"I beg you _in all sincerity, in all sincerity_, if you can stop the interviews you tell me of, for the love of God stop them. I am beginning to get frightfully tired of all this. Yesterday, while I was at dinner, two reporters from ... fell into my soup. I am going to leave for London, I am sick of all that is happening to me. So if you can't stop the interviews they will interview my servant."[1]
This is not a man who would chatter himself away,[2] not even to Mr Frank Harris, who found him aggressive (and no wonder either if the Englishman said by word of mouth what he says in print, namely that _The Treasure of the Humble_ was written "at length" after _The Life of the Bee_, _Monna Vanna_, and the translation of _Macbeth_![3]). The fact is, there is very little printed matter easily available on the biography proper of Maeterlinck. It is true we have several accounts of him by his wife in a style singularly like his own; we have gossip; we have delightful portraits of the houses he lives in--but we have no bricks for building with.
A future biographer may have at his hands what the present lacks; but I for my part have no other ambition for this book than that it should be a running account of Maeterlinck's works, with some suggestions as to their interpretation and value.
[2] "Monsieur Maeterlinck being as all the world knows, hermetically mute."--(Grégoire Le Roy), _Le Masque_ (Brussels), Série ii, No. 5 (1912).
[3] "_La Vie des Abeilles_ brought us from the tiptoe of expectance to a more reasonable attitude, and _Monna Vanna_ and the translation of _Macbeth_ keyed our hopes still lower; but at length in _Le Trésor des Humbles_ Maeterlinck returned to his early inspiration."--_Academy_, 15th June, 1912.
Maeterlinck born, August 29th, 1862; his family; meaning of his name; his father; residence at Oostacker; atmosphere of Ghent; educated at the Collège de Sainte-Barbe; his hatred of the Jesuits; his schoolfellows; subscribes to "La Jeune Belgique"; his first poem printed; his religious nature; his wish to study medicine; studies law at the University of Ghent; practises for a time as _avocat_; stay in Paris; influence of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam and Barbey d'Aurevilly; introduced by Grégoire Le Roy to the founders of "La Pléiade"; contributes "Le Massacre des Innocents"; influence on him of Flemish painting; other early efforts; influence of Charles van Lerberghe; meets Mallarmé; the symbolists; the birth of the _vers libre_; influence of Walt Whitman