he ends by fearing that were it possible Zeus must have revealed it.

This passionate pathetic longing for joy, and life beyond death finds
an echo in many hearts, which yet can admire the grand altruism of
"The Pilgrims" and the selfless spirit of the Impersonal Martyr. After
considering all this clash of thought, it seems as if it all resolved
itself into the individual temperament which settles and modifies and
adapts to itself the forms of our philosophies and religions, our
Hopes and Faiths, and Despairs.

For from whence comes the real power thinkers possess over us? It is
not in their forms of thought, as Matthew Arnold said most truly, but
in the tendencies, in the spirit which led them to adopt those
formulas. Every thinker has some secret, an exact object at which he
aims, which is "the cause of all his work, and the reason of his
attraction" to some readers, and his repulsion to others.

What was the secret aim then in George Eliot which made her believe so
firmly in the permanent influence of Humanity, and in the annihilation
of personal existence? Was the tendency of temperament developed by
her life and circumstances?

What was it that developed so strong an Individualism in Carlyle and
Browning and awoke in Browning such unlimited hope, and in Carlyle
such "unending sadness?"

Why did the darkness and the storm of his life give Mazzini so
passionate a belief in Humanity, and such an intimate faith in God?
These and such-like are the problems we should have in our minds as we
study the works of Great Writers, if we would penetrate into the
innermost core of their nature, in short, if we would really
understand them.

III.

MAETERLINCK ON HAMLET.

Maeterlinck, in his first essay, "The Treasure of the Humble," is,
undoubtedly, mystical. He does not argue, or define, or explain, he
asserts, but even in that book and far more so in his second, "Wisdom
and Destiny," it is real life which absorbs him as Alfred de Sutro his
translator points out. In this book "he endeavours in all simplicity
to tell what he sees." He is a Seer.

Maeterlinck's aim is to show that contrary to the usual idea, what we
call Fate, Destiny, is not something apart from ourselves, which
exercises power over us, but is the product of our own souls.

He takes many examples to prove this, of which Hamlet is one. Man,
said Maeterlinck, is his own Fate in an inner sense; he is superior to
all circumstances, when he ref