wisps of ancient cemeteries, or possibly fireflies rising from the damp grass; and he will finally suggest that fireflies may well be stars of the infernal world, and that stars may well be will-o’-the-wisps of the world above, and so on ad infinitum.
The solemn man is Maurice Maeterlinck. The ambiguous and labyrinthine discourses, interspersed with the meowings of the cat, are the books of Maurice Maeterlinck. Such, at least, is the impression his books have made on me for some time past. And that impression has been strengthened by the reading of his recently published Unknown Guest, a little breviary of subliminal marvels.
Maeterlinck’s specialty in the field of contemporary literature is the manipulation of mystery for the use of delicate souls. He creates little enigmas in order that he may provide three or four equally possible solutions. He stirs up little anguishes, he plays with quivers and shivers, he prepares dark recesses that he may walk through them with a lantern in his hand and his finger on his lips. He invents terrible problems—and solves them with the utmost amiability. He is a sort of austere Puck, a Puritan clown, a religious gnome. Real mysteries, the true and terrible mysteries, are too much for delicate souls; they cannot swallow them whole. The mystery of dogmas, the mystery of our universal
