e 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