The San Angelo press. (San Angelo, Tex.) 1897-1907, 1905-07-13
Is the World of
Today Growing
Less MateriaHstic
By Maurice MaeterIinck

We live i'll century that loves
the material, but, while loving it,
conquers it, masters 1t, and with
more passion than any preceding
period has shown; in century
that would seem consumed with
desire to comprehend matter, to
penetrate, enslave it. possess 1T
once and for all-with the wish,
perhaps, to lay bare its last
secret, search it's every resource,
so as to free the future from the
restless search for u happiness
there once seemed a reason to be-
lieve that matter contained.
So, in like fashion, is it neces-
sary first t. have known the love
of the flesh tefore veritable love
can reveal its deep and unchang-
ing purity.
A serious reaction will prob
ably rise, some day, against this
passion for material enjoyment
but man will never be wholly
free.
Nor would the attempt be wise.
We are, after all, only fragments
of animate matter, and 1T would
not be well to lose sight of the
starting point of our race.
And yet is it right that this
starting point should inclose III
its narrow circumference all our
wishes, all our happiness, the
sum of all our desires?
In our passage through life we
meet scarcely any one who does
not persist, with kind of unrea-
soning obstinacy, III throning
the material within themselves
and there maintaining it SUI
preme.
Gather together a number of
men and women, all of them free
from life's more depressing
cares-an assembly of the elect,
if you willard pronounce be-
fore them the words "beauti-
tude" Happiness" Joy" "feli-
CITY," ideal" Imagine that an
angel at that very instant were
to seize and retain, in magic
mirror, or miraculous basket, the
images these words would produce
in the souls that should bear
them.
What would you see in the
basket or mirror? The embrace
of beautiful bodies, gold, pre-
cious stones, palace, large
park, the philter of youth.
strange jewels representing van
ity's dreams, and far above all
would be sumptous repasts, noble
wines, glittering tables, splendid
apartments
Is humanity still too near it's
beginning to conceive other
things? Has the hour not yet ar
rived when we might have reason
ably hoped that the mirror would
reflect II powerful, disinterested
intellect, u conscience at rest,
just and loving heart, a percep-
tion, a vision, capable of detect
ing absorbing beauty wherever it
be-the beauty of evening, of
cities, of forests and seas, no less
than Of face, of a word or a smile,
an action or movement of soul.
When shall we find instead of
the morbid, unnatural excite
ment produced by too copious OPP
pressive repasts, by stimulants
that are the insldious agents of
the very enemy we seek to de-
stroy-when shall we find in
their place the contained and de-
liberate gladness of spirt that
is forever exalted because it for
ever is seeking to understand and
to love?
These things have long been.
known and their repetition may
well seem of little avail. And
yet we need but have been twice
or thrice in the company of those
who stand for what is best in
mankind, most intellectually,
sentiently human, to realize how
uncertain and grasping their
search is still for the happier
things of life, to marvel at the
resemblance the unconscious hap
piness they look for bears to the
happiness craved by the man who
has no spiritual existence, to note
how Opaque, to their eyes, is the
cloud which separates all that
pertains TO the being who rises
from all that is his who descends.
Some will say that the hour is
not yet when man can thus make
clear division between the part of
! the spirit and that of the flesh.
But when shall that hour be
looked for, if those for whom 1t