Ben Jonson - "Volpone; Or, The Fox"

Ambrose Bierce - "A Son of the Gods and A Horseman in the Sky"

George Barr McCutcheon - "Viola Gwyn"

William Shakespeare - "The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice"

Wisdom And Destiny

M >> Maurice Maeterlinck >> Wisdom And Destiny



Produced by Steve Harris, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.




WISDOM AND DESTINY

By MAURICE MAETERLINCK

Translated by ALFRED SUTRO



TO GEORGETTE LEBLANC OFFER THIS BOOK, WHEREIN HER THOUGHT BLENDS
WITH MINE



INTRODUCTION

This essay on Wisdom and Destiny was to have been a thing of some
twenty pages, the work of a fortnight; but the idea took root,
others flocked to it, and the volume has occupied M. Maeterlinck
continuously for more than two years. It has much essential kinship
with the "Treasure of the Humble," though it differs therefrom in
treatment; for whereas the earlier work might perhaps be described
as the eager speculation of a poet athirst for beauty, we have here
rather the endeavour of an earnest thinker to discover the abode of
truth. And if the result of his thought be that truth and happiness
are one, this was by no means the object wherewith he set forth.
Here he is no longer content with exquisite visions, alluring or
haunting images; he probes into the soul of man and lays bare all
his joys and his sorrows. It is as though he had forsaken the canals
he loves so well--the green, calm, motionless canals that faithfully
mirror the silent trees and moss-covered roofs--and had adventured
boldly, unhesitatingly, on the broad river of life.

He describes this book himself, in a kind of introduction that is
almost an apology, as "a few interrupted thoughts that entwine
themselves, with more or less system, around two or three subjects."
He declares that there is nothing it undertakes to prove; that there
are none whose mission it is to convince. And so true is this, so
absolutely honest and sincere is the writer, that he does not shrink
from attacking, qualifying, modifying, his own propositions; from
advancing, and insisting on, every objection that flits across his
brain; and if such proposition survive the onslaught of its
adversaries, it is only because, in the deepest of him, he holds it
for absolute truth. For this book is indeed a confession, a naive,
outspoken, unflinching description of all that passes in his mind;
and even those who like not his theories still must admit that this
mind is strangely beautiful.

There have been many columns filled--and doubtless will be again--
with ingenious and scholarly attempts to place a definitive label on
M. Maeterlinck, and his talent; to trace his thoughts to their
origin, clearly denoting the authors by whom he has been influenced;
in a measure to predict his future, and accurately to establish the
place that he fills in the hierarchy of genius. With all this I feel
that I have no concern. Such speculations doubtless have their use
and serve their purpose. I shall be content if I can impress upon
those who may read these lines, that in this book the man is
himself, of untrammelled thought; a man possessed of the rare
faculty of seeing beauty in all things, and, above all, in truth; of
the still rarer faculty of loving all things, and, above all, life.

Nor is this merely a vague and, at bottom, a more or less
meaningless statement. For, indeed, considering this essay only,
that deals with wisdom and destiny, at the root of it--its
fundamental principle, its guiding, inspiring thought--is love.
"Nothing is contemptible in this world save only scorn," he says;
and for the humble, the foolish, nay, even the wicked, he has the
same love, almost the same admiration, as for the sage, the saint,
or the hero. Everything that exists fills him with wonder, because
of its existence, and of the mysterious force that is in it; and to
him love and wisdom are one, "joining hands in a circle of light."
For the wisdom that holds aloof from mankind, that deems itself a
thing apart, select, superior, he has scant sympathy--it has
"wandered too far from the watchfires of the tribe." But the wisdom
that is human, that feeds constantly on the desires, the feelings,
the hopes and the fears of man, must needs have love ever by its
side; and these two, marching together, must inevitably find
themselves, sooner or later, on the ways that lead to goodness.
"There comes a moment in life," he says, "when moral beauty seems
more urgent, more penetrating, than intellectual beauty; when all
that the mind has treasured must be bathed in the greatness of soul,
lest it perish in the sandy desert, forlorn as the river that seeks
in vain for the sea." But for unnecessary self-sacrifice,
renouncement, abandonment of earthly joys, and all such "parasitic
virtues," he has no commendation or approval; feeling that man was
created to be happy, and that he is not wise who voluntarily
discards a happiness to-day for fear lest it be taken from him on
the morrow. "Let us wait till the hour of sacrifice sounds--till
then, each man to his work. The hour will sound at last--let us not
waste our time in seeking it on the dial of life."

