Maeterlinck. 1 5 



the development of Maeterlinck. In both the most striking 

 feature was a skilful gradation of terror which showed the closest 

 observation of life. In those plays men did not struggle and 

 triumph over fate. They were poor human beings who only knew 

 how to suffer, smile, and love, and death which came to shatter 

 the fragile happiness of mankind, appeared in all its brutality. It 

 was thus that the philosophy of Maeterlinck, during the first 

 period, could be summed up. The " Tresor des Humbles" ap- 

 peared in 1896. In that work was to be found the same some- 

 what deceptive simplicity that was so noticeable in " Les 

 Chansons." It showed very strikingly the influence of Emerson. 

 " Aglavaine et Selysette " was a song of mystic love. The fear of 

 life and death which filled the early dramas had now given way to 

 a feeling of placid calm and serenity. Henceforward the work of 

 Maeterlinck became a song of confidence and love. He appeared 

 to display a sort of trust in the goodness of things. The poet 

 taught them that it was wise to think and act as if everything that 

 happened to humanity was unavoidable. The nobler and higher 

 were their thoughts the less did misfortune and grief have a hold 

 over them. There was no inevitable drama in their existence. 

 It was only the weakness and ignorance of men that made them 

 consider evil as a fatality. It was in the struggle against obstacles 

 that man's greatness was revealed. Those ideas were brought out 

 with great clearness in " Sagesse et Destinee." But the poet had 

 still a great task to accomplish. His somewhat too individualistic 

 idealism had to give way to a more social morality. The egotism 

 of " Sagesse et Destinee " yielded to the conception of solidarity 

 contained in " La Vie des Abeilles." " La Vie des Abeilles " was 

 a work full of emotion, and sometimes of an almost religious rever- 

 ence for the bees. Those little people who fed on warmth and light 

 and all that was purest in nature called their attention to the joy of 

 June. They were the very soul of summer, and their flight was the 

 visible sign of the innumerable little joys which the warmth and the 

 light bring us. The admirable devotion of the bees to the common 



