The New York herald., 1922-07-02
BY AMELIA v. ENDE.

fiuences that surround its
formative years indelibly impress
and mold its individuality. Years of
sojourn among alien surroundings
and the shifting panorama of foreign
travel may temporarily affect the
angle Of vision. but with a return to
the native soil the soul of the native
breaks through the layer of super
imposed concepts. In old strong
races, that have not migrated back
and forth and have for centuries
lived in country of limited extent,
the lives of artists and poets bear
out this statement.
Emile Verhaeren was the product
of such a race and such a country.
The scenes of his childhood and life
in the parental home gave him that
solid foundation upon which, his
character as man and as artist was
built. 1t gave him the strength
when he went out into the world to
struggle bravely with what was NOR
bid in the intellectual atmosphere Of
his time and. piloted him safely
through the sandbanks on which
mapy an artist soul of the so-called
century's end foundered.
The landscape on which the eyes
of the child opened was that of the
Escaut, which annually floods the
rich. wind swept meadows, dotted by
hamlets and towns, from the bel
frys of which one can see the dikes
and beyond the sea. A breath of brine,
mingled with the sweet fragrance
of hay. entered the boys lungs
and blood and made him ever yearn
for the open air and the open road
The family residence bespoke a GER
tain comfort and a degree of opulence
which gave it prominence in the
little town of Saint-Amand. The
father was a retired cloth merchant
formerly of Brussels. the uncle
owner of an oil refinery which
belched forth it's smoke in the neigh
borhood. The boy was carefully and
wisely reared by his mother and an
aunt, for whom he had a special
affection. A large garden. with old
trees, under which peacocks strutted
and with a pond, in which rare gold
fish glided through the luscious
foliage of water lilies, was his para
disc. But he was allowed freely to
roam through the town. make
friends with the people and bathe
and skate with the boys. At the
height of his fame he referred to
those boyhood games in the follow
ing lines:
Thus in the ardor of free and spon-
taneous play.
we thought of nothing. except the food
of joy
That seized our bodies like a welcome
prey
And marked them superbly
For life. ample and violent
This happy untrammeled exist
ence was followed by less sunny
years as boarding pupil in a Jesuit
school. Then he went to the College
Sainte Barbe. where his close friend
ship with Georges Rodenbach began;
later to Louvain. and finally to
Brussels.
No sensitive artist soul of that
period could withstand the wave Of
pessimism which swept over the
artist world in the eighties and
nineties. Verhaeren was no excep-
ton. His "F'lamandes." while L
tribute to the past of his race. sav
the present through the tempera-
ment of his generation and pre-
sented it with brutal frankness. His
"Moines" was a product of the re
ligious influences of his youth and
offered colorful pictures of the cathe-
drals, professions and pilgrimages of
his country. The life of Brussels, a
very hotbed of the social and spirit
ual unrest of the period. scared his
soul. Then came his sojourn in
England. where his interest was
divided between its stupendous COM
mercial and industrial life and the
art treasures of it's museums. The
wharves. warehouses and workshops
had a strange fascination for the