In this book, morality, conduct, life are Surveyed from every point
of the compass, but from an eminence always. Austerity holds no
place in his philosophy; he finds room even "for the hours that
babble aloud in their wantonness." But all those who follow him are
led by smiling wisdom to the heights where happiness sits enthroned
between goodness and love, where virtue rewards itself in the
"silence that is the walled garden of its happiness."

It is strange to turn from this essay to Serres Chaudes and La
Princesse Maleine, M. Maeterlinck's earliest efforts--the one a
collection of vague images woven into poetical form, charming,
dreamy, and almost meaningless; the other a youthful and very
remarkable effort at imitation. In the plays that followed the
Princesse Maleine there was the same curious, wandering sense of,
and search for, a vague and mystic beauty: "That fair beauty which
no eye can see, Of that sweet music which no ear can measure." In a
little poem of his, Et s'il revenait, the last words of a dying
girl, forsaken by her lover, who is asked by her sister what shall
be told to the faithless one, should he ever seek to know of her
last hours:

"Et s'il m'interroge encore
Sur la derniere heure?--

Dites lui que j'ai souri
De peur qu'il ne pleure ..."

touch, perhaps, the very high-water mark of exquisite simplicity and
tenderness blent with matchless beauty of expression. Pelleas et
Melisande was the culminating point of this, his first, period--a
simple, pathetic love-story of boy and girl--love that was pure and
almost passionless. It was followed by three little plays--"for
marionettes," he describes them on the title-page; among them being
La Mort de Tintagiles, the play he himself prefers of all that he
has written. And then came a curious change: he wrote Aglavaine et
Selysette. The setting is familiar to us; the sea-shore, the ruined
tower, the seat by the well; no less than the old grandmother and
little Yssaline. But Aglavaine herself is strange: this woman who
has lived and suffered; this queenly, majestic creature, calmly
conscious of her beauty and her power; she whose overpowering,
overwhelming love is yet deliberate and thoughtful. The complexities
of real life are vaguely hinted at here: instead of Golaud, the
mediaeval, tyrannous husband, we have Selysette, the meek, self-
sacrificing wife; instead of the instinctive, unconscious love of
Pelleas and Melisande, we have great burning passion. But this play,
too, was only a stepping-stone--a link between the old method and
the new that is to follow. For there will probably be no more plays
like Pelleas et Melisande, or even like Aglavaine et Selysette. Real
men and women, real problems and disturbance of life--it is these
that absorb him now. His next play will doubtless deal with a
psychology more actual, in an atmosphere less romantic; and the old
familiar scene of wood, and garden, and palace corridor will be
exchanged for the habitual abode of men.

I have said it was real life that absorbed him now, and yet am I
aware that what seems real to him must still appear vague and
visionary to many. It is, however, only a question of shifting one's
point of view, or, better still, of enlarging it. Material success
in life, fame, wealth--these things M. Maeterlinck passes
indifferently by. There are certain ideals that are dear to many on
which he looks with the vague wonder of a child. The happiness of
which he dreams is an inward happiness, and within reach of
successful and unsuccessful alike. And so it may well be that those
content to buffet with their fellows for what are looked on as the
prizes of this world, will still write him down a mere visionary,
and fail to comprehend him. The materialist who complacently defines
the soul as the "intellect plus the emotions," will doubtless turn
away in disgust from M. Maeterlinck's constant references to it as
the seat of something mighty, mysterious, inexhaustible in life. So,
too, may the rigid follower of positive religion, to whom the Deity
is a power concerned only with the judgment, reward, and punishment
of men, protest at his saying that "God, who must be at least as
high as the highest thoughts He has implanted in the best of men,
will withhold His smile from those whose sole desire has been to
please Him; and they only who have done good for sake of good, and
as though He existed not; they only who have loved virtue more than
they loved God Himself, shall be allowed to stand by His side." But,
after all, the genuine seeker after truth knows that what seemed
true yesterday is to-day discovered to be only a milestone on the
road; and all who value truth will be glad to listen to a man who,
differing from them perhaps, yet tells them what seems true to him.
And whereas in the "Treasure of the Humble" he looked on life
through a veil of poetry and dream, here he stands among his fellow-
men, no longer trying to "express the inexpressible," but, in all
simplicity, to tell them what he sees.

"Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself
an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy
and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest
heights of our soul." This thought lies at the root of his whole
philosophy--goodness, happiness, love, supporting each other,
intertwined, rewarding each other. "Let us not think virtue will
crumble, though God Himself seem unjust. Where could the virtue of
man find more everlasting foundation than in the seeming injustice
of God?" Strange that the man who has written these words should
have spent all his school life at a Jesuit college, subjected to its
severe, semi-monastic discipline; compelled, at the end of his stay,
to go, with the rest of his fellows, through the customary period of
"retreat," lasting ten days, when the most eloquent of the fathers
would, one after the other, deliver sermons terrific to boyish
imagination, sermons whose unvarying burden was Hell and the wrath
of God--to be avoided only by becoming a Jesuit priest. Out of the
eighteen boys in the "rhetorique" class, eleven eagerly embraced
this chance of escape from damnation. As for M. Maeterlinck himself-
-fortunately a day-boarder only--one can fancy him wandering home at
night, along the canal banks, in the silence broken only by the
pealing of church bells, brooding over these mysteries ... but how
long a road must the man have travelled who, having been taught the
God of Fra Angelico, himself arrives at the conception of a "God who
sits smiling on a mountain, and to whom our gravest offences are
only as the naughtiness of puppies playing on the hearth-rug."

His environment, no less than his schooling, helped to give a mystic
tinge to his mind. The peasants who dwelt around his father's house
always possessed a peculiar fascination for him; he would watch them
as they sat by their doorway, squatting on their heels, as their
custom is--grave, monotonous, motionless, the smoke from their pipes
almost the sole sign of life. For the Flemish peasant is a strangely
inert creature, his work once done--as languid and lethargic as the
canal that passes by his door. There was one cottage into which the
boy would often peep on his way home from school, the home of seven
brothers and one sister, all old, toothless, worn--working together
in the daytime at their tiny farm; at night sitting in the gloomy
kitchen, lit by one smoky lamp--all looking straight before them,
saying not a word; or when, at rare intervals, a remark was made,
taking it up each in turn and solemnly repeating it, with perhaps
the slightest variation in form. It was amidst influences such as
these that his boyhood was passed, almost isolated from the world,
brooding over lives of saints and mystics at the same time that he
studied, and delighted in, Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, Goethe
and Heine. For his taste has been catholic always; he admires
Meredith as he admires Dickens, Hello and Pascal no less than
Schopenhauer. And it is this catholicity, this open mind, this eager
search for truth, that have enabled him to emerge from the mysticism
that once enwrapped him to the clearer daylight of actual existence;
it is this faculty of admiring all that is admirable in man and in
life that some day, perhaps, may take him very far.

It will surprise many who picture him as a mere dreamy decadent, to
be told that he is a man of abiding and abundant cheerfulness, who
finds happiness in the simplest of things. The scent of a flower,
the flight of sea-gulls around a cliff, a cornfield in sunshine--
these stir him to strange delight. A deed of bravery, nobility, or
of simple devotion; a mere brotherly act of kindness, the
unconscious sacrifice of the peasant who toils all day to feed and
clothe his children--these awake his warm and instant sympathy. And
with him, too, it is as with De Quincey when he says, "At no time of
my life have I been a person to hold myself polluted by the touch or
approach of any creature that wore a human shape"; and more than one
unhappy outcast, condemned by the stern law of man, has been
gladdened by his ready greeting and welcome. But, indeed, all this
may be read of in his book--I desired but to make it clear that the
book is truly a faithful mirror of the man's own thoughts, and
feelings, and actions. It is a book that many will love--all those
who suffer, for it will lighten their suffering; all those who love,
for it will teach them to love more deeply. It is a book with its
faults, doubtless, as every book must be; but it has been written
straight from the heart, and will go to the heart of many ...

