Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-17
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRACEFELL.

must possess qualities which will for
ever endanger it in the eyes of some
readers, and even cause 1t to pail upon
its devotees.
| 1t Is so of Maeterlinck.
| Here is perfection of its kind, renni-
niscent of Emerson, of whom the Bel
gian is great adnirer, yet totally de-
void of the jerkiness of thought which
characterized the typical essays of the
American sage.
| Yet this preciousness of style can be
tolerated only for a given time. We
have never known a reader who en-
! joyed reading Maeterlinck's essays all
the time. They are not for daily read
| ing. but for the exquisite hour.
Such an hour may come n youth,
and is most likely to. Young men, in
various stages of puppy love. find ire
mendous solace In THE Treasure of the
Humble This happens not because
they are in love. but precisely because
they find in these polished sentences a
perfection which they fain would seek
in love itself.
For one thing, the TRANSACTIONS into
English have been made with such con-
summate skill that Maeterlinck has taken
his proper place in our bookcases.
The English TRANSACTIONS retain the
| utter simplicity of diction which Is At
its best in the French in which the
essays were written.
He who reads THE Life of the Bee
'The Buried Temple" THE Measure
of the Hours" THE Double Garden
THE Great Secret" and Death" will
get as much from the translations as
any Frenchman could get from the
originals.
The singing quality is there, as any
one may find by reading such typical
bit of Maeterlinckiana as Our Friend
the Dog" in one of the books of essays
we have forgotten which one.
This particular essay, as most Of his
others, divides itself naturally into
phrases or lines, irrespective of the
sentence formation. This is a peculiar
| quality which, once noted, the reader
cannot escape from, and which will
remain in his mind as the one strik-
ing thing about these essays.
1t seems to us that such essays as
these were never more needed in the
world In a machine age there comes
| more anG more the urge to sensitive
| spirits to escape from the domina-
! ton OF the mechanical.
| One does not need to be hitched to
turning wheel by handouts, as some
| JdItSiy WoihCAc ACTUALLY aLC tto PACNCAA'
them from paying the penalty of their
own carsleSsneSS), nor Is 1t necessary
that he be 2 cog in some monStrous
mechanical process.
Every one feels the whir of the ma
chimes today. in greater or less pro-
portion as one is endowed or not ell
dowed with mental and physical SEN
sibilities. There is a naive belief on
the part OF many that because a noise
for instance, does not annoy them, il
cannot annoy any che.
Nothing could be further from the
truth. There are persons SO sensitive
to noises that slight sound; never no.
ticed by their more hardened neighborS
fairly bore their way into their ears
There are others so sensitive to odors
that they resemble cats and dogs, able
to detect .fragrances and their reverses
which ordinary people do not know
exist. why, I can't smell anything"
say these latter But who said they
could? They are not the criterions OF
earth, as they fondly imagine. they are
The essays of Maeterlinck, even more
than his curiously detached plays, are
meant for the true-blue sensitive ones
Of the world. whose joys are keener
just as their sorrows are more in
tense, than those of the great run OF
mortals. These essays lift, IL only for
few moments, the hard surface OF
life, and permit the intelligently curious
to peer in wonder and admiration Mt
what is beneath