New-York tribune., 1920-01-10

Sllence. lHey answer uOt.
The web of life is woven Of con-
tingency and necessity, and the in
evitable and the unknown ambuscade
US at every turn. This endless willing,
this eternal upswirl of souls from the
abysms of nonbeing into the glare
Of a frowsy day; this ceaseless re-
galvanizing of corpses; these ambling,
jigging mummies that are tossed from
Eternity into Time and from Time
back into Eternity; these sweating
packmules saddled with the rubbish II
decayed cycles and ancient durations;
these crumbling tabernacles of clay,
some demons, striated with their sins;
some saints, dragging ball and chain Of
ancestral crime up the steep Cordil
leras of aspiration; young gods with
unexpected wings, .predestined for
Walhalla, toiling in the galleys Of this
cutters that rut their imaginations;
and never an end--the same, the same
and ever the same-how shall we fend
ourselves 'gainst this "wreckful siege"?
asks Maeterlinck.
1t is in his soul that he has found
the refuge against the world of cir
cumstances The problem is individual.
Social schemes for the regeneration of
mankind only aggravate the disease
from which mankind is suffering. The
deep-rooted ills Of the soul cannot be
cured by a poultice. 1--WE suffer little
from sufferngs itself; but from the
manner wherein we accept it over
W helmng sorrow may spring" This is
attitude is everything. The gale that
wrecks the sneak-box fills the sails of
the barkentine and drives her toward
her goal. The trfles of the day un-
nerve most of us. The wise man quiet
ly ignores them. Suffering is one-half
self-love and one-half hallucination.
Hallucination is the normal state of
man. He makes up his mind in youth
to whimper, and whimper he does to
the end of his days. 1t is the future
that affrights him; he puts into hypo-
thetlcal to-morrow all the ills that flesh
is not heir to. From the murk of his
dreams he weaves strange and lurid
imps of evil. What is this future we
fear? Is is anything but psychic
jack O. lantern? The future is the
avatar of the past, yesterday resur-
rected and expanded, Old Time with
visor on his cap to hide his idenity.
For the seer there is only an eternal
Present that canopies both the past
and the future. What didn't happen
yesterday never can happen. What is
not feared never comes. He drains the
minutes OF their contents as they pass.
ne substitutes the abstract for the con-
crete and FLASHES in generalizations.
can hold him. He knows that. like
Faust, he will be lost if he bid anv
one thing stay.
=, Inc vision Of Maeterlinck is cosmic.
He does not contend against evil: hc
REJECTS 1t by accepting it. He lives
above the stews. From his citadel Of
spiritual power he sends forth his doves
and they come back laden with precious
secrets. His soul PAGES the ramparts
OF OF, I1me and Space. He will partake of
an things. but nothing shall claim him
he is receptive, but unallied. There is
IN the soul of each of us, Maeterlincj,
o'!s US, rcpellent center, a magic
name round which the moths of A.
constance. circle only to SINCE their
wings or be consumed. Gusty change
put flngs the fire that burns in the
challce of the soul further and further
INTO the encircling gloom. The wise
lhan STANDS upon the marge of the
great ocean of life and fixes his gaze
UPON the tumbling, seethinr. undulat.
ing waters that stretch awav to an
lllusive horizon. His ear catches th.
hoarse calllngs of expectancy and the
deep gutturas of defeat, and at his
teet there circle and surge the wrack
OF an endless, futile labor. He is not
disturbed He sees, as no man sees
tnc tragedy, the comedy, the nutility
or 1t all. Darkness he sublimes to
l,snt' despair nc transmutes into q
store store defiance. The average person sees
from an angle of personality. The sage
| sees from an impersonal center. This
world will fawn at his feet when he
calls. "0
In the august and significant silences
OF the soul, says Maeterlinck. is born
the wisdom that battles destiny. Phys-
zeal pain must cover before the eman-
c;ipated mind. Was it not Socrates who
dlscoursed on immortality while he was
stiffening in death? Did not Epicurus
IN his mortal agony preach the sum-
mum bonum to his disciples? These
silent refugees that disease and death
stormed IN vain were wrought out in
the spirit-sweat of cloistral hours: IL Is
mere, IN these darkling recesses of the
soul. in the encelled silences, that the
real work Of freedom is done; it is here
That rest is won from the dangerous
days, and the balm that was not in
Gilead is found
We reach these uplands Of the spirit
by infinite petty exertions, by THREAD.
ing our way through the labyrinthine
passes OF whim and impulse. All things
consplre against the Individual. There
is Nemesis that seeks continually to
level us to the mediocre. Those sn-
cients, the Vulgar and the Familiar.
would scythe us to their own stand
ards. We are kneaded in the common
mage, and our days are gross. We are
relics of the dead. effigies of the past,
playthlngs of ancestral tendency. All
things pay tribute to the sheeted.
siumbering dead. Yet there is within
us the spark that will not be snuffed
out: 1t Is the l, the resistant center.
thefundylng defiant. It is by .develop
ing the Ego, by an insstent coddling
or Me, that we attain to a sort Of
buddhahood. The adolescent Homun
culus OF Faust was Maeterlincks over
man IN the ovum. The Infinite is hid
den IN an atom, and the freeman lies
s'liescent in the slave. Housed and
kenneled in our brains there is a cos
mic Self, greater, grander. universal
Self, distinct and other than the hal
iucinated mlcrocosm that skulks and
Of life. ~"''
Maeterlinck gives us no coward,s
message. Flight is not self-mastery.
and the world cannot be subdued to
the individuals will by stunning it's
piows. We master fate as the Japanese
wrestler bests his opponent--by giving
way at every point. We should not
battle; we should absorb. There ia NO
way yet found of escaping the ills Of
NE. The world is counsel Of imper-
lection. The trammel md khn hnrd