Alfred Sutro




WISDOM AND DESTINY

1. In this book there will often be mention of wisdom and destiny,
of happiness, justice, and love. There may seem to be some measure
of irony in thus calling forth an intangible happiness where so much
real sorrow prevails; a justice that may well be ideal in the bosom
of an injustice, alas! only too material; a love that eludes the
grasp in the midst of palpable hatred and callousness. The moment
may seem but ill-chosen for leisurely search, in the hidden recess
of man's heart, for motives of peace and tranquillity; occasions for
gladness, uplifting, and love; reasons for wonder and gratitude--
seeing that the vast bulk of mankind, in whose name we would fain
lift our voice, have not even the time or assurance to drain to the
dregs the misery and desolation of life. Not to them is it given to
linger over the inward rejoicing, the profound consolation, that the
satisfied thinker has slowly and painfully acquired, that he knows
how to prize. Thus has it often been urged against moralists, among
them Epictetus, that they were apt to concern themselves with none
but the wise alone. In this reproach is some truth, as some truth
there must be in every reproach that is made. And indeed, if we had
only the courage to listen to the simplest, the nearest, most
pressing voice of our conscience, and be deaf to all else, it were
doubtless our solitary duty to relieve the suffering about us to the
greatest extent in our power. It were incumbent upon us to visit and
nurse the poor, to console the afflicted; to found model factories,
surgeries, dispensaries, or at least to devote ourselves, as men of
science do, to wresting from nature the material secrets which are
most essential to man. But yet, were the world at a given moment to
contain only persons thus actively engaged in helping each other,
and none venturesome enough to dare snatch leisure for research in
other directions, then could this charitable labour not long endure;
for all that is best in the good that at this day is being done
round about us, was conceived in the spirit of one of those who
neglected, it may be, many an urgent, immediate duty in order to
think, to commune with themselves, in order to speak. Does it follow
that they did the best that was to be done? To such a question as
this who shall dare to reply? The soul that is meekly honest must
ever consider the simplest, the nearest duty to be the best of all
things it can do; but yet were there cause for regret had all men
for all time restricted themselves to the duty that lay nearest at
hand. In each generation some men have existed who held in all
loyalty that they fulfilled the duties of the passing hour by
pondering on those of the hour to come. Most thinkers will say that
these men were right. It is well that the thinker should give his
thoughts to the world, though it must be admitted that wisdom
befinds itself sometimes in the reverse of the sage's pronouncement.
This matters but little, however; for, without such pronouncement,
the wisdom had not stood revealed; and the sage has accomplished his
duty.

2. To-day misery is the disease of mankind, as disease is the
misery of man. And even as there are physicians for disease, so
should there be physicians for human misery. But can the fact that
disease is, unhappily, only too prevalent, render it wrong for us
ever to speak of health? which were indeed as though, in anatomy--
the physical science that has most in common with morals--the
teacher confined himself exclusively to the study of the deformities
that greater or lesser degeneration will induce in the organs of
man. We have surely the right to demand that his theories be based
on the healthy and vigorous body; as we have also the right to
demand that the moralist, who fain would see beyond the present
hour, should take as his standard the soul that is happy, or that at
least possesses every element of happiness, save only the necessary
consciousness.

We live in the bosom of great injustice; but there can be, I
imagine, neither cruelty nor callousness in our speaking, at times,
as though this injustice had ended, else should we never emerge from
our circle.

