Maurice Maeterlinck

The Treasure of the Humble Maurice Maeterlinck

The "Treasure of the Humble" was published in 1896, it was dedicated to the actress Madame Georgette Leblanc, his wife.

This volume include a collection of philosophical essays, some of them metaphysical in nature, including: The Awakening of the Soul, Mystic Morality, The Pre-Destined Silence, On Women, The Tragical in Daily Life, The Star, The Invisible Goodness, The Deeper Life and The Inner Beauty.

With Maurice Maeterlinck as a dramatist the world is pretty well acquainted. This little volume presents him in the new character of a philosopher and an aesthetician. And it is in some sort an ?apology? for his theatre, the one being to the other as theory to practice. Reversing the course prescribed by Mr. Squeers for his pupils, Maeterlinck, having cleaned w-i-n-d-e-r, winder, now goes and spells it. He began by visualizing and synthesizing his ideas of life; here you shall find him trying to analyze these ideas and consumed with anxiety to tell us the truth that is in him.

The mystery of life is what makes life worth living. Maeterlinck is penetrated by the feeling of the mystery in all human creatures, whose every act is regulated by far-off influences and obscurely rooted in things unexplained. Mystery is within us and around us. Of reality we can only get now and then the merest glimpse.