle
thunders at the Sons OF Belial and we shrivel
up In the fiery furnace Of his eloquent wrath;
or John Henry Newman woos US to God
with beautiful. gentle speech. To every
man his illusion. Maeterlinck's is the
apprehension OF the helplessness OF man
kind. though not it's hopelessness. His
| optimism, the germ OF which Is In the
poems. has grown steadily with the years
And the tinge Of pessmism, Of morbidity.
in his earlier productions has vanished
in the dialectic Of his prose.
Maeterlinck first saw his drama as music
this Is a contradiction in terms, but It beat
expresses the meaning intended. As in
! music there Is ebb and flow. rhythmic pulse,
40 his little landscapes unron themselves
with iteration to the accompaniment OF
f, mournful voices. No dramatist. ancient
or modern. 80 depends upon vocal ti,nbrs
to embody his dreams as this one. In
reality his characters are voice or nothing.
From the deeps of haunted gardens come
these muffied voices, voices suifocated
by sorrow. poignant voices and sinister.
Allusion has been made to the Poe-like
machinery Of Maeterlinck; atmospere. 1t
Is only external. He works quite differ
entity from Poe and the decoration with it's
dreamy forests. skies lowering or resonant
with sunshine. parks and fountains, stretch
OF sea and dreary meats, IL but background
for his moods. He pushes much further
than Ibsen and Wagner the rhythmic cor
responsiveness Of man and his artistic en-
vironment. But the voice dominates his
drama. the voice human with all it's varied
intopations. its wealth OF subtle nrance.
1t would seem that to become an inter-
prefer OF Maeterlinck one should study
singing until artistry In achieved-then
only employ the speaking voice.
Instead OF the idea completely We
find in Browning. in Maeterlinck the single
motif IL elaborated He Is not polyphonic-
TO borrow a musical metaphor-but Mono
phonic. Where he is q psychologist Of
the most modern stamp lies In his per-
ception Of the fact that there Is no longer
an autonomous I, the human ego is an or
chestra of collective eoos. We, not I,
Is the burden Of our consciousness. Through
countless ages the vast chemistry Of the
Eternal retort has created a bubble. an
atom. which says ! to itself in daylight.
when looking In mirrors. but in the dark
Wnou tic hOirC VI 10 CC8rco uuCh
the becomes a multitudinous We. All
the head huns with repercussive memories
Of anterior existences. Some call II dream
ing; others nerve-memory; others again
recollection of life on another planet.
And all are right, We are made Of dreams,
and the star and the millet seed are kin.
Other dramatists have limited this pan
theism before Maeterlinck. Shakespeare
ILL -kA.x L.
penned his incompatible Brand and
peer Gynt.' But the younger man makes
formula Of the idea. His In the dramaturgy
Of the sub-conscious. His people say
things and thereby reveal their multiple
personalities. even the color Of their souls.
Here then Ia the symbolist. To put the
case more clearly let Aine Gorren be quoted,
a writer who Is imbued by the sombre
beauty OF symbolic ideas.
your documents. details. verified facts
are precisely the least worth considering
says. in effect, the Symbolist. They are
appearances: impalpable shadows Of clouds.
Nothing ye think to see Ia what It seems
Nothing outside Of our represen tation
exists. All visibilities are symbols. Our
business Is to find out what these symbols
are. Any book that does not directly
concern ltSeu WIN the minus COnC0oieO
beneath the diversified masks and aspects
OF matter IL q house built out Of a boys
toy blocks. Science. after promising moro
things than 1t could fulfil. has many hypoth-
eses just now that float about one central
idea.-the existence Of one essence, infinite
In moods. by reference to which alone.
anything whatsoever can be understood.
Thoss Of our creed only and solely have q
philos> ,,hio basis for their art
Baudelaire once said: An nature Ia q
temple. filed with living pillars. and the
pillars have tongues and speak in confused
words. and man walks as through forest
of countless numbers" And Emil YER
haeren. Belgian mystic, Anarchist. poet.
sings Of The Forest Of Numbers In his
hate-saturated chants, Les Flambeaux
Noirs.'
-Je. suis rhallucins do Ia foret des Nom
bres.'
And was not the greatest mystic Of all
one who saw the image In the fiery bush.
one who sin the midway Of this our
mortal life" found himself in gloomy wood
astray-was not Dante a supreme SYM
bolist? Nfe for q man Of Maeternnck's
temperament IL ever forest OF numben';