It is imperative that there should be some who dare speak, and
think, and act as though all men were happy; for otherwise, when the
day comes for destiny to throw open to all the people's garden of
the promised land, what happiness shall the others find there, what
justice, what beauty or love? It may be urged, it is true, that it
were best, first of all, to consider the most pressing needs, yet is
this not always wisest; it is often of better avail from the start
to seek that which is highest. When the waters beleaguer the home of
the peasant in Holland, the sea or the neighbouring river having
swept down the dyke that protected the country, most pressing is it
then for the peasant to safeguard his cattle, his grain, his
effects; but wisest to fly to the top of the dyke, summoning those
who live with him, and from thence meet the flood, and do battle.
Humanity up to this day has been like an invalid tossing and turning
on his couch in search of repose; but therefore none the less have
words of true consolation come only from those who spoke as though
man were freed from all pain. For, as man was created for health, so
was mankind created for happiness; and to speak of its misery only,
though that misery be everywhere and seem everlasting, is only to
say words that fall lightly and soon are forgotten. Why not speak as
though mankind were always on the eve of great certitude, of great
joy? Thither, in truth, is man led by his instinct, though he never
may live to behold the long-wished-for to-morrow. It is well to
believe that there needs but a little more thought, a little more
courage, more love, more devotion to life, a little more eagerness,
one day to fling open wide the portals of joy and of truth. And this
thing may still come to pass. Let us hope that one day all mankind
will be happy and wise; and though this day never should dawn, to
have hoped for it cannot be wrong. And in any event, it is helpful
to speak of happiness to those who are sad, that thus at least they
may learn what it is that happiness means. They are ever inclined to
regard it as something beyond them, extraordinary, out of their
reach. But if all who may count themselves happy were to tell, very
simply, what it was that brought happiness to them, the others would
see that between sorrow and joy the difference is but as between a
gladsome, enlightened acceptance of life and a hostile, gloomy
submission; between a large and harmonious conception of life, and
one that is stubborn and narrow. "Is that all?" the unhappy would
cry. "But we too have within us, then, the elements of this
happiness." Surely you have them within you! There lives not a man
but has them, those only excepted upon whom great physical calamity
has fallen. But speak not lightly of this happiness. There is no
other. He is the happiest man who best understands his happiness;
for he is of all men most fully aware that it is only the lofty
idea, the untiring, courageous, human idea, that separates gladness
from sorrow. Of this idea it is helpful to speak, and as often as
may be; not with the view of imposing our own idea upon others, but
in order that they who may listen shall, little by little, conceive
the desire to possess an idea of their own. For in no two men is it
the same. The one that you cherish may well bring no comfort to me;
nor shall all your eloquence touch the hidden springs of my life.
Needs must I acquire my own, in myself, by myself; but you
unconsciously make this the easier for me, by telling of the idea
that is yours. It may happen that I shall find solace in that which
brings sorrow to you, and that which to you speaks of gladness may
be fraught with affliction for me. But no matter; into my grief will
enter all that you saw of beauty and comfort, and into my joy there
will pass all that was great in your sadness, if indeed my joy be on
the same plane as your sadness. It behoves us, the first thing of
all, to prepare in our soul a place of some loftiness, where this
idea may be lodged; as the priests of ancient religions laid the
mountain peak bare, and cleared it of thorn and of root for the fire
to descend from heaven. There may come to us any day, from the
depths of the planet Mars, the infallible formula of happiness,
conveyed in the final truth as to the aim and the government of the
universe. Such a formula could only bring change or advancement unto
our spiritual life in the degree of the desire and expectation of
advancement in which we might long have been living. The formula
would be the same for all men, yet would each one benefit only in
the proportion of the eagerness, purity, unselfishness, knowledge,
that he had stored up in his soul. All morality, all study of
justice and happiness, should truly be no more than preparation,
provision on the vastest scale--a way of gaining experience, a
stepping-stone laid down for what is to follow. Surely, desirable
day of all days were the one when at last we should live in absolute
truth, in immovable logical certitude; but in the meantime it is
given us to live in a truth more important still, the truth of our
soul and our character; and some wise men have proved that this life
can be lived in the midst of gravest material errors.

3. Is it idle to speak of justice, happiness, morals, and all
things connected therewith, before the hour of science has sounded--
that definitive hour, wherein all that we cling to may crumble? The
darkness that hangs over our life will then, it may be, pass away;
and much that we do in the darkness shall be otherwise done in the
light. But nevertheless do the essential events of our moral and
physical life come to pass in the darkness as completely, as
inevitably, as they would in the light, Our life must be lived while
we wait for the word that shall solve the enigma, and the happier,
the nobler our life, the more vigorous shall it become; and we shall
have the more courage, clear-sightedness, boldness, to seek and
desire the truth. And happen what may, the time can be never ill-
spent that we give to acquiring some knowledge of self. Whatever our
relation may become to this world in which we have being, in our
soul there will yet be more feelings, more passions, more secrets
unchanged and unchanging, than there are stars that connect with the
earth, or mysteries fathomed by science. In the bosom of truth
undeniable, truth all absorbing, man shall doubtless soar upwards;
but still, as he rises, still shall his soul unerringly guide him;
and the grander the truth of the universe, the more solace and peace
it may bring, the more shall the problems of justice, morality,
happiness, love, present to the eyes of all men the semblance they
ever have worn in the eyes of the thinker. We should live as though
we were always on the eve of the great revelation; and we should be
ready with welcome, with warmest and keenest and fullest, most
heartfelt and intimate welcome. And whatever the form it shall take
on the day that it comes to us, the best way of all to prepare for
its fitting reception is to crave for it now, to desire it as lofty,
as perfect, as vast, as ennobling as the soul can conceive. It must
needs be more beautiful, glorious, and ample than the best of our
hopes; for, where it differ therefrom or even frustrate them, it
must of necessity bring something nobler, loftier, nearer to the
nature of man, for it will bring us the truth. To man, though all
that he value go under, the intimate truth of the universe must be
wholly, preeminently admirable. And though, on the day it unveils,
our meekest desires turn to ashes and float on the wind, still shall
there linger within us all we have prepared; and the admirable will
enter our soul, the volume of its waters being as the depth of the
channel that our expectation has fashioned.

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